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thisliminalspacedaydreams · 1 year

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Do not confuse Enthusiasm with Entitlement.

Hello!

I’m relatively unknown in the fanfiction world which is great, but I’ve got some friends who are known, and I’ve got things to say, from an outsider perspective.

I’m a writer, but I’m also a reader. I participate in the fandom in the way I know how, which is through writing stories.

Here’s what fandom should be. It’s a village, called Fandom, and people all interact in the village in some way. Write, Art, Ideas, Comments, Reblogs, Kudos, Podfics, Bookbinding, Etc etc etc. It’s a Smurf village, because currency doesn’t exist, and everyone does what they can for the community to thrive, for fucking free. They offer gifts, and encouragement, and once a week we all gather round in the center of the village and scream about it in a very unhealthy way. Some people are more active than others, some like to be known, some prefer to remain anonymous, some watch from the sidelines and everything is done with care and a warm heart between our teeth.

There are pockets of that, which, great.

Here’s what fandom is, sometimes.

1/People elevating others to the point of God, sometimes dragging other writers down (for no reason, no one asked to be rated as the best fic writer of all time) to make a point. What is the point? Is there one?

2/People harassing writers for more things. Write an epilogue, write another chapter, write this and that. Writers aren’t your own personal AI machine to make what you want to write. A lot is blamed on age, and perhaps there is an element to it, but I believe it’s just decency. An 18 years old kid is capable of making sensible decisions, just like a 24 years old, just like a 14 years old. Your age doesn’t give you a passe-droit to be a dick to people you admire (!!!???!)

3/I won’t even touch on the subject of hate reading because that’s just straight up insanity.

But it’s just… hate and tantrums and anger breeds more hate and tantrums and anger. There isn’t a virtuous way out of that, and I’d love for people to…just, cater to a more positive experience for everyone.

When your fingers are typing rot on your computer, you are venomizing everything that it touches: the people who will read it AND the people who will respond to it.

So far, from what I have seen, this behaviour leads to only one thing: depressed writers/artists/etc who stop writing/drawing/etc, or pull their work, or take breaks, or retreat from the limelight because it is too much.

You are pushing too much.

Enthusiasm is wonderful. It’s a powerful tool and should be used, everyone on this fandom is posting because we looked at The Thing and thought, “yeah.” No one in the history of the world (I hope) has posted after thinking “that is straight up shit and I hate it with a passion.”

Enthusiasm does need to be curated in a healthy way. I understand that Fandom is for fans, but it is also by fans. No one here is better, everyone here is different.

Some writers have a voice that resonate with more people, or stories that resonate with more people, and that is perfectly fine, but, once again for the people in the back, do not confuse Enthusiasm with Entitlement.

In what universe, in what galaxy do you believe complaining about someone’s work will make them go “oh right, nevermind all the work I put into this thing I love, let me just do the thing a random stranger is asking me to do.”

Do not confuse Enthusiasm with Entitlement.

Maybe I sound like bitch, but by god, the shit I’ve heard from my “popular” friends the past few months is absolutely mad. Mad, people.

You are normal people, and SO ARE THEY.

They have lives and interests and they are people. Treat them as such.

Do not confuse Enthusiasm with Entitlement.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk, I hope everyone enjoys Le Mange Dieu et le Dévoreur de Mondes, which we wrote and enjoyed writing, and which does not mean other writers weren't doing their own thing and writing other stuff in the meantime, and I HOPE we can all start to have some fucking respect for the people who spend hoursdaysweeksmonths pouring over a project and posting it for fucking free, all at once, so it’s not stressful for the reader. YOU.

Because against all fucking odds, we actually care about our readers. When you’re being nice.

Thank you and good day from a Fandom Elder.

#fanfiction #fanficwriter #marauders #fandom #MDDM #jegulus fic #marauders fandom #let's be cool yeah?

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ryuichirou · 4 months

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A bunch of short ones today; I hope you’re enjoying your weekend!

Anonymous asked:

I was just scrolling through your art and let me tell you, the way you do highlights is sooo satisfactory!

Thank you so much, Anon <3 Super happy to hear that!

Anonymous asked:

I found someone on insta with a daily malleus account who reposted your art (credited) but I figured you might wanna know, idk who exactly runs the account but I have a screenshot. It’s the Sebek x malleus piece where Sebek is flustered over shirtless malleus

Thank you for letting us know, Anon! We really appreciate it. And I think we found it… I’ll deal with it a bit later :)

Look at some of the comments, this is exactly why I don’t allow reposts on other sites, especially insta/facebook/tiktok (the big three lol): we can’t really control who is going to see our content there. We have all the warnings on our blogs, there is a certain understanding that if you follow us, you have to be aware and not mind other content that we post. It kind of sucks when people try to strip that control away from you and post your work to other spaces, when people can shit on us for me drawing things that I want to draw. We probably have some of these people blocked both here and on twitter, and yet they still get to see our stuff when it’s reposted and share their oh so important opinion.

Anonymous asked:

I can't tell if I simp for Crewel because I like him or I just want his coat

Anon, this right here is the biggest mood ever.

It’s probably so unbelievably tender and fluffy and satisfying to touch…

Anonymous asked:

Do you have any thoughts on Jack/Epel? It's not one of my faves but I think they're cute

They really are cute, but unfortunately a little too cute for us :( But we don’t have anything against them. But I talked about them a little bit in this post (the very last ask there).

Anonymous asked:

First Halloween JP voicelines were wild lol.

"I want to fill you up to the brim... with fear of course." -Cater

"Let's have all the fun we want tonight. Now, let me hear you scream all the way to the moon." -Azul

"The sight of you screaming as you try to hurry away... it's irresistible. I cannot hold myself back from chasing after you!" -Jade

"Who would like to be tied up in fear?" -Jade

"First, I will wrap your whole body in bandages ... just kidding." -Jade

"There's no need to look so frightened; I won't bite." -Jade again

"Yield yourself to me and become my servant." -Vil

"Struggling against me is useless ... you won't get away." -Epel

"You might find yourself trembling unable to sleep the whole night." -Lilia

There's also everyone being flirty and then Octavinelle inviting us to spend next Halloween in Coral Sea with them and how fun it is but in Jade's vignette they say Halloween under the sea is terrifying and detail their own near-death experiences during it so... what is their play here

God it was such a good event with so many great and honestly very horny voicelines lol It’s like the NRC students just can’t be normal, for them to scare someone automatically means to also flirt with them and also maybe even assault them. These boys aren’t alright… and I love it a lot.

Epel’s one is hilariously adorable though, like awww you scawwy vampire. Having it here next to Lilia’s is amazing lol

Also Jade straight-up said that he can’t help but chase if someone is running away from him, what a creepy rapid dog.

#replies

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velvvetcat09 · 29 days

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I'm so sorry you're at such a war with yourself, it sounds really draining, but please believe me when I promise you it's okay to want reassurances and compliments, even more after all you've been through. Your art is genuinely great, I don't comment it under every single post you post, because I don't want to seem annoying, or like i'm saying it without meaning it, even though I promise, I would mean it, I mean it, your art is fucking awesome.

I know it's a pretty popular idea that a lot of people have made already, but I would love to see sort of 'cards'/'tarot cards' (i hope you see what I'm referencing) in your style, I know you'd choose such cool poses, title ideas, and if you gave it some time (even though i know you unfortunately don't have a lot of that </3) with pretty backgrounds and coloring. I would also love too see your possible design for Secret Life of Mumbo and Grian. Even though my fav is Mumbo, I really love the way you draw Grian, and would love to see more of him in your style.

This is such a messy ask but I promise, you're not 'stealing' any attention from others, you deserve the attention and love and compliments you're getting, and it's okay to doubt our words, we know you're not being ungrateful, you've just been hurt and you're still hurting, it's okay, I promise your art is great, I promise your art is worth seeing, I'm SO happy i found your blog, and I'm so happy when you post, EVEN when I don't comment and 'only' like 💜💜💜🩷🩷🩷

thank you so much for the words, all the times you’ve commented or just liked, thank you, really. all the asks from before as well. i’d be honest, seeing you on my notifications has been something that i look forward to whenever i made a post. seeing if you’ve seen the post or not. thank you so much for interacting with me. sometimes i still feel like trying so hard to gain people’s attention by catering to what people want to see, i know i want people’s attention too much. but it makes me happy to see people satisfied/enjoying what i’ve created, especially when it matches their desires. people pleaser, i know i am one.

the card motif is really interesting, though i’m not that familiar with tarot cards. maybe the playing card suits, or maybe something asian-origin, a twist in the usual interpretation. 🤔 youkai-based hermitcraft/life seris crew might be interesting, but maybe i’ll start with mumbo and grian first lol

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heliological · 9 months

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end of 2023 fanworks recs

Inspired by @inimitablereel, here are some fanworks posted this year that I liked. They're a wild mix of fandoms and not in any order, enjoy

[fic] Well I hate to say it, Edgeworth, but this could have been an email by I_Met_A_Girl (Ace Attorney, 1.6k) strong contender for best fanfic title 2k23. I love it when timeskip narumitsu is awkward and terrible <3 miles edgeworth is uncomfortable to be around <3

[vid] I got mine by inimitablereel (DMBJ) PANGZI VID. VID OF ALL TIME TO ME. I can't be coherent about it bc I am just overcome with love for pangzi whenever I see it!!! he's a badass…he cooks dinner…iron triangle bumping their heads together…what more could you need

[animatic] Partizan anime fanvid by fanyeline (FatT) I have watched this on loop an unreal number of times. i love gur's spooky ghost spider robot eyes and the "my baby's got a gun" section (balence...)

