#but yet again more consent issues from lack of communication

[pan-gaa]

My problem with the BL industry -part 1-

Where do we draw the line?

I want to start this by saying I myself have been a BL fan for many years, I just want to share my thoughts on the issues cultivated by this industry in the eyes of a queer man. I want to focus on the sexualization of “toxic” more so abusive relationships that are portrayed. Because the manwha Jinx is one of the most popular BLs at the moment and it fits as an example of my point, I’ll be speaking a little bit about it.

What was the purpose of the BL genre? Well for women it was a media that served as escapism since most mature media was very much male oriented. Women could not feel connected to the characters portrayed only to please men’s disturbing fantasies. Between the impossible body standards and the clear lack of regard for the woman autonomy it isn’t a surprise that women felt quite disconnected from 18+ media. That’s when an adult genre came to fruition, 18+ media for women by women but no woman was portrayed in these stories in fact the main focus was relationships between 2 men. The disconnect from societal pressures helped woman enjoy 18+ content without feeling guilt or disgust. But how a genre created to disconnect toxic attributes in media became just that but for another demographic? Now the people on the other end of this discomfort are queer people, not only gay men. Romanticizing dangerous power dynamics, dubious consent, sexualizing toxic stereotypes,infantilization ect. The list goes on of all real life issues that the queer community deal with but are nothing but entertainment within this genre.

Not all BLs are bad! Im very aware since again I am quite the fan of some but this is more me criticizing the industry per se. The problem is that toxicity sells, what companies want is to sell and that opens the doors for people to make more toxicity for whatever their reasons. All that moves us to where we are today were we have one the most popular current themes being Stockholm syndrome and how it is hot. I’ve been seeing myself how I have been dropping more series than I have finished, I kept getting hit with more and more of this toxic clichés. It was like I was playing bingo and hoping I didn’t win, I would get so excited for stories that did the bare minimum and yet those were hard to find which has made my current experience quite exhausting. Of course I’m no longer the teen who would let anything pass because “hot characters” and even more hot scenes but now as an adult that just doesn’t cut it anymore. Showing toxic situations in media on its own is not the problem but it is the context in which they are shown, these are not cautionary tales but “love stories” the intent is for you to root for those characters. Not only is the relationships an issue but the way they portray queer people overall, the disrespect for bisexual people, trans people and lesbians in some of these stories is quite appalling since these are suppose to be queer stories. I think this says a lot about the industry and some of the artists involved, before it could maybe be used as an excuse the lack of knowledge but to me that no longer holds in the age of the internet.

Now I’ll like to mention one of the stories I’ve personally been a little tired of seeing, Jinx. I was quite interested in the manwha when it was announced, as I’ve mentioned before I’m all about the visuals and seeing the improvement of the artist was endearing. I’m aware the BL is still ongoing but I have read BJ Alex which can add a little context on how the artist manages their stories. This is not a personal diss on the artist or those who are reading the story, I just think with all these kinds of popular stories we gotta ask ourselves, Where do we draw the line? Jinx is your typical story of the protagonist being someone that went thru trauma and has to spent their whole life trying to pay some insane debt, then comes the romantic interest being a famous rich person with an unchecked personality disorder that takes advantage of the power dynamic and uses the protagonist to his convenience. It is quite an overdone premise and in this story we see it as a black listed physical therapist and a famous athlete, the protagonist Dan appears to act like an Angel while Jaekyung keeps bullying him and using him for other acts. The story so far has been quite literally only this, and you see in the comments people hoping for a redemption arc for Jaekyung, at some point in this story readers have to realize that a good ending would be Dan leaving this situation but unfortunately I don’t have much hope for that. Jinx is not the only story doing this but it is one of the most popular at the moment, we also have stories like Painter Of The Night which is literally the love story between a kidnapper and his victim.

BL is a genre that can be enjoyed by anyone yet it seems like lately it can become queer stories but not for queer people but more so toxic fantasies put onto another group of people that also have to fight for their own respect. It’s perfectly fine to enjoy good ol 18+ media that is morally grey or maybe somewhat toxic but when an industry gains so much money on portraying real issues as unserious fantasies so continuously, I think it’s time we ask ourselves as the readers; When is it too much? When does it get disrespectful to the people it’s portraying? Where do we draw the line?

#anime and manga #manwha #bl manhwa #bl manga #bl industry #essay #opinion #short essay #jinx manhwa

[heretherebedork]

Hi. I have seen a lot of people call MAME's shows trash but people still keep watching them. I watched DSN to understand for myself why this contrasting opinions exist and I liked DSN. I didn't see any issues. They don't linger on the conflict, they actually communicate, Fiat is a bit of a baby but the who Norma Bates of his mother explains that. His father's lack of communication gets solved. Fiat actually realizes that he was the bad guy for the step mom (something I don't think I've seen in step mom - step son relationships). The friend groups is really good. The episodes are quite self contained in that the issue raised last episode is dealt with the very next episode, they don't lie or drag the issue out.

I wanted to ask why it's considered trash. Is it the amount of sex scenes? The comedy?

Like with TharnType I get coz of the whole rape thing. (I haven't watched it, only heard about it. This being the primary reason to no watch despite the chemistry of the leads and how popular and ~liked~ the show is.)

Love in the Air, I am watching and I kinda get why Payu thought Rain was hitting on him in E1 and @lutawolf explained the kink elements of the bathroom scene and it makes sense (from what little I understand).

So yeah, why is Mame considered trash?

So, first I wanna say that trash isn't an insult most of the time from me, it's much more just a specific description of a style based on the very popular romance novels of the 80s and 90s. And MAME follows that style to a T in every way where there's questionable consent, lots of dominating without permission and the idea that love erases all sins is hugely present in ways that don't always feel true to the characters.

DSN is a fun show... until the last few episodes where the problems they have stop making sense for the development we've seen over the course of the show because MAME writes problems for characters to have and not characters to have that problem and doesn't take into account any kind of order to them. I enjoyed DSN overall but wish it had been more thought through and ordered because after the big art gallery birthday present the rest of the show kind of felt... over and yet it wasn't, there was so much more that no longer held together well for me.

TT I won't comment on, being absolutely oblivious to chemistry means I ended the two shows hating Tharn and wishing Type would just dump his ass, especially after the accusations of cheating and the apology the never came in TT2 and Type definitely deserves better than what he got. But that's what trash is about! Trash is about how the romance works because the actors work but not because the characters or the plot works.

Also, oh lordie, do I have to talk about the 'kink' in LITA?

You cannot have kink without agreed upon consent.

Let me repeat that.

It is not kink unless the consent is agreed upon before it happens.

There is currently no kink in LITA because there has been no discussion or agreement to a kinky relationship. They cannot be acting on a no kink when Payu has never checked in with Rain even fucking once or created a safe word (no, obeying him and being polite is not a goddamn safe word, that's just PART OF THE KINK as @thequeenofsastiel would agree) or made sure that he wants it.

Yes, we know he is partially enjoying it because of his internal monologue but unless we're gonna find out that Payu is a goddamn mindreader none of the matters. Because he can't know without talking about it first!

Look, I cannot deny that post-episode 3 I am likely to enjoy more of LITA than I did before because they now at least have some kind of agreement. But before that? It's not kinky if there's been no discussion and acting on a 'no kink' without a discussion or safe word is just sexual assault because there's no way to do that.

Payu is fine to think that Rain was hitting was hitting on him but the instant someone says no you stop.

But, again.

MAME is considered trash because her novels are more about drama, often betray any character growth that may or may not happen (@absolutebl talked about this in my choice about Jittirain versus MAME aka 'pointless secret keeping with a shitty resolve' versus 'sexual assault as flirting' post in which that pointed out that MAME's real issue is characters while Jittirain's is plot and you have to pick a priority) and always have a huge miscommunication issue at some point that feels like it should have been solved in a different way.

#mame #mame cinematic universe #lita #love in the air #love in the air the series #thaibl #bl series #thai series #thai drama #thai bl #thai bl meta #hope this helps anon

[florbelles]

sorry to continue being woman screams at clouds about the most overexposed topic of late but because i’ve spent the past few days dealing with ai relentlessly (even moreso than usual, which is really saying something) at work it’s at the forefront of my mind (and a lot of us in an impacted field, which, being honest, is most of them).

here’s the thing. i get why those who aren’t in a creative field or simply haven’t been touched or impacted by it yet don’t understand the animosity towards it. i understand their confusion. i understand why they ask, isn’t this a good thing? doesn’t this make art more accessible? isn’t this a valuable tool? because it absolutely fucking should be. it should be a valuable tool. some forms of it have been; the automatic spelling and grammar checks in word processing software is the most obvious example. and yes, that’s genuinely helpful in a lot of respects. but only to a point; it will still misunderstand context, it will still try to substitute in the most common misspelling of a word because that’s what it’s been trained to believe is the correct one, it won’t catch errors that could be correct used differently, it will try to make verbs agree with the wrong nouns. so, certainly, it can and should be helpful — but again. to a point.

the same could be said of most forms. ai could, theoretically, be a useful resource for artists to find references. it could be a useful form of generating rudimentary plot ideas to be built upon by writers. it’s been used, in its most basic forms, for both of these things for a long time — even software like writeordie will pop up with a madlibs-style “write a blank about blank who blank” prompt upon opening it.

but here’s the thing. ai, as it presently is being used, as it is increasingly being promoted to use, is not about accessibility. it’s not about being a useful tool for human creatives to inspire and improve and promote versatility in their work. the reason artists hate it, the reason we’re offended by it, the reason it is actively hurtful and frightening, isn’t only about our jobs. yeah, that’s part of it. obviously it’s part of it. no one has ever liked being used without their consent to train their replacement, and we like it even less when data mining is being used to attempt to replace entire fields. but on a more personal level, it’s not simply because ai in its present form eyes eventually being able to replace us in the workforce. that isn’t really a new fear, and it’s certainly not one limited to creatives.

but the way ai is actually used? the way it’s promoted by techbro bitcoin musklites? it comes from a place of active disdain for us. it comes from a place of genuine malice towards artists and human creativity. it comes from a place of, if we’re being honest, ego fragility — oh, you think you have a talent i don’t? watch this. and where it leads is, ultimately, the hope to make us irrelevant, not merely because they don’t want to cut us a check, but because our existence is threatening to them. if humans are not the ones creating art, then art is the result of trained formulas. and those are a hell of a lot easier to direct and control in their messaging. those are hard-pressed to communicate much of anything at all. if art is meaningless, if it’s simply entertaining or a pleasing combination of words, then humanity’s longest standing outlet of protest, revolution, criticism, and straight up fucking empathy is gone. 

i don’t say this from a place of doom and despair. i don’t think there’s any merit in that. the fastest way to ensure artists are exterminated is to communicate to artists that there’s no point in pursuing it and we should all pack up and go home now, so, no, there’s nothing helpful in wailing about our inevitable demise, particularly because it is absolutely not inevitable. look how well bitcoin shaped up. that lacked the fundamental issue with ai taking over creative endeavors, which is that it’s literally formulaic — it functions on an if x then y basis, and good luck capturing the human experience in that. good luck ignoring the fundamental fact that humans do not create for profit, or out of obligation, but because it is literally what keeps us sane and alive. we’re going to continue creating whether we’re getting paid or not, and yeah, there will continue to be a disparity in what’s being produced, and yes, that will be visible, and no, we’re not going anywhere.

but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s fucking horrifying and infuriating that people want us gone and are self-congratulatory about the fact they believe they have the eventual means to do so while trying to sell the public on the idea we’re the ones trying to gatekeep creativity.

#stella's ted talks continue. thank you for coming.

[papirouge]

Papi I-

I literally started reading into some drama in a gamer community and ended up learning about this case were a 20 year old man and 15 year old boy had a sexual encounter. The victim, years later, denounced this man publicly when he understood what happened was wrong. The man first apologized to him and everyone for 'letting them down' or something, but weeks later came with a document were he retracted his confession and said he actually was the one raped and blackmailed. He said the 15 year old came onto him when he was sleeping and started giving him a blowjob, and he tried telling him to get off of him, but froze up and couldnt stop the kid anymore. The next day, this same boy supposedly blackmailed him, telling him that if he didn't have sex with him he would tell everyone that he was gay and slept with a minor. So the man, out of fear, accepted and let the boy gave him oral sex again, though stoping midway because he got upset about the older man lack of enthusiasm. Everyone in the community got on the older man side, calling the other party (who was only 15 yo at the time) a rapist and liar.

Am i going crazy or what?? Like obviously this boy still did something pretty messed up (initiating sexual contact when the man was sleeping, which is rape), but the man is still at fault for just accepting it twice. Like from what i gathered the kid is pretty unlikeable and manipulative, and has tried to seduce other adult men, but this man could still say 'no'. Plus the fact that this kid is so hypersexual points to him having some kind of trauma or issues imo. Not to mention taht there are tweets where this man is seeing literally flirting with this boy, so...

