#which isn’t necessarily a privilege thing but it was weird

[muirneach]

my experience in my schools gifted program is very specific but even when i was little i knew that the program was racist so i dont know how people on here are fully grown adults and yet lacking that knowledge. the gifted program for my general area happened to be in a school in a predominantly non white, poor neighbourhood. i came from a neighbouring school like a kilometre away at most that was majorly white. most of the kids in the gifted program were from all around the city and probably 60-70% white at best (toronto is 45% white as a whole). like the disparity between my class and the class next door… very obvious! also gifted wasnt even good i literally learned nothing for three years so i don’t get the hype

[moon932]

I feel like Vautrin as a character gets passed by a lot in the fandom, which is a shame because he is such an interesting part of Neuvillette's past in Fontaine. And in my (very humble) opinion, I feel like out of all the characters he probably had the biggest impact on Neuvillete.

(more thoughts under the cut)

First thing that stands out to me with him is that he's the only other human character that is mentioned to have been close to Neuvillette. And most likely the first human, outside of Furina (which she both does and doesn't count? idk it weird), he would've met and grown close to when he came to Fontaine ~400 years ago. And this is interesting to me because we know how this story ends and I wonder if he is partially the reason, or maybe he just reinforced the idea, that Neuvillette abstains from forming close relationships?

Think about it, Neuvillette and Vautrin worked closely for years. Hoyo likes to be vague with their timelines so idk how long they would have been working together, but it must've been substantial for Neuvillette (who is an immortal being, so time probably feels different to him) to remember and reminisce about. We're both shown and told that they both had great respect for each other. Also one of the biggest things that stick out to me with the trial part of the story quest, is the noticable emotions in Neuvillette's voice as he juries over the trial. Which yes we know that trials make him emotional which usually manifests in the rain, but this is the first and only time (I think? pls correct me if I'm wrong on this) that it's noticeable in his voice.

The last big thing I think about isn’t the trial itself necessarily, but the way Neuvillette talks about it in the fortress with Wriothesley. I think this is more specific for the english dub bc Ray Chase, instead of saying “And I believed he had every right to feel that way.” he changes it into present tense: “I believe he had every right to feel that way.” Ok this one may be a bit of a stretch because they essentially mean and get across the same thing, but it’s so interesting that it’s changed to present tense. And honestly? I think it works better with the present tense. Because Neuvillette doesn’t condemn Vautrin for the emotions he felt, (which wild theory but maybe he was channeling his emotions towards those he killed and not necessarily towards Neuvillette? so out there ik) if anything Neuvillette seems more then ok to readily accept them and the fact that they are (supposedly) directed at him.

Some other minor stuff that always makes my brain start to whir is that while the parallel were drawn between Vautrin and Carole / Traveller and Paimon in the quest, I do think it’s more fitting to say Wriothesley and Sigewinne are a more accurate parallel. Is this a slight critique on main character privilege? Yes.

If you’re wondering why I’m fixated on this it’s because Neuvillette is a character, that while his interpersonal relationships are sparse, they’re usually a lot more complex and often deeper under the surface. Neuvillette and the melusines are some dynamics that I wished Hoyo explored more often because I would love to know how to the melusines view Neuvillette more in depth. (If Sigewinne’s voice lines or character stories touch on this please let me know! I’d love to read them.) I have barely even touched on Neuvillette and Furina because their relationship is such a complex mix of trust and fear and pain and love. Not to mention Neuvillette and Wriothesley “The words unspoken are the flower.” Okay sir, keep your secrets I see how it is.

Do I think that Neuvillette always had the idea that the Chief Justice must remain impartial in any circumstances running through his head when he first took position in Fontaine? Yes, but I do think that the trial with Vautrin may have exacerbated this thought and made it more of a lifestyle type thing. Or maybe Neuvillette believes all his relationships from then on may be set in a perpetual cycle of grief and loss because surely nothing will out live the sovereign of water, the original god of life itself?

[five-rivers]

First. Previous.

Okay.  Well.  Taking everything into consideration… and emphasizing safety… Going out was risky as either Fenton or Phantom.  Waiting was… safe.  It was safe, but if he had to do it without something to do other than college courses of dubious utility, he'd go nuts.

Besides, it was like a security exercise.  If he could do it, someone else could do it.  Better to be prepared!  Honestly, locking him out was a safety hazard, too.  What if there was an emergency and he needed to go to the Zone (not unlike now)?

And… just because he found a workaround didn't mean he had to use it.  He could find it, then stop.  Report it to his parents.  It'd- it'd be useful.  

A constriction in his chest he hadn't even been aware of loosened.  His shoulders slumped.

It'd still be useful even if he did go through with it.  He'd be exploring.  Collecting new information.  Learning. 

He pushed away from the lab door and, feeling slightly rebellious, flew up into his bedroom.  He kicked off his shoes and scrunched his toes into the carpet, trying to draw comfort from the sensation of home he'd painstakingly worked into his not-quite-a-lair.  Then, he went to his computer and started to pull up all the information he had on the DNA scanner, the lock, and the portal doors.  

If he was going to do this, even on a theoretical basis, he needed to have a plan of action.  He needed to have things to research, to test, he needed to…

… he needed to call Tucker.  

"Hey, man," said Tucker, and Danny resisted the urge to ask him if his voice had gotten deeper again, because even if it seemed that way it probably hadn't and Danny didn't want to make this weird again.  "How did your talk with your parents go?"

"Bad."

"Ah," said Tucker.  "Did you tell them how you feel?"

"I tried," said Danny, flopping dramatically on his bed.  "They're not listening."

"Maybe you should get Jazz to talk to them, after all."

"No," said Danny.  "I don't want to--She has her own things to worry about, and Mom and Dad and I… we need to figure out how to work out our problems.  I was actually wondering, would you help me hack the DNA lock on the portal?  They disabled my privileges." 

There was a long moment of silence, and Danny bit his lip, worried.  

"Danny, dude, do you really think that's 'working out your problems?'  Don't you think that's a bit, I don't know, extreme?"

“I don’t know.  I just need to do something, and they won’t let me do anything.  I feel like I’m stuck and I hate it.  I’d just– I’d just feel a lot better knowing that I could go, if I needed to.  Could you help me get through it?  Please?”

“Okay, okay.  I'll help.  Just let me think about it for a minute."  

Danny bit his lip.  "Okay."

Tucker was silent for a long moment, but just when Danny started to think that maybe he’d pushed too hard, he said, “Just to be clear, you want this to be, like, some way you could get through at any time?  Not something where you just have to get through once at some point?”

“I mean, yeah.  Because, because,” Danny hurried to say, “I’m not necessarily going through without their permission, I just want to be able to go.”

“Uh huh,” said Tucker.  “Well, if you just wanted to go through once, and have it be one and done, I’d say keep an eye on them and wait for them to open the portal, but I guess we’ll have to be more tricky.”

“That’s not hacking.”

“Yeah, but some of the best hacking isn’t hacking at all, it’s social engineering.  When possible, you go around security, not through.”

“Oh,” said Danny.  “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”  It wasn’t too different from some of the things he did when fighting, after all, or when avoiding fights.  

“And you’re better at the mechanical end of things to begin with.  Less stuff to go wrong.”

“Uh huh,” said Danny.  “But I don’t think there’s much mechanical I can do beyond taking apart the lock.  Which I can do, I guess.  It’ll just take a long time and be really noticeable.  Or the door itself.”

“Yeah, how about we table that for now.  Do they have any of their probes still out?  Or anything else that’s kind of on both ends?  I know you can’t do that tech possession digital travel thing in, like, public anymore, because of the Guys in White monitor, but can you do it on your parents’ stuff?”

Danny considered that for a moment, then shook his head.  “They ghost proofed a lot of it since last time Technus went by.  I don’t think it occurred to any of us to make an exception for me.  If they even could do something like that.”  He paused.  “There is the thermos plug.  I still have access to that.  But it doesn’t open unless you put the thermos in and stand clear.”

“Can’t you make duplicates?”

Danny sat up.  “Huh?”

“Can’t you just, you know, duplicate yourself, suck one of yourselves - man, that sounds bad, somehow - into the thermos, and then have the other one of you flush the thermos?”

“That’s…” Danny paused for dramatic effect, “genius!”

“Thanks,” said Tucker, dryly.  “Glad to know I still have it.”

“Of course!  Like you could lose it.”

“Trust me, I can definitely lose it,” said Tucker.  “Hey, if you do try this, maybe write a note for your parents first?  Because you can’t get back through this way.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Danny.  “That is a problem.  But I think it should be fine…”  This wasn’t like the old days, after all.  His parents would notice if he was gone for any significant length of time.  Which was good!  Just… not convenient for slipping away.

“Don’t do anything too crazy, alright?  Wait for Sam and I to come back for summer break.”

Danny smiled and nodded, even though he knew Tucker couldn’t see him.  “I know!  I’m looking forward to it!”

.

