#but if you guys actually remove all of the content that's already on YouTube that is fucking disgusting

[learn-and-accept]

What Watcher just die is so cruel, like y'all made people get hyped for an announcement and it was that bullshit??? Also saying you "want to keep the price low enough where anyone and everyone is able to afford it" during a cost of living crisis is so fucking out of touch holy shit

#like dude your prime demographic are young people who are barely fucking surviving in this economy #how dare you #the whole idea is fucking stupid but the way you're framing it is cruel #this is literally just rooster teeth 2.0 #also if you can't afford to operate at your current level just cut back??? #honestly it doesn't seem like most people even want this overproduced content to begin with #you guys seriously fucked yourselves and it's so upsetting #and shit i only watch like two shows #i can't even imagine how betrayed bigger fans feel #and there's been conflicting reports about it #but if you guys actually remove all of the content that's already on YouTube that is fucking disgusting #anyway good luck i guess #watcher

[mikaleialt]

Caught in 4k

Bada Lee x Youtuber!Reader

Synopsis: A famous youtuber who uploads dance covers and sometimes even her own choreographies is actually Bada Lee's girlfriend?!!— or — you suddenly got exposed during a livestream, now people knew of you and Bada's relationship

Cw: nothing just fluff

After your youtube channel reached the 5 million subscribers milestone, you decided to do the most requested content of your viewers which is a livestream.

They wanted you to do a livestream where you perform some dance covers and teach some of your latest choreographies. Of course to make it more fun and interactive you decided to add some Q and A segments, to be more interactive.

You started youtube way back, but before your contents used to be just a simple vlog about your everyday life, but soon shifts into posting some dance covers and sometimes even posting some of your own choreographies. Your old viewers are already aware of your talent in dancing and are so happy that you finally gained confidence to showcase your talent.

You still do some vlogs here and there, but most of your content now is about dance.

Now in the present, you are standing in your bedroom, the camera setup is facing one of your bedroom wall that serves as your background, while your monitor is next to it, where you read the live chats and manage the whole stream.

The title screen "live starts in 5..." is the only thing your viewers are seeing at the moment as you do some warm ups first. You stare at the viewer count that reads there are almost 15k people waiting on your live.

Once you feel that you are all set, you removed the title screen and waved at the camera.

"Hello everybody!" You did your intro and started doing small talks with your viewers as your chat feed floods with more people, telling you how excited they are.

"Your top looks familiar" you saw the comment passes by your screen which made you realize that the shirt you're wearing is one of Bada's shirt, and not just any shirt. It was the same shirt she wore on her first dance battle with Redy on swf 2.

You tried to ignore the comment and continue reading a few more before your viewers started begging you to teach one of your latest dance choreography, which you did.

You stand at the center of the screen once again and looked at the camera before looking back at the monitor.

"Ok ok, we'll start with the 'dance lessons', you guys wanted" you said as you prepare the first song you'll dance to.

"Oh before I start, just a quick announcement, I am not a dance teacher, nor do I have any experience teaching dance. This is literally my first time teaching, so thank you for being my guinea pigs for this experiment" you joked before starting teaching the choreo to your viewers.

Coincidentally, the first song is 16 shots, which made the person who commented earlier appear again as you read the comments in-between teaching your choreo.

"The song and the shirt really makes me feel like I've seen it already somewhere before" the comment said. To which you ignored once again.

You feel a slight blush, it's really all just a coincidence, you're not really thinking of anything when you decided to take Bada's shirt on her closet to wear for the livestream, and it's also a coincidence that you made a choreo to the 16 shots a few days ago.

Your livestream goes on for a bit over 30 minutes now and you are currently taking a break mid-stream and just chatting with your viewers.

One question after another you answer your viewer when a particular question pops up.

"You dance so well, are you taking any dance class?" You read the question out loud and the question seems to catch the viewers attention as they flood the chat feed once again with comments about how they are also curious about it.

"Honestly, I was self taught, in terms of dancing that is. But a few months ago, I joined this dance academy just for the fun of it. I just wanna improve my skills more, you know what I mean." You answered, but your answer just sparked more questions.

"What dance academy?" Is the only thing that you can read from the chat feed. You contemplate whether you should tell them or not. And after tons of viewers begged for your answer and a chat dono appears, sending you 500 dollars with a message "please tell us", you finally give in.

"It was at JustJerk" you said and immediately viewers went wild. Some even commenting "maybe it's time to enroll for a dance class too" or "no wonder your style seems familiar". But another question pops up and it caught everyone's attention.

"Do you see Bada Lee on JustJerk?" The chat read. And every viewer saw it so you can't ignore this one.

"Yeah, sometimes..." you said, and it was a lie. You always saw Bada there, no scratch that, you are always with Bada there. How can you not see her everytime you go there, she is your girlfriend, you always go to the academy together.

"OMG YOU SHOULD COVER BADA'S CHOREO FOR SHIRT" a comment pops up again and the chat once again goes wild.

"Fine, fine... wait give me a minute I'm trying to remember the step again" you search up the dance cover and watch the video before learning the choreography once more.

Meanwhile, Bada had just arrived at your apartment and was looking for you, when she heard Shirt by Sza plays over and over again coming from your shared bedroom.

Slowly, Bada creeps in and peaked by the door to see what's going on and saw your livestream setup. You are too focused on your live that you didn't even noticed her leaning by the door frame, watching you.

"...ok I think I got it" You said as you ready yourself before playing the song once again and you start moving to the beat.

Bada is in awe once she realized you are dancing to her choreo, and to Shirt even. Her jaw drops as you execute all the moves perfectly, but boy it doesn't stop there.

"...Damn, you ain't deserve~" the music subsides for a bit, you twirl around before the beats drop ones again as you move your hips to the beat before looking up the camera and hitting the beat once again.

Bada squeals as you finish dancing, she can't get over at how sexy you look earlier. You turn your head to the door as you see your girlfriend kneeling on the ground.

"Oh my god, when did you arrived?" You said, your viewers were curious on who were you talking to as they flood your chat feed once more with questions.

"Wait I moment... I know that voice" the same person who commented earlier appears again.

Bada runs up to you, and hugs you tightly, planting tons of kisses on your face. "You look so sexy just now" your girlfriend gushes over you.

"I KNEW IT! THAT EXPLAINS EVERYTHING" the chat feed was bombarded with surprised emotes and messages like "holy shit, they are dating?!!!!".

You face the camera shyly as Bada breaks off from you and hugs you from behind as she hides her reddened face on the crook of you neck.

"Uhmmm yeah so... I think this is where I will end my stream" you chuckled lightly as Bada cowers in embarassment behind you, now realizing that your relationship was revealed to more than 35k people right now.

"This is not really what I planned when I first decided to do the livestream but yeah, I hope you had fun dancing with me... and yeah me and Bada are dating... anyway that would be all byeeee!" You quickly cut the cameras and ended the live.

A/n: and that is all for this story, thank you all for choosing this. I hoped you liked it. Sorry for any grammatical errors.

Requests are open

#bada lee fanfic #bada lee x reader #bada lee x y/n #bada x reader #lee bada x reader #street woman fighter x reader #swf2 x reader #bebe #street woman fighter 2 #swf

[page-matcha]

Music to my Ears

Asmrtist!Soobin x fem!reader

Summary: Seems like Soobin is using you for content... What shall you do?

Warnings: Heavily making out, VERY suggestive, no smut!

a/n - it's finally out omg 😭 I'm sorry for making everyone wait so long!! Special thanks to @razsberrie for helping me brainstorm for this!! I'll be making a drabble series out of this as well, so please look forward to it!

[Asmrtist!Soobin master list]

Soobin's mouth is like heaven against yours, quiet moans and whispers escaping both his and your lips. Everything was perfect, except for the way Soobin looked so distracted. He kept glancing to the shelf at the corner of your room in between kisses, almost like something was there.

Why wasn't he paying any attention to you!

You guys were literally in the middle of making out and he couldn't even close his eyes and just be in the moment with you.

You wrap your arms around his neck, trying to force his gaze to meet yours again. "Baby... Why do you seem so distracted?"

Soobin's eyes widen, caught off guard by your question. "Uhm, it's nothing." He quickly stands up and walks towards said shelf from earlier, grabbing something off of it before heading to his personal office.

What was that all about....

Suspicious of his behavior, you quietly follow behind him. Why was he acting like this? You thought you guys were having a moment earlier, absolutely lost in each other's touch. Maybe... he was feeling uncomfortable with you but was too kind to say it to your face.

When you peak through the crack of his open office door though, you find it's actually the exact opposite. He's obsessed with you.

Through the small gap in the door you can see Soobin's uploading an audio to his computer, and if you're hearing things right... It's an audio of you. Did he record you guys kissing? You see him click on an icon on his computer screen. A profile picture. Just below the small circular imagine there's a username. 'page.soob'. Wait but thats.... the nsfw asmrtist you follow on youtube!

As if on cue, your phone buzzes with a notification. He's posted a new video.

This is weird. Really weird. What's even more absurd though, is that you can feel yourself growing... wet? Are you turned on right now?

You hurry back to your room and lock the door shut behind you, clicking on the video. It seems like he edited the audio somehow, your voice non-existent and only the wet sounds of your lips could be heard. Why did he do that...? Even though he removed your voice from the recording, you were still 100% sure it was you in it. He's insane for this... Posting an audio of you two, and actually getting famous out of it. The number of views, likes and comments are already piling up a crazy amount.

Would it be weird.... if you looked through the comments?

You shake your head at the thought. He was the one secretly recording you. Looking through the comments left on his video isn't strange at all.

'This gave me butterflies!'

'More! More!'

'How do your audios always end up so well?

'I'm addicted'

'I just got the chills'

'Pov: you're making out with your boyfriend? How about something new Soob. Just a make out sesh isn't going to get you anywhere with your viewers. We want MORE!!!!'

....What?

You continue to scroll through comment section.

'the making out audios were great at first.... but now I'm starting to get a bit bored...'

'oh my gosh, just fuck us already!!!!!'

'Gosh, what a tease~'

'Come one, give us what we really want!'

They want more, huh.

Shall you give the viewers what they want?

-💌

#txt x reader #txt x y/n #txt x you #txt #txt smut #soobin #soobin x y/n #soobin x you #soobin x reader #soobin smut #brainstorming with berrie! #matcha.mature #matcha writes!

[rabbitsrams]

I'm just leaving a request for when you get to it absolutely no rush but pls more lunch club schlatt im feral for him

absolutely anon <3 i love this sm!! will be about meeting him at a party the m*sfits (unfortunate) were hosting in los angeles circa early 2020 era <3

i've written a lot about lc schlatt a lot already but idgaf i love writing more <3333 this turned into a whole fic hehe

nsfw under the cut, minors dni!! 18+ only.

you were dragged along by a friend who was invited by their friend. because they had to go to a huge youtuber party and you weren't gonna let them go alone.

the house is HUGE, wasn't a surprise that you lost the group as soon as you went inside. you decide to wait by the drinks on the off-chance someone you know would show up. none of your friends did, but someone else did.

out of all the creators you watched who were at this party, you were a casual fan of jschlatt's content. you were around when he did a face reveal, shocked that he was this cute guy your age instead of a 45-year-old man (it's the voice, sue me).

even in the darkness, you recognized him. you were too stunned to say anything as he grabbed the only water bottle in the area.

