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themagnuswriters · 4 years ago

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Asexuality in Fic Roundtable - What We Like

How do I write a convincing asexual character in a fic? Is there a way to address a character’s sexuality outside the context of sex or coming out? Can a story feature a character's asexuality aside from exploring the negative aspects of the asexual experience? It’s usually not too hard to find lists of what not to do when writing asexual characters, but much more difficult to find the opposite.

The asexual members of The Magnus Writers discord gathered to discuss their favorite ways to incorporate the day-to-day details of asexual peoples’ experiences into fiction. We also discussed depictions that we’ve enjoyed in the past, or would love to see more of. Note that this isn’t an Asexuality 101 resource, so if you don’t feel familiar with the basics, feel free to check out the resources we will link in the reblog of this post.

This conversation included a variety of ace-spectrum people from multiple countries, including both arospec and non-aro people, various genders, and varying relationships to sex and sexual content. Just like all asexual people are different, the things that we enjoy reading are far from universal. Some tropes/details brought up as favorites can vary widely--for example, “innuendo completely flies over their head” vs. “they understand but are completely unfazed by innuendo.” Additionally, some aces love tropes that others would prefer to avoid: for instance some enjoy discussions of physical boundaries to be included in the fic, and some prefer that to be established as happening in the past.

The examples brought up in our discussion are also far from comprehensive, and can be seen as the beginning of an endless list of possible ways to write asexual characters. Some examples given are specific to the Magnus Archives, but can apply to any writing. Take these as inspiration and a way to broaden your understanding of who we are and what we like to see!

ASEXUALITY IN YOUR SETTING

When writing a story including asexual characters, one of your first considerations may be for how asexuality is contextualized within your setting: Is it fully normalized and accepted? Does it reflect real-world stigmas? How is asexuality treated by the narrative and the other characters? Contributors showed interest in a variety of approaches on this front, with no single approach being worth more than other:

Fics including negative real-world experiences

These would include fics in a realistic setting, where characters may struggle with internalized acephobia, stigma, social pressure, microaggressions, dysphoria, and so on. This isn’t limited to just “issue fic,” where the focus of the fic is about examining and confronting a struggle, but rather encompasses anything that includes this consideration in its worldbuilding and characterization. While brighter settings can be refreshing, contributors described reasons why this kind of fic appeals to them:

Feeling seen: Reading about ace characters whose experiences reflect their own

Feeling validated: Being exposed to only stories where there are no issues on this front can feel like we’re the only one facing these struggles. It can be extremely cathartic to read something and think “I thought I was the only person who went through this.”

Exploring improvement/hope: From ace characters learning to accept themselves or other characters making mistakes and accepting correction, these can be validating and encouraging.

On top of ace readers finding worth in these fics, the act of writing the fic can also be very cathartic for many ace authors.

There is a lot of variety for how these fics can be written, such as:

Stories that focus on the negative experience

Stories where that experience is just part of the setting or characterization

The character(s) getting external support and validation

The character facing mixed dismissiveness, acceptance, prejudice, etc. from different people

The story resolving in a way where the situation is resolved: for instance, cutting off an acephobic relationship, or someone apologizing for a microaggression.

Stories where well-meaning characters are accidentally insensitive about asexuality, but learn better and change their behavior

The character confronting or overcoming an internal struggle

Stories where the issues aren’t fully resolved by the end, such as an insecurity not fully going away.

Negative asexual experiences don’t have to be the focus of a fic to be acknowledged. While “issue fics” that closely examine and explore these experiences are valuable, contributors also described enjoying stories that included them as simply an element of the worldbuilding or characterization. For instance, a story may reference Jon having bad past relationship experiences; facing assumptions that he’s having sex if he’s in a relationship; having moments of insecurities about his sexuality; etc.

Please note that writing negative ace experiences needs to be handled sensitively; fics of this type should definitely be tagged appropriately. For brief references, consider including author’s note warnings on the appropriate chapter (e.g. “asexual character assumed to be having sex”). Having an asexual sensitivity reader--particularly one of a type that corresponds with what you’re writing (i.e. sex-neutral, gray-ace, sex-repulsed, etc)--is very much encouraged.

Fics where asexuality is normalized

In contrast, there is just as much interest in stories that avoid all of these issues, and fully normalize asexuality. Contributors described how they enjoy stories where ace characters are allowed to just exist, without big important conversations or small othering details that depict asexual identities as less than fully accepted.

These can be included in any type of fic, but a few of the suggested details for how to normalize asexuality in a setting include:

A character being already out and accepted: For instance, Martin already knowing about Jon’s asexuality from early seasons.

Characters in the fic already knowing what asexuality is without needing it explained to them

Having more than one character be asexual: We aren’t confined to writing only canon characters as ace! This not only goes the extra mile in normalizing asexuality, but it gives the chance to include more of the ace spectrum.

If you’re aiming for asexuality to be normalized, please consider whether it makes sense for your asexual character to be anxious about coming out or discussing boundaries. There is a world of difference between someone responding to an ace character coming out with “I fully support you” and responding with “you’re an idiot for thinking we wouldn’t support you.” This is a common and easy pitfall to fall into, but the result is often less escapism and more a message of “your struggles aren’t real, and you’re stupid for thinking they are.”

Asexuality in Metaphor

Some contributors mentioned wanting to read settings where asexuality itself is normalized, but the issues facing aces could be explored on a metaphorical level. This falls somewhere in between the ideas of realistic or idealized settings as regards the ace experience, and could allow that exploration with a layer of distance. Ideas relating to this included fantasy settings with different kinds of magic.

PERSONALITY AND CHARACTERIZATION

The experience of being asexual isn’t something just limited to a relationship with sex: it can be shown in many ways, such as how a character relates to themselves, other people, media, and society. Like any other queer identity, it affects many aspects of our lives and informs a great deal about us as people. These little details don’t even need to be presented in a blunt “this is because this character is asexual” way--they can be little relatable notes for your ace readers, while not coming across in a “this is how all ace people are” way.

We’ve seen the question “how do I write a character as asexual, if I’m not planning on having someone ask them for sex or writing a coming-out scene?” many times. Our contributors were excited to share a wide variety of ideas for this from things they’ve read, written, or experienced:

Ace confusion

Not to be confused with the infantilizing “doesn’t know what sex is” approach, this could involve things like:

Being confused over what sexual attraction is: difficulty defining what they don’t experience.

Difficulty describing to others what lack of sexual attraction is: this is their default, and it can be difficult to contrast it to what they don’t experience.

Thinking that others describing sexual attraction or interest is just exaggeration

“Wait, that’s what you mean when you say ‘hot’? I just thought it meant they’re gorgeous.”

“You mean meeting someone and being instantly sexually interested in them is a real thing, and not just a movie trope?”

The Absurdity of How Society Views Sex

The jarring dissonance between asexual experiences and the norms in society and media can cause a lot of alienation and dysphoria in aces, but often it hits a point of feeling like a joke is being played on you. Contributors offered ideas for how this could be illustrated through a character:

Reading “How to Spice Up Your Love Life” articles out of pure morbid curiosity

Taking the most ridiculous Cosmo sex life article as How Everyone Thinks (and being concerned)

Having an allo friend or partner they can ask about whether any of it is legitimate advice (this one was brought up by a lot of people as a common ace experience)

An ADHD/autistic character getting a special interest or hyperfixation on societal views on sex or sexual practices, and pursuing it as purely a matter of research with no interest in participating

“Why do they keep bringing up ice cubes? Georgie, stop laughing, I am a researcher and a scholar.”

Needing to teleport out of the room if a sex scene comes up in a movie

Not minding the sex scenes, but needing to make fun of them or point out impracticalities

“On the beach? But sand is everywhere? Wait, they think getting sand everywhere is hot??”

Being baffled at what’s considered sexy: for example, Jon being baffled at “wet clothes are sexy,” having grown up by the beach and associating them with being terribly uncomfortable

Of course, asexual characters don’t need to be framed like they constantly need to learn about things from allo people--sometimes the reverse can be a fun twist. One reversal, for example, could be an ace person helping their allo friend parse whether their attraction to someone is simply sexual or also romantic.

Aces vs. flirting

While not specifically connected to sexual attraction, how a character interacts with flirting can very much demonstrate the asexual experience. Contributors discussed a variety of their own experiences, and details they’ve enjoyed reading for ace characters:

Having difficulty distinguishing between different kinds of draws to people--is it romance? Friendship?

Having difficulty picking up on whether or not someone is interested in them

Failing to realize they’re flirting or being flirted with

Enjoying flirting as just a fun thing to do without any particular goal (a popular suggestion for a Tim ace headcanon)

Casually flirting but then backing off if it becomes “real”

Several examples were given of scenarios these could be used for Jon:

Jon’s dry prickliness stemming from wanting to avoid people thinking he’s flirting or showing interest in them, not being sure where others judge the line between “flirting” or “being nice.”

Jon deciding he is going to make an effort to be more friendly to people, and awkwardly starts showering others with compliments; some of them interpret it as flirting and it’s very confusing.

Jon (or Martin) being overly dramatic or romantic when purposefully showing interest in someone, drawing from a basis of books or media rather than social experience.

Aces vs. hotness

We might use the word “hot” excessively, but ace people often have their own understanding of the word (and are often surprised to learn what others mean by it). Contributors brought up the following ideas for this area:

Using “hot” as an expression of “gorgeous to look at,” and being confused to learn that others use it as a sexual expression.

Engaging with “are they hot” conversations based purely on aesthetics, or other impressions like “would they give good hugs.”

Focusing on seemingly random physical details, like wrists or eyebrow shape, over more commonly sexualized ones.

Being confused over the criteria others use for hotness. Example: Jon’s reaction to “the hot one” comment.

Finding fictional characters not represented by a real person “hot” (e.g. from books, podcasts, video games with bad graphics, etc)

Using the words “hot” and sexy” for completely nonsexual things. Several contributors described being told they couldn’t be ace if they called anything hot/sexy, and then doing it more out of spite.

Being completely unfazed by innuendo or sex/nudity: For example, Jon’s calm response vs. Martin being flustered at Tim stripping

This is also an area where a story can establish the nature of their relationship with those around them: if a character is comfortably out as not being interested in sex, for instance, you can show that others around them support that by making their conversations more inclusive. For example, a “fuck, marry, kill” game with modified categories, or a “who would you have sex with” conversation changed to a “who would you have dinner with” one once the ace character enters.

Aces vs. sexual humor

Ace people’s reactions to sexual humor can vary as much as the reactions to flirting. Contributors described enjoying a broad range of these:

Aces who love sexual humor (not limited to sex-favorable aces)

Humor taking an angle of “sex is so strange, glad it isn’t real.”

Aces who are bored with or exhausted by sexual humor

Not finding sexual humor funny unless it’s also clever. “Yes I know that’s a sexual reference...wait, it was meant to be funny? Because it’s connected to sex? ....I see. Anyway.”

Bonus points if the “is that supposed to be funny because it’s sexual?” ace and the filthy humor ace are friends

It can even vary for the same person from setting to setting: someone may find making dirty jokes with a group of ace friends might be fun (see the “Absurdity of Sex” section above), but be very uncomfortable with someone else trying to twist something they said into something sexual. There’s also the nature of the joke itself: a silly pun may be fine, but a joke implying the ace person is interested in sex or said something sexual without meaning to may be alienating.

For TMA, the general interpretation of Jon is that he’d be uncomfortable with sexual humor, which is relatable to a lot of asexual people, but contributors brought up other possibilities as well: for example, the idea of Jon liking clever wordplay so much that if it just so happens to include something sexual, it doesn’t feel odd to him--why do the others look so shocked?

Note: A lot of asexual awareness posts insensitively treat the concept of aces who love filthy humor as more mature, more easygoing, less stereotypical, or otherwise superior to aces who are uncomfortable with sexual humor. This is a very harmful attitude that looks down on a lot of asexual people, and adds a pressure to push past comfort levels to fit in and “avoid being a stereotype.” Contributors loved reading stories that include flirty or filthy aces, but not when they take this tone. A favorite suggestion was to include more than one ace character to depict a variety, while treating them as equally valid.

Somewhat related to this is ace people’s relationship to sexual euphemisms. Contributors described their experiences or how they might write an ace character responding to these:

Being exhausted by how so many terms are considered euphemisms, or how any comment could be reframed as sexual.

Having a special annoyance when they accidentally stumble into or misunderstand a euphemism

Wanting to decouple euphemisms from their literal meaning: why does “spending the night” or “going home with someone” have to mean “having sex”?

In the same line, being very blunt and straightforward about making sexual references, because why dance around it?

Characterization Considerations

One discussion that is particularly relevant to The Magnus Archives is the idea of the “uptight nerd” ace persona. It may sound strange to say, but there is some legitimacy in this characterization, but for different reasons than is stereotyped. Many of us build up this persona while growing up--particularly in adolescence and early adulthood--to fend off uncomfortable social pressure, self-examination, or external criticism for why we relate to sex differently than our peers. This often involves playing up certain defenses for discomfort for sex or dating: “I don’t have time for any of that, I only have time for books and knowledge!” Or, the adult version: “I don’t have time for relationships, I’m married to my job!”

Where this departs from the stereotype is that these are generally coping mechanisms or facades rather than the truth. Asexuality isn’t “of course they don’t have time for sex, they’re obsessed with this or that”--but an asexual person who doesn’t feel comfortable in their environment, such as around work, school, or family, may deflect judgment with similar excuses. Similar to this, some find it tempting to be antisocial or hostile on purpose to fend off interest in them or avoid sexual expectations.

This is, of course, far from the only way an ace character could be written. For instance, if you wanted to write a setting where asexuality is more accepted, you could write Jon’s antisocial and closed-off tendencies as a result of being bullied from a very young age, while he is confident and secure in his asexuality. Or for other characters: you could write Tim as someone who has enjoyed sexual relationships, but just thought everyone was exaggerating on the attraction side of things.

Intersection of Asexuality with Other Identities

Another characterization consideration is how asexuality intersects with other identities and experiences included in the fic. Below are a few examples of many:

Asexuality and masculinity: Social expectations of masculinity place a high emphasis on sexuality, particularly heterosexuality, treating sexual activity as a commodity or prize. One possible reading of The Magnus Archives is Jon’s tendency to have closer and more numerous friendships with women connects to this.

Asexuality and trans identities: There is a significant overlap between aspec and trans identities, particularly nonbinary identities. Based on an October 2020 study by the Trevor Project (see link in reblog), ace respondents were roughly 50% more likely to be trans (including nonbinary) than allo respondents. Contributors described how they’ve felt things like “is this dysphoria I’m feeling a gender thing or an asexuality thing,” or how figuring out their asexuality helped them explore their gender.

Asexuality and race: In combination with LGBTQ+ spaces often being white-dominated, people of color often face stereotypes that hypersexualize or desexualize them. This can have a strong impact on people of color’s experience and self-perception as asexual. For instance, if you are writing Jon as Indian, you could consider how this may have impacted his experiences in LGBTQ spaces in university. As there is no ‘one size fits all’ experience for aces of color, we strongly recommend researching for the particular background you have in mind. We will be adding resource links to our main page shortly, but in the meantime check out the links in the reblog of this post!

