#and i can LOGICALLY understand why people find them appealing sexually

[ali3nboyfriend]

like honestly don't get me wrong. i don't love my tits but i do love tits. however i think because of how fucking absurdly large, annoying, exhausting, and painful (both mentally and physically) my tits have been for me, i just cannot personally understand enjoying specifically "big fat tits" as a sexual concept. not saying that as "i am judging people that do", but as "but they suck ass to have why would you want to curse someone with that!!!"

[communicationthroughlyrics]

I Like Your Blood On My Teeth Just A Little Too Much - 18

You're a former military, career oriented security executive who has made quite the living for yourself- but it has always been lacking. Your non-committal attitude has led you down a playgirl lifestyle, never really settling. What happens when your new boss throws you a curveball, and as a result? You end up hopelessly involved with a Hollywood starlet.

A/N: Thanks all that are sticking with this one, it picks back up again, I promise!

TW: Sexual Assault, Description of injuries and assault

2.4K Word Count

Ch. 18: If You Wade Around Forever, You Will Surely Drown

The shock of the statement sent you reeling, yet again. He was awake. The man you saw as a father figure was awake, and you weren’t there. Deep down, you knew that he wouldn’t care if you were there or not- what he would care about is that the reason you weren’t there. The guilt of not being there when he came to cause a pit to settle deep in your stomach, as your eyes went misty. 

“Y/N, we did tell him what you had said to me before we left the ER to find you. He also wouldn’t tell us anything, because he feels that it is your story to tell.” Kris continued, seemingly oblivious to your inner turmoil. 

“Smart man,” you whispered, your icy gaze shifting back to Kris. “Because it is true, it’s MY STORY to tell. I get to know all of what happened, I get to decide who knows what, and if it’s important or not.” Her expression dropped, she knew that you were not going to open up about this. 

“This isn’t a moment of weakness, Y/N. This will help you, this will help us understand him, and help us to help Scarlett.” She tried to appeal to your more logical side, but you were not in a logical state of mind at the moment. 

“Waters ISN’T LOGICAL, Kris. He does whatever. He’s a loose fucking cannon, that’s why he isn’t in the Army anymore. ” you fire, turning your gaze away from her to look out the window instead. 

“Now we’re getting somewhere,” was her response. “So I take it that’s how you know each other?” She asks, shifting her position, lifting her left knee over her right leg, so she can rest her hands on top. 

“Yeah. You could say that.”

“So…”

“So what, Kris? He was my CO in the Army. He made my life a living hell there. Now he’s doing it to an innocent woman, and me for payback.”

“Payback for what?”

You thought long and hard about how to phrase this. 

“Blowing the whistle,” Was your quiet response. “I had seen him do some terrible things. I tried to let it be, to not get involved. But he messed up. He hurt someone and sent them to the infirmary. I had no choice but to say something.” It wasn’t a lie, per se, but you had carefully omitted that it was you who was the victim, that it was you who had witnessed everything because he had assaulted you. That your best friends had found you, taken you to the infirmary, and the rape test gave the brass all the evidence they needed. The reason you had to say something was that he had pushed it too far. Had he not pushed it that day- you wouldn’t have had to say a word. You would have been deployed with Nix and Cam. You could have protected them. But his paranoid measures cost two good people their lives. So now, you try to make sure that their sacrifice isn’t in vain. 

“What did he do, Y/N?”

“Aside from his usual berating, he threw a stone ashtray at someone. Knocked them out.” Was your response, again, omitting the important details, like the rape that led up to the whole ashtray Olympics, or that the “them” was you.  

“Mmm. Okay.” She could tell there was more to this, but wasn’t going to push it. “I’m going to let you rest, Y/N. But Chris and Paul want answers. I’ll try to push them off for you. But you can’t put this off forever.” She stood, a worried look on her face.

“Don’t, Kris.”

“Don’t what?”

“Give me that look. That’s exactly why I don’t tell people things.” Her expression shifted from one of pity to one of knowing. 

“Well, Y/N, you better get used to talking. Because that’s all you're going to be doing while you’re in here.” She turned towards the door.

“Kris?” You caused her to stop and look over her shoulder as she waited for you to talk. 

“Did anything happen to Scarlett?” Kris’ shoulders slumped.

“I don’t know yet, Y/N. We sent a larger detail to her house, but that’s all I knew of.” You shook your head in response, returning your gaze to the windows to look outside. Before you knew it, your body willed itself into a restless slumber. 

*****

You could hear faint whispers in the room around you, but couldn’t make out what was being said. It sounded like Kris, but she was talking to someone and you couldn’t tell by the voice who it belonged to. You tried to focus on the conversation, so you could figure out who was in your room without opening your eyes, and possibly alerting them that you were awake. The hushed voices sounded strained, like they were fighting. 

“You shouldn’t. Be. Here.” Kris whisper-shouted at the other person in the room. What caught you off guard was another female voice.

Scarletts voice.

“I will visit whoever I please. Last I checked it isn’t a crime to check on someone.” She muttered.

“Girls, please!” A male voice interjected. Jim. 

“Jim! Her being here will stress her out more! She needs to leave!” Kris whispers and yells at Jim. You weren’t a fan of how Kris acted since this new project began. 

“Scarlett is her client. They have spent a lot of time together since we picked this project up. If Scarlett wants to check on her, let her!”

“Ahem… still in the room, guys!” Scarlett interjects. 

“And, Jim! You just got discharged, you should be at home resting!” Kris continued.

“No. She came to visit me every day while I was in the hospital. I will be here for her. She’s my daughter!” He whisper-shouted back. 

“What?!” Scarlett squeaked, and both Jim and Kris shushed her. “You’re her father?!”

“Not by blood, no. We’ve kind of…adopted each other in times of need.” He whispers. You could hear everyone shuffling around as the door clicked open. 

“Hello everyone,” you heard as it sounded like the doctor shuffled in. “I’m Dr. Roberts.” The door clicked behind him as you heard him walk to the computer across the room. “I need to run some tests and check Y/N’s vitals. Are any of you family?”

“Well, this is my turn to leave,” Scarlett says quietly, gently patting your lower leg as the door clicks open and shut again.

“Finally,” Kris mumbled. 

“Kris. LEAVE.” Jim barked, sick of the blondes antics. He sighed as she shut the door behind her. 

“I take it you are family?” The doctor asked.

“Yeah, stepfather.” He responded. You suddenly felt what you presumed were the doctor’s cold hands through your gown as he gently tapped your shoulder. You jumped at the sudden feeling of someone’s hand that close to your face. 

“Sorry, didn’t want to startle you, Ms. Y/L/N. I need to check on some things before we discuss discharging you.”

“OK.” You responded, a dry smile on your face. He began checking the cut on your face, cutting away the bandage so he could ensure the stitches were clean and dry.

“How do you feel, Y/N?” Jim asked, a concerned expression written on his features. 

“Like I had the shit beat out of me for hours, honestly.” You groan as the doctor leans you back, so he can begin to probe certain areas of your body to check for tenderness. One of the regular nurses comes in, a bashful smile on her face as the doctor pushes on your side, the bruising now making itself apparent. You groan as Jim grimaces for you. 

“Well, Y/N. You do have some bruised ribs, a mild concussion as well as some minor stab wounds that have started to scab,” the doctor started. “Your breathing sounds ok, so no punctured or collapsed lungs. The black eye will disappear; just try not to bend over to pick anything up for a while.” He continued. “The cut to your eyebrow is stitched, healing as nicely as possible with the double scar tissue. Make sure you keep this ointment on it, to minimize the appearance of the scar as it heals.” You nod as he continues. “It’s going to get purple and nasty looking for a little bit, but as long as you keep up with the scar cream, it will reduce and the color will lighten. Do you have any questions?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Good. Now, please wait here, the OB will be coming in here shortly to speak with you.”

“OB?”

“Yes, Y/N. We have an OBGYN assigned to this case since you were attacked. It is standard procedure.” After this, he nodded curtly and swiftly left the room.

“The personality on that one, eh Jim?” You ask, pointing to where the doctor just left. 

“Y/N,” he warned, narrowing his eyes.  You shied away from his gaze.  “Honey, why didn’t you bring someone home with you? You can’t pull a Wonder Woman with this guy.” His gaze softened as he stepped to the side of your bed. “I can’t always be there to protect you, Y/N. And I’ll be dammed if I have to bury another daughter.”

“There wasn’t time, Jim.” You respond, staring down at your hands, fiddling with the wristband to avoid eye contact. A knock on the door brought your gaze back up, and an Amazonian-looking woman in soft pink scrubs walked into the room. 

“Good afternoon, Y/N. My name is Stef,” she spoke softly, a slight accent making itself apparent. She turned to Jim, a bright smile on her face. “You must be?”

“Jim, my name is Jim. I’m Y/N’s stepdad.” She nodded before reaching out to shake his hand. 

“Dad,” you corrected. His smile grew at the correction. 

“Well, Y/N, this is the first time I’ve seen you awake since you got here,” she started. “There are some things I want to check on, and some things I want to go over with you.” You nod, letting her know to continue. “But, for the sake of this exam, I am going to ask Jim to leave, OK?”

“OK.”

“Now, if you want someone in here, we can ask for a third party to be in here. But they need to be female.” You knew you wanted Kris in here, but not if she was going to keep acting up. 

“My assistant, Kris. But I would like to speak with her alone, first.” She nodded, leaving the room with Jim in tote. Shortly after, Kris came back into the room. 

“Jom said you asked for me?”

“Kris, I want you in here while they do my exam.” You say coldly.

“Ok, sure Y/N.” She smiled.

“Under one condition.” Her face dropped. 

“Drop the attitude, Smith.”

“Wha…”

“You know what I mean, Kris. This attitude you have towards Scarlett needs to stop. She is our client, a paying one. And she is going through a lot with this. This ordeal is not her fault. Quit treating her like an inconvenience, and. Play. Nice.” She looked utterly shocked as you called her out on her antics. “Jealousy is not a good look on you, K.”

“I’m not jealous.” She quipped.

“Kris, I was with you for two years. I can tell when you’re jealous. We both agreed when we broke up not to do this.” She looked like a dejected puppy and sat down in the corner chair. “Kris, she’s gonna talk to me about some shit, and it doesn’t leave this room. Understood?” She nods at you her eyes questioning. At this point, Stef walked back into the room.

“OK, are we ready to begin?” You nod at her, a small smile in acknowledgment. She sat in her rolling chair, rolling over to the foot of your bed. Pulling out the stirrups she guided your feet into them. “Now, Y/N. Medically, you were attacked. You were violated in ways that most do not ever have to experience,” she looks at you, as she puts her gloves on. “For that, I truly apologize that someone felt the need to do this to you.” You nod in acknowledgment. “However, this is something that has to be done as a result, to make sure everything is ok,” she continued on. “If at any time, you feel uncomfortable, please let me know.” You gave her one last nod and felt the pinch as the speculum slip inside of you. As you felt the stretch of the tool, you grimaced at the feeling. “I know, this thing is uncomfortable. I’m sorry,” she started. “You do not need to answer if this makes you uncomfortable, but this will help me understand the extent of any damage or injuries that may have occurred,” she continued. “Do you recall what you were penetrated with?” 

You took a moment, allowing yourself to think back to the last time you were in the apartment.  

“Yes, I do.” You speak softly.

“That’s good. Your recall is intact. Are you comfortable with telling me?” You nod, looking at Kris before diverting your gaze to a spot beside her. You were on the fence about seeing her reaction to this. 

“There were multiple occasions,” you begin, seeing the way Kris’s face drops. “But they used their fingers, their fist, and a silencer for a gun.” Even the doctor dropped her facial expression, and sorrow washed over both women’s faces. 

“Is there any way that they could have inseminated you?”

“I suppose, I’m not sure.” She nodded, continuing her probing as she performed the exam.

“Well, Y/N, the blood work doesn’t show any anomalies at the moment, no drugs or alcohol,” she started. “There is some significant tissue damage to the endometrium and cervical canal.” She stood, removing the tool, and setting it on a tray before removing her gloves and throwing them away. “You will likely develop some vaginal scarring as a result. This may or may not result in painful intercourse, as well as more painful periods.”

