#the paper is for my avant garde class

[disneyfan4868]

TUMBLR WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO WITH THAT POST ABOUT VOUCE ACTORS? I CANT FIND A POST THAT I REBLOGGED AND ADDED TO, THAT I NEED TO FUCKING CITE FOR A SCHOOL PAPER?!? WHAT THE FUCK MAN I ONLY HAVW LIKE 3 HOURS LEFT AND I NEED THIS SOURVW WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME

#yeah im citing tumblr it was a good post #this is a popular meme #why can’t I find it #it follows a popular format too #art #the paper is for my avant garde class

[fromevertonow]

This is a paper I wrote for one of my courses about media and materiality. I will use any excuse to write on The Hunger Games. My instructor actually liked it, asking why I didn't write anything on Snow lmao. Maybe for part two, David. Don't encourage me. I also want to say that the responses on my post regarding the names in THG helped so fucking much. Thank you to those people who interacted with that post!

Disclaimer: this assignment was meant to be informal for us so we wouldn't feel too overwhelmed with the studyload, so there is some non-academic register in here.

Panem et Circenses: The Forecast of a Mass Culture Storm

In a world long ago, the Roman poet Juvenal critiqued the people of Rome for discarding their responsibilities as citizens. While Sejanus tried to overthrow the Emperor Tiberius, Juvenal claimed that the people only cared to lavish in food and frivolities, saying that “the mob / That used to grant power, high office, the legions, everything, / Curtails its desires and reveals its anxiety for two things only, / Bread and circuses” (Juvenal ll. 78-81). Juvenal’s phrase “bread and circuses” is often referenced in relation to “mass culture to denote a process of social decline” (Brantlinger Bread and Circuses 22). The Roman Empire had a method of appeasing the masses to avoid uprisings: keep them fed and offer them entertainment (23). Similarly to Juvenal who disapproved of this manner of ruling, socialist scholars and avant-garde artists criticized mass culture for subjecting civilization to this numbing of critical thinking (Brantlinger “Mass Media” 99). The twentieth century knows an incredible rise of technological developments and mass production of consumer goods which has led to several social developments, e.g. the blurring of class distinctions and an increase in literacy (100, 103). Although these may seem as positive effects, mass culture threatens to silence individuals into commodification, as happened to the Romans (Dubord 14). Juvenal had forecasted the enslavement of people to mass-produced consumable goods and, looking at contemporary times, it seems we are left standing in the rain without an umbrella. Yet, this is not the worst mass culture has to offer. A flood of dystopian stories in the literary world has predicted and warned us for far crueler storms, depicting oppressive governments that have gradually dominated their citizens through bread and circuses.

            One of these stories is The Hunger Games (THG) by Suzanne Collins. Set in a futuristic United States, renamed ‘Panem,’ THG depicts a picture of mass culture at its extreme. Panem is divided into twelve districts, each responsible for the production of a specific good. These products are the sole reason the districts are still considered as relevant for the Capitol, the oppressive government. While the majority of the districts suffer from poverty, the Capitol lavishes in the districts’ importations of food and other materialities. Collins depicts the duality of abundant, capitalist consumerism with the contrast between the riches of the Capitol and the scarcity of the districts. The Capitol has managed to keep the districts sedated through fear; they are coerced into complacency through strict regulation and the annual Hunger Games. Seventy-four years before the original events of THG, the thirteen districts rebelled against the Capitol but were violently defeated. As punishment, District Thirteen was completely obliterated and the remaining twelve districts were forced to send a male and female tribute between the ages of twelve and eighteen to the Games where they would have to fight to the death in an arena as entertainment for the Capitol. The twenty-four tributes are randomly selected and can place their name in the reaping multiple times in exchange for tesserae, a year’s supply of grain and oil. Households that could not afford food could make bread from the tesserae. Collins draws a connection to ‘panem’ in Juvenal’s phrase through the tesserae system which is a method for the Capitol to keep the districts dependent on the government’s supply of basic needs, like bread.

Juvenal’s ‘circenses’ is apparent in two elements in THG. The first is the Hunger Games themselves which are meant to entertain the Capitol’s citizens. Before the Games there are interviews with the tributes and various television segments. The coverage of the tributes has two purposes: to show the Capitol’s citizens how well-fed the tributes are in the Capitol, a kindness offered to them by the very institution that places them in a position of death, and to obtain sponsors during the Games who will send necessities to the tributes in the arena, e.g. medicine or water. The second reference to ‘circenses’ is the character Peeta Mellark. Peeta is the male tribute from District Twelve and the baker’s son. His first name is a reference to pita bread, and as the baker’s son, he is also a clear connection to ‘panem.’ Moreover, he once gave bread to Katniss, the female protagonist, when she and her family were at the brink of starvation. The loaf of bread symbolized hope and sparked a new motivation in Katniss to live again (Collins THG 37). His surname is a shortened version of ‘malarkey,’ meaning “silly behaviour or nonsense” (“malarkey”), similar to the contents of circuses. Peeta is not a seasoned fighter and his chances of winning the Games are low. However, the Games can be played either through fighting or entertainment. Peeta is incredibly charismatic and uses that to his full advantage whenever the cameras are around to gain sponsors (Collins THG 158). He is, like the Capitol, both a provider of food and entertainment.

            Where the Capitol symbolizes fear, Peeta represents hope. As an oppressive government, the Capitol’s goal is to silence people into complacency so they do not rise against the authorities, as the Roman Empire. This is the opposite for Peeta who, in the sequel Catching Fire, uses his likeability among the citizens of the Capitol to defy its very government (Collins 289). Throughout the trilogy, he has consistently used his abilities to both provide and perform for noble causes that concern the people, not the government. When Peeta gave Katniss the bread, he gave her renewed hope to live again which was more sustainable than the Capitol’s tesserae supply that merely lasts a year and is only given in exchange for a bigger chance at death. Peeta’s hope was free. THG serves as a warning for a future that is ruled by mass consumption and production which blinds citizens to the dictatorship they are governed by. Juvenal’s faraway world of the Roman Empire is not so far away after all, it has always been here and is gradually taking over our future. But, we know what is coming and we can prepare for the storm and find shelter. As Peeta’s character shows, there is hope, a possibility, to provide for each other rather than depend on authorities that prefer to see us as commodities, to use the government’s very own methods against it and become individuals once more.

Works Cited

Brantlinger, Patrick. “Introduction: The Two Classicisms.” Bread and Circuses: Theories of Mass Culture as Social Decay. Cornell University Press, 1985, pp. 17-52.

---. “Mass Media and Culture in Fin-de-Siècle Europe.” Fin-de-Siècle and Its Legacy, edited by Mikuláš Teich and Roy Porter, Cambridge University Press, 1990, pp. 98-114.

Collins, Suzanne. Catching Fire. Scholastic Ltd, 2011.

---. The Hunger Games. Scholastic Ltd, 2011.

Debord, Guy. “The Commodity as Spectacle.” The Society of the Spectacle, translated by Ken Knabb, Bureau of Public Secrets, 2014, pp. 13-20.

Juvenal. “Satire X – The Vanity of Human Wishes.” Poetry in Translation, translated by A. S. Kline, 2001, https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/JuvenalSatires10.php. Accessed 14 Dec. 2023.

“malarkey.” Cambridge Dictionary, https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/malarkey. Accessed 14 Dec. 2023.

#the hunger games #thg #suzanne collins #the ballad of songbirds and snakes #tbosas #katniss everdeen #peeta mellark

[minaramen]

Thanks for the 7th Anniversary - Part 1: The ceremony is starting!

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7

Passerby: Sorry, are you possibly… Douglas Rootbank?

Douglas: AHAHAHA! Yes! I am Douglas!

Passerby: Waah! I knew it…! Big fan of yours here! May I have an autograph…?

Douglas: Ok, ok!....! Oh! Oh my God!

Passerby: What happened? Ah, the advertising truck…?

Douglas: Idolish7….!

Passerby: Do you know them? Ah, you had a live together, right?

Douglas: AHAHAHA! Idolish7! My friends!

Passerby: Are Idolish7 your friends? Woooh, that’s good to know!

Douglas: Shaking your heart!

Passerby: I can’t believe it, I’ve just heard Douglas singing in real life! Is it a new song?!

Douglas: It’s Idolish7’s song

Passerby: Your Japanese is so good!

*Cut to Takanashi office*

Tsumugi: Okay, I did it!

Banri: What are you writing on the whiteboard, Tsumugi?

Banri: It looks like a little collection of episodes; but may it be something about the anniversary year..?

Tsumugi: It’s the title of the video we will broadcast at the Nanahoshi school for the ceremony

Tsumugi: We’d like to tell the students about the 7th school festival through an Idolish7 video

Tsumugi: A normal day will lead to an anniversary year that everybody will know about

Banri: Sounds nice! Seventh school festival, seventh anniversary, seven years… it’s just perfect, isn’t it?

Tsumugi: Yes

Banri: It’s almost the same time a child needs to start elementary school. So many things happened in the middle that you can’t even count them 

Tsumugi: Exactly!

Banri: Let’s ignite this seventh anniversary, then

Tsumugi: Ah, the ones who need to ignite it are the students joining the ceremony

Banri: Oh, right…I got a little overexcited…

Tsumugi: Fufu, I understand the feeling. As Idolish7's manager, I’m very conscious of this 7th anniversary

Banri: Iori kun and Tamaki kun can get fired up, I supposed. They’re Nanahoshi school students, after all

Tsumugi: You’re right

Banri: The concept is also amazing. It’s a compilation of small episodes

Banri: In other words, all these things put together will lead to the anniversary

Tsumugi: Yes! I’m planning to record their everyday life as naturally as possible, and make it a live video!

Banri: Oh, I think the new camera we bought will be perfect for it

Kinako: Myu myu!

Tsumugi: What’s going on, Kinako?

Banri: Maybe she just wants to be recorded? Look here, Kinako!

Kinako: Myuu!

Banri: Now say “happy seventh year anniversary”

Kinako: Myu myu myuuu! Myuu myuu!

Tsumugi&Banri: She said it!

*Cut to Sogo’s room*

Tamaki: Sou chan, what did you do at your school ceremony?

Sogo: Takao Dayu

Tamaki: Cacao? You mean, a room filled with chocolate?

Sogo: No. She was a prostitute from the Edo period

Tamaki: A prostitute…?

Sogo:......

Sogo: I’m not sure how much you know about the topic. Maybe I shouldn’t give you too many details, you’re too young…

Tamaki: But then I won’t know if somebody asks me about it…

Sogo: I think it would be good for you to talk about that with somebody who’s your age. Try asking Iori kun

Tamaki: Okay

Sogo: What are you going to do, Tamaki kun? I’m sure you’re planning something with your classmates for the ceremony

Tamaki: Yes

Sogo. What?

Tamaki: Try to guess! I’m sure you can’t guess! It’s extra-special!

Sogo: Must be something unique. Uhm…

Sogo: Wooden mosaic work?

Tamaki: Nope

Sogo: Sumo match?

Tamaki: Miss

Sogo: You’re going to do some avant garde artwork which involves rolling yourself in a bucket which serves as a dish for mixing paints, then you’re going to be attached to a large paper, just like a fish print, and eventually make an abstract movie

Tamaki: Wow, you really did your best with that one. But you’re wrong

Sogo: I give up

Tamaki: Think more! I want you to think more!

Sogo: Was Iori kun really interested?

Tamaki: He wasn't that interested, but he was fine with it

Sogo: A wool felting class?

Tamaki: That’s actually something that could be fine with Iorin

Sogo: He’s a teenager after all

Tamaki: Uh? Yeah

Sogo: I really give up. I have no energy anymore, I apologize 

Tamaki: You’re apologizing as if you were making a public comment. Okay, it’ll be a secret until the day comes

Sogo: Really?

Tamaki:  If you find me that day, I’ll let you record some videos with me 

Sogo: Is it something that one would want to take pictures of? 

Tamaki: Ah, damn. I gave you a hint

Sogo: Okay, tie your hair 

Tamaki: You want me to take pics with a ponytail?!

Sogo: I just think you’ll look handsome

Tamaki: Give me a hair tie

Sogo: I don’t have one

*Cut to a classroom*

Matsunaga Taro: It’s finally time for the seventh school festival! Thank you for your collaboration, Iori kun

Iori: No, it was nothing

Matsunaga Taro: You’re being modest. Everybody working on the ceremony is extremely grateful to you for being so good at ruling from the shadows

Iori: Is that a compliment? It doesn't really sound like they're grateful…

Matsunaga Taro: Well, they got a little scared when they told you that Idolish7 won’t be the live guests, but we will have trigger instead

Iori: Ahah…I wasn’t angry. Just a little surprised…

Iori: Some of Idolish7 members are students, it’s the seventh anniversary and Idolish7 counts seven symbols…still, they've not been asked to join

Iori: It was either some kind of new idea of the event organization or a terrible loss of  good taste of the producer, who knows

Matsunaga Taro: You’re definitely angry…

Iori: Speaking about unexpected things, I had no idea you were the son of Matsunaga P., who made Backyard Magic

Matsunaga Taro: And I didn’t know you'd worked with my father

Matsunaga Taro: I’m not losing to my dad, I’ll become a famous producer as well! That’s why I’m here. I want to leave my name etched on this school

Matsunaga Taro: The name of the project is: “A Nanahoshi star is born”!

Iori: Can you tell me more?

Matsunaga Taro: Ah, of course!

Matsunaga Taro: There will be new students joining the ceremony as well. Then, in order to create a realistic atmosphere, real recruiters from the entertainer world will be there 

Iori: Real recruiters?

Matsunaga Taro: Amazing, isn’t it?  We asked them to come see some newborn stars, and they accepted!

Matsunaga Taro: Maybe someone will actually be scouted, who knows 

Matsunaga Taro: Isn’t it exciting? During the announcement of the tally, a group of volunteers will create a “7th anniversary” with human letters!

Matsunaga Taro: It will be recorded by a drone and shown on the main screen, and finally, Idolish7 will be announced!

Matsunaga Taro: When your performance is finished, the results will be announced. Real stars born from Nanahoshi school!

Matsunaga Taro: What do you think? Isn’t it amazing?