INTIMACY AND RELATIONSHIPS

One of the topics addressed in our discussion was how a character’s asexuality may impact their experiences with intimacy and romantic relationships. Contributors discussed ways to portray this in fic, whether or not it includes sex or even mentions it.

Physical Intimacy

Intimacy, sensuality, and sex are separate things that may or may not overlap depending on the individual. Contributors discussed how, for people across the ace spectrum, the relationship between these three tends to differ from common societal frameworks or depictions of intimacy in fiction.

Enjoying physical intimacy without the expectation that it will become sexual: massages, falling asleep on top of each other, bathing together, etc.

This includes acts that would often be expected to “lead somewhere” but don’t, such as lots of touching or nude cuddling.

Craving closeness/touch completely outside of sexual drive

One scenario suggested for this topic is an asexual character discovering that without the worry that an act of intimacy will ‘lead somewhere,’ they enjoy something they used to get anxious about, such as sharing a bed or showering together.

Boundaries & Communication

Stories with an asexual character in a relationship often address physical boundaries within that relationship. The below are some of the scenarios contributors have enjoyed:

People communicating over their sexual boundaries, rather than assuming what these are as soon as they hear the word “asexual.”

The boundaries discussion being framed as something that any couple in a fictional relationship should have, not just because one is asexual.

In relationships between allo and ace characters, the allo character having boundaries of their own, rather than just the ace character.

Normalizing boundaries discussions for allo couples as well.

Note: If a boundaries discussion involves a sex-favorable ace character, take caution at the risk of having them sound offended or derisive that the discussion is happening (e.g. “What, I’m not a child” or “Not all aces are like that.”). Enforcing the idea that people should assume their partner is sex-interested is extremely harmful to sex-disinterested aces.

Some contributors noted that they prefer fics where the boundaries discussion is something that has taken place in the past, rather than run through at the beginning of each fic they read. In these cases, this past discussion could be illustrated in the interaction itself: a character’s awareness of what lines not to cross, the other’s confidence and trust that those boundaries will be respected, and so on.

Issues of Intimacy Outside of Sex

While aversion to sex is the most well-known dimension of asexuality, there are other aversions and boundaries that could apply to either ace or allo characters:

Ace characters that are kiss-averse and/or touch-averse: This also works against the “They won’t have sex, but they’ll make up for that with kissing even more!” trope that implies asexual people have to compensate for a nonsexual relationship.

Allo characters with their own aversions or specific boundaries: suggestions included how this can apply to trans characters.

Fluctuations in levels of aversion (note: it is important to not treat increased aversion as “progress” or decreased aversion as “regression”)

In cases of fluctuating aversion, characters developing ways to communicate these levels, and responding appropriately. For example, “Kissing is not on the table right now, let’s move on to something more comfortable.”

Contributors were excited to discuss how this area could particularly be used for the allo partner of an ace character, such as an allo Martin having difficulties with touch post-Lonely, or discovering that he doesn’t enjoy kissing.

Relationships to Sex (or Lack Thereof)

Asexuality ‘subtypes’ are terms many aces describe their personal relationship with sex and/or sexual content. These are simplified self-descriptors rather than rigid categories or mini-sexualities, and the terms rarely encompass the full detail of that relationship. Please note that the below discussion assumes a general familiarity with ace subtypes.

Needless to say, aces across the spectrum and of every subtype want to see their identities represented in fic. The discussion focused on ways to illustrate those experiences, and details contributors would enjoy seeing:

Non-averse aces trying sex and deciding they have no interest in it: pushing back against the “if you’re not repulsed you’ll like and want sex” idea.

No expectation that “sex-favorable” means always interested in sex.

The pressure an ace person may face to oversimplify their relationship to sex or sexual content out of fear they’ll appear inconsistent or exaggerating: “If I’m okay with this now, what if I’m not later? Will I seem picky if I’m only comfortable with something in an extremely specific scenario?”

“Sex repulsion” and “sex aversion” generally are used to describe asexual people who don’t want sex, but are simplified terms for what can be immensely varied experiences. Someone could be repulsed by physical involvement in sex, repulsed by personally engaging in anything sexual, repulsed by sexual content, repulsed by just the idea of sex--or any variation or combination of these. There are even repulsions that could be part of more sex-interested subtypes: an ace who enjoys sex but is repulsed by nudity, or an ace who enjoys sexual activities with a partner but not being touched during them, etc.

Contributors discussed how much they enjoy reading simple “I just don’t want sex” approaches to aversion/repulsion, but also look forward to reading explorations such as:

Enjoying one specific type of engagement with sexual content or activity, but having an aversion to others.

Regularly varying levels of repulsion: Days of “please don’t remind me sex exists” to days of mild curiosity, for instance.

Aces with a relationship to sex that doesn’t involve another person, including if they’re in a relationship.

Fluidity between ace subtypes can fluctuate between sex-interested and sex-disinterested in both directions: it can be both “I said I wasn’t interested in this before, but let’s carefully revisit” and “I know we’ve been doing this, but I’m no longer comfortable with it.” Contributors mentioned never having seen fic with the latter, and expressed an interest in reading stories exploring this.

On this note, it is common for stories of fluidity between subtypes to be only moving in a more sex-interested direction. Many asexual people, particularly sex-averse aces, face immense pressure to ‘learn how to like sex,’ or have their sexuality erased by saying they’re a ‘late bloomer’ who will learn to like it later. Depicting this direction should be done with great care and nuance, and we strongly recommend getting feedback from a sex-disinterested sensitivity reader for stories of this type. It’s possible that an ace reader who isn’t sex-disinterested would miss or not be affected by something that is quite painful to sex-disinterested aces.

CONCLUSION

If you’ve stuck with us for this long, well done! We understand that such a long resource can be a bit overwhelming, but we hope it can show you the depth of variety and enthusiasm ace readers have for more ace content and inspire you further. One thing we all had in common during our discussion was how excited we were to have a canonically asexual protagonist, and how thrilled we were to see content that explored his asexuality. In putting together this resource, we hope that you are encouraged to write about characters whose asexuality impacts their experiences and the story in unique, thoughtful, and creative ways. We can’t wait to see what you come up with!

#asexuality #asexuality in writing #ace week #the magnus archives #tma #writing resources #asexual characters #roundtables

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potteresque-ire · 4 years ago

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Can you talk more about the usage of the word "wife" to talk about men in the BL context? I've noticed it in BJYX (particularly with GG), in the (English translations) of MDZS, and then it came up in your recent posts about Danmei-101 (which were super helpful btw) with articles connecting the "little fresh meat" type to fans calling an actor "wife." My initial reaction as a westerner is like "this is very problematic," but I think I'm missing a lot of language/cultural context. Any thoughts?

Hello! First of all, for those who’re interested, here’s a link to the referred posts. Under the cut is arguably the 4th post of the series. As usual, I apologise for the length!

(Topics: seme and uke; more about “leftover women”; roster of feminisation terms; Daji, Bao Si & the origin of BJYX; roster of beautiful, ancient Chinese men; Chairman Mao (not part of the roster) ...)

[TW: feminisation of men]

In the traditional BL characterisation, the M/M (double male) lead pairing is essentially a cis-het relationship in disguise, in which one of the M leads is viewed as the “wife” by the creator and audience. This lead often possesses some of the features of the traditional, stereotypical female, but retaining his male appearance.

In BL terms, the “wife” is the “uke”. “Seme” and “uke” are the respective roles taken by the two male leads, and designated by the creator of the material. Literally, “seme” (攻め) means the dominant, the attacking / aggressive partner in the relationship and “uke” (受け), the passive / recipient (of actions) partner who tends to follow the seme’s lead. The terms themselves do not have any sexual / gender context. However, as male and female are viewed as aggressive and passive by their traditional social roles, and the attacker and recipient by their traditional sexual roles respectively, BL fandoms have long assigned uke, the passive, sexual “bottom”, as the “woman”, the “wife”.

Danmei has kept this “semi” and uke” tradition from BL, taking the kanji of the Japanese terms for designation ~ 攻 (”attack” is therefore the “husband”, and 受 (”receive”), the “wife”. The designations are often specified in the introduction / summary of Danmei works as warning / enticement. For MDZS, for example, MXTX wrote:

高貴冷豔悶騷攻 × 邪魅狂狷風騷受

高貴冷豔悶騷攻 = noble, coolly beautiful and boring seme (referring to LWJ) 邪魅狂狷風騷受 = devilishly charming, wild, and flirty uke (referring to WWX)

The traditional, stereotypical female traits given to the “uke”, the “wife” in Danmei and their associated fanworks range from their personality to behaviour to even biological functions. Those who have read the sex scenes in MDZS may be aware of their lack of mention of lube, while WWX was written as getting (very) wet from fluids from his colon (腸道) ~ implying that his colon, much like a vagina, was supplying the necessarily lubrication for sex. This is obviously biologically inaccurate; however, Danmei is exempt from having to be realistic by its original Tanbi definition. The genre’s primary audience is cishet females, and sex scenes such as this one aren’t aiming for realism. Rather, the primary goal of these sex scenes is to generate fantasy, and the purpose of the biologically female functions in one of the leads (WWX) is to ease the readers into imagining themselves as the one engaging in the sex.

Indeed, these practices of assigning as males and female the M/M sexual top and bottom, of emphasising of who is the top and who is the bottom, have been falling out of favour in Western slash fandoms ~ I joined fandom about 15 years ago, and top and bottom designations in slash pairings (and fights about them) were much more common than it is now. The generally more open, more progressive environments in which Western fandomers are immersed in probably have something to do with it: they transfer their RL knowledge, their views on biology, on different social into their fandom works and discourses.

I’d venture to say this: in the English-speaking fandoms, fandom values and mainstream values are converging. “Cancel culture” reflects an attempt to enforce RL values in the fictional worlds in fandom. Fandom culture is slowly, but surely, leaving its subculture status and becoming part of mainstream culture.

I’d hesitate to call c-Danmei fandoms backward compared to Western slash for this reason. There’s little hope for Danmei to converge with China’s mainstream culture in the short term ~ the necessity of replacing Danmei with Dangai in visual media already reflects that. Danmei is and will likely remain subculture in the foreseeable future, and subcultures, at heart, are protests against the mainstream. Unless China and the West define “mainstream” very similarly (and they don’t), it is difficult to compare the “progressiveness”—and its dark side, the “problematic-ness”—of the protests, which are shaped by what they’re protesting against. The “shaper” in this scenario, the mainstream values and culture, are also far more forceful under China’s authoritarian government than they are in the free(-er) world.

Danmei, therefore, necessarily takes on a different form in China than BL or slash outside China. As a creative pursuit, it serves to fulfil psychological needs that are reflective of its surrounding culture and sociopolitical environment. The genre’s “problematic” / out of place aspects in the eyes of Western fandoms are therefore, like all other aspects of the genre, tailor-made by its millions of fans to be comforting / cathartic for the unique culture and sociopolitical background it and they find themselves in.

I briefly detoured to talk about the Chinese government’s campaign to pressure young, educated Chinese women into matrimony and motherhood in the post for this reason, as it is an example of how, despite Western fandoms’ progressiveness, they may be inadequate, distant for c-Danmei fans. Again, this article is a short and a ... morbidly-entertaining read on what has been said about China’s “leftover women” (剩女) — women who are unmarried and over 27-years-old). I talked about it, because “Women should enter marriage and parenthood in their late 20s” may no longer a mainstream value in many Western societies, but where it still is, it exerts a strong influence on how women view romance, and by extension, how they interact with romantic fiction, including Danmei.

In China, this influence is made even stronger by the fact that Chinese tradition places a strong emphasis on education and holds a conservative attitude towards romance and sex. Dating while studying therefore remains discouraged in many Chinese families. University-educated Chinese women therefore have an extremely short time frame — between graduation (~23 years old) and their 27th birthday — to find “the right one” and get married, before they are labelled as “leftovers” and deemed undesirable. (Saving) face being an important aspect in Chinese culture introduces yet another layer of pressure: traditionally, women who don’t get married by the age agreed by social norms have been viewed as failures of upbringing, in that the unmarried women’s parents not having taught/trained their daughters well. Filial, unmarried women therefore try to get married “on time” just to avoid bringing shame to their family.

The outcome is this: despite the strong women characters we may see in Chinese visual media, many young Chinese women nowadays do not expect themselves to be able to marry for love. Below, I offer a “book jacket summary” of a popular internet novel in China, which shows how the associated despair also affects cis-het fictional romance. Book reviews praise this novel for being “boring”: the man and woman leads are both common working class people, the “you-and-I”’s; the mundaneness of them trying build their careers and their love life is lit by one shining light: he loves her and she loves him.

Written in her POV, this summary reflects, perhaps, the disquiet felt by many contemporary Chinese women university graduates:

曾經以為，自己這輩子都等不到了—— 世界這麼大，我又走得這麼慢，要是遇不到良人要怎麼辦？早過了「全球三十幾億男人，中國七億男人，天涯何處無芳草」的猖狂歲月，越來越清楚，循規蹈矩的生活中，我們能熟悉進而深交的異性實在太有限了，有限到我都做好了「接受他人的牽線，找個適合的男人慢慢煨熟，再平淡無奇地進入婚姻」的準備，卻在生命意外的拐彎處迎來自己的另一半。

I once thought, my wait will never come to fruition for the rest of my life — the world is so big, I’m so slow in treading it, what if I’ll never meet the one? I’ve long passed the wild days of thinking “3 billion men exist on Earth, 0.7 of which are Chinese. There is plenty more fish in the sea.” I’m seeing, with increasing clarity, that in our disciplined lives, the number of opposite-sex we can get to know, and get to know well, is so limited. It’s so limited that I’m prepared to accept someone’s matchmaking, find a suitable man and slowly, slowly, warm up to him, and then, to enter marriage with without excitement, without wonder. But then, an accidental turn in my life welcomes in my other half.

— Oath of Love (餘生，請多指教) (Yes, this is the novel Gg’d upcoming drama is based on.)

Heteronormativity is, of course, very real in China. However, that hasn’t exempted Chinese women, even its large cis-het population, from having their freedom to pursue their true love taken away from them. Even for cis-het relationships, being able to marry for love has become a fantasy —a fantasy scorned by the state. Remember this quote from Article O3 in the original post?

耽改故事大多远离现实，有些年轻受众却将其与生活混为一谈，产生不以结婚和繁衍为目的才是真爱之类的偏颇认知。

Most Dangai stories are far removed from reality; some young audience nonetheless mix them up with real life, develop biased understanding such as “only love that doesn’t treat matrimony and reproduction as destinations is true love”.

I didn’t focus on it in the previous posts, in an effort to keep the discussion on topic. But why did the op-ed piece pick this as an example of fantasy-that-shouldn’t-be-mixed-up-with-real-life, in the middle of a discussion about perceived femininity of men that actually has little to do with matrimony and reproduction?

Because the whole point behind the state��s “leftover women” campaign is precisely to get women to treat matrimony and reproduction as destinations, not beautiful sceneries that happen along the way. And they’re the state’s destination as more children = higher birth rate that leads to higher future productivity. The article is therefore calling out Danmei for challenging this “mainstream value”.

Therefore, while the statement True love doesn’t treat matrimony and reproduction as destinations may be trite for many of us while it may be a point few, if any, English-speaking fandoms may pay attention to, to the mainstream culture Danmei lives in, to the mainstream values dictated by the state, it is borderline subversive.

