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dgcatanisiri · 8 months

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Considering how much of the discourse around queer representation tends to forego the basic concept of "nuance is a thing," I feel like it's worth bringing up that part of the very real problem in any discussion of queer rep is that everyone wants contradictory things, not just within the community, but even among individuals.

Because the reality genuinely is no one queer character can be representative of everyone under the queer umbrella - I mean, just look at what people consider the baseline of "queerness," the LGBT acronym. Right there, the first two letters are about dynamics that inherently exclude the other - representation for lesbians inherently is different than representation for gay men. Then you start adding bisexuals, who have a different experience than either, and transgender experiences, which cross AND defy the prior categories a lot of the time.

And then you get to individual experiences - what is each person LOOKING FOR in queer representation? Because that's equally messy and contradictory. We look for and need different things at different points in our lives - sure, for the queer person just accepting their queerness, a coming out story will be meaningful. To the queer person who has been out for years, decades even, it's so baseline a story, it might as well be considered remedial representation, or a representational backslide, because isn't there anything ELSE we could be doing with queer characters?

And yet, in most media, we're still at a point of being lucky to get a queer character and a romantic partner for them. So that character can only hit one of the bullet points of queerness. Even though IRL queer people tend to enter into queer friend groups, media still puts things in the "token queer amongst straights" patterns.

So yeah, queer representation as it is will NEVER be good enough, because it can't cover every aspect of representation that we're all looking for. It's not simply a matter of "is this good representation?" but "is this representation that fits my needs as the audience?" and, if it does not, then asking "do I dislike it because it's bad or because of that lack of fit?"

I mean, I might as well bring up one of my go-to examples. I am often upset with the portrayal of Dorian Pavus in Dragon Age Inquisition. Part of that, yes, is because I don't like that characterization - I find the character as presented obnoxious and not the kind of individual I particularly want to spend time around. However, I also take issue with his storyline in the game, because to me, this is a classic "rememdial representation" instance - take away the references of blood magic, this could have come from any number of queer media centered on the baseline concept "my family does not accept my being gay." It feels very much like this is a story that came from a period so much earlier in queer media portrayals.

And I compare that to what a contemporary media managed - Inquisition was released the same year that the show How to Get Away With Murder premiered, and by the end of the first season, they introduced a gay character, Connor, and then gave him a partner, Oliver, who evolved from a one-off into a main character, and that same season also gave Oliver an HIV diagnosis, in large part to show that one) HIV is actually still a thing in this world, and two) unlike where it was during the height of the AIDS crisis, the time when you would get all this media centered around the pain and horror of the disease, and even the trope of the "too good for this sinful Earth" AIDS victim, the character whose death spurs on the improvement of the lives of all the other characters (usually straight)... Oliver gets to SURVIVE. His HIV diagnosis is not where his story ends, and it also ends up not being the whole and extent of his character as a result, which is a big thing in that kind of portrayal.

So where Inquisition comes across as repeating the stock trope of the last several decades of media, How to Get Away With Murder takes that narrative and flips it around, making sure to emphasize that Oliver's story - his life - doesn't end at the diagnosis, but functionally BEGINS.

That's where I'm coming at when I look at Dorian in Inquisition and say that I don't think he makes for good representation - by the end of Inquisition, what it wants you to take away from is "Dorian is gay, and his father didn't accept that." HTGAWM at least goes to Oliver and says that his HIV diagnosis is not all that he is, and he doesn't have a responsibility to die imparting a lesson to straight people, but to live and find happiness.

And yet, I AM fully aware that there are queer people who resonated with the story Dorian got, and, y'know, genuinely, truly, good for them. But I really did just feel pushed out of things by the fact that I've SEEN Dorian's story before, and so often, I can recite it by heart, and I DESPERATELY need something more - I've said that I could see Dorian and Felix, a character who briefly appears when Dorian is introduced, swapped around, and Felix could have, effectively, had the same story that Oliver had, and, again, Inquisition and HTGAWM released in the same year.

That's how I look at the nuances of this messy situation of queer representation - numeric representation is one thing, sure, but there is genuine discussion to have surrounding what that representation is saying with its story and what impact that story then has on its audience. It is not simply a case of "[media] has [rep] and is therefore good" or "[media] has [rep] and is therefore bad." It's entirely centered in the idea of what is it, and what is it trying to say.

Because matters of representation don't just end in numbers, or in one group being seen (and, with the way so many seem to treat things, one group being seen at the expense of others - whether that's the case or not is ANOTHER nuanced debate, worth its own post). They matter in the stories told and how those stories proceed to impact the audience.

#dg rants #another angry queer rant

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anthonysstupiddailyblog · 2 years

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Anthony’s Stupid Daily Blog (323): Thu 2nd Feb 2023

I went over the whole of my Twitter from last year to try to find highlights for a little retrospective I do for a Hollyoaks year in review. Sadly I didn’t really watch as much of the show as I should have done last year due to a combination of constantly being at work and not really wanting to watch the show due to a noticeably severe dip in quality. Lucy Allan came back on board last year to oversea the creative and a lot of Hollyoaks fans thought that she was going to fix the rug the show had been in but not only have things not improved from 2021 but they may have been even worse. Either way here are some of the highs and lows of Hollyoaks in 2022:

Highlights:

The Long Walk home was brilliant. Normally I hate “very special” episodes of TV shows but this one was well written / acted and brought a lot of attention to a serious real world issue

The incel storyline was the best one I watched (although I didn’t see many and didn’t even see all of this one). This brought attention to an issue I knew little about and featured Maxine making a triumphant return to form after a few years of subpar storylines

The carnival / escape room special was unbelievably ridiculous but awesome too. The two parter culminating in a battle on a giant chess board. It was stupid but you’ve got to take your hat off to the show for going all out and not half arsing it.

The “Out Of Time” storyline where Marnie’s salon blew up due to a firework thrown by a misguided environmentalist was a good stunt-based storyline that really shook things up and briefly made the fans think that the show was about to get interesting again but sadly things just got boring again right away.

I was glad that the Devereux story finally ended because that dragged on for way too long and while there were times that I was invested in the complicated backstories of Toby and Celeste by the end I just couldn’t wait for them to leave.

Luke’s declining health and death was the most hard hitting and powerful storyline they did all year. I think this year those of us who were hoping there would be news of a misdiagnosis realized the end was near. Hats off to Gary Lucy and Stephanie Waring for their performances

Lowlights:

I was really gobsmacked and slightly in disbelief that they split up Juliet and Peri after a years build. These two characters finally got together after a year of Juliet realising she was gay, then the two being separated due to Juliet being busted for dealing drugs and when the were finally reunited it felt to me like all the time I’d spent watching was worth it. Then out of nowhere they just had Juliet cheat on Peri. This was the first of many FFS moments we were subjected to from the show over 2022.

Bobby killing Sylver was shocking and the idea of a child serial killer was exciting but didn’t deliver as they dragged it out for most of the year and he didn’t even kill again until September.

Almost total lack of storylines for Ste and Leela. I don’t know if this was because the actors needed time off but if it was just due to a lack of ideas then shame on the show for not having more for these guys to do.

Olivia trying to bring down John Paul was a decent idea for a storyline but the character was so damn boring that I just didn’t care

The thing that almost made me throw in the towel and quit watching the show was when they put Maxine and Warren back together. There was no motivation behind it other than Maxine fancying a bootycall after someone ran her over which felt totally out of character for her and the fact that it was Warren who in the past has tried to put her in jail and attempted to murder her sister Mitzeee made this decision even worse.

The thing that finally made me throw in the towel and stop watching was

when they put Sienna and Warren back together and I realized the writers have no intention of ever splitting them up. Sienna found out Warren killed Brody, vowed to take him down and then just…didn’t. And this nonsense has seeped over into 2023 so I’m trying my best to ignore it.

Not a storyline per se but the disgusting way the show forced Sarah Jayne Dunn out of her job for something she does in her private life was the worst thing the show did behind the scenes. Not a good way to bounce back from the racism scandal of the previous year

Gemma Atkinsons blink and miss return. It was nice to see her and all but if you’re going to reintroduce a long term character sign them up for longer than three episodes and give them a decent storyline at least.

Victors return was lame and pointless. Something clearly devised as a way to give Sid and Juliet to do while they thought of something better.

Verity’s death was the dumbest thing they’ve done in years. Bobby was going to be sent down solely based on killing Sylver and Silas, they didn’t realize he killed Verity until after he was sentenced so it was totally pointless

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melk917 · 2 years

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if you’re a woman then you shouldn’t be “fawning” over gay relationships. It would be weird if we did it and we already gets to much hate for liking lesbians.

Anon. I seriously considered just deleting this because engaging in anonymous debates on the internet is never a good use of anyone’s time. (And since it's anon, I can't just reply to you). But I’m going to take a stab at this in the end because I find it to be a dangerous mindset. So, I want to take a moment to try and make this a learning opportunity.

To be clear, what I did (I’m assuming) was reblog a few gif sets with two characters from a TV show in them. Now, sure, I think these two characters would make a great couple. They are both super smart, they have great banter, they push each other to be better at their jobs and better people. All things that good couples should do. But to be abundantly clear, they are also fictional and not in a relationship in the show. I looked at two separate characters and thought to myself, “Oh, they would be a cute couple.”

What your comment is attempting to do (quite frankly, with a lack of understanding of definitions and grammar) is to gatekeep the media I can and can not enjoy. And that is both dangerous generally (if you keep people out of all spaces, how will anyone ever learn about other people?), and also not something I will let you do.

So first off, I encourage you to look up some of these terms you’re using before coming for me. To fawn has two definitions:

I think we all can agree it’s not the second entry you intend to accuse me of. So, I assume you mean to say that I in some way am attempting to court favor with cringing and overly flattering behavior over a gay relationship.

I do not believe I have in any way ever done this. But by all means, if there is a particular post of mine like this, feel free to point it out. Shoot me a message and I’m happy to chat and take constructive feedback. But please, make it real constructive feedback.

But given the information I have, I am led to believe you object to my reblog of several gif sets in recent days.

Aside from your characterization of my reblogs being incorrect, I worry that your mindset here is a dangerous, exclusionary one. It discourages allyship by telling any one who is not an exact definition of a thing that they can not enjoy or support that thing. That they should not experience it or learn about it. They shouldn’t try to expand their worldview with opinions and life experiences that are not their own.

By what you are saying, you are implying that I should not be supportive of a good friend of mine and his husband. Should I not have celebrated with them when they got married seven years ago? Was I wrong to be moved to tears by their vows? Should I decline his invites to go out clubbing with them? Should I say thanks but no thanks when they want to talk about challenges they face as gay men, because I will never face those same issues?

To do these things, I would both be telling them that they are too “other”, and that I am saying their challenges are not also challenges I could maybe help change if I only make sure I understand.

Now. The flipside of that is that as someone who is not a gay man, it is 100% my job to listen and support everywhere I can, and to respect that in some of these instances, I’m being invited into spaces that weren’t built for me. In those spaces, I am being invited to listen and experience and learn. It is never my job to run these spaces. It is a gift I have been given to be invited in, and it's imperative that I respect that.

But to consume media freely provided on the internet? To enjoy books and TV shows and movies and fanfiction? Yes, I can and I will. And especially any books, tv, or movies – anything produced where I hand over cash for these things. It proves there’s an audience. That people, no matter what groups they belong to, love the content. And it … surprise, will generally lead to even more of that content being produced. Which means that people from those groups see themselves in more media. They see their experiences and see that they are not the only one, they are not alone. And they, in turn, can produce more. This is a positive cycle, no matter what the group is.

But also, my friend is also just my friend, and he and his husband are a loving, supportive couple that anyone, gay, straight, or otherwise, would be lucky to emulate. To say so, and to say it loudly, is not fawning. It’s not fetishizing. It is supportive, and I would consider myself lucky to have a relationship like that one day.

I’m sorry if someone told you that you weren’t allowed to enjoy a fictional representation of a lesbian relationship. That is also gatekeeping. Read the media you enjoy. Ship who you want to ship. Write the fic you want to write. You shouldn’t be told you’re not allowed.

And I think it’s also critical to remind you, and anyone else trying to lay down some fandom policing law…. This is all fictional. It’s all made up and none of it is real and it's really not all that serious. In fact, it’s fiction OF fiction. In this case, they are two characters in a TV show. All we know about them in terms of their personal lives is they’ve had romantic feelings for women in the past. Literally anything else is a personal headcanon, your own personal fiction. So let your personal headcanon flourish. But just because you have one, doesn’t mean I can’t have mine.

So read what you want, ship what you want, write what you want. And I’m going to continue to do the same.

You’re certainly free to unfollow me. I won’t be offended if my content is not your cup of tea. But I also won’t allow you to gatekeep me from what I reblog.

And on that note – unless you have something constructive to point out or a specific post of mine that represents your point that I can learn from, this is my final word on this topic. Because without being able to point to specifics, I’m going to assume you’ve just decided you have a problem with me personally living my life in my corner of the internet and I’m too old to care beyond this.

#mk answers #hopefully in a mature and reasoned way

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incarnateirony · 4 years

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An anti dressed up as a shipper, an idiot, and a terf all walk into the same bar.

It’s the same picture person.

A lesson.

Warning: if the title doesn’t give it away, queerphobic content comes up in this from the other party being documented.

So, some of you may have watched a twitter exercise yesterday.

It started simple: concern trolling white knight “for the writers” comes in to angrily declare fans doing something tagged in support of them about Destiel was “out of line.” She claimed things like “Misha was gaslit into supporting Destiel”, and pulled all kinds of stunts.

She immediately got on a soap box yelling “I HAVE A LIT CRIT DEGREE, I KNOW AUTHOR INTENT” of course implying she knew better than EVERYONE around her how to read text. She then pulled, of all things, @chill-legilimens ‘ article about the network gods gutting the show out of the internet, and somehow misread it SO FUCKING BADLY -- SO FUCKING BADLY -- she thought it aligned with HER. She argued that fans influenced the writers, essentially, and basically pulled the exact opposite of the very clearly delivered message there out. When it was pointed out we know this author and even sometimes help edit their pieces, and she was, flat out misreading it while bragging about how good she is at deciphering text, it turned into a SHITSHOW.

I had watched her give a large group of queer people 2 days of runaround, while they tried to be polite, and similarly tried to prove everything while she proved nothing. Just preached. After 2 days of them exhausting themselves on her, I came in doing my blunt & savage thing, because fuck civility culture when it’s used by oppressors. Of course, she immediately started tone policing, while herself being an arrogant shitbrick the whole way.

She continued to preach author intent and talk down about “headcanons.” You see, she knew the authors very well. Berens’ name was mentioned in passing, and she came back with. “Who’s Berens? Is that the author of the article?” after Deirdre’s name had been directly cited in associated with it about 15 times.

(credit: @judgehangman )

But it gets better. She started pulling the “authors have said Dean is straight.” line. Now, at this point, we had already sourced her at least four pieces of information (quite formally too: SPN Official DVD Collection Season 8 episode 13 creative commentary, Edlund and Sgriccia; Dissent Magazine The Attack Queers Bob Berens review; the books in the office with screenshots, and more.) So we issued one simple request: Okay. Source.

For the next-- I shit you not-- 10 hours she bricked the thread to death, finding any and EVERY rabbit hole she could try to venture down. For the first hour or two a few of us tried to actually debate her newly raised points, but still gave reminder that we were waiting for her source. Every tweet was an opportunity for her to drop a 15 tweet thread trying to derail onto a new topic, and often clarifying she had no idea about any of it (Edlund, Sgriccia, Berens, Dabb--who she couldn’t spell the name of--and Deirdre all became an amorpheous blob in her retelling that she swore she looked at sources and wasn’t convinced, while she crossed all the data and comments about the sources). She tried to challenge that anyone could know all the writers and episodes just because she proved she couldn’t, even when multiple people expressed it to her extremely rapidly with not just author and director listings, but cross references on when they overlapped and major elements (like the 15.20 shot 19 tree being the Kim Manners memorial tree). She randomly babbled about Kripke once. Lied her way through and claimed those sources were vague. Etc.

But at some point, I decided, we’re not playing this distraction game. You wanted a debate, you claim you have a lit crit degree, and thus know the entire art is Argumentation. A source, if you’re declaring knowing author intent. One source. Any time she dropped a distraction tweet, I replied to her thread with things like a list of our sources vs her lack of any and a reminder. I installed a counter ticker. How many times had she been asked to either recant her point or give a single source?

Someone made a list of the logical fallacies she used in the argument. It was two tweets long and still missed several obvious ones. That didn’t stop her. Neither did the dozens of requests for a source or a recant. Onwards, she marched, derailing time and again. She brought in a buddy to try to distract, but he fell out real quick when he realized “the burden of proof lies on the arguer” shot him and her both in the feet in record time and he ducked out.

