#if you see my posts complaining that a female character deserves more content than her male peers

[reel-fear]

While I won’t deny that misogyny definitely plays a role in it, I also feel like one of the reasons people tend to want to focus more on Blitzwing than on Blackarachnia in fanworks is the same reason people are so obsessed with the secret bosses in Deltarune: the overall mystery surrounding his character.

Blitzwing and Blackarachnia are both unique, one-of-a-kind models, so people are naturally going to have three questions running through their minds upon their debut: what happened to them, what led up to that point, and who they used to be beforehand.

However, despite Blitzwing making more appearances than her, there’s still so little we know about him in comparison with Blackarachnia, who basically has her entire backstory revealed to us in her first spotlight episode. Even the information we do get regarding his past raises more questions than it answers, and that information’s Schrödinger’s canon at best. Fans are naturally drawn towards mysteries, so of course they’re going to be more interested in making content exploring and trying to solve those mysteries rather than just restricting themselves to stuff they already know.

I feel like the writing team showed their cards too early with Blackarachnia and left people with much less of a mystery to play around with other than “is techno-organicness reversible” and “will she cure herself or accept herself for who she is”. I think that maybe if they had had her make more appearances and held off on revealing her backstory until much later, while maybe dropping subtle hints of her knowing Optimus and Sentinel from somewhere and having once been an Autobot, people would feel like they had much more to work with.

(Also, from what I’ve seen, most Blitzwing fans are well aware of the ableist portrayal of his character but are usually neurodivergent themselves and thus have reclaimed him in a sense, alongside portraying him in a much more accurate manner to real-life DID and OSDD in fan works while still acknowledging that he’s an alien robot whose processor is much different from a human brain and thus would logically not be a complete one-to-one regarding analogous disabilities and mental disorders.)

So, I have been admittedly sitting on this ask for while bc it's been hard to digest and fully think about the points being made here. I don't want to get defensive on an impulse so I wanted to kinda stew on it a bit and read it over and over to see how my thoughts change. But really my thoughts are the same as when I first saw it which is most of this? Really just reads as excuses for Blitzwing's popularity that distract from the real causes being sexism and fandom's bias towards conventally attractive characters.

I want to go through this point by point but the TDLR; almost everything said here is also true for other characters who are very much not as popular as Blitzwing usually bc of sexism or not being the kind of characters the fandom cares to pay attention to. Sure you could point out all the things Blitzwing has that BA doesnt and say 'those are the things that make him more popular' but that ignores all the things BA has that Blitzwing doesn't. [Motivation, a personality, complexities, story relevence, she's not a horrible potrayal of the mentally ill, narrative focus etc] That the fandom just pretends don't exist and barely awknowledge, you can't just shy away from the reality that Blitzwing massively benefits from the misogyny present in this fandom because he's ur fave and you like him. That's only being complicit in it and turning a blind eye to it. Sure you could project a lot onto a bland male character and say you like him but you should also keep in mind the female characters who are ACTUALLY complex and interesting characters you tossed to the side to focus on him. I get that you 'awknoledged' the misogny in the first bit of the ask, but when you follow that up with... That it really doesnt come accross as genuine.

Anyways I'm gonna disect this message and talk about why I simply do not buy it.

Firstly

"While I won’t deny that misogyny definitely plays a role in it, I also feel like one of the reasons people tend to want to focus more on Blitzwing than on Blackarachnia in fanworks is the same reason people are so obsessed with the secret bosses in Deltarune: the overall mystery surrounding his character.

Blitzwing and Blackarachnia are both unique, one-of-a-kind models, so people are naturally going to have three questions running through their minds upon their debut: what happened to them, what led up to that point, and who they used to be beforehand."

I'm going to be blunt, this is something SO many characters in TFA have going on. Lugnut is a great example of a character who has way more screentime than Blitzwing [remember Blitzwing disappears by S3 and is replaced by Shockwave as an evil minion but Lugnut stays] but is still almost entirely a mystery in terms of backstory motivation etc. But Lugnut is almost NEVER the center of fan content unless being made to be the butt of the joke and when he does appear hes usually just used as a tool to progress Blitzwing's character, someone to pressure him abt being in the cons, someone to be mean to him, etc.

But Lugnut is an entirely unique design with a helm look no other character has and claws that resemble the ones given to empurata bots in IDW. We don't even know why he hates the autobots so intensely but seeing how fucked up the autobots are in TFA why isn't there more theorizing about what exactly they did to make him need to see their downfall so badly? To the point where Lugnut is constantly at the feet praising someone who he doesn't even know would throw him to the side and leave him for dead the INSTANT it was convient for him.

You could say people don't explore it bc its played as a joke but so is everything about Blitzwing's character, esp his DID which is in increadibly poor taste. No, it's because Lugnut is fat and 'ugly', the fandom has no interest in him, same way they have so little interest in Bulkhead compared to other characters. He's just not hot enough to become the little sexyboy of the fandom. So he's tossed the side same way Bulkhead is. Not to mention characters like Arcee also have a ton of mystery surrounding them but they're women so...

"However, despite Blitzwing making more appearances than her, there’s still so little we know about him in comparison with Blackarachnia, who basically has her entire backstory revealed to us in her first spotlight episode. Even the information we do get regarding his past raises more questions than it answers, and that information’s Schrödinger’s canon at best. Fans are naturally drawn towards mysteries, so of course they’re going to be more interested in making content exploring and trying to solve those mysteries rather than just restricting themselves to stuff they already know.

I feel like the writing team showed their cards too early with Blackarachnia and left people with much less of a mystery to play around with other than “is techno-organicness reversible” and “will she cure herself or accept herself for who she is”. I think that maybe if they had had her make more appearances and held off on revealing her backstory until much later, while maybe dropping subtle hints of her knowing Optimus and Sentinel from somewhere and having once been an Autobot, people would feel like they had much more to work with."

Gonna be honest these paragraphs really piss me off LMAO, BA's mystery goes so much deeper than the two questions provided here such as the fact when trying to cure herself it's almost always potrayed as painful and life THREATENING! The mystery and tension of her character isn't' will she cure herself and can she?' its whether or not she will KILL HERSELF trying to cure her disability. Will she leave the cons? Will she grow to become a better person or keep spiralling down into evil? Fans are drawn to mystery sure but only when that mystery involves a sexy man, when it involved a woman character whose biggest mystery is whether or not her self loathing will kill her, its uninteresting and not worth their time, if they even bother to awknowledge it instead of just making her a scary villain/abuser for their male faves to be sad.

I also have to ask on this point too, fans tend to HEAVILY ignore any canon Blitzwing has either way, nobody awknowledges the bigotry towards organics/techno organics he displays, nor the levels of cruelty so why does canon even really matter in this discussion when as far as fanon is concerned it doesnt? It's excuses. It only matters now bc now people wanna justify the reason BA is a mean evil woman and Blitzwing is a sad puppy boy with so many complexities in fanon without facing the actual reason that is.

And while we're talking about things Blitzwing has that BA doesn't let's talk about all the things BA has that Blitzwing doesn't.

She's not a horrible potrayal of DID

She has complexities to her character beyond being an evil minon for the sake of being evil whose also 'the Crazy one'

She has narrative importance

She got told she should fucking die by one of her friends bc he hated her scarring so much.

She is shown to at least somewhat care for others when she spares Prowl and Bee despite not having gotten her part of the deal.

She has likely faced that sort of bigotry all the time and had to flee her home bc of it.

She has so much mystery behind how she joined the cons, why she joined the cons when they seem to show the same disgust to her as the autobots.

She's an interesting character.

I could go on but I'm not going to. F- on this point.

Now the last point which to me is the most BS

(Also, from what I’ve seen, most Blitzwing fans are well aware of the ableist portrayal of his character but are usually neurodivergent themselves and thus have reclaimed him in a sense, alongside portraying him in a much more accurate manner to real-life DID and OSDD in fan works while still acknowledging that he’s an alien robot whose processor is much different from a human brain and thus would logically not be a complete one-to-one regarding analogous disabilities and mental disorders.)

this is just not fucking true, 99% of content of Blitzwing I have seen either has people declaring him good rep [I have seen this several times] or is just talking about how sexy he is, its very very rare the horrible potrayal of his disability is awknowledged. Hell Blitzbee has such a deathgrip on the fandom and one of the nicknames Bee constantly uses in that content is BLITZBRAIN, literally making fun of his disability more. Not to mention how much of it is purposely making the scary disabled character scary on purpose. I'm not saying you cant enjoy or consume that content but you seriously have to be dumb to think the fandom is aware of or cares about this issue.

Also on the 'making him more accurate' I've never seen fanon do this truly and honestly. Where is the childhood truama? The awknowledgement that DID doesn't work the way Blitzwing shows it? I almost never see any fan content that wasn't just copying what TFA potrayed with him. Where are you finding this?

And lastly you can't just say youve 'Reclaimed' something and suddenly its okay, Hasbro knows how much this fandom loves TFA Blitzwing, you guys spend money on him you praise him you dont talk about how bad rep he is. If Hasbro rereleased TFA Blitzwing right now so many fans would flock to get him not even thinking about the fact THAT ENCOURAGES HASBRO TO THINK THAT THIS POTRAYAL OF THE MENTALLY ILL IS OKAY. This is just an excuse to consume content of Blitzwing uncritically to produce content of him uncritically! What about all the times DID swag polls esp ones involving good rep for them INCLUDED BLITZWING?? Did the runners of those who might not even know what TFA is say it was okay to send in a character who is clearly a mean spirited potrayal of them?? You can't just say Blitzwing is reclaimed and therefore its okay, you guys haven't even properly awknowledged all the things wrong with his character being a horrible potrayal of DID enough to get the sense to not fucking submit him into polls abt it. Let alone to produce half decent content of him.

Anyways thats it, I dont mean any of this aggression directly towards you anon, writing and posting a bad opinion on the internet does not justify harassment or hatred, but I dont feel a need to pull my punches when the fandom has been justifying this for so long, therefore. I didn't. I said what I thought of this message and if others agree then maybe I have a point.

Either way this is a discussion long Long overdue so Im putting this in the tags bc I think this fandom seriously needs a wake up call.

[annah-kitathryne]

Queer Tim, concerns I have for the fandom and DC

Okay there is so much I could complain about with DC and the writers and how they do so much wrong, and how I know at least 100 other people on Tumblr and Ao3 that could write a better DC universe.

There is so much racism, sexism, ableism, and so many others that I could spend hours naming and explaining, but I want to bring up a concern I have.

With DC finally accepting more LGBTQ+ community characters and making cannon I just have some concerns especially when I have seen the ship wars and have been kicked from fan groups for this opinion.

I'll use Tim coming out as Queer. [I'm not sure if he is explicitly stated if he is Bi or Pan, I personally belive in Bi tim, but I'm open to opinions.]

I'm worried that DC specifically the writers will use this as a one off for attention, but it will be forgotten in comics in a year after DC decides they want to move on with other storylines.

That is a problem in of itself that has happened before [seen with Diana and others <you can name examples but I want to get to my points.>]

That in of itself is concerning because Bisexual erasure is a huge problem that not many people want to address that and there are a lot of microagressions that happen, and when it is addressed it hasn't been taken well. [Bisexual male presenting are treated as if being Bi is just a step to 'becoming gay.' That they will do it eventually 'because they are just scared of coming out.' Bisexual female presenting are treated as Sl*** and men like to *use their behavior to get more girls* not to mention the expectation that Bi female presenting are often put with the expectation of *being down for a threesome.* And the general Bi problem of <They just want attention.> <What one gender wasn't enough.> <Your just experimenting your not really Bi.> <No one is really Bi, your probably just acting out.>]

Not to mention that some people from within the LGBTQ community also throw hate onto Bis and some have even tried to remove Bis from the community.

Moving on from that. There is also the idea that the fandom has issues with ships. I'm not saying don't ship, but I'm saying there is a line between shipping and enjoying the community, and actively becoming more of a problem to people trying to enjoy content and creators.

I know a fan favourite Tim ship is TimKon. For anyone who is new to DC [because I know navigating a new fandom can be hard.] Kon is a clone created by Lex Luthor using both Superman's and Lex's DNA. He was the superboy of the 90s and 00s. (A major simplification but a quick summary.)

Some people ship them in a completely harmless way of 'they have a good dynamic and chemistry.' They could see them together, would prefer them together, but if other relationships happen it won't be the end of the world because as long as those relationships are handled well and the creators don't mess up the ship isn't hurting anyone.

And than there is the people who will die on the hill of a ship and will turn one less than completely supportive comment into a declaration of war. [And to be clear I'm not hating on those people, I used to be one back when I first started being part of fandoms, but it was unhealthy and creepy.]

Some TimKon shippers <I know they have calmed down but they are still there> wanted to remove Stephanie completely from DC because she was dating Tim, or they completely ruin her character in content they write.

Here is a quick example of what I mean.

Stephanie is now emotionally hurting Tim, or Tim is being trapped into the relationship

Tim contacts his young justice or teen titans [depending on continuity or what the author does.] And Tim realizes he was gay just pretending and starts dating Kon.

A bunch of unnecessary drama used only to ensure that we see Kon as the good guy.

[And bonus if the fic has unnecessary smut.]

Stephanie is a sweet determined kind wonderful character who is a badass in her own right [and deserves her own post I'll do later.] She would never do that to Tim. The two may not have had the most healthy of a relationship back in the 00s but they wouldn't go out of their way to hurt the other like that. Before dating they are good and sometimes portrayed as best friends.

Tim is not a weak owo boy who is in need of protecting. He is a vigilante, a detective, and his own type of badass. He would put his own life down before someone else could get hurt especially someone he cares about. He is smart and just knows things.

These works of fiction are a betrayal to the characters and even though DC writers mess up [more like kill and than burn in the sun] characters we should know better as a fandom.

The idea of 'realizing I'm gay after a toxic relationship' while has happened and is not our of the relm of possibilities goes against cannon [and most of us like to ignore cannon because I could point you to POC misrepresentation] you can't ignore how much Tim and Steph care about eachother [in their sometimes too overprotective, misguided and worried way.] They did love eachother, and sometimes to those of us who are Bi, Omni, Pan, Polysexual and many other under the Bi/Pan umbrella can come off as disregarding and refusing to acknowledge the idea that there is more than Straight, Gay, and Lesbian.

Not to mention that in most if not ALL fandoms you see ships that are used just to write smut. I'm not saying you can't write it, do as you please, but there is a fine line between having it within a story or be a story and on the same level of creepy as 'straight men fetishizing Lesbian couples and female'.

I've seen it happen with TimKon. [Which also is creepy because most of the time they are still teenagers]

Moving onto my next point with this is using the Bisexual identity or others within umbrella terms as a way just to get the ship to work, or using it to get attention.

IE making a character Bi in order for there to be a plot device of the couple getting together, and only acknowledging it within the terms of a Same gender, or not hetero format.

You see it happen in first where a charcter will break up another character because they are Bi and than next chapter bam new relationship.

You also see that some people refuse to acknowledge someone as bi when they are in a straight presenting relationship.

I'm glad DC didn't make Tim and Kon come out at the same time as it would only make this problem worse. I'm not saying some of the writers make the best choice (because they clearly don't.) But having previous stated statement happen would only cause a push back to fixing this problem.

I know there are much more high priority things that should be addressed [sexism, racism, mischaracterization, bad authors] but this is also something I hold dear as someone part of the Bi umbrella. [If curious because I know someone would take this as a way to tear it down I'm Biromantic.]

I'm hoping DC going forward will handle Bisexual characters and any of our umbrella buddies properly.

