#and as I mature I try to discuss irl people less and less on the internet and be more conscious of the fact that I have no idea who reads i

[tonya-the-chicken]

Parents on the Internet are just displaying their misery 90% of the time. Are they trying to convince me to be child-free

[simpxxstan]

i’ve just finished reading your wonwoo!fics from the 550 followers event and i decided i need to request something myself because they were just TOO GOOD

given that, i thought about police officer!wonwoo (or mingyu, i wouldn’t mind—) who’s like super handsome and hot and all but also super nice and helpful and loves cats and—

and maybe he’s living in the same neighbourhood as y/n and they just feel drawn towards each other? idk, i’m not really good at making up scenarios 😭😭

it can go both ways, starting fluffy and then get smutty or angsty, everything’s gonna be fine <3

all i know is that i need to read something from you again 🫶🏼🫶🏼

THANK YOU FOR THE REQUEST! so firstly, I apologise if I disappoint you because instead of wonu, I did mingyu, because I had this wildest fantasy about him but I hope you like it still!! And I also added a few twists in the plot, because I wanted to spice it up a bit. I really pray you'll enjoy my version too!

this is part of my 550 followers celebration event! find the rest of the content of this event here!

also, thank you to everyone who's interacted with the event <333 your enthusiasm is so so much appreciated! the event is still on till the end of this month so you can still send in requests, my inbox is open hehe :) also to those who have sent in requests, T_T i am SOR SORRY for making you wait but honestly i am trying my best :((( i will answer your request as soon as i can, thank you for your patience <3

genre: strangers to lovers, police and criminal au, smut, fluff, neighbours au

word count: 5k words

warnings: 18+ NSFW MINORS DO NOT INTERACT police officer!mingyu, discussions of illegal racing, gangs, criminals, criminal activities, gambling (but nothing is explicit except the racing activities). smut warnings: unprotected sex (please please do not do this irl), almost public sex, oral (m. receiving), making out, usage of pet names, size kink, mingyu's a perv for reader

It's been six months since Mingyu has shifted to this town, and he's not regretted it a single day. it's a wonderful, quaint little town, on the edge of the city, that's close enough to the hustle but far enough to not be a site for trouble. The people are lovely and they've really accepted him with a full heart- the old ladies who bring him their delicious cooked food during his lunch breaks, the young boys who follow his gym routine meticulously, the mothers who either shamelessly flirt with him or try to set up their children with him, the fathers who pat his back proudly after a long day of work, the children who run around his clean police station with curious eyes.

After his busy five years in his posting at the city, this feels like heaven to him. He had joined the force in his craving for adrenaline and his innate nature of being helpful to everyone had driven him deeper into the profession. But he's twenty-seven now, and maturity has dampened the fire within his soul, although not his desire for social peace and justice- hence his choice to shift here.

It's not a town renowned for crime, and most of his days are peaceful with minor reports of petty theft or pickpocketing. But Mingyu has his fair share of excitement- being on the outskirts of the city, the edges of the town are less tame than the heart of it. It's a den for many gangs- all linked by the illegal racing grounds outside the town. Mingyu doesn't have any way to reach the gangs- they're being pursued by the force in the bigger cities with far more resources than sanctioned to his police station. But he tries to ensure the gangs and their dirty business doesn't get into his town. And Mingyu has his hands full with it.

But being busy keeps Mingyu happy. He's loved by the townsfolk and he's found a kind of peace here, different and yet beautiful. It's a slow town, and he's fallen into a routine that's good for his slowing-down body and his slowing-down mind.

So it's been a long, long day of work and at the end of the week, he's tired and ready to fall into his bed after eating anything that's in the fridge. But when he's walking up the stairs of his apartment building, his eyes meet a scene that's out of routine.

"Hello? Can I help you?" Mingyu walks up quickly as he sees you struggle to pull up two suitcases up the stairs, along with the clearly heavy rucksack on your back. "No! Thanks, no, I'm fine." "Please allow me, I live right here on this floor." And Mingyu casually picks up the suitcases, with a smile on his face. He doesn't miss the ways your body relaxes instantly and your eyes light up. "Umm, I'm here on this floor too. Just moved in into 309." "And I'm in 311. Right across your flat!" "I'm so happy to meet a neighbour already. I'm Y/N." "And I'm Mingyu."

And Mingyu feels the exhaustion of the day wear out when he sees your whole smile- not a tight-lipped smile, but the one that shows your teeth and your dimples. Well, dimple. There's only one big dimple on your left cheek, and it's a beautiful smile that stays on Mingyu's mind long through the night after you disappear into your flat and Mingyu goes into his own.

_

Mingyu doesn't know why he's suddenly choosing to skip his daily gym routine in favour of a run through the town at 5.30 am (nearly an hour before he's ever woken up in his entire life). Maybe one day he wakes up at 5.30 to use the washroom but spots you leave the building in your jogging shorts and earplugs. He joins the dots and his body joins them too- safe to say, he couldn't sleep again that morning. And neither the morning after that, because he's determined to join you on your run.

You don't talk much except brief interactions, and your speed is much faster than him, but he doesn't mind the exhaustion. The wink you throw him every time he lags behind and the bottle of water you offer him right after you drink from it too is enough motivation for him to keep running. Of course it helps that you compliment the way his muscles strain through his tank top and Mingyu's chest blows up even further with pride.

And it's so subtle, but Mingyu feels you slowly open up more to him.

It's in the won't you come in for coffee? I make a mean iced coffee.

It's in the I was shopping for groceries and brought you cooking oil, since you were asking for it yesterday. I thought you may not have had the time to go for shopping, since you're so busy at work.

It's in the see this magnet? my baby cousin made it.

And Mingyu goes to you like a moth drawn to a flame. He's drawn to you when he decides to take you out (for a friendly afternoon outing, he calls it officially, but internally he's treating it as a date). He's drawn to you when you show him around the veterinary where you work. He's drawn to you when he sees you eating ice cream on his couch after he's cooked dinner for the two of you. He's drawn to you when you barely touch his arm and tell him that you really like all your neighbours and the entire community in the town is great, but you're especially glad to have found Mingyu because he's one of the only people here who's near your age. And he's drawn to you when you smile for him, that rich, dimpled smile, after he tells you that you're exactly the friend he's been looking for since he's come here.

After that, Mingyu doesn't know what happens in what order. Do you kiss him first? Or does he kiss you first? Do you climb into his lap? Or does he pull you onto him? Do you bite his lip when his hands wander down to your ass that he's been eyeing for weeks now on every morning run? Or does he bite your lip when your hands weave through his hair? It's a blur, and when you pull back for a breath, your lips swollen, the first button of your shirt open, and a hickey already blooming near your collarbone, Mingyu knows only one thing. How he wants. Wants you. Wants more. Wants now-

"Mingyu, I- I don't know how to say this... it's not like I didn't like this. And I- I- umm. Maybe I should leave? Because if I stay I won't be able to hold back and I want to think about this a little bit?"

And oh, your eyes are so wide and so pretty, and the skin of your arms feel like butter under his touch, but he lets you go. He lets you walk away, a shy smile on your lips. He lets you kiss him on his cheek once before disappearing into your own flat, and Mingyu shuts the door and takes deep breaths as he leans on his door.

He's ready to give you all the time in the world to think, but he's sure that he's already yours. He just knows at the end of it, he needs to make you his too.

_

"Hello, darling."

The tone on the other end is unmistakable, and Mingyu sighs. "Don't try to seduce me, love. It's not gonna work." He's said this before, but the message clearly hasn't gotten through. The honey voice drawls on in a painfully slow pace, "You're late tonight. What's up?" "I was busy," he huffs, his heart still beating fast from making out with you a few minutes ago.

"Busy? Unbelievable." "A police officer can't be busy? Is it so unfathomable?" "No. What's unfathomable is that Kim Mingyu is off his routine. I wonder if there's something new... or someone new?"

The voice laughs, and Mingyu knows it's friendly prodding. His relationship with the person on the other side of the line might be anything but friendly but it's yet again become a part of his routine, and at least the friendly banter breaks the monotony.

"Are you jealous that I talk to women apart from you?" Mingyu smirks, knowing two can play this game.

"I'm jealous that she's taking up my time. You have to show her what's her place, really."

"Don't be rude love. You know I've got my ears on your voice only. Now, tell me if you have any news."

"Oh, getting straight to the point, I see..."

"Oh come on!"

The voice becomes serious instantly. Gone is the sexy drawl, and it's replaced by crisp words that are music to Mingyu's ears. "I've heard Taffy's gang making some noise in the borders. You might wanna come and look at it once for yourself."

"Do you have any more information?"

"Nothing much right now, officer. Look, I'm holding up my end of the bargain but you've got to be patient."

Mingyu groans. It's not good news, and it's certainly not enough news. But he'll take a look himself to make sure he understands the graveness of the situation correctly.

"Okay. When should I come? Tell me when Taffy's men are lurking around the area?"

The voice shifts again into a teasing, seductive tone, making Mingyu jerk at the sudden transition.

"Come tomorrow? Race night."

"Yeah no that's not happening. I'll-"

"Tomorrow, babe. Wanna see you race. A big boy like you likes his fast bikes, don't you?"

The thought of racing sends a spike of adrenaline rushing through his veins, but he knows this is illegal. It's one thing allowing the leader of the races to become his informant so that he can keep an eye on the circuit as well as get key pieces of information that remain hidden to the legal eye. But it's an entirely different thing getting into the centre of the mess himself and be involved in it.

And yet, a part of him wants to feel the thrill again. Tonight, after years, he felt that adrenaline rushing through him when you'd tugged at his collar and kissed him repeatedly. Fuck. It had felt good, hadn't it? One night won't matter, will it?

"I'll be there."

"Fantastic. Can't wait to see you, babe."

_

Mingyu doesn't see you the next morning. He waits outside your door at 5.30, but doesn't knock, hoping you'll come out eventually. But you don't. He doesn't spot you through the rest of the day either, and it makes him worry. But he's decided to give you your space and time, so he will be patient... at least for one more day.

It's a Sunday so Mingyu has a half-day at work. When he's back from work, his mind is still all over the place. Should he even go to the race tonight? He's raced a bit back in college days, but everything pretty legal. Nothing like the den of vice he knows he's going to walk into tonight. But he also knows that this is the best way for him to infiltrate through the layers of middlemen that stop information from reaching his ears.

By the time 8.30 comes around, there's no text from you. Instead, there's a text from his informant, saved under the codename of layla (he knows it's not her real name, but he doesn't care enough to ask about it).

I'll see you at the circuit tonight, darling. Don't be late.

Mingyu's heart speeds up. Is it wrong to feel excited right now? As a conscientious police officer, he should definitely not feel excited. But as nothing more than a man, he feels his blood become warm at the thought of meeting the woman behind that voice he's spoken to for almost three months now. He's almost 100% sure the voice isn't generated by a voice modifier or AI, but it's also impossible for that to be someone's real voice, so there must be some pitch changes or something along those lines. Nevertheless, their conversations has often made him wonder about the woman herself.

She's a shadow- no one really knows who she is. But about four months ago, when she'd called him up herself to supply information in order to buy protection for herself and her racing infrastructure, Mingyu had yielded instantly by weighing his priorities. And since then, he's tried endless times to put a face to the voice, but it's been a search in vain.

Not tonight.

Tonight, he's gonna see the face for himself and put all his wandering thoughts to rest. Thoughts late at night after a particularly long phone call with his informant, that made him wonder whether the flirting was real or all for show. Wonder whether the woman herself would be as sexy as the voice. And wonder what kind of woman she must be in order to be capable enough to singlehandedly run an entire illegal racing system.

Fuck it, Mingyu thinks, after seeing the clock strike 8.45 and still no contact from your end. He wears a black tank top along with a black leather jacket- intending to fit right into the crowd he expects to see there. He just hopes there's no one else there who'll recognise him. And he certainly hopes nothing will happen to make him regret this decision for life.

_

You're such a fool, Mingyu, he thinks to himself. You're such a fool for thinking you'd fit in.

Mingyu may be just twenty-seven but he doesn't feel young at all when he sees the crowd at the race. The people here must be of his age, but they all seem so different from him. Perhaps it's because his job has taken away his youth that he'll always feel perpetually distant from even people of his own age.

And so Mingyu stands there awkwardly, stiff amidst a crowd of half-drunk and half-high people, wearing colourful headbands and smearing eclectic neon colours on their skin. He feels out of place- and yet, a part of him wishes he could fit in. He wishes he could have enjoyed his youth like this- on the edge of the other side of the law. He wishes he could have lived like this for even moment of his life- beyond academics, beyond career, beyond mere survival.

"Hi beautiful, looking for someone?" A woman with a cigarette between her fingers strolls up to him. Her hair is flying in the wind, exposing the tattoos all over her skin.

Before Mingyu can say anything, the crowd around him suddenly erupts in loud cheers, and she quickly pulls his hand and drags him towards the centre of the entire crowd. He sees two bikers mount on their bikes- exquisitely reworked to glow in the dark. A woman hops up on a platform in the middle of the two bikers and lifts a gun towards the sky. And as the crowd counts down, she shoots the gun right after 1 and the two bikers zoom out into the blackness ahead, the crowd going wild with cheers for the biker they support.

The scene makes Mingyu's skin feel alive too- the sheer speed of the two bikes, the sound of the engines revving and the general merriness around him induces adrenaline to flow through his veins. When he turns to look at the woman next to him, he sees her looking at him with a curious smile on her face. "Umm, I'm... I'm not really here for the race."

"You're not? Layla told me you would be." The smile on her face deepens, and Mingyu gasps. "You know Layla?" "I do. But that's not important. Let's get you on a bike, hmm?" Mingyu's somehow missed to noticed how her hand's still on his arm, gently stroking his bicep over his jacket. "No, really I don't want to." She steps right up close to him, "But you can try once, pretty boy." Her eyelashes cast long shadows on her cheeks, but Mingyu doesn't care. "I don't want to try." "Let loose for one night." "I'm not here for fun. I'm here for work-" The woman in front of his laughs. "Yes Layla said that too. Don't worry, she's going to work. But only after you race against her."