Other greatest hits came out like “Dubs (Dabb’s) fanfic books”, and calling the ability to list authors and episodes “headcanons.”

Over time, the dialogue shifted: see, she came in trying the snide “enjoy your headcanons” downtalk, but as time and time again she was pulverized on every point about the show, or the authors, or anything else while STILL never even giving a single source to even her FIRST POINT and running distractions, it became a reality-- she was told, “We’ll enjoy our canon and author intent. You can enjoy your headcanon of... Dabb’s fanfic books and Lord Barons and the writers being collective hallucinations and whatever else in your hot takes about the show content itself” and she FLIPPED SHIT.

As the ticker for sources approached 100, she started becoming flustered. Before that, even, she started repetitively misgendering Ezra (no tumblr to link in), and Ezra screenshot their bio of they/them and asked them to adjust. Ignored. Ezra linked this request and asked it to be addressed again, and again, and again. 13 times. Ezra linked it 13 times. She even replied to several of them. No avail. No change. Not until literally any and every tweet in her vicinity either had “source?” or “address gender?” for her to reply to did she flee there, and write some giant write-around of “oh, I didn’t see this, sorry” but still refused to actually use it. Or “I’ll use the right one now.” No, just completely strickened pronouns from her vocabulary with Ezra moving forward, after not one mistake, not two, not five, but 13 answers.

At this point, I notice a trend: throughout the entire conversation, she had flip flopped on my pronouns, clearly confused as to what to call me. As I generally don’t care (honestly I prefer he but meh), it didn’t ping me as something to react to while she switched religiously between “he” and “she”. But I realized now, despite all of that confusion: she never once thought to use “they.” Also earlier we found tweets of hers that, while now declaring herself bisexual, she used troublesome wording in the past to blur the line on if she was an ally or, as she phrased it “maybe less than 100% straight in the bell curve” in other conversations.

I mutter about this on the side to Ezra and some friends, but continue on towards the 100 ticker that was the goal to show people in this digital terrarium how disingenuous most people you argue with are -- an exhibit for the class. They know they’re lying and have been caught, but will not cede to admit “oops, I guess I was wrong.” but rather stick, unironically, to their own headcanons about things. After all, they vaguely sorta apologized even if suddenly just refusing to use any pronouns at all on Ezra after that. And she’s so quick to disappear into 15 tweet bombs of distraction trying to play victim for being held accountable at this point, we just didn’t jump to a conclusion on that, alarming as it is.

So. You know. Source.

At this point, she RANDOMLY starts evoking the fact that like, How Dare, She Watched Gay Men Die To AIDS, She Is A Great Philanthropist How Dare How Dare.

I’m sorry, did you just evoke the blood of our dead to run away from the most basic scrap of accountability in what is literally the first wave of a lit debate because for the last 10 hours you have refused to take the necessary steps to move on to the next point? Did you... just... evoke the ghosts of gay men that were genocided to, essentially, pull up a smokescreen and run away from being party to queer erasure? Or even just? Giving a source? or admitting you were wrong on one point in a debate? Wow, you really just did that.

Naturally, people involved got pissed. Her Sources ticker hit 100, but at this point, all that haunted her was how completely fucking vile and inappropriate that was in this discussion.

She got blocked. She then tried to glom onto anyone that hadn’t blocked or muted her and run the same argumentation points she had earlier been decimated in the argument with, while yelling “I ship Destiel too! I wanted them to have sex too! Why does this make me the bad guy?” around the block and hoping nobody actually read the thread. She tried to pitch the “headcanons” point of view again, hoping a new audience would lick her boots. She was, largely, ignored; given a few more comments about her leaving the conversation losing all points and only covered in the blood of our dead she was so proud of; blocked by a few more. (unsurprisingly, if you check her actual tweet history, she seems more invested in Megstiel but)

This is when CommaSameleon -- a professor with two lit degrees and a primary focus in teaching the art of Argumentation -- literally -- stepped in. She initially tried to engage the fact that, well, this woman not only can’t argue out of a paper sack but wasn’t even arguing, she was just running in circles and distracting from all the points and hadn’t addressed a single lit point directly while preaching down at people. But Sam, also, noticed something. This woman kept changing things like “queerphobia” to “homophobia.” Sam mentioned this kinda puts off TERF vibes (I think Sam picked up on the gendering thing herself too.)

Her response? Which she deleted since? But Discord’s embed helpfully saved?

Her inacted non-apologies remain weak, especially in any form of debate be it lit or now queer topics.

Oh I’m sorry, let’s recap her viewpoints: TERF is a slur. “They” is made up and should be avoided at all costs. The blood of dead gay men are a token to use in a lit debate you’re avoiding responsibility in. After this, “authors are headcanons” is suddenly not your worst take, but fascinating that you 13 times didn’t even read the blatant ass screenshot. And I mean, these weren’t subtle or easy to miss these 13 times.

100. She had 100 chances, literally, on a timer, to give a source or shut up with her platforming until she had one. Instead, she chose every rabbit hole she could manifest to disappear into, only to be met by another request for a source, and not moving on until we address the first points. We’ve given ours, now you give yours. Instead, you choose this. This is the hill you choose to die on, rather than admitting, “Sorry, I guess I was wrong” or “I guess I heard that somewhere, my bad.” 100 chances. 13 direct QT requests to address gender which she replied to but didn’t reply to until cornered (and still didn’t, truly, reply to), and “TERF is a slur.” Oh, and after waving around the dead men’s blood she also suddenly Can’t Be A Terf Because She Adopted Two Trans Kids. Lord help those children. Or, you know, the more realistic thing is she’s just manifesting all kinds of bullshit at this point to save face, which is probably why she deleted all the related tweets that show she’s a giant-ass TERF.

So anyway, this is very much a lesson on:

Paying attention to how people manipulate conversation to erase genuine discussion and debate.

Paying attention to WHY they do it. Motivation on methods and tactics will clear up a lot.

Figuring out HOW they try to sound woke about shit and when it’s entirely fucking vile and inappropriate to pull

And by all above points, figuring out that these people are among us, and how NOT to let them influence your conversations.

I don’t care if it’s about a discussion on a ship or show or anything else. People do this. A lot. Extremely dedicatedly, if the 100 asks doesn’t make that clear.

Stop letting people railroad your conversations with disingenuous bullshit.

So anyway in honor of this I made everyone a gif

Use at will. It’s tagged anti-terf if you want to use the search feature on it.

UPDATE:

Just went and checked. She went and deleted literally her entire side of the conversation, hundreds if not thousands of tweets. Luckily, Ezra mentioned repeatedly -- and I do trust them inherently -- that they were saving the entire conversation, so that zip file exists somewhere. How fascinating, after she accused us that we would want to delete tweets. Someone realized they had a bad look and giant failure all around.

Also, a related anon that links to an earlier part of this conversation I didn’t even document where she was crying about “cis erasure” [x] This shit went on so long I legit forgot about that.

#supernatural #spn #destiel #anti-terf #debate

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shhhhsh · 3 years

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About Tim’s New Story….

I just really hope they address Tim’s mental health. Like, DC just been ditching really good plot lines in favor of being “woke” or pandering. Just look at all the live action shows.

Now I’m not saying they can’t make Tim queer/bi/gay, but (as someone pointed out to me) Tim’s previous story writer was bi and he still chose to write Tim as straight & in a healthy romantic relationship with Stephanie Brown. I’ve seen several people who identify as queer/bi say that to have Tim go “ ooooh I’ve fooled myself into thinking I was straight, but now I’m freeeee” sends the message that Tim’s previous relationship failed b/c he was with a woman and not because of Tim’s poor mental and emotional health.

To go back to my previous statement; by him not writing Tim as bi tells me that he didn’t want or care for Tim to be bi, but instead saw Tim as, or preferred him to be, straight. The writer had free control to write Tim how ever he wanted and yet he chose to keep Tim straight. And he actually liked & wanted Tim/Steph. Again, I’m not saying Tim can’t be queer/bi, I’m just saying I find the motivations for this possible change very fishy. Almost as if the new writer is trying to get brownie points for pandering to a portion of the fans.

I think this way b/c in every other media where a character is revealed to be LGBTQ they just did it. They didn’t beat around the bush or do any queer coding/baiting. They either announced it, just made the character that way right out the gate, or just dropped the bomb w/out warning (as seen in Netflix’s Voltron, Amazon Prime’s Invincible, and Nickelodeon’s Legend of Korra respectfully).

DC currently has a bad habit changing things to be “woke” and bragging about it or shoving it in our faces. DC is becoming the “pick me girl” of superhero media. If you want to do it, just do it. Again I just get the “look at me, look at me” & “carrot on the stick” vibes from them now. If you truly feel in your heart to do something you would just do it without the need for recognition or to be so dramatic about it.

Now what I much rather see & think it’s a natural progression for Tim:

I personally believe that if Jason, Dick, & Damian can get a story that attempts to give them character development beyond romantic relationships (romance was more of a B-plot to the character driven A-plot anyway) I think they can give it to Tim as well.

I know that the Bat-Family all struggle with some form of mental health problems (most commonly paranoia and PTSD). However, I would like to point out that trauma is was what brought the others into the vigilante lifestyle, while Tim & Barbara became traumatized because of the vigilante lifestyle. Yet, Barbara was shown overcoming her trauma and using it as motivation to get better. Tim is yet to have this moment.

We all know that Tim struggles with depression, self-esteem, and suicidal tendencies. I mean heck, him becoming Red Robin only happens because of Tim’s degrading mental health. I hate to say it, but Tim is very psychologically broken and has been show to get so depressed that he can’t even get out of bed some times. To my knowledge, Tim is the only one in the Bat-Fam that struggles in his head with the idea of not being needed, useful, or forgotten when in reality that is furthest from the truth (Steph, Jason, & Damian also feel like the black sheep periodically, but that is because they have been presented with real evidence that would lead them to logically believe this. I.e being actually forgotten or dismissed for past mistakes despite great efforts to better themselves).

While yes, Dick did Tim dirty by replacing him without having a proper conversation first, the motivation was because he saw Tim as his equal and not Damian. He thought highly of Tim, but Tim couldn’t see that over his offense. Tim is so beat down by life that he see’s everything with negative lenses. Everyone came to check on Tim’s mental health but Tim took it as an insult instead.

And even though now Tim has reached some form of “peace” in his life, that only happens because the people he lost came back (Bruce, Conner, Bart, Cassie, etc). Tim never fully learned to handle grief, to handle his emotions, instead he represses them. Again in the Red Robin run, the main reason he doesn’t believe in any form of God is because he can’t logically justify the pain he has gone through. He is hurting and doesn’t know how to deal with that. In his original Robin run, when he tried talking someone out of committing suicide……the words and comfort he gave….that wasn’t something that was just inside Tim, this is something that was told to Tim. This is followed by him calling Dick to get the same pep-talk he just regurgitated to someone else.

In short: Tim is hurting. Deeply. And having been someone who’s emotional & mental sanity was pushed to the brink and attempted to jump off several times, I think it’s really sad that DC just ignores it. Now as someone who’s gotten the help they needed & now helps other people who struggle with the same issues as myself & Tim, I think that they’re going to say a lot of Tim’s problems come from him not being “aware” of his own sexuality, which is just sad.

In the story in question, Barbara talks about Tim not having a solid identity. People are more than their sexuality. People are capable of making future decisions for themselves without it hindering on their sexuality. If Tim was real, I would brake down his struggle as so:

Tim refuses to go to college and do something more with his life because he cannot see anything beyond his current circumstance. And the only reason why Tim cannot see anything beyond his circumstance is because he has no internal sense of purpose, identity, and acceptance beyond the cape & cowl. And when Tim finally found that in being Robin, Tim held onto it as a lifeline. There’s a reason why everyone says Tim is basically Bruce 2.0: it’s because he is Robin/Red Robin/Drake & Tim is the mask. At a young age, he did not grow up having these things instilled into him due to his parents neglecting him at a very important age in his development. Tim raised himself, and for a lack of better terms; an idiot cannot teach themselves to be smarter, an idiot becomes smarter by learning from the intelligent. A child can’t teach themselves to be an adult, they have to learn from others to grow & better themselves.

Now a parent doesn’t necessarily have to sit down and give a lesson about how to be an individual, but children learn how to live life by watching their parents. A good example of this is the rest of the Bat-Fam; they all grew up with some form of parental figures that taught them how to behave (for better or worse). Of course children have their own personalities, which is why two kids can go through the same type of trauma but come out differently, but it is a battle of nature vs nurture. Steph, Jason, Cass, & Damian grew up in abusive/unstable homes, while Dick, Barbara, & Bruce grew up in loving homes, but their personalities & character dictated how they responded to trauma. They took what life gave them and decided what to leave or take.

Tim had nothing to work with & is basically playing catch-up with the rest of his peers.

In a weird sense, Tim is like Zuko from The Last Airbender: only living to serve their father’s purpose. Anything outside of that they don’t know what to do. They’ve been trained to be something externally without been given a chance to figure out who they are internally.

Again you are not your sexuality, your sexuality does not determine who you are as a person. When a person struggles through life, it is due to the conditions of thier soul. Everything starts internally and shows it’s self externally.

I want to make that very clear because I am truly scared that in DC’s attempt to claim “clout” they are missing the bigger picture. Tim doesn’t have identity problems simply because he “doesn’t know” he likes boys, but because DC never gave him is own identity to begin with. Robin was never his own identity, Red Robin was never his, & Drake was his first attempt to make his own but he quickly gave it up so that he can be Robin once again. What is Tim going to do once Damian gets back? Is Damian going to get his own identity before Tim? Or is Tim just going to go back to one of his old identities?

I would like for Tim to personally move on from being a vigilante and rejoin civilian society for a while. Go to college, do something for himself and only for himself. Give Tim the self-discovery story, let him heal, and grown to be his own person. Besides you can never have a functional romantic relationship if you are not a functional individual. Self love > romantic love.

#red robin #batman #dc comics #tim drake #batman and robin #bruce wayne #dick grayson #jason todd #damian al ghul #damian wayne #stephanie brown #batgirl #cassandra cain #batfam #robin #I just want a good and meaningful story that doesn’t have some secret agenda #just do right by Tim #beware the pandering #not everything has to be about romance

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asleepinawell · 3 years

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How has poi changed your life? Genuinely curious, I love this show

I got this ask in May '20 and am only now answering it. :')

part of the problem with answering it is that half of the answer would be to the question of 'how has fandom changed your life' where poi is the fandom I've been the most active in and where fandom made the most difference. and that's a long story

my first draft of this was over 2k words long, and went back much further in time explaining how i had and hadn’t fit into queer spaces and fandom throughout my life. I edited it way back but it’s still long-ish, so you can read it below the break

many years ago, when I got my first full time job in my chosen industry my senior year of college I was so busy that I couldn't function. massive unhealthy amounts of overtime and a toxic work environment. (don't work at tech start-ups, kids!!!) my social life vanished. strikethrough on livejournal happened right then too and fandom, which i’d only been a silent participant in at that point, kind of went quiet for a while and by the time it started regrouping I was so busy that I didn't know about it. several awful years later I quit my job, spent several months in my room in my parents' house trying to recover from massive burn out (see my comment about tech start-ups), and then got a job on the opposite coast and left behind my whole circle of friends some of whom made up my entire connection to the queer community at that time.

making friends after college is very hard when you're an introvert and just generally don't like socializing that much. making queer friends can be even harder since there's fewer places to meet them and there's often an underlying question of dating/sex that hovers around awkwardly when sometimes what you want is just an absolutely no romo/no sex friendship. so while I did make a few queer friends eventually, I didn't have that same sort of community I did before I'd moved and I missed it

(I would be remiss in not saying that the queer friends i made in this time are all amazing and wonderful and some are still my close friends and very important to me. The thing I’m highlighting here was the lack of feeling like I was part of a larger queer community).

fast forward a bit. I get sick. like really really sick. I'm in and out of the ER, I'm missing tons of work, I'm mostly bed-ridden. I think after the last few years people can more easily appreciate how intensely lonely and surreal being stuck at home by yourself non stop can be when you're not used to it. sometime right before that I'd joined tumblr for the sole purpose of looking at cat pictures on my phone during boring meetings. I wasn't really aware that this was where fandom had migrated to (it was in fact possible to use tumblr without intersecting with fandom). but stuck home alone with time to kill I started looking for art and gifs of the tv and games I was consuming and stumbled into fandom tumblr and specifically queer femslash fandom.

