#the online world was just different.... or maybe i was just a teenager who knows

[judilyart]

I miss the period of time on the internet when undertale first came out and everybody was obsessed with it and finding weird secret lore and creating endless fanart... it was such a special game

[6mayhem]

but i would give anything for just one day spent in the life i had when i was 15. it may not have been perfect but i felt like i belonged somewhere. and i didn't worry so goddamn much about the big picture

[max1461]

My first encounter with the broad concept of "people who want to live in the woods" came in the form of seeing people, online and in media, actually living in the woods, in one capacity or another.

As a teenager I watched Ray Mears' Bushcraft. It's a really good show that I would strongly recommend to just about anyone. Ray Mears (who in fact popularized the term "bushcraft") is a British wilderness survival/outdoorsmanship expert, and in Bushcraft he travels around the world, meeting with people who still practice some form of traditional subsistence-off-the-land, and documenting their knowledge and techniques. He shows traditional bushcraft in the Amazon, among aboriginal Australians, etc., and talks to the people who practice it about their way of life.

This show had a pretty big impact on me as a young person. I was already avidly interested in nature and the outdoors, and I had been intrigued by the concept of "wilderness survival" since watching Survivorman as a kid. There was something very appealing about the idea of placing oneself in nature with as few barriers as possible; getting to experience the natural world not just in a removed, "sightseeing" way, but in a real, engaged and "tactile" way. But what Mears presented added an additional layer of appeal: "wilderness survival" not as a chaotic fray to stay alive, but as a body of skills, refined over the centuries, which can be taught and learned. A mature art, something sophisticated and deep, in which one can become a practitioner. Something, in other words, a lot like mathematics, which I already knew that I liked, and a lot like language, which I had just recently become aware I was fascinated by. This inspired in me a much more lasting and serious interest in bushcraft. I began reading about it more seriously, and practicing as much of it as I could (not very much) in my parents' back yard.

I still count "becoming truly proficient in bushcraft" as one of my life goals, although I am not anywhere near that point yet.

A further point stressed by Ray Mears was that these traditional bushcraft techniques are a dying art. As people's lifestyles change, they are not getting passed on, and soon they may be lost. I want to stress here (because I'm on tumblr, where Big Ideas and Grand Narratives rule) that I have no desire to chastise people for living a different lifestyle than their grandparents! That's fine! I do not believe that, I don't know, the children of bushcraft experts should be forced by government decree to live in the woods or whatever. I have to make this clear, because "what should we force people to do by government decree?" seems often to be the only level at which tumblr discoursers are willing to think. What I am claiming is that this loss of knowledge is sad, it is unfortunate, and being that I and others (including most principally many of the practitioners) would not like to see these arts die out, it would be nice if they continued to be taught and learned and thereby passed on into posterity.

There need not be some kind of Decree! Maybe people just do some kind of outreach, as Mears himself did, and get more people interested in these things. Maybe, if you're an Amazonian guy or an aboriginal Australian guy, you do that outreach in a community-internal way, because your desire is principally to increase interest community-internally. I don't know; my whole point here is that I'm not really trying to get into the political dimension of this. That's not where my interests lie. Other than expressing a general sentiment that "bushcraft is cool and readers of my blog should think it's cool", I don't have any particular agenda here.

Anyway, this is the sum total of the context in which "people going out and doing shit in the woods" existed for me until just a few years ago. Then I came into the internet discoursosphere, around 2020, and I realized two things very quickly:

everyone was debating the relative merits of living in the woods

no one seemed to have any interest in or experience with anything even passingly related to living in the woods on a practical level, either first- or second-hand.

It was all, all this purely abstract, "theory"-based, grand narrativizing politico-philosophical debate. Nobody gave a shit about friction fire-lighting or shelter construction at an object level. Nobody gave a fucking shit!

This is a microcosm, and in fact not just a microcosm but perhaps the type case, of why I hate the discourse. The discourse is insistent on taking everything real in the world, everything that is (permit me to get a bit philosophical myself) vibrant and living and actual, and turning it into this dreary, sterile, empty word game. Are the Marxists the True Leftists or are the Anprims the True Leftists? Which one is it? I don't know and I don't care. Why is our interest in being in nature mediated by meaningless word game abstractions? Why must our interest in science or history be reduced to meaningless word game abstractions (shape rotator/wordcel discourse)? Why must our interest in, say, video games be reduced to meaningless word game abstractions (any of the thousand video game discourses)? Etc. etc.

It's actively, fucking, toxic to the idea of just being a person in the world. Everything you do has to be some symbol in a bullshit fucking symbol game. Worse, everything everybody else does becomes to you a symbol in a symbol game, even if they aren't playing.

I am dedicated to an alternate project. I want to be in the world and I want to be in it with others. In fact, I am so dedicated to this, that I can appreciate the reality of others' lived experience and actions even in spite of the symbol games they might be playing, even if I think these symbol games might be a little bit bullshit. This is a plainly virtuous way to be. This is the way I was raised to interact with people; it is parablized in various different ways, we're told (among other things) "everyone has a story", and "everyone is valuable in their own way", and so on. And these things may seem trite but they are true, they are obviously fucking true and many people in "discourse" have forgotten.

There are some anarchists who are really into urban community gardening. They're into it for various reasons. Some feel that it gives them autonomy over and knowledge of their own food in a way that buying things at the grocery store does not. That's fair, and kinda cool. If you're into that I support you. Some of them think that the whole economy could be replaced with urban community gardens. That's a bit silly. But I will come to these "silly" anarchists' defense every single time without question, because, fuck, they're doing something. I mean they're fucking doing something, ya know? They see meaning in this thing, and they're doing it, and that's cool! I would rather go to the overly idealistic anarchist community garden than the just-the-right-tendency Marxist reading group or whatever the fuck every single time.

Buncha "got lost in the world of symbols and forgot what they signify" mfers on this world wide web of ours istg.

[spottedskunkfa1ry]

Gaslit about covid? Me too. [RANT]

as you all can tell by my page im so new, but for context, im trying to find COVID-19 safe/conscious groups online. i started with Instagram and ive moved to here.

something thats on my mind recently is how i have been severely gaslit to just think covid isnt a thing we should worry for and that im a conspiracy theorist about covid just because i still use mitigation in my daily life and i give a shit about disabled/immunocompromised/chronically ill people in my community and in my life. i genuinely am so scared for whats happening and what will happen to our collective health.

like i had like a breakdown after all my roommates stopped masking last fall and it lead to me being triggered and disassociating for almost a whole year because i felt unsafe with people i previously felt safe with (feeling/being unsafe in my home is a major trigger for me). i was lost touch with reality, i have never felt so disconnected from my friends, mind, and body. it was so bad. And it took a lot of energy, effort, and practice to communicate my needs and boundaries with them only for them to be like "Cool you sound like you're living in fear and im not changing". in the end i decided to move to a different apartment because i coulndt deal with all of them being like that.

the past 4-5 years have made me feel a lot of things and i wrote a poem about the grief ive felt specifically around the pandemic and how it has drastically altered my late teenage and young adult years. maybe ill put it here one day lmao.

a silver lining in this is that all my way of life as i knew it is gone and dead. and that makes more room for me to find people who care for and value our lives at a basic fundamental level and furthermore are willing to act daily to show our love and care for one another. this new life makes more room for me to really question my consumerism [god forbid we stop eating indoors at restaurants and risk getting a deadly virus for shitty food] . it makes me question how i interact with the world with a COVID-safe/mindful lens. and most importantly put disability justice at the forefront of my activism.

