#this is the opposite of a thinkpiece

[diam-etrical]

being an artist is humiliating

I don't think this is talked about enough.

When you put something out in the world, you have to accept the possibility you won't get anything back.

Maybe you laid your heart bare on a one-shot that got zero comments. Maybe it was a painting you spent hours working on that didn't get the engagement you wanted.

I think it might have been the reason I stopped creating, for a little while at least.

I got obsessed with the stupid little numbers and metrics. Got happy when people liked my content, got sad when it resonated with no one. My relationship with what I created was determined by my perception of how many people engaged with it.

I waited day and night for the dopamine rush of notifications. I refresh my inbox, thinking that one of these days, somebody will leave some kind of affirmation, and somehow that recognition will imbue what I created with more significance. More value, writ-large.

If it got crickets, then I've failed somehow. It just wasn't good enough, I say to myself.

For the longest time, I felt like everything I created had to prove it belonged. It all felt like a race, except I didn’t know who I was competing against, only that I always felt left behind and couldn't keep up.

That's my fault. I can't help but measure myself.

But isn’t that the universal tendency? To view our past achievements as a benchmark we have to constantly overcome? Isn’t that why we’re so satisfied to look at old works we made and see how far we’ve come?

I remember what my old teacher used to say. “You’re only as good as your last piece.” As if art exists only to constantly prove itself. As if art is forever doomed to fight for its place in this world.

Well, I'm sick of it.

And so I'm realizing, in real-time, that I don’t want to fight for my place anymore. I don’t want to pander to some stupid algorithm.

I want to create. 

I want to believe that a work of art is good simply because it exists out of necessity. Out of someone’s urgent desire to share a piece of their heart in the world because it would have been devastating to keep to themselves. That’s always been very beautiful to me. It's why there is so much heart in fanworks because of the sheer heart poured into it—a love that is as raw as an exposed nerve.

There are so many stories in your head, numerous in number and nebulous in form, that eventually come to fruition as these delicate, precious things you’ve been brave enough to summon into existence. To materialize in a timeline or dashboard. To somehow take up space in people’s minds if only briefly. 

Maybe that in itself is the miracle. That what you conjured in your head somehow made its way into something real. Whether in tiny strokes or tiny letters on a tiny screen.

Somehow, the numbers next to them don’t seem to matter as much.

#this is the opposite of a thinkpiece #this is just me rambling #Many Thoughts #these are definitely all words #me when i say things #i dont know where else to dump this #im just #tired of all the changes #writing #writing help

[the-travelling-witch]

𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐒 𝐎𝐍 𝐌𝐘 𝐒𝐊𝐈𝐍

summary: opening up about your insecurities is a daunting thing, but suna lets you know you’re in good hands

pairing: suna rintarou x afab! reader

warnings:  smut/ comfort, minors dni; skin-related insecurities (acne, scars, bumps, etc) with comfort, unprotected sex (use condoms, don’t get a kid or a std), pet names (doll, pretty), marking, very wholesome spice if you can say that jsjsh, also very self indulgent; i wanted to name it ‘under my skin’ first, so now i have mirotic stuck in my head

happy birthday, rin!! ♡

haikyuu masterlist

Flickering colours illuminated your dimly lit living room in arrhythmic sequences, the voices of actors paired with underlying music bouncing around the apartment. Next to you, snuggled up under a cosy blanket with you, was your boyfriend, his eyes fixed on the TV but keeping you close to his side with an arm curled around your middle. 

Leaning against his sturdy body, you sunk further into the hoodie you had stolen from his side of the closet earlier and you inhaled a noseful of the scent clinging to it, a familiar mixture of Suna’s body wash and cologne. Underneath you, you could feel his muscles flex and relax with every breath and every laugh and, inevitably, your mind drifted from the scenes on the screen to the man next to you.

There was no doubt about it, when it came to boyfriends, you somehow managed to snatch up the price catch all for yourself. Suna was attentive, caring and funny; he always checked in on you, brought food when he knew you hadn’t eaten, sent you photos, voice messages and even flowers when he was away for work and generally pestered you to take care of yourself. 

Besides all of that, he was also, of course, ridiculously beautiful. Be it his well-built body showing through every outfit he wore, whether it was loungewear, work out clothes or a suit, or the defined features of his face, the sharp slant of his olive eyes only being the highlight, he was sure to garner attention. And he did. Quite a lot, actually. The fantaken videos of him sighted on the streets or the edits you scrolled past on your timeline definitely proved your point.

Still, Rin never made you feel unwanted, the opposite, really. You could be lazing around on the couch when Rin made it seem as if you were posing for the cover of Vogue, bending down to shower you in kisses as his hands wandered like he had no control over them. Or the way he’d sidle up behind you, leaning his weight onto you like an overgrown cat just to show you dumb videos while you go about what you were doing.

Your own mind, however, was not always as kind to you as your boyfriend.

Case and point, as you looked up at him and studied his sharp jaw and smooth skin, your thoughts started heading to a darker place, one you normally kept under tight lock and seal. Certainly, no matter how genuine his compliments were, there was no way he actually meant any of them, only trying to make you feel better about yourself. After all, what would someone like him see in someone like you? 

A tap to the tip of your nose pulled you back into reality, blinking to see bright green eyes sparkling down at you. The arm around your waist adjusted its grip, allowing you to turn towards him better but holding you close again the second you had settled.

“What are you thinking about? The film’s not that deep of a thinkpiece.” The lighthearted tone and tiny smirk playing around his lips were contrasted by the inquisitive raise of a brow, letting you know he was quite serious about your answer. “And it’d better not be anything stupid.”

“Oh you know,” you vaguely gestured towards the screen as you avoided his gaze, “there’s just no way they could’ve made it out of that building before the bomb went up. That was so much longer than 30 seconds.”

There was a soft touch against your cheek where calloused fingertips tilted your head back towards him, not forcibly but determined. You were more starkly made aware of the heat radiating from his body as he leant further into you, the arm around your back giving you no chance to wind yourself out of his proximity. Under other circumstances there would absolutely be no way you’d want to in the first place. But you knew Rin was sharp enough to deduce exactly where your mind had gone if you gave him only the faintest of clues and you really didn’t want to disrupt your movie night with your insecurities.

“Very cute, doll, but you never pay attention to realism. Besides,” the ends of his hair tickled your face as his lips ghosted the shell of your ear, “do you really think I didn’t notice you burning holes into the side of my head? If there’s something you want, you only need to ask.”

“That’s what you got from that, Rin?” You laughed, pushing his head from the crook of your neck with the pad of your forefinger. “Could it be that you're projecting your own thoughts onto me?”

“What else could I be thinking about when someone this pretty has been clinging to my side the entire evening?” Your boyfriend hummed the question thoughtfully before your centre of gravity shifted. A surprised gasp later, you found yourself in his lap with your knees bracketing his hips, courtesy of the muscles flexing against the small of your back where he kept you pinned to his front. “You can’t blame a guy for getting ideas when you’re this cute.”

“You’re such a horndog, Rin,” you giggled, melting into his hold as his large palms smoothed out the material of his sweats covering your thighs, the repetitive motion relaxing as you lost yourself in each other’s eyes, despite having done so a million times before.

“It’s all your fault, doll,” Suna murmured and your gaze automatically tracked the movement of his mouth as it formed the words. Inspired by you, he mirrored the action and then his lips were on yours.

The kiss was slow and unhurried, your lips moving languidly against each other, giving you all the time in the world to bury your fingers in the hair of his nape. The swipe of his tongue asking for entry was accompanied by firm hands grabbing at your hips and pulling you so flush against him, it was like he wanted to become one entity altogether. You happily parted your lips for him so your tongues could tangle together in the same rhythm of his arms moving you to grind down on him.

