#i also have no idea if crystal is supposed to be bi or straight

[ty-bayonet-betteridge]

bisexual to bisexual communication

[randomprose]

Shang Qinghua is, for lack of a better word, a pushover—a pathetic, cowering, pushover.

He doesn’t talk back, mostly because everyone around him is so much more OP than him and he lives in constant fear that any one of them would be the cause of his demise (accidentally and/or otherwise).

So, Shang Qinghua just lets things slide, like, a lot of things. For self-preservation purposes. So he gets taken advantage of for it, so what? As long as he’s useful, he at least doesn’t have to fear being unceremoniously eliminated.

Shang Qinghua lives his life like this—except during the bi-annual Peak Lords’ Conference.

The bi-annual Peak Lords’ Conference is where they discuss the sect’s general administrative matters and most important of all, the sect’s financial records. It’s the time all the peak lords are scrambling to complete their administrative reports and the busiest season for An Ding Peak—especially Shang Qinghua.

It’s also the only time of the year Shang Qinghua doesn’t think about the importance of not crossing anyone in the name of self-preservation.

A couple of years since the end of the original novel officially transpired, and after also officially being saddled with the Northern Desert’s palace account and affairs, Shang Qinghua has decided he has had enough and will no longer be pushed around into doing the other peaks’ paperwork for them!

Shang Qinghua gets mean and snappy at these meetings. He’s so sleep-deprived he doesn’t even have the energy to be guilty about it. That’s how exhausted he is. If someone comes for his throat during this meeting he wouldn’t even flinch. He’d probably be angrier if they somehow don’t finish the job. Put him out of his misery or don’t waste his fucking time.

If this made the other peak lords lowkey scared of him singling them out during these bi-annual meetings, that’s just a bonus.

A hush falls among the peak lords already present in Cang Qiong’s main conference hall when Shang Qinghua enters. His Head Disciple and inner disciples carrying each peak’s individual reports in tow, placing it down on Shang Qinghua’s table while the peak lord himself goes straight to the podium to load today’s presentation in the crystal mirror projector screens.

It’s times like these that Shang Qinghua is so thankful he thought about writing in projection screens in Proud Immortal Demon Way. Imagine having to write and present a whole sect’s financial report in scrolls! He’d sooner throw himself off of the top of Jue Di Gorge.

He sticks a rectangular slab of crystal to a port and activates it with a short burst of his qi. The crystal mirror lights up with the first page of Shang Qinghua’s presentation and he eyes it for a second before walking to his table.

Yes, it functions like a USB, and no he doesn’t care that ‘it goes completely against xianxia logic!’ because contrary to what Cucumber-bro says, this is actually another thing that Shang Qinghua is grateful he wrote in because it’s a fucking stroke of genius.

An An Ding disciple comes in just before the start of the conference, saying a messenger bird of a merchant lord just sent a missive labeled ‘important’.

“This is not important at all,” Shang Qinghua says before sitting down, grabbing a paper, and writing a reply anyway. He hands it to his disciple, “Here send it back. If they reply unfavorably, tell them—"

Just then Shen Qingqiu enters, flanked by Ming Fan and Luo Binghe, which startled the An Ding disciple to drop the note. Luo Binghe picks up the paper to hand it over to the startled disciple, who bowed in thanks before Shen Qingqiu snatches it and opens the note.

“'To Lord Mao," Shen Qingqiu reads. "'Is that a challenge? If so, this peak lord will engage with Lord Mao. This peak lord knows the law of this land and will gladly see Lord Mao in court. Note, this peak lord knows what happened five days after last year’s harvest moon and supposes that, too, is up for discussion. Signed Peak Lord Shang.’” Shen Qingqiu turns to Shang Qinghua as he folds the note again and hands it back to the disciple, who bows to all of them before taking his leave. “Lord Mao? The merchant that supplies some of Wan Jian Peak’s blacksmithing tools? What did this Lord Mao do five days after last year’s harvest moon?”

“Nothing and it’s none of your business,” Shang Qinghua mutters shortly as he re-arranges his scrolls while the rest of the peak lords start to file in.

It’s a testament to how exhausted Shang Qinghua is that he doesn’t even flinch when Luo Binghe levels him with a dark glare and a snarl of, “Don’t speak to Shizun like that.”

“Binghe, stand down. Shang-shidi is just under a lot of pressure. This is a busy time for An Ding Peak after all.”

“No, Luo Binghe is right,” Shang Qinghua sighs. “That was out of line, shixiong, even if what you said was true.” He bows slightly to Shen Qingqiu in apology before smiling tiredly. “Lord Mao did nothing I think. I just—”

“What is this I hear about Shang-shidi being at odds with a merchant?” Qi Qingqi pipes up clearly having heard their conversation. “Really, Shang-shixiong. What are you doing? It better not be something shady again.”

“Rest assured, Qi-shimei, this shixiong knows what he’s doing.”

“This one sure hopes you do,” Qi Qingqi says not without suspicion at the same time Shen Qingqiu asks, “Do you really?”

“It’s fine. It’s fine,” Shang Qinghua says, moving his hand in a dismissive wave. “Don’t worry about it.”

--

Later, while Shang Qinghua is in the middle of speedrunning through the peak’s expense reports, because his martial siblings have very short attention spans for such things and anything else that isn’t gossip or doesn’t directly involve them, the same An Ding disciple comes in. He slinks quietly to An Ding’s Head Disciple, who is taking notes dutifully, to inform her of the missive.

The Head Disciple gives him the go signal to report and raises her hand to get Shang Qinghua’s attention.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, Shifu, but Lord Mao has responded.”

“Oh? And what did he say?”

An Ding’s Head Disciple nudges her martial sibling, who looks unsure and a little unnerved at all the eyes trained on him, to deliver the message.

“Lord Mao said—” he clears his throat. “Lord Mao said there is no need to make a big deal out of nothing and agreed to meet on the twelfth day of next month.”

Shang Qinghua looks to his Head Disciple, rapidly flipping through a small pocket notebook before looking up and shaking her head no to Shang Qinghua.

“This peak lord is not available on that date. Tell Lord Mao to move it on—Xiao Lian?”

“Shifu’s next available date is on the twenty-fifth of the month after next.”

“There. Tell Lord Mao to move the meeting to the twenty-fifth day of the month after next.”

“Hey, now,” Shen Qingqiu says because his husband has gone, Ming Fan is taking notes for him, so now he’s bored and this is the most interesting thing that’s happened since this whole meeting started. “Isn’t Shang-shidi pushing it?”

“It’s fine. This master knows what he’s doing,” Shang Qinghua says as he waves away his disciple and goes right back to drilling Liu Qingge about Bai Zhan Peak’s expense report.

--

Around the concluding hour of the meeting, Shang Qinghua’s messenger disciple returns yet again with a response.

“This disciple apologizes a thousand times for interrupting once again.”

“The meeting is about to end. Wait beside your shijie for a bit, yeah?”

“Yes, Shifu.”

But before the An Ding disciple could do as he’s told, Wei Qingwei speaks up.

“It’s fine. At this point, I think this peak lord speaks for all when he says we all want to know what Lord Mao has said.” Not in the least because they’re all bored out of their wits and this is a very welcome distraction. “He's one of Wan Jian Peak’s suppliers is he not? This peak lord has a vested interest in this exchange.”

“Alright then,” Shang Qinghua says, no longer caring and just wanting this whole meeting to end so he can go back home and catch up on some sleep for a day or three. “Let’s hear it then.”

“Lord Mao agreed to meet Shifu on the twenty-fifth of the month after next and offered to host Shifu on his manor.”

“Fat chance,” Shang Qinghua says. And what? Hand himself over for a potential assassination plot? Shang Qinghua did not last this long and survived everything that’s happened in the original storyline only for some canon fodder merchant lord to get the jump on him. He makes a mental note to look for a new supplier for Wan Jian Peak’s blacksmithing needs if Lord Mao doesn’t agree with the terms he’s laid out—ones that are very much in Cang Qiong’s favor 70-30 now that he’s pissed Shang Qinghua off. “Tell Lord Mao this peak lord will receive him in An Ding Peak at no later than Wu Shi.”

The disciple bows and leaves to send the message and Shang Qinghua turns back to conclude his presentation.

Then later, after the meeting is adjourned, Shen Qingqiu sidles up to him with an amused, “Well, that was something, Peak Lord Shang. The bi-annual Peak Lord’s Conference really brings out your backbone, huh?”

Shang Qinghua just regards his friend with an exhausted flat look at the obvious mocking use of his title before smirking, “I told you I know what I’m doing.”

“So what did Lord Mao do five days after last year’s harvest moon?”

“Honestly, I have no idea,” Shang Qinghua replies in earnest with a shrug and a confused frown. “I just thought of a random date and hoped for the best that it held some importance to him. Guess Lord Mao does shady things on the regular.”

“Yikes.”

“Yeah. Time to find Wei-shixiong a new supplier. I just hope he’s not partial to the ones that shady Lord Mao provides.”

ao3

[wornoutmouse]

@midoriyaprofessionalslut

I can't even begin to describe the ask I received so I'm just going to leave screenshots😅😅

Also in the new mha season, I thought Tsu was being petty when she called Mineta Grape-Juice and Shoji Tentacle. But nope, those are their hero names.

Side note: I feel like when Mineta gets old and knows how to work his quirk better, he'll be able to control if they stick or not.

Slight racism, usual smut.

NOT PROOF READ SO LET ME KNOW IF U SEE SOMETHING

 If you imagine Mineta as in the picture above and with a mature voice, this is more enjoyable. Or you can imagine someone else entirely.. Cause even as someone who's tolerant to Mineta I can't imagine him getting any hoes much less smashing (at least not on top). It would be like watching a chiwawa top a mastiff. 

"This is some bullshit." You shuffle through various papers on your desk, each containing the receipts of Pro-Hero Grapejuice's celebratory purchases. Most of it was random appliances that could in no way be used on a day-to-day basis, but there were others….a shiver goes down your spine, there were others that were just downright perverted. "What even is a nub tickler?" 

Being an accountant was something you were good at, the numbers came easy and it was interesting to see the income and ways of business that different people in power displayed. Planning meetings and getting the occasional phone call made everything a breeze, but it wasn't what you wanted to do. Or in better words, this was not whom you wanted to work for. Even being number 6 causes the workload to be higher than should be physically possible in the hero world. That's one of the reasons you never gave praise to the rankings because no matter how low in the chain, a hero’s work is always taxing. 

Shifting in your seat you look at the analog clock on your desk. 3:45, you were supposed to come to work at 5:30 which means you once again have no time to sleep. Having these late nights had increased 10 fold whenever Mineta went up in rank even by a little. His way of celebrating was spending his money carelessly and leaving you to fix the balance. Though you supposed it may be your fault for never objecting when he barged in your office showing his trinkets as well as leaving his credit card.

"Yeah, it's time to go." You muttered as you read the words, "Dwarf Cow in the left lot of Wisconsin."

 The next hour, you take a detour from your office for the first time in months. Heading down the hall you watch the walls go from the pale greys to deep purple and violet splotches splattered along the wall before it inevitably melds into solid purple walls as you get closer to the front door of his office.

Hesitantly you knock on the door and wait until a muffled "Come in." Rings through the thick wood. The room itself was just as flamboyant as the walls leading to it. A beautiful fuchsia carpet on the floor made you realize that calling in your two weeks would have been better than walking into the Willy-Wonka factory that was this office. Various spherical decorations hung from the chandelier, and even something as simple as the legs of his desk was made up of crystal spheres.

The man himself sat perfectly balanced on a large purple ball most likely of his own creation, meanwhile, various children sat around him slipping and sliding on smaller balls in an attempt to copy him. "Ah, here is my beautiful assistant!" The compliment made you cringe as you fiddled with the end of the sleep-wrinkled white blouse you had worn for 2 days straight. "Can we talk sir? It is important." Mineta raised an eyebrow at your formal speech before shrugging. 

In an extravagant display of balance, Mineta does a handstand on the ball with one hand before flipping to the other side. "Well kids it's time for me to get done as a hero’s job is never over and blah blah blah the gift shop is giving out free plushies and you can keep your ball." The teacher does her best to usher out her students and the sound of childish screams resound down the hallway even though the door was shut. "How can I help you Y/n?" Mineta offers you his ball to sit on and you reluctantly take the offer as you grate in multiple directions in order to stay afloat. 

Mineta watches you with hidden interest as he interlocks his hands underneath his chin. "I didn't know you even knew my name?" Mineta Laughs exposing his annoyingly perfect teeth. It was hard to associate this face to the pictures you see when you search for his early years. "Of course I know your name, I stole your nameplate off your desk 2 months ago." Ah, so that's where it went  "What was it you wanted to talk about?"

You sighed, "I would like to put in my two weeks." Mineta goes slack-jawed before composing himself "Why?" Mineta looked at you earnestly, completely confused on why you'd want to abandon your post as his secretary- I mean assistant. "Working for you has become a hassle with your lack of financial maturity." Mineta mock shivers, "Oo big words, me no likey." Mineta hops onto his desk as if he weighed nothing more than paper and squats in front of you, "How about this, you don't quit and instead help me learn how to...how did you say it? Be financially mature." You lean back in your chair unconvinced that he was taking this seriously.

With the final nail ready to be hit, Mineta adds, "How about I give you a raise of 10 percent and a promotion?" You stand up in your chair with an eager grin, "That sounds great!" Mineta smirks to himself but you did not pay any mind to it. "Great, how about we discuss this over food, dinner date?" Your internal celebration screeches to a halt, " Dinner Date-" Mineta looks at you shocked, "Dinner date? Great idea, why didn't I think of it myself!?" A firm hand slides you towards the door as Mineta starts a complimentary speech giving you no room to object, "This is why I need you, you're so smart, I wish I was like you, tomorrow at 11?" You sputter trying to slip past his arms, "11 but I-?!" Mineta loudly gasps again, "There you go doing it again I'm so lucky to have you, tomorrow at 11 my treat!"

The door is shut in your face and the sound of the lock clicking seals your fate. What did you get into?

Cut to 4 years later and you are still not sure of that answer. Simply being bis accountant you had a glimpse of his perverted tendencies, but as his girlfriend, it was further exposed to depths you never could have found yourself imagining. You shuffle papers in the printing room as you do your best to ignore the faint tingling sensation in between your legs. Yet another whim you found yourself following on Mineta’s behalf despite the ever-present fear of being caught. The vibrator comes to life before going back down as quickly as it came. You toss a middle finger to the camera in the top corner of the room knowing he was watching.

