#where other people can see it and engage with it

[writersdrug]

I need, need need neeeeed to know who you would picture bar owner price with 😩 picturing bar owner price has me week in the knees. I need more, how would he be around the bar when he was there? Supporting, bossy,silly? The possibilities are endless. 🥰

I'm loving how people are requesting things for the rest of the 141!!

Bar Owner!Price isn't there every day, and most often not during the actual shift. He's there some mornings, already at his desk on the floor above the pub, setting up the next inventory order and dealing out everyone's tips before Simon climbs down from his flat on the third floor. They both grunt at each other, tired and in need of a hot breakfast and some tea.

He helps set up for the shift - he likes being in the kitchen with Soap. He feels bad the man is back there all by himself, even though he says he doesn't mind it. "I get to cuss 'n bitch all I want back 'ere, sir." Still, Price spends a majority of his time back there with him, prepping burger patties and making sure everything is stocked and ready. Gets on his case about updating the menu, but Soap insists the customers like it the way it is.

Price makes an appearance on the floor every now and then, opting to help run food or bartend on the busier nights. He checks in with the regulars, leaning his forearms on the bar with his sleeves rolled to his elbows, laughing and chatting with them and occasionally offering to refill their drinks. Simon grumbles quietly about him being in the way, but Price doesn't take it to heart.

He doesn't stay late. John isn't that old, but he likes to be back at home by a decent hour. One ruined sleep schedule and he's a shot for the rest of the week. He likes to get back to his flat, make himself a sandwich and pour himself some whiskey, and be on on his sofa and reading his book no later than ten in the evening. Routines have always been a part of his military career, and what can he say? Old habits really fo die hard.

Then you came along.

You didn't just rock Simon's world - you'd gotten Price, too. Though introductions could have been smoother (you nearly beat him with a keg when he came in through the back door and scared you), he's grown fond of you. First, as a hard worker and go-getter; then, as a pretty little waitress with a dazzling smile that likes to keep him on his toes. You love poking fun at him, calling him "bossman" or "barmaster" (doesn't make sense to him, since he's hardly behind the bar - but he finds it cute). You tease him for the way he runs your food, then gets stuck at the table for five minutes just chatting up the customers. You ask him things like, "Who do you prefer, Cardi B or Nicki Minaj?" And laugh when he just stares at you with a furrowed brow. He'll happily let you tease him for being an "old" man just to hear your laughter.

Then Simon sent that photo in the group chat, and Price felt something stir in his chest: looking at you, posing all prettily for your picture, working to push your little idea out there and bring in a crowd. He's impressed, but he's also intrigued. He's got his sights on you, and he's dying to figure out more about his waitress.

"'S the post making any headway?" He asks one night, leaning on the bar next to where you sit. Your tips are finished, money waded into the pocket of your apron as you scroll on your phone, sipping on a screwdriver.

"Kinda..." You mumble, a pout on your face, creasing the skin between your eyebrows. "People are seeing it, and there are a few likes, but no one's really engaging. Not sure if this will do well."

Price hums thoughtfully, looking at your lips while you stare at your screen. He's holding back the urge to lean in and take a whiff of your perfume, afraid it might seem just a bit too strange. "Have you tried promoting it?"

You look at him, laying your phone on the bar top. "Well... I could, but..." You wanted to finish with 'it would cost money'. But then, you'd be insinuating that you expected him to pay you. You could boost the post yourself, but you'd rather not spend money on something that might flop.

"'S there a problem?" Price asked, leaning in closer to you.

"I mean... promoting a post costs some money. Like, for it to be advertised to five hundred people, you'd pay around one fifty. And I think, depending on how far you wanted the post to reach - like, literally, how big of a geographic area - that would cost even more."

Price chuckles. "You do realize how much business you've brought in since you've joined the team, hmm?"

That makes your cheeks warm, pressing your lips into a line to avoid grinning like an idiot at the compliment. "I mean... sure..."

"Go upstairs to the office and get my wallet." he says, standing up from his seat at the bar.

You watch with a stupefied expression as he walks to the POS and prints some blank receipt paper. "You- you mean it? Are you sure?"

He sits on a barstool near the kitchen door. "Wouldn't have said it if I didn't mean it. Hurry up- before I change my mind."

You don't need to be told twice. You drop your phone onto the bar and bolt towards the stairs - you stop yourself, running back to where Price sits and hugging him from behind. He lets out a surprise grunt as you do your best to smother him.

"You're the best boss ever!" you squeal. Then, just like that - you're off to the office upstairs. He preens over the compliment as he hears you leaping two steps at a time.

"Be careful." he calls over his shoulder. He sits there a moment, staring at the paper in front of him. He's surprised he hadn't accidentally thrown you off of him purely out of instinct, but he can't say he isn't absolutely delighted by the hug. It lingers in his mind, his chest still remembering your arms around him. He shakes his head, reaching forward to grab a pen from behind the bar.

His eyes meet Simon's - the man is glaring daggers, his head framed by the window in the kitchen door, mask hanging from his ear. His lips are pulled down into quite possibly the angriest frown Price has ever seen. His nostrils flare as he exhales - Price wonders what sort of insults are flying through the bartender's head right now.

He glares right back. If Simon wants something, he'll give it to him. But he'll make him ask for it, like any normal human being. John isn't going to surrender just because Ghost is huffing and puffing, expecting his boss to back away from you just because he's stomping his foot and looking menacing. But how can he be sure that Simon really wants you, more than he thinks Price deserves you, if the lad won't say anything? It's only reasonable, right?

"If you want something, Simon, say something." Price calls out, never backing down from Simon's jealous gaze.

He huffs again and disappears from the kitchen window. Price can hear shuffling and banging, followed by Soap's irritated voice: "Oi, I got it! Get yourself outta my kitchen n' go your own shite, 'fore you break my stuff."

Price sighs, scribbling down some numbers on the paper in front of him. He'll cave, eventually.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

Hello! Someone genuinely trying to understand and perhaps unlearn some reactionary tendencies. With the response to that anon about "not asking if you're a pro or anti", the response about "imagine if they put this much effort into protecting real kids" definitely got me thinking. So... Is an adult shipping children and finding that hot NEVER a red flag? Or is it case by case on seeing how that person handles the distinction between fiction and reality in other things? And bringing the issue of real kids into it, if a real kid who has been abused sees someone shipping kids and finds that a red flag in that person, that... No, no I juicy answered my own question on that one. Block them and cultivate your own experience.

hi there anon, and congrats on trying to unlearn some things! and great job catching yourself at the end there, that's exactly correct.

I will start by saying this right out of the gate: fundamentally, I do not really give a shit about what made up scenarios about fictional characters people are jorking it to in private. I am, first and foremost, interested in how they are interacting with actual, real people.

