#ok actually i think i should say this in general: 90% of the time when i’m talking about a character or relationship?

[sparky-is-spiders]

You know what? I’ve decided I actually really like Melanie Magnus Archives when I’m thinking about her canon wretched personality and not the fandom’s girlbossification of her. She’s an interesting character and a fucked up person.

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[prettycottagequeer]

ok maybe I'm a little late to this BUT I'm gonna do a to-do list motivation thingy because I've had the worst two weeks since I started college :)

SO these I should start on asap:

50 I make the snack I really want but I haven't had the motivation to make

100 I clean my dorm. another thing I've been meaning to do for a week

150 I do the presentation about mid-victorian fashion I've been putting off (due Monday)

200 I start memorizing the monologue that was due a week ago (now due Tuesday)

these can wait longer:

300 I spend time outside. It's so nice but I'm getting stuck scrolling because I feel like shit. vicious cycle ect

500 I start setting a better weekend routine (aka getting up before noon)

1k I start working out again. I was doing a routine to get more masc and build muscle and I liked it but life hit me like Crowley driving the Bentley and I've missed like 3 weeks

2k I buy my first binder. I've been coping with sports bras for almost a year now and I haven't been able to justify spending $50+ on a binder even though I know I'd love it and use it everyday.

Do I tag people? I don't know but I'm going to. @the-globe-theatre-maggot @weirdly-specific-but-ok @howmanyholesinswisscheese

here's just some context if you want to read, feel free to skip. some of this I've talked about in the maggot server, some I haven't, but I really just need a place for this to go that's out of my head. tw homophobia, transphobia, car crash(??)

How I Have Been Run Over By The Bentley Going 90 In Central London What Feels Like 50 Times In The Last Two Weeks

I'm going to college about 4 hours away from my parents, and it's been really nice. They.. suck, to say the least. transphobic/homophobic ect, super traditional conservative catholic, racist, all of it. so i tried to move somewhere where I wouldn't have to think about them and I could be myself and do what I can to be happy. March 1st was the start of my spring break, which meant going home because the dorms close. I was already not excited, but I was prepared. the problem with being away from home is I forget just how bad they are. My optimism gets the better of me and I think maybe this time they'll be better. so I decided to not hide my septum piercing.

that was a mistake. it starts a whole fight where they say we know you're trans, you're actually a girl and you always will be, we have the bones argument, they think I'm being influenced by demons or something (if only they knew about crowley) because I want to change my name, and they tell me that going on t will completely ruin my body and give me cancer and other things. They're also mad about my dyed hair, septum, and general style, and say I'm setting a terrible example for my (5) younger siblings and make it a point to tell me just how much of a disappointment I am. I think I'm pretty cute and fun but y'know, whatever. very fun time. I lie so much, don't give them any more details about my identity, and say I'm not planning to go on t to save my ass. which is all on instinct which makes me feel worse because if I'm really trans I should be able to stand up for that, right? maybe I'm faking the dysphoria.

the next morning I wake up really sick, and spend the rest of the week sick and feeling like shit because I'm home and back in the same place and situation I was a year ago that I thought I escaped. at one point I pretty much lose my voice but also kind of get gender euphoria from it. it's weird.

On Friday it's time for me to drive back 4 hours to school, and I make it about 3/4 of the way when google maps takes me on a random gravel road and I crash my car, really crash my car, like sideways-in-a-ditch-windows-broken-crawling-up-out-the-door crash it in the middle of nowhere. (I was fully paying attention to the road, it was raining and super slick) I call my parents because I have no one else to call and I sit in a Subway for 3 hours while they drive to get my car. when they get there they're (understandably) really mad, and they tell me that I'm not mature enough to be going to school so far away and I need to get my shit together and stop depending on them. which. is probably true. but made me feel even more stupid about the fact that I crashed my car. I get back to school and I'm still Very Sick with no energy or motivation to do anything. So I've spent the last week trying to get better and honestly to do anything. it hasn't really worked. I'm a lot better health-wise (Not emotionally), still sick but I have a lot of work due, so I really need a push to get started

[sashayed]

I haven't said as much about electoral politics this year as I have in previous cycles, because I am exhausted like everyone else and have nothing new or helpful to add. That is still true, so caveat lector I guess lmao!!! Happy American Election Day Fellow Sufferers!!

I have been experiencing an internal backlash the last few years to my extremely Sorkinpilled D.C. private school upbringing -- my childhood spent as a kind of convent schoolgirl in the faith of The System Is Good If We All Participate, which of course has a uhhh let's say generously a minimal engagement with the ways in which many of us are by design shut out of participating. I don't think idealism is necessarily childish, but I think MY idealism certainly has childish qualities, an undergirding of 90s feel-goodism, of civic participation as a subtle ego stroke and of voting -- although I would never have consciously put it this way -- as a way to feel superior to people who don't vote.

Lately there has bubbled up in me a sludgy, adolescent fury at this whole stupid country that has made it very very hard to feel like I should do even the bare minimum. For these people? AMERICANS? The ones that not only want Donald Trump to be president but saw what happened the first time and were like, We love this, do it again but worse? Whatever, fuckos. "I hope you people get your dearest wish and it chews you to death slowly," I may have thought.

I have also thought: why is it so controversial to ask elected officials to stop funding a genocide? Why are we treating people who make that ask, who are watching the current administration directly fund death on a mass scale and objecting to that choice, as if they are being babies and just need to get over it? How are they supposed to get over it? Why is anybody over it?

Anyway all this means that I, a known chipper door-knocker and caller of congresspeople, have been pretty low-key this current cycle. I think that is OK. I don't want to make this a big dramatic confessional about how I didn't write enough postcards or whatever. We all get exhausted and this was my turn.

But it has also been an illuminating cycle in that it's made it clear to me how much at my big age I still want politics to make me feel good, and when they don't, I still have the urge to throw a lil tantrum about it! I can get very superior and intellectual about how right-wing operatives manipulate their voters emotionally WITHOUT EVEN NOTICING that I too have been manipulated, in my case into the feeling that nonparticipation is a kind of revolutionary act.* Just absolute "I threw it on the GROUND" logic happening inside my head. "Maybe if I don't vote I will be doing Quiet Quitting, which is uhhhhh anticapitalist." I'm not a part of your system!!!

Anyway, I am trying to have self-compassion about it, and one way for me to do that is to project my internal experience onto a theoretical reader. That would be you, my imaginary friend who clicked on this post for some reason even though you have already decided not to vote! I just want to tell you that I am more sympathetic to your point of view than I have ever been in my whole life, and I'm sorry I have historically been a glib, holier-than-thou asshole about it in ways that may actually have made you MORE resistant to civic participation.

And you're right: it doesn't make that big a difference whether I personally vote or not, or whether you do. But if there are hundreds of us, and I think there are, then each of those people individually do starts to matter.

I guess I would humbly request that you and I both pay attention to what people who need help are actually asking for. I would ask that we both notice who wins when we abdicate this single responsibility. I would remind us both that participating in the electoral process is not some kind of weird either-or with participating in decentralized community building and mutual aid, and the best people we know do both. Isn't it interesting that somehow, insidiously, without even consciously becoming aware of this belief, we have started to think that you can only do one or the other? Who is telling us that story? Who does it serve?

Anyway. I took the stupid 90 minute round trip to my polling place which was VERY hot for some reason and I stood in the stupid line and some babies waved at me and I cast my vote for Kamala Harris and I'm glad I did it in the same way I'm glad after I do the dishes or take a stupid shower. Doing work doesn't always feel like anything. I also saw a really wonderful small black and white dog that I thought was a cat on a leash. I would not have seen that dog if I hadn't gone to vote. So politics can still make you feel good!!!

