#tumblr does love themselves an mid-aged man

[cactuskat]

He really would

[olderthannetfic]

olderthannetfic/729300911208448001/the-reason-theres-more-positivity-for

This is trolling. No one assumes trans men are masculine. We get called boys even in our 30s, drawn as skinny white AFABs in layers of soft clothing, and reassured that it's okay if we want to kiss other boys. Actually, being assured that you're a cutie patootie fem uwu is really dysphoria inducing for a lot of trans men. I was on tumblr when I had just come out when I was 15 and it was incredibly discouraging to see the posts fawning over adorable wittle twans bois. I'm 25, I don't want to hold hands with a boy, I want to fuck a man. I don't want to change my hobbies and I don't care if people think it's toxic masculinity that makes me like "manly" things (way to assign the binary to activities, real progressive of you) and I don't get anything from "let boys be soft" with clapping emojis and sparkles inbetween every word with glittering font. "No actually it's good to not support part of a marginalized group!" no. Your trolling is shit and so are you.

And the idea that ace people are assumed to be against sex actually made me laugh out loud. I'm working on my doctorate and actually, on college campuses? I've heard from professors - not students, professors, adults old enough to have college-age kids - that ace people have sex at the same rate as straights but they need more foreplay, ace people just need more time to get to know you but after that they're sexually indistinguishable from heterosexuals, that asexuality isn't real, that asexuality is an internet label people use instead of admitting that they can't get laid, and my least favorite, that any man who says he's asexual is actually an incel/that asexuality is another term for incels and femcels. Then you hop online and the internet goes, "Ace people love sex! Ace people love kink! Ace people have just as much sexual attraction as other people! You'r'e valid if you're ace and fuck/do kink/are attracted to everyone!" and if there's positivity for people who are ace who aren't into sex, I've yet to see it. Hell, being not into sex gets you labeled "repulsed", like you're retreating from it the way the Wicked Witch of the West would from water and not just not into it. That happened even in OTNF's own comment section, and these are not uneducated people when it comes to queerness, we've just normalized that sex is a part of everyone's identity so much that even if you're asexual, it's weird and must be a repulsion thing if you're not into it. "Uh actually everyone assumes [__] so there's no need for positivity for [__]" fucking where?! Where are all these people who assume being asexual = not wanting sex?

For the record, I got my undergrad at two different universities due to a change of major, got my master's at another, and am getting my doctorate at a fourth, all in four different US states. One was in the Northeast, one was in the South, one was in the Midwest and now I'm on the West Coast. And I have never encountered people who assume trans men are manly or that asexual people don't have sex.

I have encountered sex negative asexuals, people who get so upset they leave the room if you make a joke involving them and sex, who interrupt the professor mid-lecture to say, "Ace people have sex!", though. That's how deeply this is ingrained in some people's minds, they will say it even when it does not apply to them, even when it's the opposite of themselves, so they can make sure they are Educating The Cishetallos and, more importantly, then share the moment they had to do so with their progressive friends for brownie points/in order to be seen as One Of The Good Queers who educates others.

As for the weird thing in the troll ask pretending anyone who talks about their lived experience believes in a conspiracy... do yourself a favor and get help bringing up your literacy before you take the SAT/ACT, kid. Not only is your trolling shit but you don't understand what the word conspiracy means. Someone saying, "[insert thing here] happened to me" is not a conspiracy and this is why your English teachers gave you C's - to get you out of their classroom and make your lack of comprehension someone else's problem.

In the event this wasn't a troll but was actually what you read, please get two tutors and possibly a screening for any latent anxiety or mental illnesses that would explain how you read people venting about shitty life experiences and thought they believed there was a conspiracy of some kind going on. Because that's the kind of making shit up out of thin air my dad, who has diagnosed Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Paranoid Personality Disorder, would do, and it's not a great sign if you read people going, "the people around me are shitty about this" and jumped to "the people who sent those asks are saying there's a conspiracy theory against them and I am the one sole person who can see the truth here!"

I really don't know how to explain this to people but if someone says something is shitty on their campus, they're saying something is shitty on their campus. It's not a personal attack or conspiracy. Sometimes shit fucking sucks and it's exactly that deep.

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You wouldn't think "Someone had a stupid-ass opinion on my college campus" would be that hard to believe.

[youneedasoultraveller]

Is the popular headcanon that Nicky was illiterate, stupid and barbaric fitting in the stereotypes about Southern Europeans / Mediterraneans ? I’m guessing it’s from the American part of the fandom that’s choosing to not respectfully write Nicky since he is white while being virulent towards anybody that doesn’t perfected and accurately write Joe because he is MENA.

Hello!

Mind you, I am neither a psychologist, a sociologist nor a historian, so of course be aware these are my own views on the whole drama.

But to answer your question, yes, I personally think so. It definitely comes from the American side, but I have seen Northern Europeans do that too, often just parroting the same type of discourse that Anglos whip out every other day.

There is an abysmal ignorance of Medieval history – even more so when it concerns countries that are not England: there is this common misconception that Europe in the Middle Ages was this cultural backwater full of semi-barbaric people that stems unfortunately not only from trying to (correctly) reframe colonialist approaches to the historiographies of non-European populations (that is, showing the Golden Age of Islamic culture, for instance, as opposed to what were indeed less culturally advanced neighbours), but also from distortions operated by European themselves from the Renaissance onwards, culminating in the 18th century Enlightenment philosophes categorising the Middle Ages as the Dark Ages.

Now this approach has been time and time again proven to be a made-up myth. I will not go into detail to disprove each and every single one misconception about the Medieval era because entire books have been written, but just to give you an example: there was no such a thing as a ius primae noctis/droit du seigneur; people were aware that the Earth was not flat (emperors, kings, saints, etc, they were depicted holding a globe in their hands); people were taking care of their hygiene, either through the Roman baths, or natural springs, or private tubs that the wealthier strata of the population (and especially the aristocracy) owned. The Church was not super happy about them not because it wanted people to remain dirty, but because often these baths were for both men and women, and it was not that in favour of them showing off their bodies to one another. Which, you know, we also don’t do now unless you go to nudist spas. It was only during the Black Death in the 14th century that baths were slowly abandoned because they became a place of contagion, and they went into disuse (or better, they changed purpose and became something like bordellos). And, lastly, there was certainly a big chunk of the population that was illiterate, but certainly it was not the clergy, which was THE erudite class of the time. It was in monasteries and abbeys that knowledge was passed and preserved (as well as lost unfortunately often, such as the case for the largest part of classical literature).

So what does this mean? According to canon, Nicolò was an ex priest who fought in the First Crusade. This arguably means that at the very least he was a cadet son of a minor noble family (or a wealthy merchant one) who was part of the clergy. As such, historically he could have been neither illiterate nor a dirty garbage cat in his daily life.

Let’s then talk geography. Southern Europe (and France) was far, far more advanced than the North at the time and Italy remained the cultural powerhouse of the continent until the mid-17th century. Al Andalus in the Iberian Peninsula, the Italian States,  the Byzantine Empire (which called itself simply Roman Empire, whose population defined itself as Roman and cultural heirs of the Latin and Greek civilisations): these places have nothing to do with popular depictions of Medieval Europe that you mainly see from the Anglos. Like @lucyclairedelune rightfully pointed out: not everyone was England during the plague.

Also the Middle Ages lasted one thousand years. As a historical age, it’s way longer than anything we had after that. So of course habits varied, there was a clear collapse right after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, but then things develop, you know?

Anyway, back to the point in question. Everything I whipped up is not arcane knowledge: it’s simply having studied history at school and spending a few hours reading scientific articles on the internet which are not “random post written by random Anglo on Tumblr who can hardly find Genoa on a map”.

Nicolò stems from that culture. The most advanced area in Europe, possibly a high social class, certainly educated, from Genoa, THE maritime superpower of the age (with…Venice). It makes absolutely no sense that he would not be able to speak anything past Ligurian: certainly Latin (the ecclesiastical one), maybe the koine Greek spoken in Constantinople, or Sabir, or even the several Arabic languages from the Med basin stretching from al Andalus to the Levant. Because Genoa was a port, and people travel, bring languages with them, use languages to barter.

And now I am back to your question. Does this obstinacy in writing him as an illiterate beast (basically) feed into stereotypes of Mediterranean people (either from the northern or the southern shore)? It does.

It is a typically Anglo-Germanic perspective that of describing Southern (Catholic) Europeans are hot-headed, illiterate bumpinks mindlessly driven by blind anger, lusts and passions, as opposed to the rational, law-abiding smart Northern Protestants. You see it on media. I see it in my own personal life, as a Southern Italian living in Northern Europe for 10 years.

Does it sound familiar? Yes, it’s the same harmful stereotype of Yusuf as the Angry Brown Man. But done to Nicolò as the Angry Italian Man (not to mention the fact that, depending on the time of day and the daily agenda of the Anglo SJW Tumblrite, Italians can be considered either white or non-white).

Now, the times where Nicolò is shown as feral are basically when he is fighting (either in a bloody war or against Merrick’s men) or when Yusuf is in danger. Because, guess what, the man he loves is being hurt. What a fucking surprise.

Nicolò is simply being reduced to a one dimensional stereotype of the dirty dumb angry Italian, and people are simply doing this because they do not seem to accept the fact that both he and Yusuf are two wonderfully complex, flawed, fully-fledged multidimensional characters.

So I am mainly concentrating on Nicolò here because as an Italian I feel more entitled to speak about the way I see the Anglo fandom treating him and using stereotypes on him that have been consistently applied to us by the Protestant Northerners. I keep adding the religious aspect because, although I am an atheist who got debaptised from the Catholic Church, a big part of the historical treatment towards Southern has to do with religion and the contempt towards Catholic rituals and traditions (considered, once again, a sign of cultural backwardness by the enlightened North).

I do not want to impose my view of Yusuf because there are wonderful Tumblr users from MENA countries who have already written wonderful metas of the way Yusuf is being depicted by non-MENA people (in particular Americans), especially (again) @lucyclairedelune and @nizarnizarblr.

However, I just want to underline that, by only ever writing Yusuf as essentially a monodimensional character without a single flaw, this takes away Yusuf’s canon multidimensionality, the right he has to feel both positive but also negative feelings (he was hurt and angry at Booker’s betrayal, allegedly his best friend, AND HE HAD EVERY RIGHT TO BE – and I say this as a Booker fan as well).

I have not been the first to say these things, it is nothing revolutionary, and it exactly complements what the MENA tumblr users in the TOG fandom have also been trying to say. Both of us as own voices people who finally have the chance to have two characters that are fully formed and honest representations of our own cultures, without stereotypes or Anglogermanic distortions.

And the frustration mounting among all of us comes from the fact that the Anglos are, once again, not listening to us, even telling us we are wrong about our own cultures (see what has happened to Lucy and Nazir).

What is even more frustrating is that everything in this cursed fandom – unless it was in the film or comics – is just a bloody headcanon. But these people are imposing their HCs as if it were the Word of God, and attacking others – including own voices MENA and Italians – for daring to think otherwise.

I honestly don’t expect this post will make any difference because this is just a small reflection of what Americans do in real life on grander scale, which is thinking they are the centre of the world and ignoring that the rest of the world even exists regardless of their own opinions on it.

But still, sorry for the length, hope I answered your question.

[filmmakerdreamst]

How Xena: Warrior Princess Allowed Me To Accept Myself

I was living in a city all alone and these two characters showed me that it was ok for two women to love each other.

In order to understand the following story, there’s something you need to know about me. I have always loved fiction. From the age of about 5 to 11, I loved books more than I loved people. I was a shy child who found it easier to emotionally engage with fictional worlds than the real one around me.

See, fictional worlds are created for your brain’s enjoyment. Their rules make sense. Events happen for a reason. The narrator tells you why characters behave the way they do, allowing you to empathize with them on a deep emotional level. Easy to understand, easy to identify with, easy to love.

But real people are complicated. The real world is complicated. And things are seldom laid out nicely in a coherent narrative format for you. Real things are much harder to love.

This emotional disengagement continued from the age of 11 onwards, although it was no longer as pronounced. My habit of retreating into fiction would fade during good times and come back in force during difficult or stressful periods. During the stressful periods of college, the rise of Netflix allowed me to become certifiably obsessed with my favorite TV shows. And naturally, I joined Tumblr in order to more easily fangirl with people who shared my interests.

Only for some peculiar reason that I didn’t care to examine, my interests were slowly gravitating towards girl-girl couples. Soon I was shipping, reblogging, and reading fanfiction almost exclusively about female couples. But I, who had always considered myself straight despite lacking interest in the boys around me, didn’t think this meant that I was gay. I probably just found female couples more emotionally satisfying. I was friends with mostly women, I was a woman myself, so it was natural that I just understood them better. Yeah, that was probably it.

Fast-forward to nine months ago. I was living in Boston and incredibly depressed about it. My job and my boss were making my life miserable and I had very few people to socialize with. I was making the rough transition from the constant socialization of college to the isolating pressure of a city where I had few connections. My days and nights were some of the loneliest I had ever experienced. I looked for something, anything, to lift the heart-crushing emotional silence.

My solution was the same one I always chose when I was dissatisfied with the real world; obsession with a new TV show. And thanks to my femslash-focused tumblr community, I knew just what my next feel-good show was going to be.

My tumblr friends had told me this: Xena: Warrior Princess is an action-fantasy show that enjoys a cult status, much like Buffy: The Vampire Slayer (which I watched and loved). The two shows were made in the same mid-to-late 90's era, with similar bad special effects and endearing campiness. But XWP is much… MUCH… more gay.

That was about all I knew about the show going in. And amazingly, that was all I needed to know to be excited about watching it. You’d think that fact would have told me something about myself, but no. The mental walls of denial were years in the building and needed more force than that to be shattered.

For anyone unfamiliar with the show’s premise, Xena: Warrior Princess is about the title character and her quest for redemption. You see, Xena did some bad things in her previous life on another show (Hercules: The Legendary Journeys). In her storied career as a warlord, she committed such petty crimes as genocide, the slaughter of innocents, that kind of thing. But now she has seen the light and wants to atone for her crimes. Except she can never undo the terrible things she did. All Xena can do now is help people on a day-to-day basis and hope that it’s enough for someone to show her mercy.

Which is already fantastic from a character standpoint. But there is a secret mirror to Xena’s journey that is not reflected in the show’s title, and that is Gabrielle and her character arc.

Oh! Gabrielle! When I met her in the very first episode, I loved her straightaway. She is a feisty, naive, talkative small-town girl who accompanies Xena on all her adventures. Her character quickly assumes paramount importance in the narrative. Gabrielle is Xena’s only friend. She comes to know her better than anyone else and love her for who she is, all the while believing Xena can reach redemption. Yet Gabrielle is not just a support system for Xena; she goes on her own heroic journey. The two character arcs intertwine and co-develop in a way I have never seen in any show before or since.

