#part of my attitude is definitely influenced by having a parent who did this

[cute-chamomile]

May i never become so invested in my kids' hobbies that i try to become part of the hobby organization's boards and commitees, making myself an inextricable part of this activity and making the employees' lives a living hell in the process just because i couldnt get my own, separate hobby, amen.

[topaz-witch-tea]

Yanqing’s Happy Family AU: Baiheng’s Parenting

I can finally drop all the stuff I've been working on now that I don't have to work overtime!!! It was torture watching all my stuff be in-progress and not being able to work on them.

1. Spoils him the most out of the five. She has spent an outrageous amount on her nephew. Yanqing, as a kid, while easy was also quite picky about certain things, and one of them was clothes. He hated onesies and would cry and fight when people would put him in one, preferring a cross-collar top and trousers. The issue was that there were not a lot of options when it came to that. Baiheng proceeded to spend hundred of thousands of strales on custom clothing for baby Yanqing, who like all babies, would spit and vomit on them. When asked about it, she stated "You cannot honestly expect me to sit there and watch you put Yanqing in plain, unstylish clothes." This would continue as she would order for him more and more custom clothes. Yanqing currently had 5 winter cloaks in a variety of colors, fur trims, and clasps from his auntie.

2. She taught Yanqing how to drive a Starskiff. In fact, I am convinced she taught everyone in the HCQ how to drive. She was a renowned pilot back in the day and definitely knows her way around one. But it should be prefaced, that she taught Yanqing way before the legal age to drive a starskiff. Her mentality was that if Yanqing was old enough to join the battlefield, he should learn to drive since it might one day save his life. She is a very chill teacher and had gone out to buy an old starskiff to teach him in. However, she did it in secret since the three dads were already very against Yanqing going out to fight even though he had earned his position as lieutenant and any possible incident/issue could cause them to revoke Yanqing's mission. Yanqing, being the responsible kid he is, never drove in public and his dads did not know for a long time. They only found out when he was 15 and his squadron was ambushed by the enemy. After getting his men out first, Yanqing commandeered an abandoned starskiff to escape as well. Despite the fact it was hidden from them, the three could not be mad in the slightest since it saved their son's life.

3. Baiheng has fought many families at PTA meetings. She has the most available schedule and participates in a lot of daily school events for Yanqing. Yanqing goes to a fancy private school where a lot of children of the nobility go, and Baiheng never forgot the comments that floated around when Yanqing was first taken in (comments are in the fic Family Dinner). Some nobles still keep the belief that Yanqing is a nuisance that lived too long and the attitude trickles down to their easily-influenced children. Baiheng does not stand for this at all, she attends every meeting with the intention of throwing down. While she doesn't fault the children, she does not hold the same patience for the adults. She actually punched a mother in the face during a PTA meeting for bad-mouthing her nephew and dared the woman and her family to retaliate. "Go on then, you can fight back if you want. Or you can even go and report what happened to the Cloud Knights, where you can repeat what you said about Yanqing to the General instead."

4. When Yanqing was just a little baby and was left in her care, she would constantly send photos every hour in the group chat so no one would miss anything. There were a lot of photos of him sleeping or smiling at the camera. There was one photo of Yanqing in a sea-green cloak where the hoodie had little horns resembling Dan Feng's. The photo was his screen saver for a year.

I hope you like them! Feel free to let me know if you want a part 2 to any of my headcanons or want a drabble written about them.

[edgier-than-a-diamond]

∞ Arisen & Pawn Character Introductions

Template by @arisenreborn. Just James so far bc it took me too long just to finish his part lol. Allen’s part is in progress.

♛ THE ARISEN:

(Based on my oc: https://artfight.net/character/1710312.james)

NAME: James AGE: 25 PRONOUNS: He/him PREFERRED VOCATION: Anything with a blade FAVORED GIFTS: Fruits, clothing FAMILY: Noble parents and siblings who he is distanced from POSITIVE TRAITS: Unfalteringly honest, loyal, good listener

What was their life like before becoming Arisen?

James was raised as a noble child. Though he was the image of perfection in his childhood, his parents disowned him after he chose to become a knight in Vernworth instead of marrying into a higher-ranking family.

He threw himself into missions, each more dangerous and difficult than the last, in hopes of gaining enough renown to be granted a new title. Instead, his fellow soldiers began to ridicule him as “the man who thinks himself a pawn” for his tryhard attitude.

His commander eventually sent him to Melve in hopes that he would come to his senses in a place less attached to the capital’s influence.

How do they handle being Arisen, and the responsibilities that come with it?

When he was made into an Arisen, he felt it was a cheap victory. Anyone who did recognize him as someone important would do so because he was Arisen, not for his hard work or who he really was. Though these thought filled him with despair, he resolved to complete the task of fighting the dragon- if only to avoid the hatred he might face if he failed.

He did everything he could to be the perfect Arisen, saving anyone in trouble on the road, helping Captain Brant dethrone the queen, acting as a diplomat for the elves- but none of it mattered when he actually faced the dragon. As it turns out, his fear of failure and the judgment of others were not enough to even continue the cycle and, if it were not for Allen, he would have died.

Now bereft of even the purpose of the Arisen and full of resentment, he started turning into a drake. As he held onto the last scraps of his humanity, he finally realized that he could have done everything for his own reasons instead of for fear of what would happen if he didn’t. Perhaps this change in will was what sent him back in time, right to the day he escaped the volcanic island encampment.

What are their thoughts on Pawns in general?

When he was younger he was taught that pawns are less than human, even less than the servants that weren’t allowed to look him in the eye. On his first journey as Arisen, he upheld this belief, barely even looking at Allen (at least, whenever anyone else was looking. In his new life, he wouldn’t hesitate to admit that he felt a spark of affection for the man even then. In fact, that spark made it even harder for him to linger on thoughts of his pawn).

A part of him resented his Arisen status for forcing him to work with pawns, the very beings he was compared to at his worst moments as a soldier. Things would have been much easier if he was actually a pawn. No emotions, no pointless ambitions to get in the way of achieving whatever he was told to do next.

His view of them only started to change once Allen chose to rescue him even after failing the duty of the Arisen.

After the reset, James can only think that when pawns say they have “no will of their own”, their definition of will must be far different from what he thought it meant. As he emerged from the prison cell with new eyes, he could see that the pawns at the volcanic island clearly have needs and can suffer just like a human. He begins to see the pawns he travels with frequently as something more like a family, and does his best to sense when they want something or feel discomfort, even if they don’t ask him directly for anything.

What's their relationship like with their main Pawn?

When James summoned Allen, he thought he wanted a perfect compliment to his identity as the Arisen. Allen certainly wasn’t what he was imagining. What kind of Arisen has a pawn that manages to command more immediate attention and respect than their master?

He treated Allen the same as he would a servant, which at the time he thought was probably better than what Allen deserved. Despite that, there were moments when they were alone and James’s facade shattered. James would find himself talking to Allen in a softer, less demanding voice, doing menial tasks (such as cooking meals and cleaning their clothes) that he would otherwise have ordered Allen to do. When returning home after stressful events, James would find solace by doing such repetitive, calming tasks while confessing his real feelings to Allen, someone he saw as uninfluential enough to be “safe”.

James still remembers when they returned after the coronation of the false Arisen, his struggle to hold back all of the ugly emotions that threatened to overwhelm him. He couldn’t help the choked sob that shook out of him as he felt Allen’s sturdy arms wrapping around his chest, comforting him. He didn’t deserve such gentleness.

Warmth and guilt in equal measures ran through James when he summoned Allen again in the new timeline. He started treating Allen as his fellow soldier out of a need to make up for his past mistakes, which he found was an unexpectedly difficult task as Allen was extremely stoic, even for a pawn. Undeterred, he took up the habit of talking about anything he could think of to Allen (not just his worries anymore), making sure to mentally note the subtle differences in Allen’s responses and body language. He was surprised to learn that Allen actually did show interest in what he was saying most of the time. Eventually, Allen begins to open up and talk with him instead of just listening, and as James’s feelings of guilt fade, true companionship and something deeper grows in its place.

He still finds it a bit frustrating when Allen won’t open up about what he needs or wants. James just starts offering him things (ripe cranberries, dried meat, a particularly nice stone) whenever Allen is at his most quiet in a bid to get him to talk.

It’s a relief to him that Allen doesn’t seem to remember anything from the previous failed timeline…

Do they have any interest in being Sovran? What are their opinions on the politics of the world in general?

Before the reset, James thought that becoming Sovran would be the ultimate prize for him. After the reset, he realized that his desires stemmed from a need for reprisal for his family disowning him. He’d really rather just kill the dragon and then disappear into anonymity- but he also feels that he could at least use the chance to try and improve upon the current power structure. Either way, he doesn’t want to stay Sovran for long, since he has seen how easily power corrupts people into tyranny.

He really hopes he doesn’t have to interact with his birth family much if he does have to rule.

Who are their love interest(s) and/or closest friends?

James doesn’t have any close friends. He finds it really hard to be himself around other people even after he vowed to live his life truthfully instead of pretending to be someone he wasn’t. He gets along best with people who value battle skills, like Raghnall and Ser Beren.

He gets along with Ser Beren especially well, since Beren was one of the very few people who treated James respectfully during his soldier days.

He sees himself from his rookie knight days in Glyndwr. He hopes to be the kindly mentor to the elf that he himself had wished so much for in the past.

He also considers multiple pawns (from the tumblr pawn swap lol) to be his friends, and thinks that they are the family he never had before.

As for Allen… it’s hard for him to put into words what he feels about Allen.

What drew them to their preferred vocation? Do they have history with it?

When he lived with his family, learning swordsmanship was reserved for something his brothers could do as a hobby. James was not allowed to participate so that he would stay delicate and frail and demure, but he resented this divide between his brothers and himself and began learning the sword in secret. Wielding a blade made him feel powerful and useful in a way that he hadn’t had the chance to experience before then.

After living exposed to danger as a soldier a long time, he can’t sleep without a blade within reaching distance of him. They are one of the only things that give him any feeling of control over his own life.

Do they have any hobbies? Any way of relaxing between all that monster-slaying and traveling?

He likes to cook, for others and for himself. He’s a bit picky about his food and can ensure that it’s to his liking if he cooks it himself. He’ll also sew and mend clothes. On the rarest of occasions, he’ll embroider.

[neverluckygoldfish]

52 -

The past two months have felt like a blur, stuck in a vicious cycle of relapse, recovery, relapse, recovery, and so on.

It’s been really fucking tough. I’ve felt like a zombie. Sometimes it feels like this is all life is, a weary merry-go-round until we die.

But after falling down 800 times and still getting back up on that 801st try - I’m in a much better place.

And I’m not beating myself up about it. Shit happens, we fall down. Sometimes we fall down and stay down because we’re so fucking tired of having to get back up.

I watched a looootttt of movies with happy endings as a kid. I did a lot of things alone and I never really noticed how much that influenced my way of thinking and my approach to life. I guess that’s where I started to believe that I had to live two lives. Because who I really am - my family didn’t like. As a woman of color, of immigrant parents, and growing up in a predominantly white neighborhood - I never felt like I found my place. I didn’t belong at home and I definitely didn’t belong in the outside world.

So we take that first drink or the first hit to forget we feel that way inside. And we keep drinking and using to keep forgetting.

And it’s where I started to believe that one day everything will magically work out so I just have to keep holding on to be saved.

I’ve spent so much time ignoring my body that trying to be present in it now, as an adult, makes me feel like a fearful little kid. Anxiety feels scary because I never learned how to manage it.

Ignore all the problems until you’re almost 30 and have a bunch of substance abuse issues and no one to turn to because you can’t trust the people who were supposed to care for you.

I’m just so damn tired of caring. Caring what people think - am I being nice and kind and do they feel heard and god forbid any one ever thinks I have ill intentions….

So yeah, my attitude lately is to block out the noise & do whatever I want to do. Whatever I know is truly good for my soul.

So I started a weaving again and have made some yummy food and am getting in a lot of snuggles with my dog. Also I listen to new music and take in the sunset. I take a long bath and put on my expensive lotion that’s saved for a special occasion because every day is a special occasion now that I am CHOOSING to be alive.

I realized I like having little projects. So I’ve been assigning myself shit to try because I’m interested in it. And that’s enough of a reason for me.

Isn’t the whole point of life to experience? And when you boil it down to that core, what really separates us from each other if we are all in it for the experience?

Am I sounding crazy?? Because I‘be never felt more enlightened and grounded in my sense of things.

Holy shit, it all makes sense now.

Or maybe this is all just one psychotic episode waiting to break loose. Lol. Hopefully not.

I’ve decided I don’t need some big overarching life goal - that I’m totally fine with going with the flow. I don’t need to have all the answers. In fact, forcing myself to think that way has actually cemented this “not good enough” belief.

Because when I think back as a kid and getting lost in the present - I was happy. I used to get lost in entertaining myself for hours. And the world (or my world) told me that was wrong. I wasn’t doing it correctly.

But I’m fine the way I am. You know? Like imagine if we could roll the tape back to before we ever started to hate ourselves or constantly try to “fix” our lives - how did we approach the world before everything was clouded by this inherent sense of “not good enough”.

It’s kind of jarring to realize that people don’t automatically think and know the worst parts of me and judge me by it.

It’s kind of jarring to realize that nobody really is that bothered by me. I’m feeling okay taking up my little space in the world.

I’m ready to care for that little girl who has felt so scared and uncomfortable all these years.

In some ways, I’ve never felt more free.

[veryferaldistributions]

My Top Five Least-Favorite “My Two Dads” Episodes

(As always, these are just my opinions. You may think these are great. Ain’t no shame in that!)