*I mean all this analysis is cute and everything BUT ALSO i did switch antidepressants twice in the last year, an astonishingly grueling process that almost made me [affect the trout population]. Could these things be related? hmmmmmmm, don't understand the question, won't respond to it.

[strangebiology]

How wrong words become wrong numbers

There's a viral video of nurses saying "this is me 12 hours before my shift" looking nice, then "this is me 12 hours after my shift," looking haggard and tired.

The implication is nonsense--12 hours before and after your shift is when you're in bed, at the grocery store, or on another shift. Why are you looking so tired if your shift ended 12 hours ago?

OK, I understand, I know what they meant, I get it! They meant to say "before and after my 12-hour shift." That is the only logical explanation. It's fine! I get the joke! No hate!

I know some people do not care how numbers work and want to tell me "you must be fun at parties! You and your technicalities! Those two sentences mean the same thing! You can't expect regular people to know the difference between two sentences that have most of the same words in them!"

But like...I...think you generally should try to understand numbers...

Imagine if you're on a dose of a medication that is 100 milligrams/day. Through reasonable testing and logic and...however medical professionals decide these things...it is decided your dose should be increased by 25%. Great.

Imagine one of these nurses wrote down that your dose should be 25 times what it was. Now you're taking 2500 milligrams or 2.5 grams per day.

And now you're dead.

Or it could be something even simpler.

"OK Mrs. Fancy Pants!" says the hypothetical innumerate nurse. "It's not my fault the pharmacist is too dumb to know what I mean when I say 25 times! Fine, I'll write the new dose should be 25 percent of what it was! Happy?"

Now your dose is 25 milligrams per day. It was supposed to be 25% more than 100 milligrams/day, which is 125 milligrams/day. You're dead again!

"But I'm not a doctor so it doesn't matter!"

It might matter to you one day. What if you're the one taking the pills? The doc says one pill every two days, and that sounds like the same thing as two pills every one day, right? Nope! DEAD AGAIN!

There are also many examples of scamming people because they don't understand numbers. It would be pretty unwise to sign a lease agreement that simply said "rent is 900." If my friend told me that, I would assume they mean "rent costs USD$900.00 per month." I understand the implication between trusted friends and casual conversation!

But in a contract with someone sketch? Maybe they mean 900 Bitcoins per minute. Some things have to be specific.

There is actually a whole scammy-ass company, ClickaSnap, that banks on the idea that their audience doesn't understand the difference between a dollar and a penny. It sounds like a mistake that no one would make, but they are fairly sneaky about it. In this video, the videographer says, "They're going to pay you 90 cents per view per photo." Wow, that's a lot!

The image on the screen says, "up to 0.90 cents per view." The "up to" has a lot of qualifications, including paying them a monthly subscription, and they don't say why anyone would go to that website to look at pics anyway. And what's that decimal doing there? Does a decimal...change a number?

It's not 90 cents per view. It's .9 cents per qualified view. That is 9/10ths of a penny. (The same mistake is here and there were a bunch more but I think TT took some down.) I understand it's probably because 90 cents is sometimes written as $0.90--yes, those are the same--but that dollar sign is important! 0.90 DOLLARS is different than 0.90 PENNIES.

Anyway! Just wanted to warn you to be careful of the interactions between numbers and words, especially when it's important!

[bobacupcake]

Oooh, what about Journey? I think the sand probably took a lot to pull off

it did!! i watched a video about it, god, like 6 years ago or something and it was a very very important thing for them to get just right. this is goimg to be a longer one because i know this one pretty extensively

here's the steps they took to reach it!!

and heres it all broken down:

so first off comes the base lighting!! when it comes to lighting things in videogames, a pretty common model is the lambert model. essentially you get how bright things are just by comparing the normal (the direction your pixel is facing in 3d space) with the light direction (so if your pixel is facing the light, it returns 1, full brightness. if the light is 90 degrees perpendicular to the pixel, it returns 0, completely dark. and pointing even further away you start to go negative. facing a full 180 gives you -1. thats dot product baybe!!!)

but they didnt like it. so. they just tried adding and multiplying random things!!! literally. until they got the thing on the right which they were like yeah this is better :)

you will also notice the little waves in the sand. all the sand dunes were built out of a heightmap (where things lower to the ground are closer to black and things higher off the ground are closer to white). so they used a really upscaled version of it to map a tiling normal map on top. they picked the map automatically based on how steep the sand was, and which direction it was facing (east/west got one texture, north/south got the other texture)

then its time for sparkles!!!! they do something very similar to what i do for sparkles, which is essentially, they take a very noisy normal map like this and if you are looking directly at a pixels direction, it sparkles!!

this did create an issue, where the tops of sand dunes look uh, not what they were going for! (also before i transition to the next topic i should also mention the "ocean specular" where they basically just took the lighting equation you usually use for reflecting the sun/moon off of water, and uh, set it up on the sand instead with the above normal map. and it worked!!! ok back to the tops of the sand dunes issue)

so certain parts just didnt look as they intended and this was a result of the anisotropic filtering failing. what is anisotropic filtering you ask ?? well i will do my best to explain it because i didnt actually understand it until 5 minutes ago!!!! this is going to be the longest part of this whole explanation!!!

so any time you are looking at a videogame with textures, those textures are generally coming from squares (or other Normal Shapes like a healthy rectangle). but ! lets say you are viewing something from a steep angle

it gets all messed up!!! so howww do we fix this. well first we have to look at something called mip mapping. this is Another thing that is needded because video game textures are generally squares. because if you look at them from far away, the way each pixel gets sampled, you end up with some artifacting!!

so mip maps essentially just are the original texture, but a bunch of times scaled down Properly. and now when you sample that texture from far away (so see something off in the distance that has that texture), instead of sampling from the original which might not look good from that distance, you sample from the scaled down one, which does look good from that distance

ok. do you understand mip mapping now. ok. great. now imagine you are a GPU and you know exactly. which parts of each different mip map to sample from. to make the texture look the Absolute Best from the angle you are looking at it from. how do you decide which mip map to sample, and how to sample it? i dont know. i dont know. i dont know how it works. but thats anisotropic filtering. without it looking at things from a steep angle will look blurry, but with it, your GPU knows how to make it look Crisp by using all the different mip maps and sampling them multiple times. yay! the more you let it sample, the crisper it can get. without is on the left, with is on the right!!

ok. now. generally this is just a nice little thing to have because its kind of expensive. BUT. when you are using a normal map that is very very grainy like the journey people are, for all the sparkles. having texture fidelity hold up at all angles is very very important. because without it, your textures can get a bit muddied when viewing it from any angle that isnt Straight On, and this will happen

cool? sure. but not what they were going for!! (16 means that the aniso is allowed to sample the mip maps sixteen times!! thats a lot)

but luckily aniso 16 allows for that pixel perfect normal map look they are going for. EXCEPT. when viewed from the steepest of angles. bringing us back here

so how did they fix this ? its really really clever. yo uguys rmemeber mip maps right. so if you have a texture. and have its mip maps look like this

that means that anything closer to you will look darker, because its sampling from the biggest mip map, and the further away you get, the lighter the texture is going to end up. EXCEPT !!!! because of aisononotropic filtering. it will do the whole sample other mip maps too. and the places where the anisotropic filtering fail just so happen to be the places where it starts sampling the furthest texture. making the parts that fail that are close to the camera end up as white!!!

you can see that little ridge that was causing problems is a solid white at the tip, when it should still be grey. so they used this and essentially just told it not to render sparkles on the white parts. problem solved

we arent done yet though because you guys remember the mip maps? well. they are causing their own problems. because when you shrink down the sparkly normal map, it got Less Sparkly, and a bit smooth. soooo . they just made the normal map mip maps sharper (they just multipled them by 2. this just Worked)

the Sharp mip maps are on the left here!!

and uh... thats it!!!! phew. hope at least some of this made sense

[amf-studios]

Hello. Please answer this. I think it's important these get adressed. me and others of this community have been getting uncomfortable with some of your art. While I see nothing wrong with the Fankai, the rest of it has caused issues for people. First, there is the Natsuki fanfic. While I personally don't have much issue with it, there are some who feel very uncomfortable with their comfort character (Nate) Being changed in such a drastic way, and believe a separate community should be made for that art, as some people have gotten to the point of self harm from seeing their comfort characters changed so much. Next, there is uncomfortable undertones to your "Damonate" Fanfic. It seems very "Loli" esque, with a childish hundred year old woman being with a child. Then there is the sexual undertones to some of the natsuki art, particularly the maid outfit with Arachnia. This is to some extent sexualization of a minor. Then, there is the inequality in the amount of transmasc and transfem characters you draw. 90% of your characters that are trans are transfem, and barely any are transmasc. Then, finally, there is the softcore Arachnus and Toadal Dude art. While nothing is showing, it is very clearly provocative and you have a mostly minor fanbase. I believe that art should be on a separate account.

