sorry i wont shut up about this but i feel so conflicted right now!!D; and maybe typing it all out will help???

and I highly suggest to not read this unless you want to be here for an hour reading nonsense LOL

im seeing my bestie friday so im gonna tell her everythinggg and get her opinion on all of this before i see him again in a few days.

i just started to hang out with a "new" friend but it makes my bf uncomfortable and idk what to do about it... and tbh im not going to stop being friends with them:/ ik that sounds kinda shitty on the surface but its like asking me to cut someone off right after getting to know them.

im gonna explain almost all of the context....

okay, so... 2020 was a ruff year. it was covid and quarantine. my mom was super super strict about it. once people began to hang out in small circles bc cdc said it was okay to, while still being careful, i was still not allowed to leave my house. i felt soso isolated and alone and it was def one of my lowest moments. me & my bf were basically in a long distance relationship.. or thats what it felt like. all we had was facetime. he started to hang out with his friend from school more often (i had stuff to say to him about that & its in another post). after a couple of months, my mom finally let us see each other.. but it had to be in my backyard only and we couldn't be close. it was okay at first but after a while we got bored and wanted more. he got impatient and petty about it. i understood where he was coming from but i was trying to be as optimistic as i could, even tho it was hard. its bc even for like the 1-2 hrs i got to see him, it made my day. (my friends were also starting to hangout in their backyards but i never told my mom bc i figured she wouldnt let me go.. but when i told her afterwards, she said she would have..??)

it was getting colder outside which made it harder for us to see each other. it was also just a sucky situation and it was creating some resentment. he wanted to talk with me on ft about it and i knew it would be serious. AND IT WAS. he did most of the talking and it was leading to a breakup. BUT (this is important) he couldnt for the life of him break up with me, let alone say the words.. SO.. he suggested that we do a break. neither of us have done that before but its obvious that it means its temporary and you use that time to figure things out and get some space (we DEFINITELY shouldve been clearer about it). he got emotional and i held mine in. he was saying all these good things about me and how he still wants me in his life and that we can get together again; that we would still talk everyday and be friends. at the time, weve been dating for about a year and a half. right after we hung up i bawled my eyes out and immediately facetimed my best friend in FL.

days go by and me and him are still talking everyday, only in a more friendly, platonic manner. eventually, he starts replying later and later, he turns off his location, and its like i feel forgotten about. im so used to knowing what hes doing that now it feels weird to not know and its hard to adapt to these changes.

I download tinder to find some FRIENDS to talk to (only for girls). he was barely talking to me and i was questioning our friendship relationship (situationship i guess). although i dont remember the details of my profile, i DEF made it clear that i was on there for making friends only. i had no intention of pursuing anyone for a relationship... bc i had my "bf" still. HE clearly went a diff route during our break....too much to unpack there but in the end, it just made him want to come back to me.

So.... Snow (that is their nickname ive given them for tumblr) was one of those people who i chatted with on tinder. theyre female but identify as they/them (i dont think they used those pronouns when we first started talking tho). they msgd first and our convo was actually really long-lasting so we followed each other on IG. (theyre also not the only one i've exchanged IG with so its not like i only gave it to them). Yes, I thought they were pretty when i swiped. sue me. i think many people are pretty. its just me acknowledging when someones aesthetically pleasing. eventually, we talked less and i also went on tinder less. After about a month into me and my bfs break, he begins to talk to me more like he used to. Then he asks if he can see me bc he missed me. Still cant leave my house with him but we hang out and its nice. HE ASKS ME IF I MET ANYONE NEW. i say no and hes like ...really?you sure? I ask him the same and he says no (while breaking eye contact,, literal red flag but i was blindsided). he tells me the truth over FT and that ruined me way more than i let on. (i think he's feeling a similar way now but for diff reasons)

we got back together after and the rest of the year (2021) was super fun. weve now been together for almost 4 1/2 years! since our BREAK NOT BREAKUP (not me @ ing him when he wont even see this) me and snow comment on each others IG posts now and again. for ex, ive said they looked so prettyyy & i would compliment their makeup skills. they would reply in a cute/flattery way. thats how they reply to comments. theyre also very embellished, like with emojis. theyve commented on my pics saying i look cute and hyping me up with compliments as well. it just turned into a natural, mutual thing; idk how else to describe it. its like having an online friend where you only interact thru the comments to show kindness. LOL IDK that sounds corny but yeah. girly things i guess. & then irl its so subdued.

so aside from the comments, we would react to each others stories like once in a blue moon. they posted about watching demon slayer so i said its a good anime. i posted me and my bfs halloween costumes and they said we looked so cute. fast fwd to the end of last yr... we said happy bday to each other and i brought up the idea of possibly hanging out one day if theyre down. so yes, i asked first. they said they would love to and that they were glad i asked bc they were too anxious to ask themselves (mood). im surprised at myself that i even asked but i guess i felt comfortable enough.

