#//Got a bit sentimental seeing the very first art i did of her for the OG blog...She changed so much and it's so great seeing-

[kibo-no-akademi]

//Man, can you believe it? It's been 10 years since i created Cateline... 🥺💚

[bird-slayer-brainrot]

Soldier On, Come Down - Chpt. 1. - - Ineffable Husbands WW2 au human!Crowley angel!Aziraphale angst multi-chapter

(TW this chapter contains light gore (st*bbing so that bit will be marked with the first and final world in red text)

London, 1939

Aziraphale, Principality and Angel of the Eastern Gate of the Garden of Eden, loved humans.

He had lived amongst humans since his assignment on Eden had ended, and he quite enjoyed his role as Heaven’s official ambassador to humanity. It had been a shock to receive such a coveted position (as much as Angels could covet, anyway).

The job had its downsides, like any, but for the most part, Aziraphale could overlook these. The books, food, wine and art made it worth it.

Humans were amazingly clever creatures, with a knack for imagining purposeful, advanced creations to Angel in Heaven could have ever dreamed of, if they did dream. They were masterful artists, poets, writers, inventors. Aziraphale, nearly six thousand years into this extended assignment, stood in awe at the inventions of the human race.

The motorcar, however, was an exception.

On a Saturday evening in Soho, Aziraphale was particularly bothered. He had plans to attend an Opera at the West End. These plans were interrupted when the driver had stopped him miles from the theatre. It was drizzling, as it often did in London lately, and Aziraphale crowded himself underneath a canopy to avoid getting soaked.

Aziraphale could have miracled the driver to take him to the right language, but with the state of England and the war going on, he felt it was best to cut down on miracle usage just in case he needed them for something important, which he probably would. And he didn’t want to risk Heaven the memo from heaven about too many frivolous miracles.

“Are you going in?” a voice spoke beside him. Aziraphale turned, ready to offer his apologises

He hadn’t realised he had been standing in the entrance way to a storefront.

But he was stuck on the words as he came face to face with the man.

He was perhaps the most beautiful person Aziraphale had ever laid eyes on.

Aziraphale was still staring when the stranger cleared his throat.

“Oh, my apologies.” Aziraphale said too loudly. The gentlemen was dressed in black and grey, which would have struck Aziraphale as unusual if, immediately after, Aziraphale noticed his striking copper hair. He wore it longer than was the fashion. He was also very tall, and slender. He held a black umbrella that he seemed to be in the process of wringing out his umbrella before he’d noticed Aziraphale.

“Are you alright?” the gentlemen said with concern. Aziraphale was still staring, so he tore his gaze from the gentlemen’s face.

“No. Yes. I mean.” Aziraphale stuttered. “I just got caught in the rain.”

The man nodded, the small smile still on his face, then he held out his umbrella.

“Would you like to borrow mine?” he said without hesitation.  Aziraphale looked up him again ready to insist he was fine, but stopped when he noticed his eyes.

They were the colour of liquid gold, except for the ring of green surrounding his pupils. It was deep, Earthy green Aziraphale last recalled seeing in the Garden back when he’d first received this assignment.

“No. No thank you.” Aziraphale said softly. “I think I should like to stay here.”

*

My Dear Anthony,

I hope by the time this letter reaches you in England that you and Anathema will be quite settled in, with Annie at university and you doing your things (I must confess, I don’t quite recall the word you used to describe your profession. It may come to me one day.)

I must admit, dear brother, that although you grumble when I express sentiments to you, that I will miss you terrible when you return to England. There shall be a Crowley-shaped hole in my heart, I should think, for a long time till come. Please do come back and visit us in California.

Thank you for taking care of Anathema. It has always been her dream to attend Oxford. Do you remember when she was a little girl, with her book on magic and fairytales? She’d take it with her everywhere.

She can be quite stubborn at times, but she is a remarkable young woman, and I know that, under your guidance, my dear Annie will be something great. Please give her my love.

Take care of yourself.

Your Loving Sister,

Lucy

-

Crowley smiled down at the letter from his sister. He would never admit it, of course, but he missed his sister terribly. California, too, with its bright, sunny weather. The rain and fog of London coloured the world bleak in comparison.

Crowley had been back in London for a month. Anathema, his niece, was due to start at Oxford, once she got her acceptance, in three months.

She was a standout in stuffy old England, with her American wardrobe, accent, and mannerisms. She stood out in LA, too. She’d spent the days

Crowley had an apartment in Soho that he’d rented out in the year he’d been in America. The death of Lucy’s husband and Anathema’s father had hit their family hard. With their pieces stitched haphazardously back together, Anathema had decided that Oxford was her calling. England was a fresh start, and Crowley had to return at some point. Her mother had, after some convincing, agreed.

He was meant to meet Anathema for dinner that evening at the pub they frequented later on. With nothing else to do, Crowley decided a walk and some fresh air would do him some good, and stepped out into the English rain.

*

The Drooping Donkey had all the grace of a typical Soho bar on a Saturday evening. There was a group of soldiers crowded around a pretty young woman playing the piano, a lively war-tune Aziraphale recalled hearing over the radio on the BBC earlier that morning when he was rearranging his Atlas collection. They nursed warming bears. Chatty patrons took up the tables. There was luckily one spare (Aziraphale may have the ability to have any table he wished to, however he believed in ethical use of miracles) and, after ordering a glass of the house red, Aziraphale made his way over to it and took a seat, content to wait out the storm before going home.

When Aziraphale looked up, he made eye contact with the red-haired gentlemen from earlier. He was alone at the bar, and when Aziraphale looked at him, he did something completely surprising. He smiled.

An hour later, Aziraphale was still recounting the event in self-pity. He could leave now, as the handsome stranger had left. In truth, he’d been too shocked by the gentlemen (who had, upon meeting him, offered him his own umbrella?) and had been unable to use his brain. He had no choice but to enter the bar after the gentlemen, who had held the door out for Aziraphale. Even now, Aziraphale replayed the memory of that brief, awkward interaction over and over in his head. It was pointless. It wasn’t like Aziraphale would ever see him again. He was a human. A handsome, kind human. Still, he had appreciated that small show of kindness. It left a warm feeling in Aziraphale’s chest. The war was getting to him.  

It was dark outside by the time Aziraphale exited The Drooping Donkey. The rain had cleared and, while the street maintained most of the business of a typical Soho Saturday, the sidewalk was mostly deserted. That’s why, when Aziraphale heard a noise like a group of hushed voices and a loud banging sound, he immediately rushed to the source.

The redhead man from the bar laid crumbled against the wall of a deserted alley. He was bundled behind bags of rubbish. Aziraphale hurried over to him, kneeling down to see better and miracleing a source of light. Aziraphale’s checked that the man was still breathing first, which he was, but was barely conscious. In the light, Aziraphale could see immediately that he had multiple injuries. His face was bruised, and his knuckles and hands were red. Then, Aziraphale spotted the spreading red across his stomach. Just below it, there was a knife.

It lay discarded in the wet, tossed carelessly, as though it had not just killed a man.

The stranger groaned as Aziraphale lifted the fabric away from the knife wound to locate the stab wound. It didn’t take long to find it. Blood gushed down the man’s abdomen from the puncture, and bile threatened to rise in Aziraphale’s throat as he realised that the kind stranger likely wouldn’t survive it. He had lost too much blood. Aziraphale had no idea how long he had been here, left like this. There was no time to take him to a hospital. He hadn’t been with a wife or friends at the bar. He would likely die here, cold, and alone.

Aziraphale reached down, pressing a hand against the wound, and healing it. It was overkill, to heal it completely, but the man looked in enough pain that Aziraphale couldn’t help but want to help him as best as he could. He spluttered at the motion, coughing harshly. Aziraphale stood up quickly, miracleing his trousers clean from where they had been stained by water and blood. He also miracled the stranger unconscious.

Aziraphale would have liked to have stayed with the stranger to make sure he got better, but he couldn’t answer the questions the man would obviously have. With any luck, the gentleman would wake up with a nasty hangover, with little recollection of what had occurred the night before. He’d likely interpret the black eye as being the result of a minor drunken scuffle. He would not remember Aziraphale, and Aziraphale would never see him again.

A kindness for a kindness was all it was. Miracling him out of sight, Aziraphale turned, and walked away.

[legionofpotatoes]

Hi Legion! Long time lurker and lover of your art and tags here. I always read your tags and I'm really interested in your thoughts & views on love and relationships, so I'm curious to know where you got those ideas from. Are there any videos, terms, or books you could recommend? It really resonated with me and since I'm a huge nerd my first instinct is to find more sources haha. Thank you so much!

This ask genuinely made me sit with myself and think long and hard about how my views on that stuff really formed, something I maybe took for granted a lil bit. So thanks, and I'm sorry that I can't give a nerdy answer here! It is difficult to point to specific sources, it's more of a lived-experience type thing. It truly is The Question Of All Time lmao. And boy did it get me thinking back.

I'll put my ramble under the cut if this is not interesting or what you're after, but I enjoyed the introspection still! Thank you!

My context is entirely unremarkable (middle class cishet white guy from eastern europe), but if I had to point to one thing that is the bottleneck of my views on love and relationships, I genuinely think it could be traced to my insane early childhood nat20 roll to avoid toxic masculinity pipelines. I truly believe in my bones that if I had been seduced by that stuff - and legitimately all but maybe two of my childhood friends were - I'd be a completely different, colder, worse person today. I credit only luck in that.

Where I'm from, boys of my generation were set on a very specific path very early on that was pointed veeeery far away from "love". All wrapped up in warped orthodox christianity and crypto-nationalist sentiments, stemming from our incredibly disillusioned post-soviet parent figures constantly running in survival mode. So like, I legitimately don't remember how I managed to avoid those circles and behavior patterns, and the truth is that I probably sometimes didn't? I certainly made stupid mistakes in my early teens, but I had the luxury of making them outside of the public eye of social media. More luck.

There's other alchemy of course - as a child of divorce I got a real early up-close look at the ugly results of mistrust and toxic "love", and a lot of my life back then was rebelling against that. Not that the parenting itself was always bad - my mother turned me to the arts and to stories, which eventually led me to fandom that I can now identify as a much healthier outlet for my frustrations than whatever my peers were doing with their nighttime brawls. It led me to a very crystallized idea of what I really wanted from life - not glory or patriotism or ambition, but a quiet life with the ones I loved.

That is also around the time when I let go of teenage lust as my north star and started fostering friendships instead; because like, relationships are bonds and connections, nothing more or less. Sexuality and romantic love can take as big or as small of a role in that as the parties desire, and they're entirely ornamental to the value of linking your experience with another living, breathing human. Realizing the divinity and beauty in that changes almost everything in an instant. And it is such a goofy-ass thing to say, but yeah, for a lost idiot dude like me, fandom helped me see that. Even the raunchiest fics were ultimately about belonging and emotional nakedness, and I learned to desire that more than anything else. I am trying so hard to point to something specific here, but I honestly don't know with way back then. Bioware's found family-ass games/fanfics were a big one later on, but there were so many other communities before. My memory's just bad.

But knowing I wanted love was one thing, and being a healthier, more empathetic person ready to actually get that was a whole other trek. Made a few more dumb interpersonal mistakes. And then I met my current partner, now over twelve years ago, and realized there was a version of me reflected in her eyes that I could truly chase and grow into. This all sounds super melodramatic but it was more of a terrifying thought at the time, stoking self-doubt and real worry that I was leading her into a mistake. But of course that was all a symptom of terminal self-awareness. We were in our early 20s, mature enough not to play childish emotional games, and young enough to go on that growth journey together. More luck. Found that gentle peace I had yearned for with her., and I count my lucky stars to this day.

