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loveswickedpitch · 2 years

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I just finished watching the movie for a third time, so here’s a mess of random disjointed thoughts (and I do mean a mess). it’s roughly in the right order. probably

Yo there was so much tiny Karen I couldn’t fucking stand it she is so cute and baby Hikari was so cute and aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Karen’s mom is a MILF

Karen’s aunt is a… AILF.

Seeing a front-loading pink washing machine and/or dryer just makes me think of when Ikuhara claimed that the pink washing machine that Yuri was advertising in Mawaru Penguindrum was the eponymous Penguindrum

Kaoruko talking about wanting to try the Auditions again and Mahiru looking horrified. Also the way the room seems to fucking chill once Maya actually says the word “Auditions”.

Shoutouts to the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it ReLive reference. Hope all you fans still trapped in gacha hell enjoyed it (I’m clean for almost a year now)

Nana tapping her foot at the beginning of “wi(l)d screen baroque” is very important to me

The entirety of the Revue of Annihilation, from the lead-in with the fucking, giraffe symbol rolling along the train to the bloody aftermath

GET OUT OF THE INTERSECTION YOU FUCKING GIRAFFE

The trains transforming into the stage was the hypest fucking shit, immediately topped by Nana’s katana being launched out of a train door and her effortlessly catching it

And then you realize that she had been fighting entirely with the smaller wakizashi and you’re like “holy fuck Nana”. Absolutely poggers

Nana stone cold picking up her katana and slicing Junna’s button off without even looking at her

Maya and Nana having autistic girl to autistic girl communication while Claudine is just like “what the fuck are these two talking about!!” (tbh I didn’t get understand it either on my first watch)

“I’m saying. I somehow feel like I just drank a strong sake.”

When I watched this with my wife I had warned her ahead of time about the ending of the Revue of Annihilation but she still gasped when blood came pouring out of Junna’s neck and honestly? Me too the first time

In general I’m so fucking glad that Nana got the villain song she deserved. “Re:Create” and “Hoshiboshi no Kizuna” are both great but a lot of them consist of Hikari and Karen, respectively. You could argue that “Hymn to Rebirth” is a Nana song as well, but it’s not a villain song at all. “wi(l)d screen baroque” is 100% banana baby

Baby Karen and Hikari with the castanets gave me K-On flashbacks

THE FUCKING VEGETABLE GIRAFFE WILL HAUNT MY NIGHTMARES

The tomato definitely represents the fruit from the Garden of Eden right

MASAI AND SHION’S SCENES WERE SO CUTE AND GOOD AND GAY

ALSO Masai’s little scream into the megaphone was so adorable. Fluttershy vibes

Honestly this movie is somehow even gayer than the TV anime

When the instrumental rendition of “Knowledge of a Stage Girl” came in I nearly started bawling

Nana with a power drill what will she do (stand around and say ominous things, it turns out, as is her wont)

Corpse train….

Impressed that Maya managed to bite directly into the tomato with no hesitation

The giraffe standing in the tube train just like “sup” at Hikari (who is understandably upset to see him)

WAGAMAMA

FUCKING

HIGHWAY

The intro where Kaoruko accuses Claudine of seducing Futaba? Futaba bursting in with a fucking truck looking like a Showa delinquent? Kaoruko’s tattoo… Claudine just shrugging amusedly as the two of them burst out of the gambling house… and that’s before it even starts!

The next part of the Revue really lulls you into a false sense of security as it feels like it’s rehashing things from their original Revue, and it’s much less flashy…

But then we get the SEXY MAIN HALL where Kaoruko flirts with Futaba, accuses her of adultery then pretends she doesn’t care while pouring champagne on herself before leaning in real close and asking Futaba to meet her outside???? Absolute fucking legend

I cannot properly convey my feelings about the fucking disco dekotora showdown other than that my foot was tapping the entire fucking time

Futaba giving Kaoruko her bike and Kaoruko insisting that she won’t wait for Futaba while the lyrics are talking about how she’s going to wait for Futaba… *chef’s kiss* they really are useless

“MEDAL SUZDAL PANIC” is like… so incredibly powerful

Like the Revue starts with the kind of goofy humor from the Karen v Mahiru Revue in the TV anime. Like… here’s sports! Here’s cats! Here’s cardboard cutouts!

And then the instrumental cuts out and it’s just Mahiru singing

anata ga anata ga anata ga anATA GA ANATA GA

Mahiru can have little a yandere. As a treat

The part in the elevator was especially good

Mahiru grabbing Hikari by the collar and dangling her over a massive drop was an incredibly powerful image

I really, really like the bit of the song that plays while Hikari’s falling

Anyway Mahiru good job on reducing Hikari to a sobbing, terrified mess. A+ work

Mahiru putting the medal over Hikari’s head and fluffing out her hair was so cute… and the two of them being like “I’m glad I got to stand on stage with you”... I love them…..

I don’t remember where in the movie all of the flashbacks happened specifically but there being male characters besides the giraffe, no matter how minor, was fucking bizarre.

I’ve had them before and I think that Mister Donut’s donuts are just okay.

I wonder if Seiran was Karen’s second choice high school

“Pen : Power : Katana” was… so absurdly heavy

But at least Nana’s “GAO!!” was incredibly cute

Also the fact that the seppuku bucket had frogs on it is important

I think one of the strengths of this Revue though was how many ways you can interpret it, especially Nana’s actions. It feels more like a role Nana is playing than anything else… her lines in the corpse train scene kind of alludes to that, I feel. Like her slipping back into her antagonistic role from the TV anime bc she feels it’s needed

Junna’s “...together.” after the Revue was just… so good. It’s not “goodbye”, it’s “see you later”. Which I think is a major theme of the film

Did anyone have “the giraffe dies” on their bingo card or

“A Beautiful Person, or Somebody Like That” is such a good palate cleanser after how difficult to watch the previous Revue was

Like yeah it’s dramatic but it’s also fun. Claudine’s having the absolute time of her life

Claudine in a suit with fangs is very important

Instead of a stupid swan this time Maya got a giant CG metal chicken

This Revue was also ridiculously stylish… I especially loved the scene of Maya’s face changing as the frames passed in front of her

Claudine dunking on Maya’s god complex and revealing her as being just as normal as the rest of them was so good

The fucking musical callback to “Pride and Arrogance” was very important to me

“Like an awry arrow revealing the imitation of God” is a good phrase

“You’re the cutest you’ve ever been!” “I’M ALWAYS CUTE!!!!”

“For heroes there are trials!” “For saints there are temptations!” “For me there’s you!”

Get a fucking room you two

Claudine deserved this win more than anyone ever has

Anyway I think they’re legally married now. Congrats to the happy couple

Hikari crying over Karen’s corpse was a really powerful scene

I keep trying to figure out how to introduce “Super Star Spectacle” but just. I don’t think words can do it justice? The entire ending sequence of this movie is perfect. Everything is so raw and emotional and epic

The fucking train sequence was insane and my jaw was on the floor the whole time but don’t think I didn’t notice you borrowing visually from Mawaru Penguindrum in there Furukawa!!! Nothing slips past me!!!!!!

I can’t believe how romantic Hikari stabbing Karen was

Everything after that was just… I don’t know what to say. The song swelling, the characters releasing their capes into the wind, the ruins of Tokyo Tower… I cried. Even on my third viewing, I cried.

The sheer finality of the movie is honestly amazing… it almost explicitly says “Revue Starlight is over. That’s it. That’s the end.” And honestly, even if it wasn’t, I don’t think that it would be possible to top “Super Star Spectacle”. I think anything short of a total reboot would feel cheap after this.

God… I can’t believe Revue Starlight managed to stick the landing and then stick the landing a second time. This movie was one of the best endings I’ve ever seen for any series in my life. I’m so excited to see what Tomohiro Furukawa (and everyone else who worked on this movie) does next

#revue starlight #revue starlight movie spoilers #aaaa

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finleycannotdraw · 4 years

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Guess what? I’m re-binge-reading Good Omens. And here are some Obervations that I forgot about and some things I might put in fics. Also things I found funny. Basically my dumb commentary on the book.

Crowley actually flees Sister Mary. He doesn’t saunter vaguely away. He flees.

Ligur is rather more thoughtful than he’s portrayed in the show

Anathema likes to read about herself, and her teachers are confused because she spells words like Agnes Nutter

Crowley apologizes

By page 41, it is mentioned at least twice that Aziraphale and Crowley Do Not choose each other’s company for any reason other than that they are constants, that they have an Arrangement, and that they are Friends because being Enemies got boring.

Aziraphale blushes!!!!!!

The Drunk Scene is fuckin hilarious and it’s actually a lot longer than it is in the show, and really you ought to read it. (Book pages 47-50)

My mom (who has a PhD in human development) would probably like to talk to Crowley about upbringing because they seem to agree on how important it is

War has always looked 25, and had a vulture that died of fatty degeneration

Pollution is very cleverly compared to actual pollution

Warlock has Kermit the frog overalls, and Nanny Ashtoreth is described as someone who “advertises unspecified but strangely explicit services in certain magazines”. The tutors are present for about four paragraphs. Warlock is good at math and likes banana flavored bubblegum.

Crowley has a slice of angel cake. Aziraphale eats it. Aziraphale also eats deviled eggs. Hm.

Crowley calls Aziraphale angel casually enough to suggest he’s been doing it for a long time

Some girl at Warlock’s party calls Aziraphale a f*ggot

Crowley glares suspiciously at a gerbil. It is suggested that Hell has, in the past, sent hell-gerbils in place of hellhounds.

“Oh dear,” muttered Aziraphale, not swearing with the practiced ease of one who has spent six thousand years not swearing, and who wasn’t going to start now.

Adam and his friends play in a place called The Pit, where shopping carts go to die, apparently

Crowley is the first one to mention sides in the book!??!? Also Crowley goes on about how humans are more evil than Hell (but he calls himself evil—is he calling himself human already?)

Aziraphale yells “get off the road, you clown!”

“What’s a velvet underground?” *love confession???* “you wouldn’t like it”

Aziraphale is a bit rude to Crowley in the “flashes of love” scene and Crowley is less panicked about it

Crowley glares at the Bentley and it fixes itself

Anathema’s bike is called Phaeton

COULD THEY ACT ANY MORE MARRIED OH MY GOD

Aziraphale speaks like. Like ugh. “FlOUndeR on tHe rOcKS of inEquiTY”

“Thirty seconds later someone shot both of them. With incredible accuracy.” *cuts to a random pleasant story about Mary Hodges* *cuts back to where Aziraphale has fallen into a rhododendron and Crowley licks the paint before he knows it’s paint* dumbasses

Crowley does not slam Aziraphale into the wall

Crowley is actually pretty impatient and doesn’t argue with Aziraphale when he’s worried

“Nothing but dust and fundamentalists” “that was nasty” “sorry, couldn’t help it”

When the radio sings “Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me,” Crowley sings “for me” and then screams

Crowley asks Aziraphale if he’ll keep in touch, and Aziraphale doesn’t say tickety-boo, and then Crowley says “right” and feels very alone

the international express man is small and has glasses, and wears green woolen socks

The sword, which turns out to be Aziraphale’s, is described as having an aura of hatred and menace, which makes me think of how it could’ve gotten that aura from Heaven or from humanity or from War...

In the book Pepper has red hair and freckles, which makes it a cool comparison to War’s appearance and the defeat of War

Adam is excellent at slouching, apparently

Occasionally, as Aziraphale reads the book, he would very nearly swear

“He wouldn’t have said ‘that’s weird’ if a flock of sheep had cycled past playing violins.”

“If you had told him there were children starving in Africa he would’ve been flattered that you’d noticed.”

“...that he was English, that he was intelligent, and that he was gayer than a tree full of monkeys on nitrous oxide.” (151)

Wensleydale watches David Attenborough programs

Shadwell’s voice is described as “the color of an old raincoat” and seems to fake smoking cigarettes

Aziraphales cocoa is moldy and solidified by the time he calls Arthur Young, and has a thin layer of dust on himself too

Newt says that the walls look like nicotine and the floor looks like cigarette ash, and he suspects both are, actually, coated with these substances

Newt looks a bit like Clark Kent, and people seem to like Shadwell for some reason, much to his annoyance.