"Miss L/n, can I ask you something?" You slap your arm down to your side in embarrassment. I hope he didn't see that.  Your coworker walks up to you holding a small stack of papers. "Yes, how can I help you?" The man shows you various forms as he talks, for once you were thankful for Mineta not embarrassing you in front of others. "Oh I see where you went wrong, this right here would be a 20% increase, not 18%." The man applauded you and graciously wrote down your explanation. "Thank you so much, my name is Kaminari by the way." 

"Ah hello, Kaminari, and no worries I'm always glad to help!" You turn back as your papers finally scan through but can't help notice Kaminari lingering. "Say Y/n?" You open your mouth to respond only to close it again as the vibratory comes back to life strongly. "Hmmm?!" Kaminari peers at you, your reaction was strange but he couldn't figure out why. "Um, never mind, have a nice day Miss. Y/n, maybe we can get together over coffee or something?” You shrug turning away from Kaminari in fear of your eyes rolling up. The man sways from foot to foot awkwardly before leaving the printing room. 

Snapping out of your personal flashback, you look over at your fiance signing autographs for his adoring and objectively feminine fan base. While it was extremely unnerving how unknowingly close they were to your home, you weren't resentful of their gushing.

Your engagement and your overall relationship had not been made public in fear of your personal life being exploited by paparazzi. That doesn't mean, however, the next thing you witness doesn't get your blood boiling.

A girl, no older than maybe 22 waltzes up to Mineta with the confidence of Muhammad Ali in a ring match. Her raven black hair fell flawlessly down her back with not a single split end. Almond eyes decorated with precise coal blink rapidly to draw attention to her seemingly natural eyelashes. With 4 inch wedges. a black halter top, and cuffed jean shorts, it was clear she was someone on a mission. She effortlessly pushes past the nearby fans as they stop to quack at her rivaling beauty. A smirk draws itself with her soft pink lips as she hears people muttering around and about her.

"Wow she's so pretty"

"They would look good together just look at them."

"Ugh, such an attention whore, not giving the rest of us a chance!"

"I bet a 20 she's his type."

"Is she famous?"

The chatter comes to a close as the girl hands Mineta a notebook, "Can you sign right here?" Mineta flips open the book and his eyes widen a fraction before he puts on his heroic voice, "Wow it looks like you got all of Japan's heroes in this book!" The girl smiles as she watches Mineta scratch his signature, "Don't be afraid to leave your number in there too Mr. Minoru." Mineta pauses at the statement for continuing his elaborate handwriting, "I don't think that would be very plus ultra of me so I'm gonna have to pass." Smug pride fills your chest as you watch the annoyance cross the girl's face.

Mineta finishes signing and hands her back her book, she, in turn, forces a small piece of paper in his hand before holding his chin and kissing him. At that moment nothing else mattered but beating that bitches ass as you yanked her black hair and dragged her to the ground. "This ain’t Wattpad bitch get your hands off of him!!" You turn to Mineta making him flinch with a sharp glare as you yank her hair again, hopefully pulling a few strands out. "You just gonna let her kiss you and not do anything!?" Mineta stretched his hands towards you cautiously, "Y/n calm down, if you would have given me a chance I would have settled it-" "No, settle it now!"

Your rage is diminished by the judgmental looks coming from the fans and you realize your brazen display was out of order.

"Who is she"

"I think she's the secretary l, so why is she so mad"

"Delusional just cause you're with him all the time doesn't mean you're together"

"I hope he fires her."

"This is why we shouldn't let them in Japan"

The girl whose hair you have in a chokehold stands up unbalanced before pushing your hands from her hair. Satisfied at the disheveled look of her previously perfect strands, you turn to walk back to Mineta, your anger having been sated, "Black Bitch." You turn around and go charging towards the girl again grinning when she flinches. Your rampage is stopped as Mineta wraps his arms around your waist and picks you up, "Sorry for the disturbance, we deeply apologize!"

It's almost comical how your mouth spews vulgarity that would make a sailor blush as Mineta drags you behind your apartment building. He ushers you through the back door leading to the washroom, "I can't believe she'd do that in front of me, and you let her!" Mineta shuts the door quietly, leaning his ear against it to listen out for any lingering fans. You sit on top of a washer still ranting as your blood cools down. "The nerve of some of these people is outrageous, even if she doesn't know about us that is still sexual harassment!"

Mineta doesn't look at you and instead peeks through the blinds lining the washroom windows. "I think they are gone, come on." The two of you sneak out the door and walk at a moderate speed all the way back to your front door. In hindsight, you knew that causing a scene like that was a bold move on your part. If anyone was recording the whole ordeal you knew Mineta’s name and possibly yours would be in the headlines by later this evening. 

As the last one entering, you lock the door behind you, forehead scrunched together with apprehension. "Mineta I'm sorry, I don't know what got into me. I just saw her touching you and saw red." You face away from the door with an earnest look on your face. Mineta has a cheeky look on his face that can only mean trouble. Despite your similar slim build and height, Mineta easily corners you against the door. "I know exactly what got into you." Mineta’s pointer finger taps your nose. "Jealousy."

You sighed, putting your head down nodding, "Yeah, it's not that I don't trust you, it's just-" "shhh." Mineta lips your head back up with a hand under your chin. "It's fine Y/n. It's not like I expected a perfect little cocksleeve like you to be okay with sharing." You stare blinkingly at Mineta. 'Oh, he's in one of those moods huh?' As expected from such a fiend like Mineta, he was quite possibly hard the whole time he was watching you beat that girl's ass, and for some reason that irked you even more. “Mineta I’m being serious.” The words leaving your mouth did not phase Mineta, he holds your hips and pulls you close to him in order for you to feel his bulge. 

“Oh come on, after seeing you be so possessive for me, how can you not expect me to be a lil turned on?” Mineta’s hands circle your ass before slapping it, “Made me feel special.” Rolling your eyes you lean into the lingering kisses he begins to leave on your shoulder. His grip tightens as he shuffles you to the nearest surface. “Makes me feel all giddy inside to know that you do this only for me and no one else.” Minoru unbuttons your dress pants and removes your belt, “But doing that in front of all those people was stupid.” A shiver travels up your arms from the feeling of lips caressing your ear. Mineta dips his hand into your cotton panties and immediately draws attention to your clit.

“Look at me, Mineta Minoru with a girl like you that would fight for me. Who would have thought?” You ball your fists on the table, hanging your head low. “You’re not going to make this easy for me are you?” Mineta slips his other hand beneath your blouse to cup your breasts. Short l  rub down your slit collecting your slick. The feeling was warm and buzzing just underneath your skin, the bastard was well trained on how to slowly but surely bring your pleasure to its peak and hold you there. Your muscles begin to feel more and more like jelly, you sigh “Oh God..” Mineta pushed his body further on yours, rutting against your body. Up until now, his other hand was simply resting on your skin but once impatience overcame him, he used it to pull down your pants. 

“You know this will be in articles tomorrow right?” Two fingers curl inside of you making you squeal, “Y-Yes!” Something hard and slick smacks against your bare ass as Mineta removes the bottom half of his hero costume. “So how are you going to compensate me for what I’ll have to deal with tomorrow?” You turn your head to the back with a small pout on your face, “She shouldn’t have touched you.” Mineta coyly smiles before pressing your head down against the table. “You should have let me handle it.” 

Mineta was an average of 5 inches in length with conservative girth. But so far he’s been the only man that really added proof that size doesn’t matter. Mineta pulls away from you and leans down to riffle through his pants. You hear a crisp pop of a cap being opened and a slick splatter is heard afterward. A shaky breath leaves Mineta’s lips as he lubes his cock up. Penetrating is a struggle at first, the longer it takes for him to push it in the more both of you become frustrated until he finally pulls your waist back against himself. “S-So good!” The pleasure causes his childhood lisp to slip through as he waits for you to acclimate to the stretch. 

You shift your feet when Mineta refrains from moving. "Tsk, you really don't understand the meaning of patience do you?" Your hands suddenly become cool to the touch as Mineta covers them with medium sized spheres temporarily gluing you to the table. "Mineta this isn't fair! Please just a little bit to the left!" Now having you helpless Mineta puts one hand on your back while stroking the base of his cock. "It's not about being fair, it is about teaching a sneaky brat like you to know their place." Mineta begins to move but it's not right, he needs to go more to the left, "Mineta what are you even talking about!?!" 

A sigh leaves Mineta's lips, "Don't think I forgot about that slick shit you tried to pull with Kaminari." Mineta watches your ad shake and bounce everytime your hips meet. Your arms twitch and pull at themselves wanting to find purchase on the flat surface. Groans leave your lips as Mineta comes closer to hitting your spot,  "Slick shit?! Y-You're the one that wanted to do that stupid little piano in the first place!" You couldn't see it but Mineta had a deep seated glare on his face. He loops his fingers underneath his yellow scarf and rolls it around long ways. 

"I'm really tierd of your mouth. What you think because I let you beat that girl out their I'll let you beat me?" The middle of the scarf is put in your mouth and your head is pulled back by it. Mineta holds both ends of the scarf to slam into your cunt. "Just a greedy little bitch aren't you?" You scream into the cloth as Minetas cock finally hits your spot just right. The constant pulling on the corner of your mouth burned everytime the fabric rubbed against the sensitive flesh. Your feet rise to your toes in a fruitless attempt at getting a break from the pleasure. Mineta holds his scarf in one hand and pushes down your waist. "Didnt you want this? Don't run from it now."

Your pussy squelched around his cock the faster he went making you go cross eyed. "Fuck you feel so damn good.  The table rattled and scraped across the floor with every thrust. "oh fuck, I'm gonna cum!" Your nails scraped the table as you closed your fist, had you had claws it would have been a whole different story. You beared down on his cock, trying, begging to feel more inside of your walls as he moved faster. Suddenly your argument fel worth it.

Mineta knew many things about himself. He knew his birthday, he knew where he was in life, and he knew he had come 6 minutes ago and was bordering hysteria as he pumped his overestimated cock into your wet heat. Each drag made years collect in his eyes.  Tiny whimpers left his lips and his hands squeezed your sides harder and hard.  "So fucking warm. Squeezing down on my dick like that." 

He bowed his head and rested on your back,  kissing the sweaty skin as he pushed through the painful pleasure.  "Fuck, fuck, fuck!" Mineta slaps your ass  before pulling out and shoving his fingers inside your pussy. "Cum for me, Y/n. That's it cum on my hands." Mineta's fingers were the only thing that never really grew on him. They were relatively short but thick so even three of them were able to stretch your hole the way you needed. 

"Y-Yes, right there shit!" Your cum drips down his arm soiling the fabric there as you squint around him, "That's it give it to me." Mineta buried his face in your pussy licking you clean like a man starved. It wasn't until you whined did he stop and pull his fingers out. 

Luckily for you, his spheres were just about coming close to their time constraint. You stand up rubbing your wrists and drinking some water Mineta brings you. A snort captures your attention and Mineta holds up his phone, "Not even an hour." Writing in thick bold words read. 

"Obsessive Secretary Snaps on Camera!"

You snort, "I'm the obsessive one huh?" It was going to be a long day tomorrow 

[st-just]

Semi-coherent thoughts on Oathbringer

So, overall probably the most even of the series so far, I’d say? Not to say I didn’t like it – I really, really loved the finale, and there were plenty of great lines, but my god were there a lot of pages spent on nothing happening (honestly it kind of reminded me of the latter volumes of ASOIF, in that sense) – then again, I suppose that is kind of just the nature of these 1000+ page fantasy epics. There were some setting reveals that really were fascinating, and legitimately a bit surprising. Going to have to take a break from the series until the friend I got Rhythm of War for is done so I can borrow it, though I suppose that’s no huge loss compared to the however many years everyone else had to wait in between them.

So in terms of pacing it’s...bad. Or, well, that’s probably a bit unfair. There’s absolutely plenty of fat to cute, but again I do think that might just come with the territory of committing to like a dozen POVs across a tree’s worth of paper (though there were absolutely like 100+ page stretches where I’m not actually sure the plot meaningfully progressed). That said, honestly the main pacing issue isn’t so much the bloat as, like – okay, Dalinar’s arc was a pretty consistent throughline, but for Kalidan and Shallan it kind of felt like there was one whole story in Urithiru, and then from the mission to Kholinar and the journey through the Cognitive Realm felt like its own separate novel? I mean, not sure if that makes any sense, but it really did kind of feel like there was a whole additional first act of table and stakes setting once they arrived in the city.

Though, to argue in favor of bloat for a moment – I was chatting with  @lifeattomsdiner​ bit back about The City We Became, and they mentioned that the size of the cast meant that you don’t actually really get to know any of the protagonists that well on their own. And I suppose that is the advantage of the 1200-page-per-volume epic cycle – even with characters you only really meet in interludes like Szeth, Vargo and Venli (incidentally three of my favorites), you spend enough pages inside of their head that you do really get to see what makes them tick and learn to love/hate them. Speaking of – props to Sanderson as an author, really – it’s vaguely astounding that he manages to keep track of that many internal monologues and actually make them seem distinct from each other.

Breaking things down by character a bit more – this book really did actually enjoy/get invested in Dalinar way more than either of the previous two, which again I’m told is more or less the expected reaction. Given the amount of tumblr brain poison I’m voluntarily exposed myself to, it’s honestly more than a bit of a nice change to see a character on a redemption arc who is actually unambiguously in need of redemption. Because holy shit, pulled, like, exactly two punches in terms of making the guy as genuinely loathsome as possible before he starts breaking. And, well, obviously he was on a redemption arc, but there was a bit near the end there where I really did think that the book was going to cut to black on an ‘end of Act 2, maximum darkness before dawn’ moment with, like, all the Skybreakers and him kneeling before Odium as the city fell. But I suppose that would be a bit much of a cliffhanger for a series with installments this weighty.