5. Love and Learn

I should love this episode. Nicole learns a lesson, the dads learn a lesson, everyone hugs at the end, and I cry like I’m PMSing. My issue with this episode, though, is that Nicole doesn’t act like herself. Every decision she makes in this episode feels like something Shelby or Nina would do, or some other teenage girl, but not Nicole. She’s always been consistently smart and self-aware, possibly more so than other girls her age, but in this episode she acts like a love-sick puppy. She’s writing bad poetry, she’s sulking in her room, and generally isn’t in character. She’s dated boys that were “bad for her” in other episodes, but always in an obvious and aware “just doing this to get back at her dads” reason. (Heck, the VERY NEXT EPISODE, “You Can Count on Me” shows just how aware Nicole is, when Shelby wants to have sex with a boy she barely knows, and Nicole manages to talk her out of it.)

I also feel like this episode didn’t impress upon Nicole, or the audience, the seriousness of her being fifteen and dating an nineteen year old. And this show was obviously before the present era where this is FAR more taboo, but I feel like the boy should have made the point that what they were doing, even just by kissing, was HIGHLY illegal. I still like elements of this episode, especially the message that Nicole’s dads will always love her, no matter how many mistakes she makes, so it’s not a total loss and that’s why it’s #5. But still not one of my favorites.

4. Who’s on First?

Again, for the most part, this episode is actually alright. It’s more the second half I don’t like than the first. Nicole goes on a date and has her first kiss, something that makes her dads very uncomfortable. After they send Cory to her room to spy on her, they catch them in a very awkward “not what it looks like” scenario. One in which the dads definitely overreact, but I can’t exactly blame them entirely. It did look bad.

After Nicole explains herself, with the Judge as a mediator, the dads realize they should probably learn more about the teenage girl experience. So, they read a book? They talk to moms of Nicole’s friends? NOPE! They decide to go to a “Female Sexual Awakening” seminar (how they thought this would be about puberty is beyond me). And, of course, they act like absolute pigs. With Michael saying a shockingly inappropriate line that I refuse to repeat and I’m surprised they got away with. The lesson of this episode seemed to be more about “men will act like men, women will act like women, and no one should try to do anything different.” The talk they have with Nicole at the end was fairly decent, where they make a vague attempt to say “you can come to us about anything,” but they’ve had better family moments.

3. Getting Smart

I like the overall ATTEMPTED lesson behind this episode, but I don’t truly feel like Michael learned anything, which was what the episode was trying to do.

Nicole begins to think that she shouldn’t act as smart as she is because “boys don’t like smart girls.” Shelby is the one who impresses this on her, but Nicole actually is more influenced by the way her dads talk about their boss, Karen (more on her later in the list). Nicole ends up asking her dads to let her drop back into normal literature instead of being in the advanced class, which they allow, before realizing why she’s done it. Michael’s attitude towards his boss left a bad taste in my mouth, and I really felt like he didn’t change hardly at all, and the room for self-reflection on his part was not taken advantage of.

The episode felt like it ended on a more “agree to disagree” message with Michael and Nicole, which I didn’t really like. Other episodes have done this better, in my opinion, such as “Dirty Dating,” showing that her dads are still the parents and still in charge, but should also always consider Nicole’s feelings and opinions.

2. See You in September?

For those that don’t know, this is the series finale, and most would agree that it was not satisfying in the slightest. Though I can’t find a lot of background information on this, I have a feeling that the creators were told halfway through Season 3 that they wouldn’t be picked up for another season. Characters that got more of a relationship arc were suddenly rushed together for the sake of a happy “heterosexual” ending.

Sarah just happens to be having her wedding in New York, and Joey goes to stop her from getting married. Which actually works! He then makes an uncharacteristically abrupt decision to leave Michael and Nicole and move to San Francisco to be with Sarah and Gracie. And no matter which way you lean on the “are they?/aren’t they?” thing with Michael and Joey, most can see Joey was very against leaving Nicole in “Bye Bye, Baby” (one of Joey’s best episodes). And though Michael has his own love interest at this point (fuck if I can even remember her name), it was all very weirdly abrupt. I’ve only seen the finale once, and once was enough for me.

1. Together We Stand

Remember when I said in another post that this show can be sexist as hell? Well, this is the crowning jewel of these episodes. Michael and Joey have recently been rehired by Mr. Kelcher to run a financial magazine. At first, we think Michael is going to be the boss of their department, but it turns out both men have a new boss named Karen. One that they, but especially Michael, treat like absolute garbage.

I don’t necessarily have a problem with showing workplace sexism in the media; it’s a very real issue, and when handled correctly, can be entertaining and informative. (“Anchorman” does this really well, in my opinion.) But in this episode, our favorite boys are shown to be absolute pigs. And this is never shown to be the “wrong” or “bad” thing to be. They’re seen as right, and they never get any comeuppance. I found no redeemable qualities in this episode and I am quite comfortable throwing the whole thing away. It was the cream of the crap!

Dishonorable Mentions:

* The God of Love: Overall a VERY uncomfortable episode. The whole segment with Nicole talking to Joey’s nude date (AND THE DADS LETTING HER) made me want to barf.

* Crushed: (see my feelings on “Love and Learn.” But with less “meh” enjoyment.)

* The Wedge & Fallen Idol: Solidly fine episodes, I just truly couldn’t care less about Joey’s rockstar friend.

* Who’s Night is it Anyway? & Stupid Macho Guy Time: Jesus, what is with the women in this show? These were bad episodes that make Michael and Joey look like horrible idiots.

[thedawningofthehour]

Oh my god, Mikeyyyy my little orange boy. You deserve better.

As soon as Leo heard that there is a possibility that Donnie might not get his memories back he became the representation of almost every reader; I hear you Leo, but please listen to Mikey! I just hope, HOPE, that nothing the fam does ruins Mikey's progress.

Who knew Donnie's autistic teenage brain would be the key to Draxum's downfall. Although does that mean the idea of Donnie getting his memories back through a super emotional rock ballad is out of the question?

Xever, please stop being transphobic.

Poor Tigerclaw, hopefully his affection will carry over when Donnie gets his memories back. I wonder, what did he do in this continuity to make Alopex hate him? In the show, Alopex blames Tigerclaw because he always made the decisions saying he knew what was best for both of them, besides killing their parents. If Alopex ever appears in the fic I can easily see her helping the fam, and hating Draxum because of his arguments that he knows best.

You mean like with Pearl in the SU movie? I mean, that's not how it's gonna go, but that song is iconic.

I kind of saw it as more misogynistic than anything. Would Xever be transphobic? 'Googles some stuff about gay rights in Brazil' Oh, they're actually at the top of the list when it comes to LGBT rights. Good for them!

But, and I'm just reading from the Wikipedia page, it seems like this extends more just to the LGB part, and a lot of transgender people end up in the sex industry because they can't get work elsewhere. Attitudes have been changing in the last few years, but it's 2020 in the story and Xever has been living in the U.S. for a few years, so he wouldn't have been around for that. The murder rate for LGBT individuals is very high in Brazil-but the murder rate in Brazil is high in general right now, so that's probably more of a reflection of the political unrest going on right now than attitudes towards gay people.

Now I'm really thinking about Xever's backstory and how it would have influenced his perceptions. He grew up poor, mostly out on the streets getting involved in crime and gang activity from a young age, and while he's definitely smart he's very undereducated. How progressive are Brazilian gangs? Would he feel some sort of kinship and mutual respect for trans people selling themselves on the street, because he's also doing what he needs to do to survive? Or would he look down on them because "at least I didn't stoop to that."

And he has lived in the U.S. for a bit-but again, he's mostly hung around gangs. And I am so totally here for women's wrongs and queer mob bosses, but gangs in the U.S. are generally pretty misogynistic and homophobic. Not that people can't break out of the mindsets they've been immersed in most of their lives, but like-people need resources to do that. Xever has like a sixth grade education that was probably not very good to begin with (impoverished school with low budget, crowded unruly classes, poor attendance and didn't pay much attention when he did go because he was a hungry kid who had bigger priorities) and he's lived life in survival mode for a long, long time. He probably doesn't think about that kind of stuff and doesn't really have the tools to refute what he's been indoctrinated with. This is why cutting education is fascism 101, by the way-it makes it way easier to indoctrinate people with bullshit.

(fuck, this got off the rails)

I still haven't made a concrete decision on Alopex. I'm pretty sure she's going to appear, but I haven't nailed down a definite backstory for them yet and I haven't decided if they'll reconcile. He didn't kill their parents here though-he never returned home after they were kidnapped. He didn't know if his family was still alive or if they would accept him, and he decided that he would rather just never know.

[threadsun]

🙌 Am big proud of you for drinking the wooder(As we Philly natives say instead of water lol)! If I was more mentally tough and didn’t live back with my parents again, I probably would’ve worked in sex industry to empower others to not feel scared of their sexual sides through healthy means so I think you’re an incredible for being strong enough to do what you love while navigating through the rougher parts of the job. It’s really if ignorant of others to belittle people who create content through sex work and general content when they have no idea the amount of time, effort, dedication, and mental fortitude it takes someone. I do want to say though that I appreciate what you do. The quality and care that comes from a few is worth more than the opinion of millions of those who idolize and dehumanize others because they feel superior to people based on their beliefs. So I hope you never have to fee l like your art and content aren’t good enough. Also, I do love sweet himbo Joesph too (your headcanons of him are adorable!), but he seems so nervous in his interview to me. As a professional people pleaser, my brain always went to him being so scared to screw everything up that he developed similar habits just to keep the role of Sunny Day Jack. I mean, the company knows of his past and he appears intimidating to others so it wouldn’t be surprising if Lambworks already placed labels on him. Acting more cautious around him or maybe he even he was afraid anything going wrong could be put on him. (Stereotypes were a lot bigger in the 80’s so if you looked like a bad boy, then people assume you act like one too.) I know some people who’ve went through similar situations that Joesph may have as well as a child. It may have started more class clown like before becoming more rebellious. But as he got older, the brain changes and we try to separate ourselves from the choices we make through different stages of our lives. Joesph probably went through a similar transition, still craving the basic need for love and affection from others (the base wants we develop as children never truly disappear, but they can be shoved into the back of our minds). By trying to cut ties with his rebellious attitude, he did a complete 180 and tried to do EVERYTHING in his power to make people like him. Besides, he probably felt lucky enough to land a role on a tv show that didn’t deal with anything that caused him physical, mental, sexual, or emotional harm (This is of course when the interview was taped which seems like before the show started filming so he wasn’t aware that it would still be draining) and he didn’t want to do anything that could let this chance slip away. He’s being like how is with Jack; going the extra mile to do and say the right things to have people love him. He still has all of his positive traits as Joesph (he probably was like a sour patch kid when he was alot younger so I could definitely see his sweetness still being there)and he’s not as extreme as Jack, but I can see him letting others who can influence if he keeps his job or not walk all over him if it means that they like him. I can see him still being slightly manipulative in order to make sure he’s not seen negatively by others (The director doesn’t like heavy metal music? Yeah, Joesph doesn’t like it either he’ll tell them, but on his way home, you can hear him blasting Iron Maiden on his portable cassette player. Small things like that), but he’s trying his best not only for himself, but for the kids he’s performing for. These are my hot takes on Joesph, but I know I could be completely wrong and that’s okay! But when it comes to Jack, it really is a shame people are pushing away facts about the character because it doesn’t fit with what they envisioned. Also, that’s some yummy food you provided at the end there with him edging his sunshine and his test of devotion. He IS a teacher in Cloudy Town (In the AU of course), so it’s not out of character for him to test his sunshine every so often!

-🎃

I appreciate that a lot!! Sex work is something I find very meaningful and fulfilling. Being able to help people feel pleasure and express their desires in a healthy way makes me feel like I'm putting some good into the world, if that makes sense? So it really hurts when people don't see it as real work, or see it as meaningless.

Also yes!!!! You perfectly captured how I feel about Joseph!!! Like yes he can get manipulative and yandere and will lie and do whatever it takes to get by in life, but like not cause he's a bad person. Just because he was given a shit lot in life so he's always had to kind of find his own way. And for a long time that involved being a rebel who got into fights and did things he wasn't proud of, and once he lands the role if Jack it involves softening himself and making himself seem smaller for the comfort of others. And all he wants is to fit in and find a place where he can feel safe and loved. Which is why if he finds that in another person, he'll do anything to keep them around.

>:3c I'm glad you liked it!! Oh Jack absolutely uses his teacher voice when he's brat taming/disciplining his Sunshine too. He'll be spanking them for rolling their eyes at him, and spend the whole time lecturing them about how "respect is a two way street, and if you don't respect me then how do you expect me to treat you any way but disrespectfully, Sunshine?" And oh god will he treat you disrespectfully~

[purplesurveys]

1729

Were you always one of those kids who got in trouble with everyone around? Nah I wouldn't say it ever got that bad but I did have a bit of an attitude problem back when I used to be a pain in the ass of a kid. I was on the extreme antisocial side and understandably that gave off shitty impressions towards everybody.

When was the last time you took a nap? Did it relax you any? Yesterday I slept from like 1 to 5 PM because my lunch was so heavy and so damn good lmao. Yes, it was a great nap and I had felt even better knowing that the next day (today) was going to be a holiday.

Honestly, do you see yourself as a slut? Nope.

Is there a secret you’ve never told your parents? Yes. Things I've kept from them greatly surpass things I have shared.

What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever been through?: Sorry for giving the same boring answer lol but that would be the time I experienced a relationship failing in 2020.

Have you ever had your heartbroken?: Sure.

Do you think Enrique Iglesias is sexy? :P: Not in particular.

Can you text quickly?: Yes. I'll get typos here and there but for the most part my fingers work fairly fast.

Do you like fast food or does it disgust you?: I like fast food, but it also depends on the brand.

Which singer’s vocals would you love to steal?: IU! Or Se So Neon's Soyoon.

