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star-anise · 3 years ago

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Ok, I'll bite. What *is* the difference between Bridgerton and Jane Austen in relationship to their skirts?

Oh! Not in their costuming, just in their general *waves hands* everything. It's a comment I see a lot about Bridgerton: "Well, it's not much like Austen, is it?"

That's because there are 200 years of literary history between the two, and they have not been empty!

This ended up being 1.5k words, but when I put stuff under a readmore, people don't actually read it and then just yell at me because of a misread of the 1/10th of the post they did read. Press j to skip or get ready to do a lot of scrolling (It takes four generous flicks to get past on my iPhone).

First I'll say my perspective on this is hugely shaped by Sherwood Smith, who has done a lot of research on silver fork novels and the way the Regency has been remembered in the romance genre.

The Regency and Napoleonic eras stretch from basically the 1790s to 1820, and after that, it was hard to ignore the amount of social change happening in Britain and Europe. The real watershed moment is the 1819 Peterloo Massacre, where 60,000 working-class people protesting for political change were attacked by a militia. The issues of poverty, class, industrialization, and social change are inescapable, and we end up with things like the 1832 Reform Act and 1834 Poor Law.

This is why later novelists, like Charles Dickens and Elizabeth Gaskell, are so concerned with the experiences of the urban poor. Gaskell's North and South has been accurately described as "Pride and Prejudice for socialists."

So almost as soon as it ended, people started to look back and mythologize the Regency as a halcyon era, back when rich people could just live their rich lives and fret about "only" having three hundred pounds a year to live on. Back when London society was the domain of hereditary landowners, when you weren't constantly meeting with jumped-up industrialists and colonials.

Jane Austen is kind of perfect for this because she comes at the very end of the long eighteenth century, and her novels show hints of the tremors that are about to completely reshape England, but still comfortably sit in the old world. ("The Musgroves, like their houses, were in a state of alteration, perhaps of improvement. The father and mother were in the old English style, and the young people in the new. Mr and Mrs Musgrove were a very good sort of people; friendly and hospitable, not much educated, and not at all elegant. Their children had more modern minds and manners.")

Sherwood Smith covers the writers who birthed the Silver Fork genre in detail, but there's one name that stands out in its history more than any other: Georgette Heyer.

Georgette Heyer basically single-handedly established the Regency Romance as we know it today. Between 1935 and 1972, she published 26 novels set in a meticulously researched version of London of the late 18th and early 19th century. She took Silver Fork settings and characters and turned them into a highly recognizable set of tropes, conventions, and types. (As Sherwood points out, her fictional Regency England isn't actually very similar to the period as it really happened; it's like Arthurian Camelot, a mythical confection with a dash of truth for zest.)

Regency Romance is an escapist genre in which a happy, prosperous married life is an attainable prize that will solve everything for you. Georgette Heyer's novels are bright, sparkling, delightful romps through a beautiful and exotic world. Her female characters have spirit and vivacity, and are allowed to have flaws and make mistakes without being puritanically punished for them. Her romances have real unique sparks to them. She's able to write a formula over and over without it becoming dull.

And.... well. The essay that introduced me to Heyer still, in my opinion, says it best:

Here's the thing about Georgette Heyer: she hates you. Or, okay, she doesn't hate you, exactly. It's just that unless you are white, English, and upper class (and hale, and hearty, and straight, and and and), she thinks you are a lesser being. [...W]ith Heyer, I knew where I stood: somewhere way below the bottom rung of humanity. Along with everyone else in the world except Prince William and four of his friends from Eton, which really took away the sting. But my point is: if you are not that white British upper-class person of good stock and hearty bluffness and a large country estate, the only question for you is which book will contain a grimly bigoted caricature of you featuring every single stereotyped trait ever associated with your particular group. (You have to decide for yourself if really wonderful female characters and great writing are worth the rest of it.)

So Heyer created the genre, but she exacerbated the flaw that was always at the heart of fiction about the Regency, was that its appeal was not having to deal with the inherent rot of the British aristocracy. I think part of why it's such a popular genre in North America specifically is that we often don't know much British history, so we can focus more on the perfume and less on the dank odor it's hiding.

And like, escapism is not a bad thing. Romance writers as a community have sat down and said: We are an escapist genre. The Romance Writers of America, one of the biggest author associations out there, back when they were good, have foundationally said: "Two basic elements comprise every romance novel: a central love story and an emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending." A strong part of the community argue that publishing in the genre is a "contract" between author and reader: If it's marketed as a romance book, there's a Happily Ever After. If there's no Happily Ever After, it's not romance.

It's important for people to be able to take a break from the stresses of their lives and do things that are enjoyable. But the big question the romance genre in particular has to deal with is, who should be allowed to escape? Is it really "escapist" if only white, straight, upper class, able-bodied thin cis people get to escape into it? In historical romance, this is especially an issue for POC and LGBTQ+ people. It's taken a lot of work, in a genre dominated by the Georgette Heyers of the world, to try to hew out the space for optimistic romances for people of colour or LGBTQ+ people. These are minority groups that deal with a literally damaging amount of stress in real lives; they are in especial need of sources of comfort, refuge, community, and encouragement. For brief introductions to the issue, I can give you Talia Hibbert on race, and KJ Charles on LGBTQ+ issues.

