#<- tagging for my own blog not so that people will find this in the actual tags?? 🫣

[shininglightmentalhealthevent]

Welcome to the Shining Light Writing Event!

Schedule and other details / explanation below (Note: This is not for any specific fandom, but writing about a fandom is allowed (hence tags))

!! Warning: This event / blog talks about, references, and deals with many sensitive mental health topics, which may be triggering to some people. Interact at your own risk. Any issues that arise from this point on are on you !!

What is this event? This is an online writing event focused on different types of mental health issues/illnesses/conditions, and how styles of writing can be used to help improve & bring awareness to them!

Who can sign up, & what are you looking for? There will not be applications, instead there are open sign ups that will close once an undecided number of people have filled it out. Anyone who is 16 or older and who writes in any style is welcome to join! Poetry, short story, anything. The word range for a typical style writing piece is 300 to 3,000 words. You can focus on an original character, fandom character, or real person in your life.

When are things happening? The Discord server will open at the end of February, and a PDF of the compiled works will be released Mid-May. See the schedule graphic above for more dates, and the schedule channel in the Discord has even more specific info.

Where is it being held? There is a Discord server, the link to which will be shared in an email.

Who is running it? @th3-dark-abyss is the head mod and organizer of this event! There is a team of five other mods helping, who will be credited as well.

Why is this event a thing anyway? Abyss (that's me) is working on their Girl Scout Gold Award! It's the highest award that a scout their age can earn; it requires 80+ service hours towards a project of their choosing that has a lasting, positive impact on a community. There have been a few hurdles, but I'm pushing through and I'd really love if you applied and/or shared the posts wherever you can!

Some Rules / Guidelines ~ We will be dealing with many sensitive topics that are very real issues. Please be kind and considerate. ~ Participating in this event is for over 16 years old only. If you are younger than 16, your sign up will be deleted immediately. (Under 16s feel free to reblog and interact though, at your own risk.) ~ Discrimination or hate of any kind will not be tolerated. ~ The point of this is to spread awareness through writing, to show how creative writing can help improve mental health and well-being, and to convey different people's unique experiences. It is not to stereotype, villainize, or put issues in boxes. ~ Do not make assumptions or state things as facts when they are not. ~ Do not discount others and their experiences just because you aren't familiar. ~ The askbox is open if you have any other questions or comments!

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If you are having a mental health crisis and need help, contact 988 (National Mental Health Hotline). Here is a website with some help hotlines if you need to reach out for help. (I am in the US, so this is likely for my area. If this doesn't have one, let me know and I will help you find a line for your area.)

You are not alone ❤️

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Keep your eyes out for the sign-up form, and please enjoy!!

[doublel27]

I heasitate to do anything that will give this incredibly toxic, bullying tantrum of a post more views, but I also don't think this is okay and people should say so.

It is not an essay, it is a lambasting of someone who disagrees not with just you, but the general discourse that exists around some shows in the BL world because there were over 8 different people's ideas referenced in that post and you focused on you and @lurkingshan. Spending the time to type in 30 tags in the actual post, and another 5 in the comments lambasting someone, offering to pass to anyone screenshots of DMs, utilzing different sizes of script for emphasis that is considered yelling in the written word, and encouraging others to discuss how toxic they are and then demand your boundaries are that they don't respond after flooding someone else's inbox is very rude and inappropriate. I want to applaud @technicallyverycowboy and @lugarn who I have never spoken to before for also calling it out.

I would like to start by saying it's very clear you're incredibly upset and chose to yell at a person who never mentioned you that you perceived as attacking you. Your feelings are okay and should be felt, this response is not. Particularly because there is a whole lot of projection and defensiveness in this post, both in acting like MBDL doesn't understand fandom ettiquite, being disingenous about MBDL's actions and claim to be entirely misread and misunderstood, but let's take a look at what you and lurkingshan actually said in that post, what you misrepresented and misunderstood, and what words were used that might have suggested you were acting as an authority and dismissing other perspectives.

While you value being tagged, when Maybe-Boys-Do-Love says not "everyone enjoys being tagged" could be referring to previous interactions MBDL has had with people who asked him not to (I know i've had that or have been asked to DM) or his own personal feelings of not wanting to be tagged. I don't know, you'd have to ask him rather than assume. You feel a way about what you refer to as vague posting, but not everyone feels the way that you do. Some people prefer to not have an @ shoved at them and prefer to see stuff that could be about them and just say that if someone cared about them enough to say something to their face they would, and move about their day. You are deeply upset by other's possbily vaguely referring to your thoughts on tumblr.com and that's a valid feeling. Bullying a person due to your big feelings however, is not acceptable, and the limited number of reblogs from a specific circle of people, shows exactly how unacceptable the overall community finds this stuff.

You can ask people to @ you in posts that refer to yours and link to them. That's how you feel. On your blog. And you don't have to like how other people act on their blog, but that's also THEIR blog. They can behave how they want, just like you do. Perhaps this whole post is the opposite of what someone would want to have happen to them, in the same way MBDL's was the opposite of what you wanted to have happen.

I want to be very clear that I have seen the post that @maybe-boys-do-love made and your response. Your response is still visible to me on the post and I have reblogged the version of the post on my blog where you responded to MBLD and where MBDL responded to you because I value the fullness of the discourse. I can still see it. Anyone who goes to my blog can still see it. I'm very mystified by the fact that you can't see your response when everyone else can, but I think it should be acknowledged publicly that your point about them deleting your response is a lie you could have fact-checked by asking someone outside of your circle. You have not edited this post to reflect that was a mistake on your part and was the crucx of you deciding to stop engaging in conversation with MBDL in the first place.

However, your quick nature to dismiss criticisms of your posts both above, and in other posts, as "you attacking their faves" or "other fans who only watch shows for shipping" is as dismissive and gaslighting as the work you accuse MBDL of. This Nov. 5 post of yours includes the following quote:

ULTIMATELY, Nihilistic: what we are dealing with regarding your concern, as fans and/or critics of Series Y shows, is a conflict of values, among critical fans like ourselves, other fans who only watch shows for romance and shipping, and the economic bottom lines of the studios/agencies themselves. Some of us just want narratively good scripts, like Bad Buddy or He's Coming To Me. Others are content with having a show end with their fave pairs confirmed together in the end, no matter the process of how they got there.

This dismissal of people who disagree with your definition of good writing and good scripts is the kind of historical conversation and tone from your posts that suggests that you are a critical consumer of content and others who have different opinions are not. Much like you accused MBDL of using "we" to deflect from his own opinion, your use of "us" and "others" repeatedly in that piece gives an us/them perspective. Other is a very othering word, when others is used as a pronoun. Us lets you know you're in the in group, with the taste makers, others lets you know you're not allowed.

From the post that you're concerned was vague-blogged on, which is part of a lager conversation of Spare Me Your Mercy, and Thai writing in general, you said the following:

It seems to me that the fantasies of the fans are worth more, as an investment by GMMTV and other studios in Thailand, than actual artistic material that focuses on queerness at this point. Capitalism and mainstreaming go very well hand-in-hand when there's money to be made, and this, to me, speaks loudly to the excellent points that Shan has made above about really great queer art being anathema to center- and conservative-mainstreams. We're getting less of really great queer art in Thailand, because the dampening of queerness in Thai shows might very well mean more bucks for the studios. Finally, a last point about capitalism that I'd like to make. I've been seeing a rising number of posts and comments taking Tumblr bloggers to task for being critical (like, objectively critical) of bad shows. Many folks don't want to read criticism of their fave shows and stars. I want to note that if one takes this position -- the capitalists have won again. If you're someone who's trying to prevent critical takes from being published, well, you got got by the capitalists -- the studios, the managers who want you to be so in love with your faves that you will ponder asking a writer to censor themselves from making a critical take. You might feel ownership of your blorbo, protective of your favorite star. Those critical takes may feel, to you, like a takedown of your fave.