Mingyu feels his heart speed up. Race against Layla? Fuck. Now, why does that sound so tempting? It makes him only more curious to meet his informant, because why must she make herself so mysterious?

"Are you her friend?" Mingyu knows that this woman is not Layla, because the voice doesn't match by miles. This woman here has a lisp in her voice, unlike Layla's clear diction, and no amount of pitch changing or machine alterations can change that (Mingyu knows that the hard way).

"I'm her sister. Well, kind of. Now, no more questions pretty boy. Next race starts in a few minutes. Let's get you on a bike!" And Mingyu finds himself in no position to protest as the woman drags him away without hearing him anymore.

_

In the blink of an eye, Mingyu finds himself on a beautiful beast of a motorbike, his entire body drunk on adrenaline. There's so many people he's never even met before, but they're hyping him up. The attention-whore in him goes crazy at the cheers. There's coloured smoke being released into the sky, and Mingyu wears his helmet to prevent it from clouding his eyes. And finally when the smoke fades away, he sees his opponent standing along side him.

Layla.

Fuck.

Still no face to the voice in his head, but it's still an enigmatic visual that draws Mingyu in and reels his mind. He watches the way her black latex pants hug her long legs as she swings her legs over her bike. And he watches the way her helmet covers her face but her hair's still flying in the air. There's something still mysterious about her, and yet so oddly familiar.

But before he can say or do anything, the crowd begins the countdown, and in a second, the gunshot goes off. And Mingyu zooms ahead, revving his engine from 0 to 100 in a moment, a smile spreading on his face as the excitement of the speed injects itself in his veins. Out of the corner of his eye, he notices Layla take a spin around the corner of the racetrack, her stable figure undeterred by the sharp turn. Mingyu may not be a professional, but it's not the first time he's racing. He's done this before and he can feel that familiar thrill returning, as he picks up speed and makes up his mind to defeat his worthy opponent.

It's a long and winding course, but to Mingyu it feels like a few minutes only. The cold night air hits his body and makes him feel like he's flying. Soon the ending flag is in sight, and he sees Layla speed up, hunching over her bike, determined to get there first.

But at the last minute, she steps back, her posture loosening as she sits back and watches Mingyu whizz off ahead of her.

Fuck, he mutters under his breath. Knowing she let him win easily hurts his ego, and he slows the bike down as they drive into the nothingness of the deserted roads ahead. When he finally comes to a stop, he gets off the bike and sees her stand a few metres away from him, her helmet still on her head stretching her legs.

"Hey! Layla! You let me win! I would've won anyway- fair and sq-"

Layla spins around and takes off her helmet, her hair whipping across her face, and Mingyu finally sees the face behind the voice.

_

"Y/N?" Mingyu's eyes are wide, his brain running as fast as his bike was a short while back, as he tries to connect the dots.

The voice is unmistakable, now slightly higher in pitch, and Mingyu wants to kick himself as he realises how big a fool he's been. "We finally meet, Kim Mingyu." There's a beautiful smile on your face, one he's not seen before. There are other things too- there's a nose pin on your button nose, making your features look sharper, and a necklace hanging off your neck, which is odd since he's never seen you wear jewellery before.

"Y/N? H- wh- how?!"

You don't answer him. You simply walk towards him, your hips swaying and Mingyu groans at the sight of your pretty legs in those tight pants. Fuck him for not recognising that ass sooner in spite of being obsessed with it for weeks.

"I thought I should come clean to you, officer, before you make any choices." You casually slot yourself between his legs, as Mingyu leans back against his motorbike. "What do you think?"

What does he think?

He thinks he's a fool for not finding out more about you before falling for you. He thinks he's a fool for maintaining a contact with someone as dangerous as La- you. And he thinks he's a fool for finding you even sexier after discovering this persona of yours.

And he thinks he would be a fool with regrets for all his life if he lets go of you now.

So Mingyu grabs onto your hips, and pulls you closer.

"You've got me by my balls, baby. Got me eating out of your hand. And you know I happen to like it. So it doesn't matter what I think, love. What matters is what you think." His fingers rub against the skin exposed as your crop top rises up as you dangle your hands around his shoulders. You laugh at his words, pressing even closer to him, the air between you two turning to electricity. "It doesn't matter what I think either- because I'd fallen for you ages ago when I first saw you around in town. The new, dashing police officer, Kim Mingyu, enquiring about gangsters and fending himself off prying old ladies at the same time. Since then I've just wanted to make you mine." Mingyu's heart hasn't stopped thumping loudly all night, and at your confession, his body tingles with a dangerous feeling.

"Glad we're on the same page, baby."

_

"This is my office," you whisper to him in between kisses as you drag him to a shady-looking room at the back of the building that's on the edge of the racing circuit, now deserted because everyone's busy at the races. "Office?" Mingyu giggles, because the term is ridiculous. The place is anything but an office- with the way dishevelled boxes are just stacked everywhere, and instead of desks there are more pool tables and boxes of alcohol. It's a small, dingy place, and the single tubelight at the end of the corridor flickers every other minute, but it's a vibe. Mingyu's not unfamiliar with seedy places in his line of work, but it's so novel to think this is where you truly work.

But fuck him if he doesn't think it just makes you hotter. Because there's something about you being the boss of a pack of hundred delinquents associated with even more hardened criminals that makes his dick chub up real quick.

Like it is right now, when your hands make quick work of removing his jacket and throwing it on the floor as you touch his bare muscle. Mingyu carelessly runs a hand through his hair as he sees you push him onto a chair on a desk that's in your office, the room lit only by the mercy of the distant tubelight and the moonlight streaming in through the window panes. "Fuck, you're so big Mingyu. Let me blow you? Please? Wanted to do this for so long." Your eyes are so pretty as you bend in front of him, fingers lazily rubbing into the tent in his pants, making him hiss. "Go on, baby. Whatever you like. Fuck, but kiss me once more."

And you do. You taste like berries, and Mingyu loves it. Mingyu knows he's got it bad, but he doesn't care. You're on your knees and you want to blow him, and if this isn't the mental image to which he's jerked off for days now, he'd be damned. So he pushes you down in between his knees after kissing you to his heart's content, and you quickly take off his pants. "God," you almost drool and Mingyu whimpers when you take off his boxers too. "You're so fucking big, Gyu. Never seen such a big, pretty cock," you say reverently, as you pump it and it twitches in your hands. Your eyes go wide when you lick it and fit your mouth barely against the tip, and Mingyu throws his head back and moans. He's not going to last long, if just this much has got him feeling like this.

Thankfully, you don't tease him much, eager to feel the heavy weight on your tongue too. So you take him as much as your throat allows, and Mingyu feels himself on the brink of heaven. When you bob your head a couple of times, Mingyu reaches down to tug your hair back and you moan around his cock. The vibrations send him over, and he cums into your mouth even as you continue to suck him. When you finally pull off with a pop, another squirt from his dick leaves a string of white cum on your lips and Mingyu feels himself getting hard again.

"That was so hot baby. You're so hot," he says, as he picks you up from the floor and on the desk. It's so easy for him to manhandle you like that, and you pull him close quickly. "You're hotter, Gyu. Can't tell you what fantasies I've had about you in these last few months." Mingyu smirks, his hands removing your beautiful pants, and spreading your thighs apart as he feels his way through your folds. "Umm? Really? Now don't be a bad girl, and tell me what you've thought about me."

You open your mouth to say something but then Mingyu pinches your clit, and any words fall away as you moan out loudly. Your hands steady themselves on his biceps as Mingyu begins to finger you painfully slowly- to the extent that he can hear the squelching sounds, and it drives him crazy.

"Tell me, Y/N."

When your breathing slows down as you feel Mingyu driving two fingers into you at a steady pace, his eyes fixed on yours, biting his lip in concentration, you tell him softly.

"Before I shifted into the flat... I wondered what you'd be like from up close. Because I'd only seen you from afar. And after hearing your v- aaah- voice, it just got worse." You feel Mingyu stretching you, hitting your g-spot repeatedly as he kissed your neck.

"And then when I did shift in... fuck. It was so hard to not give in to you. Whenever you looked at me with your puppy eyes and y- y- your smile- ah, fuck I'm g- gonna cum, Mingyu!" You scream as he fingers you through your orgasm, and he licks his fingers clean once you come down from your high.

"Then who asked you to not give in to me?"

"I wanted to make sure you'd like me in real life and not judge me simply as an informant." Your simple, vulnerable words take his breath away, and Mingyu pulls off your top in one go. "Fuck, you're so cute baby. I'd like you in every form, in every life. You drive me crazy, do you know that?" And Mingyu knows that now, as you hold on to his shoulders as he enters you in one go. "God, you're so tight, Y/N. Tighter than your pretty mouth, fuck." He's trying so hard not to cum right now, but as you grip his hair and moan filthily, a stream of curses falling off your pretty lips, Mingyu lets his adrenaline take over. And he thrusts into you without any hesitance, hips moving fast, his balls heavy as he slams against you again and again. The desk creaks, and you pant in his ears, begging him to go harder, and Mingyu can feel the way your pussy clenches him at every thrust.

"Gonna cum, Gyu. Please-" Your nails dig into his nape, and it drives him over the edge. When you come along with him, there's a sharp buzz spreading through his body and he feels like he's gone to heaven.

He holds you close like that for the next few minutes, unable and uninterested in letting you go. When you both finally feel the high subside, you look up at him, a hazy smile on your face. "I really like you, Gyu. I hope you can like me too beyond who I am in this racing circuit. Trust me, it's.... it's not my entire life. I am a person bey-"

He kisses you quiet. "Stop explaining yourself." You try to protest, but he kisses you again. "You know Y/N, I think I liked you from the first day I met you. And I get what you're saying but... trust me. Fuck. I don't know how to say this. But safe to say if I thought you were amazing as Y/N? I think you're absolutely the epitome of perfection as Y/N plus Layla. So hot, so gorgeous, and I love every bit of you."

And then there's that single-dimpled smile again.

"I also like the nose pin. Why'd you take it off?"

You giggle, "Didn't want it to be a deal-breaker once I had my mind set on you."

Mingyu kisses your nose at the pin itself and you shiver in his arms.

"Nothing about you can be a deal-breaker, baby."

[trans-leek-cookie]

the thingw the orcs in dunmeshi is sth i skirt around bc like u said it is. not a great modern take on orcs. obv not the worst it could be and kui at least did engage w trying to write a more involved lore on them rather than just having this be the same “orcs are big uncivilized brutes” version 8000000 but that element is still there. and i do think “its not the worst” is hardly what i would want to set my highest expectations to jdhdgksgd

tumblrs being a bitch n not letting me put images in so I'll just paste the text from the other ask

Nodding. ty for the info on the ways halfling racism can be compared to irl examples in “the middle east” like that rly is such a close comparison i wonder if it was at all intentional… AND FR on the whole . wishing we knew what they called themselves bc the “halfling” “half foot” thing i rly cant help but think abt how it feels like irl examples of certain groups being denigrated to category slurs its like. LOL. dunmeshi makinh me feel party to fictional racism and microaggressions against my will...

Idk Abt skirting around bc I think it's smthn we should face head on, but at the same time I'm not in a place where I can really add onto the discussion wrt orcs as a white/East Asian person. IIRC ppl have said tolkiens orcs are black and/or central Asian (Mongolian I believe) coded, which is meaningful cause he's influenced so much of modern fantasy, and thats. Y'know. Not great. Also the orcs in dungeon Meshi are essentially an indigenous group from what I remember so that's also a whole mess. Again, my opinions arent very meaningful when it comes to this, but I feel like it's incredibly disappointing to see an author who's clearly capable of nuanced and interesting commentary on racism in the context of real life and fiction (even if it's not always great it's clear she's thinking about it in some depth) really just. Fall back on tropes. Bc for the other races - human is a wider category than usual, tall men aren't always the Everyman, elves are long lived but that doesn't make them wiser, and halflings are mature, worldly and resourceful, which I feel like does a lot to break free of typical fantasy pigeon holeing. But the orcs are just sorta... The Bad Guy but Not That Bad I guess? Theoretically it's a departure from the "super evil forever no exceptions" idea of the but it's still so far behind what needs to be done to make it less of a lazy, racist trope.

Yeah, again I'm not west Asian or Arab like I said, but between reading stuff ppl online write n talking to my Iraqi friend + rereading dungeon Meshi and really trying to analyze it, it kinda stood out to me. I will say I was a little unconfident posting about it bc it's 3 things (4 if you count the name note) but theyre still really notable at least to me. The hand/foot cutting is I feel the most explicit? Because that's such a fucked up stereotype it just stands out immediately. I don't necessarily know if the half foot/middle east connection was intentional, because I assume Japan/Asia in general has a different relationship with West Asia (since they are the "far east" in comparison, so "Middle East" wouldnt really make sense?), but it could be one of those things that colonialism managed to spread. I'm not very knowledgeable about that, but even if it wasn't intentional I think it's a very interesting parallel in how language can be used to categorize people as "normal/other". So i can't say if its intentional or not, but it's definitely an interesting lens to consider the story thru. Id also say I believe halflings are said to be native to a place that's east from where the story takes place, but not the eastern continent (which is p much easy Asia). I've seen some ppl take this to mean eastern Europe, and I don't think that's wrong, but I think u could also think of it as west Asia? Idk if we ever got much info on it in story, so I might be missing some details. (Honestly I'd personally HC that halflings are generally mixed Eastern European/West Asian- not to conflate the two, but rather Im imaging the majority of them are in a kinda blended culture).

[derangedhyena-zoids]

I wrote down a bit of Sara background on the Zoids Discord and realized I don't think I ever posted any of it here, l m a o. So, some Sara stuff. Under a cut because mature-ish.

