#it's not that much of a stretch tbh as much as i like the enrichment this is giving bad

[svtskneecaps]

ngl at this point i feel like the admin team should just be like "ok, meta rule, don't use the damn wand of symmetry for anything but builds" bc damn. this will have an effect on the trout population (badboyhalo's coffee intake)

[psiimaid]

okay so first time visiting on desk top and can i just say <3<3<3 ship cursor. anyway onto what icame to ask: do you think doc made mai do punitive academic work? what do you think her literacy level is? im imagining her having to write out words a bunch of times or lookup definitions and write them untill a 'perfect' replication. vicious spelling tests.

OH BOY OH BOY OH BOY buzzing and rubbing my hands together like a fly

under the cut bc while it’s not incredibly lengthy it might be annoying to scroll past

that’s something i think about a lot, and even more so in recent days so this is like. perfect. the ancestors fans hivemind is real

anyways little mai’s case is. strange. but the most analogous situations to a childhood spent growing up on the moon + not being around anyone Like Her + being locked in a room + abused and deprived of care do not typically yield. someone useful for what lord english/doc scratch need. however mai seems very intellectually developed! which means doc scratch is. doing something for her.

scratch said his lessons emphasized obedience, mastery of the clockwork majyyks, and (of course) being locked in a room. but these lessons (aside from the locked in the room part obvi) would have been the only socialization little mai ever got, and there is no world for her to explore and learn about through experience so literally almost everything about anything that she knew would’ve had to have been taught to her by scratch. so those lessons probably included a bunch of other stuff as well

okay sorry i think i started a little far off my b >.< but to answer your first question: yeah sure! it would be a good chance to stretch her brain muscles while also being unfun. seems very on brand

only communicating (or being talked at by, there doesn’t seem to be much real communication between the two) with doc scratch probably lends her a nicely well rounded vocabulary in that tongue, or at least a knack for deciphering meaning from context clues. i’ve most likely said this somewhere before but i tend to think mai had trouble learning to speak but that’s only tangentially related lol!!

as for literacy. i guess the question is what language? probably the one doc scratch speaks but what language IS that lol. like everyone in hs speaks english despite there apparently being an alternian language? urghh anyway considering mai’s job takes her everywhere and everywhen, realistically literacy probably. doesn’t help with her work. but neither does doc scratch’s language so. maybe she is literate and doc scratch sometimes lets her read any books that might be in the apartment?

homestuck logic probably says different and that’s fair tbh ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

i can’t say i have a real opinion on her literacy level. if she can read and write, it’s probably not her strong suit? if she can’t, cool. she’s jared, 1900, never learned how to read. literacy, while helpful, isn’t necessary for the aforementioned intellectual development. but it would be really, really helpful since, again, there’s no way for her to learn things through experience. but then again if there’s nothing/very little for her to read.. the spiral

re: work her role doesn’t require strategic manipulation or a delicate touch (that’s doc scratch) so how much would really benefit her jobwise beyond those obedience and majyyks lessons ?? that’s why they were emphasized ig..?

but mai did have an ENTIRE childhood so i’d say anything is fair game!! there’s a lot to think about when trying to reconcile an at least mostly normally developed girl with her being raised in a very small world that would grow stale quickly, especially without anything new/stimulating. there must have been SOME enrichment in her enclosure and your ideas are a fun way to go about that!! pls don’t let anything i’ve said here make you think otherwise lol bc the things you mentioned are the Worst in a very mundane way that fit extremely well into what we already know

cutting myself off here ✌️ tysm for sharing!!!!

[britcision]

Okay so here’s the thing because this annoys me so much we’re having a “words have meaning” moment:

You can’t “seize the means of production” from a single person creating their own art - the “means of production” are their hands, their skill, their fucking time, and you could maaaaaaaybe stretch it to their tools and program

Taking these things from a person is called “stealing” Or possibly “kidnapping” (and dismemberment if you take their actual hands)

When you want to “seize the means of production”, you are taking back control over a process that is enriching SOMEONE ELSE for YOUR work, often producing (see look I linked the word) something that YOU need

Like, say, factory workers refusing to use the machines in ways that make their bosses richer. This was a whole thing. You may have heard of it.

(Things actually got way worse and gnarlier than this but I’m not telling you you gotta go do research for the drama and gritty details)

Even if an artist WAS making $100k/year for pixel art (tbh I hope some are, artists fucking deserve a thriving wage not just a living wage), they are Not Taking Anything From You.

You are not entitled to the results of their labour, because you have done absolutely none of the labour, nor done anything that eases or speeds up their labour

What AI art is actually directly doing here is in fact “taking our jobs” - creating a cheap (free) resource to replace the labour of human beings, causing those human beings to lose their income

Even if there WERE so many pixel artists making $100k/year (there aren’t and AI art also steals from the ones making $0/year so you’re already invalid), if AI art is allowed to keep stealing their work and replacing their labour, there will not be for long

Stop trying to justify taking someone’s fucking livelihood with communist rhetoric and learn to make your own pixel art if you need it so desperately and cannot bear to commission a professional

(Artists, you are professionals the second you receive recompense for your work - including art trades, so if you have done one commission ever you’re a professional. Words have meaning.)

So one last time: you cannot “seize the means of production” from any artist, at any pay scale, ever, because They Are The Means Of Production. The product is their art.

You don’t get to just do whatever you want with it or demand they make what you want without contributing to their wellbeing, with their consent, even under communism.

