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mikami · 3 years ago

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hey there!!! i was thinking lately about the possibility of misa's way of perhaps relying on her cutesy/pretty/sexy aspect as a conscious or unconscious act of survival.

we know about the concrete traumatizing life changing experiences she's lived through. i wonder how safe it is to especulate what else she has gone through as a young woman who is a model.

& im curious abt your understanding of this aspect of her-- how do you think the way she presents herself to the world & others (both in personality & appearance) relates to her job? to the construction of the self as a product of consumption (especially w like i said, misa being a woman)?

does misa perform these things as a way to neutralize the harm of violence at the hands of men?

I'm not sure I would call it 'survival' exactly, but oh my god, Misa and gender performance is such an interesting topic.

I personally wouldn't headcanon further active violence into her backstory than we have been shown - I feel that if we're shown a characters formative traumatic experience (family death, stalking) that it's to give us a fairly complete picture of their life and motivations.

But at the same time, society is full of what I will now arbitrarily call 'passive violence' in the way women are put at a disadvantage. And definitely, her whole cutesy persona is in dialogue with that hostile world, navigating it and taking advantage of it.

I think Misa is an interesting case, because she is somebody who both entirely internalized gender roles for herself unquestioned and is deeply aware of how being perceived as a woman hinders or helps her in any given situation.

Like, on the one hand Misa is sexist society's wet dream. She is somebody who very sincerely believes that her place and fulfillment as a woman is at the side of a prince charming. She is completely convinced that her purpose lies in a relationship with a man.

Even though she's not the 'good wife' stereotype due to being a fashion subculture kind of girl (see: the Yagami parents' disdain of her), she's still holding these values close to her heart.

On the other hand, the way she weaponizes the perception people have of her is immediately front and center in her intro scene.

The VIZ translation here drives me mildly insane because the Japanese term she uses to describe herself here is "純粋な子" which in this context should roughly translate to 'pure young woman'.

It's not "Kira is nice to his supporters" but more along the line of "Kira is nice to good little girls". Misa knows she seems harmless on first sight. She knows her existence as a pretty frail teenage girl makes her an object of protective instinct to most men. But at the same time she juxtaposes it with the knowledge that she isn't just what she seems - as much as she adores Kira, she is perfectly confident that on the Death Note user power scale she's higher up.

Misa is fully aware that as an idol, she's a product to be sold. And that is where she personally finds her power - she doesn't protest female stereotypes and prejudice, she acts within those parameters to grab power from men unnoticed.

We see this most in her interactions with the Yotsuba Group, particularly Higuchi. Misa is aware she is desirable and she weaponizes that desirability against him. Presenting as cute, naive, soft and thoroughly attractive gives her power of manipulation. It is the capital she is used to bargaining with at all times.

In response to a world that is predisposed to take her less seriously because she's a dainty pretty girl, Misa has decided to intentionally curate that exact reputation for herself - only to then be able to use it to get her way. She's cute because men who want to get into her pants will do her favors. She's cute because how could anyone be mad at such a cute young woman acting selfishly?

I feel like we see that in her body language with Light - when he doesn't react as expected to her coming to see him against his wishes, she doubles down on the sweet body language and the "teehee, I am just an emotional little girl, you can't be mad at my pure lovey dovey feelings" act.

It's a neat mix because on the one hand: she clearly believes this about herself. She genuinely does think being a cute lovey dovey girl is her biggest purpose on this Earth. She genuinely enjoys being an attractive young woman (we see her dress up and act cutesy when she is by herself in her apartment after all). This is the self that she sincerely wants for herself.

But on the other hand she is so clearly aware of its impact. Her status as a product to be consumed is a constant bargaining chip.

Most heartbreakingly and extremely seen in the time after she loses her memories of being Kira and desperately attempts to buy her freedom by promising parts of herself to the assumed stalker.

Less heartbreakingly and more girlboss-y in interaction with the Yotsuba Eight, as mentioned before:

Self-objectification is an active practice of subverting power to Misa - exercising power without being seen as powerful and thus escaping the watchful eyes of those who could feel threatened by her.

#answers #misa amane #death note #luna thinks

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youwontlikethisblog · 3 years ago

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Freddy and Aura Maria.

While Aura Maria and Freddy have continued to be on the outs of their "relationship" Betty and Armando have just barely started setting ground on their feelings and such.

However this post is for Freddy and Aura Maria.

In my last post I talked about how Freddy takes on the role of Betty in his relationship with Aura Maria and how Aura Maria takes the role of Armando and how they all share similar traits as characters.

The things that make them opposite are for example, Freddy is very confident and extroverted while Betty is very timid and insecure. Armando is is mostly always angry and on a bad mood while Aura Maria seems to always be cheerful and in a good mood. While Betty has a lot of degrees and a good job Freddy doesn't have a high education and his job isn't something people aspire to have. While Aura Maria is a receptionist Armando is a partial owner of a multi-million company.

This episode takes place on the night of Betty's Birthday.

Just like the previous time that Freddy and Aura Maria had a moment of romance, this night will be similar. Aura Maria has been hurt, has been angry, and has been jealous over Freddy's flirtatious friendship with Jasmine, who takes on the role of someone he cares for but not to the point that he does for Aura Maria.

Freddy too has been hurt but when Aura Maria has needed him most he has step aside from his own ego and helped her out, though he did resume to it.

While at Betty's house she tries to talk with Freddy and she tries to get his attention, just like she normally does at the office but Freddy' sticks to his vow of silence.

Last time Aura Maria made him pick between Jasmine and her, the same night that Armando had to choose between Betty and Marcela(by this I mean in a symbolic way. Marcela had forced him to choose between Claudia Boche and Betty. When Hugo finally agreed to fire Claudia Boche, Marcela was still upset because the head she really wanted was Betty's and when Armando let Betty into the launch he went over Marcela's order and her and when he insisted they stay after the event, even when Marcela once more went to kick them out, he chose Betty instead of Marcela's desires.) and Freddy chose her. However things the next day didn't go as planned.

While Armando was arming himself with "courage" to make Betty fall in love with him, Aura Maria was sneaking around behind Freddy's back who thought they were now serious.

Since then Freddy and Aura Maria have been on a rocky path. Days later he found out about Aura Maria being out with another man and has been giving her the cold shoulder since then and Aura Maria has been trying to get him to forgive her.

Aura Maria is very immature and she lets all her attention and desires be guided by the heat of the moment. She doesn't really care for consequence; she almost got fired for that exact reason and if it hadn't been because of Freddy she would have ended up with no job.

Freddy always covers her back and he's always rescuing her from bad situations, just like Betty does with Armando and Aura Maria takes all of that for granted, just like Armando with Betty.

However this night all of that is about to change.

Aura Maria asks Freddy to take her out and because his partner in crime is drunk he decides that he can't let Aura Maria on her own and he drives her straight home, however Aura Maria asks him to take her out and they do.

Aura Maria questions Freddy about all his affection in the past and the jealousy fits he'd cause because of her other boyfriends while Freddy revs his motorcycle as a response to her, Aura Maria tells him if all of that wasn't a lie for him to take her anywhere he wanted.

Aura Maria, though understandable that she wants a economically secure future for her son and herself, devalues and throws away all of Freddy's efforts and affection and it isn't just motivated by the economic state of Freddy's wallet but more.

She once told Marcela that she knew she was beautiful and desired by many men who were better than Freddy and who had money. There's two reasons why she won't date Freddy and that's because both physically and financially she isn't vibing with him. Sound familiar?

Obviously to some degree Aura Maria is attracted to Freddy but not enough to actively desire him. It isn't until Freddy tells her that with her he experiences heaven that Aura Maria sleeps with him because unlike all the other men before, her emotional attraction to him is more than just fleeting. She becomes possessive of Freddy's emotional attributes and because he makes her feel good about herself and boost her ego, she feels that Freddy owes her that affection so when she sees him give that to Jasmine, she feels that he doesn't care about her and her ego plummets. Does this sound familiar?

Much like Armando, Aura Maria doesn't value the efforts that Freddy has shown to her. It isn't until it seems to be too late that she finally does and much like the first night they spent together, which was the night that Armando realized he felt more than just an appreciation for Betty(You Are The Spirit Of This Launch post), Aura Maria this night will once again have to face the reality that what she feels for Freddy is more than just a crush.

Freddy however sticks to his guns. He continues to give her the cold shoulder.

Freddy takes Aura Maria to a club. Freddy's behavior is his revenge against her. He throws a jab at her by saying "She can order whatever she wants since she's never considered what I want."

This is very similar to Betty's revenge against Armando in the future.

Freddy's revenge is done by removing his affection from Aura Maria, only showing it when it's really needed but as soon as that moment is gone he takes it back. He parades his affections towards others in front of her, which makes Aura Maria doubtful and question if Freddy ever really cared about her.

Even when they dance at the club Freddy doesn't dance with her and when he finally drops her off he continues with the silent treatment.

The next day when Betty and Aura Maria meet in front of Eco Moda, when Betty asks her how her night went she said that it was terrible and like she had spent the night with a robot.

It's funny to see the reversal of these two couples. The first time, when Aura Maria and Freddy hooked up for the first time, Armando and Betty were just about to start, however Armando was still in denial and cold towards Betty in a romantic way(I've got a lot of post talking about them).

In a play by play that night while Armando was being forced to face his true feelings towards Betty, Aura Maria was too being forced to face the reality of losing Freddy.

Here Jasmine and Nicolas symbolize their truest fear: Losing someone that is important to them to somebody that could be better than them.

Freddy and Betty are the objects of disdain of the romantic kind on a normal day but this night they become the object of securing. Both Aura Maria and Armando struggle with this realization, that soon they could lose a person that they simply know holds a lot of significance. It isn't based on love but an object possession that they feel over them.

This night both for Freddy and Betty was the same. They went to work, they did what they were supposed to do, they enjoyed the perks of the night and while Jasmine wanted her heart to be lifted when she failed at her one attempt to walk a runway, Nicolas, a friend of Betty's, stood outside waiting for her impatiently so that he told the doorman he was Betty's boyfriend so they could let him in.

While Armando spent a day of torment in his own confusion and feelings as well as denial, Aura Maria witnessed how loyal and how much he[Freddy] is willing to do for the woman he cares for. In the same vain that Armando realized that if Betty was that special with him, when he was simply her boss, how much more special could she be to someone who is her romantic partner? Aura Maria too had to face that reality. They both had the same motive while one is clear as day the other is disguised under something else.

The parallel that these two relationships have is that one is clear as day in regards of intentions while the other is a labyrinth of intentions.

The night when Betty and Armando have relations for their first time, parallels to Freddy's and Aura Maria's first time. Just as Aura Maria finally allows herself to feel what she feels for Freddy when he tells her that with her he touches the heavens, Armando allows himself to feel what he feels for Betty when she finally lets him and shows him he much she loves him, not with affection but by simply respecting his desires.

While Freddy has always pinned over Aura Maria and been open about his desire for her, the same way Betty has towards Armando, they both get their biggest dream made reality. However it's contradicting to them this night.

This night when B+A are out there sinning, Freddy and Aura Maria are having a horrible night.

Freddy has removed his love and affection from Aura Maria, simply behaving as a robot, as she says the next day, while Aura Maria is now being heavy in her attempts to conquest Freddy. This time Freddy doesn't fall for her tactics like he did the night of the launch.

I mean it makes sense that he wouldn't. I agree that people should never feel possessive of another person, be it romantic or platonic. People are not something you posses or belong to you. They don't owe you anything.

Freddy, though possessive at the start, never really acted out in jealousy or anger towards Aura Maria. He knew that he gave her his heart, in limited ways because that's how she wanted it, but he wasn't shy to show her how much she meant to him, however that comes to an end when Aura Maria is discovered to be unfaithful.

Though as an audience we understand that what Aura Maria wanted was a no strings attach(friends with benefits) with Freddy, if we're being honest, it's really unjustifiable what Aura Maria did.

Let's consider this relationship in the basic elements.

Freddy tries to flirt with Aura, who ignores any advance he makes towards her unless it benefits her. For example: Freddy skipping his lunch and asking to borrow money so that Aura can eat. Aura only flirting with Freddy when she needs something from him but always ignoring him and disregarding him when he makes any advances towards her that don't strictly benefit her.

Essentially what Aura does with Freddy is feed his illusion of love. She gives him the right amount of attention and affection when she needs something which translates to Freddy as "she cares about me, why else would she flirt with me?" However she also gives him the right amount of indifference, one that makes him stop in the moment but doesn't completely discourage his future efforts.

Was Freddy crossing lines? Not really. He wasn't shy to share what his true intentions were and whenever Aura told him to stop he withdrew his affection, without removing his feelings for her. Yes men should respect when we say no. However notice again how Aura encourages or even makes the effort to flirt with Freddy only when it strictly benefits her.

However she makes it pretty clear that for her, Freddy is a last option, a final thought if you will.

What does any of this have to do with the night of Betty's party?

For starters the roles are now reversed. While Aura Maria is now the one begging Freddy for an ounce of affection, Freddy is now being cold towards her, except that while Aura does this for the simple fact that she wants Freddy to pay attention to her in her possessive terms, Freddy is doing so because he is hurt and he no longer wants to be played with.

He is justified in his actions, though they are petty/immature, he believes that Aura doesn't really care about him.

Again this parallels to the future of B+A.

The next days at the office Freddy continues this cold shoulder of his towards Aura Maria. He continues to ignore her and to speak to her only through Wilson and only work related topics.

Jasmine again has squeezed herself between them.

I think it's so interesting to note a phrase that Freddy used at the start of his flirtatious "friendship" with Jasmine when Aura Maria asked him if he was going to participate in Sofia's plan to prove that Jasmine was a hoe by making her "fall" in love with Freddy that way she cheated on Sofia's husband. Freddy told her something along the lines of "I am going to help her[Sofia] but by my own merits because I can't miss the opportunity for someone to love me for real."

The reason this holds such an impactful and important meaning in the future is because he told this to Aura Maria before the night that Eco Moda had the new collection launch event and when she saw that Freddy could possibly fall in love with Jasmine, for her sake, her ego, she went and got in the way of said possibility and ironically as Armando told Mario that day it was to save the object of their affection from someone who would just take advantage of them while they were doing the same thing they were trying to prevent.

Aura Maria got in the way of Freddy's love life, interrupting it so she wouldn't lose him, not for love, but simply for her ego. This night however, Aura Maria has been forced to face her feelings.

As she now sees how badly she hurt Freddy. How hurt he was because though to her Freddy was simply just a work friend who she wanted to fool with, to Freddy Aura Maria was someone he wanted to commit to and consciously made the decision to love her. Despiste her rudeness, dismissal of his feelings, and even to some degree her gaslighting him, he still chose to love her. His love for her has always been true and faithful. As he said he wanted to take care of her and her son, he wanted to be part of their lives and be responsible for them but Aura Maria always dismissed this.

