Tbh like I feel so sad because I love Cassie but whenever I draw her I feel like I have to pick between her and Gregory and I hate that ? I want to draw both and still draw them as friends. I really don’t care about the neutral ending it’s not even the canon ending so even if that was him (which I doubt) he didn’t betray her. I just want to have fun and draw whatever I want without people getting defensive and even aggressive about it … it’s literally a game. You don’t have to prove anything to me about who’s right or who’s wrong, lecture me about lore I got wrong or whatever ? I don’t care ? If you hate it then just don’t look at my art it’s so damn simple.

Ashtens Empire, who first gained recognition as a Kim Kardashian look-alike, has passed away from complications with surgery. First reported April 22nd, 2023 at 6:13 PM EST by a user in her thread on theperfectboobs.net and confirmed about an hour later in a tweet from Nicolette Shea. She was 28 years old.

Earlier this month she had given a brief interview about her career and plans for the future:

I didn't follow Ashten as closely as I did Kristyna Martelli but as inevitable as it was I had hoped something like this would never happen again. It takes me back to the incident that happened on Twitter, when I was accused of harming women by encouraging bimbofication. Even though that's not true it's a thought that hasn't left my mind since. I don't feel guilty for enjoying the look of plastic surgery, especially when its not something I'm personally pushing or funding but when considering the risks and results its something difficult to not at least be conflicted with. We don't know for sure it was a cosmetic procedure that killed Ashten, really we know very little about her or what happened, I couldn't even find her real full name for this post. And, cynically, I think some people are okay with that. It seems to come with the territory.

Bimbofication is a fetish that's so difficult to grapple because there's almost inherent ties to objectification and submission. And seemingly that leads to a sort of callousness that may be normal but I find difficult to accept. You could argue for a lot of these women this was their life's work, that they died as they lived, in the throes of self-sexualization but the idea of objectifying someone even in and after death makes me feel sick. I can't help but feel it cruel. A young woman is gone, someone's fiance, daughter, friend. But some time later down the line I'm sure I'll see a video or pictures of her used again as fodder for cheap ejaculate as if she were AI generated and not a real living person that meant something to someone. And that depresses me. It seems so meaningless too because, won't my hypocrisy prevail? I've admitted before that the dehumanization that this fetish requires arouses me but its repulsive too. Repulsive and repugnant.

My blog isn't really geared towards to those interested in becoming bimbos but I see a lot of them in my notes because we're all under the same fetish umbrella, and there's probably more of them left on tumblr than artists and writers. To you all, I just want to emphasize, please be safe. You don't need that much to be a bimbo. Chloe Cherry managed it well with mostly just lip fillers and a change in makeup. Of course, I'm sure most of my followers aren't thin blonde white girls, but one think I begrudgingly have to admit Chrissy Chlapecka and the TikTok teens got right is the idea of bimbo personal expression, which I've been meaning to make a post on. Yes, being bimbo is more than just wearing pink and trying to be "y2kcore", but you actually really don't need huge fake tits so big you'll knock someone over! And you don't need to be super duper skinny with the waspiest waist ever. You don't need to be blonde or have pale skin either, please feel free to still be yourself!

All that being said, I hope Ashten is at peace now. Or in a better place. Wherever she may be, I think its important to remember that she was. It always makes me feel a sort of emptiness when I go to a currently active bimbo page and I see them reposting pictures of people who have long since left the bimbo life behind or their identities have been long since forgotten, their pictures having been subsumed into the internet as a whole. I just think we should value individuals over tits.

makes me so sag that insta BC fandom is striving and the boys dont even know about you and other amazing tumblrs

On behalf of myself and bctumblr, thank you ❤

But I’m not entirely sure if I agree or get what you mean by striving. Getting more likes? Getting the boys’ attention or at least trying to by using a million hashtags? Idk. Sometimes I do feel sad that they don’t get to see some of our most amazing edits and funniest gifs and wittiest tags, but then again I’m glad that we have this little sheltered Tumblr community that is mostly free of all the attention grabbing mentality that I feel taints the more mainstream platforms like IG and Twitter and TikTok, and that at least for me personally makes it a safe space. Of course it is a real possibility that one or more of them are lurking (≖_≖ ) but until there’s actual proof of that and not just signs that may as well be coincidences, we’re safe with our bullshit. 😄

We talking about Kurt now? I'd like to point out something curious lol, don't know the purpose but I find it interesting, so, lately on my Facebook I've seen a lot of Kurt/Chris hate posts, and I mean like almost every glee page, calling him mostly envious of Lea, and rude, and the same with Kurt, whereas Lea is really praised and excused with 'yeah but she apologized', I myself I'm no Lea hater, I really like her, she's so talented and I believe she deserves everything she's getting, but I also know that if I met her in real life I'd probably wouldn't be friends with her, anyway so this is in Facebook latin america mostly, now off to tumblr where I assume I mostly follow exterior people idk, it's totally the opposite, of course it might also have to do with the accounts I follow, but I also see the tags of accounts I don't follow, and I've found this pattern of just general fondness or love for Kurt/Chris, and hate for Lea, so now neither seems to be my safe place, go into Facebook see Kurt/Chris/Klaine hate (whatever happened to the Klaine shippers? :c ), go into tumblr see Lea hate, of course there's the tag blocking or whatever but Idk for some reason I keep finding those lol