Destroying this AI that steals their art and also their livelihood is actually much closer to seizing the means of production because the AI is stealing the labour from artists and giving all the profits to the thieves who created it.

someone was defending using genAI for pixel art by sayings its ‘seizing the means of production from elitists pixel artist who make 50k-100k a year’

and tbh think it gave me an aneurysm 😭 how out of touch,,, how unhinged

[gabessquishytum]

a concept for you... the corinthian's had some particularly difficult job to do, he's been off working in another realm for a bit, but he's back and he did a great job and hob suggests he should get a nice reward. it happens to be summer break, hob can afford to disappear for a couple weeks, so dream brings him fully into the dreaming and gives him to the corinthian as a reward for good behaviour.

dream also grants him the ability to shape hob's body in the dreaming (though none of the changes actually kick in until hob accepts them). he doesn't try to make hob's ass tight again, they both get off too much on hob being wrecked for dream, but, well. nothing keeping him from giving hob a nice tight cunt.

the corinthian has free range to be as fucked up and violent and sadistic as he wants with hob, unless hob safewords, which isn't likely considering how much he likes when his lovers break him. and maybe he's just spent a while carving his name into hob's chest, because hob squirms so pretty under his knife. but the first time he fucks hob without it being about stretching him for dream or mocking him for being wrecked? it turns very, very quickly into like. tender loving missionary sex. lots of kissing. plenty of holding hands. hob's not going to go so far as to call it making love, at least not out loud, but...

(he teases the corinthian after because hey, by nightmare standards, did that actually count as the kinkiest sex they've ever had? and then he gets bitten by three sets of teeth while he's still laughing)

-🐈‍⬛

A very good concept!!!! Love the fact that Hob is effectively the enrichment for the Corinthian’s enclosure. If the Corinthian earns like 20 stickers on his Good Behaviour Chart he gets Personal Hob Time. And Hob is just happy to be here tbh. Is he going to complain about being railed by the pretty nightmare man? No he is not.

Sjsjsjd imagine though. The Corinthian crawls into bed with Hob and he's all squirmy and kind of shy, and he's like. I want to do something different... something really crazy. You can't tell anyone tho. And Hob is thinking, damn, what kind of weird kink must it be if the Corinthian is embarrassed??? Does he want to eat me??? For real this time??? BUT it turns out that the Corinthian wants to have sweet and tender sexytimes with the lights turned down low <3 and Hob is quietly screaming over how adorable it all is and maybe the Corinthian cries a little bit. He's lying in Hob’s arms with his dick in a perfect magic pussy (tm) and wondering why he ever thought that being Dream’s favourite little nightmare was a bad thing when he gets to do this!!!! Hob just thinks he's the cutest fucking thing ever and tells him what a good boy he is and how perfect his cock feels. And for about half an hour the Corinthian is the loveliest service top in the whole of the dreaming!!

And immediately afterwards he's back to usual and giving Hob a cute pair of tits so he can carve his name into them <3

[memecucker]

deoadjuvante replied to your post “I swear I think I even saw people trying to uplift John Adams over...”

wait, he didn't own slaves? I thought that there has been a pushback on that narrative in some historical circles, which argue that Chernow took some liberties in white-washing Hamilton's role in the slave trade. Tbh I barely read anything about Hamilton's life so I can't speak to whether its true, but I was under the impression that there is still real debate about his role in the slave trade.

So an issue that I think also is the cause of confusion is that it is true that Hamilton’s opposition to slavery did not prevent his complicity in the system but the form his complicity took was not that of someone like Jefferson. 

Hamilton was born on St. Croix out of wedlock with his father leaving his family early on and when Hamilton’s mother died while he was still young he (and his brother from the same father) was prevented from inheriting her property due to being a bastard.

I havent read Chernow’s book but a claim that seems to have been made in it which is common across sympathetic biographers of Hamilton and which is stated as fact in the musical is that Hamilton’s experiences growing up in poverty (relative to the rest of the small white population of St Croix) and the stigma of being a bastard closing off many avenues for social mobility supposedly inculcated an innate sympathy for the marginalized especially slaves. There doesnt actually seem to be much direct evidence for this claim in terms of Hamilton’s own personal writings and letters. The closest from my cursory research seems to have been a letter the young Hamilton wrote to his estranged father discussing the aftermath of a hurricane that swept the region where he attacks the ruling elites of the island (nearly all slave owners or traders) for the selfishness in withholding aid and assistance from impoverished islanders which likely included slaves since there doesnt really seem to have large amount of poor whites (like himself) on the island. Hamilton uses the first-person plural to refer to the impoverished islanders however which seems (again, just going by cursory research) the closest we have to first-hand evidence that Hamilton “identified with” the enslaved but frankly I think its a bit of a stretch especially given the context of referring specifically to rebuilding efforts in the aftermath of a hurricane rather than generally speaking. 

That said, the teenaged Alexander Hamilton did find both employment and mentorship on St Croix from a man named Nicolas Cruger. Cruger was part owner of an import-export company named Beekman & Cruger which did participate in the slave trade though sympathetic biographies do try to emphasis that it wasn the main goal of the enterprise (lol). That said, Cruger apparently had such belief and trust in the 14 year old Alexander that when he became heavily ill for some months in 1771 he left him in charge of the entire St Croix branch of the company. This included overseeing the importation and sale of slaves as conducted by the company. This may be the basis for some of the claims of Hamilton having definitively owned slaves but even putting aside that he was 14 years old there wouldve been legal procedures in place to prevent any kind of substantial changes (another reading of this incident may be that Cruger chose a 14 year old specifically because an easier to control youth would be more likely to keep the status quo in place in contrast with a more ambitious adult, though in this case Cruger most likely wouldve feared personal enrichment at the expense of his company rather than emancipation of slaves). 

