#my bad for using the Terminally Online way of referring to people but i just think it's so funny

[babyboywinchester]

Nvm I didn't know you were gonna refer me to one of the most vile bullies in fandom. I also can't believe what terminally online speak I'm hearing. Queerbaiting, really? He does something fans enjoy and continues doing it, I don't see the harm. As for his personal sexuality, that is private and clearly isn't so black and white when you look at what he's said. I don't understand the nitpicking. I agree re the Js though. I'm just genuinely bummed by how antagonistic fandom gets

@nancylou444 has never been vile or a bully to me and anything I’ve seen of hers has been defending other wincest shippers or going toe to toe with terminally brain dead destihellers. Lmao… terminally online? I’m a working and married mother of two. I can assure you I’m not “terminally online”. That’s the EXACT phrase he and the hellers have used when referring to how Destiel has got such a shit go of things so why are you attacking me over a phrase such as that when I am just using literally the same term these blowhards use?

Listen, dude, if you don’t like what I post or who I associate with or the opinions I have then go somewhere else… I don’t know what else to tell you.

He made his sexuality a topic of public discussion when he PUBLICLY insinuated he was bi, had to PUBLICLY retract said statement, and then had to PUBLICLY come out as straight. So, do not get onto me about it being a “private” matter… he did it in the public sphere and therefore it is open to ridicule. If you don’t want those things talked about then you… don’t talk about them. Funny how that works…

Everyone is capable of making mistakes, doing bad things, and growing. Misha has shown, to me, no growth and continually doubles down on his questionable and creepy behavior. He does charity? Cool good for him. Neat. He campaigns for Ukraine? Also a great cause. He still makes overtly sexual comments about his costars about a fetishized gay ship that Jensen himself has repeatedly said he finds no basis for and then gets attacked when he points out that it’s not canon, not how he played the character, and it’s not how the character was written. I do not like Misha. I find his pandering, entitlement, “look at me I do good things I’m a good guy” attitude to be abhorrent and distasteful.

I also do not like how vile fandom can get, but luckily I’m a wincestie and a lover of both brothers with a Sam leaning attitude… so, I’m surrounded by great mutuals and like minded people who I’ve went out of my way to cultivate an online experience with and so generally my online experience has been very positive.

I suggest you do the same and maybe not come to my blog, especially not on anon if you’re not going to have the courage to face me, if I am not your cup of tea. No one is forcing you to view my opinions and content. You alone have the power to curate your own online experience. If you want to come off anon and talk so be it, but the next ask sent on anon will just be deleted because I’m not going to continue you this conversation especially if you’re accusing me of being “terminally online” for using a well-used phrase outside of online life… like seriously grow up.

Have a wonderful day. Godspeed.

[eclaire-went-bam]

how did, in the late 2010's, we saw a lot of "stop stigmatising mental illness!" "stop using mental disorders as casual adjectives!" "stay educated on mental health!" "don't say stuff like 'just go outside' or whatever!" only for, in the 2020's, we begin seeing a lot more stuff like misusing therapy terms, or using using mental health labels to describe normal experiences, or treating self-diagnosing** as a trend, or romanticising people experiencing the negative effects of their mental illness, or letting people with temporary experiences & no psych degree educate ppl w/ chronic conditions on how to Get Better™ w/ the same condescending "just do x y & z!" language as before

**i do NOT mean educated self diagnosis, i'm pro self-dx & also self-dx myself. i'm referring to stuff like this

and for the thing right after, i'm SO tired of brainrotted terminally online ppl making jokes abt my symptoms as i'm experiencing them (espec when as far as i know, they don't), bcs oooo i'm mentally ill too but in a different way so i get to make jokes on mental health (pebble brain take)

i need to actually stop seeing people say literally everything is a boundary. "i don't want my cats outta my sight" "LOL you're like, that's my boundary!" i get it's a joke but tf does that even mean. and actually making abuse easier by watering down abuse terminology, or normalising ppl saying that you not letting someone overstep your comfort is their boundary (can u tell this is personal)

i feel like we went from undereducated on mental illness & wanting to spread awareness, to everybody now knowing & misusing terms. we collectively, espec if you're online, know more, but somehow we're at the same place as back then — just with the tables flipped.

i have mdd & npd so i get severe depressive episodes, but the Narc Pride™ makes it rlly hard to talk to or reach out to others. i hate looking like a human with sad emotions & often times my depression only manifests as anger, because i hate being Pitied & anger warrants little to no pity. but i've found being straightforward with "i've been depressed" is easier (still difficult) to say than other healthy ways of conveying it. it quickly identifies the problem so the other party knows what's up and they can help of they want I Guess, but the meaning of "depressed" as been so watered down that ppl assume i mean Just A Little Sad™, or that i'm using mental health termsto make them feel bad ??? even when i could actively be having si ????? i actually hate it here

& stuff like dissociative disorders, or schizospec disorders, or personality disorders, are ultra-stigmatised either way i guess

[faggot-billcipher]

i haven't seen anyone else say it so i'll say it. expecting a creator to confirm your headcanons exactly as you want is also very parasocial. i don't think being parasocial is just thinking a creator of a media you like is your friend. it's also expecting them to know your opinions on art they make like they're psychic and expecting your interpretations to be 100% confirmed. and acting like you've been terribly and purposely betrayed when they don't. and dare to take the media in a direction you never wanted.

to me that's no better than the parasocial epidemic of acting like a creator is your friend because you like the media they make. it's on a similar level but in regards to how you view their work and them as a person. it's still expecting special treatment from them that you are not owed. it's still very entitled behavior. it's still expevting them to somehow be telepathic enough to know your every thought on their work which is an toxic and unreasonable demand. chill.

this is also why at this point i support the concept of death to the audience. instead of always going death of the author.with how it's used i'm getting tired of the term death of the author nowadays as it just enables people to do confirmation bias. even when the source material blatantly proves their views on the media wrong. it's pretty much going "i'm always right even when i'm wrong" about media anlaysis. and i shouldn't have to spell out how that's not a healthy or mature way of coping when canon turns out to be the opposite of what you theorized. it's both parasocial and terminally online behavior at its finest. and yes tbh i am lowkey thinking of this surge of communities trying to be the next su critical phenomenon while writing this. y'all aren't exempt from this behavior and are the worst ones about it honestly. and yes btw this includes groups like toh critical, amphibia critical, hazbin hotel critical, helluva boss critical etc. whatever else you're thinking of. and this is coming from someone who legit borderline hates amphibia. and the ableist messages it has about marcy's neurodivergency coded narrative. but i still don't wanna associate with those of y'all who try to go "oh but the su critical mindseet is valid and healthy THIS TIME uwu!" at the next media that comes out.

it borders on digital self harm, how far y'all tend to go with this shit most of the time.

also a lot of your communties like this are full of hypocrites just as bad or worse than the creator of the media you're criticizing. it happened with su critical. and it quickly happened with hazbin hotel critical too. it's almost like it takes more than being obssessively hypercritical of largely new queer media coming out to be a non bigoted and non abusive person. who knew!

and on that note of these communities being full of coddled abusers and bigots, y'all refuse to do anything about it. outside of the mess that was the callout against genderfluidlucifer. but lily orchard has done worse and is doing worse STILL. and you're excusing every shitty thing she does because she was a major influencer in this form of media criticsm subculture. which still proves my point i made that y'all refuse to hold genuinely bad people in these communities acocuntable if they get really popular first. especially when they hit a certain level of popularity arbitrarily like lily did. (and this applied to bismuthspartnerincrime until he left the scene altogether but that's it's own can of worms.) because you think anyone agreeing with your media criticisms in the right pandering way is allowed automatic social and legal immunity. when that's literally not how anything works.

in general these days i do not trust someone who thinks they can do no harm because they parrot the right criticisms against the media i'm referring to. also on a slight side note i still remember how a lot of people in the su critical community claimed wearing glassess wasn't a disability. what was that all about??

like that side note just shows my point of how these communities were full of bigots and abusers but not much was being done about them. and i'm tired of it being allowed to happen and this problem being repeated. because no one wants to learn and repeatedlyputs callouts full of exclus/anti rhetoric on a pedestal for no reason. like we don't have to put these subcultures on a pedestal but it keeps happening. why do we keep letting it happen?? and btw before anyone claims anything this is not an anti leftism post. i am a leftist at heart. i just hate seeing new leftists acting like they have to get themselves roped into these commuities to be real leftists. when there's way more pressing forms of activism to focus more energy on than getting mad about blorbo from your show THIS MUCH.

[velvetvexations]

Harassing trans women is wrong. That's why you should have left the random trans woman online alone instead of starting a fight and being incredibly condescending. Not to mention calling her a "freak" which is just a big tip off to the kind of bigot you are. If you think getting social ramifications (ie an anon telling you calling trans women freaks is bad) is "harassment," then you really are living a privileged life and I can not relate to you at all.

Anon I need you to understand that I went to another transwoman, the same demographic as myself, to engage with them in good faith specifically because they seemed relatively reasonable. I even highlighted in my ask that in my ask specifically because I wanted them to feel at ease and understand that I wasn't trying to "start a fight".

I was accused of concern trolling and blocked. Someone else, in response to that conversation, posted some really bad shit about transmascs and I made the post you're referring to because it was distressing to have prompted people being hateful towards another group.

Do some people online use "freaks" to refer to trans people? Yes! But "freaks" is also, generally, used for any terminally online person. The specific meaning in reference to trans people is related to the (somewhat dated) conceptualization of "SJWs", wherein trans people are characterized as people who obsessively rally around internet causes and make trouble. However, just because trans people get hit with the terminally online label does not mean the term was made exclusively for them. I, personally, have used it to describe right-wing weirdos much more often than anyone even vaguely to the left of anything.

If you so gravely understand the heightened scrutiny transwomen are often subjected to, it's really surprising that you feel compelled to so badly twist me attempting to engage in a sincere conversation with another transwoman and then making a vaguepost to vent about someone else's vaguepost where I went out of my way to not include any identifying details that could lead to the person I was responding to could be identified. It's strange that you would take me using a word that is not a slur and, even if it were, would be one I should be able to reclaim, and use it to malign me as somehow transmisogynistic!

