#or the microaggressions but that’s a whole other thing i think they don’t realize they’re doing

[slamdance-cosmopolis]

hhhshhh i kind of dont like it when people make jokes about my race. which includes friends but hmmm how do i tell them whne it’s too much…

#no one has done it in awhile but like. #someone else was talking about it n it made me think #and I’ve already posted too much shit on my spam so it’s going on here #but anyways it lowkey makes me extremely uncomfortable #like haha no i don’t think the blanket joke is that funny bc many people died from it haha like probably thousands #haha genocide jokes don’t really hit anymore bc 95% of ndn populations were wiped out after 1492 #tbh it doesn’t offend me as much as it should cuz i get that friends joke around and ive laughed at some of them #but there’s a point where it goes 2 far and i have to pretend it doesn’t annoy me #or the microaggressions but that’s a whole other thing i think they don’t realize they’re doing #ok that’s it #i just needed to say it in a place that’s not my notes app

[blackstarising]

coming back to this post i made again to elaborate - especially as the ted lasso fandom is discussing sam/rebecca and fandom racism in general. there are takes that are important to make that i had failed to previously, but there's also a growing amount of takes that i have to, As A Black Person™, respectfully disagree with.

tl;dr for the essay below sam being infantilized and the sam/rebecca relationship are not the same issue and discussing the former one doesn't mean excusing the latter. and we've reached the glen of the Dark Forest where we sit down and talk about fandom racism.

i should have elaborated this in my last post about sam/rebecca, but i didn't. i'll say it now - i personally don't support sam and rebecca getting together for real. i believe what people are saying is entirely correct, even though sam is an adult legally, he and rebecca are, at the very least, two wildly different stages of life. for americans, he's at the equivalent of being a junior in college. there are things he hasn't gotten the chance to experience and there are areas he needs to grow in. when i was younger, i didn't understand the significance of these age gaps, i just thought it would be fine if it was legal, but as someone who is now a little older than sam in universe, i understand fully. we can't downplay this. whether or not you think sam works for rebecca or not, even despite the gender inversion of the Older Man Younger Woman trope, whether or not he is a legal adult, i don't think at this point in time, their relationship would work. i think it's an interesting narrative device, but i don't want to see it play out in reality.

that being said!

what's worrying me is that two discussions are being conflated here that shouldn't be. sam having agency and being a little more grown™ than he's perceived to be does not suddenly make his relationship with rebecca justified. i had decided to bring it up because sam was being brought into the spotlight again and i was starting to realizing that his infantilization was more common than i felt comfortable with.

sam's infantilization (and i will continue to call it that), is a microaggression. it's is in the range of microaggressions that i would categorize as 'fandom overcompensation'. we have a prominent character of color that exhibits traits that aren't stereotypical, and we don't want to appear racist or stereotypical, so we lean hard in the other direction. they're not aggressive, they're a Sweet Baby, they're not world weary, they're now a little naive. they're not cold and distant, they're so nice and sweet that there's no one that wouldn't want approach them, and yeah, on their face, these new traits are a departure and, on their face, they seem they look really good.

but at a certain point, it reaches an inflection point, and, like the aftertaste of a diet coke, that alleged sweetness veers into something a lot less sweet. it veers into a lack of agency for the character. it veers into an innocence that appears to indicate that the person can't even take care of themselves. it veers into a one-dimensional characterization that doesn't allow for any depth or negative emotion.

it's not kind anymore. it's not a nice departure from negative stereotypes. it's not compensating for anything.

it's patronizing.

it is important that we emphasize that characters of color are more than the toxic stereotypes we lay on them, yes, but we make a mistake in thinking that the solution is overcorrection. for one thing, people of color can usually tell. don't get it twisted, it's actually pretty obvious. for another, it just shifts from one dimension to another. people of color are still supposed to be Only One Character Trait while white people can contain multitudes. ted, who is pretty much as pollyanna as they come, can be at once innocent and naive and deep and troubled and funny and scared. jamie can be a prick and sexy and also lonely and also a victim of abuse. sam, however, even though he was bullied (by jamie, no less), is thousands of miles away from home, and has led a protest on his team, is usually just characterized as human sunshine with much less acknowledgement of any other traits beyond that.

and that's why i cringe when fandom calls sam a Sweet Baby Boy without any sense of irony. is that all we're taking away? after all this time? even for a comedy, sam has received a substantive of screen time over two whole seasons, and we've seen a range of emotions from him. so as a black person it's hurtful that it's boiled down to Sweet Baby Boy.

that's the problem. we need to subvert stereotypes, but more importantly, we need to understand that people of color are not props, or pieces of cardboard for their white counterparts. they are full and actualized and have agency in their own right and they can have other emotions than Angry and Mean or Sweet and Bubbly without any nuance between the two. i think the show actually does a relatively good job of giving sam depth (relatively, always room for improvement, mind you), especially holding it in tension with his youth, but the fandom, i worry, does not.

it's the same reason why finn from star wars started out as the next male protagonist in the sequel trilogy but by the third movie was just running around yelling for REY!! it's the same reason why when people make Phase 4 Is the Phase For Therapy gifsets for the mcu and show wanda maximoff, loki, and bucky barnes crying and being sad but purposefully exclude sam wilson who had an entire show to tell us how difficult his life is, because people find out if pee oh sees are also complex, they'll tell the church.

and the reason why i picked up on this very early on is because i am an organic, certified fresh, 100% homegrown, non-gmo, a little ashy, indigenous sub saharan African black person. the ghanaian tribes i'm descended from have told me so, my black ass parents have told me so, and the nurses at the hospital in [insert asian country here] that started freaking out about how curly my hair was as my mother was mid pushing me out told me so!

and this stuff has real life implications. listen: being patronized as a black person sucks. do you know how many times i was patted on the back for doing quite honestly, the bare minimum in school? do you know how many times i was told how 'well spoken' or 'eloquent' i was because i just happen to have a white accent or use three syllable words? do you know how many times i've been cooed over by white women who couldn't get over how sweet i was just because i wasn't confrontational or rude like they wrongly expected me to be?

that's why they're called microaggressions. it's not a cross on your lawn or having the n-word spat in your face, but it cuts you down little by little until you're completely drained.

so that's the nuance. that's the subversion. the overcompensation is not a good thing. and people of color (and i suspect, even white people) have picked up on, in general, the different ways fandom treats sam and dani and even nate. what all of these discussions are converging on is fandom racism, which is not the diet form of racism, but another place for racism to reveal itself. and yeah, it's uncomfortable. it can seem out of left field. you may want to defend yourself. you may want to explain it away. but let me tap the sign on the proverbial bus:

if you are a white person, or a person of color who is not part of that racial group, even, you do not get to decide what is not racist for someone. full stop. there are no exceptions. there is no exit clause for you. there is no 'but, actually-'. that right wasn't even yours to cede or waive.

(it's also important to note that people of color also have the right to disagree on whether something is racist, but that doesn't necessarily negate the racism - it just means there's more to discuss and they can still leave with different interpretations)

people don't just whip out accusations of racism like a blue eyes white dragon in a yu-gi-oh duel. it's not fun for us. it's not something we like to do to muzzle people we don't want to engage with. and we're not concerned with making someone feel bad or ashamed. we're exposing something painful that we have to live with and, even worse, process literally everything we experience through. we can't turn it off. we can't be 'less sensitive' or 'less nitpicky'. we are literally the primary resources, we are the proverbial wikipedia articles with 3,000 sources when it comes to racism. who else would know more than us?

what 2020 has shown us very clearly is that racism is systemic. it's not always a bunch of Evil White Men rubbing their hands together in a dark room wondering how they're going to use the 'n-word' today. it's systemic. it's the way you call that one neighborhood 'sketchy'. it's how you use 'ratchet' and 'ghetto' when describing something bad. it's how you implicitly the assume the intelligence of your friend of color. it's the way you turned up your nose and your friend's food and bullied them for it in middle school but go to restaurants run by white people who have 'uplifted' it with inauthentic ingredients. it's telling someone how Well Spoken and Eloquent they are even though you've both gone to the same schools and work at the same workplace. it's the way you look down at some people of color for having a different body type than you because they've been redlined to neighborhoods where certain foods and resources are inaccessible, and yet mock up the racial features that appeal to you either through makeup or plastic surgery.

it's how when a person of color behaves badly, they're irredeemable, but a white person performing the same act or something similar is 'having a bad day' or 'isn't normally like this' or 'has room to grow' and we can't 'wait for their redemption arc', and yes, i'm not going to cover it in detail in this post but yes this is very much about nate. other people have also brought up the nuances in his arc and compared them to other white characters so i won't do it here.

these behaviors and reactions aren't planned. they aren't orchestrated. they're quite literally unconscious because they've been lovingly baked into western society for centuries. you can't wake up and be rid of it. whether you intended it or not, it can still be racist.

and it's actually quite hurtful and unfair to imply that concerns about racism in the TL fandom are unfounded or lacking any depth or simply meant to be sensational because you simply don't agree with it. i wish it was different, but it doesn't work that way. i'm not raising this up to 'call out' or shame people, but i'm adding to this discussion because, through how we talk about sam, and even dani and nate, i'm yet again seeing a pattern that has shortchanged people of color and made them feel unwelcome in fandom for far too long.

coach beard said it best: we need to do better.

#ted lasso #sam obisanya #ted lasso spoilers #fandom racism

[thanksjro]

More Than Meets the Eye #33: In Which I Write the Word ‘Quantum‘ 19 Times

Dang, I forgot what happened at the end of the last issue. It was pretty important, too, but I don’t have time to reread. Maybe the establishing shot can help me out?

Oh, that’s right, Rewind happened!

Everyone’s pretty jazzed that Rewind is here, non-exploded, and supposedly alive. Megatron carries this ridiculously small man over to a table, while Skids is busy admonishing Nightbeat for trying to put the pieces of this mystery together.

That’s one of the two first canonically, openly gay Transformers, Megatron. You bet your ass he’s important.

Nightbeat’s dragged Nautica over to look at that poster for Crosscut’s play they saw last issue. Together, they discover something interesting, and it’s not that Nightbeat’s chin has elongated to the point of absurdity. On this future ship, the play was completed and produced a mere few weeks after the initial launch of the Lost Light.

While this is going on, Rewind wakes up and asks Skids what the hell is going on. Skids, likely not wanting to poke at farm-fresh trauma, glosses over the fact that everyone on this ship was violently murdered, and that they found Rewind blacked out inside the hollowed torso of his brother-in-law.

…This is a dark story line.

You see, the joke here is that “Dark Cybertron” sucked major chrome.

Megatron reminds everyone that they’re still in grave danger every moment they stay aboard this ship, but Skids is more concerned with Rewind’s mental health. Which is sweet, but maybe not the thing to prioritize in such a precarious situation.

Rewind takes the fact that Megatron is an Autobot now pretty friggin’ well, as well as the introduction of gender into his species. That is, until Nightbeat, the king of social graces, saunters up to the scene to ask Rewind what the hell happened to the ship. He does get his answers, despite Rewind being horrified to the point of speechlessness.

Over at the hole in the wall, Nautica and Riptide are taking a gander at the quantum drums, which house the quantum foam for the quantum engines so quantum jumps can happen.

As Nautica explains the process by which quantum travel works, she realizes that the answer to what happened to everyone who disappeared was right in front of them this whole time.

Quantum, quantum, quantum- doesn’t even sound like a word anymore, does it?

The data slug Rewind made corroborates this theory, showing a series of events that definitely didn’t happen to the Lost Light we’ve been following throughout this story so far. The data slug contains this Rewind’s version of dead Rewind’s “Little Victories”, the travelogue that was never completed, where the question “are you happy?” revealed just how emotionally unhealthy most of the crew is. I’d like to imagine this Rewind’s film is called “Small Achievements”, or perhaps “Dear Fucking Lord, We’ve Been on this Trip for Three Hours and the Captain Has Been Killed by a Goddamned Soul-Vampire”, or maybe even “Where the FUCK is Our Therapist”.

The DJD came into the equation by way of someone having led them to the Lost Light. We get a flashback panel of the gorefest, in which Tarn appears to have learned how to fly, given the angle he’s coming from.

Because Rewind’s big thing in this series is being the guy who records stuff, the DJD take the opportunity to make some movies of their visit to the space yacht.

James, why do you keep getting Rewind involved with snuff films? I’m starting to get concerned.

Now, the thing about Rewind is that he’s almost always accompanied by his other half. Where is Chromedome, anyway?

He’s dead, that’s where.

Turns out, when you tell the DJD that you won’t do the thing they want you to do, they have a habit of doing nasty things in retaliation. Chromedome got stabbed in the friggin’ visor with his own finger needles, because Vos enjoys ironic deaths, I suppose. There’s some other stuff that’s implied to have happened, but we’ll get to that once we learn a little more about the DJD themselves.

While Rewind recounts the grisly tale of his husband’s demise, Riptide notes that the quantum foam has begun to spread at a remarkable rate. This is a bad thing, because that shit can and will explode, given half the chance, and this wreck is floating right above a potentially-inhabited planet.

Though I could have sworn we established that this planet was a Smartplanet, and therefore very much populated by students and staff. I don’t know. Maybe we conveniently forgot that, so we could make this a learning moment for Megatron.

Jiminy Christmas, Megs, do you even listen to yourself?

Skids, who has had a very long day of finding corpses and learning about quantum theory, snaps at Megatron, telling him that in order to actually be an Autobot, you have to have a little frickin’ compassion for those outside of your peer group.

Which is sort of contradictory to the Aequitas trials, the Killswitch debacle, the POW situation back on Cybertron, and whatever the fuck Prowl’s whole deal is, but maybe Skids is speaking about his own, personal relationship with being an Autobot. Hopefully so, otherwise he needs a class on critical thinking, STAT.

Never mind all of that though, because the problem just got a lot worse- the quantum foam has expanded to a point where any holes in the stuff are too small for the Rod Pod to get through. We’re going to have to get creative if we want to save the day.

Luckily, we’ve got a quantum duplicate of just about the tiniest little dude in the franchise here to do the job. Now we just need another, equally tiny little man, so the quantum drums can be shut off at the same time. Nautica commits more microaggressions, and this gives Getaway inspiration for a witty quip, which in turn gives Skids a brilliant idea.

The gang heads down to Brainstorm’s lab, to look for the mass displacement gun that was used for treating Ultra Magnus’s nanocon infestation back in the 2012 Annual. While they search, Nautica explains just why the hell the Lost Light disappeared in the first place. You see, quantum duplication acts on the Cain Instinct— it’s fine, as long as the duplicates don’t perceive each other. However, the moment contact is made, it says “oh man, guess I’m gonna have to end you” to one of the duplicates. The contact in this case happened when the Coffin Rodimus was brought aboard the ship.

Anything that wasn’t aboard the Lost Light at the point of the takeoff/explosion was never duplicated, and thus wasn’t erased from reality once shit started going to hell. This is why the Rod Pod is still around, and why the remaining cast are— well, the remaining cast.

While this conversation is going on, Nautica and Nightbeat uncover yet another dead body; it’s Brainstorm, and he’s a little underdressed.

…Someone run a paternity test, I think Cyclonus might be the father.

Also, Brainstorm’s a double agent.

Fucked up.

Getaway is furious that a Decepticon has been living on the same ship as him for the last six months, right under his proverbial nose. Even Megatron’s surprised, stating that Brainstorm isn’t usually who the recruiters aim for.

So, no mass displacement gun, and now they’re aware of the fact that there’s a traitor on the ship who’s had access to a LOT of weapon tech. It’s at this point that Megatron decides to stop lying by omission and tells everyone that he can mass-displace, since he used to turn into a handgun.

Smashcut to Megatron and Rewind floating out in space, the former now not much taller than the latter, as they traverse the web of quantum foam to get to the drums. Nautica instructs them from the Rod Pod. If this works, anything produced or connected to the quantum engine will be neutralized, and maybe we’ll even get the other Lost Light back! YAAAAAY!!!

Y’all really let this man go out there to fuckin’ kill himself for the greater good, didn’t you?

Rewind is honestly pretty chill with ceasing to be, seeing as he watched 200/+ people die today, including his long-time spouse.

Jesus. I’d say get him a therapist, but in order to do that, we’re going to have to wipe him off the map anyway.

Rewind asks Megatron if the Chromedome that isn’t his and his duplicate are still together. And I mean…

Luckily, Megatron has the good sense to lie.

With that, they flip the switches, and deactivate the drums.

And that’s a series wrap on Rewind! Congrats to Mr. James Roberts for the esteemed honor of burying the same gay twice!

Later on, everyone is back inside the Rod Pod, as their disappeared shipmates return from being nonexistent. Chromedome pops back in, and Skids is on him like a shark, telling him to go on the roof. Skids doesn’t even try to explain why. Which, fair. How the hell do you explain to someone that their dead husband’s quantum duplicate survived both a terrorist splinter cell attack, and the laws of quantum sci-fi bullshit crashing down on his tiny, tiny body, and that he’s right there on the roof waiting for them?

Welp, there goes the Chromedome/Dominus endgame. Shame, that.

Looks like Chromedome finally hit the threshold for having earned Roberts’ pity, and won’t be directly targeted by the plot for a little while. This isn’t something you see very often, so let’s really soak this in.

…Someone had to have told Rewind what happened to the other Rewind, right? I wonder what that conversation was like.

Back inside the ship, Blaster gets word that the Lost Light has reappeared. As they navigate towards it, Megatron requests that an encrypted call be made to Rodimus, to discuss the Brainstorm problem.

In the interim, Ravage is offered the opportunity to be a part of the crew, so he doesn’t have to keep skulking around in the shadows. We don’t get an answer from him, as our focus shifts over to Nightbeat and Nautica.

Nightbeaaaaaaaaaat, stop stating the themes of the comic verbatim! People are going to start thinking you’re a shonen anime protagonist!

Nightbeat’s somehow managed to keep ahold of the briefcase that they found on the other Lost Light. Unless Brainstorm’s boyfriend is in there, I don’t think this one was the work of Huey Lewis and the News’ hit single from the Back to the Future soundtrack.

Over on the Lost Light, specifically in Swerve’s, Brainstorm’s making his way through the crowd, briefcase held gentle like hamburger as he goes. He makes it to the bar, where Atomizer tells him he can’t have his briefcase in here. Brainstorm has what most would accept to be a healthy response to being told “no.”

It’s what I would do.