Nodding, you look up at the doctor, as she comes over to the side of your bed. 

“If you would like, I can give you some OTC contraceptives, in the chance that you may have been inseminated. With it being a week after your assault, it is hard to tell if you are yet. ”

”A week?” You ask, your eyes narrowing at the new information.

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“I’ve been out for a week?”

“Well, not out, necessarily, but your body has been in a recovery mode, of sorts. You’ve been in and out of sleep all week.” Kris said quietly from the corner.

“Shit.”

CHAPTER 19

[comicaurora]

(this ask is based on the, I'm not sure if unfounded, assumption that at least 1/6(?) main crew members has some sort of non-ace/aro attraction): How do you write allo characters as an aro person? I'm one of those annoying allos who's *hyper-romantic* and working on hypersexuality for my own health, so I color most of my writing with that and struggle to write ace people. I know a lot of writers can distance themselves more. I guess I'm just curious how you inspire your characters to act socially outside of the way that you interact, specifically in terms of romanti/sexual relationships. I'm pretty good at getting my characters to engage with the world outside of my way of doing it until it comes to romance.

It's… tough, and I'm working on it. I still need to remind myself that a lot of people legitimately do experience sexual attraction and thus find certain other people in certain situations extremely physically appealing, in contrast to my own platonic attraction (the people I like, I typically like the same amount no matter what they're doing or how they look) or aesthetic attraction (when I like how someone looks in a specific situation, it is still in an extremely hands-off "I'd like to draw that" way).

I can work my way through the logic of romance, I think. I've been told that it doesn't feel the same as friendship, and that it places another person in a somewhat uniquely structural role for one's life. I've heard it described as being someone's "everything-team" - the person they want by their side at any endeavor - which is the only thing I've ever heard about romance that I don't think applies to a good percentage of my IRL friendships.

Romantic attraction is definitely the more confusing one, because everyone I know in a romantic relationship insists it's different than their platonic ones, but can't really explain why or how, only that it is. The thing is, this makes me believe them more. I know how hard it is to explain a unique inner experience to someone who has a completely different one. Their partner is their best friend, or at least top three (understandable) and also in a unique position in their life (confusion??) I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything, and I think I love my friends as much as I'm capable of, and there are people I'm friends with who I could see as a theoretical partner - except that it would change absolutely nothing about our current relationship. This is why I don't identify with the label of "aromantic" where I definitely do with "asexual", because I think I experience what people are talking about, I just feel it kinda everywhere instead of nowhere.

So the hack I think I can make work to do this in my writing is:

Sexual attraction is like aesthetic attraction, but with a hands-on component. Replace "I want to draw that" with "I want to get my hands on that" and go from there.

Romantic attraction is evidently its own beast, but it contains concepts like "I trust this person implicitly," "I care about them and want them to be happy," "I would be happy coming home to this person," "I want to protect them," "I like that they care about me," and "this person helps me see the world in a different way" which are all individual sentiments I understand, even if I personally feel them about a large number of people rather than a single Special Someone. Point them at a single Someone and have the two characters involved act accordingly, and I can probably pull a romance out of it.

Like all writing-an-alien-situation stuff, it mostly pays to identify the specific details that correlate to things you DO understand and then extrapolate from there. Or you can fake it and black-box their motivations and be like "here's where I'd put their sexual attraction to each other if I had one"

[lmdhawk]

"The translator might be working. Honestly it's impressive that you got it to spit out....to produce understandable English at all, let alone English with legit...correct and logical syntax. However, the individual words might be off, and it would be extremely difficult to test that because we'd just go in circles with not third language to compare."

You clear your throat. "Sorry. Hello, my name is Lee. Let's start with that. What's your name?"

The creature makes some sort of flapping with...its?...xer, were those Gills? "I mean if you can understand me, then it's working. My name is Sunlight."

"I'm guessing that's an over-translation. Or...because in English we don't usually translate names in the same way. Localize, for lack of a better term. Actually, does my name translate? It's technically a word, though not in particularly common usage..."

"Whatever RockShadow. Will you do it or not?" The maybe-gills flapped faster now. Probably some class of body language you could work with if you more about xer species.

"Oooh, my name sounds badass. Anyway, That's why I'm asking about the translation. Because while amatonormativity does suck, it's still...unlikely that a part of your deception plan to counter this is to come to a planet where the vast majority if not the entirety of the planet does not have reliable proof that is even is intelligent life, kidnap one of them, then bring home an alien claiming that you have a romantic and sexual interest in him. Instead of finding someone who is the same species or one who is a species that your people regularly interact with. And if nobody is willing, you could try paying them with resources you obviously have, because you have a ship. There are easier and more logical ways to pull that off. Unless, the translator is off, and boyfriend means something else. Or any of the other words."

Xer facial features squish closer together. "Yes, boyfriend means boyfriend. Look, it won't be like a random alien. Everyone knows humans are a thing, we have all the satellite TV feeds, but nobody's supposed to mess with them, so nobody bothers. It's basically like a nature preserve."

"Okay. That is...a lot. We sent out all those messages, and nobody replied and we thought..."

"Oh, those? They made memes out of them." The two antennae just above her maybe-gills wiggle a bit.

"Memes? Well, that's...cool. Also is snatching me illegal? Are you in legal trouble? I mean I could press charges as a US citizen, but you have a space ship, so I don't think they could do much, even if you didn't have diplomatic immunity as first alien contact or whatever. And you will bring me back right?"

"It's only illegal to do stuff with humans under "galactic" law, and that's just a bunch of BS anyway." Xer antennae do something that you really want to believe are air quotes. "Plus, if I bring you back, my parents are going to be weirded out enough not to ask to many questions. And yes, I'll bring you back and like give you a it of money or whatever. Please don't make a legal thing out of it."

"You know what, that actually tracks. Tell you what, I'll come and play boyfriend, and won't press charges. On one condition. Well, plus the safe return, but that's just for the safe return. I get back with a little extra cash, I'll come up with something and you'll be off the hook."

Xer maybe-gills flap some more. "What's this one other condition?"

"You tell me everything. What's your species called? Where is your homeworld? How many other worlds do you live on? What other species do you have contact with? Who is this Galactic power, and are humans technically under galactic law? Is there an appeal process if we want out? How does the translator work? Did you have to train it on English specifically or is it universal? And..."

"Fine. It's three days of relative hop time to my parent's house. I'll answer your questions. We have a deal? You'll tell my parents we're dating?"

"Yeah, we have a deal. Just if you can stay in Earth's orbit long enough for me to text my mother? And maybe my boss."

Xer facial features squish in again. "Yeah. We can swing that."

After tapping out a quick text telling everyone that you're going no communication for "personal reasons", you turn to Xer. "Alright, done. Now you have to tell me everything."

Xer gills flap as then punch a few buttons on the console. "Our species is technically called..."

You were just sucked up and abducted by a UFO. The alien inside addresses you, “Is this translator working? Listen. I need you to pretend to be my boyfriend for three days so my parents will get off my back about it.”

[arkus-rhapsode]

"I am happy the localization kinda deemphasized that." But they did not. They just changed Anna and Jean but that's literaly all that can be said about it. At the end of the day, Alear, 17 year old can still marry someone who is 45 or older but can't date someone their age. And that option was for teenagers who play FE since it's the prime demographic and teenagers are more likely to interested in character that looks young and beautiful than older than character. A teen can like mature characters like Diamant or Ivy, but I don't they find any appeal in supporting Saphir or Vander. It would have made more sense if it was Alear's relationship with character OVER 17 that was censored, not AROUND.

Oh boy, another loaded topic.

Technically speaking, Alear isn't 17, they're 1000. They are 17 physically but that argument makes this a Nowi sort of deal where you can say physically they are underaged but because they're actually a hundred year old dragon its okay for them to get married and have sex.

FE's prime demographic is teens as you said and I see why they're like "Alear is around your age". But here's the thing, we have characters in Engage who range from 16 like Clanne or Framme, while having characters over 21 like Dimant, Seadall, Yunaka etc. Jean and Anna are 10 and 11 respectively. Like even if we say Alear is a 17 year old, I do find it messed up that a 17 year old could marry a 10 year old.

I understand bringing this into a moral argument is opening a can of worms and that everyone's particular line in the case of escapist fantasy will vary, but if we see Alear as 1000 then you would have to say "hard stop. Alear can not marry anyone under the age of 21", which would make characters like Etie, Alcryst, Rosado not someone you can marry. And of course we are dealing with the "because anime" logic that this person's real age isn't associated with their physical age, don't think about it too hard it's loose so that you are both old enough and young enough that you can hang out with the hot teens and 20 year olds. But I do draw a line at actual children. I don't think 10 year olds should have sex or get married period.

Now could we say, "then lets not make characters like Vander or Saphir or Mauvier who are over 30 romantic options?" Sure. We can. I think FE can always be improved upon in what is morally acceptable in its dating sim elements. I said there was a demphasization of dating children in FEE, there is still gray areas there. And that moral choice is really punted over to us the audience. As I said before, I do think when it comes to this topic, everyone is going to have a different sort of line of what they find acceptable inside this type of product. And of course we have purists that just want to have all the original supports and endings the same as the Japanese with zero changes. But personally, yes, I am very okay with there not being the ability to hook up romantically or sexually with people below the age of 12 regardless whether you are 17 or 1000.

[nothorses]

Interview With An Ex-Radfem

exradfem is an anonymous Tumblr user who identifies as transmasculine, and previously spent time in radical feminist communities. They have offered their insight into those communities using their own experiences and memories as a firsthand resource.

Background

I was raised in an incredibly fundamentalist religion, and so was predisposed to falling for cult rhetoric. Naturally, I was kicked out for being a lesbian. I was taken in by the queer community, particularly the trans community, and I got back on my feet- somehow. I had a large group of queer friends, and loved it. I fully went in on being the Best Trans Ally Possible, and constantly tried to be a part of activism and discourse.

Unfortunately, I was undersocialized, undereducated, and overenthusiastic. I didn't fully understand queer or gender theory. In my world, when my parents told me my sexuality was a choice and I wasn't born that way, they were absolutely being homophobic. I understood that no one should care if it's a choice or not, but it was still incredibly, vitally important to me that I was born that way.

On top of that, I already had an intense distrust of men bred by a lot of trauma. That distrust bred a lot of gender essentialism that I couldn't pull out of the gender binary. I felt like it was fundamentally true that men were the problem, and that women were inherently more trustworthy. And I really didn't know where nonbinary people fit in.

Then I got sucked down the ace exclusionist pipeline; the way the arguments were framed made sense to my really surface-level, liberal view of politics. This had me primed to exclude people –– to feel like only those that had been oppressed exactly like me were my community.

Then I realized I was attracted to my nonbinary friend. I immediately felt super guilty that I was seeing them as a woman. I started doing some googling (helped along by ace exclusionists on Tumblr) and found the lesfem community, which is basically radfem “lite”: lesbians who are "only same sex attracted". This made sense to me, and it made me feel so much less guilty for being attracted to my friend; it was packaged as "this is just our inherent, biological desire that is completely uncontrollable". It didn't challenge my status quo, it made me feel less guilty about being a lesbian, and it allowed me to have a "biological" reason for rejecting men.

I don't know how much dysphoria was playing into this, and it's something I will probably never know; all of this is just piecing together jumbled memories and trying to connect dots. I know at the time I couldn't connect to this trans narrative of "feeling like a woman". I couldn't understand what trans women were feeling. This briefly made me question whether I was nonbinary, but radfem ideas had already started seeping into my head and I'm sure I was using them to repress that dysphoria. That's all I can remember.

The lesfem community seeded gender critical ideas and larger radfem princples, including gender socialization, gender as completely meaningless, oppression as based on sex, and lesbian separatism. It made so much innate sense to me, and I didn't realize that was because I was conditioned by the far right from the moment of my birth. Of course women were just a biological class obligated to raise children: that is how I always saw myself, and I always wanted to escape it.

I tried to stay in the realms of TIRF (Trans-Inclusive Radical Feminist) and "gender critical" spaces, because I couldn't take the vitriol on so many TERF blogs. It took so long for me to get to the point where I began seeing open and unveiled transphobia, and I had already read so much and bought into so much of it that I thought that I could just ignore those parts.

