#i just feel like what i Want and who i Am are fundamentally at odds w one another

[nolongerexistingsadcatface]

Ok yes America hating the cold is funny (eh) BUT. have you considered that I like the imagery of an America sitting alone in the forest in the bleak mid-winter landscape of an east coast woods, all alone in both body and mind, agonizing over her seeming doom to be stuck in the throes of loneliness for all eternity?

[lepidopterium]

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[eyesoftxmorrow]

i wish i could love in a way that matters

[inkskinned]

she's three years younger than i am, and i put on cascada as a throwback, cackling - before your time! i've been borrowing my brother's car, and it's older than dirt, so the trunk is like, maybe permanently locked. when the sun comes through the window to frame her cheekbones, i feel like i'm 16 again. i shake when i'm kissing her, worried i won't get it right.

in 2003, my state made gay marriage legal. where she grew up, it wasn't legal until 11 years later - 10 years ago. if legal protections for gay marriage were a person, that person would be entering 5th grade. online, a white gay man calls the fight for legal marriage boring, which isn't kind of him but it is a common enough opinion.

it has only been 9 years since gay marriage was nationally official. it is already boring to have gay people in your tv. it is already boring to mention being gay - "why make it your entire personality?" i know siblings that have a larger age gap than the amount of time it's been legally protected. i recently saw a grown man record himself crying about how evil gay people are. he was begging us, red in the face - just do better.

i am absolutely ruined any time my girlfriend talks about being 27 (i know!! a child!), but we actually attended undergrad at the same time since i had taken off time to work between high school and college. while walking through the city, we drop our hands, try not to look too often at each other. the other day i went to an open mic in a basement. the headlining comedian said being lesbian isn't interesting, but i am a lesbian, if you care. as a joke, she had any lesbian raise their hand if present. i raised mine, weirdly embarrassed at being the single hand in a sea of other faces. she had everyone give me a round of applause. i felt something between pride and also throwing up.

sometimes one thing is also another thing. i keep thinking about my uncle. he died in the hospital without his husband of 35 years - they were not legally wed, so his husband could not enter. this sounds like it should be from 1950. it happened in 2007. harassment and abuse and financial hardship still follow any person who is trying to get married while disabled. marriage equality isn't really equal yet.

and i don't know that i can ever put a name to what i'm experiencing. sometimes it just feels... so odd to watch the balance. people are fundamentally uninterested in your identity, but also - like, there's a whole fucking bastion of rabid men and women who want to kill you. your friends roll their eyes you're gay we get it and that is funny but like. when you asked your father do you still love me? he just said go to your room. you haven't told your grandmother. disney is on their 390th "first" gay representation, but also cancelled owl house and censored the fuck out of gravity falls. you actively got bullied for being gay, but your advisor told you to find a different gimmick for your college essay - everyone says they're gay these days.

once while you were having a hard day you cried about the fact that the reason our story is so fucking boring to so many people is that it is so similar. that it is rare for one of us to just, like, have a good experience across the board. that our stories often have very parallel bends - the dehumanization, the trauma, the trouble with trusting again. these become rote instead of disgusting. how bad could it be if it is happening to so many people?

i kiss my girlfriend when nobody is looking. i like her jawline and how her hands splay when she's making a joke. there is nothing new about this story, sappho. i love her like opening up the sun. like folding peace between the layers of my life, a buttercream of euphoria, freckles and laughter and wonder.

my dad knows about her. i've been out to him since i was 18 - roughly four years before the supreme court would protect us. the other day he flipped down the sun visor while driving me to the eye doctor. "you need to accept that your body was made for a husband. you want to be a mother because you were made for men, not women." he wants me to date my old high school boyfriend. i gagged about it, and he shook his head. he said - "don't be so dramatic. you can get used to anything."

the other day a straight friend of mine snorted down her nose about it, accidentally echoing him - she said there are bigger problems in this world than planning a wedding.

[neverenoughmarauders]

Lily's meaningless sacrifice

One thing that irks me is when people suggest that in canon, Lily had any idea that Harry would survive (this is merely a canon post, nothing to do with fanfiction). It irks me, partly because it's just incorrect and that's the sort of person I am. More importantly, however, it irks me because Lily not stepping aside when she had nothing to gain from dying is fundamental to the story.

Let's start with JKR own words from an interview in 2005:

MA: Did she know anything about the possible effect of standing in front of Harry? JKR: No - because as I've tried to make clear in the series, it never happened before. No one ever survived before. And no one, therefore, knew that could happen.

Lily knew nothing about the possible effect of standing in front of Harry. Lily was faced with this choice:

Scenario 1: Steps aside, and Harry is killed.

Scenario 2: Be killed, and Harry is killed.

Scenario 1 is (on the surface) objectively better (unless you're a DE and thus want less muggle-borns around). To Voldemort, it's a simple choice: In both scenarios Harry will die, in one, Lily will survive. In fact, this is what makes a lot of people defend Severus' choice to only ask Voldemort to spare Lily. Severus could not save Harry (and apparently it's totally cool not trying to save others if they bullied you).

Lily could not save Harry.

Lily's choice, as far as she is aware, is not whether to save Harry or not, but whether to save herself. And yet, Lily cannot stand aside. As JKR points out earlier in the interview, what Lily did is not that surprising to us readers ("I don't think any mother would stand aside from their child"). Why? Love. Because, as Dumbledore reminds us on multiple occasions: there are worse things than death - most notably in DH:

"Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and, above all, those who live without love."

Love, and life with and without love is an undercurrent in the story. Lily's sacrifice is meaningless when made, and yet it's the biggest and most understandable expression of love anyone can show someone else. Lily cannot, and does not want to, live in a world where she has witnessed her son being murdered - especially when her husband has been murdered too. A world without Harry and James is no world for Lily Potter.

It is also - bear with me - not that different from what it was like to be in the Order at that time:

[Y]ou weren’t in the Order then, you don’t understand, last time we were outnumbered twenty to one by the Death Eaters and they were picking us off one by one...

“He — he was taking over everywhere!” gasped Pettigrew. “Wh — what was there to be gained by refusing him?”

The Order operated against the odds and were being picked off one by one. As Peter asks - what was there to be gained by refusing him? What was there to be gained from standing (metaphorically or not) in front of Voldemort's victims? I've said this before and I'll say it again, Sirius' answer is powerful:

“What was there to be gained by fighting the most evil wizard who has ever existed?” said Black, with a terribly fury in his face. “Only innocent lives, Peter!” “You don’t understand!” whined Pettigrew. “He would have killed me, Sirius!” “THEN YOU SHOULD HAVE DIED!” roared Black.

Only innocent lives. They weren't fighting this war because they were winning. In fact they were very much losing. But they were fighting because it was right thing to do. Many Order members chose to die, rather than to step aside and let Voldemort take over. Only in their case it didn't make a difference - or at least, it didn't feel like it at the time. Members were murdered, and Voldemort was just getting stronger and stronger.

What was there to be gained by refusing Voldemort?

I firmly believe this is a theme that is repeated throughout the book: not just love and choice, but the obligation to choose what is right, no matter the odds (the irony that this was written by JKR will never be lost on me), and how love is a powerful motivator to do just that. Doing the right thing might seem hopeless in the moment - wasteful even - but that doesn't mean it's not worth doing, or that in the end, it won't add up.

Imagine what Harry felt like at the end of PS/SS when he risked his life to stop Voldemort, only to realise that Voldemort would keep trying to come back:

“Well, Voldemort’s going to try other ways of coming back, isn’t he? I mean, he hasn’t gone, has he?” “No, Harry, he has not. (...) Nevertheless, Harry, while you may only have delayed his return to power, it will merely take someone else who is prepared to fight what seems a losing battle next time — and if he is delayed again, and again, why, he may never return to power.”

