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#am i using my relatable text posts tag for my own post instead of a reblog? absolutely.
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Maybe it’s because I got @tmbgareok​ Book only two months after graduating from the treatment program, but every time I listen to it, I can’t help but relate it to OCD
Most obviously is “I Broke My Own Rule” - it feels so much like the thought process when I’m stuck in a cycle and can’t/don’t neutralize. It’s the soundtrack of my distress. Like I’m just gonna put at least half the song’s lyrics here but like. This! Is! My! Brain!!
“Everything's wrecked, everything is wrecked Smashed up, destroyed, smashed up and destroyed I broke my rule, I broke my own rule Now there's no rules, no rules, there's no rules Anymore
“This is as bad, as bad as it gets I lost the high ground, lost the high ground I broke my rule, I broke my own rule I've got no one, no one else, no one else to blame
“What happens when, happens when the, when the freedom, freedom You want, you want to have, to have comes at Comes at a cost, a cost you can't, you can't afford to pay
“All is lost, all is lost, all is lost Not a shred of, not a shred of hope I broke my rule, I broke my own rule Now I'm condemned to hell, now I'm condemned to hell”
Slightly less obvious but absolutely still the way my brain works: the chorus of “Less Than One”
“I took a walk, I got tired, I turned around and I got almost home but then I got tired and turned around again I wrote this down, I erased it, I was filled with remorse for both erasing it and also for writing it down“
Just... following the rules I set for myself (ie “turn around when you get tired”) even when it keeps me perpetually stuck in a loop where I can’t do things I really need to (like getting home to take a nap instead of turning around again!). But it’s a Rule™ and if I don’t follow it then everything’s wrecked and I’m condemned to hell. After treatment, I have skills for how to prevent neutralizing my obsessions and getting stuck, but even though some things have gotten easier, it still feels like this every time I do an exposure. I’ve learned to stop taking it as the truth, but my brain always ends up playing these threats over and over
Anyway, this lives in my car’s CD player and is always on. Idk I just feel so seen by this album
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livinglycan · 26 days
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Ello!! I’m Theo! I’m transmasc and I have several xenogenders! My pronouns are He/It/That +any canine or werewolf related neos! I’m a gay ficto aroace meaning I almost never feel attraction to real people and instead fictional men (or men aligned) characters!
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I am a werewolf. This is not a kintype, I am physically a werewolf. (I might have clinical lycanthropy) I’ll still post under the werewolfkin tags because I feel like werewolfkin can relate to my experience. I am a therian and otherkin but stuff relating to that can be found on my main blog, @confused-therian where I interact from. I do not need tone tags but I use them a lot so keep that in mind!
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This blog is for me posting about me being a werewolf, or werewolf related things! This could be my selfships, art writings, etc.! My tags are: #Running with the wolves🐺 - Responding to other alterhuman or nonhuman posts! #Howling at the moon🌕 - Original posts that are text! #Weird little claw marks✏️ - My art! This will usually be paired with text so it will be tagged as #Howling at the moon🌕 and as #Weird little claw marks✏️! #yapping back🌙 - Responding to asks! #Tasty posts🦴 - reblogs relating to this blog but not therian related or my own (usually used for posts I’m saving for later)
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Fandoms I’m in: FNAF, Spout lore, WoF, Pokémon, Jurassic world/Jurassic park, and HTTYD! I’ll add more if I can remember them or get into new ones!
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I am a minor! Adults can interact/follow (Hell, even PM me) but don’t be weird!
DNI: Basic DNI criteria+ Radqueer, RCTA, Proship or any variants of it, Demonizes cluster B disorders or delusions/are an ableist, Zionist/pro Israel (Get tf off my blog. Seriously. Like, leave right now. I will maul you.), antikin, fakeclaimer, anti researched self diagnoses, pro Trump, pro Biden (Trump is bad and so is Joe. He is directly funding the genocide against Palestine.), anti ACAB, Pro contact for harmful paras (People w/ big 3 paras can interact but don’t go against the rest of my DNI), anti atypical dysphoria, or are here to debate me about my identity.
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Anyways, bye creatures!
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sarasa-cat · 7 months
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Healthy Sustainable Writing Habit November (#NoNaNo)
I am spending time this November on rebooting my fiction writing habit while also keeping other writing (my nonfiction) moving forward too.
These are my "rules," where rules just means "guidelines for keeping a certain mindset towards writing habits" at the front of my mind:
#NoNaNo Rules/Guidelines:
Set aside a period of time most days of the week for working on writing, aiming for 4 to 6 days per week.
Keep track of what I accomplish each day that I spend on writing
Keep track of the when I take days off and what I did instead on those days (rest/breaks are necessary --- I know this but I want to remind people of this fact, especially while NaNo rages on in the background, immediately after Inktober).
Work on anything that is writing related: original fiction and fan fiction (both of which I am trying to reboot), poetry, nonfiction, etc. It all counts. Open up any project and work on it.
ANYTHING that actively pushes a project forward counts as writing. This doesn't necessarily mean "writing more words in the manuscript."
A sampling of activities that "count":
Drafting a scene
Editing and rewriting a scene
Outlining or refining an outline
Writing a poem
Spending 15 minutes writing list of as many different character conflict I can think of --- ideas that might be useful for current or future fiction
Researching information for a story while actively taking notes and organizing those notes for future use
"Interviewing" a character with the hopes of better understanding something about them that sparks story ideas
Drawing maps of settings and making notes about that setting
Creating a moodboard for a character or a conflict or a setting and making notes about how that moodboard captures the feelings of that person, conflict, or place.
Read someone else's writing that I admire and actively pick apart what makes it work so well, and what techniques can I borrow for my own work. Make some notes and give it a quick go on my own writing (or my outlines, etc).
Doing *any* writing exercise that is merely designed to juice up one's creative writing skills
Grabbing a fanfiction prompt and banging out a short one-shot
As for nonfiction writing activities:
Outlining
Actively reading research/reference materials while taking notes that will drive future writing
Drafting some text
Editing and rewriting some text
Creating a mind-map to visualize connections between concepts
etc.
ALL I NEED TO DO EACH DAY IS:
A. Set aside time to do at least one writing activity for at least 20 minutes (more is great but 20 minutes is perfectly fine too) and then DO the activity.
B. Note on my calendar what I did.
C. When I take a day off during November, make a note on my calendar what I did to relax or what I did that was important for life.
The goal here is a healthy, sustainable writing habit that prioritizes ALL aspects of writing.
I'll use the tag #NoNaNo throughout this month to say what I have done.
Feel free to join in and use the same tag too! And feel free to reblog this post if it resonates with you. <3
@zenatness @stealthnoodle -- tagging you both given a recent convo on a post I made last week/weekend. ;)
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pinkopalina · 1 month
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how covid unsocialized me.
it's hard for me to even wax poetic about my experiences because I saw how little anything mattered. so many of us died and even more wrote it off like god was thinning the herd or like the most vulnerable of us getting picked off was deserved because of what the most brutal and uncaring of us did. it made me form a stark contrast between who I thought "us" was and who I realized "they" are.
it made it really hard for me to live day to day without ruminating about our systems and how unhappy I am playing pretend doing stupid shit to make money for people who proved to me that they don't care about me. why am I doing this? why do I have to participate ? how are the rest of you happy and complacent this way, but how dare I say that? in what way have I proven myself a pure saint of a paragon? I have sinned with my apathy.
now I'm so completely disillusioned with any attempt to care about anything because I watched in real time as everything shifted. as covid broke us and rebuilt us for THEIR convenience. yes being gay is okay, to sell you stuff. but we'll take your rights away. yes we care about work life balance... but only if our job controls our access to healthcare and we have to be there more than enough to warrant the work we do.
and it's not like it was great before! it's not like something amazing was ruined and I'm just mad at covid for fucking it up. it was bad and it was a matter of time before something sparked change, and I feel like that was supposed to be covid. if it wasn't that, it was gonna be something else. we had this whole opportunity to actually change and heal the earth and ourselves but we FUCKED THAT UP. we're STILL FUCKED UP YEARS LATER. how many more years of this am I going to witness and bear apathy to because I have no better choice???
it feels with so much bad shit compounding on top of each other, like an unhealthy mind, our unhealthy society ruminating on their problems and blaming each other instead of getting up to help has just left me defeated. the fight goes on and I am no soldier. it's every day. it's always feeling stupid for feeling hopeful and then feeling regret for overcorrecting with rage. I feel like my words are so foreign and long winded to people now that expressing myself, like trying to be saved during COVID, was useless. I legitimately have thoughts like "well at least people who are dead now don't have to worry about what a shit world it's becoming lol" but I can't even EXPRESS that I feel that way because Tumblr police in my head from 16 years of being on the only website that hasn't died yet -- but only has a MILLION rules you have to abide by unless you want a callout post and to develop borderline personality disorder -- will remind me that thoughtcrimes are actually that serious like just as bad as the real shit that is happening with the people with guns and money and power and law making abilities and you should be killed for them too. even though the war is bad. like, these rules don't make any fucking sense but I still have to abide by them.
and then I go into these huge metaphors and assumptions about life and it's echo chambering in my own brain and I actually feel like I turned into the joker. except I'm not even allowed to relate to that because everyone in the ship tag you follow to try to alleviate some of the symptoms of the rot on your mental health that is Daily Life has become an expert on how you should think about them too and they will also kill and ostracize you for having a headcanon that maybe onions have layers sometimes and then you're just better off rambling in every text post you ever make and then deleting it because everything you've ever said has gotten a decreasing amount of notes until it's become 0 and every single one of your artist friends has followers in the thousands but still wants your pity because hating ourselves is too addictive to ever trying to be positive about anything.
like man I am BITTER!!!!!! 🤪😂🙂‍↕️🤝🥰🥴🤪☺️
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cd-covington · 10 months
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Two questions for you, if you don't mind!
I'm working on a story that's set in a future version of the real world. Can you give me any advice on how modern languages might change going forward? Are there any sort of "trends" in phonology that might continue?
