#this is aimed at bl fandom

[forkaround]

for the people in the back with cotton in their ears: 'REAL' QUEERNESS IS NOT JUST ANGSTY, TOXIC AND PROBLEMATIC. QUEERNESS CAN BE SIMPLE, SOFT AND KIND. IT CAN AND SHOULD BE ALL THE GOOD THINGS. Please don't keep seeing queerness through a single lens. You are just reinventing homophobia in a different font. Let girls kiss girls and be soft and happy. Let boys kiss boys and be soft and happy. That is unarguably QUEER AS FUCK. The point of queerness is you don't have to prove something. Realistic Queerness is just as much bad stuff as it is good stuff, you are not better for preferring one over the other and the person with the opposite pov isn't better or worse than you for their preferences.

[bo-cute-o]

PSA to content creators as we enter the holiday season

(and a quick self reminder bc fuck knows I've gotten this backwards too)

Mistletoe has white berries

Holly has red berries

Ty & have a nice day

[holmsister]

Is Kabru a Twink? A possible answer from queer history

Abstract: ever since his introduction, discussion amongst Kabru scholars has been vivacious, sometimes to the point of some vitriol, on one particular specific point: does Kabru of Utaya fulfill the basic traits of a twink? There are points to be made on both sides of the issues. The solution proposed in this paper aims to be the compromise that might allow the scientific community to move on from this terminological impasse.

First of all, since this is a terminological discussion, let's start with a few definitions. What is a twink?

From Wikipedia, page "Twink (lgbt+ slang)" [retrieved 2024-06-12]:

Twink is gay slang for a man who is usually (but not always) in his late teens to twenties whose traits may include a slim to average physique, a youthful appearance, little or no body hair, and flamboyancy.[5][6][7] Twink is used both as a neutral descriptor, which can be compared with bear,[8] and as a pejorative.[5][9]

From Fandom LGBTQIA wiki, page "Twink" [retrieved 2024-06-12]:

Twink is a subcultural term referring to gay or bi men who defy traditional masculine roles, embracing traits that are generally seen as feminine.[1]

Twinks are typically associated with a few key tropes: general physical attractiveness, a slim build, and a youthful appearance that lacks facial hair and often body hair as well.[1] In his book Never Enough (2007), Joe McGinniss describes a court case in which twink was defined as "a gay slang term used to denote an attractive, boyish-looking gay man between the ages of 18 and 23, slender ectomorph and with little or no body hair, often blond, often but not necessarily Caucasian."

Now sadly we don't have the time to delve into the ways the term "twink" has sometimes be used to enforce ageism, racism and fatphobia in the LGBT+ community, since we are talking about, you know, a fictional character in a fantasy. We will refrain from judgement and just base ourself on these barebones definitions without further fleshing them out.

On the surface, Kabru fulfills many of the requirements for a twink. His build is slender (tho more on that later), he is in the age range (22, altho its worth noting age of majority in the dunmeshi world is 16).

Also, he has the baby face. Round cheeks, long lashes, big eyes... Like there's no way around it thats the kind of face some seme asshole would grab by the chin as they call him "pretty boy" in a bl manga. That's a face that gets men who have always considered themselves hetero to question a thing or two. That's a face that gets your landlord to make your laundry for free.

Kabru Schrödinger's twink paradox comes from the fact that as someone who practices swordfighting and wears an armour (a lighter one but still) and marches for days in the dungeon, he MUST be muscular. There is no way around this. And this goes against one of the basic tenets of twinkhood, which is Twinks MUST Be Lithe And Delicate.

To further this point, I will quote from this article from OUT magazine titled "Dear Internet: THIS is what the word 'twink' really means", dated 01 March 2024 [retrieved 2024-06-12]:

"But the things that tie all these definitions together include being gay, being thin, young-looking, little to no body hair and no facial hair, and attractive. So NO, 27-year-old with a ’70s mustache and buff arms full of the tattoos he’s gotten over his adult life is, you guessed it, NOT a twink..."

As you can see, emphasis is put on the lack of muscles. While Kabru has no facial hair, we can however substitute the tattoos for the many scars he has received in battle - his body looks much more like the body of a man who is weary with experience. Again, keeping in mind that the age of majority in dunmeshi for tallmen is 16 and Kabru is 22, we could argue that proportionally, at least culturally, Kabru leans towards being almost too old for a twink, too, and his scars can be symbolic of that in much the same way tattoos are.

Also, in both the definitions above a tendency towards feminine-coded behaviour is noted. In Kabru's case, while see him occasionally engaging in behaviour that might read as slightly feminine, we see him also assume very masculine roles both in his party and during battle. Its also worth noting that Kabru was raised by elves, a culture whose aesthetic standards lean heavily towards what reads as feminine to tallmen, and that Kabru himself is characterised as someone who heavily adapts his behaviour based on other's expectation - we can therefore argue that it is possible that what "effeminate" behaviour he engages in is actually a result of his upbringing, as well as a way to endear/ingratiate himself to those that he judges would respond better to such behaviour, rather than a matter of self-expression.

Now, i already hear the objections, so i will further elaborate on the muscle point. Having been killed and resuscitated so many times, Kabru has lost the soft layer of fat that makes Laios body so evidently strong, and it has probably even started to cut into his muscles. Also, differently from Laios' stout build, we see young teen Kabru in a few illustrations with Milsiril and he IS naturally lanky - even at his top weight its probably going to look more like an athletics/gymnastics body type than the wrestler/weightlifter type.

However, the muscles ARE there, and losing the layer of fat would make them even MORE visible. He is more likely to have defined cut abs than Laios, paradoxically. And again, if you look at the classic twink porn, the boys rarely have sixpacks or even visible arm muscles. They're bony.

Thankfully this is not the first time the lgbt+ community has been faced with this dilemma. Therefore, falling back on the wisdom of our elders, i propose: Kabru is a twunk.

Urban Dictionary, voice "twunk" [retrieved 2024-06-12]

Twunk

A term used amongst the LGBTQ community to describe males (typically gay) with the face of a twink (boyish-looking, pretty) but the body of a hunk (muscular, jocky).

Without the ambition of being definitive, my humble offering will hopefully offer Kabru scholars a chance to possibly reach a terminological consensus, therefore allowing us to move on from this topic without misunderstandings.

[crybabierin]

Intro post!!♡

My name is Rin! I like to draw my OCs a bunch and I decided to revive my old tumblr lol. I’m not a good artist so I hope it’s ok!! I like drawing edgy guys and cute little girls!

I'm a proshipper, comshipper, darkshipper and profic I tend to like cuter dynamics that have a heavy power imbalance and are considered problematic (older x younger), so if there is media with those things I probably also like it lol. I like 3L (NL/BL/GL) so everything is OK! ⚠️I also find ryona and guro content very cute (I used to draw this more when I was younger, I want to get back into it!!) L0lisho, sh, gore, and most other problematic things are included too (obviously only in a fiction♡)

I’m not really used to fandom spaces (I’ve never really been involved much before but sometimes I like to draw fan art) but some of my more general interests include: VOCALOID Guilty Gear Touhou project Idolm@ster Ranfren

I'm very open so if you’d like you can also message me whenever, I would like to make more friends online since I have a hard time meeting people! I am also mostly active on twitter and I have a pixiv too! (I mainly aim to use this blog as an art blog to just post drawings to)

Please just don't interact if you're uncomfortable with these or similar topics! I also interact from @cutierinrin!!

[cloudeeskies]

Looking for a roleplaying buddy :D

Hello! My name is Skies (or Sky) and I am currently looking for a roleplay buddy.

Some thing's about me and my roleplay style!

I am 20 years old! MDNI. I'd prefer my roleplay partners to be 18+ please.

I am semi-lit. I am working towards being lit. (Please no one word/sentence replies)

I don't really do Canon x OC.

I don't mind if characters are/end up out of character.

Currently looking for someone to RP with me from a fandom we are both interested in.

I enjoy AU's (alternate universes) mostly

I'd prefer to use Discord for the Roleplay's but we can continue to use Tumblr if you'd prefer.

I'd like to be communicative! Like discuss arch's or story plots. Also if you don't like something, or where the story is going, I want to communicate those things.