When his warm hands explored the bare skin under his hoodie, however, it was like someone had sounded the alarm bells in your head. Sure, you’d been intimate with Suna plenty of times, that was nothing new, but so far, you’d avoided any positions where your back would be on display or his hands could roam too freely across it. Up until this point, you’d put up excuse after excuse and the brunet had respected your wishes but slowly you were running out of fronts to put up without addressing the real issue.

Over time, you’d gotten used to Suna seeing your face with all blemishes and impurities on display, more out of necessity than free will in the beginning. You couldn’t hide your face from him forever after all. In typical Rin fashion, he’d been so gentle and reassuring about it, thanking you for putting your trust in him and nearly making you cry in the process. 

Your back, however, was an area you could cover up way easier and that was how you kept it. The thought of him seeing the redness and scars littering the expanse of the skin there, running his hands over it and feeling the bumpy texture where other people’s would be smooth, it made you shrink in on yourself. As you wrecked your brain for a new excuse and got ready to push his hands down to your hips again, he withdrew them from the hoodie himself, making the garment feel much too big on you as he took his warmth with him.

“There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you for a while now,” Suna began, his voice calm as one hand settled back against your hip and the other cradled your cheek. Your fidgeting must have conveyed your discomfort, because he started drawing tiny circles onto your cheek bone, the callouses from years of playing volleyball contrasting the softness of his touch, making you subconsciously lean into the movement. “I didn’t know how to bring it up but at this point I feel like I need to know… Is there a reason you’re so reluctant to show me your back? And don’t say you don’t know what I’m talking about, I know you better than that.”

“Ah, so you noticed,” you meekly replied, swallowing hard around the words stuck in your throat. “What gave it away?”

“You’re not the best at lying to me, you know. It was pretty obvious you were making excuses for something else.” You felt like a cartoon character getting hit with an arrow through the stomach. “I just want to understand what’s putting you so on edge, so I can fix it. Whatever it is, you can tell me and I’ll work hard so you can trust me. But I won’t know what I did if you won’t tell me.”

“What you did?” You echoed incredibly. “Rin, you’ve done nothing wrong, more like the opposite, honestly. You’re like the guy out of anybody’s dreams, of course I trust you.”

“Then what is it? I don’t want to pressure you but I hate to see you uncomfortable,” Suna’s voice was soothing like a fireplace in winter as his finger smoothed out the furrow of your brows, silently telling you to take all the time you needed, he wouldn’t judge.

“It’s just– My back it’s so ugly,” you weakly admitted, opting to hide your face in the crook of his neck when holding eye contact became too painful. For a split second, Suna went as rigid as you had earlier before gingerly setting his hand down on the top of your back and running it lightly up and down to test your reaction. “Everyone has this perfect, smooth skin but mine is full of scarring and blemishes and I… I don’t want you to see how hideous I– it is.”

“Oh baby, that’s not true,” he soothed. “You are so stunning, I could never think you’re ugly.”

“No, you would,” you disagreed, shaking your head. “I already don’t know how you can say that with so much confidence, I don’t want to ultimately prove you wrong.”“So instead you just made the decision for me?” Ah, his signature deadpan response.

“Huh?”

“You are so convinced of your own perception you won’t even entertain the thought I could see something else entirely. I’m a lot of things but not a liar, doll. When I tell you you’re beautiful, I mean it.” To show he wasn’t taking offence at your words, he tapped the tip of your nose again when you emerged from your hiding spot to peer up at him. Bouncing you in his lap as if to jostle the negative thoughts from the forefront of your mind, mischief gleamed in his eyes. “Do you really think I’d put myself into this position just to make someone feel better? Usually, I only try to fuck unbelievably attractive people on my couch.”

“Oh my god, Rin! You’re such an idiot!” You were well aware your boyfriend had the tendency to be shamelessly blunt and it still made you smack your palms against his chest, though your shoulders did feel lighter at his very characteristic way of encouraging you. “Also we bought this couch together, so it’s mine as much as it’s yours.”

“The point still stands,” he nonchalantly answered, trailing one finger down the dip of your neck as his half-lidded eyes tracked its path before finding yours again. You knew that look well and it made your earlier arousal flare up again. “You’ll give me a chance to prove you wrong, won’t you, pretty? I promise you won’t regret it.”

You hesitated for a moment before mustering up all your courage. Suna had never betrayed the trust you placed in him and he’d not given you any reason to doubt him this time either. “Alright, fine.”

“Thank you.” You could feel his smile against your temple when he leaned forward to place a small peck there. “Hmm now where were we? Oh, that’s right.”

Long fingers splayed over the back of your head to tilt your head up so he could reconnect your lips once more. Just like before, the kiss started off slow and built in intensity until you were gasping for breath, a thread of a saliva connecting you until it broke from the rocking of your hips. Having foregone a bra that night, your nipples rubbed against the soft lining of the sweater, perking up from the friction.

This time, when his hands snuck under your clothes, you didn’t move to stop him, instead letting the warmth of his palms spread across your back. Slowly but steadily his touch rose higher, his fingertips nearly massaging the skin with the light pressure he was exerting. At the same time, his mouth moved south as if he wanted to meet his hands in the middle, trailing a hot path of kisses from the corner of your mouth to your jaw to just below your ear.

“The calluses of my hands, do they bother you?” A little disoriented by the low timbre of his voice and confused by the sudden question, you quickly made it known you liked them quite a lot, to which he chuckled. “See, at first, I was really insecure about it. Such rough hands handling something so precious, that didn’t seem right. But I learnt pretty quickly I was fussing about nothing, considering how you seem to love holding my hands or cumming all over my fingers.”

“That’s not a fair comparison,” you nearly whined, both at his choice of example and the way he bucked his hips up into yours. Your face felt as if it was set ablaze as his hands roamed and kneaded whatever part of skin they could find and your hips kept up a steady rhythm. “You have such nice hands, Rin.”“Something you made me aware of,” he smiled. When his lips reached the point where the collar of the hoodie wouldn't allow him to go any further, his hot breath fanned the expanse of your throat and his fingers played with the hem of his piece of clothing. “Let me do the same for you, yeah? Are you comfortable with taking this off?”

“Yeah,” you quietly affirmed, nodding your head at his request. With his help, the soft material slipped over your head and arms before being tossed somewhere next to the two of you and you fought hard to return your hands to his shoulders in lieu of covering up your bare body. 

“Shit, I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of seeing these,” Suna groaned, cupping your breasts with appreciative hands, forefingers and thumbs immediately working on rolling your pert nipples between them as the other digits fondled the surrounding area. “Look how perfect these look in my hands, like they were made to be held by me.”

A soft sigh of his name escaped you as you tilted your head back at the sensation of his warm hands contrasting with the temperature of the living room. It drew his attention back to the exposed column of your neck, focusing on the task of sucking a pulsing bruise against the spot that he knew made you weak. 

However, what you didn’t expect was him reaching around you to ghost his finger up the length of your spine, sending electricity right through you. Combined, the actions effortlessly pulled a gasp from you as you arched your back against his chest, which resulted in you pressing down hard against his bulge. His groan reverberated against your chest, a beautiful and husky sound which made you crave to hear more.

“Did that feel good? I bet it did,” Suna whispered against your feverish skin, fingers splaying out in the dip oy your back to keep you steady. “I can make you feel so much better, you know that. Just say the word.”