This was pretty clearly Shallan’s ‘getting over my personal bullshit’ book, like WoR was for Kaladin and WoK was for Dalinar, though spicing things up with increasingly severe DID as the book went on did make things more interesting at least. Also, I have no idea if this is actually true, but according to the friend who pestered me into reading these when someone asked Sanderson if he’d intentionally written her as bi he just kind of shrugged and said ‘sure, why not,’ which is fun. It was more than a bit, I don’t know, forced?, to have Wit just wander in from stage left and give her a desperately needed therapy session while she was in the middle of a breakdown and propel her development for most of the rest of the book, but on the other hand she’s pretty easily the main POV I’m most invested in by now, and the live triangle the text repeatedly threatened me with never actually became a thing, so I can’t really complain too much. Honestly super curious about the Ghostbloods and what they want out of her given, well, for a shadowy murderous conspiracy, everything they’ve wanted out of her so far has been pretty much entirely benign. Like, of the three major shadowy murderous conspiracies they’re easily the least problematic for the future of humanity at the moment. She should just commit and join for real imo.

As always, Kaladin’s POV is mostly good because it means we get more Syl, who is the single best character in the entire story I’ve decided. But also, I really quite liked his whole sojourn with the newly freed Parshmen and dawning realization that ‘wait these people are basically entirely right’. Also, the delicious delicious angst of spending however many dozens of pages getting to know them and then the wall guard and then the two groups killing each other in a confused melee while he has a mental breakdown. Easily best moment in the book (but then I’m a miserable person).

Adolin is honestly significantly more entertaining to follow than I really expected, though I’m still not like especially invested in him as a character. His relationship with his tailor was quite charming, though, as was the fact that he cares enough about fashion that he learned to sew. Honestly I was rather expecting/slightly dreading his main arc this book to be, like, inadequacy or insecurity over being almost literally the only member of his family that’s not a Radiant, so it’s kind of a pleasant surprise that he seems to have just accepted that (too well-adjust, I guess?). It is however extremely funny that the fact he just straight-up murdered one of the kingdom’s most important aristocrats and the major antagonist of the first two books seems to have resulted in absolutely zero consequences of any kind for him.

In terms of minor characters, the one I’m most invested in by a pretty substantial margin at this point is Venli, as she’s getting a front row seat to all the most interesting bits of the setting, ‘cultist growing increasingly disillusioned about return of ancient and terrible eldritch god’ is a really entertaining character arc just in principle, and because as of the end of the book she represents the morally objectively correct perspective and political line I’ve decided and will fight people about. Curious what sort of superpowers she’ll get. (Vargo and Szeth are still both great though, too).

The Unmade are really fun as a worldbuilding conceit/excuse for weird fucked up monsters. And it really is kind of funny that at least a third of the God of Evil’s nine generals/children/favoured beasts are, like, at conflicted or ambivalent about the whole ‘exterminate humanity and remake the world as a monument to my glory’ thing.  

Really, on an extremely shallow and entirely aesthetic level, between the evil red crystal/lightning aesthetic, the remote mountain fortress as a stronghold of the heroes in the face of the coming apocalypse, tears into the realm of spirits, the quirky evil minibosses each handling corrupting/conquering a given center of civilization, etc, the whole thing kind of reminded me of Dragon Age Inquisition. Which reminded me of how disappointing the story to that game was, which made me like the book more by comparison, but anyway. Yeah, good book.

[floxalopex]

I'm so sorry. No, I didn't even have my morning espresso yet. But I'm already stimming.

Soooo, it's actually a post about color palettes in Spop. Or at least, it was supposed to be that.

There's a post in the Entrapdak tag about how Hordak is likely demi. I've already expressed my unconditional love for this headcanon, being demi myself, and I added there that I even like the headcanon for bi-aromatic bisexual-demisexual biromantic Hordak. I talked briefily about Entrapta's sexuality (she is either bi, pan, or maybe omni). I also stated that I don't like the fact that they made Entrapta almost cheat on her bf just for the sake of implying that she is not straight. Before everyone freaks out, let's get into my point.

First of all.

Like I said, it's very canon that in Spop you can find certain color palettes for characters which can be similar to LGBT+ flags and so that we are given hints about their sexuality and gender identity.

Some of these are more subtext than others. I for example, being obssessed with genderfluid man-demiboy headcanon for Hordak, like to think this: the genderfluid flag is made out of basically Hordak's colors minus pink-purple. After Entrapta makes him the new armor the flag is complete, the crystal is there. Hordak is a lot trans coded and I (as a lot of trans pages) like to think that Entrapta is the methaphor of a support system who makes him realize who he really is, not wearing a heavy painfull armor that makes him look more masculine, but something softer and lighter that is truly fitting for him. Something more feminine and that makes him feel strong for the first time in his own skin.

Anyways, we have similar things for Bow (I recall a flower crown made by Perfuma with bi pastel colors). Glimmer is basically a walking bi pastel flag. These two showed some interest for same sex characters, especially Bow. For the same reasons Sea Hawk (who canonically had a bf) and Mermista are most likely bi too.

My sweet angel Entrapta too, like I said suspicious choice of colors for her tiny cupcakes and her family portrait. She is clearly there too.

One thing that as a demi monogamus mess I still don't like about Spop is the fact that they prirotized a lot showing the character's sexuality over their feelings. I mean, that's the aim of the show, portray LGBT+ community members. Which is amazing, but still maybe they could have handled It...mmm...better?

Crew-Ra: "look, Arrow boy showed interest for Perfuma and Sea Hawk, clearly bi!"

Me: "yh but by doing so he is breaking Glimmer's heart..."

Crew-Ra: "what? Nah, they get togheter in the end, everything is fine"

This applies sadly, to Entrapta even more. Like I said in the post I would have liked if they gave us more clear hints about her sexuality...but before meeting Hordak.

I still have not truly understood how she sees robots, if more as pets ("bad robot!"), friends, or sex toys.

She has a sister-owner-mother-friend relationship with Emily. Yet when Scorpia talked about her feelings for Catra in season 1 Entrapta said something about how she felt the same with Emily (demi spectrum for her too or just bad writing and the intention to depict her as creepy somehow?).

The point is the Crew-Ra said Entrapta has the ability to humanize even something people may find inhuman. That's why Entrapdak exists according to them. I like get their point, still it's makes me (and apparentely not only me) so sad to see her "flirt" with the Horde Robot and have "sex" with Darla.

Yes, I used those verbs with intention. Entrapta names Darla, to give a name to someone means marking they as an individual. We see totally a bi flag behind Entrapta during the Darla-scene. I want to believe she didn't see Darla as a person there, but that's ...not the case I guess. Sadly.

I don't like this. I'm not biphobic my bi friends, I'm demi, I know what if feels like when even your own community makes you feel "fake" and "not real". I would have actually loved more bi scenes for Entrapta, but not like this. Not after Hordak.

One can justify this saying she was just horny because she was exited to rescue bat bf, or maybe she "gave up" a bit on the idea of saving him and wanted to move on.

Honestely It hurts so bad, whatever your interpretation. I just like (or pretend) to think she wanted to masturbate on her own or something, which is healty even for married couples. Gosh, that's a lot of bad writing.

Lastly, why don't I like the headcanon of her being poly? Why don't I like this cheating stuff? I've already talked about it in the previous post (I'm okay with poly relationships in general), but let's just say that, whatever your interpretation for Hordak sexuality, he is very monogamus.

Plus, I know that "hips don't lie" (...when did I start sweating?) but still I think Hordak may have some hard time pleasing his princess.

It's not about the apperence (or lack) of sexual organs. I mean nothing can stop Entrapta. It's about stamina, it's about endurance. It's about coordination without the armor. Plus he still doesn't like his body. He is now surrounded by 10.000.000. healtier and younger versions of himself. Do you think he would be okay with Entrapta cheating on him? Even if she openly tells him? This gets worse if you headcanon him as demi. I truly don't understand why people cheat, really I lack a synapsis or something. I'm atheist, I know marriage is something made up by humans for humans, I know that mammals are hardly monogamus. Still, call me romantic, call me demi, call me loyal, call me a penguin, I am very monogamus.

And I bet bat boy is too.

The "good" knews, at least for me? I bet Entrapta is too, she knows how much a person can suffer for feeling "not enough". She loves him too much to do something like that to him by the way.

Dear Crew-ra, please: love, loyalty and respect are better than openly show a sexual attraction. Or at least you could have done both, write things differentely. But you didn't, deal with it, don't rush things at the finale, that only leads to bad results.

[three-moons-watching]

The Dangerous Gift Reaction

Just all of my reactions to the dangerous gift upon my first reading

AKA the dangerous gift with ZERO context have fun

SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT

-THE PROLOGUE IS SWORDTAIL’S POV I’M LIVING FOR THIS

-oh yeah the villain this arc is a plant.

-haha

-lame

-alright moving on

-the prologue was basically just catching up on what happened last book rather than an actual prologue about swordtail so that was sad

-half a page into the first chapter and i already love snowfall with my whole soul

-yeah okay i actually really really love snowfall this is going to be an entertaining book

(she’s kinda like peril? except an icewing and a lot less murder)

-okay the ice wall every night seems a bit extra

-me, reading the name crystal: oooo secret gay crush???

-snowfall, two lines later: she was still a princess

-me, immediately: oh. sisters. nevermind. definitely not secret gay crush

-every time snowfall insists she’s okay i get the feeling she’s not very okay

-I LIKE LYNX A LOT

-also am i looking at an enemies to lovers (or possibly tsundere) dynamic with these two cause i’m down

-okay since when does snowfall have sisters

-awww baby miiiink

-also crystal out here wearin the dragon version of a plague mask what a mood

-Lynx stared at her, blinking fast for a long moment, “well,” she said finally, “no one said it had to be a leisurely swim--” (askdjfkasdjlf i love her)

-hey have i mentioned yet that i LOVE LYNX

-The Forbidden Treasury is possibly the coolest name for a treasury i am excited to see what’s in it

-also who gave snowfall permission to access anything with magic, this sounds like a bad plan

-i really like mink’s description!! i’m glad icewings can be more colors than just shades of white

-who gave the icewings permission to name things

-also the ice kingdom has villages? i thought it was just the castle

-oh my heck that’s horrible snowfall sweetheart i’m so sorry

-snowfall NO

-also wow tsunami u need to CHILL

-it’s a friggin PLANT who decided this was a good idea for a villain

-i mean it’s kinda cool but also feels way over powered?? what are you supposed to do????? eat all of it like a salad? feed it to whales??? you can’t burn it so what’s the next step? poison?

-oh goodie one of my least favorite dragons in the series

-also jerboa’s first impression wasn’t great

-YOOOOOOOO IS THAT THE RING’S POWER??? THAT’S SO COOL

-lynx 🤝 qibli (🤝 = having that Bisexual Energy and annoying the flip out of royal icewings just cause they can)

-In this house we support Intertribe Flirting

-luna’s helping all of them cut off their bands! the ones! from the first book in this arc! wow i’m slow. that’s so cool. they’re slowly breaking free from hivewing control

-LEAFWINGS CAN BE PINK??????????? (unless this one is a hybrid but PINK LEAFWING)

-oh wait it’s cobra lily. am i supposed to remember who she is?

-when was the last time i read sundew’s book

-THE HYBRIDS!! IN SANCTUARY!!! I’m actually living for the hybrids in sanctuary guys oh my heck

(It was at this point that I had to put tumblr away for the night so some of these might be a little out of order or just word mess)

-CRYSTAL AND WHATS HIS FACE THE MUDWING WITH THE COOL NAME YES VERY GOOD LOVE THEM

-WREN AND SKYYYYYYY

-wait how big are humans compared to dragons Daffodil had Bumblebee sit on her shoulders that doesn’t...that doesn’t match up with what I have in my head hecking heck now I have to figure out sizes again I thought I had it down and now grrrrrr

-there are less queens than I thought there were

-also THOOOOOORN love her

-Oh Snowfall :((

-Winter is annoying

-blue’s lil pov for a second made me cry :((

-also WOW wasp’s pov that gives a really cool perspective on her character

-there’s more stuff that happens, lots of characters need to friggin CHILL I’m living for the Snowfall/Lynx interactions

-HECK YEAH BREAK DOWN THE ICE WALL

-J-Jerboa don’t...don’t do that that’s...

-Wow. Okay. Jerboa and Boa. Don’t wanna know what happened to Jerboa the second

-except I also kinda DO- what if she came out half baked, like a dragon bird thing? I’m sure that’d be horrifying but it also might be kinda cool

-yeah no Jerboa’s pov was scary. I understand her a little better now tho

-also thanks for breaking animus magic the world is better off this way

-also GLACIER

-new love for queen glacier I love her so much

-I’ve only had Mink for a day and a half but if anything happened to her I’d kill everyone in this room and then myself

-heck yeah snowfall own it

-the way Mink described the wall “I’m better than this dragon and this dragon and this dragon,” etc even though she was only up there because she was a princess? this wall is an awful idea

-SHE BROKE THE WALL

-power move: moving Tundra’s name to the very bottom of the list and then when she protests, destroy the wall (this didn’t happen and it would be a Bad Idea but can you imagine?)

-Opal was cool. Also the Forbidden Treasury was REALLY COOL gotta be one of my new favorite places in the series

-hnnnnng I love queen glacier.....

Okay final thoughts

-really loved Snowfall and her development! The opal ring was an interesting idea and a really cool way to show what was happening on Pantala

-the icewings will hopefully become a cooler (haha) tribe now that Snowfall isn’t afraid to destroy tradition that isn’t making anything better

-more schools?? Like jade mountain??

-this book totally destroyed my headcanons for sanctuary so that qinter oneshot will be fun to write oh boy

-the snowfall and hazel friendship!!

-I need to read the other books again I don’t really remember any of the leafwings lol

-lynx is kind of a combo of qibli and jambu and swordtail and I LOVE HER

I think that’s all my thoughts about it for now

Also I totally forgot about it but when Snowfall gets back from Blue’s pov and she’s like “cricket’s a little more her type” that made me happy. I dunno if she’s bi or a lesbian or aro/ace or whatever but she’s definitely not straight and that’s CANON

[nolongerapileofashprobably]

I think about Zelink in each game and I seriously give Nintendo props for creating a compelling dynamic between the two no matter if it’s purely platonic or has romantic undertones or is just blantantly spelled out as soulmates.

OoT Zelink has romantic undertones. Don’t even try to argue with me if ya feel differently. It isn’t spelled out plainly enough that we could say it’s practically canon, but it does have that bond between them that’s undeniable.

In the game, you can literally go back into the castle as Young Link and show Zelda the different masks Link acquires through the side quests. And the entire idea of Link sneaking pst all those guards to show Zelda some mask is hilarious and adorable.