Aziraphale calls Shadwell “dear boy” on the phone

Agnes Nutter called God a daft old fool #goals

Adam is wayyyy too good at video games

Smelling Anathema’s perfume makes Newt uncomfortable

Adam suggests that Pepper ought to have Russia cause of her red hair (huh)

Anathema and Newt actually have decent conversations?? Like?? Show??? C’mon, man. The show kinda butchered their relationship.

Trees, apparently, make a ‘vvrooooommm’ sound when they grow very fast

“He suspected that Crowley was from the Mafia, or the underworld, although he would have been surprised how right he nearly was.” Shadwell also thought Aziraphale was a Russian spy. Wow, Shadwell.

Aziraphale calls Crowley and actually says “shut up” to him, and then when the answering machine beeps, he tells Crowley to “stop making noises” and then he swears for the first time ever.

The fuckin’ footnote on page 227

“A sleek computer was the sort of thing Crowley felt that the sort of human he tried to be would have.” I like the word choice here. He’s not pretending to be a human, he’s trying to be one. That’s a really important distinction.

It never actually says what Crowley does to his plants.

Crowley’s flat is very white. Wow, Crowley. It just looks dark because of the lighting. Heaven imagery and symbolism out my ears, goddammit.

Why does Hell say Crowley’s name so much when talking to him?? Honestly, I think that’s an intentional dig at his chosen name, using it in their speech to scare him. Wow, Hell. (And wow, Finn, excellent sentence)

Whenever the book says something is shaped like something, it definitely isn’t that thing. “man-shaped” “dog-shaped” “car-shaped”... makes it pretty obvious they aren’t men, dogs, or cars, huh.

The code to Crowley’s safe is 4004. The year he “slithered onto this stupid, marvelous planet”... and the year he met Aziraphale, of course. Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt, Crowley, my dude.

Crowley consideres sticking Hastur into his car until he turns into Freddie Mercury but then decides even he isn’t that cruel

Actual text that I feel like nobody really agrees with: “Madame Tracy was by many yardsticks quite stupid”

“Do I look like I run a bookshop?” “...imagine me out of uniform, sir, and what kind of man would you see before you? Honestly?” “A prat.”

I’m crying. The fucking bookshop fire scene made me fucking cry. I’m literally crying.

“...on all fours in the blazing bookshop, Crowley cursed Aziraphale, and the ineffable plan, and Above, and Below.” “The police and firemen looked at him, saw the expression on his face, and stayed exactly where they were.” “...a crack of thunder so loud it hurt....” *the sound of Finley sobbing into their cat*

The shortest biker in the cafe thing is 6′2, what the fuck

War, Famine, Pollution, and Pop Trivia 1962-1979

“Pollution removed his helmet and shook out his long white hair. He had taken over when Pestilence, muttering about penicillin, had retired in 1936. If only the old boy had known what opportunities the future had held.” HMMMMMMMMMMM

“There were no bitches in Hell either.” I know it’s talking about female dogs, but I rather thought Hell was full of bitches.

“Why are you talking like a poofter?” “Ah. Australia.”

“gOsh, aM i on teLEviSiON?” (Basically Aziraphale gets passionate about stuff and likes to talk).

Crowley is actually an optimist and doesn’t dwell too much on how sucky the world is. He doesn’t go get smashed in a bar. He just finds Aziraphale’s notes in the book and heads to Tadfield. And also, his new pair of sunglasses just... materializes out of his eyes. And he likes to whistle.

“Death and Famine and War and Pollution continued biking to Tadfield. And Grievous Bodily Harm, Cruelty to Animals, Things Not Working Properly Even After You’ve Given Them A Good Thumping But Secretly No Alcohol Lager, and Really Cool People traveled with them.”

“on top of the pile a rather large octopus waved a languid tentacle at them. The sergeant resisted the temptation to wave back.” Honestly dude, if an octopus waved at me I’d wave back.

Wait Agnes was apparently talking to Shadwell and not God when she said yowe daft old foole. I dunno

Madame Tracy: You old silly. Shadwell:

Aziraphale does not know how to get rid of demons. Canonically. “Had never done other to get rid of demons than to hint to them very strongly that he, Aziraphale, had some work to be getting on with, and wasn’t it getting late? And Crowley always got the hint.”

The road to Hell is paved with frozen door to door salesmen, apparently. The question is where it is, because the demons always seem to just stem out of the ground.

“Heigh ho,” said Anthony Crowley, and just drove anyway. I love this sentence during that scene.

I bet Hastur gets really mad whenever he hears Aziraphale’s voice from now on

Crowley isn’t breathing the entire burning Bentley scene

ADAM. SAID. “But I reckon you can make your own side” AND WE FUCKIN IGNORED IT?

The temperature above the M25 was simultaneously 700ºC and -140ºC which makes me think of something I read about magenta not being real. The M25 is magenta.

I feel like “Agnes” is just going to become an inside joke between Anathema and Newt at this point, and it will drive Crowley insane because he knows who she is but somehow still doesn’t get the joke.

I’m six inches taller than R.P. Tyler, and apparently according to the back sleeve of the book jacket, I’m very similar in height to Neil Gaiman

R.P. Tyler thought Shadwell was a ventriloquist’s dummy, and then sees cows doing somersaults

“That’s terrific. Much obliged,” said Crowley. — “Funny weather we’re having, isn’t it?” “Is it? I hadn’t noticed.” “Probably because your car is on fire.” .... Also the fact that Crowley looks like a young man which I find interesting.

“The Four Button-Pressers of the Apocalypse”

“Where is Armageddon, anyway?” “I’ve always meant to look that up.” “There’s an Armageddon, Pennsylvania”

Famine is the one that says “that’s one big avocado”, and also, I find it interesting that War, more than once, talks about love. (All is fair in love and war much?)

Anathema threatens the guard with a stick, pretending it’s a gun

Aziraphale, of course, asks Crowley to sort it out because he, Aziraphale, is “the nice one” and then proceeds to sort it out himself. Because of course he does. Because what else could he possibly do.

I just ADORE THIS BOOK OKAY

I’M PROBABLY GOING TO READ IT AGAIN IN A MONTH

Aziraphale and Crowley are so fuckin married I can’t

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jowritesthingss · 4 years

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Un-Convention-al

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Pairing(s): Logince (Logic | Logan + Creativity | Roman)

Rating: Teen (for swearing and Remus being Remus)

Content Warning(s): some swearing, a couple of typical Remus-like comments (nothing too bad here tho), food

Length: 3,679 words

Brief Summary: Soulmate September, day one! While at a convention, Roman ponders his rather unconventional soulmark. And maybe, just maybe...he might find the person whose name is encoded onto his arm.

TS Masterlist + AO3 Links

“Heyy, Spock!”

Roman rolled his eyes as his brother raced over to a black-haired, pointy-eared cosplayer. This had to be the stupidest thing he had ever done, and this wasn’t the first time Remus had dragged him into weird shit, so that was really saying something.

Watching as Remus spoke excitedly with the dude, Roman couldn’t help but wonder why he had allowed his brother to drag him to one of his nerd convention thingies. The only acceptable thing about this was that this Captain James T. Kirk character was obviously exactly like him, so even if he was acting as some geeky TV show character, at least it was a valorous protagonist, he supposed.

Roman tapped his foot impatiently, looking around the hotel lobby at all of the booths advertising anime and mango and cartoons and whatnot. Yeah, yeah, he was supposed to be supportive of his brother and whatnot after everything, but couldn’t he have held off the supporting thing until tomorrow, at least? Roman could’ve��should’ve—been across town, meeting that famous soulmate linguist guy that was in town, but nooo.

Remus snagged the cosplayer by the wrist and dragged him over, grinning madly underneath his facial prosthetics. Which, of course Remus had to choose one of the weird characters to cosplay—what was his name? Wolf? Wharf? “You two match! We gotta get a picture!”

“Very well.” Sighing and rolling his eyes, Roman acquiesced, moving over to the poor kid. He slung one terra-cotta arm around the kid’s shoulder, striking up a pose. Best to let Remus have and do what he wanted without fighting too too much; then maybe he’d get tired sooner and they could leave sooner.

Remus backed up, bringing out his phone to take the picture. “All right, say tribble!” Remus called to them.”

“Say what?” Roman puzzled, while the cosplayer said, “That is highly nonsensical and—”

The flash of the camera interrupted them both.

“Fuck yeah,” Remus enthused. He looked appraisingly between Roman and the other cosplayer, and nope, Roman did not like that look one bit. Remus always got that look when he was up to no good. “Say, Spocksie,” he drawled, “if you’re not meeting up with anyone, wanna hang with us today?”

“I could’t possibly intrude in such a manner,” Spock tried to politely decline, weakly attempting to disentangle himself from Roman.

Wait but no, that was actually a good idea for once. If this guy stuck around with them, Roman wouldn’t have to deal with Remus on his own. He could share in the shame.

“Oh, but I insist!” Roman said quickly, tightening his hold ever so slightly. He winked, hoping his stunning self could win over the nerd. “As your captain, I command you,” he joked. Wait, uh. Kirk was Spock’s captain, right? Gosh, there were too many Star Trek series to keep track of. How did Remus do it?

“I...very well, if you insist,” the cosplayer said carefully. “If you truly do not mind.”

“Of course we don’t mind!” Roman let go of the guy to splay a hand across his yellow-clad chest. “I’m sure you’ll love the chance to bask in my glorious presence.”

Spock turned to look at Remus, who was practically vibrating with energy. “Tell, me, is he in character or is he always like this?” He raised an eyebrow. “I do not recall Captain Kirk being so...self-absorbed.”

Roman squawked as beside him Remus howled with laughter, and maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all.

---

To retaliate for the whole “self-absorbed” comment, Roman sentenced the Spock cosplayer to sitting in a panel for an hour with Remus, while Roman aimlessly played on his phone outside the auditorium, thankful that they only had two tickets and that the rest of the tickets had sold out before they got there.

Judging from the smile on the kid’s face as he and Remus walked out of the door, debating amongst each other, he realized that sitting in a stuffy, crowded fandom panel was probably paradise for a nerd, not a punishment. Ah, well. At least he’d had time to try looking up some new online translators, even if he’d had no luck actually translating what he’d been trying to translate for five years now.

As he stood to meet the two, Roman’s right hand slipped over to his left wrist, where it slipped under the sleeve of his sleeved yellow command shirt and unconsciously began rubbing at the characters tattooed across his skin.

Soulmates were something that everyone had, and without fail, the name of your soulmate appeared on your wrist at thirteen, so there was nothing to be confused about there. And there were so many different languages and writing systems out there that having a name written in a different language or in different characters wasn’t out-of-the-ordinary, either.

What was out-of-the-ordinary, however, was that nobody could decipher the characters written across Roman’s arm.

Five years since he turned thirteen, five years since those weird-looking letters appeared on his wrist—five years of family and friends and schoolmates and teachers and even linguists gaping at them, five years of not being able to figure out what they said, what name and secret they held.

And who knows? Maybe if Roman had gone to meet that linguist instead, today could’ve been the day he finally figured it out.

But no, that wasn’t Remus’ fault. Remus had planned on this con for over a year now. He couldn’t take his frustration out on Remus.

“Did you have fun, nerds?” he asked as he strode up to them.

“I got to ask about pon farr.” Remus grinned leeringly, and Roman wasn’t exactly sure what he was talking about, but he was fairly certain that he didn’t want to know. “And Spocky-wocky here totally nerded out about Klingon.”

“Oh. Uh. Excellent,” Roman said jerkily. Did he want to know what that was, either?

His grumbling stomach made the decision that no, he most decidedly did not. At least, not for the moment.

“Why don’t we find something to eat?” Roman asked the two. “I don’t know about you two, but I myself am famished.”

Remus immediately turned and flounced away from the two of them. “Sounds dee-lightful to me, broski. I saw this stand selling astronaut food!”

Roman and the cosplayer—Roman really would have to ask his name at some point, he couldn’t just keep calling them “Spock”—hurried after Remus, and soon enough, the three were eating (more like gagging on) freeze-dried ice cream, animatedly discussing Kirk and some gal Uhura who apparently had been part of the first interracial kiss on television (“Could be gayer,” Roman said. “Could be gayer,” Remus agreed, staring mournfully at the empty packet in his hand. He had been the only one to actually enjoy the space food.)

