#i finished this a while ago but never posted it because of the AI shit

[arthrobug]

Bullfrog but in a pretty fit someone in the CLH server suggested

[aihoshiino]

Hi there! This is from an ask from quite a while ago. I sent it before but I think Tumblr ate it once again.

"Honestly Ai's relationship with like, sex and intimacy and sex in the context of a loving relationship being healing and reclaiming for her is one of those things I have so much fun writing in the context of RP and stuff but if I continued rambling about it here I would go on all day lol and this post is already so long. IN ANOTHER ASK, PERHAPS ……."

I would like to hear your thoughts and ramblings about this please 人´∀｀)

THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATIENCE ANON… I've been sitting on this ask for so long and I've had so many half finished responses to it written up kgjhhsfkg This is just one of those topics where I have so much to say every time I tried to start I got overwhelmed and didn't know where to start�� BUT WE'RE SO BACK…!!!

(Also, this is basically part 2/a follow up to this post if anyone wants/needs some extra context)

Honestly Ai's relationship to sex and the role it plays in her character arc is one of the most fascinating parts of Oshi no Ko to me and I'm always really surprised that it basically never comes up in fandom discussions surrounding her? Part of that is just folks wanting to talk about/speculate more on the characters who are alive and present in the series (or have ship wars about them) but even when people DO go back and talk about her it tends to be kind of surface level or just, the worst takes you've ever seen in your life (if I never have to see another Secretly Evil Ai theory it will be too soon) but like… the sex stuff is also pretty surface level! That friction between Ai of B-Komachi's assumed obligate virginal purity and the reality of Ai Hoshino as a person who has had and desires sex basically IS the entire premise of the series. It's the core conflict around which so much of everything else revolves - it's the reason the twins have to keep quiet on their connection to her and moreover, it's the reason she dies. But honestly given how this fandom gets about sex sometimes maybe that's a blessing in disguise lol

It is SO refreshing to have a lead heroine like Ai, though - like I said, the reality of her as a person who has had Probably A Lot Of Sex is pretty much the premise of the series and at no point does the narrative ever take on a shaming tone towards her. Hell, the explicitly stated thesis of the story is that it's everyone who has a problem with this who should be ashamed. Gotanda literally says it himself - Ai's tragedy is the fault of the people who refused to accept her as the hurting, broken, dirty and impure person that the real her was.

In fact, the series is shockingly respectful of Ai and her body in general. This is very much a "the bar is in hell" moment but I'm so used to anime taking every opportunity it can get for lowbrow cumbrained fanservice that the series just being, like, normal about Ai was a breath of fresh fucking air. It's so easy to imagine an infinitely worse version of the series that uses Aqua's access to her body (as both Gorou and Aqua) to frame and leer at her in some really repulsive ways, but it literally never happens. It's one of those things the first chapter/episode does that earns it a lot of goodwill in the long run which it does honestly need lol. The initial premise of the series asks a lot of the viewer, especially given that Mushoku Tensei exists and very much does use the protagonist's plausibly deniable access to the bodies of women and girls around him for some truly putrid and degrading shit. BUT BACK TO MY ACTUAL POINT…

That pointed absence of shaming in the narrative is why it stands out to me so strongly when Ai does direct this kind of shaming language towards herself. Ai engages in a lot of negative self-talk in general because of how utterly pants her self-esteem is, but it's never quite as pointed as in these circumstances. Her death scene is honestly the best and most heartbreaking example of it - the anime trims a few slivers from it to the benefit of the scene as a whole imo, but it does retain the most important line:

But there's another part from slightly earlier on that didn't make it into the anime that equally breaks my heart:

All that Ai refutes of Ryosuke's words is his conclusion that she never cared about her fans. In other words, when Ryosuke slings slutshaming misogyny at her, Ai agrees with him.

And like… why wouldn't she? Society at large already has very strong opinions about women who have and enjoy sex and Ai is an idol - that's purity culture on Berserk Eclipse Difficulty. To make matters worse, Ai's entire life has been defined by her being denied the right to control her own body or being blamed for the way other people respond to it. Not only was Ayumi physically and emotionally abusive towards her for basically her whole life, but she also victim blamed her when her stepfather turned out to have a inappropriate interest in her. Even when she was literally a child, she was not allowed to simply exist without being subjected to other people's gaze and objectification.