(this was re: a discussion about various takes on Sara's background/backstory/what exactly was going on with her in Backdraft. this is my hc: ) Sara's beginning at BD was as a call girl, when she was much younger. Because some of the men would talk to and/or around her, she started accruing exclusive knowledge of some of the inner/upper workings of the org. As we know, in my hc Sara is related to Ryss - and not too distantly (read: Ryss is her great-grandmother). Ryss's offspring generally end up with psychic abilities of some stripe. but the more diluted the bloodline gets, the less intense and direct those abilities are. Psychic abilities in my setting are broadly considered active or passive. The perception-warping. brainwashing, nightmare-giving/etc sorts of powers Ryss was shown to have are active. The "really great intuition" sort of things, and non-aggressive/intrusive mind-reading are passive. Active tends to drop out fast as far as inherited abilities go, passive does not. Why this matters? because Sara's basically on the tail end of having active abilities, but she definitely has passive ones. She was always VERY aware of the conflicting and cut-throat nature of things going on around her - basically saved all of this knowledge up. Her more active version of abilities can only really be utilized during intercourse, which she came to realize over time. Because she had to figure it out. Basically the intensity/vulnerability combo of sex creates the perfect storm of her being able to profoundly mess with/see into the minds of whoever she ends up with. A lesser version of it, basically an aggressive/forced magnetism, is how she continued to draw people in for this if needed. But it's not like she had to try too hard, for most people. It's prudent to remind folks of my hc's whole "Zi's society does not work the same way ours does" thing esp. when it comes to sex/relationships - so Sara's behavior is not at all viewed with the same lens it would be IRL. But obviously, as soon as she was able, she extricated herself from being a call girl and planted herself in the org. And moved on up from there. And as for the mutual hate thing going on with Alteil- Alteil is gay. And utterly immune to her bullshit. He sees what she's been doing, and noticed her power-creeping up the org. He doesn't understand how exactly she's doing so, so effectively, but he sees it - and HATES it, hates her. Feeling's mutual - Sara hates not getting what she wants. + re: her and Steve, The Ship(tm): Sara is used to cut-throat people, people that can't be trusted, etc - and Steve is both Not That and very fundamentally doesn't mean anyone harm. She was READY to fuck him up, but was confronted by not only all of what he's buried, but also the brief, unwelcome self-reflection that she'd become just as cut-throat as all the people she'd been around.

That's kind of what's supposed to be communicated in the short comic about her, Shallow. But idk if it did that or not.

[suzannahnatters]

Trope Talk #1: Enemies to Lovers: A Deeper Dive

Reports of my death have been exaggerated, but not greatly. While I was in bed for a week lately, roleplaying a Victorian invalid, I watched a YouTube doing a deep dive on the enemies to lovers trope. While it was really fun seeing her break down subtropes (hate to love, rivals to lovers, reluctant allies, villain romance, and more - all of which I adore), I found myself somewhat disappointed by her attempt to discuss the deeper issues surrounding the trope. Like, yes: a lot of people enjoy things in fiction that they would not enjoy IRL and mature readers CAN distinguish between fantasy and reality...but also the media we consume DOES shape us, not all readers ARE as mature as we'd like to think, and while this trope can be executed in a way that's not problematic, it can also be executed in a way that is. Even if we wouldn't all personally draw the line between toxic and healthy in precisely the same place, I think that line does objectively exist. So, here are some of the ways I've subjectively drawn that line in my personal writing and reading when it comes to this trope...

SOME WAYS OF DOING ETL RIGHT

1. Not everyone is going to agree as to what's healthy and what's not, and it's important to listen to others.

Some are going to be mad at me for loving this trope at all, and some are going to be mad at me for thinking that one still needs to exercise judgement and that not everything goes, but hear me out. As a writer, the harder you go with this trope, the more divided your audience will be. Given that we all tend to draw the lines in different places, I think that listening to each other and discussing the reasons behind our own preferences and choices is going to help all of us understand the stakes, avoid hurting or triggering readers who have trauma from toxic relationships, and extend grace to storytellers who don't make the same decisions we would. And we shouldn't be defensive that this is necessary. ETL is actually a fairly new and under-explored trope, which I think is part of why it can be so divisive, especially in a post-#MeToo landscape where a lot of us are starting to rethink the controlling men and helpless women in pairings we've been conditioned to see as romantic. Meanwhile, as an author with a deep love for this trope, I hope that posts like this will help more cautious readers to understand that writing about dark and spiky relationships doesn't necessarily mean romanticising abusive behaviour. Either way, I've benefited from listening in humility and I truly think my stories are better for it.

2. Remember that evil is not misunderstood.

If you'll be writing ETL, then you need to decide early on if the love interest is evil or just misunderstood, and be careful to write him accordingly and be honest about it. If the love interest literally goes around killing innocent people, deal with that. That's evil, that's not (just) a traumatic childhood. On the other hand, if the love interest is antagonistic because of a misunderstanding, but is a fundamentally decent person deep down, he probably wouldn't casually slap the heroine around or otherwise act like a jerk. One mistake I used to see a lot of writers making (less often these days) is trying to convince me that some loathsome jerk is just misunderstood. No, if he's been doing bad things, don't try to explain his guilt away. Confront it head on.

THE LAST JEDI was my gateway drug to ETL precisely because I'd never seen this trope done so beautifully and so uncompromisingly: when Rey is forced to face the fact that the boy she likes is unrepentantly evil, she refuses to join him, explodes him and gets out of there. Ben isn't ready to seek repentance yet; he's a proud, if wavering, villain. Because the movie was absolutely honest about the evil within Ben, I was able to genuinely hope Rey might confront that evil and exorcise it, instead of being gaslit into thinking it was all right.

By contrast, in the very Bluebeard-vibes kdrama MASK, the love interest believes he's responsible for the death of his late fiancee and is being manipulated by the villain into thinking he's criminally insane. As a result, he believes that he's going to kill the heroine, his new wife. Physical touch and dirt are both triggers for him, too, and what the audience sees as a trauma response comes across to the heroine as strong hostility. He tells the heroine he is going to kill her, and she believes him, but the truth is that he dreads it as much as she does. This is a really beautifully done form of misunderstanding. Just remember that to be believable, misunderstandings need to be resolved fairly quickly.

3. Enemies doesn't need to mean hatred or toxicity.

While hate to love is a valid subtrope - especially in contexts where the characters aren't literally trying to kill each other, like in a contemporary romcom - ETL does NOT need to involve toxicity. There's a difference between ordering the assassination of an enemy, versus strangling your wife to terrorise her into obedience; both are bad, but only the latter is classic domestic violence, which casts doubt on any "HEA". Enemies need not hate or even abuse each other to be at odds; they may feel deep personal respect for a worthy opponent, who just happens to be ideologically committed to an opposing cause and therefore duty bound to antagonise the other. Personally, these characters may like, respect, or even passionately love each other - but thanks to duty, they're obliged to thwart each other.

A favourite example of this is Nikita and Michael from the spy show NIKITA. The pair started out as master and pupil before becoming coworkers for a rogue government agency, Division. Now Nikita has gone rogue herself and is working to bring down Division. She knows that Michael is still hanging in there for several reasons - he still believes Division serves his country, he's been skilfully manipulated by the head of the agency, and above all he feels the need to protect Division's young agents who are increasingly exploited by them. Nikita still has respect for Michael because of all these things and because he's the man who trained her to be as awesome as she is - and because she's his best student, Michael returns the sentiment and still goes out of his way to protect her, even as he's trying to hunt her down. Midway through the season, Nikita tries to protect Michael by preventing him from taking out the man who once killed his family - at which point Michael's view of Nikita sours. But she never stops respecting him and he's still willing to work with her when necessary to protect his agents. Throw in some mad chemistry and you've got the ingredients for a perfect ETL situation - although it has some hostility from Michael's side, it's never without that solid core of care and respect for each other. This is what makes the romance work, of course; all romances need a good reason for the character to care about each other. 

4. Remember that ETL is a fundamentally transformative relationship.

This builds on my first point. In ETL, unless there's a valid misunderstanding at play, there are probably moral/ethical differences between the characters. Thus, a huge part of your romance needs to be about resolving those differences, usually for the better. In other words (unless you're really into a corruption arc for the protagonist), the villainous/antagonistic character needs to genuinely repent and change, and we need that change to be demonstrated convincingly in story. At this stage, then, a good ETL story becomes about character growth, which means that it cannot be rushed. If the love interest has genuinely been evil, then he needs to change and prove it.

LOVE BETWEEN FAIRY AND DEVIL is a great example of a transformative ETL story. At the beginning of the drama, Dongfang Qingcang is a terrifying evil overlord who has frozen his emotions, killed his own father to rise to power, mastered hellfire magic and terrorised the three realms. As the story unfolds we do learn that there are some misunderstandings: Dongfang's father is the one who destroyed his emotions and forced him as a child to kill him, as well as instilling in him the fear that his people will be destroyed unless he conquers their enemies. But, this doesn't make Dongfang's villainy okay. Even after his emotions have been reawoken by our adorable heroine he still needs to realise that invading her homeland is not the right way to say thank you. By the end of the story we see that Dongfang is indeed a changed overlord. It takes a while, but it is believable.

5. Related, the characters should be a match for each other, especially when it comes to power and to morals.

I think a lot of the objections to ETL and villain romance pairings come from a perceived mismatch between the two characters: a weak person with a stronger person, or a pure and good person with a despicable manipulative blackguard. I think that it's always a good idea to balance this out. If your story begins with the love interest kidnapping your heroine to be his queen, why not let your heroine run a coup and replace him on the throne - right when he least expects it? The fact that your heroine is willing to get her hands dirty when it comes to this antagonist is not just delicious drama - it's also evidence that the two of them have more in common than they might think, and that in a longterm relationship she won't have any problems standing up to him. Alternately, if your heroine is going to remain pure and good throughout, she should probably be a match for the villain in terms of power, however that is measured in your story (and it can be a totally different sort of power than the villain wields). One of the most delicious things when watching any villain fall in love is finding the one woman whom he's absolutely helpless before.

I think Holly Black did this really well in the FOLK OF THE AIR trilogy. At first, Jude is a powerless mortal in the deadly fae court, and Cardan is the fae prince who delights in tormenting her. Jude proves herself far more cunning and ruthless than Cardan as she maneuvers the two of them into power as reluctant allies. It's clear that what Jude lacks in magic she makes up for in sharp intelligence and will to survive, and her ability to find a happy ending hinges on her ability to let down her guard and be vulnerable to Cardan. On the other end of the scale, Beauty and the Beast in most of its incarnations is about two kind people who want different things for sympathetic reasons, so that even though Beauty is held captive by the Beast we can understand the Beast's desperation to break his curse (and the Disney animated classic makes his motivations even more sympathetic by imposing a rapidly narrowing window of opportunity in which to do so). The Beast is truly gentle, and Belle is just spirited enough to snap back at him when he snaps at her. Both these stories work because the lovers are fundamentally a match.

6. Be creative.

There are all sorts of ways to create that delicious see-saw between "I adore you" and "I am going to kill you". The kdrama THE MASK, as mentioned above, uses the hero's mental health in an incredibly respectful way to create a sense of antagonism. The kdrama FLOWER OF EVIL does something similar. In Megan Spooner's absolutely incendiary SHERWOOD, there's a scene where the love interest goes from nearly killing the protagonist to tenderly embracing and caring for her within the very same chapter. Normally this would be the red flag to end all red flags, but it doesn't work that way here. How did Spooner manage it? Simple. The love interest doesn't know that the outlaw Robin Hood, whom he's trying to capture, is actually the same person as Maid Marian, the fair lady he's in love with - and when a quick costume change takes our heroine from one persona to another, the love interest's behaviour changes too. The emotional rollercoaster is real - but only for her.

7. There doesn't need to be a HEA.

I know, a lot of you are going to be up in arms about this, but it's true. Sometimes, especially in a straight up villain romance, the villain shouldn't get the girl. Maybe that's because she wants someone else, maybe it's because he's too manipulative and evil to be convincing as a long term relationship. But, let me frame it like this: why limit yourself just to writing the viable romances? There's a lot of good fun that can be got out of unviable romances too. You may not feel comfortable settling down with the villain, but that doesn't mean he can't be kissed :3

For example, in THE RINGS OF POWER the showrunners did something I never expected and gave Sauron himself a little crush on his greatest nemesis, Galadriel. The final episode, as he revealed his true identity and did his level best to manipulate her into joining him to rule Middle Earth, put joy into the souls of fangirls everywhere. It also caused a whole lot of people to clutch their pearls for some reason which remains opaque to me. After all, Tolkien was the man who wrote Eol, Maeglin, Wormtongue, and that moment when Morgoth himself was perving on Luthien Tinuviel. That aside, this is never going to be a viable match. Galadriel is married and hates Sauron's guts and Sauron is still a manipulative snake whose plans for healing Middle Earth involve him ruling as its lord and master, hopefully with Galadriel at his side. Galadriel doesn't fall for it for a second, which is one of the very things that makes this kind of story so incredibly satisfying to me. The fact that she won't succumb to his manipulation and temptation is incredibly empowering. As in THE LAST JEDI, the ball is in Sauron's court as to whether he changes to deserve her. And of course he won't - not just because he goes on to become the Lord of the Rings of Barad-dûr but more importantly because he never loved Galadriel for who she is but because of the way she made him feel, powerful and purposeful.

Not all villain romances need to end this way, of course, because some villains are capable of change. I think this is what makes Reylo viable where Haladriel is not. While Sauron and Galadriel each appeal to the EVIL in each other, Rey appeals to the good in Ben; he meanwhile desires the Light in her. This is why her refusal does ultimately prompt him to change, although of course the story's resolution was massively bungled in THE RISE OF SKYWALKER.

8. Love should be what the villain needs - but not what he wants.

It's hard to make absolute rules when it comes to any artistic choice, but this is probably the closest I come when dealing with this trope: because there should be consequences for the love interest's misdeeds, especially when it comes to the heroine. I call this the POTO rule: if the love interest wants the heroine romantically or sexually abuses her, he should not be rewarded by getting her. Enemies to lovers may fight over anything by any means, but not over romantic or sexual possession of each other. If the villain becomes a villain in order to possess the heroine, then a HEA for them involves giving him exactly what he wanted and thereby justifying his bad behaviour. Mind you, this doesn't mean the love interest can never want the heroine on some level; if he did not then this would not be a romance. We're talking about his most fundamental motivation and his most important story goal. She should not be either of them; she should be a distraction, an impediment to them.