By now, your panties were probably soaked through as your clit pulsed with need, hips rocking in search for more friction but not getting enough to satisfy that itch inside of you. With how your heart was hammering against your ribcage, you could’ve bet Rin was able to feel it too, even through the material of his shirt. Balling the material in your fists you whimpered, “Rin, I need more, please.”

He grinned against your shoulder, pressing your chest tighter against his and grabbing the fat of your thigh with his free hand. Without any strain, he flipped you over so your back hit the couch cushions and he towered over your form, your legs still spread around his waist.

Running his hands down and back up the length of your legs, squeezing your thighs and calves appreciatively, his touch made goosebumps spread all across your body, no matter how seating it was on you. When his fingers reached the waistband of your sweatpants, playing with it as he leaned into your space, his heavy gaze met yours once more.

“Can I take these off?” No matter how clear it was you wanted this too, Suna would always ask. This night too, you willingly lay yourself in his hands as you lifted your hips to help him shimmy your pants off you, tossing them in the vague direction of the hoodie without taking his eyes off of you. He especially didn’t want to miss the string of slick sticking to your panties as they followed suit.

Drinking in the sight of your nude form, he traced a reverent finger over the seam where your legs met your hips, purposefully applying only a hint of pressure, knowing the featherlight touch was driving you positively insane. Slowly circling further in, he then caressed your outer lips covered in soft pubes, collecting your arousal with an experimental stroke over your slit but intentionally missing where you wanted him most.

“Rin, don’t tease,” you whined, squirming against the couch cushions.

“Sorry, doll, but you just look so pretty like this,” he mused, bright eyes showing not a hint of remorse. “I just have to indulge a little.”

And indulge he did. When he finally grazed his thumb over your neglected clit, his touch seemed to scorch, which only served to fuel the desire inside of you and it inevitably coaxed a wanton moan from you. Incredibly adept at reading you and keen to hear more of your sweet noises, Suna easily slid his middle finger into your hole, that at this point had been clenching around nothing. With how wet you were, he was met with no resistance at all and soon complied with your pleas for more and added his ring finger to the first.

“Shit, baby, you’re clinging to my fingers,” Suna voiced his thoughts as he smoothed one hand down the length of your leg once more to grab your ankle. Keeping up the steady pumps of his hand, curling his digits right into the spot that had your leg spasming in his hold, he turned his head to kiss the joint in his hold. However, he didn’t stop there. 

As if your leg was a fuse and he was the fire, Suna leisurely crept his affections higher, over your calves and past your knees, until you really felt ready to explode. Dimpling the flesh under his fingertips, he tightened the hold on your thigh so he could suck a myriad of hickeys on its expanse, unbothered by your incessant writhing. 

His hot breath fanned your core as his plush lips mapped out the juncture of your leg, paying careful attention to the area littered with stretch marks and covering the cause of some of your insecurities with his own marks. Like he wanted to claim your body as his, not that of the doubts in your mind. When he was satisfied with the blotches of red forming on your skin, he finally pulled back to admire his work.

“Have I been neglecting you lately?” Suna whispered, almost drowned out by the squelches of your pussy as he scissored his fingers. Looking up at you over the length of your heated body, he replaced his thumb with his kiss-swollen lips, placing a sweet peck against your clit and teasing it with the tip of his tongue. “Don’t worry, I’ll make up for it. You should never feel like this about yourself.”

“It’s not your fault, Rin,” you breathily reassured him only to be shushed by idle fingers dancing across your lower stomach, then precisely pressing down where his other hand was crooking up into.

“What kind of boyfriend lets his baby feel anything less than gorgeous?” Snaking one arm around your arched back, his long fingers covered a large part of it and held you steady against his chest as the coils in your stomach wound tighter and your toes curled at his sides. “I wish I could show you what I see. But since I can’t, I’ll have to settle for conveying it like this.”

His thumb had taken up its former spot again, resumed drawing firm figure eights on your clit and your nipples rubbed against the front of his shirt where Suna curled over you to reach your lips with his. Under the influence of his messy kiss, you felt like you were set ablaze as your boyfriend encouraged you to let go for him.

Someone might as well have replaced your blood with molten lava as your orgasm washed over you with fiery intensity and sweat pearled on your temple. Your arms slung around his body as your hands searched for whatever they could grab to hold on, be it the muscles of his shoulder or his dishevelled dark locks. Your lungs were already burning with the need for air but if you stopped kissing him, stopped vocalising your pleasure right for him to swallow it up, you thought you might die.

Suna kept up his ministrations until you were trembling like a candle in the wind before he even considered pulling his fingers from you. With half lidded eyes you watched as he brought the digits up to his mouth, cleaning up your mess with slightly exaggerated lewdness and moaning at your taste.

As he sat back up, he kept you flush against him and returned you to the position that started this all. Only this time your heightened sensitivity made you hyper aware of his arousal underneath you. 

“How are you feeling, pretty?” Nosing the crook of your neck lovingly, Suna nibbled on your salty skin where your quickened pulse thrummed underneath. His strong hands massaged your sides as you caught your breath and willed your chest to stop heaving. “Do you want to keep going?”

“You can’t do all of that and then deny me this,” you laughed breathlessly as you rolled your hips into his prominent bulge which caused him to inhale sharply. On top of everything, your boyfriend was also fucking hung, something his sweats didn’t hide in the slightest. “But I need you to take this off first.”

“Your wish is my command,” he chuckled, shrugging the shirt over his head unceremoniously, his biceps and triceps flexing in the process. While he busied himself with untangling himself from his pants, you ran an appreciative hand over the firm planes of his abs and up his pectorals. “Like what you see?”

“You know I do,” you mused, pressing a kiss against his jaw. “Got so lucky with you.”

“Hey, that’s my line,” Suna smiled, letting his hands roam over every dip and curve of your body as he urged you to straddle him again. Wasting no time, you started rocking yourself over his length, gasping every time his head caught your clit while you covered him in your arousal. After starving himself of stimulation earlier to focus entirely on you, your boyfriend shuddered at the contact. “You already feel so good doll, how am I supposed to last like this?”

“It’s okay, I want you to feel good too, Rin,” you stated but your movement was promptly stopped by two heavy hands on your hips. There was a subtle flush decorating his complexion and your heart skipped a beat. Was he really this affected just because of you? “As tempting as that sounds, tonight is all about you. No room to argue.” There was a tender finality in his tone, one that made clear he really wouldn’t budge on the topic, so you relented and melted into his hold. “Are you ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

Yes, this wasn’t the first time you’d been intimate with Suna, but it still felt like it. Every time he sunk his cock into you the stretch had you tossing your head back. From the way his thick tip slowly breached the tight ring of muscle, to the pleasant friction of his veins sliding against your walls and the satisfying feeling of being stuffed full, you believed you’d never get used to it.

“You always take me so well,” Suna panted as he bottomed out, fingers flexing against the pudge of your ass as he willed himself to patience to let you adjust to his girth, no matter how heavenly your warm cunt felt enveloping him. 

“Fuck Rin, I need you to move. Please, I–” Your brows were furrowed and you supported yourself on his chest as you started circling your hips against his while his cock pressed against all your sensitive spots so nicely.

And who was he to deny you when you asked so sweetly? 

Starting with slow and deliberate thrusts, you both knew it wouldn’t stay that way for long. While Suna normally prided himself on patience, even his was running thin by now and soon after, the rhythmic slapping of your thighs on his echoed around your apartment as he effortlessly moved you up and down on him, each thrust seemingly deeper as the previous one.

Not able to keep yourself upright for much longer, you slumped against his equally sweat-slicked chest and surrendered yourself completely to his actions, opting instead to claw at his back every time a particularly well aimed stroke had you clench your eyes shut. It was the best kind of torture and if you were exposed to it for too long you might actually go mad.

