#'cause i noticed in most social medias its likes over reblogs

[rendy-a]

I would like to request red panda Cater getting taken care of by reader maybe in the self aware au if that not too much >-<(its totally ok if it is)

I’m thinking this is related to this art piece by @spadesncrows that I reblogged.  Go check out that very cute art of Heartslabyul as animals if you haven’t already!

As you lay on your bed flipping through your game apps, a sudden burst of lightning has you isekai’d into a world that is a combination of the two games you were last playing; a zoo sim and Twisted Wonderland.  Now you are the beloved zookeeper of Ramshackle pavilion at Night Raven Zoo.  Some of the adorable animals you are charged with caring for seem oddly familiar to you and, by the way they crave your attention, you’d guess that you are somehow familiar to them as well.

Red Panda Cater

Cater knows how to play up his cuteness for a crowd.  He’ll spend hours of the day just gazing into the wading pool of his enclosure but, as soon as some guests arrive, he is up and rolling about the place.  Did you see how the adorable panda rolled right off that log and into the water?  How cute.  You smile at the satisfied guests and then it seems Panda Cater catches your eye and gives you a small wink.  See how he helps out?

Cater is a picky eater.  Most of the other animals in the zoo appreciate it when you bring them sweet fruity treats.  Panda Cater will take the fruit from you when you hold it out, but you notice he always will carry it off then.  Later, you’ll find it buried in his enclosure.  Please offer him bamboo instead.  He is running out of places to hide those sweets.

Cater is obsessed with your phone.  You try to avoid letting him get his paws on it but there have been a number of times you’ve turned around when cleaning his enclosure to notice him looking at your social media.  How did Panda Cater manage to turn on the phone and open the app?  It’s a mystery!  The cute selfies he accidentally(?) takes also go viral on a regular basis.  You think he’d be a natural influencer, you know, if he wasn’t a Panda.

You wipe your brow after finished the final sweep of the floor.  There!  Your task is done.  You turn to your curious companion and remark, “That’s it for another day.  I couldn’t have done it without your expert supervision.”  Panda Cater appears to nod sagely as though agreeing with the sentiment.  He never fails to make you chuckle with his antics.  “I think this causes for a celebratory photo, don’t you?” you ask him cheekily.  Cater’s ears twitch and turn, alert to the words you are saying. 

You pat your thighs in a gesture of summoning to your adorable partner.  Panda Cater is familiar with this gesture by now and quickly ambles over and stands on his hind paws, reaching up with the front ones as though begging to be picked up.  You smilingly oblige, carefully lifting him into your arms.  Then you shift him to one arm and ready your phone.  Cater looks at it knowingly and lets out a trill.  “Just wait, I’m putting on your favorite filter,” you tell him.  Then you are ready.  “Ok, smile!” you command in an upbeat tone.  You and the panda make a cute pose and you click the photo button.  “There!” you say cheerfully.  Cater appears to disagree, giving you a trill.  “What, another?” you ask him.  He doesn’t answer but looks into the camera with focus.  “Alright, one more,” you tell him obligingly.  Then you strike another pose and take the photo.  Another trill emerges from Panda Cater.  You look at him wearily, but he is already preparing another pose.  This might be a long night.

[istanfluffycontent]

can you do a taehyun x reader imagine, where the reader does the silent treatment prank on him and he becomes whiny and its just a bunch of fluff 😭😭😭

Hii! Aww this is so cute!!  Masterlist/wip list/things i might do later

Silent treatment prank on Taehyun

You decided to ignore your boyfriend for a couple days as a prank. Of course, Yeonjun and Beomgyu suggested it because they wanted to see the “most reasonable and responsible” member’s reaction to silent treatment from their lovely girlfriend. Throughout the day, Taehyun started to notice your absence at dance practices and rehearsals since you’re often there to boost his ego. You’re also not showing up to work out with him anymore, making him more confused.

So he asks his members if they know anything, “Do you guys know if I did something wrong to make y/n mad at me..?” as his bandmates tried not to burst out laughing. When you guys were done with work and were forced to interact, he saw right through you, since you forget to look mad and annoyed every now and then. However, he knew he was going to die if he didn’t get affection from his baby.

You’re lucky he isn’t petty enough to use his personality, skills, and looks against you, because his god-tier looks alone have heavy impacts on you and he knows it. So, his first plan was to keep doing aegyo until you gave up, #missionfailed since you decided to put in airpods and scroll through social media. Little did he know you were looking at his fam cams and edits.

Then he decided to sway you with his cooking, “Y/nahh, don’t you wanna taste this delicious dish I made? It’s almost as good looking and smelling as youuuu.” he failed again as you decided to walk right past him towards Kai. angy baby warning. Your boyfriend keeps screaming things like “YAAA Y/N, I won’t feed you anymore if you keep ignoring me!” as he gets ignored by you. “Hmm.. maybe I’ll cook some dessert for them..” While making desserts, Taehyun randomly screams out “I’M GOING TO LOST IT” and “THE KITCHEN ON FIRE” to catch your attention.

After dinner, you heard from the other room as your boyfriend was talking extremely loudly to catch your attention. “Yeonjun hyung, I don’t think y/n wants me anymoreeeee.” When you went to get some late night snakes, he looks as if he’s about to burst out crying any second cause you’re not giving him ​​nickname privileges anymore.

He wraps his large frame around you, “I’ve missed your voice, love. Did you miss mine? I can sing a song if you want.” and just as you’re preparing yourself to turn down his sweet requests and pleads, he squeals out, “NOW YOU’RE JUST SOMEBODY THAT I USE TO KNOWWWWW” 

You burst out laughing as you couldn’t hold it in anymore. “I KNEW IT! Now you own me 9999 kisses and hugs for the time we missed!”. “But it’s only been 5 hours you kno-” “SHUHHHHHHHH just give me a kiss you pabo!” The two of you spend the night cuddling and giggling like teenagers falling in love all over again. <33333. 

a/n: I hope u enjoyed! Pls tell me if you might want this in bullet points instead cause it seems a bit long lmao. This is my first one shot and im so happy its for my bias (as if it wasn’t obvious enough lol)! Thank you so much for reading, reblogs, comments, follows, and likes are very much appreciated!!

[speedrunner-fuchs-wulf]

VRChat's new update just alienated EVERY SINGLE USER

That includes YOU, dear reader.

This will be a long read, so the rest is below the TL;DR.

TL;DR: VRChat is implementing a thing called Easy Anti-Cheat which just targets any mods, including ones that help the disabled play the game. This is bad because most, if not all, of the playerbase mods VRC. DO NOT, under any circumstances, harass the devs. Instead, I want people to calmly and civil refuse to play the game until EAC is canned and never considered in a format anywhere near what was proposed for the update. I want this to be as civil and straightforward a walk off of the game as possible; as of writing, EAC isn't widely implemented at this point. I am also creating a Discord for 18+ players of VRC that are against EAC to help them find some alternative games until EAC gets canned, and will link it in a reblog.

So, as many of you know, VRChat is beta-ing an update called Easy Anti-Cheat, which, from what I've read, is so insanely flawed that it just blanket-blacklists mods of any sort, including quality of life improvements and major game assistance for those who are disabled and still want to play.

Who does this affect? Almost 100% of the playerbase, and if not you, likely someone you know.

Why is this so bad? Imagine you're a game developer, and you created a game that thousands, if not millions, of people play and use as a way to socialize, especially during the beginning of the Covid-19 outbreak, when people were unable to interact with people in real life for fear that they might get a deadly disease, doubly so if the player is immunocompromised; this game is your pride and joy. You just sent out a new update to the beta testers for them to pick apart, and even alerted your playerbase about the planned update. You log onto your computer the following day to prepare to send out the update and find that everyone on your game's Discord server is furious at you. Everyone on social media is furious at you, and your amazing game that brought cities worth of people together during trying times might as well have its servers on fire at this point. Your new update has successfully angered so many people that you might as well either can the new update, or risk losing every single player and permanently tanking your playerbase's numbers. A reasonable developer would avoid the latter, but a stupid one wouldn't care.

Similarly, if Minecraft devs were to suddenly run an update for all versions that banned modding of any sort, there would be a massive riot. Though VRC never was truly ok with modding, they might as well have just deleted the game and started over if they wanted to anger the playerbase as bad as with the EAC update. A reasonable dev wouldn't shy away from the fanbase and playerbase so much that they basically indirectly say that they want everyone to be miserable or to fuck off and go play something else if they're that upset at dev choices.

This link links to a post on a VRC feedback board that better explains why this will cause the devs to be metaphorically set on fire by VRC players from all over the globe. As of writing, it's at 17.2k upvotes.

What I'm doing is simply and calmly setting my VR headset and controllers down, walking away from the game, and refusing to play unless the VRC devs do not ever implement EAC. I am not going to argue, I'm not going to whine, or harass, I'm just going to walk away from VRC until significant changes get made that insure that EAC is never implemented. And I want you to join me in a quiet, civil walk out thingy of VRChat. Theory goes, if enough people calmly refuse to play VRChat until EAC is removed/never implemented in the first place, so much so that it tanks their active player count so significantly and permanently that the devs would have to have no eyes in order to not notice, they will fix the issue, think about what they did, and regret everything that transpired.

Basically, I want the devs to have a hard time finding anyone on VRC until EAC is removed/not implemented in the first place that they go "Oh crap, we fucked up so royally because we basically sent an iceberg out to the monstrously huge ship that is are game so everybody jumped ship to avoid things." I don't want anyone who participates in this with me to be harassing people who work on VRC, especially those employees who saw EAC as a bad idea and got overruled. I want this to be quiet, I want this to be civil, I want this to make the VRC devs notice the massively major error they just caused.

Also, as of writing this, I found this screenshot was posted to a VRC modding server I'm in. I can't verify the validity of this, but I would stay off of VRC, just to be safe.

I plan on making a server for those who want to join in on the walk out thingy and to help them find other games to play, especially games that allow modding, until the EAC problem is fixed. It is an 18+ server, and not because of adult content, but because I, the lone person to run this, do not like that kids 15 and younger play VRC at all. I expect some people to not like that I won't allow minors to join, but that is a risk I'm willing to take. As a sidenote, until Discord implements a "Mark Server as NSFW/Adults Only" feature, every channel will be marked 18+ by hand. Sorry 'bout that. Otherwise, expect the server to be linked in an up and coming reblog.

[agent--swan]

Close to Home

In which the reader interrogates a suspect and is reminded of some shit.

One of these days I’ll write a decent Criminal Minds fic.

Well, I’ve got some personal bullshit going on, so here! Have a self-indulgent angst fic! As if I haven’t written enough of these already. (See: @swan--writes.) You can also find this fic on AO3.

Warnings: childhood trauma, emotional/psychological abuse, all offscreen, Hotch is an angsty boy who cares about his team, show-typical violence, Swan-typical language

Words: ~1,420

Other Stuff: reader is gender neutral but was raised as a daughter, you could read this as Hotch x Reader but it could easily be read as platonic

The first time Hotch noticed was on a case.

He wishes that the first time he noticed wasn’t on a case.

He wishes that it had happened on a relaxed day, when there was nothing going on but consults and reports and accounts and logging. He wishes that the rest of the team had been so busy with paperwork that they wouldn’t notice him pulling you into his office to sit down and talk about it. In retrospect, even he could admit that there were benefits to not being at Quantico, and therefore not having a private office to pull you into. There was more time to think about what he wanted to say – to be gentle.

You were on a case somewhere in the Midwest, but neither of you would remember exactly where even two months after it was over. The unsub was attacking teenaged girls. The unsub’s type was specific: ages between fourteen and seventeen, brown hair, brown eyes, most of the girls had freckles, and all of them were chubby. That seemed important to the unsub. It made you see red. You only had one survivor – your only material witness – but she was holding back, feigning memory loss. Morgan was certain that the cognitive troubles she was having weren’t genuine, but he had no way of proving it. That was his pet project while you were on the case.

Reid was on the geographic profile as always. JJ had her hands full with the media circus, teenaged girls always got extra attention. Rossi was leaning pretty hard on the principal of the school that all three of your victims had attended, along with your one attempted victim. Prentiss was covering the guidance counselors. The school had three. She had her hands full. You did not envy her.

That left you to speak with the mother of the attempted victim. Hotch had asked you to handle her before the jet even landed, and you had readily agreed. It was the first time he had handed you your own angle since you’d joined the team just a few months earlier, and you felt more than capable. You were good with mothers, Hotch knew that.

Hotch had never tried to limit your role in investigations, not even in the beginning. He knew that you were capable when you joined the team, and he saw that you were a fast learner. He wasn’t cautious with you, didn’t watch you too closely, didn’t take you under his wing. Hotch let you do your thing and facilitated where necessary. It wasn’t often necessary, you fit right in.

So, Hotch asked you to talk to the mother, and you thought nothing of it. Until you started asking her questions.

It was subtle at first. She was defensive of her daughter, and defensive of her parenting. You understood that, it wasn’t uncommon. What was uncommon was the way she seemed to interpret your questions. “Why did you insist she only apply to in-state schools?” became, in her mind, “Why are you holding her back?” “Why do you limit her social life?” became, “Why are you isolating her?” The less accusatory you tried to sound, the more her hackles raised. It wasn’t entirely unjustified, every time you walked out of the interrogation room you learned something new about the way she had held her daughter back or isolated her.

You started leaving the mother in the interrogation room by herself for longer and longer stretches of time, though never an unprofessional length of time. You were careful about that. It was just that you were finding it harder and harder to catch your breath. The tinnitus in your left ear seemed to be growing steadily worse, and you couldn’t force your hands to stop shaking. That wasn’t when Hotch noticed it, though. He asked if you were alright once but dropped it when you told him you were.

Finally, Rossi cut the principal loose and Prentiss came back to the station. You were in interrogation when the others realized who the unsub was.

Surprise, surprise, it was the mother of the survivor.

Morgan had been right. Your survivor did remember who attacked her and was terrified to admit that it had been her mother. In the survivor’s mind, her mother was a huge, tyrannical figure who could talk her way out of anything. Even a murder investigation.

The rest of the team gathered around the one-way mirror and watched as you and the mother of the survivor – as you and the unsub – zeroed in on each other. Reid wondered aloud if they should intervene, but Hotch insisted on waiting. Hotch watched you closely. Later, he would wonder if he had been watching you more out of interest than a genuine belief that you could get a confession out of this unsub. He would feel badly about that.

You were standing. The unsub was seated. You were leaned over her and shouting. She was watching you with venom in her eyes, and though you held firm, Hotch notice the way you were pressing your hands into the table. The way you slid photographs toward her instead of picking them up and dropping them in front of her; a more aggressive move that any of the rest of the team would have used.

“You couldn’t stand it, could you?” you asked while the unsub openly glared at you, her jaw set, her expression stern. “You couldn’t stand the idea that your daughter would never be you. She was never going to stay at home and be mommy’s perfect little helper, she was never going to forget about the pain you caused her. You gave her everything?” You shook your head. “Well, she took it, and she learned how to be a decent goddamn human, and instead of letting her grow and maybe, I don’t know, being proud of her? You insisted–” you slammed the table right beside a photograph of some of your survivor’s worse injuries “–on making her pay for your bullshit.”

You were shouting right in the unsub’s face when she lunged with an enraged cry. The team moved as one to back you up.

The unsub managed to scratch your face before you could react. You managed to get her hands behind her back and pressed forward against the wall by the time Morgan and Prentiss reached you.

“Get her out of here!” Hotch commanded.

“After everything ungrateful little leech put me through, she got exactly when she deserved,” the unsub spat.

Hotch didn’t spare the unsub more than half a glance, he just went straight to you. You had never heard his voice so soft as when he asked if you were alright. He moved to wipe away some of the blood trickling warmly down your face, but you pulled away before he could and insisted you were fine. Of course you did.

The case ended there, four victims deep but one still alive. It was a relative victory and the team treated it as one. They chatted comfortably on the ride back, but not you. You curled up on the couch at the back of the jet, facing away from everyone. You didn’t have a book, you didn’t have your headphones in. You just lay there with your eyes closed, fighting tears that you tried very hard to blame on your migraine. Your head killed; your heart hurt. As horrific as parents hurting their children always was, there was something about this case – something about a mother and a daughter – that was more painful, more personal, and hit even closer to home for you.

You couldn’t help thinking about how the unsub had killed three people but hadn’t killed her own daughter. You wondered what that meant. You wondered if it meant anything.

You stayed still at first when you felt someone sit down at your feet. They didn’t move for a long time, and when you finally gave in and opened your eyes, you saw Hotch. He looked at you with more concern injected into his normal frown, and there was something in his face that was gentler than usual. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t try to comfort you. He just watched you, watched the tears gather at the corners of your eyes, watched as one made its way down your cheek like blood dripping from a wound. You knew you looked miserable, but you watched him right back, and you knew he understood. He did.

.

.

Please reblog if you’re comfy with it

If there’s any interest I’ll make a tags list

[merakiclosed]

Jungkook - Tangled shirt

This is the full imagine for the idea about the small sleepy reader. I hope this was done well, I wrote it this morning at around 10am. I don’t know if I’m fully proud of this right now but i quiet like it at the same time so please enjoy! 

Pairing: Jungkook x fem!Reader 

》 Summary: A very sleepy reader and an adorable Jungkook. Jungkook helps her wind down after a long day with a shower and one of his shirts. 

