#OKAY INE OF MY ASSUMPTIONS.

[storgicdealer]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA SKIPS AND HOPS AROUND

HELL YEAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH

oh my god. it will be the first time ill ramble RIGHT after an episode releases.

[browneyesandhair]

Non-Exhaustive List of Soulmate Fics: Merthur

Okay, I'm bored so I'm compiling my favorite soulmate fics. Here's the Merthur edition:

True Love by platonic_boner

Summary:

AU where soulmates can’t lie to each other. (That’s okay, Merlin wasn’t planning to lie to Arthur anyways! Haha.. ha.. ha…)

Don't Know You by platonic_boner

Summary:

Arthur can't wait to meet the voice inside his head.

Sharing is Caring by platonic_boner

Summary:

Arthur hadn't really given his soulmate much thought, until he beat a peasant with a broomstick and every blow hurt like he was hitting himself.

Thousand Times Worse. Or Better? by elirwen

Summary:

Forced by Morgana's nagging, Arthur visits soulbond guidance office. Merlin Emrys is asigned to be his guide. That's where the simple ends and complicated begins.

Deeds by the5leggedCricket

Summary:

Arthur is coming of age, and that means he’s about to get Deeds—marks on his body telling him of his soulmate’s greatest accomplishments. But as he tries to find his soulmate, he also makes some worrying discoveries about the kind of person his soulmate is.

Take Your Pain Away by BlueGrassSax

Summary:

Merlin was young when he came to realise that his soulmate was either really clumsy or lived a chaotic existence. Being able to take on the injuries of your soulmate is just a fact of life, a fact that Merlin happily accepts as he learns the ins and outs of his healing magic. But coming to Camelot has disrupted his long held trust in the Fates, for how can someone as bull-headed and arrogant as the prince wear his mark?

Now I Will Unsettle the Ground Beneath You by nu_breed

Summary:

Merlin's dreams have always fuelled his art, but they've always been abstract and removed from reality. Soon after he meets Gwaine, he starts to see vivid images of a past full of death and magic and love for a King who was ripped from him. Things only escalate further when he spends a weekend in the country with Gwaine and meets his group of friends, which includes aristocrat and It Boy, Arthur Pendragon. Merlin soon realises that no matter how hard you try, one thing is certain, you can't fuck with destiny.

Heart Lines by PeaceHeather

Summary:

Everyone is born with a heart line, a pigmented mark running from the heart down the left arm to the palm, which turns color when the person comes of age, telling them when it is time to seek their soulmate. Red indicates a romantic love, while blue is for platonic "heart-friends", as the minstrels called it. Uther had always told Arthur to ignore his heart line, that it wouldn't matter who his soulmate was; princes did not marry for love, after all. If was lucky, he'd be able to keep her as a mistress, so long as he did not get any children with her. Uther hated magic and would have urged Arthur to ignore the heart line anyway, if he could. Arthur wasn't sure his soulmate was really a woman despite Uther's assumptions. But Arthur's heart line hadn't even come into its full color yet, which meant he hadn't come of age in the eyes of the gods, despite being named crown prince by Uther. So it really didn't matter: whoever his soulmate was, he wasn't yet ready to meet them. Then one day his heart line comes in, and it's neither red nor blue.

the gold of you that can't be seen by Fleetling

Summary:

Arthur grins at him, waves his chubby hand. "Father!" he says, because he knows he should be formal with his father. There is no Pa here, no Dad or Da. There's something shiny on his father's head. He points to it. "What's that?" "Prince Arthur!" hisses the woman holding him, but his father only chuckles. The woman relaxes, just slightly. "It's a crown, my son. One day, you will wear one just like it." Arthur tilts his head, curiously. "What colour is it?" He thinks it's grey, just a shade off of the silver of the swords. It's the same silver-grey as half of the household's shiny jewelry, a not quite true silver. He doesn't think he likes it. "It's gold," says his father. "There's a lot of gold here in Camelot, my son." Arthur nods his head, and labels that silver-ish colour gold in his mind.   (Or: in a world where you can't see the colour of your soulmate's eyes until you meet them, Arthur can't see gold, and it makes his life as a prince much more difficult.)

Of All The Planets In All The Galaxies, He Walked Into Mine. by supercalvin

Summary:

On Camelot, the base planet of the Albion Intergalactic Alliance, the people have a unique gift where the name of their soulmate appears on their arm. Finding one’s soulmate could be as easy as taking a shuttle over to the next planet or it could take years for destiny to find its way to their side of the galaxy. Ten years ago, Ambassador Arthur Pendragon found out the name on his arm wasn’t from any known language in the galaxy. He hadn’t had much faith in love ever since.

The Druid Consort by bluevalentine69

Summary:

27-year-old Alpha Prince Arthur has been married off to 16-year-old Druid Prince Merlin to unite their kingdoms. Meeting for the first time at dawn to be handfasted by the customs of Merlin’s druid people - and expected to mate that night by the customs of Arthur's wolf-people - neither prince is best pleased by the situation. Tomorrow they will belong to each other in body and soul. Turns out, married life's not so bad ...

Four Days To Fall In Love. by CupCakezys

Summary:

In a world where everyone has a soulmate (or two or three), Arthur Pendragon knows he is destined to be alone. For Arthur can see his heartstring, could follow it to where his soulmate lived, and that could only mean one thing. His soulmate had magic, and should they ever meet, Arthur would have to kill them.

the world entire by schweet_heart

Summary:

The world is very still, and it occurs to Arthur suddenly how quiet it is. The bells don’t toll for dead manservants, only for princes and kings, but that just makes the clamour of his heart seem louder.   “Very well,” he says, pushing himself to his feet. “Then I’m going to have to save him.” Episode 1x13 AU. Nimueh accepts Merlin’s offer to exchange his life for Arthur’s. Arthur does not.

Hear Your Heart Sing (Love, Love, Love) by schweet_heart

Summary:

Merlin used to like the idea of finding The One – until he fell in love with Arthur Pendragon. Now he has a boss he can't date (but can't stop thinking about), a soulmate he can't find (who has terrible taste in music), and a best friend who can't believe he still hasn't got his act together (even though it's seriously not his fault). Sometimes, life is unfairly complicated, even without your soulmate singing painfully catchy tunes in the back of your head.

Dreams Don't Turn To Dust by goodluckgettingtosleep

Summary:

In a world where every person starts dreaming about their soulmate on the day of their 16th birthday, Prince Arthur is expected to be the soulmate of a beautiful princess. But when the big day finally rolls around, it turns out that his true soulmate is as far from a beautiful princess as one could get... a peasant boy with magic.

Let it be you by amithia

Summary:

This is all Gwen's fault. Merlin never wanted a stupid smartphone in the first place. Now, he has a smartphone and a supercilious, posh git bullying him on Whatsapp. He really should block the prat. or The one where Merlin doesn't block the prat and finds out that, maybe, smartphones aren't so bad after all.

Feather and Fang by 0hHeyThereBigBadWolf

Summary:

Everyone knows that magic users have magic dæmons. Creatures of myth and legend. Some appear normal but have hides in unnatural colours. It's a way to pick them out of a crowd, find them, even when they try to hide in plain sight.

The Worst Wizard by bluevalentine69

Summary:

Merlin is the worst wizard in wizarding school: his spells are accident prone and he is generally a walking disaster. When the time comes for his class to summon their familiars for the first time, many of the students summon powerful magical creatures. However, upon Merlin's turn, he summons a very unamused, regular human as a familiar: Arthur. Based on this prompt: https://kinksofcamelot.livejournal.com/1806.html?thread=557070#t557070. Now with original artwork!

Strangled by the Red String of Fate by idlestories

Summary:

“It has its roots in a legend from the east, sire. I believe it’s called the red string of fate.” “Fate?” Arthur said incredulously. “What, is he going to be the one to kill me?” “Getting more likely by the minute,” Merlin supplied. “Shut up, Merlin.” Gaius held up a weary hand. “Legend has it that the string connects people to the person with whom they are most compatible.” There was a beat of silence. “You have got to be kidding me.”

octarine by schweet_heart

Summary:

Merlin isn't Arthur's soulmate, and Arthur isn't Merlin's, yet somehow in spite of themselves they're everything to one another. Which is why, when Arthur finally starts seeing in colour, he isn't willing to let Merlin go without a fight. Written for Merlin_Holidays Fest 2016.

you are my favorite mistake (it can only be fate) by muItifandomjess

Summary:

When Merlin accidentally creates a mental link between himself and Arthur, they discover far more about each other than they could ever have imagined.

[trojanteapot]

The writing blindspots in Infinity Train with respect to race

To get this out of the way, I love Infinity Train! It’s one of my favourite shows! I started writing fanfiction because of this show, and it still inspires me every day. 

I really do think that Infinity Train as a whole is a very thought provoking children’s show and I applaud it for exploring darker themes relevant to psychology and psychological well-being, which are topics often overlooked not just in children’s media but for adult media as well. However, I do want people to acknowledge some of its shortcomings, especially because it is a show that is dealing with such heavy and complex topics, and also positions its human characters as coming from a world which is pretty much a stand-in for our own.