Harry Potter isn't about doing the right thing because it will bring you rewards, but because it is the right thing.

“Remember Cedric. Remember, if the time should come when you have to make a choice between what is right and what is easy, remember what happened to a boy who was good, and kind, and brave, because he strayed across the path of Lord Voldemort. Remember Cedric Diggory.”

This speech doesn't sit well with a few people because it sounds like you're asked to remember what happened to someone who did do the right thing (spoiler: he died). But that's not the point, of course. Cedric wasn't killed for doing the right thing or making a hard choice - Dumbledore asks the students to remember Cedric because the enemy is willing to kill innocent people indiscriminately. Standing aside will not be good enough against people like Voldemort. There is, as Dumbledore put it, a need to keep fighting what seems a losing battle. Why? Only innocent lives.

Both James and Lily die that evening because they are unwilling to let Voldemort near their innocent son as long as there is breath in their bodies. James had no choice (this irks me because he did, he could have run away - he could have not fought Voldemort in the Order to being with. They all had a choice, but not the point). Lily had a choice. And she chose, like many had before her, to fight what seemed like a losing battle. She died, not knowing that she had saved her son. Her sacrifice was meaningless - like so many before her - and yet her sacrifice changed the world.

In the end, by choosing to do what was right, she was granted the wish she most desired: Her son lived.

[shakingparadigm]

Seeing all those analysis posts about how Till liked Mizi because she was gentle while not giving the same attention to Ivan because he wasn't... how Ivan might have made Till uncomfortable because he expressed his admiration for Till through violence because he liked how Till had the courage to fight back...

I was wandering if Ivan ever realized that the way he went about showing his feelings wasn't positive for Till and he fucking did. "I wish I had been kinder" he fucking regrets dude, fuck me man.

(This veered wildly off-topic I am so sorry.)

Coming back to this ask after the most recent R6 update is interesting.

I've always wondered why they chose the title Cure in particular. I was expecting a song title along the lines of Star or something abyssal. Then I thought about Till's affiliation with experiments and drugs and the various ways he was hurt. Cure... It also brings to mind how the content for Ivan highlights his "oddness", how he's framed as someone different, almost wrong in a sense. There's something that he lacks, something that he feels the need to fix, to cure.

In the recent ROUND 6 production post, the true meaning is revealed. You're right on a certain level, but as always, it's complicated.

Both Ivan and Till seek a certain type of "healing", maybe to compensate for their pain, their oddness and their loneliness. They wish to be cured of their suffering somehow and they seek the solution in other people.

QMENG states that Till desires a type of healing that Ivan cannot provide, and vice versa.

It goes without saying, pretty common knowledge at this point, but Till is a lot softer under his rebellious front. As someone who's been beat and abused his whole life, it makes sense that that type of love he'd want is something gentler, something stable. It's incredibly obvious in the way he acts towards Mizi. She's so genuine, so bright, untainted by the cruel reality of the world. Till softens around her, since she has only showed him kindness he in turn shows her the sweetest side of himself. He's had nothing stable to cling onto before, so he immediately becomes attached to this idealized version of Mizi. He believes she's the only person who can provide him with what he needs, the only one who can "heal" him.

It's outright stated that Ivan cannot provide that type of "healing" that Till is looking for. Ivan does try, of course. Unfortunately, he lacks something fundamental. Because of this he expresses himself in rather childish ways, which may involve a little cruelty and attention-seeking. A lot of Ivan's actions are muddled by his complicated feelings as well, as its stated that his true emotions and intentions are difficult to grasp. With Till, Ivan wants to save and be saved, hurt and heal him, keep him and set him free. Live for him and die for him. He criticizes Sua on the ethics of self-sacrifice and then goes on to do the same himself. With Ivan, everything contradicts.

He tries desperately to be the cure that Till needs, but due to his incredibly complex nature that "healing" will never be just healing. It may come with more pain and confusion despite his best efforts.

I don't think Till refused to give Ivan attention because he wasn't gentle enough, rather I think it's because everything was so complicated whenever Ivan was involved. Ivan is there for him in his times of need and causes a fair bit of trouble during the rest. He's strange and hard to grasp, but he's familiar. Calling each other "friends" seemed like such an inadequate label because they're simultaneously too close and not close enough. Ivan does wish he was kinder, though. Not only to Till, but to Sua and most likely a few other people as well. There's a lot of aspects in which Ivan wishes he were different, and it's tragic to hear how he deprecates himself in his final moments for it.

There's the second half of QMENG's statement as well, "vice versa". Till cannot provide what Ivan needs either, but Ivan desperately desires it anyway.

Ivan views Till as his cure. He wants to not only "heal" Till, but to be healed by him as well. This desire can be seen in the lyrics of Cure:

Notice my pain

And mend me right now

To quiet my fears

I'll drown in you

(The wish for "healing" is stated.)

In your gaze, where I’m seen

Consume me, yes, me, oh, oh

(Ivan urges Till to "consume" him like medicine, he wishes to be what Till needs.)

Ivan lacks something, and he believes that Till can make up for that lack which is why he's so fascinated by him. If Ivan is a black abyss, Till is a supernova, bringing life to an empty void. Unfortunately, Till is explosive and rather inept at handling his own extreme emotions, which causes him to either lash out violently or retreat further inward and push Ivan away. He's also a thoroughly destructive and hurt individual, seeking his own cure in another form. He cannot provide what Ivan needs.

Both Ivan and Till are incredibly volatile. That's not to say they don't have their gentler sides, but overall they've been doomed from the start. Ultimately it's no fault of theirs, they did what they could with their complicated feelings and fought through their own respective hells.

In the end, Ivan had to come to terms with the fact that he couldn't get the "healing" he needed and could never be what Till needed, either. That's why he finally acted on his impulses and let his complicated feelings win over, resulting in his death. Despite all the heartache, his final thoughts are a statement of gratitude. Truly a tragedy.

[lemotmo]

Any thoughts on the podcast?

Okay, just to show you how incredibly 'out of the loop' with fandom I am these days, this is the question that popped into my head first:

What podcast?

(Work is crazy right now. I have probably slept about 4 hours this weekend, so I'm literally existing on fumes. And I'm not done yet. I have at least two more crazy days to go.😬)

A quick stroll through my dash and a walk through Twitter immediately showed me a podcast with Ryan. Curious as I am, I watched it and quickly understood what kind of interview this was going to be when the interviewer asked Ryan if he could say a prayer.

I'm not a religious person myself. I grew up Catholic, but when I was 14 or 15 I just told my parents I didn't feel comfortable going to church anymore, so they agreed I could stay at home while they went. These days my mom has given up on religion as well. My dad is the only one still practising, but very casual. I think he just finds value in the tradition and routine of it.

Anyway, I have nothing against people praying. Did I find it odd for a podcast? Yes, but whatever. The interview was obviously also very Catholic and so is Ryan so if they feel better saying a prayer, that's cool I guess. I don't mind.

The interview itself was quite interesting. I did feel like the interviewer wasn't very good at her job, because some of those questions weren't thought out very well and most of the time she wasn't even looking at Ryan. She kept staring at her questions. But Ryan's answers were thoughtful and interesting.

Now... does that mean that I agreed with everything he (and especially the interviewer) said in the podcast? No, decidedly not. He has some core values I do agree with, but there's also some opinions I disagree with.

And you know what? That is okay. It's okay to think differently as long as you are respectful about it, which he was.

I found myself intrigued with his answers, even if I didn't agree with all that was said. But he explained his point of view calm and clearly, which I appreciate.

I like listening to people who have some fundamentally different opinions than me, because that is the only way to learn about the world and people around us.

