#its my sexuality and I get to decide what the robots orientation is

[shitpostingkats]

[thespacenico]

incoming rant from a Tired Asexual™ tw // aphobia

i’ve seen a lot of discourse lately over whether or not “straight” ace people are included in the lgbtq+ community, and i have quite a few things to say about it.

to start off, i think it’s crucial to the conversation to understand that asexuality is absolutely its own separate, distinct sexual orientation. to say that it’s not doesn’t actually make sense — if a person isn’t sexually attracted to anyone, but asexuality isn’t a sexual orientation... then they have no sexual orientation at all? of course not! if there are multiple sexual orientations where a person is sexually attracted to the same or different or some or all genders, why in the world wouldn’t there be a sexual orientation where a person is sexually attracted to no genders? 

this is important, because the moment that we establish asexuality as its own sexual orientation, we’ve veered away from the cisgender, heteromantic, heterosexual “standard”. when we say someone is straight or cishet, we typically mean they’re both heteromantic and heterosexual. an asexual person may be cisgender and heteromantic, buuut... they’re asexual. right off the bat, their experience with sexual attraction is something that differs from the norm. are they really even straight, or just heteromantic? either way, asexuality is much different than heterosexuality, and it’s about time everyone started treating it as such. 

it’s worth noting that the full lgbtq+ acronym includes asexuality. in other words, if someone is asexual, they’re already part of the lgbtq+ community, regardless of any other identity or label they might identify with. asexuality is not just some sort of addition to other labels. it’s not dependent on any other facet of attraction or identity. it doesn’t have to meet any criteria or satisfy certain conditions for it to be accepted or considered valid. it’s separate, distinct, and independent.

these aren’t the oppression olympics, and they never have been, but to say that asexual people don’t experience discrimination is simply wrong. people tell us that our asexuality is a choice and liken it to practicing celibacy rather than recognizing it as a sexual orientation. we’re often afraid to come out as asexual due to fear of dismissal, skepticism, or negative reactions. we’re constantly compared to and depicted as animals or robots. we’re told we have some sort of sexual interest/desire/arousal disorder as outlined in the DSM. we’re subjected to sexual assault and corrective rape to “fix” our sexuality, because we’re “broken.” 

“you just haven’t met the right person yet” “don’t knock it ‘til you try it” “you're too young to know about that sort of thing” “you’ll change your mind when you’re older” “maybe you should see a doctor” 

do you see the problem yet?

this discourse is especially frustrating because asexual people face constant criticism and ridicule not only from straight cishets, but also from people within the lgbtq+ community itself. it’s sadly ironic that sometimes, the people who must understand what it’s like to be mocked and alienated for their identity are the same people mocking and alienating asexual people for their identity. it makes me angry because not only is it harmful to those people by trying to force them out of a space some of them desperately need, but it’s also harmful to queer ace people such as myself.

i’m an ace lesbian. when someone says “straight ace people aren’t part of the lgbtq+ community,” they’re also saying “your asexuality is only valid because you’re also a lesbian,” in other words, “the validity of your asexuality depends entirely on who you’re romantically attracted to,” in other words, “your asexuality doesn’t matter, actually.” 

you don’t get a say in whether or not my asexuality is valid. you don’t get to decide when, how, or why it’s valid. it just is.

[the-silentium]

In Emergency Only

Masterlist

Pairing: Five Hargreeves x Reader

Words: 2120 words

Warnings: TUA season 1 and 2 spoilers, violence, blood, sexual innuendos. 

Requested by: Anon!

Your last fic about Five was so good!!  Loved your unique twist you added and the interactions were so believable. Definitely one of my fav fics! If requests are open, could you do one of the same reader reacting to Five fighting and kicking ass, would they fight too or just hang out in the back and wait? Big fan and I love your work

A/N: Still 30 years old Five here! Same Reader and Five as in Doppelganger! Sorry for the title, I really had no idea. Oups.

The music playing in the background brought a smile to your face. You loved to learn more about different cultures and their different people dancing the Polka almost made you regret the reason of your little visit. You swore that this woman, the Handler, had Five in the middle of her palm, enraging your boyfriend to no end, but he sucked up his ego and accepted her deal to save his family. 

You followed Five through the enormous cabin. The architecture was truly beautiful, catching your eyes quite easily. You were occupied by admiring an intriguing animal carved into the wood that you didn’t see Five stopping in front of a vending machine and slammed into his side. He was quick to get a hold of your arms before you fell to the ground and hurt your behind, pulling you into his chest with a seductive smile on his kissable lips. 

“Distracted?” 

You rolled your eyes at him before pecking his lips. “I just like slamming into you.” Five’s groan made you chuckle before you turned your attention to the assortment of snacks displayed behind the glass. 

“See something you want?” Five buried his face into your neck, tickling you with his warm breath. Giggling, you pushed him away and pointed to a chocolate bar in the middle of the display. It has been a while since you last ate some, so you figured why not? You knew that you were sitting this one out, so eating would not be a problem. 

“Please?” You offered him your best puppy eyes, although you knew that it wasn't necessary. He asked you first after all. 

“Sure.” He pecked your lips one last time, turned to the machine while digging some money in his pocket and inserted the coins into the slot. He pressed the letter and number assigned to the candy and karma decided to hit you by stopping the spiral metal thing before the sweet could fall down. 

Frustrated, Five tried typing in the code again, without success. You knew that at this point in time, Five was getting pretty impatient. The last days haven’t been easy on him, especially when you almost got shot by one of the Swedes and every one of his siblings was scattered around town and not listening to him, causing Five to get irritated pretty easily. 

You grabbed his arm to calm him down when he started to push the machine and pulled him along with you to the cake further down the hallway. The only way to calm down Five was to allow him to successfully grant your wishes of eating something and the cake would do just fine. 

You quickly dipped your pointer finger into the icing, turned to him and when he opened his mouth to voice his anger you shut him up by putting your finger into his mouth. His pissed-off expression soon morphed into a cocky one when he noticed the red coloring your cheeks, proceeding to see if the color could reach your neck by sucking harder on your finger. Embarrassed by his antics, you retrieved your hand and hid your face in his chest. 

“This icing is heavenly.” He chuckled before reaching for something behind your back. “Look up.” You reluctantly did as told, dreading what you would find. Instead of being hit square in the face by a hand full of icing like you feared, a single maraschino cherry dangled between Five’s fingers, two inches away from your mouth. Instantly, your mouth started to water, the sweet ingredient had always been your favorite part of a dessert. “Open up.”

You would have blushed if it wasn’t for your excitement of eating the prized cherry. You didn’t hesitate to tilt your head and open your mouth to the incoming sweet, a delighted moan filled Five’s ears when you grabbed the fruit between your teeth and chewed.

“Now that’s a sound I like to hear.” The bliss of the cherry moment now over, your blush came back full force at his innuendo. You weren’t used to his flirty attitude, he was gone for 17 years and as young teenagers, your relationship wasn’t really oriented in that direction. You had to remind yourself that he was, in fact, 58 years old regardless of his physical appearance. 

A kiss fell on your cheek and Five let go of you to make his way to the fire axe on the opposite wall. 

“Do you think preventing the end of the world is enough of an emergency?” 

You smiled at his question and nodded once in approbation. “Definitely.” 

He winked at you before grabbing the axe with both hands and walked into the room. He passed in front of you and you took care of closing the door after yourself, this time your job was to keep watch and stop anyone from entering the room. Because it was the Commission’s board that was targeted, Five had thought it wise to take the matter into his own hands and keep you out of it. 

You weren’t against it, the memory of the barrel of an automatic rifle pressed at the back of your head was still pretty vivid and every time you thought about it you had goosebumps. In other circumstances, you were sure that you would have participated in some kind of way. Maybe with a knife or something, the fire axe was definitely out of your mental capacity. 

You had helped Five in some of his fights before. Not every fight, but some of them. You were impressed by the amount of bloody fighting your boyfriend could be engaged in and were truly amazed that every time he would get out almost without a scratch. 

Back at Griddy’s, you had to hide behind the counter where Five teleported you and wait until he had neutralized every armed guy in the room. You knew how to defend yourself, having followed some training with the Hargreeves when you were kids, but your skills were useless when guns were involved. This was the very first time you had seen the extent of Five’s ability. Never would you have thought that his space-jumping would be that effective. 

Then there was the fight with the Swedes in the Mexican consulate. The absence of guns gave you the opportunity to land some punch to the tough Swedes hitting the shit out of your boyfriend, the perfect distraction for him to throw the white-haired out the window. You hissed out of empathy for the guy before fist-bumping with Five and space-jump outside. 

Screams erupted from the room Five recently entered. Curiously, you made your way to the open doors to assess what you were sure was a gory scene. In the 2 seconds it took you to reach the doors, Five had already neutralized 4 of the board members and was quickly axing his way further into the room. You’ve never feared blood, your uncle had a butcher shop and you helped sometimes to put the meat into packages, nothing too dangerous, and while you helped you had seen the carcass of different animals being emptied from their organs so you were certain that you could handle whatever was happening in the next room. 

A blue spot flashed before your eyes and Five appeared at the same time a man hit a wall and fell down with a lamp. You rolled your eyes when Five took the time to take a sip from a glass, the next thing you knew a guy was hanging from the ceiling and three more board members were dead in a pool of blood. As much as you hated the view of dismembered bodies, you had to admit that Five was pretty efficient in his work. You managed to make eye contact with your boyfriend when he stopped for a second behind the last Commissioner, Five shooed you with one hand so you obeyed. If he thought that you couldn’t handle it, then you couldn’t. End of story. You had to admit that the sound of the axe hitting the bones was pretty disturbing, the sound occasionally made you shiver in disgust. 

You had your back pressed to the closed doors separating the bloody scene worthy of a horror movie and the welcoming Polka party, patiently waiting for your boyfriend to return victorious when a man with a fish tank as head stopped running when he saw you. If possible, you were as stunned as he was. You weren’t prepared to face a non-human person and he clearly wasn't prepared to see someone guarding the exit. 

However, he was faster than you to regain his senses and try to push past you. His sudden movements made you jump, his hands were almost on your arm when Five appeared in front of you and pushed the weird robot-man-fish away from you. 

“Surely we can come to some form of agreement that benefits both parties.” Your eyes widen at the voice, not expecting the fish to be able to talk. You tilted your head to the side so that you were able to see over Five’s shoulder and take a second look at the panicking talking goldfish. “Quid pro quo? What do you say?” Oh. His hope was cute. 

“Why not? Here’s your quid.” Five hit the human body’s leg with what you noted wasn’t the fire axe but something that looked like a cricket bat. “Here’s your pro.” He hit him again on the opposite leg. “Here’s your quo.” Five charged his hit as much as he could without hitting you with the bat, the fish’s pleas reaching your ears, then Five smashed the tank as hard as he could. The glass exploded, water got everywhere, the body fell to the ground in a thud and the goldfish dropped to the ground. 

As Five took a deep breath, you carefully stroked his back in a soothing manner before crouching to retrieve the gasping fish. You already had a bag ready for it, looking around you found a vase proudly showing off its beautiful purple flowers. You disposed of the flowers and poured the vase’s water into your plastic bag. Turning around you met your boyfriend with the fish’s tail trapped between his fingers, its head facing the ground. Hurriedly, you made your way toward them as you felt bad for the little thing convulsing out of the water.

“Poor little fishy! Put it quickly in the water!” You couldn’t help yourself and enveloped Five’s hand with the bag so the fish could be in his appropriate environment. 

“It’s far from being a ‘poor little fishy’ you know? It planned for the apocalypse to happen and ordered hundreds of people’s death.” He said letting go of the fish’s tail. 

You closed the bag so it wouldn’t escape and smiled sheepishly. “I guess I still can’t accept that a fish can talk. Or be at the head of an organization of killers.” You brought the bag at eye level to analyze the goldfish closer and sure enough, the fish was staring right at you. “I guess it does seem intelligent-” You paused as the fish nodded at your words. You controlled your surprise and smiled sweetly at him. “Can we name him sushi?”

The fish started to swim in circles, hitting the bag from time to time making you laugh at his apparent anger. A hand got a hold of the bag, taking the little burden out of your hands. At this moment you noticed that Five’s eyes were dull, their bright spark gone with every life he took. Worry etched your features, you reached for his empty hand and squeezed lightly hoping to give him some sort of comfort. He shot a small smile your way despite his eyes still being emotionless. 

Your heart broke for him, all this time he was forced to kill against his will and it ate at his soul. Oh how you wished you had a special ability like him and had the capacity to remove all of the darkness hurting his mind. Without warning, Five pulled you to his chest and jumped to an alley. The unexpected spacial-travel made you dizzy for a few seconds. You had done it enough time before to be used to it and be spared of the once usual wave of nausea following a jump. 

You knew that the Handler would come here sooner than later, so you engulfed your boyfriend in a hug regardless of the blood covering his clothes. Deposing a light kiss on his less stained cheek, you smiled lovingly at him. 

“It’s almost over. Then we’ll be only the two of us.” 

His forehead met yours and a sincere smile stretched his lips. “I can’t wait.”

[renoftheshadows]

Rules: Tag 10 other blogs you want to learn more about!

Tagged by: @robot-with-anxiety​ thank you!

Name: [REDACTED]

Nicknames: Ren

Starsign: Pisces

Gender: nonbinary

Height: 5'2.5"

Sexual Orientation: demi I guess? idk I like just saying queer bc it fits since I’m just not sure.

Fave Color: purple, turquoise, black

Current Time: 3:01pm

Current Location: Montana, USA

Average Hours of Sleep: I hate this question when drs ask it bc it is literally all over the place. I guess maybe 7 average? Last couple days have probably been closer to 10 though. But I’d been having trouble sleeping for weeks so.

Lucky Number: 2. or anything with 2.

Last Thing I Googled: technically I DuckDuckGo’ed it bc they don’t track you or store info the way Google does. :) but it was “i’m gonna kermit” bc I’m not always hip to the memes. Thank god for knowyourmeme.com

Number of Blankets I Sleep With: depends. Average is two. Three when it’s colder. Sometimes one in the summer.

Fave Fictional Characters: SAM WINCHESTER (spn). ahem. Ben White (OC), Ben Solo (Star Wars), Bucky Barnes (Marvel), Link (Legend of Zelda), Raymond (Animal Crossing), Bengal (Animal Crossing), Jasnah Kholin (Stormlight Archives),

Fave Bands/Artists: someone said I gave off Unhinged Emo vibes with my last url (renoftheshadows) so here’s your proof. Starset, Breaking Benjamin, Linkin Park, Evanescence, Three Days Grace, Lacuna Coil, Panic! At the Disco, Puscifer, Five Finger Death Punch, Glitch Mob, Nero, Seven Lions, Blackmill, Seether, Staind. Also a shit ton of random stuff. Despite this list I will actually listen to almost anything. Or at least try it.

Dream Job: assuming this is under a socialist/anarchist society where people actually get fairly compensated for their labor and I can work only part time or less bc of disability... maybe crop picker. Something dealing with plants and being outdoors, but kinda mindless and repetitive. Data entry would be okay too.

Random Fact: my left leg is shorter than my right one by almost a half inch.

Do you have any other blogs?: mhmm. A personal/mental health one (you can ask for it but I might not tell you if I don’t feel I know you well enough), another VERY personal one that only my partner knows about, a tarot one @cosmicxamethyst, plus 10 more that are only used occasionally.

When did your blog reach its peak?: right now lol

What made you decide to get Tumblr?: I kept seeing screenshots on Pintrest and I wanted a fandom space and, well, the rest is history.