Iori: It’s not bad, but it’s more difficult than you expect. We will need very competent staff

Iori: We’re talking about many students put together, and they probably wouldn’t have had any rehearsal before. It may end up being a mess…

Iori: However, it may be a learning experience, so why not…

Matsunaga Taro: You’ve put on such a mature expression, Izumi. And you really have a sharp tongue…

Iori: I’ll be the one watching over Idolish7’s work, so please make sure to follow my advice

Iori: You said you want to become a famous producer

Iori: Watch me and learn, then

Matsunaga Taro: What? I thought you were an idol

Iori: Fufu…that’s the only advice I can give you

Matsunaga Taro:......

Matsunaga Taro: Basically we will only cooperate for the result announcement rehearsal? 

Iori: The human letters and drone recordings are pretty hard. I think we should prioritize the rehearsal for these

Matsunaga Taro: The drama department said they will take care of that. They also said they couldn't take time until the very day because they have practice

Iori: As I thought, it will end up being a mess. Very student-like

Matsunaga Taro: Izumi!

Iori: I feel like crying…

*Cut to the dormitory*

Yamato: Mitsu!

Mitsuki: What do you want? You smell like alcohol. You down about something?

Yamato: Y’know, today was the Mikazuki Ookami day. And I went to the place…

Mitsuki: Yes

Yamato: And something really really really really really bad happened. Well, I’m not a bad guy, you know that…

Mitsuki: What on earth happened? Did they treat you poorly?

Yamato: The old wolf came as well

Mitsuki: Yaotome?

Yamato: Yaotome is not the old wolf. Had it been Yaotome, I would have put an arm around his shoulder and danced. I’m talking about the “Crescent Wolf” guy…

Mitsuki: Do you mean ….the international wolf, then?

Yamato: The international…well, yeah

Mitsuki: Did your dad come?!

Yamato: He did! Isn’t that terrible?!

Mitsuki: You got caught, then…

Yamato: Other than that, everybody in there knew me ever since I was a brat! The director, the staff members…everybody!

Mitsuki: Really? You’re just like a thoroughbred horse, aren’t you?

Yamato: That’s fucking awful… he said something like he wanted to come before. But I always did my best to dodge him

Mitsuki: Yeah

Yamato: But he came for real, in the end…I didn’t say anything at first, but then the director started talking about the presence of a certain actor…

Mitsuki: We’re talking about the international Chiba after all! I bet every other actor except for you was pretty happy to have him

Yamato: Well, yeah. But you know, I couldn’t put on a disgusted expression since a certain bigwig, who was a good friend of the director, was there

Yamato: At first he was just watching without saying a thing, but then many people started asking him about this and that, and so he ended up opening his mouth

Mitsuki: He ended up opening…you know he’s a big senpai of yours, the one you’re talking about?

Yamato: That’s precisely why he shouldn't have come at all! He makes the new actor shrivel! And the new actor happens to be me!

Yamato: Then he started talking about random things and I…I just couln’t think and said “fuck off, go home!!”

Mitsuki: Whoooo!

Yamato: It was really awful. Everybody on the scene went silent…

Mitsuki: Who were the ones going silent? People who knew about you and your father? People who knew nothing?

Yamato: Both

Yamato: There were people thinking “Woh, a family quarrel, how awkward…” and people who were like “what is that idol saying to Chiba Shizuo?”...

Mitsuki: How about Chiba san?

Yamato: I felt like a piece of shit, so I booked it right away. I’m the bad guy here, after all, right?!

Mitsuki: Nah, it’s okay, it’s okay!

Yamato: It’s not okay. I don’t want to go back there tomorrow…

Mitsuki: Do your best! I’ll prepare some delicious snacks for you!

Yamato:...perhaps, some crunchy fried tofu…

Mitsuki: Alright, alright. With a lot of condiments!

*Cut to Trigger’s home*

Ryunosuke: Ah, here you are!

Riku’s voice: Tsunashi san, can you see?

Nagi’s voice: Hi! Can you see the game screen?

Ryunosuke: I can!

Nagi’s voice: Okay! Then, I, Rokuya Nagi…

Riku’s voice: …and I, Nanase Riku, are going to begin this gaming stream!

Ryunosuke: Wah! *Clap clap clap clap* Riku’s voice: Okay, by pressing this button we can move forward…what? Why am I just turning around…?

Nagi’s voice: Oh…! You need to press here to choose the direction, and then “go”…no, no! You’re going back!

Ryunosuke: It seems like a very dark place. In a creepy, abandoned factory, animals live as if they were on a deserted island…right?

Nagi: That’s a different game! Today we’re playing “Dead or Alive”!

Riku: It’s about some invasors coming from the galaxy to conquer Earth! We need to destroy them!

Ryunosuke: Oh, I see. They look cute, so I was a bit surprised to see blood stains on the wall

*Door opens*

Gaku: Ryuu, the bathroom is free

Ryunosuke: Ah, thank you, Gaku

Gaku: What are you doing? A phone call?

Ryunosuke: Riku kun and Nagi kun are doing a gaming stream 

Gaku: Gaming stream?

Ryunosuke: Apparently, these kinds of games are usually broadcast on the internet. However, since the procedure was complicated, they let me be the only spectator!

Gaku: What? Basically, you’re watching Nanase and Rokuya playing a game?

Ryunosuke: Exactly!

Gaku: And how is that supposed to be fun?

Ryunosuke: Hey, Gaku…

Riku’s voice: Aaaah! Ahahah! Help! Help!

Nagi’s voice: Oh, exciting! We eluded a critical point!

Ryunosuke: Good! Give it your best!

Gaku: Wouldn't it be better for you to actually play with me, instead!? Do you want to? Should I buy this game?

Ryunosuke: No, don’t worry. I’m having fun watching them play

Gaku: Really?

Ryunosuke: Come here, watch!

Riku’s voice: It’s full of enemies, but…okay, it’s all or nothing! Let’s go ahead!

Gaku: Sink or swim? I don’t think that’s the best way to handle the situation!

Gaku: Of course, sometimes the courage to go into the belly of the beast is necessary. But still, when such a situation occurs, you shouldn’t underestimate your enemies, be respectful and make some serious arrangements in advance…

Nagi’s voice: Oh! Things are getting serious! Let’s use our strongest weapon!

Riku: Yeah!

Gaku: No!! Save it for later, it’s your trump card! As many as your enemies may be, they’re literally small fries!

Ryunosuke: Gaku! Gaku, don’t..!

Ryunosuke: You were taking up the whole screen

Gaku: I just wanted to give them some advice! They’ll lose in the blink of an eye, if they keep on playing like that!

Riku’s voice: Ah, we died…!

Nagi’s voice: No!!

Gaku: Ah, told you

Ryunosuke: It’s okay for them. Maybe they play differently from you, but it’s still fun

Gaku: I think they're just refusing to listen to other people’s advice. Why are you watching, Ryuu?

Ryunosuke: What?

Gaku: You’re not even giving them advice to win, you’re just sitting there watching. What’s the point?

Ryunosuke: Ah, now I get what the issue was. When you play a game, you want to win

Gaku: Of course!

Ryunosuke: When you play with your friends you want to make them win, right?

Gaku: I don’t like to see them lose!

Ryunosuke: It’s the core concept which is wrong! It doesn't matter if you lose or win the game. Riku kun and Nagi kun are just having fun!

Gaku: Mh?

Ryunosuke: I’m having fun just by watching the two of them having fun as well

Gaku: We’ll play together. Can we join them somehow?

Ryunosuke: That’s not what…

Riku’s voice: Ahah, that was close! Tsunashi san, were you watching?!

Gaku: Nanase, listen. If you’re facing a tough opponent, you must steady your nerves. Otherwise you’ll be losing the same way, next time!

Ryunosuke: Gaku! Gaku, it’s okay! His nerves are totally fine as they are

Gaku: Do they want to win or what?! You would have them win, Ryuu, right?

Ryunosuke: Of course! Of course, but…

Nagi’s voice: Hey! Look here! Robot dance!

Gaku: Rokuya! Stop playing around!

Nagi’s voice: Oh! Jesus…!

Gaku: You see?! Are you happy, now?! That was because you were too busy messing around to pay attention!

Ryuunosuke: Wait! Wait, Gaku! Look at me, now!

Gaku: What?

Ryunosuke: Messing around is okay. That’s what they want. Playing while messing around

Gaku: Basically, is it okay for them to lose?

Ryunosuke: It is. Of course, the goal is still clearing the mission, but a fearless win is not compulsory 

Gaku:......

Gaku: I didn't want to hear this kind of words coming out of your mouth

Ryunosuke: No, no, no! I’m talking about games! In real life, I have a different opinion…

Riku’s voice: What’s going on, Tsunashi san?

Gaku: Don’t look away, Nanase! Stay focused!

Ryunosuke: It’s nothing, Riku kun! 

Riku’s voice: Ah, Yaotome san is there! While you’re here, did you hear about the school festival with Iori and the others?

Ryunosuke: School festival? Ah! Must be the invitation Tamaki kun gave me

Riku’s voice: Yes, yes! Since it’s for the anniversary it’s going to be a big deal! Will you guys come if you have time?

Nagi’s voice: Oh! Riku, help me!

Riku’s voice: Ah, wait! Where are you?

Ryunosuke: I would like to go to Tamaki kun’s school festival, but won’t it be a problem for the school if everybody goes?

Gaku: Rokuya!! Look to your right!!

Nagi’s voice: WHAT?

Gaku: To your right!! Right, right, right!! Nanase, go round and cut in from the left!

Riku’s voice: Ah, uhm…from here?!

Ryunosuke: The students must be the stars of the festival. I’d hate to be there and cause problems

Riku’s voice: They said it’s okay! It’s a school for students working in the entertainment world, so there'll be plenty of famous people and their families!

Riku’s voice: Students are already used to that! They’ve been told not to make any fuss, so celebrities are usually welcome…

Nagi’s voice: Riku! In front of you!

Riku’s voice: What?!

Gaku: Shoot!

Riku’s voice: Nh…yeah!! I did it! I put it down!

Gaku: Good job, Nanase! Now go check the last room on your right…

Ryunosuke: Gaku. Gaku, sorry, we’re having a conversation…

Gaku: What? I thought we were playing!

Ryunosuke: I guess we started doing both at some point…?

Gaku: We better focus on one on the other! Working on different things makes you think that you did it, but nothing actually remains in your head….

Riku’s voice: Are you coming to the school festival, Yaotome san?

Gaku: School festival? What the hell are you talking about?

Nagi’s voice: Oh! You gave us a real example of how working on different things makes nothing remain in your head

Riku’s voice: Iori and Tamaki’s school is organizing a school festival! We’ll perform as well, so if you have time, please come!

Gaku: Oh! Will Tenn come?

Riku: He said he will think about it! You two try to ask him to come too!

Ryunosuke: We should be able to make it with the schedule we have, if it’s around lunch time…

Gaku: I see. We’ll think about that, Nanase!

Riku’s voice: Thank you!

Nagi’s voice: Okay, let’s continue! Ready…go!

End of part 1

#Idolish7 #idolish7translation #trigger #zool #revale

[clairesgaragezine]

CGZ Featured Artist: MJ (Molly Jean)

May 25, 2023

Everyone, I am SO excited!! Please welcome our very first featured artist: MJ, stands for Molly Jean, female, 38 years old in Kansas City, Missouri. No formal art education outside of the 7 art classes she took in highschool. She took two semesters of theater in community college, "that counts for something" she says. She used to have a website but hasn't updated in years, you can go ahead and find her on Instagram @mollyjean.art  or over on her Tumblr which is a mish mash of fan girl stuff and whatever else she feels like @yourcoolauntie (for her avatar of Aunt Gayle from Bob's Burgers)

Leviathan, 2012 (Acrylic on canvas, 16x20in)

CGZ: When did you start painting? What’s your earliest memory of painting or of creating art? 

MJ: I remember making a little pinch pot in Kindergarten. In first grade we made robots out of different materials, they were flat on paper, it was mixed medium. I used tinfoil and some other stuff. It got hung up at the school district's main office, they tracked me down and gave it back to me in highschool! 

CGZ: And where is the robot now?

MJ: I don't know where the robot is, my mom may have it in a box but it may have gotten lost.

Object II, 2020 (Acrylic on canvas, 30x40 in)

CGZ: Has your birthplace or your family background influenced your approach to creating art? 

MJ: I wish I had an answer about my culture or my family heritage, but I don't. My dad's side is Irish & English, his family came over well over a hundred years ago. My mom is half Croatian but her grandparents were old by the time she was born, and they all assimilated very thoroughly, so I know little of Slavic culture. So birthplace and heritage…the isolating suburbs of the southern midwest. 

Ultimately art has been my constant therapy, so my approach is, I have to do it. Let me try not to trauma dump too much. I grew up in a very dysfunctional home. My mom was the gentler one, my dad was scary. But my folks would take my siblings and I out to museums and around the city to expose us to a bigger world outside our suburb. We grew up poorer than we should have been because my dad was a high functioning addict, with an okay job with the city, but money went to drugs and lawyers. So I'm certain being aware early on of how class works in America shaped me as well. My mom and dad were too different from one another but they both appreciated the world, usually in a very critical and very negative way. My father, troubled, but very smart, always played music, records, he loved movies and anything avant garde and fringe. He had no boundaries and it was a volatile home. So, in a house where one parent was always afraid to speak up because her spouse would explode in a rage and the other never not talking about his every thought and feeling…I never learned to properly communicate mine. So…art. My folks are still alive…I realize I wrote this like they're dead.

CGZ: Who are your biggest artistic influences? 

MJ: The dadaists, the surrealists, abstract expressionists, the early abstract guys like Wassily Kandinsky. We watched a documentary in Jr. high about Keith Haring that stuck with me. That's a big leap from Picasso to Haring but this is kinda off the top of my head, I never took any art history courses.

CGZ: How has your art practice changed over time? 

MJ: I used to be uncomfortable calling myself an artist, in my early 20s I didn't think I'd earned it because I hadn't sold anything yet. That was real dumb. If you make something that serves absolutely no function other than you created it and now it exists and now it's in the world to be debated, analyzed or just looked at and displayed, congratulations you made an art. That aligns with the old adage of Art for art's sake.