Now I know that the storyboard artists for Infinity Train were quite diverse, but I don’t really know if it’s the same for the writer's room. The reason why is that as a POC viewer, it really does seem obvious to me from the way that the POC characters were written pre-season 4, that their race was mostly an afterthought.

Okay and to be perfectly clear, this is NOT A BAD THING. This is just a neutral thing. Obviously we don’t need every single story with POC characters to have to be about their experience as a specific racialized person. There are experiences that are shared among everybody no matter what race they are. I am not saying that you need to do super in-depth research into every single cultural nuance of every ethnic minority before writing them. It depends on if you really want to delve into how their heritage or traditions or specific life experiences inform their character arc. Not every character arc is about that. And it shouldn’t be!

With that being said, I do think that perhaps the writers should have tried to consider asking themselves very basic surface level questions on how being non-white would inform the problems and conflicts their characters would face. They don't need to know the ins and outs of each culture for each of their characters, but they could have just asked “How would I feel/react to others if people made weird assumptions about me based on my race? How differently would my parents raise me if they were afraid of prejudice or discrimination?” I think they should have reflected on that before setting in stone the backstories for their POC characters, especially with respect to Grace.

Part 1: GRACE'S PARENTS

So I am not Black myself, but I have had many conversations about Grace with one of my friends in fandom who is Black, and we both do get the sense that Grace’s race was very much just an afterthought to her characterization. To be clear, this is NOT because she has very wealthy parents. I am well aware that there are Black Americans with generational wealth. However, knowing what we know about affluent Black people in the real world, how Grace’s parents treated her makes absolutely no sense.

For example, among extremely wealthy people of any race, networking and knowing the right people is of the utmost importance. This is why so many rich people send their kids to prestigious private schools so their kids can get a heads start on knowing the progeny of other one-percenters. If you look up famous people with famous kids, chances are you’ll see a list of all of the very exclusive private academies that they all went to (looking at you, The Strokes). This is the case for wealthy people of all backgrounds, not just white people. And honestly, I imagine that the pressure is at least double for the kids of wealthy POC parents to get to know the right people as early as possible to be able to open as many doors as possible, in order to mitigate the inherent disadvantage of being a racialized person.

But what did Grace’s parents do? According to her, they never sent her to school of any kind, only having private tutors teach her, and her ballet instructor only made her join the other kids in her class once for a recital or something? This is, for lack of a better term... buck wild.

In addition, her parents are American diplomats. Diplomacy is an extremely people-oriented position. If anything, her parents would want her to not only be in the best private school, but to be the best student in school, to know the best people, to join the school clubs that all the other diplomats’ kids are in, and train her from a young age to be a social butterfly. Yes I know that diplomats will often leave their home country and be stationed somewhere else for long durations, and yes their kids could be taken out of school then, but some diplomats just enroll them in a different institution in the visiting country, or not take them out of school at all. This is what the IB Program was invented for, actually. Her parents being diplomats does not justify never enrolling Grace in school. In fact, it makes it less justifiable. 

The fact that they did the extreme opposite of that is so illogical to me that I wonder if perhaps the writers just cobbled together a whole bunch of tropes that they think apply to rich people without actually checking if any of it makes sense, doubly so for rich people who are non-white.

I think the reason why is because they wanted Grace’s parents to stifle her growth and her natural social skills, but on the Train, she can be who she truly is. I definitely agree that Grace finding herself and being able to truly blossom into the girlboss she is on the Train is a great plot point from a characterization perspective. However, I do not think that it should be because she was being stifled by her parents. The solution is staring the writers right in their face, but they can’t see it because it’s a blindspot for them.

What they should have gone with is: Grace's inability to become a social butterfly and a queen bee in her daily life is because she is a dark-skinned Black girl!!!

Her parents have extremely high expectations for her socially. They could have pushed her to make friends with kids she didn’t like just because they wanted to be on better terms with their parents for networking or diplomacy purposes – which they could have shown with that one girl from her ballet class. Missed opportunity! But no matter how hard Grace tries, she will never be seen as the perfect girl because of other people’s assumptions about her just based on her race. 

Once she’s on the Train, Grace then uses her people skills and finds that they’re a lot more effective there, because it’s no longer Earth’s society, it’s a different world, literally! Plus this even allows her to be a little bit more mean, a little bit more honest, something she wouldn’t be able to get away with in the real world without being punished for it harder than her white peers. We already see hints of this with how she interacts with Simon, a white guy who is the same age as her. 

CAVEAT: The dialogue where Grace reveals that she never went to school was something that she told Hazel in a private conversation. So it could be that she did go to school, but lied about it to seem more relatable to Hazel, who had never been around other kids before. Lying is in character for Grace because she would pretty much do anything to get on somebody’s good side. But the way that they had her voice actress deliver those lines, and the way that her expression changes when she talks about how lonely she was indicates that she was telling the truth. To be charitable, I suppose we can land on the reading that Grace told Hazel a half-truth. She did go to school, but she was frequently taken out of class or skipped semesters because of her parents’ jobs as diplomats. So her loneliness in that instant is at the very least truthful. Your mileage is going to vary on this interpretation of course.

This points to a weakness that I can sort of see in Infinity Train in general, where they push societal problems into purely the realm of personal failings. “It’s not because of society that Grace couldn’t succeed, it was solely due to her abusive parents” being just one example. 

Never forget this monologue from a Black father to his daughter in Scandal:

Part 2: JESSE'S ARC WAS PRETTY GOOD THOUGH

The thing is they actually did write a POC character having to deal with a problem that was society-oriented quite well, at least in my view. Although, I am still pretty sure it was still coming from a race-blind method of writing the characters. Otherwise I feel like Jesse’s status as an Indigenous American would have come up more than a grand total of one time. That they could do this well for Jesse makes the fact that they didn’t do the same for Grace quite disappointing. 

Jesse’s main issue that he had to overcome was he kept caving to peer pressure and had trouble saying no to others for fear of disappointment. Now, this problem is universal, and it’s not solely something that is specific to Jesse’s race or ethnicity or cultural background. In fact, I am quite certain that they wrote Jesse as a character without even considering that this problem he faces is relatable to POC experiences. But I definitely know a lot of POC in my life who do take on more responsibilities than they can manage, or feel a higher pressure to fit in with their peers. Hell, I’m that POC in many cases! It’s kind of like background radiation to us as minorities that we just have to do more emotional labour in order to be seen as equals. That’s just the reality of the situation. You can understand and relate to Jesse’s problem without being Indigenous/Native American, but at the same time it feels like a natural problem for him to have, because he is non-white!

I will admit that a personal blind spot of mine is I don't know and haven't had the chance to speak to too many Indigenous people, so there could be aspects of Jesse's arc that don't really make sense. If you are somebody who knows more than me, please feel free to correct me! I would love to hear how you felt about Jesse's characterization and arc as an Indigenous person!

Part 3: SEASON 4, THE ASIANS 

Alright now it's time to tackle stuff that I actually could have any ounce of authority talking about? Which is how they wrote Ryan and Min-Gi in Book 4. I myself am Asian-Canadian. Specifically, I am a first generation Chinese-Canadian but I've been in Canada since I was six so I find a lot of the experiences of second generation Asian-Canadians more relatable to me. In addition, my partner is fourth generation Japanese-Canadian, so his dad would be the same generation as Ryan's dad. (I also am really really into rock music, but that's besides the point.)

What they got right:

So first off, I could tell that they really did consult Asian people in writing this season, so good on them! The difference in how Ryan’s parents raised him in contrast to Min-Gi’s parents felt very natural and realistic to me. Ryan’s family is more westernized and has assimilated more into broader Canadian culture. 

The fact that Ryan has an English name and not a Japanese name immediately shows that. Min-Gi’s parents not choosing an English name for him is a bit of a surprise; very few Asian immigrants go without an English name back in the 20th century. Even nowadays it’s extremely common for us to go by English or Western names that we, or our parents chose, instead of names in our native language. But there are good reasons to not choose an English name. Perhaps Min-Gi’s parents wanted him to have a closer tie to his Korean roots, or perhaps if they travelled back to Korea to visit family it would be easier for them. 

Also, Min-Gi’s parents not supporting his dream of becoming a musician and want him to get a stable job in… I think it was finance? Definitely true back then as it is today. I’m not entirely sure how Ryan’s parents feel about his life choices, and we’ll get into that later.

The character arcs for Ryan and Min-Gi are excellent. This dichotomy of wanting to do the good, responsible thing that your parents want for you because they want you to have the best chance at a good life, and doing what your heart tells you to do, is an extremely relevant character arc. It’s a life decision that is not just an Asian thing, but something anybody can relate to. However, in East Asian cultures that were generally influenced by Confucianism, which includes both Korean and Japanese culture, upholding your duty as a child to not disappoint your parents in any way is something that Asian cultures are prone to emphasizing to a great degree. We see this in other media centered on the Asian immigrant experience as well, such as Kim’s Convenience, Turning Red, and Everything Everywhere All At Once.