Also, the world consists of several post-human races that have differentiated to fill ecological niches. Some look and act more like buffalo, others like arthropods, et cetera. I want them to all speak different [accents?|dialects?] of the same language, but I'm having trouble keeping consistent the sounds that each race can or can't make. It's also difficult to make them feel unique without restricting their vocabulary down to only a few phonemes. Do you have any advice on developing phonetic restrictions?
Hi literal-bot! Thanks for your questions!
Predicting language change is extremely difficult. Language change occurs in all aspects of a language, including sound/phonetics, semantics, inflection, and vocabulary. We can describe what a language looked like at a previous point in time and compare it to itself at another point in time, or compare related languages to each other at the same point in time. (Assuming that we have written material for all of them. The oldest texts that are more than inscriptions on tools or stones that we have for the Germanic languages date to the 9th century CE. Except the Gothic Bible, which dates to the 4th century, but Gothic is the only attested East Germanic language, and that entire branch is extinct. Then there’s 500 years of, like, “I built this stone in honor of my son who died at sea” or nothing at all.) Since you asked about sound change, that’s what I’ll focus on here. Also, I can only speak with any expertise about the Germanic languages (mainly German, but you can’t avoid learning about English if you study linguistics in the US), so specific examples will vary if you’re talking about, say, French or Māori or Mandarin. I have plans to cover this extensively in my book, and a full discussion would be way too long for a tumblr post, so this is going to be more superficial than I would like.
Sound change can occur with consonants. That’s why English has day, Norwegian, Danish, and Swedish have dag, and German has Tag. It’s also why the Germanic languages have fish and brother, but Latin and its descendents have piscis and frater. (And then there’s Swiss German.)
Vowels can also change, of course. There were vowel changes that occurred before the Germanic peoples had writing that gave Germanic languages the historical [o] sound in brother (that has since shifted further in the West Germanic languages) instead of the [a] sound in Latin frater. The Great Vowel Shift is why English spelling makes no god damn sense.
There are several sound changes occurring in US English right now, as well as a wide variety of regional variations. (UK, Australian, and New Zealand Englishes also have their own sets of vowel changes and regional variations that I am not expert in and cannot discuss.) You could take any of these and make them the dominant variation in your future society.
The most notable sound change is referred to as the Northern Cities Vowel Shift, and it could be the next big thing. The first step was documented in the 1960s (but probably started in the 1930s), a tensing and raising of the [æ] vowel in trap to something more like trep, and there are now 6 documented shifts.
Another major ongoing vowel change is the cot/caught merger. (If you pronounce these two words the same, congratulations – you have the merger, like most North Americans! I do not.) Regional variations in vowel sound include monophthongization in the South (I –> ah) and the pin/pen merger.
I’ve been noticing a couple things when I watch movies or peer-reviewed tiktoks or when I talk to people, and I don’t know if they’ve been studied yet. The first is a tensing of the /i/ vowel in words like king or going to sound more like an /e/, like keeng or goeeng. I don’t have any data on who’s doing it, so I can’t speculate on what region it comes from or how old the people who do it are. If nobody over 20 is doing it, it’s a more recent change than if the cutoff is 40. But I heard it from grad school friends who were in their mid-20s at the time (five years ago), so it’s not SUPER recent.
The other thing is super cool to me, because it parallels the first Germanic sound shift. The [k] sound in words like cool or clear is becoming more heavily aspirated and maybe even becoming a fricative. Which is exactly what happened like 2000 years ago! First, what is aspiration? Aspiration is the presence of a puff of air when you release a stop, like /p t k/. Put your hand in front of your mouth and say top. You’ll feel a little puff after the /t/ and /p/.  Second, what’s a fricative? That’s sounds like /s f h/, where the air moves through a constriction. So, the [k] is already aspirated because of how English works, but maybe it’s a little hard to distinguish sometimes, so you add a little extra /h/ to it, and eventually you get enough in there that it’s almost [x] – the sound in German ach.
So, phonologically speaking, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Start with the pages I linked and pick something you like, then take it further. What happened in the past is likely to happen again. But on the plus side, whatever you decide, nobody can tell you you’re wrong. If you have institutional access (I do not), this reference encyclopedia looks amazing. If your outgoing language isn’t English, try searching for some variation of “ongoing sound change in X” until you find something.
Your second question overlaps slightly with one in my inbox (whose answer should go up on Friday), so I’ll have a more detailed answer then. But for now, here’s a VERY superficial preview (and I have about 5000 words on this in my current book draft, so this is the idk 200-word version of something that’s already a highly condensed version of half a semester of grad school, so, uh, I hope this makes sense.)
As you’ve already pointed out, mouth shape affects what sounds a creature can make. But real-world linguistics only studies human speech, for obvious reasons, so what do you do when a bison gains language? One thing you can do is sketch out their vocal tract and figure out which human sounds just aren’t accessible to them. How muscular are their lips/jowls? Will they be able to round or purse them to make /oo/ sounds? Will labiodentals ([f v]) be possible?
I like the way this graphic shows the human vocal tract over the IPA chart, because it puts the two things right next to each other. It doesn’t explain what the articulations are, but this (very dry) page does. So you have your human vocal tract and your sketch of your non-human vocal tract (to the same scale), and if you overlay them, you’ll find places that can make interesting differences in what speech sounds are or aren’t available between one species and the other.
If you think this is interesting, consider backing my Kickstarter, where I’ll be writing a book about how to use linguistics in your worldbuilding process. Or if tumblr ever sorts out tipping for my account, leave me a tip.
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carewyncromwell · 2 years
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“Good day, everyone. It seems that we, once again, are on the cusp of that most wondrous time of year -- the Feast of Christmas. 
“I am called Bartholomew -- or more commonly just ‘Bat’ -- Varney...and this time of year is by far my favorite of the lot. To mark this occasion, my ‘mundane’ has once again given me access to her ‘Askbox,’ so that I may discuss aspects of this wonderful holiday with you, her followers, whether through historical lectures, editorials, or even lively debates. She encourages you to consult the ‘Bat Comments on Christmas!’ tag to see my previous entries to this series, to like and reblog these posts if you find them engaging and interesting, and to send in other holiday-related Asks to me, if you wish to see more. I was born in the mid-18th century and currently occupy what my mundane calls the ‘HPHL’ and ‘Fantastic Beasts’ timelines, but I have also been given access to the Fourth Wall, so that I can discuss aspects of Christmas Yet to Come as well.”
The single best aspect of Christmas is the fascinating way it has changed and will continue to change.
[Bat replaces the spent Blood Pop in his mouth with a new one with a grin that shows off his sparkling white fangs.]
“...Our subject today, appropriately enough, actually regards Christmases Yet to Come, as well as those of the Past and Present. Yes, my friends, it is time we discuss my favorite novel of all time, which arguably changed how Christmas is celebrated more than any other piece of text ever written -- Charles Dickens’s immortal classic, A Christmas Carol.
“Now, for those of you who have grown up with Christmas as a holiday, and even for many who haven’t, it would be silly to go into a full summary of the tale. It’s such a popular and well-adapted story, even back in my own era, that even those who haven’t read Dickens’s novel are familiar with it, simply through cultural osmosis...and from what I understand, over time, it’s only become more widespread. But truly, we’re not going to delve too deeply into the story of miser Ebenezer Scrooge, who initially scoffs at the thought of giving back to his fellow men and treating his employees and associates kindly around Christmas, before he’s haunted by three spirits who teach him the true meaning of the season. Instead, I’d like to talk more about the book’s publication, its themes, and ultimately why it both is a perfect time capsule of the up-and-coming Christmas fads of the mid-1800′s and ultimately came to popularize and set in stone customs we still associate with Christmas today. 
“Charles Dickens was a celebrity of his day. Originally the man had no concept of what he wanted to do with his life -- he even once considered a life on stage as an actor -- but writing truly ended up being his calling. First finding success as a journalist, Dickens then became famous across Britain when he wrote The Pickwick Papers and Oliver Twist. Even her Majesty the soon-to-be Queen Victoria was purportedly enamored with them. Unfortunately Dickens’s success ended up being a double-edged sword. John Dickens would frequently use his son’s fame as leverage to borrow money, only for Charles to have to frequently come to his rescue when John couldn’t pay the lenders back. And with his family still growing (three going on four, at that time), Dickens had to keep the money rolling in, in order to pay for his family’s lifestyle. They were part of what was called the ‘middling sort,’ or the ‘middle class,’ as I’ve heard it more frequently called, which had only just started to form about a century prior, as education and land ownership became more widespread in Europe and America. Just a century ago, that ‘middle class’ had been the main force behind the American and French Revolutions and the Enlightenment ideals that argued against the superiority of kings and nobles over the common Man -- now most of their members were trying to find comfort and contentment in their new status as the ‘petit bourgeoisie.’ But there was still activism and fresh ideas to be found in their ranks, if one were to look carefully.
“The wide publication of books via printing presses and that subsequent increased access to education and knowledge fueled a new appreciation for history in 19th century Europe. Not too long ago, as I’ve discussed previously, Christmas had been banned in England, only for that idea to blow up spectacularly in the Puritans’ faces. And well, with England having lost their foothold in the American colonies and having spent even more years and money warring with France under the leadership of Napoleon Bonaparte before finally defeating him soundly at Waterloo, there was a new sense of nostalgia in England for when their country was great and prosperous...namely, the Renaissance, under the rule of Queen Elizabeth I. The arts became more reputable and profitable again after the likes of Oliver Cromwell had tried to shut down theaters en masse; investment in new technologies and sciences were promoted, sparking an Industrial Revolution in England; and holidays of the Tudor era were reinvented for a new generation, including -- you guessed it -- Christmas. 