Why did she? Well in the introduction post I made for them I went into a more detailed explanation. Simply put a man can be ugly and because he has money(or a good personality but the first is more realistic) will still find love however an attractive guy who is poor can still be treated like a "ugly" woman does in society(tho not as harsh if we're being honest). Aura Maria places economic comfort above love and her ego above both.

Days later while Armando and Betty are dealing with the whole AA drama Freddy and Aura are dealing with their own drama. They are both trying to make each other jealous, saying they've got plans, dates, etc for the night with other people at the end of the night while A+B are being open about their feelings, Freddy and Aura Maria experience their true feelings and finally Freddy forgives Aura

However, while the next day Betty finds the letter and her revenge is played out, Freddy and Aura Maria start their honey moon phase, though they still fight and whatnot, they still become a couple.

It's interesting to see just how linked their relationships are.

While Aura and Armando basically go through the same changes and experiences, Betty and Freddy go through different processes and changes.

This is a post that is separate from this weeks post and has been sitting in my drafts for a few weeks now. Finally decided to edit it and post it.

Hope y'all enjoy it, til next time!

#aura maria ysblf #aura maria #freddy contreras #freddy ysblf #betty pinzón solano #armando ysblf #ysblf #yo soy betty la fea

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piduai · 4 years ago

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jokes aside, why is ogata fujo’d by far more than any other character in the show? it reminds me a bit of when isayama said he knew levi’s emo design would be popular with the fujoshis and i guess ogatas is similar in some ways, maybe that’s it?

hmmm let me stretch out my legs while in my leather chair as i bite into a cigar trying to channel the inner sigmundchansona.

i think there are two reasons for this phenomenon:

1. ogata is easily the most popular and divisive gk character, he's practically the face of gk in both jpn and western fandoms. statistically, the larger the number of a group of people, the larger are the chances of encountering clusters of nutjobs, weirdos, fujos and other kinds of fascinating individuals. it's not that ogata only has annoying fans, it's that, due to him being the most popular character, he attracts a variety of people, and a lot of them happen to be annoying. it's due to the sample size. fujos generally tend to be one of the most vocal and active fandom demographic no matter where you turn. so naturally, if most fandom fujos will designate him as their special little meow meow, he'll be prevalent in their content.

2. gk is actually not as fujo-friendly as it seems - it does attract a lot of women who have a steamy gay smex fetish because its cast is 98% male (so many opportunities for the hawt yaoiz!), but it doesn't deliver aesthetically. there's this century old joke that while fujos love slapping the salmon to the sight of two anime men in embrace, they recoil with disgust at real gay men when they don't deliver visually because they're more often than not very far away from looking like their idealized fantasy. noda is very well aware of that by the way, he expressed his disdain towards prettyboyz before. don't forget - BL is written by women for women, and gk is much closer to the gay manga (known as bara colloquially) than the BL aesthetic. between this:

and this

which one is closer to gk's vibe? lol. the way male-attracted women and male-attracted men are attracted to men tends to be quite different. overlapping is possible, sure, individual taste and whatnot, but generally it's different. gk's brand of hypermasculinity is more in line with the male vision because noda is a man exploring his fantasies who writes for a general audience and not a woman trying to cater to a female audience.

due to this kind of differences the "twinkish", as they say, catboy nonsense kind of character archetype/stereotype tends to be way more popular with women than with men. the kind of lithe, androgynous, young, brooding, flamboyant, pretty-faced kind of male has always been very popular with women - think 00s emo boys, think 80s rock stars - and it transcribed very well into BL, where the majority of the characters are just like that (either both of them in different ways, or the uke). so i can see why isayama would accurately predict that levi would be popular with that demographic. ogata simply happens to be the closest to that; noda did say that he's trying to draw him as traditionally prettyboyish. tanigaki, kiroranke and ushiyama are nowhere around ogata, sugimoto or koito in terms of fujo admirers, why is that? koito is also there, and it's the reason there's SO many fujos into koito too, there's just more ogata because look at point 1 - he's simply more popular.

now keep in mind that i'm not male, not male-attracted, and not an ogata truther, so i'm playing pin the tail on the donkey blindfolded here, all i can do is talk of personal observations and deductions, therefore take my words with a grain of salt. i am right tho <3

#anon #you DID say jokes aside bestie

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luxfurem · 4 years ago

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@treppenwitzz asked: i need all the deets about your bellatrix... ALSO ANJI i wanna know more about anji | MEME.

So... this ended up really long and therefore it’s under the cut! I sort of left out the “who they could get along with” part but I also feel like that really just depends on verses and such, so we can totally discuss that sometime 🥺🥺🥺

Bellatrix Lestrange

TW for mentions of alcohol, abuse, death and miscarriage

TROPES/ARCHETYPES: The Champion, Femme Fatale

Bellatrix is the very first muse that I officially wrote on indie, but also a muse that I’ve explored in the many group rps I’ve been in in the years before that. Because of that, she’s been through a lot of changing and tweaking over the years, but I like what I’ve got going for her now.

I’m absolutely a big fan of villain characters and I support the humanizing of them because in my mind, it is all the more terrifying that a villain could like the same things as you, could be like you, but be capable of such terrible things. I think it creates a frightening perspective that’s the quiet sort of terrifying, and it’s what I aim to do with Bella. I wanted to create a villainous woman who is powerful without being sorry for it.

I do want to stress that a villain doesn’t necessarily become worthy or deserving of pity or redemption because their story contains sad aspects. In the end, everyone encounters terrible and sad things in life, and it’s what you do with these experiences that matters. If you become bitter or vengeful, that is a decision, and the consequences of however you decide to treat the world after are not cancelled out because of the reason why you became this way.

On the one hand, she is this terrifyingly powerful witch who, despite her comparatively young age, climbed up the ranks of the death eaters to the position of lieutenant at Voldemort’s side, but on the other she is someone’s daughter, someone’s sister, someone’s wife. I wanted to explore how these two aspects of her story intertwine, or, in some cases, clash.

My Bella is a bit canon-divergent in that I absolutely refuse to write a woman who’s completely submissive to a man, especially one that doesn’t deserve it. Of course, I don’t want to stray too far from her original arc in that I still believe she’s absolutely starstruck by Voldemort, but she is more interested in his abilities, his mind and his cunning than she is in him as a partner. It’s a different kind of infatuation, where she isn’t all too sure if she wants him or wants to BE him. In time, she settles with neither, and becomes his champion, instead. She’s a knight under his banner, a soldier under his command.

Much of Bella’s arc comes down to a dominant woman living in a society that doesn’t like dominant women. Pureblood circles are catered to the pureblood man, whereas the woman’s job, much like in societies of previous eras, is to bear a husband's children to continue the pureblood line. It’s a crude and sexist thing, and Bella wants none of it. From a young age, she rebels against her father’s firm beliefs in the way things are supposed to be, and rebels against her mother’s attempts to “guide” her back to how she’s supposed to be. She’s the feral child with the holes in her dresses, the scrapes on her legs from climbing trees and running too fast. Her long hair always tangled and messy. She knows that as a girl in the Black family, the highest achievement would have been to become matriarch, but even that wasn’t ever going to be enough for Bella.

When her mother dies, about two years after the birth of Narcissa, the matriarch of the Black family, Walburga, takes over the role for a short amount of time while her father drinks his grief away. After Sirius is born, however, even this steadiness falls away, as their aunt spends her full time caring for him and the second son, Regulus, born a year after. This leaves Bella to assume responsibility for her sisters at the age of 8. Her fights with her father, their temperaments going head to head resulting in situations I don’t really care to divulge about.

Once accepted into Hogwarts is where things start to divert. From one day to the next, her previously always messy hair is neatly combed back into a braid. Her clothes are pristine, not a spot in sight, and her sharp commentary is kept to a minimum. To all those around her, it seemed she had finally heeded her mother’s wishes, and embraced her place in society. But to those who knew her well enough, to her sisters and to her cousins, there was a stubborn fire burning behind those crow-black eyes, burning higher and brighter the more time passed. It was only a matter of time until the fire either consumed her, or consumed those around her.

It was at the age of 17, during her last year at Hogwarts, that Bellatrix was introduced to the Dark Lord. She’d seen him before, of course, but the Black family had stoically kept their stance on the matter of his campaign neutral, although this wouldn’t last. Her fiance-to-be, Rodolphus, who was a few years her senior, had already joined the ranks, and Voldemort’s actions could no longer be brushed off as a mere whim by the family. And Bella, who desired more than the life of a housewife, saw this as an opportunity to lift herself up.

I want to stress that I, as both a Tom Riddle and Bellatrix writer, don’t think their dynamic was of a romantic or lustful nature at all at this point in time, if ever. Voldemort saw the fire and the potential, and decided that he wanted both of these things for himself, for his ranks. She exceeded expectations and he decided that, if anyone was worthy to be his student, it was her. Over the course of the next two years, he trained her in the dark arts, eventually revealing her, at the age of nineteen, to be his new lieutenant. This was met with some resistance, of course. but Bella was quick to silence that. After all, she had risen above her station, and it had taken effort. She was not about to lose that to a bunch of butthurt men.

It’s also around this time that she marries Rodolphus, whom she puts through the ringer for months before and even post-marriage. She hated the idea of being passed from one man (her father) to another (her husband), as if she is nothing more than a possession. The marriage was arranged, and this bothered her, too, considering her lack of choice in the matter. And because she couldn’t exactly fight her father on it, she fought Rodolphus instead. On every turn, hoping he would be turned off and cancel it. After all, a man’s voice, even if he was only an heir, and not patriarch, still sounded louder than a woman’s voice ever would. But it only seemed to invigorate him, pulling closer the more she pushed. As if he were attracted to the fire, wanted to scorch himself just to stand in the light. He never forced her and he never would, even as she refused to let him into their marriage bed for months, even as she taunted him and ridiculed him. The marriage, in time, seemed to grant her a certain freedom that she never had as a daughter of house Black. She could go where she pleased, do as she pleased, pursue her position among the death eaters as she wanted to. She lost her wariness towards him, her anger. And eventually, she learned to love him.

Bellatrix used to be closest to her sister Andromeda. The two of them were, for a long time, practically inseparable, two halves of a whole. It was as if they should have been twins, and what one lacked, the other would possess. Where one went, you could soon expect the other to be. That was, of course, until Andromeda defected. When she did, Bella’s whole world collapsed. Her castle was captured from the inside, by sadness, by grief and by anger at the deceit. Because Andromeda hadn’t chosen her. Had chosen a “filthy mudblood” instead of her own sister, who had always cared for her, always been there for her. If Bella had had a mean streak, before, it was now full blown, a riptide that would destroy everything and everyone that didn’t get out of her way. She was devastated by the loss, and would never quite recover from it. This event had a huge impact on her view on muggleborns. Whereas before she allowed herself a certain tolerance, where she still viewed herself as holier than but limited her disdain to snooty looks and haughty comments, she now was actively hostile, threatening and garnering a reputation among the ranks of the death eaters for her ruthless, cruel actions.

During her marriage, Bella was pregnant exactly 4 times, but all 4 pregnancies ended up miscarriages fairly early on. It’s my belief that her problems stem from the inbreeding within the family and the English pureblood society in general. Contrary to her other beliefs on the woman in pureblood society, she was interested in being a mother and had the motherly instinct to go with it. Her not being capable of bearing children left her feeling devastated and hardened her heart. In AUs where she does have children, whether of her own or adopted, she develops a sort of caution, a knowledge that she isn’t just responsible for herself, but for this child as well. In these AUs, it keeps her out of Azkaban.

Speaking of Azkaban, I usually don’t write about her time there or really post-Azkaban, and this is mostly because I hate the narrative that she’s “crazy”, and I think it’s harmful towards people who have mental health problems. I believe, due to how Azkaban’s dementors suck the happiness out of people and how Azkaban looks like hell on earth, she suffers from a form of PTSD, but she is not “crazy”.

A few loose facts about her:

is bisexual but leans towards men

loves to write poetry, but she never shows it to anyone.

has a very low tolerance for alcohol and barely drinks.

loves coffee and can’t function without drinking it every morning

is obsessed with taking care of her hair. It’s long and dark and very well-maintained

loves to wear red lipstick

forced herself to learn to use her wand with both her left and her right hand

Anji Terryll

TROPES/ARCHETYPES: The Antihero, The Living Legend, The Reluctant Hero

Anji is actually one of my older muses, who doesn’t see the light of day often because I suppose the Skyrim fandom is sort of dead. On top of that, she’s a female oc. i don’t think i’ll need to explain this. Regardless of that and the lack of information I’ve put online about her ( which I actually seek to remedy by writing this ), she’s a quiet favorite who will never disappear from my roster.

I wanted to create a person who fate had been thrusted upon unwillingly. I wanted to create a woman who had never planned to do anything that didn’t benefit herself in life. Anji’s early life consisted of what was barely a life at the orphanage in Riften, where she watched the Thieves Guild lift jewelry from a man’s pocket with the man none the wiser. She never entertained the idea of being an honest worker, because she’d seen how the jarl treated honest workers. Of course, she knew that if she were to be caught thieving, the storm she’d call over herself would be worse, but that was only if she was going to be caught.

So she got herself into the Thieves’ Guild, worked her way up the ranks to Guild Master, before, near the border, she was caught stealing a horse and shipped off to Helgen, where the main story begins.

Anji is, from the start, reluctant about her supposed fate. She never believed in prophecies and rarely in Gods and now, everything was real, everything was true. And she was the main character of a legend. Thrust into a role she doesn’t think fit her. She isn’t who these people deserve, a thieving woman who serves only her own benefit. The people deserved a selfless knight, advocating for the survival of mankind, believing so wholly in oneself that they could overcome a legendary monster like Alduin the World-Eater. Someone who isn’t her. So she rejects her abilities, rejects her destiny, and pretends for months that she isn’t the one the Greybeards are calling from the Throat of the World.

And for a time, it works. For a time she can focus on the physical gain, the money she earns, the reputation. But in the back of her mind, the knowledge scratches at the door she keeps it behind. She sees the destruction the dragons are causing all over Skyrim, the terror of the people. The loss of morale. She tells herself that she decides to see what these Greybeards have to say, if only to tell them they’ll need to find someone else.

But she comes to learn that there is no one else. There is only her and her bow, and her lack of morale, against an ancient dragon.

Anji is the Reluctant Hero, the Unlikely Hero, not the woman you’d expect when one mentions the Dovahkiin. She’s slight and flighty, quick as a whip with her twin blades, relying on speed above strength. She prefers sneaking through the shadows instead of fighting her way through boldly and openly, and she never starts fights she can’t win. This doesn’t mean she won’t kill, and doesn’t mean she won’t use her powers, even for personal gain. She enjoys the power of the Voice and, as lore suggests, overtime grows more and more powerful (think: her voice can at some point burn the ice off a mountain), but she hates the responsibility that comes with it and will never fully accept it. She’s practical and quick-witted, more on the serious side of the spectrum, although she possesses a funny streak that only shows up in intimate settings ( think: close friends/guild/lovers ) or when she’s completely drunk. She observes each angle of a job or mission before proceeding, wanting to be ahead of each trap she might run into.