Anyways, i read some comments and people were also discussing the age of consent, and talking about how this boy was old enough to know what he was doing, that he enjoyed it and since he iniciated he obviously was the only culprit. People started talking about how americans were too prissy about age consent laws, how in many places it was 16 or even lower. And these kind of comments had hundreds and hundreds of likes!

And i feel like i should point out that this community leans heavily male, which is interesting: aren't men always talking about male victims not being taken seriously on and on. Yet i keep on seeing them discredit both male and female victims all the time. In fact, they were a few comments talking about how this case would have created more conmmotion if the victim was female.... Like why are they so obssesed, always bringing up female victims in these cases? One of them was downvoted though and called sexist because this case was in fact one of the most well know ones, and he was exposed for posting on mysogynistic subs.

Like i don't know papi, all of this makes me pretty sick... sorry for annoying you with this, i needed to vent somewhere....

Girl, I- gamerbros and online gays are the biggest sex pests in existence. In this case, both of those demonic realms are colliding - why would you even try to make sense out of this mess?

OF COURSE they're going to be predator apologists, why are you even surprised? The 20 years old dude excuse of freezing during the alleged assault can be true, but any benefit of doubt left the room as soon as he admitted getting back to the 15 y.o kids for him to give a blowjob...

During rape, people freeze because from the shock of the situation, but also bc they're scared acting up might turn against them (because the assaulter is stronger, with a weapon, etc). How could a 20 y.o dude be scared to *that* point of a 15 y.o boy sloppily giving him a blowjob? Was he still "freezing to death" in that second encounter while having that blowjob? sorry but accepting sexual solicitation from a minor, even in case of blackmail is still highly problematic and suspicious. He deserves to be as much dragged as that kid, who indeed has to be highly disturbed to display such extroverted sexual behavior. I wouldn't be surprised he's been groomed by online gays who indeed have a LOT of issues with romanticizing inappropriate age gap (they have a whole culture of initiating young gays into sexuality by older ones) and being so obsessive with sex & extreme sexual practice - even gay normies themselves (who are not into this degen shit) admit it.

It's very revealing they're now trying to drag women into that discourse, when women don't have a whole culture of egging/grooming young males into sex. This cope is really pathetic lmao Same for lesbians. It's almost the common denominator with sexual predatory behavior wasn't sexual orientation but.....SEX :)

In my country, age of consent is at 15 y.o and can even be 13 if there's less than a 5 years gap.....but literally no one asked for it. Every single person actively seeking to lower age of consent should be sent to jail as a cautionary measure. 5 years minimum.

#answered

[infizero-draws]

Your Scaring infinity train AU actually made me decide to rewatch the show. Almost to the end of season 1 rn.

I think Grian's main problem is the same as Blitø from Helluva Boss where he craves a relationship but is too afraid that if he gets too attached he'll ruin it all, so he ruins everything beforehand. Grian doesn't want to be in debt to Scar, yet he still relies on Scar as his close friend and ally despite repeatedly pushing him away and going so far as to cheat with BigB.

Scar's probably is that he's highly inconsiderate of how his actions affect Grian. If Scar wants to do something, then he's just going to do it with or without Grian's consent. Sometimes it's behind Grian's back (though usually unintentionally so) but other times he gets a "Scar NO" and he responds with "Scar yes" without thinking about why he's being told off.

The crux of it is they are at their best working together but because they both lack communication skills are are generally inconsiderate of how their actions are affecting each other, they more than often get separated and have to struggle by themselves.

At least that's my interpretation of the characters in the context of a show like infinity train where characters are forced to confront their problems. I'm curious as to what you've come up with though.

no i definitely agree with all that!!

i think grian also is very inconsiderate in terms of scar's emotions, what with how in double life he was like. barely trying to hide the fact that he was cheating on him with big b, and wasn't really being subtle regarding him not really wanting to be soulmates with him.

and another thing for scar that i wanted to explore since i'm specifically pairing him with grian in this au is his issue with being too trusting/forgiving people who don't really deserve to be forgiven. i mean he KNEW about grian cheating on him in double life and stayed with him anyway, and there's like. his entire deal in last life where he was so desperate for any kind of connection to others that he got tricked and taken advantage of time and time again. so that's something i def would want to explore.

i'm not really actively working on this au, it's just sort of something i wanted to doodle ideas of, but i definitely will draw more at some point. also its super cool that my art inspired your rewatch hehe

#asks #not art

[jemamore]

aoey apologists stay winning 💁🏼‍♀️

#lovely writer #episode 9 was a lot #90 whole ass minutes #I’ve been on a whole character arc watching them #im too exhausted to have thoughts #but yet again more consent issues from lack of communication #oH BUT I S2G IF TIFFY AND AOEY END UP TOGETHER I WILL HURL #aoey and tiffy are mlm and wlw solidarity #tiffy either needs a girlfriend or to get with tum #aoey needs a positive influence in his life and just the freedom to do what he wants but not in a way that’s self destructive #hes got a lot of trauma to pick through but i truly am an apologist #but i don’t even have the thoughts anymore because that last half an hour has knocked me out completely #the family dinner was so hard to get through #and then the montage of everyone crying #this episode was a marathon and not in a good way

[sepublic]

Raine and Kikimora?

Now that we know Raine’s been in full control this entire time, it gives this scene with them and Kikimora an entirely new meaning now;

Raine inquiring into Kiki’s plans and hesitation isn’t them testing her loyalty, sniffing out potential traitors to punish as Kiki is afraid; It’s actually Raine picking up on her dissatisfaction with the coven as something to consider, and the fact that Kikimora seems to be planning against Belos! It seems Raine is testing the waters with Kiki as a potential recruit to their rebellion, or at least someone whose frustrations they can take advantage of; They’ve got an eye for opportunity like Belos, Terra, or Odalia but aren’t weird about it, and that’s probably because Raine still values consent and autonomy.

I like that they use ‘bad guy tactics’ like manipulation, infiltration, scouting out others and their hesitation; But Raine is still unambiguously a good guy, because you can’t always fight fascists with hugs and kisses! Hence their curiosity over what Kikimora’s up to, if it’s relevant to their plans, and who put Kiki up to it, who else is a part of and acting as the main force behind this operation; So they may have already anticipated Eda’s ‘interference’ at the parade. Maybe they want in on this to help, and/or hope to get Kikimora to open up about her issues and thus encourage her to think and act anti-coven over that...

Which is why Raine sits down beside Kikimora, opening up about their dislikes like the parade conflicting with their stage fright; So they can appear friendly and like someone Kiki can trust to be open about her insecurities and unenthusiastic thoughts towards. They opened with and voluntarily offered their own feelings, which encourages and subtly obligates Kikimora to do the same, which also gives Raine some more info to work with and a potential glimpse into what Kikimora has planned; They both shiver and thus bond over their shared dislike of people, which Raine knowingly picks up on and brings up.

They appear more sympathetic to Kikimora as a result, more relatable and thus trustworthy, because Raine might understand how Kiki feels and thus not call her out over it! And that’s not even wrong, either! Raine wants that trust and is actually someone who won’t happily abuse it, they do it for the ACTUAL good of others. Terra ofc interrupts Raine before they can make anymore progress, but an attempt was made. For someone who has stage fright, Raine seems very people-oriented and knows how to get a good read of them and how they think, fooling Terra and whatnot; Again, they’re like a parallel to more manipulative characters like Philip, who read people and tell them exactly what they want to hear... But a good guy nevertheless, it’s fascinating. Sometimes you gotta fight fire with fire, Raine has no choice when Belos is using those same tactics to take over.

I then have to ask; What was Raine going to do here? Eda ensnares Raine with vines (ironic yet fitting) before they can cast a spell; Were they planning to incapacitate Luz to keep them safe, keep her in their own trustworthy custody? Or was Raine actually going to help these two, maybe cast a spell to make them quiet, allowing Kiki to make a more successful escape from Terra?

If so, then we can see how these secrets lead to a lack of collaboration with the Bad Girl Coven, which leads to some misunderstanding and mistakes. Given the deliberate callbacks to how Raine and Eda broke up, and the general message of communication being necessary, it seems the show is building to Raine realizing they’re going to have to reach out to Eda and accept her help; Even if they don’t want to endanger her kids, because Raine’s attempts to prevent that are paradoxically making things worse. And if that ain’t a recurring theme in TOH...!

Also, given how Kikimora’s vulnerabilities are used by others, most with good intentions for her as well, to further their own causes... It makes me wonder if this will or would’ve led to an arc of Kikimora becoming more wary and untrusting, had season 3 not been shortened; Possibly compelling her to become even worse and more paranoid, and maybe side with Belos, thinking the rebels are the ones using her.

She’s manipulated either way, but just like choosing between family and Belos, at least Belos offers Kiki power, instead of dismantling the authority she wants to be a part of! Kiki is small and that reflects how she feels powerless and just wants power for security, putting up her walls and hurting others before they can hurt her... Hence why she’s so eager to backstab, she’s learned you have to take power and not waste time trying to fairly earn it first. And this all makes Kikimora a tragic villain, an Azula to Hunter’s Zuko; As someone the protagonists had to take advantage of, and whom is understandably scarred and compelled to think of the protagonists as evil for it, turning disillusioned and more selfish from rejection.

#the owl house #raine whispers #the owl house kikimora #speculation #analysis #meta

[incoherentbabblings]

Do you think Tim was leading Stephanie on during their first interactions as he had a girlfriend yet was still teaming up with her and showing an interest in her?

I would say 'it's complicated' and sitting on the 'what he says and what he does are very conflicting so I can see where Steph would get mixed signals' but at the same time 'she should be paying as much attention to what he says as what he does' but at the same time 'Tim never actually does anything to discourage her apart from saying her name from time to time with exasperation' plus 'they're 14/15 here the social intelligence is lacking big time' and finally 'it's very messy and that's what makes it interesting'.

He made a mistake very early on in the Robin run with kissing her.

Robin (1993) #5

I genuinely don't know why he kisses her. Logically. One thing for a yay I'm not dead kiss (see Robin 174 for that other Dixon example) but it's another to pull a person in, tug at their mask and kiss someone without their explicit consent. Like there's a couple of things he needed to do to get to her mouth. What's wrong with a good old hug. He wouldn't have done that if it were any other member of the batfam certainly. But whatever. Overcome with emotion, smooches occur.

Steph pulling the very anime 'you need to take some responsibility' mood at the end there. Because she's kind of right. You can't just smooch someone like that and then be like 'welp that's that see you never I guess'. Well I mean you can but both parties have to be aware before said smooch the rules of the smooch. Like, I know you're happy not to be dead Tim but come on now.

So the point of her second appearance in Robin is that she just does the exact same thing back at him. From the 'rules' Tim established previously, she's not doing anything wrong.

And it's only a bit later in the issue that Tim blabs about Ariana cheating on him, so now Steph knows that A) Tim is dating someone who cheated on him, B) Tim is also cheating on that person with her, and therefore C) He's doing the exact same thing with her and Ariana as she's doing with Dean and Robin.

So, again, from the rules Tim has established, this is the way it's going to be between them. She's misread the atmosphere, and Tim never gets the right words together outside of "Steph..." and "It's not a date," so they both fumble around for a wee while in this odd state of Steph thinking they're just having some light fun and banter and kisses and Tim is meanwhile losing his mind at school feeling guilty all the time.

Robin (1993) #16

The difference is Steph is explicitly fine with them just fooling around and having fun, which is not how Tim does things. When she slowly figures that out she mellows out a lot in terms of teasing and flirting, but it comes at the cost of 'well if he only wants a serious relationship why does he not trust me with his name'. Which was the second big stumbling block of their relationship.

So 10 out of 10 start to a romantic relationship there guys. You did everything backwards. Your communication skills have been rock bottom from the word go. Honestly I just think it's funny more than anything.

14 year olds are disasters - more news at 10.

#also it was the 90s and I don't think Dixon properly thought through the implications of anything these guys were up #to because tim does and says a lot of things which are just patently not true or indeed setting up certain expectations from steph #i mean a good one later when they've gotten together is #in Robin 61 he says something along the lines of being jealous of normal kids because they have more choice and freedom in how they live #their lives unlike him and steph #which means he's saying he and steph are the same in terms of the vigilante game #as if there's anything at that point in time 'making' Steph be Spoiler akin to Tim being Robin #but it's at a time where he's a) still in the mindset of robin being temporary and b) hoping that steph will quit spoiler permanently even #after baby is born #so i don't know #tim says and does a lot of contradictory things #'this is what i wanted even if i didn't know for sure until right now' anyone? #but steph should have seen that he didn't have a clue and backed off #but it's not like she has a plethora of real life stable relationships to learn from is it #she's unlearning toxic behaviour whilst Tim is faffing about trying to figure out what he even wants from her #it's just a big ol mess #dc #tim drake #stephanie brown #timsteph #ask and i'll babble

[stardust-kenobi]

Let Me Help You

Obi Wan x Reader

Summary: Obi Wan isn’t very tech-savy, and he wants you to help him with his computer while you two sit in the Jedi Temple library. You offer your assistance, and decide to help him in other ways, too.

