#it's just for me. only me. no one is entitled to read my bs thoughts

[fireflyinks]

ooc ep with mandy hamzah and martin then hamzah introduces u as his gf 👀👀 twitter insta tiktok etc is going crazyyyy abt it too

girlfriend reveal (hamzah edition)

hamzah x reader

a/n : not sure if i love or hate this but here it is!! sorry i haven’t been as active I SWEAR im trying to get to your requests!! this was such a good idea and lmk if you want me to write a version but with y/n being a content creator as well. much love!

contains : a little fluff, slight cursing (literally just bs), cuteness, hard launching

I rocked back and fourth on my heels, standing directly beside the camera’s view. Anticipation and nervousness swirled in my stomach.

It probably wasn’t as big of a deal as I was making it, I knew that, but my nerves were still going buck-wild.

After three months of dating, Hamzah was introducing me as his girlfriend on the podcast today. We both wanted to wait until it was the right time, and we had finally decided that it was now or never.

YouTube was a ginormous part of Hamzah’s life, so the thought of his fans not approving of me was a big fear of mine. He’d assured me that they would love me, but I knew that he couldn’t be sure of that fact.

After about three minutes of rambling on about something pointless, Hamzah finally cleared him throat.

“We also have a special guest this episode. Please welcome, my beautiful girlfriend, y/n.”

I walked into frame, sitting beside Hamzah on the already crowded couch. Mandy and Martin clapped at my entrance, and I giggled nervously. This was a weird feeling for me, since I normally wasn’t this shy.

Hamzah handed me a mic he had bought specially for this episode, since normally they only had three people on at a time and didn’t own a fourth mic. He also put an arm around me, which helped calm my nerves a small bit. Hamzah’s touch could almost always make me feel better. I guess it was a good thing then that I was basically sitting on his lap due to limited space on the yellow couch.

“Hello,” I spoke into the microphone, smiling sheepishly.

“Introduce yourself.” Hamzah encouraged. He was taken aback by my shy demeanor as well.

“I’m y/n, Hamzah’s girlfriend…” I racked my brain for other facts about myself, but nothing came to mind.

Mandy chimed in, “We finally managed to get Hamzah a girlfriend guys, this is a rare sighting.”

I laughed along with Mandy and Martin, and Hamzah just rolled his eyes.

“You did not manage anything, I got her myself.”

“Bullshit, I’m the one who introduced you two.”

It was true, Mandy and I had worked together for about a year now and she was constantly telling me about how I needed to meet Hamzah, how well we would get along. Finally, she planned a night for us all to hang out, and we just kind of clicked.

“Yeah, Mandy is actually a really good match maker.” I nodded.

Mandy shrugged, “You are both socially awkward so I thought you’d be perfect for one another. And I was right, of course.”

Some time went on, and my nerves slowly started to dissolve. After about an hour, we finished filming, and Hamzah drove me home.

“So…” he began, looking out at the road as he drove, “how’d you feel about that?”

I shrugged, “I was really nervous at first but I think it turned out okay.”

Hamzah placed his hand on my thigh, “I promise, you have nothing to worry about. Everyone will love you.”

—

Hamzah posted the video the next day, and I couldn’t get myself to read the comments or open any social media until I got home from work, five hours later.

I sighed, sitting down on my couch and fumbling with my phone, opening YouTube and pressing on the new episode, entitled “Girlfriend Reveal (Hamzah Edition)”, which happened to the first video on my feed. The intro music began to play.

There were already 500 comments.

awww they’re literally perfect for eachother ❤️

where is the Hamzah to my Y/n

the way hamzah looks at her…

I couldn’t help but smile to myself as I read the kind comments.

I commented a quick heart on the video before moving on to TikTok. My feed was already mostly slushy noobz clips, so I wasn’t surprised when I was the first thing I saw after opening the app.

It was the clip of Hamzah introducing me as I tried to fit next to them on the small couch, with “Margeret” by Lana Del Rey playing in the background softly. The comments were just as positive as the ones on YouTube.

OMG?

wait she’s like genuinely so pretty

they’re so socially awkward together, it’s perfect

Last but not least was Twitter, which scared me the most. I knew that if anyone would have a problem with me, they would most likely express it on Twitter.

I opened the app, and went to search, to be met with “Hamzah’s New Girlfriend” trending. This was either a very good thing or an extremely bad thing.

I clicked on it, and began reading some of the tweets under the hashtag.

hamzah’s new girlfriend is literally so gorgeous, im actually obsessed with the two of them together

hamzah’s new girlfriend genuinely seems so sweet, my heartttt 🥹🥹🥹

“thank you mandy”, we say in unison, hamzah and his new gf are literally PERFECT

Suddenly, there was a quick knock at the door. I got up to answer, wondering who it was. Hamzah was filming a video with Martin and Mandy had told me earlier that she was getting her nails done after our shift.

I opened the door, being met with a bouquet full of colorful assorted flowers. My heart felt as if it could burst. I picked them up, grabbing the paper tag on them to read it.

I knew they would love you - Hamzah

⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺

[stil-lindigo]

okay so, not entirely sure what the last anon was on about (and it very well could be a troll just trying to bait. they really should have at least brought up what they meant if they wanted to appear in good faith), but it may be in relation to "drink up" and how it attracted terf attention on twitter? (which I know you addressed btw, so I hope this doesn't come across as an attack or anything)

personally, I think the phrase "our only natural predator" might have appealed to terf rhetoric just a little (but that's my opinion - I very well could be 100% wrong). I have my own personal feelings on the use of "natural" in the phrase (men don't naturally prey on women like animal predators do their prey - if anything, it's unnatural, deliberately chosen behavior - and it reminds me of the excuse that "it's just naturally how men are," like "boys will be boys." HOWEVER, I see how that phrasing ties into the "lioness/women turning it around and preying on the predator" theme, so honestly it works well there), but aside from all that, I can also see why it might've attracted terfs: bc they very often view and frame trans women as male predators to cis women. I know that's definitely not how you intended it though!!

and this also isn't meant as a nitpick to your work, so my apologies if that's how it comes across. I really like your art and your writing (and "drink up" has a very cool theme)! it's just that I can see how terfs might've interpreted it a certain way. it's not your fault that they viewed it like that though, and you've made it very clear you're NOT down with trans exclusionary BS. so that's literally the only thing I could see anon complaining about tbh, assuming they're not just being a troll. also I'm sorry for the super long message (I have an issue w/ typing too much smh). I just thought I'd share my thoughts on it in case it's at all helpful, but also this might just be annoying to read instead, so honestly feel free to just discard it if you prefer!

It’s not annoying at all anon, and I appreciate you taking the time to send this in. The comic you’re talking about is one I think back on with a lot of regret. It was made in a furious haze after a big time female streamer revealed that she was being mentally abused for years by her husband, where he would waste her hard earned money, threaten her dogs and her livelihood and overall be a monster to the woman who was their primary breadwinner. The reaction online to this information by her largely male audience was so genuinely vile and violently misogynistic that I made the comic, without thinking broadly about the implications you’ve already pointed out. In reality, the comic was meant to talk about how all women (cis and trans) suffer under the patriarchy and how the label of womanhood can often be an open call for baseless derision, dehumanisation and entitlement at many levels.

TERFS quickly co-opted the comic, and I’ll always regret ever giving them an opportunity to feel empowered and validated by my art, but I’ve learned from the experience overall to do better by my trans siblings. Thank you for engaging in good faith - I hope my behaviour now and in the future can make up for past mis-steps.

[mecachrome]

(note this is not anti-lando or any sorta bs conspiracy about favouring drivers) It makes me kinda sad but I've noticed recently that Andrea doesn't really defend or praise Oscar as much as he does Lando when it comes to the media. And when he does, it's in a very objective or passive manner. It's silly but I just think Oscar gets left under Lando's shadow a lot and people have been giving him a lot of unnecessary hate recently

hi anon <3 no worries no worries i appreciate your perspective and am happy to offer my thoughts as well!! :') i have a lot to say on this so let me try to cover everything you mentioned...

first off i think oscar has always been subjected to both extreme under and overrating since basically the start of his mclaren contract, and it's a really strange phenomenon but imo also explains a lot of the unnecessary hate he's received recently; i'd say there are a lot of f1 fans who speak of him in a way where it's obvious they don't actually care about him individually and are just evaluating him using a rigid narrative built to slander other drivers (read: lando), which is where the Overcorrective Takes come from when he has a poor weekend that doesn't uphold that agenda. and oftentimes these are the ones who are overly prone to evaluating drivers with meaningless intangibles that aren't translatable toward any concrete performance metrics anyway!!

