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halloweenhoneylover · 3 years

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the struggle bus

summary: spencer is the kindest human alive, which makes things tough for the reader :/ (spencer reid x fem!reader)

word count: 5.3k (a doozy kinda!)

warnings: i guess angst, but really just idiots in love (my fav trope). reader is kind of a hot mess. also, mention of overdose via multivitamin.

author’s note: hi, it’s been approx 4000 years since i last posted, but it’s just because i have no concept of ‘efficiency’ or ‘speed.’ but it’s okay. some of this is good, some of this is eh, make of that what you will. also, this is supposed to be #funny sometimes so uhhhh, keep that in mind. ALSO, the title is majorly stupid, but it was the title of the google doc, and i couldn’t think of anything else......anyways, love u!

For once, the bullpen was quiet.

Spencer was immersed in some case file, doing some work that you should have probably been doing as well, but it was approaching the late hours of the night, and you would barely be able to keep your eyes open if you came even close to trying to read or write. Your desks were situated against each other, so you shifted your gaze across the small divider to him. His sharp features were softened in the lamplight, a sight that tugged on your heartstrings, and you took a moment to just look at him. Most everyone else was gone or was too focused on getting their work done to pay attention to your reverie. Derek, if he were here, would dub you as ‘lovesick’ and shoot mischievous smirks and wiggling eyebrows in your direction, but luckily for you, he was not. Twisting carelessly in your chair with your feet propped on the desk, you chewed absentmindedly on a pen, lost deep in thought. “Hey, Spencer?”

“Yeah?” He continued scribbling on the file without so much as a glance towards you, but that was perfectly fine by you, more time for not-creepy staring.

“How many of my vitamins do you think I could eat before I died?”

At this, he furrowed his brow and neatly laid his pen down.

“That depends on what vitamin you’re taking. If you’re talking about iron supplements, the limit is somewhere around 20mg of elemental iron per kilogram of body weight. Any more than that will have incredibly unpleasant side effects like abdominal pain, persistent vomiting, rapid breathing, and coma. However, if you’re talking about Vitamin C, it’s virtually impossible to overdose, but you might get a bad headache if you supersede 2000 mg.”

“Okay, what about my gummy vitamins?”

He narrowed his eyes at you. “While it still depends on what vitamins are included, eating a whole bottle of your typical multivitamin could easily result in death.”

You mulled this over. “So, I should definitely not go home and eat the rest of my gummy vitamins tonight?”

Spencer chuckled, “I’m not a medical doctor, but yes, I’d recommend that you don’t do that.”

Tossing your head back and letting out a small groan, you protested, “But Spencer, my gummy vitamins taste so good! And I have no food at home, so I guess I either die by overdose on gummy multivitamins or starvation.”

He couldn’t help but grin at your melodrama. It could be 12:06 in the morning, and you could still somehow make him laugh. He was starting to understand that he was in too deep, but he also had the startling realization that he didn’t mind drowning if it was in you.

“You’ve got quite the predicament on your hands there, (Y/N). Maybe you should go grocery shopping with me the next time I suggest it, so you don’t end up in this situation again.”

“Oh my god, dude!” you moaned. “I told you I was actually busy; I had to take Oscar to the vet for his vaccines! I try to be a good mother to my dog, and you know I’m not an anti-vaxxer. I’d never decline time with my favorite guy without a good reason.”

Spencer’s heart was doing somersaults at the thought of him being your favorite guy. He’d won plenty of awards and medals in his lifetime, but somehow, none of those measured up to the accomplishment of being your favorite. Pride and butterflies boiled in his stomach.

“Alright, fine, I’ll let it slide this time.”

You snorted, “I appreciate your unmatched benevolence, Dr. Reid.” Locking eyes with him, you tried to dampen the lava flow of heat in your chest that erupted when he looked at you with the softest expression you’d ever seen, but you failed miserably. You had to clear your throat and look away; it was becoming all too much. “Hey, I’m gonna run to the restroom. Don’t leave without me!”

As you dashed away, a thought crossed Spencer’s mind, and he stood up and set off down the opposite hallway.

You returned a few minutes later to an empty bullpen which made you frown, and your heart sank. You had thought he was going to wait, but guess not. Sighing, you tried to not let it sting too badly when you noticed a light on in JJ’s office. You knocked and pushed the already ajar door with a quick hello? before being met with an exhausted-looking JJ.

“Hey, (Y/N). I thought everyone had left by now.”

“Nope, not quite yet,” you replied, offering a weak smile. JJ noticed and wrote it off as fatigue. “You didn’t happen to see Spencer leave a couple minutes ago, did you?”

“Uh, no, I thought he’d gone too.”

“Hm, okay, thanks anyway!”

You prepared to leave, but she stopped you, cocking her head. “Why do you ask? Is he still here?”

Leaning your head against the doorframe, you sighed. “I’m not sure. He was here when I went to the bathroom, but he wasn’t at his desk when I came back. I’m a little disappointed. We always walk out together because we’re both afraid of the parking garage at night.”

A grin simmered on JJ’s face at that fact. “Well, I could walk you out if you’d like?”

“Nah, that’s okay; I don’t want to bother you.”

There was something behind JJ’s eyes you couldn’t identify as she replied, “Alright, then. Just let me know if you change your mind.” She definitely wasn’t thinking about how you didn’t want her intruding on a you-and-Spencer tradition. Not that she minded! She’d been rooting for you both since the minute you’d stepped into the BAU, and Spencer had looked like he was about ready to melt into the floor at the sight of such a pretty girl.

“Thanks, Jayje.”

Dragging your feet a little, you made your way back to your desk to gather your things, trying to fend off the disappointment. You had gotten your jacket on and were about to pick up your bag when you heard a (Y/N)! from down the hall. Well, that was certainly not JJ. Hesitantly, you called out, “Spencer?”

He finally emerged with his arms loaded with...something, you couldn’t discern what in the dim light. His face lit up like the Vegas strip when he saw you. “(Y/N)! I didn’t want you starving or eating all of your vitamins, so I went down to the vending machine and got you a couple snacks!” Arriving at his desk, he dropped the various bags and packets on his desk, and your eyes widened immensely.

“A couple? Dude, did you buy out the whole machine?”

Slightly breathless from his quick jog back, he waved a dismissive hand. “It was nothing. And hey, look!” He picked up a bag. “Fruit snacks! Just like your vitamins, but without the part where you get really sick.”

You were astonished, to say the least. And minorly speechless too, as evidenced by your mouth that was gaping like a fish. “Spencer...this is so nice. You really didn’t have to.”

“Don’t worry about it; I’m sure you would’ve done the same for me.”

At that, your face nearly split in two, and he mirrored your grin. You thought you might pass out at his kindness, and you knew you’d be thinking about this every day for the next two weeks at least. Your expression then turned mischievous, as you tried to tamp down all of the warmth bubbling in your stomach. “Do you want to help me try to fit all this in my bag?”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

———

Garcia had been practicing her ukulele peacefully when she got the call. (Well, ‘peacefully’ might have been a stretch as she had threatened to smash the object on her coffee table when she simply could not get the finger picking pattern she’d practiced for what seemed like hours, but it was supposed to be a relaxing hobby, so yes, it was peaceful.) Huffing a sigh of relief when the caller ID said [(Y/N/N)!!] with the longest stream of heart emojis and not [hotch >:( ], she picked up with her usual air of cheer. “What can I do ya for, my loveliest, most bewitching—”

She was cut off abruptly by the sounds of your horrible, heart-wrenching sobs, and her brows furrowed in concern. “Oh no, my sweet! What’s wrong?” She had to wait a few moments for your tears to calm (somewhat) while you tried to wrangle in your breath, so you could form some sort of sentence.