As much as Danmei may appear “tame” for its emphasis on beauty and romance, for it to have stood for so long, so firmly against China’s (very) forceful mainstream culture, the genre is also fundamentally rebellious. Remember: Danmei has little hope of converging with China’s mainstream unless it “sells its soul” and removes its homoerotic elements.

With rebelliousness, too, comes a bit of tongue-in-cheek.

And so, when c-Danmei fans, most of whom being cishet women who interact with the genre by its traditional BL definition, call one of the leads 老婆 (wife), it can and often take on a different flavour. As said before, it can be less about feminizing the lead than about identifying with the lead. The nickname 老婆 (wife) can be less about being disrespectful and more about humorously expressing an aspiration—the aspiration to have a husband who truly loves them, who they do want to get married and have babies with but out of freedom and not obligation.

Admittedly, I had been confused, and bothered by these “can-be”s myself. Just because there are alternate reasons for the feminisation to happen doesn’t mean the feminisation itself is excusable. But why the feminisation of M/M leads doesn’t sound as awful to me in Chinese as in English? How can calling a self-identified man 老婆 (wife) get away with not sounding being predominantly disrespectful to my ears, when I would’ve frowned at the same thing said in my vicinity in English?

I had an old hypothesis: when I was little, it was common to hear people calling acquaintances in Chinese by their unflattering traits: “Deaf-Eared Chan” (Mr Chan, who’s deaf), “Fat Old Woman Lan” (Ah-Lan, who’s an overweight woman) etc—and the acquaintances were perfectly at ease with such identifications, even introducing themselves to strangers that way. Comparatively speaking then, 老婆 (wife) is harmless, even endearing.

老婆, which literally means “old old-lady” (implying wife = the woman one gets old with), first became popularised as a colloquial, casual way of calling “wife” in Hong Kong and its Cantonese dialect, despite the term itself being about 1,500 years old. As older generations of Chinese were usually very shy about talking about their love lives, those who couldn’t help themselves and regularly spoke of their 老婆 tended to be those who loved their wives in my memory. 老婆, as a term, probably became endearing to me that way.

Maybe this is why the feminisation of M/M leads didn’t sound so bad to me?

This hypothesis was inadequate, however. This custom of identifying people by their (unflattering) traits has been diminishing in Hong Kong and China, for similar reasons it has been considered inappropriate in the West.

Also, 老婆 (wife) is not the only term used for / associated with feminisation. I’ve tried to limit the discussion to Danmei, the fictional genre; now, I’ll jump to its associated RPS genre, and specifically, the YiZhan fandoms. The purpose of this jump: with real people involved, feminisation’s effect is potentially more harmful, more acute. Easier to feel.

YiZhan fans predominantly entered the fandoms through The Untamed, and they’ve also transferred Danmei’s “seme”/“uke” customs into YiZhan. There are, therefore, three c-YiZhan fandoms:

博君一肖 (BJYX): seme Dd, uke Gg 戰山為王 (ZSWW): seme Gg, uke Dd 連瑣反應 (LSFY): riba Gg and Dd. Riba = “reversible”, and unlike “seme” and “uke”, is a frequently-used term in the Japanese gay community.

BJYX is by far the largest of the three, likely due to Gg having played WWX, the “uke” in MDZS / TU. I’ll therefore focus on this fandom, ie. Gg is the “uke”, the “wife”.

For Gg alone, I’ve seen him being also referred to by YiZhan fans as (and this is far from a complete list):

* 姐姐 (sister) * 嫂子 (wife of elder brother; Dd being the elder brother implied) * 妃妃 (based on the very first YiZhan CP name, 太妃糖 Toffee Candy, a portmanteau of sorts from Dd being the 太子 “prince” of his management company and Gg being the prince’s wife, 太子妃. 糖 = “candy”. 太妃 sounds like toffee in English and has been used as the latter’s Chinese translation.) * 美人 (beauty, as in 肖美人 “Beauty Xiao”) * Daji 妲己 (as in 肖妲己, “Daji Xiao”).

The last one needs historical context, which will also become important for explaining the new hypothesis I have.

Daji was a consort who lived three thousand years ago, whose beauty was blamed for the fall of the Shang dynasty. Gg (and men sharing similar traits, who are exceptionally rare) has been compared to Daji 妲己 for his alternatively innocent, alternatively seductive beauty ~ the kind of beauty that, in Chinese historical texts and folk lores, lead to the fall of kingdoms when possessed by the king’s beloved woman. This kind of “I-get-to-ruin-her-virginity”, “she’s a slut in MY bedroom” beauty is, of course, a stereotypical fantasy for many (cis-het) men, which included the authors of these historical texts and folklores. However, it also contained some truth: the purity / innocence, the image of a virgin, was required for an ancient woman to be chosen as a consort; the seduction, meanwhile, helped her to become the top consort, and monopolise the attention of kings and emperors who often had hundreds of wives ~ wives who often put each other in danger to eliminate competition.

Nowadays, women of tremendous beauty are still referred to by the Chinese idiom 傾國傾城, literally, ”falling countries, falling cities”. The beauty is also implied to be natural, expressed in a can’t-help-itself way, perhaps reflecting the fact that the ancient beauties on which this idiom has been used couldn’t possibly have plastic surgeries, and most of them didn’t meet a good end ~ that they had to pay a price for their beauty, and often, with their lowly status as women, as consorts, they didn’t get to choose whether they wanted to pay this price or not. This adjective is considered to be very flattering. Gg’s famous smile from the Thailand Fanmeet has been described, praised as 傾城一笑: “a smile that topples a city”.

I’m explaining Daji and 傾國傾城 because the Chinese idiom 博君一笑 “doing anything to get a smile from you”, from which the ship’s name BJYX 博君一肖 was derived (笑 and 肖 are both pronounced “xiao”), is connected to yet another of such dynasty-falling beauty, Bao Si 褒姒. Like Daji before her, Bao Si was blamed for the end of the Zhou Dynasty in 771 BC.

The legend went like this: Bao Si was melancholic, and to get her to smile, her king lit warning beacons and got his nobles to rush in from the nearby vassal states with their armies to come and rescue him, despite not being in actual danger. The nobles, in their haste, looked so frantic and dishevelled that Bao Si found it funny and smiled. Longing to see more of the smile of his favourite woman, the king would fool his nobles again and again, until his nobles no longer heeded the warning beacons when an actual rebellion came.

What the king did has been described as 博紅顏一笑, with 紅顏 (”red/flushed face”) meaning a beautiful woman, referring to Bao Si. Replace 紅顏 with the respectful “you”, 君, we get 博君一笑. If one searches the origin of the phrase 博 [fill_in_the_blank]一笑 online, Bao Si’s story shows up.

The “anything” in ”doing anything to get a smile from you” in 博君一笑, therefore, is not any favour, but something as momentous as giving away one’s own kingdom. c-turtles have remarked, to their amusement and admittedly mine, that “king”, in Chinese, is written as 王, which is Dd’s surname, and very occasionally, they jokingly compare him to the hopeless kings who’d give away everything for their love. Much like 傾國傾城 has become a flattering idiom despite the negative reputations of Daji and Bao Si for their “men-ruining ways”, 博君一笑 has become a flattering phrase, emphasising on the devotion and love rather than the ... stupidity behind the smile-inducing acts.

(Bao Si’s story, BTW, was a lie made up by historians who also lived later but also thousands of years ago, to absolve the uselessness of the king. Warning beacons didn’t exist at her time.)

Gg is arguably feminized even in his CP’s name. Gg’s feminisation is everywhere.

And here comes my confession time ~ I’ve been amused by most of the feminisation terms above. 肖妲己 (”Daji Xiao”) captures my imagination, and I remain quite partial to the CP name BJYX. Somehow, there’s something ... somewhat forgivable when the feminisation is based on Gg’s beauty, especially in the context of the historical Danmei / Dangai setting of MDZS/TU ~ something that, while doesn’t cancel, dampens the “problematic-ness” of the gender mis-identification.

What, exactly, is this something?

Here’s my new hypothesis, and hopefully I’ll manage to explain it well ~

The hypothesis is this: the unisex beauty standard for historical Chinese men and women, which is also breathtakingly similar to the modern beauty standard for Chinese women, makes feminisation in the context of Danmei (especially historical Danmei) flattering, and easier to accept.

What defined beauty in historical Chinese men? If I am to create a classically beautiful Chinese man for my new historical Danmei, how would I describe him based on what I’ve read, my cultural knowledge?

Here’s a list:

* Skin fair and smooth as white jade * Thin, even frail; narrow/slanted shoulders; tall * Dark irises and bright, starry eyes * Not too dense, neat eyebrows that are shaped like swords ~ pointed slightly upwards from the center towards the sides of the face * Depending on the dynasty, nice makeup.

Imagine these traits. How “macho” are they? How much do they fit the ideal Chinese masculine beauty advertised by Chinese government, which looks like below?

Propaganda poster, 1969. The caption says “Defeat Imperialist US! Defeat Social Imperialism!” The book’s name is “Quotations from Mao Zedong”. (Source)

Where did that list of traits I’ve written com from? Fair like jade, frail ... why are they so far from the ... “macho”ness of the men in the poster?

What has Chinese history said about its beautiful men?

Wei Jie (衛玠 286-312 BCE), one of the four most beautiful ancient Chinese men (古代四大美男) recorded in Chinese history famously passed away when fans of his beauty gathered and formed a wall around him, blocking his way. History recorded Wei as being frail with chronic illness, and was only 27 years old when he died. Arguably the first historical account of “crazy fans killing their idol”, this incident left the idiom 看殺衛玠 ~ “Wei Jie being watched to death.” ~ a not very “macho” way to die at all.

潘安 (Pan An; 247-300 BCE), another one of the four most beautiful ancient Chinese men, also had hoards of fangirls, who threw fruits and flowers at him whenever he ventured outside. The Chinese idiom 擲果盈車 “thrown fruit filling a cart” was based on Pan and ... his fandom, and denotes such scenarios of men being so beautiful that women openly displayed their affections for them.

Meanwhile, when Pan went out with his equally beautiful male friend, 夏侯湛 Xiahou Zhan, folks around them called them 連璧 ~ two connected pieces of perfect jade. Chinese Jade is white, smooth, faintly glowing in light, so delicate that it gives the impression of being somewhat transparent.

Aren’t Wei Jie and Pan An reminiscent of modern day Chinese idols, the “effeminate” “Little Fresh Meat”s (小鲜肉) so panned by Article O3? Their stories, BTW, also elucidated the historical reference in LWJ’s description of being jade-like in MDZS, and in WWX and LWJ being thrown pippas along the Gusu river bank.

Danmei, therefore, didn’t create a trend of androgynous beauty in men as much as it has borrowed the ancient, traditional definition of masculine Chinese beauty ~ the beauty that was more feminine than masculine by modern standards.

[Perhaps, CPs should be renamed 連璧 (”two connected pieces of perfect jade”) as a reminder of the aesthetics’ historical roots.]

Someone may exclaim now: But. But!! Yet another one of the four most beautiful ancient Chinese men, 高長恭 (Gao Changgong, 541-573 BCE), far better known by his title, 蘭陵王 (”the Prince of Lanling”), was a famous general. He had to be “macho”, right?

... As it turns out, not at all. Historical texts have described Gao as “貌柔心壮，音容兼美” (”soft in looks and strong at heart, beautiful face and voice”), “白美類婦人” (”fair and beautiful as a woman”), “貌若婦人” (”face like a woman”). Legends have it that The Prince of Lanling’s beauty was so soft, so lacking in authority that he had to wear a savage mask to get his soldiers to listen to his command (and win) on the battlefield (《樂府雜錄》: 以其顏貌無威，每入陣即著面具，後乃百戰百勝).

This should be emphasised: Gao’s explicitly feminine descriptions were recorded in historical texts as arguments *for* his beauty. Authors of these texts, therefore, didn’t view the feminisation as insult. In fact, they used the feminisation to drive the point home, to convince their readers that men like the Prince of Lanling were truly, absolutely good looking.

Being beautiful like a women was therefore high praise for men in, at least, significant periods in Chinese history ~ periods long and important enough for these records to survive until today. Beauty, and so it goes, had once been largely free of distinctions between the masculine and feminine.

One more example of an image of an ancient Chinese male beauty being similar to its female counterpart, because the history nerd in me finds this fun.

何晏 (He Yan, ?-249 BCE) lived in the Wei Jin era (between 2nd to 4th century), during which makeup was really en vogue. Known for his beauty, he was also famous for his love of grooming himself. The emperor, convinced that He Yan’s very fair skin was from the powder he was wearing, gave He Yan some very hot foods to eat in the middle of the summer. He Yan began to sweat, had to wipe himself with his sleeves and in the process, revealed to the emperor that his fair beauty was 100% natural ~ his skin glowed even more with the cosmetics removed (《世說新語·容止第十四》: 何平叔美姿儀，面至白。魏明帝疑其傅粉，正夏月，與熱湯餅。既啖，大汗出，以朱衣自拭，色轉皎然). His kick-cosmetics’-ass fairness won him the nickname 傅粉何郎 (”powder-wearing Mr He”).

Not only would He Yan very likely be mistaken as a woman if this scene is transferred to a modern setting, but this scene can very well fit inside a Danmei story of the 21st century and is very, very likely to get axed by the Chinese censorship board for its visualisation.

[Important observation from this anecdote: the emperor was totally into this trend too.]

The adjectives and phrases used above to describe these beautiful ancient Chinese men ~ 貌柔, 音容兼美, 白美, 美姿儀, 皎然 ~ have all become pretty much reserved for describing beauty in women nowadays. Beauty standards in ancient China were, as mentioned before, had gone through significantly long periods in which they were largely genderless. The character for beauty 美 (also in Danmei, 耽美) used to have little to no gender association. Free of gender associations as well were the names of many flowers. The characters for orchid (蘭) and lotus (蓮), for example, were commonly found in men’s names as late as the Republican era (early 20th century), but are now almost exclusively found in women’s names. Both orchid and lotus have historically been used to indicate 君子 (junzi, roughly, “gentlemen”), which have always been men. MDZS also has an example of a man named after a flower: Jin Ling’s courtesy name, given to him by WWX, was 如蘭 (”like an orchid”).

A related question may be this: why does ancient China associate beauty with fairness, with softness, with frailty? Likely, because Confucianist philosophy and customs put a heavy emphasis on scholarship ~ and scholars have mostly consisted of soft-spoken, not muscular, not working-under-the-sun type of men. More importantly, Confucianist scholars also occupied powerful government positions. Being, and looking like a Confucianist scholar was therefore associated with status. Indeed, it’s very difficult to look like jade when one was a farmer or a soldier, for example, who constantly had to toil under the sun, whose skin was constantly being dried and roughened by the elements. Having what are viewed as “macho” beauty traits as in the poster above ~ tanned skin, bulging muscles, bony structures (which also take away the jade’s smoothness) ~ were associated with hard labour, poverty and famine.

Along that line, 手無縛雞之力 (“hands without the strength to restrain a chicken”) has long been a phrase used to describe ancient scholars and students, and without scorn or derision. Love stories of old, which often centred around scholars were, accordingly, largely devoid of the plot lines of husbands physically protecting the wives, performing the equivalent of climbing up castle walls and fighting dragons etc. Instead, the faithful husbands wrote poems, combed their wife’s hair, traced their wife’s eyebrows with cosmetics (畫眉)...all activities that didn’t require much physical strength, and many of which are considered “feminine” nowadays.