For obvious reasons, Danny couldn’t try out the workaround while his parents were still in the lab.  He had to wait until after they came up for a stilted family dinner, and then even longer for them to go to bed.  

But when they did…

He went down to the lab, thermos in hand, and stood in front of the portal.  He rolled the thermos nervously between his hands, staring up at the portal.  If he did this, his parents would be mad, but…  

His eyes slid over to the comm equipment they used during his excursions.  If he got them good data, maybe they wouldn’t be as mad?

On the other hand, then they’d be able to find him.  

He bit his lip.  He could still back out, too.  Make what he’d told himself and Tucker more true.  Go to bed. 

[moltengoldveins]

hey um… I dislike being political on the internet, but like…. If you only draw one kind of person, or your art style really only manages to portray one kind of face or body type or ethnicity with any sort of accuracy or beauty, that’s… it’s not necessarily a moral failing every time, but it is a failing. It’s a lack in your skill. It’s, at bare minimum, a sign that you have not been exposed to a broad range of art and people to draw from in real life. It’s possibly a sign that you haven’t actually learned to draw from reality and instead are photo-bashing together a thousand other art styles who Also only draw one kind of person in your head and creating from that, not from reality. the same way that someone who learned to draw cats from Warriors fanart as opposed to real cats can really only draw A Few Cats In A Few Ways and then recolor them.

Digging a little deeper, it might also be a sign that you are failing to actually see the world around you. Those people are beautiful. Ima stop you right there, because whoever leapt into your head? Them too. Because they’re human, they get the privilege of being beautiful for free. Really, the only thing that can make someone hideous is if they do something to distance themselves from their humanity. Which means that, in most cases, if you cannot see them as beautiful, you are the one failing.

Usually, you’re doing so in one of a few ways: you do not know what is beautiful, you have not learned how to see beauty around you and then replicate it, or you are only willing to see beauty where you already think it exists. This is not meant to be a curse upon you and your bloodline: everyone has these three problems in some respect, because we’re finite and flawed and fallen. But it is meant to make you think about yourself. Why don’t you draw old people as they are, and find them beautiful? Why don’t you draw children? Or boys playing in the mud? Or girls climbing trees? Or people of different races? Or people of different backgrounds? Mothers? Fathers? Grandparents? Siblings? Teenagers? The impoverished? When you polish these people to make your drawings ‘pretty,’ what are you removing, and why? What about those things are ugly? Why? This isn’t just about thinks like wrinkles or distinctive racial features: what about acne? What about fat? What about the space they take up? What about the stains on their clothing? The scar on their chin?

Again. No accusation, just a genuine desire to help you self reflect: why do you draw what you draw, and why do you Not draw what you don’t? What does that say about you, positive or negative? What have you done well? What have you portrayed honestly? Where could you improve?

There is always space for growth here, and a good place to start might be to go find a reference picture of someone who looks nothing like your art style, and draw them as well as you can. Eventually you’ll find them beautiful, but that can come later. For now, we practice! We learn how to draw strong noses or big lips or narrow eyes or wrinkles or children or eyebags or curly hair because we are kinda bad at it right now :/. And we know going in that the first few attempts aren’t gonna look great. They might even look ‘racist.’ But that’s ok! Not doing something edifying for the fear of looking racist is the surest way to never actually learning love and acceptance and respect.

Let’s be honest: maybe you don’t find black people beautiful. I’m serious: maybe you think they’re just strange looking, or you grew up told that they were only ever poor, or that black skin meant someone was unsafe. Maybe you genuinely just kinda think Asian eyes look weird and you’re absolutely dead certain the internet would crucify you for it if it came out. That’s not ideal, but it’s not necessarily abnormal either: humans don’t tend to find foreign things beautiful right away, especially if they’ve never encountered anything like them before or they’ve been taught that foreign things are bad. The important thing is the acknowledgement that that impulse is wrong, the desire to improve, and the willingness to work on that tendency over time.

People fail to recognize good or true or beautiful things sometimes. That’s ok. We dust ourselves off and keep trying, because even if we cannot see the beauty YET, we know it is there, and we are looking for it. Art is out creative reflection of truth and goodness and beauty. Learning to make it more true can only help you improve. Hope y’all are having a wonderful day, and drinking water 💜

[hellsvestibule]

I’m there for romancing and humanizing the monster tropes but some tropes I still like. Largely view as horror, and I don’t reblog the “uwu (horrific thing) = love” posts bc. That’s not the intent w which I write or draw horror. My aim isn’t to conflate violence with affection but to contrast them. I’ve had enough shitty relationships in my life and known enough domestic abuse survivors where I like, I just don’t want to advertise myself this way. I like to use violence and horror and exploring the nuance of toxicity as an outlet but when I see it being normalized like it’s quirky and cute 100k post material sometimes I want to pull back and focus on things people aren’t just going to misinterpret as romantic bc they’re the horror trope of the week people on tumblr finds cute. This is also why sometimes if something I draw is particularly disturbing I don’t tag the character bc I don’t think appreciators of that character necessarily would want to see it.

It’s not to say I never play into this and am above a joking “god I wish that were Me” in response to something grusome and messed up. Or into sexualizing pretty horrifying stuff or focusing on toxic relationships having a silver lining like I’m specifically and obviously into these things. but also a lot of time I actually want the horror in my stuff to repulse you and make your skin crawl and be hard to look at or read. I Want to delve into toxicity and horror but I want it to actually feel weighty and consequential, and if not, at least the lack of weight and consequence has its own disturbing implications that nothing matters within this context (chain of occurrence is about ironic detachment from violence and horror, the hyper violence becomes so normalized that it effectively loses meaning and it’s in many ways why the characters are fucked up and can’t understand or take their own brutalization seriously)

And I just think there is a sort of. Blurry line between where I find romantic horror obnoxious and trivializing bc my brain kind of just goes. Well. like you might as well just write normal romance bc you don’t treat horror with any real sense of gravity or consequence! That’s not what horror is fucking For. But also I realize I’m not some perfect arbiter on where that line is drawn either so it’s v easy to point out where I’m a hypocrite, I get horny about the grossest shit I just like, idk, im still capable of admitting it’s gross and upsetting and not inflicting it on people who would find it unsettling as if it’s normal (it’s not! That’s the Point of horror! To be unsettling and weird!) I just feel like, I want to write and draw horror where at least you see it and get the message that it’s wrong and disturbing even if some facet of it tries to be alluring or funny or what have you. Bc violence is still. Real. It still has real world consequences.

I think part of the problem is it’s way different to share a sentiment ironically when it’s within an enclosed space, but once it reaches a certain point of being shared and agreed with you will reach people who do not have a shred of irony, decency, or ability to self reflect and it’s like no, actually, some people make me deeply uncomfortable bc I’m not sure they know what they’re writing or drawing is “bad” and I do think it matters if not in the immediate sense of having direct 1 to 1 consequences, then in some vague sense at least, I find it annoying and unpleasant to be around people who can’t Ever take disturbing things seriously and seem to think murder, domestic violence, and things like that, can’t possibly happen to/be upsetting and thus unsexy to a lot of real people. And in a sense “that would never happen to me” is spoken from a place of privilege.

It’s different when you’re dealing exclusively with horror monsters that are beyond real world parallels, it’s another thing entirely when you Are dealing with real things that still happen to real people. Brutalization of bodies, treating people as expendable meat props, again it’s not even to say you Always need a guilty self aware conscious when engaging with horror but that a refusal to engage with why these things are upsetting, often makes your “horror”. Silly at best, and obnoxious and insulting at worst.

[denimbex1986]

'Andrew Scott has said the friendship between he and co-star Paul Mescal is down to the “intense” scenes they had to film for their new movie All of Us Strangers.

The two Irish actors appeared on The Late Late Show last night, to promote the movie. The pair arrived at Montrose after attending the premiere of All of Us Strangers in Dublin yesterday.

Mr Scott said how surprised they were at the crowd that had gathered at the Lighthouse Cinema in Smithfield for the premiere.

“We're completely overwhelmed,” Scott said.

“It was incredible, absolutely amazing atmosphere at the Lighthouse. We couldn’t believe there was so many people who turned up,” he added.

During the interview, Patrick Kielty remarked on how close the two actors were and the “bromance” between them.

“Sometimes you just have chemistry, and I don’t necessarily mean physical chemistry. Chemistry is a really weird thing with actors, you have to really enjoy acting with them,” Scott said.

But it was the nature of some of the scenes in the film they have to thank for their close friendship.

“We had really intense stuff to do in the movie and that kind of bonds you, when you’re sitting naked on a Monday morning. You’ve got to have a laugh,” said Scott.

The film isn’t the first time the pair have shared the screen. In 2020, the actors took part in a sketch for Irish comic relief, where they each played their iconic characters, Connell from Normal People and “the hot priest” from Fleabag.

“To share a screen with him in that context was fantastic, let alone the film we are doing together,” Mescal said.

Mescal also heaped praise on his co-star, for his performance in All of Us Strangers.

