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borealiszero · 1 year

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s*sss reading rant

So scum villain was said to be a satire on stallion novel right? Like the og LBH is a bloodthirsty, powerful demon lord that has 300+ wife which is the fantasy of some of the reader. Airplane didn't intend to write it as porn but since the readers wants it that way and he lost the backup to his original draft, he went that way.

Shen Yuan was angry cause he saw the potential that could have be with PIDW, and the treatment of Bingge. Thats why he keep reading it. To see if it ever gets better. And then he entered the book.

Okay the first point is, the satire on stallion novel. OG Binghe has no good support system, where he can rely on anyone for safety. That's why he get stronger and keep getting wives, cause he's lonely. He doesn't have anyone that can keep him safe, no one he can rely on emotionally, so he compensate it with strength, wealth and vanity. So to turn that table around, Binghe in SVSSS could avoid being that by have him making friends, build connection with his fellow martial siblings. It helps him foster a sense of connectivity, fellowship and safety, where he can rely on them. He needs a good support system so he can thrive. But I didn't see that. All we get was just SQQ just stopped the bullying and gave him the correct manual, and also guidance in learning and thats it. What about his emotional support? Making friends? Ning Yingying can't be his only friend, what about others? Where's his slice of life disciple era?? That's the best part of any novel!! That's the part where we can look back and 'hey remember the disciple era? Yeah such a peaceful time' and let them mourn the innocence of that time.

Second point is the wives. Now that LBH is not interested in taking wives, what will happen to theme? Well. I'm also disappointed in this one cause they barely came up. For example NYY. We only get that she's much more sensible now, not whether she's great at cultivation, what is she great in, whats her interest etc. Its just that she's sensible. And the others too like Liu mingyan, like she's a great sword cultivator, where's her scene? Personally i kinda wanna see her relationship with liu qingge, i just love seeing siblings in stories. Also the part where's she's a fujoshi? We have POTENTIAL TRANS ALLERT with that. We could go trans man liu mingyan route! Cause that's how I find out im trans. Bc of yaoi. Not proud of that honestly everyone else has cool egg cracking stories. Anyway also the tian triplet, the palace mistress, we have so SO much potential with the female cast yet they were mentioned once or twice and that's it. We could also go the lesbian route! Cause lesbian ftw.

Third point is Shen Yuan/Shen Qingqiu himself. Honestly I do not think he has any romantic relationship with LBH. All that I read frm him is that he views Binghe as his student, his protege, his son. That's it. Yes, he is an unreliable narrator but I can still read how he views LBH. Honestly the scene where he mourns for Binghe is one of the parts that I hate in scum villain cause everyone keep saying that 'omg the characters are saying that SQQ is mourning for binghe like a wife for her dead husband' yeah ofc they said that cause the author wrote it like that!!! You still have to remember that EVERYTHING here is written by someone!! It's not like the characters do that by themselves, it is WRITTEN by the author. Like, can't a teacher mourn for his favourite student? A father for his son? Does death meant nothing to anyone else other than a wife? I really can't deal with the pairing, especially at the ending where sqq leaves qing jing peak to be lbh stay at home husband like???? You know that's not good right? Like. That's just a normal het novel ending. The difference is there's no baby or pregnancy. He became a house wife?? Shen Qingqiu?? The head of Scholarly Peak?? you're denying him to thrive!!! Why would you do that!!! Like sqq would do that for binghe BUT THAT'S NOT GOOD FOR HIM!!! Why the hell eve bother with the stallion satire when you made the one guy that managed to capture the protagonist heart into a house wife!!

And bonus point, I've heard that it's a satire on danmei novels but like. If it's true than I'm just gonna laugh my guts out. THIS NOVEL?? SATIRE ON DANMEI??? GET THE HELL OUTTA HERE MAN. It got possessive protagonist, non consent stuff, unhealthy relationship, all the stuff that 2000's yaoi is prime at. If you wanna read a satire on danmei you better off reading A Smile from the Villain by Xi Zixu. It's a dark novel. Not a happy ending, with the way it carries the tropes and all is perfect satire. I can't finish it cause the ml is a real creepy yandere. That's a good one right there.

And lastly, their romance. It's unhealthy. It's a one sided relationship, where the other were forced. What's the damn difference with Bingge than? Other than one guy vs 300 girls? To be a good satire, he can go on two routes, either a happy romantic relationship Where he love the person and the other loves him back equally, or second, he doesn't form any romantic relationship and is happy bc he thrives in his platonic relationships with his fellow martial siblings, friends etc. Also we can go the heartbroken route, where his love is rejected by sqq but he learns that a forced love is one of the worst thing you could do to your lived ones, and learn to let go. All this are a good option to defy the stallion tropes.

Unfortunately, s*sss is not what it could have live up to, and I am cursed with vision of ehat it could have been, I am the Shen Yuan to S*sss.

IT COULD HAVE BERN GOOD AND IM SO MAD!!!!!!!

Her work again cause svssd ruined her work for me. Its a turn off for me. Sorry ...

#censoring this cause i dont want it yo end up in the tags #cause aurfhhhhhh #[borealis.epub]

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mewtnute · 3 years

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Heterosexual shippers in the jjk fandom is a prime example of the double standards between queer ships and het ships.

I think we all know the amount of flak queers ships receive with comments such as “they’re just friends” that aren’t used against het ships. All the m/f relationships (besides mechamiwa) are canonically platonic and will stay platonic, as confirmed by the author. Yet people seem to dismiss this in favor of their het ships and claim that they’re canon.

People are quick to pair Yuuji and Nobara (which we all know is simply because Nobara is a girl and Yuuji is a boy) and no one blinks an eye but If I were to head down to the YouTube comment sections and say I ship Megumi and Yuuji, I would get slammed with responses telling me “their just friends, stop making everything gay” even though yuuji and nobara are just as platonic, probably even more so than Yuuji and Megumi.

You know it’s funny seeing dudebros commonly make jokes on how “Yaoi fangirls” ship male characters who even hate it each other and then try to tell me Gojohime (Gojo x Utahime) is canon. Utahime, a woman who canonically dislikes Gojo, a man who canonically causes her stress will always be interpreted as a “Tsundere” even though that’s not what her character represents. Nanago (Gojo x Nanami) which is basically the same ship dynamic as gojohime isn’t treated as fairly. In a jujutsu Stroll episode, Gojo asks Nanami out on a date, but if you ship them, you’re just a crazy fangirl but if we were to replace Nanami with Utahime during that scene, we all know Gojohime would considered “basically canon” unlike Nanago

Satosugu (Gojo and Getou), the most heavily romantic coded paring in the entire series yet people still can’t fathom why others ship it.

Yeah just ignore the romantic language, the romantic break up theme songs, literally their entire relationship and I could see where you’re coming from.

And don’t get me started on the Yutamaki and Nobamaki debate. On any Nobamaki post you’ll see floods of comments claiming that “Maki has a crush on Yuta” because she blushed in that one scene, completely ignoring the fact that in Gege’s old art style, blushing is common and is mostly used to enhance a character’s emotion. Using the “Maki blushed argument”, that must mean Yuta must have a crush on Inumaki because he blushed while looking at him right?

Not only that but Nobara and Maki mutually blush in a scene where Gege uses their new style where blushing is used more sparingly but that doesn’t seem to count. Instead, many straight people will riot against Nobamaki with claims such as “They’re a sibling relationship!” or “Nobara just compliments Maki a lot because she views her as her role model” as if their specific interpretation is the objectively correct one.

I don’t care if you ship an m/f ship, but stop putting down queer ships and giving het ships special treatment.

Sorry for the rant-y post, the terrible comments under a Nobamaki tiktok post just tipped me over the edge.

Edit: I already know m/f experience hate or whatever but personally I just really don’t care. Why? Because the reasonings are different. Shipping discourse will always occur but the discourse surrounding queer ships are ALWAYS a result of homophobia, actual real world consequences. This was a post about the double standards between queer ships and het ships being valid, these standards stemming from homophobia.

#jjk #jujutsu kaisen #nobamaki #itafushi #satosugu #nanago #maki x nobara #nobara x maki #jjk nobara #nobara kugisaki #maki zenin #jjk maki #itadori x fushiguro #yuuji x megumi #gojo x geto #jjk ship

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innovativestruggles · 3 years

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Extra thoughts on Daisuke x Suzue (Anime and Novel)

I was prompted to write this when a friend asked me several prodding questions on Daizue’s relationship and feminism several days ago. Obviously my friend knew where to hit the right nerve LOL

So I thought about it and I’d like to share my thoughts. I don’t know whether my DaiSuzu followers are still hanging around, but if you see this, then this is for you. This post is very opinionated of course so you may not agree with what I have to say.

I took the initiative to go back and watch some of the FKBU episodes, and then top it off with the novel. As I mentioned in numerous older posts, the novel is the original and was written sometime in the 1970s. If you can read Japanese, I strongly recommend you grab a copy and read it for yourself. It goes into a lot more depth with regards to Daizue’s relationship and there is a lot more development between the two.

Novel and anime are different yet there are similarities. What I am going to write here is purely about DaiSuzu and because there are only minute differences in their interactions in both novel and anime, I will combine the two elements together. But before I do that, I want to talk a little about Suzue.

Suzue

I absolutely love Suzue’s character - in almost every single aspect. She is strong, clever, independent and defies all odds. Her personality and interests are definitely more pronounced in the anime in terms of strength and defying the odds. She does the hard yard - a mechanic, an engineer, a creator, a pilot, a spy, an intelligence operator - she is a one stop shop and she is not just a pretty face. Then we have her novel counterpart, who shares similar traits that concerns intelligence and independence. She does intelligence and spy work for Daisuke as well, and the only thing that was absent would be her ‘mechanics and gadget development role.’ Given that the book was written in the 70s by a misogynistic piece of shit, I am surprised the author gave Suzue that level of prominence.

When I saw the promotional materials and then the second episode of FKBU, I was so excited! Finally, a strong female character who has all the ‘male dominated’ traits! I was looking forward to what the anime had to offer her, considering the creators were talking about giving Suzue an ‘important’ role in the anime. And throughout the series, her character in that sense did not disappointment. She did a lot of work for Daisuke and she was the backbone of everything. She even had to rescue him at times. What an incredible woman.

In comparison, novel Suzue, although a prominent, intelligent character, still had some level of submissiveness to her that screamed ‘I need a man to save me and do things for me’ kind of way. Unsurprising of course being written by an old fashioned man in the 70s. So the anime in a sense was a breath of fresh air.

Then we see the lack of screen time. Although Suzue was just a supporting character, she was quite prominent in the novel. The anime went through all this trouble to create such an incredibly strong female character, but gave her such little screen time. Disappointment doesn’t even begin to describe it. I’m just frustrated that it is always the bloody male characters that gets a lot of screen time. I don’t give two fucks about your need for a fanservice or to appease fujos, we need more female characters who are strong, clever, independent, does not need a man to save her, is not overly sexualised and gets plenty of screen time. If it’s not one, it’s another. Can’t they just bloody do it all together? Also, have three main characters, Daisuke, Suzue and Haru ffs.

Feminism & Anime

If you trawl through my blog, there are a lot of posts about women, feminism, misogyny, toxic fandoms and a lot of het ships. Although I do absolutely love my M/M and F/F ships, there is a reason for my interest in anime het ships. I am a social worker who specialises in working with victim/survivors of family/domestic violence and sexual assault (DVSA), and complex trauma. Considering the majority of perpetrators are men, and the majority of victim/survivors are women, it is important to emphasise the need for a healthy and respectful relationship. I enjoy bringing my feminist perspective to film and fiction because they are an extension of society. Film and fiction (including anime and manga) are based on societal perceptions, and characters are still, unfortunately, heavily gendered.

The anime fandom consists of real people and if you look all over social media, people talk about the characters all the time and their thoughts on them. It comes from somewhere. So when I watch anime, and when I see a male and female character get together in a manner that is healthy and respectful, they get a standing ovation from me. In particular, is when a male character treats his female partner in a way that empowers her or if he abstains from using his male entitlement to demean her. Because in society, there is still a large proportion of men who continues to abuse women in every way possible. If fans are constantly viewing content (yes, even ‘cartoons’) where women are objectified and disrespected comparatively to men, that rigid stereotype is reinforced and ingrained.

I just want to add a note here that the LGBTQIA+ community do experience DVSA as well and this post does not disregard or invalidate them in any way. The focus of this discussion however, pertains to men, who make up the majority of perpetrators and, women, who are the majority of victim/survivors.

Daisuke and Suzue

I answered an ask sometime ago about why I ship DaiSuzu and although that has not changed, I have given a lot more thought to the reasoning behind it. The one thing I dislike about Suzue is her obsession with Daisuke, both in the novel and anime. It does take away her cool, independent like character, and submit her to the idea that she is nothing without first appeasing a man (Daisuke in this case). I don’t want to put too much dislike into her character in the anime, because we never got to see what her history was like with Daisuke. In the novel, I do see elements as to why she can be a bit obsessive, and that was most likely to do with her being ‘adopted’ and given a second chance. It was her way of showing appreciation. Yet she does have romantic feelings for Daisuke, so in essence, her character was emphasised as a typical lovestruck woman 😒

Again, she was incredibly loyal and forgiving towards Daisuke in the anime, despite his shitty attitude towards her at times. You’re probably wondering, after all that I wrote about feminism, why I would still ship DaiSuzu? In the anime, that comes down to Daisuke’s trauma. It added an extra layer of complexity. Daisuke’s standoffish, cold behaviour towards Suzue was not out of a sense of male entitlement and disrespect towards Suzue being a woman, rather, it was a manifestation of his trauma. Of course, it does not excuse his behaviour, but this is the reason why I really enjoyed watching their relationship. There was a lot of mutual trust going on (which I wrote about), covert appreciation of Suzue’s skills and abilities and Daisuke’s own way of making amends with her.