As each episode rolled by and their relationship grew in complexity, I found myself more and more engrossed. And I came to realize: this was something I wanted. The day I accepted my own desire was the day I accepted myself. What could be more strangling than denying the existence of your own feelings? Yet I had been doing this to myself for years — cutting off the possibility of being attracted to other women — without even realizing.

Before beginning the show, I thought the fandom had read in between the lines to construct a romantic relationship between the two characters, the same way as femslash shippers do in all other TV shows. Except not this time. This one is mind-blowingly different.

Not only does the narrative place utmost importance on the relationship between Xena and Gabrielle, but the actresses bring such multi-dimensional love to their parts. When I saw Lucy Lawless (Xena) and Renee O’Connor (Gabrielle) interact, I could so easily believe that these two women loved each other beyond friendship. Xena and Gabrielle display every kind of love you can think of. They protect and sacrifice for each other. They tease and flirt. They cuddle and console. They have inside jokes with each other. They dance sexily. They play pranks and drive each other crazy. They sweetly kiss. They come back from the dead together. They bathe together. They raise each other’s children. They meet in alternate timelines and fall in love all over again.

I could have left my mental walls of denial in place. I could have said to myself “oh yes, I want this. But with a guy.” But no. Lawless and O’Connor’s incredibly attractive faces and bodies broke down the door of my mental closet. Precisely because they were fictional, I felt safe to admit my attraction to them. One of the key mental blocks I had always had towards accepting any attraction towards other women was the thought that I was being creepy. That since they could not possibly feel the same way about me, it was wrong to feel the way I did. But in my mind, that barrier didn’t exist with fictional characters. They couldn’t feel anything for me. Therefore, it was fine to feel whatever I want about them.

The walls cracked. The water came rushing in. Oh my god. I am attracted to other women. Like, every day of my life. Those flickers in my stomach when I talk to an attractive female coworker suddenly make a whole lot of sense now. I now saw my historical awkwardness when talking to beautiful girls, which I always dismissed as “me being weird”, for what it was. All those short-term girl crushes on older girls throughout high school. How was I so sure they were platonic? That heart-aching infatuation I had with my best friend that lasted for years? Yeah, add that to the ‘definitely gay’ list.

Since then I’ve realized that my feelings are valid regardless of what others feel for me. Just because feelings are unrequited doesn’t mean they aren’t real. That’s what Xena and Gabrielle taught me. Their fictional example was the final blow to my rapidly-crumbling resistance to the idea of homosexuality.

In our culture today, so many forms of media reinforce heteronormativity. How many commercials have you seen that assume attraction between a man and a woman? How many billboards tell women that they need to look sexy for the men in their lives? How many times has a movie ended with the guy getting the girl? It’s the combined action of a thousand small rocks shifting to make a cultural avalanche. You can’t move against it. All you can do is stand still and try to maintain your footing against the current, to maintain your identity in the face of a world where you and people like you are often swept away by the mainstream.

Xena: Warrior Princess is one of those rare stories that dares to go against the grain. It celebrates a romantic relationship between two women as the most natural thing in the world. And in doing so, it provides a mirror for me and people like me to recognize themselves in. There we are. Look at us fly.

This story isn’t over yet. I still have a lot of work to do to accept myself, but thanks to Xena and Gabrielle I’ve taken one huge step towards living the open life I want to live. I moved on from that horrible job and lonely city, but in the end I’m grateful. Grateful that circumstances pushed me to the depths of loneliness necessary to bring down the prison I had built in my own mind.

- How Xena: Warrior Princess Allowed Me To Accept Myself by Lyra Hall

[mrpenguinpants]

I am a firm believer that Childe is indeed younger than Keqing and has no form of respect for her regardless.

It’s moreso a form of me establishing that the Keqing is a short adult in her mid to early twenties who has to inevitably deal with the constant neck pain she gets from having to look up at her co-workers just to make eye contact. She curses either herself for it for never growing an inch or curses everyone around her or, well, both. Regardless, she can occassionally be found in her office stomping the floor and feeling like the battle is her against the world LMAO

As a side note, I loved the little headcanons of the boys as children you included! It was a different thing that would’ve never came to mind otherwise. While I’m totally ride or die on the “four men accidentally hire themselves a babysitter and a daily slander machine (she does it out of love)” train, I do appreciate different variations to the idea.

Oh and seeing myself on the anon list makes me feel a bit warm, it feels like I’m being acknowledged as family for crashing this wonderful blog with brainworms lmaooo— on a much serious note, I really appreciate hearing me out whenever I have an idea or two to share.

Sincerely, Keqing harem brainrot anon

(I felt like using a dash was too orthodox, and these are basically my mini love letters to you for being an overwhelming amount of seretonin, so I figured why not give it a little twist)

Minor Spoilers for Character Backgrounds

I wrote some more on this here: Genshin: Royalty AU HCs

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FUCKING CATCH ME CRYING IN THE CLUB AS I HOLD THIS PRECIOUS ASK IN MY HANDS. I THOUGHT YOU DIED. I WAS SO UPSET. REMEMBER THAT ANON ASK THAT I JUST REPLIED TO WHERE ANON FELT LIKE THEY WERE COMING HOME? THAT. THAT IS HOW I FEEL RN.

Yes. I know anons have lives outside of tumblr. Am I a parent penguin now? Yes. Yes I am. I’m fucking crying, it does feel like I’m seeing my family again.

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Out of all the “adult” genshin characters, I firmly believe Childe is the youngest. He is just hovering that adult status because of his height. Can I also say how much I love that the “culturally insensitive white boy” idea came from people on twitter getting tired of Chili fanart where Childe calls Zhongli “sensei” even tho the mans Chinese? 

Speaking of short people, and because I will never shut up about this, XIAO IS 5′2. Ty for coming to my ted talk. I can literally astral project and visualize Zhongli being Keqing’s boss or co-worker that’s super respectful - but lowkey a bit slow because he keeps forgetting his wallet and Keqing is too nice to leave him without lunch - but when he’s spitting facts about the ancient art of ink blocks she’s cursing him in her mind. Why is this man so tall?? She can feel the neck muscles in her neck crying out in pain that when she finally relaxes and stares forward rather than upward, she get’s a killer cramp and ends up dying on the floor (I HATE THAT FEELING BTW). She’s out here googling ways to grow taller after puberty and chugs milk cartoons like it’s air. 

This is why I absolutely love sharing ideas with others. There is so much food to be brought to the table so I always try and encourage others to share their ideas. Plus it let’s me get my over-active brainworms out haha. 

I just love the dual personality of younger vs older genshin characters. We got to see a little bit of young Diluc in the manga (pls..I know it’s completed but crumbs. I beg of you) where he was this starry eyed and friendly knight attitude. Actual sweetheart. Your typical childhood boy next door type of vibe that was sweet and polite but was a lot smarter than he looked. He has a pet turtle (or tortoise?) and I find that so cute. I can totally see Diluc being hard working to make his father proud but also slacks hard and watches his turtle awkwardly eat a strawberry most of the time haha. He would both die for his turtle and go to war for it. Honestly, I just love the idea of child Diluc being a bit of a slacker compared to his older self, who is trying to speed run his life.  

As for Kaeya, I’m going to say this now. I fully believe in the art of shy and quiet Kaeya when he was a child. It makes sense in terms of the lore since he was basically shoved into an unknown world and all alone. Poor guy probably has a lot of insecurities and is super standoffish to happy and loud children his age. He might come off as rude but he just doesn’t know how to socially interact. As sad as this may sound, he probably mimics other children as his way of expressing emotions. Since he spent most of his time with Diluc, he probably tried to mimic Diluc’s mannerism to try and fit in but Diluc is smart and caught on. It was actually a really wholesome connection of Diluc trying to help Kaeya express himself rather than copying others. Until well, the incident that separated them. 

Complete side note since I know we’re talking about a modern au but: I know I’m stretching this super thin and this doesn’t hold up in the lore at all but I really like the idea that Kaeya is secretly the Prince of Khaenri’ah and Khaenri’ah is a code word for the Abyss. This is basically me saying I want the Abyss mages and Kaeya to actually get along but due to moving in with Diluc’s family and the world’s view on monsters. He has to talk and play with them in secret. I think it’s kinda cute haha. 

As for Childe, actual angel. Have you seen Teucer? Who is this pure innocent soul and what the FUCK happened to create this Grade A Brat? He got too many vitamin gummies and became a gorilla. I mean, both younger and older Childe would walk an old lady across the street but only older Childe would then try to 1v1 the old lady. I’m actually crippled by the idea that Childe used to be this scrawny kid that decided to bulk up due to deep insecure attitudes towards himself or protection ideas for his younger siblings. Fighting became a need to survive and he hated it at first until he met his Master and found the fun in it because it was his way of having control of a situation. Though of course, while this man has two braincells, he’s still sensible. Childe may be a clown but he’s a good big brother. 

Then there’s Zhongli. In my mind, he was basically like Kaeya. Probably came from royalty as well. He didn’t know how to express himself except his boy was actually hollow. A complete husk of a person that was just doing what he was told to absolute perfection. That was until Guizhong, who I completely headcanon as someone older than Zhongli and acts as a sister figure (fucking fight me), grew concerned for this poor child and tried her best to teach him how to have fun. That there was life outside his studies and duties. While it didn’t work out perfectly and Zhongli is still a bit slow on the uptake, he genuinely is thankful to her and her help. I can see him have a little notebook of all her advice and teachings - heck, drawings of human emotions - that he sometimes has to turn to because he’s lost. (why..do i keep making Zhongli’s part so sad). 

BUT ASIDE FROM MY BRAINWORMS. “Four men accidently hire themselves a babysister and a daily slander machine” IS SUCH A CONCEPT. I want them all to have the worst habits. Childe LICKS the yogurt peel in front of Keqing slowly because he knows it absolutely disgusts her, Zhongli eat’s his sandwiches vertically, Diluc blends coffee with 5 hours energy and doesn’t tell anyone (so everyone has the worst hangover 3 hours later because they all leech off each other), and Kaeya, for the love of god, cover your tit window. It’s too early to get arrested for public indecency. 

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I’m happy my anon list made you feel fuzzy 💕💕. I’m probably missing a lot of anons on that list because I have the memory of a goldfish so I just listed the ones I could remember. Since you know, you’re some of the few that came back to talk to me which I honestly really appreciate. I know you all have lives outside of this small blog so it does make me really happy seeing you all come back. I’ve mentioned it before but don’t be afraid to chat with me about anything, doesn’t even have to be genshin^^ but I absolutely love the stuff you come up with. 

I never thought of an anon list acting like a family acknowledgement (more as a literal list) but I’m fully on board with that. I went back to my older anon asks to see if I missed anyone (and I probably have since the tumblr search tag is garbage) but I hope they are all still around on this blog and wanna drop by to say hi^^ 

I’m going to go change my anon list to pengu family because holy fuck that’s cute. But with that said, 

Welcome back home keqing harem brainrot anon!

[dweemeister]

Woman in the Moon (1929, Germany)

By the end of the 1920s, humanity could envision a world where spaceflight might be possible. Several decades before that, the science fiction books of Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, and others thrilled viewers with promise of adventure and the unknown. Also capturing that interest in space would be Georges Méliès’ film, A Trip to the Moon (1902, France) – even if you have never heard of this film, you may be familiar with its most iconic frame. A Trip to the Moon is one of the first science fiction films ever made and, for the 1900s decade, among the most innovative of its time. Though other filmmakers around the world dabbled in science fiction, the genre never truly took off until mid-century.

One of the few filmmakers bringing a sense of spectacle to sci-fi silent films was German director Fritz Lang, best known today for Metropolis (1927) and M (1931). Because of its release in between Metropolis and M, Woman in the Moon tends to be underseen and undermentioned. But, like Metropolis and A Trip to the Moon, it is a silent film exemplar of science fiction. It is a remarkable piece of entertainment in its second half, even as it wastes too much of its runtime on a tiresome subplots that involve gangsters and romance. When Lang brings his showmanship during the crew’s trip to the Moon, the results are unlike any other filmmaker working in cinema at that time.

Businessman Helius (Willy Fritsch) meets with his friend, Professor Mannfeldt (Klaus Pohl), to discuss developments over Helius’ plans to journey to the Moon. The mission was inspired by the Professor’s hypothesis that the Moon, “is rich in gold” – something that has attracted the mockery of his fellow academics. In the shadows, an unidentified gang sends a man calling himself “Walter Turner” (Fritz Rasp) to spy on Mannfeldt and Helius. More trouble comes to Helius when he learns his assistants Windegger (Gustav von Wangenheim) and Friede (Gerda Maurus) announce their engagement. Helius, who has never confessed his love for Friede, finds himself in an awkward romantic bind in the events leading up to launch. On launch day, Helius, his assistants, and Professor Manfeldt board the Friede. But their crew complement includes two others: Walter Turner (who threatens his way onboard) and a stowaway child, Gustav (Gustl Gstettenbaur).

Thea von Harbou, Lang’s wife from 1922-1933, wrote the screenplay, adapting her book The Rocket to the Moon. Just a quick glance through her filmography recalls a number of great Lang-von Harbou collaborations: Dr. Mabuse the Gambler (1922), the Die Nibelungen saga (1924), and Metropolis. She truly is one of the great screenwriters of early cinema, but Woman in the Moon is an underwhelming display of her talents. Von Harbou mires with its Earth-bound scenes, and Woman in the Moon reaps no benefits from its spy subplot. There is a straight science-fiction story buried somewhere in this overlong 169-minute film, but von Harbou overstuffs her screenplay with the potential sabotage of the rocket to the Moon. Never does the viewer feel that Lang’s astronauts are in danger of being blasted to smithereens in outer space or that “Walter Turner” will ever succeed in whatever murderous plots he has hatched. Isolated from whatever themes Woman in the Moon wishes to present, the love triangle that slowly overtakes the rest of the film always feels vestigial to this overcooked story. Compare this overwrought, yet underwritten romantic drama to Metropolis, where the relationship between Gustav Fröhlich’s Freder and Brigitte Helm’s Maria outlines perfectly the tension of their society’s industrial hierarchies and the geography that separates the classes.

Woman in the Moon truly defies gravity only after its launch and touchdown on the lunar surface. The cinematography team led by Curt Courant (1934’s The Man Who Knew Too Much, 1938’s La Bête Humaine) capture the terror of early spaceflight better than some of the more expensive American sci-fi productions would in the 1950s and ‘60s. The speculative lunar sets – which look more like Méliès’ vision for A Trip to the Moon than anything recognizable from the Moon – tower over the movie’s intrepid astronauts as they explore this lifeless (unlike Méliès’ vision) celestial body.