Again this is highly dismissive and rejects any critism of your takes as people who are just into shipping or faves. Similar to your criticism of the use of the term we in MBDL's post, here you use the term "one" here is short for anyone or everyone. You're claming anyone who disagrees with YOUR version of good writing and good scripts has been "got" by capitalism. (To be fair, I still don't know what your definition of good writing and good scripts are, and I've read all of your posts, as well as Ben's and Shan's and Twig-Tea's. So far I've got a list of common Thai tropes and themes that you don't approve of, and a tonality that is bothersome to you. Which is fair that you don't like it, but you catagorize those as bad and others as good.) Some people enjoyed the shows you didn't, and that's fine. Some of it they thought the scripts were good. Some of it they thought they weren't but enjoyed it anyway. As you stated in the above post this is your opinion and your blog, which is fair. But dismissing people who disagree with you as being got by capitalism and saying things like "ownership of your blorbo" which is to say that that's the only reason someone might like something, or that the only thing that people can like is high art and good scripts is frankly rude. And it's not even like you live up to your own standard. As you stated in the November 5th post:

Now, out of even MORE transparency, I am watching the MESS that is Kidnap right now, and listen, it's NOT GOOD. I'm fucking not even writing about it anymore, I'm just reblogging the sessy gifs. I am watching it to support Ohm Pawat, and am hoping that this partnership with Leng Thanaphon will hopefully lead to better scripts.... somewhere. (Or at least, better scripts for Ohm at a place like One31 or Channel 3. I also hope Ohm keeps up his anti-branded pair stance, but if GMMTV forces him to pair permanently with Leng, it won't be a fucking surprise, and more on that below.)

We're going to ignore that One31 is also owned by the same corporation as GMMTV here for a second, the money flows to the same overlord. We will also ignore that Jes Jespipat has stated that he wanted to leave Channel 3 for BOC, which his managment team, who is also owned by the same corporation as GMMTV and One31, because he felt BOC was full of like-minded people when it came to quality and production. Those are all easily serchable facts as is the fact that One31 and Channel 3 are mass market channels while GMMTV is a teen/ya market channel.

Those facts aside, I think it's really disingenous to suggest that you as a person are capable of distingishing between good writing and bad writing, because you a person with values, and then sometimes watch bad writing for your love of Ohm Pawat, (and who are we kidding, we all tuned in to Kidnap originally because Ohm Pawat had been returned to us). But the idea that you are capable of this thought, and actively choosing, and the way you stated above that anyone who rebutts your takes "got got by the capitalists" (bold is yours, see above and the post) if they tuned into a show for their faves that you didn't like, or thought was bad, that means they weren't doing the same kind of thinking you did around Kidnap. Or that the only way to distinguish what is good and what isn't is your way.

And the worst part of all of this is, lurkingshan and you, misrepresented the article that interviewed the screen writer, Lux and Sammon, and even @benkaben's essay for your own agenda in the post you're referring to. The exact stuff you're accusing MBDL of doing.

Benkaben's initial post that's also linked in lurnkingshan's post, focuses on the fact that there's a comment in the interview that conflates Shipping, Romance, Fanservice with NC scenes and suggests that it makes a work less serious. For those of you who won't link through to the original article, here's benkaben's words:

And hey, you don't need NC scenes for that! No, sexual intimacy is not the only thing that "proves" a romance exist. I mean heck, you could even go all the way around and have all the NC scenes in the world and still present a story where the characters aren't in love with each other, because sex ≠ romance. Absolutely. But also I'm, really tired™, of this idea that any kind of sex portrayed in media is only going to "taint" the final composition. As If sex and love stories were some dirty stain that automatically made the work lesser: Less serious, less formal, less dramatic. I don't agree with the idea that you have to sacrifice intimacy in order to be taken seriously. I don't agree with the idea that sex is by default, just fanservice and therefore it's portrayal subtracts automatically from the story.

The quote that Benkaben is referring to from the original translation is as follows, just in case you're wondering: (I am not fluent in thai and am trusting the translator understood the majority of what was said)

“Sammon's novels are primarily BL and include numerous love scenes. However, we deliberately chose not to present it as a BL story. While the characters are two men in love, we approached it with a dark drama style. The characters are gay, but we don’t offer fan service in every episode or include NC (explicit) scenes. This has been the plan from the beginning. Our decision to omit NC scenes wasn’t influenced by censorship, airtime, or the actors. It’s because the themes we are addressing are heavy and serious. NC scenes would detract from the story’s focus, which is the dark drama and euthanasia. Some fans of the novel might be disappointed, but we believe there’s other enjoyment to be found in the series, even without NC scenes.

The screenwriter states very clearly and explicitly that this was not censorship, airtime or the actors. It was not for the audience or what you can do on Thai television or giving in to the conservatives as lurkingshan argued. Lux said because the themes they were focusing on were heavy and serious, she felt fanserivce and sex detracted from the concept of euthenasia and dark drama.

In fact, I am going to pull out and highlight this line again:

The characters are gay, but we don’t offer fan service in every episode or include NC (explicit) scenes. This has been the plan from the beginning.

In this way, the screenwriter of Spare Me Your Mercy agrees with your main complaint about Thai BL in general that you spent a solid time going in on, that shows are focused on fan service over storytelling. The decision to remove the NC scenes and anything very romatnic, in the directors view, was to comply with your argument of removing fanservice in favor of storytelling.

Additionally, in this post, which prompted lurkingshan's post, you stated:

And — I believe it was also disingenuous to the two previously adapted Sammon stories of Manner of Death and Triage as well, as both of those dramas were able to hold both mystery and romantic storylines to excellent ends, with wonderful touches of intimacy along the way (MaxTul couch scene, my beloved).

Meanwhile, in the translated interview, that @slayerkitty posted Lux did discuss Sammon's thoughts:

When we spoke with the original author, she was also very supportive of this shift because she also wants to highlight the theme of euthanasia. While she herself is a Sao Y and a writer of BL novels, she understands the adaptation’s focus.

And I was honestly very confused by your post this week adding fan service is the downfall and the cause of censorship (which the director of Spare Me Your Mercy said it was not as stated above), because the director of Spare Me Your Mercy ultimately agreed that shows deserve to have a good script and not be beholden to fanservice. You disagree that his script is good. But that's his argument here.

I was even deeper horrified by this line in lurkingshan's post, which ties back to a previous post of yours:

I appreciated her clarity that despite the show receiving strong ratings and finding popularity with the mainstream domestic audience, that doesn't actually make it a success as a piece of narrative storytelling. And if anything, its popularity underlines why it was a failure as a queer narrative, in particular.

The overwhelming Western paternalism here that suggests that if something is popular in conservative countries and not in the greater queer world means it's a failure as a queer story...That's the statement there: It's popularity underlines why it was a faiulre as a queer narrative.

I think a lot about Casey McQuiston's work, a queer author in America who was raised in some of the most conservative parts of this country. Their work, specifically I Kissed Shara Wheeler is a love letter to queer folx who grew up in conservative communties who LOVE the communties they were raised in, even if that community couldn't fully love them back. I think a lot about all of the boy loves that were turned into bromances in Korea to make the bottom line so that something like Love in the Big City could get made. I think a lot about the amount of money and capital and power it takes to get a story made that a country doesn't want to get told: Saint mortgaged his house to open an entirely QL production house and make the first major GL in Thailand because no one would finance it, The author and director of Meet Me at the Blossom also put her house, and frankly her freedom, on the line to make that show. Because while we'd like to separate the art from capitalist structures, as long as we are living in a captialist world, we are going to have to find ways to both work within the system and resist it. There's a lot of jokes made about how to keep the serious tone of The Eclipse in it's serious true art vibe of telling a very serious story about the deadly nature of the closet and internalized homophobia, that Vice Versa had to have Lay's rain from the sky, because someone had to bring in the money to the company from advertisments to have The Eclipse have the cleaner vibe.

To quote the post by lurkingshan again:

High quality, well-executed, honest and authentic queer art is more likely to be protested than celebrated in places where real queer people are not safe to live free lives.

What makes queer art high-quality, well-executed, honest and authentic? What makes a place safe to live free lives?

In the US? Pose was a beautiful love letter to the Black and latinx trans community, looking at the history of Ballroom in the US in the 1980s. It was succesful in this country, as much of Ryan Murphy's work is. However, it is not safe for the Black and latinx trans communtiy to live in the United States of America. We've got the anti-trans legislation tracker and the HRC had identified 36 murders of Trans and Non-Binary people as of November 30th 2024, disproportionately Black trans women. They acknowldge this is an incomplete account due to: many deaths often go unreported or misreported, or misgendering of victims leads to delays in their identification. This does not even get into the systematic ways in which the queer community as a whole, but the Black queer community in general, is prevented from accessing key resources like housing and jobs with a livable wage.

The US is not a safe country for queer people to live free lives, not as a whole. I live in a Blue state, and am queer and a married to my queer partner. We are not fully out. We are not fully realized as queer humans. Very few queer people in this world live fully out, fully realized lives, due to colonialism and Imperialism. And that's what your argument largely fails to do, is account for the overlay of Western ideals onto non-Western media.