What was a bit puzzling to me:

So I'll start off with the thing that definitely raised many many eyebrows if you were an East Asian or Southeast Asian watching the show: Why were Min-Gi's parents so friendly with Ryan's parents when they're Korean and Ryan's family is Japanese?!

So like, not to bring politics into it but… World War II happened. It affected, you know, the world and stuff. And in the Pacific Theatre (god I hate that term), the Imperial Japanese Army… invaded Korea?? Among many other countries??? And did a bunch of war crimes?????

Like, Japan was invading other countries well before WWII even started… This is common knowledge… for Asian people that is.

Yeah I know what you're gonna say. “But Ryan's family is Japanese-Canadian!! They wouldn't have done those war crimes! They would have been sent to internment camps!” Yeah dude, I know! My partner is Japanese-Canadian, remember?! And even if I didn't know him, we learned about the internment camps in history class. It's pretty common knowledge among progressives in Canada and the US. George Takei did a whole musical about it. 

But that's not how racism works. I can speak from personal experience that the scars of WWII trauma in Chinese and Korean communities run deep. Even my own parents needed a bit of convincing to be okay with me dating my partner, and my parents were born two decades after WWII ended. My partner said that one time when he and his grandmother got into an elevator with an elderly Korean woman, and at first she was friendly, but once she realized they were of Japanese descent, the elevator ride became deathly silent afterwards. 

So when you have Min-Gi’s parents, who were probably born during or slightly after WWII, immigrate to Canada, and then be like… totally okay and hunky dory pals with Ryan’s parents just because their kids were born the same day in the same hospital…? I mean sure, anything can happen. But it definitely speaks to how abnormally accepting, forgiving, and welcoming Min-Gi’s parents are. 

To be clear, this isn’t something that pulled me out of the experience, personally. Yes, it is strange, but it’s not impossible for a Korean family to be super okay and friends with a Japanese family. Maybe it’s because their small town has very few Asians and so they have to stick together due to solidarity or something. Maybe Min-Gi’s parents are the type of Christians that believe in the inherent goodness of everyone and giving everyone a chance. Maybe they are just extremely progressive and see Ryan’s family as Canadian more than Japanese (highly unlikely), or they know about the internment camps and that was enough to get over their biases toward them (also unlikely). I dunno, anything can happen.

The other thing that bugged me was that they really didn’t explore Ryan’s relationship with his family to the same depth as Min-Gi’s relationship with his family. 

They already set up the contrast of like, you have an immigrant who is more connected to their cultural background, and a third generation descendent who is less connected, and more alienated from his cultural background. That kind of stuff can really weigh on you as somebody who is a minority. You feel like you simultaneously aren’t Canadian enough because you aren’t white, and that you’re not enough of your cultural background because you had to assimilate, or were forced to assimilate. 

Yes it makes sense why Ryan would throw himself into his music, and be disconnected from his family. But they didn’t take the time to really explore why he is that way. Ryan barely talks about his family except randomly mentioning that they don’t care what he does with his life. I don’t even know if that really makes sense that they don’t care what he does? Maybe Ryan thinks they don’t care, but his assumption is wrong? Either way they don’t explore this point that much. Even if his parents were more assimilated they would still care if Ryan had a non-standard job, such as being a musician. There is a gap between Ryan and his family/parents that was alluded to, but not explored. Feeling like you come from two worlds but not neatly fitting into either is so quintessential to the immigrant experience of Canadians (and also Americans) it’s a shame they only paid lip service to it. 

I mentioned in a different post that Ryan would be monolingual while Min-Gi would be bilingual, and how this could cause tension between them. I imagine Ryan definitely feels inferior to Min-Gi in that sense of loss and disconnect with his heritage, just as Min-Gi is jealous that he feels he doesn't have the freedom to pursue his musical career in the same way that Ryan can. This is all stuff that can take a psychological toll on people, and is something which the Train as a metaphor for therapy should have been primed to tackle. But unfortunately we didn't really get that.

There is a term among the Chinese Diaspora known as “Hollow Bamboo (竹杠)” or “Rising Bamboo (竹升)” [more info]. It's an insult tossed at kids of Chinese ethnicity from judgemental adults for being unable to read/write Chinese or who cannot speak Mandarin/Cantonese/other Chinese languages fluently because they've been “too westernized”. They say we “look Chinese, but are hollow inside, like bamboo.” I don't know if there are equivalent terms for other Asian diaspora/immigrant communities but there must be. This term is controversial, and in my own opinion very unfair, because it blames the kids for this loss of cultural identity when there are so many different factors at play that makes them lose it, all of them outside of their own control. 

Again, I think this is a blindspot from the writers just not understanding how much this loss of cultural identity is such an integral part of the experience of being an immigrant, and that it's not only felt in first or second generation Asian-Canadians, but also third or fourth generation, and beyond. It's scary to go out there and redefine what your culture means to you, and how to pass it on to the next generation.

CONCLUSION

So there you have it, a summary of the strengths and the weaknesses in Infinity Train as it pertains to writing about racialized characters. Just want to restate that a lot of what I pointed out is pretty minor in the grand scheme of things and I do overall think the writing is solid. I am not going into this to say that I expected the writers to do a good job, because generally my expectations for media and pop culture to portray POCs respectfully is quite low. At least they didn’t fall back on tired stereotypes, which is a low bar to clear, but it is where the bar still is these days.

If on the off chance Infinity Train does get uncancelled and renewed for more seasons, I hope they take these lessons and craft better narratives for their POC characters. Maybe hire some more non-white writers while you’re at it!

[hubofhellfire]

Let's chat about Gwenpool !

alright so given that Gwenpool is a presence on this blog , and she is the probably the most niche character on my roster ? I figured I would dedicate an ooc post to detailing the ins and outs of her for the sake of my mutuals.

Is Gwenpool just Gwen Stacy?

Nope !

Okay, who is she then ?

Her real name is Gwen Poole , she was a Marvel Comics fan that through the power of a macguffin was transported into Earth 616 , which as we all know is the continuity of Marvel Comics . With her unique perspective on the world , she wanted to not simply ' be an extra ' and ordered a super suit for herself ! Unfortunately , the tailor confused her paperwork and called her Gwenpool under the assumption that was the super hero name she was going under .

Can she break the fourth wall ?

Yes ! Much like Deadpool , she has awareness that she is in a comic book ; though it should be noted that the reasons for this knowledge actually has reason to it in comparison to Deadpool . Furthermore , she uses her awareness to help navigate the world and fight crime . A good example of this is where she saved her mercenary friends from Jane Foster:

Additionally , unlike Deadpool , she is capable of manipulating the medium in which she resides (comic books) ; this "gutter space" (the white gaps between panels , is something that she allows her to traverse through the panels of a comic she is in and go backwards or forwards in the issue in order to assist in whatever it is she is trying to do .

What makes Gwenpool so special ?

I think that Gwen is honestly one of the coolest characters because she is unique despite what a first glance of her might seem ; her solo 2016 run is one of the best in the last 25 years and is a beautiful commentary on mortality and legacy using the actual awareness of being in a comic book as its narrative vehicle .

It's amazing , I love it , I love her .

She sounds awesome ! What should I read with her ?

This is going to be personal bias , but anything outside The Unbelievable Gwenpool (2016) run ?

You can skip everything else , because in my humble opinion every other writer since then has fundamentally misunderstood or outright assassinated the character ; which is why on this blog you will only find her 2016 run as being any sort of canon to my portrayal and I do not acknowledge her subsequent runs and appearances.

Anyways that should be a decently quick rundown of Gwen for my mutuals ! I love this character to bits and I think you all will too if you give her a chance !

Thanks for reading !

[omegaverse-guide]

WHY would you read that?!

Let's admit it - upon encountering omegaverse for the first time, we all thought it was weird. Maybe someone reading this still thinks so. There's certainly enough people out there who wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole.

But it's popular. I love it, personally, and I'm clearly not the only one. There are tv shows being made with a concept that a singular person put into a fandom-specific kink meme a mere 14 years ago. My grandma could walk into the bookstore and see a manga with omegaverse terminology in the title and ask me what it is. That's wild.

So, this is an earnest question - not necessarily of how it spread this quickly, but what's so appealing about it. This is based on my own personal experience and what I've heard others say, not necessarily representative of everyone who enjoys the trope.

From what I've seen, omegaverse has four major draws:

1. Porn

That's kinda obvious, and the one most people would put first, or perhaps as the only reason. And I'll argue the other points later, but I think it'd be stupid to understate the importance of this one. If you're into certain kinks, even if it's exclusively in fiction, omegaverse is great for you. Big dicks, breeding kink, excessive amounts of cum, biting, marathon sex, dubcon, feral/animalistic sex, dom/sub dynamics, possessive behaviour, maybe a dash of furry stuff, it's all there. There's a reason so much omegaverse is pwp, and it's that these are common kinks, and they work well together. People are horny, that's how omegaverse got made and spread, and that's beautiful.