I have grieved how life was and i have come out the other side accepting and wanting to do everything in my power to protect my community in the ongoing pandemic. i understand my responsibility and i have begun to see how disability justice connects all of our collective oppression and how disability justice/rights/activism is a key part to our collective liberation. i have seen how covid conscious or safe people [idk what to label it ive been going back and forth bc i think a lot of people have different definitions of these labels im sorry] are so kind, so caring, so compassionate, so giving, and so loving in a way that i dont see or truly feel in other activists/advocates groups. I personally feel the safest, most loved, and understood by my friends, family, and peers who are covid safe and practice community care.

much love to all of them it has made me love them in beautiful new ways. xx im so grateful to have them in my life. if u made it this far ur real asf. if u want share whatever covid related rants id like to read them or if you have thoughts on what i wrote let me know 🥺.

rn i just feel like im shouting into the tumblr void and its been cathartic.

[mynameisnotsoda]

NOW INTRODUCING.... THE CRITTERS !!!

Technically Corvid is still a part of an au, i really like everyone's designs so i guess its just like a weird little au that are also kinda ocs?? Idk. Im still tagging it as the animatronicfication au and using the other ccs names but im completely separating wilbur from Corvid.

The one that probably changed the most is simp LMAO i just went back to his old design that was inspired by Luna (@starrixle's transfem simpbur turned oc) and Spencer is such a fitting name in my mind i literally can not imagine him with a different name *bwomp*

Also I'm working on refs for the other characters associated with the respective critters! I wanna finish them all and dump them into one post and I'll link it here when I'm done.

ANYWAY INFODUMP TIME

Before we go into individual characters i want to say that this is absolutely Minecraft. Like. The world is built off of Minecraft lore yk !!!! The overworld will still be called the overworld but it's basically just earth, with more magic and humanoid species! Along with supernatural creatures and cryptids n stuff :D also with more advanced tech considering Corvid exists pFF

Spencer for the most part kinda was like he is in canon or whatever. She used to lean more towards incel ideology because she was REALLY insecure and uncomfortable with herself for the longest time. Despite that, Spencer and Adrianne (egirl) started dating when they were 17, his unhealthy obsession with her was only fueled by her unhealthy attachment to him. They needed each other and it wasn't good for either of them. Spencer had developed horrible separation anxiety which only made things worse. Over time Adrianne became suffocated by his constant neediness, overwhelming insecurity, short temper and lack of contribution to household chores. It pained her to leave, but things needed to change. It wasn't until the breakup that Spencer met Shepard, who was his first irl friend in a long time. They met when they were around 22/23, at first Spencer just used Shepard as a distraction from Adrianne, especially since he was surprised that they wanted to even be his friend in the first place. But after a while he genuinely started to enjoy their company, plus they offered him really good advice and helped him through a gender/sexuality crisis. Eventually they became partners! Maybe not romantically, as they're both aromantic, but life partners nonetheless.

OH and i did make Spencer white/Salvadoran. Her mom is the first generation from immigrant parents while her dad is British; And her dad's younger brother is Adam's dad! He's also an ex-christian, he left due to religious trauma and moved to America to escape his family hA

Spencer's also a no sabo kid LMAO (he knows some words/phrases but other than that he cant speak Spanish to save his life)

ALSO ALSO. Oh my god i could talk about Spence all day LMAO but i made him a werewolf !!!! Hes SOO jealous of Adam because she wanted the cat genes but instead got bitten and turned into a werewolf as a teenager. She's done a pretty good job at hiding it from her family so Shepard's the only one who knows.

I already dumped everything about Adam into that other post, so I don't really have much else to add. HOWEVER !! Him and Spence are cousins now :3 Adam doesn't get to meet Spencer in person until he moves to America with Charlie & co, but he does follow her socials with his secret accounts that his parents don't know about. The only reason they know they're cousins is because Spencer's dad told her so and she reached out! Much to the dismay of Adam's parents but they've secretly kept in touch online.

Keith's pretty much stayed the same apart from a slight design revamp. Although I've made him a little older since originally i made him look young. But then I decided hes a dad so i started drawing him older for the asks pFF he also has a hooked nose now! In case it's not obvious. Keith got married to Jean VERY young, they were maybe 17/18 in human years. It was an arranged marriage and their only goal was to have an heir to the throne. Well they did, they had two kids, the eldest being a boy named Lune and the youngest being a girl named Sunny, who's the would be heir. Until Jean took both the kids and left. It was completely unprompted and left everyone in the kingdom confused, especially Keith. Sure, they had a loveless marriage and maybe he was insufferable at times, but he wanted to make it work if not for the kids then for the kingdom! But its been almost a year since she left, he's lost hope in ever finding her. Keith desperately wants his kids back, not because Sunny is the rightful heir— though that is part of it—but he loves them both dearly. He misses them the most.

Wilfred has pretty much stayed the same as well! I did give him a grey tshirt and darker hair to further distance his design from wilbur though. Hes just as unhinged and immoral as he used to be !!!! Nothing has changed aside from appearance actually.

Tobi also pretty much stayed the same except for its now got an orange jumper and lighter brown hair pFF although i do now have a story for him! Tobi was found by Alejandro in a storage auction, he managed to sell a lot of pretty valuable things from there but Tobi stood out, obviously, so he kept it. Alejandro is a travel vlogger and lives in an RV with his friends: Tomas, Philip and Charles. His friends just call him Alex. Anyway, they go from town to town trying local food, visiting tourists traps and vlogging the journey! While doing that they also try to find out how to get Tobi's memories back and possibly turn him human again, if they even can. So far they haven't had much luck but maybe one day...

Corvid was created as the backup singer and lead guitarist of the first all animatronic band! Brought to you by Beloved Entertainment! The other members include lead singer Ranboo Beloved, keytarist Tommy Raccoon, and bassist James Tomcat. Located in Ranboo's Mega Pizzaplex, the only location in the world (so far). Corvid adopts a showman personality while on stage, hes charismatic and such a heartthrob, very popular with the ladies. Off stage he's very calm and soft spoken, he's rather shy but still manages to be a flirt and a tease. Lightly poking fun at his bandmates, coworkers and even guests at times. He's definitely a fan favorite for a reason!

This was so fun to write and i cant wait to share more !!!! Stay tuned !!!!!!

[vodika-vibes]

"Lost" made me feel some unexpected feelings, so...

I'd like to request another angsty thing w happy ending. It's soulmate au and both Sev* and reader somehow know their soulmates are dead, so now in this world of predetermined happy couples they have to flirt like normal people.

It's pretty personal for me, because... I had a person who I felt like my soulmate. And he's dead. And I have to live understanding there probably won't be another crazy love like this when you feel like a two halves of whole, enhancing each other, mutually healing, perfectly fitting, understanding each other with minimum of words... But maybe one day I'll meet someone who at least will be able to make me feel safe and bring some calmness to my troubled soul.

*I just love Sev. It's my third Sev request and I know you fully understand me. Sev is gorgeous.

What Comes After

Summary: You’ve been a member of this support group since you were a young teenager, as your soul mate died when you were both children. Every day is a struggle, but you’re starting to come to terms with the fact that you have to look for your own happily ever after.

Pairing: Clone Commando Sev x GN!Reader

Word Count: 1435

Prompt: Soulmate AU

Tagging: @trixie2023 @n0vqni @imabeautifulbutterfly

A/N: Thank you for your request! I'm sorry for your loss, I hope this story offers you the feeling that you wanted. I once read a fic where people who were "destined" to be together chose other people because of reasons in their lives, and the vibe from the story was "the love might not burn like a wildfire, but it smolders, deep and true." And that's kind of what I wanted for this one.

You release a quiet sigh as you look up at the building where your support meetings take place. You’d think, after so many years, that going inside would be easier.

It’s not.

Admittedly, most days you’re fine.

But some days. Some days the messy scrawl on your arm, written in dull grey, taunts you.

Mom, where did I leave my backpack?

Your soulmate died when they were a child. You remember, in vivid detail, the day the vibrant blue script turned grey. You had been seven years old, and you didn’t understand what was happening.

Your teacher did though.

You remember her wrapping her arms around you and sobbing into your hair while you waited for your mom to come and pick you up. And you remember your mother gently explaining what the grey color means to you.

