#imagine fucking living where its feasible to see them lmao

[straycalamities]

24 for kian, ace, and daisy waisy

What is an alternative life path your OC might have gone down? How different would their life be if they’d made those decisions?

AH! the nearly-uncomfortable au strikes again

kian: hrmm...im trying to think...i cant imagine a world where he doesnt eventually leave his dad... like...is it even feasible to live ur whole life in those conditions and not try to get away. theyre just..UNLIVEABLE. if he didnt leave he'd just DIE

tho...even if he just left later that'd make a huge impact on him i think...he'd be soooooooo cold. he wouldn't even have the unserious funny haha nihilism he has now. he'd just be an angry dick that's entirely dead inside. he would survive doing the bare minimum bc he wouldn't think about how life could get better than that. everyone would avoid him besides the naïve "ooo sexy man" initial response but just one interaction would have them being like nah, actually,

ace: oogh, there's so many decisions he made that i could unmake, oogh. delicious.

if he decided to not help his dad financially as a kid. oh thats a big one. oh its so big the more i think abt it. holy shit. that's what formed his entire personality. all his interests and everything. (special mentions for if he decided to not befriend jack or decided not to pursue his dreams so hard)

but i wanna do this one

so. honestly? ace would probably be taken away from his dad if it got worse. even if CPS fucking sucks there's nooo way i think it'd be allowed to go further downhill. (otherwise they'd be literally on the streets and THEN ace would get taken away? either way) and i honestly cant see ace getting adopted, unfortunately.

his dad, even if he didnt spoil him with STUFF, he spoiled his attitude. it's like...probably some way of like making up for not being able to get ace anything is to let him act however he wanted. so it'd take some reeeeeeal patient parent(s) to wanna take ace in because he wouldn't have the mind to hide it at that point. ace would maybe eventually learn to chameleon his behavior? but i think by the time he learned it in the foster system it'd be too late bc..ppl dont tend to adopt teenagers either

god this is making my brain gears TURN that one decision rly is everything

i think that his growing up would be pretty shit. bc now im thinking abt the differences between this and cult au ace AUGH. cult au ace at least had a stable home with a turn-around of income even if it wasnt from him specifically busting his ass to earn the money (well in a way it still is, but, different)

ace, but...jaded O_O he wouldn't evolve that charming personality. i think he'd lean more into the class clown personality. but it's not as endearing bc everyone sees him as a girl. and i know from experience, girl class clowns are just...weird-girls w Issues to everyone. its not endearing like it is w boy class-clowns to other ppl. he'd still have like..pretty strategic ideas for situations and stuff bc that's inherently him. but..i dont think it'd get him as far as it normally would

so he'd be so..lonely lmao. like regular ace also has issues w loneliness but its way more complex. this would just be straight up. fkn lonely. and straightforward misery from it. maybe he'd have some goons or smth at some point? but idk if he could ever truly connect w them unless they were also from the foster system.

cuz see im thinking that normal ace learns everything he does bc he makes the decision that he HAS to. he has to to survive so it all becomes this like...ok i do this or i starve. whereas an ace that's either decided its hopeless, not his responsibility, or just didnt think to do it, wouldnt have that same direct "inspiration" riding his ass. so his social skills would form in a rly weird way based mostly off how much of a brat he is and how much he desires everyone to like him (which is also true of any other ace but this one has a like..feral desperation to it in comparison. like a stray animal more than..someone who grew up too fast and forgot to make real friends along the way <- the usual)

he'd still have these like lofty dreams and i think he'd still want to chase them somehow, but he wouldn't have the connections nor the charm normal ace has. he'd be, at most, some stand-up comedian who performs nights at some local venue and he's just an opener for the main act. maybe he'd sing and put in the work to be good at it, but a big part of this kinda career is the ppl you know so :pensive emoji:

god this ace is the epitome of sopping wet meow meow. what a miserable little man. so richie tozier-coded but more of a failure bc he doesnt have a group of friends to bond w over other-dimensional clown trauma