"you, uh... you want anything?" he asks. that voice. that voice you've only heard through headphones was now two feet in front of you. you shake your head.

"i, uh, i don't feel comfortable getting drunk at a party where i don't know anyone." you say, looking down at your hands.

"fair enough. uh... ah fuck, i got the last water, 'm sorry."

"i-it's fine," you take a deep breath. "uh, a-are you jschlatt? your voice sounds really familiar."

he chuckles. "yeah..."

"oh wow," you laugh. "i knew it."

it's silent for a moment before schlatt pipes up again. "d'ya know anyone here?"

"i came with my friend, who is nowhere to be found. their friend apparently knows whoever is hosting and got us in."

"ah," he takes another sip of water. "you can't find your friend?"

you shake your head. "whatever. they'll only find me if they need a ride home. i don't care anymore." you grab a can of beer and walk away from the drink table, trying to find a quiet place to stay. schlatt follows you for a moment before taking you to his room upstairs.

it's a breath of fresh air. the music is muffled and schlatt's temporary room is spacious and (mostly) clean. he invites you to sit on the bed with him and you continue your conversation from earlier. he's actually a lot nicer than you expected him to be (considering his online persona). and he's even cuter in person.

soon enough you find yourself leaning in to kiss him. he's a bit nervous and doesn't kiss you back.

"sorry. i, uh, never kissed anyone before." he confesses.

"that's okay. i've only kissed one other person and it's been a while since that happened." you say. that makes him relax a little. he cups your cheek and leans in, hesitantly pressing a soft kiss to your lips. you pull him closer, moaning softly as you put your hands in his hair. he whines.

you pull away. schlatt's face is tinted red and hints of your lipstick are all over his lips. "i, uh, wow..." he murmurs. you smile, moving closer and straddling him. he's already rock-hard underneath you. "s-sorry..."

"oh my gosh, don't be, it's okay." you grind your hips down, feeling his dick twitch in his jeans.

"h-honey, please... 'm gonna... b-bust. w-wanna do it i-inside ya..." he whimpers. you nod, removing your dress and panties. he kicks his jeans and boxers off. he leans to the left, opens a drawer and takes out a condom.

"oh thank god, i was prepared to go out and ask for one," you giggle. schlatt doesn't respond, grabbing your hips and pulling you on top of him. you ease yourself inside him, and before you can start moving, he groans loudly.

"fuck, 'm so sorry."

"did you..."

"yeah."

"oh."

"w-wait, i don't wanna leave you hangin'," schlatt says. he helps you lay next to him. "can i touch you?"

"y-yes... please..." you whine. he coats his fingers with your wetness before slowly sliding them inside you. you clench around him, whining as he begins thrusting them in and out of you. he rubs your clit with his other hand and before long, you're coming all over his fingers.

"fuck, that was... so good..."

"yeah? it wasn't too, uh..."

"totally fine. uh, we can always do it again, dunno how long you'll be here but um... i can give you my number."

"yeah?"

"yeah."

after you both clean up and get dressed, you exchange phone numbers. the party is slowly dying down. your friend texts you that they don't need a ride so you leave. as you drive back, you get a message from schlatt, already eagerly asking for your next meeting.

#jschlatt x reader #jschlatt imagine #jschlatt fanfiction #schlatt x reader #jschlatt x you #jschlatt x y/n #jschlatt smut #schlatt smut #schlatt x you #schlatt x y/n #schlatt imagine #schlatt fanfiction #schlatt fanfic #jschlatt fanfic

[grimrester]

i lied! i did big fibs, i have more to say about the watcher situation after all. some assorted thoughts:

1. i'm a little surprised at just how big the rift is in the fandom post-apology. if i go into the tag, it literally alternates between "you guys are twisted sickos for bullying them into walking back the new platform" and "you guys are major chumps for accepting the apology and my trust is permanently damaged." this is a fandom that previously seemed pretty monolithic to me as an outsider, so i wonder if this will have long term implications for the sustainability of their fandom.

2. they said there'd be a "free subscription" to the platform for patreon supporters. makes sense, since their patreon tiers are mostly more expensive than the watchertv sub. this was presented as an indefinite sub dependent on continuing to pay their patreon, but patrons are receiving emails saying the sub is actually only for 3 free months. i'm like 90% sure this is the same kind of situation where they encouraged password sharing even though the platform doesn't enable it. they once again just seem to not fucking know what the vimeo ott platform they're using is capable of doing. they have to stop making statements like this until they get a better understanding of it because it's continuing to make them look bad.

3. there are multiple reports on reddit that at least ryan and sara (shane's spouse) are deleting comments on their instagram. look, i get it, some of the things people are saying are downright vile. the pointed targeting of steven and the borderline fanfic-writing quality of some of the theories about what went down interpersonally on the team during this decision is fucking weird at best and racist/invasive at worst. furthermore, i dont think making comments on personal instagrams is a good way to be heard. but on the other hand, controlling what people say on your platform right after you made a "we hear you" statement is really bad optics. obviously i think they have a right to delete anything that's outright bigoted, but it seems like they're deleting anything decidedly negative.

4. some of the comments getting deleted are about potential "fake" or "plant" patrons trying to skew the narrative positively on the watcher patreon. i frankly think this is unfounded conspiracy shit until i see substantial proof, but deleting these comments in particular without responding can cause some straight up streisand effect. this can really quickly start snowballing if they make it look like they don't want anyone talking about it. overall i just don't know if they understand just how much they're under the microscope right now. i didn't have to search very much to dig this stuff up - people are watching and documenting them. i think the variety article revealing they did initially intend to remove their backlog and them trying to pretend they didn't walk that back has caused a lot of people to hyper-inspect their every move. they're already in the youtube drama content cycle, and they risk someone making a blowout exposé if they aren't careful.

#watcher #long post

[anonymousredactedconfessions]

I'mma have to be real delicate and careful with writing this Confession. As to not give away who I am on here. >,<"!!

Now that, that's out of the way. Let's begin shall we?

Right off the Bat I will confess that what I have to say here would Never and could Never be posted on my Tumblr or any Social Media attached to my name. The fact of the matter is in all truths? I Own and Run several Super Popular, High Follower count Blogs and Pages in the Redacted Fandom.

I've been in this Fandom since it's early stages and I actually used to talk with Erik quite frequently when he had Social Media and a Discord. But after "The Purge" and the Drama around it. Erik not only Shutdown all his Social Media besides his YT and Patreon. He also shut himself down.

He was and to a extent still is overly Cautious about interacting with ANYONE from or in his fandom. He does read the comments on his Patreon uploads for the first ten hours. But he hardly ever pays attention to YouTube comments anymore.

Myself and some other "Og" people have managed to keep in contact with him for the most part. You all already know who we are if you have seen our Patreon comments. As Erik tends to Like and Reply to us sometimes over everyone else.

This isn't supposed to come off or sound like I'm "Humble Bragging". But people keep getting Upset, Jealous and downright Angry at us because of the attention we get and it's NOT our fault!

It's not like we talk to him "All the Time" as he will go weeks without responding to a Message at all until someone pesters him into doing it. Even then his replies are very sparce and he sometimes just quits responding in the middle of a conversation.

Now all of this to say. Every single one of us "Og" people who you all claim are his "Close Friends" on Patreon? Yeah. Newsflash Besties!!

We are not his friends. We are not acquaintances. He doesn't know a thing about us and we don't know anything about him. Any and all conversations are strictly Content based and never stray from the topic.

Erik has stated he wants nothing more than a "Transactional Relationship" between himself and his entire Fandom. I know for a fact that if I were to ever stop my $20 tier pledge on his Patreon he would quit responding to my Messages and ignore me completely.

Parasocial Relationships SUCK!

He tried the "Friendly Content Creator who loves his Fandom and Interacts with them all the time!" bit. But all it took was one drama filled shit storm to completely Sour his attitude and make him Bitter towards his Fans.

He's not a bad guy or some unoriginal content creator. He is a Person who used to absolutely love his channel and wanted to make people happy. Until it didn't. And now while he still wants to create stuff. But he is now just overly Cautious with it and defaults to Generic Boyfriend content because it's Safe, Gets Views and has the most Positive Feedback.

Hope this helped explain some things. I had to run it through two different rewriting programs to remove my style of typing and words/phrases I am known for.

🥷

.

#redacted asmr #redacted audio #confessions #🥷

[iwasbored777]

I keep seeing these ‘MARINETTE BAD’ posts about how she’s a crazy possessive stalker and poor innocent Adrien/Chat Noir doesn’t even understand how wrong she is. And it makes me wonder if the fandom would show this same energy to Adrien/Chat Noir if Ladybug actually had any recurring conflicting male parties after her. Because, as evidenced by how he lied to Theo in Copycat and his immediate attitude with Flairmidable, we all KNOW he wouldn’t take that well. If Chat Noir actually had a male Lila or Chloe or even Kagami to deal with for Ladybugs affections, I guarantee he would have been SO MESSY about it. There would have been more lies, more upstaging and more tantrums. Even the fact that Chat Noir asks who Ladybug is interested in when she tells him she’s interested in someone else was a little concerning to me. I was like “what is he going to do with that information?”

But just like the fandom is overall charmed by Chat Noir pushing the boundaries Ladybug set, I feel like they would also be charmed by his jealousy? Whereas Marinette…

They would straight up call for Marinette’s removal if she lied and told Lila/Kagami her and Adrien had “a thing” to get them away from him, got angry at some random girl he showed attention to or got pissy at him for rejecting her.

And this isn’t Adrien salt. I love Adrien, flaws and all. I just think it’s interesting, the split in the audience response between Marinette’s boundary pushing and Chat Noir’s boundary pushing.And more interesting that some people paint Adrien as this victim with no agency when he has been very reactive throughout.

The interesting thing is that, neither of their poor reactions and boundary pushing ever get them anywhere romantically with the other. Marinette usually ends up embarrassed in a mess of her own making and he is once again rejected. The same lesson is being taught here but somehow , Marinette ends up with most of the ire and Chat Noir is the poor kitten the mean bug hurt.