“But Christmas, as celebrated in Tudor England, was a very bawdy, raucous, messy affair. A public outdoor festival punctuated by drinking and debauchery didn’t really suit the ‘proper’ attitudes of the Victorian-era middle class. So, just as we always have with Christmas since the beginning, old traditions were attempted, adapted, and -- in some cases -- flat-out made up. One such tradition I’ve discussed previously that was likely completely fabricated around this time is the act of kissing under mistletoe. Other fads that were ultimately discarded was putting fruitcake under your pillow -- replaced with just eating it at holiday gatherings -- and wearing animal-themed costumes -- which I would argue was just shifted over to our celebration of holidays like Halloween. Even the idea of electing a ‘Lord of Misrule’ -- an aspect of the holiday I always enjoyed as a boy, which was also very popular back in the Elizabethan era -- didn’t last, under the Victorians. But still, these new twists on old traditions -- caroling at people’s doorsteps; hosting parties with friends and family; playing parlor games; exchanging presents; decorating the house with mistletoe, holly, and evergreen trees; eating lots of good food -- would become very fashionable among this new middle class and how they celebrated Christmas. And with the arrival of more Romantic ideals in Europe at the turn of the 19th century, the concept of children being evocative of innocence rather than sin became much more mainstream. This then prompted middle-class parents to want to make the old bawdy Feast of Christmas more family-friendly and to use some of their new wealth to give both themselves and their children some joy during the holiday season. 
“Dickens, like many members of the Victorian middle class, loved Christmas and the new fashionable ways it was being celebrated. Considering the man also greatly disdained organized religion, as well, it’s not entirely surprising he enjoyed the secular trappings that encouraged joy and extravagance without making it too focused on the church. But Charles Dickens didn’t just think Christmastime should be a time for the middle class to indulge for themselves. The true inspiration behind his novel A Christmas Carol ultimately ended up being Dickens witnessing the horrific conditions child workers suffered through in the new Victorian factories he saw in England, including the Cornish Tin Mines. He became convinced that something had to be done to combat the poverty and injustice he saw in the streets, and he ultimately thought that a story about Christmas might be a more palatable way to deliver that message to the mass public, including other members of the middle class, than a mere article would. And so Dickens partnered the Victorian fad of indulgence with social activism...which, ironically enough, perfectly adapted another tenant of Christmas back in my day, as well as its progenitor celebration of Saturnalia -- the redistribution of wealth. Whether Dickens realized it at the time or not, he had adapted the core of Christmas for a new generation -- this time, not by the poor having to beg or threaten the rich at their doors for their best food and drink, but by the new middle class and the wealthy being compelled by civic duty to give back to the needy willingly. 
“A Christmas Carol was an instant success. Thousands of copies were sold all over England from the moment it first hit shelves on December 19th, 1843, with the entire first run being sold out by Christmas Eve of that year and twelve more editions being published by the end of the following year. It is by far Dickens’s most well-known, read, and beloved novel, and it has only become more popular over time. And yet, in his day, Dickens didn’t enjoy the profits he probably should’ve from A Christmas Carol, after all his efforts. Part of this is because of how much money he invested into the publication of his manuscript. Dickens envisioned his book as something that should be bought and given as a Christmas present, and so spared no expense in making each book a work of art. The books were bound in red cloth, printed on gilt-edged pages, with hand-painted illustrations. All of this took a big chunk out of Dickens’s profits. Another problem, however, was that this expensive binding was the only way the book was published, which made it so that many poorer people who wanted to read this new book written by the great Charles Dickens about the virtue of giving to the poor didn’t have the five shillings needed to buy it. And this is why a lesser publisher ultimately plagiarized the novel, condensing it somewhat and printing it much more cheaply without permission, so as to cash in on those who couldn’t afford the full, official manuscript. Dickens later took that publisher to court for copyright infringement and won, but the whole affair still hurt his profit margin. 
“Even so, A Christmas Carol’s legacy is undeniable, and many of the Christmas traditions we love most today -- mere passing fads of Dickens’s era -- were popularized because of this very well-received and circulated little book. Christmas cards and gifts. Games and toys. Caroling. Childhood innocence. Christmas trees. Eating turkey, pies, and warm chestnuts for Christmas dinner. Giving to the poor. Even just the concept of the ‘holiday spirit,’ of ‘good will toward men’ -- of hope and charity, in the midst of the cold and hunger of winter. The ritual of taking time off work specifically just to celebrate at home with your loved ones, rather than go to church or go out drinking in the streets. All of this is what Christmas is all about in the minds and hearts of so many...but it wasn’t, until Charles Dickens wrapped all of these ideas up in a neat little package and gave it to the world, in the form of a manuscript he had to finish in less than six weeks and yet clearly put so much heart and soul into.”
[Bat removes the spent pop from his mouth. He reaches into the inside of his waistcoat, taking a sip of blood from his pewter flask. Then, clearing his throat, he puts the flask down and then reaches into the other side of his waistcoat, out of which he fetches out a very small, leather-bound copy of A Christmas Carol -- a present from someone, no doubt.]
“...And so...to close this out...let me quote one of my personal favorite sections of the novel. It’s a part of the story far less quoted than the infamous ending, but it’s a passage I’ve always found so striking, and one I think similarly embodies the beauty of Dickens’s work...”
[Bat opens his tiny copy of the manuscript and reads:]
“‘A small matter,’ said the Ghost, ‘to make these silly folks so full of gratitude.’
“‘Small!’ echoed Scrooge. 
“The Spirit signed to him to listen to the two apprentices, who were pouring out their hearts in praise of Fezziwig: and when he had done so, said, 
“‘Why! Is it not? He has spent but a few pounds of your mortal money: three or four perhaps. Is that so much that he deserves this praise?’
“‘It isn’t that,’ said Scrooge, heated by the remark, and speaking unconsciously like his former, not his latter, self. ‘It isn’t that, Spirit. He has the power to render us happy or unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies in words and looks; in things so slight and insignificant that it is impossible to add and count ‘em up: what then? The happiness he gives, is quite as great as if it cost a fortune.’”
[Bat looks up from his book with another fanged grin as he takes another sip of blood from his flask.]
“...Happy Christmas to you all.”
((OOC: HAPPY BATMAS!! 🎄🥰 Yes, friends, for all this month and next, Bat had free reign over the Askbox to chat Christmas with you all! Please consider sending in Asks, or of course, just liking/reblogging my entries to this series! It’s truly so much fun to work on, and I’m so thrilled to do some more fun installments to it this year!))
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oldassweeb · 1 year
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Welcome to this crap ass side blog by and old ass weeb.
I’m Lavina (V for short if you prefer) and I decided after a decade and a half of thinking about yyh that maybe I should share some of those thoughts. 
This is a 18+ blog, reader discretion is advised. 
I am a chronic self shipper and deeply wish is was in a polycule with: Kurama, Hiei, Kuronue, Boton, Shizuru, and Yomi. But I promise I won’t talk about that too much.
You can find all my contend under these tags.
If something is not tagged under one of these it was simply a post that was so inviting I had to re-blog it. (More often then not it will have been Kurama related, so prepare for the spam if you fallow me.)
#Asks are your questions answered. I do take Headcanon and Match-Up requests. These won’t ever “close”, however, I am busy and struggle with ADHD induced ED so they may not be answered as quickly as some would like. (NO fic requests please, those are overwhelming for me.)
#Submission are obviously the YYH related stuff that any of you are welcome to send me
#Commissions are YYH themed art and stories I have commissioned from other creators. If it is not directly re-blogged from them I will include their information. My avatar and header are among these. 
#HCs is both for your Headcanon asks and my own independent text posts in this format.
#Matchmaker will be along side the ask tag. If you would like you can send these though my DMs instead of asks and I will still reply to them in a text post; likely tagging your blog at the top. 
#Thirst are any text posts that contain my adult thoughts about the yyh characters. Please note that because I am so OLD my brain has aged these subjects up with myself, however, do rest assured that by the end of the original manga in 1994 *Most (if not all) of the charters were already of at the age of consent. 
Occasionally I am in the mood to write myself. You will be able to find my works under the tags #Citrus (for general fiction), #Orange (for romance and fluff), #Lime (for angst and sexual suggestive stories), #Lemon (for PwoP/erotica), and #Grapefruit (for depraved content-TWs included). Yes I am so old that in my hay day of writing and reading fan fiction of FFN I used the Citrus Scale. And I will continue to use it here.
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noxs-daydream · 2 years
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Mod Introduction + Boundaries
Hello! Welcome to my account. I am Nox(though Thunder is also an available option), an artist who occupies Twitter, Instagram, ToyHouse, et cetera. Below will be a few of the pronouns I go by, however the full list can be found here. Newly added, I have reformatted my commissions! They are no longer in a Carrd format, and instead in a post for easier Tumblr advertising. Here is the post! I have a Ko-Fi account! Not required, but any donations are appreciated!
It is also recommended that you go through my introductory carrd here as well. At the moment it needs to be updated, however it still has the links to my socials and some basic boundaries that are not listed below.
Lastly, after the pronouns are listed, the post will be typed out in a 3rd person point of view.
They / Them / Theirs / Themself It / Its / Its / Itself He / Him / His / Himself Voi/ Voice / Voice / Voiceself Sting / Stinger / Stingers / Stingerself Thy / Thyla / Thylas / Thylaself Spark / Sparks / Sparks / Sparkself
It is important to note that it is someone who tends to have a difficult time reading tone over text(and through voice), so tone tags or reassurance will be required due to social anxiety.
- Purely NSFW accounts, or accounts that center around yandere-content, will be blocked without hesitation. Accounts that do not have indicators that they are not a bot, will also be blocked. - It is also asked that you are to not slide into DMs out of nowhere to ask to be friends; state you wish to be friends, and slide into a different topic that the mod is interested in so he knows your intent. - The mod is neurodivergent, and heavily gay, if you do not like that, you can leave. Spark will also not bother wasting the energy to educate you when there are potentially many people who are willing to do so. If given permission to by the mod of one of the accounts who can, they will hand over the account tag to you. - Any current events are particularly dark topics will be tagged accordingly if it is brought up at all. - It should be noted that if you have a problem with the mod, he would prefer to be told rather than hear it second hand to avoid drama and to be made aware of anything voi may need to reflect on. It does not enjoy drama all that much outside of the harmless, playful kind.