Were there periods in Chinese history in which more ... sporty men and women were appreciated? Yes. the Tang dynasty, for example, and the Yuan and Qing dynasties. The Tang dynasty, as a very powerful, very open era in Chinese history, was known for its relations to the West (via the Silk Road). The Yuan and Qing dynasties, meanwhile, were established by Mongolians and Manchus respectively, who, as non-Han people, had not been under the influence of Confucian culture and grew up on horsebacks, rather than in schools.

The idea that beautiful Chinese men should have “macho” attributes was, therefore, largely a consequence of non-Han-Chinese influence, especially after early 20th century. That was when the characters for beauty (美), orchid (蘭), lotus (蓮) etc began their ... feminisation. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which started its reign of the country starting 1949, also has foreign roots, being a derivative of the Soviets, and its portrayal of ideal men has been based on the party’s ideology, painting them as members of the People’s Liberation Army (Chinese army) and its two major proletariat classes, farmers and industrial workers ~ all occupations that are “macho” in their aesthetics, but held at very poor esteem in ancient Chinese societies. All occupations that, to this day, may be hailed as noble by Chinese women, but not really deemed attractive by them.

Beauty, being an instinct, is perhaps much more resistant to propaganda.

If anything, the three terms Article O3 used to describe “effeminate” men ~ 奶油小生 “cream young men” (popularised in 1980s) , 花美男 “flowery beautiful men” (early 2000s), 小鲜肉 “little fresh meat” (coined in 2014 and still popular now) ~ only informs me how incredibly consistent the modern Chinese women’s view of ideal male beauty has been. It’s the same beauty the Chinese Communist Party has called feminine. It’s the same beauty found in Danmei. It’s the same beauty that, when witnessed in men in ancient China, was so revered that historians recorded it for their descendants to remember. It doesn’t mean there aren’t any women who appreciate the "macho” type ~ it’s just that, the appreciation for the non-macho type has never really gone out of fashion, never really changed. The only thing that is really changing is the name of the type, the name’s positive or negative connotations.

(Personally, I’m far more uncomfortable with the name “Little fresh meat” (小鲜肉) than 老婆 (wife). I find it much more insulting.)

Anyway, what I’d like to say is this: feminisation in Danmei ~ a genre that, by definition, is hyper-focused on aesthetics ~ may not be as "problematic” in Chinese as it is in English, because the Chinese tradition didn’t make that much of a differentiation between masculine and feminine beauty. Once again, this isn’t to say such mis-gendering isn’t disrespectful; it’s just that, perhaps, it is less disrespectful because Chinese still retains a cultural memory in which equating a beautiful man to a beautiful woman was the utmost flattery.

I must put a disclaimer here: I cannot vouch for this being true for the general Chinese population. This is something that is buried deep enough inside me that it took a lot of thought for me to tease out, to articulate. More importantly, while I grow up in a Chinese-speaking environment, I’ve never lived inside China. My history knowledge, while isn’t shabby, hasn’t been filtered through the state education system.

I’d also like to point out as well, along this line of thought, that in *certain* (definitely not all) aspects, Chinese society isn’t as sexist as the West. While historically, China has periods of extreme sexism against women, with the final dynasties of Ming and Qing being examples, I must (reluctantly) acknowledge Chairman Mao for significantly lifting the status of women during his rule. Here’s a famous quote of his from 1955:

婦女能頂半邊天 Women can lift half the skies

The first marriage code, passed in 1950, outlawed forced marriages, polygamy, and ensured equal rights between husband and wife. For the first time in centuries, women were encouraged to go outside of their homes and work. Men resisted at first, wanting to keep their wives at home; women who did work were judged poorly for their performance and given less than 50% of men’s wage, which further fuelled the men’s resistance. Mao said the above quote after a commune in Guizhou introduced the “same-work-same-wage” system to increase its productivity, and he asked for the same system to to be replicated across the country. (Source)

When Chairman Mao wanted something, it happened. Today, Chinese women’s contribution to the country’s GDP remains among the highest in the world. They make up more than half of the country’s top-scoring students. They’re the dominant gender in universities, in the ranks of local employees of international corporations in the Shanghai and Beijing central business districts—among the most sought after jobs in the country. While the inequality between men and women in the workplace is no where near wiped out — stories about women having to sleep with higher-ups to climb the career ladder, or even get their PhDs are not unheard of, and the central rulership of the Chinese Communist Party has been famously short of women — the leap in women’s rights has been significant over the past century, perhaps because of how little rights there had been before ~ at the start of the 20th century, most Chinese women from relatively well-to-do families still practised foot-binding, in which their feet were literally crushed during childhood in the name of beauty, of status symbol. They couldn’t even walk properly.

Perhaps, the contemporary Chinese women’s economic contribution makes the sexism they encounter in their lives, from the lack of reproductive rights to the “leftover women” label, even harder to swallow. It makes their fantasies fly to even higher, more defiant heights. The popularity of Dangai right now is pretty much driven by women, as acknowledged by Article O3. Young women, especially, female fans who people have dismissed as “immature”, “crazy”, are responsible for the threat the Chinese government is feeling now by the genre.

This is no small feat. While the Chinese government complains about the “effeminate” men from Danmei / Dangai, its propaganda has been heavily reliant on stars who have risen to popularity to these genres. The film Dd is currently shooting, Chinese Peacekeeping Force (維和部隊), also stars Huang Jingyu (黄景瑜), and Zhang Zhehan (張哲瀚) ~ the three actors having shot to fame from The Untamed (Dangai), Addicted (Danmei), and Word of Honour (Dangai) respectively. Zhang, in particular, played the “uke” role in Word of Honour and has also been called 老婆 (wife) by his fans. The quote in Article O3, “Ten years as a tough man known by none; one day as a beauty known by all” was also implicitly referring to him.

Perhaps, the government will eventually realise that millennia-old standards of beauty are difficult to bend, and by extension, what is considered appropriate gender expression of Chinese men and women.

In the metas I’ve posted, therefore, I’ve hesitated in using terms such as homophobia, sexism, and ageism etc, opting instead to make long-winded explanations that essentially amount to these terms (thank you everyone who’s reading for your patience!). Because while the consequence is similar—certain fraction of the populations are subjected to systemic discrimination, abuse, given less rights, treated as inferior etc—these words, in English, also come with their own context, their own assumptions that may not apply to the situation. It reminds me of what Leo Tolstoy wrote in Anna Karenina,

“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

Discrimination in each country, each culture is humiliating, unhappy in its own way. Both sexism and homophobia are rampant in China, but as their roots are different from those of the West, the ways they manifest are different, and so must the paths to their dissolution. I’ve also hesitated on calling out individual behaviours or confronting individuals for this reason. i-Danmei fandoms are where i-fans and c-fans meet, where English-speaking doesn’t guarantee a non-Chinese sociopolitical background (there may be students from China, for example; I’m also ... not entirely Western), and I find it difficult to articulate appropriate, convincing arguments without knowing individual backgrounds.

Frankly, I’m not sure if I’ve done the right thing. Because I do hope feminisation will soon fade into extinction, especially in i-Danmei fandoms that, if they continue to prosper on international platforms, may eventually split from c-Danmei fandoms along the cultural (not language) line due to the vast differences in environmental constraints. My hope is especially true when real people are involved, and c-fandoms, I’d like to note, are not unaware of the issues surrounding feminisation ~ it has already been explicitly forbidden in BJYX’s supertopic on Weibo.

At the same time, I’ve spent so many words above to try to explain why beauty can *sometimes* lurk behind such feminisations. Please allow me to end this post with one example of feminisation that I deeply dislike—and I’ve seen it used by fans on Gg as well—is 綠茶 (”green tea”), from 綠茶婊 (”green tea whore”) that means women who look pure / innocent but are, deep down, promiscuous / lustful. In some ways, its meaning isn’t so different from Daji 妲己, the consort blamed for the fall of the Shang dynasty. However, to me at least, the flattery in the feminisation is gone, perhaps because of the character “whore” (婊), because the term originated in 2013 from a notorious sex party rather than from a legendary beauty so maligned that The Investiture of the Gods (封神演義), the seminal Chinese fiction written ~2,600 years after Daji’s death, re-imagined her as a malevolent fox spirit (狐狸精) that many still remembers her as today.

Ah, to be caught between two cultures. :)

#tell-me-everything #pie metas #yizhan #bjyx

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kurinoot · 4 years ago

Text

dinner’s ready

🎉 HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ISSEI “HORSECOCK” MATSUKAWA! 🎉

pairing: matsukawa issei x pussy-owning reader

themes: [shameless] smut, 18+ mdni, post-timeskip, birthday boy issei, sexting, [slight] daddy kink, oral sex (m! receiving), rough sex, creampie, implied breeding, some aftercare if u squint uwu, just Issei calling you ‘baby girl’

wc: 2.6k

note: I know I’m not done with the valentines’ specials and the upcoming white day specials, but I was too tempted to write this anyways bc it’s my bb issei’s special day today uwu he deserves some good food birthday gift. also, this is my first smut in YEARS so please bear with me whew. also, rated spg under the cut uwu. and ALSO, thank you to @india-katsuki, @karasunomygod, @ssrated1volleyballplayer, and @fuckinuchihas from the hqhq server for checking and proofreading this one hell of a pussy clencher ack

chant: 🎼 drip by asiahn

“Finally.”, Matsukawa sighs as he straightens up his clothes, finally glad that his shift is coming to an end. He checks his things, finalizing for the next day as he packs up his bag to finish the day and finally get a good night’s rest.

Or so he thought.

The vibration of his phone in his pocket catches him off-guard as he walks on his way to the nearest train station, fishing it out as he opens it to the sight of your text message.

baby girl: happy birthday, Issei my love! Preparing your birthday present atm hehe hope ya like it ;)

A smile draws out of his face as he hastily replies, typing out an ‘I can’t wait, baby girl!’ as he approaches the train station in a hurry to try and avoid the rush hour as much as possible; In which his efforts proved to be futile as a massive flood of passengers all went into the train, rendering them like a full can of sardines. Barely but luckily, he managed to get a tight spot for him to fit in as the train door closed in on him before the train moved again and went on.

The trip was silent, with more grunts and voices of “Excuse Me!” being heard as people constantly squeezed themselves in the jam-packed train. Issei was no different, changing and adjusting positions one at a time as passengers came and went out each station up until there were actual seats for him to sit down. As soon as seats become available, he takes the advantage for him to at least get a couple minutes of rest before he reaches his station. In the meantime, he grabs his phone back from the depths of his pocket, which vibrates in notification as soon as his hand reaches it.

To his delight, you replied back with a photo, which he could only see unlocked which he did and the next thing he knew, he was looking at a photo of your legs spread, which unraveled your bare glistening cunt in all your glory for him to see. He feels all blood drain all the color on his face as he instantly feels it all rush down to his now throbbing cock as he grapples his sling bag to desperately cover his growing and straining hard-on. He turns off his phone in the meantime, afraid of draining all of his self-control in public, as well as becoming increasingly conscious of the possible prying eyes on the photo that is currently haunting and deeply imprinting in his mind. He waits a couple more minutes long before another slew of messages from you finally nails the coffin for him.

baby girl: dinner’s getting ready and the only thing needed left is Daddy~ ;)

baby girl: I’ll be waiting ;)

“Fuck, such a tease.”, he lowly mutters in frustration, half-way tempted to ease the pain on his crotch.

That’s it, baby girl. You are so going to get it. he growls in his mind as he makes it in his station just at the right moment, still in one piece. The situation doesn’t help his throbbing crotch as he inconveniently walks past the train door hastily, feeling its tight strain on his pants as he covers it with his sling bag.

He thanks the gods as he finally reaches the doorsteps of your shared apartment unit, breathing heavily both at the way he rushed over and at his cock that was now threatening to pop out of his pants. With a pant, he reaches for the doorknob, opening it to the direct view of you on your back, preparing in the kitchen sans clothing except a frilly deep red apron that barely even covers the peaks of your nipples.

And don’t get him started with your plump ass.

You immediately hear the door open to the sounds of Issei’s footsteps, not looking back as you still prepare dinner for both you and him.

“Ah, Issei! I’m still preparing our dinner but if you’d like there are some leftovers on the table-”

He cuts you off as he violently gropes your bare ass, deliciously cupping your already wet lips as his lengthy fingers graze on its lining. You let out a yelp as you dropped the ladle you were holding in accident, desperately gripping the kitchen counter edge as the sudden intrusion of his fingers left you trembling.

“I-Issei! I-”

“I just came home and I haven’t even fingered you and yet you’re this wet for me, baby girl? Were you too excited for Daddy’s birthday today?”, he hotly whispers in your ear, biting and licking your lobe as he continues his assault on your cunt, leaving you a crying, whimpering mess.

“D-Daddy-”

“Fuck, you’re getting tighter there, baby girl.”, he grunts as your walls clenched tighter on his grazing fingers. With the other unoccupied hand, he unbuckles his belt and unzips his pants, freeing his painfully swollen cock, leaking with pre-cum as he feels all the suffering and enduring from the train earlier lift off his crotch. Much to your disappointment, his fingers slowly went out of your wet cavern, but his next words left your knees weak and body shivering.

“Kneel.”

You silently face him, albeit still reeling from the assault on your pussy, keeping your eyes on him as you obliged, kneeling to the view of his protruding cock. He rubs his hard member with the strings of your slick left on his used fingers as he preps you, rubbing your lips together as he ushers you to take him with your mouth. Getting the cue, you open them only for him to thrust inside you with speed as he grips your hair tight, triggering your gag reflex.

Issei begins thrusting relentlessly into your mouth, reaching the back of your throat as he releases a series of grunts—a cathartic indication of his earlier pent-up frustration as he closes his eyes, relishing the warm, wet feel of your mouth. He feels the flick of your tongue as you take him deeper and deeper than you’ve ever had before, prompting him to release a loud moan in delight. He lets his instincts take over him as he leverages his grip on your hair to control your head on his cock. Once he was sure that your gag reflex was nowhere in sight, he started shoving into your wet mouth more roughly than before, getting even harder as he drinks at the sight of you looking at him with tears in your eyes and saliva dripping from your used mouth.

“You like that, huh?” He moans out to which you could only partly nod in response.

Trying not to lose grip of him, you clutch onto his thighs trying to grip your remaining vestiges of consciousness as you pump your head back to meet his thrusts, forcing out a moan from him louder than ever before.

“Yes, baby girl! Keep doing that! Do it for Daddy.”

The impending frustration from earlier takes its impending toll as Mattsun knew he wasn’t going to last any longer. He shoves with greater force, feeling the precipice coming closer as you can only moan in cries at the sudden change of pace. He cries out loud as he spurts his thick loads into your mouth, stuttering his hips and grunting in pleasure before stilling as he lodges himself into your throat.

Like the good girl you are, you swallowed them greedily, sucking out everything and leaving no traces of it behind. After a full minute of intense breathing, Issei could only watch you dazed, breathing heavily as he became more turned on at the sight of his cum threatening to leak from your mouth as he tilted your chin upwards, forcing you to swallow it whole.

