#anyway hope you like this little present

[my-rose-tinted-glasses]

THE NIPPLE TALK Kaiser Chuang as MAMA

Dedicated to @thisonelikesaliens. Thank you for the translation notes. 🩷

[an-established-butt-dent]

Dorian Pavus, present age

Over a period of 10 years I imagine Dorian to have collected quite the library.

[renabe4life]

Could Be Good

For @whatacartouchebag When I was deciding what to draw for you this time, a handful of scenes came immediately to mind. All from this fic of yours, so you have no one to blame but yourself >w> A special present for a special bean (who means the world to me) on their special day. Hope you like it ♡

Also because I can >:))) FGW2024 Day 6 – Secret/Confession

[firstkhao]

"I hope my best friends will be safe and happy, eat well, drink well, always get a good night's sleep, have plenty of choices, and meet friendly people. Even if we are miles apart, we will still shine when we don't see each other."

— WHEN I FLY TOWARDS YOU 当我飞奔向你 (2023) dir. Mao De Shu happy (belated) valentine's day dear nía ♡ @algtrs insp

[saysflora]

If you ask Mush, winter is one of the best times of the year, but it seems he's one of the only people in the lodgings that feels that way. What starts as a way to take Blink's mind off of the now cold, dark months ends up being a bigger scheme than even he was imagining, and he's more than happy to take the opportunity to plan a celebration that'll have everyone raring with holiday spirit. With help, of course.

OR: Mush throws a Christmas Party.

[pynkhues]

Hi sophie! I hate to be the person who brings bad vibes your way, but I keep seeing ppl twisting your arguments in the worst way possible and it’s honestly bumming me out. The latest vaguepost claims that saying Louis is traditionally masculine or a patriarch is antiblack (this is the post btw in case your curious: https://www.tumblr.com/nashvillethotchicken/770055675307065344/a-lot-of-people-in-the-iwtv-fandom-regurgitate?source=share). It made me wonder whether this pushback against Louis’ masculinity has something to do with a narrow concept of gender roles in general. Because there always seems to be this idea that being masculine equals being a hyperviolent abuser, while any gentle or submissive trait immediately gets interpreted as “feminine” (and overall I see a very strong correlation between femininity and victimhood -especially in the context of domestic abuse -which is understandable but not necessarily helpful when talking abt a gay couple). I agree a lot with your interpretation of Louis as a Byronic hero and the points you’ve made about his and Lestat’s gender presentation, so it sort of surprises me to see so many people believe that recognizing Louis’ masculinity somehow negates his sensibility and his capacity for tenderness (not to mention the assumption that we are trying to defend Lestat and make him into a victim, which is a wild leap and a very bad faith reading of the whole argument imo)

Hey, anon, and that's okay. I can appreciate feeling bummed about my words being twisted into a strawman argument - I do sometimes too - but at the end of the day, that's out of my control and I think says a lot more about the people who'd do it than it does about me.

It's actually kind of interesting to me, because I think with a lot of those sorts of posts, the person actually kind of knows they're strawmanning, because they'd address me directly if they actually thought any of what they wrote in that post was what I was saying, and they almost never do. They make these sorts of posts loudly and publicly to turn the argument into one that stokes outrage and becomes something they can adopt a moral highground to and win, and I think in a lot of ways, it becomes an exercise in control. If they can put words in my mouth and not actually engage with me, they can control the environment of the debate, and therefore they can attempt to control the discourse in the fandom i.e. dictate the way Louis is perceived and received as a character by others. They want it to look like they're arguing my points, but they're not.

They're arguing with the points they want me to be making, because if my points are that Louis' a mindless, hypermasculine 'brute' and a 'sexual deviant', they know they're right and they know how to argue against that, but if my argument is what it is - that Louis is pretty traditionally masculine, and in fact that he has almost all of the Byronic masculine traits which includes sensitivity, warmth, depression, egotism, a vengeful streak, and a complex relationship with religion, sexuality, and the self - it becomes a conversation that requires a more nuanced understanding of what masculinity is and has been throughout history and literature, which doesn't work with the TERFy talking points that are, frankly, endemic in fandom spaces broadly right now.

