in the future, an assumption that i did not realize that any art i RTed was reposted and a link to it so i can correct it is more appreciated than a snide remark, thanks! this time i did find and correct it without a link though.

(careful clicking the link everyone, it's actual porn, though not too graphic!) oh absoLUTELY!! i shared it with beebalm ✨ maybe unfastening jk brings nj onto one of his streams one day~

i haven't! i don't think i'll be seeing it until it comes out on streaming or for purchase somewhere, if that ever happens (fingers crossed that it will!) so i won't be in the loop for a while yet 🥲

i'm probably not the right person to answer, but i bet it's a little of both! i do think things shifted in the solo era - a lot of people moved on, and new armys who joined during that time probably had a very different on-boarding experience. i also have several friends who were out of the fandom for like 6 months up to a few years who've recently returned! so you're not alone in coming back.

i think it's always weird to re-enter fandom! things change fast and people have accumulated new references that you might not get, and a lot of the people you once relied on might have moved on. but even if it feels weird, that's SO normal! like, from being in fandom for decades myself, and knowing lots of others who are the same, i can tell you i think it's actually the more common fan experience for your involvement to fluctuate. i've been in fandom sporadically since i was about 13, and in that time there have been periods of multiple years where i just wasn't involved in fandom at all! and every time i come back it feels like an entirely new landscape. there's gonna be an adjustment period!

i also wanna say that like, i think in kpop fandom especially, there are so many different niches that, depending on which niche you're in/have been in, if you encounter another one it's gonna be like a TOTALLY different culture. fandom is super fragmented now, and there are different in-jokes and references between like stan accounts, fanfic people, tinhats, y/n people, ship wars people, fanwars people, etc etc, even if there's overlap there. and a lot of those people think every other kind of person is weird as hell and doing fandom wrong 😂 also 4th gen fans have a lot of different norms and rules around shipping and fic, which i can't really speak to since i'm not deeply involved. just take your time, find your niche, and participate in a way that feels good to you! and welcome back!! i'm thrilled to have you here again 🤗

yessss 😌🙌

yeah absolutely!! i can tell you right now there's a perilous lack of bottom namjoon in my readings. i think some buck the trends though -- bottom hobi is higher-ranked than top hobi, and top jimin is higher than bottom jimin, for example, which i think is not in line with the broader ao3 tag trends! i'm sure some of it depends on ship, and also for any member that's not hobi/jungkook/namjoon i'm gonna have less data just because of the ships i read a lot of (all my top 10 most-read ships feature hobi or jungkook as half the pairing), so they're gonna be more vulnerable to skew.

hahahaha it took me a second to put together what you meant! jungkook should be so honored, he's the only one to make it into the top 10 twice 💪 (this is bc over half of the fics i read this year had jungkook in the pairing lmao but that's neither here nor there...) also the "vers jungkook" tag is sitting at #35 in the rankings with 9 fics.

what i found fun abt the idea of tracking who tops and bottoms in the fics i read in the first place is that most of the fics i read don't have top/bottom dynamics tagged, and even if they do i'm not like, basing my reading decisions off of that, so i wanted to see what kinds of patterns would emerge, if any! and the pattern that is emerging is that jungkook bottoms ✨ at the end of the year i might put it all together to see what sexual dynamic was most represented for every member, but that depends on how i feel lol - last year i didn't post any of the data bc i felt very like "fuck it," so we'll see. i do think it's pretty hilarious that bottom jungkook is currently sitting at #1, but also, that's 27 fics out of 190 fics i've read so far this year, so it's not really That Much in the grand scheme of things. but still! he's on top! even if he's on bottom 🎊

hahaha oh my god jungkook WOULD 🤭 we've been together almost 15 years and we're common law married (no wedding or anything), so like legally he is correct. i just have a lot of objections to marriage as a social institution, some petty and some not, and also to the way you get treated and the assumptions people make about you as a woman married to a man, and i don't like the word "husband" 😂 i'll call him my husband in more formal situations (insurance, bank, doctor's office etc), but with my friends and family i almost always use boyfriend. he always refers to me as his wife with other people now, but sometimes he'll still use girlfriend when it's just us. i've actually never asked him if he minds the discrepancy in terms lol! but you're right, jungkook would mind that kind of thing very much and pout about it aggressively 😤 what anon is responding to

oh Very Them-coded 😌

one of my friends was saying this same thing, too! about interacting being easier irl. and there are a lot of real-time social cues we get irl that are just missing online. online you can't read someone's facial expression or interest level as they're speaking to you, and often you're not having an instantaneous back and forth, so the rhythm of the conversation can be strange and it's hard to tell if they took an hour to reply to you bc they got busy with something or if it's because they secretly hate you lol!! people are more confrontational and hyperbolic online too, so i think interactions can go sour faster. it's hard!