"but Makenzie are you saying people who look at sexually explicit images of real human kids should be allowed near children?" no I'm not. please note that I was specifically talking about people engaging with fictional characters who are, you know, not real and do not have feelings and therefore cannot actually be hurt, traumatized, abused, etc, in any way that actually matters. I want to be so clear about this: you can genuinely think whatever vile things you want about fictional characters. you can enjoy any problematic shit you want with little guys who don't actually exist.

like, here's an example I use a lot: I'm kind of a huge Batman fan. don't know if you could tell that or not, I'm pretty subtle about it. if you spend any time in the Batman mythos, you know that this is a story where you just kind of have to take for granted that our hero is a billionaire using his vast wealth to dispatch vigilante justice with military grade weaponry and a small army of child soldiers and cop friends to help him put people in prison. these are moral quandaries that are discussed and acknowledged within the story, but fundamentally the universe is always going to involve billionaire vigilantism and child soldiers and the so-called carceral justice system. that's just the price of admission if you're gonna read Batman.

and like. I spend a lot of time in that world. I love Batman, I love his child soldiers. he's my little blorbo or whatever. but like, at no point have I said "yeah, fuck it, preteens should be learning martial arts to fight domestic terrorists, actually. I think Elon Musk SHOULD be allowed to put on a fursuit and beat up criminals. cops need more funding." no amount of Batman comics can make me believe or act on any of those things because, you know, I'm a person with a brain and I know the difference between "thing that makes a good story" and "thing that should actually happen for real."

and the thing is that genuinely, honestly, if someone thought that it was a red flag that I like Batman, and that enjoying Batman comics was somehow a red flag indicating that I'm fine with violence being done against real, actual children? I would think that person was a nut, if I can be super real. like, I'm thinking about somebody trying to make the case that I shouldn't be allowed to hang out with my nephew because I enjoy the fictional character of Robin so clearly I'm going to kill my nephew's parents in front of him to try to get him into vigilante justice. or if someone attempted to bar me from teaching my 4th-6th grade sex ed classes on the grounds that I was obviously going to teach them to do karate to clowns instead of how their reproductive systems worked.

(although, lets be real, there are a lot of politicians who would MUCH rather let little kids cage fight each other than learn anything about safer sex.)

this doesn't just apply to morally bad things, either, btw. I also read a lot of romance novels, especially hetero romances. and the thing is, not one of those books has made me want to fall in love with a ruggedly handsome but condescending straight man. hell, none of them have made me want to fall in love with anybody, period. that's not really something I'm interested in for myself, it's just a fun and frequently funny dynamic to explore. I'm hardly the first queer person to point out that the allegations that queer media "turns kids gay/trans" is obviously bullshit since the vertible mountain of cishet media evidently failed to turn any of us straight/cis, you know?

my point being: no, I genuinely don't think it's often, if ever, reasonable to judge someone's actual, real life morals by how they interact with fiction.

I'm going to say something so vulnerable right now, because we're in a safe space here: since you asked me this very reasonable question, you evidently value my judgment and perspective at least a little bit. and I once read and thoroughly enjoyed a fic in which Dr. Horrible, from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, gets fucked by a sapient evil horse. and I don't think that makes me a morally reprehensible person, or a person who advocates for real human beings having real sex with real horses. I think it just makes me kind of a weirdo with a bullshit tolerance.

if you want to hear a MUCH more thorough take on this, complete with addressing the issue of shipping fictional children, I cannot recommend Princess Weekes' video essay enough:

[intervex]

Can I get a flag for crip? Like crip theory crip. In a pan-disability sense. I don't have any particular iconography in mind, only that it shouldn't give a vibe that this is exclusive to physical disabilities. If you can link it in some way to the Mad & Deaf pride flags that'd be nice.

Thank you!

Crip Pride Flag

This is a flag for crips and those who feel represented by/part of crip theory, crip pride, and/or general cripness. [SVG version on WC]

Crip is a term that is open to people with ALL disabilities (physical or otherwise) and also to groups who share the crip mindset. (Note different spelling from cripple.)

For folks who like details: I'm gonna explain what crip is for those who may be new to the term! Then I'll talk about the flag design how the different stripes represent different models of disability. 💜

What is even is crip?

Like how "queer" is to LGBT+, "crip" is to disabled. It's an umbrella term, a way of seeing the world. Activist reclamation of "crip" goes back to the 1970s, with disabled performance artists popularizing the term in the 1990s.

Crip theory began in the early 2000s by building on queer theory. Expanding on your [QCI's] recent post, its characteristics are:

Understanding disability as socially constructed.

Fuck capitalism: the social construction of disability as we understand it was a result of the development of capitalism.

Fuck eugenics: Ableism and racism have been entwined for hundreds of years and cannot be understood in isolation.

Fuck colonialism: which is itself debilitating. Violence disables people, and Global South activists have been clear it's important to talk about how war, landmines, etc are disabling.

Disabled people are creative. Where queer-ing refers to a way of being critical of categories, cripping tends to focus on subverting ideas of ability. Disabled people ARE the original makers/hackers.

Disabled people are experts: we know shit. It is *us* who should be the epistemic authorities on disability, *not* physicians.

Crip as a term is open to anybody experiencing the violence of eugenic thought, regardless of identification as "disabled".

Fat studies scholars have been locating themselves as within crip theory since day one. Similarly, reading Cripping Intersex by Orr has made clear to me that intersex has always been crip.

Again, drawing a parallel to queer & LGBT: kink and polyamory may not be LGBT but they are Queer. 🌈

Flag details

The design is based on @capricorn-0mnikorn's Disability Pride Flag. In line with newer meanings for the Disability Pride flag, the stripes represent different models of disability associated with crip theory:

Purple represents the social construction of disability and the influence of queer theory. #82609b is from the Mad Pride flag.

Red represents postcolonial understandings of disability such as debility. Understanding that which chronic illnesses receive care and research is *political*. The choice of #CF7280 is a nod to the AIDS flag. I took the red from the disability pride flag and shifted the hue (but not chroma & lightness) to that of the AIDS flag.

Yellow represents the affirmative and identity models of disability. The opposite of the tragedy model. Many disabilities can actually be beneficial! The choice of #f4db75 is a nod to the intersex flag.

White represents how crip pride and crip theory are pan-disability. It stands for models of disabilities not otherwise represented here. The #E8E8E8 white is also a nod to the neurodiversity flag.

Blue represents the social model of disability, the intellectual progenitor of the social construction model (and crip theory in turn). The choice of #83bfe5 is a nod to the Deaf flag.

Green represents eco-crip theory, the eco-social model of disability, and other crip engagements with environmentalism. The choice of #48af75 is a nod to the nonhuman flag. Because being a cyborg (alterhuman) is a proud tradition of crip theory.

The repetition of purple serves to show crip pride & theory exist within a social construction framework. Also it widens the amount of the flag which is stripes, reflecting how crip includes groups not consistently understood as disabled (e.g. fat, intersex).

As with the disability pride flag, the dark grey (#595959) represents the lives lost to ableism and our collective grief.