[fic] Ready for Love by idiopathicsmile (Singin' in the Rain, 13k) If you're reading this post and you haven't already read this fic, what are you doing? who doesn't need Singin' in the Rain ot3 in their life

[fic? ttrpg] Poisonous Pilfering - A Qi Ye TTRPG by deepestbluesky (Qi Ye, 1.2k) Always a big fan of ttrpgs as a fan work. this is a very cute and silly one where you play as Wu Xi's sable and possibly other animals

[vid] brave as a noun and stabbed to death outside san juan by antediluvianapocalypse (RGU) antediluvianapocalypse makes utena amvs at a absolutely wild pace and they also cater deeply to my personal music taste with their song choices. love what they are bringing to the table. these two (about shiori and saionji respectively) stuck with me

[vid] Puberty is….Weird by keiichiface (Mob Psycho 100) Cheekface vid!!!! big year for people making vids to obscure artists I like. this one's a delight though, great tonal match with mp100 and incorporating dogs from other anime is a super funny solution to the problem of how many of the lyrics are about dogs

[fic] this diary belongs to Clementine Kesh by meowclops (FatT, 1.2k) god's greatest mistake and a very special girl writes a diary very sporadically throughout her childhood (relatable.) The edited images/handwriting/little kid drawings add so much to this, it's really fun

[vid] 4:00am (lord give me one more chance) by mimikyuno utena and pmmm is always a good combo and this amv found so many neat visual parallels. super pretty, sometimes u just gotta be a teen lesbian and destroy the world

[vid] You Belong With Me by Lil' Apple (The Untamed) moving. powerful.

(vaguely ghost trick spoilers idk maybe) I feel like fanart doesn't normally doesn't make it into these types of lists bc it tends to be a little more ephemeral but I do also want to shout out this ghost trick art by tumblr user timestables bc I think about it daily

#this is mostly lacking longer fic bc I was too lazy to do a real deep dive into my bookmarks #also I can't get into last year's festivids bc we'd be here forever #and I have to make my own of those #so please enjoy: short silly fic and amvs

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eduardomeneses · 2 years

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Radiohead

I don’t know why it took me so long to get here. But Radiohead.

I’m a believer. The Radiohead industrial complex has won again.

I think I finally get why people talk about the band the way they do. Their sound is so diverse… you know drawing from so many different genres and mashing into joints that feel almost spiritual.

The lore surrounding Radiohead makes them sound otherworldly, and after spending some time with the music, looking at videos, and other peoples thoughts about the group, I really do believe all the Radiohead mythos. I’ve only spent time with 3 of the 9 albums, but I really love these 3 so far. Each for different reasons, but they all speak to the many shapes Radiohead comes in and to the many audiences they can cater to.

The three albums that I’m cycling through are The Bends, Kid A, and In Rainbows. In Rainbows is what got me in… I feel it’s the record that most sounds like it’s meant to be played in a Stadium (not that they aren’t always playing to insanely large crowds)… it\s a record that feels very easy to like and get into. Big music with clear sounds that are catchy and yet super diverse…Maybe it’s also just me thinking about the time it was was released. I think of other records of that era like Graduation, Tha Carter 3, Viva La Vida, Favourite Worst Nightmare… I dunno maybe it’s a stretch.

The Bends was where I went next after catching wind of the album art on the record… I thought the photo of the crash test dummy through a tv was captivating and made me want to check out the music that lived behind that image. I wasn’t disappointed. The music on The Bends was nostalgic. Again, it’s a record that feels like a product of its time, and fit a lot of the things my murky memory associates with the late 90’s, despite only being a kid when it was released. It’s punchy, angsty, super dissatisfied with everything and I can dig it.

I thought In Rainbows and The Bends were kinda similar, with the former being a much more mature approach to music making, so hearing Kid A flipped all of that on its head. The Optimistic sample on Frank Ocean’s nostalgia, ULTRA has sort of always lived in my heard, so finally hearing the full song made it all stick and realigned some of the ideas I had about music. The record is a little abstract, like a cyber spiritual in the sounds and the way verses are just one or two lines repeated over and over. I’d easily take track 3 to replace the Star Spangled Banner.

To close, it was really such a good feeling to hear all of this for the first time in an earnest way, especially now that I’m a fully fledged adult with thoughts and opinions. It’s also incredible to here these records now and kinda see how they laid some of the groundwork for some of the other music I listen to currently. They’ve been doing this for a long time, I’m just happy to be able to get even just a crumb of the sounds they’ve been able to assemble.

#music #radiohead #the bends #in rainbows #kid a

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petitelepus · 2 years

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hello! if that's okay, can i get a twst matchup? i'm a short panromantic girl with shoulder-lenght dirty blonde hair and greyish eyes! my mbti is ESFJ and my ennegram is 8w7, my sign is aries! i'm very lively and hyperactive and love making people happy or see the smile on their faces, so usually i like to draw my friends or random people to see them happy! <3 I'm pretty confident in my art, i always have my tablet with me and love creating new original characters and giving them all kinds of dramatic backstories. my hobbies are drawing (as i previously mentioned) and playing rythm games. i have adhd and tend to get distrocted very easily, i don't take medications. some people see me as crazy because of my extravagant personality but i can't really do much about it. i love talking, would always talk and never stop if someone doesn't tell me to. i'm also a good listener though! my love language (giving) is gifts and physical touch. i'm basically blind without my glasses and can't see a thing. thank you very much! <3

I match you with Cater Diamond!

ESFJ people are natural leaders, much like Aries are also. You don't like it when others try to control you or order you around, as you are a free-living soul and it shows in your art.

Cater is one of your biggest fans, he loves your art and at one point he asked if he could create you a user on this one art website he occasionally used to scout good pictures from.

#amazingart, #phenomenalart, #girlpower, #niceart, he uses all the tags and more to describe your art and get you more and more followers, eager to see what you come up with next.

While you are friends, Cater starts falling for you. You are almost always happy and ready to help people in need and it really appeals to him.

You don't boss Cater around like Riddle does and you are a very happy and open person who just wants to make people happy with your special magic, which you wield with your art.

Cater uses his phone all the time so it's only natural that he finds a game or two to play sometimes. It isn't until you introduce him to rhythm games that he realizes how fun they are... But what is even more appealing is to watch you play them with such focus that you should harness them in History class.

The young man doesn't mind your ADHD one bit. No, it gives you more personality and he honestly loves it when you act a little "crazy". As he mentioned it only adds more character to you and makes you stand out from the rest of the people.

Your gifts are honestly the highlight of his day. You are so thoughtful, always taking notes on what Carter dislikes, like sweets, and what he likes, like salty treats, and your art in its purest form. No matter what you do, you always bring a smile to Cater's face and he wished to bring that smile to your lips also.

Also, you can't see without your glasses? That's maybe one of the cutest things he has ever heard.

You like giving gifts? Cater will gift you a whole photo album with pictures of you smiling with your best friends. He wanted to show you how your smile can reach out to so many people and to him, as his attempt to woo you and asks you to be his girlfriend. What do you say?

#matchup #twisted wonderland matchup #twisted wonderland #twst #cater diamond #anon #ENJOY!

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kaypeace21 · 4 years

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Analyzing the 5 plays in this drama club poster .From the bts pics of stranger things 4.

So... some of ya’ll know I'm going through the st s4 films given to us by the official st twitter + the films reffed in the show itself or mentioned by the Duffers in interviews .

So I decided to look at the plays mentioned here. Because even if we don't see the monologues in the show directly - the Duffers wouldn't name drop anything unless it inspired them in some way. Similar to films name dropped in the show. Tw : for some dark themes .

This is just a quick little analysis I decided to do since we probably won't get any new st content today (3/22). Nothing too deep. Just mentioning things that caught my interest especially cause these plays have a lot of narrative connections to the st s4 movies I've been watching.

Invitation to a march (Authur laurents)

Reminds me of the stancy/jancy love triangle. "A young woman is having second thoughts about doing the right thing and marrying a respectable , rich, kind, young man with good prospects.By way of a prewedding diversion, this woman becomes interested in the passionate but poor and entirely unsuitable son of a local landlord.Basically, the plot concerns the efforts of Norma Brown to choose between a conventional fiance who "puts her to sleep" but is wealthy (like what her own mother did) or go for this new-poor guy. The play is principally interested in how this youthful love triangle affects the three mothers involved (whether the kids like it or not)

12th night (Shakespeare)

- viola (el) wrongly assumes a family member (hopper) is dead. She dresses up as a man named 'cesario'. A girl named Olivia falls for 'cesario' (violet dressed as a man). "Finally, when 'Cesario' and Sebastian (violet's twin brother: assumed to have drowned - Will) appear in the presence of Olivia there is more wonder and confusion at their physical similarity. Taking Sebastian for 'Cesario', Olivia asks him to marry her, and they are secretly married in a church. Cough if Olivia is 'straight' cause she fell for Viola (as a doppleganger dressed like her twin brother).Mike being into el who multiple characters in s1 said looked like a boy and specifically like Will is...suspish and a hint he's not straight lol. just like Olivia they're both into guys . plus, this play just has a butt load of love triangles (ugh i hated that aspect). There was also romantically coded letters (which was in the s4 films) . One character is also thrown into an insane asylum and framed as 'insane'.'Pretending that Malvolio is insane, they lock him up in a dark chamber. Feste visits him to mock his insanity'. We all know the psych hospital will be narratively important- talked about it more here.

The seagull (Anton Chekhov-russian)

similar to how I believed s4 will show m*#even already broken up since the months between s3-4 : act 3 (s3) ends with Nina begging for one last chance to be with Trigorin before he leaves/moves away. They kiss and make plans to meet again in Moscow.And in act 4 there's a timeskip where it shows they've been broken up for a long time between acts- and its established they never actually loved eachother. Do i even have to spell out why this parallels the m*#even ending in s3? There is also a play within the play (this is common in a lot of the st films- they have plays- or a story within a story- which illustrate certain themes or emotions of the characters within said film : blackswan, children of paradise, highschool musical, Rushmore, book of Henry, welcome to marwen, never ending story, romancing the stone, wet hot American summer, etc).The play is Konstantin's latest attempt at creating a dense symbolist work. There is also alot of love triangles in the seagull. TW!: for se#ual ab*se/su*cidal thoughts/ inc*st (here and in other play segments). The seagull motif reminds me a lot of Jonathan's rabbit story.Konstantin romantically into Nina shows up to give her a gull that he has shot. Nina is confused and horrified . Trigorin sees the gull that Konstantin has shot and muses to Nina on how he could use it as a subject for a short story: "The plot for the short story: a young girl lives all her life on the shore of a lake. She loves the lake, like a gull, and she's happy and free, like a gull. But a man arrives by chance, and when he sees her, he destroys her, out of sheer boredom. Like this gull." This immediately reminded me of jon's rabbit story and some of the movies on the s4 list . Like in forrest gump- Jenny (who is poor) was se*ually ab*sed as a very young girl by her father. As a child she runs away into a field-away from her alcoholic father yelling at her -there she prays that she can "be a bird so I can fly far far away" .