💖💜💙 💖💜💙 💖💜💙

[stilinskitpose]

Pining over him // Peter Hale

Pairing: Peter Hale x female reader

Warnings: nsfw , smut , slight daddy kink, hair pulling, choking, unprotected sex, tonnnn of dirty talk and just a lot of sexy sin (plotless kind of)

Characters: Peter, Derek, Stiles, Scott, implies pack, y/n

Summery: The young reader has been fantasising about the feeling of being with a real man for a while now, a real man being no other than the notorious Peter Hale. However, it’s hard to be taken seriously when Peter thinks you are no more than an annoying little teenage girl.

Word Count: lost count it’s a ton

Authors Note: This is my first time posting on tumblr, let alone posting a smut imagine soooo I don’t know how this will turn out. I’m just going with the flow of my hormonal teenage instincts ;)

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“Y/n, did you even listen to a word that I just said?”

The deepness of the voice made you snap out of you staring at the entertaining spider that was crawling up the corner wall of Dereks loft, which caused you to jump suddenly on your squished position on the coach, trapped between two clowns, Scott and Stiles.

The quiet yelp you let out made Stiles stiffle a snort causing you to elbow him in the shoulder. The fucker deserved that. You let out a content sigh and an evil smile when you heard a sound of pain from your annoying brother from another mother. What can I say, the pain he feels makes me wither in complete pleasure. I snort at my chain of thoughts and look up to see a confused Derek Hale.

"Yeah sorry, I was just-", Trailing off mid sentence thinking of a viable reason for not listening to the former Alpha. Thinking it would be funny to tell them about the entertaining spider that just crawled under the crack of the wall on the other side of the spacious loft.

“There was a spider” You answer timidly, grimacing at yourself for sounding so stupid in the room full of your pack. Derek looks at you quizzingly, you giving him the most innocent look you could muster, he sighs before letting a small smile come across his features from your utter randomness.

“I was just telling you how we need to keep you somewhere safe incase the Darach decides to pay you a visit” Derek says quickly, you sigh in annoyance hating being treated like a defenceless little girl. You understood that you weren’t anything supernatural or anything but you would think Derek would have a little faith in you since you were so handy with a frying pan from being in a near death experience with the twin Alphas not so long ago. You chuckle subconsciously at the memory.

A mutter of agreements are heard from around the loft from your oh so fellow pack members. Betrayed and defeated, you try voice your opinion on the matter.

“What? No” You probably looked like a kicked puppy. You definatly felt like one. You continued “I’m not some helpless human Derek. Stiles is more helpless than me!” You whine flicking Stiles in the head which he repeated the action harder on me causing me to poke him in the ribs.

“Why has this suddenly turned into bash Stiles day? You know I have feelings too” Stiles offendingly says, his arms spazzing at his sides to try and prove his point.

“When am I ever nice to you” you scoff jokingly earning a chuckle in agreement from him before he went back to listening to the arguement infront of him wishing he had a bowl of popcorn to go along with it.

Derek ignores Stiles and resumes telling me that it’s for my own good. Blah blah.

“Where will I even go anyway? It’s not like I have a line of people waiting to protect me from the looming and pending doom of death itself” You replied, words laced with exaggeration.

“I’ll look after her, it’s not like I have anything better to do”

The husky voice came from the corner of the room shadows dancing across the body of the person that is wanting to ‘look after her’. What am I, a dog? Y/n replied in her head afraid to reply that response out loud since the deep voice belonged to a man she have been shamefully harbouring a crush on for some time now. Peter fucking Hale.

It’s not like she was afraid to converse with him, it’s just that she was terrified of making a fool of her self by stuttering out a few syllables before halting and staring at his piercing blue eyed that made her legs buckle submissively from the dominance they give off. She doesn’t know how he does it, makes her feel like her skin is on fire whilst her heart pounds faster than humanly normal. Without even meaning to aswell. It’s like he was a complete natural at turning her into jelly without even noticing. It riles her up to no extent.

Your eyes widen in shock and your heart beat began to rise much to your dismay, knowing that he probably knew the effects he had on you, since he had spectacular werewolf senses, made you want to crawl into a ball and wither away in embarrassment. But he never made any indication that he knew either from being completely oblivious or because he wanted to salvage that slither of pride you had left for yourself. You prayed the first. But you doubted it since Peter isn’t exactly known for being the nicest human in the planet.

You knew you were probably over exaggerating and stressing about this whole situation way to much but you just couldn’t comprehend what you would do if Peter found out the way you feel since he is abit older than you, being still only a junior in highschool yourself and him being a fully grown mature man that you wanted to pounce on all the damn time. Jesus I need to get laid, preferably by the man invading my dreams at night but desperate times cause desperate measures.

“Look after me? I’m not a child, I don’t need watching over, I have things to do like watching the last season of The Vampire Diaires even though I’m shitting scared to because Stephen dies” You ramble a butt load of word vomit wanting to shut up but your nerves were your worst enemy in situations like these.

“Hey don’t aim your anger on me I’m just volenteering to keep the weak and innocent out of harms way, that’s character development if you ask me” Peter replies smugly as his gaze burns into the your own. You muster up a harsh glare at Mr Hottie before pivoting to face Derek who was evidently waying the little options he had.

“Your not seriously considering this right? You hate him, everyone hates him” I bitterly state, relunctanly turning around to meet Mr Hotties patronising gaze. The evident smirk plastered on his handsome face tells me that he’s enjoying being the cause of this conflict. Mockingly sending a small wave as if proud of the past he has with the pack before him.

Everyone once again agrees with my statement causing Peter to let out an annoyed sigh before saying “I thought we all got over this anger that has been directed towards yours truely, It will give you wrinkles if you frown at me like that sweetheart”, he humours the situation by sending a wink in my direction. Ugh.

“It’s not like we have a lot of options right now y/n, as much as I don’t like it we need as many people focused on defeating the Darach. It will only be for a few days at the maximum. I promise. Please?” Derek had is puppy dog eyes displayed making it very hard for me to deny him, so I bit my tongue and agreed.

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Derek had dropped me off at Mr Hotties apartment with my bag laying heavy on my shoulders ready to stay for a few nights. This whole situation is bitter sweet if you ask me. Bitter because you didn’t know if these few days will hold a wave of awkwardness between the two of you and a lack of communication since the both of you have never had a proper convosation other than yesterday when he offered to keep you hostage in his apartment. And sweet because you’d have eye candy for a while. I was not complaining. It’s a win win situation.

You stroll around the apartment amused “I’m not going to lie I have always wondered if you lived in a secret lab or in an underground network of tunnels or something like that but this will do I guess ” you snickered and joked. Peter lifted an eyebrow and smirked saying “I’m not a complete animal darling”. My stomache filled with butterflies at his statement and I cleared my throat looking around the apartment once again.

Peter leaned on the doorframe and cocked his hip against it whilst his arms were crossed. Damn. He gave me a once over eyes lingering on the exposed area where my mid thigh length skirt lay. “Aren’t you a little young to be wearing that?” I frowned and looked up at his defined features past his broard strong shoulders.

“I’m nearly 18 I can wear whatever the hell I want” I scoffed. Peter held his hands up in mock surrender before strolling into the kitchen with his back facing me. I could see the defining back muscles from the outline of his green v neck and the way his bisceps flexed when reaching into one of the cupboards for two mugs. His hands. Oh holy Jesus his hands. The muscular and veiny hands gripped onto the coffee mugs send a wave of arousal downstairs. My mouth turned into an o shape as I imagined all the things those hands could do to me. All the filthy things. A girl can only take so much! As my eyes began to travel down the werewolf in front of me I started to bite my lip at the way his jeans hugged his cheeks as they clung amazingly against his thick legs that held rippling muscle. I have got to ask him what his leg day routine is.

A hand started to wave across of my face as if trying to get my attention, I averted my eyes away from the goodies to see Peter staring at me with a wide smirk along his smug face.

“Are you okay there y/n? You look a little flustered. Something on your mind?” He walked towards me untill I could feel his lips skimming the top of my ear. I gulped in suprised as my eyes widened and started stuttering out an excuse.

“Oh u-um I was just— nothing” I hung my head to look at my feet awkwardly as they began shifting from nerves.

“Hmm okay let me show you where you’ll be sleeping” he his voice rasped against my ear which sent shivers around my body.

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He knew exactly what he was doing. I mean how couldn’t he? It was like we were playing a game of cat and mouse. More like werewolf and human. I snorted out a chuckle at my pathetic joke as I lay down on the bed in the spare bedroom that Peter allowed me to use. Glancing down at my lack of clothing, an oversized t shirt that said ‘bugs life forever’ and a pair of white lace panties I let out a heavy sigh clocking my head untill it reached the my phone saying it was 2:45am. My throat was dry from overthinking earlier with Peter, how he got so close to me, pressing his body against mine. Why would he even do that? He thinks I’m an annoying teenager. A child.

Wanting to wet my parched throat I hopped towards the kitchen quietly, attempting not to wake Peter from his room and not bothering with putting on sweatpants as I didn’t suspect anyone to see me in this state. I reached my arms out to the highest cupboard in the kitchen, straining my arm at the height of it and huffed when I couldn’t reach it. A deep voice made me freeze in my position and slowly turn around.

“Did I say you could use my kitchen without my permission?” I gasped as I saw his shirtless form, rippling muscle clouded his chest with light scattered chest hair in the centre that led towards the waistband of his sweatpants. Atleast someone thought about wearing sweatpants.

Holy Jesus for I have sinned. “I didn’t think you would have a problem with it since you offered to imprison me inside the walls of your apartment” I muttered angrily starting to once again reach for the glass that I am determined to get. Little did you know that Peters eyes wandered past the hemline of the oversized sweatshirt you were wearing that was hiked up from you stretching to reach the glass, this eyes lingered on the exposed skin of your thighs and the white lace panties that hugged the underline of your firm ass. Having these sudden dirty thoughts that clouded his mind from his previous dream feels wrong since you are much younger than him. But Jesus did it feel so right to him.

The feeling of someone pressed against you from behind startles you. You move to spin around when a deep voice interrupts you. “I’ll get it for you, don’t strain yourself darling” Peters voice seemed strained as if he was trying to keep himself together as you let out a choked sigh at how close proximity you both were to eachother. As he reached up to grab you a glass and handed it to you, your response make you regret the day you were born. Started from your hands brushing you blurt out the first thing that comes to mind.

“Thankyou daddy” Both his and your eyes widen at your statement.

Oh my god. Did I really just say that out loud? Judging by his expression, I’m pretty sure I did. Shit. What the fuck is wrong with you? Someone please just kill me right now. A werewolf could come up to me right now and kill me and I would say thankyou.

This is why I shouldn’t be allowed to mingle with others

As he was about to say something but you step back abruptly and close your eyes from shear embarrassment.

A husky voice made you jump on the spot, “ say it again” His eyes glazed over in pure hunger as he watched me like I was his prey and he was the predator.

“I-I don’t know w-what your talking about” my voice sqeaked in pure humiliation

“Say it again” he repeats himself before stalking his way towards you and wrapping his hand round your throat as he squeezed lightly sending an electric feeling of pleasure towards your core. You whimpered at the contact and threw your head back at the sight of this heated haze that bore into yours and so he could reach more of your exposed throat.

“Yes, you do. Say it again. I won’t ask a third time.” He growls and you can feel yourself begin to dampen at his forceful tone.

“Thankyou daddy” You coo.

Fuck.” He curses before lunging forward and taking your lips with his. You immediately open your mouth to his probing tongue and moan when it brushes over yours. Peter pulls away from your wet lips and traces his tongue down your throat as his lips begin to suck along the side of your neck surely leaving marks as he does it making you whine and shudder in pleasure. His impossibly enormous hands glide their way to my chest before capturing my breasts through my sweatshirt starting to kneed and pinch my nipples as he held intense eye contact with me.

“These-” he stopped to grasp them harshly before tearing the fabric of my sweatshirt off making direct contact with them this time with his warm and inviting hands that made me choke a whimper as I was being dominated by the man that I have pined over for as long as I have known him. “Are mine” he finished with a growl flashing his blue luminous eyes. His lips began to assault the hardened nipples, swirling his warm tongue round the bud then biting them teasingly.

“Say it, say that you are mine little girl” he demanded as his hand reached down to cup my pussy through my white lace panties.

“Oh god- oh god yes! I’m yours” I managed to stutter as I became a moaning mess as his magic fingers circled around my clothed clit before he moved them aside and plunged two fingers inside my tight walls.

Barely forming a grammatically correct sentence from the immense feeling of pleasure that I was going through, I reached down bravely to palm his prominent bulge that twitched under my palm.

He growled as his hands ran down your back, grabbing your ass between his hands touching outline of your pussy through your thin lace panties. He pushes you back into the kitchen until you feel your back hit the kitchen table. Peter pulls back away from your lips and flips you around, bending you over the table.

Shocked from the turn of events you let out a yelp, “What are you doing?” you moan and cry out as his hands pull down your panties, kicking your legs open with his feet.

“Giving you what you want baby” He husks as his hands pull down your shorts, kicking your legs open with his feet. You hear him unbuckle his belt before shoving his hand between your legs. “Your soaked” he groans before shoving his cock deep inside your pink and wet pussy.

“ Did you not think I’d notice how you feel about me baby? Your arousal always in the air for me to smell all the damn time I’m around you baby girl, you don’t even realise how hard it was to resist the urge to fuck you everytime I saw you” You purr in content at his sinful string of words.

“Peter please” you beg. He slaps your ass hard causing you to let out a loud moan. “That’s not my name” he glares. Realising what you meant it took you no time before pleasing him again.

“Daddy! O-oh fuck yes!”

“That’s a good girl, I’m going to fucking ruin you” he growls in your ear making you whimper. His dirty words only spurring how turned on you are.

“Please don’t stop what your doing” your desperate gasps are all that he needed to fuck you untill your screaming his name.

He begins to ram his cock in and out of your pussy as you let out a stream of loud and sinful moans, pounding you into the table, making the table legs squeak against the hard floor. He reached round to grip your hair as the other slings around your throat holding you in place as he begins to whisper dirty words into your ear that makes you eager to feel your pussy pulsate around his hard and thick length.

“Who knew you were such a naughty girl y/n? Desperate to feel my cock inside you, I bet you like it when I fuck you don’t you? Huh? Rough and hard?” You managed to humm before it turned into a stuttered moan as you felt yourself beginning to quiver and your legs to shake he continued to pound you with his cock.

Suddenly the feeling of a knot forming below your stomache makes you stutter out a moan “ holy shit, yes, yes!” You scream as you come undone around him as he continues to pound you through your orgasm. A stream of grunts follow after yours as he came inside you, milking your walls with his hot cum.

“Wow, that was unexpected” you grunt as you try and catch your breath, leaning against the kitchen table.

“You started it, calling me daddy and all” he teased whilst he send you a smirk.

“Well I’ll call you daddy as much as you want next time” you reach out to pull at his short hair leaning to give him a subtle kiss on his lips that lingered.

“Darling, next time I plan to fuck that warm little mouth with my cock” he growls.

That can definitely be arranged

[malefiquinn]

My Cyberpunk 2077 review

I finished the game last night and I have Feelings™ about it, so here goes my review. While the heavy spoilers (ending related) will be hidden under Keep Reading, I might mention some minor ones here and there, so read at your own risk.

Let’s get the Big Thing out of the way first: yes, the game is buggy af. The good news is most of them are visual bugs, so while annoying, they don’t really matter gameplay wise. But I did have to reload an earlier save file two times to get rid of gamebreaking bugs, both messing with main story quests. It was frustrating. And nevermind the times my car got destroyed because the game suddenly realized there were two cars occupying the same space. However I did manage to finish the game and make the choices I wanted, so it wasn’t that bad either.