Why did you choose your URL?: ajfdal well my original one was bc it related to Kylo Ren. This one bc of the creampie saga/insanity on Dec 12. I like it and think it’s hilarious so I’m keeping it for now.

Tagging: @catgirlmulder @milfsamwinchester @armymaninashtraysaweverything @flatbedford @starcasticcelestial @spectator-sam @itsjustallaboutsam  @jackandthesoulmates @itstartswithbloodshed @starryeyedriot @samanddeaninpanties @cantdothisalone @tentaclemonsterloverdean @spneveryseason @ohmygod-zu-you-suck and anyone else who wants to!!

[crosswhenandwhere]

Top 30 Most Underrated Albums!!

My top 30 favorite albums that I think are lovely and should be praised WAAAAY more than they are! Everything on here is great and I recommend all these albums!

30. Bon Iver - 22 A Million

Bon Iver takes his sound to the most experimental. Vocoder passages are super dope, 715 Creeks is an insanely underrated tune.

29. Siriusmo - Mosaik

Great kitschy synth music. Catchy, lighthearted, sweet and playful.

28. Bones - Useless

Best underground soundcloud rap album in my opinion. Cavernous, edgy, loud and depressing.

27. Mellowhype - Numbers

For an album with what I consider to be one of the best Frank Ocean features ever I hardly see it talked about in hip-hop circles. Great album.

26. Justice - Audio Video Disco

Grossly overshadowed by it’s monolithic older brother Cross, Audio Video Disco still serves bangers. Civilization is one of my top 10 songs of all time but On’n’on, Helix and New Lands should not be overlooked!

25. Gesaffelstein - Aleph

If I had to describe Aleph in a single word it would be brooding. Runners up include expensive, violent and scary.

24. Duck Sauce - Quack

If anything proves that we are long overdue for a full length A-Trak solo album, it’s this.

23. Yung Lean - Unknown Memory

Cloud rap pioneer Yung Lean’s opus. Volt, Sunrise Angel, Sandman and Blinded are all incredibly ahead of their time.

22. Playboi Carti - In Abundance

This one comes with a bit of a caveat considering it is a fan-compiled mixtape and not an official album but many of the songs on this project in my opinion stack up against highlights from S/T, Die Lit and WLR.

21. Dead Can Dance - Within the Realm of a Dying Sun

Referring to this album as moody and ambient don’t do it justice but for the sake of keeping  this list concise it will have to do. Dead Can Dance deserve the highest order of praise for this medieval epic.

20. Porches - The House

A melancholy and personal look into Porches frontman Aaron Maine’s experiences with social anxiety and depression. It’s groovy and will have you dancing with tears in your eyes.

19. Oni Ayhun - Oar003

Only two tracks long which makes it the shortest album on this list, Olof Dreijer of The Knife, under the pseudonym Oni Ayhun, makes curious, twinkling techno on Oar003.

18. Amnesia Scanner - Another Life

Abrasive and glitchy, german electronic duo Amnesia Scanner’s first album is not for the feint of heart but anyone who decides to keep an open mind (and the volume knob sitting lower than usual) will find some truly captivating moments of electronic brilliance on this record.

17. Mr Oizo - All Wet

Absolutely fucking hilarious album. With features from Skrillex, Boys Noize, Peaches and even Charli Xcx. All wet is modern dadaism and if you don’t believe me make sure you check out No Tony and Chairs in particular.

16. Crystal Castles - Amnesty (I)

I do not understand why this album isn’t  considered more when talking about Crystal Castles’ discography. It sounds related to their self titled trilogy but takes the band’s style in a less dance oriented, more experimental almost instrumental hiphop direction. Edith Francis’ vocals are great and the songs Ornament and Fleece stand out in particular, not to mention that the bonus track Kept may be one of the group’s best.

15. Simian Mobile Disco - Murmuations

Very low-key electronic music from Simian Mobile Disco, Murmurations features some flooring choral pieces backed by soft dance patterns. Great relaxing listen for fans of Caribou, Jamie XX and Chrome Sparks.

14. Mdou Moctar - Ilana (The Creator)

Where to even begin with this one! Mdou Moctar is a guitarist from Niger and Ilana (The Creator) is in my opinion his best work. Fuzzy rock music that sounds like it’s being played from 50-foot monitors in the middle of the Sahara.

13. Chemical Brothers - Further

Chemical brother’s second sleekest album after born in the echoes, Further has glamour that you’re seldom able to find elsewhere.

12. Boys Noize - Mayday

Absolute fucking rager of an album. Featuring Policia, Remy Banks and Hudson Mohawke among others, Boys Noize is in your face and doesn’t give a shit on Mayday. The remix of Birthday released after the album with Danny Brown is priceless.

11. Nico - Desertshore

Break out the tissues if you plan on listening to Desertshore today, this album is unrelentingly melancholic. Nico’s vocals sound almost ghost-like at times and the instrumentals on here are gorgeous.

10. The Newcomer - Earth Motivation

Sopping wet with OPN influence, Earth Motivation is glitchy but retains an emotional quality that will sit with you for a while after your first listen. Perfect for fans of Autechre, Oneohtrixpointnever and Venetian Snares.

9. Tami T - High Pitched and Moist

High Pitched and Moist is definitely not for everyone, but if you like your pop smeared with autotune and in-your-face sexuality then Tami T’s 2019 album is perfect for you! I recommend this one for any fans of Fever Ray and GFOTY.

8. Ryuichi Sakamoto - Async

From the jump, Japanese avant garde classical composer, pianist, electronic musician and synthpop legend Ryuichi Sakamoto hits you where it hurts on Async. The first tune Andata is one of the most beautiful and soul crushing instrumental songs I have ever had the pleasure of hearing, but the quality remains consistent throughout the entire record.

7.  Blanck Mass - World Eater

Holy. Fuck. Drop whatever you’re doing right now and listen to this album. I don’t care if you’re in a business meeting or getting lunch, World Eater demands the utmost attention. After hearing the transition from the end of Rhesus Negative to Please my life was never the same. I can’t sing Blanck Mass’ praises enough so you’re going to have to check this one out yourself but I guarantee you will NOT be disappointed.

6. Jean-Michel Jarre - Oxygene

French synth deity Jean-Michel Jarre’s intergalactic journey Oxygene is a record that soars above and beyond its compatriots (namely Mort Garson’s Plantasia and Jean-Jacques Perrey’s Moog Indigo) and will take you on an extra-planetary voyage from which you may never return. I recommend listening to this album with the best sound system you have available to really get the most out of it.

5. The Knife - Shaken-Up Versions

Technically The Knife’s last album before their retirement (not counting the Terminal 7 Live album), Shaken-Up Versions sees Karin and Olof Dreijer metamorphosing songs from all across their discography into dancefloor fillers. Electronic musicians retooling their material into more danceable, DJ set ready tracks is nothing new (See Alive 2007 and All Across the Universe) but the Knife’s catalog is already so impressive that hearing classics transmogrified like this is a phenomenal experience that I don’t want any dance music fans to miss out on! They reworked Silent Shout for christ’s sake how can you not love this.

4. Geinoh Yamashirogumi - Ecophony Rinne

Katsuhiro Otomo famously tapped Geinoh Yamashirogumi for the soundtrack to Akira, but what some of you may not know is that, while working on the Akira manga, Otomo was listening to this record in particular which inspired him to collaborate with the collective for the Akira film. Ecophony Rinne is like nothing I have ever heard before or since. It’s got a tectonic quality to it that makes you think you’re witnessing an extinction event or the birth of a new universe while listening which is an experience I highly recommend, ESPECIALLY for fans of the Akira manga and film; this album sounds like how Akira looks and Akira looks damn good.

3. Buy Muy Drugs - Buy Muy Drugs

Slept on in every regard, Buy Muy Drugs is a triumph of experimental and industrial hiphop. The duo made up of rapper Denmark Vessey and producer Azarias are welding together grime, bass music and afro-cuban percussion into a dystopic and pummeling listening experience that gets better and better with every listen. To quote JPEGMAFIA, “Death Grips can’t do this shit”.

2. Susumu Hirasawa - Technique of Relief

This album is jaw-dropping. It’s pop, ambient, traditional-Japanese experimental choral synth music delivered with soaring, regal grandiosity. One of the closest things to musical perfection I can think of, Technique of Relief is an album that even now I am having a difficult time describing. Intensely emotional yet hopeful; groovy but substantive, Susumu Hirasawa penned an oeuvre with this record.

1. Daft Punk - Human After All

The number one spot goes to the black sheep of the world’s most beloved electronic music making androids’ discography. Panned on release for being “spread thin” and “too minimal”, (The Village Voice went so far as to call the album “ a bad record whose details rarely merit further thought “) Daft Punk’s third album Human After all is definitely different from it’s rhinestone studded predecessor but in the absolute best way possible. It’s groovy, dark, emotional, tragic, minimal, distorted and it yields some of the robots’ best tracks (Human After All detractors seem to forget that Technologic, Robot Rock and the title track do not actually stem from the Alive 2007 Coachella set but rather find their home on this album). Sleeper gems like Make Love, Emotion, Television Rule the Nation and Prime Time of Your Life range from introspective and moody RnB that would not feel out of place on a Sebastien Tellier record to blown out, gravelly rock oriented tunes that remind the listener of Daft Punk’s roots as french garage rockers. Phenomenal album, criminally underrated.

[impalementation]

I think your take on Doublemeat Palace is interesting because to me it's emblematic of all the things that make Season 6 (particularly the back half after "Tabula Rasa") not work for me. It's relentlessly grim and unpleasant and I can feel the writers twisting the plot to make sure every character is as miserable as possible. I'm not opposed to seeing protagonists in a low point or even outright failing. Season 3 of Game of Thrones is some of my favorite TV ever. (1/2)

(2/2) But at a certain point the grim and gritty, if it's not well written, and broken up with some moments of lightness (like Buffy was previously known for) the audience gets numb. It also doesn't help that no one has any agency. (Magicrack, the not!wedding, Dawn doing zip) Again, I'm not opposed to dark plotlines. I'm opposed to incompetent writing.I don't think you can call an episode or an arc "objectively" good if it doesn't work for the majority of the audience it's been written for. 

 you know, i’m going to disagree about the “grim and gritty” thing. doublemeat palace actually stands out to me as being really funny. and for having a lowkey positive ending. true, the episode is about the soul-sucking prospect of having to do the same dreary work every day. it’s about how much it sometimes sucks to work, which is why you have willow dealing with the fact that recovery is a difficult thing that you have to decide to commit to every day, xander and anya facing the fact that marriage is also a lifelong daily commitment, and buffy taking an unpleasant and mechanical job in order to put food on the table (and the episode plays up that the managers have been doing it for five or ten years). but like, names like “manny the manager”? the weirdo robotic people? the exaggerated camera angles? the swirling cow and chicken? buffy’s constant attempts at jokes? “hot delicious human flesh”? a little old lady with penis monster on her head? this stuff is totally absurdist. i think of doublemeat palace as almost the opposite of episodes like once more with feeling and tabula rasa, where things superficially seem fun but are actually quite dark. doublemeat palace seems superficially unpleasant but actually has a wicked sense of humor. and i say that the ending is positive because it involves both willow and buffy committing to doing work. they’re faced with the opportunity to “cheat” at life like the trio, who steal money instead of having jobs, but ultimately decide to do the right thing. willow doesn’t accept amy’s magic and buffy doesn’t blackmail the company. 

that goes for a lot of season six, in my opinion. even late season six. people say there was less humor, and i think that’s true to an extent, but honestly i think it’s more that the tone of the humor changed. it got more sardonic and absurd, but was definitely still there. eg people think of seeing red as the episode where the two Very Bad Things happened, but outside of those scenes a lot of the episode is like, fascinatingly (to me) slapstick (the whole jetpack bonanza? “say goodnight bitch” “goodnight, bitch”). and has that really lovely conversation between buffy and xander at the end. in general, i think a lot more season six episodes have positive endings than it gets a reputation for. i already mentioned the ending of doublemeat palace. but the end of gone has buffy saying she doesn’t want to die, the end of older and far away has buffy deciding to stay home with dawn, the end of as you were has buffy deciding to break up with spike, and the end of grave has buffy, willow, and spike all making important changes for the better. as in, season six can be very dark, yes. but i would not call it a hopeless or cynical kind of dark. it’s about the characters clawing their way out of that dark place. not just a statement that “adulthood sucks.” you can argue that the season didn’t pull off its attempts at lightness, but i very much think they’re there. 

at any rate, i agree to an extent that if a work of art isn’t working on most people, that’s probably a sign it’s doing something wrong. but i’d offer the counterpoint that you might also say that if a work of art really works on some people, even if not everyone, it’s probably doing something right. as far as the season as a whole goes, i’d actually take issue, on a basic factual level, with the claim that it didn’t work on the majority of people. not to validate IMDB’s ratings for buffy’s episodes, but it does have an n=~2000 sample size and if you average out the ratings by season, season six doesn’t rank starkly lower than any other season. it’s on the less popular side, but it still hovers around an 8.0 average like most of the other seasons. moreover if you go by the big r/buffy polls (n=~120-310), season six ranks in the top three favorite seasons every year they did one (2011: 3 > 6 > 2, 2012: 6 = 3 > 5, 2013: 6 > 3 > 5, 2014: 3 > 6 > 5, 2017: 5 > 3 > 6). you can see the data for yourself if you scroll down to where it says “surveys”. perfectly possible that there’s data that paints a totally different picture. this is just what i had on hand. that ranking also doesn’t mean the majority of people liked the season, but it does act as evidence that there are a lot of people whom it really worked on. basically, i wouldn’t say that season six is disliked so much as it’s divisive. people seem to either love it or hate it. with a smaller percentage that likes it, but for whom it isn’t a favorite. or who appreciate what it was trying to do but don’t think that it succeeded. 

as far as doublemeat palace goes i notice a similar phenomenon. people either really hate it or they really relate to it. either they think the style is bizarre and annoying or they think it’s delightfully surreal. so it really seems like it’s up to the individual whether they want to lend more credence to one audience reaction or another in order to assess quality. 

which is why i tend to use my own rubric. when i ask myself whether something is good or bad, i pay a lot of attention to (1) is the work trying to do or say something specific? (2) how unusual or challenging or astute is the thing the work is saying? (3) how coherently is it doing that, and on how many different levels? (4) on a formal level—dialogue, cinematography, costuming, acting, pacing—how fluently was it executed, and how well did the formal choices contribute to the ideas in (1)? 

for the record, i don’t think that doublemeat palace is the best episode ever. i just think it’s solid, and fits nicely into what i think the season as a whole was doing. but the reason i say that it’s “objectively” solid according to my personal rubric—which granted, you’re more than welcome to not share—is that (1) it has a pretty clear idea that it’s exploring. the drudgery of work stuff that i mentioned in the first paragraph. moreover i think that idea is really relevant to the season-long topic of “what makes it feel like adulthood sucks”. buffy having to take a menial food job fits into the season’s food motif that i talked about once, which in turn fits character-wise with buffy’s ambivalence about being alive. a somewhat grotesque/humiliating job fits with the mood of material existence being unpleasant. (also, xander impulsively chowing down on food speaks to him probably not being ready for commitment) (2) i think this whole subject was just hella daring for the show to do. having been a poor and suicidally depressed 22 year old in a fucked up sexual relationship while working a menial job, season six and episodes like doublemeat palace just ring true to me as something for a show about growing up to depict. sometimes real life really is a grind, and sometimes it really does feel profane, absurd, surreal, etc. (3) i really like the way that buffy, willow, and xander and anya’s stories all fit the theme of episode but in different ways. i wouldn’t say the episode is a super nuanced take on drudgery, but it does have layers thanks to the three different storylines, and it comes off as clearly conscious and oriented around its theme. there are other parallels like amy, spike, and halfrek each being influences, too. (4) there’s some cool formal execution. not all of it. willow’s story, like a lot of her mid-season-six arc, is kind of tediously on-the-nose. but i enjoy pretty much every second of buffy’s part of the episode, because the direction is so in control of it. and i like the absurdist and genre-conscious playfulness. the soylent green riff, etc. 

i also disagree on your assessment of agency in the season but this post is long enough as it is. regardless, i certainly don’t begrudge you your opinion. it’s an often clumsy season. it also sounds like we enjoy things in different ways--i genuinely don’t care too much about writers contorting things in the interest of theme. i’m mainly trying to push against the implications (1) that the season was obviously just trying to be dark and grim, and just for it’s own sake or something. instead of for deliberate and interconnected artistic reasons that one could analyze and talk about, and (2) that there is some monolithic opinion on and response to it.