Warnings: smut, dub-con!!, male oral receiving, public oral sex

Word count: 2k

A/N: ⚠️please DO NOT read if you’re uncomfortable with dub-con. It’s not for everyone. (In this specific plot it’s used because Obi Wan is trying to be a good Jedi) Consent is slightly more clear right before the act.

This was requested by anon! Thanks lovely, hope you enjoy 💕

(my gif)

Obi Wan’s face became more frustrated by the second. You sat across from him in the Temple library. You’d joined your friend today because he wanted the company while he completed some tasks undoubtedly related to his Jedi duties. 

“You alright?” You inquired, attempting to withhold a giggle at the sight of a man who is so usually calm becoming annoyed at technology.

“This datapad is going to drive me mad” he huffed. His fingers furiously tapped away at his attempted tasks.

“Sounds like a user-error” you teased him while continuing to stare at him. He looked up at you, obviously trying not to smile back. “And it’s a desktop computer, so, not technically a data pad” you jokingly corrected him.

“Well, whatever it is, it doesn’t like me very much” he remarked and returned his attention to the illuminated screen.

“What exactly are you trying to do?”

“I’m trying to navigate the archives here but it keeps telling me I’m typing in invalid coordinates” his voice grew more annoyed.

“Would you like my help?” You offered kindly

“No, that’s not necessary.” He politely declined.

You waited, not responding, knowing he’d change his mind after another failed attempt. His eyes shot upward at you across the table and quickly looked back down, but then hesitantly returned to your gaze.

“Maybe I could use your help, y/n” he finally admitted.

“Mhm, that’s what I thought” you rose from your seat and headed around the table. You observed the room, and no one was around. You hadn’t seen anyone in the library since you walked in. You could probably hear a pin drop in the vast silence. You came around behind his chair and leaned down next to him. Obi Wan’s eyes could not have been less discreet as they peered over to your chest that was now at his eye level. Your shirt was low cut, and perhaps a little too tight, but nothing you wouldn’t normally wear. You noticed but said nothing to Obi Wan, just flattered that he wanted to look.

“Let me try and enter the coordinates. What were they?” You inquired. He gave you the same numbers he had been typing in. You unfortunately found yourself having the same issue he was having. Obi Wan laughed, mocking you for thinking it was his fault.

“User-error, was it?” He teased you. You shook your head and giggled.

“Let me try something else” you said. You attempted other methods in order to make it work. 

“Why don’t you pull up a chair?” He suggested.

You looked around, there were no chairs close, except for your chair on the other side of the table.

“Oh no, that’s alright” you shrugged, but then an idea crept into your devious, sexually deprived head. You checked your surroundings again, no one was in the library. It was late, anyways, so it wasn’t unusual.

Obi Wan’s lap sat there, open and empty, legs spread open, as if it was waiting on you to fill the space. You slowly moved your hips downward and over onto his thighs. He didn’t say a word, protest, or even make a sound, until you were fully seated on his unprepared lap.

“Oh, um...alright then” he stuttered, unsure what to say, but didn’t reject you either.

“Sorry, I saw a perfectly good seat and took it. That okay?” You clearly played innocent.

He roughly cleared his throat and breathed out hard. His built up sexual tension was obvious, and you preyed on it guiltlessly.

“No problem at all” he chuckled, finally responding to you. Continuing to work at the computer in your new found seat, you rotated your hips side to side subtly, pressing more firm into him. Hardly any time had passed before you felt him grow aroused under your ass. You smirked, loving the effect you were having on him.

“Oh, there we go, it worked!” you announced suddenly. The screen displayed the archive location that he searched for, after tweaking with the settings for a bit.

“What worked?” He breathed out, clearly more flustered than the last time he spoke. It was as if he was snapped out of a trance. He was incredibly distracted and couldn’t even recall for the moment what you were even helping him with.

“The...computer?” You stated the obvious, turning around sharply to meet his eyes.

“Right!” He shyly remembered.

His erection was continuing to grow and he wondered if you could feel it against you.

“Something wrong, Obi Wan?” You asked him, Both of you were fully aware of what was happening, but the lack of direct communication refused to acknowledge it plainly.

“Oh, I’m fine” He replied, clearing his throat again.

“You sure? You seemed flustered” You pushed the conversation further.

“Y-yes I'm, uh, I’m sure” he stumbled over his words.

“Seems like you’re having a hard time with your words there, Master Kenobi” you purred, wasting no time dancing around the idea. “Well, something is hard” you smirked, getting close to his face while sitting sideways across his thighs.

His breath hitched in his throat when he heard your voice turn sensual. Obi Wan said nothing because he wasn’t sure what to say. He wanted you, that you could tell, but a man that lived so strictly by the Jedi code would be hard to crack. And in public? He’d be insane to let you seduce him.

“Y/n...” he groaned deeply. His body language communicating how hard it was to restrain himself.

“Yes?” You whispered while moving your lips to his bare neck. You placed your lips at his supple skin and pecked slowly and lightly.

“As lovely as this is, I can’t” he protested. “It’s forbidden for me to engage in this, y/n, you know that”

Regardless, your lips continued working at his neck. A hum, almost resembling a moan, crawled from his mouth.

“You’re telling me, that if I got on my knees, right now, right here in front of you, that you wouldn’t want me to suck your cock?” You purred so softly directly into his ear. You observed the chills that cascading down his body and you smiled against his skin.

“Stars, y/n, I’ve never heard you talk like this” He avoided the question, his breathing still tense. You felt his hips buck slightly up into your weight.

“I know how stressed you are, Obi Wan, let me help you” you offered. He looked into your eyes for a moment. Desperation was hidden deep in his gaze. He wanted a release, but had to make a decision of his morality and his loyalty to the Jedi Order.

“You want to do that to me...here?” He inquired the absurdity of your offered actions and especially there in public. His tone was so innocent and clueless to your attraction to him.

“Oh, Master Kenobi, it’d be my pleasure” you called him by his formal name yet again, even though you’d only ever called him Obi Wan. You assumed it might turn him on. You were right.

You softly press your lips onto his. He received your lips hesitantly, but then eagerly. You moved to straddle him, placing both legs on either side of his hips. You pushed your hips forward, curling them into his bulge. Becoming more comfortable with your touch, Obi Wan’s lips danced with yours passionately.

Butterflies fluttered in your belly as you finally acted on your eager built up desires for him.

“But, y/n, the Council -” he began again, breaking the kiss, and still worried for his long list of ethical restrictions on his life.

“I don’t see them here...do you? And we both know Anakin doesn’t follow the rules, does he?” You persisted.

“Well, no. I suppose you’re right” he whispered back, laughing quietly at your comment. He was nervous, but it was impossible for him to hide his new hunger for your lips around his cock.

“Allow yourself some fun, Master”

“Y/n, I want to, but I’ve never done anything like this before” He admitted casually.

“Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of you” you sweetly assured him.

“Okay, darling, but I do believe we must make this quick” he finally fully accepted the idea, but looked quickly around the very large room to confirm you were alone together.

“Oh it won’t take me long at all” you winked at him.

Removing yourself from his lap, his eyes never left you as he was unsure of your next step. You got on your knees in front of him, as you promised. His hands eagerly fumbled to pull his trousers down. You met his hands halfway and took over.

His cock begged to be let free from its restraints. Once the cloth passed his full length, it sprung out and met your eye level. He was so adorably nervous. You released a moan at the sight of him exposed to you.

You wrapped your hand around him and the contact made him twitch. He breathed out heavily as he’d never been touched like this by another person. Your eyes met his lustful gaze. You raised your eyebrows, non verbally asking If he was ready. He nodded his head, and you proceeded.

Your lips parted widely to bring him into your mouth. Your eyes locked as you lowered your mouth completely down his length, taking all of him into you. A feeling so unfamiliar to him caused Obi Wan to grip the arm rest of the chair. He breathed in sharply, and exhaled the sweetest moan. Using the moisture from your mouth, you glided yourself up and down slowly.

“Oh my stars, y/n” he whispered. You two knew you still needed to be quiet, in case someone was close.

Obi Wan was so sensitive and touch starved beyond belief. No matter how hard he tried to muffle himself, he was unsuccessful. Your ears were graced with the delicate sounds escaping his lips as you brought him more pleasure than he’d ever experienced before.

“Fuck” he cried, already so close to his climax from your skilled motions. Vulgarity flying from him was a new sound to you and it earned a warm sensation inside of you.

An aching formed between your legs, a feeling of pleasure that was all too familiar to you. You wanted him to take you right then and there, but you’d surely get caught. Another time, you thought.

Removing your mouth to rest your jaw, you pumped your hands around him. You looked up at him, his eyes had still not broken contact with you while you created a euphoric form of pleasure for him for the first time.

“Y/n...” he whimpered

“Yes, Master Kenobi?” You cooed and smiled at him. He formed a grin down at you that quickly turned back into his O-face as you pumped him faster.

“I’m...oh my” he started, his body couldn’t stay still.

“Are you gonna cum for me?”

“Oh, yes, y/n. I’m so close. I’m gonna cum” he whined.

You returned the moisture of your mouth back to his cock and sloppily, yet rhythmically, sucked him continuously, responding to the way his body moved and the sound of his moans. The veins in his length twitched and his hips shifted.

Obi Wan threw his head back in ecstasy and just then you felt your throat become coated in his hot cum. The suppression of the growls that formed from his climax was intense and deep, somehow loud and quiet simultaneously.

You swallowed him up and removed your mouth from his sensitive parts. Obi Wan’s head was still laid back, you watched as his chest rose and fell with the effort to catch his breath.

“Was that alright?” You asked, giggling, knowing the answer already.

“Well, I...darling that was...incredible” he finally expressed in between his deep breaths.

You helped him pull his trousers back up and plant a kiss on his cheek as you stood.

“Glad I could be of some assistance for you tonight” you winked.

He was blushing, still in disbelief that you two just engaged in such an act. He was so precious and shy about the whole thing, but enjoyed every single second of it.

“Perhaps maybe I can help you next time, hm?” He suggested. You bite your lip, already growing eager for the next time you’d be alone with him.

Kinda wanna make a part 2??

#Obi Wan #Obi Wan Kenobi #Obi Wan x reader #Obi Wan Kenobi x reader #obi wan x fem!reader #Obi wan x male!reader #Obi wan x gender neutral reader #Obi wan smut #Obi wan Kenobi smut #Obi wan fluff #Star Wars smut #aotc #rots #tpm #my gif #Obi wan Kenobi gif #Obi wan gif #my work #scheduled

[plannedparenthood]

COVID-19: No, We're Not All in This Together

The pandemic, the protests, and why racism endures as a public health crisis

By: Ylonda Gault

My daddy used to say: When America gets the sniffles, Black people catch pneumonia. My dad didn't invent the saying but he used it to explain everything from the war on drugs to the 1990s national recession. Even as a child I knew what he meant. In other words, the country's history of institutional racism and unjust policies make every part of Black life — including economic growth, fair housing, health care access and more — exponentially harder than it is for others. Today, as worldwide protests against police brutality continue and COVID-19 ravages the Black community, we see clearly that old sayings are so often repeated because they bear truth.  

The pandemic, a danger for all, is lethal for Black people, who’ve died at a rate of  61.6 per 100,000 people, compared with 26.2 for whites. Yet, this peril is not new. We’ve been brutalized for generations. The murders of Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade and George Floyd, to name but a few, are only an extension of plantation overseer violence and Klan lynchings that have been hallmarks of our 400-year existence in America. In recent weeks, the streets have erupted because structural racism is — and has long been —the public health crisis that no masks, sanitizer, or social distancing can remedy. 

With widespread mandated sheltering and business shutdowns, the serious and potentially deadly infection — caused by a virus for which there is no known cure, vaccine or treatment  — has meant lost income or job loss for some and, for others, a huge inconvenience. But research shows that Black people are much more likely not only to get infected with COVID-19 — but to die from the disease because racism undergirds our health care systems, workplace policies, and the environment.  — Indigenous and Latino communities are also more vulnerable. 

That’s not because we are, as a race, doing something to cause infection. We’re not to blame. Nor is it because we’re unhealthy as a group, or because of something in our biology.

Why are Black communities hit hardest? 

