#put some niche answers as well but I love my girls and their fandom of three <3 | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

dreamcrow · 1 year ago

Note

have you done a “how I would fix that movie” meta post? I’m also interested in your stricklake manifesto or something about guillermo del toro’s horror sensibilities and toa

send me a meta prompt (currently closed); thank you for the ask!

how did you know exactly what prompted this lol

stricklake manifesto is...tentatively forthcoming. possibly. probably. stay tuned. while i know i've certainly thought about how i'd fix the movie (and not even purely for niche side blorbo reasons), but i'm not sure how compelling (or coherent) that end product actually is. 🤔

unfortunately my fixit of the movie starts roughly thirty seconds after bellroc vaporizes that poor pigeon in chicago (or wherever metrocity is) and diverges wildly from there. tldr: someone on team trollhunter remembers they're in a gdt show, and asks just why are they all blindly following merlin, anyway. is it barb? god, i want it to be barb. obviously blinky is like "because he's the esteemèd merlin ambrosius, duh" while all three changelings just look directly into the camera. merlin blusters. barb backs off.

then, once merlin wanders out of earshot, she asks again.

i do think that would be probably the biggest single change. i'm very self-conscious when i sit down in my lil sandbox that i don't want to give barb another job; she has enough already, and she gets mommed by the fandom in a way i don't always think is malicious but which nevertheless generally rubs me wrong. but truly: who else is doing it like her? okay, sure, there's jim: until the last four episodes of trollhunters, his actual, textual superpower is his humanity. he then gets browbeaten into discarding it—the quality that has, until now, been his unique and cited qualification—because the guy who made an amulet out of his student's severed hand acted like he had some kind of moral high ground.

barb, meanwhile, is also an extraordinarily human human. she's the normie! she's the clueless mundane, a single mother dragged into the supernatural by her only son. and while she does freak out—rightly! understandably!—when the supernatural puts her and her loved ones in danger, she never speaks against it just for being different. obviously stricklander is the example i've thought about most here: she's mad when he comes back (again, rightly), but her objections are because you lied to and endangered and my son, not because you're a dirty changeling. she's mad (and hurt) when jim lies about fighting off goblins, but because she's scared for him! once the masquerade is broken, she's immediately on his side. she's also the only character to even try to make merlin answer for trollifying jim, even if it's presented humorously. best girl.

so. back to this theoretical fixit: i think barb would be the most natural choice to start the questioning, here. blinky would still push back a little, but with merlin elsewhere, nomura and stricklander don't have to worry about being nice; maybe aaarrrgghh would even chime in on their side (what exactly do the gumm-gumms think of emrys, anyway?). it's not an easy conversation. it's also not the last one. but it starts. for a series that is otherwise unusually arthurian, arthur in trollhunters is conspicuous by his absence. but you have merlin. you have morgana. you also—pace wizards' giant slimy monster, who was cute, but completely overlooked preexisting developments—have the lady of the goddamn lake: legendary enchantress, giver of excalibur, single mother of the best of knights.

and, most importantly, the one who seals merlin in a fucking tree.

u see where i'm going with this.

once barb starts that question—well. i make no claims that this is recognizable, but you did ask how i would do it, lol. from this i can't help but feel it would cascade pretty dramatically. if stricklander and nomura united behind her, i think jim would follow. claire and toby after him. once the humans (and adjacent) are convinced, i don't think blinky could hold out any longer; maybe the smarter version of him other people keep seeing could be brought around to some kind of "trust, but verify." soft and stupid as i am about wretched wizard blorbos, obviously the order are still being assholes. we don't want them to actually burn it all down. but is that what they're actually trying to do? or is this just another received merlinian dictum?

god—and if they got to talk to nari about it! once again, one of the biggest failures of wizards (and rott) was how utterly it sidelined its characters in favor of punchy punchy bang bang. this i know have written about somewhere: jim's reduction to a vicarious highschool bully fantasy, how bellroc was flattened into cartoonish, beautifully rendered cardboard-cutout evil, while somehow still staying the most consistent character in the room. stricklander—whose entire character arc in trollhunters was built on 1.) the infinite possibility of an individual for change and 2.) being the smartest bastard in the room—took the first step into his new life by marrying barb and then immediately paid for it with the stupidest death possible. (see a longer and much keener essay about this here, from @millennialmoviereviews.) i cannot overemphasize how frustrated i am—still, yes, i know, about a children's cartoon—about how that movie treated its characters, even ones (the tarrons! douxie! steve!) i don't normally have any investment in.

...but what if that changed? what if we took what used to be the gdt hallmark—sympathy for monsters, without excuse—and committed to the goddamn bit? jim reached out to bular back in trollhunters. yes, what you're doing is wrong; you're hurting people i mean to protect; but i understand you're hurting too, and why, and how we might not be so different. you don't have to do this.

then barb sends merlin to treeby deeby, and bellroc and skrael fucking kiss.

(and then go about actually protecting/repairing the balance of the world or whatever, but i know what i'm about.)

postscript. i admit i pick a lot on merlin. don't get it twisted: i think my own evil wizard blorbos were also complete dumbasses here. but i think part of the reason i am so invested in merlin experiencing a goddamn consequence is pretty closely related to the original reason i was so drawn to gdt's stuff in the first place, namely: decoupling "good" and "evil" from "normal" and "monster," respectively. i don't think this is too much to expect of a kids show, especially one for toa's age group. trollhunters does a great job of doing this—of allowing nuance, of showing how it's possible to think outside the frameworks you know, while still remaining accessible to children—and 3below kind of? tries to keep it up. i think. but wizards...doesn't. even for all it does (inadvertently or otherwise) end up pointing out how merlin and arthur, founts of the same authority, massively screwed up. i've also had many people point out that wizards was pretty much set up to fail: executive meddling, rushed production, etc. etc. which i do sympathize with.

but it's still. tremendously bitter. to see six seasons' worth of such a unique message get discarded so easily. especially when this was done with such breathtakingly little love for the material.

#tales of arcadia #trollhunters meta #trollhunters #rise of the titans #barbara lake #first meta prompt out!! old man yells at cloud etc.#i worry this is not a terribly well-developed fixit manifesto but tldr: barb should've gotten to learn magic and dethrone god #also jim has done his child soldiering. he's paid his dues to the genre. he can go to therapy now #also also i want five seasons and a movie of arcane order domestication but u know how it is #mine #q&a #ask games

17 notes · View notes

dogmetaph0r · 8 months ago

Note

❤️ and 💚 for ask game (i’d actually love to hear your opinion about like the whole ass ask list but i hope two is alright)

why of COURSE........i love this list

putting my answers under the cut because this got long as HELL

❤️: I think the most egregiously mischaracterized character in the fandom is Grace. lil gracie-poo. gracie face. Can you tell I adore her?? I understand why the fandom is divided about her, but I think there can and should be a difference between a character's personality and a character being poorly written. I think they really dropped the ball on Grace since she returned. I have always seen her as a complicated woman. On the one hand, she's very smart. She's capable. She has her shit moooostly together, but at the same time she's a bit of a wildcard and prepared to use her FUCKING GUN to say no means fucking no, you son of a bitch. She can be snarky, bitter, and vengeful. She's quick-witted and can push back at Tommy when he's being.....well, Tommy. On the OTHER hand, she is also so, so sweet. Grace prefers peace and love and family. She likes to be surrounded by good. She likes to DO good. She likes order and has a tendency to follow the rules, both social and according to her job. I think because she's a female character, this comes across as boring and unimaginative because that's what's expected of women (and I don't blame anyone for thinking this, but realistically we ALL know a pretty girl who's a total sweetheart). But I think she had a lot of potential as the lawful good reluctantly drawn into Tommy's chaos after her return, and unfortunately she was fridged because that moved the plot along. I do think it was the right decision for Tommy's resulting breakdown, but not giving us the time to remake that connection with her and learn what she's all about now that she has it all??? and then violently rip her away before many people have the chance to form an emotional attachment???? mannnn cmon. Overall I understand the criticism, because I too didn't really like her at first, but I honestly do think she gets the short end of the stick from the fandom because she's a woman. If we saw a male character doing the same thing (or, hell, also doing what society expects of him. cough cough) I can almost guarantee you that the reaction would not be the same.

💚: AUGH anyway. next one. My favorite character is Alfieee. I already had a bit of a ramble on TGoAS earlier and the details I wanted to analyze more from there, but besides that trauma, I think people honestly give him too much credit for thinking ahead. He is SUCH a good bullshitter. He schemes, yes, but many of those agreements with enemies and planned betrayals are kinda spur of the moment, entirely based on whether or not someone offers him something he likes more. I think the most planning we've seen him do to my memory has been getting Arthur arrested, and it really was mostly Alfie's love for theatrics and excitement that pulled it all together. Tommy figures him out quick as hell, but sees him as an equal. In my mind that means yes, he is incredibly smart and ambitious and a stellar leader, but he's a habitual enough liar that it's not hard to figure him out. Plus, as cute and ursine as his little quirks are, he's no teddy bear. That man is a serious danger and is more than ready to go grizzly mode at a moment's notice (i have thoughts on c-ptsd there too but that's for another time). I love the way people interpret him, because he IS silly and sassy and fun, but he also is kind of a motherfucker and more than a little recklessly impulsive. It's what "kills" him, after all! I've read some really good fics that tap into his rage and impulsivity while also giving him the room to feel disgust at his actions and experience the brutal gift of hindsight (as much as he hides the human part of himself, the section in TGoAS about his nightmares was impactful), but I can't remember which ones they were atm. Also, this is so niche, but I don't know how good of a dad he really would be. I think he'd be FUN, but I don't know about "good at parenting". But I'm gonna ignore that because it's the less fun hypothetical and I like to have fun sglkjslkgjsdl

#telegram #also one time i did read a fic where they shared tommy for a night. and it was wild. and incredible #sorry i just like them both so muchgslksdjg #i honest to god wasn't even a grace fan at ALL because she frustrated the shit out of me #but now im obsessed with her #i call that growth

4 notes · View notes

diaphragmjellyfish · 4 years ago

Text

What Did I Miss?

So this blog has grown a ton in the last couple of months. Going into this year, I had maybe 15 followers. Now, I’m at 100. That might not seem like a lot to some of you, but to me, that’s 100 people who love my writing. 100 people who find comfort and joy in the things I put out there. And it means so much to me <3 I always wanted to be a writer, but always felt like I got lost in the sea of content. I couldn’t come up with anything original or anything that would get noticed. And then I started writing for Cobra Kai. It’s a pretty small fandom so anything put out there gets seen. Then, I started writing what I wanted to read. Vaginismus smut/ general feminist fics are a niche that has almost no writers, but so many of you have sent me private messages saying how much those fics mean to you. So, to honor all 100 of my new followers, I have combined my two genres. I now present to you… Eli Moskowitz x vaginismus!reader. I hope you love it!

You have been doing your physical therapy for about a year now. It was a long process, full of ups and downs, good days and bad days, but you were proud to say you were done! The biggest dilator could be easily inserted with the right amount of lube. It made you feel more...normal. Let’s just say, you weren’t exactly the most popular girl in school. People didn’t notice you. And when they did, it was “who’s that shy girl that hangs out with those losers?” Yup. Your best friends, Demitri and Eli, were the only people you really felt comfortable around at school. You found each other back in elementary school, because everyone else was making friends and running around on the playground, while you three just wanted to stay inside and play board games. So you weren’t cool, which you were okay with. But being diagnosed with vaginismus a year ago after almost passing out trying to put in a tampon had made you feel like even more of a freak. You couldn’t do the one thing girls were wanted for. You’d be alone forever.

But it was over. You could have sex. At least, you thought you’d be able to. You never actually tried before. What if it put you right back to square one? What if you totally embarrassed yourself in front of a guy you liked? These thoughts zipped through your mind at the speed of light, faster than you could keep up with, when something snapped you back into reality.

“Y/N?” Eli asked timidly. You guys were hanging out in his basement waiting for Demitri to show up so you could start your Lord Of The Rings marathon. Your head snapped up, eyes locking with his.

“Yeah? Sorry,” you laughed awkwardly. You had been thinking about sex while hanging out with Eli. That wasn’t cool.

