#not looking for traction this is literally a vent post

[promethia]

There’s a post I’ve seen going around about how this moment is the best time to be alive ever, because of medicine and travel and such, and that history is just full of catastrophe. I’ve tried to maintain some level of self control and just not mention it at all, but it’s like. Extremely telling, the perspective one comes from when they take the stance that THIS is the best time to be alive despite everything bad happening lately. Putting this under a read more because I understand that people are looking for positives and to feel like there’s good in the world — and there is — but I feel that the perspective of the original post is less “there’s a ton of benefits to being alive today” and more “there was never ever a time in history better than there is now for anyone”

Sure, the age expectancy has as a whole gone up and infant mortality and such has gone down on average, but I would gander that you have to be white to fully enjoy those benefits. Black men have a drastically lower life expectancy, not just in America, than that of white men. Indigenous women are facing a huge crisis due to murder and kidnappings — which certainly would not have been occurring without colonialism. Ten years ago, there were fourteen native, fluent speakers of Potawatomi, and now there are far fewer; it is much the same for many indigenous languages. Whole indigenous cultures are struggling to survive all over the world, from the Americas to Africa, because of murder, food shortages, disease, institutionalized poverty, etc. Cow herding cultures in Africa are daily locked out of more and more of their lands, Indigenous Americans are fighting for the right to hunt and to keep their homes from falling into the ocean due to global warming.

In the Middle East, there are still unresolved tensions from the Arab Spring, as Tunisia is considered the only “successful” country to come out of it. With both US involvement and various militant anti-West actors, the proxy war in the Middle East and North Africa has taken millions of lives, and it hasn’t ended. The plight of the Palestinians goes frequently unreported on and unaired in Western media — or if it is aired, always with the view that Palestinians are terrorists. Do not be antisemitic on this post, Judaism is not synonymous with Zionism.

Numerous groups throughout the world, but especially in South and West Asia and Africa, faced genocide and/or devastating civil wars in the past 30 years that the UN did very little to alleviate, and many are still struggling to get “back to normal.” The world is gearing up for another Armenian genocide, Jewish people have been begging the world to take the rise of global fascism and holocaust denial seriously, transgender rights are taking huge steps back in general (even in the past 30 years, not even including the numerous cultures that existed and still do exist in which transgender people and “non-binary” genders were/are honored and celebrated), etc.

Indigenous communities continue to be priced out of what little food still remains in food deserts across North America, more groups of Indigenous Mexicans have begun migrating to other countries for work because they can’t afford food in their own towns, and millions of indigenous peoples are going without water due to diminishing or now-nonexistent glaciers. This doesn’t even touch on the economic situation in Hawaii even prior to the fires, the suffering the global south in general is forced to endure due to colonial and resource exploitation even without global warming as a factor, etc.

Today, disabled people in the US (perhaps other places as well, I’m not super familiar) can’t get married without losing all government benefits, the right of gay couples to adopt is in trouble, abortion rights are going out the window, and parents aren’t vaccinating their kids because they’re scared of autism, so immunocompromised people are literally one cough in public away from dying. Misogyny is worse due to Andrew Tate and others like him, and feminist movements now have gone back so far that people get dogpiled for daring to say “free the nipple” or that sports shouldn’t be gendered.

I’m not saying that there has never been a WORSE time to be alive. There certainly have been worse times, and I didn’t cover every injustice here because there are SO many. I didn’t speak on basically any black issues, primarily because there are black people constantly discussing those issues and no one listens to them. I, as a non-black individual, cannot speak on these topics better than they can, nor do I believe I can speak on any of the issues I mentioned better than anyone else. It’s just exceedingly frustrating to see that post circulating when indigenous, Jewish, black, Muslim, LGBTQ, and so on have been begging people to listen and to help for longer than I’ve been alive today, and the situation reaching yet another fever pitch. You have to literally ignore all of this to claim that things are better than they’ve ever been across the board, just because people on average die of cancer less (except anyone with darker skin tones), the Catholic Church isn’t going through a schism currently, and we have chocolate now.

[remyfire]

I don't know if I'll keep this post up because this is not what any of y'all are here for, but I have to get it out somewhere. This is just a lot of gritted-teeth venting, so if that's not your style, scroll on, I love you, I hope you see a cat photo soon.

Truly every day of my life I find myself gritting my teeth when I see another joke or article or post or anything at all about booktok romance novels, that specific style of book cover, the disdain about promotional graphics like trope maps, that whole kerfluffle because I just! Wanna be like. Hey guess what! None of us wanted things to go that way either!

Like it really is remarkable sometimes to remember how readers don't necessarily get to see us smaller romance authors gritting our teeth and bitching in our spaces because we hate the trends that are being pushed forward, but also we have to compete somehow, right? We have to be sell books. We have to find a way to be picked up and read in this oversaturated sea. We have to try and gain traction against those people who hire 50 ghostwriters at a time for pathetic rates to churn out romance novels so they can release one literally every month. We have to fight against the 99-cent expectations even though we're lucky to make 35 cents per book sold if we offer it at that rate.

I think one of the most insulting things that publishers did was decide that it was the author's responsibility to go viral on booktok. That way, the publishers got to save a hell of a lot of money on marketing budgets, right? No, we won't be arranging tours unless you're lucky, we won't be pushing your book as hard as we usually should. It is your job to have a social media following that is broad enough that you make your books go viral, not us giving it a boost as your publisher. If you don't go viral on booktok, we will probably not be signing you for another book, sorry, bud.

Cannot express to you either how many of us erotic romance authors especially were gritting our teeth when the cover trend started leaning toward basic primary colors and splotchy abstract shapes. I completely understand that not everybody wants a shirtless man with a 12-pack just slapped on the front cover of the book they're reading—I actually thought it was brilliant when I saw several self-pub authors offering both the traditional steamier cover but also an option of paperbacks with a more tame, understated cover that just makes it look more like a literary novel. But god, it felt so lazy, these aforementioned abstractly illustrated covers. They told me nothing about the book. There was barely a sense of themes or important objects and these shapes had no defining characteristics that set any of the characters apart and they just looked like YA novels, which is fine for YA novels, but how do you market your extremely high-heat romance novel in that cover trend? If you throw together those blotchy illustrated shapes, people are going to think it's sweet or closed-door, and then they get in there and there's 12 graphic sex scenes on the page, and they're furious about it. I loved seeing illustrated covers that were more detailed start to make a move forward, especially because it meant starting to separate the American cultural assumption that illustrated = childish. Letting them be sexy, letting the author be able to represent any kind of protagonist they wanted without being restricted to the tiny selection of mostly skinny white able-bodied cis models on stock photo sites? Incredible. Love that. Want more of it. Wish it was easier to get publishers to really buy in on that.

The fact that readers will complain about promotional things like trope maps when the publishers require the use of them. The publisher makes them, they hand them over, and now you are the one who will be using it because that is contractual and because even if it wasn't, you want your goddamn book in front of people's eyes. And if you are self-pub or indie, if you don't have a substantial marketing budget to spent thousands of dollars on ads, promotions, and whatever the hell else, you are all but required to follow the trend because that's the only way you're gonna get people to share your shit.

And god, the way that it's all reduced to just 'booktok romance novel.' I get what that's referring to, that exact grouping of authors and why they're frustrating, but holy shit, I wanna know how many of those readers have picked up a self-pub or indie romance by a marginalized author. I'll see people complain about the quality of romance novels as compared to the quality of romantic fanfiction and I wanna shake them by the shoulders and say, "It's there! It's out there! It's self-pub and indie romance authors out here doing the goddamn work and you! Aren't! Looking! For it! Because it's easier to mock the genre instead!" Especially self-pub/indie queer romance authors who are marginalized, they are out here revolutionizing the genre and not getting anywhere near the accolades they deserve.

It's just irritating and exhausting. It's frustrating enough to have your genre used as the constant butt of jokes, treated like it's a substandard genre, like all it is is trash, using 'bodice ripper' as a disparaging term for modern romance novels when that is a relic of a very distant past and a historical pinpoint about which we can have an in-depth discussion about the decades-long process of making it socially acceptable for a woman to talk about her sexual desires rather than the 'bodice ripper' days when a woman had to have them forced on her instead before she could ever dream of admitting that she might know her own body and its cravings.

It's frankly embarrassing to see my genre so poorly understood. That's all. The one genre that is devoted to making sure that every marginalized person can have a happy ending of their choosing—marriage, pregnancy, queerplatonic, no sex necessary, no marriage or kids necessary, whatever feels right—rather than just the skinny white able-bodied cis people, that's the one that is always getting the potshots taken at it, and it's really a goddamn shame.

[darkhalo4321]

I started to post a tweet, but it started to form a long rant and I felt Tumblr was the true home for it. SO- I love having a website for my comic. I REALLY DO. however, the amount of people I attract to that site is...

abysmal.

Mostly because not a lot of webcomic artists with sites do link exchanges like they used to and it feels like everyone's gotta be part of a "collective!" or something. Which... Technically I am part of a magical webcomic collective. called Aradia. It's a small community and while it's slowly gaining traction in it's own way, it's not Spiderforest or Hiveworks and it's not WEBTOONS either. I've been wrestling with the task of making a mirror for my webcomic on webtoons. Some people said "just post the pages! I don't get a lot of views, but it's whatever" My LITERAL THOUGHT when I was told to post my traditional format pages "as is" on a vertical scroll dominated site was "of course you don't have traction! THE FORMAT IS WRONG" I would be reformatting for vertical scroll, and it's full of unknowns. I've never uploaded on there. Will it splice and realign okay? What if I mess it up and it's posted wrong? What if the tone moires weird? What if what if what if... Anxiety. It's holding me back. "but darkhalo4321, what about drawing better? Doing color? Advertising for your webcomic's website??" hahaha oh silly made up audience member. I have done all those things and It's not gotten me far. Maybe if I worked HARDER, Maybe if I were a better ARTIST, Maybe if I had a better STORY, Maybe maybe maybe... I've restarted my comic to have a better story, better art, and worked harder as a result. It's not cutting it. 'm fighting a machine. I'M FIGHTING AN ALGORITHM and I'm losing. The idea of being on webtoons is to gain SOME new eyes on my work via their community and I have many friends on there who have said the canvas community is really nice. I've been very calm and chill the last few months but I'm thinking I've been stuffing those in a box and setting them aside. Today I'm unpacking them a bit. I'm not depressed or disheartened. I an genuinely happy for friends that are hitting some personal goals, excited even! I've been big on enneagram stuff, and when my type goes into the unhealthy types, I tend to look at others and feel... bad that my life is not at that point, so I've been keeping busy to not deal with those feelings and now I'm just venting on tumblr for no one to read/see. Which Is ANXIETY. It all boils down to anxiety. Thanks to my boss at work who is working to become an anxiety/life coach I've been learning how to identify what anxieties are tormenting me and how to handle it when they do. I've been inking pages like crazy and maybe the last minute unplanned stream I tried doing last night where no one tuned in made me sad because like, no one came to watch and my dead twitch account getting no views is what did me in to ranting on tumblr. XD In all reality... I could stand to try harder with getting my content out there, but at the same time, I don't have like any free time to be a content creator on 5 social media sites, one of which is slowly burning, and the other ones favor short form videos which I don't have the patience to make videos for anyways, and I don't really... WANT to anyways. I wanna go back to link exchanges and finding things through other comics and their likes and rinse and repeat... I'll end the rant here XD I'm okay, I promise. Gonna make a mirror for webtoons eventually. If it uploads funky then... so be it. The nerds can call me out I guess? Not that I even plan to check comments or metrics. I don't even look at the numbers for my site anymore because it's... eh. I have better peace of mind posting and running.