Institutional racism is the pre-existing condition that has left Black communities far more vulnerable to COVID-19 than others. While many think the racist barriers to Black people's rights and freedom came to a close with the end to enslavement, they have not only persisted — but grown more entrenched. From Jim Crow segregation, voting and housing discrimination, to heavy-handed policing, generation after generation of targeted bigotry has led to a lack of equity in health care, housing, education, and opportunity. For example, for Black people who work in the service sector; their jobs put them at greater risk of getting COVID-19 — as does the environment. These circumstances are not the result of bad luck or poor choices; they’re created by a long legacy of racist policies that have put Black people in harm's way and made our communities more at risk from the virus that causes COVID-19 than white people 

Of course, chief among the risk factors is the barrier to health care access. Black people who work in low-wage jobs usually lack insurance, leading to delayed or bypassed essential health care services — because of the cost. We’re also more likely to live farther away from medical care and face language barriers. And Black people and other folks of color are distrustful of health care professionals because of historical mistreatment. The U.S medical establishment has a history of exploiting Black folks, Latinos, and Indigenous people by performing medical experiments on them without consent, and even stealing their dead bodies from the grave for research and profit.  

Barriers to preventive health care — again, a primary outcome of structural racism in the U.S. — mean Black and Latinx communities also have higher rates of health issues like diabetes, heart disease, and lung disease. People with chronic health conditions such as heart disease and diabetes were hospitalized six times more often than otherwise healthy individuals infected with the coronavirus during the first four months of the pandemic, and they died 12 times more often, according to a new report published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The public health disaster facing Black communities is the result of hundreds of years of U.S. policies that bolster white supremacy and marginalize Black people. But the pandemic is just a single symptom of the nation's public health disaster. What is being played out over the past few weeks, as people take to the streets to protest a national pattern of violent over-policing, is another. 

Why protest during a pandemic?

Just as structural racism created fertile ground for COVID-19 to take root in the Black community, it has also helped plant the groundswell of pro-Black organizing across the country in the wake of George Floyd's murder May 25. Black people, for whom racial profiling and stop-and-frisk policies are a way of life, don't need a viral video to prove their realities; police have killed roughly 1,000 people a year since 2015, according to The Washington Post's real time police shooting data base. While many outside the Black community see the recent spate of killings at the hands of police as random and unrelated — "a few bad apples," so to speak — the pandemic and police brutality are two crises inextricably linked. Both are killing us. And both seem to be unrelenting.

It’s Shakespearean that as he lay dying — a white police officer nonchalantly kneeling on his throat, Floyd can be heard in a plaintive whisper: "I can't breathe."

Black America has long been suffocated by racist and dehumanizing policies. Certainly protests have erupted in the past, in response to the brutal murders of Black people by the police — notably, the 2014 murders of Eric Garner in New York City and Michael Brown in St. Louis. But none have gripped the national and global attention of what is happening now. The volume and breadth of outrage is magnified — at least, in part — because the added dimension of COVID-19 deaths has created a perfect storm. 

Unlike Ferguson demonstrations, for example, when protesters of late carry placards that read "Stop Killing Us," the statement has implications far broader than police violence. And the simple phrase, Black Lives Matter, hits different now, too. There will always be detractors and deniers who reflexively counter that “all lives matter.” But there’s a new resonance to the BLM phrase, and wider acceptance among white Americans of what it means to "matter" — and with it, a deeper awareness of the unjust conditions that disproportionately keep the rest of the world from understanding all the ways that Black lives matter.

#covid-19 #racism #public health #barriers #black community

[ouyangzizhensdad]

Phoenix Mountain Kiss and Consent/Boundaries in MDZS

The following opinion, expressed in the recent mdzs controversial opinion thread on twitter, is actually one I’ve meant to address for a while:

Even if most of fans loves the 'stolen kiss scene' in the Phoenix Mountain in the novel, that was a sexual harassment.

People in the fandom, especially those who were introduced first to the novel through cql, have a tendency to criticize the Phoenix Mountain kiss scene, saying it was non-consensual. My problem is not that they are wrong. The kiss is (or starts as, at the very least) non-consensual. My problem with this criticism is that people point this out as if it were a mistake. As if mxtx had meant to write a romantic kiss and had instead fumbled it all up and made it not consensual by virtue of not being woke, not being a good enough writer, or being too influenced by bl tropes. And that readers are too unsuspecting or not educated enough to realize the wrong mxtx committed. 

Here’s my hot take: The kiss is non-consensual because it was written to be non-consensual. mxtx is not trying to pull the wool over our eyes. The reason why we, as readers, can infer that, is because the non-consensual aspects of the kiss are important to the events of the plot, some of themes explored in the book, lwj and wwx’s relationship after wwx’s return, and lwj’s character arc. mxtx uses this moment and its aftermaths, amongst others, to make a point about consent and communication in relationships--one of the central themes of the novel. Shocking, I know. Arguing that consent and communication are a main theme in mdsz: now that's a controversial opinion.

Now, I won’t argue mxtx always manages to develop this theme with utmost finesse. You can critique and disagree with her treatment of the theme throughout the novel (taking into consideration, as well, how it’s not just explored through lwj and wwx’s relationship). That being said, isolating events in the novel like the Phoenix kiss scene to mark them as Good or Bad without considering the context in which they happen and are explored within the novel is just bad literary analysis :/. 

Let’s first consider this simple statement: the non-consensual aspect of the kiss is not accidental--mxtx knew it was non-consensual when she wrote it, and she wasn’t trying to hide that fact. 

By the time we reach the Phoenix Mountain competition, lwj has accepted his feelings for wwx, and that these feelings will not be returned. After all, in the xuanwu cave, wwx took great pains to ‘reassure’ him that he is super-straight-and-totally-would-never-flirt-with-him. Yet, wwx continues to ‘flirt’ with him--tossing a flower at him just before the competition--which we can gather is a source of, um, great torment for him. 

We are not privy to lwj’s thought process leading to the stolen kiss. What we know for certain, however, is how he reacts to and perceives his own actions after the fact.  Through wwx’s unreliable narration, we can still understand that lwj immediately regrets his actions and feels uncontrollable anger towards himself and his lack of self-restraint. While wwx has more complicated and contradictory feelings bout the kiss, lwj clearly sees his actions as wrong and disrespectful. He is scared of what he has been capable of doing unto another person--pushing wwx away the moment he sees him after the kiss. 

The person spun around. It was Lan Wangji after all. However, right now, his eyes were bloodshot, his expression almost frightening. Wei Wuxian was startled, “Wow, so scary.”

Lan Wangji’s voice was harsh, “Go!”

Wei Wuxian, “I just came here and you want me to go. Do you really hate me that much?”

Lan Wangji, “Stay away from me!” [chapter 69]

As readers, we are told that the Phoenix Mountain kiss, nor its implications, is not something to consider lightly. The fact that lwj’s reaction after the kiss is written in, and that it is so intense for someone usually so reserved, or the fact that we learn that more than a decade later he is still ashamed of himself and describe himself as having done something wrong (or, very wrong 很不对 ), all prove that the non-consensual aspect of the kiss is not an accident and is not downplayed as something to expect from someone in love with another person. 

蓝忘机闷声道：“我，那时，自知不对。很不对。” [chapter 111]

I can already hear some people ask: even if it was not an accident, why chose to include a non-consensual kiss between the two romantic leads? if not because it is a bl trope/weird kink, why did mxtx chose to put this in her novel? what do we gain by including dubious consent or non-consensual interactions in our fiction?

The long-short answer is: because the act of crossing boundaries is a very productive story-telling device for any piece of media focusing on any type of interpersonal relationships. Crossing boundaries--willfully or unintentionally--is a source of conflict, internal and/or relational, which can drive the plot forward, shape character development and relationships, as well as be useful for certain thematic discussions. 

Current discourses regarding consent in English-speaking, mostly-western spheres of the web tend to be very polarized, painting people who cross boundaries as bad. The solution presented (i.e. how to not be a bad person) tends to be an invitation for everyone, within any relationship, to constantly negotiate consent verbally and honestly: to constantly disclose boundaries, to constantly ask for permission, etc. While I do not dismiss the value of these suggestions, it is an ideal representative of certain socio-temporally specific cultural expectations of what communication is, how communication should happen, and how relationships should be like, etc.. Human relationships are messy, people are flawed and hurt each other, and we have complex internal lives (for instance, someone might not realize their wants or limits until they are faced with them). Instead of having media show us only a specific type of idealized relationships where boundaries are never crossed, ever, they allow us to explore the implications of boundaries within interpersonal relationships. Or, sometimes, media and fiction just aim to represent or are influenced by this very real part of human relationships, and use it as a way to create conflict within the narrative and relationships (sometimes in a interesting manner, sometimes in a very gross manner).

In mdsz, the Phoenix mountain non-consensual kiss is a two-fold source of conflict:  internal (lwj) and relational. While wwx remains unaware until he and lwj are together of the identity of the person who kissed him, the implications of the kiss ends up shaping their relationship both before and after wwx’s rebirth. 

A source of (unknown) conflict between lwj and wwx after he is summoned back from the dead is the fact that lwj believes wwx is aware of his feelings. But this conflict is further compounded by the fact that lwj has once forced his feelings unto wwx, and is utterly afraid that he would dare to ever do it again. That is why, every time wwx initiates physical contact, or flirts very deliberately with lwj, lwj never goes further than what wwx has initiated. Sometimes, he even de-escalates their proximity or level of intimacy (usually by asking wwx to “ 别乱动”  or, famously during Drunk#2, by literally knocking himself out) --out of fear that he, again, would lack self-control and do something wrong to the man he loved.  He never presumes he has the permission to push their relationship further than what wwx is offering. Without that added source of conflict, would it have been reasonable to expect lwj and wwx to have realized their mutual feelings earlier, even with the issue of lwj not being aware wwx does not know of his feelings?

“In the beginning, the reason for behaving in such a manner was to let Lan Wangji be disgusted with him and kick him out of the Cloud Recesses, and they would never have to meet again, going their separate ways. Lan Wangji couldn’t possibly tell what his real intentions were. Yet, [..] even when faced with Wei Wuxian’s various actions, tricks, and pranks, Lan Wangji never once lost his temper, reciprocating with restraint and courtesy.” [chapter 99]

That is all true, of course, until Drunk 3. Here again, the ghost of the stolen kiss plays a part in accentuating the conflict. Without it, would lwj have jumped to conclusions as quickly? And, plot-wise, the shared perception of wwx and lwj that they have taken advantage of the other is a source of conflict that does multiple things--it gives wwx an incentive to go look at the temple at night to distract himself from his guilt and sadness, instead of going the next day with lwj (at which point jgy would have had perhaps already left) and it keeps wwx in the dark about lwj’s feelings until lxc reveals to him the events of the past he has forgotten. Here again, issues of consent are clearly taken into consideration as a source of conflict, shaping both characters’ motivations and the events of the plot.

Finally, the theme of consent/boundaries is an important aspect of lwj’s internal struggle, particularly in relation to his father’s choices. The kiss is part of his journey. 

It is not coincidental that the Lan motto is “Be Honorable”/”Self-restraint,” and that lwj is presented as the model Lan disciple. This element is part of the context that gives narrative and thematic meaning to the non-consensual kiss. When lwj forces a kiss on a blindfolded wwx, lwj goes against the values he holds dear and the teachings that were imparted unto him--prime internal conflict. 

But what is also interesting, to me in any case, is how consent is the thing that ultimately differentiates lwj’s choices from his father’s. 

How willing was Lan-furen to be saved by Qingheng-jun? to be taken to live in seclusion in the Cloud Recesses? to be married to him? to have children with him? The novel never tells us clearly. However, the novel gives us an idea of how lqr, lxc and lwj perceive their parents’ relationship. For lwj, we are given an insight into his perception indirectly during the following conversation between him and lxc.

[Lan Xichen] spoke, “Wangji, is there something on your mind? Why have you been so tense?”

Of course, in most people’s eyes, the ‘tenseness’ probably looked no different than Lan Wangji’s other expressions.

Lan Wangji’s brows sunk low as he shook his head. A few moments later, he replied in a low voice, “Brother, I want to take someone back to the Cloud Recesses.”

Lan Xichen was surprised. “Take someone back to the Cloud Recesses?”

Lan Wangji nodded, his expression pensive. After a pause, he continued, “Take them back… and hide them somewhere.”

Lan Xichen’s eyes immediately widened.

[…]

“Hide them somewhere?”

Lan Wangji frowned softly. “But they are not willing.” [chapter 72]

Indirectly, we come to understand that lwj draws parallels with his father situation: they both want to protect someone by taking them to the Cloud Recesses, but these persons are unwilling. The unsaid question here is, would I choose to do as our father did? 

The non-consensual kiss is part of lwj’s journey, through which he comes to understand that, despite his strict upbringing and disciplined lifestyle that was supposed to keep him from becoming like his father, he is capable of being his father (or at least who he thinks his father is). He learns that he can understand what sort of passionate feelings could bring someone to do something that goes against not only the wishes of his clan members, but the very wishes of the person they love, for the sake of keeping them safe or for the sake of having them by their sides. And at the end of that internal journey, lwj chooses not be like his father--to put wwx’s decisions and wants and needs first. After buyetian, lwj offers his protection and confesses his feelings--and wwx rejects him. lwj respects wwx’s choice, while still going against his clan to protect him. He brings wwx back to Mass Grave Hill knowing full well that wwx would not survive long the wrath of the four great sects seeking revenge against him, and goes home to receive his punishment.

