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transgenderteensurvivalguide · 4 years ago

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“Elliot Page doesn’t remember exactly how long he had been asking.

But he does remember the acute feeling of triumph when, around age 9, he was finally allowed to cut his hair short. “I felt like a boy,” Page says. “I wanted to be a boy. I would ask my mom if I could be someday.” Growing up in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Page visualized himself as a boy in imaginary games, freed from the discomfort of how other people saw him: as a girl. After the haircut, strangers finally started perceiving him the way he saw himself, and it felt both right and exciting.

The joy was short-lived. Months later, Page got his first break, landing a part as a daughter in a Canadian mining family in the TV movie Pit Pony. He wore a wig for the film, and when Pit Pony became a TV show, he grew his hair out again. “I became a professional actor at the age of 10,” Page says. And pursuing that passion came with a difficult compromise. “Of course I had to look a certain way.”

We are speaking in late February. It is the first interview Page, 34, has given since disclosing in December that he is transgender, in a heartfelt letter posted to Instagram, and he is crying before I have even uttered a question. “Sorry, I’m going to be emotional, but that’s cool, right?” he says, smiling through his tears.

It’s hard for him to talk about the days that led up to that disclosure. When I ask how he was feeling, he looks away, his neck exposed by a new short haircut. After a pause, he presses his hand to his heart and closes his eyes. “This feeling of true excitement and deep gratitude to have made it to this point in my life,” he says, “mixed with a lot of fear and anxiety.”

It’s not hard to understand why a trans person would be dealing with conflicting feelings in this moment. Increased social acceptance has led to more young people describing themselves as trans—1.8% of Gen Z compared with 0.2% of boomers, according to a recent Gallup poll—yet this has fueled conservatives who are stoking fears about a “transgender craze.” President Joe Biden has restored the right of transgender military members to serve openly, and in Hollywood, trans people have never had more meaningful time onscreen. Meanwhile, J.K. Rowling is leveraging her cultural capital to oppose transgender equality in the name of feminism, and lawmakers are arguing in the halls of Congress over the validity of gender identities. “Sex has become a political football in the culture wars,” says Chase Strangio, deputy director for transgender justice at the ACLU.

(Full article with photos continued under the “read more”)

And so Page—who charmed America as a precocious pregnant teenager in Juno, constructed dreamscapes in Inception and now stars in Netflix’s hit superhero show The Umbrella Academy, the third season of which he’s filming in Toronto—expected that his news would be met with both applause and vitriol. “What I was anticipating was a lot of support and love and a massive amount of hatred and transphobia,” says Page. “That’s essentially what happened.” What he did not anticipate was just how big this story would be. Page’s announcement, which made him one of the most famous out trans people in the world, started trending on Twitter in more than 20 countries. He gained more than 400,000 new followers on Instagram on that day alone. Thousands of articles were published. Likes and shares reached the millions. Right-wing podcasters readied their rhetoric about “women in men’s locker rooms.” Casting directors reached out to Page’s manager saying it would be an honor to cast Page in their next big movie.

So, it was a lot. Over the course of two conversations, Page will say that understanding himself in all the specifics remains a work in progress. Fathoming one’s gender, an identity innate and performed, personal and social, fixed and evolving, is complicated enough without being under a spotlight that never seems to turn off. But having arrived at a critical juncture, Page feels a deep sense of responsibility to share his truth. “Extremely influential people are spreading these myths and damaging rhetoric—every day you’re seeing our existence debated,” Page says. “Transgender people are so very real.”

That role in Pit Pony led to other productions and eventually, when Page was 16, to a film called Mouth to Mouth. Playing a young anarchist, Page had a chance to cut his hair again. This time, he shaved it off completely. The kids at his high school teased him, but in photos he has posted from that time on social media he looks at ease. Page’s head was still shaved when he mailed in an audition tape for the 2005 thriller Hard Candy. The people in charge of casting asked him to audition again in a wig. Soon, the hair was back.

Page’s tour de force performance in Hard Candy led, two years later, to Juno, a low-budget indie film that brought Page Oscar, BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations and sudden megafame. The actor, then 21, struggled with the stresses of that ascension. The endless primping, red carpets and magazine spreads were all agonizing reminders of the disconnect between how the world saw Page and who he knew himself to be. “I just never recognized myself,” Page says. “For a long time I could not even look at a photo of myself.” It was difficult to watch the movies too, especially ones in which he played more feminine roles.

Page loved making movies, but he also felt alienated by Hollywood and its standards. Alia Shawkat, a close friend and co-star in 2009’s Whip It,describes all the attention from Juno as scarring. “He had a really hard time with the press and expectations,” Shawkat says. “‘Put this on! And look this way! And this is sexy!’”

By the time he appeared in blockbusters like X-Men: The Last Stand and Inception, Page was suffering from depression, anxiety and panic attacks. He didn’t know, he says, “how to explain to people that even though [I was] an actor, just putting on a T-shirt cut for a woman would make me so unwell.” Shawkat recalls Page’s struggles with clothes. “I’d be like, ‘Hey, look at all these nice outfits you’re getting,’ and he would say, ‘It’s not me. It feels like a costume,’” she says. Page tried to convince himself that he was fine, that someone who was fortunate enough to have made it shouldn’t have complaints. But he felt exhausted by the work required to “just exist,” and thought more than once about quitting acting.

In 2014, Page came out as gay, despite feeling for years that “being out was impossible” given his career. (Gender identity and sexual orientation are, of course, distinct, but one queer identity can coexist with another.) In an emotional speech at a Human Rights Campaign conference, Page talked about being part of an industry “that places crushing standards” on actors and viewers alike. “There are pervasive stereotypes about masculinity and femininity that define how we’re all supposed to act, dress and speak,” Page went on. “And they serve no one.”

The actor started wearing suits on the red carpet. He found love, marrying choreographer Emma Portner in 2018. He asserted more agency in his career, producing his own films with LGBTQ leads like Freeheld and My Days of Mercy. And he made a masculine wardrobe a condition of taking roles. Yet the daily discord was becoming unbearable. “The difference in how I felt before coming out as gay to after was massive,” says Page. “But did the discomfort in my body ever go away? No, no, no, no.”

In part, it was the isolation forced by the pandemic that brought to a head Page’s wrestling with gender. (Page and Portner separated last summer, and the two divorced in early 2021. “We’ve remained close friends,” Page says.) “I had a lot of time on my own to really focus on things that I think, in so many ways, unconsciously, I was avoiding,” he says. He was inspired by trailblazing trans icons like Janet Mock and Laverne Cox, who found success in Hollywood while living authentically. Trans writers helped him understand his feelings; Page saw himself reflected in P. Carl’s memoir Becoming a Man. Eventually “shame and discomfort” gave way to revelation. “I was finally able to embrace being transgender,” Page says, “and letting myself fully become who I am.”

This led to a series of decisions. One was asking the world to call him by a different name, Elliot, which he says he’s always liked. Page has a tattoo that says E.P. PHONE HOME, a reference to a movie about a young boy with that name. “I loved E.T. when I was a kid and always wanted to look like the boys in the movies, right?” he says. The other decision was to use different pronouns—for the record, both he/him and they/them are fine. (When I ask if he has a preference on pronouns for the purposes of this story, Page says, “He/him is great.”)

A day before we first speak, Page will talk to his mom about this interview and she will tell him, “I’m just so proud of my son.” He grows emotional relating this and tries to explain that his mom, the daughter of a minister, who was born in the 1950s, was always trying to do what she thought was best for her child, even if that meant encouraging young Page to act like a girl. “She wants me to be who I am and supports me fully,” Page says. “It is a testament to how people really change.”

Another decision was to get top surgery. Page volunteers this information early in our conversation; at the time he posted his disclosure on Instagram, he was recovering in Toronto. Like many trans people, Page emphasizes being trans isn’t all about surgery. For some people, it’s unnecessary. For others, it’s unaffordable. For the wider world, the media’s focus on it has sensationalized transgender bodies, inviting invasive and inappropriate questions. But Page describes surgery as something that, for him, has made it possible to finally recognize himself when he looks in the mirror, providing catharsis he’s been waiting for since the “total hell” of puberty. “It has completely transformed my life,” he says. So much of his energy was spent on being uncomfortable in his body, he says. Now he has that energy back.

For the transgender community at large, visibility does not automatically lead to acceptance. Around the globe, transgender people deal disproportionately with violence and discrimination. Anti-trans hate crimes are on the rise in the U.K. along with increasingly transphobic rhetoric in newspapers and tabloids. In the U.S., in addition to the perennial challenges trans people face with issues like poverty and homelessness, a flurry of bills in state legislatures would make it a crime to provide transition-related medical care to trans youth. And crass old jokes are still in circulation. When Biden lifted the ban on open service for transgender troops, Saturday Night Live’s Michael Che did a bit on Weekend Update about the policy being called “don’t ask, don’t tuck.”

Page says coming out as trans was “selfish” on one level: “It’s for me. I want to live and be who I am.” But he also felt a moral imperative to do so, given the times. Human identity is complicated and mysterious, but politics insists on fitting everything into boxes. In today’s culture wars, simplistic beliefs about gender—e.g., chromosomes = destiny—are so widespread and so deep-seated that many people who hold those beliefs don’t feel compelled to consider whether they might be incomplete or prejudiced. On Feb. 24, after a passionate debate on legislation that would ban discrimination against LGBTQ people, Representative Marie Newman, an Illinois Democrat, proudly displayed the pride flag in support of her daughter, who is trans. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican, responded by hanging a poster outside her office that read: There are TWO genders: MALE & FEMALE.

The next day Dr. Rachel Levine, who stands to become the first openly transgender federal official confirmed by the Senate, endured a tirade from Senator Rand Paul about “genital mutilation” during her confirmation hearing. My second conversation with Page happens shortly after this. He brings it up almost immediately, and seems both heartbroken and determined. He wants to emphasize that top surgery, for him, was “not only life-changing but lifesaving.” He implores people to educate themselves about trans lives, to learn how crucial medical care can be, to understand that lack of access to it is one of the many reasons that an estimated 41% of transgender people have attempted suicide, according to one survey.

Page has been in the political trenches for a while, having leaned into progressive activism after coming out as queer in 2014. For two seasons, he and best friend Ian Daniel filmed Gaycation, a Viceland series that explored LGBTQ culture around the world and, at one point, showed Page grilling Senator Ted Cruz at the Iowa State Fair about discrimination against queer people. In 2019, Page made a documentary called There’s Something in the Water, which explores environmental hardships experienced by communities of color in Nova Scotia, with $350,000 of his own money. That activism extends to his own industry: in 2017, he published a Facebook post that, among other things, accused director Brett Ratner of forcibly outing him as gay on the set of an X-Men movie. (A representative for Ratner did not respond to a request for comment.)

As a trans person who is white, wealthy and famous, Page has a unique kind of privilege, and with it an opportunity to advocate for those with less. According to the U.S. Trans Survey, a large-scale report from 2015, transgender people of color are more likely to experience unemployment, harassment by police and refusals of medical care. Nearly half of all Black respondents reported being denied equal treatment, verbally harassed and/or physically attacked in the past year. Trans people as a group fare much worse on such stats than the general population. “My privilege has allowed me to have resources to get through and to be where I am today,” Page says, “and of course I want to use that privilege and platform to help in the ways I can.”

Since his disclosure, Page has been mostly quiet on social media. One exception has been to tweet on behalf of the ACLU, which is in the midst of fighting anti-trans bills and laws around the country, including those that ban transgender girls and women from participating in sports. Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves says he will sign such a bill in the name of “protect[ing] young girls.” Page played competitive soccer and vividly recalls the agony of being told he would have to play on the girls’ team once he aged out of mixed-gender squads. After an appeal, Page was allowed to play with the boys for an additional year. Today, several bills list genitalia as a requirement for deciding who plays on which team. “I would have been in that position as a kid,” Page says. “It’s horrific.”

All this advocacy is unlikely to make life easier. “You can’t enter into certain spaces as a public trans person,” says the ACLU’s Strangio, “without being prepared to spend some percentage of your life being threatened and harassed.” Yet, while he seems overwhelmed at times, Page is also eager. Many of the political attacks on trans people—whether it is a mandate that bathroom use be determined by birth sex, a blanket ban on medical interventions for trans kids or the suggestion that trans men are simply wayward women beguiled by male privilege—carry the same subtext: that trans people are mistaken about who they are. “We know who we are,” Page says. “People cling to these firm ideas [about gender] because it makes people feel safe. But if we could just celebrate all the wonderful complexities of people, the world would be such a better place.”

Even if Page weren’t vocal, his public presence would communicate something powerful. That is in part because of what Paisley Currah, a professor of political science at Brooklyn College, calls “visibility gaps.” Historically, trans women have been more visible, in culture and in Hollywood, than trans men. There are many explanations: Our culture is obsessed with femininity. Men’s bodies are less policed and scrutinized. Patriarchal people tend to get more emotional about who is considered to be in the same category as their daughters. “And a lot of trans men don’t stand out as trans,” says Currah, who is a trans man himself. “I think we’ve taken up less of the public’s attention because masculinity is sort of the norm.”

During our interviews, Page will repeatedly refer to himself as a “transgender guy.” He also calls himself nonbinary and queer, but for him, transmasculinity is at the center of the conversation right now. “It’s a complicated journey,” he says, “and an ongoing process.”

While the visibility gap means that trans men have been spared some of the hate endured by trans women, it has also meant that people like Page have had fewer models. “There were no examples,” Page says of growing up in Halifax in the 1990s. There are many queer people who have felt “that how they feel deep inside isn’t a real thing because they never saw it reflected back to them,” says Tiq Milan, an activist, author and transgender man. Page offers a reflection: “They can see that and say, ‘You know what, that’s who I am too,’” Milan says. When there aren’t examples, he says, “people make monsters of us.”

For decades, that was something Hollywood did. As detailed in the 2020 Netflix documentary Disclosure, transgender people have been portrayed onscreen as villainous and deceitful, tragic subplots or the butt of jokes. In a sign of just how far the industry has come—spurred on by productions like Pose and trailblazers like Mock—Netflix offered to change the credits on The Umbrella Academy the same day that its star posted his statement on social media. Now when an episode ends, the first words viewers see are “Elliot Page.”

Today, there are many out trans and nonbinary actors, directors and producers. Storylines involving trans people are more common, more respectful. Sometimes that aspect of identity is even incidental, rather than the crux of a morality tale. And yet Hollywood can still seem a frightening place for LGBTQ people to come out. “It’s an industry that says, ‘Don’t do that,’” says director Silas Howard, who got his break on Amazon’s show Transparent, which made efforts to hire transgender crew members. “I wouldn’t have been hired if they didn’t have a trans initiative,” Howard says. “I’m always aware of that.”

So what will it mean for Page’s career? While Page has appeared in many projects, he also faced challenges landing female leads because he didn’t fit Hollywood’s narrow mold. Since Page’s Instagram post, his team is seeing more activity than they have in years. Many of the offers coming in—to direct, to produce, to act—are trans-related, but there are also some “dude roles.”

Downtime in quarantine helped Page accept his gender identity. “I was finally able to embrace being transgender,” he says.

Page was attracted to the role of Vanya in The Umbrella Academy because—in the first season, released in 2019—Vanya is crushed by self-loathing, believing herself to be the only ordinary sibling in an extraordinary family. The character can barely summon the courage to move through the world. “I related to how much Vanya was closed off,” Page says. Now on set filming the third season, co-workers have seen a change in the actor. “It seems like there’s a tremendous weight off his shoulders, a feeling of comfort,” says showrunner Steve Blackman. “There’s a lightness, a lot more smiling.” For Page, returning to set has been validating, if awkward at times. Yes, people accidentally use the wrong pronouns—“It’s going to be an adjustment,” Page says—but co-workers also see and acknowledge him.

The debate over whether cisgender people, who have repeatedly collected awards for playing trans characters, should continue to do so has largely been settled. However, trans actors have rarely been considered for cisgender parts. Whatever challenges might lie ahead, Page seems exuberant about playing a new spectrum of roles. “I’m really excited to act, now that I’m fully who I am, in this body,” Page says. “No matter the challenges and difficult moments of this, nothing amounts to getting to feel how I feel now.”

This includes having short hair again. During our interview, Page keeps rearranging strands on his forehead. It took a long time for him to return to the barber’s chair and ask to cut it short, but he got there. And how did that haircut feel?

Page tears up again, then smiles. “I just could not have enjoyed it more,” he says.”

#suicide m #transphobia m #Elliot Page #transgender #representation #celebrities #actors #tv #movies #rep #trans #transmasculine #nonbinary #queer #long post

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momsopposed2theoccult · 3 years ago

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It’s come to my attention that a good majority of people on this website have a really poor understanding of the conflict between Toph and Katara in “The Chase.” As somebody who loves both characters and their friendship, this irritates me. Without further ado, let’s unpack that in what is in theory supposed to be a meta but turned out more like a rant.

“Katara was hostile towards Toph because the fact that she’s a gender non-conforming girl made Katara uncomfortable because Katara is obsessed with gender roles.”

Alright, so right off the bat this is just... completely idiotic and clearly fuelled by an agenda (and likely also a lot of projection). First of all, how is Katara of “I don’t want to heal, I want to fight!” fame “obsessed with gender roles?” There’s an entire episode in Book One dedicated to Katara refusing to conform to societal norms for women in the Northern Water Tribe! Katara routinely calls Sokka out on his misogynistic bullshit! (Mind you I adore Sokka but he could be a little twerp at times and Katara was 100% right to challenge him on it) Katara is the feminist icon of ATLA! The fact that people act like Katara is some sort of conservative tradwife who loves gender roles instead of the outspoken feminist and political activist she is makes me incredibly angry.

Second of all, Katara was extremely kind and welcoming towards Toph at first. She gently encouraged her to join in with the group as they all set up camp together as opposed to setting up her own private camp. It’s only when Toph refuses to comply with her that Katara begins to get irritated. Mind you, Toph has her reasons for this, something I’ll get to in a minute, but from Katara’s perspective (key word here is perspective) she’s just being an annoying little stubborn, selfish, lazy, anti-social, entitled brat. Of course we the audience find out later that this isn’t the case at all (or at least in theory we should find out later but apparently some people on here skipped that part), but for all her many talents Katara is not a mind reader and has no way of knowing what’s going on inside Toph’s head, nor does she know her well enough yet to fully grasp the context behind why Toph acts the way she does. Katara is somebody who greatly values community and believes in teamwork, so Toph turning down her warm welcome in favour of “carrying her own weight” likely felt like a slap in the face. Not to mention that she’s already emotionally exhausted from having to constantly mother Aang and Sokka. If I were Katara, I likely would have reacted the same way.

Oh and I agree that the “the stars look beautiful tonight, too bad you can’t see them, Toph” comment was out of line, but it doesn’t make her a horrible person. It makes her a 14 year old, and 14 year olds can be nasty, especially sleep deprived 14 year olds. Katara is otherwise a very kind and compassionate person. Other characters have said worse than that. Hell, Toph herself has said worse than that. That being said, it was a deeply hurtful comment and I do like to imagine that she apologized for it off-screen.

“Toph is a lazy, entitled, and classist spoiled rich brat who just didn’t want to do chores and expected other people to wait on her.”

This is another one that makes me roll my eyes and ask if they even watched the show. First of all, the presumption that Toph is a lazy or entitled person is just... laughable. I feel like people forget that Toph isn’t actually an earthbending prodigy in the way that Azula is a firebending prodigy (I could say more about Azula and how her belief that she was the unshakeable prodigal daughter ultimately caused her downfall and how by the end of the series Zuko is arguably a better firebender than her but this isn’t a meta about Azula and Zuko, now is it?). Nah. Toph was a sheltered kid who discovered she had the ability to earthbend, was told that she could never become great at it because she was blind, and in response said FUCK THAT and decided to work her ass off until she was not only great but the very greatest all thanks to her crazy, stupid, off-the-charts nerve, drive, grit, ambition, and desire to prove people wrong about her. Does that sound like a lazy person to you? Believe me when I say that you do not achieve that kind of skill level by sitting around on your ass and expecting to have things handed to you. And entitled? Don’t make me laugh. Toph hates having things handed to her, that’s one of her defining characteristics.

