#we thought the internet was weird and scary because it often was

[pb-dot]

Why Peebs never got into fanficiton

It occurred to me the other day that despite having quite the voracious appetite for fiction back in my youth, I never got into fanfiction. So, how come? Part of it is just the circles I moved in back in the day, as the cis and presumably straight nerd sphere wasn't super into fanfiction, and by the time I started moving queer-wards my habits were kind of set. There is, however, another reason, and it's this particular wild ride I want to take you on today dear readers.

NOTE: It is difficult to tell this story to its full extent without sharing a bit more detail about my meatspace identity than I'd prefer to, so I have taken some steps to anonymize as much as I can. If you by chance have a hunch about the name of the fic I'm talking about, do free to drop me DM and talk about it, but please don't start flinging speculations on here. Thanks in advance.

With that meaty disclaimer out of the way, let's talk about that one time my mother sent me DBZ fanfiction. Back in the days of my prepubescence, my mother was the family's "computer person." She had some education in early IT, database work, and that kind of thing, so she was the one to introduce the Internet into our family. Mind you, this was in the days of the ISDN line, a step up from the 56k modems that took up your phone line, but still a slow and expensive solution compared to the broadband connections that would come some years later.

Not to sound like Grandpa Internet here, but the web was fundamentally different back then. Before the rise of Google, or halfway decent search engines, finding anything on the internet was a question of what search term you used and which of the many many search engines that were available you used, and what you found were of wildly differing quality. A lot of it was homemade web pages following this or that template, hosted on this or that hosting site, but there was very little in terms of connective tissue. This is all to say that when you came across something that was almost what you were looking for, you had the tendency to just check it out and see if it hit the spot eventually.

All this preamble is to say that when my mother sent me a mail with a link to a collection of stories written about a character whose given name was identical to our family name, I decided to give it a gander although I wasn't immensely interested in it. Turns out it was a loosely organized collection of stories about a fan-created character in the DBZ universe, although I did not know this because the ol' screamy punchman show hadn't really made it to my corner of the woods at this point.

This character, whose name was the same as my family name but as best as I know wasn't inspired by anything else than the sound of it, was the daughter of a particularly biologically implausible pairing in the Dragon Ball Z universe, and given how quickly said pairing decided to throw their contempt for biologists and their so-called facts in the reader's faces told me my mother probably hadn't read very far into the thing before sending it my way.

Now, I want to be clear, this wasn't a full-blown lemon or anything, but I was a sheltered kid what sex and sexuality were concerned, and it didn't take much more than a mention of doing the nasty and a tasteful fade to black, that in retrospect left some big questions unanswered, to have me quite flustered.

This isn't to say things didn't get considerably more citrus-y later on. You see, this character grows up and is cool and important in the way such characters often are. What is slightly more remarkable about her is that Alien Puberty hits her like a sackful of bricks and goes what I can only describe as "Transformatively-Fuck-Crazy" on a supporting character. The whole consent situation around the thing is real iffy I realize, now in retrospect, but at the time I was mostly in shock over where this little reading session had taken me.

The session, however, was far from done. Not much came out of this alien consent-light fuck-berserkergang, however, as our heroine had some time travel to get into. At the time I was very confused about the time travel just suddenly being a thing, but later on, I came to realize Dragon Ball Z was just Kind Of Like That.

You see, some Jessica Rabbit-looking alien with a clashing primary colors color scheme and an understanding of the concept of clothing that is adventurous to say the least who wants to kick her ass but finds herself unable to do so on account of the heroine being actually quite good at this ass-kicking business. Our scantily-clad would-be conqueror does the most logical thing in her situation and goes back in time to kill the protagonist's dad. You know, as you do when you have near-perfect mastery of time travel and a grudge. You'd think she'd get into some Kang The Conqueror shit, but maybe that's the next point on her agenda, idk.

This villain also could turn invisible, so nobody's going to accuse her of being a one-trick pony. How does our heroine beat this somewhat overstatted threat? I can't remember, but if I were to guess, it ended in a cliffhanger and lots of screaming, so you can't blame the author for diverging from the form language of the show if nothing else.

So that's the story of my main first encounter with fanfiction. It left me confused in more ways than one, and it kind of became a bit emblematic of the format for me once I figured out that it was in fact fanfiction. Was that unfair of the younger me? Perhaps, while I can't really claim it as a good read, I did keep reading it until I was done. Whether that says more about the fic or about me, I am sure I do not know.

[kitsunefox1108]

I really like your wirting! I've been really wondering if the scenario here is that the self-aware Yandere Sephiroth, he'd probably still go crazy and mad. But as if he most interesting in fem!player!reader (she is «goddess» for him). Suffering from an existential crisis, he begins to destroy all the "fake", acts more violently in the "game" (causing those events that should not have happened even opening additional scenes that should not be in the game, the AI acts pretty tough taking off all the xp for one minor blow, plus creepy looking right at the player!) Kind of like trying to get into fem!reader world or move her into FF's world. Probably through the "weird" dialogues in the game Aerith (also breaks the 4-wall, but not like Sephy) is trying to keep and save fem!reader from Sephiroth by gently hinting to "delete the game" before it's too late.

Reader: Wow... new scary Easter egg! Stop! It's strange that there's no information on the Internet about these Easter eggs... And it's starting to look like Creepypasta...

Sephiroth behind her back: Hello dear, how about hugging and kissing your dear "lover" who has come such a hard way for you...

Reader: (chuckles) i'm in danger(It's my frist request and sorry my bad english 👉👈 love ya!)

Hello! I confess honestly, I myself do not speak English very well, and often improvise, because this is not my native language. But I understand what you mean, so it's okay! ________________________________________________________

In this case, you will really think that these are easter eggs, but when you google anything that could be connected with this, what you see in the game, your thoughts are simply: what? what the fuck?…

You might think that you downloaded a fan image of the game, maybe that's why there are additional cutscenes, but Aerith's hints scare you. She often speaks not to Cloud, but to you. Saying "it all seems like such a strange game! Doesn't it, Cloud? We need to stop Sephiroth before he destroys this entire universe!" 

You are a little scared, but your interest in the game does not disappear, which is why you continue to enter the game and try to find the "new content" that you came across in the game.

However, now Sephiroth, seeing you face to face, speaks to you. No more with Cloud.

"You think it's all Easter eggs, don't you? Whether I disappoint you or not, we'll see you very soon. Darling." and now you realize that it was a big mistake.

However, when you feel a touch on your shoulder, and you realize that someone is standing behind you….

Run.

[celestie0]

ellie did you hear about the solar storm thing thats been going around?

my friend gave me a detailed explanation abt what it is whats going to happen n all n honestly i am TERRIFIED.

like it genuinely seems so real that i cant even convince myself that this is another one of those silly things that go around each year

the fact that research for this solar storm has been going on since 2019 is ???? scary ????

makes it seem more believable tbh bc if it was not real it wouldn't have been going on for so long

IM SO SCARED 😭 genuinely cried when my friend was telling me ab this and she also said thwt we'll get to know ab when the solar storm is going to hit about 30 minutes before AND NOW IM PARANOID BC IT CAN HIT ANY MOMENT NOOOOO

and to top this off my mother told me that not many ppl will survive till 2027 i have no idea where she got that from but she scared me even more

this is so bad.

hii my love yess ive heard of the solar storm, i know that solar flares in general have been talked about a lot for a while now but i didn’t know that there was recent news about it!

i’m sorry you’re experiencing anxiety regarding it :””( yeahh ive heard that solar flares are near impossible to predict in advance for a lot of reasons, so that can definitely heighten the fear

hm idk if it makes you feel better but i remember nasa n other news outlets were talking about solar storms the exact same way about a year ago (i just remember telling my dad ab it cuz he works in aerospace n figured his company might’ve been discussing it) but nothing happened at all within the six month period that the news had been freaking out about LOL. i panicked a lot then too n my dad said it was just fear mongering lmfaoo 💀 (he’s kind of a cynic though haha) but yea i just bring this up because it’s not the first time this sort of news has been sensationalized

following any sort of space stuff can be scary for sure n it’s super easy to get lost in article rabbit holes that can really disrupt your quality of life in the present :( but i think there have been multiple instances of space phenomena that have been hyped up in media (even by a lot of reputable news outlets) that have not really affected daily life as much as it was thought to (like the never ending cycle of news about new asteroids, the whole aliens thing, etc)

i think it’s important to remember that the scientists that are actually behind the research are completely different entities than the people writing up articles about it online, so you always have to take the news with a grain of salt or maybe try to look into accounts from the actual researchers behind the findings (who, more often than not i’ve found, don’t even panic about their own research to the level of extent a lot of media ppl do online haha)

i’m not saying i don’t believe in the possibility of a solar storm or anything like that lol i just think there’s a lot of tendency in news these days to scare tf outta people for no reason

also correct me if im wrong but the largest danger of a solar storm would be disruption of radio & internet frequencies right? i thought they werent actually powerful enough to cause any sort of biological radiation harm ;0 loss of internet access would definitely be a weird thing to see and could put stress on more developed countries, but a lot of the world doesnt even have internet access to begin with so i’m not sure how much it will actually affect livelihood (i’m aware that it’d affect a LOT of things for sure, but i’m talking ab dangers like life or death situations, n i just cant imagine that being the case? but if you’ve looked into that more than i have n have more to share then lemme know i’m really curious)

sorry, im just bringing this all up in hopes it helps w your fears, n not to invalidate them! bc i totally get it, it’s scary stuff esp when it’s stuff you feel like you have no control over. but there’s a lot of things in life we have no control over, i think it’s best to just focus on what we can control n just try to enjoy today :)

thank u for ask bb <3

[poopraven]

"I'm not good at social media" - A story by me.

While I'm sitting here ruminating on my life (as I am wont to do), my thoughts drifted to the story I have told myself for at least ten years but absolutely longer than that:

I am not good at social media.

And, you know, It's kind of true, in so many ways. But it turns out I was very wrong, in so many other ways. So I thought I'd spill those thoughts out onto the internet to maybe help you if you find it while thinking "God, I'm so bad at social media".

First thing's first: If you're good at social, you're probably also good at social media. Despite the clue being in the name, it took me far too long to realise this. Do you find it easy to communicate with other people, to start conversations with strangers? Great! You might also find it pretty easy to use social media!

But if you're not good at social, social media can be daunting, even isolating. You post things, nobody answers, you feel like you're yelling into the uncaring void. And, really, you kind of are.