CGZ: What do you like best about your work? What makes you happy when you’re creating?

MJ: I don't think I have a best liked…but I'm generally pleased if I can come close to what I had in my mind before I started.

Labyrinth, 2022 (Acrylic on canvas, 16x20 in)

CGZ: I adored your 2023 International Women’s Day post (self-portraits in a candlelit bath with body-affirming/life-affirming messages). Is there a shared meaning or messaging across your whole art practice? What differs for you between your abstract paintings and your photography projects?

MJ: Thank you so much for saying that. Also, great question. This is actually something I've thought about because I'm scared. It's been years since I've displayed anything and I'm worried if I approach a gallery they will ask me this and I will squeak out a bullshit answer like, let the art speak for itself. I think if there is a thread between all my work, paint, mixed media, photography it's about discovery and exploration, acceptance. I'm a traumatized, depressed, queer so that's easy, right? Looking at the parts of ourselves we'd rather keep hidden because of shame or pain, that we all have a part of ourselves we must excavate. Even folks with happy childhoods. Just don't lose yourself in the ditch in the process.  …I'm not sure any of that made sense.

CGZ: What are some of the most memorable responses you’ve received about your work? 

MJ: About a decade or so ago a friend made a little film about this shadowbox project I was doing. It was an artist showcase. I was in the film community as a script supervisor…so that's how most knew me. I didn't talk about my art. I can't watch it now because I cringe…but after the viewing, a DP came up to me and he said, "I didn't know you were interesting." Weird backhanded compliment.

Another standout is walking into a pop up gallery I was showing at and meeting a jewelry designer there and she said, "You must be MJ, you look like your art." That was very affirming.

CGZ: What are the “little things” that you notice but no one else does that inspire your work? 

MJ: A sunrise, the way light simmers and breaks apart when it shines through a tree canopy. I think people see that stuff, I don't want to pretend I have some profound insight on life that others don't. I suppose it's about priorities and what we choose to register and spend our time on. I have no children or a partner, I'm my own distraction and obstacle. I do prioritize stillness.

CGZ: What are your favorite mediums to create in? Are there any “experimental” or new-to-you mediums that you’re interested in exploring?

MJ:  Acrylic is my main bag. I'd love to work with oils. Not very exciting I know. Honestly, I have ideas for sculptures but have no idea where to begin.

CGZ: What is your favorite time of day to create? What’s your “just right” setting? Do you have a favorite drink or mood-setting music? A lucky trinket you keep nearby?

MJ: Some might not say I'm not a true artist because I have a day job and am not starving for my art…but that's the dream right, to be able to eat and shelter yourself and do only art. So, usually midday on a day off. I might smoke some weed, I will definitely be listening to music, through my stereo setup or my headphones. 

CGZ: Describe what it feels like when you know a piece is finished. What makes you sit back and go “That’s done.”

MJ: I never have that feeling of "done", it's usually, I have exhausted all effort and I am either satisfied or I'm not. I'm guilty of painting over works. But I have a few pieces I think I'm completely satisfied with. The ones pictured are a few of those.

CGZ: Where do you go for inspiration? What helps refill the well?

MJ: Listening to other artists, and other people speak on their work. Moonage Daydream, the David Bowie documentary I watched the other night for example. I recently watched a piece on Roberta Flack. Music is a big motivator. I live about 10 miles from The Nelson Atkins Museum of art, so going and looking at the Marcel Duchamp or the Van Gogh's helps too.

CGZ: Do you have a favorite art museum? When you go there, where do you beeline to first?

MJ: See previous. Ha.

CGZ: What’s the weirdest or best book you’ve read recently?

MJ: I'm shit at getting around to finishing a book. I have Blood, Sweat and Chrome: The Wild and True Story of Mad Max Fury Road next to my bed. Spine not cracked. 

CGZ: As the kids say: “I’m in my ___ era.” What era are you in? 

MJ: Hermit. My fingernails haven't started to curl yet so there is still hope.

As Above So Below, 2020 (Acrylic on canvas, 16x20 in)

CGZ: What song has been stuck in your head lately? 

MJ: Recently, On My Own from Les Mis. The hermit bit aside, I did just go catch the tour that came through town. So…

CGZ: What keeps you going? How do you overcome creative blocks?

MJ: I don't have creative blocks per se. They can happen but mostly I have hurdles. I let my brother move into the room I was using as my studio…so, I haven't been painting as much. But I have to always be creating something. As a kid before I painted I played piano, then got into theater, acting, modeling for a couple years. I once had a webshow with a best friend where we reviewed TV shows and recreated the episode using Barbie dolls. I was 27. Nowadays I write or play with photography, if I can't paint. Recently, some poetry, and about 100,000 words worth of fan fiction. A girl has gotta let it out somehow, no shame.

CGZ: What’s the best piece of artist/creator advice you’ve heard?

MJ: I'm sure I've heard plenty but my memory is crap, so I have no quotes to give you right now. I think in highschool, when my teacher came up over my shoulder and pointed at the heavy outline in my still life (that she'd tried to get me to stop doing) and said, "You just can't help yourself can you? That's just how you paint." Taught me something. We can be taught and told and can imitate and follow instructions and still reveal ourselves through a simple unconscious stroke.

CGZ: Where do you hope to be in five years? Ten? (Wrong answers only.)

MJ: I can't even provide a wrong answer. These kinds of questions addle my sick brain.

CGZ: A parting quote for our readers? (I adored, “I can't wait until I'm dead and all my art is at a thrift store or left beside a dumpster.”)

MJ: I'm glad you appreciated that. I do love the MOBA, museumofbadart.org, and would feel no shame being included there, they do important work, I do believe that.

I feel like I've said too much. I was mentally smoking a cigarette this whole time. So I'm stomping it out now. Just imagine me staring into your eyes like performance artist Marina Abramovic and come up with something.

This was really fun and terrifying by the way. Thanks so much Claire 🖤

Communication, 2020 (Acrylic and oil on canvas, 18x24 in)

Hellhound, 2012 (Acrylic on canvas, 16x20 in)

#claire's garage zine #cgz featured artist #mj: molly jean #@yourcoolauntie #cgz spring 2023 #2023-MAY-25 #MAY-25

[contemporaryartblogg]

Independent Research: Performance and Conceptual Art 1980-1990s

In class we were split into research groups and we given the topic of conceptual art post 1990 to research and discuss, and I found it particularly interesting so I have decided to expand on this, extending to reflect on performance art as this is a topic I would like to further my knowledge in. I have chosen four artists who's work I have a personal interest in and have futher discussed with my group, and will be analysing their practise, place within and significance to conceptual and contemporary art. First beginning by discussing the work of Cuban artist Ana Mendieta and her practise and approach to performance art in the 80s following her Silueta Series. Then looking at the work of Marina Abramovic and her many years of conceptual performance pieces, also exploring body art. And finally I will be discussing Moscow conceptualists Alexander Melamid and Vitaly Komar, who have collaborated on multiple projects surrounding themes of their experience living in the oppressive Soviet Union.

Ana Mendieta's practise revolves around 'earth-body works' as she is concerned with themes of the female body, death, transformation and cultural displacement with a connection to Cuba. She often used the ritualistic tones that are seen in Cuban religious practises, through the symbols of blood, air, water and fire. This can be seen most prominently in her famous Silueta series (1973-1980). Mendieta was greatly interested in feminist art practises in the early 80s, as she continued to explore the emotional connection between her body and the natural world. For example with her Amategram series - Vivification of flesh in 1981. Totem-like forms painted with black acrylic onto Amate, paper made from bark by Otomi Craftspeople in Mexico. Further emphasising Mendieta's engagement with the body and earth. Again linking with rituals and offerings in her symbolic mark making process. Another artwork that follows this is Nile Born (1984) a sculpture created out of sand, laid on a wooden base and shaped to scale Mendieta's body. This artwork is about re-establishing bonds between the artists home country after being exiled and living in America, the artwork serves as a symbol for women.

Marina Abramovic is a pioneer in utilising performance as a visual art form, she explores the physical and mental limits of her being with her practise, the body is both her subject and medium. Abramovic has endured, pain, danger and exhaustion for emotional transformation. One example of this is her piece Rest Energy (1980) a collaborative artwork with the artist's long term partner, Ulay. One arrow is held on the weight of their body, the arrow pointing at Abramovic's heart with microphones recording their heartbeats which became more intense as the performance progressed. The performance was completely dependant on trust. Another artwork I found very interesting due to the use of digital media and the idea of repetition of an act was Cleaning the mirror (1995) of which 5 monitors were stacked on top of each other and played videos of a performance where Abramovic scrubs a human skeleton covered in dirt in her lap, the ritual of becoming one with your own mortality - a Tibetan death rite, the action lasted three hours.

Artists Alexander Melimid and Vitaly Komar were two leading conceptualists in Moscow. Their work ranges from painting and sculpture to performance pieces and they have worked with a variety of mediums. The artists first met in 1963 as students at the Stroganov Institute of Art and Design in Moscow and began collaborating in 1965. They were expelled from the Moscow union of artists after participating in many avant-garde exhibitions and emigrated to Israel in 1977 before moving to New York a year later. Their work continued to critique the totalitarian regime they were brought up in. They created a series of artworks between 1980-83 named The Nostalgic Socialist Realism series, Melimid and Komar made ironic commentaries on the propaganda of communism, that mimicked the subjects and style of official art, they satirize art history. Blindman's Buff in particular is interesting stands out in this series as although the subject is seemingly light hearted, the tone of the painting is clear, with the drab colours, as well as the picture of Stalin bathed in red displayed on the wall.

Bibliography

Demaria, C., 2004. The performative body of Marina Abramović: rerelating (in) time and space. European Journal of Women's Studies, 11(3), pp.295-307. The Performative Body of Marina Abramović: Rerelating (in) Time and Space - Cristina Demaria, 2004 (sagepub.com)

Hillings, V.L., 1999. Komar and Melamid's Dialogue with (Art) History. Art Journal, 58(4), pp.48-61. Komar and Melamid's Dialogue with (Art) History: Art Journal: Vol 58, No 4 (tandfonline.com)

Roulet, L., 2012. Ana Mendieta as Cultural Connector with Cuba. American Art, 26(2), pp.21-27. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/667947

Wollen, P., 1991. Scenes from the future: Komar & Melamid. New Left Review, 185, pp.68-80. Peter Wollen, Scenes from the Future: Komar & Melamid, NLR I/185, January–February 1991 (newleftreview.org)

[sportstrust]

Miro painter

#MIRO PAINTER FULL#

#MIRO PAINTER SERIES#

Such works illustrate the development of a personal style which challenges both traditional and vanguard artistic values. A number of Miró’s experiments with avant-garde pictorial styles, such as the Cezannist “La Publicidad” and Flower Vase (1917) and the Fauve-inspired Portrait of Enric Cristòfol Ricart (1917), are included in this section. Joan Miró begins in 1915, with paintings that predate the artist’s first trip to Paris. These paintings, of an often startling expressivity, have never been seen in the United States. Also included is a selection of works left in Miró’s studio at his death.

#MIRO PAINTER SERIES#

All twenty-three works of the Constellation series of 1940–41, a pivotal group of paintings on paper that shows the artist at the height of his career, are exhibited together for the first time. Among the many series represented is the group of so-called dream paintings from the 1920s, twenty-one of which are included in the exhibition. It comprises more than 150 paintings, as well as drawings, prints, sculptures, ceramics, and illustrated books, assembled from public and private collections from throughout the world. Joan Miró, which can only be seen in New York, is installed chronologically on both levels of the Museum’s temporary exhibition galleries.

#MIRO PAINTER FULL#

Joan Miró thus examines the full range of Miró’s oeuvre, offering an unprecedented opportunity to chart the development of one of the twentieth-century’s most innovative artists, as well as providing insight into the creative process itself. The exhibition is the first major survey to examine the artist’s pervasive tendency to work in series, and represents nearly all of his major cycles. The largest and most comprehensive exhibition ever held in the United States of the work of the Catalan master Joan Miró (1893–1983), Joan Miró celebrates the 100th anniversary of the artist’s birth with some 400 works in virtually all the mediums he employed. Yes, indeed, one can speak of cycles in my painting.” -Joan Miró, Selected Writings and Interviews, 1970 After a series of calm austere pictures there will by colorful dynamic ones. When I am traveling, I am always on the move, but when I return home I spend twenty-four hours in bed, I eat nothing, I drink only water. Both my life and my work are governed by alternating phases. Inspired by Fauve and Cubist exhibitions in Barcelona and abroad, Miró was drawn towards the arts community that was gathering in Montparnasse and in 1920 moved to Paris, but continued to spend his summers in Catalonia.“One thing comes as a reaction to something else. He studied at the Cercle Artístic de Sant Lluc and he had his first solo show in 1918 at the Galeries Dalmau, where his work was ridiculed and defaced. To the dismay of his father, he enrolled at the fine art academy at La Llotja in 1907. He began drawing classes at the age of seven at a private school at Carrer del Regomir 13, a medieval mansion. His father was Miquel Miró Adzerias and his mother was Dolors Ferrà. The Miró surname indicates possible Jewish roots (in terms of marrano or converso Iberian Jews who converted to Christianity). Spanish Artist Miró Joan Painting Joan Miró Biographyīorn into a family of a goldsmith and a watchmaker, Miró grew up in the Barri Gòtic neighborhood of Barcelona. In numerous interviews dating from the 1930s onwards, Miró expressed contempt for conventional painting methods as a way of supporting bourgeois society, and declared an “assassination of painting” in favour of upsetting the visual elements of established painting. His difficult to classify works also had a manifestation of Catalan pride. He was notable for his interest in the unconscious or the subconscious mind, reflected in his re-creation of the childlike. A museum dedicated to his work, the Fundació Joan Miró, was established in his native city of Barcelona in 1975, and another, the Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró, was established in his adoptive city of Palma de Mallorca in 1981.Įarning international acclaim, his work has been interpreted as Sur realism but with a personal style, sometimes also veering into Fauvism and Expressionism. Joan Miró i Ferrà was a Spanish painter, sculptor and ceramicist born in Barcelona.

