#however considering their username i am not surprised that they have an opinion like this

[caffeinated-chaos-bean]

Posting this here because I feel like standing up for myself. Do I need to? Probably not, but it's going to make me feel better and given I have addressed this type of behavior in the pinned post on my blog, I just feel it needs to be addressed.

I like Michael Jackson and his music. I've sias it before and I'll say it again, I don't care what your opinion of him is so long as you aren't being petty and using it as a means to get under my skin. I understand that people make their MJ jokes and their silly "hee hee" jokes, buy at least they can actually be SEEN as jokes. Even if they may be off color, they still can easily be read as a joke. Fine. So long as those jokes are NOT at mine or someone else's expense, it's whatever. But the moment when you make a "joke" that literally consists of less than 4 words and then get defensive when someone doesn't immediately get the "joke" and turn to insults is just bullshit and stupid.

Below are some screenshots of an interaction with someone who I am going to just consider a troll and won't be interacting with further. I will not say what site this is on, but if you use their mobile app then I'm sure you'll recognize it. While I'm annoyed with them, I do want to make it a point and say DO NOT go after and harass them. It isn't worth the time or effort, and it's just going to cause more problems. However, I didn't hide their username because it's a way to let others know that they are, at least from this interaction and my opinion, a troll.

As I touched on with them in my final response, this type of behavior and "joke" can, believe it or not, trigger someone's anxiety and ptsd from past events, and that's exactly what this did to me.

I didn't know about Michael until it shook the world and crashed the internet that he had passes away. This was my introduction to his music and his legacy and I loved it. I was in 5th grade and I went gung-ho with the hyperfixation and this lasted until the summer after leaving 6th grade. I got my friends together and we did the Thriller dance for our 5th grade talent show. I bought his autobiography and my family bought me several other books and affordable accessories that I would like. Hell, I got vote the 3ds and Wii copies of MJ the Experience video game lmao.

But... why did my love for him and his music only last those two years?

Because I was bullied. Heavily bullied. I was made a target by all the stuck up girls and stupid boys from then on and I never really heard the end of it until getting into higschool. I was told how the only reason that I liked his music was because I secretly hoped he would kidnap me, take me to Neverland, and rape me "like he did to all the other little boys and girls". Parents of these kids would even chuckle and their kids' behavior ans bullying NEVER was reprimanded, being written off as kids being kids. Whenever Thriller came on at our elementary school dances, I wanted to have fun and dance yet these bullies would make the effort to literally try and trip me and make me fall to the floor and laugh every time and is the reason I stopped going to any school dances until my senior prom.

This bullying made me stop listening to Michael's music. Note that I was roughly 13 years old at this time. I didn't listen to ANY of his music again and probably never would have if it weren't for my one IRL friend surprising me by putting an MJ spotify playlist on in her car while she drove me to the mall for my 22nd birthday.

Note that age gap? 13yrs to 22yrs. I stopped listening to his music for almost 10 years because of the bullying and harassment I'd suffered from growing up. And yes, after that I went into another hypwrfixation because I forgot how much his music helped me relax and just let go for once.

So again, what may seem like a joke to you may not to others and just might trigger their anxiety and ptsd. It sure did for me with this troll and their "joke". When this happens, my ptsd is triggered and I go on the defensive and, as a redhead, get upset. Rightfully upset, at that.

Mind how your "jokes" may come across. It may be funny for you, but for some it brings emotional flashbacks and can trigger someone's anxiety and ptsd.

#mj #mjj #michael #joseph #jackson #michael joseph jackson #michael jackson #rant #defending myself #the bean speaks #trolls #offensive jokes #tw #trigger warning #tw rape #tw mention of rape #bullying #tw buying #tw mention of bullying #tw mention of harassment

[gayleafpool]

i think one of the funniest hot takes i’ve seen on here is the one that nico stopped crushing on percy because he’s shallow didn’t think percy was hot enough anymore

#however considering their username i am not surprised that they have an opinion like this #hmmm #idk it just made me laugh 😭 #twblood

[lotrfics]

IMAGINE: Aragorn falling in love with you, Legolas’ sibling

Pairing: Aragorn x Elf Reader

Requested: No

Summary: What kind of person falls in love with their friend’s sibling? Who does that? Aragorn does, by falling in love with you, Legolas’ sibling

“How close are you and your brother?” Aragorn asked you as you sat together. You thought for a while, trying to figure out the most appropriate response for his question. “I’ll be honest, not that close. But I would still be willing to fall right into the fires of Mount Doom if it meant saving him. I’m just not sure if he would do the same for me.” You sighed.

As your personalities somewhat clashed, you and Legolas weren’t that close, unlike most siblings you normally come across. But arguing was uncommon, you both got along decently, if you had to speak to each other. Otherwise, you did your own thing and left each other alone. 

Sometimes, however, you did not know your brother well enough, not knowing where he would go if he and your father had a bad argument. He, on the other hand, somehow knew you better than you knew him. When you were sad, he dropped off your favorite food right outside your chambers, which was what made you feel better.

“He worries about you,” began Aragorn, “he thinks you can be too reckless at times.” He then looked at you. “And I know you would hate to hear it from me, but I agree with him.” You merely chuckled. Of course Legolas would worry about you, he was the more grounded sibling. He thinks before he acts, and you act before you could even think.

Aragorn had two reasons for worrying about you. The first and most obvious reason was because you were a vital member of the Fellowship, along with everyone else. The second reason was something he would refuse to admit: he was in love with you. He didn’t understand why he kept falling for elves; maybe because he was raised in a household of elves?

Whatever the reason was, it was nothing compared to telling the elf’s relatives. With Arwen, he did not know how to tell Lord Elrond he was dating his daughter. Now that he has moved on from her with you, he did not know how to tell Legolas he was interested in his sibling.

He was very secretive in general, so keeping his growing love for you a complete secret was an easy task for the ranger. While you were not looking at him, instead watching the stars, he took this chance to admire your features, and it helped that everyone else was inside, nobody could see him staring at you, he thought, at least.

Unfortunately, he was incorrect in that assumption. A few feet behind was an awake Legolas looking for you, who instead found Aragorn staring at you like you were the most perfect thing to ever exist in the world. This incorrectly confirmed the suspicions Legolas was having for quite some time now, the suspicion that you were courting Aragorn. You were not.

And because of the light footsteps you and your brother naturally have as elves, Aragorn never noticed Legolas had approached you both, only for him to quickly turn away and leave, believing he had unknowingly interrupted a moment. It was one of those moments he was immensely glad to be an elf with light footsteps.

-

The first thing Legolas did the next day was approach you. Even though you weren’t close, you still told him about your relationships. “Why did you not tell me something was going on between you and Aragorn?” He asked you, and you froze. Who told him you were courting Aragorn? Whoever they were told your brother a lie, you and Aragorn were nothing more than friends.

Well, you were very much in love with him, and it has been like that for quite some time now. You didn’t see a point in telling him, especially when he seemed like he was not interested in finding a lover. “Nothing is going on between us. Who told you of those lies?” You responded, getting angry someone was quick to assume you and Aragorn were more than friends. You also did not want anyone finding out about it, not even your brother, as you would not hear the end of it.

Legolas had sensed your anger, and he put his hands up as if he was surrendering. “Nobody did, (Y/N), I was only assuming.” You gave him a bewildered look. “And what made you assume, brother?” You questioned curiously.

“Because I saw you and Aragorn outside, alone together last night, and I caught him staring at you, as if you were the prettiest elf in the world.” Your brother explained, then shrugged. You stared at your brother, slightly shocked. If anything, your brother was the one most Silvan elves back in Mirkwood considered “pretty”, with his long platinum blond hair identical to your father’s.

“If you are not together, then Aragorn is clearly interested in you.” Your brother suggested. “Are you?” 

No one has asked you that infamous question before, if you were interested in him, and if someone did, you would say no. However, this was Legolas, your brother, just because you two can be quite distant, that did not mean you lied to him. You hated lying to your brother, it made you feel guilty. So you chose to tell the truth.

“Yes, I am,” you playfully rolled your eyes, but then became nervous as you began to tell him you’re in love with Aragorn, “I think I’m in love with him.” You admitted. “Happy now?” You added, because Legolas now knew what he needed to know. He didn’t answer your question, instead he asked something else. “And will you tell him?” You only stared at him, then shook your head. “No, maybe, I don’t know. Probably not. Father would not approve of me courting a mortal, let alone a man.”

Legolas gave you a sympathetic look before placing a hand on your shoulder. “Whatever you want to do, whether it is telling him, not telling him, I don’t care. I will support you, and maybe help you out if I can. Father can have his opinions, but what he thinks is not important.” He told you, and you slightly smiled at him and nodded. It always made you feel better whenever your brother reassured you.

-

Aragorn was spending time alone outside when he heard the faint sounds of an elf’s footsteps. Believing it was you, he spoke up, “Hello, (Y/N). What brings you here?” He greeted cheerfully, as he always enjoyed your presence. The response he got had startled him. “I am not (Y/N).” A familiar voice laughed, and Aragorn spun to be met by an amused Legolas. “My sibling is not the only elf, you know.”

“What brings you here?” Aragorn asked again, this time meant for Legolas, who had walked over right next to him. “I have something to ask you.” Legolas said and Aragorn cocked an eyebrow at him, wanting to know the question. “Do you like (Y/N)?” Legolas suddenly asked, turning to Aragorn. This was an ambiguous question, and Aragorn wanted to take advantage of it, even though he knew what Legolas really meant. 

“Of course I do, they are a good friend of mine.” Aragorn stated plainly. Legolas stared at him as he knew he was trying to avoid the point of the question. “No, Aragorn, you know what I mean. You care for them.” Aragorn sighed and looked down. There was no way to get out of this now. Your brother already had a clue, something Aragorn wished had never happened.

“I do care for them, more than I would like to admit,” mumbled Aragorn, then turned to Legolas, “I think I’m in love with them.” He admitted, mirroring what you told your brother earlier. Legolas only nodded, holding back a smile he was so tempted to show, not saying anything else. “Why do you ask?” Aragorn questioned curiously, beginning to have some hope, (correctly) believing you had told Legolas you loved him as well. “Did (Y/N) tell you anything?”

Your brother decided to leave him in the dark. He shook his head, making the ranger frown a little. “My sibling never talks to me about their love life.” He lied.

-

You decided to confess to Aragorn. Legolas’ words the other day encouraged you, and today felt like a good day to do it. You were sitting on a bench alone, until you heard someone approaching you. You turned and smiled when you saw Aragorn approaching you, then he sat down next to you.

“Why the long face, Aragorn?” You noticed his somewhat troubled expression. “Did Eowyn feed you her stew again?” Everyone who knew Eowyn knew how horrible her cooking was. You liked to think Eowyn herself knew as well. Aragorn snorted a little before shaking his head. He didn’t say anything, so you two sat in silence, enjoying each other’s company.

“Aragorn?” You suddenly spoke, and he hummed in response. “I think, no, know I’m in love with you,” you sheepishly confessed, and when you dared to glance at him, you were surprised to see he was grinning. “I am in love with you as well, (Y/N). And it seems your brother does not mind at all.” He gestured to your brother, who can be seen watching if you paid close attention.