“Penny!”—gasp—“Oh my God,”—hiccup—“it looks so bad!” With your last word, you tumbled into incoherent bawling once again.

“Dear, what looks so bad?” She held her phone between her ear and her shoulder as she began to gather up her things. Whatever was wrong, it was clear you needed some good, old-fashioned Garcia TLC, and she was ready to give it.

The sniffling subsided minorly, and you choked out, “Remember when we were talking the other day, and I mentioned that my hair had gotten a little too long for my liking?” Oh no, Garcia could see where this was going. “Well, I figured I’d spend our evening off getting my hair cut, and I went to that new hairdresser, and oh Penelope, it looks awful. I don’t think I can ever go out in public again.” With that, your tears resumed.

“Darling, you know I’ve been where you are, and I know it seems bad right now, but everything will be fine. Let me grab my scissors and I’ll be over faster than you can say, ‘Penny, I love you so much, you truly are my fairy godmother.’”

You paused before whispering into the phone, “Penelope, I do love you so much, and you are my fairy godmother. But please, hurry.”

And hurry, she did.

Garcia was knocking on your door a little over five minutes later, which was incredibly suspicious because she lived at least 10 minutes away on a good day, but in the state of your disarray, you were not inclined to care. She sat you down on the toilet in your bathroom, whipping out her hair care set (she had definitely spent a significant amount of time dabbling in cosmetology, and it was desperate times like this when it came in handy). Squeezing your eyes shut through most of it, she snipped here and there, trying to make the best of this...horribly atrocious cut (seriously, that hairdresser should be sued), and when she was finished, it was not as bad as when they started, but it still wasn’t great. The rest of the evening was spent watching cheesy rom-coms and baking in an attempt to get your mind off of your hair.

Everything was mostly fine until the next morning, when you realized you’d have to go into work like this, and as terrifying as that prospect was in a normal work environment, you also worked in a place with an abnormal amount of hot people. (And you happened to be developing feelings for one of those hot people, but your brain was insistent upon ignoring that for the time being.)

Already anticipating your worries, Penelope had sent a text without your knowledge to a BAU group chat that excluded you (she had one of these for every member, it just made surprise birthday party planning so much easier).

[penelope :)] please DO NOT MENTION (Y/N)’S HAIR!!!! she got a bad haircut and she feels really terrible about it and doesn’t want to think about it so do not talk about it!!!

[jennifer!] Oh, no! :( Lips are sealed!

[rossi ;)] rip.

Emerging from the elevator in the nicest work outfit you own (an attempt to distract from the monstrosity), you scurried to Garcia’s lair before anyone could see you. Once inside, you slammed the door shut, and leaning against it, you slid down and covered your face with the files in your hands. “Pennyyyyy,” you moaned. “I don’t think I can do this!”

She swiveled to face you with a look of empathy. “Sugar, I know you can. It—it doesn’t even look that bad!” But Garcia was a horrible liar, and if looks could kill, she would have been dead instantaneously.

Heaving yourself up off the floor, you came to sit in the seat next to her. “Can’t I just work in here today? And maybe for the rest of time?”

“You know I would love that, but those other lovely people on our team need you! Especially the young doctor, you know he’d be lonely without you.”

As if her mention had summoned him, Reid opened the door to their secret meeting, files in hand, and your eyes nearly jumped out of their sockets. Garcia stared at him very intensely, attempting to telepathically tell him to not mention the hair, and you looked like a deer in the headlights, trying to figure out a way to hide yourself from him and possibly the entire universe. And poor Reid shifted his gaze between the two of you, helplessly confused as to what he had walked into. “Am I interrupting something?”

“Uh, no!” Garcia said in the least convincing manner.

“Okay,” he responded, not convinced in the slightest. “I just came to give you some files from Hotch.” So, he handed Garcia the papers and then turned to leave when you caught his eye.

And because he was not the greatest with technology, Spencer had not checked his phone that morning…. Meaning he had not seen Garcia’s text. So he looked at you a moment and cocked his head. “Your hair looks really nice today, (Y/N). Did you get it cut?”

This time, it was Garcia’s turn to glare (because read your texts, dammit!), and you fumbled for a response. As you scanned his face, searching for a sign that he was lying, that he was just saying something to make you feel better, you came up empty. He was telling the truth. He genuinely thought your hair looked nice. “Um, uh—yeah. Yeah, I did. Thanks for noticing.”

“You’re welcome.” He offered you a smile, which you returned easily (a fact that surprised you). “See you.” Retreating from the office because the vibes in there were weird, he shut the door, finally leaving you and Garcia alone again.

You were reeling.

You thought about when you had gotten dressed that morning, and you had entertained each outfit with great scrutiny, trying to come up with something that might draw attention away from your hair. In that half hour you’d spent, you had realized that you didn’t really mind looking bad in front of Morgan or Emily or Hotch or really anyone on the team. Almost anyone. With an increasing amount of discomfort, you had realized you didn't want to look bad in front of Spencer. Of course, he’d never judge you, but you wanted to look good for him. For your best friend.

And he told you your hair looked nice.

You smiled to yourself.

Garcia turned to you with a look of shock on her face. Had that been anyone else, she was sure you would have curled up in a ball beneath her desk and would not have left until every single other person had left the Federal Bureau of Investigation, but you hadn’t, and she smirked.

Oh, she knew where this was going.

———

To put it lightly, it had not been the best of mornings.

It seemed that everything that could’ve gone wrong did, so you burst past the glass doors of the BAU six minutes late with a coffee-covered shirt, mud-stained pants, soggy shoes, and a most miserable attitude. Hotch, while a sympathetic man, was still your boss with rules to follow and when you stumbled into the bullpen, gave a pointed stare between you and the clock, and you nodded sullenly. You understood his silent admonition, but knowing that he was even slightly disappointed in you, made your knees want to buckle. Swallowing around the slug in your throat, you set your bag down beside your chair and noticed a foreign object sitting on your desk. Interest thoroughly piqued, you reached forward to find it was a book with a satin ribbon tied on it.

It truly was a beautiful book with a deep crimson hardcover and the kind of deckled edges that you loved. Running your fingers along the rough-hewn pages, you finally noted the title, and you gasped. Beloved by Toni Morrison. Your favorite. The cursive words curved in black on the cover to match the ribbon, and you carefully traced the curling letters, wondering where this gorgeous book could have come from.

In the desk across from yours, Spencer watched the scene in front of him with a grin. He couldn’t help but feel pleased at the look of awe on your face as you inspected the book with careful fingers and a gentle gaze, and his heart swelled more and more the longer he looked. “Did you know that Margaret Garner, the woman the character Sethe is based on, her trial was used as part of an effort to dismantle the Fugitive Slave Act?” Your eyes flickered up to meet his, and those stupid freaking butterflies erupted in the pit of your stomach as you realized who had gifted you the book. “The presiding judge didn’t accept her lawyer’s argument that the act violated the right to religious freedom, but it was still somewhat of a turning point in the movement to strike down the law.”

“I did not know that, but thank you. For the fact and the book.”

“You’re welcome.” He had to avert his eyes from your strong gaze because he thought he might melt otherwise.