Some fandom's I'm in, and ships I enjoy from them: (just a note, im trans masc and lean more towards BL ships)

Genshin Impact - Alhaitham x Kaveh - Wriosthley x Neuvilette - Itto x Gorou - Heizou x Kazuha - Scaramouche x Kazuha - Kaeya x Albedo (theres more but these are just the main ones)

Honkai: Star Rail - Dan Heng x Caelus - Jing Yuan x Dan Heng - Dr. Ratio x Aventurine - Sampo x Gepard - most x Caelus (lol) - maybe Ren (Blade) x Dan Heng

Jujutsu Kaisen - Geto x Gojo - Itadori x Megumi - Nanami x Gojo (itadori and megumi aged up)

Haikyuu!! - Daichi x Sugawara - Iwazumi x Oikawa - Bokuto x Akaashi - Kuroo x Kenma - Sakusa x Atsumu (open to others)

Sk8 the Infinity - Langa x Reki - Cherry x Joe

My Hero Academia - Sero Hanta x Shoto Todoroki - Katsuki Bakugo x Shoto Todoroki - Katsuki Bakugo x Eijiro Kirishima (Rare pairs are fun we can make one)

As stated through out, I am willing to try other ships, rare pairs etc. Any underaged characters will be aged up, just my preference, if they are in high school they will be aged up to college age. I enjoy doing AUs (alternate Universes). We can discuss more about them later on but for example for the Genshin ships, i would probably aim for a modern AU. Please DM me if you have any questions or are interested!

[mikuni14]

I was intrigued by the defense of Maya from people who read the manga, I also saw a screenshot of this scene with her fight with Taichi and I want to say as someone who doesn't know the manga, only the series: I feel like none of this scene from the manga was translated into the scene in the series except the words. The vibe, the atmosphere, they are completely different.

I won't go into detail about all the differences, I'll write about one, the main one, which I think explains everything:

Maya from the manga is agitated and you can see that she is angry on Kohei's behalf, but you can see some kind of… chivalry in her, as if she sincerely believes that she is defending Kohei, her attack is mean but also kind of "argumentative", as if she wanted Taichi to understand what she thinks he is doing wrong

Maya from the series behaves as if it was all about attacking Taichi and everything is laced with some kind of malice and unnecessary rudeness, her attack is aimed at insulting and belittling Taichi, to drive him away from Kohei

So it is quite possible that it is simply… the drama's fault and how they decided to show this character, without nuances, just as an ordinary bitch. Or maybe the same scenes just have a different tone on paper and different in a real life.

I may also be wrong about the vibe of this scene in both editions, because I haven't read the manga and I've seen comments from readers that they didn't like Maya in the manga and don't like her in the series. So idk, I'm just trying to understand what is going on in this series right now 😅

I also want to say that the fact that it's a girl doesn't matter at all, quite the opposite, there is general anger in the BL fandom that the girl has been made "the bad one" again, we're all tired of it, besides, it's already 2024, girls don't have to have to break up relationships and they don't have to be mean.

Overall, I have the impression that something went wrong with this character and in this episode.... It's weird when the fandom of a romantic series is on fire… with anger and hatred 😭

[olderthannetfic]

I saw a good post about the anti-BL creators of Western BL flavored stuff like Heartstopper and RWRB that was like: if they are so hell bent on the idea that their stuff is aimed at gay and bisexual men or boys, why did they not bother to look at any media by/for gay men? It’s not like that’s hard to find. Even if you’re just looking at stuff for teens like with Heartstopper author, most of the big YA books about gay or bi male characters are by gay male authors. Maybe try reading those. They’re clearly reading nothing but slash fanfic and maybe like M/M romance novels for women or like, idk, Check Please, and then going Shocked Pikachu Face when it turns out their books are way more popular with female audiences and Heartstopper TV has a famous gay man talk about how it’s clearly not for gay men and not how actual gay boys act.

And like… I don’t think there’s anything wrong with M/M stuff for women, the author of this post was clear that she didn’t think there was either. But these authors clearly wanted to make M/M for men so like… maybe talk to queer men or look at the media queer men are making for themselves if that is your goal! Less fanfic, more Looking or whatever.

It’s just the sheer fucking hubris of assuming that because they are some other flavor of queer and they’ve read some M/M fiction (slash fanfic) that they must know what it’s like to be every type of LGBTQ+ and don’t need to do any research to appeal to that audience.

--

They don't want to make m/m for cis gay male culture.

What they want is to have their current tastes validated in a "You're one of the boys and those other filthy fujos aren't!" way.

Trust me, this crap has been going on since the 90s and before. It's a common affliction of slash fans who want to be the most special. That goes for the trans men trying to assert their masculinity in a world that doesn't respect them as much as for the straight ladies who endlessly tell you about their Gay Best Friend. It's a disease that hits all parts of BL fandom.

It's just our local flavor of "Knitting isn't just for GIRLS anymore!" and "Now you can drink tea as a MAN!" startup bro insecurities. You know, the people being parodied here.

The best we can do is to keep laughing in their faces and keep treating BL as a marketing niche with genre conventions that's open to whomever shares that taste.

[takeyourcyanide]

Кошмар

AO3

Fandom: Soul Eater

Characters: Franken Stein, Spirit Albarn

Word Count: 2 914

Tags: Nightmares, Dreams and Nightmares, Blood and Violence, Blood and Gore, Anxiety Attacks, Hallucinations, Delusions, Descent into Madness, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, It's Not Paranoia If They're Really Out To Get You

Summary: Stein has a nightmare, which leaves him rattled and serves as a particular reminder. He scrambles to make it through the day as usual.

Notes: I don’t think I’m going to finish this one in the way I’d originally wanted, so here, have it in its current state.

? - ?

With an oddly great and taxing amount of effort, Stein opened his eyes, groaning. A bright, white light flooded his vision, his index finger twitching, his body trembling. He instinctively lifted his hand and arm as to cover his squinting, pained eyes, only to feel a hand pull it back down and towards what was presumably its own body.

He jumped, his eyes widening. An agonizing sensation in his abdomen left him reeling, confused and disoriented. A scream could be heard from afar, one that sounded an awful lot like his own voice, muffled by what sounded to be both water and ringing.

He shifted his gaze downwards, his body frigid. He jumped once more - upwards this time, resting on his aching elbows, his heart plummeting somewhere unknown, as his breath slowly hitched, any and all oxygen entirely lost on him.

He’d been lying on a grassy field. The sky was overcast, but a little sunlight still managed to peak through the blanketing clouds. There was not a tree in sight, not a flower, not anything. The only sign of life sat directly in front of him, to the side of him, behind him- or should he say ‘signs’?

There sat three different people- people with the wings of vultures protruding from their upper backs. And each of them had his face. Each of them had his body. Each of them appeared to be him. And each of them were smeared, coated in blood- his blood.

He looked further down.

His intestines were hanging out from his unclothed abdomen, the greater omentum ripped away and ripped apart. The one sat in front of him, straddling him, held his intestines in its hands, in its mouth- intestinal tissue hanging from its sharp teeth.

The other sitting beside him was gnawing on his arm, gnashing its teeth together due to the sheer force and fervor with which it ate.

And the third, his head resting in its lap, was feasting on his brain, blood trickling down his face, falling into his eyes on occasion.

And there was another guttural scream, his body moving on its own accord as his legs and feet kicked and flailed around, throwing whatever it was that was seated on his thighs - himself - off and knocking the one to the side down like a bowling pin. Dominos, even.

Stein scrambled to stand up, a hand holding his guts in place, clawing his way out of the grip of the brain-eater, nearly tripping over his own feet as he ran as far away from them as possible.

A thought crossed his mind as his rapidly thumping heart seemed to replace his eardrums.

Was he already dead?

Stein glanced behind himself and over his bloodied shoulder. They were no longer there.

He heard strained breathing not too far away from him. He heard a continuous stream of footsteps much lighter than his own.

He whipped his head back around, throbbing eyes utterly transfixed on the horrifying sight before him.

The brain-eating one held an axe, a shining, sharpened axe. A burning glint of determination and frustration gleamed within its eyes, its irises the same muted shade of green his happened to be.

Stein nearly instantaneously threw himself around and backwards, desperate for an escape and prepared to run for miles.

That is until the one whom straddled his thighs and had apparently been behind him, waiting patiently and quietly, sunk its claws into his neck, purposely aiming for his carotid arteries, digging in deeper and deeper into his severing neck, blood spurting from the area, blood rising in his throat and falling from sore-ridden lips.

