#my friend thinks he's Very Gender and i am so compelled to agree

[misqnon]

sanji and pudding are cute together as completely platonic friends.. like he is a good FRIEND for her. i think she just needs someone in her life who isnt going to ridicule her for her eye and . like. fully accepts her. and that is who sanji is.

i wouldn't have an issue if it was just like. a one sided crush either. which it kind of is but i don't trust oda to have those intentions. i know its realistic to have kids crush on older people,, and i think its interesting to portray that as long as the adult isnt being creepy and weird. like u can have an adult that is accepting of the kid who's crushing on them. and the adult is also like "this is never going to happen. u should find someone your own age, that would be healthier". it is inherently pretty uncomfortable to have a kid crush on you i would assume, but they could still have a healthy relationship

i also want all the straw hats there!! i dont think i'll be satisfied if they arent all there..

THATS OK IT WAS STILL INTERESTING!!

this is so funny, i actually watched that video a while ago (passively. as in i was actually trying to sleep and also listen at the same time). but YEAH i think he is so right... the charm .. the something that zoro has. is not there. thank GOD i didnt miss the fuck...

NOT THE MAD WORLD REFERENCE

oh for sure the like 3 layers of translating is probably a big reason for the awkwardness. i (personally) think he has autistic energy outside of that one interview (i think i was kinda unclear which is why i am . bringing it back up) but . ofc. i am not going to diagnose a man I dont know anything about LOL

no shame in this household!!!! there is already plenty to go around

VERY ASEXUAL FRIENDS SEEING UR HORNY POSTING.... SOUNDS LIKE A NIGHTMARE. my very asexual friend does not use social media thank god. i .. i could never let her see me like this ... for her own sake..

u also forgor ur gender for a bit thats so funny..

im very thankful there are at least a FEW nsfw questions about men in the sbs... equality!! but we must strive for equity.. sexualize the men 3x more /hj

i have a friend who knows a bit of japanese but i always feel so bad relying on ppl who know other languages LOL. like.. im sorry ... our friendship means so much more to me than ur job as my translator sometimes... but i think the foreign fans use a translator app, bc im pretty sure oda has said the wording is wonky because of the translator

ive seen a bit of trixie and katya!! im at least familiar with who they are. at my highschool (that i went to for only the last two years i was in school) we had some drag queens come to school for a show.. it was interesting. i had never seen drag in person. and then we also had a drag show with students which wasnt as involved

"for legal reasons (haha get it)" LOL

perfect representation of a sanji courtroom. since u are sanji magistrate ur word is law. literally.

oda can have credit .. as a treat.

it IS compelling tbh but it's. as u kinda said. its mostly just mentioned briefly and then not brought back up. i do NOT want to see it come to fruition.... if they killed each other.... me next

"I WOULD LIKE CROSS GUILD AS A POLY SHIP MORE IF IT DIDNT FEEL MEAN WITH HOW OFTEN THEY BEAT UP ON BUGGY AND ALSO BC I THINK BUGGY BELONGS WITH MR. RED HAIR." YEAH EXACTLY!!!!! i too love a one sided ship. shuggy angst is literally so good.. wait til u catch up theres a . theres a moment. theres a shuggy moment that is SO angsty. they have so many problems they should just kiss and that would solve everything!

"OH NO BRO….HANNYAGELLAN…ITS HAPPENING…"

i also heard abt the falling down the stairs meaning suicide thing, but i only heard abt it super recently. ur right she wouldnt have done that!! she was finally feeling like. things were looking up . because of zoro!! he helped her feel better!! n then she died. i agree that he probably sees a promise as an ironclad thing. he would literally die for a promise he made. he definitely isnt stupid either, and is generally pretty untrusting of new people

SHARING FANFIC U WROTE???? :D

"Dreams. Ambitions. Drive. Do what that day stole from Kuina. Defeat Dracule Mihawk. Become the world’s greatest swordsman- for both of them." i love this part

"This isn’t a good sign for his current navigational endeavors." HE GOT LOST..... that made me laugh

"Kuina. He doesn’t think of her as often as some might think. He doesn’t dwell on the past, only reflects on it." accurate for zoro!!!!

i feel sad for him :( he sounds a bit. regretful? is that a word.. thnk u for sharing i lov .. i love .. when ppl share their art with me.. thank u..

"but do i ever actually make those things….no. i do not" psh... typical..... /lh

oh boy im so excited to take ibuprofen with u!!!!

"its just. SO COOL!!!! TO SEE PEOPLE ACT WITH SUCH PASSION AND PORTRAY EPIC STORIES..RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU!! LIVE!!" YOU GET IT!!!! YOU GET IT!!!!! NO ONE EVER GETS IT ... U GET IT!!!

yes u got me i like sanji now 😔😔😔😔😔 congrats on converting me😮‍💨 /lh. ill send u another 4kids sanji video to get back at u for this *shakes my fist in rage*

i love seonghwa!!! (obviously!!! since im ot8 !!!)

THE LAW PUN... I DINDT NOTICE AT FIRST .... im so glad u have the hawaiian shirt comic saved. i have multiple pictures of him saved and i refuse to delete them despite my phone storage being rly low.. and im not doing anything with them. im just attached.

look at how much i talk about him... im normal . its only been a month and a half since i restarted one piece and i hadnt talked abt him at all before that.. im normal.

ok my law thought s are.. well the most recent thought . was actually. uh.

yeah this was a normal thought. for sure.

this was the thought that led to that .

i just think u could have a lotta fun with his powers. outside of making abstract art. i want to know what its like to be law . in body. he is tall. and like. i would be able to teleport himself and other things.. which is a big thing when u can't get enough energy to get out of bed. and i have food allergies so i could eat whatever i want.. and i wouldnt have periods... i would automatically be stronger bc he has muscles. yeah.. i wish i could experience all that.

and that is all for now bc i think those r ...intense.. thoughts... to have... or maybe they arent, i dont really have an understanding of what is normal

"i wonder if it relates to his backstory and the possible trans-ness of it?" i was kinda thinking this too.. or like maybe it had something to do with his childhood or something. idk. croc backstory when!!

"he’s after freedom and what use is it if u destory the freedom of others while searching for it for yourself?" YEAH!!! U WORDED IT WELL,,

"HIS 4DUB VOICE PAINS ME PHYSICALLY" *sends another video* (i am actually going to do this but i was planning to anyways so dont feel pressured to watch it or respond LOL)

"i have a playlist where i put my fav one piece shits."

D:!!

crying, sobbing at the fact u know abt nika

ok honestly if it was just a bug collection... that would be so cute ... the one piece was the bugs we met along the way

"so i think it might be related to…joyboy/nika/ the SUN…i think maybe its like a. a hat maybe. thats my guess. sun hat. from the original joy boy. its not a good guess but its all i HAVe"

take this how u will

bartolomeo... maybe he is called the cannibal bc he has big teeth... or maybe its his name from when he was beating ppl up all the time as a .. gang leader? or whatever he was? maybe he "cannibalized" other groups??

end of the e-letter is for memes now

very very true. when she was sobbing after i left i actually felt so so bad for her ;-; like someone PLEASE get her out of there!! god SAME FOR REIJU. sanji got to escape but reiju and pudding are both stuck with their respective shit abusive families…it sucks. i hope we get to see both of them doing better by the end of the series!!

“i wouldn't have an issue if it was just like. a one sided crush either. which it kind of is but i don't trust oda to have those intentions.” YEA I MADE A POST ABOUT THIS (i think i accidentally queued it) BUT. YEA I DOUBT HE DOES 🙃 looks at shirahoshi. looks at rebecca

ITS A MAAAAAD WOROORORRLDLDL

also nodding my head no problem i got what u meant about inaki

UR RIGHT NO SHAME….PUTS MY YAOI PROUDLY ON THE FRIDGE

i still need to finish the opla video. i watch it while i eat lmao

OKAY HE HASNT MENTIONED IT SO I HOPE HE JUST DIDNT SEE IT OR. WILL NEVER BRING IT UP. its funny u say that tho bc my OTHER ace friend very supportively read this vampire zosan fic i wrote and they’re in their own words like violently ace and also sex repulsed and i WARNED THEM that there was a sex scene in that chapter i WROTE A CHAPTER NOTE AT THE BEGINNING WARNING SO and they STILL accidentally read it and texted me SO CONFUSED AND THEN EMBARASSED THEY WERE LIKE “its hot in the room?? wait i dont get it?? 🤨 - WAIT. OH NO-” funniest shit ive ever seen in my life. literally “hey. be careful dont look at that.” “huh? [staring blindly at sun]

actually every nsfw sbs question asked about the men was me. it was all me. next i will be asking the size of katakur- [gunshots]

KJSBDKJ I HAVE TWO FRIENDS THAT SPEAK FRENCH (ONE A NATIVE SPEAKER AND ONE WHO MAJORED IN IT AND NOW LIVES IN FRANCE. WITH THE OTHER FRENCH FRIEND) and when writing scenes where sanji spoke french i was too embarrassed to ask either of them for help but they bullied me into letting them help 😭😭😭 so i feel u so hard 😭😭😭

and ur right, i actually just read a chapter where someone did that from vietnam i believe (they used a machine translator)

i love drag sm!! u made me remember how much i liked it and i watched some more drag clips yesterday lmao. 

okay in terms of the death pact thing i feel like oda drops those things and always comes back to them…i DONT WANT THEM TO FIGHT EITHER BUT ALSO I SOOOO DO. kinda like how reading whole cake island ws painful for me but also i loved it. but i will need to wait a bit before reading it again. i dont think theyre gonna kill each other tho. i think itll be a moment that brings them to a better understanding of each other/their relationship. i dont mean that in a zosan way just literally in canon as crewmates. and i think it will be JUICY bc those bitches have been bickering for over 20 years…and then finally theres a big ultimate final zoro vs sanji battle like dudebros always clamor about. i want to see a setup where they’re forced to face the fact that they dont get along but still care for each other but also what to do when faced with a choice like that against someone you hate but also care for. and what zoro will do. bc i genuinely have a feeling zoro will fight him to the fucking end but not kill him when it comes down to it. even though zoro keeps promises like they’re oaths…so. i think it may be an outside element that stops the Murder from occuring. zoro may or may not actually attempt it KDSNC. its so fun to think about to me. im so ready 

shuggy moment? 👁️i know oda would not make any gay ship canon (probably most ships tbh) but why does shuggy feel like one of the most likely to me. in a weird way. KADJNFVDK. you know how in the og visual novel for clannad the “bad end” was a gay ending with your male best friend. that is canon shuggy to me. oda doing it kinda halfheartedly in a roundabout way for laughs but the fandom is popping bottles (we popping the BIGGEST bottles when shuggy happens tomorrow-)

on zoro and promises and etc etc…do u think zoro will get more development of him as a character by the end of the story? zoro is a character that’s beautiful in his simplicity but sometimes i want to know him more you know?? he’s kinda mysterious in a closed off way even tho we know what he’s about and. i wanna know more abt him. put him in more fucked up situations. i wanna see zoro suffer in a way that isnt just a tough battle.

im glad u liked it !! :D thank u!!

HAHAHAHA SANJI CONVERT !!! LET’S SEXUALIZE THAT BLONDE MAN ‼️(priorities 🫡) (the 4kids sanji video will get back at me. it will. i will suffer but i will do it.)

i have so many random op images saved in my phone…not to mention my laptop’s screenshot folder…WAIT THAT REMINDS ME JFDBVSJD i have an internship at an art gallery and i need a laptop for the job so i use my own but its my personal laptop.. and once i had to test a powerpoint but i dont have word so i had to use my personal google slides account and WHILE CONNECTED to a GIANT PROJECTOR…THIS briefly flashed on the screen before i frantically clicked away. no one saw but i. i did. (for reference this was for pwp night. and i have still nbot finished it)

i dont talk about sanji in my friend discord server bc None Of Them Watch One Piece but in my dms with my other op friend…let’s look.

on god

this is from both of us together. BUT STILL

(nodding) no go on what animal parts

law’s powers are SO fun. i wish he switched ppls bodies more often!! its such a fun trope its such a guilty pleasure for me!! also room is just. such a cool ability. i love teleportation characters (thinks about nightcrawler from xmen…my blue king). also THAT LAW COMIC I MENTIONED U IN THE TAGS. JHFVBDKAS THE FOURTH PANEL WHERE ITS JSUT THE SEA CREATURES AND HIS DEAD FACE DOING THE ROOM POSE GETS ME EVERY DAMN TIME

is law tall?? i guess he just seems short in comparison to like. doffy. (looks it up) DAMN THIS BITCH IS 6’3??? 

also funny law story i just remembered. sometimes i sell my art at gay art markets. and one time. at a halloween themed one. there was . this random law cosplayer. which yea its halloween thats a costume but for future reference i want to be clear this was like the only anime cosplay. everyone else was like cartoons or monsters or fairies or cats or some shit. well the law cosplayer is set up right across from me and i had JUST started my one piece hyperfixation so i was Extra Crazy abt it and i was literally flipping out so nervous but excited so i dragged myself over and was like “omg…hi…i love ur law cosplay….i just got into op and i havent met him yet but i see him everywhere…” and they were super nice!! but then. later. i go visit my friend’s booth. and . the ONLY other anime cosplay at the entire event…WAS A SECOND TRAFALGAR LAW. STANDING AT MY FRIEND’S BOOTH. I WAS LIKE ??? anyway i pointed them towards each other after fangirling for a hot moment and they took a pic together. it was very fun

ur thoughts are not intense or strange…well maybe they are strange to others but i am also insane. i promise. i love ur insane thoughts pls continue to share. i will do the same someday when i am less shy and ashamed of my unhinged fandom thoughts (such as making zoro amvs to abba in my head on the way to therapy. <- things that should be in the dsm-5 as a criteria. ps. thats a line my therapist actually said in response to something i did once. lmao)

did u notice that in the opla…they have all the characters who were at rogers execution there as their younger selves (mihawk, shanks,etc) AND THERE’S A AFAB PERSON WHO’S DRESSED SUSPIOCIOUSLY LIKE CROCODILE…I WAS LIKE OH SHIT)

i am going to watch the next 4kidd dub video. i will do it for you. (losing years off my life each time)

WOOPS THE PLAYLIST WAS PRIVATE try it now. if you watch any one video from that list. and this one is short. please make it this one. I LOSE MY SHIT EVERY TIME

OH ALSO. APPARENTLY AT COACHELLA. THAT MIKU PERFORMANCE WAS *ALSO* A TV SCREEN. ISNT THAT SAD. PATHETIC!!

lmao. i was talking to my caught up friend about op spoilers today and he wouldnt confirm or deny so many things i said. lmao. rofl, even

“take this how u will” IM SCARED

end of the e letter IS for memes now you’re so correct

p.s…i know discord is a Le PooPooHead esp recently BUT if you want to add me my username is the same as it is here!! feel free but no pressure

[crown-ov-horns]

Reasons why I motivate myself to work on my Good Omens fanfictions:

So I can take a certain hyper popular ship everyone loves, but I despise, and tear it apart, smash it with a hammer, and set it on fire for my own entertainment. 😊 It's not like someone will do it for me.

I would say because Lady!Crowley deserves more love, but horrific things happen to her, so, I'd be a hypocrite (spoiler alert, she's fine in the end).

Anathema and Newt's family keep a raccoon named Shovels, that they dye black, and pretend is a cat.

I have four ideas put down, so far. One's an actual detective story. Two of them are crossovers with... Legion, of all things (one came to me in a dream). All involve my Antichrist OC, who wasn't supposed to have anything to do with the GO universe, until I had that damn dream.

Another motivatior - so I can work with Maxine (the Antichrist OC) more. After a long consideration, I decided to pair her up with War (in non-crossovers, in those she's with Michael), which is problematic because they're cousins (War's mother is Satan's sister)... You know, whatever. Nobody from Earth knows. It isn't anything uncommon for royalty, either. 🤣 Besides, they're both women (offspring from donors, so no biological threats), and they didn't grow up together. I just... I adore my Antichrists. They're everything to me. Max, forgive me for getting you involved in this madness of an universe, the fanfiction gods compelled me.

Honestly, my other OCs, too. Max's best friend, Cthylla (daughter of Dagon, and... You can guess. He has a habit of oversleeping), her cat Squid, Madonna Maria (a literal jackal with vile temper and a fondness for whiskey, Maxine's biological mother;), Titan the Hellhound, Agnes Device-Pulsifer, Francisco Rossi (the Second Beast, who loathes Aziraphale even more than I do, for absollutely no reason)...

Off with Pollution, Pestilence is being reinstated to his rightful place.

I'm eager to work with canon characters like War, Michael (Legion and GO version), and Hastur - all of who, I adore

I am kind of a hater in this fandom. In the end, I've realized, fanfiction must be written for oneself, not the fandom. I will not apologize for doing what I want, with characters (and their genders) in a fic. Nor for heavily focusing on my OCs (even making them the main focus - it's something that I love doing).

The only thing I do feel some guilt for? I remember Neil Gaiman saying he likes stories where women saves themselves, which I completely agree with, yet Lady Crowley gets saved by others, most of the times... I guess, she's just in situations nobody could save themselves from. Now, her healing is another can of worms maybe that could be counted as her saving herself).

Oh... I hope no one who reads this took it as me attacking them, or mocking them, for liking what I don't. I kind of sounded like someone's evil grandma, threatening to throw their favorite toys in the trash can. 🤣 I'm just writing down my thoughts in an edgy manner. Think of this as a literal angsty, but hopeful diary page.

When I said I'm a "hater", I meant I personally have a very odd, unconventional relationship with Good Omens and it's characters. It's a... "I don't like how you're portraying biblical mythology, but I will always love you". I love Neil Gaiman. I don't know anyone im the fandom anymore, but I all the hearts to them, too. I'm just the designated class contrarian. My stories, like all fanfiction, are seperate universes from canon (and I mean no disrespect to it; the fanfiction wouldn't be here if canon wasn't).

Why do I keep hurting Crowley? I don't know, my relationship with the character is very complicated also. I find him annoying, but I named my stuffed snake after him. 🐍

Why did I write this down and post it? Because I've noticed I'm more likely to get something done after I get on a barrel, and anounce I will. These stories are so fun to write... Fine, that was kind of a lie. I'm picking at Ch. 1 of the dream storyline, and it makes me want to cry.

P.S. - I didn't see season 2, and I have no intention to (though my mom is badgering me to watch it; she's also scolding me for hurting Crowley).

[ballwizard]

speaking of plvaa we just started the final trial so thoughts on it so far before we actually get to the ending!! Under cut :-3

so overall the game has been VERY fun. bear in mind that I've been playing with octavius which makes games both more fun and funnier had I played them alone, so my opinion is a little rose-tinted a la having fun with my friend. HOWEVER. ive found the story and mysteries really fun and engaging!!! some of the twists have been pretty easy to call but i don't think that's necessarily bad? other than espella being bezella. that one is like comically obvious. but like the twist of both maya and layton being presumed dead?? that was fucking bonkers and i loved every minute of it (though it was obvious neither of them would 'stay dead'). i ALSO really liked the segment where Luke was a witness; it worked really well as a show of his character as well as a story beat. I'm always a sucker for distrust between good friends due to circumstances and it hit just the right pitch of desperation to be really really fun.

i think gameplay-wise it's a nice mix of both series, with the investigation portions taking after layton and the court parts taking after ace attorney (obviously). the hint coins in trials is a really nice mechanic & being thrust into an environment with new rules other than what seems most logical is a really fun way to play off the ace attorney format of solving cases.

I've had a running argument with otto that it's not actually magic and I'm genuinely excited to see how it goes. I still am convinced it's all just some incredibly convoluted plot a la unwound future or curious village or. any of the Layton games, but theres just enough doubt in my mind that it's compelling to consider. Im really excited to see how the final mysteries pan out...

visually the game looks pretty nice! though I do agree with the common sentiment that the styles clash a bit (every time we see phoenix in a cutscene surrounded by labyrinthians he looks SO out of place, or the one scene where phoenix and espella are talking and luke looks copy-pasted in). I would've loved to see the whole game in the Layton style, considering most NPCs trend that way anyways. It makes the more ace attorney-styled ones stick out like sore thumbs, like Greyerl and Mystere. Though it's so odd that most plot-important NPCs so far have been ace attorney styled, except for Kira? It caught me a bit off guard. But, even with the style mismatch, it still holds together.

