#walls of text

[taintedsoul-if]

I won't try to mince or sugarcoat my words; I'll just get to the point. Just know this is going to be a long one.

In the past, there was a lot of confusion about the world I am trying to shape in Tainted Souls. Honestly, from a reader's point of view, I found my writing lacking in a lot of areas, and because of that, I was between emotions about whether or not I should just delete my blog and my IF and just go back to lurking. Tainted Souls has been around for 3 years or less, I think. And even though it has been around so long, I am new to this whole choice concept.

Once upon a time, I had a Wattpad account where I would create stories. I lost motivation because my editing skills suck a lot, but there was this published author who would read my story and just, you know, she would push me, and sometimes she'd even tell me to send the chapters I would be putting out so she could edit them. Yes, I have a tendency to give up easily, and yes, my motivation isn't.... ugh.

In my last demo, I did a summarization of basically what happened to the original owner before you, the protagonist, transmigrated into the body. At that time, I just wanted to add a few choices even if those choices didn't do shit for the story. During my break, I got down to thinking a lot... I've always been a lover of Chinese novels' reincarnation, transmigration, plot holes, those things, and usually, I'd meet all these systems that were just so full of life, narcissistic, dense, downright evil you know and I always just had this plot in my head where I just started shaping my mini world. Nothingness is different it's not just a system. For every Chinese novel that I read, the backstory is usually something that is just dealt with immediately. Feeding bits and pieces as one goes along just breaks immersion as far as I'm concerned. And I know that it is hard to focus sometimes, especially when it comes to reading... but if one is going to be reading and cannot even remember basic things about the plot, is that book even worth one's time and energy?

Let me just be honest: I've read hundreds of books and best believe just by looking at the synopsis of book books that I've read in the past, I can remember every single important detail of that book that I read. Whether I enjoyed it or not. Books and I are tight... 😂😂

The back story is important even though it is a wall of text because I feel as though it would be weird to just give one line... example...

***

Before ${he} could act, ${he} was knocked unconscious and thrown into the gates of Ostror.

When ${he} woke, a Gorewing descended upon ${him}. No escape. No mercy. The Original Owner perished in agony, ${his} body left to rot. Three days later, the Prime Minister rushed the funeral, eager to bury his disgrace of a ${son} before rumors could spread.*

***

😤😤

What I do best is write. What I do best is to explain things even if it isn't important to the plot at the moment. Down below, I will add a few screenshots of the unedited backstory of the Original Owner's backstory, and you can all make your decision...

Yes, pronouns are incorrect and there are overused words like Original Owner.

Whatever your choices may be I am already prepared. So, please do not be afraid to give your honest vote opinion. Anyway, thank you for taking the time to vote, and please enjoy your day.

[fayet]

The Kpop Experiment: Musings on Ateez in Cologne

Okay. I think most of you won't care for this, so keep on scrolling for your regularly scheduled posting. This is a very, very, very long wall of text. You've been warned.

Anyway, if you're still here - hi! I decided to write up my musings on my Cologne concert experience, mostly because I was asked to and also to keep a few notes for myself. Here's the disclaimer: I'm a little bit into kpop as part of a sort of sociological research thing. I'm fascinated by Kpop, the structure of the industry, the status of it in the west as a cultural export and part of Korea's soft power, the crossover of fancultures and international ties, the performance aspect of it as a very visual art while at the same time being kind of, well, music, and the status of Kpop artists as a product in a capitalistic society.

I started listening to kpop as a means to connect with a family member who is really into it, and then travelled across South Korea and realised how present kpop is in korean everyday culture, even from what I could see as a stupid tourist. So the spiral began... and here we are. I'm not going to touch on any of that here, but, yk, as a little disclaimer it might not go wrong. I also might have some controversial opinions, so read at your own risk.

TL:DR: I'm not a "real" fan, but I wanted to see a kpop concert and I like Ateez' music. Also they are good looking. And I could get tickets, which is also no mean feat.

As a general side note: the organisation in Cologne was kinda meh. We stood outside the arena for quite a long time, and I felt very sorry for the fans who'd gotten dressed up. A lot of young women wore costumes with skirts or other short clothing items, and a lot of them were very cold. I had seats, so I arrived two hours before the show, but I think others were waiting for a long time and I have no idea how the standing room people fared. It just generally seemed like the organisation could have been better.