As for the implication that she’s classist and enjoys basking in her family’s wealth and being waited on...... are you stupid? Did you even watch the show? Toph absolutely despises everything about her parents’ lifestyle. Growing up like that was traumatizing and restrictive for her. We’re talking about a girl who likes to play around in the mud for fuck’s sake. Toph does not care how much money you have. She never wanted any to begin with. She even says it herself; “I guess I shouldn’t be complaining. They gave me everything I could have wanted. But they never gave me what I actually needed - their love.” Not to mention that she easily could have continued to freeload off her parents wealth but instead chose to sneak out of the house and make her own money doing what she did best; disproving people’s assumptions about her earthbending. Oh and I’ve seen someone point this out before but WWE is generally considered a “low brow” activity that “proper” people frown upon and shouldn’t associate themselves with. Toph fucking loved it. I don’t know how seriously people take the comics, as they often miss the mark when it comes to characterization (Toph’s, however, was generally pretty accurate), but there’s a part in The Rift where Sokka asks her when she’s going to start charging people to learn metalbending and she gets all serious and flat out tells him that she will never do such a thing, because money doesn’t matter to her. Sharing her one true passion with the world is what matters to her. Oh and the part where she basically tells a bunch of rich and sleazy businessmen to fuck off and “stop thinking about money and start thinking about people’s lives” is just... *chef’s kiss* Sorry my thoughts here are so incoherent but this take is so piss poor and makes me so angry that I don’t even know where to start. As for “Toph enjoys being waited on” I just- *sigh* Toph has such a visceral and defensive reaction to any implication that she is unable to take care of herself. Like I said earlier, that’s one of her defining characteristics as well as the reason for her behaviour in “The Chase.” Where are people getting these takes?

You wanna know why Toph acted the way she did in The Chase? Well, first let’s recap her life up to this point. Toph was born the blind daughter of one of the wealthiest families in the Earth Kingdom. From day one her parents treated her like glass due to her disability. She was not allowed to leave her house unsupervised, and even then she was only permitted to walk around the gardens of her home. Every day of her life she was pitied, gaslit, babied, ignored, emotionally neglected, and made to feel ashamed of herself. She was not allowed to make any decisions for herself. She was not allowed to do anything for herself. She was not allowed to talk to other children. She had no friends. Other people didn’t even know she existed on account that her parents kept her locked up in her own home and didn’t tell anybody about her because they were so ashamed to have a blind daughter. Flash forward to “The Chase.” Toph begins to set up her own camp separate from the rest of the Gaang. Considering that she flat out was not socialized as a child and hadn’t even interacted with anybody her own age prior to a few days ago, this is understandable. So then Katara comes up to her and asks her why she isn’t setting up camp with the others as if she’s somehow incapable of taking care of herself (again, this is just what happened from her perspective) like she’s her mom or something and it just angers her because she thought she joined this group to get away from all that and she doesn’t understand how friends work because she’s never had one, all she knows is that apparently this girl thinks she isn’t capable of taking care of herself, and that infuriates her because it’s the exact same bullshit she thought she was running away from.

There’s a lot more I could say about this but I’m sick of typing so yeah in conclusion both of these takes are piss poor and I’m sick of having to read them. Stan Toph, Katara, and their friendship.

#atla #avatar the last airbender #katara #toph beifong #nora speaks

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potteresque-ire · 4 years ago

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Can you talk more about the usage of the word "wife" to talk about men in the BL context? I've noticed it in BJYX (particularly with GG), in the (English translations) of MDZS, and then it came up in your recent posts about Danmei-101 (which were super helpful btw) with articles connecting the "little fresh meat" type to fans calling an actor "wife." My initial reaction as a westerner is like "this is very problematic," but I think I'm missing a lot of language/cultural context. Any thoughts?

Hello! First of all, for those who’re interested, here’s a link to the referred posts. Under the cut is arguably the 4th post of the series. As usual, I apologise for the length!

(Topics: seme and uke; more about “leftover women”; roster of feminisation terms; Daji, Bao Si & the origin of BJYX; roster of beautiful, ancient Chinese men; Chairman Mao (not part of the roster) ...)

[TW: feminisation of men]

In the traditional BL characterisation, the M/M (double male) lead pairing is essentially a cis-het relationship in disguise, in which one of the M leads is viewed as the “wife” by the creator and audience. This lead often possesses some of the features of the traditional, stereotypical female, but retaining his male appearance.

In BL terms, the “wife” is the “uke”. “Seme” and “uke” are the respective roles taken by the two male leads, and designated by the creator of the material. Literally, “seme” (攻��) means the dominant, the attacking / aggressive partner in the relationship and “uke” (受け), the passive / recipient (of actions) partner who tends to follow the seme’s lead. The terms themselves do not have any sexual / gender context. However, as male and female are viewed as aggressive and passive by their traditional social roles, and the attacker and recipient by their traditional sexual roles respectively, BL fandoms have long assigned uke, the passive, sexual “bottom”, as the “woman”, the “wife”.

Danmei has kept this “semi” and uke” tradition from BL, taking the kanji of the Japanese terms for designation ~ 攻 (”attack” is therefore the “husband”, and 受 (”receive”), the “wife”. The designations are often specified in the introduction / summary of Danmei works as warning / enticement. For MDZS, for example, MXTX wrote:

高貴冷豔悶騷攻 × 邪魅狂狷風騷受

高貴冷豔悶騷攻 = noble, coolly beautiful and boring seme (referring to LWJ) 邪魅狂狷風騷受 = devilishly charming, wild, and flirty uke (referring to WWX)

The traditional, stereotypical female traits given to the “uke”, the “wife” in Danmei and their associated fanworks range from their personality to behaviour to even biological functions. Those who have read the sex scenes in MDZS may be aware of their lack of mention of lube, while WWX was written as getting (very) wet from fluids from his colon (腸道) ~ implying that his colon, much like a vagina, was supplying the necessarily lubrication for sex. This is obviously biologically inaccurate; however, Danmei is exempt from having to be realistic by its original Tanbi definition. The genre’s primary audience is cishet females, and sex scenes such as this one aren’t aiming for realism. Rather, the primary goal of these sex scenes is to generate fantasy, and the purpose of the biologically female functions in one of the leads (WWX) is to ease the readers into imagining themselves as the one engaging in the sex.

Indeed, these practices of assigning as males and female the M/M sexual top and bottom, of emphasising of who is the top and who is the bottom, have been falling out of favour in Western slash fandoms ~ I joined fandom about 15 years ago, and top and bottom designations in slash pairings (and fights about them) were much more common than it is now. The generally more open, more progressive environments in which Western fandomers are immersed in probably have something to do with it: they transfer their RL knowledge, their views on biology, on different social into their fandom works and discourses.

I’d venture to say this: in the English-speaking fandoms, fandom values and mainstream values are converging. “Cancel culture” reflects an attempt to enforce RL values in the fictional worlds in fandom. Fandom culture is slowly, but surely, leaving its subculture status and becoming part of mainstream culture.

I’d hesitate to call c-Danmei fandoms backward compared to Western slash for this reason. There’s little hope for Danmei to converge with China’s mainstream culture in the short term ~ the necessity of replacing Danmei with Dangai in visual media already reflects that. Danmei is and will likely remain subculture in the foreseeable future, and subcultures, at heart, are protests against the mainstream. Unless China and the West define “mainstream” very similarly (and they don’t), it is difficult to compare the “progressiveness”—and its dark side, the “problematic-ness”—of the protests, which are shaped by what they’re protesting against. The “shaper” in this scenario, the mainstream values and culture, are also far more forceful under China’s authoritarian government than they are in the free(-er) world.

Danmei, therefore, necessarily takes on a different form in China than BL or slash outside China. As a creative pursuit, it serves to fulfil psychological needs that are reflective of its surrounding culture and sociopolitical environment. The genre’s “problematic” / out of place aspects in the eyes of Western fandoms are therefore, like all other aspects of the genre, tailor-made by its millions of fans to be comforting / cathartic for the unique culture and sociopolitical background it and they find themselves in.

I briefly detoured to talk about the Chinese government’s campaign to pressure young, educated Chinese women into matrimony and motherhood in the post for this reason, as it is an example of how, despite Western fandoms’ progressiveness, they may be inadequate, distant for c-Danmei fans. Again, this article is a short and a ... morbidly-entertaining read on what has been said about China’s “leftover women” (剩女) — women who are unmarried and over 27-years-old). I talked about it, because “Women should enter marriage and parenthood in their late 20s” may no longer a mainstream value in many Western societies, but where it still is, it exerts a strong influence on how women view romance, and by extension, how they interact with romantic fiction, including Danmei.

In China, this influence is made even stronger by the fact that Chinese tradition places a strong emphasis on education and holds a conservative attitude towards romance and sex. Dating while studying therefore remains discouraged in many Chinese families. University-educated Chinese women therefore have an extremely short time frame — between graduation (~23 years old) and their 27th birthday — to find “the right one” and get married, before they are labelled as “leftovers” and deemed undesirable. (Saving) face being an important aspect in Chinese culture introduces yet another layer of pressure: traditionally, women who don’t get married by the age agreed by social norms have been viewed as failures of upbringing, in that the unmarried women’s parents not having taught/trained their daughters well. Filial, unmarried women therefore try to get married “on time” just to avoid bringing shame to their family.

The outcome is this: despite the strong women characters we may see in Chinese visual media, many young Chinese women nowadays do not expect themselves to be able to marry for love. Below, I offer a “book jacket summary” of a popular internet novel in China, which shows how the associated despair also affects cis-het fictional romance. Book reviews praise this novel for being “boring”: the man and woman leads are both common working class people, the “you-and-I”’s; the mundaneness of them trying build their careers and their love life is lit by one shining light: he loves her and she loves him.

Written in her POV, this summary reflects, perhaps, the disquiet felt by many contemporary Chinese women university graduates:

曾經以為，自己這輩子都等不到了—— 世界這麼大，我又走得這麼慢，要是遇不到良人要怎麼辦？早過了「全球三十幾億男人，中國七億男人，天涯何處無芳草」的猖狂歲月，越來越清楚，循規蹈矩的生活中，我們能熟悉進而深交的異性實在太有限了，有限到我都做好了「接受他人的牽線，找個適合的男人慢慢煨熟，再平淡無奇地進入婚姻」的準備，卻在生命意外的拐彎處迎來自己的另一半。

I once thought, my wait will never come to fruition for the rest of my life — the world is so big, I’m so slow in treading it, what if I’ll never meet the one? I’ve long passed the wild days of thinking “3 billion men exist on Earth, 0.7 of which are Chinese. There is plenty more fish in the sea.” I’m seeing, with increasing clarity, that in our disciplined lives, the number of opposite-sex we can get to know, and get to know well, is so limited. It’s so limited that I’m prepared to accept someone’s matchmaking, find a suitable man and slowly, slowly, warm up to him, and then, to enter marriage with without excitement, without wonder. But then, an accidental turn in my life welcomes in my other half.

— Oath of Love (餘生，請多指教) (Yes, this is the novel Gg’d upcoming drama is based on.)

Heteronormativity is, of course, very real in China. However, that hasn’t exempted Chinese women, even its large cis-het population, from having their freedom to pursue their true love taken away from them. Even for cis-het relationships, being able to marry for love has become a fantasy —a fantasy scorned by the state. Remember this quote from Article O3 in the original post?

耽��故事大多远离现实，有些年轻受众却将其与生活混为一谈，产生不以结婚和繁衍为目的才是真爱之类的偏颇认知。

Most Dangai stories are far removed from reality; some young audience nonetheless mix them up with real life, develop biased understanding such as “only love that doesn’t treat matrimony and reproduction as destinations is true love”.

I didn’t focus on it in the previous posts, in an effort to keep the discussion on topic. But why did the op-ed piece pick this as an example of fantasy-that-shouldn’t-be-mixed-up-with-real-life, in the middle of a discussion about perceived femininity of men that actually has little to do with matrimony and reproduction?

Because the whole point behind the state’s “leftover women” campaign is precisely to get women to treat matrimony and reproduction as destinations, not beautiful sceneries that happen along the way. And they’re the state’s destination as more children = higher birth rate that leads to higher future productivity. The article is therefore calling out Danmei for challenging this “mainstream value”.

Therefore, while the statement True love doesn’t treat matrimony and reproduction as destinations may be trite for many of us while it may be a point few, if any, English-speaking fandoms may pay attention to, to the mainstream culture Danmei lives in, to the mainstream values dictated by the state, it is borderline subversive.

As much as Danmei may appear “tame” for its emphasis on beauty and romance, for it to have stood for so long, so firmly against China’s (very) forceful mainstream culture, the genre is also fundamentally rebellious. Remember: Danmei has little hope of converging with China’s mainstream unless it “sells its soul” and removes its homoerotic elements.

With rebelliousness, too, comes a bit of tongue-in-cheek.

And so, when c-Danmei fans, most of whom being cishet women who interact with the genre by its traditional BL definition, call one of the leads 老婆 (wife), it can and often take on a different flavour. As said before, it can be less about feminizing the lead than about identifying with the lead. The nickname 老婆 (wife) can be less about being disrespectful and more about humorously expressing an aspiration—the aspiration to have a husband who truly loves them, who they do want to get married and have babies with but out of freedom and not obligation.

Admittedly, I had been confused, and bothered by these “can-be”s myself. Just because there are alternate reasons for the feminisation to happen doesn’t mean the feminisation itself is excusable. But why the feminisation of M/M leads doesn’t sound as awful to me in Chinese as in English? How can calling a self-identified man 老婆 (wife) get away with not sounding being predominantly disrespectful to my ears, when I would’ve frowned at the same thing said in my vicinity in English?

I had an old hypothesis: when I was little, it was common to hear people calling acquaintances in Chinese by their unflattering traits: “Deaf-Eared Chan” (Mr Chan, who’s deaf), “Fat Old Woman Lan” (Ah-Lan, who’s an overweight woman) etc—and the acquaintances were perfectly at ease with such identifications, even introducing themselves to strangers that way. Comparatively speaking then, 老婆 (wife) is harmless, even endearing.

老婆, which literally means “old old-lady” (implying wife = the woman one gets old with), first became popularised as a colloquial, casual way of calling “wife” in Hong Kong and its Cantonese dialect, despite the term itself being about 1,500 years old. As older generations of Chinese were usually very shy about talking about their love lives, those who couldn’t help themselves and regularly spoke of their 老婆 tended to be those who loved their wives in my memory. 老婆, as a term, probably became endearing to me that way.

Maybe this is why the feminisation of M/M leads didn’t sound so bad to me?

This hypothesis was inadequate, however. This custom of identifying people by their (unflattering) traits has been diminishing in Hong Kong and China, for similar reasons it has been considered inappropriate in the West.

Also, 老婆 (wife) is not the only term used for / associated with feminisation. I’ve tried to limit the discussion to Danmei, the fictional genre; now, I’ll jump to its associated RPS genre, and specifically, the YiZhan fandoms. The purpose of this jump: with real people involved, feminisation’s effect is potentially more harmful, more acute. Easier to feel.

YiZhan fans predominantly entered the fandoms through The Untamed, and they’ve also transferred Danmei’s “seme”/“uke” customs into YiZhan. There are, therefore, three c-YiZhan fandoms:

博君一肖 (BJYX): seme Dd, uke Gg 戰山為王 (ZSWW): seme Gg, uke Dd 連瑣反應 (LSFY): riba Gg and Dd. Riba = “reversible”, and unlike “seme” and “uke”, is a frequently-used term in the Japanese gay community.

BJYX is by far the largest of the three, likely due to Gg having played WWX, the “uke” in MDZS / TU. I’ll therefore focus on this fandom, ie. Gg is the “uke”, the “wife”.

For Gg alone, I’ve seen him being also referred to by YiZhan fans as (and this is far from a complete list):

* 姐姐 (sister) * 嫂子 (wife of elder brother; Dd being the elder brother implied) * 妃妃 (based on the very first YiZhan CP name, 太妃糖 Toffee Candy, a portmanteau of sorts from Dd being the 太子 “prince” of his management company and Gg being the prince’s wife, 太子妃. 糖 = “candy”. 太妃 sounds like toffee in English and has been used as the latter’s Chinese translation.) * 美人 (beauty, as in 肖美人 “Beauty Xiao”) * Daji 妲己 (as in 肖妲己, “Daji Xiao”).

The last one needs historical context, which will also become important for explaining the new hypothesis I have.

Daji was a consort who lived three thousand years ago, whose beauty was blamed for the fall of the Shang dynasty. Gg (and men sharing similar traits, who are exceptionally rare) has been compared to Daji 妲己 for his alternatively innocent, alternatively seductive beauty ~ the kind of beauty that, in Chinese historical texts and folk lores, lead to the fall of kingdoms when possessed by the king’s beloved woman. This kind of “I-get-to-ruin-her-virginity”, “she’s a slut in MY bedroom” beauty is, of course, a stereotypical fantasy for many (cis-het) men, which included the authors of these historical texts and folklores. However, it also contained some truth: the purity / innocence, the image of a virgin, was required for an ancient woman to be chosen as a consort; the seduction, meanwhile, helped her to become the top consort, and monopolise the attention of kings and emperors who often had hundreds of wives ~ wives who often put each other in danger to eliminate competition.

Nowadays, women of tremendous beauty are still referred to by the Chinese idiom 傾國傾城, literally, ”falling countries, falling cities”. The beauty is also implied to be natural, expressed in a can’t-help-itself way, perhaps reflecting the fact that the ancient beauties on which this idiom has been used couldn’t possibly have plastic surgeries, and most of them didn’t meet a good end ~ that they had to pay a price for their beauty, and often, with their lowly status as women, as consorts, they didn’t get to choose whether they wanted to pay this price or not. This adjective is considered to be very flattering. Gg’s famous smile from the Thailand Fanmeet has been described, praised as 傾城一笑: “a smile that topples a city”.

I’m explaining Daji and 傾國傾城 because the Chinese idiom 博君一笑 “doing anything to get a smile from you”, from which the ship’s name BJYX 博君一肖 was derived (笑 and 肖 are both pronounced “xiao”), is connected to yet another of such dynasty-falling beauty, Bao Si 褒姒. Like Daji before her, Bao Si was blamed for the end of the Zhou Dynasty in 771 BC.

The legend went like this: Bao Si was melancholic, and to get her to smile, her king lit warning beacons and got his nobles to rush in from the nearby vassal states with their armies to come and rescue him, despite not being in actual danger. The nobles, in their haste, looked so frantic and dishevelled that Bao Si found it funny and smiled. Longing to see more of the smile of his favourite woman, the king would fool his nobles again and again, until his nobles no longer heeded the warning beacons when an actual rebellion came.

What the king did has been described as 博紅顏一笑, with 紅顏 (”red/flushed face”) meaning a beautiful woman, referring to Bao Si. Replace 紅顏 with the respectful “you”, 君, we get 博君一笑. If one searches the origin of the phrase 博 [fill_in_the_blank]一笑 online, Bao Si’s story shows up.

The “anything” in ”doing anything to get a smile from you” in 博君一笑, therefore, is not any favour, but something as momentous as giving away one’s own kingdom. c-turtles have remarked, to their amusement and admittedly mine, that “king”, in Chinese, is written as 王, which is Dd’s surname, and very occasionally, they jokingly compare him to the hopeless kings who’d give away everything for their love. Much like 傾國傾城 has become a flattering idiom despite the negative reputations of Daji and Bao Si for their “men-ruining ways”, 博君一笑 has become a flattering phrase, emphasising on the devotion and love rather than the ... stupidity behind the smile-inducing acts.

(Bao Si’s story, BTW, was a lie made up by historians who also lived later but also thousands of years ago, to absolve the uselessness of the king. Warning beacons didn’t exist at her time.)

Gg is arguably feminized even in his CP’s name. Gg’s feminisation is everywhere.