He studied your face for a second. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah! Yeah, everything is fine. Is everything okay… with you?” You questioned back, trying to play it cool.

“Umm, yeah. You’ve just been spacing out a lot today.” You were about to make up a reply when his phone buzzed on the coffee table in front of you guys. He reached over to pick it up, scanning the screen before letting out a soft sigh. “Demitri’s mom is making him repaint their kitchen. He’s not gonna be here until 9.” He looked at your face at this for a reaction. 9 o’clock. It was 7 right now. That left you with 2 hours to be alone, here, with Eli. There weren’t many times where it had been just the two of you. Demitri was always there as a talkative icebreaker, and you hadn’t truly appreciated it until now. It was getting awkward.

You both sat there quietly, staring at the black TV. Neither of you were very talkative people. This was probably what it was going to be like the first time you tried to have sex with someone. Awkward, quiet, and the guy would probably leave when he realized he had to be beyond gentle because of your vaginismus. Yeah, you were thinking about sex a lot lately. But you’d just finished your therapy, so of course you were wondering about all the possibilities now.

“Y/N,” Eli spoke, this time making you jump a little. You had been spacing out again. “Are you sure you’re okay? Do you want me to drive you home?”

“No! I mean, thanks, but I’m okay. Just have a lot on my mind today,” you laughed shyly.

“Wanna talk about it?” he asked hesitantly.

A pause. You definitely were not about to tell Eli about all your vagina problems, but you were itching to vent your concerns. Maybe you could just phrase it in a way so that he wouldn’t know what you were talking about.

“I- I kind of have this thing.” You looked up at him, gaging his reaction. He was listening intently, no sign that he was about to say anything, so you kept going. “Basically, I’ve been doing physical therapy to fix it for the last year, and I’m finally done. So I’ve just been thinking about… all the things I can do now. I mean now that I’m… healed.”

Sensing that you were done, he asked, “You seem nervous about it.”

“I mean yeah. It kind of opens me up to a whole new world of experiences. But I still need to, I guess be careful? Take it slow. And I’m worried people might not want to… be a part of it.”

He nodded, thinking about what you had just said. He was wildly confused, you had never seemed injured before, but he didn’t want to push you to talk.

So instead, he just said “Well I’ll always be here for you. Anything you want me to be a part of, I’m down.”

You thought about this. Eli was so understanding and supportive. He always had been. If you couldn’t tell him, you couldn’t tell any guy. Maybe this would be good practice for the conversation you’d inevitably have to have with someone.

“Thanks. You kind of can’t be a part of it, though. I mean, it’s just really… personal.” He didn’t seem hurt by this, so you decided to let him in. “It’s kind of hard to talk about. Basically, it just causes me a lot of pain whenever I try to... “ you made some unintelligible hand gestures, hoping he would get what you meant without you having to say the word. He just shook his head no, showing that he didn’t understand. “Like, whenever I put something… inside.” You blushed deeply at this, giving Eli another hint about what you might mean. You were staring at the floor. He said nothing, and when you looked back up at him, he too was bright red. “Sorry. I’m probably making you really uncomfortable. I can just go and come back later when Demi-”

“Y/N, it’s okay. You don’t have to go.”

A pause. “Okay,” you replied.

“You said that you were.... Healed. So does that mean you can, like, do stuff now?” he was still staring at the floor, fiddling with his hands as he said this.

“Technically, yeah. I just still need to like… take it slow. And I guess I’m just nervous that no guy is gonna want to have to deal with that.”

“Well then they’re stupid,” he scoffed. You looked up at him, shocked at his little show of emotion. “Sorry. I just mean that, I know what it’s like to feel like no one will ever want you like that. And it’s dumb. You’re really cool. And smart, and funny… and pretty. And if there’s a guy that doesn’t want you just because he’s gonna have to be gentle, well he’s a grade-A asshole.”

You laughed loudly at this, which made Eli smile at you. “Thanks. That’s really sweet of you to say,” you smiled. “And if you’re talking about your scar when you say you know what it feels like, don’t worry about that. You’re totally cute and any girl would be lucky to kiss you.” His earlier words had you feeling bold, so you figured you would compliment him back. Guys almost never got compliments, especially quiet guys like Eli, so you felt like it was important to give him the same kindness he had given you. He turned so red, he looked like he wasn’t breathing.

“That’s not true. I mean, thanks for being nice, but no girl at school has ever wanted to kiss me.”

Well, here’s your chance. You guys were in his basement alone, the lights were turned down, and you guys just had a super personal conversation. So you went for it. “I can think of one girl who would be honored,” you whispered into the dimly-lit room.

You could feel his head snap up at this. You were staring at the TV again, but his gaze was piercing. The air was thick, so you turned your head to look at him. He was in awe, looking at you like you were the warm sun on the first day of spring. You guys had been sitting on opposite ends of the couch, but you scooted close to the middle. Eli looked panicked, but pushed it away, swallowing hard before scooting to meet you. He was practically shaking with nerves. Were you really about to kiss him? In answer, you looked down at his lips, then back up at his eyes. You slowly leaned in, Eli frozen in place, scared to ruin the moment. Your lips barely touched his, being sure to ghost over his scar, before you pulled away a few inches and opened your eyes. You smiled at him, and once he realized that you had just kissed him on purpose and liked it…

You gasped as he brought his hand up to cup your cheek, leaning back in to kiss you again, slightly deeper this time. His lips were soft, but firm. He tasted like cherry chapstick and the coca cola he’d been drinking. This wasn’t your first kiss, but you knew it was his. You knew you would have to lead. So, you brought your hands up around his neck and swiped your tongue lightly over his bottom lip. You heard him sigh, and then felt him open his mouth as his tongue met yours. Sure, it was his first kiss, but damn he was a natural. Shortly after this, you pulled away again.

“Woah,” he said, looking at you with a twinkle in his eye.

“Woah,” you parroted with a giggle.

“Thanks,” he said awkwardly. You laughed at this, throwing your head back.

“You don’t have to thank me, Eli. I wanted to.” There was a beat of silence as he rubbed his thumb over your cheek.

He said honestly, “Well I kind of feel bad now. You helped me with my problem but I didn’t help you with yours.” Your smile dropped, thinking about what he was implying. “Wait, I didn’t mean it like that! I swear I’m not trying to like take advantage of you or something. I just meant that-”

“I know what you meant. It’s fine.” You smiled again. You knew Eli would never try to convince you to have sex with him like that. Seeing him flounder reminded you of how sweet he really was. The kind of guy you hoped you would be able to have sex with one day. “Honestly, I’ll probably just do it to get it over with. And if it hurts, I’ll just go back to therapy, and if not, great. But the anticipation is kind of killing me.”

“Oh… well you should still do it with someone who cares about you. I mean, it’s your choice, but don’t just pick some random guy who’s not gonna care if he hurts you.” Eli was so heartfelt when he said this, you could have cried. He actually understood. And cared. And the moment was pretty intimate.

“So you’re saying I should do it with a nice guy.”

“Well, yeah,” he responded as if it was obvious.

“Are you a nice guy, Eli?”

He was quiet, thinking about all the meaning behind that simple sentence. After a few seconds, he nodded. You leaned back in to kiss him again, this time with much more passion. He took initiative this time, being the first to swipe his tongue over your lip and into your mouth. His hands moved from your face to your waist, supporting you when you moved to straddle his lap. You guys made out like this for a while, lost in the feeling of each other’s lips. When you finally pulled away, you were both breathing hard.

“Wait, wait,” he stopped you from moving back in. “Are we doing this right now?”

“Do you not want to?” you felt a pang of rejection at this. Making to move off his lap. He grabbed you firmly by the hips.

“Are you seriously asking me that question? The girl I’ve had a crush on since 3rd grade is sitting in my lap making out with me right now. Of course I’m into it.” You smiled at this. “I guess I just feel like I want to know more about your… thing first. I don’t want to hurt you.” You were definitely making the right choice here. Eli was so genuinely kind, you knew for sure in that moment you wanted to do this with him.

“Okay. It’s a condition called vaginismus. Basically, my pelvic muscles get super tight as like a reflex whenever I try to… do anything. And that makes it super painful,” you explained.

He nodded in understanding before asking, “And the physical therapy? How does that work?”

“Well, there are these things called dilators,” you blushed at this. “They come in a bunch of different sizes. You start with the smallest one, and just condition your body to relax while you put it in. And when you can do it with no pain, you move up to the next size. The smallest one is like the size of my pinky, and the biggest one is like… you know.”

“A dick?” He asked as you both laughed.

“Yeah.”

There was a beat of silence before he looked at you in a way that said he was completely committed. “What do you need me to do?” he asked. You felt yourself tear up a little at this. Ever since you got diagnosed, you always imagined perfect scenarios in your head in which the guy you were with asked you that question. Of course, you always believed it would stay a fantasy. No guy would realistically care this much. But it turns out there was a guy, and he was right in front of you your entire life. You leaned in and gave him a sweet kiss, which caught him a little off-guard.

You then leaned back and began to explain. “Usually when I do my therapy, I’ll start with some breathing exercises. And then get my dilator and some lube and just kind of, sink down on it? And then I just stay there for as long as I can. Obviously sex involves a lot more movement, which is kind of the part I’m nervous about.”

“We can go super slow. And if it ever hurts, even a little bit, I want you to tell me, okay?”

You nodded. “Are you sure you want to? I know you just had your first kiss and I want to make sure you’re ready, too.”

“I’m ready. I hope this doesn’t make you uncomfortable, but I’ve actually imagined this situation before… a lot,” he murmured the last part.

You laughed, and awe’d at his cuteness. “As long as you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.”

He leaned in to kiss you again, starting slow and building in intensity. Once the kiss got heated, you grabbed his hands that were still lightly gripping your hips, and moved them down to cup your ass. He inhaled sharply and squeezed. You moved your hands from his neck down to his chest, sliding lower and lower until they were at the hem of his shirt, and then under to his bare stomach. He shivered, and then kneaded your ass harder.

“Can I take this off?” you asked, tugging at his shirt. He nodded and leaned forward so you could pull the hem up and over his head, his hands only leaving you for a second before they resumed their previous position.

Your own hands roamed his chest, before he slid his hands under your shirt, silently asking for you to take it off as well. Wordlessly, you reached down, gripped the bottom and pulled it off, Eli’s eyes going straight to your bra.

“I would have worn something a little cuter if I thought we’d-”

“You’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen,” he cut you off. Your face turned bright red as you smiled down at your lap. “Hey,” he said as his thumb came to your chin to lift your face back up. And then he kissed you again, sucking lightly at your bottom lip, eliciting a soft sigh from you. You started to lightly grind your hips into his, and you could immediately feel that he was already hard. His hands gripped your ass firmly, helping to guide your movements. You felt a slight pleasure between your legs, so began to grind down harder, Eli moving his own hips back up into yours. His length brushed a certain spot that made you let out a small, involuntary moan. You slapped your hand over your mouth, eyes wide. He smiled, bringing his hand up to move yours off your mouth, and grinding into you even harder, with a new sense of excitement. He moved back in, but instead of bringing his lips to yours, he brought them to your neck, licking and sucking softly. You felt a rush of heat flow through you at this, never imagining that neck kisses would feel so good.

“Oh, wow,” you whispered. You felt him smile- no, smirk, against your neck. Then, he moved one of his hands to your stomach, lightly brushing his knuckles across the skin, before untying your sweatpants. This excited you. He slowly brought his hand under the waistband, giving you plenty of time to tell him to stop. You didn’t, and he eventually felt the fabric of your underwear, opting to stay on top of them. He rubbed your center with one of his fingers clumsily. Eli obviously had never done this before, so you did your best to move your hips on his hand to try and give him the idea of what you wanted. He seemed nervous though, and didn’t really get the hint.

“Small circles,” you instructed breathlessly. He brought his face out of your neck, furrowing his brows in concentration. He moved his fingers like you said in small circles on your left lip. You wanted to giggle, but didn’t want to hurt his feelings, opting for bringing your hand into your pants on top of his and guiding it to the right spot, moving his fingers in tight circles with slightly more pressure than he had been using right over your clit. You moaned softly at this, closing your eyes and furrowing your brows. Eli looked at you with an adorable excitement, proud that he was able to get you to make that sound, and knew that he wanted to hear it again. He got the hang of it pretty fast, and didn’t need your hand for guidance anymore, keeping the same pace and rhythm that you had shown him.