》 Genre: Fluff

》 Word count: 1661

》 Notes/Warnings: No warnings, Reader has a lil tummy and thicc thighs 🥺

Masterlist | Requests and messages are open

Today has been one of the most stressful days for you. You had an exam in one class and a presentation in another. From staying up all night to prepare and revise to actually speaking in front of a group people, you were exhausted.

Kicking off your shoes and taking your coat off, you didn't acknowledge that the lights were already on in your apartment. Your bag made a thud sound when you dropped it on the floor. You leaned your back against the wall as you blinked your eyes rapidly, trying to wake yourself up a bit more.

Luckily, before you got home you managed to eat a sandwich and crisps from a vending machine. Not a choice that you were particularly fond of, but it was food nonetheless.

You didn't notice the footsteps that were coming closer causing you to jump when you felt a hand on you. Jungkook, with his hand on your shoulder, gave you a small smile and eventually pulled you into his embrace.

Your body fell into him, putting almost all of your weight on to him. His chin was on top of your head, his arms draped across your shoulders.

"Hm, my petty girl is finally home" he mumbled into your hair.

A tired smile made it on to your face as you wrapped your arms around his waist. The warmth and the smell of Jungkook made you even more sleepy.

He must have noticed as he pulled back a little to see tired eyes staring back at him. Your makeup seemed to have come off a little, mascara slightly smudged at the bottom of your eyes. But still, you were so pretty to Jungkook.

"Let's get you cleaned up" he whispered and guided you to the bathroom.

Once you were both in the bathroom, he turned the shower on and started to undress at a much quicker pace then you were. You just stepped out of your jeans and as you were about to take your shirt off, you felt hands tug at it.

"Arms up, babygirl"

You obeyed and lifted your arms up. Once it was off, you took off your underwear, with help from Jungkook as he helped you balance yourself when you stumbled a bit. He stepped into the shower and held a hand out for you to join him.

When you got into the shower, he turned you around so that the water hit you more than him. With your back facing him, he got the shower gel and started to message your back, moaning when he got a particularly hard knot at your shoulders. You quickly got your makeup remover and washed your face; you hated the feeling of wet makeup.

Jungkook turned you around and grabbed the shampoo. He very gently messaged it into your hair, the feeling caused you to slump into him a bit, your body now against his fully. You heard him laugh quietly but continued to wash it out and then message conditioner into your hair as well.

Once you was finished, you turned around to wrap your arms around his waist. He quickly washed his hair and body, finding it a tad bit difficult to do it whilst you leaned on him.

Jungkook turned the shower off and carefully stepped out, having to make sure that you were able to stand up on your own for a second whilst he got the towels.

He wrapped the towel around your body and secured one around his waist. Jungkook picked you up, under your arms and carefully put you on to the counter. He rushed out of the room and came back in no time with fresh clothes for both of you.

He helped dry your body gently and quickly put you in one of his oversized tops and some fresh panties. You leaned your back against the mirror as you felt your eyelids starting to fall and Jungkook was quick to realise this.

"No, no princess. You got to stay awake for just a little bit longer whilst I brush your teeth. Okay?" He said in a low voice.

He took your toothbrush with some toothpaste and stood in between your legs.

"Open, princess"

You would have blushed at the choice of words, but you were too tired to realise the dirtiness of them and opened your mouth.

He brushed your teeth with a hand softly cupping your jaw to make sure that every tooth got cleaned. You glanced up at him and lazily looked over his features. His scar on his cheek, the mole under his lip and nose. The small water droplets that fell from his wet hair and down the side of his face. His big, sparkly eyes that held thousands of emotions.

You felt so normal compared to him, so ugly. You had a few acne scars on your chin and forehead, your skin was probably a bit red from being sensitive to heat. You felt like your body was a bit chubby. You were more skinny than big, but you still had a little fat at the bottom of your stomach and thick thighs, that you absolutely hated. You had to close your eyes for second before bad thoughts started to consume you.

When you opened your eyes, you brought your hand up slowly, to rub away some water on his cheek.

"Love you" Your words slurring together.

Jungkook looked up to meet your eyes and smiled widely, his nose scrunching up. "I love you too, princess".

He finished brushing your teeth and picked you up by your waist. Automatically your arms went around his neck and your legs around his waist. You snuggled your head into the crook of his neck and kissed one of his moles on his shoulder.

Even though he was still in just a towel, he carried you to the bed and gently put you on top of the bed. It was summer now, so neither of you have been sleeping with a blanket but with a soft, thin sheet. He put the sheet on top of you and kissed your forehead, though you were so far gone that you hardly registered anything.

Jungkook went back to the bathroom and got changed into some boxers and brushing his teeth. He did this fast so he could get to his favourite person faster.

The time was around 10pm now, a bit early for Jungkook as he was used to going to bed in the early morning. He sat down next to you in bed and went on his laptop. He looks at you from time to time for inspiration as he was thinking of writing another song. Maybe one for just you.

Time seemed to fly by as he continued to write lyrics and scroll through social media. He wished he could stay in a moment like this forever. The soft whirl of the fan in the corner, your quiet snoring coming from his right. The laptop screen seemed to blur a bit as he yawned and decided that he should go to sleep.

He turned to look at you and found that you had kicked the sheet off you and his oversized shirt was bunched up around your waist, looking a bit twisted and tight around your figure. Your right leg was 90 degrees sideways and your left straight. He lightly traced his fingers of his right hand along your thighs and stomach. You were so ethereal to him. He knew that you hated your stomach and thighs for he has kissed them a thousand times every time you complain about them. He loved that your stomach was soft and a bit pudgy so that he could lay his head on it. And your thighs, oh how he loved them. They were so so soft, and so so comfy. He loved to touch them, he loved to see them in any piece of clothing. But when you were just in underwear, he would be a happy man to die between those thighs. He loved to squeeze them and grip at them. He had to shake his head to get dirty thoughts of him between your thighs out his head before he popped one.

At this moment though, it didn't look comfortable for the shirt to be bunched like that.

As you were laying on your back, he found it was easy to get his hand under you and in between your shoulder blades. He lifted the top half of your body up with virtually no effort and untwisted the shirt, pulling it down to your hips, his hands slightly caressing your skin. He then put your top half down slowly and moved his hand to the middle of your back so he could pull the shirt all the way down to your knees. When his fingers touched your skin, you involuntary shivered, causing him to chuckle at the effect he had on you, even in your sleep. He softly put you back on the bed and smoothed his hands down on the creases of the shirt.

When he removed his hand from you, your body moved to set you on your left side, with your hand reaching out for his comfort again. A fond smile made its way on to Jungkook's face as he got under the covers and slowly dragged you in to his arms. Unconsciously, you wrapped your hands around his waist and rubbed your head on his bare chest. Jungkook smiled and wrapped his big strong arms around you, feeling like he was protecting you.

He knew that you loved to feel small sometimes, especially with his arms around you. And he absolutely loved the size difference and the feeling of making sure you are protected. Being the maknae meant that he was babied, but now he has someone to baby.

He put his chin on top of your head and kissed your hair.

"Good night princess, I love you so much"

I hope you enjoyed this, please comment and reblog :) 

Have a good day~

[ka-writes]

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Notes- Did I decide I was gonna write a fic at 2:00 AM? Yes yes I did... anyways I don’t have an archive account yet but I wanted to get it out there.... um here is chapter one of my space AU, because I absolutely fell in love with the AU.

——————

Inspired by:

Humans are Space Velociraptors

By:FreshRoses_InMyGarden_NeedTheRain

Some kids come from storks, others come from crashed spaceships

By: mmmajora

Home Again, Home Again

By: teeth_eater

All works can be found on Ao3

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Ohh also challenge if you wanna do it, fill in the Title! And another one... if you were an alien what question would you ask a human other than basic questions, like name and age.

Also suggestions are always appreciated! And if you wanna support my main blog it is kadoodle.. also I have no updating schedule so I will when I want to.

——————

Warnings: Cussing, mentions of tight spaces and characters being trapped, mentions of corpses, and needles.

——————

“Humans are [Insert text here]”

Chapter 1: Idiots kidnap the wrong kid..

Honestly, life hasn't been bad. His needs were met, most of the time, and he had a.. place to sleep…

Yeah no life wasn’t great.

Tommy was easily, barely, avoiding Social Services. Sleeping on benches and occasionally grass. He got whatever wasn’t wanted and had an official bag for the first time. He had some spare clothes, and no money. The authorities stopped looking for him after a while and the only main challenge was getting essentials.

No one would miss him. No one would look for him. Therefore he was the perfect target among many others. The only thing setting him apart was his sheer ability to survive, not a want, like many of the others, it was a fact he would survive. Not that his captors knew that of course.

Alternative: Tommy gets kidnapped by aliens and sbi rescues him.

——————

He woke up in a cage.

Not a cell or a room, a fucking cage.

There were a few others in various cages around the room. All of which were either dead or close to it. Most of the ones still alive had been there for months, possibly years. No one knew of course.

The smell of rotting bodies stenched the place with a coppery coating. The room wasn’t large but not quite small. It was dull grey with layers of grime settling on the floor and cages. The room was long and skinny, lined with cages against either wall in a zig zag format. The only light was coming from the small door window, which happened to be positioned right in front of Tommy. It glowed a faint yellow and was blurry, not allowing Tommy to see into the hall.

Shadows would occasionally pass by the window. None ever stopped at it. Causing the ever growing hunger to grow more. Once one had stopped at the door, not for more than a second, before it screeched. It was inhuman and sounded like a hurt hawk from one of those nature documentaries. Tommy shoved his hands onto his ears and waited for it to stop. The thing chuckled, not like a human, but something close to it.

——————

Tommy waited for what seemed like hours before something happened. The door opened, sliding into the ceiling. A weird looking creature stepped in. It looked like it had a porcelain mask over its face with a painted smiley face. There were no ears or hair, instead just more porcelain, which formed a spear which sat on shadows. The thing was wearing a lime green hoodie and black leather pants that seemingly faded into the creature's legs. The knees bent inwards causing it to look awfully awkward as it crouched near Tommy’s cage. The hands were long and lanky with no real palm. The creature also had a tail that looked close to how Tommy pictured a devil's tail to look. This was the first time in ages Tommy was glad to be behind bars.

The thing pointed at itself and said,

“Dream.”

In the most heavily accented English Tommy had ever heard. That didn’t matter as much of the fact that the seemingly painted smile moved with the words.

“Come.”

The creature unlocked the cage and half dragged Tommy out of the cage into what Tommy presumed to be the lab. He noticed a window. The only thing for miles was stars. He was in space. He had been kidnapped by Aliens. Fuck.

——————

Humans were a heavily avoided species. The things were what kids would expect to come out of their closet. They were feared, and for good reason.

The first ship to find Earth was ecstatic. Finding another intelligent species in what would’ve been deemed as a planetary desert was a scientific breakthrough. Causing the entirety of the media to go insane for a couple of years.. That was until the first ship ventured onto the planet. It was immediately shot down. The entire crew was killed and the entirety of the ship was destroyed in a matter of minutes. The ISF (Intergalactic Safety Force) deemed it as a no flight zone and claimed to punish anyone in the desert. Even so poachers smuggled humans and within days had their ship crashed.

The only ones allowed to take humans were scientists, who were specialized in taking care of difficult species. They were allowed to test on said species and do whatever they wanted, in the name of science of course. Most people didn’t care how they treated them and were really only interested in what could kill them.

Which is where Wilbur came in. He was a toxicologist, a scientist studying poisons, he also dealt with various potions and other chemical mixes. This knowledge is what gained his entry to the Dream Team Ship.

He had been testing on around nine different humans for the past six months on the celestial calendar. This time Dream, his boss and the captain, brought in a juvenile human. He was skinny and lanky. Clearly had been starving before being taken. He felt bad before shaking off his pity.

“V74 and V83. Make sure he can communicate beforehand.” Dream promptly stated before leaving the kid in the room.

Wilbur tried not to think about his terrified face, before he clipped on the translator. Usually it is worn on the back of the head, since humans brains are vastly different than most species, it is clipped to the left side of the head.

The translator looks like a simple device when in reality it took dozens of celestial years to perfect it. It’s a small silver disk that ingrains into the part of the brain that controls communicating. After the body gets used to the device it can translate any language into one you understand instantly.

It took a couple more years for the translator to incorporate the estimated 7,000 languages spoken on Earth. For a planet that has been isolated it has a more complex and diverse set of cultures and languages, than Pellucidian has had in centuries. To say Wilbur was jealous, wouldn’t be far from the truth. Not that he studied cultures for a living. It was something that always interested him.

He put the device on the kid’s head and grimaced at the pain that was on the kid’s face. He quickly dried up the blood and mixed a solution that would ease the pain. It was clear and tasted like water, which is the only way they got humans to take the pain reduction.

The kid relaxed for a spilt second before tending at the unfamiliar setting.

“Where am I?” He snapped, causing Wilbur to jump back a bit, before collecting himself and standing up.

“The Dream Team craft’s labatory.” The kid’s face flashed with panic for a split second, “You have two testings scheduled for today. It will go quickly.”

“Will it be painful?” The kid asked. As standard for testing, Wilbur ignored the question and measured the substances. He quickly cleaned the puncture spot before giving him the needle.

The kid winced in pain. Wilbur swiftly led him to the testing chair. It had restraints that moved with the patient's body, which prevented bruising while keeping them in place. Wilbur clicked them on and sat at the desk located to the left of the kid.

“What did you inject into me?” The kid asked clearly trying to fight off the anesthetic.

“A dosage of Lidocaine, which is an anesthetic for your species. It’s only to numb pain that may come with the solutions we will be using today.” The kid’s face flashed with a deeper panic than before, causing Wilbur to tense. “We won’t start yet, since we have a list of questions to go through before we begin.” Wilbur lied. He hated testing people, especially kids. Dream of course didn’t care, like the rest of the Dreamon species. It made him sick. That was when he made a split second decision. Hoping he could get a distress signal out, without alerting the other crew members. He was gonna get the kid off the ship, at the next stop of course. Which was in three celestial hours.

The kid scoffed, clearly not believing the lie. He paused a moment thinking over his options before he smirked,“Fine. Ask me what you want bitch-boy!” Wilbur gasped, clearly not anticipating the insult.

——————

Chapter 1 End

1406 words

——————

End notes: Why the hell does google docs make it so hard to copy and paste??

Also I had to do some intense googling for this... I hope you enjoyed!

(Also also this is my first ever fanfic... please give feedback and reblog!!)

Minor mistakes are forgiven... don’t expect me to be perfect... I am dyslexic.

——————

Tommy: ....

Wilbur: ....

*intense starring*

Wilbur POV: I am kidnapping it.

——————

Chapter 2:

[babysprouseisart]

Honestly more things are pointing to a permanent separation for SH. No indications of any reconciliation sadly. And it makes it even harder without the confirmation. I guess when they start to get papped with their new SOs will be the day that it is confirmed they are done. And I hope it is soon. This push and pull with them is exhausting

Good day, anon, and welcome to hell. Screams for help will not save you, alas, because when it comes to a topic in which I am 99, 9% sure, I have no equals. I'm sorry you probably got the wrong address, but it's too late. I am merciless and bloodthirsty with anyone who tries to contradict my faith, tries to correct my point of view and convince me of their own, although I did not give it a reason. Because it's my fucking blog where I for x-billionth time has already expressed my exact points and agreed with some people which think and proved the exact opposite to all that you are saying. So be prepared to be slowly but surely tortured by my long ass post.

 So, let's start with what I said about my blog: only good vibes here. I am not interested/concerned about other opposite/negative feedings. I just don't want to make a big deal about it. Here, in my blog, we support Lili Pauline Reinhart and Cole Mitchell Sprouse in any case as couple as well as individuals.

 This means that under no circumstances do we talk about them, their relationships, their projects, their family, or their decisions in a negative way. Yes, we may disagree with something they do, where they do it, and how they do it (what they post, what they like/don't like, write or repost, who they meet, with whom they decide to be, live and communicate with, what they archive/unarchive, and so on), but we do not have the right to judge them or decide how to act. We also can't control it and it's none of our business.

 I repent if I once made the appearance of a person condemning one of them or their family for their actions and possible causes of the separation, it was only my objective external disagreement, points and thoughts aloud, nothing more rude, involved and inappropriate. And I think with many of my words said earlier (or the words of those I follow and reblog their posts) about the behavior of family/friends of Lili, Cole, and so on, people with brains and common sense could agree. Remember this, or write it on your forehead, so that the next time you write to me, you will see these words.

 Moving on, taking into account all of the above, I would like to tell you that it probably won't be enough for one blog to explain to you point by point all my beliefs and points of view on this subject, to prove to you that every fucking word you say is illogical shit and the most real nonsense. It feels like you're an alien who fell from another planet and decided to crawl into our hole with your impressions of a newborn baby who doesn't understand much about the world and its creators. Although in this case, I'm more of the opinion that you are a little asshole, in which the vein of hatred is boiling and you like to come to this and some other blogs to tell us your agenda although we have no idea where you have such rash thoughts, perhaps you have an extra chromosome? Dude, treat your paranoia.

 Further, given that I don't have much time and desire to describe all my points of view point by point, which, unlike your random set of words, really makes sense for hundreds or even thousands of people who have the gray matter to be able to think, I will attach my long - standing post, indicating all the facts at that time proving the opposite to yours. Although, I will try to supplement everything else as much as I can.

