#You're allowed to as a treat

[acfan120]

For the record, I'd been taking commissions for years and years now, and that particular commissioner for two years now, as of this month. And in all that time, I've never once complained about taking commissions, nor complained about any one specific commissioner. So maybe keep that in mind when I did eventually snap and made a *small* vent post about it

[trans-cuchulainn]

also re last post i think a crucial part of treating your ace friends like you actually respect them is not acting like non-sexual content and child-friendly content are the same thing. which also means not assuming all stories and media aimed at adults need to contain sex (@ creators, take note). because it's shitty to be an adult and find that there is nothing out there written for someone like you and everyone's suggestions are always for children's media. there's nothing wrong with kidlit etc but sometimes, you know, you're an adult, you want stories that reflect the fact that you're an adult, and you want acknowledgement that adulthood and interest in sex are not synonyms. and likewise when you are writing non sexual content for an adult audience it sucks to have people assume it's meant to be for kids and to expect it to fulfil a purpose it wasn't made for

[mixmangosmangoverse]

So when a celebrity says something pro Palestine or even pro Hamas everyone goes "yeah woo celebrities should always use their platform to talk about issues"

But when a celebrity says "actually killing Israelis is bad" suddenly celebrities shouldn't get involved in conflicts and shouldn't use their platform to talk about issues

It's so blatant that people just mean "celebrities should only boost the opinions we deem correct and should never ever express sympathy for Jews, that's so lame"

I'm so done

[calware]

"i happened to not find this character very interesting or likeable" doesn't automatically mean they're an objectively bland and boring character it just means you have a personal opinion

[jtl-fics]

Fluent Freshman - Part 40

PREV

The Winter Banquet.

Where the Spring Championship announcements happen for Collegiate Exy. A formal event meant to allow the ERC to showcase how their stars weren’t just brutes on the court. Look at how beautiful and handsome they all were. Look at how they danced together. Look at the smiles and laughter and-

Wait.

No.

Put that down.

Who had the great idea to put the Jackals next to the Terrapins? Things have been tense between the teams since the Captain of the Terrapins stole the Captain of the Jackal’s date during the Fall Banquet!

I thought we all agreed that there would never be any more steak knives! What was the point of paying for all the pre-cut tenderloins if we’re just going to give them steak knives?! 

Really gotta find an intern to pin this fiasco on.

Oh great the Foxes are leaving! Did we even get a picture of Kevin Day in his suit? Fuck it’s going to be a two intern firing kind of day isn’t it.

Someone get an eye on the Ravens before they try and grab some hapless idiot and sacrifice him to revive Riko Moriyama. If there’s even one more damn tabloid with a blurry photo of ‘Riko Moriyama’ to prove that his death was faked then heads will roll.

Honestly, the biopic that some Edgar Allan Film student is making about him seems pretty interesting. The ERC just wishes people would stop taking pics of the ‘lead actor’ and sending it to tabloids as proof that the King hadn’t died.

Fuck, the Foxes left before we got any decent pictures.

Well just great.

You’d think that after all these years of the Foxes leaving early they’d have learned that getting pictures as they arrive is the most important thing. 

Oh thank god it looks like the Trojans are starting to mediate the fight. You can always count on good ol’ Jeremy.

Fuck.

A Raven got too close to Jean Moreau and now Jeremy Knox has punched a Backliner. Great. The Trojans have formed ranks around Moreau but the kid’s just too damn tall. Someone has hit him in the head with an especially saucy meatball, he’s not injured, just confused. The Trojans are acting like it’s a gunshot he just took to the head.

The refreshment table just seemed to collapse in on itself and god wasn’t that just an allegory for this entire damn evening.

Anita Flores sighs as she watches yet another banquet go down in a riot. Honestly, she doesn’t know why they think these will end up differently. She finds herself often missing when she used to coordinate banquets for football teams.

She sighs and thinks about her least favorite interns.

Alex had been getting a bit too cocky lately. He’d make a good sacrifice.

***

(Three hours earlier)

The Palmetto State Foxes were on their way to the Winter Banquet. From what FF understood it was categorically always a 90% chance of a shitshow. Honestly FF was surprised that the percentage was that low.

There was a general tenseness in the air surrounding it that went beyond the Banquet’s propensity to become a fight. 

This year the Winter Banquet was going to be held up at the Binghamton Bearcat’s stadium. The nation knew the story from the news and FF knew the story from both that and from the Foxes themselves who were there at the time in bits and pieces.