The film follows Scott’s character, Adam, a lonely screenwriter living in London, who after a chance encounter with his neighbour Harry (played by Mescal), fall in love.

“This is one of the great modern performances and what he does in the film is absurdly brilliant and to get to share the screen with him to me is one of the greatest privileges of my life,” Mescal said.

Mr Scott was also asked about his recent attendance at the Golden Globes, mixing with some of the industry’s biggest stars, including singer Billy Eilis.

“Billy had written a song. She used to love Sherlock, and there was a line that I said which was ‘you should see me in a crown’ and she wrote this really cool song,” Scott said.

“We just met and had this fantastic night at the Golden Globes and it’s really lovely to see the human being behind these fantastically talented people,” he added.'

[balkanradfem]

Disclaimer: Please don’t read this post if you like male sports, and want to continue liking them.

I’m not talking about all sports, but specifically, the ones where you have a ball, and in order to score a point, you have to get that ball inside of a goal, or thru a hoop, so football, basketball, and the like. For some reason, football seems to be the most popular sport with males, and I’ve made an uncomfortable observation of why it might be so. 

The game has two goals, right, and the only way to score a point is to get the ball into the goal of the opposite team, while the opposite team does everything in their power to defend it, including taking the ball from them. In order to play it well, it’s advantageous for the players to be quick, agile, good at maneuvering. Does this remind you of something?

You might know by now, where I’m going with this. I believe football is a simulation of impregnation. The ball is a symbol for the quickest sp*rm, and the goal is the symbol for the uterus. The object of the game is to get the ball inside the symbolical uterus, which would, in real life, result in impregnation.

The difference between this and the real thing, is that only m*n are playing, the symbolic uterus is only an object, passive, just waiting to be broken into. M*n alone are allowed agency in this situation. It’s a play between m*n, and the goal is only a means to achieve a point. I feel that maybe this is the way m*n believe it should be, it’s close to their perception of the world.

The other team of players are doing everything to defend their own goal - meaning the game is much more sinister, it’s about a forced impregnation. When a team scores the goal, the other team is defeated, taking a blow, that is symbolic. And as soon as it is done, the next objective, is immediately to do it again.

It reminds me of the male instinct to impregnate as many women as possible, as many times as possible. It also reminds me of m*n being willing to team up and work together in order to be able to violate and rape women, as they often do. The fact that the player closest to the goal or the ‘uterus’ has the most privileges and is allowed to touch the ball, reminds me of how the man who is closest to the woman will defend her from other m*n invading her the most, but also have the most access to her.

It explains why football specifically gives them such high, why their entire identity roots up in it, it caters to their base instincts. It brings them together, causing uproars of violence, rage and crime. Sometimes people will say that sports are used as a form of war - but it isn’t necessarily a war on the other team. Unfavorable outcomes in popular sports bring consequences of domestic violence, the women in the families end up paying the price more than anyone else. It’s a war on us, that doesn’t involve us. We’re passive, only a symbol, and then a collateral damage.

I want to make clear that when women do football, that’s different. That’s fine and I don’t mind it. They’re not being weird about it. They’re not beating their partner at home about it, or inspiring anyone else to do so. Women doing any sports is fine. But if m*n want to do football, they should do it... somewhere they have no access to women.

[promithiae]

How I, a person with ADHD, manage to keep a vaguely tidy house

Let me first clarify that I recognize that I am very lucky to only be working 4 days a week, and having a 3 day weekend is a big part of why I can actually be somewhat consistent. I am very privileged to have a living situation where that is possible, and I know not everyone has that.

However, this was a pattern that started when I was working more hours and more days and none of my days off were clustered together and it sucked, but I still kind of sort of managed to keep it up most of the time.

Vaguely tidy is being generous.

Ok. Caveats done, let's get to it

First and foremost shoot the voice in your head that tells you it's all or nothing, the coach or the teacher or the parent or whoever you hear that says there's no point in doing a thing if you're going to half ass it. They don't know what the fuck they're taking about. Half assing is better than no assing.

Figure out what your bare minimum is. If you don't have the energy or focus or the executive sure is dysfunctioning, what do you absolutely have to get done on a weekly basis? They should be very, very bare bones and minimal. (For me, I have to get my laundry cleaned but not necessarily folded and put away and at least vacuuming the floors, if not mopping them. 2 items, that's it.)

Figure out the things that should be done every week. Accept that sometimes that list isn't getting completed. But like I said, that's better than nothing. It's ok, I promise. Do what you can, try to do more, but if you can't that's ok too.

Figure out a list of things that only need to be done on occasion, maybe once a month or every 6 weeks. Try to do 1 of these every week

Make a list of super detailed weird things for those days when you're hyperfocusing and you are absolutely in the mood to take a q-tip to the weird corners on the cupboard panels or shove a cloth on a stick under the stove to get all the trapped cat hair out.

Keep a detailed list of steps. I know that one of the things I have trouble with is getting overwhelmed because I don't know where to start. So I have a doc that has all the things I need to do, the steps that they involve and the order in which to do them. It's kind of a flow chart where the once a month things are added in. It's also very detailed because some days are just 14 steps to make coffee kind of days. Sit down with a freind or your mom or your favorite uncle and have them help you strategize if you need to. There's no shame in asking for help, I promise!

Pick a day of the week to be chore day. I've tried doing 15 minutes a day, I've tried doing 1 room a day, I've tried a lot of different things and none of them stuck except just making Sunday chore day. I think it's because my levels of energy and focus and executive function can be so variable that it's impossible to be that consistent on a day to day basis, but ymmv. Try different things, figure out what works for you.

Allow for the entire day to be chore day because we're building in distraction. When you finish a task go ahead and take a break. It can be 2 minutes or 2 hours, it doesn't matter so long as you have enough time to do the bare minimum list. Have a snack, dick around on tumblr, watch a movie, whatever. End your break whenever you feel like you're ready to do the next task. No one's timing you.

Getting overwhelmed? The other week I put a freind on videochat and she hung out with me while I cleaned. Mostly she played videogames while I was doing my thing, but we chatted here and there, and when I got overwhelmed I was able to ask her what I should do next and turned my computer to the scene and she gave me a direction to go. It was actually really nice to have company! And to have someone else make a decision for me, because that's where I get the most hung up. Like, give me a task and I will do the thing until I'm done, but ask me to come up with the tasks and steps for it? Hahahahahahhahaaaaaa oh no.

That's mostly what I've been doing for the past year and I've been pretty consistent. There are still many weeks I only do the bare minimum list, and there are still many weeks I don't get to all the things on my weekly list, but that's ok. Partial credit is good, too.

Now, if anyone has any strategies on remembering to put things away I am severely lacking there.

[itoldsunset]

so i never posted this but a while ago i translated parts of this podcast episode (linking it here just so y’all know where it’s from, but there are no subs) where they’re talking about thai bl and the lgbtq community.

a lot of this is stuff we already talk about in the fandom but i wanted to share this since we consume a lot of thai content/bl here and i like hearing directly from lgbtq folks in thailand too:

there’s very little representation of various sexual orientations in thai bls, such as pansexuality and bisexuality.

most thai bl series are adapted from bl novels, which are essentially fantasies written so that people can access some happiness they don’t get in real life. because of the fantasy-like nature of these novels, it doesn’t always translate well to the screen, especially if the series producers didn’t make an effort to adapt the script. so that’s why sometimes the story is weird or the lines have a cartoonlike quality when they’re being delivered.

beauty privilege still plays a huge role in bl series. what we see happen is usually, the series can be whatever, but we hear “please support the actors, they’re good-looking,” whereas the content of the series often isn’t the thing that gets praised. and after the series ends, oftentimes the thing that remains is the image of the actors, not the series itself.

homophobia: “i’m not gay, i just like you”--it doesn’t make sense, being gay doesn’t mean you love every man in the world. they try to paint it in a romantic light in the sense of polyamory, like you only love this one person, but it ends up confusing people on what it means to be gay.

sexual harassment: not just in bl, but in all thai series and has been there for a while. like when one character puts their face up really close against another character who’s not into it, but the audience expects in their minds that they’re gonna end up together so some may allow it. and some also allow it because they’re attractive.

heteronormativity + gender roles, top/bottom dynamics: thai bls usually have the more feminine character be the one who is passively being pursued/hit on. part of this is because the writers are usually women and end up writing characters who are closest to them, as part of creating their fantasy. thai bls also replicate the gender binary in that there’s a tendency to have one person (the “top”) be the one to go out to work more, while the other one tends to do household chores, cook, etc. also, one of them mentioned having been approached by a woman who asked him who was the top/bottom in his relationship, and he said he felt like, “why is that question necessary? we’re the same gender, we’re both men.” he said we need to disconnect gender expression (femininity/masculinity) from sex positions (top/bottom), since one doesn’t necessarily reflect on the other.

also some comparison to yaoi (since that’s the origin) and they mentioned some research about how yaoi was born out of escapism from being part of an oppressed gender so that you could escape into a fantasy where you were as equal as possible in the fiction.