 While, we all ( I hope) already realized and accepted that for many reasons, during this quarantine, Lili and Cole had some problems, were distant and ended up apart for a certain period of time, immediately after the end point of the explosion and informing us of all these public actions on social media (I hope you understand), then after a few weeks, they were already confidently moving towards resolution and recovery and that's why:

https://babysprousehart.tumblr.com/post/618026656780648448/hello-i-hope-this-doesnt-come-off-negatively

This was written long before, but still has many valid points and I just want to widen some of them.

Take a sit and follow me word by word.

I shall start my addition of evidence, based on all the guesses and great opinions of others, as well as hints from the Lili and Cole themselves. I would like to start with a significant event and the day when Lili posted a photo from the Antelope Valley on April 28th, well, or 27th, depending on where you are.

Perhaps we lose some missing pieces in this puzzle and forget about something that was done earlier, but I just want to start counting from this moment.

A few facts about this photo/photos:

1) It was posted exactly 3 years later from their famous photoshoot, when very, very, very many people, mostly in media, began to suspect that there is something between them in a romantic way. It was exactly in the same place, exactly with the same style, exactly in a similar image (waving curly hair, light flying dress, black and white effect) and even without a capture. The picture marked the anniversary and is very important for the two of them. An undeniable fact, beat me.

2) That photo was definitely taken by Cole. Why?

Here are a couple more facts in addition to the first:

They have the quality of captured on professional camera.

You can see, that Lili did not tag the photographer and said jokingly that the photo was taken by Milo, why would she lie, or hide that it was anyone else, because clearly she just hid that because it was Cole.

You may have noticed that Austin, when asked who took the photo, whether she took it and whether she is a good photographer, says no and her reaction with a grin and laugh is priceless. She also didn't tag nor the photographer, neither Lili in her photos from there.

You can watch the vlog in the Colleen blog and see there are very similar figures to Cole, Lili and Milo walking along the valley, because, duh, they were there.

You can view her post, where you can see Cole from the back (notice his dark clothing, the same as on one of his post in the profile, which he has already deleted, as well as his position from which the photo of Lili was supposedly taken and it is just in the same place).

You can observe his style of photography and how similar the theme is to the photos from 2017.

You can see the same poppy behind his ear in one of the past stories.

You may have noticed that the photo of Lili is processed with the same effect as several photos in Cole's profile, and I can tell you as an amateur photo editor that it is very identical.

Question: why arrange such a significant photoshoot with your ex after a few weeks of separation? Why is Cole smiling in a photo (black and white one with a mustache and black clothes) probably taken there? Why is everything so secretive if they broke up? Why even post a photo that your ex-boyfriend definitely took? How can you calmly go to this place, which reminds you of your joint travels with your former lover? Therefore, this photo and later another one from there were the first iron arguments in confirming the improvement of things.

 I would like to continue with another ironclad proof.

Lili in early may very fiercely, after a few weeks of Cole's statements about slander and threats, which she did not respond to so clearly at the time, defended Cole and pointed out the private relationship and literally said that people should stop it and even though should hurt and bully her, but not him.

Question: did she defend her ex so publicly? Would Lili talk about a private relationship if that was the way her past relationship was most often? Would she have written anything at all if she didn't care about him and didn't feel something towards him? I don't think so, so it's gibberish to say so (about the break up) when it's the second unquestionable argument.

 Next, we need to talk about the general activity of Cole and Lili in social media. I just want to list some observations, in different order, but it seems like everything we have now:

If earlier it was visible in the posts of Lili that it was clearly a show off, then over time and after the published photos, she began to behave more sincerely and tenderly, began to publish Milo less, began to say that there was only the two of them less, has stopped showing how good she is without certain someone, as if for Cole showing that she could cope without him, which was visible in the posts and stories, she began to talk more about improving her mental health as a result of training, spoke about how later she was feeling better and that she was grateful for those who were with her and difficult times and in light moments, that you just need to live and enjoy.

Additionally, I can say how she shone with each photo, and it was a natural glow of happiness and settling down. She no longer sang sad songs or posted sad songs, on the contrary, posted sexy, funny and relaxed ones. She appeared more in photos taken by paparazzi. She posted sexy, energetic, romantic movies, funny cartoons, watched funny clips, was excited about her project, laughed, danced with her dog, played with a dog with macaroni, cosplayed Willy Wonka (we all have a feeling it’s Cole’s thing, no?), playing with sand, puzzles, posted funny memes in story, which unfortunately coolly accepted as the opposite, posted a poem with a typo and funny answered to a fan who corrected it, told more about poems and attached a photo with a fragment of a poem about love from her upcoming book. She liked some photos from the anniversary of the last episode of the series, where we remember there was a hot scene of her and Cole's character, she liked a Bughead drawing. Yesterday, she actually posted one of the sexiest videos that will not be posted, being single and lonely, we saw that she actually spent more personal time with Cole (I am not saying they weren’t doing t back then), which was investigated thanks to many amazing people here, and even if they don't live together yet, they are more likely to meet and have met with each other, and more hints on sexy times (because, come one, maybe Milo was the one who left a hickey on her neck, huh?), which is undeniable, just compare the fact that she is no longer in the old rental, and he is not in Kj's house, she then posted a photo from some place, which is very similar to where Cole shot a video with Jimmy Fallon.

 He also began to be more active in social networks, exactly after she started posting photos of the Antelope Valley, he posted a series of photos of the kissing couple, even if it was a gay drawings, they were filled with love, there was a photo of him with cattle with the sarcastic caption, then the photo about porn bots, with funny ask to leave him alone and saying it’s not allowed to be horny on quarantine, again a photo of himself with heart eyes that I talked about above, he posted a very funny video recently. There were more photos from the paparazzi after some time when Lili's usually flashed, and then it stopped, then his humorous photo in the washing machine appeared, which she probably had taken, and why so I explained in the attached post, he posted a photo from the walk, which was also probably taken with her, because again, she had a similar location, then he jokingly called Tommy ‘the’ muse, maybe roasting fans, but he didn’t use ‘my’, so, indicating he still has his own muse, then we saw him at that damn party, which caused people's panic, although he is an ordinary person and has the right to relax, and by the way at this party he was very happy and frisky, but nothing bad or shameful happened and he is innocent, then we even saw Cole, after Lili, delete many of the photos, although he had also unarchived some of them several times, as she had, which means that he did not delete them completely, but just removed many of them, leaving the most tender photo after or before the kiss at the famous moment when Lili wanted a toast and eggs at 1 am, or many photos reflecting her body, which also marks not a bad phenomenon, but a simple trolling from them. Proof of this trolling and unarchiving is on the vastness of other blogs and on Twitter, thanks to that girl's video.

 The way their condition and activity on social networks have changed is very noticeable and is also third undeniable fact of denial of the break up. You can compare photos of Cole taken by Alex, where he is clearly very sad and depressed, because it was taken somewhere in the interval of their real breakup. And compare this with his smiling and playful state during the interview with Jimmy, where he also sparkled with happiness and fun, constantly smiling and seemed to be aroused about something (or someone). I think even a newcomer will notice a change in their mood and attitude. You will see the difference. And this does not happen when going through the break up after 4 years of deeply imbued with love relationships. Please understand, damn it.

 I have listed alas not everything that speaks so vividly about things going in the right positive direction and is evidence that everything is getting better again, there will be only more I assure you and you will kiss my ass, as Cole said.

 Execution cannot be pardoned.

 You have one attempt to put a comma and decide your fate, but I think you’ll  fail because you are a total sucker anyway.

 Bye!

[whenrockwasyoung19]

It’s Time to Talk about a Bespectacled Elephant in the Room

I’ve been in the Beatles fandom for 8 and a half years. I have had a Beatles blog for the entirety of those 8 and a half years, and I have watched as discourse about these four men evolve. The discourse inside and outside the fandom has become so toxic that I don’t think I can engage with it in the same way that I could before. Let me explain. 

When I entered this fandom 8 and a half years ago, it was in 2012, quite an infamous year in tumblr history. That was the pique of “”cringey”” fandom culture. The Beatles fandom was as steeped in fandom culture as any other fandom. I know this because I was part of two of the top of fandoms at the time, Doctor Who and Sherlock. Believe me, I have seen cringe. 

The fandom at the time was totally aware of the John, Paul, George, and Ringo’s flaws as individuals, but most fans tended to simply enjoy Beatles fandom as if it were the 60s. Some might call it ignorant bliss. If you asked me at the time, I’d have said it was self-aware ignorant bliss--if that even makes sense. At the time, there wasn’t a person with a Beatles icon who hadn’t heard the line “John Lennon beat his wife.” Everyone knew it, but everyone also knew the real story, and so everyone just made peace with it. As a result, people didn’t think about every bad thing the Beatles ever did on a daily basis. It was more like a once-a-month kind of thing. Otherwise, fandom discourse was quite fun and relaxed. There were no shipping wars, no one fought over who was the best Beatle, everyone gushed over the Beatles wives, and we all just had fun with fics and fan art. 

Of course, in this period, people engaged in conversations about one bespectacled Beatles problematic behavior. These conversations usually came from outside of the fandom. It was usually randos coming into the tags or into someone’s ask box and ranting about John Lennon’s violent behavior. Some of it came from within the fandom. Some people really didn’t like John and gave others shit if they listed John as their favorite Beatle. A lot of the discourse boiled down to: ‘hey, I see you like John Lennon. You should know that he beat his wife. And now that you know that, you should feel bad about ever liking him in the first place.’ And the response was often, ‘Actually, John Lennon didn’t beat his wife. They weren’t even married at the time. And also he didn’t beat her, he slapped her once in the face, and then never did it again.’ No one’s minds were changed. The fans had made their peace, and the antis came off as cynical and pretentious. 

When Dashcon happened, and Tumblr took a hard look at its cringey fandom culture, the Beatles fandom evolved as well. The fandom became, frankly, less fun. It no longer felt like a group of people who found the Beatles decades after the 60s and were fangirling like it was 1965. There was still some of that left, but a lot of it kind of faded. So, most fandom interactions were reblogging pictures of the Beatles from the 60s and various interview clips and quotes. But the barrage of antis never really went away, and the response didn’t evolve. 

Then, the advent of cancel culture came on. I always waited for the Beatles to get, like, officially canceled, but I also felt they were uncancel-able at the same time. Let me explain. I have been a Beatles fan primarily in an online space, rarely engaging with fans in real life. But I have met fans who are life-long Beatles fans, people who are a lot older than us and who’s fandom isn’t tied to the internet. They don’t give a shit about any of our discourse. They may or may not have heard it before, but they seem totally indifferent to all of it. I’m sure most of them have never heard ‘Mclennon’ before. These are the people that flock to see Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr in concert (and pay astronomical prices for it). These are the people who go to record shops and buy vinyl. These are the people I run into at flea markets who buy up all the Beatles merch before I can even arrive (true story). So, the Beatles will never be canceled because there will always be people who love the Beatles and don’t engage with online discourse. Rarely said, but thank god for Gen-X. 

As cancel culture took over the internet, fandoms changed. It’s not as noticeable in fandoms without problematic favs. For instance, I’m also steeped in the Tom Holland fandom, and that boy is a little angel who has done no wrong. No one has discourse about the unproblematic boy who plays an equally unproblematic character. But in fandoms with ‘problematic favs’ the mood has shifted. I’m also in the Taron Egerton fandom. Taron Egerton, for those who only follow me for my Beatles stuff, is a genuinely sweet and kind person who has had zero scandals in his six year career. There were some rumblings when he was cast as Elton John, and some people took issue with the fact that he’s a straight man playing a gay man. This discourse seemed to die quickly as a whole lot of straight people played gay people in that same year (Olivia Coleman as queer Queen Anne, Emma Stone as her queer lover, Rami Malek as Freddie Mercury). Why jump on this boy who at the time was still technically on the rise. He’s not exactly the same target as someone like Scarlett Johansson who has her pick of roles. Taron doesn’t have quite that some power in Hollywood, and I think most people made peace with the fact that this was a big role for him, and it’s not really fair to take that away from him. So, all in all, the closest thing to a scandal was something that died pretty much on arrival. 

That was until this summer when everything changed. When George Floyd was murdered, celebrities flocked to social media to mourn his loss. Taron’s social media account was silent. For weeks, Taron said nothing about Black Lives Matter or Floyd’s death. This caused outrage in the fandom. Many raced to defend him, starting a hashtage #IstandwithTaron. Others sought to tear him down and anyone who supported him. The kind of mania this one incident caused tore through an otherwise peaceful fandom. What I saw was two sides in a total panic. The antis were people who once had faith that Taron was a good person and were now questioning that. Andthe defenders were people who desperately wanted him to be a good person and were afraid that he wasn’t. In essence, both sides could feel Taron about to get canceled. The defenders wanted to stop it, the antis wanted to ride that wave. 

What this long drawn out Taron example is meant to convey: is that cancel culture has put fandoms on edge. One’s fav has to be perfect, otherwise it can jeopardize the existence of the entire fandom. I’ll admit, I was afraid that I’d be some kind of pariah for standing by Taron through all of this. My actions were to basically reason with the antis but still defend Taron. I defend him mostly because I felt that his silence was the result of a needed social media absence and that trying to shame him back onto social media was an invasion of privacy. But I was genuinely afraid that he would get canceled, and the fun of the Taron fandom would be lost. 

In the Beatles fandom, it often feels like the Beatles, mainly John, have already been canceled. I see this coming from two different sources: antis from outside of the fandom and antis within the fandom. The outside antis are just the same as the ones from 2012. These are people who like to drop in that John Lennon beat his wife, posting this in the tag (which violates an ancient tumblr real by the way--no hate in the tags). 

The antis outside the fandom speak to a larger anti-John Lennon sentiment online. I see references to John Lennon ‘beating his wife’  on Tiktok and twitter. The tone of anti-John Lennon posts has shifted. Before, it felt like the antis were being smug but also argumentative. They wanted to have a conversation about this bit of info they read on Reddit with no context. Now, “John Lennon beating his wife” is practically a meme. It’s a running joke online that John Lennon was a wife beater. I can’t look on my instagram explore page because every so often a John Lennon beats his wife meme will pop up amongst the other, normal, memes.

This change in discourse suggests that the internet has just accepted this as fact now. I should note that back in 2012, it seemed as if few people knew this fact. The fandom knew it, and these random antis knew it, but few others did. Now, because of how common these memes are, it seems to be widespread knowledge.

Consequently, the Beatles fandom, who used to ward off attacks from antis, seems to have given in. I recently saw a post from a Beatles blog (had the URL and icon and everything) that confessed they felt guilty for listening to the Beatles, and I’ve seen similar sentiments expressed in the fandom. People tend to put disclaimers in posts about John or even all four that John is an ‘awful man.’ It seems like the self-aware ignorant bliss has completely gone away. Occasionally, I still see posts joyously talking about Mclennon or reblogs of old photos from the 60s. But the culture has shifted. 

Online, it no longer feels comfortable to be a Beatles fan. It feels like you have to own up to 8 decades of mistakes by four men you’ve never met. And, I should note, this is kind of how it feels to be a fan of anything right now. Taron is not canceled today, but he could be tomorrow. It’s this pervasive feeling of guilt that the person you’re supporting may or definitely has or is doing something wrong.

I’ll admit this uncomfortable feeling has expanded into other parts of my fandom life. I listen to their music, and I feel elated--the way I always have. Then, I get these intrusive thoughts which sound like all the worst parts of Twitter combined. It wasn’t always like this. Back in 2012, when I knew almost nothing about them, I saw them as four young men who were full of happiness, love for another, and talent. Back then, listening to their music was exciting and joyous. Sometimes, I fear that I can never feel that way again. Next year, when I finally go to Liverpool, will I be filled with excitement or guilt? 

I say all this for a few reasons. One, I love John Lennon. I appreciate all the good he did for the world not just as a musician and an artist but also his advocacy and charity work. I love him, and a part of me will always love him, but observing the change in discourse has enlightened me as a historian. Part of my job is to observe people’s legacies, and John’s is perhaps the most interesting legacy I’ve ever observed. When he died, he was hailed as a saint. But tall poppy syndrome set in, and the antis started. This culture grew and grew to the point where it seems to, at least among the younger generation, taken over the sainthood. 

But as a historian and a fan, I have never seen the saint or the devil. I’ve only seen the man, the incredibly flawed man. The thing that these antis never understand is that John Lennon was painfully aware of his own flaws to the point where it made him all the more self-destructive. In essence, his past mistakes caused him to make additional mistakes. But John, aware of his own flaws, always tried to change and was often successful. I’ve talked about this before, but John demonstrated that he was capable of being a good person, like properly so, again and again. After he struck Cynthia, he never hit her again. His shortcomings as a father to Julian weren’t repeated with Sean. He worked on his drinking, his drug addiction, and his anger, trying to overcome those demons till the day he died. By all accounts, the John Lennon that died in 1980 is not the John Lennon who struck Cynthia Powell at school. That John Lennon was living a cleaner, healthier life. He was a better father to both his sons by that point, and was trying to repair his relationship with Julian. He was a good husband to Yoko and saw himself living a long and happy life. 

John Lennon cannot and should not be boiled down to just his flaws. It’s one thing as a fan to acknowledge that John is a flawed human being (news flash: they all are), but he is also much bigger than that. 