Captain Neil had been kidnapped from this stadium and then he’d been tortured. FF hadn’t even been on the team when it had happened and he was anxious about Captain Neil going anywhere near the stadium.

“He was just…he was just gone.” Matt had said, “Neil was gone and Kevin said that he was probably dead when Andrew got back with his phone.” He continued as the two of them sat up late in the living room of the dorm one night back in early October.

“I thought Andrew was going to kill me y’know.” Kevin had said bottle in hand as FF tried to help him up the stairs because apparently he would 100% guarantee vomit if he was in the nausea box. “I thought that maybe I deserved it, since I didn’t help Neil. I just let him walk to his death.” He said and despite assurances that he wouldn’t puke FF’s shoes did not make it through that journey unscathed.

“We called…we called everywhere.” Nicky had stared up at the ceiling of his hospital room, “Andrew was adamant that he was still alive even though Kevin kept saying he was dead and that dead was the nicest thing he could hope for. I thought that was a terrible thing to say.” Nicky curled up closer to him.

“I told you, Andrew dragged me like I was nothing to get to Neil. I don’t think he even noticed the guns.” Wymack said to Abby as the two sat on the back porch during Aras’ going away party. “His eyes were on Neil.” he gestures towards where Andrew was watching Captain Neil wrestle with Matt.

“He looked like shit.” Aaron had said unable to stomach a diagram of different degrees of burn in his medical book. “At least he was alive.” He adds.

“A hero.” Andrew’s voice had been what could be considered teasing from Andrew, “Someone who looks like her.” he had said touching Captain Neil’s burn scars as they drove away from the stadium after coming back to pick FF up.

Captain Neil had come to him the day before they were set to drive out, “Take me somewhere no one will find me for an hour.” FF hadn’t quite understood what Captain Neil meant, he never hid anywhere. People just failed to realize where he was.

“Ok.” he says instead of trying to explain because being unnoticed means no one hid codes from him.

The roof of the Library wasn’t that much different from the roof of the Tower, only that it was taller and bigger. Captain Neil had shut his phone off after texting something, likely to Andrew, and then put it into his pocket.

FF settled on the roof, sat with his back against a heating vent to stay warm. Captain Neil settled next to him and they sat in silence. It felt like back at the start of this where Captain Neil and Andrew would come find him and just sit in silence. 

It was nice. He had missed-

“They act like the stadium is the thing that kidnapped me.” Captain Neil says.

Oh okay, quiet time is over apparently.

FF doesn’t say anything, figuring that nothing he could say right now would be the right thing and maybe Captain Neil just needs to talk through some stuff.

“That stadium is where I thought I’d have my last good memory.” Captain Neil explains, “I’m not scared of it and yet Andrew’s acting like I’ll die if I’m left alone for more than 2 seconds while we’re there. Every time we go there they all act like the most important thing in the world is that I get on that bus at the end of the night.” Captain Neil explains.

FF does remember how Andrew had grabbed Captain Neil after their October game up in Binghamton. How Captain Neil had complained bitterly but had gone after looking at Andrew.

“He’s dead!” Captain Neil exclaimed and FF couldn’t help but look over at the entrance and hoped no one heard them. “He’s dead! I watched him get shot! He can’t kidnap me again!” Captain Neil continued to yell and FF couldn’t help but worry that they’d be heard below, or worse bother a student trying to study below.

FF reached out and touched Captain Neil’s arm and bright blue eyes turned to him, “We’re on a library. Don’t yell.” FF said and Captain Neil looked at him incredulously.

Then he laughed. He laughed and laughed and FF was worried that he’d gone and broken his Captain.

He suddenly felt bad about his own bout of hysterical laughter a while back.

“Thanks Smith.” Captain Neil had said with a smile.

They had sat up there until it was dark and Andrew had started calling FF’s phone and Captain Neil took the call to say he was coming back.

Now they’re on the bus, dressed nicely, and on their way up to Binghamton’s stadium. Captain Neil and Andrew are hidden in the far back of the bus with Andrew looking far more like a watchdog than anything else the closer they got to their destination.

Captain Neil had seemed largely resigned to this treatment at this point. Eventually they were at the stadium and shown to their seats. They were sat across from the Trojans and it seemed like the rest of the team was quite pleased with that.

“Smith!” Captain Jeremy Knox is smiling at him, “Nice to see you again bud, nice name change too.” he says.

“It’s nice to see you too, Captain Jeremy.” FF says and doesn’t notice how Captain Neil’s head whips around to look at him.

“You two know each other?” Nicky asks looking between the two of them with excitement.