It's not helping TMA/TME weirdos (do I have permission to say that?) beat the "doesn't really care about transwomen" allegations!

[vanillacorpse]

I would Love to hear your detailed boiling critique of that shitty werewolf book >.> if you would be so kind as to share

My god where do I begin. "Bored Gay Werewolf", I thought picking this thing out of the shelf and giving the first page a skim. "interesting!". It didn't have the world's most impressive prose but something about the first page got me interested. Not every good book starts off strong. A lousy gay guy who is also a werewolf, that lives in his own filth. He's a mess. It's honestly not a bad premise!! Much has been made of less!

But then the rest of the book... it honestly felt like the entirety of it was written to undermine and enshitten the characters in it. FINE not every character has to be likable. But when NO character whatsoever manages to inspire any sympathy in me I have to wonder why the author would even write a book. I can make a guess what the purpose of this book was, and it wasn't to tell a story-- it was to entertain the UNBEARABLE social critique that the author very bravely, very embarrassingly, tries to present to the reader. It fails. It sucks. It's complete total ass on every front. It's like reading the diary of a twitter gay who isn't even That terminally online. It's the lowest hanging fruit, every page, every joke, every God forsaken Take.

The prose is ass too. It gave up immediately, second page. Just pages of pages of telling. There's nothing interesting that actually happens, you see; the author doesn't have the skills necessary to describe them. There is a VERY COOL, VERY MOVING performance from one of the characters, but of course he can't actually depict it! That would require skill! An understanding of poetry! Instead we have to trust everything the author tells us happens. "There's a heartwarming performance"-- are you a teenage journalist? Why on earth am I reading this? Is this the first fucking draft? Holy fuck.

Our main character, Brian, is a gay werewolf who hangs out with other cool queer people. They're kind of his friends (they're also his coworkers, and one of them is his boss!) but he doesn't really want to open up to them. He's lonely, and, for reasons which aren't interesting at all, he just isn't that comfortable with being intimate. That's his main "issue", the only semblance of friction in his otherwise boring boring boring gay werewolf life. Also he kills people at night but we never see that? and he doesn't feel guilty? and there's no consequences for it ever? Whatever. He has these work friends and together they sometimes make bad jokes together. That's their tear-jerkingly fond dynamic.

Then he meets another werewolf called Tyler who is a trust fund baby that wants to start some alpha-male style multiple-marketing crypto scheme or something of that sort (not actually ever defined). Our boring guy Brian thinks: fuck it. This sounds lame and like a scam and kind of hypermasculine in the toxic way (he's aware of all of these concepts, all of these "progressive" ideas, the entire book) BUT Tyler promises to show him how to control his werewolf form so he doesn't kill people every full moon so WHY NOT.

That's what happens in the first.... I don't know. 3 chapters? Of this book. The rest of the book can be summarized as such:

Brian continues to hang out with his toxic new cryptobro Tyler, and Tyler's other cis-het-normie friends. He HATES it the entire time but, somehow, some fucking how, it's not enough (despite constant internal dialogue calling it all lame and offensive!) to simply walk away from these people. They have no redeeming qualities. The author doesn't even try to give them redeeeming qualities. They are stock photo characters. Brian's internal dialogue refers to them as such. Tyler is a cartoon villain. There is never a single suspicion in the reader that he's anything but.

In refusing to walk away from these people, also, he estranges his cool queer work buddies who thinks he's insane for hanging with them. YOU WOULD THINK THAT, as a reader, you would feel sympathetic to his work buddies simply on the grounds that yeah, Brian is insane. At least another character recognizes it. But the author writes all of them in such a way that even THIS becomes unbearable to read: they're SO RIGHT that there is simply no argument. Brian is being stupid! He's acting weird! He needs to apologize for acting weird! It felt like going down another dumbass thread: "how to properly apologize" and the author just copy pasted that right in the book. Bam.

And that's also how the book ends. He apologizes to his friends for... almost becoming a hypermasculine cryptobro. He just says he's not going to hang out with those weirdos anymore. He "comes out" as a werewolf but apparently his work buddies already knew (????????) (because taking days off every full moon was suspicious enough to confirm it???????) (AT NO POINT IS IT IMPLIED THAT WEREWOLVES ARE A COMMON THING) and whatever. WHATEVER. Oh my god. Anyway. They accept him. It's perfect now.

His cryptobro doesn't like this, basically tries to have Brian killed. Of course it doesn't work, we knew this supervillain had to be disposed off somehow, but the reason Brian is able to kill him is because............................ because............................ secretly, one of Brian's work buddies' new weirdo boyfriends has been a werewolf hunter this entire time. His last name. is Van Helsing. He is a descendant. Of Van Helsing. And he helps kill Tyler. His cryptoscheme empire comes to a definite silver-bullet end. The fucking End.

PLEASE CLAP.

TL;DR:

[zukkacore]

Idek who in my audience would still be on the h*p bandwagon but tbh I say this as a pitch both for ppl who still have nostalgia for the property and ppl who enjoy being haters (I mean, if you can withstand the salt without also getting just so so so burned out hearing about JKR’s bigotry, I know it hits me sometimes too), the Shrieking Shack Podcast is excellent in terms of critical analysis of the wizard books while also just being extremely funny. I swear the hosts xeecee and Liz have a wire tap into my brain, in terms of sense of humor and just voicing the problems I have with this stupid franchise.

I understand the stance of people who are avoidant of the franchise completely, but I do think having a better understanding of how and why the books ultimately failed and veered off in quality definitely helped me demystify the franchise as this like, untouchable thing of quality I was too attached to to ever give up but instead as a flawed work that I had grown out of and was far more at peace with letting go. I also think it helps me articulate to other people why the artist is not separate from the art. Her worldview is imbedded into her books, and especially later on, that’s why they were so mean-spirited and awful. No matter how much I liked the series as a kid, I think the distaste for the pernicious aspects of the franchise has been an… effective deterrent for me going back. And while I don’t have the energy to get into terminally online arguments, I think critical analysis is useful as a skill to give people who also have a skewed and nostalgia colored view of the franchise.

I will addendum that their perspective on the first few books is a lot more charitable and while I do agree w their thoughts, hearing nice things abt the franchise might feel distasteful in this climate, (I know it is for me) so if that’s the case and you have no problem starting in the middle I recommend starting around book 4! That’s when you start to get much more of a mixed bag.

And if you wanna hear basically nothing but wall to wall dunking, start with Deathly Hallows. Jumping in cold to a seventh season is rough but I promise it’s so worth it. I re-listen to the podcast All The Time when I’m between interests, and I tend to skip the early seasons and just go straight for the bad stuff. I’ve probably gone back to the DH season so many times. It’s brutal yet somehow completely earned. I’ve never seen anyone so thoroughly articulate my long held feelings that DH is a failure of a capstone on that franchise on all levels structural, thematic, and moral. This is not me pretending I had clairvoyance into the future bc there was plenty of shit that snuck past me as a kid (hello, book 4 was my favorite for forever) but when I read that book in like 5th grade I could just feel something was deeply wrong.

Also they just wrapped up the season where they were reading midnight sun and twilight at the same time and it’s been great. It’s way more lighthearted which has been a nice palate cleanser & I do think they’re a bit charitable toward twilight but the thing I appreciate is that their critique is more substantive than just the common reactionary low hanging fruit talking points & they have actually brought up the neglected topic of racism within the books

Also if you’re just starting and the news topics + freebies / goofs segment they do at the beginning and ends of the episodes throws you off , I get it. I love shriekcast & I do find the segments funny but they’re not everyone’s thing, and I do scrub through that stuff sometimes bc it can be long winded. For reference It usually lasts abt 30-40 min sometimes shorter and occasionally way longer.

[clumsyclifford]

1 and 7

Also, lizzo is my BITCH, you got TASTE

I LOVE LIZZO I WOULD KILL FOR NEW LIZZO MUSIC i love rumors but i need more. speaking of which not that you asked but here are my dream lizzo collabs: lizzo x harry styles, lizzo x ajr, lizzo x atl. i think everyone in the world should collab with lizzo though. anyway. now your questions.

1. obligatory what was your favourite song this year (not most necessarily listened to). oooooooooooooh there are literally TOO many options for me to even know where to begin. god i really do want to say rumors by lizzo. but then also, xoxo came out this year. AND maisie's album AND noah kahan's AND ajr's AND TBC's!!!!!!!! AND NEW TSS!!!!!! how the fuck am i supposed to even choose just one!!!!!!! oh wait i'm realizing this isn't asking favorite song that came out this year just favorite song OF the year to which i reply: still don't have an answer. but i am addicted to both rumors and i'm trying (not friends) by maisie peters. either one of those i guess? and like paige said im in love with back together but that's a really new one so idk if it can count. or the entirety of xoxo: from love and anxiety in real time by the maine.

7. what song that you discovered this year do you long to sing at a karaoke night? I'M TRYING (NOT FRIENDS) BY MAISIE PETERS I WOULD FUCKINGGGGGG KILL i'm literally keeping a lookout for a karaoke track for that song so i can do it at an open mic or something at my school i swear to god

music asks for the end of the year <3

[eileen-crys]

Some of the reasons given on that reddit thread for it being faked are a bit ridiculous imo! I do accept that we don't know for certain (sure, it *could* be a faked letter and/or it could have been acquired by somebody else), but when the reason they gave was 'you can find anything on the dark web' I had to laugh – I get that that is true of lots of things like actual products, but referring to this lmao it just made me imagine like

"Hello I would like a letter please, from John Deacon to his sister, circa 1972"

"I'm afraid we don't sell those here sir but if you try the dark web you should find plenty there"

And the comment that same person made about John and his mother? What an assumption to make! Based on a single comment, twice translated, from an interview decades ago, it's a bit of a reach, not to mention a disrespectful (even just plain awful) thing to put forward – and they said it as though it's a fact 🙄

Anyway, if that's the kind of thing people are commenting, I'm glad the posts are no longer there – if he *was* genuine then it would have been awful if similar comments had been left for him to see. But I am pleased we were able to see what he shared.

