#and can be just as wholesome as any other form of interaction/intimacy can be

[audhdnight]

I have a bone to pick with the framing of media as either “wholesome” or “dirty” based on whether it’s smutty. Like yeah not all sex is wholesome but a lot of it is?? Why is this really beautiful romance suddenly not described as wholesome just because the characters have sex? She’s learning to open up and trust people again, they’re learning they don’t always have to be tough and their gentle side is not a weakness. That’s pretty damn wholesome to me.

[fangswbenefits]

Ok so this isn't a question but I really wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed The Arrangement and what I enjoyed about it ❤️ you just know the characters so well - not just Astarion obvs but it was so wholesome having interactions from shadowheart and lae'zel and gale and wyll. All so in character. I flipping loved it when gale was being so supportive and wise, and how even lae'zel was like "do you want me to kill him cause I will". And I really love how Astarion is not declawed in any way and you have stayed true to the assholey parts of his personality and how many walls he has and how hard it is to try and break those down and how any form of intimacy just becomes very difficult. Hard relate, from having an SO with severe trauma and is a prickly pear. Your dialogue and characterisation is so on point! You have done such a great job!!!! I haven't really read much fanfic but will be reading yours ❤️

Oh my 🥺🩷

I love them all dearly... but I do have a soft spot for Lae'zel.... she never ever leaves my team 🥹 also Wyll...

I'm aware that this version of spawn Astarion might not be to for everyone as he can come across as too much? But we must remember this story tackles unromanced Astarion. He never really got to heal in terms of intimacy, and it's easy for people to fall back into old habits when vulnerable. After all, he's still a vampire spawn... he's still seen as a threat and can easily be a monster hunter's target should things go wrong. There is still a lot to unpack and resolve. Healing isn't linear, and it can be quite overwhelming at times with the burden of expectation that comes from others.

Thank you for taking the time to send this and putting a smile on my face 🥺🩷 and, of course, for giving my story a try!

[freunwol]

Any wholesome Freunwol headcanons?

hi yes hello yes hi hello yes well

- ive mentioned hair before but like. that just really seems like an important form of intimacy for them i think!!! braiding it, brushing it, freud snuggling into euns hair when he sleeps or vice versa..... the lil things yknow?

- i do wanna touch on the falling asleep in his hair thing bc like. i think that would absolutely make euns heart melt. kind of hard to move tho

- on a similar topic, i do remember seeing a comic of freud giving eun an actual haircut as opposed to a wild boy never-had-positive-interactions-in-his-life mess and it was SO fucking cute so to me its canon that freud gave eun his haircuts & styled it and to eun that was like the second coming of jesus christmas (i bookmarked the comic but the tweet was deleted. Q-Q)

- in the maple m dialogue eun says freud gets quiet when hes angry, which i think only applies to like genuine fury, but also. no talk me angy

- i think the fact that one of euns moves is him transforming into a biggol spirit to slash at stuff is HIGHLY underutilized in fandom sphere... freud sees it for the first time and loses his fuckin mind

- i think they kind of represent different things to each other? like ive prolly mentioned i think freud is a source of stability for eun (not the least of which is cuz house), but i do think eun is a kind of freedom for freud. hes rather one-track minded- judging from his introspection in the journal event, he tended to miss the forest for the trees, getting too caught up in doing and forgetting why hes doing it. i can see fighting bm becoming an all-consuming thing in his life, and struggling to imagine a life outside of it, cuz hes already come this far. being w eun- considering how eun is- would prove as a reminder that he'll have a life after the battle, and no matter what he chooses to do, there will be people who back him up on the decision

- and on a similar topic freud is... probably repressed to the point of not understanding what romantic feelings feel like. he knows the signs of it on other ppl but hes like "hm i feel strangely anxious and warm and my heart is beating very fast... am i having heat stroke" (half joke, he would know, but still too repressed to say anything, i think. he just offers to house eun and stay with him through the good and bad times)

- hes a warm person, and its genuine, but i think often it may be kind of impersonal- more of a politeness thing. so being able to connect with eun and the other heroes is something very special to him, and hes very special to them!!!

- theres a lot of parallels that need to be explored. the moon and mr left a hole open in the roof so he could stare at the moon. the ocean and the wind. the dragon and the... fox? deer? guy? i want so desperately to make a color comparison but their main colors are red and either black or purple so its. not the best of comparisons.

- THE FUCKING ROOF THING I DIDNT EVEN THINK OF THAT DID YOU KNOW. DID YOU KNOW EUNWOL MEANS HIDDEN MOON probably you did, i thought it was silver moon for the longest time BUT. freud made space in his life for eun & emphasized it wasnt a burden because it wasnt and allowed himself to be vulnerable around him and eun came out of his shell bit by bit and was rewarded with love and appreciation from the people who mattered most and mAN. MAN,

[rai-jin-andro-jin]

Intimacy: An Aromantic, Queer, Storyteller's Perspective on Raya and Namaari's Relationship in RatLD

Ok, I know people have lots of opinions about Raya and the Last Dragon. (Please go watch it if you're able to, it's fantastic.) I'm not here to step on any toes, nor am I here to deny that Disney has work to do on openly queer representation. But I wanted to give my opinion on the subject because I've already seen some thoughts flying, and I've got my own too.

Note: potential Raya and the Last Dragon spoilers ahead!

Now, I'm here for queer women. (I'm so here for queer women that I'm queer for them.) I love Raya's depth, design, and arc. I love Namaari's depth, design, and arc (and oh my god, her face shape). I love the way the narrative treated these warriors: like warriors! I could talk all day about how this movie is such a brilliant step toward treating women as people on screen.

But I'm here to talk about the queer aspects.

Any queer person watching that movie saw a couple of baby gays. Anyone saw the tension between Raya and Namaari as adults, their distrust for one another, but also their recollection of how close they once were, how close they could have been, how similar they actually are, but they both don't want to admit it for one reason or another. I think that tension is done beautifully.

I also want to take a second to remind everyone that romantic attraction is not necessary to make something queer.

Sure, maybe you could view their interactions as having romantic undertones. I don't think that's necessarily wrong, but I also don't think that the movie needed a romantic subplot to work. The subplot was platonic, even queerplatonic. The subplot was about Raya learning to realize how similar Namaari was to her, in all the uncomfortable ways Raya wasn't ready to admit. Raya wanted to remain focused inward; she wanted to protect her goal from destruction, she wanted to bring her Ba back. And she didn't want to trust anyone again. She didn't feel like she could, and she didn't want to try, especially not with Namaari.

And yet, during their interactions, there is a sense of intimacy. No doubt, over the six (6) years after the gem broke, Raya and Namaari have run into each other on several occasions. It seems like they still know each other well enough to banter mid battle. Raya knows Namaari well enough to be able to easily "push her buttons" and distract her. There is an intimacy here that strays easily into frienemy territory. It has the potential of being romantic. It also has the potential of not being romantic at all.

And, as someone on the aromantic spectrum, I want to reiterate that romantic queerness is not the only queerness. Aromantic affection, queerplatonic affection, allosexual aromantic affection — all of these are valid and real queer identities and queer expressions.

So, while I agree that "Disney is a coward" and that queer people deserve genuine, wholesome, and healthy representation in movies — I also want to emphasize that you can remove romanticism from the equation and still retain the queer narrative (or, what we the audience read as a queer narrative).

(I personally think there is nothing straight about these two characters, but I also respect the possibility that cultural norms and expectations can change how queerness manifests, or what is even considered queer. I'm a white person from the USA; the way I read or express queerness may not be the same as the way someone of Southeast Asian descent would read or express queerness. That topic in itself is worthy of an entirely different mega post. But that is very important to note.)

Furthermore, I want to add that while, again, seeing Disney explicitly tackle a queer relationship on screen would be so amazing, I also don't think this particular narrative had room for it.

Raya and the Last Dragon has a beautiful story filled with strong cultural tradition and Southeast Asian communal values. Love for one's community and family is especially important, as the writers have expressed, and this value was purposely woven into the narrative as a centerpiece.

Disney has a long history of making that centerpiece romantic love. Movies in general, Disney included, have a very long history of using romantic love as an easy subplot. It is such a common thing to do in the industry.

Stepping away from that norm is a breath of fresh air, in my opinion. And I'm not saying that because I'm aromantic and I "hate romance"—I don't, by the way, and I'll show you why.

I have written romance in fiction for a long-ass time. I love writing it. And in my (self-proclaimed) professional opinion, adding romance into Raya and the Last Dragon would have been really forced. I don't think the movie needed it. It would have been narratively unnecessary, and the catharsis we received regarding the mending of Raya and Namaari's relationship was more than enough. Any romance would have been extra, and, more importantly, would have been distracting from the actual main theme of the movie. Remember, the takeaway from this movie is communal trust: building bridges to unite families and communities of people. This narrative values familial and communal love first and foremost. (This is not to say that romantic love can't intersect with familial, communal, and platonic love, but I'm making the distinction here because the story writers intended to make this distinction, too.) Putting communal love first also does not devalue any romantic or queerplatonic love that might exist under that umbrella — but that's just it; communal love is the focus here, and I'm glad the writers made the decision to keep the focus of the narrative grounded and organized. It keeps the story from wandering off in too many directions and becoming confusing. It keeps us from having too many loose ends. And it keeps the runtime from being too long — or worse, it saves the narrative and all it's subplots from feeling cut short.

And here's where I jump into my main gripe. Yes, Raya and Namaari have chemistry. At the very least, when they met as kids, they formed a nice first bond: they had a lot in common, they related to each other on several things, and they had empathy for each other. That's a good foundation for a lot of things: friendship, queerplatonic relationships, romantic relationships, business partnerships... What I'm saying is, they had a good beginning. But it was just one day. And they were kids.

They were both kids who were vulnerable to the opinions and desires of the adults around them.

Namaari was influenced by her mother to betray Raya in order to gain the Dragon Gem (ultimately to give her people the prosperity they lacked). Before coming to Heart, Namaari likely saw Raya and the people of Heart like her mother/chief did: Heart was rich solely because they hoarded the magic of the Dragon Gem, and they would lie and say the Gem didn't give them prosperity only so they could continue to hoard the gem.

Raya was influenced by people in her village too, though we don't explicitly see those influences. When her father mentions that the other lands are on their way to Heart, Raya immediately believes they are coming with evil intent. When her father asks her what she knows about the other lands, Raya lists qualities about each land that portray them in a dangerous light. She views them explicitly as enemies and outsiders, people to fear and distrust in order to maintain her and Heart's safety and prosperity. Namaari included.

When Raya and Namaari meet, there is a lot going on under the surface of their interaction. Certainly, they are both kids; part of them likely has a natural urge to trust and connect with each other, as they eventually did that day! But clearly, especially for Namaari, there still exists a level of distrust and divide. Perhaps because Raya had the influence of her father, who encouraged her to see the other lands as friends rather than enemies, Raya's guard was lower than Namaari's. It's doubtful Namaari had that kind of influence, as her mother consistently displayed distrust for other lands, and focused more on the protection of Fang's people. Namaari clearly experienced quite a bit of internal conflict during the time before her betrayal of Raya, trying to balance her own desires for connection and friendship with her desire to please and protect Fang. Having a connection with Raya at all, especially a deeper connection (rather than a false pretense of connection), was likely not the intention of this subterfuge plan. Connecting with Raya likely felt good, but it also felt like a betrayal of Fang; a betrayal of Fang felt like a death sentence, especially since not obtaining the Gem would mean that Fang (according to Namaari's mother and the people of Fang) would likely perish. Namaari chose to resolve the conflict by returning to what was most familiar and comfortable: distrusting Heart for the good of Fang. For Namaari, it likely didn't dispel the discomfort of knowing that she betrayed a friend, someone who felt so close and genuine, someone who was just as obsessed with dragons as she was (which seems like it was rare for Namaari, and thus valuable). But her choice to betray Raya did, in Namaari's mind, save Fang, a strong value instilled in her from birth.

The betrayal hurts Raya a lot more openly. She sees Namaari firstly as a potential friend, a connection. Raya was taught by her father to value connection with others more than preemptively distrusting them in order to protect herself. This is likely why we see their interactions mostly from Raya's perspective. Namaari's behavior is very conflicted in intention, bouncing back and forth between deception and genuine connection, and trying to balance those two in a way that remains faithful to Fang and herself. Raya, on the other hand, is fully genuine for this interaction, save for maybe a couple moments of brief, minor hesitation. But, that hesitation is short-lived and the desire for friendship ultimately wins over for Raya. She fully trusts Namaari (to the level that she is able to, given that they just met that day), up to the moment the betrayal occurs. She is blindsided, and in response, she also returns to the comfort of her original views (before her father tried to teach her to trust the other lands). This decision to abandon the friendship is not comfortable at all for Raya; it is forced. She must do it to protect not only her land, but ostensibly the world. She is fighting between protecting her "clan" and protecting outsiders. She is struggling to view other lands as part of her clan/community, and Namaari's betrayal only solidifies Raya's eventual choice to mistrust others completely. Once her father dies, so does Raya's trust. To her, (misplaced) trust caused the downfall of the world, and more importantly, the death of her Ba. And to her, that betrayal is embodied and personified by Namaari. Namaari becomes a scapegoat and a punching bag for all that went wrong with the world, and this is a consistent mindset Raya has throughout the movie, until it is openly challenged by Namaari during the climax. Raya is comfortable in an "us versus them" mindset; it rids her of blame and responsibility for her actions, her role in problems. She, like Namaari, chooses to believe that everyone else is to blame for her downfall, while excluding herself entirely from that equation.

It goes without saying that these characters are well-written. Their emotions, motivations, and actions are complex and whole. I could (clearly) write analysis for days about these two. But here's my point.

Romance is only a potential part of their relationship at the start, no more. It is budding at best, and not fully realized or invoked. It is not ever made explicit or agreed upon. And the foundations of trust between these two, for a massive portion of the movie, are severely damaged. Any intimacy they had as children is put on hold, if not destroyed. They only trust each other as far as their blades reach, and as much as they've crossed paths during the six (6) year time-jump (enough to banter, manipulate each other, and predict each other's strategies to a degree), and and no further than that. Where they left off, they still have a connection, even while they don't trust each other with their deepest values. This foundation is clearly not enough for either of them to warrant a more intimate relationship, be it in the shade of romantic, queerplatonic, sexual, sensual, or otherwise. If it was enough, they would have done so already. Their closest intimacy is for the purpose of evading each other's attacks and maneuvers in order to get the upperhand. Their main goals are not each other, even though they both likely desire deeper connection, like they once had as kids. That childhood connection was genuine; no one is arguing otherwise.