If you could adress these, it would be good. Thank you.

OK, guess we're doing this.

I've heard a decent few people say they find my natsuki au uncomfortable. I will only say this: no one is making you interact with this content. If you don't like it, just scroll.

I haven't heard anything about the self harm until now, but in my honest opinion; "self harm over someone else doing fanon stuff with a fictional character is indicative of a much larger issue." I say this not to undermine the struggle with self harm, as I have dealt with it myself in the past, but I cannot stress this enough, a random person on the internet's visual fanfiction should not be cited as the reason for that.

Onto the damonate issue. The yokai watch Fandom needs to realize it is a Canon fact "YOKAI DO NOT AGE THE SAME AS HUMANS"

Toiletta is 70 and still a little girl, enma is 60 and acts like a teenager til about shadowside. It is clear that the immortality of being a yokai affects how one matures, so their chronological age does not automatically make them an adult.

And with Damona, she is arguably *very much a child.*

The only time in the games where she is actually treated as a character, she is primarily characterized as a daddies girl who feigned being emotionless in order to get her dad to spend time with her. 2

(I have not seen any full episode of her in the anime, but what I have seen doesn't really disprove the above point.)

On top of that, damona received a redesign in shadowside, the sequel series where Nate himself is an adult.

And it is incredibly clear, she has also matured in this time skip. I don't know why she ages so much in 3 decades when she's at least 190 by the first game, but here we are.

Yokai age is inconsistent, but Damona is one of the more clear-cut examples of being a child.

Onto the maid point: yeah, kinda. I didn't really realize the unfortunate implications until *after* I posted the art. But I do feel that of any maid outfits I could have chose, I used some of the tamer ones as not a lot of skin is really shown on the drawing, or the characters I pulled them from. (The joke with Entoma is specifically that she *isnt* conventionally attractive)

Unfortunately maids in general have been sexualized to hell and back along with a number of other female specific outfits.

On the transmasc point: I actually agree. Mostly cause I use my own experience as a base for making content, and I just don't really have a lot of transmasc headcanons I jive with.

I have tried to rectify this with the oc Toransu being specifically a transmasc character, but I could definitely be doing more.

And on the final point: I will just make it clear here

I AM NOT HERE TO BABYSIT YOUR KIDS.

Social media generally has rules against those younger than teen years making accounts for a reason.

I know kids will lie about their ages to circumvent this, hell *I* did that when I was younger. But it still remains: it is a parents responsibility to track what their children are doing on the internet. Not the random fanartist who makes funky ghost content. If kids are coming across content I have explicitly flagged for my older audiences, that is the parent's responsibility.

I see no point in making a separate account for something I've basically only done once and don't really plan to do often. Even if I did, I've been told my style is very easy to recognize. Meaning by all accounts, I'd likely still hear someone bitching about me doing it.

And while it wasn't a point in this comment, I might as well address it: it's been brought to my attention that people are evidently accusing me of being "a proshipper"

I have never been able to actually understand that whole "pro vs anti" debate, and every attempt to get an answer has just left me confused.

All I will say on that is incest and pedo shit is gross. Apart from that, ship whatever you want, and for fucks sake don't get on people's case for ships you don't like for no reason. There are better uses of your time.

Sorry for the full rant.

[vyl3tpwny]

Music Genres

When I was kid, you would have probably heard me say something like “I don’t believe in genre labels”. To a degree, there is still something about that sentiment that I agree with; I don’t think you can really put music and styles of music in neat little boxes. But otherwise, I was pretty much wrong about everything else.

Let’s go over that.

pictured: Mala, one of the godfathers of roots Dubstep

—

To be blunt, “genre” isn’t just about approximating what a song sounds like. If you say “I love pop music”, that honestly doesn’t mean much. The more specific you get, the more you will approach something someone can imagine like “I like experimental progressive noise pop music”. Ok, I can start to imagine things that likely approach what you're talking about, but even then it will usually not help someone fully understand what something truly is. In categorizing and approximating music styles, genres only go so far. So what makes them important then?

Well, not to say that approximating a style when describing an artist to someone is a bad thing or that doing so isn’t meant to be valued, but it’s hardly the only reason these labels exist. Importantly, “genre” helps establish culture, history, and a musical identity. So when you're trying to tell someone you're listening to a "progressive rock” project, you’re not just imagining odd time-signatures and complex riffs, you’re also meant to understand and consider that whatever is being described as to you has some sort of relevance or importance with regards to the history behind progressive rock; the culture of college bands in the UK, the sound that the punk movement revolted against, the progression of musical storytelling in rock music since the late 60’s and early 70’s, stuff like that. There’s a distinct culture and history you can pinpoint and understand when you describe something as being progressive rock and you can’t just go around calling any complex electric guitar oriented music "progressive rock" unless it has those specific ties as well as understanding and iteration of the roots.

pictured: Genesis, because progressive rock mention

—

Genre labels help to clarify what kind of culture and histories a music project is being associated itself with and where a lot of its inspiration comes from. This is much more compelling reason for underlining the importance of genre labels and why they should be used correctly.

So, there is something I need to get off my chest then. There are a lot of misuses of genre labels all over the place, especially online. And I’m not talking about saying something is “Alternative Rock” when it’s clearly some kind of “Folk Rock” record instead. What I’m talking about is something like “Dubstep”.

Even as recent as a few years ago, I started personally reclaiming the term “Dubstep” as a genre label to describe any bass-adjacent music. At the time I did this, I thought it was cool, because the term Dubstep had been dubbed (pun intended) to be cringeworthy lexicon to some people. And while I feel that’s a noble reason to reclaim something like that, because some weirdos think it's cringe, in this case I actually think it’s wrong.

The term “Brostep” has been used to describe any non-roots bass-oriented music that originates from the proper roots Dubstep. It’s a term I didn’t like FOREVER, especially because the phrase was derived as a generalization of the kind of people who tend to listen to it. However, I actually think that Brostep is a title that people should be more comfortable and confident with labeling things as.

The original Dubstep came as a result of Jamaican immigrants bringing Dub music to the UK, which then fused with the remnants of 2-Step Garage which was prominent in the 90’s just years prior. Timbah.On.Toast made a great video called All My Homies Hate Skrillex and it is a really good breakdown of what separates roots Dubstep from the Americanized Brostep, which came after it. I think everyone knows by now that I have a deep, deep love for EDM based Broste and I am the biggest Skrillex fangirl alive. So being both a Brostep and Skrillex superfan, please understand that I think the video is one of the most important things you can watch as an EDM enjoyer.