In short, everything about my understanding of love and relationships is rooted in personal circumstance + massive amounts of luck, and especially that early course-correction away from toxic dudeness. Nothing extracurricular. And then just more and more luck piled on with time, culminating with my lovely bean. So in that sense I'm the worst person to ask this question! And times have really changed irt internet culture and fandom so I can't even point at that part as an action point either.

But if nothing else, I believe that storytelling is the ultimate shortcut in getting our dumb teenage brains over the precipice of pride and control, and towards the gentle pursuit of love in all its forms. I think that's worth articulating over and over again. Thanks for reading this long and I promise I usually interpret asks like a normal person! This is an exception!!! a big question if there ever was one

[ridley-was-a-cat]

What I Watched This Fortnight – 9/17- 9/30

Space Adventure Cobra – RetroCrush added this to their streaming catalog just as everyone was posting their remembrances after the mangaka passed away, so I figured I should probably see what it was about. What I got was a interstellar romp featuring a blond-haired frat boy with a gun-arm and a smorgasbord of comic book villains and nearly naked women that entertained me despite my better judgement. It’s directed by Osamu Dezaki, with all the pastel freeze frames and three pans he was known for, and still looks pretty darn good for a 40-year-old anime. If you’re ever in the mood for a turn-your-brain-off sort of adventure peppered with smugly delivered one-liners, this should deliver the goods. 7/10

Project Blue Earth SOS – I found this one night while randomly poking around Crunchyroll’s library, and it’s a nice little retro-futuristic sci-fi that’s much better than its MAL score lets on. It’s set around the year 2000 in an alternate timeline Earth where humanity has developed powerful engines that allow for near-light speed travel, leading them to be targeted by an alien civilization bent on subjugating the planet. Rising up in opposition are two brilliant teenagers, one the son of the manufacturer of the powerful engines, and the other the son of astronauts killed in a space disaster years earlier, who work together with a quasi-governmental secret agency to drive them away. The art style is vibrant and colorful with a delightfully 1950s ray gun sci-fi vibe, and the story had lots of twists and turns and revelations straight out of a midcentury B-movie. 7/10

Initial D: Extra Stage – This two-episode OVA follows the driver of the blue Sileighty from Usui Pass as she faces down a challenge on the road and one in her love life. The first episode, Beyond Impact Blue, has her racing one of the Lan Evo drivers from the Emperors after he insults female drivers as a whole and challenges her to what he assumes will be an easy race for him. The second episode, Sentimental White, has her go on a date with one of the divers from the Night Kids, who suggests that he would want his girlfriend to give up a dangerous hobby like street racing, leading her to do some thinking about her life. I didn’t feel like the racing was as exciting as it was in the main series, and I don’t love this mangaka’s approach to writing female characters or romance content, but I did like watching Mako take control and set a path for herself. 7/10

Space Dandy – I don’t know what took me so long to watch this series, as an episodic space comedy directed by Shingo Natsume featuring dozens of top-tier animators and guest directors is completely my kind of food. It starts off a little dubiously with the title character monologuing about tits and asses before heading off to his favorite breastaurant, Boobies, but it was hard to stay mad at this charming idiot blundering his way around the galaxy with his talking vacuum cleaner robot sidekick and alien cat freeloader, Meow. Some of the episodes were fantastic sci-fi short stories that packed a ton of worldbuilding and creativity into 20 minutes, and others were just sort of okay monster-of-the-week episodes, with a thread of a overarching plot loosely connecting them. The art and animation varied a bit depending on who worked on the episode, but on the whole, it was very good work and a lot of fun to watch. 8/10

Gunbuster – The old anime nerds have been talking up this series ever since Discotek licensed it, and Crunchyroll added it to their catalog this week, so I watched it. If you watched Aim for the Ace and thought to yourself that it would be better if it had more mechs and titty fanservice, this is the show for you. The first episode is an almost frame-for-frame homage to the beginning episodes of Aim for the Ace, which is kind of amusing when all the girls were training to be mecha pilots to fight the alien horde. It had some solid space fights and substantial sci-fi scenarios, and I appreciated how big the stakes felt. I only wish there were fewer lovingly animated bouncing titties. 7/10

Sasaki and Miyano: Graduation – This is one of those movie sequels to a series that’s kind of hard to put a rating on. On the one hand, it’s more of the story I enjoy with the characters I love, and it’s great to see some of the moments I remember from the manga animated and acted out. On the other hand, however, it’s not structured like a movie in the least, and runs through the material pretty quickly, leaving the viewer little time to take in what they’ve seen. It’s basically just two more episodes smooshed together without an opening or ending song. If you like the series, you’ll like this, but it’s not a movie-length story with a dramatic arc that stands alone. 8/10

[astererer]

Aster has a slightly updated design and some extra details available :))

info below the cut bc lmao it’s a bit lengthy xx

Voiceclaim: Harriet Wheeler (lead singer of The Sundays)

Born into a family of flying taxi cabbies, like there’s at least one person every generation who grows up to be one — family has a tradition of each child receiving a Rookidee as their first pokemon when they’re around 5 years old, part so if they too join the family line of work they have a partner they trust and know inside and out, but mostly to ensure the kids in the family are used to being around pokemon and learn to treat them with respect from a young age. The gifted Rookidee is also the offspring of the parent’s Corviknight — Aster’s family values their ties and connections to one another and having your first pokemon being connected to your parent’s first pokemon? It’s a nice sentiment.

Used to be almost painfully shy as a child — while very talkative around family and more than comfortable hanging out with pokemon, whether her own or wild ones, Aster struggled with interacting with other people to the point that she dropped out of her initial gym challenge attempt at age 12, after winning a single gym badge. Not wanting to give up entirely, she spent a few years working on her confidence and tried again when she was 14, still riddled with anxieties but more mentally prepared and armed with coping strategies for if she started to feel overwhelmed. Was known for avoiding and running away from post match interviews.

Mostly took part in the gym challenge because she wanted the cash prize that comes with each victory, but as things progressed she found she really enjoyed battling for the sake of it. Originally had absolutely zero intention of reaching the finals and facing Leon, just to get all 8 gym badges then drop out and use the money gained to go travelling. Once she got her 8th badge, however, Aster did want to see just how far she could go within the league and somehow ended up facing Leon. And won. It was close, like virtually a draw, but a victory is a victory so she got crowned champion of Galar.

(Aster at 14 years old)

Then within 2 weeks she quit. Up and left. Packed her bags and ran away to travel (which was her original plan anyway). No notice to the league itself, Aster simply went home, informed her family that she couldn’t handle being in a role she didn’t really want in the first place, and disappeared off to Kalos. Turns out there’s a lot of pressure that comes with being a reigning champion, both in a business sense and due to everyone in the region knowing who you are, making it impossible to go anywhere without being hounded by strangers, and aster was like “I cannot fucking deal with this. Bye.”

Her disappearance resulted in a bit of a media frenzy for a few weeks, and when it became clear that Aster was not returning, Leon got his position as champion reinstated. Chairman Rose worked very hard to sweep everything under the rug to minimise any scandals/tabloid gossip, and decided it would be better to release a statement that she had voluntarily relinquished the title due to poor health, rather than the truth that she had simply ran away. Aster’s family weren’t too pleased with this, while grateful Rose ensured they would no longer be hounded by journalists, they now had to deal with total strangers approaching them to ask about their sick child who was not sick at all, and was in fact busy running around a foreign country getting up to god knows what. This died down on its own after a couple of months, and Aster was for the most part, none the wiser.

Spent the next few years exploring different regions before deciding to settle in Unova, at first in Nacrene city, where she crashed on a friend’s couch for a while in exchange for doing some odd jobs for her, but moved to Nimbasa after a year — the art scene in Nacrene is cool and all, but Nimbasa has so many things to do for fun and is also just a more central location. Despite having a more permanent home, though, she’s still prone to go on adventures — just doesn’t region hop as often anymore and limits her trips to a month or two at most. Still has not returned to Galar since her abdication, though she keeps in regular contact with her family. Her older brother even goes out of his way to visit her a couple times a year.

Her personality has changed significantly over the 10 years since she left Galar. Her constant travelling forced her to interact with total strangers far more frequently than if she stayed in Galar, and caused her to open up gradually and become more comfortable with socialising. She still prefers the company of pokemon to people, but is far more relaxed and deals better with crowded environments. Developed a bit of an “I’ll try anything once” kind of attitude. Her battling style has also loosened up considerably, which garnered a considerable amount of attention for her the first time she entered the PWT in Driftveil, where she spent each match running, jumping and throwing herself around her side of the pitch between commands, and almost got hit by a few wayward attacks in the process.

Technically unemployed. Currently makes most of her income by visiting Black City every few days to battle other trainers in the tower, and helps out an artist friend back in Nacrene City as her assistant and occasional courier, should larger works need to be transported outside the city for an exhibition being held further afield. Aster prefers this lifestyle to a traditional 9-5, as it allows her to more or less do whatever she likes, whenever she likes. Also she’s never had a “normal” job before and things having one sounds incredibly boring, and what’s the point in doing anything that could be boring.

Miscellaneous info :))

Natural brunette — started dying her hair after quitting the league in the hopes it would make it harder for people to recognise her. Overtime she just started to enjoy trying different styles and colour combos out.

Loves movies. Like outside of pokemon, Films are one of her favourite things in the world. Since moving to Nimbasa City, Aster has been building up a collection of blu rays and dvds, to the point that she has entire shelves full of them, floor to ceiling. Any genre is good in her eyes, she’ll watch anything whether it’s a corny romcom or a surrealist horror. Has also started investing in better sound systems and a projector, and is currently in the process of turning her apartment’s living room into a home cinema sort of deal.

While she adores cat-like pokemon of all varieties, she just cannot get behind Alolan and Kantonian Meowths and Persians. She jokes that they’re supporters of classism while her Perrserker bestie is the people’s cat. There really isn’t a deep reason for her dislike other than Persians aren’t Perrserkers and neither they nor their pre-evolutions are as fluffy or scruffy as the Galarian equivalents. It’s a personal bias.

Her team only has 3 permanent members; Mango, Muffin and Goji. The other 3 pokemon are switched out with a different combination every other week, so that Aster can try out different battling strategies and also just so she can spend time with all her creatures. They all have nicknames.

Dislikes social media but that doesn’t mean she never uses it — usually it’s just to announce that she’ll be participating in an upcoming tournament then radio silence for months. She likes to keep her private life private when it comes to the online world.

Maternal grandpa was a painter, and he passed an interest in the arts down to her mother, who passed it on to her. While neither Aster nor her mother are artists in their own rights, a lot of Aster’s childhood memories involve being taken to galleries and exhibitions. Both have decent knowledge of art history and some very Strong Opinions about specific artists and movements. Their weekly phone calls are almost always lengthy discussions about a specific painting, a film one of them saw recently, music, or what kind of clothes are currently making a comeback in the trend cycle.

Assisting her friend in Nacrene City has encouraged Aster to try creating her own works, though she’s yet to take the actual plunge. She doesn’t have the space in her Nimbasa apartment for a studio, nor has she purchased any of the materials she thinks she needs. One day she’ll take some ideas from her sketchbook to canvas. One day.

[babysealfan]

this looks fun! number 25 for fexi 😊

thank u for the prompt bestie!! I COULD have taken this to a very angsty place so I think I deserve credit for NOT doing that.....instead this got a little smutty. enjoy!

25. Exchanging Letters

Fezco had tried to break up with Lexi when she left for college.

She said no.

He had insisted that she should focus on her education and having fun, and maybe she would meet someone new while she was there.

She had insisted that she could divide her attention equally, and that there was no man in the world better than him.