In the novel, however, Daisuke does not have a history of any traumatic experiences. His personality was a lot more animated and though he does exhibit some weird behaviour towards Suzue, he does not do it out of male privilege or misogyny. He was just dense (and an idiot).

Regardless, DaiSuzu’s relationship isn’t just as simple as black and white. There are elements of feminism that intertwines the anime and what I love a lot about Daisuke was that he never put Suzue down, felt intimidated, or tried to make her feel inadequate for being more clever and more intelligent than him. He relied on her knowledge, her skills and her expertise to guide him through his missions, because not only did he trust her with his life, he believed in her skills. He quietly allowed her to do her job without questioning her abilities or intervening.

I won’t discuss how shit the anime was and how much they shat on Suzue’s character by making her Daisuke’s relative, but like I said, I was pretty impressed with the way they turned Suzue into a strong character, and Daisuke’s perception of Suzue as a woman.

And yes, Daisuke doesn’t deserve Queen Suzue. And if you were again to ask me about Daisuke’s true feelings for Suzue? I am pretty damn certain that he loves her to death - in both novel AND anime.

#if onlyyyyyyy there was a season 2 #i doubt it though #i still want to know more about suzue #beautiful precious girl #she deserved soo much more #i'm so advocating for more good strong female characters #i still do love daisuzu #even though i don't think daisuke deserves suzue lmao #i'm just biased #and i love my suzue #she queen #daisuzu #daizue #daisuke kambe #suzue kambe #balance unlimited #fugou keiji balance: unlimited #fkbu #anime feminism

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dangermousie · 3 years

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They are in the middle of a serious discussion, but I am sorry, Wushe can distinguish between all the scents and their various mixes? If he ever gives up the whole Demon Lord thing and Bian (who apparently made differently scented sachets for every occasion even as a prince) does take him back, he and Bian can open that universe’s most flourishing perfume and sachet business. Happy ending, let’s go!

In many ways, Wushe has the straightforwardness and immediacy of a child (even if his desires are not at all childish), probably in large part because his time in hell stripped him down to essentials.

BUT! The thing that I find even more interesting is the role reversal - this whole conversation shows (and I love that the author does show rather than tell) that Bian is no longer scared of Wushe in the least (thanks, Infernal Hell!) and he’s the one in charge as well - calmly pushing for Wushe to give up the tally because it warps him. And Wushe not being willing because of self-protection but also because he uses power as a crutch. And Bian calmly laying things out as to what he should do and why he should do it.

Seriously! I love it. Bian is so sane. I love that they have reverted to dage/didi and shixiong/shidi for real. By that I mean that Bian is acting as an older brother (whether family or martial) and that hasn’t really been the case since Zixiao came back as Demon Lord. Because this is the first time there is a level playing field (Zixiao is not possessed, Bian isn’t lacking memory while Wushe has his etc) and so natural order restores itself. And honestly, it needs to. Because Wushe is the most powerful human in the world in terms of cultivation/magic/etc but Bian is the sanity and the moral compass and the latter should be in charge of the former.

Oh my GOD!!!! That is why I love Bian - whether as Ziheng OR Bian, memories present or not, the one thing that he always keeps is his uncompromising attitude about what’s right. I mean, the moral conviction, the lack of compromise, the BALLS it takes for him to say to Wushe’s “but if I don’t have my talismans, they will come for revenge” that “well, then you’ve earned it.”

GOD

Bian! I love you. I love that horrible things happened to him in two lifetimes but he’s not weak nor a pushover nor saintly nor forgiving. What he is, is principled and just and nothing can shake it. Even at his lowest, when Zixiao kept him as some sort of horrifying sex slave near the end of life 1, the only thing he could get and could bend to his control was his body’s instinctive reactions, he could never bend his mind one inch.

You know, I really really get Wushe’s obsession - it’s not just that he imprinted on Bian from childhood or fixated on him in past life for a variety of love x hate reasons, each feeding the other feeling, or that it was his tether to sanity in hell. It’s also that while Wushe himself lacks a moral center (and always has), there is something so mesmerizing about that moral certainty, that refusal to compromise on your view of what is right. Bian takes all the horrors the Universe throws at him and refuses to compromise at all. (And this in full light of knowing there is no heavenly reward. He is positively Stoic in believing virtue is its own reward.) And not only does Wushe remember what it felt like to be loved utterly and be surrounded by nonstop consideration and care and yearn for it again, there must be a little of him that craves Bian’s love as a seal of approval of sorts - to get the world’s most righteous man to love you is something.

Oh, and also I love that he doesn’t just want Wushe to bury the tally, he wants him to give the map back to Bian. Seriously. I love how they keep talking and Bian keeps gently but unceasingly pushing, both for the sake of the world and Wushe’s own sake, and Wushe doesn’t want to but you see him give in step by step.

!!!!!!!!

I AM SCREAMING SCREAMING SCREAMING!!!!!!

Wushe is willing to be weak and vulnerable and target n1 for the whole world as long as he has Bian (even if not in romantic capacity) and Bian plain text tells him he wants to never see him again and that he can’t forgive him (and doesn’t want ANY relationship with him, whether familial or romantic.) Talk about Bian wanting Wushe to live the “be good for its own sake” thing.

But honestly, I am mildly in awe of the author. How many novels with a yandere ML are out there (in both het and danmei) - so many! And most often things magically resolve themselves. ML grovels a little and MC forgives. Or it turns out to be a misunderstanding and they both go “oh fine.” Or there is a plot twist as to why it’s OK, or MC remembers his/her past romantic feelings and is swayed. Or there is one fight and then they are back to together.

Not here! Thee are no easy outs. None. Just as I was impressed by the fact that the author never ever made Ziheng in life 1 feel anything romantic for Zixiao ever. Not when they were siblings, not when they found out they were not related, and not when Zixiao returned as demon lord and there were epic amounts of noncon. Ziheng by turns loved him as a brother and feared/hated/his body had an involuntary physical reaction to him but there was never ever a hint he viewed him in a romantic light. And I was so impressed. (Which is why their happy and gentle and consensual relationship in life 2, when Bian had no idea about their past lives or even that Wushe = Zixiao, is so crucial. Otherwise he’d never have connected his unbrother and romantic relationships, let alone had any takes on sex as something that can be tender and loving and something he wants more of.)

But I am even more impressed with how the story went once Bian recovered his memories/Wushe found out the truth. There are no shortcuts. There is no easy forgiveness. Nothing can erase the fact that Zixiao took his brother apart emotionally and mentally. Not learning that he was warped by the tally and wasn’t himself, not seeing firsthand the torture he underwent for a century, nor seeing his remorse and how devoted he is now. That can earn a cessation of hatred and a certain weary understanding (and even that took a long gradual time), but it cannot earn forgiveness and love. Or at least not right away - I am sure they will eventually end there but I love love love how grindingly slow and gradual and incremental it is.

And I love how blunt Bian is being. And not to lash out but because that is what he genuinely feels (something Wushe can tell.)

Oh, Wushe. You after all dug your own grave, so you will have to lie in it for a long time.

Awwwwwww!

Also, talk about growth - Wushe will obviously be trying to get Bian until he dies (and after that, if he can) but not are there no threats or emotional blackmail or anger or anything - both because he knows the truth that he’s in the wrong but also because I think the time in infernal hell with a little memory trip and Bian coming through for him was super cathartic for him.

And Bian is still reluctant even about even this little and I swear, it gives me so much life!

Awwwww. Now this kind of wooing I can be good with. Now that Bian is not in the least afraid of Wushe, instinctively or not, now that he’s in charge and holding the leash, and all Wushe wants is to basically woo him back and everything is out in the open? Mmmm. I like. Mainly because I don’t feel like it would be unearned or not between equals now.

#cnovel #wu chang jie

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nightswithkookmin · 4 years

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Does Run ep 119 fall into the period of Jikook's romantic separation/distancing you talked about? By hairstyles I think this is the time you marked as being 'not a couple'? Did I get the timelines right? Please dont get mad, but they seemed especially cozy+close this ep, and not just skinship (I know this is a subjective judgement and dif points of view are allowed). Just curious if you still hold to your theory? We see only tiny snapshots of time. Do you ever retrospectively change your mind?

Me right now. lol

Running away before I give in to the temptation to rumble on for pages. Lol.

Ahhh shit! Too late. lol.

First of all, it's not so much that questions like these irk me...

It's just I've never had to worry about being 'right' or 'wrong' in forming an opinion about anything or on any topic in my life.

I think the night is more beautiful than the day. I think both Trump and Biden are trash- but better Biden than Trump. I think formal education is a damn waste of time and money. I think a lot of things. But I've never had to worry about that I could be right or wrong about them.

I never assume, when I read people's opinions too, that they are right or wrong. I either tend to agree with it or disagree with it or get informed by it if I had zero opinion prior. I find it bizarre when people want to be right and stuff- especially in a community that is nothing but a swirling vortex of thoughts and opinions. Lmho.

You either defend your stand and give evidence to support it but even then we are just all making assumptions.

Also questions like these tend to put me in a position where I feel like if I should respond then I am not only 'defending' my opinions but challenging other's opinions with my opinions and treating my opinions as if they were the facts. But they are not. It's just one opinion against another.

Know what I mean?

I used to be comfortable doing that because I thought it was all friendly debates and discourse until someone drew my attention to it and pointed out to me that when I do that I come across as 'all knowy,' 'presenting my opinions as facts' and 'challenging other's opinions with my opinion'- which y'all are well aware is the case that has launched a thousand hate comments, privacy invasion, doxing, lies and operation boycott Goldy on ship street.

I don't think it's worth it.

Then there is the substantive issue: how these questions are framed. How should I put this...

I never said anywhere that Jikook were broken up during the On era because they were not acting 'cozy'. Who's theory is that? Who said that? I've never peddled the 'Jikook is real because of skinship or their interactions' theory. If anything, I try to distinguish between Jikook's couple moments and their skinship or mere interactions because neither of those two make Jikook real... to me.

If Jikook showing skinship and merely interacting with eachother to you is a determining factor as to whether they are real- it's not, to me. I've made this much clear over the course of my blogs. If it's your metric then it differs from mine and I can't 'challenge' it. Lol.

I have said, Jikook can interact zero in a content and I still could be able to tell if they are a couple.

Similarly, two people can grind on eachother and stick their tongues down eachother's throats and I still will be able to tell they are not a couple within the same group if they are not.

Am I wrong sometimes? Absolutely. Hell, I said JK was going to post for Jimin's birthday. He didn't. I got that wrong.

I do retrospectively change my mind on a lot of things. If say, in the future, Jimin announced he has a kid and is married to a het woman I would backpedal on my theory that Jikook is real. I don't think it's that deep.

If at any one point, I have reason to believe Jikook aren't together any more as a couple within BTS, or that one of them is straight, I would change my opinion about them being in a gay relationship with eachother.

Similarly, if I have reason to believe Jikook have broken up or distanced themselves from eachother at one point, I would say so and not run around the internet yelling Jikook gay, Jikook married.

There are moments, when I thought Jikook were together but they weren't and so I had to change my mind in retrospect too.

It seems to me, that to y'all, as long as I'm saying Jikook are together then I'm right and it's Amen preach but if I say I think they are or were not together at a point in their relationship then suddenly it's, she is a Trump supporter spreading lies about Jikook and dancing in the rain with convicted serial killers while trying to pass off her published work as Jikook fanfiction. It's all very interesting how some people's minds work...

For the record, I said Jikook were broken up within that period because they were not claiming eachother, reassuring eachother, exercising rights of claim and authority, speaking eachothers love language and all the other metrics I have time and again pointed out several times across my posts that they are the qualities that to me make Jikook a couple.

So do you see why I feel some kind of way when people come at me with the, 'they stared at eachother' 'they smiled at eachther' they touched eachother' argument? Y'all must have me confused a certain shipper on the block. Lol.

You tell me they look cozy and intimate, but then I go and check and they are still not claiming eachother or exhibiting any of the qualities that makes them a couple. Lol.

If I say Jikook is in a relationship, it's usually because I have reasons to believe they are in a relationship. If I say Jikook are not together, it's also because I have reasons to believe they are not together. It's really not hard maths.

I forego a lot of sleep to ensure I share my thought process on a lot of my theories and opinions. I have shared across several posts why I believe Jikook is real. I have shared a few of the metrics I use to decide on that opinion and I have shared my thought process on why I believe in certain moments they aren't together.

It's exhausting when I have to repeat that process each time because then it's not about you asking for my opinion on the topic anymore because I've already stated that, it's about you asking me to change my opinion on a topic based on your assessment and your metric and it just doesn't work that way.

Your assertion that Run 119 was filmed in the same era as On is valid I guess... but I have to disagree. I can't tell you exactly when that episode was filmed but if I had to share my two cents on it, I'd have to place it towards the middle of April this year or somewhere around that period. In my opinion.

I say that because Jimin debuted his jet black hair around 14th April when he appeared in a Vlive with RM. Again I do not know exactly when he got his hair changed but as of March 26th, he had blondish hair.