What’s your favourite shop?: Nike.

Have you got a hairdresser that you can trust?: Yes.

Are you a deep or light sleeper?: Very deep, but I'm also good at waking up when I need to wake up...if that makes sense? I can sleep through loud noises and all but if, say, I have a calltime of 4 AM, my body is usually able to wake itself up at around 3 AM.

Do you wear a lot of make up?: No. Foundation and concealer are enough to make me happy.

Do you get nervous before exams? Only if I completely know nothing about the subject because then it's like how the fuck do I even begin answering the questions lol. That's happened many times to me in subjects like calculus and economics where I just simply fail to learn anything in the days leading up to the test. And since I was a shy student I also never, like, felt bold enough to ask questions or request for a 1-on-1 with my teachers, so there have definitely been exams where I knew from the very beginning that I was headed towards a 68 (the lowest mark my school gave).

Does the weather influence your mood?: Only if my emotions were already strong to begin with. Like if I was already in high levels of stress, encountering rain would most likely make me cry. Otherwise no, not really.

Who was the last person you kissed?: Some person.

What’s your favourite alcoholic drink?: Peach soju.

Do you watch Big Brother?: Nopes.

Do you like the smell of BBQs?: I've never been to a barbecue party (doesn't happen here) but I like the general scent of barbecue.

Do you crash on people’s sofas often?: I have never done that.

Have you left school or not?: Yes, three years ago.

Can you keep a secret?: Yes.

Have you ever been trapped in a fire?: No.

Do wasps scare you?: They do. Anything that flies and has a super loud buzz really lol, so like wasps, blowflies, bees...

Have you ever had to spend the night at a hospital? Once, when I was 12.

Are you currently trying to get over someone? No.

Have you ever dated someone with longer hair than yours? At many points their hair was longer, yes.

Have you ever bought clothing online? Yes. My last shopping spree was done online.

Have you ever worn flip flops in the snow? I have never encountered snow.

Do you wear Roxy, Billabong, or Volcom? No.

How old were you when you met your first love? I was 13, I think.

[mirageofadesert]

Fandoms as scenes: A different perspective on streaming in kpop (a semi short analysis)

I've recently seen quite a few posts saying that streaming is bad, that it distorts the charts, takes away the fun and enjoyment of music and that it's all about numbers now. I don't want to deny these criticisms, but I want to give an extended view on why streaming is so important to some fans. This is a (not so) short analyses, that is mostly based on some sociological and cultural-anthropological approaches, as well as my personal observations and opinions. I will focus on certain social elements of fan culture and less on the psychological aspects. I’m going to use ARMY and Dynamite as an example.

Many have said it before: streaming is just a new term for listening to music. But streaming in a group or fandom to reach a certain number and to gain recognition for the artists must be new? Well, I’m going to argue, that one of the main reason people do this is not because of numbers, but because it’s a social practice that constitutes a community. This doesn’t mean that the first reason is not true as well, but there is more to it.

Let me explain this with an anecdote:

When I was 13 years old, I bought an EP of The Rasmus with only 2 songs on it. The following weeks I went on vacation with my family (and my disc-man). I listened to this CD with 2 songs non-stop without ever getting bored. I did that with all the CDs I owned - I listened to them for hours and weeks on end and then exchanged them for one another. That was a normal way of listening to music for us back then. No one called it streaming - no one supervised it - except my parents, who just couldn't stand the songs anymore blasting through our home.

But the most important part about listening to music was sharing it with friends. The closest friendships I had as a teenager was with people who I shared a love for certain music with. We would meet up, listen to the music together and talk about the bands, the lyrics and so on. Our taste in cloth, jewelry and even films was strongly influenced by the music and musical genre we loved. Music was not just something I consumed on my own, but always centered around other people. This became even stronger once I joined a scene (or formerly often called a subculture) of metal/goth first, punk later. Music was a central identity category.

Now, how does this relate to kpop and streaming?

Kpop as a subcultur (scene)

First of all, it is important to talk briefly about what kpop is. There are different definitions, often depending on the context: a music genre, an industry, integrated content, etc. But kpop can also be a term for a so-called scene (or subcultures). Scenes (in a sociological sense) are post-traditional forms of community.

These are often locally based groups with common interests in experience and mostly similar aesthetic preferences (in music, dance style, clothing, design, body styling, etc.). The degree in which they are used can vary quite a lot. They see themselves not only as a group, but as part of a larger community of like-minded people. In Kpop the online community is much more important than in some other scenes. In fact, local communities are sometimes rare. This doesn’t mean, that every fan is part of this community. It can also be argued, that there are more than just one community within a fandom.

(a) "Scene goers" have a common "knowledge" that others do not have, and they share typical attitudes, actions and manners, which often lead to specific "rituals". They are also given meaning by special "symbols" and "codes" that can only be understood by "scene goers". This includes, for example, some term specific terms that outsiders may not immediately understand, such as "bias", "comeback" or "paved the way". Rituals can range from the use of "light sticks" to trending of #.

(b) The terms of belonging are rather open. The "membership" can be terminated at any time. Scenes are communicative and interactive part-time communities. Because scenes are relatively unstructured and unstable, their existence is bound to a constant communicative reassurance. Through our actions - be it tweets, streaming, visiting concerts, changing our layout for idols birthdays - we constantly (unconsciously) confirm to ourselves and others that we are part of the community.

(c) Scenes are exclusive and claim uniqueness. Every scene claims to be something special and sees itself in a certain sense as "avant-garde". In order to maintain these claims, it emphasizes its exclusivity and sets itself apart from the others, especially from other, competing scenes. Here lies also the reason for many fanwars. These are strategies of demarcation that every community applies. This is how a group stabilizes itself. In kpop, however, these strategies of demarcation are particularly strong and emphasized.

(d) Because this new social form of the scene is open in its structure, scenes need specific times and specific forms of events at which "members" of the scene can meet in order to experience the feeling of togetherness "sensually". This way, events work as multiplying and extra-ordinary social experiences.

The primary events of kpop are concerts. Although the focus is on physical presence and multi-sensory experience on site, it also includes online experience. Many of you will certainly know this: searching for a new (bad) stream on Social Media, screaming about new hair colors, songs, choreographies with moots or/and friends etc. The excitement is also shared online, and you will get hyped up together.

(e) Another central events are comebacks. This includes the promo-phase as well as the actual release and finally the streaming. In this context, streaming is a social act of communalizing (meaning: community-building). It also creates a feeling of "togetherness". Physically, everyone may be streaming in their own room, but through online media everyone keeps in touch with their friends, online acquaintances and the community. Streaming is strenuous, but it is also fun! It is precisely because it strains physically and mentally, touching emotional and sensual levels, that it is so effective. It becomes a multiplying extra-ordinary forms of listening to music. So streaming will only lose is attraction if some other social form of eventization takes its place. It's less about the streaming itself, but about the social function of this practice.

I think this is particularly through for army, because streaming became part of their self-conception (and identity). It might just be one of many such practices for ARMY, but as of now - especially as long as no offline events can take place - it will not lose importance. It is a central social moment for the fandom - it is a moment of meaning-making.

Especially during Dynamite by BTS streaming was given new heights and meaning. This might be partly because of COVID. Not only were the concerts - the most important events of the scene - cancelled, but many people felt isolated and a bit overwhelmed. The joint, festive streaming created a feeling of community with a shared goal/purpose. This further strengthened the effect. Of course this is also fueled by fresh new chart forms that encourage streaming (BB Global 200, Spotify Charts etc.). Dynamite was also especially “unique”, because it was the first English single.

Numbers, achievements and reaching comeback goals are important - less because of the successes per se, but because of the social implications. The successful results hold the group together and provide positive emotional and sensual experiences that confirm the cohesion of the group. But this only works from the inner perspective. From the outside, these practices often remain incomprehensible. If you don’t consider yourself part of such a community, the things I described will probably don’t fit you, because I addressed a specific part of kpop fandom culture.

The scene theory I explained here is only one of many possible theories that can explain fan culture. I’m not calming it’s the only or even the most fitting one, but it can give some insights into understanding some dynamics.

I originally posted this on reddit in 2020!

[kemetic-dreams]

     IS IT BLACK OR AFRICAN OR AFRICAN AMERICAN?

HAD A RECENT RUN IN WITH AN ASIAN PATIENT OF MINE. WHO ASKED ME, AFTER I STATED MY NAME. WHAT DO I CALL YOUR PEOPLE? I HEAR SOME PEOPLE SAY BLACK, THEN AFRICAN AMERICAN,COLORED, AND SOMETHING CALLED MELANATED BEINGS?

SO THE BIG QUESTION WHAT DO WE CALL OURSELVES? I AM CONFUSED.

YOU MUST UNDERSTAND AFRICANS NEVER SPOKE ENGLISH

AFRICANS NEVER HAD A UNIFYING LANGUAGE

THE BASIS OF AFRICAN IDENTITY LET ALONE ALL IDENTITIES COMES FROM ETHNIC IDENTITY.

WHY WOULD AFRICANS BE MESMERIZED BY COLOR

REAL IDENTITIES ARE AUTONYMS, EXAMPLE AMAZULU IS A IDENTITY THAT THOSE GROUPS OF PPL WITH OUT FOREIGN INTERVENTION CAME UP WITH.

EUROPEANS NOR ASIAN CAME UP WITH THE TERM ZULU

THE TERM IFIRIYA OR AFRICA COMES FROM THE VARIOUS ETHNIC GROUPS FROM NORTH AFRICA

AFTER HANNIBAL WAS DEFEATED, SCIPIO NAMED HIS SELF AFTER THE LAND

ALSO AFRICA COMES FROM  Massey, in 1881, stated that Africa is derived from the Egyptian af-rui-ka, meaning "to turn toward the opening of the Ka." The Ka is the energetic double of every person and the "opening of the Ka" refers to a womb or birthplace. Africa would be, for the Egyptians, "the birthplace."

WHEN WE SAY WE ARE AFRICAN WE ARE STATING OUR RAICAL ORIGINS. NOT A NATIONALITY

                        IS YOUR SKIN COLOR BLACK?

NO OUR SKIN IS NOT BLACK NOR DO ALL AFRICAN LOOK ALIKE OR MYOPIC

Human skin color ranges in variety from the darkest brown to the lightest hues. An individual's skin pigmentation is the result of genetics, being the product of both of the individual's biological parents' genetic makeup, and exposure to sun. In evolution, skin pigmentation in human beings evolved by a process of natural selection primarily to regulate the amount of ultraviolet radiation penetrating the skin, controlling its biochemical effects 

Black people refers to a racialized classification of people, usually a political and a skin color-based category for specific populations with a mid to dark brown complexion. Not all Black people have dark skin; in certain countries, often in socially based systems of racial classification in the Western world, the term "Black" is used to describe persons who are perceived as dark-skinned compared to other populations. It is mostly used for people of Sub-Saharan African descent and the indigenous peoples of Oceania. Indigenous African societies do not use the term Black as a racial identity outside of influences brought by Western cultures.

For some individuals, communities and countries, "Black" is perceived as a derogatory, outdated, reductive or otherwise unrepresentative label, and as a result is neither used nor defined, especially in African countries with little to no history of colonial racial segregation. Some have commented that labeling people "Black" is erroneous as the people described as "Black" are seen by some to have a brown skin color.

WHO CAME UP WITH THE IDEA TO CALL AFRICANS BLACK

AFTER THE BACONS REBELLION, WHEN EUROPEANS AND AFRICANS HAD A REVOLT, THAT DESTROYED PLANTATIONS

It was the first rebellion in the North American colonies in which discontented frontiersmen took part (a somewhat similar uprising in Maryland involving John Coode and Josias Fendall took place shortly afterwards). The alliance between European indentured servants and Africans (many enslaved until death or freed), united by their bond-servitude, disturbed the ruling class. The ruling class responded by hardening the racial caste of slavery in an attempt to divide the two races from subsequent united uprisings with the passage of the Virginia Slave Codes of 1705.While the farmers did not succeed in their initial goal of driving the Native Americans from Virginia, the rebellion resulted in Berkeley being recalled to England.

AFTER THE LEADER OF THE REBELLION DIED LAND OWNERS, REACHED OUT TO LAW MAKERS FROM LONDON CAME OVER FOR HELP AND TO BE ADVISED

FIRST THING THEY DID WAS BAN INTER RACIAL MARRIAGES

THEN THEY DECIDED THAT AFRICANS WOULD NEVER GET OUT OF SLAVERY.

THIS IS WHEN THE TERM WHITE AND BLACK WERE DEVELOPED. BLACK MEANING YOU HAVE NO RIGHTS, AND WHITE MEANS YOU DO HAVE RIGHTS

                 SO WHEN WAS THE MAJOR CHANGE

By that time, the majority of African people in the United States were native-born, so the use of the term "African" became problematic. Though initially a source of pride, many Africans feared that the use of African as an identity would be a hindrance to their fight for full citizenship in the US. They also felt that it would give ammunition to those who were advocating repatriating black people back to Africa. In 1835, black leaders called upon Black Americans to remove the title of "African" from their institutions and replace it with "Negro" or "Colored American". A few institutions chose to keep their historic names, such as the African Methodist Episcopal Church. African Americans popularly used the terms "Negro" or "colored" for themselves until the late 1960s.

In 1988, the civil rights leader Jesse Jackson urged Americans to use instead the term "African American" because it had a historical cultural base and was a construction similar to terms used by European descendants, such as German American, Italian American, etc. Since then, African American and black have often had parallel status. However, controversy continues over which if any of the two terms is more appropriate. Maulana Karenga argues that the term African-American is more appropriate because it accurately articulates their geographical and historical origin.