the term ‘y series’ (bl) is a way of avoiding saying gay or queer, reinforces the fantasy nature of the genre that it’s not about what it actually means for men who like men, and it tends not to explore their experiences beyond ‘i have a crush on you’--focuses on the gratification of shipping/imagination more than anything else.

do boys’ love dramas help the lgbtq community? thailand has so many bl series, so people might think thailand is accepting of lgbtq folks, but is that true?: “we can look at who makes up the majority of the fanbase, and we see that it’s mostly women. when the stories are about relationships between men, why are there fewer mlm fans than women?”

do bls hurt the lgbtq community?: in terms of reproducing stereotypes, like the way trans women are often depicted; also, the tendency of thai television (including bls) to devalue feminine men by using them as comic relief, so if you’re a man with a feminine gender expression, you have to be funny, you have to be obsessed with men, you have to entertain others, you have to exaggerate your femininity.

the treatment of women in thai bls: if they’re not just extras who are holding signs and screaming for the male leads, they’re the third person or the obstacle. even if they’re not doing anything wrong, they’re made into the person that the audience will hate. it’s as if there are no women allowed in bls because the presence of a woman will break the fantasy.

the bl industry is profiting off of a group of people who are still oppressed in society. as bl audiences, you can’t just consume bl for your own fantasies/personal satisfaction without thinking about what it means for the communities that are being impacted.

[bookofmirth]

I’m still mad about the time someone called Emerie (a POC, LBGTQ+, and disabled (if you’re counting her wings)) character sexist and misogynistic for saying she was happy to meet another woman who wasn’t obsessed with the idea of children. Like of course Emerie who has only ever been told that she was supposed to be giving men children and not run a shop, is gonna be happy that she has meet another woman with that same life path/mindset.

But what really irked me about that entire situation was that when Mor (a white woman) told Feyre damn near the exact same thing “But at the Hewn City … All they [including the woman too] care about is breeding their bloodlines…” in ACOWAR no one batted an eyelash about it. Which is correct because it’s not a big deal.

Why is it that Emerie was called all these names when Mor said the same thing or alluded to the same thing and get zero flack? If you’re gonna toss words around and pull shit out of your ass to vilify a character, at least hold the standard to all of those with that same mindset.

The fandom has developed this really weird idea of womanhood and femininity in the last several months, and I don't understand it.

There is traditionally feminine labor and that should be valued, but sometimes that labor is forced on women. It's not a choice. White women who are economically privileged get that choice. Others don't, necessarily.

Emerie saying that she's glad to meet someone who isn't obsessed with babies is not a personal attack on women who like babies. She's literally commenting on how stifling her culture can be, how she is surrounded by women with no other choice. And the fact that people take offense to that shows that they assume Emerie has choice. No. She has fought like hell to carve the life she has for herself, and even now those choices were threatened by her cousin, and continue to be threatened by every other Illyrian man who is pissed off that she dare make choices for herself instead of rolling over and spitting out babies for them and doing their laundry.

Being a mother and taking care of the home is important, but women in Illyria and in the Court of Nightmares don't get that choice. They aren't able to embrace that work because it is forced on them.

This is why people who cry feminism in this fandom are frequently outing themselves as white feminists - they look at everything from their perspective, which apparently is a fairly privileged one, and ignore the fact that all of the choices and freedoms they have is the result of their racial or economic or other privilege. They can't even see that, in Prythian, many of the same hierarchies and same social stratifications from our world exist in that world, too.

On top of this, Emerie is queer. On every single level, she rejects what the Illyrian culture asks of her as a woman. And she can't just do that quietly! She can't be queer, and not want children or a husband, or have other interests than serving men, without causing waves. Her mere existence is a threat to the hyper masculine culture of Illyria. She has to fight for her right to exist as she is.

Contrast that with Elain in the Night Court. Right now, she is also rejecting all of those things. She isn't married, she hasn't accepted her mating bond, she doesn't seem like she will have kids any time soon. (Obviously, she might have done all of those things by now if she hadn't been Made.) But who cares? No one. Emerie gets shit for those choices every single day. Meanwhile Elain wanders around her gardens and people just leave her be.

So yes, Emerie rejecting those forms of labor that are traditionally forced on women is important. I don't fault her for rejecting roles that she has witnessed countless women around her suffer for.

[soulvomit]

stuff with gender anguish about not fitting in with today’s current gender constructions

From another post I made: I need to talk about 20th century gender norms at some point as a living breathing 20th century fossil and how different it was. To most straight people, being gender non conforming meant gay, trans was on the far end of the gay spectrum, and gay was associated with being socially Not Normal at a time when you had to be Normal to get a white collar job. (The whole Normalhood thing im gonna talk about is VERY connected to mid-late 20th century construction of the white middle class.) Apropos of gender specifically... I’m not sure how 90s/00s genderfluid/genderqueer map to NB, or whether they do. It’s a big reason I am weird about IDing as NB - because it seems to mean something else than my particular understanding of my identity as it was formed in the 1990s. (Another thing is my social world being more people over 45 at this point and also I’m in a hetero relationship.) Part of 90s GQ stuff was that you could identify as a man part time, a woman part time, you could contain multitudes. “Woman-identified person with a male side” was a legit identity within that, so was “man-identified person with a female side.” You could be one person in the streets and another in the sheets. You could be several people in the sheets, especially if you were aligned with kinky culture. (And for a long time... I was.) There was a greater sense in the 90s and early 00s in genderqueerness culture that you could be GQ for no other reason than wanting to be and it wasn’t assumed to be bundled with physical dysphoria or even desire to change your public social identity. Some spaces - like West Coast geek culture and goth culture - had enough flexibility baked in that we didn’t really need to go to LGBTQ culture to explore our identities, and there was a whole geek queer sensibility that was evolving alongside of the broader LGBTQ culture that was definitely its own... thing.  And while people *say* that NB doesn’t mean any one particular thing or any of these things, that’s not always the message I get when visible NBs on TV/in film are almost always at present one very specific image or “type” of person, and that doesn’t resemble me. NB representation on TV amounts to presenting NB as a third gender with very specific codified behaviors (androgynous AFAB person who binds and has body dysphoria).   The message I get is that whatever my experience is, is better described some other way. Also the discourse around relationships with NBs is that a relationship with an NB is necessarily a queer relationship yet having been in relationships in and out of LGBTQ culture, I’m not really sure how to distinguish “a queer relationship.” My relationship is non-traditional in lots of ways and we’re both gender non-conforming in lots of ways though it doesn’t parse to most people because it’s along the lines of stuff that shouldn’t have ever been gendered in the first place. What my partner does not ever question however is his actual gender identity.  The thing is, actually publicly identifying as anything but a woman would create weird problems in my life in terms of social dynamics, and other stuff, and probably an unpredictable series of ripple effects downstream. But - that... just means I’m closeted, right? And closeted doesn’t mean your identity doesn’t exist or isn’t as unreal as someone who isn’t? And what if - as a “shapeshifter” - my relationship to myself within my relationship *is* part of that shapeshifting?  One of the things is that I’m in a heterosexual relationship. My relationship *is* one of my few spots where I’m happy in my skin, let alone happy in the world and I have no complaints with how I’m perceived in this relationship, and part of it is that practically every assumption about my gender is true, or has been true at some point, including the fact that I’m fine with being seen as a woman in the context of my relationship.  It’s in other spaces besides the intimate, that gender stuff makes my skin crawl. My deep interior gender identity is “pixels floating in the ether, which can assume any shape or form.” My gender identity among other people in non sexual friend spaces is “friend.” My partner identifies as a cis het man. I don’t feel like my relationship has any special quality that’s different from queer relationships I’ve been in, other than identities people have. If my partner doesn’t feel our relationship is queer then I don’t feel it is, either... though it’s not exactly *traditional.*  I don’t feel like our relationship is different from our hetero neighbors’ relationships regardless of whatever history I have. I have no way of knowing what my ostensibly-female ostensibly-heterosexual neighbors’ interior identities really are, or what their history is. And because we’re monogamous, it just never ever comes up. Our social world is about half queer and half not so nothing has changed. After decades of only dating people who had LGBTQ identities, and having a particular social world, now I’m with a cis het man from that same social world and nothing really has changed about the shape of my life.   I’ve moved between different spaces my entire life, sometimes I perceived myself as a boy in a girl’s body, but sometimes I didn’t, and don’t. And gender is one of the spaces in which I feel like a chameleon. There seem to be a ton of gender expression based communities that disappeared since the 90s that either disappeared or were erased from discourse and that makes this weirder/harder to talk about.  Another thing is that a lot of the discourse around pronouns (if pushed I’ll say I’m she/they but I am literally comfortable in anything, depending upon context) makes me really uncomfortable. Even in LGBTQ spaces it makes me uncomfortable. There’s the me that my friends know, and some of my family knows, and it’s a big enough world to contain that part of me at this point. I would rather not put my identity under a microscope in any space that matters. It’s weird but I wish I could just be “they” in the work, creative, etc, spaces, without the loading of what “they” means. I wish it meant nothing about the people who love me, or who I love, or how I love, or how I live my life, besides what pronoun I use. But it doesn’t mean nothing. That is why I hope more cis identified people will actually identify as they in the public sphere. There are plenty of spaces in the public sphere that I don’t think should be gendered at ALL. My wanting to be a “they” is in some ways more about wanting public anonymity and having formed my sense of self - at a tender time - online, than about my gender identity. Which means I’d be potentially appropriating “they” from people for whom it IS a deep identity, and yet... haven’t I spent half of my blog talking about how I’m not exactly the gender identity I advertise?? Haven’t I spent a long time up to now advocating for “they?” Isn’t feeling like a they, evidence that I’m a they?  And the thing is, this is such a YMMV issue and the problem is that EVERYONE has competing access needs with EVERYONE ELSE. Anything one queer person wants or needs seems to oppress some other queer person, and it sucks. But sometimes I wonder if I even need to just recognize how cis het passing my life is and acknowledge my privilege. The thing is though at that point... is it how much oppression we’ve experienced or are currently experiencing, that alone makes our identity? That’s as silly an idea as saying I’m less of a Jew because I haven’t personally experienced a hate crime. And yes there’s a lot to shared oppression experiences forming group identities, but I’m not talking about group identity. I’m talking about personal feelings of identity.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

