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dailyanarchistposts · 4 months ago

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B.1.4 Why do racism, sexism and homophobia exist?

Since racism, sexism and homophobia (hatred/fear of homosexuals) are institutionalised throughout society, sexual, racial and gay oppression are commonplace. The primary cause of these three evil attitudes is the need for ideologies that justify domination and exploitation, which are inherent in hierarchy — in other words, “theories” that “justify” and “explain” oppression and injustice. As Tacitus said, “We hate those whom we injure.” Those who oppress others always find reasons to regard their victims as “inferior” and hence deserving of their fate. Elites need some way to justify their superior social and economic positions. Since the social system is obviously unfair and elitist, attention must be distracted to other, less inconvenient, “facts,” such as alleged superiority based on biology or “nature.” Therefore, doctrines of sexual, racial, and ethnic superiority are inevitable in hierarchical, class-stratified societies.

We will take each form of bigotry in turn.

From an economic standpoint, racism is associated with the exploitation of cheap labour at home and imperialism abroad. Indeed, early capitalist development in both America and Europe was strengthened by the bondage of people, particularly those of African descent. In the Americas, Australia and other parts of the world the slaughter of the original inhabitants and the expropriation of their land was also a key aspect in the growth of capitalism. As the subordination of foreign nations proceeds by force, it appears to the dominant nation that it owes its mastery to its special natural qualities, in other words to its “racial” characteristics. Thus imperialists have frequently appealed to the Darwinian doctrine of “Survival of the Fittest” to give their racism a basis in “nature.”

In Europe, one of the first theories of racial superiority was proposed by Gobineau in the 1850s to establish the natural right of the aristocracy to rule over France. He argued that the French aristocracy was originally of Germanic origin while the “masses” were Gallic or Celtic, and that since the Germanic race was “superior”, the aristocracy had a natural right to rule. Although the French “masses” didn’t find this theory particularly persuasive, it was later taken up by proponents of German expansion and became the origin of German racial ideology, used to justify Nazi oppression of Jews and other “non-Aryan” types. Notions of the “white man’s burden” and “Manifest Destiny” developed at about the same time in England and to a lesser extent in America, and were used to rationalise Anglo-Saxon conquest and world domination on a “humanitarian” basis.

Racism and authoritarianism at home and abroad has gone hand in hand. As Rudolf Rocker argued, ”[a]ll advocates of the race doctrine have been and are the associates and defenders of every political and social reaction, advocates of the power principle in its most brutal form … He who thinks that he sees in all political and social antagonisms merely blood-determined manifestations of race, denies all conciliatory influence of ideas, all community of ethical feeling, and must at every crisis take refuge in brute force. In fact, race theory is only the cult of power.” Racism aids the consolidation of elite power for by attacking “all the achievements … in the direction of personal freedom” and the idea of equality ”[n]o better moral justification could be produced for the industrial bondage which our holders of industrial power keep before them as a picture of the future.” [Nationalism and Culture, pp. 337–8]

The idea of racial superiority was also found to have great domestic utility. As Paul Sweezy points out, ”[t]he intensification of social conflict within the advanced capitalist countries… has to be directed as far as possible into innocuous channels — innocuous, that is to say, from the standpoint of capitalist class rule. The stirring up of antagonisms along racial lines is a convenient method of directing attention away from class struggle,” which of course is dangerous to ruling-class interests. [Theory of Capitalist Development, p. 311] Indeed, employers have often deliberately fostered divisions among workers on racial lines as part of a strategy of “divide and rule” (in other contexts, like Northern Ireland or Scotland, the employers have used religion in the same way instead).

Employers and politicians have often deliberately fostered divisions among workers on racial lines as part of a strategy of “divide and rule.” In other contexts, like Tzarist Russia, Northern Ireland or Scotland, the employers have used religion in the same way. In others, immigrants and native born is the dividing line. The net effect is the same, social oppressions which range from the extreme violence anarchists like Emma Goldman denounced in the American South (“the atrocities rampant in the South, of negroes lynched, tortured and burned by infuriated crowds without a hand being raised or a word said for their protection” [Emma Goldman: A Documentary History of the American Years, vol. 1, p. 386]) or the pogroms against Jews in Tsarist Russia to discrimination in where people can live, what jobs people can get, less pay and so on.

For those in power, this makes perfect sense as racism (like other forms of bigotry) can be used to split and divide the working class by getting people to blame others of their class for the conditions they all suffer. In this way, the anger people feel about the problems they face are turned away from their real causes onto scapegoats. Thus white workers are subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) encouraged, for example, to blame unemployment, poverty and crime on blacks or Hispanics instead of capitalism and the (white, male) elites who run it and who directly benefit from low wages and high profits. Discrimination against racial minorities and women makes sense for capitalism, for in this way profits are enlarged directly and indirectly. As jobs and investment opportunities are denied to the disadvantaged groups, their wages can be depressed below prevailing levels and profits, correspondingly, increased. Indirectly, discrimination adds capitalist profits and power by increasing unemployment and setting workers against each other. Such factors ensure that capitalism will never “compete” discrimination way as some free-market capitalist economists argue.

In other words, capitalism has benefited and will continue to benefit from its racist heritage. Racism has provided pools of cheap labour for capitalists to draw upon and permitted a section of the population to be subjected to worse treatment, so increasing profits by reducing working conditions and other non-pay related costs. In America, blacks still get paid less than whites for the same work (around 10% less than white workers with the same education, work experience, occupation and other relevent demographic variables). This is transferred into wealth inequalities. In 1998, black incomes were 54% of white incomes while black net worth (including residential) was 12% and nonresidential net worth just 3% of white. For Hispanics, the picture was similar with incomes just 62% of whites, net worth, 4% and nonresidential net worth 0%. While just under 15% of white households had zero or negative net worth, 27% of black households and 36% Hispanic were in the same situation. Even at similar levels of income, black households were significantly less wealthy than white ones. [Doug Henwood, After the New Economy, p. 99 and pp. 125–6]

All this means that racial minorities are “subjected to oppression and exploitation on the dual grounds of race and class, and thus have to fight the extra battles against racism and discrimination.” [Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin, Anarchism and the Black Revolution, p. 126]

Sexism only required a “justification” once women started to act for themselves and demand equal rights. Before that point, sexual oppression did not need to be “justified” — it was “natural” (saying that, of course, equality between the sexes was stronger before the rise of Christianity as a state religion and capitalism so the “place” of women in society has fallen over the last few hundred years before rising again thanks to the women’s movement).

The nature of sexual oppression can be seen from marriage. Emma Goldman pointed out that marriage “stands for the sovereignty of the man over the women,” with her “complete submission” to the husbands “whims and commands.” [Red Emma Speaks, p. 164] As Carole Pateman notes, until “the late nineteenth century the legal and civil position of a wife resembled that of a slave… A slave had no independent legal existence apart from his master, and husband and wife became ‘one person,’ the person of the husband.” Indeed, the law “was based on the assumption that a wife was (like) property” and only the marriage contract “includes the explicit commitment to obey.” [The Sexual Contract, p. 119, p. 122 and p. 181]

However, when women started to question the assumptions of male domination, numerous theories were developed to explain why women’s oppression and domination by men was “natural.” Because men enforced their rule over women by force, men’s “superiority” was argued to be a “natural” product of their gender, which is associated with greater physical strength (on the premise that “might makes right”). In the 17th century, it was argued that women were more like animals than men, thus “proving” that women had as much right to equality with men as sheep did. More recently, elites have embraced socio-biology in response to the growing women’s movement. By “explaining” women’s oppression on biological grounds, a social system run by men and for men could be ignored.

Women’s subservient role also has economic value for capitalism (we should note that Goldman considered capitalism to be another “paternal arrangement” like marriage, both of which robbed people of their “birthright,” “stunts” their growth, “poisons” their bodies and keeps people in “ignorance, in poverty and dependence.” [Op. Cit., p. 210]). Women often provide necessary (and unpaid) labour which keeps the (usually) male worker in good condition; and it is primarily women who raise the next generation of wage-slaves (again without pay) for capitalist owners to exploit. Moreover, women’s subordination gives working-class men someone to look down upon and, sometimes, a convenient target on whom they can take out their frustrations (instead of stirring up trouble at work). As Lucy Parsons pointed out, a working class woman is “a slave to a slave.”

Sexism, like all forms of bigotry, is reflected in relative incomes and wealth levels. In the US women, on average, were being paid 57% the amount men were in 2001 (an improvement than the 39% 20 years earlier). Part of this is due to fewer women working than men, but for those who do work outside the home their incomes were 66% than of men’s (up from 47% in 1980 and 38% in 1970). Those who work full time, their incomes 76% of men’s, up from the 60% average through most of the 1970s. However, as with the black-white gap, this is due in part to the stagnant income of male workers (in 1998 men’s real incomes were just 1% above 1989 levels while women’s were 14% above). So rather than the increase in income being purely the result of women entering high-paying and largely male occupations and them closing the gender gap, it has also been the result of the intense attacks on the working class since the 1980s which has de-unionised and de-industrialised America. This has resulted in a lot of high-paying male jobs have been lost and more and more women have entered the job market to make sure their families make ends. [Henwood, Op. Cit., p. 91–2]

Turning away from averages, we discover that sexism results in women being paid about 12% less than men during the same job, with the same relative variables (like work experience, education and so forth). Needless to say, as with racism, such “relevant variables” are themselves shaped by discrimination. Women, like blacks, are less likely to get job interviews and jobs. Sexism even affects types of jobs, for example, “caring” professions pay less than non-caring ones because they are seen as feminine and involve the kinds of tasks which women do at home without pay. In general, female dominated industries pay less. In 1998, occupations that were over 90% male had a median wage almost 10% above average while those over 90% female, almost 25% below. One study found that a 30% increase in women in an occupation translated into a 10% decline in average pay. Needless to say, having children is bad economic news for most women (women with children earn 10 to 15% less than women without children while for men the opposite is the case). Having maternity level, incidentally, have a far smaller motherhood penalty. [Henwood, Op. Cit., p. 95–7]

The oppression of lesbians, gays and bisexuals is inextricably linked with sexism. A patriarchal, capitalist society cannot see homosexual practices as the normal human variations they are because they blur that society’s rigid gender roles and sexist stereotypes. Most young gay people keep their sexuality to themselves for fear of being kicked out of home and all gays have the fear that some “straights” will try to kick their sexuality out of them if they express their sexuality freely. As with those subject to other forms of bigotry, gays are also discriminated against economically (gay men earning about 4–7% less than the average straight man [Henwood, Op. Cit., p. 100]). Thus the social oppression which result in having an alternative sexuality are experienced on many different levels, from extreme violence to less pay for doing the same work.

Gays are not oppressed on a whim but because of the specific need of capitalism for the nuclear family. The nuclear family, as the primary — and inexpensive — creator of submissive people (growing up within the authoritarian family gets children used to, and “respectful” of, hierarchy and subordination — see section B.1.5) as well as provider and carer for the workforce fulfils an important need for capitalism. Alternative sexualities represent a threat to the family model because they provide a different role model for people. This means that gays are going to be in the front line of attack whenever capitalism wants to reinforce “family values” (i.e. submission to authority, “tradition”, “morality” and so on). The introduction of Clause 28 in Britain is a good example of this, with the government making it illegal for public bodies to promote gay sexuality (i.e. to present it as anything other than a perversion). In American, the right is also seeking to demonise homosexuality as part of their campaign to reinforce the values of the patriarchal family unit and submission to “traditional” authority. Therefore, the oppression of people based on their sexuality is unlikely to end until sexism is eliminated.

This is not all. As well as adversely affecting those subject to them, sexism, racism and homophobia are harmful to those who practice them (and in some way benefit from them) within the working class itself. Why this should be the case is obvious, once you think about it. All three divide the working class, which means that whites, males and heterosexuals hurt themselves by maintaining a pool of low-paid competing labour, ensuring low wages for their own wives, daughters, mothers, relatives and friends. Such divisions create inferior conditions and wages for all as capitalists gain a competitive advantage using this pool of cheap labour, forcing all capitalists to cut conditions and wages to survive in the market (in addition, such social hierarchies, by undermining solidarity against the employer on the job and the state possibly create a group of excluded workers who could become scabs during strikes). Also, “privileged” sections of the working class lose out because their wages and conditions are less than those which unity could have won them. Only the boss really wins.

This can be seen from research into this subject. The researcher Al Szymanski sought to systematically and scientifically test the proposition that white workers gain from racism [“Racial Discrimination and White Gain”, in American Sociological Review, vol. 41, no. 3, June 1976, pp. 403–414]. He compared the situation of “white” and “non-white” (i.e. black, Native American, Asian and Hispanic) workers in United States and found several key things:

(1) The narrower the gap between white and black wages in an American state, the higher white earnings were relative to white earnings elsewhere. This means that “whites do not benefit economically by economic discrimination. White workers especially appear to benefit economically from the absence of economic discrimination... both in the absolute level of their earnings and in relative equality among whites.” [p. 413] In other words, the less wage discrimination there was against black workers, the better were the wages that white workers received.

(2) The more “non-white” people in the population of a given American State, the more inequality there was between whites. In other words, the existence of a poor, oppressed group of workers reduced the wages of white workers, although it did not affect the earnings of non-working class whites very much (“the greater the discrimination against [non-white] people, the greater the inequality among whites” [p. 410]). So white workers clearly lost economically from this discrimination.

(3) He also found that “the more intense racial discrimination is, the lower are the white earnings because of ... [its effect on] working-class solidarity.” [p. 412] In other words, racism economically disadvantages white workers because it undermines the solidarity between black and white workers and weakens trade union organisation.

So overall, these white workers receive some apparent privileges from racism, but are in fact screwed by it. Thus racism and other forms of hierarchy actually works against the interests of those working class people who practice it — and, by weakening workplace and social unity, benefits the ruling class:

“As long as discrimination exists and racial or ethnic minorities are oppressed, the entire working class is weakened. This is so because the Capitalist class is able to use racism to drive down the wages of individual segments of the working class by inciting racial antagonism and forcing a fight for jobs and services. This division is a development that ultimately undercuts the living standards of all workers. Moreover, by pitting Whites against Blacks and other oppressed nationalities, the Capitalist class is able to prevent workers from uniting against their common enemy. As long as workers are fighting each other, the Capitalist class is secure.” [Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin, Op. Cit., pp. 12–3]

In addition, a wealth of alternative viewpoints, insights, experiences, cultures, thoughts and so on are denied the racist, sexist or homophobe. Their minds are trapped in a cage, stagnating within a mono-culture — and stagnation is death for the personality. Such forms of oppression are dehumanising for those who practice them, for the oppressor lives as a role, not as a person, and so are restricted by it and cannot express their individuality freely (and so do so in very limited ways). This warps the personality of the oppressor and impoverishes their own life and personality. Homophobia and sexism also limits the flexibility of all people, gay or straight, to choose the sexual expressions and relationships that are right for them. The sexual repression of the sexist and homophobe will hardly be good for their mental health, their relationships or general development.