And here comes my confession time ~ I’ve been amused by most of the feminisation terms above. 肖妲己 (”Daji Xiao”) captures my imagination, and I remain quite partial to the CP name BJYX. Somehow, there’s something ... somewhat forgivable when the feminisation is based on Gg’s beauty, especially in the context of the historical Danmei / Dangai setting of MDZS/TU ~ something that, while doesn’t cancel, dampens the “problematic-ness” of the gender mis-identification.

What, exactly, is this something?

Here’s my new hypothesis, and hopefully I’ll manage to explain it well ~

The hypothesis is this: the unisex beauty standard for historical Chinese men and women, which is also breathtakingly similar to the modern beauty standard for Chinese women, makes feminisation in the context of Danmei (especially historical Danmei) flattering, and easier to accept.

What defined beauty in historical Chinese men? If I am to create a classically beautiful Chinese man for my new historical Danmei, how would I describe him based on what I’ve read, my cultural knowledge?

Here’s a list:

* Skin fair and smooth as white jade * Thin, even frail; narrow/slanted shoulders; tall * Dark irises and bright, starry eyes * Not too dense, neat eyebrows that are shaped like swords ~ pointed slightly upwards from the center towards the sides of the face * Depending on the dynasty, nice makeup.

Imagine these traits. How “macho” are they? How much do they fit the ideal Chinese masculine beauty advertised by Chinese government, which looks like below?

Propaganda poster, 1969. The caption says “Defeat Imperialist US! Defeat Social Imperialism!” The book’s name is “Quotations from Mao Zedong”. (Source)

Where did that list of traits I’ve written com from? Fair like jade, frail ... why are they so far from the ... “macho”ness of the men in the poster?

What has Chinese history said about its beautiful men?

Wei Jie (衛玠 286-312 BCE), one of the four most beautiful ancient Chinese men (古代四大美男) recorded in Chinese history famously passed away when fans of his beauty gathered and formed a wall around him, blocking his way. History recorded Wei as being frail with chronic illness, and was only 27 years old when he died. Arguably the first historical account of “crazy fans killing their idol”, this incident left the idiom 看殺衛玠 ~ “Wei Jie being watched to death.” ~ a not very “macho” way to die at all.

潘安 (Pan An; 247-300 BCE), another one of the four most beautiful ancient Chinese men, also had hoards of fangirls, who threw fruits and flowers at him whenever he ventured outside. The Chinese idiom 擲果盈車 “thrown fruit filling a cart” was based on Pan and ... his fandom, and denotes such scenarios of men being so beautiful that women openly displayed their affections for them.

Meanwhile, when Pan went out with his equally beautiful male friend, 夏侯湛 Xiahou Zhan, folks around them called them 連璧 ~ two connected pieces of perfect jade. Chinese Jade is white, smooth, faintly glowing in light, so delicate that it gives the impression of being somewhat transparent.

Aren’t Wei Jie and Pan An reminiscent of modern day Chinese idols, the “effeminate” “Little Fresh Meat”s (小鲜肉) so panned by Article O3? Their stories, BTW, also elucidated the historical reference in LWJ’s description of being jade-like in MDZS, and in WWX and LWJ being thrown pippas along the Gusu river bank.

Danmei, therefore, didn’t create a trend of androgynous beauty in men as much as it has borrowed the ancient, traditional definition of masculine Chinese beauty ~ the beauty that was more feminine than masculine by modern standards.

[Perhaps, CPs should be renamed 連璧 (”two connected pieces of perfect jade”) as a reminder of the aesthetics’ historical roots.]

Someone may exclaim now: But. But!! Yet another one of the four most beautiful ancient Chinese men, 高長恭 (Gao Changgong, 541-573 BCE), far better known by his title, 蘭陵王 (”the Prince of Lanling”), was a famous general. He had to be “macho”, right?

... As it turns out, not at all. Historical texts have described Gao as “貌柔心壮，音容兼美” (”soft in looks and strong at heart, beautiful face and voice”), “白美類婦人” (”fair and beautiful as a woman”), “貌若婦人” (”face like a woman”). Legends have it that The Prince of Lanling’s beauty was so soft, so lacking in authority that he had to wear a savage mask to get his soldiers to listen to his command (and win) on the battlefield (《樂府雜錄》: 以其顏貌無威，每入陣即著面具，後乃百戰百勝).

This should be emphasised: Gao’s explicitly feminine descriptions were recorded in historical texts as arguments *for* his beauty. Authors of these texts, therefore, didn’t view the feminisation as insult. In fact, they used the feminisation to drive the point home, to convince their readers that men like the Prince of Lanling were truly, absolutely good looking.

Being beautiful like a women was therefore high praise for men in, at least, significant periods in Chinese history ~ periods long and important enough for these records to survive until today. Beauty, and so it goes, had once been largely free of distinctions between the masculine and feminine.

One more example of an image of an ancient Chinese male beauty being similar to its female counterpart, because the history nerd in me finds this fun.

何晏 (He Yan, ?-249 BCE) lived in the Wei Jin era (between 2nd to 4th century), during which makeup was really en vogue. Known for his beauty, he was also famous for his love of grooming himself. The emperor, convinced that He Yan’s very fair skin was from the powder he was wearing, gave He Yan some very hot foods to eat in the middle of the summer. He Yan began to sweat, had to wipe himself with his sleeves and in the process, revealed to the emperor that his fair beauty was 100% natural ~ his skin glowed even more with the cosmetics removed (《世說新語·容止第十四》: 何平叔美姿儀，面至白。魏明帝疑其傅粉，正夏月，與熱湯餅。既啖，大汗出，以朱衣自拭，色轉皎然). His kick-cosmetics’-ass fairness won him the nickname 傅粉何郎 (”powder-wearing Mr He”).

Not only would He Yan very likely be mistaken as a woman if this scene is transferred to a modern setting, but this scene can very well fit inside a Danmei story of the 21st century and is very, very likely to get axed by the Chinese censorship board for its visualisation.

[Important observation from this anecdote: the emperor was totally into this trend too.]

The adjectives and phrases used above to describe these beautiful ancient Chinese men ~ 貌柔, 音容兼美, 白美, 美姿儀, 皎然 ~ have all become pretty much reserved for describing beauty in women nowadays. Beauty standards in ancient China were, as mentioned before, had gone through significantly long periods in which they were largely genderless. The character for beauty 美 (also in Danmei, 耽美) used to have little to no gender association. Free of gender associations as well were the names of many flowers. The characters for orchid (蘭) and lotus (蓮), for example, were commonly found in men’s names as late as the Republican era (early 20th century), but are now almost exclusively found in women’s names. Both orchid and lotus have historically been used to indicate 君子 (junzi, roughly, “gentlemen”), which have always been men. MDZS also has an example of a man named after a flower: Jin Ling’s courtesy name, given to him by WWX, was 如蘭 (”like an orchid”).

A related question may be this: why does ancient China associate beauty with fairness, with softness, with frailty? Likely, because Confucianist philosophy and customs put a heavy emphasis on scholarship ~ and scholars have mostly consisted of soft-spoken, not muscular, not working-under-the-sun type of men. More importantly, Confucianist scholars also occupied powerful government positions. Being, and looking like a Confucianist scholar was therefore associated with status. Indeed, it’s very difficult to look like jade when one was a farmer or a soldier, for example, who constantly had to toil under the sun, whose skin was constantly being dried and roughened by the elements. Having what are viewed as “macho” beauty traits as in the poster above ~ tanned skin, bulging muscles, bony structures (which also take away the jade’s smoothness) ~ were associated with hard labour, poverty and famine.

Along that line, 手無縛雞之力 (“hands without the strength to restrain a chicken”) has long been a phrase used to describe ancient scholars and students, and without scorn or derision. Love stories of old, which often centred around scholars were, accordingly, largely devoid of the plot lines of husbands physically protecting the wives, performing the equivalent of climbing up castle walls and fighting dragons etc. Instead, the faithful husbands wrote poems, combed their wife’s hair, traced their wife’s eyebrows with cosmetics (畫眉)...all activities that didn’t require much physical strength, and many of which are considered “feminine” nowadays.

Were there periods in Chinese history in which more ... sporty men and women were appreciated? Yes. the Tang dynasty, for example, and the Yuan and Qing dynasties. The Tang dynasty, as a very powerful, very open era in Chinese history, was known for its relations to the West (via the Silk Road). The Yuan and Qing dynasties, meanwhile, were established by Mongolians and Manchus respectively, who, as non-Han people, had not been under the influence of Confucian culture and grew up on horsebacks, rather than in schools.

The idea that beautiful Chinese men should have “macho” attributes was, therefore, largely a consequence of non-Han-Chinese influence, especially after early 20th century. That was when the characters for beauty (美), orchid (蘭), lotus (蓮) etc began their ... feminisation. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which started its reign of the country starting 1949, also has foreign roots, being a derivative of the Soviets, and its portrayal of ideal men has been based on the party’s ideology, painting them as members of the People’s Liberation Army (Chinese army) and its two major proletariat classes, farmers and industrial workers ~ all occupations that are “macho” in their aesthetics, but held at very poor esteem in ancient Chinese societies. All occupations that, to this day, may be hailed as noble by Chinese women, but not really deemed attractive by them.

Beauty, being an instinct, is perhaps much more resistant to propaganda.

If anything, the three terms Article O3 used to describe “effeminate” men ~ 奶油小生 “cream young men” (popularised in 1980s) , 花美男 “flowery beautiful men” (early 2000s), 小鲜肉 “little fresh meat” (coined in 2014 and still popular now) ~ only informs me how incredibly consistent the modern Chinese women’s view of ideal male beauty has been. It’s the same beauty the Chinese Communist Party has called feminine. It’s the same beauty found in Danmei. It’s the same beauty that, when witnessed in men in ancient China, was so revered that historians recorded it for their descendants to remember. It doesn’t mean there aren’t any women who appreciate the "macho” type ~ it’s just that, the appreciation for the non-macho type has never really gone out of fashion, never really changed. The only thing that is really changing is the name of the type, the name’s positive or negative connotations.

(Personally, I’m far more uncomfortable with the name “Little fresh meat” (小鲜肉) than 老婆 (wife). I find it much more insulting.)

Anyway, what I’d like to say is this: feminisation in Danmei ~ a genre that, by definition, is hyper-focused on aesthetics ~ may not be as "problematic” in Chinese as it is in English, because the Chinese tradition didn’t make that much of a differentiation between masculine and feminine beauty. Once again, this isn’t to say such mis-gendering isn’t disrespectful; it’s just that, perhaps, it is less disrespectful because Chinese still retains a cultural memory in which equating a beautiful man to a beautiful woman was the utmost flattery.

I must put a disclaimer here: I cannot vouch for this being true for the general Chinese population. This is something that is buried deep enough inside me that it took a lot of thought for me to tease out, to articulate. More importantly, while I grow up in a Chinese-speaking environment, I’ve never lived inside China. My history knowledge, while isn’t shabby, hasn’t been filtered through the state education system.

I’d also like to point out as well, along this line of thought, that in *certain* (definitely not all) aspects, Chinese society isn’t as sexist as the West. While historically, China has periods of extreme sexism against women, with the final dynasties of Ming and Qing being examples, I must (reluctantly) acknowledge Chairman Mao for significantly lifting the status of women during his rule. Here’s a famous quote of his from 1955:

婦女能頂半邊天 Women can lift half the skies

The first marriage code, passed in 1950, outlawed forced marriages, polygamy, and ensured equal rights between husband and wife. For the first time in centuries, women were encouraged to go outside of their homes and work. Men resisted at first, wanting to keep their wives at home; women who did work were judged poorly for their performance and given less than 50% of men’s wage, which further fuelled the men’s resistance. Mao said the above quote after a commune in Guizhou introduced the “same-work-same-wage” system to increase its productivity, and he asked for the same system to to be replicated across the country. (Source)

When Chairman Mao wanted something, it happened. Today, Chinese women’s contribution to the country’s GDP remains among the highest in the world. They make up more than half of the country’s top-scoring students. They’re the dominant gender in universities, in the ranks of local employees of international corporations in the Shanghai and Beijing central business districts—among the most sought after jobs in the country. While the inequality between men and women in the workplace is no where near wiped out — stories about women having to sleep with higher-ups to climb the career ladder, or even get their PhDs are not unheard of, and the central rulership of the Chinese Communist Party has been famously short of women — the leap in women’s rights has been significant over the past century, perhaps because of how little rights there had been before ~ at the start of the 20th century, most Chinese women from relatively well-to-do families still practised foot-binding, in which their feet were literally crushed during childhood in the name of beauty, of status symbol. They couldn’t even walk properly.

Perhaps, the contemporary Chinese women’s economic contribution makes the sexism they encounter in their lives, from the lack of reproductive rights to the “leftover women” label, even harder to swallow. It makes their fantasies fly to even higher, more defiant heights. The popularity of Dangai right now is pretty much driven by women, as acknowledged by Article O3. Young women, especially, female fans who people have dismissed as “immature”, “crazy”, are responsible for the threat the Chinese government is feeling now by the genre.

This is no small feat. While the Chinese government complains about the “effeminate” men from Danmei / Dangai, its propaganda has been heavily reliant on stars who have risen to popularity to these genres. The film Dd is currently shooting, Chinese Peacekeeping Force (維和部隊), also stars Huang Jingyu (黄景瑜), and Zhang Zhehan (張哲瀚) ~ the three actors having shot to fame from The Untamed (Dangai), Addicted (Danmei), and Word of Honour (Dangai) respectively. Zhang, in particular, played the “uke” role in Word of Honour and has also been called 老婆 (wife) by his fans. The quote in Article O3, “Ten years as a tough man known by none; one day as a beauty known by all” was also implicitly referring to him.

Perhaps, the government will eventually realise that millennia-old standards of beauty are difficult to bend, and by extension, what is considered appropriate gender expression of Chinese men and women.

In the metas I’ve posted, therefore, I’ve hesitated in using terms such as homophobia, sexism, and ageism etc, opting instead to make long-winded explanations that essentially amount to these terms (thank you everyone who’s reading for your patience!). Because while the consequence is similar—certain fraction of the populations are subjected to systemic discrimination, abuse, given less rights, treated as inferior etc—these words, in English, also come with their own context, their own assumptions that may not apply to the situation. It reminds me of what Leo Tolstoy wrote in Anna Karenina,

“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

Discrimination in each country, each culture is humiliating, unhappy in its own way. Both sexism and homophobia are rampant in China, but as their roots are different from those of the West, the ways they manifest are different, and so must the paths to their dissolution. I’ve also hesitated on calling out individual behaviours or confronting individuals for this reason. i-Danmei fandoms are where i-fans and c-fans meet, where English-speaking doesn’t guarantee a non-Chinese sociopolitical background (there may be students from China, for example; I’m also ... not entirely Western), and I find it difficult to articulate appropriate, convincing arguments without knowing individual backgrounds.

Frankly, I’m not sure if I’ve done the right thing. Because I do hope feminisation will soon fade into extinction, especially in i-Danmei fandoms that, if they continue to prosper on international platforms, may eventually split from c-Danmei fandoms along the cultural (not language) line due to the vast differences in environmental constraints. My hope is especially true when real people are involved, and c-fandoms, I’d like to note, are not unaware of the issues surrounding feminisation ~ it has already been explicitly forbidden in BJYX’s supertopic on Weibo.

At the same time, I’ve spent so many words above to try to explain why beauty can *sometimes* lurk behind such feminisations. Please allow me to end this post with one example of feminisation that I deeply dislike—and I’ve seen it used by fans on Gg as well—is 綠茶 (”green tea”), from 綠茶婊 (”green tea whore”) that means women who look pure / innocent but are, deep down, promiscuous / lustful. In some ways, its meaning isn’t so different from Daji 妲己, the consort blamed for the fall of the Shang dynasty. However, to me at least, the flattery in the feminisation is gone, perhaps because of the character “whore” (婊), because the term originated in 2013 from a notorious sex party rather than from a legendary beauty so maligned that The Investiture of the Gods (封神演義), the seminal Chinese fiction written ~2,600 years after Daji’s death, re-imagined her as a malevolent fox spirit (狐狸精) that many still remembers her as today.

Ah, to be caught between two cultures. :)

#tell-me-everything #pie metas #yizhan #bjyx

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semi-imaginary-place · 4 years ago

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I went on my yearly kubera binge over the last couple days reading approximately chapters 3-100 to 3-178, so here’s some thoughts.

Is still can’t tell what Currygom is doing by portraying so many unhealthy relationships. Is it criticism by showing all the angst they cause? Is is fetishism and indulgence? Does she think they’re neat??

Agwen and Kasak’s relationship is so broken oh wow. A big part of the problem is that Kasak never explains things and like you know... communicates. He just leaves things unsaid and implied but implied in front of everyone except Agwen.

Agni and Brilith love each other, but love isn’t enough for a relationship, you also need things like mutual goodwill, trust, regular effort, and communications. The two of them might love each other but they are missing some of the other fundamental aspects of a working relationship. Agni didn’t believe Brilith when she truthfully said that Ran attacked her. This shows the lack of trust they have for each other but also one of Agni’s biggest character flaws, that he always thinks he’s right. Agni is decently intelligent and has good judgement. He also trust absolutely in the truth of his insight. And Chandra notes of this, that while his insight is usually right, it isn’t always right. And the same goes for his judgements, he’s usually right but that isn’t the same thing as always being right. But Agni always puts his evaluation of the situation above that of anyone else’s.

Speaking of character flaws, one that Maruna has repeatedly demonstrated is how he underestimates his opponents or perhaps it is better to say he always believes he can win. Instances that I can think of off the top of my head are his various fight with Ran first in the Kubera illusion tunnel thing on Konchez, Ran again while they’re on they’re time traveling adventure, the first meeting with Asha in the timeless space, and his recent fight with Raltara.

I’m happy that we are getting a Maruna focused arc now haha awww the chicken is finally learning empathy. His denial is so funny like when he thinks of Ran. Given how he hadn’t figured out how to return to human form in the current N23 time, my guess is that he doesn’t reach 5th stage until the very end of this little adventure. And given how Agni could still use insight on him, he must not have taken the slow way to get back to the current time (ie. wait ?? billions of years). I’m still not used to his 5th stage human form, the round ears keep throwing me off.

Ok I also got to say that garuda clan 5th stage sura forms are just my aesthetic. where its like mostly human but some parts aren’t, and there’s a mask with long flowing hair and wings?? YES.

I’m not so fond of some of the side stories, there’s too much of like oh yeah and these people totally had romantic feelings. boo romance, give me more universe wide chess games. I will admit finding out that having a catgirl fetish is hereditary was pretty funny. those sexy sexy cat yaksha ears...

I think I finally understand the Teo-Menaka situation. (also that Gandharva’s original and truest form is a baby makes so much sense given how he acts like a baby). Baby Gandharva took the name “Gandharva” from Menaka who was suppose to have it and Menaka risked herself to save him. Menaka then made a deal with Kali to take on Gandharva’s sins and when she died Kali took her soul and made it into Taraka to act as a mother to Yuta. Teo and Taraka are killed at similar times and original Teo soul is used to form a new Taraka free of their role as mother. When Teo is revived, it is with Menaka’s soul. And thus they live like this for 7 years. Until again new Taraka and new Teo are again killed at about the same time. Menaka’s soul then takes on the sins accrued by Teo’s original soul while living as Taraka and is eliminated by Gandharva. oh and Leny has original Airavata’s soul and Chandra planned to get her killed using the knowledge he gained from his insight of what current Airavata-Kinnara told Leny. And Ann has Saha’s soul.

The universe in Kubera is highly ordered and structured and I think its enforced morality systems are flat out wrong. Various things a being does during its life can incur “sin” and at death a human may be punished in hell, go to paradise, or reenter the reincarnation cycle. It is a sin to kill a human, but not a sin to kill a sura despite both being living sentient and sapient beings. And at the beginning of the universe, It was only sura, whose souls would not return after death with ancient humans being reincarnated and gods reforming after a while. For that matter, sura were designed to lose from the start. A species that only gets weaker each generation and to whom death is final, the system was design against them from the start.