#Miro painter

[slimeinnocence]

Dissertational Aesthetics

Though the readings’ for our first two weeks were probably intensely logistical or methodological in the grand scope of the material we will be covering, I nevertheless found them interesting on many fronts. Through synthesis from what I pondered during an art history seminar and during my time during the digital humanities survey course, I am left wondering about how things can be in relation to the mundane nature of academia.

I am a complete vanguard for this so-called distant-reading movement, and I greatly appreciate these scholar’s attention to screen and visual culture--in fact, I still have my post up on this blog from my undergraduate critical theory class where I pondered the “death of reading.” Though I’m cognizant of the traditions surrounding the “status-quo” within academia, particularly in terms of writing and formatting your theses/dissertations, I do not believe that they interact well enough with our digital progressions.

There is a so-called “low-key” bother here, of which I believe can be exemplified by the logistical fact that, when images are brought up in a dissertation, instead of being placed exactly after being referenced in the text, they are excluded towards the end of the paper, acting as references (or at least this is what I’ve mainly seen). Why is this? Why are our intellectual pursuits “tempered” by institutional traditions--must your work be a complete onslaught of pure text, perfectly indented, to be considered a reflection of your individual talent or accomplishment? Not only do I believe that academia is particularly brittle in this manner, but that this has to do with a larger movement within education that has not been fully embraced: why do we rely mainly on text to transmit concepts rather than images? For example, can we tell a story only through images? Generation Z sure enough spends a lot of time scrolling through hundreds of images on the daily, is this not something we should think about accommodating into our pedagogy?

Of course, that is an extremely drastic demand. But perhaps we can make subtle changes to the logistics within our disciplines to resonate with this changing environment? For example, as is common within the fields of art or architecture, what if we instead formatted theses’ and dissertations’ as portfolios rather then strict essays? How can we think of the paper--or any medium we choose--as being capable of influencing and dictating our work; how can we think of paper more than simply the substance we write our ideas on? We have a lot to work with--a piece of paper with text is much more nuanced than at first glance. Avant-garde artists will set precedence for us beyond our wildest imaginations. Take, for example, the Lettrism movement:

Isidore Isou, Polylogue, Hypergraphic.

Or, for example, what about concrete poetry?

George Herbert. Easter Wings. 1633.

Or, just book art in general? One here can recall the magnificent issue of Marshall McLuhan’s The Medium is the Massage where he worked in collaboration with the graphic designer Quentin Fiore:

Not only is the text aesthetically interesting, it is clear and logistical evidence that a respected scholar (albeit that McLuhan was known to be somewhat eccentric) could have success and respect for the visual in combination with the textual. The images are not simply provocative and spectacle-like, rather they work in relationship to content and meaning; there is a page in this book that could only be read intelligibly by utilizing a mirror.

The question at heart of stopping all of this, beyond perhaps simply not wanting to, is a direct connection between substance and worthiness; I believe the main criticism (of, I assume, the elite academics) is that there would be too much content with not enough depth. This is the point of content at which, I believe, we will never break. Another argument to be made is that, simply put, our intensely academic fields are not meant to be visual, or that, the field is textual at its heart. I appreciate this argument, but it does answer for the simple fact that we integrate images into our textual work all the time, nor the fact that our society is becoming increasingly visual. Maybe, as was brought up during our discussion, this visual project is encouraged by some particularly-progressive institution, but they make you conduct this “creative” project on-top of the original, more “professional/academic” project.

What would this avant-garde dissertation look like? Would you have to read it chronologically or could you read the chapters in any order? What material would it take, both in physical or digital form? Are the pages in black-and-white, or maybe the text is in a red-ink? Do the images seep into the text or are they demarcated from them? Did you keep your dissertation private until you snagged a book deal or did you upload it entirely on Wattpad?

[seaoflove]

i apologize in advance im gonna get mushy about art again but!!! me and my little siblings + cousins used to play this game our grandparents taught us when we were bored and hyperactive kids where you would 1) fold a paper in five parts 2) draw on one allotted folded piece and then another person would continue drawing where you left off (without knowing what your drawing looked like) and this would continue until all five parts were drawn and you would all laugh at the unfolded monstrosity your collective childhood imagination could produce. fast forward to today while in art class i was studying the surrealism movement and i read that it was THEM who invented this little game! they’d play it whenever they were bored and called it an exquisite corpse (because they were young and clever and full of well deserved hubris). but what got me nostalgic is that this game invented by avant-garde artists in a metropolitan city in europe somehow trickled down into the very quiet scandinavian countryside where somehow (?) my non-art interested grandparents found out about it and taught their grandkids. like..... in a way everything comes back full circle and art will always be a natural part of the human psyche, circumventing socially constructed boundaries like “class” and the like. anyway what i want to say is that art belongs to everyone and this romanticized story is just a little proof of that i think.

#s #it also reminds me of that quote from toni morrison: #i think of beauty as an absolute necessity. i don’t think it’s a privilege or indulgence #it’s not even a quest. i think it’s almost like knowledge #which is to say it’s what we were born for.

[lovenona]

I just haad to say thank you for the free serotonin that you have provided me with through the last artist sukuna post

it's just... ✨beautifull✨ we are slowly building up this au

BUT CAN YOU IMAGINE HIM GETTING MORE AND MORE FRUSTRATED WITH THE LACK OF ATTENTION WERE HE'S KIND OF POUTING

and then there need to be a project done in which you have the option to work in groups and NO MATTER WHAT this proud cherry haired idiot WILL work alone but geto won't he came to y/n and they really need to work in a group if they want to get this done so of course y/n is happily gonna agree to the offer of geto to work together they do be viben after all which ultimately leads to the fact that y/n is gonna give sukuna even less attention (it probably doesn't even get on his nerves that much that y/n works with geto its just the lack of attention and ultimately time spending with you that result from it)

ah i am sorry I was rambling again😂

anyways hope you have a nice day and don't stress yourself too much with answering always happy to see you post❤️

babe let me just say ur brain is massive and i thank u from the bottom of my heart – anyway here’s the original post for everyone about to embark on this godforsaken journey with art student sukuna and our new friend pretentious fuck geto suguru 

if you thought you were pitiful at drawing, your sculptural skills are on another level of true and utter shit. you cannot, for the life of you, create things out of clay. you despise carving anything into wood. your pottery faithfully collapses on you whenever you try. you hate working with glass. you would have dropped the class, honest, if you didn’t desperately need it in order to fulfill your major requirements and graduate on time. 

all in all, it’s an awful class created solely to tank your gpa – you don’t understand what you’re doing, you don’t understand what anything is supposed to look like, and you sure as fuck don’t understand how anyone else seems to have their shit together all the time. when you glance around the room, no one, not even the famous ryomen sukuna, has trouble making their materials turn into something recognizable.

(and, in true sukuna fashion, he loves to make sure you know how fucking untalented you are.) 

so when anthropology-and-ceramics king geto suguru asks if you want to be partners for the next big art project, you agree without a second thought. you’ve been talking to him recently, small talk before class, and for all his pretentious faults, you think he’s delightfully hot as fuck with a smooth voice to match. he wears those crisp, expensive button-downs that he bought at overpriced local craft markets. he always smells like cedar and eucalyptus; he brings a different tote bag to every class, his favorite being one he got as a gift for subscribing to the new yorker. he shops organic only and throws around the words “fair trade” and “bourgeoisie” and “means of production” with the ease that sukuna throws around the words “fuck” and “shit.” 

you think geto is fascinating. and maybe he talks down to you when explaining his anthropology knowledge, he absolutely does, but when he gazes at you with those warm eyes and offers to help you learn how to sculpt and raise your grades, you can’t help but agree with a pair of big pathetic doe eyes. 

why wouldn’t you? you’re just here for a good time, after all.

so when you giggle as geto places his sinfully smooth, manicured hands over yours while teaching you how to use the pottery wheel, you don’t think much of it. you think he’s cute and warm. you’d be a fool to notice the dark annoyance radiating from the other corner of the room.

ryomen sukuna always works alone. but what he didn’t count on was that you wouldn’t be working alone with him. 

it’s not that you’re working with geto, he swears. it’s that you’re not working with him. his ears feel strangely empty without your argumentative quips, without the way you tell him he’s infuriating and annoying every time he tells you something lewd just to fluster you. it’s strangely empty without you both arguing about the difference between great artists and sell-outs – were you here, in his corner of the room, maybe sukuna would have tried to tell you michelangelo was a loser just to see what you would say. 

but you’re not with him. you’re listening to geto tell you about the time he went to study abroad in germany and how he took a trip to morocco where he tried some amazing food you’ve never heard of. he’s telling you about the time he helped make tampons in botswana after his senior year of high school and all of the other deliciously precocious things he has done for the sake of human rights and anti-capitalism. 

(you’re killing the environment, you know, geto often admonishes you when you stumble into class with your cup of coffee. that cup is going to end up in a landfill. he always taks a sip from his hydroflask for emphasis. it’s sleek and black with an oxfam sticker on it.

and sure, you know that your cup is going to become trash. geto doesn’t have to be an annoying fuck and tell you when it’s only eleven in the morning and he drove a literal moped to campus. but still, with that silky man-bun, everything he does is okay.) 

but understand that sukuna doesn’t hate geto. sukuna craves attention, and he absolutely cannot stand being ignored. he’ll pout without realizing it, pursing his lips and wondering what kind of circus act he needs to perform to win back your presence. should he get another tattoo? cuss out the professor? offer to fuck you senseless in the third-floor bathroom? he’s not sure – he’s never not been seen before. ryomen sukuna doesn’t know what it’s like to come in second. 

so he intercepts you after class; in a manner that is both sukuna-and-not-sukuna, he’ll casually throw one of his heavy arms over your shoulders, subtly pulling you away from geto’s aura, wrapping you in his scent of earth and leather and sex appeal. “come on, puppy,” he says, sultry and annoying and condescending all wrapped in one, tapping his ring-clad fingers against your arm. “you’re supposed to help me write my paper, aren’t you?” it’s not a question, it’s a demand, one you know deep down that you would rather die than shy away from. 

you might not like sukuna, you tell yourself, but there’s something about him, the way he talks and moves and exists in the world, that makes you unable to shy away. there’s something about him that always makes you want more without you quite knowing why. 

(he kissed you, once. sometimes you wonder if you would like it to happen again.) 

and you’re still nestled under sukuna’s arm, trapped in his orbit and following him to his favorite empty classrooms, when geto calls back to you, wondering if you’re still interested in going to the avant-garde poetry reading with him tomorrow night. 

he’s going to present a poem he wrote on the terrors inflicted on south america by the united states, geto had explained earlier when his hands were on yours. it was going to be some real, hard-hitting poetry, none of that “rupi kaur bullshit.” he thought it might enlighten you to join him, perhaps in more ways than one.

you pretend you don’t notice the way sukuna’s arm tightens around your shoulders when you tell geto with a flirtatious smile that you can’t wait. 

#welcome to my blog where we just thirst all day long #geto and sukuna fighting over me? it's more likely than u think #pretentious fuck geto is my favorite thing ever #sukuna #sukuna x reader #geto #geto suguru #geto x reader #jujutsu kaisen x reader #adele writes #artist!jjk #letters to adele #geto.seguru #ryomen.sukuna

[lagren0uille]

I’ve been participating since last year in the organisation of my Complit Doctoral Collective’s annual symposium, which we’ve decided to do on “The Poetics of Kitsch” (so “kitsch” and mass culture of course but also camp aesthetics etc), and therefore re-reading a lot of theory, including Clement Greenberg’s famous “Avant-Garde and Kitsch” article. And as always when it comes to marxist art theory, there’s a small part of me that is slightly annoyed at the lack of subtelty (something something high brow spite for low brow culture blah blah blah) but mostly I just wish people still had those references in mind when discussing the politics of art in general:

The precondition for kitsch, a condition without which kitsch would be impossible, is the availability close at hand of a fully matured cultural tradition, whose discoveries, acquisitions, and perfected self-consciousness kitsch can take advantage of for its own ends. It borrows from it devices, tricks, stratagems, rules of thumb, themes, converts them into a system, and discards the rest. It draws its life blood, so to speak, from this reservoir of accumulated experience. This is what is really meant when it is said that the popular art and literature of today were once the daring, esoteric art and literature of yesterday. Of course, no such thing is true. What is meant is that when enough time has elapsed the new is looted for new "twists," which are then watered down and served up as kitsch. Self-evidently, all kitsch is academic; and conversely, all that's academic is kitsch. For what is called the academic as such no longer has an independent existence, but has become the stuffed-shirt "front" for kitsch. The methods of industrialism displace the handicrafts.

Because it can be turned out mechanically, kitsch has become an integral part of our productive system in a way in which true culture could never be, except accidentally. It has been capitalized at a tremendous investment which must show commensurate returns; it is compelled to extend as well as to keep its markets. While it is essentially its own salesman, a great sales apparatus has nevertheless been created for it, which brings pressure to bear on every member of society. Traps are laid even in those areas, so to speak, that are the preserves of genuine culture. It is not enough today, in a country like ours, to have an inclination towards the latter; one must have a true passion for it that will give him the power to resist the faked article that surrounds and presses in on him from the moment he is old enough to look at the funny papers. Kitsch is deceptive. It has many different levels, and some of them are high enough to be dangerous to the naive seeker of true light. A magazine like the New Yorker, which is fundamentally high-class kitsch for the luxury trade, converts and waters down a great deal of avant-garde material for its own uses. Nor is every single item of kitsch altogether worthless. Now and then it produces something of merit, something that has an authentic folk flavor; and these accidental and isolated instances have fooled people who should know better.

Clement Greenberg, Avant-garde and kitsch, 1939

Also I have feelings bc this was written in 1939 and you can just sense the spectre of fascism in the background... When discussing “rhetorics” and the weaponization of art is no longer an abstract discussion.