like i've been saying this for a long time but before the 2023 season it was so interesting how people were unironically saying NYCK DEVRIES would be roty (😭) or that oscar would flop and then others were convinced that oscar was going to wipe the floor with lando or that if he DIDN'T beat (not even match!!!) lando resoundingly mclaren would drop him just like they did for dr3 etc..... and i think major contributing factors to this range of extreme and absolutely unhinged takes were basically 1) oscar's gap year and the uncertainty of his readiness/stock and 2) the fact that lando is held to highly inconsistent standards by f1 fans and so oscar is a convenient piece to uphold or push whichever narrative suits them best. 99% of f1 discourse could be immediately resolved with this philosophy i think:

and of course it's like—statistically, if you look at relative gaps between oscar and lando last year and this year, it's obvious that lando is still a stronger driver than oscar at the moment but also that oscar has kept impressively close and in line with lando this whole time, that oscar's tyre management has improved since last year and imo it'd be nice if we could all collectively look at other components of his race from time to time as well (sorry) instead of just regurgitating "man once he gets his tyres under control he'll be a wdc 😳"... but essentially if you rate lando you kind of have to rate oscar + vice versa, and i think that's something a lot of people don't like acknowledging LOL. i know it's like, you can't really do anything about it and people are entitled to whatever regard they want to hold a driver in but it's always veryyyy predictable when people turn on oscar for this reason since it's like he'll be a tenth off lando and suddenly it's omg piastri where is that dawg in you why are you so washed etc. etc. like!!! bro 😭

anyway it's stupid honestly... but also, and i mean this very sincerely, i don't think oscar sees or cares about any of these takes at all really? and i think that might be where the difference lies here in that a lot of oscar's hate is kind of er... idk mismanaged expectations mostly, whereas lando is subject to much more vitriol and the attacks on his character & mentality are more pointed and vicious atm, compared to the way oscar's character is almost universally praised on reddit and the only times i've seen people be like Wow you are so cringe /neg was when he was dragging out the home race bit LOL. and even then it's relatively harmless bants compared to the lando invective of >why is he so emotionally vulnerable this is why he's never going to win anything [insert norrif meme] [insert some kind of maxv simp meme] etc. you get it

this isn't to say that i think lando is the only one who needs defending or that lando even actually needs defending in the first place, but i think remembering this context helps you understand how the Team specifically perceives these situations and the way andrea approaches them to the media. tbh with silverstone it makes sense that the narrative was largely focused on lando because it's silverstone—i don't really care that much for all the British Bias wank in f1 media but it's just kind of an objective reality here—and then if you look at his post-race reactions there and in austria it's like....... okay so for me, i think lando is someone who feels things very strongly and intensely and kind of has to burn through his negative energy and once it's out of his system he moves on, so i feel like his self-flagellation is just part of a process and that he's learned to manage it in a way that mostly works for him, but i also think andrea is a very conscious and empathetic speaker and is naturally going to create a defense for lando when his reactions are nitpicked and torn apart by the media. for oscar... there are obviously narratives against him but he's good at giving very little in his reactions to the point that there doesn't need to be an overly emotional or personal defense made for him most times by the team.

sorry this is all over the place but also with silverstone, i think the most important thing he could have done (and which he did) was take full responsibility for the botched calls, and that andrea has never once failed to be like this result was on Us, this was our fault, which i think to oscar is already meaningful because accountability isn't always properly taken in situations like these. i'd also argue that andrea is still quite complimentary of oscar's performances (praising his gap to lando with half the package in miami, defending him for taking p2 on track during the sprint, making sure to say that both lando and oscar maximized potential in q3, etc.) and asdfhshfd idk if this is going to sound bad but sometimes when oscar flops a little (lovingly) me and oomf are like What is andrea going to come up with to explain his pace in his post-race interviews because he always has SOMETHING and makes sure to give oscar a call-out like oh he had to deal with a technical issue or he picked up damage etc. so i do think he's very vocal about it, just in a very matter-of-fact and direct way. also the track limits thing in quali in austria was kind of like... 💀 because there was obviously no meaningful way to challenge it so it was clearly just meant as a symbolic gesture which is like. Ok work i guess

but in the end i think it's mostly about communication styles... andrea feels compelled to explain and defend lando's mentality because lando is in a slightly different place in his career and has to answer a lot more calls, running in p2 and having finally won his first race and being in his 6th year of f1 (where he's also never placed higher than p6 in the wdc before!!!), but with oscar i think it just suits him to have less of that spotlight and to be left to do his work or to self-reflect within the privacy of the team... idk if that makes sense but i think andrea is very careful with how he speaks and that it's probably less about being in lando's shadow than just being considerate of what does and doesn't need to be said.

sorry totally not related but found this in my discord search and laughed haklsfdhl

basically tl;dr i think the objective & passive manner is what works for them honestly, and that oscar appreciates direct honesty and it's probably how he himself views his races and performances — he's never one for needlessly praising himself or licking his wounds... but i also think that's just how i view it and i totally understand if you feel differently about it!!!!

[inshelliesworld]

Buckle up. This is long.

Last night after dinner w/my fam I watched the SAG awards so I am a little behind on the conversation around the Chris Evans Clown Show Comedy Hour. However I read a couple of asks received by @nancydrewwouldnever about how he’s been looking like the Raggedy Andy version of his normal self these past few months and I couldn’t agree more.

I thought so watching the SMA videos People put out.

Back during my more naïve days, I just thought he was possibly exhausted and that could very well still be true. But after the rabbit hole I’ve been down for the past couple of months, I am of the opinion he's exhausted for a different reason than work requirements. Which is just that – my opinion: observation mixed with speculation.

I don’t think this RS – if it is rooted in PR like I think it is – was ever intended to last this long. From what I have gathered, the Netflix show and movie for which AB would have benefited the most having a lot of attention were originally supposed to both release in the first half of 2022. One or both were delayed, the show being very delayed -from first/second quarter all the way to the last quarter of the year. So not only did she lose out on a bump for the movie, but by the time her show finally launched it pretty much had already been axed by NF. So when Mr. SMA 2022 does the CP Marathon (horribly) with her, the only project she has going on at the time is hanging by a thread.

That's her fault for being lazy and entitled. A million golden opportunities were missed by her/her team, but I feel like Chris wasn’t going to sell anything very well anyway, as he likely was being pissy about this situationshit lasting so long. Which led me to thinking that “laser focus” press question was a plant to tie back to the earlier article BUT made me think it could possibly have been contrived as a way to signify the end of their "RS" had it gone to plan. The question would allow room for him to insinuate he was single again and “focused on finding the right partner” to “pour himself into” bc “awe, shucks, I’m just so unlucky in love…” 💀

BUT THAT CAN’T HAPPEN… he can’t signal the end of something that hasn’t yet been announced. So it looked to the viewer, and especially his fandom, that he was signaling his singlehood – and for his fans, to debunk the rumors flying around about his Lolita. NOW he has to stutter around and trap himself in word prisons and go take a quick pap sprint the same time as SMA announcement bc that’s when the show drops and do more photos and BS to sell the OVER year-long narrative when they were really prepped to do a 9ish-mos storyline. All the OG pics and scares (IMO) that were preemptively shot not only look slightly better but they also would have fit in with starting the RS storyline Fall 2021 and, if nothing would have been delayed, the end falling somewhere Summer 2022.

I think this is why he does such a shit job selling it. He struggles to sell intimacy anyway, but he’s not even giving it the ole college try bc he’s pissed off that it’s taken more time than he expected and dragging his feet. I mean…. All these rumors about the same chick for months HAS to have a negative impact on his harem, right?? 😂 Now she’s pissed that he’s dragging his feet – or maybe she wanted it to turn into more than what it is and he’s noped the fuck out – so she throws a hissy fit with the yoga cert mess, her mom’s pic, and her OF shower pictorial.  

It's possible had this not dragged along for this long, all the dirt that has surfaced RE: her and her sOuLMaTes being racist, antisemetic, fat phobic, basically all around horrendous ppl that has TANKED his image and lost him a good portion of his fandom would have maybe not surfaced. The mess would have been announced, been annoying, and been over before anyone cared enough to dig that much - or at least make that big of a deal about it, bc he would have been rid of her. I know that this dumpster fire mimics SS a lot but I think that Chris agreeing to a much shorter version in the beginning is why there are SO MANY pictures all at once. He probs didn't want to do this for the 2 years or whatever that SS committed to.

I think he has thrown his own tantrum of “I ain’t doin this shit anymore” and has left it to someone else to handle which is why he is AWOL from everywhere, including going out to dinner with his friend/castmates, and not doing his own SM anymore (I personally don’t think he’s posting anything at all right now himself). Seems he’s also made sure that he/his team control the mass narrative to the GP.

I think they’re riding this shit show out until the end, letting their teams do whatever they need to do. Even if she has the DESIRE to show up for anything like the Twitter reading (was she even invited? Was she wanted by her castmates/showrunners? Hollywood is show BUSINESS afterall so even if she wasn’t wanted she would be expected to show up to make good on production companies’ investments & save face?) the situations aren’t really going to be great for her. There would be – and SHOULD BE – backlash involving the discriminatory posts, which she obvs has no intentions of denouncing. IMO she should have done it anyway for her fans, but her not doing it goes a long way to prove her entitlement, lazy ass attitude, and ungratefulness. But from the looks of  those Star Power reports from IMDB that someone shared, it’s not her that’s hurting… it’s HIM. 🤡

He’s suffering greatly, which is also deserved, and he very likely knows it. It has taken a noticeable toll on his looks, his presence, his gait, and his energy. He looks like a shell of his former self bc he is. And he’s seemingly off licking his wounds until he can start his Chris Evans Redemption Tour.