[theliterarywolf]

So, Let’s Talk ‘Love Death and Robots (Episodes 10-18)

Hey guys, I finally decided to finish off my write-up on Netflix's Love Death and Robots, even though I hope that anyone who wanted to give the show a chance has by now. If you need a bit more coaxing, I covered the first 9 episodes here (you can also find my rating system explained there) and I go over the last 9 episodes here.

Oh, also... I know that there's the whole 'Netflix arranges to episode order based on your sexual orientation' thing going on. Even though I think that's kind of bunk because I don't recall Netflix sending me an email to ask 'Hey, so... can we know if you're straight or not?'

I’m going by the episodic order on my first and second viewings.

Let's get started.

Episode 10 – Shape-Shifters

I know people have been making the jokes of 'Lol, who was the closeted gay Republican furry who wrote this short~?” But, God, can... Can we please get more domestic supernatural pieces like this?

Homoerotic subtext or not, watching this story reminded me of one of my grievances whenever I try to wade through the muck and the mire that is the Kindle Store: that being, in regards to MLM writing, you're either a cowboy or a werewolf.

And no one does anything unique with writing gay cowboys or gay werewolves. It's always 'I'm a closeted, homophobic son of a bitch who needs my heart melted by the northern newcomer and their high-falutin' ways' or 'we're werewolves so we have to live by A/B/O-Omegaverse rules, I guess???'

The execution of this story, the melding of fantasy and the real world is something that I like to see in media but, more than often, is shat out into a mess of awkward writing and characters. I'm looking at you, Bright.

Did it Have a Robot – Yes? Or No?

No, this is more of a fantasy, horror, military-drama combo that does wonders.

Could this Stand Its Own as a Feature Film/TV Series?

I mean, with Teen Wolf gone and Supernatural on its way out, I think a fully-developed series leading up to the short that we get here, talking about the main two characters growing up as werewolves and how the world treats them would have a great place in prime-time.

Episode 11 – Helping Hand

127 Hours, eat your fucking heart out! I felt more from this one short about suffering and sacrificing for the sheer essence of surviving the insurmountable than I did with the whole of 127 Hours. Which is kind of bad considering how the latter is based on an actual true story.

Did it Have a Robot – Yes? Or No?

The main reason the main character has to do what she does is because she's doing maintenance on a space-station.

Could this Stand Its Own as a Feature Film/TV Series?

I think this stands better on its own as is.

Episode 12 – Fish Night

(No Gif for this one. Pity...)

Allow me a second.

…

Okay.

If you've ever watched something like Disney's Fantasia or James Cameron's Avatar (Disclaimer – If anyone tries to insinuate that I would ever put Avatar on the same level as any Disney film in terms of quality/re-watchability, I will slap you), you get the sentiments of: 'this exists to be a very, fancy, elegant tech-demo. I know I shouldn't think about story, but I am, and all I see is a very fancy tech-demo'.

That's the notion one gets with Fish Night. Another 2D addition to LDaR, the story of two business men stranded in a desert and the beauty of the natural world of past and present is visually stunning but, as soon as that night falls, you're going to know exactly what is happening for the rest of the story.

But it sure is pretty, though!

Did it Have a Robot – Yes? Or No?

Nope. It was just really pretty.

Could this Stand Its Own as a Feature Film/TV Series?

Nope. It's just really pretty.

Episode 13 – Lucky 13

The second of the stories in LDaR that has a 'last-stand' tilt, even though it doesn't kick in until the end. However, before that, I really enjoy what is another story with a legitimately strong female character, who also happens to be a woman of color, who comes up from the adversity of being a novice pilot and being given an airship with the most unfortunate of reputations to manage.

The relationship between the main character and the ship 'Lucky 13' is really what makes this story stand out.

Which... is ultimately bad for the story that rounds out the collection. But, that will come later.

Did it Have a Robot – Yes? Or No?

The characters are essentially space-marines and they drive around in airships, what more do you need?

Could this Stand Its Own as a Feature Film/TV Series?

Maybe a feature film. But it would have to devote every minute of a film's run-time to developing the universe and personalities of the human characters.

Episode 14 – Zima Blue

Admittedly, this one managed to keep me in suspense until the focus of the story first made himself visible. After that, we're taken on a minute trip through the phenomena of true talent, existentialism, and the concept of joy and self.

And... that's all I will say on that one.

Did it Have a Robot – Yes? Or No?

Ooh, does this one have a robot...

Could this Stand Its Own as a Feature Film/TV Series?

You know, this one is a bit tricky. Maybe not a feature-length film but not pulled out into a TV series either. A thirty-minute short film, perhaps, would let the setting and artwork shine more.

Episode 15 – Blindspot

(No Gif again...)

You know, I keep forgetting that this one exists. It's not even that it was bad, it just...

Okay, so I watch a review channel on YouTube from time to time called “Double Toasted” and, even though I don't agree with about 75% of their stance on LDaR, what they said about this one was pretty spot on.

It's reminiscent of the classic Saturday Morning Cartoons of the 80s... Just with more swearing and death.

Because, yeah, this story follows a team of multi-colored androids driving EXTREME! vehicles while trying to steal a secret computer-chip from a carrier convoy. And all of the androids represent a common character trope seen in those sorts of cartoons: the Cool Dude leader, the brawny idiot, the smart-talking girl, and the green-behind-the-ears junior character.

I actually liked the animation to this one but story-wise it really is just your EXTREME! Saturday Morning cartoon with cursing and violence.

Did it Have a Robot – Yes? Or No?

Yeah, the entire cast.

Could this Stand Its Own as a Feature Film/TV Series?

Maybe a TV series... Ooh, especially if it was done by someone like Christy Karacas (Superjail! and BallMasterz: 9009)

Episode 16 – Ice Age

(I should probably come to the conclusion that no one on this site cared enough about these last few shorts...)

Okay, this one I feel cheated in order to be included in here because it honestly feels so out of place. You get to follow a new, quirky couple moving into their first place together and, whoa-oh! They find an old freezer and decide to look inside to decide whether or not they should keep it!

… And, inside, is a micro-ecosystem that shows the entire past, present, and future of the human-race before blazing out in a fluorescent heat-death in front of their eyes.

All while said quirky couple makes commentary on what they're seeing.

I still don't know what animation was used for a good portion of the freezer-scenes. Was it CG combined with scaled-down camera or what?

Did it Have a Robot – Yes? Or No?

Tech... nically...

Could this Stand Its Own as a Feature Film/TV Series?

Oh, honey, no... A feature-length film of this would be on the same level of all of those ironic romcoms we got in that painful period of the early 2000s and a TV series of this would be canceled after three episodes.

Episode 17 – Alternate Histories

Look, I get where people come from with Alternate Histories: 'this one was goofy', 'it ran a bit too long', 'fake news'. And, honestly, when the title first showed up on my screen, I was cringing because I was sure they were going to spend 8 or 10 minutes of talking about a certain annoying pumpkin man.

However, I actually had fun with this one. Yeah, it seems like the flow and writing seems more like it would be at home on something like Robot Chicken at times, but I still liked it.

Besides, we get to watch a little Cartoon Hitler being killed over and over and over. What's not to like?

Did it Have a Robot – Yes? Or No?

The Alternate History software in of itself is reminiscent to your 'what-if' tropes in science fiction. Just condensed and split apart into a few different scenarios.

Could this Stand Its Own as a Feature Film/TV Series?

I couldn't see a full film or series of this working but maybe, like I said, if an entire episode of something like Robot Chicken was just dedicated to making up a dozen different ways to kill Hitler, that would be pretty interesting to watch.

Episode 18 – The Secret War

This, I feel, is the true casualty of LDaR. Not because it's bad on a technical level, it's actually visually stunning. Not because it's bad on a story-telling level, the writing is actually solid.

No, the main fault of The Secret War... Is that it is the last story in LDaR.

That it's the THIRD 'Last-Stand' story we've seen in an anthology of 18 different stories. I can understand the team behind LDaR wanting to have something like this be its finisher because, as I said, the art direction and writing behind it are really worthy of some fine cinema.

But it would have been better for everyone involved if they had swapped this one's position with something like Zima Blue or Lucky 13. By this point in watching the series, you're kind of reflecting on the darker stories but appreciating the lighter ones as well. So you'd want something with a little bit of hope to finish things off with.

And, trust me: those who know me know that I'm a proponent of 'more dark stories in media/not everything needs a happy ending'. This one just needed to be earlier in the anthology because, oof, I just was not able to get invested in the characters and their struggle. You know that it's not going to end well, you're just watching characters march towards their deaths.

And, again, this would have been fine... Had it been episode 6 or 8. But, no, this is how we decide to end off this cavalcade of high-concept art.

Think back to Night on Bald Mountain from the Original Fantasia. Yes, the initial orgy of horror and fright from Chernabog and his minions is a decadent display but a lot of its weight and impact would have been lost if the film just ended with that. That's why having the brief ending of the Ave Maria segment works: to keep things balanced so that everything in Fantasia can be appreciated in checks and balances.

LDaR unfortunately didn't have that foresight. So, what should have been a feast feels more like a push to get through.

Did it Have a Robot – Yes? Or No?

No, this was one of the fantasy/horror pieces.

Could this Stand Its Own as a Feature Film/TV Series?

Honestly, I'm not sure. Maybe a feature-length film just so that the universe and characters can present themselves on their own, rather than having to bear the weight of being the big finisher to the impact of 17 other stories. But it would still be a risk.

So, those are my thoughts on Love Death and Robots. Personally, I would LOVE for there to be a season 2 of this with more writers involved so we can get an overall more distinct portfolio of writing approaches (as well as maybe serve as a springboard for up-and-coming writers, hm..?)

I do acknowledge the risk of making something like this a yearly thing (many critics of Black Mirror insist that the series' recent low-points are due to the writers having to constantly come back and try to one-up their poignancy), but I think the risks would be dealt with if, again, more writers were allow to join in.

Oh well, feel free to tell me how you felt and what your personal favorites were. Thanks for reading and have a good one!

[the-canary]

The Meaning of French Toast - B.B

Summary: It meant a lot of things, including what you felt for each other. (Modern AU! Reader/Bucky Barnes).

Masterlist

A/N: This came out of a smaller drabble from @just-add-butter ‘s request. It took a lot longer than I thought it would, but I hope you enjoy it!

Feedback is always welcomed. 

“And if we’re both single by 30, I’ll ask you out on a date. Hell, I’ll even marry ya.”

Is it stupid to cling to a drunk’s words from your college years? Yeah, you’re pretty sure it is, but you couldn’t help it when it came to him -- that bastard, James Buchanan Barnes. You were a little too sober and he was  little too drunk, at least you think, when he said those words back at the college graduation party and because of your teeny-tiny crush you clung to them. You waited patiently, though your own failed romances and his own, and now here you were -- two days after your 30th birthday, a couple of months after his own, in your favorite brunch place on a bright Saturday morning.  

It was what you guys always did in order to take a break and catch up. You had been doing it as long as you could remember, however there were also exceptions to the rule, though James always made sure to tell you ahead of time, not the morning of.

Bucky: Had a late night. Could we meet up later instead?

You type an “okay” and pretend that you have forgotten about the whole thing, the whole stupid notion that has been swirling in your head over the past 6 years because it’s only seems to be you carrying this makeshift battle wound. You’re sort of glad you didn’t go all out today on your outfit like you were planning to, it seems to ease the blow. So, when your usual waitress looks at the empty seat next to you and your watery smile, she can’t help but frown a little and you know what she wants to say, but you bite your lip and simply order.

“French toast to go, please.”  

 Freshman.

You first meet a young and nervous James Buchanan Barnes during that stupid freshman orientation because you were stuck in the same group with him and some other girls. Even then, James knew he could steal the crowd with a smile and an easy joke, maybe it had something to do with those hypnotic blue eyes or charming Brooklyn accent that filtered through a crooked smile. You hate the whole day because the girls won’t stop giggling whenever he talks -- it also doesn’t help that you have little sleep due to your flight and even now, you’re starting to feel a little homesick, even if you are at your dream school.

It doesn't help that you get lost along the way after orientation because your parents had thought it would be nicer to rent you a hotel and you had never been able to read a map.

“Hey, are you lost?” a familiar voice causes you to look up to see blue eyes and a crooked smile. You almost want to say no, but your stomach growls instead. He laughs and you want to be buried alive from all the embarrassment you are suddenly feeling.

“If you want, I could should a good diner and help find your place,” he remarks with his hands up, showing that he means no harm at your sudden glare,”Only if ya want.”

“Ok...I guess,” you mumble in defeat as he grins.

“The name’s Bucky Barnes! You were in my orientation group right,” he starts asking as you guys cross the busy New York street, “What are ya studying?”     

Oh, if your younger self knew what 5 years would change, she would surely hate you.

 One week. Two weeks.

Bucky hasn’t contacted you in that amount of time, but you sort of understand. You can see it in the social media you share -- the pretty redhead he seems to be smiling with and while it hurts the center of your chest. You take a deep breathe and choose to ignore it. You’ve had your work cut for you as deadlines starting coming up along with more work and even a business convention. Hell, your family on the West Coast even wanted to see you, so another birthday passed you by and while you tried to convince yourself that it would all get back to normal soon, yet somehow it feels different -- like something important has passed you by.

Maybe, that's why you were making  french toast from Youtube videos at 2 in the morning. You just couldn’t sleep, thank goodness that Peggy was willing to lend an ear --though you didn’t give her all the details-- from her current trip in London as she had always been an early riser.

“I don’t know how long I am planning on staying,” you pause between looking at the video and pan at hand,”But, maybe it will be a good break, ya know?”

Peggy hums at the end of your blabbering, “Well, I think you deserve a break and you have the hours for it. Just make sure, you know that you’ll that this is all just temporary. Life changes to quickly, even if you’re trying to run away from it.”

“That obvious, huh?” you question, while transferring the finish toast from the pan onto the plate. Various syrups and jams are on top of the kitchen countertop, alongside some cooled coffee. Peggy laughs, as you sit alone in the complete stillness of your apartment.

“Since sophomore year,” she declares with a laugh that you can’t help but join in, even if a bit bitterly. And in that moment, the french toast in all its sugary goodness tastes like utter defeat.    

 Sophomore.

In the year and half that you had known Bucky Barnes, you realized that you were sort of wrong about the fella. Yes, he could charm the panties out of almost any girl, you had seen it happen multiple times, but he was also a lot of other things as well. You saw him work to help his sisters and mom, saw him study until early morning after getting out of his work, you saw him breakdown because he was frustrated with the material of his math classes. However, when he triumphed, when something went his way -- the boy was pure gold with that smile of his.    