#literature meta #media commentary #culture #art #kitsch #clement greenberg #mine

[elliots-stuff]

up and coming aesthetics quiz all quiz results

*I didn’t write a ton for most of these because I didn’t want to go on and on, but I hold them all near to my heart. if for whatever reason you want to come and chat with me/hear more about one/all of them feel free to of course lol 

tamboracore

it's true, you really were born in the wrong era. I know the time period calling to you: 1816, the year without a summer (following the mount tambora volcanic eruption). tamboracore is about becoming at home in the physical and metaphorical darkness and cold, making them into pleasant things, with a beautiful vintage touch. advice: write a love letter or a poem from the depths of your soul. lucky number: 16 baby!

10th grade english class core

why bother with drugs when you already got yourself hopelessly addicted to getting "nice work! very insightful!" comments on your papers. it's alright, it happens to the best of us. anyway, the aesthetic is about crafting your life to be like a movie or a book. tidy pacing and chapters, common themes and motifs, high-interest peaks of drama. etc. you're the protagonist, my friend. what message does your story carry? advice: get some of those round wire frame glasses (real or fake). lucky number: 12

jellyfishcore

stewards of the ocean; to be beautiful, to be ancient. jellyfish have seen it all, and day to day (or century to century) problems do not perturb them. many jellyfishcore practitioners enjoy a timeless aesthetic, blending fashion and decor from all eras, while others choose a particular era (often nineteenth century or before) to favor. jellyfish-esque fashion also encouraged. advice: watch an informational video about the ocean. lucky numbers: 999 and 0

mainecore

incredible beauty, with classic darkness lurking below the surface. a common trope in mainecore media will be people disappearing after a day of summer revelry, speculated to be swallowed up by the ocean or by the forest. advice: snatch up lighthouse related usernames while you can. also, take a cool picture of a tree or the sky. lucky number: 4

candlecore

candlecore is a sweet, dreamy aesthetic with gentle surreal motifs. aroma is a large part of executing the aesthetic, as well as comfortable, pastel clothing. aside from comfort and coziness, a major theme is yearning for something just beyond the real world. lucid dreaming is a popular part of the aesthetic. advice: change into your favorite sleepwear and make your bed nicely before bed tonight. lucky number: 13

daisycore

at its essence, daisycore is about being lighter than air. it is about enjoying simple, beautiful things, especially spring and summer nature elements, and going through life gently. daisycore often presents itself with vintage elements from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. advice: drink a light tea or juice and/or sit outside on the grass. lucky number: 60

lettucecore

fresh, crisp, hip, and happening. lettucecore is about being bright and cool; it's about setting trends and the avante garde. it's about not only tolerating but loving standing out in any room. you're going places, my friend. I envision rooms with lots of windows in your future. advice: try a lettuce wrap. additionally, try some bright fashion. lucky number: 79

pillowfortcore

not to capture youth, but to live it, forever, as something you do, not something you have or are. no ghosts and no guarantees of tomorrow; the present is always prioritized over the past or the future. to love adventure, but more importantly, to find adventure in everything. friendship above all else. advice: watch the sun rise. lucky number: 77

traincore

the focus of traincore is in appreciating being between places and outside of them; in living in the outskirts and the liminal space. a secondary element of traincore is appreciating older, simpler structures and designs. popular traincore media will have nomadic themes of finding home in people and not places. advice: go on a walk down a boring street. lucky number: 17

[woman-loving]

Lesbian Literature and International Networks in 1950s-70s Australia

Selection from Unnamed Desires: A Sydney Lesbian History, Rebecca Jennings, 2015.

I included two passages here, one about lesbian literature and the other about engagement with overseas lesbian magazines, namely the US The Ladder and British Arena Three. Both touch on how customs/censorship laws restricted lesbian connections. (Compare with the importance of media freedom for lesbian subcultures in Weimar Berlin; for more on how lesbians can be affected by anti-gay laws absent direct criminalization, see how lesbians were policed in 1950s-70s Sydney.) I also appreciated the description of how engagement with literature can be a form of lesbian expression.

For those women who lived discreet lives or who were unable to locate other lesbians in this period, literature and other cultural representations of same-sex desire played an important role in alleviating their sense of isolation. Novels with lesbian characters or themes enabled women both to find a language for their own desires and to realise that they were not alone. Their significance to women in this period is testified to by the frequency with which lists of lesbian literature appeared in early issues of lesbian and feminist journals. Although identifying and obtaining lesbian-themed literature could be problematic without the assistance of such lists, reading these works offered women the opportunity to engage with a discourse of same-sex desire without the risks of exposure inherent in reaching out physically to other lesbians. In an article entitled ‘On the Virtues of Remaining in Your Closet!’, contributed by ‘a gaygirl’ to lesbian and gay paper Campaign in the 1970s, one discreet lesbian drew on a rich array of cultural sources to reinforce her impassioned plea for the right to conceal her sexuality.[17] The author attached no personal details to the article and observed that she planned to ‘post this anonymously from a suburb I don’t live in’. Her family, she claimed, was hostile to homosexuality and unaware of her own same-sex desires, as were her friends and work colleagues. Nevertheless, she noted that ‘about the time I discovered I was gay, I read everything I could on the subject of homosexuality.’ The article demonstrated that, while maintaining a ‘closet’ identity in everyday life, she had been able to actively participate in a discursive lesbian and gay community through the medium of the press, the theatre and Campaign itself. In assembling her arguments, she referred to a letter to the editor of an Australian newspaper by a gay man; an article in Time Magazine entitled ‘Gays on the March’; and a performance of Peter Kenna’s play Mates at the Nimrod Theatre in Sydney. Her consumption of cultural representations of homosexuality had helped to shape her own sense of gay identity and community, and ultimately enabled her to enter into dialogue with that community without conflicting with the need for concealment.

In earlier decades, however, women’s need for such literature, and the difficulties of locating it, were correspondingly increased. The cultural imperative to silence desire between women and to conceal it from families and society at large was reinforced for much of the mid-twentieth century by the paucity of literary and media portrayals of the subject. Margaret commented that books were neither accessible nor relevant in her attempt to make sense of her same-sex desires in the late 1950s[...]. As Margaret noted, literary representations of desire between women were extremely limited prior to the 1970s and were rendered largely inaccessible by the difficulties of locating them. For working-class women such as Margaret, who had not been raised in a culture of reading, literature did not in any case represent an obvious source of information. Strict censorship laws further restricted access to such works in Australia.

The importing of books and written materials deemed indecent or obscene was banned under the Trade and Customs Act 1901, and thereafter many of the decisions regarding which titles should be banned were taken arbitrarily by individual Customs officials who seized books at the point of entry into Australia. In 1933, the Book Censorship Board (renamed the Literature Censorship Board in 1937 and ultimately disbanded in 1967) was established to consider those books which were deemed marginal or literary.[19] The presence of homosexuality as a theme was accepted as grounds for censorship and Nicole Moore argues that:

“Censors actively targeted the expression of same-sex desire, descriptions of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual, and cross-dressed sexual practice, the elaboration of gay and lesbian identities as identities, agitation against restrictions on the expression of same-sex themes, as well as many other forms of meaning moving beyond a straight, reproductive model for intimacy and sexual life. Until late in the twentieth century, homosexuality was seen as a pornographic and perverted form of obscenity where present in literary or popular novels, avant-garde poetry or films of all kinds, magazines or postcards. From the earliest moments of government censorship in Australia, and increasingly as an explicit priority, the erasure of homosexual meaning from as many public fora and discourses as possible was achieved to a significant degree.”[20]

A number of notable lesbian novels were banned, several limiting the availability of literary representations of female same-sex desire. Radclyffe Hall’s controversial British lesbian novel, The Well of Loneliness, was banned in 1929, following its obscenity trials in the UK and US. Moore claims that Australian censors attempted to obtain a copy of the novel following its prohibition in England in 1928. However, they were unable to locate one as such copies as had been circulating in Australia had apparently been sent to England in the wake of the trail to be sold on the lucrative black market there. In the absence of a review copy, Customs officials banned it sight unseen on the basis of English law. The ban was lifted in Australia some time between 1939 and 1946, unusually prior to the UK release date of 1949. However, the absence of a high-profile obscenity trail like that which occurred in the UK, Moore argues, meant that lesbian identity was not publicly debated in Australia in the same way. [...] The secrecy surrounding The Well’s subsequent Australian release further limited its availability in Australia, where many booksellers remained unaware that it was now legally possible to order copies and offer the novel for sale. It was not until the mid-1960s that US lesbian pulp fiction, such as Tereska Torres’ Women’s Barracks, was allowed through Australian Customs and it was a further decade before the first Australian lesbian novel, Kerryn Higgs’ All That False Instruction, was published.[22]

Despite the difficulties of locating literary representations of female same-sex desire in mid-twentieth century Australia, however, some women clearly managed to do so. By the 1960s a number of international lesbian novels were officially available in Australia, but even a generation earlier, despite strict censorship, women were able to obtain a limited range of lesbian-themed literature. Beverley recalled buying a copy of The Well of Loneliness in ‘one of the big bookshops in Sydney’ immediately after the war while ‘C.P.’ told British lesbian magazine Arena Three about her experience borrowing the novel from a Sydney library in 1950[...]. In the 1950s, Georgie came across The Straggler by Danish novelist Agnete Holk.[24] The Straggler was passed by the Literature Censorship Board in 1954, and board member Kenneth Binns noted: ‘this is the first time, to my knowledge, that a novel dealing seriously with the subject of lesbianism has been submitted to the board.’[25] Even when women were able to locate lesbian-themed books in bookshops or newsstands, purchasing such a book often proved a challenge for women accustomed to a life of concealment. Kerryn Higgs recalled the difficulties a friend of hers had experienced in attempted to buy The Well of Loneliness:

“I remember a friend telling me the story that she was unable to buy The Well of Loneliness even though it had no subtitle [identifying it as lesbian] for she was afraid of what the cashier would think, so she pinched it instead.”[26]

Higgs was concerned that her publisher’s decision to append the subtitle ‘A novel of Lesbian Love’ to her own novel, All That False Instruction, would create similar obstacles for women who wished to obtain the book discreetly.

The impact of lesbian literature on women who had encountered few, if any, depictions of desire between women varied considerably. Deborah described her discovery of Violette Le Duc’s novel La Batarde in 1965 as a revelation, it being her first encounter with representations of lesbianism. [...] For Deborah, the experience had a profound effect on her understanding of her own sexuality. She recalled: ‘So I read the book, and then I thought “Wow! This is me, this explains how I feel.”‘[28] Other women, however, felt that literary portrayals of lesbianism simply reinforced broader cultural messages about silence and isolation. Laurie complained that the cheap paperback novels she read in the 1960s and early 1970s were ‘so depressing, there was never a happy ending. They [the lesbian characters] either got killed, or went straight and saw the errors of their ways and all that sort of shit.’[29] When Robyn told her mother that she was a lesbian in the early 1970s, her mother was concerned about the risk of loneliness and Robyn connected the fear with Radclyffe Hall’s novel, The Well of Loneliness[...].

When Kerryn Higgs’ semi-autobiographical novel All That False Instruction was published in 1975, its reception was an indicator of how much, and how little, had changed. Despite the author having been awarded a publisher’s prize to develop the book, when the lesbian content of the novel became known, familial disapproval and threats of legal action forced the publisher (Angus & Robertson) to delay publication and the author to publish under the pseudonym Elizabeth Riley.[31] Reviewers in the Melbourne Age and The Australian objected to the novel’s lesbian theme and its depiction of men. [...] However, the existence in 1975 of a flourishing feminist and gay press meant that the novel was also received into an appreciative political environment and it was widely reviewed in lesbian and feminist circles. Sue Bellamy, reviewing the novel for feminist journal Refractory Girl, described it as an ‘exceptional piece of work’. Her engagement with the novel derived to a considerable extend from her identification with the experiences of the lesbian central character and, by extension, the author. [...]

For lesbian readers, and particularly those outside of the feminist community addressed by Sue Bellamy, this familiarity could be a source of both comfort and discomfort. While for Bellamy and others, reading from the relative safety of 1975, the sense of shared experience was validating, the setting of the book in the different cultural context of 1960s New South Wales could be unsettling. Escaping a rural working-class upbringing, the novel’s heroine, Maureen Craig, wins a scholarship to attend university in Sydney, where she embarks on a succession of relationships with other women. however, social disapproval from home and at college constrains these relationships, prompting the women to conceal their feelings for each other. [...] Despite Maureen’s fantasies of escape, fear of exposure is ultimately too much for all three of Maureen’s lovers, who in turn abandon Maureen in search of social conformity. Her story reflected the experience of many women who desired other women in this period but whose relationships were constrained by the pressures of secrecy.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Early encounters with lesbian-themed literature and film afforded some women a point of introduction into a language and cultural framework for thinking about same-sex desire, but the passive and solitary nature of reading could also leave women feeling more isolated, with no one to discuss their impressions with. However, by the late 1950s the beginnings of an international homosexual movement offered new opportunities for Australian women to reach out to others and especially seek discursive lesbian networks overseas without revealing their same-sex desires to family and friends in Australia. Rachel recalled that in the early 1960s: ‘I think people were sending off subscriptions to American magazines even in those days’ and this is confirmed by letters which appeared in a number of overseas magazines from Australian readers.[45] The Ladder, produced by US lesbian organisation Daughters of Bilitis from 1956 onwards, clearly had an Australian readership. The magazine’s round-up of international news frequently referred to stories in Australian and British newspapers, which were derived from clippings sent in by an Australian reader, and from 1970 onwards letters and magazines were received from Marion Norman of the Melbourne Daughters of Bilitis chapter.

British lesbian magazine Arena Three also had at least two contributors from New South Wales and potentially many more subscribers and readers. First published in 1964 by Londoner Esme Langley with the support of three or four other women, Arena Three provided a combination of articles, sketches, news items and a letters page for ‘homosexual women’ readers.[46] In 1964, Kate Hinton contributed two articles, including ‘The Homophile Down Under’, which offered a sketch of lesbian life in NSW and reported on broader social attitudes to lesbianism in Australia.[47] The following year G Mackenzie of Sydney wrote a number of times, enclosing donations to assist the magazine in continuing its work. She congratulated the editor: ‘You are doing a wonderful service to homosexual women. I hope you can keep it going. I look forward each month to receiving A3 and only wish we had something like it out here.’ This, she felt, was an idle hope, and she complained: ‘I guess we are never likely to see an ad in or paper like those you put in “New Statesmen” etc. I guess our mob would have pups on the spot.’[48] Her wish was apparently echoed by other Australian subscribers as in July 1968 the editor advised readers that ‘two Australian girls have recently written from New South Wales to say that, inspired by the example of A3, they would like to start a publication in the Antipodes, and would like our expert advice.’[49] Perhaps discouraged by the rather disheartening advice offered by the Arena Three editor, they did not, however, start an Australian magazine.