2. Mpreg

Yes, there are other ways to knock a man up. Make him trans. Use magic. Or science, which is essentially the same thing anyway. You can come up with any amounts of ways to make this happen. But the beauty of the omegaverse is you don't have to. You don't have to do any research, you don't need to come up with a reason, and you don't have to figure out what the implications are if you don't want to. This man can get knocked up, and it's totally normal to everyone around him, and everyone reading will know and accept it, so you can get all of that out of the way and just focus on your guy, or all the guys, getting pregnant and having and raising a bunch of kids you made up for them. This gives you the satisfaction of letting any character you want produce babies with any other character you want, while also giving you the chance to torture any man you want with pregnancy symptoms (very cathartic). Or maybe you just have a pregnancy kink! Either way, it's convenient.

3. Social Commentary

Okay, to anyone who's never read omegaverse, this probably sounds like a joke, but I'm dead serious. At the core of omegaverse is one basic assumption: if a group of people is capable of bearing children, society will do anything and everything to make them have kids, and restrict them from whatever other roles they can, and they'll find whatever excuse they can find. It exposes sexism by stripping away all pretense of logic: in omegaverse, omegas are the stand-ins for women, and are treated as such. but anyone can be an omega. it has nothing to do with physical or mental capabilities how you're treated. you could literally be batman, the moment people find out you could theoretically give birth to a child, it's all over for you. the reality of our world is, sexism is still here. it's gotten better in a lot of ways, but sexism is not over. and sometimes the best way of realizing just how not over it is, is to put a man into the exact same situations we experience and go 'hey would that be fucked up or what?'.

4. Free For All

Because omegaverse is, by and large, a fanfiction thing, it's popular with the kind of people who enjoy reading and writing fanfiction. Do you know what the best thing about fanfiction is? No, it's not the gay sex, though that's a close second. The real answer is: it can be whatever the fuck you want it to be. Fanfiction has one major selling point: it doesn't need to be sold. Which means no author ever has to consider a target audience, or god forbid, a mass audience. Someone can just pour out their passion onto the page, and sometimes thousands of people will read it, and other times it'll just be you and three other freaks, but there's no reason to only produce the first type of fic. Most fic writers don't even have an editor/beta reader. And omegaverse is the same in that regard, at least in the realm of fic. It can be literally anything. It can be nothing but porn, including all the kinks, and only all the kinks you personally enjoy. It can be fluffy family stuff. It can be deep drama in a 200k epic, with biting social commentary. It can be all of that at once. Omegaverse has no rules. It's an author's playground, and fic writers love their playgrounds.

So that's my thesis on what's good about omegaverse. Why do you like it? Did I miss anything? Let me know!

[dove00]

Okay. Hear me out.

Warning for violence, torture, murder, and kidnapping.

Red Hood and the Outlaws has been a title that people have had…different opinions on. I think it could’ve been better if we got a different team and didn’t put one character above the others.

So. Here’s my pitch for a 6 issue “mini series” (fanfic) called Outlaws: Proven Guilty

This deals with assumptions based in fact, but still assumptions, so I think the title should reflect that. You know, innocent until proven guilty.

So. Why this team? Well, Jason was already on the other two, so we’ll keep him. Caitlin Snow (again—not cw’s the flash version) is an interesting character. She’s not a villain anymore. Not even an outlaw, but with assumptions being made, it can be hard to see. Thad Thawne (Inertia) is currently trying to be better but let’s see that growth and struggle rather than have it happen off “screen.” Note: Bart is college aged in this, so Thad would be, too.

What’s the case that causes the team to form? A drug dealer is murdered in Central City and his little sister gets kidnapped. Jason doesn’t really care but when Bruce comes knocking on his door, demanding answers, he’s forced to care.

Assuming the entire justice league is after him, he goes on a trip to Central to solve it.

CSI Barry Allen gets the case when he’s showing Thad around the city. I want to build Barry and Thad’s dynamic.

The victim was tortured but the way he was killed was being frozen to death. Barry knows that’s not Captain Cold’s style—usually—plus, he’s been locked up since before the murder.

Caitlin is accused of being the killer and agrees to go to Central City and help the flash solve the case as long as she does check ins with JLA. Ryan Choi finds this wrong, but is outvoted.

They all meet on accident, fight a bit, and agree to work together.

[gradstudentdrone]

What grief has taught me: we are more than work

I returned to work on Friday and was hit with an avalanche of emails. While I was dreading opening my inbox, after awhile, I realized two things: first, that while there are emails that require your attention, they almost always get resolved without you responding and second, there are matters that do require your attention, but aren't as urgent as they appear. This has led me to reach the following epiphanies:

Our importance within institutions (academic or otherwise) is over-stated-- institutions will continue without us, even in the face of death;

"Urgency" in academic contexts is, in many ways, misplaced.

The people at work who I (we all) should hold close are those who step up in ways that matter.

The latter, I think, is what I need to remember. Sincere emails of condolence are kind and much appreciated (more on this below). But you know who truly have your back, those who you should keep close in your inner circle? Your work friends/colleagues (frolleagues?) who make sure that when you get back from leave that they've actually reduced your work load so you won't have to deal with it, people who get how excruciatingly hard it is some days to even wake up and try go on as 'normal' (whatever that means) and tell you, after you check in to ask about a specific task, "we've got this. Don't even think about it." While I've long since understood just how corrosive institutions are, it is people who have your back that make these institutions humane because they know, as well as I do, that when the time comes when they are facing horrific shit, I will also have their backs.

What I also appreciate is sincerity. I can smell from a mile away folks who are emailing to "check in" with me, but are really trying to see whether I'm "okay" now so they can line me up to do tasks for them. Such is the uncaring nature of neoliberal capitalist institutions: people within them have been so used to seeing each other instrumentally that "check ins" are equated not with actual care and compassion, but are a way to surmise whether the person can be tasked with yet one more thing.

All of these epiphanies are making me realize, again and again (and again and again and again) what I've known: that we are more than work. That we have value beyond what we give our employers. That we matter because of who we are, not because of what we can produce.

Having these epiphanies have been monumentally helpful in guiding me to recalibrate my expectations about work and my presence: that, at the end of the day, what matters is who we love and who love us in turn, and that getting caught up again in the academic arms race of publishing, emailing, grant-applying and grant-receiving means prioritizing work over self, work over life.

One regret that I have is that even as I have tried so hard to reorient myself away from the academic arms race - documented in Academic Aunties - I relapse and forget to find an identity outside work. There have been multiple times in my life when I prioritized work over living. The one that still haunts me is opting to finish the academic term and fulfill my teaching commitments in 2013 despite receiving news that my grandma - my lola Pining - was diagnosed at 89 with pancreatic cancer. When I got the news, it was November, and I thought, foolishly in hindsight, that I would finish out the term and head back as soon as December break started, especially since the doctor's prognosis was that my grandma had a "few more months." Yet my grandma died weeks after this diagnosis which meant I wasn't able to see her one last time. Here is a blog post I wrote in her honor.

Another memory that haunts me is my assumption that my dad and I still have a lot of time together. As we prepare for his 40th day death anniversary, which my community celebrates because it signifies the deceased's transition into the afterlife, I am haunted by how much I took my dad's presence for granted. One decision I wish I could undo was in the summer of 2008. Rather than heading back to see my parents in Vancouver, I opted to stay in Toronto so I could keep studying for my PhD comprehensive exams. I had the option of writing the exam in May, which all of the professors teaching the class encouraged us to do. They were telling us not to worry, that we would all very likely pass. But because I was caught up in the academic arms race, I opted to write the exam in August so I could spend an extra two months studying. Our professors pretty much told us that we would pass, but I didn't believe them, and so spent most of the summer in the library rereading Robert Bates and James Scott. Why didn't I just write the exam in May? Why did I have to try to not just know the material but try to master it? Who was I trying to impress?

I wish I knew then how finite life was. I wish I'd decided to spend an entire summer with my dad and mom in Vancouver. I wish we had taken more family trips. I wish I had treasured evenings spent going with my family to the Richmond night market, doing day trip drives to Seattle, hanging out at home and chatting. Even though my family, like many, has had its share of turmoil, my mom, dad, brother and I - pictured above, in my high school graduation - actually like each other's company. We know each other's quirks and tendencies. There's a comfort with knowing that in our family, we can be who we are, because there is unconditional acceptance.

As I enter the academic year, I will endeavour to remember that what I value is my family, my friends, my community. That email doesn't need to be sent. That paper can wait. That meeting can really be an email. Don't waste my fucking time. Because the time we have left is so limited.

