#more so on twitter than tumblr to be clear

[laconchadetumadre]

i've seen this joke on twitter and tumblr a few times. And in fanfic kyle is often portrayed as being the "least experienced" or more awkward out of the m4. its fine if people like this hc/trope. Ultimately, fanon doesnt have to stick to canon. It's just that your post reminded me of that, so i hopped in here to share my own thoughts.

about kyle actually fumbling nichole. like i said, the situation was already unfavorable for him. kyle didn't have much a chance to fumble from the very start but if thats how you see it, its fair.

"Kyle never once tried to explain (...) that he wasn’t gay (...) he and cartman weren’t dating"

im pretty sure this is merely because there wouldnt have been enough time for all that. you kinda have to keep in mind that mattrey only have about 20 minutes to flesh out a whole plot, and their main goal is to deliver jokes, not romantic plotlines.

kyle did ask cartman before to clear the rumors right after finding out about them at the playground (and only kept quiet because cartman manipulated him into it) which already lets us know that kyle didnt like the rumors (or cartman), so a scene where kyle tells nichole about it would have been repetitive.

if you want an in-universe explanation tho, i guess you could say that by the time kyle decided to explain things to nichole he had already given up on trying to date her. Therefore there wasnt much of a point in denying the rumors to her in particular. it wouldnt have changed anything anyway.

"he only told her about how cartman was setting her and tolkien up"

and thats really all nichole needed to be told tbh. that alone reveals to her that cartman is racist and not to be trusted (so technically she could infer that everything he told her is a lie) and it is what leads to the conclusion of her arc with tolkien. anything else would have been unnecessary and kind of a waste of screetime

"he literally fucks off to go to cartman like bro this is why you can’t keep a relationship longer than a day"

if you mean kyle coming to cartman at the playground, again, its more about mattrey pacing the episode based on whats more funny and entertaining rather than something to look into. like, yeah, had kyle gone to nichole first it could have fixed everything from the start, but we wouldnt have an episode.

plus, i kinda think it was good he went to cartman. cartman was the one who started the rumor after all, so he should be the one to clear kyle's name. and maybe kyle did try to deny the rumors, but the other kids might as well not have believed him.

i did figure the kyman bit was a joke and, like i said, I don't mind the ship, but i was only taking the canon into account for my post. mattrey definitely know and play about kyman in some episodes (the same way they do with other ships like style, bunny, butman, candy, etc), but it hasn't been seriously adressed in canon so, to me, it doesn't count ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

i was gonna address the whole s20 thing but i've had this in my drafts for days now so im gonna make it short. from my pov kyle wasn't jealous, he was dubious and suspicious of cartman (reasonably so) and later when he realized cartman was abussive to heidi did he intervine (which is GOOD, its true he could have handled things better, but heidi did need help and his heart was in the right place) him crying over that picture can mean a lot of things, not necessarily that he has secret feelings for cartman.

Hey chat here’s a compilation of every relationship Kyle was in but fumbled them all because he’s destined to be bitchless till the day he dies

[handlewithcharacter]

Nothing quite like seeing people @ing creators and actors online to yell at them for not having a character on a show to such a degree that the they have to actually respond to the hate to say that the actress was in ENGLAND and it was 2021 which was the HEIGHT OF COVID and she DIDNT WANT TO DO IT. Nothing quite like seeing people still spewing vitriol at the creators and actors in spite of this.

[rainingincale]

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[patchesjam]

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[kijosakka]

switching between platforms gives me whiplash

[nyancrimew]

feverish ramble about tiktok and social media politics, probably not super well phrased so dont be too nitpicky about shit i said, but ive been meaning to put this into words for a while

i do think its kind of interesting (read: concerning) how tiktok is like the one social media site where everyone all across the political spectrum is so quick to somehow blame the company for opinions people have on the app, like there is massive groups of people having weird fringe shit opinions on tumblr and there is never really any calls to shut tumblr down over it. and even with youtube there is this certain nuance where people blame youtube for how it recommends right wing content so readily, but do not equate that with youtube being in on some sinister US government conspiracy or whatever, but when tiktoks (fairly neutral and overall not much more sinister*) recommendation system pushes fringe content to people (who usually interacted with similar content before) it immediately becomes a whole conspiracy theory about how china is trying to do x or y and how they are definitely doing this on purpose. rather than it being the same bad recommender as youtube which pushes divisive content as it creates engagement. like to be clear this isn't a defense of content any recommendation systems push, and they definitely need to be made more robust to prevent artificial polarization, but when it comes to actual suppression of content all social media sites do that sometimes (it's not like the US government never requests and does shit like that either lol, like try posting a link to ddosecrets.com on twitter, good luck) and im just tired of seeing misinformed blatantly sinophobic takes about tiktok from all across the political spectrum, like no forcing tiktok to be an american company instead wont change shit, if they do censor it would then just be at the whims of the US which is what they really want. * basically it comes down to the shorter form content making it way easier to forget about anything that shows up on your feed that you arent actually interested in as you just swipe it away, studies have shown no significant difference in youtube and tiktok recommenders

[magicalmanhattanproject]

Okay, so with Quackity Studios tweeting about adding new people and the need for tolerance and patience with people who don't speak English, let's just take a second and have a chat about what that's gonna look like.

First: you will hear things or read things on the translator that hurt or offend you.

This is inevitable. Do not immediately post about it. What you need tolerance for is hearing things that hurt or offend you and what you need patience for is figuring out of malicious intent was present or if this is a hill worth dying on right now.

As an example, we're pretty sure at this point that Korean is gonna be the next language added. The second person pronoun in Korean sounds a lot like the n-word in English. The n-word in English, if you're not aware, is like the single most offensive slur we have. It's not something that you want to hear unexpectedly. But also, if we get Koreans, they're gonna be using the word for "you" and English speakers are gonna have to be able to tolerate that.

On the other side of things, Korean has a complex system of honorifics and addressing someone without an honorific would be considered very forward and intimate at least if not very rude. None of the QSMP languages have honorifics though and only French really retains formality* so no one else is going to address them with honorifics unless they specifically explain it to people and walk them through it. That will probably be weird and uncomfortable for them and they're going to have to be able to tolerate that.

*Spanish and Portuguese do technically have formal vs informal but it's disappearing quickly in both of them.

These natural cultural clashes and pain points are going to be harder to overcome since we also know that at least some of these creators won't speak English at all so they can't just switch to English to helpfully explain things to us easily in a way we understand. We're going to have to deal.

So here's the thing: just because there can be cultural miscommunications and mistranslations, that doesn't mean that people can't also be assholes. How do you distinguish between the two?

Step One: Assume good faith. Assume that everyone in a given encounter is trying to communicate respectfully and compassionately and that a failure to do so can be overcome

Step Two: Don't get involved. Especially not in Twitch Chat. Two or more people trying to communicate through a language barrier does not get easier when they're also trying to wrangle hostile viewers.

Step Three: Are you sure you heard what you thought you heard or saw what you thought you saw? Did the translator fuck up? Is it a word that just coincidentally happens to sound like another word? If this is the case, the streamers can ask for clarification or use another tool and get it cleared up. Keep watching and see if they do.

Step Four: If they did say what you thought they said, are the streamers handling it? We had a thing a while back where Bad called some friends, including Bagi and Etoiles, uncultured because they didn't get a reference he was making and Etoiles was like "bro I'm French" and Bad apologized. That should have been the end of it, but I had to see people arguing about it for weeks. The problem was solved in 10 seconds.

Step Five: If the person is doubling down, are you sure this is something you can fix by yelling about it on Twitter or Tumblr? Would it be better to let people who actually know them talk to them behind the scenes? Pierre made a few missteps in the beginning of the server, Quackity said they had a chat, Pierre hasn't misstepped since. It's just easier to sort things out in private, one on one conversation than yelling at someone in public.

In short: it's fine to take note of behavior in case patterns start to emerge in it, but yelling on social media about how so and so is the worst person possible is not constructive.