With your head nestled in the crook of his neck it gave Suna the perfect view down your back, admiring the way it bowed so graciously against his broad body or how your ass bounced with each slap of his thighs. How you were able to see anything but your beauty was something he just couldn't get behind; not because he was without insecurities but because no part of you could ever be a flaw in his eyes. Not when it made you who you were.

His fingers fluttered over the curve of your spine again, eliciting a more visceral reaction as your body shuddered and you pressed yourself tighter against him, trying to evade his searing touch while simultaneously craving more of it. Your whole body felt like you were boiling from the inside out, every part his scorching hands touched sizzling with nerves.

The constant grind of his pelvis against your clit had your walls gripping his length like a vice, making it increasingly harder for your boyfriend to pull out, let alone hold his own release back for much longer. Dipping his head down with a groan, his lips connected with your shoulder as his fingers kneaded and fondled wherever he could reach. Perhaps by the time you woke up tomorrow you wouldn’t see the blemishes you agonised over but the imprint of his fingers on your waist or the love bites littering your shoulder.

“If you don’t like these marks, I guess it’s on me to cover them with my own,” he mumbled lowly, perhaps more to himself than to you. Either way, the deep rumble of his voice so close to your ear followed by the sound of him reattaching his lips where he had left off shot down your spine like a lightning bolt. “You’re close, aren’t you? C’mon, you can do it. Show me how beautiful you are when you cream on my cock.”

The effect Suna’s voice and words had over you should maybe concern you. But you didn’t care as you came for the second time this night with a cry of his name on your lips, weightless as your boyfriend rode out your orgasm while chasing his own. Just as you came down from the aftershock of pleasure, Suna pushed inside of you as far as he could and painted your insides white.

For a few minutes, neither of you said anything, content to stay lost in the feeling of the other as two sets of hands explored the shared silhouette of your bodies. Kisses were exchanged or randomly placed wherever you could reach, Suna caressed your sides and you swept sweaty bangs out of his eyes.

“So,” Rin broke the comfortable silence, “are you still hellbent on arguing with me on this?”

Picking up his hint of playfulness, you decided to lean into it. “Hmm I dunno, the jury’s still out.”

“I thought you might say something like this,” he chuckled, pinching your side between his eyes, resulting in you yelping in surprise and sending him a half-hearted glare which was only returned in mischief. “Good thing I already planned to bend you over the back of the couch and paint your back. Bet you’d look lovely, even if you can’t get any more gorgeous than you already are. Same place and time tomorrow work for you?”

“You’re such an idiot, you know that?” You laughed at his shrugged ‘Might have mentioned it before’ before leaning up for a brief peck. “But sure, I’ll clear my schedule for you.”

After your movie night had effectively been rebranded into a shared bath Suna had drawn for you, you let the warm water rinse away most of the soreness you felt in the moment. Despite the tub being a rather snug fit with your professional athlete occupying a big chunk of it by himself, you let yourself relax against his chest.

Rin had taken it upon himself to gently scrub your body down for you, being extra careful with any of the spots he might have been a little rougher on. When it was time to dry off, he took his time to shower your back in kisses; every mark he left, every scar, every blemish, he covered them all equally in his affection and adoration. 

“I love you,” he murmured when his eyes met yours through the mirror and he tangled your fingers together. “I would never dream to change a single thing about you.”

“I love you too,” you whispered back, like it was a secret only meant for his ears. “Thank you for being so patient with me.”

“It’s nothing you have to thank me for.” Suna brought your hand up to his lips to leave a lingering kiss there too. “I’m just doing what any good boyfriend should.”

Later in bed:

“How much did you have to hold back from saying ‘I’ve got your back’?”

“You have no idea.”

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[cookinguptales]

Y'know, I post a lot on tumblr about what a shit Guillermo is, and I stand by that. He is a marvelous little shit. But honestly I only talk about it so much because people on tumblr and AO3 send me so many messages about how he's never done anything wrong in his life. When I'm presented with the opposite, that Guillermo is uniquely awful and selfish and he victimizes the poor uwu vampires (thinkpieces that you saw a lot more often during s3) I am fully like "I STAND BY EVERY DECISION THAT FOOLISH MAN HAS EVER MADE."

Being real with you, I feel like talking about Guillermo like he's totally blameless and put-upon or like he's totally selfish and wholly evil flattens a really complex and interesting character. He's selfish and self-involved and cruel and sweet and insecure and giving. He's all those things, and I love that about him.

I love Guillermo as a character because he has these carefully constructed categories in his head, these rules and boundaries that he sticks to like glue. He contains multitudes, and it's because he carefully follows the rules he has in his own head, even when they don't make a lot of sense to others.

I think the best way to think about Guillermo's actions is to think about him having two very different sets of rules for in-groups and out-groups. He will bend over backward for people in his in-group, will be the kindest, most patient, sweetest man in the world -- but he can be downright vicious to people in the out-group.

This is a pretty common occurrence IRL, though not always to the degree that Guillermo does it... I mean, you're going to treat your best friend's birthday differently than you're gonna treat a stranger's, right? When you start seeing it happen the way Guillermo does it, though, it's often to create and preserve power. You see it in politics, high school cliques, religion, etc.

For example, let's take new religious movements (or NRMs, i.e. "cults".) They are famous for this behavior. When you create distinct in-groups and out-groups and can behave very differently towards both, you give your followers a strong incentive to stay in the in-group. It makes them feel like they're the "good" ones, the superior ones, the ones with power. The ones that belong. And when they see out-groups being mistreated, well. No one wants to be in the group with no power who's mistreated, y'know? It simultaneously gives people in the in-group a sense of community, belonging, and social superiority and makes them afraid to leave.

But really, you see it all the time. If you have a "good" group that you can never harm and a "bad" group that you can do anything to, that really helps prop up power structures in a lot of ways. Look, I'm not going to get into this too much more because you don't want a freaking academic lecture on your dash, but suffice it to say that I think Guillermo is largely using his in-groups and out-groups in this way, mentally speaking.

He has in-groups (his friends, his family, his boyfriend, the vampires he lives with) and out-groups (literally everyone else, including other vampires) and he badly mistreats the out-groups because he does not want to be one of them. I've noticed he's particularly awful to human prey that reminds him of himself (nerdy, socially awkward, powerless, virginal) and I think that's because he wants to distance himself from them. He wants to make sure no one mistakes him as being part of that group, so he very strongly pushes them into his out-group by not only killing them, but making fun of them and often making sure they suffer before they die.

And then he's even more slavishly devoted to his in-groups, partially because he does truly love them, but partially because he desperately wants to stay in those groups. Or because he's trying to protect his own hide.

I don't mean to say that every kind thing he does is calculated -- I do think he very genuinely wants to make the people he loves happy -- but there's a sort of desperation to it sometimes. When he does these kind things, sometimes it's this desperate bid to be valued and accepted by others in his in-group, which makes him feel like he's earned his place there.

I've noticed that Guillermo has a tendency to do things for people to stay in their good graces (buying his mom a fridge, doing chores for Nandor, giving Derek money) when what they actually want is his time and attention. There often is a vibe that he's trying to earn his way into a group he doesn't quite feel entitled to when actually he's already very much a part of the group and he just needs to maintain those relationships. It's insecurity, frankly, and a nervous sort of self-preservation.

In fact... I'd say that Guillermo's greatest emotional struggles often come when trying to reconcile (and protect) different members of his in-group because he's trying to reconcile (and protect!!!) the different parts of himself.