In his March 30th Vlive- the one where JK interrupted Jin's call, he had a cap on so chilee I'm not gonna argue on whether he had dyed his hair at that point or not.

Then there is Suga, who has blonde hair in this Run 119 episode. He had blonde hair from his birthday in early March and tweeted a bunch of photos of himself in blonde hair from March through to April 28th.

Yet in the JinMinGi Vlive on April 27th when Jimin still had jet black hair, Suga seemed to have a jet black hair too. Which means he could have had blonde hair around the time Jimin went black in early April and dyed it black in late April- but that's theory and that's just my assumption. We can know for sure if and when knew content is released which was filmed around that period.

Thus, I doubt if it was filmed during On era like episode 116 and 117- where you could see clearly, Jikook were having issues.

Just because a peice of content is released in succession don't mean they were filmed around the same period...

So yes I agree with you, we only see snapshots of their time and most importantly we see them in DISORDER. BigHit doesn't release content in chronological order as per when they film them- something I keep reiterating throughout my blogs.

And just as a tip for when you want to reconstruct the timeline for accuracy based on their hairstyles, I think you should look to their Live contents and not their prerecorded content. Their VLives and Youtube lives- actual lives not the prerecorded ones passed off as live streams lol, or even their live reactions to when they win awards or do interviews etc.

I think those are a somewhat accurate reflection of the timeline and helps fit contents in their right time period. But even that- it's still 60/40. But that's me. Feel free to use your own metric to access the timeline.

And the part about them seeming cozy within- On Era, I assume? Because that's when I speculated they had a break up?

I wasn't going to address it because it requires me to provide a comprehensive reconstruction of the timeline but I can't do that until a few more years from now when BigHit has released all or most of the content they have on that period.

I'm just gonna have to repeat myself, for the n>th time though and be intentionally vague about it lol - I had decided not to talk about that period again but I have to just because you make it sound like I would go full on frying pan wielding JK on your ass, step for step, for pointing out that Jikook seemed cozy and intimate within that speculated breakup period. Chilee, I'm not a villain. Lol.

I will not whoop your ass for saying that- but you'd have to answer a seven page query if you are an avid reader of my blogs, so clear your schedule. It's gonna be a long day. Lol.

Query: How do you expect Jikook to look like and behave if and when they are not together together?

I keep saying, at the bare minimum, Jikook are friends not enemies. You don't expect them to act like they never knew eachother during such times. But it takes a while for them to settle into that space when they both feel comfortable with being friends and during such period is when you notice them putting up emotional boundaries and distance between them.

Maybe its just because I saw Jikook as friends and got used to them as friends before lovers and so spotting when they are acting as friends comes easy to me? I don't know.

I think it's similar to how people who are used to seeing Jikook as friends can't seem to see past their friendship to seeing them as a couple.

Then there are those who've only known Jikook to be a couple or saw them as a couple first upon entering the fandom and so can't seem to see them as friends or even think of them as friends. It can be a trip for such people. Which one are you?

If you see Jikook as lovers all the time, really I don't. And I don't need the tensions and the silences to sense something is off. JK unable to check RM or anyone within the group when they are crossing boundaries with Jimin is enough tell.

Same way I don't need to the skinship and 'cosy' to tell if they are together. Jk putting up emotional distance with certain members within the group- all but Jimin, is enough evidence for me.

We don't have to all see Jikook through the same lens to enjoy them. And we don't have to agree on everything too.

We are different people, with different backgrounds and experiences. We can't think the same or perceive on things the same.

I keep saying, to me, there is a quality to Jikook that makes them more than friends. If I see those qualities in them, I believe they are a couple. If not, they are not. Those are the qualities I see only between Jikook and what set them apart from the other ships in BTS.

I see their friendship and I also see their other stuff.

And I notice, during certain periods that they lose that quality that makes them couples- for them to be a couple they need to be speaking eachothers love language, exercising certain rights and privileges over each other, claiming eachother, reassuring eachother yadda yadda yadda and a whole others that don't include them merely talking to eachother or engaging in skinship.

When I talk about Jikook On Era break up period, I'm talking about the period from the 21st to 28th February this year- or the period right before it.

Thats the period I noticed a drastic change in Jikook's interactions and even their personalities. It gave me the feeling that jikook had been through something heavy prior to that date. That period seemed more like the aftermath of a break up rather than the beginning of it as there seemed to be a drastic flip in their dynamics compared to any era before that. Especially late December or around the period when they filmed Carpool Karaoke.

They weren't doing any of the things I've mentioned above that to me make them a couple- they were just interacting and pretty much being civil- except for JK. He seemed more angry, less tolerant and very assertive against Jimin and the group.

He was being super self assertive and was asserting himself even against Jimin- something he has been doing a lot this year which I keep talking about.

Jimin didn't seem different to me at all to me in that period until April.

Why do I feel you are forcing me to talk about something I don't want to talk about? Lol.

I mark that period as significant not only because of the changes that took place in Jikook's dynamics but because it marks the genesis of the JK we are experiencing today.

Their interactions within that period were reflective of a consistent pattern of behavior they've exhibited around periods when they are not together- JK putting up boundaries, not claiming JM, JM trying to reconnect etc.

For instance, at Music Bank on the 28th of February, Jimin did that thing with Jin when he noticed JK interacting with Tae but JK didn't mind him or claim.

Contrast that with their moment on the 1st March, at Inkigayo, where JK literally teleported his ass to stand behind JM when he noticed JM had started his shenanigans on the stage.

Jikook started claiming eachother and acting as a couple again from then- they started reassuring eachother and doing all these things that to me mark them as a couple. Again, this is only an assumption, I don't have the comprehensive breakdown of the period- yet because there are new contents being released on a daily.

On 6th March, during Music Bank when Hobi hugged Jimin during their interview JK reacted strongly to that too in my opinion.

On 30th March, JK interrupted Jin's call to flirt and ask JM on a date- you could see them acting as a couple from that moment at Inkigayo on 1st March throughout to 30th March and their interactions were consistent.

Their interactions in the period before that was pretty much inconsistent and filled with a lot of Jump cuts- which I'm hoping future contents will help fill the gaps for me so I can build a comprehensive breakdown of that era- at least for my self. Iol.

It's just the way Jikook usually behave after these period. They go through a reconnection phase, where they constantly try reassure eachother and then eventually end up in a honey moon phase of a sort where you'd see them flirting up and down the hills, acting super touchy, hitting the red marks- making us and the others feel weird and super uncomfortable watching them.

It's also important to note that around the period of them reconnecting, JK had started distancing himself from Tae. He puts up emotional boundaries with the others and closes himself off to them when he opens himself up to Jimin.

I mean if I'm 'wrong,' and I'm not saying I'm right, I'm just saying if I'm wrong because of your two seconds clip of them acting 'cozy,' then I gotta ask what happened to JK in this period? Why was he putting up boundaries between him and Jimin in that period, and what set him on this self assertive path he's been on throughout this year- think about that while I hold on to my he went through a nasty breakup and had an emotional trauma that pushed him on a path to reevaluate and set his priorities straight theory. Lol

I think some of the content they have released so far within that period were filmed either closer to or far from when that break up happened- Run 116 and 117 would be the closest to that period so far- I just don't know if it was before 21st February or after it.

Run 100 and 101 would also have been filmed relatively closer to that period or immediately after it because Jimin was behaving in those Runs the same way he was behaving during the On Comeback Special VLive which was released on 21st of February- I feel the breakup would happened before this date.

In both those Runs and the On comeback special, Jimin seemed beat, humbled and subdued. He was trying to establish eye contact with JK during the comeback VLive, egging him on to talk about his looks, and putting boundaries between him and the other members. He seemed to be on his best behavior.

For instance, in the Comback he seemed like he was walking on eggshells around Kookie and didn't want to create the impression he was going out of his way to flirt with the others or portray himself as available and so when Suga touched his waist or back, he asked him to stop.

Similary, in Runs 100/101 behind scenes or something, when they were eating and he noticed Tae had food residue on his lips, he tried to help him clean it but panicked and stopped the moment he sensedJK lifting his head up- it seemed he didn't want to piss JK off in those two instances. JK for the most part just seemed serious and less tolerant of JM's bs within that period.

Juxtapose JM's behavior in these two instances with the events at Music Bank and Inkigayo where he was hugging Jin and acting extra around Kook- which to me seemed like he was looking for reassurance by trying to get JK to claim him but of course JK didn't do that.

Jimin likes being reassured by JK when he is feeling 'insecure.' And often, JK reassures him when he notices JM going through that. Jimin does the same for JK.

They are intune with eachother's emotional needs and they consciously go out of their way to meet them.

Take the recent MAMA speech moment when JM was giving a speech and he seemed like he need support- emotional support and back up. Jk turn fully and instantly towards him to let him know he was there for him. We've seen Jikook do this a countless times. I value these moments over them showing skinship or screaming eachother's names.

In the recent BE press conference red carpet moment when JM tried it with RM- did you notice JK's reaction? They both seemed like they were trying to piss eachother other off or make each eachother jealous during that red carpet moment.

JM with RM and JK with Jin. JK grabbed Jin's neck when he noticed JM intentionally acting all up close and friendly with his buddy buddy RM and the frown on his face. He didn't seem too amused with JM doing that...

- it's weird, I know, but it's also their way of reassuring eachother and expressing interest in eachother. Don't judge. It's Jikook- just look away, keep it pushing. Nothing to see here. Lol.

Had it not been for the live events around that On period, I probably wouldn't have noticed these things because the content from BigHit around the period were only showing glimpses of their interactions which again seemed like the aftermath of their breakup and not the start of it.

I think their ability to get to that space where they are each comfortable with relating freely and 'cozy' around eachother as friends depends on how soon they interact on cameras after they've gone through such periods.

If they film immediately soon after, or during, often the tension between them is much more evident like in run 116 and 117.

If they film much later from it, then you wouldn't even notice a damn thing at all. In my opinion. Especially, if you don't know the difference between Jikook as friends and Jikook as lovers.

You can never tell though if you focus solely on Jimin's behavior during such periods- because Jimin is just that guy. He doesn't bring the drama to work. He will smile sunshine through the pain and act like nothing happened. For JK it's different, in my opinion.

Jimin has a very high emotional intelligence quotient and seems to process emotions better and faster. JK is not like that. It is why I feel, he tends to put up physical and emotional barriers with Jimin and with the others sometimes when he is going through it.

They all process emotions at different paces. In my opinion.

I'm starting to wonder if y'all think Jikook is one sided at this point. Lol. Jikook is not one sided. Jimin is not the only one in their relationship. You can't focus on him alone to decide if your ship is sailing or in a good place- because guess what? Jimin can put up a show of it.

It's just as how Tuktukkers tend to focus on Tae rather than JK in determining whether they still have a ship or not. If they paid attention to JK for one minute, they would know their ship got lost at sea at debut.

I keep saying JM's 'the boy in love with Jungkook' persona is a facade. He loves JK through this facade but you have to look past it. I mean this is the guy who told Jin JK doesn't act a certain way around him, but backpedaled and said he was just 'saying it for content' when Jin called him out on it. Same guy Jk says, he intentionally acts cutes when he notices the cameras on him.

You gotta wonder what else he does just for content and for the cameras. Isn't this why people claim Jikook is fanservice?

You have to pay attention to JK too you know? They have different personalities, different ways of handling issues, different ways of loving and different ways of solving problems.

Jimin over expresses himself and tries to establish contact when he is at the recieving end of a freeze out. He did the same thing on stage with JK during Manila when he tried to have a conversation with Kook- to squash whatever issues they had been having but JK needed his space physically and emotionally.

Jimin was sat next to Suga chatting with him, asking him questions, laughing with him but the moment Suga touched him he snapped. He did the same thing in Dynamite MV reaction VLive when JK teased him with Suga. He snapped almost instantly and didn't seem happy with it- he doesn't want to be shipped with Suga and yet he is the one constantly going 'I miss Suga hyung' 'Suga and I are the parents and JK is the son"

In run 116, you could see him trying to interact with Kook even when Kook was clearly putting up boundaries with him. Had Kook not been closed off to him in that moment, we probably would never have noticed anything was off with them honestly.

And that hug JM gave Kook in the end, did you see him looking sideways as if he was doing something wrong? Compare that moment with the Siriux FM interview where he had his hands around Kook. He didn't seem- what's the word, scared.

And by the way, that moment was also filmed on the 21st of February in the US, the same day of their Rockefeller interview and the same day the On Comeback Special VLive was released- so do the maths? Was that the start of a break up or the aftermath of it?

Jimin was leaning forward in that period true, but was JK receiving and reciprocating his actions and matching them throughout that period? No. Or may be its debatable- you tell me. Lol.

Jikook behave in a certain way and give off a certain vibe when they are good and sailing- but not all such moments is because they are a couple. In my opinion.

When they get to that good space where they can be comfortable around each other, they sail as friends too.

It's just like, when they are not good and they give off bad vibes. But not all the bad vibes they give off is because they are not good. Know what I mean?

It's all up to how you perceive them and how much you understand of their dynamics I guess.

It is my understanding that, JK opens up to certain other members within the group while simultaneously putting up boundaries with Jimin when he is having serious problems with Jimin. From my observation of their interactions.

So I ask, within the period of 21st February to 28th, was he leaning towards this certain member he was suddenly BFFs with around the time of their break up or was he leaning away from him? He literally teleported away from him to be next to Jimin when they were getting back together and Tae didn't seem amused by that either.

It's Jikook, I get it. I think you need to pay attention to the way they interact with the other members within the group too? Because that's equally telling. Sigh.