I liked how he opened up about his failed marriage and how it changed him and his role as a father. I looooved how you can see his love for his kids shine through. I loved how he shared that he's staying celibate for now to kind of find self-love and self-worth again. Good for him! I love how he talked with respect about women and how much he values them. It makes me wish I could sit down with him one day to pick his brain, because I'm intrigued by him and this deeper philosophical side he has.

However, I fundamentally disagree with the viewpoint that a woman's worth can only be measured in what she means to a man or what she can offer a man, which was kind of implied during the conversation he had with the interviewer at the end of the interview.

A woman's worth -to me- is the choice to be whoever she wants to be.

If she wants to devote her life to a husband and kids? Fine. Great. Good for her! If this is where she finds value in life? Who am I to disagree.

But... if she chooses her career over a marriage? If she decides to become a single mom by choice (like me)? If she decides to get married, have kids and still have a career? If she decides that the single life is the best life ever? If she decides that she needs to travel the world on her own? Fine. Great. Good for her! If this is where she finds value in life? Who am I to disagree?

Women do not need a relationship (with a man or woman) to become all they are meant to be. It is okay to be single. It is okay to have lots of sex. It is okay to have no sex. It is okay to want children. It is okay to not want children. It is okay to want to have a career. It is okay to not want to have a career. It's all okay. The right way isn't fixed. the right way is the road a woman herself decides to follow in life. No interference by anyone.

It's her decision and no woman should ever be judged for that.

So, I don't know what you expected me to say here Nonny. I hope I didn't disappoint. But yeah, I'm okay with this interview. The guy is entitled to his own opinions and ideas, like we all are. It's a free world.

Truthfully though, I'm not that invested in the actors' personal lives. I like the bts they make, the photoshoots they do, the 911 interviews... basically everything that has to do with 911. But their actual personal lives? Meh... you know? They're just ordinary people with their own opinions and problems, just living their lives, like you and me. 🤷‍♀️

I'm much more interested in Eddie Diaz to be honest. 🌈😉

[sh1nsoukoku]

Pls tell me all dazai autism traits in ur list

OMG I AM SO GLAD YOU ASKED, yes yes yes…

I want to preface this by saying this is in no means supposed to be canon facts or a diagnosis, I just think he is a very autistic-coded character coming from my own experiences as an autistic adult!

Long post under the cut because I don’t know how to stfu!!!

We will start with my main reasoning:

As we know, Dazai and his ability are based off of the work No Longer Human. Dazai being similar to the main character Yozo. Yozo is a kind of “stand in” for the real life author Osamu Dazai as No Longer Human contains a lot of real events from the author’s life. BSD Dazai and Yozo’s main similarities are the disconnection from others and high masking. Here are two quotes from the book:

“All I feel are the assaults of apprehension and terror at the thought that I am the only one who is entirely unlike the rest. It is almost impossible for me to converse with other people. What should I talk about? How should I say it? - I don’t know.”

This is incredibly similar to the lived experiences of Autistic people. I used to feel like an alien, or just fundamentally different than others. We tend to also struggle with communicating and other social dynamics. Dazai feels isolated from others, let’s very few people close, and searches for meaning by observing other humans and life and death itself. He quotes this as his reason for joining the Mafia. He also processes emotion differently, at odds with people around him.

“I managed to maintain on the surface a smile which never deserted my lips; this was the accommodation I offered to others, a most precarious achievement performed by me only at the cost of excruciating efforts within.”

This is one of the best descriptions I have read of Autistic Masking. Dazai HIGHLY masks. Dazai is known for not showing his true thoughts/feelings/opinions often in BSD. He can code switch easily, serious in one moment and then covering it with his over the top silly/unusual/maniacal personality. In NLH this is described as “clowning.” I also think Dazai’s genius “always according to plan” thing is sometimes a mask, so he doesn’t show the fact that he’s working hard to pull strings and figure things out.

He does have some insane pattern recognition though which is also an autistic attribute!

And now for the more surface level reasons:

Repetitive Behavior/Media Consumption: Dazai reads the same book over and over again. The Ultimate Guide to Suicide is a book he’s had with him since his PM days and he tells Atsushi that he already knows everything it says because he’s read it hundreds of times. A very common autistic trait!

Restricted Diet: Dazai seems to have a limited diet consisting of alcohol and canned crab! It’s a same food/safe food he has often. His room was described to be full of discarded cans of crab and bottles. Limited diets are common in autistic people.

Stimming: Dazai stims! He is a very wiggly and stimmy person. There’s several scenes where he is seen humming and singing or making little silly noises.

Dazai and his headphones are so important to me.. he seems to wear them frequently around the office. It could be noise cancelling or auditory stimulation that he likes.

The man never sits normally on a chair which is something I think a lot of neurodivergent people can relate to.

And of course floor time! Shown by him rolling around when stressed, laying on the rooftop and a few instances in Wan! like the marshmallow scene.

Also you can’t tell me that this is not two burnt out autistics after overworking their brains…

[saintsenara]

How are you able to enjoy toxic/unhealthy/“problematic” ships/characters without feeling weird (for lack of a better word) about it?

I ask this because I want to be able to do this myself as it seems like a much more enjoyable way of engaging with fiction to me. I can get over some ships just being toxic and the characters not being good together and still enjoy their dynamic but I have trouble with the other ships that feel morally wrong. I know it’s just fiction but I can’t seem to get over the ick feeling I have when I think about those ships/characters. I feel like I’m being too puritanical about these things but I don’t know how to stop feeling like something is gross when I feel it’s gross…

Do you have any tips to stop jumping to moralizing ships/characters?

thank you very much for the ask, anon!

i'm going to be upfront that this reflexive gross feeling isn't something i've ever really struggled with - both in fic and more broadly. this is due to various personal idiosyncrasies, above all the fact that i've got disengaged boomer parents who didn't police our media consumption [my favourite book when i was eleven? lolita...] and that i'm a doctor, which is a profession which requires you to develop a very high threshold for what you find disgusting. the human body - at all stages of its life-cycle and its cycle of decomposition - produces a lot of different fluids... and it's also the case that [just as if you can think of it, there's porn for it] if an inanimate object exists, somebody somewhere has got it stuck inside them...

and so the situation that i find myself in is that i consider it infinitely less weird that i enjoy the odd bit of hot tomarrymort action than that i actively enjoy cutting through bone with a saw...

but, obviously, "get a medical degree" isn't particularly helpful advice...

i am a ride-or-die fan of the concept of stepping outside of your comfort zone. this is why i'm such an avowed multishipper - i think it's good for us as fandom citizens to examine the potential of our faves in relationships [romantic or otherwise] which are either not their canon endgames or which aren't our preferred pairings, and in situations which don't align with their canon experiences [whether that means making them suffer or giving them full-on fluff]. it draws out the multiple aspects of a character to consider them from these different angles - and it prevents us from getting so stuck in one interpretation of a character or configuration of a ship which means that it puts our backs up to stumble across stories which approach things differently.

but stepping outside of your comfort zone doesn't mean that you have to go enormously far. it may be that a reader decides - having only ever read teen-rated fics where characters' sex lives don't extend beyond hand-holding and forehead kisses - to take the plunge into an explicit piece filled to the brim with watersports and age play. it may be that a reader decides - having only ever read teen-rated fics for one canon pairing - to read a teen-rated fic for a non-canon alternative. both of these are entirely valid approaches.

by which i mean, our comfort levels and our thresholds for discomfort are subjective, they're personal. if there are ships or themes or characters you don't want to read about because they don't feel good... you're not doing something wrong if you avoid them. exposing yourself to fics you expect to make you uncomfortable can be useful - and fiction is certainly a way to explore discomfort which gives you much more control over the experience than encountering it in real life - but it's not something you're obliged to do to be active in fandom.