I did want to talk about my disappointment with Greyerl though. Ive never been a fan of the 'secretly a girl/boy but posing as a different gender for REASONS!!' trope, more often than not because it's a) Easy to clock and not very interesting and b) Tends to lead into weird transphobic territory, a la "he's ACTUALLY a SHE?!?;?" or vice versa (or, in more annoying cases, like robin newman from dual destinies, flipping a switch in their behavior and suddenly presenting the complete opposite way. though i will admit i liked robin as a character). It kind of annoyed me with the whole thing. Either way, it was a smaller thing that didn't really impact my enjoyment all that much, but I still wanted to address in some way. I liked that Greyerl got to say it themself instead of being completely forcibly outed this time, but the whole thing with the unpinning of the hair was pretty dumb to me. I think their design could have stayed the same either way; an androgynous butler is not that strange of a character archetype, and makes way more sense than them just. Having extremely long hair somehow pinned up to make it look like a bowlcut. Blech. Whatever.

ANYWAY. This post is far too long already but I just wanted to close it out :-P TL:DR PLvAA has been a very fun and engaging experience so far and i hope and pray that it sticks the landing 😁👍💥‼️

[elvendorx]

Hi 👋🏼

So I saw your post about Harry’s patronus the other day and it got me thinking.

It reminded me how odd it always seemed to me that we’re told Harry’s deepest nature is like his mothers yet for most of the series he’s constantly being compared back to James. (They even share a patronus which the shape of is suppose to be a reflection of who you are.) It’s always how he does xyz like James, he’s as good as James at this or that, or the “ no I think your like James...”, we get the singular “less like James than I thought…” to make a distinction (but you could argue that James also wouldn’t want to put Sirius at risk. I firmly believe Sirius getting hurt is a line James won’t cross. Cause you know✨soulmate things✨). 

Like we get that he has Lily’s eyes, and that she was an “uncommonly kind witch” which pared with the deepest nature remark could be used to imply Harry is incredibly kind but I wouldn’t go as far as to call him uncommonly kind. In SWM we see more from her. Like her temper, desire to stand up for people which we could say Harry shares (James also shares a want to fight for what’s right but that a bit more complex with him) and she also fights backs a smile. Like it always bugged that we’re told this about his deepest nature yet the narrative never really backs it up I guess? Like we never hear about their similarities again outside of the green eyes. I get that Sirius and Remus are primarily James’ friends but they knew Lily. Sirius at least had a close relationship with ( her letter to him) the teachers at Hogwarts knew her, but we get a few lines about their deepest natures, their green eyes, a bit from Sluggy, and that’s like it? Which is just so strange to me. Like what? The whole idea of his deepest nature being like Lily’s hold no real weight narratively to me because nobody creates it. We’re told it and are just suppose to accept this and move on like it really means something when we’re never really give any reason as to what it means or why we should really care I guess? It bugs me how he’s suppose to be like his mother but hear about her so little in conjunction to her son.

I will mention that in Celtic mythology the stag is the “king of the forest and protector of all its creatures” (idk if jkr used that as inspo) and with James’ animagus form and patronus taking the shape of a stag it implies the stag is a real reflection of who he is as a person. Them having the same patronus puts Harry in line again with his father again opposed to his mother. It’s just something that has never made sense to me. It’s like we’re being told two different things at once. It’s like we’re supposed to believe one thing while being told/shown another.

It’s all very strange to me. I apologize if this makes zero sense. It ended up wayyy longer than I intended but I’m a big fan of your blog and you write so well about HP (especially my love j/s) that I felt compelled to share this since I never have before. I don’t really have anyone to share it with so again I apologize if this is just a bit too out of left field and an incoherent mess. It’s just some thoughts. Feel free to ignore it. ❤️💛

Hey! First of all, no way am I ignoring this, it’s such a thoughtful and insightful message, thank you, and I have to reply (even if it’s taken me a while) <3 I completely agree, there are sooo many contradictions when it comes to Lily and James and Harry and the patronus. This is the issue I have with Harry’s Patronus as well - it’s so unnecessarily gendered even though it’s inconsistent with 1. what we’re told about Harry’s character in this instance and 2. the precedence established by Snape’s Patronus, Tonks’ patronus etc. But it’s just bad writing and I’m more than happy to call JKR out for that lmao. I think within the narrative we’re probably supposed to see aspects of both James and Lily in Harry by the end of the series, but Lily can feel like such a stock figure that it’s not completely clear, and there’s still a sway towards James because we hear from his friends about him, as you say, and James’ best friend plays a significant role in Harry’s life, etc, whereas the closest we see of Lily’s friends in Harry’s life is Snape being his teacher and hating him lol. 

It’s actually really sad that Sirius and Remus don’t mention Lily because we’re supposed to believe from the letter that Sirius and Lily had enough of a standalone friendship to communicate with each other. Probably it would be explained as there was just too much going on with the second war so Lily never came up, it was painful for Sirius maybe, but I do just think JKR hadn’t thought that far ahead and came up with the letter post-OotP. Harry also doesn’t seem to think much about Lily until he witnesses Snape’s memory. He hears her scream in PoA and he sees her come out of Voldemort’s wand in GoF but Lily is very much Mother and James is fleshed out more with Quidditch, the Animagus thing, Sirius, Remus. JKR does that with female characters, makes them mothers and only mothers, whether they had more defining attributes before that or not (there’s nothing wrong with being a mother but the older/non-mothers are outliers in the series which is something I find personally uncomfortable). 

And I think a lot of the blank space around Lily can be put down to how bad JKR is at writing women and female friendships. I can only really think of Hermione and Ginny as a positive one, and I feel like the tone around Cho/Marietta and Parvarti/Lavender is supposed to make them come across as a bit silly (I haven’t read the full series for a while so that’s just an impression I remember from…years and years ago). BUT also James is shoved at Harry from when he starts Hogwarts, Petunia wasn’t someone Harry could talk to about Lily and so perhaps he detached from her a bit or she just took a back seat because information about her was less accessible (but we also don’t really see Harry try). I don’t know if I believe that was deliberate for the Snape/Lily friendship reveal or not.

I totally agree that Harry doesn’t read as especially kind either - maybe merciful, re: Wormtail and Snape, like Lily sacrificing herself for him and that maybe is supposed to signal their shared innate goodness as I feel like Lily’s sacrifice is one of the things that is routinely repeated about her through the series. Lily’s temper is also one of the consistent things we see in both SWM and The Prince’s Tale, but I love that connection of James and Lily’s quickness to fight, especially as we know from the prophecy that they defied Dumbledore thrice.

I actually think it’s in James and Lily’s similarities that Lily’s attributes get lost and they get emphasised as James’ traits or attributed to James when they fit with what we know about Lily much more neatly. One thing that sticks out to me  is Slughorn calling Lily “cheeky”, and I like to think that Harry’s comments like “You don’t need to call me ‘sir’, Professor” are more of a Lily than a James thing, or at least a Lily as well as a James thing. Harry’s comments can be very dry and sarcastic and we don’t get much sarcasm from James, he’s very on the nose and goofy in his humour. You also mentioned Lily’s temper, and I think we see that in Harry in OotP and we also see his cutting remarks when he’s hurt or angry - “You might even have a scar now, if you’re lucky. . . . That’s what you want, isn’t it?” to Ron vs Lily’s “I’d wash your pants if I were you, Snivelly”/“You didn’t think it was such a freak’s school when you wrote to the headmaster and begged him to take you”, although I doubt that’s what Dumbledore meant lol. Maybe also the dissimilarities between James and Harry indicate which elements of Harry’s nature come from Lily.

Dumbledore saying that Harry’s “deepest nature” is most like Lily’s is in response to Snape saying that “he is his father over again”. But Harry is never shown to be popular or arrogant or spoiled or cruel in the ways that James is - which are the ways that Snape means and I think it’s important to recognise that Snape talking about Harry being like James and the ways that the reader sees that Harry is actually like James are quite different. There’s also quite a distinction between the point that Snape talks about (Harry = arrogant bully) vs the point that Dumbledore is talking about (Harry’s deepest, innermost parts of his soul are like Lily) - so maybe his “deepest nature” isn’t actually the Harry we see often but the Harry that we see in those critical moments. I also think it's probably a tactic on Dumbledore’s part to get Snape to see Harry objectively  and he knows that suggesting Snape will recognise parts of Lily in Harry is likely to get him to at least try to find those attributes.

Harry discovering that James wasn’t perfect, and was more like Dudley/Draco, is an important moment for him, especially when it comes shortly before Sirius’ death. It’s this moment of him coming to terms with the realisation that he has to be responsible for his own character, make his own choices rather than trying to emulate his parents, that he can’t rely on their reputation because their reputation isn’t universally positive (in James’ case). And while even then we don’t get much more of Lily, or a deeper interest in Lily which I think could have been very interesting, I think that the qualities we see Harry taking on from OotP onwards are probably those that liken his deeper nature to Lily’s. Harry doesn’t correlate distinctly or completely with what we see of either Lily or James in the series, but that’s not a lot. In fact in HBP Harry seems to seek alternate parental figures in Dumbledore and the Prince in the absence of Sirius and maybe the slight disillusionment from James (I don’t think this is all-encompassing by any means but I think it would be especially difficult for Harry to confront in the aftermath of Sirius’ death when James and Sirius are so closely aligned).

I love the stuff about the stag, and it makes me a bit :( because James clearly does make himself this protective presence in his friends’ lives but he’s also 21 himself so I struggle to see him as this full-blown patriarch (even though that’s his role in the series), much like it’s hard to see Lily as this homely Molly-Weasley-to-be because she’s also only 21! Interestingly the name ‘James’ means supplanter/substitute and we know that JKR does pay attention to names somewhat and it seems that in a lot of cases James is like substitute/second family for his friends/Lily. But I think probably calling him James rather than a wizard name was just to show that he had a normal, comfortable upbringing.

And before I can find another point to witter on about, I’ll finish by mentioning the great point that casquecest replied to the original post with, that Harry’s Patronus changed after he adjusted his view of James to be more realistic. I like this idea of Harry coming into himself more post-war and his Patronus changing to reflect that, maybe he doesn’t feel like he has to be a leader or protector anymore.

Ty again for this thoughtful message! <3

[rileyclaw]

“i’ll be the one taking care of you now

 i have to say it. i have been silent for too long . i really like catwalker’s hair . send tweet . i find it very gender

[tomatograter]

Do you think Dirk saying that he doesn't like to label himself as gay means he has internalized homophobia? Or does he really just don't like to put labels on himself? I've seen ppl saying it's homophobia but there's ppl in real life that don't feel comfortable with labels so I'm a bit confused honestly, cus we are talking about Dirk and he's... Dirk after all

Easy answer: Dirk is Gay.

Prolonged answer: I think it's kinda weird how some fandom discussion around "Dirk dodging the label in One pesterlog" has largely spiraled way outside of its original context to be talked about in a vacuum, especially when that context is crucial to understanding what is actually being said, AKA — it belongs to a deeply awkward conversation between Dirk and Roxy. One of Many they are implied to have had about the subject of Roxy's sustained, unwelcome, and oft drunken advances towards Dirk (& his splinters).

I'm going to reproduce it plus another bit of text down below, for the sake of comparison.

(To prevent the trickster text from looking like absolute shit, I have altered the background. Read the original here, if you're nasty: https://www.homestuck.com/story/5754 )

Now that we've been reacquainted with how and where that sentiment is expressed, let's try to break down what Dirk is doing here.

He is not receptive to Roxy's early advances, and spends most of the 'intro' for this conversation (not pictured) ignoring when Roxy flirts with him, until she gets upset at how 'boring' he is being right now.

Dirk is the one compelled to apologize.

He proceeds to shut the scenario down as an unwanted probability, eliciting further guilt-babbling from Roxy over how Dirk never wants to play along with the perfect traditional family fantasy, until she finally blows up and says it's because he's gay.

"I mean, yeah, that's what I thought."

Dirk, rather than saying I Am Not Gay, since he looooooves changing a conversational subject, claims that "Gay" is not entirely historically appropriate for this situation, given the non-negligible passage of time and the wildly dystopic circumstances* they find themselves in.

Dirk reassures Roxy he does still care about her.

Dirk is absolutely terrified of a similarly inclined (and intoxicated) Roxy up close. This is the most exclamations he's ever used.

Now, *These circumstances? The loss of 99% of the human race, including their society, customs, culture, and prejudices. (ALLEGEDLY.) It's important to remember that from Dirk and Roxy's side of the timetable, troll culture has been pushed as "the norm" for actual fucking centuries. HIC tried to recreate the caste system by artificially coloring human blood, leading to the death of billions. Faygo came out of the water tap, not water. Troll slang was incorporated into the English language. Humans ceased to organically reproduce. They were actively Discouraged from reproducing, since that's not something HIC could have total genetic control over; rendering traditional marriage and the concept of the nuclear family pointless.

You could also argue that same-gender relationships are not uncommon in Alternia, making "gay" altogether unnecessary by proxy, and that's true! But my point is this one: any union (or at least our society's holy concept of it) between straightie humans would be by definition undesirable under HIC's rule, too. She is the church, the president and the governing body. The population is only as good as they are assets for her to do whatever she wants with, including mass murder.

But wait! While that tracks… Roxy clearly still holds onto very 'conservative' definitions of romance for most of Homestuck. We see this multiple times. Dirk, as proved in conversations with Jake, uses 'gay' as an ironic pejorative. Suddenly it's not Historically Inaccurate anymore, Jake's interests are just gay.

Does this mean the context above is basically worthless, since they don't seem to have internalized it? No.

What must be kept in mind is this: Dirk and Roxy's only "active" link to de facto humanity is our society as it was in the early 2010's. Those glimpses they get by talking with jane and jake. They have all that dystopic context, yes, but the reality that seems the most "unfucked" to them for a grand majority of their lives are the halcyon years before the Condesce's rise to power: back when weed was illegal, BlogSpot was popular, movies sucked, MTV was still a hip channel, and gay generally meant something real bad. The wave of homophobia as a punchline or fear mongering tactic was at THE HEIGHTS. Marriage equality was a hot debate topic. Those were the dayz.

Dirk is keenly aware of the taboo implication the word "Gay" as a self-denomination carries. He's no dummy. But he's rarely direct with his intentions either. He's slippery as a bar of soap. (He's never "straight about his feelings", if you prefer.) And for a guy that cares so much about his reputation and maintaining a curated sense of utter coolness, he wants to avoid outing himself as any sort of weirdo no matter the cost.

But that's not all. I think the gravity of just how much Dirk believes he *owes* Roxy simply for existing as the last human in the same timeframe as her is a severely underplayed aspect of Dirk's core character, together with how much he tries to avoid her sexual advances only to end up feeling like absolute shit over it, because — if they truly are the last people on god's blighted earth, isn't he being "selfish" and "irrational" about not feeling shit for Roxy, in the grand scale of things? Is Roxy not his only friend in tangible reality, even if he avoids the mere suggestion of visiting her? Even if she gets black-out drunk and tries to push him into indulging her, regardless of how many times he's already said no?

(Spend enough time here and you realize how it directly mirrors the jane/jake experience.)

Dirk cares a lot about each and every one of his friends.

He pointedly adapts his speech based on whichever one of them he's talking to in an effort to express that investment. May it be reassuring Jane, fooling around with Jake, or trying to prevent Roxy from falling into a total catatonic doom-spiral; he avoids telling them anything that would be too crushing to hear. That's not what he's trying to do here. Not to say that he isn't bitchy sometimes, but that’s far from the central thing he does. The Epilogues have retroactively led people to believe that Dirk abhors and despises every single person he's ever been close to before (god forbid) LIKING them, and I think buying too much into that assumption ignores the foundations of his canon text, as well as the central motivation behind 99% of his actions in the story. This is the guy that grew up on Friendship Is Magic, has a picture of rainbow dash shamefully glued to one wall and a rainbow poster of Jake's symbol stapled to another, and everything he does is a little cringe attempt to demonstrate his worth by showing how much he cares about people, even when he's punching his actual feelings down instead of up and saying them.

Which brings us back to the load-bearing part of this question: Admitting to Roxy that there is absolutely no fucking way he will ever agree to having her babbys because he is gay is precisely the opposite of what Dirk wants to say, if his intention isn't pulverizing her. So he doesn't. And his worry on this regard is such that it prevents Dirk from even telling Roxy that he does love her, in the platonic sense, as a friend and hell-earth survivor, because he knows that specificity is what that would disappoint her greatly. (He only ever confesses this to Jane, on the death slabs.)

But also I think this is a really funny visual of Dirk's relationship with the word gay, to put statements into perspective:

[shuadotcom]

Convention Crush | KNJ

➛ Summary: You’re spending your first anime convention alone, in one half of a couple’s cosplay, until you meet a new group of friends and your other fictional half. ➛ Pairing: Namjoon x Gender Neutral!Reader ➛ Genre: Fluff, slice of life ➛ Rating: PG ➛ Warnings: Like two curse words but nothing else ➛ Word Count: 1.7k ➛ A/N: For BHQ’s Anime Club Event! Thank you @nightowls388​ for the prompts! 💚

nightowls388 said: Carese darling!! May I has Namjoon in spirited away with dialogue prompt 10 please :D

The hotel is loud and bustling with life as you walk through the doors. A group of teenagers dressed as various Naruto characters runs past you, arms back and backs bent in classic “Naruto run” stance. You weave through a group of My Hero Academia cosplayers to the registration table to get your convention pass.

Once the lanyard is around your neck, you beeline for the hotel’s attached Starbucks. You’ll need the caffeine if you want to survive your first anime convention alone. You’re supposed to be here with your best friend, but Jungkook decided to catch the flu two days ago. The four-day pass was non-refundable, and you weren’t about to lose out on $70 that you barely had to begin with. So, here you are, alone in a sea of over-excited cosplayers and exhausted parents, in one half of a couple’s costume, not even sure where to begin.

“Hi!” A group of teenagers dressed in various Studio Ghibli cosplays approaches you as you head to the escalator for the main convention floor. “You’re Chihiro, right?” A girl dressed as Princess Mononoke asks, gesturing to your pink bathhouse uniform.

“I am.” You offer a nervous smile, unsure where this is going.

“Can we take a picture with you?! We don’t have anyone from Spirited Away in our group!”

“Oh, yeah, sure.” They all crowd around you, squishing you between a Howl and a Kiki as they get a passerby to take a picture of you all. As soon as the camera shutter goes off a few times, they all thank you in a rush and are gone just as quickly, sprinting up the escalator and disappearing into the crowd.

Still reeling from how fast-paced the interaction was, you finally step onto the escalator and fish the convention schedule from your backpack to scan the upcoming events. An ask the cast panel for Demon Slayer could be interesting, not that you’re sure what that consists of, but that’s one of your favorite anime and you have to start somewhere.

Too absorbed in the schedule, you don’t notice the group of men crossing in front of you at the same time you step off the escalator until you bump into one of them, dropping the pamphlet.

“Shit, I’m sorry!” you reach down to grab the dropped paper, luckily still clutching your coffee safely to your chest.

“No problem, I got it,” One of the men bends at the same time as you and picks your pamphlet up. It’s not until you really look at him that you notice the black bob wig, blue pants, and white Haori.

“Oh! You’re Haku!”

He flashes you a dimpled smile as he takes in your outfit. “And you’re Chihiro. What are the odds.” You share a laugh, both of your hands grasping either side of the pamphlet longer than is probably necessary.

“Ahem.” A throat clear next to you has you both snapping out of the moment you share, remembering the other people he’s with. You make eye contact with a grey-haired man wearing the signature volleyball costume from Haikyuu. Checking the number on his jersey, you deduce he’s dressed as Sugawara. “This is a super cute moment and all, but the AMV contest starts in like fifteen minutes, and we need to get good seats. You can come with us if you want.” He proposes the last part to you.