Pro-variation vs. pro-selection culture

Evolution requires three things: some form of information that’s inheritable, some way to create variation from that information, and some way to select what information will be passed on to future generations. In biological evolution, of, course, we all know what these three things are: genes (information) can mutate (variation) -- well, it’s more complicated than just mutation, but this isn’t a biology lesson -- and those that are worse at surviving and reproducing themselves are of course naturally weeded out through cause and effect (selection). But other things -- art, culture, language, science, technology -- evolve as well, and they all need the same three things.

When it comes to variation and selection in things like culture and politics, there’s a sliding scale of which one people think is most important -- whether they’re more pro-variation, or pro-selection.

People on the pro-variation end of the spectrum tend to view diversity as a positive thing and selection as something that will take care of itself, or even something to be actively suspicious of because of its tendency to cause harm -- a rainbow queer community, an education system available to people of all cultures and economic backgrounds, country borders that are as open as practical, and embracing a diverse array of art make a community stronger, and things like gatekeeping, means testing and heirarchies on ‘what counts as art’ should be abandoned unless there’s a really good reason for the selective process to exist, in which case it’s grudgingly tolerated. To pro-variation people, exclusion and oppression within a community are threatening. Pro-variation people recognise that yes, you’re going to get some freeloading drains on resources and obvious money laundering schemes masquerading as terrible art and a few people pretending to be gay for a few years to look more interesting to their straight friends, and this is largely a non-issue, a perfectly acceptable price to pay for a diverse and fair world.

People on the pro-selection end of the scale tend to view selection as the main means of advancing or healing a society, and see diversity as something that will take care of itself and as something to be deeply suspicious of. Gatekeeping, unequal opportunities and financial heirarchies are needed to sort the what from the chaff and make sure everyone does their best (”capitalism breeds innovation”); initiatives to redress inequality and give minorities or poor people an ‘unfair’ advantage or make it easier for outsiders to enter the country should be abandoned unless there’s a really good reason for their existence, as they’re dragging down the ‘deserving’ and polluting the culture. To pro-selection people, contamination or invasion from outsiders is threatening. Pro-selection people recognise that yes, you’re going to lose some talented geniuses in sweatshops and stop some deserving people from achieving success and bully some LGBT people out of the community to face abuse and oppression alone, but this is largely a non-issue, a perfectly acceptable price to pay for an advanced and fair world.

“Oh, Derin, you’re just talking about left-wing vs. right-wing philosophies.” Sort of, but not really. It fits the stereotypes and common arguments to a T, but one can’t assume that all righties are pro-selection or all lefties are pro-variation. I have met pro-variation righties, although I’m not really sure how. And there are leftie TERFs out there, despite TERFism being an undeniably pro-selection philosophy. I find determining where people sit on the variation-to-selection scale to be a lot more useful for communication than left-to-right.

I say this because often I’ll see pro-selection and pro-variation people talking to each other, and notice that they’re having fundamentally different conversations. For example, let’s look at the issue of meritocracy. Most modern people would say that meritocracy is a good thing, but ’meritocracy’ means a fundamentally different thing to pro-selectionists than pro-variationists.

A pro-selectionist, when conceiving of meritocracy, tends to think in terms of, well, selection; devising a system where the strongest (those that excel in whatever the thinker thinks is important; innovation or determination or whatever) rise to the top and gain special privileges and power over others, that they can use to determine the rules and make life better for themselves and their children, elevating society as a side effect. To the pro-variationist, this is absolutely not a meritocracy. “You’ve built a system whereby those who don’t start out with more, those who are born poor or disabled or underprivileged in some way, have to work way harder and be lucky in order to get anywhere than those born lucky. People don’t get ahead on merit in this system because the playing field becomes drastically uneven after a couple of generations. This is not a meritocracy.”

A pro-variationist, on the other hand, would concentrate on making sure that everyone has a fair chance at exercising their skills and getting ahead. They’d focus on making sure that people had the space and security to exercise their skills and that, when it came to supporting the society to make that happen, those with more contributed more. To a pro-selectionist, this is absurd. “So those who have pulled ahead and succeeded are being penalised by having to give more? That’s the opposite of a meritocracy! That’s a system designed to drag the best down!”

I find this framework useful in explaining a lot of weird political quirks of certain subcultures. TERFs and tradwives, for example, are theoretically political opposites, but in practice their logic sounds almost identical to outsiders, sounding rather a lot like standard right-wing talking points and Fascism Lite. This is because they’re all using pro-selection arguments. To a pro-selectionist, the arguments of these groups look very different -- “we’re saying that X kind of people are good/virtuous/victims, and Y kind of people are bad/oppressors/sinners, which is the exact opposite of what the other group is saying!” To a pro-variationist, the fact that they are making literally the same argument makes them identical -- “you’re still putting people in your little ‘keep or cull’ boxes for exactly the same reasons, you just wrote different names on the boxes to keep or cull according to your personal taste.”

I think a lot of the things associated with right-wingers could be more accurately associated with people on the pro-selection end of the spectrum in general. It’s known, for example, that right-wingers tend to have a more sensitive disgust reflex and, as a consequence, be generally more xenophobic. You can see this in the way xenophobes talk of making room for outsiders; they talk of invasion, contamination, infection, hygeine, purity. LGBT exclusionists, lefties and righties, talk in the same sort of language. So do antis.

It’s also notable in the sorts of innocuous-seeming things that such people get really angry about. Right-wingers and authoritarians are known for their trend of an almost comical hatred of modern art. The idea that anything can be art, or that art can be measured on any level that isn’t strict complexity and realism of paint and sculpture, causes a surprising level of dislike in such groups. (See also arguments like ‘what is a video game’, ‘does this even count as a game’, althoughpeople thankfully seem to be bored of that now). Exclusionists are equally renowned for campaigns against inclusive terms like ‘queer’, and TERFs get obsessively nitpicky about people’s genitals to a really creepy degree and get very uncomfortable when you mention the ‘grey area’ in biological sex. This is normally assumed to be just dislike at people challenging their arguments, but I think it’s deeper. I think it’s like the modern art thing. Any kind of radical inclusivity is threatening to pro-selection thinkers, not because it’s a challenge to their rules and definitions -- they can have those arguments perfectly comfortably -- but because it is an attack on the very concept of meaning. “Words mean things! Groups exist! You can’t just... just get rid of groups and open up categories to include more people without putting them through a serious, rigorous proving ground first! You can’t just call anything you want to ‘art’, you can’t just call anyone outside cisheteronormative expectations part of the LGBT community, you can’t just call people men or women based on how they feel! That’s chaos! How can any progress be made if we just decide words don’t mean anything??”

(I also think this is a much-overlooked aspect of the same-sex marriage debate. Yes, most of that was garden-variety homophobia, but I’ve known a lot of people who were perfectly fine with ‘the gays having equal rights’, they just didn’t want it called marriage. To a pro-variationist, having the same legal language for partnerships regardless of the sex or gender of the participants is really important -- it’s a shield against future discrimination as the laws relating to either marriages or civil partnerships change over time. To a pro-selectionist, changing the definition of words related to fundamental cultural activities is a huge deal. “They’re eroding the very meaning of marriage! Chaos! How much more will the word change? Can people marry animals or cars next?!”)

As I said, this is a spectrum. I’ve met very few people who are on either extreme end -- even the most pro-equality liberal anarchist acknowledges that some standards of behaviour, community responses to inappropriate action and definitions of different communities do have to exist, to protect people, and the most hardocre fascist admits that there needs to be some measure of generating diversity to avoid stagnation and extinction. And people’s default reaction isn’t necessarily their position on all issues -- somebody who’s generally pro-variation might feel specifically threatened by immigration and think a strict proving ground for immigrants is necessary, or someone who is generally pro-selectionist might think that a robust social system is necessary because one’s economic status at birth has no bearing on one’s merit or value. But I’ve always found it to be a very useful general model.