Now that you both knew how you felt for each other, you were glad to go through the entire quest together, with the help of your brother and another friend Gimli. -

Taglist: @aspiring-ginger​ (congrats on being the very first person to be in my very first taglist ever haha)

If you would like to be in my taglist, let me know by sending me an ask! Do not be on anonymous, because I will not be able to add you without knowing your username.

#lotr imagine #lord of the rings imagine #aragorn x reader #aragorn imagine #fav

[vowled]

Unpopular Opinion: Johnlock edition

So, I am, as invariably suggested by my blog and username, a major Sherlock fan. I absolutely love it. The first time I watched it, I immediately related to it, and my peabag brain instantly saw a friend in John Watson. Sherlock’s character, on the other hand, was quite unconventional to me. I couldn’t bring myself to quite like him for the first 2 episodes. He was.....different. I knew I wanted to watch the series just for the dynamic duo and their and sweet friendship. The cases I couldn’t at first care for much, but eventually that changed too. I always was completely amazed by how well they had managed to adapt the series to the 21st century and their subtle winks to the original canon too was quite impressive. Eventually, I fell in love with it, and proceeded to watch the entire series thrice. in a row. I was, and still am, completely obsessed. 

Then came the thought, which was also somehow initially suggested subtly by the show itself, ” What if Sherlock and John are in Love?” I must agree, I had read too many conspiracy theories about certain celebs being closeted to not come up with that question. 

At first it was just a thought. But then, critical analyses on tumblr came up. I couldn’t stop reading them?! and so many of them were thought-provoking and persuasive and honestly, I was living for it. The phone = heart theory is still one of the best Theories I’ve read among all the fandoms I’ve ever been in. And that is just one among many. JohnLock was everywhere. Other ships were persistent, but none could reach the amount of fervor as JohnLock. And I was living for it too. I still really enjoy all the adorable fanfics and the ever-interesting theories, and honestly, at this point, my motto is “I’ll find homoerotic subtext even if it kills me”.

Shipping is ok, shipping is good. But here’s the deal we need to talk about:  we shouldn’t justify our ships to the point of interpreting every action as romantic. This propagates unrealistic expectations and results in harmful stereotypes.

Yes, I’m talking about the unending debate on Johnlock. 

From season one itself, Johnlock was phenomenal. It is widely argued that  the show-runners themselves inserted subtle hints, and hence, birthed this beast on their own. The Sherlock fandom remains one of the oldest fandoms in the world, with its beginnings rooted in the Nineteenth Century when ASiS was published, and since then many have argued about the latent homosexual subtext embedded into the writing, my point here being people have been shipping Johnlock for well over a hundred years. Hence, It’s not really a surprise that people are still drawn to this ship. But to be shipped by this magnitude of people? This invariably suggests that there’s material provided to us by the creators themselves that is very blatantly obvious about the relationship. And while in most cases shipping two characters is completely okay in itself, according to me, shipping Johnlock has further validation in the fact that there is proof of intent of it becoming canon eventually (at least in the first two seasons).

Like I said before, shipping is OK, shipping is good. 

But is shipping okay if we take it to the point of over-analysing every move?

Sherlock is a comfort character for me. God knows half of my maladaptive daydreams are about him being a father figure towards me. My entire twitter tl and Tumblr dashboard is stuffed with cutesy or angsty things about him, and that’s great! But being in the fandom for about eight months, I’ve realised how this sort of feed eventually resulted in me completely forgetting the original storyline, and more importantly, in me forgetting how flawed a character Sherlock is!

Everyone(including me, the first time) freaks out in HLV because of how Sherlock isn’t listed as John’s pressure point. I, however, think we should question ourselves: Why should John still consider Sherlock that tantalizingly close to himself as he was in the beginning? John learnt his best friend had died, and he decided to do the bravest thing he could: make peace with it and move on. BUT NO! The Ghost of the man who loved him returned from the grave to haunt him! Here I talk about the other possible reasons why Sherlock wasn’t a pressure point for John in HLV. 

I am tired of this constant sugarcoating of Sherlock’s character. I am tired of seeing constant posts about how Sweet and caring Sherlock is and how much he loves John and how he loved her more than Mary. I am done with over analysis of every single shot where Sherlock looks at John, completely done. This shot below? It’s been overused for so many fanfics and cheesy romantic lines that I forgot that it’s supposed to be a look of GUILT.

Anyone who knows me knows that I love sherlock so dearly because he’s a very unlikeable character. That is precisely what sets him so far apart from the other characters. Sherlock started off with a hateful and dismissive character, but through the course of the events he undergoes a lot of emotional development. And that is truly noteworthy. In TFP he said for Mycroft, “ He did the best he could (for Eurus)...” and that is truly sentimental. This sort of development is always heartwarming.

What I want people to understand is that Analysis is, obviously, important. And CRITICAL ANALYSIS more so. And it’s saddening to see so many people glossing over the critical part of the analysis. Why is it so wrong to point out HOW HURTFUL SHERLOCK’S ACTIONS TOWARDS JOHN HAVE BEEN?  Why is it wrong to to point out Johnlockers borderline bully other shippers? 

Can we finally talk about the problematic aspects of Johnlock, or rather Johnlockers?

Even though I’m relatively new to the fandom, I’ve noticed how dismissive people are of anything negative said about Sherlock. In the beginning, it was endearing, really; but now I see this pattern of constantly singing praises of Sherlock’s character, and it has lead me to realize how detrimental it can be to the relatively younger audiences. Sherlock is Rude, period. There’s no question about it. And this constant glorifying of his rudeness and arrogance and dismissing it as  a quirk could very well possibly give the impression that arrogance and vanity are in fact not so bad, and hell, it might make one seem a little cooler even ! Oh, don’t be mad if I act like my comfort character ! I’m quirky like that !

Constant bashing of the creators. And when I say constant, I mean it. This sort of bashing about is never-ending. And when I say this, I don’t mean that the creators were perfect; some of their mistakes were, quite frankly, blatantly ignorant ( like Irene the Canon Lesbian falling for Sherlock), but I don’t see enough people praising it for what it is. Even now there is so much slander against the creators ( and personally I feel bad for Mark Gatiss because he’s actually on twitter and is constantly spammed). Is it really a surprise that the creators hate the fans and especially the Johnlockers? Was it supposed to be so shocking when Martin said that being in the show wasn’t very fun anymore because of the fans?

We just don’t actually analyze anymore! I get that we haven’t got any new content for FOUR muheffing years but please I literally don’t see anything that’s actually interesting or analytical anymore and that kills me because that was the reason I joined this fandom- to read and comprehend the subtext, and the AMAZING META!  All I see are cute couple-ish pics of ben and Martin and tbh we can do so much better than that?!

Johnlockers have so much actual stuff to talk about? There is literally so much going on Subtextually, and yet all I see is people losing their mind over any interaction between Sherlock and John. This is so unfair! AND it’s detrimental too! With people painting every interaction as romantic in nature, the younger teenagers in this fandom who might not have experienced Love or Attraction may glean unrealistic ideas about them! It is difficult as it is to navigate oneself through romantic entanglements, let alone being fed such rose-colored ideas! And I say this because although I don’t know much about the audience on Tumblr, but Stan Twitter is like, (at least) 50 percent teenager-fuelled. It actually isn’t healthy for them at all.

Stop with the Benedict-worshipping for God’s sakes. Are you only in here because of him? We all get it, he’s absolutely stunning but come on, we’re here for the stories too right?

Romantic love is important, no doubt. But you know what’s completely overlooked? The platonic sort of love. And it’s tiring. Sherlock and Molly/Janine/Irene/John are all amazing duos and each pair has it’s own uniqueness and tang to it! Let’s not constantly dissect everything in the name of shipping, shall we?

lol looking back at it, I feel like it’s a vent rant for the prevailing circumstances on Stan Twitter. I apologize if anything I said hurt anyone, it wasn’t meant to. I completely understand that shipping people is for...recreation (?) but this was just my opinion. Let me know what you think about it!

#sherlock bbcsherlock im prolly gonna get a lot of hate for it maybe i should delete it but nah it took a long time to type dont hateme

[youneedasoultraveller]

This sounds bad, but I feel like Nickys failures/mistakes (namely the crusades) disproportionately consume this fandom. I can’t be the only one thinking that the TOG def at some point entered a war/battle that was a major mistake. Andy’s been alive for 6000 years. At some point she did something awful that still haunts her to this day. The crusades are a very valid and serious topic, but I feel like for most not-Nicky characters it’s always “I feel so guilty i couldn’t save them.” Maybe I’m alone, but I want to read something where Andy/Quynh/Joe are like “yea, I made a horrible choice 450 years ago and it keeps me awake.” Idk, I just feel like while I enjoy reading fics about Nicky+crusades, we’re shoveling all guilt/regret/mistakes onto one event in one characters life. The crusades cannot be the only time any of these characters were forced to dramatically reform their beliefs or come to terms with something they’d done.

Hello anon! I’m feeling quite surprised that so many people seem interested in my opinions, so thank you all for all these asks!

Also, sorry in advance if I am not as articulate this time, but I am a bit tired and the answer is a bit self-evident, in my view. To answer your question: I for one am certainly grateful that there is a wide acknowledgement that the Crusades were a moment of pre-colonialism and European aggression, especially when the symbolism of the Crusades gets politically and religiously exploited by both the far right and religious fundamentalists (of all faiths).

This said, I myself find it hard to believe that in all those centuries none of these people have ever not been on the right side of history, and that the First Crusade was the only instance where only one of them was part of the “bad guys”. Again, quoting Yusuf, “depends on the century”. 

Moreover, there is even a part in volume 2 of the comics (that I will not spoil here, anon if you haven’t read it and are curious send me a DM with your username and I will reply to you privately) where another one of them admits to being part to some other horrific event.

History overflows with examples of awful things humans do to one another.  The issue of not judging the past through contemporary lenses is very tricky and poses several epistemiological (as well as moral) problems.

However, these characters are immortal: it’s difficult to imagine that their morals have always all be irreprehensible and that all their actions not only were considered ethical at the time, but can still be considered ethical today by a 21st century audience. 

Instead it’s usually mainly only Nicolò reckoning with his own crimes, and again because I think people are afraid of perpetuating harmful depictions of non-European (and/or non-male) characters. 

I feel like this limits and flattens the complexity of each one of them, as well as completely ignores or distorts entire parts of history. And this when TOG offers so much potential to analyse power relations and intersections of class, gender and ethnicity throughout history, all across the globe! 

#nicolo di genova #the old guard #the old guard meta

[beterlee]

what do you think about the bullying scandal with April

i choose not to think ! 😂😂😂😂 jokes n mental breakdown aside, check below, ig! tw: mentions of bullying, april.

ive never received asks before, let alone anon ones, so thank you for sending me this one and being curious regarding my stance on it??? i’ll try to make this as short and clear as possible. honestly... i’m trying to stay neutral. i want to stay neutral. it seems like the best choice for me mentally, i think. when the news came out, i was really confused and in disbelief. tbh, i still am in disbelief and i’d almost call this... denial? i just can’t believe that such a situation broke out, i would’ve never expected it.

with cancel culture and whatnot, i wouldnt be surprised if people looked down on me for staying neutral and choosing not to side with hyunjoo. which... understandable, people bring in the argument of “i’d rather side with a potential victim than a bully”. on the other side, it’s obvious that Something did happen and the girls & hyunjoo definitely didnt get along / something was going on and i cant really side with them either, but then the argument of “innocent until proven guilty” comes into play. however, all i can say is that DSP is shit and they couldve mediated the situation, no matter how insignificant or bad it actually was. i wont go into everything because im guessing that you know what has happened. it’s definitely confusing when both sides seem to be telling the truth, when both sides have “plot holes” in their stories, when both sides have stated that they have “proof” and “evidence” that what they’re saying is true... idk. the thing is that they’re taking this to court and even if the judges consider that april is right / hyunjoo is right, it’s still going to be disputed and everyone will have their own opinions on the matter.

i hope this made sense! and yes, i do understand that i still have a naeun dp, naeun header, naeun username, her gifs are still up, but i really cant get myself to change them just yet. as for the username, i actually like it as it is, not even bc it’s related to naeun, so idk if im ever gonna change it.

what else.... this has really affected me. mentally, emotionally, and it still does. i wont go into detail, but it affected A Lot of things for me and i’m struggling with that too and it’s not easy to handle it all by myself. if you have any more questions, feedback, opinions, even gif suggestions KJDNSKFGJ drop them in my ask or sumn!