Tagging @radiomogai @mad-pride @liom-archive for archival. And I wanna acknowledge @scifimagpie for giving me feedback on dozens of prototypes. 💛

Finally: I release this flag design as public domain! 💜

[leviathan-supersystem]

Its very strange to me to call yourself a panopticon apologist immediately after rbing a post about how lolcows are bad. These are the same thing. The panopticon isn't just living among other people who can also see you, it is surveilance and terror by a party with power over you that is predisposed to hostility.

i mean ultimately it comes back to what i said here:

so for example, the idea of taking pictures of people in public and posting them online, i agree that there should be social conventions discouraging that behavior- but inevitably these social conventions are enforced through similar "panopticon" style social systems- that when someone sees someone posting a creepshot online, the observers collectively disincentivize that behavior, tell them "dude don't take pictures of random people in public and post them online to talk shit about them you dick" etc.

similar principles apply with lolcow forums as with taking creepshots and posting them to mock people, both of which are malignant panopticonic systems which have significant parallels and overlaps.

similarly, if you want to stop people from engaging in lolcow forums style bullying, you have to:

A: observe them engaging in this behavior, and then B exert power over them, in order to C: disincentivize their behavior. perhaps even terrorize them a little, if necessary to stop the bullying behavior.

i don't know where you're getting "predisposed to hostility" as a necessary component for it to qualify as a panopticonic system- searching "foucault 'predisposed to hostility'" brings up very few results, which leads me to believe you invented that out of whole cloth to play no true scotsman games- but even if we assume this were true, certainly in order to stifle that sort of lolcow forum style bullying you would certainly need to be predisposed to hostility towards that sort of bullying behavior and the people who engage in it.

ultimately, the only way to stop a bad guy with a panopticon is a good guy with a panopticon, and what we see from people who subscribe to the oversimplified foucaultian "panopticon bad" framework is that ultimately they still engage in panopticonic behaviors but go "oh well it's not a panopticon when WE do it." as apas-95 pointed out on a post i reblogged and yet somehow can't seem to track down (sorry)( @apas-95 please help if you can) the whole anti-callout trend recently on tumblr was being pushed by people who were presenting themselves as anti-callout while, at the exact same time, making callout posts, sometimes even making posts like "guys block this person, they make callouts"- that's a callout! like it's the same social mechanisms, even if you argue that it's being applied in a more beneficial way it's still operating on the same kind of panopticonic social mechanisms.

(also a big part of the whole concept of the panopticon is that the prisoners also surveil, or more accurately sousveil, each other, so the part you said about "a party with power over you" isn't really necessarily inherent to the panopticon concept either)

[literatureloverx]

One of the things I find curious about Fyodor is that in the latest bsd guidebook, he describes himself as the color white like his hometown's snow. Fyodor still remembers his hometown, after all he's gone through and after all this time. And he describes himself as the color white like its snow. That with his character's disconnect from people, makes me very excited for when Asagiri decides to reveal his character's backstory. Of course he probably means snow in a more way of "purity" than sentimentalism for his hometown itself but omg he mentions his hometown which is something enough. Not "like snow" which would convey purity enough but "like the snow from my hometown". Maybe it's because he found his faith there? Maybe he just wants to pay respect to where he was birthed? Idk but there's much to theorize. What are your thoughts?

-🎪 anon

I agree, 🎪-anon!♥️

I don’t know if it’s because he found his faith there, but I think that is very likely and seems reasonable.

However, I also believe he was born into a religious family to begin with. I’ve thought through other aspects as well. Let me break it down for you:

Purity and Fyodor’s inner moral code:

Fyodor describing himself as the color white, especially like the snow from his hometown, speaks volumes. It hints at his complex inner moral code—he engages in dark actions under the belief that they serve a greater good.

This idea of “purity” contrasts sharply with his behavior. But does it?

In my humble opinion, he is well aware that what he does is evil, but his inner moral depiction is influenced by Machiavellian tendencies.

He does whatever he needs to do to cleanse humanity of their sins. Therefore, his actions reflect Machiavellian principles.

In short: the ends justify the means (The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli).

I’m imagining it like this: God has given him the enormous power of being immortal—never truly able to die.

God also gifted him with an intelligence that is above any other human being.

This means he must be someone important.

This means he is meant to be the rightful hand of God, tasked with creating a world that is worthy of God’s beauty.

Therefore, he wishes to help God’s creations, cleansing them and this sinful world of all their sins.

This is one reason why he says that he likes all humanity equally. Because he really does.

They are all the same to him—fools who could do better. Fools that could be worthy of God’s perfect world.

What fascinates me the most about him is that, even though he is doing all of this out of pure self-assurance and his own complex inner moral compass, he still claims that he is doing it for the whole world. And I believe he does.

I can totally see this being his ultimate end in the future.

His Hometown and it’s significance for him:

By referencing his hometown, he reveals a more humane side to himself.

If you haven't already, l'd recommend you read THIS and THIS posts of mine, where I explained very clearly how I perceive Fyodor's humane side.

It shows that he yearns for connection and perhaps misses the simplicity and innocence of his past.

This duality makes him such a fascinating character, caught between his dark pursuits and the remnants of his humanity.

Imagine feeling like, or even knowing that you're "the chosen one," only to end up isolated, dehumanized, and lonely, with nothing to hold onto but your belief in your God.

You can't die, because the only way for you to do so is by your own hands, which is considered the greatest sin.

You can't die. Not until you take your own life.

How deep must his religious beliefs run for him to be this dedicated to his goal, mentally able to endure and live for hundreds, maybe thousands of years?

This made me so emotional. I want to give him a hug. My precious love.♥️

[aihoshiino]

Chp 160 was so??????? that I am straight up unable to form an opinion on it.

Like I can see the story going one of two ways. 'Kamiki is the evil mastermind actually he faked his reaction to the dvd' or 'Kamiki is playing the villian but is actually not the culprit'

And like both directions have massive problems.

The former would mean that the movie (which we spent nearly 40 chapters on) amounted to fucking nothing. Other characters ominous talking about Aqua trying to kill his father with it? Ruby's so called revenge arc? Nah, that meant nothing, the movie didn't do a damn thing.

And while I prefer the latter interpretation as it's the tonally and thematically consistent way, it would also mean that Akasaka has been circle-jerking us with the 'Kamiki is an evil serial killer.' -> 'No wait actually he isn't.' -> 'SIKE, HE IS EVIL.' -> 'Nvm he isn't.' for some inconceivable reason.

It's a mess no matter how you slice it, honestly I am so tired of oshi no ko and I just want it to be over already.

YEAH. THAT'S BASICALLY WHERE I'M AT.

In general, I just don't know why we're having a second confrontation with Kamiki. Narratively and emotionally, it's redundant - having him come back into the story and get his final resolution would be fine but playing out Yet Another Big Dramatic Showdown between him and Aqua just falls so flat for a number of reasons. We've already had the huge release of tension that was Aqua and Kamiki facing off like nearly an entire volume ago and everything that was emotionally riding on that confrontation was emotionally resolved. I know some people are still mad that Aqua didn't hit Kamiki with an orbital laser or something, but the absolute fucking gutpunch that was 153-154 was so incredibly effective and also just more interesting than this much more generic standoff. Not only is it kind of mid on its own merits but I feel like it retroactively makes that first confrontation weaker because like... it ends up not really mattering and we get a take 2 where Kamiki is acting like an entirely different character.

@yuseirra made an excellent point in their discussion of ch159 which is that (thematically speaking) the movie has to be the method by which Aqua achieves his revenge because Ai's tragedy was the result of the public's perception of her. If it isn't able to do that then not only was that arc just kind of a waste of everyone's time, reader and character alike, but it means the movie itself as an object in the narrative loses what little shaky thematic ground it has.

An issue the Movie Arc always had that it never really engaged with to my satisfaction is the underlying discomfort of watching Ai's life being turned into a movie. I said this over and over as the arc was ongoing, but there's something almost repulsive about taking this character whose life was warped and eventually ended up the exploitation of the entertainment industry and the voyeristic gaze of the public and indulging in that voyerism by creating fiction out of her life, chopping it up and outright making shit up to invent a version of her that the public can devour. It claims to be a movie about 'Ai Hoshino' but literally and explicitly fictionalizes the most pivotal events and relationships in her life - the 'Ai' of 15 Year Lie is just as fake as 'Ai of B-Komachi', just sold with an even more insidious lie to make her go down a little sweeter.