[the-lady-writes-what]

Authortok (author tiktok) is weird right now. Everybody’s minding their own business until someone mentions that returning books to a bookstore after reading them is kind of a shitty thing to do to authors. There’s one creator who’s bending over backwards to justify this and saying it’s not stealing to follow a store’s return policy. They should know, they “work in the publishing industry.” 

And they turned off the comments in their videos where they discuss this. So, instead of listening to other people or take criticism for what they say, they just block all other voices, including authors and writers. I read one comment from someone else that said the person who’s going around saying that there’s nothing wrong with returning books, blocked her because she asked them if they work for free since the latter wants ALL books to be free. Just fuck the author over and don’t pay them, I guess? I mean, this is the same person who doesn’t want to pay for books to begin with, at least they’re consistent.

Let’s be clear. There isn’t anything inherently wrong returning a book if it’s a gift, one you bought already, or you don’t want to support the author because you find out that they’re racist, anti-semitic, or homophobic. Returning books isn’t going to hurt Barnes & Noble or Books-A-Million. However, it DOES hurt authors. When you buy a book, you’re not just giving money to the store, you’re helping to pay the content creator as well as the distributor, publishing house, etc. When you RETURN the book, you’re taking the money back from the author. The distributor, publishing house, bookstore, etc. won’t be taking a hit; they’ll still have billions of dollars. The average author, on the other hand, is not in the same boat. This particular creator who sees nothing wrong with returning a book is using a gaslighting defense and saying that we should take it up with the publishers instead. Yes, that is indeed gaslighting because you’re putting pressure onto the consumer for not paying the author and blaming the publisher for trying to run a business, both are excuses to just get free content. 

There are loads of legal ways to read FREE or affordable content without ripping off authors. Libraries are a good example. If you’re in a community that doesn’t have a library or has a very, very small underfunded library, there are collections and archives online run by public libraries, universities, and other public institutions that have online catalogues you can borrow from or digital copies, which are also FREE. Returning a book to a bookstore might not be ILLEGAL or necessarily morally wrong, but it is a pretty shitty thing to do when the average author isn’t going to have millions of dollars stashed away somewhere. It is a very first-world problem to justify hurting content creators for free stuff because you feel privileged to demand FREE works of art that hurt the creators you’re supposed to support. Returning books to bookstores is pirating with a few extra steps.

And here’s the thing that gets me, most stores have a two week return policy, right? If you’re reading a book in that amount of time, just to return it, are you even finishing it? If you finished a book and didn’t like it, why make it harder to restock that book and not pay the author? You can just resell the book, give it to a friend, donate it to a thrift store, or put it up at a garage sale. Returning a book in the maximum two weeks time is the equivalent of fast-fashion, which a lot of people are seeing as unsustainable. Maybe I'm just old and I'm a slow reader, but does anyone just READ anymore. They’re always hopping on the latest trend or buying as many books they can just to return half of them. It’s not sustainable as people can get burnt out and authors have to keep producing more and more books and keep up with trends in the same way we treat fast-fashion. It’s unhealthy.

In conclusion, please think about your authors when you’re buying from stores and consider doing something other than returning it to the bookstore unless it’s an author you don’t want to financially support (cough, cough J.K.Rowling cough, cough). Thank you for coming to my TED Talk

[footballfanfictions]

The thrill of the chase - Chapter Three

Pairings: Mason Mount/OC, Ben Chilwell/OC

Authors Note: Apologies again for how long this has taken to write, life has been absolutely manic the last couple of weeks. As always, I hope you enjoy this and feedback is gratefully received.

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

 He’s pinning me down against the bed, leaning over me. His hands are everywhere, touching and caressing me wherever he can reach and his mouth is on my neck, sucking a patch of skin to mark me.

My hands are in his hair and I’m tugging at it to get him to look at me, so that I can connect our mouths again, but when I pull his face to mine, it isn’t Ben anymore. It’s Rory.

I wake up from the fantasy in a cold sweat, my bed sheet stuck to my slick back and my pyjama top crumpled. I put my head into my hands and sob quietly. I’m not crying because I’ve had some sex dream about a footballer that snogged me. I’m crying because once again, I*’m thinking about my ex boyfriend and it’s becoming obsessive.

I sit up in bed and find myself checking his social media. His facebook has him check in to some fancy hotel in the Cotswolds with his girlfriend. They had met not long after we broke up. In fact, the gap between us breaking up and them supposedly meeting was so slim that it made me wonder if he had been talking to her before we called it quits. I had no proof of that of course, but that didn’t make me feel any better about any of it. I imagined the two of them sharing a bed together in their hotel room, enjoying the comfort of sleeping next to someone. It had been so long that I barely remembered what that felt like. 

I almost texted Bri, she would have been happy to talk even if I woke her, but I wasn’t quite ready to share what I had been thinking about recently. It would be hypocritical of Bri to judge me for thinking about Rory when all she went on about at the moment was making her ex jealous. That made me think of Billy and how much he liked her. I had this awful feeling that if he did ask Bri out that she would use it as an opportunity and not give him a fair chance. Billy did not deserve to be used like that. 

I ran my fingers through my damp hair and collected it into a ponytail, tying it with the band that I had kept around my wrist since letting my hair down before bed. I had this weird habit that whenever I was feeling stressed, needed to really concentrate on something or make a decision, I would always tie my hair up. Rory had always thought it was nuts. I had noticed from their instagram pictures that his girlfriend never really wore her hair up. I always called her that, his girlfriend because giving her a name would make her feel real, and maybe there was a part of me that didn’t want her to be real and still clung onto the idea that we were just on a break, exploring our careers and travelling only to come back together again, get married and have three kids and a dog. 

My parents had tried really hard to hide their devastation when I told them about the break up, telling me that there were plenty more fish in the sea and that the timing just wasn’t right for me to meet someone. They had then of course both reminisced about their university partners which had led to a row when my dad spoke about his university girlfriend Mandy a little bit too fondly. 

I stared down at my phone, deciding that I needed a distraction, and the best distraction was work. I logged out of my own instagram account and clicked on the first saved profile in my list. It was the player that I had been posting for the other day before Billy had his accident. I checked his recent posts and likes and nothing seemed to be out of place, except perhaps for the fact that it was around 3am and he was getting regular messages, the name Sam appearing on my screen once again.  By this point in my maddened, ex-stalking state I will admit that I was curious. I clicked the icon that took me to his inbox and began to read. 

They were conversing about his impending separation from his wife and about how they couldn’t wait to be together. I felt like throwing up in my mouth that one of the players that I worked with would behave like that, although I hadn’t really met this player in particular. His name was Jorginho and he was known as somewhat of a joker.  I kept out of his way for that very reason, not being a big fan of practical jokes and pranks.

I was about to close his inbox when another message came in.

What do we do about Ben?

I blinked and re-read the message several times. Ben? 

What on earth could Ben have to do with Jorginho cheating on his wife and leaving her for this woman, I wondered.

I clicked on her profile then and scrolled back through her pictures. She was a stunning brunette and her posts were mainly bikini pictures with the odd paid promotion thrown in here and there. I scrolled until a picture stopped me dead in my tracks. It was a picture of her with Ben, both smiling into the camera, their arms around each other and a caption that read ‘my everything’.

There were a few more pictures of them together and it was very evident that she had once been Ben’s girlfriend. At first I felt a bit numb, then I felt a pang of jealousy, and then I felt angry that she was conducting an affair with one of his team mates right under his nose and probably planning on lying to him about it.

I didn’t know what to do with this information.

He never has to know. I’m spending one more season here then my contract expires and we can go anywhere. 

I read his response, that confirmed what I feared. They were going to sneak around and hide this from Ben, probably until the divorce was finalised and then they would disappear off to another country and Ben would be left to read about it in the press. Unless i did something about it. 

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

I had a meeting with Marina this morning. She commented that I seemed really distracted and I commented that I needed content other than Mason Mount to post onto social media. Marina had laughed and said that he was increasing our social media engagement and that we had new fans and shirt sales as a result of his appeal. I muttered something rude under my breath about what I thought about his appeal.

Marina and I had a really good working relationship and could banter with each other whilst still acting professionally and having a great deal of respect.

We had decided that I could capture my own content for our social media whenever I liked and would be provided with equipment such as a camera to enable me to. I had agreed to this to get me out of just posting Mason, but it did mean extra work for me, doubling up on the job of the club photographer and that I would need to spend more time outside on the pitches with the players, something I wasn’t sure I particularly fancied doing.

I hadn’t spoken to Ben since he kissed me, and now I felt even worse about it because I had been thinking about Rory, and had discovered that his ex and his team mate were sleeping together.