#anonymous #didnt want to go into details for my own good but ... .xoxo

[kerishaharris]

Why the cool kids (and brands who hope to be perceived as such) are on TikTok

Being what I like to describe as a “tail-end millennial,” I’ve grown up both with and in the digital age. I still remember turning in school assignments completed on a typewriter as well as playing Oregon Trail in computer class on those box-shaped, neon green Macintosh screens (I’m still heartbroken that my wife died of dysentery, btw). I remember pleading with my mom to hang up the phone so I could log onto AOL, and how much thought I’d put into curating the perfect AIM away message. I joined Facebook my senior year of college when it was still “the Facebook” and for college kids only, and remember how big a deal it was to rearrange my MySpace top eight (funny how we were full-on coding and didn’t even realize it). But now, as a mom of three tweens, I can admit that despite digital and social media being both my personal experience and my chosen career, there are media formats out there that I know nothing about, and that my kids’ knowledge far trumps my own. None of these formats feel more foreign to me, yet obviously influential and equally important to the next generation, than TikTok.

What is TikTok and (dancing humanoid dogs aside) who uses it? TikTok is, by and large, the newer, cooler and way more sophisticated version of Vine (RIP to a real one). On its own website, TikTok says its mission is to “inspire creativity and bring joy.” Produced and manufactured by Beijing-based video-sharing service ByteDance, TikTok reportedly boasts 800 million users worldwide, and as of 2019, has surpassed one billion installs (Yeh, 2019). It creates and curates an experience driven by its powerful algorithm, turning all of its users into a connected network of mini-influencers through the use of trending hashtags, leveraging of popular music, and push for engagement with other users through duets and viral dance challenges, making for a meaningful, organized, and dare I say it, super fun experience for users of the app (Herrman, 2019).

In exploring the app, what I found especially interesting was the way TikTok employs a vertical feed experience prompting the user to swipe up, which sets it apart from similar apps like Instagram Stories or Snapchat. This “endless scroll” approach seems, in my opinion, very conducive to creating an almost addictive experience which can lock you in for hours and hours. TikTok appears to cleverly take advantage of the way users normally engage with our vertical screens, filling up the entire real estate of our phones with engaging video content coupled with popular music that’s perhaps a little too easy to get sucked into.

Who is TikTok really for?

As not only a mom of tweens, but also having worked in communications within the education space in various capacities since 2016, TikTok’s popularity among young people comes as no surprise to me. TikTok is primarily used by youth between the ages of 16 and 24 (Brucker, 2020). It is used by about 69 percent of young people in the U.S., and these users spend at least 80 minutes per day on the app (Perez, 2020). This is the same group that, if you ask them, considers Facebook to be that “cringey” old people app that your grandpa thinks is cool, and Twitter to be that thing where journalists and politicians bicker with other journalists and politicians. It’s unsurprising to me that young people would be attracted to TikTok, a space that can feel exclusively like their own.

For me, it is that young people's exclusivity that keeps me away from TikTok. Despite being what many consider to be a subject-matter expert on social media, I am admittedly intimidated by an app I don’t completely understand or feel welcomed on. I feel more comfortable with the apps I’ve come of age with and whose functionality is more native to my own digital experience, most notably Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. I worry I may look like I’m “trying too hard” by exploring TikTok, or worse, that my presence there as a 38-year-old mom will render it an uncool place to be. My own kids reacted with horror when they noticed I had TikTok installed on my work phone, it didn’t matter that my job was to manage my then-employer’s institutional presence on social media. “Mom, please don’t make Wesleyan University a TikTok” they begged (too late guys, already secured the username for posterity). It was clear that they viewed TikTok as their safe space, and that my presence, as well as my employer’s presence despite it being an elite, well-known university, was not welcome.

Are any grownups or brands doing TikTok “right?” Interestingly, several marketers have managed to get past this “eww, adults and brands” factor to effectively market to TikTok’s growing audience through clever advertising and engagement campaigns. Capitalizing on the popularity of hashtag challenges on TikTok, Universal Pictures turned to TikTok as a way to promote their 2018 film, The House with a Clock in Its Walls, through a #FindYourMagic campaign which prompted users to film themselves doing their own magic tricks. Leveraging the power of influence, Universal got a group of popular TikTok influencers to post their own DIY magic videos, which naturally prompted others to do the same. As a result of the campaign, Universal received 1.3 million likes on the influencer videos, generated 19,000 pieces of user-generated content, and gained 11,000 new followers (Brucker, 2020). Whether it prompted people to actually go see the film, I’m not really sure.

(Source: TikTok for Business) In my work as a higher education social media manager, I often came across other universities (typically, with bigger teams and even bigger budgets) doing great work on TikTok. From a marketing perspective, it makes sense why a university would want to invest in building an exceptional presence on TikTok. Each year, so much of your energy and efforts are dedicated to marketing to prospective students and their families, convincing them that your school is the school to attend. Based on user demographics alone, TikTok offers a captive audience for the exact age range higher ed marketers are working so hard to reach. I’m proud to say that my undergraduate alma mater, the University of Florida, was one of the first to leverage TikTok and is considered one of the best in the game. With nearly 97,000 followers and more than 1 million likes, it’s clear they’ve figured out what resonates with their audience. Most of their TikTok videos feature the beloved school colors (anyone who went to UF will tell you we bleed orange and blue), Al the Alligator (we obviously weren’t terribly creative on the mascot name), fave spots on campus and the like. 

(Source: University of Florida on YouTube)

Other major schools like Brigham Young University and Florida International University capitalize on TikTok’s penchant for dance trends and employ their mascots, Cosmo the Cougar and Roary the Panther respectively, to jump in on these trends.

...this same video on BYU’s Cosmo the Cougar TikTok has a staggering 28 million plays, 4.8 million likes, and more than 24,000 comments.

Is TikTok here to stay?

As a perpetual student of digital and social media, I see TikTok as the wave of the future for digital and social communications and marketing. The question for me, however, is whether or not I’m going to ride that wave as a communications professional. While digital marketing is still somewhat new on TikTok, my constant fear is that the moment brands step in and try to inject themselves onto a platform, mimicking and profiting off of the way it is organically used, its core users become disinterested, abandon the platform, and look for the next big thing they can call their own. If I’m lucky, perhaps I’ll get the next big idea and launch that platform myself.

Funny but true story. As I was putting the finishing touches on this blog post, my 12-year-old daughter came up behind me chanting the following.

Her: Racism? Stop it. Bullying? Stop it. Homophobia? Stop it.

Me: Is that from a TikTok?

Her: Yeah.

Me: Figures.

SOURCES:

Brucker, N. (2020, January 6) Who is on TikTok and how can brands reach them? Forbes. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2020/01/06/who-is-on-tiktok-and-how-can-brands-reach-them/#1a2fe28343be. 

Herrman, J. (2019, March 10) How TikTok is rewriting the world. New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/10/style/what-is-tik-tok.html.

Perez, S. (2020, June 4) Kids now spend nearly as much time watching TikTok as YouTube in the US, UK and Spain. Tech Crunch. Retrieved from https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/04/kids-now-spend-nearly-as-much-time-watching-tiktok-as-youtube-in-u-s-u-k-and-spain/.

Yeh, O. (2019, February 26). TikTok surpasses one billion installs on the App Store and Google Play. Sensor Tower. Retrieved from https://sensortower.com/blog/tiktok-downloads-one-billion.  

#tiktok #socialmedia #digitalmedia #marketing #digitalmarketing #digitalstrategy #brandcommunications

[gentleshinigami]

THE POSITIVE & NEGATIVE; Mun & Muse - Meme.

fill out & repost ♥ This meme definitely favors canons more, but I hope OC’s still can make it somehow work with their own lore, and lil’ fandom of friends & mutuals. Multi-Muses pick the muse you are the most invested in atm. image:

My muse is:   canon / oc / au / canon-divergent??? / fandomless /

Is your character popular in the fandom?  YES / NO.  Is your character considered hot™ in the fandom?  YES / NO / IDK. Is your character considered strong in the fandom?  YES / NO / IDK???  Are they underrated?  YES / NO. Were they relevant for the main story?  YES / NO. Were they relevant for the main character?  YES??? / NO / THEY’RE THE PROTAG. Are they widely known in their world?  YES / NO. How’s their reputation?  GOOD / BAD / NEUTRAL. 

How strictly do you follow canon? 

With Crystal being an OC, I strictly try to be as close to Canon as possible as I have to carefully add her into everything without being too involved. I even revised her Bio to include extra details pertaining to the Anime. Though, I would consider seeing her as a side character more than a big part of the main story, but she does get much involved with Ichigo’s/Soul Societies Adventures~ However, feed back about her backstory if it’s close to canon is always appreciated, or any feedback in general!

SELL YOUR MUSE! Aka try to list everything, which makes your muse interesting in your opinion to make them spicy for your mutuals. 

Crystal has unique facial features, especially her E Y E S!! I can’t recall if any other Shinigami have Silver Hues, but I think that’s one of Crystal’s best features! You never see her Zanpakuto unless you happen to fighting along side her considering she hides it away inside her actual B O D Y! She can be charming when she wants to be, and big softy once you get close to her!

Now the OPPOSITE, list everything why your muse could not be so interesting (even if you may not agree, what does the fandom perhaps think?).  

Pfffttt, okay...umm... She definitely has a biased opinions on Humans since she passed away in her Human Death. For a Shinigami, one has to be able to somewhat tolerate the Human World, but Crystal refuses to even find something good in Humans since her death. She’s quite content with being alone, and no use for Friendships hardly so it makes it hard for her comrades to trust her. Crystal will try every attempt to isolate herself from others, but wouldn’t mind going out drinking with them either. With hardly any experience on what Friendship is, it’ll take awhile for her to open up to the ideal that she does H A V E friends. 

What inspired you to rp your muse?

Wow, um... I am not 100% sure to be honest! I just got really interested in Bleach a long time ago, and it just happened to be the time I was exploring writing. My usernames in chat rooms, or even social media would be: Shadowcrystal. I think that’s how I got her name, and just then all of her details were coming to me; that’s how she was made!

What keeps your inspiration going?  

Not going to lie, it is always hard for me to get interactions with Crystal since I’ve started on Tumblr many years ago, this is my third account for Crystal tbh. OC’s are so hard to get interactions with Canon, or even other OC’s. It’s never stopped me from trying to get interactions (because I understand the people’s right to be selective & private), but since I have re-made Crystal’s account, I have gotten more kind, and loving feedback about her. I love hearing you guys comment on my OC, telling me that you guys love her back story, and even my portrayal of her. It always makes my day, and makes me want to be better for you!!