Jenny as an adult struggles with this unresolved trauma- being with ab*sive partners, doing dr*gs, and having su*cidal thoughts . She as an adult when contemplating su*icide, jokes 'you think i can fly like a bird ?' while looking down at a bridge.God-i'm worried about jonathan (Jenny was also a musician sort of like jon). In another s4 movie example ' mystic river ' :(in the 80s) a preteen baseball playing boy is r*ped by men in the woods. He later says he wishes he could become an undead monster to not feel the pain of that experience - cause quote " if I'm not human anymore maybe the pain will stop" (Will) . slightly off topic but he also has another personality, imagines a alternate word that dissappears when he turns his head. And as a less direct animal parallel to the play - the boy from the film also imagined his perpetrators as monsters and wolves to cope.In 'getout' the photographer character sees a dead deer in the woods and it represents a parent/his own childhood tra*ma relating to his past. similarly in 'prince of tides' the 2 siblings as kids were ra*ed by men. The older brother remembered it and the younger sibling developed DID (so didn't remember but she would draw wolves- as the perpetrators/villains in her picture stories she created . In the film they also had an ab*sive dad and were very poor. She also tried k*ling herself multiple times-but started to get better after remembering the source of her pain and trauma. There is also the theme of multiple attempted su*cides in the play- and the play ends with yet another attempt- and the audience is left unaware of the artist's fate at the end of the play.

The tempest (Shakespeare)

Prospereo - (the perceived antagonist) is a wizard with monstrous looks, storm powers , and ability to create monster-dogs

He wants revenge on a man who tried ra*ing his family member & revenge on his other family member who wronged him years ago. I mean... pretty much my did theory.But in the end.Prospero decides to show his enemies the mercy that they did not show him twelve years earlier. He tells Ariel to bring the men to him, he will restore their sanity and then renounce magic forever.Prospero breaks the spell that the men are under .

Diary of a scoundrel (Alexander Ostrovsky-Russian)

- I suppose this could loosely relate to Jonathan? Glumov, is a young man from an impoverished family lacking status seeking entrance into society's pampered class. A 19th-century Russian scoundrel must scheme his way out of his meager life in a small apartment -whatever it takes.He has a quick mind and some talent for seeing through the hypocrisies of people around him ( Jonathan does make a lot of social critiques about society). That gives him some advantages. A tale of one man's mission to finagle his way into upper-class society and find a cushy job. Set in 1874, this social comedy follows Glumov, a Russian youth who begins his ambitious ascent to social esteem. He progresses by wit, guile and rhetoric. Pitting one stupid person against another, he soon gains his ends. To reach these goals, Glumov will lie, flatter, and cater to the vanities of the wealthy. Unable to contain his disgust with his victims, Glumov decides to relieve his unvoiced satirical comments by recording his schemes in a diary. But he is tripped up by his uncle's wife, to whom he has made passionate love on his way to success. At the end of the play, his diary is stolen and his duplicity exposed, but he can nevertheless suceeds. The author is much more critical about the high society itself than about the main character, so the play keeps attracting generations of directors by opening possibilities for political criticism while also avoiding naming names of the current rulers.The play's aim was to overthrow bourgeois tradition and establish a class-conscious art called eccentricism giving a deliberately comic portrayal of reality.

I suppose I notice some possible commonalities- besides s3 critiquing the wealthy/capitalism in comedic ways . jonathan since s1 has worried about his family's finances / had some resentment toward the rich . In some of the s4 movies ‘orphan’ & ‘ girl interrupted’ someone reads their diary out loud to get at them (in girl interrupted the winona character’s diary even had critiques of her new friends). Alot of movies also have someone (usually a teen/young adult) making a documentary about their life -which could narratively replace said diary? A few movies have a poor guy adjusting to snobby rich social circles (or being poor and then getting money)- titanic, kingsmen, karate kid, the craft , godfather, wardogs,into the spiderverse,flashdance, and many others . And movies like wardogs has a poor-young-character do shady things to finacially support his family . There’s also that whole uncle’s wife thing- which makes me uncomfortable for obvious reasons (but I’m just thinking of Lonnie’s creepy gf who was into him). A few movies had the guy’s step mom innappropriately hit on him- orange county & you got mail. And him trying to avoid her advances. Or...not to mention ... it may be a problematic coincidence /trope. But in enter the void -the guy who needs to finacially support his sibling/ does dr*gs -hooks up with his dr*g dealing friend’s married mom (who would give him money). Or in gilbert grape- the poor teen-who has to finacially support his siblings/single mom-has his endgame relationship be a girl his own age. But before that he h*oked up with a married woman -who would give him money. Don’s plum -young film guy-propositioned by older female film director (for dream job). Not even mentioning the other films that have the guy hooking up with toxic older women (like ‘the graduate’). Or analyze this-where the therapist accuses him of having an Oedipus complex (not touching that one... but the guy in ‘enter the void’ a 100% had one). It’s possible those movies were just- inspo for s3? A coincidence? Or s3 was foreshadowing for this in s4- but unlike s3 it will accurately be played as wrong and a sign of Jonathan recreating past tra*ma caused by Lonnie (cough like the photos) /being desperate for money. And not played ‘comedically’ like how it mostly was in s3. But shown as self destructive (for Jon) and immoral on the Woman’s end. Like... Billy and Jon are character foils. Both are older siblings into rock music, with ab*sive dads who shoved them into walls. Both lose it (and beat steve to a pulp when Steve accidentally triggers their daddy issues). In s3 it’s established womanizer Billy has mommy issues, than he tries ho*king up with someone his mom’s age, and the characters ref ‘back to the future ‘ and Steve incorrectly says it’s about “alex p keaton trying to bang his mom.” This could illustrate his subconscious issues with parental figures/adults cause of Lonnie’s possible past se*ual ab*se . One film the friend even says to the guy “you don’t have friends!” guy b: i have friends! him: no you have acquaintances! ADMIT IT! YOU’RE AFRAID OF MEN!I mean-Jonathan liked Nancy- but he initially hooked up with her cause he wanted to prove he didn’t have ‘trust issues’ from his dad. Also it’s prob a bit of a reach (and maybe a coincidence)- but the fact Murray in the same breath compares Steve (Nancy’s then bf) and Lonnie ... uh... if you think too long about it ... it’s very sinister . Especially because in s3: muray tells Joyce that despite her wanting to be with a nice guy, she’s curious about “the brute” Hopper despite him reminding her of a past “bad relationship”(aka Lonnie). Like- yeah connect some dots. Quite a few films (other than forrest gump) also have the character who (as a kid) was r*ped by their dad/parent- begin to do dr*gs/be pr*miscuous as adults since they never learned to properly cope with their trauma (’girl with the dragon tattoo’, ‘black swan’, and ‘magnolia’). Unfortunately the whole relative doing such things to kid-relatives is in at least 30+ movies.

Personally, i would be MUCH happier if Jon had a age appropriate romance- and had not a single creepy adult near him. A few movies actually imply Lonnie gets yet another ‘new model’ replacing his gf in her 20s with a new gf- who is ‘barely l*gal” and just turned 18. so there’s that possibility as well- that she’s jonathan’s age.I just want Jonathan-happy &safe. GOD. IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK?

#byler #byeler #will byers #mike wheeler #Jonathan byers #nancy wheeler #joyce byers #jim hopper #murray bauman #stranger things #el hopper #s4 theory #stranger things theory

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ddaengyoonmin · 3 years

Text

-Hotel For Demons- (Intro)

Pairing: eventual ot7 x reader; the first few chapters are very Yoongi x reader centric.

Warnings/tags: Stripping, teasing, gambling, mentions of some dark/mob activity

( eventual )Smut-angst-fluff

Summary: You work as a stripper at an extremely secretive casino resort that caters to people of a dark nature. You are used to strange and ignoring your fears. Yet one night a man, more scary and more intriguing than any other seems to grow fond of you while you dance. You play a game with him that takes you away from everything you’ve known and into an even darker world than you’d ever known...and now he’s calling you his wife.

a/n: (this is very unedited sry for typos and things if they appear) taken some inspiration from the anime ‘Kakuriyo: Bed & Breakfast for Spirits.’ It starts out a bit dark but it's going to be a lot more lighthearted in some chapters. Once I get the initial set up to the story, this fic will just be a bunch of short episode like stories with y/n having different moments with each member or a few members, not always directly connected to future chapters or the chapter before, just set in the same world. Let me know what you think!!

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It felt to the men in the crowd like they were hypnotized watching you.

You were the one hypnotized though, by the music, and by the thudding of the bass in rap song you’d picked for your dance vibrating through the club.

You could feel it in your chest, each thump pushing your hips forward as you grinded against the pole, sticking your ass out as you jumped onto the pole and spun. You swore you heard one man in the crowd gasp as you did.

The purple stage lights flashed to blue as the song hit a slower beat. You slid down the pole slowly, your hands gently moving down to the floor with the rest of your body.

As you continued on with your floor work you could practically feel the eyes of one man in particular sitting on you with an almost unblinking stare.

You could only see his eyes, the lower half of his face was covered by a black mask with a pattern that made it look like blood was dripping all over it in a very cartoonish way.

It wasn’t uncommon for people to wear masks like that here, but his was quite an interesting choice.

You could see bits of black hair peeking through his black jacket’s hood, which was also strange. He seemed so secretive with his appearance. Maybe that's what was giving him the confidence to stare at you so obviously.

Most men tended to get shy when you stared them down.

No...maybe he really hadn’t blinked once…

You realized you’d been focusing on him a bit too long and quickly danced your way to facing away from him.

Though you couldn’t escape the powerful gaze that you felt on your backside the entire time.

You knew the ending of your song was coming up and you took to the pole again to finish the dance.

It might have been obvious to everyone in the club that whether it was intentional or subconscious, you had started dancing for him.

When you ended your dance, the last step you took had you facing right at him, chest heaving from putting a bit of extra effort into your moves than usual.