I would like to put it out into the universe that my birthday is next month and it falls within their usual “drop” timeframe so it would be a fantastic birthday gift if March’s bomb was the BUA.            

[lajikookbolala]

Some thoughts on this shipping discourse

I have already expressed MULTIPLE times how much I hate drama, so this is probably gonna be my last post on this topic. In the future, I might post less, not at all, or often but with only positive stuff. I just don't know if I can mentally handle being on here for much longer. Anyway, here are some thoughts:

Trying to convince Tkkrs they are wrong is not going to work.

I would like to challenge anyone here to think of a time when someone ACTUALLY changed their opinion on something after an online argument. Can't think of one? Exactly. Humans are stubborn, it's just part of who we are. Especially online, nobody is actually open to changing their opinion on things. We argue just for the sake of arguing.

And, we have to remember that Tkkrs are JUST as confident that their ship is real as we (Jkkrs) are. It may be stupid, but as a former Tkkr I would know (I had just joined the fandom and I was young, don't blame me for falling for the Taekook bs). Anyway, when I say I was confident in my belief that's an understatement. Eventually, I did stumble across Jikook, and the story is actually very funny. Again, I had just joined the fandom and hilariously, my mom was starting to get into BTS too. One day, she stumbled across a Jikook video on youtube, called me in the room and showed me, saying "look how in love these two are". I was hesitant at first (still being a tkkr at the time), but I watched it with her, because she was my mother; someone that I knew and trusted. If some random person online had sent me the same video and told me to watch it, I wouldn't have. I would be pissed and ignore it. My point is, to convert me from a Tkkr to a Jkkr, it took my own mother showing me a video, and explaining to me that with her almost 60 years of life experience, she could tell they were in incredibly in love.

Nobody's gonna listen to a random person's opinion on line. At least, not with an open mind.

2. We're just giving toxic people the attention they want.

More than 50% of what I see on Jikook Tumblr recently is answers responding to toxic people's posts, whether those people are tkkrs, antis, or solo stans. Because we answer all their stupid questions, more of these people are coming out of the woodwork to share their own stupid opinions. And then it's just a toxic circle.

Even though it may give you some satisfaction to roast random strangers on the internet (I even enjoy reading roasts by jkkrs sometimes), it's really not worth it. We're just giving them the attention they want. If we just ignored them for a while and didn't answer their questions or respond to them, they wouldn't go away, but we would definitely see less of them on here.

Also, aren't we kinda being hypocrites? When tkkrs leave hate on Jikook posts we all get together to hate on them (which is justified) but we seem to have no problem when jkkrs leave hate on Taekook posts. I know it's different because Jikook is real and taekook isn't, but again, we're not going to convince them by leaving hate comments. We're just gonna piss them off more. Honestly, I think the only thing that would shut tkkrs up once and for all is if Jikook came out with their relationship, and we all know that's not going to happen, at least not anytime soon.

Ok, I think that's the end of my rant. Please let me know if you agree with me or not. If you disagree, I totally understand. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and I'm just sharing mine.

ALSO 3 more things:

1: please feel free to send me asks! I will respond to ALL of them as long as they are not toxic.

2: does anyone know any platforms where the Jikook community is welcoming and nice? It may sound stupid but I think that's what I really need right now. I have no BTS friends and would LOVE someone to talk to about them.

3: let me know if you would like me to stay on here. I'm almost definitely not gonna post any more stuff about this drama, but I will 100% post more cute and wholesome Jikook moments if y'all want me to.

I love you all, thank you so much 💜

[hcfiles]

blah blah blah or they are simply a real couple expecting a Baby. End of. 🙄

And now not only Natalie is PR but all his other relationships too? Woman you need Jesus. Is it because you cant stand the thought of Henry having partners? Is that your problem? He's one of the hottests dude in the world he doesnt need PR Girlfriends. The only one that might have been PR is with Kaley Cuoco. I think you have never been a fan of Henry at all. Cant be because how come you never noticed anything of that before? Just now when a woman came into his Life you hate, now it's suddenly clear to you? astonishing!

Gina talked about Henry recently, they were very seriously! She alone debunks your "all his relationships are pr" bs. And before you attack again, Im not afraid to admit I hate the way you talk about Henry but its not because i fear you are right...NO its because I hate when people manipulate others on the internet because ive seen how it works. A lot of people arent smart, dont do their own research...they read something and believe it. So im asking you, at least tell people its only your opinion. Do not state your opinion as facts, please. What will happen if you are proved wrong? Will you just disapear in shame and/or delete everything? You hurt people, the sooner you realize that the better.

My criticism goes against the way his team dealt with the situation. Of course he's entitled to have a relationship. And the fact he had many PR stunts doesn't avoid him from having real girlfriends hidden somewhere who don't show, despite thinking he's not that experienced, even being the hottest man on Earth. Being hot and sexy is not exactly, a synonym of a good performance.

You say I make statements and manipulate people. No! I give my version of the facts and people are entitled to disagree, like you do. For those following, I think that is clear. It's a democratic page. But, saying I manipulate people just because I give my version of facts, is way too much and it gives me a power I don't have. Even the most idiotic, has an opinion and can discuss it and disagree with me.

It is a free world. I am entitled to have a blog discussing a public matter of a public figure. Manipulating would be if I came here saying I know the couple, work with his team or in the Industry. That would make my page more credible and people dependent on my posts, coming back for more. But, your insistence in trying to argue with me is more manipulative and brings more attention than my posts.

You say you "hate when people manipulate others on the internet". But, isn't that exactly what you are trying to do? Trying to make me do or write what you want on my blog to suit your convictions? And, of course a lot aren't smart. But, I'm not here choosing or excluding readers. My page is democratic. They are free to come and go. And, I'm not responsible for what people do of the information they read. They have the free will to do whatever they want with it, including to ignore it.

I never stated my posts as facts. That is YOUR interpretation of what you read, probably based on your fears they could be true. You are responsible for how you interpret what you read. Good luck with that.

And answering your question, if I am proven wrong it will be OK and nice. At least, one way or another, we will have answers to many of the questions we have seen for years and he will have a chance (maybe) to get rid of the negative publicity and the bad luck and energy Natalie brought him.

Who do I hurt and why? Henry? He doesn't even know I exist. You? I would only hurt you if my ideas threatened your beliefs. But, I'm not going to your page to force you to believe me and you said my posts don't threaten what you believe in. So, ... If proven I'm wrong, why would I delete the blog? I might just continue with the page. There will always be something to write about, because he will always come up with some new promotion or PR stunt. But, I doubt I'm wrong. At least, not wrong about a few things.

[deancaslover]

As a poc who grew up in the middle east and have family in the middle east and have experienced know the impact of islamaphobia my take on m.c is definelity complicated. He should not have made the comments on the denial of genocide 100% and I'm glad he deleted those tweets hopefully because he understood it was wrong and not simply due to backlash. And I do believe that's the main part that he should be held accountable with

I do think misha has a emotional stake with family/ friends that are Jewish that probably has strong opinions and is also giving out information, working and helping with Ukraine, having the chance to talk to President of Ukraine abt the war, etc whilst Ukraine is still allies with Israel. I do see how that would have influenced his opinion on isreal and Palestine.

I think what's not stopping me from my support or whatever is in general I believe in the intentions and I just don't see the malicious intent. When reading his article it was very pro anti war and very attempted neutral on both parts, made sure to condemn only hammas and not the Palestinian ppl, humanising the Palestinian ppl. (Which is not special take but I do think when america talk abt middle east and war they usually talk about the humans (women are forced to wear hijab and have no rights! Which yea bs) and not talk specifically about the terrorist groups) so I do think that part was crucial and important. I also can appreciate that he replied to a person against islamaphobia in one of his replies. And in his substack which now has 106 comments the majority is in support of Palestine and there's links being shared about either genocide or more information that's currently happening in Palestine so for ppl looking to get informed there's links. So I do appreciate that the comments are not being filtered. And perhaps I am being too generous or looking at cup half full perspective but the positive part that I do see in this is that m.c main fanbase will also be other white fans who when going to look for his article they are being exposed to information.and is also learning if they haven't.

Idk like should he have written an article? No. But he has, and I'm glad he said this part

" Israel has a right to defend itself against terrorism, but when Israel does so by committing atrocities and war crimes of its own, then it defends itself without moral authority and only further entrenches both sides in an interminable conflict where there are no “good guys” and there will be no “winner.”  

Like again I'm glad when he's talking negatively about Palestine he specifically talks about hammas and in then in general terms isreal commiting war crimes. I just think it's important that for his fanbase that probably consists of white fanbase that is already been fed from the western media that it is important that it was neutral and humanisation of the Palestinian ppl

And again maybe because I have been in the spn fandom and have been exposed to gishwishes. Allowing them to pay medical bills, and other good things, his open support if the lgbt community I do have a soft spot and perhaps I'm looking at this in rose tinted glasses but i genuinely am not seeing the malicious or hateful intent when talking about the isreal/ Palestine that I see when others talk I.e piers Morgan etc . what I do condem is his comments on genocide and the denial of it so I'm glad those got deleted quick, hopefully because he understood that was just wrong. And he needs to address that. But yea in general I suppose the support is still there,

I read this as soon as I got it and thought, "I'll definitely answer it," so thank you, anon. I value your input on this.