Some more personal questions for the mun.

Give your mutuals some insight about the way you are in some matters, which could lead them to get more comfortable with you or perhaps not.

Do you think you give your character justice?  YES / NO / SOMETIMES Do you frequently write headcanons?  YES / NO. (But I want too!) Do you sometimes write drabbles?  YES (On previous accounts) / NO. Do you think a lot about your Muse during the day?  YES / NO. Are you confident in your portrayal?   YES / NO (But I try to be!)  Are you confident in your writing?  YES / NO / SOMETIMES Are you a sensitive person?  YES / NO. 

Do you accept criticism well about your portrayal?  

Absolutely!! As long as it’s not trying to diminish my OC, and not try to plainly tell me I should stop writing her. I appreciate feedback, or criticism on my OC, but nothing too hateful; or over the top. A simple I love your OC, or any questions that you guys have to help better understand her is always good!!

Do you like questions, which help you explore your character? 

YES!! I love character development questions! This just doesn’t apply to Crystal, but now to any of my muses. MY ASK BOX IS ALWAYS OPEN, flood it with personal, embarrassing, sad, or anything about my Muses questions!! I love answering questions you guys may have, so please don’t be shy!

If someone disagrees to a headcanon of yours, do you want to know why?

Of course!! I am not picky at all when it comes to my OC, or my Canon Muses. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and if you C A L M L Y come talk to me about it; I am more than willing to adjust it, or involve your said Muse into it!

If someone disagrees with your portrayal, how would you take it?

This one is tricky cause I am generally a nice person, but if I feel like it was sent out to be rude, or hateful instead of stating your opinion; I will not tolerate it. I do not mind people coming to me to give me pointers/writing references to better my writing, but telling me to straight up give up my muse, there are better portrayals, and deactivate is not appreciated!

If someone really hates your character, how do you take it?  

In all honestly, I am surprised I haven’t gotten any thing like that, but it would defiantly drop my mood, and I would delete the message. With that mood drop, I would probably make a vague message, and just disappear for the rest of day until I’m ready to return.

Are you okay with people pointing out your grammatical errors?  

YES!! English is my first language, and sometimes I think faster than I type. If I ever mess anything up, come to me in IM, and I’ll fix my error.

Do you think you are easy going as a mun? 

I believe that I am, but some people would say that they don’t know hoe to approach me. I can assure you guys I am a smol bean, and I give lots of loves!!

That’s about it, congrats for filling out! 

 tagged by: @bleachintothemultiverse​​ @windstormwielding​​ @t-hitsugaya​

Tagging: Whoever has time, and wants too! Tag/Stolen by me!s

#;deepest secrets of my heart (headcanon) #ooc #outofkindness #;behind the scenes (mun memes) #bleachintothemultiverse #windstormweilding #thitsugaya

[the-signs-of-two]

I made a post yesterday asking if you would be interested in hearing my thoughts on Sherlock and the Sherlock fandom in light of the recent influx of Good Omens-stuff, which has made some people in the Sherlock fandom afraid that the fandom is dying. I received nothing but positive responses, which both surprised and delighted me to no end, so here we are.

This is going to be a bit of a long and rambling one, so strap in.

First of all, I need to talk about some personal stuff that I haven’t really talked about on this tumblr before. That is my Asperger’s (I was diagnosed less than a year ago, I’m still processing it and I haven’t received an “official diagnosis”, just the word of a psychologist specialising in girls and young women with Asperger’s – just putting that out there). I know a lot of people in the fandom have similar problems, so I’m not sure how much I need to explain. But I do want to say that the way Asperger’s is generally written about and portrayed online (on sites like Wikipedia or the like) is, in my opinion, often very negatively worded and gives an exaggerated idea of what Asperger’s is, at least when it comes to milder cases such as me.

A characteristic of Asperger’s is what’s known in English as “restricted and repetitive interests”, which I find to be a very negative term. I much prefer the Danish term særinteresser (“special” or “peculiar” interests). Basically, it means that a lot of people with Asperger’s develop a keen and often very intense interest in a certain quite niche subject – if you’ve heard Cabin Pressure, think of the way Martin obsesses over planes and memorises an enormous amount of plane trivia.

For me, it’s always been an abnormally strong obsession with various media. I’ve obsessed about various franchises through the years, but Sherlock and Sherlock Holmes has been the one and only for at least 4-5 years now. It doesn’t necessarily mean that my interest is stronger than other people in the fandom who spend a lot of time and get a lot of enjoyment out of Sherlock, but it certainly is stronger than the average fan and it has some, shall we say, specific expressions. I LOVE talking about Sherlock – I find it really difficult to describe the kind of excitement and positive energy I get from talking Sherlock, but think of the way children get excited when they do something they love and the excitement is just bursting out of them. I don’t need something new to talk about either. I write meta when I get a good idea or I get inspired by other people’s meta and throw in my two cents, but generally speaking, I don’t need something new to discuss in order to discuss Sherlock. I just want to talk about it! I try to keep it to a minimum on here because I think people… wouldn’t really… care…, but I’d love to discuss things like what I think characterises Sherlock and John, what I look for when I watch a Sherlock adaptation in the characters and in the relationship between the characters, my top ten Sherlocks, my top ten Johns and my top ten adaptations (side note: if anyone is interested in that, PLEASE drop me a comment or an ask, I’d be absolutely delighted).

So… all that to say that I consume Sherlock and Sherlock Holmes and participate in the Sherlock fandom because it gives me an immense sense of satisfaction as well as an outlet for my excitement that doesn’t bother my surroundings. That is what I think the core of fandom is and always should be: enjoying and celebrating what you love unapologetically in a safe, supporting environment, where you don’t have to rein in your feelings in fear of negative social consequences. And I think that’s always very, very important to keep in mind – it’s all about enjoying what you enjoy.

In my opinion, all fandoms should aim to promote that enjoyment and reduce negativity. Of course it’s the internet – negativity is hard to get rid of completely. But, speaking only for myself, I’m here to have fun.

That is why it will always be my opinion that no matter what you ship, that should be met with acceptance and respect. I don’t ship Adlock or Sherlolly (just to mention two prominent ships in my fandom that I am not a part of), but I would never ever argue that shipping Johnlock is “better” or “more correct” than shipping anything else. Shipping Johnlock is simply my preference and, frankly, I don’t consider it my business what other people enjoy. I can join them in loving the show as a whole and then we may go our separate ways when we want to talk shipping. I hope and believe that Johnlock might be made canon someday. But even if it does, I don’t think that matters much when it comes to shipping. Johnlock becoming canon matters for representational reasons and for the people who already ship Johnlock, but shipping is separate from and can live without “the canon stamp of approval”. What’s canon and what’s not doesn’t legitimise some ships relative to others because, again, shipping is about enjoyment and I think everyone ought to be free to enjoy whatever the heck they want to enjoy.

That applies to other fandoms as well.

As a quick disclaimer, I haven’t watched Good Omens. I probably will at some point, it looks really good (but I’m not gonna lie: I’m mainly interested because of Benedict, Mark and the setting).

So… Good Omens. You can probably guess what I’m going to say: people may enjoy whatever they enjoy. Some might leave Sherlock behind and make a full transition to Good Omens. Some might be really into Good Omens now and return to Sherlock in a while. Some might just be experiencing a short crush on another fandom and return to Sherlock very soon. Some might just be dipping their toes into it. As Moriarty would say: It’s all good.

I’m fully familiar with crushes on other fandoms. I go through such phases too every once in a while. I recently went through an intense The Lord of the Rings-phase after watching the Extended Editions and all (yes, ALL) of the additional material.

However, I’m also fully familiar with the fear that you yourself or other people in a fandom are moving on. Whenever I go through one of these phases where I get really into another fandom for a while, I get really upset because I think I might be leaving Sherlock behind. And our fandom is in a very precarious position at the moment. It’s been two and a half years since we last had any new content and that content was… uhm… a mixed bag. We don’t know if we’ll ever get more and, if we will, we don’t know when. And if we won’t get new content, somehow we’ll have to reconcile ourselves with S4, which is really hard. Fandoms tend to stagnate after a while if no new content is added, and I think that’s what a lot of people fear is happening. And it’s a very natural fear, whether you fear you yourself losing your interest in a fandom or the fandom itself shutting down: you don’t want something that has given you so much enjoyment to end.

But I don’t think we’re there. There’s still so much to do and talk about and analyse and create in this fandom. People post new fanfics and upload new fanart every single day. I’m able to reblog tonnes and tonnes of great content from other people in the fandom on a daily basis. I have nearly 1000 followers on here (as a side note, it is absolutely crazy and I am so blessed and thankful to all of you!). Of course, many of them might not actually check out what I post anymore, but seeing as I almost exclusively post Sherlock stuff and have done since the very beginning, clearly there’s still a lot of people who are interested in this content. Heck, even the creators are still desperately trying to keep everyone invested by trying to get us all drunk on themed cocktails.

So my final comments are these: I understand both the appeal of a new fandom (especially a fandom with a cast and crew as supportive of their fans as GO seems to have) and the fear that you or others might be moving on. But I want to stress the importance of having a fandom driven by excitement and enjoyment. So those who are really into GO at the moment should absolutely not be made to feel bad about that. People should be free to post and enjoy whatever the heck they want and that goes for everyone. I, for one, don’t think our fandom is anywhere near done and I will continue to post all Sherlock-Sherlock-Sherlock for the foreseeable future while we wait for S5.

Tagging the people who asked for this: @colourfulwatson @anchored-in-high-tide @catwillowtree @gelos @johnlockedinwarstan @why-are-you-cryingg (your username will not link for me for some reason, I’m sorry, I hope you see this) @cherylbombshellofthegay @royalworldtraveler @flowery222 @ebaeschnbliah @sherlockslove112

#Sherlock #BBC Sherlock #Good Omens kind of #up close and personal #fandom life

[bladekindeyewear]

Boots Reads Homestuck Epilogue(s) Part 10 - Candy Part 1 again

I was told that finishing the epilogue MAY make me feel better by some with opinions, with some vague hints that the ridiculous start of Candy may have underlying reasons, so now that I’m awake again (though my stomach is roiling a bit again) I’m gonna take another crack at it.

Alright, so I was also hinted that this Candy part ends with a different cliffhanger, so maybe those two will cancel out?  That’s my hope anyway.

Reading page 1 again since I didn’t finish the very tail end of it... alright, so WHY IS ROXY CRYING again????  Was she just PRETENDING that she didn’t know it might turn out bad for John if he went at the end of the last one?  Was there some weird mind-rewriting going on?  Is the crying a symptom of this whole thing potentially being an our!Callie fanfic and she knows what’s being dodged??  Don’t know.

Alright, let’s have him save Gamzee and... is Vriska going to get saved in this version?  Or is that descent into the black hole without seeing what happens her well-deserved comeuppance while only the ghost version of Vriska truly figured out how to be happy?

==>

Dirk acknowledges him when he zaps back, but it’s YOUNG Dirk so hopefully there isn’t any stupid Meat stuff going on.