You weren’t sure why, it didn’t make sense. You never usually got this worked up over someone in the audience, but his attention was exciting.

Some men clapped, and a few threw some money on the stage. You gave a twinkle wave to no one in general as you turned to walk back to the dressing rooms behind the stage.

The girl that would come out and collect your money off the stage for you squeezed your shoulder as you walked by and gave you a smile.

“I haven’t seen you perform like that in forever!” she praised loudly over the song that was playing while they set up for the next dancer.

You mouthed a thank you and from the corner of your eye you caught the mysterious man standing up from the table and leaving.

Your heart dropped a little bit. You had a second song still later that a part of you had hoped he’d have stuck around for. He hadn’t even paid you. He paid the entry fee to enter the strip club area of the casino resort, bought one drink, watched just your song, and left.

It was strange.

You were used to odd people. Sometimes even dangerous people. The casino you worked at catered to a very particular crowd of very rich men.

They weren’t the type of rich men you’d see on the news or in magazines. They were all a very secretive type. You were told when you’d been hired two years ago that you weren’t ever to ask the men about what they did for a living.

It always made you wonder, but it never bothered you. The amount of money in their wallets was enough to make you not need to read too deeply into any of it. Why mess up a good thing.

It's not that you only cared about money...but everyone has their amount. Everyone has a number to where they’ll turn their eyes the other way.

At least that's what your boss had told you the first time he’d sat you down in his office and handed you a blank check with his name already signed on it.

The day that you’d seen something that you never want to think about again.

Now you don’t have to.

Aside from the anomaly that was that man today, the diamonds on your wrists that would dance while you did were enough of a distraction from the things you’d seen.

With some of the things you’d witnessed go down in this casino you were glad that your number was as high as it was.

When it was well past 3 in the morning and your shift was done you put on your coat and began to walk towards the main entrance of the building to leave. Almost everyone besides those who worked there had left for the night, either returning to their hotel rooms or getting up to some business you’d rather not think about.

Just before you’d walked past the last of the blackjack tables you heard a voice call out to you.

“y/n right?”

A chill ran down your spine. You never used your real name at the club, it was a rule that you’d never tell customers your real name.

Your head whipped around to see that same man from earlier sat down alone at the table, shuffling through a deck of cards.

On closer look the cards were definitely not ones from your casino, almost as if he’d brought his own with him, another rule broken.

“No…” You lied. “You must be confused.”

You heard a chuckle from behind the mask. “I’m never confused. Sit down.”

He spoke so sternly and with a low gravel that spiked some fear into your body.

But you sat anyway. Maybe it was fear of what he’d do if you said no, but more likely it was that you were still wildly intrigued by this strange man.

“How do you know me?” You spoke as you sat down in the seat across from where he sat in the dealers chair.

“That's not important right now.” He muttered. “Want to play a game?” He spoke those words with such a smooth and beautiful compelling tone.

“Why not.” You decided, shifting in your seat and trying to get a better eye on the cards he was still shuffling through.

You wished you could see behind his mask, but all you could see was a mischievous glint in his eyes.

He laid out three cards in front of you face down. They were black with the images of blood dripping down them, the same as his mask.

“Pick one.” He demanded.

“Shouldn’t I know the rules first?” You cocked an eyebrow at him.

“Rules don’t really matter here do they. Surely you know that better than anyone.” He replied.

“There are some rules that matter.” You debated. “Like you calling me by my real name.”

“Not to me.” He then tapped on the table in front of him with a closed fist. “Pick a card.”

You sighed and figured ‘What's the worst that could happen.’

You stared at the cards in front of you, not sure if it even made a difference which one you’d pick, but still, you studied them before finally pointing to the one in the middle.

He then reached out and flipped the card, revealing a very detailed drawing of two golden rings intertwined together.

He seemed to sigh a big exhale of relief.

“Good.” he muttered.

“That's good? For me, or you? What game are we playing here!” You were starting to get frustrated.

He then flipped over the other two cards, revealing one that was a painting of a gravestone, and one that was a painting of flames.

“Good for both of us.” You could almost hear the smile in his voice, though you were only growing more confused.

“Pick up your card. Don’t touch the other ones.” He ordered.

With a small huff you listened to him, grabbing the card with the rings on it.

“In both hands.”

“Why?”

“Just do it.” he seemed to growl in an almost inhuman way.

Your fear now made your blood run cold, you didn’t want to anger him so you did as he said instantly.

As soon as you did, you felt a rush of wind hit you from behind. It was so strong the other two cards flew off the table. The man stood there with his arms crossed and started laughing a maniacal laugh.

The whole table then seemed to start to spin, you wanted to grip onto something but your hands seemed to be glued to the card you held.

Everything got faster and more blurry, everything except him. Before you could comprehend how, it seemed that the whole place you’d been in was starting to fade away into a bright white light.

As the spinning movements quickened you squeezed your eyes shut tightly and let out a small scream.

It only lasted a few more seconds before you felt everything still.

“Open your eyes.” His voice spoke to you much softer.

Slowly you did, opening up to a sight you were not expecting to see.

You were now in a large room with wooden floors and a wooden ceiling. Lots of art and architecture that seemed to be at least a thousand years before your own. It was very decorative and ornate, it seemed almost like a palace.

“Welcome to your home my wife.”

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foxghost · 3 years

Note

This just my opinion i think mxtx have a big overseas fandom because mdzs is the 1st danmei novel that got english fan-translations then it got bigger in the overseas fandom after the success of cql if you see 2ha overseas fandom also came after mdzs fandom so yeah i see some pattern here, the key is the translator, when the fandom is big they gather and discuss about what they like most of them just talk the popular one bc the translator just talk about the popular one, how many of them that talk about other priest's works besides zhen hun, spl and tian ya ke (after the success shl?) Just few off them, i believe people just want to read something that was talked the most by everybody it's kinda like domino effect, but i'm surprised to know that fei tian's works is not popular in china, i think he was on the top 10 danmei authors, i remember hearing his jjwxc voice message along with the popular danmei author for new year greetings

You can run around on the general internet (not the danmei circles exclusively) a lot without hearing about FTYX, but you’ll probably run into mentions of MXTX.

MDZS is big in the way that Twilight was big, or the way that Harry Potter was/is big. They all appeal to the "young adult" audience. I think that age has a lot to do with it, but it’s not so much about the maturity of the books involved (tho i must confess MXTX’s writing style gives my old brain a headache) but a teenage audience (middle school to high school 2nd year) tend to generate more hype. They have less money for merchandise and make up for it with comments and ratings and defending their fav.

FTYX has a consistent paying adult audience that’s also consistently quiet. He writes it, we read it. He says V, we buy it one chapter at a time as it comes out even if waiting for him to finish would cost less. I’m probably guilty of this as a typical invisible Feitian fan -- I may pour money into it (it is frankly not much, $20 worth of points lasts me months in between free book and V books, and I read a lot) but I don’t really use my “favourites” or use fertiliser or leave comments etc. This quiet audience really shows when it’s OFF jjwxc.

on the site Zhihu (like Quora, I guess), on how much FTYX is talked about (followers/questions)

Here’s MXTX’s

But Feitian’s written 30+ books. MXTX’s written 3.

And here’s some stats on douban reading (this is all around the same period so accumulation over time is less of a factor). I want to draw your attention to not the rating itself, but the # of people who rated, under the stars.

FTYX’s Golden Assistant, 2014:

FTYX’s representative palace drama work, Joyful Reunion, 2017:

MXTX’s representative xianxia, MDZS, 2016:

DFGG’s Peach Blossom Debt (the physical book published in 2016 but the book was serialised online 2007, these ratings are all from 2016+)

Priest’s representative palace drama, sha po lang, 2016

Priest’s Mo Du, 2014:

Feitian’s “Seizing Dreams” is voted in as an all-time top10 on jjwxc’s danmei (pure love) with the tickets system (Priest’s Mo Du is #1), but on douban where ppl talk about books? CRICKETS.

Meanwhile, “So And So” by Mu Su Li, listed just above Feitian’s seizing dreams on the same jjwxc list?

His quality is unquestionable, his ability to sell V, also unquestionable. /but apparently we like to be low-key about it? And maybe his newer work is more 大眾化 (cater to the masses) but I like his 2009-2016 period. Anyway I generally leave the screaming about things to other people. All I can do is provide the raw material. Maybe at some point when I have more time I’ll contribute some fan art.

#fei tian ye xiang #and his very quiet fandom #his 超話 is pretty active and could use more followers #those who are there post a lot #tons of fanart #i highly recommend following

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soukokuwu · 4 years

Note

"requests are closed??" that cannot stop me because i cant read!! ** URGENT ** power couple comfort needed asap chuuya is the diplomat for the inheritor of a newly departed yokohama media moguls empire who agrees to fold the power of the company to moricorp so long as chuuya agrees to a date yah i need this like stat plz

THE OTHER HALF.

✢ genre. fluff ✢ pairing. chuuya x reader ✢ synopsis. you’re going to inherit your father’s media empire, and mori wants in. his ticket? chuuya. ✢ author notes. an urgent request? you got it! in 2 days ehehe i just hope you like this <3

He stares at the pristine white on the walls of the lavishly decorated office corridors. It suits their reputation. Nothing fits the reigning media mogul of Yokohama like grandeur. He would normally express some sort of distaste for how much of these… beautifications are unnecessary, but Mori had already warned him: it is imperative to get on their good side. Political reasons, he added. As if the mafia doesn’t have enough political influence already.

Although why, of all people, he chose to send NAKAHARA CHUUYA as Port Mafia’s representative to head the meeting, Chuuya himself doesn’t know. A cold-blooded, hot-headed vessel of destruction.

Yes, very plausible, very sensible, he thinks.

Sarcasm. That was sarcasm.

Mori always had his reasons for every decision he made. Some are possibly very fucked up, but even Chuuya admits his manipulation tactics and puzzle-piecing skills rival that of Dazai’s. So he never questions his boss’s decisions. At least, not to his face. He just wonders what is hiding behind this certain choice (of making Chuuya go to the meeting, alone) and how twisted it could be.