The series is honestly really cishet-normative. There as a couple being with nonbinary sexes/genders like Pingara and Hura, but the fact that nastika who can all change their sex at will all identify as either male or female in gender binary brainrot. And then to these being with fluid existences, they only form romantic relationships when one partner’s sex is male and the other’s is female???? and its considered highly deviant if both are in male form???? bullshit. (this is from the old version of the Finite when people comment on Vasuki living together with Taksaka before Vasuki took on female form to avoid succession of the Anata clan). Oh and then male forms are on average stronger than female forms? Why would you hardcode in misogyny into your universe???? ... So Currygom’s a conservative... truly a shame.

god Kubera’s lance can steal names as Kinara used it to steal original Airavata’s name. Kubera then used it to take Ananta’s name, but he could not hold two names and the name “Kubera” shattered and its power split between all the various humans named Kubera. The name “Ananta” somehow got attached to “Kubera” and so shattered with it, leaving the god kinda nameless. Sagara and Asha as well as others then worked on gathering the fragments of “Kubera”/”Ananta”

I really like Laila... when she finally stabbed Chandra I was cheering.

And shess was totally going to kidnap one of Ran’s kids to exchange for Leny.

From what Currygom has shown so far, Personality is determined by the interplay of soul of memories/experiences. When Teo’s soul changed her personality also changed, not a lot but with Menaka’s soul she was more of a worrier, trying very hard to excel at everything from swordplay to managing the city, while with Teo’s original soul back she’s a bit more laidback. Siera’s soul did not change but his knowledge of the universe radically did in a short period of time and with it his world view and this drastically changed his personality. This is just my speculation here but perhaps each soul determines the the possibilities for personality and experience determines which one it will be?

Ran is becoming closer to a sura. We do not know how long Ran spent in the white space with Maruna not that time has any meaning there but with their short lives, it certainly wasn’t something a human was designed to experience and we can see this in the difference in how Maruna and Ran deal with the experience. Yet, experiencing that and living through it, Ran approximated what life is like for a sura. We can see the results of his experience journeying through time in him attacking Brilith. Ran by then has gained more... oneness with his sura powers and his personality has changed. But because modern human bodies are not suited for holding large amounts of experiences, the sudden injection of many experiences destabilizes the person and we see this with both Brilith and Ran. A lot of the confusion and sudden shifts in demeanor is probably from this. Him lying about using the eye of punishment was probably his mind trying to reconcile what pre-time travel Ran knew about the Eye and the fact that Maruna is now 5th stage

#kubera #kubera one last god #one last god kubera #webtoon

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thoughtofprincesslenna · 4 years ago

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My Thought About Gender Equality

Let's talk about gender equality. Honestly, how do you define gender equality? When I view the world, I think most people think gender equality means women can also do what men do, and vice versa. In ancient times, men went hunting for food and women stayed at home to cook and doing house chores. That is perceived as human nature. Unfortunately, problem arises when women are getting suppressed and men treat women haphazardly. Women are not allowed to get education, they got domestics violence, as if their job is just to please a man's desire. Well, I was born in 1986,, so I just learned it from books and television. In reality, women in my neighborhood are mostly educated, have a job, and they raise their children wonderfully. But I can understand women's situation all over the world are not the same. As time goes by, there are many women in the world who are still suppressed and treated poorly. In the other hand, there are also women who treat men poorly, as if men just the bank of family. I thought, why is this happening? Is this where gender equality lead us to? I don't think so. In the West, the concept of equality means women can do men's job and vice versa. So, in marriage, women can be a breadwinner, and men can stay at home caring for children. Correct me if I am wrong, but that is what I got from this concept. I am a Balinese woman. So, expect me as a conservative woman. To be honest, I still feel strange with this concept. However, I am not 100% against the concept of equality from West. That concept has led women to be educated, independent and intelligent. In my opinion, that is very crucial. However, this also leads to another problem. The nature of men and women becomes blurry. Women suddenly lose her true natures and so do men. Let me explain why. Unlike in West, in Bali (where I come from), women are respected for carrying feminine traits, for being feminine. Biologically speaking, it is a woman's nature to have menstruation and giving birth to a child. Here is where people are misunderstood! A child cannot just be born! He/she needs care, foods, and nurturing. So, outside of biologically function, it is a woman's nature too to feed and nurture her/him with love. That is why in Hinduism, the aspect of food and nourishment are symbolized and venerated as Goddess of Annapurna. Meanwhile, the aspect of nurturing and wealth are venerated as Goddess of Laxmi or we call it Goddess of Sri in Bali. And for the aspect of education, we have Goddess of Sarasvati. The Goddess of Knowledge. Those symbols indicate that it is a woman's nature to cook, to nurture, and educate mankind. So, what about men? What is men's nature? Men's nature are to give life, a provider, and a leader in family. A man has responsibility to protect, inherit good teachings, and changing bad thought and habit in the family. That is a job of a leader, isn't it? Again, in Hinduism, the aspect of protector is venerated as God of Vishnu, the aspect of creation or inheriting good teaching is venerated as God of Brahman. and the aspect of destroying and changing bad habit in the family is venerated as God of Shiva. So, it is a man's nature to provide for his family, to protect women and children, and create a conducive atmosphere in the world. The world's reality now is totally different and changing. In the name of equality, many women neglecting her natures in family. Many of them are just fine not to able to cook, to spend money carelessly, and raise their children poorly! Meanwhile, a man who should be the first to protect woman and children becomes the suppressor of the family! Many of them do domestics violence, lazy to get a job, and think that women are the slave of family. It is completely messed up! So, in my opinion, the nature of feminine and masculine in family should be returned to their true function. I mean, men and women should be educated to respect their true nature. I know, some people think it is outdated and irrelevant. But it is actually not. We are created differently and we are suppose to respect and honor each other's nature. But how? Well, we can start by giving our children comprehension that as human being, we are created differently so we have different nature, and therefore we have different roles. None of these role are higher or lower from one another. They are equal. Just because a woman cook, doing house chores, and taking care of children, it does not mean their role is lower than man's. It does not give men any rights to insult, hurt, and suppress them. I am against any domestics violence, insult and disrespectful deeds to women. Meanwhile, just because a man is breadwinner, it does not give women any rights to feel they are less than men. It does not give a woman right to be a gold digger, and become a man's freak control. By giving this comprehension to a child, I think they can understand their role without disrespecting each other. As human being, in this world we liven in now, it is very important for us to be financially independent, to be able to cook and doing house chores, and to be able to defend ourselves. However, we need to understand, a man is born to provide, protect and lead, therefore he needs woman to sustain this role. Women is men's Shakti (power). Well, to be honest with you, I am not a crazy religious person. But, for all I know in Hinduism, it is said in Manava Dharmasastra that whenever women are honored and respected, there God will be pleased. Whenever women are disrespected, any sacred ceremony are meaningless. Now, how do you gentlemen respect women? In my humble opinion, you can start by talking honestly and politely to woman. I personally will be very honored when a man talking to me with a well - manner and honesty. It means that he respects me as a feminine manifestation. Then, if you have a son, please indoctrinate him that abusive manner and deeds to women and children is completely unacceptable, and they must get hard consequences if they do so. They are created with more strength and logic to protect, not to abuse. Therefore, a man should be taught what to fight for, and what to protect. Last thing, Gentlemen. You are the provider, and also head of family. So, as a leader, lead your family into loving and supportive circumstances, including the circumstances where a woman is respected for cooking and doing house chores for you. For ladies out there, how do you respect men? For me, you do it by appreciating every good thing he does for you. Most men put their best effort to please you, so be appreciative. Even if there is something that you do not like, say it honestly with good manner. Secondly, in family, always understand his decision as the leader in the family. Do not feel you are a slave when you cook for family, doing house chores, and babysitting your children. You are never be a slave by doing all that. You have placed yourself as the heart of family when you manage to do all that. You have given a man something to respect. Last thing you have to know, Ladies. You are born as a sustainer of life. There are times when your husband lost in life, or may be in his career. It is your job to always stay by his side all the time. Be the power and strength that he needs to posses. So, it is against your nature and your dignity if you leave your man when he has difficult times. May be you think, "Wait! If the men and women's roles are so distinct, does it mean a man cannot cook and educate for his children? Does it mean a woman cannot have a job? Does it mean women cannot defend herself when a man harass or abuse her?". The answer to all that questions is, "Of course they can!". For the shake of survival, a man also should be taught to cook and doing house chores. But, when he has family, it is not obligatory for him to do that, it is his wife's obligation. However, a man must help his mother or wife to do house chores and babysitting when he sees them overwhelmed. A woman can also have a job, be financially independent, and highly educated. But remember, in the family, it is a woman's job to serve her husband and children. No matter how highly paid and educated a woman is, her nature to nourish and nurture should come first. The purpose of woman having a job in the family is to help his man as a provider. We live in world where economy situation is difficult. Therefore, women need to step out and financially independent. Now, what if a man becomes disrespectful and abusive to women? This is where you woman must be able to defend yourself. So, for the shake of survival, you can learn self defense. But when you have a husband and a father, it is his job and nature to protect you from insult and harassments. Well, it is my thought about gender equality. Men and women are equal even though they have different role in life. Messing up the role of masculine and feminine will lead nothing good in life. It sounds naïve and conservative, but it is how nature and life works. It is all about balance, right?

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ffamranxii · 5 years ago

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Okay folks, I am all caught up with Tokyo Mew Mew Au Lait chapters 1-3 and Tokyo Mew Mew 2020 Re-Turn chapters 1 and 2 so I am Doing A Thing! Buckle up, bitches!

MASSIVE SPOILERS IF YOU’RE WAITING FOR THE OFFICIAL ENGLISH RELEASES (whenever the hell those will be). Thanks to @berrychanx, @hikayagami, and @ribbonstrawberrysurprise for the scans, English translation, and hard work putting the translation onto the manga so neatly.

LEADERS

MOMOMIYA ICHIGO AND SHIBUYA AOI

Honestly this is the biggest difference between the 2020 Re-Turn reboot/original series and the magical boy tribute. Aoi is in no way like Ichigo once you get past that they’ve both been injected with Iriomote cat DNA. Whereas Ichigo is cheery and bubbly and cute, Aoi is withdrawn, suffers from low self confidence, and sort of breaks the fourth wall during nearly every fight, freaking out at how catchphrases and such just seem to burst forth from him after he transforms. (It’s honestly a funny highlight.) Their respective crushes are also treated differently, with Aoi falling hard for Anzu (though of course saying nothing) almost immediately, almost a love at first sight sort of deal, and Ichigo already having this crush on this boy when we start vanilla TMM and already deeply committed to him in the reboot. In civilian form, (using vanilla Ichigo here, it’s not fair to compare Aoi to 2020 “been a magical girl for years” Ichigo), Aoi is a lot more unsure of himself, and seems almost to be in this Mew Mew thing for Anzu, whereas Ichigo immediately had a “I’ll do my best” acceptance mindset from the start. (Both freak out over their cat ears appearing at random moments, even Ichigo in the 2020 reboot, and I think I can finally give poor Aoi a point over Ichigo here. It makes him uncomfortable but he just wears a hoodie and hopes no one notices. It makes Ichigo freak out more lol.)

THE LOVE INTEREST / DUNGEON NAVI / SECONDARY PROTAGONIST

AOYAMA MASAYA, HINATA ANZU, SHIROGANE RYOU

Anzu is a precious peach and she occupies such a weird role here that I almost couldn’t make her a neat little graphic. She doesn’t fit neatly into a “oh, they’re a genderbent so and so” like nearly everyone else, and it’s fascinating. On the one hand, several panels in the first chapter of Au Lait make it clear that the writers are setting her up to be Aoi’s love interest. Every magical girl anime has a love interest, so why wouldn’t a magical boy manga? But that’s where she diverges. Unlike Masaya, who is a very clear tribute to Sailor Moon’s Tuxedo Mask (with the exception that he’s a cute bean as a civilian, he’s nearly the same person. No past, gets kidnapped, magical form to protect the magical girl, evil form to fight the magical girl [this happened in PGSM, and he’s been brainwashed several times]), who has always been a secondary character, Anzu actually starts the Au Lait manga. She wasn’t even featured on the promo images, so when I opened the first chapter in a zip file I thought I’d downloaded the wrong one. My rudimentary Japanese confirmed I hadn’t, but I was like “well who tf is this chick?” I waited for an English translation to be sure and yup - Anzu is being treated almost like a secondary protagonist. Well that’s new. It’s as if the Au Lait writers smashed together the characters of Ryou and Masaya and named their love child Hinata Anzu. She’s intelligent, she knows more about this project than she should, and, like Ryou in vanilla, she’s out and about and helping the boys, not just as a civilian, but in every battle. She doesn’t have powers (that we know of), but her smarts and knowledge of animals have served them well time and again. Au Lait seems more like, as one reader put it, Anzu And The Dork Squad than Aoi’s team.

Masaya in 2020 Re-Turn is adorable. He is at odds with Quiche over Ichigo (or more like, he dislikes just how much Quiche likes Ichigo), and in a moment of panic he uses his leftover remnants of Deep Blue’s power to... change his clothes. I’m not sure what actually happened there. (Note: Thanks ribbonstrawberrysurprise: Deep Blue manifested to float the chimera anima/train and its passengers to safety.) But I love that he was so concerned for Ichigo, who at that moment desperately needed help, that the being who created his body and didn’t like Ichigo wanted to protect her. Ryou was his standoffish self, but even he seemed to have a hint of a lingering crush. He organized a party for the Mews and then took over in cafe duties so Ichigo could meet her man at the airport, unable to quiiiiite meet her eye while saying so. I always did like Ryou/Ichigo.

THE SASSY RICH BITCH

AIZAWA MINTO AND YOYOGI SHIZUKA

First of all: SAILOR JUPITER TAUGHT ME THAT PINK EQUALS FLOWER HURRICANES AND CAN I JUST SAY THAT I AM DISAPPOINTED AS FUCK THAT SHIZUKA ISN’T PLANT BASED AND CAN’T DO FLOWER HURRICANES THAT IS ALL.

Admit it. When we saw the promo image, we assumed certain things. One of those things turned out to be true: Aoi would be the Iriomote cat, because of course he would be Ichigo’s counterpart. Shizuka is wearing glasses, and his costume had the little tail, which meant he must have been a fish or a marine mammal and therefore Retasu’s counterpart, right? RIGHT. But also very, very wrong, my friends. Shizuka is indeed water based like Retasu - he’s an Amazon river dolphin (the pink ones!) - and that’s where all his similarities to our gentle green girl end. Instead of making everyone exactly the same but gender flipped, Au Lait is going in a slightly different direction, and I really like it. Shizuka is actually the most similar to our resident princess Minto! They both attend prestigious elite schools and generally act better than everyone else, but the real gem here is their interactions with their leaders. Shizuka has some truly snappy one-liners - such as discovering Ryuusei (”that’s the power of an idiot”) - and his reactions to Aoi are gold. He considers himself a genius, and indeed he’s very intelligent according to Natsume (and his school seems to be for smart people, it’s not prestigious for music or anything like that), and he makes little quips at Aoi all the time about how Aoi isn’t. I could totally see him spending an entire shift reading a book at Cafe Mew Mew while Aoi does all the work, only for him to stand up and someone to scream “HOLY CRAP, SHIZUKA’S UP, SHIT’S ABOUT TO GO DOWN.”

Minto is also full of snappy quips at Ichigo in the reboot, mostly about how Ichigo should handle the biggest, strongest enemies since she’s the leader, and can’t Ichigo even keep them in place so Minto can shoot them down? (And yeah, someone totally said the above comment ^ when Minto stood up at Cafe Mew Mew.) Minto was always one of my favorite characters, and I love that we saw a lot of close ups of her in the reboot, and that she seemed to be second in command.

THE CHILD

FONG PURIN AND KANDA RYUUSEI

Oh my god these two. I refuse to believe they aren’t related. I know Purin is Chinese but you cannot take this headcanon from me.

Purin is my favorite character in OG Mew Mew and Ryuusei claimed my heart the second I saw the Au Lait promo. NEITHER OF THEM DISAPPOINTED ME, I AM SO IN LOVE.

While I WILL say that I in no way care for Mew Pudding’s redesign (I hate literally everything about it. I miss her jumpsuit. I hate the little pigtails at the top of her head. I hate the ribbon. At least she still has her fingerless gloves), I love that she got an entire panel of just her being badass. She stood in the middle of some train tracks, facing a runaway speeding train chimera anima, with that ^ fucking look on her face, and was like “where you going, na no da?” Purin from like, ten years ago wouldn’t have done that. She has matured so much, but she’s still the young, goofy little acrobat monkey who provides for her tea-themed siblings (who criminally do not make an appearance) and I just love her so fucking much, you guys.

RYUUSEI. Guys. He’s an idiot. Oh my god. He’s a cute lovable idiot. “What’s a gomodo dragon? What’s a kodomo dragon? What’s a condo dragon and why does it need a house?” Anzu was in love with him for like five seconds until she learned he’s a dumbass, and Aoi was jealous as fuck, and no one ever told him what his damn animal was, and I laughed my ass off through his entire last couple pages. He also had his jacket hand embroidered with the kanji for dragon, BUT IT’S MISSPELLED. It’s missing a stroke! XD

Ryuusei is the KOMODO dragon (which is Anzu’s favorite animal), and komodos are badass. He also either always had weird animal powers, or just never noticed that he suddenly got super smell. Komodo dragons, by the way, can track their prey for literally MILES by smell alone, for DAYS. It’s absolutely terrifying (thank you for the nightmares, Wild Thornberries), and Au Lait made it fucking comical. I can’t even. HE CAN SMELL THE RED DATA ANIMAL ON PEOPLE. I love it. He’s super strong and super cute, apparently lives with his grandparents, and is Purin’s counterpart in every single way, except I think SHE might be more mature than him. I love him. He is my baby.

Yellow is my favorite color and yellow never disappoints.

THE FAMOUS

FUJIWARA ZAKURO AND ROPPONGI AYATO

Zakuro had next to no presence in the reboot. She occasionally made some panels look pretty. She twice had a half page to herself, one per chapter. I am sad. I love my wolf lesbian. In semi-related news, I feel I have solved the mystery of Zakuro’s red data animal, something that has plagued the TMM community for years. The grey wolf is not endangered at all, yet Zakuro is injected with one, right? I read somewhere (either in a TMM blog or a conservation blog) that there is a subspecies of grey wolf that IS critically endangered. I believe it’s the Mexican grey wolf? I headcanon she was injected with DNA specifically from a Mexican grey wolf.

Moving on. In Chapter 3 (which was a DELIGHT), we met Ayato. Chapter 3 was the most frustrating chapter because let me tell you, Au Lait marks the first time I have ever read a manga chapter by chapter as it was being released in Japan. So I’m waiting Nakayoshi to publish the chapter, then I’m waiting for someone to scan Nakayoshi, then I’m waiting for someone to translate it, over and over and over, and omg I can’t believe this is what people DO. I’ve waited for full volumes before, but CHAPTERS? This is torture. Ayato, I haven’t had enough TIME with you!

Ayato seems to be an actor (in a really... really weird stage play), and has very few lines in his first appearance. I’m not sure what I make of him. He says about six sentences, which is actually a lot for a character introduced on a cliffhanger, but... I can’t decide if he’s said them in a mysterious Sailors Neptune and Uranus way or a flamboyant Sohma Ayame way. I ALSO DON’T KNOW WHAT ANIMAL HE IS AND I AM VERY ANGRY. BB Ryuusei said he smells like yakitori (a type of grilled chicken), which confirms he’s a bird. But. WHICH BIRD, DAMNIT?

CHAPTER FOUR WHERE ARE YOU?

THE FUNDING

AKASAKA KEIICHIRO, HINATA NATSUME, SHIROGANE RYOU

Hello again, Ryou! The boys here were wallpaper (though cute wallpaper) in the reboot. Natsume is 100% a troll. I love her. She admits in chapter 3 she literally just injected hot boys for her Mew Mew project. Even Ryou wasn’t that blunt. I mean, if you gotta save Earth and stare at people while you do it, they better be cute, right?