So he'd sighed and let her win. He was relieved, truly—no part of him wanted them to break up, he just thought he'd give her an out, if she wanted it. Clearly, she didn't.

And Fezco turned out to be the best long distance boyfriend in the world. He didn't demand her attention, or insist that she call him every day to check in. She still did it anyway, of course, but he didn't demand anything from her. He'd text her good morning and good night, ask about her classes and her friends, and indulge in sexy FaceTimes when she called him after getting home from parties. He'd surprised her on campus for her birthday and ordered food to the library when he knew she'd be up studying late.

But Lexi's favorite part of their long distance relationship was the letters.

She had framed the first letter and displayed it on her desk, a constant reminder of how loved she was. The rest she kept in a box tucked in her closet, along with other little sentimental bits and pieces of their relationship. She'd go through her little box whenever she was missing Fezco more than usual—generally, about every other day.

Her last letter to him had been short, sweet, and to the point.

Dear Fezco,

I miss you. I can't wait to see you (two weeks!!!). I included a special treat with this letter....call me when you get it.

Love,

Lexi

One of her friends had gotten a polaroid camera, and Lexi had borrowed it to take a few risqué shots for Fezco. The mechanics of taking nudes on a polaroid turned out to be much more difficult than Lexi anticipated, and so she'd had to enlist the help of her roommate to get the perfect shot.

Fezco had greatly enjoyed the present, though he questioned how close Lexi was to her roommate, seeing how comfortable they were taking each other's nudes. He didn't care how close he was to any male friend, there was no way he'd let one of them help him take pics of his junk.

Fezco wanted to return the favor, though he knew a polaroid picture of his dick couldn't compare to the work of art that was Lexi's nude picture (and either way, she very much preferred videos).

His best option was to use his words.

He did his research, picking up some romance novels at Barnes and Noble and searching on the internet. He found a fanfiction website where, apparently, amateur writers published some pretty graphic porn. A lot of them had some good ideas that he was now looking forward to trying out. Still, baby steps...

Dear Lexi,

I miss you so much baby. I'm just thinkin bout all the things I wanna do to you when I get to see you again. Your pic was hot as fuck but ain't nothin compare to the real thing.

I be thinkin bout you in that pretty pink panty set you got. How you'd look tied up to my bed by some of those pretty hair ribbons of yours, letting me have my way with you. How many times I could make you cum before you start begging for mercy.

I also be thinkin bout how pretty you look when you ridin me. With your pretty titties bouncing and you got your head thrown back and you moanin so loud the neighbors can hear. I think about you moanin a lot, actually, think I might be addicted to that sound.

Call me when you get this, maybe I can hear it again.

Love,

Fezco

Fezco got a call from Lexi at 10 pm a few days later.

"Hi, baby," she said in a sultry voice.

"Did you get my letter?" he asked, anticipation thick in his voice.

"I did," Lexi said softly. "I read it at lunch, actually."

"Oh," Fezco's mouth dropped open.

"Yeah, it was interesting being so turned on while I was eating mac and cheese," she said with a giggle. "Where'd you learn to write like that?"

"Baby, they got hella resources like that on the internet. People be doing crazy shit," he said. "Matter fact, I got some ideas."

"Yeah?" she said. "I think you should tell me about them."

[erigold13261]

📢Psychonauts NSR AU, Chapter 10: VS. Lucky📢

After fighting 1010 and their manager Captain Oleander. Bunk Bed Junction headed back to the sewers.

“Hey Gristol.” Sasha greeted.

“Wow… that is… that is a lot of scribble you got there.” Milla pointed out on the massive piles of notes that have several lines.

“I know. A one-of-a-kind musician awaits.” Gristol replied. He turned on a screen revealing a fair-skinned woman, she had red hair in the style of an octopus, and wore an out fit with pink and purple on one side and blue and white on the other, the skrt was made out of playing cards, and had what appeared to be octopus tentacles on the back of her outfit. Sasha was a bit unnerved on the image of that woman.

“I’ve seen her… she's… very loopy.” Milla spoke.

“That’s Lucky for you. Lucky’s known to be the eccentric artist of NSR. Nobody knows what goes on her mind. Well, nobody but Sasha, I recken.” Gristol explained.

“Huh?” Milla asked in confusion.

“Sasha didn’t tell you?” Gristol asked.

“Tell me what?” Milla asked.

“Lucky and I… had some… history together.” Sasha shyly explained.

“What?” Milla responded.

“They used to be in a band together.” Gristol pointed out. Milla was stunned.

“What? They were in a band once?” Milla responded with shock.

“And if anyone knows her best, it’s probably Sasha.” Gristol replied.

“She… she was your ex-bandmate, Sasha?” Milla asked.

“Yeah. We didn’t leave on good terms…” Sasha spoke.

“That rules out the possibility of dropping by as a visitor, then.” Gristol spoke. “But don’t worry. I’ve got a plan. There’s to be an exhibition at her gallery. She’ll be there, so head over and I’ll make sure the security system won’t be bother to you.” Gristol explained. “But be careful. Lucky is without a doubt the most dangerous artist NSR has to offer. There’s a reason why Ford keeps her as the CEO’s right-hand woman.” Gristol explained.

“Got it, Gristol. You ready Sasha?” Milla asked. Sasha stayed silent. “Sasha?” She asked again.

“Oh. Yeah.” Sasha replied. Milla first headed out. But Sasha stayed.

“Sasha? You coming?” Milla called. Sasha didn’t respond. Lucky… was… well… gonna be hard for Sasha to face. But, he had to face her. And it was for the best.

“Coming.” Sasha responded.

~

When they arrived at Dream Fever, Lucky’s district. They saw art. Like, lots of it. Sasha a bit disturbed but headed inside.

“Sasha? You haven’t been speaking this much.” Milla asked with worry.

“I know… it’s just… I haven’t seen her since…” Sasha spoke. Lucky and Sasha… they met at college. They did art… art for Dream Fever. The more Sasha looked around. The more painful it was… but he had to. He had to face her. “Let’s go.” Sasha spoke as they entered.

~

When they arrived. They saw a blue and purple hallway of art… and a chair that was blue on the left side, and purple on the right side. And behind that chair was a statue of Ford. Leaning on it. Suddenly, a voice spoke.

“Why hello, Sasha.” The voice spoke.

“Hello? Lucky? Where are you?” Sasha asked.

“Take a seat, Sasha.” The voice responded.

“Take… take a seat?” Sasha asked. “Oooh. Right.” Sasha realized.

“Remember this chair? Or has it fled past the walls of your memories?” The voice asked. “Not that I would be surprised if it has. A chair, by design, is never made to hold such sentimental values. This chair was once yours, Sasha. But you threw it away.” The voice added.

“Lucky…I…” Sasha tried to speak.

“Don’t worry. All is fine. You are forgiven. Now… lay yourself upon this vessel and accept my gift.” The voice responded. “Feel the sands of time flow through your body as you once had.” The voice explained.

“Yeah, uh… seems like the chair is pretty occupied with Ford right now.” Sasha spoke.

“He embraces me for who I am. I love him, but a chair without a sitter is left with no purpose to exist.” The voice explained. Milla looked confused on what was going on.

“Hey, Sasha. You can see her? Where is she?” Milla asked.

“She’s right there.” Sasha spoke.

“Where?” Milla asked.

Suddenly, the chair started spinning, revealing Lucky.

“Ugh. Just as I thought, you share none of Sasha’s artistic perception.” Lucky spoke in annoyance. “Girl, do you not see Ford holding the back rest to his chest? Hello? Do you not get what it is meant to represent?” Lucky asked.

“Uh… no?” Milla asked.

“Uuuuugh! Sasha. Why must you pick such a… pedestrian girl! You—”. Lucky catched her breath, and turned around. “Sasha, remember college? Remember when I was the tectonic plates and you were the sea? The heat we channelled when your waves broke upon my earth was euphoric. We were untouchable! Do you not miss those times? Do you not yearn for that feeling again? Instead, you left me for this… this girl? Have you dropped your standards?” Lucky asked.

“Hey!” Milla responded.

“That is sad. Just… just sad.” Lucky spoke. “But you are here now, you are in front of me. We can save each other, as today, we celebrate your redemption, Sasha.” Lucky spoke. “So open your mind, sink into my gaze, and let yourself be reborn again!” She chanted. The fight was on.

~

“This girl you chose is a mistake. She is fire. Fire and sea do not mix.” Lucky spoke.

“Uh… it’s Milla, ok?” Milla asked with slight annoyance as she parried a light that came from a hand.

Sasha and Milla parried lights coming from hands, as well as running from actual hand statues that chased them. Milla also chased Lucky around as she jumped from portrait to portrait. When they struck her right. She transported to a glass wall, which Milla broke. Reach closer to Lucky.

~

“I feel an immense energy between you and that… pedestrian girl.” Lucky grunted. “She does not deserve this. She does not deserve any of this! If I can not have you, Sasha, the neither can she!” Lucky screamed as she summoned four glowing hands. Causing a bright flash of light, to which the rock duo covered their eyes.

~

When Milla opened her eyes, she saw herself in a purple hallway. Surrounded by several arms and legs, and Sasha was nowhere in sight. Meanwhile Sasha was in a blue room, surrounded by confetti.

“Uh… Sasha? What’s going on? Where are you?!” Milla asked in panic.

“I’m still here Milla! Don’t panic, she’s done this before. We just need to keep playing as we were.” Sasha reassured. Now things got serious.

Milla strucked first attacking Lucky while dodging from legs and arms that were trying to kill her.

“What happened to you, Sasha? We used to birth countless worlds together! Remember Rupturika?!” Lucky asked as Sasha was slowly dodging her attacks.

“How could I forget? You set my hair on fire.” Sasha responded.

“You’re upset about that?” Lucky asked with slight harm to her feelings. She transported to where Milla was. To which Milla attacked her. Until Lucky teleported away, to where Milla saw another glass wall, and broke it apart.

“What? No. No! No! No!” Lucky shrieked. “How can your links be ever so strong?!” Lucky asked. “Unless… unless the two of you formed your bond through mutual hate?! Your hatred of me?! I…” Lucky asked. She bumped into the statue of Ford… and immediately pushed it away.

~

“You’re one of them Sasha. You fear me!” Lucky laughed. “As you should! For no one escapes the Diva’s realm!” She said as she transported Sasha and Milla to a broken dimension.

Lucky teleported away to Sasha, who immediately parried the lights to attack her. Lucky was laughing. She was laughing in jelousy, rage, sorrow… all of them. Until she fled. This time, Sasha broke the glass wall.

“Sasha! I think I see you at the other end of the tunnel!” Milla spoke.

“I do too! Let’s go!” Sasha replied.

~

As Milla and Sasha reached the end towards the tunnel. Lucky was done with this.

“Sasha, you were nothing before you met me! I handpicked you, molded you, sculpted you into the man you are today! Do you really think you can reach this level of briliance all by yourself? Hah! I made you! And the greatest thing you ever accomplished in your life was to get me to notice you!” Lucky taunted.

Milla and Sasha reached at the end of the tunnel. Where they broke the glass together. Reuniting at last.

~

“You… you two? How?” Lucky asked.

“Face it, Lucky! Sasha’s better han you.” Milla spoke.

“There’s only one thing left to do Milla.” Sasha told the guitarist.

“Let’s show her, Sasha!” Milla said. She set her guitar on attack mode, while Zuke prepared his drum sticks.

“BUNKA”

“JUNKA”

“SHAKALAKA-BAM!” they shouted. Causing a blue light to attack at the diva. Which caused her to fall.

~

“You. You and everyone else are just intimidated by my talent. All of you are cowards! Always!” Lucky cried, suddenly she teleported herself into a white room. “There is no one. Not even him. None in this world to weave their senses with mine.” She said in the void.