He pulls you up with your arms, moving you to a clearer space on the kitchen counter as he bends you over on your stomach, licking his fingers wet as he preps your scintillating folds.

“Just so you know, I’m not done yet, baby girl.”

“Y-You do k-know that—ah!—I’m still m-making—ah!—dinner, right?” You shiver as you feel his length rubbing against your dripping slit. You hear him scoff.

“Eh? But I thought this is dinner...”, he pants out as he slams his entire dick in one go, taking advantage of the already wet state of your folds as he turns you into a moaning and shivering mess at the sudden stretch of your core. He stutters his hips slowly and rhythmically, forcing you to feel every inch and vein of his cock as the sound of his balls slapping against you only makes you aroused even more.

He changes the pace as his thrusts grew in speed and rhythm, making you choke on your saliva at the intensity as his grip on your hips tightened, “H-Hold up t-there, Issei! N-Not so f-fast!”.

You could only grip whatever you could hold on the kitchen counter as he continuously stretches you balls deep, hitting and leaving his marks on your ass as he lets out a frustrated groan.

“Jesus, what did you expect after sending me a picture of your cunt and then say ‘Dinner’s ready?’, huh?”.

You can only cry and moan at his statement.

“T-Thick—ah!” You wail as your knuckles turn white and you feel his thrusts increase in speed at the remark that heavily petted on his masculinity.

“Look at you taking all of me so well...”, he grunted as the developing sound of wet skin slapping increases in volume and fills your entire living space. Issei takes this as a sign as he starts rubbing your sensitive clit violently with one hand as he unties your sinful apron with the other, completely exposing your back to him.

“Oh my god, Daddy! I-I’m—ugh—wanna c-cum!”

“Then cum, baby.” He lowers himself to your ear and then leaves trails of kisses on your bare back, whispering as his words send shivers down your body. It makes you clench tighter on his girth.

The clench of your cunt against his cock leaves him desperate as he feels a coiling sensation in his lower belly, feeling that he won’t last any longer as his breathing pulsed quicker and his hips pushed further and faster, reaching out further to the deep unexplored nether regions of your walls that left you screaming and crying in bliss.

You feel his grip tighten on your waist as he cries out your name one more time, cumming into you in thick globs as he stutters his hips at each release before he stills deep into you, making sure that each drop of his seed didn’t go to waste.

Your jaw flickers in pleasure at the increasing warmth of his cum flooding your insides as you feel him slowly pulled out of your folds, disappointed at the lack of your orgasm as he maneuvers your body face-to-face with him. He lays you down tiredly on your back at the kitchen counter as you feel achy and sore from your earlier position.

“Do you think we’re done, baby girl?” He imposes as he removes the dangling apron on your neck, throwing it on the side and finally leaving your oh-so delicious perky breasts bare to him. You swore you see his eyes darken at the sight, licking his lips as his cock stood still and hard, unbeknownst to you.

Your eyes and mouth could only bulge wide in surprise as he shoves into you impatiently for the second time around, groaning at the distilled passion of your clenching walls as he uses your combined evidence of coupling as a lubrication.

It didn’t help when Issei had started his assault on your neck, leaving trails of sensitive kisses all over up until he reached one of your pert nipples. He eagerly licks them teasingly before he devoured it all in his mouth, setting your body and mind on fire at the overstimulation.

How come he’s still hard after two orgasms?, your mind dazes.

Third time’s the charm, I guess?

“D-Daddy! Ugh! T-Too sensitive! O-Oh my god!”

Issei could only cockily laugh at your plight, sending down vibrations on your currently abused nipple which only made you cry louder in pleasure. It didn’t exactly help as he continues on his deep, torrid pumping on your already sensitive folds.

This jerk… Just because he has a thick cock...

But you weren’t complaining, really.

You cling onto his neck, graciously and tightly gripping on his thick hair as the constant waves of pleasure from the heavy pounding into your pussy leaves your eyes swollen red and throat sore. His hands threatened to leave a burning mark on your hips, grasping them tightly to keep you in place as his hips went harder and faster into you.

“Y-Yes, daddy! Right there!” You moan out loud as you felt his dick reach the more deeper, unimaginable recesses of your nether regions, ones that you never knew were reachable. With a muffled grunt, he makes sure to piston his cock in the same manner and pace, leaving you further crying and wailing in bliss.

His skillful mouth leaves your abused nipple, now thoroughly coated in saliva, exposing it to the cold air and making it harden more as his one hand leaves his vice-like grip on your waist, tending to your head as he swathes your sweat-soaked hair as he pushes his lips into yours tenderly despite the ruthless pounding happening otherwise. He feels your heart pound intensely against his chest as you felt your hard, sensitive peaks brush over his broad, muscular planes.

Your mind goes into a daze as you feel the sensory overload overwhelming you in the greatest sense. The scent of sweat and sex (and just Issei’s masculine scent, oh my Lord) as well as the sound of wet skin slapping against skin was just too much for you to process.

“I—hng—love—hng—you—hng—so much!”, Issei groans out, punctuating each word per thrust as he feels the all-too familiar burning and coiling sensation in his loins, only this time more stronger than the last time. You can only see him become more desperate for release, with his face shifting to borderline pain and his moans growing louder and desperate as you mewl louder at the sensation of his thick fingers rubbing your overworked and sensitive clit.

“I-I love you t-too, Daddy!”

“Cum with me, baby.”, he groans as spasms of pure ecstasy ran down his veins.

“D-Daddy, ugh yes!”

He releases an animalistic growl, biting down your neck in intense pleasure as he feels his cum gushing out of his system and into your femininity for the second consecutive time. Altogether, he feels the sprinkling sensation of your release as he presses your sensitive nub for the final time, with your walls clenching down on him further, leaving you both exhausted in pleasure. He stills his hips into you deep one more time all before he gently pulls his now flaccid cock out of you, with a trail of his cum threatening to spill from your overworked folds.

With a gentle touch, he presses a couple of fingers to prevent them from spilling out before he touches your lower belly, basking at the thick amounts of his cum sloshing inside you. You moan at the gesture on your still sensitive body.

“Did that feel good, my girl?” He asks tenderly, kissing you afterwards as opposed to his animalistic behavior earlier.

“Mmmh”, you hum in agreement as Issei feels all his energy fucked out of him, laying down on your chest. You gently massage his head and went to play with his thick locks of hair.

“Well then you can say that I had a good dinner, then.”

“Well happy birthday to you, then.”

#witchy.writes #haikyuu!!#haikyuu x reader #matsukawa issei #matsukawa x reader #mattsun x reader #happy birthday horsecock mattsun!#haikyuu fics #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu smut #dinner's ready #happy birthday mattsun!#mattsun day!#hqintheclub

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mtsilvermute · 2 years ago

Text

Last night I had a nightmare. We don't have to talk about it.

This past day has been stressful. I responded to an email I didn't want to receive. I still haven't reached out to Will. I still haven't checked the trails.

And I'm starting to have an identity crisis over my Pokemon's movesets.

Over the last six months, I've noticed that people have started to move away from the hazard-based combat styles that came to prominence over the last 5 years. The popularization of hazard moves like Stealth Rock in mid-10's conferences spawned two schools of thought: Either devote training time to learning type-coverage moves to minimize the need for switching, or get a Rapid Spinner (or any other hazard-removing Pokémon). Younger Trainers gravitated towards the latter, as they believed that Stealth Rock was here to stay - and because younger Trainers are more likely to train a PC box's worth of Pokemon and switch between them depending on the tournament. Younger Trainers are also more likely to read objectivity into their Pokemon, thinking less about their bonds and more about the ceilings of their moves, which engenders a lot of [roster] rotation. Yet many seasoned Trainers - myself included, I suppose - understood that Stealth Rock's power could be mitigated by seriously bonding with whichever of your Pokemon were strongest against it. I spent months exposing Blastoise to Stealth Rock in particular to prepare him for that era, and I never had to teach him Rapid Spin.

As more and more people are diverging from hazard-based combat, I'm starting to rethink the usage of my Pikachu. Pikachu's greatest asset is his speed, whereas he lacks defensive prowess. I've always been a vocal (hah...) supporter of Volt Switch, so I'm no stranger to a trickier combat style, but I think it might be time to take that strategy to its logical conclusion. Maybe I should try Fake Out? Leading on Pikachu and getting two guaranteed hits before switching sounds great to me. But a new concern arises: How accustomed to rapid-switching should I train my other Pokemon to bolster this new strategy? Or maybe I'm overthinking things, and I don't even need to concern myself with the semantics of "switching," as I'd be doing it just as often as I am right now?

I do think I'm overthinking things. But... on the other hand, writing all this out has been very cathartic and exciting for me. I really do love battling and I want to do more of it soon. You'd think I'd grow tired of it - and yes, my previous comments on "complacency" still stand - but I still get an adrenaline rush sending out that first Pokemon no matter how small the challenge may be. I just had to step away for a bit to walk off the excitement running through my body, so maybe this is a sign to both sign off and to write about theory more often.

I'll heed both bits of advice and get back to reading. Goldenrod University just dropped the most recent edition of its "Training & Technology" journal, and it contains articles on recent advances in tournament tech to better accommodate water Pokemon on-stage. I'm excited to peruse the contents of this one. I hope this journal of mine doesn't get jealous that I read other "journals," haha, at least in the academic sense of the term. Please know that I love you all the same.

#red's journal

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collectivefandomstuff · 4 years ago

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Title: A Hindering Hand Type: Fanfic, crossposted to AO3 (https://archiveofourown.org/works/27270097) Status: Complete. Chapter: 1/1. Fandom: DC/Batman Rating: T Warnings: Language. Beta: No beta we die like Jason Todd and also Damian Pairings: None. Word Count: 4k+ Genre: Humour/Comedy Characters: Jason Todd, Tim Drake, Dick Grayson, Stephanie Brown, Damian Wayne. Summary: When Dick is refused the opportunity to coddle Damian, he decides to lavish his other siblings with his questionably helpful assistance. They are palpably ungrateful.

Excerpt: Damian didn’t answer the first time, so Jason made use of his annoying gene(s) and called him over and over until he picked up. “Todd,” Damian snarled, “I am at school. I realise that you were incapable of finishing your formal education but-” “Your fucking Dick of a brother broke into my apartment and re-decorated my living room.” Jason informed him.

”You have got to be kidding me.”

Jason stared at what used to be his perfectly clean kitchen; now a hollowed out shell of its former self. Cabinet doors were thrown open, his carefully organised supplies haphazardly shuffled around. Every single counter and parts of the floor was covered in flour, cocoa, and something wet and heretofore unidentified. He didn’t even want to look closer at the stove or the sink, both filled with sticky, clearly misused, pots and pans. There was a smell hanging in the air, the same one that had set his inner alarm bells off when he entered the apartment: burnt sugar and something that smelled suspiciously like rotten fruit. Jason took a deep breath to stop himself from just whipping out his guns and shooting at the mess. It would be cathartic, but ultimately unhelpful. Instead, he fished his phone out of his front pocket and thumbed through his contacts.

He got through two rings before the line opened.

“He got you too?” Tim said on the other end. His tone reminded Jason of Bruce, which was usually a clear indication that Tim was fucking done.

“How can he be this useless?” Jason ground out.

“He was raised by Alfred.”

“So was I. And you.” “Fine. He was spoiled by Bruce.” “uh-huh,” Jason agreed, daring to move into his living room. Thankfully, the carnage hadn’t spread there, though there was an oven pan, placed strategically in the middle of his coffee table. The contains looked like what Jason imagined “dubious food” in Zelda looked like in real life. “I have to stop hanging out with you,” he told Tim. “Why?” “I just made a video game reference in my head.” “Which game?” “Not the point.” “I mean-” Tim began, but before he got any further into arguing why the specific game was “of import” to the discussion -fucking dweeb -Jason cut him off: “I’m going to kill him.” Tim was quiet for a moment. “What did he do exactly?” “Hi Little Wing,” Jason recited from the note that had been stuck underneath his brand new fucking oven pan Dick you bastard that was expensive. “I made you some brownies!” Jason stopped to look closer at the brown sludge that he was pretty sure was stuck to the bottom of his new pan. Martha herself recommended it, Dick goddammit. “I hope they turned out all right! Don’t work too much! D.” There was a pause. “Did they turn out all right?” asked Tim. “No,” Jason gritted his teeth, “No, they did not.” “He’s really on a spree this week.” “Yeah?” Jason muttered absently, poking at the sludge with his gloved finger. It jiggled. Somehow, that made everything so much worse. “Mm,” Tim said, and Jason could hear the tapping of computer keys in the background which meant that he had about 30% of Tim’s attention. “He hit Cass and Steph a few days ago. I guess since Cass is staying there when she’s in town he thought it was two for one. Tried to do their laundry.” “Why haven’t they killed him?” “They’re working on big drug bust. So, no time.” “Well I have time.” Jason groused, already trying to reorganize his plans for the evening. He would need at least three hours to repair the damage Dick had done to his kitchen. “Good,” Tim said, his voice cold, “because so do I.” Jason stopped trying to figure out how many new appliances he would need to buy to focus for a moment. “What did he do to you?” Tim was silent for a long while, then: “He tried to clean my apartment.” Jason shuddered. On one hand, he understood the compulsion. His replacement’s usual idea “clean” was “nothing hazardous is currently growing somewhere”. Still, the only thing worse than Dick trying to clean was Bruce trying to clean. Or cook. Or do laundry. Or vacuum. The Batman he may be, but Jason had never met a more incompetent homemaker in his life. Once, Bruce had tried to dust a little and they had to call the fire department. “And?” He prompted. “He moved everything,” Tim said, deceptively calm, “and threw out at least thirty-four irreplaceable things.” Oh shit. There was a reason why Jason stomped down the urge to clean Tim’s apartment. He once moved an old magazine when the younger boy wasn’t even there and the next day he got received three upset calls and a computer virus for his trouble. “He re-organised my desk. My cases. My clues.” Tim continued to rattle off. “And he didn’t even manage to clean properly. I’m pretty sure he tried to scrub my TV with vinegar.” Jason bit his lip to keep from laughing. Looks like Tim got it worse. “Shut up,” said Tim grouchily. “I didn’t say anything.” “You were laughing at me.” How- Jason’s hand clenched around the phone. “I told you to stop putting cameras in my apartment.” Tim snorted. “So find them and take them down. Think of it as practice,” he said, lilting the word “practice” in the same way Bruce usually did. “You’re such a creeper.” “Says the murderous crime lord.” “At least I’m not a stalker.” “Have you checked your bottom cabinets yet?” Jason stilled at the sudden change of subject. “Why?” “Looks like the re-organising urge lived on.” Oh, he had better fucking not. Jason stepped back into his kitchen and, with the care of someone opening a bomb case, edged open the door to his pots- and pans cabinet. He came face to face with his toaster, nestled between a pasta drainer and three boxes of cereal that he had not owned this morning. It was the sugary shit too. “Son of a-” “I think he put your spatulas in the fridge,” Tim said cheerily. Jason was going to wring his little neck. Right after he had stomped on Dick until the unbridled rage in his chest went away. “This is why I don’t want any contact with this family for-” “You know why he’s doing this right?” Tim queried lightly. Jason frowned. “I don’t keep track of the family gossip, pretender. I have better things to do with my time.” Tim made an offended noise at being called “pretender”. “Fine. Then why don’t you try to make him stop and call me when he’s tried to clean your guns?” Jason rolled his eyes. The dramatics, honestly. Bruce 2.0. “Why is he doing this, Tim?” He asked reluctantly. Tim sniffed. “Damian told Dick that he wasn’t needed at the moment, which was the little brat’s way of trying to get Dick to take some time to de-stress, but obviously Dick took this to mean that Damian has cast him aside and considers him a bad parental figure.” Jason spent a good few seconds rethinking the whole “moving back to Gotham” idea. He could just… leave and never talk to this insane family ever again. It was entirely doable. Just, one little call to Roy and hasta la vista you absolute nutjobs. He sighed. “So we have to talk to the demon child?” He asked tiredly. “Yeah pretty much.” “I still think my first plan was better.” “If you kill Dick, the family will never leave you alone.” That was a surprisingly good point. Dammit. “Can I punch him a little?” “I’d encourage it.” “Hey,” said Jason suspiciously, “just what are you planning to do him exactly?” “Honestly?” Tim replied. “I’m going to send a false tip to the department of Agriculture, fabricate evidence, and make them recall his favourite cereal.” Jesus fucking Christ this family was a pizza bagel of crazy with a sociopath topping.