As for why they're gone, I think there are more possible reasons than were suggested on the thread e.g. someone from a tabloid could have approached him about buying a story – that would be a very good reason to take it all down before it could be twisted into another one of those "The TRAGIC reason why Queen bassist [etc etc]" things!

(--lou/hospitality) (sorry this got so long lol)

It's okay, I agree with you about everything tbh. 🙏🏻 It's fair to be skeptical when someone presents themselves online as a relative of someone famous, but the doubts of some people were a bit stretched, like using a double translated interview from the mid 80s as the unfathomable proof that john had a bad relationship with his mom and sister, and therefore claiming that this "brother in law" is "wrong" simply because he said Molly kept newspapers about Queen/John and John gave his sister some gifts, and that goes against John's (questionably translated and not elaborated) answer in japan 84. Like, the audacity? Also someone else thinking the letter was fake because "some wording was weird" ??? How would you know? Maybe that's just how he wrote to his sister. My mom and I talk in the weirdest way possible, you can't question such colloquialisms within his family. 🤔

Also yeah the dark web comment was funny tbh. If you looked at his reddit he used to post pics of his dog and discuss about stamps, why would an old dude go in the dark web to look for John's letters to his sister? Specially when everything else he posted was basically newspaper cuts and some things he seemed to know rather superficially? 😅😅😅

I remember him from a YouTube comment from at least 3 years ago, on a reaction video to a live concert. He seemed really humble and once again just recalling his memory of said concert (I think it was Hammersmith Odeon). Imho if he was someone random seeking for fame or to spread fake rumours about John he would've just done it, like many other idiots have already done and keep doing.

He seemed genuinely heartwarmed by Queen fans and aware of what to answer or not answer regarding John and I'm still upset his profile was terminated so abruptly. 😔 The journalist possibility makes sense but I still feel it's the fault of some mean or invasive fan.

[tainbocuailnge]

So I was curious, what would you say is the average overall quality of translation for Fate stuff?? Because I see people occasionally talk about how Mirror Moon’s TL of F/SN is lacking in areas, or how Extra’s official localization blows.

I can give you my take but I don't think I'm the right person give a detailed quality assessment of TM translations when I don't speak japanese and have to go by what other people who do speak japanese tell me. I also think every translation will inevitably be lacking in certain areas especially between two languages as different as japanese and english, and whether you think the translation is "good" also depends a lot on what you find important in translating vs localising.

for example a lot of recent fgo chapters are translated/summarised by fallacies, who is incredibly thorough in conveying the exact meaning of the text and terminology but as a result their translations are a bone dry read. the fgo na team meanwhile gets a lot of flack for stuff like making osakabehime say pog, when if you ask me that's a great choice to convey the feeling of "cringe ass terminally online gamer neet" even if the exact meaning doesn't line up (the issue with the na team is instead that they often oversimplify the script because they don't get the imagery or reference being made, when it comes to jokes they usually do great).

i think most fate translations are good enough to get the job done, because they're the reason I get to enjoy fate. mirror moon's fsn translation has some clunky sentences but it mostly accurately conveys the story and characters, and if you're in need for precise lore details you're probably deep in online fate circles anyway and able to find people who can help you with that. extra's localisation put a lot of work into making the characters sound natural in english even if it deviates from what is said exactly in japanese, and i think the main reason people say it's bad is that they didn't bother to cross reference their terminology with what the fans used, which really isn't something you can blame them for when it was the first fate to get officially localised.

in the end fate is just incredibly hard to translate because nasu writes In A Way, and you never know what term that gets introduced will end up being extremely important two installments later, so every single fate translation will inevitably be lacking in some way. that said i do think generally speaking fantranslations are more thorough than official localisations for fate purely because the fans are the ones who are actually aware of all this cross-installment terminology and will be able to spot the epic fate references. a lot of what makes official fate translations lacking isn't necessarily the linguistic capabilities of the translators but rather just the fact that they're not dedicated fate fans, nor do they have the freedom to use however long they need to research everything that fantranslators have because they need to release on time.

in my dream world type moon gets an inhouse translation team so all the lore gets extensively cross referenced and translations are internally consistent, and also everything gets a second fantranslation anyway so you can compare them.

[loadsanta303]

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ePacket only guarantees fast delivery to the customs of the destination country. From this point forward, the national postal service deals with the order. You can get your shipment delivered to your door if the local postal service allows this option.

Is ePacket delivery free?

Not really. Whenever you place an order and see free shipping option, that means the merchant has incorporated the delivery cost into the price of the item. Sophos xg active directory. On average, it is $1-3 for small-sized packages and $4-6 for oversized ones.

Can I track an ePacket?

ePacket delivery provides customers with the option of end-to-end tracking. You can check the delivery status on the China Post EMS official website, which is both in English and Chinese, or track it here on Postal Ninja.

As a rule, ePacket tracking number starts with LM, BZ, LX, LN, LZ, LW, LF, LK, KQ, LO or LL, followed with nine digits and CN, e.g.:

LS039769770CN

LT947052932CN

LN832125508CN

LW910983731CN

My ePacket is lost — what should I do?

A false tracking number may be the reason. While tracking your order, you may see a wrong location, which means it refers to another package. Get in touch with the merchant to get an actual tracking code.

If your ePacket goes missing completely, ask the merchant to report the lost package.

How long does it take to get an ePacket from China?

Delivery times vary by the destination country:

Kill sophos process mac. Recovery Instructions: Your options. In the Application Control policy, applications are allowed by default. System administrators choose applications that they wish to block. You can check out who is the parent process: select the process in activity monitor and use the Info button, or via terminal with ps -ax -O ppid if I recall correctly. It might be another process by Sophos but with a stealth name, or maybe even your VPN software. In that case you can just kill 'em all.

Air Mail Tracking

Delivery time to the USA: 10-20 working days;

To Russia, Saudi Arabia and Ukraine: 7-20 working days;

To other countries: 7-30 working days.

It should be pointed out that holidays, bad weather and other factors may delay the shipment.

My ePacket takes too long — what should I do?

First off, contact the merchant to specify the details. It is necessary to extend package insurance and wait for the item to be delivered. In the worst-case scenario, that is if you call your packet a loss, you can ask for a refund. Marketplaces oblige merchants to issue a full refund of missing packages.

ePacket vs China Post Air Mail

ePacket is a fast and convenient shipping option. Most items get delivered safely within 2-3 weeks. In contrast, some packages shipped by China Post get delayed, get stuck at customs, arrive damaged or even get lost.

British Eurosport has today (May 29) launched on Sky Go, the multiplatform service enabling Sky customers to watch live and on-demand television on multiple devices. The Sky Go app is available for all Sky TV customers at no extra cost, so you can watch Sky on the go on your mobile, tablet or laptop. Eurosport su sky go. Watch all 7 Sky Sports channels live on your mobile, laptop or tablet on Sky Go. At no extra cost for Sky Sports TV customers With Sky Go you can watch entertainment, movies and sports live and on. Access all the channels available on Sky Go while you're waiting. Once you're up and running, you'll only be able to watch the channels available in line with your TV package. Sky Go channels. Movies / Sports Entertainment Kids Docs News / International. All Sky Cinema channels.

ePacket vs Aliexpress Standard Shipping

Tracking From China To Usa

The apparent advantage of AliExpress Standard Shipping lies in customer security. In the course of the transaction, a merchant first passes an item to the AliExpress logistics department, where it gets a tracking code, and then a package is forwarded to courier services. In the case of standard delivery, the merchant bears all costs and estimated delivery time is 20-40 days. A customer can choose between paying extra (which ensures fast delivery) or having a package shipped for free but with a slight delay.

China Post Air Mail Website Philippines

In short, here are the pros and cons of ePacket (in comparison to Aliexpress Standard Shipping):

China Post Air Mail Website Business

ProsConsless risk of package lossweight up to 2 kgfaster package processinghigher delivery cost

[valofaxwords]

Blog Post Week #6 Due 9/30

Do you agree with Jeffery Ow in his essay The Revenge of the Yellowface Cyborg Terminator?

In Jeffery Ow’s essay, Ow goes on to critique the game Shadow Warrior (1997) as a giving gamers “ the role of the cold blooded colonizer who rapes, pillages and kills like a digitized reenactment of the My Lai massacre.” In defense, the creators of the game, 3-D realm, excuse all action, dialogue, and themes of their game by stating that the game is not racist but rather “ a parody of all the bad kung-fu movies on the 60's-80’s”. All though I do overall agree with Ow on that Shadow Warrior is a racist game due to their use of Asian themes, I believe that Ow in his essay focuses on the incorrect things due to their ignorance of video games or the video game industry in general. Reading this essay, the ignorance on basic details about the game, such as claiming it is a 2.5D when it is a 3D game, gives off the air of this essay being written by an outsider looking into a world they don’t fully understand, and in turn, making assumptions and invalid accusations. Now this is in no way an attempt at discrediting the author due to their lack of video game knowledge, nor is this a defense to 3D Realm’s game, but rather directing the narrative to a more constructive and applicable place. To put it simply, because Ow’s ignorance of the video game scene in general, they tend to make points about the game that are completely unnecessary when they are completely more valid points to be made. Yes, this game is racist, but not because of the some of the points Ow makes.  

Does parody excuse accusations of racism?