#transformers #jro #MTMTE #slaughterhouse #issue 33 #maccadam #Hannzreads #text post #long post #comic script writing

[bao3bei4]

kpop music videos that gave their fans sexual brainworms

OR accidental fetish pop and its fringe fanbase: meditations on gendered desire 

large warning here: i am someone who has been into kpop for the past 10 years. however, i have always been an extremely casual fan. i do write fic, but not rpf. if any of that makes you not want to hear me talk about kpop rpf (or you don’t want to hear about it in general), please keep moving.

anyway, obviously pop is corporate, soulless, and manufactured. but sometimes some truly bizarre shit gets past the committees and destroys a generation. these are their stories.

the video that started this is all is got7’s just right, released july 10th, 2015.

yes that’s all 7 members of got7 (one is out of frame) shrunken down for your viewing pleasure. they live in your room and tell you you’re just right. 

this sheer fetish power of this video is nerfed only by how utterly sexless it is.

they’re styled like and dance like this. it’s a totally unironic sendup of the seminal work that preceded it by four years, “what makes you beautiful” by the white kpop group “one direction.” the chaste energy of the whole thing makes you legitimately wonder if the good people at jyp have just never heard of microphilia. (during a dramatic reading of this piece, here a friend interjected seriously, “i think it’s korean culture not to talk about things like this, fetishes in the workplace.”)

it’s for the best, honestly, though because the actress in the music video is lee ja in, who was 11 when the video was shot. considering that the members themselves ranged in age from 18-23 at the time, i think it’s actually very impressive that we only have to cancel one. 

you receive absolutely no prizes for guessing that it’s jackson wang we’re sending to social justice prison. why’d he do this? no one asked. 

at any rate, got7 fans, or “gans” (they actually call themselves igot7s which is too twee for me), have much to think about here: all 7 very small members of got7 sneaking into their room, possibly weird age play, and jackson wang eating a very large cake.

let’s see what they actually did. 

twitter was actually very tame. the most charged thing i found was (unsurprisingly) from a bts fan (“ban”). i don’t actually know what it means, but i think it means something.

so, of course, i turned to the internet’s last bastion of free speech, where you can say whatever the fuck you want and receive cheers, or as the kids say, “kudos.” that is, i read fanfiction. 

for those of you who don’t know your herstory, i started my journey at Asianfanfics.com, where, at the time of writing, there were 12,067 got7 stories. i want to start this by saying that i think feminism won, because someone was paying real human dollars to advertise their irene/wendy fanfiction on a banner ad, which is quite possibly a win for women for everywhere. 

anyway, Asianfanfics.com’s search engine sucks ass (i kept on finding stories about different combinations of bts members worrying about their weight and being reassured by another member that were entitled “just right”), so i decided to look through all got7 stories written between july 2015 and december 2015. 

but, alas, not a single got7 microphilia fic to be found. 

also, some genre commentary while i’m here: i think the stories i respect the most are the “[y/n] is a ordinary girl who’s assigned to be got7’s manager! can she make them into superstars? as sparks begin to fly, can she keep it professional?” like fuck yeah that sounds like a kickass dating sim. it almost definitely already is one. i salute all the teens around the world for buying into the fantasy of dating a boy band member that they themselves sell you. 

however, i don’t think i respect the “[member a] and [member b] are mafia/jocks and nerds/college students/high schoolers” concepts. in my opinion, the whole fantasy of boy band member is their personas, their hidden real personalities, their celebrity, and the show business setting. find a different intellectual property if you wanna write about school. i even respect the “yugyeom drank girl juice [not estrogen] and turned into a sexy girl” story more, because at least it knows exactly what it wants, and also because they’re all still boy band members. well, band members. shout out to yugyeom. 

so, anyway, i looked elsewhere. at the time of writing, archive of our own only had 11,645 got7 stories, but it does have a better search, so it effectively has more. as an aside, i think it’s so funny, and mildly disorienting at first, that archive of our own separates the “music & bands” section from the “celebrities & real people” section. boy band members aren’t real people. 

the first problem i encountered is that only 20 or so stories were written within a year of just right’s release. absolute cringe gans. don’t you care about your boys? there were zero stories tagged “vore” or “microphilia” either. stories containing the word “tiny” that were rated either “explicit” or “mature” were all normal (“normal”) size fetishization rather than, you know, just right. 

however, i learned my lesson from twitter. i realized that what had happened was that watching this video had created sleeper agents, just waiting for their activation phrase. that activation phrase? bangtan boys. and yeah, lo and behold, there was one! unfortunately (fortunately?) it had nothing to do with got7, let alone just right, so i’m not going to talk about it.  

basically what i learned is that this video may have actually been very normal, and my brain has just been destroyed by being too online at a young age. 

however, there are plenty more videos in this genre. i present to you exo wolf, a banger from may 30th, 2013. i say banger, because in a comedic inversion, it’s actually fucking terrible. 

this video is pretty self-explanatory in terms of why it might induce certain responses. 

let’s get the formalities out of the way. this video, the member who’s getting cancelled is kai. he has braids in this video :/

also skating on thin ice: xiumin and chen. guys what was up with the whole exo-m thing? like, we’re gonna have a cpop subgroup, but it’s going to be part chinese members and part korean members that we’ll give a chinese name? unsurprisingly, the three exo members who have departed from the group are all chinese. they weren’t able to stand the microaggressions probably. but xiumin and chen remain uncancelled as an official chinese apology for five thousand of years of on-and-off invasions of korea. sorry guys that was kinda fucked up. our bad! 

anyway, there are basically three avenues for exo fans to take: 1) humans with wolfish characters (usually wolf pack dynamics, which even wolves themselves don’t fucking use so i think all of you should shut up. the real omega here is your brain), 2) werewolves (duh), and 3) wolves with human characteristics (i.e. standard furry fare). 

exo themselves let all these possibilities exist at the same time, superimposing them over each other, which is very woke and egalitarian of them. let’s see what the people decided. awoo.

Asianfanfics dot com had many stories in this vein. i feel very validated that this time i was able to correctly predict a fetish. that said, briefly returning to my earlier comment regarding alternate universes: it’s intense psychic whiplash reading about these vampires and werewolves, and going okay okay luhan is a vampire this that whatever, and then seeing the actual real performance photos the author attaches at the bottom of each chapter. bro i forgot these were actual people.... it breaks immersion so bad... i’m sorry, i just can’t believe that any of these dancing boys are having weird vampire sex with wings or whatever. 

archive of our own also had many stories in this vein. and i think there are some important difference between the two sites worth talking about. 

first of all, i think the higher engagement rate of archive of our own really enables some of the authors to get super bold. it makes Asianfanfics.com seem a little quaint, actually. like the wordcounts are waaay longer, for one. it’s uncommon for a story hosted on Asianfanfics.com to be more than a few thousand words long (most of them could easily be published in the new yorker), whereas some of these archive of our own people have written full length novels about if the members of exo were werewolves. i guess it’s just intensely demoralizing for the aff.com crew to get, like, three comments per story. 

the second big difference is that i’m noticing more common themes between the ao3 crew’s writing. like stan intertextuality, or plagiarism, or whatever, but they seem to be implicitly engaging with each other’s characterizations, storylines, and tropes. i think it is because they probably all follow each other on twitter. (i have been active on twitter for three weeks now so i am an expert on fanfiction twitter.) 

anyway, like not that i am a particularly big gan (cannot even list all the members), but these people seem to have reached a very specific consensus on how jackson wang, for instance, would react in a variety of situations that really surprises me? if i were to sit down and write a got7 story, i think the fuckboitude, the douchebaggery is a big part of his charm. not to be nationalist or anything, but for god’s sake, he’s from hong kong. but these people have him as very sensitive, lots of protective instincts. not that i understood what anyone on aff.com was doing with his character either, but they did all seem to be doing different things. “kudos” to that, i guess.

but: exo. wolf. i searched the “wolves” tag. this filtered the list down from 33459 stories to 52 stories. and the “wolves” tag was very different from the aff.com “wolf” tag. for the most part, aff.com liked stories where a member was a wolf (usually shapeshifting), feral boy, lots of y/n, lots of y/n dating a feral boy who is secretly a wolf. 

ao3 really, really, really likes alpha/beta/omega stories. sorting by the most popular stories, only five on the first page weren’t a/b/o. and one of them was a cis f!baekhyun story, so i think the intended effect was communicated. anyway, let’s talk about some of the themes. 

first of all, i’m disappointed. today’s bonus cancellation is of ao3 “wolves” writers. why the fuck are you drawing so heavily from european wolves?? there are wolves in asia!! you don’t need to keep giving their packs and ranks weird latin names. i will kill you. i hate italy. korea literally has a native wolf. i hate all of you!!! if you want to write caucasian wolves go watch that dumbass cw show!!!! my god. 

the second theme (the first one was white supremacy) is that no one wants to be a wolf who fucks. i think that we need a sex positivity movement, or something, for omega rights. like, are all of you doing okay? you’re queering misogyny by inventing new genders to oppress. another level to “no one wants to be a wolf...” is the “who fucks” part. there are so many consent issues. and not even in like, a sexy intentional way? in a “i genuinely do not think this author understands how their writing comes off” way. unfortunately i am sensitive to untagged sexual coercion, and there was a lot of that.

at any rate, the aff.com wolves were at peace with being wolves, very self-actualized. the ao3 wolves know that every minute they spend alive on this bitch of an earth is suffering, and also sex.

the third theme is the evolution of y/n. y/n, who, in a startlingly woke move for aff.com, is almost always korean, is a girl main character stumbling into love, boy bands, and wolves (i think it’s because aff.com is oldschool kpop fandom, so therefore heavily asian itself in userbase). but y/n is not the main character in ao3 stories. she is the straight best friend. in what i think is a hilarious move, ao3 authors invert the gay best friend paradigm to give the gay main character a straight girl as best friend. she usually calls him “a gay,” she has lots of thoughts on boys, and she knows his sexuality better than he does and before he does. (sidebar: if all the men are gay, and all the women are straight...)

there’s a really fun twist to this, though, because the main character is always a self-insert in fanfiction. but where older fanfiction like aff.com was at peace with this and literalize it via y/n shenanigans, modern fic writers who haven’t finished distangling their complicated relationship with wanting to be a man who loves other men instead simply imbue their main character with their essence. a little voodoo doll sehun, with a lock of y/n hair. 

this creates a deeply ambivalent relationship with gender in these stories. the main character is usually an omega, but one who resents being an omega. their body and its parts is usually described, if at all, as ostensibly intersex (except more offensively), but in practice, these discourses inscribe a trans body. (nb: i think cis writers approach this in a really fucked up fetishizing way, but i hope by this point we know that that goes without saying) it’s incredibly straightforward to read this, and see the underlying desires and fears in a heady cocktail of unfiltered writing that’s deeply confessional. you know when freud had people say whatever the fuck they wanted and figured they’d eventually free associate into releasing their subconscious into reality? yeah. 

okay, and while we’re on the topic, let’s talk f(x) nu abo, released on may 4th, 2010. 

this is a blitzy, maximalist, amped up dance hit that even has its own applause and cheers built in. it’s so fucking annoying, and i love it. 

this song is on here because the second most popular kpop a/b/o story on ao3 is called “nu abo” except it’s about bts. that’s offensive enough in its own right. write something about f(x) (702 works). when will women win the right to have their own self-lubricating holes.

anyway, even though f(x) is probably innocent in all of this, i’m still cancelling amber liu. 

for queerbaiting. who told her to look like ruby rose but hot? and for what? i’m also cancelling her for racism, but that wasn’t in this video. 

moving on to a double feature: vixx voodoo doll and vixx chained up, released november 19, 2013 and november 9, 2015 respectively. this is because while voodoo doll is more formative, i think the fans who write fanfiction today got into kpop more recently, so we are casting a wide net.

anyway, voodoo doll is jam packed with weird pseudo-medical imagery, blood, vivisection, bondage, puppet shit, femdom, sharps, piercings, asphyxiation, dollification, stabbing/penetration metaphors, and a really sick and catchy dance. god that looks like the list of tags on the a/b/o wolf stories. 

for this song, we’re cancelling you, for being way too into this song when you were 13.

vixx voodoo doll made me goth i guess! insert that pic of the your music saved me sign, except it saved me from getting into emo or pop punk probably. 

chained up, comparatively, is much more tame. the only thing of note about it is that there are around 10 completely different chokers and choker looks the members wear in this music video. also they’re singing about being chained up, but that seemed a bit obvious. 

we could argue that voodoo doll is gay while chained up is gay (derogatory); that voodoo doll is queer while chained up is gay; that chained up is a sensitive masterpiece of omega4omega sexuality. but we’re not going to. 

we’re going to talk about what voodoo doll fanfiction was and was not. first, Aff.com had plenty of it. however, i was extremely disappointed to see that much of it did not hew to the spirit of vixx voodoo doll. my god, the voodoo doll becoming the one preying upon you disgusts me. the fantasy of the voodoo doll is that of absolute power. the idea that the doll itself has agency? instantly breaks the fantasy. i’m even not into voodoo dolls and i’m offended. 

i also don’t think it’s part of the voodoo doll fantasy to release the doll. the only story on there that involved Y/N kidnapping vixx members like in the music video was unavailable because the author deactivated their account. come back qxeen what did you see. 

i think this got off track, actually, in that i was mostly wondering why these people imprinted differently onto vixx voodoo doll than i did. like i don’t think you’re supposed to actually like straightforwardly absorb the morals and aesthetics of music videos like it’s propaganda. however, it’s more entertaining if you do. i hope ao3 doesn’t let me down. 

out of the then 5932 works in the vixx fandom (the least out of every group so far, excluding f(x) because they’re women), 59 of them included the word “voodoo” somewhere. that’s 1%. i legitimately can’t tell if that’s high or not. 

after some more cursory reading through the first page of popular results, my big takeaway is that people watched that video and wanted to be tortured and enslaved? but not, like, in a sexy way where the torturing is the point, the way where the point is to suffer bravely and beautifully, to endure the world’s harms like jesus on the cross, and then to fall into the arms of a beautiful boy who may or may not be the one hurting you in the first place. 

there’s a certain predictability to these fantasies. like it’s not even masochism, which would be fun at least, it’s literally just like the desire to be beautiful, even as you suffer. and i do find that a little boring. (but, i mean, you can’t help being a woman!)

sidebar: on chained up. what’s interesting about chained up, is that most of the then 38 “chained up” works (likely because the video has no storyline) are about the members fucking during chained up promotions. no one’s ever actually chained up, but whatever. it’s fine. it’s fine! 

anyway, here, more than ever, the nature of desire is stripped bare. i’ve written before [elsewhere in the unreleased tshirt cinematic universe] on how kpop boys are, through fandom, re-formed as white, or more strongly, i guess, blank slates. it’s really interesting to me how so much of this dynamic of projection is enabled by the fact that they’re asian men. they’re infantilized, feminized vessels; they’re seductive, but childlike, oblivious to their own charms, so nonthreatening; they have uncontrollable desires for sex, they’re scared of sex. and above all else, white women submit themselves to them, insert themselves into them. basically kpop fans tend to rework old school yellow peril and emasculation fantasies to reenact their own desires, often white, often cishet on them. 

what i am saying is that there’s another thesis about forced feminization and its racialized subtext in here. obviously gender is a racialized construct to begin with, but like it’s fascinating to argue that when white women remake asian men according to their own desires, that is, into themselves, they (hopefully) unintentionally echo these old fears about the sexual order.

it illuminates, it seems, the underlying dynamic in the denigration of asian men, which is of course the fear of miscegenation. now, my breathtaking ability to make everything about me aside, miscegenation is interesting because it presents a racial synthesis, beginning to collapse and trouble the artificial designations of purity. so we make asian men into white women, and end up with an unsettling hybrid. i’m sure this has deep implications for me personally.

but i think we already knew that quite a few of these people had yellow fever, so let’s talk about the gender dialectic at play. basically, the above dynamic, of making men into women (whether literally, in body; or subjectively, in mind; or even relationally, as they are objectified into passive vessels for your desire) coexists with the ostensibly converse dynamic, in which the straight women desires to be a gay man. these aren’t necessarily in conflict: it could easily be that these are different writers writing different stories, that both are ways of expressing discontent with existing in a raced, gendered body, or even that the end product of both is the same.

it’s been a while without a picture. all of you now have the legal right to hunt and kill me for making a d&g joke.

anyway, what i want to talk about is how these two fantasies can coexist. that by making a man into yourself, you can speak on your own desire in a passive way. my normal interest is analyzing forced masc fantasies (albeit in chinese opera lol), and they bear little to no resemblance to this kind of fantasy. this kind offers plausible deniability, of course, because wanting things is embarrassing. but also the fantasy isn’t about wanting to be a man, it’s about having no choice but to be a failed one. the gender pessimism running through these stories is palpable. basically andrea long chu wants what wolf fanfiction writers know: everyone is an omega, and everyone hates it.

at any rate, this racialized dynamic is one that i wasn’t sure how to bring up throughout this piece, mainly because there is no definitive way for me to tell the race of any individual writer, beyond just like the clear and present vibes that i receive. but i think it structures a lot of the fantasies contained in this essay. (i felt more comfortable bringing up the gendered dynamic, because it was fairly trivial to find out the current gender of the person writing each story i was reading.) 

obviously we should return to the specter haunting this conversation: the very much alive david eng. i think this sort of argument is familiar to readers of racial castration, especially his chapter on m. butterfly. btw sorry for mentioning that play 2 out of 3 posts on this blog. i have problems.

let’s talk about the parallel imagery between the depiction of gallimard’s final speech and the fanfiction i’ve described above. in it, gallimard makes himself into his own dream woman, dressing in yellowface and robes, the costume of puccini’s original madame butterfly. and he laments his lost love:

there is a vision of the orient that i have. of slender women in chong sams and kimonos who die for the love of unworthy foreign devils. who are born and raised to be the perfect women. who take whatever punishment we give them, and bounce back, strengthened by love, unconditionally.

in that, i see the self insert, and i see the sufferer of vixx voodoo fic. the fantasy that gallimard has about asian women is repeated, this time about asian men and a helpless identification with them. and on some level, gallimard’s women do have something very compelling to identify with: they suggest that there’s a way to endure white male violence without sacrifice, and even more potently, to enjoy it on some level.

but onward to the titular racial castration. eng argues that gallimard’s wilful ignorance of song’s true gender is a psychic castration -- song’s masculinity is diminished so that his own can be enhanced within their relationship. this, eng believes, acts out “richard fung’s contention that in western imaginary ‘asian and anus are conflated.’” this process stabilizes the relationship between the asian man and the white woman: they occupy the same place within the sexual dyad. 

this is, i think, why some people are addicted to writing from the bottom’s perspective. again -- not implying that irl bottoms don’t exist or that bottoms are psychically castrated lol -- but rather that you can fantasize about this ideal asian man that you can come to embody. in kpop rpf, rather than it being between a white man and an asian man (unless someone’s started writing chad future fic), it’s between two asian men. so this transformation is performed. whiteness is always intruding and so i think eng is helpful here to making it visible again. 

this essay isn’t a callout or actual cancellation or anything like that, i do wanna be clear. i guess i just like talking about fantasies, even the embarrassing ones, and where they come from. i think oftentimes in fandom spaces, we write a lot of stories off as idfic, and i think virtually every single one of the stories i referenced to write this fairly uncontroversially fall into that category. but i think calling something an “id” something or the other naturalizes the satisfaction it gives as purely instinctual and unconscious, when i do think there are deeper narratives at play. while i didn’t ever actually reference the base here (sorry), i do think it’s worth talking about how real world power shapes & maintains the superstructure, and thereby our fantasies. 

anyway in conclusion, maybe i was the one with sexual brainworms the whole time.

