#which has actually led to me really liking it

[alpacaradio]

There really is no excuse. Taken with much generosity, its constant discussion of transmisandry is coming from a place of hurt - but as soon as it's talking about trans women, you can immediately tell that OP has never really understood one.

I've never met a trans woman who hasn't grappled deeply with the expectations of masculinity on her and indeed often that very thing led her to identify her own womanhood. I found my own way to recognizing who I am through grappling with the expectations on me and how uncomfortable I was with them!

It was a role that I always implicitly rejected and was uncomfortable with. This story is so common I think it more likely than not you've heard it if you know even a single trans woman. To know many and not be deeply familiar with it seems ... almost impossible. I can only conclude that the OP hasn't really listened.

And in all of this, "if transmascs need to sit for hours and unlearn transmisogyny, fine. but" but nothing at all, because you clearly haven't done the work to put anything after that sentence making demands of a community. You're talking about us like you've done the work to really know and understand trans women, and you've even appealed to multiple evil tranny behaviors, behaviors I've literally never seen from any trans woman, to the point where I think the problem is mostly you.

It is so easy to see that so much of what is in genderqueerdyke's response is specific issues with specific trans women being projected onto an entire community, including so many things which are obviously a consequence of simply not listening to or refusing to believe us.

Yes! I know sex workers, too! Yes, our bodies are constantly fetishized for our maleness even though we are not male. And yes, there are clients who seek out trans women specifically seeing us as men. We're surrounded by chasers. What I find surprising is not that a sex worker you knew had clients who told her they were attracted to her for her maleness, but that you refused to believe her, because I'd say it's more likely than not that any trans woman who's ever done sex work has been told that very thing. But you refuse to believe the things women have told you, and so you put doubt on that part of our experience too. You had to make our lived experience sound impossible, so that describing our experiences sounds like bigotry rather than fact.

I'm so annoyed I popped into second person, but I do not really want to talk to it at all. I don't want it to talk to me or anyone else; I want it to stop talking about trans women entirely until it can fucking believe even one of us and not talk over us and decide our experiences for us.

Any time someone says, "I need to unlearn X? Fine, but" your hackles should be raised. This is someone that really should not be trying to speak about the community of trans women.

I guess this is something the community has generally known about Equinox, but damn, this isn't a mistake or something you can just apologize for; this is evidence of an entire way of thinking that underlies every rant I've ever seen about transmisandry. How am I supposed to believe any differently when I've only ever seen it post through all of this and never really actually grapple with it? How are we supposed to get "solidarity" when solidarity means putting up with the abuse of being bombarded with this belief system the moment we let our guard down? the moment we're comfortable with ourselves? @genderqueerdykes is not someone who can truly be in community with me, and I think not someone to feel comfortable around as a trans woman. If I were its friend I would hold my cards damn close to my chest.

Pretend you didn't see that.

This is a level of transmisogyny that is somewhat hard to comment on because the things that one would normally point out as transmisogynistic implications are said so brazenly that there can be no pretense about any of the involved parties being unaware of it. The authors know, the readers know, everybody understands that this is pure transmisogyny. There is no plausible deniability.

It's an attempt to establish proximity between transfems and cis manhood in every way possible. Their bodies, their histories, their "socialization", the way they are treated by others, the way they treat and view others, their ways of thinking, even their self-conception. Every aspect of their being is cast as essentially male. Transfems are being called "men" in all but name - and not just any "men", they are made into embodiments of the worst aspects of hegemonic manhood. Not just male socialized but continuing to benefit from male socialization. Not just engaging in abusive behaviors stemming from male socialization but being afforded the freedom to do so because they continue to be treated as men. (Suffice it to say that this does not align with reality)

This is unadulterated sex-essentialism and it's intentionally being used to delegitimize and devalue the standpoint of transfems in feminist discourses. It's clear that the author is projecting transmisogynist ideas onto transfems and simply assumes that these ideas must be correct without considering any alternative. (The fact that transfems do not internalize "male socialization" has been reiterated many times over and should not have to be continually reasserted. This is a baseline level of understanding that we should be able to expect and demand from members of our community.)