the thing you are obliged to do to be active in fandom is to be nice to other people, no matter what their tastes in fiction. this means, at its fundamental level, that when you see people who ship pairings or like themes which make you think "ew"... you keep it to yourself/the group chat rather than putting it on the timeline.

but, once this is something you've got the hang of [which takes a bit of time! but practice makes perfect!], something i feel can be a really useful way of overcoming a tendency towards knee-jerk moralising reactions is to just vibe in the vicinity of people you know like the content you instinctively feel is gross.

this doesn't mean you have to read any of this content - but you'll learn just by hanging out near them that the people who do are just... normal. one minute they might reblog a rec for a pairing you think "absolutely not" about, the next they might reblog a cat picture which makes you squeal with delight. you'll like some of their content, but not all. you'll agree with some of it, but not all. you might like progressively more of it as you spend time in their orbit - maybe they'll explain why they like the pairing or character in question and you'll think "huh, i've never looked at it like that" - or you might not. this is absolutely fine.

all of us - at one time or other - have made a black-and-white moralising pronouncement: people who think x are gross; people who like y are fucked-up, you'd never catch me doing z. and these pronouncements are different from our wider, societally-influenced moral codes - which are good things, otherwise we'd live in the purge - in that they're fundamentally ways for us to feel good about ourselves and our families and our friends by defining ourselves as better than a faceless other. we say "you'd never catch me reading that, it's foul" when we know [or think we know] that the friend we're talking to would agree with the statement. we are far less likely to say it if we know that the friend - whom we see as a human being who is beautiful in their imperfection and inherently worthy of love simply by virtue of being alive - was reading and enjoying that just the other day.

and so the best way to train yourself out of reflexively moralising ships or characters or tropes is to put a face to the faceless other who likes them. be intentional in sharing a space with fans of the stuff you feel uncomfortable with and, eventually, it just becomes background noise. you'll scroll on tumblr, say "well there we are, jane's written some more of her sirius/harry piss kink fic - although i'm not interested in clicking on it" and go on with your day.

because the other thing i think it's really useful to do is to train yourself into reframing your disgust as disinterest. there are plenty of things which i don't seek out to read - and some of these topics are completely benign and some are darker [i don't enjoy reading explicit non-con, for example] - but this is because i try to frame it as that i don't think these things would interest me.

this is still the maintenance of a personal comfort zone, but thinking of the content outside this zone as something you are disinterested in turns it into something neutral. when you think of it as something to be disgusted or grossed out by, it naturally provokes a visceral response which makes you look through a moral lens. thinking in terms of disinterest, instead, gives you sufficient detachment from this visceral response to recognise, interrogate, contextualise, and control it.

and - in time - this neutral reframing may result in you feeling more interested in taking the plunge into the ships and characters and stories you currently don't vibe with, once you don't have an instinctive disgust response as a barrier.

or it may not. and this is absolutely fine.

[hms-no-fun]

so, (SPOILERS FOR FIONNA AND CAKE but its relevant to the question but im gonna put a bunch of line breaks just in case lol)

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so fionna and cake ended with fionna basically being like, you know, youre RIGHT god, if magic came back my wish would simply be twisted and it would suck, there will be no rule breaking miracles! I will now work as a struggling minimum wage employee in seattle and Be Happy about it. i sure am glad the threat of losing everyone i know and love set me straight!! sorry to send u this really random thing the ending just felt like such a slap in the face and i wanted to ask someone who knows that exact Seattle Struggle. this is absolutely me appealing to the Writing Gods to back me up that the ending wasnt very good lmao but if i have a direct line to the craftsgoat i simply must use it for something stupid at least once

FULL SERIES SPOILERS FOR FIONNA & CAKE AFTER THE BREAK!!!

i really disagree with your read on the ending. it didn't feel like "just struggle with seattle minimum wage forever and be happy about it" at all to me! the whole instigating incident was that fionna wanted to transform reality into something that she personally thought would be better, without taking into account the fact that other people exist and have internal lives just as complex as hers. she comes back to her original world to find marshall and gary holding hands, explains to them the magical adventure she's been on and the fact that their world is about to transform into something unrecognizably magical, and they receive this with abject horror! fionna doesn't know whether simon becoming ice king again will erase marhsall & gary's burgeoning relationship, which makes her realize that in her quest to escape the boring, oppressive reality of working odd jobs to make ends meet, she's only ever focused that energy on how to make things better for her.

i really want to dig into this because it's a key theme of the show. there is a destructive selfishness innate to the "heroes" of this universe, who feel entitled to the joyous empowerment of being able to defeat anyone and everyone they see in open combat. cake has a whole musical number about this! simon's arc in the last two episodes was betty grabbing him and shaking him until he finally asked himself, how would my life have been different if i'd just once let the woman i loved steer the ship for a while? and then of course we see the lich in a reality where he succeeded in eradicating all life, only to find himself desiccated and without purpose, begging the god of chaos for an answer it cannot give. brian david gilbert's ice prince seems perfectly put together and successful, until the reveal that he's outsourced his madness to someone who didn't accept the terms of the crown's curse. this didn't solve the fundamental problem, it just inverted the roles of its expression by making princess bubblegum into the mad candy queen. nothing about the status quo has changed, simon has simply given himself a more dignified role in it.

this is a story about what happens when people in struggle behave as though they are the protagonist of reality. when fionna says "this is the world i want to fight for" she's not fighting for the right to get another shitty minimum wage job. i think you've really missed something by accepting that conclusion when cake the cat is right there saying that her magical self IS the version of herself she wants to live as. being a normal house cat for her was, arguably, a form of body dysmorphia, and the show lets her keep that magic at the end! the thing is, their world IS changed by the events of the show! the status quo is altered!

like, what do we actually see everyone DOING when the credits approach? we see this entire disconnected community banding together to rebuild the city together, and we see a huge crowd of protesters outside marshall's mom's place demanding that she lower rents. we see people connecting with other people, including three outcasts from other universes escaping to this more boring one for their own safety. i loved this ending honestly, because it felt to me like an attempted refutation of the very idea that you can magically transform reality into something better overnight. if fionna'd gotten her original wish and made her world into, like, candy world, then... what? let's say they play it as like, at last people are freed from the shackles of capitalism and everyone just gets to be weird funky critters going on adventures or whatever. what would that, as art, actually say? what would that mean to us in the real world? if we're going into this cartoon looking for some kind of revolutionary energy (which IS present in the text, much to its credit), what actionable or symbolically resonant message are we supposed to take from a story that resolves its problems with magic? at that point, it ceases to be relevant as anything more than pure fantasy, because it has abandoned any connection to the material reality WE are trapped in.

i don't want to magically transform the world overnight. this whole show goes out of its way to explore how trying to transform the world overnight, in a world where such a thing is possible, is a really fucking bad idea for a whole host of reasons. regardless, such things aren't possible in our world. so going into the finale, my worry was that they WOULD turn fionna's world into another candy world and just say, ah, the revolution is when you think the right things so hard that the material plane bends to your will.

that's neoliberal thinking. that's like the essence of the failed leftist project of the "end of history" era from the 90s onwards, when marxism was systematically rooted out of academic cultural analysis and replaced with the delusion that if you can just get people thinking the right things, you can affect change in the world. well here we are, it's 2023 and all that magical thinking has got us is a world on fire and a civilization of human beings so thoroughly disempowered that they would literally rather pretend to be a tortured anime protagonist than exist in this boring, shitty, violent reality. you can't think your way out of oppression. raising labor consciousness is, at best, step one. you want to know why unions are winning big right now when they've been completely useless in this country for decades? it's because they've stopped giving a shit about optics they can't control and remembered that the boss's value does not exist without labor. you do not necessarily need marxism for this, marxism is simply the most accurate articulation of the fact that workers who make the things a capitalist sells can kneecap the capitalist by refusing to make the things they want to sell. change doesn't happen with the publishing of a book or whatever, it happens when enough people in real life press their material demands hard enough that someone in charge is left no choice but to listen.