The conversation had moved to Kirk and Spock, Remus adamantly insisting that the two had been more than friends and coworkers. He and the Spock cosplayer had a rather lively debate over it—none of which Roman understood in the slightest, so he let himself get distracted. He couldn’t help but wonder what the cosplayer would look like beneath the cosplay. The guy’s bright eyes were mighty pretty while he argued with Remus.

Mid-sentence, Remus’ eyes drifted over to Roman, and he looked away, hoping his staring hadn’t been caught. He wasn’t one to look at people that weren’t his soulmate—all the same, when you didn’t know what your soulmate’s name was, it was quite hard not to. If Remus got any ideas, though, Roman was doomed.

Sure enough, That Look appeared in Remus’ mischievous brown eyes, and he abruptly interrupted the debate to announce that he was going to go buy some more food, racing off before either Roman or the Spock cosplayer could respond.

Roman and the cosplayer instinctively turned to exchange a glance with each other, then Roman quickly looked away, flushing. Now he’d realized that the dude was kinda attractive for a nerd, he couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Great.

“So,” Roman said awkwardly in an attempt to break the awkward silence between the two. He fought the urge to run a hand through his hair, reminding him that Remus’ soulmate would murder him if he messed up the borrowed blond wig.

“So,” the Spock agreed. He paused before continuing, glancing between Roman and Remus. “The two of you are...friends? Boyfriends?”

“Ew. Oh, god, no.” Roman gagged. “Ew ew ew.” He looked across the floor at his brother, standing in line to buy some odd foreign candy or something. “He’s my brother.”

Spock nodded sagely, staring as Remus paid for a handful of...something. “Your brother?”

Roman watched Remus shove the entire handful of candy in his mouth, gagging. “...He’s adopted.”

Roman caught Remus’ eye from across the room, and Remus grinned at him, his deep brown cheeks puffed out like a chipmunk as chunks of something slipped out of his mouth.

“Very adopted,” Roman emphasized.

The cosplayer let out a light chuckle, and oh, that was a nice sound. “You’re clearly out of your depth here. You are a good brother for indulging him in this.”

“I...suppose,” Roman said slowly, tamping down on the sudden rush of guilt over having wanted so badly to leave the convention. “So, do you have any siblings?”

The Spock nodded. “I have a younger brother of my own. Unfortunately, he lives across the country with our mother, so he could not come today.”

“Oh.” Roman blinked. Oh, shit. Had he just brought up a sore subject? Shit. “I’m sorry.”

“It is quite all right,” the cosplayer said mildly. “When we graduate, we have plans to attend the same university, and we see each other enough on holidays.”

“That’s good! That’s good,” Roman said. Oh, by Zeus’ thunderbolt, why were his attempts at maintaining conversation so miserable today? Usually he was so good at this.

Across the floor, Remus seemed quite content eating on his own, not coming back to the two of them standing so awkwardly together. He couldn’t rely on Remus to figure out some dorky topic to talk about.

Finally, grasping at straws, Roman lowered himself to asking about nerdstuffs. “So what was that thing Remus you were talking about during the panel? Cling wrap?”

The cosplayer looked mildly affronted, and dammit, if Roman fucked up again—

“Are you referring to Klingon?” he asked, cocking his head slightly to the side.

“Yeah! That!” Roman rushed out. “What’s that?”

The Spock gazed at him in wonderment. “You truly know nothing about Star Trek, do you.”

Roman shrugged helplessly.

“Klingon is a species of alien, alongside a language,” the cosplayer said, moving his hand up to his face and jerking it away at the last second. “Apologies, I forgot that I was wearing contacts for this cosplay.” He cleared his throat. “Your brother is cosplaying as one of the few Klingon characters, Worf. The Klingons are portrayed largely as bloodthirsty antagonists throughout the series.”

“Ah.” So that was why Remus had chosen to be one of them.

“Personally, I myself am more fascinated in their language than I am anything else,” the Spock explained. “They actually hired a linguist to create an entire language and alphabet for the series. Klingon is one of the most widely-spoken fictitious languages.”

Wait. Roman frowned, confused. “People speak fictitious languages?”

“Well, yes, of course,” the cosplayer said evenly. “All language is made-up, and besides, it is logical that dedicated fans would pick up some throughout the television shows. I myself speak a bit.”

Roman snorted. “What do ya know.” Maybe that’s something he would have to add on his list of language to look up—he had almost exhausted dead languages and alphabets, might as well see if his stupid soulmark matched a fake language. It wasn’t like it could hurt anything; he wasn’t going to find them regardless.

“Aw, you’re not making out?” Remus was back, standing in front of them once more.

“I—no, of course not!” Roman blustered.

“Why ever would you think—” the cosplayer stammered at the same time.

Remus grinned widely at them, flashing a pearly white, seemingly threatening smile.

“Wow! Would you look at the time!” Roman exclaimed loudly, not looking at all at the time. “Why don’t we go and look at some of the booths and tables, Commander Spock!” He grabbed the other cosplayer’s hand and rushed the two of them away as a snickering Remus followed from a distance.

As the trio navigated the crowds of people and tables of merch, Roman ignored the fluttery feeling in his stomach and the childish glee over how the cosplayer had yet to pull his hand out of Roman’s.

---

Before Roman knew it, the end of the day had reached them, and they were ushered out alongside other convention-goers. The rest of the day had passed much more quickly than he had expected, with someone else to share his grief over Remus being Remus, and good hour or two he had completely forgotten why he’d been sulking about going in the first place.

Roman, Remus, and the cosplayer that Roman still hadn’t gotten the name of lingered on the sidewalk outside of the Marriott. There was no real reason for them to stay, but despite the Spock cosplayer’s nerdiness, Roman had discovered a shared interest in Broadway and analyzing Disney, and he almost wanted to ask for the guy’s number, awkward and embarrassing as it was.

But Remus thankfully beat him to the punch. “Say, Jabberspocky, can I get your number? My brother over there is too boring, so he never likes to talk about nerd things. I could use more cute geeks in my life!”

The Spock nodded. “That would be amenable,” he agreed. “It has been most invigorating to discuss the intricacies of the Star Trek universe with you.” The cosplayer swung around to look at Roman, looking almost...nervous? “Would you like to exchange numbers as well? You are a worthy debate opponent when it comes to Disney media.”

“Oh.” That was a compliment, right? Well, Roman was taking it as a compliment. He preened. “Of course! It would be an honor! ...For you, of course.” He grinned jokingly.

The cosplayer rolled his eyes good-naturedly, fishing his phone out of his back pocket, unlocking it, and handing it to Roman. “If you wouldn’t mind filling out your contact information, please.”

“Most certainly!” Roman pulled out his own phone and tossed it at the Spock cosplayer, who just barely caught it with his fingertips. Aw, cute, the nerd was clumsy. He focused in on the phone in his hands, typing in his name and his phone number. “There we go.”

When the cosplayer took his phone back, he glimpsed briefly at their contacts in his phone, then glanced away.

He froze.

Baffled, Roman watched as the cosplayer’s wide eyes retrained themselves down on the cell phone screen.

“Is...is everything all right?” Roman asked, feeling a spark of worry. Did they somehow know each other from elsewhere? Had he or Remus done or said something in the past?

“Oh, my,” the cosplayer said in a slightly-strangled voice. “We...I never asked what your names are, did I?”

“No, I don’t think so.” Roman mock-bowed. “Roman Sanders, at your service.” He gestured over at his brother, grinning. “And that oaf is Remus.”

“Oh, my,” the cosplayer repeated, breathless. He looked almost anxiously up at Roman. “My name is Logan Lehrer.”

Roman smiled reassuringly. “A most lovely name!”

“Is it....” The Spock cosplayer—no, Logan—hesitated. “Is it, by any chance, a familiar name?”

Furrowing his brow slightly, Roman pondered it. “...I don’t believe so,” he said at long last. “Why? Do we know each other from elementary school, or middle school, perhaps?”

“No, I just—” Logan sucked in a breath. He fiddled with the hem of his blue science shirt. “May I—” he said haltingly. “May I see your wrist?”

“My wrist?” Roman tilted his head, bewildered. He held out his right wrist. “Why?”

“No, no, I mean your—here.” Logan reached out a shaky hand, gently grasping at Roman’s left wrist. And—oh.

Oh.

Roman held his breath as Logan slowly tugged back his sleeve. There was no way—was there? Or...maybe?

Logan stared at the white symbols etched across Roman’s tannish brown skin. The five symbols, Roman now realized. Five symbols, five letters...just like Logan’s name, maybe?

Then Logan began to laugh.

Roman blinked. He had only known the guy for, like, six hours, max, but the quiet, reserved nerd he had seen so far did not seem like the type to burst into mad fits of laughter.

“Are��are you all right?” Roman asked, totally lost. What was happening here?”

“Oh my—” Logan wheezed, and Roman now was genuinely concerned. Should he call an ambulance? Should he go back inside and find the medics they had at the event?

“Whatever is going on that’s so funny?” Roman questioned.

Trying and failing to speak through the chuckles running through his body, Logan rolled up the sleeve of his shirt and practically shoved his wrist in Roman’s face, still trembling from laughter and nearly whacking him in the face.

“Oi—” Roman prepared to snap, mildly offended, but the name written across Logan’s wrist caught the words in his throat.

Roman.

Sweet Sif, Roman was Logan’s soulmate. That meant—

That meant Logan was Roman’s soulmate. That mean that, whatever language it was written in, Logan’s name was written on his arm. Logan’s. Logan.

“It’s,” Logan wiped a tear of mirth from the corner of his eye, straightening up and slowly composing himself again. “Th-that is my name on your wrist, Roman.”

“It is?” he heard himself say dumbly, as if from a distance away, still not sure that this was really happening.

“It is,” Logan confirmed. He carefully lifted Roman’s wrist to his face and traced the characters with a thin fingertip.

Roman bit back a whimper. Oh, god, he never wanted Logan to stop touching him. Hell if that sounded inappropriate.

“This is my name,” Logan said, struggling to maintain a straight face, “in Klingon.”

Roman was silent for a good minute, processing this information, until finally he realized, “Wait, Klingon? Like, that made-up alien nerd language?”

Logan’s cool facade cracked, and he grinned down at Roman’s wrist, cheeks a rosy red. “Indeed, it is ‘that made-up alien nerd language’ Klingon.”

“Why the hell...?” Roman wondered, bemused.

“I am afraid that I have no idea,” Logan informed him, still scrutinizing Roman’s wrist. “There have been records of soulmate names being written in Ancient Greek and the like before, but I don’t think anyone has recorded any in Klingon before.”

Roman could have puzzled over this for ages more, but as it finally occurred to him, this was his soulmate standing in front of him. Shouldn’t he do something about that?

Wriggling his left wrist out of Logan’s loose grasp, he cupped the other teen’s face gently in his hands. Logan’s pale whitish green makeup was coming off in his hands, and the two of them no doubt looked ridiculous from an outsider’s perspective, but he found that it didn’t matter to him in the moment.

“I must say,” Roman said quietly. “While unexpected, this is most certainly not an unwelcome development.” A suave grin danced its way across his face. “I’ve been eyeing you all day, cutie.”

Logan’s breath puffed out softly against Roman’s face. “I....” The loquacious cosplayer seemed lost for words again as he pressed closer. “I—”

“Oh, go get a room already!” a warbly voice interrupted them.

Roman and Logan sprang apart, their cheeks heating up equally in embarrassment.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Remus grumped. “I’m still here.” After a moment, though, he brightened. “Oh, wait! This means you two can go on double dates with me and Janus and we can make out and embarrass you!”

“Please, do not,” Roman groaned, He reached out for Logan once more, reveling in the tiny squeak he let out, and he buried his face in Logan’s hair. “You ruin everything, asshole.” It was a playful jab, though; without Remus there to drag him to the convention, he might not have ever even met Logan.

So it had been a good thing after all that Roman had gone with Remus to this geeky convention thing, instead of to hear that linguist’s lecture. All the linguists in the world couldn’t have helped him beyond deciphering the words on his wrist. All the linguists in the world couldn’t have quite literally grabbed his soulmate by the arm and dragged him over, like Remus did.

“Thank god!” Remus realized, gleeful. “This means you’ll finally stop complaining about being lonely forever!”