After the time jump, Sheik then accompanies Link and it’s 10000% obvious that he’s fascinated with them. Link wants to spend as much time with Sheik as he possibly can. Water Temple aftermath scene anyone? That made it obvious (for me) that OoT Zelink are soulmates, because it’s their souls pulling them together and creating this attraction. Gender has no say. (It’s also makes Link 10000% bi in this game since Sheik is considered a “guy” to everyone else and I live for this headcanon). No matter who they’re disguised as, the chemistry and attraction is THERE. Plus, in Kakariko when they’re attacked by the Shadow. Staying by the others side. Trying to protect each other. Please let me live.

And the final battle. Oh this poor bby. He sticks his arm out to protect her. He’s so loyal to this girl. He found out she was this person guiding him the entire time and she’s separated from him as soon as she reveals her identity. Foolishly banging on a crystal to free her? Desperate boy wanting to save the girl he cares so much about. Link’s entire life ends up revolving around Zelda in this game. She is the one person he truly truly cares about on a deep level.

I love Malon and all, but I never saw the connection. I’ve always headcanoned the idea that Link comes back from MM’s events and goes straight to Zelda and legitimately just grows up in Castle Town under Zelda’s orders and is trained for the Guard and eventually becomes the head of the entire Hyrulian Army. I also headcanon that OoT Zelink both die young, but not before they have a child who is then given to their trusted friend Malon to raise. (I know it’s a dark headcanon but hey I think it makes sense)

Twilight Princess, on the other hand, gives off much more platonic vibes. Partly because Zelda is barely in this game. I do love Midlink in this game too, but as an endgame, nope. The thing about Twilight Princess Zelink is that it could POSSIBLY happen after the game’s events. But during the actual gameplay? This Zelda and Link play their respective roles to ultimately defeat Ganon. It’s more professional.

People can debate about this one, with Link’s attention whenever Zelda is in the room being solely on her and all, but I see that more as a ranch hand meeting royalty for the first time and being awed by the regal and natural beauty she exudes. I have said that I can see them happening through a friends with benefits type of situation, but only after.

In game, the story pretty much implied that Ilia is the love interest and not Midna or Zelda. Tbh, I didn’t love her character but I knew for a fact that Link did so I went with it. But I’m replaying the game now and BOYYY it seriously points to Ilia and Link being an item. And it makes perfect sense too. But after everything, I’d see Link sticking around Zelda more because she at least understands. But again, in game and from the canon events, Zelink is more platonic than anything.

Skyward Sword is completely platonic. Idk how y’all got “soulmates” from this Zelda and Link, I mean-

Yeah no do I even have to talk about how this game is blatantly romantic? Its not even UNDERTONES like it’s full out “I’m doing this to save the girl that I love”. They’re literal soulmates and started the kingdom of Hyrule and I couldn’t be MORE PROUD! The first Zelda and Link happen to be in love and they managed to get cursed so in every incarnation they’re bound to meet each other and I think that’s beautiful (despite the angry third wheel that reincarnates with them). But otherwise, this game is legit a love story between Link and Zelda with a bit of action and adventure sprinkled in. Good quality and excellent eyeliner.

Breath of the Fucking Wild people. I know I already did romantic undertones but would I be me if I DIDNT go on a little rant about the beauty of this Zelink??? Didn’t think so. It’s also not even undertones. It’s also not blatantly romantic. It’s heavily implied.

So, you get the hate to love trope, the princess and her knight trope, AND the amnesia trope. All three in this very special pair. The memories play these two very well. The actual story to the game may have been a bit underwhelming, but Zelink’s story is MASSIVE. The memories show us a very complex Zelda, a mute Link who is loyal to a fault, and an epic love story between the two. This isn’t even a theory. It’s actually canon. (Thank you Kass, ily bby)

Now Link’s perspective isn’t fully fleshed out, but that’s the thing. It’s not supposed to be. But what we do get is a few pieces of information that makes you go “oh so he does have feelings for Zelda”. First being the Journal Entries. He wants to save Zelda ASAP so he can see her smile. He wonders if she will be pleased with how far he’s come. He is determined to save her after gaining all his memories of their relationship back. This Link only truly remembers Zelda. The Champion’s have some place in his mind, but he doesn’t remember like like he remembers Zelda.

Second being the little moments in the memories, like him staying by Zelda’s side in the castle to just hang out with her, listening to her ramble on about science things, being Extra Asf when the ground shakes and he immediately goes to make sure Zelda doesn’t stumble, turning around when Zelda begins to doubt herself, sheathing his sword despite being chased by murder bots. It’s just all those little things that makes you THINK.

Third being the flowers. The symbolism. It’s all too real and I won’t even get STARTED on how Nintendo gave us a canon ship name for BotW Zelink and we had the audacity to IGNORE IT!!!

Fourth being the fact that they practically debunk Miphlink after giving it the potential to become official. Stay with me. They painted Mipha as the typical childhood friend that falls in love with the protagonist. Except, I can say with certainty that it’s 1000% one sided. In the game, Link goes to Zora’s Domain as a kid and Mipha heals kid Link’s wounds because she a kind and gentle soul. There’s nothing romantic about that given the fact Mipha writes about it before she writes about the feelings she develops.

When Link goes back, she writes about how he looks past her, doesn’t open up to her, but still remains the kind soul she knows him to be. This in and of itself tells us that Link has no feelings for her whatsoever. He’s a knight and he does his best to protect whoever is in need. But he doesn’t truly reconnect with Mipha as a teenager because he remains closed off and in her diary, Mipha confirms the fact that he doesnt give her the same attention that she gives him. She makes the Zora Armor, yeah, but she didn’t present it to Link AND she prayed to Ruto. Ruto being the Zora that fell for Link but that relationship never happened because Link didn’t have feelings for her whatsoever. That in and of itself gives the impression that this relationship is also one sided. The thing that always stood out to me was how Mipha never presented the Zora Armor and how she realized Link and Zelda would grow closer because all the time they had was spent with each other. My theory is that Mipha saw Link and how he seemed a bit less weighed down. And it hit her that the Zelda is also more carefree at this point. And she puts two and two together and realizes that Link and Zelda have opened up to each other and gotten much closer as a result. Hence, why she didn’t give him the Zora Armor since she saw where Link’s heart truly lies. That’s just my own personal idea and theory on her not giving him the armor, so don’t judge lol.

But BoTW Zelink is so COMPLEX and is heavily implied to be canon after the events that I cannot wait to see how the sequel treats their relationship. It’s definitely going to be fun to watch and play.

OKAY SO MY POINT WAS

Nintendo provided all thes unique takes on two characters yet never gave them a toxic relationship, but always one where they can rely on the other when they needed to. And I think that’s beautiful.

*please take note that these are more of my personal opinions and how I view the relationships which may differ from others but that’s okay since LoZ is supposed to be a franchise where you are Link and so whatever you love, he loves. I’m just a slut for Zelink 🤷🏻‍♀️

[apocahipster]

here’s just some author’s notes for the huge taz fic i finished today

you can read it here if you want

https://archiveofourown.org/works/13468608/chapters/30877473

Author’s notes,, i haven’t proofed these so, apologies ;000

 Wow. Huge. This is literally the biggest thing ive ever written to completion. I had the whole fic planned before I uploaded the first chapter, and to accentuate the planning I had a 100+ page document of notes and also had an excel sheet which looked like this:

(the yellow on the left means summer, and blue when it was winter. The second column is day of the year, third important dates. On the right is the events which I highlighted yellow as I wrote them)

and like this

Its also the first fic I decided to upload as I wrote each chapter because I knew it would take about a year to complete. I wanted fan support (which I got and loved <3 ) and I didn’t want to sit on the whole thing and constantly re-write it and end up hating it and never publishing it.

So the way this fic began is I was listening to TAZ balance for the first time and as I different scenes or dialogue occurred I started taking notes on my phone for how they would translate to a high school setting. This whole thing started around the time I was at crystal kingdom and ironically, that’s were im up to in my relisten at the time of publishing the last chapter.

The other, very original, formative idea for the fic was this:

Magnus beats up kids who are homophobic to Taako as a way to cover for the fact that he is also bi // Thinks he’s straight and overly supportive of his gay friends

 Similarly, in the original idea, it was going to be Julia who had died, not magnus’ dad. There was a really depressing scene where magnus spent the day with Julia’s parents.

Another formative idea was,

My name is Taako, you know, from Instagram.

And I suppose in the end this was the most impactful because I decided that I personally specialise in writing comedy based things. I wanted this to be a light-hearted fun fic.

In the original fiction, Travis and the other McElroys show regret that Magnus’ story is formed around the death of a woman (Julia). Similarly in sensitivity to the McElroy’s personal background I decided that this was not the right thing to write about. But I also wanted this story to be a magnus emotional journey. By choosing his dad as the character who had died I could keep many things planned such as magnus’ one year gap, Fischer as a therapy fish, Magnus’ aggression etc.

My favourite TAZ character is magnus, if that wasn’t obvious. But ironically, I feel like of all the characters his dialogue is the most OOC. While I tried to keep his thought-logic and actions to Magnus I don’t feel like magnus would say 99% of what my magnus did. Conversely Taako seemed like one of those characters who would be hard to pinpoint but I actually found him easiest to write.

Taako’s magic stone which ultimately ruined the play was introduced as I felt I was focusing too much on Taako’s appearance and not the fact he is incredibly smart and a brilliant wizard.

So I decided to make this fic mostly lighthearted. I wanted to squeeze as many highschool tropes in like the gigantic party, the school play, the football match. The last chapter has a scene in a class for every subject as I felt like I somewhat forgot to write them ever being in class for a large chunk of the middle section. But then again no one really want to read about school do they?

I almost always write my stories to a song, but in this case it was an album. Vance Joy’s Dream Your Life Away, and while I love the music I never want to hear it again for like at least a few months. I would play the whole album every time I sat down to write this thing. It set the summer-time mood for the fic. If you listen to the songs youll probably find places where each song inspired bits of the fic.

The first song Wind’s of Change begins with the like ‘I miss you more than you could know’ which began the driving idea of Magnus dealing with the loss of his father. The song ‘first time’ begins with a line about jumping in the neighbours pool which obviously… inspired magnus jumping into a pool. ‘The best that I can’ inspired Magnus and Mr Waxmen’s interaction. I love the idea of a teenage boy who keeps doing the wrong thing, feeling shame in himself and in his mentor and trying to get better.

The song ‘from afar’ was initially Taako’s song. This whole fic was going to be a Taako / Magnus / Kravitz fic where Taako convinces Magnus to take care of himself and Magnus realises Taako is in love with him and this helps him discover he’s bi and it was super dramatic. There was (an still is) some Magnus / Kravtiz scenes too mostly in the form of flirting.

As I stepped away from this being a ship heavy fic this song became Lucretia’s song. Lucretia’s unrequited love to Lup was mostly written from the heart, and I’m so sorry to Lucretia stans, she deserves all the GFs in the world. But I felt this was a very powerful thing to write in a teen story.

Taako’s fear of LDR is also taken from the heart. In a way this whole fic was a serious vent from my high school experience. Similarly as I am now 21, I didn’t feel comfortable nor did I even really conceptualise any NSFW scenes for this fic. It just didn’t seem to have a place. Besides, sex is in almost all other teen movies and books. I also wanted to keep weed out of this one bc I personally hate how drugs are in every teen story.

I actually had a planned acronym for the IPRE, the Insufferable Prick Resistance Ensemble, and a short backstory that Magnus Taako Lup and Merle formed the group in their youth to complain about annoying classmates.

Writing Lydia and Edward was the worst. I don’t know how to write cool and sassy kids. Me at me: don’t make me do it again.

 Heres the entirety of my prepared barry notes:

Barry

-Oculus, opens portals?

-Likes pretty girl?!!?!?!

 I had a planned thing for how each of their grand relics could play into the fic but it was far too much work.

I was also planning on writing wayyyy more Lucretia and wayyyy less Barry. Bc Lucretia was basically me as a teenager. But I started writing Barry as one of my friends and this helped me just write bundles and bundles of Barry content.

I really didn’t have anything planned for davenport. Even drawing his yearbook I was like whelp idk. The idea of him becoming a sports strategist kicked in right as I was writing the paragraph about killian being the new jock, simply bc the section needed to be longer and frankly, I love how his story turned out.

Part of scrapping the original, edgy tone of julia’s death and taako / magnus romance was wanting to continue the tradition where TAZ is a world separate of racism and homophobia. I scrapped original ideas of magnus being provoked by homophobic remarks and transphobic remarks about lup, wanting this to also be an escapist piece like TAZ is. Therefore coming up with other reasons for magnus to get into fights was hard and also I hate writing fights bc ive never been in a fight in my life.

The first half of this fic I was riding an enthusiasm high and just adding scenes and conversations as I thought of them and listened to the story. By about the end of semester 3 I still cared about the fic but I was basically writing everything I had pre-planned with little innovation.

All in all, this was extremely fun to write, and I think it made me a much, much, much better author. I love anyone who read the whole thing sm.