“I should go.” Sasha spoke. Milla wanted to say something, but agreed on what he had to do.

“Go.” Milla responded. Sasha left and entered the white void… to talk to Lucky.

~

“Everything is nothing. Why should I continue to entertain this void?” Lucky questioned.

“Lucky?” Sasha called out.

“So much to do yet nowhere to go. I do not belong here.” Lucky monologued.

“Lucky, please—”

“The earth. Sea. Fire. All for naught.” Lucky spoke within the tears.

Sasha found her, and picked her up. Lucky saw him, and decided to exit.

“The stars… they are so beautiful. I will close my eyes now. Goodbye.” Lucky ended as the two left.

~

“Lucky, I’m sorry.” Sasha spoke. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be the person you wanted me to be. When we first met, you immediately saw potential in me. I gave you hope that perhaps, I could eventually see the world as you did.” Sasha spoke. “But I’m not like you. I wish I was, but I’m not.” He explained.

“But if we just try again—”

“Lucky, please.” Sasha interrupted. “I was… a coward for running away. I know that now. But seeing you today reminded me of how alive you can truly be when you’re performing your craft.” Sasha explained. “I know how terrifying it must be to face the possibility that you might never meet another like-minded person in this world.” Lucky covered her ears. “But your better than that. You don’t need anybody else to complete you. You complete yourself.” Sasha explained.

“It is not comfortable to hear this. I do not think I am strong enough to—”

“You have always been stronger than me. If anyone can do it, it’s you, Hollis.” Sasha spoke. He looked back at Milla. “Well, I have to go now. Take care.” He spoke. “Milla’s not pedestrian, by the way. If you know her as I do, I think you’ll like her too.” Sasha finished as he and Milla left the gallery… satisfied. Lucky (or in this case Hollis) couldn’t help… but smile.

[glittertrail]

Happy astromonday!!

For the last in the Mars asks, I have a story about the earliest picture from Mars' surface. This was taken in July 1965 by Mariner 4.

Mariner 4 was an orbiter, it didn't land on Mars, but in 1965 it sent back the first digital images from Mars. Sent over 8 hours to the NASA computers, it comprised of 240,000 numbers, bits of binary code, to make up the 40,000 patches of colour on its surface.

When the code was received back on Earth, the picture was likely to take a while to develop. But the scientists were too impatient to wait. So they printed all the numbers onto long, narrow strips of paper, stuck them to a wall in order, and coloured in each number using a paint-by-numbers method. This eventually created a piece of art you can see with today's ask, a replica of a picture taken from the surface of Mars!!

It really struck me again the love people have had for space and for Mars throughout history. This was 40,000 numbers that were coloured by hand, and how beautiful is the image!!

This week I have a question for you!! Tell me about something you've loved creating or taking part in. This can be art, writing, music, a project, or something else entirely.

I hope you've liked this little series on Mars, have a fantastic day!! 🪐

Happy astromonday guess who had to come back to the office bc she realized at home that she left her canvas bag in her chair, like a dumbass? 🤦‍♀️

I love that story so much 🥰

Things I've loved creating under the cut bc I got sentimental and it turned kind of long lol

In uni we had to make a self portrait short film talking about ourselves. I, of course, waited for the absolute last minute to film mine because I have no understanding of time management (and I was also editing a tv pilot that literally took all of the time me and my friends had back then bc that thing was worth about half of our grade) so I spent an entire weekend rolling w a suitcase through all of my favorite parts of Madrid w the help of one of my cousins and a friend, changing at various bathrooms so I could have different outfits (brought in said suitcase) so it didn't look like I filmed it all in two days, I took inspiration on one of my favorite poems (the artist creed of Aquiles Nazoa) for the monologue and in the video of Vanessa Hudgens in Lisbon for find your California for the imagery. It works both as a self portrait and a love letter to the city and the people that took that weekend to help me (either by filming me or helping with the suitcase or to make sure random passerbys didn't fuck up a take). It was Eurovision weekend and we ended filming by getting drunk at the flat of my friend watching the last few performances.

A sentimental thing but I cajoled about 15 cousins, a very shy brother, two German exchange sisters and an uncle with a 4yo into participating in a mother's day video. Decided literally two days before mother's day, i have family living currently in six countries. And absolutely no one knows how to follow instructions. But it did succeed in making all of the aunts (and my mother) happy. My grandma didn't remember the video when i asked her about it (but apparently when somebody else did when she was a little more lucid she was pretty sure it had to be the idea of one of my eldest cousins🤣) but the wife of my grandpa (who i never called my grandmother but I was closer to than my grandma) did cry bc I made a point to name her in my part of the video. I spent an entire night editing three versions (one for my dad's side of the family, one for my mother's and one in particular for my mom that was my brother, our German sisters and me).

Glitteraks and the drag race Spain reference posts. I am actually kind of shy online lol so the glitterasks were my attempt at both keeping the Sunday horrors at bay for me and the few-ish people I talked to here when i stopped being deadly afraid of talking to people and make some new friends. Mostly I am proud of being able to keep it up for a year. It was a total of about... 60 questions? If I'm not mistaken? And at it's busiest I think the list got to be 85 people. The reference posts are included there because they were very self indulgent, i can admit to that, but new episodes come on Sundays too so I spent a few Sundays nursing migraines of my own making for spending entire days staring at screens between glitteraks, episode watching and reference post making, because my mental deadline for said posts was Monday evening and I do have a job 🤣 despite what the chronically online behavior might suggest

How about you, Juno? What are some of the things you're proudest of creating or being a part of?😊

[a-myriad-of-stars]

When Maggie was about to turn 8, she’d already met the turtles at the playground near her brownstone in Greenwich Village.

She was planning an awesome party for her birthday, and invited everyone in her 2nd grade class to come, as well as the turtles.

The only ones to show up were Leo and Donnie.

Splinter told Leo he couldn’t go, and that it’d be too dangerous to be seen by other children and risk exposure. But this was Leo’s best friend we’re talking about! So after bribing Raph and Mikey to cover for him, Leo dragged Donnie to the party.

Only there was no party.

What there was, was a very torn up Maggie, sitting in the bay window, crying her eyes out. Seeing Leo and Donnie approaching, she dried her eyes and opened the front door.

Leo explained he couldn’t stay long, but he had a gift-poorly wrapped in an old newspaper- and she had to open it right this second.

What Maggie found beneath that musty newspaper was a well loved, scuffed and chipped, Jupiter Jim figure from Leo’s own collection.

“Why’d you give me a beat up old toy from a series I’ve never seen before?”

Leo puffed up a bit at her pickiness. “This Jupiter Jim figure was the first in my collection, and it’s my most precious possession.”

Maggie quirked her brow. “So why give it to me if it’s so precious?”

“Well, because besides my brothers, you’re the only friend I’ve got, so that makes you precious to me too. So I figured my most precious things should be together.”

Maggie’s watery smile wasn’t lost on Leo, and she immediately gave him half her cake, as a thank you for showing up, and for such a sentimental gift.

She held onto that Jupiter Jim figure, keeping him in her backpack. Even when she was kidnapped by Draxum, experimented on, and then given to Big Mama, she miraculously held onto the figure. When all felt lost or dark, she’d take out the toy, and remember there were people in the world who cared for her, and missed her. People she’d do anything to get back to.

When it was the twins’ birthday, Maggie went all out. She’d missed Raph and Mikey’s birthdays, so she got them presents as well; Raph’s first teddy bear, and Mikey’s first real art supplies pack from the scholastic catalog. Donnie’s love of science was bones deep even at 8, so his gift was a chemistry set, also from the scholastic catalog.

Leo’s gift was something Maggie found in a thrift store while out with her dad, and knew it would be perfect.

“Okay, so before you open it,” Maggie said, “you have to know. There’s no one besides you guys that I consider my friends anymore. And, the JJ figure you gave me gives me courage to be myself and keep my head up, even when people make fun of me, or are mean. Your gift helps me every day. So I hope this helps you somehow, even if it’s just knowing i care about you. You never know when something small might make a difference.”

The box in leo’s hand contained a thermos. But not just any thermos. A limited edition, Lou Jitsu Hot Soup thermos.

There were no words for the way Leo felt upon opening his gift, so all he could think to do was hug Maggie as tight as he could and scream “THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU” at the top of his lungs. He cherished that thermos and the friendship that brought it to him.

When Maggie went missing halfway to her 10th birthday, Leo was inconsolable. 

That was his best friend. And she was just…gone? No, he couldn’t accept that. Even when Maggie’s parents stopped looking, Leo never did. The week after she vanished, Leo drew a map that led to the lair, and stuffed it inside his Lou Jitsu thermos, knowing the airtight seal would protect the paper from the elements. He snuck out to the park where he and Maggie first met, and buried the thermos under the initials “L + M” he’d carved in the wooden side of the sandbox some time back. With a kitchen knife, Leo circled the “M”, and drew an arrow pointing into the dirt, directly over where thermos was buried. He kept the cup separate, as a way to remember his friend, and hope she’d come home one day.

Eventually, Maggie escaped Big Mama’s clutches, and found her way back to her old neighborhood. She debated for an hour whether or not she’d knock on her parent’s door, and eventually decided against it. Before she left, she passed by the sandbox, and noticed the worn initials on the side, along with the circle and arrow. She dug in the dirt, found the thermos, and the note inside, which led her to the old lair. The entrance had collapsed from the fight with shredder two years prior, but Leo’d thought of that, leaving a blue spray paint line leading to the new location.

Maggie followed the line, tripping a sensor in the process, which notified Donnie, who told Leo. Leo bolted in the direction the sensor mentioned, and found Maggie.

He was skeptical at first, until she showed him the JJ figure.

It was because of Leo’s gift that Maggie held on to hope, and it was because of Maggie’s gift to Leo that he was able to lead her home.

[wishful-soda]

first of all, i was surprised by the chapter notification! missed you so much! couldn't translate my thoughts once i finish reading, but rn i have a lot to say. sorry if my english sucks 😆

SPOILER ⚠️⚠️⚠️

last month i was re-reading the whole fic (i downloaded it on my kindle to highlight my favorite parts hehe) and i found suspicious the way she always shows her fear of accidents

so i linked with the "mommy issues" we all suspected she had and started thinking that'd possibly happened a fatal accident with her mother

just didn't expected her dad gave up her. kinda made me sad :(

but let's talk about the end... i felt the emotions and had to stifle my screams. we went from "would it work if we were more than friends?" to "he doesn't know anything about me" 💀

the fact for ME is: all we have is lots of sexual tension and two people who are realizing their """"hate""""" is changing to affection, cause they clearly fit together!

but none of them know each other so well....

ok, she knows his family and gets along with all of them, but she never asked him about his childhood, his path to f1, his other dreams, yk? also he never even asked ANYTHING about her family or her life at all

in chapter 7 (monaco - part 1) daniel sees her talking about her career in formula 1 with his father and thinks:

"How did I miss this for two years? How did I not notice any of this about her? Too fucking self-absorbed..."

but then he does NOTHING to change it

in other fanfics they'd throw the growth of the couple in trash, put them dating and end the fic. but i like the care you have with their relationship.

relationship is about trusting and knowing the one besides you. so if they don't have these most important pillars then there's no point asking for them to be a couple.

all of this just makes me more excited for the following chapters!!!!!

i'm listening to "last kiss" by taylor swift as i write this so i'm more sentimental than usual

thank you for this work of art, ms soda!!!

kisses from brazil 😘😘😘🇧🇷

hi love!!

