#let's just say the job is fun

[starrysharks]

winter assassin outfit

[vaguely-concerned]

lucanis truly has a near terminal case of burned out golden child syndrome. caterina fucked both of these kids over so incredibly bad with the dynamic she enforced there, with illario being labled the perpetual fuckup kid where lucanis 'could do no (would never be allowed to do) wrong'. the way he admits in the first coffee date scene that the only thing that happened when he showed he could carry the weight of expectation was that more weight was added makes me so sad. you can hear it in caterina's voice in his intro mission that she's incredibly proud of him, but this is clearly a leandra and hawke situation where that pride never translates into relief or resolution or unconditional warmth or understanding or anything that really helps.

[specialtysacrifice]

Not that I think Mac KNEW that Dennis was Johnny, but his "Oh Dennis is making homophobic jokes" is surprisingly aware for a man who didn't know he was getting catfished by his roommate...

[lycandrophile]

i’m going to be starting a job soon where it looks like almost all of my coworkers/bosses are going to be cis women and i am…terrified. especially since this is the job i’m going to have to get time off from for top surgery.

if there’s one thing i’ve learned over the almost ten years of my transition, it’s that a situation where i’m the only guy there is one where my gender is guaranteed to not be respected. it really feels like far too many cis women realize they’re alone with a trans man and just see it as an opportunity to act out some sort of power fantasy where they get to stick it to the big bad evil men by taking out their anger on the first man they see without the power to fight back. that or they decide you’re “just one of the girls” and will not hear otherwise, but honestly, given where i’m at in my physical transition, i have a feeling the former is more likely.

there was a time when i felt safer around cis women than around cis men, but now it’s just a different kind of threat.

[sweetpapercroissant]

“dean winchester is a misogynist because he lies to women to get them to sleep with him and therefore clearly doesn’t respect them”

then you actually watch the show and every time dean sleeps with a woman he’s soft and there’s a gentleness even in his passion and he always makes sure his partner’s satisfied/comfortable and he does form genuine connections with the women he sleeps with even if he lies about his name and job (which is completely understandable and actually the sane thing to do considering most of america knows him as a serial killer and there’s not a lot of people around who’d bother talking to a guy who claims he hunts monsters for a living) (or for fun ig since there’s not a lot of ‘living’ in this profession) and he spends time getting to know them and offers the little bits of himself that he can and most of the time that dean has sex with a woman he sleeps over and they see him off in the morning with a goodbye kiss and genuine affection for him and if they ever run into him again they’re clearly fond and look back on their shared memories with satisfaction if nothing else and. this is the guy who doesn’t respect women? how? by believing they are adults who can want and enjoy a night of sex with no strings attached (something he’s always straightforward about btw)?? and more importantly it’s always consensual and they like him as a person and they’re clearly both enthusiastic about it (in fact there’s actually instances where dean isn’t completely enthusiastic but never the other way around).

also any time he’s been in a serious relationship where he was going to be a part of the other person’s life he tells them the whole truth, about hunting and monsters and his role in it and what being with him would entail. so i’d say he respects women just fine but maybe you need to seriously evaluate why you feel having casual sex with women is inherently disrespectful of them.

not to mention that the sex does mean something to him. even if he didn’t it wouldn’t be “wrong” or “misogynistic” to want to have sex with a woman without a relationship BUT. the sex does mean something to him. because he craves intimacy and human contact and affection and being liked and wanted and so often when he’s going through something he’ll open up to these women (jaime, anna) and they’re willing to listen to him without judgment and they’re gentle with him, with his grief, his trauma and the sex is a way for him to connect on a deeper level with them and it helps him and he’s spent almost his entire life isolated from society and can’t form long lasting relationships for much of his childhood and youth but he actually cares about them as human beings and he feels affection for them and it fulfills his desire for tenderness that he can’t expect from anyone else. and there’s nothing wrong with any of that.

[marshmallowgoop]

Otakon's AMV contest allowed VHS submissions, and I knew I just had to submit the collab I edited with @astravis this way.

I hope it's clear why!

(It uses a lot of actual VHS footage.)

And I loved putting AMVs on tape so much that I quickly ordered a bunch of blank tapes online to compile all of my anime music videos this way.

(Short reel of a few of them.)

And, like, it's definitely far from perfect. My computer doesn't have an HDMI port, so I have to use a converter for that, and it's horrible quality. While that does add to the VHS aesthetic, it also makes some of the subtitles nigh impossible to read (as especially evident in the "First Time" video above). My digitization process also isn't exactly ideal, either.

But popping in a VHS tape of my videos and seeing that on the TV? Absolutely amazing. There is no other way I want to physically compile my AMVs. 10/10. MarshmallowGoop/MarshmallowGoop.

Would like to improve my process someday, but if anyone else is curious about how to make VHS tapes out of videos on your computer, I mostly followed this guide here!

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

What's your opinion on malewife/house husband Adrien posts? I asked this to another blog, and like I said to them, I find them a guilty pleasure: The concept is cute, but I know that would be the last thing Adrien would ever wanna be after all his dad put him through.