For Australian subscribers in the 1950s and 1960s, American and British lesbian magazines offered opportunities to feel part of a lesbian community which were not available to them elsewhere. For some, they were invaluable in demonstrating the existence of other lesbians and the range of communities and identities which existed. [...] Letters often expressed the profound loneliness which women who were not pat of lesbian social network experienced in mid-twentieth century NSW. In 1958 Miss S. from Sidney [sic], Australia wrote to One magazine, based in Los Angeles:

“I know your magazine is not a lonely hearts magazine, but it seems my only hope. I am very unhappy. I’m desperate to write to a lady who will write to me. I am 26 and I don’t like men.”[51]

Seven years later, an Australian reader placed a classified advertisement in Arena Three stating, ‘Lonely Dutch migrant wants correspondence with lady 25/35 interested in migrating to Australia.’[52] while simply reading such magazines helped to alleviate the isolation engendered by the cultural silence around same-sex desire, some women saw these networks as a potential introduction to more personal and intimate relationships. They also provide occasional insights into existing social networks and their role in transmitting information. In 1970, an Australian reader enquired of The Ladder:

“I am twenty and my girlfriend (I’ll call her Sadie) is twenty-two. We have been sharing an apartment for a year, going to bars, and all that stuff. Yesterday a friend of Sadie’s asked her what I was like in bed. When she said I wore striped pajamas and slept like a log, the friend laughed. Now we think maybe we are missing out on something. Could you fill us in?”[53]

In the context of scarce cultural representations of lesbianism, it is possible to read this letter as evidence that overseas magazines provided an invaluable source of information, even to women who were part of a wider lesbian network in Australia. However, it is perhaps more likely that this reader, who was part of a more knowing lesbian subculture centred on public bars, was poking fun at the discreet representations of lesbianism typical of US and British lesbian magazines in this period, which avoided direct references to sexual activity between women out of a concern not to offend either the censors or a sensitive middle-class readership.

While overseas lesbian magazines offered a lifeline to women in mid-twentieth century NSW, as with other literary representations of same-sex desire, access was limited by strict censorship laws. Several Australian readers of One magazine, which catered to both homosexual men and lesbians in the 1950s and 1960s, complained that their copies had been seized by Customs, while readers of Arena Three experienced similar difficulties. Such seizures were apparently sporadic and often dependent on Customs building up a gradual awareness of the content of overseas journals. In September 1966, G Mackenzie of Sydney told Arena Three:

“I got Bryan Magee’s book, ‘One in Twenty’, but in a way I think it is a pity that he gives publicity to MRG and Arena Three, because I suppose that will be the next thing to be stopped by Customs out here.

I noticed after the ‘Grapevine’ came out for sale in Australia giving publicity to DOB and ‘The Ladder’, it was after that time that Customs started to confiscate my copies of ‘The Ladder’ --they didn’t seem to know of its existence before that. ‘The Grapevine’ was reviewed by Customs in late 1965, before it was allowed to be sold to the public, and in 1966 they confiscated my January and February ‘Ladder’ and have got 4 more since then. So the publicity for A3 was no good, as far as I am concerned.”[54]

G Mackenzie’s comment reflect the ambivalence felt by some lesbian readers in this period toward open discussion of lesbianism and lesbian communities. Although a degree of publicity was necessary to enable women to locate resources such as Arena Three, increased discussion carried its own risks. Letters to Arena Three and The Ladder in the 1950s and 1960s indicate that readers used these magazines in different ways. While some women undoubtedly read them in the privacy of their own home, as a means of seeking input from other lesbians without compromising their discreet way of life, others wished to be a more active member of a discursive community, contributing articles and letters in order to enter a dialogue with other readers. For others still, these magazines offered a potential route to a material community of other lesbians, which might be reached either by placing lonely hearts advertisements or by requesting information about lesbian social networks based in bars or private homes.

In 1968, the editors of Arena Three put two readers from NSW in contact with another from Melbourne, enabling the women to meet directly with each other.[55] A small number of Australian women also travelled to the US and Britain to participate in the social networks attached to lesbian magazines: In 1969 Arena Three thanked Rene Vi, an Australian woman who had been organising the magazine’s London social group, for all her work for the magazine, on the occasion of her return to Australia. The editorial team at that time also included another Australian, Carol Potter.[56] While these women lived for some time in the UK and became embedded in British lesbian social networks, other made contact with overseas lesbian groups while travelling. Margaret described a visit she made to the offices of the Daughters of Bilitis while on a trip to San Francisco in the early 1960s. Margaret was staying with friends on a naval camp, and these circumstances shaped her encounter with the Daughters of Bilitis women:

“[T]hey were in an office building, it was just their office where they published that magazine called The Ladder. And it was the third floor or something in an office building on Market Street, so I just thought I’d just go up there and see what was happening. But I was dressing in the manner befitting a visitor from abroad staying with a Lieutenant-Commander and his wife and I got there, introduced myself, I was from Australia and one little dyke said ‘Are you really a lesbian?’ I can see why she asked that question because I looked like some respectable housewife ... And then they said there were all sorts of events and dances and things and could I, would I go with them, but of course I could not, well unless I’d have to make some silly excuse and where would I say that I was going to my hosts?”[57]

Encounters with overseas lesbians could be positive and welcoming, offering openings into the vibrant lesbian subculture which existed in some cities in the US and elsewhere. On this occasion, Margaret felt unable to incorporate this social scene into the respectable parameters of her visit to a naval camp, but, on her return to Australia she did begin to explore the possibilities of lesbian bar culture in Sydney.

#lgbtq history #lesbian history #australia #rebecca jennings #the ladder #arena three #lesbian literature

[honoraryplebeian]

Instead of writing like I said I would be doing, I decided to look through my old sketchbooks.

I love whatever vibes 11 year old me had going on. Very cringe and avant-garde.

There are like 20 variations of whatever that first little chimera hellion is, but that one is my favorite.

The tiger is truly my favorite. Love the unsettling stare. Hate looking at it for more than five seconds. Very poor grasp of anatomy. Excellent.

15 year old me at least became a little better.

All of these were drawn on scratch paper where I was supposed to be doing math problems 😂 I'm actually really digging the phoenix (drawn on my birthday, for those curious), and even though the anatomy in the bottom two is funky, it being stylized helps to make it acceptable. Good job little Ili. Also, these are drawn without reference since I was in class, so double points on that phoenix

Drawings from this year (26)

Decently realistic, but no style 🥲 I need to get back into drawing more 😣 especially people. God, I hate drawing humans. I can't even technically say I'm bad at it. I just hate it. It takes me so long, and then it's not even to the level I want it to be at. I know to get better I need to practice, but I don't want to practice because I hate how it looks 😓 Maybe something to work on next year. I need to work on developing a style and combining it with the skills I have developed 😩

#ilitalks #iliart #i suppose #not sure if that's going to be a regular tag. maybe next year? #just felt nostalgic and was procrastinating #i seriously need to get to writing though #cw bugs #i mean. it's just a firefly and snails are actually gastropods. but just in case i suppose

[dreamsister81]

 Jeff and MI:

By age, you fit in the G.I.T generation, but you obviously are not one of them...

These facilities are a mystery to me. There they tell you only one thing: hurry up! This leads you nowhere, afterwards your own children run away from you. Through these trainings you get to know women, you get to know men, music is inoculated into people who have no feeling for it; then they can only scare other people or insult them...

I was in this terrible place too, by the way-G.I.T That was a complete waste of time, apart from the theoretical lessons and the friends that I had there. Otherwise: an absolute wrong decision.

How long have you studied there?

One year, the normal program. They give you tons of material, you have to absorb everything, you practice, you are tested and you go to the next course. An intensive support with development is simply not possible. I did so many things: theory, single string technique, jazz class, rock class, all sorts of genres. My friend John was teaching bass there, and he once said that there is not a single teacher at the institute who says to the students, "OK, you're learning all this stuff here now, you're learning how to entertain people and you're learning to learn. But do you even know that there is no one in the universe other than yourself who plays the music you play? " John left the school then. For me it was all a joke that cost me $ 3,900. People interested in music should take private lessons somewhere, start a band, do something with people who like them and have what it takes. These schools are a scene in their own right, a very small, secluded world-the music, on the other hand, is gigantic and open. If you don't notice it, you miss a lot of magic, pain, development...(thinks) and rock! Apart from Paul Gilbert, there was no one there who really rocked. Session musicians are bred there; and at the end of the year you get a piece of paper that says, "Now you have the skills to become a professional musician." Well, congratulations! And then you look for jobs and play what other people want. But that's not all the music, there's something else isn't there? Where's the music coming from? From your own head or stomach, or the concepts of the people you work for?-Gitarre & Bass, October,  1995

.

.

.

I had a friend named John Humphrey. I went to this really crappy guitar school for a year, and he used to teach there, he was a bass teacher. And then he left, and we ended up being roommates later on, after I graduated. This is the kind of school where you give them a shitload of money in order to spend a year learning their curriculum.

What was it, G.I.T. (Guitar Institute of Technology in Los Angeles)?

Yeah, it was G.I.T.. They give you their curriculum, and it's not too comprehensive, but it's just enough, and then you can [snaps his fingers] move on to the next thing. And pretty soon you have all this shit inside you and then they give you this paper that says you have what it takes to be a professional musician.

It's a rock-oriented thing, isn't it?

In the end, I think, the only true product of that kind of learning is to get you gigs on the studio circuit and to get you gigs on the session guy circuit.

So, Lee Ritenour went there or something?

G.I.T. was started by Howard Roberts, the guy who played the wah-wah guitar on the theme to Shaft. And this other guy named Pat Hayes. I don't know. It just seemed like a racket, really. John said a lot of things to me that stuck in my mind. He said that there was nobody who stopped you, sat you in a room and said, okay, we have all these artists that you're learning the licks from, you have your guitar heroes, your virtuoso lust objects. But there's nobody who can make the kind of music you can make now except for you. And you can make it now. You don't even have to know how to go fast. And that makes all the sense to me in the world. It's also kind of an unseen process, that concept, originality. It's like that in all the education systems; there's never any real...identity education, self-generative identity art sort of thing, to be yourself. If everybody in Melbourne had a Wurlitzer organ and had the passion to sing something or make something, you'd have hundreds of thousands of different styles, if they were coming exactly from only their DNA, only their makeup, and their emotional percepts, their idea about what art is. You could have way-removed genres from what is already accepted, avante-garde country-rock-punk-folk-whatever. It's unlimited. But for some reason, the conventions always take over and there's a very ready and powerful formula to step into...

Those are the type of [formula-derived] players who can say, "Well, I was listening to the radio in 1967 and I heard the guitar solo in Jimi Hendrix's 'All Along the Watchtower,' and that guitar sound, that tone, would work perfectly for this television commercial."

Yeah. See? "Stealing from the greats, that's okay." That's right. Once I stopped in [at G.I.T.] years later, when I was on tour going through L.A., just to see what it was like. They've got a completely high-tech, multi-million dollar facility...

More so than when you had been there?

Way more. When I was there, it was just a ragtag bunch of teachers, and they had all left by then. They had video facilities and a class for stage moves and all kinds of things. And I saw this guy who was working the desk, the guy who watches the door. He had a bass on, and he was practicing his Nirvana chops! He was playing "In Bloom" on his bass, way up on his chest, jazz-fusion style, to the Nirvana song. I thought, oh shit--he was practicing his grunge riffs! He was getting his grunge down! Best fucking thing you can do, if you have the interest, is go to a private teacher, go someplace, some college, and learn theory. That was something I really enjoyed, actually, something that wasn't totally pointless. Theory meaning the meaning of the musical nomenclature. I was attracted to really interesting harmonies, stuff that I would hear in Ravel, Ellington, Bartok.-Double Take, February 29, 1996

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Once the site of a seakeasy and a bra factory, the 30,000-square-foot quarters were now the home of Musicians Institute, a vocational school for anyone who considered himself or herself a serious musician. With its wooden desks and chipped-tile hallways, MI resembled any other urban school, but at those desks, student guitarists and drummers studied scales and power chords in hopes of becoming the next Eddie Van Halen or Neil Peart, the flashy drummer with Rush. On their way to class each morning, flaxen-haired guitar gods in training could be spotted holding their guitars and practicing licks as they walked down Hollywood Boulevard.

Jeff had heard about Musicians Institute (and its subdivision, the Guitar Institute of Technology) while in high school and told everyone it was his one and only destination. However, potential superstardom did not run cheap. The school charged $4,000 for its one year course, and by the time Jeff Graduated from Loara High School, Mary Guibert was beginning to fall on hard financial times as she went in and out of jobs. In need of money for herself and her two sons, she prematurely broke into a $20,000 fund earmarked for Jeff, but only after he tured nineteen. Once Mary proved to the courtsthat Jeff needed it for his education, he and Mary received it a year early. In a deep irony, the father Jeff had barely met and increasingly resented would be paying his son's way through music school.

On graduation night, September 15, 1985, at the Odyssey in Granada Hills in the San Fernando Valley, Jeff, Stoll, and Marryatt closed the ceremony by playing Weather Report's "Pearl On the Half Shell."-from Dream Brother

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With its 30-odd thousand feet of floor space and row upon row of "labs", where hopeful guitar heroes could jam with such shit-hot players as Scott Henderson, LA's Musician's Institute must have seemed like nirvana for someone like Jeff Buckley, trapped as he was behind the Orange Curtain. According to his buddy Chris Dowd, that's exactly why Buckley enrolled there, arriving just before autumn, 1984, bankrolled by $4,000 that Mary managed to squeeze from a Tim Buckley trust fund.