You see, people are more likely to be social with people they have a connection to - whether you're friends, or attend the same venue / event, or share a hobby / interest, or are famous enough that fans want to speak to you - they're much more likely to interact if they've got that link. It's like a cheat code for hopping over that first hurdle.

But if you're a private person (and I spent ages being very private due to various pain points in my life), hopping that first hurdle is like trying to leap a chasm. You have that human urge to find some sort of camaraderie with other human beings (even if you're an introvert, even if you're neurodiverse, sooner or later loneliness really bites us in the arse), but whenever you try, you're holding all your cards close to your chest while hoping to get a peek at other people's.

That's just not going to work very often. I say very often because sometimes you'll bump into another lil tortle and slowly but surely peel cards away from your chest to show one-another and it could become an amazing friendship. Great!

I'll tell you what does work, though.

You're probably going to hate it.

I fucking loathed it.

The answer is to let extroverts do their thing.

You see, extroverts actually love introverts. They fucking ADORE us! Every extrovert out there loves to have a whole pack of introverts, because we are fun, and interesting, and we know the weirdest shit, and they love helping us come out of our shells and have fun in life.

But we can find extroverts a bit weird, right? A bit scary? A bit intense? They wanna peek at our hand of cards?

Spoiler: They wanna peek at our hand of cards because they've peeked at a lot of hands of cards, and they have a whole mental catalogue of who holds what cards, and they YEARN to put us in touch with other people who might share some of those cards.

Extroverts get joy from helping us make friends.

And all we have to do is let them.

So how does this make you "better" at "social media"?

Well, at its heart, social media is great for talking to people you know. Keeping in touch with acquaintances and friends. Making new ones? Yeah, you can do that, it's not impossible, but chatting with ones you already have? Yeah, that's where it really excels. Forget all that guff about going viral, or getting likes or views or followers. Really what it's good for is chatting to people you met, or share interests with, or are friends with.

And if you let an extrovert lift you over that first hurdle, you are suddenly flying.

I often feel like I have nothing to say, or that nobody would be interested in hearing it, or that I will 100% be misunderstood (yeah hello previously-undiagnosed autism)... And it's actually just not true. I'd just convinced myself that it was true because I'd been hurt, I was holding my cards too close to my chest, I wasn't neurotypical (hello also to previously-undiagnosed ADHD), I was any number of things that somehow made me less worth interacting with.

I still often think I have nothing to say, despite chatting to friends for hours about the things I have to say, and despite writing books that feature all the things I have to say. And I think often that ADHD makes me think I've already said a thing, who wants to hear it again, or rephrased, or in a different format?

So I let the extroverts who approach me peek at my cards. I allow them to do what comes naturally to them. And, wouldn't you know it, I get to talk to people on social media now. I've been introduced to fellow introverts who love the things I love. My extroverts take good care of me when I go to conventions. I am doing that thing which we all know is horribly hard: making new friends as an adult.

I think "I'm not good at social media" was both true and an artificial roadblock at the same time. It prevented me from accepting the help that was being freely and honestly offered, it held me back from reaching out and making meaningful connections, and it became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

If you're not good at social media, why not give "letting extroverts into your life" a go? Yes, scary! Yes, a lil bit invasive-feeling! But we do know the things we're good at, right? So we just need to take a breath, and let other people do the things they're good at, too. 'Cause 99% of the time, they really just want everyone to have a good time.

I love you all!

[setagaya-division]

Yorii's Thoughts on Ueno Division

Aranai Norikoru

"Hey, its the angry, biker chick with the weird name! Man, I often see her all the time around school with that wooden kendo stick or baseball bat she's always carrying. It's as if she's daring someone to start some crap with her so she can hit them straight in their kneecaps! I know you all think that would probably be me, but I'll pass! I need my kneecaps to stand up straight. If I get hit in them, I won't be able to walk right!"

"Still, she's got quite a reputation around school. Heck, even some of the teachers try not to mess with her too much. I guess being the leader of a biker team and a rap group gives you certain freedoms. As a famous singer, I can certainly vouch for that."

Shisuta Heisha

"A... nun? Huh. I heard that there was a nun in one of the rap teams, but I didn't think it was actually true. Man, Mina's gonna have a hard time if we go up against this team. She has a thing against spiritual or "holy" places. She doesn't even visit the temples much here in Setagaya cause of it. Elliot always feels bad for her, but me, I always tell her she's not missing much, and it's true. I mean, don't get me wrong. You wanna believe in that stuff, you go right ahead. I'm not gonna knock you for your life choices. But I think you could spend a lot more with your time than wasting it praying at a church or a temple. I don't know. That's just me..."

Kisouna Yuzairu

"Oh no, it's that scary lawyer lady that I saw on the news before! Man, I don't know if I was... sentient or not when she made her announcement about getting rid of all crime in Japan, but it certainly left an impression on me when I saw it again on the Internet! And she was serious too! I'm rooting for her, but... she must realize that she's fighting a losing battle here, right? I mean, crime and stuff, that all exists because of humans. As long as humans are around, there's going to be crime. So... if she truly wants to erase all crime, she's going to have get rid of all humans, and that's a tall order, if I've ever heard one. Like I said, I wish her luck, but she's kinda wasting her time..."

Sakurai Clan

"Man, these ladies are tough! I know they may not have nothing in common, but they still seem to coexist as a unit, or a "clan", as their team name signifies. Elliot and Mina are worried about facing them cause they're so good. But me, I'm actually looking forward to it. I mean, in a sense, we're a clan, ourselves! So, I'm interested to see which clan is going to come out on top: ours or theirs? I can't wait to find out."

[saveourskinship]

15 Questions/15 People

Rules: answer these 15 questions and tag 15 people

Unrules: I don’t actually know 15 people. So I’m not gonna do that. I also might not actually answer the questions but just ramble instead.

Thanks for the tag @akorah  I’m procrastinating so this is perfect.

1. Are you named after anyone? Names are so weird, aren’t they? We don’t get to pick them and they just hang around for the entirety of your life and if you decide you want to change it for any reason there is so much PAPERWORK. I am partially named after someone who no longer knows who I am or even who they are half the time. 2. When was the last time you cried? Today because I accidentally created a painting spirit by being too in love with someone and then had to abandon said love to hunt the painting spirit down (it kept putting people into comas). The spirit trapped me and my love in a mirage and tried to burn us alive but my love saved me but he remained stuck inside the mirage for three whole years. We finally reunited at the Festival of Lanterns and it was beautiful. Tears of Themis is wild y’all. 

3. Do you have kids? No, I live in a tiny apartment. If I ever own a cottage though, I will buy a couple to eat the brambles around my hedge-witch lawn.

4. Do you use sarcasm a lot? I used sarcasm to type that question. So no, of course not.

5. What’s the first thing you notice about people? If their eyes match their expression. Followed by where their centre of gravity is.

6. What’s your eye colour? Line 1, Verse 2 of Christmas Day by Dido.

7. Scary movies or happy endings? Is this boiling down to Marlon Wayans versus Damon Wayans Jr? I’ve definitely seen Scary Movie’s more often but have been thinking I should give Happy Endings another go.

8. Any special talents? I can put my leg behind my head and can glide down a flight of stairs absolutely beautifully. Not at the same time though.

9. Where were you born? In a hospital room with ten very disappointed training doctors who all thought I was going to be what they called an ‘abnormal’ birth. They were rather put out I came out ‘normal’. If they’d just waited twenty or so years...

10. What are your hobbies? Writing, reading, board games, video games, tabletop rpgs, assassinations, lying to people on the internet about how dangerous I am.

11. Do you have any pets? There is a cat which resides in my house but I live in fear she will get offended if I call her a pet. 

12. What sports do you play/have you played? That is a very long list and I don’t find it terribly fascinating. I would like to invent a sport, but... owning a team is weird, too, isn’t it? Like, owning people who run and jump and get concussions for you? You take their best years and they earn you money? It’s all very crossroads/brimstone vibes, huh. But if I HAD to invent a sport, I think I would combine the Running Man name-tag rip off game with handball except you have to play in bare feet tand the scoring area is covered in acupuncture mats (the goalies are allowed shoes).

13. How tall are you? 1 cat and 78 dice ranging from d4 to d20 in varying sizes. I tried doing dice only but the cat wasn’t having it.

14. Favourite subject in school? This does not specify which school so it’s a toss up between Look After The Penguin Chicks from pirmary and Sex and Sensuality from university. 

15. Dream job? The job I have most often in my dreams is being a pirate captain but my boat only sails through wheat fields. The hull (for whatever reason) is made out of sponge cake so stale is has turned rock hard, however whenever I try to sail my ship in water, the sponge cake softens and my ship begins breaking apart.

Tagging @they-call-me-megs 

[flapperwitch]

Hey, hope youre doing good. Ive followed you for a bit and i know youve spoken before about living with endo and chronic pain. For the past 6 months ive been dealing with a shit ton of pain, cramping and i just had a cramp tonight that was super scary. Got super sweaty, shaking and such. Theyre still trying to diagnose me but my gyno doctor thinks its endo. Just wondering if youd feel comfortable sharing your story and such, 100% understand if you would rather not and i hope this isnt an invasive ask. Im just feeling very isolated and alienated with this pain. Thanks for taking the time to read this and i hope youre doing well!

Hi! This is not intrusive at all, and I'm sorry for not answering this sooner. Life is very weird.

I'm so sorry that you feel isolated but I completely understand why you do. You're in bed, in pain or asleep, so often. No one can see the agony your body is feeling. More than anything I want you to know that you're not overreacting. You're not crazy, you're not weak. I've passed out from pain before. It's no joke. The short version of my story is that like most others, it took years for me to get a diagnosis. And I wasn't hiding anything. Doctors thought my fatigue and pain was being exaggerated by my depression, but in reality I was depressed because I was so sore and tired and couldn't figure out why. Therapy and meds weren't doing anything. One time a nurse practioner told me that even though I tested negative for a UTI and even though I didn't have any of the symptoms, that had to be what my problem was. She gave me antibiotics and sent me home. Another time I was telling my then OBGYN that I was always tired and in so much pain and asked if there was anything else we could do and he smiled and said "Nope!" Mother fucker smiled at me and my pain. It wasn't until I sat for hours in an emergency room (because the hospital near me wouldn't let me admit myself or see a doctor right away) that my dad called me and convinced me to go home, told me he believed me, and that we'd figure it out together. I then went to see a colleague of my OBGYN and right away she knew that something was wrong. She did go on to say she thought I had endo, and we set up surgery. But the way she presented it, endometriosis was a blip, a pain that could be fixed with surgery, and then cured. It wasn't until after and I continued to do my own research that I learned it was a lifetime diagnosis.