[lethargicsunlight]

'Demon': Prologue ♡ BakugouXFem!Reader (Book 1)

Alright I'm doing it.

I'm doing the thing.

It literally keeps me awake at night I gotta write thisss *cough* okay

Originally I was only going to post this unto Wattpad, but getting traction on their website is a little more difficult than good ole' Tumblr, so I'll be posting it on both. Feel free to visit my Wattpad here: LINK if you want to support my writing on that end. (I would so appreciate it)

This post is going to run pretty long, as it will host both the prologue of the story and my author's notes. Just a heads up.

Summery:

A slow-burn action/romance where you begin in the bowels of a Villain base and rise up to join U.A.'s top Hero Class. This life was your choice. In the event of learning then losing the love of a friend, you make a decision that changes your reality at the core--to become an imposter among villains and bring them down from the inside out. The organization that ruined your premature perfect life was known as H.H., after their leader Head-Honcho. His crime of choice: intelligence. Training and conducting espionage agents and assassins across Japan as a means to further the dark underground network. Your training began at thirteen, after managing to impress the multi-faced villain with your stealth and your conviction. Rumors would soon spread through the dark alleys of Naruhata City of a masked assassin known as Demon, whose bare face could steal the souls of her targets. Everything appears to be going to plan; but the Hero Agencies you've been slipping information to are calling for an end to your superior sooner than you had anticipated. Your time as 'Demon' is limited. What will happen when your world comes crashing down? Where will you go, when everything you had known you helped to destroy?

AUTHOR'S NOTES

This is a slow burn fan-fic; and I am not italicizing those words without reason. This is going to be an agonizingly slow action-packed adventure-romance. This is a self-insert story, just like my three-part series 'Some Combat Training' (link) where you as the protagonist will not be described outside of being female, general physique, and a generalization of your uniform(s). Skin, hair, eyes, etc. will not be described at all--besides ambiguous adjectives. That said, I am taking liberties with physique and stature due to the nature of the story. You're abilities rely on stealth as well as close and fast combat, therefore you are described as 'small', 'lithe', 'athletic', and all of those other fancy little ninja woman words. Your personality has been shaped by the events of your life and the people within it; but if I were to describe it I would choose words like: Intelligent, determined, self-sacrificing, quiet, humble, and studious. The story will follow along with the anime for the most part starting at around the time of the USJ event, though at some point the story will branch off and become more my original concoction. (Such as, fast-forwarding the time-line to when the characters are older.) Some information about you as the protagonist will not be written here, as I plan for those to be revelations within the story. There will be angst, blood and gore, adult-humor, trauma, death, bad language and warnings will be listed with each chapter as needed. Feel free to comment on those chapters as soon as you see something that isn't mentioned that might make someone (if not yourself) feel uncomfortable. I will not be offended. This story is meant to get a little dark. Please comment if you can about your opinions! I have never posted an on-going fic before, and anything you have to say I would appreciate! <3 Now, please enjoy this short prologue~ Chapter 1 is being reviewed and edited, to be release very soon! 👹🖤⛓🔪💣 ...four...five...six.. You counted the footsteps behind your left ear, round the corner of the dim abandoned subway. You'd been stationary; still so long that your digits had all but numbed. Turn... one...two...three... The footsteps were distancing from the hall your attention had been set upon. A T-section, where the entity had gone down and away from your destination. You had to cross that 'T' to get to the junction--where you needed to leave a note completely undetected. The slightest mis-step would lead to suspicion. Suspicion would lead to investigation. Investigation lead to the five percent chance they could find that note--and no percentage was too small. It all hinged on absolute perfection. Nine...ten...eleven... This was their fifth round. A patrol. You had to make sure their movement were predictable before this would work--despite having successfully delivered the note fourty-two times and counting--you did not have the luxury of assumption. Only if their stride was even, only if you absolutely knew they were moving at a certain pattern, could you depend on the following information: It took fifteen steps before they would reach the broken light on their route. The haze of the dust and pollutants reflected in the working lights prior to that was your cover. Cross the 'T', leave the note, and cross it again. Out of sight and out of earshot, mission successful. Fourteen... f-- You turn, and it takes three steps to arrive at the drop to the tracks. You bunch and leap, and even the quietest friction of fabric from your uniform creases your brow. You land, just outside of the light's reach on the thin concrete slab beyond. Your eyes track the metals, the jutting wall tiles; that with which the barest touch could emit a sound--and you maneuver around them. Under, creeping low--and over, leaping to land on the balls of your feet and checking your balance before moving forward. Careful to not cast a shadow into the hall. Paced, so as not to move too quickly nor too slowly. Counting, because every second was controlled and calculated. You reach the juncture, and once again

edging the light you propel yourself to land back on the main thoroughfare. The next obstacle--removing the loose brick. Behind a metal bench centered between two closed-in stair cases, where the tile meets what had once been a decorative brick mosaic; eight bricks right and eighteen bricks up, was your note's destination. Just above your head, where you had to bend at an awkward angle to reach. Not practical, less detectable. You're wearing tight fabric gloves with grips on the pads, but thin enough you can feel the texture of the brick as you gently lace your fingers at each of the corners. Lifting, centering, and pulling the brick from its slot. Holding it just right, you can avoid the loud scrapes and grinds--but you have to hold it perfectly centered. Success. In goes the note. As does the brick, back into the wall. But you're only half-way done. Leap. Quiet, maneuver, avoid, measure. Silent. Leap. Hide. You're back is once again at the wall, the footsteps of the lackey you'd been avoiding closing in proximity to the Hall you'd just left. Four... five... six... Your eyes focus on the wall opposite of you as you ground yourself. The next few seconds determined a new reality. Either they followed their pattern, or they didn't. You had to be flexible. No assumptions. If they move towards the junction, you have to follow. If they move towards you, you'd calculate on your feet. Seven... eight... nine.. Turn. ...one...two...three.. You don't relax. Even after you count their steps to fifteen, even as you slip away back through the hall, even as you exit the unattended vent and breathe in fresh air--you don't relax until you're sitting on the floor in your room, calming down, your mask in your hands. After checking to make sure your door had not been opened, and no one had looked for you. No tracks in the dust. Only then do you allow yourself to ruminate on the contents of the note you had written, because you could still see every letter of it in your mind. ------ 55-1, Minami Senju 5-chome, Musutafu Target: Fukui Mitsuo Floor 8 3 AM. 7. Accompanied. Head. ------ For the briefest moment, you feel your hands shake. They always did on these nights. Realistically, you'd left no openings. Tested and re-tested every method. Calculated every movement. Left nothing to chance. But the 'what-if's' still linger, and you let them. The fear is good. It keeps you on your toes, your mind on edge, your tongue to the roof of your mouth. If he found out, you wouldn't know it until it was over. So you pretended he already did. Below you, underground in his base, plotting how to get at you when you were most vulnerable. Tear you to pieces, throw you in a pit or in a cage. No--too risky, he'd just kill you. A dead-end is better than a possibility. You'd learned that from him. You swallow, head turning so the amber morning sky is in your peripheral. All things considered, you would still unfortunately need sleep. You cherished the brief moments of sunlight and let your mind swim in the memories of your childhood spent in the daytime; before retiring to the broken and borrowed mattress. Seven days. You would check the location of your note in two. If there is another note in response, you would create a reactionary plan. The pattern continues. Until he finds out. ...Until he finds out.

[ruakichan]

Self-vent ahead!

I hate being “a creative.”

I’ve been drawing for about thirty years, most of that in fandom, and it’s utterly, hopelessly de-motivating to see that nothing has actually come from all that time. (Is this my mid-life crisis lol?)  No improvement, no following, I couldn’t even make money off my work if I tried (still living off my savings right now, for those that are aware I quit my job during the rona shutdown), no sense of lingering pride or accomplishment when I manage to squash down the loathing enough to finish a piece. I’ve watched my artist friends rightfully gain traction and blossom, while I shrivel.

All those pretty little puff pieces you see about how “work hard to improve!” have absolutely no idea what it’s like to be in the stratum known as complete banal mediocrity. You hit a wall that no amount of “working hard” can overcome: the wall that separates the talented from the hacks.

And squished right against that wall are the mediocre: good but not good enough. Only noticed because maybe they fill some niche until someone better comes along. They throw themselves against that wall in hopes of overcoming it, but never look up to see how high it really is.

A bad artist will always improve. A mediocre one just suffers diminishing returns.

My best friend, with good intentions, got me a very nice Cintiq for Christmas. He spent a lot of money he really shouldn’t have. He’s a “creative” too, so he understood some of what I was going through, and thought this would cheer me up, give me a boost. Thought maybe it was my outdated tools (over a decade old) was holding me back.

I accepted it because he was very proud of his grand gesture, but I wish he didn’t. I feel obligated to use it, to draw, to be continually disappointed, to continue to disappoint others. And on the rare occasion I do something I am pleased with the final product of, I hate it so, so very much the next day, and the masses agree, as the reception is silent.

Being an artist inherently has a streak of exhibitionism: what you draw is a reflection of your thoughts and perception of the subject matter, and when you post it publicly, you are asking for validation of that image.  Being able to appeal to a broad spectrum of people is a talent on its own: any popular meme or illustration becomes that way because people go, “yes, I can relate!” in some fashion. Empathy is incredibly important in any creative work.

But when the reception is silent, it’s hard to tell where it is you failed: the subject matter? the appeal? the skill level? everything? Do I fail at connecting with people despite being able to do it very well IRL? Is my art style just that unattractive? Is it my skill level, flat and uninspiring?

I know what I hate about my work (everything), but I don’t know what causes others to recoil from it, except to maybe give a pitying glance over but not enough to go ‘yes, I can relate!” and share it with others. So I can only assume it’s for the same reasons why I hate it: everything.

Perhaps my loathing for my art comes through in the image, which in turn elicits a similar reaction in others. I feel ‘this is ugly’ and others pick up on that and react in kind.  There’s something to be said about how people can pick up on your body language and confidence in face-to-face conversation; perhaps this is the same with art. But what about the work I do that I’m proud of, which gets even less reception?

During the initial drawing process, I do very much love art. I do like the act of ‘creating.’ I’m happiest during this point; I like brainstorming or daydreaming, doodling and laughing at my own bad jokes. But the longer I stay with a piece of work, the more critically I look at it, and the more ashamed I am of wasting my time with something that no one can love, not even me. There’s a lot of work I just never finished; there’s a lot of work I just flat out deleted from existence. I’ve been trying not to do this; try to at least post something, finish something, acknowledge that even flawed things have merit, but holy hell, it gets so depressing seeing these malformed things out there in the wild, even if no one else sees them.