anyways i think that's enough rambling abt this. i could go a hundred different directions with it from here and i cant choose one. so. there u go. something to chew on. (god he wouldnt care abt sleight-of-hand shit or magicians or card tricks or any of that. WHO WOULD HE BE??????????? maybe he'd hold onto the bar interest in general? like billiards n stuff? oh my god he'd be more likely to be an alcoholic like his father NOOOOOOO)

after that daisy's gonna seem so lack-luster LMAO

daisy: the thing w daisy is i dont rly have a set story in my head for her rly? i kinda just have..scenes and things i like her doing. ive never sat and gave her a like...biography

so idk what decision she'd make that i could undo and have it make an interesting change...if she didnt decide to sing, she'd be an actress. if she didn't decide to kill ppl, she'd just be focusing on her dreams full-time. and so none of that's super interesting to get into uh...

if she didnt decide to push being famous, she'd probably just be happy being some homemaker or smth. someones trophy wife or...a singing waitress or waffle house worker idk.

even with nyanpire daisy its more like...her big decisions is to not...die. uh. (bc shes miserable as a vampire) so if i reverse that then shes just dead LFJKSDJF

so idk 8_8 thank u for including her but IDK WHAT TO SAY!!!!!!!!

[misterbitches]

hi! this is long as shit i’m sorry. i hope it makes sense. i ahve adhd and like 5 million learning disorders so this is just word vomit cos there’s so many words in my brain. my b.

i’ve had such a tough day so thank you for replying and sharing! @yeedak​ 

i was thinking about what i wrote and i meant to clarify that as well. some cases are fine for both parties and it’s not like you weren’t consenting and it seems like you were happy! same with my friend who was dating a 20 yr old. if they’re happy you know i’ll clown on ‘em but yea. so for anyone that sees these posts your relationship with your partner who is older or whatever. i’m some dumb girl on the internet okay. ill side eye older ppl tho

i think a lot of people feel the same way you do now (me included.) it feels really good at the time but alter we can see the dynamics playing out. i’m 29 now and i think aging is just such a huge process. it’s wild how you at 31 are a totally different person, right?

and the US racism is probably some of the worst ever in its iteration because of slavery which started from europe etc but USA is so fucking unique bc of columbus bringing slaves here and displacing indigenous peoples or hispanola and because america is so influential the way it views race, particularly with black people as objects, has so deeply permeated into the current historical psyche globally. it’s fascinating to track how necessary anti blackness is to the flourishing of america but also the world at this point. also want to point out how fuckign scary sinophobia is here especially for covid. one is a straight historical line (black ppl + the US) and the other had to be manufactured and to continue to exploit the non-white americans and keep antiblackness in tact.i could go on about this all day. the pain of this place is immense.yet as bad as it is here, this is still the only place i truly feel safe as a black person. because of the unique experience we have in america and through the diaspora especially because we are veyr much ocncentrated here. it would be nice to like move to norway and have some alleviation financially or get free healthcare it’s just not feasible if no one looks like me. it’s fucking tough. 

i hope you don’t hate it here though and people treat you with respect. but as you know being a woman and jewish and an immigrant....shit is tough. the USA is a hellhole. :( america is so deeply tainted and desperately bad because it was founded on strife and blood and there’s no way to reverse that and what this country did in turn when it gained enough power and could capitalize off of the colonial forefathers. this is why we hsould all luv revolution!!!

HOWMEVERRRR 

boy oh boy oh BOY OH BOYYYYYYYY. well wlecome to the world of BL lmao especially as an adult with some obviously deep perspective just given your background. it is a fucking mess and it’s a hard mess to like but it pulls you in. i approach it like i do with soap operas since these are essentially telenovelas, you know? just like the drama at a billion. but the tricky part of that is like....what parts of it do we understand for critiquing? because so many of the shows are so bad at being like good pieces of things to look at just production wise and story wise. but i feel like these shows ask us to take them seriously, so why shouldn’t we take the content seriously? and this is being primarily peddled to young girls. 