IF FOUND, PLEASE CALL THE FANDOM

MIDORIKAWA RETASU, SHIRAYUKI BERII, AKAI RINGO

Aside from her two half panels as a Mew Mew per chapter, this is the only good cap of Retasu as a civilian in the reboot. D: I believe Hiroo Taichi will be her counterpart in Au Lait.

I never liked Berii. There, I said it. She got TWO animals. She was some random newbie and she got to be leader just like that? And she was clueless and dumb and the writing in A La Mode wasn’t great. But I really like 2020 Berii. She’s cute, she seems more rabbit than cat, and she seems more intelligent and less of a blonde Ichigo clone. I don’t know if she’ll have an Au Lait counterpart.

WHERE IS RINGO? THE REBOOT WAS THE PERFECT OPPORTUNITY TO PUT HER IN THE STORY FOR REAL AND SHE JUST... WASN’T THERE?! THIS IS BLASPHEMY. RINGO IS THE BEST MEW MEW. BEST GIRL. JUSTICE FOR RINGO.

THE RELATIONSHIPS

MASAYA & ICHIGO VS AOI & ANZU

ZAKURO & MINTO VS AYATO & RYUUSEI

Nearly all of 2020 chapter 1 focused on Ichigo seeing Masaya again. I’m guessing this took place after he left for London. Ichigo left with him after A La Mode, and some time between then and Re-Turn came back to Japan, and now Masaya is back. They are still as lovey as ever, but not as sickeningly cute as Tsukino Usagi and Chiba Mamoru or anything. Phew! Their counterpart in Au Lait seems to Aoi and Anzu. (Look at that height difference! Poor Anzu, her poor neck.) Aoi already has a massive crush on her, but Anzu, bless her, is oblivious.

AND NOW FOR THE GAYS.

I think Zakuro and Minto is probably one of the most popular TMM ships and holy lesbians, Batman, they were well fed with this GORGEOUS panel at the end of chapter 2. Look at it. Zakuro had literally no panels, save for her two intros, to herself, and barely any panels at all in the reboot, and then BA-BAM, this beautiful ending shot. I swear Ikumi did it on purpose. Speaking of gays - is Ayato/Ryuusei the new Zakuro/Minto? Ayato seems to be at least bisexual (he also hit on Anzu), but this was literally his second panel. He is in a (terrible, TERRIBLE) play, and the actors are walking in the audience looking for the villain. Ayato walks into the audience and HITS ON RYUUSEI. His first goddamn words are “Do you want me to keep you, my cute little puppy?” to Ryuusei. He says fuck this acting shit, I see a SNACK. I think I ship it. I think I ship it hard.

THE STORY

*Au Lait is just getting started, so typical magical girl boy anime manga: Let’s find the others! Shenanigans! Some fillers! It’s cute, I love it, go read it.

*2020 Re-Turn is actually REALLY GOOD and chapter 2 reminds me of just how unique Tokyo Mew Mew was and still is among not just magical girl series, but animanga as a whole. Quick, what was the last environmental series you remember? Mine was Captain Planet - in the 90s. Preachy, in your face, after school special about things like pollution and endangered species and littering and honestly it was really cool, but very much a product of its time. Even now, magical girl animanga is still focused on bad guys, but bad guys are generic and represent something created for the series. Here, the bad guys are US, other human beings, who traffic animals, who endanger them, who wreck our planet enough that animals are barely clinging to life. There’s a very poignant scene featuring the adorable snow leopard up there (who’s the secondary protagonist of the reboot) ^, showing his mother being shot and himself being snatched by poachers, and he’s terrified, and has no idea what’s going on or where he is, and Ichigo is terrified for him. We need more series like this - not just of the magical girl genre, but of ALL genres. To make it accessible in this way, for people of all ages, something enjoyable, that people can fangirl over and love and its creators clearly put a lot of love and thought into. We need another Captain Planet, but less preachy, less after school special-y. We don’t want to be like the aliens (who remember, are descendants of humans who fucked up Earth so badly they had to leave it).

Behind all the cute of this manga and its reboot, and its new spinoff, Tokyo Mew Mew has a powerful message that we should all be following. It’s not even subtle. Get yo shit together, peeps.

#tokyo mew mew #tokyo mew mew 2020 re-turn #tokyo mew mew au lait #tokyo mew mew ore

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queenofthecommunistcannibals · 6 years ago

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@yikes-trademarked

i mean yeah, the post has nothing to do with it just comes across as a bit of a slap in the face to people who are genuinely oppressed in a modern day society. how are asexuals ‘neglected’ and ‘isolated’? so most people experience sexual attraction and you don’t, whoop de doo. nobody actually cares if you do or don’t experience sexual attraction. if you could please give me an actual, real life, not someone-calling-you-a-plant-online example of asexual discrimination then i’ll take back my words

___

@yikes-trademarked I super love how instead of apologizing you are doubling down. Okay. I'll give you examples. Here are some general prejudices that affect aro and ace people. They aren't in any real order.

•Until the DSM V asexuality was considered a mental illness. Despite the fact that now we are "allowed" to "identify" as asexual HSDD (Hypoactive sexual desire disorder) is STILL considered a disorder. So instead of trying to help a person accept themselves as asexual allosexual (nonace) doctors will try to "fix" someone if they want to. Asexuality is still seen as something to be cured. It is still a dysfunction in their eyes, they just hide their prejudice a little better.

•Asexuals have been harrassed and raped in an attempt to fix them. Asexuals and aromantics are often seen as a "challenge" to be harassed into affection.

•Mainstream Christianity discriminates against asexuals as they do other queer identities. Here is one quote from a document called "Asexuality and Christianity" produced for Asexual Awareness Week (the fact that we get "awareness" rather than "pride" ain't great either)

"While celibacy is officially considered a good stance in religion, declaring oneself disinterested in sex is often met with disapproval. Asexuals have been told that they are rejecting God's gift of sexuality, that they are just as bad as homosexuals because they are not 'normal'...or people decide to pray to God for them to be fixed or for the Almighty to send the right person for them to fall in love with."

Or from the horse's mouth "Question: What do you call a person who is asexual? Answer: Not a person. Asexual people do not exist. Sexuality is a gift from God and thus a fundamental part of our human identity. Those who repress their sexuality are not living as God created them to be: fully alive and well." This was written by two Jesuit priests David Nantais and Scott Opperman. In other religions this is also often true. I know more about Christianity personally but I know similar doctrines exist in Islam and Orthodox Judaism. Not to mention the notion that marriage is the only acceptable option in these religions (unless you are Catholic clergy) and children are a necessity. Hell, according to the conservative traditional gender roles of these religions even an otherwise gender conforming aro/ace doesn't fit (not marrying, no kids, no family, all that).

•Dehumanization from all sides. We are told to be human is to love and that love is nearly always put in romantic or sexual context. Indeed NOT being capable of or experiencing romantic or sexual love is often used as shorthand for someone being a bad person (As Dexter [from Dexter], for example, becomes more sympathetic he develops the ability to feel sexual/romantic love. Robots in fiction can be asexual and aromantic but only if you want to show them as apart from humanity. Once you want to make it clear they have a soul they have to experience some kind of romantic urge or longing. Like Data from Star Trek) An article in Psychology Today by Dr. Gordon Hodson Ph.D. (who specializes in studying dehumanization) postulates (with a study to back it up) that asexuals are the most dehumanized sexual minority.

•On the specifically romantic asexual front in many places do not consider a marriage valid until it has been consumated.

•In media in which asexuality and aromanticism are not proof of evil they are judged to be not real. Here is one of if not our first actual representation in media. In the film Nymphomaniac the SELF-PROCLAIMED asexual character turns out to be a rapist who the protagonist murders in what is supposed to be a "woo! You go girl!" moment. AT BEST this says asexuals aren't real. We're just sexually repressed misanthropes. It might also imply that asexuals are base animals who are waiting to strike. THAT IS ONE OF THE FEW TIMES THE WORD ASEXUAL IS EVEN USED IN MAINSTREAM FILM! I cannot think of a single other.

•We are erased constantly in real life and in media. Here are two examples of active erasure, Jughead Jones (canonly aro/ace in the comics and coded as such since day one) was straight-washed for Riverdale. You may say "oh maybe they didn't know" (which is bullshit) then consider example two: Sherlock Holmes. Holmes (who I adore) has long been one of the few characters that has been "allowed" to aro/aces, but when the creators of BBC's Sherlock were explicitly asked if he was aro/ace they said he absolutely wasn't.

This is part of what I am talking about. We are not allowed to exist. We are invisible.

•Asexuals and aromantics are somehow toxic in our mere existence. We make kids think it is okay to be like us and are poisoning their young minds. We hate sex and thus are against the sex positivity movement.

•"Virgin" is an insult and we are treated as constant children. Somehow we have failed to grow up and cannot be treated as adults.

•And here is what I was really talking about SOCIETY IS NOT MADE FOR US! CULTURE IS NOT CONDUSIVE TO OUR EXISTENCES! I didn't know asexuality was an option until I was about 24. And before that I, like many aro/ace people, put myself in a lot of situations and relationships to "fix" myself. To make myself normal. My first and only sexual encounter was one of the things that sent me spiralling into a serious depression. I didn't know that it was okay to not be interested and to say "no.". So I said "okay" because I thought it was what I had to do to be a normal teenager. I don't know if I ever shared that online before so congrats you got me so mad I revisited my personal trauma. From childhood we are told falling in love is the ultimate reward. As teens we are told we gotta get laaaaaid. As adults not being involved in a sexual/romantic (often indistinguishable) relationship is WEIRD and TROUBLING. I have been told by people who don't know I am asexual that asexual people are "too weird" or even "creepy." The idea that someone might not be capable of romantic love sets off people's red flags that said aromantic might be crazy.

•We are surrounded by sex and romance constantly. Constantly. It is inescapable. In your real life I want you to pay attention to romantic or sexual imagry and storylines around you. There is no break. No alternative. This is what I mean by "invisible at best."

•Also, we are denied a history. It is very hard to prove absence but often sexless figures are immediately dubbed to be gay/lesbian because of their lack of interest in "appropriate" gender. Forgetting entirely that asexuality and aromanticism are options. Then when the question is raised they maybe a figure WAS aro and/or ace we are told that we are """"stealing"""" history. There is like one person in history we are allowed: Nikola Tesla. I love him very much, but he also fits the bill as a weirdo asexual. Because anyone who was the least bit acceptable to society must be allosexual. An example in reverse, Queen Elizabeth I, Britain's most beloved monarch, who never married, never was romantically or sexually involved with anyone (aside from being assaulted as a teenager), and was in her era very famously THE VIRGIN QUEEN who used her virginity as part of her persona to great affect. She is not considered asexual or aromantic and never has been. I have seen a biographer bend over backwards to get away from that accusation including using an incident where an elderly Elizabeth flashed a dignitary to make him uncomfortable as proof that she was allo. We can't have this awesome historical figure be one of those creeps right?!

•i am not even going into the history of how "sexlessness" was historically treated, especially in women. Let me just say that "spinsterism" was considered a danger to children and young women.

•NOTICE I WENT THIS WHOLE POST WITHOUT MENTIONING ASSHOLES WHO USE THE DISK HORSE AND BAR US FROM QUEER CIRCLES EVEN THOUGH SOME STUDIES FIND ASEXUALS HAVE LOWER SELF ESTEEM THAN ANY OTHER QUEER GROUP AND WOULD REALLY BENEFIT FROM A COMMUNITY!! THIS POST IS ENTIRELY EXAMPLES OF NON ONLINE PEOPLE BECAUSE SOMEHOW YOUR CONSTANT ABUSE OR REFUSAL TO RECOGNIZE ABUSE IS A-OKAY BECAUSE IT IS PART OF "THE DEBATE" BECAUSE SOMEHOW OUR EXISTENCE IS ACCEPTABLE DEBATE!

These are just some examples. People are free to add more but I am tired. If you want links I will dig them up.

Sincerely,

Fuck you.

I apologize for the "fuck you" but the exclusionist attitude is so disheartening. It is bad for not only aros and aces but also the queer community in general. We should be in this together! Fighting for one another side by side! We should be there for each other for hardships and for celebrations. I think it is vital that exclusionists really examine what and who they are actually fighting against.

#asexuality #my posts #asexual #aromantic #lgbt+#queer

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hollowedrpg · 6 years ago

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CONGRATULATIONS, EMILY! — You’ve been accepted for the role of Alastor Moody. I’m so stoked to have an Alastor again! And right as the action is about to heat up! You know I love your interpretation of Dorcas, and now I can’t wait to see what you do with Alastor as well.

Thank you so much for applying. Please create your account and send in the link, track the right tags, and follow everyone on the follow list. Welcome to Hollowed Souls!

ooc.

name: Emily

age: (seventeen and up only) 29 (how? How am I twenty-nine now?)

preferred pronouns: her/she

timezone: Pacific.

activity: (include a brief explanation) Although you’re fairly familiar with my activity already, I probably hover between a 5-7 on any given day. I’m almost always lurking, though sometimes my schedule doesn’t facilitate replies easily.

are you applying for more than one character?: (if so, list your preference in order) Not anymore? Yes? Kinda yes and kinda no?

how do you feel about your character dying?: (in a roleplay centered on war, death is always a possibility. as an admin, it’s best to know ahead of time which players are comfortable with playing it out.) Ugh. Kill me why don’t you? (and yes I thought that though). I’m okay with it, to a degree, I ache at the idea of having one of my character killed off, or anyone, because I just want things to work out, but overall I think that it is something that can advance the plot and show the suddenness of life in a very real way.

anything else?: (questions, concerns, etc.)

ic details.

full name: Alastor Edward Moody

date of birth: June 21, 1947

former hogwarts house: Ravenclaw

sexuality: bisexual

gender/pronouns: (would you like to play this character as non-binary or trans? list it here.) he/him

face claim change: (if you’re requesting to change this character’s fc, list three alternatives in order of preference. all alternatives must be approved by the admin.) Not applicable.

more.

how do you interpret this character’s personality? how will you play them? include two weaknesses & two strengths.

Alastor can flex between being everything and being nothing within the same day, and he’s more than comfortable doing that and blending into the shadows. What isn’t as comfortable for him is leading a group of people. Sometimes he wishes that it was easier for him to take a step back and push Kingsley forward, but lately it isn’t as easy to let one be the face of this particular rebellion, not now that they aren’t on the same page anymore. But he needs, more than he ever thought that he had the capacity for before, he needs to do something more for this war and for these people and they are more his family than anything else that he’s ever acknowledged before. He isn’t about to let them just flounder and disappear into oblivion just because it’s easier to be safe than to fight for their way of life. No, the children around them need to have something more in their future than nothing. He’s an enigma. While driven and brilliant and filled with random pieces of information about everything underneath the sun, Alastor firmly remains mysterious and hard to figure out for those around them. Although he doesn’t quite flex his personality depending on who he is around, he does tend to change things depending on what is needed, something that he picked up during his time in the underground (and maybe while he dealt with his father). In another life he would have championed the orphans and the children being hurt, in this life he’s focused on a much larger picture, trying to do what he can to keep the Wizarding World afloat and able to pull themselves out while remaining detached from this group. He is sincerely thinking that it isn’t even a remote possibility that he’ll be able to detach himself from this group anymore, not like he previously was able to. +stubborn Once there is something that Alastor is aware needs to be done, there is a good chance that no one is going to be able to talk him into doing something different, whether that is good or bad or indifferent. Sometimes the good outweighs the bad, but he is more of a man that believes that the end justifies the means that you have to get there sometimes and can understand (at least on a philosophical level) that there are times that sacrificing some for the many can be okay if it is something good. Does that make him a good man? Well, Alastor is never entirely sure of that and never has been his entire life but he does know that it means that he can uniquely be able to make tough decisions even if it means that he’s inserting the knife in his own back. +determined He never really thought that he would have a solid purpose. Not like he does now with the Order. He hadn’t anticipated stumbling on Kingsley and Amelia the way that he did and he certainly didn’t anticipate people to fully start fighting back with the same vengeance that he felt in his blood every morning. There wasn’t a moment that he thought that they would hit a brick wall the way that they had after the attack, for Kingsley to suddenly stop still and want to cower in a safe space and just simply protect rather than defend. No, Alastor was frustrated and as desperate as he needed to keep peace with Kingsley and not split the Order in two, they needed to do more than just sit still and wait. -abrasive There had never been a time where he’d been good at mincing his words. There wasn’t much of a way to step around people’s feelings and be diplomatic in his mind, not when there was the risk of the world as they knew it breaking down in something that was more akin to terror. The past years he had watched too many people die and even more people cross lines and join Lord Voldemort for comfort and he wasn’t about to pretend that it was okay because he couldn’t be candid with people about where the world was standing at. No, he wasn’t about to sit back and wait to watch the Wizarding World crumble and innocents continue to die. The politics of Kingsley and Amelia, even Arabella, were lost on him in the midst of the desire to just simply do and not have to dwell on all the ‘what ifs’ if something went wrong. No, he knew that there was something more for them to manage than just the feelings of those around them and if that made him too blunt and too honest for most circles of people – well, it also meant that he got results when they were needed. -opportunistic If someone asked what it meant to go on a gut feeling, some might say that it was opportunistic, but if Alastor saw an opening to do something, he was willing to take it. That was part of why the Order had worked – the fact that so many of their members had guts that were reliable and knew how to do more than just sit around and debate the logistics. Sometimes there was action needed when an opportunity presented itself and it was certainly one thing that Alastor loved about Arabella. She saw the opportunity in someone and she was willing to chip away to see if it was a one-off instance or see if it was something that was real and more. The woman’s instincts had rarely ever failed her, even if she was more conservative than Alastor would like. No, he saw an opportunity and jumped at it, consequence to himself be damned.

how has the war affected this character, emotionally and otherwise?

He can feel his body wearing thin. It’s not something that he’ll ever admit out loud, and he never showed it outside of his tent, but it didn’t change the fact that he can feel the fact that the years are starting to drain him. Playing two parts in what seemed like a fixable war at first and feeling as though going from Auror to leader day in and day out was beginning to wear on his feelings. Whether he enjoyed it or not? Well, Alastor just needed for something to break and anything to give them an in to destroy those fundamental decisions that the Death Eaters seemed to be making day in and day out.

Emotionally he feels more drive than he ever had before, more push to do something that he previously did – maybe because it’s his people out there, missing and not confirmed dead, maybe it’s because he needs this to be done. Or maybe it’s just something that he hadn’t quite figured out in himself. Alastor isn’t entirely sure and he doesn’t have the time to sit down and analyze his feelings.

where does this character currently stand? with those who wish to hide in godric’s hollow until the war ends, with those who wish to rebuild the order and continue fighting the war, or on neither side? Why?

Probably the easiest thing for Alastor to express is his desperate need to do more and fight this war until they have no one more to fight with. His end goal remains the same, to end the war, whether that be forcibly or by some sort of peaceful means, but there is no way in his breath that he’s been able to stomach the idea of doing nothing and just hide like they don’t have anything to give. He’s willing to sacrifice himself, he just isn’t sure if he is willing to step back and do nothing when there are still people dying outside of their wards and they could do something about it.

How have the setbacks the Order has faced affected Alastor? What does he think the Order should do next?