“We’re soulmates,” Logan realized, sluggish. “We—I have your name on my wrist. You have my name on your wrist.”

“Oh my god,” Roman realized, dismayed. “This means I have a nerd language stuck on my arm for the rest of my life!”

Although, if it meant being with Logan for the rest of his life...perhaps a permanent nerd tattoo was a small price to pay.

Roman untangled himself from Logan and pulled away, biting back a grin when Logan instinctively chased after him. “Wanna come get milkshakes with us?”

“That would be satisfactory.” Logan nodded his assent. “However, we might want to take off our cosplays first.”

“Nah,” Roman dismissed. As a theatre kid he’d been to plenty of Steak ’n Shakes in full stage makeup, and he was pretty sure all the local Cookouts knew his order by heart at this point. “That’s part of the fun!”

Roman reached out and grasped Logan’s hand in his own, pulling him with as Remus began honest-to-god skipping to the car. The three broke into easy banter about the best milkshake flavors, and this time Roman couldn’t hold back the grin as Logan passionately decried the practice of dipping fries in shakes.

A small price to pay, indeed.

Fin

Day 1 || Day 2

Day one of @tsshipmonth2020 ’s Soulmate September! I’m almost an hour late in my time zone, but hey! It’s still September first in Alaska, so this totally counts as on time! ...Right?

Want to be added onto any of my taglists? Shoot me an ask or a message here or via my other social media!

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scriptlgbt · 5 years

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My story is about pirates. The MC is a trans guy and the captain is a lesbian who is some sort of big sister/mother figure to him. It's quite violent. I was wondering if it could be problematic? I know it's problematic to show trans woman being overly violent in fiction but what about cis lesbians and straight trans guys? Also, do you know about real any queer pirates i could read about? And what did pirates think about homosexuality/transness?) How was it being queer in the pirate world?

A conversation that I had, that is relevant:

ME: [PARTNER], do you know anything about queer pirates?

PARTNER: I know that there were many, and they’d sometimes be like -

ME: Sea husbands kind of thing?

PARTNER: Yeah, and one would inherit from the other’s booty, and when it was divided up, they’d share their share of the booty.

ME: [mischievous grinning face]

PARTNER: [nodding] And they might share each other’s booty.

Disclaimer: This whole thing is going to largely focus on what is known as the Golden Age Of Piracy. I’m also not a historian, I just hardcore, love pirates with my heart and soul. This is going to be a long post.

So, this is super generalized, but pirates, and even sea-faring folks in general (see: - or sea, hahahahaha - the LGBT+ history of Brighton in the UK), have tended to have a much higher rate of LGBT+ folks and minoritized people in general, throughout history. As far as most research I’ve done goes. Being in a travelling situation and having the anonymity of being able to move around with chosen family generally has great appeal to folks whose existences are filled with oppression and a sense of not belongingness. This has also applied for racialized people, women in general, impoverished folks in general, a lot of different people who wanted to reclaim a place in the world that ostracized them.

Another fun fact, the use of the term “Friend of Dorothy” as a euphemism for gay folks was investigated by the US Navy. They misunderstood it as meaning that there actually was a woman named Dorothy who could be routed down and coerced into outing her “friends” to the military. Cruise ships and others have also used this phrase to covertly advertise that there were meetings for these folks. (Source: Wikipedia | “Friend of Dorothy”)

But to get to the pirates, specifically.

Most pirate ships largely had their own code that everyone on their ship had to agree to. Some had things like, “you’ll be marooned with one knife, and no food if you are caught not reporting loot to be divvied up by the crew fairly” and things like that. But generally, whoever ran the ship, the Captain, would get to pick the rules. And with the partial-democracy that comes with the idea of mutiny, and the more notable reliance on the labour of it all, in general, things were able to be slightly more consensus-based than the on-land governments.

There are numerous women who became pirates to take ownership of their lives in ways that weren’t permitted on-land. Anne Bonny and Mary Read are historical figures that might be worth looking into. The two of them shared lovers, sailed together, had intense care for one and other and with their dressing up in masculine-coded attire and the like, there’s a lot to go off of in assuming they may have been romantically involved with each other. If not, at least they had some iteration of what a lot of contemporary folks might find comparable to a QPR.

The concept of “sea husbands” was also called matelotage (or bunkmate) depending on your crew. It was kind of the buddy system, but gayer. With little need to consistently explain it to outsiders, folks at sea were freer to explore the different ways a relationship with another person can be, without so much worrying about how it looks to others at a passing glance. And as pirates, there’s less concern that you’ll get shit from the law for gay stuff Of All Things.

Buccaneer Alexander Exquemelin wrote: ‘It is the general and solemn custom amongst them all to seek out… a comrade or companion, whom we may call partner… with whom they join the whole stock of what they possess.’ (Source)

It was just normal. They also had a version of health insurance where someone was compensated if they ended up disabled from battle. The compensation of death of your partner also works into this.

As for transness, these kinds of things have had fickle definitions and historically, it’s hard to be able to pinpoint specific people as fitting cleanly into contemporary cultural definitions of transness, because frankly, the past had different culture to now. When it comes to writing canonically trans characters in contexts where the language might have been different, it’s important to focus on making sure that a trans reader can identify the personal connection with that character’s experiences and feelings, just as much as it is to use language to name folks as trans.

Representation can go deeper than surface terminology and the like, and in cases where the terminology doesn’t necessarily match, it has to. Language like, “I never really felt like a [assigned gender] - I see myself more like [desciption of actual gender identity or name for it].” - is as good as just saying the character is trans in my opinion.

Depending on where the character is from, they also may have just outright had a word in their language for their identity.

Gender presentation was significantly freer with pirates than it was for folks on land. Things like earrings, frilled sleeves, varied hair length and similar, were not uncommon, although the gendered coding associated with these aspects of appearance had different implications than they do now. Gold earrings on seafarers were there to fund a proper burial if someone’s body washed ashore. Gendered clothing was also coded in more binary ways on land. Folks who wanted to be coded as men could do so by wearing pants and folks who wanted to be coded as women could do so with skirts and dresses. (Tangential but fun fact yet again: dressing in those big poofy skirts usually included massive pockets. They were generally not physically attached to the skirts, but if you wore it all properly you would easily be able to reach into them.)

Pirates and other seafarers also had clothing referred to as ‘slops’ for cleaning (if they were of the rank that cleaned anyway) which were pretty wide-legged pants that could almost pass for a skirt.

Material that pirates used for clothing was largely what they stole, but it was cut and sewn into the same shapes a lot of other seafarers wore. At the time, it was largely illegal (under English rules anyway) for people who weren’t the bourgeoisie to wear anything made with nice fabric. Rich people saw this as deceitful, and these laws enabled richer people to not mingle on an equal level with those of a lower socioeconomic status.

As pirates, if you’re already shunning the law, may as well wear full calico suits. (Like Calico Jack Rackham.)

There’s more info on pirate and privateer clothing here. (The link is to a free book in HTML format, complete with illustrations and talk of materials, and how the clothes worn at sea varied from clothes they wore when they came into shore and towns.)

I could write a book on this and still not have covered enough. But the gist is that pirates were a big counterculture of outsiders living their lives. LGBT+ people and racialized people got thrown into the mix (and jumped right in) and experienced much more liberated lives than they might otherwise. That isn’t to say they were flawlessly inclusive - there still definitely were a lot of things people thought of in congruence with colonial beliefs. There was racism and homophobia - but it looked a lot different, and was a lot lighter than you’d think. And there were some ships which banned women, but mainly I think that was because they typically didn’t have the background to hold their ground on the ships, and were considered more of a plus one to certain crew members (who brought them - the rules were specifically about bringing them onto the ship rather than them being there of their own accord) than part of the crew. Sometimes women were part of the crew.

Notably, Anne Bonny and Mary Read were in a polyamorous triad with Calico Jack Rackham. (I think a cis + het historian might argue about this but that would seem like denial to me tbh. There is much, MUCH more evidence pointing in this direction than against it, and it would be extraordinarily hard to argue otherwise.) I would definitely do some research on them!

I also recommend this book (link is the free text on WikiSource), A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the most notorious Pyrates. It is perhaps the most famous contemporary record of the lives of a number of pirates from the time, including Anne Bonny and Mary Read.

As for the sensitivity aspect of this ask, I’d say that what you are describing is completely fine. As long as the violence isn’t used to dehumanize or completely demonize, I would even say that I don’t have any warnings for you about it, or precautions to advise on.

Thank you for this opportunity to infodump about LGBT+ pirates. I hope this is not overwhelming, but I’m also happy to parse out segments of this better upon request. (Our ask will be open eventually, I promise.)

- mod nat

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wumblr · 4 years

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SCP-4999

Object Class: Thaumiel

Special Containment Procedures: SCP-4999 cannot be contained, located, or described. SCP-4999 is capable of shapeshifting, self-transmutation, instantaneous relocation, as well as unlimited bilocation. As SCP-4999 can be anything, or anywhere, extreme caution must be taken and protocol must be followed to ensure interactions with seemingly innocuous objects, places, and actors are not in fact interactions with SCP-4999.

Description: Although they can be difficult to classify, there are distinct features common to SCP-4999 events: SCP-4999 has been found to have influenced cultural trends before they were largely known to have occurred, such as “roller derby” events dating back to at least the 1930s. SCP-4999 may appear as a location to house these events, an object around which they are organized, or even in some cases a person -- usually the life of the party, a reveler so hypnotically “cool” that the experience of seeing them typically has a transformative effect upon exposure subjects. In the rare cases where SCP-4999 is manifested in humanoid form, they are seen constantly talking, centering the orbit of a lively group of people -- but no witnesses have ever attested to having held conversation with SCP-4999, though a handful of subjects have claimed to have become “lost inside” SCP-4999′s humanoid form, as though it too were somehow architectural. These events, objects, and people do not persist beyond the point where the trend has taken root, disappearing without a trace, often without so much as a memory. SCP-4999 does not manifest in the form of the trend itself -- only orthogonally adjacent concepts. As an example, SCP-4999 never appeared as a pet rock, but it is believed to have manifested as a series of magazine advertisements, needless to say in publications that no longer exist and may never have existed in the first place. SCP-4999 has a universally queering effect upon anything it comes in contact with, and for these reasons it is colloquially known as “The Gayest House,” which is typically referred to as a “place of power.” The Gayest House’s interior is far gayer than its exterior, an enormous, constantly shifting supernatural realm that defies the laws of spacetime. Yas queen.

#most recently scp4999 is believed to have taken the form of the mcr revival sdlgjhsdljghsdljg

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awkwarddystopianwarlord · 2 years

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“For Men”

Working at a drugstore, I notice a lot of products marketed specifically “for men”. The thing is, most of these items have no reason to be gendered. Skincare, bodywash, shampoo, and cologne could really be suitable for anybody. Yet it’s divided. I would say, and this isn’t a unique or groundbreaking opinion at all, that this is only done because otherwise men wouldn’t purchase these things.

It all boils down to toxic masculinity. If a man does something that’s stereotypically a “womanly” thing, then they are lesser men. Designing a grey five-in-one all over body cleanser bottle with a scent of “stoic granite” because that seems “manly” is really stupid looking when you stock shleves for a living. It’s just so unnecessary but so ingrained in our brains now that it often goes overlooked. The fact that being clean and taking care of one’s body is perceived as “feminine” is truly bonkers. Also that being “feminine” is a bad thing as well.

I remember a couple years ago, I was stocking hair care products, specifically men’s styling aids like gels, pomades, and pastes. I was working alongside this chap who looked like he had slept once ten years ago and was unfamiliar with the term “self care”. As I was placing some hair wax on a shelf, he said,

“Are guys getting gayer?”

This took me aback because I couldn’t understand where this comment came from. Thus, I asked and he replied with an explanation about how using all these hair products and caring about one’s appearance makes a fellow gay. He even had the audacity to say that more guys should look like him, a worn down, disheveled person who seems like their biggest accomplishment is constantly smoking weed in their spare time and doing absolutely nothing else. I was flabbergasted, to say the least. It was such a ridiculous comment but at the same time, I knew plenty of other lads felt the same way because somewhere down the line, being clean and taking care of oneself became something to look down upon as a gent. Frankly, I think it’s a mindset that needs to be changed. Instead of marketing products as “for men” or “unisex”, just market them as what they are. Scents should not be gendered, that’s stupid. Colors should not be gendered, that’s also stupid. And making a three-in-one shampoo, conditioner, and bodywash should be illegal because it’s lazy and ineffective.