Cruising through the halls makes him realise just how much he’d hate it if he was a normal human with a normal, boring desk job. The rooms he passes by, with their glass windows and deceiving transparency, are all full of people either typing away on their keyboards or speaking into phones with some sort of urgency. Yikes. No thanks, he would much rather work with violence and be on the frontlines than man a desk at a mediocre job with less-than-satisfactory pay.

The redhead guesses that they’re going to take him to the boardroom (which incidentally, he thinks, is quite an appropriate name for a meeting room — rigid, stiff, flat — full of smiles that are painted on and the chatter of mindless opinions crafted only to cater to the ones who matter. If that’s an indication of anything to come, Chuuya is already dreading it.) After all, they had scheduled a meeting for discussions with the director on future possibilities of working with the mafia.

Chuuya does admit though, it would be very useful to have the media on their side. Not only digital, but print as well. The possibility to spread propaganda and cover up crimes. This company has it, and Mori is hungry, eager to take over. (Or at least, to establish dominance over them.) Maybe that’s why he chose the gravity manipulator. To make them comply with the threat of crushing them with his brute force should they refuse. It’s harsh. Not that he would mind if it comes to that. There’s a certain satisfaction, a certain kick, he gets out of seeing everyone before him cower in fear.

Because it means he’s in control.

And Chuuya loves being in control. After all, he controls the very things that holds everyone in its grip — gravity.

Ironically, though. What he doesn’t have control over is his own feelings. Mostly unpleasant. A temper so fiery and an impulse so unexpected. Today, though, there is a turn of events. Because as he turns the corner to enter the boardroom, he spots a pair of eyes on him, observing him shrewdly.

No, it isn’t yours. But your father’s.

Wrinkled face wrinkles up even more as they eye him from head to toe, expressing obvious displeasure in the form of tuts and a deepening frown. Chuuya can just tell from how the man wears an expensive tailored suit — probably from a high end luxury brand that Chuuya can’t even pronounce properly — and how his tie is tightened so firmly against his neck that he probably always has a stick up his ass.

But a whiff of something… refreshing skips pass his nostrils and all the hostility from seeing the director disintegrates into — what is this? Chuuya can’t even tell, another irritating reminder he doesn’t understand his own emotions all that well.

And that, that is when he first lays eyes on you.

If you’re wondering, no, it’s not that cinematic moment where you walk in and he’s immediately blinded by the light you bring with you thanks to that invisible halo you carry on your head. Chuuya sees the world through anything but rose-tinted glasses. He is captivated by you though, somehow. Maybe it’s the way you stride in so confidently, with your blazer fitted against your body tightly — not too tight — you don’t want to give off ‘sexy’ vibes, do you? Not in the office. No, you just radiate some show of ‘proper’ and ‘togetherness’ that other ladies must be envious of. Or so it seems to him, at least. Then he wonders again, maybe it’s the way you so nonchalantly brush past him, your shoulder nudging against his, not a care in the world for who he is.

He thinks he’s got his reasoning, a feasible enough reason of why he’s intrigued — you’re young, you’re sexily sophisticated (he just knows you are), and to be a part of this meeting, you must have a sort of… power, so to say.

And then you just have to, don’t you? You just have to take a seat on that chair (in an angle that seems to cater perfectly to Chuuya), cross your legs just enough so your skirt rides up your thigh high enough to leave him wanting to see more, but not enough to be considered as a bold move of seduction. The kicker? That smirk you wear when you realise that he’s staring. He always hated that expression; the one that other people wear out of the satisfaction of their triumph. Especially when it’s against him. But then why does he think he can look at yours forever?

Not even five minutes into the ‘discussion’ and Chuuya already finds out you’re the director’s daughter, the one who would inherit the company very soon. (He fails to properly listen to the reason why because his focus starts to fixate on you, the surrounding all melding into one — the sights, the sounds.) To which you respond with batting your eyelashes at the redhead and wearing an innocent smile yet at the same time being shrouded in an air of… mystery.

The debate on just how much of the empire that Port Mafia would control in the future is not quite a negotiation. If they want to, then they can just force the director’s hand, maybe kidnap his daughter — Chuuya glances briefly toward you before focusing back on your father and the tablet (apparently the company made a sort of presentation that Chuuya can say he frankly doesn’t give a shit about) — but no. Even now, he thinks, he doesn’t want anyone to lay a hand on you. Besides, if your current behaviour is any indication, even if the mafia does come after you, you won’t be scared. You look just like the kind of person who always has something up her sleeve. You must take after your father.

“On that note, I will be leaving the final decision up to my wonderful young lady here.”

That manages to bring Chuuya back to his senses.

What? The old man is leaving such an important decision in his daughter’s hands?

Chuuya breathes in deeply. Stay level-headed. He’s got this, he tries to convince himself. Notwithstanding that he has made it this far only because of the training Kouyou’s given him on the art of appeasing old uncles and kissing their ass so that they give him what he wants.

Guess Mori isn’t as thorough as Chuuya thinks he is.

“Now, you can focus on me.”

Right on cue. As soon as the director leaves.

Look at that, he was right. You are confident. You are smug. You are observant. And annoyingly enough, you are in control. Because to do his job properly, he has to act like he’s wrapped around your finger. (He fails to realise he already is.)

Chuuya clenches his jaw, his brain failing to function in this pivotal moment, failing to filter any kind of acceptable responses. So he stays silent, mind going a thousand miles an hour just trying to form words, sentences, yet drawing a blank. And any normal person in your position would have spoken up by now, but you? You’re reeling in his inexplicability, silently. Observing him as though he’s an animal trapped in a glass cage for all to admire.

You lean back against your chair, the padded back bending backwards to support your weight. Your arms are crossed over your chest and the smirk has not left your face. If anything, it gets wider. Neither of you give in. You both keep your gaze locked on each other, and the silence grows on him. The comfort sneaks up on him. It’s weird. Is he dreaming it? Is he being delusional? Why is that he feels that with you, more is said through your silence than words? If so, being under your carefully appraising eye would be an honour.

Chuuya thinks, no no, he knows, he hears you muttering under your breath. He wants to retort, but words don’t find him. Only silence and stillness.

But it doesn’t last any second longer because you scoff in amusement and grab the paperwork regarding the partnership off the spot your father has left behind. Your eyes don’t leave his cerulean ones though. It’s almost as though you’re hyper-focused on him. Or is it the other way around? Maybe it’s mutual?

You do eventually break the stare though, to turn your back and walk out the door, but not before you stop at the edge, bidding goodbye with a lopsided smile and a “Park Hotel, 8pm, seventieth floor.”

Four hours seemed like a lot of time to prepare.

Seemed.

It isn’t.

Because now, at 7.56pm, Chuuya is still staring nervously at himself in the mirror of the hotel bathroom. A flurry of thoughts occupy his state of mind.

Is my tie okay? It’s not lopsided, is it? He thinks about your lopsided smile as he adjusts the black tie set against his red dress shirt. His black coat is replaced by a black fitted blazer. Then he wonders if you’re still in your work outfit.

Damn it, why can’t he get you out of his mind?

You’re a necessary ally, he thinks. That’s why, he convinces himself. Although, not really. If you are just another job, another person the Port Mafia needs to brainwash, then why is he so nervous about this date? His hands freeze in their motions as he questions himself.

Is this what it is? A date?

By 7.59pm he’s up on the seventieth floor, and the moment he steps out of the elevator, an usher tells him to follow. Wow. Having an already established media empire the moment you were born must have been a big bonus for you, hasn’t it? Chuuya imagines you’re spoiled; you’ve lived your whole life with the lavish luxury you currently stand to inherit now. But he gives you due credit. For your father to entrust the dealings of the Port Mafia to you, you must be very capable. Not that he has ever thought otherwise.

In the short hour that he had interacted with you earlier, he knows you’re anything but a bimbo. But you must have thought he was similar to one, huh? What with him being speechless over nothing.

Once he reaches the private room, he’s greeted by you already seated, right leg crossed over your left, fingers flipping through the menu, unfazed by his arrival. The door shuts behind him, and it’s back to this air of oppressed silence. Chuuya slowly glides over to his seat across from you, eating you up from your head down to your little tippy toes. You are less covered up now, your office suit giving way to a remarkably eye-catching black maxi, although he does admit, what catches his eye is that slit that runs up your thigh.

Now, now, you look sexy.

When he settles down, he notices the agreement from this afternoon sitting by the edge of the glass table, all complete save for his and your signatures. The numbers 70 and 30 briefly register in his head. The former, of course, rightfully belonging under you. He furrows his brows. That’s twenty percent lower than what Mori is expecting. How can he negotiate with you, then? What more can he bargain with?

But as he looks up from the document to you, you’re already observing him, wearing a flirty (with a side of smug, as he expects) smile on those lips of yours.

“There’s always a price to pay, Mr. Nakahara.”

Chuuya is slightly baffled. The other workers in your office are boring and own a one-track mind. But evidently you don’t belong in the same group as them.

Is this a game to you?

“Name it.” He does want to know what you’re seeking from him, and he knows he’s not nearly as witty enough to figure it out on his own.

You never give anything away easily though. Chuuya learned that much. Instead of giving answers you lean back on your seat, just as you did earlier, and revert your attention back to the menu.

“So, you are capable of speaking to women after all, huh?”

The rest of the dinner is filled with conversations that don’t pertain to what it should. Instead of discussing the deal, he gets sidetracked, oddly intrigued by what you personally find fascinating. Chuuya remembers that first wave of pleasant surprise wash across your face when he asks about what you like, what you do outside of work. You know, the common exchange. But it must slip his mind that you aren’t used to ‘clients’ taking an interest in you, as a person.

Neither of you realise the abrupt change in the tone of the evening. You both kind of just ease into it.

Chuuya memorises what you tell him; how you actually like what little time you have outside of work; how you talk about books as your escape, the way your favourite author’s name rolls off your tongue so easily even though it’s a foreign name. He notes how your eyes sparkle when he pays you a compliment about how your brain works instead of the usual comments you receive on your appearance. He also loves how you talk just that little bit faster when you’re excited about a topic.

But he also learns how your smile is forced when you talk about your family, or anything remotely related to your work. He notices how you bite your lip when you talk about barely having time to enjoy anything outside of work. And how until now you’ve been a slave to the company, having to learn and grind on knowledge about anything and everything that you need to know to run it. A shut-in with a twist, if he might label it.