This is simply good writing sense. Enemies to lovers normally implies a positive change arc for the love interest. Every good positive change arc involves a character who Wants one thing, say, to rule the world; but Needs something totally different - the capacity to make peace through compassion, say.  Such characters may or may not get what they Want, depending on how good it is for them and the people around them, but they'll always get what they Need. This is why I think ETL works best when the heroine herself is the thing the antagonist doesn't know he Needs. As an enemy, and even more so if he's a villain, he's likely to be unscrupulous in getting what he Wants, and he shouldn't get her for the same reasons that characters often don't get what they Want. Think about it: the villain probably needs some hard consequences for what he's done. He can get them, *and also get the girl*, but only as long as the girl isn't the motivation for his crimes.

{How does this fit with the "stolen bride" genre of story, usually a fairytale? Do I disapprove of those on principle? Mm, no. If the bride was stolen primarily because the kidnapper claimed to have a romantic or sexual attraction to her, I might object. But there's usually some other motivation. He wants to break a curse; he wants to annex her kingdom; he wants to keep her out of his enemies' hands; he might have been ordered to marry her by someone he dares not cross, or bound by an ancient custom; in any case he ought not to be personally motivated to control or possess her. This is one of those grey areas where lines blur and it's wise to listen and be careful because so many real women have been trapped in marriages to real live villains; but the thing is very doable under the right circumstances.} 

I call this the POTO rule because it was inspired by THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA. In this story, Erik is obsessed with Christine to the point where romantic and sexual possession of her drives everything he does. He kills, manipulates, and gaslights everyone at the Paris Opera in an attempt to win Christine's heart, and ultimately he's willing to threaten to kill the man Christine truly loves in order to get the thing he Wants: Christine's hand in marriage. Now, I know a lot of you ship this pairing and I'm not going to scold you for it; maybe you ship them the way I ship Haladriel, loving the relationship without thinking it should end in a HEA, or perhaps you think Christine can fix Erik through some genuinely transformative plotline, or maybe you just want Erik to get what he wants even though it's messed up, and whatever it is I hope you have fun with it. But personally, from the perspective of a published author with a sense of responsibility to my readers, I really think the story ended in the best possible way. Erik doesn't get what he Wants (Christine) but he does get what he Needs (a transformative moment of transcendent compassion that enables him to act in a truly loving manner, by letting Christine go).

So, most of the time, I think it's wisest if the heroine is what the love interest doesn't know he Needs. Again, LOVE BETWEEN FAIRY AND DEVIL does this SO well. Dongfang Qingcang doesn't have time for love - emotionless and too busy Evil Overlording, he's never been in love before. So, when he's saddled with an adorable, dimwitted flower fairy, he can't wait to break the spell that links them together so that he can kill her and get on with his villainous plans. When her emotions begin to infect him, he can't help falling in love with her, even though he fights it every single step of the way. She's absolutely not what he Wants, but she is everything he Needs to thaw his frozen heart and teach him to act with compassion and empathy. Even though he spends much of the series planning to kill her, the HEA doesn't strike me as being Problematique the way that an Erik/Christine HEA would be - because a HEA with Orchid represents the moral growth that Dongfang needs, rather than the selfish desire he wants.

9. Maybe the villain's HEA is with someone else.

This doesn't mean a villain is irredeemable or shouldn't get a HEA. It just might mean that his HEA is with someone else. (Unless he's actually a rapist. Then just light the man on fire.) Erik shouldn't get Christine because he's done so much evil in order to possess her. But, once she's broken through to him to show him compassion, he might be ready to learn to love and to make amends for his past crimes...perhaps with someone else.

This was a huge part of the inspiration for the character of Vasily in my Bête Epoque stories. He does something which traumatises the heroine so much, there's no realistic HEA for them. Like Christine, she forgives him anyway, even in the midst of betrayal. And like Erik, he finds he's unable to go through with his villainous plans. She gets her HEA with somebody else, but I found myself with this incredibly compelling character whom a lot of people were pulling for. Vasily has already learned a huge lesson through having loved and lost my first heroine - so when he meets my second heroine, even though in a lot of ways he's still a treacherous monster, he's able to start afresh, and do better, with someone far more resilient who holds far greater power over him.

10. Individual characters will need individual things.

Finally, I think it's necessary to use judgement based on the individual characters and what they need. This is another reason why it's so difficult to make hard and fast rules here. For instance, I said that if the enemy sexually assaults the heroine he should forgo any hope of a HEA with her. But I think we've all seen romances that involve, say, some dubiously consensual kissing, which we can understand the kissee forgiving. By the same token, the act which disqualifies my character Vasily from his first HEA is not sexual assault but something which is coded that way within the story world, and experienced that way by the heroine (vampire bite). The fact that it's not literally sexual assault is what makes it possible for Vasily to get a romantic second chance, but the fact that it is figurative sexual assault is one of the main things that decided me against a HEA the first time. So, I think that whether you're a writer or reader, it's important to exercise judgement based not just on the things that are obvious, but also on less obvious things like the characters' specific needs, the thematic symbolism of the story world, and more.

--

So those are my best ETL writing guidelines - and again, this is only what works for me! I think it's really hard to make hard and fast rules for any artistic work, but from thinking about what works for me and what doesn't, these are some of the lines I've drawn for myself. If you're reading this, I hope it provokes some helpful thoughts :-)

[luulapants]

OKAY FOLKS, so I am weary about top/bottom discourse in general, but can I just say that I am ESPECIALLY weary of the “X is a top/bottom/dom/sub because [insert description of some neuroses/insecurity/personality issue]” discourse.

And before I get into it, let me just put in a DISCLAIMER here that YKINMKATO and “Fiction is fantasy and is not inherently harmful, people can write/read what they like in fiction” can coexist with “fanfiction is an avenue through which many people form their ideas about how relationships and sex work (for themselves or for sexual minorities that are not their own), so it’s important to discuss those tropes/fantasies which are not healthy for IRL relationships to make sure people know the difference.”

Phew.

Anyway, let’s just put out there for the record that for mature adults who have worked through their shit properly, top/bottom-type dynamics are not determined by some deep psychological issue or compulsion and can’t generally be predicted by how someone looks or even their personality.

For men who have sex with men, in terms of anal, it has more to do with 1) if someone enjoys prostate stimulation, 2) if they have any weird hygiene paranoia, 3) if they have digestive issues or a low pain tolerance that makes anal uncomfortable, 4) if someone has confidence in their ability to pleasure their partner as a top. That last one is a reason that a lot of younger gay guys are more comfortable with bottoming - they’re just not that sure of themselves as a top. Oh, and most men who have sex with other men do enjoy prostate stimulation, so there’s that. That’s why switching is a thing.

For women who have sex with women, I’m v. tired of the talk around like... “so who wears the strap?” It’s usually less of a question of top/bottom and more of an intricate discussion around like... “Do you want to be touched or do you just want to touch me? Where do you want to be touched? How do you like to be touched? Do you want a slow warm-up or to get right into it? Do you want to be touched every time we have sex or do you have to be in the right mood for it? Are there ways we can get you in the mood or do we just wait for it to happen on its own? Do you want to touch me and then I’ll watch you touch yourself? Do you want to use toys?” And, for the record, strap-ons are fucking hard to use if you are lacking in pelvic/abdominal musculature.

In short, the enjoyment of different sex acts should not be derived from some deep psychological well of trauma and insecurity. You should not be trying to exorcise your demons through fucking. Bringing your issues into the bedroom is not intimate or romantic, it’s harmful. Sex is not therapy. It’s sex. It’s a way to have fun and feel close with another person.

[diamondcitydarlin]

i would so so love it if we could not do the usual moral / 'healthy relationship' expectation projections on n@ndermo , that thing we do where we have to pick apart every aspect of every era of their dynamic to make sure that they absolutely do not violate any of the 'healthy relationship' laws tumblr set down long ago that i'm -still- trying to figure out. cause I'm already seeing posts like, 'i dONt tHINk guillermo and nandor are EMoTIonALLY MatURe ENougH-' please. for the love of everything please can we not do that cyclical rhetoric this time. of course neither of them are 'emotionally mature', which is entirely the point.

i'm not trying to be mean or downplay anyone's concerns etc etc etc but...yall. this is a universe where people casually get killed and eaten in such a way that is not meant to reflect on the characters' moral codes or the way we perceive them as sympathetic or not. Shadows is not working within the boundaries of 'trying to set an example that all of society should follow' lol it has literally never been that kind of show. it's a show for adults (though that's not to say younger people can't watch it ofc, but it's helpful to understand who this show is written for) who understand and accept that these characters are not role models of how real people in the real world should behave, its a fun comedy about a supernatural world where just about anything goes. the entire point is that the main characters are all a little bit toxic and 'morally bankrupt' to a degree, at least in comparison to the ethical standards that tumblr holds its fictional characters against normally. again tho, none of that is meant to lessen our sympathy for and investment in the characters and their relationships with each other, or lessen our desire to see them succeed and be happy. that has always been the deal.

are we meant to criticize and/or care less about Sean's friendship with the vampires because they were going to (albeit mercifully) rip his head off? Because they over hypnotized him? Because, as vampires, they have an inherent power imbalance with Sean, as a human? no, of course not, because that's not what the writing of this show is leading the viewer to do.

and yes, admittedly this is a little frustrating to see for a pairing that is breaking boundaries and expectations of what we normally see with queer mainstream representation; it feels as tho we're holding a pairing of two non-white queer men to expectations that, frankly, I hadn't seen anyone in the show held to within fandom before. why now does it have to matter that everything is textbook ethical? while i don't think it's the intent to be regressive, that's still kind of what's happening here imo. gay poc men are allowed to be fucked up in shows too sometimes.

the show is not meant to be rubric for real life behavior. while we are meant to love and root for the characters and their dynamics with each other, it is understood that Shadows is not romanticizing anything into a unironic example of 'healthy irl person' / 'healthy irl relationship'. that romanticization of unhealthy behaviors in fictional narratives is why we have these discussions in the first place and shadows isn't guilty of that for the reasons I listed above.

i mean whatever obviously people can have whatever discussions they want lol, I just had to get this off my chest as I'm already seeing the posts here and there about ' why n@ndermo is problematique ' and lest i throw myself into the abyss i just had to whine for a second on an untagged post.

[whosaysitsfantasy]

Juke/Maddison & Charlie

So I just want to address something about Juke and then I’m literally not going to talk about it again, because I’ve seen a few posts about people shipping the actors and then people hating on the ship a little bit because of the age gap and it’s just been frustrating me so I wan’t to kinda get this out and then just get back to enjoying the show. Also Apologies if this upsets anyone but these are my opinions and you in no way have to agree with them I just ask that you read my thoughts fully before passing judgment and to please be respectful.

Here is what I think it is ok to do:

Shipping Luke and Julie together. Why? Because in the show they are both teenagers (16/17). I saw someone say it was kinda gross because the boys should be like 42? which I think is a little ridiculous because if they had lived sure they would have been 42 or w.e. but they didn’t... they died, and it is  canon that to them no time has passed. What this means is that the boys are still mentally, emotionally and physically 17 years old. For this reason the characters are perfectly capable of being together and their biggest obstacle remains Luke being a ghost lol. 

Here is what I think it is NOT ok to do: 

Shipping Maddison and Charlie together in real life. Now I’m going to break down for you why this is gross and not ok and why saying “when she’s 18 he can date her” is also not ok. 

A 16 year old and a 22 year old have two completely different maturity levels. A 16 year old can be mature absolutely but that doesn’t mean that they are at the  same maturity level as a 22 year old. I’m 26 and I can tell you that my maturity changed DRASTICALLY between the ages of 16-24. I use to think I was very mature when I was 16. When I hit 22 and looked back at who I was I realized that I was not nearly as mature as I believed I was and now at 26 I can clearly see the differences in who I was as a person at these ages. I can guarantee that most people (if they’re self aware enough) would agree that their maturity level was completely different as a teenager then it was once they hit their twenties. A lot of this has to do with the simple fact that in your 20′s you’ve typically gained more life experience through jobs, and relationships and higher education your brain has also developed more. Now. Maddison is definitely mature for her age in no way am I claiming she isn’t however it is still very obvious through different interviews and lives I’ve seen of her and of Charlie that they are not at the same level. Mentally, emotionally, physically.They definitely have more of a brother/sister friendship. It’s clear that they care about each other and they can of course get a long as friends but friendship and an intimate relationship are two completely different things. Maddison and Charlie’s maturity’s work fine as a friendship but if you were to factor in intimacy and romance it quickly becomes problematic. Some people might still think that the maturity levels don’t matter. I’m here to tell you it does. 

While I don’t think that Charlie would be the type of guy to ever pressure a girl he is with, that doesn’t mean that the pressure would not still exist. If they were to hypothetically date Maddison could easily feel pressured into participating in things she might not really feel ready for like certain intimate acts, parties ect because she want’s to please her partner or because she might feel like this is what she SHOULD be doing rather then doing what she is emotionally and mentally ready for. That pressure can easily influence someone of a young age who hasn’t had many experiences into doing things they eventually regret or doing things that end up having a negative impact on their mental health and the way they view themselves or even how they view healthy/unhealthy relationships down the line. Now Maddison seems smart and has a good support system but your support system can’t protect you 24/7 in an intimate relationship no matter how hard they try which is why a lot of teenagers end up going through something that they end up wishing they hadn’t done because they didn’t know any better. To also say that he can just “wait” for her to turn 18 is just predatory and gross and suggests that it’s still ok to pursue someone of a young age so long as you wait till they are legal which it is not that still means you wanted to be with a minor even if you wait till they are 18.

Also it is important to note that an actors personal life is NONE of your business. An Actors job is to perform in the show/play/movie that they have been hired to perform in and to then promote that project. That’s it. That is all they owe you and anything else is entirely up to their discretion. You are not owed information about their personal lives and you are not owed a say in who they date. If you like two actors who are dating and you think they are cute that’s fine, if they are sharing their relationship and you want to support it that is fine but you have to understand boundaries. I’ve seen fans overstep in a LOT of fandoms (one example being Lili and Cole from Riverdale) where they attack other people for being close to the people in the relationship or they bother the actors to update them about their relationship ect. It’s disrespectful and it’s honestly not your place regardless of if they have shared information about a relationship previously. It’s also not cool to try to pressure the actors into dating, you don’t know what they are actually like irl you have no idea if they are actually compatible you do not have a full picture of the situation and for that reason your opinion should be kept to yourself.