[frumpkino]

so i got tagged by @fanzanna to say 11 things about me and oh...... oh no...... how did someone find out that i love to talk about myself........ what am i going to do...... ohno....

anyways that’s pretty cool so here we go

1. Do not make me choose between cats or dogs i will implode without answering cause they both deserve all of my love and respect 

2. I was a petty little shit when i was a kid (i cut of the shoe soles of a boy because he was annoying me, kicked at least 3 children because they were messing with a thing i helped destroy, threw a fit, cried and got a whole bunch of children in detention because they were screaming at me, destroyed my friend’s make up kit because she was trying to put lipstick on me)

3. Olives are fucking disgusting

4. I spent one year trying to learn french and then didn’t pass the course because of like 0,5 a point which was fair but i still have a grudge against the french language 

5. I have a lot of strong opinions about a lot of stuff and I’d love to discuss them but I usually don’t because I am very enthusiastic about them so that can be overwhelming, also I stutter a lot so that doesn’t help 

6. I did like 5 years of dance classes but I fucking hate like actually standing up and dancing, I can still enjoy music a lot and not dance 

6.5. (ask me to make a playlist for you, ask me to make a playlist for you and i’ll find you the sweetest motherfucking jams)

7. I love anything golden, or anything shiny for that matter

8. I hate beaches, it’s mostly the sand and the salty water i hate it all, but the ocean is pretty neat 

9. My mom and my grandma use a lot of like protective crystals and charms and all that stuff, and even though i’m pretty skeptical of that kind of stuff i still think it’s really cool 

10. I can be a little rude and blunt sometimes and genuinely do not notice it so i appreciate when people just tell me if i’m being a little too much straight away 

11. I usually tell people i’m bi because that’s so much easier than explaining that i have no fucking idea what i’m doing with my sexuality and who i am attracted to 

i know i am supposed to tag people but i don’t actually know most of my mutuals and i hate just acting like i’m already their close friend so i’m tagging some people and if they feel comfortable in doing this kind of stuff or not it’s cool either way, i just love to know new people and it’d be nice to know some of you guys

@eggbooty @choochoo-littleman @pheromosa @crewmanjeeter @ironic-comicsans

[supergirl-imagines]

Lena Luthor/you fic pt. 22

“Rise and shine!” Your eyes cracked open at the sound of Kara’s voice, far too cheery and loud in your ears.  One of the first things you realized was that you weren’t seeing your surroundings, you were seeing through them.  Sitting up, you blinked a few times in an attempt to adjust, only to have a pair of glasses slid onto your face.  As soon as the frames settled against your features, your vision returned to a crystal clear ‘normal’. “Thanks,” you croaked tiredly.  Kara placed a warm cup of coffee in your hands and sat down next to you on the bed. “How did you sleep?” “Like a rock, so why did you wake me up?” “Cause its day 1 of training!  Also, I brought doughnuts, because one of the best things about being a Kryptonian is that you don’t have to watch what you eat.” The beaming blonde produced a box from behind her and opened it up to give you first choice.  Considering you hadn’t eaten since lunch on the day Lillian took you, your stomach growled and you reached for one of the glazed treats.  You stifled a yawn before dipping it into your coffee and taking a bite. “Jesus,” you mumbled with a mouthful of doughnut, “why does this taste so good?” “Another perk; all of your senses are enhanced.  That includes taste.” “And the downside is I could accidentally kill someone by sneezing.” “Yes,” Kara admitted begrudgingly, “but that’s why we’re training; so that your sneezes don’t kill anyone.” “You’re not going to make me wear a cape and run around the city, right?  Like, I get that it’s your thing and I respect it, but it’s not really up my ally.” “No, no,” Kara laughed and sipped at her own coffee, “you don’t have to be a hero.  As soon as you finish learning to control yourself, you’re free to do whatever you want.” “Alright, good.  How, um, how’s Lena doing?” “Well, I had Winn set her up a little office so that she could keep herself busy with work things.  She didn’t have much to say this morning, but at least she’s got something to distract herself during the day, right?” “Right,” you nodded half-heartedly, “and what about Lillian?  Any sign of her yet?” “Actually, yes.” Her answer surprised you and you stayed silent, waiting for her to elaborate. “Alex’s team has been surveying all known CADMUS bases and believe her to be in one of them.  It’s heavily armed, but they’re planning a strike for tonight.” “To kill her?” You failed to hide the hope in your voice, but Kara pretended not to notice. “Not unless they have to.  Their main objective is to capture her and bring her back to the DEO for containment.” “You want to bring her here.” “There are some of the galaxy’s most dangerous criminals locked up in this facility and you can’t even tell.  This place is far more secure than any prison out there.” “You guys got a death penalty around here?” “Y/N, I know Lillian has hurt you and Lena in more ways than I could imagine,” Kara sighed, “but as horrible as she is, we’re not going to hurt her.  But, she will spend the rest of her life rotting away in here, so there’s that.” “Fine,” you relented and gave up on your need for revenge, at least for the time being.  “So, should we get this over with?” “Not exactly the attitude I was looking for, but sure!” ----------------------------------------------------------------------- “I’m still in charge, Jess,” Lena assured her assistant once again, phone balanced between her cheek and her shoulder.  “But, I need to take some time and I trust Randall more than anybody to fill in for me.  I still want bi-weekly reports from you and if you think anything is being done in a way that I wouldn’t approve of, call me and I’ll set it straight.” The dark-haired woman glanced at the door to her temporary residence as Alex Danvers poked her head in.   “I need to go; I’ll speak to you soon,” Lena sighed and hung up the phone before Jessica could blurt out any other questions.  She wasted no time in fearing the worse as she looked at Alex either.  “Has something happened?” “No, no, everything’s alright,” Alex assured her quickly.  “I just wanted to know if you’d like to take a walk and maybe take a peek in at the training rooms?” “Is she in there?” “Oh,” Alex’s eyes widened when she realized how things had been interpreted and chewed the inside of her cheek, “I didn’t mean actually go in.  I’m sorry.  We just have viewing platforms that look into the training rooms.” “I understand.”  Lena hid her slight disappointment well and stood from the desk.  “Is there any word on my mother—Lillian,” she corrected herself and flinched slightly.  The two women entered the hallway as Alex started to reply. “That’s another thing I wanted to talk to you about; my team and I have traced her to one of the CADMUS headquarters.  We’re planning to strike tonight.” “And if you find her?” “We’re going to lock her up in one of the cells we usually reserve for alien fugitives.  We aren’t taking any chances of her escaping.” “Good.”  Lena pursed her lips and followed Alex into a stairwell and the two embarked upwards. “Do you mind if I share something personal?” Alex asked as they continued their ascent.  Lena nodded a little uncertainly.  She wasn’t quite sure what the older woman was about to share or why she was sharing it. “I underwent something similar to what happened with Y/N a while ago.  Fugitives from Kara’s home planet devised this mind-control program called Myriad, and they used it to force me to try to hurt Kara.” “How were you supposed to hurt someone with Kara’s abilities?” Lena frowned. “I had a bionic exoskeleton and the Kryptonite saber I used to kill Kara’s aunt.” “Oh,” Lena replied softly.   “I know the situation was different, but I remember how awful I felt inside during that fight.  And how terrifying it was to have no control over myself.” “I can’t imagine.” For a second, Lena felt the prickle of tears in her eyes.  The dark-haired woman was quick to blink them away. “But, I was able to move past it.  So was Kara.  I know that once Y/N gets a hand on her powers, you two will move on too.” “Thank you, Alex,” Lena said sincerely as Alex opened a door at the top of the stairs.   “No problem.  If you ever want me to try talking to her about it, just let me know.” “That’s probably a good idea.  She…she’s going to blame herself no matter what we tell her, though.” “It’ll be hard for a while,” Alex admitted as they entered a simple room with a table and several chairs.  Once she flicked what appeared to be a light-switch, several panels on the wall slid up to reveal thick panes of glass.  “One-way glass,” she explained.  Lena walked up to the windows and peered down into the large chamber below. ----------------------------------------------------------- “As long as you can control your temper, you can control your powers,” Kara started off, taking on an authoritative tone in her voice.  “When I came to Earth, the hardest thing for me was keeping my vision normal, but the glasses fixed that.” “What about the heat vision and steel-bending strength?” Kara rolled her eyes at the sarcasm in your voice, but reminded herself to be patient. “Like I said; temper,” she replied.  “Pick up that egg.” You had wondered why there was an egg sitting among the other various objects on the steel table between the two of you.  Unsure of where Kara was going with this, you reached out and picked up the smooth piece of food as delicately as you could.  Relief flooded through your chest as you realized you weren’t crushing it by accident. “Go ahead and squeeze it a little—no more than if you had just tripped and were afraid of dropping it.” Hesitantly, you tightened your grip.  The egg still didn’t break. “Doesn’t even feel like you have powers, does it?” Kara asked.  She watched as you examined your hand and shook your head.  Then, the blonde hopped the table in a split second and shoved you. “What the hell?” you frowned, regaining your balance.  The egg in your first was quickly forgotten as her hands made contact with your chest again and pushed.  “Kara, knock it off.” She closed the distance and rammed into you again.   Before Kara could shove you another time, there was a quiet crunch and your hand was suddenly wet.  The blonde stopped her advances and you looked down. The egg wasn’t just broken.  Its shell had all but disintegrated and the yolk had shot in streams between your fingers, staining the floor several meters away.   “If that had been someone’s hand, you would have crushed every bone in it,” Kara informed you softly.  Your heart raced at the idea of it having been Lena’s.   Kara turned around and went back to the table; handing you a paper towel after reaching it.  You wiped off your hand and tried to slow your own pulse. “So how do you do it?  How do you keep from hurting people?” “I learn to let things go.  I take deep breaths.  I count to ten,” Kara sounded almost thoughtful as she spoke, “and I pay attention to my body.” “You’ve had what, over a decade to practice?  I’m going to be dangerous for years.” “Hey, that’s not true,” Kara reassured you quickly.  “I’m going to help you through this, and so is Lena.  Take off your glasses.” “What?” “Here,” she reached over and slid them down the bridge of your nose, then pointed towards a seemingly blank wall on the far side of the huge room.  You squinted uncertainly at the surface and suddenly, you were squinting through it.  Lena was on the other side with Kara’s sister.  You froze. --------------------------------------------------------- Lena felt her pulse quicken as you appeared to look right at her.  A few moments later, Alex spoke and confirmed her suspicions. “I’m pretty sure they’re looking at us.” The entire “training” session up until this point had left Lena relatively confused; the egg and the shoving didn’t seem to make any sense at all.  But now that you were looking up towards her over the top of your glasses, her confusion changed to anxiety, and then sadness.  She wondered when she’d ever even be able to touch you again. Boom.  Sadness.  Life is hard.  Lillian mission and maybe a reunion next time.  Let me know what ya think!

[captainmazzic]

The Ahsoka Novel Review, or, Goddamnit Star Wars, Part CXXVIII

Under a cut because this thing is long as fuuuuuck

...Okay. That was... Interesting.

I’m just going to ignore the first part where the author pretends to make Ahsoka have some sort of compassion-sympathy for Maul while taunting him and throwing his disability in his face at the same time. Was there even any point to having this little exchange? It’s not mentioned later, Maul has no bearing at all on this plot, and nothing Ahsoka does here is relevant even as a learning experience for later. It’s just... there. Token inclusion to draw in the Maul fans, I guess? Or.. alienate them yet again, I don’t even know.

This is how it starts. *laughing*. It gets so much worse. And... has a few moments where it shines, I admit. Anyway. Let’s get this party started. 

So pretty much we follow Ahsoka around for a few years while she mopes about not being an Official Jedi™ and develops a major martyr obsession. Coming from Ahsoka’s mouth, it just seems so out of place, incongruent, and it gets old real fast. She regrets leaving the Jedi Order before Order 66 happens, she wishes she hadn’t survived while the rest of the Jedi died, she wonders why she lived when she didn’t “deserve” to because she “deserted” the Jedi, etc. etc. ETC. I am so sick of Heroic Characters™ with survivors’ complexes that don’t even fit their fucking character. We need another one of those like we need another vampire bemoaning immortality as a curse, or a burning stick to the eye. I’d rather take the burning stick. Ugh.

Anyway. When Ahsoka isn’t being that particular brand of OOC, she’s being a mouthpiece for... something. Someone. I’m honestly not sure who. Or why. But she says stuff that makes no sense for someone like Ahsoka to say, and you get the impression that she says it just so that the author can have these things out in the open. That whole making the crystal bleed? We won’t get started on that just yet. But yeah. What. The. Fuck. And she says stuff about Barriss being.. a... bully? Did I fucking read that right? Like I mean she says some things about Barriss that are accurate (it was cruel for her to try and let Ahsoka take the fall for the temple bombing, she didn’t trust people, and she was afraid of the war), but I’m not sure where she was ever a bully? Oh wait I guess that’s just the book being badly written. 

And oh my god. Let me just. Excerpt a few… unfortunate word choices:  

“The mechanisms put in place during the Clone Wars had been twisted for the Empire's use, and every day the Emperor’s hold grew tighter. She almost admired Palpatine for his ability to pull off a long-term plan – except for his being evil and all."

About the Grand Inquisitor:

“His agents must follow his every order as though the Emperor himself had given it. That sort of power made him feel very strong.”

Also about the Grand Inque:

“As he stalked through the corridor, his agents scattered out of his way. They were all afraid of him, which he liked rather a lot.”

And my personal favourite cringe-worthy writing:

“Dark crystals were made, too, but not in that holy place. They were plundered from their rightful bearers and corrupted by the hands that stole them. Even rock could be changed by the power of the Force, bleeding alterations until their color was the deepest red. The balance was finely staged between the two, light and dark, and it took very little to upset it.”

...What in the flying freebasing FUCK does “bleeding alterations” even fucking MEAN? What balance? Why is it staged? Why, if there is supposed to be a “balance” in the Force inside these bits of mineral, are they supposedly inherently “light”? Why are the Jedi their only “rightful bearers” (I mean, other than the Jedi arbitrarily laying sovereign claim to anything Force-related they set eyes on, whether meant for them or not)?

Oh, well let’s see here. Ahsoka is here to help.

"I've never seen white ones before," Bail mused.

"They used to be red," Ahsoka said. "When the creature had them, they were red. But I heard them before I ever saw him on Raada, and knew that they were meant for me."

"You changed their nature?" he asked.

"I restored them," Ahsoka replied. "I freed them. The red crystals were corrupted by the dark side when those who wielded them bent them to their will. They call it making the crystal bleed. That's why the blade is red."

Okay so basically Ahsoka met an Inquisitor (whom she, persistently, ever so kindly calls a “creature”, more on that in a minute), killed him, stole and destroyed his lightsabers, then ripped the crystals out of them and put them in her own shiny new lightsaber hilts she just made. They apparently faded from bright red to colourless. (Which, honestly, to me, in my ever so humble opinion, interprets as “I just killed everything unique and vibrant about these crystals and drained them of all individuality, just like the Jedi do to people when they ‘free’ them :D :D :D”. But I mean. That’s just me.) This crystal bleeding is fucking Jedi folklore superstition. It’s stupid. It’s even stupider than the old “synthetic crystals are unnatural so of COURSE the Sith use them, m’kay” canon.

I’m just. So annoyed. So very annoyed.

So anyway. Ahsoka killed an Inquisitor, the Sixth Brother. She and a little girl sense him as a shadow at first - “The shadow was almost certainly one of the dark side's creatures. Ahsoka had no idea what sort of thing it might be, but whatever it was...” And that’s that. He’s “the creature” for the rest of the time he’s referred to. Seems like she hung around Kenobi way too fucking much, his style of Jedi seems to have rubbed off on her. Sigh.

But then she protests.

"I'm not really a Jedi, you know," she said. "I left the Temple, turned away from the Jedi path."

"If you're not a Jedi, then what are you, Ahsoka Tano?" Bail asked. "Because to be honest, you still sound and act like a Jedi to me."