When I was first starting out, I didn’t have these sort of thoughts, eagerly, lovingly drawing, proud of every single doodle, sharing them with anyone that would cast a glance my way.  When you’re fresh and naive, you don’t realize how personal art is until you get rejected enough to start to become self-aware of your own flaws: like how children can be so unabashedly carefree while adults are acutely self-conscious.

Lately, I hate admitting I draw. I don’t like sharing my art freely. Even the brief moment I got validated—being a winner in some contest for some game—I immediately wished I could take that image away so people wouldn’t see it cause I threw it together to get the participation prize.  “This isn’t representative of what I can do!”  ... but maybe it is.  After all, it won, where others I labored over haven’t.

Social media definitely hasn’t helped in this day and age, where you’re aggressively bombarded with how well you succeeded or failed.  I shut down my Twitter for this reason; it was absolutely soul-crushing to see anything I do die in the ether, because I wasn’t good enough. All these followers, but no response?   It’s better just to hide them under the bed, than look at your own failures.

So now I spend a lot of time going “why bother” when it comes to creative endeavors as I try to come to some final acceptance of my own mediocrity.

Why bother?

The images are prettier in my head.  They don’t need to be realized because I can’t convey them in a worthy manner that people would want to see. If after nearly 3 decades, I haven’t been able to surmount that wall, I need to accept that this is the end of the road.

Why bother indeed? There are many more talented, able artists to provide beautiful works.  I want to freely consume them without thinking about where I failed.  I can only look at art in areas I don’t draw in; it’s the only way I don’t immediately want to break my own hands.

Anyway, long vent, but it’s been building up since I got that Cintiq. I don’t talk about this much because people hate hearing about it. They don’t want to see your anxieties.  You have to be *~strong~* and *~confident~* as an artist, and it’s “”””””cringe””””””” to have any doubts about yourself. They don’t want to see “I’m not happy with this, but here it is” attached to something you did. They call it “fishing for compliments,” without realizing there’s a lot of baggage attached to a lot of artwork that they, as the viewer, don’t see.

That when artists post art, they are literally putting themselves up on display. They wonder where they can improve in their work, they wonder about the reaction to their art.  These things don’t exist in a vacuum, independent of each other.  Art is inherently exhibitionist.

It’s why I’m the least suited for it, and I wish I could go back in time and tell my younger self to go collect stamps or something. What a waste of a life.

[musical-chick-13]

About that “Chibnall killed Doctor who post”

I’m kinda on the inbetween of that arguement, I remained a fan of Doctor who throughout this Chibnall era, but I definitely think Chibnall isn’t as good of a Doctor who writer as RTD or Moffat.

I think literally any episode he did (keeping the original concept) could’ve been done better with RTD or Moffat.

E.G. I really liked the Concept of the Timeless child and I the episode itself was pretty good, but I think if RTD had worked on series 11 and 12, the timeless child thing would’ve been something similar to bad Wolf, with a lot more hinting and build up throughout the series.

But again, I still watch it, and I’m still a fan since there were some good episodes in Chibnall’s era. But I am excited for RTD’s return.

Hey, fellow Doctor Who fan! Thanks for the ask! (And for being respectful and descriptive while sending it. I love, like...actual fandom dialogue and idea exchange, and I am always down to talk about Doctor Who.)

I'm sorry this response got so long (turns out I love to ramble about TV I follow), so I'm putting the rest under a "read more."

I totally get why people are excited for RTD coming back. Personally, I just like the characters and acting more in the other eras (sans Martha, who is my favorite companion forever and ever, but I still didn't really like the way Ten treated her?). They spoke to me in a way that many in RTD-era number one just...didn't? I'm not completely sure why, so I guess I'll have to work on figuring that out, haha. But I primarily care about characters/character arcs when I watch something because I've been a Theatre Kid™ (and later a Theatre Adult™) my entire life, and the reason why is because I like getting into the heads of fictional people and figuring out where they emotionally end up. Foreshadowing and plot concepts are often secondary to me. But for people who value those things, absolutely I get the love for RTD because he was (and likely will continue to be) good at it.

I think, ultimately, a big part of the problem in terms of how the Chibnall era was received stemmed, not just from genuine criticisms of or objections to the show, but also the fact that many fans would take every opportunity to talk about how every single thing was completely awful with no redeeming qualities and deserved no chances. People who stopped watching the show would still talk about it, even though they hadn't actually seen what was happening, and despite me seeing a lot of discussion about how people were willing to accept some of RTDs (and even, occasionally, Steven Moffat's, though that was far less common) because they got value out of enough other things in the show. But I...haven't seen the same grace extended to the Chibnall era. There were some episodes that fell flat for me, but I think Ryan's arc of learning what he wants and accepting the beauty of a life on Earth, and Graham's reflection on grief, and Yaz's ill-advised devotion and mental health struggle backstory, and everything about Thirteen, and everything about Sacha Dhawan's portrayal of The Master ultimately mean more to me than the episodes I find less-than-stellar. But many times when I've tried to go into Doctor Who-related tags or look for video essays on YouTube or skim the official Facebook page for news, I just see an avalanche of content about how the whole thing is worthless and we should throw it all out. Add in the fact that there were some infamous plotlines and fandom drama in the "Super" and "Lock" parts of SuperWhoLock (which as a totality has recently made the shift in cultural perception to "Cringe™"), which bled over into assuming Doctor Who would follow suit, and there's a lot of negativity that unfairly skews the perception of what people's relationship to and opinion of the show are. Many times, the people who hate something are the loudest about it. And a lot of times, that dissuades people who genuinely love the thing from talking about how much they love it. (Or, at the very least, prevents those talks from getting traction, because people who hate things, in my experience, are...very adamant about running people who disagree with them off of public platforms.)

I can get why the Chibnall era wouldn't hit as well for some people. And if it's not someone's thing, that is completely fine. (God knows there are lots of things that aren't for me.) I think, though, that if someone decides something isn't their thing, it's better for everyone for them to say, "Hey, it's not my thing" and watch something else that is. I don't think continuing to talk about how much they hate it is very helpful to anyone involved. Obviously people can vent and make posts about their feelings on the show, but there's a line and I've seen a lot of people (in unprecedented numbers) cross it. And, ultimately, I think that is the thing that's the most responsible for the public negative reactions to Chibnall.

[cosmosrival]

just a quick vent post i wanted to make since i got a shitty lil experience on twitter and also found out about some things!! its just me talking about my take on kama and sakura fans (the Bad ones)

just needed to let it out <3

there’s this person on reddit whose content i genuinely despise since he babifies kama who is a character who Absolutely Should Not be babified and is one of the reasons why i wish kama’s first ascension didnt exist. but unfortunately: fgo. i usually have no problems with ppl’s headcanons since i can’t control their minds u know? same goes for ships, just do whatever u want (and if its gross keep it away from me lol). but the AMOUNT of traction this man gets on his fucking posts where kama is parvati and emiya’s daughter is so insanely repulsive to me ??? LIKE... I GET IT. YOURE PROJECTING ON EMIYA. URE A SAKURA FAN. U LIKE SHIROU AND SAKURA TOGETHER BUT THINK SHIROU IS A LOSER SO U SHIP PARVATI AND EMIYA INSTEAD. OKAY. THATS FINE. just PLEASE for the love of GOD, leave kama out of it and dont turn them into this clueless baby because thats NOT what they are.

for a while i was just stuck in this position since i’m petrified that the ENG fandom only sees kama as the Haha Baby Nugget ! baby Sakuraface ! servant and then look away. when all they took from sakura is her body and negative personality traits (BUT EVEN THEN. kamadeva had their own grudge and negative feelings about shiva so sakura’s just amplified those and didnt create anything new) meanwhile their backstory is so RICH and their trauma with shiva leaves so much room for growth and there’s so much in indian mythology that’s about kama and their death/the whole Becoming the Universe/galaxy godly state frozen when they reached the Throne thing too.

but im afraid. i’m going to be honest. i’m afraid of their NA release. because of the traction this degenerate got on his posts amongst the english fandom. i know everyone hates reddit but its still a popular website :/

but then the greatest thing happened and a mutual of mine dmed me and told me that he’s actually a p*dophile who made porn in that 3d japanese porn game of emiya and first ascension kama fucking and i felt like a weight got off my chest. SO HE’S A FREAK ! HE’S ACTUALLY JUST A FREAK!!! he then told me that he’s also extremely hated on 4chan which is... the website i didn’t expect to be on the same side with ???? but you know what, i’ll take it.

this isnt even a battle or anything... since the main reason why people will roll for kama anyways is that they’re a sakuraface, and i’m fine with that. do whatever u want!! love em however u want.

what im scared of is that ppl will literally forget their third ascension exists????? and that more disgusting content of kama’s first ascension will end up coming out because of dudes like him getting popular because they’re good at photoshop and sprite editing. and that kama will end up being babified ONCE AGAIN meanwhile they’re an ethereal god and are older than the world itself.

being a fan of the god is suffering but i’m glad there seems to be a large portion of the fandom thinking the same way i do fjdnfndjdfgfgdgft

im glad kama got sakura physical traits bc sakura is a pretty girl !! and they turned out really gorgeous thanks to redrop. but sometimes i wish they werent a sakuraface.

this kinda got messy and i wont be checking this for mistakes since its really just me venting but... yeah. i like exploring kama as being this mess of a servant, god, demon and half human ? the ooku event added a lot to their character and i think the sakura side shouldnt be ignored even if i personally believe that its like. 15% of them. the rest is kamadeva and mara. its still interesting to explore !!

but then weirdos like these exist and i suddenly log off <3 i could very well ignore these comics no problem, if they WERENT ALL AROUND THE INTERNET EVERYTIME I TYPE KAMA IN THE SEARCH BAR its tiring. 

though, mutuals coming forward and followers as well, coming to tell me that i made them like kama since my take on kama is so detached from sakura and the whole dark sakura theme and that they see kama in a new positive light thanks to me, gives me strength and makes me want to continue posting my headcanons. 

if u made it this far and still choose to support me, thank u so much !! i think that kamadeva is a genuinely interesting god and that fgo’s take on his revenge is very fun to explore and i wanna keep going in that direction and learn more about them !!

tho if ure a hardcore sakura-only fan and decide to unfollow me because of this rant, no problem. i never watched heavens feel, i dont want to watch it and im more of a rin fan to be quite honest !! my fate/stay night knowledge is enough for me to get by im jus here for fgo historical lore fellas !!! Peace !!

[hornedandhornypandan]

Vent/Rant post about Witchtok idk

Tw: CSA/Grooming mention

((TLDR: Witchtok seemed fun at first but pretty soon showed a very ugly side of itself that puts kids in danger. Meanwhile 'experienced' witches are out there are putting dangerous misinformation about religious practices. +Also a personal rant about how this whole thing has put me off from talking about my own practices with Pan.))

I've been a somewhat active "tiktoker" for a few months. I only really posted videos of my artwork and whatnot to sort of gain some traction and sell commissions, which was great! I met a lot of really cool people, and made some really sweet friends within the small community of artists on tiktok... And then I found the Witchtok tag.

At first I was uniquely excited, it was really cool to see other witches actively show off how proud they were of their craft and their religious practices. I saw lots of pretty good advice, and for me at least, it was absolutely wonderful to see how different and unique each person experienced their craft. I feel stupid now in hindsight for thinking this, but I genuinely felt something with how fun and welcoming Witchtok seemed to be.