Finally I want to address the whole Luke & Julie kissing issue because I totally understand why people are a little uncertain about it due to the age gap. Now normally I’d be a little put off by it but I am actually ok with the idea of Luke and Julie kissing on screen and I’m just going to list off quickly below why I think it’s ok and why I wouldn’t get upset if it happened.

1. It is very clear that Maddison’s family (specifically her dad) are very involved with Maddison and her job on JATP. Mr.Reyes is often shown on set with her at rehearsals and during shooting. He was there when they practiced the perfect harmony dance which I personally thought was kinda intimate. I feel better about it because I know she has a strong support system who will be there to ensure that if a kiss DID happen she would be safe because she has her family looking out for her on set.

2. Much like above both Kenny and Charlie are very respectful people who very clearly have a lot of respect and love for Maddison. I also don’t think they would ever put Maddison into a position she was uncomfortable with. If a kiss DID happen I am sure there will be a lot of conversations about it and it would be done in a respectful healthy way.

3. This is a job. They are not kissing because they like each other in real life they are not pursuing anything romantically. They are performing a job that they are being paid for in front of a group of people also performing a job. This for me helps me feel less gross about it because even though they are actually kissing it’s not a ‘real’ romantic kiss. It’ll be a staged one that they have gone over and discussed at length with Kenny.

4. This is a Kenny Ortega project. The show has very clearly established that the relationships are about more than physical intimacy. IF we get a kiss between Julie and Luke we are not going to get more then a PG rated kiss.. hell probably more of a G rated kiss. Not only because this is a project by Kenny but because the actors are different ages. It is also unlikely that we will get more then one maybe two kisses a season. I personally don’t think they’re going to make them kiss in season two I think it might happen if we get season 3 but I would still be ok with a season 2 kiss because again it will probably be very simple and very respectful especially cause it’ll also probably be Julie’s 1st kiss. If they were to have them  make out or something that would be when I would  feel uncomfortable, but that just doesn’t seem like Kenny’s vibe. He’s worked with a lot of young actors and it’s not like they’re going to french kiss or something. Kissing is intimate of course but a small closed mouth kiss is honestly pretty innocent in my opinion especially if done correctly. So it doesn’t bother me much.

5. Finally by the time they get around to filming a season 2 or 3 Maddison will also be a bit older (17 or 18) hopefully so she will also be at an age where it will feel more comfortable for her.

So in conclusion: shipping Juke good, shipping Maddy & Charlie bad and wanting Juke to kiss is acceptable so long as they do it appropriately which from what I’ve seen of the cast and the crew I believe they would. I personally have a lot of faith in the creators of this show it’s clearly a very healthy supportive environment and I trust that they know what they are doing. 

Again these are my personal opinions but I felt like some people weren’t really looking at it from a completely logical standpoint but more of an emotional one which is understandable because its a very serious subject matter and it could very well also be a trigger for many people who’ve gone through something similar. I just needed to get all that off my chest cause this kind of thing can breed negativity in fandoms and thats why I don’t participate in them anymore. and listen if this was a different show with a different cast and crew and creator and they had a 16 year old and a 22 year old kissing I would probably find it more unsettling but I think one of the reasons why we all love this show so much is BECAUSE it is so healthy and because the cast are so involved and vocal about the show. I have no doubt in my mind that Maddison would have the space to speak up if she was uncomfortable and I have no doubt in my mind that Kenny and her family would make sure she was safe.

So anyways thanks for coming to my ted talk and please if you disagree that’s totally ok just don’t be hateful, I’m happy to have discussions but I won’t tolerate rudeness cause at the end of the day it’s a show and it’s out of our hands and I’m not saying you have to agree with me. This is just how I feel about these issues. 

Ok thanks bye <3

[inheritorofmemories-archive]

Nile x Booker and the age gap

Okay so uncomfortable post incoming but I feel that we need to have a discussion about Book of Nile and age (and more precisely the age gap between Nile and Booker).

Putting it under cut.

Because 2 centuries is not nothing.

And yes, Nile is an adult, at least 25 in canon, who had a career (many jobs even in comic canon) and a life and felt grief and many more things. But it doesn’t compare to a man that had a family, a wife and 3 sons, watched all of them die, and then lived about 150 more years through wars and conflicts and I presume had even more jobs than Nile. And I’ve seen too many pieces of media that justify relationships with a big age gap (counted in decades or centuries) by saying it’s magic/they stop growing/they have their mental age locked at x years/whatever excuse they have for pedophilia and creepy fetishes and power fantasies (often with much younger women and not younger men).

But obviously the old guard don’t buy in those concepts. The immortals feel the passage of time like us (they don’t go in hibernation between mission), and maybe a decade doesn’t feel the same for them but they still mature and change and grow and evolve. Two centuries are enough for Booker to have gained insight and knowledge than Nile simply cannot have as a mortal 25yo who just discovered she’ll live forever. Because in two century you make more mistakes, learn more, meet more people, etc. Going to college changed a lot of my perspectives because I got to talk with a lot of different people from many background, and I assume for someone who travel around the world (and for decades) he would have felt something like that too only on a much bigger scale.

And I do like Book of Nile, it’s a ship that has possibility and a lot of attractive aspects (the main one being: Nile in a happy and healthy relationship with an immortal like her, as per the Manifesto). But we need to have some critical thinking and deal with it appropriately. The racism and treatment of Nile, not making Booker the poor sad white man (both subjects that others have talked about already!), but that also means the age gap.

I personally do not want to think about any romantic feelings between them before something like a century. (And obviously Booker’s therapy and redemption arc —that he works for himself and doesn’t have other people do for him, own to your mistakes etc.— and proving he’s worthy of trust again and good enough for Nile.) Because I think that for canon compliant fics we need to give Nile some experiences too, to give her a more equal place and have her experiences the immortal’s pain: going back to her hometown to see it changed completely, finding her brother’s granddaughter has a career now, having pieces of her culture refereed as ancient and old, fighting in war she shouldn’t be a part of much less be alive for, questioning the morality of their actions, that kind of things. We don’t know if she had any relationships before in canon so maybe let her have some too. Just, anything to make her more of an equal to the other guards experiences. It feels really wrong to me to have her be romantically involved with Booker only a few years after meeting him, I’d rather see them being friends then later growing feelings for each other. (Also, the thought of Booker pinning for her immediately when he calls her a “kid” many time in the movie, that’s huh, kinda uncomfortable to me?)

As for the various modern AUs, I think we need to keep this in mind too, to not make Booker 40 and Nile 20 because once again, that is an age gap with lots of implication in media and no matter how carefully you thread with that there will always be some power play between them. Make Booker older but not over a decade (or something like that, I’m not counting the months) and make him decent and not creeping or preying on her or controlling or any of the usual tropes. Write Nile as an adult that already had relationships, that has a stable career and a stable income, friends/healthy support system around her to rely on and get help from and basically anything to prevent the power play that comes with age gap in relationships.

As I said, this is more of a discussion post than me trying to put rules down because that’s clearly not my place to do that. These are just my ideas and how I feel about them, so I really want to see what others might have to say about it. Maybe I’m taking this too seriously (tho I believe that media should be handled carefully because of the repercussion they have irl, so I’d rather be safe than sorry with subjects like that), maybe I’m going at this wrong or have a skewed perspective on it, idk. Just putting my thoughts out there.

[haikyuu-matches]

@ my-me1ody 

hi lily ! it’s vy from quotev ^o^ finally set up a tumblr lol ~ this may be a little long ? anyway if it is you can just skim or delete the unnecessary parts haha. hope you’re doing well ~ and stay safe ^o^

general: female / she - her, heterosexual, aries sun&moon, libra rising, infp

personality: i’m pretty quiet to strangers ^^ and very polite. i’m the type to add “miss/mister” in front of names if the person seems older. pretty shy at first, i hate confrontation and try to avoid that haha. i can be really loud and talkative to my friends. i’m really critical of myself, but i tend to neglect the flaws of others and only look at the best. i usually out others’ interests in front of my own, which is a habit i’ve formed especially since i’m the eldest and only daughter of three. i’m pretty naive with little to no common sense, which is typical of a book-smart girl ^^’. i can be clumsy, i have butter fingers and trip a lot. i’m also really sensitive and i feel emotions in short bursts. i laugh really easily but i also cry very easily. when frustrated, i cry - scared, i cry - sad, i cry - disappointed, i cry. i’ve never cried due to happiness though, strangely. my motivation and ambitions are heavily reliant on my fear of disappointing others, usually my parents.

basic appearance: 151cm/39kg, black hair with blunt bangs past my waist, i’ve been told i look like a “vietnamese princess” type of girl. i definitely lean towards the cuter side vs pretty/hot side.

hobbies/interests: — reading, mostly romantic fiction ~ because i long for those kinds of things TT even though i’ve never had a true irl crush before lol.  — crocheting, i like making small stuffies. -— baking, i really, really suck it it. very much so, but i like to do it … haha

likes: — reading — anime/manga — cute things, i absolutely adore anything cute and/or fluffy/soft. just wanna squish. — food, i am an absolute foodie, and i can eat a l o t for my size ^o^. but i have a low tolerance for spice/sourness

dislikes: — scary things — criticism — false accusations

fears: — bugs/spiders, if it has multiple legs and or wings, i’m terrified. i nearly cried because a ladybug almost landed on me once, i have an irrational fear of bugs. — demons/paranormal, friggin scary, no other explanation needed. — heights, i tend to overthink things a lot, especially with things that can go wrong, since i lean towards pessimism for myself but optimism for others. — anything scary, i’m a huge coward. anything scary, i’m probably scared of it TT

fun facts: — i played the violin from age 4, but had no motivation due to constant criticism from my parents, so i’m pretty bad at it. i can do the bare minimum and get into local orchestras/symphonies. — i’m allergic to basically everything, including peanuts, grass, trees, and pollen. i developed immunity to some like milk, wheat, soy, and fish ^^. — i’m a speed reader, i can read 500 page novels in around 8 hours or less if i’m interested. —  i can cram-memorize something, but will forget it all shortly after.

thank you so much lily ! i hope you have a great day :)

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vy! you’re literally so precious; i hope you like your matchup !! (❁´▽`❁)*✲ﾟ*

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i match you up with … 𝐎𝐈𝐊𝐀𝐖𝐀 𝐓𝐎𝐎𝐑𝐔 !!

i think you & oikawa would make such a cute match just because you’d balance him out & i think your overall demeanor definitely makes him attracted to you from the get go.

given that you’re more of a shy, book-smart girl, i feel oikawa woudn’t really know of your existence at first. but when he does end up interacting with you, he definitely gets that “dang. .  .who is she?” and the “why haven’t i seen her around before?” feeling. 

plus the fact you look like a vietnamese princess definitely makes him attracted to you, at least from a superficial standpoint. 

anyway, oikawa will definitely take in the little things that you do- he’ll notice how polite & considerate you are of others, how you are sensitive but in a good way wherein you have the biggest heart.

honestly, the people who are genuine & wear their hearts on their sleeves? that’s the kind of people oikawa would go for just because he doesn’t have to play mind games or guessing games with that kind of person. 

they make him soft, too?? 

and this coupled with the fact you like to see the good in people? mhm yeah- oikawa will definitely be content whenever he’s around you because for once, he won’t be overly smothered by fangirls or on the flip side, told that he has a shitty personality.

when it comes to you, he’ll feel an overwhelming urge to just hug you whenever you cry & wipe away your tears tenderly because he’s weak to your crying face. and if you were to cry because of him, he’d want it to be out of happiness.

in passing, oikawa also notices the way you look out for others & the fact you try your hardest to succeed, due to your fear of disappointing others.

he might try to persuade you to succeed for yourself and not be driven for the sake of others but that’s another topic of discussion. he honestly just wants you to be happy & i don’t think he’s the type to push his significant others too hard?? unless of course he thinks he’ll truly be helping them.

supportive oikawa?? for you, of course.

okay so … he’ll most likely seek you out because i get the vibes you wouldn’t be like his annoying fangirls or someone who would fault him for his passion for volleyball. in fact, you probably become his fan when you watch him play for the first time! just not in a crazy way.

anyway, i get the sense at the beginning stages of your interactions with him, you may be even indifferent of him?? especially at first! like, oikawa’s name is well known, however, you’re out here, studying & being a big brain ( like danng, you’re a speed reader. okay i see you! )  that you really never been apart of the oikawa hype train.

which means oikawa is even more interested in you. cliche trope i know but still.

oikawa is a bit childish & has a boyish charm about him, so he probably will lightly tease you for your clumsiness for your attention. it’s his way of showing affection to you. in all honesty, he can switch from being a little mean to you to absolutely lecturing you about how amazing you are when you’re being too critical of yourself. he’ll pout & comment how he doesn’t like how you treat yourself.

he knows you don’t like the criticism… but-

how can you not see what he sees?

you find that he’s both smart & dumb, kind & mean, mature & childish… and you wouldn’t have him any other way. you probably end up poking light-hearted fun at him as payback for him teasing you.

side note– he finds that your ambitions & interests are really cool. basically, you’re hella smart, play the violin, bake, and crochet?? he’ll be blown away by how cute your stuffies are & at the same time, he’s like “yeah that makes sense” because you’re cute yourself.

he probably shows off your talents & just how adorable you are to his teammates all the time to the point iwaizumi has to be like “shut up, we get it, your new girlfriend is amazing.” because his teammates are basically so, so envious & oikawa knows it.

on top of that, i can imagine oikawa absolutely brimming with happiness once you show him your talkative & loud side– he’ll feel so accomplished that you’d open up to him like that. he might have a smug face like “yeah i knew you’d open up”, but really he’s ecstatic.

once you guys become official, oikawa will be so affectionate with you?? like it’ll be a little embarrassing & perhaps overwhelming at first, but overall endearing. he’ll pull all the romantic fiction moves– from cute nicknames to late night convos to classic dates… but he can also have a chill, laid-back side in the sense he just wants to be with you & not everything has to be perfect. especially since you both get busy-

when you’re able to, you guys probably go out to eat a lot & take aesthetically pleasing foodie pictures & cute selfies & ah it’s just perfection.

in the end, i think you’d make a wholesome match & you guys end up making each other better by being together?? 

also you two are so photogenic, so people would be like “of course they’d be together- they look so good together”- 

possible runner-ups:

bokuto koutarou

hinata shouyou

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— lily ! ♡

[repost-this-image]

PSA FOR TEENAGERS:

1. Do not talk about the stuff that makes you horny around people that you know are over 18. I’m not saying don’t BE horny; you’ve got hormones coursing through your veins saying “Hey, time to start feeling horny at the most embarrassing possible times” and you can’t really turn that off. I’m saying DO NOT discuss fetishes with adults. Do not sext or send naughty pictures of yourself to adults. (Distributing porn of an IRL minor is a felony, even if YOU ARE the minor in question.) Do not request or comission pornographic drawings from an artist. (Distributing porn TO a minor is also a felony.)