[ms-demeanor]

making my own post because nobody needs my bullshit on their post:

OP:

Reblog 1:

Reblog 2:

My response:

The IRA blogs were here and they were active and they were quite popular; their posting patterns did not match normal tumblr users (i was followed by lagonegirl and followed back only to be put off by the account reblogging the same five or ten posts every hour for a day before selecting another five or ten posts to reblog hourly the next day - it was clear engagement bait).

Tumblr has never been as transparent about these accounts as both Twitter and Facebook were, but several of the accounts had shared names across platforms and you can find a significant amount of data that was released by both facebook (ex: ads purchased by the IRA accounts) and twitter (over three million tweets from IRA accounts). Academic researchers have published papers on the data released from facebook and twitter. Several papers. So many papers. Soooooo many papers. We have a LOT of direct evidence that you can explore for yourself that there were hundreds (possibly thousands) of IRA accounts that were created on Facebook and Twitter. Of those accounts, some shared usernames across platforms, and of those accounts, a few had tumblr accounts that posted the same content on twitter and tumblr.

To quote a buzzfeed news article from the time:

The Russian-run Tumblr accounts used the same, or very similar, usernames as the account names contained on a list of confirmed IRA accounts Twitter submitted to congressional investigators. In some cases, the Tumblr and Twitter account has the same profile image or linked to each other in their bios. Some IRA Tumblrs and Twitter accounts also cross-promoted content between platforms, further linking them together.

Current tumblr user @ alwaysbewoke (who I don't want to tag because I'm sure he's got better things to do) is interviewed in that article and talks about following one of the blogs identified by tumblr as an IRA blog that had a matching account on twitter identified as an IRA account but unfollowing when the left-leaning blog supposedly run by a black creator started rooting for trump in the election.

Dr. Jonathan Albright is heavily quoted in the article; the data review he collaborated on is one of the only reviews of this subject that includes data from Tumblr and Reddit.

One of the claims that I've seen is that tumblr just deleted funny black people, but these were blogs with thousands of followers on tumblr who never recreated, never popped up on another social media site, never started a reddit account after getting banned; nobody ever showed up saying "hey this is 4mysquad, I got banned on tumblr and twitter, follow me to pillowfort". These very popular blogs got deleted and, as far as I know, nobody ever popped up claiming to be a person who was deleted - and it's not like tumblr users haven't figured out how to evade bans.

What you are doing when you make posts saying that the IRA accounts on tumblr never existed is *absolving tumblr of guilt for their utter lack of transparency.*

Tumblr is not the only tech company that has tried to fly under the radar as its larger counterparts face regular scrutiny in Congress and in the press. Earlier this month, Reddit revealed it too had deleted hundreds of accounts with ties to the Internet Research Agency. A WIRED investigation found more than a thousand links to Russian propaganda websites are still live on Reddit, and unearthed two suspicious accounts that Reddit immediately shut down.

So should you believe what Tumblr says? No, because Tumblr has been functionally fucking silent on this issue and the information about this subject aside from the list of blogs has come from the hard work of data scientists, journalists, and researchers.

(For the record; some of those bot accounts that were recorded by Dr. Albright also had Google+ accounts in 2017 - there is every possibility that they had myspace accounts).

Now, the reason that I'm popping onto this post as an annoyed anarchist is that I was tracking a similar group of blogs for a while and was discussing them and I stopped precisely because of the galaxy-brained liberals who are now trying to dunk on communists for criticizing electoralism. One of the people who was following my project was one of the ones who started calling out the "joe biden kills dogs" posts as disinfo and I realized they were using some of the guidelines I'd written up to "identify" misinformation and that is very a rock fucking stupid approach to what was clearly a leftist making jokes and was horrified and realized there was no way that I could continue documenting what I was documenting without someone attempting to call actual leftists russian bots.

I've seen the post that OP is referencing [it's one where someone makes a very obvious joke about the democrat presidential ticket and people jump on to call them a bot and then someone tries to do the "AI tell me a story" thing and OP is just like "I don't want to :(", proving that they are in fact a person and not an AI] and have deeply enjoyed the humor of watching liberals a) not understand a very, VERY obvious joke and b) become the unwitting butt of a joke they were trying to make, but also I am so exhausted by watching normie dems call leftists AI bots after years of watching normie dems call real live actual leftists who hold actual political views that real people actually have, like prison abolition, russian bots.

But I am also so fucking tired of left conspiracism and how stupid it sounds when leftists dismiss a preponderance of evidence that is easily accessible and publicly available for analysis as "lol so you just trust everything tumblr tells you?"

No, dipshit, learn to click a fucking link or twelve.

[porcelana-r0ta]

let the mourners come

Title: let the mourners come

Ao3 Link: Only available to Ao3 users

Word Count: 3045

Summary:

It started, as most things do with Danny Fenton, as a joke.

It ended, as most things do with Jazz Fenton, with things better than they were before.

xxXxx

When Danny finally gets a Twitter, it’s during Elon Musk’s shit show takeover. He’s able to secure a good Twitter handle thanks to people leaving en masse and fleeing to Tumblr. He knows about things that happen outside of Amity Park (he is terminally online rather than chronically, after all), but he still doesn’t think anything of using @TheJoker as his handle, even knowing about Gotham City’s clown troubles. It’s just going to be a shitpost account, anyway, one that dances in the chaos of Elon’s electronic graveyard. Nothing will come about him using @TheJoker when he’s merely posting things like, “Just grew a new row of teeth!!! very pointy but can’t go to the dentist anymore bc they might turn me in to the giw.”

So Danny honestly never foresaw The Actual Real Joker breaking out of Arkham Asylum all the way in Gotham City, New Jersey, and deciding to get a Twitter account to terrorize people online as well as offline. And he definitely never foresaw The Joker @’ing him on Twitter, demanding that Danny change his Twitter handle. But, well. Here he was. 

[Image Description: A screenshot of a Twitter reply chain, starting with the real Joker @'ing Danny's Twitter account, which uses TheJoker as his Twitter handle. The Joker, who has a verified account, demands that Danny "change your handle", and Danny replies with a simple "no" followed by red heart emoji. The Joker Tweets, "Kid you don't know who you're fucking with," to which Danny replies, "Ye I do ur some dude w/ poor fashion sense and lame jokes. Maybe try badjokesbyjeff bc originality is ugly on u" followed by a shrugging emoticon. The Joker responds, "Check your DMs." Danny then responds, "Perf [happy emoji surrounded by hearts] I've sent you a time and place. Can't wait to beat the shit out of another disgrace of a clown." Someone with the username "Gregg rulz ok" responds to Danny's last Tweet, "Bro is absolutely RATIOING the joker but the clown keeps responding [three skull emojis] embarrassing frfr too bad he's gonna die for realsies".

End ID]

Danny is quick to respond and then makes even quicker work of roasting The Joker. This soon results in The Joker DMing him his IP Address and a creative threat. Still, Danny isn’t about to cow to a clown with no respect for the art of clowning. He replies to the DM: 

Cool, meet me at the Nasty Burger parking lot in Amity Park IL on tuesday at 2am

The response from The Joker is quick:

Fourteen year olds are too confident these days

Danny rolls his eyes and ignores the influx of notifications from Twitter, and instead makes another Tweet.

Imagine beefing with someone over a Twitter handle lol acc so embarrassing for him

He blackens his screen and stretches in bed, letting his spine pop more than what is humanly possible. He runs his tongue over that second row of teeth, his lips curling into a grin. 

xxXxx

Gothamite Twitter is blowing up over The Joker’s social media beef with a faceless shitposting account. Jason, upon finding out about it, has a series of reactions: first, he looks up the shitposter and follows them. Then, he finds the actual chain between the poster and The Joker, and his vision goes vibrant green when he sees that The Joker’s profile picture is of the second Robin, beaten and swollen in an abandoned building in Ethiopia. 

When his vision clears and he can breathe without wanting to kill, he likes the shitposter’s replies, and he calls the Replacement to see if the other Bats know already.