I kind of poked around the territory and eventually fell into the carmilla fandom which became the first fandom I actually created content for. a few of my fics had a decent audience and while I was never part of the central core of the fandom I made some good friends there. some of y'all probably followed me back then. I eventually drifted away from carmilla for a lot of reasons I won't get into and stumbled right into poi. this would have been between seasons 4 and 5, late 2015-early 2016.

my health problems get more exciting and I end up in the hospital. I have vague memories of watching poi on my laptop in my hospital bed (vague because I was on a lot of morphine). I actually posted some fic while I was in the hospital (would have been the end of my carmilla run still).

and I get out of the hospital (early 2016) and am somewhat better but it's pretty clear that I'm going to have chronic health issues probably for the rest of my life. my social life, such as it was, was mostly dead, a lot of stuff I used to do for fun was much harder to manage. I'm still spending a ton of time at home (not even counting covid) and I have bad days where I feel terrible and can't do much. but I'll come back to that

I think most of us remember 2016. the year tv show runners fully embraced the bury your gays trope (and sometimes the fridging trope at the same time as a bonus!) and, by autostraddle's tally, 30 queer female characters in tv shows died. and then on top of that we had the actual real world tragedy of the pulse nightclub shootings. it was a massively depressing time all around for queer people

s5 of poi aired that year. I know people have different opinions on s5 of poi, and that's valid. I hated it. and I really intensely hated how it treated root and shaw. there aren't enough words to express how fucking angry I was after s5. or rather, there are 319,678 words.

I wrote a fic many of you may have read called sliding towards chaos that rewrote the entirety of poi from mid-s3 onwards. it got pretty popular lol. I put so much into writing it, too. it was basically a second full time job for me and a great way to take my mind off the fact I was still having health problems and all the crazy shit going on in the world (we had a presidential election in the US in 2016 :)))) it did not go well!)

i'm very proud of writing stc, and even if I think it isn't my strongest writing (which is good! improving over time is good!), it was what really connected me to a lot of other people in the fandom. I felt part of the fandom community in a way I hadn't with carmilla and it was an intensely queer community built around shared interests

one of the problems with finding queer friend groups out in the 'real world' is you're often gathering to meet based on the uniting factor of being queer, and your interests may vary greatly. fandom is amazing because it lets you find queer people who you share all these interests with and who you can bond with over them and collaborate with and that's just so so important. does fandom have a ton of issues and toxicity and bigotry? yes, absolutely. but it also has so much good to offer

through stc and later fics I became close friends with some really really cool people in the fandom (including my favorite writer and my favorite artist). these are people I'm still very close friends with. some of them I've hung out with offline and the ones I haven't are mostly because they live too far away. after years of not having my own queer circle of friends I have found one again and one I can usually participate in even with my health problems and that is such an important thing to me

on a creative front, the fic writing and the gif making I've done have both taught me an enormous amount and been a very positive part of my life. working collaboratively on comics has been one of the coolest things I've done. there is just so much good that came out of me seeing one shoot gif on tumblr dot com years ago and being like hmm looks gay I'm in

and in terms of the actual content of the show, I think a lot of the reason I was drawn to it (other than my lingering crush on fred from angel) was that root and shaw felt so uniquely and wonderfully queer in a way few f/f ships I'd seen had before. shaw being bi and reading as aro to me (I've talked about that here) and root being a chaotic computer nerd just felt so relatable to me and their relationship with each other made sense to me in a way that few others had. and the specific draw that they had for some fans probably has a lot to do with why I found friends in this fandom who I really clicked with

so yeah. I don't know how to sum this up. fandom can be a great way to find your people and engage your creativity and I think that's very sexy

#mp #asks #I added the read more line on mobile so I hope it actually works #personal

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grishaversecommunityyy · 3 years

Text

The Grishaverse Ship Survey Results

So! After all of that, we finally have the results! What is the general opinion on the ships in the Grishaverse? Well, that’s for you to read below! It’s actually pretty interesting and, while some parts make sense, there were definitely some parts which... surprised me... Anyway, onto the results!

Everything in this post can be split into:

The Grisha Trilogy

Six Of Crows Duology

The Nikolai Series

Shadow and Bone: TV Series

Most Enjoyed Ships

Least Enjoyed Ships

Crack Ships and Shipping Discourse

Notes from the Survey

(note from mod emily: i tried to bold all of fritz’ comments, but i might have missed a few! be aware there are two of us analysing here :))

The Grisha Trilogy

The first book series we asked about was, of course, the first chronologically: the Grisha Trilogy. The most popular ship, with 83% voters for this series selecting this, was Genya/David (Fritz was glad to hear that; Yes I am). This is likely due to the lack of alternate romantic interests in the series, which seems to be a major issue for Alina’s ships. It also seems to be one genuinely enjoyed by most fans, in contrast to Darkling/Alina and Mal/Alina (each around 30%) and Nikolai/Alina (just under 20%), for which I have definitely seen plenty of debate. The second and third most popular ships for this series were Tamar/Nadia (55%) and Nikolai/Zoya (47%). Interestingly, Genya/Alina (43%) and Zoya/Alina (30%) ranked surprisingly high, especially considering how few of my friends and associates I hear talking about them. Good for them!

Honourable mentions:

Alina/Sun (no doubt inspired by that crack fic I wrote a while back) (Still havent read that out of fear)

Alina alone (a common concept among those surveyed, though most mentioned it later)

Zoya/Genya or Alina/Zoya/Genya

Six Of Crows Duology

This series was a little less divided, I would say. Predictably, Kaz/Inej came out on top with a whopping 96% of voters (:relieved:), with Wylan/Jesper next (90%) and Nina/Matthias just after (83%). None of the others really came close, despite Nina/Inej gathering 35% of the votes and Colm/Aditi at 25% (yeah, I’m not sure why that was so popular on AO3 either, but nobody really has objections so I assume that’s why it amassed so many votes). As Six of Crows is decidedly less divisive about ships and doesn’t have such controversial ships (more on that later), it seems the fandom agrees with canon pairings and the votes are... pretty unanimous.

Honourable Mentions:

Jesper/Wylan/Kuwei

Polycrows (platonic or romantic)

Kaz/Inej/Nina

Whoever didn’t read the instruction about this being for only the book series and put Jesper/Milo. I will never escape.

The Nikolai Series

This one is a little harder for me because I actually haven’t read this... so over to Fritz for analysis! But first, the stats. At 85%, the most popular ship is Genya/David, followed by Zoya/Nikolai at 77%. Tamar/Nadia and Nina/Hanne draw at 61.5% and Nina/Matthias has 56% voters onboard. There’s no real honourable mentions for this one, sadly. Hello Fritz here! Read the books and very glad to see Genya/David as the top ship as it damn well should. Although still a bit surprising since its more of a side-arc of the two and only ties in with the importance of the story at a specific chapter that I feel like I don’t need to elaborate about, if you read Rule of Wolves. (I believe the popularity of the ship also sky-rocketed due to ROW) Following of course Zoya/Nikolai, the high ranking makes sense, it is the main ship and lets be honest they deserve it <3

I think the only really surprising thing about this is the high votes for Nina/Matthias since [SPOILERS CROOKED KINGDOM] he’s dead so I feel like people should move on from that. Nina/“Hanne” having not as high a ranking as I would’ve thought, but with Matthias still being in the frame I guess we shouldn’t be surprised either.

Shadow and Bone: TV Series

This one is really interesting, with the exclusive show watchers now taking part! We have 89% voting for Kaz/Inej, 76% for David/Genya, 71% for Matthias/Nina, 67% for Ivan/Fedyor (that’s a thing???-->Yeah they had a few somewhat sweet interactions in the background-->nvm i watched it you’re right fritz) and 62% for Mal/Alina. What’s really surprising is how high Malina is compared to Darklina, with Darkling/Alina at 36%. Who knows, maybe Fritz’ analysis can shed some light on this?

Yes yes Fritz to the rescue: First of all we have to see their interactions a little different from what we already knew of them by the end of episode 8. I still think it is a surprising number, since the Darkling in the show isn’t as nasty as he was in the books BUT over all his actions are now seen on TV. We all thought the deer antlers were a necklace amirite? Well no apparently not, the darkling used the worst kind of small science to fit Alinas collarbone to the bone and out comes a gruesome sight: a reason why many people might have started thinking: Wow what a disgusting person he is. And on the Malina “ship”: Mal finally has personality!! jkjk :eyes: Mals and Alinas friendship has been portrayed way better in the show and I believe that the people noticed more chemistry between them especially by the end of season 1. So I’m still a little surprised Darklina has such a low ranking (what with him being all sweet and cuddly in the middle of the show) but it makes sense and the Malina ship as well. Their vibes are just *chefs kiss* and thats coming from someone who didnt even like any of these “ships” <3

Loving the quotation marks for the word ‘ships’, Fritz. Over to the honourable mentions!

Honourable Mentions:

Jesper and Milo (isn’t milo a goat? guys, why?)

Nadia/Marie (huh that didn’t appear anywhere else)

One person had several - Kaz/Inej/Jesper, Dubrov/Mikhael, Dubrov/Mikhael/Mal - and yeah, you can really see the show differences in these mentions right? (whose dubrov...and whose mikhael...)

16% actually voted for Inej/Alina which is wild to me because of book context (they did have chemistry in the show tho :cowboi_smirk:)

Another person with several! We have Nina/Inej, Genya/Alina, Zoya/Alina, Zoya/Genya/Alina. Very sapphic. Good for you.

Kaz/Jesper and Nina/Inej all in one

That’s a lot of honour and mentions but it’s so interesting to me and I think you should see too

Most Enjoyed Ships

The most enjoyed ship was Kaz/Inej. This had unparalleled support, being at 35%. Jesper/Wylan, which was next on the list (23.5%) and Nina/Matthias (18%) were also pretty popular. Most of the others were quite low, though interestingly Mal/Alina only had 1 vote (plus one for the show version). Overall, the SoC ships were a lot more popular in this section, which makes sense - this part is really about your favourite ship, and those were more unanimous in the last sections.

Least Enjoyed Ships

Most people said Darkling/Alina, which got 47% of the NOTP votes. A lot more people disliked Darkling/Alina than liked Kaz/Inej. Make of that what you will, but I take it as a somewhat general agreement among many of you guys. Mal/Alina was also strongly disliked at 22%, but around a half or more of these were clarified to be about the book version of the ship specifically. They really must’ve upgraded in the show! Jesper/Kuwei and any other Darkling ships were also voted by a few, but all of these pale in comparison to the anti-Darklina votes. Shoutout to the person who said Apparat/Anyone. I agree, though it’s not something I thought of before seeing this response. Also one person said they didn’t like the poly ships, which I hope meant just the ones mentioned earlier and not all poly relationships in general... Another shoutout to whoever said Kaz/Heleen, because why did I have to read that. A fun question, all in all!

Crack Ships and Shipping Discourse

I love talking about crack ships, so let’s start with that! This time, I really don’t want to have to count and list because... well, let me show you:

I think that sums up the sheer variety, to be honest. Then again, it would be rude not to mention that the most popular were Jesper/Milo, Darkling/Nikolai and Alina/Sun. (If you’re still confused about that last one, I take full responsibility.)

YES KAZ/KRUGE I SUPPORT!!!

Honourable mention to this:

which was a lot to take in, and:

Now for the discourse. Yep, the part you probably came for.

Actually... maybe you didn’t? Looking at all of these responses, I see a lot of people genuinely don’t care about ship wars and so on, and often enjoyed the books regardless of the romances involved. Quite a few disapproved of the ongoing (though small) wars between Darklina and Malina, and others had a similar line of thinking, saying we should maybe stop focusing so much on it. You guys are right. I know this is a ship survey, and the conclusions should not include that shipping isn’t as important as we make it (Yes it should), but... that’s where it’s at.

And then again, a lot of you guys expressed disapproval for Darkling/Alina, discussing how it is often one-sided and manipulative and overall unhealthy, so I could be completely off with that last one. Some people mentioned that they ship this but as a slightly different version that the one given to us, recognising the flaws of the canon ship.

Someone said they headcanon Tolya as aroace (OMG YES!!). We need more aroace characters, so thank you for that headcanon :) We also have a few gay ships mentioned here, and one person telling us they love Malina. Yes, you’re right - it’s pretty unpopular, it turns out. Someone else said Alina should’ve been single, and I agree, actually!

One person rickrolled me here. Thankfully, Youtube’s ads saved me. *wipes forehead*

I leave you all with this, in the end:

Notes from the Survey

Statistics Stuff:

The top ships were taken from AO3, so some ships may be more focused on in other books and may not provide accurate statistics for an earlier series.

The main circles this was sent around may have had bias as most people are from the same discord server, which has debated these topics in the past. Hence certain ships may have lower-than-average results. In future, this could be improved upon by sending this to other servers and areas of the fandom.

Personal bias may be present in the analysis, though I have tried to minimise this in the more formal sections.

Observations and Notes from Me:

You guys really don’t like Darklina. Or you love it. Usually one or the other. Wow.

Be glad I didn’t talk about any of the cursed ships in this. The things I have seen... (:cowboi_eyes:)

I thought more people would rickroll me, ngl.

What Surprised You Guys:

Kaz/Inej/Jesper

A few of you guys saw some of those cursed ships, and that surprised you. Well, me too!

Nikolai ships being in the TV Show section at all, what with his character not being in the show (yeah what was up with that huh tztz)

Inej/Alina

The existence of The Severed Moon

Darkling/Nikolai(/Alina)

How fun the quiz was :D

Things You Sent Me:

Bee Movie copypasta

“Nobody expects The Spanish Inquisition!”, except via an AO3 link

A fun fact about enzymes! I liked this one

Fic recs for Feriku and Sarai (esp for Wylan/Jesper shippers)

Another rickroll

Nice compliments :) aww you guys

I asked everyone for some kind of placeholder name and never used it. Sorry! But hey, anonymity, right?

Closing Statements

If you got this far (I feel like ive been sitting here for hours), thanks for reading! This was fun to do and I hope you enjoyed all of this too! The survey is still open for anyone who hasn’t done it but wants to. If I get a huge amount of new responses, I might update this post! But for now, adios!

-mod emily (and mod fritz)

#grishaverse #fandom #shipping #shadow and bone #six of crows #nikolai series #king of scars #the grisha trilogy

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nightswithkookmin · 4 years

Text

JIKOOK DYNAMICS: JIMIN'S LOVE LANGUAGE

PREFACE

In my previous post, I shared my thoughts on what I think is Jikook's love language, specifically Jungkook's; and how in my estimation Jimin is the only member within BTS that speaks it, comes close to speaking it and most importantly makes the effort to speak it.

In this post, I attempt to outline what I think is Jimin's love language and show the various ways I feel JK speaks it or comes close to speaking it more so than the others in BTS.

Now I have to state for the record that I do not know or purport to know Jimin or Jungkook or any of these members herein mentioned in any way special and personal other than through the content we all consume on them.

Nor do I intend to be malicious or disrespectful towards them with this post, to intend to strip away their individuality for the sake of shipping symmetry.

Thus, I reiterate, everything I express in here is my thoughts, my observations and my opinion and I pray you treat it as such.

Let the records show, also that, I will bug spray any fake woke wannabe edgy shipper with a Tuktukker complex that takes my words out of context, misconstrue it to suit their own agenda and then turn around to call me out for it. In the name of Jesus, I will avada kedabra your ass. Seriously.

JIMIN

I've always been fascinated by Jimin. By the person he is. And although I do not have a comprehensive understanding of this man's inner workings, he's got to be the most complex and frankly interesting character I've come across in all my shipping years.

His duality is confusing and coupled with his Libra energy, his character and personality can be and is quite often misconstrued and misinterpreted within the shipping community.

He is friendly, cute, funny, beautiful and ship compatible with anyone.

Very often, I find, most people cannot tell his personality from his idol self slash persona or even his love language from his affectionate nature; thus resulting in these bizzare fallacies and ridiculous assumptions about him such as: he is a flirt, hoe, clingy, homewrecker, attention seeker and a plethora of slurs and sobriquet that's defamatory and slanderous at best- its ridiculous.

I get that not everyone likes him and as such wouldn't hesitate to filter his words and actions through arbitrary metrics to arrive at conclusions that profits them and does nothing but help them make sense of their hate- Y'all don't love yourselves enough.

Not to say he is my bias therefore he is perfect. That would be a blunder. He has his shortcomings, he is human after all. What I'm saying is most people don't get him and as such read him wrong?

What's more discombobulating, is the stan who swears up and down they know Jimin well enough but don't see him treating JK any different from the rest of the boys in BTS therefore Jikook isn't real- insert shook pikachu face.

Then there are those stans with genuine shipping concerns about the love dynamics between the two:

Those that feel JM gives more to JK than he receives back. That he is more supportive of JK than JK is of him. Very often, these people would bring up the issue of JK not promoting Promise when it first came out as evidence of this- it's been years let it go.

JK not being as vocal and open about his feelings and interest in JM the way Jimin is and has been about JK is also another area of concern for these stans. If you try to explain to them its because JK is/was shy they will kick- your- ass. Hell, I will kick your ass too. I'll explain later.

Some people also- I know I have at one point- have described JK's interest in and descriptions of JM as a bit shallow and vain compared to how the other members speak of Jimin.