(i feel like im writing my own biography omg..) anyways, we get each others numbers and talk about our schedules. we were both very busy so nothing happened. we sporadically made small talk, as one does with their internet friend, over a couple of months. we talked on IG more & also thought about the plans for when we hang out. its now like almost summer and they text me asking if i was free last minute to hang out bc they were gonna be in my town but i was busy.

its now like a month later and i see them at the mall with their friend when i was with my bf. (i already spoke about this so i wont repeat it). after that day, we finally made a day to hang out. bf wasnt happy about it; i tried to reassure him; he saw and still sees them as someone to worry about; he thinks im gonna do something stupid and act out on any fantasies i may have. he knows im bi; he sees snow as someone who looks queer. he thinks that our intentions are to get closer to each other in a way that crosses a friendship.

he saw me listening to a playlist titled sapphic energy. it just consists of songs i enjoy by female artists and ive had that playlist for a long time now. i only edited the title.. but just now i switched it back to what it was before so thats ONE thing "fixed" to make him at ease.

he doesnt believe me when i tell him that my only intention and motive here is to make a good, new friendship. THATS ALL I WANT. AND THATS ALL SNOW WANTS. i can see how it can look like its more from an outside perspective bc of our IG comments but it was not like that in person at all!! it just felt like hanging out with a friend and introducing new things to each other like shows and foods. snow even made it clear that once someone is their friend, they cant see them any other way and that formed to protect their feelings. when we hung out there were literally no signs of feelings or anything that would cross boundaries. i didnt get that feeling i get when i have a crush and lose all my brain cells. by our second hang out we were past any awkwardness and it felt like a regular day out with a friend.

I did look cute that day but i always dress up!!! i dress up like every time i see my bf. i dress up for work. i dress up when im going out with friends. i enjoy fashion and makeup and looking pretty,,

last yr he was using bumble friends and he met up with a guy but they havent hung out since. ive helped him swipe on people before and i was okay with it, except when it was like an attractive girl.. would that be hypocritical of me tho?...idk. we def both get kinda jealous over these things. i can get territorial, like he is mine lol i am his. we would never be open or add a third and the thought of him befriending new females made me nervous. especially after what happened during our break. like idk, that still sticks with me and makes me think of bad feelings..and even more especially now after finding out about what he and his friend did.. but me feeling nervous about that is like what HE is feeling (T-T) I JUST DONT KNOW WHAT I CAN DO TO HELP AND IT SUCKS. i dont think i catch feelings easily. i dont get butterflies over people easily. im not an openly sexual person.

like. am i being unfair by continuing this friendship? snow doesnt know how he feels about us. idek if its worth telling but im gonna wait till more time passes and see how things go. would him hanging out with us make him feel better?? would it be too weird? he already doesnt like the idea of snow so how would he be in a room with them.

i wanna fast fwd to friday so i can tell my bestie about it and then fast fwd to sunday so i can see him. he is still not back to his usual self when we talk on snap. he tries to save serious confrontations for in person bc he sounds angry thru text so even tho itll make me nervous, i still wanna work this out so it doesnt ruin our relationship.

HELLO

AAA. OKAY. ITS BEEN A BIT. You know, I actually drafted this post before but my fucking power went out and I lost it. So here we go again.

Main parts of this motherfucker

where I've been

what happened (yes these are two different things)

where I'm going and how I feel about it

alrighty. so I successfully finished my first year of college at a community college near my home town. i worked asynchronously and was able to make it onto the dean's list again for the second semester!

so all of that was good and well but if you have read some of my previous posts you might know that there is a very specific Scholarship that i have been after. it was very important and was considered to be a deciding factor on if i would be able to go to a university and live in the dorms or not. i did not get the scholarship. my mother and i felt very confident that i would but it was very new and the school that created it had yet to really solidify how it worked and what it's requirements were. in otherwords, the prospect of the Scholarship was unstable from the beginning.

i never got any kind of email or correspondence that explicitly said that i would not receive the Scholarship but i found that it would primarily be given to sophomores. i'm a college first-year who is very close to achieving an associate's degree. my mother and i panicked back during my finals week over the Scholarship. after realizing that I would have a better chance if i had my associates, my mom and i made a plan to put me into a "maymester" course and to completely fill my summer with classes. if i was able to pass all of those classes, I would have my associates by august. now i mentioned that this plan was created during finals week, i was incredibly tired and my pms was putting me in a really bad space. i felt this kind of sense of hopelessness, like it all felt very fruitless. i was tired and i had been continuing on the thought that once i finished my finals that i would get to rest. after realizing how fruitless the effort could be, we scrapped that plan and opted to place me into a full load of classes for the second half of the summer, i was waaaayyyy more supportive of this. my classes begin on july 5th and im once again in the class of one of my favorite professors so we'll see how it goes.

it gets a little more interesting here. so i told you that i never was explicitly told that i was denied the Scholarship, so there was a period of time in the early summer where i was just kind of in this limbo of searching for answers. i was scrambled and panicked and felt rather hopeless. i need to leave home. it's not that my family is bad to me, quite the opposite. i am the only child of a single mother, my father overdosed on opioids when i was a toddler, and my mothers family stepped up to help raise me. i grew up extremely paranoid of people and was always very close to death-related situations. i was also sexually assaulted by someone close to me and couldnt tell anybody. i believe that i am a psychologically unhealthy individual. i have incredible amounts of empathy and sympathy for people, i am also extremely afraid of people. due to my anxiety mixed with my trauma and pms i go through phases of being paranoid and unjustly afraid of people that i love very much. the covid19 quarantine was the most enabling thing that has ever happened in my entire life. i didn't have to talk to anybody aside from my mother or leave my house. i made myself think i was safe and happy when in reality i was slowly allowing my anxiety to consume me. when i say this im serious, like having panic attacks in the grocery store because i cant manage all the people that i run into and lying to someone that i love very much because im afraid to go out and i dont know how to explain to him what exactly is making me act this way. i dont know how to function without my family, and they are all much older than me. i know they will die and i will eventually be left alone.