So once again, why am I writing this long, rambling post, once again talking about John Lennon’s virtues? Because if I can’t engage with healthy discourse about the Beatles and John Lennon, then I can’t engage with discourse on the topic at all. So, I probably will post less Beatles stuff because I find it hard to go through the tags or even my dash (well, I can’t really go through my dash anymore for other reasons I’m not going to get into right now). If any of my followers have noticed a lot of Taron posts lately, it’s not just because I love Taron, it’s because Taron’s  tag is pretty much the only location on tumblr I feel 100% comfortable in. Any foray into John or the Beatles tags becomes uncomfortable and guilt-ridden quickly. 

So, I probably will post less about the Beatles until I can find a blog or a tag that doesn’t give me bad vibes. My fandom will likely outgrow tumblr and the internet. I have a ton of Beatles books; maybe I’ll rely on those. I am doing official scholarly research on them now. Maybe that will be my outlet. I’m sorry if I post less about them now, but it’s really for my own well-being. 

[older-brother-kit]

TSMC ch. 3

I’m back with chapter 3! In this chapter: Everything goes horribly wrong, but something good comes out of it. Or does it...?

Here’s chapter 1 on AO3 and on tumblr, here’s chapter 2 on AO3 and on tumblr, and here is this chapter on AO3! Let me know by comment, reblog, or tags if you want to be added to the tag list for this story, and please let me know what you thought because I really appreciate it!!

The Sibling Matchmakers Club 

Chapter 3: By the Angel

Mina was happy to say that she was enjoying her time at camp. After two weeks she’d made a great friend, figured out she was good at soccer, learned how to do origami, and started a prank war. 

Ah, right. The prank war. Now Mina enjoyed pranks as much as the next person -ok, maybe a little bit more, and she would blame Kit for that- but Lucie and James had made it a little too personal. Mina had arranged the first prank because she thought they’d all be able to laugh about it and become better friends afterwards, but instead James and Lucie had gotten fired up and started fighting for real. At this point, it had gotten way out of Mina’s control.

Not that she had tried stopping it in the first place. While she’d tried talking with James and Lucie separately about how they could prank each other and still be friends, neither of them had wanted to listen. Mina quickly gave up, but decided that it wouldn’t stop her from having fun and helping Lucie out. 

Though for once, Mina wasn’t doing a prank. Today was Saturday, and every Saturday the kids got to call their family back home. Mina actually owned a cell phone, a small model that her dad had been very hesitant to give her. He had thought she was too young for one for the longest time, but had rethought it after an incident where she got lost at the mall and couldn’t find him. Kit had promised to make sure Mina wouldn’t have any bad social media or weird apps if she got one, and so Mina was given the phone a week before heading out to Camp Clover. The camp’s policy was no electronics though, so Mina hadn’t used it much. Even before camp, she really only used it for calling her family and her friend Tavvy.

On Saturdays, she used it to call her dad. Jem always made sure to make time to answer Mina’s call, and Kit usually liked to make loud comments in the background. At the end, they’d both tell her they missed her and say I love you and their goodbyes. Mina was having a lot of fun with Lucie and James and the Lightwoods, but she looked forward to Saturdays the most.

Mina was startled when the phone in her hand started to ring before she even pressed the call button. It was usually her dad who called, but this time it was Kit’s name and picture that flashed across the screen. “Hello?” 

“Min-Min!” Kit’s voice rang loud and clear, and Mina smiled widely without even thinking about it. “I thought I’d try to catch you before you called Dad, since you usually call around this time.” His voice lost some of its energy, and she could picture the strained look on his face. “There was an emergency at the hospital and he couldn’t leave, so he can’t call today Mina. I’m sorry.”

Mina sighed, her smile quickly fading. Her dad loved them both and always tried to make time to spend with his children, but she knew that being a doctor was a demanding job and he couldn’t always be there. Growing up, they were often babysat by different family friends until Kit was old enough to look after them both on his own. 

“It’s ok,” Mina said, telling herself that at least she got to talk with her brother. “I’m happy I can still talk to you.”

There was a slight pause, and when Kit spoke she could tell he was smiling. “A smooth talker as always, Mina. So, how’s that prank war going? Did you and Lucie finally win?”

Mina perked up, and spent the next few minutes recounting her most recent successes and failures. Recently they had managed to get help and put the boys’ beds outside of their cabin, but then they had snuck a whole handful of fake spiders into Mina and Lucie’s beds. Grace and Paige hadn’t been very happy about Mina and Lucie’s sudden screams, and neither did the other side of the cabin. Mina had a feeling they were slowly getting fed up with the prank war going on, but Mina had no plans to stop anytime soon. If there was anything her dad had taught her, it was to not give up.

If there was anything Kit had taught her, it was that when it came to pranks you had to start small and work your way up to the big stuff. For Mina, the big stuff was only just beginning.

“We already have our next prank planned out,” she told Kit proudly. “It’ll be like the first prank we did, but better. There’s going to be maple syrup and-”

Mina’s cabin counselor Jessamine, who had been standing at the corner supervising the phone call, gave her a look.

Mina cleared her throat. “I mean, nothing. We’re not going to do any pranks or anything with maple syrup, because that would be bad.” She heard Kit snort.

The counselor sighed and checked her watch. “Hurry it up,” she said, nodding to the door. “The lunch bell is going to ring soon.”

“Sorry, I’ll have to end the call soon.” Mina said. “How is Dad doing?”

Kit sighed. “He’s still overworking himself at the hospital, so basically what he’s been doing since you went to camp. Then of course there’s that horrible-” Kit gasped suddenly. “Mina,” he whispered in a low tone. “You have no idea, I totally forgot he hasn’t told you yet. I know he wanted to wait to tell you in person, but you have to know. There’s this woman named-”

The lunch bell rang, and Mina heard shouts from outside her cabin about how excited they were for today’s lunch. Apparently, today they had hotdogs and hamburgers. Mina jumped up from where she had been leaning against the wall.

“I have to go!” She interrupted, and felt a little bad about it, but it was hotdogs and hamburgers today. Plus, Lucie and Mina had to finish eating early in order for today’s prank to work. There was no way she could be late. “It’s lunchtime, sorry. Bye, love you!”

“Wait, Mina-” Kit’s voice cut off as Mina quickly hung up the phone before handing it to Jessamine and rushing out the door. Normally she’d try to find Lucie first, but she bet that Lucie was already on her way to the dining hall. 

Kit had mentioned a woman. Her dad had actually talked about someone that he wanted Mina to meet when she got back to camp, but Mina hadn’t known it was a lady. It was probably normal for Mina to be worried, to think that maybe her dad was seeing someone, but that was silly.

Mina’s dad never dated, so Mina wasn’t concerned at all. As she ran to the dining hall and caught sight of Lucie, her spirits only lifted. 

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

“We have to finish quickly,” Lucie told Mina quietly, slathering ketchup on her hotdog. She ignored Mina trying to hide her wince at the amount. The dining hall had been mostly out of ketchup, but they’d gotten there early enough for Lucie to snatch some off of the other tables undetected. “You said yourself that the key for the prank was time.” 

Mina nodded silently, having just taken a bite of her hamburger. She swallowed and coughed for a second before taking a sip of her apple juice. “I might be eating too fast.” she said sheepishly. “Though as long as we finish before James and Thomas and Christopher get here, we’re fine.”

The two of them ate at a faster pace than usual so that they could get back to their cabin and prepare their prank, though Lucie noticed that she didn’t see James or the Lightwoods anywhere. They’re just late, Lucie thought. Christopher probably exploded something again and they’re cleaning it up. Christopher Lightwood might be a genius, but his experiments often caused something to catch on fire. 

Mina stood up with her empty plate, and Lucie did the same. The two of them grinned at each other in excitement as they put their plates onto the dirty dishes cart and walked out of the dining hall.

“You remember the plan?” Mina asked, and Lucie gave an enthusiastic nod. 

They were going to sneak into the boys’ cabin while they were still eating lunch, and cover their entire side with maple syrup and mustard. An odd combination, but today at lunch Lucie had remembered that James hated mustard. Mina had thought it was a brilliant addition, and a step up from only using the maple syrup Mina had taken at breakfast. If any of the food workers noticed their disappearances, they didn’t say anything.

“Lucie,” Mina said suddenly, and Lucie snapped out of her thoughts to look at her. 

“What?” she asked, and Mina pointed to their cabin where Grace and Paige were about to enter. “What, that they’re here? You know they like to wait and have lunch later.”

Mina quickly shook her head. “The bushes,” she said hurriedly. “Do you see them?”

Lucie looked at the bushes next to their cabin and her face paled. “Oh no,” she whispered, and both she and Lucie started running to the door.

James and the Lightwoods were sitting in the bushes, mostly hidden by the thick leaves. They didn’t seem to notice Grace and Paige’s approach.

“Wait!” Lucie called out to the two girls. “Hey, wait a second!” They ignored her, as per usual.

James glanced over, and his eyes widened as he saw Grace grab the door handle. He quickly jumped out of his hiding spot and reached towards her. “Hey, don’t open-”

It was too late. Grace opened the door and her and Paige walked through. For a split second Lucie thought that maybe nothing bad would happen after all, but the second ended quickly. A huge bucket full of a thick, red substance, tipped over and onto both girls’ heads. Lucie, Mina, and James looked at each other in horror. There had been an unspoken agreement not to get the others into it, and now they had gotten the worst people possible involved.

Grace and Paige screamed, and James immediately ran up to them. “I’m so sorry,” he said frantically, trying to wipe some of the substance out of Grace’s hair. He just smeared it in more. “I am so sorry, please don’t tell on us.”

Thomas and Christopher stumbled out of the bush, their faces shocked as they surveyed the scene. “Do you think they like ketchup?” Christopher pondered. 

So that’s why the dining hall was out of ketchup, Lucie thought, and had the urge to laugh. 

“Hey!” a voice yelled, and Lucie turned around to see her camp counselor storming over to them. “What happened here?!” Jessamine demanded. 

James looked terrified. “Uh, I-” he stuttered. “It’s not what it looks like, we were just-”

“Just what?” Jessamine spit out. “Look at what you’ve done!” she gestured to Grace and Paige. Paige was bawling her eyes out, and Grace was glaring at them all with an intense hatred that made Lucie unconsciously take a step back.

“We didn’t mean to,” Lucie spoke up, feeling brave. She and Mina were the ones who started the prank war, after all. It wasn’t fair for James to be the only one yelled at, even if his prank was the one that got them caught. “We were just trying to have some fun.”

Jessamine turned to look at her. “Oh, I know all about your fun.” She pinched the bridge of her nose, and Lucie exchanged nervous glances with Mina. James tried to help Grace get the ketchup off again, but she slapped his hand away and he stepped back. “We’ve all been letting it slide because it wasn’t hurting anyone and you always cleaned up your own messes, but this has gone too far.” 

“But-” Mina tried.

“Save it,” her counselor said, then her gaze moved to the three boys. “Now which one of you did this?”

There was a short moment of silence before James raised his hand. “Me,” he said. “I planned it and set it all up.”

“Hey, wait a minute!” Thomas protested. James gave him a look, and Thomas stopped talking.

“I did all of them myself, all of the pranks,” James announced. “Christopher and Thomas were just here to watch.”

Jessamine sighed. “Come on, then,” she said as she started to walk in the direction of the main building. She stopped to look at Lucie and Mina. “You too. All three of you are in trouble.”

Lucie slowly started to walk with them. “This isn’t good,” she mumbled to herself. This wasn’t good at all. 

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

All James wanted was for them not to call his mom. Please, he thought, as he imagined the disappointment in her voice. Anything but that.

The three of them were now being led to an older cabin that was a ways off from the main cabin area, having stopped the main building and then their own cabins to get all of their stuff first. Thomas had looked guilty and both he and Christopher had apologized, but James had told them it was ok. James wasn’t looking forward to the punishment, but he was happy that he was at least able to save his friends from getting trouble.

James looked at the girls nervously. Originally they had tried to avoid talking to him, but Lucie had quickly given up and started making comments under her breath to them both.

“Is she taking us to an abandoned cabin to kill us?” Lucie whispered, kicking at some grass.

“No,” James argued quietly. “Our parents would never let them.”

Mina frowned and adjusted her ponytail. “She wouldn’t do that in the first place,” she said, but James saw her put her hands behind her back to hide the fidgeting. 

“Alright!” Jessamine announced, stopping as they reached the front door. “I discussed it with the other counselors, and your punishment is to stay here for the next week.”

“Here?” Mina asked, her voice cracking. She cleared her throat. “I mean, isn’t it too old? What if it collapses or something?”

“It won’t,” the counselor said confidently, but Mina didn’t look satisfied. “The three of you are going to stay here all week, only coming out for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”

Lucie gasped. “We can’t stay in here all week, what are we supposed to do for fun?”

Jessamine gave her a look. “Talk to each other without fighting or pranking each other, maybe? Just a thought.”

“Hold on,” James said slowly, processing her words. “All three of us?”

“Yes, that’s what I said. All three of you, together, with only each other for company.” She paused, as to let the information sink in. “Well, you better get inside and start putting your things away! A counselor will come to escort you to dinner once the time comes, but other than that you shouldn’t be leaving the cabin.” 

“But-”

“No buts!” The three of them were pushed inside the old cabin, and the door creaked as it shut in their faces. 

James looked around at the inside of their living space for the week, frowning at all the dust. “This place looks like it hasn’t been cleaned in a year.”

Lucie sighed and walked over to the right bunk bed, flopping herself down dramatically on the bottom bunk. She didn’t seem to mind the dust getting onto her clothes. 

“Probably because it hasn’t.” Mina pointed out, and sat next to Lucie. James sat down on the bottom bunk of the left bunk bed, making sure to wipe off the dust first. 

“I guess we should start putting things away,” he muttered glumly. 

Mina looked around the cabin and fiddled with her shirt again. “You don’t… You don’t think this place is haunted, do you?” she asked in a small voice. 

With the way they’d been fighting recently, James would’ve normally made a joke or snarky comment, but Mina looked genuinely scared. He found that he couldn’t help but want to make her feel better.

“It’s ok,” James assured her. “There’s nothing to be afraid of, it’s definitely not haunted.”

Mina gave him a nervous smile, and they all started unpacking their things. Once James had his bedsheets on and his clothes put away into the tallest drawers, he sat on his bed to take a break.

He turned to Mina, who had finished putting away her things first and was now watching Lucie struggle to fit all of her clothes in her designated drawers. “Hey,” James said, and Mina looked up. “Why did you start the pranks, anyway? Wasn’t it you that had the idea?” At this point he wasn’t mad, just curious.

“Yup, it was me,” Mina said proudly. “My older brother likes pranks, so I already knew a few and what to do for them.” She paused and then stood up suddenly, her face bright. “Oh wait, I have a picture of him I can show you!”

James leaned forward in interest as Mina picked up her bag then sat back down and began to dig through it. Lucie had given up messing with her clothes and moved to join Mina on the bed. 

“Aha!” Mina exclaimed, and she pulled out a picture and showed it to Lucie. She gestured at James to join them, and he carefully walked over and sat down next to them on the bed. 

Mina handed the picture to him. There was a teenage boy with bright blond hair and light blue eyes smiling at the camera. “That’s Kit,” Mina said. “His full first name is actually Christopher, but no one ever calls him that.” Kit was sitting next to Mina by a big pool, and they were both smiling without a care in the world. 

“I wish I had an older brother,” Lucie said wistfully, and James nodded in agreement. He wished that he had an older brother, but really he just wished he had any sibling at all.

“My dad took the picture, that’s why he’s not in it.” Mina explained. “I don’t think I have --oh wait, I do!” She went back to her bag, and after a minute took out another picture. 

It was a strange picture. The ink was messed up a bit in places and it seemed a little old, but the weirdest thing about it was that it was ripped on one side. Ripped on one side, James thought, and an idea popped into his head. He rejected it immediately. No, that would be crazy.

“It’s him on his wedding day,” Mina said, and turned the picture over so they could see. The man himself didn’t look familiar, but the flower bushes in the background did. 

There’s no way, James told himself. It has to be a coincidence. 

Lucie was suspiciously quiet, and James turned to face her. “Mina,” she said, her face oddly serious. “Do you… Do you know who your other parent is?”

Mina looked surprised at the question. “No,” she said. “My dad never wanted to tell me. Look, he even ripped them out of the picture.”

“Huh,” Lucie said, looking like she was about to faint. “Mina, I have that same picture, but of my papa and ripped on the other side.”

“What?” James asked incredulously, his heart beating in his chest. “But that’s- I have the same picture but of my mom and ripped on both sides!”

Mina and Lucie looked at him and each other for a moment, and he knew his face must be mirroring theirs of shock.

“I have it!” Lucie suddenly shouted, then lowered her voice and looked at them. “I have the picture,” she blurted out, and dove for her bag.

“There’s no way,” James breathed as he reached to grab his own bag from his bed. “It can’t be!”

He and Lucie hastily pulled out their own pictures, holding them close to their chest. “On three?” Mina suggested quietly, her eyes filled with excitement and something that James thought might be hope. She put her picture down gently on the bed, face up. 

“One.”

“Two…”

“Three!”

James and Lucie slammed their pictures down next to Mina’s, and James felt like bursting into tears.