Okay first let me say; you downloaded it to your kindle?! WHAT! How?! How did I not even know that this was a thing?! And you did it so that you could highlight your favorite parts??!! I'm seriously going to cry because this made me feel like a real writer and that makes me emotional so thank you for sharing this information with me 😭😭😭

Bestie. You're following it perfectly, you've got them absolutely nailed. Daniel knows he needs to do better, he needs to learn more about her as a person, but it's so much easier to not and to pretend he doesn't care right? And it's easer to walk away that way, right? So maybe it's a bit of self preservation?

Also thank you SO much for pointing out that they simply don't have what they need to be a couple yet. They're not there, they're just wildly physically attracted to each other and very slowly that's growing and changing into something more, but still, there has to be a foundation for a relationship. LOVE that you said this and the way you said it, you're a genius babe, that's exactly it.

Thank you so much for this ask babe, it really truly made my day and it really made my heart happy to hear that the layers and intricacies of their relationship are coming through and all of that isn't just falling flat on the page. THANK YOU!!!

kisses back at cha from the good ol' US of A! 😘😘😘😘 (gross I know why would anyone want that)

[crisp-sweet-pink-lady]

Summer of Strawberry Shortcake: Berry Blossom Festival

The first official post-movie episodes (Cooking Up Fun was released after the movie had its theatrical release but before its DVD release), and the episodes that convinced me to give SSC03 a second chance back in the day.

This is also the first set of episodes to not have Strawberry pulling out her Remembering Book to set up the episodes, instead being inspired to remember the events of the previous Berry Blossom Festival by this season's blossoms and Custard's own memories of how it all almost went wrong.

I had this thought while watching the movie, and the first episode here only confirmed it, but Raspberry Torte is basically Peppermint Fizz 2.0. I can 100% see the whole manners plot playing out exactly the same with Peppermint Fizz in Raspberry's place, down to needing to be tricked by a party (in this case, two parties) to get the lesson across. However, while Peppermint Fizz tends to be prickly as her base personality, Raspberry Torte only bristles when instigated, usually by Angel Cake.

But back when I first watched this DVD, I had only seen one episode with Peppermint Fizz, so I didn't pick up on any of that. Raspberry did become my immediate favorite, though; I found her attitude refreshing, plus she got a very bouncy song. On top of that, I loved her character design, which actually looked better than the official art (the disconnect between the cartoon designs and the official art was one of the things that turned me off of the series at first).

The first ep shows the downside of expanding the cast, as there are scenes were all six characters have to add their assent before the scene can continue, which gets a bit tedious. The second episode, on the other hand, is the perfect place to show off the full cast, since a festival is a believable location to have everyone together, and since most of the characters are relegated to being in the audience, it wouldn't be that hard to work everyone in, either. We only get a slightly extended cast, though. And it was weird that Honey Pie Pony was at the festival but didn't get to do anything, not even try to be the MC, like she usually is.

The second episode is a smidge rehashy, as the 'character cheats to win a prize they made up' plot was already covered in Win Some, Lose Some, but as this is the first 2D appearance of The Peculiar Purple Pieman and Sour Grapes, and since it included Dregs, I'll forgive it.

It was nice that Huck got a big song this time, since he hasn't had too much to do this season. I also liked seeing the quick scene of him and Custard (he gave her a drink).

Sidenote: I find it interesting that both Custard and Sour Grapes expressed similar sentiments about the plots: Custard: I think something will go wrong. Like it always does. Sour Grapes: I don't like this place. Every time we come here, something bad happens. (And they were both right!)

Both the movie and this DVD don't have any special features, which is disappointing. However, if I recall correctly, the next one has some character profiles of upcoming characters. We shall see.

Lastly, some notes from the scripts: when Ginger Snap is hemming and hawing, it's descriped as "hesitant; still a motormouth," and during the no-manners party, Orange Blossom has a line that is "shyly rude."

[allechoes]

sage i.

Sage should’ve known better than to expect to take his first trip out to visit his parent’s place of rest on his own. Still, even after a couple of weeks since that night he noticed Val finding ways to keep an eye on him when he did by chance leave the room, even if it was only for a moment or two. While he never wanted to use the world ‘smothered’ for how he felt around his boyfriend, it was the closest he could compare it to.

There were a lot of things that Val could hand Sage on a silver platter to give him a carefree, happy life. From the highest quality of art supplies any poor boy from the wrong side of the tracks could ask for to an offer to pay for the entirety of his post-high school education. So much was offered to him with so little asked in return that Sage didn’t know how he was ever to repay any of said kindness. Even with all that, all the offerings and words of encouragement Sage still found himself wishing so desperately for the one thing neither Val nor his parents could procure for him - life flowing back through the veins of his parents. It was that very same desire, just to see them again, to sit there and play cards with his dad while he talked about work and taught him invaluable lessons about life and love. He wanted to help his mom with the dishes, to hear her laugh when he splashed her with water as he rinsed the plates handed to him. He wanted to relive the familiar feeling of coming home from school fingers interlaced with Val’s and the wide smile on his mother’s face when Sage’s own smile mimicked hers.

There was solace in that, he tried to tell himself. At least his parents got to see him experience true happiness and love before he lost them. They’d never get to see the day Sage graduated high school when the majority of his time there was a series of uphill battles, nor would they get to experience any of the art shows he’d put on in the future thanks to the freedom of a new city that would soon come to him. They’d never get to see how his love for Val would grow. They’d never get to hear the vows he’d spend days on end perfecting that still couldn’t hold a weight to the strength of the love he felt in his heart for this man. They’d never get to feel that proud and awe inspired feeling of seeing their son make it in all aspects of the word. Sage had found the very same man who would give him the love he got to spend his whole life surrounded and molded by, and if nothing else at least Sam and Rose got to see a little bit of that.

That sentiment alone wasn’t enough to get him through, however. At this rate Sage feared that nothing ever really would. It became abundantly clear to him that the loss he felt, weighing him down, was always going to be there. Some days he would be better and bearing that weight and honoring the pain rather than hoping to simply ignore it someday.

In part, it was due to that that Sage found himself in the passenger seat of Val’s luxury car heading to their resting place. The stereo played some mix of songs his parents would always get up and dance in their tiny living room to as they drove, with not more than one or two words shared between them the whole way. He was thankful that Val and his parents both were patient with him and never pressed him to really speak unless he had the energy to. Sage wound up resorting to simple, small touches to let Val know he was still in there somewhere and not lost within his thoughts again.

This time it wasn’t a simple tap tap of his fingers against denim that drew Val’s attention to his mate. Sage full on caressed the inside of his leg, squeezing it near where the muscle was the fullest. A quick glance to his right showed him Sage half sagging over in his seat, eyes shut and very quietly murmuring the words to the song playing in the car. Sage hadn’t even realized he did anything when the first few chords of his mom’s favorite song began to play.

The weight he felt then was as present as ever, demanding to be felt.

A part of Sage was tempted to say something - to turn them around and head back to his house, to apologize for having him drive them out there, that he wasn’t feeling up to it anymore - but not a single word, contrary or otherwise, came from him. Instead choosing to give in to the guilt he felt over causing all this extra work for his boyfriend, Sage couldn’t back down now, not when they’d already drove all this way. Not when his parents were probably expecting him to visit any day now.

Up until meeting Val, Sage had never given much thought to the afterlife. He merely figured that wherever it was that he ended up had to be better than the cards he’d been dealt this go round. Things were so much different now and it was all Sage could do to hope that where it was that his parents were now that they were in peace and that they were together. He had to believe that. There was no way that after experiencing this intense connection with Val that it would simply come to an end when they were to pass.

He’d hardly noticed how close they’d been getting to the place until Val turned the car down an unexpected side road. A short drive down the gravel road brought them to a clearing where Val killed the engine. He drew in a large breath, holding it a bit longer than normal and repeated the same process a couple more times as his therapist always taught him to when he found himself about to stress. A short moment later and Val’s voice broke the silence that had since fallen between them asking if Sage was ready. The short answer was no - he was not ready for this. Sage wasn’t ready for any of this. He sighed and gave him a slight nod before climbing out of the car.

They walked together hand in hand in silence til Sage could see off in the distance where they were headed. He could just make out the familiar tree that Val had shown him whilst describing the plot of land his father had scouted out for Sage. That weight came back then. The finality of actually coming here worried him, because visiting his parent’s graves meant that they really were buried six feet under there, and that meant that that night wasn’t a horrific dream and the days since were his reality.

Sage didn’t even know what he was supposed to say, or do. Yet as each step he took brought them closer one thing became abundantly clear. It was a conversation he felt he truly needed to have on his own. Once he drew that conclusion Sage tugged on their joined hands and held it close to his chest between them.

“Hey, Val?” Sage looked on at Val as his attention was brought to him. “Um,” he paused, already feeling bad for the request he was about to make. “Actually, do you think it’s alright if I do this alone? Talk to them I mean. It’s not… it’s not because of you, I just kinda think I need this.” It wasn’t often that Sage felt comfortable really putting his foot done one way or the other, instead finding it much easier at all times to merely roll with the punches and accept wherever it was that he wound up. This scenario called for it though, he felt.

Val obliged of course, giving his forehead a soft kiss and murmuring a sweet nothing to him before retreating back to the car. Sage promised to call for him if he needed anything. ‘Anything at all,’ Val had said.

Once Sage was alone in the meadow he walked the last few yards towards a pair of ornately designed, yet still humble headstones recently buried in the earth. There they were, the names of his parents. Along read their birthdays and a shared quote between the two that Sage had picked out. He’d have to give Mr. and Mrs. Arsenault another thank you as it all turned out far more beautiful than he could’ve imagined. Most importantly, Sage knew that they’d be happy there, being one with the Earth like they felt they were intended to all along.

Thinking about it only sent Sage to his knees in the grass between them, delicate eyes welling up with tears. Nowadays everything made Sage cry; so much so that he’d begun to get used to his bloodshot eyes staring back at him in the mirror every day. He only hoped his parents would understand.

Sage brought his long sleeve adorned hands up to his cheeks and wiped away the tears that had started to run and took a deep breath. He could do this. He would do this.

“Hey Dad,” he glanced down to his mother’s headstone to his left and brushed his fingers across the engraving. “Hi Momma.” It didn’t occur to him before how weird this was going to be. It wasn’t as though he’d be getting any sort of response. Never again.

“I- ” Sage stopped himself and coached his breathing once more, even moving his hands in soothing in and out motions as he tried to catch his breath again. Once he felt like he could handle this, he thought of his parents watching over him, how his mom would rub his shoulder and encourage him to take his time, that they’d be there when he was ready. It was that made up sentiment that eventually did lead Sage to his strength to speak again.

“I just miss you guys is all. I know we shouldn’t hold hate in our hearts, but I hate the universe for taking you from me. I hate it,” he almost yelled, as if the universe itself would hear and react to his anger. “There’s days where I’ll wake up and expect to hear you guys in the kitchen cooking and, and laughing together like always and I wake up so upset when I realize it was only another dream. It’s not fair!” Sage cried, full on hugging his knees to his chest crying and his thoughts began to spiral just like that - just like they always did through the guilt and pain. “I’m so sorry. I- I had a headache that night, um, that’s why we went on the walk. If- if I didn’t say anything Val might’ve noticed in time and we could’ve saved you.” He couldn’t even bring himself to keep his voice down, unaware if Val was listening in on him from the car or wherever it was that he went off to.

Sage didn’t say anything else for a few minutes, simply allowing himself the time to cry and let it out. That’s what his mom always tried to tell him - ‘a boy with a heart that big needs to let some of it out time and again, honey.’

“I’m sorry I didn’t get to say goodbye,” he murmured once he’d gathered his composure yet again. His fingers picked at a couple different leaves on the ground, taking bit after bit out of it til he’d accumulated a small pile between his legs. “We deserved that much at least.” He picked up the small pile he’d made and threw it into the air as a child does with fall leaves, watching as the wind took a few pieces away but most fell back on him.