A few loose facts about her:

is bisexual but leans towards women

has absolutely no interest in bearing children, adopting is fine though

favors her bow over her twin blades

carries two daggers in each boot

In some verses she can be a werewolf for absolutely no other reason other than that i can

in modern verses she owns a martial arts school

Play smart not hard

#*✧･ﾟ OUT OF CHARACTER.#*✧･ﾟBELLATRIX LESTRANGE.#*✧･ﾟ ANJI TERRYLL.#treppenwitzz

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weirdochick56 · 5 years ago

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Gentle Notes- Dean Winchester One Shot

Dean Winchester x reader

Warnings: None. Explicit language maybe? FLUFFFFFFFFFFFFFF.

Disclaimers: I don’t own any SPN characters/plots mentioned.

Word count: 1, 796

Summary: In which the reader hides the fact that she can sing from Dean and is one day caught doing exactly that by the eldest Winchester.

Listen to Kina Graniss’s version of “Can’t Help Falling In Love” Here!!

***

You look around your dull room in the mostly-vacant bunker with disdain. The boredom was overwhelming you so much, you had begun spacing out. And the book wasn’t even boring!

The Winchester brothers were probably on an adventure hunting down some monster, meanwhile here you were, practically chained to your bed reading a book.

And not even a lore book, mind you, but a romance novel. And it wasn’t the book itself that had you so jittery, it was the fact that you were reading a book for the first time in well, decades, for the purpose of entertainment and not research.

You sigh, the small book feeling completely unsuitable in your lap in sharp contrast to the normally-heavy old, dusty books you were forced to go through.

Closing your book shut and looking down at your cast-clad leg with hatred seemed fitting at the moment, though. Stupid leg, you grumble mentally.

Getting it broken and being unable to complete the normal kick-ass, monster-hunting activities you were used to was one thing, but having Dean Winchester practically order you to stay home like a good girl and do mundane things while he and his brother got to go out and fuck up some demon was entirely different.

Painfully different.

Aggravatingly different.

I’m-gonna-kick-your-ass-if-you-speak-like-that-to-me-again-Winchester different.

So here you were, attempting with all your might (which wasn’t very much at the moment) not to scream in utter frustration. Hunting was your life. Hunting was the only thing you knew how to do. Well, as far as everyone knew.

And sure, you’d gotten a few scrapes here and there, but nothing so serious you couldn’t hunt. Until now, that is. And until now, you hadn’t felt so...incapacitated.

Shit, you frown. I need to do something. Researching was out of the question as Sam had somehow managed to scrape up all the necessary information up on his own. Cleaning? No, you’d already picked up after the messy brothers the night before. There was nothing to pick up. Sleeping? Nope, not tired. Eating? Not hungry.

So?

And then suddenly, it hits you. How about covering?

You grin broadly, leaning over the side of your bed with a tiny groan when you accidentally twist your leg the wrong way and promptly tugging your old guitar from beneath your bed.

Not the best option to keep your most prized possession, but enough to hide it from prying eyes.

It’d been a while since you’d been able to string the guitar. To sing your heart out. Being with the brothers on the road constantly left you no time to listen to your own music, much less play it yourself. Not to mention you flat-out refused to let anyone hear you sing. Not because you were bad, because you knew you could sing, but because it just wasn’t something you were ready to share. Singing and playing the acoustic guitar was your thing. You weren’t sure if you were ready to let anyone know about it.

So confident that the brothers wouldn’t be back for another day, you decide to tune your guitar first and warm up your vocals. Then you press your back to the headboard, sitting up and letting your arm muscles relax onto the large instrument.

It had most certainly been a while since you’ve felt the familiar weight of your guitar and even longer since you’d open your mouth to so much as hum along to a song in fear of getting caught.

You tested out the six strings on your guitar before settling for “Can’t Help Falling In Love” by Elvis Presley. It was your favorite to play on guitar and you’d sung it before.

You cleared your throat, letting your fingers ghost over the strings before you let your let your eyes flutter shut and play the first chords. Then you opened your mouth.

Wise men say only fools rush in But I can't help falling in love with you Shall I stay? Would it be a sin If I can't help falling in love with you?

The lyrics that come out of your mouth are breathy and slow at first. Raspy and barely audible, but sweet and smooth as honey. Full.

Like a river flows surely to the sea Darling so it goes Some things are meant to be Take my hand, take my whole life too For I can't help falling in love with you

You keep the strumming of your fingers over the guitar consistent and accurate, the familiar warmth of singing and playing the guitar flooding the pit of your stomach, wrapping around your whole body and shining through on your voice.

You sounded magnificent. Full of emotion but still keeping your voice controlled. The pitch was strikingly on point and your mouth moved softly, encasing each soft murmur from your lips with full intent. You felt so happy.

Like a river flows surely to the sea Darling so it goes Some things are meant to be Take my hand, take my whole life too-

CRASH.

You immediately stop strumming, your voice getting caught in your throat and your eyes flying open. As soon as you do, you see Dean standing near your doorway, a wince clearly inscribed on his beautiful face and your alarm clock lying in pieces on the floor.

Dean looks up at you with wide eyes and a sheepish smile. “Uh...sorry?”

Your breath gets caught in your throat as you stare at him. Oh no. Oh no. The cat was out of the bag!

Then you groan, your cheeks flushed. “Oh God. I’m- when did you get here Dean?”

He smirks, regaining his composure almost immediately and approaches you with a smug jerk of his broad shoulders in his step and you figured a shitload of teasing was going to be coming your way which induced a grimace on your face almost immediately.

“I don’t think that matters much now, does it miss I-have- a-secret-singing-talent?” He raises his brows and you flush shamefully. By then he grins so wide you have a hard time figuring out how his face wasn’t split in half. “I mean, Goddamn, you have a set of pipes in you sweetheart!”

You groan again, covering your flushed face with your hands.

“Oh god. No one was supposed to know!”

You can hear him let out a surprised sound and cautiously take your hands off your face. He was looking at you like you’d grown two heads. “What?”

Dean sits next to you, a soft smile gracing his perfectly-sculpted lips instead of the condescending one from before. “Nothing. I just can’t seem to figure out, for the life of me, why someone with such a beautiful voice would ever want to hide it away from anyone. From me.” He looks at you pointedly.

Your blush intensifies and you can’t help but smile at him shyly. “I just- I don’t want people to look at me negatively, ya’ know? For having my own thing, I mean.” Your voice is far too low.

Dean sighs with exasperation and takes your face in his hands softly, forcing you to look into his absurdly bright green eyes.

“Sweetheart, no one’s gonna look down on you for singing like a fucking angel.” He pauses to chuckle a little and you’re left a little breathless at the sound. “And not the asshole ones either, the naked babies with halos and shit.” He beams. “I mean, hell, you have the goddamn most beautiful voice I’ve ever heard!” he bites his lip in order to contain his excitement but fails miserably.

You forget how to breathe for a second. He’s being so supportive and his face is so close to yours and suddenly you have this overwhelming impulse to kiss him senseless.

You gulp, chuckling softly. “Uh, yeah. Thanks, Dean.”

His face turns serious and he looks scrutinizingly into your eyes. “Y/n, I’m fucking serious. You might be a great hunter, but with talent like that, you could become a star or something.”

You laugh a little at his words and blush once more. “That’s not really my thing, D. Hunting is my life. And singing is only a passion. I can’t have both.”

His lips twitch at the corners a little and his eyes are sad when he leans in and kisses your forehead. You suck in a sharp breath and your chest feels warm with adoration.

Then he looks at you, eyes soft. “Y/n, I’ve never seen you so engrossed in something. You looked so...so beautiful. The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

You scoff, hiding a blush, and shake off his hands gently. “You’re just saying that,” you mumble.

He cups your face again, forcing you to look at him once more. Your breath hitches at the look he’s giving you. His sparkling green eyes glimmer with pure, sheer -almost overwhelming- adoration. He looks at you as if no one else mattered in the entire universe. Your noses brush and his gaze flickers to your lips, bright green irises darkening to dark shimmering emerald.

“I’m not, sweetheart. Trust me when I tell you that you’re the most gorgeous woman I’ve ever laid eyes on.”

You blink a few times, your cheeks blushing and your head unable to wrap around the thought of someone as devastatingly handsome as Dean thinking you were attractive. Gorgeous.

“Dean-“ you go to protest but Dean effectively shuts you up by placing a finger over your lips.

As he shushes you, his eyes never part from your lips as he licks his own subconsciously.

“Y/n. I’m going to kiss you now. I think you should know this because I’m giving you the chance to back out.”

Your breath hitches and your heart races but you don’t move an inch. Dean seems to understand your approval as he slowly leans in, eyes fluttering shut. Your eyes fall shut too and you can feel his warm breath fanning your face as your stomach knots in anticipation.

He hovers over your lips for only a few seconds before leaning in and pressing them firmly to yours.

Your breath catches and you lightly part your lips, enveloping his passionately and cradling his face caringly in between your hands. His stubble tickles your fingertips and you shiver lightly at the sensation.

The kiss is gentle, sweet, bit filled with obvious craving and your head spins at how good he smells and feels like this.

It’s over sooner than you expected and your eyes flutter open.

“Dean-” you breathe.

He smirks softly, caressing your face lovingly. “You didn’t back out.”

You blush, leaning into his touch. “Why would I?”

***

Here’s an olddddddd one shot I wrote and had in my drafts hope you enjoyed.

A Special thanks to my forevers:

@jessikared97

@lilypalmer1987

@ladyofletters67

@sammykb1994

@mogaruke

#dean x reder #dean winchester x reader

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oliviatcte · 5 years ago

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TASK THREE | BIRTHDAYS & ZODIACS

NOVEMBER 24, 1990

“Restless, cheerful, and friendly, Sun in Sagittarius people are generally on the go. They have a love of freedom, and a disdain for routine. Generally quite easygoing, Sagittarians make friends with people from all walks of life. They love to laugh and tease, and get along well with both sexes. Sagittarians have an often blind faith in people, and in the world. Their optimism is infectious, although it can get them into trouble from time to time. These are curious people who love to learn. Their idealistic nature is hard to miss.”

THE SUN (SAGITTARIUS): Your style, your life purpose, your destiny...

What is your character’s drive like and what fuels them? Olivia is incredibly driven. She often grows restless when forced to wait around too long. She has a lot of curiosity about the world around her, and it doesn’t take much for her to throw herself into her work or any new activity. She is fuelled by the unknown — that little voice inside of her, just dying for answers to all of her queries.

What is most obvious about your character? Her cheerful and friendly disposition is often the first thing that people notice about Olivia. She has a vibrant and goofy personality that offsets the rather serious and analytical side that comes out when she’s on the job.

Who and what kind of people does your character surround themselves with? Olivia likes to surround herself with other friendly and easygoing individuals. Those who have their own aspirations and a natural zest for life. She loves spending time with her family and friends, but she’s always up for meeting new people.

THE ASCENDING (VIRGO): How the world sees you...

“Those with a Virgo Ascendant are likely to view the world through the lens of mental analysis, with a view toward organization. Typically humble and at times self-effacing, they are likely be more concerned with being useful than being recognized. Virgo Ascendants need to be productive – to be of service somehow – and their chosen career will typically give them the opportunity to best employ their skills. They are likely to be practical, capable and dexterous. They may be very good with facts, figures and details. They may also be quite hard on theirselves because of early childhood experiences, and need to learn to recognize and appreciate their talents.“

In a public setting, would your character be easy to adapt or hesitant wherever they are? In a public setting, Olivia is pretty quick to adapt. She is incredibly perceptive and can easily adjust her behaviour to fit the situation.

Is your character an extrovert or an introvert? Olivia is definitely an extrovert. She’s typically the first to approach people and start up a conversation. This is especially convenient for her career, as it often forces her into awkward situations. She loves being around other people and feeding off of their energy, though she does appreciate having some time to herself as well.

What qualities do you think people first see in your character? The detective spends a lot of time inside of her own head, analyzing her surroundings and tuning into the people around her. In professional settings, people are often quick to see her intelligence and curiosity. When it comes to social situations, though, Olivia’s warm personality is often the first thing to shine through.

THE MOON (AQUARIUS): Your habits, reactions, and instincts...

“Moon in Aquarius people are extremely observant. They are life-time students of human nature, loving to analyze why people do what they do. This often stems from a detached--even shy--personality, especially in youth. Whether due to character or conditioning, Moon in Aquarius people often grow up feeling "different". Although rather sociable, they are often loners at heart. Those with the Moon in Aquarius seem to have access to the mysteries of the universe through their inner lives. Their emotional detachment keeps them cool in crises but can make them as remote as a distant galaxy.“

What moment does your character relive, either consciously or unconsciously? Although she doesn’t want to admit it, Olivia is often haunted by her failed relationship. In the back of her mind, she questions whether there was something she should have done differently. She hates that she was so close to living the fairytale life she had always dreamed of, and now she doesn’t know if anyone will ever love her that way again.

How does your character (negatively or positively) adapt to life experiences? Although Olivia is quick to adapt in most situations, certain circumstances have been more difficult for her than others. After calling off the wedding, her first instinct was to flee New York City, worried that all of the places and people she had come to love would soon be tainted by the breakup. While most of the time, she faces things head on, Olivia’s likely to avoid these more emotional topics.

What facts would your character conceal? Olivia is pretty open about most things, apart from her career and failed relationship. Since relocating to Mystic, she has made sure to prevent the contamination of evidence by claiming to be a writer. Otherwise, the woman is pretty much an open book.

THE VENUS (CAPRICORN): Your attractions and your love life...

“Venus in Capricorn people will try to win your heart by displaying self-control, presence of mind, and responsible behaviour. These lovers want you to know they are goal-oriented, witty, savvy, and controlled. Nobody can get the best of them. They want you to see just how competent they are. They like some measure of predictability in their relationships as they are cautious in love. Venus in Capricorn men and women project an aura of competency and their loner-like behaviour can be attractive, in a cool way. They don’t go gaa-gaa over love, or at least they don’t express as much. Their lovers may complain that Venus in Capricorns are a little too practical and deliberate. Certainly, they can come across as lacking in warmth and spontaneity. Truth is, they can be rather romantic souls who yearn for a partner to share their lives with.“

What kind of hobbies does your character have and why do they enjoy them? Although Olivia isn’t a journalist like her father, she does enjoy writing. One day, if she’s ever successful enough in her field, she would love to come out with a book of her own. She is also a huge plant lady and loves tending to them on a daily basis. It gives her a sense of responsibility and allows her to start her morning on the right foot. As somebody who is incredibly organized, Olivia also loves using her planner and making practical, yet creative spreads.