The pictures fit together perfectly, like pieces of the most finely crafted puzzle. James’s mom was there in her wedding gown, two handsome men in suits standing next to her and on each arm. All three of the adults were grinning, and they all had on the same ring.

“By the angel,” Lucie whispered, and James didn’t even question the odd saying that he’d previously thought was something only he and his mother said.

“Are we siblings?” James asked, and he pinched himself just in case this was all a dream so that he could wake up. It didn’t work.

“This is impossible!” Mina said, putting a hand on her forehead. “I’m so confused.”

As James looked at how neatly the pictures all combined into one, he couldn’t help but agree.

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

Thank you reading, let me know if you enjoyed!

Tag List: @idontgetit-whydoihavetosaymyname @zafirafox4636 @nolu @ghostjessesgirl @girlwhohatesstuff @anxiousbookenthusiast @ineedadrinkorsleep @lucieblckthorn @themostawesomehuman @hands-dripping-ink @panicatwallmaria @immortal-enemies @booklovingelephants @bookishgeekygirl @thenameskarr-parkerkarr @livia-dovehallow @cortqnq @christophers-lemon-tarts

[dreamworksconvict]

She-Ra: Racism Problem Pt. 1

Thanks to this post by @dyke-ra​ for inspiring me to write about this topic, I’m going to have to split this up cause there’s so much to talk about.... 

I worked a bit on my thesis today, which is about LGBTQIA+ representation in kid’s/young adult’s cartoons, and as soon as I got home I stumbled upon a post on my dash (reblogged by @highqualititty​ who has Very Good Art so check them out) and I was like!!!!! This is exactly what I was writing about with VLD and Steven Universe!!!! It reminds me a lot of this image by @racistz

So I want to point out some of the problems with She-Ra that I’ve noticed and that other people in the fandom have noticed as well, and talk about them in the context of Hollywood history, tropes/stereotypes, and well... colonialism. 

There will be spoilers for She-Ra Season 3 so be warned. I’m also writing this kinda stream-of-consciousness-esque so apologies if it’s a bit jumbled.

PART I: Character Design - 1. Catra

Ok, so let’s start with Character Design. I want to focus on Catra and Mara for this. If people want I can talk about some of the worries I have about Huntara too. 

Let’s start with Catra, and let’s do a little comparison. 

Catra and Sugilite share a startling number of design traits. Pay particular note to the fact that they’re both seen as wild, misguided characters. Neither of these characters is coded as white. I would say Sugilite is pretty obviously a racist caricature of a black woman, not that Catra doesn’t have these tropes as well, but that Sugilite’s design and character traits have been widely discussed, especially in the really excellent article “All These Black Characters and 0 Done Right — How Steven Universe Fails Its Black Fanbase, Part I“ (there is no part II, as I believe the writer, Riley H, got essentially bullied into silence). In actuality, however, both of them have a lot of similarities. I’ll be using a lot of evidence about the coding of black women in media primarily, but there are a lot of other tropes you can find about other ethnic or racial codings as well. A lot of these tropes are also defined as being in the past, but there are still clear reverberations of them in the present, as I try to show here.

Riley H notes the Jezebel stereotype in the article I mentioned, which Catra seems to fall into somewhat. The Jim Crow Museum at Ferris State University says that “The descriptive words associated with this stereotype are singular in their focus: seductive, alluring, worldly, beguiling, tempting, and lewd. Historically, white women, as a category, were portrayed as models of self-respect, self-control, and modesty - even sexual purity, but black women were often portrayed as innately promiscuous, even predatory.” While Catra’s design does not have the same obvious extreme-hourglass shape that Sugilite’s does in its emphasis of hips and chest (jesus Rebecca Sugar, what were you thinking), Catra’s chest and hips are still accentuated with triangle designs that point to those areas; Catra’s hips are also decorated with strappy belts. Her pants are also ripped at the thighs, and she doesn’t wear shoes. She also wears skin-tight clothing; compare to Adora, who gets a big baggy coat, a long-sleeved shirt, and non-ripped pants (and shoes). Catra is also wearing red, a color associated with passion; while Adora’s jacket is red, she is most often seen in white, a color associated with purity. Plus, check out Glimmer’s fantasy imagery from S2, which is supposed to be a reference to the OG She-Ra but does not take into account that THESE ARE STILL TEENAGERS???: 

Also note that Catra’s arc thus has far has focused on her losing self-control and self-respect, while Adora’s arc has focused on her gaining those traits instead. 

Two other stereotypes are important to acknowledge here: the Sapphire stereotype, which “popularly portrayed black women as sassy, emasculating and domineering. Unlike the Mammy figure, this trope depicted African American women as aggressive, loud, and angry - in direct violation of social norms,” and the black brute stereotype, which typically referred to black men but stereotyped them as “animalistic and brutish.” Catra is literally made animalistic by being part cat--if your defense is, “oh, well that’s just how she was in the original,” 1) things can you know... improve over time 2) it’s still really, really bad even if it was “used in the past series” and 3) she’s also covered in scars on her arms, which is an addition to her design that makes her seem like she gets into more fights than Adora and other Horde soldiers and/or had a rough past, making her more “brutish”/prone to fighting than the others. (Contrast to Adora’s now-revealed past where she was a Magic Baby Destined Hero from the Savior Planet.) 

Plus, she still falls into the Sapphire trope. Adora was the favorite of the Horde, while Catra was the rebel and “too outspoken.”  Catra is also punished more than others for failing to succeed in missions--Hordak even attempts to have her executed, despite the fact that most of his generals have also been failing just as much. Catra still talks back to him, and rarely is shown afraid--more often than not, she’s shown making “sassy” quips and talking down to others. Adora gets many more scenes of emotional vulnerability and growth. Both are/were members of the Horde as well and grew up traumatized, but Catra’s trauma villainizes her (although she may still get a redemption arc at some point) while Adora’s does not. 

She is also very masculinized (is that a word?? oh well) when with Adora. She even takes the role of the “male dance partner” in the ball episode when they dance together, and is wearing a suit and tie (untied, to still depict that “wild” side). Look to Riley H’s article which discusses how Garnet in SU often takes the more masculine roles in fusion dances--there are clear parallels. While this inherently isn’t a problem, it’s a common trope that PoC women characters are made to be more masculine than their white counterparts. On top of this, much like how Pearl (white-coded) is the only one who can get through to Sugilite once she’s gone “out of control” (see the episode “Coach Steven”), Adora, the white savior (I will get to this problem later), is presumed to be the only one who can “get” to Catra or influence her behavior (although Scorpia made attempts, but she is also white...). 

In summary: Catra is portrayed as animalistic, wild, prone to fights, and masculine especially in comparison to white-coded characters. Her arc thus far has made her a foil to Adora, but in doing so has followed a lot of stereotypical tropes and has heightened Adora’s position as a White Savior, especially post-S3. 

(I didn’t talk about the “evil lesbian” trope, but since there are so many queer-coded characters on both sides, I am not sure if that trope applies here. I may make another post regarding that specific trope though if people would like. Essentially we’re getting dangerously close to that potential premise.)

2. Mara

Ok, so if you haven’t heard, Mara (the previous incarnation of She-Ra) was whitewashed in the earlier seasons of the show. Let the images provide the evidence, Season 3 vs prior: 

Yikes...

I have seen an apology floating around on Tumblr from someone who worked on the show who claims they just didn’t notice this... which like, ok, maybe. There is also speculation that maybe they decided to design Mara this way last-minute. I’ve also seen some theories that She-Ra’s “form” is a white woman regardless of who wields the sword but that would be Super Yikes so let’s hope it’s not that. 

There are plenty of resources available about why whitewashing characters is bad, although it’s somewhat unusual for this to be a discussion in animation. (Typically the discussion happens when Scarlett Johansson plays a character who isn’t white or cis for the ten billionth time.) But something similar did happen with Voltron: Legendary Defender on the cover of one of their comics. Check out this nonsense:

Like how to do you mess up, that bad?!!?!?!?

In any case, I believe a reprint was issued (much) later for this particular cover, but the fact remains that this is becoming enough of a problem that people should be checking for this. This whitewashing took place in the actual She-Ra episode and wasn’t caught beforehand by editors? Suspicious, and embarrassing...

Also, this doesn’t necessarily have to do with character design or whitewashing, but I am Suspicious that Mara had to sacrifice herself to save the planet while Adora did not... remind anyone of Allura? Anyone???? There is a whole problematic history regarding that which I can get into on a separate post as well. But since we don’t know exactly what happened to Mara yet, I’m leaving that alone for now. 

----

So that’s the gist of the character design piece of the puzzle! Next I want to talk about the White Savior trope in She-Ra and how it’s really similar to Voltron and Steven Universe in that respect. 

IS this all a bit of a reach? Maybe some of it?! But I doubt that ALL of it is. (The whitewashing definitely is not.) And the fact is that there has been a ton of problems with holistic representation in cartoons, and She-Ra isn’t trying to do anything different to counteract the bad stuff that’s been done before. In fact, it’s kind of following the same pattern as its predecessors. Characters, even non-human ones like Sugilite, are coded a certain way, and those codings are based off internalized systems of how we view the world and interpret it. So if you have a writer who’s not really closely examining those beliefs and systems without challenging them, you end up with stuff that follows all these problematic tropes and stereotypes. 

I’m planning for my thesis to go over why I think this happens so often (mostly a lack of intersectionality). essentially I’m in way over my head and will have like, a 100 page thesis plus a creative piece too by the end of this and it’s due this fall cause i deferred it oooooh my gosh. Anyways! There will be more if you like. 

[hollandsmushroom]

What Changed?

Calum Hood x Plus!Size Reader

Summary: Ever since Cal got back from tour you have felt him being distant, less affectionate and all around disinterested in you, so you confront him

Word Count: 5,165 long detailed and specifically picked words

This is something I am really really proud of, it is the longest thing I have ever written and I worked my ASS off on it!!! I hope you enjoy!!!

Reblog Goal: 30 

Warnings: Angst, Smut, Fluff, self image issues, self hate, body dysmorphia???

Calum had been away on tour for around 3 months now and you were in desperate need of him, and not necessarily in a sexual way, you just needed him with you, to hold you and love you and to remind you to not let the hate get to you, because whenever Cal was away the hate would always get much worse or was it just that fact that he wasn’t there to tell you to ignore it, either way it was always targeting your weight. Today was the day, Cal was coming home from tour today and you would finally be able to see him again, to kiss his plump lips and to hold him. His flight was getting in around mid day and you were going to pick him up, you had hardly slept the night before due to how excited you were to see the love of your life again. In preparation for Cal getting home you had gone out and bought a new set of lingerie that looked great on your curves. You had recently been working on loving your body and seeing it as a gift rather than something to hate for existing with a little extra chub here and there. Cal had always assured you that you were beautiful but there had always been the hate that you received, and that told you the exact opposite. 

You had put on your new lingerie set and thrown on some casual clothes over it and you jumped in your car and started your way to the airport, your hands shaking with excitement to see the man that you loved after so long. You arrived at the airport and parked your car in the parking lot, walking to arrivals, looking and looking up at the sign that displayed departures and arrivals, seeing Cal’s flight had just landed meaning that you were actually going to see him, not the pixilated, exhausted and half focused him that you would get during your face time sessions, no, the real thing. 

You stood idly at the exit area of the arrivals, your legs shaking with the anticipation of your reunion. You stood on your tiptoes to see over the heads of the mass of people in front of you, your eyes scanning the crowd of people exiting the doorway, looking for the face that you had missed so much, you saw him before he saw you, his short brown hair hidden underneath his favorite grey beanie, he looked soft and cozy, your favorite way for Cal to look, it always made you want to cuddle him and you hadn’t in so many months, the time having been hard on you because you always loved curling up in him and just existing so you simply couldn’t wait to do that after so long. You stood in front of him, waiting for him to notice you, and you couldn’t tell if he had and was ignoring you, or if he had just not seen you yet. 

“Calum,” you hollered, waving your hand above your head to catch his attention, his eyes landed on you and you could have sworn that the chocolate orbs lit up for half a second before going back to an unamused and exhausted expression, you decided to let it go.

“Cal, baby, I have missed you,” you spoke softly as you opened your arms, waiting for him to gather you in his hold and kiss you like he had never done so before, but he didn’t. He stood pretty still as you wrapped your arms around him, leaning in to press your lips to his and pulling back once you realized that he wasn’t reciprocating the affection that you were doling out. You decided to not question it, thinking that maybe he didn’t want to show affection with paps and fans around, so you settled for linking your hand with his limp one and walking towards the baggage carousel, gathering his luggage and walking back to the car, the whole while wondering what was up with your boyfriend, why he was being so silent, what had happened on tour that lead him to act this way upon his arrival. You decided to let is slide, he was probably exhausted and too out of it to really notice what was going on, and though deep inside you knew something else was wrong you decided to let it go, to move on and make it to tomorrow before bombarding him with questions. 

The car ride home was quiet, nothing but the quiet hum of the radio to fill the tense air between you and Cal. Your hand was placed on the center console, something you always did when you drove because Cal loved to hold your hand, but this time it was just left there against the cool metal of the interior of the car. You were trying so desperately not to let any of this get to you, he had only been back for an hour, you couldn’t take it personally, it was just that whenever Calum got back he was always so affectionate and loving, but now he was distant and cold, and you felt this realization pang in your chest as you looked at him in the passenger seat, pulling into your drive way and unloading his luggage, the two of you worked together, yet in silence, to carry his stuff in. Once the car was unloaded Cal began to make his way upstairs, leaving you in the entry way with the bags. He was being cold and you didn’t know why, making the rational and adult decision to go to bed, you followed after him, waiting until he was done with the bathroom to slip in and remove the lace from your body, not wanting him to see how excited you had been for his return home. 

You pulled back the neatly placed covers of your bed and slipped in, the fabric smooth against your skin as you pulled the blankets over top of you, rolling onto your side and scooting back to cuddle into Calum’s chest, like you usually slept when he was with you, his arm slung around your middle, your back to his chest, but not tonight, because when you backed up you hit his back, not his warm welcoming chest, causing him to groan.

“Go to sleep,” he mumbled in annoyance, and it was those words that did it for you, it wasn’t just exhaustion, there was something else going on, but what was it? Your sleep deprived and anxious brain began to race, all the reasons that Cal would be acting so cold to you, running through your mind at the speed of light, but one seemed to stick more than the others, one that hurt the most, he was grossed out by you. Your body had never been the so called ‘ideal’ body, but Cal had always told you that he thought that was utter bullshit and that you were gorgeous, but the thing with having been told that someone would have to work to love you, and could easily fall out of love with you because of how you looked, is that it leaves scars, deep set insecurities that are awoken by the littlest of things. A tear slipped  down your cheek as theses thought ran through your brain. You fell asleep like that, with red tear stained cheeks and a wet spot on your pillow, and still he didn’t notice and that broke your heart a little more.

You slept restlessly that night, your body apparently expecting Cal to hold you on his return and being discontent with him being so close, yet not holding you. Continuing with the trend of the previous night, your morning was just as bare of affection, awaking, still lacking the embrace of your boyfriends. Your eyes were sore from the tears you had shed hours before, they weren’t very bloodshot, but it was noticeable, yet it went uncommented on by Cal. 

The next two days were the same as the first, every interaction between you and Cal lacking affection or any romantic undertone, he hadn’t touched you since he came and it was all piling up on your emotions, had you gained weight and he was no longer attracted to you, did he just stop loving you, had he cheated on you. All these thoughts frothed up in the forefront of your mind on the third day after his return. You had a mug of tea in your hand as you sat at the breakfast bench, watching Cal as he sat spread legged on the couch with his eyes trained on his phone. You slid from the stool, approaching the couch with tea in hand and plopping down on the side opposite from Cal. 

“Cal?” you spoke his name as if it were some kind of question, the letters felt unfamiliar on your tongue after days of not saying it.

“Mhmm,” he hummed in response, not looking up from his phone.

“Can we talk?” you sat up and scooted towards him.

“I guess, what do you want to talk about?” he groaned, seeming entirely unenthused at the idea of conversing with you. 

“What has been up with you lately?” you asked softly as you stared at him intently, your whole body facing his as you sat sideways and cross legged on the couch. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he scoffed, still not meeting your gaze. 

“Thats bullshit and you and I both know it,” you exclaimed harshly, setting your tea down on the coffee table and repositioning yourself on your knees, just barely looking down at him, “You have been off ever since you got home, and for fucks sake I had shit planned out, I had bought myself some new lingerie, I had stayed off of social media to avoid hate so I could have the confidence to wear it, which by the way, is a lot of hate because its always worse when you are on tour! I was so excited, but when you arrived you brushed me off, didn’t hug me or kiss me back, didn’t talk to me, Cal it has been this way since you got back, what the fuck is wrong?” he was silent after your rant, the room stagnant leading you to continue talking, “Did I do something wrong? Did something happen while you were away? Are you no longer attracted to me, did I gain or lose some weight, am I not beautiful to you anymore? Did you cheat? Cal these are the things that my brain jumps to when you don’t communicate!” you spoke, tears beginning to roll down your cheeks as you let out everything that you had been holding in over the past few days. 

“None of that is it, babe,” he turned to face you, his gaze finally pouring into yours, his brown eyes dancing with sadness.

“Then what the fuck is it, Cal, because I am tearing myself down trying to think of it!” you spoke exasperatedly. His eyes dropped from yours to the ground, examining the grain of the hardwood that peeked out from beneath the carpet.