so for me, fionna & cake ending the way it did was a huge relief, because it wasn't espousing magical thinking. the solution to fionna's ennui and economic anxiety was not to just get another job and be happy to live in the world as it was-- it was to create a sense of shared community and struggle, uniting the not-seattleites in their survival of a near-apocalypse and using it as a jumping off point for fundamentally transforming the state of that world as it exists. fionna had to realize that her problems are everyone's problems, and that making her life personally better at the expense of everyone else's agency is just an act of kicking the can of responsibility down the road indefinitely. no one who gets their wish in this show is happy to have gotten it, or avoids punishing others who didn't ask to be involved.

the "canonization" of fionna & cake felt like a reaction to the idea that we in our world are permanently isolated from the fictional realities we create where change seems to come so easy, and the powerlessness that can engender. instead this show is saying, okay, let's say we are in continuity with these fantastical realities. what do we actually DO with that? how do we make this world more fun, more interesting, more fulfilling for everyone to live in? the answer is the same as it's always been, and no other answer would ever feel satisfying: you do it by organizing the workers against the current arrangement of the state with the explicit goal of transforming it for the better.

what does simon do at the end when he gives fionna her world to her? he says that no one person should have that responsibility, that it's been in one person's hands for too long. so he gives it to her in the form of a dandelion, whose blown seeds merge with and become part of everyone trying to survive the scarab's attack. the idea here is that while no single person ever possesses the power to transform the world on their own, the world itself belongs to all of us, and it is within our power to transform it together. those who hoard power want us to believe that this is not the case precisely because the basis of their power is fraudulent and maintained through the violence of the state.

as someone who does live in seattle for better and worse, as much as i do wish i could make literally anything better right the fuck now by whatever means necessary... the fact is i can't. and it does no one any good to labor under the assumption that i or any other individual has that kind of absolute transformative power. the solutions are all right there, and they are simple, materialist propositions whose only difficulty lies in how successfully we've been propagandized to think that the individual is God, or at least speaks on His behalf. there's no thinking our way out of this pickle, and no one's gonna do the hard work for us.

as to the question of how you actually get people in real life to get together and do all that hard work... well, personally i think it's unfair to ask a 10 episode cartoon show to give you any kind of actionable advice on that front. i might even go so far as to say that such an expectation is an expression of the very same magical thinking which the show tries to push back against! in any case i liked it quite a lot and i hope this rambling answer encourages you to revisit the show and reconsider some of your takeaways

[itspileofgoodthings]

anyway I don’t have the whole Jordan Peterson dating propaganda rebuttal fully locked and loaded but basically it’s just never about statistics. never was, never will be. and I’ll say that while acknowledging that the statistics can be objectively bad, especially for certain specific sub-groups, people with strong and specific convictions, highly intelligent people etc. but it doesn’t matter because the fundamental truth is that it’s always “one in a million the chances of feeling the way we do” etc. etc. and always was?? things are hard right now, on the dating scene, because life is hard right now and it’s hard to make money and find a stable situation that makes you happy. things are extra hard because society is incredibly fractured on the basis of both belief and vibes (lol) so the odds of finding someone just out in the great wide world of indiscriminate datings apps who’s going to believe what you believe and have the same set of cultural values (if that’s the word I want) are incredibly low. It’s not going to happen! And if you’re out looking you’re going to run into those obstacles over and over and over. But it kind of doesn’t matter? Because love is still real, people can still feel it, God brings people together. And I actually don’t think you need to do anything except continue living your life and doing things because they’re good for you, if and when you can, like having as much of a social life as you can and is feasible. The rest, in my humble opinion, is out of your control and you should just let it go! Yeah we’d have an easier time if our culture was more unified, if we fundamentally believed the same things and shared the same values. But even then the stars aligning of it all in terms of liking each other and wanting the same things and being in the same place and communicating in a way where we can actually understand each other is just out of our control and the answer is trust, love, and patience. And also a willingness to accept that you might just be alone, romantically speaking. So start filling your life up with other things and start getting used to the burden of it. Because what is there else to do? Except NOT accepting it and growing increasingly desperate. In any case, and to return to my point, this is my answer to the fundamental lie of the Peterson dating discussions. And it’s just that statistics have nothing to do with ANYTHING when it comes to finding love and happiness. It is never statistical; it’s always beyond that. My parents’ love story, my friends’ love stories, coworkers love stories—it can’t be quantified because they did x. On some level it just happened to them. They were lucky enough to find it all. (Or you know they forced it and are now unhappily married. Happens a LOT. But presuming that we’re talking about ending up happy.)

AND.

ON ANOTHER NOTE (that is still sort of related)

That same study of statistics doesn’t apply because it only takes one. So his whole tired repeated take about how intelligent women have the hardest time finding husbands because men are scared of their intelligence? Might even be true! But it doesn’t MATTER because nobody should want to marry everybody! If that makes sense! It’s always personal. I have felt the fear/lack of interest that he’s talking about as an intelligent woman (hey-oh!) walking through this world and I don’t give a damn because a man being afraid of me is proof that he is not FOR me. He is like my students except that I am not in the position to take him by the hand, metaphorically speaking, and walk him through David Copperfield. If someone ever wants to marry me, they will be delighted by me and confident that they have something to offer me. Period. And I used to think that that was true only for me but I think it is and should be true for everyone!!!! Peterson might be even stating something true or at least COMMON when he talks about this fear but his fundamental premise is faulty a) because we never have to marry a whole group of people and b) Because he acts like this is a problem for people, specifically women, to wrestle with and it just isn’t. There is nothing to do WITH the problem. As far as our list of actionable items goes it doesn’t make the cut. Or close to it. It doesn’t matter because that lack of interest and fear is not something to be engaged with and “solved.” Literally: go with God. Yeah, maybe you get your hopes up or get hurt because you think there is a chance and then turns out there wasn’t. That sucks and is painful! But. There is still nothing to do with that except move on. A person interested in me (in you, in anyone) would not react in this way is what you gotta tell yourself. It’s just a sign it isn’t right; it’s clear communication from the universe. (The person, God’s Plan etc.)

And. This isn’t even getting into him saying things like “the average age gap between men and women who marry is 4 years” for no clear apparent reason. So the fuck what Jordan? What does this have to do with anything??? (Sorry for swearing.) Yeah I can believe in some circles that’s a common number that occurs. I also know lots of people who are not in fact four years apart. I am actually having trouble thinking of a married couple i currently know who are four years apart. Like. So. What is even being said????!??? What is the purpose behind it????? Except an attempt to fear-monger, spread a lack of hope, sow discord. But honestly sometimes I think he’s just yapping.

He’ll also contradict himself by saying things like “you only have five people to try on statistically speaking” (the hell??? Jordan???) “so choose wisely” while also saying things like “a relationship isn’t something you find, it’s something you build.” So like … which is it? Because I think solemnly choosing someone in this objective way and trying to settle into building a relationship is going to lead to a lot of needless frustration. Like. You can’t build a relationship, IMO, until the opportunity to do so appears. And feels right to both of you. And you both take it. And you cannot manufacture that, force it into existence, call it into being. I mean you can TRY. But it won’t end well. The happy right comfortable good ones are just times where the opportunity is given and both people want to take it. He won’t admit the role of grace here and I think the role of grace is everythinggggg. And this Not even getting into him referring to marriage as being handcuffed to a person and unable to walk away which is imo the wrong vibe.