I’m not saying this to rain on your parade. I’m saying this because p*dophiles exist on the Internet, and too many members of my generation had to deal with shit they were not old enough to deal with because of said creeps. P*dos will totally act like your best friend as part of the grooming process. Which brings is to point #2:

2. If someone over 20 is romantically interested in people under 17, that person is a predator. You might act very responsible for your age; IDK because i don’t know everyone on this hellsite personally. Doesn’t matter. Anyone who says you’re “so mature for your age” and also expresses romantic or sexual interest in you is grooming you for abuse. Period. End of story.

Remember: They go after underage teens because they want someone easy to manipulate and control. If they wanted a normal relationship on equal footing with their partner, they’d date other adults. (No, age differences between two adults aren’t creepy unless the older partner started grooming the younger before they turned 18. Weird, maybe. Uncomfortable to think about, perhaps. But not predatory the way a 26-y/o going after a 16-y/o is, TRUST ME ON THIS.)

3. Your parents have an obligation to care for and protect you, and to help you learn how to assess risk and protect yourself. Your teacher also takes on those responsibilities while you’re at school. Mandatory reporters are required to tell the authorities if they have reason to believe that you or your peers are being abused in any way. But! No one else is under any obligation to protect you from the world.

Some of us may volunteer to help protect you on an individual basis (like a field-trip chaperone). Some of us may give you information like this post on how to protect yourself. But we’ve also got a lot of our own shit to deal with just trying to live in The Worst Timeline. Not all of us have the time or energy to babysit, and we DEFINITELY don’t have the ability to put foam padding on the entire Internet so you don’t encounter anything that might upset or disturb you. It’s just way too fucking big. There were hundreds of TB of Internet 20 years ago when I was your age; imagine how much more huge it’s gotten since then.

So how do you deal with going to a webpage that makes you uncomfortable? Simple. Have a moment to cringe and say “OH DEAR GOD WHY,” if you like. Then hit the Back button and go look at pictures of kittens or something to get your mind off the Squick.

DO:

Block tags that disturb or gross you out on fandom and social-media sites, so you’re less likely to get a nasty surprise. This is exactly what the ability to block tags was invented for. :)

Being disgusted, feeling uncomfortable or unsafe, suck but they are not the same as having your PTSD triggered. Please don’t use the word “trigger” for stuff that just grosses you out; that trivializes the actual trauma of PTSD sufferers. Just say “that makes me uncomfortable.” Please. As someone who’s flinched from innocuous shit my husband does because of how bad my dad fucked me up, I AM LITERALLY BEGGING YOU.

If an adult starts creeping on you, say “I’m underage and don’t feel comfortable with this. Please stop.” If they don’t, then take screenshots in case you need them for legal evidence, and BLOCK THEM IMMEDIATELY after that. Don’t even fucking respond; they’ve already ignored your boundaries by persisting, and that means that they are dangerous.

DON’T:

Agree to meet anyone online that you don’t know IRL without your parents being there. If they don’t want your parents around, that is a HUGE red flag.

Put personally-identifying information on public webpages. Your age; your last name; your phone number; the town you live in; even your first name if it’s unusual enough. These are tools that Nasty People can use to find you. Make it as hard as possible for them to do so.

Hate on people for shipping characters you don’t ship. It would be an abusive relationship? They know; they can handle that because fictional characters aren’t real and can’t really get hurt. It’s not canon? Doesn’t matter; part of the fun of being a fan of something is imagining “What if?” One of them died 100 years before the other was even born? Does. Not. Matter. It’s fiction; they are not interfering in the real lives of real people by shipping. Don’t intimidate, harrass, or threaten someone for wanting to imagine 2 characters kissing that you personally wouldn’t want to imagine kissing each other.

Insist that someone who has tagged a fanwork as “That Thing That You Hate The Most,” take down the fanwork because it contains That Thing You Hate. They put a warning label on it. If you ignore warning labels, bad things happen; you wouldn’t ignore a DO NOT DRINK label on a bottle of household cleaner, so don’t ignore tag warnings. They are there to protect your mind, just like the DO NOT DRINK on the bleach bottle is there to protect your body. Just say “OMG WHY” to yourself, hit Back, and find something better to look at. Don’t view that fanwork; don’t leave a comment on the fanwork; just Walk. Away.

Don’t make callout posts that have images of The Exact Shit You’re Warning About in them. You’re just exposing more people to the same shit that offended, disgusted, or outright PTSD-triggered you! Don’t do that to people, guys. I’ve seen way more Disturbing Shit in callout posts than I have elsewhere at this point, and I read weird fansmut as a hobby, so that’s saying a LOT. Please, please stop exposing us to that stuff!!!

[evilback-wards]

[TW:  S*xual Abuse, Coercion, Gr**ming, Predatory Behaviors] Spreading Awareness

It took me a long time to get the courage to write this. This is personal, but also can be used for reference to avoid getting manipulated by those who just want to hurt you. This goes out to all my older and younger followers. This post talks about gr**ming, manipulative behaviors, and some personal advice on how to avoid these certain behaviors/people. More information below the cut.

When I was 13, I met a group of friends through an online gaming site. At first most of them seemed to be cool to me, since some were between 2-5 years older than me. I started to chat with them online everyday using a system called chatango(dunno if its still running atm). It was posted all over old anime websites(not sure if they still are now). That was how I met most people. Due to my upbringing, I never felt safe around my parents. My only friend irl at the time constantly sexually abused me. This led to me only making friends via online chat systems like Chatango and Xat.

At first, things did go really well. But since that’s how most gr**ming starts, I want to warn all of my young followers of the warning signs. This is from my personal POV so keep that in mind:

Saying you’re “mature for your age”, esp. if mentioned after telling your age

Constantly trying to ‘teach you’ about life, focusing on sexual things in nature

Saying your friends are ‘less mature’ than them to give them credibility

Isolating you from you healthy-minded friends

Rushing the relationship/trying to make you feel ‘special’

Manipulating you into being their sole source of comfort* 

Making you keep secrets about some of the things you do/discuss

Making you feel worthless, saying stuff like ‘without me you’re nothing’

Raging at you when you do not follow as they want/like

Coercing you to do sexual acts you do not want to do, either but physical or mental abuse

Performing sexual acts in front/around you and demanding you comment on them

Expecting you to drop everything to hang out with them*

 The ones I marked with asterisks are typically situational/may not happen depending on the person in question. I had experienced a man who I had fallen for unfortunately since I thought he was my way out of my depressive state and dismal living situation. He did all of the above things to try and get me to do sexual acts for him. That first guy, we’ll call him T, worked hard to get me to love him. He had gotten me isolated from the few healthy online friends I had. He even almost got me to meet him in a semi-private area where he would do god knows what with me. Now looking back on it, I doubt the guy was even from Mississippi like he claimed. He knew the landmarks of where I lived too well and tried pushing for us to meet at those places.  Thankfully for that encounter he lost interest after my parents stepped in(but they blamed me for the most part). The worst part about situations like this, if you don’t have a healthy network of people to talk to, is the blame that can come from it. 

The next guy(we’ll call him J) gets deeper into my head and actually got me to do sexual acts on Skype with him. He was much older than me and strung me along. I had fallen for him since I liked his personality. And much like last time, I saw J as an escape from my terrible reality at the time. Things got more serious as I went through high school. We would talk on the phone late at night, joking around. I hadn’t had a cellphone at the time so we would just talk for a while. I hadn’t known it at the time, but he was actually gr**ming me for sexual behavior in the future. He didn’t make more moves in the sexual realm until I had moved out to college. Once he heard I did, he kept trying to get me to perform sexual acts for him. The one time I gave in and did, I realized what had happened. Sure, I wasn’t a teenager anymore, but due to the amount of trauma and abuse I had undergone, it was hard for me to do much critical thinking outside of school work. After, he ghosted me and never spoke to me again. From my traumatic past till now, it really broke me as a person. I never thought I was going to be enough to anyone. Not to a friend, a SO, no one. Now that I am recovering from that history of abuse, I want to spread the word out there to my younger and older followers.  There’s so many people out there that may hurt you. They may seem nice surface level, but if they do most things on that checklist I have above, they’re likely either gr**ming you for future sexual behavior or trying to manipulate you. The reason why I am putting this target to older audiences too is since the impacts of gr**ming can be long lasting. Those impacted by this can be on a bad track to unhealthy relationships with abusive/manipulative significant others. I find this especially hurtful if you do not have a healthy family dynamic to lean back on. Compounded with a negative school and social life, these predators will often find these sorts of people as perfect targets. I strongly encourage if you feel like this is happening to you or a friend, do more research, learn how to best approach the situation, and stay safe. For sometime I thought about helping out those who may be in this situation personally, but I have learned that its best to do your own research and figure out how to best tackle the situation with friends/people who are close to you. Be sure(if you are younger/minor) to reach out to someone you trust as an adult figure if you know your parents do not care/will abuse you.

So, if there’s anyone out there that is feeling lonely/depressed/empty, I beg you, please, please don’t think it gets better with those who are groomers or abusers. They are only there to get what they want. Do research on the person in question, see if anyone else has felt the same way(if safe to do so), research more about gr**ming, and please please stay safe.

I would like to end this as a thank you to whoever ends up reading this far. I feel very strongly on this topic and it has taken a lot of courage and strength to write about my personal experience and talk about this issue. As I stated before, its best to approach these sort of things with tons of research, getting outside help, and most importantly, staying safe.  I wish everyone well and I hope that someday we’ll have a system that can more closely watch for stuff like this.

[langst-wins]

Okay so y'all are sleeping on the After Buzz interview!!! There's SO MUCH Klance goodness to unpack here, it's full meta worthy.

Okay, so I'm sure by now everyone who regularly views the Klance tag has seen a short 20-30 second video clip from this interview going around. We're all pretty hyped about it (as we should be!)

For those who haven't seen that clip because they live under a rock: it's basically a 45 minute interview all about The Fued episode.

Here's the thing though: that 20-30 second video clip does NOT even CLOSE to do justice to the significance of Klance hinted at in this interview!! That clip isn't even the best part, imo! I highly recommend, before you even scroll down to read this meta, that you click on that video and watch from about 34:50 to about 37:20. That's the clip I'm gonna write about.

Watched it? Okay. Good.

Now listen up.

Somebody was in the Klance tag earlier tryna get people down by saying the interviewer was the one who brought up Klance, but if you watch the video clip I reccomend above, that's not true at all.

The interviewer was asking in general about how they decided who would pick who at the end of the episode. Lauren is the one who brought up Keith and Lance and their dynamic, pretty much out of the blue.

The interviewer asked how they decided who was gonna pick who, and they're talking about who wrote the episode, giving Tim credit, etc.

Lauren started saying Bob was trying to get the better of the team, and having them all choose someone besides themselves and having everyone get chosen, and show they all respect each other, was the only way to beat Bob.

But JDS had a different view.

JDS: "I think Bob was just trying to help them realize it. I don't think he had it out for them, I think he was--his endgame was, like, I want these guys to work."

I know JDS was trying to sound like he was referencing the entire team here - but honestly? I don't think he was.

I say that because, when I first watched this episode as a Klance shipper, this was the exact thought I had regarding Klance. I flipped because I was thinking, "Wowza, Bob's really out here tryna bring Keith and Lance together, huh. Number one Klancer right there, ol' Bob." I've always thought that Bob was low key trying to play matchmaker for Klance and this kinda sort of confirms that in a way, I think.

JDS: "We were like 'how's this gonna happen?' then we read it and we were like '...oh that's pretty smart, yeah.'"

LM: "That is a good way for that to happen."

JDS: "It all worked out, yeah."

I don't understand how this relates to the team as a whole.

I don't understand how this relates to the team platonically choosing each other.

They all like and respect each other. We already know this. What does JDS mean by "how its gonna happen"? How is what going to happen?

Good way for what to happen, LM?

Keep in mind, Bob is essentially an all-knowing deity. If Keith and Lance have romantic feelings for each other, he for sure knows, and was trying to help them realize it just like JDS said.

After this, the interviewer continues on talking about Keith and Lance dynamic and how theres always gonna be that little bit of antagonism between them even though they're mostly getting along now. The interviewer even brings up the "dont miss" snippet scene that pretty much everyone but Klancers brushed off in season 7.

And if you listen while the interviewer is talking about Keith and Lance and their dynamic, LM is kind of saying "yeah" in the background in a weird way, like she kind of sees, the same way I do, that the interviewer is thinking along a line of Klance.

It sounds like she maybe doesn't want to talk about it? It's hard to explain, just listen to it.

And LM kinda awkardly says "aww" at one point while the interviewer is talking about Keith and Lance dynamic. Like I'm sorry but..why aww? And why so awkwardly?

I think LM's mind is thinking in a way geared toward Klance/not spoiling Klance in these last few moments of the interview and she's trying to placate. Again, it's hard to explain, just listen for yourself.