But, by the climax of the movie, these two are not in a position of full, deep trust and connection. At the climax of the movie, when the Gem has finally been restored, their relationship is effectively back at the beginning, right where they left off as kids: budding and new, unsure yet hopeful, and with initial chemistry. That may read as potential romance, potential queerplatonics, potential you-name-it. But it is still potential, not active, not existent in the moment. They still have work to do in terms of building a deep relationship. Trust is a first step — one of many, many more steps. They're still working on the friendship and trust by the end — they just reunited as peoples from different lands, and as old ex-friends. They're relearning to see other lands as friends and not enemies, and that includes the way they see each other. They've come a long way, no doubt, and they still have a long way to go before they're remotely deep friends with established trust. They're effectively rebuilding that damaged trust by the end of the movie.

I mean, seriously. Expecting a full on romantic relationship, or even the explicit beginning of one is a massive stretch. Like, did you watch the movie? They have a lot of things to work through and talk about together! I don't care that they worked together and sacrificed themselves to save the world together. That's step one. Step one going well does not equal the kind of deep intimacy seen in romantic, queerplatonic, or deep platonic relationships, especially not the kind of romance that some audience members expressed they wanted to see from the movie. Did we forget that a genuine, hurtful betrayal happened? Did we forget that a betrayal happened very early on in the relationship? That sort of behavior doesn't scream "healthy relationship," and Raya and Namaari's subsequent reactions to said betrayal and following said event don't scream "consent to intimacy." Like, sure, they were both kids when it happened, especially Namaari, who was partially manipulated into that betrayal. But being young doesn't dilute or negate any of the very real trauma and pain felt by either of them, nor does it take away autonomy and responsibility for actions. She may have been manipulated and taught an incomplete view of the world, but Namaari also made that choice to betray Raya herself, no matter how mis- or un-informed she was about the world at the time. She still made a decision that hurt Raya, and in the process a lot of others. That can't be glossed over if we're talking about the formation of genuinely deep bonds. If the movie had made Raya and Namaari explicitly a couple of any kind, I strongly believe that any romantic, queerplatonic, or any other type of intimate social behavior would have made their relationship and conflict-resolution come across as forced, rushed, inauthentic, and unearned. Gestures of romantic intimacy especially tend to imply (in narratives that want to portray a healthy romantic relationship) a sense of depth, bond, and trust that is developed over long periods of time, marked by continuous and explicit efforts toward mutual trust. Raya and Namaari might have cultivated genuine trust for each other, but they lack a history of that trust that would realistically allow for a believable and genuine romantic/queerplatonic relationship at the level of harmony most "romance-lacking" audience-complaints demand. Raya and Namaari are not at that point yet. Rushing them there doesn't make that bond authentic, nor does it create healthy and realistic queer representation, much less healthy romantic/queerplatonic/intimate representation in general. Furthermore, rushing that sort of thing on-screen and portraying it as perfectly healthy perpetuates pre-existing, unrealistic, and unhealthy ideals of romance, human intimacy in general, and amatonormativity. Preliminary trust is not enough to give someone access to you in totality. We shouldn't portray that idea to kids, and this movie is careful not to. Trust is an ongoing process, and teaching kids that intimacy is developed over time and through consistent respect and communication is paramount. I seriously wish this movie had existed when I was a kid. I wish I had learned what this movie teaches. Romance isn't the answer to everything; it's not the highest form of love; and it's not the highest form of queer representation either. The highest form of love is the kind that is genuine and realistic and respectful.

Plus, on the subject of amatonormativity, I want to restress that queerness is not defined by romance. No one is made queer by their queer relationships, or even their visibly queer relationships. No one is suddenly not queer when they're single. Raya and Namaari can still be queer representation without ever having a romantic, sexual, or even queerplatonic relationship. Does Disney still have a record of cisheteronormative-flavored cowardice towards positively portraying explicitly queer people on screen? Absolutely. But I also don't think the answer to cisheteronormative amatonormativity is queer amatonormativity. Queer people are still queer, regardless of their relationship status, and especially regardless of their romantic orientation. Queer people are queer by virtue of existing.

TL;DR:

This should be more than clear: I'm of the strong opinion that both Raya and Namaari are queer. I don't think any of my regular readership will disagree. But forcing a romance (or any sort of deeper, unearned intimacy) onto this particular relationship and narrative only has the capacity to muddy and ruin this valuable and beautiful storyline and it's themes. Such a careless choice perpetuates some very harmful and prejudiced cultural norms regarding love and it's expression, and such a choice runs the risk of directly teaching children to view the world — to view their relationships — in a limiting, destructive, and isolating way.

I wouldn't change any part of the way this movie portrays Raya and Namaari's relationship. Every ounce of their interactions: from their words to their body language, facial expressions to actions, motivations to desires, conflict to resolution — they all make sense and are fully earned in this movie.

Yes, they'd look super cute together. Yes, it would likely be super cathartic for my gay little heart to see them kiss. Yes, they have the chemistry and potential for really meaningful and fulfilling growth and intimacy down the line. That is kind of the entire message of of the movie: potential; growth seen as a process made up of steps, the first being the catalyst towards making that potential a reality.

Raya and Namaari are a queer-coded microcosm for the rest of their world. They are one of many microcosms teaching a lesson about the importance of valuing and developing communal, cross-border trust.

Please stop yelling at Disney to make them kiss. They're together in a way that matters just as much, and they're together in a way that, for once, doesn't make romance the highest and truest form of intimacy. Write your fanfiction, enjoy them as a pairing, write letters to Disney and tell them we deserve explicit and normalized queer representation (because we do). Do what you wish, and do what makes you happy! Enjoy your queer pairings! I encourage you! I implore you!

But please, please, please don't discount the importance, validity, and power of the connection they do have. This connection is no less intimate and no less important than romance, sex, or anything else. They don't need romance to be queer, and they don't need any label at all to be a beautiful, realistic, and healthy portrayal of human relationships, queer or not.

And for the record, they are very, very gay, and nobody, not even Disney, can change my mind.

[alivefm]

( megan fox / 35 / she/her ) – ( jolene ‘jo’ munroe ) has been spotted in ravenswood. they said to originally be from ( salem, oregon ) and used to work as ( coroner ). They’ve been in the compound for ( three months ), working as ( fisherwoman ) to earn their keep and since then, others have seen their ( irritable ) but seemingly ( meticulous ) nature.

GENERAL

FULL NAME.    jolene bianca munroe.

NICKNAMES.    jo.

AGE & BIRTHDATE.    35 years old ; june 5.

GENDER & PRONOUNS.    cis female ; she/her.

ORIENTATION.    lesbian.

MARITAL STATUS.    single.

RELIGION.    agnostic.

OCCUPATION.    fisherwoman ( former coroner ).

PHYSICAL

HAIR COLOUR.    dark brown.

EYE COLOUR.    baby blue.

BUILD.    athletic.

MARKS.     faint dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose, a beauty mark on her right hip & left index finger.

TATTOOS.     small black rose behind right ear, faded mc logo on right shoulder blade, dad’s year of birth & year of death written in roman numerals along left side of collarbone, skeleton ribcage intertwined with thorny roses on inner left forearm, zodiac sign on inner right wrist .

PIERCINGS.     lobes ( x3 ), left helix, both nipples.

HEIGHT.    5'4".

FACECLAIM.    megan fox.

PERSONALITY

ZODIAC.    gemini.

ALIGNMENT.    chaotic neutral.

HOGWARTS.    ravenclaw or slytherin.

LABEL.    the facade.

POSITIVE TRAITS.     fervent, incisive, intuitive, meticulous, valiant.

NEGATIVE TRAITS.     evasive, headstrong, inquisitive, irritable, uninhibited.

HOBBIES.    fishing, pitching in her two cents worth with the medics (whether it’s asked for or not), more tba.

BACKGROUND

PLACE OF BIRTH.    salem, oregon.

CURRENT RESIDENCE.    ravenswood, washington.

NATIONALITY.    american.

ETHNICITY.    white.

PARENTS.   randall ’randy’ munroe ( father ) ; was extremely close to her dad, one of the few people she completely trusted and idolized. biological mom unknown.

SIBLINGS.     tucker munroe ( half brother ) ; same dad, different moms. indifferent to each other growing up, keith’s death brought them together & they shared a close bond. currently mia.

BIRTH ORDER.    eldest.

CHILDREN.    none.

LANGUAGES.    english, broken spanish.

HISTORY

EARLY STAGES.         she was born and raised in salem, oregon without knowing her mother ( who’d abandoned her and her father when jo was just a baby ). her dad, randy, and his family did their absolute best to raise jolene with what resources they had. the munroe’s were engaged in criminal activities, which she adamantly refused to participate in, wanting to separate herself from the stigma attached to the family name by studying and working hard. as family, though, jo felt an obligation to always be loyal, and as a coroner, she would cover up the real cause of death with a fabrication of her own if the truth ever directly linked to anyone in her family.

HELLISH OUTBREAK.    the first interaction she had with the undead was while she was on the clock. a john doe had been brought in, no identification, and it was just her that night, other than the lone security guard. after finishing a routine autopsy and then hearing banging coming from the refrigerated storage, jo’s curiosity lead her into a scuffle with the formerly, entirely deceased. fortunately, the security guard broke it up and saved jo from a lethal mauling. unfortunately, said guard ended up receiving the same mauling he had pried her from. escaping out into the chaos that had been unfolding on the streets, she linked up with her brother and together they abandoned everything they knew in order to survive. 

                                      they would meet up with other survivors for short periods of time, usually just to help each other out if needed, before going their separate ways again. it was the two of them against the world, until it wasn’t. while scavenging for supplies in an abandoned town, a horde of the undead caught them off guard and they were forced to separate, evidently losing each other. jo tried for days to track him down, to find any sort of hint or clue to his whereabouts, but always came up with nothing.

                                      it was while she was on the hunt that she stumbled across a damsel in distress ( @rubydelgado​ ), quick reflexes saving the other woman from a fate worse than death with a shot clean through the infected’s head. while jo had instinctively learned not to trust anyone other than her brother, she didn’t have the heart to abandon ruby, especially considering she was also on her own. with time, jo taught the other how to defend herself, and they stuck together through thick and thin, developing an unbreakable bound by the time they reached ravenswood.

COMPOUND LIFE.      despite the hardships the new world has delivered, jo has softened a great deal, finally understanding that being able to trust good people is the key to strength in a community. she’s very much a team player, and wants whatever’s best for the people she’s grown attached to in ravenswood, but she still holds certain reservations, especially in regards to oversharing the specifics of her family. 

                                        while she has firsthand experience with the deceased, the former coroner doesn’t want anything to do with the animated version, unless she’s putting it to rest. so, instead of volunteering to hop into the medical branch of their community, jo settled on a different way to pitch in; fishing. it was something she learned and mastered as a means of survival since the initial outbreak, and the job itself was a lot less stressful in comparison to what some others were enlisted to do. but that doesn’t mean jo isn’t on standby - when the going gets tough, she’s always ready to jump into action.

CONNECTIONS

HALF BROTHER.    this is definitely not needed, but it would def spice things up and rock jo’s carefully sculpted world. they were distant growing up, but linked up to mourn over their dad and had been close ever since. they were forced to split up and evidently lost each other while escaping a zombie horde, so for all jo knows, he could be dead. or ..... maybe he’s still alive.

FISHING BUDDY.    two pals catching fish, shooting the shit; a wholesome bubble created to escape the insanity around them, if only for a couple hours. this should be a very carefree friendship, relaxed & silly at times. they probably reminisce over the old world and all the simple pleasures they took for granted, maybe they partake in a little harmless gossiping / ‘neighborhood watch’?? anything dumb to keep themselves entertained while waiting for a bite.

ENTANGLEMENT.    a means of relieving high stress is always needed while surviving a zombie apocalypse, which is how this whole mess started. the idea was having something like a booty call, intimacy without the strings because it’s too wild of a life out here to build something solid. they’ve foolishly gotten attached overtime, though neither will admit it, so they’ve never had the “what are we” conversation and, so far, they’re content with that. obv more detail, etc. can be discussed.

FRICTION.    obviously not everything is gonna be peaches and cream all the time, every single person isn’t going to see eye to eye with the next person, and jo isn’t exactly the easiest person to handle. so give me the Tension. whether it’s subtle jabs & 'if looks could kill’, or full blown arguments & destruction, or somewhere in between.

ANYTHING.    literally anything. i blame my groggy state of mind on my lack of creativity rn so please, i’m beggin. if jolene can enrich your characters’ lives in any way, shape, or form, hit me up and we’ll hatch a plan.

[nightswithkookmin]

You need to back up your ON break up theory with more than just fake subs and vague statements about 'claiming behavior'.

During the period you allege they were broken up, Jimin pulled Jungkook in a hug on run behind, Jungkook called Jimin sexy at a press conference, Jimin and jungkook did that whole 'how does it feel to be in the same unit'/'time to change' flirty thing, Jimin grabbed Jungkook by the lapels... and more. Begging pardon but if they were grieving the loss of their romantic relationship while trying to be professional colleagues and pals.... isnt that sort of insensitive? Like I know you admitting you might have read it wrong and have changed your view in light of new footage might be a blow to your ego, but I don't think you are thinking rationally when you insist on this break up theory. It's sad because I found so much meaning and connection in some of the stuff you have written, particularly pertaining to internalized homophobia, racism, mysogynoir and bts changing over time to become more enlightened, but your devotion to this ONE theory, and defensiveness whenever it is (rightly imo) challenged makes me wary of your theories in general, which might be extremely unfair to you, as a thinker. Your log is really funny and great in a lot of ways so i cant really quit you.

Ahhhh it's been a while I got one of these...

Hello, how you doing! Lol. Silver is that you?

Chilee, it's the name calling for me.

Ego, irrational, charlatan, Tuktukker- I'm desensitized to such ad hominems at this point. You don't throw words like these around and expect me to sit at the table and talk. Imma yeet myself out real fast. Lol.

There's just something different, wholesome almost, about this post though. Sounds constructive I think. Or maybe it's because I just woke. Chilee. Lol.

It doesn't feel at all like you are attacking me. It's strange...

You're gaslighting though but it's fine. I've built a resistance to that from years and years of dealing with my abductors or family. Potato potahto.

I often put my sanity before other's insanity which is why I don't indulge posts such as these and I'm not sorry about that. I mean is this an Ask or Submission? I don't- what am I supposed to say? What is the call to action?

Sigh.

If I come across as defensive sometimes, 10 out of 10, it's probably because the person on the other end is being offensive. Straight up. Cause and effect, the science don't lie.

You don't expect me to not defend when I'm being attacked. That's just tacky.

I don't think there's anything wrong with challenging views and notions because at the very least, that's about the exchange of ideas and I welcome it.