It is my understanding that, Jimin is quick to anger yet quick to forgive and he sometimes glosses over things, puts a lot of energy and efforts into embellishing his relationship with Kook and presenting them as the perfect duo and the perfect relationship- which is something that I think psychologically induces the Kumbaya in a lot of Jikook shippers and influences them into thinking their relationship is perfect and kumbaya. But that's another topic for another day.

JK makes Jikook more real. To me.

I hear often, people talk about how Jimin is less touchy than JK and has personal boundaries within the group and how over the years, he has toned down on his touchiness with the other members because JK puts up a lot of boundaries for him around the members with the frying pans and what not, and would fume whenever Jimin or anyone crosses those boundaries...

But have y'all ever wondered the kind of boundaries Jimin put up for JK within the group and expects JK to uphold within the group when they are together? Hint: It's not JK's touchiness or lack of boundaries. Y'all be connecting the wrong dots. Lol.

Jk puts up physical boundaries for Jimin because that is important to him. Jimin put up emotional boundaries for JK because that is important to him. They overlap sometimes but those times are insignificant to me.

Jk's certain bonds suffer because of Jimin. And he stops respecting those boundaries when he and Jimin are no longer together and the moment they are back together, he puts those boundaries up again with those bonds- this is Morse code, if you catch on message me with it. Wink.

JM throwing his arms around Kook during a serious interview is not him claiming JK or reassuring him. JK yelling Jimin to the power Z is not him exercising right of authority over Jimin- lovers do that. Know who else does that? FRIENDS. Lol.

It's nothing Hobi doesn't do with JM or the other ships don't do.

Listen, I saw all the good bits and things that you saw in that period too and still I formed my opinion on that era the way that I did and have. And the new content from that era, Run 116 and 117 all follow the same pattern of behavior I noticed around that period and have talked about. So no, my view on that era hasn't changed.

Unless, your objective is to have me change my mind based on the 'wrong' timeline dots you've connected, then we would just have to agree to disagree. Lol.

If you believe Jikook were together during that period, I agree to disagree on it. Feel free to disagree with my opinion too.

Always ship Jikook in the way that makes sense to you. And support them while you are at it. Jikook is real. Bless you.

Signed,

GOLDY

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ten-ten31 · 4 years

Text

Dear Yuletide Writer

Dear Yuletide Writer,

Thank you so much for writing for me! :) I can't tell you just how excited I am. This is my first Yuletide and I guess I'm super nervous, but also looking forward to it. :)

Please feel free to browse my ao3 (KitKaos) and/or tumblr to get an idea of what I stan, like, read or write. I hope I can give you some broad ideas and inspirations in this letter to help you plan. Do feel free to fall back on my general likes if the prompts don't do anything for you. Or just use the prompts, whatever works best for you. Oh, and should you, dear Yuletide Santa, want to write in German and not in English, then I'm definitely okay with that. I'm fluent in both, so whichever you feel more comfortable with. If there's something missing or if you have a question, you can reach out to me via the mods.

General likes: I'm a sucker for the old friends-to-lovers or even enemies-to-lovers (with all the drama of grudginly admitting that the other party maybe isn't all that terrible and all). Things I'll never get tired of include coffeeshop AUs, spy AUs, musical AUs, found families, fake dating, pining, crossdressing, drunken shenanigans, fish-out-of-water situations, pop culture references, etc. Just about any kind of scene you can sneak in there about cooking or eating food (also characters being picky about certains foods and other characters going to some lengths to accommodate that) will make me happy, too. I do have a thing for descriptions of food and expecially impressions of taste - and if you want to make it kinky: food play. ;) I also have a bit of a hand fetish - so descriptions of hands are always welcome. If you want to do it, I probably also won't say no to someone breaking the Fourth Wall, any kind of alternate history AU, crossovers of my fandoms, or even some lovely steampunk aesthetics.

Do Not Want: rape/dubcon/noncon, watersports, scat, humiliation, A/B/O, soulmates AU, vampire/werewolf AU, second-person pov, character bashing of any kind.

Fandoms

Just two more thing before I go into detail: 1. The prompts below are nothing more than ideas - feel free to ignore them if you have a better one. :) 2. Not all of the characters need to be used in every prompt; pick and choose as desired.

Dial H for Hero (DC Comics)

- Summer Pickens, Miguel Montez

The 2019 12-issue run is just pure love! There is worldbuilding galore, relatable characters, a wonderful coming-of-age and initiation plot, interdimensional shenanigans, the question how Joe Average could get addicted to sudden superpowers, and so much fun with the concept of Superhero Secret Origins. Summer is a wonderfully strong and caring female lead and Miguel is a self-conscious little oddball.

As for prompts: Seeing more of their Metropolis adventures or Red/Yellow/Blue/Black Dial transformations would definitely be a lot of fun. Also, there's this cute boy Miguel asks out in the comics and I would love to see that first date. And what about Summer? She definitely won't be reduced to sidekick!

Feel free to include any other ((teenage) superhero) cameos you feel like. Please do not pair up Summer and Miguel romantically - although I don't have any problems with a fake relationship fic for them. ;)

Where to find it: Your trusted comicbook supplier.

Masks: A New Generation (Roleplaying Game)

- any / worldbuilding

I only just disovered Masks as an RPG, and ever since I started playing, it's probably the most fun rping I've had in a long time. I love that playbooks are not by the type of power but the type of problem each teenager faces personally. Like, how do you juggle school, first love, being different in a way no one should know about, being different maybe in a way people will immediately see, adults telling you who to be, chores, and being part of a young superhero team that wants to make a name for themselves? It's hard. And the best sessions alternate between deep emotional connections, hilarious teenage drama and great action scenes.

As for prompts: I would love me some good worldbuilding - so maybe there is a reason the Scarlet Songbird is still around? What was Halcyon City like back in the days of the Golden-Age heroes? What has changed since then? How do especially the older generations view the naming conventions going around for new heroes? Is there a code to follow? Who in Halcyon City pays for all the damage to buildings and infrastructure caused by superhero-supervillain fights? What was it like back in the olden days for the Golden Age heroes as opposed to now? Are there cultural exchange programs with any of the alien races visiting from time to time? Give me a day in the life of an average Halcyon City citizen - they don't even have to be all that close to an epic fight or something. Just their way of coping with the daily madness of a huge city housing most of the world's superheroes. If you like something a little more character-specific: The one actual-play podcast that does it best in my opinion are the Theatre of the Mind Players with their "Future Shock" and "Past Tense" seasons of Masks. And I would love to read more about these characters. Have Sparrow and Figment finally get together. Give me a glimpse of how Horizon assembled his ersatz mom. What will Helix and Remix get up to?

Where to find it: The core rulebook is available from Magpie Games. The Theatre of the Mind Players’ Masks sessions can be found on Youtube.

Super Sons (Comics)

- Jonathan Samuel Kent, Damian Wayne

Super Sons is how I finally came to like and care for Damian Wayne - which, if you know me, is a major achievement! He is still a huge brat, don't get me wrong, but Jon's influence on him and the way he is confronted with certain issues he has... it's magical! It's wholesome! It's healing! They are both so fiercely protective of each other, and they both grow as characters from their experiences with each other.

As for prompts: So, dear Yuletide Santa, give me character growth and banter and friendship galore. I can see slumber parties at Wayne Manor or at the Kent farm. I can see them getting lost in space and time. I can see more adventures once they're at the same school. I can see a canon-divergence AU where Jon is finally admitted into the the Teen Titans at age 13 - how would that go? Or how about an Interrail Buddies AU?

If you want to write slashfic for them, I will not say no but would probably prefer to age them up a bit. I also most definitely don't mind any background appearances of any of their families.

Where to find it: Your trusted comicbook supplier.

Superman Returns (2006)

- any (Clark Kent, Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, Richard White)

I still love this movie a lot - not because it's particularly spectacular, but it treats the characters with love, it treats the legacy of the Reeve movies with love and it leaves SO MANY questions for fanfiction authors to answer. ;) I mean, I've been a Superman fan for a long time and I've discovered that I'm most comfortable with a Clark who wears a mask both as Clark Kent and as Superman, who isn't either of those two (and who is fallible). And whenever someone learns of his secret identity, they will see that he's so much more than either Clark or Superman. I know Lois is a fairly underdeveloped character in this movie, so I would love for her to be treated not just as a prize, especially since there were those years of her having to put her life back together after Supes just up and left.

As for prompts, I've always wondered about the different coping mechanisms (Lois turning bitter, Jimmy starting up daydrinking - WTF?!) and just how their day-to-day business changed without Clark and Supes there. Give me the Planet staff banding together to rescue Lois when she remembers just that second too late that there will be no superhero to save them (I also wouldn't mind any of the Bats helping out secretly, if that's up your alley). Give me Jimmy trying not to think too much and instead getting on Lois' nerves until he's rescued by Richard intervening. I am also an absolute sucker for continuation fics, so how do things settle down after what happens in the movie? I would love for some real Clark and Jimmy bonding moments, maybe even Jimmy finding out or having known all along and covered for Clark. I would love for some truce and real friendship blossoming between Clark and Richard, as they are both intelligent, compassionate, insightful men. If you want to include Jason anywhere, feel free to do that, as he makes for such a wonderful catalyst for disaster. Feel free to write gen or any canon pairings - I'm also okay with non-canon het/slash pairs (or threesomes) as long as they make sense in-universe. ;)

Where to find it: Sadly, the movie doesn’t seem to be streaming anywhere, but since it’s 14 years old now, you can buy it relatively cheap.

Young Justice (Comics)

- Tim Drake (but do feel free to have any of the other characters in the story, too)

No matter if you're into the old 1990s YJ comics, the companion comics to the cartoon show, or the new 2019/20 version of the comics - I love all of them! So much I don't even know where to begin... The snark! The lovable teenage stupidity! The friendship that goes above and beyond! My definite favourite is Tim, because he is such a bright, snarky, secretive, repressed little bird (the moment he takes off his domino mask to reveal a second one underneath? priceless)! I also love his deep friendship with the others because that's his found family. Yes, Batman is his mentor (even though Tim might understand B better than the other way round sometimes) and Dick is his older brother and idol (hero worship, anyone?), but Young Justice is where he wants to be himself and all of it.

As for prompts: Even though I did not put either Cassie or Cissie in my request as I want something Tim-centric, the dynamic with those two strong-willed girls is definitely something I would love to see explored more. Also how the dynamic with the bats is so very different than the Young Just Us dynamic. What's it like being the one without powers in a group of hormonal teenage superheroes? I also just realized that I would love to see more of Mister Sarcastic trolling the rest of the gang. Or how about: What if Tim had powers for one day? If you're into the 2019 comics, how about a 5+1 of Why Drake May Or May Not Be A Good Superhero Alias. If you want to include the rest of the gang, you're definitely more than welcome to. Tim and Kon's bickering and outright arguments in the beginning turning into such a solid friendship (or more) is something I can read about time and time again. Pretty much the same goes for Tim and Bart. Or how about some Wendy the Werewolf Stalker shenanigans? Why is having girls in your group a bad/good idea? How did Cassie's becoming the team's leader affect Tim's sense of self? Heck, if you feel like it, open up the love triangle Tim-Cassie-Kon since there's like a ton of history there. Oh, and anyway, why is Stephanie Brown never part of any of Tim's teams? Dear Yuletide Santa, do also feel free to include any of the other teens (I have a soft spot for Li'l Lobo/Slobo).

Where to find it: Your trusted comicbook supplier.

Overall, I’m sure I’ll love what you have for me, and I'm looking forward to reading it! <3

#yuletide 2020 #yuletide #dear yuletide writer #dyw #yulebuilding #cheftide #wrapping paper challenge 2020

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the2020romanceproject · 5 years

Text

Review: The Soldier's Scoundrel by Cat Sebastian

(Or: three types of tension, and how this book fails to balance them)

You guys! I read my first romance novel! I enjoyed it in a lot of respects; there were also ways it disappointed me. More below the cut.

A few caveats before I dig in. First, this is the first full romance novel I've ever read. I’m going to try not to make too many wild conjectures about the genre as a whole, but forgive me if I leap to a few inaccurate conclusions. Second, I'll be making comparisons to fanfiction, and while I have read widely, I definitely haven’t hit all the corners of fandom. The comparisons will be biased towards the kinds of fanfiction I happen to have read (mostly slash, mostly on AO3).

Finally, I’m going to say at the outset that I feel a little weird saying critical things about an author's work in general. This is definitely an effect of fandom, where unsolicited concrit is a no-go. But this is a published novel, and there's a whole different review culture around published works, so I'm going to go ahead and be critical. If anyone feels like I'm being inappropriately harsh or cruel about any book at any point, please let me know.

So, The Soldier's Scoundrel! A quick plot summary, with spoilers: Jack grew up in the gutter and is now a roguish detective-type in Regency London, going around the law to solve problems for ladies and other people down on their luck (but never gentlemen; he hates gentlemen). Oliver is the younger son of an earl who's been in the army for a decade but got injured in battle and is back in London, living off a modest income. He goes to see Jack because he discovers that his sister paid Jack a large amount of money several years ago and wants to know why. The two men are immediately attracted to each other but adversarial. Oliver disapproves of Jack's law-breaking but gets embroiled in his current case, and the two end up traveling together, sleeping together, and falling in love. Jack eventually tells Oliver to screw off because he can’t see himself having a place in a gentleman's life; Oliver then tries to get himself ruined so that Jack will be comfortable being with him. Jack stops him from ruining himself but sees that Oliver is determined for them to be together, so they find a small house they can both live in and set up a life together.