lmao yeah guarantee that no matter how hard you try to block shit you dont wanna see, its still gonna come thru

also wow, facebook sounds like a wasteland for the glee fandom askfjsdl i didnt know that was still a thing. truthfully i didnt know anyone was still active on there. but also like glee tumblr is barely tolerable for me (lots of curating and blocking, as we said) but its the only place i have. and everything people have told me about tiktok or twitter or reddit sounds sooooo much worse. so im thankful its as good as it is here. or at least on here it's easier to avoid the shitty takes you dont wanna see :P

and like yeahhh obviously i understand why people wouldnt like lea but at this point its like. just shut up about it, y'know?? it's so not worth it to keep getting mad over whatever she does. sorry if it sounds rude but at this point ive lost all interest in the cast outside of the show. happy for whatever projects they've got going buuut that's about it

(not saying anything bad if you still follow them but anyone who IS following them just to be assholes are sooo annoying like let it go and talk about anything else alsjfklsd)

Self review is good like I do one when I am modeling outflow, and surprisingly last year was good in a way just not December. I considerably feel better when I’m not 9-5 but have more sustainment anxiety for obvious reasons, so I feel like this year will be ok also. Not really hopeful but I’m intentional about pruning that shit. Tumblr taps into mind palace mechanics they used to have direct memories they are now more emotional impressions. I feel ok about that flux year and honestly that often has not been the case, I think it’s easy to click hole memories on auto.

A inverse influx review is the ‘Everything all at once’ approach you can use whatever provider you want and you basically try to diversify your source method. VPN incognito new account. Youtube(no acct) reddit tumblr tiktok. News is an ok place to start but I like hearing random things from public personal rants. No keywords you used the last three months. Everyone is online all the time wtf.

I try to do these if I’ve had a lot of hyper focused recreational days that are fulfilling in some specific ways usually just on tumblr. Twitter is a place I use for current events and if I’m worried about political climate/safety but I can’t really douse what existing is like on twitter it doesn’t feel like people are real. I think as you get older your neural plasticity gets worse and if you have brain damage worse yet. Mostly I just don’t wanna feel like I don’t know what it’s like to emotionally be someone else who I’ve never modeled. We are all so insanely tuned by recommendations that when you just see a chaotic sample none of the glitter that feeds our dopa/etc is near the level we get on AI recommendations. Like have you tried to go to a new location without google maps fucking try it. It’s feels to me like a plasma ball but you add chaos occasionally to escape the click hole landscape that is social media. It’s been a while since I’ve done this but the inverse made me think of it and I promised myself I’d write this post at some point. I don’t tokenize too hard the point is like trying to walk without rhythm everything we see we split into bits more like a harmless stalker would silently haunt, well like Dwight in the office with the cpr doll. I kid but like have you ever had emotions based on others situations and not the news, I give it a solid 5 I should probably turn my Facebook on, it is however highly filtered. Like my neighbor yesterday told me he was moving out and made a point that he knows it helps to not be shocked when a stranger is suddenly there but in the most awkward wxmen way ever. Like because your GNC I can’t say you because your a girl and maybe umm ok well. Like I’ve put in the work to the point where i have a very confusing validating experience of sexual harassment. Like if you are chivalrous towards trans-femme we are an exponential amount of steps away from minding. At least in my experience. Harassment basically depends on how safe I feel, can’t include anyone else in that umbrella if at all. It’s winter time and it’s pants only and I’m not tuned to speak let alone in pitch/makeup so I get it. Like most of my interactions with humans at this point are just random insults at me at the grocery store hold the door or whatever. I hate that we remember every possibly damaging thing and forget every safe encounter. Honestly i regularly think about that person in Norway that didn’t correct people misgendering their child and that the experience and even current polar state on that day was a personal and when we want private thing and I want to exist in a world more like that world but maybe cause I just would have rather been born there. The world is fake as fuck and I don’t mean trans people we understand fuck all.

A lot of Makorra shippers only moved on because they’re afraid of being called homophobic for not shipping korrasami. I LITERALLY saw someone on Instagram yesterday call a makorra shipper homophobic just for saying korrasami came out of nowhere. Also, Korrasami shippers LOVE to bring up the "popping bottles" backlash to make fun of makorra shippers. I left the tlok fandom in 2014 bc it was so toxic as a teenager, but now i’m 23. I’m no longer afraid of shipping something i always loved.

Ah, yes, I realized I didn’t address the fandom's toxicity in the last ask, but I’ve spoken about it before. I don't talk too much about the past because I was at the edge of the fandom back in 2014/2015. I was aware of fights, but the discussions I saw were moreso on bi-erasure. I saw one post saying it was wrong to ship Makorra. I remember being really confused about why Makorra was actually problematic, but I didn’t appreciate being told who I can ship the only dark-skinned woman protagonist on a major television network with. Why are you forcing me to ignore Mako and Korra’s relationship? Book 1 is practically about Mako and Korra, all other characters be damned. Me preferring the story of one pairing and a popular romance trope, second chances, is not wrong, and no one would know how I view the LGBT+ community based on who I ship in one show.