Misogyny is framed as being contained within the realms of sexed bodies and gendered socialization in such a way that it allows for the casting of transfems as people enacting misogyny without being primary targets themselves - like cis men.

The claim that the animosity some transfems exhibit towards men comes from wanting to "prove" their womanhood serves the double purpose of casting their womanhood as inauthentic and denying the misogyny they suffer at the hands of men. One would be hard pressed to find a more cruel mischaracterization of transfems' experiences than this.

The cynical misappropriation of the standpoint of the people this screed is directed at by the use of "we" despite making it abundantly clear that the behavior that is being criticized and its supposed causes exempt people such as the author from the possibility of engaging in it should also be noted as an attempt at weaponizing a compromised version of standpoint epistemology against transfems.

The only plausible target audience for this kind of rhetoric are those who carry extreme ressentiment towards transfems and are susceptible to softened formulations of TERF ideology. These are the same kinds of ideas that TERFs have tried to push into trans spaces numerous times, e.g. under names like "sex-conscious feminsim".

A formulaic "retreat" from this post consisting entirely of platitudes has been published after the author received backlash for it but nobody is under any obligation to accept it and they absolutely should not. A person who was very obviously attempting to promote TERF ideology in trans spaces and in the same stroke accused transfems of being uniquely prone to making false accusations is not trustworthy, even if that person backs down upon realizing that the reception is more uniformly negative than anticipated.

@genderqueerdykes @gateway-2000 is a transmisogynist, beyond a shadow of a doubt. Its entire worldview is permeated by transmisogynistic assumptions, ideas and biases at a fundamental level. It has straightforwardly expressed an understanding of transfems' interiorities, their experiences and their social positions that is so incorrect that one has to wonder how someone holding these views could have navigated trans communities for a considerable amount of time without encountering the many transfeminist rebuttals to all of its demagoguery. How could someone with even a passing level of familiarity with TERF ideology or "gender critical feminism" read and espouse these ideas without recognizing them? It's completely unthinkable. It's not unreasonable to assume that it simply misjudged the consensus within its audience as being sufficiently anti-transfeminist for ideas such as these to fall upon fertile ground and it is now going back to waiting until the time is ripe to reintroduce them and to expressing them in more subtle ways until then.

But you can't un-ring a bell.

We can and should assert boundaries against reactionaries engaging in obvious subversion such as this. Refusing to do so is a deleterious error in judgement. This is very far beyond the limits of what any trans community that wants to consider transfems a part of itself can be allowed to tolerate.

[ecargmura]

The Apothecary Diaries Episode 30 Review - Crystal Pavilion Conspiracy

There’s always something going on in the Crystal Pavilion and it seems that there won’t be any more conspiracies there now. I’ve been told that Shin had appeared in the first episode, so I did go back to watch the first episode and saw that was the case. It seems that everything bad that happened in the Crystal Pavilion all revolved around Shin and that’s pretty crazy when you think about it.

On the topic of episode 1, Shin had shown up when she noticed Maomao’s message but discarded it, which then resulted in the death of Lihua’s newborn son, but it did eventually led to the banning of the white face powder that caused the late infant prince’s death. It makes me wonder: since Shin is revealed to keep banned items, was she the reason why that one servant girl kept the face powder back in episode 4? It would make sense if that were the case since Lihua was weary and wanted to die at the time; Shin would’ve found it a good opportunity to get rid of her if that was the case; since she’s also a high position of power in the Crystal Pavilion, her words are definitely of power to the servant girls.

Shin’s motive in all of this is basically driven by envy. She prepared herself all her life to become a consort and believed she was the best candidate, but her cousin Lihua was chosen over her. She believed that if she gets rid of Lihua, then she could have a chance, but that’s not really the case. I think it’s obvious why she wasn’t chosen other than the lack of…vavoom; Shin is too focused on status and power while Lihua isn’t. A noticeable trait that the consorts have is that they all aren’t too power hungry and that’s possibly the reason why the current Emperor took them in as concubines.