More damning to Hamilton’s reputation as a supposed abolitionist hero IMHO actually has to do with his relationship with his in-laws. The future Mrs Hamilton, Elizabeth Schuyler, was born into a prominent slave-owning family in the New York Colony. Despite his status as a bastard and usual stigma about women “marrying down” Hamilton was nonetheless able to marry into the wealthy and prestigious Schuyler family. He would later go on to assist his in-laws in writing up the purchase and sales of slaves and wrote letters on their behalf pertaining to the return of slaves that had left Schuyler estates for whatever reason. For me those shows a deeper collaboration with the institution of slavery even more than him briefly nominally overseeing his mentor’s company or his looking-the-other-way when it came to the slaves of close friends of his such as George Washington. 

Also another that ought to be mentioned is the anti-slavery society Hamilton eventually joined, the New York Manumission Society. The term “manumission” refers specifically to not just the freeing of slaves but their freeing through “legitimate” means typically with the consent or at the very least not against the wishes of the owner. So a slave who is allowed to personally  becomes free because of their master’s will upon their death (in some societies this was automatic or in the case of Rome strongly expected) or because they were allowed to sell goods on the side for the purpose of obtaining or even by means of marriage to their master as was commonly the case in Haiti. This is important to point out because the New York Manumission Society was very much a “moderate” society in terms of the cause of abolishing slavery and didnt even require members to not own slaves. It’s founder, John Jay (the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court) even owned a handful of house slaves himself! The Manumission Society very much had a “free slaves- when we and they are ready for it” ethos.

Basically, there’s no evidence Alexander Hamilton ever directly owned slaves. However he was very very much assimilated into the wider slave society of colonial America and the personal reservations he had towards the practice did not amount to much. This contrasts with more forceful abolitionism of contemporaries such as Thomas Paine or even the later Benjamin Franklin who despite having himself owned slaves for his printing business became a stauncher advocate of abolitionism and who unsucessfully petitioned the Continental Congress to ban slavery.

Also to go back to the musical for a sec something that’s interesting is that LMM originally intended for their to be a third “rap battle” song directly about slavery pitting abolitionist Quakers against pro-slavery advocates but it was cut from the musical after he decided it would be improper given that the heroes of his play didnt really do enough for abolitionism (even though Eliza’s song after Hamilton’s death apparently includes a line saying he wouldve done much against slavery had he lived, which doesnt really line up with the evidence)

Miranda: Yeah, that we cut, and it was sort of our homage to "Hail Mary" [by Tupac Shakur]. There was a moment when there were two Quakers from, I think it was Pennsylvania, who tried to ban the importation of slaves and brought it to the house floor. And [James] Madison let them talk about it for two days and then set a gag rule — "We're not talking about slavery until 1808" — basically saying, like, "We don't know how to solve it." They knew it was a problem. Even from the racist perspective, it was, "There's going to be more of them than us!" But no one knew what to do about it, and they all kicked it down the field. And while, yeah, Hamilton was anti-slavery and never owned slaves, between choosing his financial plan and going all in on opposition to slavery, he chose his financial plan. So it was tough to justify keeping that rap battle in the show, because none of them did enough.

[alittleyellowdinosaur]

Homemade Cinnamon Rolls Recipe

So i made this here post about how satisfying making my own bread is, and, by my 300 followers, 6 notes on a good day, 0 on personal post standards, it went viral. So i thought I’d give you guys the recipe. It’s a mashup of this recipe, my own shit, and an idea from another recipe that i can’t find again to give them credit. Since i only took proportions from the first one i’m calling this my own recipe. I’m also going to go a bit into bread baking tips and tricks just in case this is your first time making bread and you want to get started on that cottagecore life. Now go bake some fine ass cinnamon rolls folks! ( @good-vibes-by-noel this here’s for you!)

Photo sucks but i couldnt get a better one because they didn’t last the night. Whoops! This is what they’ll look like though!

Time: like 2 hours, give or take, but you can do other shit during most of that.

Makes: 12, frankly giant, cinnamon rolls. good luck eating more than 2 at a time, seriously.

Ingredients: 

The Rolls:

1 cup warm milk (microwave in a mug for a minute and you are good. Any milk is fine, but i used fat free)

1 tablespoon dry instant yeast (about one and a quarter packets, but one should be fine, you just might need to extend rising times if it’s not working well)

2 tablespoons granulated sugar 

1 teaspoon salt 

1/2 cup (1 stick) and 3 tablespoons of melted butter (*** VERY IMPORTANT - melt the 3tbs and the 1/2 cup SEPARATELY or you’ll throw everything off.)

1 large egg

3 cups all-purpose flour (bread flour works too

1 cup brown sugar 

2 tablespoons cinnamon (yes the big ones) 

The Icing:

1 cup of icing (powdered) sugar (Starting point - I’ll explain later))

1 Tablespoon of milk  (Starting point)

1 teaspoon of vanilla

Directions:

 I added lots of bread fun facts to help you guys with other bread making endeavors, so it got long and is now under the cut!

Activate the yeast. Warm the milk up for a minute in the microwave, and mix that, the white sugar, and the yeast together. leave to rest for 5-10 minutes. you want it to look like the photo on the bottom, but if it isn’t as good, don’t freak out because you’ll be fine. Mine never look that good tbh, there’s a reason i was so proud. Bread Fun Fact: Less of a fun fact then just some advice, but buy the bulk jars of instant yeast. They keep forever in the fridge (always store yeast in the fridge btw) and are so much cheaper than buying packets. if you intend to make bread a lot, it’s the best way to save money. Plus, most recipes give tablespoon/teaspoon amounts, not packet amounts.