I set the limits at the racial slurs, the mocking tones, the emotionally charged rants meant to disparage me and my entire ancestry rather than argue a point, the interference with my personal life and business all because I hold a different view on a topic, the doxing, gaslighting, the bad mouthing, spreading lies about me, turning my friends against me, stripping away my rights and copyrights, harassing people who enjoy my work among- other things.

I usually exercise my right to self preservation in these instances- imma block, delete, ignore, forward or clap back. Word. Lol.

I'm sorry, but if you have to attack the individuality of a person to argue your point, you've lost the argument and you never had one to begin with.

Take for instance, the bit you wrote about me taking a blow to 'my ego' - do you see the problem with that?

What has holding a view different from yours on a particular subject got to do with the ego?

Do you mean to say the only way I can hold an opinion different from yours on a matter is if I were hubristic?

Are you projecting? What's happening? Lol

And if I call you out for this, I'm defensive? Way to add gaslighting to your bigotry and intolerance of opinions that don't align with yours. No offense.

I give myself permission to hold unpopular views. I give myself permission to think differently from others. I give myself permission to see what I see and believe what I believe and form an opinion on what I see and believe divorced from others' views and based on my own understanding of the workings of this world or in this case Jikook.

No amount of name calling will change this fact. We see things from different perspectives after all.

You need to back your ON break up theory with more than just fake subs and vague claims about claiming behavior.

Lol. Fake subs? You mean the Hajima bit from the On comeback special I put in my video? Interesting.

I think I see what you mean about my break up theory and I agree to some extent. Like, come up here with charts and paragraphs and excel spreadsheets on why I think Jikook were broken up?

I would be happy to do that kind of analysis.

I think the problem for me here is, I feel tasked to convince rather than to share my opinion on the matter or even expand on my theories for discourse sakes and that makes me really uncomfortable.

Not to psychoanalyze you, but I feel when you ask this of me you are not just asking me to divulge my thoughts on a topic but to disabuse you of your own biases surrounding the topic.

I don't think this is about my opinion at all. I think it's about your own beliefs about Jikook. And there's nothing wrong with that. If you believe in something you need to stand for it. Just don't mind if others do same and don't call them names for doing so. Because if you do mind, then that's bigotry.

The fact is my opinion contradicts your beliefs about Jikook and you either want to punish me for it hence the slurs, are in denial, or you want to believe my point of view- can't really tell.

I think there is a limit in general to how far I can prove Jikook in anyway and that has nothing to do with lack of evidence, my ego or my rationality. And yes, I often shroud my beliefs in vague expressions because I don't want to set myself up or open myself up to legal suits. I can only prove Jikook to a point and nothing beyond my belief. Beyond that, I would be skating on thin ice and making bighit a tad richer.

During the period you allege they were broken up, Jimin pulled JK in a hug, grabbed Jungkook by his lapel, JK called Jimin sexy, they did the flirty challenge...

So if I understand you correctly, all these is what makes Jikook a couple to you and indicate they are dating?

Alright then.

Hobi calls Jimin sexy all the time. BTS calls eachother sexy all the time. I don't think that's a sign they are in a polyamory.

Jungkook plays with his hyungs' dick and ass and talks about falling for them most times. I don't think that makes him gay or in a relationship with any of them.

Lemme just cut to the chase. I've reached my photo limits. I have said a countless times now, that I don't view skinship and all these interactions you've pointed out as indication two people are dating- especially not two Koreans working within the homoerotically charged space of Kpop.

And I have given out a few of the metrics I use in considering whether any ship in BTS is real over the course of my blogs- intimacy, exclusive behaviors such as and not limited to claiming eachother and exercising certain rights and authorities over eachother and against the group, stress trails as a result of keeping their relationship a secret, the microaggressions, breaching the fourth wall and others.

I think what this comes down to is differences in perspectives on a fundamental level. Not egos.

I don't see the things you see as the signs Jikook are real and dating, as signs Jikook are real and dating. If I did, I would be seeing every ship in BTS as real but I don't.

And you consider the metrics I use in ascertaining Jikook as vague something something. I think we are at an impasse.

But explain the bit about 'insensitive' to me please. I would love to engage in that discourse. Why would it be insensitive for two exes to act cordially with eachother within a workplace in the aftermath of a breakup?

Then the bit about grieving...

So grieving is one of your metrics for accessing whether or not two people are broken up?

That's interesting. I mean I don't disagree but I also don't think Jikook are gonna come to work with oversized pajamas, dark shades, boxes of tissues and a blanket slung over their shoulders because of a broken heart... it's 2020 not Manila. They've grown, are learning and getting better at dealing with their emotions on camera because, as Suga pointed out, they are aware the least bit of tension translates to the screens.

I mean Jimin said it himself in his 2020 interview, he's learned to react less intensely to certain things. And sometimes, he tries to downplay certain things. He tries to perform Jikook when Jikook are not in a great place. It's only in recent times, On era, where JK has opted out and not gone along with it.

I think he does that and uses their shared 'Jikook agenda' and performances of Jikook as a means to fix things or break the ice between them at least.

But clearly Jk wasn't having it that day as he kept putting up boundaries with Jimin throughout that Run episode- unless of course you are disputing this as well on the grounds Jimin dragged his ass into a hug. Chilee.

I think most people wouldn't have felt there was something off with Jikook in that On period at all had it not been for Run 116. It's similar to how, had it not been for Jimin's birthday saga, the Esquire shoot behind scenes and Grammy reaction video, no one would have felt there was something going on between Jikook in the October timeline.

I think we would have seen and felt the less interactions and professionalism between them in the aftermath of it but for the most parts, moments like the couch scene in the Grammy reaction video wouldn't have made sense to any of us especially as we had just witnessed JK in the ON:E concert rushing to comfort and console JM when he was tearing up at the end of the concert.

At least when he pushed JM into a ditch somewhere in the dark in Soop we know he had been drinking and they were playing competitive sports. Even with that he still showed some concern when Jimin fell and injured himself afterwards.

I think we would all be wondering if Jikook were fanservice at that point, a fanservice relationship where JK only consoled Jimin when he cried infront of thousands of people at concerts and nibbled his ear while he was at it.

And I think we would be on opposite sides of the argument: me, arguing Jikook were experiencing a hiccup in their relationship and you, rationalizing that moment with anything from 'JK don't have to be at JM's beck and call' 'he is an introvert who is shy to show affections publicly' to even something about the weather.

But I would have looked at this moment from the October pop up video behind scenes and assumed JK was mad at Jimin for something JM had done and had done something in retaliation and was now feeling sorry he did.

And I would have based it off of this moment, or a countless similar ones from around On era or the previous eras where JK had done this exact same thing- frozen in place and staring at Jimin in the middle of a shoot or interview after sliding his hands down Tae's chest, clung on to the others unnecessarily to get a reaction out of JM.

Would I have been right? It really doesn't matter to me as long as it makes sense to me. I ship Jikook in a way that makes sense to me. Jikook are gay, in a gay relationship with each other and are human like anyone of us- that makes sense to me. Whether I am right or wrong.... who cares and why does it matter?

Personally, I think the only person grieving in that period was JK not JM and I don't think he grieved for long before he switched off his humanity and went stone cold tit for tat terminator on JM and BTS's ass. Lol. He had JM looking all kinds of subdued in that era. Lmho.

People grieve in various ways. In my opinion. For Jimin, I feel he puts on a strong facade most times when he has to film during such times and lately I feel he masks his emotions with anger.

Jk masks his pain with anger too sometimes but I feel in recent times, he is leaning more towards indifference. I think he tries not to be as affected by certain things as compared to the early half of 2020...

But I understand what you mean when you talk about grieve. I think for me rather than look for physical evidence of grief like a sad face, a tear drop dripping down a face, I love for vulnerability in them.

JK's is easy to tell because he tends to open himself up to others such as Tae or Jin or Hobi- and I don't mean like his interactions with them. I mean he leans on them for moral or emotional support.

In the Holiday remix video where he was hiding behind Jin, I felt he was feeling very vulnerable and exposed after that intense moment with Jimin.

It's what he does when he is feeling vulnerable. He turns to others especially Jimin and if Jimin is the cause of his vulnerability he turns away from him like he did within On era or even in Run 116.

When he is in a good place with Jimin, often he is closed off to the others. Jimin does the opposite. He shuts himself up entirely from the group. I don't think he likes to go through his pain by himself.

I've always found that bit fascinating about them. Jk opens himself to people when he is at his lowest while JM closes himself off when he is at his worst.

It played out in their rainy day fight as well. In JK's vulnerability, that's when he let Jimin in, lowering his walls while JM on the other hand closed himself off to him.

Can you give me more than they were together in that period because they played with eachother's lapels?

You don't think I'm thinking rationally when I insist on my theory? Uhmmm... okay? What is rational in this case?

Listen, I recieve a lot of hate for my 'irrational thoughts and opinions' out in these streets. I've lost potentially great friendship on this platform because of it. As I type this, there is someone in someone else's DMs persuading them not to read and engage with my posts because I'm extremely evil I think Jikook break up from time to time in their relationship.

If I genuinely believed in the slightest least or had the least doubt that Jikook were together in that period I would change my mind on the topic- damn my pride and ego. It simply isn't worth the hustle.

If it helps your sanity, please stop reading my blogs. My blogs are not for everyone. It makes some people happy, it makes some people mad and some people experience both.

My gratification is in sharing my thoughts and chronicling Jikook's journey for my own appeasement and support of Jikook. I owe it to them as a believer and a supporter to humanize them as much as possible.

I do not seek to convert others, change minds, or convince anyone of my opinions or to disabuse anyone of theirs.

Let's just agree to disagree on the matter please. Or if you can drop the ad hominems, I would be more than happy to go back and forth with you on this very topic. It's actually shaping out to be one of my favorite Jikook eras. I love me some terminator JK. Lol.

Signed,

GOLDY

[daily-dose-of-imagines]

U̳n̳k̳n̳o̳w̳n̳ ̳t̳o̳ ̳h̳e̳r̳

Can I just say, this is so adorable, just super cute and wholesome and funny and thank you for requesting this! I hope you likes it!

Also this got stupid long man lol

>Admin 𝕋

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When they first met, Sesshomaru was exploring the backwaters of a tiny village; Rin had come running to him, yelling excitedly about how there was another dog demon somewhere close by. The villagers also rumored that it was a girl, who killed anybody who crossed her path, so no one was able to confirm if it was true or not.

It intrigued Sesshomaru that there were more dog demon in the world, other than him and Inuyasha (even if he is only half). Sesshomaru told Rin to stay back with Jaken so that he could investigate further, then trekked to the location the humans were whispering about.

What he saw was not something he was expecting, in hindsight. He thought, maybe it was a child demon who wasn’t yet known who they were, or maybe someone impersonating a dog demon to stay in isolation. None of these were correct, though, because in the meadows and great landscape, there stood a girl with beautiful (h/c) hair, blowing in the spring breeze. She seemed to be close to Sesshomaru in age, maybe a little younger, if her tail was anything to go by, meaning she hadn’t quite mastered transfomring from her demon to human form.

The way she held herself, like survival was the only thing she knew, made Sesshomaru wonder how long she had been in isolation. No interaction with the outside world, no social interaction with humans and demons alike, it made everyone go crazy.

He noticed she hadn’t sensed him yet, so he decided to walk closer to her, making sure he didn’t scare her when he was almost close enough touch her. She whipped her head around and started to growl when she finally sensed him, crouching down in a defensive position and her eyes wide in fright. Sesshomaru raised his hand, but his face remained stoic. “I’m not here to hurt you.” he said loud and clear.

The girl stayed low, but stopped growling when he said that, her tail becoming less puffy. “Who are you and what do you want?” she asked, surprising Sesshomaru that she was easily speaking. Blinking, he looked around until he came up with an answer he thought was suitable enough.

“I was told there was a dog demon in this region of the world, and was curious. I didn’t expect there to actually be on in front of me.” he told her, watching as she relaxed. 

“Is that what I am?” she whispered, looking into Sesshomaru’s eyes, hers swirling with uncertainty and confusion. He was confused himself; how does one not know their origins? Did her parents not saying anything?

He gave her an indecipherable look before nodding his head, “That is what you are. I am one too.” she gave him wide eyes, before stepped over to him, inspecting him closely.

“But you don’t have a tail.” she muttered, looking at his behind. He cleared his throat, his eyes twitching a bit.

“I have control over my transforming, unlike you.” he explained, grabbing her tail lightly. She grunted and moved it away from his hand, glaring at him. “You seem to not have full control over a lot things that you need to survive. I want you to travel with me.” the younger dog demon blinked, straightening her posture and looked around the plains before coming to gaze into Sesshomaru’s eyes, giving him a sweet smile.

“Okay.”

⭑･ﾟﾟ･*:༅｡.｡༅:*ﾟ:*:✼✿　　✿✼:*ﾟ:༅｡.｡༅:*･ﾟﾟ･⭑

That had been over two years ago. (y/n) and Sesshomaru have travelling together along with Rin and Jaken ever since. Sesshomaru taught her how to hunt better, how to transform fully from human to demon and back, and taught her how to smell and differentiate between senses. He taught her many more tactics so that she could win in almost any battle, but never against Sesshomaru.

(Y/n) started to see him in a different light than when they first met. He was indifferent and aloof with her, with only showing disdain or irritation, mostly with Jaken. He was soft on Rin, like a father would with his daughter. The younger dog demon thought she was in the same category as Jaken, until something changed that.

She was almost killed by a very powerful demon named Naraku. She didn’t know who that was, but Sesshomaru definitely knew and when Naraku was about to cut her life off and send her to the afterworld, Sesshomaru came in and rescued her at the last minute. His face was contorted in anger as she watched him fight Naraku off, and when Naraku fled the scene, Sesshomaru immediately went to her side. His expression was something she had never seen before; filled with distress and panic.

She didn’t know what happened after since she passed out form the too much blood loss. She asked Jaken, but he kept his lips sealed and Rin wasn’t there when it happened. The only thing she can confidently deduce was that Sesshomaru nursed her to full health and from that day on, he never let her leave his side. He got more protective of her, watching over her constantly.

Sesshomaru started showing his softer side, occasionally smiling in her direction when she did something funny, or giving her more food than him, saying he wasn’t all that hungry. Or when she was tired to carry on in their travels he would instantly set up camp and let her lay on his fur mokomoko, usually causing her to just sleep against him. She asked why he was acting so differently one day, and he vehemently denied all of it, his face revealing nothing. Thinking he did it out of pride, she dropped it. But somewhere in her heart, (y/n) felt happy with the attention.

Turns out that feeling she had, grew into something big and something painful. The girl fell in love with Sesshomaru. 