Up until the 1990s, the romance genre evolved slowly. It did evolve; Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan's Beyond Heaving Bosoms charts the demise of the "bodice-ripper" genre as it became more acceptable for women to have and enjoy sex. The historical romance genre became more accommodating to non-aristocratic heroines, or ones that weren't thin or conventionally pretty. The first Bridgerton book, The Duke and I, was published in 2000, and has that kind of vibe: Its characters are all white but not all of them are aristocrats, its heroines are frequently not conventionally beautiful and occasionally plump, and its cultivation to modern sensibility is reflected in its titles, which reference popular media of today.

This is just my impression, but I think that while traditional mainstream publishing was beginning to diversify in the 1990s, the Internet was what really made diverse romance take off. Readers, reviewers, and authors could talk more freely on the internet, which allowed books to become unlikely successes even if their publishers didn't promote them very much. Then e-publishing meant that authors could market directly to their readers without the filter of a publishing house, and things exploded. Indie ebooks proved that there was a huge untapped market.

One of my favourite books, Zen Cho's Sorcerer to the Crown, is an example of what historical romance is like today; it's a direct callback and reclamation of Georgette Heyer, with a dash of "Fuck you and all your prejudices" on top of it. It fearlessly weaves magic into a classic Heyer plot, maintaining the essential structure while putting power into the hands of people of colour and non-Western cultures, enjoying the delights of London society while pointing out and dodging around the rot. It doesn't erase the ugliness, but imagines a Britain that is made better because its poor, its immigrants, its people of colour, and the foreign countries it interacts with have more power to make their voices heard and to enforce their wills. Another book I've loved that does the same thing is Courtney Milan's The Duke Who Didn't.

So then... Bridgerton the TV show is trying to take a book series with a very middle-of-the-road approach to diversity, differing from Heyer but not really critiquing her, and giving it a facelift to bring it up to date.

So to be honest, although it's set in the same time period as Austen, it's not in the least her literary successor. It's infinitely more "about" the past 30 years of conversation and art in the romance genre than it is about books written 200 years ago.

#staranise original #regency romance #bridgerton #long post

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rethesun · 3 years ago

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Is there a name for middle lane larries?

Topic: An opinion on larry

I think there is substantial compelling evidence, but I'm not 100% convinced that there is still something but it’s possible there is we just don’t see.

If someone calls me a larrie, it's not insulting at all, but if someone were to call me an anti i’d be sad, honestly. Below I say many things that make it seem like I negatively judge hardcore larries, but I don't. I find it extraordinary that people can be so brave and sure of themselves, and I wish I could be too. I tend to get along with larries, while I mostly avoid antis unless they manage to be respectful, which is unfortunately quite rare.

I think it's practically effortless to get toxic when trying to prove or disprove things. I think it's dehumanizing and feels stressful to me as a fan. Therefore I can only imagine the difficulty and what it takes for people in a position of fame to get to a place of inner strength and resilience where the millions of opinions of the world don't affect them as much. It's sometimes hard to judge/differentiate what is and isn't disrespectful, and it hurts terribly to know I'm crossing boundaries. So I'm putting my opinion together in hopes it isn't as counterproductive or pointless as it feels.

I'm not at all trying to convince anyone of a narrative to sway people to believe or not believe. What and how much you know and where you "stand" is down to you.

Do I believe in larry?

First and foremost, being a fan of someone means supporting that person without expecting anything from them. It means any fan theory isn't crucial. What’s important is just supporting them as is, as an individual. It means caring about how the person may feel about things more than caring about how I feel about things that aren't my business in the first place.

That said, here is my not long-awaited opinion.

I think there is substantial compelling evidence, but I'm not 100% convinced that there is still something but it’s possible there is we just don’t see. I will not disregard what Harry and Louis said back in the day and pretend they had nothing when at the very least, Harry said it on video directly twice. Yes, he was a kid, but people will decide Harry is with a skinny blonde woman older than him for much less, so I don't take what he said as a platonic joke. However, I try to be as realistic as possible. As an outsider, it's not easy for my brain to conclude on most things. However, this doesn't mean I disregard how bad the industry can be. One big reason is that I don't know any of these people personally, and I want to believe in the best in others. Even though I understand controlling narratives in the industry happens and happened to 1D. I don't know to what extent. It's hard for me to judge that any or all of Harry's "relationships" are fake, and thus, he's had a few "stunt" songs for those relationships, etc. It’s plausible that he wrote female pronouns on a song or a few and the song refers to a man/men but that's far from saying this is a stunt song which would imply an entire fake relationship which is too far for me to say wasn't real as I am just an outsider.

Whether people say it's the fans who say it or the boys behavior, the statement, 'larries ruined their friendship,' is sometimes interpreted as centered around homophobia. I do not see it this way.

However, whether there was or is a relationship, it's entirely reasonable to consider, the circumstances as a whole hurt them and likely the rest of the band in multiple ways that made things really hard. I do not think fans ruined the band or their connections with each other. I think being overworked with little freedom or breaks to discover/express independence were just a few reasons why.