i also wanna say that like, even if i AM going around talking about community through comments or whatever, it's because that's the interaction mode i'm attached to in fandom, so ofc i specifically want to nurture it. but no one is doing anything wrong or being a bad person by not interacting with fandom like that. it's fine to lurk, and i'm not judging anyone who does it! i spent like my first decade in fandom just lurking off and on lol! for some people, fic is a smaller and more casual part of their fan experience, or they're not In The Fandom in an intense way, or whatever. like, everyone should participate as they are willing and able, and sometimes that means not at all! but i do also think it's valuable to give people some encouragement or a nudge to try it out.

the sick reality of it all is that you gotta just do it anyway! i'm not saying it's easy to talk to people, or that i enjoy talking to new people - it's scary, and i feel very deeply that i do not understand most people or their priorities and that they think i'm weird and off-putting. but it's a skill just like others, and it can be practiced. and the reality of practicing something is that you will fail sometimes - you'll have awkward exchanges, you'll meet people who aren't very nice to you, you'll try to connect and things will fizzle out. but that doesn't mean that every person in the world is exactly the same - you exist, and therefore someone who thinks similarly to you or is compatible to you exists out there too.

the harsh fact is that if you never try to talk to anyone, you will never talk to anyone. i think a lot of us harbor fantasies of someone supernaturally friendly coming along and seeing something special in us and coaxing us very gently and patiently out of our shell over time. the thought of not having to try is comforting! but the reality is that most people are also too scared of not being liked to be running around pulling others out of their shells. everyone wants to be liked, and everyone is terrified that they aren't! but if you show up to the function with "you don't care about me and you won't like me" energy, that energy is going to be self-fulfilling! people are skittish little animals, and honestly, by starting out an interaction telling someone, either out loud or more subtly, that they won't like you, you've begun the interaction by insulting the other person. you've made a judgment about them that they aren't nice and that they're gonna hate you! it feels like it's protecting you, but it's not going to make the other person feel good or like they wanna keep talking to you. instead you have to tell yourself what feels like a lie! channel kim seokjin and say "i deserve to be here and i'm an interesting and valuable person," even if your ears are red and on the inside you want to scream! and, also like kim seokjin, if you fall down or you do poorly, just try again anyway!

the thread anon is responding to

oh VERY clever of him 👌😌

i just saw it and i'm losing my MIND????! what is this ep!!!! i can't believe he missed jungkook so much he had to go get a bunch of men to literally toss him around a room this is MADNESS 😱 also the captions being like [ROMANCE] and then he's talking about being on blind dates???? and he's gonna KIDNAP HOBI??! (they don't say it's hobi but literally who else would be in that outfit) is he dating hobi i need to know what's going ONNN the run jin preview in question

💕💕

thank you so much, it really means a lot to me that you love the fic and want to advocate for it!! but i also wanna be clear that i don't think it's your responsibility, or the responsibility of anyone else who loves the fic, to do more for it just because i feel a certain type of way about it! i of course deeply appreciate any love and support that the fic gets, and i appreciate it extra because of the place that fic holds for me, but i don't want anyone to feel guilty about their response to it just because i've got a feeling 💕 honestly, i've found that any bad or vulnerable feelings i have about my writing don't really correlate very well with how popular it is or how loud people are about it! if my brain wants to feel like a fic is unloved, it's gonna feel like that no matter what (i've even had those feelings about certain takedown chapters, and that's my most popular fic by far lol!) and objectively, how good it felt has a lot of really good engagement! all of my fics are pretty popular by any engagement metric. i just feel very squishy about hgif because it puts me out of my comfort zone and is difficult to write, so it's really easy for me to tell myself stories about it, y'know. i share those feelings sometimes to explain myself better, but the feelings aren't a call to action or something you need to fix for me, i promise! i do secretly love to know that you prefer hgif to takedown though lol! you're going against the grain 🫡 appreciating the deep cuts 🫡🫡

thank you for letting me know! it helps to know that it's not all the same person. everyone being anonymous on here makes it difficult to gauge intention bc i don't have a username i can look at and be like "oh hey, i recognize this person (from ao3, twt, etc) and have had other good interactions with them!" so it makes it kind of like everyone is a stranger, even if they're not. ultimately, i'm just kind of sensitive right now. i feel bad in general, and i also feel bad that i haven't been writing, and i am also always sensitive talking about other wips because i'm very aware that not as many people care about them or read them as do takedown. (i'm also very sensitive about how good it felt in particular, it's a very personal fic for me.) so getting asked about takedown right after i've talked about them feels to me like people confirming "hey, i know you care about this thing, but i wanna remind you that i don't care about it, so maybe you could stick to talking to the thing i care about!" i know that doesn't mean that's how it is, but it's how it feels in my little animal brain!!