...Yeah, Gamzee immediately being repentant is weird as shit.  Maybe he Chucklevoodoo’d Callie into escaping him into this whole candied mess so he could start shit, I dunno.  That or this isn’t really Gamzee or someone’s manipulating him or etc etc etc.  The hint I got earlier was that if I thought Calliope wanting to bring Gamzee back and everyone just rolling with it was a little out of character, there are “reasons”, so I’m just going through all of this under the assumption that some emotion-manipulating weirdness is going on regardless.

Oh shit, Gamzee’s going to start recounting his character reasons for doing bad stuff in a surface-hope of justification and understanding.  All the characters immediately recognize how painfully groanworthy this is going to be.

GAMZEE: AnD sUcH iS wHy I’m GrAbBiNg HoLd Of My RePeNtAnCe As FiRm AnD sErIoUs As I wOuLd A wHoRe’S tItTy!

Yeah, that really encapsulates how “serious” all of this is.  And of course, John’s not having any of it.

Yeah, Terezi wouldn’t have any of it either, remotely.

Something feels different, but he can’t put his finger on it.

Hm.  The aforementioned manipulation-weirdness?

==>

Okay, so it’s kind of Dirk who notices something different and is cancelling his stupid villain plans, got it.

Volatility of causality, huh?

(I’m going to be going through these parts a little faster than the Meat section, unsurprisingly.)

==>

Okay, Rose and Kanaya, are we gonna cure her substance abuse or--

With all the distance between them lately,

God damnit, have Dirk’s manipulations extended that far OFFSCREEN or is this legitimate character distancing???? Because either is BAD.  >:(

Right, now that the plot and “relevance” has been sidelined over to a different timeline, Rose can now breathe easy free of her condition.  And whichever parts of her condition were, perhaps, IMPOSED on her.  Fuck.

I’m going to try my fucking best to cling to this, hope I can carry on a memory after this is over that DOESN’T imagine Rose trapped in a fucking existential dying villain coma with a hard fucking cutoff that promises nothing is ever coming to resolve it ever.  (Or Jade in a somewhat-similar sidelined situation, or Jane doomed to fuck herself over and everyone else too, or...)

What’s slipping away instead is the feeling that any of it mattered at all. Was she insane to be so consumed by such lofty concerns, and is she only beginning to experience clarity today, for the first time in ages?

Yeah, you’re no longer in a timeline of Light and relevance.  And that’s not so bad, which is something you never expected to be true given your derision of the concept.  Void is pretty goddamn alright.

--Oh right, the illness and substance abuse probably caused plenty of distance between them.

KANAYA: There Was A Feeling I Couldnt Shake That Something Terrible Was Going To Happen To Us KANAYA: Something That Neither Of Us Could Stop KANAYA: A Powerful Outside Force That Would Take You Away From Me KANAYA: And I Couldnt Stop Myself From Thinking That Maybe KANAYA: Maybe That It Would Be For The Best ROSE: Kanaya... KANAYA: I Can Now See That This Is Completely Ridiculous

For some reason, this doesn’t settle my stomach much?  It’s clear Andrew wove this in here so that if you read Meat first, you’d be able to acknowledge readily how this diverged in a way the characters kind of recognize, and... I’m not sure what I’m even saying.  It’s like there’s hope that this is TRYING to take the bad taste out of my mouth, but I don’t believe it overly much.

ROSE: What a relief, considering that we are both going to be young and magically fit literally forever.

Wait, so they DID find a way to extend their non-ascended friends’ lifespans to practical immortality?  Jane’s Life powers?  Something else?

==>

yay jade.  more extended dave metaphors.  calm down stomach.

JADE: i never thought id be thinking of you as my weird nerd friend by the time we were in our twenties

Heheheh.

DAVE: yeah well i never thought youd be like the premiere woo girl on the planet

Had to look up what a “woo girl” was.

Yes Jade go flirt them to death

What she’s planning isn’t a seduction. It’s a public service.

Pff

(And yeah, she’s being pushy but at least she doesn’t go DIRK FAR about it.)

DAVE: its incredible hes driven at least ten people off the site by creating thinly veiled parody accounts of their usernames

Oh my gosh, Karkat’s good enough to ANDREW HUSSIE them?!???  :D

That’s incredible.

Karkat knows damned well what a husband is. He’s been force-fed enough bad movies from Dave to pick up any human euphemism you could name. He still plays dumb sometimes, for comedic effect, to irritate his friends, or simply to avoid a topic of conversation altogether.

Yeah, it was always pretty clear that about HALF of the trolls pretended not to understand something human that they knew about just for comedic effect and they knew it.  :)

It would be pretty easy to mistake his reaction for arousal, so it’s understandable that Jade is extremely surprised when Karkat snaps his jaw shut and chomps down on her hand.

PFFFFHahahahah :D

And yep, Jane cancelled her run at Dirk’s direction.

DAVE: lets all just thank whichever christ was responsible for making whatever decision resulted in her deciding not to do that

*nod nod*

JADE: well i hope she gets a better hobby JADE: there are a lot of less ominous things she could do with her time KARKAT: WHAT, LIKE FUCKING HER WAY THROUGH HALF THE POPULATION OF EARTH C?

Jade pinches his ear and twists hard, smiling pleasantly.

JADE: get fucked karkat

Yeah, this is about the level of violence/threat I’d expect from Jade when anyone slut-shames her for perfectly acceptable behavior.

==>

There is almost no crime on Earth C, and so almost no one locks their door.

Huh.  I guess post-scarcity might do that.

Alright, we get to see Jane being less of a fuckass.

Dirk was the one person on Earth C who took the state of the locksmith industry with the seriousness it deserved.

Pffff

JAKE: Thats my theory at least. Maybe its tommyrot but i have faith that dirk will be back. After all where is he going to go?

Good question that wasn’t answered in Meat, so of course Jake says it here obliviously.

JAKE: I must admit i am rather half rats at the moment. JANE: You’re what? JAKE: Haha sorry that was a pretty obtuse way of putting it wasnt it. JAKE: What i mean to say is that ive been powdering my hair quite a bit today.

Andrew is SO good at making Jake sound completely incomprehensible.

...Ouch, Jane, don’t drink so hard! D:

The “morbs”??

JAKE: Dirk has that manner about him does he not? JAKE: A way about him that makes you feel like whatever you do as long as it does not involve him it doesnt count for dick.

Yeah, fuck Dirk.

Hm... is the absence of relevance affecting them, or some other manipulation? It’s not just the LACK of Dirk’s manipulation.

JAKE: Except of course for that time when you were under mind control and had me trussed up in your lair as you pontificated villainously about using me as a breeding stud to create a blood lineage for your incumbent corporate space empire.

A fate Dirk seems to agree with, judging by Meat.  Let’s sidestep that fucking entirely, thank you.

...yeah, I didn’t expect Jake’s response to be any less oblivious than exactly that.

==>

So why DID Callie bring Gamzee back, anyway?  Is there some secret use for him in mind?  Was she manipulated into it?  Maybe BY Gamzee?  Hm.

...alright, priestly with followings.  That ain’t good.  Is he aiming for Clown President MK2?

Everything Callie and Roxy have done and said in this Candy section so far seems creepily contrived, possibly by design.

...okay did they have some kind of weird agreement? Like, “okay John is gonna make his choice, and if he chooses to stay i try dating him instead of you, Callie”???  That’s... no that can’t be it.  Roxy’s NEVER acted THIS oblivious before.  What’s she playing at?

GAMZEE: mY fUcKiN *gUy*. :o) JOHN: ... GAMZEE: My DuDe AnD mY nInJa AlIkE. GAMZEE: mY *hOrN* dOoOoG. JOHN: ... GAMZEE: mY hOrN tO tHa MoThErFuCkIn DoG. ;o) JOHN: waiter! help!

I’m imagining Gamzee now as a sweaty and homeless, unkempt Guy Fieri.

Yeah, this doesn’t look like it’ll be fun.

==>

...Swifer Eggmop.  ¬_¬”

There’s a third member of their social group who definitely hasn’t arrived at the conclusion that his power and influence should be meted out responsibly either. Neither of them speak his name, however. For some reason, it feels like a shadow passing over the sun. A brief spike of pain flickers through Rose’s head, a bolt that strikes between her eyes and splinters out. There is color and light behind it. A vision that tears through the material reality in front of her and gives her a brief glimpse into a parallel reality where things are very different.

Yeah, fuck Dirk.

...Pff. Yeah, Rose WOULD mimic the record-scratch gesture.

Don’t invoke “never seeing Vriska again” like that, you’re really tempting fate.

Heh, Rose is finding some Light in the darkness, wanting to do something that’s meaningful on an expressive level with this Vriskgrub business.

Hm... why is my stomach a little less uneasy?

I sure hope it stays that way.

==>

KARKAT: OH MY GOD, ARE THE MECHANICAL GLUTES ON THAT BILLBOARD ACTUALLY PADDED WITH PLUSH TO MAKE THEM MORE LIFELIKE?

Heck Yes

...Yes, touch the butt, Karkat.

Jade, pouting a bit, glides in between them and uses her Space powers to teleport Dave’s phone out from the center of his traumatized palm and into the pocket of her sweater.

Hm!  So she still has teleportation abilities over a limited range even without her Green Sun boost, that’s nice.  :D

After all, where would these two pitiful beta boys be without her?

Oh my fucking god stop being Dirk, Jade.  And never use that narrative language again, even in your head.  Heck, even if Dirk’s the one WRITING this still, don’t even think CLOSE enough to think those words.

...yeah this sounds like an Active player class taking things slightly too far.

Thank you, Karkat, for drawing the consent-line in the sand.  Looks like Jade’s backing off a little.

--hold on, wait, Dave kissed him? He did, so why is-- let me read back up--

Dave doesn’t answer. She answers for him by leaning down and planting a dry, affectionate kiss on Karkat’s cheek.

Okay I misread this line earlier.  Jade kissed Karkat when neither of them were looking and is BLAMING Dave.  Hmm.

Alright, Dave ollies outie.  Karkat tumbles down some hillstairs.

Jade could probably catch him. Actually, she could easily do it, but it doesn’t seem like the kind of favor you should do in a fledgling kismesissitude.

Thaaaat’s a little presumptuous??

JADE: well i guess im eating grub spaghetti alone JADE: *again*!!!

:C

I’d be sadder if you didn’t bring it down hard upon yourself but

:C

==>

Yeah, John, better clear up this Callie business because it’s muddy as heck why Roxy would just drop everything to try things out with you.

Ah, we’re bringing up the gender identity thing on this side too, hm?

More serious talk, this is good, reading reading...

The glasses clink together clumsily, and water gets all over the complimentary breadsticks.

Oh no.  This had better not be Olive Garden.

ROXY: no one else has ever made me feel like this

--not Calliope???

What the heck is even going on.

Dave’s coming for some bro help it looks like.

==>

It’s hilarious how much Dave is freaking out about this, and how completely in-character it is.

JOHN: holy fucking shit. JOHN: there’s a gay snooze button? DAVE: yeah man theres a gay snooze button JOHN: wow.

I love these two’s conversations

......wait, Dave’s been holding off on kissing Karkat because of what he thinks JADE might think???? D:

JOHN: i almost managed to forget that she was trying to fuck you and karkat.

Pfffffffff  :D

Yep.  I love it being put so bluntly.

Reading on... yeah, for some reason I also always figured that the end result of a nice three-way relationship between those three people would be Jade and Dave essentially both just glomming onto Karkat more than each other?  Hm.