In that sense, it was absolutely a pipeline for me. I thought I could find a "middle ground", where I could "center women" without being transphobic.

Slowly, I realized that the transphobia was just more and more disgustingly pervasive. Some of the trans men and butch women I looked up to left the groups, and it was mostly just a bunch of nasty people left. So I left.

After two years offline, I started to recognize I was never going to be a healthy person without dealing with my dysphoria, and I made my way back onto Tumblr over the pandemic. I have realized I'm trans, and so much of this makes so much more sense now. I now see how I was basically using gender essentialism to repress my identity and keep myself in the closet, how it was genuinely weaponized by TERFs to keep me there, and how the ace exclusionist movement primed me into accepting lesbian separatism- and, finally, radical feminism.

The Interview

You mentioned the lesfem community, gender criticals, and TIRFs, which I haven't heard about before- would you mind elaborating on what those are, and what kinds of beliefs they hold?

I think the lesfem community is recruitment for lesbians into the TERF community. Everything is very sanitized and "reasonable", and there's an effort not to say anything bad about trans women. The main focus was that lesbian = homosexual female, and you can't be attracted to gender, because you can't know someone's gender before knowing them; only their sex.

It seemed logical at the time, thinking about sex as something impermeable and gender as internal identity. The most talk about trans women I saw initially was just in reference to the cotton ceiling, how sexual orientation is a permanent and unchangeable reality. Otherwise, the focus was homophobia. This appealed to me, as I was really clinging to the "born this way" narrative.

This ended up being a gateway to two split camps - TIRFs and gender crits.

I definitely liked to read TIRF stuff, mostly because I didn't like the idea of radical feminism having to be transphobic. But TIRFs think that misogyny is all down to hatred of femininity, and they use that as a basis to be able to say trans women are "just as" oppressed.

Gender criticals really fought out against this, and pushed the idea that gender is fake, and misogyny is just sex-based oppression based on reproductive issues. They believe that the source of misogyny is the "male need to control the source of reproduction"- which is what finally made me think I had found the "source" of my confusion. That's why I ended up in gender critical circles instead of TIRF circles.

I'm glad, honestly, because the mask-off transphobia is what made me finally see the light. I wouldn't have seen that in TIRF communities.

I believed this in-between idea, that misogyny was "sex-based oppression" and that transphobia was also real and horrible, but only based on transition, and therefore a completely different thing. I felt that this was the "nuanced" position to take.

The lesfem community also used the fact that a lot of lesbians have partners who transition, still stay with their lesbian partners, and see themselves as lesbian- and that a lot of trans men still see themselves as lesbians. That idea is very taboo and talked down in liberal queer spaces, and I had some vague feelings about it that made me angry, too. I really appreciated the frank talk of what I felt were my own taboo experiences.

I think gender critical ideology also really exploited my own dysphoria. There was a lot of talk about how "almost all butches have dysphoria and just don't talk about it", and that made me feel so much less alone and was, genuinely, a big relief to me that I "didn't have to be trans".

Lesfeminism is essentially lesbian separatism dressed up as sex education. Lesfems believe that genitals exist in two separate categories, and that not being attracted to penises is what defines lesbians. This is used to tell cis lesbians, "dont feel bad as a lesbian if you're attracted to trans men", and that they shouldn’t feel "guilty" for not being attracted to trans women. They believe that lesbianism is not defined as being attracted to women, it is defined as not being attracted to men; which is a root idea in lesbian separatism as well.

Lesfems also believe that attraction to anything other than explicit genitals is a fetish: if you're attracted to flat chests, facial hair, low voices, etc., but don't care if that person has a penis or not, you're bisexual with a fetish for masculine attributes. Essentially, they believe the “-sexual” suffix refers to the “sex” that you are assigned at birth, rather than your attraction: “homosexual” refers to two people of the same sex, etc. This was part of their pushback to the ace community, too.

I think they exploited the issues of trans men and actively ignored trans women intentionally, as a way of avoiding the “TERF” label. Pronouns were respected, and they espoused a constant stream of "trans women are women, trans men are men (but biology still exists and dictates sexual orientation)" to maintain face.

They would only be openly transmisogynistic in more private, radfem-only spaces.

For a while, I didn’t think that TERFs were real. I had read and agreed with the ideology of these "reasonable" people who others labeled as TERFs, so I felt like maybe it really was a strawman that didn't exist. I think that really helped suck me in.

It sounds from what you said like radical feminism works as a kind of funnel system, with "lesfem" being one gateway leading in, and "TIRF" and "gender crit" being branches that lesfem specifically funnels into- with TERFs at the end of the funnel. Does that sound accurate?

I think that's a great description actually!

When I was growing up, I had to go to meetings to learn how to "best spread the word of god". It was brainwashing 101: start off by building a relationship, find a common ground. Do not tell them what you really believe. Use confusing language and cute innuendos to "draw them in". Prey on their emotions by having long exhausting sermons, using music and peer pressure to manipulate them into making a commitment to the church, then BAM- hit them with the weird shit.

Obviously I am paraphrasing, but this was framed as a necessary evil to not "freak out" the outsiders.

I started to see that same talk in gender critical circles: I remember seeing something to the effect of, "lesfem and gender crit spaces exist to cleanse you of the gender ideology so you can later understand the 'real' danger of it", which really freaked me out; I realized I was in a cult again.

I definitely think it's intentional. I think they got these ideas from evangelical Christianity, and they actively use it to spread it online and target young lesbians and transmascs. And I think gender critical butch spaces are there to draw in young transmascs who hate everything about femininity and womanhood, and lesfem spaces are there to spread the idea that trans women exist as a threat to lesbianism.

Do you know if they view TIRFs a similar way- as essentially prepping people for TERF indoctrination?

Yes and no.

I've seen lots of in-fighting about TIRFs; most TERFs see them as a detriment, worse than the "TRAs" themselves. I've also definitely seen it posed as "baby's first radfeminism". A lot of TIRFs are trans women, at least from what I've seen on Tumblr, and therefore are not accepted or liked by radfems. To be completely honest, I don't think they're liked by anyone. They just hate men.

TIRFs are almost another breed altogether; I don't know if they have ties to lesfems at all, but I do think they might've spearheaded the online ace exclusionist discourse. I think a lot of them also swallowed radfem ideology without knowing what it was, and parrot it without thinking too hard about how it contradicts with other ideas they have.

The difference is TIRFs exist. They're real people with a bizarre, contradictory ideology. The lesfem community, on the other hand, is a completely manufactured "community" of crypto-terfs designed specifically to indoctrinate people into TERF ideology.

Part of my interest in TIRFs here is that they seem to have a heavy hand in the way transmascs are treated by the trans community, and if you're right that they were a big part of ace exclusionism too they've had a huge impact on queer discourse as a whole for some time. It seems likely that Baeddels came out of that movement too.

Yes, there’s a lot of overlap. The more digging I did, the more I found that it's a smaller circle running the show than it seems. TIRFs really do a lot of legwork in peddling the ideology to outer queer community, who tend to see it as generic feminism.

TERFs joke a lot about how non-radfems will repost or reblog from TERFs, adding "op is a TERF”. They're very gleeful when people accept their ideology with the mask on. They think it means these people are close to fully learning the "truth", and they see it as further evidence they have the truth the world is hiding. I think it's important to speak out against radical feminism in general, because they’re right; their ideology does seep out into the queer community.

Do you think there's any "good" radical feminism?

No. It sees women as the ultimate victim, rather than seeing gender as a tool to oppress different people differently. Radical feminism will always see men as the problem, and it is always going to do harm to men of color, gay men, trans men, disabled men, etc.

Women aren't a coherent class, and radfems are very panicked about that fact; they think it's going to be the end of us all. But what's wrong with that? That's like freaking out that white isn't a coherent group. It reveals more about you.

It's kind of the root of all exclusionism, the more I think about it, isn't it? Just freaking out that some group isn't going to be exclusive anymore.

Radical feminists believe that women are inherently better than men.

For TIRFs, it's gender essentialism. For TERFs, its bio essentialism. Both systems are fundamentally broken, and will always hurt the groups most at risk. Centering women and misogyny above all else erases the root causes of bigotry and oppression, and it erases the intersections of race and class. The idea that women are always fundamentally less threatening is very white and privileged.

It also ignores how cis women benefit from gender norms just as cis men do, and how cis men suffer from gender roles as well. It’s a system of control where gender non-conformity is a punishable offense.

[i-love-all-books]

things i do not understand about fics involving or by allosexual/alloromantic people (an incomplete list by an aroace looking for validation):

sexual attraction, obviously. like I know logically that it's a thing but I'm still half-convinced it's made up. I get aesthetic attraction, I can think of people as beautiful, but the urge to have sex is — obviously — not there.

specifically, attraction to sweat? like characters in fics will get sweaty and then people find that attractive? how??? I can logic out wanting to have sex in most cases, but this one makes no sense to me

hating someone & being attracted to them at the same time. It's why I don't like a lot of enemies-to-lovers — if you hate each other, what is the appeal of sex???

reader x character fics. I'm fine reading about romance happening to other people, but why would you want to read about romance happening to YOURSELF? isn't it weird? or is that just the aromanticism in me—

in some contexts I can conceptually understand wanting to have sex, in other ones I can't. Like... sometimes it just seems more realistic to cuddle?

finding anger attractive... ig this is related to the enemies-to-lovers stuff, but even in fics that AREN'T enemies to lovers, arguments turn into sex. why? what is appealing about being angry?

possibly tbc if I encouter anything more, feel free to add on

[accio-victuuri]

Hello Anon! 👋🏼 I will try to answer your questions. I don’t know how I can answer this without going into the plan of a Socialist China + other main issues. I will touch upon some of those.

I’m keeping this under the cut so those who are here for FANDOM only can skip. 🤍

So. About Danmei. I won’t go into history, let’s just discuss the recent conversation that has been going on.The gist is they are saying Danmei is perpetuating bad values and unrealistic beauty standards. Some people are also calling out the fact that companies use this genre to bait people — selling it as a product instead of wanting to tell a story. Tho I agree that this genre is/was exploited by companies + Danmei stories have questionable themes I don’t think that it should be targeted the way it is.

There are other medias that show “bad values” but are not getting banned. The comment section I shared was about minors and video games which is not solely a problem of Tencent or Netease. It should not be all on them. These kids have ways to get around it. The notion that this will somehow influence their sexuality is complete bullshit to me. They are trying to appeal to the people’s morality by dropping words like VALUES / CULTURE but it’s all just a ploy to silence LGBT media. They can’t make it too popular to the point that people will accept it.

About Religion and is it a part of Why all this Homophobia in CHN? I’ll answer that with a No right now. Since we’re talking about the present and what all this suppression is about.

• LGBT movement calls for people coming together w/ a common goal that does not show NATIONALISM (whatever that is) or not applauding the CCP so naturally, it should be shut down. The thing with the communist party is they don’t really care what cause you’re peddling, if you’re eclipsing them and their message then you should be out. Take for example the Pride Parade in Shanghai, when asked about it, officials don’t really care much that it’s an LGBT parade. They are calling it out because people are uniting about something that isn’t about The Motherland. You can only organize things like this if it’s about Propaganda.

• The Three Child Policy. You may have heard of this going around but it’s one of CHN’s problem right now— Their aging population. So having Danmei media is not good if they want people to get married and have babies (according to them lol). But really, they put up a poll on Weibo if people are ready for this change and 97% said no. Then they deleted the post. The people are overworked and underpaid. The world is shitty. The younger population who just got out of college can’t find decent jobs ( top universities are rumored to be lying about their student’s job placement rates). Maybe they should look into that first as reasons why people don’t want to procreate before blaming it on Danmei and the LGBT community.

Digging up dirt regarding celebrities is not something new. The Antis and YXH have always been there to get the dirt about these celebrities. It’s their job. They want the clicks. It’s like in Hollywood etc where people dig up old tweets of problematic celebrities and expose them.