I went to the concert for the atmosphere almost as much as I did for the music. And boy was it interesting! Fandom is an interesting thing, and I was very impressed by how creative people were. A lot of people were dressed up to the nines, dressed to fit in with some sort of theme/concept (usually either pirate/bouncy area/IOMT style outfits), but there was so much creativity - a lot of people had clothing styled to show their bias, reconstructed garments, patches and names embroidered onto jean jackets, lots of extravagant cowboy hats, it was really impressive to see. Plus the complicated make-up, hair in all colours of the rainbow, funky shoes and bags, glow-in-the-dark accessoires, people were going all out. There was also a generally friendly atmosphere at least where I was hanging around, people talking to each other, chatting, swapping information that could be useful later on. (Side note: there seems to be a rather large overlap of Ateez-fans and Stray Kids-fans, because a lot of people mentioned they'd be going to the Stray Kids concert to be held this summer).

I've never been to an arena concert, and boy was Lanxess big (and it's not the biggest one around), and packed. I'd always wanted to see the sea of lights from the lightsticks, and it did deliver - it looked fantastic, with the colour patterns and the movement and everything. Do I still think lightsticks are a cash crab? Yeah, I do. Does it look amazing? Absolutely.

Speaking of cash: kpop is a business, and groups tour to make money. I would murder someone to have the numbers behind the recent Ateez tour, how much everything cost, how much stays with the company, how much the members actually get. Seriously, that breakdown would make me weep with joy, I'm so damn curious.

I wager most money comes in via the ticket pricing, but I'd guess the merch sales also bring in a ton of moeny, because people had MERCH. in capital letters. So much merch. The average person I saw had a lightstick, maybe some accessory for it, maybe a t-shirt or a hoodie, some keyrings to their bags, maybe a fan with their fav printed on it, one of these plushies and so on and so on. I checked the prices, and d'uh. I have no idea about the quality of the stuff, but fashion has incredible margins and makes money easily, so they do have that going on for them.

I also nearly had a heart attack when I saw the price of the lightsticks. I'd say the average fan i saw dropped around 150 Euros on Merch - e.g. if you bought one lightstick and a t-shirt you'd be roughly in that price area, and a lot of people bought a lot more. There were long lines with people waiting to buy stuff, and I got told by various people where I could find items that were sold out at one stand (without asking them specifically, everybody just randomly told me where I could buy merch). Besides the stalls at the arena there was also the pop-up store, but I didn't go there. I saw people with Ateez merch all over Cologne the day before, so, ka-ching! Those fur coats are purring, baby.

(This is not a dig towards Ateez, obvs - all bands make money via merch, and I think all big name artists are riding this wave. Munich was flodded with people carrying Adele totes last summer! Apparently Taylor Swift sells light sticks shaped lke stars? I just noticed that there seemed to be a lot of merch sales here, unlike e.g. the concerts I usually go to, where there seems to be a lot less merch.)

So we had no merch and weren't dressed up, which was a little dumb later on because it turned out I had accidentally booked seats very close to the stage (disclaimer: i knew we had good seats and they were very expensive, I just hadn't realised they were this close.), and with very close I mean three rows up, basically on eye height with whoever happened to wander over to this corner of the stage. Which was basically almost everyone (besides Mingi, whom I had specifically wanted to see up close - he passed by a few times and jumped around close to us, but he didn't look at my section. Bro. Why. I came to stare at your incredible face.)

It kind of was nice to be this close, but it also meant we saw the show from the side and not form the front, and everything that happened on the part of the stage jutting out into the arena was basically not in our line of sight. The big screen was directly above us so we could watch there, but it also meant it was hard to keep an eye on the stage and watch the screen. I basically ignored the screen after a while in favor of watching what was happening on the other side of the walkway stage, so I saw most of the formations, well, from behind. And that was super interesting because it showed a lot about the spacing and the synchronisation, but also, d'uh. I'd been looking forward to see the "Say My Name" choreo (because, well, Mingi, you catch my drift), but like this I kinda saw it from behind (and Mingi tends to wear longer costume pieces that cover his backside all the way down to mid thighs, so no staring at that, either. Oh, well.).