OF COURSE SHE DOES. SHE IS A GODDAMN JEDI. A ~Grey Jedi~ is still a fucking JEDI OH EM FUCKING GEE. They’re Jedi Lite. Half the calories, most of the judgment, twice the taste, all the guilt! Goddamnit Star Wars. You’re not fooling anyone. Stop trying.

Moving on.

So then we have the Unresolved Sexual Tension between Ahsoka and Kaeden. Which largely means… Unrequited Feels on Kaeden’s part and… nothing else.

"Ahsoka!" Kaeden ran toward her, but stopped short of throwing her good arm around Ahsoka's shoulder. She knew that lightsabers were not to be trifled with. She could almost feel the power pouring out of Ahsoka anyway. It was amazing. "I could kiss you."

Ahsoka stopped in her tracks. The look she shot Kaeden was mildly confused.

"Not now, I mean," Kaeden said. She wanted to laugh for the first time in weeks but thought that might just be the hysteria setting in. "My timing is terrible and you have all those Jedi hang-ups. I just wanted you to know in case we die."

"Oh," said Ahsoka. "Well, thanks."

….. Oh. Well, thanks.

*beats head against wall* WOULD IT HAVE KILLED YOU, STAR WARS, TO HAVE GIVEN US JUST A LITTLE BIT MORE. I mean, I’m all about canonical asexual and/or aromantic Ahsoka, that would have been fucking rad, but they’ve already given us the fiasco that was goddamn LUX BONTERI, so The Powers That Be already canonically ruined that for me. Bi or Pan or Lesbian Ahsoka would have been really awesome too. Just… anything but Clueless Insensitive Straight Ahsoka for canon, please. PLEASE. We have enough of those characters already. Ahsoka doesn’t need to be one of them. Just my opinion though. Of course. *sigh*

...And then we have a brief, very out-of-place flashback from Anakin’s POV, that actually has zERO to do with anYTHINg, but it’s heartbreaking nonetheless because it’s just before Ahsoka is introduced and Anakin is still thinking that Ahsoka is going to be Kenobi’s apprentice.

"Anakin wasn't entirely sure what his place next to Obi-Wan would look like once his friend had a new student. Jedi weren't as married to the concept of two as the Sith were, but most of them acted singly or in pairs. It was one of the reasons Anakin had never put in for a Padawan of his own. He didn't want it to look like he was pushing Obi-Wan aside. Now, Obi-Wan had gone and done it first, and Anakin still wasn't sure how he felt about it."

He didn’t want Kenobi to feel sidelined. I’m. Just. Goddamnit Star Wars don’t give me Obikin feels when we already know Kenobi turns into the most asinine, horrible person in all the Jedi next to, maybe, Yoda.

Anyway. Let’s move on again.

Oh yeah. So there’s Kolvin. He’s a Rodian.

….. Now, I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it very often, but one of the things I fixate on in Star Wars is the frequency of Rodian deaths. Almost all of the named (and a bunch of the unnamed) Rodians we meet end up getting killed. A good majority of them on-screen or in-story. Rodians are one of my favourite species in the entirety of Star Wars and it really upsets me that the greater majority of the ones we meet get axed quickly after we’re first introduced to them. And Kolvin’s no exception. We are pretty much introduced to him solely for the sake of watching him die, graphically, a chapter or two later. I’m just… furious beyond being capable of physically showing it. It’s exhausting.

And I think my final criticism of the book is the entire story behind the Empire even being on Raada in the first place. It’s such a fabricated, “Oh I guess we need a reason to fuck up Ahsoka’s life again via the Empire” kind of plot. It makes LITERALLY ZERO LOGICAL SENSE, even if I stretch real hard and invoke believing at least six impossible things before breakfast. There is NO reason why these genetically engineered plants would be useful. The Empire would not go through all this trouble to search for productive agricultural worlds only to use them once (ONCE??) and then give it up as a barren wasteland after first use. That is so unproductive, unprofitable, and inefficient. Why would they do that, and then leave the farmers to try and scrape by after that? Such a waste of resources. We already have PLENTY of examples of what the Empire does with agricultural worlds. Ones that MAKE SENSE. They come in, set up their infrastructure, heavily regulate work schedules, and implement their own ideas about what needs to be grown. And guess what? It’s stuff that they can plant indefinitely, because that keeps the population working under tight, regulated control. It keeps them in a routine that is hard to break. It keeps them busy, it keeps them tired, it keeps them distracted. It maintains a level of familiarity that’s just close enough to normalcy that they will be hesitant to do anything to break it. These are useful things to the Empire. VITAL things.

Instead we get a moustache-twirling saturday morning cartoon where the Empire sweeps in, destroys everything, cackles maniacally, knocks over your sandcastle, and kicks the puppy on the way out. Why is it so fucking hard for these hired writers to come up with a good villainous reason for the villains to be villainous? Honestly they have material RIGHT THERE. USE IT. For fuck’s sake.

Okay but with all this criticism there were a couple highlights.

There was a Black Sun agent. They didn’t last too terribly long as a part of the story, but they’re referred to only with they/them pronouns for the entire time they’re around, and that. Pleased me. Greatly. And there wasn’t even some concentrated effort to “find out their gender” or idle speculation or some other stupid bullshit. It was very much a non-issue, and that also pleased me. Good job. Gold star.

And despite the fact that Ahsoka had a lot of damning things to say about Barriss, she had this to say as well:

“She had a point about the Republic and the Jedi. There was something wrong with them, and we were too locked into our traditions to see what it was… If we'd listened to her – really listened – we might have been able to stop Palpatine before he took power."

In the text, that statement is surrounded with too many disclaimers and defensive finger-pointing for me to be entirely happy with it, but it’s something, and I’m glad Ahsoka was the one the writers allowed to say it.

I really liked it when we had some glimpses of Ahsoka’s actual questioning nature whenever the story got in her head. It didn’t happen very often at all, most of the time she’s just developing her martyr fixation or bemoaning her existence, but every now and again we get a tiny peek of the Ahsoka that captured my heart towards the end of The Clone Wars, walking away from the Jedi temple and saying that she needed to figure things out on her own, without the Jedi, without Anakin, without the crutches and restrictions that the Order held her down with. If only we’d gotten more of that Ahsoka throughout the book, it could have made the story shine.

[teskarot]

Okay, so i have successfully been active on Tumblr for a full year, went through blogs, tags, explore, flame wars, you name it, and i have learned ALOT of things on here. Alot of good, and alot of bad. I am not going to stretch the truth, sugarcoat, or anything like that. Here’s everything I have learned~

Do’s and Don’ts on Tumblr

The Safe Zone

Shipping same sex characters. You get good notes on that.

Support LGBT+ in any way possible (and by support LGBT+, i mean LG. Cause B and T posts are surprisingly rare comparatively) (I MEAN STILL GO FOR ALL OF LGBT+, BUT JESUS CHRIST COMPARATIVELY I DON’T HEAR SHIT ABOUT B AND T)

Supporting women’s rights in any way possible. Alot of notes for that. Also you don’t look like a colossal douche that actually needs to die because fuck you for even thinking about suppressing other people’s rights, regardless of gender, sexuality, appearance or kinks. (last thing about kinks was supposed to be a reference on furries but ya’ll get the idea)

Anything about being an Introvert and it’s issues cause you will literally never ever hear anything about extroverts ever unless you DIG for it.

Anything about dying. Not actually dying, but wanting to die cause it’s funny (well...it’s supposed to be. It’s fucking confusing cause it’s literally gotten to the point where idk if i should help and send something encouraging and motivational to them or sit there and pretend it’s funny cause i’m clearly supposed to know when it’s a joke or not, but that’s a topic for another time)

Reblog or make posts about Overwatch or Yuri on Ice. (and when i say Overwatch i mean “TRACER IZ GAY CONFIRMED” because Jesus Christ there is literally nothing else about Overwatch that anyone will talk about like fuck. I don’t even like Overwatch but talk about Reaper being every teenage edgelord’s orgasm or Mercy being the best mom in the world or d.va being a fucking MLG PRO 360 NO SCOPE DORITOS MUNCHIN MOUNTAIN DEW GUZZLIN GAME GOBLIN or just something else oh my god) (Yuri on Ice is actually really-like SUPER good. I just don’t want anything to do with it cause i see it WAY too much, much like Cowboy Bebop, but that’s just me)

and most important, reblog or post about supporting ANY kind of Gender or Sexualities. Homo, Bi, Trans, Pan, you name it (Except Hetero cause apparently no one gives a flying fuck about Hetero. Hetero is boring and anything having to do with Hetero is considered forced so seems to me any and all things Hetero should fall off the face of the earth I guess...for real, gonna talk about equality on all sexualitites then gonna turn around and do this to Heterosexuality like cmon...how many times have i said Hetero? sounds weird now...)

The Don’ts

Do not post/reblog anything that has to do with even the possibility of a woman taking advantage of a man and saying that the woman is wrong. You get zero notes. And apparently that means you are scum too. Cause that could neeeeeeever  happen.

Do not post/reblog ANY OCs of a Male Crystal Gem. You get Zero notes and a mailbox full of anon hate.

Do not post/reblog anything supressing the rights of anyone. For example, saying a sexuality is invalid, or a gender is not a real gender. You get notes, don’t get me wrong, but you won’t like em. (Like for real don’t do this cause that’s raw and you know you are wrong for doing that. And if you skipped what i said before about supporting genders and sexualities and straight up did this then you are literally the worst, and people like you should be burning in hell.) (Yeah i made an Undertale reference. I don’t cringe at Undertale, it’s actually really good)

Do not post/reblog anything that has t do with Donald Trump unless it’s shitting on him. Like for real, it doesn’t matter what your views are for Trump, in a place like Tumblr, just don’t do it. It could be a shitty reason, it could even actually be a good reason, but just not here bud, tryin to help ya’ll on this. I mean unless you want 96% of Tumblr hounding your ass, don’t.

And last but not least,  do not post/reblog anything that has to do with Loli or the like. That is some Danger Zone shit. Please don’t. I’m not into Loli cause i’m not sexually attracted to people or characters looking like they just got off the Magic School Bus but please, don’t support, or bash, cause the controversy is WILD. So don’t even talk about it. 

All in all, from what i’ve seen, if you want easy notes, on a topic you can swing both ways on, talk about furries. Like dead serious you can bash on one saying they need to die, and then can do a complete 180 and “Arf Arf Yiff to Petsmart” and No one will question you.

I may or may not make another post like this next year but until then, Ya’ll enjoy Tumblr to the best of your abilities, and goodnight! Stay PC!

[kidsviral-blog]

How I Rebuilt Tinder And Discovered The Shameful Secret Of Attraction

New Post has been published on https://kidsviral.info/how-i-rebuilt-tinder-and-discovered-the-shameful-secret-of-attraction/

How I Rebuilt Tinder And Discovered The Shameful Secret Of Attraction

Why we swipe the way we swipe.

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Jenny Chang / BuzzFeed

Suppose you’re a straight woman thumbing through Tinder while waiting for the train, avoiding your homework, or bored at work. A picture of a deeply bronzed man pops up in your stream. How do you swipe? More interestingly, if someone asked you to explain why, how would you answer?

Say that it’s this guy:

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Thinkstock / BuzzFeed

His location is exotic. He’s doing something that requires a wetsuit. Chances are, he needed a good amount of money to do what he’s doing in the place he’s doing it. But the dark tan, large tattoo, long hair, and name like “Kip” indicate a lifestyle that is probably not that of an investment banker. You can’t really see his face, but surprisingly that doesn’t really matter because the overwhelming reason that hundreds of men and women who swiped “no” in a full-fledged Tinder simulation I unleashed on the internet had nothing to do with attractiveness. Instead, it had everything to do with the type of person Kip seemed to be:

“He probably calls himself a ‘humanist’ instead of a feminist and tries to impress people with how much he ‘made friends with the natives’ when he travels. Barf.” –straight/white

“I love the tattoo, but he seems too skeezy in a way I can’t put my finger on. Scuba is pretentious? Longer greasy hair?” –bi/Hapa/Japanese

“close call, but i hate his sunglasses and also i am imputing all sorts of things about him. like he probably says namaste to the barista at the coffee shop and has a profile picture of him with a bunch of african children” –bi/white

“Lol he’s too old and it looks like the sea is his mistress already I can’t compete with that.” –straight/white

It’s possible these respondents are “overthinking” their response to what, on the surface, is a very straightforward question: Am I attracted to this person or not? Indeed, some would argue that there’s no reason to even explain: You can’t argue with your genitals.

But maybe what we call the argument of one’s genitals is, in truth, incredibly — and both consciously and subconsciously — influenced by the cultures in which we grow up as well as our distinct (and equally culturally influenced) ideas of what a “good couple” or “good relationship” would look like. Put differently, we swipe because someone’s “hot,” but we find someone “hot” based on unconscious codes of class, race, education level, religion, and corresponding interests embedded within the photos of their profile.

Essentially, we’re constantly inventing narratives about the people who surround us — where he works, what he loves, whether our family would like him. And more than other dating services, which offer up comprehensive match dossiers, Tinder appears to encourage these narratives and crystallize the extrapolation process and package it into a five-second, low-stakes decision. We swipe, in other words, because of semiotics.

“Semiotics” is, quite simply, the study of signs. The field of semiotics tries to figure out how we come up with symbols — even as simple as the word in front of you — that stand in for a larger concept. Why does the word “lake” mean that massive blue watery thing? Or how does the stop sign, even without the word “stop,” make everyone understand not to go forward?

But signs aren’t always static in their meaning — it’s all about context. Wearing a camouflage jacket can mean that you’re in the military, a hunter, a punk, a redneck, a misogynist; having a shaved head, as a girl, can connote that you’re a radical, a cancer survivor, or a lesbian.

Thinkstock / BuzzFeed

Thinkstock / BuzzFeed

  I first noticed this “crystallizing” tendency in Tinder when a friend, let’s call her Katie, starting playing it for fun, three beers in, at a bar. She was thumbing through prospective matches’ profiles (usually comprising six Facebook pictures, authenticated Facebook age, and a brief bio line) for the table, yelling out her immediate reaction: too old, too manscaped, too short, too bald, too Jersey, HOT, too douchey, too finance-bro, too “ew,” too hipster, too boring, too CrossFit, TOTALLY HOT.