Personal hygiene and sprucing should be taught to everyone regardless of gender. I feel most folks are attracted to those that look like they take care of themselves rather than those that look like they don’t give a shit such as that coworker. I simply lack an understanding as to when it was decided that men could not put effort into their appearance without getting scorned. It seems such an odd thing to taunt a person about and now it’s led to this gender specific advertising probably because everyone was getting tired of being surrounded by stinky, sloppy boys.

This messes things up for women too. Men’s razors and deodorants are generally better since the razors are more gentle and the deodorant more strong and long lasting. Not to mention the “pink tax” where women have to pay more for essentially the same thing. At the same time, gendering care products limit men to a much smaller selection as women tend to have a wider variety of face cleansers, serums, anti age creams, and moisturizers marketed to them. However, men could also use these products just as much, but don’t due to the whole stigma around using the same thing as a lady. Now I might be biased because the only section of my skin that isn’t sensitive is my face, weirdly enough, but I use both men’s and women’s skincare products. I honestly see no difference between them besides scent. I like men’s body washes because I fancy a more musky or woody smell, this also goes for deodorant and cologne but the actual quality and effect is basically the same. I could see how some men’s face care products would be rougher because maybe the skin is not as gentle because of a lack of estrogen or something. Although, having a variety of formula intensities would solve that problem pretty quickly.

In the end, everything should be made with the same amount of quality and just be separated by different scents and different skin types. Razors should all be gentle, deodorant should all last for long and sweaty hours, and shampoo should always be separate from conditioner and body wash. No more of this “just for men'' kind of bullshit. We are all people and we all have bodies that need to be cleaned and taken care of. Pampering and grooming leads to a happy, healthy, and confident individual and that should not be limited to a single gender. Not to mention that the packaging for these “men’s” items should be way more creative and fun looking over drab grey and black bottles. Colors aren’t “girly”, colors are colorful and eye-catching and helpful to selling more products. This whole make-everything-look-super-masculine-even-though-the-defintion-of-masculine-changes-each-generation-so-we-don’t-actually-know-what-is-really-masculine-but-try-anyway-because-men-won’t-buy-it-otherwise is a dumb mindset. I can tell you now, as someone who was a teenager once, being around guys that don’t know what personal hygiene is because that’s “gay” and “girly” is a pretty gnarly time for the nose. When the puberty hits, there is no mercy from weird, strong body odors emanating from both lads and lasses. So, to spare all the upcoming teenagers and the adults that have to be near them this suffering, let us stop giving people an identity crisis everytime they go to buy hairspray and acne cleansers. If we educate them when they’re young, they won’t grow up to be like that stupid ass coworker. Dumb idiot he was.

#blog #weeklyblog #friday post #writing #for the boys

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movieshdblogs · 3 years

Text

Chehre Movie Review Watching Online Free Emraan Hashmi

Topic: Chehre Movie Review Watching

Cherry is a movie that has been constantly jammed with delays and production problems that were due to be released in July of 2020.

A version or direct to OTD-1 that balances its options for what is best for its intended effect with production issues involving even an actor like kritikar bhandar being replaced in the middle of filming is finally here Gayer is starring in an exciting new group of actors, especially Imran Hashmi and Amitabh Bachchan for the first time together.

The agency chief played by Imran al-Hashimi, who idles on a snowy evening in an unknown location ends up taking refuge in the home of a retired judge.

This judge is joined by his friends also from the field of law and every evening over drinks they decide to conduct a show trial now which makes their guessing a turn Accused of

how this carefree fun game takes a dark turn for Samir to confront demons he least expected.

Cherry essence, I also want to take one thing away from the way we also saw this year the trailer for the Bengali Anson Han which contains

A shockingly similar premise to the jere of a trapped stranger comes across a family of lawyers and begins a show trial but both films instead of Imitating each other is actually

Inspired by the 1956 novel, a dangerous game written by Frederic Dernamat which was also adapted by Vijay Tendulkar into a very successful Marathi play.

Imagine it was a coincidence that three damaged things were released in the same year in 2002 or a shocking point.

Where similar movies like Lucknow Central and the key band were released on the same weekend Going forward and talking about

Cherry, here I am telling you the good and the bad aspects of the movie so that you guys can finally decide whether to watch it and choose theaters or not, a good movie that makes up the supporting movie A formidable performance veteran, Raghubi Riyadah plays Hriah Jata, the most humble man from the entire motley cast.

A house where he presides over the show trial While his portrayal may be a bit on the nose, his eagerness to have the kind of vibe resonates through the screen that Sedan Kapoor doesn’t have.

There is so much to do other than smile eerily reminiscent of the icon who is his father, I think only Ahriman Chatterjee and Anu Kapoor Really shine from the supporting cast, one who is down-to-earth and down-to-earth and one who is cheerful and lively, both veterans make an impression.

With anu Kapoor in more dynamic and challenging dialogue that has more advantage in the premise of dueling on paper if you have read the book and it is a serious game or even being a king To the premise that you will definitely be in

The group that understands and acknowledges that the written material contains all the ingredients to turn it into a delicious thriller With a stranger with a dark past slowly unfolding which leads to many discoveries as the passing of minutes is a perfect premise on paper and set in the background

Snow-capped Slovak mountains that pretend to be hilly regions of India and make some old men with frightening experience in aspects of the justice system work

their magic and we get a jihadi movie for fans of that kind of setting that would be very exciting to watch in theaters, does it achieve that to become

📷

A memorable piece of work, I’m afraid there won’t be many things I will explain a little later Amitabh Bachchan and Imran Hashmi,

this is the first time I have Imran Hashmi and Amitabh Bachchan together have been chosen as one of the main reasons why Hashmi did the film.

The thing he admitted in many interviews is that Amitabh Bachchan was involved in the project while it will appear on paper

You have to have Amitabh Bachchan steal the show technically because for me Imran Hashmi who really resonated with Amitabh Bachchan is a legend in all The right man has a cheeky

Curiosity in this movie that particularly draws you in the first half of the movie is compelling, but these are strong suits for the senior Bachchan that we are.

He was already familiar and seen in other films while the director uses the myth emphatically through a closing monologue to which I will come later.

Al-Hashemi was to be a much more interesting figure, and the head of the advertising agency, Samir Mahra, was arrogant and condescending in the way he addressed.

The other Hashemi perfectly embodies this characteristics and does not transform his performance into overconfidence and moral ambiguity that is clearly communicated in As the walls start getting closer to the character, you will slowly and steadily notice that the character is becoming more and more disintegrating this slow decline

The character is very well done by Hashemi, an actor who deserves a better canvas in film form, disappointing aspects, and embarrassing moments.

Rhea Chakrabarti plays a role that is the product of a turbulent past and has faulty reactions to circumstances that indicate the fact that she may have had.

A disturbing origin story There comes a moment when Imran Al Hashemi’s character does something that leads to one of them

The most awkward bursts of laughter that make you sway uncomfortably, again represent the idea or thought in the minds of the creators of Hindi films

Especially the older ones of how trauma manifests itself in the psychosis of superlative plays apparently intended to give insight into it character but only leads to you doing double duty in confusion I was wondering upon entering the movie

That it was actually based in Slovakia or Poland because it was filmed there and the movie’s first dialogue was bhaisab, I’ll be honest, I just burst out laughing Hamari passes me snow-capped mountains, I don’t deny it but it definitely surprised me with the second half scenario, you know what the saddest part of the chair is that it’s actually

#movies hd #films #movies #movies i love

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johnnysnotmyname · 7 years

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Hey it’s been a while so why don’t I advertise that I have books for you to peruse over at jondarthur.work! Please reblog and share if you can!

New Cloud Heroes Series:

The Victorious Score: An action-packed Young Adult trilogy of novellas about a gay teen superhero, the bisexual boy he falls for, and the conspiracy that coils around them both. Available in three individual volumes (first book ‘On My Shoulders’ available for FREE or at cost via Amazon) or in a big Collected Edition with extra content. Check it out here!

The Marvelous Kea Girl: A Young Adult thriller trilogy of novellas about a bi hacker who finds herself thrust into superheroism by accident, the CEO who she wants to take down but finds herself drawn to, and the inescapable impact of family on your life. Available in two individual volumes (first book ‘On My Shoulders’ available for FREE or at cost via Amazon) with a third coming (very) early October or in a big Collected Edition (early-to-mid October) with extra content. Check it out here!

Under These Crowns Series:

The Island: First in a sweeping urban fantasy epic in a world not unlike our own - trading swords and sorcery for cellphones and citystates, this series follows four queer protagonists as they find themselves slowly caught up in something much, much bigger than they could have imagined. Available in two individual volumes with two more coming before December (all FREE or at cost) with a Collected Edition coming late November / early December that ties all four together and adds another novella’s worth of content to wrap up the first arc. Check it out here!

More is coming - December will see the start of Down In The Valley, a new series aiming to do 12 Books one-after-the-other like 12 Episodes of television. Every small-town supernatural story you’ve ever wished was gayer? You’ll find it there.

#bi week #bi authors #queer authors #free books #mlm #wlw #own voices

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shaydixons · 7 years

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wlw queerbaiting survey results!

thank you to every wlw skam fan who took mine and @aliciqvikander ‘s survey! we ended up with 313 responses! below is a summary of each question.

disclaimer: though it was explicitly stated that the survey was for wlw, there were several straight people that decided to take the survey and give disrespectful/homophobic answers, and they were deleted from the survey pool. this survey is by and for wlw skam fans, and the below statistics will reflect that. the point of this survey was to give wlw skam fans a place to share their thoughts, not for straight people to spout homophobic rhetoric.

part 1: demographics

what is your sexuality?

the survey consisted of 121 bisexuals, 109 lesbians, and 29 pansexuals; other identities included queer (17), sapphic (11), asexual (11), gay (5), questioning (4), and several other sexualities including demibisexual (1), bi ace (1), ace lesbian (2), and aromantic pansexual (1).

where are you from?

there were many different answers for this, the most common being sweden, usa, uk, germany, finland, norway, spain, canada, and australia.

how old are you?

the most common answer was 17-19 (138), then 14-16 (97), then 20-24 (63), then 25-30 (7), then under 14 (4), then 31+ (2)

part 2: opinions

who are your favorite characters?

the most common answers in order are: sana (240), isak (157), eva (139), even (127), noora (78), vilde (71), jonas (45), chris (35), eskild (21), elias (15), yousef (11), linn (7), magnus (2), and mahdi (1). there were a few people who specified that noora from season 1 is their favorite, not noora from the later seasons. there was also one vote for dr. skrulle. no one voted for william.

who is your favorite canon ship?

evak was the clear winner (237) the rest of the answers in order were yousana (55,) none (11), and joneva (8). there was also one vote for noorhelm, though it’s worth noting that this person also put noora down as a lesbian so it’s possible it was a mistake. no one voted for vagnus.

who are your favorite non-canon ships?

(apologies for the way this one looks)

the most common non-canon ships in order were nooreva (285), evilde (252), sanoora (104), evana (86), noorvilde (63), chrisana (52), jonas x mikael (41), noorevilde (35), chrilde (34), youkael (32), sonja x emma (31), sana x vilde (29), johdi (29), yousef x elias (25), iben x eva (20), noora x mari (14), joora (13), iben x mari (10), sonja x linn (7), chriseva (8), elias x eskild (5), and various others including mikael x adam, the whole girl squad in a polyamorous relationship, and noora x literally any woman.

do you like any of the following canon straight pairings? check off as many as you like.

yousana had the most votes by far (274), followed by joneva (190), then chris x kasper (64), then vagnus (22), then mohnstad (20), then noorhelm (11), then pchris x emma (8), then jonas x isabell (6), then jonas x emma (4). there was also one person who wrote “none bc julie cant write het ships to save her life”. it’s also worth noting that the majority of people who put vagnus also put vilde down as a lesbian.