Which is kinda my too-long point. It’s the wrong vibe. Things are not bleak if you look at them right. They just are what they are. I actually think the more specific of a person you are the more likely you are to find someone capable of making you happy. And yeah maybe that process will be easier for people who are younger and just sort of around people who share the same values as them etc. though even then, even !!!!! then !!!!!!!!! there’s a mystery to who finds someone and who doesn’t at certain times because you’re dealing with the human soul and free will and all its mysteries in addition to everything else. It’s always kind of a miracle. It’s always one in a million. It’s always specific, singular, personal. And once again: we desperately want to believe that there is something we can do about this to bring it about and I guess there might be, indirectly. But we can never manufacture the opportunity into existence, or study the problem away, or analyze the difficulties out of being and into our power. We just need to let it go, if we can. Jordan’s rhetoric preys on that fear in a ridiculous and ultimately contradictory way and I hate to see people believing it, being affected by it, quoting it, spouting it, internalizing it. In conclusion he can’t scare me but he can deeply annoy me. Thanks for coming to my ted talk.

[girl4music]

The idea or take that romance isn’t as important as friendship when friendship can evolve into romance is an odd one for me and I think it’s because I don’t think romance can be a romance without a deep friendship.

I’m partial to the “love is friendship on fire” adage and fictional ships or couple romances or love stories that begin from friendship. I favour friends-to-lovers and slow burn platonic-to-romantic relationships in art/entertainment because the depth of the connection is not only depicted but also drawn out and developed.

You get the whole journey so there’s never any rush to get to one development to another. There’s no time-skipping. And there’s no push for something more to happen because what you see happening is part of why you want it to be something more. You appreciate all of it. Even the negatives like the fights and conflicts because that also helps to evolve the relationship into higher degrees of love and devotion than ever before if you’re able to get the whole journey of what you want.

And I think this is why I am fundamentally bored with romantic WLW ships of today in TV art/entertainment.

Because you don’t get the whole journey of the ship.

You don’t really get a love story.

You barely get a pamphlet. 😒

But shows like ‘Xena: Warrior Princess’ and ‘Wynonna Earp’ give you WLW ships where you get everything in the ships because the journey is the whole point to it.

And for me - that feels significantly more romantic than something that’s explicitly made to be romantic.

I’ve come to realize that that’s probably because they both begin as friends and that that never changes. All that happens is the friendship evolves into romance. And I feel like a lot of TV show WLW ships get it very wrong when they change the friendship side of things. That’s if it even starts as a friendship first. I am often surprised by how many WLW ships I’ve seen in TV art/entertainment that do not. That immediately go into romance. That’s usually just because those shows are just too damn short and linear and they have no time to show you the journey. Thank fuck for fanfic then because in fanfic you can rewrite the beginnings and endings and also explore all the detail in the middle.

What can I say? TV show storytelling just isn’t a good medium for WLW representation not because they don’t want to give you the whole journey… but because they’re prevented from being able to do so.

And I’ve had enough now. I’ve had enough of being made a side storyline or liner notes in a straight person’s show or being killed off or cancelled or tragically broken up and separated when it’s not.

I either want to be a main narrative or not there at all.

I don’t want to have to settle for a half-way state and position of existence just because I’m not male and not straight. I don’t want to have to just make do and I think anybody that believes that they should seriously need to watch something more “dated” where the censorship might be rampant throughout, but… least you still get to see the whole damn journey of what is. Least there is development for those characters and even a conclusion and closure to their relationships…

Least you actually get to see yourself be … someone.

And none of it has absolutely anything to do with your sexuality or gender identity in the way where you have to feel like you’re apologizing for it or sacrificing for it… but rather… this is what is happening and it’s fine.

People really think it’s contradictory that why I love Xena and Gabrielle so much is because their sexuality or the nature of their relationship is never made an issue. They see that as an erasure of who they are.

When no, that’s not it at all.

It’s just not all they are.

It’s not all they do.

There’s so much more about them that’s detailed instead over that and it still never takes away from it.

And that’s what you want. That’s the kind of format to a love story you want to be watching or reading about because it’s normal, it’s natural and it’s just how it is.

They’re lead female characters with many main narratives across the span of 6 whole ass seasons.

And oh yeah, they just happen to be queer and in love.

The journey of the relationship as a friendship is always put first and made the focus with Xena and Gabrielle but it’s always up to you what else they are. It’s just for me - the friendship is what IS so romantic. I can’t really separate one from the other because to me… the reason why they’re the greatest love story that I’ve ever seen in TV of all-time is because they begin as friends and they never neglect this aspect.

[yuseirra]

Seriously though, it’s so, so strange… Really strange.

What’s odd is that, just now, I opened the manga to reference it for my work, and I’m thinking… Why do I still feel like Ai chose the best possible person among those she could have? Even after seeing everything that became of him?

Why do I still feel like she found someone truly good—someone absolutely worthy of love? If I were the writer, I’d want Ai to meet such a person. So emotionally, I can accept this, but looking at how the story is unfolding, I’m confused about how it’s supposed to make sense. I want it to end this way, and emotionally, I’m convinced it will. But logically, it’s hard to imagine what path the story will take to get there.

How can I still be so strongly convinced that Ai’s boyfriend, at his core, has one of the most genuinely good personalities in the entire series? No one’s ever told me he was a good person. In fact, there’s been a lot of negative impressions about him, but somehow, this feeling pushes through all of that. How?

I can’t shake the thought that someone with a nature like his couldn’t just twist like this on his own.

There were bad circumstances, despair, incredibly poor luck, and the guilt he’s carried—sure, that’s all there. And narratively, it makes sense. He’s written in a way that he couldn’t help but deeply, deeply love Ai, so after her death, of course, he wouldn’t be okay. How could he be?

But something else pushed him beyond the point of normal breakdown. It feels like something shattered him far more than what he could have endured naturally. It’s as if something made him lose his mind completely. It’s too strange. Why do I feel this way?

But when the line about him having a “noble soul” came up, I accepted it immediately. I thought, of course. It felt so obvious to me that I wondered why it hadn’t come up sooner. It was exactly what I expected.

Ai really did find someone who wanted to be with her forever, someone truly good. I am convinced yet again. That feeling strikes me really strongly.

But how did he end up like this? I have some ideas, but I can’t know what the author has in mind. And no matter how much a reader tries to predict a series still in progress, ultimately, it’s up to the author, right?

He’s barely appeared in the story, yet why do I feel so strongly about this?;;; Why do I feel like this? But I’m still relying on that feeling when I draw fan art.

It’s so strange…

He’s an extraordinarily kind person, I think? but… this is strange. Why do I feel this way after seeing everything?;;; What’s going on? Why am I like this?

The good thing is, with a personality like that, I know I can handle him well. I always love these types of characters, so drawing him would be fun. But really… is this right? I mean, he’s someone who is accused of having killed many people and even tried to kill his own daughter—how could this feeling even be correct?

One more thing I’ve noticed—if just two or three good things had happened to him along the way, Kamiki wouldn’t have ended up so broken.

When I think about what the author is trying to show by completely destroying a character who was once so gentle…

I think I get it. There could be a message that can be derived from it, if I'm inferring things right. But… I’m not sure because I'm not the writer themselves, so… haha.

Ah, if I couldn’t sense anything, I’d just shut off my brain and go along with whatever, I wouldn't care at all. I keep feeling like I see something faint, though, so I keep talking about it. But since there’s no certainty, I feel like I’m making a fool of myself.

Ah. Really… I rarely misread these kinds of things. He’s such a fundamentally good person… I wish they’d show more clearly how he ended up like this. He’s worth studying. Since both of the authors are so skilled in psychological portrayal, I’m sure they’ll express this in a way that makes sense. I feel like I could predict it, but it’s still too vague for me to say.