“It’s stupid,” he murmured.

“I bet it’s not if it had you flat out ignoring me for literal days,” 

“It’s the boys,” he stated with no further explanation, making your brows scrunch together in confusion.

“What about the boys, are you guys okay?”

“Yea. the band is fine, its just that they were making fun of me for how excited I was to see you, teasin’ me about how I get so ‘clingy’ when I get back from tour and I guess it got to me, I started thinking about what if I annoyed you when I got back from tour, what if this time it would be to much for me to comeback and you would get fed up and leave,” you felt tears in his eyes as he poured his heart out to you, you wanted nothing more than to hold him, so thats what you did,  scooting closer to him and tucking yourself into his side.

“You could never be to much for me, thats just your anxiety talking, baby,” you hummed, looking at him through your lashes as  you watched a smile break out onto his face at the reassurance and the validation. He looked at you as he slid an arm down your body, grabbing the back of one of your thighs and pulling your onto his lap.

“I hope you know that now that you said that, all I am gonna be doing is lovin’ on ya,” he mumbled, leaning in and pressing his lips to yours, but you laid your hands flat on his chest and pushed him back, his eyes shooting open in confusion.

“Good because you have 3 months of being gone and 2 days of ignoring to make up for, so do your worst, baby boy,” his cheeks flushed at the pet name as he returned his lips to their place on yours. His hands running up your thighs, squeezing the dimpled flesh of your ass and pulling you in closer to him.

He pulled away suddenly, his fingers still gripping your arse cheeks through the denim of your jeans, his eyes softening even more so as he looked into yours, hands dragging up your sides, catching on your belt loop before continuing their ascent, the pad of his thumb brushed across your bottom lip as he tilted your head up. 

“Did you really worry about all those things?” his eyes flicked to your lips as you bit down on them softly before back up to your eyes. You nodded your head bashfully in response, embarrassed at your own anxieties. His heart broke at the sight, you having been so worried that he had fallen out of love with you that you had driven yourself up the wall. “How so?” 

“I spent a lot of time in front of the mirror,” you admitted, almost ashamed at that, he knew what that meant but he still had to ask.

“What did you do in front of the mirror?” tucking hair behind your ear as he looked at you lovingly but your head was ducked to avoid his eyes, for fear of seeing the sadness take root when he found out what you did in front of the mirror, though he already knew what that meant.

“Poking and contorting,” you sighed, tears rimming your eyes as you remembered the distaste that you had felt for your own figure when you thought Cal had fallen out of love. Pinching at the extra chub around your tummy, wrapping your arms around yourself to try and hide from it all, from every flaw that you saw, “I thought you didn’t find me attractive anymore, I thought that maybe you realized I really am just fat like everyone of the headlines say,” you spoke softly as tears slipped from your eyes when you attempted to blink them away. Calum’s eyes shot wide at your words, not having taken into consideration all the hate you must have gotten while he was away, how he wasn’t there to hold you when it hit home, how could be have been such a moron, he was too preoccupied with the foolish worry of scaring you away that he didn’t realize you were tearing yourself down in front of him, ever since the day he came home, and it was his fault.

“No,” was all he could manage, inhaling deeply, his hands falling to your hips and pulling your into his chest, “Baby, no, I am sorry I have been such an idiot and didn’t realize what you were going through,” 

“You really were being an idiot, Cal, I love you in every way that there is, I love when you are clingy cause sometimes I need that reminder that I am still wanted,” You spoke as you looked up at him with slightly bleary eyes.

“I could never fall out of love with you, I love every bit of you, especially the ones you are criticized from, your mind drives me crazy and your body has me all kinds of unpure, you are perfect for me, you are it for me, fuck what anyone else says, you are sexy as hell, and one day I am gonna make you see that for yourself,” He spoke every word with such sincerity, leaning in and catching your lips with his when he finished, your lips stayed meshed with his in the simplest of kisses, feeling your way back into one another’s touch. It was simple pecks, one after the other, pulling away for short puffs of breath before delving back into each others lips, his hands remaining on your hips, that was, until the gentle pecks became more heated, his mouth opening as yours did as well, tongues dancing against each others as he slowly pushed you down till your back met the couch. Your tummy pressed against Cal’s as he hovered over top of you, causing you to squirm, reminding you of the distaste you held for that area of your body, Cal’s hands held you still, pulling back from your kiss swollen lips and looking you in the eyes.

“Stop movin’, I can’t love on you when you’re squirmin’,” he spoke, a smile on his face as he did so, a smile that you had missed so much over the months that he was gone. 

“But my stomach, its pressing against yours,” you sighed in what felt like defeat. 

“Yes, and its amazing,” he spoke, finger tips slipping underneath the fabric of your shirt, tracing over your skin as his lips pressed back to yours. His hands were making there way up to your breasts, slipping underneath the cup and palming at your boobs, pinching and tugging on your nipples as he bit your lip gently, earning a groan from you. “You like that, huh? Is my love just as touch starved as I am,” you nodded your head eagerly, as you arched your back into his hands. He had worked your shirt up till it was above you breasts, tapping your arm to signal to lift them over your head so he could remove it from your body entirely, as soon as he did, you wrapped you arms around your stomach, trying to hide it from his view, but he sat back on his knees, silently peeling your arms from your body before dipping down and placing kisses from the bottom of your tummy all the way up to your lips, biting down on your bottom lip and pulling away. 

His hand slipped underneath your back, skillfully unclasping your bra and dragging the straps down your shoulders letting your breasts fall free. 

“Oh, how I have missed these,” he groaned, ducking his head down and wrapping his kiss swollen lips around the nub of your nipple, sucking on the sensitive bud as he massaged your other breast, he did this for around a minute before switching, your body jolting as he began to work again on your already sensitive nipples. A slight pant of Fuck exited your swollen lips as he did this.

“We should take this to our room before I get to carried away on the couch,” he whispered as he pulled back from your chest. 

“Cal, you like fucking on the couch,” you mumbled as you watched him sit back and stand up. 

“Y/n, I am not gonna fuck you,” he spoke, his words making you utterly confused, was he gonna leave you like this, high and not really dry, more like dripping wet for him, “I am gonna fucking worship you,” he bent down and pulled you up so that you were standing as well, your breasts hanging low as you stood bare chested in front of him, you crossed your arms over your boobs and the movement caught Cal’s eye.

“I will let it slide for now, but there will be no more of this,” he gestured to your hands covering your breasts, “when we reach the bedroom,” grin on his face that sent your stomach into flurries of butterflies as to what was about to happen. He took your hand and began to walk down the hallway, pushing open the bedroom door before spinning around. Once again capturing your lips in his as his hands ran up and down your sides squishing the rolls on your hips as he held you close to him, walking backwards to the bed, turning you around as he went, the back of your knees hit the edge of your bed, causing them to unlock and fall back onto the bed, your breast falling to the side as Calum hovered over you, his chest to your sternum as his lips remained on yours. His fingers laced with yours as he pinned your hands to the bed on either side of your head as his hips slowly ground into yours, you felt his hard on through his pants as he rubbed against your clothed core. Slowly he began to kiss away from your lips, working down your jaw until he met the soft spot where your jaw met your neck, sucking on the flesh lightly before continuing his kisses down your neck. He placed two light pecks on your nipples, but not spending much time on them due to his earlier assault. 

You groaned as he neared the hem of your pants, knowing what was to happen as soon as he slipped your pants off. His slipped his fingers into the front of your pants, tugging them down passed your hips, drawing each leg from its pant leg as he did so. Once each leg was free he traced his fingers up each leg, the chubby flesh giving way beneath the light pressure of his hand. He pushed your thighs apart revealing your pantie clothed core that was usually hidden by your thighs that met in the middle, though it had always been something you were insecure about Calum always assured you that he loved it when your thighs wrapped around his head as his tongue curled deep inside of your core. 

Your eyes were clamped shut as you felt lips on your legs, sucking as he made his way closer and closer to your core, placing a soft kiss to your clothed heat, a gasp escaping your puffy lips but it quickly turned into a sigh as he began to kiss your other thigh. He chuckled to himself as he teased you.

“Cal, please,” you whimpered, unable to keep going, your panties already had a wet spot on them from your arousal soaking through. 

“What do you need, baby?,” he asked though he already knew exactly what you wanted.

“You,” you moaned.

“What. About. Me. Do. You. Want,” Each word was punctuated with a kiss to your core, his nose nudging your clit through your underpants. Your hands shooting down to grip at his hair, the feeling all to much on your over sensitive heat.

“Fuck, Calum, all of you, please, I need you,” you whimpered.

“You got it, my love,” he bit down on the fabric of your panties, pulling back and dragging the fabric down your legs, leaving you bare and dripping in front of him. “Fuck baby, you’re so goddamn pretty,” he groaned, swiping his fingers through your heat, coating them in your arousal and bringing them to his lips, sucking them clean. “Fuck, I almost forgot how good you taste,” he moaned, “C’mere baby,” he mumbled as he chewed on his bottom lip, admiring the way that you chest rose and fell, how your breasts moved with your panting breath, he had missed this view, and god did he regret ever letting your doubt how fucking much he loved you and your body. He grabbed your calves, pulling you to the edge of the bed, your ass barely on the mattress as he held you up with your legs thrown over his shoulders, your heat at eye level with him, “Fuck, baby, you are so damn beautiful,” he mumbled, not giving you a chance to respond he leaned in, placing gentle kisses on your folds before sliding two fingers through them to part the flesh, spreading them into a v-shape to get better access to your clit. He was tender and loving and it was driving you mad, you wanted him, his tongue, his lips, his teeth, fuck you wanted it all. He stuck out his tongue and licked through your folds, his eyes on your face the whole time, the look of pleasure on your face enough to encourage him to continue, he wrapped his lips around your clit and began to suck, his tongue slipping out and tracing circles around the bundle of nerves. 

“Oh fuck, that-that feels good,” you moaned, your hips involuntarily moving against Cal’s face. 

“Mmm, you like that baby?” he asked rhetorically, knowing by the expression on your face kist how much you were enjoying this. His fingers circled around your entrance as he stayed sucking on your clit. He dipped one finger into your heat, feeling your muscles contract around his digit in response to the feeling of part of him inside you, a feeling that had sadly become foreign to you in his absence. Slowly he curled his finger deep inside of you, pulling out and adding another, repeating the same motion he had with the first, thrusting them in and out of you as his lips stayed on your clit. He felt the contractions of your walls around his fingers become more frequent, enjoying the feeling.

“You close, baby?” he asked against your core, the vibrations adding even more stimulation, pulling you to the edge, but not being what pushed you over, what did that was a thrust of his fingers that touched the spot that lived behind your pubic bone, one that was guaranteed to make your legs shake and your head to throw back in ecstacy. 

“Cal, Cal, oh fuck Cal,” you cried as your legs shook, tightening around his head as he continued licking and curling his fingers deep inside of you. He continued these motions till he was sure you had ridden out your high. 

Pushing your thighs apart he pulled back, watching as you peeled your eyes open from their clamped shut position from your orgasm. Pushing yourself up onto your elbows, you watched him as he stood from his place between your legs, a bulge evident in his pants. Your reached out and grabbed the tent in his pants, outlining his hard cock through the taught fabric.

“What got you this hard?” you smirked up at Calum through your lashes, dragging his sweat pants down his hips and taking his boxers with them, his cock springing free and standing upright against his still clothed torso. You tugged on the hem of his shirt, signaling for him to remove it. Taking your hint he pulled the shirt over his head leaving him stark naked in front of you. Reaching out you wrapped your hand around his cock, thumbing over his tip in a circular motion, spreading pre-cum around his painfully hard cock. 

“Baby, you need to stop,” he groaned, his eyes clamping shut.

“Hmm, why should I?” you didn’t stop your motions. 

“Because,” he said, snapping out of it, grabbing your wrist and pushing you down, “I want the first time I cum to be inside of you, not on your hand,” he chuckled, kissing your lips as he grabbed the base of his cock, running the tips through your sopping folds as he continued to ooze pre-cum, your previous orgasm mixing with his juices. 

“You ready baby?” he asked as he lined himself up at your entrance. Giving a quick nod in response, he slowly pushed into you. Your walls stretching at his size as it had been so long since you had had his cock buried inside of you. He stilled his hips after the initial thrust into you, letting you adjust to him as to not hurt you.

“M’ready baby,” you mumbled once you had gotten used to the stretch, letting him know that it was okay to start moving, which he did, thrusting into you with force, his cock reaching places inside of you that it never had before. 

His head was in the crook of your neck, his thrust powerful and slow as to make sure he felt the drag of your walls around him and that you felt every inch and vein of his throbbing cock. His lips brushed over your skin as he began to mumble everything he loved about you, one sweet nothing per powerful thrust of his cock. Reminders that it was you who he loved and that he loved every bit of you, your laugh, how your boobs jiggled when he pushed into you, how your thighs felt around his head, how he loved tracing your stretch marks because it reminded him of how much you have grown. Each compliment and each thrust pulling you both to the brink of your orgasms as you dragged your nails down his back, your legs wrapping around his torso.

“Come on baby, cum with me,” he groaned into your neck, sliding his hand down your waist and in-between your bodies, slipping his thumb between your folds and rubbing slow circles against your clit, each one in a slight upward motion to expose the nerves of your clit from underneath your hood. 

“Yea, yea, Cal I am cumming, Cal oh fuck,” your back arched into his chest as he pulled his head out of your neck and kissing you on your lips. 

“I am gonna cum,” he mumbled against your lips as he felt you release your juices around his cock, the pulsating rhythm of your muscles around him causing him to release his load deep inside of you. He collapsed against your chest breathless after the both of you came. You stayed this way until he went soft inside of you, that was when he pulled out of you and flopped onto the bed next to you.

“I love you, and I am so sorry I ever made you doubt that,” he hummed, tracing the stretch marks on your skin, “Every inch of you is perfect and I could never fall out of love with you, I just got worried I would be too much for you,” you rolled over in his arms, looking him dead in the eye and cupping his cheek.

“The same goes for you, you are perfect and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, and especially don’t hold it in and let me freak out,” you giggled, drifting your eyelids shut as you drew your face closer to his, pressing your lips to his in a gentle kiss.

Reblog Goal: 30(please surpass this though)

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[formerlyrunephoenix6769]

I was asked and ask, and in my flu causing feverish state, I deleted it. So if you’re out there and recognize this question (and I’m paraphrasing) please reblog and @ me. 

So If i remember, the question was along the lines of 

“Why isnt there huge amounts of stuff, for shows like She -Ra and TDP, are they not as popular?” 

Lets go for a ride...

I think the reason why we dont get the same amount of content generated for shows such as The Dragon Prince and She-ra, say in comparison to shows like RWBY. 

And by content, I mean, theories, memes, art and in depth analysis, boils down to 3 things.

1) Time to Generate.

Both The Dragon Prince and She-Ra have only recently dropped their first season. Now both have their second season coming rather swiftly, esp in the case of The Dragon Prince. Season 2 is dropping tomorrow: Feb 15 2019 over on Netflix. 

She-Ra’s is set to be released April 26th 2019, again on Netflix. 

The Dragon Prince S1 was released on Sept 14th 2018, and She-Ra: Princesses of Power, Nov, 13th 2018. 

In TDP case, that is a 5 month and 1 day turn around and SPOP, 5 months and 13 days turn around. 

It is rather unheard of for an animation to have their Second season be ready in under 6 months. Usually it is anywhere from 10 months minimum to a year or in some cases, even longer. 

I put this down to the success of the two series and how the audience received them, and Netflix wishing to capitalize on it, and the hype generated. 

Lets just hope that the both properties dont feel rushed as a result. 

So with such little time, and a very short hiatus in terms of tv shows, (which is when most of fandom generated content tends to be created), that gives very little time for their respective fandoms to leave their senses and devolve into some sort of animeesque Lord of the Flies in a matter of weeks, in a bid to cope.

(RWBY FNDM, I’m looking at you with your ‘Beehaw’s’ and YORSE, and ‘Scheehaw’s’. I still cant believe you made Arryn read that with her own eyes!!) 

(You can tumblr search Yorse yourself, I aint making anyone look at that cursed image without their consent. You’ve been warned! ;p @hammertime-rwby  i shake my head in your general direction... ;D ) 

Time to generate can also be reflected in how long a show has been on air, thereby garnering a wider and much larger fanbase with a broader set of creative skills, which in turn results in more fandom content generated, esp if there is the potential of shipping. 

And bloody hell does SPOP have some crazy potential on the shipping front, 

2) Time to Mature and Fandom Engagement. 

As a show matures and the audience leans learn more about the characters and the world that they inhabit, the nature of fandom created content evolves. It also depends on the verve of the show itself. 

The way in which a show is presented, the topics and themes they cover, the way the characters and the world are presented, can vicariously dictate how the fandom engages with the property, go forth and multiply.

For example:

Sherlock is very meme worthy and that tends to be reflected in the content that is generated by the Sherlockians. 

RWBY has been out for 6 volumes and has a very dedicated and passionate FNDM, but it is also broad, large and incredibly diverse.

 It is also rather vocal and has very strong differing opinions from one end of the spectrum to the other, which in turn creates YT reviews, reactions and rebuttals and heated retorts. 

These polarising pov’s can then go on to permeate to other branches of social media, such as twitter, tumblr, discord etc etc 

Same with fandom accepted headcanons and lore... 