He gargled loudly, choking and truly unable to fill his lungs with air, as his eyes went back and forth between rolling into his head and maintaining their composure.

Before he could pass out or even die of shock, he felt heavy stones worth of weight leave him, as the world around him spun for the briefest of moments. It felt as though he were flying in the air- and once the side of his head and his cheek smacked against the plain below him, he’d realized he *had* been flying.

He spit out the remaining blood in his mouth onto the ground, dirtying the pure golden-yellow of the grass.

His eyes rolled back into their sockets for the final time.

-

06:24 - 06:38

Stein jumped, the motion vaguely familiar, his eyes shooting wide open. He used his elbows for leverage to sit himself upward, as he hunched over, scanning the room for anyone or anything in a frenzy.

He began rocking himself, his ragged, shallow, somewhat loud, and quick breathing not stabilizing.

His forehead was covered in a layer of sweat, his skin seemingly on fire. He looked around the room once more, tugging on the dangling handle of his lamp impulsively and frantically, before ripping his shirt from off of his body.

He immediately laid his quivering hand onto his abdomen, feeling around for any wound at all- even something as small as a bruise. He looked everywhere for any unfamiliar scars, any cuts - anything, his hands rubbing all over his head, even gripping onto and petting over his arm.

He was… fine? Then why did it seem so real? What was wrong? Something was wrong.

His heart and soul shook in unison, even more confused and disoriented than in what was supposedly a dream. A really vivid dream. That’s all it was, right? It wasn’t a sign? No one was going to do that to him? Would he do it to himself? That would be better. Was the deterioration going to eat him alive sooner rather than later? Would somebody else?

His body gently quivered, his thighs aching with each desperate hit he delivered them.

The walls looked strange, didn’t they? Something was wrong. Everything was conspicuous- everything was.. scary? Was that it? Was he scared? He’d surely never been so scared in his life. Someone wanted to hurt him. Right? That was a sign, wasn’t it? Something was going to happen.

His head jerked.

His head.

He forgot to check his neck!

He patted around his carotids, finding absolutely nothing but non-severed flesh- or, truly, yet-to-be-severed flesh.

He breathed a sigh of relief, his heart beating in his fingertips and toes. He wrapped his arms around his torso, running his nails around and down his upper and lower back.

“Argh..”

What sounded to be Spirit groaned in the hallway, his shuffling and footsteps becoming louder and louder.

Stein froze in place, gaze fixated on his door and the spot underneath it, listening closely, hushing his hyperventilating.

He allowed himself to sneak a glance at whatever shadow dashed in front of him, his eye twitching.

Spirit was awake, was he? That meant it was time to get up and get ready. He needed to calm himself. He hadn’t the energy for the simultaneously mundane and uniquely chaotic world of the academy. But he needed to. Was he just bad at self-soothing? He needed to get over himself. Something *was* wrong, but he shouldn’t be so rattled over it. It was just a dream, wasn’t it? It was a sign. Just a nightmare, but just a sign, as well, right? It was real, wasn’t it? Something was wrong. Something was off. Something was going to happen. But he still needed to get his act together. Was Spirit the one planning on killing him? No. He needed to stop. He still had work left to do. He couldn’t let the crawling and festering eyes take him just yet.

Stein put valiant amounts of effort into inhaling deeply and exhaling carefully and slowly. He continued his rocking, he continued his patting over his back, and was able to gradually stabilize himself enough to leave his room. Well, all he was actually doing was making the noisiness hopefully less obvious. It’s not as though the feeling disappeared. It’s not as though the eyes had disappeared. It was all still there, beating on his chest and bones, his heart remaining in an odd state. His heart rate never increased due to any sort of emotional circumstance. Why now?

He tried his best to ignore the sightings and sounds and everything following him to his door. He tried his best to ignore the lightheadedness and slight dizziness he was afflicted with, his shirt in his hand and coming up over his head again.

Did he need to shower? He didn’t have the time, nor energy. He couldn’t, they were bothering him. It was bothering him. It was just a nightmare. It wasn’t a sign. It was a sign. He couldn’t focus on that sign. He needed to remain in control. But if someone were to kill him or hurt him or anything, wouldn’t he be not in control? Which one was it? He didn’t have the time, nor energy to even consider.

He wasn’t going to be killed. The strident, reverberating static would have nothing to torment, then, would it?

He opened his creaking door cautiously, scanning both ends of the corridor before leaving, wiping the sweat off of his forehead with his sleeve, and childishly rubbing his tired, aching eyes.

“Mornin’, sunshine,” Spirit’s teasing, pompous voice was so utterly grating on Stein’s ears that he could physically feel as agitation bubbled effervescently within him, biting down and suckling on his bottom lip for long enough to, God willing (or honestly, static willing), settle and tenderly hush the feeling before it could become too all-consuming.

He avoided even glancing at his weapon, of whom had gotten himself all dolled up already, and was sitting with his legs spread wide on the sofa, his arms outstretched confidently on its back cushions.

“Why aren’t you dressed yet? And where are your glasses?”

Oh. Well, maybe that’s why his eyes hurt.

“Go get dressed. And wear your glasses, dumbass,” he waved him off somewhat playfully with a prominent grin on his countenance.

Stein turned back around, yanking on and fiddling with his lips, and not permitting himself one singular groan or moan. He still had work left to do. He could dress himself. He could put his glasses on. Perhaps he’d even eat a snack. He couldn’t board himself in, he couldn’t wander around and pace all day, he couldn’t doze off staring at his computer screen. And, most importantly, he did not need a stupid caretaker. He could do all of that himself, and he could ignore the noise- the eyes, even if that meant that eventually they’d have chewed up all of his bone marrow, all of his corpus callosum.

He shimmied into his usual attire, the clothing he was at his most comfortable and familiar wearing, clothing that wasn’t disorienting and was something of a habitual tether. It was grounding and typical, though managed to make the unknown and distressing differences in his surroundings and reality even more apparent due to the newfound comparison.

Was his clothing suspicious, too? No. There was nothing wrong with it. No one tampered with it, the eyes didn’t scurry over it. He was fine. Everything was fine. He was perfectly normal- his normal, since he was apparently so horridly bizarre and foreign in the eyes of the humans.

He jumped - he never jumps - he jumped at the sound of birds singing a particularly fitting song outside of his window. Too fitting. Descriptive and telling. Was he living inside of a movie? No.

He beat his hand against his head, slapping his forehead in almost punishment, and in a pitiful attempt to refresh himself in a way only dissection could; euphoria and a shortly-lived reset, relaxation with a sadistic and scientific twist. No more thoughts. No more of *those* thoughts. But then they’d all have the upper hand- the eyes, the watchful ones, *them*.

‘I still have work left to do, goddamnit,’ he scolded himself for the umpteenth time. ‘Whether I think about it or not, it’ll be there. They’ll distort shit, they’ll add shit, they’ll take away shit. Just get over yourself and work anyway. Pathetic behavior is never a good look. You’re better than this, Stein.

But is he?

And should he allow that thought to cross his mind?

‘You can easily rip them all apart.’ A comfort. But he couldn’t rip the eyes apart, nor the static, nor the ones whom dashed. Only the flesh-bodied ones.

Franken retrieved his glasses from off of the floor where they’d evidently fallen from their rightful place beside his pillow, situating them on his twitching face.

‘You’re fine. Everything is okay. Everything is clear. Everything is normal. Nothing is wrong. You are calm and collected. You’re only imagining that supposed “gnawing.” You are only imagining everything. It is only the madness.’

He cracked his knuckles, his neck, even - rolling his shoulders and feeling them ‘pop.’

He fussed with his bangs, patting his renegade hair down, running his fingers through the soft strands.

He’d look how he typically looked, because he was perfectly fine. He could still work and train, he could still dress himself, he could still look somewhat presentable - or, at the very least, as presentable as he usually appeared - because he was fine. He did not need any conspicuous person’s help, he did not need reminders. And he was fine. He was only gaslighting himself into believing his head was swimming with lightheadedness and fatigue. He was fine. His heart did not feel funny. That nightma- that dream did not bother him at all. And most of all, he was perfectly fine.

-

06:48 - 06:54

“Are you okay?” Spirit’s hands were situated in his pockets, a pair of somewhat cat-eye-shaped (though he’d never admit it) sunglasses situated on his tan face.