These intuitions are so hard to explain. But they’re usually right. I don’t get these things wrong often… So for now, I’m just writing it down because feelings are fleeting and I would think of different things at different time. These little notes live in the now.

[dracoqueen22]

For Melly: Aerith/Tifa - against all odds

Tifa is exhausted. 

She’s covered in cuts and bruises. Her body aches. Her head’s spinning, and worst of all, her heart has taken a beating. She doesn’t understand Cloud. She doesn’t know Cloud. She wonders if she ever did. 

And she definitely isn’t sure what happened five years ago. Not anymore. 

Tifa’s exhausted, but she can’t sleep. Energy runs through her veins, adrenaline certain another battle might come bursting through that door. She can’t seem to calm down. 

It doesn’t seem like Aerith can sleep either. She’s been staring at the ceiling and fiddling with the buttons on her dress for as long as Tifa’s been fruitlessly counting chocobos. She’s up to 963. 

Tifa rolls on her side, facing Aerith, arm tucked under her cheek. “Can’t sleep either, huh?” 

“You’d think I’d be exhausted,” Aerith says. She turns to face Tifa, their bodies a pair of parentheses on opposite beds. Her shoulders are bare, but Tifa isn’t sure why she’s focusing on that fact. “I mean, I’m definitely tired, but I guess that’s not enough.” 

“Worried?” Tifa asks. “About your mom?” 

Aerith smiles, gentle and sweet all the way to her willowy bones. “No. She can take care of herself.” 

“Do you think we made the wrong choice?” Tifa blurts out, almost before Aerith can finish answering. It’s something Tifa’s gnawed on, over and over, especially after Cloud’s recitation of an event he can’t have seen. 

Is he wrong because he’s lying on purpose? Or is he actually remembering something he experienced because the choice they made, there on that highway, has fundamentally altered the course of their universe? Is he even her Cloud? Or is Tifa the one misremembering? 

Tifa doesn’t know. 

“It’s too soon to say.” Aerith draws nonsense on the mattress in front of her. That soft smile lingers. “It’s terrifying, but it’s also kind of exhilarating.” 

Tifa would chalk Aerith’s optimism up to naivete, but that’s far from the truth. Aerith’s life hasn’t been a picnic and that she can still be sweet is a testament to her strength. 

Tifa envies her for it. That strength that allows her to be weak. 

“How so?” she asks. 

“Well, I’ve never had a sleepover before,” Aerith says with the frankness that makes Tifa’s heart ache. “Or a girlfriend.” She pauses, cheeks going pink. “I mean, a woman who is a friend. Woman-friend? No, that just doesn’t have the same ring to it.” 

Tifa laughs quietly as Aerith’s face scrunches with genuine confusion. 

“It’s been a long time since I’ve had a girlfriend,” Tifa says. “Most of the kids my age were boys.” 

“Like Cloud?” 

Tifa’s too slow to stop the flinch. It’s hard to say if Aerith noticed. “Yeah,” she says quietly, but then the memory hits her, easing the sting. “Though he’s always been pretty enough.” 

“He sure is.” Aerith giggles and turns on her back, stretching her arms over her head with a hum. “But that’s what I mean. We made a choice and decided to fight, and now here I am, against all odds, on my first sleepover.” 

Tifa doesn’t tell her all the ways this doesn’t count. It’s a simple wish. A simple joy. She wants Aerith to have it. 

“Do you think we should have a pillow fight?” Aerith asks, but before Tifa can answer, she laughs and says, “Hmm. Maybe not. I think you’d win in one hit.” 

“I’d be gentle,” Tifa says. 

“I know you would.” Aerith’s grin makes Tifa’s heart go thump-thump-thump in a way it hasn’t before. 

Aerith abruptly sits up and looks around as if an idea has popped into her mind. “Hmm,” she says. “There’s not enough furniture to make a fort, and I don’t think that vending machine had any candy. I’m stumped on ideas.” 

“Aren’t we a little old for sleepovers anyway?” 

“Probably.” Aerith sighs, and there’s a wealth of disappointment in the small sound. “I guess we should be sleeping. We have a lot more walking ahead of us.” 

Aerith flops back, pulls the blanket up to her chin, and stares at the ceiling. She dutifully closes her eyes, and Tifa feels a bit like she’s kicked a bucket. Could it really hurt to entertain such an innocent joy? 

Tifa rolls off the bed, bringing her blanket with her, and flops down next to Aerith. “Tell me a secret,” she says as she squirms down to get comfortable. 

Aerith blinks at her. “What?” 

“It’s what you do at a sleepover.” At least, in Tifa’s experience, that what she thinks most young girls do. “You tell each other secrets.” 

“Oh.” Aerith’s cheeks turn a pretty pink. “I don’t think I have any that you don’t already know.” She presses her lips together, face scrunched in serious thought. 

“Nothing?” Tifa prompts as she tucks her arm under her head. “Not even an embarrassing story you don’t want anyone to know?” 

Aerith laughs and turns to face her, voice going softer like they are two young woman sharing a secret with no one else. “I have plenty of those stories. But what about you? Do you have any secrets?” 

“Too many,” Tifa sighs, and her thoughts wander again, to home, to Nibelheim, to five long, confusing years, and one stubborn, confusing blond the next room over. Maybe this is a bad idea after all. 

She shouldn’t spill all the troubles on her shoulders. Aerith shouldn’t have to help bear that load. She has enough problems without Tifa adding to her stress. Maybe this was a bad idea after all. 

Tifa shifts, intending to go back to her own bed, and back to chocobo number 964. But Aerith touches her arm, and that’s enough for Tifa to freeze. Surprised. 

“We don’t have to share secrets,” Aerith says, her resting hand curling into a gentle hold, “But we can share the bed. If you want, I mean.” 

Tifa’s heart throbs so loud, it thumps in her ears. Slowly, she settles back into place, arm tingling under the barely noticeable weight of Aerith’s hand. 

“That is one of the rules of sleepovers,” Tifa says, even though they’re both too old and bruised for such a thing. But they are also a lot alike. Tifa’s never had a “girlfriend” either. 

Aerith giggles and winks at her. “I won’t tell if you don’t. It can be our secret.” She holds out a hand, pinky crooked. “Promise?” 

Tifa’s face heats, almost like she’s blushing, but that would be ridiculous. No less ridiculous than hooking her finger with Aerith’s and saying, “Promise.” 

Lying there next to Aerith, Tifa doesn’t even get to chocobo number 965 before she’s fast asleep. 

***

[whatever-letmebe]

Sex is Not for Everyone, Actually

Playboyy is a show all about sex. Half of the characters are horny, gay college students, the other half are equally horny, equally gay (former) sex workers. At first glance, Zouey is an outlier. He is a quiet art student who likes to watch hentai but has never had sex with another person. He’s the only virgin in his friend group and gets teased for it. His friends are so invested in “helping” Zouey lose his virginity that they hire a prostitute for his 21st birthday, despite Zouey making it very clear that he doesn’t want that. [Virginity is a harmful construct and I’m using the term here deliberately btw.]  Zouey's 21st birthday is where episode one of Playboyy begins, aptly titled “Sex is for Everyone”. 

So Jump, the guy who Zouey’s friends hired, shows up and tries to do his job but it doesn’t go well because Zouey is anxious and uncomfortable and Jump is pressed for time and inpatient. [Side note: I don’t know much about allosexuals but I’m pretty sure that many of them would not be excited about having sex with a stranger while handcuffed and with no time to prepare for it. But in Playboyy, all the other characters would totally be down for that, which makes Zouey the odd one out. This is also the first “fantasy crashing with reality” scene, which is a main theme of the show. I’ve pointed out two more examples of it here.] Zouey tries several times to gain some control over the situation and lead it in a direction that’s actually comfortable and pleasurable for him. They sort of get there, in the end. Jump agrees to pose for Zouey and then Zouey starts jerking off, but their time runs out before Zouey can finish. Jump leaves in frustration that he didn't make Zouey come (which normally means he won't get paid) and Zouey is left with the experience of his personal boundaries being crossed and his sexual fantasy being ridiculed.  