First, you're totally entitled to your feelings and thoughts about him and his words. My intention is never to tell others how to react; I'm just very vocal about what I think.

I can understand your position. I'm not Muslim, and I'm not from the Middle East, but I'm a POC (basically half indigenous and half colonizer) in Latin America, and we, too, share a very dark history with imperialism from the USA and his son Israel but maybe it's a bit more invisible here.

That's why I'm so radical and unforgiving about privileged people's stances regarding colonization and genocide. To me it's not enough that he says he wants peace, that the bare minimum and the least we can expect from someone like him. I don't see how having family and friends who are Jewish is an impediment to understanding what is going on in Palestine when many Jewish people go out to the streets to claim they're 100% against occupation and don't support a Jewish Estate. Zionists want to make us believe they are the eternal victims, and Misha decided to go with that. In his statement he mentioned the Holocaust several times but he fails to see that Israel is doing the same to Palestinians right now. "Well, they have committed some war crimes, but it's not a real genocide like the Jewish one." Ugh, disgusting. There's no coming back from that in my opinion.

Like I've said, we as fans have given him the benefit of the doubt more than once, for both little and bigger things. Knowing his intentions are "good" isn't enough for me anymore. He's been in politics for decades; he's always doing political activism, so he's not particularly ignorant. He's not your average dumb American, and he has followers from all over the world. I expect(ed) a lot of him, because he put himself in that position from the start. I've been a fan for over a decade, and I even did gishwhes three years in a row, so yes, it's not easy to just say goodbye to all that overnight. But I'm being true to myself, and so I have to walk away.

Whatever path you follow on all this, whether it's the same as now or it changes, I send you my support, stay strong and you can write to me whenever you want <3

[icariandescent]

I was on my way to leave a comment on a fic I enjoyed, but when I got to the comment section, I was shocked as hell. I was gonna say this on the fic itself, but the author froze the particular thread and I figured it means they don’t want the situation to continue being discussed in the comment section.

Even though I don’t wanna beat a dead horse because it’s honestly incredibly ridiculous, but I want to say a few things.

First and foremost, the author’s attitude is so stellar and awesome. I was SHOCKED to read the first comment (and then the second one, Jesus H. Christ), and I’m so certain that if someone had commented something like that on a fic of mine, I would’ve handled it way worse. Kudos to you for not only being headstrong and intolerant of bullshit but also for maintaining your composure (and being much nicer than deserved)

As for the person who left the comments, I’m not particularly interested in being hateful and antagonistic. I just want to highlight how fucked up it was. You read a work posted for free on a website made for communities of people with similar interests to come together. You then not only disingenuously critiqued the work, which NO ONE ASKED btw, but you also criticized the community as well. As if having supportive friends that encourage your hobbies and interests is something criminal? THEN, you criticized the writer themself? As if your taste is so objectively and definitively discerning, that you are able to deem someone a good writer or not? Get the fuck out of here

If you are interested in sharing thoughts about the story, there are proper ways to do that. Characters don’t always behave rationally or ethically, and writers are entitled to their interpretations and deviations. If you don’t agree with a character’s behavior or a writer’s direction, you can either express that in a friendly way (which means doing so in good faith) or JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP!! There are so many different takes out there, you’re bound to find one that satisfies you.

How arrogant and presumptuous do you have to be to assume that your criticisms are so important that they simply HAVE to be shared even when they are UNPROMPTED, UNDESIRED, and, most tragically of all, COMPLETE BULLSHIT?! And how ignorant are you to conflate a choice on character behavior with the quality of the author’s writing.

Fanfic exists for people to express their interests and creativity. It is done for free and posted for everyone to see, which requires bravery. It is FAKE, so if you like it, you can immerse yourself in the escapist fantasy, and if you don’t, THEN DON’T.

I’m sorry if this post is too long, I just had a lot of thoughts. I was horrified to read something so negative and spiteful in a comment section. Especially within a community that I care about a lot and that has helped me so much in my personal life. It reminded me of something I saw in a soulmate AU last year (which was also bs)

Be. Nice. To. Writers. We try our best and we want to make stuff that people enjoy. But we are not machines devoid of feeling. It’d be great if people remembered that.

The biggest shame is that the work in question was actually pretty incredible imo. What a topsy-turvy world…

TL;DR: bitches say shit but they ain’t say nothing idk just read it or don’t rip

[olderthannetfic]

I was going to write in and rip into how much I hate BNFs. But then I realised I don't actually hate BNFs as people. They're just people like me. What I fucking hate is the glorification of BNFs and other fans putting them on a pedestal.

I remember you got an ask a long while back where anon was saying they wished they were a BNF because everything they do seems so much more important than what anyone else does. Their opinions, their headcanons etc are more important and, even worse, just blindly accepted by many other fans. This was probably the thing I couldn't stomach most after the anti mob mentality I found when I came to Tumblr. I find it so gross how people fawn over BNF's and treat them like some sort of experts or oracles, as if they have secret hidden source material knowledge that everyone else does not.

Tbh, I read your blog in browser and logged out because I don't want to log back in to my account and see some BNF bs on my dashboard. I've had enough of actually being on Tumblr.

That recent anon talking about how a BNF threw a tanty because some other BNF updated a fic on the anniversary of their own fic is hilarious. The fact that these people think they are that important, and the fact that other people enable their self-aggrandizement is just sad.

I understand that there are BNFs who became BNFs because they produce genuinely fantastic content, but personally, these are few and far between. Most of the ones I've come across are just gatekeeping their husbando and seem to get off on a powertrip that some unwitting people give them that attention and consider them the only one true expert on the husbando.

I've hyperfixated on the same character for almost half a decade and have spent that time roaming a whole bunch of social media platforms but always avoided Tumblr because I heard it was toxic. Eventually, I gave in and joined here too because curiosity got the better of me. And uuughhh....the BNF thing just put me off so much. The way people put them on a pedestal.

I read through some of these long af meta posts they put out and I thought nope, completely disagree with you on your take on blorbo and just stopped reading those posts and continued to write my own fanfics the way I wanted to and eventually just got off Tumblr for the most part. But this fawning over BNFs just makes me roll my eyes to high heaven.

Apologies to any BNFs reading this. Ya'll cool but some of you need to realise you don't actually know anything the rest of us don't.

--

The term has been used lots of ways over time. Long ago, it was mosttly for infrastructure builders (because concoms and zine eds are highly visible compared to a lot of online infrastructure builders). In the LJ era, it was mostly fic authors because fic itself was what the community focused on most.

I'm sure there are people who'd consider me a BNF by now simply for my tumblr turning into some sort of hub.

The main problem is really the elevation of some rando's opinions to Eternal Truth. The so-called BNFs themselves come in all flavors from entitled babies to people who refuse to admit that they are a BNF.

"You should have known about my fic anniversary" is something I've seen from fans whom nobody has heard of too. Entitled, ridiculous people are all over the place, and they're often enabled by those closest to them. We just tend to hear about them when they've gotten popular.

The mistake is to treat BNF-dom as an objective state that can be diagnosed with some definitive test.

All it really means is "Some people think you're more famous/influential than the fans around you".

[deadlysickinthehead]

It’s a couple of things that keeps me going in this pitiful world… my son, my only love, my only reason to live if it wasn’t for him. I’m sorry lord, I just could not continue to survive any longer. I thought I was discovering self love until I allowed to myself to stop practicing to be dragged down by family, friends, too depressed to go to work and a selfish entitled self absorbed, coward of a being (boyfriend). he for surely carries traits or narcissism it’s so scary. Gets upset about it to even notice or is lowkey/highkey offended once you call him out on his bs bc he’s a terrible liar it’s vomiting to watch someone looking nervous bc they forgot they told you the truth and they are searching for a lie. I’m the dumbass entertaining it and cried more than happy in this relationship. His excuse was “I really liked you too though” “what was I suppose to tell you that so you can leave”(yes this is all the words from a 34 year old man…)Making it clear because of just that.. he was never going to stop unless I ended it that’s why he asked “why are you with me” bc he even knows he’s lair, if he wasn’t no one will take being question. He’s insecure man, I can tell. He even aware how much better I can do that’s why he gaslights/manipulates. How are you so comfortable going to bed at night knowing you’re fake af &children are involved. It seems sociopathic. If someone cup is filled enough they won’t leave you. Unless, you aren’t filling their cup with love respect, boundaries so they can live inpeace. It’s proven the main reason a woman cheat or leave is bc something is lacking in the relationship from their (lovers). They start craving to get it where they can take it. I’m sick of being depressed, I’m sick of humans adding on to my depression to make themselves feel good. I’m not Jesus for fuck sakes. All I did was cry, be confused, doubt myself, if I don’t have faith in my instincts how can I protect myself and be a good mom?too sick to go to work bc I’m always having anxiety bc I feel stuck .. family-less and shitty friends. So, now I have to go to work&school, survive to see the sunshine the next day broken/depressed. I can’t give up it hurts for now but I’ll make up for it. I might have to do it on my own. Thank you Ashton, I won’t stop until I give my baby a house, a trust fund that he will never at least struggle& hustle in ways I had to be fucked up to do. I will teach you abt morals& not allow someone to ignore your boundaries, even if you know you’ll be alone again. Love doesn’t hurt. Being alone in a new state is better than being mis treated. We forget we are the teachers of the next generation but some continue to be shitty bc they think it’’s not towards their children. Not aware children’s are always listening or even reading text?!That’s why it hurt so bad on sad days/being left by your ex. The universe knew you could hurt someone just as bad. It gave you the pain you deserved. Then, after I step back you use those moments to cheat instead of feeling bad?I know it wasn’t just that one person in May. Entire summer of sleeping on your phone, entire summer of being sneaky, entire summer of begging someone with insomnia to go to bed so you won’t feel too bad bc you never felt bad. You’re just ashamed you got caught& cant even handle my pain, my healing and lack of empathy as 2 years of torture was easy to take? You didn’t care so you cheated infront of me. 10/4/24 Your heart was out of your chest as I tried to sneak your phone. If it was just that one time in may you wouldn’t have stated maybe July bc it happen many times you cannot pinpoint. That’s huge gap may-June-July? All those months on your phone even in October?coward. I might dumb myself down but I would never be a coward like you. Everything is so depressing I never been beyond upset with I. Then I remember.. for a split. I always have a reason to smile for once. It’s my son’s face I’ll never put myself in this position again I’ll love me again. It’s so hard sometimes but thank you so much for making it bareable🧘🏼