[dreambunnynotes]

daily reflection: nov. 17th ❤︎

whoops, i didn't post my to-do lists or check-ins this week, but that is okay! my usual instinct is to give up and restart when i don't do something perfectly, but the whole point of documenting my self-improvement journey is to break the habits that don't serve me. i'm in the early stages of trying out this blog and it's okay to make mistakes, and i'm going to avoid the perfectionist loop by posting what i wrote up for the 17th of november! 🥰 it was a really successful day for my mental health and so i want to document it. here is what i wrote a few days ago:

accomplishments:

today i primarily focused on my social health, and i absolutely killed it!! it's actually making me tear up writing this reflection. i am currently dipping my toes into meeting new people, rekindling old friendships, and loving myself enough to show up as myself, which is my absolute biggest hurdle in my self-love journey due to my own trauma and life experiences. wonderfully, the successes i have had so far in trying to be myself and pushing through my fear and shame have been SO rewarding, which only encourages me to keep going and reminds me that it is safe to try! one of my most wonderful manifestations right now is manifesting my dream friend group where i feel loved and also have FUN, since i have had very low standards for friendships in the past. i kept receiving the message of "being true to myself" this week, and i set the intention that i was going to try to be my bestest, silliest, most authentically neurodivergent self no matter how hard it was. so many beautiful things have happened since setting that intention, and here are the results from just yesterday:

i hung out with my sister for an hour or two (which doesn't take energy for me, she is my best friend and the person i wish to base all of my future friendships off of!! c':) and even though i was nervous and apprehensive, we went to hang out with her theatre friends before their show that evening. i decided to try being authentically me despite the fear of being judged, and not only were they super lovely and fun, they also laughed at my jokes and made me feel very valued for being there! i felt really grateful to have that experience, and grateful to myself for giving it a try.

i hung out with my friend "ac" at their house for a bit while we got ready for a show, and it was really nice to see them again! i had been feeling a bit bummed about our friendship lately because they had been treating me in a way that felt pretty triggering, but i reconnected with the law of assumption and realized that it was because i expected them to show up that way, which helped me heal my relationship with them a little.

we went to pre-game at their partners house, though i wasn't drinking. i met several new people, and they were all so sweet and nice! instead of feeling lonely that i was a new person being introduced to a very longstanding friend group, i chose to ask those at the house party questions about their friend lore (lol) and was my sweet and silly self. i found myself laughing along to things i didn't find funny and not really enjoying myself, which ended up being helpful; instead of listening to the internal voice that often says "you'll never find your friends," i was able to witness the voice and reply with, "you're trying new things, and you're learning about your preferences; how beautiful is that!" i was really proud of myself for this witnessing and not-shaming, and i did end up having quite a few wonderful conversations after that. i was able to see that the situation was not black and white, and that there can be multiple perspectives per experience!

i had a negative interaction with someone i knew there that made me feel embarrassed because of the way they responded to me. instead of internalizing it, i remembered that real friends wouldn't make me feel that way, which was another win for connecting with my authentic self despite the fear!

i made a new friend who i had never met before which was so, so beautiful! we talked about vocal stims and musical theatre karaoke lmao it was so great, i felt really accepted by them and it was just such a treat to hang out and laugh with them! it's so nice to meet new people you instantly feel connected to, and, again, was proof that by being my purest self, i will meet the people i connect with.

at the venue, i put on my massive ear-protectors because i am very overstimulated by sound, and it was just so comforting to know that none of my friends there in the big friend group were judging me. it was safe to do what i had to do; in fact, it was celebrated!

anyway, i'm feeling really positively about my social experiences today. it was the biggest part of my day and i feel proud of myself for overcoming my biggest fears. it's so funny to me that my body reacts to seeing a friend the same way it would react if i was being attacked by a lion; the nervous system is a funny thing, but i'm glad it wants to keep me safe!

other accomplishments:

i didn't cancel work even though i really, really wanted to. i showed up and did my job, which shows that i can trust myself to get things done when i need to!

improvements to make:

i need to set clear goals so that my days are easier to navigate, because without clarity i wander pretty aimlessly with the time i have. i will improve this by getting specific about my dreams and desires, and planning my days accordingly!

woo! kind of a long and rambly post today, but it's alright, it's important for me to document. hope everyone is doing wonderfully and taking care of themselves the best they can!

[asyastudieskorean]

1.09.2024 — You can't hear it, but I’m sighing right now.🤦‍♀️

When the professor said we would have a chapter lecture and quiz every week, I assumed that meant 1 chapter per week, and I was like, okay great, we're doing more of the textbook and learning more per week than last quarter. This is what I am here for. With this assumption, I did the whole chapter last week and all the exercises and listening tasks. And I did find it odd when doing the quiz that only the first couple of pages were covered. Mind you, there's not really any context on how to approach these chapters or what pages/exercises we should specifically do. Each week, there's a lecture and quiz, that's it until midterm/final tests/projects start. There's virtually no homework or textbook checks so far, so who knows if other students are even doing the actual textbook work beyond reading it.

So, Tuesday, today, I went to look at the week’s lecture’s powerpoint, and it says this week covers pages 114-115… Are you serious now?? Each week we are covering 2, maybe 3, pages? And the lectures just repeat what can already be read from the textbook?

So, hold my triple shot, you’re saying I’ve done about 4 weeks of work by doing one chapter and now, besides the weekly quizzes that take 5-10 minutes, I have nothing new to learn? Bro. And let alone we only get new vocab biweekly, and this is usually 15 basic words.

I do not understand why the course is set to go so slow, I really don't. After Korean 1, we should all have the basic skills to learn new grammar at a faster pace. Man, if she didn’t have the upcoming weeks locked on Canvas, I could easily finish this course in 2 to3 weeks if it is always going to be this way.

It honestly feels like I paid 4 digits for this course for which a couple YouTube videos could have covered. I can work through the textbook pretty much on my own at this point, so I took this college-level course assuming there would be important additional learning that you can't get on your own with just a textbook.

I’m honestly getting really worried that I’m paying for such simple, slow-paced courses, and I won’t be anywhere near fluent by the end of the 2-year program that I am doing. Unfortunately, these Korean courses follow a progression each quarter, otherwise, I would ask how I could skip a class to the next level. I am nowhere near advanced; I am a basic beginner, but even still, the pace of this course is kind of ridiculous.

And you might be thinking, well, 에샤 씨, why don't you just learn by yourself and do more outside of the course? Well, homegirl, I am taking (and PAYING) for these courses because I thought they would give me a better learning environment and faster learning than on my own. The way I learn, and with my other personal and work priorities, I need the class environment, with check-ins, weekly assignments, quizzes, professor engagement -- you get it. I need these to stay motivated and to keep myself accountable to consistent, progressive learning. I can only hope it gets better as the course progresses.

[isawken]

so the thing is

the thing is i think about my sorry 20 year old ass taking dozens of mgs of stolen barbiturates in my one bedroom apartment luxuriously paid for by an excess of student loans playing spyro the dragon on my 11 year old playstation 2 slim living the young artist's dream just me and a cat and and memory loss skipping class to make mediocre art too high to self harm in the old fashioned "burn or cut myself" way so i didn't think the other stuff i was doing was all that bad and trying really hard to be a mediocre waitress at a mediocre faux-high-brow restaurant and finally after a month being honest with my therapist and her recommending, not telling, me to self admit to Forest View Psychiatric Hospital and i actually did because i didn't know what else to do and i got in there and they took my shoelaces and i cried for about 36 hours straight because what the fuck did i just do, until they finally gave up on the trazadone that just straight up was not working and gave me seroquel and i finally slept for a while and then just sat in the bedroom i shared with an 18 year old anorexic (who would soon ask to get transferred to the minor ward and they'd let her for reasons i'm still not clear on other than the assumption of empathy on the part of her assigned psychiatrist which is frankly hard for me to believe) because they didn't actually care if you went to the group therapies as long as you were somewhere visible for their regular 15 minute check ins but after the 3rd day of now-intermittent crying and 6 new medications and mediocre forced sleep i asked if i could take a nap in one of the quiet rooms and they let me and it was one of the best naps i ever had in my life and when i woke up i was in a great mood and my whole perspective had somehow shifted and suddenly this was a good thing i was okay with being here (i still have no idea how this happened) and i went to group therapy and i tolerated the others in therapy telling me the solution to my immense self hate was to trust that god loves me and i went to the art room and drew in coloring books with the others and chatted and a 19 year old taught me about the chemical compounds in mucinex that get you high and i got a new roommate who was also my age also bisexual and she was an opera singer and she knew danish and we chatted up a stereotypically intimidating-looking biker man who had a voice as beautiful as my roommate's and he told us as he was waiting for the single-shower room about the benefits of MDMA for trauma and how the best thing you can do when you're rolling is "the airplane" and a 48 year old pill popper mother of 4 taught me how to jam a plastic spoon into the shower button in your room so you don't have to keep pressing the button for water and a guy named zander told me a bunch of pun jokes and we started sitting together at lunch and one day it was chicken wings, like actually decent chicken wings, so he ate a bunch and then left the bones piled on his plate as he left to get another round and the woman sitting across from us leaned over, eyes honed on my face, and very gently asked if it would be okay if we could cover up the bones on our plates because it reminded her of her captivity by two men and subsequent torture, specifically when they shoved a broken handle through her foot and

and

and my reaction was, of course, to say yes yes, of course, it's no trouble at all, zander won't mind either, and he came back as we were talking, and i simply told him let's cover up our bones as i unfolded a napkin and draped it over his plate, and he nodded in immediate understanding, and i switched conversation topics to something light like oh where are you from what did you do before this what drugs did you take and it was an otherwise fine lunch as we all commiserated over our substance abuses and

and

and ever since then, even during subsequent life-changing mental breakdowns, it's never been as bad as that first one, because i think of her (i can't remember her name i wish i did she deserves me to remember her name) and i am grateful that i can look at a pile of chicken bones and be okay

as far as psych ward experiences go mine was pretty much as positive as one could get and i'm so lucky and i'm so grateful but

it wasn't until way after my experience that i learned that other psych wards gave their patients fun grippy socks.

i never got grippy socks. and even worse than that.

i never got my fucking shoelaces back.