First of all, let me say that the sexual tension in this book was TOP-NOTCH. No complaints there. There’s a scene in an alleyway early on where Oliver licks Jack’s thumb and it is delicious. Good job, Cat Sebastian, making me really want these two men to jump into bed together.

Unfortunately, that ended up being a bit of a problem, because as soon as they did jump into bed together—which happens just around the halfway point—I dramatically lost interest. They weren’t in love yet, or established as a couple, so there should have been a remaining source of tension, but I super didn’t feel it.

(Extra caveat: this was true FOR ME. YMMV.)

I have a theory as to why. I’m still thinking it through, but here’s a stab at it:

There are two primary kinds of tension in a story about two people getting together, which I’m going to call sexual tension and romantic tension. Sexual tension is X isn’t sleeping with Y but wants to be. Romantic tension is where X is in love with Y but thinks that Y isn’t in love with them. (It is NOT where X and Y are in love but can’t be together—but more on that below.) You often get the two types of tension at once: X is in love with Y and wants to sleep with them. But sometimes you just get romantic tension—where, say, they’re already sleeping together but feelings haven’t been admitted—or just sexual tension, where they’re attracted to each other but not in love.

This book starts out with just sexual tension. Jack and Oliver are immediately attracted to each other, and though they try to suppress the attraction, it only grows as they spend more time together. I was super there for all of that. But then they sleep together. Sexual tension: gone. This is where romantic tension could have stepped in and carried us through the second half of the book. But they weren’t in love yet. There WAS no romantic tension. Where they wanted to be (in bed together) and where they were (in bed together) lined up perfectly—and so I lost interest.

There are a few ingredients that contributed to this problem, I think. The period of time covered by the book was relatively short (I want to say a couple of weeks). The crucible forcing the two characters together was relatively weak, so there wasn’t a lot of excuse for them to spend time together if they weren’t sleeping together. They didn’t know each other at all before the start of the book. They were very honest, not with each other, but with themselves, about their feelings every step of the way, so there was never an indication that they might be feeling more strongly than the narration let on. We got both of their points of view so there was never any tension for the reader about what the other character was feeling—or even for the two of them about what the other was feeling, really. And they had sex relatively early in the story (for my expectations, anyway).

This is such a different combination of elements than I would have expected to find in fanfiction. Fanfiction has a definite advantage over romance when it comes to building romantic tension, because it can build on a preexisting canon relationship. It doesn’t always choose to—sometimes people write complete AUs—but even AUs get to build on a preexisting connection between the characters in the minds of the readers. So some of this difference is inherent to two the genres. But I’m going to go through a few of the things that I think contributed to the tension problem in the second half of the book, including how fanfic might have handled them differently.

Time & proximity. The timeline of this book was so short. Of course Jack and Oliver weren’t in love by the time they had sex; it had only been like a week, and they hadn’t spent that much time together. They weren’t roommates, or best friends, or colleagues, or teammates, or customers at each other’s coffee shops, or even rivals. These premises could exist in original fiction just as easily as in fanfiction. I don’t know if they do and this book is an exception, or if the premise of strangers meeting and then choosing to seek each other out is a genre standard. Either way, it made it very difficult for the characters to fall in love before falling into bed.

Honesty. I was surprised so often by the text TELLING us their feelings for each other every step of the way. Not that it’s not good to know your own emotions—it is very good! Very important!—but what’s good in people isn’t always good in protagonists. These two knew they were attracted right away, and then they knew they were falling in love, and that took some of the fun out of it for me. It also took some of the power out of their feelings. We are often bad at feelings, and we’re particularly bad at feelings when they’re important ones. In having the characters admit to themselves what they felt as soon as they started feeling it, the text made those feelings seem less significant. It also made it seem very unlikely that the characters were feeling more than they said. It deprived us of the potential tension of waiting for the characters to realize what they already felt. Withholding is a huge source of tension, and this text did not withhold.

Two POVs. The text didn’t even withhold the love interest’s point of view. One of my friends who reads more het than I do tells me that two points of view is more common in the fics she reads, but it is VERY uncommon in the ones I read. I can only think of one I’ve read recently (and in that one, both parties were desperately in love for years before they so much as kissed). In this book, there was never a possibility that the other person wouldn’t feel as strongly as the POV character, because we had seen both POVs and we knew they were in roughly the same place as each other.

There was no confession. Remember what I was saying about honesty above? They just told each other! How they felt! When they felt it! So boring!! I mean, yes, healthy and all, but a story needs conflict and this could have been a great source of it but wasn’t. I’ll grant you that misunderstanding plots and secret-keeping plots can be done very badly—sometimes you just end up yelling at the characters for not having the one simple conversation that would solve all their problems-—but they can also be done very well. There are real reasons people might be afraid to confess their desires to each other, or why they might think the other person could never return their feelings, and this didn’t present any of those. To its credit, it also didn’t give us bad or contrived reasons, which would have been much worse. But it just didn’t find any tension here. (I fully acknowledge that not every story HAS to use this as a source of tension. But it was one way this could have done it.)

The wrong kind of obstacles (for me). I discovered in reading this book that while I love external obstacles to characters getting together, I strongly prefer the kind of obstacle that is a barrier to them telling each other they’re in love rather than the kind that keeps them from finding a happy place in the world together. Once they’ve confessed and are, to all intents and purposes, together, even if not in the eyes of the world, my interest largely stops. “This person is engaged to someone else; therefore he will never love me” is a million times more interesting to me than “this person is engaged to someone else and so even though we love each other we cannot marry.” Fic has very few of the latter and a lot of the former, in my experience.

The wrong kind of internal resistance (for me). Again, I like the kind of obstacle that makes X think Y will never love them, rather than the kind that makes X not want to be with Y. I’m just...not that interested in a character that doesn’t WANT to be with the other person. If that’s what they want, they’ve already got it, and my work as a reader is done! Fanfiction does tend to feature a lot of internal resistance—I can’t fall in love with him; he’s another man!—but it usually takes the form of the POV character thinking the other person wouldn’t want them or would hate them for even feeling like this. Jack and Oliver both have reasons to not want to be with each other, and it does not make me interested in them getting together. It just makes me think, great, they’re sleeping together; they’re done.

Loss of sexual tension. So many of the problems with the tension could have been solved if the characters hadn’t had sex until the end of the novel. I suspect (and will be curious to investigate further) that this is a quasi-requirement of the romance genre: a sex scene well before the last tenth of the book, which is where I would have put it in this case. (To be fair, that would also have required a better crucible for the characters, because there was no good reason for them to spend so much time together if they weren’t having sex.) A sex scene halfway through the book can totally work, but only (for me) if there’s some other major source of tension preserved. Either they’re already in love but pretending it’s just sex, or (in a fun twist that preserves a good deal of the sexual tension) they’re pretending it’s practice, or just buddies, and that they don’t really feel the desire they do. There are probably other possibilities here, but this book didn’t really choose any of them.

This all might just be a way of saying I like pining. (It’s true; I do.) But I suspect there’s something else going on here, where romance readers might experience tension from a different source than I do. They might be reading not to see these two people who are in love get together, but to see these two people who aren’t in love fall in love. Which, I’ll admit, is often the case for all of us at the start of a story about two strangers meeting. But for me, for tension to be preserved, what the characters want needs to increase more quickly than what they get. This is very different from a healthy real-life dating situation, where what the two (or more) people want will match or be only very slightly ahead of what they get. Maybe romance, or at least this novel, is trying to mimic these healthier scenarios? I guess that’s fine, but it seems a little boring to me.

So, the novel didn’t have great romantic tension. One thing that could potentially have made up for it is a third type of tension: logistical. If sexual tension is wanting to sleep with someone but not, and romantic tension is wanting the person to be in love with you but thinking they’re not, then logistical tension is when you know the other person wants you and loves you but there’s some other force keeping you apart. It’s the external obstacle I mentioned above. There are versions of this that I find strongly compelling, but it has to be an ironclad external obstacle, and it should probably coincide with deprivation on other fronts: they’re in love but can’t see each other, definitely can’t sleep together, maybe don’t even get to talk to each other about their love. This book didn’t have any of that. They spent most of the book together, and a good half of it as lovers, and while there were societal obstacles to them being together, they were both financially solvent and relatively unattached, so the obstacles didn’t seem very strong to me.

There was also, it’s worth noting, a mystery plot. I haven’t touched on it a lot in this post. It was a fun thread, and definitely one of the things that helped me get through the post-sex middle, but it resolved fairly easily and wasn’t a big part of the story. It was mostly an excuse to have Jack and Oliver going places together. This was definitely a romance with a mystery in it rather than a mystery with a romance in it.

...Okay, this has gotten extremely long and there are still things I haven’t talked about! I should mention that there were a lot of things I did like about this book. (I mean, I liked it wholeheartedly until about halfway through.) Jack and Oliver were believable and likable characters who were very convincingly different from each other. They had opposing worldviews that made a lot of sense in light of their pasts, and their relationship with each other changed them in ways that made them both better people, which is something I really like in a romance. The sex scenes were great, and there were a lot of sweet moments that I enjoyed despite being annoyed at the general lack of romantic tension. There was some really nice hurt-comfort. It was well-written and enjoyable in general; I just wanted something to pull me more strongly through the second half.

There are a few things that came up here that I’d love to dig into more—honesty vs. dramatic irony in narration; the overlap between attraction and love—but I think I’ll save those for further reviews. Doesn’t look like I’m going to run out of material anytime soon. :) For now, I’ll just say that I fully recommend the first half of this book. And if you like watching two characters who are already sleeping together fall in love, I can go ahead and recommend the whole thing.

(P.S. If anyone has recs for romance novels that do have pining, send them my way!)

#reviews #romance novels #fanfiction #fanfic meta #cat sebastian #the soldier's scoundrel

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incarnateirony · 5 years

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Hey! So, thanks for the rant re: Destiel/shipping culture. I found it clarified or forced me to clarify my own thinking on the matter. Going into the final season, is there anywhere you're specifically hoping they'll take the relationship? Happy to see it play out as it has been? I assume we'll get some closure on Cas taking the blame for Mary.... PS If you're ever going through Fargo (weird right but we are at the intersection of to interstates) hmu! We can whiskey about it. -B.

To answer in parts:

WRT visiting: Fargo is unfortunately out of the way on our initial trip, but once we start actually pulling income who knows what we can manage to pull out of our ass, our long term goal is a lot of travel, so I’ll keep that in mind. The furthest north in the central US we may go is Nebraska and even that is in question, we may just take the 70 out of Kansas City towards Denver across Kansas but maybe another time when we have more expendable income.

WRT the rant: I’m glad it helped. I think we get so consumed by extremization of talking points, birthed bitterness in result and the desperate need to Stick It To the Hets – which someone even mentioned as their motivation in the Note Discourse™ – or the antis or the rival shippers that literally don’t want to see the light of day that we lose sight of what we have. This desperate need to win arguments against people too lined in tin foil for Logic Waves to permeate like

WRT wants of the show: That’s really hard to say. Personally I hit general fulfillment on their relationship at 13.5/6 due to the direct Lisa mirroring and general overtness of that. Antis can try to convince DeanCas fandom it doesn’t mean shit but literally one look at TPTB’s mentions on that day is full of shrieking of “pandering” and “how dare you” with even phrases of “pandering with the romantic shot”. It’s there. They know it. They just hope nobody remembers how upset they were about seeing and acknowledging it to get in the heads and under the skin of people they want to deny it to. At that point, their romance reached its respective bookend.

(a reminder he didn’t shed a tear in the Lisa version acted out either, if anyone comments on that missing)

I mean how blunt has the show been about this? This (x) blunt (x).

So after this, everything is garnish for how loud or, frankly, performative it has to be for people to be content with it. I have no specific goalposts in regards to that, and am personally more fascinated with which angle the general perennial mytharc is lending us towards, although that in itself can have a lot of powerful mystic meaning to Dean and Cas depending on how they choose to execute it. (x)

And I know I know people want TPTB confirmation but like anyone remember this shit

Which is what I talked about with him getting eviscerated from all angles – antis and people yelling queerbait because it didn’t meet their performative quota – until he deleted it? Everybody tried it with Gomens too until they realized there were no idiot tinhat walls to bounce off of and it died in record time.

So yeah no shit they stopped talking about it. If the authors are gonna get gored about it any time they open their mouth, including by the people they’re trying to support, I’d fucking stop too.

So for me, I have no specific goalpost with Destiel and instead will be happy with whatever comes, though am fascinated with as much PR as is lifting up Dean and Cas as essentially an A plot in early season, elevating the drama to front view. I’m sure part of it is probably just having big early plot twists they can’t talk about – such as Jack coming back early – but ultimately the fact that their interpersonal drama is such a focus is exciting because of the inevitable resolution which I expect to be before midseason, I’m estimating around 15.06 but it could be a few episodes sooner or later. It’ll end before dealing with midseason drama as a united front and/or facing off with the ramifications of Castiel’s Empty deal.

In the end, I’m just hoping to see a non-fatalistic ending; or, in the case of a fatalistic ending where Castiel has his metaphorical burning on the ceiling with the empty, closing the trunk with a We Got Work To Do the same way the season starts with, and I almost feel like that reminder isn’t without its potential reasons, which lends into the evergreen ending of getting back the missing spouse and *jazz hands* found family never leaves anybody behind. Especially not your lovers. Which is what launched this entire shitshow. And so on let us fanfic into eternity through innumerable universes to recover him, whatever the cost, no matter how hard it gets.