You state loudly that you want good Asian art, like Asian art should be a monolith. It is not for people who are not Thai to decide what good Thai art is, which is why you and lurkingshan do with quotes like this:

I appreciated her clarity that despite the show receiving strong ratings and finding popularity with the mainstream domestic audience, that doesn't actually make it a success as a piece of narrative storytelling. And if anything, its popularity underlines why it was a failure as a queer narrative, in particular.

This is, in my opinion, but you'd have to ask MBDL because he's not allowed to reply to this without violating your wishes, what he was responding to by the following:

"I just wanted to create a post that made people whose queer tastes diverge from others feel welcome to their own preferences and appreciate that there’s not a single stance in the queer BL fandom about what qualifies as good and/or queer work."

People like MBDL and @le-trash-prince, who are also queer, enjoyed the allegorical queer storytelling of Spare Me Your Mercy. The three gay men who you referenced above did not. That's...fine. that's the whole point of MBDL's message, queer people are not a monolith that all agree.

The people of Thailand, overall, enjoyed Spare Me Your Mercy. There is no way to poll what straight or queer Thai people specifically thought, but it's a key piece of the puzzle that Thai people enjoyed this show. Because that's the base audience. That's who they made it for.

But when you say, and I quote this post again: We're getting less of really great queer art in Thailand, because the dampening of queerness in Thai shows might very well mean more bucks for the studios.

You have decided that Thai shows are not great queer art any longer, and that they are dampening queerness off of the critisms of We Are and Perfect 10 Liners, that have been prevalent from your circle. I'll link this one @twig-tea wrote and another one @bengiyo wrote specifically, which comment on shows created by a queer Thai man, and the writing decisions for Spare Me Your Mercy, which were made using an argument you yourself use to suggest that shows shouldn't engage with imagined couples and fan-service. And while these are your opinions, you also, as I have quoted above, stated that:

Finally, a last point about capitalism that I'd like to make. I've been seeing a rising number of posts and comments taking Tumblr bloggers to task for being critical (like, objectively critical) of bad shows. Many folks don't want to read criticism of their fave shows and stars. I want to note that if one takes this position -- the capitalists have won again. If you're someone who's trying to prevent critical takes from being published, well, you got got by the capitalists -- the studios, the managers who want you to be so in love with your faves that you will ponder asking a writer to censor themselves from making a critical take.

I want to be clear, that MBDL writing a statement about how there are many ways to depict and appreciate queer stories is not saying you can't be critical. It's saying that there are alternative views. People saying if you hate GMMTV, maybe don't watch, are saying you seem to be miserable watching this, you can stop any time.

The thing people are rejecting in your critiques are not that you did not like something, that's fine. It is the sweeping statements that there is a right and a good way to make queer art, and everything else shouldn't be engaged with because it's ruining the genre or selling out to capitalist interests (as stated in the above linked Spare Me Your Mercy post by lurkingshan and yourself, and We Are posts twig-tea and bengiyo). Your words across all of these posts, and this one directed at MBDL are about policing other peoples actions and putting your values onto them. That is the core of toxic fandom. Expecting everyone to engage with it exactly the way you want to.

I'm of the opinion that what's good for queer Thai television is not for foriegn audiences to decide, ultimately. That's for queer Thai people to decide. And some of them may not want to make the greatest queer Thai television, some people may want to make fun queer Thai television, or silly queer Television. And that's also a wonderful thing.

Which is at the core of the argument that Dr. Thomas Baudinette started. Dr. Thomas Baudinette stated the following:

He does not state fully what those anti-social practices are. Are some of them likely toxic shipping, yes. But there's also toxic solo stans. (I do take Dr. Thomas Baudinette with a grain of salt because I also know he's a white academic speaking about a community he's not actually fully part of, and I would like to learn more about what Thai and Japanese and Korean fans think.) But his wording suggests that Thai fans are being influenced by fans of other markets: in your post you discuss the TayGun kiss of it all and there's this quote:

In this case, I would like to note that while we see GMMTV reducing blatant queer perspectives and frameworks from their shows, and promoting friend-ships or bro-ships, in the case of High School Frenemy and the SkyNani branded pair, we see GMMTV's (and Thai BL's) rise continue to grow in certain Asian countries (like China, Malaysia, and Indonesia, among others) that do not allow for public displays of queerness, among other restrictions. GMMTV does not hold branded pair fan meetings in these countries, and yet, these countries are some of the channel's biggest markets for its queer shows and pairs. As well, these countries (I am part-Malaysian myself) do not have public programs of sex education. Thus, if I am to assume that the majority fan bases of these shows are young folks in countries that do not offer robust sex education, then these young folks (of any gender) might not be inclined to join in and participate in conversations about queer equality. We, thus, get the outcry that occurred after Tay and Gun smooched. God forbid fantasies were to have been destroyed because two real-life people kissed. Two men, kissing, outside of the context of their branded pairs and outside the context of a drama. Some people have never been to the club before.

To the first part, GMMTV is not reducing their blatant queer perspectives in their shows. That is factually untrue. They've added more QLs (which at GMMTV are always romances) and queer strands in their non-BLs. In fact, the number of queer shows in 2019 was 3 (2 QL and 3 Will Be Free). The number of shows with QL in 2024 was 12 plus queer themes in an aditional 3 shows. That is an increase of 5 times more queer content in 2024 than in 2019. (source: MyDramaList - filtered for GMM25 and then removing anything not produced through GMMTV). This does not touch on how many of the writers and directors for GMMTV are queer people under the age of 40 sharing their perspectives. Now you don't have to like those queer perspectives but they're not getting less queer. In fact, for the 2025 wave, which did not show a reduction in queer perspectives, but in fact showed a proposed total of 15 BLs, 2 GLs, 1 het (oh Nanon's never coming back), 1 mixed stories with some VERY explicitly queer sections, 1 SkyNani bromance, with 4 BL still outstanding, 1 GL set to air in two weeks, and 6 outstanding non-BLs from the 2024 Up and Above announcements. Second, You conflate the lack of acess to public programs of sexual education to a lack of inclination to join and participate in discussions around queer equity. You then use the word Thus to show causation from lack of access to public programs of sex education and repression of queer people to people having meltdowns over TayGun kissing. Lack of education is not why fans don't have boundaries and can't accept their fantasy bubble being broken. I promise you, Taylor Swift fans yelling at her ex boyfriends over her songs are not doing so because of lack of education about sexual ethics. It's about ownership, which is the heart of the anti-capitalist message you espouse. We allow fans worldwide, not just in specific Asian countries to behave badly becaues they've bought a product of a brand.

The concept of toxic fans is not new nor singular to Thai BL media. @chaos0pikachu has one of my favorite rundowns ever on how the tin hats existed in bandom (and GLEE) before Thai BL was ever a thing. I didn't survive Glee and the loss of Chris Colfer as an actor for us to pretend that the people who do this kind of toxic shit for us to pretend that CPs are the cause. I certainly didn't watch Once Upon A Time fans tweet @ Colin O'Donoghue they hoped his pregnant wife would just die so he could be free to be with Jennifer Morrison for us to pretend this is a BL problem. I definitely didn't watch people harrass Rafael Silva and Ronen Rubenstein out of posting their friendship as a gay and a bi man acting together because the assumption was they were having an affiar behind Ronen's partner's back for us to pretend this was a Thai BL problem due to CPs. I did not watch a bunch of people use interviews promoting the show and the fact that they kiss well to say that Jacob Anderson and Sam Reid are having an affair for us to pretend CPs make this problem.

This problem exists with or without branded pairings, but is entirely tied to idol culture and the objectification of celebrity brand and the intrenchment in being a "Stan" and we've completely lost the plot, Eminem. I still think about regularly Katy Perry asking Stevie Nicks who her rivals were, and Stevie Nicks saying she didn't have rivals but contemporaries. Modern fan culture, globally, in the social media era is set up for rivals: the Swifties, the Bey-Hive, the Katy-Cats, the Barbs, Army etc. Fan culture is like this, and without fans participating in the isolation and ignoring of these people they will continue to harrass and attack people, because as Wicked reminds us, the best way to unite people is to give them a common enemy.

I don't know if you watched the disaster that was Korean netizens sending funeral wreaths to be set up in front of SM building for the member of RII7E who tried to return after fans stalked him to catch him engaging in inappropriate behavior and dug up a middle school girlfriend, which was allowed by the company. I do believe some of this is what he's referring to by anti-social behavior. One of the most horrifying acts of behavior against a GMMTV artist was someone getting into Fluke Nattanon's car and refusing to get out. Like...that's the scariest shit. That shit should be handled. That had nothing to do with shipping culture, and everything to do with a company not enforcing boundaries.