The screenplay, camerawork, production design, and special effects seen in The Woman in the Moon come from the most widely accepted scientific theories of the late 1920s concerning astrophysics and the nature of the Moon. Where some aspects might feel dated (that includes the appearance and breathable atmosphere of the lunar surface and the submersion of the rocket into water before launch), others are prescient. The explanation of how the rocket’s flightpath is so prophetic that it seems as if Thea von Harbou and Fritz Lang sat in on an Apollo mission briefing by NASA. Woman in the Moon also contains the first countdown to launch seen in a sci-fi film (yes, the launch countdown is an invention of Woman in the Moon), as well as a multistage rocket that jettisons parts of the rocket as it exits Earth’s atmosphere. Prior to launch, the rocket’s assembly in a separate structure before transportation out to the launchpad – where it will blast off to space. For a film released in an era that did not make much use of seat belts and Velcro, the utter violence and human disorientation of a rocket launch requires the astronauts to strap themselves into their bunks and hold onto surface restraints.

The frantic editing and startling cinematography of these scenes, coupled with the film’s undercurrent of distrust and ulterior motives, are a Lang staple during the most technically accomplished scenes of his filmography. It is there in the worker montages of Metropolis, the elaborate assassination scene of Dr. Mabuse the Gambler, and the horrific battle sequence of Die Nibelungen: Kriemhild’s Revenge. Those Lang hallmarks find their way late in Woman in the Moon, well past the point where they might have been effective in alleviating the film of its structural issues. Though Woman in the Moon might not be as influential as any of those aforementioned movies, Lang’s propulsive sense of action is apparent in the film’s second half. Like a silent era John Frankenheimer, Lang is in full control of the film’s tension – knowing when and when not to apply these techniques to heighten the viewer’s adrenaline.

Not nearly as a widely-discussed for Woman in the Moon is its final moments. The film’s concluding dilemma is startling. It precipitates into a situational solution that does not grant a narrative resolution. Are Lang and von Harbou attempting to comment on the lengths of selfishness, of the tension intrinsic between science and human avarice that can endanger others? Or is it more cynical of scientific discovery and technological progression than it might appear? Woman in the Moon wastes too much time on its romantic triangle before even approaching questions as nuanced as these.

However one interprets this, Woman in the Moon – more popular with general audiences than film critics and those noting that Universum Film AG (UFA) executive Alfred Hugenberg was beginning to align himself with the Nazi Party – arrived in German theaters at a time of political upheaval. Among the politically inclined, Woman in the Moon proved divisive: leftists derided its alleged Nazi subtext and the Nazis approved of this depiction of a technologically advanced, forward-thinking Germany. Shortly following Hitler’s ascendancy to German Chancellor in 1933, the Nazis banned A Woman in the Moon and seized the film’s rocket models due to how accurate its depiction of rocketry was. At this time, the Nazis, with a team led by Wernher von Braun, were deep into researching the V-2 rocket – the world’s first long-range guided ballistic missile.

Detractors of Woman in the Moon dismissed Lang and the film as curios of Germany’s cinematic past. With synchronized sound films all the rage since 1927, Woman in the Moon proved to be Lang’s final silent film. Today, the movie is Lang’s final epic, before he transitioned into a career leaning heavily on film noir. The scenes of greatest interest to silent film and sci-fi fans arrives deep in the film, after too many stultifying conversations and lovelorn looks from the main characters. In its greatest spurts, Woman in the Moon’s scientific speculation heralds a future beset by self-interest, yet heaven-bound.

My rating: 7/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog (as of July 1, 2020, tumblr is not permitting certain posts with links to appear on tag pages, so I cannot provide the URL).

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.

[sadaveniren]

🎄31 Days of Recs - @phd-mama 🎄

If I Had Three Wishes (They'd All Be For You)

When Harry Styles sets off for Provincetown, MA from his tiny hometown of Kerkhoven, MN, he’s facing an uncertain future. He’s always planned to leave, just...not like this. When he meets a gorgeous cabaret performer on his first night in P-town, little does he know how his life is about to change, or how much he has yet to learn. When they become more than just friends, Louis makes it clear he's not looking for anything serious, but at least, Harry consoles himself, they’ll always be friends. Over one extraordinary summer, Harry learns to navigate life on his own through a journey of self-discovery and sexual awakening. But when Harry’s past tragically reappears in his life, will his friendship with Louis be able to hold on?

What’s Another Word For...

What happens when Harry goes on Tumblr.

90 Day Return

It was all supposed to be mutual promo. That's it. A boyfriend for the winter - Louis can do this.

The Games We Play (Lead to Gold)

Louis has been excited for ages about Boo-con, Boston's annual October celebration of all things... Well, Louis’s not actually sure what it’s for, actually. It’s an excuse to cosplay, to celebrate all things animated, all things spooky and it’s fun as shit, that’s for sure, and this year. This year, Louis has the best costume he’s ever come up with.

Friend Request

This was written for Kassio as a pinch hit for the HL Summer Exchange, from the prompt: " Louis is bored on Facebook and in the “People you may know” suggestions, he sees the name Harry Styles. The profile picture doesn't show the person. He thinks it's an old family friend who he misses – maybe a middle-aged or elderly former neighbor or babysitter who he was fond of as a child - and sends a friend request. Turns out it's not old man Harry from their old neighborhood, it's hot young Harry (who he's never met before) who accepts his friend request..."

It’s a Better Place (Since You Came Along)

When Harry Styles, a mid-level talent, Finder, and small business owner, sets off on the vacation of a lifetime with his best friend, Niall Horan, he has no idea the changes his life will undergo over the next nine days. He's got it all planned - there's going to be shore excursions, lounging by the pool on the deck of the luxurious cruise ship, not to mention margaritas. What he does not plan for are the new friends, new bonds, or the mystery from his past that comes back to haunt him, and he certainly hasn't planned for Louis.

Wherever I go (You go with me)

Harry reaches out and pats Louis. Sometimes, late at night, lying next to his husband of twenty years, he can’t help but feel a little lonely. It’s a good life they’ve built for themselves, he reminds himself, an incredible life. They’re both blessed to be working in their fields, they’ve got three amazing kids, they’re both still healthy and active with very little lower back pain, but late at night, deep in the dark, a still, small voice from somewhere inside of Harry wonders if this is really as good as it gets. But then, the fates conspire in Harry's favor, and provide him with the perfect opportunity to help Louis and him get their groove back. Copley Square is never going to know what hit it.

Feels Like Coming Home

The last thing Harry Styles expects when he's hanging out at the Someday Cafe in Somerville one rainy October day is for his ex, Louis Tomlinson to walk through the door, but that's exactly what happens. After a spectacularly ugly break-up three years prior, Harry hasn't heard one word from Louis, and he's moved on. Gotten over him. But having Louis back in his life, not to mention working at the restaurant where he's a chef, isn't easy, and the feelings that Harry thought he'd left turn out to be not so easily forgotten.

This is a story about love and the power of forgiveness, and how the hard choices we make define us, and change our lives.

Feels Good on My Lips

When Niall harasses Harry into returning to Vermont for their fifteenth high school reunion, Harry is really not sure he wants to go. High School wasn't the most fun for him, but when it turns out that Louis Tomlinson, his former best friend and current star of the silver screen is going to be there, Harry agrees. The road to reunion is never easy.

Do You Wanna Ride

When Liam's attractive new business partner wins riding lessons with Harry, hilarity ensues.

[pridewon]

@goldenloved​ said:  Name: oikawa light of your life tooru Age: mid-twenties, looking like a fresh early twenty Do you like to cuddle?: yes. especially my cuddle bear ushiwaka-chan Can we make-out?: absolutely. we can do more than makeout too, wink wink A night in or dinner out?: night in for safety and privacy purposes Ice cream or chocolate covered strawberries?: What makes you a good Valentine?: my charm, my humor, my fluffy hair, my smile, my laugh, my amazing company, my love for you Would you cook for me?: anything you want, chef tooru is here to dliver Would you let me cook for you?: you can be my assistant ;) (valentine’s day applications)

“...” Wakatoshi lets his gaze go over the screen one more time, still not quite sure what it is he is looking at. Hands placed on either side of the back of Tooru’s chair while he towers behind him, not even needing to see his partner’s face to know the smile he must be sporting now is that of someone very pleased with themselves, Japan’s cannon deciphers the text on the laptop screen one last time. Something fun he found on tumblr, Tooru had said as he had called him into the living room (whatever tumblr is meant to be). Well. He doesn’t really get it (when does he, really?); but it doesn’t stop him from giving Tooru’s latest antics his utmost consideration.

“Is this your way of asking me out for Valentine’s?” He asks, lowering his high silhouette to take a better look at the answers Tooru provided - surely, there was no necessity to go to such lengths, when just asking him out loud would have been more than sufficient; but his boyfriend, he knows, has more of a flair for the dramatics than he does. In this case, as over-the-top as it is, and as obnoxious the answers might be, he finds the whole process rather endearing (or perhaps he decides to selectively focus on ‘my love for you’ and the plans laid out for the occasion, and ignore the nicknames Tooru knows make him grimace every single time) (sometimes, a man has to choose his battles). “Sounds tempting.” He finally says with his usual honesty, pressing a kiss to Tooru’s hair before he stands back up; and points at a line on the screen - one making mention of ice cream and strawberries.

“But you forgot to answer this question.” The verdict drops like a stone in still waters; Wakatoshi’s expression, as ever, unwavering. “I’m afraid I can’t accept your application in these conditions. You’ll have to submit a new form.” And with that, he turns away and heads back to the kitchen, struggling to conceal the small smile growing at his lips. Teasing still isn’t something that comes to him naturally, but... he likes to think he’s making progress. He’s learning from the best, after all. 

Application accepted!

[caydesgirl-uldrensprincess]

Thanks to this wonderful idea from a tumblr user, here is more about my Hunter

Guardians name: Chloe Faith Brask

Age: 24

Race: Human

Pronouns: She/Her

Class: Hunter

Preferred subclass(es): Gunslinger

Ghost's name: Moondance

Fireteam name: The Sisterhood

Fireteam teammates: Isabelle Brigham, Tori-3, and Sage Heathcliff

Favorite legendary weapon: Rose

Favorite exotic weapon: Ace of Spades

Favorite exotic armor: Lucky Pants

Favorite ornament armor set: Vanguard Dare

Favorite weapon ornament: Big Blind

What stats do they focus on: Mobility and Recovery

Are they offense, defence, or support: Chloe is always offense, mostly because she just springs into action with no real plan in mind.

Do they prefer being close, mid, or long range: a combination of all three

Do they lean more "Element of Surprise" or "Upfront and Aggressive": Both

Strikes, Gambit, or Crucible: Gambit

Who was their mentor(if they had one. If it is a character you created, tell us about them!): She doesn't really have one

What ship do they have: Queen of Hearts

What is their Sparrow: Gambler's Palm

Favorite Ghost shell: Spelunking Shell

Favorite shader: Circadian Chill

Favorite color: Electric Blue

Favorite food: STEAK!!!

Favorite piece of Pre-Collapse tech(if they've seen any): A Polaroid Camera

Favorite Pre-Collapse music(if they've heard any): Country music (Prime Country ro Modern Country)

Favorite place in The Last City(if it's a place you created, give a little description!): A bar called the Golden Horse

Favorite NPC(s): Cayde-6, Banshee-44, Saint-14, and Amanda Holliday

Favorite patrol location: The EDZ

5 things your Guardian likes(can be anything): Horse back riding, camping, art, and photography

Least favorite food: Zucchini and Squash

Least favorite shader: Cayde's Dubs (unfortunately)

Least favorite patrol location: Formly Mercury, Currently Europa

Least favorite Pre-Collapse tech(if they've seen any): iPads

Least favorite NPC(s): Suraya Hawthorne

Least favorite weapon ornament: Pride of Omolon

Least favorite ornament armor set: Forbidden Visage

Least favorite legendary weapon: Any scout rifle

Least favorite exotic weapon: Whisper of the Worm

Least favorite exotic armor: Worm Huskcrown

5 things your Guardian dislikes(this can be anything): Being patient, being stuck in the tower, following orders, the Hive, and lizards

Your Guardian has to rest. What is their living space like: it's a studio loft with art supplies scattered everywhere

Does your Guardian have any casual wear?:

What hobbies and/or skills does you Guardian have: Drawing, Painting, Riding (Horses), Photography, playing piano

What would your Guardian's lore book be called: Reckless Danger

Where was your Guardian reborn?(If you created the location, give us a little description!): Cheyenne, Wyoming

What were they wearing when they were reborn: T-shirt, jeans, and boots

What was their reaction to being reborn: "why? What? Holy Fuck it's cold!"

What was their reaction to their first rez: "OMG, that's awesome!"

After being reborn, did they meet friendlies first or hostiles: Hostiles, namely the Eliskni

Who was the first other Guardian they met?(Same thing! If you made them, give a little description!): Isabelle Brigham, Chloe's best friend and the one who makes sure Chloe doesn't over do it.

Did your Guardian get reborn with, or find, any indication of their past life? If so what do they have/found: A photo of her and her father (Andal Brask) at her high school graduation

How did your Guardian get their name(if they didn't rez with past life momentos): the photo of her high school graduation had "Chloe and Dad, Graduation 2015"

Going back to your Guardian's lore book, what would be some some quotes or passages from their book: "You can't move mountains sittin' on your backside.", "I'm a hunter, knives ARE my religion!" OR "Why aren't you prettier than a magnolia in May."  (This is directed to a horse)

Does your Guardian have a significant other: Cayde-6

Did your Guardian go explore first before going to The Last City? If so, where to: Chloe went to straight to the The Last City.

What was their reaction to first seeing The Last City: She was surprised at how many people there were.

Is your Guardian a part of a clan: No

Does your Guardian's clan have a back story? If so, what is it?(if you want to or able to share): No

If your Guardian would have a quote as a flavor text for a weapon and/or piece of armor, what would they be: "Oh, these old things, can hide hundreds of knives in them."

If your Guardian has had any interactions with any civilians (The Last City/The Farm), Eliksni, Cabal, Vex, Hive, Taken, Scorn, Rouge Lightbearers, or Iron Lords/War Lords(if your Guardian is an Old Light) tell us about it!: Chloe loved helping the kids on the Farm learn to ride horses. She loved watching the smiles spread across their faces as they rode like the wind.

Does your Guardian have any unconventional allies or connections(By Vanguard standards): She has a civilian friend named Nikki who helps get supplies and ammunitions.

How does your Guardian feel about themselves or others using Stasis: At first, Chloe had no idea how she felt about it, seeing how she'd rather blow something up with her solar. After a while, she loves using it, especially in Gambit.

Did they run The Last Wish raid? How did they react to seeing a live Ahamkara a.k.a Riven: Chloe's not one for raids

Did they run The Deep Stone Crypt raid? How did they react to the Crypt and seeing Exo Eliskni: Absolutely shock at how thay was possible

Is your Guardian from D1? How did they react to seeing Taniks alive once again: Yes, she's from D1, let's just she was not happy.