She didn’t want to believe it, but the signs and symptoms were there and she couldn’t deny it any longer. Looking at him made her heart beat fast, and every brush of skin made her want to hold his hand for forever. And kissing him? Oh, she wants to do that so very much, sometimes she imagines it while walking and trips over trees roots, embarrassing herself constantly. But it isn’t so bad when he chuckles at her clumsiness. She’ll trip a hundred times over if it means she can watch him laugh like that.

She knew that he doesn’t feel the same, despite how he treats her like one does with a lover, without the intimacy of one. Why would he? She is just some girl he found in the meadows of a small village with no reputation or prestige. She had nothing going for her, and he had everything going for him. It wasn’t fair, she wanted him to love her too, the way she does to him.

She was thinking about this again when they were walking in the southern regions of the land, where it was warmer and flowers were blooming everywhere. She sighed, causing Sesshomaru glance in her direction. “Why have you been sighing so much, it’s becoming a nuisance.” he said to her, his tone monotonous. She replied with a sigh and a shake of her head.

“You wouldn’t get it even if I told you.” with that, she walked ahead of the group, running quite far on the path through the forest they were in. She heard him call after her, but ignored him in favor of keeping some distance from him, to clear her head.

But she didn’t think she would run into Inuyasha and company. (y/n) in her tracks, out of breath and waved. She was pretty close with them, unlike Sesshomaru. That was because he was unsociable and emotionally inept, unlike her. 

Kagome waved back and hugged her, “(y/n)! It’s been so long since I’ve seen you! How are you?” (y/n) shrugged rigidly, thinking to her dilemma.

“I just realized something a little too late, and it’s really bringing my spirits down.” she said to her. Kagome tilted her head, curious.

“What do you mean?” she heard Sango ask, coming to stand next to Kagome. Wrapping her arms around herself self-consciously, she frowned at them.

“I think I’m in love with Sesshomaru.” she proclaimed to the group. Kagome audibly gasped and Sango’s eyes widened fractionally. She also heard a loud guffaw come out of Inuyasha, him doubling over. She gave a glare, folding her arms across her chest. “And what is so funny to you, huh?” Inuyasha shook his head, his shoulders shaking.

“T-the fact that you are in love with my brother! Sesshomaru?! Seriously!” he exclaimed, clutching his stomach. Huffing out a breath, she looked to Kagome expectedly. Nodding, Kagome called out to Inuyasha.

“Inuyasha! Sit, boy!” Kagome yelled and Inuyasha was instantly thrown to the ground, his necklace stuck to the dirt.

“Kagome, what the hell was that for?!”

“You were laughing at (y/n)!”

“I was laughing more at the fact that she didn’t know he loved her too!” he yelled out, to which everyone stared at him dubiously. 

“You’re lying.” (y/n) muttered, her eyebrow twitching.

“Look, I may not be that close to my brother, but I know when he likes someone, alright?! He’s protective of you, he does things for you, he smiles more around you, right?” he questioned her. She loosely bobbed her head up and down, absorbing what she was just told. “Yeah, well, these means he loves you back.”

Really? Is that what he means with his actions? And she was oblivious to all of it? And here she was, thinking he didn’t have single clue what love was. With a shuddering sigh, she turned back to where Sesshomaru was and started running. 

She couldn’t believe it, she really couldn’t wrap her mind around it. Sesshomaru loving her back would be the miracle of the century. She had to confirm it with her own eyes, see if what Inuyasha said was true. (y/n) saw him in the distance, noticing that Rin and Jaken weren’t with him. Without slowing down, she called out his name to which he looked up to see her jump.

He caught her in his arms, but they both fell to the ground, her on top of him. “Sesshomaru!” she said again, getting his attention. There was annoyance in his eyes, but also curiosity. “Do you love me?”

His eyes widened, almost imperceptibly, but she saw it and her lips lifted into a smile. “Are you in love with me?” she whispered to him, her eyes glowing with hope. Sesshomaru didn’t say anything, only turned his head to avoid looking at her head on. He didn’t know what to do. “Sesshomaru?” she whispered again, but this time a frown on her face, her eyes losing that hope.

Sesshomaru bit the inside of his cheek, then looked at her again. He then gently grabbed her by the neck, and pushed her down. Their lips connected briefly before Sesshomaru pulled back and pushed her off to get up. He patted his clothes clean of any dirt, and saw that (y/n) was still sitting. “(y/n).” he called out. She quickly looked up to him and got up as well. 

“Is that a yes?” she asked him. Sesshomaru stared for a minute before letting her see a smile grace his lips. The sun was setting behind, making him look more angelic then he already was. With a giggle, (y/n) stepped closer to him and wrapped her arms around his neck, feeling Sesshomaru do the same to her waist. And as the sun turned the sky to oranges and reds, she kissed him again and again and again, loving how he tasted against her tongue.

[sapphic-solstice]

(1/2) Hi! I have some questions/reservations about the rules? 1. "no homophobia" etc -- so are stories that feature this in any form banned? (including canonically homophobic characters, discussing previous experiences, coming out stories including worrying about other people's reactions, and the like...) 2. No dub-con -- what people consider dub-con can be quite varied. (drunk sex, for instance) How will this be enforced by mods?

Hi anon!

I’m assuming that all of these questions are being asked in good faith so I’ll answer them as clearly and concisely as possible for you.

With the rule “no homophobia” what we mean is if you intentionally set out to write a story that is inherently homophobic, that is not welcome. Does this mean that a character can’t talk about previous experiences of homophobia such as experiences with homophobic characters and emotionally taxing coming out stories? No. As long as it is written in a way that addresses the requests, and has been requested by the person that you have been assigned. That is to say, if your requestor has asked for a cute date night with characters in an established relationship and has specifically requested tropes such as fluff and emotional intimacy, I would expect that you would be able to use your better judgement and not introduce themes of homophobia in the work that you are writing. If however, the person you have been assigned has specifically asked for themes like hurt/comfort, has explicitly stated they are fine receiving a gift dealing with such content, and you feel something like say, a character finding comfort and bonding with a romantic interest/partner over shared past negative experiences fits that bill? Go for it I guess? If the use of homophobia in such a context works for the prompts you are given and it has been requested that's fine. We just ask that you are tasteful and respectful in your depiction. Pretty much what the “Please show the same courtesy and respect for others that you yourself would like to receive” rule covers.

As for no dub-con, we were operating under the assumption that most reasonable people would define dubious consent as consent that is unclear in nature or occurs in a state where a character normally would not consent to such an activity. And that most reasonable people also consider that people, and by extension fictional characters, are not able to give informed and clear consent to sexual activities whilst under the influence of perception and inhibition impairing substances such as drugs and alcohol. Which to answer your question, if a character is not in a fit state to give informed consent or is coerced into giving consent, we would consider that to be dub-con. If you look at the FAQ, you will find that it is stated that all submissions are moderated and that if the moderators find a work that depicts a scenario where consent to a sexual situation feels unclear, or dubious if you will, then the creator will be contacted by moderators and be asked to adjust their submission accordingly. But considering that the majority of requests so far specifically list dub-con as a “Do not want” we would hope that no one would intentionally write such subject matter.

With “no major character death” (no bury your gays) to state that rule in its full context, what we mean is if you are writing a story with the intent purpose of killing a main character or love interest, we kindly ask you to refrain from doing such a thing for the purposes of this exchange. I’m speaking for myself here but it is very tiring to see a depiction of wlw in media only for it to end in the death of one of the characters in a pairing or the death of a wlw character for narrative effect (eg, Clexa, Marla, Charlie, everything that went on in Supernatural, TWD, PoI, multiple series of AHS, and OitNB) and for the most part, we wanted to avoid it here, hence why we’ve stated we’re striving for positive, and dare we say it wholesome depictions of wlw sexuality in this exchange.

So anon, if you’re writing someone like Leliana reminiscing on her past loves and relationships with another or in her memories because Marjolaine and the F!Warden are both dead in the world state you’re working in I would say that's fine? Because you haven’t specifically set out to kill a main love interest within the work you are creating and I’m assuming it's been requested of you by the person you’ve been assigned to write about such a thing.

As for the no creation of explicit content for minors, or minors requesting explicit content? The DA games have an American rating of ‘M’ which according to the ESRB is a rating that is recommended for individuals 17 years and older, and considering the Americentric nature of the Dragon Age fandom, the American rating is the one we are using for reference here. So what we’re ultimately hoping is that people will do the right thing and be honest when it comes to the sort of content that they request, because ultimately the only way an adult will make explicit content for a minor, is if a minor requests it in their submission.

We believe the people of this fandom are mature enough to follow this, but if people demonstrate that they aren’t willing to interact in good faith they will be banned from the exchange. And ultimately, we don’t want to exclude minors if they want to participate, but we want them to be able to participate in a way that is safe and comfortable for them. And hell there are ace people participating in this exchange and people that have requested no smut so we want them to feel comfortable and represented participating in this exchange as well. After all, sexual intimacy isn’t the only form of intimacy and I would personally love to see more depictions of intimacy between wlw that aren’t reliant on sex.

I hope that I have answered your questions as they stand, and if you have any more we request that you contact us off of anon to discuss them. If you find that you still have concerns with the rules, participation is voluntary and if you don’t want to participate that’s your choice to make.

[itsakpopalypse]

Kim Youngbin (SF9)

“ Hi!! i enjoyed your Jaeyoon astrology breakdown so much is there any way you can do Youngbin's as well? “ - @sarang-dae

A/N sure thing dear !! Still learning about SF9, so I hope this is okay ( I still know.. well only the ones I have already done lol.)  Thank you for being patient while my life turned to chaos!!

Hope you enjoy !

FIRST OF ALL

This is a watery man

but mostly Scorpio

let’s start with the big 3

Rising in Aquarius, so he begins interaction with light hearted and observant banter

Sun in Sagittarius , so he is full of adventure and a little bit of save the world (technically the end of the cusp but I’ll talk about that soon)

Moon in Pisces so he is not only in touch with, but quite comfortable with feelings and how to express them

seems incredibly affectionate? 

Lunar Pisces are Cuddle monsters

Probably very caring, tends to show love by taking care of the needs of others.... can forget to take care of himself because of this

that’s where you’ll come in

loves to make memories with you 

will come up with random fun day activities with that Sagittarius sun

and treasure the memories with his lunar Pisces 

every moment is beautiful and he is touched by connection

connection to nature  and to you 

majority fixed chart - which means that he is reliable beyond words

 Lunar Pisces he might make him seem dazed or he might misplace things, but also be an incredibly deep thinker 

and a hopeless romantic., the type to pine for a very long time while imagining the most in depth scenarios in his own head before taking action

will literally plan your lives together out in his head a million different ways before you even know he is interested.  

the kind of person who goes over things 10k times in their head and plays out every scenario before making a decision

so very reliable and understanding

the kind of person you could trust with anything

I feel like falling into any type of a relationship with him is like...

long drives with music in the background and long talks about your life 

from driving around to parked in the driveway because neither of you wants the heart to heart to end

big smiles and an incredible openness

You could just sit down with him and enjoy the silence, but he prefers getting to pull you apart piece by piece until he knows exactly how to make you the most happy

you’d just progress from best friends to more with barely any one noticing

just  kind of quietly ask you deeper questions about yourself until he knows how best to ask you to give him more of  you 

he will treasure the gift of your time

Mercury and Venus in Scorpio tells me that he is really witty and fun to talk to 

probably enjoys a spirited debate and considers it affectionate

likely keeps physical intimacy personal (Scorpios love keeping the private, private)

Venusian Scorpios are dedicated they focus solely on their partner 

won’t necessarily vocalize it, just starts shifting his life to help you reach goals or meet some emotional demand you have

can seem ‘possessive’ but it’s more just that single minded drive to keep you happy and successful 

probably possessive is the wrong word, more just really intense and focused

expects the same level of devotion as he gives

Sagittarius mars (fantastic placement for this sign!!)

this means he is very action over words

he won’t waste time once a decision is made, whatever it may be

expect him to whisk you off to new places on a whim when he sees you need a pick me up

the husbandy-est of husbands

because his Scorpio stellium is so intense, expect him to really display these characteristics in a relationship

so inquisitive about your deepest thoughts and soul 

you are the most important puzzle in his life

likely picks up on your body language well, analyzes your levels of anxiety.

as he is leaning Sagittarius but still a cusp we have MORE Scorpio energy

so even if he is lighthearted and full of fun, he is still grounded and driven

if his moon weren't Pisces I’d worry he’d be bad at vocalizing his feelings, but as it stands he should be really in tune with and expressive of his feelings

good for communication!

a wholesome and good man, a caring and understanding partner!!

great sense of humor and better sense of self.

very resolute in his decisions, and very supportive of yours!

both the Scorpio and Sagittarius placements show he believes in healthy boundaries not codependency,

spic y t i m e prepare for a LO T 18 + below

ALright but collect pls

let’s get spicy

ALL THAT SCORPIO

whew

PLUS THE SAGITTARIUS

goood luckkkkk

let’s just get into it 

Scorpios are very controlling in the bedroom

they know what works, what they like and how to accomplish that

they know what you like too, because the first few times you are intimate he would just watch and learn

try new things and see what works for you best, what you like and how to make you squirm

watches your every reaction for the perfect combination of pressure and sensations to make you lose every braincell

I’m fairly certain that with the amount of Scorpio in his chart, he would absolutely require you to vocalize your desires

teasing lil shit

“I don’t know what you want if you won’t tell me, baby. How does that feel?”

wants you to *try* to say it, but have wrecked you too hard for you to form words

absolutely takes pride in being the best you have ever had

probably low key into public teasing

the type to buy you one of those panty vibrators and keep the remote in his pocket, 

“You remember the rules, don’t you baby?”

secretly smirks to himself behind his hand when you have to grip his arm and hide your pleasure. 

he wants to control every aspect of your pleasure, and the Pisces moon means that that doesn’t just make his dick hard, but his heart too

Definitely a huge fan of fingering. I get the sense he loves the idea of forcing multiple orgasms out of you before his pants are off

think, how many ways, before he leaves you totally destroyed.

if he doesn’t leave you a quivering mess he won’t feel like he did his job

because of this i don’t believe he would like any “quicky” type situation

he wants hours and hours and  hours of pleasure forced out of you

he gets off on you getting off, and he likes to hold his own pleasure for last. 

likely doesn’t ask you for anything, but wants you to beg to give him pleasure back. 

will get slightly shy about it but agree

he secretly wants that pampering, every now and then but doesn’t know how to give up the control to do it

so you’ll have to surprise him,  wake him up with your mouth on him and he will just lay there stroking your skin and praising you 

a light flush will dust his cheeks and he will tell you how pretty you are and how wonderful he feels.

he likes that shit sometimes

*he’s still gonna make sure to return the favor, with vigor, so don’t expect to get any rest after*

champion of aftercare

think massages and oils and candles and soft murmurs of his eternal devotion through sleepy lips

think long face to face cuddling, eyes tracing your features in the dim lighting

think “here’s water and a snack, and you are the most amazing person i’ve ever known, do you know I love you?”

all and all, the perfect catch. 