Invisible illnesses suck. No one can see just how shitty you feel. And when you feel shitty and tired, you can't see people as much, so you end up spending so much of your time alone in bed with your heating pad and pain meds. Luckily se live in the age of the internet. Find online communities. I personally am in two endometriosis groups on Facebook, one is support, one is all jokes and memes. It's great when you can joke with people experiencing the exact same thing. Also make more plans virtual. I love doing virtual movie nights with friends, and you can screenshare through hyperbeam or discord. Also, treat yo self. Some days when I feel my internal organs being glued together by this dumb disease, I make myself toast with cookie butter and a banana and pour myself a cup of milk, and just that simple meal makes me feel better for a bit.

Always feel free to come ask me about endo and chronic pain. Chronic illness survivors gotta look out for each other 💜 You got this

[storytimeswithdelilah]

How I met my boyfriend and my best friend almost called the police because she thought I was dead :)

This is my first post I hope you enjoyed my very true but so unserious story times about my silly little life <3

~

Me and my boyfriend have been together for nine months now, however we met in a very unusual way.

I had not long come out of a very disturbing relationship with someone I met in college, they were awful company and very often made me do things I did not want to do. However it was a few months after and we had only been together for a short time before I broke up with them.

I was not actively looking for a relationship at this point however I got a friend request on Snapchat from a boy. I reluctantly accepted and he began typing instantly. This low-key freaked me out being the sad little virgin I was but I waited until he was done. He basically started yapping about something I had no idea about but it sounded like I was supposed to know. I then asked him if I was the person he was supposed to add as I had no idea what he was talking about. He then realised that no, I was not the person he meant to add. He never blocked or removed me and he was just on my Snapchat for a while until he messaged me again saying he found me on instagram and that he thought I was cute. I then proceeded to tell him that was weird and that he was a stalker, I didn’t mean it I was in fact kidding. We began to talk more and more, we spoke for three months before he began to mention meeting up. He did not live near me, he lived in a city about half an hour from where I lived and I was beyond nervous. I’d never met anyone over the internet before and I was certain I’d get kidnapped.

So I began to put it off for as long as I could. Until one day I was out with some friends and he told me I wouldn’t meet him cos I was too pussy, he was joking, but I was drunk. So I challenged him, I was all like oh yeah I’ll meet you tomorrow after college. Why tf did I say that?! As soon as I sent the message I was like wtf what is wrong with me I am freaking out I don’t want to do this. But I couldn’t go back on my word.

My best friend told me I should go but to keep my phone on the whole time and message her updates and also to meet in public so I don’t die. Which was reasonable and I agreed. So on Thursday the 25th of may I got ready and made some dumb excuse that I needed to buy candles so we had to go shopping. I had no intention of buying candles because he was correct, I was a pussy and had no intention on buying anything because I was scared my card would decline for some reason and make everything awkward, I also didn’t want him to pay for anything because that was also scary to me for some reason.

So I got the train to see him and the whole time on the train I wanted to throw up, I also had an uncontrollable wedgie the whole time but that’s unimportant. I got off the train and saw him straight away and to be honest he was cute. And my dumbass said that. That was literally the first thing I said. “Oh how cute are you!” WHO TF SAYS THAT. He got all embarrassed and blushed and I was like Awh but at the same time I was like WHO TF SAYS THAT.

I decided to use my yapping skills to the full and just tell him some bullshit about my life to keep the conversation going which he didn’t seem to mind which was good. He then asked me what I wanted to do and me being weirdly scared of spending money had no idea what to do in this huge city filled with shops and restaraunts. He mentioned that I said I needed candles, so off we went into shops that I had no intention of buying anything from lmao. I’m not still like this now fyi idk why I was so weird.

We then found a spot to sit on in a park and we sat there for a while. We were talking and I remembered how he had asked me to be his girlfriend previously and I said no, I want to meet you before that.

His awkward ass straight up said “so am I your boyfriend now” and I thought that was super funny and I agreed that he in fact was my boyfriend now. I had no problem being his girlfriend I basically knew straight away that I did in fact have insane feelings for him.

However what I did in fact forget to do was update my best friend who was literally tracking my every move. My phone was on silent and I hadn’t messaged her since I got off the train.

We had a walk through the city for a bit and then we sat in the sunset and watched all the skater boys fall off their skateboards. Lmao sorry skaterboys.

I’m Ngl there were so many opportunities to kiss but he literally said he wouldn’t kiss me cause he was scared he would suck. I thought it was cute (he did kiss me on the second date tho)

It began to get cold and late it was like 9pm and he walked me back to the train station and waited with me for my train, before I got on the train he kissed me on my forehead and when I tell you THE BUTTERFLIES

I got on the train and was ready to text my best friend and give her the run down, however my phone died. I didn’t really think much of it in fact my first thought was that my now boyfriend would think I ghosted him.

I knew my mum was at my aunties which wasn’t far from the train station so I went there instead of home so I could charge my phone. When I walked through the door my mum and my best friend were there, my mum looked stressed so did my auntie and my best friend.

“What” was all I said. LMAO WHAT.

They immediately were like where tf were you we thought you died we were gonna call the police. They were all pretty stressed and I was like yeah my phone died. (Literally could not of given less of a fuck, nice one lilah) 😭

But anyways my friend forgave me we had a kebab and now me and my boyfriend have been together for almost 10 months.

And that is how I met him I hope you enjoyed there will definitely be more stories to come because I am a certified oversharer and yapper lmao.

Thanks for taking time out of your day to read <3

[frostbite-the-bat]

OK this time I wad a less pleasant dream

Warning for mentions of gore and animal harm

- in my dream I heard from mole that someone made a funny pacesetter.exe game using Mario 64 for some reason so I downloaded it but when we tried running it, it didn't work

I continued on my life then, and did my art and other things... Until my computer began acting weird and slow and so I restarted it. The internet has been acting weird in the dream beforehand too but that's unrelated - I went on my switch to play games but then I saw my screen light up and I see my wallpaper has changed

I walk over and it's text saying that my computer is being watched and hacked by devs of the game and that I'm dumb for downloading it - and for me to appease them I have to put Toontown fanart into one of the folders in the game files

I go through the files and there's many gore images, mostly of dead animals. I get to the folders without images and I make a text file and start typing, and here's what I remember typing:

"Hello, I am Guzma / Cathal, but I'm mostly known as Frostbite-The-Bat in the community. (Can't remember) I apologize for whatever I've done that has angered you. Please inform me of any other ways I can appease you -"

And I get cut off and windows start moving around and my cursor starts being hard to control. Another text file opens up and text starts appearing that I don't remember but it was very memey and jokey and clearly tried intimidating me. They used fonts and ominous messages - but I saw these were trolls who do this for fun and so I joined in, hoping that'll get me on their side.

"Oh, and you'll type THAT using the halloween font, right?"

"yeah right"

And then we both began fucking around with the fonts for a while, seeing that a lot of them even morphed into images that'd overlay the whole text. Some were more weird, like a foot frozen in ice and some little animal on an Ai generated green colored torso in a dentists office

Once I had more control again, I continue typing in my own text post:

"I am only typing this formally now, believe me I don't speak like this often. I don't have anything to offer aside from art due to my living conditions. Please, from one TTCC fan to another, what can I do to stop you from hacking my computer?"

Some time then passes and I hear a voice, which sounded Exactly like snapcube Eggman showing me things in a presentation with various drawings - supposedly the images of animals they had were from the group who made this game

"so yknow those machines that exist to make those flavored burgers. you put a soda in the bottom and it squeezes it and it then goes up. WELL SO WE THOUGHT what if we put a chicken in there? and so we did. and when we did it SQUISHED IT and all the organs went up, and the skin and the bones remained on the bottom where it crushes those cans! then yknow how it poops out the soda can remains? it did so with the chick, too, it looked really gross. we read something online that chicks can survive with one drop of water and so we injected it with water in the forehead. then, it slowly got up! with no blood or anything, it was loving again! this was it can grow it all back and we can repeat the process without buying any new animals!"

And the machine looked like this on the presentation:

It then began showing the baby chick in detail, and I was getting really uneasy and so I woke up.

I have in fact overslept my alarm even if it literally fucking blares VINE BOOM SOUND EFFECT. also about my prev post I would be delighted to get The Fabled Ibuprofen We Love On Tumblr for my ouchies however I AM not getting up oh gooedudddgb hbhhhghhgjjjhjhjhjhmhnnjhh

Considering this dream was about Pacesetter I nerd to fill you in on the inside joke that, anytime I'm going through The Monthly Horrors, I call it "I'VE TURNED INTO PACESETTER" so that's that

I'm very glad it was real because getting hacked live like that is genuinely so fucking scary

[madmaryholiday]

encountered my first irl "children are identifying as cats and want to use litter boxes at school" bullshit today.

the coworker i talk to most often and sit with at break announced to me today that he'd read a very strange news story. i invited him to share, and before he'd got halfway through the premise, i knew what he was on about.

i just went "no. i promise you. no."

and explained why people like to cite this non-existent news story in their ongoing "think of the children!" tirades.

turns out the guy who sits next to him showed him the article. my coworker was like "oh, good, [name] will be so relieved to hear it's not true!"

but of course that second coworker was all "idk man CRAZY stuff is going on these days!"

and i miiiiight've been a little too blatant with my shock that anyone would believe something so obviously designed to outrage people. but i managed to bring it around to the general "if you read something that outrages you, first ask yourself who's benefiting from your outrage" and other critical thinking tools.

to really drive it home, though, because i could tell he was still skeptical (as was another coworker nearby), i went back a bit later and did a quasi-apology "i hope it didn't sound like i thought you were dumb for taking that story at face value" thing, that i'd just genuinely thought people knew that particular story was fake.

i'm still slightly horrified that three people i know accepted this obvious reaction bait as the truth, but i'm hoping they know better now.

there was also some concerning talk about "their environment" and "the internet is everywhere these days" and other coded language about kids being, like, tricked by the adults around them, but like i do not have time to unpack that.

but like jesus christ people. kids are not stupid. they play stupid games and don't know as much about the world as adults do (sometimes), but they're fully capable of making their own decisions and separating reality from fantasy. and like. a kid asking to use a litter box at school would get them bullied so fucking hard. what kid would voluntarily do that to themself??? kids understand that there are social rules you have to abide by or risk rejection.