If the manga actually engaged with this idea or was even the slightest bit aware of this underlying discomfort, the Movie Arc as a whole would've been much better off for it and so would all the resolutions in the arcs following that rely on it as foundation. But as it stands, the movie is thematically dead on arrival and the fantastic emotional resolutions we got out of it, in spite of everything, have been seemingly retconned into irrelevance.

[leprosycock]

what’s really cool and awesome and normal is how in spite of artists’ best efforts to offer art to the general public, to people who don’t have art education and aren’t immersed in a particular sect of any given genre or culture, putting their work in low-cost or free galleries or airports or the sides of buildings or in parks or in malls or in outdoor shopping squares or in any public area where their projects can be viewed, people still reject the notion of art as a whole because they consider it entirely secondary to everything valuable in a person’s life. you can’t tell someone you’re an art major without seeing that inherent condescension or repulsion or confusion crossing someone’s face if they haven’t bothered to engage with art on a personal level before. it’s always considered an afterthought and never anything vital to the world we all live in and how art exists in genuinely and literally every single fucking facet of our lives. if you tell someone you understand art and can engage with it on a professional level, you’re considered pretentious and self-aggrandizing/obsessed and stuck-up and snotty and impossible to talk to. if you look down on extremely milquetoast and uninteresting and surface-level pieces of art, like very bad generic music with poor and uninspired poetry or extremely literal portraiture or ai art, you’re a gatekeeper and, again, pretentious and snotty. you are not permitted to engage with your passions outside of fellow artists because the “my kid/little sibling/niece/nephew/a five year old could do that” mindset is so pervasive and unless something is extremely easy to swallow and exceedingly literal, people will not accept it as Real Art because they refuse to understand its history, context, the artist’s technical skill and education, and WHY it exists. this also definitely pivots to subject matter and how only certain kinds are permitted and allowed by many, many others. sure, you as a self-obsessed millennial woman can engage with a coffee table book full of Powerful Feminist Quotes about how your ex-boyfriend wouldn’t go see “it ends with us” with you in theaters and your grandpa made a joke about periods once, but if you’re forced to engage with abstraction or an artist who happens to say a slur or the amount of precision and planning and dedication and adoration that goes into performing 4d design that discusses subject matter that YOU don’t like, you’ll shrivel like a fucking leaf and retreat back to what makes you comfortable. i hate it i hate anti-art and i hate being stuck in anti-art worlds

[ladykailitha]

A Love Connection Part 1

In a very special engagement (as in a don't normally post 5 days a week), I introduce "A Love Connection"!

If the premise looks familiar the original idea is from here, where a couple of people in the notes or tags said they'd love to try it. And after a year, I figured I'd try my own hand at the idea.

This will update on Tuesdays at 10am and 10pm EST. With hopefully eight chapters.

Summary: Steve has tried everything under the sun to find someone to truly connect with, so he gives up after a particularly horrible date. Then Chrissy introduces him to her favorite game show "Love Connection". When Chrissy and Robin apply for him, they don't think they'll except him, but he does. His suitors are Billy Hargrove, Tommy Hagan, and Eddie Munson. Will Steve crash and burn again or will his connection be there waiting for him?

~

Look, to say Steve’s love life was a disaster would be unfair. That would be underselling it. It was a fucking catastrophe. He had gone to bars, joined hobby groups, used all the apps, even Grindr; though that was mostly for hookups, which sucked. But that was the nature of the beast if he was honest.

And the beast had completely devoured him. All his dates were either only interested the casual, cheated on him, or wanted one-night stands. Which Steve absolutely did not want. He wanted connection. Intimacy.

“I absolutely give up,” he whined to Robin, after the last date tried to slip out in the middle of the night, knocked over their lamp into their goldfish bowl, killing the goldfish, then he tried to hide the evidence by dumping it down the garbage disposal and turning it on! Lied about it, then stole their last beer as “compensation for his trauma’ and told Steve to never call him again.

“Look, Ryan wasn’t the best guy,” Robin replied with a grimace. “He liked Oasis and Tool unironically. Always a red flag.”

Steve snorted. Robin was a music snob most days, but she wasn’t wrong about that. Ryan and he had been dancing around and with each other for weeks before they finally got so hot and heavy that they went back to Steve’s for sex.

“It’s not fair,” he huffed. “You went to that bar and you a hottie girlfriend and I went to that bar and fucked a fish killer! I loved Garfield! He lived for five years before that bastard mercilessly murdered him. That’s long than my last ten relationships combined!”

Robin winced. “Ooh... I’m going to have to call Chrissy and let her know we can’t go back to that gay bar again.”

“Oh he’s so dead now!” Steve ranted. “Not only is he fish killer, he has driven us from our favorite bar!”

“Let me order us some take out,” Robin said standing up, “then I’ll call Chrissy over and we’ll all cry over Ciarán Hinds and Amanda Root falling in love.”

Steve sniffed away a couple of tears and nodded. “Then can we have a funeral for Garfield?”

Robin tilted her head and smiled sadly. “Of course we can. It’s a Sunday so none of us have work. We can watch as many weepy romance movies as you want, okay?”

“Okay,” Steve croaked. She gave him a big hug and kissed his cheek. He watched her wander into the kitchen to see what leftovers they had in the fridge so they could order from somewhere else. He loved her so much.

~

Sometime in the afternoon when they were more than a little tipsy, Chrissy commandeered the remote and turned on her favorite game show.

“Love Connection”

“Noooo...” Steve whined, burying his head into a throw pillow. It was Garfield shaped. It was what inspired the naming of the valiant fish. “This is the last thing I want to see. It’s so fake. No one gets together on these things. It’s so cheesy.”

“Exactly!” Chrissy crowed. “That’s why it’s perfect, we get to make fun of them!”

Steve thought that the only good part of the show was the second half. The first half was split into three different rounds. The first round was each suitor answer the one question, for a total of fifteen and then the catch would rank them, best got three points, second two, and third only one.

Then in the second round there were a set of rapid fire either or questions that the catch would yell out and the suitors would write down their answers. If their answer matched the catch’s they would get a tally. Whoever had the most tallies would win five points. Then three points to second place and one to the last place.

Then in the final round, each suitor would be asked separate questions and the catch would rate their answer one through three and that’s how many points they would get. Then at the end of the round all the points would be tallied up and the two highest would move on to the next round.

To the part that Steve actually liked. The first question always asked was “what would you do for a first date?” And the suitors got to take the catch out for the date and then afterward for drinks, the two dates would ask the catch some of the questions he asked them. Then the catch would pick the one they connected to the best.

It was all the stupid questions that bothered Steve. That was the fun part of dating, having these conversations and learning about them as you go. But then maybe that’s what Steve’s problem was, is that the people he dated didn’t care about these types of conversations.

“Why would you say you hate sports,” Steve huffed, waving his hand at the screen, “when the guy is a major soccer fan? Like did she think that she was going to put a stop to him enjoying it after starting dating?”

“Ooh yeah,” Chrissy agreed. “Just pick a different catch.”

Robin turned to her and tilted her head. “Do they get to chose their catch? I thought it was all random.”

Chrissy paused the show and pulled out her phone and the Wikipedia article. “Okay, it says here that people can apply to be suitors,” she waved at the row of women in the three booths. “Or catches.” She indicated the guy with her hand. “If they’re chosen to be a suitor then they are given a list of catches, headshot included. Then they rank vote them, so if four people pick Henry, then one will be on their second rank vote. And that part is randomized. According to them, anyway.”