“We know,” Tim says in lieu of a hello when the ringing cuts out. “We’re working on it.”

“What, you think anything’s gonna come of it?” But even as Jason asks, he already knows the answer. The Joker is unhinged and once he’s threatened something, he’ll follow up unless he comes up with a “funnier” option. 

Tim’s breath hitches, and he says, “I’ve hacked their DMs. Joker knows the kid’s IP address and sent it to him. He knows everything from that address alone.”

He pauses in the middle of suiting up, “Kid?”

He hears Tim swallow, “Yes, kid. He’s fifteen. And he gave The Joker a specific time and place to meet up to fight. In his own hometown.”

“Are— are you fucking kidding me?” 

“No. B is already calling Nightwing. We’re taking the Batwing to Illinois.”

“Jesus fuck. I’ll be there in twenty.”

“Hood, I—”

“Shut up, I’m already in my gear.” He hangs up without waiting for a response. 

He refreshes the Twitter feed and barks a laugh at the newest Tweet:

Jason Todd votes, and the Red Hood leaves his safe house. 

xxXxx

A commercial flight to Illinois takes around two and a half hours. In the Batwing, they get there in an hour, and don’t even have to worry about the drive from Chicago to a small speck of a town like Amity Park. They spend the quick flight learning everything they can about Daniel James Fenton, the owner of the Twitter account, and they can all sense the growing tension from (and between) Bruce and Jason.

But, well. Jason doesn’t care. Let them be uncomfortable. It doesn’t compare to being ripped back into life and finding out his dad didn’t even get justice for his death. 

When they reach town, it doesn’t take long to find the Fentons’ home. This is in part because Amity Park is a very navigable town, and because of the giant neon sign proclaiming FentonWorks on the side of the building. 

“Is that a blimp?” Dick asks. “Why don’t we have a blimp?” 

“Where would we keep it?” the Demon Brat counters practically. “Goliath takes up all of the Cave’s extra space.” 

Jason rolls his eyes and knows veins would be popping out of Bruce’s forehead if it weren’t for the cowl. 

“Let’s go,” Bruce says instead, and they all make their way to the house. 

Nightwing, predictably, goes for the front door approach. Jason rolls his eyes as he takes one of the second-story windows and finds his way downstairs.

He gets down at the same time that a redheaded girl answers the door and nearly slams it in Dick’s face. Jason has to suppress snickers at the sight. 

“Wait, wait, wait, are you Jazz Fenton? We need to talk to your brother!” 

“...We?” she asks, then tenses and turns around to see the rest of the Bats in the hall behind her. Dick takes the opportunity to step in completely, closing the door behind him. “Wha— what’s going on?”

“Where are your parents, Jazz?” Bruce makes every question sound like a demand. Jason rolls his eyes from behind his mask—way to put the teenager at ease, B.

“Why do you need to know?” Her voice has a defensive edge to it. “What do you want with Danny?” 

“Hey, it’s okay,” Nightwing comforts. “He didn’t do anything too bad, just said some dumb things online. It’s not his fault.” 

This relaxes her, and her shoulders begin un-hunching. “Oh, s-so what’d he do?”

“He foolishly challenged The Joker to a battle in a ‘Nasty Burger’ parking lot tonight.” 

“You could’ve had some more tact, Robin,” Nightwing scolds. But the Demon Spawn just crosses his arms. 

“He did what?” Jazz shrieks. “Like, The Joker from Gotham? That Joker?”

“Are there others?” Red Hood comments dryly. 

Her face goes through several different emotions—disbelief, rage, fear, and then rage again, “DANIEL JAMES FENTON! GET DOWN HERE RIGHT NOW!” 

There’s a thumping noise, and then frantic footsteps down the stairs. 

“Wha? Who died?” asks the figure of a tiny fifteen-year-old, smaller than even Jason had been when he was alone with The Joker. He’s tiny and lanky. Zero muscle definition. Eye bags to rival the Replacement’s. Something ripples in the Pit, deep and distinct, but he can’t name what causes it.

Oh, this kid is so dead. 

“Danny,” says Jazz calmly while Danny blinks uncomprehendingly at the heroes in their hallway. She is solemn when she says, “I’m afraid I’m going to have to kill you now.” 

“What did I do?” 

She stares at him, “Why have you scheduled a fight with The Joker?” 

“Oh, that.” He rubs the back of his neck, “Is he taking that seriously?”

“Of course he is, Danny! It’s The Joker! That’s what he does! He can’t differentiate between a joke and reality! He would tear off his own face for the bit!” 

“Oof,” is all Danny can muster. He digs his phone out and starts typing before Jazz yanks it out his hand. 

“You’re fucking TWEETING about this?” Jazz asks incredulously, and Hood’s hackles rise. She even reads the Tweet aloud, “‘Just found out @TheJ0ker is being fr about fighting me. Sad but i can take a clown.’”

“I was gonna add ‘i’ve done it b4,’ but like the letter and the number four. But yeah.” 

“You’re grounded forever.” Danny opens his mouth to protest, but the look Jazz cuts at him is so scathing that he shuts his mouth. Hood is reluctantly impressed—she had what could be cultivated into a fantastic Batglare. She pockets the phone, “You’re never getting this phone back. Taunting The Joker to Amity? Have you any brain cells? What if he brings Joker gas with him, huh? Or any of his goons? What if he starts hurting other people? Have you thought any of this through?” 

Danny’s face goes from tired to chastised, his lips drawing into a frown, especially at the mention of other people. 

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t think that he’d take it so seriously.”

“He sent you your IP Address.”

“I thought that was just a random string of numbers?”

“Oh my god,” Jazz despairs. “Oh my god. Grounded forever. See, I know you're lying to me. I know you're lying because Tucker, the nerdiest tech nerd to have ever been born, is your best friend.”

He rubs the back of his neck, “I tune him out?”

“You’re still lying to me?” Jazz scoffs and turns to Batman, “Do whatever you want with him. I’m not going to defend him from this.” 

“Hey!” complained her brother, but Batman just continued on, “Where are your parents?”

“They’re in Sweden for a science convention,” Jazz answers. “They left this morning.” 

Damn, Jason curses to himself. 

“Jazz, seriously. You’re not gonna let Batman kill me, right?” 

“Do you want to be cremated or buried, Danny?” Jazz asks blasély, and Danny gulps, refusing to meet anyone’s eyes. 

“It’s my Twitter handle,” he mutters petulantly, and Jason can’t believe the gall of this kid. Or maybe stupidity. Audacity’s a good one, too. “If he wanted it, he should’ve gotten it first. And he gives clowns a bad name.” 

“Not the clown thing again.” Jazz digs her palms into her eyes, sighs, then turns to the heroes. “He has a whole clown thing ever since Circus Gothica came to town and robbed a bunch of jewelry stores.” 

Danny gestures wildly with his hands, as if demonizing clowns was the real problem and not the egomaniacal mass murderer who wanted to murder him for his Twitter handle, “Clowning is an art form, Jazz, and people like Freakshow and The Joker make a mockery of the very serious societal statements that clowns make!” 

All of the Bats very carefully Did Not look at Nightwing, who has made very similar rants on quiet patrols.

“You are never leaving this house again,” she says serenely. “And I’m unplugging the wifi router.”

“You would punish even yourself?”

“Oh, little brother. I would watch the world burn if it meant knocking sense into your thick skull.” 

“Okay, Christ,” Red Hood finally interrupted the siblings’ melodrama. An unyielding redheaded girl and a mouthy black-haired, blue-eyed boy? They’d fit in a little too well back at the Manor, so Jason needs to cut this shit out before Bruce’s bat-doption instincts start tingling. “Stop. Just… Christ. Stop. Is this how you always interact with each other?”

“Sometimes there’s explosions,” Danny pipes up, a cheeky grin on his face. 

Jazz doesn’t dispute it. 

Fucking hell. God damn it. I can’t. I just can’t. 