(i mean i also didn't have time to interrogate the assumption that kids telling people they're a cat is automatically a sign that they're a danger to themselves or others, cos like kids pretend to be animals all the time and it's fucking FINE. and if they genuinely think they're a cat? they probably don't actually think they're a cat, you just can't tell they're fucking with you. but if they DO think they're a cat, how is that your problem? let that kid go be weird and either grow out of it or learn when it's appropriate to talk about it. it's not gonna ruin their life unless you decide to ruin their life for them.)

i know that some people do actually think kids are being indoctrinated by the big scary trans agenda, but for the folks who just think kids are so easily swayed that a single tiktok can convince them they're really an animal? how goddamn insulting. you don't spend the first 18 years of your life a blank slate and then suddenly gain self-awareness when you reach adulthood.

and children having a misconception is not the same as them indelibly stamping that misconception onto their worldview forever. as they learn more information, their understand of the world can change! just like any other goddamn person!

i just. argh. there are SO MANY layers of bullshit here. i'm glad i definitely got my one coworker to understand that story is fake, but those other two....the way they were talking makes me nervous.

i'm not gonna go provoke them into a discussion on trans rights or anything. but like. we know i'm, uh. very passionate about defending children. and i worry that something will come up in the future where i will not be able to hold my tongue. and things will get extremely uncomfortable. and i will wind up in trouble for causing a ruckus.

gonna try and decompress now and not think about that any more tonight. heaven knows i don't need that stress right now.

[c-is-for-circinate]

For a long, large part of my life, being queer in a media landscape--finding queerness in a media landscape--has meant theft.

I'm a Fandom Old, somehow, these days, older than most and younger than some, in that way that's grown associated with grumpy crotchetyness and shotguns on porches and back in my day, we had to wade through our Yahoo Groups mailing lists uphill both ways, boring and irrelevant anecdotes from Back In Those Days when homophobia clearly worked differently than it does now, probably because we weren't trying hard enough. I've seen a lot of stories through the years. I've read a lot of fanfic. (More days than not, for the past twenty years. I've read a lot of fanfic.)

When people my age start groaning and sighing at conversations about representation and queerbaiting, when we roll our eyes and drag all the old war stories out again in the face of AO3 is terrible and Not Good Enough, so often what we say is: you Young Folks Today have no idea how hard, how scary, how limiting it was to be queer anywhere Back In Those Days. Including online, maybe especially online, including in a media landscape that hated us so much more than any one you've ever known. And that is true. Always and everywhere, again and again, it's true, we remember, it's true.

We don't talk so much about the joy of it.

Online fan spaces were my very first queer communities, ever. I was thirteen, I was fourteen, I was fifteen--I was a lonely, over-precocious "gifted kid" two years too young for my grade level in an all-girls' Catholic school in the suburbs--I lived in a world where gay people were a rumor and an insult and a news story about murder. I was straight, of course, obviously, because real people were straight and anyway I was weird enough already--I couldn't be two things strange, couldn't be gay too, but--well, I could read the stories. I could feel things about that. I would have those stories to help me, a few years later, when I knew I couldn't call myself straight any more.

And those stories were theft. There was never any doubt about that. We wrote disclaimers at the top of every fic, with the specter of Anne Rice's lawyers around every corner. We hid in back-corners of the internet, places you could only find through a link from a link from a link on somebody else's recs page, being grateful for the tiny single-fandom archives when you found them, grateful for the webrings where they existed. It was theft, all of it, the stories about characters we did not own, the videotaped episodes on your best friend's VHS player, one single episode pulled off of Limewire over the course of three days.

It was theft, we knew, to even try and find ourselves in these stories to begin with. How many fics did I read in those days about two men who'd always been straight, except for each other, in this one case, when love was stronger than sexual orientation? We stole our characters away from the heterosexual lives they were destined to have. We stole them away from writers and producers and TV networks who work overtime to shower them in Babes of the Week, to pretend that queerness was never even an option. This wasn't given to us. This wasn't meant for us. This wasn't ours to have, ever, ever in the first place. But we took it anyway.

And oh, my friends, it was glorious.

We took it. We stole. And again and again, for years and years and years, we turned that theft into an art. We looked for every opening, every crack in every sidewalk where a little sprout of queerness might grow, and we claimed it for our own and we grew whole gardens. We grew so sly and so skilled with it, learning to spot the hints of oh, this could be slashy in every new show and movie to come our way. Do you see how they left these character dynamics here, unattended on the table? How ripe they are for the pocketing. Here, I'll help you carry them. We'll make off with these so-called straight boys, and we only have to look back if somebody sets out another scene we want for our own.

We were thieves, all of us, and that was fine and that was fair, because to exist as queer in the world was theft to begin with. Stolen time, stolen moments--grand larceny of the institution of marriage, breaking and entering to rob my mother's hopes for grandchildren. Every shoplifted glance at the wrong person in the locker room (and it didn't matter if we never peeked, never dared, they called us out on it anyway). Every character in every fic whose queerness became a crime against this ex-wife, that new love interest. Every time we dared steal ourselves away from the good straight partners we didn't want to date.

And: we built ourselves a den, we thieves, wallpapered in stolen images and filled to the brim with all the words we'd written ourselves. We built ourselves a home, and we filled it with joy. Every vid and art and fic, every ship, every squee. Over and over, every straight boy protagonist who abandoned all womankind for just this one exception with his straight boy protagonist partner found gay orgasms and true love at the end.

Over and over, we said: this isn't ours, this isn't meant to be ours, you did not give this to us--but we are taking it anyway. We will burglarize you for building blocks and build ourselves a palace. These stories and this place in the world is not for us, but we exist, and you can't stop us. It's ours now, full of color and noise, a thousand peoples' ideas mosaic'ed together in celebration. We made this, and it will never be just yours again. You won't ever truly get it back, no matter how many lawyers you send, not completely. We keep what we steal.

.

Things shifted over time, of course. That's good. That's to be celebrated. Nobody should have to steal to survive. It should not be a crime, should not feel like a crime, to find yourself and your space in the world.

There were always content creators who could slip a little wink in when they laid out their wares, oh what's this over here, silly me leaving this unattended where anybody could grab it, of course there might be more over by the side door if you come around the alleyway (but if anybody asks, you didn't get this from ME). We all watched Xena marry Gabrielle, in body language and between the lines. We sat around and traded theories and rumors about whether the people writing Due South knew what they were doing when they sent their buddy cops off into the frozen north alone together at the end of the show, if they'd done it on purpose, if they knew. But over the years, slowly, thankfully, the winks became less sly.

A teenage boy put his hand on another teenage boy's hand and said, you move me, and they kissed on network TV, in a prime-time show, on FOX, and the world didn't burn down. Here and there, where they wanted to, where they could without getting caught by their bosses and managers, content creators stopped subtly nudging people around the back door and started saying, "Here. This is on offer here too, on purpose. You get to have this, too."

And of course, of course that came with a whole host of problems too. Slide around to the back door but you didn't get this from me turned into it's an item on our special menu, totally legit, you've just got to ask because the boss throws a fit if we put it out front. Shopkeepers and content creators started advertising on the sly, come buy your fix here!, hiding the fine print that says you still have to take what you've purchased home and rebuild it with your semi-legal IKEA hacks. Maybe they'll consider listing that Destiel or Sterek as a full-service menu item next year. Is that Crowley/Aziraphale the real thing or is it lite?

And those problems are real and the conversations are worth having, and it's absolutely fair to be frustrated that you can't find the ship you want on sale in anything like your color and size in a vast media landscape packed full of discount hetships and fast-fashion m/f. It's fair to be angry. It's fair to be frustrated. Queerbait is a word that exists for a reason.

There's a part of me that hurts, though, every time the topic comes up. It's a confusing, bad-mannered part of me, but it's still very real. And it's not because I'm fawning for crumbs, trying to be the Good, Non-Threatening Gay. It's not that I'm scared and traumatized by the thought of what might happen if we dare raise our voices and ask for attention. (Well. Not mostly. I'll always remember being quiet and scared and fifteen, but it's been a long two decades since then. I know how to ask for a hell of a lot more now.)

It's because I remember that cozy, plush-wallpapered den of joyful thieves. I remember you keep what you steal.

Every single time--every time--when a story I love sets a couple of characters out on a low, unguarded table, perfectly placed to be pilfered on the sly and taken home and smushed together like a couple of dolls, my very first thought is always, always joy. Always, that instinct says, yay! Says, this is ours now. As soon as I go home and crawl into that pillow-fort den, my instincts say, I will surely find people already at work combing through spoils and finding new ways to combine them, new ways to make them our own. I know there's fic for that. I've already seen fic for that, and I wasn't really interested last time, but the new store display's got my brain churning, and I can't wait to see what the crew back at the hideout does with this.

Every time, that's where my brain goes. And oh, when I realize the display's put out on purpose, that somebody snuck in a legitimate special menu item, when the proprietor gives me the nod and wink and says, you don't have to come around the side, I know it's not much but here--there is so much joy and relief and hope in me from that! Oh, what we can make with these beautiful building blocks. Oh what a story we can craft from the pieces. Oh, the things we can cobble together. Look at that, this one's a little skimpy on parts but we can supplement it, this one's got a whole outline we can fill in however we want. This one technically comes semi-preassembled, and that's boring as shit and a pain to take back apart, but that's fine, we'll manage. We're artists and thieves. I bet someone's pulling out the AU saw to cut it to pieces already.

And then I get back to our den, which has moved addresses a dozen times over the years and mostly hangs out on Tumblr now (and the roof leaks and the landlord's sketchy as fuck but at least they don't charge rent, and we've made worse places our own). And I show up, ready for joy--ready for a dozen other people who saw that low-hanging fruit on that unguarded table, who got the nod and wink about the special menu item, who're ready to get so excited about this newest haul. Did you see what we picked up? The theft was so easy, practically begging to be stolen. The last owner was an idiot with no idea what to do with it. The last owner knew exactly what it could become, bless their heart, under a craftsman with more time on their hands, so they looked away on purpose at just the right time to let me take it home. I show up every time ready for our space, the place that fed me on joy and self-confidence when I was fifteen and starving. The place that taught me, yes, we are thieves, because it is RIGHT to take what we need, and the beautiful things we create are their own justification. We are thieves, and that's wonderful, because nothing is handed to us and that means we get to build our own palaces. We get to keep everything we steal.