From the anarchist standpoint, oppression based on race, sex or sexuality will remain forever intractable under capitalism or, indeed, under any economic or political system based on domination and exploitation. While individual members of “minorities” may prosper, racism as a justification for inequality is too useful a tool for elites to discard. By using the results of racism (e.g. poverty) as a justification for racist ideology, criticism of the status quo can, yet again, be replaced by nonsense about “nature” and “biology.” Similarly with sexism or discrimination against gays.

The long-term solution is obvious: dismantle capitalism and the hierarchical, economically class-stratified society with which it is bound up. By getting rid of capitalist oppression and exploitation and its consequent imperialism and poverty, we will also eliminate the need for ideologies of racial or sexual superiority used to justify the oppression of one group by another or to divide and weaken the working class. However, struggles against bigotry cannot be left until after a revolution. If they were two things are likely: one, such a revolution would be unlikely to happen and, two, if it were then these problems would more than likely remain in the new society created by it. Therefore the negative impacts of inequality can and must be fought in the here and now, like any form of hierarchy. Indeed, as we discuss in more detail section B.1.6 by doing so we make life a bit better in the here and now as well as bringing the time when such inequalities are finally ended nearer. Only this can ensure that we can all live as free and equal individuals in a world without the blights of sexism, racism, homophobia or religious hatred.

Needless to say, anarchists totally reject the kind of “equality” that accepts other kinds of hierarchy, that accepts the dominant priorities of capitalism and the state and accedes to the devaluation of relationships and individuality in name of power and wealth. There is a kind of “equality” in having “equal opportunities,” in having black, gay or women bosses and politicians, but one that misses the point. Saying “Me too!” instead of “What a mess!” does not suggest real liberation, just different bosses and new forms of oppression. We need to look at the way society is organised, not at the sex, colour, nationality or sexuality of who is giving the orders!

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scuderiakarts · 1 year ago

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So in other words, as any reasonable person already knew, there was obviously a disclosure process before appointing someone to an incredibly high profile job.

And obviously, the FOM took appropriate mitigating steps because they were aware of the conflict of interest and knew it was part of their role to keep it from becoming problematic (because secondary interests are not inherently problematic, they occur every. single. day in most industries).

And obviously the FOM, a massive organisation with high-powered lawyers on payroll know how to set up a COI policy properly.

And obviously, this entire investigation/internal review was fuelled by the “reporting” of one man known for writing sexist and borderline libellous hit-pieces on women in motorsports.

And obviously, the FIA gave into that public pressure because a) sexism and b) lack-of-spine-usitis

But of course we had to spend a majority of this week dragging one of the most successful women in motorsports through the mud because there was just no way of telling if this was a merited investigation on its face. But hey, at least it serves as a reminder to anyone up-and-coming in the motorsports world that your presence in it as a woman is always going to be doubted, maybe we were starting to forget that!

#f1 #motorsports #sexism in motorsports #hate that I have that tag now #susie wolff #hope she has a great weekend and then sues b******f* :))

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larrydoinglaundry · 2 years ago

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Twitter and some people here are focusing on the male part of que quote and I can see why. It’s interesting how they did the radio thing, but it’s a bit insulting to the female fans when we were the one who got Louis to the number 1. But in overall it was a good interview! but she should have expressed that better…

oh i agree that the male audience part was very distasteful and inherently just reeks of sexism. it definitely gives "in need of male validation" vibes and implies that female audience alone is not worth taking seriously.

correct me if i'm wrong though but i think the interview is from a magazine that is not really directed at fans or gp but others who work in music industry. kind of from professionals to professionals, and therefore the tone of the interview is her pretty much boasting and showing off their strategy to the others who work in the industry. don't get me wrong, it definitely doesn't make the bad points any better, but it gives it a bit more context on why it's written the way it is.

#nonnie #louis' team

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lostyetfinding · 3 days ago

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Sweet Moment

idol Bang Chan x afab journalist

Prompt: Stray kids is on tour, meaning that Chris' girlfriend is frustrated and lonely. Chris only makes it worse when he sends her a song and some promises of what he will do once he gets home.

Word Count: 9.4K

Song: Sweet Moment by Mackenzy Mackay

Can also be read on ao3

MDNI this is a explicit story

tags are under the break ♡

Tags: unprotected sex (wrap it please), sex, oral sex, vaginal sex, fingering, soft dom Bang Chan, pet names (princess, baby, babe), praise kink, hint of a plot, plot what plot, demisexual main character

Quick note: The female main character in this is demisexual. This was not my intention but it happened because my stories take lives of their own. This is not a depiction of every demisexual person's experience, because being demi means different things for different people. This is a depiction of how I experience demisexuality and also how it has impacted my life. Again, this does not mean it is the same for other people who call themselves demi.

I hated the long months of their tours, I know I should be happy that my boyfriend gets to spend months performing and living his best life.

And a part of me does.

But a larger part of me is angry about the separation. Angry about the space in my bed without him or the growing leftovers in my fridge because I always order for two even if he isn’t here. Furious about the way I turn to laugh at a funny moment on our show and he isn’t there. And occasionally angry at the fact that no matter how much his voice over the phone turns me on and how good my vibrator feels inside of me, none of the orgasms leave me satisfied.

But most of all, angry at the way my life has slowly morphed around his. At how a mere week without the stupid insomniac that is my boyfriend, I feel like I am missing an arm.

I always prided myself on my independence. In my need for nothing other than the family I had built for myself and the life I had worked so hard to earn.

Then came Christopher.

He invaded my life so slowly, I hadn’t even realized I wanted romance. I had spent so long content with my friends and my work and my neverending list of hobbies. And then my editor had called me up, and asked for me to do a feature piece on some artists.

It wasn’t my first. I worked for a lifestyle magazine in the features department for the gods sakes. I had interviewed Halsey when she was working on her album and documentary “ If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power,” about three years ago. My editor had freaked, because instead of asking about Halsey’s influences or her writing process I had asked to go to a day of filming with her. I had turned in an article about how Halsey felt pregnancy was impacting her life, how it changed her perspective, and how she was feeling better than she had in years. We talked about baby colors and names, lyrical choices and parenting philosophies. I wrote about a woman, not an artist.

That was the beginning. Once my article was published, I was given more artist features. I was asked to write about the music industry, and then actors, and then came KPOP.

After all, I lived in South Korea. Just because I wrote for an International magazine based in California did not mean I wanted to remain in America. (I enjoyed traveling and living somewhere far away from my family.) So my editor sent me KPOP groups to interview.

First, it was BTS, right before they enlisted. BTS were kind, they wanted to tell me how much they missed normalcy, and how excited they were to stay in one place for a while. They said they loved tours and work, but sometimes they missed the routine of a normal life.

Then came ITZY and discussions of trying to set themselves apart in a male-dominated industry. That article talked about inherent sexism in not just Korean music but music everywhere. So my editor sent me to talk to Solar from MAMAMOO. She had a lot to say about the sexism she had faced and how all the aspects of her life were controlled for so long.

Of course, all of that led me to Stray Kids. And damn Christopher.

All of Stray Kids were shocked when I walked in, a very white-American-looking woman with bright pink hair and tattoos peeking out of my shirt collar and sleeve. They all introduced themselves in English and smiled. But when I whipped out my worn-in Korean, they all simultaneously stared and relaxed.

I laughed at their initial shock, explaining I worked for an international lifestyle magazine and grew up in the middle-of-nowhere-America but had been living in Seoul for about four years while traveling for work. When we sat down, they all started talking at once. It was a mix of Korean and English and nerves.

Chris had seen my hesitance and confusion. He slowed them all down and took control, turning to me with that charming smile and asked what I wanted to know. Looking back, that was the beginning of the end of my sweet little bubble.

Because once Bang Chan smiled at me with his eyes wide and welcoming, well that carefully curated bubble of comfort burst.

He made a whole new one, building it from the ground up with enough space for him and his entire world of chaos. And I was helpless.

Not that I wanted to stop him, more like I didn’t even know what to do in the face of his compassion. I was utterly perplexed by his seemingly endless patience and how he always seemed to know what I needed before I did.

In a year he went from my interview subject to a notification on my phone I never wanted to disappear, to my boyfriend, to my live-in-partner in just about everything. His albums and vinyl fit right in on my endless bookshelves, his jackets and band t-shirts mixing in with my closet of nonsensical outfits.

My two cats loved him too, quickly choosing his fancy-ass chair in the little studio we made him as their favorite nap spot. Especially if he was sitting there. My home office moved to the living room, where I had a view of the city and sunlight on my face. A choice that somehow made me more productive despite my hesitance, but Chris had known. Somehow he had known that moving me out from the windowless small second bedroom in my apartment to the spacious and open living room would make me less stressed.

He also made a space for himself with my friends. Quickly melding himself into the weird amalgamation of a family I had forged with artists, writers, and cafe baristas. He was an enthusiastic participant in our weekly game nights and helped cook for our monthly ‘family dinners’. Chris had charmed all of them the same way he charmed me.

So now, now when he was busy halfway around the world standing on a stage in front of thousands of screaming fans, I was left missing him. And I felt that anger was the most productive emotion in this situation.

If I let myself feel that space around me that he usually filled, I would grow sad. I would lay in bed, with one of his black hoodies on and pulled over my nose. I would douse the apartment in the cologne he left behind. I would put his songs on repeat just to fill the silence with a small piece of him out of desperation.

But if I told myself I was angry, I could do something about it. I could go to the gym on the bottom floor of my building and hit the bag he had requested. A gym he had to show me despite this being my building before his. And boxing the way he had taught me, he had suggested it to help bring the edge off my anxiety. If I told myself I was angry, I could tease him about the distance, sending him risque photos and making myself all pretty to go out with friends. I could live my life knowing that he wasn’t there.

But at the end of every day, I had to admit to myself it wasn’t real. I was never angry with Chris. With Bang Chan, or Stray Kids, or his career, or his distance. I was just clinging to a feeling of frustration to cope. Because despite my pride in my independence, I depended on him. And that was the most infuriating thing.

Ding!

The sound of a notification on my phone made me look up from the steaming cup of coffee I had been staring down into for far too long.

Damn, Christopher.

Always distracting me even when he wasn’t here.

I smiled as I reached for my phone. Mentally teasing Chris for his goddamn persistence even in my imagination.

The notification on my phone made my smile grow even wider.

Chris: Hey princess

Me: Hey babe, how are you?

I miss you… 🥺

Chris: I know baby, but we are only a week away from being home

I miss you way too much, the guys are complaining about how much I talk about you

Me: well at least I am not suffering alone

How was the show last night?

Chris: It was amazing!

But that is not why I am texting

Me: so you aren’t just trying to make me jealous by telling me how much fun you are having without me?

Christ: I offered for you to come with us

Me: I know

Chris: but no...

I wanted to send you a song I have been working on

Me: Have you been sleeping? Do I need to text Changbin?

Chris: Baby! I have been sleeping I promise!

But this song was screaming in my head, I had to make it

And it’s for you 😘

Me: for me?

Chris: Yes, you, my girlfriend of almost two years

The woman I am desperately in love with

My favorite person in the world

Me: you are trying to make up for being thousands of miles away with sweet talking me?

Chris: yes, is it working? 🫣

Me: hmmmmm… 🙄

Give me the song and I shall see

Chris: of course, love

Here it is

[link.todownloadfile.clickhere]

Tell me what you think? 😉

Me: HOLD ON

WHY THE WINKING EMOJI?!?!?

CHRISTOPHER?!!?

WHAT DID YOU WRITE?!?!?

You little….

I shake my head at the screen, his little icon letting me know he has read the messages and is deciding to not respond.

I grab my coffee and head to his studio, where the state-of-the-art sound system is.

If I am going to listen to a song my boyfriend wrote for me, it better be using his expensive equipment so it’s of the best quality.

So I wake up the monitor and put in the password. Some stupid phrase that is an inside joke between him and his sister. I hook my phone up to the computer, downloading the file onto my phone and transferring it to the computer.

I open it and the file opens up in the media player, just a black screen with a bar and a play button.

I double-check that the system is hooked up and on, making sure the speakers have their lights on. Then I press play.

And Chris is a fucking musical genius.

And I wish I could hate him.

But the first note has his voice coming through the speakers and I almost whine. All my false anger seeping out of me like warm water.

From the neck

I’ll be licking that down

With a face

Looking like u might pounce

Any second

I been thinking bout it loads out loud

Can I Kiss you on the hips

It takes me until halfway through the first verse to actually pay attention, my eyes widening as I realize what he is singing about. The initial instinct to curl up and rest at the sound of his voice quickly washed away with a growing arousal.

Show you tricks with the mouth

I just wanna see you for a sweet moment

Yes I been away and now I’m back I’m all in

And your bed wouldn’t stop calling

My name.

never could be too late

Lay down

I go down and you shake

Your legs are trembling

You rain, you doused me

You came and you found these

Ways

Just To show me how much you like it

And Waves

My thighs start to clench as I stare at the monitor. As if it holds the answer to how the hell I ended up here.

Crashing upon all over my lips

Say

Oh would you look what the time is

Silence is so far away

Never will I get used

To how you make me feel

Much too nice and it seeems Fake

Yeah you got this head way over these heels

His words rush through my veins, like lightning. I feel breathless and also like I am breathing too much. Interrupting the music with an unnecessary sound.

Got me So high on you I can barely see straight

Now we on the bed sheets

All wet so sweaty

Like yes please

Breath on my skin so heavy

I’m dreaming how can I

Be awake?

never could be too late

Lay down

I go down and you shake

The beat pulses through me. The deep sound vibrates the speakers and also my body.

Your legs are trembling

You rain, you doused me

You came and you found these

Ways

Just To show me how much you like it

And Waves

Crashing upon all over my lips

Say

Oh would you look what the time is

Silence is so far away

All these ways

Just To show me how much you like it

And Waves

Crashing upon all over my lips

Say

Oh would you look what the time is

Silence is so far away

So far away from being quiet I know

And the Silence is miles from here I’ll slow this

Time as I ride the waves you can’t hold in

The sight from my point of view is soo

golden

Soaking me

Drench me with sweetness

Volume increasing, you feel it

Oh you’re quite a tease when your

Looking this appealing

All these sweet moments

When the song comes to an end I sit there in a shocked silence. Unable to think. Or speak.