“Please don’t misinterpret this as me being ungrateful because I’m so, so thankful, but why?”

He shrugged, “I was just in the book store, and it made me think of you.” No, he didn’t keep an eye out specifically for this book on his weekly trip to the bookstore by his apartment after you had briefly mentioned your love of Ms. Morrison’s metaphors. And he definitely didn’t ask the owner Alice if she would let him know if she ever got any new copies.

Frankly, you were at a loss for words. Combing back through your conversations with him, you tried to remember when you had talked about the book, but you couldn’t come up with anything other than a couple words tossed briefly here and there. Suppose it wasn’t really the fact that he had heard, but the fact that he had listened. He listened and remembered things about you, little things tucked in the back of his brain, and it was how he thought about you even when you weren’t around. So, you clutched the book to your chest tightly as if it could meld with your heart and let your thoughts rage with the implications for a minute before smothering your mushy grin and tucking the book into your bag.

(Later, you pulled it out on your ride home on the metro. Spencer had already gotten off at his stop a few minutes before, so you took this moment of solitude to revel in the glory of your new gift. Every time you smoothed a hand over the cover, your mind was overwhelmed with what-ifs. What if he felt the same? What if his stomach rumbled with the same butterflies when you looked at him? What if this means he likes you as more than…. And abruptly, you were doused in doubt once again, muzzling those dangerous, rearing hypotheticals. This was a path that would only lead to disappointment.

Those thoughts only got worse when you read his inscription, though:

Dear (Y/N/N),

I hope you find great joy in reacquainting yourself with the graces of Ms. Morrison’s elegant prose in this new copy. I was inspired by your praise and read this classic again, and I can say that I definitely understand your veneration of her story-telling. Hopefully, we can discuss it soon, so I can try to see all of the details that you so admire. You are always much better at appreciating the finer things in life.

She says that, “something that is loved is never lost.”

I hope you know that you will never be lost to me.

Sincerely,

Spencer

(P.S. I wrote this in pencil, so you can erase and have the clean copy you wanted.)

You would never erase it.)

———

“Hey, are you alright?”

You sat at your desk with your head in your hands. Your responding “no” came out muffled.

Spencer frowned and sat on the edge of your desk. “Is there anything I can help with?”

Running your hands over your face, you finally met his gaze. His eyes were soft as they searched your own, and the expression on his face was not of pity or frustration but empathy, and of course, he was just being his sweet self. Your eyes watered in response, and his heart clenched at the sight. You shifted your eyes somewhere else, anywhere else. “Uh, no.”

It was clearly a lie.

Furrowing his brows at your obfuscation, he scanned your face for any indication of what might be the problem. A small sigh. He came up with nothing. “Alright,” he conceded hesitantly. “May I ask what is wrong?”

“No.”

“Okay.”

You stared down at the files neatly ordered on your desk, trying to mentally shoo him away with the sheer force of your willpower alone. But Spencer Reid was a stubborn man, and you knew this, and you also knew he wasn’t leaving until he knew you were alright. So, you both sat in the silence of the bullpen that only accompanied the arrival of midnight. The glow of your lamp bathed the vicinity in a warm yellow, and the tick of the nearby clock rattled around your chest as you attempted fruitlessly to subdue your incessant thoughts. He was close enough that you could hear the soft susurration of his exhales as his eyes flitted about the room to give you some sort of breathing room, and you shut yours for a moment to appreciate this moment of peace before the inevitable catastrophe to follow.

“I’m—uh, not okay.”

Finally turning back to you with a mildly surprised expression (he didn’t expect you to say anything so soon. Or so bluntly.), he offered you one of his signature tight-lipped smiles as encouragement to continue.

“I’m kind of really struggling…” you trailed off, gaze empty, ensnared in your thoughts.

Ever the gentleman with persistence that could last a thousand years, he gently prompted, “With…?”

A strong gulp and eyes squeezed shut. “With you.”

Well, that was not the answer Spencer was expecting. He felt like he’d had the wind knocked out of him, and he was hollow and shaken and in pain. Gaping, he fumbled hopelessly for an answer, trying to find some reason you could be upset with him. He had always thought you two were the best of friends; he’d never doubted that before. How could he have missed this?

Swallowing hard against the lump in his throat, he strained to ask, “Uh—um, what—what did I do?”

Upon witnessing his struggle, you quickly amended your previous statement. “No, no, no, no, no! I’m not mad at you, well, I kind of am, but you don’t need to feel bad, it’s not your fault.”

“I’m not really sure what to make of that.”

You huffed a sigh and covered your face with your hands in a poor attempt to try to hide the blush rapidly coloring your cheeks. “I’m sorry, I just—you’re so nice!”

Now Spencer was really confused. “You’re mad at me...because you think I’m nice?”

“Yes, Spencer! You’re so nice, and it makes me incredibly frustrated. You see this?” You picked up a book from your desk and waved it frantically. A little intimidated by your crazed look, he nodded timidly. “Do you recognize this book?”

“It’s a special edition of Beloved by Toni Morrison.”

“It’s the special edition of my favorite book that you bought for me because you know how much I love this book.”

Spencer looked like a deer in the headlights. “You always said that your book at home was so messy with your annotations and that a fresh copy would have been nice.”

“You didn’t even buy it for my birthday or a special occasion! You just saw it in the store and said that you thought of me and had to buy it. That’s so unbelievably thoughtful! Not to mention the fact that I can barely look at fruit snacks now without tearing up. And—and the other day! When I got my haircut, I hated it, but I came in the next day, and you were the first person to tell me you liked it. You weren’t even lying to make me feel better; I’m a profiler, and I know that you were telling the truth. And it took no effort or thought because Spencer, you are the most kind-hearted and compassionate and generous person I’ve ever met. You are so—so genuinely good.

“No, you are the best. You are the best person I know,” you stated with finality, holding his stare with an unshakeable firmness. It was the first time you truly looked at him all night, and his heart felt like it was going to expand past his ribcage and burst open like a balloon. Your resolve melted though and your voice dropped to a near whisper. “And you’re not just nice. You’re nice to me. Which just makes it so hard.”

You deflated, withering into your seat.

“Makes what hard?”

“It makes it so much harder for me to not fall in love with you.”

Stunned silence.

Until it was shattered by a hiccup, and Spencer finally noticed the tears leaking from the corner of your eyes, and he tried, he tried so hard to puzzle through all of this new information and the fact that you just admitted you’re falling in love with him, and for some reason, you’re crying? He couldn’t even get his stupid genius brain to come with a single word before you started stumbling into an apology. “I know that’s not what you want to hear because we’re supposed to be friends, and I know that you’re just a good person, so you’re nice to everyone. Believe me, I know. And I’m sorry if I’ve made you uncomfortable, but I couldn’t keep holding on to this by myself, and I knew if anyone would let me down easy, it’d be you.” You chewed on your lip and avoided his stare at all costs. “So, I’m sorry.” You sniffled.

The quiet that followed weighed heavy on your chest, and you couldn’t seem to breathe. You had expected rejection; you hadn’t expected complete silence. And this was somehow so much more unbearable. In a voice so faint you weren’t even sure if he could hear, you begged, “Please say something.”

A beat.

“(Y/N), I love you.”

A whisper just barely verging on hopeful, “What?”