Katie’s performance is indicative of a larger truth: that most of the fun of checking people out isn’t actually talking to them, but thinking about whether or not you’d talk to them and how. Katie was using Tinder at a bar, but instead of squinting across the room, she got to look at well-lit pictures of each potential match attempting to present his best self, seeing what phrase he uses to describe himself and a collection of ironic bon mots or general pronouncements (“no offense, but no crazies”).

Tindering thus mimics the relationship of checking someone out on the street, in the classroom, or on the subway, but with the added tactile pleasure of physically swiping the rejects out of your field of vision (and your life). That’s the real difference between Tinder and sites like OkCupid, Match, eHarmony, and J-Date: The end game on those sites is an actual date (and a lot of times marriage!); the end game on Tinder is the web version of a low-stakes bar conversation, which may or may not lead to a date or relationship.

Katie’s verdicts were often based on obvious, glaring “facts” of the profile: A 5-foot-7 male was “too short.” A 39-year-old guy was decidedly “too old” for Katie’s 33 years. Another is bald; she decides him “too” much so. But other swipes relied upon more a more vague, albeit immediate, calculus. To be “too douchey” is to have a bad goatee, a shiny shirt, an unfortunate facial expression, or a certain type of sunglasses. “Too ew” could be any blend of traits that, to white, straight, middle-class Katie, read as repugnant.

But some judgments are too secret — and shameful — to say out loud, or even admit to ourselves. Katie never said “too not-white,” “too poor,” or “too uneducated.” We cloak those judgments in language that generally circles the issue: “Nothing in common,” “he wouldn’t like me,” “I can’t see us together.” Those statements aren’t necessarily lies, but they’re also not always full truths either — and often rely on overarching assumptions about what differences in race, class, education, and religion dictate not only in a relationship, but any interaction, romantic or otherwise.

After watching Katie and tinkering around on the app myself in a game-like fashion, I wanted to see if, relying on anonymity, I could get at the heart of the subconscious snap judgments behind each wipe. Why do we swipe the way we swipe? And are those assumptions “just human,” or indicative of larger, enduring, and possibly destructive cultural divides?

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Jenny Chang / BuzzFeed

Since there’s no way to standardize Tinder’s in-app selections for all respondents (and because using and publishing the real identities of strangers poses more than a few concerns), I decided to make my own, somewhat crude simulation. The first step: Scour stock images to find a broad array of profile “types.”

The process proved fraught, as stock images for casually dressed black males, women over a size 4, and anyone who didn’t fulfill stereotypical understandings of what male/female looks like require some unsettling search queries and yield clichéd and borderline racist results (try searching “curvy” or “fat,” for example, and you get a sea of women looking very sad while looking at food or standing on scales).

I winnowed the profiles down to around 30 men and 30 women, processed them through Instagram filters to make them seem more like something someone might actually have on their account, and put them in standard Tinder profile frames. I picked approximate ages and came up with a mix of names — some of which were intended to complicate or amplify the mix of signs in the profile.

Thinkstock / BuzzFeed

Thinkstock / BuzzFeed

  The result is an approximation, but not re-creation, of what Tinder is actually like. The goal was to correlate each participant’s race, class, education, religion, and sexual preference to their swiping habits. For each Tinder “profile,” regardless of whether they swiped yes or no, the user was prompted to answer “What race/religion/class and education level is this person?” And, if they swiped no, they were asked to write a brief explanation for “why,” with a specific instruction not to simply note, “not attracted.”

The survey circulated via Twitter, Facebook, email, and among friends, amassing 799 seemingly earnest respondents. It’s not divided by the gender of the respondent, but by sexual preferences: If you desire men, you took the male simulation; if you desire women, you took the female one. If a participant identified as bisexual, he or she could take either.

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Jenny Chang / BuzzFeed

The most swipeable woman — no matter if the user identified as straight, gay, queer, or bi — was Yasmin, with an 89% swipe-yes rate, a full 10% higher than her closest “competitor.”

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Thinkstock / BuzzFeed

But why? She signified as middle-class (85% believed so); she seemed as if she had finished a four-year college degree or higher (83%). She looks Christian (42%), spiritual (20%), or agnostic/atheist (17%), and reads as either “mixed race” (48%) or black (40%).

Look closer at this image: Yasmin’s teeth are white and straight and her skin is clear. Her shirt is nondescript, but doesn’t read, at least from what we can see of it, as “cheap.” The contrast between the shirt color and house in the background makes her look crisp and clean. Her overarching look is bourgeois, like a model in an issue of Real Simple.

Her eyes are “smizing,” which makes it seem like she’s actually happy, not just posing for the camera, all of which combines to create a feeling of “genuineness.” Her hair seems only the slightest bit unruly — hey, she’s not uptight! — but is also well-conditioned and cared for. She probably has means; she is content; she is educated; you will have something to talk to her about, and she will be pleasant.

But perhaps the most attractive thing about Yasmin, at least according to the simulation, is that her race is ambiguous. In his new book Dataclysm: Who We Are (When We Think No One’s Looking), OkCupid co-founder and data scientist Christian Rudder asserts that “when you’re looking at how two American strangers behave in a romantic context, race is the ultimate confounding factor.” Working with star ratings and messaging data, Rudder found “two essential patterns” of male to female attraction: First, men tend to like women of the same race; second, men “don’t like” black women.

So why, then, do Rudder’s OkCupid findings not apply to Yasmin? It would appear she’s not black enough. Just contrast Yasmin’s profile with that of Lindsay, whom users read as unquestionably black (97%) and who received only a 43% swipe-yes rate.

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Thinkstock / BuzzFeed

Most respondents explained their rejection of Lindsay based on height and race, or, in one straight white male’s words, because of “unconscious racism?” He continues: “Not that I don’t find black women attractive — and not just the Beyoncés of the world, either — but this woman’s aesthetic, which has definite racial and class markers, doesn’t appeal to me at all.”

Here, “aesthetic” seems to mean manipulated hair, more visible makeup, cluttered clothing, and a less-inviting facial expression. And those “definite racial and class markers” make users more likely to see her race. For Yasmin it’s just the opposite: The absence of those racial and class markers make her race recede in importance (only two respondents, both straight white males, cited race as their reason for swiping no).

The same holds true for Xavier, who had the most swipeable male profile.

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Thinkstock / BuzzFeed

Xavier received a 79% overall yes rate — 10% higher than the closest “competitor.” Ninety-five percent of users read him as black — a similar percentage to Lindsay — but users also perceived him as well-educated (95% percent thought he’d finished a four-year college or higher) and middle- or upper-class (74%/24%). The business attire makes him look professional, but not overly boastful; he looks directly at the camera and his arms are folded, which makes him seem direct. You could read his lack of smile as menacing, but the shirt and tie soften the effect.

The 21% who swiped “no” were bluntly concerned with race: “Not into black guys” (gay/white), “I think I might be racist” (straight/white), “interracial dating is not for me” (straight/white). Some pointed to race-specific traits without explicitly mentioning race: “his lips are way bigger than mine. I have thin lips and the thought of always kissing gimungous [sic] lips is scary to me,” wrote one bi/white user.

Then there’s the cultural extrapolation: “Man, he’s pretty. And he seems really engaged and confident. But I can’t see him at the next big half Polish, half French, all judgmental family picnic” (white/straight).

But why was Xavier rejected for his race more than Yasmin? Both read as middle-class and educated; both appear clean-cut in their pictures. But Xavier reads as “more” black and he isn’t smiling; black men read, stereotypically, as more threatening than black women. Now, that’s all racist and speculative, but it also seems to mimic how our racist and speculative subconsciousness functions in the split second it takes to swipe a Tinder profile.

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BuzzFeed

Here’s the religious breakdown of the simulation participants compared to national statistics from the 2012 Census:

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Jenny Chang / BuzzFeed

The discrepancy is fairly easy to explain — the mostly twenty- and thirtysomethings who took the simulation are less religious than their parents and grandparents. Participants were willing, however, to assign religious beliefs to the profiles they rejected.

Thinkstock / BuzzFeed

Thinkstock / BuzzFeed

Thinkstock / BuzzFeed

  Take, for example, Junior, who garnered a paltry 7% swipe-yes rate. The stated reasons for rejecting Junior were variations on “he seems old school, like he’d be really patronizing to women” (bi/white) and “He’s overweight/doesn’t seem athletic” (straight/Asian). Eighty-one percent of users also read him as Christian — which could be correlated to the 70% who believed he was Hispanic, an ethnicity often associated with Catholicism. (Importantly, no respondent cited religion or ethnicity as their reason for swiping “no” on Junior.)

Same with Jimmy, who also pulled a 7% swipe-yes rate. Users didn’t like his truck and read him as “Southern” and working-class (84%). Seventy-five percent of users believed he was Christian, despite no physical indications of religiosity. A similar yoking happened with Chase, a man with a nice smile and a cowboy hat, whom 86% of users read as Christian.

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Thinkstock / BuzzFeed

By contrast, here’s Conor — who received a 56% swipe-yes rate. He’s holding a mandolin, he has a beard and long hair, and the reasons for rejection usually had something to do with said beard and the lifestyle it connoted. But only 10% of users thought he was Christian — while 60% thought he was atheist/agnostic, and 20% believed he was spiritual. Even though, like Jimmy and Chase, he’s photographed outdoors, certain hipster signifiers (not looking at the camera, long hair, mandolin) negate that reading.

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Thinkstock / BuzzFeed

When a profile includes obvious signifiers of religious belief, however, the reading process becomes more complicated. Thirty percent swiped “yes” on Kate, and despite signifiers that many interpreted as hipster, many signaled the cross around her neck as indicative of Christianity. A white, bisexual respondent wrote, “I don’t date people serious about their religion”; a gay Hispanic woman called the cross “a huge turn off”; and one who identified as mixed race and straight thought she seemed “a bit arts-y and sanctimonious (spiritual).”

That said, perceived religiousness is not an automatic “no.” Take Johanna, who had an overall yes rate of 64%:

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Thinkstock / BuzzFeed

Eighty-seven percent of users read her as Muslim. The reasons for swiping “no” were almost entirely contingent on her perceived religion and its cultural extrapolations: A white male said, “I wouldn’t want to deal with cultural differences in the bedroom”; a gay Hispanic user said, “I have no patience for religious people. She’s hot, but sadly religion is the biggest turn off for me.”

Overall, however, Johanna had an excellent Tinder swipe-yes rate (58% of straight men, 75% of bi men or women, and 78% of gay women).

Johanna signifies as religious, but unlike Jimmy, Junior, or Conor, she also signifies as middle- or upper-class (71%/26%) and college- or graduate school-educated (64%/26%). Like Chase and Jimmy, she’s photographed outside, but she wears a women’s suit jacket. Even those who swiped “no” on her profile for religious reasons conceded that “she is very cute” and “she’s hot.”

Religion — even religion that would likely preclude a successful relationship — seems to matter less when the subject seems to belong to a higher class and educational level (especially if that subject is gorgeous).

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Via Jenny Chang / BuzzFeed

Let’s examine Dave, one of the lowest-scoring male profiles. It’s an ambiguous profile — there are four men, and no sign as to which one is “Dave” — but that’s also the case with many Tinder profiles. But the rage directed at Dave wasn’t primarily due to the inclusion of his friends in the shot. Rather, it was his apparent privilege — communicated via the golf course, the uniform whiteness of himself and his friends, and the apparent gall to use a golfing photo as one’s profile picture — that led respondents to say the following.

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Thinkstock / BuzzFeed

It was bad. Like, really bad:

“NO NEVER IN A MILLION GODDAMN YEARS. This privileged fuck, first of all, which one is he? Does it even matter? No, because all polo shirts are interchangeable.” –bi/white

For the record, not interested in any of those white frat boys in that picture.” –straight/Asian

“I can’t tell which of these four dudes he is, but I don’t want to date The Man.” –bi/white

“they all look like finance bros which might be the worst subcategory of bro.” –straight/white

“Not sure which one of these guys is Dave, but that doesn’t matter, because they all seem like Republican d-bags. Also: Pleated khakis? No.” –gay/white

“SO WHITE” –queer/Asian

“golf. overabundance of white dudes. who is Dave? Dave is legion. a legion of golf-playing white dude demons.” –pansexual/white

Dave scanned as well-educated (71% believed he’d finished college; 20% thought he’d finished grad school) and definitively upper-class (73% believed as much, the highest of any profile). But unlike other white men of higher class and education level, users also overwhelmingly read him as Christian: a whopping 79%. (Compare with Kieran, another white, well-educated male, whom 64% of users read as agnostic/atheist.) Respondents read Dave’s hobby and whiteness as indicative not only of wealthy, but Conservatism — which is often associated, explicitly and implicitly, with Christianity.

Dave demonstrates how Tinder’s lack of information forces assumptions from its swipers, which is is a perfect example of what makes Tinder so unique and perfect for this experiment. On OkCupid or Match, there would be clear markers of one’s political views. But on Tinder, you have only the presence of a pair of pleated khaki pants to tell you if the person is, say, conservative, “a douche,” and thus unattractive.

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BuzzFeed

No one wants to believe their attractions are racist, or classist, or otherwise discriminatory. We use elaborate phrasing to cover it up or explain it away, but it’s still there, even if not always to the profile’s detriment. The fact that the two profiles with the highest swipe-yes rate were both people of color seems to suggest something about shifting understandings about attractiveness, which makes sense given our respondents (overwhelmingly middle-class, largely white, and mostly urban and suburban denizens of the internet).

But “what we find attractive” appears to be far less about someone’s face and far more about the signs that surround that face. Think, for example, if a woman like Marit, pictured below, had the cheap highlights and unfixed teeth and name of Crystal?

Thinkstock / BuzzFeed

Thinkstock / BuzzFeed

  Though still anecdotal, Tinder rejection in this simulation appears to be more about class than race or religion. If a user self-identified as upper-middle-class and identified the male profile before him or her as “working-class,” that user swiped “yes” only 13% of the time; if they identified themselves as lower-middle-class, the swipe rate rose only slightly to 17%.

If those same users identified the profile before them as middle-class, that number rose to 36% and 39%, respectively. The same trend held true when judging female profiles: If the user identified as upper-middle-class and identified a profile as working-class, the yes rate was 26% — compared with 52% if they identified a profile as middle-class.

Whatever the signs that made someone think that a profile was working-class — McKenzie’s fishing pole, Renee’s dye job and pool pose, Ricky’s tattoos and piercings, John’s tank top, Toby’s camo, Jimmy’s truck — the swipe rates plummeted.