Lihua certainly went through a lot of character development. When she was first seen, she had slapped Gyokuyou and seemed mean and arrogant. Episode 4 had her be very weary due to the loss of her son, but Maomao was able to get her spirits up. Now, in this episode, she’s going all out with firing her own cousin by slapping her and almost punching her. She certainly took a page out of Maomao’s book with the b*tchslap. In fact, it’s crazy to see her go from weary to be the concubine ready to throw hands. She’s gotten so strong! Maybe it’s because Maomao helped her reevaluate the importance of her own life and now that she’s pregnant again, she doesn’t want to repeat the same tragedy—she’s fighting for her unborn child even harder.

This episode shows that even if the concubine is the nicest person around, the corruption is mainly due to the people around them. No one has to worry about the Jade Pavilion’s ladies as she only has a few and they’re all trustworthy people. Shin is probably the main reason for the corruption in the Crystal Pavilion as she’s the one who quarantined the sick servant girl instead of getting her help for her cough to the point that Shenlu, the clinic lady, had to request Maomao to give her medicine. It makes you wonder what the system in the Diamond and Garnet pavilion are like…

Shin is voiced by Sayaka Kinoshita, who you might have heard in Delicious Party Precure as Secretoru and also in Pokemon Sun and Moon as Lusamine. Her voice acting was actually really good towards the end where she started screaming and tried to throw the basket of fragrance at Lihua. It’s a really good voice, so it feels unfortunate that this is probably the last time Shin will be seen. Shenlu is voiced by Masako Katsuki, who is known for voicing Tsunade from Naruto. It’s crazy how stacked the voice cast is for this anime.

I wonder what’s up with the Emperor towards the end. Is he reminiscing the past or something? Maybe there was another similar incident in the past and that’s why the episode ends with him looking back? I honestly can’t wait to see what next week has in store. What are your thoughts on this episode?

[pancakeke]

hiiiii can I get a court of public opinion to comment on an argument/my current drama issue? long ass post under the cut

I put numbered questions in bullets under screenshots + explanations. you don't gotta respond to all 12 questions but if you could reply with a number and a corresponding answer I'd really appreciate the outside perspective.

background: my friend and I are both autistic. yesterday he used the term "migrant labor" in a way that I interpreted to refer to an individual. my running gag is to call him a capitalist and accuse him of exploiting people at any opportunity cause he's openly a communist and it's funny to mess with him. he makes jokes back to me and neither of us have ever had issue with this. so i said he loves to exploit migrant workers. his response to insist that I didn't understand the concept of the term "migrant". after accusing me of being wrong a lot and a lot of me trying to figure out what he was talking about, he finally explained that he was talking about "migrant labor" as an economic system, even though I was talking about "migrant workers" as individuals. like I even used a different term so i really don't understand his pivot. but I digress.

before he actually explained what he meant by arguing about the term "migrant labor", my repeated questions about what he was trying to correct led to this:

context: he is canadian and I'm american. we frequently joke about how we spell words differently, but also throughout this conversation he brought up different laws, so I didn't know if he put "labor" in quotes as a joke to discredit the source for being american under the reasoning of "fuck what america thinks about any topic" or he was indicating that the link was american and that meant its information wouldn't apply to canadian laws/definitions that he may have been trying to reference.

I requested clarification for this and other things he said but did not receive explanations. he claims the message in the screenshot provided a sufficient answer.

this is the link i sent him on discord. it is very relevant to this post.

Question 1: do the options I came up seem reasonable or do they seem like wild guesses?

Question 2: you think it's possible that both of my assumptions could be wrong?

Question 3: does his response of the word "labor" in quotes bring to mind an obvious explanation that I didn't consider or mention here?

I again said that I didn't know what he meant and asked for more detail.

he has still not explained what he meant by responding "labor" in quotes and insists that it was a sufficient response that provided necessary context for me to understand what he meant by it. now he is focused on telling me that the encyclopedia britannica is an american publication.

Question 4: is it clear that I was aware the encyclopedia britannica is american before he repeated this information?

Question 5: using your own personal knowledge of the encyclopedia britannica and considering the words making up that URL I shared, do you understand why he repeated this information?