“(Y/N), I—I love you so much.” His heart felt like it was in his throat, and his voice broke slightly as he stood. “You’re the first person I think about when I get up in the morning, and you’re the last person before I fall asleep. I dread going home at the end of the day because you’re not there. When you’re not with me, even if you’re in the other room, it feels like I’ve forgotten something, and for the longest time, I couldn’t figure out what I was missing, but it was you. You consume my every thought, which is saying something because I think a lot. Actually, it’s kind of funny,” he chuckled somewhat morosely, “I truly cannot comprehend the fact that you don’t know how much I’ve liked you, how long I’ve loved you because it feels like it’s so obvious and so potent that it seeps out of me, whether I want it to or not.

“And I’m nice to you because no one else is more deserving of kindness. I’d be lucky if you let me be the one to remind you of that, everyday. Because you’re the best person I know.” You looked up at him with shining eyes and the meagerest beginnings of a smile, and he just beamed right back. With a creased brow, he ventured, “You’re my favorite person in the world, you know that, right?

Failing to suppress your growing grin, you nodded your head meekly. “Yeah, I know.”

“Good.”

Spencer felt pleased with himself until he remembered that he had forgotten the most important part. “Would you like to get dinner with me sometime? Like a date?”

Standing from your seat, you wrapped your arms around his neck and burrowed your face into his chest, and he immediately reciprocated, clutching you as close as he could. “I would love that.” It came out muffled, but he understood well enough as he pressed his face into your neck. And you stood like that for a few moments, just existing together, and for the first time in a long time, nothing hurt. There was no worry of unrequited yearning or pain of terrible pining; there were just two people who finally knew peace. Knew that the person they loved most in the world loved them back. Neither ever wanted to leave.

However, sometimes necessary duties like breathing take precedence, so you pulled back from him enough to finally claim some air. Your hands slid down his front, resting on his chest, his on your waist, and you just stared at him. The most beautiful face you’d ever seen looking right back at you with the same expression of awe that made you realize just how lucky you were. And slowly, hesitantly, you both leaned in ever so slightly with heads wavering and tension buzzing. Gingerly and sweetly. Neither could commit, but no one could pull away from fast-approaching revelation.

Finally, a breath away.

“Can I kiss you?”

You nodded.

When your lips met, your chest heaved with your eager, romantic hopes and dreams bubbling up near your lungs, finally coming to fruition. His hands came up to caress your jaw, and you leaned into him. His touch was so gentle, but he also touched you with intention. For once in his life, Spencer Reid felt no hesitation, kissing the girl of his dreams. And you felt held by him. You were bursting at the seams of your existence, swollen with infatuation and tenderness, yet totally and completely encompassed by him. You could shatter into a million tiny, little pieces, and he would be there to collect every shard. How cheesy.

Both of you grinned into the kiss; the sickly sweet itch in your heart was contagious. You finally released him, and wanting to savor the moment, you tucked yourself into the crook of his neck, so his chin could rest on the crown of your head. “I love you a lot, Dr. Reid.”

He hummed in agreement.

It didn’t need saying.

#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x you #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid #i hope yall see that the sentences that are syntactically similar and the parallel settings are intentional and are like stupid attempts at #motifs and that im not a stupid person :/#also #lol wtf was that ending #anyways #yo this may or may not be based on problems i be having irl #i just fall in love with anyone who is remotely kind to me #lmao #anyone else desperate for affection?? gang??#also r there any toni stans out there i luv my queen #is anyone out there? i just want friends ahh #ALSO DOES ANYONE ELSE HAVE THE OVERWHELMING URGE TO DEVOUR THEIR GUMMY VITAMINS????? IS THAT JUST ME????

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aka-thesheepgirl · 3 years

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" Yo these cookies look like lil coffins! "

Yesterday I said I wanted to be out of Tumblr for an while due to irl problems, I wanted to see if I used Tumblr less I could focus on fixing my life but if I'm being completely honest I may have overreacted due to stress-

I'm sorry for overreacting like that, though I still will probably use Tumblr less so I can see if it'll change anything (Tumblr is honestly one of the biggest coping mechanisms I have, but I recently I felt like I should use it less, just to guarantee I don't get attached to it). I don't think I can fix certain issues, but whatever I can do I'll try to fix it.

Sorry for the venting, I wanted to share this art based on a sketch I made for a friend, this is basically just me and two of my OCs, Eurolyn (with pigtails, tho normally they let their hair loose) and Ricardo (the bigger guy™) and me, Sheep. I liked the idea of drawing a scene where we're eating during lunch break, that's why I put them all on "school uniforms", I thought it would be cute, granted their uniforms are modified to fit more with their personalities/gender identity (?) (except Ricardo, he happy the way he is

:3 ).

💜 (人 •͈ᴗ•͈)🐑(人 •͈ᴗ•͈) ✨ (人 •͈ᴗ•͈)🐑(人 •͈ᴗ•͈) 💜

#sheep stuff #sheep's drawing #sheep's drawings #drawing #drawing practice #self insert #self insert art #self insert x oc #low-key? idk why but lately ive been just- Imagining these three being together more often #maybe it's the quarantine- Or maybe I'm just really lonely- Or maybe I'm poly??? and this is how I represent it???? idk #idk really #look- I'm a mess- That's all I need to know XD #lately I've been thinking I might be either genderfluid or non-binary- And I just- H u h #idk if I am really #trying to discover myself- But to be honest I don't have time for that XD #low-key venting #all of my posts are venting XD #maybe I'm just overreacting again- And this doesn't mean anything really :/#that could be it :0 #thanks everyone for being so thoughtful! and for having so much patience with this hoe XD #Sheep 💜#Eurolyn 💙#Ricardo ♥️

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kagetsukai · 3 years

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Fic Writer Meme

I was tagged a while back and I finally decided to do this. Thank you @wardenari @hollyand-writes & @roguelioness!

Name: Shan! Everybody calls me that, both online and irl, even though it’s not my real name. I’ve also been called Kage, which is fine :)

Fandoms: Dragon Age, for the most part. I’ve dabbled in Kingsman and I’m currently dabbling in The Wayhaven Chronicles having never played/read the game This is who I am as a person :P

Most popular oneshot: Afternoon Delight. I’m still incredibly amused by how popular that fic is. I still get kudos on it! It just goes to prove that porn will forever remain popular ;) Oh, and a dominant!Cullen, too. Something about a growly Cullen gets people going :P

Most popular multichapter: Dance Like No One Is Watching aka dance!fic. There’s another fic with technically better stats, but we don’t talk about that one anymore :P

Actual worst part of writing: Successfully ignoring the distractions, whether they be internal or external. The hardest part for me is to just sit down and write, regardless of what is going on around me. The FOMO is rough, yo. I’ve been trying different techniques of focusing myself on the task with varying degrees of success and it’s still a work-in-progress.

I also have a lot of problems sustaining my productivity. As a part of my development I’ve allowed myself to write however many ideas that spark my interest, just to see if I get excited about them enough that I finish any of them. Spoiler, unless it’s a month-long challenge, I haven’t finished any chaptered stories. It’s definitely something I’m working on changing ;)

How you choose your titles: I know that people often struggle with this part, but I’m not one of them. Very often I’ll be listening to a song when I’m hit with an idea and the title usually isn’t far behind. And I always have a title before I start writing a story, because I’m a very organized person with my files and I need a folder name for what I’m trying to write ;)

Do you outline: Short answer? Yes. I used to write without an outline and it worked just fine for one-shots. Then I started writing longer stories and realized that without some degree of a plan I would NOT survive the process. So I’ve taught myself to outline. That being said, I know some people who outline extensively and in detail, but I can’t let myself do that. I need some wiggle room along the way so that my brain can continue applying creativity and give the characters an opportunity to surprise me.