My biggest complain is the blantant transphobia shown in the character creator. I know Claire exists and she’s awesome and I love her, but the cc options are just not inclusive enough. What’s the point of having them if you can’t use them anyway? Linking V’s pronouns to voice types makes absolutely no sense. And not being able to remove breasts from the female body type (or put them in the male body type) rubs me the wrong way as well, though I understand that it would involve a lot more animation work. Lastly, having body type-dependant hair styles is just plain inexcusable when the devs took the time to design genitals that are just not shown past the character creator (unless V walks around naked, I suppose). So, why bother having all these ✨choices✨ when the player can’t get a good, accurate customization anyway?

And it gets worse if we talk about romances. Real people have specific tastes and that’s completely understandable, but real life has a lot more than 4 choices in total. More importantly, bisexual people are a thing? There should have been at least one female and one male bisexual romance options in game. So to make it al worse, the constraint in gay romance options is... awful. Why have 3 types of gender-related customization if you can’t use them if you want to romance someone? I’m a cishet female who plays as a cishet female first if given the option, but I’m still bothered for the queer community (which I’m still part of btw, since I’m in the ace spectrum). It feels like being trans is more of a fetish in Night City than a real trait.

Speaking of romances, I played River’s and I found it... bit of a lackluster. I don’t find him physically attractive (shaved head and no beard are not my thing) but his voice was pretty nice and I liked his personality despite being a cop. But the main downside was the way the game treats his romance. I knew I wasn’t going to get a BioWare-style romance, but V’s relationship with River was like a sidenote and once he’s romanced, there’s just no way to interact with him again. That perhaps is the same for the other romances but there’s no replayability, in a sense that there’s no way to talk to/kiss him again or replay the sex scene, for instance. It bothered me that the game forces V to say that “she’s too busy” and apologize to her boyfriend all the time, because *I* would’ve made time to visit if there was ingame acknowledgement of it. The worst bit is that I feel like River’s romance is the least polished of them all, because Panam and Judy play important roles in main quests and Kerry is pivotal to Johnny’s sidequests, while River is... just there (also more further on, regarding the ending). So the fact that he’s like the forgotten child in the romance section while being the only cishet female option is heartbreaking.

The silverlining is that, at least, the mistreated community was het females instead of gay females. Although, this is just another example of game devs thinking about male players first.

Now the good part: what I liked

The cars. I’m not a car enthusiast, I don’t enjoy driving in real life and I’m a terrible driver in games, but I fucking loved the cars in CP2077. The Caliburn was like my game baby, I had so much fun driving around and hearing the different engines for each car, and the differences in driving... it was awesome. I got and bought *all* the available cars for the sake of it, just because I liked them so much.

The story. I love games that get me invested and this one was definitely one of those. Falling for Jackie when I knew he was not gonna be around for long was an expected, but still perfectly excecuted punch to the gut. And Johnny’s guidance and company was something I was hyped about, but still played out even better than I though it would. So to my next point, Keanu Reeves. I was thrilled to play a game with Keanu in it and it blew my mind. Those reviews that pinpoint Keanu’s acting as the weak link in the game are fucking wrong, how else you expect to see (and hear) an angry, resentful man permanently stuck in time? Even worse, when he knows the people he hated the most managed to kill him? I wasn’t happy when I learned Johnny was not a romance option but after meeting him, I’m glad that’s the case. He’s the perfect antihero-turned-best-friend for V, if you can stand him.

Stealth and hacking. Most of the time I choose the option to play stealthy and this time it wasn’t just that, it was the option to use futuristic technology at the same time. I LOVED it. Quickhacking enemies instead of shooting them is so much fun. Enemy detection is a bit wonky at times but still, I enjoyed it much better than if it had been a plain shooter. And those guns with homing shots are so cool that I wanted to play them over sniper rifles, my usual go tos.

The characters. I got invested in V’s relationships, even if the romantic aspect wasn’t as great as it could’ve been. Friendship with Kerry and Panam, clousure for Judy and Rogue, mourning Jackie, being part of River’s family, so many the fixers in existance... and Johnny, my bff Johnny. Even Alt, with her somewhat little role, was great. I was promised a compelling story and deep characters, and I did get both.

The soundtrack. Overall it’s pretty great, but my favorite songs are those related to Samurai. And it’s not even because of my love for Johnny, I really do enjoy them for their musical content. Unironically my all time favorite is Johnny’s as well, Never Fade Away. I won’t exit a car or open the menu when that song is playing.

The easter eggs. From GlaDOS and Silence of the Lambs in the Delamain quests to the Matix-esque pills of the main storyline, to Hideo Kojima and the BB in a lab, “Harvest like a Reaper” and the many “You’re breathtaking!” references (Kerry’s take was my favorite), the game presents A LOT of pop culture nods and I’m here for it. Having real life content creators around for several levels of cameos was a nice touch as well.

So without mentioning the heavy spoilers (aka ending), in my opinion, Cyberpunk 2077 deserves a 9/10. Bugs are fixable and the story and characters carry the game on it’s own because they’re just too good. The main story is kinda short and I believe Johnny’s sidequests should be part of the main story, but I get why they are not mandatory if you want to roleplay a full on dislike towards the rockerboy. But still, there are some things related to gender and romance that are complete misfires. I hope that some of those will be fixed via patches (the character creator bits), but the lack of more romance options or at least bisexual NPCs obviously won’t be fixed and that’s what keeps CP2077 away from a perfect score in my book.

Now, regarding the endings:

The one thing that truly bothered me was that the Rogue one had no real goodbyes for V. She goes into a suicide mission in space and everyone’s post-credit messages complain she just disappeared without a trace? I get she’s dying and all, but, for fuck’s sake leave a message explaining it if you cared so much about them. The game *makes* you care about the characters but doesn’t give you an option to honor that love at the end.

Also, again, romances. I played both Rogue and Panam’s endings so I know there’s no way to have a happy ending with River, which is bittersweet and probably for the best that it happens with him since his romance seems to be the least engaging, but again that makes me feel cheated. Not that they parted ways in the Nomad ending (that was sad, but sad endings are not bad), but that there is no happy-ish ending romance wise for a cishet female. People who romanced Panam obviously stay together with her and those who romanced Judy do too from what I’ve read (and no idea about Kerry’s romance), but not getting that option if you choose to be female and go for a het romance takes away from the game. Sadly. Also my last interaction with River in Rogue’s ending was fucking terrible, I liked how poetic that ending was for Rogue and Johnny until I got to the rest of my V’s life.

(But I still headcanon that River eventually joined V with the Aldecaldos in my canon ending, aka the Nomads’, despite what he said. Since his post-credit message implies he might visit her and stuff.)

As for the rest of the ending... CP2077 clearly states that life isn’t happy and that there’re no happy endings for people who live in NC, so I like that no ending is completely happy since you are bound to die anyway, but. But. It’s somewhat disheartening that the overall arc can be resumed to “all that you did served for nothing, you’re still dying so your efforts were absolutely useless.” I really don’t see how to improve it without defaulting to a happy, sunshine-esque ending that fixes everything, so I don’t know. It still wasn’t exactly what I wanted to hear at the end, so... I liked it but didn’t, at the same time. Ha.

And lastly, I hoped for endgame playability and there is none, you have to revert to an earlier save to keep playing. I get why it wasn’t done, to give a definitive end to V’s story in NC, but anyway. What I really liked about this choice was that no matter the ending, V becomes no one again. They will be forgotten by most people after a while either because they leave with the nomads or because they ‘disappear’, aka die in a blaze of glory in that casino in space. Or well, sell their soul to Arasaka or commit suicide on the rooftop.

So overall, I loved this game and critics are somewhat too harsh. But I agree there are some terrible design choices and a long way of bugfixing to get to the specific masterpiece that we were hoping for.

[princessjaqulinechess1031]

My Peeta Mellark Essay That Is About What, Five Years Late To The Party? But Here We Are, Why Peeta is The Best Male Romantic Lead I Have Ever Read

My sister is watching The Hunger Games non-stop because she finally is old enough to read the books and wanted to see the differentces between the films and book series, and I’m now being sucked back to my middle school years where my whole personality centered around explaining why The Hunger Games is the best piece of modern literature.

I also remember being the only one that thought Peeta was even a worthwhile character, because literally everyone was like ‘he’s too helpless’ or ‘he sold out the rebellion in the third book’ (because of the brainwashing) and I remember just being very confused why everyone really liked Gale ‘Let’s Murder Innocent Civillains And Not Ponder The Implications of Our Actions’ Hawthorne. Like Gale is a great character but let’s not fool ourselves into thinking he gave a damn about the civilians in the Capitol that died (“If I had a button to kill every person in the Capitol, I would push it right now. No hesitation” I believe is the actual quote he used) and tried to apply a black and while morality upon a gray world. In fairness, I think Gale Hawthorne is ultimately a good person, if a really angry person.

And I just never understood why people in my life were so against Peeta until my brother said something about Peeta being emasculated by Katniss a few days ago. Literally the first thing I thought to myself is that Peeta would not give a damn if Katniss emasculated him — Peeta doesn’t care that Katniss is physically stronger or more survival oriented than him. Peeta is just so happy that Katniss even exists on the planet that he does not care about all that.

I think what it comes down too is what Peeta represents. Peeta is not the typical romantic lead — he is strong yes, but also very emotional and comparatively more privileged than Katniss (let’s not kid ourselves — Peeta was totally better off than Katniss and Gale at the start of the series, but he was NOT living in the lap of luxury that like some people would like to believe. He may have eaten everyday, but let’s not act like it was always fresh and hot food with dessert. No, he was eating what his family bought off Katniss and Gale — which was not always guaranteed food — plus stale bread.). Most romantic leads in these novels are traditionally masculine, with strength, speed, survival skills, and an inability to be charming or charasmtic or show any emotion, and more often than not an underprivileged or oppressed person in comparison to the more well-off or less restricted female protagonist (I.e. Cassia and Ky in Matched)

Peeta blows all that out of the water. He is strong (he is in-universe a great wrestler and he won The Hunger Games alongside Katniss, even if at the end he was being helped by Katniss, Peeta killed people and even took on Cato before he teamed up with her. One does not win the Games without some bit of strength), but he is also very emotional and compassionate. He’s not stoic at all — he wears his heart on his sleeve. He lets his emotions rule him. He ignores Katniss and pouts for six months before Catching Fire starts, but then he comes to her and tries to reach out to her, saying that this is a complicated situation and that he should have been more understanding of what she was feeling and why she did what she did. It’s also never framed like he has no right to be angry — he was led to believe that Katniss, the girl he was madly in love with, wanted to be actually be with him. This wasn’t malicious on the part of Katniss (or Haymitch, because he had a hand in this too) but it still happened. He had a right to be at least a little upset.

But the fact of the matter is, at the end of the day he came back to Katniss and recognized that it was survival. She never meant to hurt him and that this is a complicated situation. He was upset, recognized why he was upset, and realized that it was not Katniss’s fault. She didn’t owe him anything. After the Games, she didn’t owe him a relationship, even if they were pretending to be a couple. He was content to just be her friend through the shit-show that would be their new post-Games lives.

Compare this to Gale, who also pouts and is upset at Katniss after the Games. He too is madly in love with Katniss and thought that Katniss had fallen in love with Peeta. I’m not saying that Gale didn’t have a right to at least be saddened by this — thinking the person your in love with is in love with someone else is a heartbreaking experience, so yes, I do think Gale had a right to at least be mildly saddened by this revelation.

But the face is that: he was angry at Katniss about this. He was angry at her for choosing survival (pretending to love Peeta) rather than dying (going out on her own). Now, Katniss could have won the Games with or without Peeta and I think arguably Peeta could have one without Katniss if Haymitch had somehow gotten medicine to him in the arena via sponsor, but the possibility of him winning alone is not the topic of discussion. Gale was angry at her for loving someone else.

Gale had believed that one day he would be Katniss’s husband. That’s an unshakable belief of mine. From literally the first time we meet him, he’s talking to her about if she ever wants kids. That is classic ‘I want to get married talk’. This was his last reaping and he was about to enter the mines. He was gearing up to ask her to marry him at some point in the year following, based on my reading of the text.

And when Katniss showed up, ‘Boyfriend’ in tow, Gale was pissed. He thought that after everything that had happened Katniss was his. Without the Games, it’s entirely possible that Katniss would have married Gale eventually, even if I think personally that she never would have had kids or gotten married if the rebellion hadn’t happened. But you can interpret a future where Katniss and Gale getting married happens based on your reading of Katniss’s character.

The Games did happen though. Katniss was unofficially betrothed to Peeta and instead of being sad but supportive because she’s being forced into something she doesn’t want but has to go through with, Gale gets angry at her. Gale straight up kisses her one day and then ignores it like nothing happened, gets angry at her for keeping up the charade with Peeta to keep her family and Gale’s family alive (because Katniss deeply loved Gale’s family as her own, you can’t deny this fact, so Snow would target them).

He wanted her. He wanted to be here. And their’s nothing inherently wrong with wanting to be with someone, but there’s something wrong when you get angry at someone for either a)loving someone else or b) doing something to keep themselves from dying.

This sounds like I’m bashing on Gale, so I do want to say that I do genuinely think that Gale is a good person. I think he wants things to be fair and just, that he wants everyone to be given a fair shake. I honestly don’t think he minds working hard, he never complains about the actual work just the quantity of it and the proportion to what the workers get in return. If he worked his ass off and got a fair shake in return, like equal treatment, safe working conditions, and actual payment that could take care of his family, I don’t think he would have a problem.

We do, however, have to compare Gale to Peeta, because within in-universe he is compared to Peeta by Katniss. So we have to talk about the two together, because they are entwined as characters. We hardly ever see them interact on page, the only time they interact one-on-one (that we get to see, as in not in Catching Fire where Gale helps them train) is in Mockingjay, where they are on the same squad.

That infamous conversation where they talk about Katniss has to be menitioned here. Gale and Peeta seem at least friendly with each other, discussing who she’ll eventually choose to be with. They eventually agree that she’ll pick who she can’t survive without.

This conversation is one of the most important from a character stand-point. From this, we learn that neither Peeta or Gale begrudge the other for loving Katniss. Why is this so important?

Because we had previously seen Gale being angry with Katniss about possible being in love with Katniss, we can glean that Gale blames Katniss for not loving him. (Which isn’t true, I firmly believe that at least before Prim’s death that a small part of Katniss honestly was in love with Gale, even if the part of her that was in love with Peeta was much larger.)

Gale is angry with Katniss for loving someone else.

At this point, I’ve talked about Gale for the last five minutes and you’re probably wondering when I’ll get to my point but I’m getting there.

So now we have to couple the fact that Gale is angry with Katniss about this with Peeta’s reaction to Katniss kissing Gale after the whipping post.

Peeta is upset, yeah, but he’s not angry with her for kissing Gale. Gale has been her best friend since forever and surely somewhere along the line Peeta had assumed that she was with Gale. When she kisses Gale, Peeta doesn’t act prissy or act like he in any way deserves her. He is her friend and a partner in this post-Games life. He doesn’t get upset with her, actually continues being her friend and visiting her in the aftermath.

Peeta is best romantic lead I have ever seen because he doesn’t care about being her romantic lead. He loves her deeply so much that all he wants is for her to be happy. Several times he seems ready to step aside if it means letting Katniss be happy.

But we have to talk about the elephant in the room.

The kids.

In the epilogue, Katniss says that after fifteen years she agrees to have kids with Peeta. Many people have interpreted this Peeta pressuring her into having them, but with the context of the series as a whole I interpret this not as a giving in but as Katniss decieding to have one too. Peeta, based on everything we know about his character, would be totally content to have a life with just Katniss, but he is also an independent person with thoughts of his own, he would have brought up that he wanted kids to Katniss. But this part of the epilogue is so quick and it’s never really explained, being the ending, so it’s fair to interpret this in a more negative light than the conclusion I came too just because we only get a recap of fifteen years pre-kids and not the scenes, so we don’t know how it went down.