“Oh my god, Eli,” you whispered softly in his ear, hips grinding against his hand once again.

“Fuck,” he whispered back, more turned on than he had ever been just from watching you. At this, you brought one of your hands down to cup him through his pants. He hissed, sitting up straighter. His jeans made it hard for you to do much, though, so you said huskily, “Do you want to take them off?” He nodded, and you stood up and took your sweatpants off as he unbuttoned his jeans and slipped them off his legs. When he looked back at you, he saw that you were taking off your underwear too, so he did as well.

Once he was naked and you were left in just a bra, he tentatively asked you, “Should I… get a condom?”

You had completely forgotten about protection! That was pretty important, so you responded, “Yeah, do you have one?”

“They handed them out in health class last month,” he said nervously, answering your implied question which was Why do you have one? He stood up, walking into his room through the doorway in the basement, returning shyly with a small silver packet. You were kneeling on the couch awkwardly, not really sure what to do, when he raked his eyes over your body. There was almost a predatory look in his eyes, one that you had never seen before in Eli. A sign of confidence hidden deep down. He suddenly stopped, as if realizing something, and said “I’ll be right back,” before running upstairs butt-naked. Thank God no one else was home! He returned with a jar of coconut oil in his hand. “I know you said you normally use lube, and I don’t really have any of that, so I thought we could use this? Or I can run to CVS and get some if you want, it’s up to you!” He added that last part hurriedly.

You took the jar from him, opening it and gathering a small amount on your fingers before rubbing them together, testing the substance. “This should work just fine, thank you.”

(Guys please don’t use oil as lube, it can break down the condom! Sorry for the 4th wall break!)

He looked at you for guidance, questioning, “So, how do you want to do this?”

You looked around for a second, before deciding “You can sit down again. I think I want to be on top. Just so I have more control and stuff.” He nodded understandingly and went to sit back down on the couch, holding his hands out to you as you straddled his hips once more.

“This?” he asked as he brought his hand up to your bra strap, slipping it down your shoulder in a wordless plea to take it off, which is exactly what you did. When your breasts were exposed, you thought Eli’s eyes were going to pop out of his head. He never thought he’d see actual boobs one day, and here they were, right in his face, attached to his naked crush who was sitting on his lap. What a day. He brought his hands up to gently cup them, making you smile at his softness.

“Having fun?” you joked. He just looked at you and giggled, nodding his head. You took the condom packet and opened it, sliding the slippery rubber out. “Do you have any idea how to use this?” You questioned with a laugh.

“Yeah, here,” he took it from you, placing it on the tip of his dick and rolling it down the length, inhaling sharply at the feeling. He reached for the coconut oil once more and took a finger-full, melting it between his hands and spreading it all over the condom, before taking the remainder on his fingers and rubbing softly at your center. He watched your face intently for any signs of discomfort as he did so. When he found none, he brought his pointer and middle finger back to your clit, rubbing circles once again, making you let out a sigh and tip your head back. He did this for several more moments, until your hips began to writhe.

“Okay,” you said to tell him you were ready to try.

“Hey, I just wanted to say… please don’t be insecure about anything. Take all the time you need, and if it hurts, we can stop and I won’t be disappointed or anything. I promise. I want you to be comfortable.”

You kissed him in response, smiling as you pulled away. “Thank you.”

You sat up on your knees, taking his dick in your hand and lining it up with your entrance, rubbing it back and forth to distribute the lubricant. You closed your eyes, taking some deep breaths to relax your muscles, and lightly sank down in his tip. You stopped about an inch in to adjust, before lifting off and sinking back down again, 2 inches this time, before stopping to adjust once more. You kept this up until you could take about half of him comfortably, realizing it was taking a long time. You opened your eyes to look at Eli, and noticed that he had his eyes closed, brows furrowed, jaw clenched, breathing labored. Jesus, he was probably dying right now.

“I’m sorry,” you muttered, full of embarrassment. His eyes snapped open at this.

“Hey, hey, hey,” he cooed as he wrapped his arms around your waist, embracing you. “Don’t you dare apologize.”

“It’s taking a long time and I can tell you’re not having fun,” you worried.

“I’m having the time of my life right now, Y/N. Seriously. This is the most amazing feeling I’ve ever felt. Please don’t worry about me. This is about you.”

This was everything you really ever wanted. A guy who was giving you the time you needed to adjust and be comfortable. Why the heck were you questioning it??

You smiled lightly at his kind words, nodding your head in agreement, and then started your routine of up, down, pause, again. Several minutes later, you were fully seated on Eli’s cock. You didn’t move, instead saying “This is normally where I stop. I’m not really sure what to do now.” He brought his hands up to cup your face, kissing you softly.

“I guess, you can stay like this for as long as you need? And then maybe we can try moving a little bit?” he answered. You nodded in response, and after a few moments, you lifted your hips and sank back down. The friction felt slightly uncomfortable, but you tried again nonetheless in an effort to power through it. This time, you felt a stinging sensation, wincing lightly but hoping Eli wouldn’t notice. He did.

“Stop,” he muttered.

“I can keep going,” you pleaded.

“Y/N, I said stop.” You did. “You’re in pain,” he pointed out.

“I’m fine,” you said, but avoided his gaze.

“Why are you lying?” he questioned, sounding hurt, which made you finally look at him.

“I- I… I don’t know. I want to be able to do this, but it stings,” you said sadly.

“Well then we’ll stay just like this,” he said sweetly as he brought a hand up to pet your hair. You once again nodded, too mad at yourself to say anything. “You’re doing so good,” he added.

Instead of answering, you leaned in to kiss him. Making out had been fun, but making out while Eli was inside you was a whole new level of intimacy. His hands wandered everywhere. First to cup your face, then down to squeeze your breasts, then to the small of your back and around to your ass. After a few minutes of this, he brought one of his hands back around and down to your center. And this boy was a fast learner. He had the exact right spot, rhythm, and pressure on the first try this time, making you moan softly into his mouth. He smiled into the kiss, proud that he got you feeling good again. He kept this up, careful not to change a thing. You felt a heat pool in your stomach, your center craving more, so you began to involuntarily grind your hips into his hand.

You gasped as the tip of his dick put pressure on a certain spot inside you. He noticed your gasp, letting the hand that wasn’t on your clit go to your hip in an effort to guide you to grind against him some more. Once you realized this movement didn’t hurt, you rolled your hips over his. Not the up and down that you had tried before, but side to side, back and forth, and in circles. And it felt good. You began to let out small moans at the combination of the pressure inside you and the feeling of Eli’s fingers massaging you. His eyebrows began to furrow and his breathing labored. This was his first time, so the small movements you were making were enough to bring him to the edge.

“Shit, Y/N,” he murmured. You moaned loudly in response, and the sound made Eli’s eyes roll back in his head. He had to think of the most un-sexy things just to keep himself from cumming. You guys kept at it for god knows how long, until you felt that heat in your stomach turn into a heavy knot about to unravel.

“Eli, I think I’m gonna cum,” you gasped, almost surprised. You had not been expecting an orgasm during your first time. You kept grinding your hips at the same pace, hoping that he would keep doing exactly what he was doing with his fingers. And he did. Your moans got higher and higher in pitch as you got closer to the edge, your legs beginning to shake from the effort. Your stomach dropped, and you came hard, mouth open in a silent scream. 30 seconds later, you came down, finally opening your eyes to see Eli looking at you like you were an absolute goddess. You reached down to peel his fingers off you, the sensations becoming too much to handle. However, you kept grinding in an effort to get Eli to cum too. About a minute later, his eyes squeezed shut as his hips stuttered under you and he spilled into the condom.

As soon as he opened his eyes, the first thing he said was, “Are you okay? Did I hurt you?”

You huffed a laugh, “I’m more than okay. That was awesome.”

He looked relieved that you had had a good time, and nodded, “Yeah, totally awesome.”

You gave him one last kiss before sitting up and pulling off of him. As you stood, your legs shook, knees threatening to give out. “Woah,” you murmured under your breath.

“Here,” Eli said as he guided you by the waist to lay on the couch. He went into the bathroom and came out with a clean, damp towel and wiped you off as best he could before handing it to you to finish up. He gathered both of your clothes, handing yours back to you, when his phone once again buzzed on the coffee table. He picked it up when his face suddenly dropped.

“Shit. Demitri’s here.”

You both shared a shocked look before scrambling to get dressed. Eli threw the coconut oil and condom wrapper into the bathroom, and turned to notice your neck covered in hickeys. He ran into his room, grabbing a hoodie and walking over to you, motioning for you to put your arms up. He put the hoodie on you, and pulled your hair up through the hood to cover the sides of your neck. Just then, you heard the front door open and Demitri yell “Hey guys! You better not have started without me!” He rounded the corner and came down the stairs, looking at both of you sitting on opposite sides of the couch, staring at the black TV screen just as you had been exactly 2 hours ago. He plopped down on the couch in between you guys and grabbed the remote, switching it on. When he went to put it back on the coffee table, he noticed a small scrap of fabric on the floor. He bent down, grabbed, and held up your underwear.

“Ok, what the fuck did I miss?”

#cobra kai #hawk x reader #eli x reader #eli moskowitz #demitri cobra kai #jacob bertrand #miguel x reader #karate kid #vaginismus #hawk smut #eli moskowitz smut

425 notes · View notes

olderthannetfic · 3 years ago

Note

TY for your post on m/m ships, as it really gave me perspective I didn’t know I needed. I assumed or thought that the criticism of women writing (“fetishizing”) m/m came from the queer community itself. The equivalent of a bunch of girls going to a gay bar for a bachelorette party. I didn’t see the exclusionist propaganda behind that train of thought until reading your post. Thanks.

You are most welcome!

My experience has been that the vast, vast majority of cis gay men have no clue about m/m fanfic (which is produced overwhelmingly by women and even more overwhelmingly by AFABs, who contain a lot more than just women).

When cis gay dudes are told about it in a "girls write this stuff" kind of way, they usually respond that women deserve porn too, and isn't that nice. You do you, largely irrelevant person.

Cis gay men are the dominant force in queer media that's not self-published romance novels, indie games, and so on. While I'd never say they have a fair deal as compared to straight men, if you look at queer presses and film festival films such, it's the cis gay men who get the lion's share of the attention, content, and money. I think that's why some rando making even more niche queer content just doesn't bug them much. (On average. Obviously, no group is a monolith.)

To the extent that I've seen complaints, it's generally a few dudes whining in amazon reviews that some romance novel had men crying and not having enough casual sex. Real Men Don't Cry™ yadda yadda.

Only in places like tumblr do I see a ton of pushback from queer men... and it should surprise exactly no one that the queer men in question are often trans, very young, and are getting misgendered pretty badly in their offline lives.

I see the same kind of "I am the queerest one! Only I have a special license to ship!" behavior from nbs and bi women and gnc straight women and basically anyone else who's doing some combo of having a traumatized reaction to their offline life and pulling a Not Like The Other Girls Others. There's a dash of white knighting in the pattern and a dash of people not quite getting that they've found their people. They're not the only one anymore!

(I really cannot emphasize enough how much of this I think is a trauma response where people need to be The Only Valid Man or The Queerest or something because m/m fanfic is their thing that proves their often-contested identity, and they're still carving out a place for themselves in the world. Except then they end up trying to take that space away from others like themselves, and that's not cool.)

The older trans guys I know facepalm over this stuff and are like "Buddy, no."

I mean, there's variety in any demographic. Groups are not a monolith, yadda yadda. But fanfic "fetishizing" discourse does tend to track with being young and having your main queer community contact be online and/or with having a strong strain of radfem in your ideas about queerness and art.

People liken fandom (and BL/danmei pro media) to the bachelorette party thing--through cluelessness or disingenuousness--but the more relevant comparison is probably drag queens.

I really liked David Halperin's academic doorstop How to be Gay where he talks about queens "appropriating" from women (he uses the term more neutrally than we usually do) and how drag can be empowering and meaningful to gay men in its intended context yet still feel sexist, offensive, and alienating to a woman stumbling across it.