He sighed then, feeling defeated. Somewhere, something in him hoped that he’d feel their presence with him there, but the world still felt just as empty as it had since that night. Before he knew it Sage had laid down, nevermind that it was right above where his mother was buried. He didn’t think she’d mind too much.

Sage had no idea how long it’d been that he’d been out there, sound asleep for the first time in weeks, nor did he remember the act of actually falling asleep. As he woke up he heard a familiar voice, using sweet, loving names for him as he stirred. The sun was starting to go down. Shit, he mentally scolded himself when it occurred to him Val had been waiting for him. Almost as once as if Val could read his mind, soothing hands were rubbing his sides in an effort to calm him down, deep voice promising that everything was okay. He had him.

The car ride home was spent in silence apart from Val offering up dinner for the drive back home. Sage munched on his fries in silence as he stared out the window, not even a hand on Val’s leg to know he was still there, because Sage didn’t know if he really was. Part of him was starting to believe that despite not physically dying that night, too much of his heart left with them for him to be able to carry on. That was one sentiment Sage didn’t think he’d ever be able to voice in fear of hurting the only person he had left that meant anything. Just so happened to be the man that meant everything.

By the time they’d pulled off the freeway Sage was finished with his meal and was staring off into space. Much like earlier Val’s voice broke him out of the trance like state he felt himself slipping into.

“Huh?” he asked, confused. “Oh. Yeah, I’m alright. That just took a lot out of me, I’m sorry.” And he was. Each day it felt more and more like Sage was running up a tab between them that he forever going to be indebted to. “Can we maybe take a long way home? I’m not ready to go back yet.” Val had never been one to deny anything from Sage, so that’s exactly what they did.

[theaterofthemind]

The Silent Patient

Let me start by saying that I enjoyed my reading experience although I don’t have high standards when it comes to any type of crime novel so that sentiment may mean very little.

Getting into spoiler free specifics, the was book easy to read in the sense that it didn’t feel like i was fighting to get my eyes to move through sentences and paragraphs. I hesitate to call it fast paced because although the ‘‘detective’‘ work never stops moving, it almost seems... aimless, so maybe a quick read is the best descriptor. As far as storytelling goes, my interest in the book and the ending was because I was curious about the details of the crime and not because I was especially interested in any of the characters or the plot of book.

Everything else I have to say will contain details and potentially spoilers

I can’t say that I think this story is well written although I do think there is talent in keeping someone’s attention across the span of the novel. The only part I would consider well written is the neat trail of breadcrumbs that leads to the reveal. Apart from that, there really was no plot and the way the reveal happens is anti climatic. Character wise, I found them all to be a bit flat. I don’t understand the choice to make the main character a psychologist, especially in such a specific settings, as the structure of treatment and the main character’s job was completely ignored after it was introduced. The book wasn’t any different from a reporter or detective main character and the psychoanalytic aspects of the story made me roll my eyes more than once.

I did think there were several interesting aspects of the story though. The choice to depict both the victim and the perpetrator as resurrected figures particularly. The symbolism behind a silent woman. The possessiveness everyone has over the silent woman. The way every man disbelieved the woman had a stalker except for the neighbor who was also a woman. i think they’re very all interesting and specific details to think about.

now when I saw that the book included a discussion from the author i was curious to see what the author was going to say about any of these topics and then i got to the discussion...

first the author seems doubtful if his journal entries he wrote for alicia seemed believable and my immediate response is no they’re not. but that’s unfair because they’re passable. but the author states that the goal is to make the reader feel empathy for alicia and i don’t think they quiet accomplish the goal. at least not to the means the author hopes. the author seems to believe that the betrayal that leads to the murder is because the victim chooses his life over hers. but the heartbreaking betrayal is not in that final question but in the husband’s refusal to believe her about the stalker, to push her to take medication instead of listening to her fears, and alicia must have felt unable to confide in him on a subconscious level because she withholds serious matters from him. that being said, the means don’t justify the ends. it feels a bit gone girl (which the author does list as one of the best plot twists) in which there was a gross overreaction that i don’t think the author quiet convinces me was necessary.

semi related to the precious point there’s also a point where the author admits that he finds it interesting when the story starts out with revealing the whodunit and the story being about revealing the why. partly because the audience is still trying to solve the whodunit. but i feel like that is not necessarily true to the crime genre as unreliable narrators, or narrators operating without the full picture, often (intentionally or not) draw the wrong conclusions.

but the part i have the most issue with is the author’s secondary treatment of alicia. He describes alicia as blank canvas on which to project. now, alicia has the main character obsessed with her. she has / had multiple men in her life obsessed with her. she has / had fans of her art obsessed with her. she’s given an extensive backstory to justify her transgressions. but she’s a blank canvas? be serious. the author makes it a point to say that this book isn’t about alicia. it’s a book about the protagonist. but the protagonist spends all his time thinking about alicia. almost none of the book is about how obsessive and creepy the protagonist is. there are really no conclusions to draw about him. there is little about him to connect with. in fact, his actions are easier to excuse than alicia’s, so really there isn’t much that warrants thinking about him. the final transgression is the author’s conclusions about alicia’s silence. where the author admits to being troubled in understanding alcestis and why she chose silence and he seems to conclude that it both alicia’s and women’s only weapon. and i really take issue with the use of the word weapon because it suggests that the silence is performative. like it’s something to be inflicted upon others. like there has to be some other explanation for women demonstrating strong emotion instead of being allowed to feel or process or wallow in them. like.... the implication to me is that women react in ‘‘hysterical’‘ ways because they want others to empathize or react to their emotions (which i interpret to mean manipulative) and not because they are expressing emotion which i take issue with.

i think there is an interesting feminist analysis for this book but unfortunately i think it exists both because of the author’s missteps and outside the author’s intention.

and i know that the review seems a little...... critical of the book. there are character flaws. plot holes. half baked reasoning. explanations that come too easily. and insufficient reasoning. and little to no actual plot. but that being said i did enjoy my reading experience which is the thing that matters most to me. so i wouldn’t hesitate recommending the book to anyone who likes to read crime novels.

[shaymariff]

Love.

While the meaning of love is quite obvious, there's so much more to what love really means. What does love actually means?

I remember when I got into my first relationship at 16 and thought "wow! i have a boyfriend. my FIRST ever boyfriend", and thought that things would plan out for the both of us. Unfortunately, it didn't and I spent months recovering from the break up. Being so young, all I knew about "love" was being liked by the person and getting the attention I could get from them. My secondary school journey was not in the least bit a fruitful one, and I ended up wasting an extra year in school because of my obsession with attention. By the time I graduated, I made a vow to myself that I don't need a man to make me happy and that I am happy being single.

I spent two years living my life, working as I'm studying and trying to do better in school. When I entered into my first semester in an arts school, I met a guy. He was my classmate, albeit, he was from a different discipline. We connected pretty well and when weeks went by, our feelings for each other grew pretty strong too. I knew I liked him and likewise for him. I remember texting him "I need you", and he texted the exact same thing, and just in a spur of moment, I shut him out. I stopped responding to him and we eventually just stopped talking. During Fun Day that year, another classmate of ours told me that he genuinely had feelings for me and that made me feel awful. I never knew why I shut him out like that, especially when we clicked well with each other. It took me some years to realise that I was just scared and wasn't ready for a relationship, not after how the first and also the last one ended. Eventually, he got into a relationship with another classmate of ours and I was very happy for them. I was happy for him because he deserves love and affection from someone, and I felt like I wasn't capable of doing that. I told myself then that I'm still young, there is still time for me. Now that I'm nearing 30, I'm being proven wrong.

My mum, without fail, would ask me every year if I'm going to ever find a boyfriend and eventually settle down. Each year, I would rebuff and brush her off. I told her I didn't have time to be in a committed relationship and I liked being single. Of course, as a mother, she worries that I won't find a good man for myself and have a family. While I do understand her sentiment, I definitely disliked being pressured into it and would have to control myself and not snap at her.

I've been in Australia five years now. I didn't start dating until I was 26. People would probably wonder why the hell did I take so long to start dating and experience the life of dating when I could have started when I was much younger. Well, I did try, but I was having a lot of self-doubts, severe lack of confidence and even childhood trauma had a part in my unfortunate circumstance. Having started dating at such a late age, most of my dates never last after the second date and I keep telling myself that I'm just wasting my time. It definitely was frustrating and exhausting because most of the guys that I went on dates with, didn't see me more than just a friend and I felt quite disheartened. After months of doing casual dates, I decided that what would be more beneficial is to just hang out as friends and not jump straight into dating. After going through and experiencing the harshest and dirtiest treatments I got from some of them, I moved on and worked on improving myself.

Dating then... has caused me to lose a big part of myself. I became emotionally dependent on them and would constantly become frantic when they don't show me affection and attention. It got to a point where arguments would ensue and it ends bitterly for the both of us and I never keep in touch with them ever again. I lost a big part of myself, my identity, my confidence just because for a man's attention. I found myself begging them to love me and give me a lot of attention and affection, and this would always backfires on me. As such, I lose my self-worth and self-respect and it took a lot of healing to establish boundaries and stand firm on my decisions.

Despite my unfortunate forthcomings, I was blessed with good friends and family as my support system and would push me to do better for myself. A friend would always have to monotonously reiterate to me her advice until one day when I decided to be stubborn and nearly costed that friendship. We have since reconciled but I have acknowledged my mistake and will strive to do and be better. I realised that my longing for attention and affection is costing me my self-respect and self-worth and that I deserve better. I deserve someone who would look at me and a gentle smile slowly creeps up on his face. I deserve someone who would love and appreciate me, and would push me beyond my limits. I deserve someone who looks forward to adventures with me. I deserve someone who sees me as an equal. I deserve someone who I can share my happiness and the rest of my life with. I deserve all that.

While I say I deserve all that, I also deserve kindness and love... not from them, but from myself. I need to be kind to myself and shower myself with plenty of love and affection. It's not wrong for me to crave for love and affection, but who I did it with and how I did, it shouldn't have occurred in such manners. I wouldn't say I regret it ever happening, but I would say they're the biggest mistakes to ever happen and I can only learn from it. It is going to be a journey, especially when I am unlearning bad habits as well as overcoming previous traumas. Sure, I'd probably get married pretty late, but honestly, I'd rather settle down late with the right and compatible person for myself than settling for anything quick and easy, even if it means having incompatibility in the relationship.

Life is funny, really. Both my younger sisters are either married or in a committed relationship, and here I am, still brooding over my singlehood. I, the eldest child and daughter, is still single. I got so used to being single that by the time I hit my mid twenties, I finally realised that I'm ready to settle down. It hadn't been easy, but I still pushed through. By the time I hit 25, I was getting slightly desperate and frantic because I wanted to get married and have at least one child before I hit 30. That fantasy was crushed when I turned 26, and then 27... and now 28. I'm left with a year and a half to fulfil that fantasy of mine. It took me a while to realise that it is unhealthy to impose such expectations for myself when these things are very unpredictable.

I never knew what love actually really feels like, especially in a committed relationship, and hence, I don't actually have an answer to that. I wished I could have at least one experience of a relationship to fully know and understand what I want and deserve from my future partner, but God has planned my life out differently. I have had guy friends tell me that they were in a long-term committed relationship before they ended it due to personal reasons, and it made me shudder a little bit. Not because the break up happened, but because they were able to experience love. The closest I got was with the guy in the arts school but I was a coward and shut him out. Presumably, we could have had a long and healthy relationship but I was too scared. Scared of being committed to someone and not able to give them what they deserve.