And then all of sudden it became a fucking train wreck. There are lots of things wrong with Witchtok: Cultural appropriation, online harassment, misinformation, people throwing around hexing accusations with no proof, etc etc. A lot of really dumb shit. At first I was able to ignore it, because surely people will be smart enough to do their own research and not trust some random person on tiktok about entire religions, right? And then I realized how dumb I was for thinking that. There are people on Witchtok touting themselves as being experienced witches who are experts in everything spiritual, and beginning practitioners are going to naturally look up to them as positions of authority to consult on matters that they might not even be in the position to be consultants of. So many of these people are actual children too, and its become a very scary situation with how out of control it has become. I think the breaking point for me was the issues surrounding that,,, "Medusa" tiktoker who began trying to groom minors for illicit photos. I just couldn't do it anymore with Witchtok, that was too much. It already hurt a lot to see so many experienced witches actively condemn and shame children for not knowing better, but that entire thing just proved to me that too many people within the Witchtok community DO NOT CARE about protecting or educating each other. They all just want to one up each other in this imaginary game of who's the most correct, meanwhile AN ONLINE CULT WAS LITERALLY BEGINNING TO FORM, I'M JUST,, AT A LOSS FOR WORDS.

There's so much to unpack, especially from my perspective as a Hellenic Pagan who's worshiping Pan. I'm going to get quite personal but it's been on my mind and I need to share it for my own sake. Up until recent events, I was beginning to consider participating in the Witchtok community because I really do enjoy sharing things about my path, especially my relationship with Pan. I love sharing the things that I learn, and I want to record all of it as I go, so that one day I can look back and see how far I've come in my journey. My time with Pan has not only helped me grow spiritually, but my overall outlook on the world around me has changed for the better. To illustrate better what I mean by this, I am a CSA survivor, and for most of my life, sex fulfilment and healthy love were things I fundamentally believed I didn't deserve. By the time I approached adulthood, I had already accepted that I would never be able to enjoy sex or feel the kind of love I wanted. Pan at this point has obviously proven me wrong. He helped work through my trauma, he taught me that sex can not only be safe but exciting, and he showed me that my body isn't something to be ashamed of. Needless to say, my relationship with a deity heavily associated with sex and fertility is OBVIOUSLY intimate.

So it really fucking hurts when I see my fellow pagan peers tell me that my relationship with Pan isn't real, and that my practices based on tradition that I spent MONTHS researching before I started is just me being a 'stupid baby witch.' Or worse when people tell me that I should FEAR my God, my God who has done nothing but treat me with kindness and love throughout my entire time with him. Or even worse, when people who think that because they read up on a little mythology, they can tell me my God is a r*pist, and that I'm wrong for having a close and friendly bond with him. It's almost laughable how so much of what Witchtok considers to be "the right way to worship deities" is exactly what Pan would've hated if I behaved the way they deem to be correct.

Pan would HATE it if I was never friendly and comfortable around him. He is known for having a unique sense of humor, why wouldn't his followers be able to do the same? Obviously there are boundaries, but any deity including Pan will set up said boundaries when necessary. He loves when his followers are silly and playful! He loves when we explore ourselves in ways that are happy and healthy, whether spiritually, sexually, or physically! He loves when we let ourselves loosen up and forget about our chains, even for just a moment! If I talked at all about my practices with him I can guarantee Witchtok would eat me alive. To be honest, I wouldn't put it past them if the collective opinion of Witchtok was that he's dead because it says so in myth.

In retrospect, I'm very glad I chose to stay away from Witchtok, not only would I not be welcome, but children are watching. I feel like not enough people are thinking of that, and that's terrifying. I can't imagine how guilty I'd feel if I put something out there that was misinformed, or even DANGEROUS, and kids were seeing it. I just couldn't bear it. As an artist I'll continue to post videos on tiktok exclusively about my art, but I can't in good conscience post anything there regarding my religious practices. Which honestly saddens me, so much of my practice involves me drawing and painting works involving what Pan looks like to me, and I would've loved to show off that artwork had it not been for the absolute shit show I've been exposed to.

So in conclusion, Witchtok is fuckin yikes man.

[norcumii]

Ruminating on Rebels, 2

I know I took awhile with this episode, but boy does it feel long. The pacing is off? Or my brain is just unhappy. No idea which. I suspect that’s just my brain, though.

SPOILERS AHEAD. REBELS CRITICAL. For details what this is about, here’s a post.  My relevant tag is “throwing popcorn at Rebels”.

Episode 2: Spark of Rebellion Part II

Overview:

Ezra runs into the Star Destroyer to warn the team, gets to Zeb and Kanan just before they get ganked at the cell block. Sabine cuts the gravity, leaves a lot of explosives at the control room, but Ezra gets caught on the way out. The Ghost crew makes it to hyper before finding this out from Zeb, vote on going back or not. Kallus makes a pretext of questioning Ezra (note: I think it’s meant as legit, but it felt lackluster), and then Ezra escapes as the Ghost crew arrives to rescue him. They meet up part way and book it, only to find that while escaping, Ezra overheard where the wookies REALLY were being held. Off they go to Kessel to save the wookiees! Fight scene at the spice mines, leading to Kanan using the lightsaber and getting ID’d as a Jedi, Ezra faces off against Kallus to save a kid wookiee, the team escapes. Kanan offers Ezra a chance to join up and learn to use the Force, and away they go to a  dramatic voice-over by Obi-Wan via holocron recording.

Random impressions:

These wookiees are AWFUL

PLASTIC FOR YOU, PLASTIC FOR YOU, BAD ACTION FIGURES OF EEEEEEVERYONE

I really, REALLY, R E A L L Y don’t like Hera. She’s advertised as team leader and Space!Mom, but all I keep seeing is manipulative bullshit. Apparently letting Ezra take the holocron was a test to see if he was Force sensitive. Her comment in the Ghost the last episode about “If all you do is fight for your own life, then your life is worth nothing” - aaaagh. That – I get what they’re TRYING to say, about having Purpose is good, but having been in A Very Bad Place where all I could do was cling by my fingernails and try to take care of myself because 1, no one else would and 2, that was literally all I could manage – that just smacks me in the face with guilt-tripping. I know it’s not meant to be that, just...UGH. At best, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I’m going to continue side-eyeing her until she proves she’s not ACTUALLY an asshole, and yes, that is apparently an uphill battle.

The rescued wookiees say that if the Ghost crew “ever need help, they’ll be there” - THAT BETTER PAY OUT BEFORE THE SERIES IS OVER. (spoiler: Wookieepedia indicates it does not. I am disappoint, though I will keep an eye out in case it’s wrong.)

I am totally convinced now that Ezra HAS actually been using the Force awhile. The way he somersaults over crates into cover – dodging blaster bolts – and then later over a trooper to get between him and a Wookiee kid – that’s something Ezra KNOWS he can do. Like, past experience doing that sort of leap. I want to see how this interacts with Kanan’s lessons.

Kanan dodges bolts a lot more than he reflects them, but when he does they tend to take out troopers effectively. Someone’s spent time practicing.

Speaking of, he goes WAY hard on the Stoic Holy Jedi (With A Lightsaber Up His Ass) thing. Ugh. I want the goofy smuggler more. That’s more fun, AND show’s growth away from his past. We’ll see how that interacts with right now he’s trying to Jedi because oh noes, it’s a padawan (WHUT DOOOOOO)!

When Kanan shows up to save Ezra, he’s is riding on top the ghost, which pops up alongside the catwalk. ....meaning Mr. Drama Llama opened the doors to a shipping crate in flight and somehow flipped his way up to the top of the ship, OR lightsabered his way an exit through the TOP of the crate, which I hope was done carefully or they took out parts of the magnetic seal keeping the crate attached to the bottom of the ship. ...Jedi. SIGH. WHY COULD NO ONE MAKE A CRACK ABOUT THAT? YES IT WAS IMPRESSIVE, BUT THEN AFTERWARDS IT MAKES A GREAT TENSION RELEASE TO MAKE IT CLEAR THAT WAS UNUSUAL. Meh. Ok, that one’s probably me being too finicky.

Sabine left about 20 explosives in the control room. Just one of those has been shown to be enough to blast open doors and destroy a speeder bike. HOW MUCH BOOM DO YOU NEED? I mean, ok, this leads to a hole in the side of the super star destroyer (venting atmosphere! :D That was some LOVELY animation and there WAS squee about that!)

Zeb is a gods damned wreck. If he were less physically violent, I would pick him as a favorite, because interesting non-human and it’s clearly trauma and not knowing how to people that leads to him being...him. However, I can’t get over the way he’s THAT rough. There’s a line between “you’re dealing with old issues poorly, and that expresses itself through (at best) roughhousing and not gauging your own strength” and “you’re beating up on others and using your trauma as an excuse for it, and we all know how well ‘cool motive still murder’ works as a defense.”

When Ezra left, Chopper made sad bwoops and waved goodbye in a non-sarcastic way. Whut.

The animators are still not getting clear direction. The bit that really jumped out at me was when Ezra saves the kid wookiee, he’s shown hoisting the kid’s cuffed hands and looking all puzzled at the binders – and we just saw how he IMMEDIATELY knew how to pick those things open on the adult wookiees. Possibly just me being nitpicky again, but it’s very jarring to me.

The “I swear, if he gets left behind again it is not my fault!” bit showed up, and I can’t tell if that’s them trying to make the repetition is funny thing, or establishing a trend? I mean, I COULD see a longer running...not gag, but trend, of Zeb having to either leave or haul Ezra out of things and them bitching at each other over this for YEAAAAARS until it’s just an easy thing, a well-worn way to poke at a friend like an affable punch to the shoulder that is just a thing they do. Which could be cute, if done right.

Hopefully more coherent views:

The inter-group dynamics are wild, and I don’t think I mean that in a complimentary sense. Zeb is just...kinda broken, ok. Sabine was kind of a non-entity through most of this. I don’t have the spoons to count her lines, but the most memorable thing that she did was want to know how the explosion looked. Which...ok? I guess? Hera had more characterization, and we got the Competent!Pilot thing – along with the Manipulative Asshole thing, which yeah, I’m eyeballing a LOT more. Chopper came across as irritable and generally a cranky old man, which would fly better if Zeb wasn’t already trying to squat on that territory. It makes things feel more grating than perhaps they are. Kanan is your average Jedi but in better clothes, and I can’t tell how much sanctimoniousness is he doesn’t know how to teach, how much is just discomfort, and how much is I don’t like the manipulation of Ezra.

As for Ezra, he’s got some NEAT skills. I...kinda like the whole “nope, I’m not a hero, not running out there in a the middle of a blaster fight to save some rando” attitude because it’s hints of the hero’s journey having far to go, but there’s not enough heart of gold for me to give any shits. He’s TOO caught up in his own situation for me to care (and while I don’t blame him as a character for that, it makes him a third-rate Aladdin archetype. All the ‘in the rough’ but no ‘diamond’).