“Ah, well I was going to go to an ask the cast panel.” Haku, Sugawara, and the other two men with them dressed as Ash Ketchum and Eren Yeager all give you the same pointed look.

“Is this your first anime convention?” Haku asks.

“Yes...how did you know?”

“No one who comes to these things often would ever put themselves through an ask the cast panel. It’s just a bunch of high schoolers being loud and obnoxious, pretending to be the characters. Total shit show.” Sugawara says matter of factly. “Were your friends really gonna have you suffer through that?”

“I’m actually here alone.” The four of them share a look before Haku turns back to you.

“That means you have to hang out with us. We can’t let you fall into any first-timer traps.” He shoots you another smile that’s all dimples, and you feel your pulse quicken. Even under the wig, he’s the most attractive man you’ve seen all day. Maybe even all your life.

“Okay.” You may have just met these men, but you don’t have any internal alarm bells going off about spending time with them. Your possible blooming crush on Haku aside, you don’t feel any negative vibes.

“Now that that’s settled let’s go! I’m not sitting in the back of the room for the contest!” Sugawara takes the lead as you all fall in line and follow him to one of the main meeting rooms.

As the day wears on, you’re more than happy that you decided to spend your time with your new friends instead of wandering alone, letting the four of them take you to various panels that they deem worthy of your time. Haku, whom you now know as Namjoon, is nothing but sweet to you all day. He explains that he and his friends have been going to anime conventions since high school, and now that they’re all seasoned college students, they still make it a point to attend. He mentions that he’s dressed as Haku because Jin, his roommate who’s the most handsome Erin Yeager you’ve witnessed at the convention, was supposed to be Chihiro but backed out last minute for the “cooler” cosplay instead.

Sugawara, who you find out is named Yoongi, is roommates with the fourth member of the quartet, Hoseok, dressed as a very compelling Ash Ketchum. When you compliment him, he flashes you the biggest, sunniest smile you’ve ever laid eyes on. After the AMV contest, they take you to a History of Horror in Manga discussion, much to Hoseok’s constant complaints. Around lunchtime, the five of you leave the hotel and cross the street to look for food. After Jin and Hoseok argue over sushi versus burgers they ultimately have you choose. You opt for chicken, much to everyone’s delight.

Out of everyone, you find yourself talking more one on one to Namjoon, finding out you have quite a few things in common. You both share a love for music and nature and are plant parents, although you tend to kill more plants than keep them alive. Namjoon promises he’ll give you tips on keeping your plant babies alive and grins at you for what feels like the fiftieth time of the day. Each time, your stomach does somersaults, and you feel your skin heat up.

At the end of the night, as you’re all leaving the 18+ Bad Fanfiction Reading panel, you almost don’t want to part ways.

“We can’t let you leave without getting your number!” Jin shoves his phone into your hands, demanding you put your digits in. The other men do the same, with Namjoon being last, hand shaking as he presents his phone. A series of four beeps come through on your phone, signifying the text messages from the group.

All of you are staying upstairs in the hotel rooms, so together, you head for the guest-only elevators as Yoongi announces the panels and events he’s planning for you all to go to tomorrow. Hoseok makes it a point to say that you’re included and that you’re now friends, therefore you have no choice but to spend the rest of the convention with them. Of course, you don’t object and agree to meet them downstairs tomorrow morning.

Your room is on the 8th floor, while their rooms are on the 10th, so you reach your floor first. Preparing to say your goodbyes for the night, you step out of the elevator and send a wave, but before the doors close, Namjoon is shoved out beside you.

“Joon will walk you to your room!” Hoseok calls as the doors close.

“Yeah, we’ll see you in a few, Namjoon!” Yoongi adds, then the doors are shut, and the elevator keeps going up.

Namjoon scratches the back of his neck sheepishly. “Uh, please lead the way. I’ll make sure you get to your room, okay.”

Feeling nervous yourself, you simply nod as he follows you the short distance to your room.

“This is me,” you move to the door, and you both stop in front of it. Seconds tick by with the two of you staring at one another while you try and come up with something to say.

“Today was great,” Namjoon says at the same time you do, making both of you chuckle. “Sorry, go ahead first.”

“I just wanted to say thank you for inviting me along with you all today. I had a lot of fun and didn’t think I could’ve done so if I was by myself.”

“Really?” Namjoon says, looking surprised. “I thought we would’ve been a little too high energy for you. You really had a good time? Today made you happy?”

“Yes. I am happy. Because I was able to meet someone like you.” You blurt the latter part out and watch as his eyes widen and a dark shade of red blossoms over his cheeks.

“I, uh, I’m glad you feel that way. I’m really happy I was able to meet someone like you too.” Namjoon’s eyes dart down to your lips momentarily before he lets out a cough. “Well, I’ll see you in the morning. Make sure to meet us downstairs at ten on the dot. If you’re late, Jin will probably nag you for the rest of the convention.” He hesitates momentarily, then reaches out to pull you into a hug. You instantly melt in his hold, inhaling the warm cinnamon scent of whatever Namjoon’s got on.

Your grip on his waist tightens at the same time his arms around your shoulders do. You’re not sure who pulls away first, but reluctantly, you do release each other. Namjoon gives you another goodbye, and then he’s shuffling down the hallway and back towards the elevator.

Once he’s around the corner, you let yourself into your room, his scent still in your nose, and the feeling of his toned arms around you still lingering. How you managed to run into a great group of friends on the first day, you don’t know, but you’re not about to question it. The only thing you worry about is how you can make your cosplay planned for day two as cute as possible, now that you’ve got someone to impress.

[bailey-reaper]

Okay, okay, hear me out - a drabble about Barok and s/o's first meeting, but it's the Hades and Persephone AU 🙏

Of Life & Death

Notes: Oh anon, believe me, I am listening - I love world mythologies, and this is easily one of my favourites among the Greek Myths! The Hades & Persephone 'trope' is so compelling as a concept!

S/O is gender neutral (they/them pronouns). Barok refers to them using petnames.

Content Warnings: abduction; power imbalance; vague/implied coercion

While I love Greek Mythology, I'm going to side step the obviously problematic familial element to the Hades & Persephone Myth by approaching this from the perspective that the Persephone character is actually a mortal who Barok wants to take as his lover.

──────≪⊰✥⊱≫───────

They were known in their village for being a young person who bore an 'old soul', for despite their tender years they possessed an impressive amount of perception and intelligence. It was common for others to confide in them and seek out their guidance on what should be done when problems arose. They were trustworthy, too, and kept quiet counsel on behalf of their friends and fellow townsfolk.

As a result, the town were incredibly fond of their dependable beacon of wisdom.

Unbeknownst to them, however, their dear villager had caught the eye of someone else: the very God of the Underworld himself, who grew weary of having nothing but his own counsel to confide in. How he longed for this one, who was a beautiful as they were smart; how he yearned to hold them and be held in turn; how he dreamt of them, and how it hurt when he woke and found his bed empty.

He knew it was taboo for Gods to fall in love with mortals, for the mortals were supposed to be little more than playthings in their grand design, but he could not bring himself to dismiss the feeling that had taken such a firm root in his heart.

The Lord of the Underworld loved this mortal and wanted no other.

For a while he agonised over how he might approach the task at hand – being a God of the Underworld, he could only claim dominion over a mortal when they reached the end of their life. The last thing he wanted was to kill them. Even if death was his domain, he knew it caused the mortals such suffering to think their lives were finite and that one day their flesh would fail them. Death was something that put fear in humanity, and rightly so. It was at the behest of the Gods that mortals were afraid of such things, for fear tempered their souls and made them strong.

Of course, humans were little more than toys and trinkets to the majority of the pantheon – no different to the curios that mortals fascinated themselves with. Yet he saw this one differently; they were not a thing to be used and discarded once the novelty wore off. No. In his eyes, they were far more vital.

"You seem more dour than ever," observed one of his divine brethren when they visited on official business from the heavens, "And I had not thought that such a thing could be possible for a God of the Underworld!"

He snorted, "... There are matters that weigh heavily upon my mind, they are nothing you need concern yourself with."

"Oh? Perhaps I can help, a problem shared and all that..."

". . . ." at first he considered scoffing and telling them to leave, but perhaps some part of him was starting to weaken, ". . . I desire one who is not a God."

"Ah... is that all?" the other divinity replied with a smile, "Then surely the answer is to make them divine."

"Make them... divine?" it had not occurred to him to do so, but it was as simple a solution as could be. If he turned their mortal soul into something all together more celestial, then they could be with him in the Underworld without the usual laws applying – they would not need to die, they would not need to toil in the depths of Hades or wander along the banks of the Lethe. They could be with him, in his palace, as his beloved spouse, "Yes... that is an answer."

"Of course..." the other God mused, "That's no easy feat... appealing to the Fates is quite the challenge..."

Yet, the Lord of the Underworld refused to be deterred. And so, he called for an audience with the Fates and appealed to them.

──────≪⊰✥⊱≫───────

Maybe they pitied him or perhaps they were in a mischievous mood, but, for whatever reason, the Fates had agreed to help him and he could wait no longer.

It was a sunny day and his beloved was in the forests that lay near to their simple coastal village. They had been collecting wild berries and medicinal herbs to help the village healer, when the earth suddenly split open before them and an imposing man emerged at the helm of an impressive chariot wrought of black iron and pulled by two jet black steeds with eyes that glowed like the core of a fire.

They fell back, shocked, "Who.. who are you?!"

"... I am the Lord of the Underworld," he replied as he alighted from his impressive transport and walked over to check they were unharmed, "And I have appeared before you today because I have been in love with you for some time... I cannot deny these feelings any longer... I shall take you with me, to my domain, where you will stay by my side as my spouse."

"W...What?!" it was clear the words of this deity were the truth, they had no reason to doubt what he said, "But... why...? I'm not a divine being... I'm just an ordinary human."

"But you will not be much longer, not when I crown you as the one who will rule by my side. Then, you will become divine as I am," he took their hand and lifted them effortlessly into his arms, "Come, my beloved, I cannot bear to be without you another moment longer..."

"W-Wait! Please!" they uttered, but it was futile. He mounted his chariot once more, and the two of them disappeared into the bowels of the earth.

Unbeknownst to the dour God, however, was the fact that his antics had been seen and the villagers would look to appeal to the King of the Gods for the return of their beloved, innocent villager.

But that is a tale for another time...

[kurowrites]

The Live-In Boyfriend - Chapter 1

Looking for live-in boyfriend, the title read.

It had only been put up the day before.

Well, well, Wei Ying thought to himself. Isn’t that exactly what I was looking for?

He clicked on the link and quickly read through the text of the advert.

Since you all enabled me yesterday - have a chapter of Wei Ying being supremely stupid. Link to AO3.

(Note that this fic is going to get mature later on. Also don’t try this at home pls.)

---

Wei Ying usually wasn’t the kind of person that eavesdropped on the conversations of people he didn’t know. Most of the time, it wasn’t worth the effort of spying, anyway.

(Too many boring people in this world.)

But something about the day he’d had so far, and the way the two girls seated next to him kept giggling and exclaiming in (pretended?) shock, made him listen in. It wasn’t like he had anything better to do. He was just sitting there, sipping on his depression coffee, trying to decide what he was supposed to do next.

“A website?” the girl with a truly impressive set of pink lacquered nails exclaimed. “Isn’t that super sketchy?”

She emphasised ‘sketchy’ by tapping her long, sharp nails onto the tabletop.

“Noo, not at aaaall,” the other girl, dressed in a figure-hugging dress the colour of a ripe banana, replied. “You have to provide identification and they do a background check on you, to make sure you’re not a criminal or something. The sugar daddies too, of course.”

“Oh really?” Pink Nails asked, and immediately looked a lot more interested in the topic.

Well, Wei Ying had to agree with Pink Nail’s interest – he could use one of those sugar daddies himself. Someone willing to pay for his expenses, that would be nice. A lot better than being homeless, at any rate.

“Yeah, and you can even chat with them before meeting them,” Banana said, twirling her hair around her finger coquettishly. “It’s not like I’m going to go out with just any guy.”

“And that’s where you met him?”

“Yeah,” Banana said, leaning back a little, clearly satisfied to have the undivided attention of her companion. “You have lots of choices, and you can put in your preferences, too.”

She leaned forward again, and lowered her voice to a fake whisper that did nothing to make her voice less audible over the soft café music.

“I was really lucky with my current sugar daddy. He’s really generous because he has an established career and a lot of money. He likes kinky sex, but that’s fine, because he also kinda gets off on me sleeping with other guys, so it’s not like I can’t still go out and do whatever I want. I’m just providing him with company and a pretty thing to hang off his arm whenever he goes to a party or something.”

The two women laughed, and returned to the discussion of the advantages of this website.

Wei Ying’s attention was caught. He looked down at the sad little weekend bag next to his chair that contained nearly all of Wei Ying’s worldly possessions, discounting the boxes of books he had managed to stow away in Jiang Yanli’s attic. He’d had to sell all his furniture because he had no space where he could put it anymore. The landlord had kicked him out despite Wei Ying’s best attempts at negotiation (curse his entire bloodline), and now Wei Ying was, essentially, homeless. He had no idea how to weather the next few weeks. He had no stable address, and he needed to look for a new job. Things weren’t looking good for him.

So, he sipped on his possibly last coffee for a long time and pretended not to listen in to the conversation of the two women next to him. And when Banana finally mentioned the name of website she had been using, he felt compelled to casually unpack his own laptop, make use of the café’s free Wi-Fi, and enter the name of the website into his browser.

He was just curious, that was all.

His search returned with the result that this website was in fact the equivalent of a dating website, only for sugar babies and other forms of… special companionship. The company claimed to be classy and strict with their background checks, made assertions of quality and high customer satisfaction. And the registration as a potential sugar baby, companion, or whatever else they wanted to call it, was free.

Wei Ying paused for a moment, wondering if he really should do such a thing. All assertions from the provider aside, it was still a risky thing.

He took another look at the bag at his feet. It couldn’t get much worse than it already was, could it?

He clicked the ‘new account’ button and filled out the application without a second thought.

---

Looking for the right sugar-person wasn’t exactly a simple thing to do, Wei Ying realised about three pages in. He had decided early on that the gender of this potential sugar person didn’t actually matter, but that had the simultaneous advantage and disadvantage of increasing his possible matches considerably. He wasn’t sure how to make a choice in this wild new world that had suddenly opened himself up to him.

He was a bit nervous about the having sex part, too. He tried to imagine having sex with someone he didn’t really know and maybe didn’t find very attractive, but he drew a complete blank. It might be better to stay on the safe side and choose someone who didn’t have sex as a prerequisite. That might work out better for everyone involved.

God, with all these options and decisions, it was as complicated as looking for a job.

Well, technically, if he did it right, it might be a job. Well, not really, but he might get enough money to keep him afloat for a little bit. And with enough money, he might be able to both afford a decent apartment and find a well-paying new job.

He absent-mindedly scrolled past adverts looking for highly specific… qualifications that Wei Ying definitely didn’t have, and was considering giving up when he saw an advert for the same city he was living in.

Looking for live-in boyfriend, the title read.

It had only been put up the day before.

Well, well, Wei Ying thought to himself. Isn’t that exactly what I was looking for?

He clicked on the link and quickly read through the text of the advert.

Looking for live-in boyfriend

The ideal candidate must be clean, quiet, obedient, and sophisticated. Must be able to play his part convincingly around relatives, business associates, and friends. Good table manners and skilful socialising are required.

Physical relations are not required, but negotiable if so desired. Strictly no romantic entanglements. Affairs during the duration of the contract will lead to immediate termination.

I offer a large apartment with own private room. All ensuing costs (rent, food, clothing, allowance etc.) are covered.

The advert didn’t reveal much about the writer and his personality, so it was difficult to say anything about how well they’d fit together. But the man offered a room! Without the prerequisite of sex!

He clicked on the profile of this potential sugar daddy to find out more about him. The man, who went by L. Z., was the same age as Wei Ying, and had been working in his family’s company ever since he graduated university. Someone who had been born into wealth, probably.

He lived alone and was openly gay, so his family would expect him to bring a man to public events and family dinners. His hobbies included music, reading and tea ceremony. All in all, Wei Ying started to wonder if he was being catfished, because the age and occupation said successful young man, but the rest of it said boring middle-aged uncle with a receding hairline.

But what did Wei Ying care about boring when such a perfect opportunity presented itself to him? He didn’t want some kind of old, kinky dude. He simply wanted a place to stay, and if that stay came with an allowance and some social contact, it would be perfect for him. He had good table manners. And he did well at socialising. Most of the time.

He decided that ‘quiet’ and ‘obedient’ were relative things. He could be quiet! Sometimes! If he was reading interesting things!

He was going to contact this person, worries and fears be damned. What use was it to wait around? If this man was actually for real, he might get snatched up by someone else quickly.

He clicked on the 💌 button on the sidebar of the profile, and typed out a quick message.

Hi L. Z.!

My name is Wei Ying. I live in the same city as you and as coincidence would have it, I’m currently looking to be a live-in boyfriend! We’re the same age, too, so I think we would work very well as a couple!

I also like reading (if you have a library, I’d be all over that) and I think I can safely promise not to have any affairs while we’re dating. As for the rest, I think it would be best to judge for yourself. I’m free the next few days, so I have time for a personal meeting!

I’m a little curious though – why are you looking for a live-in boyfriend? Not to judge you, since I’m obviously responding to your advert, but you seem like a man that’s very put together. You probably could choose anyone you wanted, so why an advert?

Best, Wei Ying

He didn’t really think that he would get an answer soon, and half expected his message to go ignored, but it took barely an hour until a notification pinged on his phone, indicating that he’d received a reply.

He eagerly clicked the ‘view message’ button.

Dear Wei Ying

Thank you for your message.

I agree with you. Someone from the same city and of the same age would be a good potential partner. If you do not mind, I would like to invite you to my apartment for a personal meeting. We can meet in a café if you are more comfortable meeting on neutral ground, but you should know where you would live before you make any decisions.

To answer your question: I am not interested in a romantic relationship, but my family has been concerned about my happiness ever since I came out as gay. They want to see me in a fulfilling relationship. I want to make them stop worrying. A contractual arrangement will take care of these issues. Once we terminate the relationship, it would also provide me with a good reason not to date for some time.

Best regards,

Lan Zhan

Wei Ying gaped a little. That was a… very decisive statement. This Lan Zhan certainly didn’t beat around the bush.

Oh god, was he really catfished? Human trafficking, perhaps? But then…

He had no time to lose, and getting a home and money as a package deal was very tempting. If Jiang Yanli ever got wind of this, she might strangle him with her own bare hands. But well. She never would get wind of it. Wei Ying would make sure of that.

He pulled out his laptop again, and typed out a second answer.

Hi Lan Zhan!

Nice to meet you again. 😊

Meeting you at the apartment is fine, just know that I’m going to inform a friend of my whereabouts and check in with them to make sure everything is fine.

Tell me your address and a time that works for you!

Best,

Wei Ying

He sent the message and within a few minutes, he had an address and a time – the next day, at 5.30 pm. Lan Zhan also assured him that he was perfectly fine with Wei Ying telling a friend where he was. So maybe not a catfish, after all?

Wei Ying immediately looked for the address online, and it was a nice, modern building in the centre of town. Not some kind of seedy warehouse or an abandoned house. If he ended up disappearing in that part of town, there would probably be witnesses.  

He sent a short confirmation to Lan Zhan, telling him that he would be there at the desired time. And then, he spent the rest of the evening panicking about what he had done.

He just barely remembered that he needed to contact Nie Huaisang and use him as security. Nie Huaisang was the only one he could think of right now that wouldn’t try to talk him out of this. Jiang Cheng would just straight up murder him.

He had committed now. There was no way back.

---

His internet search had already informed him that the apartment was in the better part of town, so Wei Ying had expected a rather classy apartment building. What he hadn’t expected was that said apartment building came with an actual concierge. He’d never had to go through a concierge to meet any of his friends so far. The entrance hall almost looked like a hotel.  