Looking back at it now, I do have more growing to do. That doesn't mean I am undeserving of love still, but for a relationship to flourish and grow, self-love is where it starts. I forego self-love for love-seeking and it costed me my self-worth. Right now, I'm not seeing anyone and am slowly venturing into hobbies and activities, both physical and recreational, to occupy my time and mind and grow. I used to think and believe that I was ready for a relationship and marriage, but clearly, I'm not. While I do greatly yearn for a committed romantic companionship, I cannot rush and push for it to happen. Only time can tell. Only time can heal my open wounds and only time can decide when someone is for me. Until then, I'm just persevering and growing emotionally, mentally and spiritually.

With love

Shay

[bao3bei4]

fan language: the victorian imaginary and cnovel fandom

there’s this pinterest image i’ve seen circulating a lot in the past year i’ve been on fandom social media. it’s a drawn infographic of a, i guess, asian-looking woman holding a fan in different places relative to her face to show what the graphic helpfully calls “the language of the fan.”

people like sharing it. they like thinking about what nefarious ancient chinese hanky code shenanigans their favorite fan-toting character might get up to⁠—accidentally or on purpose. and what’s the problem with that?

the problem is that fan language isn’t chinese. it’s victorian. and even then, it’s not really quite victorian at all. 

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fans served a primarily utilitarian purpose throughout chinese history. of course, most of the surviving fans we see⁠—and the types of fans we tend to care about⁠—are closer to art pieces. but realistically speaking, the majority of fans were made of cheaper material for more mundane purposes. in china, just like all around the world, people fanned themselves. it got hot!

so here’s a big tipoff. it would be very difficult to use a fan if you had an elaborate language centered around fanning yourself.

you might argue that fine, everyday working people didn’t have a fan language. but wealthy people might have had one. the problem we encounter here is that fans weren’t really gendered. (caveat here that certain types of fans were more popular with women. however, those tended to be the round silk fans, ones that bear no resemblance to the folding fans in the graphic). no disrespect to the gnc old man fuckers in the crowd, but this language isn’t quite masc enough for a tool that someone’s dad might regularly use.

folding fans, we know, reached europe in the 17th century and gained immense popularity in the 18th. it was there that fans began to take on a gendered quality. ariel beaujot describes in their 2012 victorian fashion accessories how middle class women, in the midst of a top shortage, found themselves clutching fans in hopes of securing a husband.

she quotes an article from the illustrated london news, suggesting “women ‘not only’ used fans to ‘move the air and cool themselves but also to express their sentiments.’” general wisdom was that the movement of the fan was sufficiently expressive that it augmented a woman’s displays of emotion. and of course, the more english audiences became aware that it might do so, the more they might use their fans purposefully in that way.

notice, however, that this is no more codified than body language in general is. it turns out that “the language of the fan” was actually created by fan manufacturers at the turn of the 20th century⁠—hundreds of years after their arrival⁠ in europe—to sell more fans. i’m not even kidding right now. the story goes that it was louis duvelleroy of the maison duvelleroy who decided to include pamphlets on the language with each fan sold.

interestingly enough, beaujot suggests that it didn’t really matter what each particular fan sign meant. gentlemen could tell when they were being flirted with. as it happens, meaningful eye contact and a light flutter near the face may be a lingua franca.

so it seems then, the language of the fan is merely part of this victorian imaginary we collectively have today, which in turn itself was itself captivated by china.

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victorian references come up perhaps unexpectedly often in cnovel fandom, most often with regards to modesty.

it’s a bit of an awkward reference considering that chinese traditional fashion⁠—and the ambiguous time periods in which these novels are set⁠—far predate victorian england. it is even more awkward considering that victoria and her covered ankles did um. imperialize china.

but nonetheless, it is common. and to make a point about how ubiquitous it is, here is a link to the twitter search for “sqq victorian.” sqq is the fandom abbreviation for shen qingqiu, the main character of the scum villain’s self-saving system, by the way.

this is an awful lot of results for a search involving a chinese man who spends the entire novel in either real modern-day china or fantasy ancient china. that’s all i’m going to say on the matter, without referencing any specific tweet.

i think people are aware of the anachronism. and i think they don’t mind. even the most cursory research reveals that fan language is european and a revisionist fantasy. wikipedia can tell us this⁠—i checked!

but it doesn’t matter to me whether people are trying to make an internally consistent canon compliant claim, or whether they’re just free associating between fan facts they know. it is, instead, more interesting to me that people consistently refer to this particular bit of history. and that’s what i want to talk about today⁠—the relationship of fandom today to this two hundred odd year span of time in england (roughly stuart to victorian times) and england in that time period to its contemporaneous china.

things will slip a little here. victorian has expanded in timeframe, if only because random guys posting online do not care overly much for respect for the intricacies of british history. china has expanded in geographic location, if only because the english of the time themselves conflated china with all of asia.

in addition, note that i am critiquing a certain perspective on the topic. this is why i write about fan as white here⁠—not because all fans are white⁠—but because the tendencies i’m examining have a clear historical antecedent in whiteness that shapes how white fans encounter these novels.

i’m sure some fans of color participate in these practices. however i don’t really care about that. they are not its main perpetrators nor its main beneficiaries. so personally i am minding my own business on that front.

it’s instead important to me to illuminate the linkage between white as subject and chinese as object in history and in the present that i do argue that fannish products today are built upon.

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it’s not radical, or even new at all, for white audiences to consume⁠—or create their own versions of⁠—chinese art en masse. in many ways the white creators who appear to owe their whole style and aesthetic to their asian peers in turn are just the new chinoiserie.

this is not to say that white people can’t create asian-inspired art. but rather, i am asking you to sit with the discomfort that you may not like the artistic company you keep in the broader view of history, and to consider together what is to be done about that.

now, when i say the new chinoiserie, i first want to establish what the original one is. chinoiserie was a european artistic movement that appeared coincident with the rise in popularity of folding fans that i described above. this is not by coincidence; the european demand for asian imports and the eventual production of lookalikes is the movement itself. so: when we talk about fans, when we talk about china (porcelain), when we talk about tea in england⁠—we are talking about the legacy of chinoiserie.

there are a couple things i want to note here. while english people as a whole had a very tenuous knowledge of what china might be, their appetites for chinoiserie were roughly coincident with national relations with china. as the relationship between england and china moved from trade to out-and-out wars, chinoiserie declined in popularity until china had been safely subjugated once more by the end of the 19th century.

the second thing i want to note on the subject that contrary to what one might think at first, the appeal of chinoiserie was not that it was foreign. eugenia zuroski’s 2013 taste for china examines 18th century english literature and its descriptions of the according material culture with the lens that chinese imports might be formative to english identity, rather than antithetical to it.

beyond that bare thesis, i think it’s also worthwhile to extend her insight that material objects become animated by the literary viewpoints on them. this is true, both in a limited general sense as well as in the sense that english thinkers of the time self-consciously articulated this viewpoint. consider the quote from the illustrated london news above⁠—your fan, that object, says something about you. and not only that, but the objects you surround yourself with ought to.

it’s a bit circular, the idea that written material says that you should allow written material to shape your understanding of physical objects. but it’s both 1) what happened, and 2) integral, i think, to integrating a fannish perspective into the topic.

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japanning is the name for the popular imitative lacquering that english craftspeople developed in domestic response to the demand for lacquerware imports. in the eighteenth century, japanning became an artform especially suited for young women. manuals were published on the subject, urging young women to learn how to paint furniture and other surfaces, encouraging them to rework the designs provided in the text.

it was considered a beneficial activity for them; zuroski describes how it was “associated with commerce and connoisseurship, practical skill and aesthetic judgment.” a skillful japanner, rather than simply obscuring what lay underneath the lacquer, displayed their superior judgment in how they chose to arrange these new canonical figures and effects in a tasteful way to bring out the best qualities of them.

zuroski quotes the first english-language manual on the subject, written in 1688, which explains how japanning allows one to:

alter and correct, take out a piece from one, add a fragment to the next, and make an entire garment compleat in all its parts, though tis wrought out of never so many disagreeing patterns.

this language evokes a very different, very modern practice. it is this english reworking of an asian artform that i think the parallels are most obvious.

white people, through their artistic investment in chinese material objects and aesthetics, integrated them into their own subjectivity. these practices came to say something about the people who participated in them, in a way that had little to do with the country itself. their relationship changed from being a “consumer” of chinese objects to becoming the proprietor of these new aesthetic signifiers.

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i want to talk about this through a few pairs of tensions on the subject that i think characterize common attitudes then and now.

first, consider the relationship between the self and the other: the chinese object as something that is very familiar to you, speaking to something about your own self vs. the chinese object as something that is fundamentally different from you and unknowable to you. 

consider: [insert character name] is just like me. he would no doubt like the same things i like, consume the same cultural products. we are the same in some meaningful way vs. the fast standard fic disclaimer that “i tried my best when writing this fic, but i’m a english-speaking westerner, and i’m just writing this for fun so...... [excuses and alterations the person has chosen to make in this light],” going hand-in-hand with a preoccupation with authenticity or even overreliance on the unpaid labor of chinese friends and acquaintances. 

consider: hugh honour when he quotes a man from the 1640s claiming “chinoiserie of this even more hybrid kind had become so far removed from genuine Chinese tradition that it was exported from India to China as a novelty to the Chinese themselves” 

these tensions coexist, and look how they have been resolved.

second, consider what we vest in objects themselves: beaujot explains how the fan became a sexualized, coquettish object in the hands of a british woman, but was used to great effect in gilbert and sullivan’s 1885 mikado to demonstrate the docility of asian women. 

consider: these characters became expressions of your sexual desires and fetishes, even as their 5’10 actors themselves are emasculated.

what is liberating for one necessitates the subjugation and fetishization of the other. 

third, consider reactions to the practice: enjoyment of chinese objects as a sign of your cosmopolitan palate vs “so what’s the hype about those ancient chinese gays” pop culture explainers that addressed the unconvinced mainstream.

consider: zuroski describes how both english consumers purchased china in droves, and contemporary publications reported on them. how: 

It was in the pages of these papers that the growing popularity of Chinese things in the early eighteenth century acquired the reputation of a “craze”; they portrayed china fanatics as flawed, fragile, and unreliable characters, and frequently cast chinoiserie itself in the same light.

referenda on fannish behavior serve as referenda on the objects of their devotion, and vice versa. as the difference between identity and fetish collapses, they come to be treated as one and the same by not just participants but their observers. 

at what point does mxtx fic cease to be chinese? 