He stared at Stein’s squinted eyes with his own squinted eyes…. Though his eyes appeared more sewn shut than merely ‘squinty’, whether it be only because of the sun’s obnoxiously radiant light or, too, because of the beads of sweat coming dangerously close to slipping and sneaking past his eyelashes.

“Why?” Franken muttered somewhat breathily as they turned yet another cobblestone corner, fairly muted but colorful buildings lining the streets rather scenically.

There was not a singular cloud in the sky to deter the panting sun’s rays, and they just so happened to be cascading onto both Stein and Spirit, as they walked side by side.

“Well… Uhm. You seem to have forgotten that it’s still summer,” he panned his hand over his meister’s outfit. “You’re wearing long sleeves and pants. Just because you’re usually cold all the time doesn’t mean you’re immune to overheating, Stein. You look as red as a damn tomato.”

“And you don’t?”

“At least I’m actually wearing something appropriate for the weather. We live in Nevada. This isn’t fucking Siberia.”

True. Touché, even. He was even wearing lighter colors; a white tank top, a silver necklace with a cross charm hanging just below his clavicles, and shorts the same shade of blue as his irises. It wasn’t exactly his usual style, but the desert heat truly couldn’t care less about your style or comfort.

“So, what, did you forget or something?”

“Didn’t think to check the weather, I suppose.”

“Can’t you just assume it’s hot?”

“Yes. …This time of year, at least.”

Spirit released a dramatic sigh as they turned their very last corner, now encroaching upon the tall staircase to the academy.

He ran a quick hand through his hair, patting away the moisture on his forehead with the back of his hand. He fiddled with his cross a few times, pursing his lips pensively.

“I know you don’t like certain clothing, and you like those clothes, and shit-“ and he also knew that there was more to it all than that, “-but you really need to start wearing some actual summer clothing. Wear something short-sleeved, or at least shorter-sleeved. Don’t want you dying on me. I’m responsible for you and all.”

“No.” The word slipped from Stein’s lips involuntarily. He hadn’t even formulated a response in his head, he was simply blurting now - and defiantly, at that. “Go away.”

“Well, you know if I don’t end up forcing you, Marie will.”

“I don’t want to be forced to do anything, Spirit. Nor will I."

“Then stop narrowly avoiding heat strokes!” Spirit removed his sunglasses from his face, sitting them atop his head fashionably. He sassily smacked his long hair away from his shoulders in slight annoyance. “One of these days you’re not going to be able to avoid ‘em! Anyway, you comin’ or not?”

Stein internally groaned at the sight of the daunting stairs he’d gone up countless times, Albarn standing impatiently on the very first step with his hands gripping onto his hips.

“Do you need help?” There was a furrow to his brows. Was he angry? “You look exhausted. And I seriously wouldn’t blame you. If I could, I’d wanna be carried up these things.”

Perhaps he wasn’t?

Was he attempting to lure him in? Mock him?

‘Shh.’

His eye twitched, as he stumbled over to where Spirit was.

“Here, take my hand.”

Stein peered down at the hand outstretched in front of him, analyzing each line and crevice, mentally dissecting the extremity. His fingers spasmed and trembled ever so slightly as he apprehensively cupped them around the older boy’s somewhat larger hand, which soon encased his own.

“I’m not gonna let you fall over and die, okay? You’ve looked woozy all morning. I noticed.”

“Okay,” he quietly replied with a thousand-yard-stare.

With an oddly great and taxing amount of effort, Stein opened his eyes, groaning. A bright, white light flooded his vision, his index finger twitching, his body trembling. He instinctively lifted his hand and arm as to cover his squinting, pained eyes, only to feel a hand pull it back down and towards what was presumably its own body.

He jumped, his eyes widening. An agonizing sensation in his abdomen left him reeling, confused and disoriented. A scream could be heard from afar, one that sounded an awful lot like his own voice, muffled by what sounded to be both water and ringing.

He shifted his gaze downwards, his body frigid. He jumped once more - upwards this time, resting on his aching elbows, his heart plummeting somewhere unknown, as his breath slowly hitched, any and all oxygen entirely lost on him.

He’d been lying on a grassy field. The sky was overcast, but a little sunlight still managed to peak through the blanketing clouds. There was not a tree in sight, not a flower, not anything. The only sign of life sat directly in front of him, to the side of him, behind him- or should he say ‘signs’?

There sat three different people- people with the wings of vultures protruding from their upper backs. And each of them had his face. Each of them had his body. Each of them appeared to be him. And each of them were smeared, coated in blood- his blood.

He looked further down.

His intestines were hanging out from his unclothed abdomen, the greater omentum ripped away and ripped apart. The one sat in front of him, straddling him, held his intestines in its hands, in its mouth- intestinal tissue hanging from its sharp teeth.

The other sitting beside him was gnawing on his arm, gnashing its teeth together due to the sheer force and fervor with which it ate.

And the third, his head resting in its lap, was feasting on his brain, blood trickling down his face, falling into his eyes on occasion.

And there was another guttural scream, his body moving on its own accord as his legs and feet kicked and flailed around, throwing whatever it was that was seated on his thighs - himself - off and knocking the one to the side down like a bowling pin. Dominos, even.

Stein scrambled to stand up, a hand holding his guts in place, clawing his way out of the grip of the brain-eater, nearly tripping over his own feet as he ran as far away from them as possible.

A thought crossed his mind as his rapidly thumping heart seemed to replace his eardrums.

Was he already dead?

Stein glanced behind himself and over his bloodied shoulder. They were no longer there.

He heard strained breathing not too far away from him. He heard a continuous stream of footsteps much lighter than his own.

He whipped his head back around, throbbing eyes utterly transfixed on the horrifying sight before him.

The brain-eating one held an axe, a shining, sharpened axe. A burning glint of determination and frustration gleamed within its eyes, its irises the same muted shade of green his happened to be.

Stein nearly instantaneously threw himself around and backwards, desperate for an escape and prepared to run for miles.

That is until the one whom straddled his thighs and had apparently been behind him, waiting patiently and quietly, sunk its claws into his neck, purposely aiming for his carotid arteries, digging in deeper and deeper into his severing neck, blood spurting from the area, blood rising in his throat and falling from sore-ridden lips.

He gargled loudly, choking and truly unable to fill his lungs with air, as his eyes went back and forth between rolling into his head and maintaining their composure.

Before he could pass out or even die of shock, he felt heavy stones worth of weight leave him, as the world around him spun for the briefest of moments. It felt as though he were flying in the air- and once the side of his head and his cheek smacked against the plain below him, he’d realized he *had* been flying.

He spit out the remaining blood in his mouth onto the ground, dirtying the pure golden-yellow of the grass.

His eyes rolled back into their sockets for the final time.

-

06:24 - 06:38

Stein jumped, the motion vaguely familiar, his eyes shooting wide open. He used his elbows for leverage to sit himself upward, as he hunched over, scanning the room for anyone or anything in a frenzy.

He began rocking himself, his ragged, shallow, somewhat loud, and quick breathing not stabilizing.

His forehead was covered in a layer of sweat, his skin seemingly on fire. He looked around the room once more, tugging on the dangling handle of his lamp impulsively and frantically, before ripping his shirt from off of his body.

He immediately laid his quivering hand onto his abdomen, feeling around for any wound at all- even something as small as a bruise. He looked everywhere for any unfamiliar scars, any cuts - anything, his hands rubbing all over his head, even gripping onto and petting over his arm.

He was… fine? Then why did it seem so real? What was wrong? Something was wrong.

His heart and soul shook in unison, even more confused and disoriented than in what was supposedly a dream. A really vivid dream. That’s all it was, right? It wasn’t a sign? No one was going to do that to him? Would he do it to himself? That would be better. Was the deterioration going to eat him alive sooner rather than later? Would somebody else?

His body gently quivered, his thighs aching with each desperate hit he delivered them.

The walls looked strange, didn’t they? Something was wrong. Everything was conspicuous- everything was.. scary? Was that it? Was he scared? He’d surely never been so scared in his life. Someone wanted to hurt him. Right? That was a sign, wasn’t it? Something was going to happen.

His head jerked.

His head.

He forgot to check his neck!

He patted around his carotids, finding absolutely nothing but non-severed flesh- or, truly, yet-to-be-severed flesh.

He breathed a sigh of relief, his heart beating in his fingertips and toes. He wrapped his arms around his torso, running his nails around and down his upper and lower back.

“Argh..”

What sounded to be Spirit groaned in the hallway, his shuffling and footsteps becoming louder and louder.