Good gracious, this might all be an elaborate prank.

On the other hand, if he disappeared, now he had another witness.

He walked up to the concierge’s desk and smiled at the man behind the desk winningly.

“Hi, my name is Wei Ying. I’m here to meet Lan Zhan.”

The man gave him a critical look, from his ponytail down to the thick black leather boots he always wore, and picked up the phone in front of him.

He entered a number and let it ring a few times.

“Good evening, Mr. Lan,” the concierge said when someone picked up on the other end of the line. “A Mr. Wei is here to see you. Yes, understood. I will send him up immediately.”

The concierge came out from behind his desk and directed Wei Ying to the elevator. He held the door open for Wei Ying and pushed the button for the right floor, then bid him goodbye.

“Thank you!” Wei Ying called through the closing elevator doors, but the concierge was already out of sight.

Oh well.

He was going to meet Lan Zhan. Right now.

He quickly pulled out his mobile phone and tapped out a message to Nie Huaisang.

[Wei Ying, 05:29 pm] I’m going up to the apartment now. IT COMES WITH A CONCIERGE. 😱

The door pinged and opened onto an empty hallway with elegantly tiled floor and a tasteful but abstract mural on the wall. Wei Ying stepped out of the elevator and looked around curiously. Which way was he supposed to go?

“Wei Ying?”

There, at the end of the hallway, a man stood in the frame of an opened door.

This must definitely be a catfish, Wei Ying decided then and there.

There was no way that a man this beautiful needed his help.

[misterbitches]

I ship muren and li cheng bc i only saw it through gifs then i watched this episode cos i was like im only starting this show if they kiss im waiting and they did and it was nice and i got so anxious that i was about to fucking vomit. I really like them together. The top/bottom shit is dumb and i hope if they must mention it they all build a bridge and get over it so they can switch cos who gives a shit. I didnt realize how large they all are like most “tall” men on tv are lying. But bc that kid is so thin and tall and the other one (idk the stepbrother) is huge too. Li cheng is shorter than them both but more ~manly~ but still short so why doesnt he take a DICK UP HIS BUTT XD since that’s all that fucking matters and there’s only 2 genders and 2 eays to have sex lmao so nothing else otherwise ur screwed

Hd a terrible past couple of weeks personally and because i keep seeing my peopl eget murdered and things ripped from us ^_____^ anyway here’s Some libertatrian communist dumb bitch discoars so i’ll tag it:

keep in mind these are my opinions’”” when i engage in discourse. I am not the end all be all and I don’t need you to agree. There’s some shit I am non-negotiable on but thsi is just exchanging of information. Any authoratative tone I take on comes from my beliefs, my life, my experiences, and what I choose to cultivate as a person and an artist. I dont have control over your feelings, you do. If it hurts you then either tell me the issue and be PRECISE about it, understand that context matters which is why i type so much in engagement, and do not fucking lie or misconstrue my words. Do not call me western ever in your life either. I am a black-american. I have adhd and bc i am a black woman if ur automatically thinking im brolic i am accepting money in my paypal for ur wellbeing to get me to shut the fuck up.Thanks.

The stepbrothers storyline is stupid and lazy writing. I really want to counter people that say it’s written well and that it’s interesting because it isn’t. Even if it was illicit and fucked we can write a story out about this. Let’s rethink what they could have done shall we:

- become stepbrothers at about 16 and their parents mismanage the relationship and they fail in trying to get an integrated family together (this is what happened in the #iconic transit girls and that was fuckin’ weird but hey dude guess what we watched it and it was weird but not unethical and we know one is like 19 and the other is 21 and a girl so it’s like wow you avoided so much and handled their stepsister story very…….um lightly given the end lmao but it was there and people had AGENCY)

-OR you realize that freak is obsessed with him and then he realizes it and is like “bitch i swear to god” and in typical shtity trope BL fashion they can find a way from obsession, to loss and independence when you lose your obsession, to “love” if they choose

- have the fucked up shit but make it clear what the issues are and you literally cannot write your way out of it so do not try

But why can’t fucked up things be shown? Also this is realistic.

0. Well according to you but no one said that they can’t. So that’s on your interpretation of critique (that is, again, not bullying or harassment.) They can, i just gave plenty of scenarios in which it is affective and not just annoying to witness, trope-y, and frankly ridiculous and offensive. Sorry! They don’t do it well. You can come up with alternatives too. See #2 btw.

1. No it isn’t doing a good job of reflecting life because life has consequences. The exaggeration in drama doesn’t mean the arc shouldn’t be there. Almost always things that aren’t heavy with the message or meant to be sobering in a deep way are COMPELLING. The realism is the basis for art because we are human. This is not the way real humans act.

Someone said Tharn Type was mature and I had to laugh because no, no one acts that way and is “in love” if they act that way that means they fucking hate each other and they’re immature and frankly it’s just not that interesting for many of us to watch because the dramatization of the “realism” is fucking bonkers. That was such poor writing it is unbelievable and someone has the audacityt o say it’s how real adults act. Fucking murder me if I’m with someone for 7 years and we break up over a miscommunication and for some reason I am not as horny as my always horny boyfriend. The fuck? What kind of lives do you lead? Either you are not an adult or you are an adult who needs therapy.

I also hear the “realistic” argument but then people try and temper it with “but also it’s fiction.” What do you think fiction is? Why do you think filmmaking exists? Number one, it’s propaganda in the sense that you want others to buy into your presentation and see what you see. That means that the creators are telling people and influencing them WITH ART BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT IT IS about their feelings around a situation. That’s why it is imperative to be responsible as a filmmaker and artist and underline the deepness of creepiness if that’s what they want. If they want to relay that rape sometimes ok and psychos are crazy so they get boy (??!?!?!? BITCH?) then they achieved it with no innovative information. We know people get raped bc we are human beings and many of us live with that fear. You know, being the target demo and all. And bc BL loves that trope it’s rape fantasy peddled to young people and women. Just like shitty wattpad fics or NYT best sellers. Hooray, what now? Or are you trying to purport that this isn’t glorified fanfiction? Which it literally is

2. This is the issue with these shows. No one is saying that fucked up shit cannot be shown. There’s a film about a woman who is raped and she falls in love with her rapist (because he was masked but i think we find out later that she knows. Binoche is in it.) I have no desire for that film—i think it’s by a man and i extra dont care—but I hear it’s sort of powerful for many. I heard it was a good film. But the act itself is always eschewed and the conflict comes from how fucking ridiculous it is especially finding out that she knows. The power imbalance adn the possibility. They may not have handled it in a way I would have cared for but it was there.

There’s simply no imagination because these people do not care that much and aren’t great writers and filmmakers because they simply do not have to be. Sorry.

The industry doesn’t rely on the best they rely on efficiency (this is everywhere.) You can tell by the camera angles, the editing, the camera itself (idk if it is multicam but the flatness is typical soap flatness without the glowboxes to soften their faces.) Simple constant lighting. Now the surroundings are mostly beautiful. But even to some of the costumes. And those edits are abysmal, some of that camera work.

So with all that said even with the couple I extremely enjoy I see its (H4) faults. Add into that a lazily thrown together “shocking” love and if they are trying to get us to feel a type of way about its sexiness they fail. This is why movies like 50sog, 365 days, etc aren’t enjoyable to people because it’s fucking strange situations that they dont want to entangle or make enjoyable to viewers across the board. They know what people will take. It’s just that bitch what are we here for if even the sexiness isn’t there for ur stupid story.

At least with that teenager and 30 yr old man in MODC (which i do not love but i like them in theory if it wasnt totally repulsive to me and also if it was developed in a way that was good TO ME) they had their, er, “sex appeal” i talk about this as well the main couple in MODC to me, visually, was a miss. Not bc whatshisface was small and stuff but bc he was so sickly and they needed that to propel the story but it was just not appealing given how the story progressed. A missed opportunity in tying the two together besides making him look waif-y and sickly only to have the “did ur mom die in a car crash? No, cancer” type of move in not another teen movie. But the opposite. And not funny. Wayne tho????? GORL. Eggs. Cracked.

fandoms have a very warped sense of harrassment and discourse.

Most fandoms have harassers who are “protecting” the cast and crew who don’t need their protection (or maybe the crew does since they probably dont get paid well but why the fuck would anyone care about that lol) but very few have the people who have concerns or massive critique about the show are not going to be “bullying.”

If people are saying “if you like xyz, u suck” then sure it may suck for you to see but who fucking cares. Either talk to the person or don’t be friends with them. That is not bullying or harrassment. Things that are shitty get criticized. Fuck, things that aren’t shitty don’t. Get away from this idea of cancel culture and people misunderstanding the story. We have the ability to.

Think beyond your noses of personal preference. You don’t have to convince people of what you believe. Discussing it is good but critique is not bullying, harrassment, or hate. Neither is fucking roasting shit because even this shit I like (manner of death lets say) deserves it. Art is meant to be critiqued and if you dont fucking like the bullshit people make then say it. They know stupid stories like this are scandalous and they don’t give a shit in how to present them.

And guess what? You won’t like everybody. Many people can’t stand me i’m sure. Oh well. I mean frankly I don’t like that and I feel very unsettled when I don’t feel understood. That’s ok! I have to temper it. Sometimes calm myself down. I won’t get anything and everything I want. And you won’t like every opinion and sometimes it’s like “man am i a dummy?” But the part of growing up is fucking maanging that and beng honest about “bashing and harrassment” and “bullying” and growing up. Yuo can like what you want the “let people like what they want thing” is so fucking juvenile and THAT is not the real world. Which is probably why so many people feel that way, they dont want to live in the real world. Unfortunately, you do.

Think beyond our noses of personal preference and what we feel emotionally in conjunction with others. You don’t have to convince people of what you believe. And you can say things that you believe to be true but it doesn’t make them so or maybe it isn’t received that way to people. And many times we learn new things in the discussions “oh shit i didn’t see it that way” right? Discussing it is good but critique is not bullying, harrassment, or hate. Neither is fucking roasting shit because even this shit I like (manner of death lets say) deserves it. Art is meant to be critiqued and if you dont fucking like the bullshit people make then say it. They know stupid stories like this are scandalous and they don’t give a shit in how to present them. Usually the “opposition” in these situations aren’t the popular beliefs that permeate through society. Trust me lmao

Antiblackness

Antiblackness is a thing. It permeates everywhere. It permeates in this genre and it permeates in fandom. Get it the fuck together. Also do not conflate cultural relativism with being repsectful. They are not barbarians, they are smart human beings either making work or deciding to. We all have diff cultures but we have fucking sense in what is respectful and not. And if we don’t we fucking learn. You cannot excuse things and say “oh culture” when you have 0 idea of that culture or actual people who are radical etc and are fighting against it. Additionally the word westerner is an ignorant term when referring to people in the US or UK who are black. Because we are not. We extend sympathy to other groups and empathy since we know so there is no inherent power imbalance between a black viewer and their subject. Don’t suggest that because it’s wrong and ahistorical and contextless.

FIRST the fallacy of representation as freedom makes people fucking complacent, individualistic, and doesn’t let them think critically. Consumption and discourse around consumption is not helping material conditions of the marginalized communities in your home, the black ones who are ignored, those intersectionalized in these communities. Groups talk about art and what it means for them outside of just what we see and because we also don’t have access to a bunch of Thai reviews or what movements or going on we are less likely to know if we don’t FUCKING SEARCH for it. Because art is constant...which leads me to....

Representation is difficult. It matters and it doesn’t.

Tthese shows are not meant to overturn the LGBTQ+ community.

There are queer filmmakers and artists in these countries. Deep illustrious film careers or even TV that is moving and deliberate. We can even see it with the dude from “your name engraved” in their short series he was in beforehand. BL is no wa pejorative because it is simply not “qu**r” storytelling whatever that means. But know it has always existed everywhere and there are also out artists or radical artists in all these countries who do no respect mediums that are cash-grabs and poorly made.

ex: As much as “Like in the Movies” sort of isnt for me and is a bit hamfisted you can tell how much love goes into that. Love of the characters, acting, and message. Yes it’s cringey to see some of the lines (like very tbh subtlety wasnt exactly their strong suit) and yea naming them after lenin and marx is just 0ihgoaudgijposkagjihou BUT GUESS WHAT? THEY FUCKING DID IT. THEY TRIED. And class was a large component as well bc u cant fuckin ignore it. The show is aware of the machinations in its world as a show but also in the philippines and for a fuckin reason. And duatarte? Loooooooool so like yea not so sure bl makes him love his ppl but the show isnt trying to do that

It’s not a transgressive genre and it has no reason to be. No ethical anything under the way we live it’s just trying your fucking best to be. That’s it. They serve societal ills and capital’s purposes. Which is fine but it is not revolutionary.

These countries in SEA or even SA do not have as big budget for even mainstream dramas—though things are changing and that’s bc REVENUE like revenue from kpop is fucking huge for SK and again so much about that is bc of what happened in their history from japanese imperialism to WWII to the US—so for “queer” stuff it is sort of now important to make that an export and it sure is one. Not only globally or to the west but a lot of these places make their money within asia (duh!) outside of their countries. OBVIOUSLY. so BL is a way to output and gain money. The thing is, it doesnt seem to be put back into the industry at all. For people in all these countries to make works that aren’t for mainstream or wont reach as many people there’s a difference between trying and just shoving shit in your face and going here it’s gay you like it right? But dont antagonize the inherent patriarchal nature of BL.

Another thing: did you guys know thailand was never colonized? You should look it up. There’s little hints of things in ITSAY to represent french influence still. Isnt that fascinating? Find out why. It’s certainly interesting that the representation, though damaging and dubious many times and also incorrect like any media, is huge in asia and this isnt a commodity here (the US) exactly. A lot of that has to do with colonial ideas of gender of which I am sure. But listen………lmao

Sometimes people dont give a shit. And it very much shows. Here is the thing once again. GOOD TRANSGRESSIVE WORK exists.

Een within the capitalist Bs paradigm or you can see people trying (I can sort of applaud parts of lovely writer) also queer media has always existed everywhere the reason you don’t know about it is because it gets takena nd commodified into a mainstream product. We hvae little incentive, particularly if we are not fans of cinema or art in gen, to search fror others when the output is right here. Being dictated by others and the state and who will give you money. No longer an effort of a cast and crew who want to convey things. But google [any country] independent cinema, radical cinema, queer radical cinema, or even retrospectives on the cinema and rethinking what is queer and radical in film. What if we took that, diluted it, got rid of the creators who put themselves through all the work, ignroe al the nuances and do……………….two actors who are conventionally attractive with no chemistry making out.

It’s the same here lets say daniel kaluuya winning the oscar for the film about the BPP. I heard it was okay and not too offensive but it still isnt’ enough. It still isn’t like hwood isn’t trash, nnati black, misogynistic towards BW and women, and all that other shit. It was pushy but it can’t be enough where we are. Black KKKlansmen i think won an oscar, by circumstance i fuckin hate these award shows they mean nothing, and i like the film a lot but he has his misogynoir still resting in his films even if it is poignant. And it was a film that honestly wasn’t really made for black people. And should all art be a response to direct trauma or trying to make ourselves palatable when we’re just human?

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ and it’s importance (capitalism) but also sorta individual responsibility

Considering a lot of these actors are rich and then just dip that’s another problem. Mainstream isn’t what sustains marginalized art ever. It doesn’t change in the vast ways we think it does. What changes is the people of these groups pushing, fighting, forcing and then capitalism trying to make it work under capitalism. It will not. It cannot.

This is why artists and labels often don’t mix or you see people like Sonic Youth doing whatever they want and pissing off their label but making them give them money. Same with Nirvana. Vince Staples. The thing is they can fight and make good shit but what capitalism helps people….not care? They don’t respect the audience? We’re getting those returns on poor executed product placement, lighting, editing, framing, fucking acting. And you surewon’t see mixed black asians in these shows. WHY R U is the oNLY one i have seen it in and he just disappears (but that was pretty cool.) so who the fuck is this representing? And before you start: asian countries are not homogenous the way we believe them to be. There are marginalized communities outside of even mixed people that are harmed. So you can skrrt cause on that one: you’re wrong buddy. But it gives us the IDEA of a paradise which is what they NEED.With representation and visibility comes consequence and responsibility as artists. What it allows them to do is coast and not think complexly because why should they; it’s mostly the fantasies of some older woman who probably has money and much less interaction with the world. It’s bonkers. And what that allows even further is for them to say YOU ARE THE THING THAT YOU CONSUME and the THING THAT YOU CONSUME IS YOURS. It is not, it is not your identity, form a close bond but figure it the fuck out. Especially for adults who are hellbent on twisting their minds into pretzels and can’t acknowledge what’s just laziness in art and not giving a fucking shit. Truly.

There’s damage that has been done from Parasite as he was supported by CJE&M and the bullshit obsession america had and eveyrone’s poor interpretation of it if they are rich. BJH is a socialist and he is a filmmaker. He has made films that are outstanding and cost a lot of money. But now a fear for indie filmmakers is just not being able to raise that much or have that much attention. Getting funding that helps them instead of expecting the Next Big Thing that is a fad because capitalism is trash. Yes this funneling of money is absolutely harmful to us artists. Even buying in is strategic. Additionally, that film is probs one of the most radical films to have that wide release and accolade (unlike “Sorry to Bother You” which i have a lot of thoughts about. One being that asian exports are acceptable but black ones are not. This is an overall art critique and global media critique. Blackness is removed, not respected.) However, filmmaking isn’t green, it can’t be socialist, and it’s a lot of work. They used tons and tons and TONS of water to do a huge beautiful feat but we still know there is a cost. We have to figure that out because it shouldn’t be. It doesn’t go back into the crew’s pockets the way it should and the work becomes that of the director’s and actors solely. It’s fucking hard. We have to do our part but it doesn’t mean we are doing it perfectly. We just have to try to do better. So does BJH cos he needs to not be a misogynist but anyways i digress.

additionally and this is something some users fail to understand: people in the media sphere generally have fucking money. I went to film school that was international with super fucking rich kids. Taiwanese kids, kids from south asia, china, thailand. They had money. No not upper middle class money, not “rich” money, not some paltry 1m that’s chump change. Fucking money. Fucking RICH-RICH. MILLIONAIRES. BILLIONAIRES. WHICH IS DISGUSTING MIGHT I ADD. The domestic people didn’t have the money for school (in the UK) and i am in a massive amount of debt like every other black student that went there. You do not understand how much money is needed to survive so people who turn to these crew positions even casting etc need this fucking money usually. OKAY. A lot of the people that do well in these dumb shows or even on a larger scale HAVE MONEY. The reason these industries are small and struggling is because of lack of people and lack of resources to independent shit because oh gee it takes money to make things.

Why should I try? Well you don’t have to really if you have money or a name. Yet...

We can tell when like those Tik Tok shows or DCOMs dont give a shit (anymore.) You know how frustrated we get when content for young people is garbage? Well, see, BL is literally that under that system. Occasionally we will get something good now but there is virtually no need in any sector in the world at this point to truly figure out how to make it better and what to do to enhance artistic literacy, outreach, teaching people new things, getting people from these communities there and having true realistic says. Art and culture is IMPERATIVE TO WORLD LIBERATION but not when it is so stiffly trying to bend to capital’s idea of progressiveness. No. Neoliberalism. No.

That’s why in a way ITSAY is a huge feat; it takes from films etc and they clearly had money (the actors rae rich too which….lmaooooo j’aime pas) but it was a respected fucking script, acting was important, blocking, framing. There’s very little to critique as a visual medium for that because I understand what they are trying to do, their market is going to be mostly young girls, but they RESPECT THE FUCKING AUDIENCE. And guess what guys? You can make money from it!!!! WOAH! Since that may be the only goal which is disgusting and repulsive.

HOWEVER AND THIS IS WHAT IS SAD: itsay is an ex of a great show however knowing the actors backgrounds and the pseudo trouble it stirred when they weren’t supporting people protesting against the coup in the summer it really put a damper on my enjoyment. And this is how we can see that:

a) it’s honestly just a show and a good one but b) now what?