Overall, what I tried to say in many many words, is that the Phoenix Mountain kiss is not non-consensual by accident. It is not because mxtx is an awful person or is not educated enough, or because she thinks dubious consent is romantic. The fact that it is non-consensual is addressed within the narrative, fuels internal and external conflicts, and is as well woven into the plot structure and the themes of the novel. The kiss is not an outlier element, added to titillate a readership--it exists as an integral part of the novel.

I’m not saying it’s not okay to decide that you do not want to engage with any content that includes non-consensual interactions or dubious consent because that triggers or irks you regardless of the way it is handled. It is totally valid to not personally enjoy or have criticisms about choices mxtx made in exploring these themes, in presenting the internal and relational conflicts around consent/boundaries, or even in the way she decided to write the scenes that figure dubious consent. However, it is not really helpful to divorce an event from its context within a piece of media in order to brand it as either Problematic or Unproblematic, Good or Bad.

Note: Much more could be said about the theme of consent/boundaries in mdzs; this is not exhaustive in the least. 

Note2: Much more could be said, in relation to the question and theme of consent, about: the cultural limitations of Westerners to engage fully with a text written for a chinese audience; the limits of fan translators to fully understand  the nuances and themes of a novel and to communicate them in a different language; about the place dubious consent and non-consensual interactions has had in the romance/erotica genre for a long time, and no, not only because Misogyny or Homophobia. 

#re: controversial mdzs opinion twitter thread #mdzs #mdzs meta #excuse my english lmao #wangxian #this is 2k i'm sorry

[shinjaeha]

ipytm ep 3 (thoughts + spoilers)

this is going to be a tough post for me to do bc honestly...this ep just left me feeling so run down. i know that the cast and crew have always strived for realism and authenticity with this series, but this one was just a lot to take in :/ my thoughts are gonna be even more all over the place than usual but idec at this point. having to rewatch this ep again is really fucking hard (even harder than itsay ep 4 bc even though that makes my heart ache, i still feel some sense of satisfaction from the development we get...this just leaves me feeling defeated in every way).

you know the drill: not an analysis, just me ranting as usual bc free therapy (and boy do i need it after this one)!! i had so many feelings watching this ep (esp towards teh but what’s new), so here goes.

we begin with the drama students rehearsing for jai’s new play, and the introduction of the plum wine which will be the recurring motif in this whole ep. the use of the plum wine in this also kind of reminds me of how teh initially disliked coconuts until he started falling in love with oh-aew and started to like them instead...i’m guessing that’s the parallel they’re trying to draw with the plum wine comparison in this.

teh’s having a hard time getting into character (which we already know from last ep was always going to be one of the toughest challenges for him as an actor). his character in the play is supposed to have a sex scene, but he’s struggling with this bc he can’t put himself in his character (akin’s) shoes, so jai ends rehearsals early.

jai gives them all logbooks which he basically wants them to treat as diaries where they’ll write everything they feel/learn and hand it back to him (he’ll be the only one reading them). ngl this already had me feeling kind of yikes (esp now as i rewatch this knowing how everything went down) since jai already has inside knowledge about teh’s feelings on his relationship with oh-aew which he can take advantage of :/ more on that later though...

it’s sad to me that so much time has passed since teh’s argument with khim and he's STILL avoiding her. khim was someone that he respected immensely (and was such a great mentor for him) so it just sucks to see that their relationship has deteriorated so much since the first two eps. teh might have had his reconciliation moment with oh-aew last ep, but there’s still a lot that he’s not ready or willing to address yet.

i understand that teh’s just encouraging jai about his work when he tells him to stop having others comment on it, but at the same time, i disagree with him bc i think it IS important to get other peoples’ opinion about your work. how else will you ever be able to see things from other perspectives if you don’t?

anyway, teh tells jai he’s seeing a play, and jai asks teh if he’s bringing oh-aew...the look on teh’s face is telling enough that things aren’t going great between them (at least on his end). this brings us to the logbook scene, where teh’s homework for the day is to write about the similarities and differences between himself and his character in the play. this gets teh to reflect on how he feels his relationship with oh-aew is changing, or specifically, how oh-aew seems to be changing so much that teh feels like he’s becoming someone else entirely...and does that mean that he still loves him the same?

i feel like this is a fairly common issue with people that have been in a relationship for a while (and this is their third year together now), so i understand how teh might start having doubts. it’s nothing that oh-aew’s done, it’s just that sometimes all these small changes can keep mounting up to the point that they feel much bigger than they actually are. oh-aew’s really just doing what everyone else does, which is grow and change as they get older, but teh’s still stuck in the past trying to hold onto what they used to have instead of evolving with oh-aew. the way teh picks at all these little changes of oh-aew does make me think that he’s self-sabotaging himself. he’s just so afraid and insecure that oh-aew will change so much he leaves him, that he has to nitpick at reasons why oh-aew’s the one that’s growing away from him (though when we watch the whole ep we know that that’s not the case at all). it’s like a ‘if i push him away first, then he won’t push me away’ sort of self-defence mechanism. either way, teh’s a constant overthinker...and he’s always been his own biggest enemy since the start, so it makes perfect sense to me that he would do this to himself here too.

i know that they’ve been together for years at this point, so things are not quite as exciting as they used to be, but it hurts to see oh-aew be so happy about getting an A for his class, and teh be so unenthused about it. oh-aew has to basically beg teh to give him attention and praise. remember when teh used to get so worried when oh-aew did badly in chinese class...and now it’s like whatever to him just bc he’s not tutoring him/they’re not in the same major anymore :((( i know it’s prob both bc teh’s still hurting that oh-aew transferred majors, and from seeing oh-aew succeed while he feels like he’s failing, but still...

also, not inviting him to see the play with him bc he thought oh-aew wouldn’t be interested/oh-aew kept falling asleep whenever they saw plays together ;;; i get the reasoning from both povs, but it still is nice to be asked :(

so one thing i have to say about the progression of their relationship here is that i just feel this huge disconnect from last ep and this ep?? i know it’s bc of the time skip (since it’s a year later basically), but to go from the end of ep 2, where they’re promising to love each other forever, and then to teh feeling disillusioned/as though he’s falling out of love with oh-aew basically right after that?? it’s so jarring. i feel like we lose so much with these time skips bc the transition from ep 2 to ep 3 is never really shown, so there’s this lack of flow there. like we’ve skipped a step entirely and something’s missing. this is the disadvantage of only focussing on one year per ep since there’s not enough time to explore as much character and relationship development when we’re only seeing an hour long snippet of an entire year. it just makes things feel superficial since so much of what we should be seeing is missing...and we basically have to fill in all the gaps ourselves.

okay, back to oh-aew ranting to his friends about how he feels like his relationship with teh is fading away bc they don’t have the same interests anymore, but also wondering if that’s just normal for long-term relationships. bless that boy that came to ask oh-aew for his ig :’) at least he knows that he’s wanted and has options, even if he obv turns him down bc of teh (for now).

plug and mangpong are dating!!!!!!! and mangpong does a horrible job of trying to hide it 😂 sidenote, but i love the way pp delivers lines sometimes (like the “just shocked”), he’s so cute. plug and mangpong’s legs touching...and the wave of nostalgia that came over me (and oh-aew) during that ;;; oh-aew seeing their blossoming relationship would make him reminisce back to his own experience of falling in love with teh...when everything was still so fluttery and new. so when teh texts him about using his car to help jai move, he looks happy. like he wants to rekindle those feelings again too.

that being said, it’s kind of sad to me how even jai shows more interest in oh-aew’s major than teh (when he asks him for his opinion on how to get people interested in his play). oh-aew’s got some good ideas and is more than willing to help (esp since he wants to connect and find a common interest with teh again). also, just bc oh-aew doesn’t want to be an actor anymore doesn’t mean that he’s completely uninterested in it. god, watching this part again hurts bc oh-aew looks so happy and optimistic. he worked so hard to help teh (and jai) only for them to betray him like that. it made me mad originally, but now it just breaks my heart :(

jai’s running acting classes again for his play, and this time it’s a workshop to help them tap into their feelings. it’s like an intimacy exercise where they give one another consent to touch certain body parts. teh is still struggling a lot with this. i think teh craves intimacy, but as he doesn’t feel that connection in his personal life to oh-aew anymore, so it’s difficult for him to draw on his experiences. he can’t even remember the first time he had sex with oh-aew properly anymore. as usual, teh’s too in his own head to just go with the flow and ~feel things (which isn’t new since teh’s had problems with this since itsay), but it’s def something that he’ll need to learn how to do if he wants to become an actor. he’s trying, but the fact that he can’t get to that place makes him feel even more insecure than ever that he might never be able to get there. imo one of the reasons teh works so hard, and is as driven and ambitious as he is, is that he’s afraid that he’ll never be good enough. he puts so much pressure on himself, and the issue with that is that he’ll never be able to live up to his expectations that way.

teh is also very much alone now. oh-aew has his group of friends to talk to about his relationship with teh, but teh just has jai at this point. he’s pushed khim away...and he and oh-aew aren’t communicating effectively (which is also why they’re on SUCH different wavelengths in terms of where their relationship is at), so there’s literally only jai for him to talk to about all his relationship issues. and to me at least, jai seems to have ulterior motives (particularly when you consider that the subject matter of his play is pretty much the same thing that teh’s going through rn). it’s times like this when i do feel kind of bad for teh, but then again, he brought this upon himself the way that he almost always does...and it leaves me frustrated instead.

jai kissing his professor though...also their conversation?? i have QUESTIONS...

that whole interaction with teh when jai catches him spying on him and the professor was SO awkward. idk what it is about teh but i have never encountered a character that has given me as much secondhand embarrassment as he does. when he starts touching the bars and avoiding eye contact i just- why, teh why?????

moving on, i’m thinking there’s prob more to that scene that we don’t know about bc jai’s shifty like that...but it’s purpose is also to shift teh’s perception of jai. before this, he pretty much just saw jai as his friend and mentor, but seeing him kiss someone else pushes him to think of jai in another less platonic light. like the first spark of attraction.

the both of them go to see the mime show (babymime), and i know that the point of this is so teh can learn to just feel and let go the way that the mimes in this play do, but idk it’s just kind of funny to me the contrast between the last scene and this one. 

the leg touching scene again but this time with teh and jai...thanks, i hate it :/// 

teh’s already feeling like he and oh-aew’s interests are making them drift apart, so by connecting with jai, it’s that initial feeling of attraction that he used to feel with oh-aew all those years ago. jai is that cool senior that he respects...he’s goal-oriented and has so much in common with him (in a way that he feels that oh-aew doesn’t anymore), so it doesn’t altogether surprise me that teh latches onto jai in this way. esp when all their conversations revolve around what teh’s most passionate about, and what dreams they’re striving towards in the future.

it doesn’t surprise me bc teh’s affections shifted in a similar way from tarn to oh-aew when he was first starting to realise his feelings for oh-aew too (though at least he and tarn were never officially dating during that time...)

there’s a genuineness to the way teh praises and encourages jai that isn’t there when he’s doing the same to oh-aew :( and that coupled with teh lying to oh-aew about him having dinner with jai while oh-aew is at home, completely oblivious, painstakingly photoshopping his boyfriend’s face on the poster of the play TO HELP TEH instead of doing his own uni work, makes me so fucking upset for oh-aew.

it’s interesting to see how different their personalities are even when it comes to something as simple as the way they read their texts. oh-aew is so ready to accept whatever teh tells him at face value, but teh overthinks everything to the point where he jumps to a certain conclusion in his head about it instead.

but yeah, it’s just really tough to see oh-aew try so hard for teh, only to see teh do nothing back for oh-aew in return. there’s only so much one side can give. it’s the absolute lack of effort on teh’s part to even try to make things work with oh-aew that is the most frustrating thing of all. oh-aew is carrying their entire relationship rn and it makes me feel all “and for what?? why should he even bother??” about it.

sneaking to sit at the river with jai is like this forbidden, new experience, so it just enhances that feeling of attraction that teh is already feeling towards jai. and esp when he starts telling him about his previous relationship with james, the significance of the plum wine, and how jai ended up breaking up with him. since it’s reflective of teh’s own experiences atm (even in how he kind of self-sabotages himself to push people/oh-aew away first), he clearly takes it to heart. and it makes him want to do an even better job since the play is an autobiographical one for jai. not to mention, teh supposedly being the only one that jai told his story to makes him feel ‘special’......and we all know how teh likes feeling as though he’s special to someone. you can see it in how dejected he is when he thinks jai only told him his story bc he wanted him to get into character better, but perks up the moment jai says he actually told him bc teh’s been doing such a good job (and to encourage him). like i mentioned before, teh’s already feeling vulnerable and isolated from everybody else, so hearing any sort of praise (and esp when it’s from someone that he looks up to as much as jai), is going to pull him in.