#x

[mogai-corvidae]

is it ok for me to identify as voidpunk even if i haven’t had any hateful or bigoted or dehumanizing experiences? i’ve had a pretty good life, i just feel a connection to voidpunk because i’m neurodivergent and have some strange beliefs regarding society and i don’t like people, and i feel that this label and community feels comfortable.

i don’t want to offend anyone by participating in voidpunk when i haven’t been dehumanized, there’s nothing for me to reclaim. i just really like the idea. can i still identify with voidpunk?

Before we get into the nitty gritty of how we feel about this, I want to emphasize that no one can tell you who you are or what you can or cannot identify as. Ultimately your labels are your business, as long as you’re not deliberately using them in a harmful way, and the fact that you are asking these questions indicates that you do care about respecting these terms and communities. If you were hoping for solid answers, I’m afraid we can’t provide any. All we have to work with is our experience in the voidpunk community and using the voidpunk label. I hope this is helpful, at least.

The voidpunk community, in great part, is made up of neurodivergent people. We are autistic and ND in many other ways, and being ND is one of the largest influences that lead us to the community. I have long emphasized that voidpunk is primarily a community and label that is about reclaiming dehumanization, because that’s very true, but there’s some crucial pieces I think I’ve missed in how I’ve talked about it before. I don’t think people realize that dehumanization doesn’t just look one way. Our personal experiences of dehumanization and dehumanizing oppression have often been of the more blatant and “severe” variety, but those dramatic experiences weren’t the only ones, or even necessarily the most harmful. What has far greater contributed to our current identity and our experiences as a whole is not our more intense experiences of bigoted violence, but consistent experiences of subtle and pervasive ableism throughout society as a whole, and social attitudes about ND people and whether we are deserving of the human right of autonomy. These attitudes don’t just manifest in slurs and hate crimes; far more often they look like passive aggressive comments or systemic issues that are so baked into our every system that they’re near impossible to notice.

I’m not here to tell you what your experiences are, but I know as a neurodivergent person that moving through the world we currently living as ND is in and of itself dehumanizing. We also have many views about society and people in general that are often called “strange” or considered weird in some way, and this is largely because of how neurotypicals value autistic and ND thought. Us being neurodivergent doesn’t just result in direct and explicit ableism, it also results in more subtle and pervasive alienation and other less noticeable forms of oppression. Being neurodivergent means living in a world designed to exclude us, and the invisibility of ND people results in us fundamentally existing outside of the boundaries of what neurotypical people tend to understand as human. The way we think, feel, and express ourselves is often considered by neurotypicals to be outside of the realm of human possibility. Even when we are not literally facing hate crimes or life threatening bigotry, we constantly face isolation and other subtle dehumanization. This is an inescapable and unavoidable fact of living in an ableist society. You say you’ve never had any dehumanizing experiences, and obviously only you can say for sure what your own experiences are, but have you ever considered that dehumanization doesn’t always have to seem obviously bigoted and hateful? Do you know that it’s possible to never face any “extreme” bigotry, but to still be isolated and dehumanized by a society that devalues you as a human person?

I say this because the feelings you’ve described are very similar to many of our own. It is completely up to you how you label your experiences, but I think that there’s a reason you were drawn to the voidpunk label and feel so comforted by the community. The voidpunk community is a community of people who think and feel the way we do, in a way outside of the typical conceptualization of what it means to be human, and it’s very likely that you think and feel that way because you’ve experienced dehumanization without fully realizing or understanding it. A lot of experiences we’ve had with oppression or discrimination, we didn’t even realize were harmful until we were much older and went back to examine the situation further.

If you truly and completely believe that your experiences and feelings have nothing to do with dehumanizing oppression (though, again, I do think that’s a likely possibility, and it’s very possible to experience things like microaggressions or pervasive oppressive attitudes without realizing, also this is very common with ableism specifically) then it still is ultimately up to you to choose how to identify. It’s good that you acknowledge the community as being rooted in reclamation and I do think it’s important to remember and center those experiences as what makes the voidpunk community what it is, but at the same time your experiences generally sound very closely in line with the community and with our personal experiences. Ultimately, what specific trauma you have should not decide your place in an oppressed community, it’s whether or not you identify with it while recognizing and respecting its roots. 

TLDR;If you feel comfortable in the community, go ahead. You’re the only one who can know what labels are right for you and your experiences. I’m certain everyone will welcome you. It’s certainly not a community I’d ever see anyone gatekeeping, and if you do see anyone try to gatekeep voidpunk let me know and I’ll send them a strongly worded message. /hj

#asks #anon

[kelvintimeline]

marvel really reveal themselves as more and more horrible storytellers each day like you really can't keep character continuity huh. why the fuck would bucky care about the shield lmao the whole point is that he and steve knew and loved each other for who they were as People and didn't care abt captain america or the winter soldier. my favorite character got ruined already are they gonna do it to his boyfriend too smh

I am of two minds of this.

Best case scenario (in terms of like... writing with intention): Bucky is having a fucked up trauma response where he’s acting irrationally. Just like he went off on Sam implying that if Sam wasn’t meant for the shield, Steve Biden could’ve been wrong about Bucky, he is imbuing more meaning into the shield than he actually feels. He doesn’t care about the shield as a symbol but rather as his last tether to Steve, who seems COMPLETELY removed from Sam/Bucky’s lives now (note how his therapist mentioned Sam contacting Bucky... never Steve). 

This is a freak out about Steve disappearing in one more way. Steve couldn’t even have his legacy in Sam, he can’t even be around symbolically

This wouldn’t make his ongoing and honestly painfully ignorant dismissal of racism against Sam okay. But at least it would be an intentional sort of framing of competing needs ie Sam’s need to not be victimized by America’s perpetual racism vs Bucky’s declining mental health. AGAIN, I am not saying these things are equivalent or should be framed as such... just that it would be a sort of realistic take on the issue. Bucky is so obsessed with these last tethers of Steve he can’t (read: won’t) think about the deeper reasons why Sam would decline the shield. He’s making everything about Steve.

BUT this likely isn’t the case. Bucky’s mental health is two things in this show: a joke and a plot device. It isn’t a serious issue they’re giving significant weight.

Just like they’re dealing with racism as a sort of peripheral “If you get it, you understand what this scene is implying about race relations in America, if you don’t... just have fun!” issue, they’re doing much the same with Bucky.

And considering Sharon’s line about Bucky ~loving the stars and stripes and America~ schtick... I really do think the writers think... Bucky is an actual patriot.

Who respected Captain America as Captain of America and... not as Steve Rogers. Which is fucking BIZARRE.

Sam is the patriot. Sam is the one who deliberately fought for his country and (originally) followed Steve as an icon of America (obviously their relationship developed past this). Sam is the patriot who STILL turned down the shield BECAUSE he knows America so well and knows it would never accept a black man as their Captain,

But that would be too much of a straight forward criticism of America. So now Bucky is the patriot and Sam is a betrayer who just sort of passively accepts orders from the US Military and passively is hurt by racism and never EXPLICITLY says anything about either.

Marvel wants a show where deep politics are implied but still never too radical.

And it’s fucking their characterization of... everyone. Steve’s representation is worse than ever (he just... abandoned Sharon??). Bucky is a walking ball of racist microaggressions. Sam is back to being a dog of the state to contrast John Walker who ISN’T a military man. Sharon is fun now but like... she IS a cunt, which some people would say is bad (I don’t but like... people probably do).

Even Natasha comes out worse for wear in this show because she ALSO abandoned Sharon who she was like... mildly working but wasn’t allowed to interact with because that’s too many women and Marvel didn’t realize they could interact until Endgame.

Like... fuck man. FUCK

#falcon and the winter soldier #fatws #faws #spoilers #fatws spoilers

[gofancyninjaworld]

watching ONE write women

One of the joys of following a writer for a while is that you get to follow how their ideas develop.   One of the things that ONE brought up in an interview (annoyingly I’ve lost the link) was that he didn’t think that he wrote women particularly well. 

I was thinking about that.  When ONE says that, what comes across to me is that he has no problem writing a female character as an individual rather than a role.  All the girls and women he’s written so far have their own voices, own their problems, and have something to do within the story that would be noticeable if they weren’t there.  Quite frankly, that alone is over and above what various tests of representation (such as the Bechdel test) ask for.  

What he’s not so good at is appreciating what being female brings to a character’s experiences and outlook.  But he’s not just left it at that.  More on what he’s been doing in a bit (and under the cut).

“...the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges...” -- Anatole France

With his sharp eye and talent for exploring the implications of whatever he posits, ONE has brought up some issues are not inherently gendered, but usually are. 

A: Childcare

Metal Bat appears to be the main, if not sole, carer for Zenko.  How it affects him is fascinating.  He’s one of the longest-serving heroes in the Hero Association, being there before Class S was formed, literally within the first six months of its establishment.  He’s been extremely loyal and is highly trusted by the HA -- they put Narinki’s life into his hands without fear.  His battle strength is literally praised to the heavens.

Metal Bat makes Zenko a priority, structuring his availability around her school schedule and being present in her life. He gets very angry if these times are threatened without overwhelmingly good cause.  His reward is to be perceived by the Hero Association as less committed and so they under-recognise him in terms of ranking, and since rank and pay are linked, under-pay him as well.  It’s a story all too many women can relate to.  But that’s not all.

Because ONE writes so simply yet conscientiously, something else comes up and has a peek: intersectionality. It’s the concept that we often have multiple social disadvantages that interact and compound our problems.  The first is sexism.  Regardless of whatever childcare policy the HA has, the sexist assumption that only women care (for the record: this is bullshit) makes it unlikely for them to ask Metal Bat.  Second, social capital. The fact that he’s Zenko’s sole carer means that he has low social capital, that informal network of people around you who can help out -- or tell you where to find help and what things to say in order to get that help. [Aside: this is why programmes to help people, unless they reach out aggressively, tend to disproportionately attract those who need it least.]  Metal Bat doesn’t have the knowledge.  The third is the challenge brought by his being a 17-year old boy.  He’s quick to perceive challenge as threat, and threat as something to be met by anger.  Witness him threatening to smash the HA headquarters if it turns out that he’s missed Zenko’s piano recital for nothing -- completely not useful to anything. [Another aside: the importance of learning to disambiguate emotions and do useful things with them even if it means being vulnerable as a part of growing up as a man is the whole point of Mob Psycho 100.]

What do the Neo Heroes do?  They ask Metal Bat if he wants help with childcare AND HE JUMPS SHIP PRONTO.  If that’s not an indictment of the Hero Association, I don’t know what is.

B: Emotional Labour

Saitama has been delegating more and more of the day-to-day work to Genos.  What started as an act of service to express his gratitude, respect and love for Saitama is increasingly turning into a second job for Genos.  It’s not just the cooking and cleaning and the shopping and the bailing Saitama out if he’s forgotten his wallet again, it’s also the worrying about Saitama, sometimes at inappropriate times.  Has he drunk enough water?  Has he clean clothes in good repair? What sales is he looking forward to? Have they been marked on the calendar?  It’s honestly not doing Genos any good, and it’s one of those things all too many frustrated wives and girlfriends can relate to.  This doing the practical and emotional work for another is not intrinsically gendered, but funny how often it breaks that way.

It’s not doing Saitama any good either.  He’s using this freed up time to fritter his life ever more aggressively away, playing games with King and finding pointless competitions to enter, all while complaining about feeling less and less connected to anything (if you don’t address the problem, it doesn’t get better, duh!).  Worse, he’s started to take that gift of service for granted, witness him airily telling King how he’ll just have Genos go clear up the mess of monsters he’s left outside the flat.  I was heartened to see what happened when Saitama went a little too far and asked Genos to go cook and instead of jumping up, Genos gave him the the evil eye and let the awkwardness hang there.  That was good -- there’s hope for this guy yet.

Speaking of Genos, he also over-functions for something else Saitama struggles with: advocating for himself.  He tends to have Genos be the ugly one so he doesn’t have to be.   You can see just how bad he is at self-advocacy when Forte and friends could invite themselves into Saitama’s house at will despite his protests -- and it stopped the instant Genos showed up.

In a sense, it’s not surprising that Genos can do that. When you’re differently-abled (and for once, this is not a euphemism) as he is, being able to clearly ask for what you want and need is life-and-death necessary. If Genos was shy about it, he’s long since had to discard that.  But!  Let me point to a nuance the story touches on.  How pushy you can be without being punished for it depends a lot on who you are, intersecting strongly with race, gender, social status, etc (remember my mentioning intersectionality before). What’s called assertive in a man is called bitchy or sharp-elbowed in a woman.  Even taking gender and race out of the equation, there’s still a noticeable difference in the way the world treats Saitama and Genos.  You don’t need to be Sigmund Freud to understand the way the short, ugly Dr. Kuseno sweats making sure that Genos positively radiates youth, beauty, wealth and power. That’s part of his right to ask and be taken seriously.  You can see how drastically different it is for Saitama, even from his middle school days.  Genos notices, and makes sure to leverage his social power for Saitama. 

What I love about these examples are that by not automatically heaving a woman into these characters’ roles, ONE’s brought a less frequently seen angle that illustrates the problems they deal with are not ‘womens’ issues per se but are rather inequities that disproportionately affect women -- which is at the heart of what feminists keep saying.  When you read Makai no Ossan, you can appreciate that ONE could have gone with female characters and done a great job, but his choosing not to has brought a very welcome dimension to the story.

Women proper

“I’m not like other girls”

Still, bit by bit, ONE has been working more women into his stories.  After his interview, the next thing he worked on was the single-volume sequel to Mob Psycho 100,  Reigen.  He took his challenge head-on by making the POV character Tome and putting her in an all-girls’ high school.

Throughout the story, we see Tome thinking of herself as special, better than her fellow classmates, whom she sees as vapid and shallow.  The denouement comes with Tome being humbled as she gets to know her classmates better and realises that  they pursue interests just as varied and weird as hers -- only they’re also practicing being socially adept on top of that.

It’s a gentle story, but it’s still a great side-swipe at self-internalised misogyny, the idea that it’s shameful to be like a ‘girl’ and it’s something to distance oneself from.   Fortunately, Tome can laugh at herself and grow up.

“Ha ha ha”

For a long time, the only (named) women we had in OPM were Tatsumaki and her younger sister Fubuki.   We’ve gotten more women both good and bad: in particular, it’s been very gratifying to find that one of the most dangerous, story-shaping villains in the story is Psykos.

In the webcomic, ONE’s pushed even further.  A recent Tweet featured him talking about how hard he finds it to draw women. And he’s added several.   No same-face for him!    I’ll talk about the new heroines he’s added, but first, let me draw your attentions to something most artists don’t realize they do: massively skew the gender distribution of crowds, even when it is incredibly illogical to do so.   With ONE, even drawing the crowds at the fair who gaggle at Amai Mask, he’s got a far more even balance of women and they’re not all young and pretty -- which is much more true-to-life.  He’s in the business of drawing people.

ONE has featured microaggressions before, particularly in the way Fubuki can have perfectly sound things to say and be totally ignored,  but he brings it properly to the fore with Suiko.  No one calls her incompetent, but the little put downs she gets when she puts herself forward for the hero test in lieu of her brother, oh they’re well-observed The look on her face just makes it.  I love the way she shut the recruiters up subsequently. 

  Let’s conclude this tour with a look at Webigaza’s lonely figure.  We have another mono-manically focused cyborg in the story.  Genos has been called a lot of things -- determined, obsessive even, but crazy? Never. Notice who it’s been reserved for instead.  It’s no slip of the tongue.

Wrapping Up

I’m of the impression that ONE really wants to try to capture as much of the human experience as he can in his stories, however whimsical or fantastical the stories themselves are.  I’m disarmed by his humility in accepting that he’ll never have the lived experience of half the world’s population but he sure as hell can put some effort into learning how to to writing well-realised, believable, female characters.  

I watch ONE’s continued development as a writer with interest.    

#OPM #Reigen #ONE #meta #long #women #female characters #I like that ONE treats women not as creatures whose problems and experiences can't possibly be understood #but as people first and foremost #perfect? No and who is #ongoing and adding to his understanding -- yes

[fillingthescrapbook]

Shadow and Bone: The Crows Have It

I would like to preface this by saying I have not read the books that Netflix's latest fantasy series is adapted from. Though, I do have a general knowledge of what happens and which characters aren't supposed to be in the show because of research I did for this interview. With that disclaimer out of the way, I now give you spoiler warning for the rest of this post.

Shadow and Bone is a good series with a well-plotted out story. The world-building, for the most part, is exemplary, and the magical powers that exist in the world are impressively explained and shown. Everyone acted their socks off, the fight choreography and the hand gestures looked and felt natural, the costumes were beautifully-crafted, and the visual effects were amazing. Unfortunately, the show also suffers two glaring weaknesses that kind of sours viewers from the whole package: Alina and Mal.

Don't get me wrong. Actors Jessie Mei Li and Archie Renaux were great. Jessie, especially, was transcendent as Alina. And it's a testament to her acting skills that I felt anything at all for Alina. It was only after each episode aired that I started questioning Alina's decisions. And it was only after the show ended that I realized Alina wasn't a very good character at all.