Why I think larry appeared to become distanced to the public eye: 1. Understandably, putting blame on the heteronormative gender restrictive times we were in and still are in. 2. How some fans react to Larry's interactions due to reason number one. Otherwise, all the 1D members, their families, and friends have been honest. That would mean there isn't an elaborate conspiracy; they are just tired of people messing with who they care about and want to live without the harassment. Regardless of whether some fan theories are accurate or not, people in the spotlight and their families deserve peace of mind. They don't deserve to be dehumanized. I wish some fans would understand how wrong it is to swarm people or ask strangers to confirm any personal things. Not only because it's rude and invasive but because of mental health. If that's confusing, imagine if it were you in their position.

I used Zayn's interview because he shared it eloquently while the other mentions that ‘Larry isn't real’ were mostly screen captures of constituents replying impatiently to larry comments on social media saying the Larry thing is delusion and not what real fans do. Zayn in this 2015 fader interview. "There's no secret relationships going on with any of the band members," he explains. "It's not funny, and it still continues to be quite hard for them. They won't naturally go put their arm around each other because they're conscious of this thing that's going on, which is not even true. They won't do the natural behavior." He goes on to add to the statement, "But it's just the way the fans are. They're so passionate, and once they get their head around an idea, that's the way it is regardless of anything. If it wasn't for the passionate, like almost obsession, then we wouldn't have the success that we have." Before the subject changes, Zayn said that fans would find a way to water down what he said and make any excuses, e.g., that he couldn't speak the truth.

I can't speak for anyone but myself. (I’m a queer cis female) I don't think I would want to 'get dragged through a round of 'coming out' press. Why should sexuality be treated as an oddity by the median, and why should queer people have to subject themselves to that treatment?' The amount of coming out stories and things that could follow a person, or the people around, in the aftermath, would be atrocious. People, personally and professionally, may treat you differently after. The queer stereotypes would be exhausting. Also, it's not always as safe sometimes to be out. Whether there was/is a relationship at all between 1D members. “Being open to everyone isn't easy. Now imagine yourself no less human than right now, but add millions of eyes on you. It's insensitive to assume about someone when they could be doing their best/what is comfortable—please let's stop invalidating what we don't understand.”

Zayn's career connects to Hollywood, and he’s in the spotlight so it's not easy to suddenly believe everything I hear and see is the truth just because someone like him said it. However, at the same time, it's rather discomforting for me to disregard and look into everything people like Zayn or his constituents say. I want to believe the best in people and sympathize and “back him up” in a sense. It's also way to hard to believe all things other fans say because we are passionate and obsessed, so there is confirmation bias.

Do I concretely believe anything?

Yes, but those things don't directly confirm or deny anything especially Larry.

I believe the boys were responsible for RBB & SBB.

I have some reason to believe the song Carolina could be about experimentation with drugs since Johnny Cash's Cocaine-Carolina song is plausibly similar. Also, it's not uncommon if you're wealthy or famous to experiment with drugs, including harmful drugs; the environment can make it more accessible and normalized. I don't condone drug abuse; I hope Harry is wise enough not to make it a reoccurring thing. I want him naturally happy and healthy, but it's not my life, and I don't know him to have any right in making that call. I trust from Harry's character and what he said in his Zane Lowe interview that he knows better. However, the song Carolina might be about Townes or maybe it's both, I have no clue.

I believe SOTT is about "fundamentals" like Harry said it is, not just from the perspective of 'a mother telling the child to go forth and conquer.' I notice some people readily look over the childbirth story, saying 'it makes no sense,' but it can easily coincide with fundamentals, "Equal rights for everyone, all races sexes, everything." Check out this in depth lyric analysis?

I think most of us know and support that Harry is a proud member of the community. If he wasn’t he’d just say that.

I think maybe COAC and SOTT may have been collaborative. There are multiple writers on both songs and if it’s possible to have a ghost writer then I say it's plausible they chose to write them similarly.

I think Louis possibly queer codes. Straight people don’t queer code so you might think it’s queer baiting but I don’t think someone sick of gay rumors would go that route. Either that, or he's a passionate and sympathetic ally.

However, Louis is still "with" E. From a perspective of committed fans, it doesn't look like a sincere relationship. As an outsider, again, it feels far too presumptuous for me to have a B&W opinion.

It seems that adults with somewhat official platforms let rumors run rampant, and not many grown adults of the time seemed to correct or silence it. I should have said this early and cannot stress this enough, ANYONE who is not the Louis Tomlinson or in his family tree is in no way an official source. If they're acting like they know things (not just reporting on what's happening), they were/are either trolling or want people to freak out for clout. Being led astray by people looking to capitalize on fans is always a danger. It's insensitive, inappropriate, and unprofessional, but it happened. I am surprised by that and that 1D's management didn't try to protect Louis and his image more. I’m not an insider able to judge him negatively or to overanalyze the situation. So I won't assume he's not a dad, and I hope he's doing well.

(About the above paragraph about Louis this is an update after the original post I made to say I don't have a further developed opinion because I never looked into it and don't know if I will so don't hold that against me please I just personally don't feel like it’s a thing I need to do and I know larries don’t appreciate when non-larries make comments on things without thoroughly looking into things so you won’t see a further opinion from me or judgment unless I do actual research)

In conclusion, and to reiterate, I feel like there is some truth to some things. Again, it feels disrespectful or too presumptuous for me to have many opinions, especially of the negative kind, as an outsider. I don't know any of these people personally, and I want to believe in the best in others. I am not harshly judging things because I don't have a complete story or the right to. However, this doesn't mean I disregard how bad the industry can be to people in multiple ways.