Steve snorted. He highly doubted anything was randomized or voted on. They went for the biggest drama and everyone knew it.

“How long has this show been going on?” he huffed. “Like please tell it’s new and shiny and that’s why people like it.”

Robin snorted and shook her head. “Sorry, babe. But this is season twelve.”

“Oohh...” Chrissy said. “We need to show him the season six finale. That was hella juicy!”

So despite Steve’s protests, Chrissy pulled it up on her streaming services even though they hadn’t even finished the episode they were on.

When the credits rolled, Steve stared at the screen in utter shock. “What the honest fuck was that?”

Two of the three guys got into an all out brawl when the one guy had scored the lowest and felt that the second place suitor cheated. Not first place, second. Both guys were arrested and hauled off the set.

“It came out later Sven was right,” Robin said. “Elliot cheated. His cousin was an ex of the catch so he went in knowing a lot about Stella. The things he got wrong were things that had changed since she was dating his cousin.”

Chrissy nodded. “That’s why the have partitions up between the suitors now and why they have vigorous screening now. The show was almost canceled.”

“So why wasn’t it?” Steve asked honestly. “That was a shit show, if I was Stella I would have sued them into oblivion.”

Robin squirmed uncomfortably in her seat. “She did, but they settled out of court.”

“Basically,” Chrissy said, pouring them more wine and handing the first glass to Steve, “she wanted them to completely overhaul the system. She didn’t want it off the air, she wanted it safer for future participants.”

“The more the fool them,” Steve huffed. He took a long sip of his wine. “All right, fine. Let’s start at the beginning.”

Robin and Chrissy cheered and they all huddled up together on the sofa to watch this absolute train wreck of a show.

They were about half way through the third season and twice as drunk when Steve slurred, “Why are there no gay peemles in this? It’s a trav–trad–tramajesty.”

“Travesty!” Robin slurred back, her language skills always being the last to go when she’s three sheets to the wind. “And you are absolutely right! This is homophobic!”

Chrissy nodded solemnly and pulled out her phone. “I’mma show them...” she muttered with her tongue sticking out. “At loveconnectionUSA Need more gays, hashtag loveconnection hashtag need more gays.”

It wasn’t long after that that the three of them passed out on the sofa, empty bottles all around them and a message on the screen asking if they’re still watching.

~

There was a loud beeping noise and it absolutely was hurting his head. He reached over to where his phone was usually plugged in on his nightstand, but his hand went straight through it. He waved his arm all over the place but still his nightstand eluded him.

He peaked open one eye but his vision was obscured by a mass of blonde hair. He tried to push it out of the way but it kept falling back into his face. Finally he pushed Robin off him and onto the floor with a thud.

“Hey!” she yelped.

Steve peered over the edge of the sofa with a look of confusion. “Why are you on the floor?” he muttered over the still beeping of his alarm.

“Stop!” he mumbled and somehow, blissfully it did.

“I’m on the floor because you pushed me there,” Robin huffed, getting to her feet. She did a sniff test and grimaced when she completely failed. “God... how much did we drink yesterday?”

Chrissy struggled to sit up and blinked at her girlfriend groggily. “Not enough if I feel like this.”

Steve rolled over and looked at them both in confusion, then the events of Saturday and all day Sunday came flooding back in.

“Oh fuck...” he muttered, sitting up himself and rubbing his face. One eye was blurry from where his contact had shifted in the night. He wasn’t even sure why he had them on. Probably from sheer force of habit.

He got up and stumbled toward the bathroom where he emptied his stomach of all its boozy contents. He really didn’t remember them eating after breakfast, only a steady stream of harder and harder liquor.

While his was puking his guts out, Chrissy and Robin stole the shower. Thankfully only taking the time they needed to get the gross feeling of being hungover off their skin.

Then Steve closed his eyes as they exited the shower and snuck into Robin’s room to get ready for work. They all worked at Hawkins Middle School, where Steve was a history teacher who coached swimming and basketball. Chrissy was a health teacher and advisor for cheerleading. And Robin was the language teacher. The principal snatched her up because she could teach French, Spanish, and Italian, with her only needing to hire a German teacher.

Steve got his shower and then opted for glasses instead of his contacts, not trusting his shaky hands not poke out his eye or some shit.

They all were mostly human once they got coffee, painkillers, and cereal in them, the three of them, no doubt looking like escaped extras from a zombie flick. They moved as one, gathering up their stuff and shuffling out to Steve’s car. Chrissy sat in the back, Robin riding shotgun.

Chrissy opened her phone to check to see if she had any messages. “Holy shit!”

~

Look I'd be sorry about the cliffhanger, but you're only waiting 12 hours for it, soooo...

Have fun!

Tag List: TEN SLOTS OPEN

1-@mira-jadeamethyst @rozzieroos @itsall-taken @redfreckledwolf @zerokrox-blog

2- @gregre369 ​@a-little-unsteddie @chaosgremlinmunson @messrs-weasley @cryptid-system

3- @maya-custodios-dionach @goodolefashionedloverboi @val-from-lawrence @carlyv @wonderland-girl143-blog

4- @justforthedead89 @irregular-child @bookbinderbitch @bookworm0690 @forgottenkanji

5- @anne-bennett-cosplayer @yikes-a-bee @awkwardgravity1 @littlewildflowerkitten @genderless-spoon

6- @dragonmama76 @ellietheasexylibrarian @thedragonsaunt @useless-nb-bisexual @disrespectedgoatman

7- @counting-dollars-counting-stars @tinyplanet95 @ravenfrog @swimmingbirdrunningrock @lingeringmirth

8- @gutterflower77 @a-lovely-craziness @just-a-tiny-void @w1ll0wtr33 @beelze-the-bubkiss

[dearweirdme]

https://www.tumblr.com/dearweirdme/760787222147547136/httpswwwtumblrcomdearweirdme7606164166353879?source=share

Hi, Korean American anon here so I'm familiar with shipping culture in South Korea (though I don't think what I'm about to say is exclusive to South Korean culture)

I'm catching up but OP is very right about the strange contradiction and it's usually that some shippers feel safe shipping m/m relationships because at heart, they don't believe that their idols can be homosexual/bisexual. Their idols are perfect and, in their opinion, anything outside of heterosexuality is flawed and abnormal...so it's a low risk form of denial over the fact that they might have to one day deal with seeing their faves in a hetero relationship.

So shipping them with a male or group member is a safer way of exploring that fantasy romantic side of their idol, seeing how cute they can be, what they'd look like as their boyfriend etc without any of the risk of having to face their idol being in a real relationship (which according to them is a hetero one) because their homophobia (concious or subconcious) won't allow them to really consider the possibility that their fave might be gay or bi and they also know that companies and artists themselves might be less willing to expose same sex relationships.

So TLDR; it's a low risk deniability and form of mental escapism from facing the reality that they nightshade to watch their idol go through a relationship.

Now in Korea, its the same thing but with a little bit of an added element to it....because fans know that Korean entertainment companies and artists are far more indulgent than western counterparts when it comes to pleasong fans and delivering what they want and protecting them from having to acknowledge that their idols are human beings with their own lives. So with Korean idols and fans, there's also an element of control.