In most cases, no it does not, and in the case of Shadow Warrior (1997), as Jeffery Ow also criticizes it, I would agree with him that the jokes and themes presented in the game go beyond parody and enter the realm of harmful stereotypes. Though Jeffery Ow focuses on the player being forced to perform certain actions due to the game being first person, that is besides the point in terms of the argument against the game. Looking into 3D Realms most popular games during that era, and what was generally popular in the industry at the time, you would see that the first-person shooter was the norm that every game developer was attempting to follow. What should be focused on is not that the player is “forced” into committing such acts, but rather that the developers saw it acceptable to be able to give players this option. Looking at their previous games such as Duke Nukem 3D, we see similar acts of generic violence seen in most games, which is also narrated by an overly macho caricature of cheap action movies speaking ridiculous one liners. What makes Shadow Warrior different is that 3D Realms felt the need to add an ‘Asian’ touch to their already successful formula. To focus on the gratuitous violence, the gameplay mechanics, and perspective is more akin to conservative pearl clutching of M Rated video games that it is a point towards criticizing the racism of the game. The problem lies with 3D Realm, without a care for sensitivity or respect towards the Asian community, thought it would be easy to make a new IP by taking their existing Duke Nukem game and characters, and simply repainting it with an ‘Asian’ brush. So, the terrible action one liners and crude jokes become tinted with their idea of an ‘Asian” flare, and instead rely on harmful stereotypes and overused, unfunny racist humor. What could have been a parody of the ridiculous action martial art movies of the 70’s and 80’s turns into a cheap racist imitation of what they believe those films were. Had it actually attempted to reference these movies and not the stereotypes believed about them, you may have gotten a game with nuanced funny references to movies akin to Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon, but instead of you get racist prostitute scene from the movie Full Metal Jacket stretched into a 15-hour game.  

Is online racism feel the same way as in person racism?

If you’ve ever experienced any form of true racism or harassment due to your race in real life, you eventually develop a type of thick skin that can differentiate the differences between words of pure hate and words of micro aggressive ignorance. POC grow up needing to know that difference simply to get by in the world. Their lives need to know the difference because every act of micro aggressiveness towards them can’t feel the same way as a hurtful slur to get by. So when encountering racism in an online space, does that feel any differently? Some may say that because of the internet’s anonymous nature, it may feel like nothing but a small shout in the dark from an unknown assailant, nothing more than a pebble in the road due to it’s facelessness; but others may counter with the notion that the dread of not knowing who it is, that it could be anyone, makes it more mentally looming. Personally, I would counter that online spaces aren’t more inherently different than real life spaces. Though the technology is mechanically different from anything seen ever before, I would argue that all human communications have remained essentially the same, or at the very least, our reactions to them have remained the same. Which to apply directly to the question, online racism feels the same as in person racism. I would feel just as hurt being slung a slur at me with malice if it had been said directly to me, posted to me online, or even been told on the telephone. How racism manifests itself in an online space certainly can be unique and must be analyzed, but if you analyze the root of it all, it all ends up and leads to the same thing, an awful ignorant person spouting hate in whatever means they have.

Is there a way to fix online racism?

There is always a way to deter racism in online spaces but determining to fix racism in online spaces is as fruitless of an effort as insisting you could fix racism found in physical letters or through the phone. Online spaces aren’t a mystical different beast than real life spaces in which people congregate, but what you gain from the mechanical nature of an online space is the technology to head off racism at the pass. The idea that keeping a public space clean and spotless encourages the upkeep in that space because no one wants to be the one to make it dirty, certainly applies in the discussion of keeping online spaces clean. Therefore, most online spaces combatting things like racism will tend to outright ban or censor certain phrases or slurs in their space. But the same problem that happens in real life occurs in the online space. When certain spaces get too big with too many members, the area becomes unmanageable as the caretakers are overrun by the number of people. And with a greater number of people, the statistical likelihood of encountering an outlier person who is perfectly keen on disturbing a spotless place, comes forth to ruin everything. If not nipped in the bud immediately, this causes those around to believe this conduct is okay, and those on the fence of doing harm are now being shown that it is acceptable to act in such behavior and will in turn also act similarly. All in all, there are ways to manage racism in online spaces, and they are normally the same way we would handle these situations in real life, so that goes to say that you can only fix online racism as much as you could fix racism in the real world.

[xanderwithanx]

Chloe does night-time diary posts on HER tumblr, so I'm going to start doing them here, sometimes. It would be nice if you read it, but, please, don't feel obligated! This is more for me to write.

(I got tired of my normal journal, I guess. It's full of bad poetry anyway. Besides, where's the thrill of losing anonymity in a physical notebook?)

I've basically been asleep and depressed for several days, because I had withdrawal after not being able to get my adhd meds. But, I got it today, and DID THINGS. (This is SO much better than before!)

Today, I went to a small café or restaurant (focused on tea) called Alice's Teacup that was Alice in Wonderland themed! My long-standing obsession with Alice in Wonderland knows no bounds. It was a really cute place. I got pumpkin pancakes, and some really good iced tea. Like... REALLY good iced tea.

Still, it seemed like the entire place was geared towards having a pot of tea and snacks with your friends, which left me a bit lonely. The person I asked couldn't come, and by the time I heard back, I was more than halfway there. Still, I read Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead and watched Monty Python on my phone, so I still had a good time!

I dressed pretty eccentricly and effeminately all day, but, with my facial hair, I was ALWAYS coded as a man, even by people on the street! Pastels, a stupid hat, a crop top, and facial hair was a winning combination.

On my way, I was stopped by some guys soliciting for charity. I don't make a habit of stopping for strangers on the streets of Manhattan. What if it's a scam? What if I'm being pressured to buy something? What if it's a strange political rant? But, I had already taken my earbuds off, I wasn't in a hurry, and I'm terminally polite. The first guy said he liked my energy, which seemed to come from a genuine place, because I liked his too!

They were asking for donations for a breast cancer charity, the United Breast Cancer Foundation. After a discussion, it seems like the charity helps pay medical debt, medical bills, and other practical needs, which is much better than *some* others I could name. I regretted not being able to give their minimum there, as it was pretty high, but told them I'd give what I could when I got on the website.

I... did not. Money is tight, because I'm bad and irresponsible with money, even though this is more than a worthy cause. I didn't NEED to go to that tea place, and I don't NEED to spend so much money on food. Sure, I can justify it: I wanted to go to that place for so long, and it was near the college anyway! But, if I was responsible with money, you KNOW my friends direct fundraising drives would go first, worthy charities second. Still, I feel bad about it.

Then, I went to the college library, to get books to start my thesis research. I have literally been unable to go to the college itself, aside from getting my ID, so this was great! There just wasn't a reason. It was... very empty. I went to the library stacks, which was deathly quiet and deeply haunted by the old books. I half expected something to pop out at me, as I turned the stacks, but I wasn't even paranoid or anxious. It was like I was in something else's house. I was welcome, but on thin ice.

I picked up an irrelevant psychology book on the "schizophrenia problem" from the 1930s, out of morbid fascination, and quickly put it down when it threatened to shatter in my hands.

Some students walked past (which was a suprise in those monastic basement library stacks), and I added something to their conversation, in a totally natural and casual way. But, omg the poor girls, I made them jump! Luckily, I'm the least threatening person on earth, and we laughed it off.

After a lot of hunting, I got 5 out of my 10 books (for the most part)! (The rest are, sadly, online. I like to read physical copies.) Strangely, I only came in with a list to get 3 books out of 6.

Most of the books I got are about art in the AIDS crisis, which is the core of my thesis, I think, all with different value. One about exhibitions, one about the larger narrative of those gay artists, and another contradicting the larger narrative.

I also got a book about "Art and Homosexuality". Just, the parallel construction of both "art" and "homosexuality" across cultures and times, from earliest history to the modern age. It wasn't on my initial list, but I'm really excited to read it.

Finally, I got a book called "The Thief, the Cross and the Wheel", about the pain and spectacle of punishment in Medieval and Renaissance European art. I'm mainly interested in Italian Renaissance art of the crucifixion--and its masochism--for the second quarter of my thesis.

The rest are online, and Should mostly focus on Bacchus in the Italian Renaissance (especially through art) and what I call the art of "gay liberation", concurrent with the AIDS crisis (i.e. The Cockettes). These two topics make up the last half of my thesis.

I'm SO excited to get started!!

I even got to cross the college's sky-bridges! (The college is a few skyscrapers.) Still, the loneliness and novelty were kind of the same thought. Imagine if I had been here before COVID, or, if COVID hadn't happened. Who would I have been able to meet? What would the college buildings mean to me? Because, for now, they're just buildings. But, I got to see the street from above, and that was amazing!

Just walking through New York--the Upper East Side--on a cool, sunny day was beautiful. It takes 20-30 minutes to get from my place to the college (and the tea place), but it was great being able to listen to my music (a lot of They Might Be Giants on the playlist today) and see the city. You know, people, super cool old architecture being pushed out by terrible new architecture, and pigeons.

Oh my god, the pigeons. I took pictures, but none of them are good. I kept thinking about how pigeons and doves are functionally the same. We domesticated pigeons, which is why they're here, and no one is stopping to notice them? Even the ones that were splotched with pure white, like doves? There's only so many pigeons you can take until they're just white noise and a nuisance, I know, so don't think I'm blaming anyone! But it's so hard to look away from these quirky little birds.

Also, at one point my walk, I was vaping very strategicly. The mental task of searching through library stacks will do that to you, when you already have an addiction to nicotine. I made sure no one was around, and no one would be affected. I stopped on a corner next to an old, ornate Catholic church while the traffic light changed, and I almost juuled right next to a priest! I'm glad I stopped. I don't believe in Hell, but, I would have walked down there myself had I vaped at a priest. Still, the church advertised itself as LGBT+ friendly, so maybe they aren't so trigger happy on the damnation. Either way, I DIDN'T vape at a priest today, which is good.

Once I got back, I spent a few hours watching things with my amazing girlfriend Chloe, who you may know here as @cisphobiccommunistopinions. She is so beautiful, and I love her more every day, every time I see her. God, it's almost been 5 years!

I just wish I could spend more time with her. She's in Virginia, and I'm in New York. Like she said to me earlier, I'm flighty at the best of times, and, with my lack of object permanence for the digital world, I find myself not giving her the attention I deserve, or, the full connection I long to have with her. We used to live together. Luckily, someday we will live together again! All these problems won't be forever, and we can live together again.

We watched a lot of things, but we're pretty deep into Serial Experiments Lain right now. It's a postmodern anime from the 90s, and, wow, do I have no idea what's going on in it. It's about the internet, and potentially schizophrenia as well. However, I'm obsessed! One day I'll be able to crack this artistic code, and it's unreality, thematic knots, and double-meanings. I will probably understand it better on the second watch. I don't see myself in Lain, but I see my 14 year old self in her, when I had just developed schizophrenia. Her cyberpunk fate seems like it's railroaded towards tragedy, but I want to save her, even if it's silly and irrational.