As fans, we can do much better. It's not unreasonable to wish people didn't constantly objectify/sexualize people with fame and didn't harass them/their families about fan theories. Also, always wanting something from these people and expecting them to fulfill god-like expectations as if they don't go through the same human experience and aren't completely flawed like the rest of us, or stalking them—something sick and a behavior that's saddening and disgusting. Real fans just leave them be to live their lives. Please call out stalking and discourage it if you notice it. Overall, I think we can all be a bit more respectful and understanding or try to make an effort. I'm not a superfan, but I'd like to be genuine and not a reason why these people dislike being in the spotlight. I feel like that means being as grounded, realistic, and sensitive about how these people may feel about things more than caring about how I feel about things that aren't my business in the first place. It ultimately means any fan theory isn't crucial. What’s important is just supporting them as is, as individual.

[#’s are for exposure and may not correlate]

#larry #music industry #1d #fans #one direction #harry styles #liam payne #nial horan #zayn mailk #louis tomilson #an opinion on larry #rethesun #source: me

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tanadrin · 5 years ago

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A couple of other disconnected thoughts on immigration and racism generally:

1) You know how every generation of immigrants in American history gets stereotyped as lazy and ignorant and brutish? Compare those with similar stereotypes of the European poor. There’s a reason for the similarity: the US has often drawn on immigration from specifically rural regions to build up its population, starting with the rural parts of Britain in the 1600s and 1700s. But this isn’t either a happenstance feature, or something that the US has succeeded in despite of: the US economy has been (less so now, because it’s less agrarian, but its rural economy still is) structured around needing vast amounts of poor immigrant labor, preferably with limited options so as to restrain their economic and social mobility once they arrive.

This is something that Sarah Taber has, citing the work of historians on the subject, explicated at length on her podcast; it was this need that drove the US portion of the slave trade (similar mechanics even more annihilatory of human life and joy were at work on Caribbean sugar plantations), and in the US as in so many other places in history, the creation of an us-them divide between poor rural whites and slaves--later sharecroppers and poor rural blacks--served to keep this system metastable despite the frequent outbreaks of violence and, before the civil war, the fear of a slave rebellion.

The US has always needed huge amounts of immigrant labor, because it has tended to rely on terribly inefficient farming methods ill-suited to the terrain; it has always despised that immigrant labor, treated it as fearful and destructive to the social order, and, when those fears don’t come to pass, and the sources of immigration shift, rearranged the social hierarchy to put new immigrants at the bottom. I think it’s hard to argue that this is a premeditated process; I don’t think the agrarian elite of the country ever met in smoky rooms and said, “Hey, let’s vilify the Mexicans next.” I think it’s an opportunistic combination of antipatterns and perverse economic incentives and failure modes common to the human race, but, crucially, it doesn’t have to be this way. Even more crucially, not just morally and politically, but economically this is a bad system. It’s stable, sort of, because transitioning away from it requires a combination of social, political, and economic changes that are in few of the politically powerful class’s short-term interests, but in the long term it could make the country a much nicer place to live.

2) An assumption that a lot of anti-immigrant arguments of the form “they’ll change the culture/vote in policies you don’t like/implement sharia law” make is that politics and economic circumstance flows from culture, rather than the reverse. Poor countries with bad social arrangements are the result of culture, or are kept that way as a result of culture, and not vice-versa; this has to be true, or you’d expect that once immigrants came to the US (or a similar country) you wouldn’t have to worry about them assimilating to the local white majority’s liberal and democratic values.

(you might, looking at a Trump rally, conclude that a rural supporter of an antidemocratic authoritarian would be just as at home in the US as in Eritrea or w/e, but let’s set that aside for the moment)

Aside from the fact that’s not borne out at all by the data (all the data, in fact, points to economic circumstances shaping culture!), it’s such a weird idea to advance in this day and age, especially if you claim to be an empiricist! It’s the inheritance not of social science but of romantic nationalism, 19th century ideas about national spirit and the historic destiny of races, where politics and economics and history were seen as extensions of metaphysics, not as areas of inquiry tractable to scientific study! Oh, sure, there were some ill-fated attempts like phrenology to try to ex post facto tack on a scientific justification to some of the more modest claims, but even beyond the fact they were scientifically bankrupt endeavors, full of confirmation bias and shifting goalposts, they were trying to formalize and scientize the study of values, not to study human behavior in the abstract. And modern studies of “““human biodiversity” never manage anything better: they try to make intelligence sound like a bloodless and empirical concept (and maybe it can be!), but by starting with the hypothesis that dysfunctional societies might arise due to innate biological differences (& choosing intelligence as your measure of those differences) you’re already hopelessly muddling ethical/moral action with intelligence with political organization. It’s an epistemological mess.

For example: why might there not be humans that are less smart than average, but also significantly more prosocial, a la (the popular conception of) bonobos? Humans that are smarter, but less sociable and less likely to form urban societies? All the correlates are tied together--intelligence, prosociality, economic success--in a way they certainly very often are not in individuals, and the result is hypothesis that, in good evo-psych fashion, pretend to be carefully dispassionate and rigorous while actually smuggling in a whole cartload of assumptions for the unwary reader, and which conveniently permit the political scientist to ignore the last few thousand years or so of history, as though even if these hypotheses were true the magnitude of the effect of these differences is so vast as to swamp every other material circumstance of human life.