It's also worth noting that the abuse Ai grew up experiencing - Ayumi's violence and neglect and living with the possibility of sexual assault at her stepfather's hands - are all things that can contribute to hypersexuality in puberty or at the very least, being prematurely sexually active and/or partaking in risky sexual behaviour and I think all of these are true for Ai as well, to varying degrees. My read has always been that the twins' father was not her first or only sexual partner (though he was her last) and I think this is something the work itself supports as well - Akane identifies Ai as having behavioral issues typical of someone who began having sex during puberty (and she does specifically say 'puberty' in Japanese, not just 'as a teen') but that this behaviour mostly tapered off by the time she was 15 and credits it by inference to Kamiki. So obviously, if the 'unbalanced behaviour' as the result of sex predates her meeting Kamiki… you know?

I also just personally find that a more compelling read of Ai for a variety of reasons - and it just sort of makes sense to me, to imagine her as this girl desperately trying to figure out how to love people, wanting to connect with people but not knowing how to do it, someone defined by the ways she contorts herself to respond to the dirty desires of the people around her… idk, it just feels Correct to me in light of everything to assume that she went through a few boyfriends before Kamiki, all relationships that went very fast, escalated to intimacy at light speed then just sort of fell apart after. And we know from what Ayumi admitted - and from some of the things Ai has said - that Ayumi absolutely was slutshaming and victim blaming Ai when she was in her care. So much of what Ayumi did to her forms the foundation of the present day Ai's self-loathing and self-image issues, so I imagine she felt a lot of prebaked guilt and shame when she did actually start having sex, especially at a young age and outside the bounds of a what society regards as an acceptable circumstance for a girl to be having sex. So add idol culture on top of all that, and…

I don't think Ai's relationship with sex is necessarily the main issue she struggles with but it does feed off and into a lot of the other things that cause her pain and being able to untangle that would represent an earthshattering breakthrough for her. This is why it's so important that Oshi no Ko never ones tries to debunk or disprove Ai's assertion that she is 'impure' or 'dirty' and why I do not think a positive character arc for her could never come from someone trying to convince her that she isn't. Because that doesn't actually disprove anything - it still frames purity and virginity as a state of grace that can be fallen from and reinforces Ai's view of herself that she only has value, that she only deserves to be treated with respect so long as she's still 'pure'. Even if you could convince her that she's 'pure', she would inevitably be stained again and hate herself all the more for it. The only way out is to break out of this method of thinking altogether, to realize that 'purity' and 'impurity' don't mean anything - and more importantly, that even though she is dirty, impure and all the rest of it, she is still capable and deserving of loving others and being loved in return.

To quote something I've said before on this topic: "Love, for Ai, is a person seeing her most wretched and unacceptable self, her self hate and avoidance and everything about her she thinks is filthy and wrong, and actively choosing to accept her as she is, warts and all. […] There's this very strong underlying current in Ai's arc of self-directed shame and self-hate in relation to her sexuality that fuels perception of herself as 'dirty' and 'impure' - all because she is a person who wants and enjoys sex. I really enjoy getting to have Ai work through that specific hangup with a partner who loves her - not from the angle of 'of course you're not dirty' but 'even if you are, I want you anyway'."

So much of what hurts Ai is other people refusing to accept 'Ai Hoshino' and even being actively repelled and repulsed by her, choosing instead to believe so fervently in the inhumanly perfect 'Ai of B-Komachi' that they convince themselves the real Ai is just a trick of the light. Sex is basically the ultimate refutation to that - it's someone saying they actively choose the dirty, broken real thing which is what Ai has desperately been searching for her entire life. It's also the inverse of the plastic. sanitized intimacy Ai sells as an idol - rather that pretty lies of love, it's dirty, physical intimacy, something she can do as much for herself as the person with her, something that can only ever be hers as Ai Hoshino because it's antithetical to everything Ai of B-Komachi is.

what i'm saying is: can this girl PLEASE get some good dick. i don't know how much of anything it would fix but it would make her calm down at least a little.

ALL JOKING ASIDE……. thank you again for your patience anon and i'm sorry this was so rambly lKNDKSCXSNDS. like i said up top, this is a topic i have a lot of thoughts on and i wanted to get them all out into this post. i hope this was interesting to read…!