At this point, you’re probably wondering what all this has to do with my middle school friends not looking Peeta and wanting Katniss with Gale. And this wall of text has probably lost it’s point at least twice at this stage of this informal essay. So, I’ll digress.

I think the fact the Peeta is the exact opposite at what we have come to expect out of our male leads. He’s mature with his feelings, kind and compassionate, more feminine, and just genuinely a nice guy. He’s not demanding love or sex from Katniss. He just wants her to be happy.

Gale is who we have been programmed to see as the male lead, strong and tough and gritty and traditionally masculine. Theirs nothing wrong with these traits inherently, being a feminine man or masculine man is not better than the other. But the fact that Gale is preferred over Peeta is I think of reflection of what he expect out of media — the ‘strong’ man gets the girl while the ‘weak’ one is alone.

Now, at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter. I’m not here to attack people for liking Katniss and Gale together as a couple or for disliking Peeta as a partner for Katniss. But after sitting here, writing this out, I can’t help but reflect on the fact that Peeta is one of my favorite characters. I really enjoyed him and reading him and watching him, and I don’t really think I can forgive him being pushed aside because he is the ‘gentle’ one.

Now, The Hunger Games is a series about politics, oppression, slavery, war ethics, the ramifications of warfare, and the effect of trauma on a personal and social level. At the end of the day, it’s not about romance or a ‘will they/won’t they’. I love this series and it forced me to look at the politics of my world with a keen eye.

But I still love Peeta Mellark and I will defend him to the end.

[aro-aizawa]

Tell us about your AUs!! I’m curious!!

!!!!! an interested person???? hi anon i love you know that i would die for you without hesitation. bless you for letting me gush over my aus. this might be a lil messy (and long holy shit) considering im answering from my phone but from memory here are my aus (which i aint gonna lie are mostly either angst, hurt/comfort or canon divergent, or a mix of the three) in no particular order:

edit: now that im on computer it’s all under the cut but here’s a quick table of contents:

the one where hisashi is a pro hero

the one where hisashi is a villain

underground gladiator arena kidnap fic

the one where aizawa is inko’s brother

MUTE TODOROKI

izuku is related to all for one

gamer au

the one where uraraka is the protag instead

hp au

disney aus galore

the Spite™️ fic

the one where hisashi is a pro hero

heads up in literally none of my aus is midoriya hisashi a good parent. i mean in canon we know exactly three details about him being his name, his quirk and that he works abroad. that’s it. so, i don’t really like “good parent hisashi”. this au is basically ‘hey what if izuku got a fire quirk from his dad’ combined with my own personal views on fire, and then also deciding ‘wait what if hisashi and endevor did the same shit’. so it’s basically an au where izuku is in the same situation as todoroki.

it’s….kind of complicated now that it’s written down. in my head its p straight forwards?? anyways, basically my view on fire is that it absolutely shouldn’t be demonized as much as it is. because without fire, life couldn’t exist. it’s warmth and life and beauty. i just…think that view of it is perfect for izuku, and i always wanted to try my hand at fire quirk izuku.

also one of my few aus that’s actually gonna have a ship focus?? in that it’s tododeku but honestly knowing me i might end up accidentally dropping that aspect of it like i tend to do a LOT bc of my inability to write crushes (im an aro who’s never had a crush so me writing romance is…awkward at best lol)

the one where hisashi is a villain

i have……admittedly a lot of versions of this au. it’s by far one of my favourites to think about, for several reasons actually, mostly bc of angst but also because the hurt/comfort potential there is incredible.

my most current version of this au though plays with the idea that in the mha society those with ‘villainous’ quirks get discrimated against and pushed so the only chance they do have to survive is to turn to villainy. in this au i play with hisashi and inko’s quirks a little to make them more villainous and easier to discriminate against, for example hisashi can cremate anything he touches into ashes at will, and inko can minorly manipulate the limbs of other people although she’s mainly limited to pulling them towards her or pushing them back.

in this version, izuku is quirkless and still goes through ua determined to change the way that society works and right the wrongs in how it’s set up while also proving that quirkless people aren’t useless. a lot of dadzawa in this one because it is my w e a k n e s s. there’s a few other elements thrown in there, but overall that’s the basic jist of it.

underground gladiator arena kidnap fic

one of my darker aus where a group of villains kidnap kids who took the ua exam to create an “everything goes” fight club that customers can watch and occasionally participate in.

my general idea for this was “the sports festival is pretty brutal when you think about it. it’s almost like everything but killing goes” and then i thought that in a superpowered society there is no way there isn’t any kind of underground fight club where people can go full out w their quirks.

hence this au was born! the kids who’re kidnapped w izuku have been constantly changing over the ladt year or so that i’ve had this idea but rn i decided on having shinsou, kaminari, mina, tokoyami and yaoyorozu w him. the rest would be filled w ocs bc the villains weren’t dumb enough to kidnap all of the heroics students, just a handful.

bearing in mind the kids are all taken a couple days after the entrance exam so they’re not familiar with each other and izuku is the only one familiar w a pro hero and that’s a secret. not to mention he’s only used his quirk once at this point, and he has no access to recovery girl’s quirk so he has to figure smth out IMMEDIATELY or he’s completely fucked.

the one where aizawa is inko’s brother

look if you inspect my aus carefully you’ll see a theme and that theme is i fucking love aizawa. anyways, in this one izuku has a pretty powerful nullification quirk and is trained by aizawa. aizawa and inko have like an eight or ten year age difference, so they weren’t all that close until inko reached out when izuku was eight.

i’ll admit this is one of my lesser developed aus but it’s canon divergent with a focus on izuku hoping to be an underground hero. and due to his quirk and that aspect of his personality, it kind of changes a lot of things??? potentially a short(ish) au if i ever got round to writing it out. maybs about 20k-30k words idk.

(this is mostly born bc i feel like people forget that there’s only a fifteen year age difference between aizawa and izuku for a number of reasons. also bc inko/aizawa….is kind of weird in my mind. definitely not a fan :///)

MUTE TODOROKI

look i fucking love mute aus okay, but when i was trying to apply it to the mha universe i started thinking “holy shit todoroki could definitely be mute” or smth and ever since this au is close to my heart.

basically when poor rei burned lil shouto, she mentally scarred him into mutism. ever since the kettle incident, shouto can’t speak a word. endeavor is told by the doctor that although nothing physically is wrong, shouto is mute. endeavor is a DICK and p much decides he’ll just wait it out for shouto to finally talk bc he’s just being childish (basically he’s ablist and doesn’t let todoroki learn sign. which is bullshit but doesn’t majorly effect him bc he’s homeschooled until high school anyway).

it’s sort of canon divergent but also maybe a complete au??? in that there’s no league of villains. when all might fought afo the first time he succeeded in putting a stop to the villain and killing him. izuku still gets ofa, but he’s not the protag of the story, this time it’s todoroki.

anyways, ua sees that todoroki is mute (which isn’t registered and completely unknown to the general public) and doesn’t know sign language (resorting to notes and/or charades if he needs to communicate something), and decides to investigate that shit.

endeavor eventually gets what he deserves bc the trash bag can go rot in hell, and that’s p much all i got aside from the class realising FAST they need to adopt and love todoroki so there’s a lot of wholesome bonding there.

izuku is related to all for one

admittedly this one is one of my most underdeveloped aus but i still love it all the same. basically my take on it bc the whole ‘afo is hisashi’ thing kinda weirds me out considering afo is at least 200 years old. in this au he’s izuku’s grandfather and inko is his daugther who escaped him and lives in hiding.

i haven’t decided whether i want this au to be my take on izuku having afo or if it’s another quirkless izuku au. i haven’t gotten very far into it, all i know is that afo has no emotions and he’s a heartless bastard (me hating the dad for one trope w a passion) so there’s sort of MAJOR angst potential if i decide to go down that route.

gamer au

izuku’s quirk is that his life is a game. that’s….that’s it. if you’re familiar with sword art online, it has a lot of influence from that w/o the characters or plot or pervertedness or incest because what the fuck sao was so bad with all those. still pissed bc outside that it had potential and i think abt that a lot.

anyways, so y’know how in a lot of rpgs there’s the hud w stats and an inventory system and abilities?? well apply that to izuku and he’s p much that. the world “autosaves” whenever he sleeps, but he can’t manually load a save. if he dies he starts over from his last autosave.

bc of his access to abilities and stuff, he has the potential to be powerful bc hey he can basically do magic, but at the same time he just healed his body completely by drinking this drink he made w herbs and shit last night. also he can carry a ludicrous amount of shit that couldn’t possible fit in his backpack but apparently he’s got seventeen cheese wheels in there and room for half the classroom furniture too.

izuku sees the world w a hud which would be annoying but it’s normal for izuku. in fact, he sort of hates watching tv because the hud doesn’t appear on the screen and it’s so weird and bizarre he doesn’t really like it.

i haven’t planned anything but details of the quirk bc it can get waaaay too overpowered too quickly and hhhh i sort of burnt out of different ways this would effect canon, so i didn’t think abt it. but i did figure out that izuku would have so many gaming analogies for his friends and be into like a thousand different games.

the one where uraraka is the protag instead

born when i was complaining about how shitty horikoshi is at writing his female characters i brainstormed this au in a discord server where i overhauled canon w a more badass uraraka. (and she doesn’t even get ofa!!! she’s just badass on her own!!!)

basically bc she’s a lot more confident and determined in this au she influences a lot of her classmates. the other girls are a lot more active in their actions and are more than just the background characters. uraraka’s full strength is explored and i think i planned for her to win the sports festival bc she deserved it.

also inspired by the idea i had of pro hero uraraka kicking a lamp post down on her own strength and using it to put a comet home run on a villain like she did in the battle trial. bc holy shit that’s a fantastic mental image.

basically my “mha girls fucking rule and fuck horikoshi’s shitty writing” au

hp au

ah yes, finally we get to my take on the most generic of aus. basically i just wanted todoroki in hufflepuff to piss off endeavor and basically loving it bc he befriends izuku in it. i definitely haven’t developed this au outside of worldbuilding in how i’d combine the two universes whilst fixing both jkr and horikoshi’s bad writing.

i actually wrote a snippet that’s somewhere on my blog that i can’t link to now but you could probs for search it. but this was basically born from me getting angry at people putting the kids in the wrong houses. im a firm believer that izuku fits in nearly every house but hufflepuff and slytherin suits him the most while todoroki is ABSOLUTELY a hufflepuff. i wanted some platonic tododeku bonding so i put izuku in hufflepuff. uraraka is slytherin, iida is gryffindor, and it’d be too messy to list all the kids so i won’t.

but!! what im most happy w in this au is how i incoporate mha stuff into it. like how hagakure isn’t actually invisible she just got permanently hexed by her brother to always be unnoticed so you can never know what she looks like or where she is. tokoyami has a bird head due to a failed attempt at becoming an animagi. its permanent and although he could get it fixed, theres actually a number of wizards w the same thing do there’s a lot of animal like wizards. shinhou comes from a pureblood family thats been known for their dark magic, even though the last four generations haven’t been dark wizards the wizardinv world is convinced he’ll be a dark wizard too but shinsou wants to prove them wrong. amajiki being a metamorphmagus who shifts his limbs into animals when he’s nervous. etc etc. i have too much worldbuilding and no plot lmao.

disney aus galore

one day i thought up abt three different disney aus for the mha universe but my first idea was a little mermaid au for momojirou w momo being the princess and jirou being the mermaid.

except besides the basic premise i p much scrapped the whole movie in that jirou learns sign language to talk to momo and the two play music together. jirou plays piano or w/e whilst momo sings. it’s v gay. theres a ball and they dance and then kiss. i never wrote it out bc i didn’t wanna add conflict in it but never got round to actually writing it lmao.

but i thought up a tododeku tangled au, kiribaku cinderella au, tsuocha princess and the frog au, and a couple others that i didn’t plan out fully. still close to my heart if i ever manage to get round to writing them out. each would probs either be a long shot at 7k-15k words or a short multichapter fic at 25k-30k words.

the Spite™️ fic

the fic where i get pissed at every shitty thing about horikoshi’s writing. izuku gets mad at all might for his views on quirkless people and gets into ua on his first try. izuku rightfully does not take bakugou’s shit and calls him out at every opportunity. bakugou’s actions have repercussions. all might gets punished for almost letting bakugou kill izuku in an exercise.

izuku gets pissed over a lot of shit basically. also at one point he either punts mineta into the sun or loudly and publicly makes the argument that mineta should be expelled from ua including evidence and testimonies from the girls. and he encourages nearly all of them to get better costumes.

i haven’t actually written much abt it but if there’s smth i got pissed @ horikoshi for smth in canon it’d be address in this fic bc oh boy am i never spiteful so it’s kind of theraputic to write even tho i haven’t done it in a while.

uh….i have a lot more but man i think i’ve been writing this for like an hour or two idk im gonna finish this before the app crashes or smth. thank you for letting me ramble this got long oops sorry.

[papercats]

Here’s some good lgbt (again with a focus on lesbian books bc I’m a lesbian so if i dont say anything specific about it in the list assume its f/f) books I read this year Ver 2.0  this time on my book blog...Previous years post (x)

I actually read a lot of lesbian fiction this year, I will try to include only stuff that I absolutely loved and/or I don’t see talked about in these kind of lists! Also, if you want content warnings about any of the books dm me. 

-The Crimson Empire Series by Alex Marshall: Okay this is the real reason I’m bothering to make this write up I’ll own up to it! It’s so GOOD. I think its the first really successful casual no misogyny/heteronormativity fantasy setting I read. Most stuff I read that tried this ends up just adding in some strong female character(tm) and a blink-and-you-missed-it mention of some side character being gay. But not here. Most of the main characters in this are women...and most of the cast is also lgbt. The man character is a bi woman who also happens to be a 60 year old badass and I love her. There are other characters that are bi lesbian or gay of varying importance (there are a million pov characters and some of them are spoilers so im being vague here). And also there are trans characters. I literally never seen trans characters in fantasy except in indie lgbt publications. AND beyond that its just such a good series, its incredibly fun. There is a lot of political intrigue and a lot of action and a lot of weird dark magic. It's also hilarious and made me laugh out loud multiple times which is very rare for books! Also, it’s a trilogy and it gets gayer each book. Like, the gay content is growing geometrically by the page count, trust me. 

Rest under the cut!

-Last Words from Montmartre by Qiu Miaojin translated by  Ari Larissa Heinrich this is very different and much more literary than the rest of the list. It’s a Taiwanese classic from what I understand, and it’s also the authors suicide note. I won’t pretend to understand this book, it’s written in letters which the author tells us can be read in any order. The author is a lesbian, and the story is said to be semi-autobiographic, but I can’t say this is lesbian fiction exactly. Not even who the narrator is is quite clear, as they seem to change gender from one letter to the next, sometimes being called by a different name. I don’t think I can do it justice in a few lines so I suggest if you’re interested you do your own research on it. It’s fascinating book, but it’s not something that everyone will enjoy, if enjoyment is even the right word for the experience of reading this book.

-When Women Were Warriors series by Catherine M Wilson: Okay I recommended it in the last years post but I read the last book this year and it was actually my favorite among the trilogy. And honestly , it deserves a second mention, it’s that good. It’s historical fantasy, magic exists but in a more mythical sense than throwing fireballs around (I’ve seen someone call it celtic fantasy, which might be more accurate). It follows the story of a young apprentice trying to become a warrior. There is a lesbian romance, but the overall plot is more about this apprentices coming of age, though the scale of the story expands widely as the books go on. 

-Letters Never Sent by Sandra Moran. This is historical fiction  very reminiscent of Sarah Waters, if you like her definitely check this out. It follows a young woman finding old letters of her death mother and learning about a side of her she never knew. It’s a dual perspective story with one for the daughter, and one for the mother in her youth. Both dealing with their own drama, though the focus is more on the mother. The story unravels slowly and though it’s not necessarily unpredictable it’s still a great read if you like historical fiction. 