tldr: i need to be around people my own age and i need to be around them physically because my mental health has gotten out of hand

one of my friends inspired me to transfer to university a year earlier than initially projected. the Scholarship was needed to be able to go.

while in Scholarship limbo my mom straight up called me over and said "you know you're going to the dorms in the fall right?" and i stg its like i had a mini breakdown. AFTER ALL THAT FUCKING SHIT. I GET TO GO. I GET TO GO!!!!!!!!!! I DON'T KNOW WHY SHE DIDDN'T TELL ME EARLIER. THIS DID THIS WHEN I TRIED TO QUIT BAND IN HIGH SCHOOL AS WELL. MAN. I'm so happy, I can't possibly explain how simultaneously happy and afraid I am. Going off and to the dorms is the best possible outcome I could ask for but in yet it is the one that I feared the most. I wonder if this was her way of trying to get me to see how far I would go to try and scrounge up cash or if she wanted to see how devoted I was to the idea of university.

Either way. I have my dorm room and roommates secured. I was on campus a few days ago for an orientation. I also have a couple of friends as well as some organizations that I intend to join. For privacy purposes I still can't tell you all where I'm going or when exactly a lot of things are happening. I will probably upload pics of my room though.

If you're here, thank you. I hope you're doing alright, I genuinely hope anything youre struggling with becomes easier and that you find yourself struck with inspiration often <3

i usually use the anon function bc im embarrassed to ask people things sjfjfjhs but I've never sent anything horrible to anyone!! I'm sorry you've had negative experiences with the anon function before, you don't deserve that at all!! sending love!

[re: this post]

Thank you. I genuinely appreciate you rn

People like you are literally the only reason why I don’t completely disable the anon feature, because I understand that sometimes people are shy, or they want to express themselves without taking shit. I actually dO get that

But alas, as with everything, there are those who abuse what really should be thought of as a nicety, or privilege—some people just abuse it

Very long rant, incoming

So here’s the thing, right? Sometimes when people are online, they act and behave in ways they wouldn’t dare to irl

I’m not the government. I don’t have a staff to edit my posts. I’m not anybody special. I’m just some dude on the internet who enjoys sharing my opinions and other things. If YOU don’t like or agree with my opinions or something else that I post, you are completely free to keep scrolling or to block me. That’s fine. But when anons begin demanding that I phrase things the way that they’re more comfortable with, then we got serious issues

And another thing: people need to not be so quick to assume malicious intent where none exists

For example, I have accidentally typed the number 500 in a post when I meant to type 50–now, in the specific post, it truly was a significant error. But an anon immediately jumped into the comments and self righteously accused me of lying to make a point, rather than saying to themselves, “Hm, maybe Odin just made a typo”

And my personal favorites

them: YOU’RE SPREADING MISINFORMATION AND DISINFORMATION !!!!

me: um, it was a fucking joke? do they have jokes where you come from?

Or,

me: posts a video of an alligator and some cranes, and adds a bit of whimsical commentary

them: WELL ACTUALLY, THAT IS PROBABLY PREDATORY BEHAVIOR AND I THINK YOU SHO-

me: no. goddamn, I can’t be fucking whimsical on a social media site? eat shit. stfu

And also,

them: well technically, it’s not really fascism

me: maybe not, but it’s fucking close enough. I’m not gonna wait for people to start getting marched into ovens and say, “now can we call it fascism??”

I have literally had all of these dumb, stupid ass conversations (almost verbatim) here on tumblrdotcom, and lemme tell ya, it’s frustrating af

And other times, when I author a post containing a hyperlink on desktop but then later edit it on mobile, sometimes the hyperlink doesn’t carry over to mobile and you’re left with a post that may say “source,” but is not clickable. It happens sometimes, and it’s not a big deal, right?? WRONG! Instead of sending an ask to ask me what happened to the link, I’ve had anons accuse me of “not crediting” a source

I’ve had people use anon to accuse me of cropping videos so that I could somehow “steal” credit from others, and I’m just like … What??? Who does that? Who has the time for all of that? Are you aware that sometimes people on the internet see something like a video or a photo from somewhere else (also uncredited from twitter, reddit, facebook, etc), and then just post it here on tumblr??

And no, I am not talking about reposting someone’s art or other works

Look, if YOU get your thrills from finding out who/where/when the very first instance of every single cat or dog video came from, that’s great! Do you. Knock yourself out. Have fun. But don’t try to shame others because we aren’t all humorless poindexters like you

If I post something from tiktok, the video generally tells you where to go to see it there. If it’s a tweet or from reddit, again, there are usually twitter or reddit handles in the tweet. And NO, I am not putting a link to every single tweet or reddit thread or facebook post — if that’s that important to you, then figure it out. It’s not hard, and in the year 2023 most adults should have the necessary skills to find an original tweet, if that’s something that’s important to you. I’m not doing it for you, not sorry

(SN: I’ll never forget when I took my first college English literature course, and at the end of the semester I was on the bubble for getting an A or an A+ in the class, and our final exam was a written essay that would decide my final grade. I didn’t quite score the A+ that I wanted, and when I looked over my essay, the professor wrote on it: “Odin, you are the quintessential college freshman, and your inquisitiveness has made this semester one of my most enjoyable.” And after class, I walked up to him and thanked him, and asked him what quintessential meant? He opened his mouth and was about to answer me, but then he smiled, wagged his finger at me and said, “you should learn to look things up.” He was one of my favorite professors (had a British accent, eyeglasses and reminded me of Giles from Buffy), but I’ve never forgotten that lesson. Some of you very obviously need to learn it too)

I’ve also made what are very obviously jokes online, only to have people accuse me of misrepresenting facts—and then I’m like, do I really need to explain the concept of what a joke is to you people??