Batman doesn’t give anything away, “Robin and Red Robin will be staying here with you until Nightwing, Hood, and I apprehend The Joker. First, we’re going to check the perimeter.” 

“Oooh, I get to give the lab tour!” 

Lab?

“No lab. You’re grounded. You’ll only be in there for cleaning duty now.”

“Wh– hey! No fair!” 

“What’s this lab you two are talking about?” Red Robin asks before Jazz can rip into her brother again. 

She sighs, “Our parents’ lab. I’ll show you, but someone needs to stay with Danny.” 

“You act like I’m gonna run off and start World War III….”

“I wonder why,” she says sarcastically.

Batman nods to Robin, who nods back, and the rest of them follow Jazz out of the living room to a metal reinforced door. She types in a code—Jason catches the numbers 03-14-99. There’s an assenting beep, and she opens the door, flicking on the lights and leading them down into what is apparently a basement lab. 

A stone settles in Red Hood’s stomach, cold and heavy. 

The basement is large, likely the floor size of the entire building. There are several work tables, filled with miscellaneous blueprints and spare parts and weapons and tools. Against the farthest wall is another armored door, but what draws Hood’s—and the entire Batclan’s—attention is the south wall, where a circular hole in the wall was glowing a toxic Pit green. 

The stone shattered in his stomach, splintering into his body. Is it harder or easier to breathe? Jason can’t tell. 

“Wow,” says Nightwing. His voice is cheerful, but Jason can feel the stress beneath it. “Do I even want to know?” 

Wasn’t this supposed to just be typical Joker bullshit?

“Our parents are ectobiologists,” Jazz explains nonchalantly, walking further into the lab. “As in, ghost biologists.” She pauses at one of the work tables, picking up a green and white thermos. Pretty boring, considering the rest of their surroundings. 

“Ghosts.” Red Robin’s voice is carefully neutral. 

“Ghosts,” Jazz reaffirms. “I know. I thought they were crazy at first, too. But I can prove it, if you like.” Then, without waiting for a yes or no, she untwists the thermos, and there’s a bright flash of white, and a whole entire body sprouting out of it. 

“WHOO! I’M FREE!” cries the…being, pale and floating and lanky and entirely too big to have fit into a fucking thermos, of all the fucking things. “....And not in the Realms? Wait.” He stops stretching, descending to rest closer to the ground, but still hovering a few inches from the floor. He’s got green eyes and lifeless (ha) blond hair. He’s wearing a trenchcoat and a green skull necklace. Overall, he looks like the type of thug he’d arrest in the Bowery. 

“Hello, Johnny.” The man’s—ghost’s?—eyes flicker around each person in the room, his gaze becoming more and more confused and panicked as he takes in each Bat, before settling on Jazz Fenton. 

“Why are the fucking Bats here?” 

“The Joker’s coming to Amity,” she says. The ghost’s eyes widen. Jazz tilts her head, “How many ghosts would you say passed away in Gotham, Johnny?” 

As Jason and the Bats tense, this Johnny guy lets out a wicked laugh, “Oh, Doll, you have the best surprises. Why did we break up?” 

“You did try to have my body possessed. That ruins any good relationship.” 

“Man, but Kitty’ll love this. Thanks for letting me out of Soup Time, Doll.” He floats higher, “Any advice?” 

She throws him the phone she’d confiscated from Danny and he catches it easily, “Everything’s on here. Have fun.”

“What exactly are you planning?” Batman scowls. 

Johnny laughs, “Aww, don’t worry, Bats. Peace and love on Planet Earth, or whatever. We’ll make it quick.” Then, as the Bats leap into action as one, Johnny turns invisible, the Batarangs passing harmlessly through where he’d once been floating. 

“Where did he go?” Batman turns his scowl, angrier than ever, to Jazmin Fenton, who stares back unflinchingly. “He’s going to solve the problem.”

“You mean he’s going to kill The Joker.”

She shakes her head, “Oh, no. That’d just be asking for him to come back as a ghost. Could you imagine a Joker with powers like invisibility, intangibility, flight, and more? Johnny can be impulsive, but he’s smart. None of them will kill The Joker.” 

“Then what are they going to do?” Red Robin asks. 

“My parents are ectobiologists,” Jazz repeats from earlier. “But I am more of an anthro-ectopologist. I am concerned with the study of ectoplasmic beings’ societies and cultures. And while it is very ancient, there is protocol in the Infinite Realms—that is, where you go when you die, should you remain after death—to prosecute living criminals who have killed a certain number of Realms citizens. So you don’t have to worry about your moral code, Batman. The Joker will be tried by a much fairer court than Gotham can ever hope to have. No offense.” 

Jason stares at Jazz Fenton, who he’d pegged as the sane sibling. He’s not so sure now, but he can’t say he hates it.

“And how do we know it’s a fair trial?” Nightwing asks. 

She waves her hand, “Oh, as Gotham’s Knights, you’re key witnesses. I’m sure you’ll be summoned to testify. You will see then. And don’t worry about your secret identities—the dead don’t care much for that sort of thing.” 

“So if this is a ‘fair’ trial or whatever, The Joker’s going to be locked up forever?” Jason asks. “I mean, that’s the only option for shit like him.” 

Batman sends him a look, but he ignores it. 

“Well, there are several different punishments that could be deemed appropriate, but he’ll never be able to set foot in the mortal world again, yes.” 

Jason Todd grins, “Oh, I’m glad your brother’s stupid, kid.” 

She sighs, long-suffering, “Well, that makes one of us. Still, there’s more important things we should discuss now that you’re here.”

“More important than The Joker trying to kill your brother over a Twitter handle?” Red Robin asks doubtfully. 

Jazz smiles, sharp and dangerous, and asks, ”Have you ever heard of the Anti-Ecto Acts?” 

xxXxx

Several months later when Danny is finally un-grounded, he Tweets his last three Tweets before Twitter can become the foolishly named X: 

Imagine bullying the Joker so hard that it not only lands the Joker in ghost prison BUT it also leads to major law reform in the US lmao someone make the domino effect meme about this pls

Y’allre replying to me with thanks like i did anything other than be an internet troll. My sister literally manipulated local, federal, and interdimensional law so you should be thanking her. 

i just a babie 🥺🥺🥺

xxXxx

Thanks for reading! This is the whole fic, so pls do not ask for tags! Thank you :)

[janmisali]

what do you think of tone indicators in general?

unfortunately my thoughts on tone indicators are somewhat nuanced. fortunately, this is tumblr not twitter, so I can just write out my full thoughts in one post and be as verbose about it as feels necessary.

speaking as an autistic person (and I know there are other autistic people who don't hold this same view, this is just my perspective), I think as an accessibility tool, the extended set tone indicators in current popular use is fundamentally misguided.

the oldest ones, /s for sarcasm and /j for jokes, make sense. their notation isn't the most intuitive thing ("does /s mean sarcastic or serious?") but it's not too difficult to explain what they mean. I've had to spend my whole life learning by brute force what different tones of voice mean and what they change about how I'm supposed to interpret something, so I already know what "read this in a sarcastic voice" and "read this as a joke" are supposed to mean. my existing skills can be translated into the new form without too much effort.

the same thing applies to emoji and emoticons. I know what facial expressions mean, because I had to learn what they mean. figuring out if :) is sincere or not from context is a skill I've already needed to develop. it doesn't come naturally for me, but it's something I already at least somewhat know how to do.

most of the tone indicators in current use uh. don't work like this.

tone indicators like /ref or /nbh don't correspond to specific tones of voice. I don't have a "I'm making a reference" voice or a "I'm not talking about a person who's here" voice that I can picture the sentence being read in. these do not indicate tones, they're purely disambiguators. they clarify what something means without necessarily changing how it would be read out loud.

and on paper, that's fine, right? like, it's theoretically a good thing to take an otherwise ambiguous statement and add something to it that clarifies what you meant by it. the problem is that these non-tone tone indicators are not even remotely self-explanatory. it's up to me, the person who is being clarified to, to know what all these acronyms are supposed to mean, and how they change the way I'm supposed to interpret what something means.