Question 6: given the screenshots so far, do you have any reason to believe that an explanation of the nationality of the encyclopedia britannica provides the remaining context needed to clarify what he meant in the first screenshot when he replied "labor" in quotes?

Question 7: understanding that he was actually making this statement to provide additional context to his previous statement, do you believe it was reasonable for me to follow what he was doing here?

note: my messages time stamped 1:00 is related to the information I had been given before he sent that screenshot. it's not a response to the screenshot.

ultimately this was the whole issue: he refused to believe that my link was credible because it used the american english spelling of "labor" rather than the british english spelling which is "labour". he felt that pointing out the spelling was enough information and context for me to draw the same conclusion.

going back to that link I initially sent: ultimately he made an incorrect assumption from the text of the url. i do not know why the url uses american english, but the actual encyclopedia britannica page only uses the british english spelling "labour" (except when citing book titles that use the american english form). despite being fully capable of viewing the page, he refused to click the link on principle and based this entire argument on the basis that his assumption was correct.

Question 8: do you believe he provided adequate explanation before sharing the the wiki?

Question 9: would you say it's an easy to start with the information "the encyclopedia britannica is an american publication" and conclude that "it is published using british english, not american english"?

Question 10: would you consider it a "direct explanation" that he sent the screenshot without saying anything about it in text form?

Question 11: were you personally able to come to the conclusion he expected me to understand using only the first screenshot in this post?

Question 12: was it reasonable for him to insist he knew the contents of the encyclopedia britannica web page based only on its url?

this is not the first time this friend has done something like this to argue despite quoting "Socratic method" all the fucking time.

Bonus Question: how well would you say my friend employed methods of socratic debate in these screenshots?

[dark-lord-of-awesomeness]

I was inspired to write this scene in dialogue script format. The Sea Grunk Twins maybe feel a bit too open and being able to communicate, especially Stan. But let's assume it's been several months since Weirdmageddon and they've actually been working with therapists.

Plus being faced with their counterparts struggling over several days maybe got them talking and reflecting some more. Witnessing the obvious emotional constipation from the outside is painful. The obvious differences about their lifes help, too. And it's not like they talk much about their own issues.

--

Carla: Please tell me it won't take these two knuckleheads almost 30 years being able to ask for hugs!

Sea Grunk Stanley: Carla, we're one of the worst versions you could ask for help about this.

Sea Grunk Stanford: If only because an accident led me to 30 years being lost in the multiverse until Lee saved me. Not to mention the extreme circumstances that led to our reconciliation.

SG Stanley: Your Standford and Stanley are way ahead us in several ways compared to when us old coots met again. Both times.

SG Stanford: I assume that our histories were identical until a certain point, that being when- A witch you said? When the witch cursed the younger Stanley. But even if you discount that detail-

SG Stanley: Moses, I wish I could.

SG Stanford: Hush, we all know you're not really bothered by that. Um, going back. Our respective lifes have diverged immensely from each other. We just don't know what will happen or what they need because we can't compare the two situations.

We're still playing catch-up with dealing with our own trauma, lacking communication, and having been separated for that long without almost anybody else supporting us.

SG Stanley: And you know some of the fucked up stuff around the history that probably's the same.

Carla: I made some guesses about the things the twins let slip about their childhood and adolescence. And their twenties.

SG Stanley: It was... probably even worse than you already heard. It makes that sappy intimacy and being vulnerable stuff even more terrifying. The two need to relearn each other. Need to unlearn some deep-rooted shit rotting away in their minds.

SG Stanford: A lot of it was planted there by other people. Which doesn't change that it's unfortunately tangled with their bond and feelings about each other on top of everything else. We would know.

SG Stanley: But! Not all of it is bad!

SG Stanford: Lee's right. You said that they're way ahead of us in some ways, compared to us when we were their age.

SG Stanley: Actually talking with and listening to each other. *beat* Well, some listening, and some telling each other important things.

SG Stanford: Having an actual support system outside of their immediate family, with healthy relationships. More than one person who can comfort them or call them out on their shit. Who they can rely on, and who can rely on them.