Chuuya was wrong then, he realises. Your life has not been one of free rides; easy passes. It didn’t get easier because of who you are. It was the reverse. It got harder because more was expected out of you. Your life at home wasn’t any easier. Turns out your father was, and is still, a tyrant. You’ve never known to enjoy yourself.

“Until tonight.”

Only now does it dawn on Chuuya why you set this whole thing up in the first place. This way you get to have some time to enjoy yourself at a ‘date’ disguised as a business meeting, because then dear daddy won’t get mad at you now, will he? You’ve probably never experienced romance, have you? Given your tight schedules and overbearing parents. Chuuya must be your first.

He gets just slightly giddy thinking of that possibility.

And by the time your plates are cleared and the bill is paid (by your father, apparently, because you grinned and charged it to his credit card; Chuuya thinks it’s acceptable because from what he hears, the director doesn’t seem to be a very good man at all, why not charge it to the man?), he makes his mind up to really help you make full use of your night.

That’s how he finds himself ten minutes later with you standing on the edge of the neighbouring skyscraper, your fingers intertwined tightly with his. Your first exposure to his ability. ‘Holy shit’ were your exact words. Despite how you carry yourself in the office, it’s almost unbelievable how childlike you look now, admiring the sight before you. Losing all your childhood because of who you’re expected to be… Chuuya knows all too well what that feels like. Minus the bond that is family, of course. Although now, he guesses he can call the Port Mafia such.

“Forty.”

Chuuya arches a brow. “Forty?”

You press your lips together to suppress a grin, nodding at him. “Highest I can go for you, Mr. Nakahara.”

“My boss wants a half, though,” Chuuya grimaces in faux sheepishness. Of course Mori would be fine with a forty, but it’s fun having a back-and-forth with you. Or maybe this is his way of convincing himself this is nothing more than continuing a pleasant conversation.

There’s something in your reaction that gets him so curious. It’s how you grin yourself silly and can’t even manage to look him in the eye. Or the way you try to untangle your fingers, only to find Chuuya has gripped them even tighter. He doesn’t even have to ask for you to know what he’s thinking of.

“Fifty is for family only, sorry.”

He waltzes through the narrow corridors and carpeted floors like it’s home. It might as well be, he’s been here about as many times as he’s been to the Port Mafia headquarters in the same duration. It doesn’t look as tacky as it used to. Or is it just because he’s used to it? Or maybe the gradual changes all seem like nothing to him because he visits this place every single day.

Chuuya sighs. No matter, he’s got other things to worry about.

“No, forget about making your own notes. Negotiate. I want exclusivity on this.”

There it is. Your bossy, domineering voice.

He leans by the doorframe. Your subordinates all dub you the ‘boss from hell’. Personally he can’t see why. But then again, you’re an absolute angel to him. (He never gets tired of seeing the shock register on everyone’s faces when they see you be all lovey-dovey with him.)

Feels good. Being the exception.

When the conversation ends, you hang up the phone and turn over, finally noticing your boyfriend by the door. It’s like a switch turns in you; your hostility melts away and those deep downturned lines rotate into a smile. Even now, five years later, you still have a childlike innocence to you; he sees this right now by how you skip towards him like an elated dog seeing its owner is home.

Did he just compare you to a dog…? Out of all the things he likes, why did he — he mentally facepalms himself but shrugs it off. Like he’s said before, he has more pressing matters to think about.

It’s amazing to think how far you both have gotten. From being strictly business to unspoken feelings in a matter of hours, to where you guys are now. Frankly, he didn’t think it was possible for someone like him. He gravitates away and thinks back to the first time he stepped foot in here.

Huh, maybe Mori did know what he was doing after all. That man ended up being your matchmaker. Chuuya inwardly grimaces and shudders and the thought.

But you pull him back to earth.

Your arms snake around his neck and you hook your legs around his waist. Lucky you’re wearing a pantsuit today, because the last time you did that, i.e. yesterday, you were wearing a skirt and it rode up your thigh a little too high. Yeah, Chuuya wasn’t too happy when some of your male coworkers got to see a glimpse of your ass. But he can’t blame you, you were just that excited to see him. Something he finds remarkable given you’ve been together for four years.

“Didn’t think you’d come here this early,” you comment as you get down, your hands still round his neck. “What brings you by, Chuu? Or should I say, future boss of the Port Mafia?”

He gives you a peck on the lips. His nickname falling from your lips just sound so right. You’re right, he usually comes by after you both are done with work. That usually means 8pm onwards. (You both are pretty invested in your companies. Especially now so for Chuuya that he’s been announced a few days ago as the one to take over the mafia in the future.)

“Today I’m here for professional reasons, princess, to offer you a proposal,” Chuuya coos, a gloved thumb grazing over your cheek.

“Hmm?” You look up at him quizzically. “Okay, shoot.”

Chuuya grins at you, his eyes closing and forming into crescents. He opens them slowly as he presses his forehead against yours.

“I think it’s time for that fifty-fifty.”

✢ tags. @yokelish @gogolparadise @fyowyn-writes

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piduai · 4 years

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this has been on my mind for a while, i feel like at this point women mangaka are generally just better people than their male peers. id love to hear some manga ud recommend by women, or even counterpoints, but series like Dungeon Meshi and Full Metal Alchemist (among others) handle almost every concept way better and with more tact, from writing complex stories and compelling characters, to treating women like people and not literal naked rubber dolls colored in and posed like p*rn

you are so correct and right and speak the truth. female mangaka are superior. the only thing i’d say women don’t do inherently better is technical skill, there’s a ton of men who are very artistically talented, but arts such as drawing and music are sexless because they come from within and aren’t influenced by external factors such as upbringing and culture like storytelling is. everything else though is done better by women.

the problem with female mangaka is that they’re gatekept in the industry big time. if you google ‘top selling manga of all time’ and go to the wikipedia page, there’s only one woman (kimetsu no yaiba) and she’s hiding behind a male pen name just like arakawa hiromi did when fma was publishing. neither of these are a coincidence. women are generally discouraged from pursuing writing, and if they do so they’re supposed to be kept to female-catering genres such as shoujo, josei and BL, which are all much less mainstream, aka much less known and much less money making, than shounen. women having to go behind male-sounding pen names just so men don’t feel emasculated when consuming their stories has been a thing since forever across many different cultures. misogyny is universal.

however since i personally am more into grittier stuff and i love gratuitous violence and other Mature Themes i just naturally gravitate more towards manime with all its faults. my favorite genre overall is comedy though and women ARE much funnier and wittier and more clever. female mangaka also typically avoid drawing gore, which i guess is cultural but a shame.

i’m not a manga person, i prefer watching anime, so i compiled a list of my favorite anime based on manga written by women a while ago. i am VERY picky and nitpicky and very, very difficult to please so keep in mind that the list is not comprehensive in the slightest, it’s just things that i personally liked. there’s tons of non-shoujo stuff written by women that generally have a good reputation (ao no exorcist, gangsta, kuroshitsuji, noragami, d gray man, magi, xxxholic etc etc etc) that didn’t stand out to me at all so again, short as it may be the list isn’t comprehensive in the slightest, i’m sure that people who are more easily entertained than me could come up with much more names. anyway everything else is copy-pasted, i know you know of fmab but it needs to be included because fmab is my favorite series of all times:

anime based on manga created by female writers that is in fact not heterosexual shoujo/BL garbage and i liked (bc i saw a post talking about female mangakas and all of the examples were in fact heterosexual shoujo/BL garbage that i unfortunately do not like and my anime opinions are super important obviously):

fullmetal alchemist: brotherhood (adventure/action) any comments on why fmab is the best product the anime industry has ever put on the market that will not be outranked ever is tired at this point. fmab is a masterpiece through and through. most of the cast including the mcs is male tho, which is sad

saraiya goyou (historical/drama) if fmab didn’t exist it would have been the best title out there. the word masterpiece was invented solely to have a concept to describe it. the ost makes up about 40% of its greatness and was also written by a woman. too bad all the characters are also dudes

acca: 13ku kansatsuka (drama/political) not quite as good as saraiya goyou but from ono natsume as well. pleasant is the word to describe it. relaxing. most of the cast is male.

dorohedoro (horror/gore/comedy) the best title since like 2006. everything about it is great. i don’t have a single criticism and that’s rare. the cast is actually balanced and the Female Characters™ all 3 of them are like, written like people and are also queens

hachimitsu to clover (slice of life) saddest shit i’ve seen in my whole life in a colorful packaging. heterosexual as hell but not in an obnoxious way. cast seems diverse but it’s predominantly male

3gatsu no lion (drama) from the same great umino chica who is a master at writing uncomfortable truths and playing on emotions. she’s great truly, her character crafting is genuine but it gets under your skin, it’s filled with melancholy. 3gatsu is actually better than hachimitsu to clover but 1) i have history with the former so i like it better and 2) it was produced by shaft which is a sin in itself. they did a great job and all, i just hate the studio. has 3 speaking female characters in total but all 3 are great.

hoozuki no reitetsu (comedy) it’s hilarious it’s fresh it’s pretty it’s original it’s creative it’s clever. i love everything about it. the whole cast is male with like 2 exceptions and a rabbit (best girl).

saiunkoku monogatari (historical) i know it LOOKS like heterosexual shoujo garbage but it in fact isn’t. fits the reverse harem trope solely because everyone is in love with mc, but there’s next to no actual romance in it. unironically a feminist power fantasy. i’m still shooketh at how incredibly pleasant it turned out to be. the mc is a young girl but the rest of the cast is almost exclusively male.

arakawa under the bridge (comedy) surprisingly… by shaft again. maybe i am prejudiced. anyway, hilarious to a fault. is technically centered around a str8 romance but it’s not too invasive so whatever. cast is pretty balanced and the women are written smartly.

saint oniisan (comedy) THE funniest thing i’ve ever watched, or nearly. it’s just great. same author as above. cast exclusively male

doukyuusei (gay romance) which i refuse to categorize as BL simply because it’s not BL. it’s a good gay story, arguably the best one yet. cast is exclusively male but i mean lmao

gekkan shoujo nozaki-kun (comedy) straight to A FAULT but funny nevertheless. is, technically, heterosexual shoujo garbage. but SOME heterosexual shoujo garbage can stay i guess. cast is balanced, there’s still more male characters tho

gokusen (comedy/action) which i don’t remember much about except kumiko being best girl and me liking it. if i remember liking it it means it was good overall just not memorable. cast is exclusively male except mc.