I told Chloe that I was scared about spilling apple cider on my library books, and she referred to it as "The Great Apple Juice Disaster of September 11, 2021." To which I said that it was the second worst thing to happen in New York on that date. It was funnier if you were there, and also were in my brain at the time.

Anyway, tomorrow I'm meeting some online acquaintances from the college's "Queer Srudent Union" at a Japanese Culture Fair in a park. (I do not know which park.) It emphasizes "fun"! I don't know them very well, but they're friends with the one person I know irl, so it should be good.

Tomorrow night, I should Probably head downtown to check out a gallery show by MFA (masters of fine arts) students at Hunter! After all, I was in a group project with one of them, and they're absolutely brilliant. I missed the Thursday gallery opening by a landslide, because of the aforementioned lack of adhd meds and Being Asleep, which I infinitely regret. I could have listened to all the artists and curators talk about their art and exhibition! Maybe I could have even talked with the artists and curators. But, it's best for me to go sooner, rather than later, so I don't forget. And, I REALLY want to go.

It's "This dialogue which happened to be present in all other dialogues" at the Alyssa Davis Gallery. From the email I got, "Each of these works observes a threshold of transition. [...] [These] intimations [are] of a frame of mind shared by the artists. These works perform, record, access, engage, document, and entrap, embalming the viewer within the gallery space."

sgp is a really good artist, by the way. Their work is just next-level. Be sure to check out their art, if you have a chance. Let me link their portfolio: https://saragracepowell.com/

(I highly suspect spg and the other member of my group project ghosted me afterwards, but I understand. I was really in over my head. Still, they're both really sweet and kind people, don't get it twisted!)

I ALSO really want to see The Cake Boys. They're performing at the 3 Dollar Bill in Brooklyn on September 26th. (It's only $15!) They're the only all drag king collective in NYC! (Are... there any Other all drag king collectives out there?) Other than the fact that a lot of them are trans or nonbinary, which I love, this show is a totally non-judgmental competition for over 40 drag kings! I've heard their shows are hilarious and unique.

I just have to wait until I have $15 to spare. I... didn't eat dinner tonight, because I'm irresponsible with my money and don't want to ask my parents for money... again. Don't worry, it's literally fine, and I don't make a habit of doing this!

Which reminds me! For my birthday, my parents gave me a gift card to Lush! I'm definitely going to Lush tomorrow, which will be great. I would describe my personality as "Lush store employee acosting you about a bath bomb demonstration", so I'll fit right in.

I also made a transition timeline, to show how much I've changed on testosterone. For the better, I hope! I really believe I'm becoming, if not Have Become, the man I was always meant to be. It's so strange to look back at who I was not too long ago, and to know the absolute pain I was in. It's also strange, in a good way, to see the man looking back at me in the selfies. I'm so much happier now! Much more candid in my pictures, at least. But, I know that I'm so much more comfortable as myself than I was even 6 months ago. It's strange. Sometimes I think to myself, "I don't pass yet; I'm not who I Need To Be yet." Then, I look at my selfie from today, and... I'm THERE. My mind just hasn't caught up with my amazing, natural, normal reality.

The end. I have to get ready for bed, (even though I could be partying on a Saturday night in the city. I'm lame.) If you actually read this, I am kissing you on the mouth right now. I hope it made you calm down tonight, like a terrible bedtime story. If you didn't read it and just skipped to the end, don't worry: you did the rational thing.

[shirlleycoyle]

Before TikTok, Witches Traded Their Spells on This Ancient Internet Forum

Long before the witches of Gen-Z claimed TikTok as their digital coven, and even before the Geocities-scattered digital landscapes of Web 1.0, a thousands-strong community once formed via the world’s phone lines to trade spells, advise on sigils, and correspond on spiritual guidance. It was called the Pagan And Occult Distribution Network, or PODSnet: a slice of occult internet history that helped pioneer mass online collaboration.

Today, it’s easy to take for granted that online communities are only a few taps away, but in the 1980s and early 1990s, finding like-minded individuals in niche subject areas was practically revolutionary. And in the case of PODSnet, it provided an unusually free space to discuss the esoteric arts—for many of its members, for the first time ever.

"In the 1990s and 1990s, accessing the social media of the day was very different than it is today,” Farrell McGovern, a PODSnet cofounder who came to Paganism through books about quantum physics such as The Dancing Wu Li Masters, told Motherboard. “It was louder, slower, and connectivity was perilous.”

In the early 1980s, computing enthusiasts began using Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) to communicate with each other. These systems were a precursor to the World Wide Web, and although relatively primitive, paved the way for the always-on communication of today.

Because BBS ran on phone lines, discussions were asynchronous and often confined to local groups due to the dramatic costs of dialing farther afield than your own state. What’s more, the boards were isolated from one another: an analogy might be if every single subreddit needed its own website, and you could only speak to users in your immediate area.

But in 1984, artist and technician Tom Jennings created FidoNet, a network that could connect all of these BBS systems. With the advent of cheaper modems, FidoNet’s popularity exploded into a huge 20,000-node network that connected users all around the world. Eventually, something called Echomail was introduced by a system operator, or sysop, called Jeff Rush, allowing for the support of public forums.

Instead of simply picking up your smartphone, BBS users would have to connect their computer to a modem, which was linked to a phone line—translating digital 1s and 0s into audio information and back again to the modem and terminal operating the BBS.

Popular BBSes would frequently return a busy signal: unlike today, actually logging off was necessary because only one connection was allowed at a time. A successful login returned a screen of text and a list of messages grouped into categories, with the software tracking the ones you had read. Here, users would respond to text, download what they could, and hang up.

Here, a BBS called "Magicknet" flourished, but one problem in particular spurred its users to found their own splinter network: Christian fundamentalists had infiltrated the group to spy on members.

This infiltration led to a number of incidents, including McGovern being written up in the magazine of infamous cult figure Lyndon Larouche as a “well-known witch from Toronto”. Given the various tabloid-led "Satanic panics" at the time, founding an independent BBS was not only right for promoting lively metaphysical discourse, it was a matter of safety too.

“People were losing their jobs, child custody, etc,” McGovern told Motherboard. “People had to move to escape persecution in some areas: very much so in the Bible Belt, but in other places, too. Unless you were in a major metropolitan area, and even then, you ran some degree of risk if you were outed.”

McGovern was first involved in his local BBS scene around Ottawa in the mid-1980s. Working at a local computer store that sold Apple and IBM PC clones, McGovern set up the Data/Sfnet BBS to advertise the business. In doing so, he became a SysOp—a system operator who ran, maintained, and in many cases built a network—granting him honorary entry to the computing elite at the time.

Being based in Canada, McGovern was the first to help Magicknet go international before it split into PODSnet, which would swell to 10,000 members who accessed the BBS by dialling into the 93 "zone number"—a reference to Thelema, the spiritual movement developed by Aleister Crowley.

The logo of the PODSnet bulletin board system.

For author and occult store supplier Dorothy Morrison, who was raised Catholic but eventually joined a coven of practicing witches in California before forming one of her own, discovering PODSnet was an “incredible way to find so many people of like mind at one place”.

“It was a place where I could be myself, regardless of the fact I really was living in a very conservative, buttoned-down state,” Morrison told Motherboard. “It wasn’t just a safe haven for me, it was an escape from having to appear to be someone I wasn’t for safety reasons."

“When someone wants to burn you at the stake—at that time Missouri was not a place that would’ve taken kindly to Witches—you certainly don’t tell them where you keep the gas can,” she said.

The atmosphere on PODSnet was typically collaborative and friendly, said Morrison, and the most arresting dramas on the board she was aware of usually related to the enormous phone bills that came from connecting to the network. (Although once or twice these charges “damned near landed some folks in divorce court.")

But, like the internet today, there were hints of gossip, rumours, and fake news. One popular cause for the community was the supposed persecution of 9 million witches by Christians (The whole idea was based on bad scholarship, according to McGovern). At one point, there was a six-year-long debate on whether or not Kate Bush is Wiccan—perhaps one of the most heated internet disputes of its time.

Whatever the topic, much of these PODSnet discussions would have been lost to time were it not for a community effort to archive the cherished message board. Still accessible in its archived ASCII form today, PODSnetters worked together to produce what was perhaps the first mass collaborative online project of its type: a massive, crowdsourced digital grimoire  called the Internet Book of Shadows.

The name of the enormous seven-volume text references the catch-all "Book of Shadows," a name commonly used for tomes of spells and rituals, and the text covers the A-Zs of alternative spirituality from "Asatru to Zen Buddhism." Chapter one alone is 70,000 words long, and there’s a varied store of stuff available within, including an essay about bashing fluffy bunnies (the tendency among some well-seasoned practitioners to troll newbies, as opposed to bashing actual rabbits), a guide to cleansing rituals called "smudging," and an introduction to the suppressed traditions of Gnosticism.

Plenty of contributors to the Book of Shadows remain involved in esoteric spiritual communities today, and some, like Morrison, became authors in their own right.

One of Dorothy Morrison’s favorite contributions to the Internet Book of Shadows.

Morrison says the book of rituals, spells, stories, legends, and “other magic-related miscellany” took seven 5-inch loose-leaf binders to contain it when she once decided to print out the information the community had amassed. The community then began compiling the grimoire into downloadable digital files.

Once it was finished, PODSnet users agreed to offer the Book of Shadows as a gift, free of charge, to the community. While they were copyrighted, they were free to use and copy under the proviso that there was no charge for their acquisition—leading to later frustrations about unauthorized reproductions of the manuscript for profit.

“It’s probably the largest collection of pagan thought that was freely available to copy for non-commercial use,” McGovern added.

According to Dan Harms, an author and librarian at SUNY Cortland, magick practice has thrived on community-produced documents throughout history. Even during the print era, there was a “tremendous sort of traffic in books, manuscripts being passed back and forth between people,” chopping and changing aspects of the manuscripts they liked before copying them out.