As mentioned before, the best way to befriend thyla, is to have a common interest. At the current moment, these are its current main interests : - Pokemon - Sonic
Here are some more general interests that it has: - Cookie Run Kingdom - ROTTMNT - Space - World Building - HTTYD - Markiplier - The Owl House - My Hero Academia - Minecraft
Here are the tags that the mod will be using for a different type of post; ones related to trigger warnings will be added as needed: - #thunder speaks ; a general tag for posts that do not have an ask attached - #thunder creates ; a general tag for artwork, ideas, or something else that would fall under the category - #thunders ocs ; just a tag that will be used for the mod's original characters, be it part of a fandom or completely original - #mailbox ; a general tag for submissions and asks - #anons ; a general tag for anonymous asks - #cool things ; a general tag for different types of creative content that had been reblogged, be it headcanons, writing, or something similar
It should be noted that anons will get their own tag after 5 asks, and those who revisit my ask box off anon will get their own tag as well.
This section will just be a place to put the anon names that have been 'claimed' by anons who continuously return: [ at the moment it is empty ]
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catofoldstones · 2 months
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https://www.tumblr.com/catofoldstones/743730743947231232/we-already-have-people-bitching-about-how-i-cant
This is confusing me because I 100% agree with the text of the post but then your tags are just….. you doing your own version of Chani v Irulan….I am sorry they (misogynistic, boring love triangle chatterers) got in your head get them out!!!! Chani is not better than Irulan for being impregnated by Paul, Irulan is not better than Chani for being officially married to him, neither of them are meaningfully defined by these things at all except in the context of a patriarchal narrative that makes Paul the center of truth and power and defines Chani and Irulan as meaningful and powerful only through their relation to him. Instead of seeing Chani as a (potential, doomed to be superseded by colonizer Paul) liberator to her people beyond what he could ever dream of being, betrayed not even primarily by a false lover but by a false rebel comrade in arms, and Irulan as an intelligent human being reduced to bargaining piece and living imperial seal of authority, not a person, and yeah used that way by everyone in her society and now Paul too. I think these stories are far more interesting after removing Paul’s presumed protagonist status from our reasoning, and considering each person as protagonist in their own story (even if they’re also doomed of course)
Hey,
I think I got confusing in the tags, and maybe the post itself. A couple of people commented that “Chani is not annoying” on the post that I thought was clearly indicating that I thought the opposite. So that’s my fault.
As for the tags, they were meant to be comments I read that were doing the whole Chani v Irulan thing. Somehow tags for me don’t allow quotes and got posted without them. I didn’t mean that Chani is superior because she gave birth to Paul’s children. I meant that I read it somewhere and it made me want to scream because of how dehumanising and misogynistic it is. Sucks that it got all confused there. I might have to cap the post before I spread more confusion or just change the tags/post.
I wholeheartedly agree with you, anon, especially decentralising Paul as a protagonist and looking at the women as the multi-dimensional characters that they are. Reducing either of them to their relationship with Paul is exactly the kind of thing I thought I was criticising. Hm :/
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keeperofthenorthstar · 9 months
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🔞MINORS DNI!🔞
Hello, I am a headmate of The Bunny System; resident and navigator of the Feral vessel, you may call me Northstar.
Some things to note:
This blog will be used for my own personal interests, this means it will likely be multifandom, and not lean to any one specific topic.
My pronouns are: It/Its, They/Them, She/Her, Yeen/Yeena/Yeens/Yeenas, and Fly/Flight/Flys/Flights. I have a preference towards the it/yeen/yeena/fly/flight pronouns however she/her/they/them is fine enough.
I often times will use the f and t slurs, this is your only warning. If you don't like them then do not follow me, and do not bother asking me to stop, as they're how a lot of us refer to ourselves.
I will and often to indiscriminately curate my tumblr dash. If you are ever blocked by me assume I use it like the "Don't recommend me channel." button on youtube and that odds are I just didn't care for the blog topic or fandom instead of holding a secret grudge against you.
Now with those out of the way, allow us to set some ground rules. Anyone found breaking them will be blocked and forcibly removed from this vessel.
🔞While I cannot guarantee there's going to be anything NSFW, I will open this with that I would GREATLY prefer that minors do not interact nor follow this blog. Yes I said it in the bio, and yes I'm saying it here again, as I do not wish to need to filter myself for others. To those who aren't minors, I will warn you that this blog may contain mentions or depictions of some more extreme fetishes if I ever do decide to interact with NSFW stuff on here. If you think the term is too vauge for you then I would suggest being safe over being sorry.🔞
Leave the system discourse at the door. I do not care for it, I do not care about your opinions on it, and unless you're a close friend or I explicitly ask about it, even if you did tell me your thoughts on it I wouldn't put in the effort to listen to you.
Don't bother asking wether or not we're endo, we have no idea and we also don't entirely care. But for the sake of scaring off anti-endos who will make people feel unwelcome: assume we are endo.
Infact, while we're on the topic, don't bother with any discourse because I simply don't have the energy to bother caring about random internet arguements.
While I don't mind NSFW stuff in general, please keep what you do with others or what you want to do with other people to yourself. Don't tag them on my posts and tell them about how you want to do that to them, just mention it in their DMs.
I'm demisexual, which pretty much means I don't want anyone I wouldn't make NSFW comments directly to to make NSFW comments to or about me. Save that for the DMs of your friends who may be into that stuff.
Don't take anything I say personally, odds are high if I'm complaining about something it isn't related to you. If I had a problem with you personally that would be enough to make me want to post about it, I would have talked to you about it already. If you're a random, I don't feel my opinion should hold any actual value to you.
And lastly, if you don't like something I post or do on here just block me unless I have explicitly held conversation with you before. It isn't worth the effort to tell me about it, especially if you're not someone I'd even be willing to text normally. You can leave, the door is right there and it's unlocked.
If your blog is blank I'm blocking you. I don't care if you aren't a bot, on a site where a 5th of notifs are of bots following our main account I can't be bothered to take any chances with it.
Now wilth the formalities out of the way.. Pray enjoy your stay, and be sure to keep the northern star in your sight, else you may not find the way out when you need it most~
Now one last time for the road...
🔞MINORS DNI.🔞
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tim-shii · 11 months
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what would you do? baby, if you only knew.
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a/n: who makes a comeback? swiftie bf sae !! if he feels ooc do not blame u u cannot blame me this was fueled by the speak now tv release i am innocent i did no wrong ☝️
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35 missed calls, 109 texts. all from the same person. no, itoshi sae is not going insane. but if you ask him, he's close to losing his mind. 
you've been ignoring him for hours (it's been 30 minutes) and you even had him blocked on everything. from contacts to every social media account you have. safe to say, sae is confused, puzzled, and very much close to grieving.
he doesn't really understand. did he do something? was he the only person you blocked on everything? or did you cut off contact with everyone? but why? 
he scrolled through his private twitter account. tweeting several times just mentioning your user handle. yeah, he's blocked by you but sae decides that he can't lose hope. he thinks back to going back to spamming you but acts against it. instead he sits back and makes himself comfortable on the couch, scrolling aimlessly on his phone. 
he pauses when he sees a post retweeted by bachira. it was a taylor swift tweet about the release of a new re-recorded album. suddenly it all clicks in his head. you ignoring all calls and texts to blocking everyone in your social media. then, he sighs. he sighs like he's used to this, because he is. it's not the first time you'd done this, but it still surprises him every time. when 'red (taylor's version)' released, you asked him to break up with you. reasoning with him how you need to relate to all the songs for a better listening experience. when 'midnights' was released, he watched your mood change faster than light. from dancing around during 'glitch' to full out sobbing and bawling the second 'would've, could've, should've' play. and now, you're ignoring everyone and probably crying in your room as you put the album on repeat. 
sae decides to be a good boyfriend and checks up on you. taking his keys and locking the door, he starts the drive to your place. 
once he arrives, he doesn't bother to knock and opens the door with his own set of keys. as he expected, there you are, face planted on a pillow as the melodies of 'last kiss' plays. 
"did you seriously block my number and block my account on every social media you have?" sae asked, walking over to sit on the edge of the bed. 
"i blocked everyone. you're not special." sae merely hums at that, one hand coming up to softly caress your locks.
"is that so?" 
"yeah. don't go feeling special because you're not."
"such a shame." sae lets out a faux exasperated sigh, his hand coming to halt and now resting on your nape. "i even went out of my way to buy you your favorite ice cream."
"... you're a little special." sae smiles to himself as he hears you huff a 'shut up' to the little 'heh' he lets out. 
"can you please unblock me now?" 
"not yet. i'm not yet done listening to the album. i'll unblock you after three business days." 
"you got me worried, you know? i couldn't reach you anywhere." sae leans down and pecks the shoulder exposed by the loose shirt you're wearing. biting lightly at the skin, a soft chuckle escaping his lips upon feeling you shudder.
"... i'll unblock you tomorrow."
"it's a deal." the mattress moved as he laid down beside you, not minding the fact that you're still face down on your pillow, wallowing in sadness. he lays on his side, a phone in one hand while the other rests on the small of your back. 
the two of you lay there, 'ours (taylor's version)' by taylor swift playing in the background.
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likes and reblogs are appreciated! masterlist
tags: @futuristicxie
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pan-magi · 1 year
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Hey, brief update I guess. Winter is depressing; I'm cold and bored as shit so my number of posts may increase up to the new year. On the other hand, I may not be able to finish anything and this is pointless, so I am sorry. I do have multiple WIPs of different types of posts that should be up soon though.
With this said, I still plan to keep this as a mostly archived blog with minimal updates, as much as I have some ideas again I can't make them quickly for a lot of reasons. I work slowly, especially with the type of content I make for tumblr. Text posts are easier than my image sets but even then I fret over my stupid rambly shitposts.
Also, I did some personal rearranging and I've set up a new primary blog (@starmahgalaxies) and transferred this side blog to it. I say this as I don't want people to @ me if I reblog some of my stuff over there and that I'm stealing from myself if I include ownership tags like "my stuff" for it. I needed to separate from my old primary blog for a while now. It stopped reflecting who I was, well, at least 5-6 years ago when I first left tumblr. Instead of completely changing it I just made a new one.
The majority of my original Magi content will still remain on this blog. No need to follow me anywhere else if that's what you want. This blog will remain my baby and likely much more organized than what I decide to do over there.