Not many seven-year-olds have their entire life shattered before it even begins.

As it happens, though, there weren’t any support groups for young children who lost their soul mate, your mom looked. So she had to attend meetings to get information to help support you.

You were allowed to attend the groups, with your mom or dad, when you turned 13 years old. 

And you remember how the other members of the support group seemed to crumple in on themselves when they saw just how young you were. Eventually, your parents could just drop you off at the support meeting, because the people had become honorary aunts, uncles, and grandparents to you.

When you were 17, you created an online support group for underage people who lost their soul mates. With forums, chat windows, and information to help them deal with the loss. 

You’re 25 now, and you’re the head of the Angel Support Group, a massive intergalactic support group dedicated to supporting children and teenagers as they navigate grief. All forms of grief.

And even then, you still attend your weekly support groups. It’s nice, being around people who understand your loss, even if most of them don’t really understand how your loss is different from theirs.

You open your car door and step out while swinging your purse over your shoulder. You kick the door shut and lock the car, this is a safe area but it’s a good habit to have, and you head towards the building. 

As you approach the building, you see a man hovering awkwardly near the entrance.

You’ve never seen him before and, as you move closer, you see that he’s a clone. 

More tellingly, his entire left arm is grey, and the grey seems to go under his shirt.

For a moment, you think it’s a tattoo. And then you remember that one of the recorded soul bonds is injuries showing up on their soul mate's bodies.

And he’s covered in a lot of grey.

Too much grey.

Your heart aches for him, so you stop and walk over to him, “Hello,” You greet with a small smile, “Are you here for the support group?”

He starts, and you see his muscles tense, “…yes. My brothers say that I should talk to people who might understand—” His voice is much deeper than any other clone you’ve ever met.

“In my experience, it does make everything more tolerable.” You agree.

“I doubt I’ll be welcome.”

“Why would you think that?”

“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a clone.”

“Well, you’re hardly the first clone who’s joined this group.” You reply reasonably, “If you need help, then you need help.”

He folds his arms over his chest, “You’re a member?”

“Since I was a teenager.”

He blinks at you, surprised, and drops his arms. You see his gaze dart to the grey sentence on your arm, and some of the hostility drains from him. “A teenager?”

“Yeah, well. At the time there weren’t any support groups for seven-year-olds who lost their soul mates.” You reply lightly, “There are now.” You pull open the door, “Come on, I’ll introduce you.”

For a moment he doesn’t move, and then he sighs softly, “Alright. Lead the way.”

Later, you learn his name is Sev, and that he’s a commando. You learn that he never met his soul mate, but that he’s pretty sure she was killed in a Separatist attack. You learn that he’s been having a hard time sleeping and that his brothers are afraid that he’s going to allow himself to get hurt if he doesn’t get support.

It’s nice to see the support group rally around him. 

It’s even better to see the tension and unease drain from him the more people share their stories and he realizes that he’s not alone in this. 

As the meeting leaves you offer Sev your comm code, which surprises him.

“Just if you want someone to talk to,” You explain, “It’s not a bad thing, having friends.”

He accepts the comm code gratefully, and then you both go your separate ways.

Honestly, you don’t expect to see him ever again, let alone hear from him. But he surprises you. 

He sends you a message late that night, admitting that he can’t sleep because he feels lonely, even when surrounded by people. You can understand that, so you sit awake and chat with him until you fall asleep.

It’s the start of a, slightly odd, friendship.

Sev isn’t a kind man. Calling him rough around the edges is a massive understatement and his confession that he likes fighting and enjoys killing should have sent up all of the red flags, but you like Sev despite it.

He’s not a kind man, but he is a good man. 

On the anniversary of the day that your soul mark turned grey, a day you usually spend locked in your apartment, Sev invited himself over and forced you to eat and drink, and held you while you sobbed on his shoulder over what could have been.

And on days when Sev’s temper is on a hair-trigger, you seclude him away from the world in the safety of your home, curl yourself around him, and listen to him talk about what should be.

You’re comfortable with him, and he’s comfortable with you.

So, when your relationship with him changes, it’s not a surprise to anyone other than you and Sev.

It starts late one evening, almost a year after you met him.

“Have you ever considered starting a relationship?” Sev asks from where he’s sprawled across your couch, watching you make brownies for the pair of you to share.

“A relationship?” You repeat thoughtfully as you pause mid-stir, “No, I guess not. For the most part, people expect me to be alone forever.”

“Which people?”

“My parents, my siblings, my extended family.” You say, “With my soulmate dead, I guess most people expect me to not want a relationship.”

“That’s sucky of them.” Sev offers.

A laugh falls from your lips, “Well, they’re not hounding me for grandkids, so I’ll take it. What about you?”

“My brothers hope that I’ll find happiness even with my soulmate being gone,” Sev replies.

“What about what you want?”

He shrugs, “I want to stop feeling so empty all of the time.”

You smile at him, “I can understand that.”

Sev watches you for a moment, and then he sits up, “Do you want to go on a date?”

You set your spoon in the bowl and turn to face him fully, “A date?”

“Yeah.”

You don’t answer for a moment, taking the time to carefully consider his offer. In truth, you like Sev. You’re comfortable around him, you feel safe around him. And when you’re with him the empty feeling deep in your chest seems to fade to the background.

So you smile at him, “I’d like that.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He stands and walks over to you. Slowly he lifts his hands and presses them against your cheeks, and then he leans in and presses his forehead against yours. 

You close your eyes and lean into his warmth, “It’s not going to be easy.” You warn, your voice soft, “We weren’t born for each other.”

“Not that hard,” Sev corrects, “We just have to keep picking each other, over everyone else.”

“Well, when you put it like that, I suppose I might be overthinking it.” You reply as you open your eyes and smile up at him. 

Sev scans your face for a moment, and then leans in and presses a light kiss at the corner of your lips, “That’s alright. We’ll figure it out. But we should finish the brownies.”

You reach up and wrap your arms around his neck, “Deal.”

[kaycynyrs]

Let's talk about Christopher Diaz in fanfic

I want to preface this by saying I'm pretty new to the fandom. I joined a few months or so before season 7 started dropping. So I'm probably not the best source for information when it comes to the show, but I definitely wanted to throw my hat into the ring. I'm aware that Chris is aging during the course of the show, and that he was much younger when he was first introduced, but it seems to me that a lot of fanfic writers and/or people in this fandom kinda struggle to realistically write and/or portray accurate representation of a preteen/early teenager as Chris is now.

I have absolutely no idea if maybe it's some kinda weird way of seemingly (kinda horribly) trying to portray disability, or maybe people in the 911 fandom just do not spend time around pre-teens, but as someone who does spend a lot of time with a pre-teen (specifically my 12 y/o brother) I definitely figured I could give some insight into this topic.

Now I do want to clarify before I begin, that in no way shape or form am I talking about the disabled portion of Chris' experience. I don't have the knowledge or firsthand experience or anything like that to even begin to try and be a voice on that topic, and if anyone else could give insight into that portion of Chris' experience, I welcome it gladly. Especially because it's an integral part of him and introduces some experiences that other pre-teens won't have to deal with which can change how Chris reacts/deals with situations.

What I can accurately talk about though is the things I've noticed in my brother as he goes through this phase of his life. I can also compare his experiences to what I remember from when I was his age, and I'm noticing he's going through certain things that I went through too. I know everyone is different, but hopefully this insight can help some people begin to understand Chris as he is now.

Now, on top of all the slow but noticeable bodily changes, these little sass masters are emotionally volatile. As in, the littlest things seem to be the end of the world. Especially if he's (my brother) is overtired. He tends to have tunnel vision, and he wants things to go his way. If it doesn't immediately go as planned, he tends to get very very frustrated. When that happens, he tends to blow up then go into his room until he's calmed down. After he's calm, then productive conversation can happen.