It was only the first of September, but I had started thinking about content for Halloween and maybe even thanks giving as we now had an American player at the club. 

I was just messing around with different shades of orange in photoshop when there was a knock on my office door. 

I got up from my desk slowly, silently praying that it wouldn’t be Ben because I couldn’t face him without blurting out the secret. 

Instead I had the displeasure of opening the door to find Mason Mount stood there.

“What do you want?” I sighed. 

“God you are sunshine and rainbows this morning. You look like you haven’t slept.” he said grinning. He was trying to make me laugh by jokingly insulting me and then cupped my face with his hands and started to stroke beneath my eyes with his thumbs. I was about to ask him what the bloody hell he was doing when he said “just smoothing out the wrinkles”. 

I shook him off and crossed my arms over my chest.

“Sorry.” he mumbled. 

I let him in then rather than the two of us just standing in the door way. He walked over to my desk and perched on the end exactly like Ben had done before he had kissed me. Except surely Mason wasn’t going to do that.

“What can I help you with?” I asked, trying my best to be polite to him. He had tried after all to make me laugh. It wasn’t his fault that I was so worried about everyone and everything else going on around here.

“I have a bit of a problem. My girlfriend is in this girl band and they are doing a music video next week that she wants me to be in so that they can get more views. The thing is, I’m not sure it really fits with my brand.” he explained, looking down at his shoes and the carpet, his eyes darting back up to me every few seconds while I considered a response. 

“Well footballers have been in music videos before without it affecting any of their sponsorship or brand deals.” I responded, thinking about the music video Fernando Torres had been in for a spanish band years ago. 

“Maybe it’s not my image i’m necessarily worried about. I feel a bit used but don’t know how to tell her.” as he spoke he looked vulnerable for the first time and the cheekiness was all gone. 

“So if I’m getting this right, they’re a band kind of breaking through and you being in the video would get them a lot of views and might get them really famous. Don’t you want your girlfriend to be successful?” as I asked him, he looked thoughtful, and then sad.

“I don’t really want to be with someone that now only wants me because I’m famous, and wants to leech fame from me.” he shrugged. 

I remembered the rant I had at him about how privileged he was for being rich and famous at such a young age, but I now started to consider that it must come with some drawbacks like not knowing if the people closest to you actually like you for who you are or if they want to use you for fame and fortune. 

“Well if you like, if they ask us for permission I will say no and that i need you for one of our campaigns whenever it is scheduled for and that it’s non negotiable because the club pays your wages.” He grinned and hopped off the edge of the desk. 

He made to step towards me but I held out my hand to stop him.

“No need to thank me.” 

He nodded and proceeded to head towards my office door. I stopped him just before he grabbed the handle by saying “Can I give you some advice? I don’ think that you should be with someone like that either.”

Without turning back to me, he sighed and responded “I don’t think that you should be with someone like Ben Chilwell”.

Before I could say anything else in response he opened the door and left

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

By lunchtime my brain was completely scrambled. I had busied myself with my idea for a thanksgiving tribute to Christian Pulisic the American player and planned special catering for the day to include a full turkey dinner in the canteen for him. That would of course give me the perfect opportunity for a post about how we are so thankful for him and want to make him feel at home. Marina would love it. 

I thought about hiding in my office until everyone returned to their jobs or their training and then going to the canteen, but I knew if I did that there would surely be no food left.

I was just loading my tray up with small items from the tapas menu when someone tapped me on the shoulder. Looking over it, I saw that it was Billy. His smile was 50-watt and could light up any room.

“Hey Billy, are you okay?” I asked him.

“Oh yes.” he nodded. “I’ve got a plan to ask ye friend out. Wanted to run it by you if you’re free?” 

I looked around and most of the tables were free so I agreed and said we could sit together and talk about it over lunch and that maybe Bri would join us if there wasn’t some kit emergency keeping her away. He smiled at that.

We sat down at a table by the window, a nice amount of sunshine came through it which warmed my back and the back of my neck nicely.

Billy went off immediately into explaining his plan to ask Bri out. He was going to have one of the lads accidentally rip his training shirt during the morning session so that he would have an excuse to go and see her.

“Hang on - tell me what day you’re planning this and I can distract her dad for a bit.” I interjected.

“Already got that covered sweetheart. He’s on a conference all of next week!” he grinned.

I looked puzzled and he laughed at the expression I was pulling. What kind of conference would a kit man need to go to? Were they brining out a new range or under armor or something like that?

“I know it sounds mad.” 

“It doesn’t just sound mad, it sounds like a good opportunity, go on.”I encouraged him.

He was going to fill one of the old unused offices with flowers and somehow convince Bri that she needed to follow him there so that he could ask her. It was so sweet and completely something that Bri would go for so I told him that his plan sounded brilliant and that I would help him in any way possible.

“I’m going to get her thinking about you in preparation you know.” I said, showing Billy a freshly edited picture of him on my phone screen that I was planning on posting that afternoon when I got back to my desk. “This beauty is going on all our social media pages. By the way, why did you never tell me that you used to model?”

He blushed bright scarlet when I brought up his modelling career and then we both descended into fits of laughter over it.

“You’re a really good friend, you know” he smiled. “If I can call you that.”

“Of course I’m your friend Billy.” I agreed.

“Well seeing as we are now best pals, do ye want to tell me what’s on your mind?” he asked.

I gulped, my mouth and throat suddenly feeling dry and uncomfortable. I couldn’t tell him what I had learnt about Jorginho, but maybe I could at least be honest about Rory.

“I had a really bad break up about a year ago and it’s still bothering me. Just you know, seeing other people happy and wondering what could have been.” I shrugged, trying to seem not fussed. I was bothered though and talking about it made the pain in my chest when I thought about him that little bit worse. I felt tears threatening to form.

Billy put his hand over mine and squeezed it.

“If you’re still following him or still friends on facebook, you need to delete him so that you can move on. Do you want me to do it for you?” he offered, holding his hand out to me for my phone.

Billy was right, I needed to let go of the part of me that still missed Rory, the part that felt jealous every time I saw what he was up to, and I could never get over that while it was accessible to me. 

I gave Billy my phone and told him Rory’s social media names even though he was the top person in all of my search history.

“Oh Katie, I’m sorry. It can’t have been nice to see him announce his engagement on here.” he said sympathetically.

It took a second for my brain and heart to catch up with each other and I felt sick to my stomach as I ask him to repeat himself.

I hadn’t heard him wrong and he showed me the post. I must have missed it by being so preoccupied with Ben’s situation. He had taken her to that fancy hotel in the Cotswolds to propose to her. Their grinning faces staring back at me from the picture didn’t feel like people I knew anymore.

“That’s that then. The end of that chapter of my life, officially.” I scraped my hair back and tied it up quickly.

“He’s gone from your virtual life too now.” Billy said, passing the phone back to me. 

“Thank you.” I said quietly. 

It’s hard to describe how you feel the second your hope for something shatters. The reality was that Rory was never going to realise that he had made a mistake and come back to me, because the reality was that we weren’t the same people we had been when we had first met at university and we had genuinely drifted apart. I could point the finger and blame him for possibly cheating, sure, but what good would that do me? Truth is we weren’t meant to be together and he hadn’t made a mistake. He had done the right thing to lead him to the person that he was supposed to be with. I just wished that I didn’t feel this way. I was sure that if I had moved on and met someone else my reaction would have been different. I might even have congratulated him. 

That evening I went home and cracked open a bottle of wine, and once I reached the bottom of it I cried myself to sleep.

[mikaze-discord]

Love letter project ♡

Sooo to celebrate the 4th anniversary of Shining live, I put together a project! I basically got a bunch of people to write a love letter for their favourite boy. Things like, why they like them, how they got to like them and what they like about them were all accepted!

The event was supposed to have 2 fans for each boy but unfortunately I was unable to get two for some of the boys. 

Under the cut will be the love letters for all of Class A!!! Please enjoy~ And thank you for all the people who participated in the event and taking the time to write the love letters out. 

CLASS A

OTOYA ITTOKI

From @ponzu-penzui:

Hello world! My nickname is Yuki, and I’m here to tell you about the sunshine boy that is Otoya Ittoki. The redhead of the series, Otoya is your seemingly a-typical sunshine in a mascot boy character. But, as we all know with these types, the sunshine isn’t as, well, sunshine as they seem. Or, if you didn’t know, well… spoiler alert I guess. Go watch the anime, or play the otome games, then come back here. Anyways, let’s get started on our journey, shall we? Through the rabbithole that got me here in the first place!

Otoya immediately became my best boy the second I saw him. I’m not quite sure what immediately got me at first, whether it be his red hair and eyes, his voice, or his immediate friendliness, but here we are. I should also mention that UtaPri was my first idol anime, so I was completely unaware what was going to hit me later. And, if you’ve watched the entire anime, you know where I’m going.

Season 4 was an emotional wreck. I cried at least twice. Did I have a newfound appreciation for Otoya after all that heartache? Definitely. Without spoilers, it was incredibly painful for me to watch, but I don’t regret it.