[all-blue-headcanons]

@wereallmadhere000 - Hey there, thanks for the ask! Admittingly this one was a little hard for me to write as the yandere trope is pretty... specific which it’s hard to imagine one of these two boys being like that? Therefore I’m taking a few liberties with things, so I’m hoping you don’t mind too much!

Yandere Eustass Kid with Reader Headcanons

+ Being in a relationship with Eustass “Captain” Kid is no easy matter. The man is as fierce as he is possessive, armed with an explosive temper as well as a natural disposition towards casual violence. Even towards his own crew, the captain of the Kid Pirates is a harsh leader without much tolerance towards fuck ups and disobedience so you’re going to have to develop nerves of steel in dealing with this hot-tempered man if you hope to get with him! - That being said, he’s not an ‘abusive’ partner. Rather, Kid feels intensely and lust often goes hand in hand with aggression, both volatile and rich emotions that can eat away at a person if left unchecked. Just as Kid relishes violence and bloodlust, so too does he crave close intimacy with his loved ones of which he has very few in this merciless world. Killer, his childhood friend and companion, is one of those few people that Kid feels such deep platonic love for as the Massacre Soldier was the only person he was able to rely on during a loveless upbringing. + That means that Killer is the only person Kid trusts to be around you. Even Heat and Wire are growled at sometimes if they start getting too friendly with you in his eyes, the red-haired man very much preferring to be the centre of attention in your little world. God forbid any of the lower crew members try anything funny; Kid will happily beat their ass senseless and toss them overboard into the sea, not caring much if they’re able get back on board or not. - People soon learn to keep their eyes away from you, let alone dare give you much attention... + While Kid is not (intentionally) abusive, he can be harsh and even seem uncaring at times. This isn’t down to any malice or disdain towards his lover, however - rather the man has no experience on how a healthy relationship is supposed to work. What Kid considers to be affectionate is often possessive and clingy at times, the man becoming desperately needy for attention and isn’t afraid to become a petty little shit when he doesn’t get what he wants. - A cold shoulder along with the silent treatment are the usual responses towards any perceived slight, which can be strangely disconcerting given the captain’s usually brash behaviour. For everybody else, the tension on board can be cut with a knife as Kid pointedly ignores his lover... but it never lasts for long. Once his petulance burns itself out, the man is back for more, playing it extra sweet in the hopes of getting you to play with him again. + Killer is the one who has to explain it to you once he realizes how serious the relationship between you and Kid has grown. Thanks to the World Government’s actions in South Blue after the end of Gol D. Roger’s era, many parents either abandoned their children or were brutally killed trying to protect them due to governmental officials wiping out as many of the ex-Pirate King’s ‘potential spawn’ as possible. Kid is one of those survivors and his childhood was as brutal as it was unforgiving, leaving the boy with no other option than to grow up as quickly as possible. - Whatever parental figures he had at the time cared little for the red-haired boy during his youth, leaving him to figure out his own path in life. Kid’s earliest life lessons were that few people were to be trusted, much less accepted into the angry youth’s heart... or at least that was the case until Killer came into his life, the tall blond remaining to this day one of the only people understanding enough to deal with Kid’s eccentricities. Nobody knows better than the Massacre Soldier that Kid is not a conventional partner and will be there to support both you and his childhood friend, knowing full well what his friend has experienced and to prevent a rift growing between the two of you. + In time, Kid learns to become a more wholesome partner but it’ll take a lot of patience, time and understanding from you, almost as much as Killer himself to be able to handle your captain at his worst. No matter what, he’ll remain as fierce and possessive as he ever was but will learn how to handle any grievances in a healthier fashion... - “What the hell, Kid? You got blood all over me again!” You yell while wiping your face clean of crimson splatters, a headless marine dropping to the floor beside you. You can only watch as the man sheepishly grins despite the battle raging all the two of you and shrugs. “What? He was checking out your ass behind your back!”

Yandere Doflamingo with Reader Headcanons

+ In all honestly, there’s not much difference in a relationship between Yandere!Doflamingo and Regular!Doflamingo. The man is a self-proclaimed God, a Celestial Dragon and Child of the Heavens despite long having since been thrown out of Mary Geoise along with his family. Even though many years have passed since that terrible day, Doflamingo has become King once again and his word in Dressrosa is law above all... - Unlike Kid, Doflamingo actually enjoyed plenty of healthy exposure to a loving relationship from the start of his troubled life. His parents were unconditionally loving towards their children and each other despite the difficulties they soon themselves after having descended to the ‘world of humans’ below and it is due to these experiences that Doflamingo has his own peculiar views on love. In his eyes, love towards him truly is unconditional - and to break that means you never truly loved him at all. + That being said, Doflamingo adores you intensely and like Kid, it is a fierce and possessive affection. Unlike Kid however, it is one that the Heavenly Demon feels he is completely and utterly entitled to and his wrath knows no bounds when he doesn’t get what he wants. He’ll move mountains if he has to and tear heaven and earth asunder if he must, but you are his and his alone and need to understand that as soon as possible. - On the surface, you look like any other of the many young admirers and lovers that frequently stop by the palace. There is never any shortage of women and even the occasional man hoping to secure a favourable position likes yours when it’s obvious you’re the man’s most favoured partner, yet despite their best efforts, Doflamingo is content to play only for a short while before returning his affections back to you. + “What’s the matter, love? Did you think anything about that was actually serious?” Doflamingo will chuckle if you seem put out at all by this behaviour, the man treating you more like a favourite toy than an actual person and partner. It’s hypocritical in a way, that Doffy can seem to play with whomever he wants but if anybody should so much as look your way... - “Young Master!” The Donquixote Family will cry out in shock as Doflamingo suddenly cuts down a few lowly recruits for the simple crime of looking at you in a way he doesn’t like. To Doflamingo, it is a crime even more unforgivable than laughing at his family, such filthy men daring to lust so openly for his partner right before his eyes! You don’t get to go out so often after that particular incident, for Doflamingo would gladly kill any number of people who so much as looks at you the wrong way. + Doflamingo’s possessiveness only grows worse over time the more he’s attached to you, the longer you’ve been together. Having lost so many of his own family members over the years, he takes no chance in risking losing you as well; only the Donquixote Family is to be around you, long term members that the man feels as though he can trust with you alone, even if he has to have somebody watching you at all times. Never are you to go anywhere by yourself, let alone speak to anybody outside of those ‘allowed’ to interact with you. - This isolation can be as stifling as his possessiveness at times, especially when Doflamingo is busy with work but he’d rather that and cage you, his precious little pet, than risk letting you fly free. When you entered this relationship, you knew full well what you were getting yourself into and of the kind of man you were getting involved with... + “Let you go? Whatever for, my darling? Do you not enjoy the finest food, the most beautiful scenery and gifts anybody could hope to enjoy? I am your God, Name. You need nothing else in life, only me...” Doflamingo will purr if you ever dare bring up the subject, his large and powerful hands caressing your form that even though he’s not using his strings, he might as well be doing so for all the control he has over you now.

[adastreia-12]

E C H O E S (AsraxGN!MC, brief Asrian) 

A/N: Includes spoilers for Asra’s route but I’ve barely started playing it myself so some things may be a bit off!

Rated: Teen  Genre: Angst Word count: 3,821 (haaa.... it was meant to be like 500 tops, oops)  Summary: Magic is alive, and an intimate thing between magicians, connecting them and their feelings. Asra’s magic and yours are tightly connected after years of friendship and partnership; when he leaves you back in plague-stricken Vesuvia, it becomes his only way to know you’re okay. Until you aren’t, and your magic screams just like you did. 

Magic was a curious thing. Ever-changing, evolving and pulsing with life. Unique to every individual, and despite its power, playful and curious. And it was all Asra ever really knew, the sole constant of his life, shining like a lighthouse, providing him with a home even though he lived in the streets when he was young. He was so familiar with it, and yet, few were the times where he had experienced his magic’s interaction with another’s. He knew that each magician’s magic was personal and different at an inherent level, but he had never met another magician in all of Vesuvia since his parents. Since them, never had his magic been touched by someone else’s, nudged playfully and hesitantly before getting familiar with it. Never, that is, until he met you.

Hailing from faraway Milova, you found your way to Vesuvia in search of a rumored magician in hopes that they would take you on as their apprentice, as Asra was informed by you from the other side of his shop’s counter when he first met you. It was truly a wonder he had even heard that back then. He had been too busy bathing in the warmth of your magic’s rawness. He had taken in a shuddering breath, marveling at how volatile and malleable it was. Hot and bright and powerful, it was ready to be bent into shape. It was the polar opposite of his calm, collected energy, a shining gold sun compared to a soft lilac nebula. 

It had taken a snap of your fingers in front of his eyes, but he had agreed.

He had taken you in at the shop and in his life, falling into a routine with you. And while later he would come across more magicians, like the one who gave him Faust’s egg, it had been the first time in his life that he had someone to share his wonders, his oasis, his knowledge with. Someone who could, too, hear the Arcana whisper to them. He slept a bit easier each night.

It took a long time, what with his regular travels, but he taught you all he could. Every trick, every spell, every symbol. Your magic was stronger than his though. Although it was not as jagged as when he had started with you, it still burned golden with the same intensity. You could learn more, he knew that by the spikes he felt coming from it occasionally, despite how refined it had become. But he didn’t know how to give you any more.

So when his grimoires and herbs stopped offering new knowledge, he focused on you more. He began to see you for more than your golden magic, more than just a fellow magician. You became tangible, a person he could touch and get close to, someone who made him laugh, someone he could hug and mess around with. Someone he could travel with. He stopped leaving you behind when he took to the seas.

On your first trip to Nopal together, he came to a realization as he saw you interact with desert’s dunes for the first time in your life. Your laughter was music to his ears and the look of absolute wonder painted on your face as you took off your shoes and dipped your feet in the now cool sand, only illuminated by the flame you held in your hands made his heart flutter and his breath catch in his throat. A spark had ignited in his chest after so many years of knowing you and teaching you and he hadn't realized until that moment that what he was feeling was more than just friendship. He felt your magic reach out to his. He wasn't sure if that had been a conscious choice since you never looked up. But he responded, letting his own touch yours. Warmth took over him and he couldn't help the fond smile from his face.

However long it took him to help you shape up your magic, it felt like it took him longer to confess his feelings to you. When he did, it was because Faust told on him, devious little familiar as she was. It resulted in a lot of blushing on both your parts, and Asra blurting out "I'm in love with you!" in a rare case of him losing his composure.

"Uh, erm… You do?" you said very smoothly. With a quick glare at Faust, Asra could only nod. You short-circuited for a moment, a stammering mess and Asra could swear his heart dropped out of his ribcage when his magic rippled with the after effects of your conflicted feelings your own magic was reflecting.

He was about to try and salvage whatever remained of your relationship when you said: "Okay."

He did a double take and tilted his head in question. His heart was back in his ribcage but now it was hammering against it more wildly than ever.

You looked at him, determination in your eyes. "I… really really like you. Maybe we could try this out and see what happens?"

Asra was no fool. He jumped at the chance and eagerly said yes, a choice that soon proved to be one of the best of his life.

It was shy at first. You would both think twice to touch as much as you wanted, hesitant because of the novelty of your situation. You had never fallen for anyone. He had never loved anyone the way he loved you. Soft and wholesome, but also deeper than any other bond he’d ever had. Magic-deep. He could feel his magic intertwine with yours, mingle and bond with it, become one with every day that passed. More often than not, he felt its warmth wash over him, and even if he wouldn’t tell you, it gave him a sense of euphoria unlike any other.

Whatever timidity held your relationship back had soon gone away, however. The closer you got, the more connected your magic became and that was the highest form of intimacy two magicians could possibly achieve. Wayward touches like forehead kisses and hugs from behind came much easier after that, until they became as natural as breathing.

The traveling became a norm too. Asra would take you to Nopal almost every time now. You had grown accustomed to the sand now, but seeing you watch from his house always put a fond smile on his face. He would sit behind you and lean on a wall, looking at you for a bit before coming over and kissing your temple. You would kiss him back with a smile and go back to watching nature. After a few weeks, you would come back to Vesuvia and open your shop again.

Those were nice days. Simpler days. And then the Red Plague came.

“The plague is spreading too fast, what’s so difficult for you to understand? We need to leave Vesuvia!” Asra shouted at you, desperate.

“And let all these people die? We can help them, Asra! We’re magicians, there has to be something-”

“We’re magicians, not immortals! Please, just come with me to Nopal. Please. I can’t risk losing you.” His voice was softer now. He was begging.

You sighed and shook your head. When you looked at Asra, your eyes were icy, and he felt your magic spike with hostility. It sent daggers through his heart, but he didn’t show it. He was too mad at your stubbornness.

“I’m not leaving if I can help. I went to Dr. Devorak’s clinic. I’ll be starting as his doctor’s apprentice tomorrow. If you’re so selfish and want to leave, go. But do not expect me to do the same when I can help people.”

A flame ignited in his heart where your daggers of ice had been plunged, and the words were out of his mouth before he even realized he said them: “Fine! If you want to throw away your life, you can go ahead and die for all I care!”

A flash of hurt crossed your face before you masked it through steely eyes. You picked up his bag and threw it at him.

“Enjoy your trip, Asra.”

With an angry puff, Asra forcefully put on his hat and, scooping up Faust, he walked out and slammed the door.

He didn’t know. He didn’t know that would be the last time he would see you.

He was in Nopal again when it happened. As more time passed, he had hoped you’d see reason and come join him, but you never did. The house remained horribly empty without your laughter filling it. He remained calm, though, whenever he felt your magic. Despite your argument, despite the horrible things said, your magic’s link to his remained strong. He would feel it pulsing with happiness, with sorrow, with excitement and disappointment. It was his insurance that you were still alive.

One day, he was swept by incredible fatigue through your magic. He bit his lip in worry. You were probably working yourself to death trying to find a cure. Was the doctor taking care of you? He shook his head, and soon after, the fatigue washed away. You were fine.

Only you weren’t. Next came pain. It was brief, only lasting seconds of it, but your magic was suffering, and he could feel it. There was no calmness anymore, and it was dimmer now. He choked on his breath. No. No, you had to be okay. You were among doctors. There were precautions. The pain was from something else, it had to be. Still, he thought about how he left things with you, and soon, he found himself packing to go back. Tomorrow. I’ll leave tomorrow. 

Too late. He was too late.

He woke up to the sound of screaming. He bolted out of bed and ran out of the house, his head snapping back and forth to find the source. No one was there. But the sound was still there, growing ever so loud. The screams turned to wails, and to words.