I’d prefer *not* to have a fatalistic ending like that and have them go off together; I also hope for some Saileen/Destiel parallels continuing since we know Shoshanna is coming back, and they’ve already been paralleled before, without either of them needing to be explicit, which would only serve to underline what I mean about performative culture and demands versus the way the show modernly handles these things even in het pairings, and unto itself would be a fascinating statement.

Oh and getting Cas’ name on the table. It’s more found family than Destiel but to the shock and awe of fandom spouses are part of the family and any spouse that doesn’t loudly include you in part of that outside of how you fondle each other–run away from them. Run very far away.

Hopefully that answers?

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sadbi-hours · 5 years

Photo

Made for @aosrecweek for Throwback Thursday

Oh, wow! Guys…it was like y’all read my mind! I’ve been wanting to make an AoS rec list for a bit now, but I just never had the self-motivation to put myself into gear and do it!

Well, I have now…and I really enjoyed putting this list together! I actually hunted across the internet for some of these fanfic recs, because while my tastes were different back in the day, I still love a good fanfic…and I think that still counts for something.

Plus, I wasn’t really into saving stories that I really liked back in the day. So fair warning, I haven’t read some of these stories in a really long time and my mini reviews might be a bit off, but I still believe that a good fanfic will stick with ya through the ages.

I hope you found these fanfics to be just as good as I do and I hope you’ll enjoy reading them too:)

P.S. I still plan to make a whole rec list of other stories I like too…with Ot3+, brotps, and all the het and slash fics that your heart desires!

i had a secret meeting in the basement of my brain by owlvsdove

It takes Skye two seconds to realize they are seducing her, and another second to realize it is seriously working.

(In which Skye, to her absolute horror, falls in love with the science babies.)

Pairing: FSK/ Fitzskimmons

Why you should read it?:

This story is very personal to me! Because, not only was it the first fanfic for the AoS fandom that I’d ever read..but it also introduced me to the world of ot3′s and the possibility that a poly relationship could actually work not only in fiction but in the real world too. That’s how real this relationship was for me…that’s how beautifully written it was… how completely true to how I’d believe that Fitz, Daisy (or Skye at the time of the story), and Jemma might have started their relationship back in the day, if you know, mainstream network had had the balls to explore that route.

I adore this fic! It still holds a special place for me. I do wish that the author had kept the FF.net version of the story up. There were a few things I loved that had existed in that version that are deleted out in the only existing one…but that’s just a minor pet peeve of mine. I would still recommend this story if you love fluffy and sexy ot3 action with some minor angst, because Daisy always has to make things complicated for herself!

Like A Stain Series by AgentSkyeMorse

Skye’s words appeared when she was 17. Trip’s words appeared when he decided to join S.H.I.E.L.D. Hunters heart is broken when finds his Soulmate. Bobbi doesn’t believe in Soulmates… That’s what she tells herself.

Pairing: Bobbi Morse/ Daisy Johnson/ Lance Hunter (aka I don’t know their ship name), and some past Daisy/Triplet

Why you should read?:.

I don’t really remember much about this series, other than it’s a Canon-divergent post-2 and Soulmate AU.

I do however remember it being really freaking good! I loved how the characters were not completely OCC like some AU ‘verse’s can make their main characters be. I believed that all these could have really happened if some of Canon’s events had happened differently…and there was such a things as Soulmate universes.

There are some minor changes made to AoS’s canon, but that’s to be expected. However, I really liked how the writer still made me believe in Bobbi, Lance, and Daisy’s chemistry really well. And it had some really freaking hot sex scenes too, if I remember correctly.

Mascot by Philote

In which Skye adopts an orphaned dog, much to the varying delight and chagrin of her teammates.

Pairing: Gen/ No expressed Ships I believe

Why you should read?:

It’s just a really cute story about the team’s varying reactions to Skye sneaking a little puppy on board the bus. It’s just pure s1 team fluff, and it actually has weary but protective Ward that I think is adorable…before you know, Ward became the evil asshole that he is.

If you just want team fluff with very little angst, than this is the story for you!

the heart is hard to translate (all my stumbling phrases never amounted to anything worth this feeling) by awkwardspiritanimals

Leopold Fitz is going to do whatever it takes to keep them safe. Even if it means turning their household items into deadly weapons.

The other three just want him to get some sleep.

(tripfitzskimmons polyamory)

Pairing: Tripfitzskimmons

Why you should read?:

A post season 1 Ot4, where Fitz feels helpless because of his brain injury and tries to help in the only way he knows how and still can…by making everyday objects into deadly weapons…

Trip, Jemma, and Daisy try to be understanding, but would like it very much if Fitz would stopped turning their possessions into weapons.

It’s very sweet little ficlet, but does have some Fitz angst. So beware of that.

love letters to a ghost by arsonistlullabye

Skye is haunted the ghost of a boy who wasn’t strong enough. Fitz is haunted by a girl who makes him want to be stronger.

Pairing: Fitzdaisy/ Fitzskye

Why you should read?:

This story is set in an alternate AoS ‘verse, where Fitz couldn’t handle the pressure and loneliness of being one of the youngest to attend S.H.I.E.L.D. academy…and trigger warning, kills himself and begins to haunt the Academy as a ghost.

Years later, Skye attends and seeing her go down the same path as him, does everything he can to help her become her best self..while also slowly falling in love with her. I don’t want to spoiler anymore, but it’s a really good…but i’ll be honest and say that depending on how you view it, it might not have the happiest ending, but I believe it fit perfectly with the story.

Take me away to some place real by Florchis

After the Framework, Fitz decides to go see his mother for a few days and takes Jemma and a reluctant Daisy with him. Things are not easy, but helped by three late-night conversations, Daisy learns that they can choose to not make them hard.

Pairing: FSK/ Fitzskimmons

Why you should read?:

I feel like I’m cheating a bit by rec-ing this fic, since it’s a prompt of mine gifted to me through a @aosficnet2 exchange a few years back, but where Florchis decided to take the idea far exceeded my expectations. This story…left me speechless.It made me cry. It was…just so beautiful and hopeful… yet bittersweet.

Nothing’s sugar coated…or wrapped up neatly in a little box in this story. They’re all broken by what they experienced in the Framework. Daisy’s left with old and new insecurities to wade through, Fitz can’t always tell the difference between Reality and the Framework, and Jemma’s just trying to hold everybody and herself together…and a trip to see Fitz’s amazing Mom doesn’t automatically fix everything.

But it makes their traumas more manageable…It makes them want to try to be better, not only in their relationship but as people as well. Oh, man! You have to read this story…especially if you were left broken yourself by season 4. Seriously, go read this!

I couldn’t in good conscious rec one of Florchis’s post-framework stories without rec-ing one of @theclaravoyant. You can go read it here if you like!

six birthdays skye had by zauberer_sirin

Birthdays are the worst. And hers are not even real.

Pairing: Skoulson

Why you should read?:

Alright! Hear me out! I, myself , as in me now, in no way ships Coulson and Daisy in a romantic relationship, but when I first started out reading AoS fanfics, I was experimenting…trying to figure out my tastes and what I shipped and liked romantically.

And I can admit that I’ve read other Skoulson fics in my time, but this fanfic is the only one that I’ll willing recommended…because the romantic aspect of Skoulson’s relationship was left ambiguous, at least to me. It was more of a character study of how Skye has always views and copes with her birthdays through the years and the one time, she actually liked being born…and even though, I hate it, her relationship with Coulson has a lot to do with her acceptance of it.

But I wouldn’t blame anybody for skipping over this one, I haven’t read it since I read it the first time just because I would have to stomach the romantic Skoulson in it…but I feel like it’s still worth recommending. It’s a pretty good Skye/Daisy character piece.

Along the Way by theclaravoyant

When Shield’s two youngest prodigies shake hands for the very first time, their expressions are exactly as you might expect for two people who know they’ve just met their soul mates. But for this particular pair there’s something else as well.

Confusion.

Sometimes finding your soulmate(s) is not as simple as it seems. Then again, sometimes what we spend most of our time looking for, has been right under our noses all along.

Pairing: FSK/ Fitzskimmons

Why you should read?:

A FSK Soulmate AU that went a long way to redefining my outlook on the trope. Fitz and Simmons’ quest to discover who their other soulmate is and what the weird soul mark they have means is really well done and completely in character with how Fitzsimmons are as individuals and as a unit…

It’s just a very well written AU that’s I’d recommended anytime of the day. You should read it.

and when we burst, begin again by owlvsdove

May gets hurt in the line of duty. Jemma tries to fill her shoes.

Pairing: FSK/ Fitzskimmons

Why you should read?:

If you haven’t noticed by now, there is a pretty consistent theme to my fanfic recs…and that’s the hurt/comfort or heavy angst trope and this one fits that bill to a tee.

Set in a post season 1 Canon-Divergence world I believe, where I think Ward really injures May and Jemma take it upon herself to become the team’s glue…and how it slowly chips away at her emotional sanity. It’s really well written and I think you guys will like it…if you don’t mind the heavy angst too.

break my heart into pieces on the floor by hpfreakster

Months earlier she had stood there ready to give her life for them, now she stands there pointing a gun at Skye and Fitz.

Pairing: BioSpecialist with a side order of Fitzskye

Why you should read?:

An alternate end to season 1, a role reversal with Jemma being the Hydra agent who betrayed the team, A flawed but ultimately goodhearted Ward, and a possibly triple agent Simmons…? What more could you ask for in a fascinating, alternate plot twist and development?

I know some can’t even read about Ward as a main character in any fashion, but I really loved this fic…how it was done…how Ward was portrayed. He wasn’t perfect…or really even likable…but he loved his team and would do anything for them, even haunting down the woman he loves to avenge Fitz and Skye.

I think that’s a really cool story;)

He’s Not A Monkey by AgentMaryMargaretSkitz

“He’s Leo. Fitz. The dog is Fitz.”

When an 084 explodes, Skye sees that Fitz has turned into a puppy. Some Biospecialist and pre-Skitz.

Pairing: Another Biospecialist with some minor Fitzskye

Why you should read?:

Wow! Another fluffy dog story rec! I really need to find my AoS fluff in other tropes! LOL!

But who can resist Fitz being turned into a adorable freaking puppy…who adores Skye and Jemma…and keeps biting Ward in various places I think! I couldn’t! Haha!

stretch your arms around me by Conifer

With them, Skye learned to love.

She learned how to give it just as much as she learned to feel it. It was abstract and solid and all-consuming, a mess that left her feeling dizzy and weightless. It was impossible to put a finger on but easy enough to place; she knew the heart-pounding feeling when she had it.

Pairing: FSK/ Fitzskimmons

Why you should read?:

A kind of a sad Fitzskimmon fic, where Skye knows that her relationship with Fitzsimmons will come to an end someday…because well, according to Skye, it has to. In her life, happiness never lasts for long…but she’s going learn from and enjoy her time together with them for as long as it lasts.

It’s a bittersweet, but heartwarming fic that fits right in my alley. Go ahead and read it…but be prepared to have your heart broken.

The zeroh law of thermodynamics by Florchis

Fitz and Simmons are each other’s soulmates. Daisy isn’t. Fitz and Simmons don’t care. Daisy does. Sort of. Or: Jemma wants them to tell her their fantasies, Daisy wants a tattoo and Fitz wants to be a gentleman. (They all succeed.)

Pairing: FSK/ Fitzskimmons

Why you should read?:

I couldn’t rec @theclaravoyant‘s Soulmate AU without recommending @florchis!

This story showed me that love comes in many forms and variations…and just because Daisy isn’t Fitzsimmons’ soulmate doesn’t stop them from pursuing a meaningful romantic triad with her. Of course, like any real relationship, there are trail and errors…misunderstanding and miscommunications…but they never let that keep them down because they love each other and will do anything to make their unconventional (in every sense of the word) relationship work.

It’s a really good Soulmate AU story. You should read it…along with @florchis‘s FSK stories here and here. I just love the different and interesting ways she makes the FSK ship play out and begin.

Apples and Dandelions by theclaravoyant

After Fitz’ father sends a number of threatening messages and an ultimatum to Shield, Fitz decides it’s time to confront his father. As it turns out, the apple can fall as far from the tree as it likes, especially when there’s someone there to catch it.

Pairing: Fitzsimmons with Fitz & Daisy brotp

Why you should read?:

I know that I didn’t really rec manyGen or brotp stories on this list…and I’ll be fair with y’all, but I really do view the majority of my bromance’s in Television and Films as romantic relationships too..and most of the time, I’d rather read shipper fics than purely brotp ones.

But this fic was so good that I could not share it on my list…but I won’t bore you with the details. It’s a theclaravoyant fic and I think that they’re all amazing.

#aos #aos rec week #fanfic recs #my list #all fanfics are completed #so read away everybody #i tried to make this list as diverse as I could #but i do have my tastes #so #be prepared #you might not like everything i rec

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icypantherwrites · 5 years

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so why are you so against shipping?? is it because you’re aro or something?? not trying to judge, just curious, you’re one of my favorite authors bc of how you portray the characters ❤️

I’m not against shipping whatsoever. I have tons of ships in other fandoms and a few I genuinely support in VLD as well (my biggest being Allurance and I’m actually working on a fic that will have that pairing). I’ve posted multiple times before about some of those ships, notably in the AtLA, Harry Potter and FMA fandoms.