I go home, and even knowing the world is different, my instincts and heart are waiting for that. And I walk in the door, and I look at my dash, and I glance over at twitter, and--

And people are angry, again. Angry at the slim pickings from the hidden special menu. So, so tired and angry, at once again having to steal.

And they're right to be! Sometimes (often, maybe) I think they're angry at the wrong people--more angry with the shopkeeper who offers the bite-sized sampler platter of side characters or sneaks their queer content in on the special menu than the ones who don't include it at all. But it's not wrong to be mad that Disney's once again advertising their First Gay Character only to find out it's a tiny sprinkle of a one-line extra on an otherwise straight sundae. It's not wrong to be furious at the world because you've spent your whole life needing to be a thief to survive. It's far from wrong. I'm angry about it too.

But this was my den of thieves, my chop shop, my makerspace. Growing up in fandom, I learned to pick the locks on stories and crack the safes of subtext at the very same time I learned to create. They were the same thing, the same art. We are thieves, my heart says, we are thieves, and that's what makes us better than the people we steal from. We deconstruct every time we create. We build better things out of the pieces.

And people are angry that the pre-fab materials are too hard to find, the pickings too slim, the items on sale too limited? Yes, of course they are, of course they should be--but my heart. Oh, my heart. Every single time, just a little bit, it breaks.

Of course the stories are terrible (they have always been terrible). Of course they are, but we are thieves. We steal the best parts and cobble them back together and what we make is better than it was before. The craftsman's eye that cases a story for weak points, for blank spaces, for anywhere we can fit a crowbar and pry apart this casing--that's skill and art and joy. Of course we shouldn't have to, of course we shouldn't have to, but I still love it. I still want it, crave it. I still thrill every time I see it, a story with hairline cracks that we can work open with clever hands to let the queer in.

That used to be cause for celebration, around here. I ask him to go back to the ruins of Aeor with me, two men together alone on an expedition in the frozen north, it feels like a gift. And I understand why some people take it as an insult. I understand not good enough. I understand how something can feel like a few drops of water to someone dying of thirst, like a slap in the face. If it was so easy to sneak it hidden onto the special menu, to place it on the unguarded side table for someone else to run off to, why not let it sit out front and center in the first place? I know it's frustrating. It should be. We should fight. We should always fight. I know why.

But my heart, oh, my heart. My heart only knows what it's been taught. My heart sees, this thing right here, the proprietor left it there for you with a nod and a wink because they Get It. It's not put together yet, but it's better that way anyway. It's so full of pieces to pull apart and reassemble. I bet they've got a whole mosaic wall going up at home already. We can bring it home and make it OURS, more than it was ever theirs, forget half of what it came from and grow a new garden in what remains.

And I go home to find anger, and my heart breaks instead.

[homo-sex-shoe-whale]

Online shipping, the fetishisation of gay men, and the romanticisation of queer trauma

An essay by me!

Word count: 2.8k

A link to the Google Doc version of this essay.

A big thank you to my friends Nathan @themeerkatnate, Mav @not-mavv , and Duke @dukedark-ness for reading this essay and giving me their thoughts as mlms on the topic. Make sure to check out their blogs and give them a follow!

So I was on a lovely website by the name of Twitter.com yesterday, just scrolling through while having my afternoon cup of coffee, when I saw that viral post of a girl reading a Larry fanfic through a classroom projector. I'm sure most of you have seen it. It's gone viral on Instagram, TikTok, and likely Tumblr too, and if you haven't come across it I'm positive you will soon.

Now, after getting through my initial reaction to that post which was, holy fuck, that's so embarrassing, I had a second reaction of... wait, this ship is still around?

And after I had some thoughts on the incredible permanence of some online ships and the weird obsolescence of others, I did get to thinking of how lots of these popular ships seem to stem from the same types of perceived relationship dynamics and homophobic stereotypes.

These online fandoms often seem to have an obsession with objects of queer trauma, such as having to hide a relationship, lying about sexuality for self-preservation, and even social rejection. So, after some opinions from my followers and the great archive that is the internet, I've decided to discuss some of the most popular examples of online shipping and the particular nuances they came with.

NOTE: Out of respect for all these people, I won't be sharing viral images or videos of them in perceived romantic proximity (or even kissing, as is applicable for some examples), but I will be describing certain moments I deem to be relevant. So even if you're unfamiliar with them, you won't be confused as to what I'm talking about.

NOTE 2: Although not all people within these fandoms were/are toxic, this essay is focused on the overall toxicity of the fandoms, and how they are toxic more so as a "hive" than as a group of individuals. When I refer to a fandom I don't mean every person involved in the fandom, but rather the collective impact of the group.

 1. Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson 

This is arguably the most popular example of online shipping. The absolute permanence of this ship, and how its fandom never seems to fully die off even beyond the lifespan of One Direction as it once stood, is downright impressive.  

I'm going to be the first to admit I was never in the loop with this fandom. My childhood best friend was actually a massive Larry shipper and asked me to beta read one of her fics, but that was before I even knew who tf Harry and Louis were! Not because I avoided the fandom or even because I rejected the online shipping, but just by coincidence, I delved into the world of pop punk music right when One Direction began gaining its popularity. I bought my first ever album, Riot by Paramore, in 2011- only a year after One Direction made their X-Factor debut. So, this fandom just bypassed me by a sort of weird coincidence.

But I don't need to be in the loop with this fandom to know the astronomical obsession with these two men, no, these two BOYS, was extremely toxic. In 2010, when One Direction made their debut, Harry Styles was only 16 years old. And Louis Tomlinson wasn't much older at 19! This made the two of them incredibly young when this unprecedented wave of shipping hit the internet, and although that must be traumatising for anyone, I cannot even fathom how overwhelming it must've been for two boys that young.  

I'm 18, almost 19 now, and I cannot begin to imagine how scary it was for the two of them to have their every interaction nitpicked within an inch of its life by thousands upon thousands of people online. I do not know this myself, but from numerous recounts by some of my followers, this massively impacted Harry's and Louis' nondescript relationship in real life, seemingly driving the two previously close friends apart. 

Now, before we move on, there's something we need to talk about. And that is the obsession with the dominance/submission dynamic within the world of gay shipping. 

With almost every popular mlm (an acronym meaning man-loving-man) ship based on real people, it seems that fandoms have a particular fascination with power imbalances in these relationships. You don't even need to look at the insane amount of fanfictions based on BDSM to figure this out. In almost all of the examples I'll be citing today, there is an age gap within the perceived relationship and a person the fandom has seemingly decided to be the top/dominant figure. 

Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson are 3 years apart in age. Although it isn't all that relevant now, an age gap of 3 years when you're in your late teens is a lot more significant. In 2012, for example, when this shipping really started gaining traction, Harry Styles was 18 and Louis Tomlinson was 21. That power imbalance, albeit not that significant, is enough for a fandom to latch on to. We'll see this a lot more in the coming example with Dan and Phil.

 2. Dan Howell and Phil Lester

It's impossible to have a discussion about internet shipping without talking about Dan and Phil.

 Dan Howell and Phil Lester, although being popular YouTubers individually, are arguably one of the internet's most iconic duos. The two creators published their first videos together in 2009, and while their relationship was already a motive of speculation back then, the peak of the "Phan" shipping definitely came in the 2013-2016 era of Tumblr.

Now, I'm going to admit… I was actually on Tumblr when that happened. 

The 2013-2016 period perfectly aligns with my middle school days (I started middle school in 2013 and high school in 2016), and I was not only on Tumblr back then, but I was on Wattpad too! Again, this wasn't a fandom I had much contact with as I had a huge anime phase in middle school and I was on Tumblr posting mainly photography and Soul Eater content more than anything. 

But I did watch some of Dan and Phil's videos! And the occasional "Phan" content did not completely evade me as one of my closest friends in middle school had a fanchat for them. I wasn't involved in the fandom myself but they were actually one of the few English-speaking YouTubers I watched once in a blue moon (back then I watched mainly Brazilian YouTubers). One thing I did in fact notice over the years, around 2014ish perhaps, was that the two of them seemed to grow increasingly "awkward" around each other, in a way that many folks on the internet thought was reminiscent to Markiplier/Jacksepticeye, two YouTubers who also dealt with extraordinary amounts of shipping.

I'm not the only one who thinks this. The change in Dan and Phil's relationship, at least to the outside world, was clear to almost anyone who watched their videos for a while. I cannot blame them at all. The shipping was nuts. Between the countless fan videos, speculative comments, and insurmountable number of fanfics, there's no way the two of them didn't feel the weight of the shipping. The term "demon phannie" made its way into internet vernacular and there it stayed for years. Even Shane Dawson, who was one of the largest creators on the platform at the time, made several videos speculating on the nature of Dan and Phil's relationship and their sexual orientations. 

There was even porn made in which actors with similar appearances to the creators were made to have sex on camera. 

Now, this is actually a rare example where the two people involved in the ship actually came out as gay once the shipping seemed to die down. I'm incredibly happy Dan and Phil both reached a point where they were comfortable being publicly out, but I hate to say I'm shocked this day ever came. If I'd gone through what the two of them did, I don't know if I'd ever trust the internet. 

And again, this ship's fandom definitely had an obsession with the power dynamics they thought existed between the people within the ship. Dan Howell is 4 years younger than Phil Lester, and was only 18 in 2009, when they started making videos together. From my personal understanding, the shipping was often quite focused on this dominant/submissive dynamic especially in discussions from their early relationship. And this is in no way exclusive to Dan and Phil.

This general fascination with the older man/younger man dynamic, in my opinion, plays into the homophobic stereotype that gay men are predators. The idea that gay men usually seek younger men, and somehow "convince" them to engage in homosexual relationships, is popular homophobic rhetoric. The popularisation, exaggeration, and fetishisation of these power imbalances, in age and/or in relationship dynamics, is directly harmful to the mlm community. 

Not only that, but the romanticisation of a "hidden/forbidden relationship" is also detrimental not only to gay men and the mlm community, but to queer people as a whole. Queer people face huge trauma having to hide their relationships; queer attraction is already a societal taboo. And acting like this is good, or even desirable, is harmful to queer people as a whole, regardless of whether or not it's actually applicable to the people being shipped. It normalises this trauma not only to cisgender, heterosexual people, but to impressionable queer youth who grow to believe this type of trauma is to be expected. 

3. Frank Iero and Gerard Way

This is another example where the perceived power imbalances between the two subjects of the shipping were directly exploited online. Now, this ship did precede the others mentioned above. If we're looking at this topic chronologically, this particular ship did come first in the shipping timeline. It's closer to the origin of the shipping extended universe, if you will.