I only pull together enough strength to hit play again, falling back into Chris’s fancy chair that still smells like him as the song comes out of the speakers.

My boyfriend’s voice fills the room as he sings about wanting to eat me out. Wanting to feel me come around him. Wanting to come home and spend time in my bed, our bed.

That litte-

By the time the song ends for a second time, I lurch for my phone and hit call.

He answers in a moment, laughing as he says, “Hi baby. Did you like it?”

“Christopher…” I whisper, my eyes closed and my grip on the phone tight.

“Oh so you liked it then?” He chuckles like the demon he is.

I cannot stop the strangled whine that leaves my lips as I slouch into his chair. “Chris! This is not fair!”

“What isn’t fair, princess?” I can hear the smirk in his voice and am tempted to hang up on him just to be a brat. But then I wouldn’t be able to listen to his laugh. Or yell at him for making me horny in the middle of a Tuesday!

“You know what!” My voice is higher pitched than I would like, but Chris knows that I get whiny when I am needy. He claims he loves it. Hell, half the time he tries to get me to speechless so all I can do is whine unintelligent syllables at him.

My phone buzzes and Chris speaks, his voice lower and smooth. “Answer my video call princess.”

I do as I am told, my hand trembling a bit as I pull it away from my face and hit answer. The call converts from audio to video and I prop my phone up on his desk before slumping into his chair again.

“There is my princess,” Chris says with a smirk. He is lying on his bed with the phone hovering over his face. Swathed in warm light and barefaced, my boyfriend is more fucking beautiful than me. He makes a cooing noise as I pull his hoodie closer to my face. “Wearing my hoodie and in my chair? You missing me?”

“Needed the speakers to listen to the song,” I mumble as I blush. But I don’t dare look away from him.

“And the hoodie?” One of his eyebrows goes up knowingly.

I simply blink at him. Not willing to give him more ammunition against me when I am already desperate, needy, and lonely. If this were a battle, Chris had won a year ago with that first smile.

“Alright, well…you liked the new song?” He asks confidently.

I groan and look away for a second but miss his face too much so I look back. “Christopher…I don’t know why you ask me that shit when you already know!”

“How would I know, princess? You haven’t said anything, do you hate it? I guess I should just delete the whole song right?” He teases mercilessly.

I take the bait. “Do you want me to show you?” My face is flushed and the hoodie feels both too warm and not warm enough.

Chris motions to me, not saying anything but I can see how his eyes glance down.

I lean forward to change the phone's angle before leaning back in his office chair again. But this time I wiggle the shorts and underwear I am wearing off and allow them to fall to the floor.

“Look, this is what your stupid song did,” I whine as I lift a leg over the arm of his office chair and lift up the hoodie to bunch it around my midriff. Now the camera can see all of me, from my red face to the way his hoodie devoured my body, all the way down to my wet pussy.

Chris groans at the sight, a hand going up to brush through his hair. He bites down on his lip when I lower a hand to spread open the lips of my vulva.

“Look what you did!” I say huffily. “And you aren’t even here to take care of it.”

“Oh princess, I know. I am so sorry, I swear I would be there right now if I cou-” His voice falters when I let a finger start to circle over my clit. His eyes widen. “Fuck, baby. I miss you so much, such a good girl for me though aren’t you? Looking all pretty and wet for me?”

I nod hurriedly. Chris knows just how to press all my buttons despite my low sex drive before him. He also knows that if it isn’t with him, I don’t really enjoy anything. It’s the emotional connection to him that makes sex feel different than anything else, and while he can make me see stars with just his voice, I am always left feeling sad and alone, unsatisfied, unless he is here. With me.

“My favorite girl, want me to help you?” He asks but I shake my head. My finger continues to rub small, slow circles against the bundle of nerves. The pressure helps with the need that rushes through me.

“Need you,” I say pathetically. It makes me want to curse, or scream, or maybe just invent teleportation.

“Fuck.” He groans and I see how his hand leaves the screen. I know he is probably about to go to bed, the simple tshirt over his chest and the damp hair meaning he finished his day. Meaning we have as long as we need. But I can’t. Not without him here. “Baby, you are so fucking hot, you know that? I want to make you feel good.”

“Need you here,” I insist, lacking the eloquence that someone with a degree in journalism should have. But he knows. We spent a long time figuring out my boundaries, and he knows that unless he is here, an orgasm is not worth my time. However, I can tease myself, get myself riled up.

His eyes close and his nostrils flare before he looks at me again. “I will be home as fast as fucking possible. That song baby? That song was a fucking promise, when I get back you aren’t leaving the damn bed until you can’t take anymore. You understand?”

I nod, my free hand coming up to grope at my chest, the action makes him groan and I can see how he shifts in bed. Probably already close to coming if I am right. I know when he is away from me Chris tries to abstain from any ‘extracurriculars’ out of solidarity for me even though I told him I don’t care. Even after I have called him to help him come more times than I can count.

“Words, princess.” He commands.

“Y-yes Chris, I understand,” I say, trying to steady my voice.

He hums in appreciation. “Good girl, now I need you to do a few things for me okay baby? You listening?”

“Mhm” I mumble but I see the challenge in his eyes so I add on a “Yes, listening.”

“Good girl, need you to lift that hoodie for me, show me my pretty princess making herself feel good okay?” Chris tells me. I do as told, stopping my motions to raise the hoodie over my head and bunch it up behind my neck, this way my arms can still be in his hoodie, but my whole body is on display for him. He moans as I settle back down and raise my other leg over the arm of the chair. I am all spread out and on display for him in his hoodie and his office.

I can hear the sounds of slick skin movie on skin from his end of the call. He must be speeding up.

“Alright baby, now touch yourself again, nice and slow, show me how wet you are.”

I follow his instructions, slowly rubbing against my clit in vertical motions before going back to the slow circles.

“Now a finger, in your pretty pussy, love, just to show me how tight you are.”

I lower my finger, teasing my pussy before dipping the finger in. I gasp and arch my back, eyes glued to the phone screen where I can see Chris breathing heavily.

“Shit, yes, baby, fuck gonna come just looking at that,” He murmurs as a moan leaves his lips. The sound of his hand on his cock speeding up. “Want that baby? Want me to fucking come just at the sight of you all wet and needy for me?”

“Yes! Chris! Want you,” my words have left me completely. If we were being honest, I lost them halfway through his gods damned evil song. Now? I barely understood how to piece together the few syllables I did.

He grunted and I watched his eyes roll back. I heard when he came, no other sounds in the room than him breathing and the sound of cum hitting his shirt and hand. He looked at me with a dopey smile. “Fuck, such a good girl for me, my good girl. Can you do one more thing for me?”

I smiled and nodded, allowing my legs to fall back to the floor and my hands to go to the desk as I leaned forward. “What else do you want Chris?”

“Well I want you sitting on my face until you fall over from pleasure but that will have to wait.” His smile widens as my face flushes again and I scrunch my nose in fake disgust. “But for now? I need you to ask for Tuesday and Wednesday off of work. Our plane gets in at 2 pm on Tuesday and I have plans for us, as you know.”

I giggle and pick up the phone, bringing it closer to my face. “And if I told you I already asked if I can just work Monday and Tuesday morning next week?”

Chris laughs and it makes me ache to have him here. “I would say that you are perfect. Do you want me to stay on the phone?”

“Chris, you are still in Germany, that means that while it is bed time for you it is only 10 am for me. I haven’t even started work yet because someone distracted me,” I say teasingly.

He grumbles something I don’t understand as he rolls over in bed, my view of him shifting to see him standing and walking. If I had to guess, it would be to the bathroom to clean up the mess he just made. “Okay fine, go write something super smart for your adoring fans. But I miss you and on Tuesday I will show you just how much.”

I laugh as he stills in the bathroom, the lighting is much brighter and I can see how tired he looks. “Okay, but I am pretty sure you are the one with adoring fans. After all, they write in-depth smut about you online.”

“Hush you.” He jokes. “I love you.

“I love you too, darling. Get some sleep please?”

He purses his lips and looks away, making me glare at the phone. “Christopher, get some sleep or I will call Felix and make him take your laptop. I will even tell him the password.” I threaten.

“Fine, fine, I will sleep. See you soon?” He says in resignation.

I smile and make an exaggerated kissy face at the phone screen. “See you soon.”

When he hangs up I am left, basically naked, in his office. And I have an entire article to write by next Monday if I want the week off to spend with him. An arduous task when one Bang Chan just made me horny.

・゜-: ✧☾　☽✧ :-゜・.

All of Tuesday morning I am glancing at the clock. On my phone, on my watch, on my laptop. Time moves too slowly for me.

Around 11:45 Chris texts me saying they just got on the plane and he will see me soon. I groan as I realize I still have a fourth of my article to edit. I just send the piece to my editor and tell her I am out for the rest of the week.

I trust her to make whatever changes she wants. We have been working together for about 5 years and if she thinks something needs to go she can do it. I am obviously not going to be productive today.

I close my laptop and get up, stretching as I head to the kitchen and grab the leftover Druken noodles I have in the fridge. As I eat at the kitchen counter, my eyes keep darting up to the time displayed on the oven.

By 12:07 I am done eating.

I throw away the takeout container and sigh, going to the couch and turning on reruns of Big Bang Theory.

I last until about 12:53 before I get restless again. So I shit the Tv off and hook my phone up to the audio system in the apartment. I play my favorite playlist, a mix of music in about four languages I think? All of them inbetween r&b, hiphop, and pop.

I tidy up my desk and sweep the living room, trying to force myself to focus on simple tasks instead of the fact that my boyfriend will be home in about an hour and a half.

When I have cleaned the whole living room, scrubbed the kitchen counters, and folded all the clean laundry, it’s only 1:48. I still have 45 ish minutes before Chris gets here.

I huff out my frustration and make myself another cup of coffee before heading to the bathroom. To my giant tub, one of the few things I demanded from an apartment when I moved here. A tub big enough that it could fit 2 people and still be spacious. That was before Chris, and mostly because In liked really hot baths, I liked to go under the water completely and relax.

Of course, after Chris entered my life I learned just how great it was to have a tub that big. But still, my favorite use was long, steaming hot, relaxing baths.

As I drank my coffee and scrolled through my phone, I allowed the tub to fill with hot water. I poured in Epsom salts halfway through, allowing them to dissolve by the time the water reached the top of the tub.

My coffee sat on the edge as I undressed and got in, my skin turning pink in the water as I laid back and sighed. The music on the stereos played in the bathroom too, a command from my phone turning the volume in this room up as I started to shave.

I focused on the task. Getting my legs, and then my armpits, before putting the razor to the side and allowing the water to drain from the tub. I started to refill it once the hair all went down the drain, not ready to leave the hot bathtub just yet. Instead, I laid back and scrolled through a new episode of a web comic as I drank my coffee.

Suddenly the song that was playing stopped.

I frowned and looked at my phone, but right as I went to switch to the app that connected the speakers to my phone, a new song started.

From the neck

I’ll be licking that down

With a face

Looking like u might pounce

This one wasn’t mine.

It was Chris’s.

Any second

I been thinking bout it loads out loud

Can I Kiss you on the hips

The one he sent last week, the one that got me so turned on.

The one I had refused to listed to again because I knew it was just going to get me hot and needy.

I set my mug back on the lip of the tub and my phone into the little waterproof basket. Standing up quickly as the beat builds in the song.

I grabbed a towel and wrapped it loosely around myself as I stepped out of the tub.

“Chris?” I call out into the apartment as I step out of the bathroom. My hair is in a messy bun, water still dripping off of me.

And there he is.

My beautiful, demonic, talented, insomniac boyfriend. Clad in grey sweatpants, a black hoodie, and a beanie over his long black hair.

Chris is leaning against the doorway of our bedroom, as I leave the bathroom that is attached to said room. He smiles brightly as he sees me, voice low and real and here as he says, “Hi baby.”

“Chris!” I squeal and rush towards him, throwing my arms around his neck and laughing into his shoulder.

His arms are on me in seconds, one wrapping around my back and the other going to my hair, pulling it out of the messy bun and tossing the ponytail away. He cards his fingers through the pink waves and grips near the base of my neck to tug my head away from his shoulder.

His gaze flickers over my whole face, hungry. “Gods, I missed you,” is all he says before his lips are on mine.

I melt into the kiss with a whimper, my hands moving to grip his shoulders as I tilt my head back further and open my mouth to him. Chris quickly adds his tounge to the mix, sweeping into my mouth and across my lips with a hungry growl, using his hold on my hair to keep me positioned how he wants me.

I sigh into the kiss, happy to let him do whatever he wants as long as he doesn’t stop. I smile as his other hand goes from my lower back to my ass. He groans when he gets to squeeze my bare skin because the towel moves out of his way.

He pulls away and I whine, already leaning back in, but he doesn’t let me, pulling my hair lightly to make me look at him. Chris smiles. “Hi baby, did you miss me?”

“Yes,” I say without hesitation.

His smile gets wider and he glances up. “Remember this?” He is talking about the song that continues to play, his voice echoing through our apartment.

I bite my bottom lip and nod.

“You remember what I said I would do when I got home?” He asks, one eyerbrow quirking up in that annoying way that he does anytime he gets cocky.

I nod again.

Apparently it is not enough because he tugs my hair and squeezes my ass, making me gasp. “Words, princess. What did I promise you?” He asks as he leans forward to kiss behind my ear. I shiver from the featgherlight press of his lips to my skin.

“You-oh fuck, Chris,” I say quietly. My words earning me another encouraging hum from him and tug to my hair as he starts to graze his teeth over my collarbone. I take the hint, trying to piece together a full sentence. “You-you said you wanted to make me feel so good, keep going until I couldn’t take anymore.”

“Anything else?” he asks against my neck, sucking a mark into the skin.

I whimper and nod. “Said you wanted me-fuck-wanted me on your face until I couldn’t hold myself up anymore.” Getting the words out feels like a battle.

He releases his hold on me and steps away, making me cry out at the lack of contact. But Chris simply tuts and grabs at the place where the towel is bunched up to keep it on me. “Sh, I keep my promises baby, but someone is a little too dressed. Can’t have that can we?” He asks as his tugs the fabric and lets the towel fall to the floor. As it hits the floor the song starts again. He smiles, looking me up and down. “Want me to keep the song on? Or you want me to turn on the normal playlist, princess?”

