#(very intentionally cultivated obv)

[bittsandpieces]

do any of you have any interest in choreography. like particularly contemporary hip hop groups. im watching the 2024 world of dance summit finalists and my godddddd

[cuntess-carmilla]

i'm kind of morbidly fascinated with celebrities who get plastic even after they're already successful? like angelina jolie getting a nose job after she was already considered beautiful and played a ducking supermodel in a movie, halle berry getting a nose job even tho she was already a pageant queen and renowned beauty, brad pitt getting his ears pinned after he was an established hollywood heartthrob...

obv those examples are very different than miss racefaker...but ariana was already in a major TV series, considered very pretty and a good singer. she would have probably been successful even without numerous procedures/intentionally faked exoticism. now even tho she's at the top of the industry, she STILL continues to get surgery after surgery and jump from race to race. it makes sense for the kardashians since their careers are entirely built on racefaking, plastic surgery, and outrage culture. but ariana is a musician! that's an actual talent she can nurture, yet this is the shit she chooses to spend time and money on instead of cultivating herself as an artist. even the other cultural appropriating white pop stars like miley cyrus have gone back to their whitesonas, but nope not ari!! i can't decide if she's incredibly cavalier (since white women never face consequences for racial exploitation) or deeply insecure and self-sabotaging. either way, not a good look

Maybe all her plastic surgeries are the reason why Ariana is literally physically incapable of enunciating when she sings.

*Sounds of machinery fuming and elastic giving out* Y-yuh...

[zorilleerrant]

I don’t even like omegaverse (all the sexual dynamics super squick me! this is like. one of my original squicks!) but I’m sitting here fiddling with ideas for one because like. the idea is so interesting to me if Damian is coming from this very traditional, very hierarchical League that constantly says shit about omegas. and he’s like repeating it. and offending everyone.

and, unbeknownst to him, Bruce is an omega (Talia, obv, being an alpha, and the uneven dynamics about taking his DNA without his consent and stuff), but he doesn’t “act like one” in Damian’s social expectations of the role, especially with complicating socio-political factors. Jason is, too, but intentionally cultivates a very Alpha appearance because of childhood trauma etc. (reinforced by the League while Damian was watching.) Cass really is an alpha, but she can mimic beta or omega characteristics, which makes Damian uncomfortable, but seems to him like a skill she ought to have.

Tim, meanwhile, Damian is convinced is an omega. he’s actually an alpha, but childhood neglect gives him all the hallmarks of an omega: small stature, eagerness to please, fear of confrontation with his family members, constantly trying to bring people things and take care of them. he’s not sure what’s going on with Steph, because he assumed (correctly) she’s an omega, but they seem like?? fine?? together??? and then even more confused over Bernard, who’s way more clearly omega.

Duke, an alpha, reads like a beta to Damian, because of the US’s fucked up racial politics, something that takes him a while to catch onto. the same would then be true of Luke and/or Lucius, or one of them could be a different dynamic to throw a wrench in things. (maybe Jace, because it seems like there’s potential there.) Dick is actually a beta, and seems like it, and is actually the key to getting Damian to question all his logic about the whole system. because Damian really trusts and respects him, and how would that work, otherwise? Babs is also beta, but, like, trans beta.

anyway the crux of the plot is that Damian is hitting puberty and realizing that he’s an omega and is like. how could this happen. my DNA comes from two alphas this is impossible. and thinking about how skilled and stuff he is. and he’s covering it up and faking his medical results and stuff because he’s worried everyone’s going to be mad at him. and he has to come to terms with the fact that a) all the a/b/o expectations are bullshit and don’t actually do any of that anyway. like. alphas have to attack omegas because they’re “in heat” or whatever??? omegas are unable to resist alpha pheromones??? and b) he can still be an alpha if he wants to and the family will support him as he transitions but the fact that the hormones can be changed also really fucks up his worldview because he didn’t even know you could do that.

[unforth]

Alright "Those Years in Quest of Honor Mine" has like no following on English speaking tumblr as far as I can tell, so no one will care if I live blog it, but the only way it'll start to GET a following is if people talk about it, and it's fully available online in translation, so I guess I'll throw some thoughts up as I read. Maybe I can convince someone else to read it so I have someone to talk to, lol.

The very basics: after being thought to be involved in a rebellion against the Emperor, Zhong Wan flees the capital with the three young children of his now-missing benefactor, Prince Ning. Using his wits, he does everything he can think of to keep the children safe, and among those strategies is one that's especially risky - he intentionally spreads the rumor that he and his former friend, Yu She, were lovers. Now, seven years later, he and his charges are back in the capital, and he's back amongst those who tried to hurt him...including Yu She...who has many, many questions he'd like Zhong Wan to answer.

(So far, Zhong Wan acts kind like...hmm...he reminds me of the young detective dude from The Sleuth of Ming Dynasty, kinda a brilliant whirlwind walking disaster whose attempts to talk his way out of everything not infrequently backfire. And Yu She reminds me of Yan Wushi from Thousand Autumns. And I have absolutely no idea what he's playing at yet - I'm about 20% through the story.)

It's heavily political, basically not even slightly magic (like, this isn't jianghu, none of these people are cultivators, no one has even fought non magically yet...though I strongly suspect Yu She COULD, if pushed). So far there are TWs for not-terribly-graphic depictions of past torture, descriptions of illness, and semi-graphic descriptions of harm to an infant (and man I wish I'd known that before I read it, sigh.) AFAIK the main ship (Yu She/Zhong Wan, obvs) are canon, and have a happy ending.