[three--rings]

20 Questions with a Fanfic Author

I was tagged by @chocolatepot

1. How many works on AO3?

107. Some are meta, some are short, but whatever.

2. Total AO3 Word Count?

875,842

3. Top 5 Fics by Kudos

my soul brought to life by you - My MDZS wangxian omegaverse. I don't even know why people like it so much. I mean it's fine but I think its popularity was mostly timing.

pulses that beat double - My Yuri on Ice Victorian AU. Probably my proudest fic since it's the one that is basically the most like a Real Novel.

Fair Play - A wangxian PWP oneshot, the number of kudos are DEFINITELY timing. This was in the height of Post CQL fandom and one of the rare bottom LWJ fics at the time. I don't even remember it.

Temptation's Mask - MDZS Wangxian long smutfic, a camboy AU. I really, really wish I had finished this. I still mean to go back and tack on something.

Beautiful and New - YOI, the second in my Strangers to Love series. That series is probably my favorite stuff I've written. What I think is "best." But yeah this is a high quality fic imo.

4. What fandoms do you write for?

Present tense? None. Been in a real slump for over a year. I commit fic randomly now. Most recently I've been working on adding to my Persona 5 series and I wrote an Arcane oneshot a few months ago.

The only stuff that's been making me want to write for a long while has been Persona 5 though.

5. Do you respond to comments?

I do when I first post a fic. But then I start slacking and eventually every comment I get makes me feel guilty for not writing/updating and I don't want to go look at my inbox so I ignore them until I update again, when I either delete or respond to the old ones if it hasn't been too long.

6. Angstiest Ending?

I don't generally write angst and it's even rarer to have an angsty ending. Probably my Doctor Who oneshot "my body is a cage" is probably the worst. And the first P5 fic I wrote (which is excellent IMO) ends badly cause canon.

7. Fic with the Happiest Ending?

Most of them, if they HAVE endings. Beautiful and New, Pulses that Beat Double, my soul brought to life by you are probably the most happily ever after.

8. Do you get hate?

No. Not for fic. For meta sometimes and for other shit more often.

9. Do you write smut?

That's most of what I write. I've always enjoyed writing smut more than plot and it's still easiest for me. I prefer E-rated fics because they give my brain happy chemicals and that's where the really deep character shit lives, IMO.

10. Do you write crossovers?

Never. I mostly don't read them either.

11. Ever had a fic stolen?

I guess from that whole OFMD racefaker guy. And yanno AI bros.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

I've had several people ask, but I don't give permission unless they only post on AO3, and they usually want to put it on another site.

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic?

No. I'm not collaborative at all with writing. I don't really like even working with beta readers. I hate my own writing enough when I've just done it, if someone criticizes it I might just implode and delete it.

14. All time favorite ship?

I have a list of Forever OTPs. The ones that never go away and always live in my head.

Duncan Macleod/Methos from Highlander

Phoenix Wright/Miles Edgeworth from Ace Attorney

Katsuki Yuuri/Viktor Nikiforov from Yuri on Ice

Wangxian from MDZS

Shuake from Persona 5

A lot of my forever OTPs are for fandoms I wasn't really IN ever. I have Thoughts about why that is, but that's another time.

15. WIPs you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Temptation's Mask, Pretty Follies, Emboîté

I have half a chapter of both the first ones written that was never posted. I really want to do something to resolve them both.

16. Writing strengths?

Smut. And strangely enough as a result action, even though I really don't like READING action or watching action unless it's really great martial arts or anime. So I think I'm pretty good at the...he walks across the floor, sits down, opens the drawer kinda stuff.

I can do heavy emotional conversations but casual bantery stuff is not my strength and takes a lot of work.

17. Writing Weaknesses?

MOST THINGS. Dialogue. Plot. Anything that isn't pure id of emotions or sex.

18. Thoughts on mixed language dialogue?

I don't really have any. I don't love untranslated bits of language from a pure "it breaks the flow cause now I have to copy and paste or whatever". But I definitely believe in using the right word for the thing like using the correct name for things/titles/forms of address instead of an English translation.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

So technically my first ever fanfiction was for the original novels of The Vampire Diaries when I was in middle school and it only existed on notebook paper and was shared between me and my friend. Then Sherlock Holmes (original) in high school, also unpublished online.