To them, the other members usually talk about how smart and intelligent JM is, how kind and nurturing he is. How much of himself he gives to them. That the way the members talk about Jimin often helps give us a glimpse into the real Park Jimin as distinct from the persona we see on the screens.

But then there is JK: JM hyung is sexy. He has pretty eyes. 'I want you.' Then he proceeds to drool over the Jibooty, squeeze them legs shut tight while struggling to sit through a Jimin solo dance without popping boners left right left around Jimin- Bless him.

I mean, dude nearly snapped his neck trying to catch a glimpse of the Ji-abs in the middle of a performance? Damn.

To be fair, the other members don't talk like this about Jimin and sexualise Jimin as often as JK does because, they don't want to screw Jimin's brains out? Cough, cough. Hashtag save Jimin from JK. Lol

If JK is sexually attracted to Jimin, how else do you expect him to express that? Never mind that he's done some of these things subconsciously at times. You know what...

Y'all need to give this man a break!

[RANT]

He was a hormonal teen- he is still relatively pretty young. It's ridiculous to expect and demand such high level of maturity from a 16/17 year old experiencing a nonplatonic love for the first time in his life and more so in an unforgiving and invasive environment such as that in which he found himself.

Jk and Jimin found each other before they found themselves and it's unreasonable to think that that didn't have a toll on their relationship dynamics. They are human.

They are each growing and maturing at different paces. Their relationship has suffered through its growing pains; Certainly, one person is going to appear lacking in one or two areas in one way shape or form and at any given point in their love journey. That doesn't make them less real.

Again, their careers and the pursuit of it haven't exactly given them the space, time or normalcy to explore what they are and who they are in a functional way, in my opinion.

Everything is moving fast in their world, everything is highly exaggerated and highly scrutinized. Kpop is not exactly a healthy space to foster a healthy relationship and it would be a miracle if any of them should come out unscathed.

Neither one of them went searching for this love thingy nor were they even experienced enough to look at their relationship beyond the convenience of it and the excitement of it- The orgasms were enough reason for them, I think.

I get uncomfortable when some Jikookers, out of good intentions, claim Jikook knew what they were doing, should have known therefore could have known the consequences of them coupling up in a group like BTS before entering into their relationship- let me stop you right there!

While this assumption may seem like a compliment to them it also perpetuates the adultification of early days Jikook which I find disturbing.

They were teens not grown adults when they fell in love. We can't expect and demand such level of maturity from them at that age as cool as that would have made them.

They don't need to be cool to be real. They don't need to be mature to be real.

Jikook is real regardless of whether they were thoughtful or not thoughtful about the consequences of them choosing to date in a group setting, or a homophobic society at the onset of their relationship.

It's ridiculous to dismiss what they are now on the grounds that S.K is a homophobic society or that dating a coworker is not inconsequential.

People date their coworkers all the time and there are gay couples in S.K.

Jikook were too young to comprehend the consequences of dating because which teen worries about all of that before popping one off for the lord? On which planet, sir/ma'am??Were they thinking with their 'ducks?' I believe so. But again, that doesn't make them any less real.

From what I can tell anyway, 2018 was the year Jikook had anything resembling a serious thoughtful contemplation of the status of their relationship- Well, 2018 and this later half of 2020 as some of you might have already noticed. More on this later.

But yes, this adultification of early days Jikook is absurd and needs to stop. And what's equally disturbing is the infantilization of the adult day Jikook- you can't expect Jikook dynamics to remain the same throughout the years. That's bizzare.

Don't expect them to be their same jeonlous, Jimlous, possessive selves. They are growing. They are evolving as individuals and as a pair.

I side eye the fuck out of these fake woke shippers and 'grown ups' who filter Jikook interactions through adult lens and tag moments like Jimlous and Jeonlous as toxic and unhealthy without taking into context where they were at in their love journey or even their age. What y'all think this is? Fiction? Get the fuck outta here.

Jikook have had to learn and grow on the Job and around their job and learn to love eachother under the scrutiny of severe cameras and weird Ahjummas. Leave them the fuck alone or I swear I will petrify your ass for an entire comeback season. Lol

[Rant over]

All that being said, I get it. The way JK talks about Jimin isn't exactly special or unique from the way the other's speak about Jimin. But it isn't exactly superficial either...

And yes, it's quite unsettling that he doesn't describe Jimin in a way that gives meaningful insight into Jimin's personality as distinct from the others', given as he has exclusive access to Jimin more so than any of the members- we have a lot to unpack today, don't we?

Then on the other hand, there are those who think the exact opposite and see JK as the one who gives more to their relationship. That JK takes their relationship more seriously than Jimin does. They see Jimin as a bit wishy-washy when it comes to his commitment to their relationship- this breaks my heart.

Often, such people will cite Jimin's flirty nature, his lack of boundaries with others amongst other things, to prove their point...

Grab a seat, this discussion is going to be a long one. Smiley face.

JIMIN'S LOVE LANGUAGE

Jimin first got on my alt-ship radar in Rookie King when he was given an opportunity to air any and all of his grievances accumulated over the years against any member or staff of BigHit but instead chose to use that opportunity to talk about JK and how JK's actions had been hurting him.

Prior to this, he was just my bias and I would casually ship him with Suga, V, RM and basically all the members- except JK. I just couldn't ship JK with anyone.

Back then, I had a vague sense of JM's personality but felt I knew enough about him to theorize on his love language and JK was the last person I thought of as capable of meeting those emotional needs of Jimin's.

Rookie King changed my mind.

Jimin wasn't just trying to squash his differences with JK, he was trying to get closer to him. To get emotionally intimate with him- this is one of the things that sparked my interest in their dynamics.

Because it wasn't as if they weren't close. They were. They had a skinship between them. Skinship, or lack of physical boundaries as I like to call it, is one of the means through which BTS achieve intimacy amongst them.

Jikook had that between them at the time, they went everywhere together, woke each other up- they were close.

Yet Jimin felt they weren't close enough. That there was a wall between them. Now, I see a lot of people misinterpret this period in the Jikook timeline as that Jimin was crushing hard on JK. He wasn't. In my opinion.

You see, Jimin was the last person to Join the band. This was bound to have an effect on his relationship dynamics with the rest of the members as he had missed out on two years worth of emotional connection and camaraderie with them.

He had had only one year to bond and get to know the others away from the cameras and in a way that could help him develop a sense of belongingness within the group.

Within this one year, he had school, voice training, and other activities that possibly got in the way of him truly building an intimate connection with the others.

He is the only member out of the seven whose intimacy journey got captured on camera. He had to foster a connection with the others with the cameras around.

But building a connection with people even in a platonic sense is quite an intimate and private process. It takes vulnerability, honesty, a willingness to submit and subject oneself to varying degrees of humiliation, a sacrifice of the self, ego and pride in a way that just strips you naked- metaphorically speaking.

And in Jimin's case, he had to go through this stage and process openly and with the cameras around- the second hand embarrassment I get from watching early days Park Jimin!

He literally had to be the clown of the group, the hufflepuff, the clingy one, the flirty one, the one with the abs, the loud and chatty one as well as all the tasteless epithets people now weaponize against him.

I believe, all he was trying to do at this stage was breach the barriers he felt existed between him and the others as the newcomer of the group so he didn't feel like an outsider.

That is his first love language- the need to belong. He has a strong desire to feel connected with people. He cares about people and connection. He's reiterated this throughout the years and even more loudly in the recent Japan interviews.

He wanted to be part of BTS both physically and emotionally. He wanted to fit in, to belong with them, to be accepted and viewed as one of the boys- BTS.

You could see this in the way he had adopted the mannerisms of the group- the skinship, the love language of the group if you will.

It is why when Suga complained about him not liking him as much, Jimin immediately drew closer to him and wrapped his hands around him, initiating skinship between them to show he liked him.

Jimin tried to speak the groups love language so he could bond with them but he also began to infuse his own love language.

If you've seen his relationship with his father you'd understand that Jimin expresses his love through giving, nurturing etc. It is how his primary care givers showed him love and so how he also shows and conveys his love.

The members have talked about how he would encourage them to talk, to open up, how he would listen to them, be there for them and give them gifts- the birthday gift exchange culture in BTS didn't exist until Jimin arrived in BTS.

What I'm trying to say is, Jimin has a distinct way of showing love that is unique from how everyone else in the group expresses their love. That, there is also an established love parlance within BTS that everyone speaks and that is skinship.

So when Jimin does skinship with any member he is not acting 'clingy' he is just speaking the love language that the group understands. But when Jimin nurtures and acts supportive and what not, he is speaking his own unique love language.

Now I have talked extensively about how Jimin expresses his in my last post so I will be focusing mainly on how he receives loves or what gestures he interprets as love.

And since there is a general consensus that VMin have an emotional connection, I will be referencing their relationship a lot for comparisons sake.

Tae is the only member Jimin got to spend the most time with around predebut without the intrusion of the cameras. This i feel allowed Tae room to strip back and be fully vulnerable with Jimin without reservation as is required of intimacy- which was not the case for Jikook hence JK shying away from interacting with JM in front of the cameras.

Jikook wasn't accorded the luxury of privacy VMin had to build their bond. Jikook had to build their bond with the camera's trailing them. How many times have we seen JK give death stares to the camera people for invading his me time with Jimin?

Not to be psychoanalytic but I feel, this is what induced the exhibitionist tendencies we see in them- or perhaps I'm wrong and this is just them being extra. Bless them.

Within the one year JM was trying to connect with JK through skinship, JK was also only coming around to understanding what skinship meant to him. They were evolving at different paces.

JK has the most walls in BTS. He wasn't just physically closed off to skinship in the early days forcing Tae to strip him naked in the bathroom, he was emotionally closed off too.

He is still pretty much emotionally closed off- he likes to put up walls. He had his own room at the dorm, does his own laundry, barely keeps in touch with the others or pick up the damn phone when they call etc.

Jk barely partakes in the group's established way of life except for perhaps the skinship. In my opinion.

It took JK a while to understand this culture of skinship though. And the members, all of them, had to push his boundaries further back in order to connect with him.

For instance, Jin pinching his nipples to wake him up, Tae doing- well, all of it. Go watch Taekook sexual tension edits, I dare you. You'll understand.

These members had three years off camera with JK to build a connection with him and even they were met with some resistance from JK.

All Jimin had was a year with JK. I feel Jimin lowkey coveted what the others had with JK and perhaps wanted to have that with him too. Why? Because of his need to belong and connect with people. Watching JK's dynamics with the others probably made him feel left out.

I also understand how this could have been overwhelming for young JK who was having both his physical boundaries and emotional boundaries breached at the same time by this person whom he he'd known for only a year.

That's just one of the major differences between Jikook and Taekook: while Tae was busy breaching the physical walls between him and JK, Jimin was attempting emotional heist on him. Bravo Jimin, Bravo.

So do I think at this point in 2013 that Jikook were falling in love or had fallen in love? NO. But what I took from that moment was that Jimin wanted and needed to feel a sense of belongingness with JK.

Mind you I said he wanted to belong, not owned. Freedom is a component of Jimin's love language. In as much as he wants to be kept he wants to be set free- To be be given the room and freedom to explore options and take risks without judgement and without sanctions.

This need is often misconstrued as him being noncommittal.

His need for freedom, I believe, stems from his being raised in a conservative home with parents that directed and dictated every facet of his life and wouldn't even allow him to pursue his passions until later. It took a while for his father to give him the go ahead to pursue his dream- which is performing on stage.

This is why I said in my last post that Jimin has a need to be in control of the decision making in a relationship. Being able to do as he pleases is important to him. Being able to control his own narrative is important to him. And the only person in BTS that permits him to have such authority over him is JK.

Now, I know you are going to say 'but JK is a bit possessive yadda yadda yadda'.

Listen, Jimin's need for freedom is inextricably linked with his fear of judgment and repercussion. What this means is, although he wants his freedom he is often afraid of what will happen if he should go for it.

As such, very often he wouldn't do anything without permission. Especially if he feels it's going to land him in trouble.

I fist noticed this in the 2014 Jikook bangtan bomb when he said he was starting to take a liking to JK but then right after he asked if JK was ok with that. Suga have also said, Jimin doesn't go out of his way to do things that makes people hate him- See this is why he needs JK. He could use some rebellion in his life.

However, this fear of sanctions often makes him complacent to and an accomplice in toxic behavioural patterns.

For instance, until recently, he would enable JK and encourage his acts of jealousy and possessiveness and even incite them at times. He would hold on to the thorns if it means keeping the rose.

But I see him asserting himself and demanding space within their relationship at times but when he does and JK withdraws he would act clingy around JK.

It is what Manila was about, what August 2019 was about and what April/May 2020 was about. I know some of y'all don't agree with my analysis on these moments, but I'm gonna have to stand by it.

Jimin is all about the balance of scales. The balance of needs and wants. The balance of fears and desires. It's just the Libra in him. Give him too much freedom and he will feel unwanted, hold on too tight and he would feel suffocated.

'I value my relationship. Spending time with my friends is gold' remember this shade?

Jimin's fear of Judgment comes from being a perfectionist and also being raised in a conservative home with a lot of expectations of him to be the model son as the elder male.

Thus, he instinctively gravitates towards people who are less judgy or have too much expectations of him.

Also, because he believes he has to work hard to achieve the things he wwants he wants to be loved, it would mean a lot to him if he didn't have to work hard to have someone love him.

It makes sense then that he would gravitate towards JK.

Jk embodies all of Jimin's wildest desires. I call this the allure of the Golden Maknae. Jk doesn't conform. He doesn't care about people's opinions of him and lives his life on his own terms- something Jimin is striving for.

No member in BTS is as free spirited, or as rebellious as JK is. When Suga told him not to get a tattoo because the fans would hate it- he's gotten it anyway hasn't he?

The best part, JK fell all on his own. And you damn right. he fell hard.

Still on the subject of fears, another fear I feel Jimin has that speaks to his love language is the fear of being a burden.

It is why he gives and gives and keeps giving. He'd rather give than receive. Which by the way, JK is the only member I have seen Jimin demand back what he gives him. Emotionally speaking.

Because he gives a lot of himself, he burns out quickly and feels emotionally drained quite often.

He has admitted himself that he used to drink by himself in his room whenever he felt drained. I assume he drank by himself because he didn't want to be a burden to others. Aka JK.

You see, JK is an empath. He feels people's pain as if they were his own. You just have to see him tear up while watching JM cry to understand what I mean by this. Jimin is a nurturer, he knows what it feels like to listen to someone's pain.

And if Tae is the one he goes to when it becomes overbearing then what does he need JK for? Glad you asked!

What JK offers Jimin is nourishment. A safe space for him to heal and reboot. JK replenishes Jimin. It is why he constantly wants to be around him.

Jk has been a canvas in their love dynamics from day one. They've both had to negotiate their needs and wants to make their relationship work. Which is something I find unique about their dynamics and why I believe they are real.

JK's lack of experience in dating, meant he had gone into their relationship without any preconceived notions of love. He's had to learn to love Jimin the way Jimin wants to be loved.

Coming from the background he's coming from, and having been denied his ambitions for such a long time, I see why Jimin would be drawn to people that are quite ambitious.

And even though, JK wasn't this person at first, Jimin has had to hype him up to the task. He pushes JK to be more ambitious.

When it comes to JK, I feel it's more about his potential to be everything Jimin wants in a partner and JK seems more than happy to comply with this.

Because of Jimin's duality and as a natural nurturer, I feel Jimin would also be attracted to someone emotionally open to recieving his love but not too emotionally dependent on him- the balance of scales I mentioned earlier.

It is why VMin wouldn't work, in my opinion. Tae is too emotionally dependent on Jimin. He ends up taking too much than he gives. On the other hand, Suga isn't emotionally dependent enough.

Again, for a man who's battled insecurity for years, it's safe to assume security, certainty and stability are an intricate part of his love language.

He seeks validation of these needs through the most random of things. In my opinion. He wants to be the one that knows JK the best. It matters to him if their clothes match, if their hair colors match, if JK meets his eyes in the middle of a serious comeback interview, if he checks all of JK's answers- hell, dude be whispering sweet empty nothings in JK's ears most times, talking about they are destined to be together and shit. You are me, I am you. Shit.

As annoying as some of these behaviors may be, JK is very considerate and tolerant of them and consideration is another one of Jimin's love language. This goes back to having been denied his dreams by his father. That denial flowed from a lack of consideration of his needs.

And as much as emotionally connected he is with Tae, Tae barely takes his feelings into consideration. And you see this in the letter Tae's written to Jimin. Or even in the dumpling incident where Tae put his want above Jimin's.

Not to mention the moments, JM have had to walk out of rooms because- Tae won't stop playing with JK's dam hair! Lol. They are cute.

People take from Jimin without reservation. But Jk is considerate as Jimin is of JK's needs.