Yeah, anyway, the seats were still good because up this close I got to see some interesting choreo things closer up (I have a lot of thoughts on Yunho vs Mingi's dance styles now), but also experience the magic of a kpop group working their crowd. And boy are they good at this, it's incredible. I'm fascinated by the whole parasocial relationships kpop as an industry fosters, but the way the concerts deepen this already existing relationship is incredible.

The concert was clearly seperated into the strictly choreographed parts (songs/dances/interludes) where everybody as focused on getting everything right down to the second, and then the "freeform" parts where they were just walking around, working the crowd. But these are of course also choreographed, and I think rather tightly so. There was the obvious mandate of everyone having to work every side of the stage at some point and they were really good with it. I kept count of who came to my side of the stage to wave at my block, and besides Mingi (who for some reason didn't really drop by, but then I also think he wasn't having a great day at the Cologne concert - incidentally I also watched him to track when exactly they were doing tightly choreographed parts and where they were moving into the more "freeform" moments because it was very obvious when he went from 'I gotta be there do this move look at the camera' to 'okay, chill, hit your mark but otherwise it's fine' mode just by the way his eyeline would change when his focus shifted).

Okay, so since this is getting very long, here's my favorite example of why working the crowd is such a brilliant move, beause it works even on someone who isn't a fan: my poor partner, whom I had more or less forced to come with me despite his dislike for popular culture in general.

He had no former experience with kpop, he didn't know Ateez (I gave him the task to pick a bias during the concert, which lended some fun results). So we were generally not blending into the crowd very well because we did not have merch, no lightstick and we were the only ones in our block who did not have phones out. I took three pictures in total, but then I just put my phone away. But we were also very much in sight of whoever came to the side of our stage, and I could tell we were getting noticed for not performing fandom properly, to the point where clearly at least one member - Seonghwa - apparently started to wonder what the hell we were doing at the show (though we were both vibing, whopping and generally showing obvious signs of having a very good time - at some point I was grooving to the beat and Hongjoong came up and laughed at me, grooving along).

So one time Seonghwa came to our side of the stage, and simply stood there waving - and he didn't stop until my utterly confused partner realised that he was the target of the whole thing and waved back. Then Seonghwa pointed at my partner and made a heart, my partner made a heart back, then Seonghwa gave him a thumbs up and raised an eyebrow, and my partner did some combination of a thumbs-up and a heart to convery that he liked the show, and Seonghwa actually laughed, waved once more and wandered away.

It worked fantastically, on both of us: my confused partner spent the rest of the show manically giggeling (because Seonghwa kind of came over to ask him if he liked the show??), and I was so stunned having witnessed Seonghwa beaming at my dude (like, wtf, how did my man not faint) that I missed half of the next song. My partner was stupidly proud of himself for the remaining evening, and nearly bought a t-shirt on the way out. (He still didn't pick Songhwa as his bias, which will never stop confusing me. After all of that?! I'd also like to add that Seonghwa is really and seriously drop-dead gorgeous.).

Okay, this is getting way out of hand. Let me sum up the remaining thoughts with bullet points: the sound quality was the best I've ever experienced in a concert; please wear hearing protection if you're ever going to a concert of this type; they were indeed singing live, Hongjoong asked us to sing "Lemon Tree" bcs it's from a german band and then was confused when the whole arena started to belt the entire song out forming an impromptu 20.000-ppl-strong choir; I felt like Mingi had an off day and needed some time to get his mojo on; Yeosang is a fantastic performer and while I never been interested in him he really caught my eye on stage because he was so good; San really looks like that (what the hell); I felt there was an interesting dichotomy of those members who were playing to the audience around them and those who were more focussed on the camera (Wooyoung being the latter one, for example); BBTripping were amazing, holy shit; Ateez' english was difficult to understand but I guess they tried.

And everybody kept talking about the energy in the room and I've read reviews of people being amazed, but I thought the crowd was a bit lame (please note that I am old, I have experienced boyband concerts in the late 1990s and I thought I'd once more witness an entire arena loose their fucking shit over some hot guys - but they didn't! Girls and Boys and Queers, what's wrong with you?! Everybody was dressed so amazingly and showed so much creativity, and then? Sure, there was some screaming, but I'd expected more hysterics, more hype, more party? Everybody just stood around waving their lightstick a bit or maybe some jumping, but they couldn't dance because they would have dropped their damn phones and missed out on the twentieth picture of San smiling. Today's youth, I don't get it.)