Others have argued that "black" is a better term because "African" suggests foreignness, although Black Americans helped found the United States. Still others believe that the term black is inaccurate because African Americans have a variety of skin tones. Some surveys suggest that the majority of Black Americans have no preference for "African American" or "Black",although they have a slight preference for "black" in personal settings and "African American" in more formal settings

The United States is weird on labeling people. At one point all Europeans were not considered white, ironically at the same time Asians were considered to be white. They say white and black are skin colors, but at what point do we call Asians a myopic color. According to the United States Census, because I have North African ancestry, I am considered to be white.

                                        Are Mexicans white?

The official racial status of Mexican Americans has varied throughout American history. From 1850 to 1920, the U.S. Census form did not distinguish between whites and Mexican Americans. In 1930, the U.S. Census form asked for "color or race," and census enumerators were instructed to write W for white and Mex for Mexican. In 1940 and 1950, the census reverted its decision and made Mexicans be classified as white again and thus the instructions were to "Report white (W) for Mexicans unless they were definitely of full Indigenous Indian or other non-white races (such as Black or Asian)."

.

During periods in U.S. history when racial intermarriage wasn't legally acknowledged, and when Mexicans and Mexican-Americans were uniformly allotted white status, they were legally allowed to intermarry with what today are termed non-Hispanic whites, unlike Blacks and Asians. They were allowed to acquire U.S. citizenship upon arrival; served in all-white units during World War II; could vote and hold elected office in places such as Texas, especially San Antonio; ran the state politics and constituted most of the elite of New Mexico since colonial times; and went to segregated white schools in Central Texas and Los Angeles. Additionally, Asians were barred from marrying Mexican Americans because Mexicans were legally white.

U.S. nativists in the late 1920s and 1930s (mostly due to the socially xenophobic and economic climate of the Great Depression) tried to put a halt to Mexican immigration by having Mexicans (and Mexican Americans) declared non-white, by virtue of their Indian heritage. After 70 years of being in the United States and having been bestowed white status by the U.S. government this was the first time the United States began to show true racist attitudes towards Mexicans in America something that usually came quickly to people of other races. They based their strategy on a 1924 law that barred entry to immigrants who were ineligible for citizenship, and at that point, only blacks and whites, and not Asians or Native Americans, could naturalize and become U.S. citizens. The test case came in December 1935, when a Buffalo, N.Y., judge rejected Jalisco native Timoteo Andrade's application for citizenship on the grounds that he was a "Mexican Indian." Had it not been for the intervention of the Mexican and American governments, who forced a second hearing, this precedent could very well have made many Mexicans, the majority of whom are mestizo, ineligible for citizenship. When mixed race Mexicans were allowed to retain their white status in American society they were unperturbed with the fact that the United States still continued its discriminatory practices towards Mexicans of full Indigenous heritage.

During the Great Depression, Mexicans were largely considered non-white. As many as 400,000 Mexicans and Mexican Americans were deported in a decade-long effort by the government called the Mexican Repatriation.

In the 2000 U.S census, around half of all persons of Mexican or Mexican American origin in the U.S. checked white to register their race (in addition to stating their Mexican national origin).Mexican Americans are the largest white Hispanic group in the United States.

The idea of color is a European colonial disease not an African one.

African is a racial origins term

Saying your Jamaican,Nigerian,Ethiopian,Canadian,Mexican, or Brazilian are Nations/Nationality

Saying Amhara, Sicilian, Irish, Yoruba, Zulu, or Han are examples of Ethnicities 

African American is not an ethnic group but clusters of different ethnics from Africa in the Americas.

Black is nothing more than a class system designed by Europeans

Just because your born in Germany doesn’t change your race.

When do Asian people stop being racially Asian just because they moved to a different nation

So, why does this happens to Europeans or Africans

There is no such things as a black language, skin color, or names or even a black or nation called black

[potteresque-ire]

More ask answer about Word of Honour (山河令, WoH) and the so-called “Dangai 101 phenomenon” under the cut ~ with all the M/M relationships shown on screen, does it mean improved acceptance / safety for the c-queer community?

Due to its length (sorry!), I’ve divided the answer into 3 parts: 1) Background 2) Excerpts from the op-eds 3) Thoughts This post is PART 1 ❤️. As usual, please consider the opinions expressed as your local friendly fandomer sharing what they’ve learned, and should, in no ways, be viewed as necessarily true. :)

(TW: homophobic, hateful speech quoted)

After WoH had started airing, I had waited for one of China’s state-controlled media to publish opinion pieces about the show. Specifically, I’d like to know ~ what is the administration’s current take on Dangai  (耽改), as a genre? How does it characterise the closeness of the same-sex leads—the closeness that is suppressed when the original IP, of the genre Danmei (耽美) was converted for visual media presentation?

This is important, as China is a country where the government’s attitude becomes the official public attitude. The state opinion pieces will be quoted and parroted, especially if they come from heavy-weight sources (state-controlled media also have their importance/influence hierarchy). Production of the upcoming Dangai dramas will adjust their scripts accordingly. Marketing tactics will also adjust, make sure it doesn’t spread “the wrong message”; Dangai and Danmei dramas have both been pulled off shelves during or immediately after its airing before (Addicted 上癮 and Guardian 鎮魂, respectively), despite having already passing the censorship board.

If a heavy-weight state opinion piece pans the one-lead-fawning-over-the-other scenes in WoH (there are a few of them), for example, scenes / lines of such suggestive nature will likely disappear from the upcoming Dangai dramas for at least a year or two. If the critique spills over to a harsh stance against the presence of queers in Chinese media, all future Dangai dramas can become strict “socialist-brotherhood” stories, their “no homo” message reinforced by, for example, by inserting a female lead (or changing one of the leads to female).

Whether the official public opinion equates the true public opinion or not, public behaviour in China is quickly driven by the official public opinion. Example: the Xi regime’s conservative stance on queer issues has already translated to a quick deterioration of queer tolerance in China; open expressions that were tolerated, even welcomed, just several years ago are now met with significant hostility in the public.

This is a reflection of the nature of their government. A quick thought experiment may explain this. Take … jaywalking. It’s probably fair to say we’ve all committed this “crime” before?

Will you still jaywalk if your government declares it immoral to do so? Where I am, in the United States, the answer is definitely a no. The public will probably laugh at (and make memes about) the poor official who made the declaration, kindly ask the government to do something useful for once (f*** off), and keep jaywalking.

Now, what if the declaration comes with a law that includes a one-year prison term + lifelong criminal record for jaywalking? Let’s say this law is fully executable and irreversible, given this being a thought experiment—nothing you, or the public, can say or do can contest it.

Will you still jaywalk, even if you disagree with government’s stance that the act is immoral? You’ve got a neighbour who continues to defy the law. Will you think twice before letting your young loved ones go out with them?

Very soon, jaywalking becomes “bad”—even though such “badness” had little moral basis at its origin. It is bad because the government has “characterised” it to be so—an authoritarian government that doesn’t allow challenge of the characterisation.

The retention of queer elements in Dangai is the jaywalking in the example. The Chinese government stepping in to characterise (定性) an event, a phenomenon etc is common, and the people know the drill well that they fall in line quickly.  

If a powerful state-controlled media publish a negative opinion piece on the queer elements in Dangai / Danmei, therefore, those elements can disappear overnight.

My question had been: will the state do it? The Xi regime has made its distaste for LGBT+ representation in visual media abundantly clear with its NRTA directives. However, while the Chinese government typically puts ideology (意識型態) as its Guiding Principle, exceptions have always been made for one reason. One word.

Money.

TU is a legendary financial success story every production company (Tencent itself included) wants to replicate. As a result, there are ~ 60 Danmei IPs (book canon) with their copyright sold for Dangai dramas; this long line of Danmei dramas in the horizon has been nicknamed “Dangai 101”, after the name of the show “Produce 101” Dd was dance instructor in. These dramas are all competing to be the next TU by profit.

Adoration from fans is nice, but money is what matters.

C-ent is currently in a financial bleak winter. The anti-corruption, anti-tax-fraud campaign started by the Xi regime in 2018, which cumulated to a sudden (and unofficial) collection of 3 years of back-taxes from studios and stars, has drained a significant amount of its capital; the number of new TV dramas being filmed fell 45% between 2018 and 2019, and production companies have been closing by the tens of thousands. The tightening of censorship rules also means production is associated with more risk. The commercial sector outside c-ent is also eager for replications of TU’s success—they need more “top traffic” (頂流) idols like Gg and Dd whose fans are sufficiently devoted to drive the sales of their products. Such “fan economy” would benefit the government, even if it doesn’t have direct stakes in the companies in and outside c-ent. People’s Daily, the Official State Newspaper, previously published a positive opinion piece on fan economy in 2019, estimating its worth at 90 billion RMB (~13.7 billion USD) per year.

But if the state allows the queer elements in Dangai’s to pass the censorship board (NRTA) for profit, how can it do so with the current “No homo” directive in place? From previous experience (scarce as it may be), the queerness has to be sufficiently obvious for the shows to make the profit everyone is wishing for. Dangai dramas in which the leads’ romantic relationship remains subtle have not sold the way TU does, even if they are well-reviewed and feature famous, skilled actors (as Winter Begonia 鬓边不是海棠红 last year.)

NRTA, and the government behind it, can’t just say I’m turning a blind eye to the flirting and touching for the money. What can it say then?

Here’s what I’d thought—what it can say, or do, is to “characterise” these Dangai dramas in a way that leave out its queerness. It did so for TU. TU’s review by the overseas version of People’s Daily devoted a grand total of two characters to describe WWX and LWJ’s relationship—摯友 (“close friend”). The rest of the article was devoted to the drama’s aesthetics, its cultural roots. (The title of the article: 《陳情令》：書寫國風之美 Chen Qing Ling: Writing the Beauty of National Customs).

How could it do that? The State’s power ensuring few questioning voices aside, I’ve been also thinking about the history and definition of Danmei (耽美)—Dangai’s parent genre as the causes. Based on the history and definition, I can think of 3 ways the queer elements in Danmei (耽美) can be characterised by the state, 2 of which provide it with the wiggle room, the movable goalposts it needs should it choose to want to overlook the queerness in Dangai.

The 3 characterisations I’ve thought of, based on the history and definition of Danmei (耽美) are:

1) The queer characterisation, which focuses on its homoerotic element. * Summary of the characterization: Danmei is gay.

2) The “traditional BL” characterisation, which focuses on BL’s historic origin as a “by women, for women” genre. The M/M setup is viewed as an escapist protest against the patriarchy, a rejection of traditional gender roles; displays of M/M closeness are often “candies” for the female gaze. * Summary of the characterization: Danmei is women’s fantasy.

3) The aesthetic characterisation, which focuses on beauty—from the beauty of the characters, the beauty of a world without harm to the romance. * Summary for the characterization: Danmei is pretty.

The queer characterisation (1) is well-understood, and likely the default characterisation if it is to be made by the fraction of i-fandom I’m familiar with. Most i-fans I’ve met, myself included, would likely and automatically associate the M/M relationships in The Untamed  (TU) and WoH with queerness.

The “traditional BL” characterisation (2), meanwhile, equates Danmei with BL as the genre of homoerotic works developed in 1970’s Japan for women comic readers, and has been widely interpreted from a feminist point of view.

Under such interpretation of “traditional BL” works, the double male lead setup wasn’t meant to be an accurate depiction of homosexuality. It wasn’t about homosexuality at all. Rather, it was about the removal of women and along with it, the rage, the eye-rolling, the unease women readers had often felt when attempting to interact with mainstream romance novels of the time, in which the female leads had mostly been confined to traditional women roles, and their virtue, their traditional feminine traits.

The M/M setup therefore acted as a “shell” for a het relationship that allowed removal of such social constraints placed on women. The lead with whom the woman audience identified was no longer bound to the traditional role of women, such as being the caregiver of the family. The lead could instead chase their dreams and roam the world, as many contemporary women already did or aspired to do; they were no longer limited to playing the passive party in life and in the relationship—and they enjoyed such freedom without risking the love, the respect the other male protagonist felt for them.

BL, in this traditional sense, has therefore been interpreted as an answer for, and a protest against the heteropatriarchal gender norm still dominant in societies deeply influenced by Confucianism, including Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, China. The M/M setup is, at heart, (het) women’s fantasy. The inclusion of two young-and-beautiful male leads also satisfy “the female gaze” ~ the popularity of BL among het women has therefore been compared to the popularity of lesbian porn among het men. In both cases, the audience is drawn not for the homosexual element but by the presence of double doses of sexual attraction.

(Please forgive me if any of my wording comes as disrespectful! I’m not used to talking about these topics.)

The availability of the “traditional BL” characterisation (2) is key to bypassing queerness as a topic in the discussions of Danmei (耽美).

The aesthetic characterisation (3) is very closely related to 2) in origin, but deserves its own point as a characterisation that can stand on its own, and may be more obscure to the English-speaking fandom given the common English translation of Danmei (耽美) as Boy’s Love.

Boy’s Love, as a name, amplifies the queer characterisation (1) and de-emphasises the aesthetic characterisation (3); Danmei (耽美), meanwhile, does the reverse.

Where does the name Danmei come from?

When BL was first developed in Japan, it used to have a now out-of-fashion genre name: Tanbi. Tanbi was borrowed from same name describing a late 19th century / early 20th century Japanese literary movement, known as Tanbi-ha and was inspired by Aestheticism in England. Aestheticism “centered around the doctrine that art exists for the sake of its beauty alone, and that it need serve no political, didactic, or other purpose”. Along the same line, the core belief of authors of Tanbi-ha was that art should celebrate beauty and reject the portrayal of ugliness in human nature, the darkness of reality:

…Tanbi writers argued that the ideas of naturalism writers such as “objectivism,” “truth is more important than beauty” and so on would “oppress human beings’ desire” so as to “lose beauty and human nature.” Accordingly, they insisted on “acute mental and emotional sensibility” [Ye, 2009].