I know! I know exactly what you're talking about and I feel the same way. Double standards kill me. Adrien does have his own salters that's true but he doesn't have so much hate YouTube channels and videos, you won't see hate memes on Reddit about him, you won't see anyone calling him out on Quora as the of the worst main character ever, you won't see people saying Adrien ruined Marinette's life but you'll ALWAYS see them saying Marinette ruined his, you didn't see like ten people actually giving two f*cks about her during Ladynoir conflict, you won't see any other girl getting so many haters like Marinette, you won't see the fandom being critical of any other character so much, years from now you won't find that much hate material for other characters but you will find too many Marinette hate stuff, I can't even search her name on Google without hate content popping out, you won't see Marinette sugar being appreciated like Adrien's, you won't see more people hating Adrien than Marinette, that's true. Even the show is sometimes, like you said, really rough to Marinette and doesn't take her emotions seriously but his are always taken seriously. It's not just gender thing, I've noticed Marinette getting hate for stuff people praise other characters when they do the exact same thing. Some people even told me they went from hating on her to defending cuz even they couldn't stand these double standards. Even when Marinette does something good they hate her. Imagine when Marinette haters had enough of it 😅.

And I REALLY got sick of "if she was a guy everyone would call her out-" just stop. Y'all ALREADY call her out even for stuff that weren't her fault what do you mean no one is complaining when literally the entire YouTube and Reddit hates her with passion, and as if I didn't watch other TV shows where male character is the worst person alive and no one said a word.

Maturing is realizing Marinette is a great character and she doesn't deserve the slander. I can't believe people only watch the show with one eye. The fact that the girl is to blame for everything IS a proof that people don't stand for female lead characters. The standards are never the same. I can literally compare the same situations when Marinette received hate both times but she made different decisions and even when she did the thing they defended the other character for she got salt. I hate that. I blocked like at least 200 Marinette haters by now and I ALWAYS find more. Aren't y'all tired? Aren't y'all embarrassed by now? So many wonderful stuff about her will be forgotten and all that's going to stay are these obsessive stalker/abuser accusations which aren't even 90% true lol I can't even watch that for ten seconds without laughing from how dumb and biased it is. I don't know who started Marinette hate but I hope they actually get stalked and abused so they know what real stalkers and abusers are like. People like them would be ready to cyber bully a real person and ruin their life like they ruined this character's reputation so they don't deserve anything better than that.

Sorry if I'm too mean there is just too much anger inside me to be calm 😭😭😭😂😂😂

#miraculous ladybug #Ml fandom salt #Ml Reddit salt #ml youtube salt #marinette dupain cheng #ladybug #I hate this fandom #leave marinette alone challenge #marinette deserves better #Marinette deserves a better fandom #ml ask #ask and answer #double standards

[reflections-in-a-critical-eye]

It baffles me how namjoon is still considered the intellectual and deep thinker of the group when he hasn't shown any evidence of that in... idk... ever? Is it because he visits museums and has a deep voice? Army's still with that you erode my edges and turn ㅁ into ㅇ etc for god's sake let that corny ass sht go. I'm sorry for the rant, it was prompted by his photobook. I can't believe how an artist can be given creative freedom and come up with something so bland and uninspired and the worst part is that he obviously gets praised for that 😭

You forgot reading books. It's number one on the to-do-list for intellectuals. But I'm not going to go on a rant here and contribute much to this because I've made my point a few times and my opinion remains the same.

What I would like to talk about is precisely why the fandom is stuck and actively contributes to an image that not only doesn't fully encompass what the person is showing to his fans, but sometimes it's no longer available or an exaggeration. This happens not only with RM, but all of them, to different degrees.

As we all pretty much now, misconceptions and stereotypes come from putting people into boxes. It's easier to make sense of how they present themselves. In K-Pop and BTS specifically, those boxes were already created at first by the label. For example, Jimin was the cute but charismatic one. Then on top of that, fans slowly started to not only add the flirty label to him, but make it his entire personality. In consequence, content was created based on that label. And in time, it stuck so much, that it was and probably still is one of the first things new fans find out about Jimin. Not because they draw that conclusion on their own, but because youtube compilations say so. And then twitter and so on. Does it have much to do with the way he presents himself and acts with the other members, by being some massive flirt to this day? No. At least based on my own observation and by watching a chronological evolution based on original content. I'd say this is a clear stereotyping done by the fandom which has a negative connotation underneath, although flirting in itself is not something bad at all. In Jimin's case, fans translate that as something else and we know what.

On a somehow opposite spectrum, we have the term "namjooning" which I bet cottage and nature core fans who probably spent a lot of time on tumblr, either participated in coining it or spread it until it became mainstream. I'm sure a lot more factors were involved, I don't really know the origin of it, but now it has transformed into this thing that everyone knows and talks about. And has also become the main personality of RM that is perceived by Army. I would actually go as far as to say that the fans have actively engaged in creating a fantasy of a man, removing and ignoring everything else that doesn't fit into the "namjooning" aesthetic. Because it is an aesthetic and its main visual source is offered by RM himself and how he talks about reading books whenever he's asked what he'll do in his free time. It's not entirely fake, don't get me wrong. I can clearly see he likes doing that and going to museums and talking about art, but all these elements are heightened by the fans in order to create an ideal version of a man that has a non-threatening masculinity, it borderlines on fantasy. And there is also this misconception that an intellectual man who reads books and likes to bike must be a good man. There is no equal sign or direct correlation between those. Anyone who has or met people like that in their lives knows what I'm talking about. I'm also not saying this is definitely the case of RM. Perhaps he truly is a great guy in public and in private as well, but those who created this image of him are clearly making the connection between intellectualism, personality, good morals and values. That's a fantasy.

#bmt asks #jimin #RM #bts and stereotypes #bts fandom stereotypes #bts fandom discourse

[theargdetective]

The "Fallout: Ashfall is woke" cringe compilation.

This will b a blog post compiling all of the insane garbage people who don't like Fallout: Ashfall say about it. The mod doesn't even have an official trailer out and it has already made people unreasonably angry at it. Don't believe me? Just look for yourself. Content warning: Cringe, transphobia and rightoids being hyperbolic idiots.

I should mention that the "anonymous tip" screenshots come from a Anti-Woke youtuber who just sort of decided to take everything this "anonymous tip" said with 100 percent seriousness. For example, the guy just sends the anti-woke youtuber fake TurboSquid screenshot. This guy just took a picture of the submarine from the Fallout: Ashfall discord server and squished it down to fit inside of the TurboSquid site. If you don't believe me, I'll post a copy of the picture on their discord here so you can notice the difference between it and the screenshot the "anonymous tip" gives.

The "tip" also claims that the project lead, AshfallDude, is a trans woman. From what I can tell, there's no evidence to suggest that he's trans. Also I would like to ask: If AshfallDude is a transfem, then why does he call himself AshfallDude and not AshfallBabe or something like that? Like c'mon it's bad enough that you guys are getting on someone's case for being trans, but you're not even getting angry at an actual trans person.

These guys also think that someone named Luka Starflower is secretly in control of the mod and "runs parts of the New Vegas modding community as a crime lord". As far as I can tell, the only people who really believe this are ex-Ashfall developers who run on the middle school logic of "he's friends with a girl, that must mean they're dating" because I cannot find any information on Luka beyond how a bunch of ex-Ashfall developers, including the former lead writer and a composer, left the mod specifically because of her. Actual high school drama tier shit.

And of course you know these guys are TksMantis fans. Also for some reason this guy likes to compare himself and other anti-woke idiots to The Avengers.

I haven't really heard of Fallout: Ashfall until all this weird anti-woke outrage happened. From the sounds of hit the Ashfall Dev Team was gutted by having a bunch of anti-woke types and transphobes being either removed or leaving the mod. I hope the mod does well, it would be a shame if a post-Frontier DLC sized mod was shut down because of idiots like Allout Monty.

#anti woke #woke #communism #bisexual #hyperbisexual communism #fallout #fallout new vegas #modding #drama #cringe #ashfall #fallout ashfall #hawaii #tweet #gay #rainbow #leftist #AshfallDude is the ultimate leftist warrior now #Seriously though why are people so unhinged about this mod? #it's a MOD #CALM DOWN

[familyfriendlyweed]

makeup sessions (karl jacobs x fem reader)

a/n : hi! this is my first tumblr post. i have written stuff on wattpad in the past, but it’s still quite new to me, so please be nice :]] i accept positive critism and advice, as that most definitely will help me grow as a writer!

 Y/n let out something between a squeal and a scream at the same time when she saw Karl's tweet. her face was beat red and her lips couldn't help but curl into the stupidest grin ever.

the tweet read :

hey @) y/nhasursocks wanna do my makeup at my stream today :]]

 it was the simplest tweet, yet it meant so much to the girl. Karl and Y/n were always really good friends, they often streamed minecraft together, but never in a million years did he yet ask her to be in his stream in real life.

 Y/n picked up the phone with trembling hands, already seeing a bunch of likes, comments and retweets to Karl's tweet. before answering, she got curious to know what the people say. cautiously opening the comments section, the girl scanned it through with her eyes. a bunch of "awwwwws" and hearts could be seen, which worsened her already red cheeks.

With her heart thumping hard against her ribs, she started writing her reply :

sounds great! <3

 for a moment Y/n hesitated to press the "reply" button with the "<3" emoticon in the comment, but then she figured she and Karl sent lovey dovey emojis/emoticons in the past to each other anyways, so, she pressed the "reply" button at last.

 in an instant, her reply started gaining more and more likes, comments and retweets. Y/n was never really popular, having her clout was only because of Karl being her friend, so seeing this much attention was weird to her. but she didn't care about that right now. all that Y/n cared about at the moment was the fact that Karl appreciated her enough to actually invite her over.

 a little bit later in the day, Y/n received a private message from Karl, which said :

hey Y/n! I'm really glad you're up to stream together <3 i planned on starting the stream at 4 pm, but you can change the time if you're busy :] here is my address (don't tell anyone! :D) - (random address lol)