There is a crackdown going on in C-ent — not just artists but companies that benefit from them. You are seeing it. It’s only gonna get worse. I’ve talked about Celebrities in CHN being expected to have higher moral standards than regular people. That still applies but this is taking it to the extreme. Celebrities are doing what they can to prove their love for China for example :

• reposting the mandatory posts shared by government accounts.

• if someone gets cancelled they will delete that person’s existence in their social media accounts so they won’t be affected by association.

• cutting ties with brands that are Anti China ( or let’s call it pro Taiwan and Hongkong independence ).

• trying to get their hands on more projects that are 💯 backed by the government. working hand in hand with certain sectors of the government to relay the propaganda to people.

• using their platform to support government causes.

They might as well tattoo I love China on their foreheads as an ultimate act of Nationalism and not get cancelled.

I don’t understand the Logic too. What they are doing is not sustainable at all. The Common Prosperity idea the CCP is trying to instill isn’t the end goal.

They preach about breaking companies who are getting Monopoly of industries when the truth is— It’s only the government who is allowed Monopoly. That’s why they are hitting celebrities with Tax Evasion. They get money. Silencing Billionaires. Seizing their assets. They will get the money. No one can be more powerful than the CCP. It’s a pig farm and once one gets too fat— they will be slaughtered. The media is trying to spin it as trying to stop toxic fan culture, which is, sure, I can agree to than on some level but it’s an excuse to do take more control of celebrities/media.

I just focused on what happening right now to keep it short. My thoughts aren’t always the more organized but I hope this made sense to you 😌🙏🏼

[queerlymasculine]

why degradation (affectionate) is the best, imo:

I often see people saying they would never want to be humiliated or degraded because they don't want to be subjected to cruelty, they don't want someone to call them awful names, they don't want to be made to feel like they're worthless, etc.

now, if it's just not your thing, then it's not your thing, and that's fine. the only things you should play with and do are the things you're interested in and that make you feel good.

however, the idea that degradation, for example, is supposed to be hurtful is sadly a common misconception.

people play with degradation because it makes them feel good. when we're both in the mood for it, I love it when my partner degrades me 🥰

I love it because it's actually a way I get to celebrate being sexual and finding pleasure and exploring pleasure with someone I love very much.

this might sound very weird, but it's absolutely true. I ask my partner to call me a slut and gently condescend to me by talking about how I'm so desperate, how I would do anything for the chance to serve hir, and ze tells me my purpose is to be a toy ze uses to get off 🥰

yeah, on the surface it probably seems like all this would be hurtful, but it's a form of praise, actually. it feels good to be desperate, and it feels good when my partner directly points my desperation out. there's no shame involved. the tone we use is essentially "I'm desperate to be used, and of course I'm desperate. my purpose is to be used" and through this, my sexuality is normalized and embraced while also using really hot objectifying language that I enjoy.

the objectification feels good, too, because it is a very intense form of being desired. I can understand why some people don't like it because it's definitely not something I could imagine wanting with literally anyone else. but for me, the appeal is in the logic that objects -- toys, fleshlights, etc -- don't need to think or talk or make decisions. toys exist to be owned and used and cared for. it lets me relax because I don't have to worry about whether I'm doing or saying the right thing. I can just focus on feeling good and let my partner make me feel good.

at its most intense, at least for me, there's even an element of letting go of myself, in a way. this isn't the best phrase because it could sound dehumanizing in a bad way. for me, objectification is one way I can completely let go - and not just of control but of so many other things, too. it's difficult to explain.

another thing I love about sexual objectification is the way it lets me revel in my sexuality. it lets me delight in being desired and wanted.

when I was growing up, I was taught through almost every possible method that sex was bad and shameful. I was taught that my body was bad and therefore, I was bad, too. wanting sex was a sin. feeling physical pleasure of any kind -- sexual pleasure, yes, but basically every other kind of pleasure humans derive from their bodies -- was a moral failure. I was taught that my body should be a source of pain and suffering, that my body's existence was essentially a sin, too, because of how it tempted others. and the messages I received about queerness were so awful that I had no idea I was even a little bit straightn't and cisn't until college. I literally had no idea.

but playing with objectification with my partner is an explicit celebration of my sexuality and my body -- this body, a man's body, exactly as it is. it's a way to say my body is a man's body and it is a good body that can be a source of pleasure and enjoyment and happiness. objectification lets me see that my partner wants me and that my sexuality isn't a burdensome afterthought but instead a central part of me that ze likes.

I can understand why other people might not find this fun, especially if they worry often about only being wanted for sex. however, I believed for the longest time that no one would ever want me that way. so for me, objectification is reassuring, in a way? lol this is going to sound weird, but being told my purpose is to be my partner's sex toy makes me feel good because ze is basically saying -- although not meaning this lol -- that I'm so desirable ze could want me to be hir pet just for sex, that's how hot I am.

I totally don't expect that to make sense to anyone lol but trust me when I say it's a good thing. it makes me feel like my sexuality is natural and normal, and it helps make my relationship with my sexuality more positive. my sexuality isn't inconvenient or distraction or dirty. my sexuality is a source of pleasure for myself and my partner.

TLDR being called a messy slut who needs to be kept on his knees so he can please his owner with his mouth is good for my self esteem lol

[gallavictorious]

bottom!mickey nonnie here, i had some more thoughts in response to your reply, if you don't mind? :) i can see where the trust aspect might come into play for mickey re: bottoming and i understand your thought process. the only thing that makes me doubt that is how quickly that trust must have been established between him and ian if that is the case. they haven't been fucking for that long when kash walks in on them (which is the first instance we actually know mickey bottoms). i suppose that there could have been a lot of off-screen developments and interactions, but it's too quick imo. their relationship in season one seems more puppy-love to me rather than a deep bond (which i see as starting to form in season two). the way i see it, the only level of trust that needs to be established is "i know you won't tell anyone because you're also closeted and you won't treat me like a bitch because if you do, i'll beat you tf up and just never fuck you again" which is pretty shallow and something mickey could probably have reached with other guys, too. idk, i just don't see their relationship in season one as deep enough for mickey to start trusting ian with things he's worried or insecure about. it makes more sense to me that he lets ian fuck him because it's not that big a deal, rather than because he's already let ian past his walls. we know that ian is all in by that point, but i just don't think mickey is. he likes ian, is drawn to him (probably against his better judgement), but that's as far as it goes, as i see him. since there are such few scenes between them in season one we have no choice but to make our own interpretations, and those are bound to differ. i've just never seen mickey indicate that he thinks bottoming = being a bitch, or even that it's something he worries about. the only thing to support that would be his attitude to prison, but like i said before, i don't think mickey views sex in prison the same as he views sex on the outside. he probably views everything in prison differently. on the outside, with guys who share his secret? i don't think it's too much of a stretch that he would just do what he wants. the danger is the same either way. just my interpretation of him, of course :)

Hiya, Bottom!Mickey Nonnie No. 1!

I don't mind one little bit; in fact, I'm delighted! Apart from enjoying the fun discussion, it's always gratifying to hear back from anons: you usually never actually know if your answer has reached them.

First off, you're damned right it's quick! I personally don't subscribe to the idea that Mickey knew that Ian was gay or had a crush on him preceding their 1x07 tryst (nothing wrong with that notion, btw, it just doesn't appeal to me), so when they suddenly start tearing off each other's clothes that's very sudden. I tend to assume there might have a tiny bit of vague interest prior to this, the proximity and tussling triggers mutual attraction, they both spring boners, and yeah, off they go? You're also quite right in (implicitly) pointing out that we don't know that they had penetrative sex at that time – maybe they moved up from mutual handjobs or just plain grinding to something more a few trysts later. Either way, you make a good point about the danger of sex outside of lock-up would be the same regardless of whether Mickey bottoms or not. I'd never really thought about that before, so thank you for pointing that out!

However, it's probable that the reason I haven't thought very much about it is because when I speak of Mickey's easy trust for Ian I don't primarily mean him trusting Ian not to reveal his secrets to anyone else, but trust him to know Mickey in a way others are not allowed – and here we disagree and that is fine. :) If you see Mickey as unbothered by being into bottoming, you can certainly find support for that in the narrative. We do have the famous ”liking what I like”-line, which absolutely can be taken at face value! The fact that I tend to interpret it as (partly) Mickey being deliberately unapologetic because he feels a bit uneasy about his preferences and is somewhat defensive about Ian's brief allusions to common prejudices around bottoming, has more to do with my assumption that – given Mickey's circumstances – this is something that Mickey's likely to feel insecure about. He's internalized his father's homophobia to some degree; it just seems reasonable to me that he'd have internalized Terry's strong conviction that Milkoviches don't bottom too. (He certainly seems ready to embody that when he attacks Ian's army fuck buddy in season 3, citing the need to kick him straight because he's the one taking it up the ass. However, that could also totally performative or seen as him making a twisted kind of in-joke, so it's hardly conclusive.) Furthermore, I feel that it's not unreasonable to question Mickey's sincerity in regards to the line mentioned above, since we do have instances of him acting seemingly geuninely dismissive even when we know he probably cares quite a bit. I'm thinking primarily about his reaction to Ian's sex strike in season 11; I just don't buy he was unbothered by that, but there's nothing in the way he expresses his lack of concern that suggests it's insincere. This doesn't mean that I think my reading of the line is the correct one, though, just that it's a possible reading given what else we know of Mickey.

But of course, this really is just my assumptions and interpretations. It's very possible to infer from his actions onscreen that Mickey is totally unconcerned about bottoming, and always has been. After all, Mickey is in many ways a genuinely confident person, and I think this extends to his sex life. (I just think there's insecurity and concern, too... Basically, I think Mickey's relationship with his own sexuality and preferences is complicated, a paradoxical tangle of confidence and shame. I find this complexity is fascinating, and if we're being honest that's probably one of the reasons why I'm not so eager to let go of the notion of it.)

That said, though, and regardless of whether or not bottomingrequires any particular trust on Mickey's part, I think we dohave some concrete evidence of Mickey letting Ian past his walls already in 1x07. Not the sex – because we don't know anything about that – but the return of the gun after. That look on Mickey's face just then? That's vulnerability. He knows that by giving the weapon back when he doesn't have to, he shows hint of a softness he can ill afford people to know he possesses at this point. It's walls dropped, if only for a moment, and I just don't see him allowing that with many – if any – other people. While it isvery quick and while there's no telling whyor how, I firmly believe that there is an immediate trust between them that goes beyond just sex. It might not be logical, but I think it's there, and that this easy, natural understanding is a huge part of what has them coming back to each other again and again in spite of the odds being stacked overwhelmingly against them. Like you, though, I don't see this as a deep bond or anything, not this early. Ian falls in love quickly and easily; for Mickey is a much slower process, because he fights even the possibility of it tooth and claw.

And ah, I'm aware that in my first response to you I promised to elaborate on my thoughts on Mickey's stint in Mexico in my reply to Bottom!Mickey Nonnie No. 2, but I ended up cutting that because it got absurdly long in comparision to my notes on what they were actuallyasking about, and that didn't seem fair or relevant to them. However, I now have a third (and a fourth... apparently this is a subject dear to your hearts, sweet followers) Bottom!Mickey Nonnie in my inbox, so if this is something you're interested in, despair not! We'll get there!

Thank you so much for getting in touch, both with your first ask and with this follow-up. I've enjoyed reading your thoughts, and developing my own in response to them, immensely! I highly value being able to civilly disagree and argue viewpoints without either side feeling the need to convince the other, so this has been a real treat. <3

[midnightsgift]

The shoe fitting the crime (Part 1)

I’ve been quite hesitant about posting my take on the punishments as i tend to not articulate myself well during text posts. I tend to just type out my thoughts and post not caring much for how i structure myself. It felt as if to convey how i felt about something that is woven into multiple episodes deserved more care than my usual nit-picking of isolate moments. Something that i didn’t think i could do justice however, it felt as if i would be doing a dishonour to the themes of the show if I didn’t post my thoughts. Not that I’m saying they’re worthy enough to listen to, but shows like these are created to stimulate ideas, and my mind has been thoroughly stimulated. And with the end of the show approaching i thought this is the time before it’s too late. (Yes I am aware the title is not the saying, I’m obsessed with Malaphor)

Reality vs Media:

The thing I want to touch on here are two things in particular. I have two opinions which I think aren’t mutually exclusive. They are that media affects reality, what I mean by that is that media is something we consume and as humans we process this. It can be as ‘trivial’ as seeing a characters outfit and then a adopting a similar style, learning facts about a characters culture that may or may not exist within our own world or gaining an insight into a topic you once had a strong stance on. I remember growing up and believing if you weren’t fostering to adopt it was a cruel thing, it wasn’t until exposure through some of my friends and tv shows that I realise adoption isn’t always the end result nor the best option in certain case.