(Source, with more details on Tanbi.)

Neither romance nor homosexuality were requirements for works in the original Tanbi-ha genre. BL borrowed the name Tanbi because its early authors saw their work created under the same principles: the emphasis on the beauty of their characters, their love (romantic and platonic), in a world that was also beautiful and untouched by ugliness such as sexism and homophobia.

The stubborn persistence on keeping one’s eyes trained on the beautiful, the willingness to turn a blind eye to reality for the sake of the beauty is built-in in the genre’s name. Tanbi  meant more than beauty, aesthetics; its kanji form was written as 耽美;  耽 = to sink, drown in, to  over-indulge in; 美 =  beauty.

Tanbi, therefore, literally means to drown in, to over-indulge in beauty.

Over time, as the genre expanded its writing style, Tanbi eventually fell out of favour as BL’s genre name in Japan. However, as it gained popularity in the Sinosphere in the 1990s, starting with Taiwan and Hong Kong, the kanji of Tanbi was retained as the Chinese name of the genre.

In Mandarin Chinese, 耽美 is pronounced Danmei. A hyperfocus on the aesthetics, the utopian aspects of traditional BL is therefore retained in Danmei by its name. People’s Daily could therefore devote its review of TU on its aesthetics. Realism, including politics and all discussions of social issues, can therefore be swept aside in the name of respecting the genre’s tradition.

I’ve mostly been reading about and observing c-fandom, and I believe these 3 characterisations have all attracted its own kind of fans. Fans who care and talk about queer issues even when it isn’t encouraged by their sociopolitical environment, who shine a light upon these issues in their fan works. Fans who treat the M/M leads as if they were a traditional cishet couple, such as calling one of the leads 老婆 (wife) and assigning him biologically female functions when needed (via, for example, the ABO trope). Fans who insist the works must meet their beauty standards, rejecting those that fail (for example, if the leads are not good looking enough) by claiming they’re there for Danmei, not Danchou (耽醜, “over-indulgence on ugliness”). Fans who are drawn to the genre by a combination of these characterisations.

By the history and definition of the genre, all the above reasons for fanning Danmei are as valid, as legitimate as one another.

I thought about this related question then: are c-fans of the second (traditional BL characterisation) and third (aesthetic characterisation) groups homophobic? When I first asked this question, I—a fan whose fandom experience had been entirely in English-speaking communities—assume the answer was yes. I thought, in particular, the insistence of treating Danmei’s M/M couples as cishet couples in a homosexual shell had to be conscious queer erasure. How can anyone ignore the same-sexness of the leads? How can anyone talk about Danmei without associating it with homosexuality?

However, as I read more—again, specifically about c-fandom, and in Chinese—I realised the answer may be a little more complex.

Previously, I had largely thought about homophobia in terms of individual attitudes. This has to do with my current environment (liberal parts of the United States), in which the choice to accept or reject the queer community has become a close to personal choice. Pride flags fly all over the city, including the city hall, every summer, and most churches welcome the LGBT+ community. I hadn’t considered how an environment in which queers have never enjoyed full social exposure, in which education of related topics is sorely lacking, would affect Danmei’s development as a genre.

In such an environment, it is difficult for Danmei to evolve and incorporate up-to-date understanding of RL queerness.

The consequence I can see is this: Danmei is more likely to be “stuck” in its historical characterisation as (het) women’s fantasy inside than outside the Great Firewall, with its queerness de-emphasised if not erased—and it draws fans who are attracted to this kind of characterisation accordingly. This is, perhaps, reflected by the fact that the (het) women-to-queer ratio of Danmei / BL fans is significantly higher in China than in the West (Table 1 in this article summarises how Danmei / BL fans have split between different genders and sexual orientation in the Sinosphere vs the West in different research studies).

Another driving force I can see for Danmei to retain BL’s traditional feminist and aesthetic characterisations: women in China are not free from the social pressure that led to the birth of BL in 1970’s Japan. While many of them have achieved financial freedom through work and have high education, the young and educated have been subjected to immense pressure to get married and have children especially in the past decade.

In 2007, the China’s state feminist agency, the All-China Women’s Federation (中華全國婦女聯合會), coined the term 剩女 (literally, “leftover women”) for unmarried, urban women over 27 years old. The government started a campaign that, among other things, associated women’s education level with ugliness, and their unmarried status with pickiness, moral degeneracy. The reason behind the campaign: birth rates are plummeting and the state wants educated women, in particular, to nurture a high quality, next generation workforce. More importantly, the government sees a threat in the M/F sex imbalance (high M, low F) that has commonly been attributed to the country’s “one child policy” between 1979-2015, which encouraged female infanticide / abortion of female foetuses in a culture that favours surname-carrying boys. The state fears the unmarried men will become violent and/or gay, leading to “social instability and insecurity”. Therefore, it wants all women, in particular those who are educated, to enter the “wife pool” for these unmarried men. (Source 1, Source 2: Source 2 is a short, recommended read).

For Chinese women, therefore, patriarchy and sexism is far from over. Escapist fantasies where sexism is removed—by removing women from the picture—are therefore here to stay.

Danmei is therefore not queer literature (同志文學). The difference between Danmei and queer literature is highlighted by this reportedly popular saying (and its similar variations) in some Danmei communities:

異性戀只是傳宗接代，同性戀才是真愛 Heterosexuality is only for reproduction. Only homosexuality is true love.

The attitude towards heterosexuality is one of distaste, viewed as a means to an end the speaker has no interest in. On the contrary, homosexuality is idealised, reflecting the disregard / lack of understanding of some Danmei fans have towards the RL hardships of c-queers. The ignorance may be further propagated by gate-keeping by some Danmei fans for safety reasons, keeping queer discussions away from their communities for fear that their favourite hangouts would meet the same uncertain fate of other communities that previously held open queer discussions, such as the Weibo gay and lesbian supertopics. Such gatekeeping can, again, be easily enforced using tradition as argument: the beauty 美 is Tanbi and Danmei (耽美), remember, includes the beauty of utopia, where ugly truths such as discrimination do not enter the picture. A Danmei that explores, for example, the difficulty of coming out of the closet is no longer Danmei, by its historical, aesthetic definition.

[I’ve therefore read about c-queers viewing Danmei with suspicion, if not downright hostility; they believe the genre, by ignoring their RL challenges and casting them as beautiful, even perfect individuals, and in some cases, by fetishising them and their relationships, only leads to more misconceptions about the queer community. Dangai, meanwhile, has been viewed with even more distaste as potential weapons by the state to keep gays in the closet; if the government can shove the Danmei characters into the “socialist brotherhood” closet, it can shove them as well.

I haven’t yet, however, been able to tease out the approximate fraction of c-queers whose views of Danmei and Dangai is negative. The opposing, positive view of the genres is this: they still provide LGBT+ visibility, which is better than none and it would’ve been close to none without Danmei and Dangai; while Danmei may skim over the hardships of being queer, fan works of Danmei are free to explore them—and they have.

This article provides insights on this issue. @peekbackstage’s conversation with a Chinese film/TV director in Clubhouse is also well worth a read.]

That said, Danmei can only be dissociated from the queer characterisation if there’s a way to talk about the genre without evoking words and phrases that suggest homosexuality—something that is difficult to do with English. Is there?

In Chinese, I’d venture to say … almost. There’s almost a way. Close enough to pass.

The fact that M/M in traditional BL has been developed and viewed not as queer but as a removal of F also means this: queerness isn’t “built-in” into the language of Danmei. The name Danmei itself already bypasses a major “queer checkpoint”: it’s impossible to refer to a genre called Boy’s Love and not think about homosexuality.

Here’s one more important example of such bypass. Please let me, as an excuse to put these beautiful smiles in my blog, show this classic moment from TU; this can be any gif in which the leads are performing such suggestive romantic gestures:

How can I describe this succinctly? In English?

Two men acting in love? Er. That’s… the definition of gay, almost.

Two men acting gay? Well. GAY.

Right. Fine. Let’s go negative. Queerbaiting? … Still gay, because the word “queer” is in there.

[Pie note: for the record, I don’t think TU or WoH is queer-baiting.]

Personally, I find it impossible to describe the GIF above in English that I do not automatically associate with RL romantic love between two men, with homosexuality. But can I do it in Chinese?

… Yes.

There’s a term, 賣腐 (pronounced “maifu”), literally, “selling 賣 the rot 腐”, derived from the term known among i-fans as fujoshi and written, in kanji, as 腐女. Fujoshi, or 腐 (“rot”) 女 (“women”), describes the largely (het) female audience of the Japanese BL genre (>80%, according to Wikipedia). Originated as a misogynistic insult towards female Japanese BL fans in the 2000s, fujoshi was later reclaimed by the same female BL fans who now use the self-depreciative term as acknowledgement of their interest being “rotten”, for BL’s disregard of the society’s traditional expectations on women.

賣腐 is therefore to “sell the rot” to the rotten women; ie. the suggestive romantic gestures, exemplified by the GIF above, between the M/M leads are catering, performing fan service to their target audience.

[賣腐 is also a term one will see in the state opinion pieces.]

There’s nothing gay about this term.

I’ve therefore found it possible to talk and think in Chinese about Danmei while giving little thought to queerness. The history and definition of Danmei allow that.

Again, I’m not saying any of this to excuse homophobia among in Danmei and Dangai fandoms. The point I’m trying to make is this — given that Danmei has three potential characterisations, two of which can be discussed without abundantly evoking queer concepts and vocabularies, given that history of Danmei, as a genre, already favoured characterisation 2 (traditional BL), the government addressing homosexuality in its opinions on Danmei and Dangai is far from a given.

By extension, the popularity of Dangai may mean a lot or little to c-queers; by extension, the state can approve / disapprove of Danmei and Dangai in a manner independent of its stance on homosexuality, which is itself inconsistent and at times, logic-deying (example to come…).

This is both good and bad, from the perspective of both the government and the c-queer community.

For the government: as discussed, the “triality” of Danmei allows the state to “move the goalpost” depending on what it tries to achieve. It has characterisations 2 (the traditional BL characterisation) and 3 (the aesthetic characterisation) as excuses to let Dangai dramas pass the censorship board should it want their profit and also, their promise of expanding the country’s soft power overseas by drawing an international audience. These characterisations also allow the state to throw cold water on the popularity of Danmei / Dangai should it desire, for reasons other than its queer suggestions—despite the Xi regime’s push against open expressions of queerness (including by activism, in media), it has also been careful about not demonising c-queers in words, and has countered other people’s attempts to do so.

Why may the government want to throw cold water on Danmei and Dangai? They are still subculture, which the state has also viewed with suspicion. In 2018, a NRTA directive explicitly requested that “c-ent programmes should not use entertainers with tattoos; (those associated with) hip-hop culture, sub-cultures (non-mainstream cultures), decadent cultures.” (”另外，总局明确要求节目中纹身艺人、嘻哈文化、亚文化（非主流文化）、丧文化（颓废文化）不用。”).

Subculture isn’t “core socialist values”. More importantly, it’s difficult to keep up with and control subculture. 環球網, the website co-owned by People’s Daily and Global Times (環球時報), ie, The State Newspaper and The State Tabloid, famously said this on its Weibo, on 2020/03/04, re: 227:

老了，没看懂为什么战。晚安。 Getting old. Can’t figure out what the war is about. Good night.

The State also cannot stop subculture from happening. It doesn’t have the resources to quell every single thing that become popular among its population of 1.4 billion. What it can do to make sure these subcultures stay subcultures, kept out of sight and mind of the general public.

Characterisation 1 (the queer characterisation), meanwhile, remains available to the state should it wish to drop the axe on Dangai for its queer elements. I’m including, as “queer elements”, presentation of men as too “feminine” for the state—which has remained a sore point for the government. This axe have a reason to drop in the upcoming months: July 23rd, 2021 will be the 100th birthday of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and the state may desire to have only uniformed forces and muscled, gun-toting “masculine” men gracing the screens.

What about for c-queers and their supporters (including group I fans)? What good and bad can the multiple characterisations of the genres do for them?

For c-queers and their supporters (including group I fans), their acceptance and safety are helped by the Dangai genre, by the Dangai 101 phenomenon, if and only if the state both characterises the queer elements in these dramas as queer (characterisation 1) AND their opinions of them are positive.

Personally, I had viewed this to be unlikely from the start, because a queer characterisation would mean the censorship board has failed to do its job, which is embarrassing for the Chinese government.

Characterisations 2) and 3) are not bad for c-queers and their supporters, however, and definitely not “enemies” of Characterisation 1);  they can not only serve as covers for the queer elements in Dangai to reach their audience, but also, they can act as protective padding for the LGBT+ community if the content or (very aggressive) marketing of the Dangai dramas displease the government — with the understanding, again, that the “traditional BL” arm of the Danmei community is itself also highly vulnerable by being a subculture, and so its padding effect is limited and it also deserves protection.

The downside to achieving LGBT+ visibility through Dangai is, of course and as mentioned, that these dramas are, ultimately, deeply unrealistic depictions of the c-queers. The promotion of these dramas, which has focused on physical interactions between the male leads for “candies”, can encourage even more fetishising of queers and queer relationships. The associated (character) CP culture that makes and breaks CPs based on the dramas’ airing cycle may also fuel negative perception of queer relationships as attention-seeking behaviour, something that can be initiated and terminated at will and for the right price.

Finally, with all this said, which characterisation(s) have the government taken re: Dangai and/or WOH? And what opinions has it given to its characterisations?