Where did they go and what did they do during The Red War: Chloe helped escort civilians to safety and taught them self defense.  She mostly worried about Cayde when he was MIA.

Here are some characters that are either polarizing or have created a strong enough mass emotion within the community. What opinion does your Guardian hold on each of them(These are only a handful of characters!)>>>

Osiris, First Warlock Vanguard, originally exiled: Grandpa!

Eris Morn, Bane of the Swarm: Slightly creeped out, but overall really good friends with Eris.

Cayde-6, Sixth Hunter Vanguard: Chloe's fell head over heels for the exo

Ikora Rey, Second Warlock Vanguard: Mad respect

Commander Zavala, Second Titan Vanguard: Eh, she could careless about what Big Blue says

Saint-14, legendary Titan, First Titan Vanguard: Exo Grandpa!

Lord Saladin, Iron Banner handler, One of the last remaining Iron Lords: Wolf Man!

Lord Shaxx, Crucible handler, Hero of Twilight Gap, living megaphone: Chloe tends to avoid Crucible if possible

The Crow, New Light, Ex-Enforcer to The Spider: She's rather cold towards him.

The Spider, The Shore's Only Law, founder of "House" Spider: Eh, Chloe dosen't really care as long as she'd paid glimmer for her services

Uldren Sov, Prince of the Reef, Master of Crows: A deep dislike for him, he left a bad impression on her when they first met. Though she has to tolerate him since Isabelle is head over heels for the Prince

Mara Sov, Queen of the Reef, Queen of the Awoken, Ex-Kell of Wolves: She tolerates the Queen.

Variks, the Loyal, founder of House Judgement: Chloe doesn't trust people/Eliskni easily. Variks is maybe maybe only Eliskni, besides Mithrax, that she likes.

Mithrax, the Forsaken, Kell of Light, founder of House Light: Same answer as before

The Exo Stranger/Elizabeth "Elsie" Bray, Granddaughter of Clovis I and Sister to Ana Bray: Chloe finds her closed off and unable to really connect with her.

Eramis, of House Salvation, Kell of Darkness: "BITCH, YOU FROZE MY GHOST! THERE AIN'T A SOUL ALIVE WHO MESSED WITH HIM!"

Empress Caiatl of the Cabal Imperial Empire: She can't stand the Cabal, so Chloe doesn't like Caiatl very much.

Taniks the Scarred, the Perfected, the Abomination, the Shadow Thief: He killed her father in front of her..... rage is all she feels

The Darkness is fast approaching. How is your Guardian handling it: Pretty well actually.

And finally, does your Guardian have any advice for any New Lights: "Think 'what would Chloe do?' then do the polar opposite..."

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S4 Ep8: Magic Mai

So fun fact, I was out of town around this Thanksgiving and I grabbed a laptop from my Dad’s stack of machinery he’s sort of collected over the years and lo and behold--he put Linux on it.

Like I dunno if you all can relate to this problem, but everything he touches turns into Linux and he’s trying to live this Windows free/Mac free lifestyle, and I get it, I’m friends with so many vegetarians, but like I hate this laptop. I'm using Gimp to make these screenshots...So I can re-do them later in Photoshop because...it just doesn’t feel right to put Papyrus on this computer. It already has Linux. This poor machine has suffered enough. Long story short, this’ll be a small update because right clicking on linux is ass.

Also, because I was on a laptop and realized how small my blog is for the first time--I don’t have control over the size of pictures in text posts, tumblr does, and in this particular theme it’s not allowing me to change the size, and so do me a favor. Click ctrl and + at the same time a couple times (I’m assuming most of you are on firefox). There. the pictures are the right size now. If you hated that, you can click ctrl and - but like lets be real, my font is occasionally...tiny.

Anyway, we start discussing this episode on the confusing legs of the last one, where Mai is evil now, and it’s really not entirely clear if she’s possessed or if she’s just always been this way, or if she just FEELS like it.

And that’s all this episode is about, start to finish--is this Mai’s choice or was this not Mai’s choice? The answer is the same as it would be for a normal person: it’s complicated. Maybe it’s everybody’s choice. Maybe it was because no one did anything that Mai went completely haywire? Maybe it was because Mai hid how she was feeling so no one had any idea she needed help? Or, overall, maybe Mai is kind of a toxic person and wanted to be this way? Especially while she’s on children’s cartoon card drugs?

(read more under the cut)

So to start off, a weird thing happened at the beginning of this episode. After about 4 seasons, someone finally mentioned this:

How many seasons has Yugi been talking to himself? Like, out loud. In front of everyone and Kaiba? This whole time, right? Like Valon just dashed my headcanon where I figured Yugi was smart enough to think his thoughts instead of speak his thoughts. He’s just not that smart, unfortunately.

Meanwhile, Mai has managed to attract this other (teenager?) guy and like...to go worse than Joey so quickly is kind of shocking. Mai just seems embarrassed by the amount of very young boys in love with her. And she’s not even a cougar about it, she doesn’t really seem to want this to happen but it keeps on happening.

And although he is essentially the card form of a drug pusher, Valon has this soft spot for a girl I guess to give him some sort of redeemable flaw. However, she only wears tube tops and minis and spends like hundreds of dollars on her hair, so it doesn’t really make him seem any less shallow, tbh.

PS I’m surprised, that unlike all the other characters on Yugioh, I can’t just type in Valon’s name into Google and get his age and weight. No idea what his age is, and if you know, feel free to tell me but he just seems...exactly the same age as Joey. He seems very 17. Maybe it’s the obsession with motorcycles and children’s playing cards? Maybe it’s his big ol childlike eyes? He just seems young and niave like how a teenager who just fell in love with a very angry older woman would.

Joey tries to remind everyone, multiple times, that this game is the worst idea ever since it requires one of them to super die, but Mai is on card drugs so I don't know why they bothered. Also, why is Joey still surprised by this after 4 seasons of this?

Yo it’s S4 and Mai witnesses magic non-stop but still has basically no idea how it works. She really did say “I have no soul” and it was like...I’m 90% certain she literally thinks she has no soul right now. Which I guess, statistically speaking, is rare to actually have a still intact soul after hanging out with the main villain, with the way this show typically goes.

Meanwhile, last episode it really sounded like Duke Devlin was driving to Pegasus’ company building. It really sounded like he would have gone directly there, since Weevil and Rex told him that Yugi was going to Pegasus.

Remember that Duke Devlin works for Pegasus and probably has his own parking spot.

So where did he go instead?

You know how there’s only one gas station in the entirety of America?

I can’t believe it blew up.

Y’all what is the red splotch in the middle of the pile ps? That is legitimately a pile of blood, right? I didn’t shop that in. There’s just a red puddle in this kid’s show.

Y’all what is that? Like was there a scene with a red handkerchief that I missed? Is that a red handkerchief?

But to move past the mysterious pool of blood that confirms those bikers are so hella dead, I have no idea why Duke was here, I have no idea how he got the tip off that Yugi visited this place, but then he turned around and went back to SF so like...I guess he’ll arrive 3 days from now because again, they are in Arizona. They keep telling me this is right outside SF but like--Mesas. There’s Mesas.

And then this happened.

That one guy on the writing staff who just stans Seto Kaiba so hard got into the drawing room, I see.

PS someone had to pose for this shot for them to draw this shot from this angle.

Meanwhile, lets see why Mai turned evil. Ah, because it is Yugioh, the biggest reason is that she has no friends (probably because she’s got the most acidic personality known to man) and isn’t card popular enough and got super bitter and jealous.

Speaking as an artist who is online, I can understand the frustration here. Sometimes (99% of the time) you work really hard and no one cares and you get like 2 notes. And honestly, why should they? Like, why do you do it in the first place?

Mai echoes a lot of the issues of Seto last season, where she wants so badly to be the absolute best to prove herself to the ghosts of her past who really don’t care any more.

But, since Mai was in a coma when Seto got through all of that, I guess she never got the memo and still seems stuck on just wanting to be the best with no other reason than “to be the best” which again, sounds so much like art school problems. This is everyone who has ever had an interest in animation. We all go through that phase.

Generally we don’t take peoples souls as a reaction to that type of discouragement, but then Mai made sure to mention in almost a foot note that she did spend like an entire season and a half trapped in Marik's shadow realm. And that kind of effed her up in a really big way.

Thanks, Marik.

Really feels like Marik should be dealing with this problem--really feels like maybe Marik is the only person that we can actually point to and say “Oh yeah, that guy is to blame for Mai right now” And he is the only person that Mai does not actively go out and try to kill.

And I’ll have you know I just deleted like a 15 K word rant about the difference between character assassination and your character just--evolving into a jackass, and how it’s OK to have your character change into a jackass, especially after trauma. I felt this need to really have to defend this ancient writing technique that people have been using since about as long as stories have been around.

Then I remembered “Oh yeah, I’m just making this point because a few number of very loud idiots on the internet want to have very lukewarm hot-takes about popular characters solely because they enjoy baiting people on twitter into getting into week-long arguments that don’t go anywhere.” and I just...let it go. I let it just...go into the ether. Ah. The peace that comes when you already know you’re right.

But anyway, back to Yugioh, which thankfully doesn’t take a stance on this nuanced subject, and only presents this very serious problem without actually offering a solution (because there isn’t a one fit’s all solution to falling off the deep end and getting into drugs and murder), Mai decides to just go and blame this decision she made on anyone else. Because, why take responsibility for your actions, when you can pin it on people who were on the other side of the freakin planet when it happened?

Like, I just want to remind y’all that she was in ATLANTIS.

I wonder how good the cell reception is in ATLANTIS.

I just...Mai is like in her mid twenties maybe thirty’s. She’s so arbitrarily old that she plays Yugi’s Mom in the video game spinoff where they’re reincarnations of medieval times. That’s how old she is.

Imagine if you made some epically BAD decisions because you were jealous of some teenager’s success and didn’t want to be weak anymore, and then you confronted those teens, and said “This is all your fault.”

Imagine looking someone as dysfunctional as Joey Wheeler and telling him “You made me like this” because lollllllll

And I present this as a joke but like basically this happens all freakin time. We’ve all had a friend like Mai. Past tense of course, because it’s really hard to keep a friend like Mai for very long. (One of my friend’s who went Mai destroyed my apartment one summer and then literally blamed it on me for going to California for 2 months and leaving her unattended.) But like...don’t let Mai’s do it to you. They can get better, but only if it’s their choice, really. You can’t force them to save themselves.

But, as Mai was finally ready to give up cards and probably improve her quality of life by a huge degree, unfortunately, she got sucked right back into the trap.

Bro note: being a serial murderer cultist is basically working at McDonald's in this universe so maybe this wasn’t even that weird?

But that aside, this is alllllmost like a dark version of “Mai got into an abusive relationship to fill the void in her heart” except she’s not even really dating this guy? Like she hates this guy? He’s just kinda there?

Y’all I really can’t tell if Valon is in an abusive relationship with Mai who is using him for power or if she’s in an abusive relationship with him because he only wants her pretty face and wants to kill Joey because Joey liked her once--and maybe it’s both? Maybe both of these people are just...really bad for each other?

Overall Joey is kind of tossed into this not-a-love-triangle and I’m like

“Hey show? show? Am I supposed to....were any these people ever dating? Is there supposed to be an implied history? Am I supposed to get attached to this?” because I mean...the only character who was able to get some actual physical romance on this show was Pegasus when he macked the ghost of his dead wife because, again, Pegasus is the freakin king of this entire show. Of course HE can do it.

But have this show clarify what the hell is happening between Valon and Mai? I’m gonna take a bet that we will never get to see it beyond Valon being like “Ain’t she a beaut!” Like Steve Irwin talking to an alligator, and Mai just pretending he doesn’t exist. Yugioh romances are so completely one way every single time. If something more than that happens, I’ll be

shook.

Anyway, as all the children on the show keep repeating over and over again, they haven’t had any contact with Mai since she left the freakin country and they went back to High School.

And so someone threatens to kill himself, as is Yugioh tradition, and someone else barks at him to NOT kill himself, as is also tradition, and they decide to play real cards next episode.

This whole entire episode, PS, Joey went out of his way to just...not play cards. that was this whole episode. Way to draw out a card game over three episodes, I guess.

Anyway if you want to read these from the start you can do so by clicking the link here

[donnerpartyofone]

while i’m apparently still in confession mode for some dark reason: 

after i told that awful story yesterday about the degrading one night stand that an older male friend spent a year bullying me into, i started thinking about all the cliches that are sold to us about the sexuality of precocious young women: what it means for us to navigate the devious emotional traps set out by the jealous and covetous world around us. what i mean is, there’s this whole gothic narrative that never stops circulating, involving beautiful, talented, intelligent, sensitive young women who are advanced enough to start exploring their own desires independently, but not experienced enough to identify the (typically) older male predators who hunt them. these men take advantage of their uninformed curiosity, leveraging their prey’s desire to grow up faster in order to control, possess, and abuse them. while this narrative is inherently criminal, society never seems willing to fully denounce it, preferring to preserve its erotic potency for a wide and slavering audience. the iconography of this narrative is mostly derived from Lolita–

[which btw our cultural failure to see that book as anything other than a “love story” is really disturbing and speaks volumes about our willingness to project our grossest ideas wherever we want, even when other interpretations (like “black comedy”) are abundantly available]

–a mature but fragile adolescent with that /special something/ innocently hypnotizes a genteel older man whose sophistication belies his uncontrollable animal desire for her, which is less His Problem than it is a natural response to her beauty and charm; a  forbidden love affair ensues. when i was young, i swallowed this concept hook line and sinker, hoping it would happen to me some day! i hated dumb little boys my own age, and i felt that if some Humbert Humbert type were to flatter me with his highly curated attention, then i would know that i had truly arrived.