Like, I could see if it was something racist, trans/homophobic, Islamophobic, antisemitic, etc, BUT I DON’T DO THAT

I think that some people need to be seen as, or have a desire to be known as a gatekeeper, and instead of using just a tiny bit of common sense, they try to make mountains out of molehills to elevate themselves in the eyes of their followers

The people who act this way are truly joyless human beings, and they probably suck all the fun out of parties and other events that people are forced to spend time with them

Maybe try socializing a bit more? Learn to read (online) cues. Don’t be so eager to accuse everyone of doing something wrong just so that YOU get to look like the good guy

And all of that’s without even addressing all of the straight up racist anons that I constantly receive

Like, do people even understand that we aren’t inside of each other’s heads? Sometimes we’re all dealing with life and other stuff. And just maybe people are busy trying to have just a tiny bit of fun, and then the mf fun police come along and try to ruin shit? Because I don’t use a word exactly the same way you do?? Or because of an obvious joke?? You guys who do this kind of shit really SUCK

I feel sorry for you

I almost can’t believe this is the piddling little shit that some people choose to be upset over

Please find some REAL things to be upset over

Try learning to use the feature that lets users (gasp) make a post of their very own! instead of fixating on one goddamn mutha fucking post that wasn’t worded to your liking

I am not here for the discourse with anyone with an internet connection and a keyboard

Please go touch some grass

cobra kai is about a conflict between two people that is happening again, 34 years later, with mirrored events between then and now, and even worse consequences. dark is about a conflict between four families that is happening again, 33 years later, with mirrored events between then and now, and even worse consequences. in this essay I will 

edit: yes. i made an essay. here it is. please read it, it took me hours 

10 Anti LO Asks

1. What I don't get is you have LO fans defending the questionable art choices as "that's just her style!!!" which sure ok, but but then shouldn't we give that same leeway to artists who draw even more sexualized, over-sexualized art too? It's their style, right? Like jesus christ LO fans, just let people critique it constructively over policing all thoughts, because you're only opening yourselves up to being called hypocrites and excusers for far worse in the name of refusing even minor criticism.

2. literally the only HxP media i've seen that's almost all universally loved is Hadestown and that's it lmao, but go figure LO fans hate it. Where's this idea LO critics love other greek myth pieces of work unconditionally or don't critique them? All my homies hate PJO too.

3. ya know the massive gap is also bad because rachel obviously wants to put persephone in sexual situations (ares, hades, and hermes as examples) but because made her SO young that unless this all just HAPPENED to all happen in the last two years of her life, then we're left with the realization that persephone could have been an underage girl being naked and physically intimate with ADULT MEN. this could have been avoided if she was even just 119 but no, that's asking too much apparently.

4. IDK how anyone is supposed to buy RS is some masterclass in mythology knowledge when the few times she tries to set it in reality she has them being in ITALY. There's so much resources pointing to HxP and Demeter's worship and origins being in Krete/Athens/Eleusis, but she'd rather go with their imported worship from literal centuries AFTER Hesiod, Homer, and other poets already wrote down the hymns and myths? She doesn't even let them be in GREECE for her GREEK myth story. Like what the fuck.

5. The reason Leuce or any half way decnt relationship doesn't exist between Hades or Persephone is because that would require RS having to actually develop Hades and Persephone as realistic people with lives that don't revolve around obsessing over each other and not write through the most black and white mentality in recent memory. She's trying to push the "soulmate" idea but instead because of the lack of actual relationships/development it really just comes across as "this is all that's left".

6. I wonder if one of the reasons LO is being dragged on is because RS know anything she makes afterwards will not be as successful. There's another creator who had a popular romance series but is now upset their new comic isn't as popular and I can see RS having the same issue. Her thin skin with criticism is well known, so we can safely guess how she'd react a post-LO series not being the company darling. Better to cling to the pedestal as long as she can before someone new takes it.

7. another popular webtoon creator was called out for their use of sexual assault to push a story along and of course rachel came to their defense. im not saying as victims themselves they cant write about this stuff, but them trying to police how other people (especially other victims) feel hurt by their work and their use of a serious crime as cheap drama/"character development" by going "oh youre just haters!"/blocking/harassing them is not very helpful or a mature way to go about criticism,

8. I know this is a ~design quirk~ but why does Rachel love drawing women with their mouths open so wide that it looks like they're just screaming? Does anyone else notice this? I swear she has the most bizarre facial expression designs and it makes trying to make sense of the tone (both in scene and dialogue) very confusing most of the time.