3) Following on from that: any attempt to biologically theorize about intelligence must account at minimum for the fact that traits which are highly adaptive (like intelligence) are extremely constrained (if intelligence is a big advantage for humans, which it seems to be, you shouldn’t get human populations that vary much in intelligence! They should get outcompeted well before the historical era); and, much more importantly, there are subregions of Africa more genetically diverse than the rest of the planet put together--so there should be massive differences in outcomes depending on which population you’re looking at just within one continent. Yet I never seem to encounter race science types who even manage to, like, try to form a basic genetic taxonomy to work with. It’s all “east Asians this” and “sub saharan Africans that.”

#super loose #and non-rigorous #more a list of pet peeves than anything

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kargathbladefist · 5 years ago

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Yeah I feel like both the writers and the fans are 100% ok with racial genocide as long as it’s against the “evil” “savage” orcs. I’ve seen even Super Woke fans try to make excuses for Jaina’s horrifying racism and act like that’s a natural, reasonable response to trauma and not just, yknow...racism. This is especially fucked up because Blizz draws real life inspiration from actual marginalized tribal societies.

☕☕

like nobody is gonna deny that the orcs collectively did awful things WHEN under demonic servitude, iirc (?) it wasn’t until garrosh era that they started portraying orcs doing huge-scale warcrimes & atrocities again without the blood curse backing them up which i have my own fucking Qualms with why blizzard thought that was necessary but w/e, unrelated

like… i know in the end wow is fantasy and orcs are a fantasy race and the whole thing is a story but it still gives me huge yikes vibes when i see people (fans OR WRITERS) totally dehumanizing them/devaluing them next to humans/elves or, like you said, implying It’s Okay That Daelin and Jaina Wanted to Genocide Them at some point because They’re Savage Monsters Save For A Select Few

and yeah in the end like………. it’s the racial coding that really makes it unnerving when these topics come up. i feel like everything with jaina is just a really touchy subject to discuss in meta, and has been since MoP, since she’s still a traumatized female character in a game that is notoriously Bad at portraying women and portraying ppl with mental illnesses, but i gotta agree that that DOES NOT in any way make her actions after theramore okay. “understandable but not justified” 🍵🍵

part of what pissed me off with how her character was positioned in MoP was the whole orc racism thing *because* the core of her character before that WAS that she was THE human character that made relations between them and the orcs possible. i’m not saying women should not be able to react to trauma in fiction, i’m just saying if it was any other character in this situation i’d be less miffed but since it’s jaina it just bugs me that they’d go that direction with her and it took me a while to come to terms with the fact that a character i had always identified as the open-minded, down to earth, young leader and who stood out among the alliance because of that ended up becoming unnecessarily close-minded and bigoted (to the point where varian was literally the more coolheaded of the two of them in SoO, when she was just like KILL THEM ALL)

i feel like this whole discourse regarding jaina is clouded by the fact that a) blizz has been wishy washy on what exactly they want to do with her character for 7 years, b) the bulk of wow fans’ opinion usually is either a hard “jaina is an evil dreadlord Crazy Woman who wanted to drown all orcs so we should raidboss her!!!” or “jaina is completely justified in her actions because she experienced severe trauma there is no grey area here fuck you orcs are evil” and c) the folks pulling the strings w/ how she’s written are probably all white men

this is getting long but i also just wanna ☝☝ the thing about “Blizz draws real life inspiration from actual marginalized tribal societies”, thats so important. hugely touchy subject that i wish had more discussion in the community (but since the community is probably like 90% close-minded white gamers its like yeah right) i’ve seen a few posts making this point about trolls and how up until bfa they’ve literally ALWAYS been the villains outside of the single darkspear tribe so i’m just really happy zandalar happened the way it did (even if it did become a raid and even if the alliance did the shit it did). i know there’s a ton of problematic elements to how poc cultures are pretty much exclusively represented by non-human species in warcraft and how that is extremely otherizing, AND the awful saturation of stereotypes but. discourse for another time

#asks #discourse #theblackjaye #long post

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bxrrnes · 6 years ago

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Bucky Barnes [A to Z (fluff)]

list made by @multiplefandomsimagines

[masterlist] / [request here]

A - attractive (what they find attractive)

You’re confidence. He can’t help but feel a sense of pride as he watches you take action and not let anyone get in your way, not even him. You’re not rude or arrogant of course, you just have the power to be okay with yourself so much that you don’t let anyone control you.

B - baby (do they want a family?)

Babies are a sensitive topic with Bucky. Before the war James was a player, not interested in settling down, always looking for adventure, or trouble (which ever came first). And after HYDRA it took him a long time to trust himself. Starting a family with you would be the greatest gift he could ever want but he just doesn’t feel like he deserves it just yet.

C - cuddle (how they cuddle)

Bucky Barnes is universal cuddle master. As long as it involves you wrapped up in his arms he’s all over it. First it’ll start all cute, you snuggled up to his side as he lies on his back, one arm around you shoulder, but through out the night you too will just get closer and closer. Eventually, you both wake up in a human pretzel.

D - dates (what dates with them are like)

James has tried to take you dancing but the clubs nowadays just aren’t his scene anymore which made him kinda sad but the drive-ins always cheer him up. It reminded him of being a kid again, borrowing his dad’s car to only watch 15 minutes of the movie and make out it.