These kids (actors, who are like idk 19? 20?) are rich and not saying anything while countless actors, who were filming, did. Even tul who has $$$$ and the thing is the protesting against the coup legitimately attacks the rich. As it should. The protests going on were cries for help, against a dictatorship and fucking coup, asking people to get fucking help for covid, having kids be able to live. There’s a mini on VICE about this and it probably doesnt go too in depth but there’s a kid in there who talks about his friends getting into drugs and how he just wants to make music, have fun, skateboard. And it’s harrowing to see. This is a direct example of what these things do and don’t do. Yea we know a good show is here, we know growing up and slice of life, we know this is a bit of escapism and idealism but the idealism is reflected in the way these actors also choose to live their lives. So what progress? To who? For who? How is this helping me? What purpose does it serve? I say ITSAY serves its purpose as a piece and a glimpse into possibility of growing up but i do not say it antagonizes a broader issue that needs to be relevant in some sense but simply is not. It’s very singleminded and, well, it’s sort of like “besides my sexuality, what do i have to worry about?” But for real humans like....a lot. I do not respect their decision at all.

Why can’t we do our jobs and make something decent and respect our audience? No time, gotta make that sweet sweet sweet cash baybee. Look how progressive we are! Don’t look at history and material conditions. Thanks in advance, management.

History 4 does not have that respect. Many of these shows do not. Sometimes we hit good, sometimes we don’t. But in the end we cannot settle. And I won’t. If I am critiquing something I will not be shy and if I am meant to enjoy something as escapism then these shows NEED to highlight that and it’s rare sometimes (the best twins is a good reminder like that show is bad but man do i Brain Empty when i turn it on and i like that and there’s not much in it that makes me want to kill myself from annoyance but there are transphobic jokes i dont love however the whole show is a comedy about this dude’s crazy homophobic sister and she is constantly positioned as wrong and they talk about the aforementioned trans women as the actor was in drag. Interesting that they can manage that, huh?)

Oh btw.....taiwan has a very complicated history but ignore all the bad stuff it’s good now you can kinda sorta get married and stuff. KMT? You know how i learned that? I care about human beings and read about it lmao. I am not Taiwanese and look at that. So now I have historical and DIALECTICAL~**~*~****~*~*~ context so i can judge it as an artist, a black woman from america, and from the knowledge i have to pick up on their history to see if this fits into a broader picture besides the micro-one of sexuality on an individualized level. And this is kinda where it comes full circle: these shows are not you, you are not them, they do not exist in a vacuum because nothing does. The failure to critique now means continuing on as it has and it will still do so. History and time are not linear in the sense we think it is. Someitmes things are better, sometimes things feel more austere. We are not living under liberation though and these shows are not going to do so. So they are not US nor are they for a nebulous “us” of which the groups are all fractured and have diff opinions anyway (my opinion as a black american is going to vary from an asian woman’s say and that could really clash and i do not feel solidarity with all those in every community i am for several reasons.)

Final thots that have taken up my time and the only thing i actually wanted to write but got distracted:

Anyway my dissertation is that I ilke Muren and LiCheng a lot a lot and i like how cute they are and how truly dumb li cheng is. This is an example of mostly good writing, decent actors, nice chemistry, and sort of a calmness to them. And I super enjoy how Muren is pretty forward with LC in the sense that being together is like very important to truly be together. When he was like “no i didnt forget!” Or when LC asked him something in the office I forget it was 6 am and again i almost threw up and muren nodded and then LC leaned on him. Very cute. I want more of them tho i may have to skip that othre couple (the cameo the ones from MODC) but omfg the younger one HIS HAIR GREW SO MUCH HE LOOKS SO MATURE AND CUTE OMFGIJ0HUG9SAOGIJPKOAGJSIOHUAGIJP hahhaha the one good thing i will say about THEM.idk how old the actor is i figure he was young idk it makes me happy to see him he’s very cute. I hope he’s in something i can watch and not gag at. Is he hot? Who knows but he is a cutie!!

Anyway muren and lc have a good thing going it’s nice to watch ho\pe they dont fuck it up but im truly a sucker for some true finds 2 luvas i think some user on her\e was like i’m not a fan of friends ot lovers bc it doesn’t seem like they’re actually friends and maybe they were referring to this show idk. But it made me think and it was a very good observation. So i think they are friends and also luvrs <3

[vyther16]

so, I made a meme for JoL ships that I either ship or have seen other ppl ship. my thoughts on all of them under the cut.

Chen Pingping/Xiao En--you mean to tell me there was never any hatefucking? Chen Pingping literally dedicated 20 years and ruined 3+ lives to get a few secrets out of Xiao En. There was hatefucking there at some point. 

Ye Ling’er/Lin Wan’er--friends with benefits. I have never seen a more lesbiany lesbian than Ye Ling’er and Lin Wan’er is bi. I’m sorry, I don’t make the rules

Ye Ling’er/Fan Ruoruo--butch/femme lesbians. Also they made eye contact once and I immediately said “that’s my ship” (then I got yby/sxj but that’s aside the point)

Zhan Doudou/Si Lili--idk about this one folks. I don’t call them lesbians bc I hc Zhan Doudou as transing his gender but there’s definitely something going on there

Xie Bi’an/Li Chengze--there is a lot of devotion going on here, though I personally don’t see what all the fuss is about. I don’t think Xie Bi’an is fleshed out enough for it to be NOT disproved by canon.

Li Yunrui/Yan Xiaoyi--this is basically the same as Xie Bi’an/Li Chengze except I personally am more invested in it and therefore read much further into their actions

Chen Pingping/Ye Qingmei--this might be outright stated in the show? I’m not sure. The whole mama mia plotline with the dads and Ye Qingmei is confusing

Fan Xian/Si Lili--book love interest, yadda yadda yadda, I guess they have chemistry? But they also kinda get over it sooo…. I don’t see it, personally. I could ship them for a deadly one night stand, and canon could too, I guess, but canon also pushes the monogamous!fx agenda against the book so they say fx/sll don’t get it on

Fan Xian/Haitang Duoduo--book love interest, but she friendzones him hard in the show (and i think the feeling is pretty mutual too). The only reason this is NOT disproved by canon is because of the stunt Fan Xian pulled with the empress dowager about being in love with htdd

Fan Xian/Lin Wan’er-- this is literally canon. And I thought they had a lot of chemistry, tbh, even though not everyone agrees. I also just really like Li Qin lol. I just think she’s neat.

Yan Bingyun/Shen Wan’er--may I direct you to one of my three joy of life fics, all of which have some form of yby/sxj? This is my favorite ship in this show. The enemies to lovers. The mutually requited pining. The ‘I lied to you.’ The continued lying. The cold one likes the sunshine one. Betraying king and country. Self-sacrifice is a love language. I just really love yby and sxj guys. I love them a lot.

There are some double standards in my shipping, such as the fact that Fan Xian/Si Lili has very similar circumstances to Yan Bingyun/Shen Wan’er, but fx/sll is a v specific circumstances ship while yby/sxj is an otp

Xie Bi’an/Li Chengze and Yan Xiaoyi/Li Yunrui are also very similar, but Yan Xiaoyi is a much more compelling character to me, so his ship has more meat to it than Xie Bi’an. This is not a knock on the Xie Bi’an/Li Chengze shippers out there; it’s just an explanation of my personal tastes.

I don’t actually think Zhan Doudou/Si Lili is a canon ship, at least in the show, but it’s fun to imagine. I know some fans think of them as lesbians, but my reading of Zhan Doudou is that he’s trans, and thus they are not lesbians, though still very queer.

[meloncubedradpops]

Repo! The Corona Opera: Final Countdown

This is the third and final installment of Repo: The Corona Opera. In the first piece, I made the argument that the surreal events we are experiencing in 2020 remind me of the world in the movie Repo! the Genetic Opera. My second essay compared the characteristics of fascism with the same movie. Here we will tie together ideas in both works to highlight a dark path that America is on, based on what we know about Repo!, in the hopes that we can reject the evils of those who are sacrificing our health and safety for their own selfish reasons. 

When I began thinking about this movie through the lenses of COVID-19, I saw uncanny patterns that just years ago seemed like an exaggerated storytelling. Millions of people dying from organ failure. Yeah, but how? 

Then 2020 happened. Oh, that's how. Sure the disease doesn't affect everyone in the same way, but its wrath and potential to harm are tremendous. The death toll in the United States alone is, as of today, is 231,000. At least, that is the death toll we are know so far. It will take time when the dust settles and we can analyze the excess death data to truly know how many of our fellow Americans have died. 

And while our world does not currently emulate those opening comic scenes in Repo, the impact from the sudden loss of life will be felt for a long time. There are a lot of really great themes in Repo: the concept of the family, drug addiction, the impact of corporate monopolies, and let's not forget it's a gothic coming-of-age story too. I am going to highlight three concepts that weave together our current reality with the world of Repo: the parallels of the Trump and Largo family, the Graverobber as the symbolic "other", and organ repossessions is genocide.

As mentioned in my previous entry, I highlighted the ways that Rotti Largo is a fascist. I went into detail supporting the argument that his company GeneCo holds tremendous and unyielding power in the city we see in the movie. And despite his efforts to save humanity from extinction, his assumed heirs and blood-related children are nothing short of entitled mediocrity. I will draw many parallels between President Donald Trump and Rotti Largo throughout the duration of this essay, but let's take a few minutes to talk about their children. Believe it or not, this meme was made by myself and my friend FOUR years ago, almost to the day! 

But unlike 2016, I had no idea that I'd find multiple comparisons to draw upon. And frankly, if we all knew how bad this presidency would be, for both America and the rest of the world, we might have made less jokes from our complacency. I ask the the real question though, which Trump and Rotti offspring are most alike?

Now, I've wanted to do this thought exercise since the inception of my essays. The surface level combinations would look something like, Amber and Ivanka (since they're both women, obvs), Donald Trump JR as Luigi (oldest child), and Eric Trump as Pavi ("you're just his useless brother!"). 

However my boyfriend raised a great point that had me rethink this: Donald Trump Jr is ACTUALLY Amber Sweet. When I took out the gender aspect out of the equation, it made so much more sense. In my next point, I will go into drug addiction in a much more dignified manner. But let's just take a moment here to consider the following. 

We know that Amber Sweet is addicted to two things in life: surgery and pain killing drugs to make surgery bearable. Amber Sweet's character provides an incredible insight to the daily life of the people in Repo. If you subtract the Zydrate Anatomy scene, you would hardly even know that zydrate is devastating lives of the people addicted to it. We hear about zydrate in the graveyard as a commercial and the media spends its first opportunity asking Rotti about zydrate's "use and abuses". After Sweet becomes a no-show in the presser, we quickly learn that she runs a support group for fellow addicts, or at least she is supposed to. 

How does this relate to Trump Jr? Quite simply, many are speculating that Trump Jr abuses cocaine. The most compelling evidence is his speech during the Republican National Convention. Now, obviously we don't have solid evidence that he is indeed consuming and abusing cocaine, and quite frankly if he is, that would not be incredibly surprising or even a huge deal. 

But the conversation doesn't end here. President Donald Trump did not hesitate to bring up former vice president Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden and his battle with addiction during the first Presidential Debate. It was a low jab, especially considering that the United States is going through a crippling opioid crisis, which he even admits is exacerbated by covid-19 and related lockdowns. Both Donald Trump and Rotti Largo exploit their own children in this manner. I mean, Donald Trump helped fucked up the Trump Foundation where his children were held prominent positions, which was caught stealing from a charity intended to help children with cancer! Every time we see Donald Trump Jr on our doom-screens, we get another glimpse into Jr's downward spiral. And with every additional crime that all of president Trump's children become implicated in, the more and more we can see that this family is rotten to the core. 

If Trump Jr is Amber Sweet, then Ivanka is Luigi. In Repo, Luigi can be described as nothing short of a homicidal maniac. I am not saying that Ivanka commits murder, at least not directly, but she does hold a lot of power in the White House. Spend any time learning about the machinations of the White House, particularly in the early days, and you will learn Ivanka competed with Melania for a voice in the administration, and still works for the White House today. Even if you exclude all of the shady business ties, such as the dozens of Chinese patents (including for voting machines!!!) Ivanka has filed, clearly the boundaries of nepotism do not exist for this family. Luigi somehow kills multiple people in the movie and faces no consequences for it. How can this be? Obviously corruption, but that is too simple. If there were multiple checks and balances at one point that would have forced Luigi to face justice for his crimes, they have obviously failed to come to roost in the movie. The obvious common denominator between today and the world of Repo is that those who want power will do anything to obtain and maintain it. Does the public know about every murder committed by Luigi? Does the public know about every crime committed by Ivanka (and also by proxy her husband Jared Kushner, who by the way, failed to pass mandatory security clearances but still has access to the intelligence of our government)? Jared intentionally made it difficult for many of the states hit hardest by covid-19 in the early weeks to acquire the necessary medical supplies because the electorate did not vote for Trump in 2016. That. IS. MURDER. Just as Luigi calls the common citizens in Repo "filthy mice", “Jrvanka” (and the Right at greater) frames the nation as two groups: us and THEM. Luigi is much less calculated, but the comparisons are there. If given the chance, the Trump and Largo family will kill because of their sociopathy, greed, and egos. 

Admittedly I don't have as compelling of a comparison for Eric Trump and Pavi. However I will say that both Pavi and Eric do the bidding for their father's empire, and I would also argue that both feel like they have to compete to get a modicum of attention and love from a paternal figure devoid of basic empathy. And at the end of the day, they do not reject their father's tyranny. And honestly that is enough of a comparison for me. 

Last but not least, I can't ignore the fact that the official Republican Party platform for the 2020 election is loyalty to Trump in the absence of any other political or philosophical idea. A majority of the speakers at the Republican National Convention were members of his family. Their pitch to Americans is “Just Trust Us”. However, a quarter million Americans aren't here to agree or disagree with that statement. With each passing day, more and more Americans are getting sick, to the tune of tens of thousands of cases a day on average currently. The Largo family and GeneCo are not much different. Remember that scene in 21st Century Cure where Shilo and Graverobber are in a mass grave where we can see truck loads of humans being added to the pile of corpses? 

The only real thing separating the corpses from the rest of the city is a poorly constructed brick wall and the years of propaganda that normalizes what I imagine would be a terrible pungent smell of death. 

The entire Trump family came into the first presidential debate without masks. The president was literally sick with a virus that statistically speaking, could kill his opponent; and he was on stage shedding this incredibly contagious virus screaming and shouting, spreading his droplets everywhere. The Trump family failed to show up early enough to be tested for covid before the debate. 

This was not an accident. Jared Kushner bragged to journalist Bob Woodward back in April that Trump was going to take the country "back from scientists". As of this past weekend, we learned that Trump is floating around the idea of firing our nation's leading disease expert Anthony Fauci in a time where our cases, deaths, and hospitalizations from covid-19 are surging. It is almost grotesquely poetic how similar this is to GeneCo. GeneCo is a company in the healthcare industry, but they exploit the worst parts of society, which I will go into very soon. And in its effort to achieve maximum quarterly profits, the ends always justify the means, even if that results in fascism and excess death/suffering. Rotti's body guards kill the doctor who gives him his grim diagnosis. Trump didn't kill the doctors treating him during his recovery with covid, but information we got from the White House doctors were straight up WEIRD. We witnessed a Gentern being killed by Luigi in the Mark It Up Scene for no other reason besides existing in the proximity of him. Trump has spread misinformation about how there's more money to be made when a doctor declares a death as a covid death. I am finding it hard to see the difference. I think I've made my point regarding the parallels of the Trump and Largo family quite clearly, but you may see additional points I bring up as the rest of my essay unfolds. 

Society is complex with more nuance than we give it credit to. The different ways that various groups of people interact with are endlessly interesting, and one of the reasons I love Repo so much is because there's an incredible amount of unpacking that you can do, even in the absence of written dialogue about it. 

If you don't know, Repo started out as a story originally penned as "The Necromerchant's Debt", which gave the Graverobber character a more active role in the world crafted by Darren Smith and Terrace Zdunich. When watching the movie Repo! The Genetic Opera, the Graverobber is certainly a character seen in multiple scenes, but in a lot of ways, his importance is left out. An entire scene was cut from the film, see Needle Through a Bug below if you're interested. 

Regardless the parts that we do see are still greatly impactful. Graverobber is essentially the symbolized "other" living in a world that is greatly stratified by social class, and he's doing what he can to survive. 

Now if you have been living on this planet we call Earth and have ever paid attention ever, you probably have noticed that there are a lot of power structures that influence the resources and opportunities that aid in our development and maintenance of our needs. The access to being able to elevate ourselves above basic survival are typically contingent upon a few things, one namely our ability to draw a paycheck. As I mentioned in my last essay, so many things went wrong to have what would equivalently be either a drug trafficking felony in today's terms or maybe theft, result in permissible extra-judicial murder. And I am not saying that Trump's bragging of the extra-judicial murder of an ANTIFA activist is at all related, but look at the way Trump compares his dissidents with the way GeneCo treats Graverobbers.

 We are experiencing the early stages of economic collapse, millions of people are hungry, soon-to-be evicted, jobless. And yet, the Republicans in power just HAD to rush through a Supreme Court justice. When arguing against lockdowns that would have saved lives, the Right spent countless hours arguing about increase suicide, drug use, poverty, domestic abuse, blah blah blah, you know all the things that were there and as equally as important pre-pandemic? And they did NOTHING to help mitigate this disaster beyond the bill that was passed this spring. The house passed the HEROES Act back in May, and senate majority leader Mitch McConnel declined to take a vote on it. 

Never mind the fact that landlords are still expected to pay the banks their mortgages on their investment properties. Never mind the fact that rent wasn't cancelled. Never mind that the Trump administration sought to prevent any oversight into the first bill passed previously to prosecute fraud. So you know, we can make sure the money went to small business owners, and not instead to the many, many crony ties to the administration who were approved for huge amounts of money. Honestly to think about this is kind of sickening, particularly when you relate it back to Repo and my essay I wrote on fascism.

I could probably talk all day about our failure with the "War on Drugs", but I feel like you can probably see based on the efficacy of its policies that drugs still exist and people are still abusing them. I bring this up because the Graverobber's occupation is essentially a drug dealer. However he sells a counterfeit of zydrate derived from the body of a bug who naturally borrow in a corpse's body, which is and also isn't stealing from the corpse / their estate, but is somehow still "bad" enough that you can legally be killed "on site" if a Gene Cop thinks you're harvesting the blue brain goo. I mean this entire concept makes my brain hurt. 

The Graverobber, as a concept, is a perfect example of the enemy who is simultaneously the biggest and the least threat, and the only way to stop them is to kill them before they can appeal before the jury of their peers or go to prison to pay for their crimes. And I am sure the propaganda that justifies this is beautifully orchestrated. It literally mimics Russian propaganda, AKA the biggest foreign intelligence threat since, I don’t know, the Cold War? I can picture authoritarian stump speeches now: 

"Here the Graverobber who comes in the night, tempting your children. They sell the promise of a good time, but did you know they are raping your daughters for this drug?? They can get your husband hooked on zydrate, and you won't know it's coming until he comes home unrecognizable. These thugs are stealing your grandmother's ring off her corpse, and you will find her half-rotted corpse thrown askew across her tombstone when you go to pay your respects."

And yet Graverobber defends himself:

"Industrialization has crippled the globe (Enjoy GeneCo's day and nighttime formula of Zydrate) Nature failed as technology spread (Ask a gentern if Zydrate is right for you) And from this wake a market erected (Buying Zydrate from an unlicensed source is illegal) An entire city built on top of the dead! And you can finance your bones And your kidneys For every market a submarket grows But best you be punctual With making your payments Lest it be you on the concrete below It's quick! It's clean! It's pure! It could change your life! Rest assured! It's the 21st century cure! And it's my job To steal and rob GRAVES!" 

He then goes into detail about how this is just the cost of doing business with his modern world. How many of our current and future stories by those who will not make a single sentence in our history books will be casted as enemies of the state who were ultimately just trying to make end's meet? You can deport the illegal immigrant but neglect to prosecute the American company who hired them to work here? How is that much different? If the people in Repo need this drug to cope with the deaths of their loved ones and their livelihoods, then what does that say about the soul of their nation? 