Kallus is satisfying to dislike, for all that he feels like a poor man’s Thrawn. The temper tantrum of kicking the surviving stormtrooper off the catwalk was gratuitous, but fine. We’re not supposed to like him. (Yes, I know about later, but I’m ignoring that at the moment.)

So. Yaye, I guess. We have our characters, we have our villain and our on-the-sidelines villain in the Inquisitor waiting to swoop in to be all mastermind badguy. We have our setup, and a few potential threads to follow back on.

End summary:

That was a weak (second half to a) first episode. I mean, again, that’s not a killer, but nothing about the show grabs me and goes “ISN’T THIS THING AWESOME???” There’s too much internal conflict without enough glue to bond people together, I have strong reasons to dislike almost everyone (and the rest are too undeveloped yet to really hit me one way or another). With the animation doing nothing for me, it’s...getting no traction so far.

[yoshi-p]

everyone and their dog is doing it and everyone is absolutely allowed to share their opinions so i want a turn but first let me clarify:

hello im yase, been around since 1.0. I am of turkish and nogai descent and i can speak fluently in tatar, turkish but my english doesn’t hold 100% so i will be all over the place.

Unfortunately this will all be word of mouth and may be taken as vague posting, but I have experienced issues since the release of 4.0 and would like to give my opinions. I want to let this all off my chest this is just a huge vent basically so i guarantee my english will be terrible.

the most important point: NEVER EVER SPEAK FOR ANOTHER CULTURE. NEVER EVER SPEAK ABOUT A CULTURE YOU DON’T KNOW. YOU HAVE SPREAD FALSE INFORMATION AND I AM SO HURT.

another point is ITS A VIDEO GAME GUYS (does not apply to everything but some people really need to take a step back because people are concerned.)

Here’s the hot topic I’ll talk of first: garleans. I personally do not play one as I prefer to play characters that would never be involved in a sense with the political agenda because in real life im too stupid to comprehend anything like that so i wouldn’t even know how my character would behave with the hot topics. I really do think people need to take a step back and see that everyone who is putting in their input is making solid points but personally I would never compare them to nazi germany though I see why people are generalising. I always saw it as tsardom of russia with the use of roman influence as well, something obvious in naming conventions and the way the ranks/monarchy(?) works but it’s not so clear what the main influences of most places in this game if you have a look at the bigger picture. Without like full on spoiling, its weird to have this view to me with the knowledge that ascians are behind this. Are you implying anyone who plays or was influenced by ascians is also under this umbrella? 

Also why THE HELL WOULD YOU TAG SOMETHING KNOWING IT WOULD GET A LOT OF TRACTION AND RESPONSE THEN BE LIKE “you guys misunderstood, I was expressing my feelings” lol no. “ I don’t understand where this is coming from, and at this point, I don’t really want to.” then why did you even fucking bother do it in private dont tag it.

You are COMPLETELY valid to feeling uncomfortable, it is fine because with how much of this world we have there will be aspects some of us don’t like. You are not inclined to involve yourself with someone if they roleplay as a garlean but you do not need to start publicising it in a way that will paint the community in black and white when its truly a wider spectrum.

YOU CHOOSE WHO YOU INVOLVE YOURSELF WITH AND WHO YOU PLAY WITH, PLEASE GET AWAY FROM PEOPLE WHO GIVE YOU NEGATIVE FEELINGS OR YOU’LL SPREAD IT TO OTHERS.

from that initial and very brief tagged post there popped up many others and new discourse is arising, opening discussions about many things which is better then being blind to it all. but if you have personal grievances with someone and you state its over, let it be over. It’s not healthy behaviour. it’s also troubling to see someone complain a lot about the game and continue to play, no one is forcing you or holding a gun to your head. take breaks if you need to and play less frequently. like, real life is so much more important and there are people in this community that prioritise relationships with players etc.

Also, please stop fucking talking about mongolian/turkic/turkish culture like you know things. 99% of the big mouths in this community are americans. like majority are white americans. 

over the course of this expansion i have had many people of varied backgrounds share with me some terrible experiences and i myself have seen some truly stupid shit. 

WE ARE HERE TO HELP YOU LEARN OF OUR CULTURE AND WHERE TO CONTINUE DOING SO. DO NOT INTERPRET MEDIA AS ACCURATE REPRESENTATION OF CULTURE.

it is absolutely not hard to tag a post and ask around, someone will pop up. I’ve been doing my very best to let everyone i know that i can help with learning about my culture or to find someone who would be more then happy to explain and share with other cultures. But when you go off of a documentary you saw of Genghis khan or only know of the tourist white people scenes of istanbul you as a community say some TRULY dumb shit.

I like to try and be patient because i myself when approaching someone of a culture i admire and am curious about i want that in turn. But if you say to me things like “Ainu aren’t real” or “Tatar people have nothing in common with tribes from the Altai mountains” its hard to do so.

FFXIV regions are not just “Germany” “Turkey” “Mongolia”. If you think this, it’s clear to me you don’t know shit and are too lazy to explore, further just google shit its not that hard. I had someone tell me that my people could never be in this game since its “Straight up mongolia” fucks sake NO ITS NOT. The designs vary and i can see the differences in simple things like words because i actually bother to do research even coming from a turkic culture. There were some beautiful little things dropped that linked to not only my people but others like Uyghur and Altai. The only place in FFXIV i think could only have a singular influence is Kugane, because from a foreigner’s perspective that’s already interesting enough. Many people have grievances and real issues with how SE has handled Doma’s influences and no one ever talks about that. Representation for asia in media has turned into this mess of specific east asian countries, the trio that even then gets categorized into China/Japan with brief mentions of Korean culture. 

Its frustrating. There are people who are happy to teach you. Who are willing to show what is wrong with the picture.

I have read several posts about Turkey/istanbul/Antalya. Yall fuckin weird you guys seem to think its in U.A.E or some shit with how you act. It’s in the Mediterranean/Europe/Asia/Middle East and there is no such thing as a specific looking Turkish person. You claim everyone is specifically white/brown, HELL NO. It’s a mixed nation and that’s the history of the land, if you had ever fucking stepped in turkey and spoke to any person on the street they’ll say their heritage that lead them to there. People claim Ala mhigo’s influences are turkey but i have yet to see that. As someone who has lived there and has heritage there and is strongly connected to that culture, i dont see it. sure the ala mhigan gown had patternings but thats also present in my nogai culture too because parts of turkey’s society descended from the line of the Kayi tribe. Just fucking LEARN TO READ GUYS. None of you guys even know what the altai mountains mean and i could sit and explain over and over again if you let people SPEAK.

Look at Thavnairian items. We have outfits that are completely different, a full length dress and then a bustier. you can’t start generalising things in video games to be one culture you have to realise most places in this game have several influences. We don’t know a lot but everything we have been given has been varied enough to pin point it to ONLY one influence.

I don’t want to just keep going about this simply because im growing frustrated.

The thing with Viera complaints. I think some are valid but some are stupid. For one as I make this post it hasn’t even been confirmed so there is no reason for policing Viera to a severe extent. Considering all the Ivalice content in game has been an alternate universe kind of thing its dumb as shit. But feol viera being made without understanding the knowledge that people who have played rw picked up is quite frustrating. As a community, its important to help people when we have information that others may need that they cant understand the context of.

I know people are worried about them being fetishized, that is my legitimate fear too as a huge ivalice fan. But this is a repeated cycle especially when we consider generalizations like miqo’te especially seekers and belly dancing or when au ra arrived and people thought xaela were genghis khan basically. 

The game is not solid, there are so many holes in the lore and the plots and i know people hate that but we fill the gaps with our own opinions and theories. While I understand some people think we need to move forward in 2019 because “japan is xenophobic”, its a very difficult thing to do. THEY DO HIRE PEOPLE FOR CULTURE ADVISING. THEY TRAVEL OFTEN AND DEVELOP WITH THIS. IT’S NOT LIKE THEY WENT ON GOOGLE AND SAID “yeah a japan land would be fun” they literally have people hired specifically for this stuff. however, at the end of the day its a company that has yet to show it can evolve with the times. Its becoming more and more evident with the recent patterns of main titles in FF and side projects having so many issues in story/lore/management. remember 1.0 basically died being absolute garbage and this is salvaged from that.

its really late and i had a terrible evening so i may not be making the most sense but theres more important things to worry about then to make this game a miserable experience when it could be a huge learning opportunity for everyone. There’s no need to generalise people into categories because of characters they choose to develop but its important to note with majority of people standing up higher on the pedestal are those speaking for the minorities groups that have direct influences in the game.

also lol if you fucking say ainu aren’t real to me one more time i will fucking throttle you

[pepprs]

[DONT RB] ok so there’s no way for me to talk abt this that isn’t gonna make me look like an absolute dumbass but im in the middle of a creative existential crisis and i rly need help figuring it out :•( this is gonna get SUPER LONG so im putting it under a readmore. thank u to anyone who reads this!!! and double thank u to anyone who can give some input / advice, i rly rly appreciate it. im sorry abt the length!

aight so for some background.... ive been drawing n writing poetry for abt 5 yrs now and both of those things r rly important to me. in school im an english major w a creative writing minor (for the poetry) and i work as a graphic designer (for the art) so ive been growing a lot as an artist and writer esp in the past 2 yrs and im kinda workin towards one or the other (or ideally both somehow!) as a career. one of the biggest dreams ive had since i started seriously pursuing both of these hobbies 5 yrs ago is to publish a book of poetry that i design / illustrate myself, and also to have a portfolio online where ppl can read all of my poetry and see all of my artwork (both professional / work stuff but also archives of all of my sketchbooks since those r rly important to me!!!) and maybe even make some sort of online shop where ppl can buy my art (stickers, keychains, etc!) and my poetry books!

that sounds pretty simple right? WRONG!!!!!! why? bc im a fucking idiot! and there are several dumb things i do that make this dream completely impossible for me to achieve! love that for me!

so for starters... ive been posting (almost) all of my art and ALL of my poetry online for all 5 yrs ive been creating it. that’s bad because:

ive hardly ever used my real name (which i would want to use for the book / shop / portfolio), it’s been under my usernames / aliases that go along w them (p*pe, pep, pea, etc and related usernames that shall not be mentioned) and i started going by my real first name only abt a yr ago, but still maintain those usernames for the most part in conjunction w my real name

my work has been primarily been posted to d*viantart and tumblr which aren’t exactly the most uh... professional places to do that. not that there rly are many i guess lmao but still

my online persona on these platforms is rly like. lax and loose which is Cool And Quirky when brought into a professional setting if it’s done right i guess.... but im just immature and unprofessional. i swear all the time, i shitpost constantly, im incessantly tmi? and that’s not even it like it’s just a whole mess!