He spends a lot of time talking about literal representation vs. art that speaks to your insides instead of your outsides and why a lot of cis gay men still love things like The Golden Girls and various female icons or camp and allegorical media more than art that depicts men like themselves. Interesting stuff.

For free and online stuff, an oft-cited example is this dude, Jamie Fessenden's blog post about women writing "m/m romance" (i.e. indie selfpub romance novels like you see on Amazon, which are the US and a lot of the West's answer to BL/danmei). It's interesting to see this guy's perspective as an older cis gay man. (Well, I assume. Plenty of authors turn out to be liars, but he passes a sniff test, IMO.) I have a couple of points where I disagree with him, but I think he has some solid ideas overall, and he's putting his desire for more media of type X into practice by making said media himself.

Anyway, I do think the criticism often comes from "our own community" (with its many, many meanings). It's just laced with lack of historical perspective at best and ulterior motives at worst.

130 notes · View notes

firelxdykatara · 4 years ago

Note

I’m just really confused as to where this idea that Zuko is gaycoded came from. Like people are allowed to have that headcanon but I don’t understand where people are coming from when they try and claim that he was undisputedly gaycoded and trying to deny it is homophobic when he’s only ever shown romantic interest in women.

I made a pretty long post on the topic a while back, but the ultimate gist of it is this: there are a lot of elements of Zuko's status as an abuse victim and trauma survivor that resonate with queer folks. This is understandable and completely fine! However, there are some parts of the fandom who have taken that to the other extreme and will now insist that those elements are uniquely queer, and that they can only be read as some sort of veiled gay/coming out narrative, even though that doesn't make much sense since there is no part of Zuko's narrative which is unique to any sort of queer experience.

I think the problem really does stem from two things being conflated--Zuko's history of abuse and trauma, and trauma&abuse being something a lot of queer people have experienced. I suspect it goes something like 'I see a lot of myself in Zuko, and I was abused for being gay, therefore Zuko must be gay too in order to have had similar experiences.' This can then lead to feeling dismissed or invalidated when other people point out that those experiences are not unique to being queer--but on the flip side, abuse victims and trauma survivors whose abuse&trauma do not stem from queerness (even if they are queer themselves) can feel invalidated and dismissed by the implication that their trauma must be connected to their queerness or it isn't valid.

This is also where the 'people don't actually know what gay coded means' part comes in, and I realize now that I didn't actually get into what gay coding (and queer coding in general) actually means, since I was so hung up on pointing out how Zuko doesn't really fit the mold. (And the few elements that exist which could be said to count are because of the 'villains historically get queer coded bc Hays Code era' thing and mostly occur in Book 1, not because of how he acts as an abuse&trauma survivor.)

Under a cut because I kind of go on a tangent about gay/queer coding, but I swear I get back to the point eventually.

Queer coding (and it is notable that, with respect to Zuko, it is almost always framed as 'he couldn't possibly be attracted to girls', rather than 'he could be attracted to boys as well as girls' in these discussions, for... no real discernible reason, but I'll get into that in a bit) is the practice of giving characters 'stereotypically queer' traits and characteristics to 'slide them under the radar' in an era where having explicitly queer characters on screen was not allowed, unless they were evil or otherwise narratively punished for their queerness. (See: the extant history of villains being queer-coded, because if they were Evil then it was ok to make them 'look gay', since the story wasn't going to be rewarding their queerness and making audiences think it was in any way OK.) This is thanks to the Motion Picture Production Code (colloquially and more popularly known as the Hays Code), which was a set of guidelines which movies coming out of any major studio had to adhere to in order to be slated for public release and lasted from the early 1930s until it was finally abandoned in the late 60s.

The Hays Code essentially existed to ensure that the content of major motion pictures would not 'lower the moral standards' of the viewing public. It didn't just have to do with queerness--cursing was heavily monitored, sex outside of marriage was not allowed to be seen as desirable or tittilating, miscegenation was not allowed (most specifically interracial relationships between black and white people), criminals had to be punished lest the audience think that it was ok to be gay and do crime, etc. Since same-sex relations fell under 'sexual perversion', they could not be shown unless the 'perversion' were punished in some way. (This is also the origin of the Bury Your Gays trope, another term that is widely misunderstood and misapplied today.) To get around this, queer coding became the practice by which movies and television could depict queer people but not really, and it also became customary to give villains this coding even more overtly, since they would get punished by the end of the film or series anyway and there was nothing to lose by making them flamboyant and racy/overly sexual/promiscuous.

Over time, this practice of making villains flamboyant, sexually aggressive, &etc became somewhat separated from its origins in queer coding, by which I mean that these traits and tropes became the go-to for villains even when the creator had no real intention of making them seem queer. This is how you generally get unintentional queer-coding--because these traits that have been given to villains for decades have roots in coding, but people tend to go right to them when it comes to creating their villains without considering where they came from.

Even after the Hays Code was abandoned, the sentiments and practices remained. Having queer characters who weren't punished by the narrative for being queer was exceptionally rare, and it really isn't until the last fifteen or so years that we've seen any pushback against that. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is famous for being one of the first shows on primetime television to feature an explicitly gay relationship on-screen, and that relationship ended in one of the most painful instances of Bury Your Gays that I have ever personally witnessed. (Something that, fourteen years later, The 100 would visually and textually reference with Lexa's death. Getting hit by a bullet intended for someone else after a night of finally getting to be happy and have sex with her s/o? It wasn't remotely subtle. I don't even like Clexa, but that was incredibly rough to witness.)

However, bringing this back to Zuko, he really doesn't fit the criteria for queer coding for a number of reasons. First of all, no one behind the scenes (mostly a bunch of cishet men) was at all intending to include queer rep in the show. This wasn't a case where they were like 'well, we really wanted to make Zuko gay, but we couldn't get that past the censors, so here are a few winks and a nudge', because it just wasn't on their radar at all. Which makes sense--it wasn't on most radars in that era of children's programming. This isn't really an indictment, it's just a fact of the time--in the mid/late 00s, no one was really thinking about putting queer characters in children's cartoons. People were barely beginning to include them in more teen- and adult-oriented television and movies. It just wasn't something that a couple of straight men, who were creating a fantasy series aimed at young kids, were going to think about.

What few instances you can point to from the series where Zuko might be considered to exhibit coding largely happen in Book 1, when he was a villain, because the writers were drawing from typically villainous traits that had historically come from queer coding villains and had since passed into common usage as villainous traits. But they weren't done with any intention of making it seem like Zuko might be attracted to boys.

And, again, what people actually point to as 'evidence' of Zuko being queer-coded--his awkwardness on his date with Jin and his confrontation with Ozai being the big ones I can think of off the top of my head--are actually just... traits that come from his history of trauma and abuse.

As I said in that old post:

making [zuko’s confrontation of ozai] about zuko being gay and rejecting ozai’s homophobia, rather than zuko learning fundamental truths about the world and about his home and about how there was something deeply wrong with his nation that needed to be fixed in order for the world to heal (and, no, ‘homophobia’ is not the answer to ‘what is wrong with the fire nation’, i’m still fucking pissed at bryke about that), misses the entire point of his character arc. this is the culmination of zuko realizing that he should never have had to earn his father’s love, because that should have been unconditional from the start. this is zuko realizing that he was not at fault for his father’s abuse--that speaking out of turn in a war meeting in no way justified fighting a duel with a child.

is that first realization (that a parent’s love should be unconditional, and if it isn’t, then that is the parent’s fault and not the child’s) something that queer kids in homophobic households/families can relate to? of course it is. but it’s also something that every other abused kid, straight kids and even queer kids who were abused for other reasons before they even knew they were anything other than cishet, can relate to as well. in that respect, it is not a uniquely queer experience, nor is it a uniquely queer story, and zuko not being attracted to girls (which is what a lot of it seems to boil down to, at the end of the day--cutting down zuko’s potential ships so that only zukka and a few far more niche ships are left standing) is not necessary to his character arc. nor does it particularly make sense.

And, regarding his date with Jin:

(and before anyone brings up his date with jin--a) he enjoyed it when she kissed him, and b) he was a traumatized, abused child going out on a first date. of course he was fucking awkward. have you ever met a teenage boy????)

Zuko is socially awkward and maladjusted because he was abused by his father as a child and has trouble relating to people as a result. He was heavily traumatized and brutally physically injured as a teenager, and it took him years to begin to truly recover from the scars that left on his psyche (and it's highly likely, despite the strides he made in canon, that he has a long way to go, post series; it's such a pity that we never got any continuation comics >.>). He was not abused for being gay or queer--he was abused because his father believed he was weak, and part of Zuko's journey was realizing that his father's perception of strength was flawed at its core. That his entire nation had rotted from the inside out, and the regime needed to be changed in order for the world--including his people--to begin to heal.

That could be commingled with a coming out narrative, which is completely fine for headcanons (although I personally prefer not to, because, again, we have more than enough queer trauma already), but it simply doesn't exist in canon. Zuko was not abused or traumatized for being queer, and his confrontation with Ozai was not about him coming out or realizing any fundamental truth about himself--it was about realizing something fundamental about his father and his nation, and making the choice to leave them behind so that he could help the Avatar grow stronger and force things to change when he got back.

TL;DR: at the end of the day, none of the traits, scenes, or behavior Zuko exhibits which shippers tend to use to claim he was gay-coded are actually evidence of coding--they aren't uniquely queer experiences, as they stem from abuse that was not related in any way to his sexuality, and they are experiences that any kid who suffered similar abuse or trauma could recognize and resonate with. (Including straight kids, and queer kids who were abused for any reason other than their identity.) And, finally, Zuko can be queer without erasing or invalidating his canon attraction to girls, and it's endlessly frustrating that the 'Zuko is gay-coded' crowd refuses to acknowledge that.

#atla #zuko #on queer coding #atla fandom salt #salt for ts #asked #mudbend

135 notes · View notes

nitrateglow · 4 years ago

Text

Favorite films discovered in 2020

Well, this year sucked. I did see some good movies though. Some even made after I was born!

Perfect Blue (dir. Satoshi Kon, 1997)

I watch a lot of thrillers and horror movies, but precious few actually unsettle me in any lasting way. This cannot be said of Perfect Blue, which gave me one of the most visceral cinematic experiences of my life. Beyond the brief flashes of bloodletting (you will never look at a screwdriver the same way again), the scariest thing about Perfect Blue might be how the protagonist has both her life and her sense of self threatened by the villains. The movie’s prescience regarding public persona is also incredibly eerie, especially in our age of social media. While anime is seen as a very niche interest (albeit one that has become more mainstream in recent years), I would highly recommend this movie to thriller fans, whether they typically watch anime or not. It’s right up there with the best of Hitchcock or De Palma.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (dir. Sergio Leone, 1966)

Nothing is better than when an iconic movie lives up to the hype. Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, and Lee Van Cleef play off of one another perfectly. I was impressed by Wallach as Tuco in particular: his character initially seems like a one-dimensional greedy criminal, but the performance is packed with wonderful moments of humanity. Do I really need to say anything about the direction? Or about the wonderful storyline, which takes on an almost mythic feel in its grandeur? Or that soundtrack?

Die Niebelungen (both movies) (dir. Fritz Lang, 1924)

I did NOT expect to love these movies as much as I did. That they would be dazzlingly gorgeous I never doubted: the medieval world of the story is brought to vivid life through the geometrical mise en scene and detailed costuming. However, the plot itself is so, so riveting, never losing steam over the course of the four hours it takes to watch both movies. The first half is heroic fantasy; the second half involves a revenge plot of almost Shakespearean proportions. This might actually be my favorite silent Fritz Lang movie now.

Muppet Treasure Island (dir. Brian Henson, 1996)

I understand that people have different tastes and all, but how does this movie have such a mixed reception? It’s absolutely hilarious. How could anybody get through the scene with “THA BLACK SPOT AGGHHHHHHH” and not declare this a masterpiece of comedy? And I risk being excommunicated from the Muppet fandom for saying it, but I like this one more than The Great Muppet Caper. It’s probably now my second favorite Muppet movie.