PART 1 <-- YOU ARE HERE PART 2 PART 3

[shijiujun]

ZZH + GJ x ELLE TW | Interview (28 April 2021)

Translations for the separate online interview the both of them did with ELLE Taiwan:

Talking to SHL GJ and ZZH | "Life can be simple as long as we do our best in the things we love" - 18 liners fulfilling their dreams

What do ZZH and GJ think of each other?

(1) With ZZH

Since the start of SHL, ZZH's role was set so that he only had three years left to live, hinting at the possible tragic ending early! Invested fans cried a lot & left ‘warning’ messages for the scriptwriter & director: "Even if it's unrealistic you better let him live!"

And when he was free during work the day before, ZZH accepted the online interview and was asked about his ZZS role and he, who usually dotes on his fans, said, "Thanks everyone for affirming/recognizing my acting skills, don't cry!"

ZZH's portrayal/acting was received very well by fans and his dynamic acting skills were revealed in many different directions because of SHL. He was praised to have nine faces, which means that aside from being well-rounded in his portrayal of happiness, anger, sadness, delight and other emotions, ZZH managed to interpret (his role) in a well-rounded way, with just a gaze and how calm he was from head to toe.

Taking on this role in SHL, ZZH says that his heart aches quite a bit for ZZS: "Towards his role, I can't say that I can give him any strength, but what I can do, is quietly feel and understand him."

Talking about his partner Gong Jun, ZZH attributed the success of the show and the efforts put into it to the team, and also praised GJ for being really professional, and fans look forward to be able to see the both of them work tgt in the future.

With a face that's gentle, handsome and has no bad angles, ZZH is most pleased with his defined nose. You may not know this, but in actuality, ZZH is not gentle/quiet at all! He likes to exercise and gym usually, through training, he fills his thoughts with positive energy.

Speaking about his Weibo UN "Crazy ZZH", we can't help but ask, is he a person who goes crazy (I guess, have a lot of fun, party like mad) without limits in private? ZZH says: "I chose this username to reflect a way to live - if I don't go to the extremes I will never accomplish anything.”

"I just feel that the things I'm passionate about I should do my best in them, for example, the craziest might have been when I was in university, I rode my bike solo all the way to Tibet!" He finished the journey step by step and because of this determination, it's reflected in his attitude towards filming & how meticulous he is. A lot of scenes that required fighting, ZZH communicated repeatedly with his teacher while learning and while he injured himself a bit, he said: "We must be responsible towards our roles, this is how an actor should be.”

"Thanks to everyone for recognizing/affirming me (as an actor), we'll continue walking the road together!” 

ZZH who is currently filming for a movie, promises that he'll definitely meet his TWnese fans in the future if given the chance. May 11 is ZZH's birthday and when asked about how he plans to spend his day, he casually says that it's in the planning, and as for birthday wishes, he said without hesitation, "I definitely hope everyone is healthy, and happy everyday!"

(2) With GJ

After SHL was broadcasted everyone fell for it completely, especially for GJ's role WKX. He managed to rank first in terms of entertainment tv influence. While he was free during work, GJ interviewed online and talked about the scene where his hair went white.

GJ: "My heart aches truly for WKX, I know a lot of fans cried because of him, thank you all for liking this show but I still hope everyone spends everyday happily!" 

He says he was once an 18-line actor & only started becoming popular on his 12th show, & thus he always cautions himself to head towards his dream with his feet on the ground, step by step. This special attitude is also reflected in the way he works; no matter the fighting or more dangerous scenes, GJ always does his best: "I don't know how many shows I've filmed! For fighting-related ones, I am thankful to the wushu laoshi and all the staff's guidance/protection, and once again under their training I safely completed this show, showing everyone the best shots!"

Aside from good acting skills, his styling was well-liked by fans especially when he wore that red outfit, he was endlessly charismatic "My fave is also the red outfit, and this outfit is also my most expensive one, hah!"

The rain scene left the greatest impression on him: "SHL is show with the most lines out of all that I've filmed so far; because a lot of WKX's lines are poetry, memorizing them really challenges comprehension and memory power, the toughest one was the rain scene, I have to adjust the emotions of the crying scene while in the rain and there're endless huge lines I have to recite, it definitely is challenging." 

 Those who follow him know that GJ is a simple person in private and in the interview he mentions: The happy thing about work is being able to earn money! Very few artistes can so blatantly say they wanna earn money, and as an employee who is passionate about earning money and finds joy in that, aside from buying a house so his family's quality of living increases, what does he wanna buy?

"I wanna buy a car! I really like cars a lot!" 

 In contrast to his cold, princely image, GJ's straightforward and blunt character has captured the hearts of his fans, especially when he sings in front of everyone unabashedly, taking on the title of "perfect (lack of) pitch", it is very adorable that he is willing to expose his weakness. But altho his singing skills are lacking, there's one skill that GJ has! And that's cooking! Because of the family rules set by his grandpa, the ppl in the kitchen in the Gong family are all the men.

GJ says: "It's true! The women in our family don't have to cook, it's all the men doing it. My grandpa, my dad, are all like that!" 

Basically it's no challenge for GJ to come up with a table of dishes. His signature dish is fish and when asked if his future other half really doesn't have to cook, that it can all be left to him, GJ says warmly, "Of course~" 

 And as a chef, GJ's build is on the taller side, "I really like to eat but I will control my diet. I gym often and try to eat less oily stuff. When I was in uni I was pretty fat, baby fat, but I lost that weight." 

 When asked which part of him he likes the most he says, "Hands! But I like em all! Because my parents gave them to me!" 

 During the interview it is not difficult to feel the deep relationship he has with his fam, especially when we chat about his grandpa. Aside from thanking his fam for the support, GJ is most thankful to his grandpa who has given him positive energy and encouragement until now, the person who he respects the most.

SHL did very well, in private who takes care of each other more btw GJ and ZZH? 

Both of their answers are the same: "In reality we take care of each other, because we're really good friends and in the production group we naturally take care of each other.”

Their chemistry and friendship extends to beyond the show and fans have also made plenty of creative CP works to share, we also anticipate their next work together! 

[liitlesunshiine]

High on the clock

Quirkless AU - Toya Todoroki

Warnings: cursing, drug use, anxiety, panic attack mention, suggestive themes, slight sexual themes 

A fun light hearted fic. Definitely enjoyed writing this piece so I hope you guys enjoy reading it. ^.^ It’s flirty n cute n Toya is a total bae. <3 

You and Toya are coworkers who try making the most out of your shitty job. 

------------------------

“Goddd this place fuckin blows.” You groaned in frustration sitting across Toya. 

“As if I didn’t know that already,” he sleeplishly replied. 

You never intended on working in this shit show of a store for as long as you have but yet, here you were two wasted years later. You had high hopes after graduation but it seems no job wants to hire someone with no experience and you can’t get any experience since you can’t get an actual job that’ll provide it. So it’s forced you in this sort of awkward limbo and vicious cycle of going back and forth. You’ve been stuck wearing this shitty bright uniform with a barely livable wage and terrible hours. Miserable every second of the day, with the constant guilt eating at you for being so complacent. 

Of course there were a few exceptions.

Of course… Like the highly attractive coworker you spent most of your time here with. Days spent with Toya were significantly better than the days spent without Toya. In fact, if it weren’t for him, you’d probably wouldn’t have lasted as long as you had here. Because man, when days were good they were ok, but when the days were bad, they were really fucking bad.  Some in which you were ready to burn down everyone and everything yet the sweet, hot, god-like Toya would make you melt with his cute quirky smile and meet your eyes with his own that you would absolutely drown in and next thing you know, you had completely forgotten about what you were upset over. Now, it’s just a bonus that he meets your sarcasm with his own, the both of you have always had this flirty like atmosphere that neither of you are willing to acknowledge but low key kinda know there’s an underlying sexual tension there. It was strange how well you both got along, the average onlooker would assume nothing more than a simple boyfriend and girlfriend relationship but it was really just mutual likability and connection between the two of you. Days with Toya were simply good days. And you were absolutely grateful for someone like him because god knows how terrible it’d really be here without him.

“Why don’t we make this night a bit memorable,” Toya who was right next to you behind the counter, gives you a side wink and unzips the company jacket to reveal a small ziplock within the pocket. Andddddd long behold it’s weed! You chuckle to yourself, never getting tired of Toya’s shenanigans. Very much appreciated as he’s best form of entertainment here. 

“Toya we almost got caught last time, you really wanna risk it again?” Your words ran on deaf ears as he was already rolling up the blunt underneath the counter, “what’s the worst they can do? Fire us?” You stopped for a second and nodded, well he wasn’t wrong. Maybe this was the push you needed to finally leave this shit hole. “You got a point, let’s do it quick before someone comes in.” 

While this is a 24 hour convenience store, usually pass 1am, rarely anyone is inside. So you suppose it wouldn’t be too bad of an idea. Plus with Toya your bound to have a good time, who are you to deny him. You trusted in him enough to get away with his bs. 

“Pass the lighter doll,” you fished for the lighter that was nicely decorated with little blue flames over in your small book bag and passed it to him. He holds the blunt between his two hands and you duck underneath the counter with him. “Ladies first,” he cockily said, you lean forward and placed your mouth on the blunt while he held it for you. He always did this and it always felt oddly intimate to you. Couldn’t help the warm fuzzy feeling in your chest taking over when his glass like eyes gazed over you. They always made you curious and somehow hungry for knowledge of his life. You’ve never knew someone so well yet know nothing of them, but that’s always been enigma of Touya. You exhaled closing your eyes, attempting to calm your nerves. “You know the only time I ever smoke is on the job with you.” He smirked bringing the blunt to his own lips, “guess I’m a bad influence then.” 

You snorted and rolled your eyes. “Everyone needs a lil spice in their life, no?” It was his turn to roll his eyes. You gently grabbed his wrist and led the blunt back to your lips again, he stared quietly at you. Which oddly made you tense up. “Don’t look at me like that,” you smiled. 

“Like what?” He smiled. 

“Like I’m the most beautiful girl in the world that you can’t live without.” Now you both laughed. This was the usual routine with Toya; cracking jokes and talking shit for a bit and simply enjoying each other’s company while the store was empty. He finally broke the trance you were in when he spoke up. 

“You know, having my father kick me out of the house wasn’t so bad after all,” Toya leaned in. 

You looked at him with a puzzled look, he never brings up his father. Whenever the conversation appeared it was quickly diverted elsewhere. You didn’t want to poke or intrude but curiosity got the best of you and you couldn’t help but want to continue the conversation. “Yea? Why is that?” You wondered. His father, from what you’ve been able to gather with the little bits Toya has mentioned here and there, was that supposedly his father is some CEO to a multi million dollar company. Odd considering the likes to where Toya ended up but you concluded that they must’ve ended in bad terms. You understood how cruel and selfish parents can be and didn’t need further explanation on that part. Easy to assume considering how poorly and little he speaks of him. He shut your ideas off with his simple response. 

“I wouldn’t be smoking a blunt with the world’s most beautiful girl under this shitty counter, if it weren’t for it.” Ha, that definitely caught you off guard, causing a light blush to form across your face. Even with a seeming sensitive topic he still manages to tease you. He’s got that cheeky smile plastered all over, “Got you choked up doll?” You rolled your eyes. You were about to tell him off before the door rang indicating that someone has entered the store. You snapped out of the haze and immediately got up to quickly realize that the person who entered was one of the regional managers, oh fuck. You nearly froze in fear and kicked Toya under the counter. “Ow the fuck was that for?” He looked at you while soothing the kick you just gave him but upon looking at your panicked expression and frenzied body, he quickly crushed the blunt and shoved it back inside the pocket of his jacket. He didn’t need to be told or explained which you greatly appreciated at the moment. Toya was always able to read the room, bless his soul. He clumsily got back up to which you had fixed his crooked hat and whispered into his ear to tuck his shirt in while covering him slightly to do so.

“Hi-ya hello, good afternoon, I mean good evening sir.” You embarrassedly stumbled over your words to which Toya snickered at. You kicked him again harder this time as discreetly as you could. On the verge of a panic attack. He gripped tightly at the counter, smiling at the man in front of you both. Hissing silently at the pain your kick caused him. He gave you a quick side eye nodding his head in disapproval. Which somehow made you feel drastically worse. 

“Good evening to you both, I’m sure you know who I am.” 

You responded a bit too hastily looking like a rabid chihuahua. “Yes! Yea. Of course we do, how are you? What brings you in at this time? It’s so late.” You manage to say within 2.0 seconds, the automatic robotic customer service attitude overtaking your body. Well- at least trying to considering you just had a 30-minute smoke sesh under the counter and your mind is  desperately trying to sober up. Honestly, what the fuck was he doing here at this time? This has never happened and I mean out of all the hours of the day. Oh yea, you’re definitely getting fucked, the smell of weed was so pungent, it was literally embarrassing how bad the situation looks. You wanted to cry. Toya’s eyes were stained red and you only assumed yours look worse. 

“Gotten a few complaints about this store recently. Wanted to come in and take a look.” You began to get a cold sweat, oh shit he knows, he definitely knows. You had words lodged in your throat that couldn’t come out. What could you say? What can you say? You’re in the wrong here. Everyone knows that smoking weed with your cool and kinda hot coworker under the counter is definitely not ok. Maybe even illegal, oh god what if this gets on your record. You’ll definitely not be able to get a professional job, then you’ll really get stuck working a even shitter job than this. Oh good oh god oh my god. 

As if sensing the absolute panic and anxiety off of you, Toya gently caressed your arm motioning you to relax and to stay silent. You recognized the wave that washed over him and instantly knew he’d handle the situation, he always does. And if you could die in his arms right now, you’d accept your fate happily. Toya was an interesting man oh right, you always believed he held such potential to do great things and even change the world. It doesn’t make sense really considering you both work at a basic job but you had come to secretly admire the guy. You’d would tell him too, how you believed in him, how you had so much confidence for him to become something great but he would always shut it down and brush it off like it was nothing.  It was as if he didn’t think he was good enough. It always bugged you that he thought so little of himself, but seeing him now causally and confidently bullshit the regional manager out of your current situation just simply reminded you of how special he was to you. Definitely got your pussy wet and made you eternally grateful too.