Another quick note here: OUTLINES CAN CHANGE. I’ve heard people hate on outlining because they feel it will stifle their creativity. The nice thing about writing on a computer these days is that you can change every single thing in an outline to adopt to a growing/changing story. That happens ALL the time. All stories grow. It’s okay to adapt to it.

Ideas I probably won’t get around to, but wouldn’t it be nice? WHERE DO I EVEN START??? Just for Dragon Age fandom alone I have: Wild West AU, Pirate AU, Architect AU, angsty Bethany/Varric, Sleeping Beauty but Cass is the prince character and it’s very gay. I think there was a Star Trek AU that was loosely based on TOS? I was going to write Krem/OC before pandemic hit and now the muses have left. I planned out an Avvar AU. Neighbors AU for Cullen and a female Adaar. I have two chapters written (and abandoned) of a Prostitute AU. I COULD GO ON.

And then I still have a story I was going to write for Kingsman that would correct a LOT of shitty writing of that movie (and so I don’t have to watch Pedro Pascal die on screen YET AGAIN). And let’s not forget a Mandalorian one-shot that’s been bouncing around my brain.

I have a lot of ideas that never see the light of day *shrug* Which is why it’s so frustrating when I don’t get to write any of them.

Callouts @ Me: JUST SIT DOWN AND WRITE YOUR FUCKING STORIES, YOU ASSHOLE that is all

Best writing traits: I’m not precious about my own writing. I don’t see words on a page as anything other than a vehicle for the story I’m trying to tell. I have no attachment to them; if they have to go, I have no qualms about deleting them. I’ve seen so many times the advice of “save your writing! you may use it later!”. I never do. Ever. I once deleted more than two thousand words in one go and felt nothing. I’m here to tell a good story and if the words aren’t serving me, bye Felicia.

Also, since I’m not precious about my writing, I am able to take people’s criticism more objectively. I am more able to see if someone is just envious of what I’ve written or if they have a legitimate criticism.

Spicy Tangential Opinion: How good you are as a writer has NO BEARING on how popular you are in fandom. None. It’s all about your connections and networking. I know people hate hearing that, but I’ve got a newsflash for ya: that’s how it works in the real world too. You can’t become a popular author unless you work your ass off connecting with people. But Shan! I’m an introvert! Well, suck it up buttercup. We’re all introverts here and no one is special. Work hard and you’ll get lucky*.

* - “luck” is when an opportunity arises and you’re prepared to take it

Damn I got salty there at the end. Sorry not sorry! :P

#Fic Writer Meme #thank you for tagging me!

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steve0discusses · 4 years

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Yugioh S4 Ep 25: Oh Hai Mai

Heyyy we’re back. Thank for bearing with me, it’s been kind of chaos over here. Everything from a pandemic (we are very sloooowly reopening over here but I’ve been quarantined so long I can french braid my damn leg hair.) to important political protests, to getting an evacuation order because an arsonist burned down 90 acres in the heat of summer (luckily we’re all fine), to a vole that ate everything in my pandemic self-care garden so I lost my entire mind and waged war and dug so many holes and put out 17 mouse traps and set off so many critter bombs under the ground trying to kill the little bastard like it was Caddyshack (It’s still alive, ps, I lost that war). These last 3 months have been the longest decades of my life. The only month longer was the one where I’m pretty sure I had mono and it made me positive that my basement was haunted.

Man, bring back my haunted basement, Sorry if this comes through in my writing, I tried but, I can’t edit it out. You get FML-Rachel today.

Lets get back to a good, mindless distraction, lets turn on Yugioh.

BUT------->it just so happens that this episode of Yugioh has cop stuff in it, I’m just going to be blunt. We’re going into Valon’s backstory, he’s very much a victim of problems within the bizarre Yugioh legal system, and much like a Gotham supervillain, he is a symptom of the problem more than the cause.

I’m not going to ignore that, but in case you are overwhelmed about that right now, if you want to like...save this for later--I have another FMA recap coming out soon that I wrote in a simpler time before....the corona freakin ruined us all.

Last we left off, we were on the heels of Joey Wheeler, who decided to book it down the street because he wants to murder the hell out of Valon.

Youknow...Joey is one hell of a protagonist. He just does...so MANY antagonistic things.

Joey has decided that although the world is ending, and everyone left alive will be absorbed into the Great Leviathon’s big yummy tummy, which can only be prevented by three people, of which he is one of--he’s going to go sprint in completely the other direction.

We even managed to get Kaiba on board. We were ready. We were done, but then Joey had to lose his freakin mind because that’s just what Joey Wheeler does sometimes.

Normally heroes avoid the call to duty because of a severe lack of self confidence, but this is Joey, and he’s going to avoid the call to duty because of too much self confidence.

And so Joey and his Chaperone turn a corner and walk into this random orc who’s just casually living his best life and touring SF.

One of my worst fears walking through SF, tbh. Running into high school people. Not so much the orcs.

Yo, I wonder what the bushman was doing through all of this? So IRL, we have this guy who just...hides in a bush and jump-scares tourists. I can’t imagine what it must be like to be in a bush and then just...all these orcs show up and you’re all.

...oh no, now I’m the fool...

I just want to know if bushman made it, or if he’s in a paper card that’s just a picture of foliage.

(read more under the cut)

Anyway, Joey was already in the process of running, so they just turned around on this street of...so much parking.

Like y’all there is SO MUCH PARKING this episode. I was trying to pay attention to anything else, but like...do you see this!? It takes nearly half an hour usually to get a spot but this--this right here?

And the crazy thing is, recently my bro had to go pick up some old guy from a cruise that...got quarantined...and so bro had to go the Pier and like--this is what the city looked like. This is a pandemic, it’s just lots of parking, so I want to criticize Yugioh, and I normally would, but I can’t. I’ve seen the receipts. They called it. This is what the endtimes look like and it’s so much parking.

Also, they were too lazy to draw cars but damn, they called it.

So, left with no other option, Joey decides to...be Joey, and punches a huge orc covered in armor.

So Valon’s here, because apparently SF has just...no one left alive in it except for these few kids and that one Uber Eats driver. I imagine it’s a lot easier to find Joey if you just follow the only one screaming in Japanese in a Brooklyn accent at the top of his lungs.

And Valon decides that this one way street isn’t good enough, and that they must duel somewhere else.

I assumed it would be a tall structure, but considering Kaiba just blew up the tallest structures in the Financial District...I was like...what else is tall? And bear in mind, I’m a mess, so I was like...OMG I wish it were Macy’s!!!

Now I hear you saying that’s weird, and we shouldn’t have a very fancy Macy’s in 2020, and you’re correct. but we still have one, and the top floor is just...a massive Cheesecake factory, and I can’t think of anything more 00′s than a Yugioh duel on top of that specific Cheesecake Factory.

And I’ve never really thought before about where the best Yugioh duel would be, and it’s there. It’s at the high rise Cheesecake. Listen Yugioh, if you need an insider to choose locations for your Netflix remake of S4--call me.

So anyways, instead of doing the right thing and going to the Cheesecake Factory on top of Macy’s like any other self respecting 00′s teenager, Valon and Joey are going to drive through the most boring parts of town.