Belle de Jour (dir. Luis Bunuel, 1967)

I confess I’m not terribly fond of “but was it real???” movies. They tend to feel gimmicky more often than not. Belle de Jour is an exception. This is about more than a repressed housewife getting her kicks working as a daytime prostitute. The film delves into victim blaming, trauma, class, and identity-- sure, this sounds academic and dry when I put it that way, but what I’m trying to say is that these are very complicated characters and the blurring of fantasy and reality becomes thought-provoking rather than trite due to that complexity.

Secondhand Lions (dir. Tim McCanlies, 2003)

The term “family movie” is often used as a synonym for “children’s movie.” However, there is an important distinction: children’s movies only appeal to kids, while family movies retain their appeal as one grows up. Secondhand Lions is perhaps a perfect family movie, with a great deal more nuance than one might expect regarding the need for storytelling and its purpose in creating meaning for one’s life. It’s also amazingly cast: Haley Joel Osment is excellent as the juvenile lead, and Michael Caine and Robert Duvall steal the show as Osment’s eccentric uncles.

The Pawnbroker (dir. Sidney Lumet, 1964)

Controversial in its day for depicting frontal nudity, The Pawnbroker shocks today for different reasons. As the top review of the film on IMDB says, we’re used to victims of great atrocities being presented as sympathetic, good people in fiction. Here, Rod Steiger’s Sol Nazerman subverts such a trope: his suffering at the hands of the Nazis has made him a hard, closed-off person, dismissive of his second wife (herself also a survivor of the Holocaust), cold to his friendly assistant, and bitter towards himself. The movie follows Nazerman’s postwar life, vividly presenting his inner pain in a way that is almost too much to bear. Gotta say, Steiger gives one of the best performances I have ever seen in a movie here: he’s so three-dimensional and complex. The emotions on his face are registered with Falconetti-level brilliance.

The Apartment (dir. Billy Wilder, 1960)

While not the most depressing Christmas movie ever, The Apartment certainly puts a good injection of cynicism into the season. I have rarely seen a movie so adept at blending comedy, romance, and satire without feeling tone-deaf. There are a lot of things to praise about The Apartment, but I want to give a special shoutout to the dialogue. “Witty” dialogue that sounds natural is hard to come by-- so often, it just feels smart-assy and strained. Not here.

Anatomy of a Murder (dir. Otto Preminger, 1959)

I’m not big into courtroom dramas, but Anatomy of a Murder is a big exception. Its morally ambiguous characters elevate it from being a mere “whodunit” (or I guess in the case of this movie, “whydunit”), because if there’s something you’re not going to get with this movie, it’s a clear answer as to what happened on the night of the crime. Jimmy Stewart gives one of his least characteristic performances as the cynical lawyer, and is absolutely brilliant.

Oldboy (dir. Park Chan-Wook, 2003)

Oldboy reminded me a great deal of John Webster’s 17th century tragedy The Duchess of Malfi. Both are gruesome, frightening, and heartbreaking works of art, straddling the line between sensationalism and intelligence, proving the two are not mutually exclusive. It’s both entertaining and difficult to watch. The thought of revisiting it terrifies me but I feel there is so much more to appreciate about the sheer craft on display.

Family Plot (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1976)

Family Plot is an enjoyable comedy; you guys are just mean. I know in an ideal world, Hitchcock’s swan song would be a great thriller masterpiece in the vein of Vertigo or Psycho. Family Plot is instead a silly send-up of Hitchcock’s favorite tropes, lampooning everything from the dangerous blonde archetype (with not one but two characters) to complicated MacGuffin plots. You’ll probably demand my film buff card be revoked for my opinion, but to hell with it-- this is my favorite of Hitchcock’s post-Psycho movies.

My Best Girl (dir. Sam Taylor, 1927)

Mary Pickford’s farewell to silent film also happens to be among her best movies. It’s a simple, charming romantic comedy starring her future husband, Charles “Buddy” Rogers. Pickford also gets to play an adult character here, rather than the little girl parts her public demanded she essay even well into her thirties. She and Rogers are sweet together without being diabetes-inducing, and the comedy is often laugh out loud funny. It even mocks a few tropes that anyone who watches enough old movies will recognize and probably dislike-- such as “break his heart to save him!!” (my personal most loathed 1920s/1930s trope).

Parasite (dir. Bong Joon-ho, 2019)

This feels like such a zeitgeist movie. It’s about the gap between the rich and the poor, it’s ironic, it’s depressing, it’s unpredictable as hell. I don’t like terms like “modern classic,” because by its very definition, a classic can only be deemed as such after a long passage of time, but I have a good feeling Parasite will be considered one of the definitive films of the 2010s in the years to come.

Indiscreet (dir. Stanley Donen, 1958)

Indiscreet often gets criticized for not being Notorious more or less, which is a shame. It’s not SUPPOSED to be-- it’s cinematic souffle and both Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant elevate that light material with their perfect chemistry and comedic timing. It’s also refreshing to see a rom-com with characters over 40 as the leads-- and the movie does not try to make them seem younger or less mature, making the zany moments all the more hilarious. It’s worth seeing for Cary Grant’s jig (picture above) alone.

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (dir. Joseph Sargent, 1974)

This movie embodies so much of what I love about 70s cinema: it’s gritty, irreverent, and hard-hitting. It’s both hilarious and suspenseful-- I was tense all throughout the run time. I heard there was a remake and it just seems... so, so pointless when you already have this gem perfect as it is.

They All Laughed (dir. Peter Bogdonavich, 1981)

Bogdonavich’s lesser known homage to 1930s screwball comedy is also a weirdly autumnal movie. Among the last gasps of the New Hollywood movement, it is also marks the final time Audrey Hepburn would star in a theatrical release. The gentle comedy, excellent ensemble cast (John Ritter is the standout), and the mature but short-lived romance between Hepburn and Ben Gazarra’s characters make this a memorably bittersweet gem.

The Palm Beach Story (dir. Preston Sturges, 1942)

Absolutely hilarious. I was watching this with my parents in the room. My mom tends to like old movies while my dad doesn’t, but both of them were laughing aloud at this one. Not much else to say about it, other than I love Joel McCrea the more movies I see him in-- though it’s weird seeing him in comedies since I’m so used to him as a back-breaking man on the edge in The Most Dangerous Game!

Nothing Sacred (dir. William Wellman, 1937)

I tend to associate William Wellman with the pre-code era, so I’ve tried delving more into his post-code work. Nothing Sacred is easily my favorite of those films thus far, mainly for Carole Lombard but also because the story still feels pretty fresh due to the jabs it takes at celebrity worship and moral hypocrisy. For a satire, it’s still very warm towards its characters, even when they’re misbehaving or deluding themselves, so it’s oddly a feel-good film too.

Applause (dir. Rouben Mamoulian, 1929)

I love watching early sound movies, but my inner history nerd tends to enjoy them more than the part of me that, well, craves good, well-made movies. Most early sound films are pure awkward, but there’s always an exception and Applause is one of them. While the plot’s backstage melodrama is nothing special, the way the story is told is super sophisticated and expressive for this period of cinema history, and Helen Morgan makes the figure of the discarded burlesque queen seem truly human and tragic rather than merely sentimental.

Topaz (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1969)

Another late Hitchcock everyone but me seems to hate. After suffering through Torn Curtain, I expected Hitchcock’s other cold war thriller was going to be dull as dishwater, but instead I found an understated espionage movie standing in stark contrast to the more popular spy movies of the period. It’ll never be top Hitchcock, of course-- still it was stylish and enjoyable, with some truly haunting moments. I think it deserves more appreciation than it’s been given.

What were your favorite cinematic discoveries in 2020?

157 notes · View notes

lightns881 · 4 years ago

Text

DTeam Tumblr Demographics Survey Results (Part 2):

What does DTeamblr look like, what does it have to do with MCYT history, and why does it look like a rainbow?

I’ll make an educated guess here and say y'all enjoyed my last post (totally unrelated to the way I gained almost 50 followers overnight). Anyhow, thank you so much for the overwhelming support! I’m so glad a lot of you felt you could relate to my deep-dive into the leading personality type on DTeam Tumblr. It took me so many hours to write and research, and as a math major and honors student, it’s no easy feat, so I’m so grateful for the attention it got!

Today we’re discussing the general demographics of DTeam Tumblr and why they might look the way they do. Number 8 will blow your mind! So make sure to keep reading and hit that little grey heart and arrow at the bottom if you like it, so more people get to see it! Thanks for your support! Now, let’s jump straight into the post!

Your Daily Dose of Data

From the 449 responses we received, these are some pie charts displaying the gender, age, and sexuality of all respondents.

Image Description: Female (52.8%), Non-Binary (37.4%), Male (9.8%)

Image Description: 16-17 (37%), 13-15 (31.4%), 18 and over (29.4%), 12 and under (2.2%)

Image Description: Bisexual/Pansexual (54.1%), Homosexual (16%), Asexual (14.7%), Other (7.8%), Heterosexual (7.3%)

Mmhm, delicious! Y'all ready to dig into these stats? Because I don’t know about you, but they certainly don’t strike me as what the general population looks like!

Welcome to Tumblr, the Only Community Where Straight Men are the Minority

So these statistics certainly didn’t take me by surprise. Mostly because the DNF Shipper Survey I took some time ago revealed a similar trend. Not to mention, Tumblr is probably the QUEEREST internet community on the planet.

Funny enough, the survey revealed a shocking number of ZERO heterosexual males respondents. I’ll say it louder for the people in the back. ZERO straight males were recorded out of 449 respondents for this survey!

Now, this isn’t surprising for the Tumblr community by itself, but I can say I’m somewhat surprised in terms of the MCYT Tumblr community. (Obviously, the survey specified DTeam Tumblr, but there is a big overlap between both communities, so I will be using them interchengably when it seems relevant.)

Let’s break this down. The survey reveals the largest age population is 16-17, though it’s not by a great margin in comparison to 13-15 and 18 and older, which doesn’t surprise me either. Some of the major critics of the DTeam Fandom and other MCYT Fandoms love to claim the fanbase’s majority age range lies with children and pre-teens. While it’s an undeniable fact children are drawn to Minecraft, it’s also a misconception to paint it as solely a community for younger viewers.

In the MCYT Tumblr and DTeam Tumblr communities, specifically, we see this is not the case. Only 1/3 of the respondents of this survey are under the age of 16 (you could attribute part of it to the fact younger people might be less inclined to participate in this survey, but it is still a notable difference). I can’t say these age ranges are similar in other parts of the community like DTeam Twitter, Tik Tok, or Reddit, but if I had to make a guess, I’d say Tumblr lies toward the older of the bunch, with Reddit being the oldest and Tik Tok being the youngest (I do hope to perform this survey on some of the other communities, so please stay until the end if you want to help with that).

One of the likely explanations to why the ages for DTeam Tumblr look this way is the fact a big chunk of the community has likely been watching MCYT for a long time (even with breaks in between). I, myself, used to watch channels like PopularMMOs, Aphmau, and PrestonPlayz as a kid, and I presume many of you are familiar with them as well. With the resurgence of MCYT in the past year, it likely drew a lot of the older viewers in addition to the new ones.

But enough about age. What I really want to highlight on this post is the attraction of queer individuals to DTeam Tumblr and MCYT as a whole.

Why is the current MCYT Fandom so queer in comparison to the previous generations?

This is a huge open-ended question and considering I can only capture so much of the DTeam and MCYT community, the rest of this post should be taken solely as a theoretical analysis as opposed to fact.

With that out of the way, let’s start by discussing the shift MCYT has undergone over the years (I promise this will circle back to the question of queerness in the MCYT fandom, but we need some background before we can come up with a decent theory).

When Minecraft was first released, it proved to be a monumental change in the gaming industry. This simple little indie game took the world by storm. It was so vastly different from what the general population generally viewed gaming as (first-person shooters, story-driven games, action games, etc.) Not to mention, it didn’t exactly solely appeal to only a small margin of gamers, those being white cis males.

The gaming industry has notoriously been known in the past for its heteronormative community and general prejudice toward minorities. Though it has gone through a significant change over the decades, we certainly can’t say it’s fully gone.

Yet for whatever reason, the recent MCYT has taken the interest of so many queer people in comparison to other gaming YouTube communities. Why? Why are queer people so drawn to this community? And, more precisely, why does it feel so different than the old MCYT? Lastly, how does this relate to the conclusion about the leading personalities of this fandom we made in the last post?