SO there’s that whole set of problems and like im just concerned because... i stopped posting art online last yr for the most part and a lot of the old stuff that’s on dA (since that was rly where i did it most) is bad and not worth sharing like that anyways, so im not as worried abt that. but my poetry.... i still actively post that online in all my messiness and candidness here and like. it’s rly not that hard to find me? like if u copy a poem of mine and put it in google it’ll pull up my dA right away! and that’s like.... GOD i just am embarrassed for anyone irl to see that or for that to be connected with my irl / professional self in the future, but i don’t want to stop posting my work there (or here!!!!!) bc the community is so supportive and ive made some rly good connections / built a lot of traction over the 5 yrs ive been doing it. (PLUS for the online portfolio i wanna do specifically... i kinda want to post all of my art and poetry there, like everything ive ever done (specifically poetry, ive written almost 500 poems over the 5 yrs ive been doing it!), but i feel like that’s not rly the most professional thing to do and idk how to even gauge whether it is or not :-/)

but that’s not all!!!! because there’s another part to this and that is: the very nature of the content i produce is Not Good! for my art it’s not as much of a problem bc since I work as an artist rn a lot of what i make is professional, but for my personal art... a lot of that is either self portraits or my characters and a lot of my characters are like. animals. like specifically pepe (who is basically Me As A Cat).... i draw her constantly and so much of my best work is of her but it’s just like? embarrassing i guess for my ocs to take up so much of my portfolio and sketchbooks and stuff and share that. like i know everyone has characters and it’s not bad to do that and share that but i feel like ppl will judge me :-( so it’s made me rly hesitant to post stuff to my art ig for example bc i just don’t fucking know how to act, like it’s bad enough that i can’t type the way i want to and i have to type in proper caps n whatever instead bc irls i don’t know / trust as well follow me (including some ppl from work? Yikes?)....... but i feel like i can’t share my sketchbook stuff for example bc it’s all cats and my characters and visual shitposts and im uncomfy to share that bc like... im almost 20 and i don’t want ppl to think im immature or whatever? i kno i should feel like it’s my account and i can post wot i want but like. i fucking can’t bro i just can’t!!

and THEN.... my poetry. that’s the biggie bc like for my art? even tho im uncomfortable i don’t mind sharing that w ppl i know irl but for my POETRY.... it’s very easy to find like where i share that i guess? (the google thing i mentioned earlier but also its linked to my art on here and dA too... f) but i literally never actively share my writing w irl ppl unless im performing @ an open mic or workshopping in class bc im fucking terrified of the possibility of irl ppl finding my poetry. it’s almost ironic how public ive been w it online but how private i am abt it irl... it’s like im living a double life and it’s fucking terrible but it’s the only way i feel safe. bc like art is what i do for other ppl and also to destress and vent when i need a quick fix on my own time. but poetry.... that’s personal, it’s where i feel most like myself, it’s how i talk abt my life and ppl in it and make meaning of things and talk abt things authentically and Get Deep. and my literal worst nightmare is for ppl (who have the explicit ability to by virtue of Knowing Me) to read into it and Understand what im talking abt and have that power over me and see me differently for feeling the way i do or doing what i do. ive actually already been burned by this before after my mom read some work of mine that had been published irl (i don’t want to get too into it but basically i retroactively outed myself thru her reading that poem for what it was and it was Very Very Bad) and as paranoid abt it as i was before, it’s even worse now that it’s actually happened to me and could happen again at any time, esp if i decide to take my work further.

that manifests in a few ways too, like my writing is so cryptic and vague and very heavy on metaphors / symbolism and shit partially out of that deep fear and need to shield myself and my work. sometimes in spaces where i do feel comfy sharing, ppl have a hard time understanding my poetry unless i give context. online and on stage and in workshop ppl don’t rly know me outside of a context where the only thing we have in common is self expression thru poetry, so i don’t rly mind sharing more when it’s appropriate. but if i were to share my work as a book or w/e, ppl im close to (who maybe don’t always think like a poet / artist does bc they aren’t that) would want to buy it and read it and might ask abt what it means and i don’t even know what i would do in that situation. and if ppl were to read my work and see themselves / others in it, whether it is abt them or not, im scared it could genuinely damage relationships like it did with my mom.

SO UH.... idk where im going w this rly, i kno it’s long and rambly and melodramatic and im probably overthinking it and making a mountain out of a molehill and nobody even knows / cares abt me AND my work @ the same time enough to read That Deep into it. but it just fucking sucks that im so uncomfortable and insecure that i can’t comfortably fulfill literally the one single long term goal / life dream that i have. andthe thing that sucks is i can’t talk to Anybody abt this except like... my sister and brother bc they’re the only ppl i genuinely tell everything to, but they don’t have the knowledge and expertise abt art / poetry that like... my poetry prof does, for example. and my poetry prof is one of the best ppl ive ever met and the Only person ive ever met irl who respects and understands my poetry in the exact way i need someone to. she and i have been talking and she rly wants to help me publish my poetry bc she sees merit in my work and knows how bad i want to / how successful it’s been already, but i don’t know how to talk abt this to her bc im embarrassed to tell her abt posting online and being ashamed abt my muses and all that and it just!!! sucks so much bc i kinda want to publish my work @ least once before i graduate and do it semi regularly for the rest of my life? but there’s so much in my way and it’s just! FGGFHDGJGGGG

[lucrezianoin]

it's not the op i actually follow you HDFBDJS also i wasn't talking about ophelia-something (the person who started talking about conversion therapy) just the original poster. but the thing is not every post on social media (including tumblr) is written with the intent to reach a wide audience so OP was probably just venting frustrations and later had to explain because it gained traction?

Well, I should have known you were someone who follows me…. because… you’re using anon?

But you just… proved my point? They had to explain the post? The facts are: many people understood the post as I did. And some others had the same weird understanding of the post as ophelia-something. And some others understood the post as something else and some as the op meant. Literally: everyone understood the same sentence in a different way.

If you are here to ask me how come I did not magically understand the post as the op meant it you are exactly saying what I am. There was no defined message in that post and people misunderstood it. Just checking the comments gave me a headache. There are people who though the op meant to tell them that they should never use queer to identify themselves (and they disagree with it), they are people that thought the same but actually agree with it, there are people who think trans people don’t exist and queer is an umbrella term to pretend that they are part of the lgbtq community etc.

The fact that the op had to explain is not a problem at all. I can’t even count how many times I wrote something that was supposed to be venting my frustration and then more people than I thought reblogged it and I had to exactly explain what I meant. I am instead quite surprised that the op seems to think that the post was perfectly clear and that people:

1) Understood exactly what they meant

2) Which means that expressing dissent = expressing the idea that queer should be used as an umbrella term even for people that don’t want to use it

Because this is what happened on their blog, if you look at their next post. Like. What? 

The facts are these:

1) Person makes a vague post. Of course they think it’s clear, we all do when we write something. 

2) Post ends up not being clear = at least three different misunderstandings

3) Op receives the confusion + dissent at their post as a dissent to the meaning they thought they had infused the post with (alias: a confirmation that people want to call them by a slur)

like…???

[arofili]

legolas or celebrimbor??

celebrimbor doesn’t have a tumblr, he made that shit. he and narvi are @staff.

(well. they were @staff…)

leg …. pre fellowship

their blog url

green-leaves-in-a-green-forest

(or something equally long and horrendously hyphenated and fake poetic)

the kind of posts they reblog

random shit he finds amusing

like, cat pictures and social justice posts from 2013

no theme at all

i would never follow him

the first person they followed

tauriel

she convinced him to get a tumblr because of the memes

a year later, she regrets this immensely

she matured and has a better blog that she doesn’t even use much

legolas is the exact same.

what kind of theme they’d have

tumblr default theme

what kind of text posts they make at 2am

he will wake up in the middle of the night and post about the dreams he just had, but without any context

“made some chocolate milk with the lady who pulls the sun. tasted like weed. also, that one girl who i thought i had a crush on in 3rd grade was there. awkward.”

“sweating so much!! just ran a marathon with my dad while we were being chased by oliophaunts. the racetrack turned into a river halfway through. we won!!”

he thinks he’s funny

(he’s not.)

leg …… during fellowship

their blog url

he privated his blog for the first part of the journey because he thought it would be safer

after a few weeks he gets bored and starts liveblogging this shit

at that point his url becomes “fellowshipoftheleg”

his blog title is “Eight Idiots And A Gorgeous Elf Save The World”

“Hello! My name is Legolas Greenleaf. I am currently on a quest to save the world. The details are ~secret~ but I needed a place to vent so here we go. My companions are all idiots, except for me. My interests include….”

you know the type of subtitle i’m talking about.

the kind of posts they reblog

he basically stops reblogging and only makes original posts during this period of time

the liveblog

legolas had >300 followers before this, but his posts about his journey start to gain traction

his liveblog is pretty much petty complaints at first

he talks shit about gimli

he cracks “jokes” about boromir

(again. he’s not funny)

he reports on the weird stuff gandalf does

he gushes over the adorable hobbits

(until one day he accidentally bumps into frodo and sam tries to jump him.

he’s a little afraid of them after that.)

he quotes aragorn like there’s no tomorrow

some of these are like, actually deep

most of them sound like stuff from inspirobot

or they’re stupid inside jokes

everyone gets code names, cuz legolas isn’t that stupid

gandalf is “old man”

aragorn is “the bro”

boromir is “angstlord”

the hobbits go through tons of nicknames

“itty bitties”

“curly boys”

tiny monsters

eventually they get their own, but by that point the fellowship has split

gimli is “asshole dwarf”

after a few weeks… he becomes weirdly popular.

his story reads like a trollfic, with stupid plot twists and bizarre anecdotes

this mostly is anecdotes, not the full scope of the quest

he mostly makes text posts, with a few pictures here and there

every now and then he’ll post a snapshot of the fellowship roasting marshmallows

or a selfie of him in lothlorien

or a sneaky pic of him drawing dicks on boromir’s face while he’s asleep

he used to be low-profile, but shit’s gone whack.

he’s gaining hundreds of followers a day

his top post has half a million notes.

he’s a tumblr “cewebrity”

everyone on tumblr thinks this is just a story, not real life

people dig through his old posts looking for clues and foreshadowing

they’re baffled by the dedication the mod of the blog has to building up this “legolas” character

or they’re puzzled by the mod’s decision to turn this shit blog into a dedicated storytelling platform

legolas is bombarded with asks and @ mentions

but like…this bitch don’t actually know how to use this website.

he can make a post and reblog one

but that’s literally it

he’s the kind of blogger who leaves stupid captions on popular posts

he can’t figure out how tags work

he’s never heard of xkit

all his asks go unanswered

he’s only sort of aware of what’s going on

he’s blogging 100% from mobile, which makes it even worse

the Legolas Fandom goes buckwild

there is not enough time in the day to over it all

ship wars.

fan theories.

headcanon drama.

it’s a mess.

and again, legolas has no clue that this is going on.

when he catches feelings for gimli…things get insane.

he writes gushy, cringy, angsty posts about gimli

he posts pics of gimli with flower crowns

he composes bad poetry about gimli

the fan base is infuriated.

they’d all been shipping him with aragorn.

and like, no one in the fellowship has a fucking clue this is happening.

at least, not until they get to 

it’s ironic that Isolated Horseblr User eowyn is the first one to recognize legolas

she finally gets up the courage to ask him about it

“has someone been stealing your selfies, or…?”

he is astonished.

if Leg could, he’d shut down the whole thing

even if eowyn had wanted to help him do that, he’s just in too deep

he’s in this for the long haul.

now, Legolas starts to make shit up.

that’s when his popularity tanks.

he’s getting callouts

he’s everyone’s “problematic fav”

people dig through his blog to find dirt instead of clues

Legolas is more aware of this now, and he pouts for days

then gimli, a Twitter-Only lad, finally sees a masterpost explaining everything

he connects the dots way quicker than anyone else did

and oh fuck.

he’s frantically tweeting–

“wtf do i do??”