They had an opportunity to go chase eachother through any tourist attraction, Lombard street, Ghirardelli Square, the Palace of Fine Arts, China town, reuse some assets and drive through Japan town, that fountain that looks like Yoda--but no...they decided to drive through literal trash.

Just...a missed opportunity, and it should have been a Cheesecake Factory.

Also, I totally and fully acknowledge that a strange nostalgic affection for the Cheesecake Factory is a weird Millennial thing (much like our weird encyclopedic knowledge of Sailor Moon) but listen. You have your thing, too. You go do you, I’m gonna soak my sorrows in a bowl of Chinese chicken salad so wide, it’ll last me 3 days.

Anyways, Joey’s gonna steal that guy’s bike.

Yugioh just predicting the future in 2003. We actually have a HUGE problem right now with vehicle theft in the city to an almost comedic degree, which is partly why the parking situation has gotten so incredibly dire. It’s kind of incredible that this guy left his bike out because after about 1 day in the city you learn pretty fast that you need to be constantly checking on your street parked vehicle--I mean, that guy was just asking for it, honestly. If Joey hadn’t taken it, some other guy would have absolutely taken it, (even that orc would’ve taken it, the city has no consideration for cars.)

Sorry --one sec-- that was an earthquake just now. As I’m typing this. Just a little guy. Just a little treat for me...

...but still like...c’mon. I’m also getting this weird issue where Tumblr doesn’t save my drafts so like...this is like the 3rd time I’ve had to write this like...I just want to make a Yugioh post for my tiny funtime tv blog, Universe. Don’t @ me right now, Universe.

SO MUCH FREAKIN PARKING.

...is it the space between two piers? What is this? We don’t have rivers in SF, it is a peninsula covered in very steep hills. Like very VERY steep hills. All water just rolls into the ocean and there’s a couple of lake thingies but...no rivers that I know of (And like maybe this is a thing, and I just haven’t seen it? Learn something new every day.)

*loud, audible sigh* home. Where we belong. At the warehousssssssse.

Back at the RV base, Duke Devlin is still babysitting. Maybe this is to make up for the two seasons he spent trying to date a girl Rebecca’s age, that they felt like going out of their way to show that he has indeed no longer horny now. Got to hand it to them, that’s a lot of character development right there. Although at the same time, it has made Duke Devlin a very non-character.

But imagine how insanely complicated would it have been if Duke got involved in that bizarre love-square that is Yugi, Tea, and the Ghost that killed Yugi by accident.

PS that’s either a freeway onramp (which is too far South from where they were, I think) or it sure does look like old Embarcadero behind them. Youknow, that lifted street from the 80′s that fell down in Loma Prieta and was never rebuilt? I just freakin love that it’s still here in 2003. This bizarre Yugioh alternate California.

Anyway, because this is alternate California, Seto set a massive fire and the entire city didn’t immediately go up in flames. Apparently they just kinda ran away from the explosion and damage before anyone noticed.

Probably because most people on Earth are dead anyway, so what more can these two actually do?

And so Yami ends up getting lectured by the wife.

And justifiably, the wife seems to have absolutely no confidence that Yami will be able to do a damn thing right.

Wifes all around this episode.

Speaking of,

At this point, Arthur Hawkins senses that Yami’s nearby, so he opens the door just to freakin dump some guilt on him.

...Rebecca seems to be a character that’s mostly there to recap the lore and also to dump on Yami. I don’t mind that. Yami needs to get dunked more often, and I’m saying that in S4, where the entire season’s tagline is “how many times can we dunk on Yami?”

So lets check on Yugi, how’s that kid doing? It’s been quite a number of episodes since we last saw him.

Yep, still hanging out in the Han Solo cosplay room.

And then, because I guess everyone is just hanging out in the same 4 blocks, Mai and Tristan have a heart-to-heart.

In the show, this conversation was Mai (who is now a serial killer) saying “Oh hey, Tristan, where’s Joey?” and Tristan saying “It’s ALL YOUR FAULT he wants to kill Valon--thanks a lot, Mai! GODS!” all indignant like.

Not how you would ordinarily talk to a serial killer, just saying. No one from the Yugi crew fears this woman...at all...and she has killed over 20 people in front of them and is trying very hard to kill Joey Wheeler all the time.

Like what would it actually take for them to fear this woman? They can’t, right?

Meanwhile, Valon is trying to explain to Joey that his obsession with Mai is in fact damaging any relationship they could have had.

So then when you’re like OK...this is actually very valid points on Valon’s part, and Joey really does need to step back and let people make their mistakes considering Joey was barely a part of her life to begin with. But then, Valon just turns a 180 and...it becomes a catty love triangle where only one person in the triangle even feels romantic emotions.

I just...so Valon is doing this fight because he thinks Mai is in love with Joey.

This whole time I was like “well maybe it’s more that Valon is trying to defend Mai’s right to make her own choices” but no...he just straight up thinks Mai is in love with Joey. And, in fighting Joey, Valon himself is ignoring Mai’s life choices

Just a whole lot of misunderstanding that would have been fixed with better ways than dueling with cards. At least that one guy in S2 who tried to marry Mai actually dueled HER instead of some random guy.

It just really feels like these boys are having a pissing contest and Mai was never let in on the deets that this was even happening.

Mai needs to hang out with older men. Set her up with Roland, this is ridiculous.

Back at the RV, which got very, very big in this shot, Seto has an odd convo with Mokuba about how they are probably not going to get Kaiba Corp back. And then no one really argued with him about that.

He’s taking it really well. Maybe because this isn’t even the first time or the second time or even really the third time Seto’s lost everything. Kid’s really freakin great at failure. At least this time Mokuba isn’t currently abducted, which is really good improvement for these two.

Outside the RV, Tristan has decided to...give up as well, just right here, in the middle of traffic. Then he gets Orc’d...these orcs are kind of like Slenderman, in that they kinda...show up...but then that’s all they do because the designers didn’t actually want to animate anything.

And then this happens.

God bless this story boarder for this random series of events presented in just this way.

Also here’s yet another example where Tea just has...no fear. She’s actually only out here because she was like “that’s it, we’re getting another driver” and was going to chew out Duke Devlin. The Orc being in the middle of the road was not the reason she walked out here.

Anyways, Yami killed it because everyone here can just throw cards forever, these things are not threatening.

The subplot of everyone refusing to drive with Duke Devlin after he busted his car in Death Valley is still ongoing, and it’s still low key hilarious that no one will outright say “Duke, your driving is just so bad” and instead, Duke just has to sit there and watch Joey STEAL A MOTORCYCLE just so he won’t have to drive shotgun with Duke Devlin.

Rebecca, our plot-dump device, then informs us that Valon has Special Rules.

Because Valon, if you’ve forgotten, has a card that allows him to physically punch his opponent in the face.

They should have invented that card a long time ago TBH.

SO, lets get into Valons tragic backstory. First off, go turn on your Les Mis Soundtrack, because this is some old school cop stuff.

So apparently Valon, as a child just...stayed in the system forever. We don’t know why yet, but lets just assume that it’s tragic and heavy handed. If he steals a loaf of bread and ends up in 12 Juvies (which is a line from the show and not an exaggeration--12 Juvies) then I will expect him to be singing by the end of this and I will be very disappointed if he does not.

Anyways, he was such an asshole, that he caught the attention of some very illegal rich bastard who was trying to turn prisoners into...card murders. (it was Dartz.) because apparently...Dartz also funds prisons and that is...that is some deep lore.