I bite my lip and have to resist the urge to cover myself up. “It can stay on…or it can be added to the normal playlist?” I suggest.

His eyes meet mine. “I love that plan. So now we are going to do what I promised okay?” I nod, reaching for him and leaning up to kiss him. He smiles and pulls away. “But first I need to change the music baby, go lay on the bed for me? All pretty and ready for me, right?”

I smile nervously. “Don’t take too long please?” I beg.

“I would never,” he whispers against my lips before pressing another passionate kiss to them. When he pulls away he groans and says, “Now be a good girl and do what I asked.”

I run a hand through my hair restlessly as I turn around and walk to our bed. I know he watches me go, can feel the way his gaze blazes onto my skin. Including when I crawl onto our bed and roll over so I can meet his gaze.

He mumbles somthing to himself as he presses some buttons on his phone. The song switches to a playlist we made together a long time ago, songs that we both liked to use as background noise because I couldn’t handle the silence. The soft and sensual music helped me focus on him, on here, on now.

He tossed the phone onto the dresser by the door as he walked towards the bed. I propped myself up on my elbows to watch him. He grabbed the back of his hoodie and took it off, the tshirt underneath coming with it, and both being tossed away from him.

I hummed appreciativly as I stared at the well toned muscles that flexed as he stopped in front of me on the bed. Chris liked to go to the gym for his anxiety or when he couldn’t sleep, so he worked out a lot. And I may appreciate that a lot.

His hands untied the top of his sweatpants and lowered them to the floor before he put a bare knee onto the bed and I smiled up at him.

He responded with a smile of his own, but his was much more sinister. This man was not my sweet goofy loving boyfriend. No, this man who hovered above me and grabbed my neck to connect our lips into another desperate and messy kiss was starving. He hadn’t had me in months. This Chris was hungry, and he was going to devour me.

He started with my mouth, his tounge sweeping through and over my own. Sucking on my bottom lip and allowing his teeth to scrape over it. One of his knees came up in between my legs, pressing against my bare clit and making me moan into his mouth. Making my back arch before my entire body went lax into his hold, the only thing keeping me up was his hold on my neck that held my face up for him.

When I started to grind up against his thigh he pulled away and chuckled darkly. “Okay, okay, princess. I know, you need some release don’t you pretty girl?”

I whined as I ground myself onto him. I could feel his leg against my clit and it felt amazing, perfect, astonishing. Pick an adjective that could describe the feeling of a hot cup of coffee on a cold day or the feeling of stepping into a shower after a workout and it would describe this. “Chris,” I moaned out his name. Already so desperate.

“I know, my baby needs me. I made a promise after all,” he said as he winked at me and suddenly we were flipped. I was on top of him, my pussy pressing down on his boxers. My bare chest pressed against his as he smirked. “Time for you to sit on my face princess, can you do that?”

I nodded, but didn’t move. Instead I pressed down on the hard covered bulge in his boxers and moaned pitifully.

He tsked and gripped my hips harshly, the sting making me gasp and arch my back. “Now now, I told you to sit on my face, be a good girl and do what you are told.”

I was helpless against his commands. The need to please him and his hands tugging me up his body moving me quickly to hover over his face. I gripped the headboard with one hand as he pulled my body down so I was mere inches away from his lips.

I could feel his breath against me and it made me shiver. Chris seemed pleased as he said, “There’s my good girl, listens so well. Tell me when you are about to come okay?”

“Yes,” I said breathily.

“Oh and baby?” Chris asked, his tone making me look down to meet his gaze from between my legs. “Remember your colors.” He smirked and pulled me down the rest of the way, lips connecting to my clit in an open-mouthed kiss that makes me cry out.

“Chris!” I practically scream as he enthusiastically laps at the wet lips of my pussy. Chris doesn’t start slow, no today he goes all in, flicking his tounge quickly over my clit before sucking it into his mouth and then diving into my tight core to drink the arousal that keeps leaking out of me.

My grip on the headboard is tight and I have no control over what comes out of my mouth. It is a constant stream of whines, gasps, whimpers, and pleading.

I make the mistake of looking down, meeting his gaze. Chris is staring up at me as he groans into my pussy, his eyes bright. It has my legs shaking, the sight of his black hair spread out across the bed and his eyes focused on mine.

I feel dizzy with need, intoxicated by the way this man took me from restless to the brink of an orgasm in only a few minutes.

“Chris…Gonna make me cum,” I manage to gasp out and I feel his lips curve against me, his eyes crinkling as he smiles.

He lifts my hips up a small amount to say, “I know baby.”

Then he forces me back down and focuses all his efforts on my clit, pressing quick flicks of his tounge that make me shake. Then he circles it slowly and pulls it into his mouth, sucking it in, grazing teeth against the sensitive bud lightly, before going back to attacking it with his tounge.

I feel the growing tightness in every part of my body, it starts at the base of my spine and in my clit, like a spark of unhindered pleasure. But it spreads, making every muscle in my body feel like it's on fire. My arms tense, my legs shake, my back arches, and I throw my head back.

My mouth is open but the only thing leaving my lips is pants as pleasure takes over me, my whole body freezing for a few seconds as waves of electricity pulse through me. Then it crashes, and I fall apart.

My legs give out but Chris holds me in place, still licking up everything that escapes me enthusiastically. He groans happily against me, the motion only making me shiver as I slump against the headboard and try to catch my breath.

But Chris doesn’t want me to catch my breath.

He doesn’t slow down, instead he gets impossibly faster, moaning against my skin and pushing me from the throes of one orgasm to the brink of another. My body is still quivering and the pleasure feels sharper.

When the next orgasm hits, I scream and let go of everything, falling forward completely. Chris finally slows down his motions to small little licks. He presses an open mouthed kiss to my swollen clit as he lifts me off of him and sits up.

I am barely aware of what is happening when he wraps his arms around me. Pulling me off of the headboard of our bed and sideways into his lap.

I look up at him with a smile that I intend to be content. But the way he chuckles makes me think it looks more dopey than anything else. I lift a hand to brush through his ruffled hair as I stare at the way his mouth, chin, and nose are glistening with my juices.

“Hey, there is my baby girl,” He coos at me with a sweet smile. I swear Christopher could turn anyone into an addict, the way he loves is intoxicating. It leaves me wondering how I could have ever lived without him. “I told you I would keep going until you couldn’t take anymore,” he teases.

I shake my head and tug his mouth towards mine in a wordless request. When he lowers his face closer to me, I don’t go to kiss him. Instead I lick up the remnants of me that are covering his face. My tongue tracing lines across his chin, his lips, his nose, as I clean him off.

His hold on me tightens as a low grumble reverberates through his chest. “Good girl,” he rasps out as I pull away to lick my own lips. His eyes track the motion of my tongue and he groans. “Fuck, I missed this.”

Then his lips are against mine, his hand is intertwined with my hair and pressing me impossibly closer to him, the other hand on my back to hold me up in his lap. I smile into the kiss, allowing myself to try and tease back, letting my tounge graze over his as I moan into his mouth. I know how to make him lose control, how to ruin all his plans of just making me feel good. And the first step? Trying to escape this kiss, pulling away.

My movement makes his grip litghten on me in an instant. Then the world tilts.

Suddenly my back is against the bed and his weight is bearing down on me deliciously. The kiss breaks only for his lips to travel down to my neck, teeth and tounge leaving lines and marks into my skin as I gasp.

My legs move to go around his waist, trying to bring myself closer to the bulge of his cock. He makes a tutting noise.

Against my skin he says, “I am not done with you yet, princess.” The words make my back arch and my core clench around nothing.

He lifts himself up, a hand going to move my legs from around him and back onto the bed, but then that hand goes to my core. Fingers slipping through the wet heat and over the swollen clit in a way that makes me let out a strangled moan.

“See?” He teases as he bites down on the skin above my collarbone, right over a tattoo I got 6 months ago of a flower. Chris likes to color the petals with reds and purples any chance he gets. “My girl still needs another orgasm before she takes me, after all she hasn’t had any for 3 months has she?”

I shake my head with a whine. “Not any good ones, not without you-Chris!” My back lifts off the bed as two fingers shove into my vagina, wet and slick with me. The stretch is harsh and stings in the most pleasant way, making me whimper and wrap my arms around his shoulders, holding on for dear life.

“Exactly, need to make up for months without me,” Chris growls out as he starts a fast pace. His fingers diving into me, every brush of them against the tight muscle of my entrance making me gasp at the delightful ache. He can tell when the pain starts to fade, when I start to adjust to his fingers, because I start to slow my breathing and my eyes slam shut. His voice is mocking when he asks, “Does my girl need more? Greedy little pussy not full enough yet?” He punctuates his words by curling his fingers upwards and brushing against the inner walls of my pussy, making me want to squirm.

But he doesn’t give me another finger, only lifts himself up to smirk at me. I look up at him with hazy eyes and realize what he wants. He won’t give me more until I ask, and I can feel how the two fingers angled upwards inside of me just start to stroke the fires inside of me. The flames demand more.

So do I. “Chris, please, need more, need you,” I gasp out as I try to grind against his hand. We both know fingers in me is not enough to make me come, only enough to get me hot and bothered.

He chuckles and pulls his fingers out entirely. “As you wish,” he whispers before thrusting three back into my clenching core.

I cry out and hear the sound of squelching coming from where he now stretches my entrance. The ache and sharp stretch that I adore coming back to feed the fire inside me. His pace is methodical, not as fast as he can go but not slow either. His eyes flicker over my face, how my mouth hangs open and my eyes remain unfocused.

He leans down and kisses me, but I don’t have the state of mind to do much other than lean into his lips so it’s more teeth than lips. “Do you want to come again, princess?” He asks me quietly. “Or do you want to wait for me to be inside of you?”

I grumble something that I don’t even understand as I try to grab at the scattered threads of my thoughts. “You, want to come with you in-fuck!” A particularly harsh thrust of his fingers and curl of them upwards interrupts my words.

He chuckles lowly. “Okay baby, but I have to take my fingers out first okay?” He soothes as he slows his movements to an infuriating hum.

“Hurry,” I cry out. The fire inside of me feels demanding, the flames grabbing onto anything and everything. The feeling of his lips soothing over the marks he left on my skin as he slips his fingers out of me. The feeling of his hair in my hand as I scratch against his scalp. The sound of his boxers being slid off and the way his weight settles back on top of me. I blink up at him, focusing my sight again. “Chris.”

“I know sweetheart, I am right here,” He hums, lifting my legs up to be pressed between us, to put me on display for him. “How many more can you take, love?”

I shake my head, not in disagreement but because I don’t know. The motion makes him smile.

I feel the head of his cock brush over my clit as he says, “Okay, use your colors like a good girl?”

I nod, desperate for him to just get inside of me. To make me feel full, take away the emptiness that I had drowned in false anger and way too much coffee while he was gone.

“Good girl,” he whispers right as he enters into me, going slow so I feel how he forces into me. His cock is wet, he must have coated it in lube or my juices without me realizing, making the stretch smoother but still leaving that pain that always makes my toes curl. I may be a sadist, but who wouldn’t be when their boyfriend was thick enough to make three fingers feel easy?

He always went slow at first, no matter how many times I said I liked the stretch. No matter how many times I demanded he make me feel like I was being split open. No, Chris always inched into me with such patience it made me bite down on anything I could. Sometimes my lips, others my tongue, and today I had my teeth buried in his shoulder at the insistent gentleness.

“There we go,” he said with a groan as his pelvis met with mine. I bit down harder in a wordless demand for him to move, impatient for more than just the heavy weight of him in me. He moaned. “I know, just give me a second, need to fucking breathe. So tight, baby.”

I hummed, letting my teeth unlatch and instead licking at the bite marks in his skin as I relaxed into his hold. I was happy to go slow if he needed it, but hated if he went slow because he didn’t want to hurt me. After all, I found that pain only added to my pleasure.

As I licked over the reddened skin again, I felt him adjust his weight over me. Settling his upper body onto his elbows as he began to pull out of me only to shove back in with a harsh and powerful thrust.

I made a noise that sounded like a squeak as my body took the force of his thrust and I felt how he moved inside of me.

That is how he decided to keep going, pulling out only a small bit before shoving himself back in fully in forceful thrusts. The room was full of the sounds of grunts and whimpers, the quiet thud of his pelvis hitting my own.

“God, how do I ever leave you? Shit this is all I want, love you so much baby,” he grunted into my ear as he sped up. I could tell this would not last long, that we were both already diving down to the full depths of pleasure.

But we had the whole week to go slow, to tease and edge, to dance around orgasms. Right now? Right now I wanted my boyfriend to come inside of me, to make me dizzy with lust and lose myself in another orgasm.

Chris seemed to have the same thoughts in mind as his thrusts became erratic, his hips shifting to change the angle of his cock. I moaned as the head of it started to hit the upper wall of my vagina, creating a pressure that tipped me into the chasm where I felt like I was floating on the pleasure.

“So close baby, fuck, can’t last long in this tight pussy,” Chris groans over me. His breathing is mixed with low moans and grunts as he pounds into me. If he wasn’t caging me in with his body, I would be pushed up the bed with each thrust, but instead his elbows were right above my shoulders and his weight held my legs down into my chest, keeping me completely still and at his mercy as he chased his pleasure.

My body felt weightless, only able to pay attention to where his skin met mine or how his cock scraped against my walls.

“Chris!” I screamed suddenly, my entire body shaking and my pussy clenching around his cock as the full force of my orgasm hit me without warning. I felt overwhelmed in the best way, only able to think about him. The constant chatter in my mind lost in the feeling of sharp pleasure through every cell in my body.

Chris stilled in me with a long drawn out moan and he twitched against my walls. I felt the warmth of his cum inside of me. “Fuck!” He sighed as he collapsed on top of me. I loved being crushed under him. His lips found my ear and pressed a whisper of a kiss against it. “So fucking good baby, shit.”

I hummed happily as I closed my eyes. I started to come back to myself in bits and pieces, the aftereffects of the orgasm thrumming through me. This was content, this was satisfied. If Chris wasn’t here, I would feel cold and empty and bored after an orgasm. I always did unless it was with him, unless he was here to keep my body singing.

When he wasn’t here that fact frustrated me. How co-dependant was I that I couldn’t fucking come without my boyfriend here? But that wasn’t true. I was just different, I needed the physical connection for sex to feel good, the emotional intimacy to get me aroused

Chris pulled out of me slowly, the movement dragging me out of my thoughts as he dragged himself out of my pussy. “Okay princess, I want cuddles and kisses, but first a shower?” He asked as he rolled off of me. He propped himself up on his side and brushed my hair off of my face.