-Amatka by Karin Tidbeck this is a swedish dystopian sci-fi story where words quite literally shape reality, reminscent of classics like 1984, not necessarily in content but the general feeling it gives, I’m not sure whether it’t the themes or the writing but it feels more like an old book. And I mean that in the best way possible. The main character is a lesbian, she gets into a relationship during the story, but this is very much not a romance book, it’s more about the main character slowly questioning the world she is in, and asking too many questions. I highly reccomend this one if you’re a fan of sci-fi dystopians, or want to see an unique take on the genre in a world filled with hunger games rip offs. (I was a bit confused that I couldn’t find the translator of this book, until I realized the author translated it herself. Just an interesting tidbit!)

-Pegasi And Prefects Series by Eleanor Beresford: light  board school books with just a little magic and lesbians. I found these short books to be surprisingly good and well written (sadly this is rare in lesbian fiction in my experience). The author described is as a slice of life harry potter which is pretty much it. Though there is some homophobia in these books, so be warned. The main story is concluded, and although the author teased more books in the setting there don’t seem to be updates in some time.

-The Mermaids Daughter by Ann Claycomb: This was a weird kind of melancholy book about a woman who only is relieved of her pain when she’s in the water. As were all her female predecessors, who all died young, by suicide. Her girlfriend delves into her family history in hopes to prevent her having the same fate. It’s a little mermaid retelling but that might be misleading, the main character is not the little mermaid, she’s her great great great grandaughter, or something like that. There is also the constant theme of Opera, which serves as a way to tell the story too, which sort of flew over my head. But it was still very much enjoyable. 

Short Stories and Novella

Undertow by Jordan L. Hawk : So this is a f/f novella in a long running m/m series. I can’t speak for the main series but this novella was good for its length. The setting is lovecraftian, but not quite so dark. I originally picked this up because one of the reviewers were complaining the love interests, who is some sort of mermaid-esque sea creature, had shark teeth. She’s great by the way, and so are her teeth. 

The Terracotta Bride by Zen Cho: This is a novella set in the Chinese afterlife. More specifically Malayan. The people in the afterlife receive money and items when living people burn things for them. The story explores the main character who is married to the richest man in afterlife life, and her relationship with her husbands second bride, who is not a human but a terracotta wife who her husbands relatives have burned for him.

The Cybernetic Tea Shop by Meredith Katz: A very simple straightforward story about an old model robot girl who owns a tea shop and a mechanic. It has a great atmosphere and I love the image of the old tea shop owned by a robot whos slowly breaking down. 

The Ape’s Wife and Other Stories by Caitlín R. Kiernan: This is a collection of excellent weird fiction short stories. I have a book by her in all my recommendation posts by this point, and I hesitated before adding this. Not all stories feaure any lgbt content, but enough of them do that it’s not out of place in this list. Though all of the stories in it are fully worth reading. My personal favorite of this collection is Galapagos, a rather disturbing story about space. 

[purplepingupenguins]

Let’s take a minute to discuss the homophobia and double standards in the Star Wars Fandom...

Okay, so, recently I made this post:

Which unsurprisingly got quite a few notes quite quickly. But also, was met with comments like these:

And as an lgbt+ person with chronic fatigue I'm pretty good at picking my battles and knowing when to not start drama, actually, that's a complete lie I will call you out on your shit no matter how shit I feel.

So, this is me calling out the homophobia in the star wars fandom. That's right kids, I'm calling you homophobic.

A special shout out to the folks who made this even possible @freddie-and-i-got-stayingpower @zeminon @natenko @brandong50

Firstly, I've seen a lot of things about how his sexuality isn't even hinted at so it's wrong to call him queer and I'm like.... huh??? So just because a character hasn't explicitly kissed or fucked another character of the same gender on screen then they can't be queer. And I know, you only care about lgbt characters when they do make out on screen so you can fetish them but that is a whole other issue.

90% if not more, of characters in media don't explicitly state their sexuality and because of that it's automatically assumed that they're straight and saying otherwise is forcing labels and a sexuality on them. News flash folks: if your adamant on making him het then you're forcing a sexuality on him too.

Yes, other than a lot of looks and subtext (flirting) nothing has actually been outright said that Poe has an interest in men. But also nothing has been said about him liking women either but you're all perfectly happy for Poe and rey to happen.

As the delightful first comment asked: why does it matter? Because Disney has never had a main lgbt+ relationship or character in movies before. 

Star wars, where people can wave around laser swords and fly spaceships but can't kiss a person of the same gender. 

Star wars claims to be progressive and at times, it has. Carrie Fisher was the first female character I ever saw pick up a gun and save herself. She was the first female character I saw that didn't need a relationship with a man to be complete but she just wanted one. Star wars new trio is a Latino man, A black man and a woman and that in itself is very important. But still isn't able to treat them with the basic respect they deserve.

Lgbt+ kids deserve to watch their favourite movies and feel just as powerful as everyone else. It’s as important as Wonder Woman is for women. It’s as important as Black Panther is for black people. But LGBTQ+ people don't get that, especially in movies because society doesn't want our sexualities to rub off on kids. Because they don't want their kids to be gay. Because they think being gay is bad.

"Stop trying to shoehorn lgbt into everything"

Hahahahahahahaha I’m sorry, what the fuck did you say?? I can’t hear you over how ridiculous that sentence actually is. It’s straight people who time and time again shoehorn new characters into plots in the hope that fandoms will love the new het couple over the baited queer one so producers don’t have to go through with having decent representation. For example, those that have seen the Last Jedi, Rose, I love her to pieces don’t get me wrong, but I do not love her relationship with Finn, not as a romance. They were such good friends throughout the entire movie and then bamn! Forced het romance!! 

That kiss was so unnecessary that even the straightest of straights agree that it was forced. Not only did it ruin a perfectly good on-screen friendship between a man and a woman but it also showed just how shitty the writers and producers really are. That they’re so desperate to take attention away from a healthy, interracial, mlm couple, a couple that their entire cast and the majority of their fandom supports that they’re putting entire plots and storylines on the line.

“Jesus Christ everything has to be about lgbt these days. sick of it.” 

Firstly, you're on tumblr. What the fuck do you expect? Secondly, you have a completely empty blog just to spread your homophobia, that’s childish af. Thirdly, LITERALLY, NOTHING IS ABOUT LGBT THAT’S THE WHOLE FUCKING POINT! Every single straight person who whines about “everything’s so gay now” “I can’t watch anything without it being all about lgbt” TELL ME WHAT YOU’RE WATCHING AND WHERE YOU’RE FINDING IT. BECAUSE IT DOESN’T EXIST. 

Nobody is trying to make everything lgbt+, especially star wars, because if it was then we wouldn’t have han and leia and they’re iconic af, even if han is totally bi... okay, i’ll stop. But the point is, we’re not trying to make everything lgbt but most things are naturally lgbt+. One in four people are gay. Just gay. Think about how many characters are in Star Wars? It’s not unrealistic for some of them to be gay. In fact, it’s completely more than likely. Whether it’s Luke, Poe, Finn, Rey, Han, Leia or old Ben Kenobi, someone in that galaxy far far away is gay whether you like it or not.

I’ve seen a lot of people also saying that Star Wars isn’t even about romance, it’s about friendship and while, yes, you’re not wrong. Romance has never been a small part of it either. Han and Leia are still one of the most iconic straight white couples ever. Padme and Anakin’s romance was what started this whole mess in the first place and literally not a single person ever complained about either of those relationships.. So when you say that you don’t want it focussing on romance over friendship. What you’re really saying is that you’d rather it focussed on friendship than a gay romance.

“Stop with that lgbt crap”

That lgbt crap as you so eleoquently put it is literally mine and billions of other people’s lives. How about you stop with your homophobic crap? That’ll work out a lot better for us all?

Lastly, exactly who is it hurting?

Who is watching a healthy interracial queer relationship, or even just a non-white queer man on their screen and is hurt by it? Nobody. 

Giving LGBTQ+ people a voice hurts nobody. Seeing a gay character is not going to turn your child gay, just like seeing millions of straight characters on screen hasn’t magically turned me straight, because that’s not how it fucking works.

What hurts people is silencing that voice. Calling it s*upid and childish and irrelevant, that’s hurting people. And I know, that if you’re silencing these voices that you probably don’t care but a lot of people do. It matters to more people than you could possibly understand. This sort of content has the power to change someone’s life for the better and if that makes you and your homophobic lifestyle uncomfortable for a couple of hours. Then I really don’t give a flying fuck. 

If you don’t like it. Don’t watch the movies.

Stormpilot isn’t hurting anyone. If you wanna hate on a ship that is the symbolism of abuse then go shit on the r*ylo shippers, because that’s the real issue in the star wars fandom at the minute. 

TL;DR: Stop invalidating lgbt+ voices by mocking them and calling them childish. Stop spreading your homophobia. If you don’t ship finnpoe, okay, move on. LGBTQ+ people deserve representation like women deserve wonder woman and black people deserve black panther.

Why are you all so adamant that it’s wrong for us to force queerness on poe or finn or luke but you’re all happy to force heterosexuality on rey who has shown no real interest in a relationship besides hugging finn.

Did I miss anything?

[fae-fucker]

Zenith: Chapter 4

Note: I will be editing parts of the quotes from the original preview to reflect the way they appear in the final product. So if something is written like this it means it’s no longer in the book, and this indicates that something’s been added. This is so that I don’t have to explain in complex detail how things have changed if the changes are minor.

Don’t worry, this will stop once we get to more new content. 

Girls shouldn’t be space pirates.

Those were the last words Dex had said to his ex, and, well, look how that turned out. He was eating those words now.

Fike, the irony stung.

What’s with female authors constantly writing meaningless sexism and then have their characters PROVING THE MENZ WRONG.

Like I get that it’s a bit of a power fantasy and everyone wants some payback for being underestimated, but it’s always dumb bullshit like this that serves no other purpose than to impress or prove the male characters wrong by DOING MANLY BADASS THINGS.

I can’t articulate what I’m feeling properly but you get my point, right? The MENZ always end up being proven wrong, but only when the female characters do traditionally masculine-coded things, because not only do female characters need to prove themselves to men, the only talents worth respect are those that men are “supposed” to have.

Whatever, moving on.

Update: That whole chunk of text has been removed. Thankfully.

Dex is a dude who used to teach/date (???) Andi and is now hunting her because ... she ... lied to and cheated on him? Something like that. I guess we’ll find out. He’s the one in charge of the hunt and he’s NOT PLEASED.

A female captain was one thing. But a whole rutting ship full of girls?

You need to settle on your dumb conlang curses or on old-timey curses you saw used in [some SJM series]. You can’t have both “fike,” whatever that is, and “rutting” in the same book. I mean you can, but it’ll look like this, aka garbage.

Update: This comment has also been removed. 

Leave it to the Bloody Baroness, the most ruthless space pirate in the galaxy, to get the best of the best.

[...]

Also leave it to the Bloody Baroness, Dex thought, as he stared at her photograph, to get me to work with the Arcardian Patrolmen.

BLOODY BARONESS WILL NEVER BE INTIMIDATING, I’M SORRY.

And yeah, for some reason, in this HYPER-TECH FUTURE, they still have photographs?

Also, why does Dex think that wanting good people to work for you is somehow unique or particularly impressive?

Whatever. We have a quick flashback to Dex’s latest meeting with Andi. Y’all need to see this so I’ll just post the entire thing:

She was standing in the shadows of a pleasure palace, a Holo cyborg dancing in the window behind her. Androma’s pale, ghostlike hair was streaked with purple, which was new, and peeked out from beneath a black hood, pulled low over her face. He could just barely make out her glowing grey eyes and the smooth metallic plates on her cheekbones, a defensive body mod she’d had done years before. But he could make out the rest of her: perfect curves beneath a sleek, skintight leather bodysuit; the hilt of a knife sticking out from her black boots. And, of course, outside of the hooded cape, her trademark glowing katanas swords strapped across her back like an X of death.

I was gonna make a remark about how people Sasha’s age probably should know better than to write garbage like this, but then I remembered that her KWEEN SJM is 30+, so nevermind.

And yes, Andi has fucking KATANAS. And they are AN EXXX OF DETTHH.

I’m cackling.

Update: So um ... Let’s talk about those edits, shall we? Andi’s eyes are no longer glowing, and as much as I’m happy they toned it down (I wish), this is really the last of their starshined problem.

She has metallic plates on her cheekbones now, which ... let’s examine some official art (from the book trailer):

The art is kind of inconsistent, but those are not on her cheekbones, but on her cheeks. And frankly it looks terrible, as a concept. I would guess it’s the result of miscommunication, but since this is on the official website, I’m assuming Shinsay approved this.

And how is this a defensive mod? She couldn’t have her skull reinforced with titanium or some shit? Ah, yes, the most vulnerable part of the head: the cheek/bone. You gotta protect ‘em! 

Also, I don’t wanna shit on a fellow artist, but I have to say: Idk who this artist is that they got this job but I thought Shinsay would have enough money to hire someone who understands perspective and facial anatomy.

Dex Dogtective is having a BAD TIME trying to catch the Marauder, so he complains about their own ships.

Here I am, the ship seemed to say. Large and in charge and as slow as a rhinoceratops.

I just wanted to include this so y’all could see RHINOCERATOPS.

Update: This line has been changed and is now: Here I am, the ship seemed to say. Large and in charge and as undercover as a Xen Pterran carriage slug.

Also here’s what Dex apparently looks like (from the artist’s Instagram): 

That’s the face of someone who sniffs dirty underwear.

Dex then wanks on about how hot the Marauder is. No, really:

A sleek, beautiful beast that looked to be made of the stars in which it swam.

Deadly and delicious, all varillium glass in the shape of an arrowhead, now concealed by metal shields to protect it during the chase.

He probably has a secret porn stash of plane schematics.

Some little dork comes up to Dex to declare that the Marauder is “making an interesting move,” because I guess the carrier pigeons are dead.

He looked up at the youngest Patrolman on his dedicated crew, a boy just barely of age, who’d never seen battle. Who didn’t know the feeling of blood on scarred hands.

He doesn’t seem like he’s there for battle anyway, considering the fact that he’s near the captain at the moment, is the one delivering the update, and likely isn’t a part of the ground troops.

Update: He looked up at the youngest Patrolman on the ship, a boy no older than fifteen with slitted reptilian nostrils. A boy who’d never seen battle. Who didn’t know the feeling of blood on scarred hands.

Why does he have slitted reptilian nostrils? Is he a particular type of alien? A mutated human? Voldemort? Why do you explain Lira’s whole deal for three paragraphs and then just go “meh, he’s got a weird nose” for this dude? You couldn’t even just throw in a random collection of letters and pretend it’s the name of a type of alien? 

Effort who?

But what is this “interesting move?”

“We aren’t able to catch up to them, as we’d previously hoped.”

Their “interesting move” is ... outrunning them? Like I know what the “interesting move” is, but the way it’s written is so stupid and makes no sense. Who would say this? Dex asks the guy specifically to “use his words” to explain their “interesthing move,” and all he gets is “shit shit we can’t catch up.”

Seriously, who edited this?

Update: Someone edited this as best they could, I guess, because his reply has been changed to “It seems they’re charting a course for the asteroid belt.” 

Does this change anything? No.

The boy asks for orders and Dex tells him to fuck off.

“The rest of you,” Dex said, unbuckling his harness and standing up from his seat, voice rising to a roar, “will catch me that fiking damned ship!”

The glory of his rage was lost in another explosion.

I suspect the glory of his rage was lost some time before that.

Can we just take a moment to go over the dialogue here?

Boy: They’re making an interesting move!

Dex: What’s the move?

Boy: We can’t catch up to them like we hoped! They’re heading towards the asteroid belt!