I also have thoughts on the performance (concert vs musical style) and because I spent an insane amount staring at Yunho's feet and Mingi's arms on those two and their very different dance styles. But this is too long. Let me know if you want a second part, and also, why did you read all of this? You're insane. G'night!

[hinamie]

post-graduation trip airport looks

[bruciemilf]

I think it’d be so funny if Bruce just refuses to disclose the existence of Robin to the league. He knows it’d take less than a minute for them to form a wicked mock club against him.

Except he just? Carries Robin around. Under that endless void that is his cape. Clark pinches the stress point between his brows. “Batman, is that a child under your cape?”

“No.”

“Bruce I can HEAR his heartbeat.”

“I think the long exposure to kryptonite partially damaged your brain. There is no child here, Clark.”

“He’s literally drinking Barry’s coffee right now.”

“He’s WHAT-“

[danmeichael]

love triangle to ot3 not as in "i just think these characters should kiss" but as in there is a special bond between two people who love the same person more than themselves, more than anything else and eventually the rage and possessiveness will evaporate, you can't be scared and snarling forever, and when it does they will be left with the understanding that this is maybe the only person on earth who gets it. who gets what it means to be utterly consumed by this person, to love them so much you would open a vein at their request. this person, your "rival" perhaps understands you more than even the object of your affection. they have felt the same longing and the same fear and the same anger and the same desperation as you. they will go to the same lengths to keep your mutual beloved safe. and isn't that a little bit like looking in a mirror. isn't that a little bit like love.

[pakchoys]

there’s poetry and clarinet on that tape, greg

[starii-void]

going to chb must be crazy like imagine sharing a camp with

-one of the strongest demigods ever who's saved the world like at least 3 times, fought multiple gods & titans and WON (and is a tartarus survivor)

-the literal main architect of OLYMPUS who's also saved the world multiple times (also tartarus survivor)

-THE lord of the wild who's also close friends with the first two (and has helped save the world multiple times)

-an emo kid from the 1930s who again helped save the world and is also a tartarus survivor (TWICE)

-a son of apollo who survived tartarus with nothing but cargo shorts and sheer will (pun intended)

-the main designer and builder for the argo II, also the first hephaestus kid to have fire powers since hundreds of years ago (did i mention killed gaea? no? yeah he did that too)

-a girl who somehow charmspeak-ed gaea into falling back asleep (also side note daughter of super famous actor because why not)

-pretty much everybody is a two-time war veteran

-THE GOD APOLLO who just sometimes comes down to visit in the form of a teenage boy

-did i mention dionysus, god of wine madness and theatre

-also chiron, trainer of pretty much every greek hero ever

[pears-palette]

Here's to 10 years of being in the Unknown!

I tried to incorporate something from every episode, and while it was tedious, I am so proud of this piece!

[ID in Alt]

[zarla-s]

I haven't updated this in a while, but that's a good thing! No news is good news when it comes to the bot warfront, haha. There are still some scattered reports of bots, but I haven't seen any personally when I check and the people I ask haven't see any. Is this the new status quo...?

The big thing is that it has now been TWO MONTHS of botfree TF2! TWO MONTHS!! This was an absolutely IMPOSSIBLE dream back then, and even now I still can't believe it. After years of neglect, two whole months!! There's a real chance this could last all the way to the Halloween event! I know this is the bare minimum of care and it's appallingly late on Valve's part, but still! Two whole months after years of torment... make sure to enjoy it while you have it if you haven't played it yet, haha.

[Second post with new updates]

Valve went through and banned a whole bunch of bots yesterday and when I last checked a couple hours ago, the Casual servers are still 99% actual people! If you want to try out TF2 DO IT NOW while you have the chance! Believe me when I say that having matches this clear of bots is RARE. They'll be back in force inevitably in probably a couple days so the window of opportunity here is small. Take the chance to play a normal round of TF2 Casual while you can!