Any time and I mean any time, a person feels that they have the right to objectify a person and control them, that is both NEVER okay and is also NEVER the fault of the person who is being treated that way. No amount of branded pairing is responsible for toxic fans who don't have boundaries. Should the companies do something about them, yes, and that's what Dr. Baudinette is referring to.

To quote @wen-kexing-apologist's essay on objectification of Asian men which you linked in the post on Spare Me Your Mercy:

We all need to, but white Westerners especially, be extremely careful and introspective with the ways we are engaging with queer Asian media

And I take this very seriously. I think it applies not just to the objectification and commodification of the actors, as wen-kexing-apologist wrote about, but also applies to the infantilization and removal of agency of the writers, directors, actors and audiences in Asian countries who are engaging in the process of making and enjoying queer Asian art, suggesting they are not active participants in the process. It is not for interfans to talk over Thai writers, directors, actors and fans of what is and is not true for them and their country's work around queer Thai art.

The long and the short of it, is if you're going to post opinions as facts and undercut anyone who disagrees with you: on what is and what isn't good Asian media, what is and isn't good Thai media, what is and is not queer media, and how people should measure it, and other queer people say out loud: we don't have to all measure queer media the same way and we can have different opinions, and this is your response...I honestly wish you peace.

Clearing The Air On This Wack-Ass Event Of Toxic Fandom That My Brown Ass Was Recently Dragged Into

(*References and endnotes are posted in the comments.)

This past weekend, I was unwittingly brought into an event of toxic fandom instigated by @maybe-boys-do-love. The following is an account of that event, and a rebuttal to misrepresentations that he made in his posts.

1) Chronology of Events and Clarification of Communication, Connections, and Blocks

Late last week, @lurkingshan posted a thought piece about separating art and commerce in discussions of queer shows, and talked, in part, about Spare Me Your Mercy and the show's ratings popularity in Thailand as compared to its narrative shortcomings. The piece also talks about the artistic success, versus the public outcry, of the South Korean queer show, Love In The Big City. I, and a few others, reblogged the post with thought pieces of our own. (If you are interested in following along, reading the second link is a necessity.)

Tumblr user @maybe-boys-do-love subsequently posted, separately on his blog, a reaction post to Shan's post and my reblog of her post (1). His reaction contained misreads and dangerous misrepresentations of Shan's and my writing.

Shan and @maybe-boys-do-love had previously mutually blocked each other (2). Therefore, @maybe-boys-do-love went around the block to react to Shan's post.

He did not make clear to his audience that he was reacting to Shan's post. He wrote his reaction post without citing or linking to Shan's post, and did not tag me as well, thus removing both myself and Shan from a discourse that we had instigated, and prevented his audience from knowing or understanding his reference point for his reaction.

Mutuals reached out to me with @maybe-boys-do-love's piece, having previously read Shan's and my posts.

I DMed @maybe-boys-do-love to note to him that I had seen his post, and that I preferred to be tagged directly in discourse. I wrote that I would write today's post as a means of correcting the incorrect assumptions he made about my opinions. I also checked with @lurkingshan to make her aware of the post and ask if she wanted to be included in a response. Shan stated that she had already blocked @maybe-boys-do-love for previous instances where he indirectly vague-posted about her and misrepresented her writing, and that she had no interest in responding, but was fine with me doing so.

I then publicly reblogged @maybe-boys-do-love's reaction post with a clarifying note, sharing the link to Shan's original post and my reblog of our original SMYM discourse. I noted publicly that his reaction post contained misreads and inaccuracies that I will be clarifying today.

@maybe-boys-do-love deleted my reblog. I do not see my original reblog of his reaction post in his reblog notes. Mutuals confirmed, from their blogs, that they also cannot see my original reblog of his reaction post.

I requested to him by DM that he reinstate my reblog. He did not. He reblogged my reblog from my own blog (sorry, y'all) with a response to me and a general defense of his original reaction post.

He denied in DMs that he had deleted my reblog. I stated that I didn't believe him, and requested for our DM conversation to end (3).

2) Toxic Fandom and Expectations of Personal Accountability in Public Forums

Before I get into the nitty-gritty of responding to @maybe-boys-do-love's reaction post, I want to take a quick second to talk about toxic fandom and accountability, because it's been a topic bubbling up particularly in the world of the fandom of Asian, and specifically Thai, QLs. My public and private conversations with @maybe-boys-do-love about this reaction incident, prior to this post's publication, have been filled with a kind of noxious disingenuousness and deceit that has given me the damn creeps.

I've had tussles with other bloggers before about our disagreements of the art and economics of Asian QLs. The discourse has been almost always so much fun, often argumentative, sometimes gritty, sometimes passive aggressive, and sometimes parasocial involving the celebrities and creators of these shows.

I have always kept discourse respectful, and I pride myself with integrity on responding to any point that has been shot my way. I have been blocked for my takes, and I have encouraged others to block me if my takes are not to their liking, and they attack me for them. I encourage folks who don't like my takes to curate their Tumblr experiences, and take agency for what they agree with and want to read.

If I rant about someone's potential faves -- someone's fave shows or couples -- I put trigger warnings on those posts (here and here are two examples, and the most immediate link above also has a TW), knowing there's a lot of sensitivity out there over content. I trust the judgement of readers to read those trigger warnings and to skedaddle.

In other words, I take full responsibility and accountability for my writing, and I expect my readers to engage with me in good faith in return. I'm proud of the critical posts I've made over the last two and a half years here on Tumblr, especially my exploration of the history of the Thai BL genre through my Old GMMTV Challenge project.

I posted recently that the Asian QL scholar, Dr. Thomas Baudinette, believes that the number one threat to the growth of the Thai BL industry is toxic fandom and the prioritization of problematic markets.

It's funny that I posted that a few days before this incident happened. The specific elements of toxic behavior as demonstrated by @maybe-boys-do-love, as stated above, are that he

a) subverted blocks to read and respond to Shan's post without citing her, b) he did not clarify for his audience what he was reacting to, thus rendering untruthful his real intentions in writing his post, and c) his actual reaction post contained misreads and misinterpretations of Shan's and my analysis.

I'd like to name some elements of toxic behavior and fandom that occurred in the public communication I had with @maybe-boys-do-love to highlight them in order to emphasize the disrespectful nature of this incident.

In his reblog of my clarification post to his original reaction post, @maybe-boys-do-love writes,

"I also want to respect that not everyone wants to get involved in a back-and-forth on here."

Because of previous DMs, reblogs, tags, and comments on and of my work that @maybe-boys-do-love has made, I know that he is very familiar with my blog and my writing. We have previously communicated publicly and privately. I do not know why he would make an assumption that I would not have wanted to be tagged in his original reaction post, reacting inaccurately to points I made in my Spare Me Your Mercy post, considering that he and I have a public history of prior engagement. 

This assumption (remember the adage about assuming…) makes so little sense to me that I can only conclude he is coming from a stance of a disingenuous and untruthful defense.

More concerning, @maybe-boys-do-love follows with:

"I just wanted to create a post that made people whose queer tastes diverge from others feel welcome to their own preferences and appreciate that there’s not a single stance in the queer BL fandom about what qualifies as good and/or queer work."

Again, as @maybe-boys-do-love is familiar with my blog, I do not know why he would assume that my work is insular so as to not welcome different perspectives and discourse on my opinions -- as he and I had actually engaged, in the past, on our opinions of other content, and that there is overwhelming proof on my blog that I love engaging in discourse with others.

The statement that "there's not a single stance in the queer BL fandom" about my work is disingenuous, disrespectful, and toxic.

If it's not clear in the most obvious way -- and it may not be clear to some -- I am a personal blogger, posting my opinions and analysis, on a personal blog. My blog isn't Encyclopedia fucking Brittanica.

@maybe-boys-do-love indicates in his reblog that his mutuals helped him get around his and Shan's blocks. 

He also identifies as a "flaming gay guy" to characterize his position for his love of Spare Me Your Mercy, leading him to go around the blocks to comment on Shan's original post.

"Friends of mine shared the post with me knowing the love I, as a flaming gay guy, had for Spare Me Your Mercy."

I want to note that in the context of this characterization, I myself reached out to three gay male friends (one Asian friend, and two white friends married to each other). (There's nothing that IRL people love more than an Internet beef.) These three individuals range on the flaming spectrum, and assured me that @maybe-boys-do-love's position does not count as spoken monolithically for the gay male community (4).