E - everything (you are my...)

Rock, you are his rock. Every time he has a bad day or a mission goes wrong he goes to you. It took him a while to get close to anyone that wasn’t Steve and to have such an intimate relationship with you after everything he’s been through meant a lot. You can’t always bring him back down but you do help.

F - feelings (when they realise that they love you)

James catch really remember the one moment he figured out that he loved you. Over time he had just grow used to this certain feeling. One day he just kinda woke up and was like ‘wow, this is love, I’m in love’. He had realised just as you had walked into your shared room only wearing one of his shirts and your hair a mess. You lazily smiled at him as you flopped back into bed. He couldn’t help but wrap you up in arms.

G - gentle (are they gentle?)

Bucky is just one big cuddly bear. In the morning if you wake up before him, he’ll come up behind you and place his hands on your waist and kiss your neck whispering a sleepy ‘Good morning’. And after a long night at one of Tony’s big parties he happily helps you wash up in the shower, careful to take off all your make-up, and carry you to bed as you mumble about how hot he is.

H - hand/hold (how do they hold you? do they hold hands?)

At the start Buck hated any form of psychical affection, always worried he may accidentally hurt you. For the longest time his metal are was completely off limits, he even hated you just standing on his left side. Eventually, after many attempts, he finally gave in - of course he wasn’t that upset by it anyways. He had gotten tired of avoiding being psychical in public and finally wanted to show that you were his (respectfully, of course).

I - impression (first impression)

You had just been promoted to field agent and you couldn’t have been more happy, if only your colleagues felt the same... For your first mission you had to go undercover with with none-other than the Winter Solider. People who wanted to work with him were little to none so Fury thought it would be interesting to have both of you on the same mission, it was only recon. Many agents were not happy with this but said nothing to Fury, instead taking it out passive-aggressively on you. But you didn’t let it faze you, you knew what your job was and it wasn’t to brood over hurt feelings. He liked that. You even shook his hand when first meeting, he was cautious but still interested by you and your professionalism.

J - joker (do they pull pranks?)

Bucky isn’t a prank master but he can pull a little joke once in a while. But most of the time it’s with you, on Sam. When first introduced to the team you were confused by Sam and Bucky’s relationship, not sure if they were friends or enemies and would always try and convince Bucky not to mess with him. Eventually you saw the light and began secretly plotting with Bucky, painting Sam’s wings a bright pink, shaving his facial hair to replicate Stark’s. Tony was impressed, Sam wasn’t.

K - kisses (how do they kiss?)

His kisses are gentle but passionate. Starting of as a cheeky peck or two on the back of your neck in the morning to wake you up. Then when you finally roll over goes in, holding himself up by his metal arm and gently holding your hair with his flesh hand. You eventually need to stop him so you can get up and get dressed. And he’ll just sit there watching you, not in a creepy way, of course, but in a loving way. As you leave you’ll blow him a kiss and won’t leave until he lazily raises his hand up to mock catch it.

L - little things (what little things they love)

He loves the way you every time you come back from a mission, as you walk in the door you’ll do a little dance, strutting right up to him just to slam a folder on the kitchen island (most likely your mission report). It doesn’t matter if theres no music playing, you make up the music, as well as the dance moves.

M - memory (favourite memory together)

His favourite has to be the morning with you after your first date. It had been an amazing night so you invited him up for one more glass of wine and one thing led to another... The night had been a drunken blur so Bucky woke with a bit of a headache and you were there with an aspirin and a plate of homemade waffles with bacon on the side. He ate slowly, afraid that when he finished you would finally kick him out, but you didn’t, instead spending the rest of that day cozied up together on the coach.

N - nickel (do they spoil?)

Believe it or not being an Avenger doesn’t pay too well (because Stark is chump) but when he can he does. Most restaurants are too fancy for his liking and the people make him feel anxious so he prefers to stay home for a movie marathon then take you too all night diner. It’ll be 2 o’clock in the morning and you’ll both be eating burgers and gushing over how cool the Mad Max movies are.

O - orange (what colour reminds them of you)

Bucky has always loved blue. It reminded him of that time you too had a picnic and as you tried to feed a duckling the mother charged at you and stole all your bread. And that time you suddenly had an urge to paint so you made him drive you all the way to a 24 hour target and only every painted a blue background before giving up because the blue had started to turn a swampy green when you tried to add grass.

P - petnames (what petnames they use)

It’s stereotypical but Jame’s will only ever call you ‘Baby’ or ‘Doll’, sometime ‘Hun’ when he’s feeling extra soft. You, of course, make fun of him because of this because what kind of girlfriend would you be if you didn’t? When in front of a group of people you like to start pinching his cheeks and make baby noises, calling him ‘Huggle Bear’ and ‘Shnookims’. He instantly looses his badboy cool, turning bright red and fighting to remove you.

Q - questions (what are the questions they're always asking?)

He may look late-twenties but he actually an 80-year-old man suffering from Alzheimer’s. For a deadly assassin he is super bad at keep tabs on things. “Doll, where are my keys?” “Did you see where I left my phone?” “Shit, I can’t remember where we parked.” It’s funny until it prevents you from going home so you have to walk 15 blocks in the rain.