(I’m still on the fence about you Renora Rodeo Round up... You’re on thin ice! ;p ) 

But it has taken a number of years to cultivate. 

Neither The Dragon Prince or She-Ra has had the time to do that, yet! 

But I’m certain that will change in the coming future. 

 She-Ra has already generated quite the buzz on both the positive and negative sides, due to being based on a much loved, older, property, ‘She-Ra 1985′, but that is a mine field which I covered on my previous blog before some asshat decided to axe it. 

Also, the themes that Netflix She-Ra seems to be covering, which helped generate a lot of the negative backlash towards the show, will most definitely continue to be polarizing... So I would keep an eye out if YT and people picking stuff apart is your jam. 

On the other side, what SPOP seems to be trying to deliver will also generate lots of awesome content. Just look at how this took off,

“Hey Adora” 

And this cinnamon roll’s preoccupation with ‘force captain orientation’,

The Dragon Prince strikes me as a show that would generate deep reflective analysis of world and characters as well as theories, much like its older cousin, Avatar Last Airbender, once there is more to comb over and speculate on.

These two shows are presented differently and they way they are tackling certain themes in their respective narratives are also vastly different, which could also have a lot to do with their respective target audience and intended demographic,  so it stands to reason that the results of fandom generated content would be different. 

3) Platform and Format. 

This I believe is one of the most important aspects which ties the previous points above.

If a property is delivered week by week, such as RWBY, there is time, for the FNDM, after they make amazing screen shots and insta analysis and excited speculations, to go over it again and allow the episode to sink in. 

(which both TDP and SPOP could do, as they have episodic episodes but that is an entirely different post)

There is time for the fans to go sit back and react to what they have seen, whether that is creating beautiful fan art, crafting in depth theories, character analysis, extrapolate potential world building. 

A week by week delivery culminates in an emotional impact that is allowed to foster and grow, thereby gives space and time for the individual to go off and create content for their respective fandom. 

Fanart takes time, fics take time. 

The not knowing what could happen next opens up the avenues of thought out speculations. 

Having a week to go over everything to that point and process new info. Being able to take your time to research and prep before you put it out there, results in good, in depth analysis and well crafted work. 

Time gives breeding ground.

(Some wait years for lore.. Overwatch fandom, I dont know how we do it! But we all cant be Tracer!) 

Because, we are so salivating at the the mouth for insta gratification and ‘binge’ culture has become so prevalent where media is concerned. 

When a property is delivered all at once, it gives no breathing space for speculation and wild theories.

For a particular scene or interaction between characters to have an emotional impact and thereby create emotionally significant fan art, that is reblogged and shared in that moment, give it time to resonate with its respective fandoms.

And there for have time for other members of the fandom to be inspired to go off and create their own stuff in what ever medium is their forte. 

Because we are on this fast paced ride, not only from the start of the chapter 1 to end of the first ‘book’, so to speak, but also the social media need to be the first to create the content for the fandom, the type of content generated, how and why, is hugely different and may not at first glance look like it is forth coming.. 

It just takes time to sink in.. To go back through and re-evaluate. 

Being inspired by a particular interaction between two characters , or a certain facet of the world that an fan may have noticed and wishes to expand on, art wise, fic wish or theroise, loses its validity when you know that the next episode could answer your burning questions in less than 5 seconds. 

And so you stave off for the dreaded nine episode when your eye balls are nearly gumming together and you know you have work in 4 hours but you need answers to the burning questions.. 

and so results.

This is not the content creators fault, in anyway. This is quite literally the way in which it is delivered. 

Its is pretty much, 

II) However, in Conclusion 

The perceived lack of fandom interaction/generated content, in the social media platforms that a fan chooses to  consume, or is available to them, does not mean that a show isn't popular. 

The ties to previous projects, such as SPOP to She-Ra 1985  and The Dragon Prince to Avatar Last Airbender are vastly different. 

Expectations are vastly different.

 Fandom interaction and generation of fandom content, is not a measure made of how popular a show is.  

Also, politely, remember the demographic of which these shows are aimed at. 

Be respectful of the show creators, the property, the characters and the narrative that the show creators have painstakingly crafted and put out into the world. 

The story that they want to tell. 

Again, 

 a reminder, 

Tomorrow, 15th Feb 2019 , Season 2 of The Dragon Prince. 

(im gonna go back into my fluey coma now)

[eddtober]

Eddtober Survey Results + Announcements!

You asked, we listened. Here’s the results from the Eddtober 2019 Preparation Survey and how it’ll affect the challenge! At the end, there will be a special announcement in regards to the blog!

Keep in mind that though while a lot of people voted, it was, at the same time: not a lot. 

27 of you voted in total and that’s only a fraction of the people who are in the fandom. 

Trying to get the word out about Eddtober isn’t easy - due to it being mostly active here on tumblr. That may change however, but we’ll get to that in a bit. Personally, I just wish that more people took a vote.  

Regardless, let’s get to the results.

(In)famous Fan-Projects:

85.2% of you were keen to see these fan-creations of these projects be more included into Eddtober, regardless of opinion. Though in saying that, you also all agreed to tag the creations for said projects so people could blacklist them, if they didn’t want to see it. 

Oh boy, I have a fair bit to say about this part. 

It’s now a rule to tag which side of the argument you’re on about these creations. Either as ‘#eddtober fan project’ or ‘#eddtober fan project salt’. Please keep both out the main Eddtober tag when you post your creations, as to avoid any unnecessary drama. That being said, I highly recommend getting a blacklist extension for tumblr. Either Tumblr Savior, xkit, or if you’re mostly active on mobile, I’m pretty sure that even tumblr itself can block out words and tags for you. 

Regardless of opinion, Eddtober still aims to be a neutral and positive uplifting event for creators. So if you’re going to create things that relate to either side of the argument you’re on, I will NOT allow straight-up insulting stuff to either side. Be it horrendous caricatures of the creators, vaguing about others through a story or other means, I will NOT let it be shared around. More so, if this is kept up, I’ll most likely disregard your creations entirely since I don’t wish to endorse hurtful people. Especially through this event. 

There are better ways to state and create for your opinions than just straight-up bashing on others, especially the creators of a fan-project. Instead, ask yourself: how would YOU write this sort of story with your opinions and characterisations in mind? What’s the adventure YOU want to share? I’m genuinely eager and excited to see how you’ll answer these questions in your own way.

Though do keep in mind that from now on, all these posts from both sides of the fence (that are tagged appropriately) will be all on the blog. So if you don’t want to see things that are from the other side’s POV, be wary as you look through the posts since… blacklisting on a blog isn’t easy. 

(Personal Tangent: I was kinda scared of this option, honestly. Because, as I implied, I know very well this may open a door to discourse, vaguing and awful things said by antis. I don’t know if this rule will be permanent for the rest of the challenge’s existence, but for this year, I’m sure all of us can endure it together. As much as I do have a final say over a lot of the challenge, I also sincerely want to hear you out and be on your side. If you want this rule to change by the end of this year’s challenge, let me know in the asks, and don’t hesitate to throw in some ideas to make it better also!) 

Shipping:

A similar percentage of you was keen to have tagged shipping too! So from now on, if you have any ships implied or shown in a prompt response, always use the tag ‘eddtober shipping’ and what ship it is in another tag. Again, no use of ‘eddtober’ and ‘eddtober shipping’ together - some people are strong nonshippers and we don’t want to cause hassle. 

Gore:

This one was a liiiittle harder to put together since there’s no pie chart for it. But, a majority of you agreed that going up to Eddsworld’s levels of gore was fine by you, and even mentioning you weren’t keen to see guts spilling out. 

Whilst Eddtober did allow guts in its gore tag before (and some other gross things), I actually agree with these statements and will implement them asap. However, if you change your mind about it in any way shape or form, don’t be shy to shoot an ask through this blog! 

I also noticed in the results that some of you were worried about self-harm and mutilation in regards to gore. Allow me to quote from the boundaries just to put this to bed and ease your minds from it. 

Death wishing, abuse, suicide/suicide idealisation, self-harm and/or similar are NOT allowed to be depicted in the challenge and should NEVER be romanticised or supported. Eddtober aims to be a safe and uplifting place for all creative people, no matter what their space is at the moment. 

I intend to keep it like that.  

Social Media:

A surprisingly unanimous vote from all of you was to definitely spread to more social media areas, some of you even suggesting reddit, discord and particularly instagram. 

This one is going to be a bit tough for me personally to spread my wings out since I’ve had trust issues with instagram from a distance and unsure about reddit, but I will keep your suggestions in mind! If you have any more social media suggestions for Eddtober to move to, you’re welcome to send them through the askbox!

Oh the Discord server eddsists, not to worry. I just don’t want to release it all at once so that chaos reigns right off the bat. ;)

Before this post is signed off, I want to make one final announcement. 

For the past two years, Eddtober has mostly been the job of a one-man-band. As much as I used ‘we’ for this event in the hopes of looking professional (and actually have done so here hAH), this year marks a change, alongside the ones you’ve seen here. Not only so, but I’m going to be VERY busy this month and I’m not sure if I’ll always have the chance or time to catch up with Eddtober daily. 

So for the first time in Eddtober’s history, we have a Mod: Mod Tanner!

Mod Tanner will be helping me out for Eddtober. Most of his job will be to do the same that I already do: reblogging and tagging creations that come up on tumblr, answering your questions, so forth. That isn’t to say I won’t be checking the twitter, or anywhere else the challenge is taken by Eddheads, but he’ll be my second set of hands so that I don’t exhaust myself this month.

Alright Eddheads, that’s all the announcements and survey results - see you tomorrow for the 2019 Masterpost with all the prompts, rules and boundaries: now updated thanks to you!

[magicalgirlsofshoujo]

Hello Everyone

Hello everyone, after a very long time, this is Fuyu again.

To begin with, some apologies. I am sorry for disappearing without any notice. It was especially unfair to the people I was bringing on to help with the blog. I am sorry for thinking no one would really notice and letting my own self doubt and shame take the wheel.

I am also sorry that I somehow simultaneously missed a Cardcaptor Sakura revival and yet no real new magical girls of shoujo wtf.

Back on a serious note, I have some explanations. In my classic, "definitely could have said this in about half the words and with no proofreading whatsoever."

Oh gosh, this really does make me feel nostalgic.

I don't believe people have to share their personal lives if it harms them. So, don't let anything I say guilt you or your specific circumstance. Escapism is a wonderful part about fandom and the internet. Because the world is doodoo and we're all knee deep in it lately.

However, the fact that I had to run away and hide has as much to do with the nature of feel good escapism and fandom as it does with my own personal issues. What does a person do when the things they enjoy no longer make them happy?

For me the answer was to keep trying for a long time, because I felt robbed of what I love. Also, to some extent I felt I was prioritising trying to regain that feeling over confronting what was going on inside me. I did try a little bit to just take a step back. I reached out for more people to help with the blog when I started feeling the weight on me. But then getting helpers on board ended up becoming an effort in itself and my dwindling social energy just went into negative numbers.

That's why I just stood up and walked away. I had altogether too much to deal with in my brain and saying a proper goodbye somehow felt like another monumental effort.

That's also why feel an explanation of what I went through can be beneficial, because that is far from unknown in an anime fandom where otaku culture and its issues of toxicity are well known.

I do like to think I had a more wholesome attitude about it though. Teehee~

And since I was convinced no one would really care (brains are dumb) and was proven wrong upon my return even after all this time, I feel like an explanation for anyone who wanted one was warranted. Even if it's in classic Fuyu word vomit style.

I know I have always felt better when I've read stories similar to my own struggles. The feeling of, "I'm not alone!" is one that can't be underestimated. In addition, even in small areas like my little corner here, I think normalizing mental illness is a worthy cause. Everyone knows someone suffering whether they know it or not and such.

So, the short explanation is it turns out I've been living with undiagnosed ADHD. This was becoming a problem right around the time of my disappearance. For whatever reason the mechanisms I set up to deal with what I thought was laziness (primarily mainlining caffeine and forcing myself into deadlines to motivate myself) no longer worked and I would stare at computer screens where words would once come easily. This was a problem for the area of study that I loved and enjoyed so much. In my case it was also a big problem for the fandom I loved and enjoyed.

My words are all over this blog and I haven't written anything since I left.

Currently I am still exactly one course away from my undergrad degree, same as when this all started. This is at least partially because I was only diagnosed very recently.

Because I couldn't do these things I panicked and then would become extremely depressed. This was the incredibly visible problem and so when I got help I was diagnosed with generalized anxiety, panic disorder, and depression. All are definitely true, but now we believe we diagnosed the surface symptoms and missed the underlying cause of adhd.

Instead of my anxiety, panic, and depression cycle coming from nowhere it was usually triggered directly by my lack of focus and motivation. So, years of focusing efforts on my, admittedly unbearable, moods ultimately always came up short because as soon as I felt well enough to try again, I would eventually hit the same wall in my brain and panic all over again.

The main reason I wanted to share this story is because of this difficulty in diagnosing. I don't want to get into the politics and economics of healthcare in the US that affected my care (suffice to say there were large gaps in treatment) because there's an element here that's a little more in my wheelhouse: gender.

I think the idea of gender bias in the medical community is fairly well-known, but essentially women's accounts of their symptoms are discounted by their own doctors.

This can be an issue with women and girls who suffer from ADHD because we do not match the visible checklist. Specificallyn regarding the "hyperactivity" part of ADHD. One explanation behind this, once I subscribe to, is that it's because girls are socialized differently and have different expectations.

Once upon a time, I fit the understood criteria. I would fidget all over my desk and talk to all my classmates instead of doing my work. Generally being a minor nuisance. The fidgeting issue was focused on the fact that I liked to wear skirts and that was unladylike. Going back through old report cards sees me labelled "chatty." I eventually learned to be quiet through social shame.

Honestly the gender bias regarding ADHD can be harmful for boys as well. My brother was tested at a similar age because he was disruptive and had a short temper. Nothing. They didn't acknowledge that boys being boys in the classroom might have been bullying.

I think these problems of both over-diagnosing and under-diagnosing have lowered since the nineties, but I know it hasn't gone away. There are many areas where it might have even gotten worse, especially with opioid epidemics making people suspicious of anyone who might use a medication that can be abused.

Naturally it should be said all of this is just my perspective on an ongoing journey, but I feel it's still a little worth putting out there. It's good to share our stories, because I didn't even realize I might have ADHD until someone else's little anecdote that "coffee calms me down because it makes my brain quieter." And there I was being miserable without caffeine because it's bad for anxiety.

They had even taken away my tea! DX

I feel like ADHD and similar stuff is even less uncommon in our circles too. Fandoms welcome those who feel left out by society and it's the perfect fit for those of us with intense devotion.

I'm still working my way through all this. I've been optimistic before and then fallen back into even worse holes than the one I was in when I left. But every climb out is an experience that makes the next one easier. It's an unfair to have to do at all, but it's worth doing rather than doing nothing.

As for what I'm actually going to do as FuyuMaiden and with this blog now, I don't know. This is the most I've written in a very long time and while it wasn't too difficult it was also very introspective. Stuff I have a lot of practice in dealing with my own mental health.

I'm definitely not going to force myself into anything. Especially since I haven't been keeping up with much. Like I look at cast lists for anime and I'm like "I don't recognize any of these seiyuu anymore!!! Am I old!?" Tentatively reblogging should be back up soon? Hopefully?

I think I'm going to make a discord for Magical Girls of Shoujo. Evey social media platform and phenomena is fragile, so it's good for us to have a backup. Plus I have faith in the stalwart eternity of gaming's need to talk shit. Discord will be around a while.

But I've been out of the loop so if there's any new places where fandom roams that I can also expand my ideals of magical cute stuff let me know.

And again, I am sorry for worry I caused. I love all of you and missed you very much.

[melonkooky]

our timers [kim junmyeon]

requested

word count: 1686

genre: soulmate!au, fluffyyyy (at least i think it is), feminine reader

author’s note: i absolutely love soulmate au’s, they’re so cute. that being said, i haven’t actually written one before. so i hope this one was good!!! (warning, i did not spell check/grammar check...)

please do not copy my work. but please like and reblog it. thank you!!!!

masterlist

junmyeon sighed drowsily as he began to pack up his things. practice was finally over and due to upcoming events and schedules, he and the members had to practice their performances extra hard, all while learning a few new things since there were going to be special performances for the audience. he was beyond exhausted.

everyone else was tired, but they still managed to talk and joke around to each other, some calling each other out on the other’s mistakes. “hey, suho, you managed to mess up monster’s choreography. we’ve been practicing monster for two years now.” baekhyun teased.

“oh shut up.” suho whined, a small smile on his face.

chanyeol asked, “say, are we going to get food on the way?” 

junmyeon shrugged, “i guess we can. i don’t know what’s open this late.”

“we’ll ask the manager.”

the members all filed out of the sm building and heading towards the two cars that were waiting for them, one had their manager in it. “i’ll ask.” baekhyun said as he approached the car.

junmyeon followed baekhyun, being the leader and all, while the others spread out between the two cars. after a little conversation, everyone decided on where to eat, a small place that was near the building and was open 24 hours. junmyeon got into the car and allowed himself to sink into his seat, releasing a heavy breath.

everyone spoke to each other or messed around on their social medias, until suddenly the car came to a screeching halt, causing everyone’s bodies to lurch forward. junmyeon immediately leaned to the side to see out of the window. the driver was apologizing to the guys in the car while waving rather rudely to a girl standing directly in front of the car. her eyes were wide as they darted between the car and its driver.

junmyeon was overcome with an unknown urge. he immediately rolled up his sleeve, his eyes leaving the girl just for a second. and there on his wrist, he saw that the timer had indeed stopped. junmyeon felt overwhelmed, a million thoughts were running through his head. could it really be? had he really come across his soulmate? 