JOHN: i mean... it doesn’t sound... JOHN: *canon*?

...I hope you’re just talking about his coin flip explanation and not DaveKatJade.  >:(

John wonders when talking to Dirk has fixed anything for anyone.

Nod nod.

She grins up at John with shimmering, adoring eyes. They’re reflecting every star in the sky, all for him.

Seriously, what the hell.  Is Roxy hypnotized?  Putting on an act?  A voidy act??

I’m not doubting that Roxy COULD feel that way about John, I’m doubting the suddenness and the way Calliope is being deliberately ignored in the situation, which is so goddamn obvious that JOHN is uncomfortable about it.  There’s something seriously strange going on.

It itches at the back of his head, the idea that he might have just fucked up Dave’s entire life.

D:

Alright next post after a bit of breakfast.

#Homestuck #Homestuck Epilogue #Upd8 #Homestuck Liveblog #bladekindeyewear #BlastYoBoots

[minas-writing]

Blinking and Screaming

World: misc original superhero world

Length: 2,500 words

Summary: Blink is the villain and Scream is the hero. Unfortunately, the city has it backwards. A major villain decided to visit, and the two were forced to team up, but Scream got hurt in the process. Now Blink is struggling with Emotions. (It gets better as it goes, I promise!)

TW: hospitals, pain

"It wasn't supposed to be like this," Blink murmured. The bleeps and blips of monitors were fading into the background as she focused on the person in front of her.

He was just a touch older than she was. Without the mask that barely hid anything, without the brightly-colored jumpsuit and flowing cape, the notorious Scream was a skinny kid with curly brown hair. It was his innocuous appearance that let Blink carry him to the hospital without problems. She had claimed he was a casualty of the fight, which was just a tiny bit misleading. Well, it wasn't exactly Blink's fault that people would assume he was an innocent bystander.

Blink shut her eyes tightly, refusing to let the tears fall. How she could be mistaken for the city's hero escaped her understanding, much less how Scream had been vilified as its villain. She thought she was the perfect picture of evil - bat wings, powers of darkness, lilac-tinted skin - while Scream was practically the good guy superhero. Then she'd botched a bank robbery, marching in on her hired hitmen and telling them to let their hostages go. Every time Blink remembered that incident, she cringed a little inside. Those guys had known what they were doing. She could have gotten over her reluctance to keep hostages and risk people's safety. It wasn't Scream's fault that he judged the situation accurately. It wasn't fair that his power was particularly destructive, if effective.

That same power had been invaluable to their combined efforts against The Wranglian, who had been legitimately attacking their city. Blink didn't really want to feed the populace's adoring opinions of her, but more than that, she didn't want them to get hurt. Her and Scream's goals had aligned there, so they worked together. "Just this once," they said, but Blink had actually been surprised to see how well they worked together.

The room's door opened with a loud clunk, admitting a young woman in scrubs who checked on Scream's monitors. She seemed startled to see Blink there, but did an admirable job of ignoring her, just like she would any other visitor. Or so Blink assumed. She didn't exactly want to look up and watch the nurse. Having eyes on you constantly was unnerving, as Blink well knew. She couldn't go anywhere without being stared at.

"Do you know when he'll wake up?" Blink asked suddenly. At least her voice didn't sound too hoarse.

To the nurse's credit, she did try to meet Blink's eyes. "His injuries aren't too major, so we're taking him off the sedatives. He'll be awake in half an hour, though groggy and incoherent, but that should fade given another half hour. We'll likely keep him at least overnight."

"Thanks."

"My pleasure, Miss Blink." The nurse left. Her news took a load off Blink's conscience. She slumped forward to put her elbows on her knees and ran her fingers through her unraveling ponytail. The wayward strands reminded her that she hadn't had a chance to clean up since the fight. Would Scream feel guilty that she had gotten roughed up, too? Probably. Even if Blink cleaned up, he would feel bad that he had been out for so long. Nothing she did would tell him that it was fine that he had been injured.

So Blink stood and made her way to the tiny bathroom inside the room. She was a mess, she thought when she saw the mirror. There wasn't much she could do right now, but she did manage to clean up her ponytail and wash the dirt from her face. Blink peeled her long gloves off and hung them on the towel rod so they could dry, then washed her hands. A surprising amount of dirt came from her arms.

She knew she was stalling, but Blink went back to her chair and took her boots off anyway. No harm in stalling. Finally, when Blink had stared at the floor for at least ten minutes, she couldn't put it off any longer. She unzipped a hidden pocket and took out a tiny bundle of folded metal pieces. When it lay flat, the screen had a single thin border and was as large as many television sets, but it didn't have to be that big. Blink unfolded the screen to a comfortable size, then powered it up. The link to the Blink Away website was saved right on her homepage. Why had she done that, she wondered, annoyed.

When the website had begun gaining traction, Blink had reserved a username on the forum section, though she very rarely used it. Somehow, word had gotten out that @officialblink was actually the real Blink, and so people had begun tagging the name in things. It had really discouraged her at first, realizing that most people considered her some sort of anti-hero, one who would occasionally run rampant but do the right thing in the end. But eventually, Blink grew to tolerate the website, though she refused to contribute. She had a feeling that anything she said would be twisted by the adoring public.

Currently, people were frantically discussing the fight Blink had just gotten Scream out of. It looked like they thought that Scream had recruited The Wranglian. Amateur videos, shot directly with screens, confirmed that The Wranglian went down with a wall of darkness while he was distracted by Scream. As The Wranglian fell, however, he lashed out with one of his extra, noodley limbs and caught Scream in the back. Both of them dive-bombed toward the earth, Blink in hot pursuit. That's when the videos ended, content that the fight was over and their "hero" had won.

The villain had been defeated, but the people of the city still didn't know the actual dynamics of the two powerful people they were used to. They just rolled on their assumptions. Blink sneered at one particularly obnoxious comment: "blink rrulez guys lol"

A new notification popped up on the screen - a news station was currently showing something about the fight. Blink hesitated to connect. She made sure the sound was off and turned on the subtitles so she didn't bother Scream.

A pretty reporter stood outside the demolished stadium where it had all gone down. Blink watched with a growing scowl as the reporter rattled off damages. Luckily, from what Blink could tell, the only people hurt were The Wranglian and Scream, but they had cost the stadium, and city, millions. And she couldn't do anything to help.

That thought made Blink pause. Did she want to help? A deep, cold horror began to swell somewhere in her chest. Yes, she did kind of want to help. Blink cursed her luck. She couldn’t be a very effective bad guy if she cared too much about property damage! She could justify caring about hurting people, but property damage? Blink rolled her eyes and shut the news off.

She didn’t care about property damage. It created construction jobs, which stimulated the economy and definitely helped out a few people. And the fight had likely scared off any other real villains who had been eyeing the city. So. This was all a good thing, especially because the only injury was skinny little Scream.

Blink abruptly shut off her screen and folded it back up. Sure, it was a good thing that there had really only been the one big injury, but Blink really wished that nobody had been hurt at all. She and Scream had tried so hard to keep that from happening. Unfortunately... The memory of that moment ran through Blink’s head again. She’d seen The Wranglian’s tentacle whip out as if in slow motion, and saw the trajectory. Her wings weren’t well suited to abrupt maneuvers, though, and it had taken a split second too long to change direction. Blink had been grazed by the tentacles before, but neither of them had actually been hit by one. She could only imagine how that would feel.

In the hospital bed, Scream groaned. Blink froze, wondering if perhaps she should hide, but it was already too late for that. He’d seen her. He inhaled deeply through his nose, as if he was going to try to use his power.

After a split-second to decide, Blink leaned over and slapped her hand over Scream’s mouth.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” she said firmly and quietly. “As far as the hospital knows, you’re just a civilian, ‘kay? No point in changing that - you know they hate Scream for some stupid reason.”

Scream narrowed his dazed eyes. He was still under the influence of drugs, though hopefully he was coherent enough to understand her. After a protracted moment, he nodded, and Blink retracted her hand.

“What happened?” he asked reluctantly, his voice breathless.

“The Wranglian hit you with a tentacle,” Blink replied softly, scowling when Scream winced and put a hand to his torso. “According to the doctors, you don’t have any major injuries, not really. Some torn-up skin on your back, mostly. They want to keep you here until tomorrow, just to be sure. We don’t know what kind of damage The Wranglian could do.”

Slowly, Scream nodded. “I can’t believe we did that. What do people think about it?”

“Ugh.” Blink sighed and put her head down in exasperation. “Most people seem to think that Scream and The Wranglian were working together. They saw Scream go down a moment before The Wranglian did, so they’re not expecting to see him anymore.”

Scream’s face showed complete and utter resignation. “I’m never getting through to them, am I?”

“I’ve been trying, believe me,” Blink replied wryly. She almost smiled.

Scream grinned at that, then coughed, which turned into more than one and lasted far too long for Blink’s taste. When it had subsided, Scream laid there for a moment, then stuck out a hand.

“It seems an introduction is in order, oh mighty hero,” he said, a touch of sarcasm coloring his voice. “I’m Gavin.”

With a touch of suspicion, Blink returned the gesture. “Lucille,” she replied, using her real name for reasons she couldn’t quite articulate. “Is there anybody we should contact?”

Scream - well, Gavin - did his best to shrug. He winced at the action. “Not really. I live with a roommate but he rarely notices I’m gone. We have separate lives. We’ve got to, for me to have any chance at saving people.”

“I’ve got all the time in the world for doing that,” Blink said. “Well, doing the opposite of that, I guess.”

“Just one more reason that heroes get the short end of the stick.”

At that, Blink did laugh, though it wasn’t long. “Short end of the stick, huh? Come on, Gavin. You can go shopping without people staring at you. You can have a normal conversation with normal strangers. There’s a reason I pay other people to do things for me!”

Gavin was quiet for a moment, his eyes deep and calculating. “You know, I never thought about it that way. Maybe you’ve got enough short-endedness to be a hero, too.”

“Me? A hero?” Blink scoffed. She gestured to her wings, to her horns, to her lilac-colored skin. “Forget about it. I was created to be a villain. Look at me - wouldn’t a hero look a little more like a unicorn or something? A little less frightening?”

“I think you’re pretty,” Gavin said, then quickly blushed. “I - I mean - um, drugs.”

Blink blushed, too, though she shrugged it off the best she could. “Uh huh. Sure. Drugs. One thing’s for sure - I am not a hero, nor do I have any desire to become one.”

“Really?” Gavin sounded doubtful, though the smirk on his face indicated that he was teasing her. “You teamed up with me, the real hero, to fight The Wranglian, a real, big bad villain. I’d say there’s some hero in you yet.”

“Never!” Blink protested. “Look, The Wranglian was a one-time thing. This is my city, other villains don’t have a right to come in. It’s in the official Villain’s Code of Conduct. The Wranglian broke it, meaning that if there were villains in the cities around us, they’d have come in to put him down, too. It’s my right and responsibility as the villain of the city!”

Gavin coughed again through a laugh. It sounded painful, but he didn’t draw attention to it. Blink stood anyway to get him one of those large hospital bottles of water. “Methinks the lady doth protest too much,” he managed to get out after a few desperate gulps of water.

Blink didn’t give him the satisfaction of an answer. She just took the water back when he was done and put it on a table that he could reach if he wanted it again.