Jk wasn't the 'exhibitionist' in that pair. He's a very private individual from what I can tell.

That PDA, that exhibitionism we see in them, that's all Park Jimin. He kinky. Dude freaky as fuck- we ain't mad at that. Bless him.

He enjoys public displays of affection. It's how he receives love. But PDA is not JK's love language, in my opinion. Yet he goes out of his way to show his affections for JM openly.

The best example I can give of this is Rosebowl.

JK understands that in order to be intimate with JM he has to allow himself to be influenced by him.

And Jimin understands that, as much as he wants to be close to JK that he doesn't have to rush him or force him into giving him the things he need from their relationship.

They are both very considerate of each other's needs, as random and ridiculous as those needs may be and cater to them in a way that is uniquely them.

Take the New Jersey live 2019 for example. Jimin seemed exhausted. Didn't want to be on another Live that night but JK clearly wanted to be seen on a Live together with him so he was there.

Another instance is the rock bison incident, where JM exchanged his toy for JK's just to make JK happy.

CONCLUSION

Listen, Jimin is in love with Jk no matter how imperfect you think he is.

No matter how much you think JK sucks at expressing his feelings for JM, Jimin loves him. No matter how close JM is with the other members, aka VMin, Yoonmin, Minimoni and the others; no matter the lack of emotional and physical boundaries between him and the others he will always fall back on Jk because none of those relationships fulfill him as much as JK does.

Jimin's constant need to be around JK could only mean there is some he gets from JK, a sense of fulfillment he gets that he doesn't get from any other member.

Keep supporting Jikook.

Signed,

GOLDY

#jikooktheories #kookmin analysis #jikook analysis #kookmin theories #jikook #jikook is real #jikook scenarios #nightswithkookmin #goldy #Jimin's love language

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im-the-punk-who · 4 years

Note

Hi! I’m new to the fandom and I’m simply curious (not trying to start a feud or anything), why don’t you like Steinberg?

Hello dear anon! And welcome to the fandom!

Oof. That’s a question. xD

I’m going to try and stay as uh. neutral as possible. Because I’ve already written the post I know I failed but, the intent in answering this is also not to start a feud or hurt anyone’s feelings.

Okay, so I got fairly negative in this chilis tonight, so I want to start by saying that even in light of the opinions I’m about to express, Black Sails is one of, if not my number one, favorite TV shows of all time. Certainly in recent memory - I’ve been hyperfixating on this show for 18 months with no sign of stopping, and I have a tremendous amount of respect for everyone who worked on the show - even Steinberg. (The one exclusion is Michael Bay, he can go twist.)

AND I think Stienberg is an incredibly talented writer. Black Sails is one of my favorite shows because it does such a wonderful job of weaving stories, creating characters, and melding things in a way that is both unexpected and makes sense narratively. I have changed as a person because of the show, and they will have to pry James McGraw and Thomas Hamilton from my cold dead knives-attached-to-them hands. None of what I’m going to say is meant to detract from that.

I will also say that a lot of these issues are not particular to Steinberg and are in fact a systemic problem with American TV + Film. And I’m not leaving Robert Levine out of my criticism, it’s just that Steinberg had the biggest hand in the pot(he wrote a full half the episodes) and a lot of what I’ve heard as far as talking about the show comes from Steinberg. So, he gets the brunt. But it isn’t that I think Steinberg was the only problematic element of the show.

Also, these are all my opinions and are colored by how I interact with my fandoms. I am not only a fandom veteran, but I work and pretty much live in the entertainment industry. I work in indie film and theatre and am surrounded by artists and creators of all walks of life, like, constantly. I know what is possible, and when I see something that can be improved, I want to note it because it is important to me to always be striving forward. Like Miranda says about Thomas, this isn’t out of malice, or out of hate. It’s because I genuinely love this show, and I love entertainment as a whole, and I think in order to get to a better, more inclusive industry we have to have hard conversations and look critically at the media we consume, and it is frustrating to me to time and again see the same faces in the room.

But if that isn’t your cuppa, that’s fine! Fandom isn’t meant to be stressful and if all you want to do is watch a show about gay pirates that is your tomato and I applaud you. Have at it you funky motherfucker.

OH! One more. At some point I’m going to talk about Silverflint. When I do, it is NOT meant as a ‘you shouldn’t/cant ship this’ or ‘this pairing is bad’ or any negative attack on the people who ship that pairing. My criticisms in this post are exclusively about what it means for Steinberg as a writer and Black Sails’ representation of gay and mlm men. While it’s not my cuppa, this is a sail your own ship blog.

OKAY! SO!

My main criticisms of Steinberg & Co boil down to:

The homozygosity of the writers and directors shows a complete lack of desire to include marginalized people in the writing of a show that is about them. Which leads to:

The centering of white men while choosing a historical setting and time period that was in fact dominated by people of color and specifically a black woman,

The gratuitous inclusion of violence against women, particularly sexual violence, and again, that the female characters are often sidelined for the central male characters.

SO.

Black Sails is a show centered around queer, female, and black leads, and yet there were only two non white-male directors (one bi-racial man and one white woman) and only 7 female writers - one of whom was Latina. The entire rest of the major creative staff was white men. I’m not going to comment on sexualities but none of the writers or directors are out as queer according to a quick google search.

Let me reiterate the important bit there.

In Black Sails, where the last two seasons specifically feature around a real, actually-happened-in-history event that shaped black history in the Caribbean, there was not a single black writer on the entire show.

This is the main difference between inclusion for inclusion’s sake, and actually centering marginalized voices. Black Sails has a ton of gay, POC, and female rep in front of the camera but practically zero representation behind it, which leads to storylines and implications that Steinberg and his writers, as white men, simply would never realize.

It’s like why Silver and Miranda never realized the true reasons James was waging war on England. They just did not have the life experiences to realize they were missing a piece of the puzzle, and so they filled in their own without even realizing they’d done so.

Because no one in the room of Black Sails was a part of these marginalized identities, nuances get lost or mistranslated, motivations get muddled through a white man’s gaze(or a straight person’s) and implications that someone within those communities might think is obvious won’t even come up.

And again, because there were no writers or directors of color in the last two seasons (the biracial man directed episodes 2x02 and 2x04 - WHICH MAKES SENSE IMO) the entirety of the historical lore that the show bases itself on in its latter half is filtered through a white man’s lens. And so there is no discussion of how changing something changes the meaning, how leaving someone out or changing their role to be more minor might affect people for whom that is their heritage. How the entire story they’re telling might change with one simple exclusion or addition.

So, how does this relate directly to Steinberg, you ask? Well, simply, because it was his show.

Steinberg(and Levine) were involved in every major decision about the show, from its conception, to the script, to choosing the writers and directors. They chose how they wanted the show to look, to think, what stories to tell and how they wanted to tell them. Their decisions(and the biases that formed those decisions) are woven into the show.

And look. I don’t for a second believe any of this was willful or malicious. I don’t think that John Steinberg and Robert Levine sat down one day and said ‘you know what would make the gays really angry? If we locked the only two canonically gay men up in a prison camp.’

But the decisions that were made in the show were based in ignorance in a way that shows more than just simple negligence or laziness(especially given the attention to detail in everything else). The things they leave out or change in the Maroon War plotline for instance are not small details easily missed. They are big, giant waving flags. They are things that are irreplaceable to still have the same events and stories and tell them respectfully.

It shows an insane amount of privilege to, for instance, write a show airing during a time when the Black Lives Matter movement was at the forefront of the American conscience, include black characters and black storylines, and yet not include a single black voice on their creative team.

In a show that centers a gay man’s love and his journey in attempting to process the horrible things done to him and his lover because of it, we are given just forty minutes of the entire show dedicated to their relationship - and just fifteen of those minutes actually feature the lover!

(Relatedly, the entirety of the gay romantic rep is two kisses, and a forehead touch. That’s the entirety of your gay intimacy representation. And yet there are in the first two seasons alone - because that’s all I’ve clocked so far - something like twenty seven minutes of scenes involving a naked or half naked woman. Five minutes of that is explicitly wlw sex.

Again, I just want to reiterate this because it’s important in recognizing bias.

There is fully twice as much female nudity in the first two seasons, as the entirety of the time the two gay characters have together on screen. )

Steinberg is a perfect example of how a lack of understanding why the diversity you are representing is important, matters. I dislike Steinberg because he, just like every other straight white cis man I have known, profited off of marginalized voices without including them or creating with them in mind.

Art does not exist in a vacuum. You cannot create something - especially something as back breakingly, intensely a labor of love as Black Sails - without putting several pieces of yourself into it. But those pieces color your narrative. They will expose things about you that you don’t even realize. And it’s in these places we are weakest, and why a diverse group of writers with a diverse group of experiences can help a piece be stronger. But for whatever reason, John Steinberg thought that he could make art with only people who looked and thought and experienced like him.

The lack of representation behind the camera in Black Sails was evident in front of it and yet Steinberg is out here getting to pretend like he created the most inclusive groundbreaking show that ever existed. It is important to me, personally, to acknowledge that. And that it kind of makes my skin crawl in the way all media made by straight white (cis)men makes my skin crawl. I wish I didn’t have to feel that way about my favorite tv show just because it was created by a man of privilege, but here we are.

SO. I hope that helped? Feel free to take what you want and leave what you don’t!

Below the cut is a more in depth look at things that I think show what I’m talking about, but that up there ^^ is the gist. <3 |D

SURPRISE!

The Maroons and the Maroon War

So the first thing I want to point out is that the Maroon War was a real thing that happened. It lasted ten years, and resulted in the most substantial victory the Maroons ever achieved against the British. Not only that, there was in fact a KICKIN’ badass female leader of the maroons named Queen Nanny, who is to this day honored as a national hero in Jamaica. While they weren’t able to drive the British out, the outcome of this war led to a mostly self-governing Maroon population in Jamaica from the mid 1700s on. This was a long term fight that had a very tangible and real outcome, even if it didn’t end in the destruction of colonialism.

And what is this war turned into in Black Sails? A white ‘madman’s revenge’ that is doomed to failure after six months.

That, my dear pirates, is a problem for me. (And those familiar with my brand of spiceyness know that I do not ascribe to the ‘Flint is a Madman’ trope, but that IS what Steinberg ascribes to, what he seems to have written the show thinking.)

There was no narrative reason to include the Maroon War in the narrative of Black Sails. The Maroon War didn’t happen until a decade after the Golden Age of Piracy, and aside from Silver’s wife being a black woman there is no mention of Silver ever having contact with them. To me, this feels like the choice of a showrunner who found a cool historical event and saw a chance to up the stakes of their white male heroes while getting in some sweet sweet POC rep.

Except that they then took the major events of the Maroon War and gave them to their white characters, Flint and Silver.

Here’s the thing. If you’re going to take a piece of culturally important history and use it for your show, you NEED to have sensitivity writers. You need to have people who are at least familiar with those events and who care about them to do them justice. Have an expert come in and read your script or go over your ideas. Or just like. Hire a black writer. Hire ONE black writer. As a treat.

The important Maroon figures, Nanny, Cudjoe, and Quao, all get sidelined or ‘sexified’ and then used as plot points for the white characters. Nanny gets split into two women - the older mother queen and Madi, the young naive warbent visionary. Quao(Mr. Scott is the closest, or Kofi possibly) gets killed off because the writers realized they didn’t exactly have a place for him in their writing. Cudjoe(Julius) gets a few scenes and one good speech but his entire role in the war gets given to Silver. And THEN. That sexy Queen Madi figure gets used as emotional bait for Silver and then has to learn he has betrayed her and destroyed the hope and freedom she had wanted to bring to her people.

Gross, pirates. Gross.

Anne Bonny/Max/Mary Read - a heads up, this section includes a semi in-depth discussion of both Max and Anne’s sexual assaults. If that bothers you, the paragraphs talking about that begin with a ***

COOL NOW LET’S TALK ABOUT LESBIANS. Words my 20 year old self would never have imagined coming out of my mouth.

Specifically, I want to talk about Max, and Anne, and their backstories both involving extreme sexual trauma at the hands of men. And then Mary Read and the once again sexification of female characters.

(Actually while I’m here another criticism I have of Steinberg is that his writing does not seem to recognize how queer people existed in the past - again, likely because he didn’t have any gay historians to be like ‘actually buddy that doesn’t make sense also why is Anne not dressing as a man? If you want to fuck with anything and insert modern day terminology and ideas into this show, make her non binary and REALLY piss off the hetties.’)

(This same ficitonal gay dramaturg who is definitely not me has also questioned John Steinberg repeatedly about where Mary Read is, unsatisfied with the answer ‘well we wanted her to be hot so we made her a sex worker and then had Anne have to rescue her but then we realized it would be weird not to include her actual character so we gave her a five second cameo at the very end of the series and also made her like 13.’)

Anyway! So my main point in bringing up Anne and Max is the sexual trauma they are exposed to in the show, particularly being that they are the two primary wlw in the show, who Steinberg has said he views as being completely gay, and what THAT whole unexamined idea looks like.

***Max. My dear Max. There was literally no reason to have her be repeatedly r*ped(and for the love of god there was even less reason to make it that gratuitous and graphic). Max being assaulted like that did not add anything to the gravity of Eleanor’s betrayal. The traumatic event was being tossed aside by Eleanor, and that could have been just as emotionally damaging without the sexual assault. And the only reason for her to be continually assaulted was to bring her and Anne together.

***The reason imo that Max’s r*pe plot was added was because it was the only thing these white straight men could come up with that felt emotionally damaging enough to them. The act of betrayal itself wasn’t enough, the act of being thrown away, of having a lover put your life in danger because of her own ambitions wasn’t enough, they needed her to be r*ped to really drive home the point.

***Anne, on the other hand, is never shown being sexually abused, but we are given an explicit account of her own traumatic history and how Jack saved her from this vile beast who was passing her around to his friends.

But here’s the thing pirates - that never happened. According to every account we have of Anne Bonny, she chose her husband, and married him against her father’s wishes. They were probably relatively happy until her husband started being a pirate spy and Anne started cheating on him with Jack.

And yes, when they were found out. Her husband had her beat. That’s not fucking cool, and if they really wanted to go the damsel in distress route they still could have had Jack ‘save’ her from that. But at no point was she sexually abused by her husband(at least not in any accounts I’ve read.)

You know who did likely sexually abuse her or at least manipulate her and Mary for his own benefit? If you guessed our Rat man Jack Rackham, you would be correct, because when he found out about Mary and Anne’s (supposed, but probably real) relationship, it’s implied he extorted both of them into fucking him to keep their secret from the crew.

The addition of sexual abuse to Anne’s past isn’t done to be true to her character and was in fact explicitly untrue. Now of course I don’t know the reasons why they chose to do this, but I can guess. Just as with Max, the most traumatic thing a male writer can think of for a female character is for them to be sexually abused.

And the most disturbing part of this to me? The parallels it has to the real world of why straight men think lesbians exist. These characters who would be called man haters in present day are given these incredibly traumatic man-centered histories. It brings up something very uncomfortable in me about particularly wlw sexuality being viewed as a reaction to trauma at the hands of men. It’s just gross, I dont like it, and honestly there is no fucking excuse for it besides a room full of white straight men writing this bullshit. A room that Steinberg chose, because they fit his ideas.

In Fact heck, the women of Black Sails in general

***I honestly struggle to think of a single female character who I think was treated fairly in Black Sails. Miranda and Eleanor are killed for taking sides and not understanding their partners, Madi is betrayed in the worst way possible, Max is given a pseudo empowering ending but has that fucking terrible start. Idelle ends off fairly well, but tied to a man she may or may not have any actual feelings for, in what is essentially a political marriage. And Anne has her entire identity tied to a man who will be dead in two years as she is robbed of any agency whatsoever without him. (Oh, and the whole r*pe thing. And also her support for Max’s r*pe or death until she started having fee-fees. Who wrote this stuff. >_>)

Even though the characterization of each and every one of these women is PHENOMENAL - and again I will repeat that I absolutely LOVE these characters as they exist in a vacuum. I think they are well rounded, real, feeling people given motivations and drives and FEELINGS and they SHOW THEIR ANGER and i LOVE THEM.

But the show punishes them for it. Miranda is essentially fridged to move Flint’s storyline along, and to make room for Silver. Eleanor is killed for the emotional damage it will cause Rogers. Madi is placed at the center of a conflict she explicitly says she is willing to die for and then not only is her entire cause taken from her, but when she tells Silver to fuck off he - in possibly the most predictable white man move ever - says ‘no i will stay until you change your mind. I will never leave you. I don’t care about your choice in this matter, I will wait forever for you. I’m your biggest fan. I’ll follow you until you love me. papa, - paparazzi.’

And I touched on this before, but I want to talk in more detail about what is possibly my hottest take to date, the sexification of Mary Read and Queen Nanny, as they are presented in the show.