it's, quite literally, a newly-invented second set of social cues that I'm expected to learn separately from the set that I've already spent my whole life figuring out, and it works completely differently.

sure, these rules are (in principle) less arbitrary than the rules of facial expressions and tones of voice and how long you're supposed to wait before it's your turn to speak, but they're also fully artificial and recently invented, which means they're currently in a constant state of flux. tone indicators go in and out of fashion all the time, and the "comprehensive lists" are never helpful.

in theory, I appreciate the idea of people going out of their way to clarify what they mean by potentially ambiguous things they post online. if it worked, that would be a really nice thing to do.

however, sometimes I imagine what the internet would be like without them. what if instead of using /s, the expectation was that if you're sarcastic online there's no guarantee that strangers reading your post will know what you meant? what if instead of inventing more and more acronyms to cover every possible potentially confusing situation, we just... expected one another to speak less ambiguously in the first place?

so, I on paper like the idea of tone indicators. I think it's good that some people are trying to be considerate by being extra clear about what they mean by things. but if tone indicators didn't exist, and people who wanted to be considerate in this way instead just made a point of phrasing things more clearly to begin with, I think that would be vastly preferable to even the most well-implemented tone indicator system.

also /pos sucks because there's something deeply and profoundly wrong for an abbreviation that means "I don't mean this as an insult, don't worry" to be spelled the same way as an acronym that's an insult

[nothorses]

You've made a lot of really great posts about transmasc experiences and struggles, and they really resonate with me! So I guess I want to in complete earnest ask: why the push for 'transandrophobia' when anti-transmasculinity as a term has been around for longer and faces little friction by comparison? I don't really *dislike* transandrophobia, but its meaning gets muddied everywhere from different directions, while ATM is pretty direct and succinct I feel. It's very clear that it's about TRANSmasculine oppression. I'm not against having a dedicated term at all, but the content of our struggles gets lost in the weeds of attaching kind of understandably divisive terms like misandry and androphobia in an attempt to mirror a phenomenon very specifically about misogyny; it seems more trouble than it's worth considering ATM is right there

I'll be honest, this ask is confusing to me for a few reasons.

When I started talking about transandrophobia around the summer of 2020, the conversations I was encountering were very much, like, a handful of people across Twitter and Tumblr (literally, a handfull!). I picked up "transandrophobia" because it was one of two words I saw in use, and the other- "transmisandry"- felt much less clear and much more contentious. It seemed super obvious to me that people would draw a line from "men's rights activists" trying to push this idea that "misandry", as a systemic oppression of men by women, to "transmisandry", and assume some ill intent where there was none. It's confusing!

"Transandrophobia" was the better of two options being floated at the time, at least in any conversation I saw. "Anti-transmasculinity" was not really a term I'd been made aware of, if anyone at all was talking about it at the time.

I have seen people pick up "anti-transmasculinity" more recently (maybe in the last year?), and this is definitely the first I've seen someone shorten it to "ATM". The people I've seen use that term have been mostly people who seem really new to the conversation, and the vibe I've gotten has been very, like, "we're the Good Transmascs, our word isn't dirty and gross like those other Bad Transmascs everyone hates. you'll listen to us now that our word is Good and Pure, right?"

Which is like... kind of frustrating, and kind of sad, honestly. I think these people honestly believe that if they just choose the right word, all the people who've been dragging me and every other transmasc talking about these issues through the mud for the last 4 years or so will really just stop & listen. If they can just say it right, these people- who have been relentlessly harassing and spreading lies about every single transmasc who came before them for years now- will care what they have to say, and will be willing to engage with them in earnest, compassionate dialogue.

If you just find the right word, all of these people will care about your hurt, your pain, and the suffering of your community.

It kind of breaks my heart. It's an incredibly hopeful, kind, loving way to view the world. It's compassion and patience and forgiveness that these folks are not being given, but that they so badly want to offer to others.

And at the same time, it sucks to be the Bad Transmasc. It sucks to have fought so hard for so long, and for the people I've been fighting for all this time to turn around and say, "you're gross, and dirty, and evil, and everything you've done is a mistake." It sucks to see the people I've been fighting for agree with the people I've been fighting against, and shove me under the bus in an effort to appeal to the people running me over with it. Knowing that the bus is going to aim for them once it's done with me just makes it sadder, yknow?

@saint-speaks wasn't the first person to ever speak the word "transandrophobia", but he is the one who coined and popularized it in its current form. And then he was dragged through the mud so hard and so brutally that some people think I coined it, just because when I defended him (too little and too late, imo) I withstood the mud-dragging better than he did (and gee, I wonder white.)

And now people take for granted that everything everyone said about hymn to justify that frankly fucking evil harassment campaign was true, actually, and we should abandon the word he coined and find one with purer origins.

If you honestly think "anti-transmasculinity" is just a more practical word, that's fine. I don't care what word we use. But they're going to cover it in mud, too. They're going to cover every one of you in mud.

Will you keep fighting for "ATM" once they make it the new dirty, gross, bad, evil word? Will you keep fighting when they drag you and everyone else through the mud for using it? Or will you agree with them, make up a new word, and never look back?

Please don't let us drown in the mud. We've been fighting for you, and we want to fight with you. Please.

[shizucheese]

So about that Dropout Tweet...

There's a common trend in influencer/ content creator apologies, where the person doing the apology will say they are sorry for the harm that they did, claim they are taking ownership of it and using the whole situation to become a better person, etc. etc. Usually in a way that makes it sound suspiciously like it was written by ChatGPT.

And then they'll go on to say something along the lines of "But we've been getting a lot of death threats guys, and that's bad!" As if the fact that they're getting death threats somehow absolves them of at least some of the guilt of whatever it is that made the apology necessary in the first place. As if it means they're the real victims here.

Apparently Dropout decided to just skip the "ChatGPT apology" part and jump straight to the "We're getting physcal and legal threats" part. Followed up with them once again saying they support Palestiniens and ending it with "We reject antisemitism, Islamophobia, and all forms of bigotry, and welcome all to our platform who treat others with respect, empathy, and human dignity."

And they did it on Twitter, and only Twitter. You know, the website that's notoriously overrun by Nazis. Nothing on Tumblr or Instagram, where the original statement that sparked all of this (which has since been taken down) were posted.

@dropoutdottv, @samreich, this is not listening to the Jewish members of your community who are speaking out about antisemitism. This is reinforcing the antisemitism that those Jewish members of the community are speaking out about. Because what this Tweet does is paint everyone who spoke out against the antisemitism in your original post with the same brush as the people who were sending you threats.

Which, let me be clear, they should not have been doing and I wholeheartedly condemn.

But the actions of the people sending you threats of violence and threats of legal action do not invalidate the things being said by the people who haven't threatened you with anything worse than a boycott. I have literally seen people say "the fact that they got threats just proves they were right." Is that the outcome you were trying to achieve with this?

People who did bad things get death threats all the time; refer back to the beginning of this post. Does that make their critics wrong then, too? Or is it only now, when the accusation being made is that a nerdy comedy network beloved by people on the left did an antisemitism?

I honestly can't tell if you have no publicist helping you out with one, a bad publicist that needs to give you your money back, or an evil genius publicist that knew that if you made a post like this one, it would distract from the fact that you're being accused of antisemitism, maybe even act as a dog whistle to to paint anyone who accuses you of being antisemitic of being "Zionists" (meant in the derogatory way, where people claim they're only talking about people who uncritically support the Israeli government and their actions in Gaza, but then in practice will use it against anyone who believes Israel has the right to exist, including those who want a two state solution, whose hearts break for the people in Palestine, and call Netanyahu a fascist and probably want him gone more than even the people calling them "zionists" do). Maybe even make up for all of the subscriptions you're losing over this and even gain a few by catering to the antisemitic leftist crowd.