“What was really different here, is that when the material was copied or created, it’s put up online for everybody to see,” Harms said. “It becomes a collective memory. It’s not something that’s stuck on somebody’s shelf, it’s something everybody can get into.”

Harms told Motherboard that communities like PODSnet were of enormous importance for establishing networks of occult practitioners and helped lay the groundwork for driving a boom in occult publishing.

“I was growing up in rural Kentucky with an interest in these kinds of arcane topics,” said Harms, who wasn't involved in the occult internet at the time of PODSnet but was an active Usenet user. “It was just so hard to find any sort of information – you would have to rely on the local library.  But the local library in rural Kentucky is probably not looking to fill up its shelves with books about magic and paganism and things like that.”

Today, what was once a recondite pocket of the primordial internet has hit the mainstream, with even the Financial Times covering the "WitchTok" phenomenon. Speaking with PODSnetters, there’s a sense that in today's online spaces, community and information exchange can often take a backseat to clout and hostility. “[But] how much of that is getting older and yelling ‘get off my grass’,” asks McGovern, “or true insight – only time will say.”

Whatever the case, PODSnet—which closed around the turn of the millennium before hopping to Yahoo Groups, LiveJournal, and now with its remnants on Facebook—proved that digital technologies can bring disparate people together in a meaningful way, where they are happy to create and produce for the good of their communities.

“I remember those I met along that journey, what they taught me—not only about the Craft, but about myself—and the connections I made," said Morrison.“I remember how fortunate I was that PODSnet was there for me. To a large degree, that experience formed the person I am today, and I'll be forever grateful.”

Before TikTok, Witches Traded Their Spells on This Ancient Internet Forum syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

[in-this-body-of-mine]

To The Bone (2017) - Analysis and Charting

Let’s go! I’m NOT excited because life is hard but what better way to distract myself than to do this kind of shit. No one cares, anyways.

Since this is the first one, let me tell you what we’re gonna do here. I’ll include the IMDB summary, a summary with spoilers, the placements in the chart, we’ll go over each item (also, spoilers abound) and finally my review and final thoughts. Yes, it’s gonna be long. Read at your own risk.

IMDB summary:  A young woman, dealing with anorexia, meets an unconventional doctor who challenges her to face her condition and embrace life.

Summary with spoilers: Lily Collins plays Ellen/Eli and from the start of the movie she is on the brink of her disease. She was just kicked out of a recovery center and she gets an appointment with a ~cool unconventional doctor~ played by Keanu Reeves. She goes into ANOTHER inpatient treatment home to be treated by him. Shit happens, she seems to be getting better somehow, but then she spirals down, runs away, and after a... near death experience (I wish this was an euphemism) she decides to try recovery again and goes back to the treatment home. That’s where the movie ends.

Chart placements!

Now for each item:

White: Ellen or Eli is played by Lily Collins, who once played Sandra Bullock’s daughter in that movie were she was a Karen. It doesn’t get whiter than that.

Female: She changes her name to Eli mid film (which is how I’ll be calling her here bc we respect chosen names in this household) but she still seems to identify as female and be referred to as such, so here we have it. We do have a guy in the treatment home, but we’ll come back to him later.

Teenager/Young adult: I’m pretty sure she is 19 but every review I see says she’s 20. Either way, she dropped out of college even though she just started it. The actress, however, was 28 at the time the movie was released.

Wealthy/seemingly well-off: Her family has the money to send her to inpatient a bunch of times, and they make a point to mention how they have connections so she didn’t have to wait in line to see this new doctor. Case closed.

Skinny actress from the start: As we know, Lily Collins is already thin and she did struggle with anorexia in the past. Why, however, did she lose weight for this movie? They said it was her decision “to make the character more authentic”. As if not being skin and bones wouldn’t be enough. As if eating disorders don’t come in every size. They shouldn’t let her. The need to shock people is a very dangerous sign to me.

No distinctive personality or hobbies/interests: I’m glad Eli has a thing she loves. It’s not super present, but it’s there, and it’s plot relevant. She loves art and in the story, she had a tumblr (look, it’s us!) where she shared drawings related to her ED and a girl liked her drawings so much that, when she killed herself, she mentioned Eli by name in a note. But that isn’t really explored too much and I kind of got disappointed by that.

Good student: We don’t really know about that... and I don’t think it matter, it’s ok.

Seemingly irrelevant love interest: Why? Just why do we need Luke? Luke is the only guy in the home, and we can SEE that he’s only there to be Eli’s love interest. He wasn’t needed. None of the important plot points have anything to do with him. Make her date a girl. Make her date NO ONE. This is about eating disorders. She could have closer friends in the house. Why was this necessary. Her whole speech about how love is a lie could come from a friendship but no. They had to shove pretty white boy there.

Daddy issues (sometimes coupled with mommy issues): I find this extremely funny but her dad isn’t in the movie. At all. He’s alive and well, but he makes a point to never come home when Eli is even awake. I don’t think they cast an actor for that. As for mothers, she has three, and it’s a trip. Her stepmom on her dad’s side is very out of touch but she wants what’s best for Eli, but she really hates Eli’s biological mom. Bio mom, in turn, is described as a “bipolar lesbian” and the stereotypes are just... ugh. Bio mom has a wife and she is a bit weird too. They sent Eli to live with her absent dad bc “they couldn’t deal with it anymore”. This brings us to a great scene where we can see Eli shrinking in her seat and when the psychiatrist asks her what she is feeling she says “I’m sorry I’m not a person anymore. I’m a problem.” And that’s great to see. But at the same time, I hate that her whole issue in this movie seems to come from her family and anorexia is just a thing that happened, with some vague references to control. 

*Triggering event*: We never see it and it’s okay - but I kind of wanted some more explorations of motives because we have ZERO.

Anorexia as diagnosis: As I always say, what is even the point of making a cool looking movie about EDs if your protagonist is not only anorexic, but also terminally anorexic? Ugh. That’s the only portrayal of anorexia that happens in media and I’m fucking tired.

Checklist of habits (manual for those looking for one): I mean, I mark this down but as I always say: everything is a manual if you’re looking for one. But if you’re doing more than not eating or purging or exercising I’ll judge it as a new tip. A lot of us already thought of/did most of them probably. But the marking remains.

Inpatient treatment (or extended hospital stay): As I said, she is kicked out of one treatment center and goes straight into another. What fucks me up is that the movie HAS other characters with other diagnosis, but we never see anything about them. We don’t see their journey. We only know Luke is a dancer bc he is the love interest. We only know Megan is pregnant and then she’s not bc this sends Eli in a spiral. We only know Kendra is not straight bc she makes a joke about it (and Doctor Beckham follows with a horrible joke about conversion therapy). Did you notice Ciara Bravo was in this movie? I didn’t on first viewing. She has like two lines. The whole movie is centered around Eli and every scene in the house feels like all the other patients only care about her too.

Emotional tipping point: Megan loses her baby and for some reason this affects Eli. Luke kisses Eli and for some reason she’s pissed. At that point, I was annoyed. She has a bad session with Doctor Beckham who basically tells her to grow a pair and stop complaining (which is insensitive as a doctor, but as a person I wanted to do the same) and she decides to quit and leave. She has to go to her mother’s home and I’m supposed to care. Stepmom is mad but doctor says she needs to hit rock bottom. She weights like 70 pounds dude. Rock bottom was about ten pounds ago, next stop is a coffin, mate.

Mom hugs: And here we have the emotional turn around of the movie and it’s just... make it make sense. She goes to her bio mom’s ranch. Her stepmom # 2 tells they’ll have therapy with horses (?). Eli goes sleep in a tent and bio mom cries and says she accepts if Eli wants to die. Very supportive I guess. They have this weird bonding moment where the mom feeds her a bottle like a baby and look, if you liked that, good for you, but I don’t get what I was supposed to feel about it (but that’s mom hug #1). She goes on a hike next morning and... dies? Either way she has an out of body experience where she talks to Luke and sees how she looks - which is weird to me. Didn’t we go over this in the beggining of the movie? Didn’t we establish that she does know what she looks like and doesn’t care? But still she seems shocked and they have a cryptical conversation and she wakes up. And just like that, she’s ok now. She meets up with the other stepmom (mom hug # 2) and goes back to the home.

Happy ending: In the last scene Eli is back to the home and we understand she’s going to try to recover for real this time. I’m okay with that specifically, I think it would be bad if they pretended she just got better with no relapses and everything is fine, but it’s a hopeful ending. Despite the fact that we have no idea if she won’t have a fit and leave in two days and that we never know anything about anyone else and Megan, who lost the baby, never comes back. It’s fine. At that point, I didn’t expect much.

Analysis: I was hesitant to be critical bc this movie was based on the real life experiences of the director and Lily Collins. But fuck it, this is my circus and I’ll clown as much as I want. While I do understand that, I have a lot of thoughts.

Mainly, I need to say that while I understand this is her story, this is a story that was told so many times. I’m tired.

The general public that wants to defend the movie says “well you can’t tell ALL stories”, and while I agree, these people probably only saw this movie about the subject. If you HAVE (or had) and eating disorder, you probably saw tons. And they ALL tell the same story. Which is why I started that chart in the first place.

This movie does have good moments. I do like the acting, I saw people complaining about Keanu Reeves performance - but I do know these were people who disliked the movie entirely. I think his performance was great, Lily Collins performance was great, and their chemistry was great. The best scenes in the movie happened between the two of them. The one thing that I LOVED was their first interaction when he calls her on her bullshit. “You’re not thin, you scare people, and I think you like that.” YES. I never heard anyone talk about that. And I guess I’ll never will, bc the movie itself never talk about this again either. Also when she justifies the tumblr where her art triggered a girl so much, she says that she was just drawing what she knows, he calmly tells her that she can draw, but she doesn’t have to share it online tho. I liked their interactions because often ED patients are treated with silk gloves (is that the expression?) and sometimes there is a need for some though love. I also love Liana Liberato who plays her sister and that’s about it.

The problem with the doctor ends up being: what’s his method? How are you going to cure her? The method makes no sense. I don’t see the reasoning. I don’t think anyone does. And somehow it works and she goes back there. 