Originally known as the Guitar Institute, which in itself says plenty, the school was opened in 1977. Drawing on the educational philosophy of journeyman guitarist Howard Roberts, it was co-founded and managed by Los Angeles music businessman Pat Hicks, "a real shyster opportunist", in the words of Tom Chang, an expat Canadian who would become very tight with Jeff Buckley during their two years at the Institute. In 1978, thr Bass Institute was opened, followed by the Percussion Institute two years later. Desppite Hicks' questionable business ethics-amongst other things, he'd hire students as cheap labour to do essential maintenance work on the building, which led to Buckley being hired as an electrician's assistant soon after graduating-he did manage to persuade well regarded players and bands to lecture, and play alongside, the hopefuls who'd enrolled there.

What Buckley lacked up in "front" he clearly made up for in ambition. That was proved, in spades, by Buckley's graduation performance which was played out on September 15, 1985, at a venue called the Odyssey in Granada Hills. While the sonic crush and enviable chops of Rush and Led Zeppelin still rocked the world of this Orange County teen, Buckley had also developed a real taste for such "noodlers" as Weather Report.

The number chosen by Buckley for graduation was their "D Flat Waltz" (not "Pearl On The Half-Shell", as documented elsewhere, which they'd performed at a previous event), a typically complicated few minutes of Weather Report neo-fusion-a "really cool piece, very involved", according to Tom Chang-and a standout from their 1983 set Domino Theory. But Buckley, accompanied by Stoll on drums and Marryatt on bass, didn't just play the piece, he also wrote the individual parts out beforehand for the band.-from A Pure Drop

MI pics by me

#jeff buckley #MI #Musicians Institute #GIT #mylove #supremebeing #favorite #music #jeff places

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

Humans are Space Orcs, “Black Tie.”

I hope you guys like this. Writing has been weirdly difficult for me these past few days, so I sort of hope it isn’t showing lol

This is a little peak into the way that humans try to subtly one up each other in social situations, so Karma is fun :) 

Krill was mildly uncomfortable, and so was Sunny. They had all been invited to what the humans described as a “black tie” event on mars mostly for political delegations, rich sponsors, a couple of famous people, and the occasional member of the UNSC or the GA. Most of the GA reps were Rundi since they tended to like this political sort of thing. There was at least one Tesraki, who had made the executive decision to come since he saw financial opportunity in getting to know some rich humans.

Sunny had been invited to stand in for the Drev counselor, who could not attend due to some issues back on Anum. Dr Krill and Dr. Katie had been invited to attend the event in case medical personnel were required for any reason.

Adam was the only one who had been invited for himself.

The black tie event had been sent by way of a physical letter which Adam had called, “Excessively pretentious.” in a day and age where everything was sent electronically. The fact they had managed to get a letter to him out in the middle of space in the first place was pretty impressive.

Sunny hadn’t really known or cared what all of this meant, but Adam had been nervous and very serious about the dress code. Despite thinking the entire thing was pretentious, that didn't stop him from immediately sending away for his mother’s help.

Sunny was, of course, encouraged to wear ceremonial formal armor to the event.

Krill was keeping very close track of this odd human behavior constantly asking questions as Adam was preparing himself.

“Why don’t you just wear a regular suit?”

“Because that would be a social faux pas.”

“A what?”

He sighed, “I don't know, it's french or something. I think it’s a ballet term. IT just means it would be a social screw up and people would totally judge me for it.”

“They would judge you for wearing the wrong thing?” Krill wondered curiously.

Adam nodded, “That is the point of these parties, and has been for the last two and a half thousand years. These parties are honestly just the biggest pissing contests where people try to out dress each other in subtle ways, and the old people who know what they are doing make fun of the new people for having no idea how to do it properly.” 

Krill looked interested, “how fascinating. So it is a way to show your status subtly.”

“Oh yes. Status is a big deal. It started to go out of style for a while, but this whole adherence to dress code has come back with a vengeance in the last few years. The fashion world has seen an upheaval in pretentiousness, and celebrities have been laughed out of parties for trying to be avant-garde.”

“To be what?”

“Sorry, pretty sure that’s also french too. It means new, interesting, or out of the ordinary usually to make a statement.”

Sunny leaned in a little, “And they expect an air force commander to know how to properly dress for black tie?”

“They don’t, which is why they invited me. I am supposed to make others look good by looking bad. Of course I also make them look good by being invited in the first place. Of course joke's on them because i have a secret weapon on my side…” He patted the front of his shirt, “Thank you mother.” 

“I am now confused.”

Adam waved a hand, “Yeah, I know, It’s pretty stupid 

“I thought you recently decided that you like dressing up.” The human turned in place a couple of times in front of the mirror trying to get a better view of himself, “Correction, I have always enjoyed dressing up -- got that from my mom -- what I don’t enjoy is the pissing contest that comes along with it.

“What is that?”

“Bow tie.”

“You look like someone’s Christmas present.”

He adjusted the bow tie, “Well than someone is getting a sexy as fuck Christmas present now aren’t they.”

He buttoned up the front of the ‘waistcoat’ and pulled on the jacket.

When he was done, the two aliens had to admit that he really did stand out, all in black black pants black tuxedo jacket, cuff links, black tie, black waistcoat, and a purple/blue carnation threaded through the buttonhole on the lapel.

His shoes were almost as reflective as the mirror behind him.

“How do I look?”

“Like a goofy idiot, but the suit wasn’t going to change that.” He lifted a finger to flip Sunny off.

“Not very dapper of you.” Katie said from the doorway.

They looked up to see Katie, who had also commissioned a dress from Martha, and honestly made Adam look a little plain.

“Ready to go.”

“As I will ever be.”

***

Krill kept a shrewd eye on all the strange human protocols. As far as dressing up went Krill could immediately see who the in-crowd included. Ost of those people understood the rules Adam had laid out for him wearing the proper evening attire, where those not in the-in wore clothing that approximated the rules but missed them on several occasions. 

The way the evening was set up was a little bit more like a ‘ball’ as Adam described being announced as they were walked in, and then ordered to mingle with the crowd. Adam and Katie got a few glances from the in-group who seemed surprised that a simple ship captain would known anything about formal evening attire.

Sunny just found the entire thing hilarious. All of this subtle dressing up to impress each other.

If Drev held balls, instead of dancing they would probably just beat each other to death.

But here, there were a lot of subtle clues and hints that went right over her and the Doctor’s heads, while Adam seemed to know what he was doing.

As they walked in waiters offered Adam an alcoholic drink, while Krill received water, and sunny a rather strange tincture that was generally just water with plant flavoring. It was pretty good though so she didn’t complain.

They were met on arriving by the event coordinator whose eyes opened wide when she saw Adam pausing and holding out a hand.

Due to the conflated and rather twisted nature of black tie events in the future, Adam took the hand, and bowed a bit lowering his head, a strange area between the less formal handshake and the more formal kiss on the hand, which was also not a thing in societies post WWIII

“Commander, I… you look…” She trailed off 

Even to sunny it was clear the woman hadn’t expected him to know anything.

He smiled icily at her.

Krill leaned in in fascination.

This was one of the most intriguing parts of humanity. The polite way in which they were totally rude to each other, “Well than you. My mother has a Ph.D  in the information age and a masters in historical fashion.”

That shut the woman up and she politely dismissed herself walking away straight back.

Adam smirked, “Her dress isn’t the right length for an evening event.”

“I thought she coordinated the event.” Sunny muttered

“She couldn’t coordinate herself out of a paper bag.” He winked at Sunny and Krill, “You can’t out-dress the son of a historical fashion expert. Simply not possible, she even used the correct materials.” He tugged lightly at his jacket.

Dr. Katie had disappeared on entry leaving the three of them to wander about the room as Adam pointed out the other important people.

There were a few military commanders, rundi, and the aforementioned Tesraki. There were at least five major political leaders, and even larger handful of actors who had their hands in charities or political causes related to the event.

Adam was only halfway through his first drink when he was waylaid by one of the younger actors. Even Sunny could tell straight off that he was not dressed appropriately.  He had clearly tried very hard, but his efforts were in vain. While everything looked alright from a distance, up close something was wrong about everything. The material of his jacket, the style of his shirt, the type of pants, the lapels on the coat, and even the patterned pocket square which should have been a solid color but wasn’t.

He was joined by another group of men who then began some pretentious conversation about noticing how Adam was new to these sort of events. The way they spoke made it pretty clear they had no idea who he was or what the proper dress code was either.

Adam smiled and didn’t say anything.

“And what do you do for a living?” One of them asked

“Simply a UNSC representative.”

“Ah that explains a lot.” They glanced down at him with pointed looks 

The conversation continued. Sunn wondered why Adam didn’t just shut them all up by telling them exactly who he was, but Krill had a theory that Adam was just playing with them as a human way to build up the moment so that he could socially crush them.

As humans do, their conversation wandered until it eventually moved around to the UNSC and other related topics. 

One of the men nodded knowingly, “I am somewhat knowledgeable on the subject myself.” Adam raised an eyebrow.

“Are you?”

“Well yes, I have a brother in law who flies shuttles and planes for the UNSC. Tell me, what is your opinion on the D-4 class engine on a F-90 darkfire. I honestly think they are rather overpowered for what is being asked of them.”

Adam frowned, “The darkfire doesn't have a D-4 engine. That is a warp classification which-”

The man raised a hand, “No no. I heard my brother in law talking about it. Personally I think they should have just kept the jet engines they would have been plenty enough power to make it into orbit.

The Commander’s face scrunched in confusion as he shook his head, “No, it's a fusion engine, and the jet engine can’t fly in the upper atmosphere because there is no lift-”

“Look, Adam, was that your name. I generally tend to know what I am talking about. The darkfire jet engines would have plenty of power to make it into atmosphere,”

“But its a jet engine which implies it is for a plane and not for a rocket-” 

The guy cut him off again and continued to ramble onward about how he took some engineering classes in college and would know what he was talking about. Since Adam Joined the UNSC and didn’t go to college, that he probably didn’t know anything at all, or at least that is what they said in not so many words.

Sunny was getting a bit annoyed and would like to have squished the guy, but Adam just shook his head at her.

She stayed silent and grumpy as the other men continued to correct Adam on knowledge of his own favorite aircraft.

“My brother owns a spaceship with a class E warp core one of them boasted.” 

Adam rolled his eyes, “There is no such thing-”

“My brother owns the craft, I am pretty sure I know what I am talking about. It’s one of the most powerful cores in the galaxy.”

“Um, I don’t think.”

“Yes the E is more powerful than the A. A ship like the Harbinger or the Enterprise would only make it part of the way across the galaxy but the-” He kept going. 

Adam looked like he was dying but why didn’t he say anything.

It was just then that someone appeared from the crowd. Sunny recognized a political figure they had met at GA summits on occasion.

He raised his glass and stepped into the group, “Ah commander! I am glad to see you could make it.”

The group of men glanced at each other in confusion.

Adam nodded, “It’s good to see you two counselor.” He motioned to the group we were just having a fascinating discussion on warp engines.”

“Oh yes.” He turned to look at the men, “Than I am sure the commander has told you about his escapades as a darkfire pilot.”

The satisfaction Sunny got from watching their faces was priceless, almost orgasmic. She could tell from the look on Adam’s face that he was feeling similarly, “Well no we had not made it to the subject, “I was just going to explain to them how the duel E 20 engine has both a jet engine and a fusion engine. The jet engine for flying in atmosphere and the Fusion engine for moving out of atmosphere considering that the jet engine is not powerful enough to lift the craft without air buoyancy.”

Sunny was laughing on the inside.

“Ah yes. I seem to recall a discussion along those lines. Tell me commander, what about the Harbinger’s engine is it a class A-1.”

Adam nodded, “Could potentially get you to the other side of the universe if you asked her. The classification system is A-D 1-4 on each, so my ship has one of the most powerful engines mankind has ever bothered to build.”

He glanced out of the corner of his eye and the other men who were beginning to slink away.

Sunny chirped in pleasure.

The rep nodded as they left, “I heard the futility of your conversation from the other side of the room.”

“Thanks for the help. I was dying inside.”

The two men laughed and took their drinks.

Krill was very pleased with his examination on how humans subtly tried to one up each other with their dress and understanding of certain topics, though it seemed odd to him that someone would claim to be an expert when it was, in fact, their brother or brother in law who knew about the subject and not them.

But he supposed that was the social nature of humanity. 

[joeyglowy]

Bad Study Habits ft. Miya Twins

In which the Miya Twins learn not to waste your time when they are the ones that asked for help. That, and that their necks are surprisingly quite sensitive. 

(Call it a commemoration for Miya Osamu finally having his character designs introduced, even if it’s the fucking laziest but most beautiful thing I’ve seen all week)

Miya Atsumu x Reader, 1500+ words Miya Osamu x Reader, 1700+ words

(I promise, I love them, almost equally)

Miya Atsumu

“Why do I need ta know Avocado’s number? Unless he’s down to help a brother getting blue balled by his own girlfriend, tell him I’m not interested.”

“It’s Avogadro’s number and for once in your life can you not think with your dick? We’re not here to have sex; I’m here to make you pass your chemistry test so you don’t get another detention for slacking off in class!”

For the past eighteen minutes, you had been using your middle and index finger to rub circles into your temple, a vain attempt to soothe the hammering headache that jabbed your eyelids each time Atsumu opened his mouth.

When your boyfriend had come to your door, ‘begging’ you to help him with chemistry, you found it pleasantly endearing. For all the faults to which Miya Atsumu had—for which there were many—he had unfortunately perfected the art of looking just sheepish enough that it became adorable while still bristling his feathers like a proud peacock that just made you want to pull his chubby cheeks. He was the naughty puppy that still had his ravenous canines punctured in your favourite lita boots with his tail tucked between his legs. He was that one bad kid in every class who fooled around but all the female teachers doted on him anyways because he was charismatic in that childishly infuriating way that made them lower their standards when he finally put in the effort.

Miya Atsumu, put bluntly, is a godforsaken brat.

“[Name]-chan! My chem teacher’s threatenin’ me! He said if I fail one more quiz I’ll have to sit through at least three detentions just, doin’ I don’t know, symbiosis! You gotta help me; you’re my girlfriend, aren’tcha?”

Yet, you somehow fell for this idiot anyway.