“All on me promise,” you declare, as the two of take a seat in the familiar red booth from a year ago. It wasn’t often, due to the money available as a college student, that you guys came here but Bucky had passed his last final, the one that he nearly spent two days without sleep  for, and was officially part of the Engineering program. It was just gonna get tougher from here on out, but you wanted to celebrate with him for a bit.

“You really didn’t have to,” Bucky smiles at the waitress who gives you the menu. You shake your head, already knowing what you want.

“We need to celebrate your accomplishment,” you empathize since Steve and Sam had already taken him out drinking two nights ago, “Besides, who knows when we’ll time for this again.”

“What do ya mean?” he asks almost hesitantly, as you order the french toast and he gets the grand slam breakfast. Blue eyes watching you with purpose, as you simply shrug.

“Well, I’m studying abroad next semester and you’ll be building shit,” you let out a nervous chuckle, not sure how Bucky will take the news that you’re traveling abroad. He was the only one you hadn’t told, though you aren’t sure why.

“So, it’s a little busier,” it’s his turn to shrug, “You’re always gonna be just down the hall and we can always call each other. Nobody’s moving away, doll.”

“You should have been an English major, Buck,” you laugh at his sentiment, only for him to smile as the waitress comes and brings your drinks.

The rest of the time is spent eating, sharing stories and plans -- yours on what you plan on doing in Lisbon and his over his latest conquest. Time seems slower than usual and at the sight of him spitting and laughing orange juice out of his mouth over your comment on sexual skittles, you try to ignore that your heart skips a beat.   

“So, your cousin finally left?” Steve asks as he takes another sip of his beer. It was on of those rare times that the two childhood friends manage to catch-up in between work and Peggy coming home, and that was totally ignoring Bucky’s major problem of the past couple of weeks.

“Yeah, said she wanted to see Toronto,” Bucky laughs. Natasha, his favorite Russian cousin, and her sort-of American boyfriend had come last minute to enjoy the short break that they had from work, which had coincided with a certain birthday, “Those two are cute together, though.”     

“And have you talked to her yet?” Steve questions, as Bucky turns to look away. The blond had been there all those years ago when Bucky declared what he would do on your 30th birthday. Steve had dickish but friendly tendency to remind him that each year he was closer to finally confessing what he really felt, on the year of it finally happening he had finally left Bucky to do what he had planned. It didn’t turn out so well, and Steve had give him hell for it.

“I’ve been busy,” Bucky gives as a weak excuse, as Steve decides to throw it all in once and for all. Peggy might get mad at him later, but he was tired of Bucky --with all his charm and know-how-- to be so indecisive when it came to one of their closest friends. I mean, how couldn’t he see it while everyone else did?

“You know she’s leaving, right?” Steve questions hesitantly, as blue eyes widen. Bucky’s mouth hanging open like a fish mid-drink, unsure of what to say next.

“ W-What -- How do you know?”

“She told Peggy that she was heading to the West Coast, back home,” Steve explains, as Bucky just sits there taking all this new information in, “Doesn’t know when she’ll be back.”

Bucky sits on this for a long time, as Steve gives him a regretful smile. He gets up, leaving his beer halfway done, before telling Steve he has to go, nearly running out the door -- a thousand of mistakes rearing back in his head.

She can’t leave. I have to tell. Should have told years ago, you fucking idiot.

Junior.

It’s a couple of weeks after the couch incident and as much as you want to ask Bucky if he’s all right and how is it going with his secret crush, but midterms come around and you get stuck in the library with a lengthy research paper. While, Bucky had gone to a robotics competition, and for some reason you missed him terribly. You briefly wonder if this is how he might have felt when you were gone the first half of the year, though you doubted it -- Bucky always had a catch at hand.

It isn’t until you’re in a drunken stupor with Peggy, watching the couples dance from the upper level of the bar that it hits you like a freight train.

“Pegs,” you hiccup terribly, tears forming in the corners of your eyes. She sighs, you had always been a sentimental drunk, “I think I love Bucky.”

“That took you long enough,” she states as she drags the two of you away from the flashing lights, probably to call a cab back to your apartment building, “Think about it and tell if you really feel that way in the morning.”

“Okay, mom,” you murmur sleepily on her shoulder, as she shakes her head.

And with a sober mind, the next time you see Peggy, you just confirm that aching feeling in your heart. 

   It takes him a whole day to put everything he wants to say to you together, to gain the courage to go up to your front door and knock on it. However, what Bucky wasn’t expecting was you with a watery smile while folding up some clothes and a rolling bag in your living room, though it still seems all your furniture is in tact -- at least for now.

“Bucky,” you question softly as he turns to look at you. Your eyes are wide and questioning as he pulls your body into his. You grow stiff for a moment and Bucky starts babbling before he loses all his well-crafted confidence.

“ I love you ,” he exclaims, as you let out a barely audible what but he keeps going, “I’ve been such a fool for so long, but if you’re leaving -- I--I just needed to let you know. I know I left you hanging on your birthday, but I was scared...so scared you would have forgotten. I don’t think my heart would’ve taken it.”

He stops talking and you’re still in the middle of your doorway, but he doesn't seem like he’ll let you go anytime soon. Thus, you decide that you need some answers in this horrible mess.

“Forget what, James?” you wrap your arms around his, as he places his forehead next to your cheek knowing what the use of his first name --that you want the complete truth-- means between the both of you.

“Okay, I think we need to back up and talk about this,” you explain pushing him away, but making sure that he comes inside so that you can have that long talk. It seems to be needed between the two of you.

 Senior.

Graduation party .

You’re both drinking a little too much, while sitting the balcony as the party continues inside. The both of you are lamenting a lot of things at the end of the road, as the two of you smile and laugh at ending this chapter of your lives -- you staying in New York and Bucky moving to Florida for awhile.

“I’m gonna miss ya, Bucky,” is all you manage to say in a whine breaking the silence, as blue eyes never seem to stop looking at your face.    

“I’ll be back. It’s just a summer program,” he tries to calm you down, while rubbing your back.

“But, it won’t be the same,” you cry out,“We’ll get jobs, barely see each other, and one day have a significant other -- hell, maybe even kids and then well ask: What happened to that chick I knew in college.”

“That might not happen,” he explains, as you lean into his body, humming softly so close to believing him, but really not, “ And if we’re both single by 30, I’ll ask you out on a date. Hell, I’ll even marry ya.”

“Ya promise?”

“Yeah.”

 It takes all night to explain just exactly what is going on between the two of you. The mistake of who Natasha really is and why Bucky had ignored you for three weeks. You explain where you are going to for the next couple of weeks, simply see some family and attend a conference for the company that you work with. There is still one unanswered question between the two of you, though all that is left unsaid for sleep and in the morning for food. You’re smiling and he is too, and doesn’t seem to want to let go of your hand at all as you take a seat on the other side of the booth, only for him to scoot closer to you than usual.

It’s a familiar type of clatter, but your head is somewhere else as you grab Bucky’s hand, rubbing your thumb over his knuckles. Your heart speeding up in your chest, as you stare at anything but him.

“I’ve got one last question,” you whisper softly, moving your eyes to stare at the table top, Bucky tells the waitress if she could wait a bit longer.

“Did you mean...when you said…,” your voice stops as Bucky moves your chin with his free hand so that you’re starting at him completely.

“Yup,” he says with a wide grin without missing a beat, “Have for a long time now, doll.”

“Then, you owe me a birthday kiss, big boy,” you giggle out in excitement and relief as his blue eyes sparkle with something else completely. The table makes it awkward, but be manages to have enough room to move you into his body and give you a peak on the lips, but as he moves away you grab his cheeks and drag him back into a longer, more desperate version that has the both of you smiling.

“Finally!” a female voice declares, dragging you and Bucky away from each other with nervous chuckles as your usual waitress just shakes her head, “Took you guys long enough.”

She smiles, as you order your usual and for once, the taste of the french toast had never been sweeter.

[riin-ari]

A tiny bit of a gay crisis

AO3

Pairing: TodoDeku Fandom: Boku no Hero Academia Words: 5.526 Summary:  Everything went fine. He still crushed over Todoroki and couldn’t believe how incredible beautiful this boy in front of him was. How that little smile he sometimes gave Izuku just made his heartbeat go up fast. Thank god he didn’t had Todoroki’s quirk or the school would be a long term fire emergency. Everything was perfectly fine until one evening when a message came in their class group chat.

Or ... Izuku's got it hard and has no idea how to handle this.

Izuku’s life was totally not normal for his age. Since he entered U.A. life has been really – if you say it lightly – intense. Hero studies, villain fights, injuries, kidnapping, media fights and the list could go on.

In conclusion: Nothing normal.

What has been tried to always keep normal was how the class interacted with each other. They were after all just teenagers who wanted to live their life at its fullest even with the dream to become heroes. So their conversations and also the activities they did together on weekends, when for once nothing didn’t happen, were almost normal teenager like. With them living now together in dorms typical movie nights, all-nighter studies and a whole class group chat where anything was possible, also became normal and a good change to the crazy times they were going through right now.

With all those “typical normal teenage experiences” there was one that wouldn’t go by them either: crushes.

Izuku always thought it wouldn’t bother him that much. Yes he was a nervous mess around girls and yes, he had just discovered a bit ago that he also did show certain interest in boys. After a lot of researching and questioning himself and his preferences, he came to the conclusion that he liked both: boys and girls. While he never thought of that before, the idea about it didn’t bother him that much, until he finally figured out why in the first place he was questioning his sexual orientation: the simple reason was Todoroki Shouto’s existence.

They became friends. Something that he never thought would be possible at the beginning of their school year. Todoroki was never the type to open up much so Izuku had pretty much no idea how to get near him. The Sports Festival ended this wall between them though. Even if the reason why they actually became closer was not really a good circumstance Izuku was glad that he was finally on the way to become Todoroki’s friend.

They talked more, exchanged numbers, he became more social towards their whole class and it made Izuku really happy. Todoroki still stayed Todoroki so he was still not the most social person but he was really comfortable to be around with. Once finding a topic you could talk with him and have fun. He just needed time but that was okay. Not everyone had the same pace. Within the months since the Sports Festival Izuku noticed how easy it became to talk to Todoroki and how much he enjoyed it. How he actually searched for his near especially in the dorms. He had to admit that he was a little bit disappointed that their rooms where this far from each other.

With these worries and thoughts in his mind he one day decided to talk to Uraraka and Iida. They were his best friends and they would listen to him. Even if he would like boys they wouldn’t hate him. Actually as far as he could tell nobody in his class would since they were all really open people to everything, well besides Mineta maybe.

“So …” Izuku fumbled with his fingers nervously. He knew they wouldn’t be mad or anything at him but to actually speak the thought he had in mind for weeks loudly was hard for him. He didn’t tell it anyone so far. They just were talking about their day not knowing why exactly Izuku wanted them to meet up. He only told them they could hang out together in his room and talk since they did that a lot and weren’t on it for a while.

“Uhm… I actually wanted to tell you guys something. Well it’s more like I wanted you to know something about me. Like I thought it would be good to tell you two first since you are one of my best friends and I trust you, not that I don’t trust the others but still. I thought you two should know first and it would be really the first time I tell this so it maybe can sound a bit weird. You have to tell me though if it’s weird because the possibility is also high but not that I would think you two wouldn’t-“

“Deku. Rambling!” Uraraka waved at him. He became quiet immediately and cursed himself for it. “What is it that you want to tell us, Midoriya? If you start your muttering you must have put a lot of thoughts into it!” Iida said with his typical robotic hand movement.

“I am bisexual” He said quickly and sheepishly scratched his cheek while looking at them. They both looked at him a little surprised about the new information but soon both looked at him with a smile. “Well it’s great that you figured it out! To know something like this also helps with your mental stability. A very good thought that you didn’t try to deny it and even better that you would tell us! Well done Midoriya, I didn’t expect anything else from you.” This answer was probably the most typical Iida answer Izuku could ask for but he was happy his friend accepted it so easily.

“So any idea why you suddenly thought about that or did it just cross your mind?” Uraraka asked curiously. “Ahaha well. Uh – uhm… m-maybe someone gave me the idea because I might just maybe a little bit have a really small c-crush on them.” Izuku stumbled nervously and tried to laugh it off.

“Hmm?” Uraraka now looked at him with even more interest. Truth to be told was that even though her thoughts about having a crush on Midoriya really concerned her a lot, she also had to admit after a while that they wouldn’t fit together. They were really close friends and she would do anything for him, same went for Midoriya himself. But he never gave any other impression of being more than just her friend. He got around her as nervous as he got around every girl but she felt a certain comfortable feeling whenever they would talk and Midoriya even admitted that he found it easy to talk with her because he felt that she would never judge him for anything. After a while of thinking back and forth of actually talking to him about it she thought now was not the time for it. They had this good and healthy close friendship with each other that would feel weird if it would be more actually. And now that she knew he had a crush on someone that was not her she actually could see on her own how he really deals with this whole topic. It didn’t even bother her and she was really happy and curious to know more!

“Come on! Tell us! I want to know the details! You can’t just start and then not telling us. That would be unfair. You know we would never tell them so!” She shacked his shoulders lightly a little excited about this whole new outcome.

“Oh wait! Iida who do you think it would be?” She asked their friend. He gave this a little thought before he started to talk. “Well I never thought of such an outcome so I didn’t give it much of a second guess. I mean you do have a pretty interesting past with Bakugou and the relationship of you two seems to be a bit complicated yet special.” “Kacchan?! No believe me. It’s not him. He is special for me in a way more different way. We are more the rival types and I think we are good like this. There can’t be more!” Izuku explained still with a light blush on his face. “Good guess Iida but I think I can guess who it is.” Uraraka smirked which made Izuku even more nervous again. Was he obvious or was she just playing with him?

“Todoroki-kun!” She said and Izuku’s heart made a little jump. “That obvious!?” He asked in panic. She giggled. “So I was right! Well not obvious. Okay now that I know that you also like guys it makes pretty much sense that you would have a crush on him the way you act around him. But trust me …Todoroki-kun wouldn’t notice it.” Izuku breathed out loud in relieve. “Thank god.” “Now that you say it, it really does make sense. I noticed how familiar you were with each other already in the hospital in Hosu. Even after that you would always seek for each other.” Iida explained.

Izuku waved his hand. “Ahaha… but really let’s not think about it too much okay? I am just a normal friend to him and this whole crush thing is nothing big okay? I don’t want to talk with him about it and let’s just let it rest. I know my feelings well right now but it’s good as it is.”

“Really Deku?” Uraraka asked again. He just nodded.

“Well like we promised. You can count on us in not telling him but if you need any help or advice or just want to talk we are here to listen!” They both gave him a thumb up and honestly, Izuku couldn’t ask for better friends in his life.