[mommydearestella]

WHO THREATENS TO DRIVE SOMEONES FRIENDS AWAY?

THE PEOPLE ASSOCIATED WITH THIS TERRORISM CAMPAIGN DIRECTED AT ME.  THESE IDIOTS GO AROUND THREATENING FRIENDS OF MINE AT TIMES DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY, TRYING TO BRIBE THEM, LYING TO THEM AND ALL IN AN ORCHESTRATED EFFORT, AS THREATENED MANY TIMES, TO DRIVE MY FRIENDS AWAY.  IRONICALLY AND THIS IS ONLY MY OPINION I THINK EVERYTIME SOMEONE BECOMES ANGRY FOR SOME REASON  THAT IS ASSOCIATED WITH THIS CAMPAIGN THEY TRY TO PUSH AWAY ANOTHER FRIEND AND I STRONGLY SUSPECT THAT PERSON IS ELLA  AND I HAVE ALWAYS THOUGHT THAT THROUGHOUT THE CAMPAIGN OF TERRORISM DIRECTED AT ME.  IT IS OBVIOUS TO ME THAT SOME SCENARIO IS SET UP IN ADVANCE TO MAKE SOMETHING LOOK A CERTAIN WAY TO JUSTIFY CERTAIN ACTIONS.  IT IS WELL KNOWN THAT WE HAVE BEEN BITTER ENEMIES FOR 30 YEARS NOW.  A CAMPAIGN OF TERRORISM REGARDLESS OF WHAT IS THOUGHT OR POSSIBLY EVEN SHOWN TO OTHERS.  IF SO YOU CAN BET WHAT REALLY GOES ON IS NOT WHAT IS TOLD OR SHARED WITH OTHERS.  THIS BS HAS GONE ON FOR NEARLY 7 YEARS THAT I AM AWARE OF AND STARTED LONG BEFORE THAT, UNKNOWN TO ME, IN LESS INTENSE WAYS.  DENNIS FELCHER AND CYNTHIA FELCHER HAVE STEADFASTLY MAINTAINED THAT THEY KNOW NOTHING ABOUT ANY OF THIS AND HAVE NO KNOWLEDGE AT ALL ABOUT ANY OF THIS BS DIRECTED AT ME REGARDLESS OF WHAT SOMEONE CHOOSES TO CALL IT.  IF ANYONE READING THIS DOES IN FACT KNOW THAT DENNIS FELCHER AND/OR CYNTHIA FELCHER DO HAVE KNOWLEDGE OF THE EXISTENCE OF THIS CAMPAIGN DIRECTED AT ME WHAT DOES THAT TELL YOU?  IT TELLS ME THAT ANYONE WHO WOULD DO THAT WERE NOT HONEST FROM THE START AND EITHER HAVE SOMETHING TO HIDE OR CONCERNS ABOUT THE POTENTIAL RAMIFICATIONS FROM WHAT IS BEING DONE.  DOES ANYONE THINK THAT ANYONE BEHIND THIS CAMPAIGN DIRECTED AT ME ACTUALY HAS GOOD INTENTIONS AFTER 7 YEARS DAY AND NIGHT IN BACK TO BACK SEGMENTS?  WHAT KIND OF A MORON WOULD JUST LET SOMEONE COME IN AND DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT?  THE KIND THAT WILL BE THERE READY TO SAY THEY HAD NO IDEA TO TRY TO ESCAPE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEIR CRIMES.  AGAIN WHAT KIND OF AN IDIOT ALLOWS THIS TO GO ON FOR 7 YEARS  DENYING TO ME THAT ANYTHING AT ALL IS GOING ON?  ISN’T THAT IN FACT GASLIGHTING ITSELF RIGHT THERE. WHO OWNS ANY GROUP THAT IS PAID OR HAS TIES DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY IN SOME WAY TO ANY CAMPAIGN OR EFFORT DIRECTED AT ME?  I GET THE FEELING THESE PIECES OF GARBAGE ARE TRYING TO SET ME UP, SPY, EDIT, MANIPULATE, PAY OTHERS TO SAY AND DO CERTAIN THINGS AT CERTAIN TIMES, AT TIMES IN AN ORCHESTRATED EFFORT TO PORTRAY ME AS SOMEONE WHO HAS SOME SORT OF MENTAL IMPAIRMENT.  I MIGHT BE PISSED OFF BUT NOT CRAZY... YET.  I CAN THINK OF ONLY ONE REASON FOR THIS AND IT COMES DOWN TO MONEY OR THE CONTROL OF IT.  IT COULD BE RELATING TO ANYTHING IRREVOKABLE WHICH IS UNKNOWN TO ME IF ANY SUCH ASSET OF ANY KIND EXISTS.  IT COULD BE RELATING TO THE DECISION MAKING AND/OR CONTROL OF AN ESTATE, OF ANY ASSETS IN TRUST, ETC.  I AM AWARE OF NO TRUSTS IN WHICH I AM ENTITLED TO ANYTHING AT ALL, TO WHICH I HAVE EVER BEEN A BENEFICIARY, I HAVE NEVER RECEIVED A DIME FROM ANY TRUST... PERIOD.  THE ONLY ASSETS OR MONIES RECEIVED BY ME WAS ABOUT $75,000. A LITTLE OVER 30 YEARS AGO FROM MY GREAT UNCLE AL BERMAN IN NORTH MIAMI BEACH AND APPROXIMATELY $6000. DOLLARS ALREADY DEPOSITED INTO A PASSBOOK SAVINGS ACCOUNT AFTER MY GRANDMOTHER ADELE KAUFMAN FELCHER JACKOWITZ IN NY PASSED AWAY ABOUT 39 YEARS AGO.  THERE WERE NO ADDITIONAL BEQUESTS OF ANY KIND, NO PROPERTY, NO SHARES IN ANY TRUSTS, NOTHING AT ALL.  AFTER EVERYTHING THAT HAS GONE ON OVER THE PAST 7 YEARS IT WOUD NOT SURPRISE ME IF INHERITANCES, ASSETS WERE HIDDEN SOMEHOW FROM ME ALL THESE YEARS.  IN RETROSPECT I THINK THAT IT IS HIGHLY UNLIKELY THAT THERE WERE NOT INHERITANCES OR SHARES OF SOME SORT OF TRUST (ONE OR MORE) RELATING TO MY GRANDMOTHER ADELE JACKOWITZ OR MY GREAT GRANDPARENTS MAX AND FRIEDA KAUFMAN WHO RESIDED IN NY AND MIAMI BEACH AND WHO ARE OR WERE WELL KNOWN TO PERSONS AT HADDASSAH.

[doebt]

i swear TO GOD i'm going to block every school person who follows me if y'all don't stop being freaks. this is my little outlet in which i express my little emotions. don't be freaks abt it..it's not about u

[hxhhasmysoul]

Is Jujutsu Kaisen feminism for 15yo boys?

The short answer is yes, so you can skip the rest of this ridiculously long post.

____________________

Disclaimers:

If you haven’t read the manga up until chapter 204 you’ll see spoilers here, also you probably won’t know what/who I’m talking about at times.

I have adhd, this is rambly af, this post is actually for me to organise my thoughts and not a hot take I want to convince others to buy into. but anyone is welcome to read if they have the patience.

They/them pronouns for Akutami because if the cursed cat isn’t explicitly assigning a gender to themself, hell if I will. 

They/them pronouns for Kenny. 

Now let’s watch this post age like dairy. I so hope it won’t, Gege please don’t disappoint me.

____________________

Let’s go. 

There are a few things that make me obsessed with juju. 

1. The fact that its plot and story structure are my wet dream - all these factions and individuals who are doing their own thing. All of these plots intertwining and coming together.