I don't think that it would be the last thing that Adrien would ever want. I actually think it suits his character in a lot of ways, you just have to handle the topic with care.

First let's talk about why it suits him.

Miraculous has totally failed to give Adrien any sort of career-based passion and - if we ignore the senti complication - I honestly love that for him! I want more characters with no major life ambitions to balance out the Marinettes of the world!

I think that society places way too much pressure and value on finding the perfect career that fulfills us in every way while also allowing us to put food on the table. Most people will never find that and that's okay. It doesn't mean that you've failed or that you're lesser. For most people, the goal is to find a career that pays the bills and that you enjoy enough that you don't hate doing it 40hrs/week. Along similar lines, for most people, your passion will be something that doesn't make money. It will be something like a hobby or spending time with those you love or analyzing badly written French TV shows.

This brings us back to Adrien.

Adrien seems to get a great deal of joy from being around his loved ones and making them happy, so I can absolutely picture him finding a lot of joy in running a home. This is extra true because Marinette is pretty clearly career driven and she's planning to go into a creative field, so she'll probably have a pretty crazy schedule and struggle to stay on top of it all. Having a loving husband to take things like cooking and cleaning off of her plate would be a blessing and a gift that she'd greatly appreciate, but that would feel unbalanced if Adrien was working, too. (Yes, they could hire staff, but that risks the secret identity thing, so I don't see them doing that.)

If they both have power careers, then they'd barely see each other and I hate that for them. I think that it would make Adrien incredibly sad and depressed. Plus, while Marinette thrives off of competition and staying busy, only needing occasional breaks before diving right back in, Adrien seems to hate busy schedules and heavy work loads.

Given all of that, I think that there's a lot to be said for Adrien stepping away from the working world. Especially since he's been in it for years and being a child celebrity is no joke! I think it would be nice for him to escape from strict schedules and expectations. Dinner fails? Order takeout!

While we're on the topic of food, I really like the idea of Adrien falling in love with cooking. Dude needs a creative outlet and that's honestly a great one (I hate it when people write characters as unable to figure out cooking like it's some cute quirk. While an initial struggle is believable, it's not a mystical art that takes years of practice. Between YouTube, the wider Internet, and maybe some classes if he wants to get fancy, I think that he'll be fine.) There's so much variety with what you can do in the kitchen and the end result gets to be shared and appreciated by those you love. It just seems like a perfect fit for him, but I would never make him a professional chef because the hours are insane and the pressure to be perfect is high. I only see him loving it as a hobby where he can go at his own pace, take days off, and make lazy meals when he's not feeling like being a show off.

The big concerns that come with making him a homemaker are a lack of financial independence and a lack of socialization. I don't see the first thing as an issue for Adrien since he comes from a wealthy family, so that one doesn't phase me.

The isolation could very easily be an issue, but it could just as easily be a problem if he started working, too. It's not as if a job is a sure way to have friends or even just consistent positive social interactions, which is another reason why I don't really see a need to give him a traditional job. You can get a vibrant social life in lots of other ways.

Here are the two big things that I keep in mind when writing an Adrien-as-a-homemaker or similar setup as it is where I tend to have Adrien land for all of the above reasons:

Adrien needs to be active in some organization or project. Volunteer work is a good fit as is being an active stay-at-home parent or some combination of the two. Voice acting is also on my radar, but my default is to have him act as the head of team miraculous' out-of-battle activities. Scheduling meet and greets. Going to see sick kids. Jetting around the world for humanitarian aid missions. Basically let Chat Noir be his "career" which gives him a lot of much needed flexibility for making his own schedule, especially if he's a stay-at-home parent to any eventual kids. I also like the poetic nature of Adrien finally being proud to be the face of a "brand" via his hero side while his civilian side becomes just some guy that people kind of remember from old ads.

Consider having a non-traditional living arrangement. I am a big fan of hero teams living together, so my default is to take the Agreste mansion and remodel it into a secret HQ for the team. Adrien and Marinette would have their own apartment/wing/whatever, but they'd still be surrounded by their found family on a near-daily basis, so that social isolation is the last thing on Adrien's mind. There's almost always someone to hang out with! You could also just have Alya and Nino or other friends live in the same apartment building so that they're over a lot/Adrien has a place to hang when Marinette is working late because you know that she'd do that.

Basically, Adrien's rich, so he doesn't need to make money and he doesn't seem to have any interest in a normal job, so I really like letting him having a unique life where he doesn't have a traditional job. He is a superhero, after all. Unique career paths are pretty par for the course. You just have to be careful to make sure that all of this feels like his fully informed and carefully considered choice and not like you forced it on him to make Marinette's life perfect (I only brought her up earlier because this is a story and it makes sense to design characters around each other). I usually do this by sending Adrien to therapy in his late teens or by giving him some other parth of self discovery.