Conflating the term Dubstep with things that aren’t actually Dubstep is honestly a slap in the face to all of the pioneers of Dub and Dubstep, which famously were both pretty much ENTIRELY invented by black people. I think it’s fair to say that incorrectly labeling music in this way has racist implications. It dishonours and twists the legacy of the music. You can find og Dubstep to listen to on the RYM Ultimate Box Set > Dubstep page. Check some of that out, then listen to some 2010, 2011 Skrillex and see how different things really went.

It confused me at first when I was a teenager, I didn't understand why so many people hated Skrillex back in the day. I came to realize so much of the hate wasn’t even really with regards music itself, but the total lack of understanding or care for the roots of the genre, which all of his work was founded upon and he then subsequently bastardized without caring at all. It was pure disrespect, it was practically cultural erasure and so many people will now only know of Dubstep as “that Skrillex transformer screech music”. Yeah. It actually fucking sucks.

But there is a LONG history of black music being erased from history and being undermined, whether entirely intentional or due to systemic unawareness.

I saw a post the other day talking about how it sucks that so much music is just lumped into being “video game music” when so much of this stuff has deep roots and cultural significance. The first example pointed how a lot of acid jazz music is just described as “Persona music” by the layperson now. Meanwhile, Acid Jazz as a genre is a huge development on things like roots jazz, disco, funk, and hip hop music. You know. All genres that were invented by black people. Fascinating, right?

Jungle music was also mentioned. And this one is very particular for me. Jungle music, when not being generalized as "PS1 Music", is often just called drum & bass or breakcore (also please Google the difference between breakbeat and breakcore, thanks) which are all fundamentally misunderstanding what Jungle music even is. Much of Jungle music, AS MANY THINGS DO, finds VERY prominent roots in Reggae, Dub, and sound system culture in Jamaica as well as countless other prominently black communities in the UK.

But it doesn’t stop there.

If you’re unfamiliar, there is a genre called “IDM”, otherwise known as Intelligent Dance Music. When I was a kid, and I first heard that word, I immediately was like “that is the most pretentious, stupid thing I’ve ever heard”. Eventually as I grew up, I just stopped thinking about that and started referring to more music as IDM. This style of music is generally characterized with “complexity” and being “not much danceable”. While I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the music that is called IDM, I do think there’s everything wrong with the term IDM, intelligent dance music.

When asked how he feels about being labeled as an IDM artist, Aphex Twin responded:

"I just think it's really funny to have terms like that. It's [basically] saying 'this is intelligent and everything else is STUPID.' It's really nasty to everyone else's music."

pictured: Aphex Twin, the funnyman himself

—

I think most people would agree with this sentiment. It’s so strange to call one kind of music “intelligent”, out of the hundreds of thousands of genres out there. But let’s bring this back to Jungle music. The reality is that IDM started to become a term around the same time that Jungle music became prominent, in the 90's. Both styles of music are complex, introspective, skittery, and chaotic (but refined and often disciplined) genres. Except, of these two, Jungle music was the one pioneered primarily by black artists. IDM was a sort in competition with Jungle. To therefore call IDM “intelligent” in comparison to Jungle music ... well. I don’t feel like I really have to explain why that’s fucked up.

A lot of people have proposed different names for IDM. A quick look on reddit yields things like “Experimental Electronic” and “Brain Dance” (which was coined by Aphex Twin's label). Me personally, the term “Electro-Prog” comes to mind. Sounds cool.

Similar conversations are presently being had about the term “Riddim”. This brings us back to the dubstep side of this discussion again. Riddim, as an EDM genre, is an offshoot of Brostep music that focuses a lot on repetition over the downbeat, maintaining an insanely distorted sound design, a lot more than the average Brostep song. However, the term “riddim” originates — yet again — from the Jamaican Patois for “rhythm”. And Riddim as a musical style in Jamaica is actually more associated with things like dancehall and reggae, rather than the commercialized "Riddim" that is several hundred times removed from its own roots.

Last year, musician INFEKT proposed that what most EDM listeners call “riddim” should be referred to instead as “Trench” in an article on their website. This proposed name is derived from Getter’s use of the term on his 2014 record “Trenchlords Vol. 1”. I don’t personally know how much I resonate with the term, but whatever the consensus is, I don’t think we should be conflating a westernized, commercialized, and EDM-centric genre like this to Jamaican roots music. Over and over again, it seems that black music is constantly overwritten by developments like this, so I think more care needs to be taken in not allowing that to happen.

As a side note, a lot of people online seem very keen on appropriating Jamaican Patois quite often? There are so many examples of this. When the term “Bomboclaat” started making the rounds on Twitter a few years ago, so many white people were quick to either talk wildly about the term and trend or otherwise start saying it as well. There was a fucking article that sought to answer “The Bomboclaat >> Meme << Meaning Explained”, like they’re not dissecting an element of Jamaican slang lol. Then there was a period of time where people were constantly saying things like “On Jah?” as a stand-in for “On God?” even though this, again, is Jamaican Patois. And even now, you have tons and tons of non-black people going everywhere being like “what is blud waffling about?”, the phrase “blud” ONCE AGAIN also being Jamaican in origin.

I shouldn’t even have to explain what makes these kinds of appropriations weird and messed up. But black people lose jobs and are denied basic things in life over their hair styles, their expressions and slang, and so many other things that a white person can just appropriate and face zero consequences whatsoever for.

That aside, aside. Understanding and labeling genres correctly is such a big part of music history and highlighting and preserving cultures worldwide. When efforts are made to undermine the meaning of a genre label or otherwise use it incorrectly, so much damage is done to the communities and people groups that innovate and pioneer this art to begin with.

For these reasons, I will gladly use the term Brostep. I will happily call things Electro-Prog. And when you talk about genres like Jungle and Dubstep, say it with your whole chest. Be proud of the human race, show respect and love for the people who have forged the greatest parts of music with their bare hands. We will always stand on the shoulders of giants as musicians, so instead of pretending you yourself are the giant, build monuments and maintain the history of these people. You as an artist are nothing without them.

pictured: Augustus Pablo, one of the most important innovators of Dub. Without him, and without many of his contemporaries, I would reckon that half or more of all modern music would simply not exist.

CONTENT WARNING FOR THIS FINAL SECTION, THERE ARE LIKE LOTS OF STRANGE SLURS AND RACIST VIBES.

—

One last thing I wanna mention, this is slightly tangential but I think it's relevant to this conversation. It's always weird how lots of websites categorize things like this:

From Big Fish Audio... "G**sy*? "World/Ethnic Loops & Samples"? What the fuck are you talking about. Seems like racism to me.

On Loopmasters they have a "World" section. Any Americanized genre gets its own category, but the entire continents of Africa and Asia as well as the country of India and region of the Middle East (which are part of Asia, hope this helps btw) and lastly South America are stuffed into the nebulous "World Label". Seems like racism to me. Are you telling me you weirdos can't figure out a better way to represent these things?

But then Psy Trance gets its whole entire own category? Aren't there only like five people who listen to Psy Trance? /hj . But like come on.

Shoutout to WA Productions for categorizing a universe of suspiciously mostly black music as """Urban"""". And this company is a dime a dozen, hundreds of corpos do this shit.

East fucking West, what is this dude. There is a racism happening, I just know it. Please give me a count of how many poc are on payroll at your company, I am so curious.

And while we're at it, East West, what is this. Tell me. Fucking tell me.

Thanks for reading.

[twistedastrology]

- A Cancer's Appearance -

----------------------------------------------------------

yes i yap a lot about cancers but what do u expect im literally a cancer rising and i hate that everyone gets us wrong as fuck 😕

going orange this time bc i want color in my life rn-

ANYWAY ok so i saw a tiktok last night that was the rising signs and their appearance and Ofc they said cancers often have very soft, rounded features "like the full moon" and generally have very prominent chests and my spindly ass is watching that shit like No.