“sadly”, i made it through high school and college without ever knowing that validating thrill. i wasted the latter half of my 20s on an abusive relationship with a guy two years younger than me, who often argued that he should be allowed to wreck my life however he wanted because he was “less mature” than i was and deserved more leeway. as i turned 30, i met the extraordinary person i would marry. i felt a profound sense of relief, entering my 30s; i had finished with so many of my old delusions, and the pulverizing pressure to have The Time of Your Life throughout one’s 20s had finally lifted. i looked back on my youth, thinking of it as a period of dreary, pointless misery in which “nothing really happened”, good or bad. but recently, when i started to think about it with greater focus, i realized that some shit really DID happened to me. i had just completely ignored it, because i thought of it as the fruits of my own bad taste. 

throughout junior high, i had a bizarre rapport with a guy in his early 20s–”nothing happened”, as they say, but this guy was sort of a freak and a loner, and i’m probably lucky that there wasn’t a lot of opportunity for something TO happen. then my supposed best friend, jealous of even this non-event in my sad little existence, forced a relationship with a 30 year old man out of nowhere, and competitively abused my ears with a lot of gnarly details about their horrible sex life. then in high school, my first two boyfriends were both pretentious manipulative dickheads in their 20s who really had no business bothering someone who wasn’t old enough to vote. some of my friends suffered from the same problem, though we all just felt like we were becoming independent young women or something. then there’s some other stuff with an older classmate who was abundantly aware of how emotionally unstable i was, and took appalling advantage of that for a long time, and i probably won’t ever be brave enough to talk about it. then in college i briefly “dated” a guy around 50 with whom luckily nothing bad happened before i got rid of him, but like, it really wasn’t cool, looking back–he made me feel incredibly obligated, and as he only informed me mid-stream, he was married with children. then i spent the rest of college getting dragged through the mud by a guy in his 30s who used his professional clout and well-honed manipulative abilities to “take my virginity” (a phrase and concept i hate, but which applies here), which he was very excited about; it would have been best if he had just abandoned me after that, as so many assholes do, because he then cultivated a long tawdry and extremely damaging soap opera between us, the only point of which was to make trouble for his actual girlfriend, who was ALSO much younger than him. and the end of college and slightly after, i developed another intense connection with a man a few decades older, who would never quite initiate a relationship, but who was insidiously manipulative and made me feel terrible when i eventually got a real (age-appropriate) boyfriend, as if i owed him something; i later found out he did the same thing to another girl that i know, who is substantially younger. the terrible one night stand, previously discussed, was just a gross little footnote to this disgusting history…

…but the thing is, i never, at any time, felt like i had taken part in the overheated archetypal drama that society has built up around may-december romances. i didn’t even see myself as a victim of the bad behavior of adults, of people who should and did know better; i just felt separate from the whole thing, even though i had fantasized about it so much as a kid. the thing is, at the same time that the Lolita narrative is inappropriately romanticized, it does provide an opportunity to see the girl as a potential victim, a Little Red Riding Hood who enters a perilous erotic negotiation with a Big Bad Wolf. because i didn’t see myself as the heroine of my own iteration of this overly familiar story, i didn’t recognize the degree to which i’d been exploited by people who knew to use my youth and inexperience against me. i just blamed myself. and the reason for all this is really sad: i simply didn’t feel attractive. in my mind, the vulnerable nymphet was always delicate, doe-like, elegant; clothes hung on her alluring frame in a way that created a dizzying paradox between her youth and her emerging maturity; she could dance, play music, or write touching poetry; she was preternaturally irresistible even to “good men”. she had to be liv tyler in STEALING BEAUTY (*barf*) or some shit; only somebody that compelling could star as the doomed princess in society’s well-loved fairy tale about statutory rape. personally, i perceived myself as ugly, awkward, socially burdensome, and most importantly, the kind of girl who should count herself extremely lucky to be the center of anybody’s attention, even temporarily. because i didn’t see myself as a damsel in distress who deserved protection and sympathy, i failed to spot my own victimization. i thought of my history of increasingly negative and abusive encounters with older men as a matter of bad luck, bad judgment on my own part, and ultimately, “the best i could do” if i wanted any kind of affection. so i guess the irony is that if i had identified myself as a desirable dolores hayes type, then yes, i would have been in serious danger of fetishizing my own mistreatment–but on the other hand, i would have had a more realistic framework for understanding the sinister thing that was happening to me. unfortunately, the other side of the misogyny coin–not the side that turns you into a sex object, but the side that excludes you from feeling sexually worthy at all–prevented me from noticing that that awful Little Red Riding Hood cliche had already happened to me several times over.

tl;dr - when misogyny convinces you that you have nothing to steal, then it’s hard to tell when misogynists are trying to rob you.

it’s funny to start recognizing this only now that i’m approaching 40. i see a lot of young women on tumblr heroically fighting to strike a balance between enjoying their kinks and avoiding the corrupt elements in their communities–all the while trying to stay aware of how their personal history and mental health plays into this drama. some of them are way farther along in that philosophical journey than i was at their age, and i really admire the work they’re doing. i’m writing this more for the ones who don’t even know that they’re already a part of this struggle, because they haven’t learned to see themselves as desirable enough to be included in it. that is to say, i wrote this for myself; but i have a sneaking suspicion that someone else out there needs to hear it, too.

This post brought to you in part by the very beginning of CABIN IN THE WOODS, which, while not a deep film in any way, features a salient moment in which College Girl #1 tries to tell College Girl #2 that the professor who took advantage of her is a scumbag, and College Girl #2 defends him, humbly and maturely replying: “I knew what I was getting into.” The blood freezes in my veins when I think of how many times I said something like this about someone who did not deserve my defense. If you got dicked over, literally and/or figuratively, by someone older, sober-er, and/or more experienced than you, then this is your gentle reminder that you really cannot be accused of knowing what you’re getting into.

[hellsbovnd-archive]

LF RP — Rosemund Blackthorne

Rosemund Blackthorne, born Rosemund de Valieroix, is an Ishgardian Elezen of 34 summers. The head of a house regarded as low nobility, Rosemund quickly plunged his house into debt. Rumors circulated about the family after Rosemund's father was tried for heresy by being thrown from Witchdrop, and in an effort to maintain the House Valieroix's outward social status, he tried to appeal to his peers with lavish gifts, which of course they accepted without giving him what he sought in return. 

While the House's good name was cleared along with his father's post-mortem, Rosemund's faith in the church never recovered. Resolving that he could not stand by and watch a broken system prosper, Rosemund took up the sword of the Dark Knight in secret. Since then, he's wielded it to defend those who have no means to defend themselves—namely once-accused heretics and those of low social status, who despite Ishgard's various reforms, still face no shortage of discrimination from above.

IN CHARACTER

Profession(s): Lesser Noble—As Rosemund is a lesser noble, head of House Valieroix (an honestly, quite pathetically small house that pledges its allegiance to the Haillenarte), he doesn’t really need to work. But he might be able to find a job for you, even if money is tight right now. Dark Knight—Fashioning himself a defender of the persecuted, he pays special attention to those accused of heresy. Now that the truth behind the Dragonsong War has been revealed, he does not believe that heretics deserve to suffer any more than they already have within Ishgard’s walls.   

Alignment: Chaotic Good. Loyal to the Eorzean Alliance. Dubiously loyal to the Holy See.

Professional Talents: Nobility—Rosemund’s upbringing afforded him many luxuries that others may not have been able to afford, such as schooling via a tutor. He also was trained in swordplay (including fencing) and chocobo-riding. But now, he uses a Zweihander exclusively. 

Current Residence: Private manor in The Pillars.

Likely Haunts: Ishgard and Coerthas—The Pillars, especially the Jeweled Crozier. Avoids the cathedral. Tailfeather—A man of surprisingly simple pleasures, Rosemund occasionally retreats to Tailfeather for “time to think” and has considered packing up and moving out there more than once. Eorzea at large—He doesn’t have many obligations and the continuing failure of the Blackthorne house after his father’s untimely death is something he can only barely bare to face. Have Zweihander and some okayish wine, will travel.

Hobbies: Wine sommelier, or so he claims. He’ll drink anything, but has a deep appreciation for fine wines, especially Ishgardian vintages. Botany—He honestly kind of has a black thumb and can barely take care of house plants, but he likes to keep them around and occasionally presses leaves and flowers to affix in journals later. 

MORE INFORMATION: Full Bio WIP | Tag

OUT OF CHARACTER

Hi there! I’m Crow/Mid and I use they/them pronouns! I’m generally most active during NA Evenings and Late Nights. I play on Balmung, but I’m open to RP connections from across the Crystal datacenter.

You can find detailed information about my hopes and expectations for RP on my dossier, here. The quick and dirty version:

OOC Communication > All

I am a med/heavy lore-strict RPer. I prefer medium-to-low power levels in RP and character- and plot-driven scenes. I won’t RP with any player under the age of 18 but as long as you’re not making it weird/creepy, I don’t have a problem with underage characters.

I run an FC and an LS, so I can be pretty busy OOC because I have to run a lot of stuff related to that.

I do not RP on Discord, but I have always been smitten with Tumblr RP as a longform format, so if in-game RP is impossible for some reason, I’m happy to write starters.

In terms of things I’m looking for:

Casual acquaintances and friends!

Enemies, especially Temple Knights (since being a Dark Knight is probably not the most law-abiding profession...)

Ishgardians!! I love me a good political story, and the ins and outs of high society in Ishgard is <chef’s kiss>

Long-term plot-focused RP connections!

Recommendations for events to attend? (And company to drag me along since I hate flying solo.)

Discord and Linkshell communities!

DETAILED RP HOOKS UNDER THE CUT!

Thanks for reading! If you’re interested in playing with me then please feel free to send me a message or make a note of it in the tags or comments on this post. My Discord is available for OOC arrangements and chatter upon request! If I’m slow please bear with me; I have a habit of getting absolutely swamped with stuff at more or less complete random, and my energy levels vary wildly from day to day and week to week.

tagging for visibility: @balmungrp @mooglemeet @ffxiv-crystal-rp @crystalxivrp @ffxiv-balmung-rp

RP HOOKS

1. House Valieroix

Rosemund refuses to use his surname, instead keeping the epithet Blackthorne from while his house was under suspicions of heresy. Many regard this as a symbolic gesture, but others regard it as silly and perhaps even a little immature. It’s difficult for a conversation about Rosemund to happen in any social circle without bringing up this quirk of his, though thus far his peers prefer to watch the rumor mill turn than ask him about it to his face. To be fair, if he were to dispel the mystery, that would probably be a lot less fun.

House Valieroix was never a terribly important house, though it aligned itself with House Haillenarte for political purposes, and generally did not get along well with associates of House Dzemael. Rosemund has speculated for a while that the “zealots” or more conservative members or associates of House Dzemael may have been behind his father’s charges of heresy, but he has no evidence to back up this claim. 

House Valieroix is also in deep debt because of Rosemund’s poor financial skills, and it’s likely that they will be bankrupted soon without intervention.

2. Chocobos

While not the biggest fan of chocobos there ever was, House Valieroix owned a few prized birds that Rosemund loved dearly when he was younger. Unfortunately, in recent years he’s had to sell off a number of the house’s possessions in order to pay down debts and hold onto properties that have been in the family for generations. Including the birds. The decision broke his heart and he misses them dearly.

In general, Rosemund is also a fan of chocobos. He just thinks they’re neat. And before the eternal winter fell over Coerthas, he’d occasionally play polo with his cousins and family friends in the Coerthan lowlands.

3. The Road to Hell

As a Dark Knight, Rosemund takes it upon himself to protect those who lack the means to protect themselves—including accused heretics. While the end of the Dragonsong War and the revelation of the truth behind it effectively decriminalized heresy, that didn’t stop those accused from suffering social consequences, or from the powerful coming up with new reasons to persecute the accused...

In general, despite decidedly lacking the funds to do so, Rosemund is at his core a charitable soul, and occasionally takes in those who have no place to spend the night, especially during the winter moons. Those who have stayed the night generally leave with shining reviews of his hospitality and willingness to accommodate, though also note that many of the less-often rooms in the manor are caked with a visible layer of dust and remark that the food “needs work.”

[ohnooooonedirection]

Three days after the release of his self-titled debut album, and six days after he wore a now-iconic pink suit during a Today show performance, lesbian pop-rock twin bandmates Tegan and Sara tweeted a confession about Harry Styles from their account: “I have a very real crush on @Harry_Styles. Loving the new album and the high waisted wide leg pants.” Check the replies to this admission from mid-May to find a smattering of solidarity from Tegan and Sara fans: “Same.” “Same.” “Same.” “You’re not alone.” “Lesbians for Harry Styles Unite (LHSU).”

The entire internet had a crush, really. And while Tegan and Sara may be the most famous queer women to make their love for Harry (and his style) public, they’re just the tip of the iceberg that is the gay-lady Styles hive. The Great British Bake Off’s Ruby Tandoh wrote a recipe for “Harry Styles’ Dutch Baby with Cinnamon Rhubarb.” Former BuzzFeed writer Katie Heaney (along with current BuzzFeed Books editor Arianna Rebolini) wrote a whole damn book inspired by their love of Harry. My girlfriend has a One Direction wall calendar, and wholeheartedly plans to re-up for 2018. As a queer woman with lukewarm feelings toward the singer, I kept finding myself thinking, What the fuck is up with queer girls and Harry Styles?

Queer women have always rallied around their likeness in pop culture: Ellen DeGeneres, Joan Jett, and pretty much the entire US women’s national soccer team all sit squarely in the elite category of lesbian celebrity icons. It’s not terribly common for queer women to rally around a cis man in the same way. Sure, people love to joke that Justin Bieber and Cole Sprouse look like lesbians, and queer women have harvested fashion inspiration from James Dean and Marlon Brando for decades. But it’s much less common for a cis man to be the subject of a full-blown lesbian pop-culture obsession.

Once he went solo, folks who hadn’t paid attention to 1D started eating up what his fans had obsessed over for years: Harry's sexual ambiguity, androgynous style, boy band appeal, and relatively progressive social awareness. It’s what many women I spoke with characterized as Harry’s “magic.”

I found that Harry Styles means something slightly different to each of his fans. He possesses an ability to be whoever you want him to be. When the lines are blurred between stage persona and social media persona and real persona, when it’s unclear what’s fact and what’s fiction, when his sexuality is an open question, a character is born. Fans can project their own desires onto Harry, in the quiet of their imagination or in their own fanfiction or in group iMessage threads with fellow fans. That’s the magic of Harry.

And that’s the Harry that queer women get so obsessed with. That’s the Harry who has even inspired some women, in becoming infatuated with him, to recognize their own queerness.

Men herald Cher and Whitney and Gaga as their gay pop idols. Have queer women chosen Harry Styles?

One Direction came to fame in 2011 and 2012 by offering a near-24/7 window into their lives, thanks to social media. Twitter and Tumblr livestreams gave fans access to whatever the five cute teens were up to at almost any given time. Fans had an insurmountable pile of content to consume: photos and videos of the boys just pallin’ around backstage on tour, or performing for packed arenas, or pondering their endearingly silly teenage thoughts aloud. No boy band before One Direction roared to fame in such an all-consuming and intimate way, as the technology wasn’t there yet. That near-constant barrage of content gave their OG fans (mainly teenage girls and young women) a feeling of truly knowing the boys. And with that, a sense of ownership over their rise to fame — a sense of ownership of the boys themselves.

Fans immediately fell for the youngest of the group, Harry Styles. Raised in a tiny village equidistant from Liverpool and Manchester, he wields a relentlessly British charisma. Even from the get-go, Harry publicly radiated charm. His boyishness, his ease on camera, his frog prince face — it’s almost unfair how easy it was to love this kid. He exuded, as many celebrities and so few 16-year-olds do, a complete ease in his own skin. According to fans, he seemed to genuinely not give a fuck what people thought about him.