I would have probably just made this my primary blog, but tumblr is weird and that requires hoops that may have ended up accidentally deleting this blog if i tried it. If I do post original Magi content over there it will likely be shipping* and art, if I go with it being easier to clump all my (fan)art over there regardless of fandom. My text posts, image edits, gifsets, etc. for Magi will remain here, so no worries <3.
This is also a head's up if I end up replying to comments here or something, that it is me. Again, because tumblr is weird and you have to reply from main. I wanted to make that clear it is me in one definitive post so that is what I am doing here.
*It's important to me being aro running a blog that is ship-neutral. I can say as well that looking at my follower list that the preferred ships can vary quite a bit, from each other and my own. It'll feel odd to start posting shipping stuff here now. Besides possible pride related things with non-specified ships, all my shipping content will remain over there.
(I have no qualms with people reblogging with ships or using my gifs in ship work. I've seen it a couple times and it's cool. I'll be upfront if I don't want that for a specific post. Trust me on that one.)
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silverskye13 · 2 years
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Hai-yo!
I’m Silverskye13, feel free to call me any variation of Silver/Sky/13 at your convenience. They/them/it pronouns, they/them preference.
General Info:
I’m an artist who sometimes moonlights as a writer. This is mostly a personal blog? I tend to float between the fandoms I enjoy ambiently, and occasionally throw in personal art to spice it up. Hermitcraft has been the big one recently, though I’ve been really deep into Undertale and Hollow Knight in the past. Additional places you can find me are:
AO3 at Silverskye13. All my chaptered fics go here, as well as a few of my one-shots. All the Hermitcraft one-shots haven’t been moved over there yet. They probably will be at some point, and I’ll update this when they are.
Redstone and Skulk is my current active fic, though I'm picking away slowly at several. This fic also has its own little set of playlists if you wanna listen along to the character vibes!
@beforeiwakecomic​ is my webcomic! It is on haitus since I’ve had a lot of intense life events come up this year, but the prologue is complete and posted.
@spazzcatreblogs is my reblog blog, where I queue most things I think are neat instead of tossing them on my main account.
Most major websites I’m on, I’m on as Silverskye13. I am by far the most active on Tumblr. Mutuals feel free to ask for my Discord/Telegram info.
Requests and Commissions:
Writing Requests: Open
Drawing Requests: TBA
Art Commissions: Open
Commonly Used Tags: 
#the barking artist is my catch-all tag, but I’m going to be trying to use it for art exclusively from here on out. You might find a few text posts scattered in there, whoops.
#spazzcat barks is going to be my new, just, general talking tag
#spazzcat doodles is another art tag I use specifically for quick doodles, 
#the barking writer is my writing tag, and it’s where 99.9% of everything fic related goes. I also have individual tags for the multi-chapter fics I’ve posted to AO3. They are simply tagged with their name, or a name acronym. [ex. Casting Rain, Monsters Splitting Hairs].
#answering asks is my ask tag, and includes any doodle/writing responses I have to asks in my inbox. My inbox is always open, I really like talking to people! Feel free to send me things. :D
I also have some smaller tags, more for organizational purposes than anything else. spazzcat liveblogging for liveblogs, spazzcat wips for work in progress drawings, the dark is rising is for various creepy things I enjoy that you may want to blacklist if that isn’t your thing, and sometimes I use darkposting for vents. I also have a delete later tag, and regularly purge the account of everything in it.
General FAQ:
I use Photoshop 10, 2019 ed. to draw with. Regular brush tool and the pencil tool are staples, and most of my brush packs are 5+ years old from DeviantArt. I frequently use references when I draw. I have a very old, beat up Bamboo Create that I draw on. It is 10 years old now, I think.
I’m also a regular user of Windsor Newton Watercolors and COPIC markers. My favorite paper is Arches Cold Press. Smooth...... good...........
I graduated from art school last year
I run on EST, but I do try to compensate for different time zones by reblogging posts at specific times of day.
I think leeks are adorable.
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Stressed
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Rating: NC-17
A/N: Brought to you by this post. I'm tired and sleepy and don't want to make any decisions. The degree is an actual MS you can get from American University in DC. U of Tennessee’s anthropology dept. hosts what’s called a body farm. It's a lab for forensic pathology students. Do NOT I repeat DO NOT look up pictures.
Pairing: Marcus Pike x reader, Marcus Pike x you
Summary: Marcus Pike is an associate faculty member at your forensics college. You ask him to be your second reader for your thesis, even though you have a huge crush on him. Nothing is better than something, right? By the time you pass your exam, you're so pent up you could scream.
Warnings: cadaver talk, pining, age difference, some power dynamics?, annoying college talk, sex, dirty talk, a God awful metaphor curtesy of Blanche Devereaux, 39
“Take a deep breath.”
You huff in a small shallow breath. Then let it out, and take in a longer, fuller one.
“Now let it out.” You let your cheeks puff up as cool air streams past your lips. “You’ve made huge improvements, and you’ve studied hard. The paper exam will be easy, and the oral will be a cinch.”
You gulp. “I know. It’s just...pre-show jitters, you know?”
He gives you a full smile, and flips the document shut. You hand him the binder clip, accidentally brushing his fingers when you do.
"Anything else I can do for you?"
You swallow, fiddling with your paper edge. God you feel like a twelve year old. You're fucking twenty-seven and about to apply for the FBI, why are you such a sap? He’s not available. Not even remotely. He will be gone in a year, back to the Bureau. There is no reason to nurse a crush. And you curse yourself for asking a man you’re attracted to - you, idiot, idiot! - to spend more time with you. Even if it is reading your dull chapter.
"No, I have everything I need, thanks."
"Then scoot. I have to read like...thirty pages of Tanner's chapter before he gets here."
You pull your bag to your shoulder. "you're not going to get that far," you scoff. The tensing in your shoulders relaxes a little when you stand to leave.
"We'll see," he says. He opens the door of his office for you. You glance back once more, and he's still in the doorway watching you go. "See you tomorrow."
"See you." Your mind swirls back and forth between thoughts of Mr. Pike, your thesis, Pike, your oral defence, your paper exam in two days, Marcus crossing his ankles in his reading chair. And you walk. Straight ahead, not looking back. But when you get to the door handle you turn around. And he's still there. Watching.
You've never been so stressed in your life.
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You met Marcus Pike on a muggy afternoon in August deep in the heart of Tennessee. The air warped off the pavement as you drove together to the School of Anthropology to visit your cadaver lying relaxed and prostrate in the middle of a fenced field. The air is already warm, then lightning flashes in the clouds to your right, and plopping rain drops scatter across the lawn, and dampens A-0017’s second hand suit. His raisinette hands lie against the grass almost like he’s communing with the earth. You watched the water hit his face, and permanently closed eyelids, and shaved head.
You had no business being so fidgety while kneeling next to a cadaver. Agent Marcus Pike and the facility director chat a couple feet away, leaving you to your business with A-0017. Pike had never been to the school’s mysterious forensics lab, even though he had plenty of time to when he was earning his own masters. That’s what he said in his email to you three weeks earlier. He’d heard a first-year student was running a fibrous material experiment and asked to tag along. And you said yes. Why not? He was faculty. It wasn’t unheard of. His email was so polite too, letting you know if you weren’t comfortable he understood. Pike. The name rattled a memory somewhere. So you emailed him back, and the next morning he sent you his itinerary: he would meet you in Tennessee. He’d even pay for the rental car.
You sent your advisor a quick text to ask if he was ‘crazy.’ She’d sent back the laughing emoji. No, she said, Marcus Pike isn’t a crazy. You’ll like him.
You did like him. He was waiting for you at the Hertz desk, and heat licked up your skin when you realized - he was striking. He was the type of man you’d make eyes at in a bar without any hope of even getting a number. His brown hair was neatly trimmed, and he had a softness brought on by a light scruff that didn’t hide his dimples. You barely registered that he was apologizing for not getting to introduce himself before flying out, but promised he was who he said he was. Even pulled out his credentials.
“Bureau?” you said to his badge. “I thought you were an associate professor?” You want to smack yourself.
Oh, “I am,” he replied. He dug in his wallet and pulled out a campus ID that matched yours. “I’m taking an interim year. I thought teaching would be a nice way to ease into DC life.”
Now he was here, sweating under the storm clouds while watching you unbutton A-0017’s shirt, and half listening to the director tell him all about how they kept the lawn looking green despite, ahem, fluids. You sternly told A-0017 to be on their best behavior while you pulled their shirt back to examine some fiber swatches stapled to his rubbery chest.
On the flight back Pike asked you all about your thesis plans. You stuttered as you began. He waited, patient. You were writing on how the FBI could contribute to cultural repatriation efforts internationally by returning art pieces. Do you know what it could do to boost scholarly opportunities? The doors it could open! Why put it in cold storage when it could revitalize movements? Art breathes, after all. You were exhausted by the time the plane landed. Both from answering questions, and from keeping a steadily building tension under wraps. You hoped he didn’t notice how you crossed your legs.
“I’d love to read it.” He handed your backpack down from the overhead bin.
“Maybe you should be my second reader.” You got serious when his face perked up. “I still need one.”
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That was nine months ago.
Your exams are in a week, and instead of thinking about preparing, all you can think of is that once everything is turned in, you probably won’t see Marcus again. He’s been your anchor these last months, and you’ve gotten used to his solid presence and encouraging platitudes. You cup your hot cheeks because it’s a dirty thought.
He lets you work in his office for a couple hours a week every week. The crammed little space is tight quarters, but he makes room for your laptop anyway. Sometimes you worked together heads bent for full time. Sometimes he read pages from your thesis, and you help him grade some papers from his first-year art history course. And sometimes you drink three pm coffee together and don’t work at all. It’s your favorite time of the week. The glow his praise gives you is embarrassing. And he’s an easy companion - nope, colleague. Your heart beats and your mouth waters every time you’re fifteen feet from his office door. The cold door knob jolts you took. You harbor a secret. Keep it warm in your belly. It swirls hungrily deep in you.