They know that if they ship group members or idols together, companies will often jump on it and use it to foster the parasocial element that is heightend and more greatly exploited in KPOP. That means idols and companies will go to far greater lengths to hide their real relationships and so fans won't have to be exposed to something they don't want to see or acknowledge.

They can make their faves dance to the beat of their drum by shipping them with each other because they genuinely don't believe anything will ever come of it

And the fact is that these fans would react the same way if their idol dated opposite or sex---because shipping them with the same sex is their way of essentially shipping them with nobody (if that makes sense)

Now obviously, I 'ship' Tàekook or I wouldn't be here but it's the fact that Hybe not only haven't exploited their biggest ship for fan engagement and fan interaction but seem to have gone to lengths to cover it that makes me more suspicious as to the reality of it.

But ultimately, homophobics shipping their m/m faves is really just them trying to exert whatever control they can while also holding a belief that they'll never have to face the reality of their ship coming to life.

Hi Korean-American anon!

So good to see you around! As always thanks for your input!

You're responding to this ask:

One of the reason's why I always found the explanation of less Taekook focus from BH being because Tae and Jk weren't close anymore such nonsense, is because it makes no sense from a business perspective. BH could literally make them do content together because people enjoyed it so much. Taekook is the biggest ship, has been for years.. and yet they make none to little use of it.

I've read people (the other side) say Tae and Jk are less interesting to watch... freaking bs.. which is basically proven by AYS where all Jm and Jk do is just eat and talk about how much they love to eat. Tae and Jk are also hilarious, cute, and comforting together. I grant everyone that an AYS from Jk and Tae would gather the same attention as AYS from Jk and Jm.

[leonstamatis]

like not to be that guy but if you do want to let the people producing blaseball: the card game know that you would like to see credit given where it is due, to the artists who created these designs and made blaseball what it is today, wayfinder has both a contact form and a general email listed as info@wayfinder-games.com. they also have a twitter and a facebook listed on the card game’s website.

i know this is something that has been brought up before in the blb fandom in some capacity or another since the card game was announced, but given nothing has been done on the production end to fix the issue, it seems like we have to keep bringing it up again and again. so. here are some places to do that.

[starry-bi-sky]

I am loudly pushing the batdad agenda i am loudly pushing the— DPxDC Prompt

“Woah. You look like shit."

Granted, that’s probably not the first thing Danny should be saying to the guy that just bit the curb, but in his defense; he’s not running on 100% right now either.

The man -- tall, towering, and broader than Danny is tall -- whips around on his heel, black frayed cape flaring out impressively. Danny would've whistled in appreciation, but he takes the time instead to wipe the back of his hand across his mouth, smearing the blood running from his nose across his cheek.

"Sorry." He blinks widely, not even flinching as the man with the horns zeroes in on him. "That was rude of me. I have a really bad brain-to-mouth filter; Sam says its what always gets me into trouble."

And she's not wrong either, per say. His smart mouth is what landed him in this situation -- with blood blossom extract running through his veins and cannibalizing the ectoplasm in his bloodstream. Thanks Vlad.

The man grunts at him; a short, curt "hm" that shouldn't make Danny smile, but he does because he's somewhat delirious and probably concussed. The man keeps some kind of distance, sinking towards the shadows of Gotham's alleyway like he dares to melt right into it.

If it's supposed to scare Danny, it doesn't work. Danny's never been afraid of the dark; he's always been able to hide himself in it. He blinks slowly at the mass of shadows.

"You look hurt." The shadows says, blurring together around the edges. Danny squints, and licks his lips to get the blood dripping down his chin off. Ugh, he hates the taste of blood.

"I am." He says, "My godfather poisoned me. M'dying." The agony of the blood blossom eating him from the inside out looped back around to numbing a while ago, so all he feels is half-awake and dazed.

"Hey," Danny stumbles forward towards the man, a bloodied hand reaching out to him. "You-- you're a hero, right? You're not attacking me; which is more than I can say for most costumed people I've met." Maybe it's a poor bar to judge someone at, but he's already established that Danny's not in his right mind.

The man makes no change in expression, but Danny realizes blearily that it's hard to tell with the shadows on his face. He stays still long enough for Danny to latch onto the cape -- stretchy, but almost soft under his fingers.

He looks up blearily into the whites of the man's eyes. "Can you help me? I don't-- I don't wanna die." Again. He doesn't wanna die again. He blinks slow and lizard-like. "I mean- I'll probably get to see mom and dad again, but I told them I'd at least try and make it to adulthood."

There's a clatter down the street, and Danny's ghost sense chills up his spine and leaves a bitter, ashy taste in his mouth. He immediately knows who it belongs to even before the deceptively gentle; "Daniel?" echoes down the way.

"Daniel? Quit your games, badger, Gotham is dangerous for children."

Danny's mouth pulls back, and blood spills against his tongue. "Please." He rasps, and grabs onto the shadow's cape with both hands. "Please. He's going to kill me. Please--"

"Daniel? Is that you?"

His lips part, dragging in air to plead with the darkness again. He doesn't need to, the whites of his eyes narrow, and the cape whirls around him before Danny can blink. Soon swaddled in shadows, the Night lifts him up, and steals him away.

[puppyeared]

i feel like im not making any sense but does anyone else feel like there are stories that let u run with them and ones that spell everything out for you

[i-dreamed-i-had-a-son]

Broke (2016): BBC Sherlock is a phenomenal piece of media and anything that seems like a flaw just hasn't been fully explored yet

Woke (2020): BBC Sherlock is an incredibly flawed series run by an egotistical writer, it never deserved the hype and is actively bad on so many fronts (especially representation)

Bespoke (2024): BBC Sherlock is flawed and bogged down by increasingly poor writing, which many fans refused to see while it was airing, leading to hugely misplaced expectations (particularly for the final series), AND it has the seeds of some compelling characterizations and portrayals, some genuinely solid performances, and touches--albeit imperfectly--on complexities that are still being discussed today (particularly as it relates to the relationship between Sherlock and John). The huge cultural impact of the show has created a massive pendulum effect in its public perception, leading to most people today remembering a caricature of the show (whether positive or negative) rather than appreciating its nuanced merits and failings...that being said Season 4 sucked

[demigod-of-the-agni]

Spider-Man India, but... where from India?

A SUPER long post featuring talks of: cultural identity, characterisation, the caste system, and what makes Spider-Man Spider-Man.

I’m prefacing this by saying that I am a second-generation immigrant. I was born in Australia, but my cultural background is from South India. My experiences with what it means to be “Indian” is going to be very different from the experiences of those who are born and brought up in India.

If you, reader, want to add anything, please reblog and add your thoughts. This is meant to be a post open for discussion — the more interaction we get, the better we become aware of these nuances.

So I made this poll asking folks to pick a region of India where I would draw Pavitr Prabhakar in their cultural wear. This idea had been on my mind for a long while now, as I had been inspired by Annie Hazarika’s Northeastern Spidey artwork in the wake of ATSV’s release, but never got the time to actually do it until now. I wanted to get a little interactive and made the poll so I could have people choose which of the different regions — North, Northeast, Central, East, West, South — to do first.

The outcome was not what I expected. As you can see, out of 83 votes:

THE RESULTS

South India takes up almost half of all votes (44.6%), followed by Northeast and Central (both 14.5%) and then East (13.3%). In all my life growing up, support towards or even just the awareness of South India was pretty low. Despite this being a very contained poll, why would nearly half of all voters pick South India in favour of other popular choices like Central or North India?