“Please! It hurts, it burns, please stop!” someone screeched, their voice broken, frantic, pained. That voice. Asra’s blood ran cold. No.

He reached for your magic. It was a mistake. His entire body was engulfed in searing pain that kicked him to his knees. He would have screamed too, had the pain not vanished and been replaced with your screams echoing around his skull. He clutched his head and folded himself until his forehead touched the ground, tears forming in his eyes. Your voice was cracked and strained but you kept screaming in pain. In between your wails, you called out to him.

“ASRA!”

Asra sobbed. ‘I’m here,’ he wanted to scream back, but he wasn’t. He was miles upon miles away, in another country, further away than he could even hope to be able to offer his help while you were hurting.

The screaming stopped eventually, and only then was he able to get up on wobbly feet and run to the beast that helped him travel, Faust around his shoulders.

“We need to get back to Vesuvia now,” he whispered, his voice hoarse. He couldn’t reach out to your magic anymore. There was a void in him where it used to be. He didn’t know what had happened to you, but his suspicions were almost enough to make his heart stop.

His fingers were coated with black ash and crimson blood, and he couldn’t contain his sobs. They racked his entire body, hurt his throat as they ripped through it. His tears fell freely on the sound he had sunken into. Silence answered his sorrow; silence and the weak, almost extinguished thrum of your magic reverberating in your skull. The only thing that had remained of you. The rest had burned while you screamed.

“I’m sorry,” Asra whispered weakly, clutching his shirt, not caring that he tainted its white with black and red soot. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t-” his voice cracked and another sob overtook him. “I didn’t mean what I said, please-”.

He cut himself off, gulping erratic breaths. If he had just been here…

He kept looking at your skull, haunted by the empty sockets that stared back at him. An idea crossed his mind the more he stayed alone with the traces of your magic. With a dangerous newfound determination, he picked up your skull and started walking away, ready to put as much distance between himself and the Lazaret as possible.

To his horror, he soon discovered that his suffering didn’t end at the Lazaret. Your screams rang in his head again a few weeks later, while working at the palace. They shook him to his core, and they almost knocked him to his knees again. He froze as your wails drowned out any other noise out, his eyes wide and unblinking, staring into the void.

“-ra! Asra, hey! Snap out of it!” Dr. Devorak’s voice rang sharp through your pained voice, and Asra could finally breathe again when he looked in his grey eyes. Dr. Devorak took his hands off Asra’s shoulders giving him a careful, concerned look. He realized he must have been shaking him. He looked around and saw pairs of eyes peering at him curiously over medical masks. He looked back at the doctor, disoriented.

“Wh-,” he swallowed and brought a hand to his forehead. “What happened?” he croaked a second after. Dr. Devorak gave him an incredulous look. “You were doubled over and crying,” he said matter-of-factly. Asra touched his cheeks lightly and felt the half-dried tears. His hand was shaking too. He looked back at Dr. Devorak at a loss for words. He didn’t know what to say. Those were your screams. He shouldn’t be hearing them anymore. You were gone. So why was he?

“I…”

The doctors were still looking at him. Valdemar’s piercing stare unnerved him, and he couldn’t stop recalling the sound of your pain. Out of nowhere, he was shielded from view by an apron-covered chest, and a gloved hand rested lightly on his shoulder, pushing him gently the other way.

“Let’s get you out of here,” Dr. Devorak muttered.

Once outside the dungeon and the library and into the halls of the palace, Asra managed to finally take a deep breath that actually reached his lungs. His hands were still shaking as he ran one through his hair.

“What happened in there, Asra?” the plague doctor asked, concern in his grey eyes.

Asra took a good look at him, thinking in horror back on the echoes of your screams, his mind summoning images of fire licking your skin and destroying it. His eyes welled up again but he blinked the tears away. 

“Nothing important,” he said and tried to give Dr. Devorak a charming smile. “Thank you for your help though, Doctor.”

Dr. Devorak appeared to get flustered, instantly losing his composure and blushing furiously.

“I, uh- You’re welcome,” he stuttered out and looked to the side. Asra nodded, and with a fake pleasant smile, he moved to leave.

“Uh, Julian!” he heard the doctor’s voice yell out from behind him. He turned around and gave him a quizzical look with an arched eyebrow.

Dr. Devorak was still blushing and looking at his feet.

“My name is, uh, it’s Julian,” he muttered.

This time, Asra’s smile, albeit small, was genuine. “Thank you, Julian.”

He started spending time with Julian more after that. Your screams came to him often, always rendering him immobile and unresponsive, but he started to seek comfort in the hands of a certain steel eyed doctor, and suddenly he didn’t completely shut down when all he could hear was the pain and desperation in your wild voice. The void where your magic used to be was still there, gaping, but Julian made it easier to ignore.

“If I tell you something no one knows about me, will you tell me what is going on with you?” Julian said one day lazily, head buried in Asra bare chest, legs entangled under the sheets. Asra petted his auburn hair and hummed.

“Perhaps.” No. He wouldn’t. But he was curious.

Julian sat up and rested his weight on his elbow. “My given name is Ilya.”

Asra arched his brow.

“My sister was the last person to use it, before I left her back in Nevinon,” he explained with a thousand yard stare. His lips were curled in a smile, but his eyes were drooped, sad.

“You loved her?” Asra asked, his thoughts drifting back to you, and something wrung his heart. He tried not to wince.

Julian chuckled forlornly. He shifted his body to look better at Asra.

“More than anything. I would do anything for her, even though… I guess I’ve been quite a disappointing brother to her. Haven’t seen her since she was about yay high,” he said, gesturing to a height barely higher than that of the bed. He shook his head. “Haven’t been called that since then either.”

Asra took a while to answer. His mind was clouded with memories of you. How long had it been since he saw you? More than a year had passed since he had left for Nopal without you, like the coward he was.

“Ilya is a beautiful name,” he ended up saying. “It suits you.”

Julian hummed, pleased with himself but unable to hide a blush dusting his cheeks. He soon recovered and cleared his throat.

“I told you something personal. Now, what’s wrong?”  

Asra hesitated. He didn’t want to tell him. But he couldn’t leave him hanging.

“I lost someone. They were dear to me. Dealing with their death is… hard,” he settled for. It was the truth, if not all of it. Julian’s eyes darkened. He looked away, ashamed. Asra knew that the guilt of not finding a cure for the Red Plague gnawed on him. He felt a spark of satisfaction. There were times he still blamed him for your death. But it soon went away. “I’m sorry,” Julian whispered. Asra didn’t answer. That night, your wails were mellowed out by Julian’s company.

Julian soon became Ilya for Asra. And soon after, Ilya became past, your voice too deafening, too maddening for him to stay with the doctor. It haunted him, it stole his sleep and made him see your ash on his bloody fingers whenever he even looked at him. The resentment that cultivated couldn’t allow him to stay with him. He would hear you all the time, sometimes for whole days. Every time he did, he felt a small spark in the traces of your magic from your skull.

“I’m sorry, I already said I’m sorry… Why are you doing this to me?” he whispered between tears at the skull one day, barely even hearing himself over you. The leftover magic spiked and your screams became louder. He sobbed. This… this trace of your magic was all he had left of you and it was an echo of the last time you were alive and he was doomed to relive the pain again and again. He couldn’t bare to tether his bond to you.

Your screams were burned in his mind like a brand that never healed, always sizzling with pain.  He missed you and he couldn’t connect with you anymore. He remembered your screams better than he did your voice now, your voice that he had adored so much. Your magic was painful instead of comforting like it used to be. He was going insane. He couldn’t take this torture anymore.

You just wouldn’t stop screaming, so he pressed his hands firmly to his ears, not caring enough to wipe his tears anymore, only caring about stopping the screams, please just stop, please. You didn’t. So he did the only thing he could: he screamed with you, trying to drown out your voice with his. He screamed until his throat felt like it was being torn by talons and his head pounded. He screamed until he couldn’t scream anymore, choked by his sobs and tears, on his knees and doubled over himself, his hands never leaving his ears, even though it didn’t do anything, even though he just wanted to hug himself as he cried, wishing that were you.

He only let his arms fall from his head and snake around himself when your screams faded away. He kept sobbing softly in front of your skull and Faust finally dared to approach him and wrap herself around him in an attempt of comfort. “Faust… I need to do this quicker,” he whispered to his familiar when he could finally breathe again. Do what? She asked, tilting her head, tongue flicking.

“Bring them back,” he said, a dangerous fire alight in his purple eyes. His magic flared dangerously, and yours cowered. “Whatever the cost,” he said, and then softly, eyes downcast: “I can’t do this anymore.”

And bring you back he did. The days leading up to the Masquerade had been relentless. Your screams hadn’t stopped echoing around his own skull for days, and he thought he might snap, his skin crawling. But in the end, the deed was done and the deal was struck. The seal glowed over what was left of his heart, and you were back. The moment you returned, the screams vanished, and Asra could have collapsed with relief. For the first time in a long while, he smiled, and the smile was genuine. You were there. You were alive. He did it.

He had thought that the day that he would get you back, the day he so carefully planned, the day he sacrificed so much for, the day the screams would stop, would be the happiest of his days in a long time. But then, you opened your eyes, and where he expected recognition and love, he found only alarm and emptiness. You curled into yourself, away from him, as if you didn’t know him. Asra recoiled.

He called your name but you didn’t answer. He asked you if you knew who he was but was met with more silence. Moments later, when you opened your mouth, he dared hope that it had only been shock, but that hope got crushed when grumbled, wordless noises fell off your lips. It only took seconds for him to realize that you didn’t remember him. You didn’t even remember how to talk. He tried to bite back a sob as what was left of his half heart broke all over again. You didn’t come back as you were.

It was supposed to be a happy day for him. But all he could think as he put on a brave face and fought off tears was that the traces of your magic and the echoes of your screams seemed more welcome than your strong but reserved magic and the blankness that governed your gaze when you looked at him.

[morsking]

Hi, yes, I would like to talk about Melt.

This isn’t a major scene but I feel it still bears a quite a bit of mention, precisely because it illustrates a huge change in Melt’s character from the events of CCC. 

I’ll preface this further by saying I haven’t read CCC and am only basing this on what I’ve read of Melt’s character material in her FGO character page and the Type Moon Wiki, so if something’s inaccurate please do feel free to correct me.

When interacting with Guda Melt makes it very clear what kind of person she is. She’s an arrogant performer who finds pleasure in literally poisoning humans with that same sensation to the extent where they physically disintegrate from intoxication. She’s selfish, she’s cruel, she hates compromise and absolutely demands you do things her way and ask nothing of her in return. Things between you are purely business, and she’s only cooperating with you because your interests align and those interests involve taking the capricious murderous BB down a notch. 

All that is true except she’s also head over fucking heels for you, and those are some damn high heels she’s got there. 

Meltryllis finds that causing so much pleasure it becomes excruciating pain is the only thing that brings her stimulus since her sense of touch is practically non-existent. She claims she doesn’t feel the need to show affection nor does she ever have to take the feelings of others into consideration, and while that has to do with her own lofty primadonna personality, it’s also because she has no idea what it feels like to actually form a connection with someone else since she cannot express love in physical level, which mind you people is extremely essential both in platonic and romantic situations. 

Melt has to keep making excuses for her to not get too close to a person she cares about because she herself cannot truly understand that intimacy. She says not to worry about what she says or what she does or about anything that happens. She wishes for praise as a performer and as a literal work of art but keeps any actual emotional attention at arm’s length. She’d rather not have her true feelings noticed because the end result of being truthful would cause a person to acknowledge her flaws not as the eccentricity of a superior being but as actual existential flaws that pose a gap between her and another person. It’s clear that aloof attitude towards other people’s feelings is at one point her own immaturity and at another point an act.

She doesn’t want to make herself an inconvenience to anyone nor does she want to expose people to things that are ugly and uncomfortable. She might be naturally disdainful of ugly things as a being obsessed with aesthetic and inner beauty alike, but she also has learned to be more receptive of how others would feel when exposed to those ugly and uncomfortable things, and this could not be more evident in this scene from the CCC event.

The mess Guda finds is the place where the Seraphix therapist was murdered by the other staff and her corpse dissolved into data, right beside where the player can unlock the log of her last months of life encrypted with anti-Servant code. The player is forced to read through the account of the already-stressed Seraphix employees slowly descending into depravity. The staff becomes paranoid, violent, and build a stratified micro-society which quickly collapses once class and nationality become major excuses for discrimination and execution (I see Nasu reminding us he’s likely read Marx). The last few entries in the therapist’s log are records of being brutally disfigured by a mob, grieving that despite being ordinary more than anything she wanted to make some sort of difference by being a source of reprieve in a stressful environment, and that despite those intentions all she had to show for her efforts was the complete destruction of all ordinary life and morality within Seraphix. Ultimately, she is killed begging for help.

Melt hides this from you. She tells you knowing well what happened that it was an insignificant accident, quickly making up that EMIYA Alter in his clumsiness must’ve knocked something over. She calls it a mess, and in a fit of dark humor, she is right it is a mess, just not as little as she claims it is. She knew you’d find out what really happened, but decides to spare you in that moment so you can rest easy until it’s time to move again. 

We are next treated to Melt’s internal dialogue. While she actively tried to shield you from the tragedy that unfolded, she still expresses gratitude from the fact that even without having absolutely any idea of what went down, you still noticed the fact something existed there even if you didn’t know it was actually someone, and with that action alone the death of that therapist was not in vain, because someone could remember her now and acknowledge she existed and that she did all she could. 

The reason why Melt expresses this amount of care and affection the only way she knows how is because she values that kindness and compassion she cannot fully express. Guda chooses to contract with Melt not just for the need to survive, but because they accept her just the way she is and refuse to leave her behind out of sheer appreciation for her and her help.

Another thing worth noting is Melt tells you she is helping you out of the goodness of her heart only after she’s made herself comfortable enough around you. She tells you she really wants you to escape and return to Chaldea unharmed, because she makes the effort of responding to your kindness and honesty with her own. Meltryllis has proven that the Alter Ego of Pleasure who knew no reciprocation can now demonstrate it even with just words and small gestures. 

Tristan makes a rather disdainful and condescending point that Alter Egos are beings without souls, but in fact Melt exhibits a human capacity for growth and change she otherwise should not have. CCC, being a story centered around characters based on Sakura Matou, explores exactly what could make love and sexuality toxic, and how to overcome that toxicity and turn love, devotion, and desire into something much more healthy and wholesome, and this is how it happens for Meltryllis: she works around her physical shortcomings so her feelings and yours can properly intertwine and strengthen so nothing is ever insufficiently expressed and nothing is ever left out.