But now it’s a problem. You’re so distracted. Every time you leave his office, you’re tense from want. Your body is already over-caffeinated and achy from sitting in hard library chairs so long. But you keep going. Every time an anxious heat lights up the alarms in your head your instinct is to ask him what to do. You have to rest your hands in your head and remind yourself: he isn’t your babysitter, he’s a grown man who doesn’t have boundless time to tell you what to do. You have to figure it out yourself. Even if you really just want him to tell you what this or that section needs, is the title here misleading, is it lunch time, do you think the tone here is condescending?
What do you think? What do you want it to look like?
You think you want to grab his dumb button down collars and bite his lip. You want it to look flushed and tousled and desperate. You want to ride him in his reading chair with the door locked. It just isn’t fair.
The night before your first exam you take z-quil, drink lavender tea, and read a chapter of your favorite book to relax. Your phone buzzes at nine. It’s Marcus: good luck! You’re going to do great! Well. Better take some more Z-quill now that your heart is palpitating.
You pass both tests in excellent standing - MS in International Relations: complete. Pike attends the oral exam. Your skin goes hot when he smiles at you when the committee declares you exceed expectations. He invites you for a celebratory drink in the next couple days, which means you have two days to sternly wrangle your crush back into the dirty corner she came from.
You fail miserably.
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“Look,” he says, setting his beer down on the glass bar counter. “I know it’s not my business, but you still look stressed out. Are your grades bothering you?”
The rim of your gin and tonic is wet with condensation from where your finger circles it. “No, they’re great.”
He bumps your shoulder with his. “Then what’s the damage? You’re jumpier than a…” he trails off thinking a good metaphor. He squints at you a little.
“A virgin at a prison rodeo?” you supply. He inhales sharply, eyes wide. “You can laugh.”
“I didn’t know you watched ‘The Golden Girls,” he says. His tone is admiring. “I was going to say jumpier than a graduate student giving their defense.” You purse your lips when he raises his eyebrows at you. “Can I help at all?”
You watch his Adam’s apple bob when he takes another sip of his beer. The soft orange lights in the bar spill around his jaw and throat, they flicker in his irises. His face in three quarter profile is august. You’re utterly exhausted from the polite ‘student mentor’ dance you’ve had to do for months while keeping your desire at bay. And more than that, you didn’t want to answer. You wanted to show him and let him decide. The sultry washboard and piano music give you that last boost.
You make sure he’s watching you, then you slowly reach out and wrap your fingers around his wrist.
Then you wait.
Marcus pauses from lifting his beer bottle, eyes glued to your hand on his wrist. It’s petite against him. He stares at your baby blue fingernails pairing beautifully with his Stirling watch - and he feels himself harden.
All the skin on your body stands at attention when he meets your eyes. Everything in them tells you he wants you just as bad. There’s a hesitant curve above his eyebrow though. You get it. You were his student - he’s such a sweet man he wouldn’t even dream of using a power dynamic like that to get laid. Your breath comes in short heaves.
“The semester ended thirty-six minutes ago,” you say over the music. He takes a deep breath. You aren’t his student anymore. Not according to the school, anyway.
You want him to decide. If he doesn’t, you’ll go home and fall apart under your fingertips thinking about how hot it would have been to lift your dress and sit on his cock while wearing your thigh highs.
“Do you want to leave?” You nod, resisting the urge to bite your lip.
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Marcus’s apartment is homey. Streetlights flood the floor of the living room through the street facing windows. You turn this way and that to inspect the dark areas that look like bookshelves while he hangs up your coat. You squeeze your hands at your sides, because this is happening. You’re in his house. The hardwood floor is cold under your stocking feet.
You jump when he puts his hands on your shoulders from behind you, holding you a mere inch from his body. You bite your lip when his nose bumps into the back of your head.
“Are you sure about this?”
“You already asked me that,” you reply, letting your head fall back on his shoulder. You want so badly to tell him to tell you what to do. That you don’t want to make any decisions. Brain is worn out. That you want to please him, and not think. Oh, to be a freshmen simply sponging up information.
“I know,” he slides his hands to your biceps and turns you around. “I can check in again, can’t I? He cups your face when you nod. “Can I kiss you?”
“Yes, please,” you have to stop yourself from saying something incriminating, like mister Pike, or sir, or professor.
You clutch the front of his button down to anchor yourself when his lips brush yours. His mouth is soft. It coaxes you to open so he can dive into you, his tongue swipes your bottom lip, and you respond by pressing into him. You stay pliant under him, letting him lead. Your legs feel on the verge of collapse when you break away. You can’t stand it anymore.
“I want to suck your cock.”
Both of you freeze. For a second you wonder if you’ve given him a heart attack. But you watched his thighs on the car ride back and couldn’t stop thinking about kneeling between them. Your mouth waters. Marcus can’t breathe. He’s straining against his zipper. After your declaration he wants it too.
“Okay, honey,” he breathes. He brushes your ear with his thumb. “If that’s what you want, we’ll do that.”
He tries to draw you backward toward his room where he can turn on a lamp and properly pay tribute to your body, but you pull him back. You tug him to his mid-century armchair - he has the twin to it in his office. His mouth goes dry. You have to know. He looks into your face, and from the way you’ve averted your eyes, you know.
“Please?” you say. It sounds like a sob.
From this close you can smell the vanilla and bergamot of his soap. He sits, waiting for you. When you don’t move he holds his hand out for you to take.
“Come here, honey,” he draws you close. The top of your dress swings a little and he groans when he sees the break of your dress to what he thought were tights. Marcus studies your face in the second hand street light - your mouth parted, your eyes blown wide. Your hand in his is hot. “Hey, if this is overwhelming, or not what you want-”
“It is,” you correct him.
“Tell me what’s wrong then,” he requests. You feel pained. If you don’t say it now you never will.
“Tell me what to do.” Your head aches from the stress of carrying it for so long. “I’ve had to make my own decisions for months, and I don’t want to anymore. Just - for five minutes-” you bring your hands to your cheeks and press them against your hot skin. You watch as he realizes what you want. He nods in slow motion.
“Okay,” he says. “Kneel for me.” He gets even harder when you sink to your knees. Your hands rest in your lap. Waiting. He can’t believe this is happening. Thank goodness he’s going back to the Bureau in three months. He couldn’t face the other faculty - fuck, your advisor - after this. Leaning forward he cups your chin and kisses you. You squeeze your thighs together. He kisses your ear and says lowly, “take my cock out, honey. I want you to suck me off.”
When you take him in your mouth as far as you can, you look into his face. His mouth has fallen open. His ears have turned red from flushing. It’s indescribable. It makes your mouth water further around his hard length. It’s heavy on your tongue. You move up and down his shaft leisurely, trying to savor it. Letting saliva run down onto his skin as your tongue works the spongy head. You reach up to work the base with your hand when he tells you ‘no’.
“Just your mouth.” Fuck. You moan around him as a ripple pulls from deep in your core. The vibrations of you moaning make him jolt and heave. For a few moments he apologies while you breathe deeply, then resume. You take a mouthful of him. It’s feasting. It’s mindless.
His fingers brush the side of your face, and tenderly cups the back of your head. You want to make him understand this is what you want. So you slide down as far as you can comfortably, and wait. Swallowing thickly around his length
“Fuck, honey,” he groans. He gets it, taking both hands and moving your head the pace he wants. You can tell he hasn’t been asked for this often. Maybe ever. You close your eyes and just feel. His cock filling your mouth. Aches forming around your jaw. Tears leaking out of your eyes from your concentration. Your pussy wetting through your underwear. Marcus pulling your hair. You swallow hard, then he stops. And pushes you off.
You whine in protest.
“I hear you, honey,” he says softly. His voice is hoarse. “Another time. I want you to unwind right now.” Your pussy clenches.
He takes you back to his bedroom and helps you undress. He lifts your dress over your head, and kneels to help you out of your thigh highs. One day, if you’ll let him, he’ll fuck you with them on, but he likes to see all of a woman the first time he does anything to her. He kisses the bit of skin above the waistband of your panties before standing to kiss your lips. Your help him push them down your hips until they fall to your ankles. The soft gasp he lets out at the sight of your underwear and bare body is nothing short of gluttonous.
“Lay down.”
He strips while you watch. He does it without taking his eyes off of you. There’s hunger in them. This man has an appetite, you know it. The fabric rustles pleasantly between the sound of both of you breathing. Far away, ambulance sirens blare in another neighborhood, but here in his apartment the wet sound of cars passing in the rainy street are the closest accompaniment.
“I want to touch you here,” he tells you, palming your sex and making you squeak. It’s so forward.
“Do it,” you breathe, and part your legs further for him. He leans in and kisses your temple, murmuring ‘good girl’ and you swear you could black out.
You’re already so wet when his fingers part your folds to greet the new territory. “Did sucking my cock get you wet?” He sounds amazed. He tastes one fingertip before putting it back to tease your folds. “I wonder how wet you would be just holding it in your mouth while you read.”
“Oh-” a ripple works down your spine. He smirks. The tip of his finger brushes just inside your lips to tease your entrance.
“I’m going to put my fingers in you. You,” he pauses to kiss your cheek, “relax. You earned it.” He rubs his nose up and down yours, and you nudge him back just as he slips one long finger into you. You’re glad he’s being sweet like this. It’s the perfect blend of firmness and care. You want him to dominate you one someday, maybe, but right here and now, the combination of his low voice and steady fingers is ideal. Marcus kisses your cheek and mouth as he works his finger in and out of you. It’s thick and reaches further than you ever could. You spread your legs even further to tell him, more.
Without removing his hand he moves down your body to lick your clit. He sucks and flicks it as he coaxes more wetness out of your leaking cunt. Carefully he pulls the finger out and presses his wet hand to the inside of your thigh to keep you open. He laps into you, covering the muscles with lubricant because you’re going to need it. You see his face just as he decides you’re ready; it’s contemplative, like he’s concentrating. Then he slides two fingers deep into you.