Which leads me to my last point (for now) about toxic fandom. As iterated above: these Tumblr blogs we write on are personal blogs, homes to personal opinions, created by individuals.

The danger of trying to leverage group-think or group-speak to validate toxic opinions and toxic engagement with others is high within fandom discourse. I see it all the time on X in BL shipper circles. Maybe @maybe-boys-do-love's friends were too cowardly to write reaction posts of their own, and asked their friend to write one on their behalf. If that's the case, @maybe-boys-do-love can show us the receipts. But I'm guessing that didn't happen.

Within group and family therapy arenas, and human relations and business environments, counseling often focuses on "I-speak" -- the practice of using the "I" pronoun to claim accountability for facts, opinions, recounting of details, and so on. Using the "we" pronoun to justify a position -- without identifying who your "we" is -- weakens a stance, and at the same time, creates panic and fear within a group or community. It's a tactic often used in gaslighting or supremacist situations to generate collective fear over incorrect facts and threats.

This tactic is useless in a scenario like this, when there is ample published proof that @maybe-boys-do-love published a misrepresentative reaction post that did not link to the original source, deceiving his audience; he subsequently tried to monolithically speak for others, and to leverage and claim community to justify his doing so. It's wrong, it's disingenuous, and it's toxic.

I wouldn't want this guy speaking for me, and I hope readers of this post wouldn't want him to, either.

3) Responding to Misrepresented Points in MBDL's Reaction Post

Note: Much of @maybe-boys-do-love's reaction post reacted to points that @lurkingshan made about Spare Me Your Mercy and the Asian QL genre. I have consulted with Shan on my responses and she has approved them.

My entire rebuttal is long. An abridged version is below, and the entire rebuttal is linked here at this private link.

I want to start my response to misrepresented points in @maybe-boys-do-love's reaction post by highlighting the most noxious misread he made. He writes,

"and just a friendly reminder that a simple BL romcom is equally as queer of a story as a story about HIV."

Much of @maybe-boys-do-love's reaction post seemed magically conjured out of his ass to assume or imply that certain points were made by @lurkingshan when they were most certainly not.

NOT ONCE IN @lurkingshan's POST WAS LOVE IN THE BIG CITY DESCRIBED AS A "STORY ABOUT HIV." IN FACT, HIV WAS NEVER MENTIONED AT ALL, BY ANYONE, IN THE ORIGINAL POST, OR ANY OF THE REBLOGS AND ADDITIONS.

That was a heinous and noxious misread and reduction of @lurkingshan's post, wholly inaccurate and misrepresentative of the tone and content of Shan's original writing, and more revealing about him and his perspectives about the shows, than anyone he was pretending to fight.

And nowhere in @lurkingshan's original post did she claim that a BL romcom was not as "equally as queer" as any other story.

I want to respond specifically to an analysis of capitalism and markets that I made in my reblog of Shan's post, that @maybe-boys-do-love then reacted to.

"just a reminder, if we wanna talk about capitalism, that the whole idea of a work being better or worse, queerer or less queer, more valuable or less valuable based on it’s reception in numbers (either higher or lower) is not something Marx and Engels would be into, since they ascribed to exchange value over use value. The labor put into the work is where it’s at—and all of these shows had plentiful hours of (queer) labor put into them! But not everyone who talks about the wrongs of capitalism on here is actually interested in the finer details of how capitalism operates, the full political and economic realities of the companies making these shows, nor the individuals who are forced to fight for change within capitalism’s global structure."

This was such a convoluted, random, and inaccurate reaction to my post that I had to send it to a family member who is an actual professional economist (again, remember, IRL people love internet beefs) (5). He assured me that Karl Marx and Fredreich Engels would NOT have wanted to get tangled up in this beef.

But, anyway. I'm not a communist, and when I speak about capitalism and the markets to which Asian QL content is marketed to, I'm not analyzing the quantity of labor put into these shows that needs to be exchanged on the various Asian markets in order for the shows to be made. That's a very specific sightline into production budgets that maybe tingles @maybe-boys-do-love's brain. I think he was just trying to sound smart.

I want to be clear that he reacted to nothing I wrote in my post. This was a made-up stream of something that only established how he watches and judges shows.

But because I used the word "capitalism" in my post to talk about how GMMTV and other studios are addressing queerness and queer perspectives in their shows, @maybe-boys-do-love found reason to take issue with my writing, and to assume an air of intellectualism to establish a false sense of superiority -- by posting drivel.

All responses can be found at this link.

4) Conclusion and a Public Request to Respect Boundaries

As I wrote above: I wrote this post to make a public record of rebuttal against misinterpretations made about my writing by @maybe-boys-do-love.

I will publicly request that @maybe-boys-do-love do not contact me again. Do not reblog, tag, or comment on my posts.

If I have to block @maybe-boys-do-love, I will. However, I want the ability to read any further reaction he might have to this rebuttal, especially if he continues to besmirch my writing inaccurately and disingenuously.

As he demonstrated that he could not respect Shan's boundaries prior to this incident, I will say publicly now:

RESPECT MY BOUNDARIES.

And I want to thank the many mutuals who reached out to me during this incident to offer your support, and to notify me that this public incident of misrepresentation was taking place.

[raycatz]

some more LU things that throw me for a loop,,

An artist I follow, wilimia, started a LU dnd AU, and then mentioned wanting to make it it's own thing. Shortly after, they received an ask,

"I'd be down for un lu-ing the dnd boys cause I got lu blocked ad hate how it affects most links meet aus, so yeah. If you do that I'd reach non lu audience. Most loz fandom doesn't follow lu blogs"

and idk, I get it, but it's also hard to read. So much of Wilimia's art is LU. It seems like something they found, and still do, find joy in creating for--and for years, too--longer than I've been in the fandom. "Most loz fandom doesn't follow lu blogs." Most loz fandom wouldn't have any interest in the majority of the art Wilimia's shared? Anon would prefer it to be non-lu? It reads to me a little like putting down or dismissing the art just because it's LU. Wilimia's art is amazing. I admire it so much. Their ideas are wonderful, too. And like many other pieces of LU fanart, there's a lot of exploration of comparing and contrasting the games, or analyzing the games, borrowing the LU cast, without explicit connection to the events of the comic itself. So much incredible creativity missed, because it is LU. LU's not for everyone. To each their own, I guess.

But I feel like so much interesting insight into the games is lost if LU fanwork is disregarded simply for being LU.

I also struggle with feeling like I have to choose an audience. I have ideas for pre-LU comics that would tell stories of fun moments from the games, during an adventure--but I want to use the LU heroes because I care more for those interpretations of Link. I'm blending my own game experience and opinion of that Link with what's been provided by the fandom.

I think the stories are fun and worth sharing! However, what tag do I use? It's the Linked Universe design and character, but it's also me, but it's also not Linksmeet or the LU adventure, really. It's LU, it's not LU, it's gen loz, it's both. And yet you'd get scolded for posting LU in the gen loz tags. I feel as though I must choose a side.

For example: there's a moment in OoS where a woman asks you to help her in exchange for a shovel. I got the shovel and then immediately dug up the entire map chunk surrounding her house. It would make for a good comic! But do I make it LU inspired or gen loz? I'd probably use a slightly more generic design for Link (Legend) anyways because he would be younger. Honestly, I could probably get away with barely changing the design at all, tag it as gen loz, and be praised for it.

There's a huge double standard when it comes to LU and Linksmeets. Both argue that not everyone has played all the games. All the interpretations and designs are unique and, at times, should be read as their own aus without worrying too much about adherence to the game or specific comic canon. Characterization and knowledge varies by writer. At the same time, no one person owns specific design elements or traits. Don't worry too much about being too similar. Let people make what they want. Every new instance adds to the wider understanding of the character and is therefore valuable.

Yet, by the people who dislike LU and its fandom and favor other Linksmeets, in LU fandom it's seen as an excuse, and in Linksmeets and gen loz it's seen as a strength.

The character of my comic could barely be LU Legend, and yet if it is LU even in name only, it is disregarded and unwelcome. The character could draw strong influence from Jojo's designs or LU fandom, and if I change one thing only but claim it as my own, it would be praised and defended.

Analysis and discussion in the LU fandom (especially from around 2020) brought me a better appreciation and understanding of the heroes and game similarities then any other kind of online fan created material had.

So for my mini comic- and going off of the anon's ask- what do I do?