In case you aren't familiar with them, Frank Iero and Gerard Way are both members of the American emo band My Chemical Romance. This ship is the first one here of which I don't recall the full popularity. It really peaked in popularity around the late 2000s, circa 2008. And I don't remember this moment online as in 2008, I was only 6 years old and believe it or not, I wasn't really all that concerned with rumoured homoeroticism as a first grader. 

However, the popularity of this ship did carry over into the 2013-2015 Tumblr shipping boom. The emo fandom (or "bandom" as it was called) involving not only My Chemical Romance but other similar bands such as Fall Out Boy, Panic! At The Disco, and Pierce the Veil, found its hub on Tumblr. 

During this time, I did in fact listen to this style of music, but was focused a lot more on the anime side of Tumblr as mentioned earlier. Of course, I wasn't 13 years old like, "hey, this type of content might be harmful and can inadvertently perpetuate homophobic stereotypes," I just happened to care more about my silly little anime and ended up not getting involved. 

This ship does involve a discussion that the others don't, however. With Frank Iero and Gerard Way, there is quite often a certain sentiment of, "Oh, they brought this upon themselves!" as the two band members very famously kissed during a show in 2007. In my opinion, though, this doesn't really justify all the obsessive shipping. If you look at Green Day, a band often grouped in with MCR as another famous pop punk group, the members don't follow too different of a trajectory. Billie Joe Armstrong has, on numerous occasions, kissed both of his fellow band members onstage- particularly Tré Cool, the drummer. And Billie Joe Armstrong is openly bisexual, which none of the members of MCR seem to be but some, or even all of Billie's bandmates, are too. 

You'd think Green Day would face a lot more shipping as the more persistent onstage homoeroticism and Billie Joe's openness about his sexuality would warrant more "substantiated" speculation. However, Green Day faces nowhere near as much shipping as My Chemical Romance. Why is this? I actually don't know. It might've been because Green Day has been around for over a decade longer and generally has an older fandom, but I really am not that sure. 

 It could also be because of the lower lack of potential for forced relationship dynamics. The members of Green Day are all less than a year apart in age and are even similar in height. However, Frank Iero is 4 years younger than Gerard Way, who is not only the frontman of My Chemical Romance, but also considered to be the group's intellectual and creative "leader". Even beyond that, Gerard Way is quite visibly taller, and the perceived power difference between the two of them definitely did not elude their fans. 

This difference could even be partly due to the lack of a "mystery" with Green Day. There's not as much to speculate as, well… the members of Green Day are already open about their sexual orientations. It might be that shipping in the Green Day fandom has less of a forbidden appeal for most people. 

Of course, I won't just keep repeating myself, but my previous points about forced relationship dynamics still stand.

4. Martin Freeman and Benedict Cumberbatch

Better known for their roles in BBC Sherlock as Sherlock and Watson, Martin Freeman and Benedict Cumberbatch unfortunately had their roles follow them well into real life. This is the example I know least about, so have these thoughts from a follower by the name of @indubitably-a-goblin, who had the following to say:

"the main issues i had with it were:

a) they were both married at the time, freeman to amanda abbington and cumberbatch to sophie hunter (in which both had children)

b) the main reasoning for it was their chemistry in the many projects they've done together. which is, shockingly, their Whole Job. They're actors! That's what they're supposed to do! if they weren't good at interacting then they wouldn't be good actors! i don't know how people can't understand this.

c) they're real people. we don't know them. we aren't friends with them. we aren't their family members. we have zero right to be pushing this onto them and ruining their friendship by doing so. (this one relates to most of the ships you've mentioned though)

d) healthy friendships between two men are ignored so plainly in most medias and in fandom. its obvious that these two men have a relationship, but that doesn't mean it's a romantic one.

e) its fine to ship their characters, but actors shouldn't be treated as less-than-human or some sort of prop. they're doing a job, and once they are off-screen, they aren't here for your entertainment."

I believe she did a great job of summing it up on her own, and for the sake of avoiding redundancy, I'll leave it at that!

5. Corpse Husband and Sykkuno- an emerging yet subtle example

I am absolutely positive you remember how popular the game Among Us was a couple of months ago. And with the popularity of this game, some of its most prominent content creators became the targets of online shipping- as is the case with YouTubers and streamers Corpse Husband and Sykkuno. 

Although the shipping involving these two creators is nowhere near as strong as it was/is with the examples above, I do think there is once again a reemergence of a common theme here. Whilst Sykkuno is known for his happy-go-lucky, almost "innocent" persona, Corpse Husband is the antithesis of this, known for his much darker and moodier personality. 

Do I even have to mention what the common theme seems to be?

Again, although the popularity of shipping - at least with real people - seems to have died down a bit since the Tumblr shipping boom of the early to mid 2010s, I do believe this example is worth mentioning. Even though the creators are still close, they have in fact expressed discomfort regarding the shipping, and I can only hope the internet as a whole lets their friendship blossom and exist naturally without obsessive speculation. 

My final thoughts

As explored in the essay:

The romanticisation of objects of queer trauma as a part of online shipping normalises queer trauma to both cishet and queer youth. 

Online shipping, especially at a high intensity, can end up negatively impacting the very relationships they pine over. 

The relationship dynamics often forced on mlm ships perpetuate homophobic stereotypes about non-heterosexual men. 

If anyone else has thoughts on this matter, do share! This essay is moreso an opinionated observational piece and isn't meant to be taken as fact but rather just as my thoughts on the matter. I hope it was useful as a reflective piece regardless!

Date of posting: June 16th 2021

[blakelywintersfield]

Minors

Okay so, I originally wrote this in response to this post (my friend's reblog is linked instead of the original because OP either deleted it from their blog I guess?), but I feel like this constitutes as its own post.

I know this may sound like an overbearing parent "don't trust strangers on the internet" talk, but like. I don't think a lot of you understand just how quickly a situation can escalate; it's scary. I mean that not in a condescending "you think you're untouchable you stupid little child, you don't really know what the world is like" way either, but as in, I don't think internet safety is being taught realistically, so those things you're told to watch out for are far-fetched or already seem suspect.

Predators don't work the way TV shows joke that they do -- most predators aren't going to try and message you at random posing as a teenage girl and attempt to strike up a friendship. A lot interact in community spaces like tumblr, where some level of anonymity is allowed, and it's not odd for there to be people of both minor and adult ages. They interact with a variety of people -- not just targets. They will have full-fledged social circles. Their blogs and social interactions will look like literally any other person's on here.

Then, of the different blogs they follow, they end up interacting a lot with a certain user. Maybe the kind of humor clicks, or similar opinions, or interests. Nothing out of the ordinary; that's how people make friends. Maybe then they start by sending an ask, or a message, or whatever, and that continues for a bit until you two are kind of acclimated to one another, and then, as far as everyone is concerned, it's just a new friend! Neat! That's how you make friends on the internet. They most likely did this with their other friends on tumblr. Nothing weird. In this hypothetical, the minor party has their full name and city public.

But then this person you make friends with -- the way you would any other person on this website -- turns out to be 10+ years your senior. Which like. Honestly, you don't have to cut them out of your life and block them immediately, but you inform them you're 10 years younger than them. A responsible adult would respond to that knowledge with anything from the range of "oh holy shit you're baby uhh I feel a little weird interacting with you so personally" to "oh goodness you are a youngling I will now enter caregiver/parent-like mode". And there will be an established tone from there of "we may still interact but there is going to always be a set emotional distance". It'll have a different dynamic/feeling to the friendships you have with people your age. And it should. Both parties can still care about each other! But this isn't someone you would like. Hang out one on one with. You wouldn't hang out with your mom's friend one on one, or at your teacher's home alone. That'd be weird, right? That should be the same kind of vibe you get with any adult "friendship" you make online (I put friendship in quotes because I feel like... there's a better term for it, or should be one that establishes that adult/minor relationship, but if there is I can't for the life of me remember it).

But maybe that person doesn't go down that path. Maybe it comes off that way at first, but there's a subtle level of emotional manipulation that is subtle enough that you're not certain you can accuse them of being manipulative. "Oh wow, you're so much younger than me... do you still want to talk to me / be friends / etc.? I can leave you alone now if you want." Warning sign #1: they are pressuring you to make the decision; they are placing responsibility on you. And it might feel a little mean to just drop communication all of a sudden because of age -- you got along fine before. Why should that change anything? That's a rational thought process, but it's also the one that benefits them too.

So hypothetically, you say "no it's okay, we can still talk. we were talking just fine before we found out each other's ages so why should that change?" And then maybe the conversation continues normally from there. But then they continue interacting with you as your peers would. You guys talk about stuff that's been stressing you or your problems, just like you would with your peers. Nothing seems out of the ordinary. Warning sign #2: That form of emotional connection isn't normal with an adult/minor relationship. I have minors that follow me. They have talked to me about their problems, and I've offered advice and wisdom; I don't condemn that because, well. As adults, we should help guide the younger if asked. But when it comes to my troubles, I limit how much I discuss with them. I don't bring them up myself (it's often brought up by the other party because I'll post about it on here, like a vent post or whatever). And while I don't brush them off with a short "don't worry about it", I make it clear -- I appreciate that you care enough to make sure I'm okay (because their sympathy / care is just as valuable as an adult's), but even if I'm not okay, the burdens and problems surrounding my troubles will be dealt with by me. I don't ask them for advice. I don't goad them for sympathetic words. And it's not that I believe they couldn't give good advice, or their sympathy means less, but an adult should not be relying on a minor for those levels of emotional labor. That established emotional connection where both parties exchange advice and comfort is how predators manipulate their victims because it's subtle and seemingly harmless, and difficult to paint them as a bad person when you have that level of emotional trust.

And once that emotional connection is established, that's when things can escalate, and get scary, quickly.

One day while talking they will probably bring it up -- the way one of your peers would. Something along the lines of "hey can I tell you something?" or "there's something I want to tell you but I'm afraid you won't want to talk to me anymore if I do" etc. etc.; with that peer/peer dynamic, that'll make you anxious, sure. You'd probably get anxious if they were your own age and said that too. So then, it comes out in some form that "I like you, but like... as more than a friend" or "I think you're really cute; I have for a bit now actually" or something similar. Obviously then it's uncomfortable.