Kids Chris' age also tend to enjoy video games (like Roblox, or console games) more than they do coloring or legos or any physical toy. Not saying my brother has stopped playing with them all together, but it's definitely slowed down. If he were to play with legos, it'd more likely be a complicated lego set. Or complicated arts and crafts. His most recent projects being origami swords and origami paper dragons. Like, please don't forget that Chris is a good artist and is capable of drawing accurate human hearts.

I've also noticed that kids will go through a collecting phase. They'll collect anything and everything and it'll be the weirdest shit you could never predict. My brother when he was a bit younger literally stole every single sock in the house for his "sock collection" and stuffed an entire drawer full of them. Now he's moved on to collecting golf balls.

And, whether we like it or not, these kids are on the internet. My brother at least is very very influenced by online trends. Half the things he's interested in he saw on social media first. But that means that these kids have a rich meme culture. They have their own in jokes and concepts, same as we did growing up. And sure, some of the jokes are the same. I mean heck, my brother won't shut up with the "your mom" jokes, but they also have things like skibbidy toilet, chippi chippi choppa choppa, and other memes. (I have a list of current tween memes in my notes, but that can be a separate post if people truly want it)

Like it's such a missed funny opportunity! To have Chris reference current memes or current sayings like "gyot, what the sigma, and womp womp," and just having every single adult within the immediate vicinity be confused as fuck, and of course the kids won't explain, because why would they. It's funny to them that the adults are confused. Which also pairs with the amount of sass contained in their tiny orifices. Their come backs are insane and not to be trifled with. My brother has burned me so many times and so well that for all intents and purposes I should be a pile of ash on floor, honestly and truly.

Now, when it comes to romance, I have no idea when that changes. I think Chris is around 14 in the most recent season? And he's gone through a little heartbreaker phase, but currently, my brother at 12 is absolutely disgusted by romance. I myself am demisexual so I'm not a good reference for that, and can't really comment on when people start feeling attraction for others. But considering it's being portrayed in the show, I think it could be something to lean into as well.

All of this to say, Chris won't be this picture perfect baby all of the time. He'll get angry, frustrated, sad. Give people the silent treatment. He'll be weird and strange and say stupid shit. He'll also probably occasionally get confused over certain sayings he's never heard before. (E.g similes commonly used in writing) He'll try to get out of chores, and homework, and he'll whine and complain. His body is changing, he's probably experiencing growing pains, and he's probably starting to discover more adult things. But he'll also have his moments of insightfulness and humor. He's a little adult! And he should be allowed to be portrayed that way! Let Chris be a multidimensional character! It's what he deserves! And just to make it clear, this goes for every pre-teen on 911. I've just noticed the infantilisation of Chris a lot more than say Denny.

Please let me know your thoughts on this matter! I'd love to hear them! Have a wonderful day!

[worlds-worst-ships]

This will be the last time I explain this.

Hooo boy, am I glad I set my expectations low, because this is really starting to blow my mind. So I'm gonna need you to put down your bubble tea, take your hand off your dick, and pay VERY careful attention.

Its come to my attention that some of you are only SORTA reading my pinned, so you'll probably find this post linked right at the top of it. Turns out most of you skip the last two paragraphs, so I'm gonna repeat what I said there for I believe the tenth time right here, in big bold colourful letters with jingling keys so you get it.

I am the most out of touch person in the world. I didn't grow up online like you did. I didn't start actively using social media until I was about 16-17. I barely watched TV shows. I know NOTHING about most of the characters I post, as such, I DON'T CARE IF ANYTHING ABOUT MY POSTS BOTHERS YOU.

Well, I'm glad you asked, loser. Lemme put it this way...

I talk to a lot of people on this account, and soooometimes they feel a little uncomfortable with certain topics being made the subject of the discussion on my posts. Maybe because of past trauma, or perhaps they just don't like it. I'll give an example...

Ten seconds later...

Face it, guys. You're defending fictional teenagers to a guy who neither knows or cares about the ages, religions, sexualities or anything about the characters he posts. I grew up climbing trees, building forts, messing around in quicksand and playing single player video games. And in the process, you're making my other followers, particularly some of the younger ones, feel very uncomfortable.

So I'm not doing this for me, I'm doing this for them.

Not to mention... they don't even exist. They're drawings. They're not real. Sorry if that hurts to read, but again, I grew up very differently to you. I have an absolutely huge disconnect between cartoons, movies and reality. They're completely seperate for me.

"BuT wHy dOnT yOu rEsEaRcH-" SHUT UP. I'M NOT DOING THIS TO DO HOMEWORK. I FINISHED HIGH SCHOOL AGES AGO.

Oh yeah, and before I get people crying in the comments, "WAaAaAaAh, yOu'Re dEfEnDiNg iT, iM gOiNg tO tElL On YoU"...

No. You're not. Because lets face it, if you genuinely believed it was wrong, you wouldn't be reblogging it to all of your followers too, multiple times. Because deep down, you know they're not fucking real, and that I have no clue about half the stuff I post because I don't revolve my life around it.

I'm not asking you to like everything I post. All I'm asking is that you keep your weird shit to yourself. It makes people uncomfortable. And if it really bothers you that much, find the block button and fuck straight off 🖕

[spacebug7]

about to do a luca wordvomit sorry sorry

i just saw someone saying that luca was "queerbaiting" or like. an example of writers/executives being to afraid to write queer romance, and while that may or may not be true (given the context, like how maybe a year after that film came out those pixar employees wrote that one letter) i actually think that luca is impressive and impactful because it isn't a romance-- it exists within a pre-romance, and because of that, it hits that much harder.

also they aren't canon just because kenna jean harris made fanart of them but that's another conversation. back to my actual point:

viewing luca through a queer lens, there is SO much to be found that is immensely relatable to the queer experience-- primarily, what it's like to grow up gay. you have the concerned, fearful mother; you have the supportive relative and ally friend; the bullies, the mentor-- and more importantly, you have that one person that absolutely changed everything.

i'm not going to say that this is a universal experience-- everyone's journey is different. but i am going to say that this is something that is incredibly common, even more so within queer media-- and luca is just another example of this. no doubt about it-- alberto's presence in the film is one that is both vital to the plot and to the allegory that the story presents.

it's almost common to joke about life-ruining/world-altering homoerotic friendships in online queer spaces. that's probably why the film was so relatable to a lot of queer people, myself included. not only that, but the way the characters are written-- when i joke about this film being the pixar fish version of "call me by your name" i'm not actually all-the-way kidding. this film, i feel, is so intertwined with queerness and the experience of growing up queer that it's really difficult to look at it and go, "okay, but they're not gay."

THAT BEING SAID. they shouldn't have been canonized. like, ever. that would have ruined the allegory luca presents. purposeful or not, whether the writers really did want to make them a thing, they shouldn't have been. i'm really glad they're not.

i'm not saying that every queer story ends in heartbreak. but i am saying that it's common for those pre-teen/teenaged formative experiences-- the ones where you're young and inexperienced and unsure because what if dad found out? or mom? those stories, those connections, they are almost bound to break your heart.

luca paints a picture of a story just like that. luca has a deep fascination for something that's forbidden. he takes a chance, befriends someone-- alberto, who's already crossed over into this other land-- and falls in love with all of it. he goes to great lengths to hide this from his parents. when they find out, they try to send him away to a place that will try to permanently change him and his perception of what he actually wants, so he decides to run away with this other, braver person instead.

they go to a town that's unwelcoming to a fatal extent. they have to stay hidden to survive. they make a friend-- but they can't even trust her, at first, since her father is one of the people that wants their kind dead. i could go on and on and on-- the point is, this all reads queer. allegorically, or within the film itself.

and the ending, the goodbye-- it's bittersweet, because this is something they're not ever going to be able to replicate. this has changed all of the characters, internally, in every way-- but especially the main two. it always gets me choked up, because i know that feeling. and a lot of other queer people do, too.