Stein froze in place, gaze fixated on his door and the spot underneath it, listening closely, hushing his hyperventilating.

He allowed himself to sneak a glance at whatever shadow dashed in front of him, his eye twitching.

Spirit was awake, was he? That meant it was time to get up and get ready. He needed to calm himself. He hadn’t the energy for the simultaneously mundane and uniquely chaotic world of the academy. But he needed to. Was he just bad at self-soothing? He needed to get over himself. Something *was* wrong, but he shouldn’t be so rattled over it. It was just a dream, wasn’t it? It was a sign. Just a nightmare, but just a sign, as well, right? It was real, wasn’t it? Something was wrong. Something was off. Something was going to happen. But he still needed to get his act together. Was Spirit the one planning on killing him? No. He needed to stop. He still had work left to do. He couldn’t let the crawling and festering eyes take him just yet.

Stein put valiant amounts of effort into inhaling deeply and exhaling carefully and slowly. He continued his rocking, he continued his patting over his back, and was able to gradually stabilize himself enough to leave his room. Well, all he was actually doing was making the noisiness hopefully less obvious. It’s not as though the feeling disappeared. It’s not as though the eyes had disappeared. It was all still there, beating on his chest and bones, his heart remaining in an odd state. His heart rate never increased due to any sort of emotional circumstance. Why now?

He tried his best to ignore the sightings and sounds and everything following him to his door. He tried his best to ignore the lightheadedness and slight dizziness he was afflicted with, his shirt in his hand and coming up over his head again.

Did he need to shower? He didn’t have the time, nor energy. He couldn’t, they were bothering him. It was bothering him. It was just a nightmare. It wasn’t a sign. It was a sign. He couldn’t focus on that sign. He needed to remain in control. But if someone were to kill him or hurt him or anything, wouldn’t he be not in control? Which one was it? He didn’t have the time, nor energy to even consider.

He wasn’t going to be killed. The strident, reverberating static would have nothing to torment, then, would it?

He opened his creaking door cautiously, scanning both ends of the corridor before leaving, wiping the sweat off of his forehead with his sleeve, and childishly rubbing his tired, aching eyes.

“Mornin’, sunshine,” Spirit’s teasing, pompous voice was so utterly grating on Stein’s ears that he could physically feel as agitation bubbled effervescently within him, biting down and suckling on his bottom lip for long enough to, God willing (or honestly, static willing), settle and tenderly hush the feeling before it could become too all-consuming.

He avoided even glancing at his weapon, of whom had gotten himself all dolled up already, and was sitting with his legs spread wide on the sofa, his arms outstretched confidently on its back cushions.

“Why aren’t you dressed yet? And where are your glasses?”

Oh. Well, maybe that’s why his eyes hurt.

“Go get dressed. And wear your glasses, dumbass,” he waved him off somewhat playfully with a prominent grin on his countenance.

Stein turned back around, yanking on and fiddling with his lips, and not permitting himself one singular groan or moan. He still had work left to do. He could dress himself. He could put his glasses on. Perhaps he’d even eat a snack. He couldn’t board himself in, he couldn’t wander around and pace all day, he couldn’t doze off staring at his computer screen. And, most importantly, he did not need a stupid caretaker. He could do all of that himself, and he could ignore the noise- the eyes, even if that meant that eventually they’d have chewed up all of his bone marrow, all of his corpus callosum.

He shimmied into his usual attire, the clothing he was at his most comfortable and familiar wearing, clothing that wasn’t disorienting and was something of a habitual tether. It was grounding and typical, though managed to make the unknown and distressing differences in his surroundings and reality even more apparent due to the newfound comparison.

Was his clothing suspicious, too? No. There was nothing wrong with it. No one tampered with it, the eyes didn’t scurry over it. He was fine. Everything was fine. He was perfectly normal- his normal, since he was apparently so horridly bizarre and foreign in the eyes of the humans.

He jumped - he never jumps - he jumped at the sound of birds singing a particularly fitting song outside of his window. Too fitting. Descriptive and telling. Was he living inside of a movie? No.

He beat his hand against his head, slapping his forehead in almost punishment, and in a pitiful attempt to refresh himself in a way only dissection could; euphoria and a shortly-lived reset, relaxation with a sadistic and scientific twist. No more thoughts. No more of *those* thoughts. But then they’d all have the upper hand- the eyes, the watchful ones, *them*.

‘I still have work left to do, goddamnit,’ he scolded himself for the umpteenth time. ‘Whether I think about it or not, it’ll be there. They’ll distort shit, they’ll add shit, they’ll take away shit. Just get over yourself and work anyway. Pathetic behavior is never a good look. You’re better than this, Stein.

But is he?

And should he allow that thought to cross his mind?

‘You can easily rip them all apart.’ A comfort. But he couldn’t rip the eyes apart, nor the static, nor the ones whom dashed. Only the flesh-bodied ones.

Franken retrieved his glasses from off of the floor where they’d evidently fallen from their rightful place beside his pillow, situating them on his twitching face.

‘You’re fine. Everything is okay. Everything is clear. Everything is normal. Nothing is wrong. You are calm and collected. You’re only imagining that supposed “gnawing.” You are only imagining everything. It is only the madness.’

He cracked his knuckles, his neck, even - rolling his shoulders and feeling them ‘pop.’

He fussed with his bangs, patting his renegade hair down, running his fingers through the soft strands.

He’d look how he typically looked, because he was perfectly fine. He could still work and train, he could still dress himself, he could still look somewhat presentable - or, at the very least, as presentable as he usually appeared - because he was fine. He did not need any conspicuous person’s help, he did not need reminders. And he was fine. He was only gaslighting himself into believing his head was swimming with lightheadedness and fatigue. He was fine. His heart did not feel funny. That nightma- that dream did not bother him at all. And most of all, he was perfectly fine.

-

06:48 - 06:54

“Are you okay?” Spirit’s hands were situated in his pockets, a pair of somewhat cat-eye-shaped (though he’d never admit it) sunglasses situated on his tan face.

He stared at Stein’s squinted eyes with his own squinted eyes…. Though his eyes appeared more sewn shut than merely ‘squinty’, whether it be only because of the sun’s obnoxiously radiant light or, too, because of the beads of sweat coming dangerously close to slipping and sneaking past his eyelashes.

“Why?” Franken muttered somewhat breathily as they turned yet another cobblestone corner, fairly muted but colorful buildings lining the streets rather scenically.

There was not a singular cloud in the sky to deter the panting sun’s rays, and they just so happened to be cascading onto both Stein and Spirit, as they walked side by side.

“Well… Uhm. You seem to have forgotten that it’s still summer,” he panned his hand over his meister’s outfit. “You’re wearing long sleeves and pants. Just because you’re usually cold all the time doesn’t mean you’re immune to overheating, Stein. You look as red as a damn tomato.”

“And you don’t?”

“At least I’m actually wearing something appropriate for the weather. We live in Nevada. This isn’t fucking Siberia.”

True. Touché, even. He was even wearing lighter colors; a white tank top, a silver necklace with a cross charm hanging just below his clavicles, and shorts the same shade of blue as his irises. It wasn’t exactly his usual style, but the desert heat truly couldn’t care less about your style or comfort.

“So, what, did you forget or something?”

“Didn’t think to check the weather, I suppose.”

“Can’t you just assume it’s hot?”

“Yes. …This time of year, at least.”

Spirit released a dramatic sigh as they turned their very last corner, now encroaching upon the tall staircase to the academy.

He ran a quick hand through his hair, patting away the moisture on his forehead with the back of his hand. He fiddled with his cross a few times, pursing his lips pensively.

“I know you don’t like certain clothing, and you like those clothes, and shit-“ and he also knew that there was more to it all than that, “-but you really need to start wearing some actual summer clothing. Wear something short-sleeved, or at least shorter-sleeved. Don’t want you dying on me. I’m responsible for you and all.”

“No.” The word slipped from Stein’s lips involuntarily. He hadn’t even formulated a response in his head, he was simply blurting now - and defiantly, at that. “Go away.”

“Well, you know if I don’t end up forcing you, Marie will.”

“I don’t want to be forced to do anything, Spirit. Nor will I."

“Then stop narrowly avoiding heat strokes!” Spirit removed his sunglasses from his face, sitting them atop his head fashionably. He sassily smacked his long hair away from his shoulders in slight annoyance. “One of these days you’re not going to be able to avoid ‘em! Anyway, you comin’ or not?”