Harry’s either a very reserved person or is incredibly well media-trained — likely some combination of the two. He rarely shares personal details in interviews, which, as several women I spoke with concluded, makes him very easy to project an imagined personality onto. Compound that mystique with his enigmatic androgyny and surreal level of fame, and Harry is a perfect blank slate.

And thus, a fandom was born. And with every good fandom comes fanfic. And lots of that fanfic is gay. Very, very gay.

Slash fanfic is far from unique to One Direction, but 1D fans took up slash fic in a major way. The main coupling shipped in fic was Harry Styles and bandmate Louis Tomlinson, coined “Larry Stylinson.” Fans went so far as to speculate a real-life romance between the two lads. Though, it didn’t stop with Larry. From stories of Harry and bandmate Niall Horan hooking up on tour to a sentimental imagined romance between Harry and British radio personality Nick Grimshaw, there is a near-infinite trove of gay fanfic involving Harry Styles. In One Direction’s heyday, especially from 2013 through 2015, Tumblr was ablaze with stories of trysts between the boys. This, of course, says more about the fans themselves than of Harry’s own real-life sexuality.

The One Direction fandom really latched onto the Larry slash fic. Julia, a 32-year-old Harry devotee, told me she would read Harry fic “half turned-on, half, like, academically.” This phenomenon, too — of women being into gay male porn — is a well-established one. (Remember that scene in The Kids Are All Right where two wives watch porn, and how people lost their damn minds they were so confused?) Taking heterosexuality out of the equation in porn complicates gender power dynamics in a way that really works for lots of women. So, it makes sense that that phenomenon would translate to 1D fic. Those cute British boys were like queer-girl sex bait.

Let’s make one thing clear: Harry Styles looks like a hot lesbian. With a wiry frame, effeminate features, a shaggy mop, and an enviable wardrobe of floral prints and eye-popping suiting, he’s an absolute Shane. If you’ve never noticed this, perhaps you should hang out with more lesbians.

His fashion sense — that is, fashion not designed to flatter only men — is central to most queer women’s admiration for the pop star. I mean, come on: Those suits! Harry’s bottomless cache of dazzling two-piece suits and patterned blouses has made him a bit of a lesbian fashion icon. “I don’t wear suits often, or hardly ever — but I always want his suits,” says Katie, noting his penchant for sporting outfits that would look great on men and women alike. My girlfriend, Fran, asserts her “personal fandom is rooted in all of his outfits.” (Good answer.) I’m not sure if queer women are suddenly running out and buying Styles-esque suits, but they’re certainly fun to drool over.

Harry came to adopt his now-notorious personal style throughout 2015. It was at this time, too, that he grew his hair down past his shoulders, which amplified his androgynous looks. This androgyny piqued his queer fans’ affection. Even Sara Quin admitted to GQ that she grew her own hair out to look like Harry’s. For many women, long-haired, end-of-One-Direction Harry was a glory age of sorts. “There was a specific moment from late 2014 through early 2016 where he had this long hair and was wearing all YSL, where he was for me, in some magical witch way,” says Julia. He wasn’t a little boy holding hands with Taylor Swift anymore — his presentation had matured into something much more interesting. Something a little queerer.

Styles wears printed two-piece suits while performing in September 2017.

Of course, Justin Bieber was the original “looks like a lesbian” pop star of the social media era. If you’ve never noticed (again, see my above note about hanging out with more lesbians), mid-puberty Justin Bieber looked a lot like an androgynous-leaning woman. Internet lesbians embraced this comparison, and in 2010 the blog of viral fame Lesbians Who Look Like Justin Bieber was born. Women would submit photos (mostly selfies) where their looks were particularly reminiscent of the then-teenage Biebs. (The Tumblr’s most recent post is from April 2017, so it’s not officially dead, just past its heyday.) The account posted masses of photosbetween 2009 and 2012; it was a truly excellent meme.

But IRL, Justin Bieber appears to be — what’s the phrase? — oh, aggressively heterosexual. He very publicly dated Selena Gomez, joined a church that “does not affirm a gay lifestyle,” and has a habit of sliding into random women’s DMs like a true 23-year-old dumbass. Honestly, Bieber’s severe straightness is the perfect punchline after years of Lesbians Who Look Like Justin Bieber. While he may sport effeminate features (even post-puberty), the star doesn’t represent any sort of queerness in the pop sphere.

Harry Styles, on the other hand, prefers to publicly retain a level of sexual mystique not dissimilar to Bowie and Prince. In the six years that Styles has been in the public eye, his own sexuality has remained an enigma. Even though fans have long speculated about a romance between Harry and Louis Tomlinson, Louis has outright denied any romance between the two — but Harry never has. On the whole, he prefers to keep his own sexuality undefined.

On a 2014 press junket, the British singer said being female was “not that important” a quality in someone he would date. In an interview with the Sun this past May, Harry declines to label his sexuality, seeming to confirm a fluidity fans had long sensed. Since their 2015 On the Road Again tour, it’s become a bit of a tradition at shows for Harry to parade around stage with pride flags brought by fans.

But, hey, coyness doesn’t equal...well, anything. For all we know, Styles has no interest in men whatsoever. He might reach Justin Bieber level on the Het Dude scale behind closed doors. My cynical side suspects he knows that coming out as straight, now, could very well alienate a large portion of the singer’s fanbase. Instead, he gets the best of both worlds by keeping things vague. Having his rainbow cake and eating it too, as it were.

But it ultimately doesn’t matter whether Harry Styles is gay or straight or one of the many other iterations of human sexuality. What’s important is that he appears to publicly champion non-definition.

FULL ARTICLE

[poeticsandaliens]

Laws of Motion

I wrote this a year or so ago on AO3 but never posted it on Tumblr (Update: apparently I had already posted it; I just forgot). I was going through old NCIS tags, rekindling my outrage at CBS because apparently that’s what I do when I can’t sleep at night. I remembered I had this up—it’s my personal headcanon. NCIS canon ends after season 3 back when it made sense. 

Not long ago, it occurred to me that Stella Gibson was the type of character Jenny Shepard could have been if the writers hadn’t... y’know... fucked up. This mysterious, casually badass woman who could kill you with words. They were similar...

my neurons fire weirdly, I think, because this is the result. Jenny Shepard and Stella Gibson would make one hell of a power couple, and I can’t help but think they’d be compelling.

AO3 Link: http://archiveofourown.org/works/10017227

The bench was an unseemly shade of grey, its boards chipped and legs rusted. Weeds poked through the sidewalk at its feet, and various young couples had inscribed their love into its wood. But after sundown, it was reborn, glowing beneath the street lamps and moonlight that varnished nightly.

Jenny had grown accustomed to the omnipresent bench, had in her mind marked the seat as her own. It aged with her—day to day, it remained unchanging, but as she acquired wrinkles and smile lines the bench acquired chips and splinters. So every night she worked late, drove to the grocery store on her way home and sometimes the liquor store, and across the street from men in polyester suits purchasing daily Merlot, the bench slept.

Today, though, the old bench presented an entirely new scene. The October wind nipping at her neck had kept couples off their evening strolls, and she’d left work considerably later. The moon cast a cold glow overhead, like a refrigerator light bulb on its last breaths, and DC had turned to a black and white photograph. The only colors in sight were neon street signs, the buzzing red letters marking the theater, the late night coffeehouse, the liquor store she’d just stepped out of.

Suddenly, Jenny felt old—not physically; no, she felt as though she’d been thrown back in time, to a darker city on a grittier day. She felt less crisp; her sharp haircut felt out of place. October always brought with it the taint of old noir. Something about the cold, windy nights allowed history to encroach on present DC. Jenny didn’t object to it, as long as it went away in time of the holidays.

The centerpiece of the scene was a petite woman in a trenchcoat, her breath turning to fog beneath the streetlight, a violin nestled in the crook of her neck. She was sharp-faced, severe in the misaligned way Jenny was not. Her blonde hair was loose over her shoulders, her face freckled and weathered. She was perfectly crooked, as if mid-October had manifested in a human body. She played a haunting tune in a minor key.

Jenny stalked across the empty street, her head cocked curiously. “Evening, Stella," she said with a wan smile. "I didn't know you played."

Stella put down her violin. “No rest for the wicked,” she quipped with a rolling British lilt.

“Very Sherlock Holmes of you."

Stella’s eyes drifted to the hotel a block away. “I didn’t want to disturb my neighbors.”

Jenny sat down on the old bench, and it creaked dangerously. “It’s been awhile,” she said softly.

“Yes,” said Stella, “I suppose it has.”

~

“You seem lost. First time in London?” A young blonde dropped onto the stool next to her. “I’ll have a Scotch,” she called to the bartender.

Jenny shook her head. “No. Just tired.” She didn’t talk to strangers, not normally.

The woman held out her hand. “DCI Stella Gibson.”

“Special Agent Jennifer Shepard,” she replied, arching her eyebrow. She had never felt underdressed before this moment, staring at DCI Gibson’s silk blouse and five inch heels. Buttoned up, hair pinned tightly to the back of her head, Jenny felt distinctly uncomfortable. She felt like she was lying—she was certainly not the perfect professional pin-up she portrayed herself to be in front of her superiors. But that was the price of ambition in DC. It was a small price to pay.

“FBI?” Stella asked, tucking an icy blonde curl behind her ear.

Jenny shook her head, taking a sip of her beer. “NCIS.”

A small noise of surprise escaped Stella’s lips. NCIS didn’t likely turn up in a London pub every night.

~

“I was surprised to hear your name when the FBI said they’d brought in a consultant in the Lacy Brown case,” Jenny confessed.

“Unfortunately…” Stella hummed, trailing into silence. Her voice dropped darkly. “Your country isn’t very good at catching sexual predators.”

Jenny snorted. “No shit.” Then her expression grew solemn as the implications of Stella’s words sank in. “No, we're not,” she mused. “I wish that could change.”

Stella cocked her head. “Then change it. You’re the director of NCIS now.” She paused. “First female director of an armed federal agency. That’s quite something, Jennifer.”

~

“We’ve never had a female director,” admitted Jenny with a grim chuckle. She took a swig of her beer. “Men see female ambition as an affront to their masculinity. It’s a shame, but I guess it leaves the title to me one day.”

Stella cocked her eyebrow. “Going to claw your way through the ranks of misogyny and militarism?”

Jenny nodded staunchly. “Yep. Prove them all wrong.”

“What to do then?”

She shrugged. “Shift our outlook on national security. Advocate for all the women in government jobs who don’t get their due. I’ve got the kinds of ideas that only work if implemented in a high place.”

~

Jenny sighed wistfully. “It’s something,” she said, “but it’s not all I hoped. I have to demand the kind of formal respect from my agents that my predecessors didn’t. Don’t get me wrong; I’m trying to change the system, but I didn’t expect so much condescension on the political end.”

Stella pursed her lips. “I felt the same condescension when I was promoted to Detective Superintendent. I know that most of my female colleagues have felt the same. It breeds isolation, anxiety, overwhelming pressure.”

Jenny was no stranger to those demons, all burdens she’d born since college. Perhaps even longer, if she willed herself to remember.

“Is that why you brought the violin?” she asked, eyeing the sleek, russet violin on Stella’s lap.

The detective shook her head. She looked older in the moonlight, her profile more defined. Like she was slowly, constantly falling from grace and was happy of it. Jenny would be happy of it too. Grace was overrated.

~

“Come back to my flat, Special Agent Jennifer Shepard.”

The offer was forward, tempting, and hardly a surprise. Stella Gibson sat with her legs spread in dark slacks and her elbows in her lap. She smelled of mahogany, roses, and hard liquor; her voice carried a swagger. There was a confidence about her demeanor that Jenny found quite irresistible. She’d always been drawn to the strong, taciturn John Wayne types, the weathered cowboy types who sought justice and spoke everything deliberately. But a man didn’t always understand the fine distinctions between strength and hyper-masculinity, handsome chivalry and condescending chauvinism. Stella Gibson saw the line clear as day.

Jenny glanced at her watch. She didn’t have to report until 8:00 the next morning.

“Come to my hotel room?” she suggested with a curve of her cherry red lips.

Stella cocked her head, and in the dim light, Jenny noticed freckles adorning her aquiline nose and angular cheeks. They fit, somehow.

“All right, Jennifer.” Stella waved the bartender over and paid her tab. “Lead on.”

~

“What were you playing?” Jenny asked. “On the violin, I mean.”

Stella shrugged. “I haven’t the slightest clue. I learned it as a child.”

“It sounds melancholy.”

“So does every piece on the violin.” Stella smiled thinly, her eyes pale in the moonlight.

~

“You have owl’s eyes,” A cold blue-grey, round and wise and curious. Jenny could hold her liquor with eloquence, but it came at the expense of thinking before she spoke.

“Do I?” Stella murmured, and Jenny couldn’t tell whether she was flattered or taken aback.

~

Stella put the violin aside and leaned her elbows on her knees. Jenny ran her fingers through newly cropped copper hair. Sharply dressed, still but for the wind, they became statues to the rare passerby. Their hair and sleeves ruffled discreetly, their eyes drifted about, but their bodies clung to the bench as if they were drowning, and the bench’s rotting wood was the life raft the city had thrown to them.

The moon vanished behind a blanket of thickening clouds that roiled and danced within themselves. Jenny had always been fond of cloudy nights. “When you said we should see each other again, this wasn’t what I expected,” she said, pulling her coat tighter over her shoulders.

“Well I didn’t expect to see you again,” replied Stella softly. “I didn’t expect I would want to see you again. But you rather intrigued me.”

“I’d ask if it was the sex or the wit, but I’m not certain I want to know the answer.”

“Well,” Stella chuckled, “it was very good sex.”

~

She pulled apart the buttons on Stella’s blouse, careful not to rip the thin material. They were alike in their tastes for lingerie—their personal elegance, for no satisfaction but their own. Stella’s lips captured hers; Stella’s tongue grazed her teeth. She reached for the clasp on the detective’s elaborate bra and pulled it off.

Jenny rested her hands on Stella’s hips, still in slacks, and broke the kiss for air. Her bare back pressed against the wall of her hotel room, and she could hear, far below her, swing playing from a shop on the street. Not the usual, energetic swing, but the slow, sultry blues.

She’d once been told that she had the voice of a jazz singer. It wasn’t true; Jenny couldn’t sing to save her life. But in this moment, a throaty moan escaping her lips, she understood the remark. She and Stella Gibson, they spoke with a common thread, a roughness that only came with trials and vices. Stella’s fingers found the edge of her skirt, and a shiver danced up her spine as they slipped inside. She bumped against the detective’s nose, clumsily searching for her lips, eventually giving up and kissing her way to the hollow of Stella’s collarbone.