[ash-and-starlight]

Sokka baulked. "I'm not getting on that." "That," said Zuko, "is my baby." Zuko's baby, a fifty foot dragon, huffed. Great white plumes of smoke issued out of his nostrils and buffeted around Sokka. "Play nice, Druk," said Zuko, laughing

for The Mercy of Magpies chapter 2!

as always written by thee wonderful showstopping incredible @ranilla-bean ✨

chapter post || cover || map and characters

[tiffycat]

Learning the hard way that comic book physics don't apply to real life

[teaboot]

Sometimes I wish I was Out at my main job but you know part of me really, really enjoys just being seen as "the young straight cis employee who's knowledgeable about queer topics" because I find myself often approached by older folks who admit things like "I know transsexuals are more popular these days but injecting things into children doesn't seem right" and I can tell them "Actually your niece/nephew/nibling isn't getting surgery and junk right now, they're twelve, what they're getting are 'blockers' which delay puberty- and since puberty itself is an involuntary change to the body caused by hormones, isn't it nice that they're getting a bit of time to decide that they're sure about what they want before they start? And also we've been using and observing HRT for longer than Advil, ibuprofen, digital cameras, and laser eye surgery, so IDK, it's good that you're asking questions though, I'm glad you're looking out for them but it's not really all that scary" and I like knowing that I can help steer them in the right direction (seeking out scientifically proven facts and stats, asking questions) instead of encouraging the path they're already on (leaning into instinctive feelings about the unfamiliar and strange)

[sualne]

mithrun sketch to celebrate

[thebibliosphere]

Speaking of therapy, I say, as though we're old friends, and you're not a stranger trapped in this metaphorical elevator with me and you can hear the suspension wires starting to fray.

I've been doing a lot of work recently that's focused on imposter syndrome and the feeling that no matter how well or how much I do, I'm not good enough. That I'm somehow tricking everyone into thinking my work is actually good.

Some days it's a minor niggle in my head that I can gentle and soothe with logic and affirmations. Or smother, depending on the mood. Other times it's loud and all-consuming and the mental anguish it causes me is so real I can feel it twitching in my muscles. This desperate fight-or-flight instinct with nowhere to go and nothing to fight but myself.

Anyway, because I'm several types of Mentally Unwell™, I was switching between workshop sheets ahead of next week. Filling in different forms. (Trying to get a good grade in therapy) And I got my "recognize your harmful ADHD coping mechanisms" worksheet mixed in with the "you're not actually lying to people, you just feel like you are because your brain is full of weasels" worksheet, and seeing them side by side made something go topsy turvy in my head, and I just had to sit and breathe for a couple of minutes until the urge to scream passed. Because it clicked, it all suddenly clicked.

The reason the imposter syndrome workshops and therapy sessions aren't sticking was because I do routinely trick people into thinking I'm someone I'm not.

Because I'm masking my ADHD for their convenience.

I've always known there was something wrong with me. My neurotypical peers made it abundantly clear I didn't fit in or was failing in some way I couldn't see nor remedy, no matter how hard I tried.

So I compressed myself into a workaholic box of hyper-competence in the hopes they'd stop noticing the flaws and exploit like me instead. And then subsequently lived with the daily fear that if they looked too close, they'd realize I'm a monumental fuck up with enough personal baggage to block the Suez Canal.

If you ever need someone to burn themselves to ashes for your comfort and convenience, I'm your gal.

Or I used to. Until I had a bit of a breakdown, and the rubber band holding my brain together snapped and pinged off into the stratosphere, never to be seen again.

Unfortunately, the trauma of living like that didn't also fuck off and instead left a gaping maw where my personality ought to be, so now I get to deal with that aftermath.

And it's that aftermath that's affecting the imposter syndrome shit. Because yes, I am hyper-competent and good at what I do-- but it doesn't feel real because that is how I mask.

And the truly frustrating thing is I am good at what I do. I am not pretending. I worked hard to be good at this. It just feels like I'm dicking around because 90% of my personality turns out to be trauma masquerading as humor in a trenchcoat, and having people genuinely like something weird I'm doing is so foreign my brain has decided it's just another form of masking.

I'm pretending to be a good author so people will think I'm a good author, and my brain thinks we are in Danger of being found out. We are in Danger, and writing is Dangerous because then people will know I'm Weird and not whatever palatable version I've presented myself as for their NT sensibilities.

Like the neurotic vampire with a raging praise kink wasn't an obvious giveaway.

Anyway. I got nothing else. Thanks for listening.

I'm going to go be very normal in another room and not stare into the abyss of my own soul for a bit.

[bunnieswithknives]

In which Dev finally talks about what happened to Peri :3

part (1/2): next

[clouvu]

Cooking up an older Clervie outfit design so I don't have to keep drawing her looking like her child self but Long