“Oh, fuck, that’s so fucking good,” your voice crescendos. You reach for his shoulder as he comes up to lie beside you. His skin is warm under your palm. You buck your hips looking for something else, seeking, wanting-
“Stay still.” You still immediately. “Just feel it, baby. I want you to be ready for me.” You know what he means. His cock is thick and smearing against your hip. He was big in your mouth, he’s going to be big while pushing into you. His fingers keep moving while he kisses the tips of your nipples. When he takes one between his teeth and tugs you break. Your mouth opens, and your legs clamp reflexively around his wrist. Your pussy gushes around his fingers - you can feel it. You can feel how his movements change from a drag as a slide. He keeps pumping. He doesn’t give up until he’s sure you’ve felt every aftershock. He’d love to take his time and work a third in one day - if he can - but tonight, he wants to move on. After you swallowed his cock in his sitting room chair he’s been thinking of rewarding you.
You feel him slip his fingers out, and roll away to the nightstand. He looks back at you, and his eyes soften a little before he asks, “do you want me to use a condom?”
“No,” you say and reach for his bicep to pull him back toward you. He comes willingly. “I have an IUD. And I’m clean.” He smiles, flinging the packet over his shoulder. It makes you giggle, but it sounds hysterical to your ears. You watch him reach down and pump his cock with the hand that was just inside you. You close your eyes and take a deep breath.
“Look at me,” he orders. Your eyes snap open. Marcus crashes his lips on yours. The hand not dripping from your cunt cups the back of your head. “I want to see your eyes while I fuck you.”
His blunt head breaks into you, you lose all thought. He sinks further in, until you’re squirming on his length because he’s stretching you. You suck air in and will your body will stay still like he suggested for his fingers. You look into Marcus’s eyes the whole time, trying to tell him how good he feels. You can’t make the words leave your throat. He pulls your head to him, kisses your mouth until you compose yourself and lie still. Then he gets to work. The breadth of him stills you anew. For the first time in months you fully relax, hardly making a sound as he thrusts steadily. You stare into Marcus’s eyes while your mouth falls open as he slides into you, and listen to the wet sounds of your pussy and the bed frame creaking.
Then he starts talking.
“Do you know how good you look in those blue trousers? I want to grab your ass every time you wear them,” he rumbles. His pace picks up a hair, and he feels harder in you somehow. He drops to his forearm. “I love watching it when you walk out of my office.” You knew it. “And that damn cardigan you never wear a shirt under? Those buttons slip right open, don’t they?” He punctuates it with a deep thrust that makes you squeak. “Answer me.”
“Yes.”
“Wear it over for dinner. I’ll bite your tits through it.”
He fucks into you harder, sending shivers up your spine with every thrust. It moves you up the bed until you have to reach a hand up and press back against the headboard. You clutch him with the other, looping around his shoulder to feel the muscles in his arms pull and tug as he moves in you, working you up to another release Soon enough, the coil in your belly tightens and he reaches to worry your clit with deft fingers. His eyes never leave you. You think this man could make the hardest fuck feel like making love.
“I need more,” you tell him. You’re too embarrassed to ask for what you want. A tear leaks out of your eye because his thickness is so good, but you want something else too. You always underestimate him. He grins because he knows - he’s a detective. He figured it out. He leans down to rest his forehead on your temple.
“You’re doing so well,” he says. You arch up into him, your breasts brush his chest. “Your wet pussy is so sweet. It’s taking me so well. Are you gonna be respectful? Gonna listen?” You have to hold your breath as your hips tense. “Be good and come on my cock.” Oh fuck. “Say it.”
Your voice is wet with joy. “Yes, sir.”
“Such a good girl.”
Sparks lick up your back and through your cunt, forcing Marcus deeper into when you lift your lips. He slows to let you enjoy all your release. He kisses your neck, your jaw, your lips. Then when he hears your content sigh, he buries his face in your neck and chases his own release. He comes with an accompanying rumble from deep in his chest. You moan in return and lift your lips to catch him as he slumps, barely holding his weight off of you.
Water runs in the washroom as you tug the sheets back. The light clicks off, and Marcus appears with a washcloth. His dimple appears when you lean back and let him clean your tender flesh. He sits on the edge of the bed next to your hips, running his knuckles on the soft side of your breast.
“Stay the night,” says. “I’ll cook you breakfast.”
“Hm,” you say, mock contemplative. You run your fingers down his chest. He preens under the affection. “I will. I feel really good.” Your cheeks tingle at the admission. He smiles wide and bright.
He comes back from putting the cloth in the hamper. You roll so he can run his hands the length of your side
“Thank you,” you murmur. He lifts his face from where he’s been peppering your waist with kisses. His brow is furrowed in amused confusion. “For being good to me. For caring about what happened to me.” You’ll tell him the horror stories your friends have from their college another time.
He sighs and cups your cheek. “I like doing it. You’re bright. Supporting you is a privilege. Especially when I know that brain is going to put us all to shame one day.” You could cry.
“I’ve liked you since the body farm,” you admit. He wrinkles his nose. “I know. Not very romantic.”
“I liked you since you thought my campus ID was more official than my FBI badge.”
“I didn’t think that!”
“Get some sleep,” he says. A wicked glint comes to his eye. “I am going to wear you out before lunch.” You wiggle to get comfortable in the sheets and he curls over your back to hold you to his chest.
Orange light peeks through the gap in his blackout drapes. You eye him over your shoulder then settle into the pillow. All the tension in your shoulders is gone.
part 2
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misnomera · 4 years
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On racial stereotyping of the Haans in TMA...
Right so as someone who is ethnically Chinese I have NO FUCKING clue how I didn’t notice this more distinctly in my initial binge of tma (going too fast and not paying closer attention to character names and descriptions, probably) but the Haan family storyline is, all horror elements aside, pretty fucked up in terms of racial representation re: stereotyping. This got long as hell, but please please please take a moment to read through if you’ve got time for it. thanks.
To start off, the Haans are one of the few characters in tma with an explicitly specified race and ethnicity—Chinese—and pretty much the only explicitly Chinese characters in tma, other than the mostly unimportant librarian (Zhang Xiaoling) from Beijing. But like, Haan isn’t even a properly Chinese surname, at least not in the way that it’s spelled in canon (it should be Han, one a. A quick google search tells me that Haan as a surname has...Dutch origins??).
Of course, that could be chalked up to shoddy anglicization processes within family histories, which certainly isn’t uncommon with immigrant families, so I’m not going to dwell on names too much (although I also find it interesting that John Haan’s name is so specifically and weirdly anglicized that he changed his own surname?? Hun Yung to John Haan is a very big leap of a name change and frankly not very believable. ANYWAY, this is not that important. I don’t expect Jonny, a white Englishman, to come up with perfectly unquestionable non-Cho-Chang-like Chinese names, though it certainly would be nice. Moving on).
What really bothers me about the Haans is how they almost exclusively and explicitly play into negative Chinese immigrant stereotypes. I don’t even feel like I need to say it because it’s like...it’s literally Right There, folks. John Haan (in ep 72) owns and operates a sketchy takeout restaurant. They’re all avatars of the Flesh—and John Haan is Specifically horrific and terrifying because he cooked his wife’s human meat and fed it to his unknowing customers. Does that remind you of any stereotypes which accuse Chinese people of consuming societally unacceptable and ethically questionable things like dog/cat/bat meat (which, if it’s not already crystal fucking clear, we don’t. do that.), which in turn characterize us as horrible unfeeling monsters? John Haan’s characterization feeds (haha, badum tss) directly into this harmful stereotype that have caused very real pain for Chinese people and East Asians in general. 
And Jonny does nothing to address that from within his writing (and not out of it either). And, speaking on a more meta level, Jonny could’ve easily had these flesh avatars be individuals of any race (like, what’s Jared Hopworth’s ethnicity? Do we know? No? Well then). Conversely, he could’ve easily, easily had a Chinese person be an avatar of any other entity. So why did he have to chose specifically the Flesh?
(This is a rhetorical question. You know why. Racial stereotyping and invoking a fear of the other in an attempt to enhance horror, babey~)
On Tom Haan’s side, Jonny seems weirdly intent on having other characters repeatedly comment on his accent (or rather, lack thereof) in relation to his race. Think about how, in ep 30 (killing floor), the fact that Tom Haan had spoken a line to the statement giver in “perfect English” was an emphasized beat in that statement, and a beat that was supposed to be “chilling” and meant to signify to us that something was, quote-unquote, “not right” with Tom Haan. Implicitly, that’s saying that it was unexpected, not “normal”, and in this case even eerie, for someone who looks Chinese to have spoken in fluid, unbroken English. Mind you, the line itself was perfectly scary on its own (“you cannot stop the slaughter by closing the door”), so why did Jonny feel the need to note the accent in which it was spoken in? Why did Jonny HAVE to have that statement giver note, that he initially “wasn’t even sure how much English [Haan] spoke”? 
This happens again in episode 72 with a Chinese man (and again, his ethnicity is Explicitly Noted) who we assume is also Tom Haan. This one is rather ironically funny and kind of painfully self aware, because the statement giver expresses surprise at Haan’s “crisp RP accent” and then immediately “felt bad about making the assumption that he couldn’t speak English,” and subsequently admitted that thought was “low-key racist.” Like, from a writing perspective, this entire passage is roundabout, pointless, and says absolutely nothing helpful to enhance the horror genre experience for listeners (instead it just sounded like some sort of half-assed excuse so Jonny or other listeners could say “look! We’ve addressed the racism!” You didn’t. It just made me vaguely uncomfortable). And again, having other people comment on our accents/lack thereof while assuming we are foreign is a Very Real microaggression that east asians face on the daily. If Jonny needed some filler sentences for pacing he could’ve written about Literally anything else. So why point out, yet again, that the crazy murderous man was foreign and Chinese? 