There is no question for Alastor that he thinks that they need to recruit, and recruit heavily. While it comes at a risk, the reward certainly outweighs the risk to him. They’d have more bodies and more likelihood of being able to combat this particular fight, and they wouldn’t necessarily have to let them inside the confines of their safety. It isn’t something that he’d necessarily be willing to do either way, but with their recruiter refusing to bring anyone new on and his co-founder not willing to risk anyone else or risk their home? Well… Alastor is getting more frustrated and more cooped up by the day. He doesn’t know how to talk sense into them and he doesn’t quite get how to grasp ahold of them when it really comes down to it, he just, desperately, wants to do something more than sit back and wait for something to happen or for the world to fall apart. After all, the Ministry has proven that they aren’t going to hinder what the Death Eaters are doing, in fact it seems as though they may as well be encouraging Lord Voldemort.

extra.

here you can list or add any extras you created to get a sense of this character. that can include graphics, writing samples, mock blogs, etc. apps that have extras won’t have an advantage over apps that don’t, although it can help me further understand your grasp of the character.

https://pin.it/bsaw43a53sdkto

#hp rp #lsrpg #marauders rp #rp #hp roleplay #accepted

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freakingoli · 5 years ago

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[ ELLIOT FLETCHER, TRANSMALE, HE/HIM ] — If you’re strolling Derry today, you might see [ OLIVER MOORE ] along the way! The [ TWENTY FOUR ] year old can usually be found at [ DERRY HIGH SCHOOL ], when they aren’t busy with [ TAROT CARD READINGS or YOGA ]. I hear they seem to be [ FUNNY and FRIENDLY ], but they are also rumored to be [ HOTHEADED and CYNICAL ].

tw; transphobia (kinda)

name: oliver moore age: twenty-four birthday: december 15 gender: male sexuality: pansexual family: trent moore, adoptive father - retired army captain bio:

On December 15th almost twenty-five years ago, Olivia Duke was born in a hospital in New York City. The baby’s mother was a child herself, only sixteen years old and completely on her own as she learned to nurse her baby, and change her diaper. After leaving the hospital, she brought her baby home to the small apartment she shared with four other “delinquent” teens (delinquent to their families, though their only crimes were that they’d in some way offended their conservative families), and did her best to make a life that her child could fit into. She had already dropped out of school so she could work a minimum-wage job, and quickly she learned that being a young mom meant no longer having real friends or a social life of any kind. And within a month, she was at the Fire Station, sobbing and handing her baby over to a firefighter who knew better than to ask any questions. Baby Olivia was handed over to the state.

Olivia was put into a foster home immediately. The couple she was given to were in their mid-twenties and unable to conceive, and they loved Olivia unconditionally for a long while. When Olivia was old enough to refuse to wear the dresses and bows they tried to put her in, they adapted. The couple was more than happy to support the child wearing t-shirts and boy shorts, even letting her decide whether she wanted short or long hair when she was only three years old (she chose short, and she was ecstatic to run around looking like a boy). They raised her as if she were their own for four years, and then Oli’s foster father got sick. At first the couple tried to keep Oli, but as his health deteriorated it became too difficult, and since they hadn’t yet adopted the young child, a social worker eventually came to take Oli to a new family.

As a four year old, Oli learned that anyone that came into her life was temporary. The social worker tried to explain things to her in a delicate way, but all she heard was ‘you don’t belong to anyone, you will probably never belong to anyone’. And it made her a little troublesome for a long time. She struggled to make connections with her next foster family, refusing to let them hug her or help her do anything. She wanted to be independent, wanted to make all of her own decisions, and constantly yelled at the other foster kids in the house that tried to be kind to her. Eventually, she was pulled from this home as well, and placed with another.

By the time Oli was ten, she’d been with six more foster families. The next family they placed her with was a military family; the structure seemed to be good for Oli. She actually started going to school, getting halfway decent grades. Things were okay for about a year...then puberty happened. Oli was almost twelve when she started to develop, and it was a crisis for her. She’d started going by Oli when she was four years old, she’d always worn “boy” clothes and done “boy” things, and half of her peers were surprised to find out she was a girl when teachers or other adults called her one in public (truth be told, when Oli was ‘mistaken’ for a boy, it just felt right). Starting to transform into a young woman was torture for Oli, and she made sure everyone around her felt just as tortured. Oli’s behavior was worse than ever; she ditched school, hit other kids just for being in close proximity to her, and even shoved a teacher who tried to help her on a math test. Then she started hurting herself behind closed doors, and her foster family was at a loss. Once again, the social worker came for Oli.

The next foster home was Trent Moore, a widower, an older man who had once been a captain in the army. He took Oli in with open arms, and gave the child the space she needed. Trent was able to take Oli into school himself every day, make sure she got to class and to therapy and even got her involved in yoga with him on weekends. Oli started to do better, though not great, and when Trent found out she was still hurting herself, he sat down with her and waited patiently while she cried, waited patiently until she could put words behind what she was feeling. When Oli told Trent that she hated her body, that she didn’t feel like a girl, Trent was understanding. He didn’t tell her she was wrong for what she was feeling, didn’t really tell her anything other than he was so thankful that Oli had opened up to him, and he would do whatever it took to help the child.

Trent was unfamiliar with the territory, so he did his research. He found the specialists, called at least ten different therapists and doctors, and then compiled all of the information he’d found and sat down with Oli again. For the first time since Oli was four, he felt listened to and safe with an adult. Trent immediately started referring to Oli as his foster son, talked about Oli as a he, things belonging to him, his opinion on such-and-such. Oli was enrolled at a new school for eighth grade as a boy, and Trent spent a lot of money on fancy binders to help his son feel comfortable around his peers.

There was still some bullying, kids finding out about Oli from kids at his previous school. He was often picked on, beaten up, tossed around. And after the tenth black eye, Trent got sick of teachers and principals that couldn’t stop everything, and picked up their lives and left for Derry, Maine. A fresh start was just what Oli needed, Trent figured. And it truly did help Oli. When Oli was fifteen, Trent asked if he would be okay with Trent adopting him. Oli was overjoyed, having previously thought this could still all be temporary.

A few of the teachers at Derry High School knew about Oli’s ‘condition,’ and they took it upon themselves to make sure everything went smoothly for Oli. He had support in gym, so students never got a chance to see him change in the locker room. One teacher got permission for Oli to use the faculty bathroom instead of having to hold it all day rather than risk using the boys bathroom. They frequently (though also inconspicuously) checked on Oli, making sure he was doing okay, getting everything he needed, facing no issues with peers or even other more narrow-minded teachers. As someone who had previously thought adults were only there to hurt him in the long run, this meant a lot to Oli, and ended up being a huge factor in what he decided to do with his future.

At sixteen, Oli was officially adopted. In celebration, Trent immediately took Oli to get his name legally changed from Olivia Duke to Oliver Moore. Everything seemed to be falling into place for Oli...or Oliver, as he really, really enjoyed being called for a long while. When he was eighteen, Trent scrounged up enough cash to pay for Oliver’s top surgery, something that Oliver will never stop being grateful for.

Oliver graduated from Derry High School, which he knew would have amazed the majority of his previous foster families. He went on to college to study secondary education and mathematics, getting his degree by the time he was twenty-one. Then he was immediately hired on at Derry High School as the remedial math teacher, exactly the role he’d wanted. The remedial classes were the ones he’d been thrown in as a young teen; the classes for the students who struggled with academics, usually because of outside forces beyond their control. More than anything, he wanted to be like the teachers that had supported him through the toughest time in his life.

Trent was getting older, and more and more tired as time went on. The cold winters were getting to be too much for him, and Oliver had really been taking care of Trent more than the other way around since he was just about sixteen years old, right about the time he’d been adopted. When Trent brought up leaving Maine to Oliver, when Oli was twenty-two, Oliver had immediately offered to go with him. But Trent refused, saying he didn’t want to deal with selling their little house, but really because he knew Oliver was happy where he was at. Trent moved to a retirement community in Florida, and now he and Oliver see each other mostly for holidays, though they text and talk on the phone frequently.

career: remedial math teacher at derry high school personality:

Oliver is a sweet and funny guy, always wanting to make others smile or laugh, cheering up anyone he thinks is in a bad mood or having a rough day.

He absolutely loves his job, and thinks of the kids at the school almost as if they were his own children. Romantically, it’s difficult for him to get involved with people. He can be very flirtatious, but he still remembers the issues he had back in New York when people knew he was trans. Telling someone now that he is trans requires plenty of trust on his part, and sometimes that trust is really hard to gain.

Oli hasn’t really dated much, but there are a few individuals that he has hooked up with. When it comes to casual hookups, he’s more likely to hook up with men. Generally they’re less likely to ask questions when he goes down on them, or jerks them off in a club bathroom. He tends not to do any more with them, though on several occasions he has been drunk enough to go further. He usually wakes up feeling regret and shame, though, so he’s not too big of a fan of those occasions.

He is a fiercely loyal friend, and will blindly support anyone that has earned his trust. He’s the type of friend that will be at your side with the torch and pitchfork without even knowing what he’s protesting, because an enemy of his friend is also an enemy of his.

more to be added!

#derryintro

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ybarrcs · 6 years ago

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hello , what’s good ! my name’s lina & i’m super excited to be here ! i’m 21 , am currently chilling in the gmt timezone & my pronouns are she / her ! i’m literally a trash bag in human form & spend way too much time thinking stefan salvatore deserved better & hoping that bazzi will someday release another album ! anyway , that’s all boring nonsense ashfkjk but i can’t wait to get to write with u guys & introduce u to this little messy b*tch ! i’m too lazy to rewrite for things so below is just a section ( with his secret removed bc 😏 ) of his app bc i’d never put y’all through reading ALL of that so i hope u enjoy ! if u’d like to plot then smash that lil heart & i’ll come running to u !

oh my gosh, am i crazy or did i just see XAVIER SERRANO jamming out to CHANGED by BAZZI ? wait nevermind, i think that’s just AVERY YBARRA . pretty sure i heard they’re known around hollywood as THE CONNARD. while that is a broad term, it makes sense because they’re known around hollywood for being HEDONISTIC but can also be CALLOUS. which makes total sense after seeing everything prominence insider has posted on their site about them. + missed calls at 2am, tangled knots of headphones, burnt matchsticks, well worn leather jackets, there are pasts inside they, do it out of spite. ◜ lina. 21. gmt. she/her. ◞

𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐒 .

𝐟𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐞 : avery ybarra , previously matías castillo

𝐚𝐠𝐞 : twenty - four .

𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫 : male .

𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐬 : he / him .

𝐛𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐡𝐝𝐚𝐲 : september 2nd .

𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫 𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐧 : virgo .

𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 : 6ft 1in .

𝐰𝐞𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 : 80kg .

𝐡𝐚𝐢𝐫 : light brown .

𝐞𝐲𝐞𝐬 : green .

𝐨𝐜𝐜𝐮𝐩𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 : chef / social media influencer / youtuber .

𝐬𝐞𝐱𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 : heterosexual .

𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬 : victoria castillo ( mother , deceased ) & alejandro castillo ( father , 46 ) .

𝐬𝐢𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 : alisa castillo ( sister , 21 ) & amalia castillo ( sister , 18 ) .

𝐛𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐡 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐞 : barcelona , spain .

𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 : los angeles , california .

𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 : spanish .

𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐭𝐲 : hispanic .

𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐮𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐬 : spanish ( first ) , english ( second ) , french , italian , portuguese.

𝐧𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐡 : 10 million .

𝐥𝐚𝐛𝐞𝐥𝐬 : the connard , the hacker , the runaway .

+ 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐭𝐬 : analytical , intelligent , meticulous , modest , practical , reliable .

- 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐭𝐬 : conservative , fastidious , fussy , harsh , judgemental , overcritical .

𝐁𝐈𝐎𝐆𝐑𝐀𝐏𝐇𝐘 .

TRIGGERS ; leukemia , death , drugs & alcohol .

in a quaint yet suburban town located on outskirts of barcelona , spain lived alejandro castillo , a recent high school graduate & current owner of the castillo residence . he’d call it a home , but he wouldn’t label a 100 square meter foundation a home . the castillos never had an easy life , & as the only child of his late parents he was left with the entirety of their his family’s fortune . or so , how little of the fortune they had left . alejandro was a level headed young man who had worked hard in school & had a weekend job to pay off the bills , & with little family he was left alone in the big city to find a stable future & work through his grief . he had three , very important steps to follow : get drunk ; it wouldn’t cost too much for a pint of flaherty’s finest bitter , right ? buy a car ; although he had little money to play around with , his inherited money was enough for him to buy an beaten down toyota 4runner . then , get a girl ; it was a common necessity back then , but who would want a struggling mechanic who was left to live his lonely life ?

in a more upstate area in barcelona , victoria de la rosa resided with her parents & three siblings . now , the de la rosa’s were not by any means considerably wealthy , but they were comfortable . their children were educated in some of the best schools in barcelona & had full scholarships for college . in conclusion , victoria had a good life , but she wasn’t spoiled about it . a modest & kind young lady , she accepted everyone no matter their status & lived somewhat an idealistic life . everyone expected her to do well in life , to marry someone who could treat her the way she deserved to be treated . her parents , who had even higher expectations would cast her off to have meals with already successful young men , but victoria didn’t care about success . success , to her , was three notches short of happiness & if you’re not happy , then what are you doing ? her whole life , she told herself that happiness comes first & success comes later , so she would quickly send who her parents considered to be eligible candidates on their way with that delicate smile of hers .

the day that victoria met alejandro castillo , her whole world changed . he was everything he parents didn’t want her to be with . he didn’t have a lot money , a flashy car or an expensive house . but what he was brave & determined , thoughtful & fair . it was these traits , rather than the little fortune he had behind him that made victoria fall in love so easily & undeniably . within a year , the pair were married , but the wedding wasn’t exactly what would be called ‘ traditional ’ . in fact , it was just the two of them & two witnesses in barcelona’s registration office . it wasn’t decorated with pretty flowers & silk sheets draped over chairs , with hundreds of guests holding back the tears as vows were exchanged , but it was everything they could hope for . on the contrary , victoria’s parents were not happy at all . not just in her choice of the wedding venue but the man she chose to dedicate the rest of her life to . so , as some form of punishment , they cut off her funding & left her to her own devices . but victoria was happy regardless .

the happy couple lived in the castillo home for a couple of years , & after victoria had caught on a stable job & they had a good influx of money to keep them on their feet , they decided to invest in a bigger home . it wasn’t much bigger , but it was a house a lot more fitting for their growing family . after all , victoria was pregnant with their first child , & with that comes a responsibility & the need for a lot more room . the pregnancy was tumultuous & complicated at times , but when it was good , it was incredible . the problems became defeated by the pure happiness that came with feeling their baby kick in victoria’s belly for the first time , or feeling it have hiccup after hiccup . it was a long nine months of waiting for the day to finally come , & after they had both agreed not to find out the gender of their first born , the day their baby was born was the happiest date of their life . it was at 02:51 AM on september the 2nd , 1994 , that matías castillo was born .

as a child , he was vibrant & playful . always curious about his next adventure & finding new ways to entertain himself . he was close to his father ; attached to his hip & striving to be more like him , a man who had recently succeeded in his mechanic’s degree after years of trying & only just catching a stable job . but no matter how close he was to his father , matías would forever be his mother’s son . she was his angel , or so he saw her . she was kind & she would teach him to be so . she would easily talk to strangers & he’d follow suit , wanting people to look at him the same way they looked at her . even with his sisters , he was kind . when they were born , he assumed the role of the protective older brother , & despite the odd few debacles that every single sibling has , he still adored them . the family were as what people would say , like a pack of wolves . everything they did , they did it together & even though they didn’t have a lot , they had each other & that was all they needed .

in school , matías excelled in everything he did . he was one of the top pupils in all his classes & was a good , respectable student . especially in food technology . when he was young , he used to stand at the kitchen counter , peering over the top to see what his mother was cooking & over time , it became his passion . most boys his age were into sports & computer games , but all matías cared about was the smell of bread baking in the oven or the satisfied smiles on his family’s faces as he created yet another delicious meal . he became quite good at it , & despite how proud he was of his skills he felt alone in school ��. nobody understood what it was about cooking that made him feel so fulfilled , & despite his mother’s constant reassurance that it didn’t matter as long as he was happy , he distanced himself from the oven & focused on computer science instead . it didn’t provide the same form of contentment as cooking did , but it was enough to occupy his mind & make him fit in .

but it wasn’t all plain sailing , especially for the castillos . not long after matías’s fourteenth birthday , victoria was rushed in to hospital due to unexplained nose bleeds & weight loss , which both led to an incredibly low blood pressure & a worrying amount of dizziness . after hours worth of blood tests & different types of medical examinations , the family were faced with the distressing news that their beloved mother & wife was showing symptoms of acute leukemia . after more tests & scans were ran , the diagnosis was confirmed & the severity of the condition rattled the family as a whole , no more than matías . he spent hours locked away in his room , trying to come to terms with the the news while his mother received failing treatment . the leukemia had spread too far , reaching to her vital organs & they knew then that it was too late . on august the 21st , victoria castillo passed away with one final request to her son : take care of the family .

the castillos were overcome with grief , which each of them handled in their own way . the girls delved into their school work as a form of distraction . matías kept his promise & took care of the family . he cooked them meals , made sure his sisters were getting to school on time & made sure his father didn’t drown himself in the amount of alcohol he’d been consuming since the funeral . in little to no time at all , he became the man of the family despite only being a young teen in high school , but he tried his best however hard it was . their mother had managed to save up quite a collection of money for them throughout the years , but it didn’t take long for their father to make that disappear on what he would call ‘ necessities ’ that he’d hide from his children too quickly for them to have a good look . as suspicious as he was , matías knew he couldn’t spend too much time pondering over it because his father had quit his job , & they had no other form of income to see them through .

for a little while , the family were slowly sinking towards the way of poverty , & matías was struggling to find ways to provide for them . he tried cleaning windows , washing neighbours cars , but none of the money he earned could provide enough for a house of four . but he was a smart & determined kid , with knowledge way beyond his years & after trying & trying & trying , he found a solution . or more so , the solution found him . the solution being one of his classmates wanting unwarranted access to a friend’s phone . matías wasn’t a computer expert , but he knew his way around programs & after learning of his mother’s condition , he lashed out a little in school & managed to unlock certain websites that were previously banned from the school network . although the school board were quick to notice & shut down the sites again , they never found the culprit , but that didn’t mean the students had no idea who did it .

at first , matías declined . he had so much to worry about already that he did not need someone wanting to find out their friend’s personal information being on his shoulders . but once a good lump sum of money was brought to the table , he had no choice but to agree . after all , it was only one person , right ? if only that were true . after succeeding in gaining the information his classmate asked for , word got out & suddenly he had a whole list of people wanting him to access someone’s system for one reason or another . over time , he became quite good at it & earned a lot of money . money which his father used to pay for the debt his children didn’t know about . no matter how much he earned , through what he’d call his extra curricular activity , it would go in alejandro’s back pocket until he was waist height in debt that he had no choice but to admit where the money was really going . after all , matías had already spotted the bags of powder & pills his father had attempted to stash away , which he had skilfully ignored .

uncovering their father’s drug addiction caused a further rift between the family & matías decided he had had enough . after graduating high school , he had good enough grades to further his education & achieve his bachillerato certificate in food technology , pursuing his dream career & fulfilling his mother’s expectations of him . he even got a part time job working as waiter in the a nearby restaurant , telling himself that if he could keep this up for another couple of years , he’d be able to leave spain & his estranged family behind . he didn’t tell his father about his job , however . he used enough money to provide for the family but the rest was stored away somewhere safe for later use , & after he had earned his certificate , matías booked a flight & earned a place in an american university majoring in food tech & left his old life behind him without so much as a good bye .

for months , he had to swallow his guilt for leaving his family . after all , he made a promise to his mother & broke it by leaving his family in the thousands of euros of debt his father had landed them in . but he wasn’t happy ; matías wasn’t happy being branded as a castillo . he didn’t want to have any ties to his family so after a few months of living in the US , he decided to change his name . it took a lot of back & forth throwing of different names but after a while of deciding , he settled on avery ybarra . nobody would ever suspect he was a castillo with that name , or so , that’s what he was hoping for . living in a different country was refreshing ; he was free to do what he wanted to do & what he wanted to do was cook . but he needed to work up to the position he wanted . he already had experience as a waiter , so getting a job in that department was easy , but it was soon noticed that he was more than just taking orders & bringing out dishes . he’d often critique the food that was being sent out , which at first his boss found annoying until he realised that the customers were complaining of the same thing , & promoted avery to chef de partie as a roundsman .

his newly accounted role in the restaurant boosted sales , & his talent was noticed by many . so much so that his colleagues , well aware of his passion for food persuaded him to apply for hell’s kitchen’s 14th season . as reluctant as he was , he eventually applied & was accepted as one of the contestants . the competition was tough , but he battled through each challenge like a champion & gained a mass following on his instagram , if not for his youthful looks then it was his attitude in the kitchen . but eventually , on june the 9th 2015 , he was crowned the youngest winner of hell’s kitchen . after that , he worked closely with joël robuchon , a world renowned french chef who’s dishes avery was in awe of but he was also awarded a grand total of $250,000 to do with what he pleased . he planned to buy a nice home , a decent car & put some money to one side so he could eventually purchase his own restaurant . but his father had other words .

after his victorious win , avery ybarra was a name everyone knew . young , promising , & strikingly handsome , he was popular among many . but back home , his family still knew him as matías . so , in return for his family to not expose who he actually was , his father proposed a deal : pay off his debt , give them a comfortable amount of money to live with , & then they’d have nothing to do with him again . avery did not think it through too much . after all , how much debt could his father had gotten them into within such a short space of time ? his first mistake was underestimating his father’s addiction , & after paying off the debt & giving them a lump sum to spend in their bank accounts , he was left with next to nothing . avery felt sad , manipulated & above all betrayed . he never trusted his father to begin with , & there was a good reason why .