          This however does not mean that your opinions on characters would be the same if they existing in our reality. What do I mean by this? If we take them out of the circumstances of being able to observe them from afar, during an activity in which we detach ourselves from the consequence of their actions we may have a very different perspective of them. Media especially in the form of Movies and Shows (Plays etc.) focus in on characters, they shape the way we experience their (the media in question) worlds. We can often find ourselves more likely to sympathise with the main characters due to the fact we learn about them, we see the “logic”  behind their actions, where as we tend to only see the consequence of other’s actions on to the main character. I’m not saying this is clear cut, but it does mean we have this bias, intentional by the creators, to understand the main characters more. Personally I strongly believe, ‘Understanding something does not equate to Justifying something,’ but I can see that’s how I take to interoperate those words. I know people who colloquially use those words interchangeably. For example I’m into true crime, so I might say I can understand why serial kill their victim, be it due to craving power or sexual gratification. Something I do not seek nor justifies what they did. They actual also touch on this in the show as well which i love but i brought this up not for that purpose but how we consume the characters on our screen.

          What do I mean? I love Yo-Han and Sun-’ahs characters, i love characters like them. However i am also well aware of the fact i would most likely dislike them in real life. No amount of backstory or tragedy (generally speaking) would make me think manipulating and murdering people for self gain is a positive or justifiable trait. I���m not talking about murdering in self defence be it in the moment or SA victims fighting back, but these are grown adults. Yes Yo-han was an abused child who never knew affection (Understanding) but there is a period in our lives where the actions we commit become our responsibility. I’m not gonna give a definitive age because it’s a grey period even in my own life. But there has to be, and it sounds harsh, even typing it this out i feel like it’ll be misunderstood and that i have no sympathy which is not what i’m saying. Yes technically even in adult you can blame the root of your actions on your shitty circumstances but if you’re not actively trying to improve yourself, it doesn’t have to be all at one and i do believe it’s a very personal thing, then that becomes a you problem. Anyway i feel like i’ve got distracted within in my points, what i mean is that most ppl who love these two characters wouldn’t love them in reality it’s the separation and the ability to digest them how ever you’d like that makes them appealing.

          However liking these characters doesn’t mean you sympathise with murderers or are bad people. The thing about media is that we can like it for different reasons, i love this show but i also love ‘shitty’ predictable tv too for contrasting and similar reasons. When we appreciate shows we do so for a multitude of reason, the writing, the acting, the actors, the cinematography, the soundtrack.... 

This also works on the flip side it’s so easy to hate and nit-pick characters for even the smallest of flaws and to extrapolate from there. Something i will talk about in my other parts if i ever continues what ever this train wreck of a post was

Crime vs Punishment:

Intent vs Effect:

Justice:

[mysticalwaterdroplet]

WARNING! Looooooooooooong venting ahead about why d/h sucks. So if you ship it and have somehow Goren lost in this tag, turn around, cuz if you continue you might get hurt. You have been warned. Also I guess language warning and mature themes...? Just to be safe. I'd also like to give y'all a little side note: I guess I am what people would call a Hawks stan. I personally really like his character and find him intriguing, however I am completely capable of admitting that Hawks has done sum fucked up shit. I still however "stan" Hawks, so I'm going to show why d/h is shit from a logical Hawks stans point of view. Anyways, without delving too deep into the whole Dabi vs Hawks stuff, since I'm not here for it, I'm here to talk about the shitshow that's dabihawks. So, first of all I'll give y'all a lil back story as to why I'm here. Long story short: I accidentally stumbled upon some d/h art and people who still defend the ship (with already debunked theories mind you), I felt kinda sick to my stomach, so I need to vent. Like they were referring to the fight where Hawks killed Twice and basically said: "DiD yOu SeE hOw HaWkS wAs OnLy LoOkInG dAbI iN tHe EyEs ThE wHoLe TiMe. 🤪 ThAt'S sO gAy!?!?!??!??" Bish, where was Hawks and Dabi supposed to look at? THE WALL??? They were fighting! Of course they have to keep an eye on each other. They were also talking about how "DaBi JuSt GoT jElLy CaUsE HaWkS wAs HaNgInG oUt WiTh TwIcE, aNd Is JuSt ClAiMiNg HaWkS!" And they were saying so much more nasty shit that I'd like to write here, but I don't think I physically can, and I also want to spare everyones brains, cuz I already took the L, like if any of y'all know how to get back my brain cells hit me up. I also noticed a common theme of people making Hawks the bottom to like a point where they thirsted over the idea of Dabi "destroying" Hawks' insides, if you know what I mean. Which seems to be the opposite for many of you guys here with finding stuff where Dabi is the bottom? I mean I know many of you guys probably don't like Hawks, but you gotta admit that it's fucked up to think that these shippers think it's hot that one of the people in their makeshift relationship gets seriously hurt in the act without consent. Whether it is Dabi or Hawks they put in that position is irrelevant, they literally like the ship because it's toxic and someone gets hurt. Like in what world would Hawks let Dabi willingly even get close to him or vice versa. We all know damn well that they despise each other. Horikoshi has literally shown that these two never trusted each other, never even tolerated each others shit, so why oh why did this become a thing?! Also, and I know that this can sound annoying to some people... But as a Hawks stan, I don't understand how people can say: "YeAh, I sTaN HaWkS UwU 👉👈, hIm AnD dAbI dEsErVe eAcH oThEr AnD aRe So GoOd ToGeThEr." "ThEy DeFo FuKiN'! Is CaNoN! 🤪" Like:

So... Are we just gonna forget that Dabi literally burnt Hawks' wings off? (Which was understandable looking at the context.) Or how Dabi sent some goons after his mother? Or the fact that Hawks literally idolised the very man that Dabi hates with a burning passion? The shippers: "Oh, BuT hIs WiNgS wIlL gRoW bA-" Bish! The fact that Hawks didn't die or that his wings are allegedly growing back doesn't mean the ship is relevant again. Hoooooo... it's like I can't catch a breather once in a while. How are people trynna stan someone and then say: "Yeah, let's pair our favourite person with the person that is trying to hurt them." HOW!? My initial reaction when Hawks and Dabi interact is: "Fuck. Someone's gonna get hurt." Like if I could have it my way Dabi wouldn't be anywhere near Hawks, they are a danger to eachother. There is no damn way I'd want to see the character I stan for hurt, so why do so many damn stans ship it! I just can't wrap my mind around the "appeal". I just don't see the sexual tension that these people talk about. Anyway I could probably write a whole ass book as to why I personally don't like this ship

but frankly I don't wanna waste your time since it's toxic.

I would like to however debunk a couple of already debunked theories that people use justify the relevance of d/h.

The "childhood friends" theory: Yup. People still cling to it. However Horikoshi literally trashed, stomped on and lit the theory on fire. We saw that Touya went to a regular school and was trained personally by Endeavor. While Hawks was in the commission. There is no way that they knew each other. The way Dabi got Hawks' real name was through his mother. Dabi ain't dumb, he's actually smart and calculating to a point it's almost a little scary.

The "Dabi freed Hawks and Hawks will turn into a villain": Boi.... Dabi didn't free Hawks off anything. Dabi tried to kill him and exposed Hawks and his wrongdoings to the world. That ain't love. Hawks isn't even Dabi's main focus, Hawks is literally just one insignificant part of Dabi's plan. Also, like Horikoshi has wonderfully brought into light, Hawks would never turn to villainy. He didn't even kill Best Jeanist. And he's still, after everything, saying "Endeavor is in trouble." Clearly insinuating that he's going to still help Endeavor. This man is the last person to just become a villain. And people have the audacity to say he'd become a villain because of Dabi. I have no words.

Besides even if for example the childhood friends theory was true (which it isn't, but let's humour the thought) or even IF they were foils, it wouldn't change shit. We'd still be in this situation where they despise each other. Childhood friends wouldn't automatically mean that they'd get along as adults.

-------------------------------------------

Anyways, if you made it this far, you're a damn trooper. Thanks for letting me vent.

And as a short note to end on: I hope I didn't come off as too aggressive. That's not my intention here. Also the text is way less polished and thought out than I'd like it to be, but I honestly don't have the time or energy to give y'all a publishable version of "Why d/h sucks": the Book. So instead you get this. A hastily put together vent cuz I saw sum shit alright.

TLDR: People with a brain can see that these two aren't in love. There has to be some major mental gymnastics in play to get any whiff of chemistry from these two.

[hundtoth]

while this should not have to be said aloud - heathenry is not a racist faith! unfortunately, such a statement is necessary to voice... unless you’re a chauvinistic and/or a xenophobic heathen, that’s what this post pertains to: sure, it’s not untold that in the modern world heathenry has been pockmarked by the allotment of symbols seized by hate groups alongside the adulteration of our religious ‘brethren’, with hateful individuals that warp our teachings to portray their hateful demands. our much beloved germanic neopaganism has become a justification for racist behaviour, from the propaganda of the nazi party which applied many of our symbols (such as the fylfot), to the germanic people pointing with pride as the pinnacle of the aryan race. a big problem that faces the heathen practice, while it is innocuous at heart, are the attempts to bear on labels to various heathen sub-groups as ‘racist’ and ‘not racist’. it has become favoured by heathens to cleave up heathenry into splinter groups; universalism, tribalism, and folkism (as the dominant ones), which are often viewed as ‘not racist’, ‘racist?’ and ‘racist!’ respectively. let me be the one to unburden that and say that these terms are not key definitions to those three groups, and that this is the root of the problem. the issue is that these terms are neither here nor there and cannot be applied in whole to the groups that they are supposed to attain to. this is because there exists no foundation within the religion for racist beliefs, which means that those who venture into the ancient praxis could fall under the folkish bracket and may not be and are often not racist. albeit, it’s commonplace for people to label themselves such things to be closer to those who share their views on racism, but that causes some to abandon a title tailored to their practice in favor of one that doesn’t, simply to avoid the bleak implications of said title. in my mind, i believe that we should not be giving monikers to those within the faith with racist tendencies as they simply are not deserving of them. they do not deserve to ornament themselves with the title of a specific group as this just causes a continuation upon the idea that their beliefs around that area of the faith are valid, altering its meaning entirely. to clarify the true to life meanings behind these groups, as they are applied to the preferences of method of practice by each heathen, we have;

universalism - a belief that anyone, irregardless of race, gender or sexual orientation, may practice under the heathen umbrella. the universalism belief structure has been criticized often for failing to motivate its followers to the same depth as others, and allowing the prevalence of contrary philosophies to those present within heathenry. universalists reproduce declaration 127, also known as havamal-stanza 127, which can be cherished by anyone for its simple utterance of: recognize evil, speak out against it, and give no truces to your enemies. however, declaration 127 is denounced commonly due to its poor efforts (similar to the criticism of social media campaigns for ‘likes’ with no physical backing) and it’s false sense of security within heathenry.

tribalism - considered to be ‘in the middle’ by many heathens. tribalists try to vindicate the old and new methods through moderate reconstructionalism, and have a tendency to conceptualise ethnic heritage without maintaining boundaries within practice. the purest way to describe a tribalist is a practicing heathen that integrates the ‘old ways’ into their lifestyle, and they often assert that one must earn the title of heathen - that it doesn’t matter who you are, you must put in the effort and study, which may span years.

folkism - folkist beliefs carry the most stigma, in which racist beliefs are widespread, claiming that germanic paganism is an ethnic right. while this is not always the case, it gives the impression that germanic paganism is only open to those with a connection to the germanic peoples, in a ‘heretic’ kind of way. within folkism, there exists a cross-section as to how this should be enforced, though it is unclouded that it has become a seedbed for racism within the overarching faith that is often under-fire for being contradictory to itself with no substantive evidence that the nordic peoples were racist.