Enamoured with his honey-lemon eyes, you decided not to tell him that what you were doing was in fact stoichiometry and symbiosis is actually a biology term. But with the way he had grabbed your shoulders, for an inexperienced lover like yourself, it was more than enough to trigger a visceral reaction that caused some internal organ to clog your throat. His subtle guilt-trip did not go unnoticed but with your brain short-circuiting, you couldn’t bring yourself to care. Instead, you had dumbly nodded, cursing your inability to deal with intimacy and members of the opposite sex as you allowed him to barge into your home.

Since he was always practicing, you thought it would be a chance to do something that couples do. Using your infinite knowledge collated from various fanfictions and shoujo manga online, you had constructed a seemingly infallible plan to make the most of your time with Atsumu. It involved having every excuse to stare at him without being teased for it and if anything, you would be in the rare position of the teaser, playfully pointing out his mistakes to which he’d probably pout and whine about before undoubtedly, once you were done, he’d demand a reward. Enter obligatory make out sesh. Which of course, was more than welcome in your book. You were a simple girl and he had cultivated excellently curved muscles from his years of volleyball, sue your transparency.

There was just one chink in your perfectly polished armoured plan.

Atsumu was a brat above all else. A horny one.

Tutoring him was like trying to make caramel for the first time.

At first, you think it’s going well. You’re simmering the white sugar, careful and attentive, determined to make it a success. Yet, as the browning starts to come in from the edges, a funny aroma that was not the scent of sweetness but one of something being grossly burned beyond recovery did you realise just how taxing the job was. Before you knew it, it was like having your kitchen on fire, the ignition source being the abomination that is Miya Atsumu.

As Osamu would say, “His mental age regresses by five years when he’s playing. . . but it plummets by ten when he’s, god forbid it, studyin’.”

If he wasn’t whining, he was trying to stroke your legs with his spider fingers under the kotatsu, creeping up your thigh only to be smacked away by your own hand to which he’d just go back to loudly whining. He had the attention span of a five year old and the attitude of a twelvie that equalled a near migraine for you. Least to say, you were far too annoyed to be turned on now so you had abruptly gotten up in a fit of annoyance, told him you were going to drink some water and left him in the living room.

You sighed, the water only granted a moment’s worth of reprieve as you headed back to the living room to see his honey coloured mop of hair from behind. Your eye twitched when you looked from behind to see him doodling an avant-garde penis on the page. Lovely.

He still hadn’t noticed you peering over his shoulder so you took the chance to admire the back of his head, watching how his hairline faded out from beneath his undercut, the roots of his old hair still left their stain. You wondered if his neck down ever got cold, with the constant exposure and all. The longer you stared, the more you felt your stomach lurch, toying with a lingering thought that just might get you what you wanted after all.

In a swift movement, with your lips gently planted on the supple flesh, beneath his hairline, you caressed the skin tenderly. Your lips quirked upward to hear a squeak from your boyfriend who had shuddered violently, his shoulders shaking as his penis drawing gained an unexpected gradient slope, his pen streaking in a straight line across the page. You chuckled into his neck; nipping at it playfully as your hot breath caused the hairs on his neck to stand up. Pleased with the pinkish hue that spread across the skin like paint, you pulled away as Atsumu snapped his head towards you, moon eyed.

Although you may have burnt the caramel, it looks like you’ve found some hidden strawberries to snack on instead.

You watched the way his pretty blush flourished to his cheeks while he looked visibly affronted by your sneak attack. “Wh-what do ya think yer doin’!?” he spluttered on the spot, his hand flying to his neck as if you had just bitten into it. You wanted to lick your lips at the thought before you narrowed your eyes sternly, trying not to let a wolfish grin slip through the cracks.

“I don’t know about you but personally, I despise wasting time, don’t you ‘Tsumu?”

You drummed your fingers on the kotatsu’s surface, slow and pronounced. His golden eyes zeroed onto them in anticipation. You licked your lips. All these food metaphors made you realise just how starved you are. Atsumu being someone who had always been observant, seemed to pick up on your hunger as well, his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down, as he glanced up at you from under his lashes, anxious. You turned back to the paper, almost nonchalant, as if you weren’t aware of his clenched fists and tensed thighs.

“Yet, you seem to be taking advantage of my generosity, good boyfriends shouldn’t do that ‘Tsumu. You’re a good boyfriend, aren’tcha?” you drawled lowly, as you started glancing at your nails using your other hand, viciously using his guilt-tripping tactic from before.

Atsumu looked positively famished. His brows twisted up guiltily, that sheepish, puppy look on his face once more. Still, you could see his eyes shining too bright, still thinking that it’d go his way if he played nice. He was a mischievous imp that was a little too used to getting what he wants. You decided you weren’t going to fall for it this time.

“[Name], I didn’t--”

“Oh, but you did,” you sharply interrupted him and he winced. Your heart throbbed and as much as you loved teasing him, you did want this to end with him pinning you to the couch so you smiled softly. “Why don’t we finish studying, yeah? Then you can make it up to me.”

If Atsumu wasn’t getting blue balled before, then he certainly is now. He had no idea how the situation began to drip with sexual undertone but with the unbearable heat coursing through him, he could only nod helplessly, at your mercy. For the remainder of the studying session, while it had become increasingly harder for him to stay focused with his raging hormones going haywire, he clung onto every single word that fell from your mouth like it was a lifeline as the incomprehensible scribbles on the page finally morphed into numbers and words that he could understand.

You grinned victoriously to see the eager look Atsumu would get in his eyes, awaiting your praise and what he thinks is his reward once you had both finally gotten through the content. He really is just like an overzealous, whiny puppy that wants his treat. Well now, this will most certainly result into an exciting night for you, just as you had planned.

You smirked triumphantly.

‘All according to keikaku.’

Miya Osamu

“So, do you know how to use Avogadro’s number?”

“Mm? Avocado?”

You sighed. “No, can’t you stop thinking about food for a second, it’s Avo—Osamu!” you yelped, seeing your boyfriend barely stirring from the nest he’s made with his arms as he blinks blearily at you. The sleep in his eyes quite nearly breaks open every dam with the unparalleled force that is your love and affection and ability to just gush about how adorable this man is for hours and yet, you are forced to restrain yourself. As much as you adore Miya Osamu, he is unfortunately, just as much of an idiot as his brother—yet strangely manages to get within a range of 1 to 5 per cent higher than him on every test.

Osamu lets a little smile slip. “Avosamu? I thought it was Avogadro.”

You offered him a hard glare before deflating into the kotatsu, just like he did. He perked his head up to hear your muffled groans, his lips quirking up at how cute you sound. “Osamuuuu, you need to study for the test tomorrow! It’s worth a third of your grade!” you exclaimed, erupting from the cocoon of your arms to pout at him. Osamu grimaced just a little because every move he made was with restraint as he guiltily looked away.

“I know but m’tired,” he mumbled into his arms, burying his nose into them. “From practice,” he clarified with a grumble that faded out into something roughly incoherent. You had to stop yourself from smiling at his petulant tone of voice as you sighed, shaking your head. He was a kid, just like Atsumu too apparently.

“I know but . . .” you trailed off to see him in a sleeping position. You shook your head, unable to stop your smile this time as you gently raked your fingers through his hair. A sound rumbled from his chest and you snorted, of course only Osamu would be able to do the human equivalent of purring. His face resurfaced from the blanket of his arms as he leaned into your touch, sighing contently. You found your hand devoured by the dishevelled mess that was his hair as you fondly played with his matted grey tresses. Your love for this man warmed your heart beyond words as you could feel yourself relaxing—you blinked.

Wait a minute.

The way you ripped your hand out of his hair was like a splash of cold water to the face as he startled, bewildered by your forceful action as you glowered at him. “You fox!” you hissed. He blinked innocently in return as you shook your head adamantly. “I will not be an accomplice to your illicit sleeping endeavours! Nor the reason why you fail tomorrow’s test and have to stay back to do catch up work! Atsumu and the team would never let you live it down you know!”

You clutched your beating heart with a flush on your cheeks. ‘Ahh, that was close! He’s much more convincing than I thought but I won’t be fooled!’

You offered him another glare before sighing. You’d done that too many times this session you now realised. “Look, I’ll get you some tea, okay? But after that, you have to stay awake! You’ll be in big trouble if I come back and you’re asleep,” you softly reprimanded him although he looked completely unabashed as he nodded.

“Mm’kay.”

You were only gone for five minutes but when you had returned . . . he was definitely in trouble.

You gripped the steaming cup of hot tea by the handle; careful not to brush your knuckles on the actual cup so you don’t burn yourself and spill it like a waterfall. Carefully, you placed the cup of tea out of reach so he doesn’t knock it over before you plopped onto the cushion next to him, pouting. Really, coming over, begging you to help him study, only to fall asleep in front of you, what a tease. . .

“Jeez, I was hoping for some, fun times after we finished up too~” you whined to yourself, letting your chin fall to your fist before a movement other than your own caught you from the corner of your periphery.

You narrowed your eyes. His lashes flickered like a butterfly’s wings, elegant yet silent. Then nothing. You drummed your fingers slowly on the kotatsu’s surface before aptly concluding that your, apparently, asshole boyfriend, was faking his slumber. Your Sleeping Beauty was actually a Beast in disguise so it would appear. You pursed your lips, blowing air from your nose like a puffing, huffing steam train. He wants to play like that, does he?

You swiftly rose out of your seat before standing behind him, your shadow devouring him. You just might too if Osamu doesn’t tread carefully. You eyed his fraying hairline, beneath his undercut. You wondered how sensitive it would have now become, what, with it being constantly exposed to the frigid air all the time. A smile coyly played to your lips, as you hummed kittenishly before leaning down.

Tenderly, you placed your lips to the back of his neck, giving it a quick peck.

You looked up, gauging for a reaction but received none. You smiled daringly. Perhaps your dear boyfriend needs a bit more persuasion. You pressed another kiss into his neck. And another one. Accompanied by another. Before you began peppering his neck in searing kisses, from the roots of his hair to the brim of his collared uniform. You watched in delight as the skin gradually increased in heat while you continued to reap the benefits of your ravenous exploits.

You could feel the skin beneath your lips beginning to tremble but since he still wouldn’t reveal he was awake. . . it might be time to go exploring. You hovered over his ‘sleeping’ frame as both your hands slithered under the arms pillowing his face. They coiled around his waist and you found yourself licking your lips, suddenly feeling rather hungry. You could see him beginning to squirm yet he was adamant not to budge. A wolfish laugh escaped you as you plunged your fingers under his shirt to dance on his stomach before your teeth finally met his skin.

The last thing you heard was a sharp gasp that sounded like absolute heaven before your world turned on its axis. Your back met the ground with a thud and you suddenly realised you couldn’t move. Casually taking a quick glance, you craned your neck to see two calloused fists handcuffing your wrists and pinning them above your head. You looked up to finally see a panting Osamu, glaring at you.

“Oi.”

You blinked.

Osamu was every shade of grey. Every expression, every movement, although a little rough, it was done with minimal effort and restrained. He was always in control and always composed. He was a little slow and sluggish like that, but he could become a dynamic black, cool and confident whenever you pluck just the right strings.

Which is why it was all the more endearing to see a lovely peach pink speckling on his cheeks.

“What,” he breathed out, as if he had just sprinted in a marathon, you could see his torso trembling, “do ya think yer doin’?”

You watched him placidly and couldn’t stop admiring the pretty colour on his cheeks. You wanted to capture it, burn it in your memory until your final breath. You wanted to paint it, to smear the red all over his grey. You licked your lips.

“I told you, didn’t I? That you would be in trouble if I came back to find you sleeping. So pray tell, what were you doing, ‘Samu?” you purred beneath him, a playful smirk crawling to your lips as you felt a pooling sensation bubble in the pit of your stomach.

Osamu’s eyes widened and even though he had overcast a shadow on the both of you, you could tell that his cheeks had darkened. He suddenly looked like a deer caught in headlights and he could no longer meet your gaze. With an agonisingly slow movement, he tentatively released one of your wrists to feel the back of his neck.

“D-did you . . .?” he stammered, not able to bring himself to finish the question.

Picking on what he was insinuating, using your left hand, now free, you roughly grabbed him by the collar before pulling him down. He yelped like a puppy that had lost its footing, as he lurched forward like a tidal wave, almost tumbling over, quickly stamping his free hand to the ground, stopping him from knocking his head into your as you curled your finger under his chin.

“No, I didn’t. I warned you though, right? If you try to fall asleep again when I’m teaching you. . .” you slur, tracing your finger, teasingly let it tap on his Adam’s apple as he swallowed, his eyes now wide awake and focused only on you as you grinned hungrily.

“I’ll decorate your neck with hickies until you’ve got a goddamn necklace of bruises.”

Osamu shuddered as he fell to his elbows, barely holding himself up. Feeling his voice shake, he meekly nodded, trying to hide his arousal as he shakily—but briskly—flew back to the kotatsu, promptly hiding his face from you, just like a mouse.

You bit your lip, grinning wildly at the ceiling which although, was completely uninteresting, was the only excuse you had to not let him see your dorky smile.

‘HOLY SHIT THAT WORKED. Reading all those fanfics and manga finally paid off!’

You can’t let yourself come off as too desperate though. You realised that you had been waving the stick in front of him for too long now, it was time to finally bring out the carrot.

You propped yourself, being deliberately slow as to keep him waiting before you tenderly held onto his shoulder. You could feel him tense you brushed your nose against the lobe of his ear, your wispy breaths dyeing it pink as you whispered:

“When we’re done, I promise, you can eat whatever you want.”

While he didn’t fall asleep and actually got some proper studying in afterwards, perhaps it was him being petty or a vain attempt to gain back some control, he did not offer you his dick but went straight for the fridge to get some pudding. Still, it didn’t change the fact that you were hungry and Osamu found out that night that not only were you quite convincing yourself but you also really liked turning his neck red.

Hmm. And you called him a fox.

#miya twins #miya osamu #miya atsumu #osamu x reader #atsumu x reader #haikyuu!! #hq atsumu #hq osamu #in which i am so whipped for the miya twins #finally putting atsumu in his place #haikyuu atsumu #haikyuu osamu #miya atsumu x reader #miya osamu x reader