After that Izuku had to admit that he felt way better than before. Actually telling them about himself and also the whole situation was relieving. He knew they wouldn’t talk to anyone about it without him telling them it was okay and it felt good to know that people he is close too didn’t judge him. Everything went fine. He still crushed over Todoroki and couldn’t believe how incredible beautiful this boy in front of him was. How that little smile he sometimes gave Izuku just made his heartbeat go up fast. Thank god he didn’t had Todoroki’s quirk or the school would be a long term fire emergency. Everything was perfectly fine until one evening when a message came in their class group chat. Class 1-A PLUS ULTRA shoutout For fucks sake Mineta if you talk one more time to me about the sizes of our classmates boobs I am going to freeze you and put you on highest building of this city so you will piss you pants when you actually are able to move again. 1. It’s fucking disgusting how you think of every girl on this planet and no one wants to deal with this shit and 2. I am fucking gay. You could read the news paper to me and it would have the same effect: I don’t fucking care because I couldn’t care less about things like that. My gay ass can’t take this shit.

 shoutout @ all the girls in our class. No offense against you. You all surely are nice on your own and I don’t want to question anyone’s looks but you get me. alienqueen I HAVE SO MANY THINGS TO SAY RIGHT NOW AND I DON’T KNOW WHERE TO START. cantsee Savage af I’d say omg. electrotype Man you changed since you have to take those extra lessons with Bakugou. Didn’t know he was that much of a bad influence!! All the cursing. fulltimetape True I didn’t even know he could swear like this. explosionkill THE FUCK DO YOU WANT FROM ME YOU FUCKERS. toohardtofunction Valuable point but are we gonna all ignore how MANLY that just was!? Like damn you are so right. Someone needs to tell him that for once. alienqueen UHM we also can’t ignore the fact that THE Todoroki Shouto, class No.1 hottie, just complimented us girls all at the same time. tailyouup And admitted at the same time that no one of you will ever have a chance on him. seeyouinspace I am so proud of you right now Todoroki-kun :’) yaomomo To just tell it as a “by the way I am gay”. Really impressive and straight forward. That’s how it should be. I am very glad you chose this for yourself and are comfortable enough to tell it to us.

 localfrog Is Mineta even in this chat? Because I can’t remember ever seeing him around here.

 seeyouinspace Not really but hey, still good to read! shoutout I might have lost my temper in the heat of the moment. I am sorry for my outburst. I just needed to get this off because I don’t want to hear it anymore. Sorry I made anyone uncomfortable with this.

 cantsee Still very proud of you <3 also why uncomfortable?   shadowraven Every one of us here is at least a little extra but we accept a lot of things especially this!   iida This is a safe and tolerating environment for everyone and no one should be afraid of telling us! electrotype Haha outburst. In the HEAT of the moment. It’s ironic when Todoroki loses his temper. Too HOT headed I guess. fulltimetape That joke hurt. Good one bro.

electrotype <3

mightbedeku I’ll join the others in this one and also say that I am proud of you Todoroki-kun!!

explosionkill Can we please stop fawning over Half’n Half. That’s disgusting. toohardtofunction I may add when Baku read Todoroki’s first message he whistled impressed saying “not bad, icyhot” silently. explosionkill SHUT THE FUCK UP SHITTY HAIR. mightbedeku Wow he didn’t even deny it! explosionkill   Fuck you, Deku. fullbeats He didn’t deny it because it’s true. I am glad someone said it for once. Even if he isn’t in the chat just to hear this was so much of a satisfaction.   toohardtofunction A soft Baku for once even cares about his classmates. Todoroki being the first one to come out of the closet in this class. Mineta getting told what he deserves. This is a wonderful end of the day. Izuku had to admit. When he first read that message he stared at it in disbelieve and almost dropped this phone. Not because of the vocabulary that Todoroki used, after all when they were studying for hours and Todoroki became tired he started to actually curse more than usual. So this was nothing new but still a development for him. But the first feeling he had when he read that Todoroki actually liked boys was hope. In this moment he thought he really could have a chance though at the same time the realization came in. Todoroki was Todoroki. Even with this knowledge nothing would change. He wanted to put his phone away when he got another message in private.

 seeyouinspace See Deku? Your chances are good! ;) You now know that he is available for you! mightbedeku Please gosh no. It’s still fine as it is! (●///▽///●) seeyouinspace Don’t wanna break your bubble but you noticed how Kirishima said “Todoroki being the first one to come out.” If you think it’s fine as it is you should stop giving him such obvious looks. I never told anyone anything and I am not sure if I just see it because I know it but you start to be pretty obvious. You’ve got it bad, Deku. But fear not! Everything will be fine!! Izuku wanted to sink into the ground and never come up again. He knew his feelings actually got stronger since he and Todoroki had a few meetings in the last days again. Not just study-wise but also just as friends. Just doing things together like getting to the shop to buy food together or sitting next to each other when they put on a movie for the whole class and silently chat about everything.

He knew his feelings were stronger but he didn’t knew he also made it obvious for the others at this point. His cheeks went hot when he thought about it. What if Todoroki would notice this too?! What if he found it weird or was uncomfortable! He didn’t want to think about all the possible what if’s and so he chose to call it a night and went to bed since it was already late.

 But sleep was a luxury that Izuku wouldn’t get. After rolling around for what felt like hours he gave up and left his bed. He could as well just go down to the kitchen and get himself a drink or something. His thoughts were a mess right now. He didn’t want to have hopes. Todoroki had a hard time opening up to them so Izuku didn’t want to overwhelm him with his feelings. Down on the way to the kitchen many thoughts came up so he didn’t even notice at first that there was already light coming from the kitchen.

When he noticed he wondered who would share the same fate of a sleepless night with him. Again his heart made a little jump when he actually saw red and white hair. Todoroki turned around and the second Izuku saw him he knew something was up with him. His thoughts immediately forgotten he concentrated on the person in front of him. Todoroki seemed to be pale and looked at him like a frightened puppy.

“Todoroki-kun! Is everything alright with you? Didn’t expect you here at this time.” He said softly as he went into the kitchen next to him.

“Could say the same about you.” His voice was also a little shaking.

Izuku saw that Todoroki didn’t made himself anything to drink and he knew that he loved to drink tea so he started to make both of them a cup of tea, since he guessed neither of them would go up again so fast.

“Not that I want to pry or anything but is really everything okay? You seem like you have something on your mind.”

“No surprise that you would notice that.” “I-I’m sorry!” Izuku hasty said. “If it makes you uncomfortable that I always ask you have to tell me!!”

“No … that’s not it.” He slowly answered. “I think I am glad you do … I just am not used to people actually seeing how I feel. That’s all. And I know it’s in your nature to see problems like this. You always do that.” He said quiet. Izuku noticed that it really didn’t made him feel uncomfortable so he relaxed again, still worried though. He finished both of their cups and put one in front of Todoroki who did only notice now that he actually never made himself a drink. “Thank you.”

“No problem.”

 They sat in silence. Izuku didn’t want to push Todoroki but he also didn’t want to leave him alone and if he wanted to be alone he would tell him.

“It’s nothing bad, you really don’t have to worry.” Todoroki said after a while. “Actually it’s something I am used to. Sometimes my past keeps following me in my dreams and I see things that I wanted to forget.” His voice was soft and barely hearable but Izuku listened closely. It hurt him to see Todoroki like this and he felt bad. While his cause of not being able to sleep was actually just his feelings, Todoroki had to go through a nightmare on his own.

“Today was worse than usual because I actually dreamed about the moment I got my scar.” He brushed it lightly with his fingers. “How in that moment I saw myself standing there with my mother. We talked about this the other day again. We really both want to get over it but it will always stay in our life as something that happened. Maybe that’s why I dreamed it. I dreamed that I watched my younger self, as he turned around and actually asked me why I didn’t help. Why I didn’t change the situation and now I am actually asking myself if I could have changed something?”  It became quiet again and Todoroki took a sip of his tea. “I am sorry I don’t want to burden you with this again. You don’t have to answer.”

 “It’s fine! I think talking about it helps and maybe I can’t help you with a complete solution about this but listen. I think you couldn’t have changed anything. Things went by as they did but you were still young and had to deal with problems others didn’t do. Neither you nor anyone there could have changed the way your father was. It happened and it’s in the past. I will never forgive Endeavor for what he did to you though. Still what is important is now. You and your mother actually are talking again and rebuilding your relationship. This already is a courage not everyone has. You actually try to change things again to the better. This is something you should think about. Not everyone would do this but you do it. Who knows if you could have changed something in the past but you change something now.” Izuku wanted to take his hand. He wanted to just give a sign that he cared so much about him and that he was there for him.

 “You are probably right but still …thank you.” He sighed. “It’s hard to think right now what actually the right answer is but it’s always helping me to talk with you. Just you listening did make it easier, maybe because I know I am not alone. I hope I don’t trouble you too much with it.”

Izuku blushed. He was happy though. “I am glad I can help. Anytime again. I can’t help it but when I see you being troubled I just want to change that as fast as possible. Not matter how.” He laughed nervous but looked up to him honest. “I really like you being happy. I would do anything for it!”

 Now it was Todoroki’s time to blush and Izuku did indeed notice that. “Well I’d love to say the same but I am not as talented as you are with this whole emotion troubles. Though I like to see your smile so I guess it’s the same for me. I like to see you happy and I would go far just so I can always see it.”

Izuku laughed but also had to control his heartbeat which he was 100% was hearable through the whole room. “Well you showed really well your emotions in today’s chat.”

“That was …something yeah.” Todoroki looked sheepish and Izuku did want to take a photo exactly right now, frame it and hang it above his bed. “I am just glad that even though I didn’t intend to actually say all those things, you all took it in so easily. It was good to have such an uncomplicated conversation. I am still too used to arguing with the old man.”

“Oh don’t worry. No one is like HIM here. Not even Kacchan and that tells us something!”

Izuku wasn’t prepared for Todoroki’s laughing but in this moment he decided that this was his new reason to live. At the same time he thought this boy would be the death of him.

“You really know how to lift my mood but we actually both should sleep now.”

“You are right.” They put their cups away and went up.

“I noticed …I never asked what your reason was for not being able to sleep was. Sorry we only did talk about me.” Todoroki asked before their ways parted.

 Your face. Your personality. You. His mind wanted to scream. “A-Ah I guess just thoughts but nothing bad or so. I just had a lot on my mind, but I am really honestly fine!” He said.

“If you say so, but if you want you also can come to me, when you need to talk. I really want to help you too with your thoughts.” Todoroki gave him a soft smile.

 “Thank you! I will come back to it. Good Night Todoroki-kun! Hope you can sleep better now!” “Definitely. Good Night, Izuku.”

 They parted and Izuku was laying in his bed again. Right as he was about to fall sleep his eyes shot open. “DID HE JUST SAID GOOD NIGHT IZUKU ALL CASUAL?!” He muffled in his pillow. He really had to do something about this. Uraraka was right. Tomorrow.

 After all Izuku managed at least a little sleep this night but that still didn’t held him up from yawning.

“Were you not able to sleep after?” The sudden soft voice behind him that haunted his dream actually made him jump a little. “Uh I managed to sleep a bit! But I am still tired. You?” “Hm. Same. I actually had a lot to think about too, but to my joy it wasn’t anything about my father.”

“Well I guess this is good then! Though we both are tired but we just try it better today!”  

 Izuku wanted to hit his head on his desk during the lessons. He wanted to be able to talk to Todoroki normal again. He felt like this wouldn’t end up good if he stayed that nervous. Why couldn’t he control his emotions? Why was it so hard? Would it be better to talk about it with him? Put it out of this world. Hoping that if he doesn’t feel the same, that he would still be willing to be his friend. Maybe Izuku could start to forget then. They would be normal friends again and when they grew up Izuku would be at Todoroki’s wedding with someone beautiful and great by his side who gave him the love he deserved. Izuku would look from the side and tell them he wished them all the best.

 “Midoriya-kun.” His head snapped up and Present Mic looked at him confused. Actually everyone was. He looked around and most of them looked even worried at him. Suddenly he noticed that he actually was crying and wow when did he started.

“Are you alright?” Present Mic ask.

 “Ah don’t worry sensei. Just in a gay crisis right now. I imagined the love of my life marrying someone else and I had to watch! And this thought just destroyed me but I get over it.” He thought. Or in his case …spoke out loud while the whole class inclusive the said “love of his life” were listening.

 “Ah … well. Present Mic-Sensei would you excuse me and allow me to go? Burry myself? Really, really far away?!” He said with a nervous laugh and thank god he was never happier to actually hear the school bell ringing. He ran without waiting for anything. This was probably the most embarrassing thing in his whole life. Also damn Izuku you were really creative with the whole outing stuff. Problem out of this world. How often did he wanted to hit himself again?

 He ran so fast he even nearly ran over All Might.

“Midoriya my boy! Why the hurry? Everything alright?”

“Ah don’t worry All Might! I am fine.” My life is just over now but that’s okay. You wanted me to actually carry on One For All? Well obviously I can’t even carry on the burden of loving Todoroki Shouto!

 When he finally managed to get out of the school on their sport field he stopped running and leaned his body against a tree. “Okay how do I get in my class the best way again without anyone worrying? I have to go back do I? For sure I have! I actually like my class. I don’t want to go anywhere else. They are my friends. Well I have to apologize to Present Mic for crying in his lesson. Oh god I just cried and I have to explain why. Wait. I did explain. Well great. Problem solved.”

…

“Or I could just leave and go to America.”

 “If you do that I would drag you back because I know exactly that you don’t want to go to America unless it would be for a training trip or to help someone or we both would go there to see the world. But you would come back again with me. And if we are on it you could actually tell me what’s going on in your head. It would be only fair don’t you think?”

 Izuku’s head turned around and now his life really was officially over. “Todoroki-kun …” He said and the urge to cry again actually came over him. Why was he so emotional? Was it the sleepless night?

 “I …” He took a deep breath. This couldn’t go on like this. He wasn’t himself and this wouldn’t help anyone. “I have a really huge crush on you and I have no idea how to handle that actually.” His face felt so hot and he closed his eyes. Would he just go? No this was Todoroki. He would talk with him because that was the kind of person he is and the kind of relationship they had. They talked about their problems. Izuku wasn’t as honest though but now was better than later.

 “Shouto …”

“Huh?” Izuku opened his eyes again and saw another one of “the most precious looks on Todoroki Shouto” for is inner album.

“I would be more than happy if you would start to call me Shouto. And if you would finally date me.”

Izuku’s mouth stayed open and he stared at his friend … or more than friend?

“Uraraka asked me to go after you when we all saw you running out of the classroom. She looked like she knew exactly what was going on and everyone else also seemed really …relieved? Except for Bakugou who looked as annoyed as always and that one prick we don’t talk about. It would be the best she said and while running after you, I knew finally why. It made me also happy but it made me worried that you cried.”

 Izuku finally was able to snap out of his thought. “YES.” He shouted. “I mean… I am sorry I made you worried but yes, I’d love to date you.” He spoke it out. “I just can’t believe right now that this is happening.”

“Why?” Shouto asked and carefully took Izuku’s hand. It felt warm.  

“Because I am me.” He felt how his whole body was shaking but through Shouto’s hand he felt that the other wasn’t calm either. He still couldn’t believe this was happening right now.

 When he felt how Shouto was slowly closing the gap between them but waited for Izuku’s permission, his whole heart felt warm. This boy in front of him liked him back. This great person liked him. They felt the same. He had no time for such worries and he also had to respect this. He wanted this.

 He closed the gap between them and felt soft lips on his own. He was still holding Shouto’s hand and felt the light pressure the other gave him. Neither of them wanted this moment to end. When they parted they looked at each other, both of them not believing what actually happened right now. Shouto was the first one. “It’s because you are you. That’s why I like you. That and a lot of other reasons. Because you make me feel safe and you make me feel accepted. I could tell you a lot of other reasons that made me fall for you but you get my point right now?”

Izuku smiled. “And you said you are not good with the “emotion stuff”. I’m speechless.” He couldn’t help himself and gave Shouto another kiss. This also reminded himself that he could now do this more often. Every day if he wanted to.

“If I am able to make Midoriya Izuku speechless then I did something right I guess.” Izuku leaned his head against Shouto’s shoulder. “You did so much. You are wonderful.” He felt Todoroki’s blushing through his quirk which was mentally noted by Izuku with a small laugh.

“Ugh we should go back. I don’t want you to get in trouble because of me.”