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finally, it seems readily apparent that attitudes towards chinese objects may in fact have something to do with attitudes about china as a country. i do not want to suggest that these literary concerns are primarily motivated and begot by forces entirely divorced from the real mechanics of power. 

here, i want to bring in edward said, and his 1993 culture and imperialism. there, he explains how power and legitimacy go hand in hand. one is direct, and one is purely cultural. he originally wrote this in response to the outsize impact that british novelists have had in the maintenance of empire and throughout decolonization. literature, he argues, gives rise to powerful narratives that constrain our ability to think outside of them.

there’s a little bit of an inversion at play here. these are chinese novels, actually. but they’re being transformed by white narratives and artists. and just as i think the form of the novel is important to said’s critique, i think there’s something to be said about the form that fic takes and how it legitimates itself.

bound up in fandom is the idea that you have a right to create and transform as you please. it is a nice idea, but it is one that is directed towards a certain kind of asymmetry. that is, one where the author has all the power. this is the narrative we hear a lot in the history of fandom⁠—litigious authors and plucky fans, fanspaces always under attack from corporate sanitization.

meanwhile, said builds upon raymond schwab’s narrative of cultural exchange between european writers and cultural products outside the imperial core. said explains that fundamental to these two great borrowings (from greek classics and, in the so-called “oriental renaissance” of the late 18th, early 19th centuries from “india, china, japan, persia, and islam”) is asymmetry. 

he had argued prior, in orientalism, that any “cultural exchange” between “partners conscious of inequality” always results in the suffering of the people. and here, he describes how “texts by dead people were read, appreciated, and appropriated” without the presence of any actual living people in that tradition. 

i will not understate that there is a certain economic dynamic complicating this particular fannish asymmetry. mxtx has profited materially from the success of her works, most fans will not. also secondly, mxtx is um. not dead. LMAO.

but first, the international dynamic of extraction that said described is still present. i do not want to get overly into white attitudes towards china in this post, because i am already thoroughly derailed, but i do believe that they structure how white cnovel fandom encounters this texts.

at any rate, any profit she receives is overwhelmingly due to her domestic popularity, not her international popularity. (i say this because many of her international fans have never given her a cent. in fact, most of them have no real way to.) and moreover, as we talk about the structure of english-language fandom, what does it mean to create chinese cultural products without chinese people? 

as white people take ownership over their versions of stories, do we lose something? what narratives about engagement with cnovels might exist outside of the form of classic fandom?

i think a lot of people get the relationship between ideas (the superstructure) and production (the base) confused. oftentimes they will lob in response to criticism, that look! this fic, this fandom, these people are so niche, and so underrepresented in mainstream culture, that their effects are marginal. i am not arguing that anyone’s cql fic causes imperialism. (unless you’re really annoying. then it’s anyone’s game) 

i’m instead arguing something a little bit different. i think, given similar inputs, you tend to get similar outputs. i think we live in the world that imperialism built, and we have clear historical predecessors in terms of white appetites for creating, consuming, and transforming chinese objects. 

we have already seen, in the case of the fan language meme that began this post, that sometimes we even prefer this white chinoiserie. after all, isn’t it beautiful, too? 

i want to bring discomfort to this topic. i want to reject the paradigm of white subject and chinese object; in fact, here in this essay, i have tried to reverse it.

if you are taken aback by the comparisons i make here, how can you make meaningful changes to your fannish practice to address it? 

--------------------

some concluding thoughts on the matter, because i don’t like being misunderstood! 

i am not claiming white fans cannot create fanworks of cnovels or be inspired by asian art or artists. this essay is meant to elaborate on the historical connection between victorian england and cnovel characters and fandom that others have already popularized.

i don’t think people who make victorian jokes are inherently bad or racist. i am encouraging people to think about why we might make them and/or share them

the connections here are meant to be more provocative than strictly literal. (e.g. i don’t literally think writing fanfic is a 1-1 descendant of japanning). these connections are instead meant to 1) make visible the baggage that fans of color often approach fandom with and 2) recontextualize and defamiliarize fannish practice for the purposes of honest critique

please don’t turn this post into being about other different kinds of discourse, or into something that only one “kind” of fan does. please take my words at face value and consider them in good faith. i would really appreciate that.

please feel free to ask me to clarify any statements or supply more in-depth sources :) 

[bridgertonbabe]

Hello, this is a weird one but I decided to give it a try because I love everything you are writing, we know Benedict is an artist so his hand are always full of charco al or paint so...would you write a drabble of Sophie washing his hands? 🙈

Sorry for the delay!

Here's Sophie washing Benedict's hands (also he might be a wee bit high);

"Ben?" Sophie called out as she entered his studio.

Her husband turned to her wide-eyed, a slight dazed glint flashing in his light eyes, and his crooked grin pinched his face. He held a palette in his hand and in lieu of using brushes he was instead using his fingers to paint.

"Sophie!" he gasped with awe. "Come, come! You must see my latest creation!"

She shuffled in and rounded the easel he had been using, her hands resting on her swollen bump as she regarded his work. The painting consisted of multicoloured swirls spiralling into a remarkably pretty sight. It was a painting that was becoming her husband's trademark, when his special tea was involved, of course.

"What do you think?" he suddenly breathed into her ear, making her jump.

"I think it's beautiful, my love." she smiled genially (she had said the exact same thing the last time he had got high and painted something not unalike to this one).

"And do you see? Do you see?" he asked her eagerly, pointing out the wettest swirls of the painting.

"I see." she nodded, humouring him with whatever it was he wanted her to be seeing. "The colours are exquisite, sweetheart."

Benedict groaned like a child. "No, silly!" he shook his head and hooked his chin over her shoulder before pointing at his work again. "This, Sophie, is the very meaning of life!"

Sophie stared at the swirls of colours and tried to maintain her composure. If only the meaning of life was as vividly coloured as her husband's interpretation of it was.

"Don't you see?" he asked and she glanced at him, taking note of his bright eyes as he took in his own art. "This... this is a visual representation of the sensation I felt... the anticipation that overcame me the night we first met!"

Suddenly Sophie stopped nodding along and trying to withhold a snicker. The gravity of his sentiment hit her out of nowhere and even in his inebriated state, she couldn't help but look at the painting with a new perspective.

"Before we met I was a dull, blank, empty canvas, just waiting for something incredible to inspire me and bring me back to life... and then along came you..." he breathed into her ear and gestured to the centre of the painting where she now observed the beginning strands of the swirls were a shimmery silver colour. "And we swirled around on the terrace with the stars shining down on us," he described and Sophie followed the swirls where they darkened in colour, yet were patterned with bursts of yellow, much like a starlit sky, "and you told me your favourite colour was green," and Sophie's eyes trailed to the luscious emerald swirls that followed, "and then you were gone..."

Even though Sophie was well aware of their own story, she still found herself holding her breath because she realised these initial swirls came to an end and that there was a cut-off, a gap between them and the the rest of the grandiose colours covering the canvas in all their infinite swirling.

"But then I found you again," Benedict carried on, as did the swirls, "and you read me poems," he gestured to the pastel pinks, "we kissed again by the lake," and he waved his hand at the pale blues, "we returned to Mayfair and you met by family," - Bridgerton blues - "and my mother covered you up with that blasted maid's uniform," - violet, just like the colour she wore as a lady's maid - "and then we caved into our passion," - red, oh so very heated red - "and I've never burned for another the way I burned for you," - red mixed with orange, like a fire - "and even though you kept rejecting me," - deep navy blue - "all I could think of was your hair," - and there were infinite swirls of gold - "your beautiful curly hair," Benedict whispered, burying his face into her curls and inhaling her scent, "and then at last you were my wife and it felt like fireworks had been set off in my very soul," - bright and beaming oranges - "and suddenly I had found my very purpose, my very soul... the meaning of life."

Sophie let out a shaky exhale she didn't even realise she was holding in. She wasn't sure if it was the pregnancy hormones, if the special tea on Benedict's breath was intoxicating her too, or if she was simply taken in by her husband's description; but either way, she loved the canvas before her.

"It's truly spectacular, Ben." she said and turned her head to meet his lips with hers.

He hungrily kissed her back but as soon as she sensed his hands were about to touch her face, she pulled back.

"No." she said pointedly before he could even open his mouth to protest. "You're not coming anywhere near me with those paint-riddled hands of yours."

"Oh, but Soph!" he whined and jutted out his bottom lip. She had to hold back her laughter, imagining their future child one day imitating him to perfection in all his juvenile behaviour.

"Come along now, dearest." she beckoned. "Once your hands are washed, I might allow you to touch me wherever you want."

Almost immediately his sulking stopped and he keenly made a beeline to the bathroom. She followed him in, running the water and bringing his hands underneath. Already some of the paint was running off and colouring the water spiralling the drain.

"Where can I touch you?" he asked mischievously.

"Where would you start?" she hummed back.

She didn't truly expect much touching once his hands were washed. In the previous times she had guided him into bed after a day spent with his special tea he had crashed out like a light before he could go about seducing her in the way he claimed he would beforehand. She didn't think this time would be any different.

Benedict leaned in closer and eyed her up wantonly. She took a deep breath, waiting for him to say something only a husband could say to his wife.

"I want to boop your nose." he whispered.

Sophie took one look at him, in all his gleaming and seductive swagger, and snorted. "Benedict, you are such an intoxicated fool."

"An intoxicated fool for you." he said in a low voice.

She began to use a flannel to wipe off the drier paint on his hands. It was a flannel she had set aside with the intents and purposes of washing off the paint he managed to get on him at all times. It had once been white but was now as multicoloured as one of his paintings from numerous washings.

"Do you know what I want to do?" he said after a couple of moments of quiet rinsing.

"What's that, my love?" Sophie asked.

"I want to dip my fingers in paint and trail them across your bump." he whispered, like it wasn't just the two of them in the house. "I want to paint your body, right where our baby is nested beneath your skin." he said reverentially as his eyes rested on the bump covered by her nightgown.

"Darling," Sophie addressed him and he just about tore his gaze up to her, "you did that last night."

Benedict blinked at her. He blinked at her again. And then some more. "I did?"

She nodded and suppressed a laugh. "You did indeed. Do you remember?" she asked even though it was a pointless endeavour - he was far too high to even remember wanting to boop her nose. "I told you I was about to have a bath and you asked me to lay down first so you could daub the bump with colours. The baby kicked every time you painted another line on me."

Benedict stared at her gormlessly and she knew he didn't remember a goddamn thing with his special tea still coursing through his system. He nodded though, albeit in a blatantly unsure and puzzled way.

Once she had scrubbed off the majority of the dried paint, she focused on wiping clean each of his fingers one by one. She would have thought, before marrying an artist, that if one were to paint with their fingers that one would simply use a forefinger and perhaps the middle one if needs be. In Benedict's case, for whatever reason, he used every last digit, particularly when the special tea was taken. So, here Sophie now was, carefully using the soap to wash down each of his fingers, making sure she left no speck of paint behind.

"You love my fingers, don't you, Soph?" Benedict drawled with a coquettish look on his face. Sophie rolled her eyes. "You love how long they are... love the way I dip them into -"

"Ben." she sighed wearily.

"You love it." he smirked and bumped his nose against hers.

As much as she loved her husband and loved the way he loved her so abundantly... there was only so much love she could handle from him when he was in an enlightened state as he was now.

Finally she finished washing his last finger, making sure she had got under the nail too, and with one last rinse she then brought a clean towel to dry his hands with.

"All done." she announced and placed the towel back on the rack. "Now, are you ready for bed?" she asked him.

"I'm always ready for bed with you." he replied suggestively.

She rolled her eyes again and took him by the hand and led him to their room. As she rounded her side of the bed he stripped out of his clothes and then she sighed at the sight of his bare chest which had paint dappled all across it. She didn't even want to know why he had decided to partially paint himself and couldn't be bothered to take him back to the bathroom to wash him again.

So she climbed into bed and he eagerly jumped in next to her.

"Can I touch you now?" he asked her giddily.

She really thought he'd already forgotten her bargain with him. But alas, she should have sensed he wasn't in the mood to forget, what with his remarks about his fingers.

"I suppose." she sighed tiresomely.

He giggled with glee and she rolled her eyes yet again. "I want to touch you... here!"

She had expected him to immediately touch her intimately, with regards to his previous heavy-hinted implications, so it surprised her when his arms wrapped around her and he cradled her bump between his hands.

"Baby, baby, baby." he muttered into the back of her neck.

She sighed blissfully and rested a hand on top of his.

"Sophie... Sophie... Sophie..." he whispered into her skin in a sing-song voice.

"What?" she uttered.

"I love you." he hummed and kissed the back of her neck. "I love our baby." he kissed her again and stroked her bump. "I love our life." he kissed her again.

"And I love you, Benedict Bridgerton." she murmured. She went to echo his sentiments but in the next second his gentle snores were tickling into her back. She smiled to herself and closed her eyes. "You ridiculous yet wonderful man." she exhaled and followed her husband into sleep.