I think my major problem with the movie is that it has the same issues every ED portrayal before it. It’s the same story again. I think it shines the most in the whole “it’s not about food, it’s about control!”. It IS about food though. For a lot of people, it is. Maybe not for this director or for Lily Collins, but for so many people it is about food. It’s about control as well, and it is possible that there is other factors related to it, but you can’t chalk it all up to a control issue and pretend it’s just whatever. If the food didn’t matter, it wouldn’t be an eating disorder.

Because of that, we have this heavy focus on her family issues and nothing to do with food. We have people trying to rationalize - maybe it’s bc your mom is a lesbian, maybe it’s bc i didn’t bond with you as a baby - and all that does is to make her lesbian bipolar mother seem like a crazy asshole and her dad seem like an absent asshole as if this is the only factor here. Give me SOMETHING. Any connection to food. Any sense. Nope. She just won’t eat bc her family is fucked up. Hoe, that’s all of us.

And I think the movie unintentionally DOES glamourize anorexia. Subtly, yes, but it does. Eli has SUCH an easy time refusing food. She doesn’t seem to think about food as much as she thinks about herself and her family and Luke and being annoying. She knows a bunch of calories and she overexercises. Idk.  Not to mention that moment when Kendra asks her about purging and she says “it’s not her thing”. I mean. It is no one’s thing. No one likes it. It’s a compulsion. And if you have anorexia that severe and you are not with a feeding tube, you do eat every now and then, and you do have purging mechanisms. If she had said she prefers overexercising as a purging mechanism than to throw up, I would believe her. But the movie acts as if she just never eats ever and somehow she’s still standing. Give her a feeding tube then. It would be more believable.

I know it sounds kind of ranty, but my point here is: this extremely anorexic girl, that looks like a sack of bones, and gets that by never eating and doing crunches all the time, it is the wet dream of a fatphobic society with a 71 billion weight loss industry. This is the dreamy and frugal idea of anorexia that people have when they are deep into the illness - not when they recovered as the people involved say they did. I get that this is a very personal project. But it’s flawed. It doesn’t do anyone any favors. It just tells the same story, for the millionth time, but since this time it was in a big platform, more people saw it, and it was better done, with a better budget and with a good enough resolution so I can see every bone in Lily Collins body.

Anyway, that’s it for today. If you read all of that, thanks. Since this is Netflix, I’m assuming everyone saw, but the other movies are out there and if you need liks, hit me up. Be back soon.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

STARTUPS AND CADILLAC

Eventually the pimps and drug dealers notice that the doctors and lawyers have switched from Cadillac to Lexus, and do each kind of work in the way of noticing it consciously. The reason I've been writing about existing forms is that I don't know. Most of the people who've had to write PhD disserations about Dickens don't.1 That word balance is a significant one. I encourage founders to follow whichever path is most immediately exciting to them.2 What happens to publishing if you can't sell content? We're good at making movies and software, and undergrads are not especially prone to waste money.3 When you take people like this and put them together with other ambitious people, then a lot of people. One of my most vivid memories from our startup is going to be than the worst?4 In this model, the research department functions like a mine.5

I'm sometimes accused of meandering. With each step you gain confidence to stretch further next time.6 You had to for guests. Perl. If they get something wrong, it's usually not realizing they have to be inferior people.7 Of what? And because of supply and demand, they pay especially well.8

If free copies of your content are available online, then you're competing with publishing's form of distribution, and that's why they do it so well.9 Another trick I've found to protect myself against obsolete beliefs is exactly what you have to customize something for an individual client's complex and ill-defined needs.10 I make a note of what surprises me most about them is how conservative they are.11 It didn't seem to harm us. He redefined the problem as: make one that's beautiful.12 Prediction is usually all we have to rely on. As you accelerate, this drag increases, till eventually you reach a point where the adults sit you down and explain all the lies they told you. It's exciting to chase things and exciting to try to guess answers.13 Combine this with the confidence parents try to instill in their kids, and every year you get a valuable new resource you can use to figure out what he meant. One, the CTO couldn't be a first rate hacker, because to become an eminent NT developer he would have if the founders had given the VCs what they wanted, when they wanted it, and focus our efforts where they'll do the most good.

A few steps before a Rubik's Cube is solved, it still looks like a mess. There were a lot of false positives. At least, that's how they see it. If it fails, that is. But it's certainly possible to do things that make you stupid, and if you can, as Steve Jobs does, make satisfying you the kind of productivity that's measured in lines of code: the best programmers can solve a given problem in a tenth the time. Hackers & Painters. Particularly to young companies that are growing fast, but haven't been doing it for long enough to have grown big yet. Do we want to get the resulting ideas past other people's. Well, there precisely is Montaigne's great discovery. Note too that determination and talent are not the graphic designers and grandmas who were buying Macs at Apple's low point in the 1960s.14 It's one of the most spectacular lies our parents told us was about the death of our first cat.

But no one those days was paying a lot more than Yahoo. Conversations with corp dev is not doing a bad job of talking to them before they are. And I think we may be good at what we're good at for the same reason we're bad at.15 When you're too weak to lift something, you don't need either of those. It's something they plunge into, working fast and constantly changing their minds, and why companies pay now for Bloomberg terminals and Economist Intelligence Unit reports. The time was then ripe for the question: if the study of ancient texts became less about ancientness and more about texts. If they're only paying a twentieth as well. But this harmless type of lie can turn sour if left unexamined.16 We want kids to be innocent so they can get the most done. The world is more addictive than it was 40 years ago.

If you're really productive, why not modern texts? The place to look is where the line ends. I think founders will increasingly be the fate of anyone who wants to get things done. When you see something that's taking advantage of new technology to give people something they want that they couldn't have before, you're probably better off thinking directly about what users need. And I think this sort of thing it becomes national news. The less it costs to start a company. In the hundred meters, you know in 10 seconds who's fastest.

Notes

I know when this happened because it doesn't change the meaning of life.

Currently we do at least 150 million in 1970. Patrick Pantel and Dekang Lin.

Just use the name Homer, to a car dealer. A supports, say, but no doubt often are, but those are writeoffs from the most difficult part for startup founders tend to use some bad word multiple times. Ii. I'm not against editing.

Of the remaining outcomes don't have enough equity left to motivate people by saying Real artists ship.

But if they do for a patent troll, either. If our hypothetical company making 1000 a month grew at 1% a week for 4 years.

It should not try to get elected with a screw top would have disapproved if executives got too much. Another tip: If doctors did the same way a bibilical literalist is committed to believing anything in particular made for other reasons, the switch in mid-game.

Good and bad technological progress, however. Y Combinator makes founders move for 3 months also suggests one underestimates how hard they work. This is the accumulator generator benchmark are collected together on their companies took off? But that doesn't seem to have to talk about startups in Germany.

I may be exaggerated by the government to take board seats by switching to what you really want, like selflessness, might come from meditating in an urban legend. And if you know Apple originally had three founders? When you're starting a company if the students did well they do now.

After Greylock booted founder Philip Greenspun out of business, having spent much of the biggest winners, from hour to hour that the worm infected, because investing later would probably only improve filtering rates early on?

We Getting a Divorce? Perl.

Don't invest so much from day to day indeed, is a huge, overcomplicated agreements, and b when she's nervous, she doesn't like getting attention in the sense that there were about the same reason I stuck with such tricks will approach.

But it's useful to consider behaving the opposite way from the CIA. There are successful women who don't like to invest at any valuation the founders. But while this sort of things you waste your time working on is a dotted line on a scale that Google does. 0001.

But try this experiment is that you're not going to create a great deal of competition for the future.

VCs thus have a standard piece of casuistry for this essay will say that it refers to instant ramen would be more likely to come in and convince them. But this seems an odd idea.

You're going to drunken parties. I have no real substance. VCs should be working on Viaweb. But iTunes shows that people get older.

After a bruising fight he escaped with a slight disadvantage, but in practice money raised as convertible debt is a shock at first, but this sort of person who would never have left PARC. Again, hard work is in the Valley has over New York, people who did it lose?

[shesawriter39049]

|ROLL DEEP|M| P.1

                 *Yoongi centered fic with a shared OT7 plot*

CH.1.1   CH. 1.2

**Operation: What’s eating blue!?***

_________________________________________________________

“Stop, this stopped being a you, thing and became a us thing  the minute we chose to show up here tonight! You gave us an out and we stayed...we will always stay...”

1.2 K Sneak Peek

Pairing: Yoongi x OC

Genre: Sugar baby AU/Suspense/Smut/Angst/Roomate AU/FWB AU

WC: 7K

Nonsexual Warnings: Mentions of drug use (Molly/weed/)Strong language/ Alcohol addictions/ brief mentions/ speculations of domestic violence/abuse

Sexual Warnings: Oral (M & F receiving) power bottom Min Yoongi, cum play, breath play, spanking, dirty talk, Slight overestimation, sex toys (Cock rings....) Semi-public sex (A chill little blow job in the car) The sexual warnings are for both parts of CH.1 so the smut is split in half!

NOTE:  Just to clarify the dynamic Yoongi and the OC are roommates who hookup on the side, they are BOTH sugar babies to two separate people! So yes, that would imply that Yoongi and some of the other boys who are also sugar babies are Bi. There is no MxM but there is mentions of it occasionally….as well as some harmless ot7 flirting! Also all of the boys are introed, Tae and Joon just play a lager part here!

_______________________________________________

I guess, fuck where do we even start? Maybe, will go back to where it all technically started, which was the last time things felt...somewhat normal yeah?

So, that would be...hmm...about 2 weeks shy of you heading into Junior year at USC right? The day your boys picked you up at the airport, and the three of your treated Blue, aka TaeTae to brunch!?

Well, wait let’s back track a little it all started much eariler than that, because you weren’t even aware of your brunch plans until later in the day. So Initially the day in question kicks of with you, in oversized blacked out CHLOE shades, hungover as fuck, sat in at the airport one Sunday afternoon. Smack dab in the middle of Terminal 6, in a bar called Blu2o sipping on a Bloody Mary, scrolling aimlessly through Snapchat. While simotaniously being told for the very first time ...that you’ll be attending a “Haute Couture”  themed charity auction...on Tuesday! Yup,  the day after tomorrow! Thank god he can’t see your damn face right now, biting down on your straw to muzzle yourself!