I ended up leaving the community because I was disappointed with season 4 in general. When Korra was released on Netflix, I figured it was time to rewatch the series again (plus, I’ve been binging all my favorite romance anime). So imagine my shock when I created a new Tumblr and Twitter account to rant and rave about TLOK, and I saw nothing but hate and name-calling in the Makorra tags. I saw people casually throwing around the word “homophobic,” and one person said people who don’t like Korrasami are just misogynistic. 

I just wanted pretty pictures, and people are out here psychoanalyzing shippers! So, I dug through some blogs and to feel more grounded with this fandom I didn’t recognize. After reading through their commentaries and experiences, I actually became more upset at Bryke than the teenagers/children who comment on Makorra posts saying how much better Korrasami is or accuse Makorra shippers of being homophobic. 

Yes, I truly believe these comments are mostly coming from people in their late teens and younger, at least in 2020. I can’t speak on 2014/2015, but since we were younger, the early 20s/late teens, I wonder if our age group was also the loudest. Don’t get me wrong, adults can be horrible people and can get really nasty. However, every time I look up the rudest commenters' profiles, they were teens. When one Korrasami shipper wrote “screw Makorra” on my AMV, I figured I’d have some fun trolling them until I clicked on their profile and saw a child. Needless to say, I ignored them and reflected on how parents are allowing their babies on TikTok while my parents freaked out at the idea of showing my picture on FB growing up. 

*I’m not still mad about that*

Also, while it doesn’t give anyone an excuse to make such a strong accusation, part of me, as a straight person, feels like I can’t get too upset because I also become very aware of my privilege. The space I’m in is a majority of young LGBT+ fans (at least on Twitter where I’ve seen the most toxicity). Some people see TLOK as their safe space and imply why should there be Makorra shippers when they have all these other cis/het shows they can engage with. It doesn’t work like that, of course. TLOK doesn’t only feature Bi characters. They’re POC/Indigenous, women, and Korra has dark skin. That’s a lot of marginalized communities. Makorra/TLOK is my comfort show, not because she’s with a man, but because of the reasons I just listed. Also shipping Korra with Mako doesn’t mean she’s no longer bi. She’d still be attracted to women.

Here’s who I am upset with tho, Bryke. Mostly Bryan. While Makorra shippers called out Korrasami shippers for cyberbullying, the focus seemed to be on Bryan for making it seem like there was something wrong with them for not finding Korrasami’s narrative satisfying. It was especially sad to read bloggers who identified as being part of the LGTB+ community saying Bryan’s hetero-lens dismissed their experience and then having to defend/proving themselves to anonymous messengers. 

Fans saw it as a betrayal. They saw it as the go-head for the rude Korrasami shippers to harass Makorra artists because they “didn’t watch the show correctly.” When the creator, the person you admire, also puts the blame on you, that kind of pain is on another level.

Korrasami shippers played a huge role in kicking Makorra shippers out of the fandom, but we can’t underestimate how much Bryan’s statement is a slap in the face. He used his characters and social justice as a shield for reasonable criticism. Just because we say a story is bad and Asami is grossly underwritten doesn’t mean that we’re against the idea of Korra and Asami being a couple. 

Of course, I’ve seen some very problematic statements from Makorra shippers. After all, homophobia is real. However, aside from the actual bigots, people have no issue with Korrasami. They just wanted a stronger connection between the girls. Many people seem to think Makorra shippers were looking for more romance, but we know we couldn't expect that. We can expect more screentime, musical cues, and more emotional support, which most people can see as platonic, but be romantic if you really want to. Mako’s interactions in book 4 can be seen as platonic, but all of us Makorra shippers saw it to be romantic.

Popping bottles! I completely missed that joke in 2014 and I discovered it this year. I agree it’s pretty annoying, but I become a troll and say I’m popping bottles for my Makorra moments. I don’t get any engagement, but I don’t seem to lose followers for it. Maybe popping bottles represents “straight-baiting?” I don’t get it why it’s so funny after all this time, but we’re Makorra shippers. We’re the joke 🙄

Anyways, to wrap up, lately, there seems to be a bit of a shift on Twitter. When I first created an account. I stayed in my little corner live-tweeting about TLOK and Makorra. I had to stop looking at the Makorra tag because it was so negative. Now, I’m seeing people admit they’re cute, and then saying they’re platonic soulmates. I’ll take it, although, as one commenter said, “that’s boring!” 

Someone led a Makorra Week back in October, and it was really nice! I have feeling people speaking up on the name-calling and reminding people that we’re talking about 2D characters helped. We just want to be left alone and enjoy the scenes we have in the show, art, and fanfiction. 

Keep shipping who you want! Don’t let any stranger shame you for your shipping preferences, especially in fiction! I’m so happy you feel more comfortable shipping these two dorks! You’re not alone! I’ve been a Makorra shipper since 2012, and while I find Korrasami cute (I love Korra, and I love Asami), Makorra is my OTP. I really like them, and I think they were meant for each other.