What does your character find attractive, either in people or in their own possessions? She is definitely most attracted to goal-oriented people. She loves hearing about others’ passions and being able to see them thrive. Having a good sense of humour and being able to carry an intellectual conversation are also high on Olivia’s list.

How does your character (negatively or positively) demonstrate their affection? Olivia isn’t one for flashy displays of affection. Instead, she typically shows love for her partner in other ways. Whether it’s through gift giving, touch, or even opening up about the deepest parts of herself. You’ll know she’s crazy about you if she ever decides to write you a poem.

How does your character fall in love? Do they jump into relationships, or take slow, measured steps? Describe their behaviours and actions if you’d like. Olivia isn’t always the most self-aware. It takes her ages to even realize that the other person is interested. Due to past experiences, she is rather slow to fall in love. But once you’ve captured her heart, you’ll definitely know it.

THE MARS (TAURUS): Your strifes, temperament, and passions...

“’Slow and steady wins the race’ could easily be a motto for Mars in Taurus. These goal-oriented people are not known for their speed, but their staying power is tremendous. Generally calm and easygoing people, Mars in Taurus natives can have powerful tempers when they’re overly provoked. They generally don’t fly off the handle as quickly as others, however. Mars in Taurus people value strength and stability. They are driven by security and an especial fondness for personal possessions. Most are not afraid to work for what they want, and there is an overall patience to this position of Mars. If it takes a few years to achieve their goals, so be it.”

What does your character want with every fiber of their being? If Olivia could only have one goal in life, it would be to figure out what happened to her childhood best friend. The mystery haunts her every day of her life, and is such a big reason for the person she is today. Aside from finding these answers, her other goal is self-fulfillment. She wants to be happy and find somebody to spend the rest of her life with.

What will your character do to get what they want? How far will they go? Unfortunately, Olivia would go to great lengths for the answers she’s seeking. Even if it puts her in dangerous circumstances. She is always trying to be a little better and pushing herself a little further, so it wouldn’t surprise me if she went to the ends of the Earth to try and meet her goals.

What makes your character see red? What makes their blood boil? The one thing that really bothers Olivia is when people don’t take her seriously. She’s worked hard to be where she is today, and it hurts her to receive such unexciting cases or to be mocked by non-believers. All she wants in this world is to make a difference and she hates when people try to stand in her way.

On a symbolic level, what battles has your character lost and what wounds have they suffered? Although she doesn’t like to show it, Olivia has definitely suffered. As a child, she went through a lot after her friend/neighbour’s abduction. There was so much guilt knowing that she hadn’t done anything, and knowing that it could have been her or her brother. She has also experienced a lot of heartache after the ending her engagement. And to make matters worse, she finds it hard to be respected in her field.

#mystic: task

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olderthannetfic · 5 years ago

Photo

It’s International Fanworks Day and also the 30th and final post in this series. If you follow my tumblr, you know that my true fandom isn’t buddy cops or Highlander or any of those things. No, my true fandom is...

WANK

No matter which bitchy piece of fujo-course nonsense you’re looking at on tumblr, no matter which debate about WNGWJLEO or women in slash or fanfiction vs. media you're reblogging, your grandma was having that fight in a zine somewhere in 1985 and at Escapade in the 90s.

Here’s a vid review from 2002:

"History Repeating," [...] was an Amanda vid. In-fucking-credible. Who knew? Who knew I could like Amanda? Who knew there were fresh HL clips I hadn't seen a thousand times before in HL vids? (Of course, as someone pointed out, she had her own spin-off.) This rocked--sharp, fast cutting and pretty, pretty shots, with a hot bisexy vibe running through it. And, you know, people like to say that there's all this self-hating misogyny in fans--you know, that women hate shows about women, hate women characters breaking up the OTP, etc. But when you see a femme-centric vid like this bring down the house, you really have to wonder. Is it misogyny, really, or is just that we usually see a bunch of crap representations of women in media and resist them?

So on the theme of There Is Nothing New Under The Sun, here is a selection of past Escapade panels on gender, representation, and problematicness:

1993 - Anti-Feminism in Slash Fandom (Or, how 'it was never this good with a woman' syndrome... where are the women, and why do we care?)

1995 - Why Lesbians Read Slash - (What's the attraction? Why do they care? Why do they write it?)

1996 - Character Bisexuality: Convenient fiction or character trait? (Is this a good compromise between "We're not gay, we just love each other" and "I was gay all along and just faking it with women"? Or is this too easy? Special mention for the stereotypical bisexual villian who's evil, sexy, and can come on to everyone.)

1996 - Female Heroes: Female Empowerment, or male power in women's bodies? (Give a woman a gun and make her really tough. Wow, cool! yes, or no? Are we celebrating women, or are we merely putting breasts on male action heroes? Heroines under discussion may include (but not be limited to) Sara Connor, Ripley, Vasquez, Thelma & Louise.)

1997 - Gender Astigmatism (The Gender Continuum: in what we read, in what we write, and what we are, there is always a connection with a point on the gender continuum. How do our definitions of "feminine" and "masculine" influence our creativity? Where do bisexual characters fit in? (besides there, you dirty-minded person!)

1998 - Xena: Does Girl-Slash Get Us Going? (Xena is the first show with a feminine couple to be really popular. What kind of slash fans are interested? Does gender orientation matter? Or do slash fans love slashy couples regardless of their gender? Can m/m fans be 'converted' to f/f fans?)

1998 - Bastards & the Women Who Love Them (When Methos says, "you live to serve me," any normal '90s woman says, "I don't think so!... or does she? A happy contemplation on the virtues of handsome thugs.)

1998 - Slash: a Continuation of Women's Writing, led by Constance Penley (In case you didn't know, in her recent book NASA/TREK (yes, the slash is intentional), she addressed slash as a continuum of women's writing, combining women's romance, and the male quest romance. Join her for a discussion of slash -- where it was, where it is, where it might be going.)

1998 - The Trauma of Slash Fans in Het Fandoms (Or, what to do when find women doing all that cool, tough-guy stuff you love.)

1999 - Male Slash Fans - Welcome Voice, or Infringement? (Slash is written by women for women — or is it? The Internet has attracted new fans, including the "male slash fan". Who is he? What does he think of what "we" do? Do we care?)

2002 - Femslash (General discussion on female/female slash fiction. If Buffy wanted something cold and hard between her legs, why didn't she just choose silicon?)

2003 - Slash: Feminist political act or really good porn?

2005 - Where have all the lesbians gone? (When some slash lists explicitly state m/m only, where do you go for femslash? Are there any hot femslash couples? Pimp your femslash fandom here, or bemoan the lack of strung female characters in the current conservative social climate.)

2007 - Femslash: The Other Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name (Femslash. It's a work that makes some of our hearts leap for joy and inspires complete and total disinterset—or even dislike and disdain—in others. Where can we find the good stuff? What makes it good? And what's up with the haters?)

2007 - SGA: The Women of Atlantis (What do we like about how the women of SGA are written and portrayed, and what makes us wince? What do we think about how their issues are being woven into the show's narrative?)

2008 - Gay is Not Slash (...even though slash is sometimes gay. The current argument about m/m romances by women as taking recognition *away* from male gay writers, depends on m/m writing being intended as gay lit. And slash, for one, isn't, even if there can be overlap. What overlaps? What doesn't? What examples do fans like?

2009 - Female Character Stories: Halfamoon, Full Moon or Just Moony (F/f slash, and other stories centered on female characters, are gaining visibility in fandom. Are there things fens will write about women that we won't about men? (Given MPreg, *are* there?) Should f/f be like m/m, or is it unavoidably different?)

2011 - My ***** is Not Ideologically Driven, But is it Homophobic (Slash fandom often sees itself as a mostly liberal community. IDIC, right? But recently there's been a slash backlash: it's anti-feminist, a 'symptom' of internalized misogyny. We're 'erasing' the women characters after all. Is slash homophobic? Does slash fandom appropriate gay culture? Is it awesome and ennobling as it makes us happy in our panties, or is all that self-hatred bubbling just beneath the surface of our porn?)

2012 - Natural Woman (We've lamented the lack of strong, believable female characters (who dress appropriately). But now we have them: Gemma Teller and Audrey Parker; Salt and Haywire; we've got Bechdel-passing women who look like they can throw a punch. Still, most of them are in the sci-fi or action genre, so are we really seeing progress? And what are we doing with them, as fans?)

2012 - Don't Call It a Bromance (It's Just Canon) (TPTB are increasingly aware of slash, and bromance is regular fare on TV canon these days. Does overt bromance make the fic and art hotter or just vanilla? Is there an anti-slash backlash in our shows? Is the emphasis on men's relationships making women disappear? Inquiring minds want to know. If you have answers, theories, or just want to squee, join in the fun!)

2014 - (The End of?) Ladybashing in Slashfic (Slashfic used to regularly feature bashing of female characters. Now, blatant bashing seems less fashionable. If you recognize this trend, let's talk! Were most ladybashing fics ones for juggernaut pairings in megafandoms, or were they everywhere? What's causing the change: more women in leading roles/ensemble casts, fic writers being more conscious to avoid bashing ladies even if they're not their favorites, more willingness to blame show writers' bad writing (instead of the character being just bad/evil/stupid) for bad female characters, or something else entirely?)

2015 - Fifty Shades of Fandom (Fifty Shades of Grey has become the representation of fan fiction in mainstream culture. It’s bad fan fiction, and it’s being used to ridicule women while making millions off women readers and viewers. Can we connect with these women: proto-fans who would love to read, and maybe write, great fan fiction if they found it? Can we use the FSoG phenomenon to expand our community? Does keeping our doors closed and our mouths shut perpetuate both monetization of our fan culture and misogynist scorn?)

2016 - Who Are We? (How do we define ourselves in this age of so many OT3s and team orgy pairings? Does m/m/f count as "slash"? Is slash-only space slipping away? (And would that be bad?) Do m/m and f/f belong together more than they do with m/f? Is "Media Fandom" a valid term any longer? Who are we if we start shipping het?)

2016 - Ladies Loving Ladies. (There would seem to be enough queer women in fandom to write/want more f/f. Do lesbians write f/f, m/m? Both? Do straight women? Or are we still missing the iconic female characters and relationships that create a great slash fandom? Did they figure out the answer to this question at TGIF/F and if so, what is it?)

2016 - By Us For Us (Fic, even kinky slash, is practically mainstream these days. The ebook revolution puts publishing within reach of almost anyone. Sundance hits have been filmed on iPhones. So why aren't fangirls making more media? Or is it happening right under our noses? Is this a place where our women's gift economy does our community a disservice? Discuss what's out there, what we'd like to see, and what's holding us back.)

2017 - LGBTQIA+ in Slash Fandom (Queer fans have always been here. In a subculture often defined as "for" straight women, what do we as fans have to say about non-straight, non-cis, and non-conventional sexuality and gender in fanfiction, in fandom, and in the larger culture?)

2018 - Confronting the Tensions Between Slash and Queer Representation (Slash fandom thrives on homoerotic subtext. Many queer fans are unwilling to settle for this quasi-representation. Part of every slash fandom seems loudly invested in their ship becoming canon. Some are queer fans who want actual textual representation in their favorite shows, and some are fans using queer politics to fight ship wars. Then the “slash is not activism” posts make the rounds. Is slash activism? Is advocating for slash ships in canon the same thing as advocating for queer representation?)

2018 - Representing Slashers (What does "representation" in the media mean to us? We know what more gay or POC representation means, but what about slash fandom, which is largely female and focused on bodies that don't resemble our own? Would better female characters in media better represent us? Or male characters written for a female audience? Come talk about the intersection of slash, personal identity, and media representation.)

2018 - Anonymity in Slash Fandom: Choosing to Hide (Why do the majority of slash fans hide their hobby? Is it fear of blackmail? Embarrassment? Fear of losing employment? How does this affect your happiness? How does this affect your security? What would an ideal world look like? Who would/have you told about your interest in slash? Who would you never, ever, tell?)

2019 - Fandom Post-Slash? (In an era of "ships" and #pairing #tags on Tumblr and AO3, has the "slash" label lost its meaning? Same-gender pairings are as popular as ever and fans still ID pairings with a virgule between the names, but how many fans still call m/m and f/f slash or femslash? How many fans identify as "slashers?" Het and slash were opposing binaries which few fans crossed. Are these barriers breaking down? What purpose has the term "slash" served? Has fandom moved

past it and, if so, what does that mean?)

#escapade 2020 #escapade con #fandom meta #fandom history

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rorykillmore · 5 years ago

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and this one is for @mikexxwheeler who asked for something with mike and villanelle, who were a BLAST to go back and write for since it’s been a while since we rped them together

merry christmas jace!!! consistently our friendship is one of the things that brightens up my life the most, and i wanted to tell you how much i appreciate you just... reaching out to me and maintaining that even during the times when we’re not actively writing together or anything. even if it’s just one of our silly memes or a joke about whatever crazy thing a politician did recently (or linking the star wars holiday special in its entirety, which of course we then proceed to drop everything and watch.) it always just. instantly lifts my mood to get a message from you, and being friends with you is one of the things i’ve treasured most over the years. as carrie fisher would say... [weird emotional musical number set to the tune of the star wars theme]

She’s not the kind of person who drops ‘what’s the worst that could happen?’ into her internal monologue without actually preparing for the worst that could happen. She isn’t stupid.

“Are you sure you do not want to be seeing Star Wars, or something boys your age should like?” Villanelle asks conversationally as she and Mike wait in the concessions line outside the movie theater. “Apparently there’s a new one out.”

“Yeah, but I heard it sucks,” Mike tells her with thinly veiled disdain. “They made the main character, like, the granddaughter of Palpatine, or something.”

“Which one is Palpatine?” asks Villanelle, who hasn’t seen a Star Wars movie since she was about twelve. “Wait -- is he -- ?”

Mike nods grimly, and Villanelle throws back her head and cackles in abject disgust.

“It’s not funny. It’s gross.”

“It is really gross. I’m laughing as a coping mechanism.” Shaking off any unwanted thoughts of crusty old men fucking, Villanelle squints down at the ticket she’s holding. “So what is this movie we’re seeing? ‘Demons’?”

“Yeah, it’s a re-release of an old one. A horror movie, I think. It actually came out in like, 1985, I think, so I just missed it.”

Villanelle cocks her head thoughtfully to one side. “The horror movies that came out in the 80′s were the best. They were so campy and stupid.”

Mike laughs. “Yeah, I figured it’d be fun.” And then his smirk turns into a more genuine smile. “Thanks for coming with me.”

Villanelle shrugs and takes a sip of her soda. “This is what friends do, right?”