SO what do cancer placements actually look like!!! Bc i actually went thru the comments and saw a lot of cancer risings not relating and im like OK so it's not just me-

first off, i see ppl saying cancer risings look different compared to cancer suns or other placements and i have never noticed this myself. im not entirely sure why a rising placement would look different from a sun placement but what do i know i could just be an idiot-

ANYWAY-

in my experience, both personal and observational, cancers tend to be very lanky and spindly people-

they might have Slightly softer facial features but not without definition.

being their sister sign, ive noticed heavy capricorn placements tend to have jawlines of the gods, and so do cancers usually, just in a slightly different way.

capricorn bone structures generally look very <. Like very sharp and strong as if they have like no tissue on top of their bones and it's just skull and skin kinda- Cancer bone structures look very???? Not ) but like if < was a just Slightly more rounded- they have more muscle definition in their faces rather than bone definition if that makes sense.

^ to help u understand what im yapping abt, im bringing local 99% capricorn man awsten knight (lead singer of the band waterparks) to the table.

this motherfucker is so capricorn it's not even funny- he's got not 1, not 2 but SIX capricorn placements in his fucking chart- sun, mercury, mars, uranus, neptune and north node-

and unfortunately no face reveal yet but u gotta trust me when i say i look just fucking like him and i have 0 capricorn placements and like 0.5 earth placements in general.

i look like awsten if he was like a twinge more rounded like a TWINGE- i got the same sharpness right it's just like?? HAHAHAH it's like sharp corners of wood sanded down that's the difference- like sanded just enough so they're a little more rounded out but they're still pretty sharp edges u know what im saying-

(waterparks is an amazing band btw should totally check them out if u havent already they're in my top 3 all-time fav bands along with bad omens and korn)

and i have another topic abt cancers brewing in my head rn that ill have to write abt in a separate post but i dont think cancers are actually the crab i think they're the spiders- ill put an arachnophobia warning on that post bc ill probably put multiple spider images But i say that for several reasons-

one such being that most spiders are Very Spindly!!!!! they're 90% limbs!!! and the cancer placements that i know are Usually also 90% limbs, there being some exceptions ofc as always-

me personally ive always been extremely tall and lanky, i am indeed 99% limbs and for a while until i gained more muscle, looked malnourished 💔 (someone accused me of having anorexia at one point, that's a story for another day tho- i do actually have an eating disorder but not anorexia)

this could also be because im extremely mercury dominant but ive seen people say that mercurians are Short which makes absolutely NO sense to me at all- ill do a post on that at some point 💔💔

but i also consider cancers to be neptune ruled instead of moon ruled, and to me, neptunians would be very spindly.

all this to say that in my experience, cancers are not rounded or large chested, they tend to be very lanky, small-chested actually, potentially tall, and have very defined eyes for some reason or another-

in my case i have the most dark purple bags under my eyes you will ever see in your entire life (i got a sleep disorder that makes me legitimately nocturnal 🙏😔), and you can see like every emotion im experiencing in my eyes very easily IF u know me well enough (which my mom is the only one who can genuinely see everything)

i also have a REAL bad case of resting bitch face AND crazy eyes, which the crazy eyes i think are boosted by my mars conjunct asc and my uranus trine asc 🙏🙏🙏

one thing the tiktok said though that did make sense a little was "cancers are usually the spitting image of their mother, like copy + paste"

i dont think it's just the mother i think it's whichever parent you're closest to, but i Am a direct copy paste of my mom in both appearance and everything else tbh- and she's a cap rising + aries sun/mercury/venus- and we both have mars in cancer, but that's her only cancer placement so 🤔

once again this is my personal experience so if this checks out, god bless, n if it doesn't my bad i tried 🙏😔

plenty more cancer content to come i fear because there is So much that so many ppl get wrong about them 😕

[gaylordscooter]

Log of the Multiverse: Fresh

I've done some research lately on that parasite. In order to help someone.

Y'see Fresh is an interesting outcode to say the least. No one knows what his original universe was like. No one knows where he came from.

Not even Ink! Or at least, every time I ask him he conveniently forgets the answer even though he swears he knew a second ago.

Well, I can't blame him for having a faulty memory when mine's pretty shabby too.

But I digress.

He also kidnaps people. that's probably the first thing i should state.

So yeah, someone was kidnapped. Specifically Cross's best bud, Epic. A shame too, he was just rescued from the cusp of death in his universe. He didn't get to spend much time at the hub (see entry on Cross and XChara) before he went missing.

We don't know HOW Fresh weaseled his way into the hub, the code of the universe is set up in a way that repels him like a magnet of the same charge as him. The only ones that could've tampered with that code would be Cross himself (unlikely), Error (who doesn't even know where or what the hub is), and...

i'm getting off topic again!

So however he got in, he did, and then he found Epic and none of us had the time to warn him about who Fresh is and what he does. I'd assume they hit it off pretty well. They'd probably be great friends if it wasn't for the fact Fresh's entire personality is fabricated to lure people in.

As for Where monsters (mainly of the skeleton kind. mainly of the sans kind.) end up after Fresh nabs them, well i shouldn't leave you in suspense should i?

yeah that would be mean.

who would do that in their own log? i mean, i'm the only one reading it.

so really i'm not keeping anyone in suspense because i already know.

[there is a stupidly wide margin here]

yup.

That was stupid.

Anyway, he takes you to some warehouse in the antivoid where he holds this endless rave. How do I know this? Ink told me during one of his fights with Error they somehow strayed so far away from Error's place in the antivoid that they found Fresh's territory. Ink said the fight ended there because the sight and sound of it made Error crash. Ink took a peak through one of the windows and saw the place PACKED with sanses all of them wearing shades just like Fresh. The music and strobe lights could be heard from miles away you'd think it was a GREAT party.

you'd probably notice all the dust after it's too late.

Wowzers so dramatic.

I Havent Said Or Written That Word in Sooo Long

that almost felt weird to write. whatever

So anyway, recap. no one knows where fresh comes from, he kidnaps people and takes them to an endless rave where you dance until you literally drop and epic is currently at said rave.

yeahhhh.

AS FOR MY RESEARCH! "no one knows where fresh comes from" TOSS THAT OUT THE WINDOW. ME!! I KNOW!!

He's actually

from a completely generic undertale universe

You might think "what? that doesn't sound right."

Which Yeah I Guess So If You're A Party Pooper Sure. Technically He's From An Alternate Timeline. Asshole.

"ok so how did a sans become that 90's freak?" Wrong. Incorrect. The sans of that universe is fine and dandy we had coffee together last week (true) (real).

Actually Fresh is

DRAMATIC PAUSE!

I'm killing you aren't i? absolutely annoying you?

you probably already know actually. SIGH

He's a memoryhead. I know! It threw me for a loop too. And it only made things MORE confusing considering. well no one knows the deal with memoryheads. not even alphyses.

They're. amalgamates? but. What monsters did they come from? They didn't come from Any recognizable monsters.

Now as for what's up with the flowers Fresh uses—Which I Totally Forgot To Mention In This Entry. ehhh whatever you probably already read that one. .. Did i include the flowers part. i forgot how much i explained there i was kinda occupied watering my flower. s. my flowers my potted flowers that i Keep In my room. and water with Water and not any other liquid.

the flowers are different from fresh's flowers unrelated. unrelated flowers to any s. keletons

I'm still trying to figure out what is up with the flowers but my guessFOR NO REASON IN PARTICULAR is that said memoryhead managed to mmmmmerge?? melt? how do i phrase this. merge. with a flowey. maybe. potentially

i mean ive never seen a rafflesia flowey ever but hey the multiverse is huge. (not endless though. ink's told me he's seen the edge of the multiverse he looked very perturbed at the revelation)

not that ive seen many floweys.

AUDIBLE COUGH WRITTEN ON PAPER

Man i totally just dropped the "fresh is a memoryhead from an undertale alternate timeline actually" bomb on you and didn't let you sit with it huh.