2. My sweet child Yuuji. *coughs* I mean, juju’s focus on characters. I’m very normal about Yuuji, I fucking swear. 

3. The art, it’s simply beautiful but I also have thoughts.

4. The bs power system, I live for that stuff.

5. It’s aggressively progressive. 

So lets focus on point 5.

Is juju as politically left as I am? Fuck no, not even close. There are things I wish it was braver on, like for instance the queerness. Fuck, braver on its leftism and feminism too. Is it very current and openly and aggressively progressive? Very much so.

If we look at the biggest antagonists of juju we get:

1. Toxic masculinity personified. A hyper-individualist. A 1000yo manosphere youtuber. A guy who thinks that strength should dictate hierarchy. A man who thinks he can hurt whomever he wants for his own pleasure and amusement because everyone is beneath him. A man who doesn’t care for anyone else but himself. A mass murderer and nihilist. 

2. A 1000yo person of unknown gender who presents most often as a man. An eugenicist. Someone entitled to women’s bodies and their reproductive rights. Someone who thinks their own children are only as valuable as they fulfil their ambitions. Someone who thinks they can hurt anyone because their goals are superior, because people are instrumental to them. And also a fucking classist piece of shit. (honestly idk why half of the fandom reacted surprised to the hyper capitalist moment in the recent chapters, as if in their first scene in the entire manga they didn’t say: this is a nuisance but at least it’s the poors that are being burnt to death before my eyes. - Gege didn’t need to add this line there, it’s not relevant to the conversation that is happening then but the line is there anyway.)

3. Two awfully sexist clans which have huge superiority complexes and are built on bloodlines and traditions and breeding for power. 

4. A bunch of mostly faceless old people who pull the strings from the shadows and do everything in the name of the status quo, constantly using tradition as an excuse. Who are afraid of the new, of the changes in society of new technologies. They won’t even accept them when they create powerful sorcerers. 

5. A male presenting personification of human hate and fear of one another. Who again, feels entitled to the bodies of others and doesn’t respect the bodily autonomy of others. Who’s a destructive and cruel nihilist. 

6. A young man who got radicalised into fascism because he was faced with the horrors of the status quo, of toxic tradition and backwater thinking and drew the wrong conclusions as to how to fix it.

On the other side we get kids and tired and/or silly millennials. And isn’t that just like real life, where the inaction and misdeeds of the previous generations blows up in the faces of today’s teens.

1. Teenagers. Teenagers who either don’t have family connections and come from lower classes. Or outcasts from their rich and powerful families. Children betrayed by traditions and the status quo. Children used or targeted by old people, ostracised, disrespected and violated. Children who have to suffer and die because the old people are only concentrating on maintaining the status quo. 

2. Gojou, this ex edgy teen who saw his bf (I won’t police how you read that) get redpilled and radicalised into fascism. It was all fun and games, stanning the joker and tyler durden until Getou decided to seriously go full on fasc with it and Gojou was like: man for real? I thought we were memeing here. So then Gojou turned into one of those “this is how I got off the far right pipeline” videos. Gojou is actually this rich privileged boy but he’s trying, he really is taking his best shot at progressivism. (sealed)

3. A feminist who’s calling out and fighting worthless old farts who feel entitled to women’s bodies. And who wants to change the world to make life better for everyone. 

4. A socially conscious man disillusioned with capitalism who takes a lot of responsibility for other people. (deceased)

5. A victim of eugenics who tries to be a good older brother to his brothers, also victims of eugenics. (the only one here who’s actually over 30)

6. Some other, less important, decent people in their twenties.

There are few people over 30 in juju that deserve any respect.

1. Headmaster Yaga, single dad. Does felting as a hobby. (deceased)

2. Yoshino Nagi, good single mum. (deceased)

3. Iori Utahime, a woman trying her best to do right by the teens despite having to work with Gojou.

4. Higuruma Hiromi, an idealist, mentally broken by the realities of the criminal justice system. Hobby: 5 min therapy sessions. 

____________________

Juju isn’t in any way shy about the fact that we should not respect elders when they fucking destroy everything. It’s established very early on that regressive traditionalists suck. That passive adults suck. That the status quo sux. That it should be the duty of adults to protect the children and not to make the world worse for everyone. That educating the youth and instilling different values in them is what can save us all, if we’re not beyond saving. That we need social change. We even get teen Noritoshi’s story, a cautionary tale about respectability, about trying to satisfy the requirements of the system to protect your own and how that is doomed to fail. And my leftist soul resonates with all that. 

____________________

So in this clear leftist propaganda there is also feminism.

And Gege does their best feminism when they aren’t trying, especially when they aren’t trying to verbalise it. My suspicion is that with this much internalised leftism Gege has internalised a lot of feminism but at a  conscious level the fact that Gege was most likely socialised male takes its toll. 

What I mean by that is that Nobara’s girlboss rant at Momo is weak. But I will give it a pass because Nobara is 16 and nothing about her screams discourse junkie so you know, it fits her character. Because even at it its least inspired the feminism in juju deserves a passing grade. Gege is trying.

There’s also the sad truth of shounen that women just aren’t meant to be prioritised in it, that it’s not the genre expectation. The fact that Maki gets so much focus and page time, that she has her own fucking arc, it’s already a lot for shounen. The fact that she’s built and now also permanently disfigured and the dudebros and weebs still worship the ground she walks on is a fucking achievement in itself. Proof that if you write a female character well you can take away her standard beauty and not tank her popularity. It’d be still much harder to make her not typically pretty from the start and achieve this but culture changes one step at a time. I wish we were there but we aren’t so I’m going to appreciate what I can get.

Maki is both verbalised and implicit feminism. Verbalised because she fucking slaughters a whole fucking clan of misogynists. It’s not subtle. Implicit because of her appearance and personality. She’s written like a male character but not meaning that she’s masculine or that she could be replaced in the narrative by a man. No, she has a narrative arc of her own, she’s written with agency and with no regard for making her personality be pleasing or oriented towards others. And her story is specifically a story of a woman in the world of jujutsu. 

____________________

Generally, in most cases, if you try to apply the feminist lens to a shounen manga you’ll just make yourself sad. You can do it for some shounen characters or plotlines and get something nice but you need to be very careful not to try to generalise that onto the whole work. My enjoyment of a lot of titles is dependant on my very conscious choice to rein in my feminism and leftism. 

With juju, though, with juju you’re safe. You can do it. You can go for it. It’s not going to be the most radical and mind-blowing experience ever but it’s possible.

Because the female characters aren’t where the most of the feminism is. They can’t be, it’s a shounen and they don’t get enough pagetime. The verbalised feminism is very clear in how the villains are framed, how much misogyny you can find among the evil characters. The implicit feminism, the better one, is very strong in the young male characters. 

Unlike in a lot of hyper violent media targeted at boys, in juju you never have these lines about what a man should be. Or what it means to be a man, especially a true man. What is most important is that nothing like that is ever said to a teenage boy. On the side we’re meant to root for we get a lot of different men and none of them are labelled as “true”. They are there for readers to identify with, to model behaviour after. And because no teen in the manga has his masculinity questioned then no reader will have to question his. Juju won’t contribute to such insecurity for anyone, an insecurity that can turn violent irl. 

____________________

Girls in juju are people.

What’s more, all the teen guys in juju have extremely normal relationships with the girls around them. They just interact with them without any exaggerated awkwardness or this “girls are strange, we can’t bond with them unless we want to date them”. Among the teens, the new generation, the hope for the future, there’s no separation built between men and women. Not through words and not through actions.  

The nonsexual, organic friendship, built on idiot to idiot communication, Yuuji and Nobara have, gives me life. And it happens despite Yuuji not understanding Nobara at first. Because it doesn’t matter that she’s different from him, they don’t dwell on it, they don’t try to make the differences into a big thing, into a rift. There’s no big arc of them working out their differences because these differences aren’t artificially blown up to underline some core differences between men and women. They can fail to understand each other totally but they can still be friends, they can still vibe with one another, care for one another. Femininity and masculinity don’t need to be some issues to deal with while forming a friendship between a guy and a girl. 

It’s fascinating how Yuuji fighting together with Megumi isn’t half as exciting and organic as when he fights together with Nobara. Their strengths and powers compliment each other so well. I’m actually angry that Gege didn’t let them fight Mahito together longer. Even if they would’ve done to Nobara the same thing they did. Why not let them be epic together again? (I’m also super angry at what they did to Nobara, she better come back, fucking hell)

And it’s a pattern too. Despite Yuuji being very much socialised as a guy in a very patriarchal and sexist society, so much so that he has a type at 15 and hangs bikini posters on his walls, he hasn't turned girls into aliens in his mind. They are still just people in his head. When Yuuji interacts with a real woman the male socialisation isn’t deeply rooted enough to hinder him. It’s never an issue.

____________________

Toudou

Toudou tries to do this very masculine bonding thing with Yuuji and Yuuji is super confused by it. Because Yuuji’s relationships aren’t built on the concept of masculinity. And I mean Yuuji bonds with Toudou eventually because it’s Yuuji but we are shown the struggle when with Nobara or Megumi or Junpei it just happens. Also Yuuji is the only one who bonds with Toudou but that’s because Yuuji is compassion. 