9. Listen I’m not going to dictate what Rachel likes to draw, that’s her thing, but it is a show of a weak artist that she can’t even try to diversify her characters design beyond hourglass women with huge boobs and bulky men. A lot of male comic artists are rightfully called out for drawing their characters this way, so why should she get excused for it? Especially when her style is so less detailed than more traditional comic artists? She has no excuse for it beyond laziness and lack of skill.

10. it's not just the lack of short kings, where my tall queens at?? apparently minthe, artemis, demeter, and hera are supposed to be "tall", yet they're all a head or more shorter than every man? especially artemis, who you would assume she'd be as tall or close to it with her twin brother. athena i guess is the "tall" woman but even she shrinks down whenever next to a man. does rachel know it's ok for a woman to be over 5'2 and the men don't always have to be looming over everyone. it's ok rachel.

i hope this isn't weird but I've decided I like how you interact with this show (not something I can say for a lot of fans) and now I wanna hear what you have to say about Eric and Jenny's friendship. I have this image in my head of the two of them dying her hair pink in a VDW bathroom (Lily thinks they should've gone to a salon but that's no fun). feel free to talk for literally forever I'm actually obsessed with them ~ily

not weird at all! that's really sweet of you to say, actually. whenever i get qns like this, often the first place my mind goes to is fic, so if that's not something you were looking for, feel free to ignore the next 2 paragraphs, lmao. 

a lot of my jenny and eric feels are in these fics that i've written: "a remedy for bland sweet potatoes" (sort of like, a fix it but it doesn't fix anything - it's canon compliant and jenny & eric discuss some of the things jenny's done), as well as "the lights that stop me (turn to stone)" which is a post-canon blair/jenny fix-it in some ways, but is also a character study of jenny as a whole & there's a lot of j&e feels in there (jenny and eric are housemates! they look out for each other and defuse derena tension together LKHFKLDHG).

other fics that highlight some great jenny and eric feels (both of these are kinda sad KLHDFKLH) are "withdrawal symptoms" by lunasol28 and and "fell from grace (it left me in this place)" by @vanderwoodlings .

now i’m actually gonna answer your question........ putting it under a read more, ‘cause it got long!

anyway, to answer your question as much as possible - i have a lot of feelings and i'm not sure how best i can do them justice - i have so much to say about jenny & eric. @mysteriesofloves said this thing once about how jenny and eric's friendship sort of parallels blairena friendship, in the sense of like - you love this person so much and no matter how much you hurt each other, you find your way back together, and i think that's extremely true of them both. in a lot of ways, i feel like jenny and eric are each other's most important person - best friend, support system, family, all of that. unlike dan and serena, when jenny & eric find out about rufus and lily they're actually excited to be step siblings which i find incredibly cute.

there's also - i love the fact that during their first meeting eric tells jenny pretty much everything about how he's in the ostroff centre and why he's there, and jenny doesn't judge him or treat him any differently - instead, she shows up at his room later with board games, just to spend time with him. we see things like this at various points, i feel, where jenny & eric's lives are sort of unstable or at a low point in some way and they're both able to just be there for each other without having to do any sort of grand gesture.

there's also definitely, uh... while i see the blairena friendship parallels, i'd make my own danessa friendship parallels. much like dan and vanessa, jenny and eric are incredibly lonely, and also, deeply different. they're not like their peers at st judes/constance! they struggle to make friends, and they have to navigate that. in a lot of ways, the only real friend either of them has is each other, despite the fact that there are instances when they've let each other down or hurt each other.

@nocakesformissedith made a post that i don't have the spoons to find right now - one of her jenny masterposts - that's basically an image of eric and jenny and it's like, "don't ask gay people how we know each other- we know each other from being gay". and i feel like eric and jenny absolutely and totally had that specific intimacy of like. being queer and knowing you're queer and having sat with it for a long fucking time, in high school, when nobody else around you really gets it. to me, my lesbian jenny headcanon explains a lot of the jenny & eric closeness - it's like, when you're young and gay, your One Gay Friend feels like the ONLY person who understands you.... sort of because they are! navigating any form of queerness in high school is terrible, and i'm just glad that they had each other when they did have each other.

it’s so notable to me that like - even though j&e spent so much of s3 at odds/fighting, when jenny’s gone in s4, eric goes through a major downward spiral, with the whole damien thing and everything else. jenny was his anchor! she was the one person who made him feel a little less fucked up about everything, and a little less lonely. and as for jenny with eric - i feel like jenny’s really comfortable and open around eric, and unlike with other people, for the most part, doesn’t try to be someone else around him. part of why eric feels so alienated by jenny’s behaviour in s3 - other than the fact that she was mean to him and jonathan - i feel is just that the way she was behaving with him was fake, and whoever else jenny was fake around, she’d never been like that with eric before. this is more like my interpretation, though, it’s not necessarily stated by canon or anything.

anyway this got depressing!! i do have fun jenny and eric feelings, i promise. i bet they listen to music together and when they’re studying together, they draw in each other’s textbooks. they probably wasted time doing online quizzes together, and there’s definitely a trash tv show that is Their Garbage Show (probably much to dan and serena’s bemused annoyance in the sense of like ‘do you HAVE to quote that again?’). jenny and eric dyeing jenny’s hair together sounds like something they’d do!! (incidentally, in a script of the pilot that didn’t make it, eric had BLUE HAIR. it could’ve been canon and i am so sad that it was not!!! we came so close to getting it. blue haired little eric lives in my head rent free.) 