 Y/n answered :

 thanks for inviting me bestie!! 4 pm is cool, I'll be there! <33

 she set the phone down, unable to remove the blissful smile from her face. she has never felt this way before - it was really weird, but the constant butterflies in her tummy reminded her that it's a good feeling. taking a few deep breaths, Y/n reminded to herself that all she has to do is to go to Karl's house and have a good time AS FRIENDS - no romantic stuff is needed.

  ~~~~~time skip~~~~~

  Y/n got off from the bus at 15:50, but she still had about 5 minutes to reach Karl's house. in what felt like forever, the girl felt a sting of what was unmistakably fear and guilt - what if she was late? and what if Karl would be annoyed with her for that?

 slowly she broke into a panicky run. passing careless citizens, who all looked at her fear-stricken face curiously, she finally made it to the front door of Karl's home. Y/n pulled out her phone and found the code that she was supposed to enter next the main door. she quickly dialed it, a beep beep beep was heard and she entered.  

 finally making it to Karl's apartment, Y/n stopped to smooth her hair and straighten her clothes so she doesn't look too shabby. her body seemed to be moving on its own - her finger pressed the doorbell automatically.

 Karl opened the door almost in an instant - he wore a warm smile and before Y/n could stutter a "hello", he pulled the girl into a big welcoming hug.

 "hey Y/n! it's so cool you made it!" Karl exclaimed, still holding her close.

Y/n's head was spinning, she needed more time to process what was happening. but nevertheless, she finally lifted her own arms and hugged the guy. burying her face into his sweater, she inhaled Karl's scent deeply - he smelled something like honey and warm days.

"hello, Karl." she mumbled with a grin on her face.

"come on, do you want to eat something before the stream?" Karl asked, letting go of the girl and taking her hand into his instead, leading Y/n into the house.

"oh no, I'm full. let's get straight to business." she answered, the blissful smile and content blush never leaving her face.

"alrighty! you already know, but we'll have an eventful makeup session, and then I thought maybe play some minecraft so the stream isn't too short?" the guy asked, opening his bedroom door.

"sounds great!"

Karl smiled and went to his computer :

"you ready? I'll start the stream now."

the girl quickly fixed her hair again and gave him thumbs up :

"ready."

Karl started the stream with facecam on and as soon as the chat saw Y/n, it went absolutely wild.

"guys, give her a rest, poor girl just came!" he laughed, drawing her a chair. Y/n thanked quietly and sat, waving to the chat timidly. in the corner of her eye, she saw comments like "she's so adorable" and "look at Karl being a gentleman" in the chat and her cheeks grew more red, but this time from satisfaction.

"well, as you guys know, Y/n agreed to be in my stream today, and since some of you don't really know her, she's a really good friend of mine who also streams and does youtube videos - so go support her!"

from that moment Y/n relaxed more and more with each minute. it was fifteen minutes into the stream when she already felt as if at home.

"Karl, you have a hell lot of lipsticks, where did that come from?"

"uhhhh, I only bought them for the stream today!"

"oh really? why are they all used, then?" Y/n asked giggling and showing them to the stream.

"hey- don't expose me like that!"

"chat, clip it, CLIP IT!"

all was going really well, Y/n was having a really good time with Karl AS FRIENDS. it was really nice. but all hell broke loose when the time to put eyeliner came.

"alright, I have no idea why, but you have four eyeliners."

"they're my sister's."

"haha, yeah, yeah, alright. Which one do you want big man?"

"hmmm, the one in your left hand!"

Y/n set the other eyeliners on the table, quickly glancing at the chat. her cheeks grew very very red…

"Y/N DO THE MEME SIT ON HIS LAP" "SIT ON HIS LAP" "THE MEME, DO THE MEME!!!"

  a/n: if anyone is confused, this is an example of the meme i’m talking about :

the girl tried to act as if she hadn't seen the comments, but Karl was already by her side, reading them with her.

"meme… what meme?" he wondered out loud. Y/n got the impression that he was genuinely confused.

'chat, shut the fuck up, please shut the fuck up.' thought Y/n, but of course chat was just being chat.

"SHE SHOULD SIT ON UR LAP" "THERE'S A MEME WHERE A GIRL DOES A GUY'S EYELINER WHILE SITTING ON HIS LAP" "WE'RE NOT FORCING BUT YOU GUYS WOULD LOOK SO CUTE"

Y/n hid her face in her hands, unable to control her blushing. Karl just chuckled sweetly :

"chat, calm down, she's going to die from blushing."

he put on the "please stand by" screen and scooted over Y/n :

"hey, it's fine. we won't do it if you don't want to," Karl then leaned closer and whispered, "I'd be pretty glad if you agreed, though."

Y/n lowered her hands, showing off the big red hue on her cheeks. for a split second Karl's eyes widened -  she looked really adorable.

"I'd also be glad." the girl said, almost not believing her own words.

Karl's adorable smile came back and he leaned back:

"well then, come here."

Y/n stood up shyly and straddled his legs, grabbing the eyeliner in the process.

"do you want me to turn on the facecam?" Karl asked quietly.

the girl nodded :

"I don't mind."

he turned it on and put his hands onto Y/n's hips. even without looking at it, Y/n knew the chat was blowing up at the moment.

"you guys better subscribe, because we're providing very good fanservice." said Karl jokingly and Y/n laughed. turning to him, she opened the eyeliner and put it next to his eye, only to find him staring at her in an awe. the girl blushed as a strong urge to kiss him kicked in. it looked as if Karl wanted the same thing.

at the precise same time, they both leaned in and pressed their lips together, Y/n putting her hands onto Karl's cheeks to hide the view from the chat. the kiss was very short and with no tongue included - but it was the most sweet kiss Y/n has ever shared with someone. she pulled away, an identical grin to Karl's on her face and hugged him very tight - they almost fell off the chair.

laughing, she continued to do Karl's makeup as if nothing happened and everyone watching the stream wasn't fainting and clipping the kiss. this will be talked about for a long time, but as before, Y/n didn't care about that, and nor did Karl.

a/n : anddddd cut! it’s quite wonky, but i believe it’s pretty swell for my first mcyt fanfic :]] let me know what you think of it and if you have any tips or advice on how to make my future stories more enjoyable! thanks for reading and i hope to see you around <3

#mcyt #mcyt x reader #mcyt imagine #karl jacobs #karl jacobs x reader #karl jacobs imagines #mcyt imagines #dream smp #dream smp imagines #dream smp x reader

[blueeyedgeorgie]

Cancelled-Dream Was Taken

A/N: Surprise bitch. Weren’t we expecting for me to release mcyt fanfics soon? If I didn’t tag my usual @‘s it’s because idk if you’d like to be tagged for mcyt content.

Pronouns: she/her

Word Count: 2.3k+

_________________

"You're so harsh on him!" Her hands sat on the keyboard, staring at the green human that stood on Y/n's computer screen.

She needed to be careful. While this was a heated moment, she couldn't let herself get too loud for multiple reasons. If she got too loud, Dream's stream viewers would be able to tell she was in the next room or they would just receive noise complaints from their neighbors.

"No Y/n! You're too soft on him! He needs to learn that he can't get away with everything. You're setting him up for failure." As the h/c girl listened to her roommate speak, she had to remind herself over and over again; 'This wasn't real.' Dream was mad, not Clay.

This had all been arranged as roleplay. Y/n would be leaving in a few days to go visit some of her family for a reunion, so Wilbur had been the one to think up the brilliant idea of what was playing out now; an argument between Y/n and Dream. The plan was to have Y/n get so upset she didn't log onto the SMP for the next few days, only to come back with a master plan to backstab Dream.

At first, Clay wasn't really on board with the thought of him getting angry at Y/n. They had been together for a little over a year, there wasn't a single moment they had gotten upset with one another. But surprisingly, Y/n had been the one to convince Clay it was a good idea.

The fans knew Dream and Y/n had a close friendship, Dream had always been so protective of her. But when this was going down, they didn't know how to act.

Every time Y/n would glance at her chat, she'd see thousands of comments rising up as new ones appeared. Comment after comment, it looked like the fans were shocked by the way this stream was turning out.

"I'm not setting him up for anything! He's a kid, Dream!" Y/n glanced from the chat,  back at the screen showing her PC game. Standing on her screen was Dream and Tommyinnit, she had accompanied Dream to visit Tommy.

"You're just babying him! 'He's a kid!' Well, he needs to learn to grow up eventually," his voice had been filled with such spite. It felt weird to hear Clay speaking to her like this in such a tone.

For a moment, she stared at the green man before a short scoff escaped her lips. "I can't believe you." With that, Y/n had pressed a few keys, turning her character towards the nether portal a couple of yards away. Before Dream had gotten the chance to speak again, Y/n began to move away.

"Y/n! Come back here!"

She flicked a few buttons, taking a moment to look behind her character to see Dream following. Good, everything was going according to plan. Within the next few minutes, she'd be able to log off and she'd be on vacation for the next few days.

The h/c girl ignored the green man as she stepped through the portal, taking her to Minecraft's version of hell. Almost done, she just needed to find a good spot to stop as she listened to Dream continue to speak.

"You can't keep ignoring me! You know I'm right in this. You know you can't keep defending Tommy. You know Tommy is driving a wedge between us-"

Perfect. Y/n had stopped just on the edge of a bridge, molten lava sat feet below them. If she fell, she'd surely die. "No."

"No?" Dream was a bit surprised to hear Y/n cut him off, but he stayed silent as he was prepared to listen to what she had to say.

"No. No more. I don't wanna hear you blame Tommy for us breaking apart. I want you to listen to me. You've been acting like much more of a dick than usual and I hate it. I despise it. You've changed for the worst because you think you can step on everyone. At this point, everyone fears to tell you the truth-except me. I'll be a hundred percent honest with you, you've been so egotistical, it's really pissed me off. This is your fault, Dream. Not Tommy's. You exiled a child for pulling a prank on a vacation house! Not even George's real house!"

"But-"

"Shut the fuck up. I'm done, but I don't wanna hear you bullshit me. So shut the fuck up."

A moment of silence passed between them as Y/n stared at her screen. Just a few more steps.

And within seconds, Dream had pulled out his netherite sword. With one hit, she was falling back into lava. Y/n glanced at her chat, a look of shock on her face as she read over what a few comments said. A moment of silent tension had passed before Y/n had finally spoken up, removing her from the voice chat she was in.

"Alright guys, I guess that's enough for the day. I'll see you all... later." With that, she had clicked a few buttons, raiding Dream's live-stream as she ended hers.

For the next 20 to 30 minutes, Y/n knew Clay would be busy streaming. So she had decided to take a bit of time to wind down and think to herself.

Get a glass of water.

'Are the fans harassing him in his twitch chat?'

Sit down on the living room couch.

'The SMP fans were always so protective of me.'

Pet Patches.

'Was I too much when I snapped at him?'

It didn't seem like 30 minutes had passed when Clay had walked out of his streaming room, only to find Y/n on the couch with Patches in her lap. "Hey, N/n." "Oh, your stream is already over?" Y/n smiled, pulling herself out of her thoughts as she scoot over, giving Clay room to take a seat right by her.

"Yeah, did you lose track of time or something?"

"I must've. How did the chat react after I 'died'?" She smiled up at her boyfriend as he wrapped an arm over her shoulders, pulling her closer into his embrace.

"Everyone was filled with joy that you died."-Y/n playfully swatted at him. "Okay, okay! I got a few chat messages of people bashing me for it, but it's fine."

"Well, it's a good thing the chat wasn't completely littered with hate. How was it after my raid?"

"Honestly, not that bad as you expect. Like I said, just a few comments. Nothing bad, I just ignored it." Clay placed a hand on Patches's head, gently scratching her, followed by the animal beginning to purr.

"Good to hear, anyways... I'm not ready to pack. Do you think we can procrastinate?" The h/c girl let out a huff leaning against her boyfriend. "How?"

"I was thinking a bit of movie binging, cuddling, and ordering dinner?" A cheeky smile spread on her face as she spoke.

"It's like you read my mind."