R - remember (their favourite memory of each other)

The first time you met Steve, Bucky’s heart skipped a beat. He had just gotten back from a mission and he found you in the Avengers Tower, laughing and chatting with his oldest friend. You walked over to him, smiling. He wrapped him arms around you as his heart started to finally stop racing. Looking up he saw Steve give him a quick nod and the thumbs up.

S - sad (how they cheer themselves/others up)

He likes to just rest his hands on your waist, after the kiss just resting his forehead against yours and swaying ever so slightly. Then he’d pull you head to rest on his chest and run his flesh hand through your hair and kiss your crown. But whenever he’s sad he just likes to stay in his room in bed so you bring him breakfast in bed and just cuddle up with him, having his rest his head on your chest.

T - talking (what they love to talk about)

He loves to think back the first time he opened up about the war. He was expecting a sad expression on your face as he detailed stories of taking down nazi bases but he was wrong. You sat there beaming, hooked onto every word. You didn’t look at him like he was a child, you look at him like he was some war hero. And to you he was. Sure, the war wasn’t glamorous but talking to you about it helped him be more comfortable with his past.

U - universe (a metaphor)

“Your body is a museum of natural disasters can you grasp how stunning that is.” - Milk and Honey, Rupi Kaur.

Buck isn’t really a poetry kinda guy but this one really did resinate with him. It’s obvious why which is kind of sad but you have to give him props for how far he’s come with accepting who he is and what he’s done.

V - very (thoughts about each other)

He can never put you in a box. You’re not the type of person that he can just label as “nice” because you’re not just “nice”. You’re a little bit of everything.

James is a rough-around-the-edges softy with a heart of gold and a metal arm. He would risk his life for anyone, doesn't matter who. You don’t just love him, you respect him as a hero and a colleague.

W - why (reasons why they love you)

Where do I begin? Maybe how gorgeous you are, how kind you are, you know how to get almost anyone out of a funk, you’re not some damsel in distress always looking for help but you know when to ask for it. Buck could list a million things but you won’t let him because although you love him dearly, you’d much rather eat than have your food go cold as he gives a big ass speech about how much he loves you. You already know he does.

X - xylophone (what's their song?)

Listen to me when I tell you Bucky loves classic rock, he’s a classic guy. But one of his favourite song is Renegade by Styx, especially because the first time he heard it was one morning when you were cleaning and blasting it throughout your apartment. You were just straight up rocking out and letting loose. And he thinks it’s kinda corny but the lyrics do somewhat relate to him.

Y - you (what you are to them)

You are his soulmate. Bucky isn’t too sure about the whole “soulmate” thing but the more time he spends with you the more he starts to believe it. This feeling he has for you isn’t just love, it’s something he can’t really put into words and he some how likes that feeling. He doesn’t want to put a label on you because he knows your more than that.

Z - zebra (what pet they want to have)

For a while Bucky wanted to adopt Rocket, but of course he was having the none of that so instead you opted for a dog. Originally you had visited the rescue centre in hopes for a puppy was Bucky was instant in love with a 5 year old Rottweiler called Muffin. He had been rescued from an underground dog fighting rink and had lost and eye as well as half an ear. Although Muffin at first did not like either of you, but after weeks of tender, love, care and lots of dog treats, he refused to leave Bucky’s side.

#marvel #avengers #fluff #james barnes #marvel headcanons #bucky barnes #bucky barns x reader #james barnes x reader #marvel x reader #avengers x reader #avengers headcanon

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viralhottopics · 8 years ago

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Oh Joy Sex Toy Cuckolding Comic Ignores Racism in the Kink

(Warning: The following material and links are NSFW.)

Oh Joy Sex Toy is a pretty popular webcomic among feminists, LGBTQ readers, and kinksters alike. Run by Erika Moen and Matthew Nolan, the series looks at sex toys, fetishism, and human sexuality in depth, covering everything from squirting to puppy play. Guests are often featured, exploring new facets of kink, with the comic looking at the latest trends in kinky and sexy paraphernalia.

For example, in one of Oh Joy Sex Toy‘s latest renditions, cuckolding features front-and-center through a white trio enjoying a cuckolding relationship. Except there’s a problem: The internet thinks Moen and Nolan’s handling of cuckolding glosses over some of the kink’s dangerous stereotypes and dark pastone deeply rooted in racism.

What is Cuckolding?

~cuck comicmoodboard~ http://pic.twitter.com/ENlSG9FePk

— boug (@biwear) April 5, 2017

Cuckolding is a sexual fetish where one’s sexual partner has sex with another person. It’s a consensual fetishthe “cuck” gives consent for the “bull” to have sex with their partner. If done correctly, everyone has a good time. And it’s a particularly common fetish, too.

Why so? According to a primer by Refinery29, cuckolding helps rekindle that initial erotic flame partners have for one another when they first meet. Plus, it’s sexy to know that other people find your partner attractive. Experiencing joy from your partner’s sexual experiences is a phenomenon known as “compersion,” and it’s something that everyone in the cuckolding dynamic can relate to.

But that’s where things start to fall apart with Oh Joy Sex Toy‘s look at cuckolding. An ongoing joke throughout the comic is that the bull keeps degrading the cuck, tellinghim to “shut up and get the fuck out” while he’s explaining what it means to be a cuck. In reality, as Refinery29 points out, cuckolding isn’t always about pure humiliation.