“Ah I wouldn’t mind being in trouble right now.”

“Shouto!” Izuku shook his head smiling and took his hand. He had to apologize to the others as well for his outburst.

 When they came in the classroom still holding hands everyone grinned at them knowingly and Izuku felt again why he wanted to vanish in the ground.

 “I see the gay crisis is solved?” Kirishima pointed at their hands with a smug face.

Izuku nodded embarrassed but he also did feel proud. One look at Shouto through his poker face told him that he felt as happy as he did. His boyfriend.

 “Good. Then you don’t have to worry anymore about another man holding the hand of your boyfriend. Great that we solved this problem, Deku! I dare you to randomly start crying again in the classroom. For a moment I was really worried that something was wrong!” Uraraka was able to scold and tease him at the same time. Incredible. “Promised!”

 “You have to tell Mic-Sensei the news. He wasn’t well in hiding the fact that he was really curious to know the outcome of this, after he saw Todoroki running after you.”

Izuku buried his face into Shouto’s arm. Why did he had to confess in the most complicated way possible?

[s-cornelius]

Congratulations, You Played Yourself

OR Why we shouldn’t be having this conversation about Adam

I’ve seen a lot written in the past few days about Voltron not deserving the hype it got for revealing that Shiro is queer, both on this platform and Twitter, and on geek news/opinion sites. Most arguments revolve around Shiro’s ex-boyfriend, Adam--both Adam’s brief screentime and his death--or the conversation between Shiro and Adam in the flashback in 7x01, and it not being explicit enough.

I am of the opinion that the conversation between Shiro and Adam was explicit confirmation of Shiro’s sexuality, and I treat it as such in this meta. I also won’t deal with the widely circulating idea that because Adam and Shiro don’t reconcile, the representation is bad. This just reinforces the idea that queer people are defined by their relationships (and sexual activity), rather than all of the other parts of their personality. As a queer person, seeing these criticisms is very frustrating.

So, I’m not going to focus on those things, because I think that they are more subjective. Instead, I am going to talk about the major complaints I’ve seen regarding Adam’s brief appearances in the show, as well as Adam’s role in the wider story Voltron is telling. 

The major complaints I’ve seen are that Adam is an example of queerbaiting, and/or the Bury Your Gays trope (see #VoltronLegendaryQueerbait on Twitter, for example). These complaints seem to stem from an expectation that after 7x01, Adam would play a larger role in the story, and even might be the endgame romantic partner for Shiro. Then, when that expectation was not met (because Adam barely appears in the season), the complaints of bad representation began.

In this meta, I discuss queerbaiting and the Bury Your Gays trope, and show that Adam is not a good example of either of these issues, through examining his character and his role in the story. Also, this is my take (after long conversations with @messier51) as a bisexual woman and as someone who thinks a lot about how stories are structured/executed.

What is ‘queerbaiting’?

Queerbaiting, as I’ve always understood it, is the practice of ‘promising’ LGBT+ content, but not following through on that promise. The ‘promising’ part is usually nods and winks from the show, but then the characters end up in relationships with members of the opposite gender, etc. The important assumption behind the idea of queerbaiting is that showrunners and production companies want to cash in on LGBT viewership, but don’t want to alienate the majority straight audience. Therefore, the showrunners get as close as possible to a same gender relationship, but never intend to follow through.

I’ve always been skeptical of the whole notion of queerbaiting, to be honest. I think in order to make an argument about queerbaiting, you have to know the motivations and intentions by the showrunners/writers/directors/cast. You also have to assume bad faith; the showrunners are thinking more about ‘tricking’ their fanbase, than trying to tell a coherent story. (sidenote: I think the bigger issue at hand is that queerness is still not normalized in fiction, and consequently, characters are straight until proven otherwise. Therefore, close same gender relationships that never become romantic are more of an issue of lack of imagination, than an willing attempt to hurt people.)

So, let’s think logically for a moment: If queerbaiting is hinting at a relationship between same gender characters, but never intending to follow through, Voltron does not qualify as queerbaiting. If the showrunners of Voltron intended to queerbait, they would not have fought for the dialogue between Shiro and Adam that makes their romantic relationship explicit. Similarly, Bex Taylor-Klaus, a queer person themself, championed explicit, in-text confirmation that Shiro was in said relationship, and then was proud of the fact that that confirmation was included.  Are those things not the opposite of queerbaiting?

Voltron promised, metatexually (i.e. showrunners in interviews, at conventions, etc.), to include LGBT+ representation. In 7x01, Shiro was revealed to be mlm, and had a mlm boyfriend. Therefore, Voltron is not an example of queerbaiting.

What about ‘Bury Your Gays’?

Bury Your Gays is a trope in fiction where queer characters are not allowed to have happy endings. Historically, this trope has referred to the practice of killing of wlw (which is why it was called Dean Lesbian Syndrome before Bury Your Gays gained prominence) going back to pulp wlw novels in the mid-twentieth century. Bury Your Gays was a staple of stories about queer people because homosexuality was (and still is by some) considered to be immoral; characters cannot be rewarded with a happy ending, because in doing so, queerness is being rewarded.

This trope has been in the zeitgeist in recent years, following the death of the wlw character Lexa on the show The 100. The anger and frustration in 2016 stemmed from the deaths of queer female characters. GLAAD notes in its annual Where We Are on TV Report:

“Since the beginning of 2016, more than 25 queer female characters have died on scripted television and streaming series. Most of these deaths served no other purpose than to further the narrative of a more central (and often straight, cisgender) character.”

This is not to say that the death of queer male character can’t be an example of Bury Your Gays, but that this trope historically refers to dead wlw in books and film, and in recent years, outrage with the this trope has concerned dead wlw on television. 

So, where does Adam from Voltron fit in? Well, he is a dead queer character, but whether or not he qualifies as an example of Bury Your Gays is questionable. He didn’t die to further the narrative of a more central cis, straight character. He also wasn’t a well-established character, and he died in a scene where many other characters also died. For these reasons, I’m hesitant to claim that Adam is an instance of Bury Your Gays.

Just because a queer character dies does not mean that it is an example of Bury Your Gays. In an article from SYFYwire, the author argues that: “as the criticism moves forward, consistently reducing our stories into binary tallies of whether we live or die does a complete disservice to the potential for three-dimensional, nuanced characters within genre storytelling that we yearn to see more of ourselves in. “

I understand that the death of any queer character on TV is upsetting to some fans, because there are so few queer characters overall. However, as we get more queer characters (and GLAAD has shown increasing numbers of queer characters in the past few years--up to 6.4% of regular characters in 2017), it’s important to question whether good representation is just a matter of a living or dead character, and if the death of an LGBT+ character is just that character’s demise, or part of a bigger trend (see 2016 and wlw deaths). 

Therefore, I think we have to evaluate whether or not the trope is in effect depends on the context of the death. I think to really decide whether or not a death of a queer character is Bury Your Gays or not, it’s important to answer the following questions: What is the purpose of this character’s death? What are the genre conventions? Are there other queer characters and what happens to them? Are queer characters dying on other shows in large numbers?

In the next section, I will discuss Adam’s role in the story, and try to answer these questions.

Adam, the character?

Before addressing these questions, I think it’s important to discuss who Adam is as a character, and his role in the overall story.

All told, Adam appears in two short scenes, totaling no more than a few minutes of screentime. While on screen, we learn that a) he was Shiro’s boyfriend, b) he broke up with Shiro due to a culmination of issues in their relationship, c) he was a pilot, and d) he died in a Galra attack. As far as characterizations go, it’s pretty skimpy, but ultimately who he was as a character is unimportant. Adam does not exist on the show to explore any big ideas about gender and sexuality; Adam is a plot device, and he serves two purposes:

Adam confirms that Shiro is mlm. By showing Adam and Shiro’s breakup in a flashback, the show is telling us that Shiro is mlm, without having Shiro say “I am gay.” (sidenote: This is called good storytelling, by the way. Shiro’s story is not a coming out story, so if everyone in canon knows that he’s gay, why would Shiro tell anyone his orientation? Since we have no reason to think that other characters don’t know he’s gay, introducing Adam does the work of confirming Shiro’s sexuality to the audience in lieu of Shiro stating his orientation in dialogue.)

Adam puts a face on the casualties of war during the first attack by the Galra. By killing off Adam in this scene, the stakes have been raised. Volton (both the show and the robot) kills faceless, nameless characters in space battles. I know that the paladins mow down robots all the time, but when Voltron destroys a Galra cruiser or the like, I find it hard to believe that there are only robots on board. But since we, the audience, and they, the paladins of Voltron, don’t know who those people are on board those ships, it’s hard to get emotionally attached to their deaths. The same is true when we see the Galra attack Earth: there is no emotional attachment when the Galra raze major cities, but there is narrative weight to Adam’s death. Now, it’s not just the case that the Galra have killed humans, but that they have specifically killed a human that was important to one of the main characters. The same effect is achieved with Hunk’s family in the work camp.

Ok, so back to those questions: What is the purpose of this character’s death? What are the genre conventions? Are there other queer characters and what happens to them? Are queer characters dying on other shows in large numbers?

To answer the first question: Adam’s death is representative of the end of an era. Adam represents the past: both Shiro’s past with the end of a relationship, and the Garrison’s past with his death as the result of old Garrison defense tactics. His death marks the end of that time in Shiro’s life, and for Earth pre-Galra attack. As mentioned above, Adam’s death also raises the stakes of the Galra attack. Once a character the audience knows dies, that signals that other characters could die too. After Veronica doesn’t get back on the train, the audience genuinely thinks she died. This doesn’t work if the only characters who have died so far are faces on a screen or in background explosions.

To address the second question: Voltron’s genre is part action-adventure comedy, and part war story. The second half of this season feels more like a war story than any part of the previous seasons, despite the fact that Voltron (and the Coalition) has been at war against the Galra since the first episode. In a war story, anyone can die, so it’s not terribly surprising that characters we know end up dying. For example, the Blades of Marmora have had four named characters die (before the timeskip): Ulaz, Thace, Antok, and Regris.

As for the third question: Adam was not the only queer character on Voltron. In explicit text, we have Shiro, one of the main characters, is an Asian mlm with mental and physical disabilities. In less explicit text, we have Pidge, who at the very least could be considered gender non-conforming, and Zethrid and Ezor, who’s relationship appeared to lean romantic.

And the fourth question: LGBT+ representation is really making strides in shows aimed at children and teens. However, there is definitely still a place for questioning whether TV more broadly has a Bury Your Gays problem. In this respect alone--that deaths of queer characters is a trend--could Adam’s death be considered problematic. It’s unfortunate that a queer character was killed in a general media landscape full of dead queer characters, but in the next section, I discuss why I am not so upset by his death.

So what?

What conclusions can be drawn from the context of Adam’s role and his death? Adam is a emotional connection to the toll of the war, both for the audience, and for our mlm main character, Shiro. I do not consider Adam’s death an example of Bury Your Gays, and I don’t think we’d be having this conversation if a heterosexual character had filled Adam’s role in the story. Ultimately, Adam is not the LGBT+ representation fans have been clamoring for, and the showrunners promised to provide--Shiro is.

So, why doesn’t Adam get a happy ending? Because it does not matter if he gets a happy ending or not; it has no impact on main characters or overall storyline. The showrunners could have introduced a different character from the Garrison that we (the audience) cared about, and then kill them in that first battle, but using Adam streamlines this process.

I know a lot of people wanted Adam and Shiro to reunite, and they’d be each other’s happy ending, but this would be Bad Storytelling. Shiro and Adam’s break up is at least 2 years in the past for Shiro. During those years, he has not pined for Adam, regretted his decision, etc. that would indicate that their relationship is not 100% over. In the lead up to season 7, Lauren Montgomery said: “until Shiro made the unfortunate decision [to leave], and they drifted apart and that was the end … for their relationship.”

As I mentioned before, Adam represents the past for Shiro. Shiro has been through so much since their break up, and we have no idea how Adam would have even reacted to the Shiro that makes it back to Earth. If Shiro does get a happy ending in the form of a romantic relationship, it does not make any narrative sense that he would go back to his old boyfriend. Shiro has grown and changed and matured, so a satisfying end to that arc is not going back to where he came from, but forging ahead with a partner who has witnessed that growth and change (if Shiro does get a love interest).

At the end of the show, it will matter if Shiro lives or dies, and whether his ending is happy or not, because he is our explicit LGBT+ representation, the one that was promised to us. But I honestly have complete faith in Voltron. Time and time again, the showrunners, writers, directors, VAs, etc. have shown their commitment to a diverse cast of characters, and representing diverse experiences. There has never been any indication of bad faith on the part of TPTB; they want to make the best possible show for us, and give us representation not found in other television shows.

So, Who Should We be Talking About?

Shiro.

I do think it is important to discuss how harmful tropes manifest in media and why queer characters keep ending up dead. However, I don’t think the solution to this problem is immortal, flawless gay characters who get happy endings just because they’re gay. The best thing we can do is normalize queer characters, and normalizing means creating characters who show the full gamut human experiences. Queer characters can be good and bad people, and have good and bad relationships, so (as long as we don’t get one version of queer people), I think there’s room for a wide variety of queer characters, who have a wide variety of ends to their stories.

So, then there’s Shiro, a heroic leading character the likes of which we haven’t seen before. Shiro is a main character on a non-queer-focused show Asian mlm with mental and physical disabilities, and his presence is normalizing queer characters for a whole new generation of fans.

Shiro is groundbreaking representation, and not just on a show aimed at younger audiences. As GLAAD notes in their report:

“The LGBTQ characters who make it to TV screens tend to be white gay men, who outnumber all other parts of our community in representation on screen ... It’s long past time for television to introduce more diverse LGBTQ characters on multiple levels: more queer people of color (who have long been and remain underrepresented), characters living with disabilities, stories of lesbians and bisexual women, trans characters, characters of various religious backgrounds, and characters who are shaped by existing at the intersection of multiple marginalized identities.”

Shiro is that intersection of multiple marginalized identities, and a main character. By showing experiences of queerness and disability and the intersection of the two, and not relegating him to a supporting role, Voltron is telling Shiro’s story, not someone else’s story with Shiro along for the ride. 

We should be asking of our media “whose stories get to be told?” On most shows, the answer is white cis-men and women, and maybe a token minority, if you’re lucky. Voltron is telling the stories of people who usually don’t get their stories told--women of all kinds, people of different ethnic backgrounds, queer characters, and intersections of these categories. Voltron has not settled for tokenization, but rather given us multi-faceted representation, crossing these intersecting issues.

[bigskydreaming]

All over the place thoughts about both Voltron (Yes, That Thing That Happened) and Bobby/Pyro in the comics: 

I am curious to see what they do with comicbook Pyro and Bobby, even though it wouldn’t be my first choice of pairing for him (Bobby/Johnny Storm) or even my second, third, fourth or fifth choices, but it’s better than nothing and there’s just enough of a push to make this new Pyro catch on that like, a pairing with him has a decent chance of going somewhere. Which is the real issue these days with LGBTQ+ comic book representation.

Like, this is something I’ve been thinking about since VLD’s new season came out yesterday. I do still watch that show casually, even though I’ve stayed far away from the fandom and the discourse from the start, because, like...survival and self-preservation, yo. But tbh, I haven’t been invested in it for several seasons now, ever since the utter shitshow which was the season of ‘let’s make our only black character the perpetrator of vile slavery metaphors because racism allegories with zero self awareness FTW amirite Dreamworks’? So, the latest evidence of its shitshow-ness didn’t hit me as hard as it did others, because I am Cynicism, hear me roar, but it still sparked some thoughts, which tie into my thoughts on representation in other media.