Which yeah, that goes to your second point about gender roles, because I think that you've hit the nail on the head. A lot of people in this fandom seem to view the concept of masculinity as inherently violent or abusive and femininity as - to borrow a phrase I loathe from TikTok, haha - demure and mindful - which is, again, literally TERF rhetoric. This desire to reinforce the gender binary and feel like you're not simply because you're applying reductive and stereotypical female characteristics to a male character is just sort of baffling to me, on so many levels.

And it appears in a lot of their arguments, like, gosh, even the post I was linked to yesterday about Eartha Kitt, David Bowie and Grace Jones being influences for Louis as indicative of his 'feminine divine', which to me - honestly - reads as a pretty homophobic and misogynistic take. Cisgender men can be (and are!) influenced personally, creatively and professionally by women, and the suggestion that to be so negates masculinity and is indicative of femininity feels like a pretty dangerous rhetoric to me.

The funny thing is, I don't actually have an issue with people liking femme!Louis at all. It's not how I see him, no, but I respect the fact that how we interpret characters is subjective, and people bring their own history and interests and yes, kinks to a show, and I actually think that's really cool! That's part of what makes engaging with stories and fandom fun! What I find exhausting is the recurring accusation that anyone who doesn't see Louis as a battered housewife entering his liberated woman era is a racist.

[strawbebbiesart]

a memory 🪴🌞

[antirepurp]

i feel like the ancients in frontiers bother me but im having a hard time pinning down the exact specifics of it. i don't think i have a problem with them being an alien ancient civilization, but the execution of them feels kind of. generic. beyond the implied connection to chaos that is. the echidnas were portrayed as warmongering and power hungry, likely due to their leadership, and they have an interesting position as a part of knuckles' heritage when knuckles is in several ways the exact opposite of their ideals - a peaceful guardian who seeks to preserve and not to conquer. the ancients in boom were left vague due to the dev hell and the repeat rewrites of the story, but in some ways it does them favors i'd say. they are a looming presence upon bygone island, their history scattered about and left to be rediscovered. supposedly a peaceful society sans lyric, who was able to cause havoc and destruction perhaps because the rest of his people did not have something like an army to fight back immediately. lyric was the only one who had any sort of ties to military concepts. the cartoon gives the ancients impressive technology, but i can't recall it being too much more than just fun machines whose primary purposes were along the lines of transportation and entertainment. i think those sort of implications make the ancients more interesting than they perhaps could've been if they were given some kind of obvious and explicit military history.

the frontiers' ancients feel like some kind of unsuccessful middle ground of those concepts i think? we are directed to see them as the peaceful underdogs while they also have a massive military presence and horrific tools of war that we fight directly over the course of the game, that we Require super sonic to bring down. i understand that at least some of that arsenal was built to fight the end, but then you juxtapose that advanced and destructive technology with the seemingly rural architecture littering the islands that, unlike the titans, has rotted and decayed in the face of nature. is that not supposed to speak of their priorities as society? or were their stay at the islands always supposed to be temporary? but then why build something like the cyberspace which is very much connected to the islands themselves?

i don't know maybe im missing something, maybe i've been thinking about the portrayal of military forces in sonic too hard lately, it just bothers me that the ancients are simultaneously supposed to be both a competent and strong military presence which the DLC only amplifies, and a peaceful society that would never even think about doing anything other than defend themselves with that destructive military they've built for themselves

[clemencetaught]

ferre makes aesthetics ( 5/??? ): verse two ( lee hyuk & shin myungdae )

"myungdae, no offense, but shut up." alfred cuts in, without looking up from the latte he's making. "that guy looks at you like you're the fucking sun. he doesn't hate you."