The couple had made it through three movies, by now it was later at night. The sun had set and they had already door dashed some food. By now they were in the middle of watching 'The Empire Strikes Back.'

'I love you.' 'I know.'

The iconic moment between Hans and Leia had been interrupted by the sound of Clay's phone buzzing. "Why is George calling?"

"What?" Y/n was a bit curious herself. Considering the timezones, George should be asleep right now. Pausing the TV, she turned her attention to her boyfriend's phone.

"Hey Clay."

"What's up, George? Isn't it like early in the morning for you?" Clay raised a brow, moving his phone so Y/n would be able to see George as well.

"Yeah, I had to stay up to fix a YouTube video I need to get out today. I was about to go to bed and I checked Twitter-"

"Oh no." Clay made a short joke, only to be cut off by his friend.

"I don't know if it's trending for you in America, but you might as well look."

"What's going on?" He swiped up, taking him to his home screen so he could click on the little blue bird app. Y/n had grabbed her phone from the coffee table, opening up the app as well. "#Cancel Dream... #Y/n... #Dream SMP"

"Is... is Clay getting canceled for killing me in Minecraft?" Y/n scrolled through the tweets involving the hashtag 'Y/n.' She could see plenty of people defending her, but making it much bigger of a problem than it actually was.

"Oh, hey Y/n. But yeah, he is." George chuckled awkwardly, scrolling through his Twitter app as well.

"This is so fucking stupid."

"It really is. So we might as well get this cleared up with the fans as soon as possible. Do you want me to tweet something, or do you want to?" Y/n looked up at her boyfriend, it looked like he was thinking.

"Yeah, I'll tweet it. Don't worry about this, Y/n."

"Alright, whatever you say," she replied, pulling a blanket over her as she waited for Clay to finish typing his response.

"Here's what I'm gonna say: 'I can't believe you guys actually think me and @(y/n) are in an actual fight in real life. We have been good friends since forever, the fight was only roleplay. I love that you guys are so protective of Y/n, but no one's actually upset.' How's that sound?"

"I think that's good," George hummed softly.

"Yeah, I doubt you'll stay 'canceled' once you've explained to them it was all part of the SMP lore." The h/c girl smiled up at her boyfriend with a small nod.

"Alright, I'm gonna post it. George, I think you should go to bed because you're half asleep already."

Y/n turned, looking at her boyfriend's iPhone. "Go to sleep, Gogy!"

"Alright, alright... I'll talk to you guys later." The call had ended with Clay and Y/n saying goodbye to their friend while George simply yawned to them as a response.

As soon as the call was over, Clay looked at the response to his tweet. It didn't seem to be going too well. There had been a few fans who understood what was going on and responded with a paragraph as an apology for the misunderstanding. But most replies had been telling Clay he was bullshitting the fans or that he wasn't being honest.

"I'm sorry, Clay," his girlfriend had huffed as she read through the responses to his tweet.

"Honestly I'm just a bit pissed off. Literally, any time someone tries to 'cancel' me, it's over something stupid. I'm not a bad guy, it just feels like some people just don't want to see me succeed." Clay had excused himself to grab a glass of water from the kitchen.

It hurt Y/n to hear how upset her boyfriend was. He never got too upset over things, but seemed to take a small toll on him. "Hold on. Let me say something." The h/c girl couldn't be asked to post multiple tweets of her response to hate sent towards Clay over the internet. So what was better than a short video that could be posted to the blue bird app?

"Um, hey guys. I'd just like to make this quick. Stop sending hate towards Dream. The fight was roleplay and nothing more. I'm gonna be busy for the next couple of days so Wilbur thought of a good idea to help build SMP lore with me and Dream and we both agreed to the argument. Now stop sending the green man hate, or I'll commit war crimes or something-"

Y/n had been interrupted by the sound of Clay letting out a small giggle. "What? What did I say?"

"Nothing, just keep going with your video."

"Whatever, I'm cool. No matter what Dream says. Anyways, I'll speak to you all later." Y/n had hit the red button again, ending her video. Within seconds, the video had been uploaded to her Twitter account.

Placing her phone back down on the table, Y/n approached her boyfriend, wrapping her arms around his torso. "I'm really sorry about the hate, Clay. I love you."

"Don't apologize for something you can't control. I love you more." The brunette held his partner close, accepting her hug. Y/n always loved his hugs, she always felt so safe in his embrace.

The rest of the night had been spent with more cuddling and more Star Wars movies. Hours had passed before Y/n had even thought about the Twitter situation again. But for some reason, she had decided to look at the app again tonight.

It was 2 in the morning by now, Clay was half asleep. His head laid in the h/c girl's lap as she brushed a hand through his hair, her free hand opening up her Twitter app once again.

It had been a bit of a surprise to see a couple of trending hashtags had changed so quickly. What was trending now was #Dream, #Y/n,#(ship name), and #Dream's Laugh. This had to be about Y/n's short clip she posted. And by the looks of it, people had stopped acting so harsh towards Clay. But instead, they had decided to focus on the fact Dream and Y/n were hanging out together. Not to mention the fact Dream and let out a stupid little giggle because of Y/n. People had been apologizing to him through Twitter for being so hard on him.

"Babe."

"Hm?" Clay mumbled, not bothering to open his eyes.

"Pretty much everyone is apologizing to you over Twitter for being hardasses."

"Hm, that's good to hear."

"You're really tired, huh?" Y/n paused her scrolling to look down at her boyfriend.

"Yeah," He continued to mumble, followed by a short yawn.

"Alright, time for bed, babe." Y/n smiled to herself, beginning to carefully move away from Clay. "I can pack tomorrow and we can laugh over the stupid bird app tomorrow after you've gotten a good amount of sleep."

"I still can't believe Twitter tried canceling me over roleplay."

"I can't believe you got uncancelled by shippers."

Taglist: @notphilosopherstudentblog

#dreamwastaken #dream was taken #dream was taken x reader #dreamwastaken x reader #dream smp #mcyt imagine #mcyt x reader #dream was taken imagine #dream was taken one shot #dreamwastaken imagine #dreamwastaken oneshot #dream smp x reader #dream smp imagine #dream smp oneshot

[incarnateirony]

I know you aren’t a big pep talker but the utter incorrectness of the twitter blurb and just the low quality tweets twitter is showing just really makes me feel discouraged so if you had anything hopeful about their fuck ups backfiring on them is really love to hear it

Nobody said it was gonna be easy.

I’ve never said anything in life is easy. I’ve never said the representation battle is easy and have pointed out people always thought it was. I never said it’s easy to choose to make hard calls, unfollow things, and resist. 

The internet gives a weird feeling of luxury where everything feels easy.

Take the incorrectness of the twitter blurb, laugh at it. Be prepared to change hashtags and signaling. Take a day off, it’s fine. This isn’t a short term thing. They’ll want you to treat it as a short term thing. Wait for a new drop. Return with a new force after taking a few personal days. I’m not doing any hard driving either right now, you may notice--just pulled together a server so people can be easily grabbed for a new wave of it.

The waves are going to take time. But it does work.

This is the CW_SPN page, for example. Keep in mind, most days they gain a few hundred to a few thousand followers. Instead, they’re losing double that, so any gains are being offset. And the message is still going to be spreading regardless of a stupid blurb.

Notice anything about the trajectory of the CWTelevision channel on youtube?

Look at the numbers guys. And this is only after a few days. The finale itself I don’t even KNOW what the fuck happened there or how you go negative, but okay. I don’t know if they deleted something? 44944~ is the value on average before the big drop. And even removing the two hot negative days, or the one incomplete day, the next four days equal 42508 average. That’s dinging a few thousand. And also, notice that really, the day where it’s the 27040 is the first real full day to even count when fandom got *loud* in the best organized way.

See those little dollar signs? Those are hits to income already. Now imagine how this reflects on engagement of tags and the like, or any other methods.

It means they’re already feeling it. That’s WHY they threw their most beloved mascot out there with a half-framed image not actually addressing the issues. 

Ding them. Whether or not you believe in a leak or a rogue dubber or whatever the FUCK, EVERYONE knows a series of balls got dropped on this that were an insult, and rather than trying to turn anybody on anything about a completely misframed leak, stay on point: Watch their little dollar signs come down and realize that’s about to get way, way worse.

And boy I hope they don’t think their facebook engagement is going to save them.

Now the REAL trick on this is widening the target: because if you’re going to hit them up with their big advertisers, you wanna make sure this is happening on ALL their content. All CW shows. 

While releasing my talk with the exec will have value, so will pulling in other disenfranchised CW fandoms. 

They’re losing their big legacy and big draw shows all at once. Now *is* the time to kneecap them.

#polol #theysilencedyou

[derangedhyena-delphinidae]

numerous issues with “The Aftermath of Seaworld”

When I get time to do so (aka when I’m done with the documentary), I’m likely going to make a video version of this going into the details. 

But for right now, I’ve made this. Both as a guideline for me and so everyone can begin to get an idea of the severity of issues involved.

Researching things is time-consuming and can be very difficult - believe me, I know. But I’m of the mind that if you’re making content with the intent of educating people, you have a responsibility to perform a certain level of due diligence. It IS okay to express uncertainty or doubt if you have it. It is NOT okay to confidently assert things that you do not know with certainty.

The video has an anticap slant, and I’m obviously not disagreeing on that front. But again: if you’re gonna go through the trouble of teaching people something. Bare minimum... please make sure it’s actually correct. *** 1) x ‘founded in 1964 and based out of Florida’ -  ???? Seaworld definitively began on the west coast, in San Diego, CA. And given that the first park opened in early 1964… things came together before that. Uh? 2) x ‘four people founded Seaworld [...]’ For one… it wasn’t originally conceived as a restaurant, it was originally conceived as an underwater bar/lounge. Two… calling the four guys involved in founding the place “frat brothers” is fucking ridiculous and completely overlooks a) how each was actually involved and b) the overall significance of their contributions to the field as individuals. Hint: like it or not, they were important and did a lot! 

3) x If one is going to bring up SWBGCF/rescues while talking about the literal founding of SW, it gives the impression that it’s been around for that duration. It hasn’t.  It’s actually a bit unclear when SW started an organized rescue program, but the Fund itself and all that it did came about much later. The rescue information and how it’s presented is actually INCREDIBLY complex, nuanced, and has a fascinating history (from a “bad company behaving badly” perspective). Oversimplifying this, to this degree and in this misinformative way, does the facts of the situation an INCREDIBLE disservice.  

4) x [assertive statement about what the name Shamu means]  ….Uh actually there’s several explanations for the name Shamu, and the most likely one IMO seems to be the “she-namu” one, not the “friend of Namu” one(? What is this even based on.) 4b) It’s not quite clear if she’s saying “Namu was the first ever orca to be displayed and perform shows” or or Namu was the first to be displayed and, like Shamu, performed shows. Either way, Moby Doll was the first to truly be displayed to the public, not Namu.

5) x ‘Namu died after one year in captivity and you’d think that this might deter Seaworld from doing the same thing again…’ Seaworld truly had nothing to do with Namu. And they leased/took possession of Shamu before Namu died. ‘Again’? What?