Is that really the kind of culture you want to cultivate? If not, then do better. Acknowledge the Jewish voices that are speaking out. Listen to them. And do it in a way that doesn't bring up any other marginalized group. Because like...fuck, man, I reject Islamophobia, and all forms of bigotry too. And I'm sorry you guys are receiving threats; that truly does suck and I hope everyone that works for you guys are staying safe.

But you're specifically being accused of antisemitism. Can you really not reject it all on its own without including other forms of bigotry in the same statement?

And do it on a platform that *isn't* run by an infamous antisemitic, and overrun by more antisemitics? (You can turn off comments and reblogs on Tumblr and comments on instagram, in the same way you disabled replies on your Tweet, you know.)

Here, I'll even write the statement for you: "Earlier this week, we made a statement regarding accusations that Dropout was platforming zionists. At the time, we made a statement focusing on our support of the Palestinian people. We stand by this statement. However, we have received feedback from several members of our community that some of the things that we said were inappropriate insensitive to the Jewish people. "Zionist" and "Zionism" mean different things to different people, ranging from "people who support the Israeli government's actions in Gaza" to "people who believe that Israel has a right to exist and the Jewish people have the right to self-determination." We had meant it in the context of the former definition, but we understand that many Jewish people identify with the later, including many people who are disgusted by the Israeli government's actions in Gaza, and we should have been more sensitive to this fact. Additionally, we would like to reiterate that, to our knowledge, nobody who has appeared on Dropout has openly stated support for the Israelie's actions in Gaza, and several of those accused have voiced their support for a free Palestine. We would like to take this moment to remind everyone that just because a person is Jewish, and may have ties to Israel, does not inherently mean they condone the actions of the Israeli government in Gaza, and to suggest otherwise is antisemitic. We at Dropout reject all forms of antisemitism and are committed to providing a safe space to everyone regardless of religion or ethnic background. We apologize if we made the Jewish members of our community feel like that was not the case."

See how easy that was? I feel something like this is the bear minimum, and if you had said the things in the last three paragraphs from the start, you could have avoided having to say everything in the first two paragraphs and the apology at the end.

That's...pretty much everything I have to say on the matter. To anyone reading this: Do not use other Jewish people to silence Jewish voices.

Do not use people of other marginalized groups to silence Jewish voices.

Just...maybe just listen to what we have to say without twisting our words and putting words in our mouths? Maybe?

Thanks for reading.

I'm so tired.

[marq-lynch]

I've only been a wrestling fan for a few months but I have to say with the nervous flutter about wrestlers lurking on Tumblr and fic sites and other traditionally closed-off fandomy spaces? I get it. On both sides.

But if I was a wrestler with the natural inclinations and curiosity to poke my nose into what people are saying in my industry outside of the dirtsheets, I would get really, really tired of the same six talking points regurgitated over and over on Twitter and Reddit threads arguing about ratings, whether X is washed up, the same fucking wank over and over floating to the top. I say this because I have tried to stick my nose into the wrestling Twitter and Reddit communities a few times as a new fan and it exhausts me already.

So yeah, I can see the appeal as a lurking wrestler on Tumblr for the exact same things we do.

Look at that! HD Gifsets of the matches! Showing off the moments that really made people pop and the moves that were incredible in more than just YouTube clips, filled with tagged commentary.

Oh fun, longer form commentary on where matches might go, pulling together histories of feuds and reigns, lighter hearted debates and shitposts all around.

A tagging system that actually allows some muting once in a while that people sometimes use?

And yes, fic, art, and objectification. Cheers, I have been working very hard on my pecs, my tits did look amazing tonight, thank you for noticing my costume details change.

Yes, we're horny, we're ravenous, we're transing your genders, foaming at the mouth, etc etc. But we've been here doing this for a while. I was doing this shit with a community on LiveJournal for Kayfabe Jon Stewart & "Stephen" Colbert back in 2009 and they knew and played it up for us too.

The weird pervert who is harmless but a good friend trope has gone way down lately, which makes sense given the current climate post #MeToo, but Kenny Omega on Being The Elite was a great example: in a sea of other dick jokes he was the ulti-perv they all still chose to hang out with. We on Tumblr are for the most part not bashing, harassing, haranguing, or spreading misinformation. We're just making art, noticing details, supporting work, and throwing out lewd jokes.

It's entirely up to the wrestling community if they want to hang out with us while we do those things, but it seems pretty clear that that is a vibe a lot of them are comfortable with, and some are happy to dig deeper into the weird shit we're making.

I just see a lot of people getting self-loathing about what they've been posting and I wanted to offer a different perspective. I've seen actors lose their minds being delighted at body pillows of themselves or mousepads of their supple tits. Adults are all different and none of this should be forced on anyone at conventions or tagged at them etc, but if they seek it out and like it? Well then, welcome to the Devil's Sacrament. Have fun, and personally I'm glad Tumblr is also your happy escape space.

[nathaniacolver]

i feel like tumblr NEEDS to know about Dr. Ally Louks, and the term "Olfactory Ethics"

(long post incoming)

storytime/timeline:

on november 27, 2024, an excited English Literature PhD recipient posted a picture of herself with her thesis, titled:

"Olfactory Ethics: The Politics of Smell in Modern and Contemporary Prose"

as you can see (on the bottom row, above), the tweet has been viewed over 119 MILLION times, and has received over 250k likes. unfortunately, within days (most of the replies dating december 1st), she had garnered what seems like every possible insecure man with a twitter account to post their vitriol and rage concerning the fact that a woman is clearly more well-researched than them. regardless, she tanked it ALL with kindness and with a smile:

AND I MEAN VITRIOL (queen of making boundaries clear):

(inserting reading break for the timeline's space's sake):

here's her abstract:

and in case the abstract wasn't clear, she has since (date: december 16th) taken the time to re-summarize her thesis for the layman (yes that is a link! click it! 3min read!)

she has repeatedly shown just the perfect amount of kindness and understanding for those who are simply Not Comprehending (mostly december 1st):

(the chatGPT hate in the next one is my favorite:)

has upheld an incredibly high moral standard of how she interacts with the situation (december 2nd):

ONE OF MY FAVORITE THINGS: regardless of this crap, she made it clear that as a professor, her FIRST priority at the end of the semester would be taking care of them (december 3rd)

(CAN SHE GET MORE BASEDDDDDDDDDD)

she stays both 1) educating the masses, and 2) engaging with pop culture as much as a normal person would (december 9th-17th):

she also supports a free palestine (WHO IS SURPRISED. NOT ME.) ((december 15th))

here's the BEST FREAKING THING ABOUT THIS. since this all has happened, RANDOM TWITTER USERS, UNKNOWINGLY, have REPEATEDLY proven her thesis to be true,

again,

and again,

AND AGAIN.

EVEN CARDI B DO YOU HEAR MEEEEEEEE

COMBATING MISOGYNOIR WITH HER OWN BARE HANDSSSSS

oh she knows she's mother

here's some more she never saw/commented on (INCLUDING SOME FROM TODAY. IT IS STILL GOING ON. EVERY SINGLE DAY LIKE CLOCKWORK SOMEONE POSTS SOMETHING THAT PROVES HER POINTS ABOUT OLFACTORY ETHICS):

THE WICKED MOVIE REFERENCE HELLO

apparently, OTHER academics are mad at her for being so famous and influential, but she stays unbothered (december 16th, and TODAY, december 19th):

and she's partially getting her post-doc on how people's sense of smell has been altered (december 1st):

and the best part is!

all of these screenshots i've collected are only a SAMPLE, illustrating dr. louks' indomitably kind and ethical character.

anyway. i want ALL of y'all to start saying, out loud, "olfactory ethics", or even better, "dr. louks was RIGHT" (something something women's names are erased something) every time you see something that plays into her thesis. never let her influence die. THINK THROUGH what you're REALLY saying when you comment on the smell of something, or how your perception has been shaped by society. USE THIS PHOTO IF YOU HAVE TO:

follow her on twitter (@DrAllyLouks) or bluesky (idk her handle, if someone tells me i'll edit it in)