Max is to Anne what Mary Read is, historically. She is the lover that Jack Rackham discovers with Anne, and then he joins them in their bed. They form a triumvirate that upholds Jack at the expense of the women. But for some reason, Steinberg didn’t want to just include Mary Read as an actual character. For some reason he needed to make Anne’s love interest a sex worker who was in need of saving (and who, coincidentally, we never see working the brothel after she becomes lovers with Anne, because she is now a madam. :) Gross.)

And Madi. My dear sweet fucking Madi who didn’t fucking deserve any of this bullshit send tweet.

So, historically, Queen Nanny was the Queen, spiritual advisor, and the military tactician of the Windward Maroons. She would have filled both Madi and the Queen’s character roles(and Flint’s, but who’s counting. A BLACK GAY LEAD? Inconceivable. I digress.) But, I guess, because they were wishy-washing with Silver’s sexuality or felt they needed to give him a female love interest because of Treasure Island, or because they were leaning a bit too hard into the gay shit and needed to backpedal, they took Queen Nanny and split her into a character who is for all intents and purposes powerless in the war and Madi, who is young and naive and does not have any real world experience outside of the Maroon camp.

Because that’s sexy, or something. They could have had the Maroon Queen be a fucking badass lady who works and fights alongside Flint and Silver and one ups them and teaches them shit and has her own ideas about where the British can stick it, but instead they made her into the perfect caricature of a female monarch, letting the big strong men handle the dirty work or something. Because white male power fantasies.

Just let women be powerful and not nubile and let them have character arcs over fucking thirty and let them be CENTERED in their own. fucking. narratives.

God damnit Steinberg.

James Flint, mlm extraordinaire

Oh, my love. My most amazing child. The light of my life. My purest cinnamon roll.

~~And now we’ve come to the dreaded Silverflint criticism part of our programming. Please please know and remember this isn’t a criticism of people who ship Silverflint. As I said up top, Your Tomato Is Not My Tomato and that’s cool. Please don’t take this next part as an attack on Silverflint as a fandom ship.~~

My criticism of Steinberg as it relates to Flint is related to:

What a romantic/sexual relationship with Silver being the basis of the tension and plot means for Flint in particular as a gay or mostly mlm man.

Refusing to confirm Thomas and James being alive at the end and honestly the whole finale in general but like I’ll try and focus.

The major problem I have with Silver and Flint being coded as in love with each other is the implications there in terms of gay men’s relationships to other men.

From every corner, men are inundated with the idea that any close relationship between them must be gay. That intimacy cannot exist unless there are sexual feelings involved. That a relationship cannot be close, deep and soul shattering and life altering, unless one guy secretly(or not so secretly) wants to bone the other dude. That two men cannot value each other as partners or friends or truly know each other unless they are gay.

Seeing both of the meaningful relationships Flint forms with other men be sexually coded feels a bit the same way as Anne and Max’s sexual assault plotlines does vis-a-vis being wlw. (Even with Gates, Flint never spoke about Thomas or his plans - Silver is absolutely the closest person to Flint besides Thomas and Miranda.) And this is just as true for Silver. Having both Flint and Madi - the two people he trusts - both be people he’s in love with also just feels. I don’t know.

It feels like a confusion between male intimacy and male love that is so so familiar to me as a gay man I could choke on it. Where they wanted these men to have a deep and really lasting connection, but could only figure out how to do it if they were in love. Friendship wouldn’t have been enough - only romantic and sexual love is enough for the gay man(or men, at all).

Just because it isn’t queerbaiting doesn’t mean it’s good rep, and I would have liked to see truly deep male friendships that did not center on sexual attraction - particularly for Flint as a confirmed mlm(and Silver too, if you’re counting him. The same arguments for why I dislike Flint being paired with Silver are also true in the reverse.)

Even if both Flint and Silver were confirmed mlm I still would have LOVED to see a platonic relationship between them. In fact I would have loved that EVEN MORE. Men! Who fuck men! Not needing to fuck each other to be important to one another! Who made this. Very delicious.

But because there weren’t any queer writers on the show, writers who understand this kind of struggle that gay and mlm men face, they thought ‘oh, let’s also have them be in love with each other. More gay rep is better gay rep, right?’ False. THOUGHTFUL gay rep is better gay rep.

Okay and here’s my last thing. The fact that Steinberg refuses to say whether or not the explicitly mlm men are alive at the end of the show - that the words he specifically uses are ‘up for interpretation’ is. Fuck, it’s gross, okay? It’s fucking gross.

I have been around enough men, enough people in power, enough people with leverage who also know how to play the field, to know that when someone wants a group’s support but does not agree with them, their go to phrasing is that it is ‘up for debate’ or ‘up for interpretation.’

Say the gays are alive. Steinberg refusing to acknowledge the reality of the ending of his show to maintain his own sense of artistic integrity is what, honestly, really sets me off about him and I don’t care if this is a nuanced take.

Like yes, death of the author. I honestly don’t care if he thinks they’re dead or alive. What I care about is that he thinks he can get away with being clever and leaning hard into a story is true/untrue’ - doesn’t realize what the implications of that are, and didn’t when he was writing, and didn’t have anyone else in the room who would think about it either.

ANYWAY. So this is....my long drawn out explanation for why I do not like Steinberg. Uhhhhh tune in next week for more of my totally unpopular opinions!

#good....fucking lord #i am so sorry #how many opinions can milo fit in one post #i mean i have more but yknow lmao #black sails #behind the black sails #milos black sails meta #long posts #my increasingly devoted attempts to find tumblrs word limit #Anonymous #john steinberg #js critical but the js is jon steinberg

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mst3kproject · 4 years

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Planet of Dinosaurs

This movie is blessed with some pretty cool stop-motion dinosaurs and absolutely nothing else, and it’s got a Rifftrack. That’s… that’s it, really. Press play.

The spaceship Odyssey suffers a reactor meltdown and blows up with only just enough warning for the crew to launch a single lifeboat shuttle. Luckily, there’s a life-bearing planet nearby where the spandex-suited survivors can land, but unluckily, it turns out to be inhabited by giant reptiles, not unlike the prehistoric fauna of Earth! There’s also a spider the size of a Yorkshire terrier, for no particular reason.

There’s not really any plot from there, it’s just bad actors shooting toy laser guns at plastic dinosaurs, interspersed with Rock Climbing. At last the characters manage to kill the inevitable T-rex that’s been threatening them, whereupon they declare themselves to have conquered this planet.

There are a few attempts at human conflict but they’re pretty watery. The first possible b-plot has to do with the vice president of the space-shipping company, Mr. Baylor, who was along on this trip for some reason and is among the survivors. So they’re not just stranded on Dinosaur Planet, they’re stranded on Dinosaur Planet with their boss. He’s a jackass and his secretary quickly gets fed up with him and quits, which doesn’t do her a whole lot of good since they are, as I mentioned, stranded on Dinosaur Planet. The writers run out of things to do with Baylor about halfway through the movie and kill him off, to everybody’s relief.

The second involves the bearded guy, Jim, who’s starting to take issue with Captain Lee’s command style. Lee is trying to keep them all alive and uninjured until help can arrive. Jim doesn’t think help is coming and wants to go full caveman and start slaughtering things. It starts to look like he’s gonna foment a mutiny, but eventually he and Lee overcome their differences and come up with a plan to kill the T-rex.

Finally, of course, the survivors inevitably pair off in heterosexual couples. Sure is lucky there weren’t more men than women or vice-versa. Very fortunate nobody’s left with no-one to bone but someone they’ve never gotten along with. Quite improbable that nobody on the entire command crew was gay. When one member of one of these couples becomes a dinosaur victim, the other thoughtfully dies a few scenes later, not because he commits suicide out of guilt or something, but just by coincidence.

One thing the movie actually does pretty well is day-for-night. It’s not great, in that you can still tell it was shot in the daytime through a filter, but they chose the right filter to cool down the warm tones of the sunlight, and had the sense to keep the sky out of shot. It never looks like somebody just turned the brightness on your screen way down and called it ‘night’, and I’ve seen so much worse that I want to at least acknowledge their competence.

The other thing Planet of Dinosaurs does well is the actual dinosaurs, which are a lot of fun. They’re lumpy and out of date, but some real care seems to have gone into building the detailed puppets and their movements are fluid and sometimes very lifelike. There’s a nice variety of them, too. As well as the T-rex there’s a smaller therapod that might be intended to be an Allosaurus, a couple of little Ornithomimus-like animals, a Brontosaurus complete with the wrong head, a Stegosaurus, a Centrosaurus, and some kind of ankylosaur. In real life these are a jumble of Hell Creek and Morrison dinosaurs who never met each other, but eh, it’s supposed to be another planet, it’s cool.

Unfortunately, there are several points where the effects people try to show us something they probably should have implied instead. I commend their ambition, but knowing your limits is a big part of making special effects work. In the first episode of Walking with Dinosaurs, the Postosuchus attacks a Placerias… but we don’t see as much of this as we think we do because our view is blocked by the body of the prey animal. They knew their CGI wasn’t up to making the attack look good, so they tricked us into thinking we saw more than we did. In Planet of Dinosaurs, a character stabs an injured Ornithomimus with a spear, and it’s painfully obvious that the stop-motion creature was just superimposed on top. They could easily have set up the shot so we didn’t have to actually see it go in, but they didn’t.

The dinosaurs are clearly what they spent their budget on, which was wise – as I said in my review of Twelve to the Moon, if you can only afford to show us one cool thing, best make it the one in the title. Sadly, when I say spent the budget I mean the entire budget. The rest of Planet of Dinosaurs looks like it was made in somebody’s backyard using stuff from the garden shed. The spaceship that briefly appears in the opening had a previous career as a vacuum cleaner. When it ‘explodes’ it just flickers red and vanishes with no further attempt at an effect.

The costumes look kind of like if they made the original Star Trek series ten years later but on the same budget, with producers who didn’t think they wanted this to be a porno but preferred to keep the option open. The designated Himbo, Chuck, doffs his shirt within the first few minutes of the film and never gets it back. The blonde who goes for a swim and is eaten by some water monster was wearing a bikini under her uniform for some reason. By the end, they’re all dressed in cartoon caveman garb and Chuck is still shirtless.

Besides the dinosaurs, the main effect we see is the laser guns, which are among the most ineffective sci-fi weapons ever committed to screen. They fire a beam of very slow red light which does absolutely nothing to any of the dinosaurs, even when the characters observe that one has been injured. I think this is supposed to show us that the animals are tougher than the technology, but for that to work we would have needed to see a laser used effectively, perhaps to destroy something blocking the path. Without that, we have no basis for comparison.

If this were all Planet of Dinosaurs did wrong, it would be a bad movie classic. Even the abysmally bad acting has its funny moments. What ruins the enjoyment is the movie’s lack of a proper story.

Planet of Dinosaurs is supposed to be a Cast Away or Robinson Crusoe sort of a film, about unprepared people thrust into the wilderness and forced to survive as best they can. Such a narrative doesn’t need an overarching conflict per se. It can be a series of smaller survival stories strung together, but Planet of Dinosaurs doesn’t manage to do that. The ‘plot’ with Baylor depends on him being a petulant fool, and the characters are not sufficiently well-developed for us to have any interest in the ‘love stories’ that don’t affect the overall course of events.

The rivalry between Captain Lee and Bearded Guy Jim turns on how to keep the rest of the survivors safe from the large predators in the area, particularly the T-rex. Lee wants everybody to hole up on a rocky plateau behind a ridiculously flimsy stockade to keep the animals out, while Jim wants to hunt down and kill the dinosaurs, to teach them to fear humans as wolves do on Earth. The main problem with this is that we just don’t see enough of the predatory dinosaurs to justify this treatment of them.

We see the T-rex fairly early in the film, and it fuels the humans’ decision to see high ground where they hope such a large animal will not go. The much smaller Allosaurus shows up at one point to make a woman scream, is ‘injured’ with a laser, and the T-rex then eats it. And just before the climax, the T-rex breaks through the stockade to chow down on Baylor’s secretary. In between these incidents, we do not see and rarely even hear about these animals. If we’re supposed to imagine them constantly lurking around outside, the movie makes no effort to reinforce that impression. The T-rex is treated as the Final Boss, but the movie just hasn’t earned that.

At the end we see the survivors a few years later. They’re building a farm, making their own clothes, living off the land, and raising their children. One of the women asks the other if she thinks they’re ever going to be rescued, and the other replies that she doesn’t think it matters anymore. The implication is that they’re now happy here. This is really not a bad little denouement, and ends the movie on a warm, optimistic note.

If you want to see some ridiculous 70s mustaches and ugly 70s dinosaurs, you’ll probably have fun with Planet of Dinosaurs. Unfortunately, the movie was a little too ambitious in some places and not ambitious enough in others. If I’d seen it at the age of six I probably would have become immediately obsessed with it for the dinosaurs alone, but as an adult I’m afraid my standards are just a little too high. Unable to afford to be good, and unable to commit to being bad, it’s just another meh.

#mst3k #reviews #episodes that never were #planet of dinosaurs #rock climbing #70s #dinosaurs make everything better

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doberbutts · 3 years

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I gotta say I really appreciated your candour in discussing sex stuff and you're absolutely right that communication should be a normal thing well before any clothes come off but also just

It's kinda made me realise that a big reason why I struggled to relax or go further with the cis guys I dated was purely down to the assumption that they would assume we would be doing x thing and just

That made me terrified of being intimate with them

And now I'm like damn, man, I should have just discussed it with them, because they may well have been completely fine with not doing x/not even been wild on x themselves, or actually preferred if we only did x with them receiving (which I'm completely fine with, it's just receiving it myself that is a total dealbreaker for me)

Or at the very least confirmed that we were incompatible, shrugged our shoulders and parted ways with no harm done

But they never brought it up and I never brought it up, so it never lasted long before I just noped out (and then wondered what the fuck was wrong with me, getting panic attacks over the prospect of doing something that was supposed to be fun and feel good :/ )

It's only years later that I was tentatively discussing preferences with my partner (whom I've been best friends with for a decade before we even got together, so there was already a strong trust there) that it came up and she didn't even bat an eyelid over me telling her, just agreed that if I didn't like it we'd never do it, nbd. And now I'm just like. Huh. Okay. In that case I would like to try y and z things then. And we did, and everything went great.

Communication about bedroom stuff definitely needs to be more normalised, and people need to not assume they know what their partner's preferences are/what will happen if things get to the bedroom point. My relationships weren't even cis het - all the guys I dated were either fully aware I was queer or were queer themselves and still there was basically no discussion of bedroom preferences whatsoever. It's a real issue.

Yeah, there's a lot of pressure that a lack of communication adds to things, and that can really have a negative effect on relationships, self esteem, and sexual interest. Talking about it helps, because it lets you draw healthy boundaries while understanding your partner's expectations and visa versa.

For one of the gay men I've dated, he was very up front that while it didn't *disgust* him, he really had no idea what he was doing with that part of me, and thus if I wanted anything in that regard I would need to show him. Lucky for him I super do not want anything from that part of me, so I was able to take that pressure off of him by relaying it was a hard no from me anyway, and we were able to move on to discuss what we did both like. He was free from the expectation he had assumed would be there, and I was free from the worry he would pursue that thinking I would like it. We didn't even start messing around for several more weeks- once again a solid conversation to be had well before the pants come off.

On the flip side, I did have what turned out to be a ONS with a bi guy even though what he'd SAID was that he wanted a relationship 🙄 and *even though* we had talked about things, it turned out he had not revealed all of his expectations, and there was a lot of awkward fumbling for 'oh I uh... don't actually like doing that' and 'I would rather do this but I don't think you're down for it', and at the end of the night it was an overall anticlimatic and unfulfilling time. We could have resolved that easily far before rolling in the sheets but instead he opted to wait until that very minute, and in the end we were both just frustrated instead of satisfied.

Anyway. Bedroom stuff demands intimacy, trust, and vulnerability. If [general] you're unable to talk about it when there's really no pressure either way, how can [general] you expect to have a good time? I mean yeah sure maybe you'll get lucky, but also maybe you won't. I don't understand couple that just... go at it, and then complain they don't like xyz thing that their partner does, but also refuse to talk to said partner about it. Maybe this is just the kinky part of me but if I don't like something I say so in the moment. I'm no longer a super nervous 20yo laying under my boyfriend as he tries to tell me it'll start feeling good soon. I really feel bad for the folks who are still at that point, mentally.

Talk to your partners before committing to the deed. And if you both like to be spontaneous or you both are still figuring out what you like and where boundaries are, then make sure to provide a safe atmosphere where your partner can bring things to a halt if they need to. I understand that like... super a kink mindset... but I think that's an aspect that some variations of vanilla have forgotten. The ability to pump the brakes is just as important as the ability to rev the engine.