I'm sorry to say that's as far as my research got. He's a memoryhead. Potentially merged with some sort of flowey. So what now?

well i have a lot of questions. like you do probably

How did the memoryhead escape their universe in the first place? Who in that amalgamate is in control? the flowey? the memoryhead (what monsters are in the memoryhead anyway?) how did that happen? Why the hell does it pretend to be from the 90's.

why does it need so many hosts. what IS the main host's body and why is it so tall? SIX feet really? compensating much? what the hell would an amalgamate need to compensate for. nevermind.

Hang on pause. the song that just came on goes hard i need to save it to my playlist.

...

Yes?? I listen to music while writing these sometimes? Duh? Get off my back?

"you're being sassier than normal" am i? (am i.) well maybe i just learned something

about myself. learned more about myself

I might loop this song actually. it's that good. do you do that? do you find a song that's so good you just loop it and wrench every note out of it until it sounds awful to you?

[whitmerule]

today's 'biting my tongue then patiently explaining' moments with clients

A:

client rings up: can I make an appointment to bring my cavoodle puppy in to have his feet tidied up a bit and have the hair around his eyes trimmed back? me (audibly working on another dog in the background of phone call): You don't need an appointment for that! I'm happy to do that as a walk-in, because that won't take more than ten minutes. I can use that time to tidy those things up for you and introduce him to the salon so his future grooms are less stressful, come in any time today before 4:30!

client: turns up with puppy me: puts the current dog I'm working on in crate, visibly talks to the other dog who is currently here me: spends ten minutes working with their puppy client: asks about prices for grooming in general me: explains pricing system client: yes I think I'd like a full groom for him please me: great, once I'm done with him here we can look at the calendar and book him in for his first puppy groom client: ... you mean you can't groom him right now? me: .... [internally, looks at crates with other dogs that I'm working on, looks at whiteboard with all the dogs booked in for the next week marked on it, looks into the camera like I'm on the office] me: .......... [remembers the multiple phone calls I take most days where caller assumes they could just get their dog groomed today or tomorrow and are vaguely affronted that I'm booked out six weeks in advance] me, brightly: Not right now, but let's look at the calendar and see when I might be able to squeeze in an appointment.

(further dog groomer grumbling below the cut)

B:

me, ringing client 10 minutes after their appointment should have started and getting message bank: ... hope all's well, please let me know ASAP if you're still planning on making this appointment, jsyk it's a 90 minute slot so I can't promise a completed groom if you're more than 15 minutes late, and if you're 30 minutes late we'll have to reschedule client: turns up 28 minutes late me: well, it's going to have to be just a bath and tidy, not a full groom doggo: is matted me: 😩 this is not going to be pretty, I will have to shave out the mats and won't have time to blend the shaved patches into the rest of the coat her: ??? why me: ... also there's a late fee (because I say so that's why)

me, after running 25 minutes into my next dog's slot to try to make this poor girl more comfortable: marks groom as complete, sends text to owner me, 90 minutes later: picks up phone to check?? that owner got text?? [your dog is still here and is barking shrilly and anxiously because she is not crate-trained, she has now been here for almost four hours pls get your dog I am not doggy daycare I don't have time to take her out to poop or play] owner: oh I'll be there in a while, gotta pick my daughter up from school, bye! me: [......... ok well if she has a toilet accident and steps in it I'm not going to bathe her again for your convenience, I have two other dogs I'm working on now]

C:

owner and dog I've never met before: arrive me, who's running well behind on this matted collie thanks to above dog: [oh thank goodness you're a smooth-haired jack russell mutt you will take like ten minutes then i can let you cage dry] doggo: is good doggo! is a bit worried! is actually very unsure of what's going on and also doesn't like other dogs [ABOVE DOG IS STILL BARKING IN CRATE] but is happy to be comforted and cared for! is even ok for nails! me, when owner picks terrier up: just so you know, she was very good and communicative but a bit anxious, especially when other dog was barking owner: oh yes, she hates other dogs and also we just picked her up from the boarding kennel two hours ago so she hasn't even been home yet, k thx bye! :D me: [... WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT TO YOUR DOG]

me: collie, you and I are the only sensible people in this room collie: 👀 me: and I'm not too sure about me collie: (now that you are not brushing my tail you are my bestest friend 😌)

[angiiepaniic]

hiii giving you an excuse to talk about your bill because i also like him a lot and know your pain about never being able to talk about him. so heres your divine excuse to ^-^ i wanna hear

AAAA YOU DONT KNOW WHAT YOU’VE DONE this will be VERY LONG and VERY RAMBLY so like u asked for this (thank u btw ur my first ask)

man idek where to like start :,D

(should note that this is mainly a modern rendition but sometimes i picture us in his world too so it goes either way, really :3)

if you want me to elaborate on anything then just lmk! (that goes for anyone who wants to)

OH OH ok so i’ve been REALLY getting into the band sleep token and there’s like 4 songs that remind me of him and as a result CANNOT stop listening to them (namely rain, give, mine, and telomeres - i highly recommend them!)

bill will listen to just about anything music wise but has a particular soft spot for things like blues, country, and some older rock like billy joel (also really likes soul and r&b like h.e.r. and muni long but will never admit it) — but generally, in his eyes, if it’s a good song it’s a good song, regardless of genre or artist.

he’s even more open with food, like, he will eat anything in front of him even if he doesn’t like it - just how he was raised. he doesn’t have any set favourites besides some southern classics (he will eat 25 servings of mac n cheese in one sitting if u let him)

i on the other hand am VERY iffy with food and find it hard to eat a lot of things, but we know each other so well now that bill will just eat off my plate sometimes (with consent ofc)

he’s not the best cook but is an absolute GRILL MASTER. all gang cookouts are held at his place (and pearson can’t decide if that’s insulting or not)

we spend like 90% of our time just relaxing together, but he does boxing on the weekends to (and i quote) ‘’stay strong for his lady’’

very protective, ABSOLUTELY the jealous type - not in a toxic way, just a bit grumpy sometimes (as always, this is bill we’re talking about)

he’s SO pleasant to be around. we have the same awful humour, the same love languages (we’re both so touch starved that we cling to each other like a curse)

he can be a bit a of a bastard with all the playful teasing but i do the same so it’s an even battleground. i can call him stupid and it’s fine, anyone else does and im THROWING HANDS (and so will he, probably) — and in turn, he’s the only one who can call ME stupid or HE will throw hands while i cry in the corner LMAO

the modern stuff doesn’t have very specific lore, just some cross-dimensional shenanigans. most of it is just based around my actual day-to-day and how i think we’d be living together — but i have a bunch of little aus! got a goth one, got a biker one (one of my personal faves), got a gender bend one because i’ll be damned if bill can’t ALSO be my girlfriend

when i imagine us in the red dead universe i refuse to let him have the bad ending he gets canonically - my funky little brain says that everyone’s healthy and happy in a little ranch or settlement somewhere because that’s what EVERYONE deserves (except micah)

i know most people view him as gay, but i personally headcanon him as pansexual and into everyone regardless of gender because I feel like that fits him quite well

he really is quite loveable, just sometimes he has trouble showing it - but he’s getting better. his ‘i love you’s come out as random hugs, random compliments, and endearing nicknames (as embarrassing as it is i imagine his go-to is calling me bunny :3)

we’re both kinda insecure so sometimes we have a back-and-forth but it’s compliments. i’ve been telling him every day that he’s wonderful and amazing and the best and that his belly’s one of my favourite things and i will DIE on that hill idc how much he complains.

ik that if he was reading the above paragraph he’d look at me and go ‘’BUT YOU COMPLAIN LIKE THAT TOO’’ and yk what he’s right - but that’s why we have each other

our relationship is very healing for the both of us. we both get the love we need and deserve after being deprived of it for so long, and genuinely we’re happier for it. i got out of a lot really bad habits thanks to him, and i’ve been doing my best to help him too <3

[funkii-fox]

Should I block the French Guy?