Do you think that Vilde is a lesbian?

the overwhelmingly popular answer was yes (286 responses). there was one vote for no, about 10 people thought she is bi/pan/queer, and several other people were undecided.

did you think lesbian vilde was going to be canon?

the most common answer was, “i had confidence it would happen after all the hints but wasn't 100% sure” (148), then the rest in order were “i didn’t think it was gonna happen but i had hope” (82), “after julie andem hinted at in that interview i was 100% sure it would happen” (55), “i had confidence lesbian vilde would not become canon” (6), and also several type-in responses about how people think she’s a lesbian or didn’t see it until people pointed it out but now they do, and my favourite one, “She was lesbian-coded and I strongly believe she is a lesbian, but I don't think Julie knew that because she probably hasn't talked to a lesbian in her life.”

in an interview with DR, julie andem was asked if vilde was a lesbian, to which she responded "no comment". do you feel that this is baiting?

the most common answer was “Yes, because she gave wlw fans hope while she wasn't planning to follow through” with 194 votes, followed by “Yes, though I think she was originally planning to follow through but couldn’t find time to include it” with 79 votes, only 7 people thought this wasn’t baiting at all. some of the write-in answers included “i actually took that as her treating lesbianism like it was inappropriate to talk about in a way”, “I don't think THIS was baiting this was just Julie being an asshole and dismissing wlw fans. Like even the idea of Vilde being gay is just so ridiculous that she's not even gonna make a comment. The queerbaiting was literally lesbian coding Vilde throughout the entire show and throwing so many hints but not going through with it.” and “I feel like she thought saying no comment was funny bc the idea of vilde being gay is sOOoOoo ridiculous to her and the idea of a canon wlw character hadn't crossed her mind in a serious way. she wasn't thinking.” regardless, the overall response by wlw fans is negative.

do you feel like the way eva and vilde's relationship was built up was paving the way for evilde to become a canon couple in the end?

the most common answer was yes (125) but the opinion on this one was pretty split as a total of 138 people said no, 112 of them still had hope though but 26 people thought evilde was strictly friendly. many people also typed in saying that they think that evilde could have been a plot point for a sexual discovery for vilde but not have been endgame.

do you think that noora is a lesbian?

the most common answer is yes (178), there were also 56 people who voted no, and most of the write-in answers either said that they think she’s bi, or that they think season 1 noora in particular is a lesbian, and in later seasons she’s either bi or straight.

when noora was first introduced, did you think she was a love interest?

a majority of people said yes (232), 48 people said no and most of the type in responses were people saying they had watched season 3 first and therefore couldn’t say since they already knew noorhelm was going to be canon. several people also mentioned how eva looking noora up on facebook mirrored the way evak and yousana stalked each other on facebook and that if noora had been a guy her introduction would most certainly have been romantic.

please watch the season 2 trailer if you haven't. do you feel this is an example of queerbaiting?

the most common answer was “Yes, this is explicit queerbaiting” (145), followed by “No, but I do find it disrespectful to wlw to act as though sleeping with a woman is a scandalous thing” (84), then “Yes, this is accidental queerbaiting”, and only 3 votes for “No, this isn’t queerbaiting and doesn’t bother me.”The write-in answers included: “can i just say how gross it is that they took noora possibly sleeping with another girl as something for willhell to get off on??? anyway yes this is queerbaiting bc the entire season was abt noorhell”, and “WTF WTF WTF I JUST WATCHED IT FOR THE FIRST TIME AND WHAT.THE.FUCK. LIKE WHY WOULD SOMEONE DO THAT WHY WOULD YOU BAIT THE GAYS KNOWING THEY WOULD HATE YOU LIKE IF YOUR MAKING A SEASON THATS BASICALLY A LOVE LETTER TO ABUSIVE STRAIGHT MEN WHY WOULD YOU NOT MAKE THE TRAILER SOMETHING GROSS AND STARIGHT LIKE THE SEASON SO AT LEAST THE STRAIGHTE ARE HAPPY LIKE ASIDE FROM HOW CRUEL AND IRRESPONSIBLE THAT WAS TO QUEER FANS IT JUST MAKES NO SENSE ON A ADVERTISEMENT LEVEL LIKE IDK A LOT OF STRAIGHT PEOPLE WHO ENJOYED THE SEASON WOULD WANT TO WATCH IT AFTER THAT TRAILER??? I AM SO UPSET AND I CANT BELIEVE HOW STUPID PEOPLE ARE WTF !!!!!!!!”

in addition, I had someone message me after they took the survey with new thoughts about the trailer and I quite like what they said so I’m going to include it here:

okay so i answered this in the survey, but i had new thoughts abt the s2 trailer. the more i think abt it the more pissed off i get b/c: okay, from what i heard, fans from s1 were interpreting noora as a lesbian right? (if s1 fans could weigh in that'd be gr8) & that makes sense since fans interpreting noora as gay is brought up p early in s2 in the form of vilde, so we know that they were aware of these theories. so, when deciding on the s2 trailer, when deciding to present a scene in which noora wakes up naked w/a man & a woman, knowing the theories abt noora being gay (& since scripts are finalised only slightly before filming, they had time to change it after hearing what fans were saying) they decided to only show her w/the woman??? despite the man being much more important to the story? (& like it wouldn't've been a spoiler to see nico. u don't see mari's face, it could've easily been hidden) they had to have known how that would be interpreted!! they had to!!! they absolutely had to have known that showing that would be baiting fans w/the promise of lgbt+ content w/no follow up. i did say in the survey that i saw the trailer as explicit queerbaiting but. when i put more thought into it, it was actually even worse than i thought? i mean, s2 trailer is gayer than s3's & SEASON 3 ACTUALLY HAS GAY CHARACTERS. i can believe that the lesbian coding of noora in s1 was an accident, but the s2 trailer was absolutely intentional & it pisses me off so much.

please watch the season 1 trailer if you haven't. do you feel this is an example of queerbaiting?

this question had no type in answers and most people agreed it was queerbaiting, “yes, this is explicit queerbaiting” was the most popular answer with 165, “no, but i find it disrespectful how kissing girls is treated as something dramatic and surprising” was the runner up with 85 and “yes, this is accidental queerbaiting” was third with 48 and last came, “no, i don’t think it’s queerbaiting and don’t find it disrespectful” with 12.

opinion on queerbaiting & skam?

the overwhelmingly popular choice was that there was explicit queerbaiting, with 200 votes, there were also 88 votes for “they originally meant to have a canon wlw character but decided not to follow through”. there were NO votes for “there was no queerbaiting”. There were many type-in answers, including “who honestly makes a character say they get horny when kissing a girl and then make her straight? if that is not the biggest fkn queerbaiting idk what is”, “I honestly don't think they intentionally queerbaited at the start, but when it's been explicitly stated multiple times that they took audience response into account when writing the show they should have looked at how much wlw were identifying with some of the things vilde has said/done and taken that opportunity to represent wlw in the show. We know they see what people say about Skam on social media so there's no way they didn't see all the posts about lesbian Vilde or bisexual Eva, etc. They just chose to ignore it.” and “skam continuously brought up the concept of two women being in a relationship but never took the time to explore it; it feels like julie thought she'd done enough by simply acknowledging that wlw exist”

part 3: long answer questions

i just want to say that there were so many beautiful responses to these questions and I wish we could include them all! So many of you are so insightful. Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and I’m sorry we can’t include all the ones we like!

what moments did you feel most baited by?

the most common responses were the evilde kisses; the entirety of noora and eva’s interactions in season 1, in particular the first meeting; and when vilde said “I made out with Eva, the feelings that arise don’t necessarily mean you’re a lesbian.” Here are some of the responses:

The evilde kiss in season 4 cuz like at that point, they knew exactly what they were doing, they knew they weren't gonna follow through, and it gave wlw false hope when in the end both of them were shoehorned into forced straight relationships.

u g h. 1. all those extremely Gay looks between noora and eva in s1 were absolutely unreal. they had so much chemistry and were always looking at each other so appreciatively. 2. vilde going on and on about how cozy a lesbian couple would be, her getting turned on by kissing eva when she couldn't get turned on by boys, her and eva actually kissing - passionately - which was unlike something ive seen before tbh. they had this sort of fiery passion but at the same time there was a gentleness and familiarity to the kiss and the way their bodies just meld together. that's what really made me feel baited. also, all the social media updates from vilde.

When I first watched vilde commenting on Nora's sexuality and making out with Eva I thought they were explicit hints at her being lesbian, but watching them again in context they definitely feel like Julie making fun of the fandom thinking nooreva would happen and then acting like women kissing is scandalous or a joke

the way noora was portrayed in the first season came across to me as if she would be a love interest and showed interest in eva that seemed to go beyond just friendship. the repeated kisses between eva and vilde and the whole "feelings that arise" thing that followed.

if you think vilde is a lesbian, why?

this question had many answers but most of them touched up on vilde and evas constant making out at parties and the way vilde talks about men. Many people pointed out that vilde is obsessed with being popular and liked and that she picks the men that will fit that image and doesn’t actually feel attraction to them. there were also very many people who said that they can relate to vilde’s experiences. here are some good responses:

(I've spent way too much time pondering this but: shortened version). The main thing that almost convinces me that lesbian!Vilde would've been canon if she'd gotten a season is the contrast between how she talks about her "crush" Willhelm, & Eva. Like having her basically say "guys don't turn me on, thinking about feminine-coded objects does" & "making out w/my female friend makes me happy & horny but the prospect having sex w/my One True Male Love makes me nervous & uncomfortable & drives me to drink" (WHICH ISAK DOES WHEN TRYING TO HOOK UP W/EMMA) & how upset she looks when she sees Eva kissing PChris instead of her! I mean, w/o lesbian!Vilde what's the point of those scenes????? & "my orgasm felt like a sneeze down there" r e a l l y. & then there's how she doesn't want to hang out w/her bf magnus, how she seems to choose either a guy who's already explicitly into her (magnus) or the "hottest guy in all of third year" (william) as crushes, the former after her friend points out that she's not hooking up w/guys!!!!! & then there's her obsession w/noora being gay (like straight girls fetishize gay guys sometimes, yea, but they don't react like that to gay girls). And I mean, w/her desperation to be popular & fit in, it'd make perfect sense for her to bury her sexuality b/c she feels (perhaps subconsciously) that it'd ostracize her from her peers more than she already is. There's just!!!!!! So! Much! Evidence! (Eva-dence 🌚🌚🌚)

Okay, so I'm ace, I don't feel sexual attraction towards anyone and I'm positive Vilde feels the exact same way about men. I do however think she does feel attraction towards women ('the feelings that arise'?? Hello??). But I do recognize myself SO MUCH in how she is towards men. The way she forces herself onto men and over compensate, how she sexulizes herself because she doesn't feel it so she tries so hard to act like she thinks it should be, talk about what she should feel, what she should like. Because isn't that what everyone does? I did that shit for years before I figured it out.

have u heard her talk ever

well yes everything about her screams closeted lesbian/struggling with compulsory heterosexuality. not being turned on by men, describing stereotypical girls clothes when saying what makes her horny, admitting she was turned on while kissing eva, her obsession with noora being a lesbian, claiming she's so in love with a boy but being "relieved" when he doesn't want her, having to get drunk to have sex with a boy, also "feeling relieved" if said boy doesn't have sex with her. the entirety of s3 she didn't hook up with anyone but the moment the girls joked about her not getting dick she hooked up with the first that showed interest. her relationship with magnus didn't even feel genuine on her part or even healthy up until like the last clip that they tried to make the audience sympathize with them together lol.

she obviously cares a lot about what other people, particularily girls, think of her, so she would struggle with coming to terms with her sexuality. her crush was the most generic popular older boy because he's who she was supposed to be into, she wanted to sleep with him so that her first time would be with a popular guy (also to help out her bus friends) (if wanting to hook up with guys to impress other girls isnt lesbian culture i dont know what is) yet when she finds out he and noora are a thing she feels relief (she also expressed that she'd feel relieved if he never called for sex and while that could mean she just had butterflies the fact that he didnt turn her on at all makes it v questionable), she felt feelings for eva after making out with her, she is turned on by traditionally feminine things... The way she behaves around magnus reminded me of my romantic/sexual interactions with men which only appealed to me when i could discuss them with girls or go on double dates with other girls or show off to other girls (it was always about girls!!!) and just julie why do you hate us

many lgbt people got into the show because of the gay representation. was this the case for you, and, if so, do you feel disappointed in the lgbt representation as a whole?

the response to this answer was mixed. most people said they got into the show for the gay representation, though many say they got into it because of the girl squad, or sana in particular. the general consensus is that people are very happy with evak and the portrayal of mental illness, but that there are no wlw characters and no trans characters, so the lgbt representation as a whole is lacking. here are some responses:

I had high hopes when Vilde talked about how cosy a lesbian couple at the cabin would be but I don't think the show creators ever took their responsibility to queer women seriously. What little respect there was in the few comments like Vilde's was eroded by their queer bating. Looking back I wonder if they thought Vilde acknowledging the existence of lesbians and making statements about lesbians not being weird WAS positive representation.