“i think i’m the asshole dwarf??”

“but he’s like in love with the asshole dwarf now??”

“oh my god, my crush likes me back??”

“has he been liveblogging EVERYTHING??”

eventually he deletes it all and decides to confront legolas

the leg boy caves under pressure and spills the beans.

they figure their personal shit out

of course, aragorn knew everything all along.

at least, that’s what he says

gimli takes over the liveblog for a day and everyone goes nuts.

together, he and leg decide that they’ve got to end this fake-ish story

even though they don’t know the ending of the real one.

for someone who’s never used it before, gimli picks up tumblr etiquette quickly

and on mobile. that’s a whole nother level of perseverance.

he starts streamlining shit, collecting information, making use of fan masterposts

he ties all the loose ends together

with a little bit of help from legolas to make it suitably weird, they close the story strong with a bang and a kiss.

aragorn finds their version of events…amusing.

after the real dust settles and the news stories about the Real Quest hit the press…

now legolas is a Real Actual Celebrity

his fans new and old start to see…similarities between the two stories

plagiarism?

insider info?

conspiracy?

coincidence?

no one can decide.

leg ………… post fellowship

their blog url

Legolas has three blogs now.

“fellowshipoftheleg” is kept as an archive. he doesn’t post there anymore.

he has a secret personal blog, “greenwood-gossip”, that he just posts random shit on like before.

and finally he has a Real Life Famous Person Tumblr Blog, “legolasgreenleaf”

the kind of posts they reblog

with the help of gimli and tauriel, he figures out how to actually use this website.

like most celeb blogs this one doesn’t post much

but he does reblog edits of himself and of his friends

every time he’s asked about fellowshipoftheleg he answers that he is not responsible for it and has no idea about it and would you all please stop asking about it.

the first person they followed

aragorn’s new Famous Person account.

this blog is deactivated after two months because he never uses it.

what kind of theme they’d have

something that should be really classy but with awkward shades of green

like, it had potential but again…legolas has a terrible eye for design

what kind of text posts they make at 2am

he doesn’t usually make original posts

but sometimes he’ll complain about gimli’s weird habits

and once - just once - he confessed that he was the one who ran that liveblog all those years ago

he deleted the post an hour later, but there were screenshots.

legolas is the Ultimate Troll.

[mexicaan]

okay, im gonna address it properly as part of the post since you people don't like scrolling thru a blog to make sure you're reading things right and aren't ignoring the entire cultural context behind my words, plus think sending death threats and racist shit to me is a normal, healthy, and sane response to this: by "issues" i do not mean the liberation of black people. it is not an exclusive US issue, therefore it is not part of the usamerican issues i'm talking about. it's actually one of the problems we ask for help. our activists need help and support to continue the fight to liberate black people, indigenous people, as well as everyone else here bc our governments are corrupt as hell and so many civilians, protesters, activists are dying in the streets. we need help here to.

admittedly, i could have worded the first part of the post better, i didn't think it would get more thay 5k notes in all honesty. but here's the explanation for it: it started out as a vent post in my justified rage bc near to none of our other hundreds and hundreds of posts about this were gaining good traction in this hell site. countless times i've seen our issues being skipped over for years for not being "american issues" (and by that i mean issues that happen in the united states, police brutality and blm are exceptions bc we experience them here as well, differently of course bc of our different cultures, but we still do), therefore usamericans "can't help". countless times i've seen usamericans justify it by saying we're not doing enough, we're not making our own posts spreading the info and posting links to recieve aid, that their education system is shit when guess what?? ours is shit too and we don't use it as an excuse. we still listen, we help, we acknowledge in us what we need to, we spread the word (about right violations, laws and bills your government wants to pass), we do our best to donate where donations are needed (like the california fires or the water probelm in flint, michigan), as well as signing petitions that need signing and can be signed by non-americans in change.org as sites alike.

and we suffer. we suffer through being ignored bc most of you do not care to think outside the bubble that you live in, and those few who do try to do so?? we see you and appreciate you. but it doesn't mean that usamericans still don't tend to skip over the problems of thrid-world countries. god knows that my latine siblings, as well as middle easterns and south asians, feel the same rage and pain i do in regards to this. usamericans being like this is nothing new for us, we've seen it and have experienced it for years.

we are exhausted of being the literal shit under your shoe that you do not care to look at until it starts to smell. and with smell?? i mean y'all deciding to ignore this kind of issues until you see something you think it's written against you, and then decide it's excuse enough to once again gloss over the fact that actual people are dying here to fight me over my "passive agressive" tone, as well as to send me death threats and racist messages about our own oppression.

so sure, go ahead, police my tone, tell me how you want me to grab you by the hand like a little kid and show you the abc's of your country's imperialism and its decades of impact in latinoamerica. show me how you're uncapable of critical thinking, uncapable of actually showing care and concern for people outside of your country, uncapable of doing research about the things the government that YOU chose has fucked us over with (and yes, this includes obama's government). show me how i should behave to make our pain and suffering more bearable to hear about for you. show me how you forget that black and poc people exist out of the united states and suffer in latam as well, show me how you think the black lives matter movement is exclusive of your country and therefore untouchable by the black people suffering here too. tell me how you're going to kill me, how you're going to celebrate my death, because you don't care about looking for understanding and context in my words, while there's people out here fighting for their lives and all you care about is your own americanized interpretation of the reference to "your issues" in my post. go ahead, third world countries are watching you, in part because we want to help, but also because we need to for our own survival.

now, in regard to your hate messages, some of which you can appreciate here:

thankfully i'm an adult and i know how to deal with this, plus i do have the common sense and respect to do my best to understand your reaction and see where you're coming from. but if you can't do the same, or even bother to try to have an adult conversation?? then you're just proving my point and justifying my rage. and this includes other poc and black people, as well, no one is exempt of racism and xenophobia, including myself. being oppressed doesn't make you untouchable nor exempt of criticism, and i again include myself in this. so, for my part?? i will keep listening to the criticism i'm receiving (from everyone) and will take it in a constructive way. if there's things i need to change, i will change them, growth is important and should be constant and i know i have things yet to learn. i just hope that you decide to listen as well and learn from us too.

americans better be rebloging the donation and help links for mexico and colombia after all the help they recieved from latin americans w their own issues

[perpetually-jungshook]

Without You: Bloodstone (Part 23)

Genre: AU, bts!werewolf, fantasy, angst

Warnings: language, violence, suggestive content

Word Count: 2.8k

Summary: Werewolves, contrary to popular belief, are usually gentle creatures. Except for a very specific set of circumstances, they would never hurt a human (on purpose). The few unfortunate times when mistakes were made put a permanent dark mark on the beasts and people began labeling them as monsters. What the human population failed to recognize was the fact that they were protecting us from something much more sinister. Luckily, a few survived and the gene was passed down hereditarily until one day finding its way to me… in the form of my best friend.

Link to: Storyboard (reference pictures) | General lore post | Intimacy lore post Prologue | Previous | Masterlist | Next

Loyalty is often as blind as justice should be, as unstable as a lightning storm ought to be, and as misplaced as an opinion in the truth.

Chapter 23:

“I loved you.”

A wave of warmth pulses through my veins, culminating in my stomach and my cheeks. Those are words I’ve been waiting to hear for years. My best friend, the person I couldn’t leave behind even after he literally became a monster, my sweet, smart, handsome Jungkook just said he loved me.

Yet the way that he said it was distant and past tense. Loved.

I take a deep breath, “Not anymore?”

Jungkook’s tongue pokes out, wetting his lips, buying time, “As a friend, I’ll always love you. But it’s not… the same. It’s an instinct thing.”

An instinct thing. How am I supposed to respond to that? Maybe by trying to be supportive. Maybe by telling the truth.

“Jungkook?”

“Yeah?” he looks up, softening.

My words are quiet, but not hesitant, “I still love you.”

His gaze drops again, almost shamefully. The hair on the back of my neck prickles in humiliation and anticipation, but I’ve known him, been close to him, and been in love with him for so long that I couldn’t ask him to leave even if I wanted to.

“I’m sorry, Eun.”

“Don’t be. It’s not your fault.”

“But I could’ve-”

I shake my head, “There was nothing you could’ve done- nothing you can do now that it’s done. It’s okay. Even with this stupid imprint thing, we’re still best friends. Right?”

Jungkook’s gaze doesn’t leave the floor, but he smiles sadly and nods, “Of course. Best friends.”

“Can I hug you? Or is that against the rules?”

His shoulders sag a little, “I’d say yes, but I don’t want to leave my scent on you. Being in this room is already… going to make him mad.”

Him, Jimin. I’d almost forgotten how possessive he might be. He’d showed self control around Munhee but would Jungkook be more of a threat?

“Besides, no offense, but you smell like him and pheromones and it…” his nose scrunches in faint disgust, “Does stuff to my brain.”

“Instinct thing?”

“Instinct thing.”

Pause.

Jungkook bows politely, another distant gesture, considering what’s usual for us, “I’ll see you soon okay? Hopefully noona and Namjoon hyung will be able to help and… and we can go back to normal.”

The suggestion is empty. Both of us know things well never be the same as they were before. Jimin will be sensitive and will probably make my life miserable. Jungkook’s instincts will prevent us from being close. But I appreciate the gesture of him saying it.

“Hopefully,” I agree. There’s an awkward pause before I continue, “You should probably get back to training.”

Jungkook nods and hesitates, but leaves without another word. I miss him already.

It takes a few seconds of boredom for me to realize I have no idea what I’m supposed to be doing. Am I allowed to walk around? To go to the living room and watch a movie? To grab a snack? To go to the workshop? Or will all of these things make Jimin aggravated?

My concern doesn’t stem from sympathy for him, but rather not wanting to make my own life difficult. I’m not in the mood for more confrontation. I look down at the blankets on the bed to find a few limp yellow petals. The Calendulas. Maybe I could try something. I pick them up and place them in my palm.

There’s probably a difference in the energy for reactive magic or the approach toward culminating it, but why not experiment? No one else is around. I’ve not nothing to do.

The green flame ignites directly over the petals. As magic does not actually create heat, nothing happens. The color doesn’t change, they don’t disappear, they don’t even burn. I try crushing them with my fingers by closing my hand, but this has the same result. Nothing. Figures.

I decide to take a nap and am woken up by the sound of… silence. Uncannily pure silence. The dripping water has stopped. The air vent has gone quiet. I sit up and look down at Yoongi’s watch on my wrist. The second hand races around the face.

A scream splits the air like metal on glass.

It’s not so much a scream as a mixture of a wail and a screech, dozens of voices of all tones, pitches, ages, and genders. Demon. The sound of growls, snarls, and barks are interwoven in the noise, making it easy to lose them, but they’re still present. The wolves are taking care of whatever it is. I decide to stay in my room. There’s nothing I could do to help. I have no special “powers,” I don’t have extensive training, and I don’t even have any silver to ward them off. I’d just be in the way, a liability.