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gizkasparadise · 4 years

Text

cdrama rec/review: go ahead

KDRAMA AND CDRAMA MASTER LIST OF REVIEWS

Series: go ahead Episodes: 40 Genres: family, healing/melodrama, slice of life, romance Spoilers in the Rec: for the first 20% ish/set-up If You Like, You’ll Like: reply 1988, le coup de foudre, find yourself (same production company/main male actor), rain or shine/just between lovers, found family stories, meet again stories

Rank: 10/10** (see Drawbacks section)

PREMISE

widower hai chao and his 6 year old daughter jian jian live happily above his noodle restaurant despite the recent, tragic death of his wife. one day, dysfunction junction a married couple (he ping, a police officer, and chen ting, a real piece of work) move into the same building with their 7 year old son, ling xiao. immediately, jian jian attaches herself to ling xiao, who is unexpectedly grim for a small child.

because ling xiao’s family is less-than-healthily grieving the loss of their youngest child, ling xiao’s sister who died in a terrible accident. The Apartment of Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms eventually implodes, ending with chen ting abandoning her husband and son. he ping, suddenly a single father, and hai chao come to a friendly partnership that is clearly alluding to gay marriage where they co-raise both of their kids--hai chao as the primary caregiver, and he ping supporting them financially through his job as a policeman.

meanwhile, the neighborhood busybody is dead-set on getting hia chao remarried. eventually she introduces him to a divorced single mother, he mei, and her son zi qiu, who is ling xiao’s age. they sort of start to date, but it culminates in he mei skipping town and leaving zi qiu behind. hai chao, man with a heart of gold, informally adopts him and zi qiu becomes jianjian’s foster brother.

from there, the trio grow up happily and become inseparable. but once zi qiu and ling xiao graduate high school, the bullshit parade their respective childhood skeletons reappear in their lives. circumstances lead to the boys moving overseas, leaving jianjian and their fathers behind.

they reunite after 9 years, when the boys return to a home where they hope to pick things back up from where they left off. things are more complicated than that, as jianjian finds herself in a new life and surrounded by new people.

MAIN CHARACTERS

li jian jian

hai chao’s daughter and the only girl in the family. she attended the required short-hair-low-grades training program required of all cdrama youth female leads. super positive and outgoing, as well as the youngest of the three pseudo-siblings, jian jian grows up spoiled and over protected by her father and brothers, and as a result is completely devastated once her family falls apart. it’s so sad.

after the time skip, she’s an on-the-verge successful artist who makes woodcarvings, and exudes big art bro energy. inhales sugar like it’s nobody’s business. she inherited her father’s disease called caring too much, and it’s incurable!!

ling xiao

the eldest brother and resident fun police. ling xiao comes from a seriously toxic home that finally seems to improve once his mother leaves. but then she comes back. fucking great. introverted to the point of being withdrawn to anyone but his chosen family, ling xiao’s had to carry a lot of emotional weight that takes a larger and larger toll on him as the series progresses. please get this boy some therapy.

becomes a dentist because jian jian needs one. wears a lot of monochromatic outfits with low necklines because heavy angst but make it fashion. has been in love with jian jian since high school and is still carrying that torch 9 years later.

he zi qiu

the middle child who grows up in hai chao and jian jian’s home, and is her foster brother in all but paperwork. hotheaded, zi qiu and jian jian basically share two brain cells that ling xiao routinely takes from them for safekeeping. he spoils jian jian, sneaking her snacks and junk food and wants to become a pastry chef so he can open a sweet shop for her!!

my favorite character. just wants to be wanted 8( him and hai chao’s relationship is my favorite dynamic in the series. will sob while driving a pink moped. is too proud to beg

li hai chao (left) and ling he ping (right)

the greatest (hai chao) and okayest (he ping) dads in the world! noodle dad/hai chao has never done anything wrong in his life, ever, and we know this and we love him. he ping isn’t a bad person, but demonstrates pretty classic absentee parenting/isn’t as emotionally present in his son’s life as hai chao. hai chao is the heart of the family, and would do anything for his kids 8(

SOME SUPPORT CHARACTERS

tang can (left) and qiu ming yue (right)

jian jian’s #GirlGang and roommates. they, like literally everyone in this drama, have some severe mom issue hang-ups. tang can (left) is a former child actress who is struggling with her lack of success as an adult and gives well-meaning but absolutely terrible advice on the regular.

ming yue (right) is jian jian’s best friend since childhood and as an adult is trying to break free from her mother’s controlling nature--she’s also had a thing for ling xiao for the last 9 years. raises fish for symbolism purposes.

chen ting

ling xiao’s mom and certified garbage human. unable to cope with the death of her daughter that was her fault lbr, she abandons her family and disappears for ten years. she forces her way back into ling xiao’s life when he turns 18, where it’s revealed that she’s remarried and ling xiao has a younger half-sister chengzi (”little orange”). shit goes down, and soon ling xiao is forced to move back to singapore to serve as primary caregiver to both his mother who abandoned him and the half sister he barely knows.

emotionally abusive and basically hits every single square on the toxic parent bingo card. i just. i just hate her. even typing this out is making me mad.

he mei

zi qiu’s mother. after a few dates with hai chao, she ends up ditching her kid and disappearing for unknown reasons. is a slightly better parent than chen ting but that’s like saying some poison kills you slower. the show tries to bring us around on her but it didnt work for me.

SOME OTHERS

zhuang bei, zi qiu’s best friend growing up who i would like a lot less if he wasn’t played by the same actor who played my beloved dachuan

zheng shuran, jian jian’s first boyfriend and fellow artist who’s got a weird thing for women’s waists and pretentious artists’ statements

du juan, jian jian’s friend who co-owns their woodworking studio. has absolute trash taste in men

chengzi, ling xiao’s half-sister who can be a brat but dear god does she need to be protected/saved

**DRAWBACKS

so this is a weird one for me. what i didn’t like i really didn’t like, but what i loved i really loved. ultimately, the factors/uniqueness of this show and the loveability of the main characters outweighed the negatives and it’s one of my favorite dramas.

THAT SAID. i got some #thoughts on this one.

first, there are literally no positive mother figures in this show. not a damn one. they are all negligent or controlling at best or down right abusive at worst. no woman over 30 is portrayed positively and that’s a big No from me.

the last 10 eps have some pacing issues and focus on the wrong people. spending the remaining episodes focused on one of the most universally hated characters vs. the main family was a bad move

the show tried to redeem or make us sympathize with characters that were, to me, completely irredeemable. one case is worse than the other, but both of them were terrible people that deserved to be cut out of the main family’s lives.

REASONS TO WATCH

the main family. the characters are so wonderful and nuanced, and their dynamics with one another were amazing. you’ll fall in love with hai chao aka noodle dad and the trio. they go through so many trials but they still stick together and it’s ultimately a healing drama and i loved it very much.

the central romance was less in focus, but the pining is enough to make jane austen emerge from the grave. i loved the leads together, and while LOL ling xiao’s attachment to jian jian was not always healthy, they supported each other and it made me smile. i love me a tortured pining dude.

#Acting. everyone played their parts to perfection. the child actors in particular were so well-cast (esp baby zi qiu)

the soundtrack lmao. you watch the opening credits and know you’ll need to buckle up

idk it’s a very unique show, and i haven’t seen one like it. reply 1988 comes close, but it doesn’t tackle the same issues and it was all just very real and earnest.

Final Thoughts.

GOODNIGHT, GOOODBYYYYYE MY CHILDREEEEEEEN

#go ahead #song weilong #zhang xincheng #tan songyun #cdrama #gizka does kdrama

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riverdale-retread · 3 years

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Riverdale S3 E22 Finale (Spoilers!)

- Life would lose its meaning, if I lost you, my love is the song lyric that sends us out of Season 3 and I kept thinking about S5a. This lyric is the expression of the central tragedy of this show, namely, Jughead and Veronica, the person with the biggest heart and the biggest brain, respectively, yearning to have their love & devotion properly reciprocated by Barchie, and not getting it. (I hate this place. I hope S5b takes me somewhere better).

Toni is the True Serpent Queen

- Toni assembles everyone and their weapons so quick, both the Serpents and the Poisons, and they know what’s what and follow her command.

- But first, she gets drugged. Toni Topaz I feel like wouldn’t have been into Harry Potter, maybe because she would’ve figured out Rowling’s issues faster than everyone else. Nevertheless, if she had, Toni would have known better than to accept food or drink from Penelope Blossom, especially when Penelope calls it ‘calming tea.’ When I first saw this I was convinced that Penelope had straight up killed Toni, but I am so glad she didn’t.

- Toni is awoken by the ever wonderful Grandma Blossom who always knows whatever the hell is going on. Grandma Blossom wants Toni to participate as a side player in the Main 4′s plot but Toni is very firm: I NEED TO SAVE CHERYL. Because you know, the main four always do that to Choni. Go Toni with your proper priorities. Because when Choni do come to the rescue of the main four, NOBODY SAYS THANK YOU.

Sidebar: Girlfriends well met, because after her valiant self sacrifice for her lady, Cheryl saves her own self, more or less. She also runs, several miles, in the dark, in heels, holding a baby, and her hair is still perfect at the end of it. Cheryl Blossom is a witch, nobody can tell me otherwise. And I very much enjoyed the multiple archers. Yeah, a solo archer is really of limited utility, but I agree that a gang of archers can be all that.

I also liked the very brief, very tiny, Alice and Cheryl scenes. They both have snappy bitch energy. Alice answering the question from Cheryl about Why should I trust you! with What choice do you have? is the most persuasive anyone has ever been with Cheryl. Betty could learn a thing or two.

So then Alice stays for Polly and wants Betty to be safe from the Farm. So it’s sometime AFTER she married Edgar that she met Charles and became the secret mole? Alice hates herself, so she can’t love her daughters and that’s why Charles’ intervention works. I would feel bad for her, but she’s so shit.

Penelope Blossom is a Terrific Villain

- Penelope, like a good madame (I assume?) lets people be who they are. That has to be the key to her success as a sex worker. She understands people. Penelope Blossom understands that Edgar’s greed for money outweighs his need to indulge in his various perversions, and so she buys all of Betty’s organs, in bulk. (I am a sicko for finding this funny, but I mean seriously, Penelope has a way with words). She got Dagwood (Jason Jr. The Second) because she understood that Edgar really only wants to keep girl children and gay boys.

The total filth and lack of any sort of hygiene at the Farm’s organ harvesting surgery room gives me absolute heebie jeebies. Edgar is such a pervert, but it’s useful that perverts in tv and film are such ornate, fussy people because otherwise he’d just straight up murder Betty and there’d be no more show.

- By the way Penelope doesn’t want to rescue Cheryl, just Betty, even after she knows Evernever is harvesting organs. Damn that is cold.

- Penelope has been observing Jughead very closely during their repeated interactions this season, so she knows that Jughead loves to give Poirot monologues, and she lets him! And Jughead just has a whole selection of these speech openings in his head, all the time, to pull out whenever. Use quote from Conan Doyle re: Impossible, Improbable, Truth, In Real Life, now crossed off the Jughead Master To Do List! Oh and Jughead talks to Hal Cooper for the first time in his life, and so calls him Mr. Cooper because Jughead politeness compulsion is so ingrained.

- Penelope only wears her long opera gloves on her left hand because that’s the site of the worst injuries sustained in the Blossom Fire. I want to know where she keeps all the right handed gloves.

- Penelope also understands that Betty is basically Alice in a Gothic Wonderland, and knows that she will, without question or attempt at escape, just obediently follow written instructions that say “Put This On, Come Downstairs.” Especially if you make the gown pink. (Pause here to say, OMG Betty is so! very! beautiful! Penelope voice to purr: Elizabethhhhh Pretty~~~~)

- Penelope is the OG Game Master. Penelope is a homophobe but I mean she is all about that drag queen showmanship. She juices up the game like a grown up: ALL OF THE CHALICES WERE POISONED. It’s just slow acting. And maybe there is an antidote which might work and maybe there isn’t. Or maybe it was never poisoned to begin with. LULZ you just have to finish the game! The singsong delivery of the line: Tick To~~ck is so fan.tast.ic.

Hal Cooper Is A Gormless Woman Killer

- Hal Cooper is not scary. Once more - Hal Cooper Is Not Scary. He just isn’t. No disrespect to the performer, but he just isn’t threatening, at all. Chic is unsettling and weird, at least, but Hal Cooper is not scary. What he is though, is hateful.

I find it hilarious that Hal Cooper’s final benediction, delivered by Penelope, is: YOU WERE A TERRIBLE SERIAL KILLER. This neatly echoes Alice Cooper bursting out in hysterical laughter when Betty first accuses her father of having killed Jason Blossom - The man is just not capable teehee. And it’s true that if Hal had been tasked with killing Jason Blossom he wouldn’t have succeeded, but not for the reasons Alice thinks. Hal is a woman killer, not a plain serial killer.

Hal’s a misogynist with control issues about women,so his heart was only in it when he was out to kill women, and that’s why he fails so badly at killing men.

Compare to Sister Agatha, who killed all of her sister nuns to tie up loose ends, and to Penelope Blossom, who mostly kills men who have directly harmed her or get in her way.

Mary Andrews Gave Her Obtuseness To Her Son, Who is Just Not Bright

- Does Mary know who Veronica’s father is?? Fred Andrews was often a little bit uncomfortable around Veronica. He didn’t openly approve of the Varchie relationship the way he did Valerie, for example. FP, Failure Father Jones, expressed grave concerns when his child went into business (for a bit) with Veronica Lodge, but Mary is like, So Archie, are you and V endgame? Where do you stand? I mean, she herself is queer, so that must be why relating to her straight son (if he is) (all his most important emotional connections are with boys and he keeps needing to find Jughead replacements soooo....) are so awkward.

- Archie, going off to fight the Bear Man, asks in the most super casual way that his friends tell his parents that he loves them, if he dies, and then adds as a total afterthought, “You guys too.” This little bit reveals everything there is to say about Archie being both so, so dumb and yet so loveable.

Sidebar: Giant Unexplained Man who is willing to wear a bear head hat and beat a teenager to death in the woods (what was the wanted ad for this job like?) is so Riverdale.

- Archie has played two whole rounds of live action G&G with real death stakes and still doesn’t know that it’s Gargoyles and not Gremlins because that boy is just not smart.

Veronica is the Smartest of the Main Four, says the Show

- Veronica keeps saying sensible things that are directly contradicted by Jughead and I don’t like this. I saw this in a really well put together film commentary once - that women often ask questions in movies that are answered by the nearest man, that women posit things that are sensible but then the nearest man shows them to be wrong by saying the opposite thing that comes true. And this exact thing keeps happening to Veronica by Jughead here and it does them both a disservice. Jughead listens to women (all people really, but especially women) very closely and carefully, you know? And Veronica is the smartest one of the main four, the all-rounder. I know Betty gets the best grades but come on, she’s not the smartest.

Example 1: Archie says “The invites say not to tell anyone or bring our phones,” to which Veronica explains, to Archie, “So it’s a trap.” Archie’s face is like OMFG WHAT I NEVER THOUGHT OF THAT but Jughead glares at Veronica like she’s stupid and snaps, “What that ever in doubt?” Um. Hey now.

Example 2: Veronica, who has never played any version of G&G, is the one to say, “We don’t even know where to go!” and immediately, Jughead answers, “Actually, Enchantress, we might.” Let me reiterate, Archie has played the real life version because Warden Norton and Hiram Lodge forced him to from when he was in prison and he knows the rules enough to hallucinate the game when he has Bear Claw Fever, but he still doesn’t know what the game is called! Betty must’ve gotten a quick tutoring session between when she didn’t know anything about the game and when she moved into the Farm and was comfortable addressing Jughead as Hellcaster. So there is no justification for Jughead to be so irritable with Veronica for her questions.

Example 3: When given the Poison Roulette game, Veronica at first refuses to participate, which is also a sane response, and yet again, Jughead, who was waiting for her to object, then reads her the rest of the instructions. Jughead, why are you being so mean to Veronica?

Example 4: In the throes of the game, Archie wonders aloud WTF is going on because he’s slow, and Veronica says, as she’s dying of poisoning, that maybe they can figure out the whys and wherefores later, which is a sensible thing to say, and then Jughead goes, Nope, figuring out how all this is connected is the answer!

Example 5: Jughead then goes on this Bible infused ramble (Did FP put Jughead in Sunday school at some point?) - Jason Blossom death begat the Black Hood which begat Gargoyle King, but our Cafeteria Catholic Veronica isn’t having it because it is wrong, and so she points out that Black Hood existed before the Blossom murder, and Jughead goes, in essence, Oh oopsie but I am still right.

BUT! After all that, the Show realizes that in order to shoehorn Charles into the story, and make the character turnaround for Alice have at least half a chance and establish that law enforcement does sort of exist in this universe, they have to have Veronica say, “Actually, it kind of tracks.” This is a signal to the audience that since the smartest person in the show has accepted that this tracks so we all need to just fall in line.