i think jenny and eric’s friendship is so special because it is SO normal, and literally nothing else in their lives is normal (im pretty sure i said this in some way/ form earlier) - in the sense of like. family issues. kids at school being mean. their own mental health being challenging. their lives are so complicated and heavy, both of them often end up needing to be more mature / adult than they actually are (lily comments during e’s 18th that eric has always been so “serious”, and i always think of how JENNY went to hudson and brought alison back because rufus & alison couldn’t resolve their marriage without their 14 year old daughter’s intervention, apparently). so yeah i do think they’d do all those bestie things - like, sleepovers, friendship bracelets, buying  matching clothes together, sending each other pictures of things like “should i buy this” - wrong generation, but if they were gen z kids they’d definitely have the biggest snapchat streak ongoing, and not in a performative way - they would genuinely talk to each other THAT much. 

also, for your consideration: imagine jenny and eric baking together!!! i think they’d be really serious about it, and they’d also have so much fun.

I absolutely LOVED reading your kingdom review. You gave me such an insight in things I never even considered, especially since our rankings are so different from each other. The Boyz was my favorite, the narrative was about RTK. How they felt bad for having to compete against their friends but eventually the groups only lifted each other up and it helped TBZ grow into the group they are now through the hardships and mental dilemma, falling into the next challenge right after they reached the top. It should have been more obvious though, I agree, it wasn't really visible for anyone who didn't know. I was wondering how you felt about the dancing in general? my reason for not ranking BTOB high was lack of choreo (and Peniel's verse), same goes for SF9. Mostly because I don't feel the hype when watching, it doesn't keep my focus on the stage. As a baby-performer myself, my goal is to make the viewer curious about what's next. is that the wrong way to look at it? that's what I've always been told, building the tension up and down to create focus. would love to hear your feedback on that! thank you so much for sharing, we need more reviews of people who actually know what they're talking about.

i'm glad that you got some insight from it! like i answered in the previous ask im here to hopefully bring some more depth and understanding for people that care and are curious!

you unintentionally proved my point about tbz’s performance: that is way too complicated! even the most talented solo dancers i can think of would have trouble distilling that down to something readable in 100 seconds, much less a group of like, a dozen people! the introductory stages are meant to show us the character of the group and their abilities in the most concise way possible, it's not the stage to do deep philosophical and emotional introspection. for a full stage? absolutely, go hog wild! but for this stage it was too ambitious and ultimately was ineffective to anyone that isn't a fan of them specifically. 

by dancing in general do you mean like, every group? i put most of my opinions on the dancing where i had them in each of the individual rankings but honestly? unless there is something that really stands out positively or negatively, a lot of ‘average’ kpop dance looks the same to me. i know it’s not, obviously, and if pressed i probably could do a more serious breakdown, but dance is only one element of performance. it has equal weight with all the others in my mind, and therefore i notice when it is either 

very good

does something unique

very bad, or

interferes with another element

which is the same as how i evaluate every element, if that makes sense. 

hmmmm. i thought about this a lot in the shower and turns out i had more opinions that i expected so i'll put them under a cut.

firstly, i don't think lack of choreo should be penalized or considered an ‘incomplete’ performance. at the end of the day, these are bands, and a part of their brand/product they sell is the music. complex choreo does not need to be attached to that to make it a successful performance. also, btob did have choreo. any movement on stage is technically choreography. but this terminology can cause confusion so usually non-dance choreo is referred to as ‘blocking.’ but they also did include the song’s original point choreo at 1.41. the blocking in their performance was well thought out and suited the arrangement, by placing spatial emphasis on each part of the song that needed it. obviously it comes down to personal taste if the performance is ultimately ‘successful,’ because all art is subjective, but just because something isn't as visually complex as something else doesn’t mean it doesn't have the same level of thought. think of it like this: one is a super clean-lined post-post-modern grey/white living room, and the other is a kitsch goth basement. both share interior design principles and have obvious care put into the space, but they are vastly different styles that appeal to different tastes.

part of the job of production designer/AD is to decide what gets emphasis. a question you're always asking yourself is ‘is this important to the story that we’re trying to tell?’ and btob/their AD made a very smart choice with their introductory stage because it says a lot about them and their abilities in a short amount of time. that stage said ‘our foundation is strong, we have the training and experience and confidence to be up here and not rely on visual tricks.’ because they know they physically cannot do the things the 4th gen groups can; they're a decade older and they only have four members, it's just not feasible. something you learn with experience is the power that specific and pointed emphasis holds, which segues into my answer to your last question. i don't necessarily think that ‘building hype’ is the wrong way to perform something, but i do think it is a flawed way to approach creating a performance.