Basically....I’m super not impressed by content creators who think saying oh he’s gay and then like....NEVER FUCKING DOING ANYTHING WITH THAT is in any way, shape or form representation.

I mean, I can headcanon any damn character I want as gay myself. I don’t need you all in order to do that. If you’re going to make a character gay in order to call it LGBTQ+ representation, then fucking REPRESENT me. DO something with that. And no, that doesn’t mean every single facet of that character’s being needs to be about them being gay. It means that character needs to be treated like any other character, in every facet of their being. Or else you’re not actually representing anything other than how little this is a priority for you.

'Gay people exist in this universe’ with an arrow pointing at the single gay character you’ve established as such, with no other evidence outside of a single scene to indicate that they are in fact gay outside of audience headcanons - that is not representation. No viewer needs to see that the content creator acknowledges that yes, people like them do in fact exist, to feel validated on like....an existential level. We all KNOW we fucking exist. We don’t need you to fucking confirm that, thanks. We get annoyed as hell when you go out of your way NOT to acknowledge we exist, but like....just acknowledging we exist isn’t representing us, its literally DOING THE BARE MINIMUM TO DEMONSTRATE YOU ARE AWARE YOU LIVE IN A WORLD WHERE PEOPLE OTHER THAN YOURSELF EXIST.

So, despite what my online persona might suggest, in my real life outside the internet, I’m what most gay and bi guys would call ‘masc’. I frequently get told I don’t ‘come across as into guys’ by both gay and straight people, as though this is some kind of compliment. It actually just depresses me, because for myself, I’m painfully aware of how much my adult personality and mannerisms are a result of repressing anything that might ‘give me away’ as gay or bi when I was a closeted teenager. I WORKED at that. I cultivated this adult persona I have now, back when I thought it was a matter of survival and that being who I really was wasn’t either a good thing or something I wanted. And now, as a grown adult who’s been out for over a decade, I do regret never getting a chance to know who or what I might have become, what I might have looked like, acted like, if I’d never had to teach myself to conform to external ideas of what it meant to be masculine.

My point is, I, like many other gay and bi men, each with their own reasons and circumstances, do not visibly come across as gay or bi in casual encounters. Most people meeting me once, outside of me directly referencing my orientation, would not walk away thinking ‘oh he’s bi’. So I’m very aware that yes, characters can be gay or bi without otherwise ‘seeming any different’ from any straight characters. They don’t need to ‘be obviously gay’ in order to actually be gay.

But we’re talking casual, one time encounters here. Anyone who’s known me for longer than that, knows that I’m bisexual. Whether friends, coworkers, even casual but regular acquaintances.....it comes up. Because its not some minute, tiny part of me. It’s as big a part of me as any straight person’s heterosexuality, and you need to THINK about how often that comes up. Because it does.

Our orientations are not just evident in who we take out on dates or go home with at the end of the night. People who know me well know of my orientation  because of the jokes I tell, and reflect this back in the kinds of jokes they tell to me. People who know me know of my orientation because of the way I reference past relationships and the way I talk about what I look for in future relationships, and they reflect this back in how and when and in what ways they share details with me about their own relationships or what they look for and value in them. People who know me know of my orientation because I am the result of all my experiences, and those experiences include my romantic ones. They shaped who I am. To know me, to know who I am, means to know where my life has taken me, and that includes the various times a romantic or sexual encounter has played a large role in shaping who I became.

On Voltron, Shiro has been one of the main protagonists for seven seasons. The audience has interacted with his story, shadowed his story as this main protagonist, for seven seasons. That is not a casual, one time encounter on the street. It does not work to claim ‘oh you wouldn’t know he was gay if you met him casually, people aren’t always obviously gay’ as though audiences haven’t been exposed to Shiro in his most private, vulnerable moments, the same as all the other main characters. It does not WORK that in seven seasons, there was ZERO opportunity for Shiro’s orientation, the role being gay has played in his life and how it’s shaped him, the fact that he had a freaking fiancee at one point, one that Keith at least KNEW, given that he was spying on them at one point.....it does not WORK that no matter how ‘not gay seeming’ Shiro normally comes across as, in this seven season long story about these six individuals who come together as a family, who know each other better than they know their own families, this story where according to the creators, they planned on Shiro being gay from the start, or at least from season two.....it does not work that there are NO places where Shiro’s orientation should have organically come up before now, been a matter of reference for him or other characters, anything like that......if he were ACTUALLY being treated as representation, rather than tokenism.

We didn’t know Shiro was gay before now, not because some peoples’ gayness is just so inherently invisible and damn hard to see, but because his creators didn’t WANT us to see it before now. Because it wasn’t a priority. Because people want to include marginalized groups in their media and call it representation, to appease those viewers who are DESPERATE for representation, to see lives like theirs played out in these larger than life tales, to see themselves in the heroes who get to save the day....but without actually DOING anything with this so-called representation.

Because how do you see yourself in a character whose creators have gone out of their way to KEEP you from seeing him fully, until now? When the only way they decide to show it to you now is by giving him a fairly watered down scene with an ex who we’re told but not shown mattered a great deal to him, and then killing off that same ex five episodes later, thus ensuring we’ll never actually SEE not just how this character matters to Shiro, but what Shiro’s like when you’re NOT hiding or obscuring that part of him that’s literally the part that represents us?

The problem with Adam’s death on Voltron wasn’t even his actual death. It was the end of the final episode. When all of Team Voltron gets to tearfully reunite with their loved ones after everything they’ve been through, in celebration of their victory and acknowledgment of all they’ve lost. We see Hunk with his parents, Lance with his family, Pidge with hers. Allura and Coren and Romelle. Even Keith has his mom and his surrogate father figure. And perhaps we didn’t see Shiro have a scene like that because he isn’t an actual Paladin like those other five anymore. But also....Shiro COULDN’T have a scene like that, even if they wanted to give him one. Because Shiro, unlike all those other characters, has no one outside of them. And this is by design. Because his creators CHOSE to have him have no one. Oh, I know what the writers are saying online. That Adam was killed off to show the stakes of Earth’s invasion. LOL bullshit. In a show that prides itself on creating realistic stakes around a team who pilots flying robot lions to form a giant robot that fights evil aliens, you can not possibly believe that killing ONE tertiary character we’ve only seen ONCE and who we only know even matters to one of our protagonists because of that one mention....is what makes or breaks the ‘stakes’ of this storyline. 

Adam died, because the show wanted to demonstrate that yes, look, see, we have a gay character.....without having to actually SHOW it. Or do anything with it. Without having to show us Shiro and Adam tearfully reuniting just like all his teammates got to do with those most important to them, to show them being a couple, to show them, to show Shiro not just being gay, but being VISIBLY gay, in an actionable way that REPRESENTS gay viewers, that says, hey, this is what a gay man looks like when he’s reuniting with someone he loves or at least once loved. Without having to move forward into the next season, where the other characters will no doubt be shown at least once interacting more with their own loved ones, without having to show Shiro work out what his return to Earth and Adam’s presence in his life again means for him, and whether they’re back together or interacting as exes, either way necessitating Shiro’s orientation, this facet of his life as a gay man, being front and center ON SCREEN just like everyone else’s relationships....all without once ‘requiring’ Shiro be in any way romantically or sexually explicit with another man, like kissing or being shirtless in bed together are the only ways to visibly show a gay man’s orientation in the story you’re telling.

All of which brings me back to Bobby/Pyro in the comics, and how even though it wouldn’t be my first choice of pairing, now that they’ve established a basis for it in their one night stand, I want them to actually do something more with it.

Because Bobby is gay whether or not he’s in a relationship, same as Shiro is gay whether or not Adam lived or died. You don’t need to be in a relationship to be gay, obviously. But like I said earlier.....we don’t need gay characters to EXIST in order to feel represented. Our existence has never been in question or up for debate. Representation, what that means....is if you give us these gay characters, we need to feel they MATTER. That WE matter. That they and their stories are a priority. That they get happy endings as much as they get to suffer. That their being gay is not a footnote to them saving the world, but their being gay and all the struggles they’ve had to overcome because of it is part of what gives them the STRENGTH to save the world.

I love that Bobby, one of my favorite characters, is an out gay man in the comics now. I love that Sina Grace’s solo series wrote him unapologetically as a gay man, where his orientation was clear and visible through every issue of his series even though only three or four of those eleven issues had him actually in romantic encounters. I love that he is very clearly, very definitively demonstrated as having the same characterization, being the same character, being the same BOBBY that I’ve followed since I was a kid, because as an out gay man now and a closeted and repressed man before that, he’s still the same character. Now we just get to see different angles, see him in different lights, get new contexts for old behaviors.

But I need to see him in an actual relationship, because Bobby has always, always, ALWAYS been characterized as someone who WANTS to be in a relationship. Who hates being alone, who fears being alone. And because I’m not represented by a character that Marvel finally makes an out and proud gay man, saying in the process that the reason his prior relationships never worked out was because they weren’t true to who he is.....but then going on to refuse to give him a relationship that’s even just slightly more functional than his previous ones.

I don’t expect him to get married and live happily ever after because yes, it is superhero comics, and drama is part of the package. ALL the X-Men have severely dysfunctional relationships. But they still HAVE them. For all the drama and dysfunction that comes with iconic X-couples, that doesn’t change the fact that Rogue and Gambit ARE iconic. Scott and Jean and even Scott and Emma ARE iconic. These pairings are established. They are long-lasting. They MATTER.

And that’s what it comes down to. If you make a character to represent marginalized readers or viewers.....it can’t stop there. These characters simply existing will never be enough, because that isn’t the point. The point is....they have to MATTER. Every bit as much as their straight or white counterparts. Their stories have to matter, be as much of a priority, be just as impactful.

Or you will always, ALWAYS be sending the message to your marginalized audiences: you are still second class citizens in our eyes. You may exist, but you matter less than these other characters who have ALWAYS mattered.

I do not have to scream my orientation from rooftops in order to be an out and proud bisexual man. I do not need characters to scream their orientation from rooftops in order to be out and proud gay or bisexual characters.

But my orientation matters. My experiences derived from that orientation matter. And if you can’t make the orientation of your characters, the experiences that shape them, matter just as much in how you choose to tell your stories, how you choose to prioritize these characters and their experiences and their stories?

Then do not try and tell me these characters represent me.

Because they most certainly do not.

[starsailorstories]

Sweet Chariot Theses

Another of my editing consistency reference docs: summaries of the big ideas I want to get at with SC & what needs to be made clear about them

1. Visibility as validation: privilege confirms one's experience, disprivilege disputes it.Tthe only way to counter this unavoidable reality of oppression is to confirm that experience through stories, whether working yourself into the patterns and archetypes of the Universal Narrative (hero's journey etc) or retelling the factual histories of experiences like your own. Because this healing of disprivilege is inherently threatening to the status quo, the healing story is always under attack by the powerful, and must be defended, first and foremost by the powerless storyteller.

2.  Gender (and the concepts of sexual and romantic orientation that attend it) is neither a meaningless and useless construct nor an essentialistic, rule-bound biological destiny--it's a story we live, influenced by our deepest self image, our culture, the dominant culture or cultures which influence or inform or become that culture, the way our self-perception evolves, and how we relate to others' perception of us. By telling coming of age stories for lgbt+ teen characters in a universe where a diverse range of views of sex/gender can be seen as contextually “normal”, I can emphasize what is universal in a highly individual journey.

3. The fear of an uprising of "man-made" sentience, i.e. the sci fi trope of robot rebellion, is inherently a white, male, and capitalist fear. 

To be an oppressor who buys the myth of their superiority wholesale is to have a subconscious 'pygmalion complex'--seeing the other as a reflection of their own psyche; a creation of theirs lacking its own will. This is where we get myths like: women secretly want to be dominated, the colonized and enslaved secretly want to be rescued from their savagery, the disabled must either be inspired to try harder or inspire us to try harder, the poor must be grateful to the ruling classes for their charity, and the masses seek power to subdue them. 

Having thought my way through lots of AI rebellions from the AI's perspective as responses to this portrait of the oppressor psyche, I decided that a better, easier-to-feel allegory would be: "man-made" beings, ostensibly manufactured by the ruling class (a concept that comes from UFO lore), who are TREATED like artificial intelligence to a degree that they even half believe themselves that they can't think without someone else's input. In reality though, they have origins well apart from their “makers” which have simply been erased over time, and their sapience, intelligence, capability, agency etc. are entirely equal to the rest of society. I focus on the ways the knowledge of this has survived attempts to cover it up as well as on its discovery by individuals coming into their own.

4. Belief in higher powers (whether those higher powers exist or not) is built up via our objective helplessness in the face of nature, yet it can be used to ask us to accept subjective helplessnesses--the idea of being helpless in the face of temptation, for instance--that push us towards then accepting earthly authority. To prevent this, we need “a goddess [we] can look in the eye”--figures and concepts to put faith in that may be above us in terms of power or enlightenment, but not base dignity.

5. The idea behind a successful change in the status quo must be: something better is possible, and we ALL deserve it.

[aminedevlopper]

GetResponse Review 2021| All you need to know

Over half of the total populace is utilizing email. That is an aggregate of 3.9 billion individuals, roughly. In this manner, Email promoting is a solid and persuasive approach to associate with your objective market. This article clarify the highlights, Pricing and complete survey of the GetResponse.

Computerized advertisers and business visionaries presently have their apparatuses for showcasing. With regards to Email promoting GetResponse is the broadly utilized email showcasing apparatus. which began in 1997 and now they are overseeing 350,000 clients around the world. This stage is additionally accessible in 27 distinct dialects which make it simple to use for clients.

GetResponse complete Review 2021:

GetResponse features

GetResponse isn't only an email advertising arrangement, it likewise incorporates online class promoting, CRM, web-based media showcasing, lead age and eCommerce usefulness.

Email Marketing

Automation

Webinars

Analytics & Live Report

Apps Integration

Mobile App

Ready to use templates & Page Builder

Ecommerce tool Integration

Facebook and Instagram ads

Promotional videos, banners, and slideshows.

Forms & Online Survey

5 Star Customer Support

These are the features of the GetResponse

Pre-built campaign templates:

Perhaps the most fascinating highlights of Getresponse is its pre-assembled promoting channel formats, which direct you through the production of these missions and track all the related measurements. The format beneath is the "Construct a List" pipe and shows the means incorporate making a sign up page.

Whenever you've chosen one of these layouts, GetResponse gives you a visual diagram of the pipe. The various advances opening into each part, and there are connects out to every individual activity. At the point when you've finished assignments, GetResponse attracts the information together to show bits of knowledge from this mission across the board place. For this situation, this is the novel guests and email list development.

This component is an incredible method to deal with the entirety of your resources in a single spot and is an ideal route for less experienced advertisers to figure out how to set up and run these sorts of missions.

Getresponse 30 days FREE trial

Personalized email creation

As per socialmediatoday.com, customizing email missions can prompt a 29% higher one of a kind open rates and 41% higher snap rates. The more focused on this personalization, the better outcomes you'll get. What's more, GetResponse offers profoundly modern email personalization.

Take the headline. Numerous comparative arrangements just permit you to customize the headline with the beneficiary's name. GetResponse's title personalization alternatives incorporate nation, city, sexual orientation, birth date, and some more.

To make an email, you can import your own format, start without any preparation or utilize one of the inherent layouts (underneath). There are many layouts masterminded by industry.

While the customization choices for these formats are more restricted than other comparative arrangements — there is no choice to add video, for instance, or to change style ascribes of substance blocks — the capacity to add customized item suggestions makes GetResponse a valuable instrument for internet business limited time messages or pamphlets.