Once it looks all nice and foamy, add in the flour. On top of the flour, add the salt, egg, and 3 tablespoons of butter. You need to keep these as separate from the yeast as you can until you begin mixing - especially the salt, which will outright kill it. Always keep the salt and yeast separate guys!! Bread Fun Fact: Because you are adding eggs, butter, and milk instead of water, this type of bread is called an enriched bread. These breads are softer, fluffier, usually sweeter, and more complicated as they can take longer to rise. Yay! Doughs without these things are called Lean breads and include ciabatta, focaccia, and baguettes i think.

Mix and knead the dough. If you have a stand mixer, use the dough hook (the one that looks like Captain Hook got robbed), and mix it together until the dough forms on medium, then crank it for like 5 minutes on medium-high. If you are making this at 7 in the morning like i was and can’t wake people up, mix it by hand until combined, then knead for 10 ish minutes to build up the gluten strands on a clean table dusted with a bit of flour. The best method I’ve found is to stretch it out with the heel of your hand, roll it up, then rotate and repeat. Over and over and over.... Bread Fun Fact: You can tell you’ve done enough kneading by using the Window Pane Test. If you can stretch the dough far enough that you can see light through it without it breaking, then you’ve got enough gluten. That or go until it doesn’t look like it’s got cellulite anymore and is nice and smooth. The other test is if it bounces back when you poke it a bit. Also, when helping with kneading, for enriched breads use flour, for lean breads use oil!

Now comes the waiting. Grease the bowl you mixed in with some butter, and plop the ball of dough in. Cover with tight plastic to prevent air getting in (and creating a crusty skin that will inhibit rising), and a clean towel, and leave in a patch of sun or a warm place for 1 hour to rise. 

Before you go play video games/do work/fuck around, mix together the brown sugar and cinnamon and melt the 1/2 cup of butter. Now go have fun.

When you get back, you should have a big bowl of risen dough. Now punch the sucker. Yes, you heard me, punch it. It’s called knocking it back and is absolutely essential in dough making. Now, pat the dough out into a 12 inch by 18 inch rectangle, approximately. Don’t use a rolling pin because it’ll mess the air up. Put about a quarter of the melted butter over the top, and then however much of the brown sugar - cinnamon mix you feel like (i put enough so that, when patted down a bit, it covered the whole thing evenly.) 

Roll the rectangle up along the longer edge. It helps to tack down one side by smearing it a bit onto the table. it just makes it easier to get a tight roll and helps the seam idk. Cut off the edges to get a clean roll, then cut 12 rolls, about an inch each or so. Bread Fun Fact: If you use a sharp knife, you are going to smush your rolls. The better way is to get tooth floss, though i highly advise not a mint one. Push it under the roll where you want the cut, cross over the two ends in your hands, and pull until you’ve sliced off the roll. makes it much neater and not smushy. 

Pour the rest of the cinnamon sugar mixture and butter into the bottom of a 13in by 9in pan, be it glass, metal, whatever you have is fine. Mix it together and make sure the sludge of deliciousness covers the whole bottom. Plop each off the rolls in there, in a 3 by 4 set up, cover with plastic and the towel, leave in sun, and go fuck off for a half hour or so. Honestly i never leave it that long because mine always get massive, so for me it’s always more like 15-20 minutes. Really just wait till they balloon up and fill the pan a bunch, but don’t worry if it’s not perfect because they’ll grow again in the oven. 

At some point while they are rising, preheat the oven to 350 degrees (Fahrenheit). When you deem them risen enough and the oven is fully heated (YOU REALLY DO WANT TO PREHEAT IT THIS TIME GUYS TRUST ME ON THIS. if you dont you’ll probably burn your bread before it’s cooked), and bake for about 20-30 minutes. i know that’s a big iffy point, but pretty much just keep checking after around 20 minutes until they are colored brown on top and smell like heaven. (i’m going to be really honest with you, I’ve never baked them at 350 degrees, only at 325 like the recipe for the dough said, but that recipe is a liar because it took me a solid 30 minutes or more when it said that it should take 14. The op was eating undercooked bread guys. So do 350, but i can’t honestly tell you the right timing because i’ve only turned it up halfway through before) Bread Fun Fact: Because enriched breads, like this recipe, have more sugar than lean breads do, they can sometimes catch in the oven - or color too quickly and burn, when the inside still needs to cook. if this happens, you can always give them a little tin foil hat wherever it’s catching to prevent more coloring while not hindering cooking!

While it’s baking, mix together the icing. The amounts i gave are a starting point, because the icing is something you feel with your heart. add more sugar or more milk until you think you have enough for all 12 rolls and its the consistency you want. I made mine fairly thick so it wouldnt sink in and make the dough soggy, but i also made a shit ton because my family loves the icing. So go with the flow. 

When the cinnamon rolls are done, put the icing on and serve warm! Congrats, you’ve made cinnamon rolls entirely homemade, and you’ve now learned some basic bread making facts!! yay!!!

[heyitsneen]

Buckle in because I have been on a RIDE the last few months so I wanna write it all out how BTS stole my whole soul.

I didn’t want to get into kpop even though i remember casually liking a couple shinee songs way back in like 2008 and coming across some kpop music videos when i lived in vietnam in 2012. all i remembered basically was ‘SHIIIIINNNEEEE’ lmao and remembered thinking it was fun but not really listening to it. I had a weird snobbishness against kpop fandom but secretly always knew from the glimpses of fancams and gifs and music vids i’d casually come across that if i looked into it i’d probably like it. I had no IDEA though how talented most kpop groups are and how much dancing was involved. I confess I had a really american view of pop groups and expected it to be all about looks and really poppy boy-band/girl-band, which I also do like...but didn’t put me in a rush to find out more about kpop. If I had realized how much they dance I know I would have looked more into it years ago because I love and respect dancing. I still knew I had the potential to like it if i ever looked into it, but I thought of it super shallow-ly so I never took the time to learn more. 