basically, they're not REALLY gay, but aren't they? when you watch luca as a queer film, everything gets so much worse, because the "what-could-have-been," or even the "what-could-be" becomes so glaringly obvious and beautifully awful. and it's GREAT. why would i want them to be boyfriends within the story itself, when what we're presented with already is so much more complicated and gut-wrenching, especially when you contextualize it with the time period? why would i want fanon luberto to be canon when canon luberto already fucking slaps?

tldr: luca and alberto are only kind of gay. the vague platonic-ness of the nature of their relationship plays to the strengths of the story. i am absolutely obsessed with this film

sorry if some of this is a little incoherent i refuse to proofread byebye

[shikishake]

today in "shiki finds something neat and proceeds to obsess over it for weeks or months", I started playing Project Sekai. y'know, the hatsune miku gacha game about lesbians and gays. that's what it's about, I promise.

that is, until I started fucking thinking about it more, and now I... well it's still about lesbians and gays, but also I think it's saying something about music. maybe. or maybe I'm projecting my own ideas about music onto a story, that could be it too. I did that with bandori but it was less comprehensive so I didn't post it.

so like. there's 5 units, each of 4 people, right? and they're like, entirely different groups, both in how they formed, what the dynamic is between them and what kind of music they make. leo/need is a group of childhood friends making a band, more more jump is an up and coming idol group headed by a newbie who re-ignited the passions of three retired/disillusioned veterans, vivid bad squad is a community-focused street group, wonderlandsxshowtime is a theme park musical theatre group, and nightcord at 25:00 is a group of depressed teenagers who met online coming together to make music about how depressed they are. that last one sounds negative but I don't know how else to describe it. they're my favorite though, so y'know. no hate.

but like. that's surface level stuff, obviously. and when you dig a little deeper, I think each of these units has a theme, more specifically a way to "use" music to express certain ideas.

leo/need is music as a way of connecting, and of staying connected, with the people you care about. it's a group of friends who had drifted apart, finding each other again through music. it's using music to take hold of the things that matter to you, the people you love, and keeping them tight against you. it's music as a way to stay grounded and aware of the people around you.

more more jump is music as a way of reaching for your dreams, of shooting for the stars. it's music as a way of igniting passions and inspiring hope. it's music as a goal, it's music as a goalpost to run toward, and it's music as a way to give others a reason to run with you. it's music as something that you give yourself to more and more and more.

vivid bad squad is music as community, as a way of reaching out and meeting new people, making new connections, finding new experiences, chasing new dreams. it's music as something that matters only in the moment it's made, it's music as something that doesn't need to be bought or sold, it's music as a group of people coming together to MAKE something. it's music that defines itself by the people who listen to it, not just the people who make it.

those three are kind of a trifecta of... not quite foils, but something close. they play off each other. leo/need's music as a way of staying connected with what you have vs vivid bad squads' music as a way of reaching out for something new. vivid bad squads' music as something home-grown and home-bound, something that reaches out NEAR to you, something for a community and by a community, for the people you know vs more more jump's music as something for the world, something kind of corporate but more than that something that reaches out FAR, made for the people that DON'T know you for anything except the image you put out. leo/need's passion for music as an end goal and more more jump's passion for music as a means TO an end, where leo/need strives to perform better because they want to have their music hit harder (aka for the sake of making better music) where more more jump strives to perform better because they want to reach more people.

and like. I KNOW what niigo, nightcord at 25:00, is. it's music as a way to heal, it's music as a way to preserve, it's music as a way to face the hardships of the past and keep going. it's music as life, as something that GRANTS life. it's music as a way to say "hey. life sucks. but it won't always." it's music as a way to save, as a way to find the light in a place that feels so so so dark, it's music as something that expresses the darkness, indulges in it, but at the end of the day it gives you a warm hug and says "it's dark and scary and painful, but we'll get out of here together." it's music that provides comfort specifically BY facing the dark head on.

but I struggled to figure out exactly what wonderlandsxshowtime was. there's the surface level answer, of music as a way to make people smile, but that's... like, have you read the lyrics to their commissioned songs? it's dark. the peppy tone and upbeat voices mask it well, but the things they're talking about aren't JUST about making you smile. but it's also not about masking pain WITH a smile, because they're too genuine. tsukasa, emu, rui and nene aren't hiding pain. they're not faking it. even when the stories show that they had troubles in the past or even still have troubles now, they're not a secret that has been uncovered, they're explanations and explorations of WHY they are who they are. tsukasa isn't faking his enthusiasm, his passion for acting and performing. his wish to become a star isn't FAKE, even through the loneliness of the past. emu isn't hiding some dark past, she's genuinely just like this, even during the more serious moments with her family. nene is shy, sure, but it's not like it took digging or even a lot of time for her to start being her true sassy self towards the rest. rui's lonely because him being himself scared people away, but it's not like he's NOT himself because of that. he's completely and fully his genuine self, and if people don't like that then so be it. he's the lonely alchemist, sure, but he never pretended to NOT be the alchemist.

so I struggled a little. until I realized that wxs and niigo are foils, too, in a very unexpected way.

wxs is death. it's endings. it's music as a way to acknowledge the inevitable end, and face that with a smile. it's music as the realization that everything you know, everything you love, will someday stop, and how to keep going despite that. it's music that looks at the hardships of the future and says "but even so, we'll smile". it's seeing the end of the ride coming into view but screaming and cheering even as it starts to reach the final descent. it's the merry-go-round that keeps spinning and spinning and spinning until it can't anymore, until it ALL stops.

niigo is life, the darkness surrounding you and the fire in the distance. wxs is death, fanning the flames with a smile as the dark encroaches.

niigo finds the light in the dark, wxs does its damnedest to keep hold of it.

niigo faces the massive road ahead and whispers "we haven't even started yet."

wxs approaches the end of the road and screams "we haven't even started yet".

[tea-and-secrets]

god i just need to get this off my chest.

so essentially when I was super young, like.. 11, i faked my own death online, posing as a girl who was 15/16 or so, if i remember correctly. i don't remember why, i think i was genuinely on the brink or something, and decided that, yeah, it would be the best way to cope. i DID try and go through with it but i was also 11 and didn't know what to do or anything, and i was really embarrassed because i had caused so much pain to people over it. these people were so close to me though, so i decided i had to come back, using an alt and claiming to be a friend of that person.

along the road, there were a lot of other misunderstandings, but it was fine, i made new friends.

a few years later, i kinda lose it again, and i lie and use another alt account based off of my real life partner at the time and invite it to a server and 'date' her. made her really mean and everything too to my friends. i never meant what i said, but that doesn't excuse me behaviour. i was sorta clambering though, because after that, i lost.. basically everyone. i regret the confrontation because they did it at like.. 11PM my time, and i was scared and i was so fucking young and i didn't know how to deal with what was happening and so all i could do was put on that sort of smarmy "mature front" that most 14/15 year olds do. all of those people were way older than me too, by the way.

i'm clean now, somewhat, i guess. i'm older and i have new friends and they're the world to me but . day by day those circles are starting to crossover. two of my friends have gotten close with people from those groups, and i'm scared that one day it'll all fall apart. i don't know what I'll do then.

i don't really know what my new friends will think when they learn the details of what happened to me years ago, honestly.

it's not like everything is a lie, either though. i've gone through... so, so much outside of that. most of the things i lied about became truth as i got older anyways, but i still feel horrible lol

there's so much more to it but honestly i just regret everything. i've been living a lie for like six years and I'll have to keep it up. I've gotten help now, and as I matured and grew older, I left behind those attention seeking habits. i just wish the people i hurt would be able to see the person I've become today and realise i was barely a teenager when everything happened. i know it doesn't change the damage i did, by saying i was just a kid, but.. i still think it's still significant. i'm a stand up guy now and everything, too. i work in a field where i can make a difference directly, helping kids who were just like me when i was super young, and i started using my talents for good, i guess.

i doubt the people i hurt will ever recognise me or this but if they do i'm so fucking sorry for everything. you guys were genuinely some of the nicest people i had ever met and i had no reason to hurt you all like that. i was broken and i was unwell, but i should've asked for help rather than running away all those years ago. sorry for never coming clean to you directly about the start of my web of lies. i did end up losing my best friend like i said years ago but she wasn't the girl you guys knew. i want to leave and start again once I'm a little older now but.. that means hurting the solid foundation i have now. there's a lot more to this but, still.

maybe i should stop picking at the scab of the wound though and find it in myself to move on. thank you for reading i guess

.