This mf has the audacity to pretend to agree that AI “art” is wrong, then STILL is using AI to generate images of his ocs. I posted the quote of Araki condemning AI “art” and this fucking guy has the audacity to like it, even tho I had him in mind while posting it.

I was like “yk, I havent seen this guy’s story in a while because it’s 100% hateful, maybe I should check to see if he still does.” The most recent one I could find was from September 8th in a highlight abt ocs, but that’s not to say he hasn’t used it since and just didn’t save it to highlight. Make of that what you will, but I choose to believe he’s still using AI. I remember once I even had a convo telling him to stop using AI, but bro just went “ok” and still used AI BRUH🗿

But guess what else I saw: he likes Jimmy 😭😭😭 this was 100% expected tho. He once changed his pfp to Curly and i was like “your ass is NOT Curly ur Jimmy bro.” He posted 3 whole stories abt the community judging ppl that like Jimmy. He compared it to how ppl like DIO and said its bc he has pretty privilege and not Jimmy and thats why ppl judge them. I won’t lie; yes, most ppl like DIO bc hes pretty and charming, but at least he has some types of redeeming qualities. Jimmy is just 100% asshole. Every scene you see of him is he’s being a jerk or a fuck up that says “i can fix this” but actually can’t. Mouthwashing is SO un-nuanced in the way you’re supposed to hate Jimmy, it’s amazing rlly. We’re not even shown much of his personal life or other aspects of his personality; unlike other antagonists like Kira or Diavolo.

Now, am I gonna throw rocks at your window for liking Jimmy? No. Do what you want. But, i will psychoanalyze you and conclude that you like him either for the abusive dynamic or you like him bc he’s like you. This guy 110% likes Jimmy bc he’s relatable.

Simply looking at it face value right now, the way this guy is so OBSESSED with other people is insane. 90% of my conversations w this guy has been bruja arianna, snerufu, antis, women who make self insert ocs, or his arch nemesis Fay that he just can’t stop stalking. It reminds me of how Jimmy was obsessed and jealous of Curly’s success. He is also negative all the time. Even when making a joke, the punchline is always someone else or a cheap horny joke that comes across as a 7th grader. It reminds me of how Jimmy HAD to take Curly saying “i want more in life” the wrong way. It even manifests in the way bro had Curly as his pfp; because he wants to be like Curly.

We met from me shitting on bruja arianna. My criticism came from logic and a want to make change in the community, but it’s clear now that his criticism comes from hate and insecurity. He’s so passionate about hate, i think it’s the only thing he’s passionate about. He’s not even passionate enough about his own ocs to draw them himself. He’s so hateful he makes fun of women in the fandom for damn near anything they do, as if millions of ppl don’t also see him as a woman and as if he never lived as a woman. Then he hides all of his edginess as “im French lol we’re just angry :p” be so serious

His only other characteristic is being hypocritical. This guy “doesn’t deserve hate” but is constantly negative all the time. This guys gets upset at shit on a screen just to search it up more. This guy HATES bruja arianna for mocking trans men, yet all his male ocs are “androgynous” no mf they look like girls.

Chat, I don’t care anymore about being stalked. I’m stronger now. I have better things to worry about now that I have a life. I don’t care if he talks a lot of shit nor do I care if he “exposes” me for some made up bs. He can have a tantrum all he wants; i have better things to care about

Poll whether I should block him under the cut.

[beautifulpersonpeach]

bpp sorry if this isn't the content you want on your blog after yesterday but is it ok if i ask for clarification on sth? i know youre army you don't like solos but i like reading solos for a wide span of info. i don't like to be in a bubble of echo chambers

i saw a post and i'll send the link right after this ask but the person was criticizing a post you made but it confused me bc what you wrote didnt match what they said. they didn't post your name but i know its you because you always start your answers with 3 dots

***

many armys say they like jimin but they pretend. i don't think youre like that but your answer is confusing so can you clarify? its like you allow jjks to shit on jimin but you drag out pjms only. armys do this over and over. its sad if youre the same bc i like your blog.

***

Please block me.

Actually, you know what? Don't. At least not just yet. Let's do this instead.

I checked the link you sent. I'd received that link a couple other times today accompanied with more hostile language, so I ignored it. But I checked out yours because I wondered what was so serious you couldn't add the link to your main ask, so if you're all in fact the same person sending that link, kudos for getting my attention.

And thank you for sending that to me, because now I'd like to use you and that post to make an example of what I'm talking about when I say solo stans think differently and are just less intelligent. In my opinion.

For other readers, I'm not going to link it directly so as to not draw more attention to them, and since they're stalking my blog to make an example without directly mentioning me or showing my blog name, I think it's only fair I react in kind by also not making a direct mention.

Here’s the post (mine) in question:

*

Here is the akgae's takeaway from the post above (mine):

**

Already, the dissonance between the first and second screenshot should be obvious. I’ll explain in any case just so everyone can follow along.

Shortly after Jimin released Closer Than This, I received an ask from someone who calls themselves a PJM (a Jimin akgae), who said they hate the song and also hate his voice. But that they are his solo stan because he’s “talented and hot”.

I responded that they, the Jimin solo stan who hates his ARMY song and voice, isn’t exactly a rare breed. And that Jimin has ARMY supporting him anyway. This is within the context of me always saying solo stans don’t actually like the person they choose to solo stan (if they did, they wouldn’t be akgaes), and that an akgae’s experience is more about them and their personal insecurities than anything Jimin (or any other BTS member) is actually doing.

Months later (present day), another Jimin solo stan quotes that ask and my response, as proof of me (1) going “sameee you’re so valid”, (2) not correctly identifying that person as someone who actually antis Jimin a.k.a. his akgae, and (3) as proof of me believing “one is more talented and more deserving than the other” re: Jungkook vs Jimin.

…is there even anything more for me to say?

Y'all, I bet you something like 90% of the shit that has solos constantly bouncing off the walls starts from things like this: a complete lack of reading comprehension coupled with gaps in logic and pre-conceived notions/insecurities. If I wanted to be really mean, there's so many places I could take this post right now, but I'll stop here for now.

That post made me laugh because the entire thing is a comedy of errors. The OP Anon in that akgae's post, is actually talking about another 'blogger' (who I know and generally like but that's besides the point), but the akgae responding to them mistook OP Anon's 'blogger' to be me, and then proceeded to write what's in the second screenshot...

It's just sad.

I've lost count of how many times I've been the subject of callout posts on Tumblr and each time it's been something like this lmaooo. Each time it's been by akgaes (and their exile varieties) and shippers. The last time this happened, I was a taekooker, and now someone has essentially embarrassed themselves with a lamentable lack of reading comprehension to spin a pretty innocuous post into... alladat.

This is how drama is manufactured in fan spaces out of plain stupidity.

*

There are many reasons I don't like akgaes, but one top reason is because they dumb down the quality of conversation in whatever space they're in. It's part of why I have such a disdain for 'discourse' in k-pop spaces in general, because oftentimes, the people most eager to write paragraphs on end while being hateful and/or victimizing, are people who don't know what they're talking about or lack basic skills in reading comprehension, among other things. ARMYs and k-pop stans are guilty of this too, but you're more likely to run into culprits in akgae 'discourse' spaces or adjacent ones.

I've given examples of this many times but here's a couple here, and here.

I'm not even trying to be condescending, I don't actually think I know all there is to know about Jimin, BTS, and k-pop, I just no longer have the patience for people who choose remain in spaces filled with akgaes and who keep bringing their nonsense into my inbox. And what's worse asking me to clarify sentences that a grade 5 student should be able to parse in any language.