It isn’t as rhetorical a question as it sounds, but Villanelle is pretty sure of the answer, at least. Movie nights are nice, normal things that people do. Even she isn’t compelled to mess this up too badly in the course of only a couple of hours. So her aside, what could possibly go wrong?

They enter the theater together, snacks and drinks in hand, and Villanelle barely pays attention to the woman in the shiny silver mask who hisses “Ow!” as she accidentally cuts the side of her face.

---

Really, it’s no wonder that Mike barely had to bribe her to tag along. Villanelle likes movies. She’s always liked movies. And this one is the perfect combination of campy and gory, so she is comfortably enjoying herself right up until the scene where one of their characters cuts their face on a weird looking demon mask -- and proceeds to begin to turn into a demon themselves.

“You know, this is basically just a zombie movie,” Villanelle leans over to murmur to Mike. “They probably just called it ‘Demons’ because Italians are so Catholic.”

But Mike is busy frowning at the screen, surprisingly unimpressed by the gnarly display of body horror taking place in front of him. “Wasn’t there a lady out in the lobby who cut her face on a mask like that?”

“Was there?” Villanelle raises her eyebrows in surprise. She does vaguely remember it now that Mike has brought it up, but she shrugs. “Probably just part of the immersive experience.”

Teenagers. So easily spooked by movies like these.

“Hey. What the hell happened to Rosemary?” A guy in the row in front of them growls, stoking the fires of Mike’s unease.

“I’m pretty sure that was where she was sitting, too. She’s missing!”

It is a slightly... strange coincidence, but Villanelle only twists around in her seat briefly to make sure they’re not attracting any attention. “She probably just went to the bathroom. Relax.”

“Go check.”

“What?”

“Villanelle, if we’re about to get stuck in the middle of a demonic apocalypse, we’d better get a jump on it.”

Villanelle grimaces in irritation, but reminds herself that Mike has survived the odd supernatural possibly-apocalyptic scenario on occasion before. She needs a refill, anyway. “Fine. But you are coming with me.”

“I can’t go into the girls’ restroom,” Mike protests.

“You can wait outside. Just in case I get turned into a demon, and it’s up to you to warn the rest of the world.” Villanelle gets up and starts inching her way out of the aisle without waiting for an answer. It isn’t long before she hears Mike shuffling behind her, following as she knew he would, ever incapable of resisting a taste of adventure even if it is under completely ridiculous circumstances.

Villanelle never would have imagined she’d have anything in common with Mike Wheeler, of all people. But sometimes she thinks he’s been through so much that at the end of the day - even if he hasn’t yet admitted it to himself - he wouldn’t ever be able to settle for a normal life again either. So in that way, they are the same.

“Arm yourself,” Villanelle tells him as they reach the lobby, only half-joking. She gets a flat look in return, but then Mike does pick up a broom a janitor left propped up against the side of the wall, raising his eyebrows at her as if to say ‘happy?’

Villanelle gives him a cheeky little thumbs up before she steps into the women’s restroom. There is no need for her to arm herself, because - as always - she has come prepared, a knife strapped to her ankle, a tiny hand-sized pistol tucked into her jacket lining.

(She’s not the kind of person who drops ‘what’s the worst that could happen?’ into her internal monologue without actually preparing for the worst that could happen. She isn’t stupid.)

But when she steps into restroom, everything seems calm, almost to her vague disappointment. What has she become, if she is very nearly craving the unlikely possibility of demonic mass hysteria? She misses the good old, simple days. When she was content to get her adrenaline rush by slashing a few throats, and never stretched her imagination unreasonable lengths beyond that.

There is a woman standing in front of one of the sink mirrors. Villanelle assumes she must be Rosemary, if the way she is dabbing at her face is any indication. The cut on the side of her cheek looks normal, and Villanelle decides she’ll just get a quick closer look before delivering the all-clear to Mike.

“Do you need a band-aid for that?” Villanelle asks, sidling up and quickly slipping into Girl Talk Mode. “I think I have one in my purse...”

“That’d be great,” Rosemary says with a relieved smile, and now that Villanelle is closer she notices... there’s an unusual amount of blood dripping down her jaw, for a wound that seems comparatively shallow. “It’s weird, I just can’t get it to stop bleeding.”

Fortunately, Villanelle hadn’t been bluffing, and really does have a bandage in her purse. She fishes it out and offers it to the other woman, watching closely as Rosemary uses it to cover the wound and...

...Within seconds, it bleeds right through.

Okay. That is definitely not normal.

“Mike?” Villanelle calls back out into the lobby. “I thiiink we have a problem.”

“What’s happening?” Mike calls back to her, but Villanelle doesn’t answer him right away. She’s too busy watching in growing, morbid fascination and disgust as the wound starts to pulse and throb, like there is something under Rosemary’s skin burrowing its way to the surface to get out.

“Mike,” she calls more insistently.

“What! I can’t come in there!”

“Oh my god, it’s not like there is a force field, or something --” But Villanelle’s retort breaks off into a horrified shriek as the wound on the side of Rosemary’s face explodes.

“Villanelle!”

This time, throwing all caution to the winds and evidently deciding that his dignity is not as important as Villanelle’s life, Mike comes rushing into the restroom just as Villanelle is flattening herself against the wall to avoid the worst of the oozing... pus... no, she does not want to even describe it internally.

“What’s happening to her?! Is she --”

Rosemary’s screams turn feral, and Villanelle has to interrupt Mike’s question to pull him out of the way as she slashes at him with... are those claws?

“It’s the movie! I fucking told you it was just like the movie!” Mike shouts. Rosemary rounds on them again with wild, animalistic yellow eyes, and Mike... promptly smacks her right in the face with the broom handle. Her neck snaps back at an unnatural angle.

“Ha!” Villanelle laughs, recovering in the midst of all this chaos. “Nice hit.”

“Thanks. Wait, I mean -- what do we do?!”

“Run?” Villanelle guesses, unsure if there is any way to actually kill this thing. Rosemary’s seems to be snapping her neck back to its normal position, and neither of them stayed in the theater long enough to know if the demons had any significant weaknesses.

Mike spares a moment to shoot her a frantic look. “But she’ll get out and spread the virus to other people!”

That sounds like their problem, Villanelle wants to say, although she supposes she can easily enough see how a supernatural pandemic might eventually become her problem as well.

Rosemary lets out an unearthly snarl and lunges forward again. It is not so much the threat of being scratched and turned, or at least dismembered, that makes Villanelle react (although that alone is obviously enough) -- as does the sight of her wide, gaping jaws. And all that slimy pus stuff she’s drooling everywhere.

“That is fucking disgusting,” Villanelle tells her, before pulling out her pistol and firing three close range shots into the woman’s head.

It... works. Effectively. As one might expect.

Rosemary stumbles back and falls into a pool of her own blood, twitching unpleasantly in what seems to be a round of dying spasms. Villanelle fires one more head shot, just to make sure.

“O-okay. I think you got her.” Mike sounds slightly shaken, and it’s only then that she remembers that she just brutally shot a person right in front of him. Then again, she is not really sure Rosemary counted as a ‘person’ at time time. Never the less, Villanelle lowers her gun and turns so that she’s at least half-obscuring Mike’s view of the body.

“That was kind of easy.” She scrunches her nose up a bit.

Mike takes another steadying breath, but he’s doing a better job of composing himself than she might have expected. “...Yeah. Uh. I think we maybe just... prevented an apocalypse?”

Villanelle considers that for a couple of seconds. It almost feels kind of anticlimactic. “Huh,” she finally says with a shrug. “Guess I will add it to my resume. Stop it at patient zero, that’s what I always say.” Or what she would always say, if she’d ever been involved in any humanity-threatening spread of disease before now.

“Is now a good time to say ‘I told you so?’” Mike quips in return, and Villanelle gives him a passive-aggressive (but also sort of playful) shoulder check as she passes on her way to the restroom’s exit.

“I guess we call the police. And they can call in Hazmat people to clean up the body, or something.” Already, she’s kind of wondering how exactly they’re going to explain the weird, meta experience of watching a movie and then having that movie repeat itself in real life. Then again, it’s probably par for the course for the cops around here, by now.

“Wait,” Mike says suddenly. “What about the mask?”

Ah. He’s right, she realizes, following his gaze over to the lobby display where the mask still sits. The apparent source of the virus, if the movie lore holds up.

“Well, we have gotten this far by being genre savvy, so I don’t think we should have it over to the police,” she muses.

“Yeah, no way. One of them’ll cut themselves while they’re joking around, or something, and infect the whole police station. Always happens.”

“So... we keep it?” Villanelle tries to run through some other, smarter possibilities in her head. “Burn it? Bury it? Throw it into a volcano? We could do that. There’s one out in the Prehistoric Wilds.”

Mike starts to grin, and Villanelle squints at him suspiciously. “What is so funny?”

“Nothing,” he says, shaking his head. “Just... the volcano thing. It’s just like in Lord of the Rings.”

Villanelle pulls up short as their very first conversation comes ebbing back to her. Unexpectedly, what accompanies it is a trace of amused warmth. And she grins back at him briefly. “Guess we’ve come full circle.”

“We really have.”

Villanelle makes a note to get out of there before he remembers to make a communism joke.

#im not going to spoil what the concept of this fic actually is but when you read it #ask yourself: how could i not?#fic #christmas gifts #OH ALSO I ALMOST FORGOT #body horror cw #?????

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richmeganews · 6 years ago

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Why I Decided to Start Kink Shaming Myself

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

I have been a masochist for as long as I can remember. As young as six years old, watching a CBBC drama with a fey, bookish protagonist being tormented by older boys, I would feel an excitement I can only explain as the beginning of desire. More of a Walter the Softie myself, I was nonetheless drawn to the chaotic, masculine energy of Dennis the Menace.

Later, my sexual awakening occurred at the precise moment I began to be bullied for being gay. I was bullied, like most people, by the popular boys—the most handsome and arrogant and swaggering. The first people I desired were the same ones who treated me with contempt or violence: It doesn’t seem too much of a reach to suggest that violence and desire became conflated. I have been a masochist my whole life—but now, for the first time, I no longer want to be.

Last year, I was seeing a man called Thomas. Almost immediately, he fell into the habit of giving instructions and I fell into the habit of obeying them—apologizing and asking his permission. It was all very ribald and light-hearted, until one night I finished work late and he invited me over to his apartment. When I arrived, he made a Greek salad and I hugged him from behind, kissing his neck as he chopped up the cucumbers. Afterward, he sat down on the sofa, while I lay with my head in his lap, looking up at him, and told him how much I had enjoyed everything he’d done to me the last time we met. He looked down on me with a smirk and, without saying anything, slapped me hard on the ear. It hurt, badly, and my ear began to ring, but to tell him off felt like a breach of contract—so I said nothing. After all, I’d previously told him that he could do anything. Moments later, he hit me again in the same place and my ear rang even louder. Against waves of pain, I tried to smile as he ran his hands through my hair and tugged on a patch of gray.

“You have so much gray hair,” he said. “You’re old.” Still frozen in a smile, at that moment I began to feel humiliated in a way that wasn’t enjoyable. I was furious. I wanted to show him that my submission had always been conditional and could be snatched away at any moment. Who the fuck did he think he was talking to? I stood up, shoved my feet into my shoes without bothering to slide them in properly, and hobbled toward the door.

When I reached it, he said “wait…” and when I turned around he was holding out my bag. He looked confused, maybe even slightly hurt. I snatched it from him.

“Where are you going?”

I said, “I’m not into this,” slammed the door and left.

Sally Rooney’s novel Normal People features a similar scene: Marianne, one of the main characters, is tied up in the apartment of a man with whom she’s involved in a sadomasochistic relationship. When she experiences a sudden wave of disgust, both for the situation and for him, she demands he untie her and storms out of his apartment. As she leaves, she wonders, “Is the world such an evil place, that love should be indistinguishable from the basest and most abusive forms of violence?” I had read the novel only two weeks earlier and find it hard to believe I wasn’t, in a sense, ripping it off. The scene marks a turning point in Marianne’s character arc, signaling a rejection of self-abasement. That night, listening to Cardi B on the bus ride home, I thought I’d made an equally powerful act of renunciation, that I would never see Thomas or allow myself to be treated that way again. This proved short-lived: The next day, I texted him to apologize for my behavior and asked if he wanted to go to the movies.

Thomas remembers the incident differently and insists that I asked him to hit me. It’s not my recollection, but I’m not ruling it out: I was drunk, he was sober, and it would hardly be out of character. I’m not sure it matters either way because my intention isn’t to depict him as an abuser. Whether or not I asked him to, he hit me because I’d told him it was the kind of thing I liked. The last time we met I’d consented to it explicitly, so how was he to judge when that consent expired? It must be disconcerting when someone tells you “you can do anything to me” and then storms out your door the minute you exercise the power they’ve given you.

I know a number of gay men and women who sleep with men who have had similar experiences. In order to consider how the dynamics of rough sex might differ in a heterosexual setting, along with the commonalities, I spoke with Sarah, a feminist academic based in Glasgow who has been vocally critical of the normalization of violent sex.

I suggest to Sarah that, by engaging in rough sex, gay men and straight women might be fetishizing their own oppression, be that homophobia or misogyny. “I would agree,” she says. “I think the key factor is the fetishizing of male domination. But with heterosexual rough sex [where men are dom tops], that’s not at all subversive. By degrading women, men are just playing a hyper-realized version of the position they actually occupy.”

I ask Sarah what she makes of the fact that so many people actively consent to and enjoy violent sex. “It’s hard to make sweeping judgments on this, and I don’t want to shame anyone for internalizing an oppression. We need to be wary of moralistic sex negativity—the issue is not that it’s bad because it’s distasteful, but that it’s bad because it’s harmful. There can be tons of factors that influence why people consent. It’s not always an autonomous decision. You can be coerced at a societal level.” I think this is true. Understandably, most of the discourse around harm in relation to sex centers around consent. This is necessary but insufficient: After all, it’s possible to enthusiastically consent to something that harms you.

What is the nature of the harm violent sex might pose? “It can perpetuate cycles of abuse and warp your perspective about what’s acceptable from a partner,” Sarah says. “It can lead you to think, If I let them do this to me in bed, it’s hypocritical of me to be pissed off at them if they do it elsewhere. If sex only existed in a vacuum in some utopian world, this would be fine, but it doesn’t and never will. The minute you sexually degrade or objectify a woman, that memory is always there.”

Although I’m a man and the power relations are different, this chimes with my own experiences. When you create a dynamic of violence and subjugation, it’s hard to seal that off in the bedroom. Eventually, it seeps out. Someone ordering you to suck them off might be fun. What’s less fun is them telling you to go to the store to buy cigarettes because it’s raining and they can’t be bothered to going outside.