I did! Skam actually helped me figure out I liked girls, watching season 3 first then circling around and watching all of vildes "gay" scenes kind of made it click and I lived season 3 but when I look at the rep as a whole, it seems Julie only recognizes gay/pan white men as worthy of exploration or mention outside of humor and it's so strange for me because I know vastly more wlw than I do mlm so for there to be 0 cannon wlw characters is almost mind blowing

Yes and yes. Fuck that lesbophobe honestly I'm done with this whole cute gayboy trope if it means it's only meant for the straight fetish af gaze

yes, part of the lure of the show was the gay rep and the fact that there were no gay girls is a let down, mainly bc andem has said that the show was made for teenage girls. if so, why are there no gay girls as part of this teenage experience??? why would a sexuality struggle or a picture of finding urself not include them??? but the worst of all is the disappointment in the fact that andem EXPLICITLY said "no comment" about vilde. she should've said outright no, that was rlly irresponsible and almost mean bc it gave people hope. honestly until then i liked gay hcs but i didn't have much hope it would be canon and didn't mind too much if it wasn't but it was specifically that comment which made me think "ok, vilde is going to be lesbian in canon for sure!!! that's exciting".. like i wouldn't have expected any more from the show than evak if she hadn't sent that expectation??? it's like,, ok, if u only want to show a limited part of the lgbt community in ur rep, make that clear from the outset and i'll take it for what it is, but to keep up this pretence and bait fans and then for canon to fall short and not deliver is truly so embittering and disappointing, or it was for me at least

how do you feel about the way lesbians are represented on skam? do you feel they are treated respectfully?

most people here answered either: which lesbians?, or talked about all the lesbian jokes in season 2. so the overall answer was no, two girls making out is a joke and something for penetrator chris to stare at.

No, not at all? Eva kissing girls at parties is treated as frivolous (which it often is irl, but I would hope that fictional media would give a purpose to that plotline?), & despite her bf obviously freaking when she kisses a guy at a party, his ex making out w/eva & ingrid at parties apparently didn't bother him at all, b/c it's not cheating if it's two girls!!!! And the jokes about how Noora can't possibly be gay in s2, which I didn't mind at all when I thought that they were set-up for Vilde's coming out arc, but now that that's gone nowhere, it's genuinely upsetting. & for a show that was apparently created in order to represent teenage girls, the fact that they had an entire season about male lgbt+ characters, & yet never delivered on making any female ones? That's ridiculous. If they wanted to represent the underrepresented, as they claim, maybe they shouldn't have focused on the adventures of the white cishets?

No in no way it was like there was no possibility that there could be lesbians so fuck you julie andem for this

Lesbians are as a punchile of a joke like girls making out it's not and it should not be as real as boys kissing boys or girls kissing boys. Skam actually enforces compulsory heterosexuality and laughs so while doing so. Whenever lesbians are mentioned, it's never seen as valid but more as a funny joke.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA- ahem. On a serious note. I think the writers used specific themes and close female friendships to bait wlw viewers. So many of the storylines are explicitly coming out / questioning / discovering yourself storylines and yet they were all wrapped up with random-ass "men! *heart eyes*" conclusions. ESPECIALLY Vilde x Magnus.

i feel HORRIBLE and betrayed. it feels as though julie decided that teen lesbians don't exist? don't matter? are disgusting? don't deserve representation? are only there for the purpose of straight guys or as a punchline? the answer is all of the above. this hurts even more cos this show was targeted towards teenage girls. i;ve (unfortunately) grown used to this sort of lesbian queerbaiting/fetishization in shows targeted for men/teenage boys, or as distasteful and hurtful jokes in comedy, but in a show that i thought i would see myself represented in it stung even more. there are also 3 queer boys, but no girls? julie took it upon herself to write a whole season dealing with coming out and dealing with homophobia as a boy, but she couldn't even just make one of the characters a lesbian? thanks???

do you feel that the lack of wlw representation on the show is just a coincidence, or do you think it's intentional? is it part of a wider trend of lesbian erasure and lesbophobia in media?

This question in particular had so many insightful responses. The consensus is that with all the care that is put into Skam, it’s either intentional or completely careless. It’s incredibly disheartening to have so little lesbian rep in media, and the little rep we do have is often stereotypical, morbid, or, as in Skam, the lesbians are treated as jokes. The reason the lack of wlw representation in Skam hurts so much is for two reasons; first, we were baited very hard (see the previous responses); and, two, there is SO much care put into Skam, they interviewed 1000 teenagers, they read social media reactions, they put a ton of care and effort into the show and incorporate fan reactions, so to not include wlw characters despite knowledge that many wlw saw themselves in vilde, noora, and eva; feels incredibly intentional and disrespectful. here are a few great answers:

I think Skam is such good at showing diversity and realness in young women in every aspect but sexuality. It seems like Julie Andem has drawn on personal experience without much filter which makes the show authentic and relatable, as we all know. But with that said, the way sexuality was treated feels not so much like a personal experience as it does a personal fantasy - and in general, season 3 seems like a fantasy with the Baz Luhrmann theme and big, romantic gestures. Somehow it felt lazy? At least in terms of breaking boundaries, because it definitely would have been more groundbreaking to show a lesbian main character, defy lesbian erasure and talk about the lesbophobia in teenage girls. I think somehow that would have been too much for the show to handle? Too controversial? The same way that they never really dug into Islam or islamophobia in season 4 - it hits too close to home. So, I think the lack of wlw representation is partly because of the mystification of LGBT people which led to this big, fantasy-like season 3 (also a representation of straight, teenage girls' fantasy), and partly because it would be too difficult or controversial to have one of the mains be a lesbian, be forced to tell her story and make people examine their much more subtle lesbophobia. This also makes it a lot easier for the creators to queerbait because they can show that they know wlw exist but at the same time feel no obligation to actually tell the stories of wlw. So, it is not only lesbophobia in the media, but lesbophobia in society.

I don't think it's intentional in the sense that Julie thought to herself, "oh, let's see, hmm, no lesbians on this show", but I also do believe that the decision to leave the girls' sexualities unaddressed is intentional and lesbophobic; we all know that Julie and the crew spent time reading fan theories and shit. They knew we wanted it and cared jackass about it. Even in Vilde's clip, it could've been confirmed just by her mum asking if she's met any cute girl. Or that Magnus and her exchanged a text message that left us knowing their "relationship" is bearded. Or that even Eva is confirmed bi. They could've continued that storyline off show and on social media, with just slightly addressed (for the casual viewers), because they knew that the fans following the show religiously were expecting the rep. The decision to leave wlw rep out in the final season is complete lesbophobia and awfully disgusting of them.

for sure its lesbian erasure and lesbophobia in the media. 100%. theres no way julie can have isak, even, eskild, have her lesbian coded character say the word lesbian several times, exhibit lesbian behaviour and compulsory heterosexuality throughout a whole series - and then randomly and coincidently forget to include an actual lesbian character. nope. there was all the time in the world, she just choose not to - whether by her own prejudice or total disregard for lesbians, i dont know.

I think it's intentional. I think this is why, even when the original plan for the show was to have each of the girl squad have their own season plus isak, the season with the big coming/LGBT storyline featured a gay boy and a m/m couple, because that content is more palatable to an audience of mostly straight girls, and also non-straight sexuality in younger girls is almost never taken seriously. And I think apart from the queerbaiting, Julie was straight up lesbophobic in how she treated the concept of girls loving girls as a literal joke and something to laugh about that couldn't possibly be real; you know, the feelings that arise /can't/ mean you're a lesbian because that's just preposterous, apparently. And this is definitely a wider problem in media, because people cannot fathom girls liking each other romantically and wanting to be with other girls and whatnot, and then there's the whole thing about (straight) girls being sooo comfortable with their friends that they can kiss each other at parties and cuddle and all that but God forbid one of them isn't actually straight.

PART OF A WIDER TREND OF LESBIAN ERASURE IN MEDIA AND SHE SHOULD GET BACKLASH FOR IT IN THE NORWEGIAN PRESS AND BY NORWEGIAN LGBT ORGANIZATIONS BUT INSTEAD SHE IS TREATED LIKE THE PERFECT ALLY AND WINNNS LGBT AWARDS AT OSLO PRIDE

Wider trend. I think creators acknowledge the need for queer community representation, but then go with the easy option of two cis white boys kissing and think that's ticked the box. And I get it, because the two boys option will be popular, there's plenty of evidence to show it. But if you're not giving us the option to root for two girls written with the same care and depth and multi layered story, you're never giving us the chance to show how hard we would support a wlw relationship and create actual change across the media. We as wlw viewers would've defended the show creators if they copped flack for representing wlw or torpedoing a popular straight ship, and a lot of us have done stuff like vote in polls for Evak to show our support for that. We have their back. But they don't have ours.

it's not a coincidence. it cannot be coincidence when while having a mlm relationship on the show there isn't any wlw relationship or even just a lesbian/bisexual/pansexual girl. and there where plenty of time to make a wlw on the show. (they could have made eva bisexual and make season two about nooreva with a strong and self-confident lesbian noora, but okay, whatever) why couldn't they make sana's muslim friend a wlw?? it would mean so much not only to wlw fans but also to muslim wlw fans??? or give sana a wlw sister?? it wouldn't hurt the plot but would give at least some wlw representation. the conclusion is while having more and more gay representation (and i respect that, i do realise that is just as much important as wlw representation) a lot of shows just want to get attention and only give a gay couple so that young straight girls could fetishize them and don't give them proper storylines. and most of the shows that have a gay couple do not have a lesbian couple because i suppose they think there is "limit" on the lgbtq+ characters. and skam isn't the exeption. wlw fans have been queerbaited and humiliated by julie and skam multiple times and i fucking hate it. i also hate julie since hates lesbians.

conclusion: queerbaiting is very common in media and gay people are naturally more in tune to it. the majority of wlw skam fans who took this survey feel that there was queerbaiting on skam, specifically with vilde and season 1 noora. the majority of people who took this survey are incredibly disappointed, and got their hopes up during seasons 3 and 4, only to have their hopes dashed. it would have meant so much to many wlw skam fans to have a wlw character, but instead many feel disheartened, disappointed, and even hurt at their existence being treated like a joke on the show. vilde and noora were both explicitly lesbian-coded, so to make jokes around their sexuality feels like adding insult to injury.

bonus: some nicknames for william we saw: willfurry, mr. dicky, limpdick, richdick, dickface, trashelm, willphlegm, willdemort, willtwat, shitdick, dickface, and one person called him a naked mole rat.

THANK YOU again to everyone who participated!

#skam #skam survey #warning this is really long #ily guys thanks so much for giving such great answers

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antisocial-otaku · 7 years

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So I've been busy this February and ended up off tumblr for the month. I come back and the entire fandom is in uproar about ARG. Would you please explain what the hell is going on? I left for a month and everything went to hell. Can't believe I missed all the action. Thanks in advance! :)

Wow! Okay Nonny I don’t know how I am gonna explain this much without turning this into a long-ass post. (it will probably be) I’ll tell you in chronological order.

We think Derren Brown is involved in this at some point, as he knows how human mind works and is friends with Mark. Here you can see a bit about his “tricks”

Then we got, just because, the S1 scrips, they were uploaded to the BBC page. We read them and found out they were even gayer than the actual episodes. But we found some fucky things.

Then a day after, or so, someone found HLV scrip on the Emmy’s page. But of course, it was strange, like everything! It has a ton of changes and it was stated on it that the Holmes brother was in fact a sister, and we wonder how it was not leaked if that script was supposedly uploaded on 2014 >> More information here You can see more about the scripts in my “scripts” tag

The Lost Special web apparently turned out to be fake, here you can see it, but to me is still kind of fucky because it led us to find The Lost Special Instagram, which no one knew about.