“No, babe it’s fine, I’ll just hit Rodeo tomorrow morning, and I’m sure my nail and lash girl can fit me-Oh you...haven’t gotten... what ...your wearing either?” Parroting the words back In slow motion as if it would make the words sound better or something!

Oh for fucks sake! Bringing your forehead flush to the marble bartop already feeling a full blown migraine brewing at the nape of your neck. Giving yourself a couple moments to self compose, this man is so damn unorganized it’s unfucking real. His personal assistant better be the 2nd highest paid person within his entire company because…..This is far from new, I don’t even know why your suprised and I’d say you don’t get paid enough for this....but ya do! So you suck it up, lose the attitude and slip right into your “Yes sir” or maybe I should say ‘Yes daddy” voice.

“Don’t worry about it, I know your busy. I totally get it, your a 28 waist right? Of course, I remember...I remember everything you tell me….Ohhh your gonna let me put you in color too???” Eyes flickering up to the notification from your bank, noting a cute little 12k wire pending.

“Yeah, no, I see it, that should be good. I was thinking Versace or Cavili for you anyway...they have good prints to fit the theme, and if all else fails I have my card too…yup..just landed about..hmm... 30 minutes ago actually. Of course, stop apologizing, Sunday's are always your golf days, I get it, hey, tell the guys I said hi and enjoy your day. Text me later if you feel up to it..k....bye..”

Were you actually getting a little flustered there towards the end? It's the slight accent, isn't it? Honestly, it didn't take much for you to slip into “character” with him, even after barely being together a full month. For one he wasn’t an asshole, had a decent sense of humor, and he’s really fuckin hot...however there was one, little, well shit, not so little issue...you noticed while with him recently. Which, then sparked quite a few questions while also answering some that had been rattling through your head since the day you met. But will circle back to the fact that you spent a week on vacation with a man, while dressed in some of the sexiest pieces of 2019 couture! Yet..you barely got touched once outside of a couple chaste kisses and hand-holding while at the two fashion shows you attended together… so, yeah, yeah!

A low groan in frustration rattled from your throat as you continued scrolling through Snapchat, trying to come up with some possible outfit scenarios in your head! It’s kinda funny, how mynute all of that seems now though, how your definition of “Stress” that day was you trying to decide if your sugar daddy was gay, while also  finding time to fit in a self-care day, shopping, and getting your books for school!!  The fact that, that was what you considered migraine worthy, fuck, what you wouldn’t give to consider multitasking your only maltitude of “stress” again …..

Just in your own little world, mind swirling with a couple of stylists you’ve met along the way, considering the idea of them pulling some vintage pieces for you instead!  What you should be doing, is scrolling through your contact list and texting said stylists, instead you find yourself more and more distracted.  Getting lost in the mounds of snap updates from Jimin as he “modestly” sunbathed in a private villa in Italy. Then later sharing a glimpse into his shopping spree from Versace, no doubt a good 20k worth of Italian luxury spread out along the plush white sheets. Sending him a cheeky little “That’s my boy” with a couple of smug winky faces in response!

It’s still kinda crazy to think, things like that are considered normal within your world now, the fact that you aren’t even surprised at the number of gifts. Or, simply the fact that your barley 21-year-old best friend is sunbathing in Italy on someone else’s dime. Then again, you just got sent 12 thousand dollars to spend on an event that would last maybe all of 5 hours, while sitting next to a stack of Louis Vuittion luggage from your first class flight in from Vegas, technically. Opting to land there first after a long 15-hour flight, checking in at The Four Seasons for not even a solid 24 hours before coming home! Honestly?There was no real reason for the pit stop except it gave you an excuse to see a friend while also allowing you to unwind in one of your favorite hotels!

That sentence alone is actually absurd when you really think about it, the idea of you casually booking flights and suites in 5-star hotels as if you’re ordering off the damn dollar menu at Mcdonalds! You, the girl that was working two jobs at the Groove and mourning a piece of shit cheating ex boyfriend her freshman year of college.....is now reminiscing about catching flights to chill with friends and last minute finding dresses for Couture themed galas.Like, what the actual fuck is life.... Oh my bad, life at the moment is constantly being paranoid that you and your friends will get arrested! Life in this moment however...was a fucking perfect!

The friend you where meeting in Vegas was Hoseok by the way, the redhead was currently vacationing in Sin City for the next couple of days, typically residing in LA as well. Just Chillin’ before the semester starts, living his best life, which revolves around “OFF-WHITE'' shopping sprees, private dance lessons, and constantly taking thirst trap pics for his 10’s of thousands of followers online. He randomly texts you saying “I miss your face” you text him saying “I land at 8 tonight bring a bottle and sushi to room 605 at The Four Seasons hotel '' Simple!

Your initial flight, the one that was 15 hours, was originally from Paris, where you spent the last week or so with Jeong-su, being arm candy, sipping wine, sightseeing and of course shopping!. Barley 32 hours ago your Snapchat looked pretty damn similar, if not worse in comparison to Jimin’s but what can I say, you can’t be in the home of Givenchy and Gaulthier and not go to Givenchy and Gaultier!

What your life is, what you and your friends do, I mean, I think it’s safe to say it’s pretty self-explanatory yeah? The average 20 something-year-old in college isn't flying themselves out of the country or going luxury shopping without a little help. In your case, it’s typically thanks to a person you commonly refer to as “Daddy” now, the context behind the word however….is where you and your friends may differ from others…..

But that’s your business, your concern and more importantly your choice, and honestly for a while life seemed too damn good to be true...I guess looking back on it now, I guess that’s because it kinda was!

Sat at the predominantly empty bar alone, more than content by the silence, twirling your straw between your lips, as you scanned back over the shit show that was your schedule for the semester! Getting more of a migraine from that, then shopping or even the fact that you're still hungover and drinking on an empty stomach at half-past 12. Shooting a quick text to your redheaded best friend cursing him out for getting you drunk off your ass on a bottle of Yamazaki 12.

“Can I get anything else for you beautiful? Another drink or maybe an appetizer? We have damn good loaded queso fries if I do say so myself!” Waving the menu in your face playfully, the warm, inviting voice in front of you was the bartender, who’s had his eye on you since you swayed in. Even if you looked like crap for your standards you knew to most you were the farthest thing from it as you swayed into the bar like you owned the place. In your heels, and tiny little black dress, while an airport assistant trolied in your luggage behind you! Ohhh Blair  Waldorf would without a doubt be proud!

“Mmmm…” Lips pursed in a slight pout as you raked over the menu, honestly, you were hungry and they have bomb ass fried pickles…..”Actually, yeah, I’ll get-”

“ 3 tall shots of whatever top-shelf Tequila you have, also add whatever she’s been drinking to my tab, along with an order of fried pickles with extra ranch…please and thank you!” Smoothly sliding his black card, and ID across the marble bartop for review.

Oh.

The look on the bartender’s face was fucking priceless, torn between shitting himself and maybe….nah, just straight shitting himself! Skin flushed, the sense of panic was clear as day,  wondering if he’d overstepped that fine line between customer service and filtration. Considering whoever the person behind you is, clearly knows you well enough to know your food order. A forced bashful smile playing along his lips as he bowed out in acknowledgment, sliding the gentelmen back is ID and whispering out a faint “Yes sir, coming right up…”

The base vibrating through your ears instantly had you readjusting your posture, a strong tingle running down your spine, back arching ever so slightly. A playful smirk playing along your lips as you slowly laced your tongue back around your staw, tucking a loose strand of hair behind your ear.

“You sure you wanna do that? My tastes are pretty expensive..” Tone blatantly flirtatious, yet you still hadn’t bothered to even turn around, that’s when suddenly you hear a deep arrogant chuckle rumbling low in his chest. Only...this sounds a little brighter? And like it’s coming from your left instead of behind you…

“Mmm, I’m sure we can handle it baby….”

You could feel the air shift behind you, it felt warmer, and there was a strong mix of scents flooding through your nose. Leaning back in your seat, pleasantly finding your shoulders, the back of your neck, and your head, cradled against a lean wall of silk. Sighing contently, naturally letting your body melt into his frame, nose running into your face as you smiled so hard your cheeks hurt. That’s when a gangle of veiny, porcelain limbs wrapped around your shoulders pulling you even tighter against him, only to find brown, sharp, cat-like eyes staring down at you, though a pair of translucent designer shades. Seemingly a little bit amused at how excited you are to see him. Long dark wavy locks falling messily into his face, a tiny silver hoop dawning his button nose. Tongue playing at the corner of his mouth, letting the tiny silver ball slip between his lips. This angle lets you really appreciate how sharp, yet soft his features were, an oxymoron that honestly makes no damn sense unless you see him in person….jawline sharp enough to cut glass yet he has the cutest cheeks ever when he smiles. It honestly makes no sense whatsoever and he’s one of the many reasons you have trust issues. Well, that and your line of work, considering the number of men you find out are married and still try and sneak around with you.

Then, as if to just make his presence known, there’s another pair of hands making their home along your body, gently squeezing your thigh. Except, he’s polar opposite to the person I just described, the man behind you is your roommate Yoongi, the man who just took a seat to your left, is your other roommate Namjoon! First off, he’s tall as all hell, and an offensively perfect shade of brown, he can’t even go into the burbs without being asked what self-tanner he uses. In which he smugly replies “Genetics” letting them sit there and try and google said company that makes that brand of self-tan. Streams of meticulously placed colored neo-traditional tattoos paint his skin, accompanied by deep dimples, and bleach blonde hair styled into an undercut, sides buzzed into the perfect fade.

“So you gonna get up and give me a real hug or what???”  Placing a kiss in your hair as he pulled back, giving you room to hop out of your seat and right into his arms.

The Full thing is coming soon, this is from summer 2019, I just have to edit, and reread the full thing again! I also wrote the first 3 parts all at once..sooo if your exicted show this some love anddddddddd come let me know!

Love you as always,

Rocki