But then you realize -- this is an adult. This is someone who has access to transportation. This is someone that doesn't have to report to someone (i.e. a minor can't just say "I'm going out of town for a week bye!" like your parents would, or SHOULD, be like "uh okay where are you going, who are you going to be with, why, etc. etc. etc."). And they know your full name and a general idea of where you live. You could just block them then and there and remove that information from your blog. But what if they already saved it? What if they already used one of those websites where you can look up a person's address by name for $5? What if they already know where you live, and they had planned on asking to meet up? They might know where you live. And you can't confirm or deny that they know. You can't say for sure if you removed that information before they saved it and used it for that purpose. Suddenly, there's the very real possibility that a pedophile that admitted to being attracted to you knows where you live.

Then what do you do? You should tell your parents or a trusted authority figure. But you're also a teenager and there's the likelihood that your parents might brush it off, or get angry with you, and you might get your internet taken away, etc., which is stressful because that takes away a major social area. To build upon the anxiety with that, there's the risk of unknowing if this person does know where you live, and if they do, if they are just unstable enough to do something drastic, like, y'know. Kidnap you. Because they know where you live. And they may know your school schedule too. And if your parents or trusted authority figure doesn't know about this situation, you may end up a missing child never found at worst, or found with far more trauma (5 years of life being kidnapped as opposed to a few months) that could've been avoided had someone known the situation.

But to 100% ensure your safety, it would have to be reported to the police. Because your parents can't do anything about the fact that a pedophile on the internet might know where you live. They can't confirm or deny that they know, and if they did, there's not much they can do other than keep an eye out for someone that looks out of the ordinary. But if they're most likely not home at the same time you are all the time. So, having the police involved ensures your safety -- if you open a case. You can report it to the police, and they'll ask: do you want to press charges (because it could be considered a form of child endangerment). If you say no, then that guarantees if you are kidnapped, that person would be the first they'd look to as a suspect. But to avoid that kidnapping risk at all, you'd have to say yes. And you're a kid that's now having to get involved in court just to avoid any risk to your safety because a pedophile may or may not have your address and may or may not be someone that would abduct their target, and so even if they didn't have your address and wouldn't kidnap you, you are now in a legal situation, which is. extremely. stressful. As someone's who's dealt with the court system a lot it's stressful no matter what.

And sure, you could omit the last step. But then you'll have that looming anxiety for as long as you're a minor that there is a possibility this person may show up at your house at some point. And that anxiety is fucking torture. I know it firsthand, I know all of this up to the legal portion firsthand, because this is exactly how I got tangled up with a pedophile in high school. That anxiety can make you paranoid. It impacts your sleep, which impacts your emotional tolerance and your concentration. It looms and there's nothing you can do to get rid of it other than convince yourself "they probably don't have my address; they probably won't find me". And that logic becomes sounder as time passes. But it requires time to pass, and in the meantime, you sit in constant suffering suspense.

It's just not fucking worth it, okay? You might think "this would never happen to me" but like. I was the fat emo weirdo in high school, literally considered attractive by no one and told so by peers and I still had it happen to me. So don't think "I'm not appealing enough" or whatever. Put self-esteem issues aside here, because to them, you're underage and at a power dynamic disadvantage not just physically, but most likely emotionally too. They care that you're a certain (under)age and can be manipulated into sexual acts. They will target you no matter how ugly you think you are or how unattractive your peers have convinced you.

So please. As an adult, that went through this situation (and could've had it turn out a lot worse tbh) -- do not disclose your real name (especially last names), location more specific than country, phone number, or school publicly online or to anyone you cannot 100% trust. I practice half of these in adulthood just to err on the side of caution since a full name and phone number alone could be used to find my address, and there are some preeeeetty unstable people out there. As a minor, absolutely no one needs any information unless you plan on meeting them in person, which should only be done after you've gotten to know them extremely well and both parties' parents know and are involved. It doesn't need to be on your public profile, and it shouldn't be on your public profile. I want your social media experience to be as enjoyable as possible, I don't want you feeling like you have to constantly keep an eye out for predators. But to keep yourself as safe as possible, don't purposefully make that information public. It's simple, but it’ll help you avoid so much potential stress.

Please stay safe.

[on-stardust-wings]

Now that we art all here, let us recount the deeds of the day.

*puts on Crowley sunglasses*

So, I'm not living in one of the privileged countries that get to legally buy and listen to the new Good Omens Full Cast Audiobook. I have tried buying it the normal way, but it won't show up, or it disappears as soon as I log in or try paying something. I decided to give the Audible part of @fuckyeahgoodomens guide a try first, before coming up with own (and potentially worse) ideas.

I am also a gremlin child of the late 2000s internet, I live almost entirely on open source software, I avoid the likes of Microsoft, Google, Apple and Amazon as much as I can in my digital life, and I grew up enjoying TV shows and comics that did not sell in my country. I do not actually pirate things unless it can't be avoided, I'm happy for the creators to have my money, but I also hacked my Blu-Ray player into forgetting that region locking exists a week after getting it and I have tricked Amazon and Audible into selling me things that aren't for my backwater country before.

On a tangent, region locking is such stupid capitalist bullshit they do for digital content. If I want a hard copy of something in another language or from another country, I can usually buy one online. I can go to a website and buy a copy of a book from Australia or a CD from Brazil. I'll have to pay extra shipping probably, and possibly import tax, but that's the extent of the problem. I can also, technically, just travel somewhere and buy something that's only selling in this country. I don't have to give back a copy of a book I bought in the states when I cross European borders. That's not a thing.

In the same vein is the issue of DRM/copy protection. I understand it's purpose in preventing black market sales; I do not understand that I'm not legally allowed to have copies for my own personal perusal. If I bought a hardcover book, I own it and I can do whatever with it. I can draw in it. I can cut out pages I don't like. I can legally take that book and if I own a printer/copier, I can copy it page by page and have one real book in my living room and a stack of self-made paper copies on my nightstand. Short of selling the copies, all's fine. It's mine because I bought it. Same with CDs or suchlike. Turn the tracks on the CD into MP3s to put on my mobile player or in the car or whatever? Cut a track in half and listen to only the first half because I don't like the second part? Fine. It's mine. I bought it. I am not allowed to sell any copies, but for my own use, I can do with it whatever I like.

So, with this overall background and mindset, I logged into Audible.com instead of my local version, looking to pick a small fight with a multibillion dollar company and their idea of media rights and property.

And what does the multibillion dollar company do? It goes "Oh hey, you haven't been here for a while, do you want a free trial? Here, you can choose one free title, whatever you like."

I don't often listen to audiobooks, in fact, I only listen to audiobooks of favourite books I reread all the time anyway, so whenever I buy one, I immediately cancel my membership after buying the book I want, because there's no point in paying a monthly fee if I buy, like, one book per year. And instead of being mad at me for this, half the time I get offered gifts.

So, I log on, full of spite and looking for trouble, and am offered a gift instead.

Joke's on you, Amazon.

I still have to go through the 'set your credit card to US' thing described in the guide, but since I don't actually buy anything with this card, because I've been given a free book of my choice yay, I don't have to contest with any of the weird and scary messages some people get about their credit card info being fishy. I am now powered by spite as well as glee.

I manage to buy the book for my free credit. I get an email about my purchase.

That was easier than I thought.

I go to open the Audible app on my phone. The Audible app on my phone currently contains two books. None of them were bought in my own country (I think they're from the UK? But it's been a while so not sure). Its purchase history says this account never bought anything, because the account is registered to where I live, and I have indeed never bought a book there. (Look, I like books in other languages.)

The new Good Omens book does not show up. Not even after clearing the cache on the phone and refreshing everything.

The link in the email I got takes me to my country's audible website. The book cannot be found anywhere. I spent quite some time searching, too.

By now I'm back to being more spiteful than gleeful. I log back onto the Audible.com website, and whee, there it is in my previous purchases. I can listen to it in the browser (nice, but very impractical), and I can download it. Yay, download. (I also do not really like streaming things. Parts of that is the shitty internet connection in my parts, the rest of it is that sense of "I want to have a copy of it on my own hard drive".)

The downloaded file is .aax, Audible's own audio format, which is basically an MPEG-4 audio file encrypted with a 4-byte key that's unique to your account. 4-byte is super cheap in terms of encryption, so it's not very hard to get around. This is relevant information to this story because that's the next thing I did.

Could I have tried to somehow get my downloaded file into an official Audible app on my phone or computer to get it to play? Probably. Maybe. But here I was with the full file on my own hardware while also being just about done with All Things Amazon. If I want to burn this on CD or put on my MP3 player or my phone to listen to with a music player app of my choice, you can't stop me, Amazon.

Did you know that you can open your browser of choice, go to https://audible-converter.ml/ and drag and drop your .aax file into it, it'll spit out your activation bytes (that's the key to decrypt it with)? You can do that. You can then run it through a command line tool to decrypt it on your computer, or you can tell it to do so in the browser window (slower, but works on all platforms, just pick an output format of your choice and there ya go).

So, I now happen to have an unlocked MP3 of mildly dubious legality (I think it's illegal to strip the DRM, but as long as I'm not selling it *shrug*), for free.

I have that file because region locking exists and I was not able to easily purchase the thing I wanted in my own country. I would have given you money, Amazon. I would have been happy to. It was your own choice to make it a gift, and your own choice to refuse playing it on the regular players. But it was a pleasure doing business with you. Sincerely, fuck you.

PS: I'm off now to donate the money I didn't spend on the book to Alzheimer's Research. GNU Terry Pratchett.

Ciao. *takes off Crowley sunglasses*

[skellebonez]

So, I have a weird request: Mei, Jin and Yin with 28 and 50. I fell victim of my own au and now I just want these three to be friends and cause mayhem.

Ok, you both sent me these SO CLOSE TOGETHER BY CHANCE that I had to combine them. This is the most prompts I have shoved into one fill and I consider this an achievement.

You call this luck? No, this is all skill./That cute act is all just a lie./I was not expecting that to work as well as it did./Ok, who gave out my number? I have 12 missed calls, 4 voicemails, and 75 unread texts!/No, listen, hear me out. All we need is some really good disguises.

“Ok, who gave out my number?” Mei asked as she slammed the door to Jin and Yin’s workshop open with a harsh kick that sent it slamming into the wall, a scowl on her face. She wasn’t particularly angry, just annoyed, but they didn’t have to know that yet. “I have 12 missed calls, 4 voicemails, and 75 unread texts! I had to change my number because before I cleared the first set of notifications I had over 80 each!”

“How do you know it was us?” Jin asked defensively from his spot sitting on the nearest table, and Mei allowed her face to fall into an deadpan expression, raising just one eyebrow.”... ok, fair, it was Yin.”