* here’s where his secret goes but let’s say he got a lot of money *

at first , avery didn’t know what to do with the money . he just needed enough to get him off his feet . but after time , he did everything he had planned before . he had his nice apartment , his luxurious car , started constructing own restraurant , & a pile of designer clothes that eventually were given to him by brands over time . his following on social media kept growing & brands kept coming to him to promote their products , & suddenly avery didn’t need to do what he used to to gain money any more . he started a youtube channel where he would teach people how to cook , a channel that soon hit off & earned him more money over time . eventually , he settled into his new profit & his new life as avery ybarra . he wasn’t matías castillo any more , & it about time the world knew about it .

𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐘 .

due to the course his life took , avery has altered a lot through the years . when he was a child , he had a simplistic outlook on life & didn’t really take notice of a lot of things , mostly because he didn’t need to . now , avery is thoughtful . every decision he makes has to be well thought out before he can even consider carrying it out , mostly due to the fact that he doesn’t want to embarrass himself or come across as somebody who’s relatively useless . avery is also very critical of other people’s actions . he has this mindset where he believes he is superior to other people , & that often shines through in consistent eye rolling & only listening to half of what someone says before occupying his mind with something else . if he sees someone as being dull & boring , he’ll immediately shut off & act like they don’t exist because to him , they’re just wasting their time talking to him .

despite all this , however , avery is very humble about his career . he knows he’s a good cook ( after all , he won hell’s kitchen ! ) but he doesn’t let it get to his head . he knows he can be better & excel in it , so until he’s the best of the best , he’s not satisfied . he’s very ambitious & is not afraid to speak his mind if it means it’ll benefit him in some way . a lot of the time , he speaks his mind anyway . avery is a very outspoken individual , not afraid to voice his opinion no matter who agrees or disagrees . the fact of the matter is , he simply doesn’t care enough . people are generally irrelevant to him , especially if they serve no purpose in his life so it’s not uncommon for him to be rude & brash whenever he wants to be , even if it’s uncalled for . he doesn’t care about hurting other’s feelings , no matter the cost of it .

avery is also , despite popular belief , incredibly loyal . he’s not opposed to sleeping with strangers , but when he’s committed to something , he’s in it wholeheartedly until he loses interest or for whatever reason he can’t anymore . but , getting close to avery is very difficult . with him being a secretive individual , he tends to hide his thoughts & feelings so as a result , can come across as being quite fickle . he’s a man who knows what he wants in terms of his career & lifestyle , but in terms of everything else , he’s still not sure what exactly he’s searching for . he’s an aimless wanderer , meaning he travels a lot in order to gain more knowledge . be it in food or culture in general , avery is always keen to learn something new & bring it home to share with everyone else ( or those who he feels are deserving , that is ) .

𝐖𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐍𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒 .

𝖎 . 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐝 : avery isn’t the best at making friends but this person is the one avery is closest to . honestly , i imagine them to have the same dynamic as nick & schmidt from new girl ?? this person has probably seen a side to avery that very little people have seen before & is one of the only people he can relax around !

𝖎𝖎 . 𝐫𝐨𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐞 / 𝐧𝐞𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐫 : listen ! these are my favourite sort of plots because i feel like they can be go in so many different directions & i just love them so much ?? i feel like with avery being such a difficult person to get along with , it’d be interesting to see how he’d live with / next to someone else ! brownie points if they just moved in & it’s all awks .

𝖎𝖎𝖎 . 𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐦𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐛𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐟𝐢𝐭𝐬 : ok hear me out ... avery can be quite insufferable & more often than not finds a way to bicker about anything & everything . anyway , these two pick fights about almost everything & as the tension builds up everything gets foggier the more angry they get then ... u Know how the story ends . ‘ this is the last time ’ they say ten million times .

𝖎𝖛 . 𝐩𝐫 𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩 : i don’t mean like justin & hailey ‘ let’s pretend we’re married ’ sorta vibes . imagine them going out on fake dates , been spotted out in public holding hands , whoever set them out to do this thought it was a brilliant idea but they might have different thoughts . brownie points if they hate each other . extra brownie points if they can’t tell anyone about it .

𝖛 . 𝐬𝐢𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩 : god i literally love this connection so SO much . avery p much lost his siblings so give him SOMEONE to be protective over & care for ok i would DIE my heart is soft . let them be confiding watching comedy movies all day & fighting over who gets the remote . how sweet :’)

𝖛𝖎 . 𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐦𝐢𝐞𝐬 : an iconic connection that Never gets old . these two do not get on , for whatever reason they go together like chalk & cheese & are always fighting about something . their interactions consist of them constantly wanting to one - up each other & it’s like a battle of who can win this time .

#promintro.#leukemia tw #death tw #drugs tw #alcohol tw #◟ 𝓪.𝔂. ┈ ´ › 𝐢’𝐦 𝐬𝐨𝐫𝐫𝐲 𝐰𝐞 𝐝𝐨𝐧’𝐭 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝒔𝒉𝒆𝒆𝒑. ╱ ooc.#i was gonna do an extra ass graph but i am ..... Lazy #anyway here we Are !! agdjgj #if u click where it says ‘excited’ there’s a surpris :)

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sunnysynthsunshine · 6 years ago

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New Year New Roomate (the self insert stories) (The Young Ones)

A couple of short stories I thought up about The Young Ones some of which involve my oc Kelsie (the new "5th" roommate).

Chapter 1

The 5th Roomate

It had been a few days since recovering from the bus incident luckily Mike was able to get enough money for the boys to continue living in their Bristol student house, They were given news that there would be a new roommate living with them.

Her name was Kelsie, the 5th roommate she was a drama/media student and she was new to scumbag college She entered, she put her belongings in her room and was quiet She had a jacket, band shirt, choker, shorts, leggings and boots on

Mike, Vyvyan, Rick, and Neil were confused but fascinated Unlike other birds, they had previously seen this Kelsie girl didn't talk much outside of mumbling and sarcasm

Rick decided to talk to her while he was studying Kelsie got out her notebook and started writing

Rick peeked over at what Kelsie was writing about

“So what’s the course like?”

Kelsie shrugged

“It’s alright I guess what do you study?”

Rick said, “Sociology and Domestic Sciences”

From the living room, Neil overheard saying “Domestic sciences maybe you should help me with the cooking sometimes”

“Shut up Neil” Rick answered back

Kelsie finished writing and watched TV ignoring him

when she went to the sink to put her dishes away she saw Vyvyan sitting on the counter drinking tea

Kelsie complimented his t-shirt

“Oh Rush that’s a great band”

“I know what bands do you like?”

Kelsie answered

“I love Blondie, Iron Maiden, Sex Pistols, Simple Plan and various other bands”

Vyvyan said,

“Good taste, I don’t know what Simple Plan is though”

Kelsie asked

“What do you study?”

Vyvyan said,

“Medicine I’m going to be a doctor if I can be if not I’ll be a surgeon”

Kelsie joked “So you like playing with people’s bodies”

Vyvyan laughed

“Yes, with all these new diseases people need someone to help them and considering the bastards in charge of the health system no wonder people are dropping like flies”

Vyvyan chuckled again sipping his tea

“You know that bastard rRck?”,he once tried to down laxatives and goes on and on about starting a revolution but never actually goes through with it"

“I see” Kelsie answered

Vyvyan said,

"I mean he's alright sometimes but other times he does my head in so we fight a lot"

"perfectly understandable" Kelsie responded

Later after realizing not much was on television that night they went to bed

Chapter 2

: Distracting Mr Balowski

Mr Balowski is about to annoy the boys once again but will their new roommate be able to distract him?

It was like any other day for four college students Vyvyan was watching television, Rick was reading & Neil was doing some coursework while Mike was busy doing "Business" on the other sofa in the room the newest member the 5th roommate of the Young Ones was relaxing until there was a knock on the door... It was Mr. Balowski what sort of scheme was he planning next?

the house had just gotten cleaned after all the time warps and if Mr.Balowski was going to do anything that would make Lazy Vyvyan and Rick get off their asses to have to deal with that would be an ant being a molehill.

Vyvyan sighed at the doorbell ringing "Oh No"

Rick said

"Wait I've got an idea"

Kelsie yawned on the sofa with her headphones on

when Rick suddenly ran over to her "hey Kelsey you're studying Drama right?"

Kelsie nodded

"Yeah?"

Rick made a suggestion

"how about you try to distract Mr. Balowski"

Kelsie didn't know who he was talking about

"Uh, whos' Mr. Balowski?"

Vyvyan answered

"The most annoying bastard in the world second to Rick"

which Rick glared at

Kelsie sighed

"I'll see what I can do"

Kelsie then answered the door looking stoic

"Hello what are you selling"

Mr. Balowski explained

"Yes, I'm looking for Mr.Rick, Mr. Vyvyan, Mr.Mike, and Mr.Neil"

before he removed his shades

"Oh, Oh my and who are you?"

Kelsie attempted to sound like a generic sexy anime girl

"Oh, It's". she flipped her hair seductively Kelsie"

Mr. Balowski realized

"I might have the wrong address"

Kelsie said

"you know I love guys with Russian accents"

Mr. Balowski blushed

"Oh my "

Kelsie asked holding her phone out

"you want me to show you this band I like My Bloody Valentine?"

Mr. Balowski was turned off and disgusted

"erm no thanks have a good day"

Mr Balowski had ran off

Kelsie cringed

"Oh my that line made me cringe it sounded so wrong"

Rick grinned

"brilliant at least you got rid of him now we know the best way to stop him is to gross him out"

Chapter 3

: Looking for SPG

Vyvyan can't find his Glaswegian hamster SPG so he tries to think of a plan to get him back

Vyvyan had lost SPG so he was looking around the house for him

"SPG SPG SPG!!!!!!!!!! Where are you?" he yelled

Neil was confused as to why Vyvyan was repeating himself

"why are you saying the same thing over and over again?"

Vyvyan shouted

"It's SPG he's gone missing"

Neil shrugged so he could get something out of the fridge

"Oh well, I'll be using some food for class and?

Vyvyan suddenly got an idea

"I know I'll get some hamster food and bait surely he'll arrive when sees it"

so Vyvyan got some hamster food and poured it all over Rick who was having a nap on the sofa

to get SPG's attention

SPG crawled out of a hole noticing the bait

"I see something"

Kelsie was also resting next to Rick

"I see a sweet looking lass"

SPG walked along Kelsie and then started to jump and crawl all over Rick

Rick trembled unamused

"Ah! something's biting me get it off get it off VYVYAN WHAT PRANK DID YOU PULL THIS TIME?"

Vyvyan smirked as he had found his hamster

"I didn't pull a prank I was just looking for SPG"

Rick scoffed and whined,

"oh your filthy hamster that explains why I smell like onion sandwiches"

Vyvyan explained,

"I needed bait and I knew you'd be the perfect test subject"

Chapter 4

: The Reveal (Rick)

Kelsie (their new roomate) has been hiding their gender identity for quite sometime and they decide to come out to Rick the person that they thinks will understand

It was around dinner time and Kelsie hadn't joined usually kelsie would just chill in her room but this time was longer than before Rick snuck upstairs to see what was the holdup

he saw Kelsie looking in the mirror of her wardrobe trying to press in her breasts making it looks like she didn't have them

Rick was puzzled by this he had also overheard Kelsie punch a mirror mumbling about how she felt about her gender identity so he observed until he saw Kelsie's eyes turning indicating that she had seen him notice.

Rick asked

"What are you doing"

Kelsie answered

"You must promise not to tell a soul"

Rick nodded making mime like hand gestures

"Cross my heart, not to die, punch a fascist in the eye". "Vyvyan and Neil know enough about me to make me the next celebrity my secrets might be around but I'll keep yours safe and sound"

Kelsie rolled her eyes

"was that another hiaku of yours?"

Rick shrugged it off

"anyways what is this horrible and private secret you want to tell me?"

Kelsie confessed

"I-I may be biologically female but I feel more like a male and sometimes I just feel like nothing ever since I was little I would identify with boys most of the time"

Rick said

"Oh well that's not bad I feel nothing all the time, the world's existence is nothing"

Kelsie tried to explain

"What I mean is I want to be seen as a boy more than a girl sometimes it's hard having to deal with forced expectations and all the pressure"

Rick processed the information, taking the information in a serious understanding way as he also got personal in his response

"I understand as someone who is androgynous I understand that gender roles are stupid I'm in a similar boat I'm biologically male but I'm non binary those feelings are normal society might say your not ladylike or that you don't fit their standards who cares what society thinks I think you should be what you want to be and if that involves you sometimes being one of us boys then I have no problem with that"

Kelsie felt accepted as she sniffled a bit "Thank you, Rick, living with mainly some conservative brothers I would always feel different compared to the other girls it's great that I have a roommate who feels the same I accept you

they then held each other in an embrace

only for Vyvyan and Neil to walk in

Neil said "Rick's a transvestite"

Rick was offended at them ruining such an emotional moment

"STOP BRINGING THAT UP!"

Vyvyan joked

"is that why you have girly pigtails in your hair?"

Rick whined

"OF COURSE NOT beside it's in fashion now for men to have more femmine hairstyles"

Kelsie smirked at him

"so you won't be offended by the poof comments?"

Rick was still glaring at Vyv and neil but he smiled when addressing Kelsie

"Not particularly but I want all men to love each other like brothers men like you"

Vyvyan laughed while he started a slapstick fight with Rick

"HA Rick's still a poof"

Rick screamed fighting back

"AM NOT"

Neil asked

"So you're Gay?"

Rick ranted

"NO, I just wish males were more friendly towards each other!"

Neil moaned

"Gay also means happy"

Rick kept shouting

"When am I ever Happy?"

Vyvyan smirked

"then why did you smile at kelsey and not at us?"

( while kelsey just watched tv ignoring the others they were blushing.)

Chapter Management

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Chapter 5

: The Reveal (Vyvyan)Summary:

After what happened earlier Vyvyan decides to go to a Rock festival with Kelsie which he unexpectedly enjoyed (both the music and the cuddling)

Chapter Text

Vyvyan announced

"I've got tickets to a punk festival who wants to join me?"

Kelsie decided to join him

(At the concert)

Vyvyan and Kelsey were sitting on a picnic rug eating mozzarella sticks, hot dogs, and junk food while enjoying the music

Vyvyan felt like maybe he could make a move while he had the chance so he put his hand round, Kelsie, while she was busy bobbing her head along to the musical screeching she found the cuddle to be quite comfortable

Usually Vyvyan was the tough type who was rowdy, loud and tough but on the inside, he had a soft spot for women and platonic emotional connection he would never tell any of the housemates that except for that one time he accidentally joked/blurted out to Rick one time that he fancied him Rick was the poof not him.

It was a fun concert but the fuzzy feeling he had in his heart made the concert more enjoyable than it was planned to be

then the band Against Me! performed onstage

Kelsie awoke from her Nap "is that Laura Jane Grace?"

Vyvyan nodded as he ate from his crisp packet

halfway through the performance, Kelsie asked: "Do you like Against Me?"

Vyvyan yelled

"Of Course I bloody love them one of my favorite punk bands of all time"

Kelsie lowered her voice

"Vyv can I tell you something?"

Vyvyan said

"What? you're going to have to yell It's a bit hard to hear you

Kelsie made her voice louder

"It's something personal Vyv"

Vyvyan answered

"alright whisper it then"

Kelsie explained

"Vyvyan sometimes I feel like a bloke sometimes I know I'm biologically a female but I don't feel like one I like the idea of transitioning but I want to wait for a while first because of the risks involved

am I a bloke or am I a woman?

Vyvyan understood

"I know that feeling all too well Kelsie, a few years ago I myself started my transition from a woman to a bloke it was a rocky road but worth it, in the end, I'll give you advice sod what people think whether your a bloke a woman or anything in between your still Kelsie and that's what matters"

Kelsie smiled as he and Vyv headbanged to the song being performed only for Vyvyan to hold Kelsie's hand before they cuddled

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Chapter 6

: We are all Mad hereSummary:

the authors ideas on the backstories of the characters (including Kelsie)

Chapter Text

Neil wasn't just a hippy he was a trustafarian while he loved learning about different cultures and saving the planet he came from a very posh high-class family but there is a reason for his self-deprecation because he was so different compared to his family he felt like an outcast so much so he questioned whether or not he was needed at all he eventually just stopped caring about himself altogether.

He became what was known as a flower child he had a connection to nature that others in his family didn't while he hated society he loved the theory of the world's existence whether it meant the many flowers in his families garden or the amazing animals he would find at the zoo.

He learned about Buddhism and he decided to study peace studies at university and made a friend there at Scumbag college he met 3 other misfits, even though he thinks they don't care about him they do they have a soft heart on the inside.

Vyvyan was a troubled child his mom was a shoplifting bartender who cared more about drinking, smoking & stealing than caring for her daughter turned son, she and Vyvyan would sometimes fight and because of her behavior Vyvyan had trouble fitting in as a child other kids were scared of him, authority challenged and broke him mentally he was a rough kid often mistaken for a bully when really he just wanted friends but his own bullies made him bite back making his behaviour violent at times when he didn't want to be.

His dad was ok for a short time he was in his life but his mom divorced and due to his dad's busy work schedule they rarely spoke however... he did introduce Vyvyan to the Metal scene due to enjoying many horror movies and comics that involved different creatures and scientific experiments that gave Vyvyan the idea to study medicine while he hated society he also hated how diseases like "AIDS" and "Cancer" had the ability to kill so many people.

The reason why he acts strangely is because of how he was raised, he didn't know any better and was mostly raised on television,comic books and the working class neighborhood he lived in that and other than his metalhead buddies at scumbag college he didn't really have any friends to mess with or joke around with or share his video games with he hides it with the anger problems he has but deep down he does care.

Mike's dad was an Italian immigrant who would often bring girls home to pleasure Mike had a happy childhood but he knew the government and society were crumbling by the time Margaret Thatcher became prime minister he inherited his flirting skills from his papa, he was close to his dad but he had no idea what happened to his mother not that he cares anyway.

Rick was an outcast despite being raised conservative he leaned more left when Margaret Thatcher was in office Rick would cringe internally when he'd hear what her next scheme was going to be on the news he didn't feel like other guys they were all about sports, getting girls and being tough while he was more interested in changing the world, the arts and fashion he often would write poetry when feeling down so he used that to his advantage.

However his parents didn't really approve of some of his choices and would often take their anger out on him Rick didn't have many friends despite trying to join various groups at school giving up but having developed an ego due to his good grades to hide the fact he was hating life he made jokes but not many people would find those jokes funny he thought he was entertaining the audience when really he was annoying them.

He went on to study sociology at school he also read up about socialism and anarchism and felt like starting a rebellion (in his head).