“Of course! We offered Smith a spot at the USC Trojans.” Captain Jeremy says and FF feels his stomach cramp at the memory.

That had been terrifying.

Coach Rheman and Captain Jeremy wanted to sit down to make their offer with his parents. He was still 17 and unable to sign anything legal without their permission. He’d tried to decline and move past them and Captain Jeremy had put the final nail in the coffin at the time for any thought that he could go to college on the power of his apparent Exy capabilities.

“I saw in your file that you have brothers! USC always gives a second look at student applicants who already have siblings in the university. You could go to school with your brothers!” he had smiled brightly like he wasn’t issuing FF one of the most terrifying threats he’d ever heard in his entire life.

He had given the firmest ‘No thank you, I’m not interested in playing Exy in college.’ he could and was running to his Grandma’s to breath into a bag for twenty minutes.

“I see you changed your mind about playing Exy in college.” Captain Jeremy said with the same smile that still feels like a threat.

“Coach Wymack and Captain Dan were convincing.” he says and looks to see if there’s any way he can move further away from Captain Jeremy’s attention.

“Can I ask what convinced you to be a Fox?” Captain Jeremy asks, “I’m always trying to see what support we should be offering. I found out last year that we missed out on Andrew because we didn’t offer spots to Aaron or Nicky. I thought since you had brothers that’d be the thing that got you.” Captain Jeremy leans across the table but stops when he notices the Foxes all tense. “Whoa, what’s up?” he asks.

Jean Moreau sighs from next to Captain Jeremy, “Not everyone wants to go to college with their family, Jeremy.” Jean says, “Did it not cross your mind that he changed his entire name?” he asks with a raised brow.

Jeremy blinks, “Oh,” he looks at FF, “I guess that wasn’t the right thing to offer.” he says leaning back in his chair.

“I guess I should thank you for offering that?” Nicky says wryly before turning to look at FF, “You look better in orange anyways.” he says.

“Thank you Nicky.” FF returns loyally.

The banquet gets started shortly afterwards. Food is served. The bar is opened. People are talking. FF finds himself relaxing the longer the conversations around him go on. Matt is talking with a backliner on the Trojan line named Todd in good cheer. Captain Neil, Kevin, and Jean are all talking about the latest updates with Ichirou in French with the occasional gesture towards FF. Jean Moreau looks at him with a raised eyebrow but gives him a single nod when Captain Neil explains what happened.

Jeremy is chatting with Jack and even Jack was finding it hard to maintain his usual level of rudeness in the face of such unbridled positive energy. Nicky was talking with Katelyn and Alvarez. Aaron was chatting with a fellow med student college athlete who was an offensive dealer. 

It was shaping up to be a good night.

MASTERPOST FOR ALL PARTS OF FLUENT FRESHMAN AU

NEXT

[unforth]

@esper-aroon has enabled me, so here let me scream at y'all about The Imperial Uncle.

Okay, so I recently read The Imperial Uncle (Huang Shu) by Da Feng Gua Guo from Peach Flower House and I really loved it??? It's first person pov, mlm, about the Emperor's uncle Jing Chengjun, who is mistrusted by everyone simply because of who his parents were and his position, and so he's basically given up on trying to convince people that he's actually a nice, decent person without ulterior motives. He's super trapped by his position, and there's so much he can't say and do, and he's also a hopeless romantic, like, from his own mouth all he really wants is to sleep beside and wake up next to someone who actually gives a shit about him, and even that is basically out of reach in his life. Like, the book starts with his wife (who he has never once had sex with) storming into a meeting he's having and announcing he's a cuckold and she's pregnant.

But also, this poor bastard really thinks he knows what's going on and his very smart. Very unreliable narrator. He's actually kinda a hilarious, impulsive himbo. But the TL:DR is that his loneliness and isolation and the extent to which he's politically trapped routinely lead him to make absolutely terrible decisions.

E. Danglar's translation is absolutely gorgeous, too, and... idk, if you love political plots, melodramatic idiot main characters, a dose of pining, and a slow burn that eventually pays off, come take a look??? (some people think it's a love triangle??? idk, I never really got that vibe, I never felt it was really in doubt which of the two potential dudes he'd end up with, but maybe I only feel that way because I got it right, lmao).

Anyway, I can't stop thinking about how these two idiots end up finally finding each other and getting together, and I have an entire AU in my head (a modern corporate one) and part of another (canon divergent from like a decade before the book starts), and I just want people to love this book as much as I did and scream with me about it.