what these terms have set out to do is prognosticate the beliefs of heathens away from how they comfortably choose to practice their faith. the three groups aforementioned fell into those titles not solely due to racism but to essentially describe a heathens practice through daily life. these terms inflict uncertainty to several thought processes within heathenry where race is not a factor, thus cold-shouldering heathens who heed to such traditions when they are presumed to be mirroring the racist views held by their counterparts under the tribalist or folkish stamps which have precured their titles because of racist prospects, not because of how they adopt practice, which is the true basis of these terms. in retrospect, trying to rank the groups within heathenry with the aim of plucking out a method of practice under ‘racism’ only adds more conflict to our community as a whole. i suggest that, especially to new heathens, you should explore these groups further to better your understanding of the people that you may be dealing with and what their ideas are but, be mindful of the fact that you are not required to declare yourself as anything, as these terms tend to only exist as a guide into finding like-minded people. additionally, it would be baseless to create suppositions about anyone within heathenry for the titles that they have chosen to align under as each group is diverse, not only in its members but in its beliefs. another important concept to mention when discussing racism in heathenry are the origins of germanic paganism. germanic ancestors adored the idea of ancestry through honour and worship, and as they would of been white, such ancestors must of been white, too. this would give the impression that when one turns their hand to ancestral veneration within heathenry, while not being white, by very definition they would be inclined to practice their own ancestral faith, which would not be heathenry - because they are not white. to connect to one’s ancestors, many heathens find it essential to practice their ancestral ways through faith and culture, but when someone has no nordic ancestry, heathens may imply that other heathens should be following their own ancestry instead, which is quite paradoxical and backs many people into a corner. an argument often occurs within heathenry regarding spirituality and how it is ‘passed through the ages’, validated by claims that we assume elements of our fate and soul from our lineage and how our ancestors could be reincarnated as a factor of that. as such, it is only those with nordic ancestry who may hear the call of the old gods. they attempt to rationalize this by claiming that white people cannot feel the call of other ancestral ways and other religions, and thus is all fair and equal. however, when we are called back to the ‘old ways’, the old ways are our own individual pasts, as something ingrained into our spiritual histories. for those who are non-whites, this path would not be heathenry, at least according to those who convey this claim. withal, symbols, in my own opinion, have greater intrigue for racists undertaking heathenry above all, with many already falling victim to the racist facets of such symbols whilst being used erroneously by hate groups for many years. additionally, new symbols are often purloined and misappropriated, rather than observed as segments of a faithful movement, instead they are seen as the ideograms of ancient whites; mjolnir, runic othala, valknut and ravens, amongst many more. as mentioned in an earlier paragraph, many symbols now associated with the nazi regime (the SS and swastika) are, or were, once deep-heathen symbolism. ofcourse, the swastika is immediate throughout history but if we were to be straight-thinking, we can surmise that the nazis used it for its association to heathenry, not its association to buddhism, etc. even if these people understood the symbols that they clutched on to and their authentic meanings in a religious sense, they are still related to the previously mentioned concepts within the origins that they have already manipulated to suit themselves, for example, the othala rune, which at a very basic level relates to heritage and ancestry. with a racists obsession with white ancestry, its very easy to see why an ancestral symbol from a white culture would be appealing. within this post, i have tried to emphasise that there is no basis for racism within heathenry if one was to, with all intents and purposes, understand heathen-history and its logic. here are a select few reasons as to why i personally think that any racist who applies heathenry to validate their intolerant opinions are both wrong and uneducated:

assuming that one’s spiritual inclination was genetic, which a vast majority of pagans today discredit, it simply wouldn’t matter. conducting a shallow study on genetics would reveal that it would be almost impossible in the ever-present to have a direct gene from any ancestor who would have been pagan in the viking era. some of the most controversially racist heathens today haven’t had a directly european ancestor in the last 200 years, oops! to paraphrase wayland skallagrimsson, there have been roughly 50 generations between the end of ancient heathenry and today, which means that for most people, contributions to DNA from any heathen ancestor amount to ‘less than 1 ten-trillionth of one percent’. contributions from christian ancestors would be 25-50% of one's genes. let us entertain the concept that one had inherited the genes of their heathen ancestors, scientists largely agree that thoughts and beliefs are culturally influenced anyway. while it is understood that mental illnesses can be inherited, they hold basis not in memory but in brain development, hormonal signals and genetically encoded processes within the body. perhaps it is true, after all, there is the disorder of victim mentality where one believes themselves to be under constant attack, so perhaps racists are just merely ill? poor souls.

there exists no single indication within the eddas and sagas of racial exclusion. our ancient germanic ancestors were well travelled and would have had a large sense of worldliness, caring little about those of other ethnicity, otherwise we would have a myth expanding upon that. in point of fact, odin seeks knowledge from the jötuns who, from a mythological standpoint, represent the ‘outsiders’. despite being the adversaries to the gods on almost all occasions, they often married into the aesir and were included amongst the figureheads (see loki and skadi), and had children together that were pivtotal to the tale of the world, such as magni and modi, children to thor and the jötun named jarnsaxa, whom of which are not only divine, but so pure that they take up the role of thor, and his hammer, after ragnarok to be the defenders of all. the mixing of the ‘outsiders’ to the central gods conveys a pespective from the ancients that position of birth has no bearing on one’s own ability to be pure and welcome.

similarly, there exists no historical evidence to say that ancient germanics were inherently racist. ibn fadhlan, an arabian traveller with produced written works on the germanic people of his age, was entitled to observe and learn of the ‘northern way’, involving himself in rites, alongside slaves who were integrated into the culture and religion historically - which is how we now have accounts of such things. not only do we have have the assimilation of others into the norse culture, we also have norsemen’s graves decorated with arabic emblems, proposing that they themselves diverged from their own ‘righteous path’, to be open and embracing of other cultures and faiths. in fact, germanics have been depicted on many occasions to have participated in the religious celebrations of the cultures to which they travelled, most notably the baptism of king radbod, in honor of a christian friend. additonally, archaeologists have deliberated in many different practices that the norse learnt skills and adopted traits from other cultures, such as the filling of teeth, prior to the occurrence of those practices in nordic culture, telling us that they took back cultural idiosyncrasies of other cultures to their own homelands - our faith would not have kept body and soul together without the aid of many ancient scholars belonging to other creeds and races, and it is a disgrace to disregard them today.

my final disproof is purely opinionated, which is that racism as a whole goes against the very tenants of heathenry. to strive to bar another person from coming into your ‘territory’ shows an acknowledgement of threat from that person. a threat, of course, can only be a threat if you acknowledge that they could overtake you, should you be weak. so, in being racist and fearing the prevalence of other races, racist whites are putting themselves into a position of weakness and equality with those other races. after all, if they weren’t equal certainly it wouldn’t take any effort at all on the part of the white peoples to be dominant, right? no! racism is cowardly and shows an easily wounded ego on the part of the racist; some of the greatest insults in the old norse language are to be weak and cowardly, and thus it is impossible for any racist to truly uphold the values of heathenry.

[tatertotthethot]

The Doms Next Door 2.0

THIS IS A TEMPORARY REUPLOAD FOR THIS CHAPTER CUZ TUMBLR IS RAN BY A BUNCH OF BOTS. 2.1 HERE

Warnings/AN: frequent, casually cursing; comical, gay Jimin; insecure reader; steamy flirting; tattoo/sexualized Tae 🙃. Enjoy~ (TAEKOOK EDIT ABOVE IS ARTKOOK DONE BY NONCONMAN ON INSTAGRAM)

copyright © 2018 all rights reserved

_________________________________

Your tires came to a stop outside of the tattoo shop you've seen online— a brick building, covered in spray paint and street-style art. A sign buzzed over the awning of the entrance doors, with the built-in UV lights and graffiti-styled font displaying the name of the place in neon-red letters. Kink For Ink! The name alone was what first caught your attention last week, when you Googled "Tattoo shops near me" and it pulled up a list, with "Kink For Ink" being the first option. It just seemed so uncanny and fitting at the time, considering the previous run-in you just had with the sex-crazed neighbors a couple nights before. You couldn't help but to click the link to their Instagram.

A profile came up with 53.4k followers, which immediately blew your mind... but you quickly saw why. Every tattoo and piercing, no matter the body-placement, skin-type, or quirky design, was vividly appealing— certainly done by the articulate hands of certified experts. Even in the comments of the piercings that were posted, people were praising them for the "minimal" amount of pain they experienced, despite the fact that some of piercings were done in places you couldn't even fathom the thought of having a needle jammed through.

It said in the bio that the shop is owned by the two artists that work there— Kim Taehyung and Jeon Jungkook. You couldn't find out much about them, all their pictures showed was their work. You even went back to search for a personal account of their own, but nothing came up. You then went back to the bio and clicked a link to the official website, hoping to find out something, but you were met with a disclaimer rule at the top that automatically deemed your chances of even getting your piece done by them, slim-to-none.

• No walk-ins allowed.

• Every request/idea must be sent in through the DMs of our Instagram page. You will only be accepted only if it spikes our personal interests.

Yikes; You were instantly discouraged by this. The piece you wanted was something so common and cliché, that you actually got the image out of a child's coloring book.... It was the cartoon layout of the glass vase and enchanted rose, from the Beauty and the Beast movie. Cheesy, yes. But it was something of personal, nostalgic value. You remember when you were little— roughly around 3 or 4 years of age— when your parents started fighting and would spend all day screaming and throwing things at each other, putting you in a constant state of anxiety. But then you'd go to bed at night and pop the VHS tape, and the movie never failed to put you in a peaceful state of mind— a hopeful one. It's remained as your all-time favorite love story throughout the years. Which, is ironic, considering that the relationship itself was different, but almost as dysfunctional as your parent's. However, the fact that even the Beast was capable of change, and everything wound up so perfect and happy in the end, makes your heart happy. And even now, at age 19, it still puts you in your feelings. The previous remake of a movie is what actually inspired you to get the enchanted rose as a tattoo, after seeing it in 3D not too long ago. But you're only willing to shell out up to $200 for it, at most. You've just started college, and even though Jimin's parents own the house and let the two of you live there, rent free, you're still responsible for half the utility bills from month to month. Blowing every bit of money you have saved up, right at the start of the semester, would just be irresponsible. But $200 was manageable, and you're looking for anything that'll give you a little extra "oomph" to break you out of this introverted shell you've always known. Pushing it off would just delay it, and you were ready for change. The nose piercing you want is just a small little thing that'll hopefully add a bit of flare to the features of your face. These two guys could probably do the piercing/tattoo with a blindfold on and a hand tied behind their back. So, if it meant that you'd be able to get these things done in confidence, without having to worry about the outcome, you figured it wouldn't hurt for you to at least ask, even if they straight-up ignore you. So, after spending an unnecessary amount of time overthinking the wording of your text, you finally constructed a message in your notes and DM'd it to business page, after sending them a small, simple outline of the cartoony rose, and pressed send.

• You: Hello! I've been wanting to get this tattoo done for a very while now, and was hoping one of you will be willing to do it for me... along with piercing my nose? I know it's a very mediocre and cliché piece, and a nose piercing can be done anywhere. But I'm new to the area and I've never gotten a tattoo/piercing done before and I haven't really checked out any other places either because I found this page first. And from what I can see, you guys are pretty efficient and CRAZY talented. So, I trust it'll get done right.... only if you want to! I'm willing to pay $200 for this, but if it costs that much for just the outline I've sent then that's fine as well. But I understand if neither of you want to do it cuz that is really cheap compared to the ones I've seen lol. But either way, thx for ur time 😁

A few minutes went by and you had just unlocked your phone to check the message again, when the word "seen" popped below the message. You held your breath for a second— but seconds turned to minutes, and time went by with no reply, what-so-ever. You figured maybe you sounded a little too immature to take seriously; kind of like a prepubescent 12-year-old asking someone out for a dance... and you blew it. Which was disappointing, but predictable. So fuck it. Maybe it's a sign; you shouldn't get it after all.