It has nothing to do with you. If I hadn’t escaped to jerk off, that policeman would have raped me. - Come on, you’re exaggerating. - I am not. I told you that I’m not into this.  

I know I’m not the only ace person who watched that first episode of Playyboyy and felt very seen. The way Zouey is treated by others throughout this episode - the othering and invalidation he encounters when he talks about his (dis)interest in (specific ways of having) sex as well as the pressure that’s placed on him to conform, is something many of us are painfully familiar with. 

You didn’t want to have sex with me but you wanted to draw. You’re sick. 

Jump shames him. Captain says he doesn’t get why Zouey “won’t have sex with anyone or jerk off to humans”. And Teena assumes it’s about Zouey feeling insecure so he offers words of encouragement.   

You know, the first time I had sex, I came before I put it in. Noone is good right off the bat. [..] You need to practice. [...] It’s okay. Take it slow. 

Many aces have heard similar things and gone through similar experiences especially as teenagers and young adults. It can seem like everybody around us is obsessed with sex. Not just their own sex life but also the sex life of everybody else. When we get asked who we find hot or when we will finally have sex, “nobody” and “maybe never” are not accepted as answers. Not having sex is weirder than gay sex or BDSM or smelling underwear because sex is for everybody, it is a universal need and a sign of maturity, or so we are told. That’s what compulsory sexuality is. It sucks and it especially sucks for us aces who will never “grow up” and meet the expectation of sexuality that people have of us. It’s perfectly fine to go through your life without ever having sex with anybody but it can be hard to believe that when we have internalized the idea that not having sex means there is something fundamentally wrong and broken about us. 

Do you know the concept of epistemological injustice? My mind was kinda blown when I first learned about it. Epistemological injustice describes the injustice of 1) not having access to knowledge about your own experiences, which includes the fact that certain experiences are not being researched and 2) the knowledge you have about yourself and the world not being  believed or trusted. Knowledge is power, after all, so controlling and limiting knowledge is a way to limit and control power. How can we as aces even begin to understand ourselves, how can we recognize and challenge compulsory sexuality, when we don’t learn about the existence of asexuality and don’t hear about the lived experience of other aces? 

Noone in Playboyy ever suggests to Zouey that he could be ace - most likely because noone  knows about asexuality - and when Zouey says that he doesn’t think sex is for him, he is not taken seriously. That is epistemological injustice. It would be very hard for Zouey to figure out if he is on the ace spectrum because he doesn’t have the knowledge, the vocabulary, to understand himself in these terms and he is (implicitly) told by others that he cannot trust his own thoughts and feelings around his sexuality. In Zouey’s case, a lot of his hang-ups around sex seem to stem from anxiety, self-consciousness and possibly a negative past experience, so the advice he receives from Teena is actually relevant. For an ace person who doesn’t want to have sex, though, the same advice would not be helpful at all and could even reinforce the self-shame and self-doubt many have dealt with at some point in their life.

[lu-sn]

i know it's 300 years late to be making this post but man. i am still SO angry about mew

the setup was perfect!!! you have mew, this probably-aspec character who hits all of the checkboxes for prim-privileged-gay and seems fully unaware of that privilege, and you have boston, fully unashamed of his sex drive and his many sexcapades while still partially closeted, and they hate each other, okay. they constantly sling barbs at each other right from the beginning, and they're not friendly about it. mew thinks boston is an uncontrollable slut and boston thinks mew is a horrendously stuck-up prude and they're constantly judging each other. at the beginning of the show, they're two fundamentally incompatible people.

and then top comes along, and he's this character who's willing to put up a facade for mew -- willing to play the part of the sweet, unproblematic boyfriend -- but under the hood, he's a lot more like boston than anyone wants to admit. he's a piece of shit to everyone but mew, and he's slept around, and he openly likes sex. he wants it. he's struggling a little without it.

it's perfect because boston is a character that mew is fundamentally at odds with, and top is a character similar to boston that mew does not want to be at odds with. it sets up this huge clash of principles for mew, who is going to either have to learn to accept some of top's behavior and realize that boston might deserve that acceptance too, or he's going to be unable to accept some parts of top in a way that will hurt their relationship.

... or so you would think.

instead, mew gets to have his cake and eat it too: top cheats on him (and frankly, the circumstances of this cheating are suspect; top was basically manipulated into it), and instead of digging into why top did this, why top might feel compelled to secretly have sex with someone behind mew's back, mew lets top grovel at his feet for months, then takes him back while "forgiving but not forgetting". there's no attempt on mew's part to understand top or the cheating, only to corral top back into the persona that mew thought he was in the first place. and top lets it happen. by the end of the show, all traces of the "problematic" man he was in the beginning have been mysteriously wiped away. his cocaine problem is gone, his debilitating fear of fire is gone, and he is perfectly content in this relationship with mew where they have relatively little sex, even though mew is constantly making eyes at all of the new men who show up (cough cough boeing COUGH COUGH MIX) and even though this supposed straying on mew's end and the ensuing jealousy from top was a big factor in why top cheated in the first place.

and because mew didn't need to understand anything deeper about top, there's no way in hell he gains any sympathy for boston; he kicks boston to the curb and is obnoxiously righteous about it.

i've seen some comments that mew is not a hollow and unrealistic character for acting like this; there are many, many people out there who act just as selfishly as mew. i can't stand those people, and i can't stand mew, and in a sense that does make him a compelling character. so putting aside the fact that i would have much preferred to see him struggle with the crumbling of either his principles or his relationship... the arcs of the characters around him are definitely hollow and unrealistic, as a direct consequence of his position in the overall narrative.

let's look at boston for a second. mew, who you famously think is a stuck-up bitch, ends up catching the unwavering attention of top, who you want to get fucked by; you slowly manipulate top into cheating on mew with you, and you're gleeful about it. this is not a thing you'd do if you felt any sort of sympathy or friendship towards mew! you clearly disrespect the guy! you probably fucking hate him!

and then the guy you hate finds out what you did, and he threatens to out you and circulate revenge porn of you in retaliation, and he's the smuggest little shit about it while he promises to ruin your life and then ten seconds later flips masks and goes "but i wouldn't do it because i'm above that kind of behavior" -- and i would just like to poll all of you, and ask you: if a guy you disrespected so deeply came up to you and threatened to ruin your life while continuing to display all the traits you already hated him for, would you feel sad that he friendship-broke up with you and try to friendship-get him back? or would you, i don't know, hate him for all eternity?

once the cheating news breaks, the narrative tries to convince us, again and again, that boston feels bad and guilty about what he did to mew and that he doesn't hate mew and wants to be friends again. i'm sorry. i don't buy it. the boston we saw at the beginning of the show is not a guy who would grovel at mew's feet. so why does the narrative make him do it? why does the narrative kneecap his character like this?

it's for the same reason that all of top's problems disappear. it's because the narrative wants so badly to position mew as the good guy. mew did nothing wrong, they say, over and over again. look at how top and boston beg him for forgiveness. look at how terrible boston was for wronging mew but how right mew was for threatening boston back. look at how top erases all his own flaws just like mew said he could, and boston doesn't do the same, so top earns a spot in the friend group but boston loses his spot forever.

if the narrative had been brave enough to fracture mew's image a little, to acknowledge that he's a mean, messy hypocrite, i could have respected his place in the show as a whole. but they didn't. instead, they gave his character so much potential for growth and then squandered it all, and if that wasn't enough, they went ahead and neutered all of the characters around him, too.