[groenendaelfic]

i love YR and i love wille and simon so much but i will be a simon defender till the day i die. i can see both wille’s and simon’s POVs for how they acted but idk as poor POC simon’s actions resonate more with me. regardless, the reason why i say this is because i always see so much more wille support/simon hate online than i do vice versa. im not asking for wille hate but im asking for prepubescent girls to stop supporting wille simply because he’s an attractive white boy. i dont know—maybe im oversimplifying things but what do you think about the split between simom defenders and wille defenders?

I get it. It's not fair but I get it.

Why?

Because Simon is all of us.

I might be able to identify more with Wilhelm when it comes to many things, his personality, his anxiety, his temper... but in essence every single one of us will always have more in common with Simon than with Wilhelm.

It doesn't matter how different our lives, upbringings and the small everyday things which shaped and defined us are from Simon's. It doesn't matter how much I see my younger self reflected in Wilhelm, how much I can relate to his struggles (I mean it does, but for this specific argument it doesn't). My life will still always be closer to Simon's than to Wilhelm's.

We are Simon. Simon fucks up. Simon makes mistakes. Far reaching mistakes, and it's always easier to be self-critical and insecure than not to.

I'm Simon. But I wouldn't have done xyz! (I wouldn't, I'd either have done something worse or nothing at all, which might just be worse still.)

Simon is a teen and he makes teen mistakes. Sometimes understandable ones, sometimes stupid ones, sometimes crazy ones.

It's normal. It's relatable, it's every one of us but different. Of course it's easier to be critical of Simon. To 'hate on' Simon. He is us, but he doesn't always act like we would, nor does he act like the idealized version of the beloved character we want him to be.

He's a teenager and he's flawed and he's human. We love him and we want him to be perfect but he isn't. Of course there's Simon 'hate'. It's not okay, but I get it.

Simon is us, but he makes mistakes we, however unconsciously, think we wouldn't. We think we would do better, or at least we hope so, and so we criticize him.

It's not right, but I also get the urge to do so even if I don't approve.

Wilhelm however? Wilhelm is different.

Wilhelm is a prince. Worse, he's a crown prince and future king. He's His Royal Highness The Crown Prince of Sweden, Duke of Some Historical Province or Another.

His entire existence causes a knee-jerk reaction of defensiveness. At least it does in me.

Him being a minor who didn't choose who he was born as helps, but it's not enough. Yes, his life isn't easy. Yes he's living with pressure none of us can understand. Not the irl crown princess and not rwrb's Henry.

But he also has power and privilege and wealth the likes of which we'll never truly be able to comprehend. No matter what he chooses to do once he's an adult, he'll always have that.

Wilhelm's entire existence is a reflection of most of what's wrong with this world. I cannot in good conscience root for him and I shouldn't like him. We shouldn't romanticize and glorify royalty, not even fictional one, because all their wealth, power and privilege is built on our backs and sustained by our backs.

I should hate him, not feel sorry for him. I shouldn't empathize with him.

And yet Wille is my bb and my fav and I love him and he never did anything wrong in his life. Not ever. Wille is perfect. He deserves the world and I'll defend him and his wrongs to the very end of it and damn everything and everyone else.

Why?

Because if I start to acknowledge, in all seriousness, that any of his mistakes or wrongs are in fact mistakes and deserve (more) consequences, no matter if it's the fact that he's an objectively bad friend to Felice (I'm already getting super defensive typing these words because Wilhelm, my poor bb, had reasons and deserves to be selfish!) or that you never, ever point any gun at anyone, not ever, or any of his other numerous mistakes, then I'm opening up a Pandora's box I cannot close again.

Yes, he's a teenager and he's flawed and he's human. Yes, he makes stupid, far reaching mistakes. Yes, it's everyone else who hands him his power and privilege. Yes, it's all inherited, as is his wealth, but that doesn't make it alright.

You cannot, in good conscience, root for Wilhelm without also acknowledging or at least being aware of the inherent power dynamics at play, and I'm not only talking about Wilhelm and Simon's relationship, but Wilhelm and everyone, including his mother and the royal court and the entire government.

All three need Wilhelm more than he needs them, and once he fully realizes that he's going to be (even more of) a menace.

Wilhelm doesn't have any political power on paper, but that doesn't mean that his actions can't influence and control the entire Swedish legislature for years. That can be good, sure, at least in the long term, but it'll also take away from much needed other laws etc being discussed and passed, ones which would better the lives of many Swedes directly and immediately. That is scary, because it's real, or it could be.

Wilhelm is a minor and Young Royals is captivating, fictional escapism. But my ardent republican heart (of the non US kind) still struggles with not getting immediately defensive when talking about my love for Wilhelm, because Young Royals is also so real and realistic and a reflection of so many things which are still extremely problematic in our oh so progressive, look at how much worse all the other countries are, can't you be happy with what you've got? part of the world in ways many other shows aren't, and Wilhelm and his rank and title and entire existence are at the heart of it.

The biggest 'problem' Young Royals has is that despite the premise, it is so realistic and relatable and well done. It's almost impossible to escape into the fiction of it to a degree where you can solely focus on the cute boys falling in love and the romantic tragedy of their struggles, without also being at the very least peripherally aware of our reality being reflected in every scene.

Young Royals is romantic and hot and heart-wrenching, but it also criticizes the system and society and shows us exactly how little people like Simon, people like us, matter to the upper class, and it does so from the very first episode in which Simon tries his best to stay strong and tells everyone exactly who the country's biggest welfare receivers are. And he's right.

Simon deserves our defense, our support. But I don't feel the need to. I should, because Simon is not as strong as he wants to be, but he's also a normal teen and nothing is easier than looking down on teenagers and people we can identify with or have things in common with. We all do it all the time, willingly or not, consciously or not, thinking we're better, that we'd do better, no matter how much we love them, because not doing so would mean acknowledging our own faults and flaws, would mean we'd have to admit that Simon is doing the best he can in a way most of us probably wouldn't be able to.

Wilhelm however? I can identify with parts of him despite of everything he stands for and not because, and that is scary, because I don't want to have anything in common with a future hereditary head of state.

I don't want to sympathize with royalty, with people who can control others around them with nothing but words, worse their mere existence. People who, were I to address them in anything other than the third person and with a title, would consider me to be the rude one, as would everyone around us.

And yet I do. I do identify with Wilhelm. I sympathize with him. I think I understand him, but scratching the surface of that is dangerous, because no matter how much we need escapism in these hard times romanticizing royalty, sympathizing with them and thinking they're just like us is not only tricky but dangerous.

It's what the elites want, all of them, while they laugh at our plight and profit off of our hard work. It's what gets horrible people elected president and billionaires turned into cool, dudebro heroes. It's a slippery slope and none of them are the exception, no matter how much they try to convince us otherwise.

Of course we get defensive, of course we're so passionate to highlight that Wilhelm's mistakes are okay and are overly critical of Simon's.

Defending Wilhelm is not rational, it's not logical, and yet it is, which is why I will burn down the world in Wille's defense and serve it to him on a silver platter, because my bb deserves everything and his feelings and struggles are valid and who am I to judge. Wille never did anything wrong.