Like... when he protected Jeremy, he was protecting a friend, but also the idea that some weak, virginal nerds are not prey. He had to protect this member of his in-group, partially because he loved him, but partially because he had to protect himself by extension. If Jeremy could be an exception to the predator-prey dynamics, so could he. Some humans could be valuable.

When he protected his fellow familiars during the familiar fights, he was protecting fellow humans whom he thought had "earned" a better life (and death) than prey humans, but he was also protecting the idea that a familiar could be loved and valued. He was protecting himself and the hope that Nandor would love him.

When he protected his family, he was protecting his beloved family members, but also the idea that vampires and slayers could coexist. Of course he doesn't want his family to die, but he's also doesn't want his hopes that he can have it all to die with them.

Let's all be real with each other here. Guillermo kills humans, and he does so without compunction. He is able to utterly dehumanize prey humans because he has a vested interest in emotionally distancing himself from them. But he gets kind of freaked out when the humans that he has mentally removed from that prey group (his friends, his family, people "like him") are not placed into that same exempt group by others. And this is definitely because he wants to protect those he loves!

But it's also because it means that he isn't special, either.

Let's talk about Freddie, who I think is probably the most complicated example of all this in the entire show. (Save perhaps Derek, who could probably get an entire post to himself because he went from out-group to in-group without Guillermo's consent.) When Freddie first arrived at the house, Nandor mistook him for prey. This understandably freaked Guillermo out, partially because he wanted to protect his boyfriend and partially because it was violating Guillermo's group dynamics.

(Insert meta here about Freddie representing Guillermo's ability to have a happy life outside of the weird, insular one he'd created for himself prior to s4.)

Freddie ended up being kind of special, though, because Guillermo considered him to be part of his in-group and Nandor considered him an out-group until he realized that Guillermo valued him. And then Nandor wanted him to not just be part of his in-group, but a portion of it separate from (but simultaneously representing) Guillermo. It's complicated!!

So we had Freddie 1 who was Guillermo's and Freddie 2 who was Nandor's, but... in the end, Freddie really belonged to no one but himself, right? In the end, he very literally chose himself. He left the -group dynamic altogether.

So Freddie is moving in and out of these groups like a fuckin' oiled-up eel that Guillermo cannot keep a hold of, and that really challenges his control issues as well as his ability to feel like he belongs in the in-groups he's created. It challenges his ability to feel worthy and loved and like he belongs anywhere. It challenges his ability to have faith that he'll ever become a vampire. Suddenly he does not control these groups anymore. If anything, they're controlling him.

While a lot of Guillermo's angst at the end of s4 was about, y'know, normal heartbreak... I think a lot of that was happening, too. He was really seeing the abrupt overturning of the carefully established rules and groups and boundaries and power differentials in his head, and that made him just want to be free of the whole thing.

So he took a step out of all of his preconceptions about what he did and did not have to do to belong in these groups, and took hold of his own destiny.

...unfortunately.

Guillermo's decisions in s4, both regarding his family and his turning, really did permanently shake up a lot of the group dynamics in the show. For better? For worse? (FOR GOOD...? lmao) It's hard to say, honestly. But I'm eager to see how he irons it all out in his head!

Our able-to-self-justify-literally-anything bitch. 💜

#see also: guillermo's inability to kill the him-creatures when he regularly kills other monsters #honestly I am devoted to the fucked-up mess that is guillermo #for all of his sweetness and cruelty #wwdits #wwdits meta #long post

[olderthannetfic]

On the one hand, I actually enjoy "why I like this" fandom thinkpieces, even when about slash and similar topics. I honestly find it fun to hear other people's perspectives and confront them with mine, to be able to say "oh, yeah, I'd never thought about it this way but this resonates with me" or "can't relate to that at all but it's an interesting point", and I find it pretty depressing how all that gets ruined by people angrily demanding everyone explain their individual tastes in relation to broader fandom trends to them (usually to then turn around and scream about how no one wants to hear you desperately throwing "justifications" around and how, instead of doing that, you could spend your time writing what they want you to write) to the point you then end up with other people overreacting in the opposite direction and going "aw, poor thing, no need to make up some fake bullshit reason, no one's attacking you here" anytime you so much as say "I've thought about it and I'm pretty sure I like X because Y" regardless of your tone or intention. (Then again, I also like reading meta, and acafan type stuff)

On the other hand, sometimes it really is just a "X makes brain go brrr" sort of thing.

Years ago, I was in this fandom with a femslash ship I liked. It had some tropes I really love, and played them for both angst and fluff in ways I thought were very good, and it had a lot of potential for fanworks exploring different aspects of their story and dynamic... and yet, I just liked it. And I never felt any particular need to do much of anything fannish for it. I figured, well, maybe I'm just not the type to get into femslash ships as much as I get into slash ships, simple as that.

Now, I'm in a fandom with a femslash ship that's very similar to that first one. Very similar tropes, played for both angst and fluff in ways I think are very good, and lots of potential for fanworks. Except I love this ship and I've already made multiple fanworks for it, including smutty ones.

I've seen both great and shitty attitudes in both fandoms, and both of them have a reputation for being "controversial" and having annoying fans, so it's not even an unconscious "I felt I'd bring down all the annoying people on me in that fandom but I don't get the same vibe from this one" response. My best guess is that the aesthetics of the two ships are pretty different, but I'm not even sure about this because I did like the style of the first fandom's canon and had other ships there that I did feel more fannish about.

So, yeah. Second ship makes brain go brrr. It happens.

--

[autisticandroids]

I remember your post about the thing in fics where the bottom is usually the main character and i just wanted to ask why u think that bc i feel like being an older fandom person i remember it being the opposite.

honestly in my experience it did used to be the opposite. but norms have changed. i speculated a little about it here. so read that. but definitely there's a level of

the bottom is the experiencer of sexual pleasure and the top is the provider of it. which is kind of an odd social construct? i think it might genuinely relate to a lot of fic writers being wlw, whose model of sex is often basically that. and there's nothing wrong with that it's just odd to apply it to all m/m sex. but also there are some patriarchal undertones. um. worth reading these two things. also fundamentally i have noticed in the last few years a tendency in fanfiction towards functionally having the love interest play the role of the perfect parent/caretaker which has um. a deeply weird vibe, if you'll permit me to say so

it's also about imagining one of them as the woman in a moral sense. with the man playing the role of compromised, suspect aggressor and the woman playing the role of pure, blameless victim. and it's also not just about moral purity but about conceptualizing one person as capable-of-harming and the other as capable-of-being-harmed* and never the twain shell meet. so in order to have a meaningful inner life where it matters when bad things happen to you, you need to be on the capable-of-being-harmed end of that spectrum

*just spent an hour looking for a good thinkpiece i read last year about that habit of thought. it mentioned west elm caleb. does anyone know the one i mean?

EDIT: found

anyway. just my thoughts based on the anecdata of my life

#asks #anonymous

[misomythus]

People (okay, two mutuals of mine - but the gospels teach that two people constitute a quorum to summon God) are discussing "chauvinism," which reminds me of a very interesting blog post on the origin of the term "male chauvinism." Briefly, the thesis is that "chauvinism" (originally a term for fanatical nationalist loyalty, named after a diehard Bonapartist, of all things, named Chauvin) entered second-wave feminism through its connection to communism, and that a tendency to name broad trends/movements after individual people is characteristic of communism in general.

Now, what other individual have you heard of by the name of Chauvin? Right.

This makes me sad for a missed opportunity, because this could have made for a killer thinkpiece in 2020 about intersectional solidarity in opposition to the system that produces cops and soldiers and, well, Chauvins. It would seem forced if you wrote it now, the moment passed.