( photos do not belong to me. credit for the portrayal of lee hyuk goes to alex @jeoseungsaja! happy holidays my dear friend <3 )

[a-bucket-in-the-void]

this love stuff is crazy ain’t it

[ruvviks]

having an idea for a game but it's miles above your skill level

[definitelynotshouting]

HEY KING, ITS BEEN A HOT MINUTE

Been super busy with school (my grades are SUFFERING) plus studying for the ACT, PLUS trying to figure out what i want to do with my life so thats.... fun :)

Logged on to Tumblr to discover the prequel oneshot hungerau thing and ENJOYED IT VERY MUCH! keep at it dude, we're all cheering you on <3

-🐛

Hey bug anon!!! :D

Oh my gosh that sounds like so much on your plate dude 😭😭😭😭 GODSPEED BRAVE SOLDIER I AM ROOTING FOR YOU!!!!!! also im so glad you liked the oneshot!!! I worked really hard on it and i am treasuring every comment 🥰🥰🥰🥰

Also im hoping you dont mind a bit of unsolicited reassurance, but your comment about figuring out your life really vividly reminded me of when i was in high school trying to figure out college and my career and life in general, and just. Couldnt come up with anything. And i still remember how fuckoff scary that felt, so i just wanna reassure you, as someone who is a few years shy of 30 and never even ended up going to college, from the bottom of my heart you do not have to figure things out for yourself yet. I know there is so so much pressure surrounding that concept, but your life and priorities can drastically change as you grow. Sometimes you dont settle into what you want to do until you're far older, and thats okay!!! In fact thats genuinely the norm-- i didnt know i wanted to be a professional editor until about 6 years ago. And in the future i might decide i want to do something else, too, and pursue that instead!!

You never have to settle on One Path for yourself. Things change, people change, and everything is in constant fluid motion. Its okay not to know what you want out of your life-- genuinely, at this point in time youve barely even lived it. Ive barely lived mine-- im only just now hitting a point where i can really think about the longterm and put down lasting roots. Give yourself the space to figure it out organically, and i promise you as someone who has gone through this exact same thing, it will ultimately turn out okay❤️❤️❤️❤️ its a big learning curve, but you arent alone, and there are countless people out there who will be willing to help you as you go along :]

[unproduciblesmackdown]

shake your hand in character ft. flashback joe iconis, cyril von miserthorpe, krampus, the fancy tree, mister macabee, quince, little evalina, debra neezer jolie, flashback joe jr., flashback mama, poinsettia, hot candy, clouds, santa, aunt lorette, rufus?

[orcelito]

Revealing myself as a 98 vashmeryl truther by how I write vash and meryl's interactions in itnl

[ngmn2002]

Hmm... Hmm... Hmmmmmm........

I don't know but... these 2 things give me the same vibes. I mean... I don't know how to put it... it's nice to see some similarities between one's past and present self.

[todayisafridaynight]

Sorry to keep throwing Miscellaneous Asks your way, but I finally had a moment to get my thoughts in order on one of the points on your Venn diagram I wanted to talk about! I always kind of debate whether or not to send other, semi-unrelated long asks like this when we've already got a chain going, but oh well. I'll try and address anything brought up in response here in the main one and hopefully it doesn't get confusing lol.

So I was thinking about the extent of Jo and Arakawa's relationship. It is completely true there's not much you can say that's concrete, especially since most of what we see is from Jo's perspective. Although his perspective is crucial to forming an understanding of their relationship, it's not sufficient. This is particularly the case because, coming back to giri-ninjo for a moment, Jo is largely bound by giri; it's clear his loyalty runs deep, but it's not a choice for him.

Arakawa, on the other hand, can choose who he places his trust in, especially early on. And I think it's incredibly important that, despite having men who've already been with him from day 1, men who've already been helping him with his son, Arakawa chooses to "place every confidence" in Jo (per an old Famitsu profile, one of the first official ones) and chooses to make Jo his captain.