Then I thought about the layout of the poll: Title, Options, Context.

Title: "Tell us who you want to see…"

Options: North, Northeast, Central, East, West, South

Context: I want to make art of the boy again

At first I thought: ah geez. this is my fault. I didn't make the poll clear enough. do they think I want them to figure out where Pavitr came from? That's not what I wanted, maybe I should have added the context before the options.

Then I thought: ah geez. is it my fault for people not reading the entire damn thing before clicking a button? That's pretty stupid.

But regardless, the thought did prompt a line of thinking I know many of us desi folk have been considering since Spider-Man India was first conceived — or, at least, since the announcement that he was going to appear in ATSV. Hell, even I thought of it:

Where did Spider-Man India come from?

FROM A CULTURALLY DIVERSE INDIA

As we know, India is so culturally diverse, and no doubt ATSV creators had to take that into account. Because the ORIGINAL Spider-Man India came from Mumbai — most likely because Mumbai and Manhattan both started with the same letter.

But going beyond that, it’s also because Mumbai is one of the most recognisable cities in India - it’s also known as Bombay. It’s where Bollywood films are shot. It’s where superstar Hindi actors and actresses show up. Mumbai is synonymous with India in that regard, because the easiest way Western countries can interact with Indian culture is through BOLLYWOOD, through HINDI FILMS, through MUMBAI. Suddenly, India is Mumbai, India is a Hindi-only country, India is just this isolated thing we see through an infinitely narrow lens.

We’ve gotten a little better in recent years, but boy I will tell you how uncomfortable I’ve gotten when people (yes, even desi people) come up to me and tell me, Oh, you’re Indian right? Can you speak Hindi? Why don’t you speak Hindi? You’re not Indian if you don’t speak Hindi, that’s India’s national language!

I have been — still am — so afraid of telling people that I don’t speak Hindi, that I’m Tamil, that I don’t care that Hindi is India’s “national” language (it’s an administrative language, Kavin, get your fucking facts right). It’s weird, it’s isolating, and it has made me feel like I wasn’t “Indian” enough to be accepted into the group of “Indian” people.

So I am thankful that ATSV went out of their way to integrate as much variety of Indian culture into the Mumbattan sequence. Maybe that way, the younger generation of desi folk won’t feel so isolated, and that younger Western people will be more open to learning about all these cultural differences within such a vast country.

BUT WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH SPIDER-MAN INDIA?

Everything, actually. There’s a thing called supremacy. You might have heard of it. We all engaged with it at some point, and if you are Indian, no matter where you live, it is inescapable.

It happens the moment you are born — who your family is, where you are born, the language you speak, the colour of your skin; these will be bound to you for life, and it is nigh impossible to break down the stereotypes associated with them.

Certain ethnic groups will be more favourable than others (Centrals, and thus their cultures, will always be favoured over than Souths, as an example) and the same can be said for social groups (Brahmins are more likely to secure influential roles in politics or other areas like priesthood, while the lowers castes, especially Dalits, aren’t even given the decency of respect). Don’t even get me started on colourism, where obviously those of fairer skin will win the lottery while those of darker skin aren’t given the time of day. It’s even worse when morality ties into it — “lighter skinned Indians, like Brahmins, embody good qualities like justice and wisdom”, “dark skinned Indians are cunning and poor, they are untrustworthy”. It’s fucking nuts.

This means, of course, you have a billion people trying to make themselves heard in a system that tries to crush everyone who is not privileged. It only makes sense that people want to elevate themselves and break free from a society that refuses to acknowledge them. These frustrations manifest outwardly, like in protests, but other times — most times — it goes unheard, quietly shaping your way of life, your way of thinking. It becomes a fundamental part of you, and it can go unacknowledged for generations.

So when you have a character like Pavitr Prabhakar enter the scene, people immediately latch onto him and start asking questions many Western audiences don’t even consider. Who is he? What food does he eat? What does he do on Fridays? What’s his family like, his community? All these questions pop up, because, amidst all this turmoil going on in the background, you want a mainstream popular character to be like you, who knows your way of life so intimately, that he may as well be a part of your community.

BUT THAT'S THE THING — HE'S FICTIONAL

I am guilty of this. In fact, I’ve flaunted in numerous posts how I think he’s the perfect Tamil boy, how he dances bharatanatyam, how he does all these Tamil things that no one will understand except myself. All these niche things that only I, and maybe a few others, will understand.

I’ve seen other people do it, too. I’ve seen people geek out over his dark brown skin, his kalari dhoti, how he fights so effortlessly in the kalaripayattu martial arts style. I’ve seen people write him as Malayali, as Hindi, as every kind of Indian person imaginable.

I’ve also seen him be written where he’s subjected to typical Indian and broader Asian stereotypes. You know the ones I’m so fond of calling out. The thing is, I’ve seen so much of Pavitr being presented in so many different ways, and I worry how the rest of the desi folk will take it. 

You finally have a character who could be you, but now he’s someone else’s plaything. Your entire life is shaped by what you can and can’t do simply because you were born to an Indian family, and here’s the one person who could represent you now at the mercy of someone else’s whims. He’s off living a life that is so distant from yours, you can hardly recognise him.

It shouldn’t hurt as much as it does, yeah? But, again, you’re looking at it from that infinitely narrow lens Westerners use to look at India from Bollywood.

AND PAVITR PRABHAKAR DOESN'T LIVE IN INDIA

He lives in Mumbattan. He lives in a made-up, fictional world that doesn’t follow the way of life of our world. He lives in a city where Mumbai and Manhattan got fucking squashed together. There are so many memes about colonialism right there. Mumbattan isn’t real! Spider-Man India isn’t real!! He’s just a dude!! The logic of our world doesn’t apply to him!!!

“But his surname originates from ______” okay but does that matter?

“But he’s wearing a kalari dhoti so surely he’s ______” okay but does that matter?

“But his skin colour is darker so he must be ______” okay but does that matter?

“But he lives in Mumbai so he must be ______” okay but does that matter?

I sound insensitive and brash and annoying and it looks like I’m yapping just for the sake of riling you up, so direct that little burst of anger you got there at me, and keep reading.

Listen. I’m going to ask you a question that I’ve asked myself a million times over. I want you to answer honestly. I want you to ask this question to yourself and answer honestly:

Are you trying to convince me on who Pavitr Prabhakar should be?

... but why shouldn't i?

I’ll tell you this again — I did the same thing. You’re not at fault for this, but I want you to just...have a little think over. Just a little moment of self-reflection, to think about why you are so intent on boxing this guy.

It took me a while to reorganise my thinking and how to best approach a character like Pavitr, so I will give you all the time you need as well as a little springboard to focus your thoughts on.

SPIDER-MAN (INDIA) IS JUST A MASK

“What I like about the costume is that anybody reading Spider-Man in any part of the world can imagine that they themselves are under the costume. And that’s a good thing.”

Stan Lee said that. Remember how he was so intent on making sure that everybody got the idea that Spider-Man as an entity is fundamentally broken without Peter Parker there to put on the suit and save the day? That ultimately it was the person beneath the mask, no matter who they were, that mattered most?

Spider-Man India is no less different. You can argue with me that Peter Parker!Spidey is supposed to represent working class struggles in the face of leering corporate entities who endanger the regular folk like us, and so Pavitr Prabhakar should also function the same way. Pavitr should also be a working class guy of this specific social standing fighting people of this other social standing.