when they were hiding from the security guard i was like ughhh i know where this is heading and i. don’t. like. it........

the problem is that i know where teh stands on this. like i know that there’s some attraction on his end. but i don’t know where jai stands. is he intentionally manipulating teh’s feelings for his play? is there any sincerity there? i think it’s obvious that he can tell teh is attracted to him from the glance that they share in this scene, but i can’t get a handle on what he actually wants (which i guess is the point of making his character as mysterious as it is but still). and if he can tell, and he doesn’t actually like teh back in that way, it makes the end scene even more yikes imo.

hmmm teh lying in the pool trying to recreate that feeling right before their first kiss when the both of them just let everything go and sank down into the water. that’s how you KNOW the next scene is supposed to be angsty...bc just like how their first underwater kiss had a sense of sadness to it bc they were hiding, their first (on screen) sex scene has that same sense of sadness, only this time it’s bc teh’s using his attraction to jai/his method actor desire to get into character to fuel the sex instead of bc he genuinely just wants to have sex with oh-aew. and if his reasoning for the sex is bc of that, then his task to recreate their first sexual experience will never live up to the actual first time they had sex (when they BOTH wanted it, and there were no other factors involved).

that’s not to say i don’t think teh doesn’t love oh-aew anymore. i think that there HAS to be some level of love still there amidst all of the confusion, but it feels a lot more like he’s testing his love/attraction to oh-aew during this scene (sort of like how he did with tarn in itsay) than a proper ‘love scene’. like he’s trying to reconfirm his feelings, whilst using oh-aew as inspiration for his role at the same time. it makes my heart ache that this is the first love scene we get from them this series, and it’s marred by the context of what we know is going on in teh’s head. like i said, it’s this permeating sadness throughout...and just knowing that oh-aew has absolutely NO IDEA what’s going on with teh and why he suddenly wants to have sex makes it worse. oh-aew’s been trying to make things work, and in his mind, teh spontaneously coming over like this prob makes him think that things are getting better between them since this is also the closest thing to teh showing any sort of initiative to work on their relationship in this ep so far...

and that’s not also taking away how beautifully this whole scene is shot. i’ve always loved the way that teh and oh-aew play and flirt with each other (bkpp’s chemistry is honestly unparalleled!!) so it was nice to see them be kind of playful before they started kissing again (if you ignore how sad this scene really is). i LOVE the inter-splicing between their first time on the beach and the present. the way the score swells, and little moments where you can see their feet and fingers interlocked on the beach. it gives you such a visceral visual (and totally takes me back to itsay days when that sort of imagery was used a lot more). i just hate that since we know the truth, this scene is more uncomfortable than satisfying despite how nicely shot it is.

i wish we got more domestic moments from them. i know their relationship has sort of grown past those initial moments of flirtation, but it truly makes me sad that we don’t get to see more of them as a couple in general in ipytm. moments like this where they’re lying in bed cuddling each other are so few and far between that i always feel like i have to cherish every little fleeting piece of fluff that i can get. even if idek if this can really be called fluff since the context sort of ruins it.

oh-aew’s still got his heart attack bag :’)))

he was soooooo happy when he met up with his friends 😭 but also, how the hell is it possible for teachers to move deadlines up like that. i FEEL that panic... poor oh-aew...

teh’s in rehearsals again and this time he’s wearing his moon shirt which...i do NOT need those ep 3 itsay vibes rn when i was already dreading this last ten minutes with everything i have in me :((( but anyway, jai’s brought plum wine to class and we know that teh doesn’t usually drink, but he does this time. he tells teh that the taste will change over time (it symbolises the ageing of the relationship process), and teh says it’s a pity he won’t get to taste it next time since jai wants to go abroad to study. then teh tells him he’s worked on the acting exercise and wants to try it out with jai, and i feel like we all knew where it was going to go from here.........

they really had to hammer it in with him missing oh-aew’s call too huh :/

as soon as they started the touching/intimacy exercise again i was just waiting for the catch. even on this rewatch i’m still sitting here chanting “don’t do it teh don’t do it” knowing full well that he kisses jai and there’s no changing that. but then when they cut to oh-aew walking up the stairs with the posters and you hear just how much time he’s sacrificed to help teh/jai on this...sacrificing time EVEN NOW just to go over to their uni to give them the posters when he has a presentation due tomorrow that he and his friends still haven’t finished working on...it’s just heartbreaking knowing what he’s going to end up walking in on.

whether it’s itsay or ipytm, teh’s default state is confusion. so while i think that there’s a certain amount of attraction towards jai there of course, i kind of get the feeling that he’s confusing his feelings of connection with jai (bc of their shared interests and passion) with him falling in love with jai. i feel like his attraction to jai reminds him of what it was like when he was first attracted to oh-aew, and since things have changed so much between him and oh-aew, it’s like he wants to recreate and capture that feeling again with jai (which is also why he wears the moon shirt...he wore that during itsay ep 3 beach scene, which was the moment when the attraction really started to burn between him and oh-aew). he can’t feel that same spark with oh-aew anymore, so he transfers his feelings to jai since, at this point in time, he feels closer to jai than anyone else. instead of growing alongside oh-aew, it’s like he’s choosing to revert back to a time when he was happier.

we know that teh has always been the type of person that will act on his impulses when he feels them. that’s WHY it was so hard to watch...bc i knew while watching that last scene, he was never going to restrain himself or put a stop to those feelings bleeding over into action. and esp not when it could benefit him in some way with his acting too.

in the end, it just makes me so devastated for oh-aew. and i really hope that he doesn’t let this go bc he thinks it’s just teh method acting or getting into character or whatever...i know that teh’s feeling a lot of conflicting things rn, but that’s not an excuse. he really fucked this one up.

the thing is, it’s not that i don’t think teh is capable of acting this way (i’ve seen a few people say that this is ooc for him, but it really isn’t? this confusion and impulsiveness has always been a part of his character from the very start...he was always the one that had the most trouble dealing with his feelings out of the two of them), but the time skips don’t do him any favours bc we lose all those moments that take him to what he’s currently feeling. when we don’t have those moments, then it’s a lot harder to sympathise with him. in itsay, bc we always knew how teh got from point a to point b, even if he did frustrating/silly things, i always understood where he was coming from. i always felt for him. i GOT his struggles, which was why i was always able to empathise with what he was going through. in ipytm, he just comes off as unlikeable bc of how superficial his feelings seem (from what we’re being shown on screen at least).

falling out of love with your significant other/starting to feel things for someone else is obv a fairly common experience, so i don’t blame teh for FEELING like this, but it’s how he treats oh-aew throughout this that doesn’t sit right with me. even if you feel like you’re falling out of love with someone, or that they’ve changed since the first time you fell in love with them, you’d think there’d be some motivation to at least TRY to make things work with them before giving up. we never see that from teh at all. instead, he just see him becoming infatuated with jai (so we barely see teh/oh-aew together in the first place). and while i can see now that a lot of this is due to his own insecurities and inadequacies, it’s also just so disrespectful to oh-aew who's the one that we see putting in all this time and effort (it calls back to their whole “don’t give my time to others” scene in itsay bc we see oh-aew giving so much of his time to teh through helping him out with his play, while teh’s giving that time that should be for oh-aew to jai now). no matter his reasoning, watching teh act that way towards oh-aew does make it increasingly hard to root for him. there’s just too big a disparity in how the two of them choose to act and devote their time to their relationship.

what’s frustrating is that in itsay, teh would fuck up but he would always try to make amends with oh-aew in some way. he would always come forward to try to sort things out after...but there’s nothing here. even after their dinner fight in ep 2, it’s OH-AEW that reaches out to him first (even though it’s teh’s fault that they fought in the first place). where’s that boy that dressed up in his old school uniform in order to talk to oh-aew at his school? or made a whole chinese idioms scrapbook for oh-aew? or gave up his uni admission for oh-aew? i understand that characters and motivations change (and he was obv hopped up on his first love with oh-aew at the time), but it’s just really, really sad to see teh keep messing up and not even try to meet oh-aew halfway with this. yes, you can fuck up, but there are only so many times you can keep fucking up before it starts to look more like a pattern of shitty behaviour than a few forgivable missteps.

another issue is that there’s been so much focus on teh and his flaws that a lot of the time oh-aew comes off as a side character to teh’s story. previously, i understood that since teh was grappling with his sexuality. it made sense that his journey was the primary focus of the plot and character development. but i always felt that there was more room to explore oh-aew’s story (and i thought that we would get a lot more of that in ipytm...esp after ep 1), but it just feels like we kind of skimmed past all of oh-aew’s growth and struggles adjusting to bangkok/uni life so we could turn the attention back to teh again. i just hate that we never get to see more of how oh-aew’s changed in teh’s eyes (other than the surface level things like his hair, new car and major), and that we never get to see more of oh-aew’s life when it’s not related to teh in general. i hope that we’ll get more of oh-aew in the last two eps, but i really don’t know what they’ll give us anymore.

at this point, i don’t even want them as endgame anymore given everything that’s happened in the recent ep. and it pains me so much to say that bc teh/oh-aew are so immensely important to me, but they’re just in such different places in life. and teh esp has so much more growing to do (i think i said this last week too? teh...). oh-aew deserves to be with someone that can see his worth as he is (that won’t cheat on him for one!!). i just want him to be with someone that can make him happy. what i wanted most for them out of this was for the two of them to grow to a better place (together and as individuals), and while i still want that for them as individuals, it’s hard for me to want them to be happy together anymore. at least for the time being.

i’m kind of at a loss for how they’re gonna work through this (and i genuinely want oh-aew to be able to explore his options too...particularly with someone that will actually treat him better than teh’s treating him atm). so at this point it’s kind of looking to me like a break up is inevitable? but i do think it’s necessary  for both of them rn. i feel so heartbroken about it though...like ipytm is actually making ME go through the breakup...breaking up with all my beloved itsay teh/oh-aew memories :((( anyway, i think a break up is also conveniently the best time to put a time skip tbh...so we’ll see if that does end up happening now in future eps.

this one took such a long time to write up bc i wrote like a quarter of this RIGHT after i finished watching the ep (so you can clearly tell which parts were me right after the ep, and which parts were me after i had some time to sit on what happened 😂), but i thought it was best to take a bit of a break. i didn’t rewatch it again until i calmed down a little and sorted out my thoughts some more (though i know this is still pretty messy). but yeah, i’m still very much interested in watching how they things are going to progress from here...but i can’t deny how sad i’ve been feeling after this.

#i promised you the moon #ipytm #text #i feel like i always need to rewatch ipytm eps bc i'm so HEATED during the first watch #but then by the second one i've usually calmed down so much more #like i obv still have a lot of things that i'm not super happy with (and rewatching this again didn't really bring me joy) but still #i get so invested in itsay/ipytm that sometimes i just gotta take myself out of the situation and go live my life for a bit #i was meant to post this yesterday bc it's been sitting in my drafts for too long but i just woke up (it's 2am) so what better time hah

[misswenndy]

Submissive Men

I think it’s time someone cleared the air around what it means to be a submissive man.  The public perception of a submissive man is not a good one.  There is a huge taboo on it, and many misperceptions on what a submissive man actually is. This is really sad, because many women are missing out on some fantastic men, that just might meet them on all the levels they always wished a man could meet her on.  But since he admits he’s submissive, he is often dismissed as a potential partner in her eyes, due to these misunderstandings.

First of all, the biggest misperception  is that being submissive is weak.  Now lets take a look at this from a few angles.  Being submissive can simply mean, he likes to be led, and he likes to put others before himself.  That he is less aggressive, but more compassionate and thoughtful and selfless.

Now many women, like chivalry, and being courted.  For chivalry to exist, men must put aside their own needs and put hers first, for “regular men” this usually comes with the ulterior motive to get into her pants.  For a submissive man, this comes naturally and his desire to make her happy, and putting her first, makes him happy. So, does a man that wants to please, and wants to make her happy, does that make him weak? In what way?  

Now if you turn it around and look at a “regular man” who is courting and being chivalrous simply to get into her pants for his own selfish needs what do you see?  I see a man that simply wants to use her, and once he’s “conquered” her, he will likely move onto the next woman that he deems worthy of chasing.  Her happiness is often a non issue to him as long as he gets laid.  This is what we see in night clubs and bars all over the world. This isn’t uncommon.  We live in a world where we actually have to explain the definition of consent, lets not forget that.

So, how is a submissive man weak, compared to a “ regular man”?  If you really have a good look, the “regular man” has no commitment, he has no burdens, no sacrifices, therefore, where is the strength?  When you look at the submissive man, he has to put aside his own needs, that takes strength.

He has a willingness to learn who she is, and what she needs, and strive to make her happy, that takes a lot of mental strength and self control.  And, all of that, is before she is even interested in dominating him, he must show and prove his strength of character to her, long before she even considers the idea.  

So he must be strong on the emotional level as well as mental.  Now physically, “regular men” and submissive men, is quite irrelevant. There are submissive men of all forms and “regular men” of all forms, so this isn’t about who is physically stronger. So that’s a non issue.