The same person in the Klance tag earlier who was tryna get people down pointed out that, after this, JDS compares Keith and Lance to a relationship he has with a buddy of his. Debbie downer said JDS thinks of Keith and Lance as friends.

I dont think so.

I think they say little things like this to kind of hint at Klance without straight up spoiling Klance. They throw in comments like that to throw water on the fire, so to speak, to keep people from catching on.

(Also: he's not wrong at all. At this point in the show Keith and Lance ARE buddies. It's slow burn. They aren't romantic yet - but they will be.)

But also...RIGHT after JDS makes the buddy comparison is when the moment happens of LM talking, the popular 20-30 second clip that's been going around tumblr.

This is the part I'm sure you've all seen. Lauren says that Lance is maturing, moving on, and opening up by calling Keith the future. She also puts emphasis on Keith's name. "I think KEITH is the future."

And after this is yet another moment that negative peeps are tryna bring KICKers down with; Lauren says Keith is so perturbed by the whole game show thing that he doesn't put much thought into who he chose.

But...that doesnt quite add up.

Earlier in the interview, they were talking about how Keith is just so calm through the whole thing.

LM and JDS said it's because they couldn't really get a hold of Steven Yeun to revoice the lines in a more concerned tone. They make a joke about how he's not exactly easy to get ahold of (lmfao yeah we've noticed.)

Then JDS points out that it really works out, actually, that Keith is so calm, because after flying magical mechanical space lions to form a giant magical mechanical space man, there's likely very little that could perturb Keith at this point, so his meh attitude toward the game show makes sense.

That doesn't add up with him being "so perturbed" by the game show thing that he just chooses at random.

Either he's calm and collected during the game show or he's not. It can't be both ways.

So did Keith choose Lance with a calm and clear mind, or was he shaken and choosing at random? They were very inconsistent with this.

But imo? Keith isn't one to get very riled up or perturbed by things like this. Keith also isn't one to make such an important life or death decision of who should be free to leave without putting any thought into it. That doesn't match his character at all.

LM and JDS did something they often do here, which is the good cop bad cop routine.

One of them hints at Klance, then the other pulls back and tries to make it seem less romantic. Then the one who tried to make it seem less romantic hints at Klance themselves, and the one who originally hinted at Klance tries to ease it back a little.

They do this constantly when discussing Keith and Lance in any way. It's like a rhythm they've got going to stoke the flames and then splash a little water in; not starting a wildfire, but not putting it out completely.

Another thing I noticed: they said earlier on in the video that, originally, the game show was meant to be the final episode before they got back to earth.

Originally, the stakes for the game show were supposed to be "win and you basically get wormholed back to your solar system."

They decided to switch the episode order around because it didn't feel right to have them get back to earth right on the heels of a silly game show; it made the stakes seem like they were less serious, and they didn't want that (makes perfect sense! Good call!)

One note of specific pessimism for Klancers after season seven was that we got that one he's like, the future moment and then Lance turns right around and is angry and snapping at Keith in the episode where they were going space mad.

This made a lot of Klancers lose hope because they felt like any potential was fizzled out when that one moment early on in the season was almost all the Klance we got (I personally think there were more Klance moments than just the Fued in season seven, and I even think Lance snapping at Keith about running away was a low key Klance moment, but that's another meta for another time.)

But...apparently...the space mad episode was originally meant to come BEFORE the Fued.

Y'all know what that means?

It means that, originally...Lance was going to snap at Keith about running away...and then he was going to call Keith the future later on.

This makes a hell of a lot more sense in the terms of Klance being a slow burn. It was the change of episode order that threw us.

Also notice that...they didn't specifically talk about any other characters or the relationship between any othercharacters. They JUST talked about Lance and Keith.

The interviewer asked in general how they decided who was going to choose who...and the showrunners just straight up spent three minutes talking about Keith and Lance without a single mention of the other three paladins.

The interviewer didn't bring up Klance. Lauren brought up Klance. The interviewer saw the opportunity and started digging a little, AFTER Lauren brought it up.

I just...

You guys.

You guys.

All of this, plus the fact that the Garfle Warfle Snick logo is an exact replica of the irl Dating Game logo, plus the fact that Josh Keaton said this episode contains "a lot of foreshadowing," plus the way Lance looked so kind and soft when he called Keith the future, plus the confused looks Pidge and Hunk had when Lance and Keith chose each other, like they sense this was more than a bro moment?

Guys. Come on.

KICK.

[comicteaparty]

March 9th-March 15th, 2020 CTP Archive

The archive for the Comic Tea Party week long chat that occurred from March 9th, 2020 to March 15th, 2020.  The chat focused on HoverGirls by Geneva Bowers.

Featured Comment:

Chat:

Comic Tea Party

BOOK CLUB START!

Hello and welcome everyone to Comic Tea Party’s Book Club~! This week we’ll be focusing on HoverGirls by Geneva Bowers~! (https://hovergirls.com/)

You are free to read and comment about the comic all week at your own pace until March 15th, so stop on by whenever it suits your schedule! Discussions are freeform, but we do offer discussion prompts in the pins for those who’d like to have them. Additionally, remember that while constructive criticism is allowed, our focus is to have fun and appreciate the comic! Whether you finish the comic or can only read a few pages, everyone is welcome to join and chat with us!

DISCUSSION PROMPTS – PART 1

1. What did you like about the beginning of the comic?

2. What has been your favorite moment in the comic (so far)?

3. Who is your favorite character?

4. Which characters do like seeing interact the most?

5. What is something you like about the art? If you have a favorite illustration, please share it!

6. What is a theme you like that the comic explores?

7. What do you like about the comic’s story or overall related content?

8. Overall, what do you think the comic’s strengths are?

Don’t feel inspired by the prompts? Feel free to discuss anything else that interested you!

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

It's so eye catching!

The bold color scheme immediately creates a strong identity for the comic

The contrast between the two MCs is

I'll comment more when I've read past literally just the first page lol

eli [a winged tale]

Wow I love the art! Very beautiful palette and interesting characters right off the bat (pun intended!). Great dynamics between our two mains and love the magic so far!

mcapriglione (Falconhyrste)

yall I heard you were talking about hover girls and I came running

I just caught up like yesterday because I'm sick so I've spent the whole day reading comics, also I picked up a physical copy from geneva at c2e2 and that's what got me started on the series!

What stands out to me so much is the characters, jalissa and kim are total opposites, and it's really interesting to see them interact with each other. also the little things in the background that tell more about the characters, like jalissa's love for soap operas and kim's references ahaha

RebelVampire

So time for me to jump into the chat. What I like about the beginning is that it starts you off with this sort of beautiful artwork and magical feel, only to drop the mundane on you with the coffee shop and the obsession with ranking on social media. Something about how this starts really gives me this sort of more modern day magical girl feel that usually isn't quite there. Like it's a bit gritty feeling cause life is gritty, and I like that. As for favorite moment in the comic so far, I'm partial to when the girls discovered their powers. I like how it just sort of happened, and the different reactions they had to it. It was both magical and funny. Also for the reasons below. My favorite character is Jalissa, no content. Jalissa is basically my spirit animal. Doesn't want fame, just wants to catch up on the soaps, but somehow winds up with more energetic people. All of Jalissa's reactions to everything are great and I love it. For characters interacting, really it has to go to Jalissa and Kim. They're such polar opposites I think you'd have to try to NOT enjoy it. But either way, that opposites thing really just makes their interactions endearing and interesting since going in you know they'll disagree and yet somehow wind up doing the same thing together anyway. So I really enjoy that about their relationship.

As for the art, I really just love the color design combined with the style. It has a very whimsical feel that works for the abundant blue schemes and I really just adore every bit of the atmosphere it creates. For themes, I like that the comic explores ego. Like that moment where Kim asked if she was getting too full of herself really hit home. And I like that the comic kind of explores that even if you know that you might get egotistical and all high and mighty, its not the easiest thing in the world to stop either. For the story's overall content, I'm just gonna point to what I liked about the beginning. I like that its a bit more mature, modernized magical girl story where the magical girls are adults. That's probably just bias in that I'm an adult so I relate more to adults.

Comic Tea Party

DISCUSSION PROMPTS – PART 2

9. What do you think Jalissa’s backstory and relationship with her family is? How do you think Jalissa will continue to change as the story progresses, and what will Kim’s role be in it? Further, how will Kim change?

10. Why do you think Kim was suddenly possessed, and how dangerous are they? Can Kim be saved from it? Additionally, why was the person who possessed Kim surprised Jalissa also had powers?

11. Do you think Jalissa and Kim will succeed as magical girls and become popular? Why or why not? Additionally, how might this change the future plans each has decided upon for their career?

12. What do you think this comic teaches us about pursuing our dreams and responsibility? What has been your favorite moment in the comic so far that deals with these themes? Don’t feel inspired by the prompts? Feel free to discuss anything else that interested you!

gee

Hello CTP! This is the creator of HoverGirls c: I want to thank you all for taking the time to read and discuss this comic! I bet you're all pros at what makes a good story, so it's really humbling to know that it's liked so far. I'll be happy to answer any q's about story, chars, etc. And it was super nice to finally meet you @mcapriglione (Falconhyrste) and hope you feel better!

mcapriglione (Falconhyrste)

Aaaaa hey welcome to the chat @gee !

Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)

Ok I just finished reading the entire comic start to finish. I have to say I'm not only impressed by the wonderful art and refreshing color scheme that makes me think of wild summer, but amazed that I find myself invested in this story! Usually it's not my cup of tea at all, but Hover Girls are going to clearly be the exception. I'm adding this to my comic bookmarks The first thing I have to give my kudos for is the sheer character design and characterization. I had sincere, and in Kim's case, almost visceral reactions to both girls, and the Korean guy (his name sounds Korean). While Jalissa intrigued me from the start, Kim got under my skin to the point I found her insufferable! It is only in the last few pages with her backstory flashback that I somewhat feel sympathy for her. I love the interaction between these two, and also how the story is paced so that we get to gradually become aware of more layers and nuance in the relationship they have. Jalissa's love and concern for Kim was clear to me from the start, while Kim's not so much. She (Kim) came across to me as immature, self-centered and inconsiderate. Later, when we see more of their history, I got to see the concern and love from Kim's side too. That's excellent writing to go with the excellent art. I also really like the premise with the alien creatures! I am intrigued and want to know more. Finally, I want to talk about the humour in the dialogue and the art in general. I love how there's a streak of black humour throughout the comic. My favourite character is (in case you didn't infer it yet) Jalissa, but I like the entire cast. They need each other to organically bounce off each other and develop. And lastly, I have to mention the really fun brand names and soap titles. Always makes me grin. Wonderful work @gee !(edited)

RebelVampire

I get the impression that Jalissa was a typical delinquent and that her parents werent around much - hence the delinquency. And so I imagine it's a bit strained at the best of it. I think Jalissa moving is her attempt to turn things around, and I think that is what will happen. Jalissa will become more responsible, take more of a sense of duty, etc. Which is what I think will happen with Kim, along with a healthy dose of gaining some humility. As for why Kim was suddenly possessed, maybe the weather? Regardless, 100% I'm sure Kim can be saved. Only bad villains monologue so Kim got taken over by a bad villain. As for why Jalissa's powers are a surprise, probably a lack of communication due to alien bureaucracy. Jalissa and Kim will definitely succeed as magical girls if you tone down expectations to be heroes who fight crime as opposed to what we see in every anime where they fight and just are completely fine and sparkly. As for becoming popular, maybe for a bit, but honestly, probably not. The internet is fickle so sure they might get a viral video....but then everyone will move on. I think it will mostly only change Jalissa's plans as she's finds there are more important things in the world than soaps. As for what the comic teaches about pursuing our dreams is that it's hard. My favorite moment is actually Kim checking if anyone liked the pic and it was just Jalissa. The world is saturated with talent, and even if you have the drive, the skills, etc., getting noticed is kind of a slog. But I think Kim shows us at least might as well keep trying.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I had the opposite reaction as @Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight) ! Jalissa irritated me at first, while I liked Kim. But then, when I saw Jalissa's genuine kindness, I liked her more, and when Kim started showing her flaws- how she's kind of self-centered and naive, I started to like her less. That's not to say I think this comic has bad writing, though! I like how the author has given everyone such realistic flaws. I went through a lot of cycles of liking and disliking the characters, and I think that reflects how it feels as you get to know some people irl. These characters are complex!

Seeing stoic Jalissa get truly angry at Kim was powerful.

I like the detail of Jalissa keeping her bat in her backpack's water bottle holder

"Only bad villains monologue so Kim got taken over by a bad villain. "

Rebel, that made me laugh

I think it's true too(edited)

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

+ü´´´´´´b n#ä+ß

Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)

@Eightfish (Puppeteer) it's exactly that we get different and real reactions to these characters that is the proof of excellent writing. We react differently, but we react as if they were real people and that's an absolute win!

mathtans

Woo, my schedule's eased a bit and this looked interesting. For the discussion prompts...

1. The beginning set things up well in terms of a quickie fight and then the characters and city situation. There was humour in that too. Good tone.

2. Fave moment, as far as plot was probably Jalissa interacting with blonde boy (sorry, forget the name) in particular because it seemed to be foreshadowing. Fave moment for relatability was the phone message with "Get to the point" because I SO relate to that.

3. Tough call on character. Both mains have good qualities and I don't feel I know the others well enough yet. I suppose Jalissa for her straightforward nature and sticking to her guns (like about dresses).

4. I liked Jalissa and Blonde Boy interacting, funny enough, as I said earlier. The cousin banter is good but the former stood out somehow.

5. The art's a neat blend of emphasis in some places and less in others; also interesting how the hair is done. Not sure why that sticks out.

6. I'm very bad at noticing themes. It's neat showing what "magical girls" do in their off hours. Also the troubles with getting noticed.