Toudou is generally disliked and his dumb male posturing contributes to that. Also in the Japanese context it’s very clear that Toudou is an unserious person and that’s how he’s meant to be perceived. If you have any doubt about that, the juju fanbook is there for you where Gege is very clear about that. Basically the idol thing is there to paint Toudou as immature. The whole conversation Megumi has with Toudou is a very clear lesson for teen boys. Be like Megumi and girls will like you, if you are a Toudou you’re a joke. You can be built and powerful and clever and still be a joke and girls won’t like you.

I like Toudou a lot btw, I actually think it’s funny that an 18yo boy thinks he reached some deeper truth about people because he knows what a fetish or kink is and he’s tactless enough to ask openly about it. It’s fucking hilarious but also some teen boys just be like that unironically. But I also like him because of how his character is framed and how he functions in the story. Because Toudou gives another important lesson to teen boys. A lesson about rejection. In the story he makes up in his head we see him confessing his feelings to Takada and she turns him down. And he just takes it. This is such an important message. In Japan stalking is a huge problem, stalkers murdering their victims is a problem. Men who feel entitled to women in such a violent way. And here we have a guy who gets rejected and takes the L with grace. And all he wants is for his best friend to console him. 

____________________

I’m very normal about Yuuji.

So the balls on Gege to name their typically shounen protag “calm compassion”, or maybe “endless humanity”, “endless compassion”, “quiet humanity”, all of the above? More?

Gojou says that to be a sorcerer one needs to be crazy. And he says that Yuuji has a few screws loose from the start. The thing is that yes, Yuuji is odd but not in the way the rest of the sorcerers are. So far in the manga Yuuji has never entered the state of mind that to my understanding Gojou is thinking about when he talks about being crazy. What I think Gojou means is this state of unhinged glee during the fight. And the ability to compartmentalise the fights and the kills. 

So far in his fights Yuuji has been neutral, proud of himself when he was doing well, hyper focused, frustrated, desperate, depressed and filled with all-consuming rage. Never filled with unhinged glee. And he hasn’t compartmentalised any fight, any failure or any kill, not one, they all seep into a huge ball of guilt inside him. And it’s his kills and Sukuna’s together. Yuuji’s compassion is actively destroying him from the inside. Yuuji can’t disconnect from his humanity and that’s a basic job requirement for a sorcerer. 

____________________

Yuuji constantly shows how much emotional intelligence he has. When he defuses the situation with Junpei at the school. When Megumi finds out about Tsumiki going under the bridge. When he’s with Chousou. When he puts his depression on hold to help Megumi during the culling game. He shows understanding, emotional support, physical contact and prioritises the emotions of others over his own. 

Compassion, empathy, responsiveness towards others, willingness to adjust and accommodate aren’t stereotypically masculine traits. No, they are culturally feminine in many places around the world, including Japan. 

Yuuji is also passive and reactive despite being stronger than normal people, and that too is culturally more feminine than masculine. Yuuji doesn’t really have much of the shounen protag drive. It can be lit in him in the form of resilience or determination or rage but it’s not self-sustaining, reactive not proactive

And speaking of Japan and East Asia, what Yuuji is displaying can’t be written off as collectivism either. Because these reactions are personal, they aren’t towards the society at large. They aren’t giri aka a specifically culturally Japanese sense of duty, or any other of several similar concepts. There is no sense of duty or obligation in what Yuuji does, not on a group level. Yuuji says that he wouldn't be able to forgive himself if people got hurt because he didn’t try to get rid of Sukuna. For him it’s not because it’s the moral thing to do, or the right thing to do but because he’s concerned about the suffering of those people on this very empathetic level. As Nanami says: he genuinely gets upset on behalf of others. 

____________________

That might be why Yuuji isn’t really that popular as a character. Maybe that’s why people prefer Megumi who’s more typically masculine, stoic, distant, intellectual but also proactive and not reactive in his violence and values.

A lot of people consider Yuuji weak. They complain about how much he loses and how in most of his fights he gets carried by other characters, how they are actually the winning factor and not him. 

I actually like that a lot. I think it makes the story interesting, it makes Yuuji interesting that he’s at his best when he’s not alone, that he’s actually doing best when he’s support. That his strength is in how he compliments others. I honestly don’t want him to change into a more typical shounen protagonist. Thematically the way his fights go suits him perfectly because humans are a social species, we thrive on cooperation. And if Yuuji is boundless humanity he shouldn’t stand alone. 

____________________

I’m very normal about Yuuji so it turned into a post about him. I swear this wasn’t the plan. The plan was to write about leftist propaganda. The other guys in juju are actually really cool too. Like Megumi, him constantly trying to figure out his values and reconcile what’s happening around him with them is great. Yuuta with his need to belong and justify himself is amazing. Chousou the family oriented sap (please survive baby). Hakari who said fuck you to the conservatives even though he wasn’t so well positioned as Gojou and it resulted in him getting ostracised. I’m not going to shout out everyone or go deeper into these characters but I really like how there isn’t one type of masculinity in juju. 

I don’t know how much these are conscious choices by Gege, or how much it’s just their internalised leftism seeping through. But it’s nice. It feels good to read. And I hope that because the messaging isn’t always as didactic as with the Zen’in or the Kamo clans, that it’ll go down well and actually be this tiny crumb of feminism in the minds of 15yo boys who read it. And with how hype juju is atm, I hope that overt leftism will strengthen in the pop cultural mainstream directed at boys. And with it feminism.  

____________________

Could juju be better?

Of course, there’s no perfect work of art. No author is perfect and perfectly enlightened. No work is ever going to 100% match with anyone’s politics, sensibilities or expectations. etc etc. But I really think juju already does a lot. The fact that it’s open to a feminist reading is a lot. And I appreciate it for it.

I really wish juju was better on the queer stuff but I’m wary of assigning blame here. Idk if it’s Gege who misunderstands stuff and is uninformed and crude. Or is it because they write a shounen series for Shounen Jump a corporation which is averse to risk. 

I really wish Kirara had a canon gender and identity. I wish Gege made an official call on Kenny’s gender as they did with Tengen. I wish Gege also clearly stated that Kenny is Yuuji’s mum because the fandom cishets are really twisting themselves into pretzels trying to come up with theories that the mum is actually some woman controlled by Kenny and not Kenny. I wish Gege made NobaMaki canon instead of drawing fanart of the ship and pretending it’s not what it looks like. And even though ItaFushi leaves me mostly cold I wish Megumi’s answer proved to be what all the itafushis headcanon it to be, even if it was to prove to be one sided. I wish I wish I wish.

[courtofwingsandruin]

I’m so mad at the ACOTAR fandom right now and how they’re dealing with Azriel’s chapter.

Warning: under the cut is just me going off for way too long about Azriel and his extra chapter.

Azriel is a huge comfort character for me, and before I could get my hands on the actual extra chapter I saw tons of posts talking about how gross and OOC he was and the disgusting things he was saying about Elain.

I literally laid in bed crying over it because it hurt to think that this character I had invested so much into, that I had been desperate to hear more about, would be that horrible.

And then I read it and...It’s not that bad? Yeah, he speaks of her sexually and is turned on by her. Sure. But she’s also turned on by him in that moment? She’s wanting him just as badly? He can clearly see that she does, we can clearly see that she does. I haven’t read ACOSF, so I may be wrong, but as far as I know she hasn’t accepted the mating bond yet and has shown no sign of planning to do so. She hasn’t shown any sign of wanting to be Lucien’s mate, but she’s shown a very obvious sign in this chapter about liking Azriel and wanting him.

I didn’t like the whole “Rhys and Cass got their Archeron sisters, why don’t I have one?” thing either, because it does feel like he’s just projecting his loneliness onto Elain and assuming that the Cauldron was wrong because of a kind of dumb theory he has. But I didn’t really feel like he was calling himself entitled to her. If she did not want him, he would be acting completely different. But she is showing that she wants him, is interested in him, and isn’t showing any signs of being interested in Lucien (as far as I understand, correct me if I’m wrong). So yes, it was a weird and stupid thing for him to say, but I don’t think he’s thinking “She should be mine because of this one little crazy thing I noticed.” He’s saying “The Cauldron and the Fates have been wrong about mates in the past and I’m just thinking maybe it was wrong about Lucien and Elain because they don’t have chemistry and we do AND because of this one little crazy thing I noticed.” He just didn’t state it that way.

(Also, quick note: Azriel says he can defeat Lucien out of arrogance, yeah, but also remember that he didn’t do so just unprompted. Rhys was the one to be like “he could challenge you to this duel BS” and Az, who probably only has confidence in his powers and nothing else about himself, says back, “I would win” because...tbh I’d probably say that too if my brother was like “You want this girl but she bElOnGs to another man so he can fight you for her.”)