“People experience this kink to different degrees,” writer Sophie Saint Thomas explains, “so you certainly don’t have to take another person home and lock yourself in a cage while they enter the bone zone with your partner.”

okay but maybe the funniest part of the cuck comic is how poorly craig's design sells this description http://pic.twitter.com/oGuaa9EDyW

— MS-07B MechaDad (@sotomiru) April 6, 2017

There’s also the fact that Moen and Nolan encourage readers totake relationship jealousy and “sexualize it,” noting that “by playing with the things that scare us, we feel like we can control them better.” This isn’t always true, and it can be a very dangerous mindset. That’s one thing NYC sex therapist Madeleine Castellanos discusses with Refinery29: feelings of jealousy can develop, souring a relationship.

“If your partner is actually having sex with someone else, your jealousy could kick in, and you could develop jealousy or resentment, even if its something youve agreed upon,” Dr. Castellanos warns. “When people pull off this fantasy, it can be very successful. Of course, it’s wrought with danger.”

Granted, Moen and Nolan embrace the fact that not all cuckolding dynamics are based in humiliation or explicit power dynamics. But it’s a little misleading to focus specifically on that, when the kink itself is so much more complicated.

“Rotten Racist Edges”

Screengrab via Oh Joy Sex Toy

“But, a warning if you are interested in researching this kink: Unfortunately, there are some rotten racist edges that are hard to avoid stumbling over on the internet,” Nolan states in the comic.“A lot of cuckold porn, stories, and stereotypes are based around white couples being with a black third in a really ugly way, using racial slurs and all.”

Racism in cuckolding takes up two panels in the comic, but the sheer level of bigotry connected to the word “cuck” and the concept of “cuckolding” is pretty severe. Googling “cuckolding porn” reveals an entire wall of photos in which black men serve as the “bull,” playing into racial stereotypes targeting black men as sexually aggressive toward white women.

The truth is, porn is political, and no one watches it ina vacuum. As Dana Schwartz writes for GQ, “In pornography, the wife of the cuckolded (almost exclusively white) husband is most commonly sleeping with African-American men, meant to provide an additional layer of humiliation if the white husband sees that man as ‘inferior.’ In the world of pornography meant to elicit humiliation as an erotic sentiment, cuckold porn takes advantage of its viewers racist perceptions.”

So that power dynamic of humiliation, control, and sexual desire plays into racist beliefs. And it gave birth to a pretty serious form of racism from the far-right: calling people “cucks.”

According to GQ, “cuckservative” emerged as a term to insult Jeb Bush-style conservatives, who were deemed too “weak” and “effeminate” for the party.The insult plays into a long history ofwhite supremacists radicalizing whites “with the fear of black men raping white women,” an image all too familiar to any film student who has seenThe Birth of a Nation. As an insult, Schwartz calls it “a concept borne out of insecurity,” and a fear that “one is inadequate, sexually or otherwise, and that inadequacy will lead to the loss of the things that are important to him.” In other words, conservatives call people “cucks” because they think white Americans are giving people of color too many civil rights.

This is a huge problem that significantly impacts how the cuckolding kink functions. It means a core part of cuckolding’s humiliation is founded in racist imagery. And when a huge part of the cuckolding genre embraces racism, then it starts to pollute the kink.

Screengrab via Oh Joy Sex Toy

In an update to the description, Nolan defends the concept of “race-play” while bypassing a lot of cuckolding’s racist baggage. “I personally see a distinction between racism and consensual race-play,” Nolan writes.“Racism is bad! Thoughtfully playing with loaded power dynamics for mutual, consensual erotic stimulation is fine!”

But is that Nolan’s call to make as a white person? The comic isn’t even engaging in people of colors’ experiences with cuckolding; the Oh Joy Sex Toy strip focuses onwhite partners. Men of color looking to engage in any form of cuckolding play will have a very different experience because of the role that fetishization and racism playthroughout the kink. By comparison, white men don’t have to worry about racial undertones while playing the bull; black and white people experience cuckolding in two totally separate worlds, and it’s something Oh Joy Sex Toywashes over.

Despite the fact that racism is a huge part of cuckold porn and media, Oh Joy Sex Toy treats cuckolding as a kink with no racist legacy. The truth is, racism has a long and complicated role in cuckolding, and it’s not like men of color can simply escape from a history of white supremacists targeting black men as sexual aggressors.

"there's a difference between racism and race play" is the Whitest thing i've seen today

— cuck e. cheese's (@oodlenoodle_) April 5, 2017

My problem w/ OJST is that kinks are messy, complicated. Not everything whimsical shlorp shlorp gooey wonderland one page comic material.

— (@SkulldelaCreme) April 6, 2017

Still thinking about that OJST comic…I just want Moen to clarify consensual race-play for me real quick http://pic.twitter.com/Ax2zfN9EPu

— Trillswitch Engage (@itskindred) April 6, 2017

Cuckolding is a complicated sexual fetish, and to write about cuckolding means having a frank conversation about racism’s role in cuckolding material. If you’re white, it’s easy to see cuckolding as a fun, carefree kink that anyone can join. But people of color have a much more fraught experience with the kink. And when it comes to deciding whether or not cuckolding is racist, well, that’s a discussionthat should be deferred to people of color, not white webcomic writers.