But that takes away the authenticity of Spider-Man India. Looking at him through the Peter Parker lens forces you to look at him through the Western lens, and it significantly lessens what you can do with the character — suddenly, it’s a fight to be heard, to be seen, to be recognised. It’s yelling over each other that Pavitr Prabhakar is this ethnicity, is that caste, this or that, this or that, this or that.

There’s a reason why he’s called Spider-Man India, infuriatingly vague as it is. And that’s the point — the vagueness of his identity fulfils Lee’s purpose for a character that could theoretically be embodied by anyone. If he had been called “Spider-Man Mumbai”, you cut out a majority of the population (and in capitalist terms, you cut out a good chunk of the market).

And in the case of Spider-Man India? Whew — you’ve got about a billion people imagining a billion different versions of him.

Whoever you are, whatever you see in Pavitr, that is what is personal to you, and there is nothing wrong with that, and I will not fault you for it. I will not fault you for saying Pavitr is from Central due to the origins of his last name. I also will not fault you for saying Pavitr is from South due to him practising kalaripayattu. I also will not fault you for saying he is not Hindu. I also will not fault you for saying he is a particular ethnicity without any proof.

What I will fault you for is trying to convince me and the others around you that Pavitr Prabhakar should be this particular ethnicity/have this cultural background because of some specific reason. I literally don’t care and it is fundamentally going against his character, going against the “anyone can wear the mask” sentiment of Spider-Man. By doing this, you are strengthening the walls that first divided us. You’re feeding the stratification and segmentation of our cultures — something that is actually not present in the fictional world of Mumbattan.

Like I said before: Mumbattan isn’t real, so the divides between ethnicities and cultural backgrounds are practically nonexistent. The best thing is that it is visually there for all to see. My favourite piece of evidence is this:

It’s a marquee for a cinema in the Mumbattan sequence, in the “Quick tour: this is where the traffic is” section. It has four titles; the first two are written in Hindi. The third title is written in Bengali*, and the fourth title is written in Tamil. You go to Mumbai and you won’t see a single shred of Bengali nor Tamil there, much less any other language that's not common in Maharashtra (Western India). Seeing this for the first time, you know what went through my head?

Wow, the numerous cultures of India are so intermingled here in Mumbattan! Everyone and everything is welcome!

I was happy, not just because of Tamil representation, but because of the fact that the plethora of Indian cultures are showcased coexisting in such a short sequence. This is India embracing all the little parts that make up its grander identity. This scene literally opened my eyes seeing such beauty in all the diverse cultures thriving together. In a place where language and cultural backgrounds blend so easily, each one complementing one another.

It is so easy to believe that, from this colourful palette of a setting, Pavitr Prabhakar truly is Spider-Man India, no matter where he comes from.

It’s easy to believe that Pavitr can come from any part of India, and I won’t call you out if the origin you have for him is different from the origin I have. You don’t need to stake out territory and stand your ground — you’re entitled to that opinion, and I respect it. In fact, I encourage it!!!

Because there’s only so much you can show in a ten minute segment of a film about a country that has such a vast history and even greater number of cultures. I want to see all of it — I want him to be a Malayali boy, a Hindi boy, a Bengali boy, a Telugu boy, an Urdu boy, whatever!! I want you to write him or draw him immersed in your culture, so that I can see the beauty of your background, the wonderful little things that make your culture unique and different from mine!

And, as many friends have said, it’s so common for Indian folks to be migrating around within our own country. A person with a Maharashtrian surname might end up living in Punjab, and no one really minds that. I’m actually from Karnataka, my family speaks Kannada, but somewhere down the line my ancestors moved to Tamil Nadu and settled down and lived very fulfilling lives. So I don’t actually have the “pure Tamil” upbringing, contrary to popular belief; I’ve gotten a mix of both Kannada and Tamil lifestyles, and it’s made my life that much richer. 

So it’s common for people to “not” look like their surname, if that’s what you’re really afraid about. In fact, it just adds to that layer of nuance, that even despite these rigid identities between ethnicities we as Indian people still intermingle with one another, bringing slivers of our cultures to share with others. Pavitr could just as well have been born in one state and moved around the country, and he happens to live in Mumbattan now. It’s entirely possible and there’s nothing to disprove that.

We don’t need to clamber over one another declaring that only one ethnicity is the “right” ethnicity, because, again, you will be looking at Pavitr and the rest of India in that narrow Western lens — a country with such rich cultural variety reduced to a homogenous restrictive way of life.

THE POLL: REINTERPRETED

This whole thing started because I was wondering why my little poll was so skewed — I thought people assumed I was asking them where he came from, then paired his physical appearance with the most logical options available. I thought it was my fault, that I had somehow influenced this outcome without knowing.

Truth is, I will never really know. But I will be thankful for it, because it gave me the opportunity to finally broach this topic, something that many of us desi folk are hesitant to talk about. I hope you have learned something from this, whether you are desi or a casual Spider-Man fan or someone who just so happened to stumble upon this. 

So just…be a little more open. Recognise that India, like many many countries and nations, is made up of a plethora of smaller cultures. And remember, if you’re trying to convince Pavitr that he’s a particular ethnicity, he’s going to wave his hand at you and say, “Ha, me? No, I’m one of the people that live here in the best Indian city! I’m Spider-Man India, dost!”

(Regardless, he still considers you a friend, because to him, the people matter more to him than you trying to box him into something he’s not.)

*Note: thank you dear anon for letting me know that the third title was Bengali, twas my mistake for literally completely forgetting

[loserboyfriendrjl]

can’t believe we’re doing this again but hey guys if you don’t like what someone writes, and bonus points if you are not an author and you do not know how this kind of behaviour impacts writers, please shut up and refrain from posting and commenting on things that you deem to be wrong (which, to some, means that characters or certain situations are not written the way they see them to be.)

writers, like fanart creators and creators in fandom in general, put out on the internet free content for you to enjoy and engage with, and you throwing a hissy fit over things you don’t like and leaving hate comments and going on anon to complain and bitch about things just shows how entitled fandom really has become, recently.

i do not know in depth what happened with greenvlvetcouch and their fics because i do not follow fandom drama much, the very same way i did not follow the bizarrestars / mayzarbewithyou drama and i majorly found out about it from tiktok and mutuals, so i won’t be diving too much into named dramas but, as a fellow writer in fandom, i think that this fandom consumes content in an unhealthy way, and this is what makes many writers leave / take a step back from such spaces. after this maelstrom that happens, everyone’s wondering why said people leave fandom.

why?

because popular fandom creators or creators in this fandom that have written popular fics (i.e. bfb, cr, black mass, so forth so forth, i just named a few examples off the top of my head) are treated like celebrities and expected to write what appeals to the public, said public forgetting that the content they are consuming is put out for free access and you literally do nothing in order to consume it (which you do, for example, when talking about books and movies, but that is a whole another conversation), and unpopular fandom creators are brushed to the side and ignored. this behaviour affects everyone (both sides mentioned), and the leaving from the fandom is done by both sides.

i thought that after the zar situation, we’d take a moment to reflect on our actions and how our behaviour has an impact on our content creators. please, for the love of god, think about the consequences of your actions, even though they are behind a screen and not in the real world, and refrain from unasked for criticism and comments.

[frenchy-and-the-sea]

There is a very exquisite agony in playing a game you love so so so so so much, and realizing that one of the other players is trying to play a totally different game than you.