Alina's only character traits were that she was in love with Mal, and that she had powers to summon light. That was it. Her character didn't really develop because both those character traits existed prior to the show starting, and her realization that General Kirigan wasn't to be trusted didn't come from within; it was propelled by a revelation of a tertiary character that she questioned once and then took as truth after the reveal of a painting. It was... disappointing to say the least. Especially because the show added an element to Alina and Mal's characters that didn't exist in the books: they were made half-Shu.

In the first episode, Alina experiences racism against her because of her Shu Han features. But the only thing we really know about the Shu Han at this point is that they're looked down upon. And that they guard their mountains to the south of Ravka well. One character calls them the enemy, but we don't know why. So my only takeaway from this is that the Ravkans are racist as fuck. Which wouldn't have been a problem if we saw this amount to anything.

After Alina reveals her powers at the end of the first episode, the next time her Shu Han heritage gets brought up is in the third episode: when a maid comments that a Tailor should take away Alina's Shu features, to which Alina pleads against. And then we get another microaggression from the character of Zoya, but I feel like it was more fueled by her being deposed as General Kirigan's favorite Grisha rather than it being because of Alina's racial heritage.

The rest of the time it gets brought up is when Jesper realizes the Sum Summoner they're after is half-Shu, when Alina "escapes" and gets harassed by a Ravkan soldier (which deserves a lot of side-eye), and when General Kirigan is looking for her. That's pretty much the extent of the character trait they added to Alina's character. I mean, sure, it allowed for the actress to ground Alina's backstory and why she was ostracized so much in the past--but it didn't really make an impact on the actual story being told.

What impact did the Sun Summoner being half-Shu have on the other characters? Especially the Grishas and the royal family? I hope this gets explored if the show gets renewed for a second season, because it didn't feel like it was a huge part of the show at all.

Then again, at least Alina had those little microaggressions? Mal's half-Shu heritage is only touched upon in the flashbacks when the other kids in the orphanage would pick on him. Which is, to be honest, the only thing remotely interesting about the character. Again, no offense to Archie Renaux who infuses Mal with so much charm and swagger--but Mal as a character is a non-entity. He exists to pine after Alina, to track a stag, and then to save Alina. He does nothing else. Not even the death of his two closest friends makes an impact on his character.

It is mind-boggling to see how a show this detailed would drop the ball on its two main characters. Especially since the rest of the characters are so rich:

General Kirigan, the bad guy, might have questionable goals but you understand who he is as a character because of the backstory he is given. You see his pain, his anguish, and you see his hope for the future. He is completely evil as well, but there is a clear progression of how he goes from wanting what's best for Grishas like him to who he becomes in the current timeline.

Nina Zenik only has a handful of scenes but we manage to learn more about who she is as a character in one scene than we do Alina for the whole series. Although I think it helps that actress Danielle Galligan has great chemistry with Calahan Skogman, the actor portraying her captor Matthias.

And then there are the scene-stealers: the Crows. They're introduced as pseudo villains but quickly become the actual stars of the show they're not even supposed to be in. Kaz Brekker is a deplorable degenerate who keeps his word, Inej Ghafa is a spy with an honor code and a complicated history, and Jesper Fahey is a narcissistic dandy who is quick on the draw and just as quick to love. And the best part about them? They are actual characters. Their backstories dictate how they act around each other, around other people, and how they are received. And they have character progression:

Kaz starts the series with one goal: to earn a million kruge so he could pay off one important debt. This goal propels him forward, but the events that he gets involved him changes him as a person, giving him leeway to choose a different path. Jesper doesn't have this season-long arc, but he does grow as a character as well--although in a more minimal way. And then there's Inej who, arguably, undergoes the biggest growth in the show.

It's funny how the characters who aren't even supposed to be in the show are the ones who have the best characterization and arc. No wonder people are raving more about them than the actual main characters of the story. Alina and Mal are cardboard cutouts compared to the complex Crows.

Which brings me to these questions: is this problem caused by the show being faithful to the source material? Whose idea was it to make Alina half-Shu, and why wasn't it integrated better into the story? Is there a chance that Alina and Mal will become better characters if a second season is produced? Or will the Crows become the actual leads of a follow-up season?

All of this said; I am curious to see how Shadow and Bone proceeds from this so I hope that Netflix renews it for a second season.

#tv review #shadow and bone #my words #tv talk #netflix

[qqueenofhades]

I was hoping you would be able to help me form a response when my family says they're sick of hearing of systemic racism and white privilege because THEY have had to work for everything and believe nothing got handed to them (true in the way they're thinking, but you know what I mean).

Welp. First, I applaud you for taking the initiative to engage in difficult conversations with your family, since the only way embedded racist ideas are going to get confronted in white society is if racist white people hear it from their friends and family. They are going to cheerily ignore protestors, academics, newsreaders, popular culture, and certainly politicians who say anything to the contrary, but it’s harder to ignore and brush aside when it’s coming from people who are directly within your own family group. They can still then ignore it, but at least you’re trying to do something that is not at all fun but which is deeply necessary, and good for you.

First, there are a few things for you to consider. Is this a case where they actually don’t know the difference, but are willing to learn, or is this essentially sealioning (where they act like they don’t know the difference, but they absolutely do, and put the emotional labor on you to extensively define and explain and educate while never intending to change their stances on anything). If it’s the former, then there is some point in engaging in dialogue with them. If it’s the latter, it’s a giant emotional trap that you are within your rights not to engage with until they signal that they’re willing to engage productively. You don’t have to educate someone who is categorically unwilling to be educated (especially when it’s often deliberate ignorance). As people like to say, Google is free, and it’s their responsibility to take the first steps to change. You can continue to talk with them, but yes, that is contingent on them actually standing a chance of listening to you and not just you wearing yourself out on something that they don’t want to actually hear (because it threatens them and makes them feel Personally Wrong, and white people don’t like that).

There have been various books written on why it’s so hard to talk to white people about racism, which you may be interested in checking out, not least the book "Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race” by Renni Eddo-Lodge. Ibram X. Kendi has also written “How to Be An Antiracist,” one of the bestselling books of this summer, either of which would be useful either in shaping your own arguments or (if they’re receptive) giving to your family. Once again, this is contingent on them signalling that they’re actually willing to listen, and not just to make you do pointless emotional labor. These books are probably available from your public library (though there’s probably a waitlist) or in other easily available formats.

Next, it’s a basic tenet of an anti-racist education that white people have never had to do this kind of reckoning, and thus get whiny, defensive, guilt-tripping, and “it’s not about ME I’m a GOOD PERSON” when it comes up. This also rests on the damaging and deeply intertwined effects of racism and classism, which has to be understood if you’re going to talk about it. One of the greatest tricks that racist capitalism ever pulled is convincing poor white people that they had more in common with their filthy rich white masters (people whose way of life will never in a thousand years be anything like each other’s) simply because they shared the inherent racial “purity” of being white. There have been political studies written on how poor/undereducated/working class white people have become such a reliably Republican constituency, because they have been successfully manipulated to believe that the white overlords are their “people” and they will constantly vote against their own economic, social, and cultural interests in favor of enriching amoral white demagogues who beat the populist xenophobic drum. Then they blame black and brown people for society’s ills and for the reason that they stay poor, rather than the rampaging oligarchs awarding themselves massive tax breaks and billion-dollar bailouts and refusing to extend unemployment benefits in case people “make too much money” from not working, just to name the most recent example. They are so poisoned on populist politics and white supremacy, which assures them that they’re better than anyone else by virtue of being white, that they actively attack politicians and policy platforms and other social welfare initiatives that would materially improve their own lives as “un-American.” This is maddening and sometimes baffling, but it’s how it works. Whiteness trumps all, currently literally thanks to the Orange Fuhrer. Problems in life are the fault of the Other.

This isn’t to say that poor white people are “dumb” and just unable to realize it, because they’re caught in a system that has done this literally from the start of America. In the early 17th century, indentured laborers and slaves in the American colonies were in fact more likely to be white. (The word “slave” comes from “Slav,” since that was the predominant ethnicity of slaves in medieval Europe; i.e. white eastern Europeans.) But even despite the fact that they were unpaid laborers, they were still white and thus recognized as human by their white masters, and thus when slave ships began arriving, it was easier for everybody to simply outright demonize and dehumanize the black African slaves. The poor white indentured servants got to feel better than the black slaves simply for the fact of their whiteness. Their lives obviously sucked, but their whiteness was in fact a mitigating factor in the suckiness that it involved once it was easier to use “animalistic” black people. And we wonder why America can’t ever confront its racist history properly. As Kendi calls it in his other book, it is stamped from the beginning.

As it has been put before, white people can and often do have difficult lives, because late-stage capitalism devours its workers no matter what color they are, but their whiteness isn’t a factor in why their lives are difficult. They will never encounter racial prejudice, race-based hate crime, discrimination for housing, education, employment, bank loans, daily microaggressions and identity erasure, constantly racist tropes in the media, politicians fingering them as everything wrong with America/the world, casual prejudices or assumptions even from close friends, assumed criminality based just on their race -- etc etc. The list goes on and on. Just because you have a hardscrabble economic background does not mean that your life has been made harder by your race -- because if you’re white, it hasn’t. (And as noted, poor white people have consistently voted for megalomaniac white men who don’t give a shit about them but promise them that everything is fine or should be better for them because of their whiteness, and then blame minorities for being the source of their problems.)

I honestly wonder if racism would still be such a problem in America if we had a remotely more equitable economic system, because when you’re well off and have your basic needs consistently met and don’t need to worry that you’re one paycheck away from disaster, it’s harder to constantly be paranoid that your differently colored neighbors are stealing everything from you and the cause of all society’s ills. The historian Patrick Hyder Patterson wrote a very interesting book on material culture in Yugoslavia in the 20th century, where he basically argued that despite the spectacular collapse of the federation into the Yugoslavian wars of the 90s, things didn’t really go to hell until after the economy crashed following Josip Broz Tito’s death in 1980. While there were obviously ethnic fault lines and conflicts between Serbs, Croats, Montenegrins, Bosniaks, Albanians, etc, when there wasn’t any money and any jobs and everyone thought everyone else was to blame, THAT is when the whole thing blew up into a genocidal civil war clusterfuck. Food for thought.

This is why people talk about economic justice and racial justice as going hand in hand. When there is a scarcity of resources and no social safety net, people are obviously more inclined to look for scapegoats and to blame someone for taking their entitlement (while still somehow refusing to blame the billionaires and corporate oligarch who are ACTUALLY stealing from them). They indeed actively resist any attempts to make their own lives better as being “socialist” or “un-American” and take pride in the fact that there’s absolutely jacksquat nothing (until of course, something like the coronavirus pandemic hits and it’s revealed just how many of us were always one missed paycheck away from disaster). Then when they need government assistance (while disdaining the government as tyrannical the rest of the time, unless it’s Trump’s actively tyrannical lot, but hey, we don’t have time to unpack all that) it’s still shameful and something they shouldn’t be using, instead of their basic entitlement to a decent life.

This country is poisoned on a lot of toxic beliefs, but this is one of the deepest-running one, and which will always get in the way of poor white people dealing with racism: their lives suck, but they have ALWAYS been told that despite that, they’re still better just for being white, which is their consolation prize for supporting white populists who actively rob them, and they haven’t even always consciously registered that. They just feel that if they’re “fine,” even if they’re not fine, then black people are just malcontents and criminals who can’t hack it. In 2016, there was a lot of ink spilled over how poor white people felt a sense of economic grievance and being left behind, which was why they voted for Trump, but... Trump was never going to do a damn thing about that??? He doesn’t actually do anything for his supporters except feed them his jingoistic Orange Nazi stump speeches. They voted for Trump to feel vindicated, not to actually improve their lives, and it’s damn clear by now that not only has he NOT improved their lives, he has no desire to do so. He just wants them to cheer for him and feed his ego, not fix any problems.

Basically, racism and capitalism and the American political system intersect in multiple deeply toxic ways to do precisely what you’re talking about; producing poor white people who feel that they shouldn’t be included in the reckoning with racism because if THEY worked hard and they don’t live in a mansion, somehow racism is fake and black people should just shut up and get a job etc etc. This is because poor white people have been systematically conditioned to support white supremacy at the direct expense of their own economic and social interests; it’s terrible, but that’s how it functions. They will never in a million years have anything in common with the (white) ruling class, but they still instinctively identify with them rather than people in their own deprived economic class who are different races or colors or religions. That is how white supremacy has supported the hyper-inequality of the industrial age, and vice verse, and it is one of capitalism’s best functions for survival, so it’s in the interests of the overlords to maintain it. Stop the workers from recognizing pan-racial solidarity based on economic grievance, and compete with each other and blame each other rather than the overarching system, easy!

Anyway. Once again, this is long. But in short, the attitudes your family are exemplifying are a direct result of both racism and classism as they have been deliberately cultivated in the American social and political system, and the interlocking causes and symptoms of both have to be recognized (and acknowledged) before they can get to dealing with that. I don’t know how that will go, and I don’t have an easy shortcut. But I’m glad you’re trying. Good luck.

#politics for ts #history of racism #long post #anonymous #ask

[francoiserenaldt]

then comes the touch (then comes the rush)

or five times desirée thinks about giving the boy with the stars in his eyes her heart and the one time she realizes that he’s had it the whole time. Takes place during the second semester of senior year. Inspired by @/yoonsgiggle’s ways to show affection. for day 3 of @it-lives-week.

word count: 2.4k

warnings: a pinch of angst toward the end because it was getting a bit sweet for my liking, too much pining for an established relationship, they’re both idiots but in different ways, toxic amount of fluff

1.

Snow litters the school grounds as she trudges through it. The school’s obsession with having no less than 5 pep rallies a quarter has her out of her bed and at school at 7 in the morning to oversee the preparations.

Luckily, she wouldn’t need to endure the torture alone. Everyone in cheer, band, swim, wrestling, and basketball all had to be there for a completely unnecessary rehearsal that only served to tire the performers and wear on everyone else’s patience.

There was one benefit to today’s assembly: Andy would be there this time.

This would be his first day back since homecoming. The first day they’d be back in school since they’d kissed in the gymnasium and the first day they’d get a chance to be together since everything went wrong. 

It had felt so weird to go from seeing him every day and getting close to him being holed up in a sterile room for most of the day. The days seemed to get emptier without him; even texts couldn’t fill the void his presence left.

Misattribution of arousal, her therapist had called it. 

While the implication that Desirée had confused herself was...offensive to say the least, it had at least made some sense. No way could she have been feeling low just because of some boy that she was talking to, right?

There was only one way to find out.

“Desirée!”

“Hey stranger. I’d ask how life’s treating you but…”

He barks out a laugh, gesturing to his crutches. “Yeah, I’ve been better. And you? How have things been?”

“You know, I…” She trails off.

Before she can even think about finishing her sentence, his hand is on her arm. The touch sends a rush of warmth through her body and she thanks the Lord that she opted for multiple layers today.

He’s been back all of two hours, which means she should chill, right?

Her heart doesn’t seem to get the memo. 

“Yeah, I’m fine. Thanks for asking.” 

It’s a complete lie, of course, and definitely not what he asked. She couldn’t be further from okay when his totally normal and platonic comforting gesture is awakening things she thought she’d buried and telling her that it’s very likely that she hadn’t misattributed a damn thing, which would be great except for the fact that she’s not sure if he can say the same.

(And despite the rational part of her brain yelling at her, she wants him to say the same.)

(She’s so screwed.)

2.

A few weeks pass after the encounter in the hallway and they find themselves back in the town square after school. They walk, or rather she walks and he limps, into the town park and find a park bench.

She quickly learns that practice had been a complete disaster; apparently being benched and injured still didn’t save Andy from microaggressions. It was interesting that they chose to focus on him when their attitudes weren’t saving them from an abysmal win-loss record, even after the strong start of the season. 

In any case, he was unhappy and that couldn’t stand. 

When they finally located a park bench, Andy raised an eyebrow when she didn’t sit next to him. “What are you doing?”

“Lean back.”

There’s an unmistakable déjà vu that overcomes her when her hands find their way to his shoulders.

(“Your…very toned shoulders look tense.”)

(“My very toned shoulders would love a shoulder rub.”)

His head tilts back after a minute or so–she must be doing it right this time–and...now they’re looking at each other.

A sharp chill crawls up her spine and she nearly shudders under the intensity of it. It shouldn’t be this hard to look away

There’s no telling how long it’s been or if her hands are even moving anymore.

Right. Shoulder rub.

She tears her gaze from his and puts her all into obliterating the tension in his shoulders. She vaguely notes his head going back to its original position.

“Hey.”

She nearly swallows her tongue with the force she uses to gulp any nervousness down. “Hey.”

“You good?”

“That’s my line,” she smiles gently. This is much better, the banter and the mutual flirting she’s used to. She doesn’t bother lingering on the concern in his voice. “I’m supposed to be helping you right now.”

“We can help each other,” he counters smoothly. “And you were going a little hard there.”

“Oh, sorry–”

“Don’t be. Felt good.” He tilts his head back again and grins when he finds her eyes again. “Just wanted to see where your head’s at.”

“My head is doing great, thanks. Spectacularly, in fact.”

He raises an eyebrow.

“So are you all good or…”

He clears his throat. “Yeah, I’m set. Thanks.”

Her heartbeat still thunders a mile a minute in her ears as she breathes out, “Any time.”

She reluctantly slides her hands off of his shoulders and moves –a little too quickly– to sit next to him. His arm finds its way onto her shoulders and she relaxes instantly, resting her cheek on top of his head, and she briefly imagines being able to fall asleep like this: with his arms around her shoulders, or even her waist, and his warm cheek resting on the column of her neck.

She erases the thought immediately and glances at him, finding him deep in thought as well. 

A light nudge brings him back to her and she pops the question: “Where did you go?”

He chuckles, his warm breath hitting her neck and rendering her breathless yet again. This getting flustered business is the worst. “I don’t even know where to start.”

“How about the beginning?”

The comment only yields her a huff. “You’re so mean to me, you know that?”

“Yeah, right. Unfortunately for you, there’s no pool nearby to push me into this time.”

“Fountain’s gotta be close enough, right?” His arms move faster than lightning, sliding under her knees and around her waist before she could catch her breath.

“Andy Kang, don’t you dare!” 

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

The good news, she finds, is that she did not get soaked in gross fountain water and there’s no way he’s not into her. A net win, you would think.

The tradeoff for that -she can never just have nice things- is that she was into him in September. Knew she liked him in October. Now that it’s February, she maybe even l-

Oh no.

3.

It’s not a big deal when it happens.