If you are still with me at this point, I want to thank you so much. I am going to conclude on a fairly heavy topic, but it is one worth having. Organ repossessions in Repo are genocide and in America, we are currently also committing genocide. 

The whole premise of the film is the justification that those who fail to make payments on their surgeries deserve to have their organs repossessed, because what other reality is there with unrelenting end-stage capitalism? People are losing their whole lives as I type this, through no fault of their own. Most Americans cannot afford a $400 emergency expense pre-covid-19. Millions are unable to pay for basic life expenses, such as rent, healthcare or food. Our president specifically shoved a Supreme Court justice because he wants the American Healthcare Act to be deemed too unconstitutional for public policy. Never mind the 100+ million Americans with pre-existing conditions. Never mind the millions who acquire their healthcare through the ACA marketplace. Never mind the fact that we are in a once-in-a-century PANDEMIC. Never mind that we spend more per capital on healthcare than anywhere else in the world. Never mind that the Right does not have ANY sort of plan to replace something in its place. How could MILLIONS die in an organ failure crises in Repo anyways? We already know that the Trump administration already stopped caring about covid deaths when we learned it was hurting people of color disproportionality than the general population. 1 out of 1000 black Americans have died from covid. Reread that sentence. If you don't believe me, go out and seek those facts for yourself. When we think of genocide we think of Hitler killing thousands of people via gas chambers. But there are SO many other steps that lead to the normalization of that. 

Undesirables, aka the "others", are easy to discard. Is it a surprise to anyone that ICE gynecologists are removing the uteruses of detainees? I almost made my whole essay about that one controversy alone. Genocide is insidious like that. 

"Oh but if she didn't want that hysterectomy, she shouldn't have tried to come to America for a better life, even if that's what my ancestors did." 

Of course not, she's the "other", and you're the law-abiding citizen. You were able to afford the extra $30 a month for the upgraded booby package that gave an otherwise unremarkable kidney transplant a fun twist by including breast implants. The orphan who works the streets because his parents died during the plague who needed a new pancreas because insulin became too expensive is threatening your suburbs. Bonus points if the orphan has a hint of melanin in his skin or if your daughter shows favor towards his antics, completely ignoring the fact that his mommy and daddy were killed by preventable disease. I have no idea if this was intentional or not, but look at the makeup of people who get their organs repossessed in Repo and try not to tell me there's a trend. Yes it could have been the coincidence of casting, but nevertheless it is worth mentioning. We don't see many people of color in this movie, but of the few we see, they get murdered by GeneCo/Wallace. And I don't care how stupid coincidences are because that is exactly what is happening with covid-19. The so-called essential, working class citizens (who are disproportionally POC) are putting their whole life on the line to serve everyone else who works at home. 

The ends justifies the means, kill enough elderly and the federal government won't have to pay out on social security. Force everyone to get back to work and fuck you if you think you deserve money for the hours you weren't allowed to work (oh and by the way we want to make it so you can't sue for covid-19 related liabilities). Oh you lost your job, "try something new", as told by Ivanka Trump earlier this summer. 

My main point is if you let fascism get control, they will normalize genocide and put you in jail for even making the connections of corruption. "Millions of people dead from organ failure, what's adding a few more to the pile in the name of law and order?" "The only good Democrat is a dead Democrat". Once again, I am failing to see the difference. 

Okay I threw a lot at you just now, and the fact you made it to the end is a miracle. If you skip around because you have a squirrel brain like me, I thank you as well. The fact we get out of bed everyday and do anything right now is a miracle and I know attention can be finite. 

I am writing this on the eve of the United States General election after having wanting to write this since June of this year. I am tired. We are ALL Shiloh right now. Our lives have been on pause. "I must be brave", "I'll capture it", "Run back inside". Yeah girl, same! I haven't talked about her much throughout any of my essays, but I have to give credit where credit is due. 

Humans are a resilient creature. We have millions of years of experience on this Earth, and much of our survival has been based on pure dumb luck. But we have blown so many other species out of the water in one way alone, and that is our ability to communicate. 

We don't have to let people who exploit our weaknesses control us. The sociopaths who try and run our society did not historically aid in our survival. They didn't care if we ate the mushroom that killed us or would have protected us when threatened by wildlife, it was our tribe. The Right has successfully hijacked that bond between the self and the tribe so that it can fit the needs of sociopathy and greed. It is not normal for a president to tell a nation that "it is what it is" when over 100k citizens die from a preventable disease. Do not let the sociopaths throw us in that tiny pine box in a mighty small drop in a mighty dark plot, hastening the trip to our epilogue. Because every inch you give, they will take a mile and charge you by the hour. Never forget that.

[kookitykook]

Koya’s Used Bookstore (Namjoon x Reader)

Listen this is one of my favorite things I’ve ever written.

~genre: fluff, humor, sfw 

~word count: 4.8k

~warnings: liberal use of the word ‘weasel,’ reference to a fuckboy named chad

~tags: bookstore owner!joon x angry at the patriarchy!you, featuring annoying employees! vmin lmao