Surprisingly, the silence wasn’t uncomfortable. It was almost downright companionable, although Gavin still had a far-off look in his eyes that indicated that the drugs weren’t completely gone. Blink just tried not to think about anything at all. Gavin’s earlier words had just a touch too much of a truth to them. He broke the silence a moment later with a guilty voice.

“Sorry to make you deal with this,” he said dully. He wouldn’t meet Blink’s surprised gaze.

“Sc - Gavin - no.” Blink was about to veer into sappy territory about how he didn’t need to worry about it, how she would have done that for anyone, especially her only sort-of friend - but she realized soon enough that it wouldn’t help her cause. She was not a nice hero, dang it!

Blink tried again. “Look, you’re the hero. You lose, but you have to be there to make the fight mean something. And you do stand for good, and that’s not a bad thing - ” She was still losing this fight. Gavin was giving her a weird, knowing look. “Hey! Don’t look at me like that! You did good fighting, that’s all. I was confused.”

“Would you have left me there if you’d had a chance to think about it? Instead of bringing me here?”

It took Blink a moment to compose herself. Her instinct was to say no, definitely not, I couldn’t have left you in the rubble, but of course she couldn’t tell him that. He was trying to coerce her to do good things. So Blink looked away from his eyes, and his face, and his too-pale, skinny body that had been hurt partly because of her, and lowered her voice into something predatory. “Yes. Yes, I would have.”

Now the silence was awkward. It stretched. Blink wanted to apologize and take back her words, but knew she couldn’t say anything, couldn’t glance at him. He’d look at her, upset, and she didn’t want to see betrayal on his face. Even if he probably knew she was lying.

So Blink collected her things and walked to the door, not once looking back at Scream.

“I’m your first contact here. I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.” She opened the door, and just before it closed, she heard his weak little voice reply.

“Bye, Lucille.”

Blink shut her eyes and walked down the hallway, avoiding the carefully not-staring stares of everybody in the hospital.

#writeblr #story snippet #superhero #story #short story #actually this one is finished #i started it a long time ago #so thats why the beginning is terrible #fiction #i like the ending #whump #kinda #hospital #angst #yep #using lots of tags

[livinonedge]

Truth be told, I’ve always considered myself a fangirl (hence my original and slightly embarrassing username). But I’ve always shied away from posting my opinions online since I’ve always been slightly afraid of becoming a person who would get in fights over my opinions. But every so often there is an exception, and this is it. Feel free to skip this post if you don’t want to read one of my very few rants.

When I was in my first year of high school, I began to watch anime after avoiding it since it was a “weird” interest. I began with the typical started anime, Sword Art Online and I quickly realized I was missing out on a whole lot of stories because I was afraid of being seen as “weird” at school or to my family. I quickly began to watch more and more anime and I began to develop my tastes in anime that I currently have today. Sometime my late freshman year/ early sophomore year (the summer between if I remember correctly), I found an anime series based off the manga of the same people who created Death Note, which I was, and still am, a huge fan of.

The anime was called Bakuman and even though it had no relevance to me, since it was mostly about creating manga, I still fell in love with it. After I was a sophomore, I decided to buy the manga and read it for myself. I had always been reluctant to buy any manga or anime content since my parents didn’t know about my interests but that all would change.

After I read the series through (and discovered that there was actually an entire arc the anime cut out that I actually really enjoyed!) I realized how much I actually loved this work. I’m very picky about calling something my favorite (since I tend to like a lot of different genres) this manga quickly became my favorite and still is to this day.

Yes, I do recognize that there is some dialogue that personally I am not a fan of, but I’ve always seen that as something that makes the work it's own. It was created back when I was 8 and I read it at age 14. Naturally, there would be societal differences and since I’m not exactly the targeted audience my own views should not line up with the work. But to me, that just improves the story since it dates it. By dating it, it seems more real to me. Like this could have potentially happened starting in 2008 and if not much had changed, could have finished in 2018. To me, that’s the sign of a fantastic work.

However, that’s not why I love this story so much. After all, I have no aspirations to work in the manga/anime industry and even if I wanted to, I cannot draw to save my life. However, to me, the main theme of this work is dreams, for as cliché as that sounds.

When I was in my first few years of high school, I had given up on the one dream I had for as long as I could remember. I wanted to become a writer. However, I learned about the truth of reality too early on. By the time I was in sixth grade, I stopped writing. I realized the dream was basically one-in-a-million and knew that my skills were not up to par. As a result, I believe this is where my fear of rejection began. I was terrified of trying my hardest and failing at what was my dream. As a child, I couldn’t take that. So, I gave up on that dream of mine, even though I wanted nothing in the world but that.

However, years later Bakuman came into my life. When I was watching the anime, hearing the story for the first time, I was so hopeful for the character’s dreams to come true. I knew it was anime, was a work of fiction, so I figured it would work out in the end. But as the ending got closer and that dream had not been accomplished, I began to worry for these characters I had gotten so attached to. But in the end, (SPOILER ALERT) the dream does come true. Even though I knew it was optimistic (which I thought was interesting coming from the creators of Death Note), it was inspiring to me.

My sophomore year, I came to a realization as a result of reading Bakuman. If I have a dream, I cannot give up on it. No matter how impossible it seems, it could come true, so I have to try. I was not able to take the first step that year, but the following year, I was finally able to do it. For the first time in over five years, I allowed someone else other than myself to look at my writing (I am referring to creative writing, I still did write for my classes it’s just my own creative writing is personal to me and feels like a part of myself). I remember how terrified I was because I was scared to death my piece would be rejected and I didn’t know if I could take that, even though I was 17. I also began to let myself dream of what I wanted to major in in college. That was when my mom recommended photojournalism to me based on my love for photography. It eventually turned into journalism after a few months, but I was holding on for the results of my creative writing to decide if I should go forward.

I remember thinking that I had not gotten selected since I was seeing some people get letters from my school about it. I was not as crushed as I thought I would have been, but I still remember that feeling. I was ready to give up my dream that had now become two dreams once and for all. But, as it turned out, I was selected.

I don’t think any of my friends knew I had submitted something so imagine their surprise when in English class I received a copy of the magazine that only those who were in it received. And I heard what others had to say about my work. I remember nearly crying in joy because I was receiving compliments from people I wasn’t even friends with. I remember them telling me how they actually cried over my short story and people shared their interpretation of my work with me. I couldn’t believe that people cried, let alone liked my work. I remember thinking that my goal wasn’t even to make others cry. But once I heard that, I understood. I wrote that short story about my own struggles. I claimed it was about being an introvert, but it was also about my fear of rejection when it came to my writing. I cried when I wrote it because it was so personal and close to my heart. From then on, I submitted another short story the following year and applied to and got accepted at a university for a journalism degree.

When I reread Bakuman for the third time these past few days, I realized all of this. At the time it was happening, I didn’t know that that manga was influencing me so much. I thought it was all me, but the truth is, no human will ever do something because of pure motivation on their end. For as much as I am called a cynic, I truly believe after realizing this part of myself that every action a person takes in their life is determined partially by other’s influences, whether that influence is small or large. For me, Bakuman was a huge influence on how the rest of my life will turn out. After all, it is responsible for pushing me to obtain my dreams in the first place.

As a result, I think this series will always hold a special place in my heart. When I was rereading it, I also was able to connect to the characters differently because I was actively working towards my dream and am beginning to get results. I’m not saying that everyone should connect to this series as much as I have, but I feel like this series does not receive as much respect as it should. Yes, I do admit that it probably will never be considered a classic. I respect that too. But I still feel like people should give it a try, either the manga or the anime (though I personally prefer the manga).

That’s my whole motivation behind this post. I want to give this series a bit more love than it currently gets. It is over ten years old now and even though I believe it to be dated, it still has meaning to me and I want others to be able to find it if they desire. No piece of work will ever be perfect. No book, movie, anime, manga, video game will ever be flawless. Bakuman itself has flaws in my opinion. I consider it slightly sexist at times and there are two jokes involving the LGBTQ+ community (though they are very minor to me, I do understand that some people could find these two comments very offensive). This manga is far from perfect. It was written in 2008 for a boy’s manga magazine after all. The main problems I see in the work are direct results of that. I am by no means excusing it if this was done today, I’d probably be right with the people destroying the series. All I ask if someone reads this series as a result of this post is to keep this in mind. Bakuman is the product of 2008 to 2012 and the anime from 2010 to 2013. Of course, there could be things that people now won’t agree with. That’s the thing with time. As it goes on, we improve and change ourselves.

As for me, I don’t doubt that this series will remain important to me. It helped shaped my teenage years and is still shaping my life as a young adult. It might not remain my favorite manga series for long (honestly I’ve rediscovered and started reading Platinum End by the same authors and I find it really good) it will always hold a place in my heart that is mostly reserved for things I loved in my childhood.

#getting up on that soap box #actually have I ever gotten up on my soap box on this blog? #it's been forever since I've done a personal post #personal #my thoughts #bakuman

[bum-callout]

the full regan tea!

i know this is long as HELL so there will be a tl;dr at the end for those who dont have the time to read it or just dont want to.

disclaimer 1: screenshots will be added to this as theyre located. a lot of this persons accounts/messages have been deleted, so some are hard to find, unfortunately.

disclaimer 2: no witch-hunting of this individual is encouraged. this is merely a warning to people who interact with them and something to document and fully address their lies over the past three or so years.

a little context:

this callout regards an individual who will be referred to as “regan” and they/them for the duration of this post to avoid confusion. a list of their known aliases is located here.

they currently go by alayne, and are most active on quotev, where their most recent urls are @jonestxwn (which is super disrespectful already lol) and @yearzer0. their old tumblr is @colacans, but if they have a new one, im unaware of it.

all victims names have been changed to preserve their privacy. here is a list of people mentioned:

gail: gail refers to the main victim of regans manipulation and their partner of several years. they started dating some time in 2015 or 2016. the broken heart emoji in some screenshots refers to gail. gails alters are also changed to “gail” for privacys sake.

jake: jake is another victim of regans, albeit a more minor one. jake met regan in 2015 and started dating them. jake is also often lied about as regan. the game controller emoji in some screenshots refers to jake.

skylar: ex-qpp/partner of regans. last testimonial is from them.

taylor: an ex friend of regans who theyd had various and sundry drama with over the 3 years of bs.

jay: an ex of regans that they parted on rough terms with.

any other censored names: people who i was sure would only be mentioned once.

gail and jake:

this is, without a doubt, the most important part of the callout, and unfortunately the part with the least viable screenshots, due to deletion of accounts/messages. gail has since deleted most of her messages from regan, but the ones that ive found/been given screenshots of are here (with gails explicit permission).

gail:

regan was incredibly shitty to gail during their 2-3 year relationship. i would go so far as to say regan was abusive. as will be seen in the actuallydivine section, regan blames a great deal of things on gail, and has never permanently taken the blame for anything in their rocky relationship; it has always, according to regan, been something wrong with gail.

here are some examples of regan exhibiting abusive behaviour (tormenting gail because its “funny”), admitting to their own shitty behaviour, and mentioning cheating on her. its interesting to note they were also dating jake at this time, but they cared about him so little they didnt even mention the effect cheating might have on him.

i find it interesting that regan admits to being shitty towards gail as far back as 2016, but has gone back to claiming they did nothing and that gail is the one at fault. perhaps it is a bit far to claim that regan is a pathological liar, but with their behaviour, i would not be entirely surprised.