“junmyeon...” chanyeol whispered, his eyes seeing junmyeon’s wrist.

without any further hesitation, junmyeon unbuckled his seat belt and forced the car door to open.

“junmyeon, what are you doing?” his manager called.

junmyeon ignored him and hurried to the front of the car. the girl that was standing in front of the car, was you. you were frozen in fear after thinking you were about to get hit. and junmyeon felt immediately drawn to you.

he approached you carefully. “hey, miss. are you okay?” he asked politely.

you looked at him, feeling a wave of relief rush over you, “y-yeah. just scared that’s all.”

junmyeon smiled, “that’s a relief.” 

junmyeon glanced at the car once more, the members were watching. they didn’t seem to be confused at what he was doing. chanyeol must of told them about junmyeon’s timer. junmyeon felt a slight rush of adrenaline. he smiled at his manager before grabbing your wrist and tugging you out of the way of the car.

you were surprised by his sudden actions. you didn’t know him in the slightest bit, let alone had ever seen him before, and yet you felt comfortable around him. what was this feeling, you asked yourself.

you stared up at the stranger, finding his features strikingly attractive. you gulped, feeling a bit nervous. it didn’t help that you were still in shock after what had just happened. you hadn’t seen any cars so you were crossing the intersection illegally, without the light for you to cross. and that’s when that car, this man’s car, rounded the corner and began heading your way. luckily, the driver saw you and stopped in time. 

junmyeon waved to his manager, ignoring the fact that he didn’t understand what he was doing and was gesturing him to come back. you just watched.

“so, are you hungry?” he asked.

you hesitated before nodding. “i guess i can eat.”

junmyeon smiled, a little blush in his cheeks. “good.”

you and stranger-junmyeon walked alongside each other, heading down the sidewalk until you reached an empty restaurant that was open for 24 hours. it wasn’t the one the others were heading to, so junmyeon wasn’t worried about any interruptions. he smiled kindly, causing your stomach to flutter, as he held open the door like a gentlemen. you thanked him with a blush in your cheeks and entered.

everything felt so different. it was all so sudden and you didn’t understand what was going on, but you were perfectly okay with it. you and the stranger stood in front of the menu, a bored-looking cashier waiting for you while looking half-asleep.

“i’m kim junmyeon, by the way.”

you looked at him and shook his hand, bowing your head a bit. “i’m l/n f/n. nice to meet you.”

junmyeon chuckled, “yeah.”

he ordered something off of the menu. when you ordered something, you began to pull out your wallet. but junmyeon gently touched your hand and stopped you. you looked at him. “i’ll get it.” he said to you.

you smiled. “are you sure?”

he nodded and handed his credit card to the cashier. he yelled something to the back and suddenly there was a chef, appearing in the kitchen with a yawn and began prepping your meals.

you and junmyeon sat down. “i hope the chef doesn’t mess up our meals.” you said. “he looked like he just woke up from a nap.”

junmyeon nodded. “well, we’ll see.”

you nodded and looked down at your hands. they were clasped together. they were your distraction because you felt your stomach fluttering nonstop every time you looked at junmyeon. 

“um, can i see you wrist, by any chance?” he asked.

your eyes widened as you looked at junmyeon. a sudden conclusion hit you. that’s why this was all happening. you slowly gave junmyeon your wrist, rolling up your sleeve as you did so. your eyes practically bulged out of your head as you saw that your soulmate timer had stopped. you couldn’t form any words. you simply watched as junmyeon showed you his own wrist. both of your timers had stopped at the same exact time, the same time that you and him were near each other, the same time his driver almost hit you.

you smiled, laughing a bit, as your cheeks were overcome with heat and turned a soft pink. “wow. i can’t believe it.” you said. “i didn’t even noticed.”

junmyeon smiled. “i noticed. right after the driver stopped, i felt a feeling and i looked at my wrist. and sure enough, my timer stopped.”

your eyes met his own and you smiled. “so, i guess we should get to know each other better.”

both your and junmyeon’s meals arrived moments and later. you and him began to talk and the conversation never ended. you learned that he was a famous kpop singer, part of the group exo. you didn’t know why you’ve never seen them, but you most certainly had heard of them. it made you wish you got into them, if you had known that your soulmate was the leader. and you told him what you did. and the conversation led to dislikes and likes, memories and stories, and so forth.

a couple hours later, when it was past midnight, and the meals were long gone. you and him had grown close. you were surprised, but it’s how soulmates worked. unfortunately, fatigue and exhaustion had caught up to you both. 

you and junmyeon left the restaurant. he asked where you lived so that he could take you home. as you and him walked together, you couldn’t help but think about him. you never really thought you were encounter your soulmate, and you didn’t think it was going to be a famous kpop singer. and you were already falling in love with him (another power of the soulmate). 

you looked down at your right hand, your timer was on your right wrist. and then you looked at junmyeon’s, remembering that his timer was on his left wrist. you blushed again and smiled to yourself, biting your bottom lip as you did so.

junmyeon happened to glance over at you. “what are you smiling about?”

“i didn’t think i was going to meet my soulmate at all.” you admitted to him. “i’m glad it was you.”

junmyeon chuckled, his own blush forming in his cheeks. he looked at you. “i’m glad it was you too.”

you arrived at your apartment minutes later. it was quite a long walk from where the restaurant was, so your feet and legs felt numb and you were even more exhausted then before. you could only imagine how tired junmyeon felt. he had a day’s worth of practice and then didn’t get a chance to rest. you felt a bit bad. 

standing on your doorstep, you looked at junmyeon. “are you going to call your manager to come get you?”

junmyeon shrugged. “yeah, they’re probably wondering where i am. it’s pretty late.”

you nodded before saying, “well, i had a good time, great time even.”

junmyeon nodded. he stared into your eyes very lovingly. you blushed and looked down at your feet. then, in a flash, you pecked his cheek. you hurriedly unlocked your door with your key and slipping inside your home, not closing the door all the way because you heard junmyeon speak. “i-i didn’t get your number.” you smiled at how he had turned into a stuttering mess so suddenly.

you turned around and peeked outside your door. “oh yeah.”

you and him exchanged numbers, gave each other one last smile, and then you disappeared into your home. you sighed contently as you took off you shoes and headed to the shower. you got ready for bed and just as you were plugging in your phone for it to charge, your phone buzzed.

it was from junmyeon.

“good night.”

you blushed before silencing your phone and slipping under the covers. everything felt surreal, but it became the happiest moment in your life. you didn’t think you’d live to see the day your timer would stop, and yet you did. you closed your eyes, your last thought being about junmyeon. you couldn’t wait to see him again.

[thehollowprince]

Hey, it’s the “coding” anon here and honestly that answer to my question was excellent and the exact reason I come to your blog. I would absolutely love to hear you go on about the fetishization of m/m relationships!

This has been sitting in my inbox for over a week, and I want to apologize. I'm sorry for taking so long to get to this one, but I'm overworked at the moment. I've been pulling 60+ hour work weeks, by myself and I haven't had off since the first of December, so I'm a little tired. But I'm here and I'm ready to murder this bitch of a subject.

For starters, and for context, in case anyone who sees this doesn't follow my blog or, if you do and don't really pay attention, I am a gay man, so a lot of this comes from my own personal experience.

Now, onward my fandom soldiers.

M|M Fetishization & Objectification

I've only been super active within fandom spaces for the last couple of years. Before that, I just scrolled through Tumblr and reblogged gifsets and fluffy headcanons and whatnot, but even then I noticed a trend in fandoms that made me uncomfortable. That trend was the overabundance of gay men (chatacters) in fandom works, especially when there either weren't any gay men in that show or book or whatever.

I'm not at all saying we need less of that. I want and need more gay characters in the things I watch and read. That's actually one of the criteria I look for before I start a new show, or a book series or comics. I want to see myself represented in the media I consume, even if it is only this one tiny piece of who I am. But the problem for me arose when I saw all these fan works and headcanons and gifsets and thesis length metas about gay or bi male characters that were neither of those things in their original source material.

The biggest examples of this occured in fairly popular shows that I loved at one point, but do to a combination of bad writing and then the horrible fandom, drove me to actively dislike and avoid them. And that's always a sad thing, when you end up losing the love you had for something because others just won't let you enjoy it as it is.

Those two examples are Teen Wolf and Supernatural.

For years I watched people go on and on and on and on about Stiles Stilinski and Dean Winchester and how they were bisexual and so on and so forth.

There's nothing wrong with headcanoning a character as gay or bisexual, especially when those characters are severely lacking on screen and on paper. The problem arose when the fandom at large started to ignore the ACTUAL gay or bisexual characters that are in these shows and focus solely on their headcanons as the only representation in the show.

To start with Teen Wolf, we had, in the first season, an openly gay character that everybody in the school loved, that being Danny Mahealani. This character was introduced as gay from the very start, but oddly enough, there is almost no large fandom meta or fics or anything about him. In fact, a lot of his traits and qualities ended up transferred to Stiles, such as his intelligence and overall popularity. Hell, even Danny's attraction to Derek was stolen and transferred to him. These aren't things that Stiles is overall known for in the actual canon. He's clumsy and socially awkward and on the outskirts of the school like Scott (the main character) and has been obsessed (to the point of being considered a stalker) with one girl since elementary school, but somehow, in fandom, Stiles is suddenly the genius polyglot queer with severe depression who has a crush on the broody muscular werewolf who just wants somebody to love him.

Fandom created this portrayal of the character that didn't exist anywhere in the fandom except for his appearance. The reason I saw behind this was twofold. 1: fangirls (fandom is mostly female) want to see two "hot" guys kiss and get it on because they get off to it, much in the same way that straight men get off to lesbian porn. 2: Stiles (or any of these headcanoned characters) becomes a sort of self insert.

What I mean by that second one is that women and girls find a male character that's not "too masculine", usually kind of gangly or skinny, somewhat on the effeminate side. Someone that they can project their ideas and insecurities and so forth onto so that they can that pursue that relationship with the hunky manly man that they want to bang.

You may be asking yourself, "Why don't they just use one of the female characters as a self insert?" and I'm here to tell you that I have neither the time nor the experience to go into detail about internalized misogyny and how effects the way women do almost everything, even watching and interpreting their media.

But the reason they chose the male character is that, years ago, during the dark days of FF.net there was a lot of self insert OCs that infiltrated almost every level of fanfiction. Which caused the fandom gatekeepers to rear out of their hibernation and just shame anyone who tried to introduce an Original Character to this already beautiful world and ruin it with their lusts. Thus the OCs slowly disappeared and identifying with the male sidekick was born. And this is generally where we get the whole "my smol gay son!" bullshit. (side note: please keep in mind that 75% of shows are male characters and their problems, which is another cause for female fans to identify solely with men.)

So, for years, I watched Danny, and then his boyfriend Ethan, being shoved aside in fandom spaces so that the fans could focus Sterek (Stiles and Derek) despite the fact that both characters were stared to be heterosexual and that, on screen, they expressed nothing but mutual dislike for one another, if not outright hatred. This got so bad that Sterek, the crack ship whose members had no romantic or sexual interactions whatsoever, managed to beat (by a very large margin) actual gay ships from both this show and others in a fan poll. It got even worse when the character of Danny was written off the show (with no explanation) and we were introduced to the character of Mason.

Mason Hewitt was everything that fandom!Stiles was. He was smart and funny and openly gay and crushing on a hot werewolf. He even did the research that the fandom loved to attribute to Stiles, literally everything that the fandom had Stiles doing in fanon, but somehow the love for him (Mason) wasn't that big of a note in the fandom. I mean, Mason was even a major plot point of season five and the pack's mission to stop the Beast, but i heard nothing but cricket chirps from the fandom.

You'd think that after Stiles was written out of the show for the last season that maybe Mason will get some love now, right?

Wrong!

I didn't think it was possible to get any worse, but the fandom proved me wrong. Because instead of focusing all their pent up energy on Mason and his boyfriend, Corey, who had a number of cute moments in that final season, these fans focused on another crack ship that had no basis anywhere except in their fantasies. That ship being Thiam, which is based, once again, around two characters who actively dislike, if not outright hate, each other and even physically assault one another. But no, that apparently is a display of affection by someone who is emotionally stunted and just needs love to blossom and be his true self.

You notice how often the fetishization of homosexuality (even if only imagined) intersects with woobification?

You'll notice, if you look at Danny and Mason, that they're both POC, with Danny being brown (Hawai'ian) and Mason being black. Now, as I've said before on this blog multiple times, I am the Whittest White Man to ever White, so I don't have any qualifications to talk about fandom racism, so I'm just going to leave that little nugget there for you to think about and interpret how you will.

Moving on to Supernatural...

Before we start with this one, understand that I have not watched this show outside of an episode here and there since season eight, because I realized that no, this show wasn't going to get any better, so if any of this is contradictory to what has happened over the past six seasons (god, this show needs to die!) I do apologize.

Dean Winchester... I never really liked this character, especially as the show went on and I started to actively dislike and then, hate him. So it was annoying not being able to go into any aspect of the Supernatural fandom without coming across a post about Dean and his issues or his Bi sexiness or how his brother was mean to him.

Also, people, understand that this wasn't a new revelation for me. My dislike for Dean and the fandom's obsession with making him bisexual just so they could hook him up with Cas wasn't an overnight decision. I was there...

I was there at the Beginning, when this show first aired, when the ONLY constant characters on this show were Sam and Dean. I endured the hellfire that was Wincest and its infection of almost the entire fandom. Like, that right there, that was one of the most extreme cases of m|m fetishization I've ever seen, because the fandom needed to get off to two guys being together so badly that they turned to actual brothers for want of any other male character.

That's why Destiel immediately became so popular, because here was another guy that we saw with semi regularity that wasn't rated to the Winchesters, obviously they were meant to ship them.

Now, you may be asking yourself, "I thought this bitch was going to talk about gay fetishization, not his dislike for one character?" to which I'll just say I very easily go off tangent. But all of that is relevant because, come one of these later seasons, there was a scene where Dean was at a bar and the (male) bartender hit on him, and he didn't react negatively or homophobic.

Oh, my God, I watched my dash and the tags explode in post after post, meta after meta, about how Bi Dean was canon confirmed! Now he and Cas will HAVE to be together, because its canon that Dean likes guys. and Cas is an angel, who doesn't follow human sexual limitations, and... blah, blah, blah.

Cut to a few years later, and we're introduced to a character named Max Banes, a witch and hunter, who is openly gay and flirts with Sam in his first appearance. Where were all of his metas and fanfics and headcanons? Granted, he only appeared in two episodes, but I have watched people in this and other fandoms build mountains our of molehills, going on and on about how two male characters weren't actually straight and how they were destined to be together because the once wore similar style shirts a couple of seasons apart, or because of a carnation in a jacket pocket that signified love via the Victorian flower code (or something like that), or how the wallpaper of that room they shared a scene in was a subtle clue to their true desire for each other, etc.

And I'm not exaggerating there, those are actual examples I've seen in fandoms over the years.

But back to Max, why is it that he was left along the wayside, despite fitting most of the criteria that fandoms love in their m|m ships while Dean had entire thesis level posts about that time he shared a glance with Castiel or he let a bartender hit on him and not get upset?

And its not just these two shows, not by a long shot. If you were to go into literally any fandom of a certain size or bigger, you will come across fans putting two straight characters together because of "the chemistry" they have. Even if those characters are confirmed to be straight - especially if those characters are confirmed to be straight. Because when these loud fans don't get their crack ship that they rub one out to, they scream queerbaiting and homophobia and oppression, harassing the actors and producers and directors and writers.

Here are some others that just pop to the front of my mind...

Asher Millstone from How To Get Away With Murder (saw him shipped with Connor a lot, despite Connor's actual boyfriend)

Sherlock Holmes and John Watson from BBC's Sherlock

Tony Stark from Marvel comics (all because of one panel where he said "ladies and gents" when he announced he was off the market

Literally any male character in the MCU, which is his we get the things like Stucky and Stony that permeate the fandom on almost every level (and some leeway is given here because of the MCU's lack of wueer characters)

Klaus Mikaelson and Stefan Salvatore from The Vampire Diaries/The Originals (honestly, I was surprised that people in the TVD fandom weren't immediately all over Josh and Lucas, because they're literally everything that fans want and use in their headcanon gays)

Kol Mikaelson and Jeremg Gilbert, also from TVD

Elia and Filippo from Skam Italia (despite there being, once again, actual gay characters on this show. Hell, the entire second season was dedicated to a character coming out of the closet and being with a guy)

Etc.

I could go on and on but then this post would seem infinite.

Closing thoughts, please keep in mind that I am just one guy and that my opinions don't represent everyone in fandom spaces. But also bear in mind, that my frustrations are well founded and valid from my own experiences in the fandom.

My sexuality and the fact that I'm attracted to men is not a toy for a bunch of sexually repressed fangirls who think two guys being together is hot.