Dex: I KNEW IT!!

Boy: What should we do?

Dex: GO CRAP YOUR PANTS SOMEWHERE ELSE. THE REST OF YOU: CATCH UP TO THAT SHIP AND GET IT FOR ME!

That was a nonversation. Who put Dex in charge? Is he the Captain of Redundant Orders? He was literally told that they aren’t able to catch up and need to rethink their strategy, and he’s like CATCH ME THAT SHIP.

One of their engines gets fucked.

Dex tumbled into the metal siding, his anger tumbling with him.

Multi-level tumbling.

Update: This has been changed to: Dex’s temper rose as he unclasped his harness and toppled against the metal siding.

Why did he unclasp his harness twice? Or is there a difference between unbuckling and unclasping?

Dex thinks it’s time to take matters into his own ... claws?

Dex squeezed his fists. The pilot flinched back as a triangular blade sprung out of each of Dex’s gloves, just over his knuckles. “Move the fike over.”

Or he’ll scratch you to death with his kittycat claws.

Update: Dex squeezed his fists. The pilot flinched back as four crimson triangular blades sprung out of each of Dex’s gloves, just over his knuckles. “Move over.” 

I’m so fiking mad that they removed fike, so I’ve decided to bring it the fike back, just like we all fiking deserve.

And obviously one blade isn’t enough, you gotta have FOUR, and they gotta be CRIMSON, like the BLOOD OF HIS ENEMIES. How else will you communicate that he’s HARDCORE. 

He could hear commotion in the background, the sound of the pilot’s whining voice as he phoned Cyprian, a glorious tattle-tale.

Yet another Smaas-ism. And this sentence is a trainwreck.

Update: He could hear a commotion in the background, the sound of the pilot’s whining voice as he commed the general. Pathetic tattletale.

Did Shinsay read my first snark or what? So many of my favorite bits have been changed and I hate it.

“You were right,” [the co-pilot] said. “They’re heading for the Asteroid Belt.”

Of course I’m right, Dex wanted to say. Androma always runs until she finds a place to hide.

Damn that wily Androma, always running when she doesn’t want to get caught and hiding when she doesn’t want to be found! Only she could come up with such outside-the-box, wild card strategies!

Update: The copilot, a man covered in purple spikes, stared at Dex openmouthed. “You were right,” he said, his massive canines visible. “They’re heading for Gollanta.”

Shinsay, are you gonna explain your random aliens or what?

Dex sets up a trap for the Marauder in the asteroid belt and we end on this:

Androma was good at what she did. But so was Dex. 

And besides, a prodigy protégée could only outrun her master for so long.

Androma has literally nothing to do with the ship moving too fast for them to catch, but ok, whatever.

[rongasm]

Have you seen the bold type do you recommend it?

*steps up on soap box* ahem

Why I recommend The Bold Type

I know that a bunch of people have written posts like this, but here’s my iteration, which comes from a place of: 1. Love, 2. being the exact target audience, and 3. watching too many TV shows that don’t give me what I want. The Bold Type, as it turns out, is all about going after what you want. It is about rejecting the societal standard that tells women to become meek in the workplace and, instead, use that standard as a bar over which you can raise yourself and become even better. The Bold Type is along the same vein as the short-lived MTV show Sweet/Vicious— feminism for women, to entertain women, to show women in lights that we are interested in seeing. I think that the success of this show could cause a boom of similar shows— sleek, modern, female-centric. Watching The Bold Type isn’t just about The Bold Type. It’s about supporting the content that we want to see.

There are three main characters— Jane, Kat, and Sutton. All are best friends. All are in different places in their careers. All are successful in their own right. And all work at the fabled Scarlet Magazine, a magazine written by women for women to be their saucy older sister, guiding them through life. Instead of 50 Ways To Please Your Man, it’s 50 Ways To Please Yourself. Instead of Lipsmackers That Will Stay On While You’re Lipsmacking it’s Lipsmackers That Will Stay On While You Take On The World. Their boss, Jacqueline (we’ll get to her later; she’s my favorite character) refers to this as “self-feminism.” Other people are important, absolutely, but make sure you’re taking care of yourself and your needs too when it comes to work, relationships, and sex. Scarlet Magazine is about real women who are motivated, who are struggling, who are successful, who are scared, who are human. It’s a publication that I, personally, would love to read.

Jane works for the writing department. She is a young writer who is thirsty to prove herself, but is also conscious of the fact that she’s low on the totem pole. The pilot begins on her first day as a writer, when you find out that Jane is a smart, capable, confident young woman who was raised on Scarlet Magazine. This is her dream job. She’s organized, thoughtful, and resilient. Although she tends to complain about her assignments, she always comes through and makes them her own.

Kat works in social media— in fact, she’s the head of her department. She tends to see the world through the lens of her camera even when she isn’t working. Kat, by nature of her position, is always on-call. She sees what is beautiful about the world and what is beautiful about people. She also knows, with great clarity, what is important to her, and always fights for these issues— perhaps a little relentlessly. Kat excels at her job, but she doesn’t excel at relationships. She likes “casual,” preferring to have flings. When she meets Adena, a beautiful Muslim lesbian, her idea of relationships and her sexual identity goes out the window. I am looking forward to seeing Kat and Adena’s relationship evolve just as any ol’ heterosexual relationship on television would— full of ups and downs, but also full of love, sex, and moments that just make you hold your breath. Luckily, these two ladies already serving a full course meal.

Sutton is the final female in our group of girls. Undoubtedly the lowest of the three girls on the corporate ladder, Sutton’s reason for that is simple: she didn’t have the socioeconomic privilege that Kat and Jane had been lucky to have, and got off to a more disadvantaged start. Sutton had fought her way to her position tooth-and-nail. And, better yet, she’s damn good at her job. Sutton is the most tenacious character on the show. She’s spent years fighting for herself, and she isn’t about to stop now. The romantic plot-line revolving around Sutton involves her dating a superior in the company, which is normally a story arc that might make me cringe, but Sutton is 25 and Richard is probably in his late-20s, early-30s. There’s lots of respect between the two of them, and their relationship isn’t a conflict of interest because Richard works for the legal department for the company that owns Scarlet. This relationship is adorable, sexy, and Sutton absolutely holds the power in it, meaning that we, as audience members, can root for these two.

The Bold Type shows female friendships exactly the way I know them to be. They love and support each other. They overshare. They talk over each other. They play and tease. They make cultural references in a speedy fashion that temporarily makes you think you’re watching Gilmore Girls. They get selfish. They apologize for being selfish. They fight and make up. They change the direction of their conversations constantly, flashing from topic to topic like strobe lights, showcasing how incredible women are at multi-tasking. It’s the dream female friendship that all of us are desperate for on TV, and no romantic sub-plot is going to tear that down. It’s like Friends without the guys, and as much as I love Chandler, with a show like The Bold Type, I think we can live without him.

Perhaps the best character on The Bold Type is the girls’ boss, Jacqueline. She is the head of Scarlet Magazine; the leader who knows what she wants and knows how to get it. As fearless as she is, she is not to be feared. Jacqueline may be respected, admired, and adhered to by her staff, but if you’re looking for Miranda Priestly, you won’t find her here. Jacqueline cares about facilitating the careers of her employees. She rules her disciples with a firm but fair hand, often giving them more than they deserve. Life is hard, especially for women in the corporate world, and Jacqueline understands that. Her character’s scenes are always an absolute treat— the ones I look forward to the most when I sit down on the couch to watch The Bold Type with a glass of red wine and a feeling of safety on the side. Because I, as a viewer, have learned in just a few episodes (five, to be exact) that these writers are ones that I can trust. They’re speaking using my voice, the voice of my friends, the voice of my peers, the voice of my generation.

Turning your television on to The Bold Type means hearing women discussing issues that are relevant to you. It means being inspired by their tenacity and individual power. It means enjoying an episode full of sumptuous fashion, invigorating music, and a bustling city life. The Bold Type is a show that you can turn on and see yourself reflected in your TV screen— whether it’s your sexual identity, your racial identity, or the personality traits that make you who you are. It’s not that The Bold Type never utilizes tropes, cliches, or predictability. It’s that they do it differently, they do it better, they do it while conscious of what it is and what their show is.  

The Bold Type doesn’t necessarily preach that you a required to live your life boldly. The lesson to learn here is much simpler than that: live. Simply go out and live your life, get what you want, make yourself happy. Stay safe, stay kind, stay supportive, stay healthy, stay loving each other. Perhaps Jacqueline describes this mentality best in her speech in the pilot episode of the show. She says, “I expect you to have adventures. I expect you to fall in love. To get your hearts broken. I expect you to have sex with the wrong people; have sex with the right people. To make mistakes and make amends, take a leap and make a splash. And I expect you to unleash holy hell on anybody who tries to hold you back.”

So you heard her. Let’s go unleash holy hell, ladies.

[dlamp-dictator]

Allen’s Ramblings XIV: Allen’s Limits (Fanservice Edition)

Well, I just finished another go-over for my fanfic (which I’ll hopefully be updating tomorrow), so I’m in a writing mood today. Before I head home I think I’ll do a rambling real quick.

So I made a post here saying that I can’t watch the anime Valkyrie Drive Mermaid because it hits “my limit” in terms of fanservice and what I’m willing to tolerate, but I’ve never really discussed what my limits were in terms of fanservice.

Let me just be frank about my (trash) tastes real quick. I love and will defend Senran Kagura as a game with not only good gameplay, but a good story to my grave (unless we’re talking about the timeline/multiverse split, then this game deserves all the flack it gets on that end). I enjoy anime like Ikkitousen/Battle Vixens (the first season anyway), Wanna Be the Strongest in the World (though I will never recommend that to anyone. Ever.), Kill la Kill, Keijo, Koihime (wow, a lot of K’s there), and so on. I love playing games like Dead or Alive (I even buy the DLC sometimes), Rumble Roses, Onechanbara, Blazblue (its female designs are really fanservice-y, let’s be honest here), Nitro Busters, and I’m willing to try almost any MMO with cute female character designs for a bit. Needless to say, I like me some fanservice, or at least I can tolerate a hell of a lot of it. 

You will never hear me say “this anime/game is good if you can get over the fanservice” because I refuse to believe an anime or game should have a gap like that for people to over to enjoy it. Unless gap is a video game and it’s a skill-based gap, there shouldn’t be a one in the first place (that said Senran Kagura: Deep Crimson is actually kind of hard unless you grind a bit, so... fair warning). You might have noticed I say things like “if you can’t handle the fanservice that’s fine, but try to make it past episode 1 at least.” That’s because I feel you at least need a minimum amount of context before making a call on a show or game just being fanservice trash. Seeing a few gif sets or screen shots isn’t context, not to me anyway. With shows like Keijo and games like Senran Kagura, there’s a good anime and game there, and a lot of the judgement come from the premise and people just ignore the context. Many of the people that try the games out or watch the shows usually say something “yeah, this is a good game/anime, and it has potential, but the fanservice kills it for me.” That’s a 100% okay thing to say. I just get mad when people call it trash without even looking into it. To say Senran Kagura is a trash game that only panders to male audience is just... not only wrong, but shows ignorance to me. To say Keijo and Kill la Kill are fanservice-y shows that just attract a male audience just... kills my soul a little when I know for a fact that it’s got other things going for it than just the fanservice.

However, with all that said I still have my limits. There are shows and games that even I can’t get intodue to some of the content in it. I won’t say these games and shows are bad, but sometimes I will say I can’t finish, watch, or play them because the content in them turns me off, or at the very least I will advice people to skip certain parts because that’s how bad they turned me off. 

But anyway, let’s get on with what limits Allen has in terms of Fanservice:

Bare Breast Being Shown

Christ, this is the main reason I can’t get through Valkyrie Drive Mermaid. 

Look, I’m a guy. I’m a straight guy. I think I can comfortably say I like breasts. As an anime fan with trash taste I can say that, yes, I like anime tiddies. However, flashing bare breasts on the screen just... turns me off a little. Like, I get it, sometimes that’s just how the show is. Clothes and underwear come off, so it just makes sense, but I just... don’t enjoy. This is mostly because when I watch fanservice-y anime I’m watching the simulcast version where the boobs and nipples are censored in a way that it’s either in a way that’s comedic (like in Daimao), stylistic (like in Samurai Girls), or by editing shots (like in... most anime nowadays). So, when the blurays come out the anime tiddies are shown in full, uncensored view it feels more distracting than tantalizing. Like, you’ve already hooks me with the story, comedy, or action dude, why are you showing me the anime tiddies when I didn’t care for them three months ago? That’s just how I feel anyway, I think I’m the only one that thinks like this.

Sex Scenes

This is in the same vein as bare breast. I usually watch these fanservice-y shows for either it’s action, comedy, or actual plot (what little one exists anyway), so even if the sex scene makes sense in context, unless it’s playing some comedic gag like someone walking in on the characters and kills the mood or it’s an implied sex scene where the joke is that it’s some innocent I just... don’t want to watch it. A good video game example might be the sex mini game(s) in the God of War series. Yeah, they’re short and aren’t important to the game, but... I didn’t buy the game for that reason, that’s not the point of the game, and it feels like it was put in their for stupid reasons.

Taking the Plot Too Seriously/Flimsy Justification for Fanservice

This is the main reason I can’t get into Queen’s Blade, but some online friends have tempted me into giving it another shot. This is also the main reason I can’t recommend Ikkitousen past season 1. When shows and games try to make their plot out to be something more serious than it actually is it just... makes me wonder why. Like when I was talking about Keijo in my anime updates, it’s main draw was the ridiculousness and action, not the fanservice. If that show tried to play Nozumi’s poverty seriously and had her involved in Keijo out of desperation to make money I would had dropped it immediately.

To clarify, the manga made it clear that Nozumi knew she could make a killing as an Olympic Gymnast, but as a Keijo player she knew she’d have a bigger payout, longer career life, and (arguably) less risks to her body. Becoming a Keijo player was just systematically better for her and that’s why she did it. No more, no less. I would had stopped watching almost immediately if they had made Keijo out to be some vile sport forcing girls to battle for a wild crowd like an underground cock fight and Nozumi was desperate enough to quick being a gymnast to make money in that sport. 

Again, this is what killed my interest in Ikkitousen. I was watching that show to see cute girls punch each other with decent fight scenes and animations, not for some Three Kingdoms drama about defying fate. I’ll play Dynasty Warriors if I wanted that. 

Playing to a Fetish I Don’t Have/Care About

This one’s pretty simple, so I won’t get too ramble-y here. If the show or game’s trying to sell me on something I’m not into, I won’t care to play or watch it anymore. I’m not about to start spilling my virgin-ass sexual interests on the internet, so that’s all I’m gonna’ say on that.

Underage Sex Scenes/Underage Sexualization

No. No just. This is a bad thing and it’s why I can’t and won’t recommend Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya past the first season, and why I will recommend people read Negima at Omnibus Volume 3 instead of at the beginning. 

Now, when I say “underage sexualization” I mean “below high school age.” Why do I let high school get a free pass? Well, because I’m pretty sure a good majority of us lost our virginity in high school, and high schoolers having sex is a plot in nearly every live action high school drama ever, so... yeah. High School and sex is just a real life thing, so any complaining about it just seems hypocritical to me unless the sexy is stuff is about the point below. Anything under that high school age is just... no. 

Also, the show/game sexualizing things and the fandom sexualizing things are two completely different things to me. I don’t like it when fans do it either, but those are the fans getting horny at the wrong things, not the creators endorsing that behavior... unless they do, but that’s a whole other conversation.

Glorifying Rape/Brutality (Especially Against Minors)

Again, a thing that is just... no. However, this one’s a bit more... eh, complicated? 