I want my work to be seen. I feel like it is valuable to be seen by anyone who enjoys the games. I want to inspire people who see the comic to think more about the games and to create. I don't particularly care through what lense they connect with my gen loz / nebulously LU work--if they apply the situation to their own game experience, gen loz, or to any Linksmeet--if my work has connected with someone- has broadened someone's understanding of a game or character- then my goal has been met. Obviously use the correct tags and credit where credit it due, but if I am making pre-adventure or gen loz stuff, then I want to inspire. Write fic! Add the headcanon to your own! Just like- if you make something based off an idea of mine, include me! We are all building off of each other's stories. It is all inspiration. It's all the same soup.

There is no Linksmeet element. And yet, in my heart, I know the character will become some personal variation of LU Legend, influenced by a variety of fanwork, because that's the interpretation I favor.

If it's tagged gen loz it reaches the broader loz and Linksmeets audiences. If it's tagged LU then it stays within the sub fandom I know and care for. The thing is--it's a pre-adventure story, so it's not solidly one or the other. I don't want to tag it gen loz and have LU fans feel they aren't allowed to think of it as LU Legend. I don't want to tag it as LU and have it be missed by so many people, or have gen loz / linksmeet fans feel they aren't allowed to think to think of it as their own characters either. However, also, why should I be creating for an audience who would disregard so much of my and other's works?

Mina of Mina's Linkverse's recent posts have thrown me for a loop again. She's shared a headcanon post about Twilight Princess Link that delves into how Link, given his background in Ordon, might feel about turning into a wolf. What struggles, but also acceptance and joy, can be found in it. It's beautiful. I'd love to add it as another perspective into my understanding of TP Link--both solely within the game context and also more broadly across a variety of Linksmeets. It's one more way to further appreciate things I already enjoy. However, Mina opened the post with "Dont tag as L/U". Okay, don't tag, but am I allowed to borrow this and apply it to LU Twilight? I relate to it most strongly through that lense. It's a general loz post, and LU is loz. What if I were to apply it to Mina's Fangs, or Em's Wolf, or Frulle's Twilight? If I were to write a LU fic or draw a comic and tagged Mina as inspiration would she take offense? Would it be less of an offense if it was anything but?

Am I as a LU fan allowed to take inspiration from this and put it into LU fanwork? What about LU fanwork that goes more strongly into exploring these themes or situations from the games instead of the comic itself?

It just feels kind of feels like a whole perspective or group is being excluded. I feel like I am being excluded and that I am unwelcome. But, maybe that's just me being an entitled LU fan who thinks everything belongs to them and needs to learn to stay in their lane.

I've considered making multiple versions of the same comic. One that uses the LU design and tag, and one that does not, so that I'm able to reach and be appreciated by both audiences. But, I don't want to have to choose. There would be no difference in the comic but character design and name. And yet, that's all the means necessary to be completely disregarded.

[fl0ralsxgar]

Okay... So im going to make one post about this and one post only.

Ive been having issues in this community because of who i self ship with, thats a very vague way of putting it. Ive been made aware of a situation directly that has both equally caused me to get hate and ive noticed some mutuals of mine ignoring me more ever since it started. Under the cut since this is a long post

Okay just to start off first; clearly this must be a burner or something because going to this account directly, its the default tumblr blog theme with no posts or edited bio or anything. Im not going to respond to hate asks anymore, okay? I shouldnt in the first place but usually i tried to address them just a little, mostly wanting to understand why i was being sent it in the first place, my fault. But still. (I still blocked out the user just in case) just to note, this is not the only hate ive been sent in asks lately. I had to cut anon off again. But ig people will still find workarounds.

Okay. I DO NOT. want to cause ANY discomfort, jealousy, negative feelings, etc, just because of who i self ship with. Im sorry its made people uncomfortable because they share the same f/o but i do what i can to ensure they dont see me. I use the same exact tag on my self ship art and gushes and whatever, i dont interact with them, i have them BLOCKED or vice versa, hell i even try to not interact with their mutuals unless if weve already established being mutuals. I even have directly said- if anyone who follows me is mutuals with someone else who is uncomfortable with people interacting with me (or other daisuke self shippers in general) then you dont need to interact with me, because above all else im TRYING to consider the comfort of other people. I have never once tried to make people forcibly side with me, i have never said anyone else is invalid because of their self ship, i have never wanted anyone to be excluded and even, i encourage people to be mutuals with other daisuke self shippers as i can block said daisuke self shippers and they can be given my tag if need be because everyone deserves support. This has been going on for longer than it needs to tbh, i kept thinking i was the issue, i wanted to leave, but now im just .. upset. Whether its all from the same person or not, idk. But please know that above all else causing anyone to feel negatively because of me has never been my intention. Ive been extremely stressed out over this, feeling guilty and horrible, and sometimes aggravated.

Dont vague post about me if you know your followers and mutuals know who youre referring to. And even then, dont do it without first explicitly making it known that you dont condone hate being sent, but ultimately even if you do say that it wont always stop people. Please stop sending me asks trying to invalidate my self ship when ive never done that to anyone else. If youre mutuals with someone who is not okay with you interacting with me then respect those boundaries, because i am super tired of having to deal with the backlash of things im not even trying to cause. I want everyone to be comfortable, i want everyone to feel safe in their own space. But also i dont even feel comfortable in my own space now. I really dont wanna leave the community again tbh, ive made some close mutuals, i love supporting people, i love making my own self ship art and sharing it. But man, im tired!

Ive tried SO hard to keep this in private. I wanted it to be resolved without public notice. But even after i thought it was settled and resolved it hasnt stopped, and i dont even know if its from various people or not. Only very few people know more deeply whats been going on, and i hate that they were affected because of it too in ways. Whatever is going, just, i want it to chill out. Really. I have no ill will for anyone. If you see this and youre someone who has an issue with me you can dm me, ill talk it out with you.

I truly hope none of this comes off wrong, or aggressive or anything. I mean everything with as much respect as i can considering my current state. No matter what i dont condone harassment. I dont want anyone to be excluded. I want everyone to be supported and happy in their space. So please just know that, and if anything has come off wrong let me know. Maybe, im just not thinking the clearest so some things might seem rude or something. Forgive me if that the case.

Theres been ALOT going on the self ship community and i hope everyone will be okay. Dont worry about this if its too stressful, but if youre someone whose involved in this, i want to work things out. So. Thanks for reading if you did. Take care

[limewashedup]

sketches from the early retirement au ;)

[snapcracklepop-myjoints]

I've been seeing this a lot lately, but a little while ago I mentioned something to do with disability in a discord and someone asked me if I was a "spoonie". Not if I was disabled, but a spoonie. I need y’all to fucking get it into ur heads that disabled is not a dirty word. You can use the term spoonie for yourself all you want, but the second you start imposing it on other people and generally using it in place of the word "disabled", its just another woo-woo euphemism that seeks to soften and make comfortable the vocabulary and concept of disability.

Like at a certain point it becomes clear that a lot of people now are using “spoonie” in the same damn way as “differently abled” or "handicapable". The origin and intent of the term become moot within that usage because what it serves to do is invoke disability euphemistically, obfuscating and softening it in service of compulsory normative able-bodymindedness.

If you want to use that term for yourself, fine. Have fun. It doesn't have these same connotations when its used as a self identifier rather than as a replacement for the word "disabled". But stop applying it to others in place of "disabled" I’m so fucking serious.