~summary: When you show up to Koya's Used Bookstore for the first time with red eyes, a rant about the patriarchy in hand, and a visceral reaction to Jimin's suggestion of Ernest Hemingway, the store owner, Kim Namjoon, can't help but want to know what details lie in your story ... he’s also a little afraid of you, but that’s expected.

~~~~~~~

“Hyung!”

Namjoon jumped at the sound of Jimin’s voice. He looked up from his paperwork, glasses teetering dangerously at the tip of his nose as he saw his employee looking into the office with oddly wide eyes.

“What is it?” he asked. “Did Tae spill coffee on one of the books again? I swear if that kid—”

“No, no,” Jimin said quickly, glancing quickly behind him before leaning further through the doorframe. “There’s a customer that you really need to come talk to,” he whispered.

Namjoon cocked his head to the side, straightening his glasses as he stood up. He didn’t mind talking with customers, it was actually one of his favorite parts of running his used bookstore. Jimin’s expression was filling him with worry though.

“Why? What’s the problem?” It was odd that Jimin felt compelled to come to his boss over customer service. Jimin was better with customers than him or his other employee Taehyung.

“Uh … well … she’s a bit feisty …”

“Feisty?”

“Yeah, feisty. I don’t know, I can’t put a word to it. I tried to help her but I think I ended up just making her angry.”

Namjoon laughed. “You? You made a customer angry?”

“I don’t know!” Jimin tossed his hands up in the air with exasperation, still whispering as if in fear of the customer overhearing. “She asked for a book recommendation then practically blew her top when I said Hemingway!”

“Jimin,” Namjoon sighed, running a hand through his hair and taking a deep breath. “Why do I have an inkling there’s more to the story?”

“Namjoon I swear, I—”

“Don’t worry about it, I’ll go talk to the customer. Can you point her out to me?”

Jimin hesitated, but nodded all the same and Namjoon followed him out of the office and into the bookstore proper. 

Koya’s Used Books was Namjoon’s pride and joy. He had opened it up with his best friend and business partner Seokjin when they were fresh out of college. They had spent the four years of their undergrad pinching every penny they could, working multiple jobs and barely keeping their heads afloat in their classes just so this dream could become a reality. That had been three years ago, and the bookstore had absolutely flourished.

Well, it had flourished at first. Jin had always been the unreasonably beautiful face of the store with a keen eye for marketing, while Namjoon preferred to be behind the scenes focusing on the books and the paperwork. And that business plan had worked for them — perfectly. 

But then Jin had to move back to his hometown when his father got sick. That had been just over a year ago, and while Namjoon didn’t blame his friend whatsoever, it was clear that Koya’s Used Books needed real help in Jin’s absence. Namjoon already had to let two employees go just to keep paying the rent on the place, leaving the store with him as manager, Jimin running cashier and stocking, and Taehyung as their only barista for the cafe in the back of the store. 

And yet even though the store was on hard times, Namjoon still had love for his job. Even then, walking out to talk to an apparently disgruntled customer, he couldn’t help the swell of fondness in his chest as he smelled the books and coffee, saw a few regulars browsing the fantasy section and a university student on their laptop on one of the beanbags. Koya’s was his pride and joy. 

“That’s her.”

Jimin’s whisper cut through Namjoon’s thoughts and he blinked himself back to the task at hand. Following Jimin’s pointer finger, he looked over to see what he assumed was a young woman with her back to the two of them, her shoulders hunched and hands shoved into the pocket of a gray hoodie with the hood drawn up. He could practically feel their tension from across the room. 

“That’s the girl that just yelled at Jimin.”

Namjoon yelped and whirled to look at Taehyung, who was staring at the young woman while munching on a piece of banana bread, oblivious to the fact that he’d just scared Namjoon. 

“How the hell do you always do that?” Namjoon mumbled under his breath, facing you again. 

“She didn’t yell at me,” Jimin hissed. “She was just …”

“Plotting your death?” Taehyung suggested.

“Slightly irritated with my presence.” Jimin said pointedly. “Which I don’t understand because I am very likable.”

Namjoon could tell Jimin was genuinely perturbed by this situation. He’d yet to meet a single person that wasn’t instantly enamored with his young employee, and with good reason, considering Jimin was one of the most polite, well-mannered people he’d ever met. 

Taehyung on the other hand … 

“She was kind of bitchy about it,” Taehyung mumbled through a mouth full of food. “Not sure why she’s got a stick up her ass, but I’d be careful with that one, hyung.” He took another bite, crumbs littering the corners of his mouth. “If she bites your head off I’m out of a job.”

Namjoon swiped the rest of the banana bread from Taehyung’s hand, ignoring the barista’s whine as he handed off the food to Jimin, who smiled delightedly.

“You’ll be out of a job sooner than that if you keep taking food without logging it in your daily pastry allowance. You two get back to work, I’ll go talk to her.”

“Guard your balls, hyung,” Tae mumbled, which was promptly followed by Jimin smacking him in the back of the head and leading him back to the coffee bar.

Namjoon took a deep breath, drawing up his best smile and channeling his inner Seokjin as he approached you. 

“Um, excuse me? Hi, my name is Namjoon, I’m the owner of …”

Namjoon trailed off as you turned to face him. You were … striking. Utterly striking, that was the only way he could describe you. Sharp features, bright eyes, and thick long hair framing your face beneath the hood of your sweatshirt. 

And you also looked mad as hell. Your eyes were rimmed with red as though you’d been crying, but your tears were clearly dried up and replaced with an expression that said you were thoroughly pissed off.

Namjoon cleared his throat. “I’m the owner of the store.” He cursed himself for the crack in his voice. “Jimin said you were looking for some recommendations?”

Your cleared your throat and straightened your shoulders, meeting his gaze head on. Namjoon couldn’t help but feel overwhelmingly intimidated. 

“Yes,” you said simply. “I know I could just go on Google and search for book recommendations, but quite frankly I think that’s too easy of a route.”

The corner of Namjoon’s mouth quirked up. He felt the same way, books were supposed to be about discussion, and while the internet was useful for sure, there was something beautiful about the community of book sharing and recommending. It was one of his favorite parts of running Koya’s in particular. 

“Well you’re in the right place,” Namjoon said with a more genuine smile — one that was definitely not returned. “What are you looking for? A certain author? Genre? Emotion?”

“That one,” you said quickly, pointing right in Namjoon’s face. “That last one. Emotion.”

Namjoon chuckled, but his heart wasn’t really in it. “Okay. Any … particular emotion, ma’am?”

“Anger.” The answer was so blunt that Namjoon could only blink behind his thick framed glasses. “Rage. Think Hulk level pissed off.”

Namjoon swallowed, willing away the urge to pull at the collar of his shirt. “O-Okay … sure thing. Uh, if you don’t mind, who is this book for? W-What I mean to ask is, who’s angry?”

“I am.”

“Oh. Right.” Namjoon did pull at his collar then, but you were unfazed. “Got it. Um … angry at who, if I may ask?”

“The patriarchy.”

“Ah.” Namjoon’s voice had gone up an octave at that and he could practically feel himself withering under your steely gaze. Was he sweating? He felt like he was sweating. “T-The patriarchy?”

“Yepp.” You made a popping noise with your lips on the ‘p’ sound. Your eye contact was intense and Namjoon was genuinely afraid to look away. “Dudes. Men. The male gender. I am seriously pissed at you all as a whole at the moment, but quite frankly I am tiny, and even if I wasn’t tiny, the violence I want to enact would actually be detrimental to my cause. So as you can see, I don’t really have any options for catharsis presently, so I’m hoping to release my frustrations upon this stupid, inane aspect of society by reading a book that hopefully agrees with all of my current anti-men sentiments. Do you have any recommendations for that sort of thing …” You squinted at his name tag. “Namjoon?”

Namjoon couldn’t decide whether he should correct you on the pronunciation of his name or run away with his tail between his legs. You were staring him right in the eyes and he had no shame in admitting he was scared shitless. 

“I take it this is the reason you weren’t too happy with Jimin recommending Hemingway?”

He didn’t think it was possible, but somehow your eyes burned with even more rage at the mere mention of the author in question. 

“Ernest fucking Hemingway was incapable of portraying women as anything other than nagging, inadequate, and selfish, and that is a sick narrative that I am tired of dumb dudes getting published and I will not stand here and let yet another penis-driven specimen tell me Hemingway was a master of words — not even if he is cute and polite!”

In the back of the store, Namjoon clearly heard Taehyung say, “hey did you hear that? She thinks you’re cute!” followed by a distinct slapping sound. 

You took a deep breath, your shoulders rising and falling with the movement as your eyes fluttered shut. Namjoon on the other hand couldn’t quite find his breath. He also couldn’t stop noticing how pretty your were — despite the fact that the rising blush on your cheeks was definitely from rage at his entire gender and ogling your was only going to add to the list of reasons your were mad at at the moment. 

“Sorry,” you said through gritted teeth, surprising him. “I’m … a little on edge right now.”

“No shit.”

“Shut up, Tae!”

“Ouch! Stop hitting me!”

Namjoon chuckled nervously, scratching the back of his neck. “Sorry about them,” he mumbled, swallowing thickly. “And sorry about … men?” You just blinked at him. “Uh … I wish I had a female employee I could direct you to for this … n-not that I’m against having a female employee,” he said hurriedly. “I actually did have a female employee up until a few weeks ago, but I had to let her go. But not because she was a female! She was a lazy worker to be honest and — not that I think women are lazy! Women are — they’re hard working and capable and — and she was given the same pay as my male employees. Not that that makes me noble or anything, that should just be standard, you know? I mean I am a proud feminist and — wait, fuck, that’s not something I should be saying right now because then it seems like I’m—”

“Fucking hell Namjoon, stop talking!” 

Namjoon flinched almost violently as Tae shouted across the shop. It was only then that he realized the other few customers were all listening and watching in amusement, as were Jimin and Taehyung, the former of which was staring with his mouth open and the latter looking at him like he was the world’s biggest idiot. An accurate assessment, honestly.

With a sigh and what he knew was probably the reddest cheeks on the planet, Namjoon finally looked back at you. He was fully expecting a hand reared back ready to slap him or cut off his dick or something along those lines. 

What he didn’t expect though, was an open-mouthed dopey smile and adorably crinkled eyes. 

“Oh my gosh,” you murmured. “You’re adorable. It’s like all my rage at men just flew out the window.”

“Really?”

“I mean no, I definitely still hate men and they exhaust me, but you might be an exception!”

“Baby youuuuu areeeee the only exception.”

“Tae nobody listens to Paramore anymore.”

“Fuck you!”

Namjoon laughed in exasperation, taking off his glasses to rub the bridge of his nose. When he looked back up at you, you were still smiling at him.

“You have a really pretty smile,” he found himself saying. His eyes widened a fraction of a second later. “N-Not that I think you should smile! You don’t have to smile for anyone you know, you can smile for who you want a-and when you want, you know?”

“This is painful. I’m in physical pain.”

“Hyung for crying out loud just recommend her the books and walk away!” 

With a huff and a whirl, you spun on your heel to stare down Jimin and Tae on the opposite side of the shop behind the cafe counter. 

“Would you two weasels shut the fuck up!”

Jimin froze, his hand shaking with the coffee halfway to his lips. Taehyung’s eyes went wide as he sunk behind the counter and out of sight without another word. 

Namjoon stared with an appreciative smile on his face as you turned back to him as if nothing of importance had happened. 

“Woah,” was all he could say. Eloquent, Namjoon, you truly have a way with words, he thought to himself. “Uh … thanks for that?”

“Anytime,” you remarked offhandedly, pushing her hair over her shoulder. While turning to tell off the boys, your hood had fallen back and now Namjoon could really appreciate your face. 

Shit, stop appreciating her face and talk to her, you moron! he thought to himself.

“Um, so about those books,” Namjoon said after clearing his throat and toeing the floor with his shoe to look away from your stunning eyes, “I actually have a section on female empowerment and feminism — w-well I don’t have a section, the store does, but I own the store so—”

“Really?” you cut him off — and thank goodness for that. “That’s perfect. Can you show me? This is my first time here.”

“Y-Yeah of course, follow me. Or just come with me, not follow me, I guess? I mean — ah, fuck it.”

You laughed out loud at that, and it was absolutely adorable and Namjoon was absolutely screwed. 

Nonetheless, you did follow his stride to the other side of the store to the ‘on female empowerment and feminism’ section — which just so happened to be right beside the coffee bar where Jimin and Taehyung still were. 

“Boys,” Namjoon nodded at them, Jimin wide-eyed and gulping as he promptly looked back into his cup of coffee, and Taehyung literally still crouched behind the counter.

When Tae’s crouched form was in view, you looked over at him and cocked an eyebrow. “Where’s all that bark from earlier?” You asked. “Oh no, did you forget to guard your balls?”

Taehyung chuckled nervously, but his cheeks flamed red as you repeated the words he had said to Namjoon just before he had approached you. 

“I just uh, I’ve got to go check on the … the pastries,” he murmured, standing up from his crouch and all but running to the back room. 

When it was only Jimin at the counter, he looked over at you and Namjoon and blinked rapidly. 

“I should go help him!” And with that, the two boys had scattered. 

You chuckled. “Didn’t mean to scare them so bad.” Namjoon looked down at you with a cocked eyebrow. “Okay, maybe I did. Sorry about that, they seem like nice kids. Still stupid boys of course, but nice. Like I said … rough day.”

Namjoon swallowed, gathering his courage to lean his shoulder against the shelf and face tyou head on. “If you don’t mind me asking … what exactly spurred on this extra hatred for the patriarchy today? No judgment, just …”

“For the book recommendation?” you asked, her lips turned upwards slightly in a way that he knew you were teasing. He found himself smiling back. 

“Yes. For the recommendation.”

You took a deep breath, focusing on the worn out book spines in front of you, trailing a finger over Virginia Woolf’s name. 

“I quit my job today,” you said suddenly. It was as if a weight fell off of your shoulders just at the admission. “I’ve been gearing for a promotion for the past year and a half, I’m insanely qualified for it and honestly a shoo-in for the position. And I’m not just saying that, it’s one-hundred percent true. So when my boss called me in for a special meeting this morning, I’m ready to go, right? All my hard work is finally going to be paid off, I’m going to get the position I’ve been heading towards since I started there. But then …”

You let out a deep breath, laughing humorlessly as you looked down at you shoes. “But then he told me that I was in fact not getting the promotion, but my coworker Chad was. Fucking Chad. The frat boy from hell itself that had been working there for barely even three months and still couldn’t even fill out expense reports for crying out loud! He got the promotion I rightfully deserved because apparently the position requires ‘being able to exude a certain level of authority that the fairer sex simply can’t produce in the necessary fashion.’”

Namjoon sucked in a sharp breath. You looked up at him with wide eyes. “Right?” You shouted in exasperation. “Can you believe that? He literally called me the fairer sex! Like buddy, that’s not a fucking compliment. I don’t how you get off to talking down to me when if it wasn’t for me, your firm would’ve already gone down the drain. Gah, the nerve! I tried to keep my cool, but it was like all of this repressed anger just came surging up and I flipped my lid. I mean I really flew off the handle, I completely lost it. They almost had to call security, all of my coworkers saw it go down, it was … mortifying, but I was so pissed off I didn’t care. I finally yelled out that I quit and stormed out. I started to go to the gym to punch something, but that was definitely only going to make me more angry, and my mom used to say that reading a book always helped with whatever you were feeling so … I saw your place while driving and now I’m here. A crazy, angry lady scaring off you and your employees.”

You trailed off, staring holes into the bookshelf before you. Namjoon didn’t know what to say — he didn’t know what he should say. He wasn’t good with comforting, he didn’t know how to say the right words in the right way to make you feel better. 

But he did know books.

“Fed Up.”

You looked up at him. “Pardon?”

“Fed Up,” he repeated, reaching over and pulling the book in question off the shelf. “Fed Up by Gemma Hartley. It’s her first book, and it just came out last November. Really good though.”

He handed the book to you, who accepted it with surprise. “Oh. Th-Thanks.”

“Rage Becomes Her, by Soraya Chemaly — not sure I’m pronouncing that name right, to be honest, and I haven’t read it, but the reviews have been good. The Power, by Naomi Alderman, it’s fiction, and if you like The Handmaid’s Tale you’ll love that one. Oh! Sister Outsider, by Audre Lorde. The essays cover a whole bunch of topics, so it’s super well-rounded.”

With each recommendation, Namjoon handed you the book in question, and soon you had a stack of four in your hands, looking up at him in shock and surprise. The pleasant kind of surprise, he noticed. He hoped. 

“And of course,” he continued, reaching over your head (your really were tiny, like you had said earlier in your rant), “you can’t leave here without A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf. I won’t allow it.”

You grinned, absolutely delighted with this turn of events. “Oh you won’t allow it?” you smarted back. “Will you use your big scary man powers and keep me here?”

“No, but I might send Jimin over here to tell you how much he loves Hemingway.”

“Namjoon!” Jimin shrieked from the back room, clearly listening to the conversation. 

You burst into laughter, throwing your head back as the sound filled the shop. Namjoon’s cheeks hurt from smiling so much. 

“I know you know this, but I feel like I have to say this,” Namjoon said as you tamped down on her laughter. “Your old boss was a cowardly dickwad. And fucking Chad is going to suck at that job, and probably get fired or quit, and then go running back to his old money family and never have any real dreams or passion because at heart he’s a fucking loser. You exude a shit ton of authority and they were idiots not to promote you.”

You sucked in a sharp breath, letting it out slowly with a small, shy smile as you looked down at the books in your hands. Your duality was going to send Namjoon to the grave. 

“Namjoon,” you said, finally looking back up at him. 

“I … yes, that’s my name,” he said in confusion. 

You laughed, shaking your head. “I mispronounced it earlier when I read your name tag. Your weasly employees have said your name a couple times now and I realized I said it wrong. Sorry about that.”

Namjoon only laughed. “It’s fine. You’d be surprised how often that happens.”

“Seriously though, Namjoon … thanks. I was a real bitch before and that was all really nice of you to say. I appreciate it.”

Namjoon’s chest tightened at your words. “You’re welcome. And I meant every word of it. Fuck Chad.”

“Fuck Chad,” you affirmed with a nod. 

“Yeah fuck Chad!” Taehyung’s voice echoed from the back room. “Actually don’t fuck Chad, he seems like a real douchebag. Or do fuck him if you want. Your body is your body and you can fuck whoever you want and — ouch! Stop hitting me! I’m being nice now, what the hell?!”

You laughed yet again at that while Namjoon sighed in exasperation. 

“I’m so sorry,” he said suddenly. “I haven’t even asked your name.”

“Don’t worry about it,” you chuckled, shifting the books in you arms. “I’m Y/N.”

“Y/N,” Namjoon repeated, smiling to himself. “I’m sorry such a bad day brought you here, but … quite frankly this has been the most entertaining thing to happen at Koya’s for a while.”

“That’s the truth.”

“Shut up!” Namjoon yelled over his shoulder before turning back to you with a sheepish smile. 

“Business been a little slow lately?” At the question, Namjoon’s cheeks flushed bright red. “I didn’t mean that as an insult! I just … I remember hearing a lot about this place a couple years ago when it opened, in the papers and stuff. And with what your employee just said and earlier you mentioned you had to let some other workers go and—”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Namjoon reassured you, chuckling and scratching the back of his head — you were beginning to notice that he did that when he was nervous. “Yeah, things have been slow. My business partner had to leave about a year ago and Koya’s has been … on a bit of a decline since then.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.”

Namjoon waved you off. “It’s fine, this stuff happens in business. We’ll get through it. Hey are you satisfied with those book choices? Did you want to look around some more or…?”

“No these are great!” You assured him, smiling widely. How on earth had you been so rude to this guy earlier? 

“Okay great, I can check you out over at the cash register.”

“Yeah you can, Joonie — hey, ouch!”

Tell-tale sounds of a scuffle broke out in the back room. 

“Uh, should you check that out?” You asked as a loud metal clanging and a few more choice curse words rang out. 

Namjoon pondered on it for about two seconds. “No, they’re fine. Come with me.”

Walking to the cash register, you took a closer look at the bookshop. When you first came in you were still simmering with rage over stupid fucking Chad so you hadn’t looked at the place proper. 

It was cute, albeit small, in an old building that you were sure had seen better days. It looked like there was an upstairs, but it was closed off. The decorations were pretty sparse (okay there weren’t really any decorations, at least not very good ones), and quite frankly the piano instrumental playlist over the speakers was boring as hell — even for a bookstore.  

“She’s not much,” Namjoon commented, watching your gaze. “But this place is my pride and joy.”

“It’s great,” you admitted. And it was, even if your overly critical eye was looking at areas that could use improvement. “Really. And you didn’t even kick out the psycho woman who came in shouting about the patriarchy. You actually managed to calm me down and honestly that’s a feat in and of itself.”

Namjoon laughed at that, looking up at your from underneath his long eyelashes with a dopey grin. Damn he was adorable. 

“My business partner Seokjin, the one who left a year ago, he would have handled it better than me. He was always better with customers.”

“I don’t know,” you shrugged, leaning over the counter and grinning up at him, “I think you did pretty good, Namjoon.”

It gave you quite the ego boost to see the shy smile and the heat in Namjoon’s cheeks at your words. Doesn’t exude authority my ass, you thought to yourself. 

“Seokjin he was uh, he—” Namjoon cleared his throat, working to focus on his task at hand as you flirted. You decided to show him mercy and stand back up to your full height, leaning away from the counter. “He was great at customer service and the marketing side of everything. Don’t get me wrong, I like working with customers, but honestly I … I’m here for the books more than the people sometimes. I think that’s one of the reasons business has declined since he left.”

You were quiet at that, and Namjoon looked up to see you staring at a spot on the counter in what appeared to be deep thought. He cleared his throat and finished bagging your books, reading off the total. Honestly he didn’t want to charge you for the books because of the crap day you’d had, but he also needed to pay Jimin and Taehyung that month. 

“Oh, right,” you said, pulling your phone out of your pocket and opening up Apple pay. As the transaction processed, you suddenly took a deep breath and looked up at Namjoon. “Did I happen to mention what kind of a company I was working for before I, you know, became a public nuisance and flipped a table in rage before quitting my job?”

“You flipped a table?” Namjoon asked incredulously.

“Not important,” you said with a wave of your hand. “But really, did I mention where I worked?”

“No, no you didn’t.”

You smiled, wide and unrestrained and Namjoon felt like you had punched him in the gut. 

“I worked for Atlas Marketing.” At the name of one of the biggest companies in the city, Namjoon’s eyes almost bugged out. “As of yesterday I was the youngest and most promising marketer in our branch. But as of today,” you dragged out the word and smiled even bigger, “I am currently unemployed, with plenty of money in my savings account to work for a few months on a meager salary, and ready to start a new project … if you get what I’m saying.”

Namjoon stared at you slack-jawed. Your old boss actually had the nerve to say that you didn’t exude authority? He’d known your for maybe fifteen minutes and you’d exuded more confidence and authority than anyone he’d ever met. 

And he wasn’t ashamed to say he liked it. 

He really liked it.

He also was fully aware that you were exactly what Koya’s Used Books needed. 

“Y/N,” he said, “how would you like a job?” 

“Sweet, we’ve got a pretty girl working with us now.”

“Tae, you can’t just say things like that!”

“What! I’m showing equaility! Isn’t that what — ouch!”

[grindskull]

Shit that fucks me up #1 - Toxic Masculinity and being a “man”

Gotta have some way to organize my random thoughts here. I’m going with the obvious thing - Shit that fucks me up (STFMU). This is about me and my experiences. It is not my intention to discredit or question other human experiences. Sharing in the hopes of connecting with others who may have feel similar in their own skin. There are things here that others may define as triggers so read at your own risk (rape, abuse, and this fucking world). ---

Here is me being vulnerable.  I am putting myself out there by discussing masculinity and how I often do not identify with the larger concept of “being a man” in any positive way. You can call it toxic masculinity if you prefer. It’s acceptable shorthand for something that is just as nuanced and difficult to wade through as anything gender related.  I read this article on The Atlantic yesterday and there were some things that really resonated with me and my experience as a man/male (he/his/him). You can read it here (sorry there is a pay wall if you read more than 4 articles a month) but I will also be quoting some of the article below.  If you have time to read the article I’ll wait. It’s a bit long (many articles on The Atlantic are) and kind of academic at times. It’s okay if you don’t agree with everything in the article. Just read it.  Done? Okay let me set the stage a bit for how this shit fucks me up. ---

I’m male. I have always identified as a male/boy/man in my life. Unfortunately my experience with other males/boys/men has been mostly negative. It started at an early age when I had a hard time connecting with other boys my age. I was not interested in typical “male” interests like sports, violence, competition, and achievement. I had few (usually 1 or 2) friends at any one time and they typically had some kind of unhealthy power dynamic over me where I was subservient to my “friend” in some way.  I have some thoughts on reasons why this happened. The short version is I lived in poverty (often extreme) and I was searching for help and support in order to survive. At home I had abuse (mental, physical, verbal), drugs, addiction, and neglect. It was not a safe place to be so I did whatever I could to not be there. It was not unusual for me to eat maybe one meal during the day (typically what I could get from others at school or their home). Winter was the worst as we often did not have heat. Some of my “friends” used this as a way to hold power over me and make demands of my personality, time, and attention. Imagine finding yourself in this situation - you have to actively work to not be yourself in order to appease others for your very survival. Of course as a youth I didn’t identify it this way - my “friends” were just bossy or demanding. All of my male role models were basically assholes who did not give a fuck about anyone except themselves. This was a huge part of the 80′s zeitgeist in popular culture at the time as well. In some ways nothing has really changed. “... when asked to describe the attributes of “the ideal guy,” those same boys appeared to be harking back to 1955. Dominance. Aggression. Rugged good looks (with an emphasis on height). Sexual prowess. Stoicism. Athleticism. Wealth (at least some day).“ Under this common definition of “masculinity” I do not see myself. I am loyal, honest, caring, and sweet (to those I love). I love my body though I am non-athletic and have been most of my life. I am an attentive and talented lover but I have had very few sexual partners in my life and never saw them as moments of “conquest”. I was dirt poor most of my life but now live comfortably in my own home with my long term partner. So while not “wealthy” it is far beyond anything I could have imagined I would have in my life as a boy. Stoicism I have down. That one was easy. For me it’s just a nice way of saying “I have completely disconnected from my emotions and not having feelings or emotions is the best way to be a man”. I believed that for a very long time - it’s only in the past 2-3 years I have begun the work of breaking that down and reconnecting with my own emotions. It’s all tied up in trauma, depression, and anxiety so it takes a bit of fucking work but it’s very much worth it. If you are a man/male who thinks it is normal to not have emotions (or that emotions make you feminine/weak) please listen to me - THAT IS BULLSHIT. YOU OWE IT TO YOURSELF TO HAVE EMOTIONS.

“... young men described just one narrow route to successful masculinity. One-third said they felt compelled to suppress their feelings, to “suck it up” or “be a man” when they were sad or scared, and more than 40 percent said that when they were angry, society expected them to be combative.“

Emotions are not weakness. You are not weak for having them, feeling them, or connecting with them. There is great strength in connecting with yourself and understanding your emotions. Don’t let anyone tell you different. They are delusional at best and actively trying to harm you at worst.

“While following the conventional script may still bring social and professional rewards to boys and men, research shows that those who rigidly adhere to certain masculine norms are not only more likely to harass and bully others but to themselves be victims of verbal or physical violence. They’re more prone to binge-drinking, risky sexual behavior, and getting in car accidents. They are also less happy than other guys, with higher depression rates and fewer friends in whom they can confide.”

---

How did we get here!? Have men always been this way? What about the good ole masculinity of ye olden times? It was a simple time where men were men right? A man’s man? “According to Andrew Smiler, a psychologist who has studied the history of Western masculinity, the ideal late-19th-century man was compassionate, a caretaker, but such qualities lost favor as paid labor moved from homes to factories during industrialization. In fact, the Boy Scouts, whose creed urges its members to be loyal, friendly, courteous, and kind, was founded in 1910 in part to counter that dehumanizing trend. Smiler attributes further distortions in masculinity to a century-long backlash against women’s rights. During World War I, women proved that they could keep the economy humming on their own, and soon afterward they secured the vote. Instead of embracing gender equality, he says, the country’s leaders “doubled down” on the inalienable male right to power, emphasizing men’s supposedly more logical and less emotional nature as a prerequisite for leadership.”

Take a minute to read that and really take it in. Like many things in the US (and the world) the effects of industrialization and war shaped our current version of accepted masculinity. More specifically the leaders of this country (and leaders in other countries) used their positions of power to strengthen men and this new masculinity in our institutions. Then we were taught that this was the “right way” to “be a man”. FUCK. THIS. SHIT.