kaleido star (sports) which is the ONLY good, or like decent, or like watchable sports anime, the rest don’t exist. not based on a manga but the writer is a woman which is strongly felt through and through. good story about perseverance and will and optimism and competition. cast is predominantly female and all of them are wonderfully written

michiko to hatchin (adventure) again no manga but main writer is the woman known for creating the skating BL people pretend isn’t BL. michiko to hatchin is way better than the skating BL, but i’m just a humble girl. tons of sexy sexy i could have lived without but otherwise good shit. cast predominantly female.

mushishi (mystery/fantasy) mushishi is just unique. it has similar vibes to saraiya goyou and natsume sure, but ultimately it’s one of its kind. it has what ghibli wants. again no criticism about it at all except that it’s SO chill that binging it is super tiring. cast is predominantly male but it has few reoccurring characters so who cares.

natsume yuujinchou (mystery/fantasy) again similar to mushishi but less grim. chill story, the definition of wholesome unproblematic etc whatever kids are into these days. cast predominantly male but not memorable in the slightest

petshop of horrors (horror) watched it a million years ago so don’t remember shit but i do remember liking it. cast is probably predominantly male

sakamoto desu ga (comedy) well THE actual funniest thing i’ve ever watched, it licherally had me in tears, i watched the new episodes like 3 times on the days they came out, including watching them on tv in real time at like 3 am or whenever it aired in shinya. just really really funny. cast predominantly male.

#anon #ppl have recced me dungeon meshi so many times bc it's similar to gk one day...... one day i will check it out #then again ppl also say that vinland saga is similar to gk and boy it is not i fell asleep like 509 times while watching it so

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zkfanworkweek · 4 years

Text

ZFAW Content Creator Interviews: @PokiDokies

Hey everyone! We hope you’re all excited for ZFAW, and to honor (ha!) ZFAW’s commitment to supporting and celebrating fan content creators in the Zutara fandom, we’re going to be rolling out a series of interviews with well-known and widely-beloved content creators over the next few weeks. We’ve got artists and fanfiction authors, some names you recognize as well as a few phenomenal up-and-coming talents, and we can’t wait for you to meet them all!

For the fourth interview in this cycle, we have up-and-coming artist Lev, aka @pokidokieships - she can also be found at @pokidokies on Instagram and @zk_dokies on twitter!

1. Tell us about how you came to ship Zutara. What does this ship mean to you?

Zutara has been a ship that I have loved for a long time, but it wasn’t always that way haha. When I first watched the show, I was really young and I just went with kataang because it was canon in the end. When I got a bit older and rewatched the show, I was instantly drawn to zutara and the incredible wasted potential it held. I discovered tumblr and read tons of well written meta (because I am a nerd) that explained why their relationship worked so well. I also noticed what had become of Katara, a character I admired very much growing up, and wasn’t too happy about that. Zutara portrays such a balanced and dynamic relationship, with mutual growth on both ends. It is a relationship built on redemption, understanding and sacrifice and I just think that’s beautiful. It also involves a strong brown female character, and I would have loved to see her in a relationship with someone who treated her as an equal. Someone who was willing to help her get closure regarding something so traumatic in her life and even risking his life for her. I’m a Katara stan first and I feel like zutara is a healthy relationship that does not take away her agency as a character. She is allowed to be angry and hurt, and I liked that we got to see that side of her and see that Zuko did not judge her in that state, and be there by her side. We have also seen how Katara is emotionally supportive when Zuko is in doubt. I believe Zuko and Katara deserve the best and that is each other.

2. What inspires you to create zutara fanworks?

The revival of the ATLA fandom made me fall back really deep into this ship. Unfortunately, I noticed that it was getting a lot of hate and there wasn’t much new content being generated for this ship. I also noticed a lot of people misunderstanding why people like this ship, stating very shallow reasons and using it as an excuse to bash people who like it. So, I decided to create the zutara content that I wanted to see. I like to Katara and Zuko in a really cute and healthy relationship in my art, because these kids have been through so much. I never expected so many people to like it though! That was such a pleasant surprise and I could not be more thankful! I got really involved with the zutara fandom and made so many friends through my art and mutual love for the ship. This support, along with my love for this ship, inspires me everyday to make content for the pairing. Happy to announce that there will be a lot more zutara art to come!

3. Be selfish - if you could request one fanwork based on your own art/fanfic, what would it be? What would you absolutely love to see someone create?

To be honest, if anyone wrote fanfiction based on one of my drawings I would be over the moon! Most of my drawings of the pair are scenes that I make up myself or are based on popular zutara headcanons. I would love to see someone write a fic that incorporates those scenes/headcanons and expand on them a little more. If anyone ever decide to do that, let me know

4. Any words for people who are new to the fandom and/or nervous about sharing their work for the first time?

My advice would be, no matter how nervous you are, just post it. Just put it out there! I guarantee that your work would make, at the very least, one person super happy. If you love a fandom/ship/character and create something out of that love, it will show in your work. People will appreciate that. Another important thing is to make content that YOU want to see! Sometimes, you gotta feed yourself because nobody else caters to your niche interests. Trust me, it makes everything more fun when you look at it that way.

5. What is your favorite Zutara-related thing you’ve made and why is it special to you?

My favourite Zutara art that I’ve made is one that I drew for day one of Zutara Week 2020. The prompt was “Reunion”. I had made a few zutara drawings before this one, but I especially loved this because I was able to create an expression of utter love on Zuko’s face as he held his arms

out to embrace Katara. I also loved how Katara looks so excited to see him haha. For some context, Katara and Zuko barely interacted in the comics that came after the show ended (and we all know why). So, I decided to draw these two in the outfits they wore in the comics! This was also the first prompt of Zutara Week 2020, so I wanted to make it really special. Realistically, these two would be so busy after the war. They probably write letters to each other and when they finally reunite, they would be ecstatic. I drew a second picture of them already embracing as a little treat hehe. The soft colours and the fondness between the two makes it the favourite drawing I’ve ever done!

6. What’s an idea for a fanwork that you have but haven’t gotten around to making?

There’s actually so much that I have planned! One good thing about zutara not being canon is that the fandom has come up with so many cute headcanons! Zutara is a ship filled with so much potential so there’s just so much content to make. I haven’t gotten around to designing their steambabies yet, so I have that planned. Mama Katara and Papa Zuko is a concept that cann be so personal to me. They would make such good, loving parents. You can definitely look forward to some cute family drawings in the future. Maybe draw the whole family playing with some turtle ducks by the pond? Their kids would be so beautiful too I can’t wait to design them! I have more stuff planned of course, but this is a concept that I have been wanting to do for a while now hehe.

7. Are you participating in ZFAW? If so, want to give us a hint as to your plans? 👀

I am not sure if I’m going to participate in ZFAW, only because I may be busy with university projects at the time. However, I may try and do one or two of the prompts if I have the time! I plan to make everything cute and fluffy as usual, and maybe a little angst too.

#interviews #zfaw #zutara fanworks appreciation week #zutara #pokidokieships

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ryuichirou · 5 months

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Replies

And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Anonymous asked:

I’m sorry you went through all that crap. I hope things are better for you. ):

Oh, if you’re talking about the situation from my past, then yeah, it’s much better now! Thank you so much for your concern <3 It is very sweet of you.

However, we do have a more serious situation on our hands right now, but I won’t go into details. This blog is for discussing the colour of Idia’s nipples, not this.

Speaking of which…

Anonymous asked:

I want to lick Idia’s chest. Apologies.

Quickly, Anon, Ortho is holding him just for you to lick! Ahh shoot he ran way…

Anonymous asked:

a lot of people tend to forget we’re asking you about /your/ hcs. and it’s perfectly ok if we disagree! what fun would the internet be without different opinions (the only valid hc is rook’s love language is stalking lol).

anyways who out of the cast do you think would own yaoi manga/doujins? personally i think idia would. maybe. if it’s physical/paper he can hide his naughty stuff from ortho and his mom…

Exactly! A lot of things influence the way people come up with ideas, this is such a complex thing, of course not everything is going to cater to everyone – this is simply impossible. Picking and choosing and reading stuff that interests you while avoiding things that annoy or hurt you is always the way to go.

(Rook’s love language is stalking, fuck yeah lol)

Oh, that’s a fun question. I feel like Idia would be the only one, and he would also probably have this excuse/explanation, like he really isn’t into BL, but this particular work is just very good, it has great art style, good writing + Idia’s favourite artist was influenced by this manga/series of doujins, so of course he had to get it, this is an important otaku artifact! And OF COURSE it’s paper, that’s the whole point! Even if it’s smutty, it’s art!

Ortho could start getting into BL himself; he would start by reading this one manga that Idia owns lol Idia was sure he’d hidden it well.

The rest of the cast strike me as normies… but hey, Lilia could have some! If he has any manga at all, I can imagine him owning a BL book just ‘cause. But since he probably bought it years ago when he was traveling around the TWST equivalent of Japan, it might be a bit outdated lol And probably a little cursed, which is why Lilia got so into this book back then.

Anonymous asked:

I just think it’s cool how you’re so detailed with the characters and their personality/psychology etc. You could even explain how each of them would go skydiving and I’d think, “yeah, they would do that.” Toodles.

Thank you so much, Anon! It truly means a lot. This is one of the most fun parts of writing replies and drawings stuff, to be honest: the cast is so good that the jokes write themselves sometimes lol

If only I knew enough about skydiving to write or draw something about it…but thankfully, we have a lot of other things to do. 💪

Thank you for enjoying our stuff, I am very happy to hear that.

Anonymous asked:

That's just fucking wrong. Jade is EXTREMELY well behaved for a Leech. "ill behaved" my ASS!!!

+Anonymous asked:

TO BE CLEAR IM JOKING JADE IS A FUCKING FREAK MENACE

LOL YOU’RE GOOD ANON, no worries! <3

“For a Leech”!!! Exactly! Which means he isn’t well-behaved at all!