Physically however, submissive men, tend to be more diplomatic, and try to resolve problems without resorting to violence whenever possible.  “Regular men” on the other hand, tend to be more aggressive, and lack empathy to greater degrees, and tend to resort to violence before proper communication. This is seen all the time in road rage and so on, and lets not even get into rape and all that…

Another misconception about submissive men, is that, they’re gay.  This one is huge, and makes many submissive men hide in the closet afraid to express their submissive tendencies because of the strong taboo.  Being submissive, and being gay, are extremely different things.  That includes submissive’s that gravitate toward cross dressing.  Submissive men, may be a little more gentle, and sometimes a little less masculine. At the same time, we do have a huge issue of toxic masculinity in the world.  So submissive men kind of bring a bit of a balance to what it means to be masculine.  Men are brought up into a world, that teaches them that showing emotions as a man is gay or weak.  

Submissive men, want to show their emotions, because they understand that suppressing these emotions isn’t healthy for anyone in their lives.  Allowing emotion to flow freely through them, enables them to be vulnerable with the women in their lives, who are no strangers to vulnerability, with toxic masculinity always chasing her.

When you take a good look at vulnerability in this way, you can begin to see it as a strength and not a weakness.  A submissive man allowing himself to be vulnerable means he must open up in all the ways he fears the most.

In other words, he must face his deepest fears, and allow himself to be naked, emotionally with his partner.  This is something many men, never, ever, experience.  They’re not strong enough to let go that much.  They’re too busy believing that being macho and unfeeling is somehow the only way to be strong in this world, and as a result we have a world at war, which is nothing more than a big dick contest.

So submissive men, actually bring a balance to masculinity, that can meet the feminine on the levels most men never can. So instead of seeing submissive men as being gay, perhaps we can change the perception to having the balls to be emotional.

Even if a submissive is a cross dresser, or a sissy, it does not mean he is gay.  It means, he wants to understand the feminine, that the raw power felt exploring what it means to be feminine, humbles him as a man.  It actually helps him become a better man, because he is balancing his masculine and feminine sides within him, which will give him a stronger intuition, bring him more in touch with his body, and the natural world.  

It will make him feel more alive, more in tune, and give him heightened senses.  So exploring the feminine side isn’t necessarily a bad thing for a man to do, and I would recommend that all men be open minded enough, and dare I say, strong enough to actually explore it a little.  

Now many men, especially if not submissive, reading this, would be offended by that.  If you’re not comfortable enough to explore the feminine side, how can you call yourself a macho man? There’s a weakness there, inhibitions, fear of vulnerability. It has nothing to do with being gay, that’s the excuse that you come up with to rationalize your decision to never explore it.  The ego in full force.

There is only one thing that makes anything gay, and there is nothing wrong with being gay either. But lets at least get our definitions straight.  The only time anything is gay, is if it’s being done, or desired to be done, with the same gender.  That’s it, nothing more.  

A girl can take a man up the ass with a strap on, and it’s not gay. It’s anal sex. It’s not gay sex.  He can desire to be taken up the ass by his girlfriend, or even on his own, with a butt plug.  Again, not gay.  If he desires a man to be doing it, then yes, that’s gay.  A man wearing panties is not gay either. A man being feminine isn’t gay. A man being with another man, masculine or feminine, that’s gay.  I think you’re getting the point I’m making?

I hope you are, because, the stigma is ridiculous, and the misperception needs to rectified. There are so many submissive men in this world that deserve a chance.

Submissive men must be so strong, to face the extreme levels of vulnerability to submit to a woman in a relationship, that strength and value is often not given credit.  So much of what we see on the internet portrays submissive men as weak, and worthless, to be degraded and humiliated and treated like a dog.  Now, the idea of the things above, in fantasy, can be a turn on, because it caters to a submissive’s desire to submit, no matter how hardcore.

But in reality, it’s a very different picture. In reality it can be a whole lot more romantic and intimate, passionate and charming.  A submissive can be cherished by a woman, and make a fantastic partner that can really meet her on all the right levels and satisfy her needs, not just sexually, but around the house, and in life in general.  He wants to. He needs to.  

It’s a part of who he is, to make her happy is to make him happy.  He’s a man with the ulterior motive of making her happy to make him happy. It’s a very different approach than simply getting laid and moving on to the next.  

A relationship with one partner dedicated to making the other partner happy, is difficult to fail.  It sets a foundation from the start and it has the ability to evolve, because communication is open.  Trust is inherent.  Where there’s trust, there’s always going to be passion and intimacy.  Without trust, there are always insecurity issues, cheating issues, masturbation issues…. etc… With a submissive man, all of those issues are non existent.  It helps her to fully relax knowing he’s there for her, without any doubt of his intentions.  How many women and men, could benefit from this kind of relationship?

And that, is precisely why I wrote a book dedicated to introducing this kind of relationship in a gentle way that doesn’t scare people away with intense fetishes or erotica. A practical approach to a relationship that can set you both free in ways you can’t even imagine yet.  The human body is designed to love, to feel, to be vulnerable, to let go of inhibitions and be accepted for who you really are, with another, down to the deepest level of your soul.

[unforth]

Are there issues with svsss and consent (Just things I’ve heard I wanna know before I read it invade it’s rly not my thing lmfao) or are they more “issues” like in mdzs?

Hmm...okay, so I read SVSSS a bit ago, and pretty quickly, but the answer is basically...yes there are consent issues but I honestly think they’re actually more mild than in MDZS? But it’s also a little complicated, and some of them are different issues...

(spoilers under the read more)

Okay. So, on an overarching plot level, I can think of three potential things that might lead people to say there are consent issues related to the main ship, Shen Qingqiu and Luo Binghe. Note that I haven’t really seen any posts on this topic so I don’t, like, know what issues people single out? I’m pretty much just guessing.

1. Shen Qingqiu is an advanced cultivator and a teacher. Luo Binghe is considerably younger, and his student. This, obviously, could be seen as problematic. However, I personally didn’t feel it was (even though I’m personally sensitive to this dynamic and generally uncomfortable with it) for a few reasons:

a. Shen Qingqiu has absolutely no idea that Luo Binghe is crushing on him when they’re young. He’s as clueless as can be. (I’ll explain why when I get to “thing two that might make people think it’s problematic”). Like, to a reader who knows where things are going, it’s pretty darn obvious, but Shen Qingqiu is entirely fixated on a belief that Luo Binghe is developing a relationship with another disciple named Ning Yingying, and while he’s occasionally confused, like, “huh why did that happen?” he really is absolutely clueless. 

b. Then, for plot reasons, they’re separated for five years...and when Luo Binghe returns, Shen Qingqiu thinks Luo Binghe hates him (for  plot reasons), and then they’re separated AGAIN for another five years (or maybe it was 3? something like that) and only then does Shen Qingqiu finally realize he’s massively misunderstood literally everything. So...they haven’t had a student/teacher dynamic for about a decade by the time they actually start having a relationship.

c. While their apparent age difference is pretty big, their actual age difference isn’t, because...

2. Alright, so the basic premise of SVSSS is that a young man named Shen Yuan dies after reading a stag/harem novel, and then wakes up and discovers that he’s been transplanted into the novel he was reading...in the role of one of the villains. From that point forward, the older man “Shen Qingqiu” is actually Shen Yuan. Shen Yuan is still older than Luo Binghe, but less so...Luo Binghe is roughly 14 or 15 when the book starts, and Shen Yuan is probably 20 or 21. Now, that might be an awkward age difference if they started a relationship right away, but as I say above - years and years pass before anything happens. First, the story advances by about 4 years (give or take, it might be more even) before their first separation, and then ten more years pass before they get together. So at the point when Luo Binghe and Shen Yuan (in the body of Shen Qingqiu) actually get together, Luo Binghe is probably around 30 and Shen Yuan is probably around 36, which...that age difference is not significant between two adults, imo. 

Further, because Shen Yuan “knows” what happens in the novel, he also knows - it was a stag harem novel. So instead of seeing Luo Binghe’s behavior toward him and thinking, “oh no my student has a crush on me,” he spends ALL the time before the separation being like, “oh, Ning Yingying - she’s in his harem! Oh, that other character - also in his harem! Aw look, first meeting with a member of the harem! Oh oh look he’s talking to a harem member.” He has absolutely no fucking clue and it’s ridiculous.

However, all that said...Luo Binghe never actually finds out that Shen Yuan isn’t the same person as Shen Qingqiu, or that Shen Yuan is even in there. It’s clear in the extras that basically everyone who knew Shen Qingqiu figured out that something had changed and collectively decided... “well the change was for the better so uh let’s just not do anything about it okay?” Luo Binghe isn’t part of that conversation, so it could be argued that while Luo Binghe consented to be in a relationship with Shen Qingqiu, he never consented to be with Shen Yuan. It’s a weak argument, though, since Shen Yuan’s arrival is what derails the original harem plot of the “novel” and causes Luo Binghe to fall in love with Shen Qingqiu - so Luo Binghe never loved the original Shen Qingqiu, he always loved the Shen Yuan version of Shen Qingqiu. So...there is a minor consent issue here since Luo Binghe doesn’t know but it’s small.

3. Now, the third point also relates to the Shen Qingqiu/Shen Yuan divide. Shen Qingqiu BEFORE he becomes Shen Yuan is a nasty piece of work, and is highly abusive toward Luo Binghe. Early on, Shen Yuan is kinda...forced...to continue being abusive? Like, there’s this computer System that’s forcing Shen Yuan to “stay in character,” and he’ll literally die (again, for real and permanently this time) if he doesn’t do things at least somewhat like Shen Qingqiu would. But as soon as he “levels up” high enough that he is “allowed” to behave out of character compared to Shen Qingqiu, he stops being abusive and goes out of his way to help and support Luo Binghe. Now, despite that, I could see a case being made that the weird combination of “highly abusive toward” and then “nice” could be seen as manipulative and gaslighty, so that would open up another potential avenue for consent issues.

Now, on a specific “things that happen” event, all of the ACTUAL consent issues are in the other direction - Luo Binghe toward Shen Qingqiu. Cause Luo Binghe is...kinda a whiny bitch...and he is not very good at taking no for an answer. Like, at one point he literally kidnaps Shen Qingqiu and holds him prisoner. Actually wait, he does that at two separate points. And he always kinda...bullies...Shen Qingqiu in a way that pushes into Shen Qingqiu’s comfort zone.

Further, their first time is flat-out fuck or die (Luo Binghe is the top in the book and Shen Qingqiu is the bottom). That’s explicit, it’s not played as romantic, and Shen Qingqiu doesn’t enjoy it and doesn’t pretend to enjoy it. That’s not to say he’s unwilling - by that point it’s fairly clear he’d like to have sex with Luo Binghe in other circumstances, but it’s very rough and injures him pretty badly, there’s no prep, etc., so it’s not a good experience and it’s not treated as one, but Shen Qingqiu does volunteer because it’s important to him to prevent the “die” part. Luo Binghe feels bad afterwards. Reading it actually gave me more appreciation of MDZS because the scene made it clear that MXTX really does understand consent in ways that hadn’t been clear to me when I read the translation of MDZS.

In general...these two communicate for shit, and so things are never as clear cut as they should be. Also, at least for me personally, I never really fully “bought” that Shen Qingqiu was in love with Luo Binghe. Like, he’s affectionate and indulgent, but in romantic love? I dunno. So in that regard their being a thing always left me a little...unsure...maybe? But that’s a personal preference, and I’m sure there are others who felt differently, and it also might read differently in a different translation or in the original Chinese.

As an aside, there is a side ship which isn’t featured prominently in the novel but is significantly developed in the extras (like, a lot of the extras are literally about them, instead of the main ship). ngl...I wasn’t very interested in them so I didn’t read all their extras? So I couldn’t say for sure? But certainly, those two have some huge power level differences that I could see leading to consent issues, and also, one of them is also from “the real world” and transported in the “novel” (he’s the author) so that also adds a layer of complication.

Sorry if this is confusing...it’s not the easiest book to explain to someone unfamiliar with it. 

tl:dr, I personally didn’t think the consent issues were severe; the structural ones (ie, age difference and teacher/student) might LOOK severe on the surface but aren’t as the story is executed, and the “actual” consent issues (ie the fuck or die) are handled, at least in my opinion, better and more clearly than the ones in MDZS were.

Everyone else reading this...did I miss anything? I can’t think of anything else but my memory is so fucking shot that I can’t say I trust me as much as I’d like to.