I remember years ago when Jin trended as ‘third guy from the left’ and i didn’t really know who he was at the time except that bts was pretty big and my college roommate casually liked them. I read through the comments on twitter at the time and was entertained and a little curious but didn’t look further. I remember seeing a pic as a result of the trend and finding out ppl called him World Wide Handsome and i found that hilarious and awesome and agreed with the assessment, I remember finding them all super handsome, but at this point still had only heard a little bit of Boy with Love.

Much later (years?) an NPR podcast I followed talked about Blackpink doing coachella and I got curious and watched a couple mvs and was really impressed but still casually. I now had a bit of a better respect for it but was still not really into it yet except thinking blackpink had bops and being generally vaguely aware that blackpink and bts were popular (i really didn’t realize how popular and how much music they were selling tbh).

Time passed and I forgot about it until about this april while I was bored in quarantine. I got SUPER into The Untamed and then super into finding out more about Wang Yibo...which lead to watching all of his dance stuff on youtube, which lead to a ton of stuff about Uniq. I was intrigued by kpop now because of learning more about Uniq, yibo, and then produce 101 and woodz but it was still casual.

I especially loved watching the dancing so I started watching dance compilations on youtube of kpop dancing. The whole dance practice thing amazed me and I had so much fun watching dances but wasn’t really getting into who was who yet or the music really. Then Taemin’s Move happened to me and I was HOOKED on that and watched it a ton of times in the next week or so while also watching playlists of generally popular kpop music vids. I started wanting to just see a bit of what was popular and was having a good time but not really hooked yet beyond quarantine boredom and knowing that looking up kpop dance vids was going to become a thing i did on youtube probably from then on.

By coincidence around this time the Daechwita music video came out and had a ton of views so i got curious and was in awe of it when I watched it. I loved the rapping, the hype-ness, the cinematography, the lyrics...everything. I learned then from the comment section that Agust D was actually Suga from BTS which instantly made me want to know way more about bts, but I was still stuck on thinking of them as pop and amazed that suga was such a good rapper. So I wanted to see how other people reacted to him and watched a ton of reaction vids of ppl reacting to Daechwita.

This made me curious about Suga and BTS so I watched DNA and Boy With Love and enjoyed those but they were more what I expected as more poppy songs, so at that point I just enjoyed it casually for the eye and ear candy, but I was amazed that agust d was one of the members in that group and the duality of that had me intrigued (i naively thought agust d/suga’s rapping was completely a separate persona than BTS, before I realized how talented suga, RM, and jhope are within bts too and how many of their songs have a lot of rap as well). So I wanted to learn more about BTS but just watching stuff by myself seemed boring so I binge watched reaction vids of people reacting to bts for the first time and learned way more about them along with youtubers and had a blast. Watching reaction vids at first felt like hanging out with other clueless friends all chatting about this thing new to us, so somehow it made everything feel more accessible to me especially while I missed casually browsing youtube with my friends during quarantine. Mic Drop was the first of their songs to get stuck in my head and had me specifically looking up the MV/listening to it and searching out ppls reactions to Mic Drop. Then I came across reactions to the 2019 mma performance and was blown away and watched a TON of reactions to that but I still didn’t know who anyone was and hadn’t looked into many lyrics but by then i was super impressed by the effort and performance level.

A turning point from casual fun interest to deeper stanning happened though when I watched a reaction vid someone made (unfortunately can’t remember who now) to Spring Day and the explanation of Spring Day. I was AMAZED at the intellectual and careful artistry in that music video and the heart put into it. This for me started to elevate my curiosity about bts specifically over just being curious about kpop in general. I decided to watch a bunch of reactions to ‘who is bts’ type of vids because i wanted to know their names at that point and I was blindsided by how impressed I was with their thought processes (specifically RM and Suga, especially at first), their individual strengths, their personalities in general, their bonds, their work ethic and ambition, and their inspirational story. I decided to watch their music vids on my own in chronological order and realized that there was reoccurring and connected story and symbolism in their music vids stretching for years and was SO HYPE about that and impressed by it (I love analyzing media, I even was briefly a film major so I was GEEKED about the artistry and symbols in their music vids even before I realized the references or how confusing and deep it ran and that made me like them even more). I googled about the storyline looking for theories/explanations and found the webtoon, which just blew my mind that they even had a webtoon! I read it in one night lol, I was in multimedia heaven honestly I have never heard of a music group being so into using so many mediums for entertainment and was definitely feeling so happy to get into it. THE WINGS SHORT FILMS were I think what officially elevated everything for me and made me know I’d always want to keep an eye on what they were putting out there because it was so so cool to me that they’d have this storyline in their music videos and also take the time to make these little artsy short movies I was SO IMPRESSED and blown away.

The real soul steeling happened though when I saw RM’s UN speech and started watching more compilations and reactions showing RM and Suga talking about their thoughts about their success and their music and learning about the relationships and personalities of the members...I quickly grew to appreciate each individual which really surprised me because how can one group be so complete and have 7 individually interesting people in it. I loved too that they all had their own solo stuff and were allowed to each shine in their own ways. It became about more than music for me at some point in there and I know now I’ll probably have warm feelings about them and want to root for them on a deeper level for a long time. Now their music is so enriched for me by all the behind the scenes stuff I’ve seen. I really in earnest then was mainlining all of the stuff I could in a mix of reaction vids to funny compilations to lyric breakdowns to finding an index that lists as much as possible in chronological order that I’m now watching through including their early vlogs and gameshows and it’s just so fascinating to me how much content they have documenting their whole journey and I am having such a fun and moving and inspiring time watching it. It’s really helped me during quarantine especially and now I can really say I am a really big fan of BTS and probably will be for a really long time.