[corviiids]

hi rook sorrgy I'm back but I've been thinking about your akeshu as girls genderfuckery tweet for 20 million years. idk if you can share anything in good faith here on the Tumblr corner of the internet (if not then by all means ignore this) but if you did I'd owe you perhaps my entire soul!! thank you very much either way :3

i would LOVE to talk about this thank you so much for asking

[under the cut in case anyone would not like to see genderfuckery stuff]

okay so first of all.

on the topic of boobs

this is important to lead with do you understand. most of the akeshu as girls stuff ive seen around has akc as flat-chested and ren as boobed. and that's valid i support that. but personally. personally to me. i think it's the opposite. tbe reason (well one reason) i think it's the opposite is because i think girlren is a little rat of a creature and akechi who is prim and feminine and perfect is so FUCKING angry about her crush on ren like she's barely surviving it and then this is the nail in the coffin. she's like why can't i stop thinking about that messy unassuming thing. she doesn't even have boobs

my other reasons for tihs are that i think joker is more androgynous charm while akechi is more feminine/masculine duality i think this makes sense to nobody else. i think ren regardless of agab is riding the rail of the gender spectrum 🛹 while akc is collecting extremes of gender presentation like they're pokemon do you understand. are we on the same page here. ren being into drag is important to me for this reason (again regardless of agab). meanwhile akechi having very clear feminine secondary sex characteristics but presenting gradually more and more masculine in terms of clothing/hair/personal style etc. is also extremely important to me. and that includes being biog of tity while her style veers more and more into masc as time goes on

ok

the detective prince

i think girl akechi (at 17-18) presents very femininely because it's what's effective for her. i would call her style................... kawaii corporate chic. does that make sense for everyone. it's like schoolgirl girlboss. she has a bow instead of a tie but it's a very classy one not a kitschy one. smart blazer, uniform pleated skirt, patent leather shoes, u know the drill BUT. people still call her the detective prince. this is VERY IMPORTANT to me. no detective princess. only detective prince. do you understand the importance of the genderfuckery of a super feminine girl being called by masculine terms. to me. we're continuing the legacy set by my hero naoto shirogane bigender queeng. bigender kin. bigender genderneutral non-monarchical ruler

i think by third sem girl akechi is starting to dress more androgynously/masculinely. more pants. i think her third sem outfit is unchanged from canon. just a smart coat, sweater, buttondown, slacks. postcanon she gets a haircut.

just trying to live an honest student life

ren is like so fundamentallyuncomfortable with the fact of his existence at the beginning of canon so to me girlren is like... she dresses like she's trying to hide in her clothes. messy hair. i have no strong feelings about whetehr her hair should be long or short, or whether it's loose or pulled into a tail, but i know it's messsy. untamed curls. and she uses it to hide her face. none of her clothes fit. she's in oversized everything. i have a very clear image in my head of a ren idle animation where she leans down to pull up her leggings because they keep falling down. she also has terrible posture. she's androgynous at this stage not on purpose but because she's too self conscious to like... exist... and present... in any notable way at all

i think as she gets more confident and as the year progresses she starts to dress more distinctively. i like the idea of her getting more comfortable prettying up. maybe working at crossroads helps her with this 🤔 i dont know how to explain this but i think she's still feminine in a gentlemanly chivalrous way rather than a girly cute way. girlren has that same steady calming vibe that guy ren does

joker & crow

crow has a magical girl skirt. i have a drawing of this but im too self conscious about my own lack of drawing skill to show it off so i cropped out the key part and put it into an ms paint void in the distance as my visual aid

there. i hope this is illustrative

i think given girl akechi's use of her feminine charms to gain popularity, her hero complex would be similarly gendered given we have confirmation that robin hood represents not (only) heroics for altruistic reasons but also the theatre of being seen doing good. there's a real drama element to the idea of a magical girl transformation that i honestly wish we got for male crow too. i always am depressed that we don't get to see much theatre for akechi's initial appearance as crow and summoning of robin hood, anyway, girlcrow has ribbons and a capelet that flap in non-existent wind.

black mask's outfit is unchanged from canon. i'd like it to look a little less stupid but that has nothing to do with gender i just want it to look a little less stupid.

joker's outfit is also unchanged from canon. listen. im back on my bullshit. in the metaverse her behaviour gets more feminine and more sly and confident than in reality. she's got that femme fatale shit going on. however, she is still a gentleman thief. she has the long coat. she has the poofy trousers. she has the waistcoat. she's still smirking and fixing her gloves and flipping her knife and doing that thing that canon ren does where he lifts his chin and does the little "come on" thing with her fingers. do you understand? do you understand me

[le-songproj]

Live Emotion Song Spreadsheet Project

I've started putting together a simple spreadsheet of song information for the game in hopes it'll be useful for the various events we get!

Includes: Singer(s), Song Titles, Length, and Note Count for all the difficulties!

It's also color coded by Singer color(s) and the difficulty, PLUS it's set up so the songs involved in the current event will be highlighted for easy comparisons too~

Currently we have: - All current event songs, Easy+Normal+Hard (4/6 have Expert) - All Group/Duo/Trio songs, Easy+Normal (1 has Hard)

I would love to ask for your help filling out things much faster! If you happen to know any note totals for any of the songs (or just have a screenshot of ur score page) please let me know!!!

Hard+Expert notes are most appreciated as I personally only just started doing those higher difficulties after the last event so those will take me the longest for me to get through. But anything and everything you guys can provide regardless of what difficulty is appreciated and will save me so much time!!

Just shoot dm/ask/submission or even reply to this post please and thank you <3

[gjsxj0]

mindless rambling in tags don't mind me

[peridots-pixiwolf]

[Start ID. A digital drawing of Minos Prime from Ultrakill, who's wearing a strapless slit dress and sandals of the same deep purple. He faces towards and slightly to the right of the camera, his head is tilted further right. With one hand he gestures in a vague pointing motion, his arm folded and held close to his body. There is nothing in the background, but bracing himself on one arm, Minos is implied to be leaning against something about the height of a countertop. The background is a blank purplish black, save for three diagonal stripes in the colors of the bisexual flag. End ID]

Shading study that quite literally came to me in a dream two weeks ago, after this post apparently beamed itself into my mind

(also a few edits below the cut! they're very slight but whatever :])

[Start ID. Three different versions of the previous drawing. The first changes the tone of the lighting from blue to pink, and similarly the shading from pink to blue. The second replaces the faint black border with pink, purple and blue, syncing with the stripes in the background. The third combines both these changes. End ID]

[carlyraejepsans]

I’ve started watching Utena because of you. What. Is going on

HI. WELCOME TO THE CLUB, watch the trigger warnings. but yeah, revolutionary girl utena veers more and more towards surrealism the further you get into the series. it often and voluntarily forfeits narrative/logical consistency in favor of visual storytelling, metaphors and symbolism. i was just talking about it with nic the other day, and if the story weren't so harrowing, i would recommend it to everyone who wants to get into literary analysis, because it is SO packed with symbolism EVERYWHERE that it actually encourages you to try to decode it.

whatever you think utena is about, it is NOT. you can't go in and treat it like your 49293th classical shoujo. utena is a firework show of visual symbolism and it very rarely, if ever, explains itself to the viewer. it refuses to handhold you, but it never berates you for trying and getting it wrong either. there is SO much handholding in modern day media, but utena trusts its viewer to take away something meaningful from itself and to piece its message together on their own. it's one of my favourite pieces of media of all time just for that

[secondpersonpoetry]

hi! oh my goodness. i am SO sorry i didn’t say anything earlier. i did read everything a couple days ago, and i Have been chewing on it, rotating it in my mind, etc etc…..and the graphic has been my phone lockscreen since i first read it!!!!!

frankly i am obsessed and have also been a little frazzled this month lol. saw your post late because of the general whirlwind that is december and then couldn’t quite get my thoughts into sufficient words n got worried “oh no would it be weird to say something now…..” which is incredibly silly in retrospect, so sorry for that. 

i’m relatively new to hockey fandom and the Narratives don’t always quite click for me (yet, at least :)) because i don’t know all of the lore for a lot of the popular pairings haha, so it means a lot that you’ve taken time out of your day to break things down for me and share your own thoughts <3 tysm. again, super sorry for the delayed response. i’m very sorry if you felt as though you’d wasted your time or something along those lines :’) just wanted to let you know that i really appreciate you and the time it took you to get everything down and make the graphic!!!! and like i can’t overstate how much your tags both over here and on your other blog have helped me to Get It since the start of this season, so thank you.

but now the house is quiet, the in-laws are gone, and no new work stuff until january :) so i can finally get some stuff down. every point you brought up hits in it own way but gosh you are very incredibly right the mcstrome of it all…..that’s sort of the lens i’ve been listening to the song through since you mentioned it.

the golden boy and the “draft bust” and the ever present notion of “isn’t it all about old friends? like everything? all of it?”.  like idk looking back on a bestfriendship from when you were a teenager that was Super intense and the lines were blurred and maybe realizing (if you hadn’t had the words or the “guts” or awareness or wtv to put a name to it at that point in your life) that y’all were a smidge more than just friends. 

best friends forever until you just aren’t! growing up and growing apart. it’s just the way things go but it can and will ache for a damn long time! you think you’re over it until their birthday or the holidays roll around and you wonder in a distant sort of way who they’re spending it with. what you would’ve hypothetically gotten them as a present if you still spoke. what do they even like nowadays, anyway?