I smiled up at him lazily. “Wanna watch a stupid movie?” I suggested.

Chris smiled brightly at me. “Absolutely. We can pick something purely garbage, oh we haven’t watched Twilight in a while?” he mentioned and I lit up at the idea.

“Yes please!” I giggled. “I want to mock the Sparkly McBroodster and Madam Indigestion!”

My stupid nicknames made him chuckle as he pulled himself off the bed. Picking me up as soon as his feet were secure on the floor. He demanded to carry me to the bathroom any chance he got, and I gave up a long time ago on pretending like I didn’t love it.

“Looks like you left the bathtub full,” he commented as he set me down on the bathroom counter. I blushed.

“I was trying to relax, couldn’t stop watching the clock while waiting for you,” I admit shyly. My flushed face and small smile earn me a small kiss.

Chris moves to drain the tub before starting the shower. “That’s good baby, I am proud of you.” I instantly relax at the praise, watching as he tests the temp of the water. He always goes a tad too cold for my liking, something about not wanting to burn our skin off. But the way he hums to himself in affirmation is adorable.

He turns back to me and I make grabby hands at him, acting like the spoiled brat I am. “Carry me?” I ask in a sing-song voice.

“Always,” He sweeps me up into his arms and carries me under the warm water. Letting me rest my head over his heart as he sets my feet on the tiled floor. I lean against him as he rinses us both off, carefully lifting my leg to scoop out the bit of his cum that is still leaking out of me. He kisses my hair. “I love you, baby.”

I smile and tilt my head up to meet his eyes. “I love you more. Thank you for the song, Chris.”

#ao3 writer #fanfiction #stray kids fics #chan fanfic #demisexual #unhinged writing #soft Dom bang chan #pet names

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tarncore · 1 month ago

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03/12/2024

What is Fashion and Personal style?

Many people tell me that I have a distinct personal style, my own aesthetic. Some have gone ahead and called it “Tarncore,” a name that, I myself have taken fancy to. There are specific items, colours, etc, that are consensually associated with me. I’m not sure how this phenomenon came to be, yet these aspects of my personal style have come to define me in a way.

Now what exactly is style though? I feel like fashion taste is something that can be developed overtime, however, style is something that comes from within (this isn’t based on research just my opinion). Anyone can spend hours on extensive Pinterest boards and figure out how to cultivate for a certain aesthetic, but style comes from within. It’s not about what you wear, but how you wear it. The outfits and accessories that I use, although are pleasing, are not inherently unique and are mostly consumerism at its finest. But I make it look good with my confidence. I do not doubt that there are people who are far more fashionable than me, yet they are unrecognised as they lack this untouchable aura that I possess. Maybe I am just glazing myself right now, but my behaviour is out of the norm and can even be off setting. I DON’T MEAN IT SAY IM QUIRKY OR DIFFERENT. I am just like other girls, and other girls are great.

But the whole idea of wanting to appear different, is there anything wrong with being basic? I feel like at this point, being basic is thrown as an insult. Like if your basic, what’s wrong with that, that’s how YOU feel comfortable presenting. The way I show myself displays my voice and my opinions. I fight oppression subtly through hairclips and eyeliner. I LOVE bold bombshell type eyeliner oh my gosh. Note, when I am speaking of oppression I don’t mean sexism, racism, etc. I mean the suffocating culture that society forces us into. “Birds born in a cage flying is an illness” - Alejandro Jodorowsky

They say makeup is a form of oppression, telling women that they’re not beautiful and then monopolising on their insecurities. Although, this is very true for most of the industry, I also believe the makeup is empowering. I, as stated before, LOVE EYELINER and don’t get me started on kajal/eye pencils for a dark waterline. I am not insecure about my eyes in any way, in fact I think my eyes are one of the most beautiful parts of my face. But when I wear makeup, I don’t do it to cover up my flaws, I do it to show my disregard of the societal expectations of women in a subtle way. This bold look makes me feel confident and like myself, I feel like I am a person rather than a woman which is what I crave at my very core, to be seen not as my body but as my mind. I have been told I look “emo” and that I would look better if I wore brown eyeliner instead for a more natural look. Personally, I don’t want a natural look, stick that brown eyeliner up your ass! I don’t want to look good for other people, other people will never see me the way I see myself, so I might as well see me the way I see myself. I will not make myself an object for your gaze. I know I’m hot as fuck, I don’t care if others don’t see that, at the end of the day I am living my best life while they are wallowing LOL.

The statement “I know I’m hot as fuck” I know most people will not receive it well. It will seem ignorant and condescending, and personally I don’t really care. Being humble is supposed to be a virtue or whatever. So, I am just supposed wait for others to recognise my awesome qualities? Other people are worried about themselves, ain’t no one got time to recognise my greatness and honestly, I don’t want to rely on external validation, if there is something spectacular about me, I will state it with pride. I remember a couple years ago when I was drawing and a friend said to me “I didn’t know you were an artist” and I replied with “I’m not, I’m just drawing.” I was so afraid to recognise my own skill, I couldn’t even call myself an artist because I was afraid my art wasn’t good enough, scared I wasn’t good enough. It's such a frowned upon thing to be confident in your own ability, but in reality, there's nothing wrong with it. If I can appreciate others and their talents, why are my own not worthy of recognition?

#YAPPING #digital diary #I did not proof read ts #dont mind this #fashion #style #personal taste

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sirensoftheweb · 11 months ago

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010101 Spells ‘Systemic Issues’ : "A Feature, Not a Bug"

By: Harmonia ✨

The article “A Feature, Not a Bug” dismantles the myth of Silicon Valley as a meritocratic haven and delves into the pervasive discrimination rooted in gender, race, and class within the computing industry. It exposes how, far from being neutral, technologies often reflect and perpetuate existing power dynamics: “Technologies designed to reorient the ways we live, work, and think more often than not are created to model or enhance older forms of power and prestige.” Sexist values that originated in the early 20th century continue to plague tech industries today, where women are still predominantly seen as secondary workers. Despite initially being favoured for early computing jobs, women faced marginalization as the prestige of computing work rose, leading to their replacement by inexperienced men. This systemic discrimination persisted, with women excluded from professionalization benefits in the 1960s, resulting in their labelling as “Excluded Grades” and contributing significantly to the decline of the British computing industry in the 1970s. These discriminatory practices not only created social problems but also hindered innovation and efficiency within the high-tech labour market, exacerbating shortages of skilled workers and operational inefficiencies.

The article draws upon Margot Lee Shetterly’s acclaimed work, "Hidden Figures," to shed light on the pervasive gender-based discrimination in the UK government's computing sector and the impact of racism on technological advancements in the US space sector. Shetterly's book underscores “the importance of attending to the intersection of race, gender, class, and nationality,” compelling readers to confront the inherent racism ingrained in our technological ideals. Contrary to the oversimplified belief that the US "won" the Space Race by landing a man on the moon first, the reality is far more complex. Early setbacks for the US, including the USSR's pioneering achievements, such as launching the first satellite, Sputnik, and sending the first person into orbit, challenge this narrative. Shetterly's narrative underscores the critical significance of acknowledging race, gender, class, and nationality in the context of technological achievements. Figures like Katherine Johnson and Dorothy Vaughan faced systemic barriers due to societal marginalization based on race and gender despite their remarkable talents and contributions. While the US's post-WWII success can be attributed in part to the devastation of its rivals' infrastructure and economies, systemic sexism and racism within technological institutions hindered the full utilization of diverse talents. The failure to address online abuse, misogyny, and racism has allowed major computing platforms to be exploited by groups seeking to undermine political stability, highlighting how technological systems often perpetuate existing systems of privilege and discrimination rather than embodying true meritocracy. Technology serves as one more surface for the blinding and oppressive light of systemic discrimination to reflect off of, “yet, we struggle to see that this discrimination was, and still is, an integral, foundational part of most of the computing systems we think of as successful—and even essential—today.”

“A Feature, Not a Bug” emphasizes the importance of understanding the often obscured computing world and argues that the prevalence of these systemic issues within the tech industry are not glitches “but in fact designed to leverage and heighten existing discrimination.” Software development is often viewed as magic and black-boxed, creating a sense of separation and helplessness for users. Although the digital world is visited daily by most in Western society, users often do not understand how the technology works, making it impossible to decode the systemic issues that live in zeros and ones.

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autisticshadowthehedgehog · 1 year ago

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i was being snarky but i got people who are genuinely confused in the comments and BOY do i love to infodump literary devices!! so here we go

"Fridging" is defined by TVTropes as "When a loved one is hurt, killed, maimed, assaulted, or otherwise traumatized in order to motivate another character or move their plot forward." Thing is, that could apply to a lot of things– for death, for instance, as Overly Sarcastic Productions put it, "While fridging is intended solely to upset another character, well-written character deaths almost always upset the other characters too. And since the character themself is usually too dead to care, most of the lingering ramifications of their death only affect the other characters." It is specifically a bad trope because it decides that any potential in their character is worth less than a shallow scene of Character A being sad, which they will forget about by the next arc.

Fridging is given as a trope solely to characters whose deaths/assaults/etc are:

ONLY added to provide motivation for Character A

This is the ONLY narrative role this incident plays. There is no exploration of how this impacts the fridged character or the world around them

"Fridging" was named by Gail Simone after a storyline in Green Lantern: A New Dawn, where Kyle Rayner's girlfriend is killed and stuffed in the refrigerator. She dies only to further this plotline and make the villain seem more evil, and then is practically forgotten about. Overly Sarcastic used the example of Gamora in the MCU, being killed just to make Thanos and Quill feel bad for a bit, and then she gets replaced by a version of her with zero of the character development everyone liked from her. As you can tell, this trope is almost always applied to women due to a lot of inherent sexism in the writing industry. This doesn't mean it can't apply to men, just that it happens less.

And it's not just death, of course– while Barbara Gordon was retroactively given a nice character arc and identity following her attack in The Killing Joke, the original intention for Barbara's paralysis was solely to upset her dad and Batman. How this affected her was an afterthought that had to be explored later, by different writers who actually cared.

"Death by Origin Story," meanwhile, is related but distinctly different. It's a character that dies in order to motivate another character, yeah, but their death is meant to kickstart the entire plot/character arc. See Uncle Ben in Spider-Man– while most adaptations/universes don't bring him up much after he's dead, his death is the reason Peter does everything he does. Batman's parents as well– they may not matter as people, but take them out of the story and you lose Bruce Wayne's entire emotional motivation. They don't die for shock value, and their deaths impact the characters throughout the entire story, not just a short arc.

The thing when looking at a story is that, once again as Overly Sarcastic put it, a lot of characters are supposed to be just plot elements. Because fictional characters aren't people, they're parts of a story the writer is creating. Now, that's okay– but when a character is fridged, the problem is it feels useless in-story. It takes a character who doesn't matter, kills them in a way that shows they don't matter, and only focuses on how sad another character feels about it before moving on. OSP used the example of Star Wars's Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru for example; they basically only died so that Luke could get motivated to leave Tattooine, and once he did, they're never mentioned again. If Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru were replaced by a dog, or a fun new speeder he just got, or just the farm itself, nothing would change. If Peter Parker's Uncle Ben was replaced with a motorbike, everything would change. Peter Parker's motivation relies on the guilt he feels over Ben's death and the feelings of responsibility that Ben imparted into him as he grew up.

As you can tell, there's a lot of overlap and confusion, but there's a fine line between them. All characters are plot devices, but fridging takes you out of the story and makes you aware of how much the author didn't care about the person they're killing/maiming/etc.

Like, okay, gamer example. Five Nights at Freddy's. The dead kids are absolutely fucking plot devices. They barely get named, let alone any personality. Charlie's only personality is from her robotic duplicate in an alternate universe. Crying Child only gets "cries a lot." But they don't feel fridged because their deaths are given narrative weight and drive, like, all of the plot. Just because "Henry feels sad about Charlie dying" or "Michael feels sad about CC and Elizabeth dying" doesn't make them fridged, because it impacts the entire story and explores the tragedy of these kids dying so young. But conversely, let's go back to Charlie's robotic duplicate– while in the novels, Michael would definitely be DbOS (he's a plot device and not a character, but his death impacts literally everyone in the books), I'd argue that The Fourth Closet fridges both Charlie and Elizabeth. Charlie dies just when she finds out she's a robot (so no interesting exploration of what that would mean for her psyche going forward), then dies so that her friends (mostly the male love interest) can feel sad about it. Elizabeth, after spending the entire book focusing only on her dad's goals and getting her dad's attention, dies with her because the writers couldn't think of any other way to get her out of the story. Charlie's fakeout death from the last book didn't feel like fridging because it was built up throughout the story and had narrative significance. The third book's deaths feel cheap and rushed, to the point where Charlie, the main character, never interacts with the main plot of the book, and dies across town from where the climax is happening, while a (male) side character kills off the big bad. The narrative significance of these two interesting girls is shortened to "and then they die so we don't have to deal with them anymore."

And okay, yeah, I'm posting this on my sonic blog cause listen. Maria is a Death by Origin Story, not a Fridging. Is she a plot device rather than a character? Yes. Could she be replaced by a shiny rock? No. Shadow's entire character and motivations rely on his previous relationship with Maria and her hopes for the future and wish to help others. Does her death make the (male) characters around her feel bad and motivate them? Yes. But she's also supposed to be seen as a character, and the tragedy of her death is that she was a child who was murdered and that she didn't get to actually live the way she wanted to. Her death isn't supposed to feel cheap, and despite Sega trying to avoid mentioning it, it's supposed to have narrative weight.

I can get when people say that, say, Molly from Sonic X was fridged, as her episode is a one-off and really only serves to motivate Shadow. While I love that episode more than life itself, I absolutely can agree there. I'd also argue that Sally got fridged a lot in pre-SGW Archie comics. First when she fucking died in the 50th issue because Ken Penders didn't know how to write women, then culminating in "the universe reset right after Mecha Sally happened so we don't need to care about that." Neither of them have the narrative weight of Maria's death, and thus moreso fit the definition of fridging.

where was i going with this. i had a point.

uhhh watch overly sarcastic productions ig

ok girlies do we have to have a talk about the difference between "fridging" and "death by origin story"

#mine

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rottenpeach2001 · 1 year ago

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Things I learned in WRI227 cont.- Lecture 5

Hello again people of Tumblr,

Today I will continue the lessons I learned from my social media and content creation class. Today’s topic will include themes of venture labour, SEZs, Foxconn and hustle culture

Venture labour is essentially allows companies to exploit people, especially women and minorities.