I still sometimes watch other kpop music vids and have now seen all of TXTs stuff, but so far other groups haven’t grabbed my heart in the same way. I know at some point they probably will and I have been really impressed by the talent all throughout kpop in general that i’ve seen. I can usually only be obsessed with one thing at a time though lol, but I look forward to paying more attention in general to kpop from now on!

But there is something really special to me about BTS right now so I’m just letting myself bask in that obsession and it is so great. So many of their lyrics move me, RM and Suga alone are such interesting people that they alone would make me want to keep up with BTS. But then on top of that the rest are so great in their own ways too and Jimin along the way became probably my ‘bias’ though I really do like them all so much in their own ways that choosing one as a fave feels stupid. Then on the shallower note they are also beautiful, so there is that...but that is such a small piece of why I love them now. Kpop combos everything I love about music...the theatrics, the symbolism, the flashiness, the music, the makeup, the glam, the dancing, the fun, the inspiration, the acting, the iconography...and with bts it’s also a group of guys who are so intensely likable and root-able, with a huge amount of content, who reflect a lot on what it means to love yourself and know yourself and who are really open about how much effort goes into their crazy lives...and I am just upset that I didn’t know more about them years ago.

I can also completely see why fans are a bit obsessive and defensive about the genre and about their fave groups now...because the western media still doesn’t really get how impressive this stuff is and how much work goes into it. I mean already groups like one direction and other pop groups had to fight uphill battles for respect b/c for some reason pop music gets such a bad rep. But western media and ppl who never bother to look into kpop look down on it so dismissively as mindless pop or just about looks and are so extra condescending about it like these kpop groups are lucky to come to the US or something. There’s so much reluctance to embrace it even when it’s so popular, that fans have to shove it’s popularity in ppls faces for it to start to be accepted finally, and even now the attitude in media toward it seems pretty dismissive like it’s just temporary or about teenage girls or they focus on the fans and not the music...or they purposefully overly focus on negative or perceived negatives and look for things to discredit their accomplishments. In some ways the popularity BTS has accomplished is even more impressive to me than the beatles comparisons imply, because BTS did it with a language barrier, while dancing, and in the face of the US still being pretty racist against asians. It really is impressive, and even as a new fan I get so frustrated when people try to dismiss it as fad or minimize their successes and the mark on culture and music history that not just kpop but specifically BTS is making with these accolades and firsts.

Way too much western media focus goes to extra shit like: how young they are (they aren’t even really younger than a lot of american performers anyway), dismissing their involvement in the music process (freaking do your research and give credit where credit is due, many idols are more involved in their creative process than american singers anyway and even if they weren’t why are we suddenly caring about that?!), focusing on the rules they are under from companies (accept that it’s a different culture...also, disney anyone?), crediting their collaborators for their success more than them (sia added absolutely nothing to ON for example...and their success is not because of Halsey..and stop f-ing asking who they want to collab with), not giving credit for their dancing and over-focusing on live vocals without crediting them for singing /while/ dancing (that shit’s hard and no one is doing it like kpop, and even if sometimes live vocals get shaky the way people specifically nitpick and harp on that for them is so stupid when plenty of super popular ‘western’ singers also give some shaky live performances or also use a backing track all while dancing a hell of a lot less), criticizing them for makeup (i honestly think this is thinly disguised racism/fetishism at work because plenty of american male artists wear makeup and are not met with the uncomfortable comparisons to dolls and girls and sexualized criticism that american media gives this), dismissing them as just ‘pretty’, judging them for how the trainee system works (which they don’t really have control over, and is pretty hypocritical anyway when you consider how western music contracts and studios work...shadiness is intense in american music industry too), constantly wanting them to put more english into their music (spanish songs are getting radio play (tbh also not enough), and their global success keeping their korean lyrics proves anyway that we should be moving beyond caring so much about language barriers but the radio/media response is just so behind what people are listening to/buying and it’s frustrating how xenophobic it is). 

now that I know more about it, it’s so insulting how condescending some of the interview questions they get and some of the articles about kpop are because they act like kpop is some alien thing that’s lucky to break into the US as if the US is the center of everything and tbh it’s disrespectful and xenophobic and often racist. kpop is a whole package of entertainment and showmanship that honestly is way more work than most of the famous ‘western’ performers bring to their shows and music vids. I am not naive and I do know that language does affect radio play, but it’s not hard to look up lyric translations and music is really transcendent of language imo. It’s not like they need to be playing every new group or even a ton of korean music, I know that american radio is pretty guttless at the prospect of sharing ‘new’ stuff, it’s a lot of the same stuff repeatedly, but at the very least the groups and songs that are organically selling huge numbers and getting hugely popular should get the radio play that reflects some of that popularity. Really entertainers in the US should be trying to learn from the kpop scene and tbh it should be way more respected than the condescending reluctant attitude music media in the US especially has been giving it. I do feel like maybe the attitudes are changing and I hope they are. I really feel like it’s the future of pop and it’s really exciting for me now to finally know more about it and be more aware of it for the future.

[dreamingoftchalla]

Tender (T'challa x Black! Reader)

A quiet morning of reminiscing first encounters - just a lot of fluff tbh - I ain't good at this or thinking up titles...