[modern-day-bard]

Worth The Feeling

Content Warning: 18+ This series contains explicit smut, intimidation, and an age gap relationship. Minors, do not interact.

I didn't sleep on the plane, and I haven't slept more than ten hours in the following three days. Normally when we return from shooting on location, we will get a day or two off. But the entire crew had received several emails that the cast was given extra time in Italy and they will be returning to our following routine on Friday, which is tomorrow. There was some alleged lie that Lloyd was reshooting one of the scenes with Emma in the Milan office building, but I was unsure how he would do that now that almost the entire crew had returned home. I'm sure that they wanted more time to themselves in Italy. Maybe to pester the cast about a press schedule, but most likely to soak up a quick, all inclusive vacation.

Beyond the emails and some check-ins from Lana and Mia, my phone was essentially a glorified flashlight. I was staying off of it as long as I could, too afraid that I would see a text from Dwayne. And then I would check it sporadically, equally afraid that I hadn't received a text from Dwayne.

What weighed on me the most is that I still hadn't received anything from Javi. Not an email, phone call, or text. At night, I would get flashbacks of our time together in Italy, most of it in between the sheets. As much as those memories made my face heat and my body ache, my heart would drop when I remembered the absence of communication. And by Thursday evening, that heart ache had morphed into a steady thrum of irritation. I had passed out, for God's sake. The word on the street is that he was incredibly worried when I was unconscious, but now he's gone radio silent? I wonder if everyone thought he was incredibly worried just because they didn't expect him to be concerned at all. Maybe he didn't care as much as I thought.

After my shower, I decided to check my phone one final time for the night.

My breath caught, seeing I had one message waiting from Dwayne.

Dwayne: Meet me in Trailer 4 tomorrow morning. 7am.

I reread it at least five times. I scroll up through our last few messages, trying to decipher Dwayne's phone etiquette and whether this text had any new, possibly more frustrated, tones to it than our previous conversations.

Me: Sounds good!!!

I press send without thinking and then curse myself for three exclamation marks. Two I could have written off as a mistake, but three was a choice. I feel like a person using three exclamation marks has something to hide. And technically, I did have something to hide. Except now it wasn't super hidden.

Beyond the cursed phone, the thing that was occupying the largest space in my brain was a comment Blake made before I passed out.

"I was operating under the assumption, and I mean, indisputable proof, that you, should we say, 'entertained' the actors." What in the hell had he meant by indisputable proof? Blake Henley was clearly more deranged than I originally thought him to be, so maybe he was making it up. Possibly just trying to scare me, or maybe he was even just bored. But no matter what alternative meaning I apply to his words, I still replay all my steps with Javi and all the mistakes that were made. I knew they were risky at the time, but with Blake's personal spin that I was entertaining every actor I could get my hands on, it made it look a whole lot worse. And if I was willing to do what I did with Javi...did I have a case to stand on that I hadn't done the same with Blake? Especially when it was his word against mine.

My phone lights up, still sitting in my hands after I sent my response to Dwayne. And though I'm not sure I'll be able to hold it together throughout an entire phone call, I pick up, needing the distraction.

"Hey, mom." My voice is shaky, and she notices immediately.

"Hi, sweetie. You okay?" I can hear the local news blaring in the background.

"I'm fine," As soon as she asks, a few tears roll down my face. "How are you? How's dad?"

"We're great. Same as usual over here. Though it is incredibly humid right now, your father's been throwing a fit about it," She laughs in a way that would confirm to anyone that she finds his fits endearing. "It's been a minute since you've called."

"I know, I'm sorry. We were on location and it was super hectic."

"That's right! How was Italy? How did flying go?"

"Well, I still hate it," I let out one gurglely chuckle. "But I had some help. I've met some...new coworkers, and they were really understanding."

"That's great. I was worried about you, you know."

"Thanks mom," I sniffle. "Uh, Italy itself was beautiful. I didn't get out too much but I was on Lake Como most days. It was about an hour away from where we were staying but it was worth it."

"I Googled it when you said that's where you were going. It looks stunning."

"It was. I had a really good time."

"And work? How has that been?"

I pause, not knowing if I should tell her about the promotion. I had thought about calling her while we were in Italy, but the time difference had made it difficult. Now I'm wondering if that was a blessing in disguise.

"It's been fine. Same as usual over here," I echo her and she laughs lightly.

"I...miss you guys."

"We miss you too! Are you sure you're okay, honey?"

"I'm fine, just tired. Still jet lagged I think."

My mom doesn't reply for a few moments, and I get the feeling that she's considering whether or not she wants to call me on my lie.

"Alright. I'll let you go then. Get some rest, honey."

The kindness in her voice only makes the lump in my throat grow larger.

"Thanks, mom. Love you."

"Love you, too."

I hang up, curling into a ball on my bed and wondering what the hell I'm going to say to Dwayne tomorrow.

- - -

I try not to let my sentimentality push my slightly nauseous stomach into dangerous terrorists. Everything I do between driving onto the lot, pulling out my employee ID, and parking into the employee lot, I keep thinking that this is possibly the last time I'm going to do these things. I hardly slept last night which made it easy to get here over an hour earlier than I was supposed to arrive. And as the minutes tick closer to my scheduled meeting with Dwayne, I'm not sure if it's the sentimentality or the nausea that is going to win out. It'll be a photo finish between my tears or my stomach.

Taking one last, calming breath, I get out of my car. I avoid any possible eye contact with the people I pass by. Thankfully it's too early to feel any eyes on me. Everyone else is probably too tired or still too jet lagged to care. I wish I felt the same.

I arrive at Trailer 4, and my hand shakes before I ball it up into a tight fist to knock.

"Come in," My stomach twists at the sound of Dwayne's voice.

Trailer 4 is set up as a conference room of sorts with two separate tables. From what I knew, it was normally reserved for meetings between the producers and directors. The professionalism isn't helping with the weight of this situation. Dwayne is glancing over several sheets of paper spread out on the table furthest from the door. He waves me over without looking up.

"C'mon over, Ava."

As I approach, he places some of the papers back into a folder and closes it up. When he finally looks up at me and gestures to the seat across from him, all I can offer is a tight smile.

"How are you? After your incident." He asks.

"I'm alright, thank you. It was just heat exhaustion, and now I'm out of the heat, so. Don't have to worry about that now." I let out a quick, very awkward laugh.

"Good, well, I'm glad you're okay."

Both of us nod, tight lipped and avoiding direct eye contact.

"Ava...we do need to discuss what was going on when you had your incident."

I haven't stopped nodding since he started talking. "Of course. Dwayne, I really need to explain myself. I have been nothing but professional with the talent on set, Mr. Henley completely got the wrong impression–"

"I believe you."

"--And he showed up completely unannounced, and, you what?"

"Ava, you've been a loyal employee. The only responses we've ever had about you have been incredibly positive. Frankly, I don't care who is involved with whom. But...it could reflect poorly on you and your future career to be mixed up with multiple actors, especially on the same set."

I blink. "I'm sorry...you said you believed me though?"

"I do. But I think we both know that you have spent some personal time with at least one actor on set."

I swallow a few times to push back the bile rising in my throat. Dwayne opens back up the folder, flipping through some papers before pulling out a photo and sliding it across the table to me. I have an onslaught of flashbacks of our intimate time in the pool, thinking how stupid and caught up and in the moment I was. How I should have waited and gone back inside like a normal person, and I shouldn't have been so swept up by Italy, the promotion, and the look in Javi's eyes.

But as I look down at a very small, fish-eyed photo of me leaving Javi's room, I feel a strange sense of relief. It definitely wasn't normal for a PA to be leaving an actors room, especially not with that lovestruck smile on my face. And Blake's room was not even directly across from Javi's, due to the size of the suites, but it was slanted and blurry from the peephole. It was obviously me, but you couldn't see Javi. No one besides the production team that knew the room numbers of each of the cast members would even know that it was his suite. It wasn't great, but it wasn't that bad either.

Was this the indisputable proof Blake was trying to threaten me with? It was almost laughable. Much less so with the seriousness of Dwayne's expression.

"My question is, Ava, did you have a romantic relationship with Javi, Blake, or both of them? Is this what you think you need to move forward?"

The weight of his question hangs over both of us. I can tell it made him uncomfortable to ask it, but I can't say it's completely unacceptable due to how Blake made it sound on the beach. I inhale a long, calming breath.