When Thomas entered into a relationship with someone else, we made the terrible, inexplicable decision to continue seeing each other as friends. One night in the pub, he claimed the private school he’d attended had “an anti-conservative ethos,” and I started ranting about how stupid that was, talking loudly enough for the people around us to hear. The whole time, as I waved my arms and shouted about inherited privilege, feeling myself to be on blistering form, there was the sense that I was only doing this to get a reaction. I was goading him and he understood this. I wanted him to grab me by the throat and tell me to shut the fuck up. Had he done this, I would have gone quiet. I would have said sorry. I would have conceded that, yes, his private school did actually sound pretty radical. At one point, he asked me to change the subject and I said, ‘What are you gonna do?” He raised his hand then dropped it and said “nothing.” There’s an old joke that goes: “Hit me,” said the masochist, “No,” said the sadist.

Eventually, he delivered the definitive rejection I thought I’d wanted and I found myself drinking alone, wondering what was wrong with me. Did I make myself impossible to respect by being too submissive? Did he think I was damaged? It occurred to me that slapping and insulting someone from the first time you sleep together might make it hard to develop feelings of affection. I felt like he wanted to dominate me but disdained me for allowing him to do so: Maybe because I enjoyed it too much?

Throughout the months following, sexual masochism bled into the emotional kind. I was drawn to coldness; men who left me on read for days at a time, men who made me apologize for myself. There was the guy who, when I gently made fun of him, told me he “didn’t like to be intellectually challenged.” There was the man who told me he’d probably given me gonorrhoea, then ignored me for a week before getting back in touch with an enthusiastic message about the new man he’d met and an invitation to join his book club (I declined). I wasn’t attracted to these men despite the awful way they treated me, but because of their aloofness, rather than being a flaw, was central to their appeal. Kindness or enthusiasm, on the other hand, I considered to be “begging it”—nothing was less erotic than being treated with basic human courtesy.

I had been in an abusive relationship before, prior to this period, and it goes without saying that it wasn’t sexy or fun. For all the drama, for all the violence and threats, it was tedious. The last thing I wanted was to replicate that experience, but still I found myself romanticizing unhealthy power dynamics, usually while listening to Lana del Rey. Red flags were my biggest fetish. Given my history, this was insane. I would have run head-first into an abusive relationship with any of the men I dated last year—the only thing that saved me was the fact that none of them wanted to.

As well as feeling that rough sex was harming me, I worried that I was causing harm. The direction of power in sex is rarely linear. You can be submissive and still be bossy: sentences beginning “make me…” are still instructions. In Normal People, Marianne says, “You’re hardly a submissive if you only submit to things you want to do.” By this metric, I’m hardly a submissive. The sex I enjoy often amounts to: “Force me to do the things I already find most gratifying.” There’s nothing wrong with this, but it’s important to recognize that submissives can be, in their own way, just as domineering. Leopold Sacher-Masoch (the author of Venus in Furs, from whom masochism derives its name) would pressure his wife into sleeping with other men so he could experience the pleasurable humiliation of being cuckolded. Who’s really being degraded there?

In the case of two gay men, if the sexual dynamic is based around “I am weak and you are strong,” often expressed as “I am feminine and you are masculine,” then both partners are playing to the same insecurities—they’re just coming at it from different angles. I worried that, by validating the masculinity of someone dominating me, I was stoking their internalized homophobia. It seems plausible to suggest that making someone feel, temporarily, like a “real man” might perpetuate the anxiety that they’re not.

For all these reasons, I have made the decision to stop having this kind of sex, even if only for a while. It was damaging my relationships, making me feel worse about myself, and, perhaps, in the end, harming other people too. I want to transcend the idea that sexual compatibility is the most important thing. One friend assures me that “desire is surprisingly malleable” and, if I was skeptical at first, I’m beginning to understand how this could be true. I’ve dated a couple of men since who weren’t at all domineering or violent. It’s been a pleasant surprise to discover that sex can still be exciting without being degrading, although at times it’s taken effort not to find it boring.

At the end of Normal People, rather than rejecting her instincts toward masochism, Marianne finds a healthier context in which to express them. Her boyfriend dominates her lovingly and with respect, understanding “it wasn’t necessary to hurt her: he could let her submit willingly, without violence.” Maybe such an accommodation is the best I can hope for.

Follow James Greig on Twitter.

The post Why I Decided to Start Kink Shaming Myself appeared first on .

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seventeendeer · 7 years ago

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I’m very much confused as to how having a pretty sparkly white dragon be toothless’s mate is sexist? If anything having feminine traits should be a good thing. If anything I feel its more sexist having a female be a “badass” and strong in a masculine way. How can being a female and being strong in female ways be a bad thing? Shes pretty to us. For all we know she might be average to another night fury.

Disclaimer: The following explanation isn’t supposed to be hate. I love the light fury and I’m excited for the movie! I can’t judge it before I’ve seen it either! But the trope itself is very sexist, and while there’s totally a chance that it’ll be subverted in the movie itself, I can still acknowledge and explain the problematic aspects of how it normally plays out and why I’m worried about its inclusion.

I’m going to hit each of these points one at a time, for clarity’s sake! Out of order, to make my explanation more comprehensible.

- She’s pretty to us. For all we know she might be average to another night fury.

When deciding whether or not something is offensive, you have to look at it from a meta standpoint. It doesn’t matter if it’s explained in-universe. The characters are imaginary and any opinion they might have is the explanation of a writer actively deciding how they think.

You have to ask yourself why the writers decided to create this character the way she is. You have to ask yourself how the writers came to the conclusion that this was the only way the character could be approached. And most importantly, you have to consider how this decision impacts audiences.

It doesn’t matter if her design is “average” to the characters. To real viewers - people who are actually alive and who will exist after the movie is over - it still sends a harmful message, especially to its young target demographic.

- If anything I feel its more sexist having a female be a “badass” and strong in a masculine way.

I think this line of thinking might be the result of a misunderstanding of what makes a female character well-written. The reason badass women being written as masculine is normally a problem is because it often comes pre-packaged with an underlying resentment towards femininity. Masculine woman characters will be written with disdain for cuter, more feminine woman characters. They’ll have lines like “you fight like a girl”, implying that they’re only “cool” because they know how to act like men.

Female characters should be written with diversity above all else. Masculine women deserve just as much respect and representation as feminine women. This is not sexist. This is writing women with as much diversity in personality and taste as they have in real life.

Also note that masculine women are very rarely written as love interests. This implies that writers in general have a problem fathoming masculine women being considered attractive to anyone.

- If anything having feminine traits should be a good thing.

Feminine traits aren’t automatically a “good thing.” Having feminine female characters who are also badasses has the potential to be great, if they’re well-developed and the writers approach them from the right angle. “Cuter, prettier copy of a male character, used as love interest” is not the right angle.

I personally love the light fury to death because if you took out the romance aspect, she would be an excellent character. Highkey feminine girl characters who are also presented as cool and worthy of respect are sorely lacking in children’s media. As it is now, they exist almost exclusively as love interests, implying that they’re good for nothing but romance plots. If she hadn’t been written in as a love interest and instead merely had her own romance-free subplot, she would have been a wonderful addition to the cast.

- Actual explanation - why is it sexist?

The short answer: because it’s a cliche. Especially in children’s movies about anthropomorphic creatures. The cliche goes as follows:

- Male character is introduced in movie 1.

- In movie 2, he meets a female character, who is introduced as a love interest.

- The female character will look like a copied and pasted version of the male, but her color scheme will be lighter, her claws/horns/fangs will be smaller, fur or scales will be smoother, and/or she’ll generally be smaller.

(Bonus points that often go hand in hand with the trope, but don’t necessarily feed into the sexism: they’re the only two characters who look similar, might be the only two members of their species for various reasons, there’s a subplot where the male awkwardly tries to woo the female which weirds her out, but ultimately they end up together anyway, likely because she came to love him for his inner strength rather than his charm, etc.)

This trope wouldn’t be as much of a problem if it wasn’t so pervasive. Having a female love interest who’s cuter and more delicate than her male counterpart wouldn’t be a problem if it didn’t show up way, way more often than its opposite.

When was the last time you watched a sequel to an existing cartoon where the male lead gains a female love interest who’s bigger/tougher/uglier/more ferocious-looking than himself?

Another unfortunate facet to the trope is the fact that the female character is clearly produced as a love interest to the male character, not as her own character. She just looks like the male but with bits missing. Someone took the male character and put him through a filter of human female beauty standards in order to make something human audiences would read as attractive for her species. Which is just super fucking bizarre when you take it out of its context, because there’s literally no reason why animal creatures would have the same beauty standards as humans.

Again, I want to stress that I love the light fury on her own. She appeals to me personally because I love pretty glitter pastel characters who could kill me with a look. But she is not a good fit for the role of love interest when she hits so many of the character design cliches that are normally attached to female love interest characters.

Bottom line is, most character traits aren’t sexist in themselves. However, they can become sexist in the context of other media. There’s nothing wrong with having a cute, pretty, delicate-looking copy of a male character be introduced as a female love interest, on its own. But when it becomes so much of a cliche that people can predict it happening from a poster where the characters do nothing but look at each other, inferred from how the female character is designed, there is a problem.

So, the reason it’s sexist is because:

- It’s a cliche relying on gender roles.

- The female character’s design compared to the male’s feeds into existing gender norms (men should be tough-looking, women should be cutesy).

- It enforces the existing trope that only feminine women can be love interests, implying that only women who follow gender norms are desirable.

- It enforces the existing trope that ugly/scary and/or masculine women can’t be love interests (even though these are actual monstrous dragons we’re talking about), implying that women who fall outside of gender norms are undesirable.

- With no other feminine women in the story, it implies that feminine women are only interesting if they’re love interests.

tl;dr The character isn’t sexist. But the plot surrounding her, coupled with existing media cliches, sends a really unfortunate, and yes, sexist, message.

#httyd discourse cw #sexism cw #i'm in so much pain bc i love this character SO MUCH #and i DO NOT WANT to see her in a cliche sequel romance plEASE DREAMWORKS #she's so cute ... i'm stealing her. mine now. put her in her own movie #there we go #long post cw #Anonymous #thesketcherasks

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michelemoore · 4 years ago

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Takhuk

May, 2021

Michele Moore V

THEM, THEY, US

And Me, in Savannah, Georgia

I was in Gone With the Wind territory, one of those places that had lived in my mind since I was 15 and had read through several nights to dawn, finishing that famous historical romance. I was with Rogerio, taking advantage of his annual travel to a professional conference that was being held this time - 2014 - in Savannah, Georgia. Atlanta, the Georgian city and scene of many of Scarlett O’Hara’s romantic vexations, was a few hours drive away, but Savannah’s surrounding countryside and old town fit perfectly with the vivid scenes in my mind.

Sitting under an umbrella of live oak trees in one of the city’s historic squares, flitting chirping birds innocent and free flashed and disappeared into the green drapery that guarded the fountain, benches, and gardens of the square. Lined up along each side of the square were immaculately preserved stucco and brick homes. Geometric symmetry and timeless materials both hallmarks of these architectural gems, these little mansions. Amongst their clean white exteriors trimmed in glossy black or green shutters and window sashes, their generous iron rails and fences and refurbished stone steps, and the square’s scrubbed clean statue commemorating a past Georgian military or political figure, I, was, there. Smack dab in the middle of the ‘old South’.

Although Gone With the Wind was a torrid love story that certainly appealed to my teenage sense of romance, it was the cultural and historical setting that was the real story, to me. It was the American civil war, that brutal dirty war over abolition. Scarlett O’Hara’s family owned Tara, a large and lavish cotton plantation. If slavery was to be abolished, how would they manage to maintain their mansion and grounds and grow and harvest their cotton crop? For Scarlett, saving Tara became more important than satisfying Rhett Butler’s desires , but what mattered most to my teenage mind was finding somewhere in those hundreds of pages proof that Scarlett would realize the enslavement of Mammy and Prissy and all the other servants and plantation workers was wrong.

Recreating in my mind scenes from the novel, I imagined a luxurious cigar scented ‘drawing room’ beyond the windows of the mansion in front of me. Convening inside were wealthy plantation owners raising money to support ‘the Cause (the war)’, while being served by slaves. When Margaret Mitchell, a native Georgian born in 1900, wrote and published Gone With The Wind, it was 1936, just 70 years since the end of the American Civil war and the abolition of slavery, and years before the era of Martin Luther King’s civil rights movement. (It would be another 32 years before Martin Luther King was murdered.) In Georgia in the 1930’s, the Ku Klux Klan was a cultural staple and racial segregation was legal standard practice – in other words, it was legal in states like Georgia to prevent black Americans from living, learning, working and recreating where they wished. Those laws are what are commonly known as Jim Crow laws that, although finally banned thanks to people like Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights movement of the 60’s, are still in de facto operation today, as I saw firsthand while visiting Savannah.

Jim Crow laws and the KKK. These facts were Mitchell’s context. Her reality. Yet she wrote a book that disregarded the truth of the slave era, imbuing her black characters with simple minds, suggesting they were content and fulfilled in their roles as slaves. Through those long nights of reading those hundreds of pages, I kept looking for evidence that Mitchell knew. Because as any 15 year old would tell you, the Margaret Mitchells’ of the world, and every single other person, should know.

Sunshine warmed my bench and back. Women pushing baby strollers passed by, their southern accent adding an audio dimension to the scene in my mind of southern belles in their elaborate gowns, and men in breeches and tall leather boots. All being served by slaves. Those anonymous individuals central to the economy of the slaving era and the production of the wealth still being enjoyed today by the ancestors of plantation owning families and those associated with the corresponding commercial network.

I stood and walked around the fountain, the gardens. The place felt peaceful enough, yet lacking in something. Lacking in abundance – of people, of the layers of life I have witnessed and felt in other squares in the world where old ladies jammed together on benches laughed and pointed, and children chased each other around fountains and families bought sweet and savoury snacks from a rolling cart food vendor.

This square was pretty and pleasant, but it was lacking. And so I moved on.

***

At our first breakfast of the conference, Rogerio came and went from our large round table as ever more of his professional associates appeared, leaving me with four other women at our table, also wives or partners to engineers attending the conference. (Yes, there were also female engineers in attendance, however, you are right to imagine there were far more males.)

During our initial polite introductions I learned two of these women were from Georgia, one was from South Carolina, and one from Alabama. They had been enjoying these conferences with their husbands for years. As Rogerio and I were outsiders, these friends naturally fell into their own conversation while we did the same. Being a compulsive eavesdropper, I did note references to children and family, revealing they were all mothers with kids in high school or college.

Rogerio and I were eating and talking about my day’s plans when he spotted an old friend across the room and dropped his cutlery to go say hello. Left alone to my own thoughts, I sipped my coffee and opened a small tourist magazine I had brought to breakfast.

But the conversational tone of the other women at the table pricked my ears; they were into something deep. With my eyes on my magazine, I listened to the women complaining. I heard words like ‘maid’, and ‘servant’ and multiple references to ‘she, and them, and they’.