Stella’s hands pushed up her skirt, tugged her to the queen bed, with few formalities found their way to her aching center. The muffled swing music rippled in and out of her hearing, as if she were miles beneath the ocean surface. As if mermaids were femme fatales with record players and pistols and police titles.

~

“I wish we’d kept in better touch,” Jenny admitted, as a nearly empty restaurant across the street played Billboard’s Top 100. She liked Stella’s music better.

Stella closed her owl's eyes. “It’s nice to have someone scaling the mountain with you.”

“You’re quite a remarkable person, Detective-Superintendent Gibson.”

“As are you, Director Shepard.”

Jenny gathered her purse. “I should go,” she said flatly. She stood, as if to leave, then froze in place as Stella reached for her violin and bow. “Will you be here later?”

“I might play one more song. Clears the mind.”

“Come back with me.” Jenny turned around, catching Stella’s eye as she tuned the delicate instrument in her lap. Her lips spread inadvertently into a playful smirk. “Come away with me, Stella Gibson,” she teased as if the slight tremble in her voice was entirely undetectable. She was completely sober this time, and the words on her lips didn’t slip so easily as they had in London, years before. Stella’s eyes, she mused, would always startle her, as would the genuine admiration she had for this stern, mysterious detective perched on her rotting bench in October.

Stella returned the smile like Peter Pan’s shadow and rose to her feet. “Perhaps my hotel room? It’s closer.”

[crimsxnflxwerz]

Don’t Want it Troubling Your Mind [bfu fic] -chapter 5

Don’t Want it Troubling Your Mind Fandom: buzzfeed unsolved Pairing: Shane Madej/Ryan Bergara; Shane Madej & Ryan Bergara Summary: Shane Madej really liked Ryan Bergara. He was funny, a joy to mess with, and took his brand of teasing pretty well. He would consider him a friend, kind of. But when the team goes to investigate the Franklin Castle for ghosts, Shane gets more than he bargained for, and the results could cost him his friendship with Ryan. Rating: teen Warnings: Demonic Possession, Existential Crisis, Complicated Relationships Authors note: This is a repost from Archive for people who don’t like Archive/prefer tumblr/etc. sup guys.  Triggers for this chapter: skipping meals, implied assault, choking/violence

Ryan drove first. It was his car after all, so it made sense. Before they had started the trip, the two of them had collected several bags full of snacks and treats so that they might eat that instead of taking stops. Currently, the boys were in a fight over which snack food was better: veggie straws or chex mix. There were arguments for both sides, of course. ‘Well veggie straws are better for you.’ ‘Do you actually believe that Ryan?’ ‘Well, they’re called veggie straws not cholesterol straws, Shane!’ Ultimately, they agreed to disagree. Shane thought that a playful argument about snacks was the perfect beginning to a long day with his best friend.

They passed open fields, their green just barely kissed by frost, warming in the rising morning sun. They passed clusters of pines, looming far above their heads, holding their secrets deep within. They passed deer, and birds, and cats. They passed through sleepy towns, their browns and reds melding together into a new thing, a new entity. Each person connected to each other like paper chains. It was about three hours into the trip before they took their first pit stop. Shane checked his watch: 7:12 am. He felt like it should have been later in the day. Stepping out of Ryan’s car, he stretched, yawning. Ryan snuck up on him and grabbed him at the ribs mid-stretch.

“Haa-!” Shane breathed out sharply at the sudden intrusion. Ryan laughed and turned to walk into the rest stop. Shane chased after him. “Get back here, jerk!”

After a bathroom break, they wandered into the attached cafeteria. It wasn’t too busy, which was good, because Shane didn’t feel like dealing with lots of people at the moment. Steve and David said they were going to get something at the McDonalds. Ryan was eyeing the Starbucks, so Shane just tagged along with him. They stood away from the counter, studying the menu, wondering what they wanted to order.

“How do you think their oatmeal is?” Ryan asked, his arms crossed over his chest in thought. Shane looked over at him. Shane smiled at Ryan’s adorably frazzled hair and clothes. He looked like he hadn’t slept in a while. Shane wondered if Ryan would sleep during his turn driving.

“Not as good at their coffee,” Shane said. “But look, they have booberries in it.”

“Th—they have what now?” Ryan asked, side-eyeing his friend.

“Booberries. God, Ryan, don’t you know what a booberry is?” Shane dramatically rolled his eyes, but couldn’t help the amused smirk tugging at his lips.

“Oh, my god,” Ryan laughed and elbowed Shane’s side. “You’re such a nerd!”

“And you aren’t?” he asked.

“I’m not the one making spooky fruit puns, so no.” Ryan said.

Shane was silent for a moment, before he nodded in agreement. “Damn, you’re right.”

The two ordered their food and coffee and waited around for it at a side counter. It was so early, and so quiet. Kind of eerie, in fact. Shane looked through some of the apps on his phone, but quickly grew bored.

“What do you think we’ll find in Villisca?” he asked, turning to look at his friend. Ryan looked up from his phone, staring off across the cafeteria in thought.

“Honestly? Another spooky house with a haunted past.” He said simply. “I feel like places where people were murdered are particularly touchy. There was no justice. They must be hurting.”

“Wow,” Shane started jokingly, “You don’t need to go all Lovely Bones on me, Ry.”

Ryan lightly punched him in the arm with a laugh. “I’m serious! I know you don’t believe in ghosts, but what if they are real? Wouldn’t you be angry? If someone killed you and got away with it?”

Shane considered it for a moment. He listened to the grinding of coffee beans and distant idle chatter. Wouldn’t you be angry? He thought about the demon that constantly poured emotions into him. It was always angry. Wouldn’t you be angry?

Yes.

“I don’t think I’d be angry,” he said. “Mostly because I’d be dead.”

“Oh my god, Shane.” Ryan said, exasperated.

“Well, it’s the truth!” he said.

“Don’t you have an ounce of wonder in your body?” Ryan asked. “Or are you just scientific fact to the bone?”

Shane scratched his chin. “I believe in Bigfoot.”

Ryan rolled his eyes. “Bigfoot was made up by a dude who frequently pranked his town. Do you really believe in a prank?”

“If any supernatural being does end up being true, I put my money on Bigfoot.” Shane said. “Maybe it’s not intelligent, maybe it’s just a strain of mutated bears. Whatever it is, it seems more plausible than ghosts.”

“Okay, man, whatever you say,” Ryan said, grinning. “Just let me know when you catch Bigfoot on camera.”

“Now I feel like I have to catch Bigfoot on camera, just because you said something.”

After they were done at the rest stop, they hopped back in their cars, Shane in the driver’s seat this time. For the first hour on the road, Ryan and Shane laughed and joked, but eventually the conversation dwindled to a trickle, and then to a halt. Ryan closed his eyes after daydreaming out the window for a time.

As the day sped by, Shane wondered if he should be worried. He thought a lot about Anael in the stretches of silence that filled the car when one of them was sleeping in the passenger’s seat or stretched across the back row. As much as he would like to say that he wasn’t concerned about Anael, he would be wrong if he did. There’s something very, very real about Anael’s threats and ploys. Something physical about the black dog that had chased him through his apartment. There was something terrifying about its absence, like there was something looming over him, waiting to strike. Like a snake waiting patiently for a rodent to cross its path, or a lion crouched in the savannah grass, blending in seamlessly. If Shane didn’t think about it, would that be worse than freaking himself out? He considered that Anael was just being purposefully absent for long enough to make him paranoid. It reminded him of receiving the silent treatment from someone, left alone to eat your heart out in abandonment.

He didn’t crave Anael’s attention, he just feared what was coming from its absence.

Hours down the road, Shane would look out the window during Ryan’s turn to drive, his eyes getting lost in the heart of the dark forests lining the highway. The trees bent and swayed with the wind, curling in on themselves and blending together as the car rushed by. Inside, however, deep underneath the long pale tree bones was a pulsing interior. Thousands of eyes, watching, waiting, patiently for them. He wondered what it would be like if he were there. He wondered how he would feel deep inside the beast, alone. He shivered at the thought, before slipping into a light nap.

They arrived at their hotel at 11pm. They couldn’t film today, so staying at the residence in question would be pointless, since they wouldn’t have any build-up to sleeping overnight. Besides, everyone was too tired to set up cameras or think about ghosts after the long drive. They were all stiff from sitting too long, and would rather lounge around and chill before the shoot tomorrow.

Shane, Ryan, Steve, and David stepped out of their cars in the hotel parking lot. Steve and David offered to go and check in, leaving Shane and Ryan outside to decide on a place for dinner. Honestly, there wasn’t much around. A few local diners, bars, probably all closed now. As he was desperately searching for a signal in this middle-of-nowhere town, he felt Ryan tap him on the arm.

“I think I found a restaurant that’s open ‘till one,” he informed Shane. “We could just pile into one car this time.”

“What’s on the menu?” Shane asked. He could go for some traditional late-night dive food. He was already getting a creepy vibe from the small town. It reminded him of the town where the Keddie cabin murders took place, like they were intruding on something they shouldn’t. Some comfort food was all he really wanted.

“Just looks like burgers.” Ryan said, skimming a picture of their menu. He looked up then, staring across the street towards an abandoned gas station with a tractor parked near an aged-looking car wash. “Do you—do you feel like we’re being watched?”

“Watched?” Shane asked, following his gaze to find what he was looking at. There was nothing there, but it was so dark that he couldn’t really tell. There were just so many shadows. “I think you’re just tired from driving all that way. Did you know some people hallucinate when they’re tired?”

Ryan rolled his eyes. “This town is creepy, man.”

Shane couldn’t agree more. “Yeah, it is small and in the middle of nowhere.” He paused. “Anything could happen out here.”

“Including the murder of four traveling ghost hunters,” Ryan pointed out helpfully. “Add our own disappearance to the list of unsolved cases…”

“Ry, we’re not gonna get murdered here,” Shane said. There was a loud bang far to their left, like a metal trash bin getting knocked over. Ryan jumped at the noise. “Well, at least I hope we won’t.”

Ryan had instinctively reached out and grabbed Shane when the noise happened. Shane could feel the warmth of him against his chilled skin. It was pretty brisk outside, and feeling the warm touch made him want to wrap himself around Ryan and never let go.

For a moment, he felt hot with embarrassment over the thought. Sure, Ryan was warm, and it was cold, but why jump to such an idea? He was glad that they were getting along better now, but something inside him was starting to crave these accidental touches and intimate exchanges between just them. He thought about what Anael had said back in his car, all those days ago. ‘We’ll see who wants what in time.’ It had been a threat then, simple as that.

Shane had known Ryan for months, months. What would make him develop feelings now? What crawled into his chest and wrapped itself around his heart? Shane knew the deal, drastic moments reveal your true feelings, but something about the development was off. Before Anael, he could count the number of times he felt conflicting emotions about Ryan on one hand.

Then the door to the hotel opened and Ryan’s hand fell away from Shane’s arm, and Shane let out a breath he hadn’t been aware he was holding in. Shane felt himself put a little more distance between him and his friend, not totally sure if he could trust himself so close to Ryan right now.

“So, what’s the haps?” David asked. “We’re checked in, now we’re hungry.”

“There’s a diner down the road that’s open until one.” Ryan said. He gestured to his car. “Want to pile in and go?”

The crew got into the car and let Ryan drive them down the road to the diner. When they arrived, they noticed that the building was pretty old and retro-looking. The parking lot wrapped around it, but there were only about three cars parked, all at the front. Shane guessed that they were the employee’s cars. Inside, only half the lights in the dining room were on, creating an eerie mood that could only be described as paused. It was silent but for the background buzzing of old lights, empty but for the shadows moving in the back only visible through a tray slot in the wall. It smelled of old leather and cigarette smoke. The booths were all red and white, the floor a checkered tile. The walls were decorated with 80s pinup posters and old relics on shelves meant for viewing only.

The group awkwardly stood in the entrance next to the hostess stand for a little bit. They dared not make a noise, for fear of unpausing the video and forcing everything back to life. Eventually, the spell was broken when a woman wearing a red polo, black pants, and a retro apron walked out from the back and up to them. She had long blonde hair that was pinned up, and she clicked a pen in her hand several times before speaking.

“Four?” she asked, and snapped the bubble gum she was chewing. Shane couldn’t help but think that she was the epitome of every stereotypical 80s waitress. If only she was wearing roller skates, it would really complete the look.

“Yes, thank you,” Ryan jumped in when no one was responding. He gave the group a disappointed once over. Shane almost laughed.

“Follow me,” the blonde turned and lead them to a table that was a corner booth. The corner was more window than wall, looking directly into an abandoned building on one side, and across the street into an expansive cornfield on the other side. Shane decided it was too freaky here to look outside, so he sat across from Ryan so that he could look at him instead.

“I’ll be back in a moment,” she said, and left them to their table.

The group looked at their menus. They were dated, with ratty corners and some were scribbled over with crayons. Shane thought it reminded him of an 80s version of Cracker Barrel.

“Does anyone else find this place shady as fuck?” Shane asked. Ryan rolled his eyes, but grinned nonetheless.

“Honestly, this place is so retro that it’s weird,” David admitted. Steve nodded in agreement. “This honestly feels like the abandoned set of an 80s schoolyard film.”

“Are there Jiffy Pops on the menu?” Shane asked avidly, watching Ryan as he said this, and letting his smile grow when he saw Ryan laugh in response.

“They wouldn’t have those, even in the 80s!” Ryan said, thumbing through the menu, but still grinning. “Jiffy Pops, what are you, my grandpa?”

“Milkshakes it is then,” he said, pointing at a tall-glass vanilla shake with a cherry on top in the drinks section. “And fries. I love a good milkshake and fries.”

“Why are you so gross?” Ryan asked. David and Steve chuckled while looking over their menus. Shane faked offense at the statement, shooting Ryan a look.

“Milkshakes and fries are a delicacy, Ryan.” Shane argued.

“Sure, they are,” Ryan joked. As Ryan looked back over his menu, Shane let his eyes linger a little longer. He could tell that despite the jokes and playful banter, Ryan was stressed. He could see it in the straight line of his back, a rigid difference from the slight curve of it when they laid together on Shane’s couch for a movie.

Shane wondered if it would be too weird to offer Ryan a backrub.

As they waited for the waitress to return to take their orders, David and Steve talked about something they’d seen while driving, or some drama that was happening in the office. Shane didn’t hear most of it, since he was only half listening. Under the table, Shane’s foot accidentally bumped Ryan’s. Silently, they exchanged glances. When their eyes met, Shane felt a deep, dark heat bloom in his stomach. Like an ember burning hot in the core of his body. The other’s voices were suddenly far away, like the only thing in the universe was Ryan.

The trance was broken by the waitress returning to the table. She cracked her chewing gum, and the tension snapped like a rubber band breaking in your hand. Coming away, Shane still felt the sting of it, a raised line across his chest.