Stein internally groaned at the sight of the daunting stairs he’d gone up countless times, Albarn standing impatiently on the very first step with his hands gripping onto his hips.

“Do you need help?” There was a furrow to his brows. Was he angry? “You look exhausted. And I seriously wouldn’t blame you. If I could, I’d wanna be carried up these things.”

Perhaps he wasn’t?

Was he attempting to lure him in? Mock him?

‘Shh.’

His eye twitched, as he stumbled over to where Spirit was.

“Here, take my hand.”

Stein peered down at the hand outstretched in front of him, analyzing each line and crevice, mentally dissecting the extremity. His fingers spasmed and trembled ever so slightly as he apprehensively cupped them around the older boy’s somewhat larger hand, which soon encased his own.

“I’m not gonna let you fall over and die, okay? You’ve looked woozy all morning. I noticed.”

“Okay,” he quietly replied with a thousand-yard-stare.

[ur-fav-is-a-killjoy]

Sorry if this is something you get a lot but what is a killjoy? I tried googling it but the only thing that came up is the definition "someone who spoils the enjoyment of others", which doesn't seem quite right.

oh yeah I see the confusion!! this is a My Chemical Romance fandom blog, and the Killjoys are fictional characters created by the band's lead singer, Gerard Way, for their 2010 album Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys and the tie-in comic of the same name. the comic takes place in an alternate universe version of the US, where, in the then-near-future of 2019, a mega-corporation called Better Living Industries (aka BL/ind or BLI) has essentially formed a quasi-government in Battery City (which is a fictional city located in the deserts of Southern California), and have assumed full control over the lives and minds of the citizens through constant surveillance, and through stripping citizens of their individuality. the Killjoys are a group of rebels living outside of the BLI-controlled Battery City. their aim is to bring freedom from BLI, usually through creating art and music, and also through fighting and killing Draculoids, who are BLI employees "tasked with eliminating Killjoys and protecting Battery City from threats" [source]

info from here, here, and here

there's a lot more specifics I could have gone into, but this is as brief as I could get. thanks for your question!!

[canmom]

Animation Night 164: Yaoi, Yuri

The fashion on Tumblr lately has been to divide everything in the world into yaoi and yuri, hasn't it? Well, tonight we don't need to make any abstract stretches of the imagination: it's time for anime where boys kiss boys and girls kiss girls.

So. Five minutes ago, before Tumblr deleted it, this post was off to a pretty good start! I was happily explaining about the differences of nuance between 少年愛 shōnen-ai, 耽美 tanbi, ジュネ june, やおい yaoi and ボーイズラブ bōizu rabu on the one hand, and on the other, why 薔薇 bara (rose) isn't a genre title but nevertheless the editor of 薔薇族 Barazoku ('rose tribe') magazine coined 百合 yuri as a distaff counterpart, the 'lily tribe', and that really caught on.

I was starting in on a brief sketch of some history, how Tokugawa Japan was super gay and had a defined set of social rules for gay relationships in the form of 男色 nanshoku, but this was squashed by the Meiji restoration, and thus gay manga became a subgenre cultivating its own specific otaku audience.

So then I was gonna tell you about how the early shōjo manga focusing on gay relationships, taking the old term shōnen-ai [which originally referred to pederasty], were quite nerdy and literary, but the subgenre rapidly grew in the 70s and 80s, cultivating an otaku audience of its own - primarily women termed, somewhat disparagingly, 婦女子 fujoshi but this demographic breakdown is certainly not absolute and there is a term for male fans, which is 普段し fudanshi. We coulda gone into the whole world of doujinshi, of the massive convention comiket; I coulda cracked open Kimi Rito's History of Hentai Manga for some interesting tidbits about how certain images become encoded as symbols and then reused routinely in manga.

And you know, I might have talked about how this is distinct from manga aimed at gay readers in gay magazines (like the above mentioned 薔薇族 Barazoku) which might be termed ゲイ漫画 gei manga. Perhaps we might mention here the upcoming adaptation of gay manga meme sensation kuso miso technique:

I was maybe gonna talk a little about some of the older genre conventions of BL; the masc top or 攻め seme and the effeminate bottom or 浮け uke; maybe a little about how yaoi fandom got exported into anime fan culture in the West and the strange phenomenon of the 'yaoi paddle'.

...well, it looks like I managed to skim over all that anyway. Spite works wonders for typing speed, it turns out. But believe me, that's really just surface level stuff. We're working on a followup to the legend of Animation Night 69, so we'll be able to get in a lot deeper in a few weeks~

Anyway, even today, BL and yuri works rarely get adapted into anime in a particularly high profile way. But 'rarely' is not never! In Animation Nights past, well: on Animation Night 69 we watched the delightful 風と木の詩 Kaze to Ki no Uta (The Song of Wind and Trees), an OVA adapting the seminal (ha ha) shōjo manga about a French twink at boarding school. That was the direction of Yoshikazu Yasuhiko, known also for Venus Wars and definitely the subject of a future Animation Night, it was as moving and melodramatic as you could hope from 70s shōjo. Sayo Yamamoto (AN36) brought us the incredibly charming figure gay skating series Yuri on Ice; and then of course Kunihiko Ikuhara (AN155), bless his heart, made his always bold statements on yuri with Yurikuma Arashi ('Lesbian Bear Storm') and BL with Sarazanmai, which I will surely cover if we ever reach the point where we're like 'let's marathon a TV anime' again ;p

Tonight though? We'll be looking at a couple of relatively recent films on both sides of the fence.

For the BL wing, we have the film 海辺のエトランゼ Umibe no Étranger, aka L'étranger de la Plage or Stranger by the Shore. Kanna Kii, the mangaka, had previously worked as an animator at Studio Hibari, a small anime studio that dates back to the late 70s and broadly seems to specialise in shōjo. Kii returned there to design characters and supervise the film, and evidently Hibari were very excited to adapt the work of their alumnus, because they absolutely spared no effort.

The story centres on orphaned highschooler Mio and his neighbour Shun, an aspiring gay novelist on a remote island in Okinawa. The pair grew close three years before the start of the story, but Mio had to leave Okinawa; we join him now as he returns to that same shore, still holding feelings for Shun.

I'll admit, I don't know a ton about this movie - but it comes highly recommended by kvin who described it as one of an 'oasis' of strong BL works released around 2020. And the clips I've seen - well, they're the gifs used in this post, really nicely drawn scenes of affection. So I'm pretty excited!

Our yuri wing... well, there's a few good choices for yuri TV shows I could show you, but tonight it's late and we need something short and sweet, and that really narrows the field! What I have is あさがおと加瀬さん。Asagao to Kase-san [Kase-san and the Morning Glories], a one hour OVA adapting the manga 加瀬さん Kase-san by Hiromi Takashima. The OVA starts partway into the manga, when plant nerd Yui Yamada has already started dating her crush, the athletic Tomoka Kase. It follows the trials of the girls' relationship as they are coming towards the end of their time at school - relatively low-key, slice of life first relationship typea thing.

The animae was adapted by studio Zexcs under the direction of Takuya Satō, who you might remember as director of the first part of Armitage III [AN153]. Zexcs spun out of JC Staff at the end of the 90s, and they've been pretty busy since then - for me their most notable creation is Aku no Hana (The Flowers of Evil), a truly unique rotoscope anime with an incredibly engaging, tense story about teenagers and the imp of the perverse... which sadly never got the love it deserved! yes I'm still beating this drum!

Anyway, while I have not been able to find a ton of production information, I am told at least that Kase-san was a passion project for Satō - evidently a yuri fan given he also took on the adaptation of Otherside Picnic. It began first with five-minute web adaptation Kase-san and the Morning Glories in 2018 that's more of a musical montage of moments from the series, which was then able to be expanded the next year into an hour-long OVA...

A lot of romance stories focus on the characters getting together, so it's interesting that this one skips right over those chapters of the manga and gets going once the characters are already together, focusing more on the trials of an ongoing relationship between two goofy hormonal kids trying to figure out if this is just a class S thing or something that they want to last. A great deal of effort is put towards character animation, intimacy, the little flinches and reactions. You can read a little discussion about it here on ANN.

So! With apologies for the late start once more (T_T), it's time to begin! Animation Night will shortly be live at twitch.tv/canmom, and I hope you'll join me for a gay old time~

[fandomfanservice]

Can you all hear the Last Twilight fandom screaming “P’Aof, how could you?”