Overall, I think it’s my least favorite of the three novels, not because it’s bad but because it just doesn’t quite feel...finished. Like, it’s such an interesting idea, and MXTX does a masterful job of twisting tropes throughout it, and more than either of the other books, it improved my opinion of her as a writer, but it feels a little incomplete, like maybe it was more story than she was actually ready to write? Like...she had this idea and she wasn’t quite a good enough writer to see it through to it’s logical conclusion yet, but all the pieces were there, so the potential is through the rough but the execution is a little lacking. Especially, the ending felt a bit rushed/abrupt to me. Then again, I feel that way constantly so some of that was probably me, I like a lot of denouement at the end of a story. (My favorite is TGCF, with MDZS in second and SVSSS in a close third...purely as a novel I didn’t like MDZS all that much but some of that was probably a translation issue.)

ANYWAY.

I’ll stop now.

If, after all that, you’re interested in reading it, I read two translations:

1. This translation, hosted on Tumblr, is really good but still a work in progress (they’ve released like four chapters since I read it in October.) I thought it was excellent and really enjoyed it.

2. Since that one wasn’t finished, I read the rest and the extras here. It was also good, but not quite as good in my opinion.

Hope this helps!

#unforth replies #svsss #svsss spoilers #Anonymous

[sotorubio]

Fuck I love you, you know that?

I also can't remember a singly sex scene in skam France that wasn't sexy? And that's not the point in a TEEN show (I mean only wtfock and their season 3 was worst)

But I think the portrayal was kinda harmful. Tbh. See. I am not trans. But max having issues with sex in the beginning (and tiff maybe should have had those too, she fucking gave birth. That's even traumatising if you want a kid!) is a plot point they integrated and should have handled.

I mean Druck also has a trans love interest and god their sex scene was beautiful. Respectful and they even communicated and it was obvious they were vulnerable, inexperienced and stuff.

And I just think this whole thing??? Like?? Skam France could have done something good. Show that consent is sexy (Druck did that too. Will also always remind me of skam season 2 where William was like even if you don't want to anymore, I can't stop. Like???)

Show them talk. like?? Maybe even explain to tiff that was fucking weird I still forgive you, because out of unreasonable reasons I am in love with you. Bit I am not lacking anything and I don't need a fucking sex Toy. This and that I am insecure, but I still have the hots for you. Let's take it slow.

I don't know. It's annoying me.

NO ILY ❤️❤️

and Yeah skamfr sex scenes r always literally just abt the sex n how hot n aesthetic it is zero regard for the fact that sex is actually an emotional thing too n involves so much more than a close up of someone's tits or ass msgbsljflsjd but that's just "french culture" am i right 😌.. it's like. if they only did it once or twice it'd be just like Okay! that's one approach to sex for sure, u can portray it like that sometimes! but when it becomes a pattern n they choose the silent passion & sexy aesthetic over realistic n respectful portrayal of teenagers so hard that it overrides canon insecurities & barriers for sex then it becomes a huge problem. i haven't watched wtfock but from what ive seen from other bloggers it seems to be terrible in that too so i definitely belive u :/

also yeah druck did a great job w it i believe! it just puts such a stark contrast on skamfr bc their approach w every couple is so wildly different in a bad way... druck has always put so much respect into it but france doesn't even bother to consider that maybe having sex for the first time after giving birth can be a big deal? or that discussing ur discomfort w intimacy means that u need to sort that out before having sex? it's so weird....if u don't wanna talk abt those things then don't introduce them as plot points, shouldn't be that difficult

it's a day later n i still haven't come to terms w the fact tiff actually did that i just can't comprehend it. like what was the reason. it DOES seem almost offensive but i don't know what we're supposed to think of it 😭bc like ofc there's nothing wrong w using toys as an addition to ur sex life n ur partner should be willing to talk abt those if it's smth u want but i can't help but put it into the context of max being trans like. would tiff have brought that to a cis dude's house for their FIRST time. it's just weird... i guess it's supposed to be like. a joke. tiff being haha silly uwu n we're supposed to find the awkwardness endearing but it just doesn't seem like any of that to me. once again it just comes back to the fact that if we had seen them talk abt it, seen a discussion... max could've talked abt what he's personally okay with n tiff could've been like oh also could we use some toys i would like that. then we didn't have to wonder.

but idk even then i feel like it's SO unnecessary to include The Gift for us to know exactly how these teenagers r gonna have sex like. it should be enough to know that they Did. we don't need to know the details bc even if the actors r older these characters r still like 17 at best? weird as fuck.

n don't even get me STARTED on the fucking willrat thing from the OG that was So disgusting...... like there r hundreds of reasons to hate him but that line alone should be enough yet he still has fans drooling for noorhelm 😐😐😐

bottom line: don't write abt 15-17 year olds if ur goal is to write abt sex. that shouldn't be a controversial opinion either they just have riverdale brain rot

#inbox #anon #not sfw #sa mention #<- yes that's for the william thing. it's just that bad

[didanawisgi]

Note that views expressed in this opinion article are the writer’s personal views and not necessarily those of TrialSite

I always get vaccinated. I have been fully vaccinated with the Moderna COVID vaccine. My three daughters have all been vaccinated.

I recently learned that these vaccines have likely killed over 25,800 Americans (which I confirmed 3 different ways) and disabled at least 1,000,000 more. And we’re only halfway to the finish line. We need to PAUSE these vaccines NOW before more people are killed.

The CDC, FDA, and NIH aren’t disclosing how many people have been killed or disabled from the COVID vaccines. The mainstream media isn’t asking any questions; they are playing along. YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and others are all censoring content that goes against the “perfectly safe” narrative so nobody is the wiser. Tony Fauci, the “father of COVID,” is still in his job even though all of this is his fault. Cliff Lane, who reports to Tony, is still sandbagging early treatments so that people will falsely believe that the vaccine is the only option. The Democrats are still asleep at the wheel by refusing to request Fauci’s unredacted emails from the NIH which will prove he covered up the fact he created the virus in the first place. Biden is clueless urging Americans to vaccinate their kids with a deadly vaccine that has likely killed more than 25,000 Americans so far. Academics in the medical community are nearly all clueless, urging people to get the safe and effective vaccine. When I tried to bring this to the attention of leading academics they told me I was wrong and not to contact them ever again. Sound too hard to believe? I don’t blame you. But there is a reason that this article is the most popular article that has ever been on TrialSiteNews with over 1M views so far. It’s because everything I’ve said is true. And nobody will debate me live about it. They all refuse.

Based on what I now know about the miniscule vaccine benefits (less than a .5% reduction in absolute risk), side effects (including death), current COVID rates, and the success rate of early treatment protocols, the answer I would give today to anyone asking me for advice as to whether to take any of the current vaccines would be, “Just say NO.”Waiting for Novavax (and other traditional vaccines) is a much safer option. If you get COVID in the meantime, treating with early treatment protocols that incorporate fluvoxamine and ivermectin is vastly superior to getting the most dangerous vaccine in the last 30 years.

Vaccines are particularly contraindicated if you have already been infected with COVID or are under age 20. For these people, I would say “NO! NO! NO!”

In this article, I will explain what I have learned since I was vaccinated that totally changed my mind. You will learn how these vaccines work and the shortcuts that led to the mistakes that were made. You will understand why there are so many side effects and why these are so varied and why they usually happen within 30 days of vaccination. You will understand why kids are having heart issues (for which there is no treatment), and temporarily losing their sight, and ability to talk. You will understand why as many as 3% may be severely disabled by the vaccine. You will understand why doctors aren’t reporting these as vaccine-related.

What I find deeply disturbing is the lack of transparency on how dangerous the current COVID vaccines are. Healthy people could end up dead or permanently disabled at a rate that is “off the charts” compared with any other vaccine in our history. Look at the death report in our government’s official Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) summarized in the tweet below. This is the most deadly vaccine we’ve ever made by a long shot. That’s why they have to give you incentives to get vaccinated. They need to vaccinate everyone BEFORE people read this article or watch this video of Dr. Peter McCullough explaining clearly why the current COVID vaccines are unsafe and completely unnecessary for our children.

The stopping condition of a typical vaccine is 25-50 deaths. But there isn’t a stopping condition for this vaccine! It appears we’ve killed over 25,800 people (based on CDC “unexplained deaths”) and nobody is batting an eye. The CDC is focused on how to vaccinate more people. Clinics today report as high as a 10:1 ratio of vaccine-related cases to COVID cases. So now we have a new health emergency: deaths and disability from the vaccines.

But this is just the beginning of our story. We have a lot of ground to cover. I’ll talk about Fauci, NIAID, CDC, Congress, academia, Cliff Lane, and more. I will close with action items you can take and how to treat vaccine victims.

Before we jump into the details, here are some key points:

At least 25,000 deaths from the vaccine. The OpenVAERS team think it is over 20,000 due to under reporting. But we looked at the CMS database and it appears VAERS is under-reporting by 5X. And the CDC excess unexplained deaths are 25,000 as well. It matches up.

NOBODY will debate me. People resort to personal attacks because they can’t attack the facts. But nobody who counts (e.g., over 10K Twitter followers) will debate me. I’ve tried everything. People are too afraid I’ll win. If you have at least 10K Twitter followers and agree to a recorded live Zoom debate, just say so in the comments below.

Biodistribution data shows massive accumulation in ovaries of the LNP (which instructs cells in ovaries to sprout toxic spike protein). Whoops. That was never supposed to be leaked out. We obtained it via FOIA request. The CDC never told you about that one, did they? Of course not!

82% miscarriage rate in first 20 weeks (10% is the normal rate). It is baffling that the CDC says the vaccine is safe for pregnant women when it is so clear that this is not the case. For example, one of our family friends is a victim of this. She miscarried at 25 weeks and is having a D&C on 6/9/21. She had her first shot 7 weeks ago, and her second shot 4 weeks ago. The baby had severe bleeding of the brain and other disfigurements. Her gynecologist had never seen anything like that before in her life. They called in a specialist who said it was probably a genetic defect (because everyone buys into the narrative that the vaccine is safe it is always ruled out as a possible cause). No VAERS report. No CDC report. Yet the doctors I’ve talked to say that it is over 99% certain it was the vaccine. The family doesn’t want an autopsy for fear that their daughter will find out it was the vaccine. This is a perfect example of how these horrible side effects just never get reported anywhere.

25X the possibility of myocarditis for teen boys (can lead to heart failure and death)

Kids already have natural immunity (Science Magazine article), so there is no benefit to vaccination, only risk. Have you ever seen the risk / benefit analysis by the CDC?? Ask for it before you consent.

No point vaccinating those who’ve had COVID-19: Findings of Cleveland Clinic study. No benefit, only risk.

Doctors who attribute adverse events to the vaccine are punished (such as Dr. Hoffe). So under reporting is incentivized.

The CDC refuses to say how many people have died and is “still investigating” heart damage in kids even though it is obvious why (free spike protein causing clotting and inflammation). A 25X increase when the only “new” thing is the vaccine isn’t hard to figure out. Ask the CDC for their current top 5 hypotheses for the cause. It will be more than amusing to see what they say. If it isn’t the vaccine, heads should roll.

The CDC is deliberately misleading the American people. Check out the side effects page. Death, disability, excessive miscarriage rates, heart attacks, stroke, inability to walk, talk, or see, Bell’s Palsy, persistent pain, Parkinson’s like symptoms, re-activation of shingles, blood clots, etc. are all missing.

>500X more deadly than the flu vaccine

COVID vaccines have generated more adverse reports in the last 6 months than all 70 vaccines over the past 30 years combined. They missed that one.

Defective virus design (s1 was never supposed to be free, inclusion of PEG was unnecessary and allows LNP to be widely distributed)

Strong opposition to vaccination by extremely credible voices like Malone, Geert Vanden Bossche, others

NIAID (Cliff Lane) is improperly manipulating the COVID Treatment Guidelines to make it appear these drugs do not work, thus giving the world the false impression that the vaccine, even if imperfect, is the only way out. Ivermectin and fluvoxamine have been confirmed in Phase 3 trials. Ivermectin has a very high quality systematic review, the highest possible level in Evidence Based Medicine. Repurposed drugs are safer and more effective than the current vaccines. In general, early treatment with an effective protocols reduce your risk of dying by more than 100X so instead of 600,000 deaths, we’d have fewer than 6,000 deaths. NOTE: The vaccine has already killed over 6,000 people and that’s from the vaccine alone (and doesn’t count any breakthrough deaths).

Vaccines skipped proper toxicology studies in order to bring to market faster. We don’t know what we don’t know.

The unpredictable and horrifying side effects of this vaccine on heathy kids, such as the 16 year old girl who was unable to speak and see just 48 hours after being vaccinated

Debilitating side effects can happen at any time because vaccine victims are very similar to COVID long haulers (Dr. Bruce Patterson has discovered this) and we all know that long haul can start at any time (even when the disease is asymptomatic) and could be incurable.

Because the vaccine is not perfectly safe, the government is required by law to warn people of the death and disability risks caused by the vaccine and to obtain informed consent. Always be sure to ask for the 50 most serious side effects and how often they happen. And find out whether they will compensate you if you are disabled for life from the vaccine. This is important because the blood clots can form anywhere with this very unsafe vaccine....

#covid-19 vaccine #covid-19 #Steve Kirsch