For me, rape and brutality shown in media isn’t a turn off point. I mean, it is, but if I’m being super-hyper-mega-ultra-willing to, I can deal with it. That is, so long as the characters involve react in a realistic/believable way. Do people in the story justify the act? Do they rebuke the one who did it? Is that person punished in a way that is either karmic, or proper given the laws of the world of that story? Is that person called out on their behavior? 

Look, I’m not going to start defending rape and the like in media, I’m just saying if it’s done to make a point and not playing at some ultra-violent fetish then there’s some room for discussion. It still turns me off, it still hits my limit, but yeah.

So yeah, there are a few others for me, but those are the big ones. Anyway, that’s it for this rambling. Feel free to ask me stuff and whatnot. I’m heading home now and I’ll probably be taking a third look at my fanfic, so... yeah.

[gossipnetwork-blog]

How Women, Tech Took Over Porn: Inside the 2018 AVN Awards

New Post has been published on http://gossip.network/how-women-tech-took-over-porn-inside-the-2018-avn-awards/

How Women, Tech Took Over Porn: Inside the 2018 AVN Awards

From #MeToo to cam stars, this year’s Oscars of the obscene showcased the future of porn

Here’s a Black Mirror pitch: You pay several hundred dollars to attend the world’s biggest porn convention and awards ceremony. You travel to Las Vegas, where the air has transformed into mentholated nicotine vapor and no one will validate your parking. You do this in order to meet porn stars in the flesh, to see them onstage celebrating the Oscars of the obscene, because – even though, according to Scientific American, half of us are now creating our own sexual content on our personal devices – there’s something superhuman about sexual celebrities.

Death of a Porn Star

When August Ames killed herself following controversy on Twitter, it revealed a schism between the gay and straight communities in the porn industry

But when you arrive at the convention, in place of your 1990s dream of impossibly proportioned stars in bedazzled Lycra posing for Polaroids, what you see is a 15,000-square-foot hall teeming with hundreds of beautiful, semi-clothed models of all shapes and styles, grinning into their laptops. You try to talk to a young woman in heart-shaped pasties and booty shorts, but she’ll only give you a few seconds of attention before she’s back to clicking her shiny gold nails across her keyboard.

Here’s the twist: This ain’t no dystopian nightmare. Attendees of the 35th Annual Adult Entertainment Expo and Adult Video News Awards were treated to precisely this display of tech-mediated intimacy. Plenty of big names were in attendance – stars who had led more traditional adult-film careers – but they were outnumbered by scores of up-and-coming models who primarily built their own businesses using cam shows, original clip stores and monetized social-media platforms. The mass availability of easily pirated streaming video may have decimated the porn economy, but it seems that women are the ones adapting, finding fresh ways to connect directly with consumers. As these models gain more economic influence, they are also raising the bar for consent conversations throughout the industry.

The last time I was at the AVNs was in 2012, when I was nominated for producing and directing a niche site called QueerPorn.TV. My Bay-Area scene was proud to think of ourselves as the forward-thinking weirdos, exemplifying the characteristics of the queer porn genre: body-positive and diverse, with a riot-grrrl aesthetic. We were nominated in the somewhat self-contradicting category Best Professional Amateur Site, and were miffed when we lost to Clips4Sale, a platform which had been around since 2003 for creators to upload and sell short original videos. Here we were, indie smut with a vision, and we lost to a tech host?

Now, it seems as clear as a Bellagio fountain that clips stores were the future of “professional amateurs.” While much of the male-dominated porn studio system is fighting against stolen content, independent female artists have been able to establish a sustainable business, producing their own content and marketing it to a small but loyal fan base.

One such artist is Bratty Nikki, a leggy, half-Mexican, half-Irish woman with a frosty reality-TV aesthetic: blonde extensions, impossible nails, skin-tight miniskirts and designer spiked heels. She sat on a gleaming white couch in an enormous booth on the expo floor, calling attention to her shirt, which read; “Never underestimate the power of a girl who knows what she wants.”

“Never underestimate the power of a girl who knows what she wants,” says Bratty Nikki. Roger Kisby for Rolling Stone

Nikki is the executive vice president of IWantEmpire.com, an umbrella company that includes IWantClips, IWantPhone, IWantFanClub and IWantCustomClips, with more in the works. Hers is one of many companies vying for dominance in a sort of clips market arms race. Nikki got her start seven years ago working as an online financial dominatrix, offering phone and cam sessions to clients in which she expressed a personality she tells me isn’t really a character. “I am a greedy brat,” she says. “I believe that I deserve the best out of life. My fans love that I’m confident enough to say, ‘This is what I want and you’re gonna give it to me.'”

She started IWantEmpire with her husband, entrepreneur Jay Phillips, because she felt other host sites were underestimating her as an artist. Like other platforms, they take a cut of the profits, but the artist sets their own price and decides what and how much they want to upload. Their brand expanded to offer a store for consumers to order custom clips, and a fan club where artists can monetize social media-like “lifestyle” content. As it turns out, kinky consumers are willing to pay for content created by people who understand precisely what they’re looking for.

Like many fetish clips, Nikki’s videos don’t include sex or even nudity, just specialty monologues in which she teases, chastises and degrades her devotees. In the larger-than life video projected over us in the booth, she wore skinny jeans and a tank top, standing in an apartment entryway holding shopping bags. “Yes, I’m leaving you,” she spits at the camera with an exaggerated eye roll. “I’ve already maxed out your credit cards. Taken a bunch of vacations with my girlfriends that you paid for. You’re going to be sitting home alone tonight crying into your pillow as you hate-jerk your little cock.”

The audacity of financial domination is a perfect fit for naturally bossy women. Haven, a Haitian-American dominatrix from Orlando, says that when she was go-go dancing and camming she didn’t take direction from clients very well. When she discovered that she could make fetish clips online, it was a way for her to make a career off her genuine demeanor. “I really don’t want to talk to you; I really just want your money,” she deadpans. “That’s me, wholeheartedly.” Now she films around 15 short clips every Sunday, improvising on topics like small-penis humiliation or jack-off instruction. She spends the rest of the week editing footage, scheduling uploads, writing marketing copy and promoting her brand on social media.

Fans mill about the floor of the AEE. Roger Kisby for Rolling Stone

“It takes a lot of work to make this look so easy,” she says.

I tagged along to an afternoon of clip shoots at a local film studio run by porn director/performers Madeline Marlowe and Will Havoc. Havoc was pulling a red and black leather harness over his tattooed chest, preparing to shoot sex scenes with two porn stars named Riley Nixon and Arabelle Raphael.

Riley, who was nominated for Best New Starlet at the AVNs, wiggled into a canary-yellow latex two-piece and platform heels. As she filled out her legal paperwork, she kept squatting and yanking on the rubbery crotch of her outfit. Even though she was following a conventional route to adult film fame, signing at the Penthouse booth and shooting for notorious gonzo studio Elegant Angel, she also sold Skype shows, custom clips and signed Polaroids on her personal website. She would post today’s footage on her own ManyVids and OnlyFans pages, where fans can pay a monthly membership for access to exclusive content.

One advantage to making her own content is that she has more leeway to maintain her preferred androgynous style and buzzed head ­– some mainstream studios still won’t cast models with short hair or tattoos. “I’ll wear a wig to play a character, but I don’t want to have to wear a wig to play the role of a woman,” she complains.

Arabelle has had to deal with her own hair troubles in the industry. She’s a French-Persian Jew, and long ago grew tired of being expected to straighten her hair and use skin-lightening makeup to work with certain directors.

“I was being cast in really racist roles,” she says, “and basically told I was not good enough.” She took time off to build her own membership site, a Clips4Sale store, and an OnlyFans following, discovering unprecedented financial and emotional success. “I had no idea I was a good performer and that people wanted more content of me,” she says. “I left my hair curly, got as many tattoos as I wanted, shot with who I wanted.”

Riley, Arabelle and Will showed one another the results of their standard STI tests on the secure Performer Availability Scheduling Services database. They negotiated sexual boundaries and preferences while doing their own costuming and makeup. With low production cost and the creative advantage of working with friends, they’re each an individual porn studio unto themselves.

Will Havoc, Riley Nixon and Arabelle Raphael film a scene after hours. Roger Kisby for Rolling Stone

Porn stars work hard and party hard, and sometimes they work while they’re playing. Late that night, I was invited to a private sex party with a hard-to-obtain address. A Lyft took me away from the light pollution of the strip to an edge of town tract housing development. Through the unfurnished living room, past an ominously neon-lit pool, was a warehouse filled with porn stars smoking blunts and offering one another bumps in their rhinestone-encrusted nails.

Hired stars ascended to a sort of wrestling platform in the center of the room, performing exaggerated lubed-up sex for onlookers to the rhythm of deafening drone metal. My friends, a polyamorous “family,” decided to find a quieter room in which to play. As I enjoyed a beer and watched sex-worker activist Siouxsie Q fuck her curly-haired boyfriend Michael Vegas, an AVN nominee for Best Supporting Actor – as her Barbie-blonde pro-domme girlfriend Bella Bathory was eaten out in a nearby chair – it occurred to me that we were doing exactly what porn fans assumed we must be doing. I felt like I had ringside seats to watch NBA superstars play a pick-up game.

As the four-day convention wore on, the all-night partying didn’t threaten to slow anyone down. The AEE still makes the classic circuit demands of conventional porn stars, each scheduled to appear for three- to five-hour shifts, where they were to sign and sell eight-by-10 glossies, allow hands around their waists and shoulders, smile, twerk, tell fans how their favorite position is still reverse cowgirl, princess wave, talk to men like they’re babies, talk to men like they’re dogs. But it was the cam models who had the boundless energy, who behaved like Vine stars or friends at a slumber party that just happens to be surveilled. They hovered over their screens, promising to spank one another in exchange for tips; the ding of virtual tokens being earned echoed the slots at the nearby casino.

The models had each brought their own laptops, colorfully branded with their stage names. Most of them had elaborate production rigs including flattering ring lights, bulky webcams and phallic microphones. Cam models perform all kinds of explicit shows when they broadcast from their homes; but, due to city-wide nudity laws, they couldn’t wear less than pasties and a thong at AEE. That meant no dildo shows or live sex. Yet their chirpy conversation still had value for the members watching from home, some of whom had actually financed the travel for their favorite model.

Performers at the FreeCams booth. Roger Kisby for Rolling Stone

At the booth for the webcam company Chaturbate, both men and women were making cameos on one another’s screens. This seemed to be in defiance of the porn convention that objects of desire should be separated, lest a consumer’s taste be offended or boner deflated by something they weren’t expecting to see.

A male model named Leon with One-Direction hair and powder-blue briefs explained to me that one of his online fans had just told him he was enjoying watching all the broadcasts because, “It’s like seeing all of the characters from my favorite TV shows in a crossover episode!”

I approached a group of giggling young camgirls in pastel-colored wigs. They were teasing a group of bystanders, telling them to tune in to their group cam show later that night “to see some real action.”

I asked them if they were hoping that in future years they’d be as famous as the porn stars in the Wicked or Evil Angel booths? Did they want everyone to know their names?

One of the models shook her head vigorously, making her unicorn-horn headband wobble. “The more famous you get,” she pointed out, “the more people will pirate your content.”

Her friend, who was wearing a mesh leotard with skeleton hands covering her nipples, agreed: “We make more money when only our fans know who we are.”

MyFreeCams performer Lil Miss Angel at the 2018 AEE. Roger Kisby for Rolling Stone

With the national conversation surrounding #MeToo, it was no surprise that the sex workers at AEE were ready to address the topics of harassment and bodily autonomy. Members of the Adult Performer Advocacy Committee (APAC) handed out colorful “What Is Consent?” flyers, which illustrated how consent is “informed” and “freely given,” and that it “can be revoked at any time.”

For the second year in a row, every single convention attendee – fans and exhibitors alike – was required to sign a Code of Conduct form that outlined, for example, the difference between a consensual public picture and a violation such as an upskirt.

The Code of Conduct described a zero-tolerance policy towards “stalking, unwelcome physical contact” and “offensive verbal assaults,” emphasizing that guests were “welcome to use the restroom that match their gender presentation or identity.” This last stipulation was especially welcome from the trans community attending the awards, as two years ago several performers accused Hard Rock security guards of disrespecting a gender non-conforming attendee.

Some participants were aware of ways they could make their models more comfortable. Best director nominee Greg Lansky, a delightfully flashy French pornographer in a red Givenchy tracksuit, says that he literally elevates his studio so that fans can see women “on a pedestal.” His security teams knows which performers are ok hugging and touching their fans and which aren’t.

“I’m trying to make these girls feel good about what they do,” he says. “They all worked really hard to get here.”

With security at all corners of his booth, with its Instagrammable gold couch and open bar, Lansky believes fans get the message that women deserve respect.

“It’s hard for me to go anywhere [in the hotel],” says Jessica Drake, a Best Actress nominee, from the relative privacy of her pristine media suite. “Guys congregate in groups of 30 and just stand there. They circle you. I’ve become a master of taking a selfie and restraining them at the same time.”

Director and performer Joanna Angel, owner of the alt genre site Burning Angel, says she’s never had a bad experience with a fan at AEE. “The fans are traveling to be here,” she says. “They’re really looking forward to this. People wait in really long lines to come see you.” The only time she’s seen nonconsensual groping is from men at the bar after the convention, whom casino security quickly ejected. “I wouldn’t even call guys like that fans,” she says, just entitled jerks.

Ron Jeremy, who has been considered more of a walking novelty than active performer for many years, was banned from the convention and awards show following his claim that groping is a part of the job of his pubic appearances.

In a statement to Rolling Stone, AVN CEO Tony Rios commented, “Ron Jeremy admitted guilt to specific aspects of our code of conduct policy. We discussed this with Ron, and he was not allowed to attend the convention and awards show.”

However, performer/director James Deen, who was accused of on-set misconduct as well as intimate partner violence back in 2015, was nominated at and attended the awards.

Rios clarified, “We did not prohibit people from attending based on accusations.”

Siouxsie Q, who was recently elected secretary of APAC, is upset about what she sees as double standards, where the young, powerful Deen is still welcomed while aging Jeremy is put out to pasture.

“I think we see similar trends in Hollywood. These accounts of Harvey Weinstein’s predatory behavior aren’t coming out during the height of the Kill Bill franchise, but rather in the soggy aftermath of Paddington Bear 2,” she says. “As someone’s star dwindles, people are more willing to watch them fall.”

Deen’s attorney Michael Fattorosi characterized comparisons to Jeremy as “inaccurate and unfair.” In a statement, he said, “James was never investigated criminally, nor were there ever any lawsuits filed against him by any of the accusers. Nor did James ever admit to any misconduct on his part.”

And unlike other industries where powerful men continue to be reckoned, those in porn face powerful taboos. “It’s challenging for adult performers to speak out regarding any abuse that occurs; it is because it perpetuates stigma and allows for society to tell us we asked for it,” says Tasha Reign, an APAC chairperson.

Siouxsie Q agrees that stigma plays a huge role in consent controversies within the sex industry. “As long as sex workers have as much difficulty as they do when reporting and prosecuting sexual assault,” she says, “there will continue to be a culture of silence, victim scrutiny, and inconsistencies in how the industry responds.”

Janice Griffith was nominated for the Best Actress award at the AVNs. Roger Kisby for Rolling Stone

“What do you think of this dress? It’s very ‘Times Up,’ but is it whorey enough?”

Janice Griffith, a Best Actress nominee, is in her hotel room preparing for the awards. It’s true that her black cocktail dress is not as provocative as some of her colleagues’ revealing red-carpet looks. The teal undertone in her ombre hair is fading. She’s Indo-Caribbean, Angelina Jolie-skinny, and speaks with a husky authority. She barks at her date not to interrupt her, impulsively dumping out a jar of candy because there’s nowhere else for him to pour her a fresh vodka cocktail.