Warnings: none? (only very vague mentions of sexiness lmao)

kwelanga yam: my sun

sthandwa sami: my love

Ag (ach): South African filler expression (mostly of disappointment)

Words: 1,734

____________________________________________

T’Challa lies awake, gazing down at his sleeping Queen with an adoration that almost felt suffocating. The smile that stretches across his face could have split it when you hug yourself closer to his side. His fingers trace gently against your spine, marvelling the smoothness of your glowing brown skin - so rich that the Wakandan soil crumbles with envy. In some places, gold ribbons sought the fuller curves of your form; it told him of the war your body has overcome. You are a work of art, the epitome of beauty and he worships every detail of you.

He tries not to laugh at himself. The teasing Shuri and Okoye subjects him to definitely comes from truth. “You are a soft touch, brother,” he remembers Shuri telling him when he had spent the day gushing to her about “the beauty from the market.” After a while, she had him removed from her lab, for he would not “shut up” and let her concentrate.

T’Challa thinks back to the day you both met. It was an unusual meeting and a chuckle rumbles in his chest. You were (and still are) feisty, and as much capable as the Dora Milaje.

____________________________________________

You are at one of the many vibrant fruit stands, palming mangoes, muttering to yourself about their over-ripeness and the ridiculous pricing for such bad produce amongst a sea of quality. No, you are just bitter because your older sister, Bucchi, got out of doing the shopping…

…But also because you can feel eyes burning a hole in the back of your neck. You find yourself frequently turning around, scanning the cheerful melanin-enriched faces surrounding you. Each time coming up with nothing out of the ordinary (other than your paranoia…). Clicking your tongue with growing impatience (because again, that watched feeling has returned and you really don't wanna be dealing with this type of foolishness), you leave the stand in search for another, your empty woven basket tucked protectively beneath your arm.

That's when you feel a sharp yank on your basket, almost enough to make you miss your footing.

“Ehn!”

You're surprised the tugging persists. This fool is brave. The initial shock transforms into anger when you look over your shoulder to find a skinny old man with a stupid smile on his face. However, upon seeing the fire in your eyes and the venom in your voice when you yell, “I will smack you O!”, the man’s grip loosens.

“Sorry ma… Please ma, he-the pr-”

You snatch the basket back, cursing as you leave. All you wanted to do is get fruit and go, but instead, you were fixing to fight an old man.

“Imagine!”

You are not doing this again. You will tell baba about this day and he will never allow you to endure such suffering again, and it will be Bucchi that will have to-

-Your thoughts are stilled by the sudden tap on your shoulder.

It is not often you are stunned into silence, but the man stood before you was a good reason to be speechless.

Prince T’Challa. The Prince is there, stood before you, arms bearing fruit and vegetables. He must have seen the exchange you had with the old man; the amused grin on his face is telling….

… His face…This handsome face is the face that will make you want to recite poems, visit children in orphanages... but also make you want to sin on a Sunday, and daydream of different ways of sinning every other day….

You clear your throat, and maintain eye contact as best as you can. “Your highness. ” You attempt to keep your voice level, but in doing so, your voice comes out with the vague sarcastic edge you often reserve for your sister.

The Prince’s smile doesn't falter, but he begins to shift from where he stands, now cautious. “I cannot help but feel it is my fault you have left with an empty basket,”

You're floored by his voice. Yes, you have heard him speak plenty of times on the tv, but that is very different to in the flesh. His voice on the tv did not raise the skin on your arms. His voice on the tv did not carry the same power his soft tone possessed. The power it had to make you weak at the knees.

You're in an endless spiral, staring at the man before you, observing the way his posture is changing, his amusement returning, but with a sense of bashfulness that surprises you….

That's when you remember what he said, and you are bemused. You welcome the feeling, for fear your longing for the Prince may have been written all over your face. Also, you have been staring for too long. “Your fault?” you manage, your own voice sounding alien with a new found gentleness.

“I believe…if I had not been so distracted, you would not have left so soon.”

Prince T’Challa sighs, seeing his words have not managed to remove your confusion. “I am sorry. I should have requested the favour from one of the children. I did not expect the old man to approach you with such aggression.”

You stare at him, eyes squinted as it finally makes sense to you. So the Prince had been the cause of that watched feeling. The old man was to get your attention.

Ahn, Ahn! You feel bad. You were quick to threaten the old man….No, that was not your fault, you thought he was going to steal from you. All because of a certain shy Prince.

A wry smile settles on your face and you hold out the basket. He empties the fruit into it. You hoist the basket up and place it atop your colourful headwrap. “Eh hen! I see. Well, you are forgiven. ” His relief is palpable, and you still have his undivided attention. So you tease, “I am surprised I was wrong to believe the Prince of Wakanda was a courageous man,”

“Ah…I,” You giggle as he fumbles over his words. And since when do you produce such a sound like giggling? Your laughter is usually throaty, loud, dirty, never this musical nonsense. The Prince is smiling now, and you are gifted with the view of the endearing gap in his teeth. Your heart drops into your vagina.

“Maybe so,” he laughs, taking a brazen step closer to you. If your heart beats any faster, you fear you’ll faint. “Though, you cannot blame me for being entranced by your beauty. It is enough to render any man weak and instill him with the strength of an army,”

You praise God for your skin set deep with melanin; blood rushes to your face at his words. Now you are struggling to find your equilibrium, your palms are moist with sweat, and your legs feel unsteady. However, you are stubborn, and with a defiant lift of your chin, you accept the flirting as a dual. A dual you will not lose. Why are you like this?

“Then I look forward to seeing both sides of the Prince. Often.”