At this point, you might say, right, but yknow, it was just that the statement givers were kind of racist! It happens! Yeah sure, ok, that’s a passable in-universe explanation for descriptions of Tom Haan (though not John Haan, mind you), but the statement givers are fake made up people, and statement’s still written by Jonny, who absolutely has all the power to write overt discrimination out of his stories. And he does! Think about just how many minor (and major!!) characters are so, so carefully written as completely aracial, and do not have their ethnicity implicated at all in whatever horrors they may or may not be committing. Think about how many lgbtq+ characters have given statements, and have been in statements, without having faced direct forms of discrimination, or portrayed as embodying blatant stereotypes in their stories (though lgbtq+ rep in tma certainly has their own issues that I won’t go into here). Jonny can clearly write characters this way, and he can do it well. So why, why, am I being constantly, repeatedly reminded in-text of the fact that the Haans are East Asian, that they’re from China, that they’re Chinese immigrants, that they’re second-generation British Chinese or whatever the fuck, and that they’re also horrifying conduits for blood, gore, and general fucked-up-ness? It’s absolutely not something that is Needed for the stories to be an effective piece of horror; the only thing it does is perpetuate incredibly harmful and hurtful stereotypes.
And listen, I love tma to bits. It’s taken over my blog. I’ve really loved my interactions with the fandom. And I am consistently blown away by Jonny’s writing and how well he’s able to weave foreshadowing and plot into an incredibly complex collection of stories. But I absolutely Cannot stop thinking about the Haans because it’s just. It’s such a blatant display of racial stereotyping in writing. And I’ve certainly seen a few voices talking about it here and there, and I don’t know if I’m just not looking in the right places, but it certainly feels like something that is just straight up not on the radar for a lot of tma fans. And I’m disappointed about that. 
Just, I don’t know. Take a look at those episodes again and do some of your own thinking about why these characters had to be specifically Chinese (answer: they didn’t.). And in general, PLEASE for the love of god turn a critical eye on character portrayals and descriptions whenever they are assigned specific races/ethnicities (Some examples that come to mind are Jude Perry, Annabelle Cane, and Diego Molina), because similar issues, to an extent, extend beyond the Haans, though I haven’t covered them here. 
You shouldn’t need a POC to do point out these problems for you when they’re so glaringly There. But for those of you who really didn’t know, hope this was informative in some way. I’m tired, man. If some of the only significant Chinese characters you write are violent cannibalistic men with a perverted relationship with meat, just don’t do it. Please don’t do it. 
EDIT: Since the making of this post Jonny has acknowledged and apologized for these portrayals on his twitter and in the Rusty Quill Operations Update, which went up September 2020. A long time coming, but better late than never. This of course doesn’t necessarily negate the harm done by Jonny’s writing, and doesn’t make me much less angry about it, but is appreciated nonetheless. For more on this topic there’s a lot of productive discussions happening in my “#tma crit” tag and in the notes of this post
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bokashi · 3 years
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Legit My Favorite Fics of All Time Holy Shit (Haikyuu)
I'll organize it by ship and try to include some details. I have a massive, well-organized folder of fics (probably over 100 fics jeez), but these are my favorites, the ones I've reread the most, or have taken up a lot of my headspace. Enjoy. :)
Bokuaka <3
Rules - ConesOfDunshire - Explicit, AU: Musician Autistic Bokuto, Accountant Akaashi - A bokuaka classic and probably my favorite Haikyuu fic of all time. Truly my favorite (top 3 at the very least). It's such a lovely story with minimal angst and a frick ton of fluff, and we get to watch as these two beautiful boys fall in love with each other. Well worth the read.
This Smacks of Rainbows - darkgaaraluver - Teen, AU: soulmates, still volleyball players at fukurodani, pre-canon, reincarnation - I love reading stories from Akaashi's perspective because he is a poetry gay and so we get the most beautiful language when describing Bokuto. There is so much pining and angst in this it hurts. Truly, this fic causes pain, but the comfort that follows is so sweet, that it makes it worth it. I reread this one at least 5 times after first discovering it.
like patience on a monument - titanscrow - Teen, Canon Compliant, slow-burn - Literally just read this one. That's how good it is. I already KNOW that this will be on my list. As the author says in the notes, they're allergic to sadness, so although this is a slow burn, there isn't a lot of angst in my opinion. Seeing Bokuto from Akaashi's eyes is once again, one of the most beautiful things, but we also get peeks at how Bokuto views Akaashi and that's honestly what changed this story from really good to an absolute favorite. (Note: it's all from Akaashi's POV, but when you get there, you'll know what I mean.) The author also came out with a new bokuaka fic (~5000 words) and I am IN LOVE WITH IT. So please read that too!
O-week is Wild - KnottyRoses - Teen, AU: College, FLUFF, COMFORT, BEAUTY, GRACE - This is my comfort fic. Feeling down? Read this because your mood will be lifted. We follow bokuaka during O-week (a Canadian term, but basically college/uni orientation). Bokuto is such a sweetheart. Characterization may be a little off (for Akaashi moreso), but I truly dream that this is how their personalities would develop in this universe, so it doesn't matter!!
polaris - ClementineKitten - Teen, AU: reincarnation, pining - Honestly what really gets me about this fic is Fates' little mentions of their previous lives. I love watching these boys fall in love through snippets and this is the perfect fic for that.
how you wish it would be all the time - drifting_i - General, Slow burn, post-time skip, "domestic bliss" - I think about this fic all the time. It hits me when I least expect it. Personally, I love the idea of Bokuto and Akaashi keeping in contact and seeing each other when they can, and this fic is an amazing example of that. And really, it is so freaking well written. I fell in love with this story and I hope you do to.
Iwaoi
Six-Month Lover - afuzzyowl - Explicit, pining, fluff and angst (a lovely combo, but if you're afraid of angst, it's not that bad!) - This one is so cute, and it's from an alternating POV, which is always nice with longer fics. It's particularly lovely because we get to watch Iwa fall for Oikawa (and using the best metaphor to justify it, a door opens—I realize now that sounds like a flattykawa joke, but I really just like that metaphor). But anyways, the way Hajime falls is soft and beautiful and it makes me believe in good things?! I just love it.
I sure hope that guy gets fired - Xov - Teen, time loop, pining, pre-time skip - This is another fic that is in my top 3. Truly, one of the best. *chef's kiss* I'm a sucker for fics with supernatural elements (body swap, etc.). We once again watch Iwa fall in love (are you sensing a pattern), and his POV is so wonderful. It's so well written and feels in character. Watching the relationship between Oikawa and Iwa bloom makes my heart swell. Please, please read this one.
and suddenly, we were strangers - izayas - Teen, angst with happy ending, amnesia, canon divergence, time skip - This made me cry for so many reasons. It's a rollercoaster of feelings and although the angst is there, iwaoi are still pretty much together, so it doesn't always feel like angst, it just feels like a speedbump on their road to happiness. And it diverges from the other two: this time we watch Oikawa fall in love, although for very different reasons! :) :(
you'd be happier instead if you stayed in [my] bed // sometimes b sides are the best songs - ClementineKitten + overwhelmingly_awesome - Mature, time skip, angst (up the wazoo), alcohol, pining, infidelity (iwa has a fiance) - CRAP! I love this one!! I think this is the last of the top 3. It's a two-parter, links included for both parts. We return to formula with Iwa being behind on the whole feelings thing (what's new). And it hurts and it heals? This fic is truly hurt/comfort for the soul. And also shockingly rational, which is often unusual in Iwaoi fics. They approach situations like adults (mostly... cheating is wrong straight up, so that's immature). If you're looking for adult Hajime and Tooru, I'm pleased to say that this feels like two adults figuring out a tough situation patiently. That's just one way to sell this wonderful fic, I could go on... But I won't...
lips like sugar - ohhotlamb - Teen, first kiss, canon compliant, (1 teeny tiny boner), kissing practice - YES! I shall include 1 kissing practice fic, it would be rude not to! No more elaboration because it's short enough for you to enjoy on your own!! And it's KISSING PRACTICE, come on, why are you still here, GO READ THIS FIC!
Matsuhana
聞けよ [Ask] - AshenBee - Teen, slow burn, time skip, quarter-life crisis (lol relatable tag), unemployed hanamaki <3 - What a beautiful story... I love Matsuhana content. We get little snippets of these boys just trying to figure out life and it's wonderful. LOTS of pining. Hanamaki moves in with Matsukawa for a bit. I don't even know how to sell this fic because it kind of sells itself. It's a character study of Hanamaki and as a young adult going through similar quarter-life crises, it's relatable and helps to deal with those feelings.
call me maybe - totooru - Teen, partially a text fic (not all of it, lots of writing), HUMOR, fluff, AU where Mattsun goes to Karasuno - Let me tell you this is straight up the funniest fic I've read. I cackled out loud so many times. It's insane. I'm an easy laugh, so maybe that says something, but either way, if you need something to lift you up, this is a greater fic for it. No angst, just prolonging the inevitable, and two boys who basically fell for each other right off the bat. A dynamic duo truly.
Miya Atsumu & Osamu (BIG BIG SPOILERS FOR THE FIC IN THIS DESCRIPTION, JUST BEWARE IF YOU WANT TO GO IN BLIND)
for just another day - sieges - General, canon divergence, photography, BIG SPOILER BUT I DON'T WANT TO SEND PEOPLE IN BLIND BECAUSE IT MIGHT WRECK YOU: major character death - This fic holds a special place in my heart for many reasons, but mostly because I lost my brother a little over a year ago. Completely different from this situation, but nonetheless, incredibly difficult. I 100% sobbed reading this fic. And it really helped me unpack a new part of my grief and my relationship with my brother. I really love what this story did with handling the death of a sibling, not sure if the author went through something like this, but it felt very real to me. (And now all I crave is Miya twins angst...) Also, I swear there's some form of closure. It's not terribly sad! It obviously deals with heavy topics, but at least for me, it felt like being wrapped up in a blanket and being told that everything will be okay.
I try to avoid sadness and angst at all costs (that one bokuaka fic that shall go unnamed really did a number on my grieving ass, so I can't handle anything like that anymore—it was so bad that I had to unpack it in therapy, jeez...). Most of these fics have mild angst or a lot of fluff to make up for heavy angst. There are definitely a lot of angst fics that I have saved, but obviously, that's not always my favorite brand for shipping (I just want everyone to be happy most of the time). Let me know if you read/have read any of these, I'm always up for discussion. :)
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