Do note that all of the above is inspired by my read of Adrien which may be totally different from your read of him and that's fine! I just can't picture him as someone who thrives in a traditional career path based on knowing people who strike me as similar to him and from whom I draw my understanding of how to write that part of Adrien's character. I think that he'd be perfectly able to have a traditional career path, but I also think that he'd be pretty miserable for a lot of reasons.

I'll also note that I'm not sure what posts spawned this ask, so there may be elements of those that I'd have criticisms of. This post was about the general concept of Adrien being a homemaker. I tend to avoid the broader fandom for my own sanity and the use of the term "malewife" has me concerned that I'm implying support of something I wouldn't actually support because that's a new one for me and it sounds incredibly sexist.

I'm not a fan of implying that the default definition of "wife" is "submissive homemaker" so a man taking on a homemaking role is clearly submissive and acting like a woman does while his aggressive, domineering wife is acting like a man, which is the definition of this word that I'm finding online and yikes! Wife and husband are legal/social status in my book. They are not clearly defined jobs/roles/personality types, so I'm not a fan of using gendered terms to refer to stuff like this especially since I do actively try to use gender neutral words in my own writing whenever I can, though I'm certainly far from perfect on that front.

I also don't see homemaking as a submissive act. It certainly can be, but that's not how I picture Adrien at all! I picture him as relaxed and plesent, but 100% in charge of the home and all choices about how it's run. I also see him being in charge of their finances like homemakers often were in the "old days" since they were the ones in charge of things like scheduling cleaners, buying food, and other things that needed strong budgeting skills while the person who worked wasn't actually spending money or managing the home since they were at work. I like to think that Nathalie would prep Adrien to be a wealthy man and so he'd have strong skills in finance management.

[vigilskeep]

rlly enjoying playing a little brosca, idk if i’ll stick with her long but she tends to go for the dialogue options that i don’t usually pick so the dialogue feels a lot fresher which is a hugeee win when u have played the intro as many times as i have

[colezy]

I got to play my flute on stage the other day at my alma mater 🥺 I haven’t been back since the year I graduated and I haven’t played in so long in general…it made me spiral a bit, because it reminded me how my life feels meaningless without music, and I’m inspired to make playing a priority in my life again. 🖤

anyway here was my fit 😎

[shaadowmilkcookie]

It is god’s cruelest joke that my favourite characters are as confident as you can possibly get — Shadow Milk and Pitaya, for christ’s sake! — but the real me is so overwhelmingly nervous I can barely reply to people

[irenespring]

Time for one of my favorite TV traditions, "watch the new episodes of Selling Sunset and argue with the screen like the people can hear me."

[tragicclownwrites]

🤡

[princemick]

*gutteral screams* I love dutch hospitality

[stars-inthe-sky]

10. tell me about an insecurity you overcame.

It's been a while since I started freelancing for fun and profit, but the beginning of that journey is still a pretty big deal to me.

I'd previously worked at an agency for nearly three years, so I knew how to do client-based work, but I knew nothing about business development (or billing, or taxes, or client management, or admin).

And, for those I didn't know back in 2017, I started down that whole road in the first place after getting very unexpectedly and unceremoniously fired after like four months on the job. It was never clear exactly why, but I'd thought things had been going well, and that was a pretty gutting Thursday afternoon.

I'd also just gone through a job search, so I knew there weren't many positions available in the region that would be a fit—and that the most recent thing that had seemed to be a great fit had, uh, not been. (This was before remote/hybrid work was a real norm, even though my agency job had functionally been hybrid and taught me to work effectively as such.)

But when I'd gone through that previous job search, a couple of people I spoke with had mentioned maybe needing some freelance capacity down the road, and perhaps I should get in touch once I got settled in the job if I was interested. So I reached out to them, without mentioning the rest, thinking I could at least bridge the gap while I figured out what the fuck to do. Both had solid projects for me where I learned a bunch quickly, made some money, and was excited for more.

And then it just kind of made sense to keep seeing about those kinds of opportunities—both because I liked the client-based work and flexibility, but also because it quickly became apparent that it'd be harder for any one person or institution to fuck me over in the same way.

Plus, one of the people who needed a subcontractor turned out to be a great mentor and reference; I don't think I ever told him quite why I'd decided to go all-in on freelancing full-time, but I have thanked him repeatedly for some truly foundational early guidance as well as a couple of projects he helped set me up with. He's semi-retired now but I'm still using some of those templates!

Anyway, I networked my way into a couple of additional early projects and finished 2017 with about the same overall income for the year that I had had in my agency job for 2016. (Not the fuck-them one, the one I got laid off from because, well, that was a bad end-of-year for anyone working in Democratic politics, much like this one.)

And the rest is history: I've been self-employed for about 7.5 years now and, while the constant hustle and inconstant income/workload have their own challenges, I think I've landed in a pretty secure (emotionally/professionally) place about the whole enterprise.

[bumblingbabooshka]

'I'm the X' is a banger but let's be real for a second Mr. Spock

[daincrediblegg]

anyone else up getting sick of hyper-cynic contrarianism that serves no real constructive purpose? or is that just me?