maybe having the friendship end subtly. going from playing and traveling together and living in one another’s pockets to 2,080 miles of distance? (i may have my timeline/details confused here so sorry in advance) texting as much as you can at first but he’s a phenom he’s mcjesus he’s the next in line he’s expected to win the cup with his new team and end the drought for Canada. and they have him now but he was yours first, wasn’t he? but it’s fine. because you’re busy too. you’re captaining the team now. you’re gonna get the memorial cup that he couldn’t. it’s fine. you’re fine. you don’t even have time to worry about it anyway. 

one conversation a week turns to one a month turns to once in a blue moon turns to stale words until it goes cold. these days you can’t quite seem to remember who ended things, but does it really matter all that much now?

or maybe it doesn’t end like that at all. maybe it ends in a flurry of angry words and digs in some or other of the endless hotel rooms you’ve shared together over the years. who knows!

and that’s not even getting into the rest of the 2015 draft class. or the ld19 of it all! ooh hoo hoo. you grew up with him but he’s not your waiting room. he grew up with you but he’ll grow “old” (end his career) with someone else. and isn’t that just something! 

i don’t think it’s totally them, but sort of the sentiment of “I hope you get everything you ever wanted and I hope I never hear a word about it.” I want one ticket off of your carousel!!!! merry christmas, please don’t call!!!!!!!

dylan being sent up and down and traded around until finally landing in washington, a place where he is clearly at home and LOVED for the guy and player he is!!!!!!!! watching a game and seeing all the strome jerseys in the crowd……..wagh.

all that said. some other songs that are mcstrome to me in various ways: hot & heavy by lucy dacus (lol kinda the whole song). before the world was big by girlpool (“i just miss how it felt standing next to you wearing matching [jerseys? sweaters?] before the world was big”). happiness by Taylor swift (“i guess it’s the price i pay for seven years in heaven”), cut your bangs by radiator hospital (maybe? possibly? unsure. i like the whole dog thing there). i’m so glad i feel this way about you by insignificant other (!!!!!). there are so many THEM lyrics in there……..waough.

anyway. other things off the top of my head: 2015 connor specifically saying something like “hey let’s wait a minute so we can see this” to stand by the stage when dylan was getting drafted after him. MAN. you reminded me of the fact that they couldn’t even make eye contact at the handshake line!!!!!!!!! they didn’t go to each other’s weddings!!!!!!!!!! (do you think once upon a time they ever thought they’d being each other’s best man?). just a couple months ago dylan liking the tweet of connor getting that goal during the playoffs!!!!!!!! makes you wonder if he texted him………..

lol this was all over the place and i was probably wrong on some things and there’s SO much more that someone else could say way more eloquently, but i digress. i dunno everything about them is so nuts to me!!!!! needless to say i will be incredibly sat for the game january 21 🙂‍↕️

thank you again for your time :) hope you have a good one and a happy rest of the holiday season! <3333333

what a lovely message to receive 🥰😭🥹 i had to break it up into chunks because i couldn't sit down to read all of it at once without just. bouncing right back up and shrieking. i am also at heart terribly shy so i understand the struggle but it is never too late to say something <3 you are always welcome here

first!!! i love sharing!! i think most of hockey tumblr loves to see people finding out the Lore for the first time and the wonderful thing about hockey is that. it keeps going on. so there's years and years and generations and generations and always something new to learn about. i've learned to just not be afraid to ask!!! between different teams and players i'm always discovering new narratives (learning about the sharks old man yaoi rn... cbj rarepairs...)

no... to my heart's despair... you have the timeline right. i think in the best most tragic sense there's a mcstrome narrative where it is truly that nothing went wrong. the love was there. we couldn't do enough to save it because we didn't see it slipping away. i didn't notice when you didn't call until you never did. i don't know you now but i still remember when i did, do you?

HE'S NOT YOUR WAITING ROOM?? passing out. i do see "i hope you get everything you ever wanted and i hope i never hear a word about it" as them because!! they didn't go to each other's weddings!!! i don't wish you harm but i'm not going to put myself through that!! i hope you're happy and i'm never going to look on purpose.

i love dylan strome so much and the best part is that they all love him so much too. he wore a cool vintage ovechkin jacket!! and got slapped in the face with a tortilla!! he loves to gently rag on the rookies!! it just takes some time, everything'll be just fine. you're only on the middle of the ride.

OKAY WHEN I READ THIS PART I SCREAMED BECAUSE I DO HAVE A MCSTROME PLAYLIST AND!!!! HOT & HEAVY BY LUCY DACUS IS IN FACT ON IT!!! SO IS CUT YOUR BANGS (BUT BY GIRLPOOL SO DOUBLE JINX)!!!! i have dorothea by taylor swift on there but i don't know happiness so i'll have to give all the other songs a listen. mostly i just shrieked because i was like NO YOU GOT THE VIBES EXACTLY

🧠〰️🧠 truly the mind meld happening here. the handshake line. the mutual wedding non-invitations. i won't block your number or your name on twitter i just hope i don't see it come up on screen!! i do think that we got confirmation the last time they played each other that dylan did text him to say congrats on a milestone but i would have to check the archives

p.s. i think you said it perfectly eloquently :) what matters is that you said it at all and i was delighted to read it 💕

[sportsthoughts]

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[trees-can-draw]

Hm.

[girlboy-frankensteins-monster]

books i read this january:

1. 'station eleven' by emily st. john mandel

5/5 stars — literally so good, such a great start to the year. i loved the writing style and the story and the characters and i am forever grateful to the friend of a friend who kept telling me i should read this because he was totally right and it's so good. definitely recommend this if you like apocalyptic stuff that's more an exploration of humanity than action/thriller

2. 'ghosts: the button house archives' by mathew baynton, simon farnaby, martha howe-douglas, jim howick, laurence rickard and ben willbond

3/5 stars — everything i wanted from a ghosts book tbh, loved getting to hear more about the characters but i would've liked a bit more serious stuff about fanny (this isn't really a criticism just wish there had been because she's such a compelling character to me)

3. 'i am malala' by malala yousafzai

4/5 stars — really good for anyone unfamiliar with pakistani culture and politics to help explain recent history as well as being genuinely very interesting. definitely recommend

4. 'heartstopper: volume 5' by alice oseman

3/5 stars — cute and nice to read as a queer british teenager, i like alice oseman's art a lot and i liked how she approached the topics discussed in it. only 3 stars just because like it doesn't really speak to me personally not because it isn't good or anything

5. 'never let me go' by kazuo ishiguro

4/5 stars — i have a weird relationship with his writing i feel like with both the books i've read by him the endings have just been a bit lacking for me? but not for a reason i can actually define and i still really liked the rest of the book and i really like his writing style as well

6. 'yellowface' by rebecca f. kuang

4/5 stars — not my favourite work by her but i found it really interesting to read. idk it's been quite controversial and i don't think i know enough about the issues discussed in the book to have an opinion but it did make me think about a lot of things i'd never really considered before which was why i found it interesting

7. 'gideon the ninth' by tamsyn muir

5/5 stars — this book was right up my street; i absolutely love gideon and the way the book's written. gideon and harrowhark's relationship was really compelling and i love the concept. if you read this book (please do) i would recommend that you read the glossary before you start the book because i spent at least the first 50 pages with no idea what was going on but after that it was amazing

8. 'the seven husbands of evelyn hugo' by taylor jenkins reid

3/5 stars — kind of just not my thing, sorry to all my friends who love it (none of them are on tumblr lol). i thought it was interesting but it just wasn't really my taste

9. 'tsunami girl' by julian sedgwick and chie kutsuwada

4/5 stars — i definitely didn't expect to enjoy this as much as i did but i actually really liked it the whole way through. the characters were great and i found the romance subplot way more well-written and believable than i expected (this might just be me because i'm a bit weird about reading relationships as romantic in books so a lot of straight romance where they sort of just expect you to pick up on it as romantic purely because it's a boy and a girl comes across as really flat to me and i end up just deciding that they're only friends to me whereas in this book i actually did read their relationship as romantic and wanted them to go out)

10. 'nation' by terry pratchett

5/5 stars — i think this is the first terry pratchett i've read other than good omens and i really, really enjoyed it. it took me a while to get into but i liked the characters and also found the sort-of-romance in this believable which was cool. also just really interesting to be honest, i recommend this as well

[fullmetal-scar-simping]

This site took eons to allow people to post replies in the notes via their sideblog, which is great to finally have. But I wish there was a way to follow bloggers and leave likes that are from the sideblog too. Hell, give us a sub-dash per sideblog (which I can imagine would be a coding mess within tumblr's already disastrous backend) so people can conveniently tailor their experiences and interactions.