ultimately, i don't blame anyone for that!! there are very few authors where i read every fic of theirs, so i really get that most people will only be interested in one thing i write, or a few things. that's normal, and it's a natural way to engage with someone's writing! i do genuinely appreciate that you love takedown and that you look forward to reading more of it, i mean that SO much 💗 i love that fic, i work hard on it, and it's really special to me, and so is everyone who reads it. (thank you for commenting on ao3 btw, you're my hero for that!)

as a rule, i try to assume good intentions from people, because i know that it really sucks to like, try to engage with someone whose fic you like and have them respond by snapping at you or being hurt! i want people to feel good when they interact with me, and not like they're potentially stepping on a land mine, y'know? but there are some things i get sensitive about, and some times i'm more sensitive than others, and my feelings get hurt! thank you for clarifying, like it genuinely does help to know that you weren't trying to be pushy and that it's not all the same person! but it also doesn't really make my feelings less hurt, if that makes sense. which is a me problem, tbh! there's nothing you need to do to fix that for me 💕 it comes from my vulnerabilities and my fears, and those are things i only expect people close to me to know and anticipate. i think i do need to just stop responding to messages that make me feel sensitive in that particular way! because i don't like getting all emo in neospring messages lol and, more importantly, i don't like responding poorly and discouraging people from talking to me. (also, i need to stop responding to anon messages when i'm sleep deprived and emotional lmaooo...) anyway, the tl;dr of it all is: this particular reaction is not about you, it's about me! so i really don't have any hard feelings toward you. 🫂

context for those who need it: the message anon sent months ago (i think this is the one you were talking about!) the recent message me getting a little sdfjksdfj on twt

😂😂

🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️ i still haven't started on it and also haven't written anything in like a month!! i think it's the depression 🙃 every time i mention hgif i get asked about takedown but i promise you, takedown isn't getting ignored in favor of hgif bc currently exactly zero of my wips are getting written. i am doing bad!! things are bad!!

omg thank you for the link!!!!!! and yeah DINO!!!!!! you're right, jk totally would've voted dino 😤

i think you might be referencing jin's special stage? but i wasn't up in time to watch either of them so unfortunately i'm out of the loop 🥲

very kid yelling from the back of the class 😭😭 he had that answer READY

he's so sweet 🥲

i do think you're right abt the jin thing (see here!) and yeah you're definitely right that nj's not perfect lol!! like when i said if anything he's too fond of a serious conversation i meant it - i do think there's such a thing as like, too much talking and over-examining everything and i could see nj being prone to that. he's also petty and ambitious and he holds grudges and he really shows when he's annoyed! he's so special and wonderful, but i could also see him being difficult to have a relationship with, which is something i'm equally fond of about him tbh! like he's kinda dramatic and i'm so obsessed with that about him. what a guy!!!!

i'm sorry if i or anyone else came off defensive over your messages when you were just trying to be funny! it can be hard to interpret tone, and there have been a lot of spurious rumors flying around from solos in the past few months trying to act like there's drama behind the scenes between the members, so it was hard to tell whether you were just being light-hearted or whether you were trying to air some of that stuff in a subtler way. i don't answer messages that i interpret as being definitely malicious though, which is why i was talking to you at all!! but sometimes i do get anons who will start off saying these kinda plausibly deniable things and then it devolves into something meaner once they've gotten me to start a conversation, so i have a bit of caution around anything potentially negative, that's all. 💕

i think you're so right 😭 it was this forced interruption to the rhythm of their lives, and i'm sure it was scary and forced him to re-examine some things. and then having to do all of that without jin around to help! and at the time he thought he was gonna be next, like he'd originally been planning to enlist when hoseok did so there was probably this dreadful kind of countdown going in his head.

jikook said he just says "oh!" and keeps walking 😂 they were laughing abt it - i think he gets kinda in his head and forgets to like, have a reaction. absent-minded professor kinda stuff 🥲 when they were talking abt it they definitely didn't seem hurt or offended, and they know namjoon better than us so if they're talking abt it like a funny cute quirky thing then i trust that that's what it is for them! like there's that whole decade of living in each other's pockets behind how they interpret each other's behavior, and a whole lot of experiences we weren't there for, so i trust them to be better interpreters of each other's feelings and intentions than any of us.