[mutantfactor]

Till The End Of The Moon | Tantai Jin

[theloveinc]

imagine no quirk free loader touya getting ready in ur cute little bedroom sitting at ur vanity.. yeah 🫶🏾

It's sweet because nothing in your room looks like anything that would suit him, nor like anything he'd enjoy being surrounded by. White sheets, satin pillows, bright lamps to illuminate every corner... aside from not really liking to look at himself under such unforgiving lights (meaning his scars are visible and the pores of his skin, open), the aesthetic itself is just all wrong.

Everything about Dabi is... hard, and dark; he's always dressed in leather and canvas, stiff, workers' materials and dirty shoes meant to last (unlike your more delicate garments, needing to be washed on delicate, under cold, and then air-dryed to top it all off)

Yet, he doesn't seemed bothered by the white marble of your vanity, nor sitting on your pale pink, velour-upholstered stool. He's grumpy and kicks up a fuss about waiting for you to get dressed, but he's surprisingly not... impatient, at least, not impatient enough to actually stop waiting for you.

(He entertains himself mostly by making faces at himself in the mirror: sticking out his tongue, pulling down his eyes, pushing up his nose trying to get your attention ... and he purs like a cat when it works and you come over to brush his eyebrows with your little makeup spoolies or coat his waterline with dark, liquid eyeliner, maybe even get your lipgloss all over his lips when you kiss him... which he licks off and is surprised it's sweet.

you tell him it's blueberry flavor for your favorite blueberry boy and he can't stop himself from grinning like a little boy)

Yes, your friends definitely poke a little bit of fun at you for your broke boyfriend; Dabi picks you up from your brunch date with them and embarrassingly eats up everyone's leftovers before they have a chance to ask for a box ... but you honestly think (aside from the way he finished your best friend's mimosa and licked the runny egg off another's plate) he's actually not half bad <3

[drinksglue]

Find it very interesting that some of the same people who claim they're "proship aligned" and acknowledge that sex-negativity is bad are also the same ones who think that Hazbin Hotel is problematic for "romanticizing/fetishizing drugs and trafficking"

not liking it is one thing but "this thing is problematic and bad and the author is a horrible person because the story romanticizes this thing I don't like" always has been, and always will be, anti rhetoric.

[fru1tt0ast]

idk if you hate dutch van der linde and refuse to look at the complexities of his character and use critical thinking skills, deciding to call him a greedy manipulative abuser and treat him like literal demon hellspawn, get off my page for real. the way that some of y'all treat mentally ill people is disgusting.

​it also really rubs me wrong when people talk about how dutch is greedy and is motivated by money, too. like... he very clearly is not? obviously he is concerned about money, as is everyone in the WHOLE GAME, but that's not what his entire life revolves around. he donates money to the camp and talks about how much he cares about the gang and wants them to be stable. his motivation for money is to make sure the people he cares about are well taken care of and safe.

i'm gonna link a great video about dutch's mental health, i encourage y'all to watch it.

[jimmyspades]

"Say what you will about Frederick, but someone who's willing to burn the world down to protect the one person they care about—that’s a man I understand." THE BLACKLIST 1.07 "Frederick Barnes (No. 47)"

[margridarnauds]

Something I've been trying to articulate is why a lot of criticisms of Takarazuka productions (esp. adaptations) from outside the Takarazuka fandom don't often WORK for me, so here are some angles that I wish that people would go into more, instead of treating Takarazuka Musicals™ as a conservative, sparkly monolith:

Comparing different adapted musicals together -- Elisabeth, RetJ, and 1789 were both adapted by the same director, Koike Shuuichirou, so you can spot solid similarities there, but what about Le Roi Soleil, La Legende du Roi Arthur, Mozart l'Opera Rock, Anastasia, Don Juan, The Scarlet Pimpernel, I Am From Austria, etc.? It isn't even to say that they're all wildly DIFFERENT (there are certain changes that I'd argue are common among multiple adaptations), but it's to say that you can do better work when you have a broad pool to compare these things with.

Relating to that, comparing the work of different directors, or even the same director's work in different productions. (Koike's work in Elisabeth in the various Elisabeth Takarazuka productions over time VS the various Toho, or his work on 1789 between the 2015 Zuka to the Toho productions to the 2023 production.)

On the reverse side, instead of or in addition to questioning why changes were made, questioning why Japanese audiences are DRAWN to these foreign musicals in the first place. La Legende du Roi Arthur alone deals with themes of rape, incest, deals with the devil, adultery, etc. Is it the fact that it's foreign and therefore exotic enough that it can get away with things that other musicals can't, or does it show that there might be an interest in darker material alongside the stereotypical Takarazuka material (whatever that means)? (I have my own opinions, but this is an angle I almost never see in these critiques.)