Finally, I get where you're coming from, but please don't make this about prepubescent girls. Or teenage girls. Being a girl that age is hard. Your body and feelings are changing in ways you don't understand, people suddenly treat you differently. Adults, kids, other teens no matter their gender. You are sexualized, and your intelligence and skills are suddenly only of secondary importance at best. It's scary, and even when it's good it's not safe. You always need to be wary and careful lest you have to pay a price for your joyful inattentiveness, a potentially traumatic, life changing price. Being a prepubescent and teenage girl is also wonderful and freeing and eye opening in the best way, but anything you do or say will always be reduced to silly teenage girl, even by other teenage girls, someone to be made fun of and not taken seriously, when in truth nothing requires more strength and tenacity than surviving as a prepubescent and teenage girl. So if fixating on attractive, unattainable white boys helps? Let them and don't judge, no matter your age or gender. It's not perfect, but it's safe. More, it's a safe way to explore your budding sexuality and bond with others along the way, something which is so important when nothing about being a girl that age ever feels safe, not even when you think you can do anything and know everything. That attractive, unattainable (white) boy? Be it Wilhelm or the current boygroup heartthrob of choice? He is going to reveal private things about himself (most likely made up, but that doesn't invalidate how finding out those facts makes you feel) without demanding a price, you can develop an intense parasocial relationship with him and learn and grow from it, it can help you in many ways which aren't obvious at first (I still keep up with my teenage boygroup and listen to every one of their new albums even though it's been twenty years and I've had musical anhedonia for almost as long), and he will never, ever grope you or insult you or make you feel awkward and insecure, nor will he ever pressure you to do something you're not ready for (unless it's to spend money you don't have on useless stuff you desperately need). Please don't be condescending or judgmental of prepubescent girls, especially ones having to grow up in the age of social media and smartphones everywhere. Fixating on the attractive white boy is a matter of self-defense. It doesn't mean they aren't aware of what they're doing or that doing so isn't ideal. They know. Everyone is constantly telling them and making them feel guilty about it. Please don't be one of them.

[staringdownabarrel]

The Game hits differently as an adult than when it did when I was a kid.

Back when I was a kid, mobile games were still in their infancy. Like yeah, there was Snake and Bounce, but that was pretty much it. A mobile phone had the games it came preloaded with and while you could get new ones online, most people didn't. And while there was still that phenomenon of annoying little kids going up to random adults and asking if they had games on their phone, I feel like it wasn't as common.

For the most part, mobile gaming hadn't really gotten to the point where it was psychologically addicting the same way it is now. That kind of thing only really started up when I was in high school. Even then, I tended to write off the "oh, my mum's addicted to Candy Crush" stuff as just a meme-y thing rather than an actual phenomenon. It's really only been in the eleven-ish years since I finished high school, and mostly in the last five or six years, that I've really been aware of people getting super addicted to mobile games as a thing. (This isn't to say it wasn't happening at all before then; just to say I wasn't as aware of it before then. Keep in mind that I live under a rock.)

The other thing here is that back when I was a kid and watching The Game for the first time, it wasn't really as acceptable for people to just sit there on their mobile for hours on end. For a long time, the mobile phone was seen as a thing you had for emergencies only, and even then a lot of people wouldn't bother to take it with them when they left the house.

This did eventually change around 2009 or 2010, when even less well off people could get a mobile phone that wasn't just a Nokia brick that was really only good for texting and calling people. Once that happened, people started using them more. But before that? Nah, not really. The Boomer cartoons from the mid-2000s about Millennial teenagers always being buried in their phones were either making mountains out of molehills or based around the one kid they knew who was a bit more of a social butterfly.

So the first few times I saw The Game, I wrote it off as just being a product of its time. When I thought of video games at the time, I was mostly thinking of console games, not of Snake. I dismissed the idea that someone would get addicted to a video game as being something that didn't really happen that much outside of a few edge cases here and there where maybe a guy died at his keyboard after playing World of Warcraft for a week straight, and even then I thought it was mostly because they had no life outside of it.

Nowadays though, I think it was weirdly prophetic, and I'm not entirely sure the writers on that episode fully realised that at the time. People really are getting addicted to mobile games (and, to some degree, MMOs) much more than they used to, and that's largely by design. Those games really are designed to be addictive.

So while in 2007, I wrote The Game off as being a wonky fantasy written by a generation who were maybe a little bit out of touch, now I realise they were probably on to something. The idea that someone might design a game to be extremely addictive and try to weaponise it somehow doesn't seem as farfetched now as I thought it was back then.

More to the point, there really are people out there who'll do remarkably stupid things because of an online game. It doesn't have to be some propaganda campaign or anything like that; they'll just be mad that a certain part of the game isn't realistic enough. War Thunder in particular has a bit of a reputation for this--there's been multiple military personnel from multiple countries who've leaked design specifications for their country's tanks online because of the game. I wouldn't be too surprised if most spy agencies have people keeping an eye on message boards related to it just because of that.

I don't know if I necessarily think The Game is a good episode. Of the Wesley Crusher episodes made after he goes to the Academy, this is the only one that really falls into that "Wesley the wonder boy" trap a lot of season one episodes had where he'd be pivotal to saving the day. It's still a more interesting take on that concept because it's ultimately Data who does it rather than him, but that honestly could have been incidental more than anything.

What I do think, however, is that it's an interesting episode. It's the kind of episode that's definitely made me think as I've gotten older. My opinion of it now is that while it's not really the best episode, it is good science fiction because it was remarkably on point about the general direction society was going to go down and it inspires thought.

[ivyial]

I'm shocked that Leshley/Eagleone is classified as a "rare pair".... like... the potential these two have. It's one of the rare (ironically) ships where both parties could end up genuinely happy together, despite horrific circumstances lmao. Why in the world isn't it more popular? Simple answer? People have no taste and can't read between lines. 😤

(omg my first ask thank u ily)

no cause exactly. i tweeted something similar a few months ago about how people go wild for disney fairytales but not this. especially since at the time, the new little mermaid movie had just come out and everyone on twitter was losing their minds over it. people love a good fairytale, so it's surprising that leshley/eagleone gets this much hate. like the reply to the tweet said, it's probably a matter of other shippers not wanting to change their mind because unfortunately, people are very intense when it comes to ships!! you either have to be all in or fuck off, which to me sounds like a ridiculous way to approach shipping in media. so that's the first reason why, and arguably a dumb one too, because when it comes to franchises that are not going to give you romance outright, like RE, there is no need to invest this much energy into a ship. it's not like there is a ship war to be won, at least not in my eyes.

the second reason is the whole age gap thing. since the loudest part of fandoms is populated by literal teenagers who apply high school logic to both fiction and real life adult situations and a teenager thinks it is wrong for a 14 year old to date an 18 year old (and they'd be right, because age gaps matter greatly as a teenager, due to puberty and the various experiences you either get or do not get at a certain age), they automatically think that any and all age gaps between adults are wrong. UNLESS it's people who are their parents' age. i've seen it happen a lot on tiktok, where kids would be like "you can't ship them, they have a 7 year age gap" and someone would inevitably reply "but my mom is 35 and my dad is 42". so they'd be forced to acknowledge that "yeah, but it's different in your case, they're old enough" (???) because you're not gonna tell a stranger online that their parents' relationship is "morally wrong" (though, honestly, i wouldn't be surprised if someone did).

teenagers, as well as teenagers fresh out of high school, are convinced that your early twenties are the direct follow-up to your high school experience. that is straight-up not true. as soon as you get to 20, everyone you know will be in radically different places in life. i mean, i have friends who are already engaged, some who have never been in a relationship, and i know someone from high school who had a child at 19 and got married right after. to them, maturity can only be gained much later in life, like in your thirties, because their parents are around that age, or because that's when people start to have kids these days. maybe i'm wrong. but that's how i see it.