[halfgap]

This is such a tiny (& likely pointless) quibble that’s been bothering me for a long, long time, way before I got into CR. Basically writers and fandom (esp. recently) are really, really into the whole “found family” or “families of choice” trope, and like. So am I, 100%. But a lot of the thought/language surrounding it -- in all areas of fandom -- tends to veer in a direction that almost always makes me uncomfortable.

Below the cut bc this got rambly & senseless fast lol

Like... it’s sort of this popular fixation on assigning kinship terms to each individual or non-romantic relationship within the “found family” unit. Like, “oh this is the dad of the group, this is the mom, this is the weird uncle, these two are siblings, etc.” And obviously in some cases it’s very appropriate or even comes directly from the writers/characters (which is another issue of its own tbh but.. later). But it bugs me that so many people are so keen on categorizing these relationships through this rigid kinship terminology in the first place. 

(And I know I’m looking at this from a very unfortunately Eurocentric perspective, since there are so many cultures that don’t base their ideas of “kinship” on biology at all and don’t automatically prioritize blood relations as “true” family, which is why my weird specific quibbles on this may be entirely pointless, and I’m open to hearing thoughts. But I also suspect that most of the people participating in this popular trend/habit I’m talking about are coming from a similar cultural perspective as mine...)

Anyway, I can’t really articulate why this has always annoyed me so much other than to say... I feel like people refuse to let the word “friends” just be, and be important & valued? And it’s good that people are re-defining the word “family” so that it can function independent of any blood ties, but this obsession with like, “dad, siblings, the vodka aunt etc” to me still feels strongly tied to the older ideas of kinship through blood & marriage, basically this.. strictly defined family tree sort of deal. If people want to push forward the idea that the platonic bonds we choose & create for ourselves can be just as important or even more important than biological bonds or romantic/sexual ones, then why do we have to insist on these older kinship labels that both implicitly continue to privilege older ideas of family (by people “upgrading” relationships from “friends” to “siblings/parents/etc”) and also bear the same limitations? Like, a great fucking thing about these chosen bonds are that they don’t have to be defined or boxed into any one predetermined social role, they can be amorphous and intense and transcend the language we currently have access to.

Like, when people kept asking Ash and Taliesin on TM if Yasha and Molly considered themselves siblings... That made me uncomfortable, especially after they both conclusively said “no.” Ashley’s made it clear that Molly was the most important person in her life after she left Xhorhas, he’s a soul mate and a friend and a confidant and a buddy but she clarified that Yasha doesn’t see him as “a brother, exactly..” Partly I think it’s because there is a potential dimension of some form of romantic bond within their intense platonic love, but even with that they’d never consider themselves dating or anything like that, either -- or they can also ‘just’ be read as 100% platonic past & present & future, depending on where you’re coming from. Like, it’s ambiguous & amorphous & intense & loving & good, and I like that it defies categorization, I like that the best way to describe them is “they’re very close friends” and that doesn’t mean less than if they were lovers or “adoptive siblings” or whatever. The whole circus was kind of the same way, and Tal even said that Molly didn’t consider any of them a “parental” figure when fans asked about Gustav, but decided that Gustav was the closest to that role if we had to look at things that way. But we don’t!!!!

People also asked several times if Beau and Molly considered themselves siblings -- again, no!!!!! (But I feel like that’s probs bc the cast are also largely used to the idea we get from so much media & stories where a friend/comrade is “upgraded” to a “brother/sister/whatever” after a certain degree of trust/intimacy that Beau and Molly didn’t have yet... but still, I don’t think Beau and Molly ever needed to develop into siblings in the first place!! Ahhhh!!!) Weirdly a funny related example I can think of is that one Community episode when they were like “This study group is like a family!!” but then a lot of hidden trysts and scandals and feelings were discussed/debated, and at the end Jeff admitted that maybe they weren’t like a family, exactly, maybe it was more complicated than that. And it is!!! But that doesn’t mean that group bond matters less than family!!! (Also the ‘wholesome as the family on the Brady Bunch’ -> ‘incestuous & dysfunctional as the cast of the Brady Bunch’ joke is hilarious).

Also!!!! In Leverage when people are so fixated on calling Nate the dad, Sophie the mom, Eliot & Parker & Hardison the kids, or like one weird youtube comment I saw acknowledging how Parker & Hardison are dating, well, now Hardison is just the daughter’s boyfriend!! Like ?????? What? Nate has really dad-like interactions, Sophie sometimes has really mom-like interactions, and I love it all and it’s funny, but they’re not equivalent to a mom & dad. Sophie flirts with Eliot, Nate & Sophie can both be really dumb & competitive with all of the other 3.. Eliot has sibling-like interactions with Hardison and Parker sometimes, and he also has love interest-like reactions, and he also has Best Friend-like interactions, and they’re all good & important & only part of a greater, harder to define whole that forms their bond.

And like, I realize that y’know, ultimately all these words aren’t real, like.. language is constantly evolving because all the ‘meaning’ (denotive & connotative) of these words are something we construct as a society in an effort to best reflect what society perceives as reality/truth... And that probably every individual gets a slightly different meaning in their mind when any given word comes up anyway.. Which is why ‘family’ now doesn’t really frustrate me as much when used in the same contexts as I was just ranting about with ‘mom/dad/brother/sister/etc’ but I dunno. I’m just suspicious of what feels like people trying to re-imagine these bio-family words so they can encompass non-biological bonds, rather than maybe instead trying to just? Keep words like friendship and platonic and whatever and push them until they gain a connotation of importance as much as ‘family’ (& related terms) and ‘spouse’ or whatever has? Because if we don’t want bio families to take precedence over chosen families in any way, then I think our language has to reflect that, and people need to stop fckin dismissing friendship in the first place. It weirdly reminds me of some people trying to get literary arts & humanities etc added to “STEM” bc they believe science shouldn’t be viewed as more valuable than the arts, but then in those very attempts to ““elevate”” the arts, they’re just??? Already playing into this assumption that STEM is higher, more important etc?? And treating arts as some form of science just limits it & removes a lot of the dimensions of art that makes it valuable - & different from science - in the first place? Which was what I was saying before about people trying to cram relationships like Yasha’s & Molly’s into a defined familial one?

Okay I realize this is just incoherent unhinged rambling at this point but I’m just trying to parse my inexplicable frustration on the go here lmao. If anyone who might have perspective on this wants to?? Help me out here, it’d be great to hear your thoughts. Am I just being overly suspicious & nitpicky??? Maybe!!!!! But that’s why I called it a quibble!!!!

anyway tl;dr the M9 are a group of friends, best friends even, and that can be just as important & prioritized as family/romantic partners, but if you really want to say the M9 are ‘like family’ or a family then I guess I’m ok with that too, but for some reason anything more specific than that tends to grind my gears bc I’m Weird

[no-longer-an-alley-cat]

‘“Asexual” Isn’t Who I Am’: The Politics of Asexuality

by Matt Dawson, Susie Scott, and Liz McDonnell

Comedic commentary that might verge on insightful by me.

Join me as I try and fucking deal with this particular hangup I have

Arright, so basically these folks are reacting to other folks who say that asexuality is the fucking cats pajamas and is going to do everything from redefining relationships to destroying neoliberalism.

Basically, they’re saying that this is telling asexual people how they ought to be, and not actually looking at what it is and how asexual people actually are. In fact, they think asexual people are a very diverse bunch and you can’t make general claims about their politicalness. Which is fair.

Anyway, they’re going to look at the politics of asexual people, and they’re doing this in an interesting way where they are committed to studying the world from the participant’s perspective. This is interesting because, generally speaking, it is impossible for a researcher to entirely remove themselves from an interpretation, because they’re human, and that’s not how humans work. It’s particularly interesting if this means they’re just going to take their participant’s word as gospel, because folks have this nasty habit of lying to researchers.

So, working through past literature now.

They got a good handle on the different parts of the spectrum though, nice, nice.

And critique essentialism, all to the good. 

Then they’re saying that the establishment of asexuality as legitimate relied vision of an asexual person is the ‘gold star’ asexual (yikes yikes yikes) cause that sectioned off some people who you could still intervene with, so the social dominance of sex in society is unchallenged. This negates the ‘radical potential’ of sexuality which is to suggest the FUCKING WILD NOTION that maybe it’s okay for anyone to not want sex. Like, maybe sex could just be a thing, and not a prerequisite of being normal or intimate???

Anyway, the idea that it could suggest this buck wild idea basically spawned a bunch of articles expecting asexuality to pretty much fix everything wrong with society. We’re questioning mainstream culture, we’re rethinking intimacy, we’re desexualising identity, we’re radical (in the political sense of the word) just by existing. Also just “fundamentally anarchist” because we reclaim agency over our body by not wanting to have sex? Dunno about that one, but I might be down for an A tattoo in ace colours.

But our three musketeers say these are a bunch of claims just pulled out of a collective ass, there’s not data whatsoever. Also, all that stuff talks about ‘asexuality’ like it’s some distinct entity (like how folks talk about capitalism but good) and not a thing that people have. So there’s no discussion of how other aspects of people have (race, gender, class, disability etc) interact with asexuality. And of course they do, people are people.

And they want to see some real resistance, alright? Some proper political action and mobalisation, not just thinking radically. Or, I guess, living in a way that resists norms? Or maybe that counts as taking a political position. I guess we’ll have to wait because now it’s time for METHODOLOGY.

So right off the bat we’re talking qualitative. Interviews and a diary. Data from a study originally looking at asexual identity formation and the construction of intimate relationships, but they figure they had enough to do a little article on the politics of it too. And like they said before, they’re looking at what it is that their participants think they’re doing. They call themselves out a bit, saying that maybe their participants might not know if they’re being political, but I’m gonna add in here that this interview was probably advertised as being about the asexual identity. Folks were asked if they had ‘been an activist in the asexual community or in relation to asexual issues’ sure, but it wasn’t advertised as political so they might not be getting the political peeps!

AND ANOTHER THING (cause we’re into recruitment now), you’re not going to get the people like me. The people who care Very Much about their identity, but are also Very Scared to talk about it with pretty much everyone who hasn’t unlocked like sixth tier trust. And they don’t mention this, even while they’re patting themselves on the back for how many diverse identities they got (never mind that the sample is nearly 74% white, 76% younger than 29, and 54% had a university qualification). People who have the most issues are unlikely to be fitting into those categories, either.

But fuck it, let’s get to the analysis.

How central did the participants consider asexuality to be in their lives? You’ll be fucking astounded to know that it varied!!! Amazing, right? But mainly what they’re looking at is whether folks saw asexuality as a key factor marginalising them. (This is about where I started crying last time, but I’m channeling that into anger to try and keep it together so buckle the fuck up).

Our brave trio admits that they did “””””of course””””” find evidence of discrimination against asexual people, and say that they really don’t want to downplay it, but hey, most of the people they talked to didn’t experience it! They just talked about hearing about it! Like, NO SHIT MOTHERFUCKERS! YOU TALKED TO 50 FUCKING PEOPLE WHO WANTED TO TALK TO YOU! YOU THINK YOU’RE GOING TO FIND A TREND WITH THAT?? And also let’s not downplay what it can do to a person to hear about how others like them are threatened with rape, huh? Let’s maybe think about the effect of that, huh?

Like, yes, the participants who said that it’s not as bad as the history of oppression that homosexuality has are entirely valid. But the researchers who say multiple times that they don’t want to downplay the effect of discrimination and oppression and then ignore the instances they found in favour of talking about ways it could be worse are NOT.

And then they’re saying that it’s not significant to come out, because it’s ‘a lack’ and they cite a couple of participants who say they don’t come out on a regular basis and here is where we get to crux of my problem with their methodology. Because what they’re doing is they’re taking what these participants said and they’re going, ‘oh, yup, that must be why.’ And that’s all well and good, but if some rando I barely knew asked me why I didn’t come out to all an sundry I might also say something along the lines of ‘oh, well, you know, it’s not a huge deal, it’s not something the public needs to know.’ But Reader, it is a huge deal, at least for me. I’m fucking terrified of coming out to people. People LIE. We lie all the time, we tell people what we think they want to hear, and that means that there could very well be a reason I’m reading what these people said and hearing echoes of the tired old aphobic discourse. 

Not saying that is what’s going on, just raising the possibility which they have yet to do.

Yeah, yeah, see here, heteroromantic asexual talking about how they realise their privilege and can pass as straight. Sound familiar? Maybe that is their experience. Maybe it’s what they think the interview wants to be their experience. WHO’S TO SAY?

Yeah, so they conclude that maybe asexuality isn’t very central in their participant’s lives, and we get the title quote of “asexual isn’t who I am. This is just what I am, not who I am as a person.” Which is interesting, because I was just reading another article where gay men said the same thing.

But they say this quotation shows that asexual can be a description of actions one doesn’t take rather than an aspect of a person which creates marginalisation and UM WHAT? You could just as easily say that ‘this is just what I am’ shows a deeper claiming of identity, making it a physical aspect of you which could actually lead to marginalisation. Hey, maybe the context of the quote makes it clear. Don’t know, though, BECAUSE THEY DON’T GIVE ANY.

And now we’re moving on to activism, which I don’t expect to make me as angry, but we’ll see. (Editor’s note: It did.)

Yeah, so there’s more of the drawing the line between how people would like recognition of asexuality and the activism necessary for the wider LGBT community, which, again, valid. But they say that this means that the people who say this feel less need to confront forms of discrimination, when the selfsame participant they are discussing explicitly outlined a need for better education. 

APPARENTLY there was no suggestion that the educatory action people engaged in linked to a wider question of social change which, I mean, sure, had you not already called yourself out on participants maybe not being politically  conscious I might allow. But you did, and what’s more, I bet you didn’t even fucking ask them if they saw it as social change. And since when was education not social change? How are folks supposed to know that it’s okay not to want sex if you don’t TELL THEM THROUGH THE EDUCATION SYSTEM???

And then they have the nerve the fucking audacity to say that while it is “of course” admirable, it doesn’t show a desire to challenge a social system. EDUCATION IS A SOCIAL SYSTEM, YOU ABSOLUTE WALNUTS.

Now, online activity

This is mainly about people’s attitudes to AVEN which I don’t really know anything about, but it’s people talking about how it feels to find a label and answers, which is some much needed wholesomeness. And I feel like people’s opinions on a particular organisation or website to use for community are much more valid to take at face value. Much less interpretation going on.

LGBT groups/politics. Oh dear.

“The relations between our participants and LGBT groups were complex and multifaceted” oh, I bet they were.

Again, they found more people talking about hearing others excluded rather than seeing them excluded themselves. Kinda idea that the political standpoints might be different, but they don’t really dwell on that, they just head on through to really ram home the idea that asexual people are all different and might not hold inherently queer political perspectives.