AND SAY HER NAME!! DR. ALLY LOUKS

[kiefbowl]

If I could offer some advice which you can take it or leave it or call me a bitch or whatever, but despite good intentions and even a good grasp of the truth, it's very clear that people who are online and desperate for engagement will turn to alarmist language and quickly approximate facts for their posts. So even though it's very good that women are online pointing out the misogyny post Trump election, and even though alarm is called for, it's also good to remember that you're probably going to get the same satisfaction from reading 2-3 posts as you are any more than that, and an increase in despair and skewed view from reading much more than that. So it's a very good idea to log off from tumblr, twitter, facebook, and reddit after like 20 minutes for the next couple months lest you get convinced that Trump will have the immediate power to eliminate all elections his first day in office from (rightfully) scared people who have a habit of using politics as an opportunity to do some free form jazz on the internet because of the brain boost they get when numbers go up

[jungkoode]

𝐅𝐔𝐂𝐊 𝐌𝐄 𝐔𝐏 | 𝟎𝟏

˗ˏˋ fresh start, same weight ˎˊ˗

"Not everything that breaks you has to be traumatic. Sometimes it's as simple as a guy with a crooked smile who ruins you so quietly, you don't even notice until it's too late."

next | index

⋆｡°✩ chapter details ✩°｡⋆

word count: 2.8k

rating: mature

content: moving day, roommate introductions, & that lingering feeling something's about to go wrong

✧ author's note ✧

fun fact: initially split between fandoms, but hey - good writing is good writing, right? so here we are, back with this story that wouldn't leave me alone.

this started as my "simple" project while working on something more complex… but we all know how that usually goes. (;'༎ຶٹ༎ຶ')

aiming for around 3k per chapter because honestly? quality over quantity. and yeah, maybe it'll end up more complicated than planned (because apparently i can't write anything without psychological depth) but that's half the fun, isn't it?

ps: prepare for emotions. all of them. you've been warned.

⋆｡°✩ socials ✩°｡⋆

read on ao3

read on wattpad

tumblr/twitter: @jungkoode

Moving sucks.

The boxes are heavier than you'd like to admit, the weight of them making your arms burn, but you keep going. Because that's what you do. You push through, even when you're dead tired or half pissed off at yourself for not hiring movers.

The gritty heat of New York City in August sticks to your skin as you lug the last of your stuff up the stairs to your new apartment. Cheap rent means no elevator. Cheap rent means you're sweating through your shirt before you even knock on the door.

When it swings open, you're met with the sight of your new roommate. Or one of them, at least.

He's standing there, lean, loose-limbed, wearing a dark hoodie despite the oppressive summer heat. His bleached hair looks almost white in the dim light of the hallway. The first thing you notice is how still he is. Like, eerily still. He blinks at you, slow and deliberate, like you've interrupted something—though it's clear he doesn't care enough to be irritated by it.

"Y/N?" he asks, voice as lazy as his posture. You nod, and he steps back, wordlessly letting you inside.

"Yoongi," he says, half a nod in your direction as he glances down at your box. You can't tell if he's sizing it up or just wondering what the hell you're doing carrying it on your own.

"You need help with that?" His voice doesn't sound particularly invested, but you catch a flicker of something in his eyes. Politeness? Obligation? You can't tell.

"I got it," you say, even though your arms are screaming for a break.

Of course, it would be nice to hand off some of the work, but you've always hated asking for help. And especially not from some guy you don't know, who already looks like he'd rather be doing anything else.

"Alright," he replies with a shrug, and that's it.

He moves away, padding back inside, his socks soft against the hardwood. You blink, standing there for a second longer than necessary, then shake it off. You're here now, in this cramped, dingy apartment, where the walls are scuffed and the kitchen light flickers every other second. Home sweet home.

Yoongi disappears down the short hallway to the left, leaving you alone in the cluttered living room. You notice the secondhand couch, positioned in the middle of the room but pressed against a long, narrow kitchen table—the kind meant for stools rather than chairs. It serves as a makeshift divider between the living area and the open kitchen. The coffee table, cluttered with empty takeout containers and a couple of forgotten textbooks, sits in front of the couch. The faint smell of something you can't quite place—cigarettes, maybe?—lingers in the air.

You exhale, setting the box down with a thud. The place has character, you tell yourself. That's what people say when things are a little run-down, right? Character.

A few minutes later, Yoongi reappears. He's changed into an oversized t-shirt, the hoodie abandoned somewhere.

"I can get the rest of your boxes," he says, like it's an afterthought. He doesn't look at you when he says it, just past you, like helping was always the plan and you're the one who's being weird about it.

"You sure?" you ask, more out of reflex than actual concern. Your arms aren't exactly in the mood to carry another load.

Yoongi nods, already moving toward the door without waiting for a response.

You follow him back down to the street, watching as he picks up two of your boxes like it's nothing. You wonder, briefly, how many times he's had to help new people move in, how many strangers he's let into this apartment. Maybe he's used to it by now. Maybe that's why he's so... indifferent.

As you walk back upstairs, you steal a glance at him. There's something unsettling about how calm he is, how little he seems to care about this whole process. But at the same time, you kind of appreciate it. No small talk, no unnecessary questions about your major or why you're moving here. Just... silence.

When you get back inside, he drops the boxes next to the others and turns to you.

"There's beer in the fridge if you want."

His voice is still that same low monotone, like everything he says is just a suggestion.

You raise an eyebrow. "At noon?"

Yoongi shrugs. "Helps with unpacking."

You let out a small laugh despite yourself. Great, you think. Your first roommate is either a functioning alcoholic or just really good at pretending nothing matters.

"Maybe later," you say, and Yoongi nods, walking towards what you assume is his room. The door clicks shut behind him, and just like that, you're alone again.

You take a deep breath, scanning the space. It's not ideal—none of this is, really—but it's better than your parents' house. And rent in New York is a joke, so random roommates are just part of the deal. You remind yourself that you're here for school, for a fresh start. Not to make friends.

Still, there's something about the stillness Yoongi leaves behind that lingers in the room. Like the apartment isn't quite empty even when you're the only one in it.

You drop onto the couch, legs stretched out, staring at the ceiling. The cushions are lumpy, smelling faintly of something—cigarettes again, or maybe weed. It's hard to tell, and you're too tired to care. The kind of tired that settles deep in your bones, made worse by the fact that you're nowhere near done unpacking.

But at least the hard part is over, right? You're in. You're here. You're out of your parents' house, away from the small town you'd spent years clawing to escape. New York, with all its chaos, grime, and ridiculous rent, feels like some kind of warped freedom.

You force yourself to get up, pushing off the couch, and start tugging at the tape on one of the boxes. It's the one marked essentials—a sarcastic lie considering it's filled with clothes you'll probably never wear and random knick-knacks you didn’t have the heart to throw away. One of those just in case boxes. You grimace as you pull out a sweater. Like you'll need that anytime soon, with the way the city is baking in the August heat.

The door creaks open, and you look up to see Yoongi again, standing in the doorway of his room, his head tilted as he watches you rummage through your box.

"You're unpacking already?" he asks, sounding vaguely surprised. You're starting to pick up on the fact that Yoongi doesn’t seem to do anything quickly—not talking, not moving, not even blinking.

"I figured if I leave it for later, it'll just sit here for weeks," you say, pulling out another sweater and cramming it back into the box. "Might as well get it over with."

He hums in response, leaning against the doorframe like he's waiting for something. You glance up at him, and for a second, the silence feels a little too heavy. Like he's observing you, trying to figure something out without asking. It makes your skin prickle.

"Do you work or something?" you ask, half to break the quiet, half out of genuine curiosity. You still don’t know much about him, just that he lives here and seems unnervingly calm about everything.

"Yeah. Music," he says, scratching the back of his neck, but he doesn’t elaborate. Of course he doesn’t.