What Takarazuka material looked like 20-30 years ago VS the present. How has the tone changed? How has it varied?

Like, Takarazuka is easy to take cheap shots at, and, a couple of years ago, I wouldn't have been far off from these criticisms myself (and I've made my own), but I feel like a lot of the criticisms are grounded in only using one or two adapted musicals from one director, pointing to them, and going "that's Takarazuka™"

[thedreadvampy]

legitimately insane how to some people, "we should wipe out this ethnic group that we've violently constrained to a ghetto because they're just genetically more violent and dangerous" is a reasonable and justifiable statement but it's Nazi Rhetoric to say something like, "it's bad that Israeli civilians are being killed but acknowledging that as tragic includes acknowledging that the almost daily state-sanctioned murder of civilians by the Israeli government is also tragic and unacceptable"

btw guys speaking of Nazi shit - can we check in, alongside what's been done to Palestinians in the last 75 years, what's the Israeli government's take on the Azerbaijani government's newest round of ethnic cleansing of Armenians? oh are the Israeli government's actions maybe not determined by Jewish identity, but by a commitment to colonial supremacy which puts them on the same page as other violently genocidal states like Azerbaijan, the US, and the UK? god can you Even Imagine?

(framing speaking against Israeli war crimes as inherently antisemitic requires understanding the Israeli state as representing all Jewish people, when it doesn't even represent all Israelis.

framing Israeli war crimes as synonymous with Jewish identity is pretty fucked up if we're being honest. I don't think that controlling water and power and movement for a captive population and shooting children dead for throwing stones is an inherent value of Judaism, any more than I think the torture carried out at Guantanamo Bay is an inherent value of Christianity - in both cases they're atrocities carried out by a far right genocidal government using religious identity as a shield.

Calling statements like "Israel is committing genocide against the people it's displaced" inherently antisemitic is doing more to further the idea that all Jewish people are associated with Israel than saying "the Israeli government is doing war crimes," which is a statement of fact about a country that exists and does war crimes. Is criticism of Israel as a nation often used as cover for antisemitism? Absolutely. Does that mean the Israeli government isn't doing literal war crimes repeatedly, on record, while talking publicly about scrubbing an ethnic group off the map? Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh well in the last 48 hours they've definitely cut off water and power to almost 600,000 civilians and allegedly used white phosphorus against civilians so in an extremely factual and unambiguous way yeah man those are Literal War Crimes whoever does them.)

[madanimalscientist]

Some Cute/Silly Alastor and Rosie Thoughts

Just a random thought in my head but:

the book Bambi came out in 1923 (1928 in English)

the Disney film version of it came out in 1942

If Rosie is a Hello Dolly pastiche then she probably died in the 1890s/1900s but on the other hand we don't know if Hell gets Earth pop culture

(There probably is a thriving bootleg scene where Hellborn who can go to Earth bring back vhs tapes/dvds etc to sell to Sinners who want to keep up)

But we also know Rosie appears to be keeping up with the times more or less and the mental image of her calling Alastor 'Bambi' as a term of endearment in an auntie kind of way is too cute to pass up. And she's probably the only person who could get away with it

Alternatively Angel could call Alastor that to piss him off, which I would also find amusing as hell

But I love the idea of Rosie basically acting to Alastor the way my aunties acted towards me/my cousins growing up. Like she could probably futz with his hair in public or be like 'hey you have a bit of schmutz on your face, just a sec' *pulls out handkerchief and wipes it off* and he would not be thrilled by her doing it in public but he'd also let her (while glaring daggers at anyone who was watching this like 'you better not say ANYTHING')

This mental image is partially inspired by the fact that in the webcomic Skin Deep by Kory Bing (https://www.skindeepcomic.com/, awesome webcomic srsly go check it out) there is a deer shapeshifter whose mum (also a deer shapeshifter) calls him Bambi as a nickname and I could see Rosie doing that to Alastor. The idea amuses the heck out of me.

In my head this is pretty much Rosie's theme song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oa-3KAXD-w and also Rosie would look stunning in that outfit (Alastor would also look dapper as fuck in a masc version of that jacket too honestly)

I just really love these two and their relationship and I want a whole comic/episode/etc about them as besties and how they met/etc. They're just too dang cute together.

[murderofsomeone]

Remember don't feel bad about liking things that are popular or having "unoriginal tastes" because you're alive and can do whatever you want.

[icewindandboringhorror]

reminders of the passage of time moodeboard