“Today many parents are unsure of how to raise a boy, what sort of masculinity to encourage in their sons. But as I learned from talking with boys themselves, the culture of adolescence, which fuses hyper-rationality with domination, sexual conquest, and a glorification of male violence, fills the void.“

Here we have the core of what I experience as a man when it comes to the current socially accepted version of masculinity and why it fucks me up. I don’t identify with any of this shit! It does not feed me. It does not make me feel fulfilled and happy. It doesn’t make the world better for anyone it simply dehumanizes us all. 

“In a classic study, adults shown a video of an infant startled by a jack-in-the-box were more likely to presume the baby was “angry” if they were first told the child was male. Mothers of young children have repeatedly been found to talk more to their girls and to employ a broader, richer emotional vocabulary with them; with their sons, again, they tend to linger on anger. As for fathers, they speak with less emotional nuance than mothers regardless of their child’s sex. Despite that, according to Judy Y. Chu, a human-biology lecturer at Stanford who conducted a study of boys from pre-K through first grade, little boys have a keen understanding of emotions and a desire for close relationships. But by age 5 or 6, they’ve learned to knock that stuff off, at least in public: to disconnect from feelings of weakness, reject friendships with girls (or take them underground, outside of school), and become more hierarchical in their behavior.“

I’m not going to get into the topic of my own father (that’s another post in this series for sure) too deeply but I will say I completely identify with these ideas. Emotional distance, only expressing anger, telling me having emotions was weak. This was reinforced societal norms throughout my youth through today. Don’t talk about your problems or feelings. Ball them up inside. Wall yourself off from the world. Connections = weakness that others will exploit. You must control every situation and hold power over others. FUCK. THIS. SHIT.

---

So when did I wake up? When did I start to see through this shit in some way? When my younger sister was born. It was really obvious to me that she was treated in a different way and expectations of her as a girl/woman were not the same as the expectations others had for me. Mostly I just saw the negatives in this. It took me time (and lots of communication and experiences with my partner and others) to recognize the root of this was more fucked up socialization. 

“Girlfriends, mothers, and in some cases sisters were the most common confidants of the boys I met. While it’s wonderful to know they have someone to talk to—and I’m sure mothers, in particular, savor the role—teaching boys that women are responsible for emotional labor, for processing men’s emotional lives in ways that would be emasculating for them to do themselves, comes at a price for both sexes. Among other things, that dependence can leave men unable to identify or express their own emotions, and ill-equipped to form caring, lasting adult relationships.”

Read this carefully. Nobody is responsible for your emotional well being but you. If you are a male/man this is especially true - females/women are not responsible for managing your emotions and your reliance on them to take care of this is a form of abuse. They are not responsible for your emotions. YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR OWN EMOTIONS.

It can be really hard to see this. It was a blind spot for me for way too long. Don’t let it be one for you. Connecting with and taking responsibility for your emotions is one of the biggest things you can do to improve yourself as a human being. If you are sad you can cry. If you are happy you can laugh. You have a wide range of emotions and they don’t all lead to frustration or anger.

“As someone who, by virtue of my sex, has always had permission to weep, I didn’t initially understand this. Only after multiple interviews did I realize that when boys confided in me about crying—or, even more so, when they teared up right in front of me—they were taking a risk, trusting me with something private and precious: evidence of vulnerability, or a desire for it.“

---

Okay so putting aside all of the reinforcement we get from our parents and institutions and our lack of emotional vulnerability why do we all buy into this dumb shit? Who convinced us all this is what masculinity is? And why do we listen?

“What the longtime sportswriter Robert Lipsyte calls “jock culture” (or what the boys I talked with more often referred to as “bro culture”) is the dark underbelly of male-dominated enclaves, whether or not they formally involve athletics: all-boys’ schools, fraternity houses, Wall Street, Silicon Valley, Hollywood, the military. Even as such groups promote bonding, even as they preach honor, pride, and integrity, they tend to condition young men to treat anyone who is not “on the team” as the enemy (the only women who ordinarily make the cut are blood relatives— bros before hos!), justifying any hostility toward them. Loyalty is paramount, and masculinity is habitually established through misogynist language and homophobia.”

Sounds familiar right guys? Don’t kid yourself. This is what being a man looks like in almost all situations in which we feel “safe” to express our self right? You are either with us or against us. Anything different or anyone questioning this behavior must be “othered” as they are clearly not “on the team”. FUCK. THIS. SHIT.

This was my entire experience as a youth. As someone who did not fit into this group (nor wanted to) I was immediately “othered” and deemed a “pussy” or “fag” or “homo” or “weirdo”. My friend group reflected this - mostly others who also were “not on the team” like women, gays and lesbians, and men who also did not identify with this version of masculinity. Which just made it easier to group us all together and identify us as the enemy. 

“Just because some young men now draw the line at referring to someone who is openly gay as a fag doesn’t mean, by the way, that gay men (or men with traits that read as gay) are suddenly safe. If anything, the gay guys I met were more conscious of the rules of manhood than their straight peers were. They had to be—and because of that, they were like spies in the house of hypermasculinity.” Without the ability to connect with and express my emotions I often reacted in anger. I started fights. I got violent (with words and writing mostly). I returned this “othering” and treated them all as the enemy. I had other reasons for this (being abused by men as a boy) but at the crux of the issue I had no trust for men. This helped me connect with women and my gay friends as they also experienced this distrust in similar (and different) ways. 

Years later I found myself in a job where I managed a group of men (100 or more at any time) working as a team (video game industry) and totally unable to connect with any of them as a human let alone a man. It was at this time that I realized this was a problem beyond my own experiences and when I started to understand my own participation in this system. 

I tried to question things as they came up. I tried to hear my teammates and help them navigate this murky sea of masculinity to find their own place in it. Most people didn’t want to participate. They learned to keep their mouth shut if I was within earshot of their typical “bro talk”. They learned to act differently around me so as not to incur my wrath (using my anger and position of power to punish them for being sexist, racist, or intolerant). I felt powerful and I tricked myself into thinking I was making a difference. I was wrong. 

---

“Recently, Pascoe turned her attention to no homo, a phrase that gained traction in the 1990s. She sifted through more than 1,000 tweets, primarily by young men, that included the phrase. Most were expressing a positive emotion, sometimes as innocuous as “I love chocolate ice cream, #nohomo” or “I loved the movie The Day After Tomorrow, #nohomo.” “A lot of times they were saying things like ‘I miss you’ to a friend or ‘We should hang out soon,’ ” she said. “Just normal expressions of joy or connection.” No homo is a form of inoculation against insults from other guys, Pascoe concluded, a “shield that allows boys to be fully human.”

It wasn’t long before my “making a difference” spread into our hiring, training, and management of the team. I brought in women who wanted to work in the game industry. I tried to shut down any of the bro culture bullshit that came up and used it as an opportunity to teach other men why it was fucked up. It worked for some (maybe 5-6 people out of hundreds) but the majority either quit or tried to get me fired. Most did not change their behavior in any way. 

The women said they knew what they were getting into. I don’t believe they knew what it was like to actually be in the middle of the situation. I assume women in the military probably have a lot of experience like this. In short - it’s fucking toxic and disgusting. Like other males/men they too have to fall in line and “become one of the boys” or risk being antagonized and ostracized for being “different”. It’s Lord of the Flies. It’s fucking mob mentality. It’s masculinity at it’s absolute worst. And this was in a “progressive” creative city working for a small company with a woman CEO. Men simply don’t give a fuck and it’s almost always easier to go with the flow. FUCK. THIS. SHIT.

My first experience with a trans individual in a work setting occurred was while I was managing this team. One of our long term employees made the transition and I had to watch how they were treated by the “bros’. Jokes were made, memes were shared, snickering and fucked up behavior was rampant. I had to talk to, discipline, and fire many individuals. These were men I thought were “on the team” and working to be good examples of masculinity. I should have known that was just part of the act - their way of surviving and showing subservience to me as a man in a position of power over them. My trust was further eroded in masculinity. 

Putting yourself over others is not power. It is dehumanization and it stems from hate. We can be different without being better or worse than someone else regardless of who they are. Not everything has to be a competition. It took me way too long to undo the damage done to me by these ideal of toxic masculinity. You can do it too - you just have to start today. 

---

Beyond the negative effects this version of masculinity has on us as males/men it also fucks up our interaction with women and sexual partners and it’s certainly done so to me. I’m actively working on unfucking my fucking and aware that many of my heterosexual ideals of sex stem from the same shit I have been actively fighting against most of my life. Connecting emotionally with your sexual partner takes things to a completely different level.

“It’s not like I imagined boys would gush about making sweet, sweet love to the ladies, but why was their language so weaponized ? The answer, I came to believe, was that locker-room talk isn’t about sex at all, which is why guys were ashamed to discuss it openly with me. The (often clearly exaggerated) stories boys tell are really about power: using aggression toward women to connect and to validate one another as heterosexual, or to claim top spots in the adolescent sexual hierarchy. Dismissing that as “banter” denies the ways that language can desensitize—abrade boys’ ability to see girls as people deserving of respect and dignity in sexual encounters.”  

This is the first thing that comes to my mind when I hear the term “rape culture”. As men we are taught that to be masculine is to claim “wins” in sexual conquest. Sex is property and we can collect it. Even if it’s with our long term partners or spouses. Ever tried talking to men about this? Ever questioned others on how it’s fucked up? You probably heard about how it’s all in jest. Just a joke! I’m just joking!  “When called out, boys typically claim that they thought they were just being “funny.” And in a way that makes sense—when left unexamined, such “humor” may seem like an extension of the gross-out comedy of childhood. Little boys are famous for their fart jokes, booger jokes, poop jokes. It’s how they test boundaries, understand the human body, gain a little cred among their peers. But, as can happen with sports, their glee in that can both enable and camouflage sexism. The boy who, at age 10, asks his friends the difference between a dead baby and a bowling ball may or may not find it equally uproarious, at 16, to share what a woman and a bowling ball have in common (you can Google it). He may or may not post ever-escalating “jokes” about women, or African Americans, or homosexuals, or disabled people on a group Snapchat. He may or may not send “funny” texts to friends about “girls who need to be raped,” or think it’s hysterical to surprise a buddy with a meme in which a woman is being gagged by a penis, her mascara mixed with her tears. He may or may not, at 18, scrawl the names of his hookups on a wall in his all-male dorm, as part of a year-long competition to see who can “pull” the most. Perfectly nice, bright, polite boys I interviewed had done one or another of these things.”

Let me be clear in case you are confused. This shit isn’t funny. Laughing at other people’s misfortune is a long standing human tradition yes - and it still dehumanizes everyone involved. That doesn’t make me laugh but maybe you are still amused? Why?

“At the most disturbing end of the continuum, “funny” and “hilarious” become a defense against charges of sexual harassment or assault. To cite just one example, a boy from Steubenville, Ohio, was captured on video joking about the repeated violation of an unconscious girl at a party by a couple of high-school football players. “She is so raped,” he said, laughing. “They raped her quicker than Mike Tyson.” When someone off camera suggested that rape wasn’t funny, he retorted, “It isn’t funny—it’s hilarious!”

The classic toxic masculinity force field present in my life has been the “just joking” phrase with the ultimate no consequence phrase “it’s hilarious!”. Say something you don’t want to manage the consequences for? Just a joke! People still question you or your morals after saying some heinous shit? No.. it’s cool... it’s hilarious! You just gotta laugh! FUCK. THIS. SHIT.

“Hilarious” is another way, under the pretext of horseplay or group bonding, that boys learn to disregard others’ feelings as well as their own. “Hilarious” is a haven, offering distance when something is inappropriate, confusing, depressing, unnerving, or horrifying; when something defies boys’ ethics. It allows them to subvert a more compassionate response that could be read as unmasculine—and makes sexism and misogyny feel transgressive rather than supportive of an age-old status quo. Boys may know when something is wrong; they may even know that true manhood—or maybe just common decency—compels them to speak up. Yet, too often, they fear that if they do, they’ll be marginalized or, worse, themselves become the target of derision from other boys. Masculinity, then, becomes not only about what boys do say, but about what they don’t—or won’t, or can’t—say, even when they wish they could. The psychologists Dan Kindlon and Michael Thompson, the authors of Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys, have pointed out that silence in the face of cruelty or sexism is how too many boys become men. 

I feel like I may have already gone too far into this dark hole of shit that fucks me up around toxic masculinity. I hope I didn’t lose you. I hope you have questions and thoughts about how this impacts your life. Perhaps ways that you make a change today to fight against this bullshit. You may be asking yourself “what can we do!?” At the end of the day its up to males/men to change this culture. It’s not about self-hate or self-abuse. We gotta name this and own it. We need more men to step up and say ‘It doesn’t have to be like this”. Our collective mental health requires us to be more flexible and connected to ourselves and emotions. We need to find ways to deal with our anger, frustration, and desires in ways that don’t hurt ourselves and others. We need to teach ourselves (especially youth) that it isn’t enough to only talk about things we shouldn’t (and hopefully won’t) do. 

If this shit fucks you too you can do something about it. Start with yourself. Question these things when they come up. And not only when you feel “safe” to do so. Do it consistently in ways that are non-confrontational (they will probably lead to confrontations with most men anyway - sorry). Be okay with not always “winning’ in these situations. You’ll be surprised who you might connect with in the process. Hopefully one of those people will be yourself. 

[goodticklebrain]

Q&A August: Me, Myself, and I

Hey everyone! I’m back from my break! Well… sort of. Various personal crises and professional obligations have reared their heads, and I need to take some time to work them all out. Fortunately, I have lots of amazingly generous Shakespeare friends who have agreed to help me out by answering some (hopefully) fun questions about Shakespeare and themselves.

Now, I try never to ask anyone to do something I would not do, so I’m going first.

1.  Who are you? Why Shakespeare

I'm Mya Gosling, the artist and author of Good Tickle Brain, the world's foremost and possibly only stick figure Shakespeare webcomic. (But, since you're reading this, you probably already knew that...) My love of Shakespeare started when I was around 10 years old and my father showed me the Laurence Olivier film of Henry V. Since then I've been fortunate enough to see almost all of Shakespeare's plays performed live. For the past six years I've been sharing my love of Shakespeare with people through the incongruous medium of stick figure comics. My attitude towards Shakespeare can be summarized in two main points: a) he's a lot of fun, and b) don't take him too seriously.

2.  What moment(s) in Shakespeare always make you laugh?

In the middle of the chaotic final scene of Cymbeline, in which about a dozen improbable dangling plot threads are being improbably resolved by a series of improbable revelations, the Doctor pipes up with the line "O gods! I left out one thing..." It's a line that, while not funny in and of itself, is absolutely hysterical in context and never fails to make me laugh.

3. What's a favorite Shakespearean performance anecdote?

I saw a local university production of Much Ado About Nothing where the actor playing Claudio had come down with a nasty stomach bug. There were no understudies, so the actor playing the Sexton was drafted to step in. He wandered around the stage, clutching the script binder like a life raft and exuding a genuine insecurity that made his hapless Claudio much more sympathetic than usual. I spent the entire first two acts waiting eagerly for Beatrice to say "Speak, Count, 'tis your cue." It was an appropriately cathartic meta-theatrical moment.

4. What's one of the more unusual Shakespearean interpretations you've either seen or would like to see?

I was lucky enough to see the RSC's current production of The Taming of the Shrew, which is set in an Elizabethan matriarchy with an almost entirely gender-flipped cast (Petruchio is played as a woman by a woman, Kate is played as a man by a man, etc.). It was very well done, and surprisingly thought provoking on a number of levels that I did not expect. Even the way the costumes were used, with the women's large dresses not being seen as encumbrances but rather a means for them to physically take up more space (i.e. woman-spreading), was fascinating. I’d like to see more productions play around with the gender of characters and see what effect it has.

5. What's one of your favorite Shakespearean "hidden gems"?

He’s not hidden, and he’s definitely not a gem, but I’ve had a character crush on Hotspur ever since I first saw Henry IV part 1  back in 2001. Objectively, he’s a totally thoughtless and impulsive jerk, but he’s so charismatic and compelling and entertaining that he just completely carries me away. I’m mature enough now to realize he’d be absolutely terrible for me, but I’m still carrying a tiny torch for that gunpowder Percy.

6. What passages from Shakespeare have stayed with you?

This is awfully cliched, but one of the first bits of Shakespeare that I committed to memory was the opening chorus from Henry V: "O for a muse of fire, etc. etc." How can you not fall in love with a paean to the imagination? The ability to conjure something out of nothing has always excited and inspired me, and this speech so perfectly encapsulates the imaginative and collaborative magic not only of theatre, but of any creative profession. (The Salic Law speech, which I memorized when I first started this comic back in 2016, has also stayed with me, mostly because it's a great party piece, if also an unfortunately effective way to get people to punch you in the face.)

7. What Shakespeare plays have changed for you?

From first impression to most recent impression, the play that has changed the most for me over the years is The Winter's Tale. I really didn't like it the first time I saw it: Leontes was obviously an irredeemably horrible character, so I didn't see why I should care about him getting an undeserved happy ending, plus the Bohemia bits were interminable and pointless. However, each successive time I've seen it, a little bit more of its magic has been unlocked for me. I still think the Bohemia bits are interminable and pointless, and that Autolycus is an immensely overrated and tiresome character, but the hope and forgiveness permeating the latter half of the play is starting to melt my stony heart. I still don't love it, and I may never love it, but I appreciate it more and more every time I encounter it.

8. What Shakespearean character or characters do you identify the most with?

Recently I've identified very strongly with Peter Quince. All he wants to do is entertain people, but nothing quite works out the way he's planned, and it looks like everything is going to be a disaster, and he's very worried and stressed out all the time, but in the end he (inadvertently) produces a work of comic genius. I relate very strongly to all of that. I have aspirations to be a Beatrice, but honestly compels me to admit that I am not.

9. Where can we find out more about you? Are there any projects/events you would like us to check out?

If you’re reading this, you already know all about me! But if you’re interested in supporting my work, head over to Patreon. Also, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr, if you happen to be on any of those platforms.

COMING THURSDAY: You’ve almost certainly seen him in (very fast) action, making a professional fool of himself. It’s my Comedy Fairy Godfather!

[reneeswing]

The Joy, The Ridicule and The Hope

Let's rewind: what are the top three advices that have been given to us about COVID-19 prevention: wash your hand, observe social distance and take care of each other. Does that ring the bell that we have learnt all three things since we are in elementary school, if we are ever lucky enough to go to one.

So, I am going to make a bold statement here: most of the life-long lessons that we need for going through life, we’ve learnt them way before advanced educations, regardless of differences in culture, race and geographic locations. Yet, the sad truth is we only seem to spend the remainder of our time forgetting all we have learnt and all we need to remember to overcome this conundrum. If I dig a bit deeper, my basic education have equiped me with way more useful knowledge than what business school and law school have ever tought me. To name a few, geography helps me to navigate through the continents without being laughed at, history and literature offer me perspectives to see and comprehend everything ever happened in this time and this world. Law school and business school, on the other hand, slowly coop up people into a disillusion of elite class, distancing them from what’s actually going on in this insanely biased reality. Don’t get me wrong, I still believe every opportunity of education matters, it emancipates and liberates generations; and if anything, I have been blessed with all sort of way of thinking, coming from each stage of my school years. It is the monotonous perception on education that sometimes misinterprets or overly simplifies its true essence.

Do anyone begin to appreciate the down time of this quanrantine yet? I am not saying this to trivialize the dismal impact of the pandemic; because both our economic and social lives have taken a major toll from this crisis. For those who are alone in this quarantine, they are craving for human contact, the touch, the hug, all the more basic need of being a human; whereas for those who have a full house with multiple children at home, the working day never ends as it is combined with home schooling. This makes people finally realize that their job is their ultimate refuge. One of my friends started to refer to her kids as fantastic beasts, since the third week of the lockdown. This is, in my opinion, one of the best metaphors of the year. Now, this is what I hope: when all this is over, we will eventually appreciate more of our teachers and other educational workers. for us, it is only with our own kids, whereas at school, kids are ganged up on them. They are entitled to fairer reward and respect from all walks of the society.

Like others, my emotion has gone through various stages: at first, I was fairly content with what I’ve got here, a cozy home, abundant toilet rolls and sufficient supply of alcoholic grape juice. Then some kind of obsession started to develop, the bad kind is to slowly transform healthy self-reflection into self-condemnation for something I have done wrong 2,3,5 years ago. And the more time I spent on my devices, the higher level of anxiety incubated. Then, later on, I decided to have a rather lengthy conversation with myself, the righteous thing that I have ever done: committing to my own feelings, compelling myself away from judgement. I learnt to acknowledge them, more importantly, I searched for language and specific words to label them in all the more precise way. Through that exercise, I realized although they appear similarly, the emotion of anxiety is very different from that of sadness; and the exhileration that I was feeling is also different from excitement. When I found out I was able to distinguish those various emotions in me, I felt stress level has already half way gone, I could call the truce with myself. So, something good does come out from this period. When we are not able to go out, we should allow ourselves to go within.  

There are a lot more silver linings. To my recollection over the past 8 years, I don’t rememer any of the Dutch springs is as beautiful as this one. We’ve had sunny and warm weather throughout the month of April. Everyday, I went onto my balcony, let the light beam through my forehead and inhale the most precious fresh air. It is painful to face it that our continents are receding to isolated islands as all the traffics are shut down, but it is also delightful to find that nature thrives when human society hits the PAUSE button. The blue sky is returned to the birds and their flapping wings; waterways turn purer as no more crazy human running around and emitting pollution into them.  Even panda’s resume consummation. For the last 2,3 years, anthropogenic activities have caused large scale bushfires across north and south hemispheres; it happened even in Syberia above the North Pole. Human society is inflicting pains onto the lung of our Mother Earth. Isn’t it an irony that our respiratory system is succumbed to this coronavirus? I couldn’t help but wonder if this pandemic is the nature’s vengeance onto the arrogance of human race? So, here comes my second wish. One day as we come out of this pandemic, our peaceful moments with the nature will stick around a bit longer. Even though I know that humanity is terrible at reckoning with it own sin, I still wish this time, after all we have endured, we will finally learn to return the favour for our Mother Nature’s altruistic love. That we will be more reflective on our own behaviours, the impact that each of us have made onto anything outside of ourselves. You may say I am a dreamer, but I am definitely not and should not be the only one.

......

The world is suffering from its own bipolar disorder. To steer my way clear from the menaces, I rid myself of watching news during the weekends. But one still doesn't make the cut. As for a while, it is the only thing that people couldn't stop talking about: Donald Trump contemplates injecting/ingesting coronavirus patients with disinfectants, until the moment he made the next obnoxious statement. What's even more troubling is there was actually a slight increasing number of ER cases caused by internal administration of chemical solvent. Both New York Times and RB, the producer of Lysol and Dettol, had to make official announcement to talk people out of their desperate craze. One day I woke up and spit out this question: how is it even possibly happening? If B school has ever taught me anything, it is that leadership matters; and I dedicated most of my career contemplating how to be a good (future) leader. But nowadays, we are riding a perfect storm, while sinking down into a chasm called: the scum rises to the top. We are living in a reality that outruns the most ridiculous screenwriting of political drama. Not only have we got Trump assumed the most powerful position in this world, we don't seem capable of appropriating any countermeasures to dampen the damages. Although his strategy is nothing much different from that of a shameless politician: barking up the wrong trees to divert the public's attention further away from criticism against him, the impact however is way too profound to be left alone. He is dividing not only a country, also driving a wedge between friendly countries, when the only hope the world is left with is the hope of solidarity. 

The world is in urgent need of an assertive voice with a kind heart and a pair of potent hands. It cannot be done by one person, rather, has to be a collective conscience of all the human societies. The younger generation does not believe in institutions, they embrace anarchistic believes and have little problem of taking things to its extremity; but in the meantime, they are reasonable, way more objective and fairer than they are being judged or even portrayed. They believe in gender equality, inform themselves of cultural intricacy and they gather to rally for animal rights and climate change. For both reasons, their world needs leaders with integrity and convincing voices. In all appropriate times, we need to learn to be a leader for ourselves and for others. It is up to us how we are going to make our next decision, in giving an opinion, in executing right to vote, in influencing people around us and in doing smallest good deeds to hold onto each other. Here's an example. It is no strange thing to know that our doctors and nurses are working under tremendous physical and mental pressures. We've heard multiple cases in Italy and the US that medical staff committed suicide after virus contraction or nervous breakdown. In almost every country, people are finding ways to demonstrate their gratitude to their guardian angels; however news from India reads that doctors and nurses become target of discrimination, demonising them as virus itself. Similar discriminatory stories surface from time to time around the world against people from other countries or communities because of the pandemic. This shows how far off people could be dangerously biased and misled; the absence of a just and empathetic figure in the leadership attributes to and to a great extent severs the alienation. But we all could and should choose to lead. We can never let our guard down, ignoring any appalling ignorance, even with the slightest carelessness. We need to speak up, protect people who are protecting us and the world's most vulnerable's. We need to do it constantly, consistently and often enough. Bear in mind, our decision and undertaking of today will define our tomorrow in common. 

......

Alright, enough about the grim prospect and grievance. As far as being a hopeless optimist, I will complement my third wish with a faith in humanity after it all. Yesterday, I watched the season finale of Westworld. As Dolores sank down into her memory, she restated: "Some people choose to see the ugliness in this world. The disarray. I choose to see the beauty". I agree with every bit of those words. I believe the key to the sublime lies in ourselves and our conscience. In the end, true bravery is to love the world and humanity, despite the ugliness that we have seen or experienced. 

Before I let you go, I am inviting you to join me in paying tributes to all the essential workers who are risking their lives every day to keep ours running without panics. Next to our lovely doctors and nurses, here's to the infrastructure workers, the train conductors and bus drivers,  the supermarkets' staff, the logistics companies, the mailman, (especially my mailman, who brings me my 1,000 packages to fill the huge void in my soul), the journalists and newsmen, who are running all across the countries, strive to bring us brutal facts, inconvenient truths, disarray and hopes. Collectively you've prevented the world from crumpling, after the mess we made. I thank you for that! 

Please take care and stay healthy!

Love, R