The Niche Communities of MCYT Over the Years

MCYT has always been a huge, over-saturated genre of YouTube with content appealing to a variety of audiences. It’s dominated gaming content for years, and I think we can all safely say it’s never been bigger than it is today.

So why is it that just now it feels like the queerness of the fandom is popping off? Why now as opposed to say five years ago when MCYT was at another one of it’s strongest stages?

It seems like the community has made a tremendous shift in relation to breaking gender norms and LGBTQ+ subjects, not only in the fans but within the creators themselves. Was flirting and calling a pretty-boy streamer pet names as normal in the past as it is today? Were straight gamer guys putting on dresses and a full-face of make-up as supported back then? Were “marriages” and “pregnancies” within Minecraft boys an everyday occurrence like they are now? How is it that MCYT has dominated a Twitch dating show where flirting with the gay host and among straight contestants themselves is just another bit of entertainment? Where is this all coming from?

Recently, I watched a 2 hour documentary depicting all of the stages of Minecraft YouTube and how it has changed over the years. If you haven’t seen it and you have some time to spare, I HIGHLY recommend it! It’s very informative, and it honestly gave me such a strong sense of nostalgia that makes me choke up every time I think about it. I’ll link it below.

The documentary does a great job at exploring the different niche communities that dominated MCYT since it first took off. Some of such communities include the basic Let’s Players, the team-based Let’s Play channels like How2Minecraft, the roleplay story-centric ones like Aphmau and Samgladiator, the tutorial, building and technical side like Mumbo and Grian, the PVP-centric Bedwars or Hypixel channels, the Machinima community, the comedy side like ExplosiveTNT, the parody music videos, and so many more. All of the mentioned communities have dominated Minecraft at one point or another, many of them still having a rippling effect and/or a loyal community today. All of these communities have certain aspects that define them, some of which parallel the current overtaking content in the present.

How can we compare MyStreet to the Dream SMP?

Taking Aphmau as an example, her MyStreet series had a TREMENDOUS success a few years ago, racking in millions of views and bringing in a lot of money that eventually allowed her to hire voice actors and increase the production of mentioned episodes. The roleplay series was so successful it ran for six seasons!

Now, let’s compare that to the Dream SMP. It seems like a big comparison to be making considering they appear so different at first glance. For once, Aphmau is just one channel whose audience caters toward girls and younger people who enjoy romance. The series is set-up in an episodic-format that resembles more of a TV series than actual Minecraft videos.

Meanwhile, the Dream SMP is a collection of content creators with a mix of improvised storylines and the occasional regular video that resembles more of a Let’s Play series than a RP series.

You could say the only true comparisons to draw out of these two are the popularity they had/have and the profit they brought to their respective creators.

However, there’s two other key similarities that you’ll find not only within these two specific examples, but many other channels and communities as well. Story and characters.

MyStreet’s story aspect is fairly obvious seeing as it’s a episodic series that focuses on a fictional story. The Dream SMP’s story aspect isn’t as clear, but it’s evident there is a story playing out in the foreground and background, whether intentional or unintentional, or improvised or not.

Character is where some of you might start to question me. It’s obvious MyStreet has characters. I mean, it is a fictional story, after all. But the Dream SMP? Light, they’re obviously people!

Well, my answer to that is yes and no--sort of. The Dream SMP’s story heavily relies on roleplay, bits as you might call them. Events that aren’t necessarily planned out as a fictional plot like the typical MyStreet episode is, but they aren’t exactly real. Schlatt is obviously not a villain in real life, he just likes to impersonate as one for the narrative. Wilbur isn’t crazy, but it’s a way to spice up the heroic story surrounding Tommy and him.

It’s video-game improv. Except the actors behind the content just so happen to be real people playing off the personalities and “brands” they have obtained.

Brands. It all boils down to this. In the entertainment business, without a clear vision of your project and a clear way to brand what your consumer intakes, your project will likely not find a lot of success.

There’s a reason why Tommy plays off his loudness, using an overexaggerated laugh that although may not be completely fake, it is likely not the laugh he uses everyday. Or why BadBoyHalo is this supposed innocent muffin who doesn’t understand the crafting table meme and other references that are fairly easy to google and find the meaning of. Or why Sapnap is this chaotic being who loves starting pet wars and we love to paint as an arsonist in the Dream SMP. While all of these personality traits may be a part of their true selves, they’re played up for the camera--for the story. They act as the personas that define their characters in the narrative.

They have a clear brand and vision that appeals to the audience and makes them tune in on the daily to see how they all come together. It’s like roleplaying a more extreme version of yourself, one that brings home the money.

Story and characters run across every entertainment outlet. They define their brand. Aphmau has her characters and series. Hermitcraft has a set of memorable personalities and episodic videos that formulate its own story that is less like a narrative and more of a history of the server. ExplodingTNT has his recurring cast and comedic sketches. Most of these niche communities have a form of story and character defining them. It’s how they achieve a clear sense of branding and cater to a specific audience.

Queer Theory in MCYT

Having said all that, why does the MCYT of today draw in so many queer viewers?

Let’s think about this. In my last post, I ended by mentioning DTeam Tumblr is a sort of safe haven for INFP and INxx types who might be placed in the “other” category by society. INFPs, specially, are predisposed for escapism--one common form of it being fiction and entertainment. Not to mention, INFPs are feeling types who, as introverts, seek a personable connection. It’s why it’s so easy for them to obsess over book characters or fall in love with content creators.

Now, let’s imagine a whole community of LGBTQ+ INFP and INxx types. Actually, scratch that, we don’t even have to imagine it.

It’s what our community looks like today.

And why are so many so drawn to the DTeam and Dream SMP of all things? It’s a personable storyline that essentially forms a direct tie to the viewer. Unlike pre-recorded fictional TV series you tune into on your device, the Dream SMP is a whole load of chaos that blurs the lines between reality and fiction where fans can directly connect to creators and get to know them as people through a storyline that features sub-textual queer themes and non-conforming behaviors.

The MCYT content creator community of today is more non-conforming than ever before, and knowing this whole fact, knowing that many of them might place themselves in the “other” category or at the very least aren’t afraid to break the norms and be seen in that light, is a comfort in itself for LGBTQ+ INFP types. Once again, it’s a safe space that helps you escape from the troubles of real life, one you relate to.

Okay. So although this does answer why the fans look like they do, what about the creators themselves? Are we really supposed to believe this all came through naturally? That a bunch of straight guys suddenly decided wearing dresses was something they wanted to do?

I don’t mean to sound cynical here, and I’m in no way trying to insinuate creators have solely some sort of corrupt ulterior motive. Things are never as simple as they look. However, the truth is, a part of it lies on the attention it’s gotten.

I’ve talked a lot about DreamNotFound and the way Dream uses it as a marketing ploy. I stand by my point. However, he’s not the only one who does this in the MCYT community. Why did Finn suddenly go from wearing a dress to cross-dressing as a girl for a whole week? Why are so many creators suddenly deciding wearing dresses is fun? Why does every freaking straight MCYT actively want to flirt with George nowadays?

Let’s just let Techno’s favorite word answer this for us: clout.

It gets attention from one of the largest historically underserved minority community in the entertainment business. We might not be able to see gay flirting in every Netflix TV show or guys not minding dresses and getting fake marriages, but you are certainly going to get at least one of those in every Dream SMP stream and video you tune into. It gets attention. It brings home the money. And do I blame them? Not really.

Interestingly enough, there’s a lot of analytical posts on the MCYT Tumblr community that discuss the dangers of these tactics and why gay jokes and the way queer subtext is treated by MCYT creators is harmful. Despite this, it still attracts such a huge community of queers. So why exactly would queer people actively watch something that’s offensive or harmful to us?

I have a lot more to say about this topic and the morality behind Dream’s tactics, but I’m out of breath for today, so I’ll talk about it in my next post. What better way to start the conversation about the DNF and Karlnap questions of the survey than a good ol’ discussion on the morality of queerbaiting and the likes?

If you got this far, I’d appreciate it if you liked and reblogged this post if you enjoyed it and/or learned something new! Also, important news, I would really like to perform a similar study on the DTeam Twitter Community to measure the differences in demographics across platforms. I would REALLY appreciate it if you guys could go like, retweet and share the link I posted on my Twitter about it (tweet will be linked in the reblog below) so it reaches more of the DTeam Twitter community!

However, if you filled out the survey yourself here or you associate more with DTeam Tumblr than DTeam Twitter please DO NOT fill out the survey again! I’m trying to make sure it reaches the audience that mains on Twitter, but I need a little help with that since I don’t have as big of an influence on Twitter than on here for obvious reasons.

Anyhow, thank you so much for all your support! I really appreciate y’all and make sure to hit the follow if you want to lookout for the next demographics post! <3

(Pssst, I’m releasing a MCYT DNF superpower AU longfic next month... You should totally go check out the post on that if you’re interested in it...)

#dteam #dteamblr #dream smp #dttblr #mcyt #dreamwastaken #dnf #mcyttblr #georgenotfound #dreamnotfound #dttwt #dream team #dteamblr demographics survey

102 notes · View notes

iturbide · 4 years ago

Note

If you are still up for character asks, how about Sumia. I was sad no one asked about her yet.

And your latest fan art got me interested in also hearing your thoughts on Takumi. If you feel ok answering since I know you haven't played Fates.

I’ve been sad about that too so thank you for rectifying that situation ❤

How do I feel about this character?

My girl. I love Sumia so much, she is one of my absolute favorite characters in Awakening and one I will never pass up an opportunity to write. I love her and how passionate she is about books, how deeply invested she gets in the stories and characters and how she uses them both as an escape from her own life (where she can’t help but dwell on her own shortcomings) and as a source of inspiration and courage. There’s something intensely relatable about wanting an escape like that, feeling outclassed or useless and getting lost in a book as a way to cope -- and yet she’s so capable, even if she doesn’t recognize it herself. She seems so used to people looking down on her or criticizing what she does or making fun of her slip-ups that she’s started to really believe all of it, when the reality is that her mistakes have never been her defining trait: seeing her learn to embrace her own skills and talents is so heartwarming and I find myself constantly rooting for her to succeed in everything.

Who do I ship this character with romantically?

Sully!! Sully and Sumia is one of my favorite ships in all of Awakening, honestly: I love these two ladies who are so gung-ho about horses and bond over that mutual interest and I love the idea of them getting together and learning more about each other, bolstering one another’s confidence (Sully reassuring Sumia that she’s more capable than she thinks and offering to train her if it would make her feel more assured, Sumia insisting that Sully doesn’t need to be girly to be a woman and gushing about how she admires the cavalier) and falling for one another in the process. It’s just really warm and I love it a lot, and given how encouraging they are in their supports, I really think they’d be a fantastic match for each other.

Also, I do love her with Chrom, and I feel like she’d be an encouraging influence for him, doing what she can to give him confidence and help him keep moving forward in spite of the obstacles; she’s such a bright and refreshing character and I think they could end up working really well together, leveraging their individual strengths to make the halidom a better place. And I really enjoy her with Robin, too, considering how they bond over their mutual love of books, and I think Robin would be one of those people who really can see her for who she is, rather than the klutz she sees herself as. It’s especially good when it’s both of them together with her though (yes I love my OT3).

Who is my brOTP for this character?

Robin and Sully, when I’m not shipping them! Their relationships are so strong and they’re founded on such deep rooted friendship that even when I have them in other relationships, those bonds remain. Also, even though she doesn’t have any supports with him in the game (which is criminal), I love the idea of a Sumia and Kellam friendship. Kellam is someone who struggles to be noticed, Sumia’s someone who often seems to wish she could disappear. The idea of them coming together and overcoming their obstacles together is really heartwarming to me.

What’s my Unpopular Opinion™ about this character?

She’s so much more capable than fandom wants to give her credit for. Most people seem to write her off as stupid, passing over her as a brainless klutz in favor of the “genius” Cordelia -- but this is such a disservice to Sumia and her character. She’s a fantastic fighter if given the chance, outrunning and outmaneuvering enemies, and while the game loves to play her off as comic relief, she’s a character with interesting, thoughtful support conversations whose life clearly doesn’t revolve around getting a man’s attention. She’s her own person with hopes and dreams, hobbies and interests, unique skills and charming quirks, and bothering to get to know her really allows her to shine.