After watching the anime, I soon found out about the existence of Shining Live. So, with no other UtaPri content to binge, I started to play SL in late 2018. After playing for a little more than a year, I tiered in my first Otoya event (Heartwarming Snow Festival), and achieved my first top 200. Ever since then, I’ve tiered in every Otoya event, getting top 200, then top 100.

But, why do I like Otoya Ittoki even to this day? Well, I guess this is the time where I say that, after a certain point, I started to see bits of myself in Otoya. This led me to start to RP him, and, as you probably know if you’ve ever roleplayed a character before, I started to look at the miniscule amount of translated game content (many thanks to the Ohayaho Translation Team) for, well, more content. And content I did receive. Long story short, this only served to solidify Otoya as my favorite boy of not only UtaPri, but from all anime/manga/game content I’ve ever seen/watched. His cheerfulness may have been the first thing that got me in this rabbithole, but his backstory and how he managed to grow up pulled me in even further. And, I don’t think I will or want to get out anytime soon.

Next one from; Anon

As much as we all know our Otoya for how sweet and kind he is, there is so much more to him than just a precious smile. He is uplifting, cheerful towards everyone he meets. He has empathy and goes out of his way to make sure his friends are happy. Even so, Otoya has feelings that aren’t always happiness and smiles. He can feel sad and angry just like anyone else.

The reason I care and love Otoya so much is because he has shown me that I don’t have to always put on a smile. It’s nice to show off your pearly whites, but sometimes, it’s okay to be sad too. There are times in everyone’s life when they feel out of place and that they don’t belong. Otoya also felt this way and that’s perfectly okay. He’s still being the best idol he can be: The idol that Otoya loves the most.

MASATO HIJIRIKAWA

From Anon: 

Masato Hijirikawa. Why do I like Masato Hijirikawa? I like him to the point that it feels weird for me to even question why I do. He's just- a good boy. A great boy. I love him. As a joke, I'd usually say that it was his weirdly pretty, bowl-cut hairstyle that drew me to him, or I'd say that he caught my interest when I read that he was "very good with his hands" (wink wonk) in his Shining Live description, and while both of these reasons are still true, it wasn't until I started role playing him in an old server that I really started to appreciate his character more.

Masato, despite his aloof and almost "perfect" initial image, is a very relatable character. When he first arrived at Saotome (in-game) he wasn't necessarily seen as someone with a lot of talent to become an idol, which he acknowledged with grace and worked hard to make up for. He's humble despite his privileged upbringing and is incredibly self-aware of his flaws, which are sources of insecurity for him sometimes (a lot of times). Though it should be said that most of this insecurity stems from not having a lot of control over his early life, which is why it felt so gratifying to see him break free of his metaphorical chains to pursue his happiness without any doubts. He's a hard worker and is willing to accept criticism with open arms, not only for himself but for the people around him. Despite his traditional upbringing and nature, he's very receptive to change as long as it benefits both him and STARISH. He values the people he cares about more than anything, which is why he constantly strives to be a better version of himself every day, not only for himself but for the people around him.

Though his stoicism sometimes makes him seem plain or even "boring" to some people, he hides a warm, hidden passion within that's just as bright as everyone else's. Like the springtime bloom of cherry blossoms after winter, Masato shows his passion and love with no restraint to anyone who takes the time to understand him, and I can very much attest to this. I love him a lot and I hope to see more content of him, STARISH, and the others for more years to come.

NATSUKI SHINOMIYA

From uh....me:

HELLO I’m Z~ also known as the mod of the mikaze-discord/utapri-hcs tumblrs, as well as the organiser for the event! But enough about myself, let's talk about Natsuki Shinomiya.

When I first watched the anime as a youngin, I had already known about the games and their plots but had decided to try out the anime as well since I had nothing better to do.

Natsuki was actually one of my least favourite characters in the anime just because of how they presented him. I just...didn't care for him at all. He was just some random tall guy who loved hugs and almost murder…. Yeah.

I’m sure like most, I had a changing point. Originally, I was a Tokiya rper but...I was just unhappy with how my Tokiya was, I wasn't as experienced in rping with that server being my first rp server i was ever in. I didn't feel like I matched up with the others. I felt my Tokiya was just lacking something, substance maybe. Another person actually had a similar feeling and had changed their character from Camus to Syo and since we already had an Ai, I had just decided to go with the flow and complete the rest of the cute team. Best decision of my life. I’m so grateful for Natsuki and everything I associate him with. Without him, I probably wouldn't have made my tumblrs, I wouldn't have stayed in that server, I wouldn't have gone looking for other servers to rp in. I don't think I would be the same without Natsuki. I just find him so endearing now, he is just a lovable giant who happens to be able to be a disney princess. He is just so darn cute damn it. , just look at his Christmas card, his King card, quite literally just half his Shining live URs. Also, just like his songs just slap. Natsuki to me, is just serotonin. He gave me so many opportunities that I could have missed. I don't even think I would have started this love letter project without him if I’m being completely honest. I genuinely enjoyed all the memories I made as Natsuki. Thank you to Natsuki and to the Mikaze-discord for basically starting me off.

From Luke:

Natsuki was actually the very first character I encountered before I got into utapri. A friend showed a photo of him and told me that I'd probably be into this guy. She sure was right! After installing shining live for the first time and having a familiar face on the screen, I grew curious of him each day and just had to find out why was so attracted to him. The fact that I've seen him so many times in the past was haunting me, telling me that this man actually watched me grow up from a distance without even knowing his name. It sounds weird but I find it rather comforting for someone who doesn't want to be protected but isn't strong enough to defend myself alone.

The thought of having him there was enough to get me through the day and gave me enough reason to wake up to the next. I admit I may have adapted some of his habits after looking after his account for a year but that isn't a bad thing if it means that it would turn me into a much better person than I am now. I guess you could say we've grown together now in a sense, preserving the feelings and just living through the moment no matter how happy or sad it is. What's important is that we're not alone in all things we do and in everything we feel, there will always be someone there to keep us moving when we feel like giving up.

[musical-chick-13]

I think it’s really interesting the way we talk about stories and the way that certain things fulfill different functions for the people who read/watch them.

Like...I’ve seen a lot of people talking about how J*ime/Br*enne is a good ship because the idea of an adult man becoming redeemed through the Power of Love™ proves that it’s never too late to change who you are (even if I disagree that Jaime would ever engage in enough constructive introspection to actively become a good person), or that a non-feminine woman gets to be with the Attractive White Dude™ which is a less common trope. All of these things are valid. And I have long said that I understand the appeal of this ship, even if I’m not into it personally.

I, on the other hand, see a trope I’m tired of: woman who is supposed to be unattractive is played by a model (obviously this applies solely to the TV show because the books don’t have actors), and an objectively awful guy who insults her 90% of the time makes the bare minimum effort to be slightly less awful, thus “earning” the love of a Good Woman™ in return. And since such trope comes at the expense of Cersei, a mentally ill character I self-project on, by being accompanied by often extremely violent language and wishes for a gruesome death and for her arc to be reduced to a vehicle to get said ship together...all it serves to do is make me, personally, feel awful, disillusioned, and tired.

It is much more revolutionary to me specifically (and yes, this is my own, extremely unpopular opinion) for a violent, privileged (cishet, white) male character to eventually grow to admit and embrace the fact that he is awful. If is more revolutionary to me specifically to see the Popular Hot Guy Character choose the angry, emotional woman plagued by mental illness and an extreme hatred by the common public. Even though I don’t and never will make the choices Cersei makes, those were my experiences growing up. Hated, called “crazy,” told I would always be ostracized simply for being mentally ill or having “weird” interests (although mine were ostentatious musical theatre, math, and obscure books and not like...killing people or falling in love with my relatives.). No one would ever choose me because why would they; I was too much, too “hysterical,” too willing to admit to feeling my ugly emotions to ever be worthy of that. I have never seen a quote-unquote “crazy” character be chosen. I have never seen a mentally ill character “win” a love triangle, I barely see mentally ill characters at all. GoT, for all it’s many, MANY faults, was the first piece of media I ever saw that told me, “Your mental illness does not make you an inferior option.” It was the first time I ever saw someone with an emotional state reminiscent of mine be actually, truly, romantically loved, something I thought would be completely inaccessible to me for the rest of my life because of my multiple chronic mental illnesses. It was the very first time in my entire life that I truly believed that being “emotional” and having a brain that didn’t work like everyone else’s did not make me unworthy of love, support, or security.

And...maybe that’s fucked up. But it gets me unscathed through the days when I hate myself, so I don’t think I really care. It’s 100% understandable if this isn’t someone’s takeaway from the show. But as I’ve always said, I don’t believe certain narrative choices are necessarily inherently better or more subversive. We all look for different things in stories. We all need different touchstones to help us cope. We all have different things to cope with. Different representations (even of the same experience) will help different people.

I’m really not trying to make any sort of judgment or Big Statement™ here, I just think it’s interesting.