Although the women had their heads together and were speaking quietly, one of the ladies frequently burst out loudly with hostility over her maid’s failings. Phrases such as, “I don’t see why she can’t just…” or, “they have no business expecting…”

Perhaps it was the fact that I was the only one of us to thank the young black woman who refilled our coffee cups that finally caused comprehension to explode in my mind. I can still feel now the shock I felt then.

How naïve of me, I discovered, to expect that the breakfast conversation at a professional conference in Georgia in the year 2014, 150 years after slavery had been abolished in the United States, to be about ideas that might solve, rather than exacerbate, systemic problems, whether those problems be scientific or social.

The woman who tended to loudness was becoming riled up about ‘them’, so much that my heart began to race with the desire to fight, or flee. At the moment I was freezing. One of the other women caught me looking up from my coffee cup at the hostile woman. Our eyes locked, she saw my distress, she whispered urgently to the loud one, who immediately stopped her tirade.

This was truly an awakening in my life I never expected, imagined, or known could happen. Despite Canada’s own glaring social inequities, despite being perfectly aware of racism in both Canada and the United States, the idea that white Americans still had black domestic servants of whom they would so openly and routinely speak of with such disdain, such separateness, came to me as a true shock. No name was used to reference the individuals. Rather, ‘she’, ‘her’, and ‘they’ were the only identifiers. Speaking a person’s name, of course, acknowledges a level of humanity that would require the speaker to bestow a person with a degree of dignity these women were steadfastly withholding from their subjects.

I went back to my hotel room to record this experience in my journal. Soon after, still shaken, I headed out to spend the day walking the city’s historic centre and riverfront, and to try to understand more of the life of the ‘old South’.

Branching out from another square, I wandered up and down streets lined with more of those stately homes and attractive walk-up low rise apartments, all shaded by the green drapery of those generous old oaks, now whispering to me to look closer, look closer. The breakfast ladies had thrust upon me a new lens through which to view these homes, these squares lacking in life’s richness and diversity, these historic monuments and plaques commemorating selective people and events; expressing a preferred story, but not the whole story.

Eventually, I found the Owens-Thomas House and Slave Quarters. Here, I was able to walk through the simple wooden cabins behind the structured gardens separating the quarters from the mansion. While the mansion was busy with staff speaking with visitors, no staff was in attendance to interpret or answer questions in the slave quarters. And so I moved on.

I walked away determined to find evidence of Savannah’s black community. Where did the waiting and cleaning staff from my hotel live? Where did they go for a cup of coffee on a sunny day off? Down the streets I walked, passing homes and shops exuding prosperity and comfort.

Until I saw ahead a long line of black adults waiting on the sidewalk next to a church. I slowed in front of the building and realized I had found the African First Baptist Church, one of the Underground Railroad’s hiding places in the south. The Underground Railroad being the secret network of people throughout the U.S. and Canada that provided refuge to enslaved black Americans escaping north to safety and freedom.

Inside the church’s entry, I followed a posted notice of a self-guided tour of this still active church. I went downstairs first, to the basement, to stand on the wooden floorboards and discover the hundreds of miniscule nail holes in the floor, hammered there to allow oxygen down into the hiding place below. As I tried to imagine the dark damp hole in the ground under me, I wondered if any of the slaves from the Owens-Thomas House hid there, in darkness and silence, inhaling life, exhaling dreams of freedom through those nail holes, those determined, defiant nail holes.

From the website of the church:

The holes in the floor are in the shape of an African prayer symbol known to some as a BaKongo Cosmogram. In parts of Africa, it also means “Flash of the Spirits” and represents birth, life, death, and rebirth.

Up the worn wooden stairs from the basement I went to the main level and up another flight of steps to the balcony where some of the church’s original pews were still in place. From the church’s website:

The pews located in the balcony are original to the church. These pews were made by enslaved Africans, and are nailed into the floors. On the outside of some of the pews are writings done in a classical West African Arabic script from the 1800s.

I found examples of that script, by squatting down and looking low, as if the engraver wanted even this evidence of his or her existence to remain hidden. I wanted to touch the script, the patterns were beautiful, but I stopped myself. There was good reason the signage asked visitors not to touch. Such artifacts are truth telling. It seems these artifacts will need to keep speaking for a long time yet.

Feeling sombre over all that I had learned, I left the church and weaved my way back to a street where I had seen a sidewalk café with tables along the paving stones under the shade of those beautiful trees. I needed to sit and reflect, to process things.

But while sipping my coffee, more reality rudely elbowed itself into my space. Two businessmen carrying coffees and sleeves of papers wrangled themselves into the chairs at the table beside me. The space was close, I could smell their cologne, see the precise separations in their gelled hair. They were already talking before they sat down and continued enthusiastically, pouring over papers while they planned openly and urgently to remove from office the president of the United States, who at the time was Barack Obama. Their language and tone was unequivocal: ‘he’ was an affront to the office of President and nothing else in the world mattered but to return dignity to the American people by removing ‘him’ from the White House. Their hatred of Barack Obama was as plain to see as Georgia’s blue sky. Everywhere in the white population here in Savannah, it seemed, was evidence of a bitter, ingrained culture of contempt toward black Americans. I must stress: it was open, shocking, and repellant.

That evening I joined Rogerio on a river cruise and dinner, a special event organized for the conference attendees. Several hundred guests mingled under the shelter of the riverboat’s canopies and inside where a lavish meal was being laid out for our enjoyment. All the waiters were black. The guests were not.

***

I had now spent three days walking to Savannah’s old town and gone in every direction down side streets lined with those lovely houses and walk-ups. I had strolled a famous cemetery, the business district, and the Savannah River, yet I had not found a neighbourhood where I could see people living that might be the staff at our hotel. So on this last walk, I went back to the First Baptist African Church and continued further beyond that landmark. Soon, an abrupt change in the landscape presented itself, and I was walking down narrow cracked streets with no sidewalks fronting small homes and low apartments without adornment, most in need of painting and repairs. A few seniors were sitting together in front of one house on a street otherwise empty and devoid of motion. On another street one little girl skipped her way toward the open door of a home. No other people, no cars were coming and going from these streets, they were almost eerily silent.

Nearby I found a small park, the grass worn down to bare soil. It was a scrappy, sorry looking patch of land, I remember only a low, curved concrete wall, damaged so that I could not read the stamped words along its length.

I returned to my hotel that day feeling profoundly disillusioned and heartsick.

***

We were in a cab heading for the airport, our stay in Savannah was over. We passed a beach where dozens of people were out enjoying the water and sand. Our white cab driver slowed and watched the scene. His window was open, his arm hanging lazily over the door. With his hand he casually indicated to us what he was looking at while saying, ‘yep, them people like that spot, hellofa mess, look at it, but they keep to themselves there so that’s good anyway…” “us kind have our places, them kind have theirs…”

They. Them. Us.

Postscripts:

I did find one statue in Savannah, far from the squares of the historic centre, of a family of slaves in chains. A quick Google search while writing this piece revealed that Savannah’s leaders are only now beginning to discuss the gaping absence of public art and the complete lack of preservation of the places and acknowledgement of the lives of the enslaved people whose ancestors continue to live in the city and region.

There is a term being used today – ‘food desert’ – which means a lack of grocery stores or other whole food vendors within a low income urban area. The neighbourhood through which I walked where black residents of Savannah live had no grocery store, no corner market, no vendor of food. These ‘food deserts’, throughout the United States, have a high correlation with diseases such as cancer, obesity, and diabetes. Reasons for the existence of food deserts include systemic indifference to the needs of the people living in such low income areas.

www.michelemooreveldhoen.com

photo by Ali Arif Soydas, courtesy of Unsplash

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nicolebehariewce · 7 years ago

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@nikkibeharie: https://nyti.ms/2kLgzDD when you hear about anyone who isn’t in a place of power being a “BAD SEED”...question it. Please.

One day, when I was 19 years old, I was in the middle of a photo shoot for a Miramax film when I was suddenly told it was time to leave. I was wearing a little black dress, showing a lot of cleavage, lying seductively on my side and looking slyly at the camera. The part I had played in the movie, “Guinevere,” could not have been more removed from this pose. My character was an awkward girl, bumbling, in fact, who wore sweatshirts and jeans, and had little sense of her sexual power. But this was how they were going to sell the movie, and at a certain point, I was tired of being a problem, which is how a female actor is invariably treated whenever she points out that she is being objectified or not respected.

I was pulled out of the photo shoot abruptly. The publicist said that we needed to be in Harvey Weinstein’s office in 20 minutes.

“Are we done here?” I asked. “No” was the answer. “But Harvey wants you there now.”

In the taxi, the publicist looked at me and said: “I’m going in with you. And I’m not leaving your side.” I knew everything I needed to know in that moment, and I was grateful.

When I got there, Mr. Weinstein wasted no time. He told me, in front of the publicist and a co-worker beside him, that a famous star, a few years my senior, had once sat across from him in the chair I was in now. Because of his “very close relationship” with this actress, she had gone on to play leading roles and win awards. If he and I had that kind of “close relationship,” I could have a similar career. “That’s how it works,” I remember him telling me. The implication wasn’t subtle. I replied that I wasn’t very ambitious or interested in acting, which was true. He then asked me about my political activism and went on to recast himself as a left-wing activist, which was among the funniest things I’d ever heard.

I indicated that he was wasting his time. We probably wouldn’t be friends or have a “close relationship.” I just didn’t care that much about an acting career. I loved acting, still do, but I knew, after 14 years of working professionally, that it wasn’t worth it to me, and the reasons were not unconnected to the tone of that meeting almost 20 years ago.

On sets, I saw women constantly pressured to exploit their sexuality and then chastised as sluts for doing so. Women in technical jobs were almost nonexistent, and when they were there, they were constantly being tested to see if they really knew what they were doing. You felt alone, in a sea of men. I noticed my own tendency to want to be “one of the boys,” to distance myself from the humiliation of being a woman on a film set, where there were so few of us. Then came the photo shoots in which you were treated like a model with no other function than to sell your sexuality, regardless of the nature of the film you were promoting.

I’ve often wondered how I would have behaved in the meeting with Harvey Weinstein had I been more ambitious as an actor. I was sitting in front of a man who wielded enormous power. If you were interested in being in movies directed by interesting filmmakers, he wasn’t someone you wanted to alienate. How would one have left that meeting, or those hotel rooms, which have been described by others, with that relationship intact, when he displayed such entitlement and was famous for such anger? I was purely lucky that I didn’t care.

Shortly afterward, I started writing and directing short films. I had no idea, until then, how little respect I had been shown as an actor. Now there were no assistant directors trying to cajole me into sitting on their laps, no groups of men standing around to assess how I looked in a particular piece of clothing. I could decide what I felt was important to say, how to film a woman, without her sexuality being a central focus without context. In my mid-20s, I made my first feature film, “Away From Her.”

While working on “Away From Her,” I had the privilege of working with Julie Christie, who, while maintaining her vision for her character, was deeply committed to collaboration and could shift her performance on a dime when given direction. It was an amazing gift for a director, still learning the ropes. I realized that in the past, whether I’d known it or not, some part of me had been afraid of direction. I vowed to go back to acting with my newfound understanding of collaboration. I would be more pliable. I was excited to give my whole, unfettered self to a director, the way Julie Christie had done for me.

But I had forgotten a key ingredient of the acting process. Most directors are insensitive men. And while I’ve met quite a few humane, kind, sensitive male directors and producers in my life, sadly they are the exception and not the rule. This industry doesn’t tend to attract the most gentle and principled among us. I had two experiences in the same year in which I went into a film as an actor with an open heart and was humiliated, violated, dismissed and then, in one instance, called overly sensitive when I complained. One producer, when I mentioned I didn’t feel a rape scene was being handled sensitively, barked that Dakota Fanning had done a rape scene when she was 12 — “And she’s fine!” A debatable conjecture, surely.

I’m not naming names in all of these instances. And that invites criticism for some reason. Which is funny, because when women do name names, they are criticized for that, too. There’s no one right way to do any of this. In your own time, on your own terms, is a notion I cling to, when it comes to talking about experiences of powerlessness.

I haven’t acted for almost 10 years now. Lately I’ve thought of trying to rediscover what once made it seem worthwhile. It’s a beautiful job, after all, built on empathy and human connection, and it seems strange to turn your back on something you did for so long. But for a long time, I felt that it wasn’t worth it to me to open my heart and make myself so vulnerable in an industry that makes its disdain for women evident everywhere I turn.

Several years ago, I approached a couple of successful female actors in Hollywood about an idea I had for a comedy project: We would write, direct and star in a short film about the craziest, worst experience we’d ever had on a set. We told our stories to one another, thinking they would be hysterically funny. We were full of zeal for this project. But the stories, when we told them, left us in tears and bewildered at how casually we had taken these horror stories and tried to make them into comedy. They were stories of assault. When they were spoken out loud, it was impossible to reframe them any other way. This is how we’d normalized the trauma, tried to integrate it, by making comedy out of it. We abandoned the film, but not the project of unearthing the weight of these stories, which we’d previously hidden from ourselves.

Harvey Weinstein may be the central-casting version of a Hollywood predator, but he was just one festering pustule in a diseased industry. The only thing that shocked most people in the film industry about the Harvey Weinstein story was that suddenly, for some reason, people seemed to care. That knowledge alone allowed a lot of us to breathe for the first time in ages.

Here is an unsettling problem that I am left with now: Like so many, I knew about him. And not just from my comparatively tame meeting with him. For years, I heard the horrible stories that are now chilling so many people to their core. Like so many, I didn’t know what to do with all of it. I’ve grown up in this industry, surrounded by predatory behavior, and the idea of making people care about it seemed as distant an ambition as pulling the sun out of the sky.

I want to believe that the intense wave of disgust at this sort of behavior will lead to real change. I have to think that many people in high places will be a little more careful. But I hope that when this moment of noisy sisterhood dissipates, it doesn’t end with a woman in a courtroom, being made to look crazy, as these stories so often do.

I hope that the ways in which women are degraded, both obvious and subtle, begin to seem like a thing of the past.

For that to happen, I think we need to look at what scares us the most. We need to look at ourselves. What have we been willing to accept, out of fear, helplessness, a sense that things can’t be changed? What else are we turning a blind eye to, in all aspects of our lives? What else have we accepted that, somewhere within us, we know is deeply unacceptable? And what, now, will we do about it?

#Nicole Beharie #Nikki Beharie #harvey weinstein #insta

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d-and-s-are-bord-blog · 5 years ago

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Why I Decided to Start Kink Shaming Myself

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This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

When I reached it, he said “wait…” and when I turned around he was holding out my bag. He looked confused, maybe even slightly hurt. I snatched it from him.

“Where are you going?”

I said, “I’m not into this,” slammed the door and left.

Follow James Greig on Twitter.