It took them a while to track down Robin during patrol, and when they managed to find him they were met with immediate resistance. Which, taking into consideration who they were, wasn’t all that surprising. “Calm down.” Red Hood said placatingly while he jumped out of range from Robin’s swords. “We just wanted to talk to you about N-” He dodged a batarang that was clearly aimed at his throat. Add psychopath topping to that pizza bagel. “Would you knock it off,” Red Robin snarled, spinning out of the way when Robin spun to aim a kick at his stomach. Hood seized the opportunity and darted in to restrain the tiny beast that, let’s be real, was absolute proof that Bruce should not be allowed to procreate. Robin thrashed in his hold for a good three minutes before he finally settled down, glaring murderously at Red. “What do you want?” Robin spat. Even when Hood could feel him literally vibrating with supressed rage, he still kept perfect syntax. No abbreviations here. Little freak. “We need you to call N,” Red said. He looked a little ruffled and more than a little miffed. “I will do no such thing,” Robin sniffed. “Think again,” Hood said in his ear, letting his voice drop into a menacing tone. “Look,” Red Robin said. His hair was sticking up at the back after the struggle and he looked real fed up with this. Hood could relate. ��N is running himself ragged trying to prove he’s a good parent or something and you need to make him quit before he injures himself.” Robin stilled. “What would Grayson be doing that would cause him such stress?” “He’s cooking,” Hood drawled. “And cleaning,” Red added. Robin’s whole body tensed. “I will take care of it.” He declared imperiously. Hood looked at Red, who shrugged. Yeah, good enough, I guess.

It was not good enough, he guessed, Jason realised as he took in what used to be his living room, but was now a cut out of a living room no one would ever willingly ”live” in from Garishly Tasteless Designs Magazine. He had his phone up and dialling before his eyes had even swept up the full length of the dirt-yellow curtains. It took a while to get the full effect of them, because he kept getting distracted by the frills and the suspiciously Nightwing-esque pattern. “Yeah?” Tim answered on the other end of the line. His voice said he was knee deep in something and wasn’t really paying attention. Probably his revenge plan, which Jason was seeing in a whole new light right now. “He redecorated.” Jason’s voice was so low it was almost a growl. There was a pause. “It didn’t stop?” Tim sounded much more alert and aware this time. “No it did I just went out and bought this lime green couch myself from Blind, Bath and Beyond,” Jason snapped. He heard Tim groan into the receiver. “But we even talked to Damian,” his replacement whined. Like he had anything to complain about. His living room didn’t have- was that a fucking Billy the Bass? Jason was going to shove his guns so far- “I’m calling the brat,” Jason ground out before hanging up and redialling. Damian didn’t answer the first time, so Jason made use of his annoying gene(s) and called him over and over until he picked up. “Todd,” Damian snarled, “I am at school. I realise that you were incapable of finishing your formal education but-” “Your fucking Dick of a brother broke into my apartment and re-decorated my living room.” Jason informed grimly. “He- you must be mistaken.” “Look, kid, there aren’t a lot of things I know, what with my not completing my formal education and all, but if there is one thing I will never unlearn it’s how to spot Dick Grayson’s fucking taste in fabrics.” “I see.” No, you little shit. You don’t see. Jason was the one who was cursed with seeing this absolute monstrosity of a- was that crystal?! “You said you were handling it,” Jason reminded him, firmly putting his back to the living room. Looking at it was bad for his blood pressure. “I do not understand.” Damian said seriously. “I specifically told Grayson to stop bothering you and go back to Blüdhaven where he could be of use.” Oh. Oh Damian. Jason resisted the urge to smack the phone into his face. Sometimes Damian’s age and social inexperience really shone through. Jason took a deep breath to keep from screaming. “Listen, Damian.” Jason said carefully. “Dick is feeling a little neglected right now, and what he needs, what we asked you to do, was to start hanging out with him again.” “-tt-” Damian was probably rolling his eyes. Jason could have Tim check later, he was sure the little creep had cameras in every building in the city. “That is preposterous!” “No,” Jason said dangerously, “it’s not. So now would you just call him and tell him you need help with your homework or something?” It was truly a testament to Jason’s level of desperation that he was willing to be this nice and patient. “Grayson needs to rest-” “Just FUCKING CALL HIM!!” Ok, so there was a limit to that patience. Oh well, he was only human. Damian, however, apparently thought that this was one indignity too far because the call disconnected. Jason glanced behind him and immediately regretted it. Porcelain figurines. Oh, how he missed the days when he was a big-name villain, and the only thing Dick did was fight him. In the corner, a cuckoo clock struck seven and a tiny robin popped out and chirped at him. Jason’s vision blurred with sickly green for a moment. Yeah, he was staying in a safe house tonight.

It took for days of no progress and Tim having his entire coffee-stash replaced with decaf (“cheap decaf, Jason. Low-level, buy in bulk decaf.”) before they threw in the towel and went to the manor. The estate looked as menacing to him now as it had when Jason first saw it as a little kid from Crime Alley. It probably always would, no matter how many times he was back. If Tim was feeling apprehensive, it didn’t show. He just looked grumpy, like a particularly displeased cat. His replacement rapped his knuckles on the door and stepped back to cross his arms, frowning. He looked very intimidating. Like a squirrel with an anger management problem. The door swung open to reveal Steph, dressed in a t-shirt that Jason was pretty sure wasn’t supposed to be a splotchy pale blue. Her jeans looked new. “He’s not here,” Steph told them in a biting tone. “Who?” Tim asked. “Dick. Though for the record we have to come up with a new name for him because ‘Dick’ is going to be real ironic soon.” And whoa, Steph did know how to look properly intimidating. “What’d he do?” Jason asked her. Stephanie stepped back to let them inside. “There was an incident with a waffle iron,” she said icily. “He tried to cook?” Tim guessed, taking off his shoes. “He tried to laminate.” Steph corrected. Tim grimaced. “Is Damian here?” Steph snorted. “Damian is useless. We need to strike back.” She lowered her voice, her eyes cold. “And strike hard.” Damn, if this continued, Dick wouldn’t even be allowed back into Gotham. Actually, yeah he would. Only Batman could bar people from entering Gotham, apparently. Because Bruce was only one with any rights around here, that fucking- He was getting off subject. Also, not paying attention. “-alking to Dick,” Tim was saying, “trying to talk to him is a good way to make this worse.” “I wasn’t suggesting we talk to him.” Steph said, cracking her knuckles. Tim looked unimpressed, which frankly impressed Jason a little. Stephanie was scary. Not Batman scary but- Hang on. “Hang on,” Jason said, holding his hand up for emphasis, “Batman is the only one who can bar someone from coming to Gotham.” “What the hell is your point, zombie boy?” Steph asked, crossing her arms. “We don’t need to redirect Dickies attention back to Damian. We just need to redirect it. To someone.” Jason grinned at them and it probably only looked about 30% insane. “Someone with the power to stop him.” Understanding dawned on Stephanie and Tim’s faces. “Someone who deserves to have his clothes ruined,” Steph whispered reverently. “Someone who has time to redecorate because he doesn’t have a job,” Tim added gleefully, “someone who flounces into board meetings too late and does nothing.” “Exactly.”

Tracking down Nightwing turned out to be the easiest thing they’d had to do so far. He didn’t even try to avoid them. “Hey guys!” N smiled cheerily at them as if he hadn’t spent the last two weeks putting them through some kind of Donna Reed inspired psychological torture. “Nightwing.” Red Robin greeted coldly and, yeah, in costume the replacement could totally pull off intimidating. “Whoa, what’s with the murder faces?” Nightwing said, stepping off the ledge he’d been standing on and walking closer. Hood crossed his arms. “You’ve been busy lately,” he commented and even the helmet couldn’t filter away the unvoiced insult at the end. “I guess?” N replied. “Did you like the brownies?” Hood tried to remember that they weren’t here to beat him senseless. Based on Spoiler’s clenched fists it seemed like he wasn’t the only one struggling with that. “N,” Red Robin said with the calm voice he usually reserved for interrogating suspects, “we appreciate you trying to… help us.” On “help us” Red’s voice broke through the calm and straight into “I’m going to kill you and bury you in store-brand decaf coffee” territory. “But we really are doing fine on our own.” Nightwing pursed his lips. “You are all working so hard-” he started, but Red cut him off. “Yes, and that’s why we appreciate it. But we’re actually worried about someone else, who needs your help a lot more than we do.” Nightwing paused and Hood could almost see the gears in his head whirring. “Who? Damian?” “Not Damian,” Red said, because they all knew it wouldn’t work to say it was Damian, “B.” Nightwing crossed his arms. “You think B needs help?” And here was the fragile part of their plan. Hood cleared his throat. “B,” he said, trying to keep his tone civil, “works himself to the bone and he doesn’t accept help from any of us.” “He has Alfie though,” N argued. “Alfie is busy taking care of Damian, since you’re not helping him as much anymore.” Spoiler rebutted. And damn, blondie, good answer. “We struggle too,” Red said, “but we help each other, right guys?” “Uh-huh,” Spoiler agreed. “Right.” Hood lied, thankful that the helmet veiled his eyeroll. “You guys help each other out,” Nightwing said with obvious disbelief. “You.” “Red is always helping me with cases,” Spoiler said, “and studies and stuff too. And I help him with staying alive and acting like a human.” Red nodded. “And Red and I work together on cases,” Hood said truthfully. “And sometimes Hood makes sure I eat and stuff,” Red added, “and I help him with security.” “They also hang out and play video games and watch nerdy movies,” Spoiler revealed. The little snitch. “Really?” Nightwing said, looking between the three of them. “That’s great!” He shuffled around a little. “So, you guys don’t need me either, huh?” Oh god. Oh dear god it was the voice. The patented Richard Grayson sad-and-feeling-neglected voice. The voice that could inspire shame and guilt in the most hard boiled criminal. At least he was wearing the mask so he couldn’t give them the accompanying puppy eyes. “Well,” Spoiler said and Hood could see her wavering. She didn’t have the years of experience needed to withstand Dick’s manipulation. “But B does!” Tim exclaimed, dragging Spoiler to stand behind him. Good move. “And the little brat too, even though he doesn’t admit it.” Hood added. Nightwing bit his lip. “Look,” Red’s voice was genuine now, “we all really do appreciate it, but B and Dami need your help more. And frankly, the last time I saw B he looked dead on his feet. We’re all good. But he isn’t. He sleeps less than I do.” Maybe that was even true. Huh. Were they doing B a solid here? Wait, no. No they weren’t. It was recommended by Martha, Dick you absolute menace. “Ok, I hear you.” N said solemnly. “I just wanted to help out.” Martha. Think about Martha. “We know,” Red said, patting N on the back. It was really awkward. “Did I tell you B has started eating power bars for dinner?” “Wait, seriously?” Nightwing looked disturbed. “That’s so bad for you.” “Yeah,” Hood said as if he hadn’t watched Red do that at least three dozen times, “he’s really setting a bad example for li’l D, isn’t he?” He thought Red might have done the wave if he could have. Hood certainly wanted to give himself the wave for that stroke of genius. “Okay, I know you guys are manipulating me,” Nightwing told them drily. Shit. “But you have a point.” Oh thank Jesus. N stretched. “Well,” he said, “I’m going to make sure B doesn’t kill himself. And yes, I’ll stop helping you guys.” He shook his head. “You three should really open up more, you know?” They nodded, because at this point they would do anything to make him stop “helping out”. Red cleared his throat. “So, good luck, uhm...” Nightwing grinned. “I’ll stop, but you all have to give me a hug before I leave.” Fuck. N pounced on Red like a jaguar on a gazelle, completely ignoring the scandalised (and very undignified) “meep” Red let out. Hood turned around, ready to make a run for it. “If you leave before a hug I’ll make you dinner next time!” Nightwing called cheerfully, still holding onto Red Robin like he was a life vest. Triple fuck. Hood sighed. The things you do to not have your living room secretly re-decorated.

As awful as it was to get cuddled by Nightwing, it was all worth it about a week later, when Tim climbed in through his living room window for their bi-weekly movie night. This week: when the great go bad- The Godfather 3, X-Men: The Last Stand, and Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions. “I see you got rid of the ruffles,” Tim remarked. “You didn’t see that on your stalker cam?” “I’ve been busy watching Bruce lately.” “Oh?” Jason prompted, putting the pizza boxes on the coffee-table. “He tried to call me five times today,” Tim said. He walked over and got two beers out of the fridge. Jason sniggered. “It’s that bad?” “He’s only got one target now. B is about to break.” “Tell me more, tell me more,” Jason said, making himself comfortable on his new -fucking stylish thank you very much -couch. “Like, did he do something to his car?” “I can’t believe you just made a Grease reference, you absolute nerd,” Tim commented flatly. “Musicals are cool,” Jason told him. Because it was true and he would fight anyone who said otherwise. “Was Olivia Newton John your childhood crush or something?” “Who’s to say it wasn’t Travolta?” Tim gave him a deadpan stare. “Because,” he said drily, “unlike Dick, you actually have taste.” Jason mulled that over. “Touché." He shrugged. "Now tell me about B.” Tim looked up from where he was connecting his computer to the TV and grinned sharply. “You want to experience what the Germans call ‘Schadenfreude’?” “Hell yeah I do.” Tim hit a key on his laptop and the Cave flickered into view on Jason’s TV. At least, he thought it was the cave. “Is that?” “He re-decorated the cave.” Tim laughed. It was not a nice laugh. Jason approved. On the screen, Bruce had just entered through the door to the storage area and was making his way to the computer. Trailing after him with a plate of questionable looking sandwiches was Dick. Jason nabbed a beer from the coffee table and leaned back against the couch. “Oh we are so watching this tonight. Sofia can wait.” “I made a compilation of the past week,” Tim said smugly, picking up the other beer and folding himself into Jason’s new armchair. It was beige and, most importantly, neither pea-green nor suede. On screen Bruce collapsed into his new, avant-garde office chair and put his head in his hands while Dick chatted pleasantly in his ear. “You know,” Tim said thoughtfully while Dick re-arranged Bruce’s files, “sometimes I think he’s being purposefully bad at this.” “Why?” “Oh just,” Tim reached for the pizza and Jason handed him the box, “whenever he starts doing this, we all have to interact with each other to make him stop. Like how you and I only started hanging out to begin with because he kept breaking into our safe houses to make ‘breakfast’. Well, that and that time he gave you a haircut in you sleep.” Jason stilled with his beer halfway to his mouth. “He…” Oh god. “That’s totally what he’s doing isn’t it?” Tim looked at him over his slice of pepperoni. “Yeah, probably.” Jason slammed his bear down on the table. “THAT SNEAKY FUCKING BASTARD!” Jason glared at Tim, the proof of Dick's successful manipulation. He didn't even like the replacement. Why the hell was he hanging out with him? Stupid, meddling big brothers who ruin your life. "It's okay," Tim reached over and patted his hand, "I just confirmed that they're taking his cereal off the shelves this week." And yeah, that made it a little better, actually. "I still don't like you." He told Tim. "I know. Wanna watch Bruce find out that Dick redid his wardrobe?" "Yeah ok," Jason grumbled. Maybe, he admitted to himself only, the replacement wasn't all bad. The screen zoomed in on Bruce's expression as he came face to face with a sequined suit. Yeah, Jason thought, taking another sip of beer, not all bad.