And personally, I don’t think she’s actually that clumsy. Sure, she can be a little scatterbrained sometimes, but even the smartest and most capable people can be; when she has too many things to juggle she slips up in comic ways, but when push comes to shove she’s incredibly capable; if she weren’t, she never would have been able to rescue Chrom at the Longfort (sometimes I think people forget that she’s the one who swept in and got him clear of the javelins).

(And for a bonus unpopular opinion: I hate Cordelia and Sumia as a ship. Cordelia is so mean to Sumia in their supports, banning Sumia from telling her flower fortunes because she personally doesn’t see value in them -- she doesn’t even bother trying to understand what Sumia’s doing or why, she just decides that her own way is the only right way, which is not how friends should act; putting them in a relationship is out of the question for me.)

What’s one thing I wish would have happened with this character in canon?

Why does she have so few supports? It’s not fair that she can so easily end up alone because the game limits her options so much; aside from Chrom, she has the fewest marriage options, but unlike him she doesn’t have an auto-marriage after a certain point. It’s not fair that the game treated her that way, and I wish canon had given her more supports, platonic and romantic both. Again, seeing her with Kellam would have been incredible, and I really wish they’d bothered to give her a support chain with Maribelle, too, considering how Maribelle treats her early on; it would have been amazing to see them work things out.

and you know I was wondering if people forgot my favorite Fates character

How do I feel about this character?

I have never played Fates. I know about these games purely through fandom osmosis. And yet I will say, in no uncertain terms, that Takumi is my absolute favorite Fates character. Fallen Takumi is still one of my very few units at +10 merges in Heroes because I love him that much. And it’s kind of hilarious how it came to this because it’s kind of Heroes’ fault that I’m in this situation.

I remember when the game first launched how much of a pain he was in the early Arena before Skill Inheritance was a thing, and how the only reliable counter I had for him was Hector because I’d never gotten Takumi myself. And then one day he randomly showed up in a summon, and I was so excited I ran off to train him immediately...and realized as I did that this guy has some massive self-esteem problems. It’s what got me interested in him in the first place, enough to do some digging in the wikis, and I kind of fell in love with his character: he’s smart, he’s capable, but he has a massive inferiority complex since he’s grown up in the shadow of his older brother -- something Corrin’s return manages to make worse, since everyone kind of loses their minds over it and pushes him down and away despite the fact that he’s the only one being sensible and questioning whether they can really trust Corrin after they were brought up in Nohr. While he has an attitude problem that needs to be addressed (though it’s nowhere near as bad as Felix’s), he can get better and gain confidence in himself and his abilities...but in Conquest, his fate is an absolutely tragic one, where his self-doubt and anger allow Anankos a foothold, something to prey upon, and ultimately lead to his loss of control, loss of self, and loss of life. His story just really hits me in the heart, kind of like Lyon, and I just want to see him grow and overcome his doubts.

Who do I ship this character with romantically?

Okay so this is probably where my not having played the game is going to bite me but I have no idea. There are so many characters in Fates and I don’t even know half of them. I know Leo is a popular partner for him but I’ve never really seen the chemistry there so I can’t say that’s for me; I could always cheat and say I ship him with happiness because honestly that is true, I really do want him to be happy first and foremost, but I don’t have an actual character answer whoops.

Who is my brOTP for this character?

Azura. I love the idea of the two of them coming together as friends, both haunted and hounded by nightmares and terrible thoughts they can’t seem to shake, and finding ways to support one another through it. I get the feeling that Takumi might have treated Azura with some distrust early on, but despite the fact that she came from Nohr, I honestly think they could have ended up having a close bond in Hoshido growing up as they struggle with their own problems, and it would have been amazing to see them come together to overcome them. Also, I love the idea of him and Sakura being close as siblings, with Takumi protecting Sakura and helping draw attention off her when she’s feeling especially shy while she tries to encourage him and give him a place where he can relax with and get away from all his issues for a little while, someone he can enjoy himself with and not have to think about his problems.

What’s my Unpopular Opinion™ about this character?

I actually don’t know what kind of popular opinions there are about Takumi so I have no idea what kind of unpopular opinion I could have. Honestly I don’t see anywhere near enough to Takumi in general since he seems to be eclipsed by not only his older brother but the Nohrian royals in fandom-wide popularity; is it an unpopular opinion to want more people to give him a chance, rather than writing him off as just an angry nay-sayer? Because honestly, he is the only one with any sense, since he’s the only one who thinks to distrust Corrin when they return.

What’s one thing I wish would have happened with this character in canon?

Okay so this is really really niche but I really wish they’d made Takumi Corrin’s half-brother rather than just a step-brother. It honestly would have made so much sense? Takumi’s the only other character who has the same kind of pale hair that Corrin canonically does, even if it’s not the exact same shade, so if that came from Mikoto it would fit perfectly with not only Corrin’s and Takumi’s hair color, but Sakura’s hair being that super pale pink compared to Hinoka’s vibrant red, which is what you’d probably expect from Ikona and Sumeragi after Ryoma inherited his father’s very dark hair. I get the feeling they didn’t do it because they wanted to make all the royals available as romance options, which is both cheap and gross (and after what they did with Azura in Revelations it’s worse), but I think it would have been a really interesting plot element if they’d taken the time.

Give Me a Character

#answered #alerawolf #meme #fire emblem: awakening #fire emblem: fates #sumia #takumi #two of my favorite characters in one ask #you are my hero for requesting these two #i love takumi so much now i want to draw him again

20 notes · View notes

askgundamwingfans · 3 years ago

Text

This concludes the answers so far for the first set of AskGWFan Questions. If you have anything you wanna ask the group, use the ask function on tumblr or send me a dm!

What's a character/ship you've learned to appreciate? What made you change your mind?

Relena x Dorothy. Both as characters and as a ship. Part of this is that I hadn't seen all of the series at the time I first did fandom, but I had seen Endless Waltz, and that was the extent to which I had known Dorothy. She doesn't even interact with Relena in EW!! I had no impression of her (besides whomst??), and I honestly don't even remember if Relena ever appeared in fics I read since a lot of them were AUs anyway. However, after seeing the series and MISS RELENA and all of Dorothy's... Dorothy, I think she's got some great cult appeal!! And my mind really changed on both when I saw the whole series properly. I'm not sure I would have been on board with them at the time since I was less discerning about how female characters often get developed poorly, but I don't regret that I experienced Relena and Dorothy fully at a time where I could appreciate them.

I eventually started to appreciate Relena more, she grows up a lot by the end, even if she definitely should not be handling the responsibility she has...

Honestly breaking outside of the typical ships by reading more fics broadened my horizons. Writers I loved ventured into non-typical and I found myself enjoying the exploration. I think over time it had less to do with the ship and more to do with the characters as the fandom aged.

I've been reading a lot more yaoi since interacting with the larger fandom. I've always loved non-traditional gender roles in romance stories, and I don't know why it took me so long to try yaoi? I've read some yuri but never in Gundam Wing. Interacting with the yaoi community has opened up a lot more characterization of the pilots for me, which have always played the role of "tough, emotionless boys" in my headcanons.

Howard. He’s amazing and hilarious and as I get older I’m more and more like, is this the only sane character? I used to just be like “who is this weird guy?” and now I’m like “why isn’t there more Howard?”

What characters/ships do you think got some negative flack? How has the GW fandom's attitudes towards those characters/ships changed?

The scientists hahahahahaahah. I think for the most part unless you are in a niche group, the scientists are generally seen as child abusers to varying degrees. Tsubarov? Everyone still hates him but acknowledge he has a flair for the dramatique. Camp villain appreciation I guess. Relena was definitely shat on, being at the unfortunate intersection of romantic rival and 'annoying' female lead. Again, as someone whose canon experience was informed by Endless Waltz more than the anime, I don't remember if I had any opinions on her at all. However, I think people have admitted where they were wrong (whether owning up to bashing, or speaking up about fandom broadly).

Well besides the obvious Relena, one character that got so much hate and bashing in 1xR circles was Sylvia. I remember one of the first things I checked when I got back into fandom was Sylvia's role in the show and was surprised to see how little she actually does?? She's literally in one episode but was constantly dragged into 1xR stories to be a romantic rival for Relena. Pretty much the same role Relena took on in a lot of 1x2 stories. I guess we just got away with it because she was a minor character. It was just interesting to me that 1xR fans gave some girl the same treatment that 1x2 fans did to Relena. I think that realization helped me put aside the Relena bashing and move on from it. If I don't see Sylvia as an evil character anymore, why would Relena bashers? And I was really happy to find that I was right. As the fandom moved away from romance-centric plots to look at self growth and politics, less characters became target for fandom hate/bashing, and we moved on.

Well, back in the olden days Relena and Wufei were probably the ones who got it worst. Dorothy. Hilde. Zechs. Treize. Heck, even reasonably popular characters like Duo and Quatre had their own "defense" societies against some of the fanon surrounding them. But fans have grown up over the years and portrayals of the characters and various ships have too. (2x5 for instance has gone from a total rare pair to one of the top GW ships on AO3 which I find a fascinating trajectory.) Have we evolved into a perfect utopia? No, and there will probably always be complaints about how a given character or ship is popularly portrayed. I certainly have my bugbears, just like anyone else might. But it's a long time since I've opened up a fic and seen character bashing of the sort that was common c. 2001. People might not be shy about sharing their opinions on their own blogs, but picking fights on other people's content? Flame wars? Not so much these days. The GW fandom might be smaller, but we're also closer-knit. Fandom is about having fun; finding the pockets that bring you enjoyment and finding ways to filter out the rest, and I think we mostly get that (or we're just too old and tired to have much fight left in in us lol).

Well, very early Relena and Duo battles made me nervous of the fandom back in the day, but I think those mainly came from places within ourselves that we can see now don’t need to be at odds. I love them both and I am glad to see the fandom embrace them both on their own merits. I think it’s easy to be anti- when you are younger and appreciative when you are older (and I totally understand how people could be anti! No judgements. I just love everyone and want everyone to be happy. Except Zechs. He has some SERIOUS explaining to do.)

Oh, Relena *definitely* had a lot of negative flack. I'm glad most of us seem to have mellowed out about the poor girl. It's hard to hate a kid when one is in their 30's, lol

Relena of course, but also 3x4 was seen as the “lesser” ship back in my day and there wasn’t much depth or enthusiasm by many other fans.

#askgwfans #gundamn wing #ask #ask gundam wing fans #prev character bashing #new favs

7 notes · View notes

xtrippydragonx · 4 years ago

Text

About Me

Why am I doING THIS FUCK HOW DO YOU WRITE THESE

Uhhh sup, y’all can call my Casey or Rex. I’m 21 (birthday is May 29th), a woman, and I like to draw and play vidya gamez. I’m also autistic so if I ever seem awkward in an interaction, that’s probably why lmao. Most of my blog consists of the stuff you’d typically expect on a tumblr blog; funny posts and fandom stuff. It is also worth noting that as I am an adult, this blog will occasionally contain content with adult themes.

This blog is basically just for my niche interests/hyperfixations and random shit. On this blog, you’ll find (almost exclusively reblogged) content for the following:

Corpse Bride (I’m most known for this hyperfixation)

Popee the Performer

Pokèmon

Doki Doki Literature Club (Yuri IS best girl and I WILL fight you in a Denny’s parking lot over this)

Breath of the Wild (Yes my favorite champion is Mipha, no I am not ok)

Danganronpa (mostly V3 but sometimes the other games as well)

Warrior Cats (Runningnose is my favorite character)

Minecraft

Left 4 Dead

Criminal minds

Here’s some other things I’m interested in but either haven’t really had a chance to dive into, or aren’t hyperfixations:

Kid Icarus: Uprising

Tales From Moominvalley (I’m also somewhat interested in The Moomins Return!)

Beastars

ENA

Payday (the second game, specifically)

Bojack Horseman

The Walten Files

Harmony and Horror

Five Nights at Freddy’s

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic

SCP Foundation

Sally Face

Poppy Playtime (wanna be clear that no, I do not support the creators morally and have no plans to support them financially- but the game is cool and the talent that the devs put into it is worth acknowledging!)