i bring this up often but i read this thing about yaoi and the interest younger women/girls have in BL and its fascination with pederasty essentially. this component i think is key when we talk about who gets affected by these things the most. society in general is bad 4 girls bla bla we know lmao but in “more sexually conservative” societies it may be harder for these girls to feel safe even expressing normal emotions romantically and sexually and particularly with guys. some people hypothesized, and i think i agree with this hypothesis, that they can live through the casualness of BL. they don’t feel threatened because they can put themselves into the shoes of the other character. oftentimes, the more feminine or the younger. this was in conjunction with the age gap aspect (they say pederasty as well because there’s unethical age gaps that r gross and that is indeed what we would at least call a touch of sexual abuse if people dont feel like calling it an obsession with youth and power and uhhh young ppl and perhaps kids) where maybe girls could see themselves in these situations as the person being saved, loved, taken care of, and sadly also sexually active and penetrated. 

i think that’s just one aspect of it but i do think there’s validity in who gravitates towards it. i cannot imagine seeing this stuff and not getting enough information as a young kid, i sure as fuck know i didn’t!, and seeing these things and you look at it with 0 critique because you’re young and you may have no interest in it or you simply cannot understand what is wrong. no one is teaching you these things and these shows confirm it. and it is wild how intrinsic patriarchy is to BL although in its existence it also can’t be in line with patriarchy given the nature of two [cis] men!

it begs the question about the replacement aspect. is it just so girls can put themselves in these characters shoes? if so then that means we believe that gender is so interchangeable within our relationships and interactions and that doesn’t seem right. there’s more to lgbtq+ than just existing; it’s finding ways to communicate, finding a family, safety, your people, being a free person. there’s a lot to gain and a lot a lot to lose. and a gay man is also not a woman because those are also two distinct experiences.  especially in societies that have a more hidden aspect to sexuality (idk how to word this bc the BL industry would NEVER survive in america but in a way there’s a more “progressive” look at homosexuality but it’s still fucked up because we live in a Society, you know? at the same time look at what we are doing to trans kids. literally waging war so it’s bonkers how we all collectively have some real progress happening but at the same time not at all. the concept of ‘ladyboys’ and the frequency we see trans people in thai shows is wild and something that we absolutely do not see here in the US. still, none of these groups feel safe or are getting better material conditions in either place. we just show the ways we can try and tolerate oppression witout eliminating it imo)

to me it is clear: it’s money. which most things exist to make money so. but also who is the audience for these shows? and they have to market towards them. all that said all hope is not lost there are some decent shows. it’s just like regular media on TV though where it’s so fucking saturated as an industry that it’s literally sifting through garbage. and there are some days when you can handle the trash and others where it really fucking hurts to watch the violence, the rape, the manipulation, the violations, the stupid messaging. i have never seen more people trying to do mental gymnastics and seeing if things were “technically rape” than in teh BL fandom and that is so fucking sad.

i came into these shows at 28 with almost 0 clue of what as media BL was like esp as media that countries can use as soft power with the revenue. but i realize like...i’m 29 now and so many people don’t have a sizeable, though not huge, amount of life experience. and i wonder for people on the internet who are usually searching for something if they spend so much time on it like what a 15 year old girl thinks. what a 20 year old girl thinks. 

it is incredibly problematic and so awful but there’s also some rewards. if you haven’t i would definitely watch i told sunsset about you which i don’t think i’m going to finish and i doubt i’ll watch the second installment (watch this be a lie) but when i say some fucking impeccable storytelling and art? phew. now that is a fucking piece of media that works. it takes from moonlight heavily and you can see like...the artistic dedication is there and the story makes its world and sets up its stakes extremely well. 

i think because this is marketed towards much younger people too they know they dont have to try as hard. but they SHOULD because then you can have a fucking masterpiece like that. i think even this prolific gay thai filmmaker (who is like solidly against the government) who is so respected (and who i like a lot! if u wanna know i can tell u lmao but the films are very uhhhhhhhh “artsy”) would like i told sunset about you. i wish more people had budget like that and also just cared about the stories. it’s the fucking magic of art to figure out what you can do but there is very little incentive honestly. idk i am very pessimistic. there are days when it’s really a great pick me up and distraction but it is never a place i would love for to feel seen or heard but i’m more of the mind of i never trust the mainstream until they prove me wrong ;) 

or i never trust the mainstream and i still buy into it anyway and then cry when i don’t like what i see adn i yell “BOO GET OFF THE STAGE!” when an old man won’t leave a teenager alone