And so probably about the same time that Yugi was Dueling to the death on Pegasus’ Island, and about the same time that Marik was hanging out in the ocean next to Pegasus’ Island with a pair of binoculars, and about the same time that Noah was underneath Pegasus’ Island just watching Pegasus steal KaibaCorp, Dartz decided to make his OWN murder island--because I guess he got jealous.

Anyway, Valon won, and didn’t even need to set anyone on fire.

Those little green things there--those are all souls of prison inmates.

YUGIOH.

Millennials got DARK, OK? Freakin...we had a show for 9 year olds that went deep into the school-to-prison pipeline and didn’t even try to hide it under any layers of symbolism. Like Hunger Games at least had two people survive.

This was a show to sell PAPER CARDS.

+++++++++++THIS IS A RANT WHERE I WENT OFF ABOUT PRISON TALK IN KID’S SHOWS FEEL FREE TO SKIP++++++++++++++++++++

Now, there’s a lot of good conversation going on right now about errors in the modern justice system on not just a local scale, but on a global scale, especially regarding racial profiling and criminalization of poor, sick, and young, and we better keep pushing it. But it’s surprising when people pretend like this hasn’t been talked about for a long time. Because...we’ve been talking about it in kids and YA shows for a long time. This is not something that just popped up in 2020.

Like millennials didn’t invent this obsession with dark and gritty stories with uncomfortable themes. It’s been around for thousands of years, but back in the 90′s and 00′s, a lot of shows for YA and younger enjoyed talking about the problems with prisons and abuse of power with our justice systems--a lot. Batman, X-men, Death Note, so so many, hell, even the OC.

And like, don’t get me wrong, we still have these shows running around, but I’ve been there’s been a trend of stories (not saying names) where just...nothing bad happens. And, that’s kind of sad because...they CAN have small elements that are more progressive in them, but only brought forth with a very risk-free cotton candy fluffy coating to make the majority of the population happy.

I could go long about this, and I’m getting very cryptic. If a kid escapes to more colorful worlds where nothing bad ever happens, that’s OK--sometimes you need that, but when nothing bad ever happens surrounding certain experiences where bad things normally happen--the meaning of the story changes because it isn’t a real experience anymore.

Like I don’t want to tangent too much, and I just had to delete a lot of examples, but I know a lot of people want to write stories about misrepresented minorities and about real deal serious situations and are just so afraid of misrepresentation that they go in completely the wrong direction by not putting in anything uncomfortable at all. I think it’s important to look at the work and ask yourself is this about the minority the work should be about--or is this work about patting the majority of the population on the back and saying neat, we’ve achieved utopia without having to even do anything?

...anyway, obvi I’m ranting, but I feel like we’re taking a step backwards when it comes to the importance of kids programming and that we do need to talk to kids about prison again. This is a show about paper cards, and they don’t do a great job at talking about...the reality of prison, this was exaggerated with genre stereotypes, but at least they didn’t cover it with rainbows and unicorns, because this isn’t about how great Joey and the “normal” people are at saving Valon, this is about how society screwed Valon beyond repair, and I am 99% certain we will see this guy’s soul stuffed in a brick above Dartz’ snake fireplace.

Like, yeah he duels to the death on an island, but that’s imagery that is very close to real life prison issues. We don’t talk to kids a lot about how a lot of inmates get enlisted into the military during war times (and quite literally...duel to their death...on islands). We don’t talk about how we use inmates to betray eachother for a chance at maybe getting amnesty. We don’t talk about how a lot of the victims of this system are essentially children, and have been caught in a system of endless prison for what will probably be the rest of their lives. We don’t talk about how we’re systematically turning kids into criminals so much in kid’s shows of late...and Freakin Yugioh just did in a filler season.

....................I think our standard for modern kids programming to talk about serious issues is way too low if Yugioh just threw this out there in a filler season, is all I’m saying.

++++++++++++++++++END OF PRISON RANT++++++++++++++++++++++

So, Valon is free but...is he?

Not really, he’s just gone from one jailer to another, but at least this time he gets his own room. Don’t blame him for latching onto Dartz’ dream to end the world, because the world for him has been one behind bars. He doesn’t know it. Never been there.

It’s just interesting juxtaposed to Joey because Joey had some sort of Season Zero history with a gang and I haven’t watched that episode yet.

So that’s it for now, again, I’m very slooow lately. I slept for 3 hours today...and I don’t know why. But hey--we all got through three (four???) months of this...we just gotta go...one month at a time.

That and I accidentally did my taxes early so there’s that. See? Good things still happen.

Also, because I only slightly referenced the most incredible movie ever made on San Fransisco soil, I’ll just leave this here. The true hallmark of our city.

youtube

Anyway you know the drill, here’s the link

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mrsbeef · 7 years

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THIS IS INCREDIBLY LONG

AND FULL OF EGREGIOUS HYPERBOLE AND GENERALISATIONS. It is my attempt to write a paper on Chinese Communist cinema as a tumblr post so it feels less scary. If you’re interested in this sort of thing then I am concerned for you read on.

Content warning for violence, misogyny, Nazis, antisemitism, seemingly unavoidable gender binarism, sex, Chairman Mao, Hitler, Stalin, and Freud.

Behold the gateway to a bright Communist future!

Anyone heard of visual pleasure in cinema? Specifically the theory that Laura Mulvey was talking about? For anyone who needs context, Laura Mulvey’s theory is based on Freudian psychoanalysis, and it basically states that the spectator identifies with the male hero, and is always in a masculine position compared to the objectified women on screen, and gets a kind of sadistic pleasure from that power. And moreover, she says scenes of women bring the narrative screeching to a halt, because the cheesecake scenes of their fragmented and objectified bodies freeze the action so the audience can have those sweet, sweet phallic fantasies. For the purposes of argument, I’m lumping ‘torture porn’ of the Game of Thrones variety under ‘cheesecake’. Sick, I know, but we’re going to get into some sicker shit later.

Now this theory definitely has some problems, but let’s stick with it for the time being. We can see that parts of it manifest in totalitarian cinema. Let’s take the USSR under Stalin and Germany under Hitler as two examples. There’s a propaganda film from 1936 called The Party Card (партийный билет) where a good Communist party member has her party card stolen, and the audience gets to internally crow over her loss of power. This is most obvious in the scene of the disciplinary hearing, which our heroine Anna has to attend because she allowed someone to steal her card and demonstrated a lack of vigilance. If you look at the way this was filmed, it is so voyeuristic that you can almost sense the director or someone jacking off a bit; imagine all these important mostly male politicos all talking down to this one poor guilty cringing woman. This movie came out just before Stalin started the major purges, and it was intended to caution party members to keep their documents safe from the enemy at all times. And they got the message.

Meanwhile, in Nazi Germany (a horrible phrase, I know), the propaganda film Hitlerjunge Quex (1933) was casting the Nazis in a positive light by contrasting their bodily vigour and healthy lifestyles with the exaggerated degeneracy of the German Communists. Scenes of Communists drinking, smoking, gambling and canoodling with loose (probably Jewish) women were meant to make the collective monocle of German society pop off, at a time when the disenfranchised working class was still warming to the whole Nazi thing. And of course it’s loose Jewish women who are used to make this point; women with all the icky sex bits, so when you’re revolted by them you have your masculine spectatorial power reinforced (and on some level it can start to make you feel kind of okay with these women getting hurt or killed). Nazi ideology was pretty open about its misogyny; pure Aryan women gotta produce them master race babies yo. And arguably fascism begins with gender hierarchy (if you believe some authors). So the film makes sure to have a nice pure, sexless blonde girl (the kind Klaus Theweleit calls “the White woman”, as opposed to the Jewy Jezebel “Red woman”) for a contrast.