"Dwayne. This might not be the best thing to say right now, but I do want you to know that this is the first and only time I have ever spent time with a cast member outside of PA duties. This job means more to me than anything. All I've ever wanted is to be involved in this business, and I drive onto this lot everyday feeling like I won the employer lottery. I was on top of the world when you offered me that promotion."

I take another deep breath, knowing this might sign my pink slip away.

"With that being said...we have no company rules about relationships with the talent. In the past few months I have never let my personal feelings impact my role on set. I wish I had disclosed this sooner, but due to the, um, nature, of the relationship, I wasn't sure it was necessary. And I certainly didn't want to seem as though I was using these newfound feelings to garner special attention at work in any way. So I hope that you can see that, even though it was a bad judgment call, I still had professionalism at the forefront of my decision making."

I tap my fingers on the table, deciding how to best talk about that human boil. "As for Blake...I only had a few conversations with him, and I was never involved with him in any way. I was actually very...taken aback when he showed up at my hotel room. My roommate was there the entire time, and both her and I were uncomfortable."

Phew. It was a mouthful, but it came out better than I expected.

Dwayne stares at me passively. His general demeanor is always so composed, and on set that's a huge asset. But right now it's really making me sweat. Especially as the silence continues to grow between us. I feel at least two beads drip down my back before he replies.

"You're not in trouble Ava."

Now I'm wondering if it's possible to vomit from relief.

"Really?"

Dwayne nods. "I wanted to hear your side of the story, of course. I feel as though I knew you well enough to know that at least part of Blake's story must have been false. Though I have to say I was surprised to see the pictures, and to hear Javi's side of the story."

Oh god. Javi's side? They spoke about it already?

"If his reaction to your fainting spell wasn't enough for me to guess his...feelings, he admitted to everything as soon as we heard you were conscious. And he took full responsibility for the entire...affair. He claims he was the one to instigate things."

I just blink at him, too afraid that nodding will be some entertainment industry version of committing perjury. Because the truth is, he wasn't solely responsible for any of it.

"We had a meeting with our public relations manager and Javi and he agreed to our terms. What I need to know from you Ava is if you plan on pressing charges toward either party."

"Pressing charges? Against Javi or Blake?"

"Yes, toward either or both of them. Or if you plan to make a statement."

I have an icky feeling hearing Javi and Blake in the same context as pressing charges. One of them did nothing wrong and the other was a scumbag. I didn't want Javi compared to that imbecile. It also is weirding me out that Javi took the liberty to speak to Dwayne, and that conversation resulted in a PR meeting that didn't involve me. But I had come in here today expecting to be fired. And right now, I will take whatever path that leads me to being able to afford my rent.

"I–no. Not at all. Truthfully all I would like to do is get back to work."

Dwayne lets loose a small, professional smile. "Great. We've arranged the schedule so that you and Javi will interact as little as possible. We only have two more weeks of shooting so it shouldn't be too hard. There may be some overlap as you're still training with me, but we'll cross those bridges later. You know as well as I do that marketing can be just as important as the script, cinematographer, or anything else. We must not interfere with anything that should sabotage that. Sound good?"

I genuinely can't believe the outcome of this meeting. My nausea doesn't fade, but I feel some of the tightness in my chest easing slightly.

"Yes, of course."

Dwayne slaps his hands on the armrests of his chair. "Alright. Let's get to work then."

Next Chapter

Previous Chapter

Series Masterlist

[amysubmits]

My wife sometimes remarks that I’ve never actually showed her who is boss and then tries to write it off as teasing. In reality I’ve never made her cry during a punishment even though her bottom has been pretty red and hot before. She doesn’t say it outright but I don’t think she actually avoids punishment because I haven’t yet pushed her into a very uncomfortable situation that she wouldn’t want to repeat.

Can you or CD please share advice on how to feel empowered enough to make punishments truly uncomfortable?

I have limited context here of course, so forgive me if you know more than I do and this is off base. But I wonder if when she's made these 'teasing' comments if she's attempting to initiate bratty play or punishments in those moments?

Even if that isn't the case, I wouldn't necessarily assume that her saying you've never truly showed her who is boss, would mean that it's about punishment. I think that type of statement could be expressing a desire for more dominance in some form, but not necessarily in a punishment sense. It could be that she wants to feel more of your control ins some other way.

Anyway, I'd suggest a meta-talk where you tell her that you believe she's making these 'jokes' because there is some truth to them...and ask her if she feels she wants your dominance to expand to include more areas of control, if she wants it to include more strictness, if she wants it to include harsher punishments, etc. It can be really tough to have those conversations, as they're very vulnerable! But it's really important in my opinion. Making assumptions based on "jokes" is pretty risky. And while those sorts of really vulnerable conversations can be challenging, they can be extremely rewarding longterm.

As far as getting yourself more comfortable with being harsher...I think if it's going to happen, it's probably a matter of time combined with finding more confidence that it is okay and that it's the right thing for you both. But also, it just isn't something that all dom/mes are okay with and if it's something that never changes for you, that is okay too. It's okay if it's a limit for doms.

But also? If a sub is not currently feeling the desire to avoid punishments, then I don't usually think that harsher punishments are the primary solution. I think most subs avoid punishment because they want to please their dom/mes, and they want to uphold their side of their D/s agreement - more so than fear or dread of punishment. So when I think of a sub not avoiding punishments, I tend to wonder if the sub isn't fully recognizing that these rules matter to their dom/me. I generally think if a sub is confident that their dom is hurt if their sub breaks the rules on purpose, then that will be a pretty strong deterrent in and of itself. And likewise for following the rules if they're confident it pleases their dom/me. So I'd wonder if being more open about how it impacts you when she breaks rules willy nilly, and perhaps being more open about how good it makes you feel when she does follow the rules, if those things haven't been super clear up to this point. I wonder if that will make her feel your authority more and that will make her take the rules more seriously..more so than using a harsher punishment to try to get her to take them more seriously.

I think it's easy for dom/mes to not really share their feelings about these things as much, due to stereotypes about dominance being stoic. And if you're a man then that can add to the pressure to not be open about your feelings. But it's a little ironic because I think most subs need to really see, hear and feel how important our submission is to our dom/mes to feel really driven to take it really seriously on our end. Just you sending this ask in tells me that you're concerned about this, but if she's breaking rules on purpose, I'd wonder if she may not fully realize that this is something that really matters deeply to you.

Hope this helps!

[vitos-ordination-song]

Being a Le Guin expert means constantly being annoyed at people’s takes on her, people who just don’t get it or people who haven’t read enough of her writing to know what she was about. Particularly when it comes to feminist controversies with her work, I’m constantly banging my head against the wall.

First you get men getting up at arms at any sign of potential feminism. Just makes ‘em defensive. One academic lecturer said he didn’t like Tehanu because it was “preachy” (no follow up). I listened to three different podcast bros say the misogyny in The Dispossessed was exaggerated. This is all from the last 10 years of course, whereas Le Guin was born in 1929. I promise you that a concept like “women are natural inferiors to men” is not something she made up but in fact possibly something she heard stated verbatim growing up. (I was born in 1997, and I don’t think I’m from a representative population since I was raised in a conservative evangelical community, but I also heard such things stated in childhood.) I wish I lived in these mens’ worlds where portraying such attitudes in fiction is “going a bit far, even as social commentary.” Equally I’ve seen men get hot around the collar when there’s “bad guy” males. Le Guin tended to steer clear of simple villains, but in Tehanu and a couple other of her works, there are truly sadistic men, at times sexual threats. Any men fragile enough to get upset by that are sad to me, especially because Le Guin also wrote a female pedophile in one of her novels and never shied away from “bad guy” women. There’s a kind of disbelief I see from people (often men but not just them) when it comes to Tehanu, like it’s unbelievable that there could be such obsessive abusive misogynists. Again. Welcome to the real world. This shit happens.

The author Kim Stanley Robinson said he disliked the later Earthsea books for being too didactic on feminism. I somewhat get what he means and I don’t think he’s a misogynist himself. I also agree that Le Guin was bullied into being defensive of her feminism; she was attacked by other women for being a married with kids, which is just pathetic behavior. It made her a bit edgy for a while, and then she doubled her efforts to be woman-centered. This had the occasional consequence of didacticism, there’s a couple moments in her later writing where I go, “okay, I get the point,” but her points are never bad. Where I disagree with Robinson is in whether she actually rectified wrongs in her writing. Frankly some of her early works read as male chauvinist, she later stated she was a woman pretending to be a man simply because she thought that’s how a writer should be. In many cases her feminist turn was much needed, though it’s true that even her early work is more complex on gender issues than people give it credit for.

Then there’s people who read a single of her works and write her off as a gender essentialist. It’s really frustrating because it’s like people aren’t able to engage with a text except for how much it validates or invalidates them personally. People who’re “against the gender binary” will see a work which depicts a realistic, materially based gendered social system and take issue with it just on the principal that people in the story have assumptions about men and women. What exactly is wrong with writing a story that way? It’s not as if Le Guin herself believed in fixed gender characteristics. It makes me think of a post I saw a while back that was like, you can’t be free to experiment with gender until you acknowledge how we are enslaved by our biology. Of course our biology isn’t simple either, but the point is, we can be pro-trans, all for gender non-conformity, questioning of even the existence of gender, without denying that gender as a concept was borne out of biological sex, and that historically sex/gender have taken on many meanings and significances. Authors are not required to write disclaimers explaining themselves, and honestly it’s an insult to the nuances of Le Guin’s writing to pretend that she was some kind of close-minded old-school feminist.