She’s just left a student council meeting and, if memory serves, she has a two minute window to leave the premises before one of her teachers needs help or Lucas suggests another membership drive proposal for next month’s meeting.

She’s flying down the second set of stairs –she’s down to a minute now– when she sees him.

He’s freshly showered –practice must have ran late again– and changed, his damp black hair pushed back from his face. He’s hauling ass too for some reason, barely even looking up from his phone. Maybe he won’t even see her if she runs fast enough and she can text him later–

Sure enough, he glances up and grins brilliantly when he sees her. It’s only natural that she returns it. 

She closes the few feet separating them and he’s still got that sappy grin on his face when she stands next to him.

“How was practice?”

“Boring as always. Student council?”

She gives him a look. Why they even bother with words anymore is beyond her.

“Heh, heard ya loud and clear. Wanna get out of here?” He extends his hand in her direction. She feels the tip of his middle finger brush against her knuckles and her heart starts beating ridiculously fast.

She takes it in hers, a little too eagerly in hindsight, and threads her manicured fingers into his. “Gladly.”

She’ll overthink it for hours after the fact, but in the moment she just enjoys walking out of school with the boy she really, really likes. 

(If she more than likes him, then he doesn’t need to know that.)

4.

The school is weirdly energized today; students rush about, talking about weekend plans and that ridiculously hard test and other things that should not be repeated. (High school boys are gross.) Deadlines, extracurriculars, and the general dumpster fire that is life had all but killed the fight of the senior class, but not today.

Today, of course, is the first day of spring break. 

The sky seems to know it’s spring break too; the near constant drizzle of rain has let up for the day and the sun tentatively peeks its head out from a slowly widening gap of clouds, adding some long overdue warmth to the afternoon air.

It doesn’t compare to the smile on his face when their eyes meet.

“Desirée!” He calls out, jogging to envelope her in a hug.

Hugging definitely isn’t a new thing for them–hell, she’s easily hugged everyone in the group at least three times by now–but the way his head makes a home in the space between her neck and shoulder feels…intimate. Cozy, even. It’s far too comforting considering that she just saw him yesterday and they’re in the middle of the hallway (she’s definitely going to hear about this later) but she can’t bring herself to pull away. Not yet. 

He ends up being the one to break it, pulling away just enough to look up at her. “Hi.”

“Hi. Good day so far?”

“Better now.” He loops an arm in hers. “Wanna get lunch?”

“As long as you’re paying.”

5.

“Take a break.”

They’re in her living room -her parents decided to come home for once and no amount of brownie points gets you ‘boys in the bedroom’ privileges- on the couch. She’s supposed to be studying for her government test, a task that Andy seems adamant on impeding her from. 

“And why would I do that?”

“Because I asked you to.” The statement only produces a snort from her, and he nudges her lightly on the shoulder. “Pleeeeease? I’m bored.”

“Apologies, your Majesty King Kang, but I’m afraid I’ve misplaced my jester hat today.” She pouts in mock guilt before scoffing. “In the meantime, my government test isn’t going to ace itself.”

“Please, you could probably do this in your sleep.”

“And until I can definitely do this in my sleep, I have to keep going.”

She turns her body fully away from him for a few minutes and she finds her rhythm fairly quickly. As her brush pen draws the title of the next card, she allows herself a peek and Jesus Christ, is he pouting?

It’s childish. 

It’s completely immature. 

It’s...working?

Ughhhhhhhhhhh.

She shoves her flashcards into their corresponding case and slides them under the coffee table, huffing. “You are a terrible influence.”

“Yeah, but I’m a terrible influence that has your full and undivided attention.” He pecks her on the nose and grins at her unamused glare, “Now, what do you say we do something fun?”

+1

It’s the final day of high school.

Today should be a happy day; after all, staying goodbye to early morning classes and popularity contests is what she’s been dreaming of since the day she got there. 

There was just one problem: Andy wouldn’t be coming with her.

Despite the numerous hours of studying and makeup tests, there wasn’t enough time left in the school year to make up for his absences due to the medical leave he’d taken. Unless he somehow managed to pay the school for the amount of money he’d lost, he would have to sit for senior year all over again. 

He’d assured her that it wouldn’t be all bad; repeating the year gives him a chance to go out for basketball captain and Tom would be there with him, but there was no amount of silver linings that could change the fact that she’d been accepted into Cornell University and would be attending in the fall. 

Without him.

It’s not lost on her that she sounds absolutely pathetic. Most people could only dream of getting into an Ivy League university, let alone Cornell, and she’s considering giving all six years of relentless hard work and sleepless nights away for some boy just because she thinks she loves him. 

(They both know she won’t do it. She’s lost too much and has come too far.)

They’d put this off for too long as it is. 

“We’ve been apart before, right? We can do it again.”

“I just got you back, Andy. How am I supposed to be okay with losing you?”

“You won’t lose me.”

“How do you know that?”

“You won’t lose me because I love you, Desirée,” he reaches up to take her face into his hands, “That’s how.” 

Her eyebrows furrow, as if she’s confused. The idea breaks his heart. “You love me?”

“Of course I do.”

“I’m such an idiot.” She pulls away, shutting her eyes and shaking her head. “This whole time I’ve been trying to pace myself and…I really screwed things up, didn’t I?” 

“What are you talking about?”

“I love you, too. I didn’t want you to know until I knew you felt the same.”

“Why?”

“I’ve lost too many people as it is. If I lost you, I…” She purses her lips and looks away. “I couldn’t handle it.”

There’s no escaping the way that his lips feel on hers or the shiver that travels up her spine and honestly? She doesn’t want to. 

When he speaks again, their foreheads are pressed together–she’s practically bent over at this point and can’t bring herself to care–and his hands are still holding her face as if he thinks she’ll slip away. “You will never lose me, you hear me? There is nothing that you could do that’ll change that.”

She wants to believe him, wants to believe that he’s not making a promise that he can’t keep, so she does.

She knows she’ll kick herself for waiting this long when she gets home, but at that moment she enjoys walking out of her high school for the last time with the boy she loves.

(If he knows it too, that’s even better.)

#day 3 #ship: desiree x andy #ILAweek #ilitw #mc: desiree ashton #li: andy kang #andy x mc #i hope you have a better time reading this than i had writing it jwshdbj #oh and for more angst this is in the something gained universe jdfhbrjn #also someone PLEASE take dashes and parentheses away from me #i feel like i should mention that devon isn't mentioned in this bc he's **** jndk

[thelifedocumentor]

Nkuley Masemola and his iconic creative expressions

Nkuley Masemola is a multidisciplinary creative who works as a fashion model, DJ and stylist. Nkuley Masemola has modelled for iconic South African fashion brands such as Rich Mnisi, Thebe Magugu and Nao Serati. They also invite the young vibrant youth of Johannesburg to the eccentric scenes of Braamfontein through DJ’ing. With styling that transcends cultural eras and borders, Nkuley translates their experiences of navigating South Africa and the creative culture artistically into their photographs. The success they have garnered since working as a fashion model from the age of 17 is truly inspiring. In this interview we talk about what inspired Nkuley growing up, their artistic journey and the importance of being yourself in order to thrive in the creative industry. 

1. How was it like growing up in Pretoria? 

The funny part is that I didn’t actually grow up in Pretoria, it was more outside of Pretoria than it was Pretoria. I grew up on the outskirts of Pretoria - that’s the farms. Bronkhorstspruit is where I was from. And it was bland - I don’t know any other way to explain it. It was like growing up on a big sheet of white paper. I had to make out myself. It was an experience but it was also really overwhelming because no one there had progressed to anything. It was complicated but also a good learning curve. I always say I would have rather not. I would have rather had a soft life but I guess I see the benefit of growing up like that but it was overwhelming. 

2. What are some unforgettable childhood experiences you believe shaped who you are today? 

When I finally moved to Bronkhorstspruit, after my father passed on, my mom bought herself a huge mirror. I didn’t have friends, I didn’t have anyone. So the only thing I ever did was look into that mirror. I had all my performances there, I had all my interviews, I did everything with that mirror. I just became so self-obsessed, all of my art is self-obsession. Everything is all about me. It’s my self-portrait, it’s music that is about me, everything that is structured in a way that is like self-worship. So I think that particular childhood experience shaped me forever. I got harassed but I never got bullied. I never let anyone bully me. If it happens, I can just avoid it, I’m not gonna stick around. I was always inside the house. I would make up my own stories, live in my head, and wait for the day I move to Jo’burg. When it finally happened, I already had like self-discovered so much. That particular childhood experience shaped who I am today. I created my whole world, and now I’m living in it. 

3. How did you start modelling? 

Back home, there used to be this modelling agency. It was just high school kids who had high-quality cameras, more than it was a modelling agency. They were like, “Yeah you should be a model.” And I was like, “I guess.” It was never my thing. I take really good photos, but I don’t look like a model, I don’t present myself as a model. At that time, I wasn’t the typical male model. And so I was like I’m not a model. That happened and it wasn’t really serious. When I moved to Jo’burg, my friend and I had just come from registering and we were going past Kitcheners and my friend was with their friend. We were all speaking to a guy and he said, “Yeah you can just come back to my place.” We all went back to the place. Then I left my matric certificate at their place and then when I left and went back home, they were like, “You left your stuff here [matric certificate] and also, I saw on Twitter that you might have to drop out of school because you don’t have anywhere to live until March so you can just live with me.” This is the person that I met with a friend because they met on the streets of Braam, literally at the corner of Kitcheners. I lived with that person for 3 months. They literally got me into modelling.

The first day I got here they were like, “You’re a star!”. I was on a music video set, and they needed one guy and I had just moved to Jo’burg and put my bags down. My parents had just dropped me off. I put my bags down and went up to shoot the music video. After that, I had another job. It was quiet for a minute and then my friend asked me to escort them to a casting. Still, I was not in the modelling game, I was just deep in love at the time. So cool, I go to this modelling gig, and then when we get there, my friend doesn’t get picked but they’re choosing from outside. They’re like, “You? Come here.” I said that I’m not here to model what’s happening? They said, “No, just audition quickly.” So I walked and strutted to the wall and then when I came back I got picked. It was The Threaded Man show. After that, everything started picking up, everything just set off. That’s how that happened. I just started modelling after that. Still very weird. 

4. Wow! The Threaded Man was so huge at that time. 

I didn’t even know. I didn’t know who Siya Beyile was. I had just got to Johannesburg. I had no idea who anyone was. So literally getting calls from Rich Mnisi being hey it’s Rich Mnisi. When I found out it was Rich Mnisi I was like OMG! They were shooting for i-D. That is one thing I’ve always dreamt about - I’ve always bought i-D magazines at the taxi ranks. When they said, "You’re 17 you’re gonna shoot for i-D", I was like that’s crazy, that’s crazy. I shot for almost every magazine that I had back at home. In one year, I had Cosmopolitan, Vogue, and i-D. My mom was like, “Aren’t these the magazines that are in your room.?” It was my favourite flex. I didn't even know it’s gonna happen in terms of modelling. I had always imagined being a part of the creative team or like one day when I’m all the way older on the cover of i-D for doing something. But not a whole documentary that is based on us. That’s so crazy, that’s insane. 

4. Which would you say are your favourite fashion collections you have modelled for?

I really enjoyed the Rich Mnisi collections that I modelled for in the first year - I thought I looked really good in zebra print. Thebe Magugu gave me a suit and said “Do what you must with it.” That was really insane for me. Siyababa Atelier’s collection, Rich Mnisi’s collection and Nao Serati’s collection. 

5. The South African creative scene has truly evolved over time, but there’s still so much work to be done. What do you think still needs to be done to move the culture forward? 

I think South Africa needs to stop normalizing things and actually live in them. We need to stop trying to normalize things so much because we are othering them more than we think. We are othering people more than we think. We are regressing more than progressing. If we keep saying “Normalize trans women” - why? They’re women. Women are already normal. You don’t need to normalize women. It’s microaggressions like that. People don’t realize homophobia is just as serious as racism. The same way people are judging you because of your skin colour is the same way you are judging someone for loving someone. I think South Africa would be much better if they just lived in their truth more than trying to be these progressive people. We’ve been through so much, that we should know by now that we can’t risk having another revolution. We’ve revolved too many times. We’ve been traumatized too many times - we don’t need any more trauma. We just need to get that into our heads. We need to let go of the power game. The obsession with power in this country is a hectic obsession - that needs to be let go of. 

6. How do you find the experience of integrating fashion, music and creative direction together to tell a story? 

It comes easily because everything that I do is still self-obsession. Everything that I create is based on me so it’s not that hard. Self-awareness. It’s hard in that term that you know yourself so much that people want to digress you into this way. The only thing hard about it is people not understanding you and wanting to change you and who you are at that point. You already know who you are. Trying to accommodate everyone into your world because I’ve already said I am living in my own world, in my own space. In my own space, there is no need to accommodate other people. I think that’s the hardest part about it. It’s just me finding spaces for people in my world. In terms of navigating it, it’s always been me living out what I wanted to live out. It’s always playing music - when I DJ I play all the music that has registered with me. I’ve always been a Rihanna girl, I’m always going to play Rihanna. I’m always going to have the Rihanna aesthetic - the same way she does it. I’ve been studying Rihanna for the longest time in my life. The same way she does it. The same way she has this creative direction that goes into her music that also goes into her modelling - it’s really insane. That’s what I’ve always done. Rihanna, FKA Twigs, and FAKA do that in the most perfect way ever. That’s my thing. 

7. If you ever feel a creative block during a project, how do you reconnect and channel your energy? 

I like feeling things out. If it doesn’t happen then it’s not gonna happen. I was at a point where I was really depressed last year - I was at my lowest. I had never been that depressed ever in my life before. I told myself that I never want to feel like that ever again. For that to happen, I always have to be honest with myself. I have to know that I can’t do this right now. If I’m gonna go somewhere and I’m like okay you’re gonna have to model today but you don’t have the haircut. You look bad, you’re gonna feel bad and the pictures are going to look bad. So rather, we don’t do it. Rather sacrifice that and put me in a risky position but I’m not going to put something out there that I don’t believe in and don’t feel comfortable with. Being uncomfortable with something that’s seen by so many people is actually kinda crazy. It’s like uploading a picture of your pinky toe that you don’t like. I know people always say embarrassing yourself on the internet is being real, but that is always different for me. My realness is perfection. The real me is the perfect me. 

8. Which creative material inspired you on your overall journey - it could be a book, film, exhibition, art collection - anything really. 

Definitely seeing FAKA. Sitting down, talking to FAKA, and realizing that we have had the same life experiences. When I was 15, when I was a party girl - I still am, FAKA was like, “Oh you host this party called “Umrubisho” and I was like omg we used to host that party and FAKA was like we were always there. It’s so crazy how the Universe aligns like that - that’s insane to me. No one at that point understood what that meant to me but it just means to me my life is fine, I don’t need to worry about a lot of things. Life is just going to progress the way life progresses. I’m just going to get to where I need to get. A moment most pleasing to me was when FAKA was curating a Versace show. That’s so insane. That means anything is possible. That moment for me just sparked up everything. Thebe Magugu winning the LVMH Prize. Rich Mnisi doing Milan Fashion Week. Moments like that for me make anything. Moments like that for me are the most affirming.

9. Which brands and artists would you like to collaborate with in the future? 

I’m not a big fan of Kanye but I really love Yeezy and the direction that it’s taking. As much as I’m working with Adidas, I would love to go deeper into Yeezy like that. Of course, I want to be a FENTY girl so, so, so bad. All the luxury brands - not necessarily as a model but as a muse nonetheless. I would love to be a DIOR girl, I would love to work with YSL but most mostly, I want to be a FENTY girl. 

10. And lastly, which words of advice would you give to artists who aspire to manifest their dreams in this creative industry? 

I would say be yourself. It’s not a joke, really be yourself. Everyone always says this, and it sounds corny all the time but really but it took me at least 2 years to realize, be yourself. Don’t fake it out, be yourself in such a way that even if you are being fake, you’re being fake in a way that is beneficial to you. You’re being fake in a way that is not going to hurt you in the end. You’re doing chaotic things but everything you do must be aligned with you. Everything you do must not come back and bite you. Everything you do must be something that you’ve always wanted to do. Be selfish as much as you can because being selfish just means being yourself and be selfish in ways that will still benefit you. That’s what it has always meant. Just remain yourself because that’s all you’ll have. People will come in and out, but you’re gonna remain with the same person forever - and that’s gonna be you. Take care of yourself, you know what’s good for you, you know what hinders you. You know what you need to do, so just do enough of that to keep yourself going. 

[hamliet]

Hello! May I ask something about writing? I want to write a POC as one of my main characters and give her unlikable traits at first before she becomes a better person, but I'm kinda afraid it accidentally comes out as racist... Likewise I wanted to write another POC character as villain, but now I have doubts for the same reasons. Do you have any advices on this? I'm sorry if I say something offensive or insensitive in this ask, I assure you it is not my intention. Thank you!

Hi! First of all, I am not a POC, so my opinion isn’t to be taken as expert by any means. But I can share a little about what I’ve done, which does start with talking to a POC person and/or reading articles they’ve written, like this. I strongly urge you to read that piece, as well as others by this author, because I believe he does address your concept better than I can.

As for your specific concept, it’s hard for me to comment because I don’t know what you mean by “unlikable.” Is it unlikable, as in the readers will loathe her, or is she flawed with unlikable and likable traits? Are her flaws in any way drawn from harmful stereotypes related to perceptions of her ethnicity? I’d try to avoid  those (and keep in mind that making a POC a perfect person can actually play into harmful stereotypes as well, and seems like tokenism rather than portraying a complex character).

The complex reality is that some people--from the same ethnicity--might be offended and some might not. You’ll probably realize this when doing your research as well. There are varied experiences, and not everyone agrees on what is or isn’t offensive, but that doesn’t invalidate their identity. I mean, there are some things that in general I think we know the majority will find offensive, but there are lots of microaggressions that--while I don’t want to dismiss the concept of microaggressions at all--will offend some and not others.

Does that mean the plotpoint should not be told, because it will offend some? I’d again say it really depends on the whole story. Sometimes the answer might be, I’m sorry this hurt you (because they’re probably not making it up that it did), but the story wasn’t about or for you (like the Blood Heir controversy, in which Black Americans were offended by the novel’s portrayal of slavery; however, the author is Chinese and wrote it based on human trafficking in China, not on American slavery; yet it was published in the US...). (Also, I wouldn’t say this to anyone; just accept they feel like this and move on; if there’s anything valid in their critique, learn from it.) Sometimes, on the other hand (such as the controversy over American Dirt earlier this year, in which a woman wanted to write about Mexicans crossing the border for safety and it was a disaster in every way), you might need to rethink whether you’re the person to tell this story.