And finally, finally, the conclusion. People are different, political literature is wrong, asexuality is not a fucking cure all. Now, they outline a couple of responses to their argument that folks might take. 

One: the idea that by being asexual, people have the potential to question society. They say this takes people out of their context, and that their way of looking at human action is better.

Two: a radical politics that hopes to transcend sexual society is the best/only way for asexuality to get social acceptance, never mind what the experiences of the participants say. They don’t want to say whether this is true or not, but say that sociologists should distinguish between arguing for the things they like and arguing that those things are what a certain group should do.

And now for my own conclusion. I know I have issues. I am very ‘sensitive’ around this topic. And, just to be clear, I don’t think there’s anything intrinsically radical in being asexual, either. I think it might inspire a person to take a radical bent on life, but that’s up to an individual. 

But these folks, these silly sausages, in their eagerness to disagree with everyone fell over themselves to gleefully stab each other in the foot. They took an extremely shallow look at their data, not interrogating why people might be telling them these things at all. Additionally, they clearly didn’t want to find much evidence of social activism, and one can’t help but wonder if that is why their definition was so crushingly tight that it didn’t. 

They got to an answer I agree with, but boy howdy did they make a mess doing it.

[sekscamera-blog]

Safe Sex Equals a Healthy Penis

The commonest definition of cybersex is a virtual sexual encounter between two or more individuals utilizing the Internet. It could possibly involve folks viewing each other over a webcam or communicating by Click here for Wikipedia way of text based messages, prompt messaging, webcam, voice, Skype, both in a chat room, on a message board, utilizing a video service, via on the spot messaging or by means of an electronic mail system.

Some have expanded the time period to incorporate on-line pornography, but for us, the definition given above shall be our body of reference. Since the folks involved are often miles and even continents aside, of course no precise sex occurs and what happens is technically thought-about masturbation.

There's nothing inherently fallacious with cybersex itself, and is usually a way for long-distance couples to attach on a more intimate stage than previous know-how would enable. But it surely rises to the level of sex dependancy when a person is doing it compulsively, using it to suppress damaging feelings and maybe substitute sekscam them with false emotions of intimacy and love. A healthy grownup can cut back on online sexual behavior if it threatens relationships, causes them problems or takes over large parts of their life. An individual affected by an habit might use the Web to fill his or her wants and can't reign within the behavior.

Folks, both with an dependancy or with out, exhibit all method of sexual preferences and wishes. A person with sex habit searching for physical gratification may be content material to masturbate to on-line pornography, and one in search of bodily contact together with that gratification may go to prostitutes or visit quite a few consensual companions.

By way of the extent of intimacy and social interaction required, cybersex is one step above masturbating to pornography and one under visiting a prostitute. Even throughout the habits itself are a spread of intimacy ranges. A chat room that makes use of only textual content is the least intimate of an individual's online choices. The intercourse addict knows there is a actual individual on the opposite keyboard interacting with them in actual time, however they could not know every others' names, physical look, gender or anything else except for what they write on a screen. A certain degree of detachment is preserved, and there may be room for fantasy nonetheless. A chat room or text message board is normally the place a cybersex-based mostly intercourse dependancy will start.

Within the chat room, footage may be exchanged between the parties and can then segue into the usage of voice chats, telephone intercourse and or webcams. This does not mean the folks involved have stored the identical companions throughout the transition. Cybersex has the added lure of offering a number of sex companions with whom the addict can have informal, sexual encounters to fuel his fantasies.

A extra problematic side of this specific addiction is the heightened stage of intimacy it gives for an addict, something past traditional pornography viewing. With sex addiction, rational thought may be overridden by the need to fill the necessity, which in these instances might be one thing beyond bodily intercourse. Maybe two folks engage in behavior with one another extra often than they do others. One or both might feel a bond Seks Camera forming, nonetheless this bond will likely be primarily based on filling sexual needs and never contain different points of a wholesome relationship. To a person with a intercourse addiction, this bond will feel real, and just as actual feeling does, it's going to cause ache when it inevitably comes apart. This leaves the intercourse addict with extra unfavorable emotions which he will then suppress with but more addictive habits.

Different issues that may crop up with a cybersex-based intercourse dependancy are the same ones that may be seen in anybody with any kind of intercourse addiction problem. Spending giant parts of time, greater than 10 hours per week online taking part in sexual habits, is an indication there may very well be a problem. The individual laying aside work or other actions so as to interact in online intercourse act can be an indicator. In fact a spouse or romantic companion might not see much of a difference between cybersex and actual intercourse and consider it an infidelity.

Cybersex can expose a sex addict to more regarding problems as properly. Whereas it is important to keep in mind not all sex addicts are sex offenders, the nature of it lends itself to those that are disposed to experimentation. An addict can pretend to be whoever he desires to be on-line or discover someone pretending to be, or who actually is, a minor. An individual in charge of his or herself can avoid authorized problems, but a person with intercourse addiction might not.

Online Courting on net is not seeing that simple as people consider. Of course, effectively-appreciated courting services carry an enormous database of active members so that you can determine your date or pal from, however on one event you have come crossways the right profile, "How do you go on from there?

Grownup personals are the staring level the place you search for profiles Internet in a relationship service. On the first case, you can ship a wink to seek out out browse around this blog if the individual is all in favour of you as nicely. Then you allow him to visit your profile on that dating website once she or he has accepted your enchantment.

Whence curiosity develops extra then you definitely completely will like to know the particular person earlier than assembly face to face. Moreover know as much as about the individual that helps to offer you a proper photo of what sort of person he or she is, and whether or not you discover compatibility with him or not. That is should when you are eager about online matchmaking for enduring relationship or romance and love, and still after you are in seek for a sex companion on long-term base.

(If you're thinking about informal relationship or else informal intercourse then the procedure of evaluating your rendezvous may be shorter, since if factor do not come into sight proper you may say good bye with out emotion uncomfortable or shedding face. This could happen to you as nicely. That's the reason there are particular portals for casual relationship. For no strings connected sex or one nightstand. Gangbang thanks ma'am sort of hyperlink.)

E-mail messaging is ok but not so reliable. Subsequently, online chat is the next step you should to go into and allow messaging continues as well. On no account, give your telephone number or residence deal with until you're very confident. On-line chat is excellent. Arrange for a talk online in the speak division of the relationship website you are a part of it. Chat as a lot as you'll be able to. Chat commonly until you get an ideal picture of the person you'll go relationship with.

Stay webcams ought to be the next step to go after for attending to know the person nonetheless better. Webcam deliver direct picture of the person you might be dialog with. Subsequently, you can get hold of a thought of his or her bodily attributes that will help a lot better so that you can decide to fulfill in person for a date. Live webcams ship chat as effectively however within the first case, you could not desire the particular person to see you till you construct up some confidence. This is particularly smart in case of courting in native space.

There are many utilities accessible on the Internet courting sites for these penetrating for romance, love, and open relationships online. Like dating counsel, dating articles and dating pointers that hone you perceive on relationship and relationship constructing process that with no hesitation is an important a part of your life as a singles.

In the present day's technology just isn't only specializing in making our lives simple and reaching extra nevertheless it additionally tried to make our life fun and exciting. Know-how created advancement in gaming and attracted extra people and players on-line particularly with the introduction of the brand new options animation and graphics.

They come in several variation of on-line games corresponding to card games or sexual twist. Such video games could be performed with a computer generated character or controlled setting with a theme or a really open-ended kind recreation. Video games are made for individuals of various sexual orientations as to completely different races or faith and it doesn't matter what sort of game there's enjoyable to be had for adults using sex games.

There are completely different ranges of interaction to on-line intercourse video games out there now and are being upgraded and in production. Such recreation will only require little input to the player and consist extra of video-kind. The virtual characters may be personalized and might select what they look like and wear, the varieties of activities they engage in, what they say or the conditions they find themselves in. Online intercourse games are also being used to actual interaction with actual individuals versus playing to the computer. And it includes a typed of interaction or actual spoken and visual interplay utilizing microphones and webcams. This is the new strategy to assembly and dating individuals whereas attaining the benefits. Males will get pleasure from an instantaneous intercourse so long as they wanted and ladies can take it slower as to how the boys wish it to do and vice versa.

Other games will also let you entry and update your personal avatar online. Though on-line grownup video games by no means can replace other social mediums individuals might use these interactions to build confidence https://www.sekscamera.nl or to compensate for momentary intervals of loneliness. The characters of the web gaming will be capable to undertaking a steady surroundings wherein gamers can feel safe, satisfied and in management.

Having to play on-line intercourse games doesn't imply that one is sex disadvantaged or a sex freak., In many circumstances it's merely used to spice up or complement an active intercourse life. And generally these games are used as a facilitator for cybersex between couples who are in an extended distance relationship. Also be used as a medium by way of which fantasies that they're too shy to enact in real life can be acted out by the internet.

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How Julie and the Phantoms Normalizes Straight Male Affection

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The following contains spoilers for Julie and the Phantoms season 1.

Straight male affection in media has been handled with, charitably, mixed results. For every deeply moving film or TV show about the bonds between straight men and how much they care about each other, there are 20 others that conflate male intimacy with weakness or downright evil. Talking about manly feelings is one thing but physical affection? There’s still a strong stigma that straight men (and boys for the matter) who show too much physical affection are somehow out of the ordinary, immoral, or automatically seen as gay. For years this was fueled in the media with endless “gay panic” jokes featuring characters negativley reacting to any display of male on male affection. A prominent example comes in Friends’ “The One With The Nap Partners” where Joey and Ross accidentally fall asleep on each other and, upon waking up and discovering they’re cuddling, freak out and have to confirm that nothing gay happened. 

This has slowly changed in recent years, with the idea of the “bromance” gaining traction in many films and TV shows. With a bromance two men being close in physical and emotional ways is seen as a positive but more often than not it’s played as a joke. Many comedies dominated by straight men feature gags involving guys hugging too long, expressing their feelings to the point of it becoming awkward, or others assuming they’re gay based on how close they are. 

Scrubs’ ‘Guy Love’ song from “My Musical” is the epitome of this, the whole sequence based on the joke that Turk and J.D. are extremely close but have to clarify, “there’s nothing gay about it in our eyes.” After J.D. sings that Turk is “the only man who’s even been inside of me,” Turk has to hastily add, “whoa, whoa, I just took out his appendix.” 

It’s better than gay panic to be sure, but it’s still not great.  Straight men genuinely expressing their feelings for each other without being the butt of a joke are something that’s hard to find done well.  

Much of this has roots in decades of societal pressures to appear masculine and it can be extremely harmful not just to straight men but queer men as well. When society tells you, as a straight man, that showing affection toward another man is a joke or flat out bad,It’s not a hard leap to assume gay men are at best a joke or at worst something to fear. Even worse if you’re a gay or queer man, who may internalize this by assuming there’s something inherently wrong with you because of your desire to express affection to other men.

That’s what makes Netflix’s Julie and the Phantoms stand out because it shows, without fanfare, an example of two straight men who are not only comfortable with showing affection to each other but openly embrace it. It also manages to take a scene that would normally be used as a joke at the expense of male affection and turns it completely on its head in a way that’s rarely been seen before.

Julie and the Phantoms is a musical comedy drama series that follows Luke, Reggie, and Alex, three teen musicians who died in the ‘90s but have come back in 2020 as ghosts. Together they form a band with Julie, a living teen, and whenever they perform the ghosts appear in the flesh. Luke sings and is lead guitarist, Reggie plays bass, and Alex drums (he’s also gay and we wrote a lot about him and his male love interest here.)

In episode seven of the show’s first season, Reggie and Alex tease Luke about his crush on Julie, one that’s quickly grown throughout the episodes. Luke tries to shrug it off but Reggie doesn’t let him, pointing out, “everyone can see the way you look at her when you sing. You guys ooze chemistry.”

Luke denies this, claiming, “I have chemistry with everybody that I sing with.” He then proceeds to demonstrate this talent by serenading Reggie with one of the show’s many love ballads, getting extremely close to his face.

For most shows and movies this would be the set up for a typical gay panic joke where at least one of the straight characters would be revolted at even the idea of being flirted at by another man. Reggie might pull away and be grossed out. If it was a bromance joke they might pretend to kiss for laughs.

Julie and the Phantoms, however, has Reggie caught off guard by Luke’s flirting… but he’s really into it! Luke turns the flirt all the way up, grabbing the back of Reggie’s head as if they’re about to kiss. Reggie is flustered but he’s not confused or scared… he’s smitten with all the affection Luke is aiming directly at him.

Alex, watching all of this with a smirk, says, “Wow. I see chemistry.”

Having a gay guy say this out loud doesn’t then make the two pull apart in disgust or lead to the punch line of a joke. Instead the show has Reggie, still flustered, stammer out,

“T-that was pretty hot.”

It even goes one step further! Luke kisses his fingers and puts them on Reggie’s lips, flustering him even more. Reggie isn’t angry about this, he likes it!

This scene is incredible because it’s played for comedy but not because the two straight guys have chemistry or they get REALLY close to kissing. The joke is simply that yes, Luke can have chemistry with anyone he wants and is very good at it. So good at it that Reggie, who before now has only shown romantic interest in women, falls under Luke’s charm. There is zero negative association with the affection between these two straight men, it’s extremely positive and sweet. The joke isn’t aimed at the affection; it’s aimed at Reggie for underestimating just how smooth Luke is.

Now one could point out that Luke and Reggie are extremely progressive for ‘90s straight boys but in a lighthearted and wholesome show like Julie and the Phantoms there’s really no need for them to be homophobic for historical authenticity. It’s a tween show about ghosts from the ‘90s forming a rock band. The fact they even mentioned Alex’s parents hadn’t accepted him for being gay is more realistic than would be expected. 

After years of bromance scenes between straight men where their closeness is often played as a joke, this scene is a revelation. So often male affection has to be couched in jokes or “bits” to fly but here it’s perfectly normal. It gets to be part of a joke but it isn’t the butt of the joke. Reggie getting flustered by Luke’s charms is played as cute. (I should note it’s never flat out said Luke and Reggie are straight but the show emphasizes their attraction to women so I made the assumption.)

Seeing Julie and the Phantoms play this affectionate closeness 100% sincerely (as it does with so many of its plots) is heartening. Anyone who watches this is being shown that straight men, gay men, queer men, bi men, pan men, ALL THE MEN can be affectionate to one another and it’s not a bad thing. It’s just another way to interact with those closest to you.

The more we see of scenes like this, the better the world will be. It’ll hopefully lead to more acceptance of showing your affection to other men, which will hopefully make it easier for straight men to accept affection amongst queer men as well.

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Julie and the Phantoms was already a delightfully charming series for including a queer romance with one of its lead characters but this is just another reason to love it. More normalization of straight male affection in media, please!

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