Venture labour refers to unpaid or uncompensated work that individuals often times women and people from marginalized communities, contribute to tech companies and other entrepreneurial endeavours. Such examples can be unpaid internships, volunteer work, equity compensations, and even emotional labour. In an article called “ The Unwanted Labour of Social Media: Women of Colour Call Out Culture as Venture Community Management”, Nakamura states that social media platforms can generate profits from the labour of volunteer community managers from their efforts to moderate hate speech and are often punished for the efforts form the online community. This labour is uncompensated in wages, and often employ other forms of currencies such as like, followers and sometimes praise by the industry. Other examples of venture labour, as I touched upon earlier, is the emotional labour. Communicating to the public and educating people about social justice issues, racism, homophobia and sexism are often overlooked forms of labour and are difficult and often times under appreciated.

2. Foxconn and its exploitation of workers in China.

Did you know that Foxconn is one of the biggest manufacturers of electronic parts and products, which supplies to various tech companies like Apple, Microsoft, and Sony. It’s well know for assembling products such as IPads, IPhones and other consumer electronics. In 2010, 18 assembly line workers attempted suicide, which was a tragically desperate plea for the improving the working conditions of the factories (Trusolino,2023).Workers of Foxconn face low wages, long working hours and excessive overtime.Reports have cited concerns of labour practices such as the need to make example of somebody for everybody else when a a manager has decided that someone makes a costly mistake. This practice is easy to perpetuate as American manufacturers take advantage of low wages, flexible labour laws and minimal worker rights in countries such as China, SouthEast Asia and Haiti (Trusolino,2023).

3. We do free labour for social platforms which extends to our data being unknowingly sold.

Have you ever gotten an ads that was so specific and something you might have just searched up recently? Welcome to the world of targeted ads. We assume that social media and other websites are free but in returns we pay it with our privacy. Companies like Facebook claim that they give access to user data if companies are Facebook partners, hence it’s not “sharing”. However, the Vice President of Advertising of Facebook claimed that they didn’t sell people’s data or share personal information. While targeted ads are not inherently bad, it can spiral into an algorithm that can push for content towards the user in order to dictate what they can view and consume as media (Trusolino,2023).

4. Growing Globalization leads to Special Economic Zones (SEZs).

Globalization causes people to more interconnected in this era and this means that there is more interest in exploring and exploiting new markets (Trusolino,2023). The proliferation of SEZ is established through the diversification of economies and more . SEZ encourage the diversity by attraction of industries that can go beyond the traditional sectors (Narula and Zhan,2019) . This diversification can then reduce the country’s reliance on a few industries within their homeland and can contribute to the economic stability.

5. Silicon Valley gave rise to hustle culture.

Silicon Valley and hustle culture are closely related in the sphere of the tech and start up companies. Silicon Valley is prominent for it being the hot spot for innovation. Hustle culture refers to the culture of hustling to make an income and balancing multiple gigs (Trusolino,2023). The competitive nature of the tech industry gave rise to constantly working and prioritizing achievement and even promoted high intensity and the fast paced lifestyle. Silicon Valley also has placed an importance in ambitious goals and most importantly yielding success from such goals . This mindset can cultivate a sense of urgency and determination to excel, which often can cause the neglect of other areas of their life. However, the glamorizations of hustle culture fails to mention the magnitude of stress and uncertain futures of the people involved.

Sources:

Narula, R., & Zhan, J. X. (2019). Using special economic zones to facilitate development: Policy implications. Transnational Corporations, 26(2), 1–26.

Trusolino, M (2023). Lecture 5: Political Economy of Social Media: The consumer and Free Labour(Class Slides)

Nakamura, L. (2015). The Unwanted Labour of Social Media: Women of Colour Call out Culture As Venture Community Management. New Formations: A Journal of Culture/Theory/Politics, 86(1), 106–112.

‌

#silicon valley #hustle culture #SZE #foxconn

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genderisareligion · 2 years ago

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How long do you think this trans nonsense is going to last? Do you think people, especially women, will eventually realise how sexist, homophobic and racist trans ideology is? Or do you think society is just going to keep regressing? I had a discussion - not even an argument - with a girl recently about it all, she has a brother that calls himself a woman, and she cried when I said that I thought we should be abolishing gender stereotypes. I thought I was pretty moderate, I said that I think people should be able to dress and act however they like, but it just doesn't mean that men can claim and appropriate womanhood. She cried and called me a transphobe, and then stormed out when I said that it's inherently misogynistic. Most of my friends, both men and women, agree with me, but said that I shouldn't have brought it up. Which I think is just shit - so women are just meant to lie back and accept the erosion of our rights? This issue is occupying so much real estate in my mind, I'm constantly thinking about how absurd it is and I'm constantly angry. How long do you think I'm gonna have to be angry for?

I can’t say for certain how much longer it will be, but I can recall what ten years ago was like, so maybe things will have changed that drastically in another ten.

2012 Tumblr was peak what’s good about liberal feminism. It’s not all garbage it is still feminism after all. Consent was a huge conversation, used to see posts about male rape culture in the tens of thousands of notes, it was cool and on trend to call out “I’m not like other girls I don’t need feminism,” sexism in the workplace was being addressed. My in progress tag #notes is in part meant to capture what female solidarity used to look like on the site

because it’s taken a massive fucking nose dive and I’m trying to figure out where we went wrong. Going through archives of radblr blogs around 2015-16 is when I start noticing more of the trans/TERF conversion happening, although it always was just on a much smaller scale using different words. “Lesbians who don’t like dick” and sex industry critical women have always been attacked for one reason or another iirc they just used to call us “radscum” and other nondescript shit before landing on these handy -ERF acronyms

The thing is 2012 Tumblr was also peak Superwholock Fujoshi time and “supporting the gays” (voyeuristically living vicariously through them) was more on trend than liberal feminism. The two were seemingly in unison at the time but were going to be at odds inevitably. Mostly straight and male-pref bi women (with a sprinkle of closeted lesbians) coping with IRL men’s increasingly sadistic view of women by fantasizing about safe love between fictional men on an obsessive level. Fandoms and thus show creators going out of their way to avoid F/F slash and instead feeding the monster that is M/M until Tumblrinas felt like just “supporting” them wasn’t enough and they had to skinwalk lol and shame one type of SSA while worshipping another

Iirc by 2016 gay marriage in the US (where most of these people live) had been “won” and queer MOGAI was the shiniest newest trend thanks to a number of influences (Caitlyn Jenner and LaVerne Cox come to mind but it was definitely more than just them). Liberal feminism is capitalistic at the end of the day and the powers that be saw “queering gender” for the cash cow it’s ended up being and the powers were probably terrified that in the early 2010s under popular lib feminism hundreds of thousands of girls and women were openly in agreement online that male violence was the problem. Now it’s “gendered violence” and you can never tell who’s a male and no one can call a spade in a dress a spade

It’s inconceivable to me to cry about the idea of gender abolition like your friend did anon…..makes me like sad how convicted so many women are about this. But I’m also not surprised and don’t blame them all because anti feminist males will stop at nothing. The TERF wars are so fundamentally ridiculous like the topic is a distraction about something that’s not even real yet they’ve made it seem so real and threatening by using their male privilege to instill fear and angry infighting.

I would advise you to not let this shit take up too much real estate in your mind. As someone who sort of watched it all start or at least get this bad I try to remember when I wasn’t censoring my language this much and when misandry was a fun meme on here. Also try to keep in mind how many times the queer theorists change their mind on what language is appropriate for who and when. I will never forget how quickly writing trans* with an asterisk or transwoman with no space became crimes when before you’d get lynched for not doing it. Imo things that change that often have no foundation or could change into something unrecognizable someday. Hopefully whatever follows gender is better than this shit. Hang in there 🖤

#shadow.txt #ask.txt

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my-mt-heart · 3 years ago

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If we leave the gossipy nature of the topic aside, what bothers me is the inherent sexism of the rumor. Classic 'two women fight over a guy' trope. Why is it being framed like that? Who has something to gain from it? Rumors like this are always malicious, so the point of origin is someone with an agenda (even if it's just to throw shit at either woman). If you're not part of the conversation and don't know its context, how do you judge what's going on?

I know it's juicy and we're trying to piece together what happened to the show we were promised, so we're latching onto everything, but it feel like this particular argument is just shifting focus and blame onto another woman. She could feel whatever way about things, but she wasn't on set and she doesn't have a personal relationship with anyone in power at AMC.

The network has had a massive turnover of executives in the past year and I know a lot of people here seem to think that Norman can just roll up and demand things, but unless he's negotiating a new contract, he doesn't have the ability to make the network just give him shiny things because his partner wants them. That's not how it works.

Remember how MT keeps saying personal relationships is the lifeblood of the industry? Changing shooting locations or firing other talent aren't small asks to make and he doesn't have any leverage because he's under contract. It's a big sack of change for AMC to just toss away and it would affect Norman's professional reputation because word would get around.

There's only one person who'd be inclined to be that type of genie in a bottle and he does have his own reasons for wanting to change the spinoff. Occam's razor: with competing theories or explanations, the simpler one (with fewer parameters) is the most likely one.

[Don't know if you want me to leave all this well enough alone because I hear you on the not being a gossip column. The absolute need to find a woman to blame for this mess just bugs me.]

#caryl #caryl spinoff #daryl and carol #melissa mcbride #darylneedscarol

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soul-dwelling · 1 year ago

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Long response ahead, as I agree with a lot of the remarks in the original post.

But I want to point out also how the Soul Eater anime would not have succeeded in its art style without the "skull face" designs and Ouran High School Host Club--two such wildly different design choices that helped make just about any character in Soul Eater look cute (Maka, Soul, Black Star, Kid, even Excalibur) or look horrific and bloodthirsty (Tsubaki, Patty).

And I want to point to some other examples, both in anime and manga as they stand right now with being way too hesitant to get away from certain visual cliches in making girl characters "cute," and in Ohkubo's inconsistent art style (I count at least five different styles, from B Ichi to the present).

Spoilers for Fire Force and a number of other series (My Hero Academia).

Let me start with my own thoughts before actually responding to specific passages by the original post:

My own thoughts / rambling

Speaking as a cisgender man, I think there is no winning at this: a girl is drawn one way, and she’s not cute enough; she’s drawn another way, she’s still cute; she’s drawn another way, now some jackass claims she’s not feminine enough; she gets beaten up and scuffed up, that’s still not beaten up and scuffed up enough because now you’re letting her off easy because she’s a girl; she gets eviscerated and beaten and even disabled in combat, now it’s almost misogynistic or a double standard because the boys are not so brutalized.

Blame it on toxic masculinity as well as the toxicity inherent in systems that refuse to combat the worst parts of patriarchy. I’m really wanting to give credit to Ohkubo and staff at Studio BONES--while at the same time I am excoriating them, mostly Ohkubo, for just some of the most misogynistic shit in his creations--because they managed (in Ohkubo’s case, despite himself) to make an art style in the anime that avoided a lot of the pitfalls already inherent in an anime industry that, as I just said, is within some really toxic economic and cultural systems.

But given that it is Ohkubo who fucked up on a lot of this, I tend to give more of the credit to the staff at Studio BONES for making Soul Eater successful, because I think without that anime, the manga would have squandered a lot of that good will.

I don’t know how many times I have said on this blog that Studio BONES was able to make a definitive look to Soul Eater that exceeds any of the many styles Ohkubo tried with the Soul Eater manga and just couldn’t stick to.

BONES was able to succeed for at least two reasons: the skull faces, and the Ouran High School Host Club influence, whereby this series had the goal of making just about any character have the potential of reaching either pole along the cute-horrific binary. What do I mean by that? The skull faces meant this series could make any character as horrific and frightening as it wanted, and the Ouran influence meant it could make any character as adorable, charming, and huggable as it wanted.

Soul Eater, as an anime, got to be violent. It was allowed to make its characters frightening--not just a Kishin or a mummy or a werewolf but even sweethearts like Tsubaki, who is ready to murder her brother, or Patty, who can alternate between gleefully childish and crazed homicidal. Some of that owes to how BONES was able to physically wreck all of the characters, regardless of gender, and make them just look awful, whether bleeding, broken, bruised, sliced apart, crying their eyes out, sobbing (like Maka losing it with ugly tears when Crona was stabbed), screaming in utter agony (like when Asura crushed Maka’s ribs in the final).

As a result, the anime avoided some accusations of sexism or misogyny or privilege (some, not all--you can’t have this series as it was, especially with its fanservice problems, and act like there was zero sexism or misogyny involved). It didn’t matter how adorable Maka was or that she was the protagonist, she also was murderous and in danger at any time, and her physical appearance would not be saved by the story alone. Look at the scraps and bandages she still had after the Kishin Revival or when Black Star knocked her into the trash bin. Granted, maybe that “cute factor” stayed in place ("Maka looks adorable even when bruised and bandaged")--but you could make the same argument that even when Spirit, Soul, Black Star, Kid, and others were bruised and scraped they still looked “cute” while they were recovering.

And that’s the flipside of all of this: that also meant the artstyle could make just about any character look cute. It is now not just Maka or even other girls who get to look cute, now Spirit, Soul, Black Star, Kid, and so on all get to look adorable and soft and huggable. If Ouran High School Host Club didn’t exist, I’m not sure Studio BONES could have pulled this off with Maka, Soul, and the others, that they all have the potential to be adorable and soft and cuddly until the scene demanded that they now lean into the Lovecraftian / David Lynch / Tim Burton / Henry Selick horror.

Hell, this series managed to take Excalibur, who in the manga is still rather stiff and oddly proportioned, and make him look cuddly and plushie-like despite his obnoxious personality, thereby making the joke work better: now not only does he look weird and hence not likely to be a legitimate threat, but now he also looks cuddly, so when he says the most obnoxious things they come off as even more hilarious.

And now, to finally address some points made in the original post:

Quoting from the original post: “Like you know what I mean - like these weird idol anime with overly glossy eyes and shroedingers "is it supposed to be cute and childish or sexualised* tone (maybe I'm spoiling to much the iceberg and my negative opinion of SE Not...)”:

Yeah, as I said, the Soul Eater anime benefited from being able to position characters along two poles--the horrific and the cutesy--and shift a character’s design where it needed to be depending on the scene. It’s probably nowhere nearly as subversive as, say, Madoka Magica, where the cute designs are there in order to contrast with how horrific the story will go.