#posts in bad taste

[yourdyingwish]

I am like so glad I never seriously committed to writing thinkpieces and shit at 22/23. I’ve seen it done…never ends well. Opposite of a wan little husk it’s like. Overconfident little chestnut

[aghhtdraws]

ship name or not?

so I wanted to make a short post to get these thougs off my head but it'll get lost on my main so here it goes!

this doesn't really concern anyone who usually visits this blog for art, but it's more a thinkpiece related to the newer/younger tmnt Leo x Usagi ship (rottmnt x usagi chronicles respectively)

I’m seeing a lot of confusion (kinda) abt the tags to use and want to propose an alternative. How about “yuinardo” ? it sounds kind of funny (like the two characters), doesn’t sound like anything else (as far as my google search can reach), uses both their unique names and also capitalizes on how Rise!Leo is often called Nardo by his brothers as a nickname - among others, but that’s one of his most unique nicknames in the series and feels unique to Rise specifically. And Yui bc Yuichi - also just his name but a unique part of it.

I guess maybe the longer name could be something like "cityxfarm sword" bc those are the three consistent elements abt this younger ship. I know the latter is kind of uncreative but I can't think of anything better atm haha x'D

I was never around much for the 2003 leosagi ship bc- I was a baby on neopets and not online enough for that? 2003 tmnt was pretty new here and didn't air as often/quickly but also even in the later 00s, I did not really seek out fanfic relating to it bc - again, teen with not enough time lol, also social media and internet weren't really the thing they are now, so i wasn't really aware there could be fanfic of it. shipped and read other things. So maybe I don't know all my leosagi history. I kinda stayed away from the tmnt fandom in general bc it was mostly all angsty which I didn't really gel with anymore. alternatime ship names have always been a thing in all fandoms but I think right now we've been having the most versions of these two characters or this dynamic than ever before.

the 2018 Rise Leo x Usagi Chronicles has been getting more popular. ROTTMNT was a 2018 reiteration of the tmnt for animation that was really under-appreciated and has slowly become more appreciated as the fandom re-grew with the 2022 movie in august.

Usagi Chronicles is a spin-off/soft-reboot led by fans of Usagi Yojimbo, Stan Sakai's original comic about Miyamoto Usagi, but this time he is a great ancestor of a new character, Yuichi Usagi! and this Usagi is a creation of Doug and Candie Langdale (exec producers) + Khang Le (who I think designed/developed Yuichi's look?). So basically this is like a canon-supported fan-AU with an original character cast thematically based on the og comic cast (Usagi and his friends match Miyamoto Usagi and *his* friends) + the "Senso" Usagi comic as a worldbuilding point.

His naming is a bit confusing bc in Japan, Yuichi is usually a first name, but here in the show it feels like it's treated like a surname. But apparently, there was an intentional marketing move to have this be the opposite? So his real surname is Usagi, while his given name is Yuichi? There was a whole post about it, but I can't remember where else I've heard it.

Anyway, this series is my fave right now and I think it's fun in both it's lightheartedness and it's more touching moments and I love all the character and family dynamics and themes that it has. I think it's fun that people ship him and Rise!Leo because they are actually really similar in some personality aspects. I saw this show, realized there was crossover potential with Rise and thought, "oh, it'll be fun to do actiony scenes and stories with this kind of friendship!" Anyway, I'll do a deep-dive on that later.

Everybody likes this young version of Leo and then I guess at some point before 2021, other fans started making ship art/fic with Usagi? Often their own versions of Miyamoto Usagi, fitted for the Rise TMNT world bc the two never managed to have a crossover with this iteration bc of Nickelodeon pausing the show abruptly in 2020. I wasn't very online in 2018 so idk when else the ship happened, maybe when the finale of the show aired and the "unpausing" was finalized and fans realized there wasn't going to be a crossover? but now with the movie, more ppl have discovered that there's also a cartoon series for Usagi! And more people are slowly understanding/remembering maybe that this Usagi character has had previous iterations, ppl make their own versions/AUs for fun based on the newer Usagi show, or they don't watch the Usagi show and just make their own modern/ROTTMNT versions of Miyamoto Usagi in general.

This ship is a bit unique bc they are stated to be exactly the same age and they have very similar vibes as characters (goofs on the team + faux confidence + showoffs). When I first found that other people shipped this too, I just called it "2020s Leosagi" bc again, just the main thing abt them is that they're younger characters for a younger audience in their respective shows. + it's funny that there's almost a Leosagi friendship for every decade. I've also heard the term "cringe naenae babies" from friends but i don't really know what this meme means lol xD

I don't have beef or anything with the Leoichi/Leochi tag+name but it's sorta confusing for me personally bc it sounds both too short vocally and also like Leo's alone or something (Leo+ichi) I'm not fluent in japanese so I might b wrong, but just a thought. Leochi sounds similarly short.

then there's also the Usagi's who are complete OCs (w new names) and where do you fit those ships? and idk, I guess I just wanted to think abt this YuiNardo ship name more in-depth, just to think abt it , a bit for fun, bc I really do think it's a fun name but also make a new umbrella term, so maybe people would find it easier to tag stuff! but I usually don't interact with other fans in larger fandoms and ship fandoms like this so idk, this could easily be more confusing x3

Anyway, I think as fandoms and shipping go, it would be more fun to have multiple tags for different experiences, +these are different ships/versions of the characters so it feels like it would make sense. Just my fandom experience from previous years + for organizing/better finding + I feel like shipping should be fun, cuz in the end, this is just based from the og TMNT and Usagi creators being friends and making smth fun with these characters!

TL;DR - YuiNardo sounds like a funny/fun leosagi ship name for this younger iteration of the Rise!Leo-Yuichi Usagi friendship/relationship, and I wanna use it as the ship name going forward bc ships should b about fun and creativity, right? anyway, u can also use it if u want to! no pressure, just sorta putting it out there. - Aghht out!

Addendum(1.03.23): apparently, the Katanashipping tag was specifically for the 2003 ship - as well as the og Leosagi tag, bc that Leo x Miyamoto Usagi started it all. That makes sense! Sorry that I mis-tagged it originally! I did not know until finding the tags on tumblr and going thru them to the start of the tag - bc I'd been keeping away from the tmnt fandom for a long time after the 12 show + never saw it during the 03 show's run bc I wasn't online as much + social media didn't exist in the way it does now. I think everyone used Leosagi for that bc it made sense. I'll keep the tags for this post specifically in the hopes that more ppl will find it then and it'll give food-for-thought about this. Katanashipping of course doesn't make as much sense for the newer ship bc the shows have not had crossovers + while both characters seem like they are a bit obsessed w swords in different teen boy ways (preferring swords bc they are big and flashy), they are not as centered about the swords or swordsmanship as much as the 03 characters.