Toya was standing in front of the counter, making hand gestures while the manager just stared analyzing his words. You were completely z0ned out, only able to get parts of the conversation. 

“We’ve been having this customer appear at the store over and over again around this time of night harassing me and Y/N. We’ve considered calling the cops since he’s always high off his mind, we’ve caught him smoking in the bathroom on multiple occasions too. He was in here about 15 minutes ago and we haven’t been able to get rid of the smell.” 

Ah the beautiful lies that slipped through Toya’s lips sounded like a symphony. It was nothing short of comedic and yet so fucking Oscar-worthy. You could definitely pay this man to tell you lies he with how effortlessly convincing he was. You couldn’t even care to listen to what the manager was responding with, but on his way out he waved at you wishing you a goodnight and you sighed out with relief. 

Toya turns to you clasping his hands together “well there’s gonna be a security guard here for the next two weeks.” You laughed “I guess that’s better than getting fired huh.” 

“I’m not sure about that,” he chuckled. “I texted Shigs to come and take over the rest of our shift.” 

You looked at him confused, “how come? Either way, do you think he’ll be ok alone here?”

Toya slipped his phone into his pocket and walked back to you “yea he doesn’t give a fuck. Besides you look pale fucking white, guess this guy sobered your ass up real quick.” 

You attempted to glare angrily at him but it came off as a soft puppy look. You had no energy nor the strength to pretend. It feels like you just got whiplash from the rollercoaster you were on. Figured it was no use in lying considering you looked like you just went through it. “Yea, I still feel high as shit, I just wanna go home already, only thing this guy gave me was a fat fucking headache.” 

He ruffled the top of your head, “awe poor baby,” he said in a teasing tone, he inched up right beside you, “I got something that can help with that.” You jokingly pushed him off you, tying to ignore the warm feeling pooling under your stomach. Your mind was definitely thinking something dirty with a million miles per second and with how he handled today’s situation you’d be more than willing to give him whatever he pleased, but you pretended to cast aside those intrusive thoughts and act unfazed. “Shit don’t tell me you got Advil on you too?” 

He chuckled lightly nodding is head down, “got something even better doll.” He scoots up next to you and grabs a bottle of excedrin underneath the counter, passing it to you. You excitedly open it taking two pills out “oh my god I didn’t know we had some underneath here, yes thank you. You're definitely my hero today Toya.” As if y’all didn’t work in a convenience store that had if not all types of medicines. It was the effort that made it special though, it’s what brought that bright goofy smile of yours to light.  

You weren’t able to see the blush that formed on his cheeks while you swallowed the two pills. “Yea I remember you telling me you get headaches n shit and I know this medicine helps with it.” He was scratching the back of his head awkwardly. He never really handles compliments well but you tippy toed over to him and wrapped your arms softly around his neck. “I appreciate it Toya, that was really thoughtful. Thank you.” 

If you didn’t see his previous blush you definitely noticed this one, which in turn lead you to blush. But you couldn’t miss this opportunity- “AWE is lil Toya blushing. So cute brings me back to my middle school days.” That caused a loud laugh to come out of you both. “Shut it.” he quickly and quietly said. 

“Am I interrupting something.” You and Toya quickly untangled from each other trying to play off the slight tension in the air. 

“Errrr um.. Hey Shiggy, thanks for uh coming in.” You awkwardly stumbled, you never really got along with him so there was always this weird loud silence between the both of you. He already seemed to be annoyed, per usual.  The sloppy blue hair all tangled looking greasy and his patchy skin looking irritated and flaky as usual. He definitely was not amused or happy to be here. Well when was her ever. You’ve yet to seen the man smile. 

“Whatever.” He takes a sip from his metal bottle and walks over to the counter. 

“Shiggy you the man, thanks for pulling up bud.” Toya pats him in the back and Shigaraki shuttered. “Don’t touch me,” he flatly said. He glared at you both. 

“You guys can go leave and fuck now.” The words caught you instantly by surprise and you got completely red. “That’s not what were gonn- ugh whatever like it matters.” With that, you and Toya clock out and leave the store with Shigaraki sending daggers at your back.

“He’s always acting like such a bitch.” You annoyingly complained. 

Toya puts his arm around your shoulder pulling you closer to him “he ain’t so bad when you get to know him.” 

“I guess.” You rolled your eyes, you didn’t really care. You were more relieved to have finally left. He can rot in the store by himself for all you care. Not you or Toga would miss him. 

“So,” Toya glided with his words, itching you closer to him. He was leading the way in this position with you happily following. Not knowing the destination but feeling completely at peace with his form completely snug at your side. You comfortably wrapped your arm around his waist and gently placed your head in the crook of his neck. This was nice you thought, you and Toya were always this intimate when alone. No hesitation or awkwardness, just simply holding hands and sharing body heat as friends with the underlying passion waiting to burst and to be acknowledged. But nothing ever felt rushed, not with Toya. You stared at him from this angle, taking in his beautiful effortless features. His lashes looked so long as you stared in slight jealousy, his hair a perfect black mess with hidden red roots if you stared long enough, and his eyes. Man, you could write poems and sing songs with how the eyes stirred up some emotion you can't quite pin down. Always causing an eruption of feelings you can barely control. 

You felt the warmth from his breath when he spoke, “wanna go to back to my place and finish that blunt? Would love nothing more than to see the world’s most beautiful girl on my bed.” 

You blushed and nodded looking at those piercing blue eyes once again “well, when you look at me like that I guess I can’t say no.” 

Maybe this time you would finally show Toya just how special he really is to you. 

[averybritishblog]

Ten Headcanons About M in his Youth

This is a continuation of my series of I'm Avoiding Doing Life Admin or Processing Emotions by Constructing Elaborate Headcanon about M. (Parts 1, 2 and 3 are here). Below the cut is the product of me being very bored at the weekend and trying to work out what young M was like.

(Also I was watching Lawrence After Arabia and young Ralph Fiennes was too much for me to deal with.)

1. He's from an old landed gentry family, but not the primary branch. His father was probably the second/third etc son.

So we know he wears a signet ring in Skyfall and from the way he dresses even when he is not in work (the Rules scene in Spectre) we can assume that he's definitely upper-middle class at least. Mallory is a surname with Anglo-Saxon or Norman origins. However, I don't think he's from the primary branch of that family, as the British landed gentry in the late 20th century tended not to send their first son off to the army or into the civil service.

2. His mother's welsh and Gareth is a common name in her family.

So Gareth is not the most obvious name for an upper/upper middle class Englishman. However, Gareth is still a fairly common name in Wales. In Welsh it means gentleness (LOL) and it may be linked to the knight Sir Geraint from the stories surrounding King Arthur and the round table. My thinking is that his mother was probably Welsh and that this was her choice, as M himself comes across as very English and Mallory is not a common name in Wales.

3. His father was a military man who desperately wanted M to follow in his footsteps.

This will take a bit of explaining, but bear with me. To get into the SAS, we know that M is dedicated. It's also clear from every thing he does (*cough no time to die ranting cough*) that he has a dogmatic belief in and love of his country. It's part of who he is. My thinking is for it to be that vociferous, it probably comes from somewhere emotional and pre-SAS. Therefore, it may be possible that his father was military and instilled in his eldest son (because M has such eldest child vibes, more on that later) an unquestioning belief in military service and love of country.

4. His father was quite a bit older than his mother and died when Mallory was young.

So linked to the above, I think for M to still have that much of a belief in his father's ideals, it may point to the fact he never reached the point where he got to either argue or fall out with his father. This suggests he didn't know him into his teens. Children tend to idolise parents, but that wears off when critical thinking kicks in, especially during adolescence. I also think for Mallory to idolise him that much, it's probably because he has distinguished service. In my headcanon, Mallory's father served in WWII as an officer, placing his birthdate at , at the latest, 1920. If we take Ralph Fiennes birthday as M's (1962), Mallory's mother would have had to be younger in order to have Mallory + siblings. (Also the fact that M dresses in quite a vintage way and has maybe out dated attitudes to hierarchy and country, it suggests these views possibly were influenced from an older parent.

5. He has a younger sibling and half siblings.

Okay, Mallory has a load of older sibling vibes. He's permanently exasperate, at the end of his tether and rolling his eyes. So my theory is that he at least has a younger sister. But there's something about the fact that he has such older sibling energy suggests to me he probably has much younger siblings, which in turn suggests half siblings if his father passed when he was young. Again, pure headcanon, but I think his mother probably remarried when Mallory was a teenager and had another child with her second husband.

6. He went to an all-boy's boarding public school.

I mean look at him. Of course he did. Everything about him screams either Harrow, or Westminster, or Eton. My betting is on Harrow. He's not stuffy enough to be Eton and too rigid to be Westminster. IMO this is also where the first hints of him being not 100% straight come out. He's always more at ease around other men. (You can kinda see this in the movies. He's not a misogynist, but he's incredibly tense around M(ansfield) and seemingly doesn't know how to communicate with Moneypenny (forgets her birthday in Spectre.) Also, it's an all male boarding school. C'mon.

7. He didn't go to university, instead he went straight from school to the military academy at Sandhurst.

Mallory is not an intellectual. You can sort of see it when he's talking to Q in No Time To Die. It's not that he's disparaging or dismissive, more impatient and practical. You can also see it a bit in the scene in Skyfall where he applies Q's intellectual approach of laying breadcrumbs and gives the practical advice of sending Bond up the A9. My theory is that he knew he wanted to go into the army, so why would he bother delaying it by at least two years by going to university to do a subject he probably had no interest in. This isn't to say he's no smart, @gauzeandlinen has it right here when they say that he's probably sharper than not only his peers but his superiors.

8. He does incredibly well at Sandhurst and is commissioned into the Parachute Regiment.

So you don't get immediately selected out of Sandhurst for the SAS. You need to join a regular regiment first. One of the main feeder regiments for the special forces is the Parachute regiment, as already they're seen as one of the more elite groups. To get selected for the paras straight out of Sandhurst, Mallory would needed to have been bloody good as selection is extremely competitive. My pure headcanon is that he probably received the Sovereign's Sword, which is an award given to the top cadet at Sandhurst, because Mallory is nothing if not dedicated, bloody minded and determined.

9. It isn't his original intention to join the SAS, but he gets tapped for it.

Very little grounding for this other than a feeling. But IMO is that Mallory probably had a more traditional military route in mind, where he joined the Paras, did well there, fought in open warfare, got promoted up and commanded his own units, just like his father did in WWII. Special forces is a bit more of a murky world, half in the shadows. However, he was probably a stand out recruit and after a year or two, gets convinced to do it by one of his superiors (and because Mallory has a huge thing for hierarchy he'll listen to what his CO says).

10. He meets his wife through a friend at Sandhurst and they marry young, before Mallory is deployed in the SAS.

So in my previous posts I laid out why I think Mallory is a) married and b) to someone even more upper class than him. Lots of high society people can mix at Sandhurst, especially in the early 80s when Mallory would have attended. IMO that is probably where he is most likely to have met her. She probably fell for the slightly aloof if charming young officer cadet. I think they would have had to got married before he joined the SAS, because his life would have become a lot more shrouded in secrecy after that and I think he would have been less interested in marriage, more interested in his work. Again, pure headcanon, but I think he married her because it was the "dutiful" thing for a young officer to do and both families were keen. This hardly sets up for a happy marriage as a) she doesn't understand the realities of being married to a young, ambitious SAS officer who will never love her like he loves his country, b) he's doing it out a sense of duty and wanting to live up to his idolised image of his father rather than romance and c) dude is gay.

ANYWAY, that was fun to write. Let me know what you think .

[supercorp-hosie]

Josie and Lizzie personality, dynamics and popularity in reality

I've kind of done this before, like in my thoughts for 315. Now, I've made some additions to them, so I think why not start a new post? There are some points that remained the same with my thoughts for 315 and I've integrated some points from my rating of the writing of Legacies characters too.

Starting from Alaric being an absent father since the twins were 11. Caroline wasn’t there either. What’s left for Lizzie? Josie.

Josie had to handle herself and Lizzie alone. Sure Alaric might not always be absent, but the intensity of Lizzie’s perspective begs to differ. Josie had to understand Bipolar at a very young age; be there when Lizzie had her outburst; constantly checks on Lizzie to take her meds; digest the emotion impacts after the outburst; understand how Lizzie functions when she was down. None of that are easy. No one asks about how Josie feels. How she pent out? What does she need? Josie might feel the need to be not needing things and always be good so that she can get the love and attention from Alaric (in s1, Josie felt the need to lose the game to get on Alaric good side). As results, she just started to suppress her voice and her needs, because Lizzie needed them the most. Over time or years of suppressing in front of her dearest family, she most likely felt unneeded by her parents, and forgettable to her parents (the girl so quiet that her parents forget about her, the girl that Penelope won’t fight for anymore). She needed to feel needed, so she just let Lizzie take all of her, from whom she felt needed the most. It started a vicious cycle for the twins, shaped their dynamics and how Josie is in present days. Unfortunately, her problems were never solved, they accumulated, leaving the good and dark side from Josie being so separated and unbalanced, as no one has helped her to sort them out. The inner turmoil is always there, leading to the extreme polarity of Josie’s good and bad side.When she’s doing bad, she would be especially aggressive than she needed to be because that’s an instinct to compensate the lack of action before. After long suppression, once being released, the instinct would be stronger than usual and more uncontrollable. Under the influence of dark magic, Dark Josie felt like another personality taking over the whole Josie and protect their interests that true Josie are neglecting. Kind of like dissociative identity disorder but not really it? Fear the dog that doesn't bark.