Similarly, he kind of chooses Jo "over" Ichi in sending Ichi to prison "instead of" Jo. Perhaps the family really would collapse without Jo's talents, but… does it have to collapse entirely? Didn't Arakawa make it pretty far on his own? I guess it's neither here nor there, but I've always wondered if things would've really played out as feared if Jo went to prison instead. Not to understate Jo's role in the family, of course.

Anyway, I think that trust shows not only in overt gestures such as entrusting Masato and the family's finances to Jo, but also in more subtle behind-the-scenes ways, such as what we were talking about before with regard to New Year's 2001. There's also the fact that leaking information to Aoki was Jo's idea; for that to be the case, Arakawa would have to discuss Aoki's threats at length with Jo. (Unrelated, but come to think of it, "complying with him [to] make him see value in keeping us around" is very often the strategy of victims of abuse and neglect…)

And this one's an underrated detail many people miss, but after Arakawa shot Ichi, while he was able to come up to Ichi to tell him he's counting on him and sneak in the fake bill, if the goal was to not arouse suspicion, I don't think he would exactly have been able to excuse himself from the dinner to drive Ichi to Yokohama. Time was of the essence in terms of Ichi's survival, so that leaves Jo, who was conveniently already at the scene and who was certainly in on the "secret rule" that constitutes part of the Arakawa Family's agreement with the homeless camp. Overall, there is a pattern of Arakawa approaching Jo before anyone else, isn't there?

Sort of branching off of that, I would personally feel comfortable saying that Jo knows Arakawa better than anyone else. He seems to know details about Akane and New Year's 1976 no one else does, details Arakawa would have had to volunteer himself, and that plus his own experiences are what allow him alone to have the most complete picture of that night.

I also get the impression Jo understands Arakawa better as a person than anyone else--certainly better than Aoki, but perhaps even better than Ichi in some cases. There are multiple instances where he defends Arakawa and challenges their perceptions of him--that he's "betrayed" the Tojo Clan, that he's betrayed Aoki, that he's the type to scheme and make power-plays behind Aoki's back. He hasn't. And, despite how little Jo's "allowed" to say, he turns out to be right every time. Also worth noting Arakawa does something similar in asking Ichi to try and understand Jo's frustrations, though he's more or less enabling Jo's abuse in doing so.

Lastly, The Smallest Detail that drives me kind of insane. Them arriving at the office in the back seat of the same car in one of Ichi's flashbacks. I wouldn't think too much of it if it were any other time of day, but the first-thing-in-the-morning quality and the fact Jo isn't driving (thus it's not as an act of service but as an equal) is like… Okay. You're carpooling to work. And if you're not carpooling, you're honest-to-god living together. What the hell.

So a lot of it is this web of inferences--it has to be, at least currently--but I really do think there's a lot to chew on. More than meets the eye, anyway. I've also been stewing in all of this for years, especially since drafting Jo's relationships section, so I might just have inhaled the fumes for too long lol

Thank you for coming to me about the nature of their relationship! Although I did put it down as being more-or-less 'uncertain' on my chart, I do agree that their relationship isn't as cut-and-dry as other relationships might be (it's going back to appreciating the complexities of RGG relationships, especially in the case of the Arakawa's where for every party involved it really IS complicated)

I wanted to exclude making any definitive statements on things that couldn't be verified without making a detour on the original post (I know I already mentioned frequently that Arakawa is able to joke about Jo being 'softer' on Masato, but I do think about their relationship often and the implied depth of Jo's loyalty if- as you said- he was able to climb through the ranks of the Arakawa family much quicker than preexisting members), but there are clear points in the game that due allude to a great trust between the two (and I also note that carpooling detail during Ichi's flashback- or at the very least I know I'd find myself noticing Jo sitting in the back opposed to the front/driving). It's definitely not hard to assert that Jo knows Arakawa well either, it's hard not to come to that conclusion when we have evidence from the game to infer that.