I know it seemed more like Leosagi was a catchall for all the Leo x Usagi ships, but now it makes more sense that it's not bc it's made searching for content harder. I like the "younger version" but i like the og too bc that's what I shipped as a teen (when the 03 show characters all just looked like Really Old Teens to me). I suppose that's just how the internet's sorta become - there'd shorter memory abt stuff, but fandoms especially as folks move on from shows they like and some of the history of fandom becomes lost. I've been on social media for so long now, I totally forgot how specific ship names could get. I guess that's why I suggested YuiNardo for the "new" version - it sounds unique. If ppl already shipped Rise Leo with their own versions of a younger Miyamoto Usagi and original Usagis, the "youngest" ship with Yuichi x Rise Leo needed it's own tag and that became Leochi/Leoichi (and w the earlier Rise Leo x Usagi ships, everyone must have used the Leosagi tag then too? Further investigation must be made about this...) now this Yuichi Usagi x Rise Leo version seems unique bc Yuichi is basically a canon fancharacter in a sense, as a descendant he is like a homage. But I like the character and I see that a lot of ppl continue to make their own versions or borrow elements of the Y!Usagi from SRTUC... but this means that almost all versions of Usagi depicted by fans are ALL fanon versions... and that's fine, I like how creative fans can get! But also that means we almost never see thr "full" show version of Yuichi Usagi in fanart (altho fanfic is a different matter, if only slightly). But that makes me a bit sad bc I think this version deserves to exist in our fanon and headcanons too, y'know? I guess my flaw in all this is that I actually lile SRTUC and its own og depiction of Y!Usagi bc he is a fun character for me while not many other ppl seem to like him. Like with so many other rare shows I like where fanon is louder than canon 😂

So, yeah Yui x Nardo. cute ship. if only there was more of it ^^; But a lot of the fanworks are still really interesting in their own rights. I think I'll keep using Yuinardo for the show versions and then Leochi for any other fans' versions. That makes sense, right?

Anyway, non-serious discussion over! Just some silly fan-stuff to mull over during school breaks and other free time.

#yuinardo #sliderbunny #leoichi #leochi #leosagi #Leo x Yuichi #those are all the tags I remember #this is just an art blog and usually I post more art but tbh I just want to keep this post organized so I can actually find it. #aghhtpost #fanramble #only word i can use to describe this post #why do i write things at 4am /skullemoji #ppl mentioned this in my notes #fan stuff #edit: march15-removed some tags and moved more relevant ones to the top

[akajustmerry]

putting aside tayloring swifters history of pettiness, white feminism and racism - i wanna say from the bottom of my heart that her lyrics and craft have never really evolved or grown from the level of "insecure teenager with some potential but still feels the need to overexplain their metaphors" and it's so.......sad??? like you can really tell this woman dropped out of high school and became famous and never matured beyond that point in any way. even her "best" music is full of this over-exposition that's so childish. ppl will write thinkpiece after thinkpiece about how she manages to stay popular with teens because she reinvents her image but the opposite is true. it's because you listen to this 30+-year-old woman's music and she's still writing the exact same way she did when she was a teenager and the coat of paint they put over it might change, but she's the same person, musically, now at 30+ as she was at 16 and I don't necessarily mean that as a compliment. and its fine I guess if you're into an artist whose whole MO is validating the idea that who you were as a teenager was the most valid and raw version of you and you're really the "main character" of your life, but personally, after 15 years of listening to swift sing on and on about secret crushes and meetings and enemies, it's tired. we get it taylor, you're a high school dropout who never grew past that. like i don't think it's a coincidence that hardcore ts fans are people who think being able to spot repetition is peak literary analysis. i don't think it's a coincidence that her fans are chronically immature people online. i don't think its a coincidence that so much of her behaviour feels like a high school popular girl and i don't think it's a coincidence that so much of her fanbase are still teenagers! because she presents herself, musically, as someone who refuses to grow up.

#this is not a full thought but idk do you guys get what I mean? #like i say this also as someone who likes the occasional ts song but yeah #u can reblog #/

[midrashic]

sorry for the navel-gazing but promoting the idea of--to be totally hokey about it--different strokes for different folks over a clear hierarchy of smart critical media consumers/ignorant masses is actually pretty important to me lmao. because i know at least half of it is the ironic trend of pushing back against self-deprecation and self-loathing with humorous self-aggrandization, but also to some extent people now are just willing to say "oh those people have such bad taste" instead of trying for even a moment to sympathize & understand what might be good about whatever media they've labeled cringe that simply just doesn't appeal to them specifically. (&. to be just a little condescending. there's definitely some truth to the folk knowledge that at least some of that distaste, for some people, is simply because a cringe work is popular.) & on its own that's annoying but not necessarily harmful, but this 100% ties into this new wave of literary-cultural elitism that would've been just. completely shocking to see as a mainstream position ten years ago. ten years ago, we were inundated with thinkpieces about how a canon is coincidence (and politics) and not a quality check, and now we've swung back to "some kinds of stories are for people who hate thinking." it's fascinating and a little nauseating, honestly! if you'd been born ten years earlier you'd be pushing this wall from the opposite direction!

#instead you're being rude to generally harmless enthusiasts! get a life lmao #hyperfixation: blog blog wank wank #hyperfixation: etiquette for the enterprising fan

[cithaerons]

idk sometimes i see thinkpieces that are like we need more violent and extreme action to bring attention to X cause and cause the change we want and i’m not opposed to that in a normative sense (obviously depending on the action and the cause) but... is that actually going to work? it seems like what we see in contemporary american society most often in response to extreme and violent actions is a backlash against the thing. like i keep seeing stuff about how the environmental movement needs to be more violent and extreme and i don’t on principle disagree with that - and in a normative sense i think it would be Good so my gut reaction is that i would like to agree - but considering the public’s horrified reaction to like... tomato soup on a (well-protected) van gogh like sksjskjks are we sure this would work my friends and not do the exact opposite

#i am merely posing the question and not attempting to answer it.....

[eldragon-x]

I know you said you want to tone down toh posting, but i just wanted to elabarate on the previous Darius ask, it's not negativity, but character musings based on what was implied, so i hope it's ok?

Like, imagine you are Darius, you've been building up your walls and being alone for a long, long, time, possibly decades. And maybe you even used to be a friendly kid, who loved taking up a 'leader' of the friend group role, so initially your new role is foreign for you, but now it is in the past, and you couldnt tell where your personality ends and where your mask begins.

But then you befriend this other Coven Head who is seemingly the opposite of you, but you grow close, and maybe you dont even notice it at first and dont realize that you started to actively care (i know many want Darius and Eberwolf to be longtime friends, but i think Eber being relatively recent fits better with the ER interactions?). Then your old school friend comes back into your life, and you start to care about the new Golden Guard too, and maybe there is a possibility of reconnecting with your other friends, and there are even others, who are not close to you, like Raine's students or Hunter's friends, but are involved in your circle, and your world starts to open up.

Then the DoU happens, and you are forced to come to terms with what your friends mean to you just as the world ends. And then the Collector's reign starts. And, eventually you are free, but turns out both the kid you started to care about and one of your best friends you've just started reconnecting with, were possessed by the same man who ruined your life and your mentor's life, and you were powerless and probably never got any closure with that man (because who knows how Belos will go down, but i doubt Darius would be involved). So how you deal with that?

And Collectors game would absolutely be Darius's worst nightmare because not just losing control and independence, but having the Coven Heads as his mindless puppets who exist for his will was 100% what Belos had wanted too (ok, a bit negativity, but the show writers really didnt think about all the implications with the Collector). If we speculate a little deeper than kids cartoon would, it wouldnt surprise if Darius would have tried to close off again, because that's the only way he knows how to deal with trauma, but hopefully with other adults talking him out of it eventually?

To end on a lighter note, i kinda also imagine silly post-finale where Darius is overwelmed with his new found family and social circle. Like, he gets sick and wants a day off, but people keep checking on him and trying to help, so he is annoyed because he can't rest because of them, but deep inside he is like those crying cats reaction images.

Oooh anon I'm eating this up. The horror of Darius finding out about possessed Hunter and Raine is so real. Once again having Belos harm his loved ones horribly while he himself was unable to do anything about it when things were just getting better again after all this time. Tho at this point I'd just want him to get his happy ending after all that's happened already.

This is how Darius stans can still win for him getting significance in the finale (/j)

Also I absolutely do not mind this. The main reason I want to talk less about toh is just that thinking about s3 makes me more upset at the writing than I should or want to be but I absolutely appreciate a thinkpiece like this, especially about Darius, haha.