The Lost Special Twitter seems to be made by the same person who did the web.

The Sherlock’s Facebook page released a bunch of 360º pics, some quite strange, you can see them on their page, and we were wondering if we had to find something in them, it seemed strange that they released that many pics if S4 is over.

Rachel Talalay posted this pic, which is weird tbh, and then she replied to a comment saying that: she is just a pawn. (can’t find the link sorry) so we linked it to the chess pic that was a huge spoiler (we still don’t know why *sigh*)

Some people saw in their tumblr adds a page called Vivala.me, which apparently lets you send posthumous archives to the trustees you choose. (reminds you of someone’s DVD’s?) It was advertised with a really weird creepy video. We still don’t know if this is part of the ARG or not. I am quite sceptical.

Then we started to really pay attention to ContactSH & ContactJHW twitters. They’ve been lately providing us email addresses (we don’t know if we must use them in that vivala.me, as you need an email for the trustees)

Here you can see the level of Johnlock in those twitter accounts and why we love them (official or not)

Contact SH posted a pic taken from the BBC building, which is now closed for tours. I talked about it here.

ContactSH uploaded a pic of some handwriten stuff which I analysed here. His handwriting looks suspiciously similar to Mark’s handwriting.

Here you can read more reasons why whe think these twitters might be official.

ContactJHW posted an screenshot of a email in which there was an address written >> here.

And finally we found some parody accounts in Twitter ��which led us to some weird ass fics, the style reminded us to the Mofftiss one.

Buuut today we discovered it was just a fake (some people are still sceptical about it.), and that it was just a fan, who also wrote a whole script (?) you can read about all that here and here.

So here ends our wild ride in the depths of Hell! I am afraid to discover what awaits us ahead D:Hope it helped ;)

#sherlock #sherlock arg #ask #mine #nonny #long post #god this took some time D:

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josephkchoi · 5 years

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How Hyper-Targeted Marketing Helped Zola Take Over the Wedding Industry

By now, you’ve probably heard something about Zola. If you haven’t, suffice to say that they’re kind of a big deal in the wedding industry.

After exploding onto the scene in 2013, Zola quickly became the fastest-growing wedding startup in the United States, trouncing old-school competitors with their headache-free approach to big-day planning. Zola lets couples manage the whole process in one online space, offering thousands of products from hundreds of brands and providing a ton of flexibility. You can register for everything from a cookware set to a sailing tour, exchange luxury wants for practical needs, and postpone shipping until you’ve settled into your proverbial nest together.

Over the past six years, Zola has continued to expand its full suite of wedding planning tools. The goal? Drive traffic by becoming a one-stop-shop for the newly engaged. It’s worked like a hot damn, too. Today, Zola is well on its way to a unicorn valuation as one of the top ecommerce marketplaces in the world.

But the three-tiered cake of Zola’s tremendous growth has a secret filling. What you probably haven’t heard is how the brand’s marketers helped drive customer acquisition like mad by persuasively communicating Zola’s benefits to the diverse segments of its target audience.

How Can Ecommerce Marketers Get More Sales Through Targeted Messaging?

Meet Ari Gayer and Shivanie Barapatre, core members of the customer acquisition crew at Zola. In just over a year, they (along with the rest of Zola’s marketing team) managed to:

Build and launch 300+ custom landing pages for Zola’s specific audience segments.

Optimize their paid search and social campaigns (specifically Google and Facebook) using targeted messaging.

Improve their conversion rates on advertising traffic by anywhere from 5% to 20% over website pages.

As soon as we heard Zola’s wild acquisition story, we knew we needed the whole picture—so we rang up Ari and Shivanie at the company’s headquarters in NYC to get the details.

The Challenge: Get More Couples Registered on Zola Using Google & Facebook Ads

Ari, who’s been at Zola for three years and is now Head of Acquisition, played a key role in the company’s quick success. Since 2016, he’s been responsible for driving traffic to Zola’s ecommerce property and getting new customers into the ecosystem—and as with all fast-growth startups, there’s an urgency to keep the momentum going.

Part of the challenge has always been that Zola’s audience is pretty unique in ecomm. Couples sign up for planning tools anywhere from several months to a few years ahead of their actual wedding (which is when Zola makes bank). This means the brand’s target customers have varying levels of familiarity with the wedding planning process: some just need to hear what makes Zola special, while others still need to be sold on the specific tool they’re looking for. And by continuing to add new functionality to the platform, Zola has been broadening its use cases while further segmenting its audience.

Increasing the number of soon-to-be-weds on the platform was priority number one for Ari and his team (including Shivanie, who came aboard in 2018), and together they implemented a robust paid search and social strategy. But it’s one thing to get traffic, and a whole ‘nother thing to convert traffic.

It didn’t take long for the Zola marketing crew to recognize that the diversity of its audience (in knowledge and intent) meant that sending all of its traffic to one place (like the Zola homepage) wasn’t the best way to get couples registered. Instead, they started experimenting with how they could deliver a relevant and compelling pitch to each of their segments—and that meant landing pages.

A lot of the work [was] about improving the conversion rate of users once they actually land[ed] on the page. And so, managing search, a lot of that—by extension—ends up being landing page testing.

Ari, Shivanie, and the squad had dabbled with using landing pages to target people who were looking for a specific planning tool, or who were at a particular stage of the signup process. Early returns showed that landing pages had the potential to help them get more lovebirds registered than they could through their website alone.

This Facebook ad’s target audience is people interested in creating a wedding website—an awesome opportunity to get them into the Zola ecosystem.

The corresponding landing page highlights Zola’s free website templates, using it as an entry point to the broader planning toolkit.

The problem was that Zola’s marketers were coding pages the ol’ fashioned way and using a third-party optimization tool to test. They didn’t have a method to launch pages as quickly as they wanted and it slowed down their execution.

We were doing smaller-scale things, like changing a hero image, changing button copy or button color, stuff like that. But we wanted to build completely new landing pages. Something much larger scale, and with the potential to have a much higher impact.

Ari knew that landing pages could play a bigger role in their signup journey, becoming an important first-touch and better communicating the benefits of Zola—especially for people who were unfamiliar with the platform.

It’s helpful to have a precursor to a product page that introduces you to the Zola universe—what we offer, what we provide, what the benefits are. It allows us to give a great first impression of who we are and what we bring to the table before having visitors just jump into the product.

Someone who lands directly on Zola’s storefront probably isn’t going to understand the full benefits of the platform. That’s where landing pages can help.

Landing pages can convert up to 2x better than product pages. (At least, that’s what the research says.) Find out how Unbounce can help your ecommerce store turn more browsers into buyers.

If they were really gonna crank customer acquisition into overdrive, Zola’s marketing department needed a way to speak convincingly to each of their individual audience segments. To do that, they’d have to find a quicker, easier way to launch landing pages on their own.

The Solution: Build Landing Pages with Targeted Messaging for Different Audience Segments

Enter Unbounce. With a full-fledged landing page platform in their arsenal, Ari and Shivanie were suddenly able to:

Build and launch custom landing pages wayyy faster—without any help from developers.

Deliver persuasive messaging to each of their different audience segments, depending on things like search intent, engagement status, gender, device, and more.

Ari points to Zola’s recent collaboration around wedding invitations with Draper James, a clothing line founded by Reese Witherspoon, as an example of how the Unbounce builder made his team more independent.

We needed a landing page because we knew that the press would cover the collaboration, we knew that we were going to send emails about it, we knew we were going to send paid traffic to it. But all of the engineering resources were occupied with the other parts of the collaboration. So we used Unbounce.

With Unbounce, Ari and his team dragged-and-dropped together a landing page celebrating the partnership in no time—and it looks incredible.

If the Zola x Draper James invites look half as good as this landing page, then sign us up.

Now that they’re able to create landing pages faster, Zola’s marketing team has learned way more about their audience intent—and how to shape their messaging to increase the chance of conversion.

For example, Ari and Shivanie recognized they could adjust their landing page content for different search queries that reflect how far along a visitor is in the buying process. Core terms like “wedding registry” and “wedding website” indicate someone who knows exactly what they want, in which case Zola is better off making a direct pitch around specific benefits and pricing structure.

This landing page targets people who are already searching for a registry, and it’s all about hammering home Zola’s value props.

But as Shivanie points out, more exploratory search terms like “best wedding registry ideas” often require softer messaging.

When we see people searching for a much longer-tailed term, then we know to tailor our messaging [on the landing page] to have a lot more information about what a registry is before introducing Zola’s registry and explaining how it compares to others. [We’ll present] a lot more educational information upfront, because we know we’re climbing a steeper hill to get this person to convert.

Compare the last page with this one, which targets search terms used by grooms-to-be who are still in an exploratory phase of the planning process.

Zola’s acquisition team has also learned lots about optimizing for visitors consuming content on different devices. Today, almost every landing page Zola creates come in both a desktop and mobile version.

Based on our Unbounce testing, we realized that there are different intents for people who are coming to our pages on desktop versus mobile. What Unbounce has really helped us do is create different experiences for those devices. For example, being able to have more clear, concise messaging on mobile—with less text and visuals—is going to convert better.

The desktop version of a landing page promoting the benefits of Zola’s wedding registry.

The mobile version of that same landing page. Note the trimmed copy and rearranged sections.

The Results: 300+ Active Landing Pages & 5-20% More Conversions

Since starting to use Unbounce, Ari and his team have created well over 300 landing pages. That’s almost one landing page for every day they’ve been on the platform. (Quite a change from waiting around for developers, huh?)

These pages are each designed to speak to a specific kind of prospect: someone using Pinterest on desktop that wants to build a wedding website, or a not-yet-engaged couple interested in taking a quiz to learn how their preferred home decor style could shape their registry. (Yeah, it gets that specific.)

After the quiz determines the type of decor visitors are interested in, it directs them to products of that style on the Zola store.

The number of new landing pages that we’re launching has grown exponentially. Unbounce has allowed us to tailor those pages to who the audience is, to have much more coherent advertisements—between the ad, the landing page, and the whole experience.

Being able to launch new pages fast means that Ari and Shivanie can always be optimizing to figure out what resonates best with their audience. (ABO, people.) Getting super precise in their targeted messaging has helped Zola turn more of their paid Google and Facebook traffic into new signups.

We’ve measured an increase in conversion rate. It varies from the different landing pages that we’ve launched (since we’ve launched so many), but it’s an increase of 5% to 20% in conversion rate over the website pages we were using beforehand.

Wanna drag-and-drop your way to a higher conversion rate? Find out how Unbounce helps digital retailers and ecomm merchants boost their number of online sales.

That’s not all. Ari and Shivanie’s landing page experiments have been so successful, they’re carrying through their learnings to shape the structure of Zola’s homepage.

We took the highest-converting landing page we had and saw that the specific image, the hero copy, the order of sections were converting very well. So we picked up that page, built it out a little bit more in terms of copy, and applied the same structure to our main homepage.

Here’s Zola’s website homepage alongside one of its most visited landing pages—but which is which?

˙uǝǝɹɔs ɹnoʎ dᴉlɟ noʎ ǝʞɐɯ oʇ pǝʇuɐʍ ʇsnɾ ǝʍ ʇnq—ǝƃɐd ƃuᴉpuɐl ǝɥʇ sᴉ sᴉɥʇ ‘dǝ⅄

Deliver Crazy-Specific Messaging & Drive More Sales with Landing Pages

Ari and Shivanie had the daunting task of continuing to expand the customer base of an ecommerce darling already growing at breakneck speed. With the ability to quickly build landing pages that address the specific intent or knowledge gap of a target customer, they managed to refine their paid search and social campaigns and deliver a sizeable uptick in conversions. Not bad for just over a year of work.

The takeaway? Relying on developers to execute your marketing is incompatible with growth. To get the same kind of results as Ari and Shivanie, you need to be able to learn about your audience fast and optimize your digital marketing faster. You need to be able to speak compellingly to your different audience segments in a way that makes clear why your product is a great fit for them.

You probably need a landing page.

How Hyper-Targeted Marketing Helped Zola Take Over the Wedding Industry published first on https://nickpontemrktg.wordpress.com/

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roypstickney · 5 years