If you look at it this way, these examples of totalitarian cinema seem to be using structures of visual pleasure to produce a kind of revulsion mixed with sexual arousal, so that the audience will orient themselves properly towards the correct ideology, whatever that happens to be at the time. Karsten Witte argues that Nazi cinema goes a step further by trying to bleed the visual pleasure out of film so that the audience is left in perpetual frustration-- good for breeding violence, maybe. He’s specifically talking about revues, the Busby Berkeley-type ones with the kicking legs and crazy stage setups. Apparently Nazis were capable of making even that shit unexciting by making all the choreography monotonous and lifeless, and filming a huge wide shot to show the whole stage and some of the seats; it’s like ZE CAMERA VILL NEVER MOVE DOWNSTAGE ON PAIN OF DEATH.

Anyway, in all this discussion, doesn’t it seem like something’s missing from Mulvey’s theory? A couple things, actually. Why so binary? Why so essentialist and ahistorical? What happens to this theory outside of the West? Isn’t this theory based in capitalism? What about class differences? Where is the female spectator/the female hero?* This is my big problem with anything that has Freud’s name on it, but I’ll keep my personal loathing out of this post as far as possible. So far, all anyone’s been talking about with this visual pleasure thing is looking at sexy girls.

So let’s try taking this visual pleasure thing and transplanting it to somewhere really different: COMMUNIST CHINA IN THE 60′S. Think about it! You’ve got a communist political system and collectivist culture, different standards and signifiers of beauty, and radically different forms of gender expression mixed up with class struggle, thanks to a government that officially came out and said “men and women are the same”. Of course that was complete bullshit in practice, but it was the ideal, and movies are all about ideal. Chinese Communist propaganda movies were good for teaching women how to be good socialists. And in contrast with stuff like Party Card, revolutionary Chinese films had a lot of female characters who were actually heroic. They were revolutionary soldiers and workers and peasant militiawomen, and they were ideal models for real women to emulate. This naturally means that revolutionary films were being made with a mixed gender audience in mind, and not just to appeal to a certain gender demographic. Of course in traditional Confucian culture women’s social position was lower than dirt (not accounting for class difference), but all that was supposed to be over now. Now women can be heroic revolutionaries too! They too can approach the sublime ideal of the hypermasculine, vigorous Communist fighter who makes history with his own hands! Not actually reach, though. Only approach. See, this view of gender equality took hypermasculinity as the standard everyone was meant to aspire to. So anything ‘feminine’-- like long hair, bright colours, or sentimentality-- became icky gross and bourgeois. Nobody wants to be a woman, ewww. Revolutionary films offered women and girls a way to fantasise about being that hero in a kind of utopia where family/marital obligations and culturally ingrained sexism didn’t exist, unlike irl. With women and men supposedly being equal (on men’s terms), there also was less room for overt titillating sexiness on the cinema screen, and audiences could derive strong visual pleasure based on class differentials rather than sexual ones (more on this later). Sexiness did sort of find its way back in sometimes, though. And not just through subversive watching either.

I can’t really speak for Nazi Germany or the USSR as those aren’t my specialities, but Chinese political culture seemed particularly receptive to the bleeding together of aesthetics and ideology. Ban Wang calls it “aestheticised politics”; it’s essentially a totalitarian wet dream. They can get inside your head and reorient your tastes and desires so that everything that is ideologically correct seems beautiful and everything that’s taboo is ugly. Imagine that the government could influence what you think is sexy :O (I mean, it probably does in some way already, but that’s off topic) The aesthetics of the revolutionary film could concentrate the spectators’ visual pleasure in a way that benefits the state. You can accomplish this with visual cues, camera tricks, etc. And so the Chinese government may have indirectly produced a generation of young men (and likely some women) who enjoyed beating off furiously to female guerrilla fighters in shorts.

Case in point: the 1971 filmed revolutionary ballet The Red Detachment of Women (《红色娘子军》). It’s well known for causing a flood of jizz sexual awakening for a good many young men in the Cultural Revolution. It was part of a canon of ‘model theatre’ works made for the purpose of exemplifying proper socialist aesthetics, in accordance with Mao’s weirdly well-formed ideas about exactly what those should look like. Plot-wise it’s a pretty standard revolutionary fable: peasant girl meets manly Communist Party official, evil and somewhat effeminate landlord is vanquished. Gotta love those gender dynamics getting mapped onto class antagonisms. But this is a ballet. Ballet is an inherently sensual art form, even if you take away all the tutus and rewrite all the romance scenes. And now that sensuality in ballet gets to blend with the martiality of the revolution! Excellent example: the classic pas de deux in romance scenes has now been repurposed (with added kung fu flavour!) for fight scenes! Can you say SEXY COMMUNISM???

It’s also an art form that relies on dance and music to appeal strongly to the emotions. So when they show us wonderful scenes of the army and the villagers getting along, we’re supposed to feel a warm fuzzy feeling of togetherness with our comrades. When they show us a heroic character being physically punished or martyred, we’re supposed to burn with class hatred, and maybe even get flashbacks to similar abuse we endured at the hands of the enemy. Maybe you might even be so full of rage you might form a mob with your friends and go yank the town ‘capitalist’ out of his home and beat him up. And when we see the inevitable triumph of Communist ideology, we’re supposed to overflow with excitement and hope about the future that we can build for ourselves! All this represents the pleasure people were intended to get out of watching these shows, and all the outcomes are very positive as far as the state is concerned. Noteworthy is that hardly ever are we as spectators put in a position of power over any heroic central female character. That’s not where the pleasure comes from. There is a scene where the peasant-turned-soldier Qionghua is reprimanded for seeking personal revenge, but it isn’t wank material; it’s just a stepping stone to her political maturation. She, like us in the audience, needs to learn that the collective comes first.

All this is well and good, but the famously prudish** Communist ideology also kind of shoots itself in the foot by using the ballet form. It necessitates form-fitting costumes, hence the famous shorts worn by the women soldiers.The moves they perform don’t help either. And neither does the camera, which moves through the complete depth of the stage and lets us get closer to the sweet leg-kicking action than we ever could in a theatre. Also the costuming contains little callbacks to traditional Chinese notions of sexy: check out Qionghua’s red suit (it ain’t just for Communism anymore), and the army uniforms themselves (crossdressing a la Mulan was considered hot). It’s been said that ballet takes place in a secret fourth dimension of the imagination, and some people’s imaginations*** were very fired up. There’s a reason performance stills from Red Detachment were so popular.

Basically the point here is that Chinese revolutionary films had a way different relationship to gender and politics than Western films. Maybe they were both just as illusory. But maybe there’s also something to be said for chasing your own fake fantasy as opposed to just being stuck being somebody else’s?****

* I’m using ‘female hero’ here because whenever these film people say ‘heroine’ they usually mean female romantic lead, and I am talking about something completely different.

** Sexy is fine only when we get to decide what you like.

*** In quite a few cases this would mean ‘genitals’.

**** This has to be the most unfocused piece of shit I’ve ever written.

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