Check again, cause it’s EP11

What follows is vivid rant aimed at the universe and no one in particular, I just need to get it out cause:

We were all of us deceived!!!

We thought the curse was done, gone finally broken.

No more chains on this BL machine..

And we were soooooooooo WRONG, our sanity and hopes destroyed in last 5 mins or less.

I guess what he (Mhok) did was wrong but we all know why he did it (my take, may not be shared by all fans, but this applies to both of them).

They were soooo happy😫🥹😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 and we had so many moments of just 🩷❤️🧡💛💚🩵💙💜🖤🩶🤍❤️‍🔥

Rational brain is trying to kick in now and we saw Mhok anxiety etc but he is just a sweetheart in love and the biggest green flag EVER.

Also I really hate the leave them or let them go trope, if you have read my posts it’s a thing. I need someone, anyone to find an alternative that leads to a happy ending still, honestly

I know the “curse” is a storytelling tool but

There is crumbs of light for the finale but this one is gonna be a loooong recovery.

[marudeinusa]

I don't know what your sources on ORV are but I'd recommend giving it a read or looking into it at all before calling it an "amateur webnovel"... It's very much not amateurishly written and intentionally borrows from the world of amateur self published web novels because it's in a way a parody of the genre. The english translations available online are all unofficial fan translations, and those definitely do not help make it pass as good quality literature but writing it off as poor a quality amateur novel on account of the translations being clunky is ignorant at best... The person defending its worth as a "real novel" was being very inarticulate in doing so but ORV very much does get often written off as shallow or low quality writing by being mislabeled as "amateur self published korean bl" so what point are you even trying to make about it beside this person not being good at arguing their points...

SOURCE: I personally read thru the majority of orv and I did not like it or find much more in the way of value in it. Everything it says has been said better before and after. This doesn't make it embarrassing wrong to enjoy ORV - I have a collection of danmei erotica worth 450€ that I read for fun lol - but it doesn't make it an exemplary work of literature. It's a scifi webnovel that many find entertaining. That's all. Parodying a genre doesn't mean a work is exempt from criticisms reserved for the genre either, SVSSS is a parody of isekai danmei but it significantly fed into the very tropes it aimed to "parody" and spread teacher student rape fantasies worldwide and it's also really poorly articulated amateur writing of a college student. My opinion on ORV is not influenced by its country of origin or fandom. This is my opinion as a literary theory student aiming to write a phd thesis specifically on the reader-writer-character triangle of relationships (that many claim ORV does wonders for) and I wanna say, from the bottom of my heart, pick up some theory books, some classics, some fiction from established Korean authors (if i can find then in a library in Buttfuck Croatia so can you for sure) All in all being so upset about somebody being indifferent to you favorite media to the point where this trivial-to-grasp conversation is being held across multiple inboxes is honestly embarrassing. You can enjoy most anything, but adopt certain standards of quality for discussions abour literature. Seriously I'll hook you up with This is the Canon or The Demon of Theory any day *_*

[waitmyturtles]

Okie-dokes: I'm very late to reporting on Dangerous Romance, episode 3, and listen -- listen. A lot of you know I'm in a compromised life state at the moment, --

(I'M MOVING. HOW. IN THE HELL. DO I OWN. SO MUCH. JUST. FUCKING SHIT. HOW DID I FIT SO MUCH SHIT INTO THIS PLACE THAT I AM LEAVING. OH MY GODDAMN WHAT THE FUCK. LET ME BECOME A MONK AND GIVE UP ALL THIS CRAP.)

-- yes, compromised life state, lol, and can't give too much thought to good meta at the moment. (I had to pause Not Me for the Old GMMTV Challenge because even just three episodes in, I knew it was SO GOOD that it deserves my undivided attention.)

So, yeah, brain is out of service at the moment, and then we have THIS episode of Dangerous Romance, and let me just note: y'all, Dangerous Romance was trending on Tumblr even through Only Friends Saturday last weekend (with Only Friends NOT trending, mind you). DR is clearly serving something (.....sigh, ships) that OF is not giving the fandom girlies, and man, did DR just lay it on THICK this week, huh?

I will admit. I'm a touch bummed. I LOVE PERTH AND CHIMON. I LOOOOOVVVVE THEM, YER HONORESSES! UNABASHEDLY. Yes, I love their faces. I DO, NO SHAME. I love their acting, too! I love them, like ::waves hands in circles:: all of it, all of them. I was hoping they'd chomp into a meatier show.

This is not that show. The puppy music, the reeeeeally fast swings into sympathy and "oh, you're my tutor now, bro, and I will spill all my feelings to you," IN ENGLISH AND KOREAN -- and just a touch of a class division conversation by way of Kang homey buying Sailom homey an extra dinner to-go. Sailom is now Kang's... confidante? Kang wants to make someone, anyone, proud, and it looks like Sailom is the guy.

I mean, this episode was all over the place, but....

Forgive me, meta angels, because this is EXACTLY what I need right now, omg. I'm mentally done, I'm toast! Not to say that I'm not going to enjoy Only Friends tomorrow! I am going to totally eat OF up.

But I will ROBUSTLY ADMIT to ALSO being okay with PerthChimon fan service at the moment. Unfortunately for any of my hopes of them being in a more dramatically complicated series: they still have hilarious chemistry. They're actual real bros in real life (Papang smh lol). They're clearly having fun doing this together, like OhmPerth in Double Savage. Chimon's facial expressions are outta control (that look on his face when Perth/Kang accelerated the bike? I cackled).

This is fluff! As @lurkingshan noted -- a recalibration of expectations is in order for this show. I'm taking this show right now as 100% fan service from my PerthChimon wub woobies. Perth and Chimon (and really, the co-director of this show, Lit Phadung of SOTUS and SOTUS S) -- these dudes know the score. Perth and Chimon have been around for a minute. You need two dudes to dial up to 10 on fluff BL? They have those tropes so memorized that it's burned in their bones. Put 'em in coach, they're ready to play.

If I take this show on THAT tip, then -- as an aiming-to-be-classic romance BL, then it's doing something.... if not right, then at least aligned to some tropes simply by mood. I'm curious about Sailom's flashbacks to Kang's bullying, but I don't have the strength or mindpower to read into it. If a reference back to the bullying comes -- or not -- then, whatever. This show is clearly, at the moment, trying to achieve a more simple goal than I expected of it, but I'm not gonna write it off. I'll thoroughly enjoy Perth and Chimon being poodles to each other -- gimme.

I was wondering to @lurkingshan and @neuroticbookworm earlier today that I had previously wondered WHY GMMTV would air Dangerous Romance during the Only Friends run, especially with ALL the marketing hype around Only Friends before it premiered. At the time, it seemed to me to be a pre-emptive gong strike on Dangerous Romance. Now it makes me wonder -- did GMMTV want to cover its bases by placing a classic fluff BL on air, to protect the network from losing fandom points through Only Friends? I can only wonder. If some ships are exploding through OF -- then the network can hand PerthChimon over and say, hey, we haven't forgotten our shipping roots, girlies.

Kinda makes me think. In any case -- Shan is right. I'm recalibrated on Dangerous Romance, I'm watching this literally to see PerthChimon ham it up, annnnnddd yeah, that's about it! At this point, give me the make-out sessions, give me pool time, gimme. I unabashedly stan and simp. If we get some real drama out of this show -- it will be a wonderful surprise. I just hope the show doesn't veer into totally unwatchable territory.

[gillianthecat]

I decided to watch the beginning of SOTUS based on @waitmyturtles' reactions as part of her Thai BL education, and the conversations that inspired. I'm definitely not watching the whole show! Probably not even the whole first episode, I'll only go as far as I can stand it for, but I was finding myself desperately curious for context.

Well, 25 seconds in and we're already off to a good start 🥴

I kinda like this theme song, ngl.

Wtf how is 2016 seven years ago already. What even is time.

Baby Off in the credits! Hello!

Actually this credits montage is making the show seem kind of appealing. Perhaps I will surprise everyone and myself by being a SOTUS fan.

I don't know if it's just this opening sequence, but the colors are so de-saturated compared to more recent Thai shows. Kinda makes it look like 90s home video.

This name tag table makes me miss Fighter and Tutor. 😢

But also, pre-Covid they could get HUGE casts of extras. That room is full!