What I am against is romantic Klance and just as equally Sheith and also people who feel that “if I just tried it I’d like it” or that I somehow owe them to write such.

Those ships are not my cup of tea in any way, shape or form and this last ask was far from the first I’ve gotten on the topic of why I don’t write it or insinuating that my story would be “better” if it was romantic. That pisses me off. There’s so much romantic Klance in this fandom people can find those by the thousands. Don’t try and force or guilt a writer who views them as only brothers and really good friends as anything else and if they choose to do so imply that such a relationship is not enough.

And no, I’m not Aro. I’m a most definitely very straight het female, although even were I on the LBGTQ scale I hardly see why that matters in what I choose to both write or personally ship between fictional characters. Love is love in all forms and I write all sorts of it.

You all just happen to know me from only my VLD works, which are all gen (minus Our Farewell) but I’m far from against shipping or writing romance. Prior to coming to this fandom nearly every fanfiction I wrote was a romance or had a pairing as a big focus of it and my original novel will be a (whump, angst filled, action. adventure) love story by the end. I love romance, I love shipping. But I don’t love the drama and most definitely hate it and what has happened with shipping in the VLD fandom. So I don’t make a big deal out of it, focus instead on the team friendships and platonic relations that I love for the VLD cast and what I view as what I believe canon intended. I write my takes on the characters and how I view their relationships and that’s really all I have left to say on this.

PREORDER FANFICTIONS (ZINE AND SIN) | AO3 | KO-FI | PATREON | DISCORD

#icyanswers #platonic relationships #shipping

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c-is-for-circinate · 6 years

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so what you're saying is you only like ace representation when autistic ace women are being thrown under the bus because our representation doesn't matter and our attempts to create our own representation (because if we don't we don't get any) are bad and ableist so we should just sit down, shut up, and be content with never seeing ourselves in fiction. got it. sorry we keep forgetting our place and being so fucking inconvenient with our wishing to be allowed to exist in stories.

Okay. Okay, we’re both going to take a deep breath and maybe get a cup of tea here and have this conversation–or at least I am. You can if you like. I suggest that you might want to, because you clearly seem to care a whole bunch what I have to say on this topic, for some reason, even though I’m nobody on the internet with all of 200 notes on a post that doesn’t even say the thing you seem to think it says. You care enough to be very upset in my inbox, so it seems like you might care enough to want to have this discussion.

Cool. I’ve got shit I’m putting off doing this afternoon. Let’s have this talk.

For starters: yup, I can see that you’re really angry. I get that. If somebody were telling me to sit down and shut up about representing myself in fiction, I’d be real angry, too. And yes, I can see how the thing you initially saw (which I’m assuming was this post, without any of the later additions to it) might sound that way to you, and I apologize.

Still not sure why the opinions of one random person on the internet are worth your time and your words and your rage on this level, though you do you–not that ‘somebody thinks I shouldn’t exist or see myself in fiction’ isn’t worth raging about, but this seems like a pretty small corner to have this anger-fit in. Like, you clearly know that many people DO believe the things you think I believe, all the time, every day. This wouldn’t have hit such a button if that weren’t the case. I would get really exhausted fighting this fight all the time, if I were you. Which I’m not.

Which begs the question: if I’m saying “let horrible shit go on the internet, life is too short to fight every battle,” then why am I taking the time to start this question with one very angry anon who might not even bother coming to my blog to see my response in the first place?

Well. For one, because I obviously hurt you, and that sucks. Whatever I meant to communicate, you read a thing that clearly hurt. As a decent human, it behooves me to acknowledge that if I can, and to try to address it if I can.

Also because I clearly hurt you by phrasing and explaining myself poorly, and that sucks in a whole different way. And maybe if we have this conversation here, other people WON’T have the same misunderstanding. That’d be pretty great.

(And also because life is so short, and the internet is so angry, and I am so tired all the time. Everyone is always so angry here, so cruel and so hurt and so furious. Maybe I can be a little bit kind. Maybe it will matter. Maybe somebody else on the internet will take a deep breath at their reflexive rage. It could happen.)

Alright, now, to the meat of your complaint: you believe I have said, “ace autistic women should not be represented in fiction, it’s ableist and bad.” You believe that this is a pretty shitty thing to think because ace autistic women actually exist in the actual world, and they/you would like some actual representation, or at least to be allowed to represent themselves.

That is a pretty shitty thing to think. It’s good that I don’t think it. It sucks that it sounded like I do. You might want to re-read the version of the original post that I linked above, with several additional comments on it. You might want to read this post, where I clarified my point of view. You might want to read it again.

Here’s what I actually think: in our culture of stories, especially in fandom and also in published media, romantic storylines are held up at the center of fiction all the time. Romance and romantic interest are used to create tension, to create character depth, to add complexity and interest and signal to readers ‘hey, over here, these characters are important, the story is here!’

And that’s fucked up. You already know that, if you’re on the internet looking for stories about ace representation. But it’s a fact.

Here’s the other thing I think: many authors, mostly in fandom and also sometimes in published media, use the idea of asexuality–not its reality, not its complexities, not the intricate intersections of asexuality and aromanticism, not anything true and real–use the idea of ‘oh, this character just isn’t interested in anyone ever’ as a way to sideline specific characters out of that romantic narrative.

The people fandom wants most of all to sideline out of its stories? Women.

(Yes, even in het fandoms. Maybe especially in het fandoms. The rage and hate against an ‘other woman’ is terrifying to behold.)

The people fandom wants even more than that to keep out of the spotlight and also particularly out of romantic storylines altogether? ND/autistic women.

Using asexuality as a way to keep autistic women (as a way to keep women, as a way to keep autistic people, as a way to keep anyone) out of a narrative is fucking bullshit. This I believe. This I absolutely believe. And it is shitty, shitty representation that is not worthy of the name. It is lazy and exploitative writing that uses ‘representation’ as an excuse not to actually explore or represent anyone at all.

I wrote that original post because of the overwhelming majority of the Persona 5 fandom, which downright screams about how Futaba Sakura (one of the most legit autistic characters I’ve ever seen in fiction that wasn’t specifically about ‘hey look at this autistic character’) can’t be shipped with anyone let alone the protag, she is the little sister and she doesn’t like to be touched anyway she probably just doesn’t want anyone. I wrote it because I just spent like a month devouring Voltron fic and you can’t find good poly-fic that isn’t ‘just the boys fucking each other’ for love or money–Pidge likes robots more than people and that means she’d never be attracted to or fall for anyone, at least if you need an excuse to keep her out of the group sex. I wrote it because Parker/Hardison/Eliot is the OT3 of all OT3′s. I wrote it because I was in Glee fandom for years and I fucking remember what fandom said about Brittany S. Pierce.

I would love to see more ace representation in fiction. I would love to see so much more fiction that centers ace characters, that explores the fact that asexuality is an identity rather than a lack of identity. That lets ace characters fill lead roles and doesn’t even make their sexuality an issue. Ace characters in romances. Ace characters with their own plotlines and intense character development who never want or need romances. And yes: that includes autistic or otherwise neurodivergent female asexual characters. Any one of the characters I just listed above, give me a story about them navigating their own sexuality or navigating their world, their most important non-sexual non-romantic relationships, their selves, and let them be as not-neurotypical as all hell. I will read it in a fucking instant.

You want to see you in fiction. I want to see you in fiction. What we’re getting ain’t it.

Take some deep breaths. Talk to a friend who knows you. Hug a dog/cat/person, if they’re available and hugging’s your thing. Maybe don’t scream at strangers on the internet. We’re on the same side.

#ace discourse is exhausting #all discourse is exhausting tbh #I'll have conversations about this if people want to actually discuss #but I think I'm real done defending or explaining things I've already explained #sigh #Anonymous

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avelera · 7 years

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Some musings on fanfiction literary trends, fandom, and the evolution of online culture (as seen in 15+ years of Tolkien-based fanfic from The Lord of the Rings to The Hobbit films)

Reading 15-year-old Lord of the Rings fic is absolutely wild because the prose style for fanfic has changed so much during the intervening years. There was a huge focus back then (~2002) on mimicking Tolkien’s style with elevated language, a lack of phobia over using the passive voice, and otherwise formal “epic” dialogue patterns.

At times it’s a bit hard for me to read, because my inner editor voice wants to rearrange sentences and remove “on the nose” description and dialogue (explicitly saying what the character is or is not thinking/saying like “He spoke nothing of his fears, which were great.”)*

It got me thinking about fashions in prose. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this style, just as there’s nothing inherently “wrong” about 19th c. romantic purple prose vs 20th c. spare, Hemingway-esque thriller prose. Yet writers and teachers of writing delight in creating long lists of what should and should not be done as if they’re ironclad laws of physics rather than extremely subjective matters of taste and changing times.

But back to fanfic, I’m fascinated by the unspoken linguistic trends that pervade fandom, from phrases ( “he smelled of X, and Y, and something all his own”), to aversion to adverbs, to casual vs elevated tone. Even tropes like A/B/O are fascinating in how they spread from niche fetish communities to fandoms that aren’t even tangental to one another, and from there become vehicles for dialogue on matters of society, gender, sexuality, and even history. The pace is rapid, less than a few years ago in The Hobbit community I observed that fanfic writers needed to make some sort of author note in the margin if there was a trans* or gender queer main character, in order to clarify that aspect of the story to unfamiliar readers. Today, such fics hardly need a disclaimer at all because the issue is so much more widely understood, this wider awareness seeming to rise in rough parallel with the IRL fight for trans* rights. Similarly, fifteen years ago in the Lord of the Rings fandom a story that contained slash of any kind (even if they lacked any form of explicit sexual scene) would often contain long, agonized explanations as to why these characters were “just friends” if it made the reader more comfortable, or that the chapter containing a slash sex scene was skippable if it made fans of Tolkien’s work uncomfortable.

Another trend is the evolution of the acceptance of the Mary Sue. Again, 15 years ago in the Lord of the Rings fandom, it was possibly the most reviled concept out there. “Tenth member of the Fellowship” “Girl falls into Middle Earth” were easy and constant targets of ridicule. The frustration was somewhat understandable, given that at one point I remember counting the first 10 pages of Fanfiction.net, and at the time and fully 60% of the new stories involved a female self-insert character into what was inevitably the film universe. Fans of the book often fled to make their own archives where such stories were explicitly forbidden unless the reached a certain level of prose quality. One of the most popular comedy series was of partnered assassins who would “jump in” to various fanfic universes and waylay Mary Sues before they could make contact with the main characters (all tongue in cheek, I remember adoring these self-aware self-inserts as a teenager).

Nowadays, I’d venture to say that level of vitriol towards Mary Sues is falling out of favor. I personally still struggle with reading any sort of self-insert fanfic, or any OC fanfic in general, which is a psychological leftover from developing as a reader and writer during that era. But I’ve observed that, like with slash, acceptance has grown and Mary Sues are now defended in a “live and let live” manner. Certainly I would rather avoid reading a Mary Sue fic by a new writer, but I wholly support their writing efforts and see it as an important step in their development as writers.

For younger fans, you have to understand, this level of basic tolerance was not always the norm. If you’re puzzled by people asking readers not to “flame” it’s because in the early 2000s it wasn’t uncommon for trolls to go into fanfiction comment sections just to send insulting messages to the author for the very idea of their story, to the extent that authors would have to beg in the notes “don’t like, don’t read”. "Don’t like, don’t read” has largely become an unspoken rule of fanfic as a result. (Though Tumblr has removed some of that tolerance, in my view, by the way dashboards work putting “objectionable” content in front of people’s eyes through the clusterfuck of a tagging system.) This evolution runs roughly parallel to the fading of legal “disclaimers” which were once necessary at the top of fics, as fanfic has gained wider acceptance and the need to defend oneself legally online against aggressive authors and creators has vanished in all but the most extreme copyright violation examples.

The greatest change in fanfic in the last decade+ though is without question the acceptance and then the prevalence of slash. It has gone from a small and passionate, but often disdained, niche group--that was seen by some as a fetish culture akin to furries or BDSM, with its own fan conventions--to practically the norm of fanfiction (at least on AO3, which is also relatively new and signaled a huge fundamental shift in the way fanfic is consumed online). I vividly remember in my early days of LotR fanfic seeing the passionate slash fans “over there” and how they were seen as a totally separate, rabid subculture rather than as part of the “mainstream” fandom community. Now, I would say they are the mainstream in fandom.

Meanwhile, “Gen” has gone from the more “respected” “elevated” subgenre to a struggling one. Again, to specify, this is based on my observations of changes in the Tolkien fandom spanning the LotR to The Hobbit film period, and a US-centric one at that. Het fics are still thriving, where I’ve observed a closer linguistic parallel to the language and tropes seen in popular romance novels than I necessarily see in slash fanfic, though there is bleed through. Het is no longer the accepted default along the lines of “canon relationships” that it was 10 years ago, i.e you didn’t even need to tag for romance if it was a het story with the usual main pairings, it just meant you were writing "canon adjacent” works.

It’s curious to watch these changes in fanfiction, as I daresay they mirror the changes seen in the literary world over the past 200+ years, the only difference really is how fluid and fast these changes are. A year online feels like a decade compared to IRL literary trends, and it has also been fascinating to watch what I perceive to be the bleed-through of ideas that fandom has been batting around for years entering the mainstream. For example, the growing acceptance of same-sex relationships in fiction, and a growing comfort with female-led stories with a push back against the automatic knee-jerk accusation of “Mary Sue” as a bad thing. It’s hard to say which came first, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that fanfic played at least a small part in the wider cultural acceptance.