and that's when they start to resort to the sibling coded thing lmao. and if you look at tweets or tiktoks about leon and ashley's dynamic (not framed in a romantic manner), everyone will go out of their way in the comments to make sure that it's known that THEY VIEW THEM AS SIBLINGS GUYS. like the average reply will be "THEY'RE SO SIBLINGS" or "MY FAVOURITE SIBLINGS" which makes me throw up in my mouth a little. like okay, we get it. you don't ship them and you think no one should either. no need to be flamboyant about it.

and then as you mentioned, there's also the fact that people can't read between the lines, or maybe they don't want to. when i played RE4R, i didn't pay attention to leon and ashley that much because i was too focused on the game itself hahahaha. my primary takeaway was that they had a great, supportive dynamic, and then i'd noticed a few moments like ashley flirting with leon about the armour, or leon's fingers trailing down ashley's arm for no reason on the bed in chapter 13, or leon's weirdly boyish and bashful tone when he says "can you make it down? i can catch you" (seriously. he tried to make this into an incentive and i'm not sure who it benefitted more, him or ashley). after seeing some eagleone content and analyses, i was like hang on a sec... there is something there. i will admit that i personally suck at flirting, or at recognising it for that matter, unless i try really hard. i mean, a guy once tried to get my number with a magic trick, and my only response was that he didn't logically need my number to tell me what my card was, and he could tell me right there and the trick would be the same. like no shit girl. you're fucking dense LMAO. but that's just a me thing. when you really start paying attention, leon and ashley's flirting gets pretty obvious.

i've also seen people argue that ashley's crush on leon is "innocent" and she just views him as a hero so that's why she thinks she likes him. you know, because a 20-year-old woman can't make decisions for herself. she doesn't know any better. obvious sarcasm. in wanting to protect (young) women, people are starting to shelter them to the point where we're going backwards towards (male) guardianship.

so so sorry this ended up being longer than i thought help

[coffeeandkhun]

Traumerei's possible Peter Pan syndrome

Lo Po Bia Traumerei is such an interesting villain. It's been foreshadowed since the season 1 that he'll play a big role in the story of TOG. In this post, I'm talking about his name and the possible impact on the story. There will be spoiler from the whole webtoon, just to be warned.

Traumerei has got his name from Kinderszenen, a set of piano movements written by a German composer Robert Scumann in 1830's.

Kinderszenen includes 13 pieces of music - just like there were 13 irregulars climbing the tower before the Arlene & V -incident happened. Kinderszenen means "Scenes from Childhood" and movement no. 7, Träumerei, is one of the most famous pieces by this famous romantic era composer.

Träumerei means either dreams or reverie, but Traumerei WE know is not a day dreamer or an innocent, playful man like his name would suggest. He's a resentful and distrusting tyrant. More than that, he is overly obsessed about being able to control others and is constantly testing their obedience, complaining bitterly about how he's "used to being betrayed", like his own behavior had nothing to do about why this happens.

There is another word Träumerei reminds us, that is trauma, although the etymology is different. Word trauma has it's origin in Ancient Greek, and means a physical wound or damage. Today, when talking about trauma, we usually don't mean a psycical wound however, but a mental one.

To this point, we have learned that Traumerei has nightmares he can't remember - memories that are probably somehow linked to Baam or his parents, because he started to have those nigtmares only after hearing about his existence. He also had a habit of feeding his memories to the monster Leviathan, the very reason why he can't remember.

Leviathan is a biblical sea serpent, a dragon or a devil, and is sometimes associated with the cardinal sin of envy - as is the color green.

“O beware, my lord, of jealousy; It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on.” - William Shakespeare

It could be the memories and/or emotions he fed to Leviathan are related to something he committed in his jealousy, maybe something parellel to what happened between Wang Wang, Nen Neya, Yasratcha and him. In s3 c111, after sending Wang Wang away, he says: "I felt something I haven't felt in a long time... from a mere creature... but I've gotten rid of it, so it's fine now." We don't hear what exactly he felt, so we can only guess, if it was envy or something else.

It's possible that Traumerei used to be different, but there really was a traumatic betrayal that changed him, like he keeps suggesting. Or then he's more like those people in the real world who find it difficult to accept that people around them mature. They feel betrayed and jealous when their friends, who are now married, have children and/or a career, are not ready to have online gaming all-nighthers with them just about any time they want.

In Jungian Psychology, there is an term for an individual, who, just like Peter Pan, refuses to mentally grow up and meet the responsibilites of the adult life - puer aeternus.

“…remains too long in adolescent psychology; that is, all those characteristics that are normal in a youth of seventeen or eighteen are continued into later life, coupled in most cases with too great a dependence on the mother.” - Marie-Louis von Franz

From his own point of view, Traumerei could be just a child bullied by everyone. Just like a cliché teenager, he's also easily bored and prone to mood-swings. We don't know about his mother (he never answers when Nen Neya asks, unfortunately), but we know that he has a somewhat dependant relationship with Jahad, "the Father".

Whatever Traumerei gave away to Leviathan, we can be quite sure that these were not the best and most beautiful memories of his life, but the worst and most traumatic ones. Getting those memories back might change him or destroy him - we don't know yet, but I would guess it's the latter. I personally find it difficult to see his cruelty could somehow be atoned - because unlike Yasratcha, who was dominated by him, he "made" himself and keeps only accusing others. I might be wrong, and we'll see when the story evolves. But even in TOG world of morally gray characters, Traumerei is on his own level of darkness.

[lumi-shifts-home]

introduction ♡ ♡ ♡

Heyy, my name is Lumi and I'm new to Tumblr :)

I'm a reality shifter. I have been in the community since around September 2020. Since then I have taken many breaks, some lasting for months. But I always came back. And I hope that I will keep coming back. Simply because I think the concept is amazing. I mean, just imagine being able to laugh with your favorite fictional characters, being friends with celebrities, living in a fantasy world, going on adventures, having a perfect life.

I didn't shift yet, but I believe that I am close. Personally, I have a difficult time motivating myself, that's why I tried starting to talk about my DRs online. First I've posted some videos on TikTok (see end of post) but came to the conclusion that everything is so fast-paced there. I just feel stressed thinking about how long I haven't posted anything there when I see my mutuals content. I also find it hard to organize the topics, everything is kinda muddled up. That's why I decided to try out a different format. I haven't used this platform for anything but reading fanfics yet, so I don't know much about blogs and such. But I definitely want to give it a try! Let's just see how this goes . . .

❝ What will I post about? ❞ ✧˖*°࿐

I haven't planned much for this blog. I'm probably just gonna info dump about my DRs here. Writing some lore here, posting about my DRselfs/personas there, maybe even some art (even though I'm not a god tier artist)? Who knows. Don't expect to see much. I'll use this mainly for myself.

❝ Here are some of my favorite DRs: ❞ ✧˖*°࿐

Genshin Impact [Mondstadt; Liyue; modern; cyberpunk]

Honkai Star Rail

Omori

Hogwarts Legacy

Haikyuu!!

Jujutsu Kaisen

Sword Art Online

My Hero Academia

Falling Into Your Smile

My Little Pony

Warrior Cats

better CR

. . .

The Liyue and modern GI are my main DRs. I've also been rewatching shows and anime that I loved years ago hence my Haikyuu!! and MHA DRs. They are my main focus as I'm writing this. But I tend to neglect things I'm no longer interested in. So don't wonder why I maybe post about something only once or twice and then never again.

❝ Some things I want to mention: ❞ ✧˖*°࿐

I change my race in some DRs. I don't see why I shouldn't shift to realities where I have a different race or ethnicity if that reality already exists.

I also usually change my age to be younger. Since I'm legally no longer a minor some may not like the idea. I am childish and don't feel like most people my age. Most of my friends are 14 - 17 and I still feel like a kid. I want to have normal, fun teenage years since I didn't have that in my CR.

I think that's it. If I forgot anything I'll just add it later.

I won't argue on those topics. I've mentioned them and if you don't approve feel free to leave.

If you're interested in my other content (it's not much but still), here are my TikTok and Pinterest:

https://linktr.ee/lumi.shifts.home