He genuinely is a weak coward and he knows it but he hates that fact too so he distracts himself often whether it be with poetry, mind games or just failing to get back at Vyvyan for 80th prank he pulled on him that week he may get irritated by Vyvyan and Neil's shenanigans but they are the only friends he has...well until Kelsie came along.

Kelsie never really fitted in at school she used to think she could entertain people like Rick but after getting bullied by kids younger than her she stopped that idea she was interested in fantasy and witchcraft but then a rumour was spread around the school saying Kelsie was possessed and worshiped the devil she did not want her brothers to find out about her religious beliefs.

After doing research Kelsie became an anarchist she was often used as a scapegoat and felt socially awkward often sometimes tilting her head randomly or occasionally stuttering due to a development disorder she has but never mentions. She had a confusing personality trying to be kind but as times passed became more stoic and emotionless due to trust issues via the internet she delved into escapism through tv, music, anime and various other media based outlets.

She moved to scumbag college and ended up in the same student house as Neil, Vyvyan, Rick and Mike she felt more accepted there and every day was a day of laughter, randomness and unexpected hijinks after joining Kelsie started working on her social skills and wasn't as shy as before.

(despite Kelsie being the same Kelsie from the Matzelberger stories since this is in a more human universe her backstory is slightly more like "Kelsey" (the author) than Kelsie (the OC).

Chapter 7

: Why am I screaming why can't I stop?Summary:

Kelsie has a unexpected panic attack,luckily the boys try to help her

Chapter Text

(Note: this particular scenario was based off a real-life event that happened to me but that didn't end as well as this scenario did)

Sometimes your mind plays tricks on you and sometimes you are your own worst enemy

Kelsie had planned to spend the Saturday afternoon relaxing, However, that didn't go as planned she didn't feel well but not in an "I have a cold way" in an "I'm shaking and shivering and I can't stop while uncontrollably crying" way.

Kelsie tried distracting herself with music but something odd was happening

her hands felt shivery, her stomach was continuously feeling warm and sweaty

then Kelsie started to howl as she held her throat lightly it felt warm, dry and she was drowsy a little faint

Kelsey's mouth felt like it was blocked by something feeling like she wanted to choke

her body was heating up like an oven and her mind was giving her a feeling of terror and fear

this caught the attention of a certain spotty faced anarchist as he ran down the stairs wondering where the screaming was coming from

"Kelsie? a-are you alright?" he said concerned

Kelsie shook her head "No Rick I feel like I'm having a panic attack" Kelsie burst into tears "why can't I stop crying I was fine earlier?". "make it stop make it stop WHY CAN'T I STOP??"

Rick tried to understand what was going on as he ran over to the sofa

"Oh dear"

he tried to reassure Kelsie

"it's ok I'm here um how many breaths can you take?"

Kelsie started to attempt some breaths

Rick nodded

"that's good"

before Rick pondered

"As much as I don't want to ask Vyvyan for help I'll probably have to he is a medical student so he'd know more about handling these situations than I do"

"Stay on that sofa Kelsie I just need to go and get something I'll be right back," he said before running upstairs past the hallway into Vyvyan's pigsty of a bedroom

"VYVYAN!!!!" he yelled

Vyvyan yelled back

"what do you want?"

Rick asked

"Do you have any books about Panic Attacks?"

Vyvyan complained

"what would you need my bloody textbooks for???"

Rick explained

"it's Kelsie she's had a panic attack"

Vyvyan understood

"Oh... have you made her breathe in and out?"

Rick nodded

"Yes her breathing is normal but she's been sweating, shivering and feeling drowsy"

Vyvyan answered

"Right I'll see what I can do"

Vyvyan and Rick ran downstairs where Kelsie was sitting her legs felt weak shaking like a jellyfish

Rick said

"Kelsie! Vyvyan's here I think he might know how to help"

Vyvyan then got a cold washcloth and lightly rested it against Kelsey's face, Neil was told about the situation so he prepared a tea with two sugars and some milk.

Kelsie was eventually able to settle as she laid snug in a blanket as she watched some tv with Rick and Vyvyan Kelsie got better in the past when she would have panic attacks she would've either hid the fact she was having one or she was left to deal with it herself at least now she had Vyvyan, Rick, Neil and sometimes Mike she wasn't alone.

The Young Ones may be a boisterous bunch but they are a soft bunch as much as they don't like to admit it sometimes.

Chapter Management

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Chapter 8

: Cuddles

It's a Stormy night resulting in power outages and a certain punk showing a weakness of his

It was like any other evening at Scumbag College as the storm crackled in the dark dim sky.

Mike was upstairs with some bird he somehow managed to get with

struggling to find food in the kitchen was the grubby self-deprecating Hippie Neil scavenging the fridge for leftovers as he rarely used the oven even if he did that would be dangerous considering the appalling weather.

Trying to ignore the noise was Rick in his room listening to some Dexy's Midnight Runners before the radio paused to static.

Kelsie was sitting at the table doing some coursework on the other side of the room Vyvyan was playing a video game.

Up in Rick's room when the radio and lights turned off it gave Rick a surprise.

"Oh Well that's just bloody great isn't it because of Thatcher and Republican oil deals it's been messing with the weather which is preventing me from enjoying some pop music stupid fascists they'll stomp on anyone's fun"

with a bored shrug, Rick reluctantly went downstairs to see what the rest of the flatmates were up to.

Rick ran down the damp steps when he heard a groan coming from Kelsey trying to practice some play dialogue for their coursework.

"Ugh I can't do it the words are coming out but my tone just doesn't fit the scenario and I just can't seem to smile today IT'S ALWAYS A FAKE ONE!"

"Now Kelsey I'm sure you can do it I fake a smile all the time what emotion is your character supposed to show?" replied Rick in a soft sounding tone while a stoic stubborn Kelsey answered coldly with

"Happiness"

Oh well, how do you feel when you are with me, Vyvyan, Mike, and Neil when you have to put up with all their nonsense and feel so eccentric your skin crawls?"

Kelsey took a bite into her Dorito before saying in a more neutral, calm laid back sort of way "I don't mind it actually It's quite a funny feeling like I belong with you guys seeing what odd scheme Mike's planning or what concoction Vyvyan is preparing is a thrill to my day".

Rick was taken aback but it made him grin a little except it wasn't out of arrogance like it usually was.

clapping his hands together he said, "See? you can be happy sometimes when you are playing your southern belle stereotype just think that some of us are there with you sure you'll be able to steal the show!"

"Thanks" mumbled Kelsey sounding timid under her duffle coat while she proceeded to pack up her scripts and file folders into her bag placing it next to other bags under the staircase.

The Thunder had turned into lighting as the bolts struck the sky with a loud "CRACK".

Kelsey and Rick joined Vyvyan on the sofa while Vyvyan ignored them to focus on his game swiftly fidgeting the buttons on his controller staring at the blinding television screen despite how bleak the room had become.

Mike was trying to shag a gorgeous woman he was with....when the lights went out

He couldn't see a thing not even the irresistible looking woman sitting before him clad in only underwear.

As she tried to get to the next base, Mike was still puzzled he knew he was in his room but he didn't have a clue that he was supposed to be laid tonight suddenly he felt several sharp pricks at various regions of his body he fell backward feeling idiosyncratic as he left the room. After he had seen some light he noticed the lady had dug her painful fingernails into particular areas of his body Mike was usually the calm, collected flatmate of the group but not this time.

he yelped "ahh!" as he dashed downstairs clambering onto the sofa before shutting up

the final crack of lightening hit the power supply when Neil came running to the back of the sofa blocking Vyvyan's view while he completed the game Vyvyan was confused since the words "GAME OVER" are usually displayed when you die in a video game

it terrified him to notice his surroundings seeing the four other people taking up his space

the little hot headed metal head punk had enough as he screamed

screaming louder than the sound barrier making the electricity work again like magic

"Whoah! that was heavy like heavier than Thor's hammer" exclaimed Neil in wonder at what had just happened

Vyvyan shuddered feeling quiet a feeling he would only really show during classes or when sleeping

h-hold me he meekly said under his breath like if his voice colliding with the Thunder was too much for him

almost like he was scared though he would never ever admit to being scared of anything

Vyvyan? asked Rick concerned that his normally loud psychotic rival was acting like more of a "poof" than he was

"There there," said, Mike, as he rubbed calming circles on Vyvyan's back Kelsey lightly rested his head on Vyvyan's shoulder and Rick gave Vyvyan a gentle cuddle startling him slightly

"You Poof what are you doing?"

"I'm cheering you up matey you were scared of the thunder weren't you that's a bit soft ain't it?"

Vyvyan hated that his weakness was revealed sobbing a little not being able to think of any insults to get back at rick with

"Cuddles are alright even if they are for poofs" Vyvyan answered calming down before an irritated Rick started arguing with him making the punk smirk as the sun started to come out starting the beginning of another day.

Chapter 9

: Apolitical Anarchy

Rick and Kelsie babble about politics

Kelsie and Rick were protesting

Kelsie held a megaphone as she said

"Teresa May is trying to turn Britain into an authoritarian government

Rick said "Teresa's bloody Britain that's what I say"

Later a news crew who were recording people who were voting recorded their protest.

the News Reporter asked, "are you voting for labour or the tories?"

Rick proudly stood on his soapbox

"None of the above"

the News Reporter added what about Ukip?

Kelsie said "they are a bunch of fascists"

(later)

Rick innocently asked, "What is Northern Ireland's political spectrum like?"

Kelsie blankly stared "it's crap"

#the young ones #self insert #fanfic #fanfiction

2 notes · View notes

quartusbellum-blog · 6 years ago

Photo

BELLA for the role of MARY MACDONALD, using the faceclaim KAT MCNAMARA.

I love what you’ve done with Mary! I got a very clear sense of her personality in your application. I really enjoyed your description of her role in the Ashen Phoenix, as well as her unwavering belief that people can’t change. It’s going to be very interesting to see that in play, so thank you so much for applying and welcome to Quartus Bellum!

ooc details

Name: Isabella! You can call me Bella, though. Hi there.

Age: 22.

Pronouns: She/hers/her.

Activity Level: This month is less busy for me and I should be able to get on at least every other day for a couple hours at a time.

Other: The only trigger I have is incest, but it’s not a huge deal for me! Also, this group looks amazing and I’m so excited.

Acknowledgement: I acknowledge that the themes of this game may include triggering elements. I also acknowledge that my character may be harmed, coerced, or even killed (with player’s consent) during paras/events or may cause harm to or kill others during paras/events. - I acknowledge this note.

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general ic details

Name: Mary Gavina MacDonald

Gavina means “hawk woman” in Scottish.

Age: March 28, 1959 (Aires).

Ships: Literally, I’m open to everything and anything. Mary is pansexual, even if she doesn’t exactly know how to identify herself at this time. However, she’s genuinely skeptical of others and it takes a lot for her to actually become romantically involved with someone.

Gender/Pronouns: cis-female, she/hers/her.

Face Claim: Katherine McNamara, Zendaya Coleman (when writing this, pictured her as Kat!)

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biography:

TW: abuse.

Mary was born between wildflowers. Maybe it was fate when Patricia MacDonald lay on a cot just outside the small cottage of her best friend, unable to make it to the hospital. The wildflowers blew in the wind like wind chimes and when Mary was born, she did not scream. Instead, she giggled, as if the flowers were tickling her toes and she was alright with their saying hello.

Her mother was a wild woman; shunned by their small, and very strictly conservative, Scottish town for having a child out of an affair. To Mary, though, her mother’s wildness made her unique and she strived to be just as curious and observational as Patricia was. Mary would follow her mother with starry eyes, taking their lack of housing as an adventure. But there were days where Mary would be the one, alone, on her adventures. Although her mother was born of magical parents, she was a squib, and by association Mary was an outcast. They left the town only to find the grass isn’t greener and sometimes, when her mother was out trying to make them enough to get food for the next day, Mary would be the one bartering at markets, fixing old blankets, spotting the highest ground and the cheapest apple. Eventually, Mary’s sly fingers would get them abandoned houses, free snacks, and even new clothes.

Mary was known as the little girl who saved Patricia MacDonald. However, when she was old enough, her Hogwarts letter found them at an abandoned shack in Northern Scotland. Patricia would never say no to such an opportunity but her lack of surprise was not shared by her daughter. Mary had always thought her skills had been just good enough to be considered lucky, but as she realized she was a witch, it was obvious that magic played a large role in her upbringing. Her heart was not just set on Hogwarts but as soon as she stepped through the doors, she was home. There was food on the table, delicious food, every single night. She could hide in the library any time she’d like. The title of Gryffindor came as as surprise to her, as she always assumed she’d be Ravenclaw, but the Slytherin’s in the halls were even more shocking. She was so far removed from the world of magic that prejudices other than towards the poor had not occurred to her. Not silent about her feelings on this manner, Mary was often found sticking up for the younger Gryffindors, bravely confronting the Slytherin’s and often involving McGonagall (her hero and role model).

The day Mulciber had enough was the day Mary decided that she would do whatever it took to stop these people. She was cornered in a bathroom stall and Mulciber used unspeakable curses and horrible whispers to tell her just what the people in Slytherin thought of her, and other half-bloods and muggleborns who’s blood did not run bright crimson. Mary reported the assault to McGonagall and the both of them stormed to Dumbledore; unstoppable. However, Dumbledore’s hands were tied. Mulciber could not, and would not, be touched. The rest of her sixth year was spent trying to pick up her pieces. She pushed away anything that might be considered friendship in order to focus on taking them down. The rage inside her was like a caged animal and it was not until summertime, back in their shack, that she finally let it out to her mother.

The following August, Dumbledore approached Mary about the Order and she did not hesitate before agreeing. Although she did not agree with Dumbledore’s decision, Mary would give him a chance to prove that he would, and could, save them all. She was one of the original members, devoting most of her final year to helping build the organization from the ground up. Mary was relentless in the Order, eager to learn more spells so that she could teach, dying to study wizarding history so she could learn from the past, and hoping that maybe, just maybe, they could change the world.

Mary would never regret this hopefulness, but it came back to bite her when, during a battle, her mother’s town was ransacked. Her mother was killed in the crossfire, a civilian casualty, that caused Mary’s life to flip upside down. The rage returned but this time she had no one to speak to. The hope flickered off, dying with the setting sun on the day of her mother’s funeral. That very rage boiled throughout the rest of the war and when they lost, she was not surprised. Unfortunately, giving up was not in her vocabulary.

When she did not have her mother to care for, Mary began taking care of the people around her. She would steal, find them shelter, and get through the doors that many of her muggleborn friends could not. The Ashen Phoenix rose from the, well, ashes and Mary was going to make sure that it soared. She was sure if she could survive her mother having died for nothing. Mary will do anything it takes to make sure they win; no matter the cost.

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my character is:

Please Describe a Belief your character has that is wrong.

Mary does not believe people can change. After so much time spent trying to get others to be better and do better and understand that the world is not black and white, she has become tired. Her lips are chapped and her tongue is dry and she does not know how, or really want to, keep pressing people’s buttons to get them to see her point of view. Mary has a nasty habit of believing that she’s almost always right, although in matters of equality she knows that she is right. Maybe that’s a nasty thought, but Mary has had too much spent too much time in her life playing nice to all the wrong people. If you were a Death Eater, in her mind, you will always be one.

Address the differences between what your character is currently doing and what they would prefer to do?

Currently, Mary is the runner for the Ashen Phoenix. If she had to describe the position, she would call it a mix between a healer, a thief, and a tinker. Sirius may be the mother, but Mary heard just as many complains and concerns that she was going to fix. She had always been good with machinery, luckily enough for them, and she was able to hijack cars, fix old radios, and even combine some magic with muggle technology without the loss of function. If she were able to pick and choose her profession, though, Mary would love to continue that thread. She’d always been interested in how technology did not seem to operate around magic and Mary thinks that she could find the solution. A position in the Department of Muggle artifacts, or even an engineer in the muggle world, would be a perfect position. However, Mary knows that those thoughts are only dreams.

ooc questions

Writing Sample:

A single light flickered in the barn, casting a yellow glow that didn’t quite light the entire space. Mary slouched over a wooden desk, eyes fixated carefully on a tiny piece of machinery, one that might not have been visible to others without a microscope. Ever so carefully, she used her wand to slowly left a small section of the radio’s wiring. Closing her eyes, Mary allowed the spell to slip from her lips and the glow of the magic entered the radio. Bracing herself for impact, the radio sputtered once, twice, and then… it turned blue. A smile crept across her face, the first one that she’d managed since the shovels and the dirt and the goodbyes.

The day was for nightmares, Mary decided, but the night was for dreams.

Quickly now, she turned the dial on the radio and listened, softly to the breeze. The tracking spell had worked although Mary was not sure for how long. Her last couple attempts to blend technology and magic had backfired, although not quite catastrophically. A small explosion in the barn was a small price to pay for a potential piece of spy equipment. For a second more, Mary waited. She hoped. The radio did not sputter out, or explode for that matter, but the sound died just as someone was starting to speak. The hope faded from her eyes and she set her head down on the table, silent.

Maybe it wouldn’t have been the right person, but it could have been close. The attack on her town had left them all with little answers but Mary’s biggest question was just who had done it. She’d found scraps of black cloaks, one she would recognize no matter how scarred or ashen the material had become. Whoever had worn this burned her town to ash. Whoever had worn this might have burned her mother, too.

Her mind slipped back to the burial; to her mom sitting in that casket like a mannequin. Mary swore it couldn’t be her there, lacking the rose in her cheeks, and the daisies in her smile. The yellow and pink had disappeared as if they had been sucked out of her by a wand. Mary hated that magic had this sort of power. There were wondrous moments that magic could create but many forgot about the dangers. Mary had not forgotten, and she did not think she ever would.

Her breath was warm against her arm. Sticky. Wet. Mary pulled away and wiped away the tears that she hadn’t let fall at the actual funeral itself. Maybe a couple of hours was what she needed to finally let the tears out. Her shoulders began heaving, the storm coming, tears falling faster now, hitting the wood and changing the color, almost like a mood ring. She couldn’t stop, but she didn’t want to stop, because for the first time since she’d received her tragedy, for the first time since her mother had left the Earth, Mary recognized that she was gone.

The pain was there but, for once, the anger wasn’t.

Exploration:

one. I would love to see Mary confront Mulciber one day. I don’t know if they’re going to be a character in play, or if we would ever receive one, but I want that moment to happen. I picture her having steered clear of him the rest of 6th year and I would like for her to have her revenge, because, honestly, Mary is angry. Mary is angry and she needs an outlet, or at least a moment, to prove to herself that she can put that anger into the world and not have it bite her.

two. I’m so sorry these are all gonna be like Mary’s angry!! But she is! And she wants to break Dumbledore out of his jail cell. She knows he doesn’t deserve to be there and I always imagined him almost having a grandfather presence in her life. If she cannot break him free, she believes that she will never be able to win the war. Mary has been planning, scheming, working on a way to get him out. Whether or not that’s with other characters or with herself is something I could definitely talk to other players about, but I want her to be having this grand scheme to bring Dumbledore back. As if that would suddenly fix everything.

three. Maybe this is a basic one, but I would really love to see Mary open up to someone. She has walls up as high as the tallest tower at Hogwarts, and she usually tries to flirt and hide behind her true feelings in order to keep them pushed down. If she doesn’t listen to that little voice in her brain, she doesn’t have to face herself. However, I want her to find someone who forces her to think about herself and her own feelings. I want someone to bring out the good in her, even if for small minutes. Whether this is a best friend, or a potential romantic interest, it’s of no matter to me! I just would like to see Mary be able to have these moments and she needs someone to press her to do so.

four. Last but certainly not least, I would like Mary to find out who her dad is. In my mind, I pictured him as a wizard who is now a priest, as he was a pureblood who fell in love with a Squib. I don’t know exactly how Mary would deal with this knowledge, as she never had to think about her father (her mother was all she needed). I would still like to see what happens. I also think that she would not appreciate the fact that he was in hiding all of this time when he could have been helping her.

#marauders rp #hprp #skeleton rp #lsrpg #harry potter rp #mary macdonald #mary macdonald bio #quartusbellumaccept

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