The post Why I Decided to Start Kink Shaming Myself appeared first on .

Posted by richmeganews on 2019-03-22 20:16:26

Tagged: , Breaking , News

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nahret · 6 years ago

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The Literal Worst

So, I’m sure you’ve read me go on and on about how the main character’s consent in most stories is not something the writers are actively interested in. Some of the stories are better, and some are worse, but as a general rule, the MC usually meets her roster of suitors through some element of forced circumstances. Sometimes they’re supernatural (she is a reborn goddess who must help some gods get back to heaven) sometimes they’re mundane (her stepfather accidentally rents out the apartment to her and his son at the same time). And sometimes, well, I guess it’s just gonna be human trafficking and slavery.

I KNOW RIGHT?? What an excellent premise for a romance! Who wouldn’t want to be auctioned off to the highest bidder? And yet, this is one of Voltage’s most successful titles. Humans are weird. And I am weird, because I actually read the stuff. So, here it is, the worst of the worst. Have, er, fun.

Side note: this is, obviously, also one of the worst actual titles. The Japanese original is called “A Mischievous Kiss in a Suite Room” (スイートルームで悪戯なキス). Which is also not great, but at least it doesn’t insist on the questionable alliteration. Also, behold the original icon: yes, that is the cage the MC is auctioned off in.

What’s the Story?

The MC is a chamber maid (I KNOW RIGHT??) in the most prestigious hotel in Tokyo, the Tres Spades. Allow me to remind you that the original game is Japanese, and all foreign languages are equally funny. Anyway, the hotel often hosts all kinds of celebrities, and this coming weekend, a glamorous VIP party is to take place. Naturally, all the maids are hoping to get a glimpse of the famous people, but our MC gets a head start by accidentally falling at Eisuke Ichinomiya’s feet. The hotel belongs to the Ichinomiya Group, so it’s immediately clear that this person is important. He is also a bit of an ass, and orders the MC out of his way in no uncertain terms.

Erika with the twins Rina and Kana.

After a scolding by odious bully Erika and her two wingwomen, the MC is sent to retrieve guest gifts from the storage room. As she approaches the elevator, she comes across a lovers’ quarrel, as a woman declares she’s had enough of the guy and throws a domino mask at him. The man in the hat, who is of course Baba, is not heartbroken for long, as he quickly decides that obviously the MC’s arrival is the working of fate. He grabs her hand and takes her to the coveted VIP party downstairs. As fate would have it, though, she loses Baba in the crowd and coming across Ota, she meets Eisuke again, who heaps some more disdain on her.

As he leaves, however, he drops a white glove, the kind one uses when appraising art and the like, the MC realises to her surprise. Even so, she chases after him as he leaves the ball room through an unobtrusive door in the back. There, she loses him in a long corridor with many doors. Approaching a door that is slightly ajar, the MC glimpses briefcases full of cash and guns. Still reeling from the discovery, she is apprehended by a tall, dark man with slicked-back hair, whom we will later know as Soryu Oh, the Chinese mobster. While he impresses on her what could happen if she didn’t forget everything she just saw, he does let her go.

But of course, this is where she jumps out of the frying pan and into the fire as, moments later, she accidentally breaks an incredibly valuable statue that was to be auctioned off in the black market auction that takes place in the basement of the hotel. Deprived of their loot, the two men whe were carrying the statue simply decide to sell the MC instead. And this, friends, is how we got to the present situation.

After the auction, the MC is brought before her buyers and gets to choose which one she wants to be owned by.

Clockwise from top left: Eisuke, Soryu, Baba, Rhion Hatter, Mamoru, Ota

The Guys

Ichinomiya Eisuke is the very embodiment of the Domineering Asshole. He is the prototype, in as far as he predates Leon. He is dismissive, dominant, condescending, irrational, and controlling, and I dare say, these are his positive traits. I might be exaggerating a little, but really, only a little.

Oh Soryu, a Steadfast Presence who is easily irritated, he is a member of a clan of the Chinese mafia, the Triads. As Baba describes him, he is a bad guy, but not a bad person. Born into a Triad family, he had no choice but to join the family business. He would much rather have chosen a different career.

Baba Mitsunari, the thief. Charming, I suspect he’s the womanizer of the pack. I have not played his route, but he is flirty and charming wherever he’s present. He is, however, also very nice to the MC in the routes of the other guys, so he might not be so bad. Also, while his first name is obviously Mitsunari, he’s the only one is consistently referred to by his last name, Baba. His name is made fun of on occasion, because the popular card game “Old Maid” is called “baba-nuki” in Japanese.

Kisaki Ota, the “Angelic Artist” is a famous young painter. Also, a Puppet Master. He treats the MC like a literal pet, going so far as to give her his late dog’s name, Koro, and making her “sit” and “stay”.

Kishi Momoru, the corrupt cop. I’m gonna say he’s the Dark Mysterious Type, since he doesn’t speak more than strictly necessary. I haven’t read his story, so I have no idea what he’s about. In the other stories, he doesn’t give a shit about anything much.

The Mad Hatter is the auctioneer. There is a route where he keeps the MC to himself in his home-made Wonderland. He calls her Alice. Since he does not appear at all in the other guys’ stories, I know nothing about him.

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Why would I date you?

Why, indeed. Beyond Stockholm Syndrome, I mean. What is attractive about this premise? Maybe it’s the sheer horror of the idea here, and the morbid curiosity about how the writers plan on turning this car wreck around.

I choose you!

When they were free in the Love 365 app, I read Eisuke’s and Ota’s stories. Eisuke is renowned in the otoge (otome games) world for being one of the most unkind, abrasive characters you can come across. But again, we’ve met Leon and Scorpio, so I’m not sure that’s true. I paid money to play Soryu, and I was happy with that choice. Both Mamoru and Baba sound kinda interesting for who they are. I mean, there’s got to be a reason why Mamoru is on the wrong side of the law, right? And Baba always seems so… kind. So yes, this is actually not the worst thing I ever read. Except one of the routes actually is. Stay tuned.

Kissed by the Baddest Bidder: Yes, of all possible premises, this is the literal worst. The Literal Worst So, I'm sure you've read me go on and on about how the main character's consent in most stories is not something the writers are actively interested in.

#consent #Kissed by the Baddest Bidder #Love 365 #otome #otome game #otome review #Voltage game

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hollywoodjuliorivas · 7 years ago

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MAUREEN DOWD Harvey Weinstein, Hollywood’s Oldest Horror Story CONTRIBUTING OP-ED WRITER America Loves Plausible Deniability EDITORIAL The Rich, the Powerful and the Manhattan D.A. NICHOLAS KRISTOF Why I Went to North Korea OPINION White Nationalism Is Destroying the West ROSS DOUTHAT The ’70s and Us EXPOSURES The Rohingya Who Made It to Chicago EDITORIAL Would You Buy a Self-Driving Future From These Guys? OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR In Costa Rica, Loss in the Clouds NEWS ANALYSIS Xi Jinping and China’s New Era of Glory GRAY MATTER Why Are Millennials Wary of Freedom? SPORTING The Real Failure of U.S. Men’s Soccer PAUL KRUGMAN BLOG Lies, Lies, Lies, Lies, Lies, Lies, Lies, Lies, Lies, Lies NEWS ANALYSIS The Survivor’s Guilt of a New American Citizen OPINION The Ashes in Napa RED CENTURY Baba Yaga on the Ganges EDITORIAL Some Urgent Questions About Turkey OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR The C.I.A.’s Fake News Campaign GAIL COLLINS Stupid Trump Tricks Loading... OPINION Advertisement SundayReview | OPINION Sarah Polley: The Men You Meet Making Movies By SARAH POLLEYOCT. 14, 2017 Continue reading the main storyShare This Page Share Tweet Email More Save 328 Photo Sarah Polley (right) making her documentary “Stories We Tell.” Credit Ken Woroner/Roadside Attractions One day, when I was 19 years old, I was in the middle of a photo shoot for a Miramax film when I was suddenly told it was time to leave. I was wearing a little black dress, showing a lot of cleavage, lying seductively on my side and looking slyly at the camera. The part I had played in the movie, “Guinevere,” could not have been more removed from this pose. My character was an awkward girl, bumbling, in fact, who wore sweatshirts and jeans, and had little sense of her sexual power. But this was how they were going to sell the movie, and at a certain point, I was tired of being a problem, which is how a female actor is invariably treated whenever she points out that she is being objectified or not respected. I was pulled out of the photo shoot abruptly. The publicist said that we needed to be in Harvey Weinstein’s office in 20 minutes. “Are we done here?” I asked. “No” was the answer. “But Harvey wants you there now.” In the taxi, the publicist looked at me and said: “I’m going in with you. And I’m not leaving your side.” I knew everything I needed to know in that moment, and I was grateful. When I got there, Mr. Weinstein wasted no time. He told me, in front of the publicist and a co-worker beside him, that a famous star, a few years my senior, had once sat across from him in the chair I was in now. Because of his “very close relationship” with this actress, she had gone on to play leading roles and win awards. If he and I had that kind of “close relationship,” I could have a similar career. “That’s how it works,” I remember him telling me. The implication wasn’t subtle. I replied that I wasn’t very ambitious or interested in acting, which was true. He then asked me about my political activism and went on to recast himself as a left-wing activist, which was among the funniest things I’d ever heard. I indicated that he was wasting his time. We probably wouldn’t be friends or have a “close relationship.” I just didn’t care that much about an acting career. I loved acting, still do, but I knew, after 14 years of working professionally, that it wasn’t worth it to me, and the reasons were not unconnected to the tone of that meeting almost 20 years ago. Continue reading the main story ADVERTISEMENT Continue reading the main story On sets, I saw women constantly pressured to exploit their sexuality and then chastised as sluts for doing so. Women in technical jobs were almost nonexistent, and when they were there, they were constantly being tested to see if they really knew what they were doing. You felt alone, in a sea of men. I noticed my own tendency to want to be “one of the boys,” to distance myself from the humiliation of being a woman on a film set, where there were so few of us. Then came the photo shoots in which you were treated like a model with no other function than to sell your sexuality, regardless of the nature of the film you were promoting. I’ve often wondered how I would have behaved in the meeting with Harvey Weinstein had I been more ambitious as an actor. I was sitting in front of a man who wielded enormous power. If you were interested in being in movies directed by interesting filmmakers, he wasn’t someone you wanted to alienate. How would one have left that meeting, or those hotel rooms, which have been described by others, with that relationship intact, when he displayed such entitlement and was famous for such anger? I was purely lucky that I didn’t care. Shortly afterward, I started writing and directing short films. I had no idea, until then, how little respect I had been shown as an actor. Now there were no assistant directors trying to cajole me into sitting on their laps, no groups of men standing around to assess how I looked in a particular piece of clothing. I could decide what I felt was important to say, how to film a woman, without her sexuality being a central focus without context. In my mid-20s, I made my first feature film, “Away From Her.” Newsletter Sign UpContinue reading the main story Sign Up for the Opinion Today Newsletter Every weekday, get thought-provoking commentary from Op-Ed columnists, the Times editorial board and contributing writers from around the world. Sign Up You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. SEE SAMPLE MANAGE EMAIL PREFERENCES PRIVACY POLICY OPT OUT OR CONTACT US ANYTIME While working on “Away From Her,” I had the privilege of working with Julie Christie, who, while maintaining her vision for her character, was deeply committed to collaboration and could shift her performance on a dime when given direction. It was an amazing gift for a director, still learning the ropes. I realized that in the past, whether I’d known it or not, some part of me had been afraid of direction. I vowed to go back to acting with my newfound understanding of collaboration. I would be more pliable. I was excited to give my whole, unfettered self to a director, the way Julie Christie had done for me. But I had forgotten a key ingredient of the acting process. Most directors are insensitive men. And while I’ve met quite a few humane, kind, sensitive male directors and producers in my life, sadly they are the exception and not the rule. This industry doesn’t tend to attract the most gentle and principled among us. I had two experiences in the same year in which I went into a film as an actor with an open heart and was humiliated, violated, dismissed and then, in one instance, called overly sensitive when I complained. One producer, when I mentioned I didn’t feel a rape scene was being handled sensitively, barked that Dakota Fanning had done a rape scene when she was 12 — “And she’s fine!” A debatable conjecture, surely. I’m not naming names in all of these instances. And that invites criticism for some reason. Which is funny, because when women do name names, they are criticized for that, too. There’s no one right way to do any of this. In your own time, on your own terms, is a notion I cling to, when it comes to talking about experiences of powerlessness. I haven’t acted for almost 10 years now. Lately I’ve thought of trying to rediscover what once made it seem worthwhile. It’s a beautiful job, after all, built on empathy and human connection, and it seems strange to turn your back on something you did for so long. But for a long time, I felt that it wasn’t worth it to me to open my heart and make myself so vulnerable in an industry that makes its disdain for women evident everywhere I turn. ADVERTISEMENT Continue reading the main story Several years ago, I approached a couple of successful female actors in Hollywood about an idea I had for a comedy project: We would write, direct and star in a short film about the craziest, worst experience we’d ever had on a set. We told our stories to one another, thinking they would be hysterically funny. We were full of zeal for this project. But the stories, when we told them, left us in tears and bewildered at how casually we had taken these horror stories and tried to make them into comedy. They were stories of assault. When they were spoken out loud, it was impossible to reframe them any other way. This is how we’d normalized the trauma, tried to integrate it, by making comedy out of it. We abandoned the film, but not the project of unearthing the weight of these stories, which we’d previously hidden from ourselves. Harvey Weinstein may be the central-casting version of a Hollywood predator, but he was just one festering pustule in a diseased industry. The only thing that shocked most people in the film industry about the Harvey Weinstein story was that suddenly, for some reason, people seemed to care. That knowledge alone allowed a lot of us to breathe for the first time in ages. Here is an unsettling problem that I am left with now: Like so many, I knew about him. And not just from my comparatively tame meeting with him. For years, I heard the horrible stories that are now chilling so many people to their core. Like so many, I didn’t know what to do with all of it. I’ve grown up in this industry, surrounded by predatory behavior, and the idea of making people care about it seemed as distant an ambition as pulling the sun out of the sky. I want to believe that the intense wave of disgust at this sort of behavior will lead to real change. I have to think that many people in high places will be a little more careful. But I hope that when this moment of noisy sisterhood dissipates, it doesn’t end with a woman in a courtroom, being made to look crazy, as these stories so often do. 328 COMMENTS I hope that the ways in which women are degraded, both obvious and subtle, begin to seem like a thing of the past. For that to happen, I think we need to look at what scares us the most. We need to look at ourselves. What have we been willing to accept, out of fear, helplessness, a sense that things can’t be changed? What else are we turning a blind eye to, in all aspects of our lives? What else have we accepted that, somewhere within us, we know is deeply unacceptable? And what, now, will we do about it?

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