Which isn’t to suggest that poor people are ugly. The vast majority of explanations for the no swipes on all of the above profiles pointed to a perceived lack of common interests: “we’d have nothing to talk about,” “I don’t think our politics would mix,” “nothing in common.” Sometimes those assumptions stem from depicted activities — fishing, body modifications — but some are just the way the mind runs wild with class, weaving the narrative that a working-class person probably doesn’t read books for pleasure, or enjoy art cinema, or seek out microbrews, or go on hikes the way a bourgeois, middle-class person does.

Now, the results of a small sample-size Tinder simulation doesn’t mean that we’re all destined to marry within only our own classes. Data on the tendency to marry within one’s class is difficult to come by, but if relying on education level as an (imperfect) proxy for class, then the rate has decreased dramatically over the 50 years. Even as more and more people marry “across” lines of race and religion, fewer and fewer are willing to cross the education/class line.

Tinder is by no means the cause of this decline. It simply encourages and quietly normalizes the assumptions that undergird it. The Tinderspeak of “we’d have nothing in common,” taken to its natural extension, bolsters and reifies the idea of “two Americas” with distinct values and worldviews, two discrete factions with little impetus to support that which doesn’t necessarily personally affect us or our class.

It’s not as if race and religion aren’t still mitigating factors in our decisions about whom we find attractive, with whom we emphasize, or for whom we feel compassion. Race and religion do matter (and might always), but almost only when they intersect with a class identity that isn’t our own.

Ultimately, this admittedly un-randomized sample seems to suggest that the raw idea of attraction — that knee-jerk “thinking from the genitals” decision — has less to do with our unmentionable parts and much more to do with a combination of our deepest subconscious biases and with our most overt and uncharitable personal politics. And if that’s the case, it’s no doubt the reason why Tinder is so popular, addictive, and ultimately insidious.

Read more: http://www.buzzfeed.com/annehelenpetersen/we-are-all-classists

[better-than-sleeping]

A Friend in the Walls

Uh, where was my body hidden again? ...The basement? Or was it attic? One of those two, but I avoid going in either, for obvious reasons. I mean, very few people want to see their own corpse and I definitely don’t fall into that category.

It’s fun to drop in on people, see how they’re doing. It keeps me from getting bored and I think I’m kind of lucky in a way, that I exist somewhere with lots of people. Don’t worry though! I know what you’re probably thinking- “hey, if ghosts are real then what if they’ve seen me naked? Or taking a dump!?” Or maybe that’s just what I’d be thinking if I were in your situation. I try my best to give everyone their privacy when it comes to stuff like pooping or getting changed, though I can’t vouch for ALL ghosts, so you should probably stay on your toes. You might have some kind of toilet voyeur with you.

Anyway, when you’re a spirit your whole existence is kinda bitter sweet, with most of that sweetness coming from the people around you. Which is why I want to tell you about them. My residents.

On the top floor is Mr Archman who’s in his thirties (or forties maybe) and all I’d ever hear from his apartment was bang, bang, bang like some loud-ass metronome. I don’t know how long I’ve been gone for, but he still hasn’t stopped his constant hammering, so of course that’s the first place I check out when I realised I could go just about anywhere in the building. And you know what he was doing? Putting up pictures. The walls are almost completely covered with framed photographs and the main theme seems to be “old”. Every one of them is a black and white picture of people; people standing in groups, on the beach, in singles, pairs, any combination or place really. But there’s always people. They don’t have to be smiling or looking at the camera- so long as there’s a person, it seems to be good enough for Mr Archmans’ wall. None of the pictures are of his family.

I wonder what he’ll do when he runs out of space?

Honestly, whenever he’s putting another nail in the wall, a part of me hopes the next picture will be a new one. One of him at a party or something. Sometimes his mouth makes this small straight line, the hammering gets harder- bang, BANG, BANG – and then it all leaves him at once. He’s just left with a blank look in his eyes.

This was why I started to make tea for him, I mean, I can’t get my hands corporeal for long enough to actually MAKE the tea yet, but I get out his favourite mug and put the kettle on. The sound of it turning off snaps him out of it and nowadays he isn’t even confused about whether he switched it on or not. I feel a bit better about myself when I see the calm look on his face.

Today I just watch him for a while like a creep, then when he’s done putting up another frame he vanishes into his bedroom before reappearing briefly on his way out the door. And so I’m left alone without really feeling alone. Being in his flat is kind of like standing in front of a crowd of people, most of whom are silently staring at you. So basically a nightmare, huh?  

I leave pretty quickly.

*

Next floor down is Ms Ward and her baby Matthew. She argues with Mr Archman about the noise a lot, since it wakes up the baby who’ll cry and cry without stopping. Poor thing. Both of them. She must drop the baby off somewhere then pick him up after work and its gone 8pm by the time they get back and her nails aren’t even there anymore, she’s bitten them into dust.

Despite the fog of worry that seems to hang around the place, I do enjoy this floor. Matthew- he’s the only one who’s looked at me since I left, the only person who can see me. Granted, when I first came to visit I think I frightened him a bit, I don’t really know what I look like to him, so maybe I’m all dark and ghosty and child-frightening now. After a few visits he was more comfortable around me though, which is why I started to take the liberty of calming him down when he has one of his cry-a-thons. Ol’ Matty can’t be picked up by me since he’s alive, the most I can do is rock his cradle a bit. Ms Ward walked in on me doing it once which must have looked like some real horror movie shit. I almost found it funny, but couldn’t really bring myself to do a ghost laugh with her making that face. She’s one of the two who’re certain the place is haunted. Ha. Now I feel kinda guilty remembering how on edge she must feel with me around. I wanted to disappear when I saw that look on her face… but that was a while ago now. I think that it’s worth being here if I can make peoples’ lives a bit easier.

No good ideas on getting her to think I’m friendly so far- I had the terrible idea of drawing a smiley face on the mirror while she was in the shower, but the condensation made it look like it was crying and bleeding from the mouth, so I rather hastily wiped it off before she could be traumatised any further.

She actually has more in common with Mr Archman than they know because her place is packed with books on every possible surface. They’re stacked all over the floor too, so they make a mini woodland pathway through her home, and I can’t wait to start hacking my way into them! Slowly I’m getting better at holding things, so once I can start reading that’ll be an instant tonic for boredom. Sleep isn’t really a thing for me, so it gets super tedious once everyone’s gone to bed. Ms Ward has a bunch of different genres, but her collection is mostly what I’m assuming is her favourite- thriller mysteries.

Wait, shouldn’t she be a bit more desensitised to creepy stuff if that’s what she’s always got her nose in? Or maybe that’s WHY she’s so tense- most of the books have some frankly unsettling covers. You can’t shift your gaze without it landing on a detective being garrotted or something.

When I drop in today they aren’t at home, so instead I spend about half an hour trying to pick up a book and turn the page. “Why did you take half an hour for something so simple” you may ask. Well have you ever tried to pick up something that’s just COVERED in butter? It’s kinda like that, but your hands keep shifting through planes of existence. If I still had blood vessels, I’d have a headache right now. Ugh.

Next floor!

*

Oooo, this ones Ada’s apartment, I can’t wait to tell you about her! She’s pretty old, constantly playing records of Nat King Cole, Etta James and the like. It gives quite a relaxing atmosphere really, and her place is a mix of standard old people furnishings- (she has textured wallpaper! My grandparents had some before they modernised their house, it reminds me of them)- and new age religious stuff. When I say new age I mean, like, tarot cards and crystals ‘n’ stuff so I guess she’s not that typical of an old person. More of a 50/50 split. So, Ada has these two cats (who never seem to get any more comfortable around me but whatever) that I feed whenever she forgets to. I could never leave a kitty to go hungry, even if it hisses and puffs up at me because I’m an abomination. I won’t give up on them though! Bertie only hissed at me twice when I last visited!

The majority of the time I’m down here, she’ll be chatting on the phone to a friend about her day or laughing along with the telly, and it’s good to know at least someone in this building has a social life. I get jealous, and then I just get sad because I think “is that what I could have been like?” God knows I wasn’t a social butterfly before, but what if they’d just given me time to grow into my skin? Why was that so hard?

Um, yeah… anyway. She spoke to me. One day I was standing next to her chair, she had a cat on her lap, watching tv and she goes “do you want me to change the channel?” At first I think, Ada, cats don’t care about what’s on tv, they just want to sleep and nock things off your counter.  But then she says “I know someone’s there, you come here often don’t you?” I couldn’t reply, so just waited for her to continue. “You can watch tv here whenever you like, ok?” And from then on she’s never turned off the tv when she leaves the house and when I’m standing next to her chair she says random stuff, telling me about what’s gone on in the news, how she’s feeling. It’s nice. I hadn’t felt that kind of calm belonging for a while and I desperately needed it.

Quite a while goes by as I watch tv, or more accurately, stare at the screen while I think about what I’ve been wanting to do for some time now. The cats get fed their bi weekly ‘stop hating me’ treat and I stare at the fridge magnets for the tenth time. How cliché it would be…to leave a message.

Surely she remembered talking to me when we would run into each other? Surely.

Maybe I could’ve been found by now. But no one came.

Let’s move on.

*

This one’s my old place, recently housing a new couple. Dear Sadie and Margot, I can’t really hold it against ya. It’s probably the least cockroach infested flat they have at such a low cost, so enjoy I guess. Well maybe I am a bit annoyed, but I know it’s not realistic that it should stay empty forever just because I used to live there. That’s dumb. It’s like I’m expecting the world to feel sorry for me when really it’s the world who did this to me in the first place. Not their fault. The couple that is. I’m more than happy to fling my petty feelings at some vague representation of the forces that cause things to happen.

They haven’t been here for long, so I don’t know much about them yet, except they’re loud and probably students, and they loooove each other! Also, they’re constantly jawing about something; how do they find SO much shit to talk about!? The room is sparsely furnished, but two thirds of it is filled with their noise. I suppose it’s kinda sweet though, the way they look at each other.

There isn’t anything I do for them. They have each other.

When it’s night time and they’re finally quiet, sneaking glances at each other, or when Ada says something kind and quiet, when Matthew smiles at me, when Mr Archman drinks his tea with a look of peace- that’s the closest to feeling alive I can get. But the feeling of living isn’t an entirely good one. There’s this awful burning that comes with it- I’m lovesick, in the sense that I am sick of their love. I’m sick of everything that keeps me from rest.

I don’t stay long on this floor and my presence isn’t felt by them.

*

The ground floor is another place I don’t tend to stay long in. The woman who owns it is in her 40s and lives by herself. I didn’t know anything about her while I was alive, we never talked, and I only know slightly more than nothing now I have unlimited access to the flat. She leaves early, comes home late, makes dinner, watches tv, goes to sleep…and that’s all. Her standard Ikea furniture gives away nothing. She receives no phone calls. The only thing I can guess about her life outside the apartment is that she has a daughter. On her bedside table is the only framed picture she has, one of her standing with a young woman holding a diploma. The picture itself is an odd length and stops abruptly to the right so it doesn’t quite fill the frame. Like I said, there’s usually no reason to come down here most of the time, but today I heard something out of the ordinary- a woman’s voice. I could tell that she was on the phone since she was the only person I could hear and my interest was piqued (I’m nosy).

The moment I decided to drop down into the room was where it all started to go wrong.

“What are you talking about?...No…I’m afraid I don’t…but she’s only 25! She CAN’T be…” and then, without ceremony, she ended the call. And so her face began to crack. Slowly at first, her eyes were fixed on the middle distance and that seemed to hold it back, like she needed to be fully present in the moment before she could cry. And the crying wasn’t loud and open like Matthews, she hunched over on the sofa and pressed two white-knuckled fists to her eyes, breath stuttering awkwardly through her nose. That was what really made me sad, she couldn’t even cry shamelessly in her own flat.

I know she couldn’t tell I was watching, but I’m very aware that my presence now counts as a violation of privacy by definition and that had me torn between staying or leaving. If it were me, I’d be horrified to find out someone had been watching me cry, I’d just hate that shit! But on the other hand… watching her cry made me feel sadder than I’ve been capable of feeling in a long time. The expression on her face was so raw I felt almost embarrassed to look and each shudder of her shoulders was a punch to the gut. It’s selfish to think this way, but was that how my mother looked when she found out? Did your face crumble in the same way? Could you even cry at all mum?

It was starting to get unbearable, our feelings building in a loop of positive feedback until she was howling and I was ready to break apart. I felt I had to do this now, I had to comfort her the way I wanted to comfort my own mother, tell her it’s alright. That it doesn’t hurt because I don’t remember. Before I know it I’m sitting on the sofa, my hand is solid and resting on her shoulder.

“What the fuck?” She looks around, confused but distracted in the way people get when interrupted from trying to cry out all their feelings. My hand doesn’t move and neither does she. Tentatively her own hand reaches up, and stops when it reaches my own. “Oh my god…oh my god, Hayley?”

I squeeze her shoulder.

“Hayley…Hayley…” A few more times she repeats the name between sobs, sliding off the sofa and onto her knees.

I try my best to remain corporeal as she rests her head on my lap.

“I’m sorry!” Is the last thing she says before she’s crying too hard to talk.

My form only lasts a few minutes before her head passes through me onto the sofa cushion.

I make my way toward the door, unable to comfort her any longer.

*

Times like these, I feel like I should be taking a pull on a hipflask or something, y’know? But then again, I was always real careful to not be a problem drinker when I was alive, if only to spite family tradition. Not like it’s even possible anymore either.

I’ve been thinking about Ada and using my words for a while, but I didn’t want to burden her with any... unpleasant thoughts. For a while I had myself convinced that this might be enough- but it isn’t- and that they need me- but they don’t.

Losing the big things that come with being alive hurts the most, like eating or being with friends, but do you know how weird it is- to stand close to a window on a cold day and notice the glass doesn’t fog up? Or to have the perfect joke for the tv program you’re watching, but you can’t share it? It’s a sneaky kind of loss. Not only have the small privileges that come with being alive been taken away, but their absence reminds you that you’re DEAD, over and over so you can’t forget. Bastards.

The only upside to being a ghost is you can afford to just sit in a grimy, tin can stairwell and let yourself feel. I’ve had plenty of time to feel contemplative without really thinking. “Thinking can come later” I told myself, but the thoughts have already been and gone.

I stand and make my way to Ada’s kitchen.

I push the colourful alphabet magnets into a recognisable order.

“It’s Alice” they say.