“Hey!” Yin yelped as he rolled out on a skateboard from... whatever in the world it was he was working on. “Why are you calling me out like this? I thought you were my brother!”

Mei watched at the two got up from where they sat, getting in each other’s faces and arguing about “brotherly betrayal” and if she was being honest Mei almost thought that this would have been nearly enough to make up for her needing to change her number for the first time in years. Almost. It was when Jin yelled “That cute act is all just a lie!” and Yin gasped in offense that she decided she had enough amusement for the moment and whistled as loud as she could to get the twin’s attention.

“Alright gentlemen, may I ask why my phone number was leaked in the first place?” Mei asked slowly, gaze firmly centered on Yin.

“... In my defense, I didn’t post it publicly,” Yin said as he held up his hands in surrender. “I only gave it to one person and they said they were a friend of yours because I needed some tech they had and they said it was payment for the favor!”

“One person made 82 calls?” Jin asked with a look of disbelief and horror on his face. “Who has time for 82 phone calls?”

“They’re all spam bot calls and texts, it isn- Wait, go back a second,” Mei held up a hand, gesturing for Yin to speak again. “Who said they were a friend of mine?”

“A streamer guy, Bo-something?”

“BoFullStrike,” Mei said with venom lacing her words, a low growl sounding in the depths of her check. “Of course it was Bo, he’s been trying to get back at me for beating him at his best game for like 2 weeks now since our crossover stream like the sore loser that he is. He’s been trying to spam my email this entire time, apparently spam is how he gets revenge.”

“Is his name actually Bo?” Yin asked in curiosity.

“No, it’s just his screen name, but lets not get distracted!” Mei smirked, walking up to the twins and putting her arms around their necks in a half hug each. “To make up for ruining my phone, and because you like me, you two are going to help me get back at him so he will just leave me in peace.”

“Uh,” Jin and Yin looked at each other, then back at Mei and Jin continued. “Is, you know... Macaque gonna have to know about this? We’re already kind of in deep water with him as it is and-”

“No, listen, hear me out. All we need is some really good disguises.”

“And why am I being pulled into this?” Jin asked with a sigh.

“You two are a package deal.”

~

Mei had to admit, when the demon bros had someone who knew how to make a plan for them? They were scary good at what they could do. All three of their technological knowledge combined was a terrifying force to behold, and Mei could see they weren’t too shabby with designing things they weren’t tech itself either. The three of them, both Jin and Yin in their human forms, were disguised so well that Mei almost didn’t recognize her own reflection in her wig and make up. It was perfect!

What was also perfect was the absolute chaos erupting in the internet cafe they had tracked BoFullStrike down to. He really should take internet security a little more seriously, it was far too easy...

Just as it was far too easy to remote connect to the computer he was using to practice his gaming in on an alt account and completely mess with all of his controls and download some nasty nasty viruses onto it from the other side of the building. They weren’t anything too hard for the cafe to get rid of, and it wasn’t anything that would affect the entire computer network, but it was just enough to make the cafe owner pissed off enough to kick him out (that would have made her feel bad if she didn’t know Bo also lived on his own in his own house on his parent’s dime and only came here so no one would track his ISP to alt accounts, and that there were 20 other such cafes in the city for him to move to).

Now the other streamer was angrily stomping out of the building passing by the chaos trio and would have not even been aware of their involvement had Jin and Yin not yanked him half a foot into the (admittedly brightly lit and easy to see into) alleyway beside the cafe.

“Hey, BO,” Mei said with a smirk as the twins held an arm each for extra security. Like bouncers. Or very strange bodyguards she didn’t actually need. “Still angry I beat you in front of all your followers huh?”

“You!” Bo, or whatever his actual name was Mei didn’t care enough about this to remember that, said after a moment of confusion when he recognized her voice. “You humiliated me on purpose! Just like last time!”

“This time yes, that time? No, you humiliated yourself behind the scenes when you started trying to sign me up for car insurance scams,” Mei said with a sigh. “Look, guy, just leave me alone. No one except you cares that I beat you in a few matches at a game I was already on the leader boards for.”

“You just got lucky!” He scoffed, pulling his arms and tensing with a fearful look as he realized he couldn’t move.

“You call this luck? No, this is all skill,” Mei said with a smirk as she held up her phone and Bo’s face went white as a sheet at the information scrolling on the screen. “Yeah, you should probably invest in something. Like a firewall. A VPN. Literally anything. This was not hard to find at all. Dude, I kinda feel bad that you’re so bad at tech security so I am doing you a favor, just leave me alone and I will literally give you a high tech security system and never speak to you again.”

“Or... what?” Bo said with a shake. “You’ll post all my info online?”

“Hell no!” Mei winced with a disgusted look, shaking her head. “You’re being an asshole, but I’m not evil! I was just gonna sign you up for spam too until you took my offer. Ew.”

“Oh... well... I guess... sure?” The man looked mostly confused more than anything else, shrugging as much as he could before Jin and Yin let him go. “That’s... really it?”

“Yeah, dude, I didn’t want that much revenge just a little bit. Like I said, stop signing me up for spam and I will never speak to you ever again.”

“... OK,” Bo said, and yelped as Mei tossed some kind of USB drive at him. “Uh-”

“You have everything you need in there,” Mei said with a shrug, waving him off.

Bo shrugged again, still looking incredibly confused as he ran off, muttering something like “ok maybe that was kind of badass I guess” under his breathe.

“I was not expecting that to work as well as it did,” Mei said with a laugh, holding up both hands to either side. “Good job, my dudes, you are off the hook.”

Both twin’s palms met her own in very satisfying high fives, and all three thought they should totally team up for stuff like this more often.

(The next day BoFullStrike sent her an actual email with a proper apology.)

[monsterqueers]

Nonhuman Still A Decade Later - An Essay

So ive been identifying as a therian for around decade now, and otherkin and fictionkin about 6-ish(7?). I never made huge amounts of insightful posts, and I don't have any hot takes to add to other people’s. My internet presence is largely a fandom one with a side of social justice things, and thus even if I did have something I felt worth saying on the topic beyond yet another awakening story or an explanation of my past lives and whathaveyou, the viewership would be small and those who might find worth in the post wouldn’t see it.

I am no greymuzzle, no queer elder, no ‘fandom old’, I was 12-ish and heard ‘therian’ on a furry podcast and went ‘oh, thats the word for how I am. Everything makes sense now’ and proceeded to lurk mostly thereafter. I don't have all that much wisdom, im just vibing over here. But, I can talk about what its like, ten years later.

'Growing Out Of It'

I mean, you might. You might realize you aren’t a wolf, or a angel, or a pikachu or whatever. You might work through your misanthropy and gender dysphoria and trauma and internalized woes and fraught teenage experiences and come out the other side finding you aren’t these things. There's no shame in that, and it does happen.

These no shame in having a past life that you used to ID strongly as, but don't anymore, or you find you were a different kintype than you thought, or that you were human all along, even years later.

You could still ID as the thing but its not as bright anymore- but rather how humans view being human; barely of note most of the time. You may go from shifting every day heavily to being slightly shifted at all times and spiking rarely.

BUT

But, not only does that not make your experience in-the-moment any less real, but it also could just never happen. You might never have how you identify fade or change.

It might sound scary, it might be scary in the moment, even, but there is nothing truly to fear from change like this, nor from discovering what you are, really. It is a new evolution of you. It may be sad, to say goodbye to a label you've had for so long, that helped you find friends, or got you through tough times, but it doesn’t fit anymore. Marie Kondo has the right of it- thank that label, that community, that identity, and move to what does fit- what helps you.

It might also sound scary, that you will be a nonhuman thing in a meatsuit that doesn't fit until you die, that you might not ever grow out of the uncontrolled shifting and the aching dysphoria and homesickness for places you have never been. And maybe it will never go away, but it will get easier. You will find coping methods, supportive people, have access to resources and help. Eventually, these things hurt less. You get used to it. You settle into your skin, even if it isnt the right one, its still yours.

Cringe

At this point, I am immune to cringe. You will get there too, probably. Im a plural, nonhuman, neurodivergent, furry, fictionkind, genderqueer and regular queer magic-using, anime-watching, kinky fandom freak of a pagan and im living my best life. I wear a collar in public every day. My face mask has a cat face on it and I plan to get more just like it. Im going to be adding a tail and claw gauntlets to my itinerary of everyday wear once I get something properly washable. At some point you just stop caring as much about how others perceive you. So what if what you do is embarrassing and weird? It makes you happy, right? You aren't going to get hurt wearing it? Then go for it! You have nothing to lose but your shame. People will try to shame you, that is true, but as time goes on, you will find you give less of a shit about if people laugh or stare. You can bottle it up, or you can be free. Just be sure to be safe.

The Disk Horse

Once you’ve been here awhile, drama becomes the same cycles- the same drama llama, different day. You’ve already seen that argument, years ago. You’ve read that thread, you were there for that community debate that settled how the forum would do things. You’ve seen the same types of trolls, the same bad actors pop up. It gets old, after awhile.

Maybe you used to have the energy to debate and discuss and keep up with all of that, but you probably don’t now. Or if you do, its simply to inform and lurk and not to debate anymore.

Your love of debate will fade when you have the same one every six months for ten years. Trust me.

Dunking on trolls and rude assholes and debating with KFFs and anti-kin and having intra-community fistfights is going to lose its shine, especially when you look back at the posts years from now and see how many hours you wasted typing at people who aren’t going to listen to facts and certainly wont listen to you.

Daily Life

Its- normal. I am a dragon, I am a cat, I am living life.

Personally, I have some past lives I no longer identify as that I used to- even though the past life is still there. I have kintypes i've since learned I had kinfeels of only because of other identity relations (paratypes, I believe the new word is called). I used to shift often, I don't much anymore, its a low-grade 20% all the time. Since figuring out and coming to terms with our plurality, some kinfeels were found to belong to people who are not me. We have access to buying things that alleviate dysphoria, we no longer have the horrible emotional state we had in high school that exacerbated nonhuman difficulties.

Life is good, strangely enough. And I am still a cat and a dragon in a human meatsuit (with some other folks in here with me!), and that is just how I like it.

All and all- whats being nonhuman like after ten years of having the same label? Normal. It feels comfortable. Like living. I have always been these things, and I very likely will always feel this way. I no longer feel shame for doing things I used to be scolded for, I no longer feel quite so discontent with my physical form, I feel whole (ironically, being many people in one body).

Its just...Living, but as a nonhuman. There isn't much more to say.