11pm rolled around, many hours later. You were now hiding beneath your covers, beginning your "amateur threesome" exploration on PornHub. You were ready to see what this whole "2 guys, 1 girl" thing was all about. But just when you were about to type it into the search bar, you were interrupted by an Instagram notification dropping down from the top of your screen.

"KinkForInk sent you a message."

You audibly gasped, eyes turning to saucers as you clicked on the notif and switched over to the Instagram app.

• KinkForInk: Hi (Y/N). This is Tae, one of the artists of the shop. The tattoo you sent in is worth roughly $100... but I want to run an offer by you in hopes that you'll be interested.

— Your brows scrunched in oddity, stomach fluttering. An offer? For you?

• You: Okay, sure. What's that?

• KinkForInk: I've been looking for someone willing to showcase the custom design I've come up with, specifically for a much more... exclusive version of the Beauty and the Beast tattoo you sent. And if you'd be down for letting me and my partner put it on you, it'll be free. No charge. BUT you'll also have to sign a contract saying that you'll do a little bit of modeling for us once it's done. You think you'd be in to doing something like that, even if you get it?

— Your head spun for a second, reading the message over and over again until you could fully wrap your mind around what he was saying.

• You: Hold on... YOU wanna put a tattoo on ME so that I model for you? And it's FREE? Are you sure about this? I'm not even model material lol.

• KinkForInk: Yes, yes, and yes, you are. You'd be perfect for this.

• You: How do know that? Is it a face tattoo? Cuz I only have 6 selfies on here and you can't see anything past my shoulders.

—"Seen" came up as soon as you hit send, but a couple of minutes rolled by with no reply to the message, nor was he even typing. Maybe you came off a little rude. But it was already sketchy and it was a logical question.

— An image suddenly popped up: a screenshot of your Facebook profile. Then another— and much to your horror, it was the photo Jimin tagged you in last week, when the two of you were swimming at a local community pool. You were wearing a simple two piece, sitting at the foot of the lawn chair Jimin was also sitting in, as his legs were visible on either side of you and his lap was practically framing your ass. The photo was at an upward angle and looked so scandalous— but really, you had just asked Jimin to put sun screen on your back and he didn't want to stand up because the pavement was too hot against his bare feet. But you actually liked the picture at the time; it was just a silly joke and your ass actually looked quite nice from that angle. Plus, everyone knows nothing sexual actually goes on between the two of you, for obvious reasons. But Taehyung doesn't, so you couldn't help but dreadfully cringe when you saw the caption of the screen shot.

"Babymama 💦🍆"

• KinkForInk: Is this you??

• You: Yes, that's me. The caption is a joke tho... pay no mind to that. But this is like, really happening? You really think it'd look good on me?

— Why that picture though? You couldn't help but wonder.

• KinkForInk: Yes. Like I said, you're perfect for this piece. Are you down to at least see what the tattoo will look like? We don't expect you to be experienced with modeling or anything, but if you listen to us and cooperate, you'll do just fine.

• You: Yes I wanna see, and I'll do the best I can if I decide to get it... I'm just a bit shy, is all.

• KinkForInk: You'll be in good hands. I promise.

• You: Okay... are you going to show me??

• KinkForInk: Can't send it over a message, I don't want it plagiarized or the concept stolen. But the piece itself isn't necessarily crazy or anything, just more creative. I'd be more than happy to show you at my shop some day this week, if you'd be willing to swing by.

• You: Yeah, I can do that. When should I come?

• KinkForInk: Are you available after 5 tomorrow?

• You: I am, I get off at 4:30.

• KinkForInk: Great. Be here by 5:30, and make sure you've eaten in case you like the piece and wanna get started. It's pretty big for a first timer and gonna take a lot of time and patience. It'll have to be done in sessions but I hope you have a fair enough pain tolerance to at least get the outline of it done first.

— It can't be any worse than a bikini wax, you thought, shivering at the memory. That a story for another time. You decided on an alternative scenario.

• You: I give blood from time to time... but that's easy and doesn't really hurt that much. I think I can handle it though... maybe. I honestly don't know lol, I'm sorry 😣. But I can try my best. Can I ask where it's supposed to go?

• KinkForInk: That's okay, I'll work with you. It's supposed to go down the middle of your back. Starts between the center of your shoulder blades, and trails down the length of your spine to your lower lumbar. You'll see how it looks once we transfer a template on your back. But if you don't like it, there will be no hard feelings from my end. I can still do the tattoo you want if that's the case, free of charge just for your time.

• You: Oh no, you don't have to do that! I'd still pay!

• KinkForInk: Not if I don't accept your money. Trust me, I'm not worried about it. The nose piercing is gonna be $30 regardless, though. JK isn't so lenient.

• You: Of course. Will I have to take my shirt and bra off for the tattoo?

• KinkForInk: Yes, and for the pictures once it's done.

— Your mind blanked at that; thumbs froze over the keypad. He was typing again.

• KinkForInk: Don't let that discourage you. Again, you're in good hands. You can bring something to cover your chest. And the pics will be if your back as well.

• You: Okay, I can handle that. So 5:30 tomorrow?

• KinkForInk: Yes, please don't flake on us!

• You: Lol, I won't. I'll be there.

"They're gonna knock us the fuck out and sell our organs to the black market," Jimin declared. He had parked next to you outside of the shop, and was now sitting in the driver seat of his car with his door locked and windows all the way up, refusing to get out. You were standing right outside his door, still having to talk on the phone. "And is this Tae-guy an AllState representative or something?"

Jimin is petty. You wanted him here for moral support— which he's usually reliable for— but this time, he's just plain salty right and doing everything he can to remind you of that. Reason is, he's been begging you to get a matching tattoo with him ever since your 18th birthday, and you've always refused because of what he wanted to get.

Cupcakes. Jimin wanted to get matching cupcake tattoos... in honor of Cupcakke the legend. Sorry, but H E L L no.

You rolled your eyes, growing frustrated. He only has enough time to pop in and confirm that these two aren't gonna kill you, and then he's gotta head home to get ready for work. You were already supposed to be in there. It was 5:33pm, 3 minutes past the time.

"Jimin, you're the one that insisted on coming along! And now you're making me late!" you ranted. "I'm going in without you."

"Hold your horses, hoe! I'm finishing my blueberry slushie," He retorted, sassily bringing the straw to his mouth and loudly slurping it into the phone. He then abruptly flinched away from the straw with a disgusted expression, nostrils flared, body locking up; lips drawing into an air-tight knot that was so extreme and unnatural, it caused an ugly snort to break out of your nose.

He smacked his lips in exaggeration to the taste, face falling back into stone as an eyebrow arched over the top of his aviators; unamused and saltier than before... Like you were at fault for that, too.

"Or... Blueberry-ass, I should say."

That forced another giggle out of you as Jimin stiffly rolled his window down, phone still pressed to his ear and eyes still scowling at you behind the inspector shades. He bit down on the straw and withdrew it with his teeth before dumping the dark-blue contents of the drink out of the window, making it a point to shake the styrofoam cup empty of every drop before tossing it over his shoulder and into back seat. He then spat the straw out of his mouth with an audible "PLUUUUH!" of a French accent, and waited until the window rolled all the way up again, just so he could hang up the phone. You scoffed at this as you shoved your phone back into your pocket, scornfully watching Jimin exit the car and slam the door behind him. He snatched his glasses off his face as his cotton-candy hair swayed in the breeze, revealing his scornful eyes right back at you as he gestured for you to lead the way in exasperated manner— as if you were the one wasting his time now.

"Go on, lead us to the grave," He shooed, a snippy little shit. You sauntered away, walking up the side of the shop, then paused just before reaching the glass entrance door, when you remembered how much of a coward you are. You've never even stepped into a parlor before, and supposedly, this was a famous one. Which makes it more and more surreal when you think about it.

"Are we doing the mannequin challenge now? Is that what we're doing?" Jimin sardonically inquired.

"You go first, I'm nervous!" You whisper-hissed.

"You don't want me to go in there first— I'll show out," he reasoned, simply stating a fact.

"Please don't," you whined.

"Then, again, I'll show out?" He reiterated, as if to say duh. "How else am I supposed to break the ice? I look like Timmy Turner's Fairy-Gay- Parent."

You gave him a wary look... he's right. You sighed, slightly kicking your foot in distracted defeat. Fuck, you hated making an entrance to new places—

"Hold up— is that Drake?" Jimin suddenly blurted, holding his hand up to silence you. You honed in on the muffled track playing from behind the glass door, and Jimin's face soon light up like a Christmas tree before he spun around you, unstoppable.

"Jimin, NO—!"

"KIKI, DO YOU LOVE ME—?!"

It was already too late. The door was flying back behind him as he Milly-Rocked his way into the shop, leaving you no choice but the chase in behind him.

"—ARE YOU RIDING? SAY YOU'LL NEVA-EVA LEAVE FROM BESIDE ME— hello there."

You were panting, coming to a stop right behind Jimin, where you instantly latched on to the back of his shirt as you met the face of the man behind the studio counter. And, as corny as this is gonna sound: the world actually stilled for a solid beat... or maybe you were in the verge of cardiac arrest.

A pair of glossy-Black eyes looked up at the two of you; A series of silver-studded earrings trailed along the outer cartilages, peaking out beneath a head of soft, layer-swept hair. It was a Carmel-tinted blonde in color— thick and shaggy, and neatly spilling in waves around a headband that proudly sported a high-dollar brand-name you've never seen anyone wear in person before. G U C C I, it read— Meaning that the headband alone was probably worth more than some of your college text books, put together. It sat just a few inches above a pair of dark brows, that oddly brought out the shape of his cat-like eyes— irises like polished marbles. His ample lips had a sharp, well-defined Cupid's-bow, and a natural shade of pink that fit the porcelain appearance of his melanin-kissed complexion, to the finest degree.

And here you are, looking like an actual bum. You had just enough time to clock out of work and head straight over here to make it in time. You didn't even have any makeup on, and the only thing hiding your raggedy hair from those captivating eyes is your old baseball cap from high school. It took a second for him to take the bold presence that was Park Jimin— who was also frozen to the spot as he openly checked the guy out. He was hunched over the counter, a v-neck hoodie covering the rest of him with a thin, loose-fitting material. It was Black and allowed a full visual of his tan neck, and prominent collar bones. And it certainly didn't hide the fact that he had a pair of wide-set shoulders, either. A pencil sat in his hand— one that was laced with masculine veins, and lot of decorative ink. There was a silver ring on his thumb.. and a very heavy-looking Rolex watch.

The man cracked a grin at Jimin— a boxy one that dimpled in at the corners.

"Love the hair," he humorously began, twisting a quirky eyebrow at Jimin. You subconsciously snagged the bill of your hat as your eyes went a little wide at how mature the man's voice was.

"Love the watch," Jimin retorted, then reached around and gripped you by the wrist before pulling you into full view beside him. "You wouldn't happen to be Taehyung...?"

"Mhm," the man hummed, absentmindedly moving his wrist at the mention of his watch. His eyes cut over to you, and you swore you could see a minuscule reflection of yourself in his eyes, before they flashed back at Jimin and blinked. "You must be the babydaddy?"

Blood rushes to your ears. It's really him... a guy who looks like a high-dollar model himself, asking you to be his canvas model. Your own conscious didn't even know what to say right now. So you stayed quiet and still as Jimin took charge... which was a mistake.

"She wishes, but no. I'm the best-friend— and a gay one, at that," Jimin replied, and you knew he did that for his benefit. Thot. "I'm just here to make sure you're not gonna sacrifice her to Satan, or anything of that nature. I need her around in case I ever forget the Netflix password."

Taehyung chuckled at that, mouth opening to reveal a row of teeth shinier than Chip Skylark's. But then, you caught something behind his teeth that caused your gut to leap. A silver ball... a tongue ring. Your thoughts clouded over for a second.

"Well, I can assure you, she's safe with me," he said, looking over at you again. You blinked, nothing more. His brow arched at your lack of response, but this time, it was done more handsomely as he was still smirking at you. "Still, you don't look too thrilled to be here... You sure you wanna do this?"

"She's just nervous because you're really fucking hot," Jimin announced, unyielding. "You should feel how sweaty her hand is."