My first published to the internet fic was for the show Forever Knight. What a great fandom that was. Too bad that fic got me almost kicked off the fanfic listserv for being Too Adult for the Adult filter and the embarrassment made me ghost the fandom.

20. Favorite fic you’ve ever written?

So I think it had to be either Pulses that Beat Double or the Strangers to Love series, both YOI fics. They really were I guess first successes for me at doing harder things, and written when I was able to write a WHOLE LOT quickly.

I've also got some pretty banging oneshots in smaller fandoms though.

Some faves:

villains that live in my bed - my first P5 fic, the voices are EXCELLENT here and the vibes and everything. It's also SUPER HOT and kinky.

if you want a partner take my hand - Beyond Evil post-canon get together fic. I just like it a lot.

And I can't decide which of my Penumbra Podcast fics, I think at least three of them could go here.

As far as tagging, I don't really know who to even tag I'm so out of touch with who is writing anymore. If you want to do this, say I tagged you.

[jodilin65]

I snored myself awake when I could have used another hour or two of sleep and finally I said, I gotta do something about this shit. Sleep cursed or not, no getting around it or not, I've got to at least try something. So, since it will be a while before I see the next pulmonologist and even longer before and if I can get a mouthguard, I really do have to try to lose a little weight. I didn't have this problem 10 lb ago, although it still seems a hell of a coincidence that as soon as I move to a quieter place where traffic isn't waking me up, I start snoring myself awake. Again, it's like something always wants to fuck with my sleep. At least I wasn't as tired as I normally would be after being shorted on sleep. I really do think the waterbed is helping. It's so much more comfortable. The vitamins help too but I don't want to overdo it so I'm taking them every other day and will see how I feel.

Anyway, Atkins is a bit extreme and not good for people like me, so I'm thinking of going Keto. They recommend 20 to 50 carbs a day instead of just 20 like Atkins. Thanks to AI, I could really get some helpful info on it. Most of it is common sense but it's still nice that I can ask it for a menu plan if I want or if a specific food or drink is acceptable on that diet, what the carbs are, etc. I still don't want to drive myself too crazy with all kinds of restrictions. I also still don't think my body will give up its weight due to a combination of my thyroid, being older, and my body being used to being where it's at but I'm going to make one last-ditch effort along with trying to get help with the two sleep disorders. No matter what the doctor says, everything is up to the insurance company in the end. Never the patient and the doctor which is all wrong but just the way it is. They get the final say whether I like it or not, so if there's anything that can help me that I can't afford that they won't cover, I'm shit outa luck.

Thanks for all the story ideas some of you offered on different sites but I think I'm going to take a break for my story and come back to it later with a fresh mind and see what I want to do with it then. I might work on something a little simpler with a less intricate plot instead.

I was frustrated today because my Temu package arrived in Florida last night but it wasn't transferred to the post office in time to get to me today. Because tomorrow is a holiday, I'll have to wait till Friday.

Here we go with the fireworks again although it hasn't been nearly as bad as I thought it would be… yet. Tomorrow night I expect some chaos, understandably, because it will be the fourth but hopefully, it won't go on and on and on for so many hours. Like anyone really gives a shit about the country's birthday anyway as opposed to making noise to get attention?

I'm finishing up the first of five rides of VZ’s latest challenge which are in France in honor of the upcoming Olympics.

I read that Jordan Chiles almost quit gymnastics because she “didn't think the sport wanted her” because of her race and I’m like, she's kidding, right? After Gabby Douglas, Simone, and other black gymnasts, she really thought that? Some people really see racism in everything and I mean everything, even when it's not really there. It's attitudes like hers that make whites look bad.

Grow up, Jordan, and stop making excuses! If you want to throw your talent away and quit for other reasons, do it. But don't blame whites for why you really want to throw in the towel.

Since I bitched about the famous, how about the infamous? When I read that Susan Smith was up for parole, I couldn't help but ask how the hell someone can drown their two kids and have it shot at parole, even if they're unlikely to get it at first, while Jodi Arias can kill her gaslighting, mindfucking boyfriend (not that he deserved it), and get life with no chance of parole. WTF???