The line that stuck with me the most was this: “But she’d gotten Azriel one last year—a headache powder he kept on his nightstand at the House of Wind. Not to use, but just to look at. Which he’d done every night he’d slept there.” I think it’s super important to read between the lines in chapters from the POV with characters like Azriel. He’s going to be a lot more open and upfront about his sexual desires than his romantic desires, even with himself, after spending so many years of pining after Mor for it to never happen. With how he has always been the one to try to stay stoned face and keep his personal feelings hidden. We see this with how, when Rhys brings up Mor, Azriel ignores it outright—and thus ignores his feelings. And I feel we also saw it with Gwyn and how he isn’t truly sure what he’s feeling towards her, which is the only reason we actually get a genuine view of those feelings towards the end of the extra chapter.

That quote kind of showed an inner working of his head that we aren’t seeing yet. He clearly isn’t only having sexual thoughts—he stares at this powder and probably thinks about a lot of damn things regarding Elain, not just regarding the bond and the sexual desires. Don’t forget that he’s been one of the few people to be her friend—sitting with her and listening to her and hanging out in the gardens with her in the previous books. His feelings are not only sexual. He’s just not showing us everything because this is only, what, 9 pages from him? We aren’t going to see every little thing he is feeling.

I believe, wholeheartedly, that the next book will be about Elain and Azriel. SJM has set up too much for them both for it to not be. For it to be about Elain and Azriel—unless she pulls a trick on us and has it focus solely on their individual development rather than their relationships, which is possible but I can’t see happening—this would mean that the two of them end up together (1 relationship per book, guys).

I’m not gonna go into Gwyn, because I don’t know much about her yet, and I don’t want to hit you guys with false information. But I feel like Azriel and Elain both have a lot of development to go through and Gwyn will be there with them, but I don’t really know if she is going to be a genuine love interest, or just someone who helps Azriel open up and be better—a good, true friend that he can count on.

The one thing I will say is that Elain and Mor have the parallel of making Azriel’s shadows disappear, or hide away—and Azriel definitely had romantic feelings for Mor. And Gwyn has a completely different effect on Azriel’s shadows. Whether this is a mating bond, or something else about Gwyn we have yet to find out, I don’t know. But I feel it’s definitely important to remember the similarities between how his shadows react to Elain and how they react to Mor versus how they react to Gwyn.

If you actually stuck around for all of this, thank you. I’m gonna go cry into my pillow now over how desperately I need ACOSF so I can focus on Nesta and Cassian and not all of this bull with Azriel and Elain and Lucien and Gwyn.

[the-bjd-community-confess]

Since we're on that thing with entitled minors. I just remembered this story, and I think it's a bit funny. Not super related to my dolls, but also kinda is?

Most of my main characters are in their 30-50's, they might start out a bit younger, but most of the story plays when the characters are in that age range, just because as a teen, I grew tired of stories focusing on 14-19 yo's, since it just felt like the same thing over and over. So I decided it'd be interesting focusing on "older" characters. Well, you don't actually know at first read that they're that old, though I do mention them not being teens and stuff. Well, some kid who apparently was on the same server as me, server focuses on writing characters and world building, had the strangest freak-out when they found out that most of my characters "middle" aged, (I don't even think 30-40 really counts as middle aged these days?) and apparently thought it was the grossest thing that I'd make my MC's all grown adults.

LoL. Anyway, this was all in a convo I had with another server member when we compared and just had a small convo about our progress. That kiddo was lurking, and then literally went to a mod and complained, the mod just contacted me and said the minor had been telling them I was being creepy, and I was excluding* them, even though I'd never interacted with the kid before.

Few key words the mod gave me was that it was predatory, creepy, and that I was making the kid feel unwelcome. Repeat, I never interacted with the kid before, the kid was not even joining the convo, and I didn't even talk about anything even close to the NSFW line, it was just the most basic convo about "Yeah ok, So A is 30, and B is 40'ish, but they don't really interact after their first meeting until a year later." Just that kinda stuff. If that wasn't enough, kiddo then had a petty rant while I was AFK, and wrote an essay about how it was iffy for us adults to focus so much on how much older a character is from being a teen. And if you write a character old just for the sake of being old, you must have issues with people being young. Tl:Dr for the entire probs 1000 word essay: If you have old characters and mention it, you are weird because you must be a creeper to specifically mention a character being old instead of young, and it's sus if your young characters grow old.Yes, you read that right. And yes, the kid insinuated you're a pedo for NOT writing teen characters as your MC's, or for having teen characters become 30+ yo adults bc you're aging up a "minor" bc aging up means you wanna frick them. * Excluding is a more specific rule about several people ignoring a single person for no reason when the person is actively engaging with the others. If you have a problem with a person you tell a mod, not do schoolyard bs like ignore them. It's taken seriously so I guess that's why the kid said it, and why mod mentioned it. Only way I can relate this to my dolls, is that these characters are represented by a few dolls I own. And Bonus story for that, because I had a similar experience in a way.-

I buy adult sculpts which often still look young because there's no wrinkles, or anything in the sculpt itself, bc let's be real, there's no real middle ground specifically for mature older looking sculpts. You either have kid-teen dolls, smooth skinned adult, or deformed shrivelled oldies. The few who technically would work just aren't my aesthetic sadly. So I normally get mature sculpts, and then add in small wrinkles, like under eye, crowsfeet, and smile lines, while doing the face-ups. Twice I've gotten a comment that I'm doing "the face-up wrong" because the doll aren't "intended to have wrinkles" and one said that me using "young" sculpts implies I'm sexualizing teens. Just for reference, the pics I got this specific comment on, is on a pic of two Loongsouls I own, and each of those is on the mature body sculpt so 68-75cm, which I'd argue are their clearly adult sculpts/sizes.

~Anonymous

[symeona]

Idk if this is something you're even interested in hearing about, but for the majority of my very american white bread life, I thought that all of the stories like PJO and LO were cool and fun ways to spread greek mythos, while not really knowing myself the inaccuracies and disrespect these series both carry, not only to the values they claim to espouse such as anti-racism, spreading mental health awareness, and feminism, but just how wrong they get the Greek side of things too. I just feel/see more and more how majorily Americans refuse to believe that taking Greek culture and misrepresenting it, bastardizing it, and hollywood-izing it is a bad thing, and how it deserves some respect for the ancient culture it is beyond "hardy har zeus scum cheater man" and "uwu rick/smythe are the final opinion on greek mythos". It's become such a mainstream thing here for people to use LO and PJO as literal scholarly interpretations of myths and the entire reason Greek mythology is as popular today while simultaneously ignoring the work Greeks have done to make their culture known, and I myself don't know the half of their efforts. The entitlement to tell someone, from my own personal experience, that they have the right to retell and change myths to their own will just because greek myths happened to be taught in their history class therefore making it fair game for Americans is just... how can so many people who claim to be on the left not realize their own imperialism right there? And then, god forbid you ask them about anything about greek history or culture that isn't Alexander the Great or the Illiad. They know nothing of Greece's roll in WW2, or what the Ottomons did to them, nothing at all.

Sorry for the rant, but I felt you would have an opinion I haven't heard on it before and I'm trying to see how different people view this issue.

Aaaa oof. Okay..

One issue with "Greek myths" is that the version most ppl know now, was published by archeologists who interpreted the stories through their own lenses almost 100 years ago. Zeus wasn't the 'King of gods', that's some christian bs right there. The largest Temple ever found is the one for Hera in Samos. But still, all gods were equal. And myths are so different from place to place that I don't think you'll ever find the "original" story.

And don't talk to me about the Great Alexander, that monster. How ppl have hero worship for that prick is beyond me. Ironically his horse was called Bullhead.

So, you mentioned the Ottoman occupation.

⚠️ I'll mention violence.

We called it 600 years of enslavement by the Empire. And it was. The scars from that time are still with us today. When I say 'entire islands and cities were burned to the ground' I mean it. This year marks 200 years of liberty which is cool, but yeah I can't tell you what a kid feels when they look at their history and all they find is bloodshed.

Victims from Smyrna are still alive today. And if you read what happened there please be warned.

So Greece went from 600 years of occupation and slavery, to the Balkan Wars, to ww1, to civil war, to ww2, to more civil war, to martial law/ dictatorship in the 1970s, and now .. well, let's say, we've had democracy for 50 years. My dad was a kid during the Polytechnic Uprising where tanks ran over children in front of their parents.

I hesitate to say Greece is part of Europe or 'the Western world'. Because during each one of these tragedies the Allies watched my people burn and die. Should they have the authority to claim our history as their own? I don't know.

Anyway, I hate to leave you on a sad note so I'll just add that, during the wars Greece let women fight, look for Bubulina and Manto Mavrogenous. Those two were high ranking officers.

And for a funny (kind of) anecdote: Greeks celebrate the 28th of October as "Ochi day". And the story is that during ww2 an Italian ambassador told our prime minister "hand Greece over to us and there won't be war". Our prime minister simply told him "Ochi" which means "No." Though actually, he said "Alors, c’est la guerre." (So, it's war.) And then people ran out in the streets chanting "Oxi" cause you know... Fuck Mussolini. We actually won the battle with the Italians so sksksksk

I love this story cause it's so.. Greek. We said "Nope." And then celebrate it every year by singing very offensive songs about goofy fascists. It's great. If anyone wants to write a story in modern Greece, please know that every kid knows this song by heart.

Here are the lyrics translated, though I realize it's hard to comprehend. We have too many creative words. Macarona literally means Macaroni-man for example.