#fanfic #batfamily fanfic #batfam fic #pov:#jason todd #humor #tim drake #dick grayson #damian wayne #Stephanie Brown #special appearance:#Bruce Wayne #rated t #for language #4k+ words #1-5k #oneshot

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xseaxwitchxkpop · 4 years ago

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Too Much Overthinking

A/N: This fic is pretty reflective of my own thoughts and pretty self-indulgent. While I kinda wanted to keep this to myself, I felt that there’s other people that could benefit from the comfort of the fic that I tried to go for. Self-love, or at very least self-acceptance, is such a hard journey and sometimes our heads get the better of us. The reader is not necessarily female, so I used no female pronouns, but the reader is framed as femme-presenting, so keep that in mind when reading. So many of fics like these end in sex and it irks me because us fat people are not fetishes, we are people, and deserve to be comforted as such, so I decided to write what I want lol. Also I chose Jongho because he comes off as very emotionally mature and very emotionally intelligent (ignore the fact that he was one of two members that caught my attention and made me stan Ateez lol).

Genre: Comfort

Reader Type: femme!reader, plussize!reader

CW: very negative thoughts, body image issues, a little emotional lol

Requested: NO

Group: ATEEZ -- Jongho

Word Count: 1,491

The boys stayed late at the studio, the night steadily getting darker as you stare out the window and watch the moon climb into the sky and shine. The day feels over already and Jongho once again misses the dinner you made him earlier, complete with missing the cute lunchbox cake you got to celebrate your two year anniversary.

Your heart sinks and your mouth turns into a frown -- you never considered yourself clingy or codependent, but there are times when perhaps you would like him to think about you a little more or that you wanted to stick to his side and never let go.

But him missing this special dinner tonight triggered your negative thoughts and began a less-than-savory night for you; no, you don’t blame him for your thoughts because he didn’t force you to think the things you do, but the current situation certainly doesn’t help.

The soft blankets welcome you with arms of warmth and the mountain of pillows cradle your head as you stare at the ceiling with horrid thoughts running through your heads. You’re too fat, anyway, didn’t need the amount of carbs in the noodles. Your stomach sticks out and sweeps the edge of the counter in a way it shouldn’t, time to lose some! You’re nothing but a good fuck for him, he’s definitely trying to get another woman that’s thinner...they’ve been using a lot of female backup dancers lately…

You whip yourself around in your blankets, trying to squash the thoughts or at least put a temporary stop to them.

You’re not sure how much time has passed, but you hear the door to your apartment opening and closing, accompanied by shuffling that indicates Jongho came by and took off his jacket, shoes, and made his way to the bedroom.

You feel the bed dip down behind you and a solid chest snuggle against your back; his arm threw itself around your body and squished you against him, squishing your stomach in the process and making you feel extremely uncomfortable. His breath lingered on the back of your neck as you heard him whisper that he’s sorry for missing the dinner and that he’d make it up to you tomorrow.

You certainly didn’t want him to know you’re awake, but your mouth moves faster than your brain: “Are you actually?”

His breathing hitches, not realizing that you are still awake. The grip around your midsection loosened and you take the opportunity to lift his arm off of you and scoot away from him. He props himself up on his elbow and peers at the back of your head -- you can’t see the hurt and confusion in his eyes, but you can at least feel the searing gaze aimed at the back of your head.

“What do you mean by that?” he asks, wanting to reach out a hand and rub your arm, but forcing himself to stop. He knows that he fucked up by missing the anniversary celebration, but the synergy of the group was radically off kilter today and it took longer than it should have for all of them to perfect the choreography and he was going to explain tomorrow. But he can’t figure out why this bothered you so much -- you were always understanding and that’s one of the reasons you had his heart.

All you can do is sigh, not wanting to burden him with your negative thoughts, but your tear ducts have other ideas and so thus did your brain.

“What I mean is why stay so late? And without so much as a text or phone call?” you mumble.

“Hmm?” he says, not quite hearing you.

You sit up and turn yourself to face him, barely holding back tears. “Do you not love me any more? Am I not attractive to you any more? Am I just a good fuck for you at this point?”

Jongho’s face fell (not that you can see it in the darkness of the room) and he reaches out to your vague silhouette, wanting to caress your face. “Y/N --”

“No!” you shout at him, hugging yourself and scooting yourself further from him, the hard surface of the wall hitting your back.

“There’s gonna be a day where you wake up and realize that you don’t love me any more, realize that my fat stomach is not cute or good for gripping but repulsive, that my back rolls aren’t sexy but gross, that you’re just lying to yourself and lying to me! You don’t find me sexy, you don’t find my body attractive, and you’ll wake up and realize that and leave me! There’s so many better people out there, yeah, with thinner bodies, with no protruding stomach, with slim arms and a defined jawline, no fat poking out in their bras, with legs that don’t rub together and chaff and can fit beautifully into short skirts…one day, you’re gonna wake up and look at me the way I look at myself.”

Tears leave streaks down your face as you ramble. You tighten the blankets around you in an effort to hide yourself. And Jongho, your boyfriend of two years who has done nothing but make you feel loved, that shows you off in public and is proud to have you for a S/O, feels his heart drop so low he doesn’t know if it is in his body any more. His eyes also sting with tears hearing how you view yourself and he’s at a loss for what to say; he knows that you don’t think highly of yourself, but to hear it in its entirety, with you in tears and hearing, unfiltered, what goes on in your head hurts him. He remembers the intense struggle that Seonghwa had with his own image and how he still slips into that mindset sometimes, but you’re not Seonghwa and can’t be reassured the same way.

Jongho crawled his way to you and cupped your face, forcing you to look him in the eyes as much as possible. At a loss for what else to do, he places his lips gently on yours and just stays there; he feels the wet tracks from your eyes to your chin and the ragged breaths through your nose from your crying.

He eventually pulls away but stays close to your face, rubbing his thumb across your cheekbone. “Why are you thinking these things, hm? Was it because I stayed late? I really am sorry about that,” he whispers into the space between you two.

“I...I don’t know...I just...you’re using more female backup dancers...and you missed my...missed my dinner.”

“What do female backup dancers have to do with anything? Do you think any of them can take me from you?”

You look up at him as he hits the nail on the head, pathetically sniffling in an attempt to not only regulate breathing but also not to open the floodgates again.

“Oh, sweetheart, nothing like that will happen,” he says, pulling you into a tight hug, fighting you, fighting him because the last thing that he wants is for you to think he’s gonna leave you high and dry.

You sink into him, trying even harder to not cry and trying not to think about how you look when crying, trying to ignore the thoughts that tell you that you being an ugly crier is part of the reason that you are horrendously unattractive.

“But what if it does? They’re fit, they’re healthy, they’re attractive…” you start, muttering into his shoulder.

“Who said that?” he counters with lightning speed, not letting you finish the statement. “You? You can’t trust your opinion of yourself in the mirror, how are you to judge what I do and don’t find attractive? You say they’re attractive to me because you don’t find yourself attractive enough to be with me, which your heart will tell you is not true.”

You can’t hold anything in any more and let yourself cry, and not just a small one. You soak his shirt with tears, you claw your way onto his lap and hold him in a death-grip, and you cried, a cathartic one that poured at your emotions into this one cry.

Jongho can’t do anything but hold you with a heavy heart; hearing you cry your heart out hurt him to a degree and he had to hold back his own tears threatening to spill.

He leans back against the mountain of pillows, pulling you with him, and rubbing your back and squeezing your shoulder. You cry yourself to sleep, eventually becoming dead weight on your boyfriend’s chest, which he wholeheartedly embraced. He slowly falls asleep after you, promising himself that, despite the good communication you two had, he’d try to be more mindful of how much you feel loved and ensure that he doesn’t leave doubt in the future for his love for you.

#ateez #jongho #fem!reader #plussize!reader #my writing #comfort hours #ateez imagines #ateez x reader #jongho x reader

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onestowatch · 3 years ago

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Aidan Bissett Wants You to Know It’s Okay to Be Alone [Q&A]

Photo: Brooke James

Aidan Bissett’s sunny and effortless disposition contrasts the chaotic ode to classic rock that is his latest track “Dumped.” The introspective and cathartic nature of his latest offering speaks to age-old feelings of heartbreak while doubling as an optimistic reminder that cloudy days cannot last forever.

Releasing soft-spoken tracks followed by headbanging, classic-rock inspired hits, this young artist’s music truly feels alive, shifting and evolving from one release to the next. With a soulful dedication to “music first, lyrics second,” Bissett is steadily creating his own lane defined by a relentless drive for experimentation. We had the chance to talk to Bissett about his creative approach, his latest single, “Dumped,” and plenty more.

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Ones to Watch: So, tell me the story behind “Dumped?”

Aidan Bissett: Wow, that’s a good question. I wish when I wrote it, it came from like, I had just been dumped… Well, okay, I had sort of been dumped. I don’t know how to explain that, but let’s just say I was in a relationship, taking time off, in a sense. When we were writing it, it was me, my friends, Ryan and Sean, and we were writing in a zoom session for like three hours. It was not a good song, and none of the three of us wanted to say it was a bad song. So, we were like, “OK, we are going to go take a break for a little.”

Then I pulled my guitar off the wall and started messing around, because when I get bored, especially in sessions, I like to try and take my mind off things. I’ll play random chords and sing random lyrics, like ad-lib over them just for fun. So, I started playing like three chords that are all throughout “Dumped,” singing this hook line that—it’s going to sound really weird—“I’m taking dumps all the time.” The guy I was producing it with was like, “OK, gross,” but that actually could be really cool… what if we change it to “I’m getting dumped all the time.” And I was like, “Woah.” That’s kind of how it started and we were on a roll and wrote the whole song in two hours.

And the song does mean a lot to me, because I have actually been dumped, multiple times. It sucks, it’s not a fun feeling, so every time I listen to it, it is kind of an “f you” type of song. Like, “yeah, I got dumped but I’m better off on my own anyway.” I always like that feeling better than wallowing in sadness. So, for anyone who does listen to it, I hope that it helps bring you out of the mourn and into a new light.

In the music video, you are seen reading an “Idiot's Guide To Love.” What was the last book you read?

I do love reading, I’ve always liked reading. I have not, in the past year, read a ton of books, which sucks because I actually do like reading. Well, okay, my senior year of high school I read like 13 books but a lot of them were for school. But they were still good books! I’m in the middle of reading Dune, which is very good so far. So, hopefully, I can finish that before the movie comes out. But yeah, I do like reading… when I have the time to sit down with my ADHD mind.

“Dumped” is a noted sonic transition for you. Can you tell me about how you approach your genre-spanning sound?

I don’t really like putting myself in one genre. I’m in a certain lane in the sense I do indie-pop, I do alternative, but I don't want to do straight pop. I feel like it's such a box, and it’s so limiting. I just love exploring different sounds, so even from the start, I put out “Different,” and then the second song was “Worst Girls Of All Time,” which was a completely different sound than the indie-pop wave that “Different” is. So, me putting out stuff like this after “Communication” is me exploring new sounds. To be honest, the things I like to hear always change, the bands that I’m listening to are always changing, and I take a lot of inspiration from a lot of different bands. I just love trying new things. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, but it just keeps me on my toes instead of just doing the same formula over and over again.

What are you listening to right now?

That’s a good question, it’s kind of all over the place. There’s this one girl, Remi Wolf, who I’ve been non-stop listening to… I have been listening to her for a minute. When she put out her first EP, I loved it. But now, she’s putting out these new tracks and Solomonophonic, her producer, he’s just incredible and her voice is incredible. They are doing so many things that just aren’t normal in this time of music; it’s just so her own lane. I find that really inspiring in the sense that she’s carving her own path and not following in the line of others.

I feel like I’m always listening to Wallows no matter what. I always have them ready to go. COIN. Role Model’s rolling out new stuff so I’m excited for that, he’s kind of taking a change in his own discography. [The] sounds that he is doing are definitely a lot different from his earlier stuff. This guy, binki. He’s actually opening for Role Model on this tour. Oh my gosh! His music’s insane, so cool. It’s got so many sounds going on, similar to Remi Wolf, there’s so much going on, you’re like ‘wow.. I’ve never heard something like this before.’

For those who don’t know, you write, record and produce your music all by yourself. Can you walk me through your creative process?

Yeah, I’m very musically-driven. Everyone has their own thing, I feel like a lot of artists, like the Olivia Rodrigo types, are lyrically-driven. I’m definitely music first, lyrics second. So, when I sit down to write something I try and get something I latch onto. I’m like, “Oh, this sounds cool. Lyrics could sound cool over this.” Anytime I go into a session or I’m recording by myself, I try to lay down some form of music, and then I’ll freestyle lyrics or freestyle melodies over the top, or pick a melody I like and throw lyrics over that melody. Whether that’s a hook or a verse, that kind of just depends on how I’m feeling. It’s definitely a bit unconventional compared to other artists. I feel like artists are a bit more put together when it comes to writing music just because I’ve only been doing it for like a year-and-a-half. But I have my own process, and it works. Every time I write something I learn something new. I’m excited to see, even a year from now, what my process will be… and even if it's completely different or efficient, who knows?

Tell me about the influence of music in your childhood and the decision for you to be a musician at a young age - you started playing electric guitar very young - what was your household like? Musical family?

My dad wanted the kids in our family, I have two other siblings, to play an instrument for two years during our young adult life. He wanted us to play piano before we got to pick, so we had two years of piano and then we had to pick an instrument. So, my sister went and played two years of piano and didn’t really stick with it afterward. Then, it was my turn and I was like, “Well, I don’t really want to play piano, can I play guitar?” And since I was the only one who asked, who expressed interest in a different instrument, he was like, “Sure.” I started in second grade and I’ve stuck with it the entire time. I took lessons for years, and that’s how I kind of got into the classic rock scene. My dad was a huge classic rock fan so he showed me all greats… and that was all I listened to for years. It definitely had a large impact on what I did. I would even play in little recitals, and I always played classic rock songs like AC/DC or Guns N’ Roses.