You nod, chewing on your lip. A musician, huh? Makes sense. He has that broody, artsy vibe—probably spends most of his time in his room working on beats or whatever people like him do. You resist the urge to ask him more, reminding yourself that you didn’t come here to make friends, or get involved in whatever’s going on in your roommates’ lives. You just need a place to crash while you figure out how the hell you’re going to survive college in this overpriced city.

"Cool," you mutter instead, shoving another sweater—how did you even pack this many?—back into the box.

Yoongi lingers for a moment longer, then nods toward the kitchen. "Like I said, beer’s in the fridge if you want it."

This time, you don’t argue. "Yeah, alright," you reply, finally giving in. Maybe unpacking will be a little less miserable if you're buzzed.

You follow him into the kitchen, which is slightly less depressing than the living room, if you ignore the flickering light and the fact that there’s no real counter space. Yoongi reaches into the fridge and hands you a bottle. You take it, twisting off the cap and leaning back against the sink, while he props himself against the counter, sipping his own drink.

There’s a quiet comfort in the lack of conversation. Yoongi doesn’t fill the space with meaningless chatter, and you’re grateful for that. It’s not awkward, just... easy. He’s detached, sure, but not in a way that makes you feel weird. It’s almost like he exists on a different frequency—one you haven’t quite tuned into yet.

"You here for school?" he asks suddenly, breaking the silence.

"Yeah. NYU," you answer, taking a long swig of the beer. It’s cheap and warm, but you barely notice.

Yoongi just nods, like he expected that. "Jungkook goes there too," he adds, his tone casual but the mention of the name makes your ears perk up.

Right. The other roommate. The one who hasn’t shown up yet. You’d almost forgotten about him in all the moving chaos. You remember seeing the name on the lease—Jeon Jungkook—but you don’t know anything about him beyond that.

"Is he... around?" you ask, though the answer is obvious. The apartment’s been dead quiet since you arrived, and something tells you you’d know if someone else was here.

Yoongi shakes his head. "Not right now. Probably with his friends."

You take another sip of beer, mulling that over. So, a musician and a social butterfly. This should be interesting.

"Anything I should know about him?" you ask, trying to keep your voice light, though you’re genuinely curious. You’ve already gotten the sense that Yoongi’s easy to live with—quiet, unobtrusive—but there’s no telling what kind of chaos the third roommate might bring.

Yoongi glances at you, his expression unreadable, then shrugs. "Jungkook’s... alright."

There’s something about the way he says it that makes you pause, like there’s a story behind those words that you’re not being told. But before you can ask more, Yoongi sets his beer down and stretches, like the conversation’s over.

"I’ll be in my room if you need anything," he says, already turning to leave.

You watch him go, feeling that same stillness creep back into the room as the door clicks shut behind him.

Jungkook’s alright.

The words bounce around your head as you finish off your beer, trying to figure out what the hell they’re supposed to mean. You’re not sure if Yoongi’s being cryptic, or if that’s just how he talks about everything.

Either way, you guess you’ll find out soon enough.

You’re left with Yoongi’s parting words and the faint clink of his door closing, the sound reverberating through the thin walls. Jungkook’s alright. A statement that could mean anything—or nothing at all.

The silence settles in thick around you, as if the apartment’s absorbing it. With Yoongi gone, the place feels even smaller, the air heavier, as if it’s been lived in for too long by people who don’t talk much. The kind of place where secrets get stuck in corners, gathering dust.

You sip the last of your beer, leaning against the sink, the sharp metallic taste mixing with the stale warmth of the room. The thought of Jungkook lingers, though you quickly push it away. No point trying to decode a guy you haven’t even met yet.

You glance at the boxes still stacked near the door, the last hurdle before you can call this place yours. The thought of unpacking exhausts you, but sitting in this half-done space makes your skin crawl. You decide to tackle the basics—at least enough to make it feel like you didn’t just get here on a whim.

Back in the living room, you pull open a box labeled Books + Misc, and a stack of novels topples out onto the floor with a muted thud. You stare at them for a second, wondering why the hell you thought you’d need all this when you haven’t even figured out how to feed yourself in this city yet. A couple textbooks, sure, but the rest? The stack of poetry collections you brought from home seems laughably out of place here, like a relic from some other life you’re trying to leave behind.

You set them on the coffee table, a half-hearted attempt to make this place feel like it belongs to you. The couch creaks under your weight as you sit, staring at the peeling paint on the walls, the faint water stain near the ceiling, the sound of traffic bleeding through the cracked window.

The room feels heavy in a way you didn’t expect, as if there’s something pressing in from all sides, a presence that you can’t quite shake. You shake your head, trying to laugh at yourself. You’ve always been like this—getting weird in unfamiliar spaces, as if your brain’s determined to find something wrong even when everything’s perfectly fine. It’s just an apartment, just four walls and two random roommates. No ghosts here.

Probably.

You stand, deciding to push through and finish unpacking your clothes. The small bedroom that’s now yours is still a maze of half-open boxes and crumpled bags, but at least it’s your mess. The single window lets in just enough light to make the room look less depressing, though you can’t help but notice the faint smell of old paint, that same mustiness that lingers in old buildings like this. You wrinkle your nose, already making a mental note to grab some candles or something to mask the scent.

After a while, the rhythmic task of hanging up clothes becomes automatic. Shirts, jeans, the same sweatshirt you’ve had since high school—things that remind you, even in this weirdly suffocating city, of who you are. Or, at least, who you were. The space around you starts to take shape, but it still doesn’t feel like you yet. Maybe that’s just New York, though. The city’s too loud, too indifferent to care who you are or where you’ve come from. You’re just another body in its endless sprawl.

Eventually, you sink down onto the bed, more tired than you’d like to admit. The mattress feels stiff, not yet broken in, but it’s better than nothing. You lay back, staring at the cracked ceiling. There’s a hum in the distance—cars, people shouting, music drifting from an apartment below. It’s a far cry from the suffocating quiet of your old bedroom back home.

Your phone buzzes from where you left it on the floor. You reach for it lazily, already knowing what’s waiting for you: texts from your parents. You wish the thought didn’t make you internally recoil as much as it does.

𝙼𝚘𝚖: 𝙷𝚘𝚠'𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚗𝚎𝚠 𝚙𝚕𝚊𝚌𝚎? 𝚈𝚘𝚞 𝚜𝚎𝚝𝚝𝚕𝚎𝚍 𝚒𝚗 𝚢𝚎𝚝?

You stare at the screen, debating if you even want to respond. There’s a part of you that feels guilty for how you left things back home—leaving them behind without much of a plan, just the vague idea of getting out. But you’d never have made it here if you’d let yourself get tangled in their worries, their expectations.

Your thumb hovers over the keyboard for a moment before you type out a quick, noncommittal response.

𝚈𝚎𝚊𝚑. 𝙰𝚕𝚕 𝚐𝚘𝚘𝚍. 𝙹𝚞𝚜𝚝 𝚝𝚒𝚛𝚎𝚍 𝚏𝚛𝚘𝚖 𝚖𝚘𝚟𝚒𝚗𝚐.

You toss the phone back onto the floor, not waiting for a reply. You almost feel guilty for the way your brain immediately wants to run away from the conversation. To escape. Like you always do.

Your thoughts drift back to Yoongi. His quiet presence still feels strange, like a puzzle you’re not sure you want to solve yet. He seems content to exist without explanation, floating through the apartment with the kind of calm that makes you wonder if anything fazes him at all.

And then there’s Jungkook. The mystery roommate who’s apparently “alright.” You scoff softly at the thought. It’s almost laughable how little you know about him—just a name and the fact that he goes to NYU, like you. You’re not expecting much. People always disappoint, especially when you’re crammed into tiny spaces with them. But something about the way Yoongi said his name keeps nagging at you.

Before you know it, the room is starting to blur, exhaustion pulling at the edges of your vision. You’re too tired to overthink anymore. Your eyes flutter shut, the city outside fading into the background as you drift off. You’ll deal with everything—school, Jungkook, this weird, cramped apartment—later.

For now, sleep.

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