another thing to mention regarding gail is that regan claimed gail pushed them into the habit of regan calling gail “daddy,” and then saying they were ace and it made them uncomfortable in the first place, when nothing could be farther from the truth. regan has publicly in front of their followers, almost 100% of whom were minors, talked about their R*PE KINK, and often called gail daddy unprompted on the feed and elsewhere. before anyone comes for me, im not claiming that they couldnt be asexual, but i am doubtful because of the fact theyve claimed that once or twice before and decided they werent, AND because of the fact they only used it to pin the blame on gail for this.

this doesnt even touch on the amount of times they threatened to kill themself.

jake:

regan and jakes relationship went as such: they met in 2015, when jake was 13 and regan was 16, and started dating. hopefully you can understand what is wrong with that, as a relationship with that age gap is ILLEGAL in every u.s. state. there was sexual conduct involved, making regan (arguably) a child predator. there is also a statement that regan dated another 13 year old when they were 17, but that is as yet unproven and the 13 year old in question is not contactable to confirm this. to the best of my knowledge, both of their current partners are also minors, despite the fact they are 19 as of october 2018.

regan was also extremely shitty to jake during this time, constantly “bullying” him (their own words) in a way that they found funny, but was clearly extremely upsetting to jake. they also pushed him aside for at least half of their relationship, as they were poly and their other partners (mostly gail) were more their focus.

above is a conversation between jake and regan. regan came to him and asked him “what [they] ever did to [him]” and after respondingg and explaining why exactly he had beef with them, he discovered that them saying they wanted “no drama” was absolutely bs, as they had been posting a psa trying to get he and gail deleted for no reason that same day. afterwards, regan messaged jake asking for a truce, which jake refused, as he was furious with them and felt that they were not in a position to ask for a truce when they were doing things like this just hours before.

misc:

this is mostly just them talking shit, but some of the stuff they say is clearly lies if you consider evidence. they constantly paint themself as the victim when they are a 19 year old abuser who takes advantage of people regularly.

(this last screenshot refers to jake changing his username to a pun based on the phrase “lies and slander”; its unclear whether regan sent this pretending to be someone else, or had someone they know send it.)

i think its also interesting to note that this screenshot and later ones where regan is friends with jake are taken merely a month apart, and then, two months later, theyre back on their bs. something about that seems super fake to me.

actuallydivine:

regardless of your opinion on actuallydivine, if you look at the lies section, you can see regan blaming gail for all their actuallydivine stuff and saying it was all a lie. yeah. bs.

mental illness:

i know this is a bit of a controversial subject, but a lot of stuff regan said/did concerning mental illness (ESPECIALLY involving their system/alters) was really shitty imo.

this is a good example of something shitty they did alter-wise. this was something they claimed OVER AND OVER AGAIN, saying shitty things they did were always their evil headmates, and constantly killing off and creating new headmates (that were mostly actually just them under a new name) as an excuse for their behaviour and a way to reset for being a shitty person.

heres them listing their mental illnesses. now, if you look in the lies section, regan says they faked their headmates (aka their osdd), so thats more proof theyre a liar. they also at one point bashed self-diagnosis, and yet they admit to self-diagnosing here. Hmm. something else to note is that in the first image, they seem to be claiming that their therapist diagnosed them, when diagnoses are made by psychiatrists, but that could be a simple oversight on their part.

lies:

self-explanatory, but this section is mostly regan saying or implying theyve changed and are now a better person.

as you can see in the above screenshots, all taken at different times in the last two years, theyve done this thing over and over and OVER where they claim theyve changed, theyre better, something has changed their view, and that is simply not the case, and never has been.

this last one is from this month (october 2018). sound familiar?

these arent so much blatant lies as it is implying theyre any different now. also, funny to acknowledge that 2015 them was a piece of shit, when they really dont act any different now.

some other ridiculous things they lied about:

their height, at least three separate times.

their zodiac sign.

killers:

regan is very much a ‘true crime’ kind of person, and i do, in some aspects, mean the fetishize-y kind. theyre borderline obsessed with serial killers, and have expressed sexual attraction for ted bundy. however, thats not the only true crime-related bullshit theyve pulled.

yeah. regans factkin with JIM JONES. and they made one of their urls “jonestxwn” like.. how disrespectful can you be? if they were a columbiner, i would not be surprised. for those who are not aware, jim jones is the cult leader who caused the jonestown massacre, which resulted in the death of 900+ people through mass suicide. its where the phrase “drinking the koolaid” comes from, as the poison was mixed with a koolaid-like product.

miscellaneous:

you thought regan could not be any more of a freak? you were wrong baybee!

even without context this is a gross thing to do. however, context makes this worse: the individual in question, while they were NOT a good person, was around jakes age, if not younger, meaning that they were at least 3 years younger than regan at the time, and were most likely probably 13-14, judging by the time period when regan was interacting with them, so regan was 3-4 years older than this individual when they manipulated and fake dated them.

just gross. its of note that regan turned 18 in 2017, so they were an adult or close to being an adult when they said this.

hmm. kind of fetishize-y, but not the worst thing ive seen from regan.

GROSS? stay away from children.

honestly this ones just funny all things considered.

this isnt the only time theyve referred to themself as a fujoshi, and some of those times were when they identified as female. yikes!

yet another one thats just funny. they are genuinely a narcissist, and regularly refer to themself as some kind of genius (not to mention their god complex, which THEY THEMSELF refer to as such).

another one like that mentioning their headmates and the fact they are, and i quote, “the smartest person alive.” come bless us mortals with your 300 iq, o god regan.

OK MR KING OF EVIL LMFAO.

they were also into ddlg but i have no screenshots of that, as after a certain period, they prefaced a lot of their posts with stuff like “hehe im not into ddlg but i sure love calling my partner daddy!” despite having said, and i quote, “ddlg is my main kink,” at one point.

another point against them, which i have proof for but didnt feel was relevant enough to this: they love tearzah, and claimed to have been in a relationship with them. although tearzah (and melanie martinez... AND reinagoth) are people who they are a massive hypocrite about, as they acknowledged they were shitty and refused to support them, and then, mere months later, decided “nevermind, dont care, i love them xoxo.”

testimonials:

this is fairly self-explanatory; its testimonials by anonymous people who interacted with regan in the past detailing what they know of them.

to add some extra context to the one directly above, this individual is younger than jake by a year.

more of these will be added as i receive more.

conclusion:

i apologize for getting kind of unprofessional at the end, but this is a subject im emotionally involved in. again, i DONT advocate witch-hunting of this individual. theyre a shitty person but harassing them will do nothing constructive.

spreading this would be appreciated, though, as this person is genuinely a danger to those around them and has continued to lie about gail and jake up until extremely recently, if they are not still doing so.

tl;dr:

regan is an abusive person who takes advantage of minors, blames the people they abuse, and constantly lies about everything they can, among a plethora of other shitty-but-less-unforgivable things.

#regan

[ignis-scientia-estrogen-brigade]

~Favorite Lingerie of the Chocobros Headcanon~

[ISEB Author’s Note: While this headcanon admittedly skews a bit toward the feminine, and I make a direct mention of “women’s undergarments”, I like to think it could swing either way. I mean have you seen a man in a corset bury me now cause I am ded]

Mildy NSFW

Noctis: While he’d never admit it to his friends, the crown prince has a particular weakness for partners clad in novelty lingerie. He’d rather eat nothing but vegetables for the rest of his life than be caught dead browsing the selection of the local fetish shop, however, and takes great pains to conceal his online purchases by using ridiculous usernames like “NoctUp” and “PrinceBehemoth69” to disguise his true identity. When his illicit treasures finally arrive on his apartment doorstep in an unassuming brown box, and he’s convinced himself that his royal advisor has fully bought into his cover story of investing in a few “study guides” for his upcoming finals (the reality: Ignis knows), Noct will sort through his new acquisitions in private while delighting in his lewd fantasies. The contents often vary, but his tastes are generally consistent; the infinitesimally short skirt the Kelly Crow costume came with is not dissimilar to the pleather one found on the sexy Dragoon ensemble of his last purchase, for instance. As he tends to have trouble restraining himself long enough to remove his paramour’s admittedly outlandish wardrobe, he’s gotten into the habit of making sure each outfit comes with a matching pair of crotchless panties for greater ease of access.

Prompto: Although considered somewhat antiquated by modern standards, a basic babydoll dress never fails to make the blond marksman weak in the knees. The floofier and featherier, the better (in his opinion), and while he isn’t stricken with quite the same anxiety as Noct is when perusing the women’s undergarment section of the department store, the reddening of his freckled face is unmissable when the cashier goes to ring up his many purchases. He takes great joy in showering his paramour in chiffon and lace, biding his time and keeping his raging libido firmly in check when they offer him an impromptu lap dance wearing their new négligée, and he will even indulge in a bit of role reversal should his partner voice their desire to see him express his feminine side but only if they get on their knees and beg for it. It’s not enough to simply to enjoy their striptease in the heat of the moment, however, because witnessing his lover in the flesh only makes the wheels in Prompto’s mind race when they are absent; photography is a far better medium to immortalize their lascivious display, so he convinces them to partake in a private boudoir photo shoot so that he might have suitably comforting material in… lonelier times.

Gladio: The big man has no childish qualms about stepping foot inside an adult superstore, and his unmitigated devotion to seeing his partner garbed in leather and mesh is such that some economists have attributed the bump observed in the local lingerie industry directly to him. But it’s not a peculiar fetish for leotards that causes Gladiolus to spend a significant portion of his paycheck month after month on fishnet bodystockings in every color under the rainbow; in reality, knitted undergarments are rather delicate against his rough approach to lovemaking, and the turnover rate for replacement hosiery is considerably high. But tattered textiles are a small price to pay for the privilege of laying eyes on his lover’s nylon-clad body, and Crown City credits mean almost nothing when the studded collar fitted around their neck sets his arousal ablaze; he’ll occasionally make a halfhearted effort at saving money by attempting to remove his paramour’s fragile wardrobe with caution (only to throw all sense of control out the window within mere seconds), before he grudgingly makes the trek back to the adult superstore, his frequent customer loyalty rewards card in hand.

Ignis: Exceptionally persnickety when it comes to his own fashion sensibilities, it ought to come as little surprise to anyone that the strategist favors a touch of class when shopping for lingerie with his partner in mind. Like Gladio, he has no reservations about purchasing intimate apparel in a public setting; unlike Gladio, however, Specs wisely chooses to invest in the finest accoutrements money can buy that won’t rip or tear under even the most rigorous of erotic activities. Structured corsets and garter belts appeal to his cultured side, but the mask of discipline he’s crafted so carefully over the years may falter a tad should he happen to catch his lover slipping on a pair of sheer black stockings out of the corner of his eye; delaying gratification is half the fun, however, and he’ll stalk his paramour playfully like an alert predator, waiting patiently for the perfect moment to pounce. Some might argue that the numerous clasps and lacing found on his preferred undergarments of choice would serve only to obstruct him from his true objective unnecessarily; “On the contrary,” Ignis demurs. “I delight in unwrapping all of my presents.”

#noctis lucis caelum #prompto argentum #gladiolus amicitia #ignis scientia #ffxv headcanons #final fantasy xv #ffxv #ff15 #ffxv fanfiction #ffxv imagines #noctis #prompto #gladio #gladiolus #ignis #ignis stupeo scientia