Anyway Anon, now, you can block me.

[mlobsters]

supernatural s5e13 the song remains the same (w. sera gamble, nancy weiner)

sometimes forget they banged in the impala, but then i'm like why is dean being so soft and familiar with her? oh right. anyway, kind of sweet this little interaction in dean's pg-13 stripper dream.

when he wakes up, there's a little chime that sounds just like a doorbell that's been muffled (in my house specifically to try to keep it from waking up a sleeping infant). anyway, the sound design on the original score is rarely very creative, kudos to them. startles the shit out of me every time, but good job on something interesting

ANNA Sam Winchester has to die.

this surely is going to end well for all parties involved.

there was a boy in my high school who had a fucking gorgeous late 70s black pontiac firebird trans am, god the rumble on its engine was delicious. i think i somehow got a ride somewhere with him at one point. he was a cute and smart boy but honestly the car was it.

DEAN So, what, you're like a Delorean without enough plutonium?

CASTIEL I don't understand that reference.

tell him, cas! i just complained about the number of references they use in this show a few episodes ago

cas sure folded like an ugly tan trench coat. "i should go alone" dean: "🥺" ok zap

SAM He's breathing. Sort of.

the line about buying microsoft stock reminds me when i was in middle school i think? there was a project where you had to "buy" a stock and then track its price in the newspaper over some number of days/weeks. imagine that. using the newspaper to check stock prices. ~it was the 90s~

all right so wasn't cas's point back when dean met mary to begin with that you can't change destiny? so isn't this all moot? when does #TeamFreeWill become a thing

JOHN Shut up, all of you! Look, not another word, or so help me, I will turn this car around!

DEAN Wow. Awkward family road trip.

SAM No kidding.

just like home, right, guys?

he reminds me of a combination teen wolf derek (tyler hoechlin) superman (henry cavill variant). one tv superman+one movie superman=young john winchester

SAM Pretty much forever. My dad raised me in it.

JOHN You're serious? Who the hell does that to a kid?

SAM Well, I mean, for the record, Mary's parents did.

JOHN I don't care. You know, what kind of irresponsible bastard lets a child anywhere near—you know, you could've been killed!

SAM I, uh...came kind of close.

JOHN The number it must've done on your head...your father was supposed to protect you.

laughing out loud. i'm sorry sera and nancy, i will always appreciate any and all john winchester shade, and especially unknowingly delivered by john winchester -- but i believe 0.00% late 70s generic straight white man has the emotional intelligence for this thought process / willingness to speak on it / willingness to talk shit about someone's father (a stranger no less) to their face

and i do not appreciate that it caused sam to come rushing to john's defense. gross child neglect, bro. y'all wrote this story and you gotta live with the consequences of how horrifyingly awful of a parent you made him be. just say no to the rehabilitation of john winchester

DEAN You have no other choice. There's a big difference between dying and never being born. And trust me, we're okay with it, I promise you that.

have they talked about this? they're both totally chill with never existing??

DEAN Team Free Will. One ex-blood junkie, one dropout with six bucks to his name, and Mr. Comatose over there. It's awesome.

oh, well. there you go

MARY Ohh...quite a kick there. Troublemaker already. It's okay, baby. It's all okay. Angels are watching over you.

so did michael scrub her brain but also leave some pro-angel bias in there? she said there's no such thing previously about angels. just how much did he scrub? i wonder how much is retcon and how much was actually planned. i imagine i could find the answer if i looked but i kind of like consuming this show in my little bubble the way i do. also, effort

[miqo-tales]

Jobs at 100 - MELEE

DRG

Still don't get why they replaced Spineshatter Dive, but whatever.

Removing the charge-up for Life of the Dragon took some getting used to, but I like it. That said, I don't understand why they kept Mirage Dive.

Like just upgrade Jump a second time or something? We could go from Jump to High Jump to Too High Jump.

DRG's rotation still feels really awkward to me. I wish they'd do one of two things: give DRG another high potency weaponskill to use with Life Surge, OR, remove something from the primary combos to tighten that up.

Hell, I'm not sure why we still have our DoT (they're removed nearly every other one, after all). Take that away and make the DRG combos work like WAR's.

LVL100 AF thoughts: I think my favorite? Tied with the original, at least. It's just a nice, simple looking set with a really nice helm.

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RPR

I guess the biggest change is Plentiful Harvest giving you a free Enshroud instead of giving you meter. I'm quite happy with it. One less thing to micro-manage.

It's a little tricky to fit Sacrificium in during Enshroud.

OK, now that I have that out of the way... I hate Soulsow and Harvest Moon.

Can we just get rid of Soulsow and put HM on a minute or two minute timer?

LVL100 AF thoughts: Honestly, I think overall I prefer the Endwalker AF. I mean, yes, I like the exposed chest, but I still prefer the Endwalker set. Though I really like the fur collar on the new one.

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MNK

It took me a bit to figure out the new job bar and how the buffs work. But once I realized it's like VPR in that it's leading you through your combo, it clicked.

Not to say I'm particularly good at it. I just understand it. I'll never be a good MNK, but I can at least be decent.

The new abilities are neat, but I'm tired of hearing the growl sound effect for Pouncing Coeurl.

Six-sided Star still feels weird. I think I understand when to actually use it, but god that cooldown is awful and ends up making it feel like I shouldn't be using it at all.

I hate Perfect Balance. I hate that the blitzes are linked to it. I really hate that!

PB should have gone away when they got rid of Greased Lightning. It didn't, and now we must suffer because of that.

LVL100 AF thoughts: Easily the best looking one so far. That said, I'm not happy with how the hands and feet dye. Also the weapon is kinda meh.

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SAM

The above picture could apply to a few jobs, to be honest, but it feels particularly true of SAM.

Getting Tsubame-Gaeshi all the time is neat.

Zanshin! Cause SAM clearly didn't have enough AoE.

Gyofu feels like they couldn't think of anything else new to give to SAM, so they real quick came up with an "upgrade" to Hakaze.

That might sound mean, but seriously, at 92 you get Gyofu, which is Hakaze with a new name, the same animation, and a minor potency boost. And then at 94, all your other attacks get potency boosts. It's kinda silly.

LVL100 AF thoughts: It's nice. Very formal/ceremonial. Still, I prefer the Endwalker one, and even then, the original Stormblood one is my favorite.

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NIN

I dunno how others feel, but I certainly will not miss having to keep Huton up. Changing it to an AoE Suiton is nice.

Trick Attack getting an upgrade to an AoE is very nice for dungeons.

This is not a new issue, but I wish NIN didn't have two different abilities that gave a chunk of gauge. Why can't Meisui give you a free use of Zeppo/Bhava, like RPR and VPR get with Plentiful Harvest and Serpent's Ire?

LVL100 AF thoughts: It's ok, but I think it's a bit busy with details. Also, I dunno, somehow it doesn't seem uniquely NIN to me. I feel it could easily be a general striking or scouting set. I prefer the Endwalker AF.

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VPR

This job is so boring below lvl 70. And even then it didn't really feel fun until 90.

Once you do get this job leveled up, it can be quite fun. You just never stop hitting buttons, and everything, particularly after Awakening, is so flashy.

But this job is the KOF XIII trial combo of FFXIV melee jobs.

My very major gripes with this job are: too much fucking text in job abilities, and it's really frustrating that the job gauge does not give any indication of whether your positional is flank or rear.

The upside is that once you're in the flow, it's pretty easy to stay in that flow. And worst case, if you don't care about optimizing it, you can just hit buttons and still have fun with it.

All that said, this job is a strong argument for there needing to be an easier way to use combat abilities in gpose.

Also, it's a little weird there is no cpose for the combined blade.

LVL100 AF thoughts: It's pretty nice! I hope we get some similar looking stuff for other jobs during this expansion.

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