From Lizzie perspective, we can see how she perceived Josie when they were little. Like Lizzie being princess but Josie being her android, personal valet? It just showed that after what Josie had endured and done, Lizzie thought of herself being princess but didn’t think Josie as her equal? Like Josie was programmed to bow to Lizzie. That’s the twins dynamic showing, partly Josie's mistake, but Josie deserved more than that, even when she’s derogatory to herself, Lizzie should uphold that for her. What really warms me from the Android situation, is that from how Josie is the combination of two Androids, showing that Lizzie actually looked up to Josie. For Lizzie, Josie can really take care of her so well that Lizzie can count Josie as her personal valet. Derogatory, yes, but that place is also very important to prince and princess. Remember that Lizzie can’t cook but Josie is like expert in cooking or baking? The knowledge for Android part means that in Lizzie’s mind, Josie actually is like the person who knows everything. Usually that figure should be our parents, but for Lizzie, Josie knows the answer to all. The fact that the special sword was in Josie’s thigh the whole time, just show the trust that Lizzie had in Josie. The security of her needs that Lizzie got from Josie and the validation Josie got from Lizzie, it’s kind of how the codependency between them works. Lizzie voices, Josie listens; Lizzie wants, Josie gives.

About Lizzie mental illness, after my research, I think that Lizzie situation is more like borderline personality disorder rather than bipolar. Lizzie has this low self-esteem issue, she sees herself lowly sometimes. Evidently, she always thinks that she had to better herself more, even in 310 where she misjudged Finch, she forgot the fact that she had improved a lot along the seasons and just go straight to a retreat, because she thinks she’s still a very bad person. A second before she saw herself like holy almighty, the next second she saw herself so bad that she was like the person in season one (and even in season one she wasn’t that bad). However, we can also see Lizzie thinks very highly of herself sometimes, or uses a narcissistic attitude to cover up her insecurities regarding her self-image, they just doesn't match with people's view of it. The most alarming one must be the whole thing about her funeral. It's clear that she hasn’t had a stable self-image of herself, which is more of a personality disorder rather than Bipolar, a mood disorder. About Lizzie’s mood swings, they are too sudden, abrupt, it triggers by events and the outcome of the trigger is quite immediate. As for Bipolar, the mood swing is more of a consistent cycle, not abrupt. Yes, events might trigger something, but they take time to set in. Patients will be overly energetic during maniac while feeling overly fatigue during the depression state. They can’t actually control their mood, it’s a mood disorder.

Tbh, the twins really have their personality issues to deal with. I totally agree with other about them being each other's foil. Like Lizzie being the one in between, while Josie being the one in extreme. Turning out that under the mean girl cover, Lizzie has such big heart; while Josie being the model sister on the extremely good side, turning out that she can be extremely dark. For real, they had like six personalities as a whole. The polarity in Josie; the polarity of Lizzie's self-image; plus the twins themselves being the foil and mirage to each other. They both have serious mental problems, Lizzie's apparent, Josie's invisible.

How does these reflect on their relationship? People would choose to get along with someone like Josie, they benefit from her habit of caring, listening, giving, and she doesn’t seem to have serious problem. As for Lizzie, people mostly like to be heard and to not be covered by another voice, they would want enough reciprocation, a habit which Lizzie is not that familiar. Not to mention, having a mental condition being well-known is not the best trait for strangers to start a new friendship or relationship. Moreover, when people observe their dynamic, they jump to conclusion rather quickly, that Lizzie is always taking things from Josie; she doesn’t care for Josie, etc. It doesn’t help Lizzie much as Josie tends to hide under that too, as being quiet is kind of a routine for her. She wants the spotlight but habitual instincts make her tend to hide from the spotlight. Therefore, as for popularity,Josie is definitely at the top, adored dearly by her peers, thus won an election herself wasn’t even running; while Lizzie, you know. Between a dog that always barks and one that doesn't bark, which will you choose? (not derogatory) However, if someone attack Lizzie, Josie will still protect her, like she did tell Penelope to leave Lizzie alone.

To shed light on Josie’s jealousy, it rooted from the abandonment issues of the twins. It is a consequence of them being Alaric’s second choice and the absence of Caroline. For Lizzie, the issue remains with only Hope, Alaric’s betrayal for Hope in her fanfics; in 314, people prioritising Hope over her is very triggering; even in 316, the heavenly state she’s in because Ethan asked her out after the whole "Hope is perfect" speech, indicate that how she can’t believe someone would choose her over Hope. As she never thinks that she can hold a competition against Hope and win. Lizzie’s abandonment issue is minimal because of the presence of Josie, it provides the security in Lizzie’s life, as she is the first choice for Josie.

The abandonment issue is worse for Josie. Even if Josie is Lizzie blind spot, this part of Lizzie is not usually make known of. Josie would feel that she is second choice to everyone, including Lizzie. Like the personal valet that has no needs? Lizzie is just 11, but 11 is an important age in shaping people’s security in a relationship. Josie couldn’t have got much security from all her important relationship, hence the abandonment issues. She always feels helpless in them, afraid to voice her needs, desperately needed recognition from her parents which is probably very few. She needs control but she didn’t know the way to get it, so she got none. The insecurities heighten when it comes to her love life, making her easily provoked if she saw something she didn’t like. Results from the habitual quietness, her way of defending herself and gaining control is to lower her competition, like hurting the girl hitting on Landon, being hostile to Hope. She hated Penelope for abandoning her, she remained control mostly, when provoked, Josie’s abandonment issues and the insecurities in being the second choice were triggered so badly that she set her on fire. The time she did what she need to do, she overdid it, because her dark side needs to compensate what hadn't been done to protect oneself and tend to the needs – to balance out the imbalance. As she loses more control over the issue while desperately wants to suppress the need of control, the polarity in her keeps worsening and the dark side of her keeps surfacing.

This is why Josie is written to embrace and take care of herself, tend to her needs, like her never need to better herself. Lizzie is written to constantly better herself when she seems like a better person than Josie. Josie’s issues root from years of neglecting her needs, while Lizzie has years of habit of ignorance on how to care when she does care. Therefore, Josie taking care of herself = bettering herself, providing a balance in her so her mental can be stable even when provoke. If Lizzie cannot construct a good self-image, while getting positive feedback to reassure her self-image disparity, she can never overcome her personality disorder. Hence bettering herself to meet her own needs.

Their behaviours as presented are cultivated and shaped by each other under the unhealthy circumstances of their household. It is not logical to only accuse of one twin regarding their behaviours to each other without bringing the other twin and their parents into consideration.

@legacies-supremacy I still remember our twins dynamic discussion, I hope this bring my response as a whole. Btw, you kind of said that in 106, Josie tell Lizzie to go to their party without her several times and Lizzie waited for her? It's not true.

Regarding the whole situation, Josie spent all her time helping Lizzie get ready. When Lizzie is done, she said, "You’re not even dressed, I don’t want to be late on my own party." Josie said, "I’m done, I’ll catch up with you, okay?" Then Lizzie take off to the party and enter without Josie without question. After wearing the talisman, Penelope appeared. She expresses her desire to continue to make Lizzie uncomfortable or unhappy or angry. Josie wanted Penelope to ease up on Lizzie. Penelope said, "You have crawled so far down the codependence rabbit hole that you think taking care of yourself is selfish. Party starts in five. It’s a shame you spent all of that time helping Lizzie get ready." When Josie was dressed, she needed someone to help her braid, so for once she try something out of desire, she goes to Josette Laughlin. When Josette asked her whether Josie will be late to her own party, Josie said, "no one will notice". She expressed her thought that if Lizzie knew about her crush on Rafael too, the situation will look bad, so she kept silent.

During the party, Lizzie immediately enjoyed herself with MG. They had flirty moves with each other (i think). Once the soft music set in, she immediately changed partner. Penelope was the only one that notice Josie was no where to be seen (meanwhile Josie was getting buried alive). While Alaric encountered Hope to save Josie, Penelope is still the only one actively searching for Josie without request. After Hope met with MG and Penelope, the three of them started saving Josie together. Meanwhile Rafael told Lizzie the truth that he still hadn't moved on. Lizzie seemed like she was starting to melt down, and started asking for Josie. Hope, Penelope and MG saved Josie without Lizzie.

It is what it is, and I'm not blaming Lizzie. The whole getting buried alive thing just kind of enhanced Josie's feeling bad of getting what she desired. I kind of remember that she said that for once she listened to people urging her to pursue her desires and it ended up getting herself buried. Then Penelope like rewarded her with a kiss.

[lamortexiii]

The HellBilly Pulpit: The Brooding Time - Gen X in the ’90s

What can I say that hasn’t been said already about the 90s and Gen X?

Maybe, I can just reflect on what it was like from my point of view during that amazing time.

I was in high school and if I only knew then what I know now lol. I remember this was when I first became aware of what was going on in life. I was listening to something new that I had just bought, it was nothing like I’d heard before-, Alice in Chains Facelift and I thought to myself, here it is, this is a new beginning, MY beginning, I can be anything and whoever I want to be.

My time was a bit “in-between” so to speak. Big hair and glam metal were fading away and Grunge was just starting to break the surface. So weird that in-between time. We/I didn't know where to go.

During these next few years, I saw things that are now just footnoted in pop culture, although through the eyes of wonder. We didn’t have cell phones and youtube and we BARELY had anything that resembled the internet. Social media was Mtv and Mtv2. Ren and Stimpy, Beavis and Butthead, Nickelodeon, and man was it fun. We saw Waco go down, the first attack on the trade center, the first gulf war, and President Clinton. Oh, man... We also had Achy Breaky Heart and the first Gen Power Rangers. Comedy for us teens was a mixture of everyday humor, to that cutting edge of the adult world just peppered in there. It was glorious. I remember laughing harder in that time frame than I have through most of my adult life so far. Things were cool. Things were carefree. Things were getting weird.

Then something happened. We got broody, angsty, annoyed, and irritated. We didn’t end up being like our older brothers and sisters who were so eager to live out what our parents wanted for them. We didn’t want to be told who we were supposed to be. A lot of us watched our parents work themselves stupid as we became latchkey kids. Minimal supervision and a shift in our reality all fed into this, “life sucks and everything is dreary” sort of attitude that became what a lot of us perceive as “gen x”. We went from Disney to Tim Burton. We were determined to break that mold and stop living what everyone wanted us to do and be ourselves. We became the “slackers and the losers” (thanks Beck for the unofficial theme song), and not caring as each day that passed was just another dreary reminder that we did, didn’t matter in the end. Life sucks and reality bites.

Music changed our lives instantly. Record stores were a thing and we could immerse ourselves in just about any genre or style you could think of. Man, we were an eclectic bunch. My tape rotation consisted of Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden one minute and then Slayer, Pantera, Suicidal Tendencies, Danzig, and Metallica the next. The more intense, the better. It was cathartic to know that what I felt inside was felt by others too. The music told me that I’m not alone. That still resonates today, sometimes even more with all of the subgenre and side projects that my favorite bands have spawned or influenced since that time.

There was no shortage of fuel for our fire either. We had The Craft, The Crow, Nine Inch Nails, and Tool all reaching out to open our minds and set us free. White Zombie beat the normal out of us and threw on the dirt, it was amazing. Korn brought out our anger and set it on fire.  Big shorts and pants before Jnco’s were a thing. The Blair Witch, Lalapalooza, the second Woodstock, skateboards, piercings, tattoos, and punk rock on top of it all! The freaks were in and we weren’t going away!

In the latter part of the 90s, I was in the military for a brief time, got married at 20, and thought I had life planned out... SMACK- I was discharged, divorced, and living with my bros to watch the turn of the century. Lol... Y2K! Your computers are gonna die!!! Man, we were stupid back then... Wait.. we still are... Maybe worse lol.

I embraced my time as a slacker in the military where my ideals were definitely not what the military needed or wanted. I found myself once again, outcast and brooding. I discovered that I wasn’t just socially different, I was spiritually different. Basic Training found a lot of us regretting our decisions and looking for comfort. I tried the church only to find it just felt too generic. All of the people in the pews reciting the same prayers, praying for the same things, and just being immersed in their cookie-cutter spirituality. It did not speak to my individual wants or needs or feelings. I wanted... No, I needed something more. This wasn’t for me.

Enter the occult. Enter paganism. Enter the anti-established religion mentality.

I started out with learning about some ancient celt myth and magick (my first book), from there I kind of branched out in about a half dozen different ways. I read about Satanism, Wicca, Atheism, and tons of things in between. Mind that when I started this road to discovery, I was an enlisted soldier in the US Army. these things did not go over well with those in charge. We had a prayer once before a holiday-themed run where I did not participate. I stood there, looking around, being respectful to those who were participating, but  I was called into the office and asked if I practiced “the dark arts”. I had to laugh. Such a blanket, stereotype pinned on me for just being true to myself. They must have seen my barracks room. Blacked out with various metal band merch laying about with the quasi shrine to Marilyn Manson. The incense and what probably struck them more than anything was the lack of any Christian-themed propaganda, I mean decor. :)

All of this lead me to believe all the more that I was on the right path when I stood out as an individual enough to make people question who I am and what “is wrong with me”. This was the new brood infecting their rank and file and I’d like to think that I set a path for others that came after me.

When I was discharged and went home, I felt out of place. I had a new appreciation for the world, nature, and humanity all because of staying true to who I wanted to be even beyond the brainwashing that I endured. That is another story for another time though...

Those years in the ’90s really were a crazy time to come of age. But I wouldn’t change a thing about it. It set me up for life’s later difficulties and triumphs.

It was the brooding time.

Ava Satanis

HBVV

The HellBilly Pulpit Blog by @hellbillyvvitch @thehellbillypulpit