So far the show is successfully building drama and intrigue! I'm more hooked than I suspected.

Arthit makes an excellent insecure petty tyrant. Unfortunately I'm having trouble imagining how they're going to transition him to love interest.

Brave Kongpop!

Seriously, there are like 500 extras in that giant room!

Baby Off!

Oh yep. And here comes the femme characters as comic relief.

Ah, Kongpop is the other lead. Of course. For some reason I assumed he was a side character?

I like this smiley girl who does the grilled chicken dance!

Aww, I think I might really like Kongpop as well.

Oddly enough the hazing stuff isn't bothering me (so far). I think because a) it's SO over the top ridiculous, and b) I came in expecting the worst. (But of course, it can always get worse.)

Maybe if I stop here I can pretend the show is a dystopian future romance (á la Divergent) about M and Kongpop falling in love as they rise up against their oppressive seniors. I'm kinda digging their chemistry.

However I'm predicting a het romance between M and the chicken dance girl (my beloved) [May] instead.

I can see from whence the Singto fandom. What a charming smile. He's already bringing a welcome groundedness to the role.

Seaweed snacks! Now I want some. Your advertising is working on me. Also, one thing I think SOTUS does well is camera angles and editing; they really build the drama.

Also the sound recording (and mixing) quality is not terrible. What happened after this? Was Covid to blame? (Or perhaps GMMTV has always been better at it.)

I don't think I'd be that into this if I was watching just for pleasure, but I'm actually quite enjoy the experience of watching it for historical curiosity.

I like this girls at the table too! The women in this show are much more solid than I was expecting, and actually seem like real people [gasp!]

Honestly I'm not even looking at Arthit or the subtitles, I'm just watching Off in the background.

God, Arthit is so annoyingly awful. The only way to get through this may be to ignore his existence as much as possible.

I don't know if it's because Off is the one actor I recognize, or if it's because he just has that much charisma, but my eye keeps getting drawn to him on screen. (Even if he is aiding and abetting the evil guy.) I love the way he keeps snatching things from Arthit's hands.

Like, I can see how this COULD work, if Arthit wasn't such a stupidly petty tyrant. Enemies to Lovers! It's aiming for what FighterTutor managed to do so well. But. Well. The bully character has to have some redeeming feature. (Although perhaps he will win me over in the end.) As for their chemistry, I haven't seen enough to venture a firm opinion yet, but it's certainly not jumping off the screen.

Oh great, now we have homophobic bullying 🥴 But Singto really is very good as Kong.

Are you all sure this show isn't really Kong/M? Because that's still the story I'm creating in my head.

Umm. How on earth are they going to make this homophobic bully into a passable love interest. Help. I don't understand.

oooh, I could ship Kongpop with Wad as well. There is potential in this scene about the shirt exchange.

Ok! We've got M in the tight fitting tshirt! Show off those muscles, babe!

Like, I don't think Krist is bad in this so far. He's playing a petty tyrant bully perfectly. But I believe y'all when you so he doesn't manage anything other than this one note.

However, Singto is managing to single-handedly create something out of their scenes anyway.

Yes rebel Kongpop! I feel like my dystopian version of the story would be so much better than whatever we actually get.

However I do appreciate if it has to be bully romance that the target is not in the least a passive victim. (I ❤️ Kongpop)

This hazing is just so dumb. It's so silly it doesn't even bother me really, just makes me think about how young and dumb these engineering seniors are. Actually mostly it makes me mad at the school administration for sanctioning it.

I do love the way Off stands (and sits).

And I love May and this wavy-haired girl! Interesting female characters in my BL?! Who have a life outside of "shipping" their classmates or having crushes on impossible gay boys?! My goodness!

Rebel Kongpop my beloved! And such a smartass 😍 Love his little smirk.

Okaaaay. Still struggling to see how they can possibly build a romance out of this. Like, in Semantic Error and Why R U?, there was bullying yes, but even from the beginning there were hints of connection and attraction. And I am simply not seeing any of that here.

Well. I finished the whole first episode after all! And despite all expectations I'm kinda hooked.😲 I can see why SOTUS was so popular; the things it does well it does very well. And Singto is elevating it far beyond what it deserves.

It helps that bullying and hazing, while they annoy me, aren't a Yikes Nope 😬 I'm Outa Here for me the way rape is (which is why I couldn't make it past the first episode of TharnType). And cringy slapstick humor, while objectively less of a problem, for some reason make me even more uncomfortable (which is part of the reason I couldn't make it through 2gether). And it's not boring me, at least as long as the camera isn't on Arthit. (My problem with some other OG Thai BL that was so boring I can't even remember its name now. [edit: it was driving me crazy so i went through world-of-bl's list and finally figured it out... it was Nitiman. Maybe I'd find it more interesting if I tried again, but it just could not keep me engaged, sorry Nitiman lovers.]) And it's helps that my expectations were basement level. (Thank you @waitmyturtles for preparing me. And I'm sorry for your suffering in the process.)

So I will probably continue! Although I don't know how soon or how regularly, or if I will do such detailed reaction posts for the rest. The only reason I started this one is I didn't expect to last more than 10 minutes.

[sammysdewysensitiveeyes]

My pet peeve of the day: The way the word kabuki is used (and has been used for years) by English-speaking writers to refer to empty political posturing or grandstanding.

Similarly, the way English-speaking yaoi/BL fans or just m/m shippers in general have taken the word "fujoshi" and use it to mean "those awful (presumed to be straight cis female) m/m fans who fetishize gay men, not like us, the pure good fans who only appreciate m/m ships appropriately even as we consume works by self-proclaimed fujoshi"

Both of these are taking foreign (in this case Japanese) words out of context and twisting them around to mean something negative, and it really rubs me the wrong way.

(And yes, fujoshi originally had a pejorative meaning in Japanese as well before being reclaimed by Japanese female fans, but was not originally expressing any concern about "fetishizing" gay men, it was basically aimed at any woman who was into BL, yaoi or m/m shipping by male fans who didn't like women or that "icky gay stuff" in their fandoms.)

[elliebirdwrites]

Writing in 2023

I join @gywo every year and don't usually meet my word count. I aim for a high goal so even if I fall ridiculously short, I've still written a lot. My goal for this year was 250,000 words and I wrote 179,000, 45k of which ended up as finished fic on AO3.

I went looking through my old Tumblr for this end of year writing meme because I do enjoy looking back.

1. Your favorite fic you’ve written

It's unfinished but Fever Dream High (Pran/Pat, explicit) is my favorite of the year. I had a lot of fun writing about Pran being horny for Pat and the increasingly kinky ways they express their love for each other.

2. Your least favorite fic you’ve written

Give to Me Your Leather (First/Khaotung, teen & up) because it was my first Kinktober fic and I was just not feeling anything I tried to write. There's 500 words of set up and then it just ends.

3. Your most popular fic

Your Lips on My Skin (Prapai/Sky, explicit) which is 2,100 words of Prapai rimming Sky. Pretty content that fandom liked this one.

4. The fic you wish more people would read

Crave You (Vee/Mark, explicit) which is also rimming porn. I think people just don't go searching for Love Mechanics fic (they don't write it either which makes me sad).

5. The fic you most enjoyed writing

From Friends to This (First/Khaotung, mature) I'd only been in BL fandom a couple of months when the GMMTV Outing happened and it was a couple of days of feverish content and wild shenanigans. I have fond memories of being glued to Instagram with a perpetual goofy grin on my face. Of course my introverted faves didn't seem to be as into it as Joylada or some of the others which just delighted me into writing about them sneaking off to make out. I wrote it quickly, grinning all the way through it.

6. Your funniest fic

I don't think any of my fic is all that funny, I write a lot of porn tbh.

7. Your hottest fic

Pretty One (King/Uea, explicit). I get a little worked up about the idea of Uea wearing a tail but writing King being worked up over Uea in a tail was a super hot experience.

8. Your saddest fic

I don't write a lot of sad things but Certain Dark Things (Boston/Nick, mature) is pretty bittersweet for me.

9. The fic you’d like to be remembered for

Alone With You (LiMing/Heart, teen & up) was the first non-porn thing I'd written in ages and it still makes me feel soft and squishy inside.

10. The thing(s) your fic contributed to fandom headcanon

I don't think this is applicable, however at least 26 people have read about Mix taking Fourth's virginity which, while strictly fantasy, is a delight.