7. Story's clever, and I felt suspicious of Blonde Boy from him being around during the powers acquisition, which seems to be paying off. Nice to see ladies of colour too.

mathtans

8. Comic's got a bit of everything. Magic, mystery, slice-of-life... a reader can probably gravitate to something.

Comic Tea Party

DISCUSSION PROMPTS – PART 3

13. What are you most looking forward to seeing in regards to the comic?

14. Any final words of encouragement for the comic? Don’t feel inspired by the prompts? Feel free to discuss anything else that interested you!

mathtans

9. Jalissa seems to be someone who grew up in a difficult situation and needs to blow off steam sometimes. I'm reminded of the time she punched the wall - but then within a day went to get the materials needed to fix it. I feel like she had an unhappy home life with no real outlet or people to talk to about it. Maybe the fighting evil will help, or at least give her a sense of accomplishment. Kim needs to be a bit more grounded in reality, and I suspect will, although at the same time you kind of hate to see it happen, like the death of innocence or something.

10. I wondered if possession was always part of the plan against Kim (once it happened), and that's why the water beings were around, like they're trying to get access to the powers... though it's seeming like it was always something inside her, she was simply able to suppress the feeling for a time. Until she was at a low point emotionally.

Actually, I always thought BlondeBoy had something to do with the attacks, and in the scene between him and Jalissa (the earlier one in the alley) you saw hint of blue in the art, and one wonders whether he was acting normally. I wasn't sure if it was a subconscious thing or a conscious thing. Now I wonder if Kim wasn't manifesting the items herself on some subconscious level, wanting something to defeat. Though maybe he still had a hand in it too.

Of course, maybe the weather has something to do with it too, as Rebel remarked on.

mathtans

11. I feel like their power as magical girls is possibly tied to the presence (or at least strength) of the enemy, otherwise why wouldn't it make the news more? (Granted, could be obliviousness by the populace, but this seems to be reinforced by the current plot elements.) As such, their magical days seem numbered... unless they could fight against regular mundane foes? I dunno. The world doesn't seem to care much about supernatural either.

mathtans

Maybe they should change their name? Hovering doesn't sound too aggressive, and I don't think they do it that much anyway. Granted, DampGirls isn't catchy, and H2OGirls is a bit clinical. ^.^

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

I love this comic! The two main characters play incredibly off each other, and there's lots of great comedic moments. My fav is Jalissa.

I wonder if it is the weather that's causing these possessions? Because, like, the flying fish attacks in general are tied to the rain. Maybe particularly rough rainstorms cause possessions? I feel like the thing that possessed Kim and the boy was what brought about the powers in the first place - the energy that came down from the sky on the beach. It's odd how the blonde dude didn't seem to use powers but got possessed first, while Kim uses her powers the most and got possessed second... maybe Jalissa has an easier time resisting because she has the strongest will?

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

@snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights) I don't think Jalissa can get possessed- Bob said that his soul was split in two, and Jalissa got the powers while Korean guy got the mind

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

ah yes, that's true

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

@mathtans I like "Hovergirls"! It's cute and catchy

gee

The title I still don't 100% like, TBH. I legitimately thought on it for a week before starting on this comic and still couldn't think of anything better XD

RebelVampire

What I'm most looking forward to in the comic is probably just more Jalissa in general and finding out why Jalissa is the way Jalissa is. Overall though, this is a beautiful comic with a great combination between modernization and magical girls with just the right hint of maturity that makes it more appealing for an adult. Definitely would recommend to adult fans of magical girl stories!

mathtans

To be clear, I had no issue with the title of the comic... with some comics there's only an offhand reference too. I guess I was more picturing the ladies arguing, were Jalissa to get more into it.

As to the rest of the questions, I think the comic can show that reality is somewhere between the two of them (though they do play off each other very well) as far as dreams and responsibility go. I'm vaguely curious to know whether the alien might be having a positive (or negative?) influence on BlondeBoy, who seemed a bit of a jerk from the lens of the others.

The world building is well done too, like I could even see spinoffs... these aliens apparently just sent a couple emissaries to Earth, maybe there's some sort of space force out there fighting too. Maybe they see Kim's videos and want to recruit her. Or hire her for public relations. idk.

Anyway, looks great, definitely an interesting read and nice showcasing of things you don't see other places, best with it!

gee

Huge thank you all CTP group for giving HoverGirls a read! I cannot thank you enough for giving your time and thoughts on this story and it’s been incredibly helpful and encouraging!!

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

It was a great read, gee!

Comic Tea Party

BOOK CLUB END!

Thank you everyone so much for reading and chatting about HoverGirls this week! Please also give a special thank you to Geneva Bowers for volunteering the comic and creating it! If you liked HoverGirls, make sure to continue to support it via some of the links below!

Read and Comment: https://hovergirls.com/

Geneva’s Store: https://gdbee.store/

Geneva’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/gdbeeart

[nomdebloomart]

Seeking friends/partners for forum plots!

Hi there! My name is Bliss - I’m a 31F and a seasoned narrative roleplayer of nearly two decades, and I am seeking a partner and friend for a somewhat specific plot or two.

Full disclosure - this ad is intended to fill roles on a modern/supernatural jcink roleplay forum, but I will do my best to give as much detail as possible so that you can decide if this is something that might interest you!

Shall we begin?

A bit more about me:

My mode is third-person/past-tense, and my average reply length is four chonky paragraphs, though I will happily write more or less as the scene calls for it (the site I’m on rewards members for posting a minimum of 250 words per reply, fyi).

I’m fairly active! Generally speaking, I can provide 1-3 posts per day if a plot is particularly engaging, or even do “rapidfire” sessions. And of course, I will always give my friends/partners notice if something comes up IRL to prevent me from posting on a given day or week.

I write Male and Female characters, and prefer MxF ships.

I’m an aspiring digital artist and enjoy making fanart of my friend’s characters (I will happily show examples if you are curious c: ).

One of my favorite aspects of this hobby is the plotting portion - if my partner seems amicable to it, I will gleefully bombard them with headcanons and scene concepts and playlists and pinterest boards pertaining to our characters and their plot. I thoroughly enjoy “riffing” as well, and specifically for testing chemistry or potential scene outcomes.

I mentioned it before, but it’s important so I’ll say it again - I hope that you and I may become friends as much as writing partners in this and may go on to have many more plots and ships between us!

Ideally the person responding to this ad is:

25+ years old.

Has some experience with forum roleplay, or is at least open to the idea. The community in question is friendly and engaging, and I’d love to see you branch out a bit with your characters beyond our ships/plots.

Creative. I love tossing ideas back and forth and building off of them, and don’t want to be the only one between us offering ideas or otherwise driving our plots.

Flexible. Scenes don’t always go the way we expect! If something isn’t going the way you want, let’s discuss it!

Engaging. I want to nerd out with you about our characters and our plans for them!

Open to playing Female AND Male characters and willing to put equal effort into both.

Open to mature themes, but willing to respect my limits (this probably goes without saying).

Willing to provide a writing sample.

Now! What *specifically* am I seeking?

I won’t be linking the site in question until we’ve had a chance to discuss things, but, as stated previously, it fits into the Modern-Supernatural genre (demons, werewolves, vampires, witches, etc). I have two characters in need of long-term romantic plots:

Duke:

Male Wrath Demon

Face Claim: Jon Bernthal

In need of a Witch to summon him for (potentially nefarious) reasons, ensnare him, and otherwise set off a gratuitous enemies-to-lovers plot. This will be a SLOW-BURN, people. I cannot stress that enough. Duke is equal parts charming/suave and unpredictable/dangerous, so there are a number of ways in which things might pan out.

Juliet:

Female Alpha Werewolf

Face Claim: Lily James

In need of a romantic interest who is ideally also a Wolf, though I’m open to giving Vampires a try despite the overwhelming ANGST this would cause due to the ongoing conflict between Vamps and Werewolves. Her backstory is effectively that she was once a Witch who lost her powers when she agreed to allow her boyfriend to turn her into a Werewolf (without knowing or understanding the full implications of her choice). The boyfriend is no longer in the picture (died in the conflict with the Vampires), and she has since joined the Pack and is trying to find a place for herself. Honestly, some kind of rivals-to-lovers plot might be fun for her, but I’m open to discussing our ideas!

…I can give more information for both characters upon request, as well as more detailed info regarding the site and its lore depending on how well you and I end up getting along.

[femmefiction]

Reflections of the past: Explaining Claudia's relationship with her new mothers and to me irl.

Trigger warning: recounting stories of when I was young and didn't know what sex was, and now regret everything I ever said and did.

So, I'm going to perform a cardinal sin here and start with my relationship with Claudia from Interview with the Vampire. Hearing about her existence triggered both my asperges and maternal instincts where I weirdly related to her. While I say maternal, since learning about her when I was, like, 11 or 12, I felt more protective as a big sister who she could talk to about anything. When relating to her, comes what would become my current project "Ma Favori" (in French, favorite is spelt the same way, but favori is a feminine version of favorite or darling as a nickname, taking a quote from one of the earliest chapters. The original name being "Claudia's Mothers") where I studied the ideas planted by Anne Rice in interest with Claudia's maturity towards Louis, as stated, these vampires are basically sexless and bisexual at the same time. I understand that because, ya know, no blood means no boner, but then I had to wonder about women and how they would pleasure each other. That's where the pornographic beginning with Estelle and Madeleine came to be. As for Claudia and how I relate to her, in my story, I take inspiration from my own life, as my dad introduced me to Batman, and specifically, the animated series from 1990, which I've heard was most people's bi/pansexual or gay/lesbian awakening. The earliest memory I have is being five years old and falling in love with the women in that show, along with liking Daphne in Scooby Doo (BTW I'm a total futch Velma archetype irl)

Of course, when I was a kid, I was just thinking: "Wow, she's pretty, I like looking at her, so I want to continue looking at her." Because I was, in fact, a mortal child. Granted, I do have cringy memories of trying to be uncomfortably close with my female friends, which I regret now, but I was a kid and didn't understand the repercussions of doing what I did around someone. I feel sick just thinking about it and can only pray I didn't traumatize them. Granted, some of them reciprocated, which, again, part of me wishes an adult got involved and stopped it because I feel like I'd be a lot less fucked up if that did happen. Either way, this is how I'm trying to break down and understand myself, by being an adult and putting the worst of my younger self into her, which I think could make a compelling character. Of course, I'll change a few things because 1) this is fiction and 2) the memories are painful, and I wish I could take them back. With that, I think the idea of exploring Claudia's idea of consent would be interesting, since I think that would be a huge problem "realistically" (because she's a vampire and all.) My hope would be that one day, people could read that and have a discussion with their child about discovering the grosser part of themselves. Part of me blames television at the time, and fears for the future with the current trend of poop toys. While I had baby alive, the poop and pee was a way to teach children a natural part of parenting a child and could easily help with babysitting when they get in their teens, but these new toys are getting weird. I don't know, maybe I'm a crotchety old hag, but I remember when gross toys didn't involve scat and piss. Where did all the bug gummy making go? Oh, it was a health issue? Okay yeah, maybe it was cooler in the commercials.

Sorry, this is so much a string of consciousness, but I need to get this out there because I'm afraid for the future generations. Maybe that's all I can say about my relationship with Claudia, other than that I was the same age she was turned when I started realizing that women were pretty.

Here's the note about her relationship with Estelle and Madeleine: it's nearly exactly the same as Lestat and Louis, the two names lining up like that. Let me explain:

Madeleine is new to being a vampire. In the book she has a few feedings, but I felt like she didn't exude any particular personality traits when she did, other than necessity and learning, but Estelle, she was locked away in the Theatre des Vampires, where she mostly fed off of people who were brought into the building and is now finding that she enjoys feeding off of and killing people who, in her eyes, do wrong. However, the main difference is that, like she said, she hates the ones that killed her, even admitting for a time that she hated Louis, and I think that part of her would still be angry with him but had a nostalgic comfort at the same time.

Estelle and Madeleine are bordering on blank slates, and maybe your interpretation from the books is different (I didn't read to the end of Interview because Claudia was my favorite character, and I knew what happened.) As I've explained in a prequel to my first uploaded fanfiction, I was inspired by the actress of Estelle, writing that her hair was dyed black and was straightened crudely with an iron, but once that was removed, she was a bright redhead that could stand apart from Armand, hence why she had to dye her hair in the first place.

Given the time period, I imagined that Madeleine made dolls and owned a doll shop thanks to her family being in the industry. She was the first one to illustrate what Claudia wished to be in a doll for her, and was very patient, given that she expected to be talking to a child. Ever since hearing the story of Madeleine, along with binging TCaP because haha, yes, go to jail, pedo! TAZE HIM! FUCKING TAZE HIM! But unfortunately, I was inspired by a stupid prospect from the predators: being groomed by a child/teenager. Plus, with how Lolita styles have become so abused by people that just want to fuck kids, I wanted to take that and actually sculpt it to work in a psychologically horror way, and also fuck with me a bit as well.

I hate what I'm writing, but that's what I know will cause people a horror and discomfort like Anne couldn't with the way she constructed Claudia's story. My lesbian friends and I have talked about this, that we understand why Anne could never, mostly because she's attracted to men only, and thus she'd be more comfortable writing straight and gay scenes, just as most of us are mostly comfortable writing lesbian and straight relationships in our stories. I also have a lot of straight guy friends who are writers who want to write lesbian characters, but don't totally know how, so they ask my advice because I personally believe a straight guy is more likely to properly represent lesbians than gay men or straight women. Bi/pansexual writers would be preferred, but they don't need my help. Maybe the men because they need to know how women think sometimes, mostly having to do with wording.

I guess, consider this a disclaimer for my work, now you know what's going into it and how I've connected myself to it so I can write it easier and with better flow. Along with that, I'm trying to warn that, yes, I want to write fucked up stuff, but I don't feel totally comfortable even writing it, since I still feel like I'm writing real people since, you know, real people are going to be reading it and relating to certain characters. If you're interested in learning more, feel free to message me. I have dreams of writing a book that's basically a fanfiction, may or may not be a direct parallel with 50 shades but only in concerns over copyright. Hopefully you enjoyed the read, if not, I'm sorry for wasting your time, but it's only half my fault, because you were the one to make it this far. Have a good rest of your day, everyone, and whatever you want to create, do it, because no one can police what you haven't published, nor should they. Not that I wouldn't judge you, some of you mfers are scary hence why I don't come here often.