This personalization even stretches out to sending times. GetResponse's Perfect Timing highlight conveys messages as indicated by when they are well on the way to be perused and followed up on, in light of clients' past conduct. Also, the innovatively named Time Travel alternative conveys messages in the beneficiary's neighborhood time region, which is vital in the event that you have clients from across the world.

Advanced A/B testing

The more components of your email crusades you test, the more information you get and the more knowledge you need to help you improve. That is the reason GetResponse's wide assortment of alternatives for A/B testing mean you can continue to streamline your missions to help you meet your objectives.

You can test up to five options for each of the following:

Subject line (which you can personalize)

From field (which can also be different to the reply address)

Content (it can be a completely different email or the same one with minor changes)

Delivery time

Super specific segmentation options With GetResponse you can get extremely granular with your division by utilizing conditions, for example: Contact informationLocationCustomer engagementDate of subscription or last time you sent a messageA customer’s last actionCustom information specific to your business GetResponse's particular division abilities are supplemented by its high level contact the executives usefulness. This permits you to make portions in a single tick from indexed lists, as indicated by rules, for example, membership source, contact type, and contact status, and move contacts from rundown to rundown (or copy them into an optional fragment). You can likewise use to prohibit certain contacts — for instance, on the off chance that they have an open help ticket you could decide not to send them additional messages until it is settled. As GetResponse is a full promoting mechanization and email showcasing arrangement, you would then be able to attract the entirety of this data to assemble computerized work processes. The simplified proofreader permits you to indicate conduct driven principles, for example, pursuing top notch, or collaborating with your image in a specific way.Benefits Benefits of GetResponse GetResponse is an amazing promoting device. Utilizing GetResponse, you can make explicit client sections that permit you to send profoundly focused on messages to the perfect gathering of contacts at the perfect time. Its autoresponder usefulness allows you to make significant substance such that best connects with clients. This is impeccably supplemented by its personalization capacities that cause clients to feel like they are being treated as people, not simply a number on top notch. check Getresponse 30 days FREE trial GetResponse offers three main plans: Basic, from $15 per month Plus, from $49 per month Professional, from $99 per month Essential arrangement — $10.50 per to $450 every month for 1000 and 100000 contacts, individually It offers selling items on the web, one deal channel, Facebook advertisements, limitless lead pipes, limitless robotization formats and presentation pages, autoresponders, and email showcasing. Furthermore plan — $34.30 every month to $499 every month for 1000 and 100,000 contacts separately It offers five online course channels, five deals pipes, three clients, contact scoring and labeling, CRM, online courses of 100 participants, five work processes mechanization developers, and all the essential arrangement highlights. Proficient arrangement — $69.30 every month to $580 every month for 1000 and 100,000 contacts separately It offers limitless online course channels and deals pipes, five work along with clients, online classes with a limit of 300 participants, limitless mechanization manufacturers, paid online classes, and all the in addition to design highlights. GetResponse’s support GetReponse has excellent support options and — importantly — you can get help at any time of the day or night. Automation: GetResponse permits drag and drops altering choice in which you can make nitty gritty work processes utilizing conditions, activities, and channels. Conditions are explicit circumstances that start computerization; activities are the mechanization undertakings that should be finished by the framework. Channels are a few things that you shut out or organize the contacts in. You can make mechanization errands for messages, page visits, memberships, commitment messages, and other related things Live chat 24/7 On the off chance that you've just got a brisk inquiry, you ordinarily don't have any desire to need to telephone somebody or round out a structure and sit tight for an answer. That is the reason live visit is a particularly valuable apparatus for programming support. GetResponse gives every minute of every day live visit uphold. Also, it's not simply a chatbot, you can converse with a genuine human who can tackle more muddled issues User-friendliness Discussing free utilization, GetResponse offers simply a free preliminary of 30 days as . After a free preliminary, it will cost you $10.50 least to utilize it for more. Discussing the free preliminary, the free preliminary arrangement offers you to attempt all the devices completely before you get one for yourself. The UI is exceptionally smooth. You will discover each apparatus coordinated and in its place. It makes the clients rapidly get acquainted with it. The devices are anything but difficult to utilize, particularly when utilizing them in custom mode. Overall, you won't discover GetResponse hard to utilize. You can import contacts, fabricate missions, and all that stuff without any problem. What may be somewhat trying for you is the computerization apparatuses use. Conclusion: GetResponse is the best email promoting device for organizations who searching for an incredible email showcasing robotization apparatus, financially savvy CRM arrangements, and a wide scope of formats to browse. Contrasted with comparable instruments available, GetResponse additionally offers generally serious costs. Something else to remember is that GetResponse is very one of a kind with regards to email showcasing instruments. This arrangement accompanies a scope of usefulness that you for the most part don't get from other advertising arrangements, for example, deals pipes, CRM the executives, and eCommerce highlights, all under a similar flag. Right now, I' m structure an email list with the assistance of delightful GetResponse presentation pages and computerization framework and getting excellent outcomes. In light of my own insight, GetResponse is an ideal computerized machine for promoting as contrast with different virtual products like mailchimp and aweber. First utilize 30 days FREE trial than go for 15$/month essential arrangement. Check: Getresponse 30 days FREE trial No need of credit card detailsOne month is enough to know better about how GetResponse system works.

[snootch]

Rules: Tag 10 other blogs you want to learn more about!

Tagged by: @robot-with-anxiety 💕

Name: Robin or Quill

Nicknames: Most of my friends call me Roob

Starsign: Libra

Gender: Agender

Height: 5'6

Sexual Orientation: Bi/Pan

Fave Color: Depends on what it's being used for

Current Time: 3:23

Current Location: Middle of the US

Average Hours of Sleep: 7ish on nights I have work the next day, 12+ on days off

Lucky Number: ❓

Last Thing I Googled: “popular bnha tiktok" bc I recently finished bnha but idk how to use tiktok

Number of Blankets I Sleep With: 4

Fave Fictional Characters: currently pretty much anyone from MDZS (primarily Xue Yang) and most of the characters in BNHA

Fave Bands/Artists: Mino

Dream Job: Honestly wish I could be a backup dancer

Random Fact: I'm semi fluent in Korean. Couldn't sit down and have a full conversation, but I could get around Korea with minimal difficulties.

Do you have any other blogs? Yes but I don't use them anymore. The only other one that's active is the blog for the mdzs fic I'm writing.

When did your blog reach its peak? This blog only has like 100 followers so I'd say there is no peak lol

What made you decide to get Tumblr? Cosplay initially. I had friends trying to get me to make a tumblr and finally caved when I saw a lot of cosplayers I liked had tumblrs. Then I came back after a years long hiatus bc I got into mdzs and wanted to see the Content

Do you get asks on a daily basis? absolutely not lmao I don't remember the last time someone sent me an ask

Why did you choose your URL? I wanted a simple one-word Brand back when I actually cared about having a Tumblr Identity. Now I don't care enough to change it.

Not tagging anyone so just participate if you so desire

[accio-forest]

I was tagged by @irisplayground​. Thank you!

Rules: tag 20 followers you want to get to know better.

Name: Katherine Masalta

Nickname: KATIE BY EVERYONE // CALL ME KATHERINE AND DIE

Gender: female

Star sign: Capricorn

Birthday: January 7th

Height: 4′8″ yeah.. small as fuck. I know. 

Age: 25

Sexual orientation: Bisexual, mostly into men. 

Relationship status: Domestic partnership/In a relationship 

Hogwarts house: Slytherin 

Favourite colour: forest green/dark maroon 

Time right now: 6:57 AM

What are you reading: Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier

Last movie you watched: Hidden Figures

Average hours of sleep: 3-5

Lucky number: 27

Last thing you Googled: Dice of Life lyrics

Favourite fictional characters: 

TV: Derek Hale (Teen Wolf), Viktor Nikiforov (Yuri On Ice), Sansa Stark (GoT), Elliot Alderson (Mr. Robot) MOVIE: Adrian Forrester (The Crush) Christine Daae (The Phantom of the Opera) Sally Owens (Practical Magic) BOOK: Voldemort (HP), Griet(Girl with a Pearl Earring),  Carrie McClelland (The Winter Sea), Bessy (The Observations), Callie McFay (The Fairwick Chronicles)

Number of blankets you sleep with: We share 2 bankets together 

Favourite singer/band: Alison Krauss 

Dream trip: Croatia, Italy, French Polynesian, Montana, British Columbia, Cuba, Spain, PNW, Chile, Brasil, Honduras, France, Scotland, Ireland, Iceland.. SO MANY. Everywhere. 

Dream job: I don’t even know anymore. 

When this blog was created: Wow I think in 2014? 

Current number of followers: 34,465 

What do you post: Photography in general. Always credited. 

Who are your most active followers: Not really anyone? My blog is suffering.

When did your blog reach its peak: YEARS ago. 

What made you decide to get a Tumblr: Depression brought me here, obsession kept me here. 

Why did you choose your URL: Originally Forrest-Child, but.. i didn’t realize the I spelt “Forest” wrong, got really embarassed, was having a HP marathon and BAM. Inspiration. 

Do you run any other blogs: Yes, but it’s mostly just for personal posts and stuff I can’t really post on here. It would “clash with my theme”. 

What are you doing tomorrow: Hopefully sleeping. 

Who do you tag: @hecklin @lsleofskye @wipaca @coolsbians @lagunavibe (literally anyone who was in the list when I typed the @ symbol) 

[cameron-ashurst22]

Week 14 - Weekly Summary

Day 1 -Research project  

The hero’s journey lecture 

Proppian analysis 

Lack or desire often external; a thing that can be acquired.

The procreation reason, a star ends in sexual union or its symbolic manifestation through marriage.

The psychological reason, stories separate the disparate parts of our psyche .

Christopher Vogler:Three act structure (Act 1- separation), (Act 2- descent and initiation), (Act 3)

The 12 stages of the heroes journey according to Christopher vogler 

Ordinary world(exposition)

The hero has to be shown in his ordinary world to create vivid contrast with the strange new world he is about to enter.

2.   The call to adventure 

The hero is presented with a problem,, challenge or adventure to undertake.Once presented with a call to adventure, she can no longer remain indefinitely in the comfort of the ordinary world.

3. Refusal of the call (if the story features a reluctant hero)

Often at this point the hero balk at the threshold of adventure, refusing the call or expressing reluctance.

4. Meeting with the Mentor ( not present in all stories)

The function of the mentor is to prepare the hero to face the unknown. They may give advice, guidance or magical equipment.

5. Crossing the Threshold

Now the hero finally commits to the adventure and fully enters the special world of the story for the first time. Vogler says ‘ this is the moment when the story takes off and the adventure really gets going’.

6. Tests , allies enemies 

Once across the threshold the hero naturally encounters new challenges and tests, make Sallie and enemies, and begins to learn the rules of the special world.

7. Approach to the inmost cave 

The hero comes at the last to the edge of a dangerous place… where the objet of the quest is hidden. In this stage the hero makes preparations to enter the inmost cave.

8. The ordeal( Midpoint ,death and rebirth)

Here the fortunes of the hero hit bottom in a direct confrontation with his greater fear.The audience is held in suspense:will the hero live or die?

9.Reward ( seizing the sword)

The hero now takes the possession of the treasure she has come seeking, her reward. The sword could be important knowledge or experience.

10.The road back

The hero is not out of the woods yet. He may be pursued by vengeful forces that have been disturbed by the seizing of the sword, the elixir or the treasure.

11.Resurrection (climax)

This is the final test for the hero, who has to be tested once more to see if he has really learned the lessons of the ordeal.The hero is transformed by the experience.

12. Return with the elixir( denouement)

The hero returns to the ordinary world, but the journey is meaningless unless she brings back some elixir, treasure or lesson from the special world.

Modern day plot of revelation:

The infinite detailing of existents

Events take a lesser role

Character orientated 

Existents-

Characters 

Settings

Actions-

Actions 

Happenings 

2d storytelling where the protagonists don’t change. Change comes through overcoming a problem in the show itself or bring change to another character.

The 7 basic plots- Christopher Booker 2004

-Overcoming the monster - the protagonist must defeat an antagonistic force which threatens the protagonist and/or homeland

-Rags to riches- the poor protagonist acquires things such as power, wealth and a mate, before losing it all and gaining it back upon growing as a person.

-The quest- the protagonist and some companions set out too acquire an important object or get to a location facing many obstacles and temptations along the way.

-voyage and return- the protagonist goes to a strange land, and after overcoming the threats it poses to him/her, returns with nothing but experience.

-comedy- light and humorous with a happy or cheerful ending.Central motif is the triumph over adverse circumstance, resulting in a successful or happy conclusion.

-Tragedy- the protagonist is a villain who falls from grace and whose deaths is a happy ending.

-Rebirth- the protagonist is a Willian or otherwise unlikable character who redeems him/herself over the course of a story.

Traditional vs experimental animation

Traditional animation tends to imply that it is a film that tells a story in movie drawings…. And contains what has been called personality animations with which the narratives protagonists are played.But experimental animation can be more like graphic art in motion.

Paul wells signposts of experimental animation

Abstraction

-Might use shapes and forms rather than traditional character.More about rhythm and movement in their own right.

Specific non-continuity 

-Rejects ‘logical and linear continuity’. Prefers illogical and sometimes multiple continuities.

Interpretive form

-Subjective rather than objective.

Evolution of materiality

 -Concentrating on its very materiality.Colour shape and texture evoke certain moods and ideas and give pleasure in their own right.

Multiple style 

-freely combines styles and techniques, to best express the artists ’vision’ and ‘ challenge and rework orthodox codes and conventions’

Presence of the artist 

-these films are personal and subjective. Trying to reflect an absolutely individual vision.

Dynamics of musicality

-music becomes very important in experimental films which may resist dialogue.Trying to make visual music.

Riffing 

The term is used by Gerald Mast in Film theory and criticism(1974) for the technique used by short films In which gags take precedence over story.The film establishes a basic premise and ‘riffs’ on the possible consequences of this idea.

Day 2 - Stop motion induction

Today we had an induction into stop motion with Tine Kluth a well known stop motion animator and director who had worked on such projects like shaun the sheep and the clangers. I found the induction very interesting as  initially I was sceptical if I would enjoy doing stop motion animation. However I really did enjoy creating the movement for a test piece regarding to robot characters.The premise of moving each part of the model ever so slightly although I thought was time consuming was very fulfilling as seeing a smooth movement sequence come to life showed how I could use stop motion further in the future. We were split into teams and I was teamed up with Billy and James and we had the idea of making our robot characters walk towards each of and embrace . This movement helped enhance the puppets as we and clearly see the contrast between the characters and the relationship that they have together. However we found that we could get lost between frames not knowing were the next movement of the puppets should take place. To rectify this we kept playing the animation after every new frame was taken to ensure that the process was smooth and gave the best result.

Day 2- life drawing 

Today I life drawing the focus was on the medium of charcoal as the first exercise ensured that we covered the entire page in charcoal and used a rubber to create contrast and draw the figure.Initially I struggled with this concept as my charcoal base was too thick and using the charcoal stick onto of that to draw there was no defined lines to be created and I couldn’t see the figure.In the end two drawings of the first exercise I began to feel more comfortable and expressive with the medium and decided to add more depth to the shading to give highlights and tone.The final exercise of the day was to draw the figure with the charcoal background being present for an hour.I decided to focus heavily on the face and torso as I felt that I should practice more on facial expression as it could benefit my late work. The outcome of this looked good as there was a clear contrast from the background to the figure.However I could have placed more emphasis around the eyes as I feel like the eyes were lost in the background of the piece.