"Don't listen to him— I'm gay too," You lied in panic, trying to defend yourself from the absolute truth Jimin spoke just then. You snatched your hand away from him and jutted a finger at the door, eyes beading and lid twitching as your nerves ran amuck. "Goodbye, Jimin."

"She's a lonesome hetero," Jimin told Taehyung, assuring him with a face that showed no bluff. "One look at her camera roll, and you'd see for yourself—" You were yanking him away by the arm now, in a tug-of-war game that Jimin obviously could've won if he really wanted to. But he figured you suffered enough and eventually let you drag him out of the shop, waving bye to Taehyung before turning to look at you with beading eyes.

"I think he wants to fuck you— text me as soon as you can," Jimin uttered with unmoving lips as before he walked to his car. You stopped for a second, noticing he was actually being serious. How could he possibly think that he wants to fuck you, just from that small encounter? And what is the odd sensation currently coiling in your stomach? Things grew awkward again when you re-entered the shop, coming to a stand at the same spot... only alone now. He was still amused, it seemed. And so calm and cool despite this odd, intense look in his eyes. It gave him a Casanova effect, where all he had to do was give you that look and it'd instantly make you blush.

"He seems like a fun person to be around," he noted, somewhat honestly, but more so making fun of the red-hot appearance of your face.

"He's a pain in the ass," you muttered, trying to conjure up a smirk but hardly even able to speak properly from how dry your mouth was. It felt like there was a white-hot iron expanding in your throat. "I'm really sorry about him."

"Don't be. I'm just glad you're here— thought you'd chicken out." You nervously wiped your clammy palms over the back pockets of your jeans as Taehyung got up from the barstool behind the counter and approached you on the other side of it, a whole head-and-a-half taller than you. He was wearing black cardigan jeans and matching combat boots.. his headband and jewelry the only thing not black on him. And oddly enough, he made it look fucking fantastic.

"Mh-mm," You hummed, not trusting your voice. You've never needed a sip of water so bad in your life— he even smelled expensive.

"Well, It's very nice to meet you," he formerly began, and you mustered up the normality of placing your (dried) hand into his much larger one, as he held his out to you in greeting. And boy, was he close. So close that the heels of your spine itches to lean back from the proximity.

"It's nice to meet you, too. I'm really sorry if I'm acting weird. I'm just nervous." — Your mind struggled to stay focused on your words, arm tensing at the skin-to-skin contact. You were extra-effected by the firmness in his grip. You really wanted to look down at all the bold ink you saw dashing across the veiny surface of his tanned hand, or see if those were images or scripted letters on the knuckles of lengthy fingers... But you were held captive by those God-blessed eyes... And that fucking tongue ring. It was infecting your head in ways that weren't necessarily healthy for your current state of mind, as you saw it peering in and out at certain words.

"And physically shaking," Taehyung pointed out, brows twitching down at your trembling hand in his as if he was concerned for it. But his smirk gave off an odd sense of fascination to the involuntary symptom, like it was cute or something? Hm. He glanced back up at you, causing your dehydrated throat to bob as his other hand came to clasp over the rest of yours, swallowing it completely from the wrist down. "Intimidated?"

"V-Very," you spluttered, a small slither of saliva copulating down your throat as you looked back up at him. He absentmindedly rolled his tongue ring over the button row of his teeth as he watched you with tainted eyes— undoubtably getting cocky with that damn grin of his and proudly teasing you about your reaction to him. It gratified the effortless sex-appeal he had. You were even beginning to imagine that tongue ring elsewhere, and you literally just met him. Then, as you felt the band of a ring move along with the pad of his thumb as gently ran it across your trembly knuckles, chills shot up all the way to your shoulder. Oh... oh wow. You glanced down at his knuckles on reflex this time, and saw a four-letter word scripted in black ink across the bottom row of his knuckles, and another word scripted on the middle section of his fingers. A silver band on his naked thumb. STAY TRUE, it said.

"And why's that?"

"I.. feel like you're a celebrity," you sheepishly admitted, your other hand wedging into your back pocket as you had to stop yourself from reaching for the bill of your hat again. Is he flirting? The words seem too innocent for the way he was making you feel. It was getting so hot in the oven of his massive palms, and he wasn't even squeezing you hard enough to cut off any circulation, but yet your fingers were beginning to tingle.

"Mm, no. Just a little popular, really," he granted, teetering his head a little as he pondered the thought. You could see his vocal chords contract in his sleek neck as they project his smooth, pungent voice. "You still trust me?"

"Mhm," was all you could muster. He'd gotten even closer, to where his hand had gone into a prayer stance around yours. You were aware of how wide your eyes had gone from the awe you... you knew this was just the beginning. He was going to be very handsy throughout this whole process. But in a very twisted way, you were more than okay with that. Even if it meant you were at risk of fainting from actual dehydration. Maybe you were in over your head. But you couldn't will yourself away from this now. And then, just as a wide, heart-stopping smile edged out on that mind-numbingly handsome face, the door at that back of the room swung open, and heavy-metal rock blasted through the quiet vibe of the scenery and caused you to jump a little at the disturbance. Taehyung shot a wicked smile over his shoulder, and his next words nearly knocked you out right then and there as you beheld yet another, breathtaking sight.

"Oh, there you are," Tae eagerly acknowledged, one hand still holding yours as he walked around to grab your with the other, presenting you to the.. hulking presence in the room. "This is (Y/N), our next little experiment."

[lenievi]

I’ve been doing some reading about ace people’s experiences, and it, among other things, helped putting some things into perspective when I watch TV shows, and why I often have trouble with seeing some scenes in a certain way.

I’m trained to recognize many things in media, I assume we all are, but sometimes I need to do a LOT of thinking to see a scene as shippy (and just to be clear, it also goes for ships I ship; so it’s not me having some bias against a ship. And it’s also about het relationships people ship, but that were never in a romantic/sexual relationship on screen), and sometimes I fail. Logically, I understand that it can be read/seen that way, but I don’t “feel” it because it doesn’t come naturally... 

(I will also miss implied sex scenes unless they’re explicitly referenced to later, or unless someone tells me what I’m supposed to look for, just so you know what level of oblivious I’m talking about lol)

I like romantic stories and I enjoy reading fanfics, so in the past I often just made myself read fanfics of a dynamic I enjoyed despite not seeing it in the show/book/whatever (I don’t read fics for canonically established romantic relationships). So in a way a lot of ships I “ship” don’t come naturally to me, but because I like the dynamic, I’d read the fanfics where the author writes them as romantic, and I can enjoy that in a fanon sense because I do like the idea.

And that’s why tos!Spock/McCoy is kind of special to me because it actually does come naturally. I still have this canon and fanon line drawn (and I’m still a bit ??? about some scenes people consider hsjadhsakjfh), but I don’t have to stop and think about them being in a romantic relationship. I think because of the way tos!Spock is written, and the way McCoy and Spock’s relationship is written, it just hits some imaginary checklist that really appeals to me, which I haven’t been able to find with other ships and which makes me want to explore it. (Although I’m not quite sure what it is, exactly.)

There are other ships I love, but with most of them I actually have to think if I can imagine a romantic relationship. If other people do it for me in fics, that’s fine, and I’ll happily read them lol

This was only supposed to be the first paragraph. I didn’t want to make it into spones lol but it somehow happened. but idk if it even makes sense

but I’m just kind of happy that I finally realized what it was that I’ve always been missing when it came to shipping, why I rarely wanted to say that I ship XY. Not because I was ashamed (I’m mostly find telling people even the ships that’d probably have me cancelled lmao), but because I didn’t seem to “ship” it the way other people did, or at least the people around me

[alatismeni-theitsa]

anti LO anon opinions

(1) If i had to guess, the fact Hephaestus was written ok in LO is because of the editor. On their official job listings, one of the editor requirements at Webtoons is to actually aid in if not completely ghostwrite some of the episodes if need be. If i had to bet, the LO editor (the 3rd they're on now btw) had the better sense than to get into more hot water like the r*pe discourse and took over writing him so RS wouldn't make him another villain. RS tends to be a PR nightmare in that regard.

(2) If there’s one thing I find strange about the writing choices in LO (and I have a lot I don’t like) it’s that it pretty constantly tells and shows us Hades is, frankly, the worst king imaginable. He’s violent, he’s entitled, he doesn’t like to be corrected or told he’s wrong. He physically threatens others if not outright attacks them (a paparazzi college student isn’t evil for trying to make ends meet.) when called out on it, he doesn’t see the error of his ways and it’s even worse when Persephone calls him out on it and he just quiets her or they make out to shut her up I guess?

Even people from Hestia to Ares don’t trust Hades and call him cruel, violent, and a bad king. You cannot constantly tells us he’s a bad king and leader and see it as fair and just he remains a king at the end. This wouldn’t be an issue if it weren’t for the fact Smythe keeps framing and excusing him as the most perfect, romantic man ever and sole voice of reason and logic in her universe and who every man should be like and who every woman wants.

He would actually be a great antagonistic love interest, a fun take on H/P as a twisted dark romance of a young woman rejecting her perfect life for the darkness and cruelty of the king of death, but LO has no use for that when its sole purpose is to whitewash him and make them “precious cinnamon rolls”.

Also, going off visual cues, Persephone will be the one to change for HIS wants and lifestyle, not the other way around, so we know he won’t change his ways or even learn, but instead will get everything he wants and then some, only with the slight slap on the wrist that he won’t be able to have sex with his child-like bride half the year. 

Persephone is ultimately rendered a prop in her supposed story. This is not a story of empowering Persephone or giving her a voice, it is a story of excusing and romanticizing a cruel, capitalistic slave owner who really wants to have sex with someone who can pass for his daughter and framing it as a progressive romance.

(3) There’s something very sad in the fact the canon of LO is that Persephone isn't even of Demeter’s blood, but rather is made of clay. Persephone has had all her friendships, any hints of personality, understanding, goals, and even her family ripped away from her so the only thing in her life is Hades and what he wants and what tells her.

In comparison, Hades is given relationships to characters he never had in the myths (his expanded sex life, friendship with Hecate, huge emphasis on Rhea having him as her favorite child, Hera being his lover, even Thanatos to an extent), he gets to keep and even gains status as the implied true heir of Kronos and controller of all the wealth/CEO, and is given more personality and goals than myth gave him.

Despite being the lead character, Persephone is given nothing beyond wanting to be Hades’ wife. Her school work doesn’t matter to her, she has no flaws or complexities, she doesn’t know her own body or powers, her sexuality is based in naivety & only wanting Hades in a narrative that shames other consenting adults, I could go on. She ends up more regressed than myth had her, and Ancient Greece wasn’t exactly as progressive as we are today, while Hades ends up having more love and care put into him.

It shows just how little Smythe cares for the mythology but also the claims of it being “progressive feminism” are all lip service. Persephone is not a character in LO, she’s a prop to self insert on (which would be fine if it weren’t for the claims Smythe is “empowering” her) and make sure people don’t feel bad about shipping a assaulted kidnapping victim with her myth canon uncle and assailant. People have been shipping and writing HxP for decades with no issue and yet LO has twisted them into something even Tumblr (which essentially created it) is souring to.

(4) I dont mean to sound like a prude but why is lo Demeter, Hera and eve Artemis all drawn so cartoonishly sexy? every one of them are all drawn with super exaggerated tapered curves with huge boobs and hips and wearing clothes that are constantly showing off their chests and are dangerously close to showing more than just leg.

they're far from the only female characters drawn like that too. basically every woman has to be drawn with extreme sex appeal. that’s not to say the characters mentioned aren’t allowed to be sexual beings (I personally would love to see hera and demeter, two often prudish mother figures, have the chose to have their own love lives) but it becomes shallow when the only sex hera is allowed is via cheating on her husband with hades (gross, sorry 😂) and demeter being so removed from sex she made her daughter through /clay/ (because making persephone an object is better than just having her being from a single mother/no father mentioned I guess) this once again shows a lack of design or character considerations on Smythe’s part.

while the male characters get more variety (not much, but some) all the women regardless of character or traits are made into more pinups than their own unique beings. That’s not even mentioning the only unique looking woman (Athena) is only that way because she’s depicted essentially as a man. If you have anything bigger than an A-cup, it’s only a matter of time before you’re sexualized.