None of Janice’s friends in attendance know how to roll a joint. I’m happy to oblige, so she gratefully hands me a packet of rolling papers the size of a hot dog and a sack of sativa the size of my laptop.

“Our biggest issue is that we treat an industry of freelancers as if we’re an industry of employees,” Janice says. Despite the efforts of the Adult Performer Advocacy Committee and Free Speech Coalition, in her view, porn is currently too under-regulated for meaningful accountability.

“When men make women uncomfortable, we brush it off,” she says, “because we know people will write us off as being over-reactive or emotional.”

I visited many porn star rooms and saw both their self care safeguards and true psychological states – Sephora explosions and Cosco-sized boxes of Tangerine Emergen-cee, elaborate dabbing rigs and electric kettles. Janice had brought Complete Works of Kierkegaard.

Harli Lotts, co-host of the AVNs, dons a suicide awareness and prevention ribbon on the red carpet. Roger Kisby for Rolling Stone

As the red carpet wound its way through the Hard Rock, gamblers and bar patrons scrambled for a glimpse of the stars. While many pornographers opted for prom-worthy gowns and suits, their outfits nodded to their profession with bare midriffs, waist-high slits and undulating décolletage. Some wore little more than fringed bikinis. Lance Hart, founder of the PervOUT network, stood out in a stripper-style policeman’s shirt and fishnet stockings; he was handcuffed to his date Charlotte Sartre, who revealed on Twitter that she was not wearing anything underneath her slinky black dress. Abella Danger, last year’s Best New Starlet, shimmered in a transparent bodysuit adorned with strategically placed green and pink crystals.

The AVN awards show was predictably raunchy but surprisingly sincere. Co-hosted by comedian Aries Spears, Australian performer/director Angela White and camgirl Harli Lotts, the event’s biggest draw was hip-hop star Lil Wayne, who performed two high-energy sets with a drummer and DJ. The teleprompter dialog meshed well with the talents of porn star presenters, who were well-practiced in the art of the arched eyebrow and exaggerated wink.

White set a record by winning fourteen awards, the most AVN wins in one night. Clutching her Female Performer of the Year trophy to her remarkable cleavage, she emotionally thanked her co-stars for “allowing me to be vulnerable.”

Tommy Pistol, the Best Actor winner for a film called Ingenue, praised the industry for being a “fucked up family.”

Yet Spears, a MADtv alum, did not seem to pick up on the changing attitudes in the room. “Your personal space should not be invaded,” he declared, before utterly failing to read the room. “However, you bitches look delicious tonight. If I should come up to you and beg you for a blowjob, can you blame me? I am a hot blooded heterosexual male in a room full of professional cocksuckers.”

Eventually, the celebration came to an end. The false eyelashes were peeled off, the hangovers medicated with Ibuprofen and brunch. Pornographers’ minds return to their business, and to the social challenges they continue to face.

“We demand so much from porn stars,” says Bree Mills, a lesbian writer and director. “Performers who have made successful careers could be mentors. Give them infrastructure. Get them an appointment with an accountant, get them health care. They get the stigma stamp on them harder than anybody. We have to take care of them.”

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Steve Martin, Carrie Fisher, and the Male Response to Female Beauty

In response to the news that Carrie Fisher had died, Steve Martin shared on Facebook the vivid memory of the impact Ms. Fisher had had on him nearly forty years before (presumably when he'd seen her portraying Princess Leia in the first Star Wars movie). "When I was a young man, Carrie Fisher was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen," Martin began. As has been widely reported, Steve Martin's tribute was publicly attacked by some as "sexist." "Remember Carrie Fisher for her talent, her feminism, her commentary on mental health," New York Magazine wrote, "-- not for the way she looked." A Twitter user's comment captured the essence of these attacks: ""Seriously @SteveMartinToGo quit being such a jerk for thinking Carrie Fisher was beautiful and saying so on the occasion of her death." Although Steve Martin had his defenders, nonetheless, in the face of the attacks, he retreated and deleted his posting. More needs to be said about how wrong-headed are those attacks. Let me begin by acknowledging that women have much to complain about the manner in which men relate to them regarding their looks and their bodies. And they have much to complain about how men fail to relate to them-- as full human beings worthy of respect. Particularly in the aftermath of an election to the presidency of a man we have heard boasting of sexually assaulting women, the injured feelings of women whose humanity has been denied and abused warrants acknowledgment and consideration. So the following is not intended as a counter-attack on those women who, triggered perhaps by his rhapsodic comment about Carrie Fisher's beauty, attacked Steve Martin. It is, rather, an attempt to clarify what there is in men's response to womanly beauty that deserves to be honored, not condemned. "Carrie Fisher was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen." One can hear a fullness of heart in Steve Martin's statement. He is recalling an experience of inspiration--a breathing in of spirit in response to something that touched him deeply, a pleasurable recollection of being moved by beauty. I imagine most men can identify with that appreciation of womanly beauty. And it's a good thing that we are that way. That response is deeply wired into our nature. It is a response that has for eons been life-serving, and life-enhancing. The evolutionary process that has shaped us has seen to it that, by nature, we feel the feelings that help keep us alive and serve to pass our form of life forward into the future. It is good that the male human is moved, as Steve Martin was, by the perception of female beauty. That is no small part of how it has come to pass that there are people on this earth. It has been well-established scientifically that what the human male finds beautiful in the human female is correlated with health, fertility, and advantageous genetic endowment. The perpetuation of life is vital business, and it is life-serving for us to appreciate what will help us continue our kind. Appreciation of this sort connects with our fundamental being at a level way deeper than our liking someone's "commentary on mental health." That sort of thing can be real, but it is most unlikely to produce a memory that is still resonant forty years later. Steve Martin was accused of responding to Carrie Fisher purely in physical terms. But I doubt that's true at all. We humans do not just mate, we also form relationships as lovers. We are wired not just to produce offspring, but also to form families that can nurture our offspring through their prolonged period of dependency. Heart and soul are also involved, and when we see one another, we see more than just the purely physical. Carrie Fisher was a woman of real spirit, and that quality of her being was entirely visible in her portrayal of the highly spirited character, Princess Leia. I would wager that when Steve Martin found Carrie Fisher beautiful, he was responding also to that spirit. That was certainly the case the moment I first met my own beloved, April, more than thirty years ago. As she walked toward me on that afternoon in Rock Creek Park in Washington (on April 21, 1984), I saw her physical loveliness. (Not beauty-queen beautiful, but certainly pleasing to the eye even at that level.) But what captivated me immediately was a beauty that was both visible and at the level of the spirit. Here's how I put it two and a half years later, in the vow that I'd composed for our wedding. Describing her eyes as "like an open blue sky," I said, "I saw in that first moment that your face is a clear window of your brave and beautiful soul." I continue to be moved by that beauty at moments that are, thankfully, not at all rare. Indeed, the moments that I've been most deeply moved by womanly beauty have been in recent years with April, who is now in her sixties. It is part of what I call "the sacred space of lovers." And the experience of the heightening of my perception of such beauty illustrates the wisdom in the question asked by that old song: "Do I love you because you are beautiful? Or are you beautiful because I love you?" The connections between the perception of beauty and the feeling of the open heart are complex. Steve Martin, I imagine, was not coming from any less-than-human "sexist" place in his perception of Carrie Fisher. I imagine that, back when he was a young man and he saw that beauty, had Steve Martin been given the opportunity to sit across the table from the young woman he had appreciated, he would have treated her as endearingly as he knew how to. If "sexism" implies some sort of lesser treatment, I doubt how he beheld Carrie Fisher would have been sexist in the least. Men are supposed to appreciate women, and it all begins with first sight. I am still moved also by the beauty I see in other women. Experiences of beauty - in general - are important to me. I am moved by the beauty of the music of Bach and Mozart. Moved, too, by the sight of the trees' spring leaves emerging in the valley and ascending the slopes toward our house on the ridge. But nothing moves me more profoundly than womanly beauty, and the way movie stars are cast suggests that looking at such beauty is a pleasure that is pretty nigh universal. I'm sure Steve Martin would affirm that his memory of seeing that "most beautiful creature" is a pleasurable one. Beholding womanly beauty is pleasurable for the men I know, and thus this response is life-enhancing as well as life-serving. It does not diminish in the least that sacred space between April and me that I appreciate womanly beauty wherever I see it. As I see it, our being lovers is more than just a connection between her as a specific human woman and me as a specific human man. It is also a representation of that ancient reality of woman and man coming together in love, as lovers. As Leonard Cohen put it in his song, "That's No Way to Say Good-bye":

Yes many loved before us I know we are not new In city and in forest They smile like me and you I love April not only for being her, but also for being the embodiment of Woman in my life. Did I not appreciate "woman," I'd appreciate April the less. That a man should respond to the beauty of woman is a sign of life's flowering in him. Just as I would wish for every man to see in his beloved some substantial piece of the beauty that Steve Martin saw in Carrie Fisher, so would I wish for every man the capacity to see representatives of such beauty in the world around him. The love of womanly beauty, and of the beautiful qualities that can be conveyed in that visible beauty, partakes of the sacred in the human realm. Steve Martin's recollection of Carrie Fisher's beauty deserves to be celebrated, not silenced.. Andy Schmookler, who has spent the past dozen years warning about the destructive force that has been rising on the American right, will launch this spring a new series--not on the brokenness, but on a dimension of wholeness -- with the title, "The Sacred Space of Lovers."

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from http://ift.tt/2i14kRE from Blogger http://ift.tt/2ioOBrn

[imreviewblog]

Steve Martin, Carrie Fisher, and the Male Response to Female Beauty

In response to the news that Carrie Fisher had died, Steve Martin shared on Facebook the vivid memory of the impact Ms. Fisher had had on him nearly forty years before (presumably when he'd seen her portraying Princess Leia in the first Star Wars movie). "When I was a young man, Carrie Fisher was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen," Martin began. As has been widely reported, Steve Martin's tribute was publicly attacked by some as "sexist." "Remember Carrie Fisher for her talent, her feminism, her commentary on mental health," New York Magazine wrote, "-- not for the way she looked." A Twitter user's comment captured the essence of these attacks: ""Seriously @SteveMartinToGo quit being such a jerk for thinking Carrie Fisher was beautiful and saying so on the occasion of her death." Although Steve Martin had his defenders, nonetheless, in the face of the attacks, he retreated and deleted his posting. More needs to be said about how wrong-headed are those attacks. Let me begin by acknowledging that women have much to complain about the manner in which men relate to them regarding their looks and their bodies. And they have much to complain about how men fail to relate to them-- as full human beings worthy of respect. Particularly in the aftermath of an election to the presidency of a man we have heard boasting of sexually assaulting women, the injured feelings of women whose humanity has been denied and abused warrants acknowledgment and consideration. So the following is not intended as a counter-attack on those women who, triggered perhaps by his rhapsodic comment about Carrie Fisher's beauty, attacked Steve Martin. It is, rather, an attempt to clarify what there is in men's response to womanly beauty that deserves to be honored, not condemned. "Carrie Fisher was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen." One can hear a fullness of heart in Steve Martin's statement. He is recalling an experience of inspiration--a breathing in of spirit in response to something that touched him deeply, a pleasurable recollection of being moved by beauty. I imagine most men can identify with that appreciation of womanly beauty. And it's a good thing that we are that way. That response is deeply wired into our nature. It is a response that has for eons been life-serving, and life-enhancing. The evolutionary process that has shaped us has seen to it that, by nature, we feel the feelings that help keep us alive and serve to pass our form of life forward into the future. It is good that the male human is moved, as Steve Martin was, by the perception of female beauty. That is no small part of how it has come to pass that there are people on this earth. It has been well-established scientifically that what the human male finds beautiful in the human female is correlated with health, fertility, and advantageous genetic endowment. The perpetuation of life is vital business, and it is life-serving for us to appreciate what will help us continue our kind. Appreciation of this sort connects with our fundamental being at a level way deeper than our liking someone's "commentary on mental health." That sort of thing can be real, but it is most unlikely to produce a memory that is still resonant forty years later. Steve Martin was accused of responding to Carrie Fisher purely in physical terms. But I doubt that's true at all. We humans do not just mate, we also form relationships as lovers. We are wired not just to produce offspring, but also to form families that can nurture our offspring through their prolonged period of dependency. Heart and soul are also involved, and when we see one another, we see more than just the purely physical. Carrie Fisher was a woman of real spirit, and that quality of her being was entirely visible in her portrayal of the highly spirited character, Princess Leia. I would wager that when Steve Martin found Carrie Fisher beautiful, he was responding also to that spirit. That was certainly the case the moment I first met my own beloved, April, more than thirty years ago. As she walked toward me on that afternoon in Rock Creek Park in Washington (on April 21, 1984), I saw her physical loveliness. (Not beauty-queen beautiful, but certainly pleasing to the eye even at that level.) But what captivated me immediately was a beauty that was both visible and at the level of the spirit. Here's how I put it two and a half years later, in the vow that I'd composed for our wedding. Describing her eyes as "like an open blue sky," I said, "I saw in that first moment that your face is a clear window of your brave and beautiful soul." I continue to be moved by that beauty at moments that are, thankfully, not at all rare. Indeed, the moments that I've been most deeply moved by womanly beauty have been in recent years with April, who is now in her sixties. It is part of what I call "the sacred space of lovers." And the experience of the heightening of my perception of such beauty illustrates the wisdom in the question asked by that old song: "Do I love you because you are beautiful? Or are you beautiful because I love you?" The connections between the perception of beauty and the feeling of the open heart are complex. Steve Martin, I imagine, was not coming from any less-than-human "sexist" place in his perception of Carrie Fisher. I imagine that, back when he was a young man and he saw that beauty, had Steve Martin been given the opportunity to sit across the table from the young woman he had appreciated, he would have treated her as endearingly as he knew how to. If "sexism" implies some sort of lesser treatment, I doubt how he beheld Carrie Fisher would have been sexist in the least. Men are supposed to appreciate women, and it all begins with first sight. I am still moved also by the beauty I see in other women. Experiences of beauty - in general - are important to me. I am moved by the beauty of the music of Bach and Mozart. Moved, too, by the sight of the trees' spring leaves emerging in the valley and ascending the slopes toward our house on the ridge. But nothing moves me more profoundly than womanly beauty, and the way movie stars are cast suggests that looking at such beauty is a pleasure that is pretty nigh universal. I'm sure Steve Martin would affirm that his memory of seeing that "most beautiful creature" is a pleasurable one. Beholding womanly beauty is pleasurable for the men I know, and thus this response is life-enhancing as well as life-serving. It does not diminish in the least that sacred space between April and me that I appreciate womanly beauty wherever I see it. As I see it, our being lovers is more than just a connection between her as a specific human woman and me as a specific human man. It is also a representation of that ancient reality of woman and man coming together in love, as lovers. As Leonard Cohen put it in his song, "That's No Way to Say Good-bye":

Yes many loved before us I know we are not new In city and in forest They smile like me and you I love April not only for being her, but also for being the embodiment of Woman in my life. Did I not appreciate "woman," I'd appreciate April the less. That a man should respond to the beauty of woman is a sign of life's flowering in him. Just as I would wish for every man to see in his beloved some substantial piece of the beauty that Steve Martin saw in Carrie Fisher, so would I wish for every man the capacity to see representatives of such beauty in the world around him. The love of womanly beauty, and of the beautiful qualities that can be conveyed in that visible beauty, partakes of the sacred in the human realm. Steve Martin's recollection of Carrie Fisher's beauty deserves to be celebrated, not silenced.. Andy Schmookler, who has spent the past dozen years warning about the destructive force that has been rising on the American right, will launch this spring a new series--not on the brokenness, but on a dimension of wholeness -- with the title, "The Sacred Space of Lovers."

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from Healthy Living - The Huffington Post http://huff.to/2j39kSz