Finally there’s the dumbasses who will complain about the lack of “girl power” in her novels. I see this sort of thing a lot actually, not just when it comes to Le Guin. When I was a little girl, I always wanted stories about awesome women who could save themselves/others, since I had previously been psychologically disempowered through passive narratives about women. But I’m an adult now so I like stories that are a bit more mature. The Earthsea books, when they begin to focus on women’s narratives, don’t just become “women act like men and it’s awesome.” It’s not about women being wizards or anything like that, though there’s examples of literal empowerment. It’s about women’s values destabilizing the world of men and a balancing of the previously unbalanced gendered social system, which was very much in need of doing and aligns with the themes of the series. I want to slap people who say Tenar “doesn’t get to do anything” and “is helpless” in Tehanu, as if she isn’t one of the strongest and most dignified characters Le Guin ever wrote. It’s an entire novel of her caring for a child everyone else fears, fending off a world which is hostile to her, and maintaining her wits when malicious forces are trying to steal them from her. But I guess since she didn’t like, cast a fireball, it’s not feminist enough. It’s also not a “feminist hot take” to shit on the entire concept of being a mother and wife, keeping the household. You know how that’s a lot of what women have done throughout history? I mean, in no way does Le Guin discount how marriage/motherhood can be a cage for women, but is it really anti-feminist to say that there’s something to respect in traditional women’s work? The novel also acknowledges the value of both “respectable” women (wives and mothers) and “non-respectable” women (witches who never marry and often contribute a great deal to their community despite being marginalized). At this point I’m just ranting about Tehanu, but it’s not only my favorite Le Guin but probably my favorite novel of all time and it drives me wild how much people misinterpret it.

[roboticchibitan]

I posted 4,215 times in 2022

That's 1,580 more posts than 2021!

468 posts created (11%)

3,747 posts reblogged (89%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@sapphicshart

@kurtwagnermorelikekurtwagnerd

@tattinglacework

@biotic-boshtet

@callmebliss

I tagged 1,869 of my posts in 2022

#v's fiber arts tag - 379 posts

#the yearning is upon me again - 112 posts

#hopepunk - 104 posts

#knitting - 98 posts

#lace rot disease - 77 posts

#v rates teapots - 74 posts

#humans are space orcs - 48 posts

#lace for the lace gods - 36 posts

#atla - 34 posts

#the joys of tea - 34 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#i messaged my doctor yesterday like 'look i just want to confirm that my assumption that this doesn't require medical treatment is correct'

I sent 2 gifts in 2022

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Alien crewmate: you talk to that small earth creature like it's a person. It must be intelligent to understand you and respond.

Human crewmate: oh you mean my cat? They don't understand most of what we say. They can understand basic commands and tone. And some of them are as intelligent as a human toddler. But they can't understand most of what we say.

Alien crewmate: but... it made noise back at you. It responded.

Human: oh yeah cats do this thing where we can have "conversations" with each other but we don't understand each other. Sometimes I meow back at her, too, but I don't actually understand her meows. It's only polite to speak her language sometimes, after all.

Alien crewmate: fascinating

1,604 notes - Posted August 27, 2022

#4

OK but humans can feel rain in their bones. What kind of stuff could aliens do similarly? Imagine another alien from a deathworld hanging out with a human and the human is like "Oh my knee hurts the weather is going to change." And the deathworlder being like "Wait, you can predict your environment based on sensory input from your body too???" Turns out our deathworlder cousins can predict the weather and things like cave-ins because it makes their tusks hurt and they've never met another species who can do that. Non predator aliens watch this conversation in the mess hall in growing horror because what the fuck why are the predators able to do insane magic shit like predict the weather based on the feeling in their bones???

1,800 notes - Posted August 26, 2022

#3

In a world full of forces that want to keep you miserable and downtrodden, the most radical thing you can do is cultivate hope in yourself. It takes practice, and it's hard at first, but it's one of those things that snowballs. First you find a little bit of hope, and you think maybe that's all there is. But as you practice being hopeful, your hope grows and grows until suddenly the world doesn't seem so bad.

And remember, maybe you can't change the entire world. But you can change your world. And it's okay to let that be enough. The entire world is a heavy burden that no one was meant to carry alone. It's okay to put it down.

2,116 notes - Posted May 4, 2022

#2

Humans understand that for a lot of alien species, baring teeth is a sign of aggression, so we all learn to smile with our mouths closed but then we meet an alien species that think "that thing you guys do with your face muscles" is as adorable as we think a cat doing a blep is and then only finding out (with horror) way later that when we smile at each other we bare our teeth and that's a sign of friendliness and happiness we do to each other among members of our own species.

Imagine being an alien recently assigned to a new ship and there's multiple humans on this crew and you're like "Yes! I hope these humans do the 'smile' thing it's so adorable" and then you watch two humans hanging out and they're baring their teeth at each other and you're like "oh no the predators are gonna fight this is bad" until someone else on the crew notices you turning distressed colors and is like "No that's what their smiles look like when they smile at each other" and the you're suddenly very intimated by the fact that the persistence predators bare their teeth at each other when happy.

2,668 notes - Posted July 31, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Human crewmate: smells like rain

Alien crewmate: you can SMELL that???

Human:. ... yes? Some humans can feel it in their bones, especially where bones have been broken and healed or have decayed. Most of us get it with age.

Alien crewmate, aside to another alien crewmate: what the fuck

12,827 notes - Posted August 26, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[julie-su]

Okay, I'll be honest, I've never actually seen Beyblade and I am sorry

Oh, no, it's probably a pretty fair assumption XD I haven't seen Beyblade in yeeears, I just remembered loving it as a kid - I just thought that it was an amusing and somewhat endearing message, as it was what my Yu-Gi-Oh loving older brother would always tell me, when we were younger! Funnily enough, they both aired at around the same time in the UK.

Beyblade's TV show comes from the Manga series published in CoroCoro to sell the Beyblade toys, whilst Yu-Gi-Oh! was published in Weekly Shonen Jump, with the toys coming later.

CoroCoro may be recognised by some of my followers as the publishers of the main Splatoon manga; they mostly make toy and videogame tie-ins, aimed at younger children ^^ (though, they also published Doraemon! Eeeventually, after it got passed around to different childrens' mags, all owned by Shogakukan.) Weekly Shonen Jump, as I'm sure I dont' have to explain to many of my followers, is aimed more at teenagers, and tends to cover original properties - One Piece, Hunter x Hunter, Jujutsu Kaisen, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Naruto, Bleach... I can go on. (... Shogakukan Inc, which publishes CoroCoro, are the founders of Shueisha, which publish Jump, so it's less of a comic VS comic as much as it is a 'this one's for young kids, this one's for older kids, this one gets the game and videogame tie-ins, this one gets the big boys!)

.. That's a long answer, to say - 'you're probably right.' XD

[oleander-selfships]

boundaries/dni

a list of boundaries as well as a dni list. this is just to put some ground rules down here for my own comfort so i could curate my experience here. please respect the following boundaries:

do:

spam like or reblog my posts. i actually don't mind that, and it makes me feel kinda saddened or upset when people are rude to those that do that. i don't necessarily understand why people dislike spam likes/reblogs, though if anyone knows and wants to explain it, please do.

send in or spam asks. i don't mind check ins or just in general questions! just please give me time to respond to them as i'm not always in a mood to socialize.

friendly pet names are totally fine to use (ex. bro, buddy, pal,  buddy chum pal friend buddy pal chum bud friend fella bruther amigo pal buddy friend chummy chum chum pal /ref)

block certain tags of mine

tag me in things such as tag games or posts you think i'd enjoy

don't:

be rude or mean as a 'joke'. i have a hard time deciphering sarcasm or tones through text, and it's just not funny to do.

automatically make assumptions of what i am or aren't okay with. if i happen to be following someone who's problematic or has had a bad past and clearly hadn't changed, please let me know via an ask so i know to avoid them.

use romantic petnames on me unless you're my partner. thank you.

follow this blog if you're anti-self-ship

dni:

do not interact if you're a minor. i'm an adult who'd rather interact with other adults.

if you're pro cringe culture. just let people have fun.

if you're proship/profiction/comship or whatever label you guys use.

if you're pro lolicon/shoutacon, you guys disgust me

anti lqbtq, fatphobic, alt right, republican, conservatives.

extreme christians. if you're more on the chill side of your faith, we could chill, but i'd rather not deal with the types who are 'god-fearing' or use their religion as an excuse to be an asshole to those who disagree with them.

if you're anti-self-ship as stated above. this ain't the place for you.

will be updated if necessary.

credits: cherry blossom pink dividers - rookthornesartistry, banners found on pinterest