6) x “Now, PETA paints a pretty disturbing picture…” [while showing Okura’s artwork] This video segment is, and this is putting it nicely, a pile of poorly-researched BULLSHIT.  -Yes, PETA talks about Shamu’s capture, re: the harpooning of her mother. This Youtuber cannot apparently be arsed to look more than 1 Google search into this, as she proceeds to dismiss the information as potentially fabricated. There are two detailed accounts of Shamu’s capture that I’m aware of - in books - and though they have some slight conflicts, it’s absolutely NOT in doubt that the female who was very likely Shamu’s mother was 1) harpooned, 2) died from her injuries and 3) this had been done to make her easier to catch/locate because there was a fucking buoy attached to the harpoon. Which she dragged around for at least 24 hours prior dying.  So maybe don’t dismiss that as PETA hysteria, maybe TRY to determine the truth of the matter, which would inform one that it is both true and completely horrifying.  -In addition, Okura is an awesome individual who has worked very hard to create a variety of informative artwork for our cause. Okura is NOT associated with PETA and it’s borderline libel in my eyes to use their artwork in this dismissive manner when the primary sources of it can be easily identified online, with full explanations and everything. Do I take special offense to this because of the misuse of artwork? Absolutely. Artists get disrespected enough online. I’m tired of it. This kind of laziness IS NOT acceptable.

7) x ‘timeline is fuzzy about when Shamu died’ …………… it’s…. It’s really not … newspapers are pretty clear about it…..

8) x [complete and utter oversimplification of the lifespan issue, which is not acceptable for anything published in 2020. It just isn’t. If you’re going to bring it up like this, either do the legwork and get into the weeds or stay out.] 8b) [same for reproductive ages. sigh]

9) x if we’re going to talk about when Cornell was involved with Seaworld it’s very important to specify when Cornell was involved with Seaworld and not make it seem like it’s present tense.

10) x “both were rescued by Seaworld” - uh? no. Zero orcas have been rescued by Seaworld. Literally none. The infected-jaw orca was Sandy, whose story is complex and certainly does not involve Seaworld until much later. And many of the orcas in that time period had bullet wounds, often only identified post-mortem because they didn’t seem to hurt the animals much. Also, unflinchingly blending 70s captivity ethics with modern ones is also complete nonsense? 

11) x [tilikum coming from sealand] inhales I am going to make an entire video centered on this fucking subject because it’s one of the single most profound arguments for Seaworld being garbage as assessed by US government agencies in the 90s yet everyone utterly fails to mention this. Why?!

12) x what on earth is this nonsense re: quoting a quote from Zimmerman’s article - which has already been removed from its original context, so the original context is not available - and then penalizing the quote for existing as if Zimmerman’s article were the context? That is offensively disingenuous. I honestly don’t know what the original context is, either - but it’s wildly inappropriate to act as if the Zimmerman article is.

13) x this is relatively minor but ‘Paul Sprong’? You literally have his name on the screen. And then mis-reading his age too? While asserting it from a static article published years ago? Effort? Where is it?

14) x ‘another trainer, Peter’ ….. Ken Peters…. 

15) [weirdly glossing over the widely-available list of orca-trainer injuries/aggressions, despite it being central to the point.] 16) x This pilot whale outrage certainly happened but it was pretty clearly Blackfish that started the cascade of woes for Seaworld. Who has ever asserted this?

17) if you’re gonna just rehash blackfish, tell people to go watch blackfish.

18) x I’ve already gone over the context issue with Seaworld calling out Howard’s statement in Blackfish here (point 23). Which is to say, IN CONTEXT in Blackfish it’s clear what Mr. Garrett is talking about but, divorced from that, it sounds incorrect. But this Youtuber AMPLIFIES the issue by doubling down on the assertion with “no record of a killer whale doing any harm to anyone in the wild.” The surfer event should always be mentioned. Yes, there’s absolutely room for doubt. But there’s also a clear demarcation between an accidental attack (eg mistaken identity, as was likely for the surfer) and intentional one (eg the incidents at marine parks.) Why do people kneecap themselves on this point 18b) please stop acting like Luna represents orcas in general.

19) x “Howard, for all of his research…” … while referring to David Duffus’ b-roll and statements. Uh. 20) x Apparently this Youtuber has single-handedly resolved the dorsal fin issue. You know, the thing that hasn’t been properly researched ever, that has been subject to a ton of debate, that isn’t 100% settled for a variety of reasons, and almost everyone talks about in terms of theories and likely possibilities.  21) x Alexis Martinez wasn’t “torn to shreds.” In a space where even moderate exaggerations are often penalized harshly by the opposition, this kind of blatant nonsense is not welcome. Plus, the reality’s bad enough… you don’t have to make anything up!

22) x *sighs. points at own webpage*

23) Talking about the shows stopping without acknowledging how that’s a bit of a farce is something else. In addition to apparently just flipping to buying what Seaworld’s selling re: its ‘improved image.’ 

*** Tl;dr video is so unrelentingly full of errors ranging from small to egregious it makes me seriously concerned for the veracity of the rest of this person’s content. The maker of the video provided a list of their sources in their video description, which I will have time to look through in detail later. The above is solely a response to the information they present IN THE VIDEO - which, is very important because let’s be real: a lot of people are not going to look at the list of sources. People don’t even do it when citing papers (no really, you’d be surprised, fml.) For anyone who wants to whinge that I haven’t linked or asserted any sources of my own for my claims… well, remember what I said about time-consuming and ‘I’m busy’? Yhea. Getting all of that together will be part of making a video. So if you want to shrug loudly at my list here… you can, that’s your prerogative, I’m happy to say I DGAF if that’s your takeaway. 

What I hope, is that if there’s anything I’ve made clear over the While of running this blog, it’s that I don’t fuck around when it comes to sources and information and do my best to provide what information exists, all of it, not just cherrypicked bits and bobs. Anyways. Here’s step 0 at least. Please don’t share that video. Pretty please.

#seaworld #grumble

[ilikekidsshows]

One thing that pisses me off not just about the miraculous fandom but modern fandoms is fans inability to consume long overarching stories.

Like so many people are complaining about how long the reveal is taking or why haven't certain characters outgrown this trait yet or why is this character arc botched or abandoned. Like guys we just got the confirmation this show will be 7 seasons long PLUS like 3 tv specials. We're only roughly halfway through the series.

Once the reveal happens half the tension in the show is gone! I'm not saying leave the reveal till season 7 and make us wait 9 years this isn't HIMYM but miraculous is not a fast paced story. It's a long haul story. I just wish more fans would be patient. Miraculous is in the extremely fortunate and rare position that it will have a conclusive end and not be suddenly cancelled. That was and still is a huge problem for shows and cartoons with dedicated fans but networks pull the plug for stupid ass reasons.

So miraculous fans please chill the fuck out on things not resolving right away. We still have 78+ episodes plus the tv specials. If we get the end to certain things now it'll be so boring.

I think the concept of Instant Gratification describes the issue with many modern fandoms today. I hate to sound like I'm anti-technology, but the constant stream of quick and short bursts of entertainment allowed by the information age has made people more impatient. It's not about waiting for the climax to get a deeper sense of satisfaction, it's about getting that instant gratification right this instant. It's why one-shot fanfics are all over the place, when multi-chapter stories used to be just as common and popular, if not even more so, and it’s also why people are less willing to read a fic that’s still a work in progress. It's why people refuse to watch Youtube video essays even as they leave comments on the topic based on the title and thumbnail alone because, while they couldn't be assed to watch a 20-minute video (let alone an hour long one), they sure can spend that time calling the Youtuber names and making arguments the video actually already refutes. It's why a lot of online arguments happen only because one party read nothing but the first and maybe the last paragraph of someone's post and skipped all the explanation for their point of view (if I've ignored an counter argument for one of my posts, it was either because I missed it or because said counter argument did this. I have attention deficit issues so I do genuinely forget responses sometimes, but I'm also not writing a second essay for someone who's proven to me they won't read it).

Of course, it's only by constantly consuming only fast-paced content that you can become this impatient. People have different ideas about stories based on what stories they have encountered in the past.

Another thing that influences the Miraculous fandom in particular is that, while I love to show off exactly how much Miraculous has done to build up the overarching plotlines, Miraculous isn't really a show that's about a single story. It's easy to understand why people think it is one though: there's one main villain, we keep discovering more about the mythology, one of the main plot threads is the romantic relationship between the leads and singular episodes and plot elements tend to get payoff later. What is the purpose of a show if not to progress the story? Because the heroes aren't getting closer to defeating Gabriel or getting together, people think that the story isn't accomplishing anything.

I'll do a comparison to illustrate why these things aren't as clear-cut signs of a continuous storyline as people think. In the Spider-Man comics, you can pick any issue up and the chances are that the villain will be a part of Spider-Man's already established Rogues Gallery, who's back for more after who knows how many defeats, and those past defeats might even get referenced in callbacks to previous issues. It's also very possible that Peter and Mary Jane's relationship is the central focus with them not being together yet, having relationship problems or even having broken up (in really old issues the girl might be Gwen Stacy and short-term options have also always been available for romantic entanglements). Does this mean Spider-Man is a continuous story where the only point is that all the villains get put away for good and Peter and MJ live happily ever after? No, it doesn't. Spider-Man is designed to go on indefinitely, so there's no clear ending point. So, what is the point of Spider-Man then, if there is no Ending?

It used to be the single issue, because comic books used to have every issue be a stand-alone story about the hero and their supportive cast. These days it's more every three-to-six issues, because superhero comics are written to have short story arcs that can then be collected into trade paperbacks. A superhero series is not a single story; it's a series that functions as a story engine, meaning the series can generate several shorter stories where the hero helps fix a problem or solve a mystery.

In the superhero genre a villain will never get killed off or removed from stories permanently as long as the writers think they can still come up with stories to tell about them. The hero's romantic life will never be completely smooth sailing unless the writer is using other things to ramp up the stakes. Everything always allows for there to be another adventure.

I think the huge success of Avatar: the Last Airbender made people think that a series that is a single story is always superior to a series with multiple shorter plots. When I was liveblogging Sailor Moon, a viewer offered to give me a list of all the non-filler episodes because they genuinely thought I'd feel like I was wasting time on the show otherwise. This attitude is simply not based on fact. It's not fair to compare Miraculous Ladybug to Avatar, because they're both setting up to do completely different things. Miraculous Ladybug is trying to become a brand, like Batman or Spider-Man. It is part of the "Zag Heroes" lineup, a series of French-created superhero franchises to compete in the America-centric superhero market. This challenge is good for the genre, because Marvel and DC have started resembling each other more and more as these companies stew in their old ideas and copy everything that worked for the other one. The superhero genre needs new blood.

Also, Avatar: the Last Airbender first became popular by doing episodic plots for almost the entirety of the first season because it's actually not a wise choice to expect the audience to be willing to commit to a story that'll only give payoff later when working with an untested IP. Very often shows with longer story arcs start with the episodic format to hook people first, and sometimes the more linear plot is introduced specifically because the audience for the show is now expected to be both dedicated enough and older and capable of keeping up. Because, here's the thing: you can't expect little kids to remember every episode or even every character you've introduced in your show. I'm not sure if people are ready to hear that but I'm throwing it out there anyway. Kids are not dumb, they can understand more complex storylines, but many kids are still training their memory, so they might not remember the details of complex storylines that go on for too long.