It wasn’t necessarily a musical household, like my dad isn’t musical, my mom isn’t musical. The reason he wanted us to play an instrument is because his mom made him play an instrument as a kid, so he was like, “You guys get to do that, too.” But it is true, one of us ended up using it.

What do you want people to take away from “Dumped?”

It’s an amp-up song. I want them to feel energized, to be happy with yourself. Getting hurt in relationships happens all the time, but it's okay to get hurt in a relationship. It’s kind of how you bounce back, and I want this song to be like a bounce back. Like, you hear it and, “Oh! This is me bouncing back! I don’t need to sit and cry anymore, because that’s not fun.” Sitting and crying is okay, everyone’s done it, but there’s a point that you reach, in that break-up phase, when the crying needs to stop and you need to go out and live and be the person that you are, independently. So, I would hope that it inspires you to be your independent, wonderful self again.

Is there anything else you would like to say about your music, or in general, that you want to take the chance now to say?

Well, I’m sitting on a lot of songs. So, I’m excited to get all the rest out, and again, everything is so diverse. All the music is so diverse, I just feel like each song is its own thing, which I really enjoy. I feel that’s really unique to my own music, where you’re getting something new every time. I’m moving to LA. That’s the other thing. So, if anyone sees me in LA, please stop me and say hello!

#aidan bissett #dumped #interview #pop #indie pop #alternative pop

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kouhaiofcolor · 4 years ago

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2020's finally over. Can we not go into 2021 pacifying texturism w "It's just hair" tho?

It was "just hair" until Black Women started exercising the freedom to discover the unique needs & maintenance beneficial to our hair. Then as soon as non black women got wind of it & the nerve to lurk on platforms the natural hair community was uprising thru, nowadays you've got all these non black women bandwagoning & hashtagging literally everything under the sun w/ this fake ass inclusiveness, advocacy, relatability & support for textured hair. Like all women have suffered oppression around wearing their real hair 😒. Like all races of women have been socially targeted in blatant discriminations against their hair texture, complexion, & how acceptable they are or are not together. I hate the "All Hair (Matters/Is Beautiful/Is 'Good Hair')" clout bc it talks over & totally overwrites the foundational issue around hair & toxic femininity that, at its misogynoir core, has always been that textured hair is unprofessional, unkempt, unmanageable, & ugly. Colorism also erases the initial creators of the movement — which were Monoracial Brown & Dark Skinned Black Women; put some respek onnat, period. Straight hair is not oppressed; wavy hair is not oppressed; all hair is not oppressed. Black hair is. This "all hair is good hair" bullshit is so monotonous & inconsiderate bc its almost like a passive aggressive refusal to acknowledge what antiblackness imposed on Black Women alone. None of you non black know what it's like in depth to be the descendants of a race of ppl who's features, traits & harmless existence have always been insulted, hated & envied by the whole world. Esp not all at once. That is something totally unique to us inflicted & imposed by everyone else since the beginning of time. So why be out here chasing clout under tags & movements & in spaces you are no real part of? Why wanna be a part of the Black Girl Experience that bad? Yall have identities in everything outside of us. Why vulture off of this like you even have reasons to be there? We were investing in ourselves & trying to teach generations of Monoracial Black People how to manage their hair texture & develop cathartic habits thru self care. Nb ppl ruined that.

Looser hair textures have omnipresent representation & acceptance all, over, the, world. There is no lack of being seen, romanticized or exemplified for having texture 1a-3b hair; esp on the prevalent basis around colorism we see regularly on social media & on tv. Yet what remains of the community as it stands is today the furthest thing from textured or Black at all. At this point we owe the decline (if not death) of the natural hair community to the parasitic latching of non black women, the infiltration of "pick me's" & antiblackness generally — but I still be feeling like even that's not direct enough. We're talking ab something authentic & wholesome for Monoracial Black Women created by us for us being straight up sabotaged by races of women the cause was totally irrelevant to & in regard of. Bc that's how cosmetic industries have been towards us for centuries. Bc we were always excluded & thought of least & last. By other women. By all other women; don't get it twisted. So we set out on figuring ourselves out. Doing research on our own. Incorporating self care & beneficial habits in our lives to nourish & feel better ab ourselves & disprove the racist shit non black cultures & ppl either ignorantly surmise, make up or project ab Black Girls. That includes Black Men too in case yall thought yall were safe. Yall are some of the most toxic & prevalent faces behind colorism, antiblackness & misogynoir among black ppl specifically.

But anyhow. At first a lot of the initiation of the vulturing in the nhc light skinned women were the face of. Esp w the clout around having 4c hair amongst the beige-est, most ambiguously or straight up non black individuals, good lord. Then it went mainstream for huwight ppl, whom enevitably invited themselves, & following were the masses of non black women looking to pillage for themselves while the community was being swallowed by the crowdedness & irrelevant content being put out there (specifically on YouTube, Twitter & Instagram) by "hair gurus" of the light skinned, biracial or non black texture 1a-3b variety. Hair gurus who literally may as well've fallen from the sky & met social media stardom overnight based on their hair texture & complexion alone they're so brand new. Hair gurus who aren't even in the community for legitimately informative reasons or purposes unionized in Blackness. They're whole natural hair niche be — as a favorite natural of mine put it — manipulating textured hair into a sort of submission to appear or behave like looser textures do. They'll swear by 'game changer' products they both mention & only use like once & insist you should invest in a $30 8oz. bottle of clarifying shampoo or a $35 cowash if you want your hair to behave & look like theirs. Again, mind you, these types of individuals casually claim having texture 4 hair when they're anything but, just for the attention it brings from both ppl who will gullibly follow their every word & who know what kind of scamming to look for & won't.

If it's "just hair", how come so many of you that are non black are riding the wave? If it's just hair, why have so many of you found refuge in using the hashtags & participating/contributing uninvited? How come so many ran to get a seat at the table w Black Women only to kick them to the side the more popular it became if its just hair? How come nobody was calling it natural hair before Black Women created the nhc & started growing their own? Why was there no natural hair community before Black Women coined it, reminder, for ourselves? If it's just hair, how come so many ran to youtube to begin w to start channels for their own non-textured journeys? If its just hair, why is the nhc so damn obsessed w defining curls & length than overall health & gradual growth? If its just hair, why are white girls anywhere near this? Yall are the most out of place of anyone, honestly. Even if you're curly. Why do light skinned girls get to both represent textured hair & "good hair"? How does that even make sense? Thats just putting monoracial black girls in isolated boxes they're not even allowed to be symbols of or in. If its just hair, why's it so unheard of to see the roles of Black female characters in just ab anything played by actual Black Women? If its just hair, why have so many non or partially Black women worked in ignorant succession to water down & essentially wash out the Monoracial Black Women vital to the community's relevance at all? I really do not get the involvement of non black women in this movement at all — esp when culturally you have no reason to call your hair natural. There are no & have never been prejudice notions around having or growing texture 1a-3b hair. There's nothing oppressive ab it, either. Yall have gotta stop w that. You've already made a mockery of something that was supposed to be beautiful by making yourselves comfortable in & hijacking our space itfp. Theres far too much misrepresentation of textured hair to keep up w now. This is why i say the nhc (as well as culture vulturing generally) has just become nbwoc copying white women copying light skinned women copying Black Women, bc the audacity is unreal.

Its not just hair tho. To those it applies to, yall proved that the minute Black Women started going public w their growth journeys. The minute conversations ab "shrinkage this & 4c that" broadened & went mainstream. Yall couldn't move all at once fast enough when you realized you weren't as special as you thought & had always been told — esp w melanin at its modern value. Now all yall either "natural", seeking black men for either casual sex or cultural infiltration via fetishised reproduction, certain you have texture 4 hair or know the best tips for a DIY silk press 🤭😂 yall can't sit w us. You don't belong here. I'm calling yall out on allll the bs around this "All Hair Matters" garbage, cus yall are now sputtering the same shit while literally wearing your own non black hair in black styles. Be consistent. Make some fucking sense. I don't wanna be part of this fake ass girl squad propaganda that says every other woman never looked at Black Women's hair like it was bottomest of the barrel, foh. We're not on the same team & yall know it.

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goneseriesanalysis · 4 years ago

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Subversion of Tropes

Spoiler warning for Fear, Lies and Plague down below

TW: mentions of s@xual @ssault and r@pe

In my recent post, Misogyny in Gone, I pointed out numerous instances in the series where misogynistic tropes are present, and how that affects the narrative of the story. The women often seem to be underdeveloped, sexualised and demonised for choices and characteristics that their male counterparts make and have with no consequence. Of course this is not true for every female character, and it is certainly not present all the time, but it still has a huge impact on the story. There is one scene in particular though, that seems to subvert these tropes and I wanted to talk about it as I think it is both a really important aspect of the story and introduces us to a fascinating power dynamic, that I really wish mg had developed further.

The interplay between sex and violence is a theme that is heavily prevalent in Plague and is present in both Lies and Fear. It shows up in many different forms throughout the series and presents itself in multiple ways such as: Caine and Diana’s relationship, Astrid and Orc’s Scene in Plague and Drake with pretty much every attractive woman he comes across. This is a theme that mg writes particularly well – Astrid and Orc’s scene in Plague (with a small cameo from Drake) is one of the best written examples of this trope I have ever read. However, for me personally, this scene is marginally outdone by another example of this trope that occurs in Fear – that being Caine’s cementing.

Not only does this scene have the cathartic tint of revenge to it, but it also subverts this trope in that it is the woman who is the perpetrator and the man (boy) who is the victim. When I first read Fear, nothing about this scene seemed even remotely sexual to me (because I was a child and unless it was outright stated I was never going to pick up on it.) But, when I re-read the scene a few days ago in preparation for my misogyny in gone post, I noticed how reminiscent Penny’s takedown of Caine is to the way women typically experience sexual violence (both in media and real life.)

So the scene starts out with Caine turning up to Penny’s house to discuss the situation with Cigar. Great. Fast forward a bit and we get to Penny outright telling Caine that she has a crush on him….and him outright rejecting her. Instead of accepting this, she pushes, telling him that she could be anyone in his imagination. He rejects her again. And she does not take that well. While she doesn’t show it on the outside, we as a reader get to see her internal monologue, where she has an extremely inappropriate reaction to his rejection. It is clear from this that she feels entitled to his affection, despite him never giving any indication that her feelings were reciprocated. Penny seems to believe that Caine has falsely led her on, but we as a reader know that he has rejected any and all advances that she has made and has not ever, in canon, used her crush to manipulate her. (Before I continue I want to make it clear that I am by no means saying that Caine is innocent. Penny has every right to be angry with him for a multitude of other reasons. But her reasoning here is misguided.) So the first question that this brings to mind is: Would Penny have continued with the cementing if Caine had welcomed her advances?? I think mg left this purposely ambiguous. But I like (and I use this word very loosely) the idea that she wouldn’t have. The trope of a woman having to cater to the desires of a man in order to avoid violence is one that is common in all types of media, and is one that we see throughout Gone as well. The best examples being Astrid with Sam and, of course, Diana with Caine. Both of these women are forced to conform to what Sam and Caine want them to be in order to be safe in the FAYZ, and so mg flipping the switch on this and having Caine’s inability to capitulate Penny’s desires being the final straw to his downfall (even if he was unaware of this fact) is an amazing touch.

This theme is then continued in the way that Penny takes Caine down…by drugging him and incapacitating him. Now, these are occurrences that are usually associated with date r@pe, which is something that is mostly experienced by women. Of course, this is not what actually happened in the book, but the association is there for a reason, I’m sure. Given Penny’s attraction to Caine, her take-down of him is inherently sexual in both its execution and come about. Her extreme reaction to his refusal is probably a result of her less-than-ideal childhood. We are told than Penny’s father used to take inappropriate pictures of her older, but still under-aged sister. When her sister became of age, Penny assumed that her father would move on to her, but instead he skipped her and began taking photos of her younger sister. Mg doesn’t really go into much detail on how this must have affected Penny’s psyche – only that she was so jealous that she took her father’s laptop into the school and showed the other students, resulting in his arrest. It is heavily implied that Penny’s parents were not affectionate – they neglected their children (at least emotionally) and so Penny sought out attention and affection, as any child would. Seeing how much time her father spent with her older sister, and seeing why – it isn’t hard to believe that Penny would equate sexualisation to affection, and even love. (lemme just have a cry real quick.) This makes sense when you take into account her reaction to Caine’s refusal (which was actually pretty mild) and even when you look at earlier events – such as him helping to bathe her. I can’t speak for everyone, but if someone broke MY legs and then came in to help bathe me, I would not be happy, and yet Penny seems to almost enjoy it. We then learn that Penny and her sisters were sent to live with their aunt after their mother became too depressed to care for them. And, once again, Penny found that her sisters were getting all the attention. So she reacted with violence – by putting bleach in her older sister’s cereal. She later found out that her father had committed suicide in prison, after being beaten by other inmates. And so Penny’s formative years have been tinted with sex and violence – two things that no child should be exposed to (although that’s kind of the whole premise of the series.) When you look at her past it becomes clear that her take-down of Caine was an attempt to gain control over one of the many people who have denied her affection in favour of giving it to someone else. As she associates sex with affection, and responds to a lack of affection with violence, it makes sense that she would attack him in a way that is associated with sexual violence.

My final point is in relation to the actions that she takes while Caine is unconscious. She does three things that really give us an insight into her mentality regarding the cementing:

- She cements him

- She makes a tin foil crown for him

- She cuts off his shirt

These actions again are reminiscent, at least subtextually, of the act of r@pe - a sexual crime done with the intent to both incapacitate and embarrass the victim – in essence, a power-play. And this is exactly what Penny does. She begins by entrapping him in the cement, taking his power from him. We know that Penny was not scared of Caine’s power, this was not an act of paranoia as the cementing of the Coates kids was. But rather, she knew how much his power meant to him, how much he relied on it – and she wanted to make him feel just as powerless as he had made her feel. This is further reinforced by her making the tin foil crown. Of course, she partly did this to cause him more pain (she literally stapled it to his head), but the main reason was to embarrass him. To turn his own narcissism against him. And then, to top it all off, she cuts of his shirt – which is just straight up sexual assault. This is the moment in the scene where the interplay between sex and violence really comes out. As she sees it, sexualisation is a form of affection. But as her whole life she has been denied any form of affection she has twisted this in her mind to where she sees violence as a viable outlet of emotions – or rather a replacement for affection. I think Caine’s cementing showed the breaking point for Penny – there are so many things she wants to communicate (her anger at Caine for all the horrible things he has done to her, her affection towards him, her desire for power and respect) and she just doesn’t have the emotional intelligence to do it, due to years of witnessing sexual assault and experiencing neglect. So instead everything gets distilled down into this twisted act of violence where she both expresses all of these things and gets none of them.

I really love this scene as I think it is a great example of mg’s writing ability. I know her attack of Caine was not only due unrequited affections, but I think this side of it is really excellently written, and makes me wish that we has seen more of Penny. I think it would have been a very interesting plot twist and a great use of character if Penny had managed to discard of Drake in Fear and take over his role in the story. Anyway this was only meant to be a short post and I really rambled on (as if anyone is surprised by now). Thank you for reading and please feel free to comment on/ criticise this!! :)

#the gone series #penny

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