I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to write a story in which the primary development and conflict of my main character is about being black in America. That is not my story to tell (not that everything I write is directly drawn from my experiences). But if I write a contemporary story set in the US with a black character, it’s ignorant of me to pretend that their race isn’t part of their identity; it is. Yet I won’t wrote a story in which that defines their role in the story, if that makes sense. 

There are no simple solutions to complex systemic societal racism, which itself infiltrates publishing which is overwhelmingly favorable to white authors. But there is empathy and listening and learning, a journey that you won’t ever “arrive” at. You will keep learning and dismantling. 

#ask hamliet #writing #racism tw

[norgestan]

I’ve tried to have this discussion before, but the context of the fact that so many fans from Spain (and even the cast) say stuff like “pansexuality isn’t real” or make fun of/insult people who identify as pan and say “that’s not part of our culture” is exactly the reason WHY some fans take issue with skam espana’s “bisexuality vs pansexuality” scene more than other versions. Because you just can’t separate the intention of the scene and how +

I’m sure the creators knew it was going to be received by the home audience, from the dialogue and message of the scene. Does that make sense? I don’t know if I’m getting my point across. I just feel like so many people like to pretend that certain fans are just being hypocritical for being upset by that scene in skam espana more than the og/other remakes, but that added context IS there. (2/2)

i can totally agree with you on the first bit, i feel like there’s definitely people who have taken it too far. i myself agree with the spanish view of pansexuality yet i would never go out of my way to attack people for identifying as pan (in my ideal world everyone takes a look of what the debate should really be about so we can be civil in regards of this issue... but this is social media and stan circles we’re talking about, so LOL).

however, and at the cost of stirring this fully rotten issue one more time... how is the dialogue and framing of the scene in itself a form to validate the “pansexuality isn’t real” debate in spain??? like, let’s look at the facts. this is how the dialogue goes down like:

viri: so does this mean you’re a lesbian?

cris: no! i mean, no. i don’t know. i know i like joana, and that’s it.

eva: either way, you used to really like guys. a lot.

cris: yeah! fuck, i still like them, girl, i don’t know, i’ve always liked them.

nora: then, you can be bisexual, no?

cris: maybe. it’s just that i don’t know what the categories are, i mean, how am i supposed to know what’s mine?

viri: let’s see, there’s not that much confusion anyway? you’re either lesbian or bisexual, no? and now "pansexual” is there too, no?

nora: girl, that’s the same thing. bisexuals like the people of their same gender and the opposite gender... i think.

eva: well now, you guys are getting intense. the important thing is, [to cris] are you happy?

this is the point in which the conversation clearly deranges. when viri begins to talk about how cris could be a lesbian, bi or pan, amira is literally facepalming herself and eva is laughing in the background. when nora jumps in to correct viri, eva realizes that it has gone for too long and dismisses the two girls to shift the conversation back to cris. i actually really appreciate how awkward this entire scene feels lol, because it’s a realistic outcome and it really balances the girls’ love for cris vs their incapacity to handle this subject well, as they’re all (so far) cis and straight girls. and to an extent, that’s the intention of the scene, to show that they all have good intentions but can say the wrong things anyway (discussing cris’ sexuality when she had just told them she is not sure/doesn’t know enough, viri immediately asking if they have had sex, eva implying that cris can’t be attracted to girls because she was really into guys some months ago and then the comment about their sex life, etc). and it’s the same thing that happened with lucas’ coming out scene in s1: eva told lucas that she and jorge had discussed the possibility of him being gay, and then she fires back at him with the whole cristian drama. but in both scenes, the important thing is that despite their ignorance regarding conversations of LGBT+, they’re supportive of them and there for each other, and in the long run, willing to learn and create a safer space for them (see: lucas’ youtube video where eva and him discuss homophobic microaggressions). and of course there’s never gonna be a perfect reaction: skames did a really good job showing a realistic coming out that is positive for the protagonist and in line with its imperfect characters’ personalities and experiences.

so like, in what universe is this scene meant to discredit pansexuality and pansexuality alone, when the phrase happens in the context where the girls are discussing something that literally NO one in the room understands? and it’s not like you have to look reaaaaally hard into it to come out with the fact that 17 y/o cishet girls aren’t the most versed about the lgbt+ community, it’s LITERALLY explicitly stated that no one is sure about what they’re talking about (cris outright says she hasn’t done any research, viri is trying to be supportive all while having conflicted feelings about cris being with a girl lol, and nora’s straight to the point “...i think”). and even then, it’s not like nora says anything incorrect: i’m pretty sure pansexual people can agree that both pan and bi people are attracted to the same group of people. and when i was in high school, most people around me couldn’t tell the difference between the two either. (way better than saying matter of a fact that pan people are attracted to genders and bi people are atracted to sexes, cough cough)

anyone could watch the scene and understand what the intention was. when i watched the clip years ago, i had no idea of the spanish perception of pansexuality and didn’t until i entered the fandom (although i had heard the discussions about pansexuality in other circles) and the scene does NOTHING to educate you about LGBT+ culture and history in spain (how can they when it’s established that these girls aren’t well-versed on the subject?). the only thing you could come out from that scene, is that these girls... kinda don’t know shit about it.

i can totally see why people can have problems with the pansexuality discourse in the skames and skamverse fandom, as well as the comments that came from the cast. and as i’ve said multiple times now, you don’t have to justify yourself if you don’t wanna watch a remake, and no one can tell you what to do about it: the decision is entirely yours. however, i completely disagree that the showrunners’ intention was to make a statement on the validity of pansexuality because of spain’s culture. and i lack the knowledge to make this point, but i find it hard to believe that the pansexual issue in skames is the only example on the skamverse of creators, actors and fans sticking up to a plotline/comment that invalidates or harms a minority group.

#answered #long post #skam españa #y'all shoudl just... blacklist my asks tag LMAO i'm very sorry

[thanksjro]

More Than Meets the Eye #32 - Nobody’s Ever Actually Dead in Comic Books

Our band of merry guys-who-weren’t-on-the-Lost-Light-in-issue-#1 approach the shattered husk of the Lost Light, in a gruesome scene that is only slightly marred by the graphic design.

Font doesn’t really suggest danger, does it? Here, for comparison, is something I slapped together in fifteen minutes (including recreation of background) using a font I got off a free font site.

Now, one could say that my version is rather derivative, flat, and arguably cliche, but you know what else it is? Appropriate for the fucking mood of having found a destroyed, hemorrhaging ship after everyone you knew disappeared.

I’m available, IDW! Hit me up.

Theorizing that this is the ship that the Coffin Rodimus came from- remember that? It was a few issues ago- the gang flies in for a closer look. The ship blood is actually something called quantum foam, which allows for quantum space travel to happen. It’s not supposed to be outside of the quantum quills, but the ship’s pretty junked up, so it is.

Because the ship is so very full of holes, the gang can set down for repairs pretty easy. They land in Swerve’s, finding it in less-than-pristine condition. They also find evidence of Crosscut having gotten creative, as a poster for the play he was working on is hung up in the room. Considering he was still writing it when he disappeared, this might seem a bit odd. But then you remember that this is a ship from the future, and it stops being so odd.

Because this is a future ship, with evidence that Crosscut did some stuff, it stands to reason that, at some point, everyone is going to come back from being disappeared.

Just to die.

Which is a bummer, but one crisis at a time.

Megatron disembarks the Rod Pod, with Ravage following, and everyone is just a touch put off by the duo. Everyone but Nautica, who proceeds to commit a microaggression.

Nautica, that’s Soundwave’s father you’re petting like a common animal.

Ravage, angered by this over-familiarity, swats at her. Skids questions letting an active Decepticon roam around, but Megatron brushes off these concerns, saying that finding any still-living crew members is more important. With that, the search begins.

The gang splits up to look for clues, despite Riptide thinking this is a horrible idea. They’re on the clock for this one- the quantum foam is liable to explode if it touches anything, and there’s an awful lot of the stuff floating around right now.

Nightbeat and Nautica leave the rest of the group to their own work, seeing as Nautica has the most appropriate alt-mode for traversing the gaps in the ship.

Man, that’s pretty cool. Wish Nautica hadn’t been regulated to being “girl best friend” for her character arcs, I would have loved to see her do some neat stuff for her own development. Guess that’s what happens when you get introduced as main cast late, and have to compete with all the faves who had dozens of issues to be established and who also don’t have to deal with the whole “token girl character” thing.

The rest of the gang- Megatron, Ravage, Riptide, Skids, and Getaway- start looking in the area they’re already in. Seems a little lopsided, but whatever.

Ravage finds someone almost immediately, identifying Ultra Magnus through smell alone. Only, it isn’t just Ultra Magnus.

The Magnus armor lays not terribly far away, having had its hands cut off to prevent the recall signal from being activated before being gut-murdered.

Gut-murdered wiTH A FUSION CANNON, MEGATRON

Of course, Megatron was forced to destroy his fusion canon after it was decided he would be joining the Lost Light, but you can buy these things off the black market like it’s nothing. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if Brainstorm had a few stashed in his lab.

As it currently stands, nobody can trust the guy who has a storied past of killing Autobots, on a future ship where the only folks who could stop him are dead. Megatron, at least, has the good sense to not argue this fact, and suggests that the boys lock both Ravage and himself up until they suss out exactly what happened.

Meanwhile, over with Nautica and Nightbeat, we run through all the weird shit that’s happened in the last day or so.

Nautica, you’ve been on this ship for months now. How did you miss the fact that the only couple within 800 miles got annihilated by way of Phase Sixer? I feel like that attack might have come up at some point.

Since they’re on the subject of spouses, Nightbeat asks Nautica if she’s married, or if she has friends. Though noting that such a direct line of questioning might get him slapped with someone else, Nautica reveals that she is single, though she does have a best friend. Nightbeat is also single, probably because he pulls shit like this.

While this conversation is going on, Nautica uses her Sonic Screwdriver wrench to open a door with the literal push of a button. Brainstorm tricked out her wrench so hard it turned into a magic wand, which is good, because they’re going to need all the help they can get now that space is literally warping around them thanks to the quantum foam.

Nautica kicks something on the elevator, and that something turns out to be Brainstorm’s mysterious briefcase. Too bad Swerve is gone, he was so invested in what it contained. Luckily, Nightbeat is just as interested.

Back over on the other side of the ship, it seems as though Megatron kept his word about not resisting, as both he and Ravage have been locked in a cabinet. Wonder how that’s going for them.

Oh, better than I expected.

Ravage is fucking pissed that Megatron joined the Autobots, thereby turning his back on everyone who supported his cause during the last four million years. Despite this grievous betrayal though, the Decepticons haven’t stopped moving. Turns out, Galvatron’s in charge now.

But only if Autobot Megatron isn’t some sort of ploy.

It’s at this point that we learn just why Ravage is here to begin with- to see if Megatron’s truly given up the Decepticons, and if he has, to murder him. But first he’d like to know why this is happening.

Megatron views himself as a monster, having perpetuated a war that ended the lives of billions, destroyed the Cybertronian way of life, ostracized his race from the rest of the universe, and killing just to have something to do. He doesn’t like feeling this way about himself, so he decided to walk away from that life by joining the other team.

Don’t think it’s quite that easy to do, but okay.

Ravage isn’t so sure that this change of heart is going to stick, still convinced that Megatron will snap back to his old self with just a bit more time. Problem is, Megatron may not have a ton of that resource left.

Didn’t they build that body in like an hour so you wouldn’t die? Yeah, no wonder it feels as ill-fitting as a twenty-dollar suit. Thing’s probably made out of pig iron and duct tape.

The lights come on before further self-reflection can be done, and the duo realize that they’ve had guests this whole time.

Someone put the kettle on.

Obviously some fucked up shit happened on this ship. Megatron isn’t so sure that it’s him who did these dirty deeds, however, as he reaches into Ratchet’s mouth and pulls out his brain. Which feels like something that doesn’t really absolve one of guilt, but okay.

Also, ew.

Back with Nautica and Nightbeat, things are getting weird.

Now, this sequence might seem confusing at first blush, but this is because the laws of reality are collapsing around them. Going by clues in the background, we can find the proper, linear progression of time, and thus is conversation. This is what is actually happening:

With the mystery of Brainstorm’s briefcase eluding us once again, we move on to see more graphic aftermaths of violence. Poor Tailgate has been nailed to the wall with a chunk of a metal beam that’s almost as big as he is. The mood lighting for this scene is gorgeous, but I’ve hit my limit for exposing y’all to gore for this issue, so you’ll just have to trust me on this one. Then they find something even more interesting.

Who’s ready for Under Cold Blue Stars… 2!

Back over on the opposite side of the ship, Riptide’s found something nasty. It’s a bunch of dead bodies!

Including, uh, Pipes.

Who already died a while ago.

Hm.

All the bodies in this room are in their alts, and it looks like they’ve all been shot and drilled into, for some reason. Skids brings up that he had a friend who could identify the placement of any robot’s brain module just by knowing what they turned into. Then he reaches into a corpse to see what the drill-hole’s all about. It makes him sick, though maybe not for the reason you might think. He gets on the phone with Nightbeat, who’s called to tell them that they’ve found Overlord.

Still locked in his weird body harness.

And decapitated.

Megatron is on the other line, calling because he’s figured out the same thing Skids has. Someone paid a visit to this ship. Someone nasty.

The gang regroups, and Nautica gets the basics on the DJD, because I guess nobody’s mentioned them even in passing in the last six months, either.

God, what do they even talk about on this ship? Certainly not their feelings.

The reason that one room was filled with alt-modes was because of Tarn’s addiction to transforming; t-cogs are easier to remove when they’ve been used recently.

We get a quick 4/5ths-page gore-fest, then it’s back to making it all about Megatron.

Maybe you should have thought about that before you FUCKING DEFECTED, YOU POOL NOODLE.

Nightbeat’s beginning to put two and two together. There’s an Overlord in the basement. That shouldn’t be, because Overlord got exploded by Chromedome when he mercy-killed Rewind. Something is off about the past of this ship.

Before he can establish his MTMTE everybody-lives-but-then-dies AU though, the quantum foam fucks with the ship. These sons of guns need to get the hell out of here, pronto.

Oh god, what now?

Ravage smells someone inside the Magnus armor, someone who isn’t a part of the usual nesting doll lineup. Megatron reaches into the Crackerjack box and pulls out one hell of a prize.

HE LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVES

Chromedome would be so thrilled, if he still existed.

#transformers #jro #MTMTE #slaughterhouse #issue 32 #maccadam #Hannzreads #incoming analysis #text post #long post #comic script writing

[eeveevie]

Salvation is a Last Minute Business (10/18)

Chapter 10: Your Head Always Loses

Madelyn returns to the New England Medical Center, and coordinates with Sergeant Danny Sullivan to keep Nick safe while the hunt for Eddie Winter continues. After delivering heart-breaking news to her partner, she travels to the state house to speak with Hancock and MacCready in the hopes they may have a lead. Later, while mourning their loved ones in a downtown church, Madelyn learns a new truth about Deacon.

“When your head says one thing and your whole life says another, your head always loses.” - Frank McCloud as played by Humphrey Bogart (Key Largo, 1948)

[read on Ao3] x  [chapter masterpost]

April 14th, 1958

By the time Madelyn and Deacon reached the New England Medical Center, the entire plaza had been barricaded, swarms of police vehicles surrounding the building while uniformed officers patrolled the perimeter, denying entry to anyone without hospital authorization. Local newshounds had crowded the emergency bay as well, clamoring for an interview with passing investigators and doctors. The chaos was more than Madelyn anticipated, the police attendance more abundant than she’d seen in recent months. The Boston Police department had been slow to respond to the increase in crime; disappearances, kidnappings and murders, most, if not all related to the gangland fight for territory. Rampant corruption had everything to do with their indifference—nearly the entire city had been bought out by Eddie Winter. She had every right to be suspicious of their presence, unsure of who to trust.

Piper had instructed them to enter through the side entrance, but Madelyn wasn’t convinced they’d be let through. Even if she managed to push forth some charm and use her credentials from the District Attorney’s office, it wasn’t a guarantee. The two circled the crowd, looking for a way forward. While Madelyn scanned the sea of people for a familiar face, she couldn’t help but glance to Deacon, who was uncharacteristically keeping his distance a few paces behind. He had donned his black wig and shielded his eyes, hiding any trace of the man she’d seen in her bed when she awoke just a few hours prior. For all the times he’d shown her comfort in the past, he wouldn’t touch her now, hadn’t done so since she roused from fainting.

The usually chatty Railroad agent was quiet now too, hardly speaking a word as they traveled from her apartment to downtown. Combined with the grief of Jenny’s death, Nick’s fate, and Winter’s whereabouts, Madelyn couldn’t make room in her heart for the turmoil their rift caused her. Separated by a few inches, it might as well have been miles with how her chest was aching. She clenched her fist, nails biting into her palms so she wouldn’t be tempted to reach out to him, desperate as she was to feel his hand in hers.

As they approached the entrance, a police officer predictably held them back with an outstretched hand, silently deferring to the throng of reporters. Madelyn dug through her purse for her identification, but the cop would not take the paper documentation, or give it a second glance.

“My partner is Nick Valentine, he’s a patient here. Jennifer Lands is—” she hesitated—was—and found her voice again. “Please, you have to let us through.”

The officer shook his head. “Ma’am, this is a secure scene. We’ve had enough loonies try and make their way into the E.R. this morning, we don’t need another one.”

He turned away, dismissing her in full. If she wasn’t frustrated before, she was now. Before she could argue or suggest that Deacon make himself useful and distract the guard so she could slip inside, another person came rushing towards them with enthusiasm. The man was shorter than her, and looked fresh out of college, baby-faced without a hint of stubble. He stuck out his arm, correcting his stance when he realized he’d shoved his notepad in her direction instead.

“Buster Connolly with the Boston Bugle,” he greeted in a rushed voice, as if his press credentials weren’t pinned to his coat. “Did you say you were with Nick Valentine? I could’ve sworn I recognized you! You’re the broad he’s always with, right?”