This is why the news that Miraculous Ladybug's fourth season was going to have a recommended viewing order originally had me concerned. Miraculous is being branded for kids. The plot requiring too much skill in memorizing story details will make it less accessible to kids and might put those two additional seasons at risk. However, it seems that the "constantly changing status quo" concept of Truth, Lies and Gang of Secrets was a fluke and the evolution of the show is more subtle, so they might not be cutting the amount of episodes for those final seasons because the show is getting too complicated for kids to follow all the important details.

Regardless, Miraculous Ladybug being an adventure cartoon TV show instead of a comic book or a more cheaper-to-produce TV drama does mean that Miraculous Ladybug isn’t expected to go on for decades like a superhero comic or a soap opera. Because of this, it can have evolution and changes and even a planned ending. The show is expected to end at some point, even by the people making money off of it, mostly because making a cartoon like this indefinitely costs a lot of money, and kids’ adventure shows tend to see a decrease in returns if they go on for too long.

#media and fandom response #ml fandom salt #miraculous ladybug #miraculous tales of ladybug and chat noir

[createandconstruct]

can i ask about amarant coral? the monk in red himself~

Can you ask about Amarant Coral? *cracks fingers* Oh I insist that you do. Welcome to my Amarant Appreciation Post:

favorite thing about them: First off best thing about Amarant? His theme. The percussion and the guitar. It’s great and it captures him so well. People out here like “take Amarant out of the game he adds nothing.” EXCUSE ME? You remove the Amarant you remove the Amarant Theme my friend and that is something I do NOT vibe with. 

least favorite thing about them: I wanna know more about him. Now Amarant doesn’t need a backstory or history in the game. In a sense, he already has one that connects him to Zidane and explains his motives and actions and eventual arc. But my issue is, Square never gave him anything else. If you look at Ultimania there’s additional lore about other characters, like Steiner for instance. You learn Steiner was a war orphan who was saved by the Pluto Knights - explaining his devotion to them. Amarant though? Square was like “uh... yeah he was born....? And then he uh got famous...? Idk then he met Zidane. You figure it out.” Square. I hate you. 18 years from his birth until he became “well known”. WHAT WAS HE DOING. WHY’D HE BECOME A SECURITY GUARD. WHAT WAS ON HIS RESUME. TELL MEEEE. Like, okay, what the actual in-game canon gives us on Amarant is sort of enough. He’s a purposely written mysterious “cool-guy” character so we’re given scraps to make him unknown but come on. In the published after-game canon, like Ultimania, we could have been given a bit more. He says he doesn’t remember anything about his origins or parents, but why. Was he another victim of Gaia’s wars? Probably. Was he born on a battlefield? Fighting for his life, living without comrades, taking scraps whenever he could? Was he betrayed when he was young? Is he a supposed to be a version of Zidane had he not been adopted into Tantalus by Baku??? These are questions I deserve answers to, Square.

favorite line: “’I can't just walk away. It goes against my nature...’ You're a real simpleton. Forget it, guys. There's no stopping this fool." I love this. Amarant figures Zidane out pretty quickly after Ipsen’s Castle. Zidane is hardheaded and also an actor. He acts cool and pretends his reasons for doing things are loose but when he’s decided something it’s always for a reason. You don’t need a reason to help people, but Zidane has his reasons for helping Kuja and while Amarant doesn’t give two shits what they are he knows Zidane won’t be stopped because, despite everything, Zidane saved a loser like him. Also this line “Tell me! Why didn't you kill me!?" Because I quote it all the time and it makes myself laugh. Amarant is such a drama queen and Zidane knows it. Zidane’s like “dude... what is your damage, it’s 5 pm on Tuesday in Madain Sari. I ain’t getting blood on my gloves cause you’re having a temper tantrum.” And then Amarant runs away to have an existential crisis. He’s 26 but compared to Zidane, he’s the real teenager with angst.  

brOTP: I could talk about Zidane or Freya with Amarant but instead I’m gonna say the underrated dynamic of Amarant and Eiko (and also Vivi).  Amarant with the kids is truly the greatest gift given by his presence in the game. Amarant has never known true suffering until he became a designated legal guardian of a group of minors. It also kills me how he’s the one to volunteer to carry Eiko and Vivi up the Iifa tree. He looks at Zidane and is like “you have seriously been the ‘adult’ of this group???”

OTP: Gotta say the Freya and Amarant dynamic. I really enjoyed their unlikely friendship in the game but then the content. The fan content. The Freya x Amarant fans out there, you win. Ya got me. You captured me and I am now imprisoned by their banter and begruntled allies to lovers story. Even if they’re not romantic I love them together and really wish the game gave us more of them. But even Lani and Amarant together are valid, though I prefer them as butting head bros. Not much content for my girl Lani out there either, she deserves more.

nOTP: Nothing I can think of. I tend to like platonic pairings for Amarant. The dude needs friends because he can barely define the word friendship.

random headcanon: Before Zidane returns at the end of the game Amarant wanders around a bit, unsure of what to do. He doesn’t feel any place with the others in Alexandria, Burmecia, or Lindblum. I imagine he goes off on his own for a bit like before but this time he’s not after Zidane or a fight. Instead he’s got no particular destination. Yet he somehow always finds himself running into people just like him - or the old him - friendless lonely people who are looking for a fight. He doesn’t go out his way to find these folks he simply runs into them and decides he might as well knock some sense into them. He does however make it his business to go after any murmur of people hatching any ideas of going after the far off little village on the Lost Continent. The home of the genomes and black mages. They were so helpless, so weak that anyone who’d want to mess with them is pathetic in Amarant’s book. Until Zidane returns, no one has the chance to even look at the Black Mage Village the wrong way because in the shadows Amarant lurks, making damn well sure of that.

unpopular opinion: I kinda love that he’s just there for most of the game? While I agree he gets the short end of the stick in the same way as Freya, not receiving additional individual character spotlight (which could have very well been supplied through discoverable lore in the world/npcs or through sidequests) I never considered his “standing off to the side” as a detriment to his character. 

Many would probably agree that Amarant always felt like a bit of a parody of the loner character, or at least the stereotype of the loner character. Amarant is so easily paralleled with Squall and Cloud’s surface-level attitudes because his dialogue always felt like something to poke fun at. As the player we’re supposed to align with Zidane’s way of thinking and how he views Amarant. When Amarant loses to Zidane and pretty much grits his teeth and goes “KILL ME,” along with Zidane we’re supposed to kinda raise our brow at him and go “...really, dude?”

 Amarant’s a character introduced as an antagonist who has more in common with the power hungry villains of the game. Like many of the characters in FFIX, Amarant is in search of purpose in life, which he has never found, because he was always looking in the wrong places - in places of violence and power. Very toxic-masculinity of him. Amarant is “cool” on an aesthetic level but in reality he’s the polar opposite of cool in terms of what FFIX states about the need for others to be intertwined in your experiences so that you can live a full life. 

I sort of love that he’s like a grumpy pitball following a 16 year old and his friends around. Then he sits in the corner when they all meet up and discuss current events acting like he doesn’t care (not to mention he casually walks as everyone is running as fast as they can to escape Terra - made me laugh cry on my first playthrough) He is “just there” but that’s because he has no where else to be, no where else to go, he’s a man without a home. And until Zidane offers his hand, at the point where Amarant is most willing to take it at Ipsen’s Castle, he’s not truly a party member. He IS an outsider for almost the entire game but at Ipsen Castle he joins the party, becomes a comrade, and decides he’ll allow himself to change paths and start a life where he has friends and lives, as well as fights for them. Which is why after that moment, Amarant finally has a victory pose.

song i associate with them: I was scratching my head for so long trying to think of a song or track that had Amarant vibes until it hit me. Outskirt Stand by Tsukasa Tawada (from Pokemon Colosseum). Amarant is so chill, he’s not a bombastic guy, so he needs a theme that drops me in the rocky open desert of the Lost Continent like I’m just lumbering around looking for a monkey-tailed menace. Some other Amarant tunes:  Pyrite Town, The Under, Snagem Hideout tracks from Pokemon Colosseum. This post is just an elaborate call to action for everyone to listen to the Pokemon Colosseum soundtrack. Tsukasa Tawada is so great and he has a YouTube. Check him out.

favorite picture of them:

Yoshitaka Amano’s Salamander Coral. I love him. He had too much power. 

Also everything drawn by @crispy-ghee. Everything. I will think of this Comic forever until I die. Tattoo it on my flesh. The banter, the dynamics, the post-game content, the Zidane prince-consort outfit, the new Amarant outfit, the stuck-in-the-same-place relationship him and Freya have. Perfect. Go read it and consume Crisipy’s stuff. And also check them and their current art out, they just consistently get better and better. Here’s a first panel preview of my fav comic. Read it.

 @hannahlady​‘s Amarant art and their Freya/Amarant art is just ugh. *Chef’s Kiss* Here is another preview because you should go look at it.

Here’s a piece that deserves so much more love by @snackage. I LOVE how they drew Amarant. Here’s a little preview. It’s SO GOOD

Anyway TL;DR: Amarant is love and life and you’ll have to pull him from my little gremlin hands.

#asks #scriberat #amarant coral #ffix #final fantasy ix #amarant #final fantasy 9 #freya #amarant x freya #lani #zidane tribal #eiko carol

[with-my-murder-flute]

by the sword (Nile genfic, 2.6k)

Fic summary: Nile learned fencing and longsword and hand-to-hand fighting long before she ever met Andy's small army. But learning with them is a new form of difficult. Not because they've got thousands of years more experience (though they do), but because this time the practice doesn't stop when somebody gets hurt.

So she has to learn about war and how you balance it out with peace. Figure out how they do it and who she wants to be. And decide which weapons suit her best.

Content notes: Explicit depiction of the injuries Nile gets when training in knife fighting and quarterstaff combat with Nicky and Joe. There are also discussions of the physical damage done by different kinds of weapons, the butchering of animals, and people cutting off their own body parts in industrial accidents. (Oh, and a positive/sympathetic portrayal of Nile as a Christian)

They promised that in March they'd start teaching Nile how to fight with a sword, but when March came, Nicky gave her a knife.

A hauntingly familiar one, even though she'd never touched it before. For a second she thought it was her own, the Ka-Bar she planted in Andy's shoulder the day they met. Instead, as she turned it over, finding it familiar in every groove and contour, she found it an anonymous and identical match to her dad's instead. Not new, with the black paint worn down around the edges of the handle, but not a knife she knew. It could have been used by any Marine in the world except her. Except her father.

"You know too much," Joe explained from the side of the hangar, where he'd tumbled an umbrella stand of swords out onto a tarp and started removing their rust with fine-grit sandpaper. "We're not knights or cavaliers. For them, swordfighting was about honour. There were rules. We don't have any of that."

Nile knew going into this that nothing she knew so far was real swordsmanship. Like yes, she could fence; she'd competed in foil and saber for two years as a teenager. But that was closer to stagefighting than actual combat. It was all so staged and carefully managed. Even in her longsword league they said over and over again, it was a martial sport, not actual combat. They could imagine what it might have been like—could land heavy blows on armour, could mime falling down dead—but that wasn't the reality of it.