#fanfiction #maggie muses #writing #the hobbit fandom #the lord of the rings fandom #my meta #writing advice

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reconditarmonia · 5 years

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Dear Purimgifts Author

Hello! Purimgifts tradition seems to run towards no letters or shorter letters, but if you want to know more about what I like, I have longer letters for previous exchanges in my “dear author letters” tag.

General likes: hard-headed and down-to-earth female characters, noble and conflicted female characters, femslash, stories and performance, heists or complicated plans, loyalty kink.

DNW: unrequested AUs including things like soulmate AUs; embarrassment; focus on pregnancy; unrequested het, including canon het (you don’t have to pretend that Chava/Fyedke, Miryem/Staryk etc. never happened but I absolutely do not want shipfic for them).

Fiddler on the Roof: If you have seen the Yiddish production in New York, I would love to read about the Fiddler from this production specifically, understanding him/her/them as a real person with a backstory, present and future rather than a symbol. How did he/she/they come to be who they are, and what are their interpersonal relationships (platonic, familial, romantic, any gender) like? I’d also love to read about the relationship and/or future of my faves Perchik and Hodel (I will mention my persistent headcanon that they never marry because Hodel develops Emma Goldman-esque views on marriage, but I’m fine if they do, of course), or more about Tevye post-canon.

Fullmetal Alchemist: The Ishval plot in canon really hit close to home for Jewish Reasons. I’d love to read anything about what Ishvalan/part-Ishvalan canon characters or OCs like most, identify with, or are able to preserve from their community and culture, whether after the genocide during the canon timeline, in any pre-war diaspora that exists, or during the rebuilding. I have more detail/prompts about this in other letters in my tag. I’d prefer that Ishvalan culture be worldbuilt rather than borrowed wholesale from any real-life culture, but feel free to dump all the Jewish feels into the fic - I do. Alternately, another thing I love about FMA is its array of fantastic female characters, especially Riza and Olivier as we see them in the present, recent past, or future of canon - they’re so brave and badass, and pragmatic yet noble, with tons of loyalty kink with their teams/friends.

Spinning Silver: I’m really interested in what the book does with power - Miryem’s real-world power of accounting and hardheadedness becoming magic in the Staryk world, being a queen in one world while belonging to a disenfranchised minority in another. I’d love to see Miryem post-canon, interacting with Wanda or Irina (in a shippy or non-shippy way), having more adventures or practicing Judaism in the Staryk lands, or being in the human world. (I never got the impression that she’d be happy just to avoid the question of the town’s contempt by moving.) Or, another fairy tale about the Staryk and the Jews, or story about folkloric elements tying into the history/experiences of Jews - I’m reminded of the little story in the book about the talking fox who returns to reward the woman who helped him by warning her family to hide. I’ve requested this before so I have extensive and specific rambling in my letters tag, including for interactions with Irina or Wanda, if you want to know more.

#dear author letters #fiddler on the roof #fma #spinning silver

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cameoamalthea · 7 years

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illegalslothings:

I think the one thing that miffs me about certain fujosji is the toxic views some have on gay relationships and often many women who write fanfiction have some very.. misinformed ideas?? And some of them tend to fetishize gay men (reguardless or not if they're lesbians or straight women) I USED to be one of these types of people and i didn't realize how damaging my ideas and 'fetishizing' was until I was in my early 20s. Just some food for thought

Thank you for your response. I can understand how you feel that way. Especially given that plenty of fujoshi are teenagers on the internet and teens can be obnoxious. There are annoying fans and plenty of bad fanfiction (especially if it’s written by people without much experience, but hey, safer for girls to explore sexuality and make mistakes in a story than exploring with another person where they could get hurt).

I get what you mean about problems in yaoi. And honestly, it’s the same problems I see in a lot of het romance (and sometimes gay romance made by and for guy male audiences, like I was into Gravitation at the same time I was into Queer as Folk re-runs, there were overlapping tropes and overlapping problems).

However, I’m hoping that maybe I can give you some food for thought too. And please bare with me as my responses tend to be very long and tangental but I want to talk about this...

First, could you define “fetishizing” because I’ve seen the term used simply to mean ‘women thinking something is hot”.

Kant’s take on sexual morality was that any sexual attraction is objectifying (or fetishizing, I suppose, since fetishizing and objectifying seems to be used interchangeably in the discourse. Kant’s reasoning that sexual attraction "makes of the loved person an Object of appetite. . . . Taken by itself it is a degradation of human nature" (Lectures on Ethics, p. 163) Source.

The idea is if you think someone or something is hot you’re not treating them as people and just as something to ‘get off to’. Therefor, any and all sexual attraction is evil.

I agree with Kant insofar as physical attraction is objectifying someone, but disagree that it’s inherently wrong.

Rather, I think sexual morality hinges on consent. If you treat someone as an object without their consent, that is wrong. If a guy asks me invasive questions about my sex life or harasses me and the girl I’m with because ‘lesbians are hot’ or ‘I love bisexuals’. He’s trying to use to me to fulfill a sexual fantasy without my consent and it’s creepy and wrong.

Using people without their consent is always wrong.

Him finding the idea of two women together hot doesn’t really effect me because it doesn’t involve me.

Consent is also a two sided coin. No means no, but yes means yes. It means that if I want to do something, either on my own or with other consenting adults, I’m allowed to do so...

I reject the idea that how other people who aren’t involved might feel about it negates the right of an individual to consent.

If I decide to hold hands with another woman in public or kiss her and it makes some people uncomfortable, that’s not my problem. They’re not involved. Our relationship is between us.

If I decide to write a romance story between two guys for other women or rp as a guy with another woman and it makes some people uncomfortable, that’s also not my problem. Again, they’re not involved. Everyone involved is consenting, whether consenting to read or to play.

The fujoshi community is for the most part women exploring their sexuality with other women in a women dominated space.

If a woman sexually harasses anyone, man or woman, then that of course is wrong, because there’s no consent. That’s what harassment means, doing something to someone without their consent and/or in spite of their clear lack of consent.

Note, consent is between the people involved.

If I cosplay a guy from Ouran High School Host Club and give roses to girls and consensually pose somewhat suggestively with my cosplay partner to make them happy, everyone involved consents and there is no problem.

If someone sexually harasses cosplayers, demands they do poses they’re not comfortable with...that’s a problem.

If someone sees us cosplaying two guys and posing with our arms around each other and is uncomfortable...that’s not my problem.

I just can’t agree with the idea that consensual activity is wrong because it makes people who aren’t involved feel uncomfortable.

Whether a sexual act (sexual used here to mean any activity linked to sexual attraction) is moral hinges on consent between those involved, not how other people feel about it.

Their feelings are valid, they may be genuinely uncomfortable, but feelings aren’t facts. Something making you (a general you) uncomfortable doesn’t make it wrong.

Again, plenty of straight girls might be uncomfortable with me because ‘what if I liked them, that would be gross’ but me existing as a person who likes girls or expressing that I like girls in general isn’t actually a threat to them. Me liking something doesn’t = being predatory, attraction doesn’t = sexual harassment.

And the same goes for me liking guys or the idea of being a guy in a relationship with another guy.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I support criticizing media.

It’s important to critique media. Media reflects culture. By criticizing how relationships in media present predatory behavior as romantic can help us to pause and question where is this idea coming from?

As a romance fan (someone who read and wrote romance, since like, middle school) - I will say that there are issues with the romance genre as a whole. Like any issue with the yaoi genre also exists in the romance genre because yaoi is still a subset of romance. The romance genre is full of toxic and unhealthy views of relationships (sometimes that’s the point, sometimes it seems the authors don’t understand when behavior is creepy as opposed to romantic).

However, harmful messages in media don’t exist in a vacuum. They reenforce or subvert harmful ideas that exist in culture. So lesbian porn where the plot is a straight man turns lesbians straight should be criticized in light of reenforcing the idea that all women exist to please men and should want men and be available, even lesbians. Meanwhile, gay porn where the plot is a gay man turns a straight man gay doesn’t really reenforce anything.

Gay men don’t have the power to oppress straight men. Gay men’s fantasies about straight men can’t reenforce oppressive ideas because straight men aren’t oppressed.

Likewise, I don’t really think porn made by women about men can oppress men. Women don’t have societal power over men. Lesbians do not hold any privilege over gay men.

Rather, men have ‘male privilege’ which may be part of the draw of yaoi for lesbians. The opportunity to explore sexuality while using a male avatar. To explore sexuality with the baggage that comes with female sexuality (am I writing this character too slutty, will people hate her for it, what if they think this is me, what if I get sexually harassed for posting about sex things- Things you think about if you’re a woman writing porn that involves women that vanish if you write about men instead). And that’s besides the fact that in fandom content most characters in mainstream media are men and the most developed canon relationships tend to be between men.

Lesbians ‘fetishizing’ gay men? Women fetishizing the idea of being a man/maleness?

I just don’t see how lesbians have the power to harm gay men by reading, writing or drawing porn about men.

Or see how whether something is harmful depends on the gender. So if my husband does “rabid fangirl’ things, it’s not fetishization but if I do...it is?

Also, what about non-binary people and intersex people? I have PCOS, which is a form of intersex and sort of makes my gender identification shift depending on how much T I have in my system in a given time. Sometimes, I want to present as male and feel more comfortable as a guy. Most of the time I identify as a woman. (And sometimes I’m a sobbing mess of double dysphoria).

So like...if I like yaoi while I feel like a guy it’s fine, but if I do it while I’m feeling more like a girl it’s fetishizing?

I just question any logic that boils down to ‘it’s only bad if girls do it’. Which I see a lot of...

That doesn’t mean we can’t criticize girls for bad behavior. If you treat real people badly or treat non-consenting third parties like they should be your sex toys, that’s absolutely not acceptable. But thinking about boys or reading bad romance stories about boys isn’t hurting anyone.

Again, this doesn’t mean we shouldn’t ever question media. When media reflects harmful norms we should discuss what’s wrong with this picture so that we can consciously reject the harmful ideas. That said, it’s still ok to enjoy problematic media. It’s not about never enjoying something that isn’t it’s perfect. It’s about thinking critically so you won’t reenforce any harmful ideas you’ve picked up due to societal norms and so you can instead question those norms.

For example, Star Wars featured some pretty toxic stuff. However, it’s ok to like Star Wars, and to like Han Solo and like his relationship and chemistry with Leia. You can like it and still acknowledge that the narrative frames predatory behavior as cute/romantic. Liking it doesn’t mean you’re predatory or support predatory behaviors.

If you haven’t questioned predatory romance in Harrison Ford movies before and have misinformed ideas about relationships, that’s not your fault. We grow up in a society that has some messed up ideas about relationships and doesn’t give us the information we need.

In the U.S. at least we don’t even have access to basic sex-ed let alone classes on relationships. This is a problem because we need tools to recognize abusive relationships and make healthy choices. It doesn’t help when media doesn’t really give great examples.

However, the issue isn’t fiction not teaching us good lessons. Fiction exists to entertain not educate. That’s what the non-fiction section is for...

Making decisions about relationship based on fictional romance books isn’t a good idea. Making decisions about what pet to get based on fictional dog books isn’t a good idea either. The good news is, you can fact check. That’s part of what criticism is...looking at something is presented and thinking about it critically means fact checking.

Women interested in BDSM because of 50 Shades have been hurt as a result. Families interested in Dalmatians because of 101 Dalmatians have been hurt as a result and have hurt a lot of dogs and the breed as a whole.

That doesn’t mean enjoying the fantasy of an unhealthy relationship in a romance book is wrong, or enjoying unrealistic stories about puppies. That’s not a problem. Using fiction as if it were a guide book is a problem.

I’ve talked about this discussing “The Shallows” and how sharks are portrayed in the media. Monster movies about Sharks aren’t really the issue. The issue is people who treat fiction (whose purpose is to entertain) like non-fiction (whose purpose it is to educate and inform). “The Shallows” isn’t a documentary, we shouldn’t treat it like one. And really, the bigger problem is more when actual documentaries sensationalize things. The issue is less with Sharknado and more with so called ‘educational channels” which purport to be non-fiction, informative sources try to be entertaining for ratings (Shark Week makes me angrier than the Shallows).

(sorry, shark digression...)

My point is genres that exist to entertain aren’t meant to educate. They can still be criticized (all media should be criticized), but they shouldn’t be help to a standard of something it’s not. A romance novel is not a sex-ed book, it’s a not a relationship guide book, it’s a form of entertainment.

To quote Oscar Wilde “There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written. That is all.”

What’s true for books also applies to fanfic and manga and all art. The purpose of fiction is to entertain. It doesn’t have to teach moral lessons or leave the reader more informed. Note that I distinguish fiction from propaganda, as propaganda exists to purposely support a certain point of view, and so it is necessary to judge it on the point of view it’s pushing. So I think you can say that the philosophy advocated in “Atlas Shrugged” is morally wrong because that’s propaganda, but I’d argue “The Picture of Dorian Gray” isn’t morally wrong because it’s a book, it’s job is to be entertainment and judged on whether it’s well written or badly written.

Note, criticizing media is different than judging it as moral or immoral. I can write an essay about the character of Dorian and what makes him an bad person in the novel. That’s different than saying the book itself is immoral or that Oscar Wilde is bad for writing it and his fans are bad for reading it. Yes, it’s a problematic book, that’s part of the point of it. It’s not a guide book on behavior, it’s art.

#agree to disagree without being disagreeable

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