Performance sidebar: Betty’s chuckle of surreal disbelief is a golden piece of acting genius in this show and I love it, and Jughead’s mind getting wiped completely clean as he figures out that he shares a half sibling with his girlfriend is just as classic.

Jughead Loves Archie & Betty, in this order

-First up, Jughead loves Archie more than Veronica does. I love how the one reaction you see of the remaining three when Archie gets slammed by the Bear Man is Jughead, and Jughead’s legs just give out from under him when he sees Archie take the blow. Both of the girls are dry eyed, but Jug definitely starts to cry. It’s dark and it’s hard to see, but I swear. The Archie POV shots are fascinating too. He does look at Veronica first, and that helps him decide to fight harder, so he grabs a big branch. Then he gets flung in a way Archie does not get flung, and this is when he seeks out Jughead, and his eye contact with Jughead is what gives him the critical second wind to win.

- By the way, is Bear Man dead?? Is he the second man Archie has killed?

- Before Betty’s solo challenge, Jughead tells her he loves her. (Betty just doesn’t do that for Jughead. I know, it’s petty, but girl, learn to take a moment.) Anyway, they share a long kiss, in the dark, and I am annoyed because I can’t see. Show me! And when she’s drinking the poisons he doesn’t take his eye off her for even a second. Oh Jughead.

Veronica Loves Betty & Archie, in this order

- ‘K so ... grabbing and downing a goblet that you both think is full of cyanide that will make you die a gruesome death immediately, and declaring that you did it BECAUSE I LOVE YOU is the most piercingly romantic thing anyone has ever done for anybody on Riverdale. I feel like this is neck and neck with Jughead making that final phone call to Betty before letting himself get Aslan-sacrificed by the Ghoulies in the S2 Finale. You’re my best friend... and... and says Veronica and my heart is breaking and so is hers because she can’t finish the sentence. To which Betty says, I love you too.

OK primal howl break here to ask Betty how could you! How! Could! You! How!!!! And WHY??? And what did it get you?

- Oh golly I am so upset.

- Veronica is supposed to choose her closest companion, and Betty volunteers. So Betty knows that Veronica loves her most. Note the very careful wording of this - Veronica has to choose the companion she feels closest to. Betty knows.

- And fucking Archie, after witnessing how much Veronica loves Betty, and how golden and perfect and whole Veronica’s love can be for a person, picks the worst possible fucking time to say he loves Veronica. Sure you do Archie. Yup. Uh huh.

- Oh, and then we find out that nothing happened with Reggie after Archie cockblocked him that night after Reggie gave up everything for Veronica once again. Veronica is committed to Archie and wants Archie, and I love Veronica so I want her to get what she wants (even though I know she’ll never get it - sob!), but also, justice for Reggie when?

Chic v Jughead.

- I absolutely love Jughead’s WTF disbelief throughout the final quest. When Penelope announces, Let the final quest... Begin! in the same theatrical way he himself had when he was gamemaster, he quirks his eyebrows at her like, Is that the best you can do?

Sidebar: Penelope’s very gender traditional ways of thinking are revealed - the girls have to poison themselves and boys have to fight off an attacker.

- Jughead learns that learning the motives of a serial killer are unilluminating.

gif by @rudys-pankow

I mean, this is the Wow, OK, heard ‘round the world. The single best delivered line of meta commentary in a television show ever. No, just, ever, ok? No contest. Just accept it.

The Farmies

- When Cheryl first finds them in their room at the Farm, Kevin and Fangs are doing some sort of hand holding, loving-eye contact type of semi-dance ritual, and ... but for the cult context this looks so adorable. The fact that they both overcome this experience enough to be in a long term stable relationship, both finish college, both work out a stable (enough) adult life, and want to start a family together is so heartwarming to me. (And yet sad, because it just breaks apart in S5a.)

- The Worthy ascended and we’ll never see them again. Dun dun. Except they just.. moved. What does Kevin thinks has happened? The Ascension of the Farmies is a weird misdirect, because Ascension just means We Move Houses. Farmies are such drama queens. Riverdale is down in some sort of valley, right? So they just literally ascended to a house geographically higher up!

Set Up for Season 4

- I mean obviously, the S4 set up is the Is Jughead Dead but that was never a true cliffhanger, to begin with, and now I know Jughead lives into his mid twenties at least, so Betty insisting the other two stand naked in the forest burning the beanie was just her being very dramatic. And her pronouncement about ‘We never speak of this ever’ is contradicted immediately because they involve the entire village almost immediately.

- Cheryl has Jason all to herself, finally. Cheryl discovering Jason’s corpse and her horror at it contrasts nicely with how casual she is about this corpse in the next season.

- Hermione arrested for attempted murder of Hiram. Oh, and Mad-Dog Monroe and Archie want to create a community center.

- Meanwhile, Preppy Jughead was my jam so I am very hyped for S4 retread.

#justice for reggie #choni for the win #penelope blossom is awesome #toni topaz is the true serpent queen #high body count episode of riverdale #riverdale recap #veronica lodge #jughead jones

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kaitosimp · 3 years

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Ok hear me out.

Kaito is Aromatic/ace sexual

Basically a Kaito who has never felt romantically attracted to anyone before nor has ever had any real interest in doing anything with anyone.

At first this might seem a little... self indulgent I suppose but hear me out dude..

The most blunt and thing everyone always points to with other stuff with how ambiguous it is that he loved Maki back after she confesses to him.

He’s odd with his wording and personally even if Kaimaki is one of my favorite ships EVER I’m not sure he loved her back.

More set in stone prof of this is how people go on and on about Kaito being oblivious to his friends obvious feelings for him.. that he’s being blind and stupid but I really don’t think that’s the case.

I personally think Kaito has such a lack of understanding for romantic feelings in general.

Of course he wouldn’t jump to the conclusion of them liking him if he himself as never felt those emotions before.

It wouldn’t register in his brain that anyone has any kid of crush on him and so.. it flys past his head without registering to him properly.

So it’s less him being obvious and more such emotions being directed at him not crossing his mind..

I think this lack of understanding can also explain why he’s so affectionate both physically and with words to his friends.

I don’t think Kaito is trying to be romantic or hint at any crush when he acts like that.

It just seems like he’s being Kaito.

Showing he cares about his friends,

He doesn’t see himself being romantic he’s not trying to.. and doesn’t understand why anyone would would see him being that because once again he hasn’t really felt attracted to anyone.

Also in the game there are several moments where he is obviously misunderstanding about others being attracted to each other or just how that works in general.

Like thinking Maki and Shuichi like each other, not getting Tenko’s attraction to Himiko, ETC.

It just seems like he’s really just NOT understanding.

And like he’s acting like he does to cover this fact up.

Expanding on this I think it could very well explain his issues on so called manliness and what he thinks a man should be.

Because of Kaito’s upbringing was by his grandparents.

People with an older mind set, they definitely influenced this older thinking matters on him.

Including how a man should very well have girlfriends date.. have romantic interests in females..

But.. Kaito doesn’t feel that very important thing and so doubles down on everything else they have told him and desperately pretend he does understand how that kind of things feels like.

That of course he’s been attracted to people!!

(He has not)

The poor guy probably thinks somethings wrong with him, that he’s broken, having no idea what he’s going through is actually a very normal thing.

And even if he was told: ‘hey your probably aromantic buddy’

I 100% believe he would be incredibly miserable.

Because Kaito doesn’t want that!

He wants to feel attraction!

He wants to love other people and make them happy!

But he just can’t... no made how hard he tries.

He would not be happy with the new label at all, but be very bitter about it.

Kaito was waiting for ‘the one’ that everyone always talks about so he could finally feel that spark.. but turns out ‘the one’ will probably never come.

It would make him more sad, upset and miserable than I can fully express.

(I also think he would deny this and try getting into a relationship anyway to force himself to feel something but continue to feel nothing and accidentally trap himself in a relationship he doesn’t feel the same way in when the other person is hopelessly in love with him and he doesn’t want to break it off to avoid hurting them. (This can work with any of the characters really but esepally Maki and Shuichi))

He wouldn’t be prideful of it at all and I personally can’t blame him.

It’s a lot different from being gay or bi..

Kaito almost wishes he was, at least then he could feel something.

Anyway ya!

I have more reasons why I think Kaito is those sexuality’s (mostly ace because I didn’t mention that much) but I don’t want to make this longer than I already have.

It’s a shame no one else seems to see it because I think it’s a real possibility despite being very self indulgent regarding my out very frustrating sexuality.

Aro/ace Kaito supremacy!!!

Oh woah before I talk about the actual ask, can I just say that that drawing is so dang cute and amazing, I LOVE IT!!! 😭😭💜 Even if Shuichi and Maki are crying in the back asdfghjkl poor sidekicks but hEY, Y'ALL BETTER ACCEPT AND SUPPORT THE SPACEMAN RN

I think your reasons and thinking for Kaito being aro/ace are hella valid and make a lot of sense!! Even if it's not something I hc it truly makes sense and it would explain certain aspects of his behavior when it comes to romantic-ish things and him being utterly clueless about this kind of stuff 😩

And also, that stuff about him being sad and frustrated and miserable at finding out he's aro/ace made me sad 😭😭😭 I very much agree, if Kaito were to be told that he'd probably be so miserable and he'd probs think it had to be wrong, he'd be in denial, he'd refuse to accept it, he'd think he was weird and like you said, maybe he would try forcing himself into a relationship just to try and prove himself wrong/prove he was "normal" but it'd just make it all so much worse 😔 It was probs drilled into his head, like it is to a lot of ppl, that he had to settle down at some point with a partner (a girl in his case) and marry her and have kids and all that shit, so the fact he doesn't feel attraction or romantic feelings for anyone while having those ideas in his head would make him think he had a problem and was disappointing his grandparents/the ppl around him who had high expectations for him and that everyone would think he was weird for being like that and it'd just- it'd take such a toll on him and he'd need lotsa time to be able to accept himself and understand there's absolutely nothing wrong with him and that his friends wouldn't think any less of him 😔💜

And what you said is true that I don't rlly see much of this (I've literally only come across oNE fic of Kaito being ace) and it's the first time I see anything about him being aromantic, I think it could be a possibility indeed!! Again, even if I don't personally hc it, it makes a lot of sense and it could explain a lot of his behavior regarding this type of stuff 👀 And even if you consider it's self indulgent there's absolutely nothing wrong with that!!! This is very valid and nobody can say anything about it 🌚🤚🏽💞

#kaito momota #I LOVE THE DRAWING SO MUCH IT'S SO CUTE #this is hella valid and we take no arguments about that in this house #shuichi and maki better dry them tears and go love and support him rn #i loved reading your reasons for this sm it truly is a possibility!!

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zenwords · 4 years

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The 11 Most Common Myths About Highly Sensitive People

Unsurprisingly, given my sensitivity, I struggled to fit in when I was growing up in the loud and vibrant 1970s, a decade not known for its subtlety.

I was unbearably sensitive and relentlessly teased for crying or overreacting to things.

If I didn’t understand something the teacher was trying to tell me, I would start to cry. If friends didn’t want to play with me, I would cry some more. I would obsess over every single thing anyone said to me. Hardly surprising then that I was a lonely and friendless child as everybody must have felt they had to walk on eggshells around me.

There were countless anxious school lunchtimes when I clutched my plastic blue tray and agonized about whether or not anyone would sit with me. They rarely did.

PE sessions were another torture as, of course, the team leaders picked everyone but me for their team. I don’t blame them. I didn’t have the competitive and confident streak needed to win. My lessons were mostly spent sitting on a table alone, and break times were largely spent hiding from my exuberant peers.

I lived life through the lens of my heart. I couldn’t separate myself from anyone or anything. Lacking the ability to set boundaries, I didn’t know where I ended and other people began.

This theme of not fitting in continued into my adult life. If only I had understood earlier that I needed to stop trying to fit in. I needed to educate myself about what it really means to be a sensitive soul. Someone who notices things, reflects deeply, and cares about others and how they are feeling.

Dig deep enough and there are stacks of research out there to show being sensitive, feeling your way through life, is a strength. You understand that your empathy and intuition have healing and transformative powers and are a source of connection and creativity.

If you think being sensitive means being a shy ‘cry baby’ you have seriously got this wrong (though, yes, many sensitive people cry a lot). It’s just one of several common and frustrating misconceptions about sensitivity:

1. Sensitive people are all shy and introverted.

There are sensitive extroverts, too—about 30 percent of sensitives are extroverts. Sensitive people tend to need alone time to recharge after being in overstimulating environments, much like introverts, but they may still get energy from being around other people. Which means they need to find the right balance between social time and downtime so that they feel connected but not drained.

2. Sensitives are fragile, ineffective ‘snowflakes.’

Many defining characteristics of sensitive people, such as their empathy, passion, and creativity, make them exceptional business leaders or influencers on the world stage, for example, Walt Disney, Jacinda Arden, John Lennon, and Princess Diana to name but a few.

3. Sensitive people are pushovers who have no firm convictions of their own.

Empathy is a defining characteristic of sensitives, but it is not an endorsement of another person’s viewpoint; rather it’s simply respecting and listening to that viewpoint. You can validate and respect someone’s perspective and still choose to live by your own principles.

5. Sensitivity is a women’s issue.

Up to 50 percent of sensitives are men. Boys and men are often taught to suppress their emotions to appear tough, strong, and masculine, but this often causes depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem—because no one can choose not to be sensitive. They feel ashamed of their sensitivity but need to understand that real men do cry.

6. Gay men are prone to being sensitive.

This is a social stereotype that equates being gay with being more feminine and, as stated above, sensitivity is not a feminine issue.

7. Highly sensitive people are prone to depression and anxiety.

There may be an increased risk of anxiety, but depression is a medical condition that needs treatment and many factors contribute to the likelihood of experiencing it. Lack of self-awareness and acceptance, whether a person is sensitive or not, can also increase the risk of depression.

8. There is a strong link between hypersensitivity and autism.

Those with autism may well have sensory issues, for example, finding things like bright lights or loud noises overwhelming, but this does not mean that everyone with sensory issues has autism. There are major differences between high sensitivity and autism, but chiefly autism comes with ‘social deficits’ (less response in brain areas associated with empathy) and high sensitivity does not.

9. Sensitive people are too weak and self-doubting to become effective leaders, stand up to narcissists, or succeed in a harsh and critical world.

Not so. Once they are armed with self-awareness and the tools and techniques to turn their gentleness into a strength, sensitive people are an unbeatable force.

10. All empaths are sensitive.

Sensitive people are empaths because they feel what others feel. But not all empaths are sensitive, i.e. they soak up emotions but not all the other stimuli from an environment as sensitives tend to do.

11. Sensitive people need to ‘toughen up.’

They can’t, because being sensitive is who they are. They are born that way.

I used to buy into all these negative associations, especially the notion that a sensitive person needs to ‘toughen up.’ They simply can’t. It’s like telling someone who is taller than average that they should be shorter. Just as being tall is not a flaw, being sensitive is not a flaw. It is not an illness, or a choice people make, either. It is how they are born.

According to experts, it is an innate trait with research indicating that at least three sets of genes may contribute to it. Some highly sensitive people may have all or some of these ‘sensitive’ genes, and intriguingly all three impact the brain and nervous system in some way.

Sensitive people are born to be gentle and to experience life on high alert through the lens of their feelings and senses. They are not better or worse than anyone else, just different.

Although they may have traits in common, they are not all the same. Every sensitive person is unique, just as every person who is taller than average is unique.

Indeed, the fact that the genetic coding for sensitivity continues to survive natural selection suggests that for evolutionary reasons, for the survival of the human race, it is beneficial that some people can see, feel, and sense things others cannot. It offers an evolutionary advantage and exists, and will continue to exist, because it is the one true force that drives humanity toward greater connection.

Empathy, intuition, creativity, gentleness, and compassion are personality traits that unite rather than divide, and they are all defining traits of the highly sensitive individual.

In a nutshell, we are all born with a unique genetic code. The key to a fulfilling life is not to repress, deny, or try to hide our uniqueness but to make the most of what life has given us. If you are sensitive, it is essential that you understand this is not a weakness. Rather, it is a strength, and a potentially healing gift both for yourself and for the human race.

— Theresa Cheung

Theresa Cheung is a Sunday Times bestselling author. She has a Master’s degree in Theology and English from King’s College Cambridge. Her work has been featured in the Daily Mail, Daily Express, The Guardian and she has appeared on ITV, GMTV, BBC radio and Russell Brand’s Under the Skin podcast. Most recently, Theresa has set up her own podcast, White Shores, interviewing some of the world’s greatest minds and sharing inspiration on personal growth. More about Theresa here: www.theresacheung.com

#sensitive people #conscience #empathy #intuition #creativity #theresa chung #tiny buddha official #zenwords

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