Avatar: The Last Airbender

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure (I’ve only watched the anime tho so I’m currently clueless abt anything past Stone Ocean lmao)

The Blacklist

One Piece (RIP Ryunosuke ;-; I promise that’s not a spoiler lmao)

Zombieland Saga

My ask box is always open! Whether you wish to discuss theories or opinions about a shared fandom, get to know me better, or anything else, you’re always welcome to send something my way! I love and am honored when people are interested in my ramblings, so never worry that you’re bothering me or anything, I promise you’re not.

Sometimes you’ll occasionally see some random tags on a post I’ve rebloged. This is a guide to what they mean!

‘Favs’: my favorite posts! Sometimes they’re fandom related, sometimes I just think they’re funny.

‘S.I’: stands for “self indulgent”, it’s basically a tag of me being thirsty for fictional characters (mostly Victor Van Dort). Fair warning, a good portion of it is NSFW because I have brain rot and need to be banished to the shadow realm bc horny jail isn’t enough for me anymore.

‘Answered asks’: every ask I’ve answered, compiled under a tag for your convenience! If you’re interested in my thoughts/opinions/theories/etc about corpse bride, this tag is a good place to start.

‘Might come in handy’: things that I want to save incase I need them later. Mostly drawing references/tutorials, but there’s some other things scattered about this tag as well.

‘Vent tag’: A tag where I can reblog posts with ideas or feelings I strongly relate to; I tag all my negative reblog posts with this. It will likely contain themes of depression, anxiety, trauma, suicidal ideation, etc. If this sort of content is a trigger, I would recommend blacklisting this tag.

‘A hot original on tungle dot hellsite’: all of the posts that I’ve made! This tag is a WIP so bear with me lol.

Also, please note that I am only human, and, again, autistic. This means that I may sometimes say or do the wrong thing. If I do this, it is probably because of human error, rather than malice. Please assume this is the case and let me know so I can correct my mistake. I try to make sure I don’t reblog from anyone sketchy but sometimes I can’t find a post anywhere else so if that occurs, reblogging does NOT equal endorsement here!!

Whelp, that’s about all I can think of for now. I’ll probably update this post as time goes on! Thanks a lot for reading; I hope you enjoy your visit to my little corner of the internet! Stay as long as you need, traveler /ᐠ๑•ω•ᐟ\ฅ

35 notes · View notes

spatort · 4 years ago

Text

I’m at my parents’ house and I have too much time on my hands apparently, so it’s time for a trip down memory lane! More specifically, a trip into the weird world of 1990s for-profit teen idol RPF, such as this beauty:

No, I did not find this at my parents’ house, I bought it second-hand specifically in order to make this post because I’m a person who enjoys studying fan culture in her free time. So, if you’re wondering what the hell the monstrosity pictured above is, and why it exists, don’t worry, I’m about to answer that question extensively.

LONG (AND HOPEFULLY FUN & INTERESTING) POST UNDER THE CUT

Let’s start with a bit of history: In the pre-internet era, fan culture differed from today in a few key regards. Although fanfiction existed, without the internet it was much harder for fans to share their stories with each other. Large fandoms such as Star Trek did have fanzines where fanfic could be printed, but all in all it was a much more niche thing than it is today with millions of fics accessible on AO3.

Fan culture in general, however, was a big thing in the 90s – particularly when it came to pop acts that appealed to teen (and tween) audiences, such as the Backstreet Boys, the Spice Girls, or (mostly in Europe) the Kelly Family. When I was in elementary school, you basically had to pick whether you were a BSB or an NSYNC fan – and god forbid you were a Kelly fan like me, then you were the lowest rung on the social ladder and the target of relentless mockery. Like many German kids in the 90s, me and my sister would religiously read teen magazine BRAVO, cut out every single bit of material about our faves and collect them in folders and self-made fanzines. We created fan art and fanfiction without having words for these things. Without the internet and social media, fans did not have a constant stream of content about their idols, and were left with no other choice but to cling to every bit of information they could find in magazines, on TV shows, or on the radio.

Enter a savvy businessperson who comes up with the perfect merchandise product to sell to these popstar-obsessed teens: fan novels! These books, featuring taglines such as ‘The novel for all Backstreet Boys fans’, typically revolved around a relatable female teenage protagonist who is a fan of the celebrity or music group in question, and usually ends up meeting their idol or, gasp, even becoming romantically involved with them. As far as themes go, they look pretty much exactly like your classic self-insert RPF. Except there is a big difference setting these books apart from ‘actual’ fanfiction: Rather than being written by real fans to express their ‘fannish’ feelings about the subject, fan novels were most likely commissioned works created by professional romance authors purely to profit off of actual fans. There is very little background information available about this ‘genre’, but I did stumble across an academic work on Google Books which featured a passage about these fan novels (translated into English by me):

There are several commissioned works by professional authors, which could be mistaken for fanfiction. Especially in the 1990s, when lots of boy bands were on the market, many books of this kind were published. […] These are fictional stories for fans [redacted].

Jennie Hermann: Backstreet Girl. Projektionsfläche Popstar - Wenn der Fan zum Schriftsteller wird (2009) [Popstar as Projection Surface – When fans become writers]

One of the things I find most intriguing about this type of commercially published fanfiction is the question of personal rights. Obviously, the celebs in question or their management must have consented to using their names in the story, their pictures on the cover and so on – because a profit could be made with this. Especially with the fan debate around RPF allegely being unethical, I wonder if the celebrities themselves were aware someone was writing these stories about them, putting words in their mouth, and if they had any clue what exactly happened in these novels. Now, I’ve read a couple of them in my own youth. Some of them deal mostly with the state of being a fan, e.g. I recall a novel about a girl who is so obsessed with Leonardo Di Caprio that she doesn’t pay attention to real life guys at all, only to learn that her actual dream boy has been in her life all along! This story did not feature Di Caprio himself as a character, it was more about the protagonist’s arc of realizing your idols are not all that matters in life. Others do describe fan encounters with teen idols, and some even feature (hints at) romance with a celebrity. When I decided to purchase a vintage copy of one of these books, I opted for one of the latter category, precisely because of the popular argument that writing romance stories featuring real people is somehow ‘wrong’. For only a couple of euros, I was able to get my hands on a weird and wonderful relic of fan culture: Mein Frühling mit Nick (My spring with Nick) by the likely pseudonymous Maxi Keller, heralded on the book cover as ‘the novel for all fans of the Backstreet Boys’.

The story revolves around 16-year-old musical prodigy and designated wallflower Katharina, who lives in a German small town and cares about nothing else than playing the organ – certainly not about boys, let alone ones that are super-famous American pop stars. This means she is not initially a fan of the Backstreet Boys, which I guess is something of a trope itself – the protagonist meeting a celebrity by chance without knowing who they are and the celeb being thrilled that someone doesn’t just like them for their fame. Anyway, the boys visit Katharina’s hometown while on tour in Germany because band member AJ is doing some research on his German ancestors who happened to live in this very town. Katharina runs into them, she and Nick (who was only 17 himself when this was published in 1997, so it’s legal) fall in love at first sight, she helps them dig up information on AJ’s ancestors and finds out the two of them are related, the boys invite Katharina and her friend Saskia backstage after their show and … nothing happens. The book is 200 pages long and Katharina doesn’t even get one kiss with her boy band sweetheart, even though they mutually crush on each other right away. Perhaps that’s as far as the band or their management agreed for the novel to go – a hint at romance, but no trace of any on-page action, no matter how innocent.

That said, the book is so hilariously poorly written that it was still very entertaining to read. Although I could not find out anything about the author Maxi Keller, and therefore assume this might be a pseudonym, their writing style very much suggests that their are a professional romance author who usually writes for an older audience (plus, the book was published by Bastei Lübbe, who also publish a range of cheap romance novels known as ‘Romanhefte’). The language is extremely flowery at times, and even teenage characters speak with an eloquence that is hardly age-appropriate, with some 90s teen slang peppered in at unfitting times (such as the overuse of the English word ‘girl’). Often the novel loses itself in pointless detail that does nothing to move the plot forward (such as an extensive description of a house party hosted by Saskia’s rich parents, with minute details of their luxurious lifestyle and assets, even though Saskia is only a supporting character in the overall plot). It appears as if the author is desperately trying to fill the pages with meaningless drivel so they don’t need to write too many scenes featuring the presumed main attraction, the boys themselves.

If Keller was indeed merely hired to write this, and is not a fan themselves, one must still admit that the author did their research when it comes to the band. Whereas fanfiction typically assumes that the audience is already familiar with the characters and often skips any introductory descriptions of their appearance or personality, Keller makes sure that even a reader who is completely unfamiliar with the Backstreet Boys can keep up. The author delivers extensive descriptions of the boys’ appearance and demeanor, even spelling out their full names repeatedly, and frequently peppers in ‘fun facts’ such as ‘Kevin was raised on a farm in Kentucky’. While an actual fan might do so to prove how knowledgeable they are, and earning their status as a ‘true fan’, in this case it only seems like Keller really wants to show off how much research they did – as if not a single piece of information they took in must go to waste by not being used in the novel.

When it comes to the question how realistically the non-fannish author replicates the way the boys act and speak, there are two barriers to delivering a well-founded answer: Firstly, I was personally very young when BSB were popular and I really don’t remember too well what each member was like. Secondly, the elephant in the room: the language barrier. All of the aforementioned fan novels were written in German, and the problems posed by writing about an English-speaking band interacting with German OCs (and teenage ones at that) are addressed poorly, if at all. Pretty much all dialogue is written in German, and the audience is left to assume that everyone is actually speaking English whenever the boys are involved – except the novel does nothing to explain why two 16-year-old German girls would be able to express themselves so effortlessly in a foreign language. (Remember, the internet was not a thing, so German kids were not exposed to the same amount of English in everyday life as they are these days.) It would have been easy to make one of them a language nerd who gets straight A’s in English class, and give the other a British parent and make them bilingual. Instead, Katharina initially even worries about the prospect of having to talk to boys at all, and in English on top of that! But when she actually does, the language barrier never comes up again. The suspension of disbelief expected from the reader is therefore immense. The language barrier also gives the author an easy way out when it comes to imitating the way the boys speak in real life – there is no need to take into account idiolects or regional differences (such as ‘you guys’ vs. ‘y’all’) if the boys’ speech is essentially translated into a foreign language. However, I wanted to give you guys (or y’all, if you will) a taste of how Keller attempts to write a scene where AJ and Nick discuss the latter’s crush on Katharina:

I would argue that this sounds realistic enough for what it’s worth, if a little cheesy, which is excusable in this genre. Perhaps a true 90s BSB fan would beg to differ, so if you happen to be one, feel free to drop me a message. But in my semi-professional opinion, this most likely holds up for readers.

So, to answer the initial question that drove me to purchase this book: Do fan novels like Mein Frühling mit Nick count as fanfiction?

If we assume that something is only a fanfic if the author themselves is a fan of the subject matter, then I would argue no, Maxi Keller is probably not a fan themselves and therefore this work of for-profit real-person fiction does not qualify as fanfic. However, fan novels definitely have a (however small) place in the history of fan culture and fan-adjacent works, and I personally found reading this relic both entertaining and insightful!

#fanfiction #fanfic #backstreet boys #nick carter #german stuff

26 notes · View notes

incomprehensiblelentils · 4 years ago

Text

@dollsome-does-tumblr does this and opened it up to anyone and I am feeling chatty today SO!

Because I co-write a lot with my lovely wife, I might answer some questions including those co-written stories, or I might not, depends on how I feel when I get there.

name:

Megan but I go by Lentils most places on the internet, Shadowcrawler over on AO3

fandoms:

at the moment: MCU, especially Agents of SHIELD and Daredevil; Terminator: Dark Fate; Halt and Catch Fire. Oh and I wrote Dollhouse fanfics a thousand years ago. Sometimes I will watch a movie/show and think “those two girls should be gay” and bang out 2k of fic about it and then never write for that fandom again. (I THOUGHT this was going to be HACF but as it turns out, no, it’s not done with me yet.)

where you post:

AO3, at Shadowcrawler. I also have a tumblr @lentils-writes where theoretically I post links to fics/advertise them in the tags, because I used to be real precious about not putting porn on this blog, but fuck it.