And as I said, there is no winning with a lot of the content out there right now that is being read within economic and cultural systems that privilege what the patriarchy wants with regard to making girls and women look and act certain ways. Look at My Hero Academia: is Mirko’s body ripped apart because her behavior and appearance aren’t cute enough and the fixation on her muscular body means that she has to have her limbs ripped off, does Toga’s cute design contrasting with her simultaneously horror-inspired design mean she is doomed because she can’t fit into some visual mode (similar to how she can’t fit into society anyway), and is Midnight killed off because of the Madonna-whore binary?

It’s even a persistent problem in a lot of works, including in anime and manga, that, while I don’t think are sexist and show far more variety in roles for girls and women, still play it too safe with designs for girls and women and keep wanting those designs to be cute or at least not what would be deemed “realistic” or even “ugly.” I’ll give some examples below:

I saw a manga that was about women in kick-boxing--and you can tell who the main protagonist is because she’s given a very cute design without any cuts or bruises, while her opponents are drawn to be more grotesque. Come on, even Hajime No Ippo gave the main men protagonists some “unattractive” physical features--they are kickboxers, ugly them up a bit!

I love Akane-banashi and Blue Box, but both series are too same-y in some faces and body types for girls and women.

I love the girls and women’s facial expressions in Show-ha Shoten and how “ugly” those facial expressions get, and I love how there is variation in body types, including in weight and height--but I think they could have leaned more into such variations among the girls and women given how much more varied the boys and men are in the series.

For every Buddy Daddies that has some variety in women’s character designs and experiences, there is a Spy x Family that has the attractive designs for the sake of contrasting the characters’ jobs and personalities, or lean way too much into “this person is old and not that attractive, therefore she is a real jerk to our main characters, and that old woman is a real shrew to her husband” (seriously, Spy x Family, a boring and offensive “shrewish nagging wife” archetype?), an overly simplistic conflation that says your outside matches your inside, which is just not as interesting as “hey, this person is not gorgeous but they are a good person and they are loved and have romance in their life in a committed relationship with a partner.”

Quoting from the original post: "But I dunno, even beyond my own paranoai of if a piece of media is supposed to appeal to a certain "demographic", I just think there is something lost in manga Maka, especially compared to her earlier charachterization and the animes continuation of it."

I look at the two images the original post shares, of Maka’s determination in the anime’s final arc to defy orders and to hunt down Crona and Marie, and of Maka’s blushing and insistence in the manga that she wants to be called angel. I get upset imagining how Studio BONES could have adapted that manga moment into the anime--because we already saw they can make Maka blush and make it look cute while still keeping with their style, with her personality, and with her integrity (when she blushes at the others making fun of her for writing poetry)...

[ID: From the first Soul Eater anime, Episode 31, Maka's face is completely red in embarrassment as she bows her chin down and looks behind her at Liz and Patty, their backs to the viewer. In front of Maka are Black Star, his hand on the back of his head and his arms up, and Soul, his chin up and his hands in his jacket's pockets. All of them are standing in the DWMA hallway during daytime. End of ID]

And that was animation adapted from part of the manga, that had an artstyle at that point not too dissimilar to the moment the original post showed. (Maka blushing about her poetry was before Baba Yaga, Maka blushing about “angel” is post-Baba Yaga, so, not quite the same art style, distinct enough art styles, but one was subsequent to the other, so they are more similar than, say, B Ichi is to Fire Force.)

Quoting from the original post: "I think the last time where you really saw it in the manga was around the Arachne madness chapter where she confidently just stretched out her arm to Soul. Idk. People will probably think that I mean "wow, you want Maka to be some fearless badass!!?" and nah, I dunno, maybe Im just fighting phantoms, but I dunno I think there is something there, mayb even something my own stupid story failed to capture, but that what made the whole "bravery" thing at the end work."

Maka looked the most Studio BONES “skull face” in the manga at that point when she reached her hand out to Soul--a reason why the Baba Yaga period of the manga is probably my favorite in terms of Ohkubo’s art style.

And speaking about Ohkubo’s art style: I think we have to talk about how his art style kept shifting so much, and how it makes it hard to get a read on how Maka quote-unquote “should” look in adaptation. And that means also having to talk about his art style into the present, including with Fire Force.

If I may spoil Fire Force, this is also why the twist at the end of that series doesn’t work: the visual style and character designs in the last chapters of Fire Force are changed to more closely resemble Ohkubo’s style in Soul Eater…except it doesn’t, for two reasons.

First, Ohkubo’s style never stayed the same across Soul Eater and Soul Eater NOT.

There are at least five different styles in the Soul Eater manga:

The post-B Ichi style for the three-chapter prologue and the initial chapters.

The change around the Kishin Revival Arc that lasted to the end of the Baba Yaga Arc, and which is probably the manga art style I most prefer.

The post-Baba Yaga style that lasts through the Book of Eibon Arc.

Then his style changed again around Soul Eater NOT, and that style stuck with both Soul Eater and NOT until their conclusions. And that final art style is pretty much how Fire Force looked throughout.

But then Ohkubo again changed his style, mostly for social media artwork of Maka and company, and covers for the Perfect Edition of Soul Eater.

So, at least five styles: post-B Ichi, Baba Yaga, post-Baba Yaga, NOT/final arc/Fire Force, and Perfect Edition/social media.

And when the stuff in Fire Force looks more similar to mid- to late-Soul Eater, that means the prequel joke doesn’t work: Fire Force doesn’t end suddenly looking like the first chapters of Soul Eater, if anything the style at the end of Fire Force is more similar to the post-Baba Yaga style. Little Maka at the end of Fire Force should look like post-B Ichi Maka, with the same more Cabbage Patch Doll babyface proportions--that is the joke, and Ohkubo couldn't even commit to the bit to make this look more like Soul Eater Chapter 0 instead of how he draws Maka and company right now.

So, that’s the first reason the twist doesn’t work.

The second reason the twist doesn’t work is the connection between Kid and Shinra. Again, Ohkubo’s art style shifted so much that it wasn’t until he started doing the Perfect Edition covers and more art on social media that Kid and Shinra looked at all similar--and they still don’t look similar to me, no more so than just about any of his characters look similar because that is his style. It’s why the in-story claim that Lord Death based Kid’s face off of Shinra’s doesn’t hold for me: I can’t see that, if only because Ohkubo’s style of drawing has shifted so much that pinning it down to any one style fails to make Kid as he appeared throughout most of Soul Eater to look similar to Shinra throughout most of Fire Force.

At least when I can joke that Mana, Patty, and Iris all look alike, it’s by associative property: Patty’s cowboy outfit is based on an outfit Mana wore in B Ichi, then Iris kind of looks similar to Patty, so even though Mana and Iris don’t look at all alike, they both look similar to Patty because Patty’s art style shifted so much during Ohkubo’s run.

So, that’s about all I have to say in response right now.

Anime Maka vs Manga Maka

Is there anything more to say?

But nah, I know I will be accused of cherry picking, and yeah I know there are many manga moments that show Maka being more simmilar to the Anime Gif in demeanor, but I dunno, I think the point still stands:

I think it's another reason where the manga falters in my opinion, people dont often discuss it, but to me it just seems Maka is reduced to this weird "uwu kawaii" thing (lol dont even how to call it without ruffing too many feathers) - and people will try to respond "Well shenis cutesy in the anime too!" , and I think thats the point: cute vs "kawaii" - yeah its a weird way of describing it, but its the best dichothomie I can come up with - the first is not creepy, like seeing your kids find a new bug and excitedly showing it to you like its the biggest discovery in the world, get what I mean?

While "kawaii" is one reason why I dont really consider myselfs an "anime and manga fan" in general (yeah Im full of contradictions dont gotta tell me lol, but maybe thats why its post anime...not...)

Like you know what I mean - like these weird idol anime with overly glossy eyes and shroedingers "is it supposed to be cute and childish or sexualised* tone (maybe I'm spoiling to much the iceberg and my negative opinion of SE Not...)

Like its not even me trying to say "Oh I hate all cutesy stuff", nah I genuinely like the Maka Crona moments for that fact, but ,I atleast I hop,e there are different from the standard anime thing which has those creepy undertones like all these "uwu senpai wants to sleep in the same bed with me??!" like you know these scenes arent written for girls of the depicted ages but for and by 40 year old greassy guys with guilty consiousnesses...

But I dunno, even beyond my own paranoai of if a piece of media is supposed to appeal to a certain "demographic", I just think there is something lost in manga Maka, especially compared to her earlier charachterization and the animes continuation of it.

I think the last time where you really saw it in the manga was around the Arachne madness chapter where she confidently just stretched out her arm to Soul. Idk. People will probably think that I mean "wow, you want Maka to be some fearless badass!!?" and nah, I dunno, maybe Im just fighting phantoms, but I dunno I think there is something there, mayb even something my own stupid story failed to capture, but that what made the whole "bravery" thing at the end work.

But maybe the iceberg will explain it all...

#long post #art style #studio bones #spoiler #spoilers #fire force spoiler #fire force spoilers #mha spoiler #mha spoilers

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shinjaeha · 4 years ago

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ipytm ep 2 (thoughts + spoilers)

i’ve been trying my hardest to forget about iptym during the week so the countdown to each new ep won’t feel as long, but i don’t think i’ve succeeded. with each new ep i feel more and more nervous and excited bc i know the conflict and angst is only going to keep ramping up as the series goes on (and this ep was a good indication of that...not FULL BLOWN angst yet, but the undercurrent of angst is slowly starting to come to the surface). i’m def more prepared for it than i was during itsay, but that doesn’t make it easy ;;;

the standard ‘this is not a proper analysis’ here...i’m completely aware that this post in particular is really messy, but i just had a lot of mixed feelings and thoughts with this ep. one day i will learn how to condense my thoughts better, but today is not that day so i’m doing this under a read more for once bc it’s embarrassingly long 😂

we start off with teh in acting class where his teacher is explaining how you need to be able to understand yourself before you’re able to understand other people (and therefore put yourself in the shoes of the character you’re playing)...which even before i knew where this ep was going to go felt a lot like foreshadowing for the events that were going to unfold in this ep.

the acting exercises are basically a lot like the ones that we see bkpp (and the rest of the cast) having to do as part of their workshops in the documentary eps, so it’s kind of cool to see them incorporate parts of that into the actual show itself. feels more authentic since, if you’ve watched the documentary eps, you know that this is actually what the actors have to go through when they’re learning to let themselves go and get into character.

so through this montage of all of teh’s classes, we get to see how much he’s enjoying learning more and more about his major. it’s truly his passion, and he’s finally in his element. and it’s great that he’s surrounded by so many seniors that are also as driven and passionate about performing as he is...i find it interesting how teh, even from the start, has always been most attracted to people that have the same sense of ambitiousness as he does. in itsay, his best friend (aside from oh-aew obv) was tarn, who had a very similar mindset as him. so here, it’s not really that much of a surprise that all his uni friends are basically the drama club seniors that he sees as role models. oh-aew is kind of that one outlier bc he doesn’t fit that same mould/personality type that teh tends to surround himself with, which is where you can already start to see the discord between them arising. in itsay, bc oh-aew was working towards the same end goal as teh at the time, it wasn’t as much of a conflict. but in ipytm we can see that their paths are starting to diverge more and more. that being said, oh-aew’s someone that teh truly needs in his life bc he offers a different perspective to most of teh’s other friends, and as we can see later on, teh REALLY needs that.

now THIS was one of the interactions i was really interested in. we already knew from the ep 2 teaser that teh isn’t exactly happy with oh-aew’s new friend group, so i’ve been waiting to see how teh acts when he’s around them. everyone’s at q’s house celebrating plug’s birthday, and honestly?? they’re all really sweet and accommodating of teh (they get him sweet drinks bc teh tells them that he doesn’t drink bc it’s too bitter, and they don’t pressure him when he says he can’t drink bc he’s got morning classes). but then the conversation turns to teh and oh-aew becoming actors and earning lots of money (and how convenient that is), and teh starts to get a little riled up. i don’t think they mean anything by what they’re saying (they’re just playing around), but we know that teh's sensitive to this sort of thing, and i think to him, it’s almost like they’re saying it’s ‘easy’ to become an actor and start making bank. teh, who already knows how hard it is (esp since he’s been watching how difficult it’s been for khim in particular), starts getting defensive about it. the focus being on money hits a nerve with him too bc teh is very clearly majoring in comm arts bc it’s his dream, not bc of the money he could make from it. teh and oh-aew’s gang are just on different wavelengths, and you can really start to see how teh’s having trouble bonding with oh-aew’s gang bc of their differing mindsets.

it makes me slightly sad that you can see how worried oh-aew is about teh and his friends not meshing. it’s like we, the audience, are all feeling what oh-aew is feeling...his nervous glances at teh bc he’s afraid that teh might not like them. and the discomfort on teh’s part too. all of oh-aew friends tend to be a lot more like him, relaxed and happy to go with the flow, but we know that teh can be pretty rigid and intense about the things that he’s passionate about. oh-aew recognises this, which is why he’s as anxious as he is in the first place.

oh-aew’s tea tattoo in honour of teh is actually so sweet 😭 it shows how much teh means to him. he really got a permanent mark on his body to symbolise his love for his boyfriend ;;; but from teh’s perspective, it’s literally that first mark of change. it IS a pretty big decision, so i don’t blame teh for being shocked about it, but teh likely sees this as oh-aew’s friends being a ‘bad’ influence on him (which we know gets brought up again later). not bc of the tattoo itself, but bc of what it represents. it’s like he’s watching oh-aew start to change before his very eyes and he doesn’t know how to deal with that so he brushes it away for now.

the framing of that shot where teh and oh-aew are facing each other and then q comes to walk in between them is A LOT like how they used to frame the both of them in itsay and having bas walk in between them. interesting.