Beside her, Deacon bristled, but remained silent. She smiled politely, used to the microaggressions based on her gender that almost always erased her career accomplishments. Did anybody remember she was a lawyer anymore? Judging by how young Mr. Connolly was, his mishap was forgivable. Still, she was wary of his sudden interest and refrained from greeting him in kind—the Boston Bugle had its own problems with corruption when it came to covering Eddie Winter’s crimes.

Buster anxiously glanced to his notes. “Can you confirm the validity of the rumors that Eddie Winter was shot and injured sometime within the last forty-eight hours, and that there is currently a manhunt underway to locate him?”

Madelyn maintained composure, even as the memory came back in full force, flashes of Winter taunting her as he crushed her windpipe until she found the strength to fight back. Regret gripped at her with vice-like talons—if her aim had been deadlier, Buster wouldn’t be asking her these questions. If she’d had the nerve to kill him when she had the chance, Jenny would be alive.

“No comment,” Deacon answered for her, and she nearly flinched when his hand rested softly on the small of her back.

The young reporter frowned, flipping through more pages. “I have been tracking leads and rumors all across town, following the Valentine Detective Agency’s progress. Seems to me you’re the only ones that give a damn. There’s way more than what the police and media are telling us, but the higher-ups won’t let me publish anything on a whim.”

“I don’t have the same freedoms as that Public Occurrences paper does,” he lamented, practically staring at her in a similar way Dogmeat would when begging for table-scraps. “You gotta help me out. Is what they’re saying true? Is Eddie Winter behind everything that’s gone wrong in Boston?”

Piper’s voice echoed in her mind—freedom of the press—and she nodded.

“Yes,” she responded. “Yes, its all true.”

Buster scrambled to a fresh page, eager to write down the details, but he wouldn’t get a chance. The officer at the side entrance turned to face them again, pointing at her and Deacon.

“Miss Hardy was it?” he questioned, sheepishly. “I’ve been instructed to let you by. Sergeant Sullivan is inside waiting. He’s should be at the nurse’s station.” He instructed, pulling back one of the barricades so they could step through. “I uh…sorry about before.”

She nodded. “Thank you.”

Just as Madelyn stepped through the doorway, she looked back to Buster, who was observing the entire exchange from the sidewalk. “Write the article.”

The inside of the hospital was just as bustling as it had been outside, nurses and doctors scrambling to work around the cops and detectives crowding the halls. Last night the emergency room had been a ghost town, but today almost every bay was occupied with freshly injured. In the center of it all, Sergeant Danny Sullivan stood, directing his men to different areas of the building and reading over reports passed to him by passing officers.  

“What the hell happened?” Deacon muttered, surveying the mayhem.

Madelyn wondered the same, moving to where the Chief Sergeant was dismissing the last of his force. “…and send an extra squad to city hall. Don’t know if the bastard is brazened enough to attack the mayor, but after this…”  

Sullivan rubbed at his jaw, deep in thought before performing a double-take in Madelyn’s direction. Instantly, his expression transformed into one of deep sorrow—a look she was all too familiar with. She wasn’t about to dismiss his sympathy, however, regardless of how new their alliance was.

“Miss Hardy,” he sighed, with a small shake of his head. “I didn’t think we’d be seeing each other again so soon, under such…grim circumstances.” His eyes flickered to where Deacon stood to her left, his hand still pressed against her back. “Is this your…?”

Sullivan’s subtle suggestion made Deacon drop his arm to the side, and she straightened, sucking in a breath so she wouldn’t overreact. In the past, he would’ve jumped at the opportunity to joke about being her significant other. Given the situation, it hardly seemed appropriate now. Nevertheless, the loss of contact left her cold. She steadied her resolve, knowing it was not the time to worry about her tumultuous feelings for the man.

“Sergeant Sullivan,” she greeted with a small gesture. “This is Deacon. I may have mentioned his work with the agency.”

“What is it that you do, exactly?” Sullivan asked, light eyes studying him carefully from head to toe as they shook hands.  

Deacon offered a small shrug, a glimmer of his usual self shining through. “That’s a need to know basis.”

Madelyn redirected the conversation, needing answers to the questions burning in her mind. “What happened?” she asked, voice breaking as she fought back a sudden wave of emotion.

Sullivan released a long sigh. “What we gathered from witness reports is that a group of Winter’s men attacked the hospital just before daybreak. They took hostages, including Miss Lands. A police force showed up, but it was a mix of his pocketed men and straight cops. All hell broke loose as soon as I arrived on scene.”

He pointed to the various medical bays. “We’ve got a few downed officers, two nurses, and one of Eddie’s,” he swallowed, the grim expression returning. “One fatality.”

Jenny.

Madelyn nodded, shifting her gaze to a far corner where the lights were dimmed, curtains drawn tight to prevent entry. Outside, two heavily armed officers stood guard, giving the appearance they were protecting a priceless set of jewels rather than a corpse. Jennifer Lands was precious, however, deserving of such safeguarding. The guilt threatened to suffocate Madelyn as she thought—if only Jenny had been under such careful protection when she was alive.

“Where’s Nick?” she barely managed to ask.

“Safe. He woke up an hour ago,” he explained with a deep frown. “He doesn’t know about…” Sullivan shifted uncomfortably. “He’s under the impression we’re here because it was a failed attack on his life.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t?” Madelyn countered.

“Until Winter is caught, I don’t think any of us are safe,” he responded. The sergeant further contemplated her question, fingers tapping at his chin. “I’d like to move him to a new, secure location, but I’m not sure if he’ll agree.”

At least Sullivan understood who he was working with. Nick wasn’t conscious when she’d set up their arrangement, and even before the Eddie Winter case, had never gotten along with the sergeant or Boston’s finest. Considering he was awaking to a new reality in which Eddie Winter was still free and his fiancé was dead, Madelyn wasn’t sure how her partner would react.

“I’ll talk to him,” she said, realizing she’d be the one to tell him about Jenny’s fate—a heavy burden, but it wouldn’t be right if the news came from anyone else.

Sergeant Sullivan escorted the two around the nurse’s station to the opposite side of the emergency bay, to the farthest room with a door. The blinds in the window had been drawn shut, either to stop bystanders from peeking in, or to prevent Nick from seeing more than necessary. A well-dressed detective stood guard, nodding to his superior as they approached. On the other side of the door, a body stood from the row of waiting-room chairs.

“Blue?”

Madelyn didn’t hesitate to embrace Piper as her friend rushed towards over, arms wrapping around her in a tight circle. The usually sarcastic and chipper reporter was now sobbing, face burrowed in the fabric of her friend’s coat. Madelyn consoled her, fighting back the tears that threatened to spill over—if she lost poise now, she’d never be able to face Nick.

“It all happened so fast,” Piper’s muffled voice whispered by her ear. “Jenny—she, she’d stepped out for only a minute and the next thing I knew, Winter’s men were attacking. I shouldn’t have let her out of sight—”

Madelyn hushed her, wanting to take away the blame. If anyone was responsible, it was her—for letting Eddie Winter escape and live out his revenge plot fantasies. Nobody else deserved to shoulder the weight of that blame. Piper slowly pulled away, rubbing at her eyes before releasing a shaky breath. She regarded the two men standing astride with mild discontent but quickly refocused on Madelyn.

“I couldn’t tell Nick,” she spoke, the devastation and exhaustion clear. “He was too delirious, wanting an update on Winter, asking about you…” Piper pursed her lips, preventing herself from weeping once more. “Asking for Jenny.”

There was no stopping the tears now, hazing her vision as she blinked them away so they’d slide down her cheeks. With a small nod, she moved to open Nick’s door, but Piper stopped her, turning her away for one last hushed exchange of words.

“Did—did something happen between you and Deacon?” she asked, glancing over her friend’s shoulder to where he was standing out of earshot with Sergeant Sullivan. Was it that obvious? Madelyn didn’t have the time to explain it was more of a non-event that was causing the palpable tension in the air.

She frowned, wiping the tears from her cheeks. “Not now.”

For once, Piper didn’t dig for more information. The two exchanged one last solemn look before Madelyn slowly let herself into the hospital room. The fluorescent lighting wasn’t as harsh in the small space, but the smell of antiseptic tickled her nose. Nick was propped up in the bed, the thick swath of bandages visible through his gown. He was still connected to an IV, and judging by the way his head rolled, they were keeping his pain managed.

“Hey doll,” he rasped, the green of his eyes dull when they slid open to look at her in the doorway. “Why all the tears?” his lips pulled to the side in some semblance of a smirk. “I’ve never felt better.”  

God—she choked back a sob—she was going to break his heart, and her own in the process. Hesitantly, she approached and stood next to the bed, gasping when his hand reached out grasp hers. Her knees were trembling—hell, her whole body was shaking with the overwhelming anxiety of what she had to say. Nick’s eyebrows furrowed, sensing there was something wrong. He studied her face, eyes lingering across the bruises around her neck. But she shook her head, preventing him from speaking.

“Nick,” she gripped his hand tighter, bracing herself to that spot. “I—I’m so sorry—”

He was perplexed. “What? What for?”

Madelyn didn’t miss a beat. “Jenny.”

It was all she needed to say.

Nick squeezed her hand hard—reactionary—and then simply let go. She watched his face, the clench of his jaw as the realization set in. Their eyes met, silently confirming the horrible truth—Jenny, his Jenny was dead. Madelyn had never seen Nick cry, but there was a first time for everything. Silent, as they streamed down his face and left tracks on his skin. She hadn’t known what to expect, but somehow, the subdued reaction was all the more unnerving—like his soul had departed, leaving behind an empty shell.

Then, he asked the inevitable. “Where is Winter?”

Unable to hide the truth from him, she answered honestly. “I don’t know.”  

Nick recoiled, expression swiftly shifting as the anger bubbled to the surface. “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

“I—” Madelyn gaped, stumbling over what to say. “I shot him.”

She left out the details in-between, even though the marks on her skin were clear as day. She continued, struggling to stay in check—quickly spiraling when it wasn’t fair to Nick, who had every right to his emotions.

“I had to help save you,” she explained, tentatively resting her hand against his arm. “He—he got away.”

“He should be dead!” Nick barked, tearing away from her.

Madelyn flinched at the sound of his voice, echoing through the room. She couldn’t deny him the rage, however—he was right—and it was her fault. No explanation or apologies would ever suffice for the grief she’d caused. Nick started to shift from the bed, blinded by his fury.

“I’m going to find that bastard and blow his brains out!”

The door to the hospital room swung open, two nurses shooing Madelyn away as they practically pushed Nick back into the bed, one deftly administering a sedative that had him complacent within moments, and unconscious the next. Piper and Sullivan stood in the doorway, watching intently, parting to make room for her exit. She nearly collapsed in the closest chair but knew she couldn’t succumb to the darkness yet.

“Do you have any leads on Winter’s possible location?” she asked, surprising the two with her demeanor.

“Miss Hardy, I’ve got the rest of my best men working this, and officers on loan from Salem and Nahant combing the city,” he explained, trying to set her at ease. “You don’t need to do the legwork anymore.”

“Yes,” she argued, glancing to Piper who understood the determination and remorse she was carrying. “Yes I do.”

The reporter nodded at the sergeant. “We have our own resources. Our own informants. Blue just might turn up something your best men can’t.”

Sullivan relented with a long sigh. “Please, at least take a police escort—”

“No,” she protested, flicking her gaze to where Deacon was leaning against the opposite wall, expression unreadable as ever. That is, until she spoke, and his lips twisted into a frown. “I need to do this alone.”

The group said nothing, though she wondered if any of them truly agreed with her sentiment. Regardless, she had a plan, and needed to follow through with it.

“I’ve placed my faith in you Danny,” she said, glancing back into Nick’s room with a solemn expression. The sergeant silently nodded, understanding her meaning. “Don’t make me question that choice.”

The Old State House used to be the seat of Massachusetts government, until the New State House was built to replace it, standing tall for over a century. While Mayor McDonough occupied the new building and city hall, the Old State House doubled as a museum and John Hancock’s base of operations. One of the last places of refuge in Scollay Square, the mayor’s brother had built a reputation for himself as a trusted member of society. Still a somewhat shady character—you wouldn’t want to double-cross him—but he took care of his own. Fed the hungry, ran grassroot campaigns for the underprivileged, and was currently running a fierce campaign in an effort to kick the older McDonough from office. While Madelyn had limited run-ins with the man in the past, she knew he was somebody she could trust. Especially when it came to helping Nick and hunting down Eddie Winter.

Of the people, for the people—she regarded the red banner strung from the overhead balcony before entering the building, noting the sign that directed her upstairs if she was looking for ‘the offices of Mr. Hancock’. On the second story landing, she was greeted by a familiar face, though his actions were troublesome.

“Robert?”

MacCready grimaced at the formal use of his name, briefly pausing in his pacing to regard her as he took a long drag of his cigarette. He had never quite looked his age, but right now, he looked even worse for wear.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, glancing around. “Is everything okay?”

“I should be asking you that,” he responded, shaking his head. “Heard what happened at the hospital. To Nick,” he frowned, stopping to frown. “To Jenny.”

“But Eddie Winter is still out there? And here I am, a rat that helped you guys chase him down!” he continued, rushing through his words as he smoked through one cigarette and lit another. “I could be next!”

Madelyn sighed, wringing her hands together as she listened to the fear in his voice. Sullivan had made a similar notion—nobody was safe. As long as Eddie Winter remained free, anybody could be his next victim. She was about to offer her sympathy when the door behind him creaked open, revealing Hancock.

“Look who it is,” he greeted with an easy grin. By his side, a young boy was holding his hand, nervously hiding behind the trail of his red coat. “Did I mention how your pacing is scaring the kid?”

MacCready straightened, flicking his half-smoked cigarette to the ground, snubbing it out with his boot. “Sorry.”

“You ask me to babysit, and this is the thanks I get?” Hancock softly laughed, encouraging the young boy to step out from behind him. He crossed over to the mercenary, gripping his hand instead, switching his curious gaze towards Madelyn.

“This is Duncan, my son,” MacCready explained. “Can you say hi to the pretty lady?”

She smiled, maybe for the first time that day as Duncan waved his little fingers in her direction. “Hello.”

Hancock noticed her disposition and waved her over to his office. “Okay, the grownups are going to chat now,” he teased, earning an eyeroll from MacCready. “Bye-bye Duncan!”

“Bye-bye, John,” the little boy responded. “Bye-bye, pretty lady.”

Hancock hovered his arm around her waist as he led her inside, gesturing her to sit in the large, leather chair before his desk. Instead of sitting in his chair, he leaned against the sturdy oak, and crossed his arms.

“First, I want to offer my condolences,” he said, lips twisting into a grimace. “I know Nicky and I aren’t close, but it ain’t right what they did to Jenny.”

Madelyn nodded, twisting her fingers into the fabric of her dress. “That’s why I’m here, actually.”

“What, for sympathy?” Hancock smirked.

“No,” she furrowed her brows, remembering how difficult the man could be. “For help. Eddie Winter. He’s still out there. I want to know if you know anything, if you’ve heard anything.”

Hancock’s eyebrows jumped up in surprise, but he relaxed. “That’s a big ask, sister. But I’m happy to oblige. Winter is no friend of mine.”

“There were rumors that the police knew Eddie was planning on going after Valentine and Jenny, but it seemed so outrageous that nobody wanted to believe he’s be so brazen to go after a civilian.”

Madelyn knew there was truth to that based on the holotape with Eddie Winter’s vague threat. To hear there was more behind his recorded warnings, that the police knew—she was horrified. Though, it explained why so many corrupt officers showed up at New England Medical Center, only to cornered by Sullivan and his team. Jenny’s death, it seemed, was inevitable.

“I’m going to say something controversial, but hey, its kind of my shtick,” Hancock shrugged. “Did you ever stop to think Jenny was allowed to die, so they’d have something concrete to go after Winter for? This city doesn’t give a shit about mobsters being offed. But a beautiful, innocent dame?”

He cocked his head to the side, raising his hands. “Talk of the town.”

Her gut reaction was to stand and punch the blonde man’s grin off of his face. Reason and sensibility held her back as she thought about what he was suggesting. One person came to mind.

“Do you know anybody at the Boston Bugle?”

“Why?”

Madelyn shifted in her seat. “If we can’t find Winter the old-fashioned way, it’s time to lure him out. Scare him out with what we know. Piper’s tried with her smear campaigns, but it isn’t enough.”

Hancock nodded, understanding where she was heading. “Yeah, I got connections. And if they aren’t willing, I can be…persuasive.”

She stood, grasping his hand in a firm handshake. Surprisingly, the man pulled her into a loose hug, patting her affectionately on the back. When he pulled away, there was a subdued smile pulling at his lips.

“Whatever you need, sister.”

It was late by the time Madelyn left the Old State House, and common sense told her it was best to head home. Yet, she refused a ride from Hancock and neglected to share a cab with MacCready, insisting she would be fine on her own as she wandered aimlessly down the sidewalk. Walking alone in the dead of night in Boston Common—any rational person would call her crazy. Maybe she had a death wish. Or maybe, she was hoping Eddie Winter would surprise her from some dark alleyway and she’d get a second chance at taking him down. Realistically, though, she wasn’t sure if she’d be capable even if with a new opportunity for revenge. That belonged to Nick, and Nick alone.

Madelyn headed west, lingering for a long moment by the park gates. She hadn’t been there since early January, and before then, she had avoided the area ever since Nate’s murder. Instead of drifting towards the spot in the street where she’d lost a part of herself years ago, she stared down at the strip of red brick that signified the Freedom Trail. She studied the bronze plate, frowning at the red paint that had faded over time.

“Dame like you shouldn’t be out this late.”

Deacon. She twisted around to find him leaned against the nearest streetlight, hands tucked deep into his coat pockets. It mirrored their first—second—meeting, albeit the tone and dynamic between them had changed significantly since that cold, snowy night. Even so, she was glad to see him, heart a nervous pitter-patter in her chest when she thought about the circumstances keeping them apart.

“Nice to know you’re still following me around,” she responded lightheartedly, offering a small smile.

He approached—careful measured steps before he was standing in front of her with a similar, hesitant expression. “Of course,” he replied. “Someone’s got to.”

“Come on,” he said next, raising his arm to silently encourage her to link elbows.

Madelyn reciprocated, savoring the sensation, unsure of how long the physical contact would last. They had crossed an unspoken boundary—almost kissed—and now, she feared their bond would never be the same. It was selfish of her to want more, how greedy she felt to have his hands on her body, but it wasn’t meant to be. For now, she’d take what little comfort she could get.