The others ordered, but Shane was still reeling from the intrusiveness of his own thoughts. He wasn’t sure what this all meant. When the waitress got to him, he looked up at her with a look of discomfort on his face.

“I’ll just have a water,” he said. “Where’s your bathroom?”

She pointed down a nearby hallway and moved to go back behind the counter. Shane could feel his friend’s eyes on him. He hurried away down the hall. He tried the bathroom door, and at first it was stuck, so he yanked harder. It came loose with a loud creak. It was a one-person bathroom, which was good, because he didn’t want anyone walking in on him in this state.

As he locked the stall door, the lights flickered. He felt a presence there with him. All the heat in his body was drained out, leaving him shivering in the bathroom. It smelled in there. Smelled of stagnant water and watered down bleach. He grabbed the edges of the porcelain sink, leaning heavily on it as he stared at himself in the mirror. He looked pale, paler than usual. His eyes held a glint in them, reminiscent of the demon’s shining yellow eyes piercing deep into his soul.

He turned the faucet on, relishing in the soothing sound of water running, breaking up the silent tension that had built up around him like walls of ice. He studied the water rushing down the drain, wondered what it felt like to get washed away, like a leaf carried off down a sewer grate on the side of the road, or a child dragged underneath by a wave, held captive in a watery embrace.

They had just arrived, and yet he was already feeling a pang of homesickness reverberating within him. Maybe choosing to spend this time with Ryan wasn’t such a good call. Maybe this was just what Anael wanted. Maybe he was playing right into the demon’s hands.

No, it was just a few nights, then he would be back in his normal schedule. Just a few nights, then he could establish if he wanted to keep Ryan at arm’s length or not.

Back at the hotel, he forgot that they agreed on two double beds. Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem, he was a grown man after all, and could sacrifice his space to save money. They all got ready for bed, and almost as soon as everyone was tucked in, the lights were off. Shane waited for about five minutes, before he got up, threw a jacket and his shoes on, and left.

He wrapped his arms around himself as he made his way outside. Once he left the hotel, he went and sat on the edge of the sidewalk, looking out into the dark.

He shivered, the cool october night air rushing right through his pajamas and jacket. He wished he could be more mature about this, or just put all these crazy, nonsense feelings right out of his brain and just be done with it. He wasn’t even sure anymore if this was only Anael. He felt a tugging on his heartstrings whenever he thought about Ryan and the complicated relationship between them. He just wanted everything to be the way it was before, was that so much to ask?

After a moment of sitting in silence, he heard the hotel door open behind him. He turned and saw Ryan standing there in his hoodie and pajama bottoms. He looked surprised to see Shane there on the sidewalk.

“What the hell are you doing?” Ryan asked, crossing his arms. “Come inside, you’re going to get sick out here.”

Shane looked away, back towards the mess of woods across the street. He yearned to be swallowed whole by the darkness, gripped harshly by the cold and plunged into silence. Maybe then he could forget about his feelings, he could sleep without dreaming.

“I can’t sleep.” he lied. He was tired, but he knew that all that was waiting in sleep was Anael. He didn’t trust himself to sleep next to Ryan, either. What if Anael took control? What if something happened? “Just go back to bed, Ry.”

“When are you going to stop pretending to be okay?” Ryan asked, coming to sit beside Shane on the sidewalk. “I can tell there’s something wrong. You didn’t eat at all at the diner. You? Not eating? That’s crazy.”

Shane couldn’t help but let out a weak laugh. “Yeah, that place was weird, though. Maybe I didn’t want to get food poisoning.”

Ryan clutched his stomach dramatically. “Oh no, you were right! They poisoned us all!”

Shane shoved Ryan’s shoulder lightly and smiled. He pulled his knees up to his chest and rested his arms there. It was moments like these where things felt normal. But he could feel the heat crawling up his back. A tight ball of want settling in his chest, burning, the steam from it rising and clogging up his thoughts.

“Seriously, though,” Ryan started. He sounded more sincere, his voice softer. “I really care about you. If there’s anything I can do. Anything you want to tell me.”

Shane felt the confession bubbling up in his throat. He wanted to tell him so badly, about the demon, about what was happening, about his feelings, about everything. He wanted to badly for someone to know, to see him, to understand what he was going through. But the words were caught behind his lips. They refused to leave him. He tried to push past the barrier, but he just wasn’t strong enough.

“I know Ryan,” he said softly. “Let’s go upstairs.”

As they stood in the elevator, waiting to reach their floor, Shane noticed Ryan’s hand dangling at his side. He imagined what it would feel like in his own. He could reach out, right now, and grab it if he wanted. Take hold of Ryan’s hand and just tell him.

The elevator door dinged, and he let out a small breath of disappointment, watching Ryan step out first. They shed their jackets and climbed into bed. They laid facing away from each other.

Shane felt unconsciousness creeping up on him like a predator. He wasn’t sure what he was going to see tonight. He hoped that it was nothing. As the darkness overcame him, he begged that tonight would be dreamless.

Shane could hear Ryan’s muffled voice coming from behind the door. Each time he tries to grab the doorknob, it evaporates right before him, his hands passing right through it, tiny pieces of it scattering like gnats, only to reform as his hand leaves the space. He gives up on the doorknob and throws his shoulder again the door instead. It’s hard as stone, even though it appears to be made of wood. His shoulder aches at each attempt. Ryan screams on the other side of the door.

“Stop it! Leave him alone!” Shane shouts, banging on the door. He hears a crash on the other side, and a muttered curse. He tries the knob again and it’s solid now. He twists it, and the door swings open. He stumbles in upon Anael in his body clutching a gash above his eye. Ryan stands, partially undressed in the opposite corner with an digital alarm clock clutched in his hands.

“Get away from him.” Shane growls and tackles Anael, wrestling with him, fighting until he ends up pinning the demon by the neck. He squeezes Anael’s throat, and it’s a weird image, because he’s technically choking himself. He feels nauseous as he fights it, feels his own hands on his neck, but he can’t let go now, he can’t let Anael hurt Ryan.

He can’t let himself hurt Ryan.

“Get out of my body!” he screams. Anael seems to struggle for a little longer, before his eyes roll back into his head. Suddenly, he falls forward, his arms disappearing into the body beneath him. He hears Ryan shout his name, but it’s distant and muffled. Once he’s fully enveloped, all he can hear and feel and see is inky blackness. He falls deeper and deeper into the blank void of space, getting farther and farther away from Ryan’s voice. He doesn’t seem to breath, or move, or see much. There’s a ringing in his ears, and then, and then.

“Just let me in, my child.” a voice says. “And you can sleep. I promise.”

And so Shane slept.

[kathrwn]

Lana Del Rey is rotting your brain

Read with footnotes here.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: Lana Del Rey does not exist. No, since she is the character performed by the artist Lizzie Grant, whose uncritical approach to American nostalgia does more to invoke the helplessness of American apocalyptica than to make us yearn for simpler times. And just as Lana does not exist, neither does any depth to the project of Miss Del Rey. Between winged eyeliner, prairie dust photo filters, and an affected croon, Lana Del Rey manages to be both campy and pretentious, and does neither particularly well. 

Looking at Lana Del Rey music videos, there are similarities which together comprise a Lana “image,” or a sort of aesthetic uniform which unites the Lana Del Rey Cinematic Universe. Often there are post-production filters which evoke old-school photographs of your mom’s cousin in the 60s, references to film and music stars of the 50s, and a misplaced fetish for the “good ol’ days” of America which turns grit into surface-level beauty. 

Thematic focus is good, especially when the singer is a construction, like Lana is. Critics are quick to notice her sharp devotion to her bit, calling her music a “Southern Californian dream world constructed out of sad girls and bad boys, manufactured melancholy and genuine glamour,” or “a blown-out Hollywood production.” Lana has described herself as a “Lolita got lost in the hood” or even a “Gangsta Nancy Sinatra” which critics have called straight “manufactured.” 

While plenty of songstresses presently play with the heights of glamour that women are expected to summit in the spotlight--Lady Gaga, Cher, and Dolly Parton come to mind instantly--many of them inject irony or camp into their performances, their outfits, their presentation. Parton in particular loves to joke about herself, famously quipping “I'm not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I'm not dumb... and I also know that I'm not blonde.” 

It undeniable to say these three women also play characters in their music--Lady Gaga is not nobility, Cher’s Twitter is filled with political commentary, Dolly Parton is, of course, not even blond. Lana also plays a character, but why is the Lana character a failure compared to the others? It’s not for want of production--many women pop stars are over-, perhaps even hyper-produced to drive the point home about the disinfectant power pop music holds over artists. Lana is also over-produced, somehow giving her music an auditory sepia tone, as though it were a film from the Golden Age of Hollywood.

But perhaps that’s it--Lana, as a character, is reactionary. She invokes a time well-past, and one well-past for good reason. The 50s and 60s were not heavenly for all, certainly not for black people, not for gay people, nor political dissidents. Lana’s music draws on themes that attempt to highlight the teeming hate and anger of midcentury America, but ultimately fail when she refers to herself as “[y]our Venice bitch” and prides herself on wearing “his favorite sundress” but with a strange sincerity. Often times, Lana infantilizes herself, referring to her lover as “Daddy,” or worrying that he is so superficial he might not love her, perhaps most famously, when she is “no longer young and beautiful.” 

That is not to say that Lana is vapid, but she has adopted the veneer of being so. She has unwittingly become a crooner for the past when her worth was tied to a sexual currency. Her uncritical love for glam and grand cinematisme is part of her pastiche act. But because she is nostalgic, and rarely, if ever, scathing when she sings about outdated courtship and relationship dynamics, she shows just how empty her actual songs are. In dying to know if she will be loved when her skin is no longer elastic, Lana never manages to find validation and closure in herself, instead tying her worth even tighter to a man she calls her “sun,” who plays with her “like a child.” Cool and normal. Newer songs follow this same trend, with cuts like “You’re beautiful and I’m insane, We’re American made” doing little to flatter herself, then listing off American inventions like “Hallmark” and “Norman Rockwell.” (The Norman Rockwell thing is especially weird when she follows it immediately with references to sex and then calling herself--again!--“your little Venice bitch.”) 

There’s nothing many Americans love more than Americana and sincerely yearning for a time they never experienced. Lana, perhaps, is the most “I was born in the wrong decade” singer to grace our airways. Her songs make love, even uneven and abusive love, the ultimate goal. Letting summer--a time that is eternal in the LDRCU and, supposedly, California--wash over her and her lovers until the cocaine and ocean consume them. 

Then, it’s no surprise this cheeky political compass places Lana in the libertarian right segment--she is made to sell, to hit some pleasure center in impressionable brains, to be a sweet spot in pop music that guarantees profits will be made from her work. Her songs are chock full of concrete imagery, which allows them to become realized in her audience's mind, rather than relying on letting the listener make their own emotional connections. There is nothing wrong with that, but it shows why the Del Rey song formula is as successful as it is soulless.

Take, for instance, her famous “Summertime Sadness.” From the red dress she wears, to the pale moonlight, to the “telephone wires above... Sizzling like a snare” we can recreate the scene in our heads. These lines are so evocative, so palpable in what they describe, it wouldn’t be hard at all to envision yourself standing in her same pair of high heels.

However, there is a marked absence of irony or self-awareness in her discography. Her sincerity is her downfall. When she sings “Let me kiss you hard in the pouring rain, You like your girls insane,” does she mean it. And she really means it. She prides herself on her lyrical tendency to degrade women. 

This is not a new criticism of Lana. She herself has said “the issue of feminism is just not an interesting concept. I’m more interested in, you know, SpaceX and Tesla, what’s going to happen with our intergalactic possibilities. Whenever people bring up feminism, I’m like, ‘God, I’m just not really that interested,'” which is proof that Lana is so massively lacking in any self-awareness that her music becomes pointless, useless, and dumb. How is being interested in SpaceX and Tesla at all incompatible with the basic philosophy of women’s liberation and complete personhood? What about the women who were unable to be astrophysicists in the past, but are now writing the algorithms that take us to those “intergalactic possibilities”? How about the droves of young women who unironically listen to this schlock, call themselves insane, and then have no clue how to be a part of a functioning, normal relationship, because they think they have to be a crazy minx? Actually, even better, what about the bat shit insane way Elon Musk treats women, like when he famously pulled his bride aside and told her he was “the alpha.” It’s just bonkers how popular Lana Del Rey’s line of thinking is. That somehow feminism is incompatible with the fetishism of science? 

Perhaps that’s where Lana Del Rey stands out. As soft rock and easy listening DJs give us “Fight Song” and “Firework” ad nauseum, we have grown weary of the female empowerment song. Any song that wasn’t “You’re So Vain,” is extraneous to the genre of girl power pop. Maybe this makes Lana appealing, if only because she shakes up our expectations. Her yearning is to be submissive, not to be dominant, a far cry from the way many chanteuses have embodied the lyrics of Patti Page’s “Conquest.”

If that were all, maybe it could be forgiven. It would be a sweet rebellion against the popular themes of the day, one that has its problems but isn’t overly regressive. Only, the more you dig, the worse it becomes. Not just the content of her lyrics, and her constant playing of the damsel, but the visuals she chooses to use in her videos and albums are beyond simply self-stylized misogyny. Lana has a nasty habit of racializing her character, trying to make simple the complex legacy of mid-century American counter culture.

For instance, in her epic three-song music video Tropico, Lana appears to us in several visions. Once as Eve, once as a sex worker, once as a woman escaped from the city to be with her lover. The first one is the color of the dream of a flower-crown-era-Tumblr aesthetic blogger, the last is similarly as harmless. But that one in the middle is an iffy exploration of the actual economic conditions of sex workers, but absurdly tone deaf in the light of her comments about feminism. And all of the above is extremely tone deaf within the LDRCU. Is she supposed to be the girlfriend of a gang member, styled in heavy eyeliner and bandanas reminiscent of cholo culture? Or is she, as is inline with much of the rest of her videography, an upper-crust, Jackie-O-esque trophy wife with a listless stare? Neither are particularly good characters to play, relying on stereotypes and hazy filters to get the point across. 

But Lana has always had an issue with understanding the fundamental issues of her middle-distance gaze into American history. Yes, it’s cool Lana has A$AP Rocky play Kennedy, that’s pretty neat; but it’s also extremely uncool to do so while adopting a Cuban-sounding name while turning up the nostalgia factor on figures who, like Kennedy, did great harm to Cuban and Cuban-Americans. The conflict she creates within her own character is glossed over by her, and much of her audience. While critical pieces of Lana do exist, many fans--including myself at times!--get lost in her Venice Beach Baddie persona, and forget her self-awareness trends in the wrong direction. 

With the release of “Norman Fucking Rockwell” on the horizon (at the time of writing), though, we’re going to have to ask ourselves--is that a normal name for an album, or are we all having a collective fever dream?