Anonymous asked:

my guy, my friend,, my buddy,,,,

a hetalia mention? in 2024? why would you do this to us? 😭

Anon dear… Hetalia is a party that is never over 🥳🥳🥳 It forced itself into our lives in 2009 and has been there ever since.

In all seriousness, we do come back to it from time to time; some of the drawings that we have for it are pretty recent!

#replies

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tog-resources-archive · 4 years

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Thank you fan!anon for sending me such a long, detailed message! Never apologize for writing me an essay since I always seem to be writing essays for other people in return lol. Also sorry it took a while to get to! This required a bit of preparation. You’ve given me a lot to respond to. I’m going to be putting the entirety of the ask under the cut and the tl;dr because this one is very, verrrryyyy long.

Tl;dr- fan!anon talks about the history of top/bottom discourse in TOG and the issues of racism in our fandom. My response: my own feelings on the history of the top/bottom discourse in TOG and the current state of it. General issues I’ve observed in this fandom and the current discourse. Also, we shouldn’t ignore fandom racism, but I don’t think we should be looking at it through the lens of top/bottom, AND I think we should be focusing on misogyny, homophobia, etc. in addition to racism. Not ignore one for the other.

Bottom line though, don’t harrass people, block people if you need to, focus on what you love, support fan creation and let’s try to be a better fandom.

Okay, time to dig in!

Hello fellow fan who has been here since the beginning! I come from the “other side” I suppose, in that I do think the top/bottom discourse is worth talking about. It has to do with the elephant in the room which I haven’t seen anyone touch on – self-identified top!joe fans (in contrast to simply fans who enjoy or prefer content where joe tops). I remember the original top/bottom discourse coming out of a more general conversation about trends in fic (1) wherein Joe was more violent, less empathetic, often not religious, more aggressive in sexual scenarios, and also most often topping. People asked the fandom in general to simply consider, if that is how they perceive Joe, to reflect for themselves about implicit biases that could be colouring that interpretation. The self-identified top!joes used that conversation as a starting point to argue that the above interpretation of Joe, (2) and writing/drawing Nicky as smaller, almost twink-like, demure, more feminine (or writing fic where he was de-aged) was justified by canon (if you recall the multi-day argument about the approximately 1 inch height difference between Marwan and Luca) and connecting those ideas to top!joe just “making more sense” to them. In the hands of a good writer (of which we are blessed to have many in this fandom!), which character tops in an explicit fic is of no consequence to me. (3) But the concept of top!joe has, in my mind, become so closely tied with those fans who, a) interpret these characters and actions in a way that seems influenced by racial stereotypes and tropes and b) use that characterization as “justification” for top!joe. All this when I thought we all agreed that position preference has nothing to do with personality? (4) If someone sees Joe as a very masculine, aggressive, dom-type character (which is a bit of a one-note characterization to start, but I digress), that shouldn’t be related to him being a “top”, correct? Yet that is the interpretation and connection that the top!joes themselves make. So that’s why to me, the top/bottom framework continues to have some value, eve though in an ideal world it wouldn’t: (5) because some fans connect what should be a neutral sexual position preference to an interpretation of Joe’s character, an interpretation which I think doesn’t do him justice. I understand if you don’t want to publish this but I’m hesitant to talk off anon due to how heated this whole conversation is. I also don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings or make them feel bad about how they are participating in the fandom, but I do think self-reflection in terms of how we engage is valuable. (6) And just to fully reiterate in case it wasn’t clear, my above points are specifically referring to who I think of as “top!joe only” fans as opposed to fans who enjoy or prefer content in which joe tops – only the former of which I am wary of. Anyways, sorry for this long message, and I hope I've been able to explain my reasoning. If we continue to disagree, thanks for reading this anyways and continuing the dialogue. Thank you also for promoting femslash events and content! (7)

So....I did say in a previous post that I’m not a big fan of hearsay, and I’m sorry but… that’s kind of what you’ve given me. A lot of “this is what Top!Joe Only people have said” and “this is what the rest of the fandom has said back.” I have to ask, who are these “Top!Joe Only” people that are on the other side of this fandom war? Who are the people representing the “rest of the fandom”? The only names I could really come up with myself are the Top!Joe Server mods as top!Joe only fans, and they haven’t exactly been active recently. Not to mention the Top!Joe server mod @karanoidandroid was the focus of the Art Theft and Bullying debacle a while back (here) which even if you disagree with her… that’s not the way you treat people. Full stop.

But anyway, to break this down, you’ve said that top!joe only fans wanted to interpret Joe in a way that was “more violent, less empathetic, less religious, more sexually aggressive, and topping (most of the time)” and that Nicky is “smaller, more twink-like, more demure and feminine” and that the hardcore top!joe stans are using this interpretation as a reasoning for liking top!joe explicit fics (and for underage fic?)

Er, honestly, I’ll have to disregard the “less religious” comment in this one. Lucyclairedelune has talked about it very eloquently here. As for the rest, let’s say these opinions were expressed on tumblr in July, just when the fandom was getting started. However, after personally going through all the Explicit July fics, I gotta say, the overwhelming majority of writers are focused on romantic Malta sex vacations lol.

From my personal observations (I started reading fic on ao3 in August), I’ve seen some stories that cater to very… specific tastes (mostly kinkmeme fics so I’m not going to touch that) and some that have…. been written in poor taste perhaps. But, honestly, the majority of fics (aka G, T, M rated) that I’ve seen? I would say that they were written with care and concern for the character’s portrayal.

Now, some fans (usually older fans) are very focused on “your kink is not my kink” and other fans feel this is an inappropriate way to view “racist, homophobic, islamophobic, etc” fics. And I agree with that. If people are using kink to excuse racism, homophobia, islamophobia, transphobia, antisemitism, misogyny, etc, in fics: Fuck that. But I think there’s a lot of misunderstanding flying around when people react to ‘ykinmk”. This fandom likes to assume the worst of their fellow fans imo, and I honestly don’t think that when a person defends kink that they’re trying to defend racism. They’re trying to defend their kink community which, historically, has been attacked and misunderstood by the purity police. Look into the Livejournal, ffnet, and even the Tumblr purges if you don’t believe me.

For the record, I don’t know anyone on tumblr personally. We’re all effectively strangers talking to each other on the internet, so I’m not going to make assumptions about people from stories they’ve posted on AO3 or the kinkmeme. If you want to talk about the issues those fics represent, that’s cool, but don’t harass people whose life stories you don’t know (and don’t vagueblog about them). (This is just a general statement, not saying this about you anon! I feel really strongly about this.)

Now you say, “some fans connect what should be a neutral sexual position preference to an interpretation of Joe’s character” and I hate to say it, but there are ALWAYS going to be some people who have awful opinions. Ones that are either truly terrible, or kind of in poor taste, or maybe you just don’t vibe with them. Personally, I don’t have enough time in the day to address every weird thing that a person spews on the internet. I won’t judge if you want to take them on, but, personally, I haven’t seen any recent militant top!joe only posts that are calling for racist portrayals. I see people referring to past conversations, for sure, but again, I can’t do anything with hearsay.

And honestly, we keep bringing up the top/bottom discourse of early TOG fandom, and we’re just not the same fandom we were then. SO MANY people have left the fandom in that time-- a lot of big name (or simply well known) fans and a lot of MENA fans. Regardless of what “side” you’re on in this, we all lose by focusing on the positions, by dividing everyone by “top” or “bottom” or “switch” fans, and by bringing up what people said in July, or August, or September. It’s exhausting, especially because I think a lot of people have done exactly what you said. Many authors HAVE self-reflected, they’ve thought about trends, the implications, and are contributing/interacting with the fandom as best as they can. Do I think we should stop focusing on self-reflection? That we should stop being careful about writing potentially damaging portrayals of our favorite characters? NO. Let’s keep at it! Let’s encourage others to do the same… but not with top/bottom discourse.

Let it be known that I don’t think racism is a topic we should disregard to focus on other things. Honestly, I would be happy if people gave some of the energy they have for “top/bottom” discourse to talk about the portrayal of Nile Freeman or Lykon or Copley or Quynh… the other POC representation in TOG that usually gets ignored. You may interpret this as me going “but what about??” and that’s fair. I just think that we talk about Joe ALL THE TIME in this fandom. There is an avalanche of conversation and content for this man (who I love, don’t get me wrong) and it just feels really disingenuous (to me) to talk ad nauseum about racist portrayals of Joe, but then to ignore Nile Freeman and wlw fics when Nile is the rare Black Female Action Protagonist and Andy/Quynh is an extremely rare interracial canon lesbian couple. And I’ve been trying to use my blog here to bring attention to this, think of me what you will because of that. (Again just a general statement anon! Not directed to you XD)

And from what I’ve seen in this fandom (and many others to be fair) is that we care about racism SO MUCH…but only when talking about how a man has sex. It speaks of a lack of intersectional understanding of these topics, disregarding the misogyny that IS ALSO inherent in fandom, and disregarding the homophobia of overfocusing on the top/bottom dynamics. BUT I’m not asking you to ignore racism; all I’m asking is for you to focus on the other issues too.

Bottom line though… the discourse is not what it once was. A lot of people, on whatever side, have left the fandom, or have taken a break, or are vocally tired of “top/bottom” discourse. Personally, I think we should talk about racism… but not through the lens of explicit mlm fic sex positions. Let’s talk more about race, gender, sex and sexual orientation, but not in a way that divides the fandom, in a way that makes people sick of being here, in a way that kills our content creator’s passion. Honestly, I think it can be done! But only if we work toward that goal together.

I would like to focus on encouraging events in our community, such as the ongoing Old Guard Big Bang 2021 event and the upcoming Femslash Fortnight Spring Solstice Edition event. If anyone is organizing other events, let me know and I’ll hype you up! But as for the rest, I’m tired, you’re tired, we’re all tired. Let’s try and work harder to be a kinder, more inclusive fandom in the future, for everyone’s sake.

#tumblr is a nightmare #the formatting issues i had with this one...#the old guard #my post #my ask #reply #loooooonnnnng ask and loooooong reply #sorry guys #this will be the last one for a while i think #the old guard discourse #old guard discourse #tog discourse

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