i think that ‘hype’ is flawed concept at its core, and one that focuses on the idea that there’s always being something more, something next, beyond the work itself. now there’s nothing wrong with playing with tension within the internal structure of a piece, that's exactly how constructing a narrative happens. however, the flaws come once we extrapolate beyond the boundaries of that individual work. the idea of ‘whats next’ implies that you have to constantly be promoting, have a sequel coming, building hype etc so people will keep engaged with your work. which is deeply capitalistic in nature and operates on the assumption that art exists purely as a product to be sold. and in order to keep selling you need to keep making a bigger and better and more spectacular product. and this is not the case at all. marketability is not the essence of art, it merely a factor of creating it under this insufferable system. kpop in particular suffers from this because the industry is specifically fabricated to produce capitol. we can have discussions all day about idols and their artistic integrity but at the end of that day, they are all cogs working with a system that was specifically made up by essentially one person to be culturally exported and to just print buckets of money. so in following that train of thought, there is a constant attitude of bigger and better because shock value (whether positive or negative) gets social media attention and therefore it sells. and it has become exponentially easier (and also seemingly required) to make things that are bigger and better than ever before. i remember being blown away by the projection floor at the sochi 2014 olympics because something of that scale and complexity would never have been possible without literally having the funding of the olympics. now that technology is easily accessible to anyone with an amazon account and the time to learn how isadora works. in comparison, it took 2400 YEARS for just the job of a ‘theatre designer’ to be even become a job at all.

because of kpop’s fan culture it is especially prone to ‘hype’ behaviour. in general with the accessibility of the internet and social media, everything has turned into a competition, and who can generate the most buzz ‘wins’. but ultimately that has taken away the general public’s ability to recognize that you can enjoy something quietly and you can enjoy something slowly. that the enjoyment of something doesn’t need to be all exclamation marks and keysmashes and trending hashtags on twitter. there is value in a work engaging in an emotion within you that is not just excitement. most of the artists and companies that i consume the work of i don’t do so because their work makes me excited, i do so because i liked the experience of engaging with that work. several years ago i saw the eternal tides by legend lin dance theatre, which you can watch a really short clip of here. that is not slow motion, that is actually how slow the dancers are moving. and 90% of the show is performed like that. and its two hours long. and it was one of the most incredible performances i've ever seen. if i ever get the chance I will go see another one of their shows again, not because i care about how they can top that experience i had, but because i know they can produce that experience, and that is enough to make me want to seek them out again. the speed of the internet has also loosened the general public’s understanding of just exactly how long creating a performance work can take. the lead dancer in the eternal tides was with the company for eight years before she and the piece were ready enough to be performed. large scale operas, musicals, and plays often have a year or more of pre-production before they even get to rehearsal. smaller theatre companies workshop new pieces for years at a time. performance is hard and it takes time. you can eliminate some of that with sheer amounts of money and people, which is what the kpop industry has done, but it speeds up the cycle of consumption to a degree that is not sustainable, especially for companies and creators who do not have that kind of access. performers and performance makers often don't put enough trust in their audiences. if they like what they see, they will come back. they dont need to be constantly bombarded with content at all times.

now that i’ve said a bit about why i think hype is a flawed concept, let's bring it back to kingdom. sf9 did something very interesting with their stage in that they actively chose to limit their dance time. and this plays very well off the performance film stage that taeyang did a couple of weeks ago. taeyang is talented and confident (for good reason), and his solo was incredible. but when it came to the intro stage, instead of trying to one-up the solo stage, the group instead said ‘well people are going to be looking at us because taeyang is insanely talented, so let's show them that we ALL have the confidence and the attitude to be up here.’ no need for flashy theatrics, they had the foresight to do something that would make them stand out from the rest of the groups. even if i was just casually watching the stages without doing any analysis on them (like i did for rtk), i would still be able to distinguish them because they had the stones to stand around for half their stage time. now i recognize them and would like to see what else they can do. same principle as what btob and also what ikon did. there is a fine line between anticipation and hype that gets equated in media consumption nowadays, but the two are not the same.

i think the tldr on this is that you dont need to ‘build hype’ or ‘go all out’ to make an interesting work. just focus on telling the narrative that you want to tell, and the people that recognize that will come. i could have a lot more things to say about peoples shrinking attention spans and the constant stream of information that we consume on a daily basis that devalues the labour done by artists in the eyes of the public and promotes hustle culture that is burning out and damaging creators at a rate that is both exponential and frightening, but that’s probably for another time, because this is SO LONG

Welcome to my mind

For the last three years, my mind has been... Well, shit. Not that it hadn't been on a steady decline for years prior.

Recently, someone named her Denise. My other me. "Because that's what she is..when something is the opposite of something it's de-. She's not nice, she's De-Nice..."

Denise.

The name give to the me that's not me but spends more time pretending to be me than I do.

*Character Bio*

When I'm not Denise, I'm Ginny and she was the most wonderful person. I miss her dearly.

I had a great childhood. Very few psychological events, in my opinion. We never had much money, but my mom made sure I never knew it. My father worked hard at both his job and destroying his marriage; which is probably one of the marks on my childhood. More to come on that, I'm sure.

I didn't have trouble in school, per se. Bullied only a handful of times in all my school years. My mom is a designer, so I wore things you couldn't find on stores throughout my whole school life. I was *always* ahead of the trend and some kids couldn't handle it. We're talking 1991-2003. So, jumpers, corsets, mesh dusters, pants with fur on the bottom, dressing like anime characters... I was the first of everyone around me to be dressing that way. And I loved it!

But I had my revenge, as my hecklers could be seen wearing the same things they made fun of me for, after it became trendy. I guess you didn't have to be dead to be caught wearing that after all...

I struggled in math and excelled in art and writing. I had mostly good teachers, I think only one hated me.