The door opens, amplifying the sound for a moment before Jimin stumbles in and slams it closed. He only glances at me for a second, lower lip bleeding, bruising vivider, clothes more tattered. He’d lost his shirt at some point.

I recoil despite the moderate distance between us, curling up on the furthest corner of the bed. I’m not sure what to be more afraid of, Jimin or the demon outside.

He shoves his shoulders against the door, then sinks down to sit. He’s breathing hard, eyes closed. Beyond all else, Jimin looks like he’d just sprinted through a rock pelting to get into this room.

As per usual, he says nothing.

For a few seconds, the screaming stops and there’s the sound of a scuffle, a body hitting the floor or a wall (or the ceiling, I shouldn’t leave out that possibility). My heartbeat and Jimin’s heavy panting are both eerily loud. Naturally, fear creeps into my stomach physically, into my stream of consciousness mentally. What if Jungkook had been injured? It’s a thought that’s constantly flitting around my mind.

He’ll be alright. He’s always alright.

I loved you.

A chill crawls down my spine. If this were a romantic drama, that would’ve definitely been the last conversation we’d ever have.

“You okay?” Jimin finally speaks, though his tone is flat.

“Good enough, considering.”

He nods, “I hate demons. This one can crawl up walls. Fucking jumped me.”

“Jumped you?”

So he was outside of the bunker.

“Yeah, I barely made it back in time.”

“You brought the demon here?”

Jimin scoffs, “What was I supposed to do? Die? Well, no one would care anyw-”

The door lurches inward and Jimin’s whole body tenses, bracing himself and throwing his shoulders back against the metal barrier. It closes again and he lets out a huff, flicking his head to get the coffee brown hair out of his eyes.

Anger boils up inside my stomach. He put Jungkook in danger, he put me in danger again because he couldn’t… the anger dissipates. I’ve seen demons. I’ve seen them almost overpower several wolves at once. How could I expect Jimin to deal with it on his own? It’s only natural that he would seek help, no matter how ostracized he is from the pack. But then something occurs to me. Why come in here? Why not help the pack? Is he hiding?

The door lurches again and I can hear a distant screech before Jimin closes it. Distant? If the demon is the one screaming and it is somewhere else in the bunker, who or what is at the door?

A feminine, child’s giggle reaches my ears, causing my skin to crawl.

“Eun,” the voice is oddly melodic. “Remember me?”

No… the little girl. It couldn’t be. Munhee told me that she died. Wait. That’s incorrect. The little girl’s soul- dormant, displaced, dead, or otherwise- is gone. Munhee had said that the demon would keep the host body alive. Halsahm kept the host body alive.

How had it gotten out of the room? How had it gotten out of the hallway? With all of the silver and the sigils that blocked the way… had someone let it out?

The door handle turns and Jimin’s whole body visibly tenses. I shrink back against the wall. If we all live through this, I need to ask Munhee for a weapon. Something. Anything.

“If you open this door, I’ll shred you, body and all,” Jimin practically barks.

“You’d do that to a little girl?” the voice is muffled, but clearly amused. The handle jiggles again.

Jimin’s face starts turning red with effort, his jaw clenched, “You aren’t fooling anyone with the skin you’re wearing, fuckface.”

“My poor innocent ears,” Halsahm laughs, a sound that rings with uncanny delight. “All I need is the girl. There’s no reason you can’t hand her over like a good doggie-”

His body ripples, a snarl tearing up his throat, “I’ll kill you first.”

There’s a pause.

“You’ve imprinted on her. Haven’t you.”

Jimin tenses in surprise, causing the door to open just a crack as Halsahm pushes it. His eyes flood with the piercing amber color, but it promptly recedes as his feet find traction again. I can just see the face of the little girl, blood red stare and all. Summoning magic?

Its gaze meets mine immediately, with no pause, almost as if Halsahm knew exactly where I was, where I would be.

“You can feel it, can’t you. My connection with her,” the demon seems to continue addressing Jimin. “She belongs to me.”

“Eun belongs to no one. She’s not yours. She’s not mine. She’s not even… Jungkook’s,” Jimin abruptly looks up at me, as if in realization, a small crease forming between his eyebrows.

Before I can even begin to consider his expression, with too much power for a little girl, Halsahm throws open the door. Jimin tumbles forward and I can hear his head hit the concrete floor.

The little girl steps forward into the room and I can hear my own pulse, but even that fades as the world around me becomes muted, distant.

Your little pet knows. That’s why he came to protect you. Do you know?

“Know what?” I’m not even surprised by the voice in my head at this point, though the panic that’s probably supposed to be there is muffled by a strange, though vaguely familiar mist in my mind. My thoughts swim, moving in slow motion.

How connected we are. You were meant for me.

“Meant for you?”

Has she not told you? About the spirits?

“Told me what? I know about demons vaguely,” I can’t seem to stop myself from answering honestly.

But what about the good spirits? Like the one inside of you.

“What do you mean by ‘one inside me?’ What good spirit?”

The opposite of us…demons, as you like to call us. What is source of your magic, hmm? Curious little one, did you ever ask? Did you think it was your own skill? Wrong. Not just anyone can harness this kind of power. And even those who can… you’re special. You’re mine.

My gaze is fixed on Halsahm’s blood red eyes.

You are my opposite. My exact opposite. Together, we will be powerful, Eun. Together-

The little girl in front of me, directly in front of me, hand outstretched, begins to transform. Her jaw grossly dislocating like a snake, skin charring, white foamy bile dripping from the corners of her lips, her physical image becomes the manifestation of the demon within her just as its head is torn from the body.

Sensations slam into me. The distant screeching. Heavy panting. Heartbeat.

Bu-dum bu-dum.

My head throbs and I only just manage to stay conscious this time. No, it’s not only my head, it’s my muscles, my veins, everything. With every pump of my heart, I can feel it throughout my body, fingertips to feet. I start to fall, but catch myself on my elbow, which digs into the mattress.

The world around me blurs into and out of focus; yet I can clearly make out the coffee colored massive lupine figure on the floor, not moving. Thankfully, after a moment or two, I see shallow breathing.

“J-Jimin?” my voice cracks.

The wolf huffs in acknowledgement, but it’s a weak sound.

My thoughts continue to swim, but I manage to get up. The room swims too. I almost trip on the body, but I stay upright long enough to kneel down next to Jimin. Something’s wrong. Don’t werewolves heal fast? Shouldn’t he be up by now?

I reach out and press my hand into his fur. He relaxes, but I’m not sure if that’s a good thing.

The screeching stops and after a minute or two, the air vent begins hissing, the water starts dripping. The demons are gone- or at least taken care of, contained. The immediate danger is gone. Now time to assess the damage.

I can’t seem to get up. Jimin’s breathing has evened out, but he hasn’t moved otherwise.

Halsahm has stayed dead, contrary to my expectations. Had it… evaporated? Or whatever it’s called? Or had Munhee marked it with sigil magic, locking the spirit inside? I hadn’t seen the symbol anywhere on the body and I’m much too tired to look. Exhaustion hits me as the door opens, revealing a haggard looking, human Hoseok.

His keen eyes sweep the room, voice hoarse as he nods to himself, “Thought I smelled blood…”

“Eun?” Jungkook skids to a stop in the doorway, panting hard. Despite his speed I can see he’s limping.

“I’m alright,” I croak, suddenly feeling the nausea well up in my tummy. Jungkook looks conflicted and remains in the hallway, as if he doesn’t dare get any closer. I clear my throat, “But Jimin might be in trouble.”

Hoseok breathes deeply, “Nothing too serious. We’ll have Munhee look at him.”

Jimin growls, but the sound fades almost immediately.

The throbbing in my head and in my body begins to get worse. Despite the fact that I’m kneeling, the world around me sways dangerously, “On second thought, I think I need to… see Munhee too.”

“Why-?”

I shudder, an involuntary action, “Please get her. Halsahm…”

I realize too late that I’ve said the name out loud. More powerful now or not, the girl is dead, which means the demon has been released from the body. Released? Expelled. Left. Whatever the case it’s gone, no longer trapped in the bunker.

A set of hands moves Jungkook aside and Namjoon takes his place behind Hoseok. The look of concern is immediate on his expression, “Hoseok, go get noona.”

“But-”

“Go,” Namjoon barks, causing Hoseok to push away from the door and jog down the hall. The man with the blue-grey hair then turns to Jungkook, “You are going to help me get Jimin in his room. Jimin, we have to do this. Don’t fight me.”

The coffee color wolf attempts another growl, but the sound fades just as quickly as the first.

“Can you change back?” Jungkook asks quietly.

There’s a pause before Jimin whimpers.

My friend exchanges a look with the pack leader before both boys step into the room. I don’t even flinch when they transform. I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve now gotten used to the sounds, or if I simply don’t have the energy for aversion.

Between the black wolf and blue-grey wolf, they’re able to half carry, half drag Jimin away with minimal protests. This leaves me with the body. I can’t help but look. Blood continues to spill from both ends of the mangled neck, though it’s slowed to a trickle that feeds the growing puddle, which inches closer and closer to me on the concrete floor. I force myself to scoot back, away from the blood, away from the spattering and the corpse. I can only hope that the little girl has found peace somewhere.

With my back pressed against the opposite wall, I refuse to look at the head directly. The matted hair has covered the face, hiding it. But nothing seems to stop the spread of the foamy white substance as it mixes into the crimson.

I turn away, nausea coming over me in another powerful wave. My whole body begins to tremble as the footsteps cause me to look up. Munhee, blood trickling from her nose, staggers into the doorway. She looks at the demon, then looks at me.

“Jimin did this?”

I nod and she mirrors the action in affirmation, reaching up to wipe her nose with her sleeve.

“Okay, let’s get you away from that first, then we can see what’s wrong. Can you walk?”

✩✩✩♔✩✩✩

Send me your theories/questions here. Or just come say hi ;)

Support me/Donate and get some super rad 😎 rewards

Much love ~🐰 xx

[kentuckyfriedcapitalism]

Incoming vent/rant lmao

I love my friends I really do but I just feel like I can’t ever have my moment?? Like this sounds so lame and whingy and shallow and stupid but I was at a party on the weekend and we got some nice pics and everyone made their photo posts and all that and after a few days when it all died down I changed my profile pic (which is a big deal cause a) I’m super insecure about how I look and never like any photo and b) because of this I only change my pic like once every year or so) and it was so nice to get attention like that like I felt pretty and special and loved cause everyone was leaving nice comments and then literally 5 hours later my friend changed her pic to a photo from that night too but she changes her pic like every 2 months and like I know she can do what ever she wants but it literally felt like she took my moment cause now her pic is getting all this traction and attention instead of mine and I guess it’s really stupid but I felt really pretty in the photo and seeing people interact with a version of me I’m happy presenting was so self esteem boosting for me and like I wouldn’t post often even if I wanted to I’m just not that kind of person but idk there’s other stuff too like every time I share something Ive done I always get outshone by one of them saying something that they’ve done and then they get the praise and it sucks cause I just want some god damn recognition from the people I admire and respect and love. She had 4 says to do that and she didn’t and then I upload mine and all of a sudden now she wants to post hers. I just want my own moment that’s all. I rarely ever ask for a moment and it just felt like I had it taken from me