She didn’t ask him where they were going as he led them further away from Boston Common, closer to Trinity Plaza and the library. It wasn’t until they circled the street corner and paused that she realized his intended destination—Trinity Church. The tall building, with its exquisite arches and stonework, stained glass windows shimmering in the moonlight stood as a sanctuary in the center of the Back Bay district. A beacon of hope to many, but to Madelyn, the sight made her anxious.

“Come on,” Deacon encouraged again, gently tugging her along when her feet didn’t budge from the sidewalk. She steadied herself, gripping his arm tight as she moved. If this is where he wanted to go, then she could find the resolve to follow.

Inside, the church was devoid of congregants, the lone priest silently acknowledging the two as they passed through the corridor and between the many rows of pews. Deacon led her towards the front corner of the expansive building, their footsteps echoing off the vaulted ceiling as they went. He stopped before the small dais of burning votive candles and shifted his arm to gently hold her hand. Growing up in a devoutly Catholic home, she was more than familiar with their intended use, and figured Deacon shared a similar upbringing—with all his biblical references and insistence on Railroad safehouse locations being abandoned churches, she’d be surprised if that turned out to be another one of his lies. She was only confused as to why he’d brought them there now. Madelyn couldn’t remember the last time she’d prayed, let alone in a church, and she hadn’t lit a candle for someone since Nate’s funeral. The memory had her trembling, squeezing Deacon’s hand so she wouldn’t collapse to the floor in a fit of tears.

“Remember when I said it couldn’t get much worse?” Madelyn recalled, swallowing the lump in her throat as she watched the flickering flames. “I’m afraid I was lying.”

“I do it all the time,” he responded with a cynic, half-smile and then reached out for a loose taper, passing one to her free hand. She dipped the end into the flame before passing it along to a new candle, watching as the wick ignited.

“For Nick,” she whispered, repeating the action for another name, the prayer silent in her mind. “For Jenny,” her voice wavered as she thought about how fresh that grief was. Some wounds never healed. Her vision was hazy with tears when she spoke again, lighting one last candle. “For Nate.”

Deacon’s grip on her hand tightened and she glanced to him, watching intently as he mimicked her movements, lighting his own candle. She figured that lone flame signified all the Railroad lives that had been lost—friends and colleagues that he couldn’t protect—like High Rise, or Henry.

He sighed. “For Barbara.”

Madelyn stared at his profile, unable to respond. An overwhelming sense of curiosity was begging her to ask—but she remained silent, releasing a shaky breath only when she realized she’d been holding it in. He turned his head, ever so slightly, and she knew he was looking at her through the darkened shades. She could feel the rapid beat of his pulse along his wrist, terrified he would pull away. But he stayed perfect still, just watching her.

“I’m a liar,” he suddenly spoke, not in the usual teasing manner he admitted to. This was anguish—regret. “Everybody knows it. I make no secret of it. Because the truth is, I’m a fraud. To my core.”

She didn’t know what to say, baffled at where this sorrow was coming from. Then again, maybe the events of the last few days, weeks and months had finally caught up to Deacon, and she had been the catalyst. Pushing him too far by asking too much of him, revealing too much of his true self. As if she didn’t have enough regrets.

“When I was young—God, how long ago now—I was…” he winced, eyebrows knitting together. “I was scum. Violent—”

Madelyn interjected. “We all make mistakes.”

“These weren’t just mistakes,” he protested. “You have no idea what I did.”

She gave him the chance to explain, and he did, continuing with a heavy sigh.

“Freshman year at Massachusetts Bay, I ran with a gang,” he started. “This was when all the crime families still had their footholds in Boston, and the Gunners had their fair share of crime statistics. We were the University Point Deathclaws—sounds cliché, but we were ruthless. Terrorized South Boston and Quincy just as much as those Gunner bastards.”

“Were you really that bad?” she asked, chest tightening. Madelyn wasn’t sure if it was in fear of the truth, or sadness that he’d held this back from her for so long.

“Worse,” Deacon muttered, turning away. “We kept egging each other on. Started with some property damage, graduated to some beat downs. Then, inevitably, a murder.”

Madelyn refrained from reacting, even though her heart was racing—so loud, she could hear it pounding in her ears. He had to be selling her another one of his lies, but there was a certain level of sincerity in his tone that told her otherwise. It was all true. He didn’t say anything for a long time, fingers twitching in her grasp, unable to look in her direction.

“Believe me when I say I didn’t know what they had planned to do that night until I was called up to help dispose of the body. That was enough for me,” his jaw tightened. “It was his eyes. Those eyes haunt me.”

Deacon continued, the burning candles reflecting off his shades. “As soon as I was able, I turned my brothers in, turned witness for the prosecution, and walked away scot free. It wasn’t fair, but back then, I only cared about getting as far away from the Deathclaws as possible. I broke all contact, transferred to D.C. and moved on with my life.”

“Then one day I found someone,” he said, pausing to release an uneven breath. “She saw something in me I didn’t know was there. Barbara, well, she was…She just was. I didn’t deserve her, but I married her all the same.”

Madelyn swallowed down the pain that burned at her throat, unable to ignore the way her stomach twisted into knots. Another woman—a woman who had loved him, and who he had loved in return. She cursed at the jealous thoughts running through her mind, knowing she had no right to them. Not when she had experienced a similar past—a profound love that had slipped through her fingers, lost forever.

“We were trying for kids,” he admitted, digging the knife in further—but he had no way of knowing that she and Nate had similar plans before his death. “Being with her made me feel like the whole world had a chance. She could do that to people.”

It was incredibly difficult to force herself to speak, to sound genuine. “She sounds special.”

“She was,” he responded. “The Claws found out about where I was, came to get their revenge. There was…blood.”

“I—I’m so sorry,” her breath left her in a strangled gasp. Even though she could infer the answer, she had to ask. “They…they killed her?”

Deacon glanced her way. “Yes.”

“I don’t remember much clearly after that. I know I killed most of them—self-defense maybe, but I must’ve made a big impression. The Railroad made contact, helped me disappear. They were sympathetic, seeing I’d just lost my wife. And, well, what I did afterwards.”

“I had no idea,” she murmured, shellshocked by his confession. He’d killed—found the revenge she’d been denied after losing a beloved—she wasn’t sure if she should be terrified of him, or in awe.

“Nobody does,” Deacon replied, nearly broken. Her heart leapt at the realization—she was the only one that knew. “I don’t even know why I lie anymore. But I can’t tell the truth. Everyone—Tom, Dez, Carrington, you…” he trailed off with a despondent sigh. “They deserve to be in the Railroad. I don’t. I’m everything wrong with this whole fucking Commonwealth, just as bad as Winter’s men who’ve been murdering and corrupting the city.”

“Charmer, you’re—” He squeezed her hand like it was the only thing keeping him rooted to that spot. “I don’t deserve—”

The words died on his tongue, leaving her to speculate what he couldn’t say. Madelyn always knew they were two sides to the same coin but didn’t realize how alike their pasts were. They had walked mirrored paths to end up in that exact moment, clasped hand-in-hand like two converging souls finding their way back to one another. Nothing had ever left her so confused, yet so full of clarity at the same time, every past flicker of emotion she’d held for him validated in one single moment. Fate had brought them together—a cruel fate—but fate nonetheless, and Madelyn didn’t want to let go.

“Why tell me the truth now?” she asked, barely above a whisper.

Deacon’s response was an action—simple enough—the gentle swipe of his thumb across her fingers, over the spot where she should’ve been wearing her wedding ring. She understood immediately, thinking back to the shared moment in her apartment and his hesitation to kiss her. But now, he’d lowered his emotional guard, let her beyond the walls where no one had been in years. He needed her to accept him for who he was—not just devoid of his disguises and gimmicks—but without the lies and stories. All the flaws, the mistakes—he needed her to understand he was still seeking atonement for the past.

So was she.

Madelyn caught him off guard when she turned towards him, gently tugging on his hand so he’d face her properly. He stared at her expectantly, lips parted as if he had something to say. Their conversation still weighed heavily on her mind—she wanted to kiss him, but there was still too much grief consuming her heart. Without saying another word, she wrapped her arms around his torso, pressing her face against his shoulder as she hugged him, hoping it would be enough. Instantly, his arms enveloped her, tucking her tight against his chest as he rested his chin on her head. Wrapped in the warmth of his embrace, she felt at peace, listening to the pounding of his heart.

“I’m in your corner, Deacon,” she said, quietly mumbling the words into his shoulder, echoing a sentiment he’d shared with her before. “I’m with you, till the bitter end.”

#fallout 4 #noir au #deacon x f!solesurvivor #madelyn hardy #deacon #nick valentine #piper wright #robert joseph maccready #hancock #danny sullivan #this chapter was the ultimate doozy in terms of ouch emotional pain #plus a tender church scene #there's some use of canon dialogue here but hey #8 chapters left? jfc

[seblaine-rph]

Speaking as someone who has autism and has been in DK for a while.. I've got some tea. And the tea is that the admins have been nothing but kind and welcoming, even more so than other rps I have been in throughout the years of roleplaying. You will most likely not post this, but hey, it needs to be said.

That’s the thing here, you’re all so ready to invalidate the experiences of multiple other people, simply because you had a better experience? I think in the political climate we’re in, we should all know better than to assume that just because you have been somewhere and felt safe, that doesn’t mean that everyone that has been there has been safe. And it’s this very reaction that is why people wouldn’t feel safe talking about why they don’t feel safe in that group. Why would anyone want to speak up about their struggles if all they’re going to be met with is:

Well I’m having a great time so clearly you can’t be having a bad one.

Here are all the ways that you having a problem has ruined everything and should make you feel guilty.

Here are all the ways that you are wrong in your feelings, and in the wrong for stating that there is a problem.

In fact I’m going to kick out the people that stood up for you and list it as “complaining and making an outburst” as the reason for being kicked out.

And because they dared to take one for the team and speak to me about the triggers other people brought to their attention, I’m going to suddenly decide that everything they do in the whole grpc is just to attack me. Now they’re a bad person, because someone asked for help and you’re a bad person for asking for help.

I’m going to kick them out and make sure everyone in the group knows they’re a piece of shit and also shit talk everything else that they do in the grpc-- because despite having my own glee rp, it’s decided that any glee rp they make is obviously an attack against me. 

Clearly, nobody has a problem because I said so and amidst all this, nobody else has complained so.... 

The clear truth is, these two weren’t vilified and kicked out of DK until they started to get an influx of apps on their own roleplay group and the admins made it very clear that they were unhappy that there was another D/s group in the tags. 

I read things myself that were very obvious examples of bullying autistic people for showing autistic traits. I ran these screencaps by people in the community that are also autistic or have learning disabilities and what I was told hurts me to my core. The same things I saw happening in DK happen to them all of the time in roleplays. Maybe people don’t realize it, but it has happened in that group. Maybe you’ll get a better understanding of it all after @disabilityrph comes out with her guide, explaining all of the ways (subtle too) that she and other people with learning disabilities have been bullied in the community. I think you’re forgetting that bulling isn’t just pushing people down physically or being obvious with insults, it’s microaggressions too. It’s having an attitude with autistic players that you don’t have with other people. Bullying can be subtle. You may have been bullied and you didn’t even realize it.

The fact of the matter is, what happened in DevilsKey was M/s activity. It was non con. What would you do if someone raped you and then was like, “Well it only happened once, so why are you calling me a rapist?�� The fact of the matter is, it happened, and that makes it an M/s rp. If that is allowed to continue to be part of the plots that people are playing with in their server (aka they are playing out the trauma caused by it), if they are going to allow non con punishments of that nature to happen in the future, then they are an M/s rp and need to be labeled appropriate so that nobody is triggered. If you can’t figure out how to dole out punishments in a way that does not break the rules of D/s by forcing kink and traumatizing people in and out of character, then you don’t belong running a D/s rp. 

Because another fact of the matter is that D/s is used by survivors of trauma as a means to overcome their past. There is no reason at all that anyone should expect non con in a D/s setting. To find it would be triggering to a lot of people. Maybe not you, but that just makes you privileged. We’re not in an era where flaunting your privilege (like you did with this anon) is cute anymore. It’s ugly. 

Another fact of the matter is that people were made to feel upset by one of the admins, and both admins allowed the roleplayers as a group to talk shit about the people who were triggered in the ooc chat. The immediate response should have been to step in and tell them that they needed to stop. There is no reason for someone to point out that people are hurt and then allow a mass attack on those people in the ooc. You were already told that the people that were triggered were feeling too anxious to come forward, so you allowed them to be attacked and proved to all of them why they should never speak to you about anything. Who would want to speak up about being triggered in a group where doing so will only end in them feeling like the whole roleplay is going to hate them by the time they wake up? Look at what you guys did to the two people that did take credit for wanting to make things right. And now me.

All of the stuff that I have seen has happened through my research indicates that there are a lot of things that need to be exposed. There needs to be accountability taken instead of trying to launch a smear campaign against people that did the right thing and stood up to bullies. 

I’m still laughing at that GLEE IS OVER, WHY ARE YOU HERE bullshit. Are you kidding me? Why are you here? It still baffles me that you guys are so privileged and so entitled that you think that you’re the only people that can be honestly and genuinely interested in the glee rp community. Which is why, after seeing your group try to shift the blame on these two people over and over and over again in different ways every time they’re proven to be baseless, I’ve just come to the conclusion that there never was an issue on your side and everything that is being done just proves the absolute lack of maturity that’s going on from your side of things. 

What do I mean by that? Well here’s the timeline of excuses, so far:

They stole DK when they made TDS.

Oh wait, TDS was made in 2017 so they’re just stealing ideas.

Oh wait, TDS has a completely different plot and CAN’T use ideas... they stole our NPCs.

Oh wait, they don’t have NPCs? They stole our OC.

Oh wait, the player created her own OC and you can’t be mad at people for writing their own muses? They made up drama in the ooc then.

That one player that wrote a Dom character was “too much like a Dom ooc” (which proves you know nothing about D/s if you think that’s an scary offense?)

You mean you have screenshots of people saying they were triggered so we can’t say that didn’t happen? Well they said this was an M/s rp and we’re upset about it.

You mean this is an M/s rp because we have M/s content so it can’t be called D/s without being triggering? Then they made people uncomfortable, we won’t explain how or why because there is none. I’ve read the entire three server’s worth of information through screenshots, I’ve seen these two interacting with people IC and I’ve seen them plotting and joking OOC right up until the point they were kicked out though.

Why would they open a Glee rp anyway? What even is Glee? Who has a Glee rp? Clearly, we’re the only ones that made our own groups innocently. These people purposefully joined our group so that they could make theirs and ruin us! (Nevermind that they have other Glee rps, and those were started months and years ago)

This is what the timeline should have looked like:

Oh, you’re telling me that I have triggered people by not labeling my roleplay group properly? People didn’t feel like they were warned about the content that was going to be in place and taking over all three servers? 

Please, explain that to me because I don’t know if I understand it correctly because I disagree with you-- but you just said people are upset and triggered, so I would like to fully understand with no malice intended, in order to better take care of my roleplay group and the people in it. 

Oh, maybe I don’t want to label it an M/s rp and maybe I personally think you can traumatize people with D/s and have it still be real D/s, but I’m going to stop the plot, take some time to research, and better understand this situation. 

Maybe I still don’t want to label it an M/s rp after doing research on D/s and trauma, because I don’t like the stigma in the glee rp community about it, but what I will do is I will put a more clear label on the main and in the server channels somewhere. That way nobody is surprised by this again, and everyone joining knows what they are getting into. None of the admins wants anyone to be triggered because they don’t expect non con. 

Then a simple addressing the issue post in the announcements channel where they explain that new information has come to your attention that has made you reconsider a few things; that things will be a little different moving forward (either you will do zero non con and never use D/s to traumatize characters or you will put a label that says that excessive force and non con can be used in this group, so it’s not traditional safe, sane, and consensual D/s) but that you know everyone will help you keep things going.

Never out that someone was upset. Never out that you don’t personally agree in the ooc chat, because you don’t want them to feel alienated or as if you didn’t listen to their concern. Don’t allow players to argue the new way of things in the ooc, let players know if they do say anything negative about it that they need to be mindful of other players in the group as well, because everyone has thoughts and feelings. With your secret knowledge that people were triggered, you should have known better than to let people shit talk like that. Your first concern should not have been your plot or your pride, it should have been to focus on the fact that someone was upset and you should have wanted to clearly understand why so that you could fix it. And you definitely shouldn’t have guilted and attacked your players for not being comfortable coming to you ooc. Yeah, that would be the goal and hope, but it’s not their fault that you make them uncomfortable. Trying to make it out to be their fault and attacking them for it is only going to make people even more uncomfortable with you. 

And the “outbursts” from those two players? I read it. They screencapped it when it happened, because they had been warned that they might be removed for speaking up about their friends being triggered. They said nothing wrong. Everything they said was right. One of them very politely said what I just said the admin should have, which was that nobody should be trying to make anyone else feel invalidated by hopping into the group chat to talk about how they didn’t feel uncomfortable so it was preposterous that anyone else might be. She asked people to use more inclusive language, to remember that whatever they feel... it was obvious that other people felt differently. It was obvious that people were hurting. And the other player explained how it was traumatic to people to mislabel something as D/s and when your main says “safe, sane, and consensual” but you allow NON CONSENSUAL, that it’s triggering because that makes non con unexpected. Which it is. Very much so. I think the reaction from everyone outside of Devils Key should prove that. Non con should not have to be on the banned kink list in a D/s rp because non con is already banned by the basic rules of RACK and the very phrase they put on their main. 

You can’t say a person will have a “safe, sane, and consensual” experience and then attach electrical currents to their genitals while you rape them anally for hours and damage their physical health by pouring something that’s very nearly poisonous down their throat for hours while they’re naked in the middle of town square, with a bunch of other people who are also getting non consensually abused for a full week. 

I don’t know how much clearer I can be on that. I don’t know why it wasn’t clear in the first place. The fact that bringing this up to the admins is what started this all is mind blowing. How are you going to kick people out of your roleplay for letting you know that people were triggered? How are you going to kick people out of your roleplay because they have their own group that was made in 2017? Admins are allowed to remove people at their own discretion, but this isn’t just kicking people out. This is purposefully slandering and bullying people because they dared to tell you that you had hurt people and because they dared to love the same glee rp community that we are all still trying to thrive in and THAT is DISGUSTING. 

The fact that YOU have a good time there, does not negate all of the negative experiences of other people. 

#glee rph #glee rp #glee ds rp #glee smut rp #mature rp #sebastian answers #rape tw #Anonymous