I met all my best friends there. Can't say I've made all that many more in the years since. But, in my defense I'm surrounded by people who are nothing like me. You see, I grew up in Florida. All my vital youthful years were spent there. And now I live near Portland, Oregon. God, why? I even lost one of my dearest friends to the city. She completely changed from a fun, artistic girl who liked to draw, read, and cook...to...one of them. She's now a guilt vegan ( let's you know how disgusting you are for eating meat ) and is obsessed with shows that need to be cancelled. I had known this girl since first grade, she said she would follow the first friend who loved out of state. That was me, so she came out here too. Our friendship immediately began deteriorating as she would not allow me in my own room during the day, because she was talking to some loser friend of hers online. This person left her in a Walgreen's 20 miles from her home, on the wrong side of town, when we were all barely old enough to drive, because she was taking too long looking at eyeliner. But, she sounds like a solid individual to begin emulating. Are you serious? I watched my fully replacement take effect. 20 years of friendship completely gone in a matter of months. Have you ever watched someone stop carrying about you? Think about it. No, don't think about it. It's awful. She even physically ended our friendship. The first I had ever experienced. It was wrenching. But, I'm too far ahead now. I need to tell you how I got to Oregon.

Somewhere around me being 16, my dad stopped coming home. His mother had recently died and he knew some pretty shitty people willing to help him take the pain away. How does a poor, dyslexic, hoodlum, with a history of abuse cure the blues? Crack, of course. My mom did all she knew how to do, but she was pretty done with it all. They got divorced and some rich old lady "saved" him and whisked him off to Maryland where he would suffer many years of depression for what he had done to his family.

Now, it was just my mother and me. I immediately got a job and gave her my entire paycheck to help keep us in our lovely house. But as fate would have it, the city claimed eminent domain on our house with plans to build a water treatment facility. So, they lowballed us on what our house was worth and gave us 6 months to move. Now, here's some important side information: my mom is an army brat who grew up with mountains her whole life, until moving to Florida for my dad, which was apparently one of the last places she ever wanted to be. And my chummy from another tummy, was born in Oregon and had recently left me to go to OSU. This girl is my sister by all counts but blood. So, with a few other helping factors the logical answer was to start anew. How completely different my life would have been if I stayed. Can't say it would be better, just 100% different from what it is now.

But, in 2005 we moved to Oregon on the promise that we would do all the things we wanted to do and be living in Seattle in a few years.

None of that worked out. I can still remember the first night we spent in our apartment. I hated it. I let everyone know too. I think I cried for a week. I just wanted to go home. My Sisi was too far away to see her more often than the weekends and slowly her grades began to falter. This led to her dropping out and moving back to Florida just five months after I moved out here for her. I fell apart. I had only my mom and I love her, but sometimes you need your friends... You know? We did what we could and took jobs we hated and tried to get used to our new surroundings. I'm apparently a spoiled brat so I'm sure I made things painful for my mom who was finally back in her element and here I was stomping around telling everyone how much I hated it. Hate it. Present tense. I know the whole world is a cess pool of hipster, millennial idiots who all think that they know how to run the world, but the concentration of their free-for-all holier-than-thou ways is as dense here as the trees. It's exhausting listening to people who haven't showered in a week tell you how special they are because they have this heightened awareness that they learned from some Joe Blow and happens to not be fact at all. I have had a 24 year old Hispanic girl tell me that only white people can be racist, everyone else is prejudice. I told her that that in itself was a racist statement. And she said "no it's not. My teacher told me, and she has a PhD." I don't think I need to explain the definition of racism, but I do think Manson could have thrived in this town.

Fast forward quite a few years and we are both still in Oregon working jobs we hate not getting any of the things done we said we would. Are we lazy? Are we depressed? I'm sure it's both.

But, a small miracle comes my way, as I'm getting dressed to go down to the office to sign the next years lease I get a call from a woman who used to work with me. She asks if we are still looking for a new place to live and I tell her yes! We end up renting her townhouse from her because she's getting married. She proves to be a terrible landlord, probably because she's not all that good at being a person. She's really great at other things, but not that. Somme people are like that. But, I also haven't learned how to speak Oregonian in the 14 years I have been here.

A few more years and we end up buying the house and I have changed jobs for my health and things are looking up. I lose some of the weight I had acquired in my sorrows. I even find a guy that I can tolerate. Mostly bc he's 4000 miles away in another country. But, I struggle to find my way in our incredibly mismatched relationship. And he's so smart. So, successful... Here it comes... "what's he doing with a loser like me?"

My friends.... They all have something to show for their lives: degrees, children (Im not interested in these things,) husbands, jobs they don't hate....

I have a mortgage and a ridiculously high HOA, two payed off cars, 50 extra pounds on my ass, a job I'm not particularly built for, and a guy whom I love differently than he loves me.

I'm killing it.... Or myself. One way or the other. "I still haven't figured that shit out yet " -Eddie Murphy

I think this a pretty good place to stop for now. You should have a good amount of reference points for the following posts which will entirely be me, describing my chronic severe depression hoping that someone somewhere might read it and know they are not alone. I feel such a sense of validation when I read something from someone who feels the same as I do. This blog isn't for attention or critiquing, as most will likely be written when things like grammar and story structure aren't focused on. It's purely to get the chaos out so, I can organize it.

I don't know who you are but if you're reading this far, please stay tuned if you want to say "Wow, that's exactly how I feel."

Do good.