It seemed to her that the purpose of beginning with knife-fighting lessons was to go over territory she already knew, and do it for real this time. Nicky said he had something else in mind, some principle of combat he meant to teach. But that wasn't what Nile noticed.

What Nile noticed was that this time, she really died.

The old people argued it over, about how to teach Nile. Andy's example made them newly-cautious, but this was the way they'd always trained: You had to do it through blood and pain, you had to fight when you were still resurrecting. It was the way Andy and Quynh had trained Nicky and Joe.

Nile wondered, in the back of her mind, if being trained like that had something to do with the way Booker... well, Booker. After he'd already had such terrible experience of war that he'd wanted to desert. But that was the kind of thing she didn't air out loud, because they'd only just stopped having that kind of useless, circular, self-flagellating argument. She figured she'd keep her own peace on Booker.

She also opined, after hearing them wrangle over it for a day or two, that she'd rather practice with live weapons and get injured among friends than play it safe and incur a dangerous injury among enemies.

And when the knife fighting started, she was grateful they hadn't moved directly to longswords.

They taught knights how to do this, Nicky said, by having them slaughter and butcher animals. It taught you your way around muscles and tendons and joints. He offered to take her to a bullfight sometime, which she didn't say sounded so barbaric she had to wonder why PETA bothered with picketing rodeos.

He said that after her trachea healed over. She hadn't actually died that time; you had to aim further up or to the side to get the carotid artery. But the horror—not actually the pain, but the horror of feeling the air wheeze through the gash in her throat—had been so overwhelming that she'd barely resisted the pin he got her in. She'd just shuddered with her arms behind her back and his weight pressing her down until it healed, and tapped out of the rest of the afternoon. He'd been understanding when she didn't want to be around him for a bit, and let Joe gather her into a hug and let her cry.

That was when he told her about the bulls. She told him about Chicago's meatpacking district, about the old men she knew who'd butchered hogs every day of their lives for decades. About how they said they got numb to it, until one day one of them cut off his thumb with a machine and didn't feel it, until the guy next to him looked over and noticed all the new blood. About how after you see too much violence, your brain just stops processing it. About how a study on kids in the next neighbourhood over from hers had shown they had permanently elevated levels of cortisol, a sign that their bodies were under stress all the time and didn't know how to calm down.

Those were the kind of conversations Andy couldn't stay in the room for. She slunk off somewhere and got drunk, and you saw her the next morning, maybe. Nile used to judge her a lot more for it, but the day her throat got cut she let Joe and Nicky feed her a red wine as soft as velvet and fell asleep pressed against Joe on the sofa and understood, deeper than words, just how much keeping sane meant feeling anything other than your body shattering into pain.

Nicky braided her hair, the next day. Slow and careful, a little unpracticed, singing ballads in a language that wasn't exactly dead, but only had a few thousand speakers left in northern Italy. Their composer hadn't been good, exactly, but they'd been snowed into a castle with him one winter in the 1680s, so Nicky remembered his entire repertoire. Nile listened to the music and knew he'd refuse if she offered to record it, or write it down. One of the songs felt like the length of a novel (but was, when she checked her phone, more like one hour twenty) and by the end of it she was singing the chorus along with him, and it occurred to her that she could simply ask him to teach her.

"You can't rescue every one you see," she remembered her mom saying, when she found a half-stunned bird on the sidewalk. That was what it felt like with languages.

That afternoon Andy took her to the market. Ostensibly it was for groceries, but Andy didn't do simple errands, especially not when it involved food. She stopped to smell fruit Nile had never heard of; Google told Nile that medlar and quince were related to apples and also, apparently, roses. Nile had to try pine nuts, wild mustard, and three different kinds of yogurt drinks, one of which tasted of roses. Andy protested when she added a bag of potatoes to the load, saying they were bland, but Nile, who'd had enough of turnips, sweetly told her to pay the fuck up.

If you were lonely, and hurting, and didn't have someone to hold you, you could comfort yourself like this. Sunshine and sweetmeats and the steady hands of friends. Something, but probably still not enough. Nile understood it but it made her chest ache. She felt, sometimes, a little glad that Andy would die someday, the way families felt helping someone keep alive from cancer. Of course you wanted them to be alive, but you didn't want them to suffer.

Joe moved her on to staff fighting the next day. It was, he said, not the most useful of weapons in the current day and age, since it was most useful against long bladed weapons, "And who else but us uses those?" But there was some kind of theoretical basis behind the progression of her teaching, from weapon to weapon, and after knife came staff.

To tell the truth, Nile liked it. She'd learned about quarterstaff in her longsword weapons, as something that could defeat a swordsman, but nobody anybody she knew actually practiced it, because while you could wear percussion-resistant cloth and keep safe with blunted swords, there was simply no defending your bones against the percussive strike of a giant whirling stick.

There was something less offensive about getting your skull split or your collarbone broken, compared to getting stabbed. Partly it was because Joe was just a much nicer teacher, slower and more patient, while Nicky would keep stabbing you as you fought to reach your own knife. But also it felt more impersonal, more like an accident that had happened to you.

Okay, and it was also more fun. Knives created small imaginary hemispheres of pain, the angle of the arm as it swept out. Quarterstaves were huge, so long that if you wanted to get around them, sometimes it was literally easier to flip yourself into the air or dump your opponent to the ground instead of getting the staff to move. The first time she managed to run up a wall to get leverage on him, it felt so awesome she didn't actually mind that much that he popped her shoulder out taking her back down.

It was bloody and violent and really would have been impossible if dying had been a significant barrier for them. It made Nile laugh in a high-on-endorphins way, because it felt like she could finally push past the pain and find a place beyond her limits. It felt like being free. Like all her life she'd been wearing a heavy armor of caution, knowing she'd had to keep herself alive, and now she just felt the lightness of taking it off.

There were tears at the back of that laughter, about everything she'd lost because of it, but she pushed that away and went to shower. She and Joe spent the evening on Youtube, watching videos of capoeira and wushu, while the other two made a batch of some kind of pickled egg they thought they remembered from three hundred years ago.

Nile hugged Andy sometimes, because she looked like she needed to be hugged. Andy almost never turned her down.

A long time ago, she thought she remembered, holding a sword had seemed to transport her to some other time. Some other place. Like the sword had been a tangible connection to the past, to a time when things felt... clearer, or truer, or more real somehow. Like the feeling the word "honour" gave her, of something echoing and amplifying through a vaulted space. There was a time when people fought with swords for what they believed in. There was a time when you knew what was right and what was wrong and laid down your life accordingly.

She'd been twelve and believed in fairytales. So sue her.

The swords in their armory spelled out a long story of misery and war. When she held them now, Nile felt like she could feel the bodies that had come into contact with their blades. Curved single-bladed sabers and scimitars, ideally wielded from horseback, meant for a decisive downward chop. Nicky's giant longswords, meant to peel an armored knight like a tin can. (He'd used it, he said, to similar effect on a tank once or twice.) Andy's axes showed her age; before they had the metallurgy to make an entire blade, it was better to use a wood polearm with a blade on the end, and focus the sharp metal to a curved edge, to as small a surface area as possible.

Andy's axes showed her age, but not theirs; they were less than ten years old. Steel, especially steel that came into contact with blood, aged fast enough (and could only take so much of a beating) that the old people knew and had opinions on all the modern replica manufacturers. The oldest blades in the collection were used at Waterloo, only a little more than 200 years ago.

(Nile wondered, as she polished one and rubbed a state-of-the-art hydrophobic finish on it, if the quarterstaff lessons were actually preparing her to fight Booker, should she ever find herself opposing him. It was the kind of thing she couldn't help but think about the logistics of. Surely firearms would be more effective, she initially reasoned, except... guns jammed, guns broke, guns overheated, guns ran out of bullets. And then your gun became a very expensive bludgeon. And you're facing a swordsman who's had 200 years to train. So... why not try a very big stick?)

She knew that even this team could betray her. Even they could fight for the wrong cause. They'd supported revolutions that turned into dictatorships and fought alongside people who turned out to be monsters. There was no promise, no moral certainty, in violence.

So she felt really stupid about it, but the truth was that holding a sword... still brought back that old emotion. That feeling of being capable of doing things. Fighting for a better world. It made her feel taller. It made her feel like her life had a purpose that she'd been heading towards since she was young.

Like God had called her for a special purpose.

Which she'd never say to any of the rest of them, since Andy had been a god and Nicky had been a holy warrior and Joe had broken down completely once, when they let him get too close to a newspaper. They'd only ever hear it with the weight of all the horror they had seen.

So instead she had to carry it as a private conviction, a calling she would have to follow by herself, her own career to make holy instead of horrific. Like when she joined the Marines. Freer, in some ways, but even more out of her depth, not sure she totally understood the situations she was injecting herself into.

The fact that she wasn't sure she ever could walk the path of righteousness and keep herself always on the side of good... was absolutely no inducement not to try. It never had been.

"Picked one yet?" Andy asked, from the door.

"What, you guys weren't gonna pick one for me?" Nile asked, craning her neck around. Andy had her hands buried in the pockets of her jacket, smiling faintly.

"Some things, nobody can pick for you," she said. She picked up one of Nile's polished sabers and admired the sheen along its blade. "Your last-ditch weapon, least of all."

Nile already had a secret favourite of all the swords, but what she found herself saying was, "I want us to do some training in de-escalation."

Andy looked aside from the blade. "Sorry?"

Nile took a deep breath, her heart suddenly pounding like crazy. "That's what I was trained in, aside from combat. De-escalating conflicts. When I was a security guard, we... I got a course on mental health crisis from a guy who does hostage negotiation. I want... we should practice it."

She was ready to be seared by Andy's instant, caustic sarcasm. By a reminder that they were a specialist unit brought in when negotiation failed. Instead Andy looked back at the sword, twisting it to catch the light. "Was it useful?"

"Yeah," Nile said, trying not to let the breath shudder out of her in one long exhale. She didn't want Andy to know how nervous she'd been. "There's a... a lotta conflicts that don't have to turn violent, if you just approach it in..." She ran out of steam for an instant, and shrugged. "If you know how to respond."

"See if there's a webinar," Andy said, which flabbergasted Nile so much—coming from Andy!—that she didn't have anything to say while Andy set the saber down and sauntered back out of the building.

Nile sat for a good long while after that, surrounded by swords on a floor stained with her own blood, and got her breathing under control. Eventually she took her knife out of its sheath and looked it over.

It felt silly, to take a sacred oath on a Ka-Bar knife.

"I swear to almighty God," she said to it, anyway, "that I will use you as my last resort. Not my first."

#nileweek2020 #nile freeman #the old guard #my stuff