Once again, he is at a loss of words, and yet again, you are making that sound. Giggling. You feel bold, bold enough to take his hand in yours and kiss the back of it, ignoring the way the size of his hand causes your stomach to swim with yearning. When you meet his eyes again, mirth is shining brightly in its cocoa depths.

You curtsey and start to make your way home with an extra spring in your step.

The Prince watches as you leave, astonished. He knew then that he wanted you in his life for as long as he walks the earth.

____________________________________________

Your lips find his collarbone, delicate kisses pressing across the hard expanse of his chest until he finally looks down at you. He had been so lost in his thoughts, he didn't even notice when you awakened, or when you had placed yourself in his arms, your body draped over his.

“Sthandwa sami, kwelanga yam,” his voice is vaguely singsong in tone, and the gentleness melts you. You feel whenever you look at him, hear him, sense him, your love renews. It's as though you are falling in love all over again.

You can never tire of this man.

Your King.

“By Bast, you will kill me with such an expression,” he smiles, cradling your face. But you can't help how you gaze upon him. You have never loved someone so deeply.

“Then I will have Shuri clone you, maybe she can sort out the error you experience. The freezing, abi?”

He exaggerates a gasp, his head dodging your hands which attempt to sooth his face as you laugh. “Ag, but you said it was cute,” he mutters, pretending to sulk.

“It is very cute, my King. But when you freeze, I swoon, and then we are both incapacitated. Who will run the Kingdom while we are in error mode?”

T’Challa’s grin is so wide, and you can't hold back those girlish giggles. You have come to accept that whenever you are in your King's presence, giggles have become inevitable. For only the King can draw such gentle sounds from you…. Although, he also manages to unearth raw, filthy sounds from your lips that you didn't think you were capable of making.

“There are methods to tackle our ‘error mode’, if you will allow me to demonstrate,”

You lean down to capture his lips between your own. Your lips move in tandem, savouring the taste of one another, but much too soon for T’Challa’s liking, you lean away.

“Later. Let us wash up, we must meet everyone for breakfast,” You are already stepping out of bed, your body bare of materials, but your rich dark skin wears the golden bands of sunlight just as well. You bend over to collect your robe from the floor and your King's wanton groan causes you to grin.

“My Queen...We can spare another hour, hm?”

This has become routine - next he will try to get out of the bed as quickly and quietly as possible, so that he can pluck your robe from your grasp. Then his eyes will take their sweet time raking over your body, relishing every curve, causing your south to liquefy. Then he will pull you into his embrace, but you have already given in by then because those beautiful eyes have convinced you that a few hours are needed.

Unfortunately for your King, the Black Panther, today he is too slow.

[gallopinggold]

A little bit of our Sunday together. I thought it was going to be freezing out so I brought some hot soaked alfalfa pellets for Mary, but it ended up being pretty warm. Mary didn't mind the extra snacks though. After she finished all her snackies, we went for just an easy going wall around the cross country field. She was looking very stiff in her joints from the cold, so I wanted to do just some light movement to warm them up, and then do her carrot stretches. I saw the the arena was set up with this little pole configuration, so I actually ended up hand walking Mary over then a few times as well to finish out our walk. We obviously skipped the big cross rail, but we went over all the rest, just to get her to lift up a bit. She has lost a ton of muscle tone, I think she because she gets stiff in her joints in the cold and doesn't walk around as much in the pasture, so I'm trying to reincorporate some in hand exercises to help when I'm there. I don't think I'll ride her again for awhile, it's not really fair to put that extra strain on her while she's clearly feeling the season change. I'm gonna honestly keep it pretty easy on her until the time change, then we'll start working on rebuilding her topline in hand to transition back into riding in time for spring weather. For now, well stick with just walks around the property for some gentle movement and enrichment.

The amount of rain and ossilations between hot and cold weather (it's been in the 60s most days tbh) has made the grass absolutely neon green again. The second photo is not filtered at all, it is literally just the bright out. The BO put out round bales like 2 weeks ago now when it was dipping below freezing at night, but the horses have barely touched them because the grass just won't die lol. Ive looked them over and they are nice bales, not moldy or weedy, they really just could not care less, and it's not like Mary is looking skinny.

[toastisntjusttoast]

I think I’m done finding someone to fill the void. I just want to be happy about me. Today I turned someone down who I wouldn’t have say a few months ago. It’s the first time in awhile I felt like I had self respect. Somethings will only work for awhile to make me feel better, I think in a way that’s using someone. Like not for sex but for like emotional security. I think it’s just as bad. If I’m gonna be with someone it’s because they make me stronger together, they make me happy without fixing me or trying to. Well, I guess they could try and that’s fine. I just can’t be with someone cause I want them to fix me emotionally. I think that’s been my problem for like half a year. There been so many people I’ve bee. with in that time. I don’t recall feeling anything for them but a desire to fix me or to replace what I lost. I’m pretty ashamed of myself. I need to do this for me. And I need to fix this on my own. How am I supposed to find love when I have zero self respect or esteem. I want love more than anything. I have so much to give. But I want it to go to the right person. Someone who compliments me and enriches my life. Maybe that’s a stretch but I feel like that’s what I need.

Though tbh, I take her back. Not right away. We’d have to see if we got past what happened. But, there was something so special about her. I don’t think she feels the same, so I guess maybe that’s kinda a side note. She’s so hard to read now. She never was before. It’s nice to talk to her again though even though it seems like she only lets herself for a little while and goes back to not talking or something. Part of me wants to understand why but maybe it will make me feel sad so I don’t think I wanna know. All I know is I can live with it. Something is there, I just have no idea what it is. Maybe it’s just a memory. It just feels like more.