#owl house #darius tag #toh spoilers

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

happy fresh reads friday, gamers

you may have noticed last week's FRF was a little on the short side. that wasn't my intent, but I got a little swamped at work prepping for pride and simply forgot to spend as much time as I should have scrolling through booktwit. let's see if we can make it up this week!

first up: not a listicle, but something I found interesting:

if you guys aren't familiar with "cozy mysteries" they're delightful - back when I worked in a public library I always loved seeing heaps of gruesome murders being solved by women whose primary passions were always baking or antiquing or hand-dying artisanal yarn. sometimes you're just trying to run a small business and homicide keeps happening around you! here, write Dee Das rounds up a few recent cozy mysteries focusing on women of color and highlights what makes them such welcome additions to the genre - and links to a list of feminist mystery novels, if you really need that listicle fix.

and in keeping with that theme:

Tor has assembled a hot little list of all the new speculative fiction hitting shelves in June, and it's a hell of a collection. we've got fractured fairy tales, something strange afoot in Iceland, and quite a lot of sequels or series debuts for those of you who love a SFF saga.

hey, want some poetry? boy do I have you covered.

well, alright - Shade Literary Arts has you covered, but I reposted the link. this is a big big list organized alphabetically by publisher, which I've never encountered before. it's chock-full of amazing-sounding poetry collections, so go have a little look.

aaaaad one more for the road:

maybe I'm just behind but oh BOY there are a lot of titles on this list I've never heard of before - and that's extremely exciting! this one skews heavily towards contemporary literary fiction, but with sprinklings of the historical, the creepy, and the downright kooky - I simply must know what happens in Patricia Wants to Cuddle.

#fresh reads friday

[jancys-blue-bayou]

Five points on if Steve will die in s5

Seeing a lot of “Steve will clearly die in s5 bc they had a scene of him dreaming about the future” takes. I’ll just say, yes that’s a classic trope you’re right but:

1) In their best moments (ie s1) ST took these well-used tropes and twisted them a bit in some cases at least.

2) The ST writers are clearly too scared to kill off any original main characters for real. Some seem to think that’ll change bc it’s the final season, I think the opposite bc given the general tone of the show I def think they’ll do an uplifting happy ending.

3) Eddie was clearly just invented to die in Steve’s place. Eddie’s whole arc and sacrifice and dying in front of Dustin you could just substitute for Steve straight off and it would’ve been more impactful but they don’t want to lose Steve so they invented Eddie.

4) After killing off Eddie in that way, killing off Steve too would be too big a blow to deal Dustin, I don’t think they’ll do it for that reason either (added to the above reasons).

5) So I don’t think they’ll kill off any of the core original main characters. The only thing I can think of that might impact the Duffers in this regard is that they’re now being called out in a lot of thinkpieces, reviews and articles about the show about the fact that they’re scared to kill off characters and how that lessens the stakes (the fakeout with Hopper the most common one they’re called out on, but also Eddie taking Steve’s place I’ve seen). So maybe in response to that (since good lord it’s very clear that the reception of the show impacts the Duffers writing waaaaaay too much) maybe, maybe they’ll kill someone off to prove them wrong. But even then I still think they’ll not touch any of the core main characters. Bc again I really feel the happy ending is important for them and killing off Steve, any of the Byers, any of the Wheelers, anyone in the party, Hopper ruins that. Killing Steve would destroy Dustin, killing Jonathan would destroy Nancy and the Byers, killing Hopper would destroy El and Joyce, killing anyone in the party would destroy them etc.

#steve harrington #stranger things #st4 #st5

[inmh01]

My policy on judging media is to only judge what’s physically placed in front of me, within the confines of the media itself. That is to say, if it’s physically contained in the pages of this book, I will judge based on that; if it appears on screen, in front of me, as part of this movie, I judge based on that.

What I don’t judge is interviews with cast/creators, tweets, whatever. If it is not physically presented to me as part and parcel of the media itself, I don’t take it into consideration.

There are people who think the Eternals movie is “woke”- and that irritates me because the movie itself is not. The closest it ever comes to sociopolitical commentary is a brief segment about the dropping of the bombs in Japan in WWII, and I would argue that in the context of this movie, it comes across as a reasonable thing to consider given that it expands on Phastos’s character.

"Oh, but they said THIS in an interview, and Marvel and Chloe Zhao said that!”

Nope, I don’t care. I do not care one bit what the people making the film said about diversity, or how they virtue-signaled about sociopolitical matters. Those things are not present in the movie.

A racially diverse cast does not make a movie “woke”. Having an LGBT couple, or a deaf character/actress does not make it “woke” either. The Eternals did not preach about race, gender, disability, or LGBT issues in this film, you are making a mountain out of a molehill.

Another example, in the opposite political direction, is James Bond.

I got into the series by way of the Daniel Craig films. In terms of politically incorrect content, these films are probably the least offensive by 2022 standards than the previous installations, as well as the books. And yet, there are still people who call James Bond (as Daniel Craig) racist and sexist, despite these traits not being presented by him in these movies.

“But in the BOOKS and PREVIOUS installments, James Bond is sexist and racist and BAD-”

Nope! Don’t care! Those things are not presented to me in Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace, Skyfall, Spectre, or No Time to Die. This incarnation of James Bond is none of those things, and no, I don’t care what Daniel Craig said in that interview, or what thinkpieces you’ve read about Bond’s legacy.

If it is not presented to me as part of the media, I don’t consider it when I’m evaluating it.

I think what pisses me off the most is that both sides engage in it. Conservatives/conservative leaning-people will read much more preachiness into an otherwise benign depiction of a gay couple in a video game, and liberal/liberal-leaning people will read sexism/racism/whatever into things that most people would not flag as racist or sexist or whatever.

Both sides also think they’re achieving something by doing this when all they’re doing is collectively ruining their credibility, because nowadays when I see something labeled as “WOKE!” or “RACIST!” my kneejerk reaction is “Ah, we’re throwing around inflammatory language because we didn’t like a movie again, great.”

#media #literature #movies #film #video games #marvel #james bonds #eternals #comics

[stopdoingthat1411]

Hi, I was genuinely wondering what makes you feel like asexuality shouldnt be lgbt? And do you think this term is destructive in some way?

I'm not the most articulate person on Earth so apologies in advance; but basically it's because the LGBT community is for same-sex attracted people. Lesbian's, gay people, bisexuals and trans people. The original meaning of the T in LGBT was Transsexual, as in mostly drag queens/kings who were ssa but today it's acknowledged as transgender; as in not identifying with the sex of your birth... this still doesn't include asexual people.

The LGBT community is NOT 'anyone who approaches sex in an unconventional way even if they're only opposite sex attracted.' That's how you get those stupid 'pedophiles, furries and BDSM are LGBT' thinkpieces.

If you include 'people who have little/no sex/sexual attraction but are otherwise straight' as LGBT are you going to include nymphomania/hypersexuality/people who have TONS of sex/sexual attraction but are otherwise straight as LGBT? No, of course not.

Asexuality is good and fine and it deserves it's own community for it's own issues if that's what Asexuals want, but that doesn't mean they should co-opt a movement that is for same-sex attracted people. Stop Asian Hate is a worthy goal but that doesn't mean they have a place in the BLM community. (Actual) men's rights that solve men's issues are cool but feminism is still not for them, and so on.

As for your second question question, I don't really understand? What term? The term Asexuality? If so, then no. I don't think it's destructive. You can call yourself whatever you want. The only problem arrives when you call yourself LGBT when you literally aren't and try to make their movement about you/them solve your problems.

#radfem safe #lgbt discourse