HOW MUCH DO I LOVE THE FACT THAT OH-AEW SPEAKS CHINESE WHEN HE’S DRUNK...that’s just plain adorable :’) it’s like he’s reverting back to when teh was teaching him chinese and they were first falling in love again. teh’s method of getting close to him was always tutoring oh-aew in chinese, so it’s as though oh-aew is trying to feel closer to teh again by speaking chinese to him. sort of like he’s trying to recreate that feeling all over again. i also love that this is basically the opposite of that oppo short film ad bkpp did haha.

we got the “ke yi ma” “ke yi” again ;;;;;;;; i love their little domestic moments. they’re so soft when they’re like this (i know we’re gonna have to weather the angst, but i hope we still have a lot more fluffy moments like this too pls). side note, i really love the lighting in these scenes!!

when oh-aew reads teh’s note about the kimchi jjigae and smiles but then reads the “do not skip class” and his smile fades away...oh, oh-aew, i feel u.

so now we get to see oh-aew in acting class, and the difference between oh-aew’s feelings towards class and teh’s feelings are like night and day. teh’s classes make him feel so fulfilled...this is genuinely something that he wants to do. but oh-aew is struggling. he doesn’t have that same sense of purpose as teh bc he’s starting to realise that this might not be what he really wants...he’s trying but just not enjoying it at all. when teh tells him about the casting call, i feel so much dread for him bc he’s clearly not looking forward to it whatsoever, but he knows how much this means to teh...so he’s willing to ignore his feelings for now if teh’s happy :(

is it just me or was this when oh-aew stopped carrying his ‘heart attack’ bag too??

idk this struggle in particular just feels so personal to me. i really identify with oh-aew when it comes to this bc when i was at uni i changed my major like 3-4 times (and changed unis a bunch of times on top of that) bc i had NO IDEA what i wanted to do. even now, i still have no clue what i’m doing a lot of the time. i’m glad that oh-aew at least managed to find some sort of clarity when he dropped in on his friends’ advertising class and realised that this was something that he enjoyed and was good at :’)

teh’s so excited and focussed on this audition that he can’t even see how worried and reluctant that oh-aew is about this. he wants them to have the same dream so bad that he can’t see that this might not be oh-aew’s dream anymore. but anyway, oh-aew is the sweetest, best boy as always. he’s so, so encouraging with teh. so patient. he really such a great balance to teh’s more volatile nature...but that contrast is also what makes you feel so bad for him when teh lashes out at him without thinking (as he’s prone to doing).

i LOVE khim. i just have so much respect for her. she’s always trying her hardest, and it’s painful to see her give so much of herself yet constantly be knocked down. the resilience that takes. i know that that’s part of the industry she’s in, but that doesn’t make it any easier to watch. there’s a lot to be said about how harsh the entertainment industry can be (and the inherent ageism/sexism/homophobia within it), which i don’t have the time to go into here, but having to hear criticism like that...purely based on your looks (you don’t look smart enough, young enough, manly enough, etc.) is so incredibly disheartening. teh commenting on how harsh it is, and khim saying that it’s super common and telling the both of them how they’re gonna have to go through all of that the more casting calls they go to...OF COURSE oh-aew is only going to feel even more dispirited about this when he’s already realising that this might not be his thing anymore.

being able to take rejection and criticism is really fucking difficult (i know i could never do it)...and seeing oh-aew being told that he’s not ‘manly’ enough/too ‘girly’ in acting class and again at the casting call is yet another knock at his confidence. the way you physically see oh-aew get more flustered and anxious as the audition goes on, when he sees the crew shaking their heads at him :((( i feel all the nervousness, anxiety and embarrassment that he’s feeling right down to my very bones. then to walk out from that audition to khim talking about how damn hard it is to keep doing this time and time again only to be continually rejected?? my poor boy :( what’s fascinating to me is how differently the both of them interpret khim’s speech. teh latches on to her words and sees them as motivation to keep going...to keep trying and persevering. like a challenge. but to oh-aew, he just sees the difficulty and rejection. the instability of this career path, and how hard this could potentially be on his family as well. they’re both hearing completely different things.

teh being so happy about his audition even though he didn’t get the part and the way he turns around to face oh-aew directly when oh-aew tells him they said he was “too girly” and how he couldn’t change his personality to be what they wanted :((( pls. i just want to hug him so bad. teh’s “i like you the way you are now” and reassurance that so many other people do too 😭i know he kind of makes a mess of himself later on, but i’m still so glad that oh-aew got to hear that from him at least.

this show is the best at making you feel all that nervousness and anxiety when any of the characters are about to drop some big news. i was waiting with bated breath when oh-aew told teh he wanted to transfer majors. it makes me sad though that oh-aew has to constantly feel like he’s walking on eggshells when it comes to teh...he’s always most worried about teh’s reaction, and that’s prob the main reason why he didn’t opt out of comm arts even earlier. but oh-aew has all these mounting doubts about his major, and there’s only so long he can stick it out for teh’s sake, and the casting call (and khim’s words) really solidified that for him.

teh’s "you haven’t given it your all”/”you haven’t done your best” rubs me the wrong way bc it’s easy to think that way when you’re set on something and know that that’s what you want to do...but when you’re doubting/not sure about something, it just isn’t the same thing. we all have different thresholds when it comes to what we can endure and how much we can put into something. teh’s a hard worker, we’ve seen how dedicated he can be when he really wants something, but not everyone works like this. not everyone can be a teh or a khim. and esp not when they’re having to give their all to something that doesn’t feel right for them. and oh-aew’s right...sometimes once is enough to know that something’s not a fit for you.

when oh-aew mentions that he sat in on advertising class and thinks he might be into it, it’s like a parallel of that scene when they’re kids and oh-aew told teh that he wanted to become an actor like him. only now it’s the opposite. teh’s had this plan in his head that he and oh-aew are going to reach their dream of becoming actors and the lead protagonists in a movie/series together for so long now that it’s hard for him to reconcile that oh-aew might no longer want this as much as he does anymore. it’s like he can see this ultimate goal of his crumbling. so just hearing that it’s bc of q and the rest of the gang’s ‘influence’ that oh-aew sat in on their advertising class in the first place (and this triggered his interest in advertising) is like strike two for teh vs. oh-aew’s friends.

i’ve def mentioned this before, but oh-aew has always been the more pragmatic of the two, whilst teh is more idealistic, so i understand why he would gravitate towards something that was more stable of a career for him. more of a guarantee. he knows that advertising/marketing suits him better (not to mention that he’s always had the resort as his safety to fall back on too), and it’s something that he’s discovering he actually enjoys more in general too.

when i first watched this, i was like “oh wow teh’s matured so much!!” bc he didn’t blow up at oh-aew during this scene...that kind of ended up backfiring on me towards the end, but at the same time, i do think there’s a certain level of growth there since he does end up trying to reassure oh-aew (even if the blow up still occurs later on). it’s a process though...and even baby steps are progress.

8 months later and teh’s walking past that same place he and oh-aew walked by during his first night in bangkok...only now the poster is no longer the same red one. it’s blue... as though it’s signifying that this is just teh’s dream alone now, and teh clearly still hasn’t come to terms with that yet.

i’m really happy seeing oh-aew in a much better place now!! it’s so good to see him happy and actually involved in uni with his friends. but watching teh struggle going through casting calls and rejections makes my heart ache. hearing khim’s experience with auditions, and actually having to experience it irl, are two entirely different things. it’s like the reality of the situation is starting to hit in for teh. and that, on top of oh-aew not being there to support him in the same way bc their goals in life aren’t similarly aligned anymore, is starting to take its toll.

god, when teh lined oh-aew and was waiting for his response i was like nooooo don’t do it DON’T DO IT only for him to open ig to check oh-aew’s story 😭(though it IS cute that they have couple pfps). but we’re regressing. and now that they have different social circles it’s even harder to connect than before. teh feels like oh-aew’s being pulled away from him, into another friend group that doesn’t include him...and his insecurities are bubbling to the surface again. teh’s always needed that reassurance that he’s ‘special’ to oh-aew. clearly, we know that he is...but even now that they’re dating, it’s still something that he questions. and esp now that oh-aew is starting to feel like he’s fading further and further away out of reach.

i love seeing all of teh’s friends encourage him. they all understand how tough it is, and to see them all pull together to lift his spirits again is so lovely. but then his mood completely changes again when oh-aew comes to join them for dinner :( teh’s doing that thing again where he says everything’s fine when everything’s not fine (cue that “they ask you how you are and you just have to say you’re fine when you’re not really fine” meme). the flash to teh’s face when top says that he didn’t pass the exam to get into anantasart, and you know he’s just thinking about how he gave up his spot for oh-aew initially, and now that oh-aew’s transferred, it’s kind of like he’s turned it down twice. oof.

when teh tells them all that oh-aew’s transferred to advertising, it’s as though this is his way of trying to separate both his worlds. like oh-aew doesn’t belong here with his drama club friends, and it’s that pettiness that we got from teh in itsay is back in full force all over again. it reminds me so much of that time oh-aew told the itsay gang that he was a virgin, and so teh told his friends at school that he was a virgin too. or when oh-aew sent him that picture of his and bas’ legs touching, so teh retaliated by putting that pic of tarn on his story and leaning in to kiss her. it’s like he always needs to one up oh-aew. he doesn’t want oh-aew to feel the same bond with his drama club friends that teh has (esp when he sees that oh-aew is so close to his uni friends). where oh-aew was anxious about teh and his uni friends not getting on, teh is anxious that oh-aew and his drama club friends will get on too well so he has to create this distinction between them. kind of like his petty attempt to be all “i have my own friends too!!”, but it’s also combined with that feeling of inadequacy that he might not fit into oh-aew’s life anymore. he might not be ‘special’. idk if that makes sense but basically i think that teh’s feeling a lot of conflicting things during this scene.

when he starts attacking oh-aew at dinner...that was really hard to watch. you ever feel like you want to reach through the screen and just put your hand over someone’s mouth so they stop talking?? it was rough :/ it’s one thing to fight when it’s just the two of you alone, but it’s another thing to tear your partner down right in front of your friends. i understand teh’s feelings (and i know that they’ve been building up over this time), but my frustration was through the ROOF during this. it’s on brand for him, but still. and then poor khim :( i know oh-aew didn’t mean it in that way but the awkwardness of this entire dinner was just overwhelming.

another thing that’s sad about what teh said about oh-aew is that this is a huge sore spot for oh-aew, and it’s always been one of his biggest insecurities. the reason they stopped being friends when they were kids was bc teh said that he was going to quit eventually, so for teh to talk about how “shilly shally and indecisive” he is/how easily he ‘quits’ at things is a low blow when he already knows how much those words hurt oh-aew.

teh has a habit of jumping to conclusions based on oh-aew’s social media posts instead of actually talking things out with oh-aew so naturally it would make an appearance again here as well. and calling oh-aew’s friends “shitty” bc they’re different to him (aren’t as driven as teh and his drama club gang...therefore a bad influence on oh-aew) makes it really evident that teh still has a lot to learn. he really needs to start taking those acting class lessons to heart so he can see that not everyone is the same, and that other peoples’ experiences and perspectives are valid too.

teh’s long pause and “maybe” to oh-aew’s “and if this is what i really am, you’re not gonna like me anymore, are you?” BIG SIGH. it’s so typical of teh. i know he’s honest to a fault, but he REALLY needs to learn to think before he speaks sometimes bc he always ends up regretting it. i love that impulsivity of his, but it’s also one of the most frustrating things about him.

one thing that i find kind of annoying with the time skip is that we miss so much of teh’s festering feelings that it’s a bit harder to empathise with him when he has his eventual blow up?? i think if we were seeing this more consistently, it would be much easier for us to understand things from his pov better. like if we could slowly see this building up more and more as time went on, rather than just time skipping the 8 months until the blow up.

anyway, now khim and top are graduating ;;; i really hope that we’ll still get to see more of them in the next eps. i also love how the people in teh’s life are always so concerned for him (and how oh-aew’s doing). the message behind the book teh gets for khim’s graduation present is really sweet.

when khim first tells them that she’s going to be a flight attendant and teh blows up, i felt really angry at him initially. but upon reflection and rewatching this ep again...i think i understand where he’s coming from a lot better now. obv i still think he was out of line bc of course what khim’s saying makes sense...she can’t keep going to casting calls and scraping by with minor roles when she has to support herself and her family. in the end, we all need money to survive, and sometimes we have to be realistic about it. i really loved what she said about how we can have multiple dreams at once. but yeah, my heart really went out for her so much here :( it might be difficult for teh to see (or accept) rn, but he’s a lot more privileged than he realises. he still has hoon and his mother to support him financially, but not everyone is in the same position. not everyone gets to be as lucky.

regardless, i still understand why teh gets as torn up about it as he does. khim is someone that he’s looked up to and respected SO much...and his own doubts and insecurities have been steadily increasing. first, oh-aew changes majors, then, he keeps getting rejected at auditions, and now, the senior that he respects the most bc of her hard work and determination, is giving up her dream (at least in his eyes) to become a flight attendant. it’s like the world keeps telling him to give up bc it’s not going to work out for him. and he’s invested EVERYTHING into this dream. it’s all or nothing for him. but it’s like everyone else is slipping away, and it’s getting harder and harder to hold onto.

when teh looks at the tie and is reminded of oh-aew always being there to put it on for him :(((((((( ngl i was hoping that teh would be the first one to approach oh-aew (since their fight was bc of him), but i’m glad he apologised at least. and that they had a good talk about their feelings. but then again, this reflection after their fights is what they’ve always been fairly good at. teh just has to learn to stop internalising things so much that he ends up exploding so they don’t get to this point in the first place. so much has flipped from the first ep where oh-aew was the one feeling lonely and out of place. now it’s teh’s turn to feel all alone as he sees everyone’s dreams and goals (but his) start to change. like everyone is moving on and learning to adjust while he’s being left behind.

when they’re promising each other that their love for one another will never change, it just makes me feel so SAD. seeing them in the moonlight like this compared to the first ep when they were on the beach in phuket and teh was so hopeful and oh-aew was so worried :( everything’s already changed so much. making this promise under the moon like this reminds me of how bkpp kept talking about how the ‘ipytm’ title itself means an impossible promise...the two of them hugging in the moonlight as the score plays just feels so painfully bittersweet somehow ;;; my heart is aching, and i want the next ep, but i can’t deny that my anxiety is slowly building.

anyway, i know the end of this sounds so negative but i’m still banking on our teh/oh-aew endgame!!!!!!! it just needs to get worse to get better, and there’s still so much space for them to grow and learn. so many more experiences in store for them.

#i promised you the moon #ipytm #text #i'm sorry this is so long and that it took so long #if you read this whole thing you deserve some type of medal bc idk HOW it got to this point #if only i was able to be this dedicated to my assessments back when i was studying #i was mad with teh during the first watch but that simmered down a whole lot during the second watch #i think it's just hurts me to see him keep shooting himself in the foot #but i know that you mature through your experiences and the way he acts in this is still so consistent with his character #just...can he not hurt oh-aew like this. i just don't want to see him sad anymore pls stop making him sad #ok i'm going to sleep now peace out and until next week where hopefully there'll be some structure to my thoughts for once

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