SG Stanley: I repeat, I'll deny having said any of this sappy stuff later if asked.

Carla + SG Stanford: But we won't let you forget! :)

SG Stanley: Shut up, I'm denying. So. Having real friends and family-who-are-also-friends has helped us the most. There, I said it. And now I'm denying I said it.

SG Stanford: That, and therapy. But yes. Not being on our own anymore has made it possible even getting to this point.

Carla: So you're saying that they need time to figure it out, but that they will eventually. *sigh*

SG Stanford: Well, not only that. I'm actually worried about a trend you've mentioned. They're the most comfortable hugging each other and showing affectionate behavior when the other was hurt or in danger?

SG Stanley: I swear, if they start any bad habits over that, I'm going to tie them together and sit on them until they've talked things out. Properly!

Carla:

SG Stanley:

SG Stanford:

SG Stanley:

Carla:

SG Stanford: Carla.

SG Stanley: I'm getting the rope-

Carla: Don't you dare!

[It's about the Cat Stan Twins having the same desire (protect their brother) and same issue (if I can't even protect him, what worth am I? / he's more important than me / self-worth) putting them into conflict.]

This is so good. And Carla's the perfect person for them to talk to about it.

Because their lives are so different, they can't know for sure how the cat Stan's will turn out. We know they'll figure out how to talk communicate with each other, but at this point in time that's hard to see. Especially since their friends have to help them along and watch all their painful attempts.

I love this. Acknowledging how they can't know for sure, but pointing out how well the younger twins are doing compared to where they were at at that age. Then SG Stan wanting to hurry the process along lol.

[beesandwasps]

Well, now, that’s a historically debatable proposition.

The thing about the Democratic Party as it stands now is that its strategies have already failed. Therefore: historically, any proposal which was rejected because it would have caused the failure of the party’s candidate was in fact as viable as the one they did, in fact, choose to pursue.

There have been two major points since the Clinton administration where blind support of a bad candidate/campaign which lost anyway very explicitly permitted the Democratic leadership to attempt exactly the same kind of bad candidate/campaign again later, losing the second time as well:

Al Gore ran a campaign which amounted to “if you elect me I promise you won’t even notice it’s a Democrat in the White House instead of a Republican”. (Despite the party’s attempts to blame his loss in Florida on third party voters, according to exit polls there were something like 10 times as many registered Democrats in Florida who voted for Bush. When asked about it, the most common reason was “I couldn’t tell the difference between the two, so I voted for the one who also promised to cut taxes”. This was a losing strategy.) But since the eventual vote counts indicated that Gore should have won Florida anyway had there been no intervention by the Supreme Court, they felt justified in that campaign, so John Kerry used the same strategy in 2004… and lost. Had Gore suffered severe penalties for promising to be Republican Lite™, Kerry would presumably not have done so, and might conceivably have won.

Hillary Clinton ran a campaign in which — immediately after winning the primaries — she pivoted to a strategy of kicking the base in the teeth and chasing Republican votes on the strength of “hey, look, Republicans, I can be just as conservative and hateful as your guy, but more polite!” This, very predictably, lost — quite aside from the fact that most people hated Hillary Clinton personally, deliberately telling your own base to shut up is ridiculously bad politics, exactly the kind of thing that an imbecile like her would do; any honest analysis of her performance in Congress and as Secretary of State would have concluded that her lack of actual competence and foresight would give her trouble managing a small-town Denny’s, let alone running a country, but of course the party was not interested in giving any honest analysis — not when her husband was such a major figure. But because Democrats supported her despite her shortcomings (exit polls said that more Sanders supporters voted for her in 2016, by percentage, than her supporters voted for Obama in 2008 when she was the loser of the primary), Kamala Harris felt free to run the exact same campaign, even going to far as to feed hundreds of millions of dollars to the same consultants. And, of course, she lost too. Had voters held Clinton responsible for her ridiculously awful campaign, Harris might not have run the campaign again, or at least not hired those same consultants who apparently gave her really bad advice.

This was repeated on a smaller scale all over the country in Congressional races — the party was never punished for catering to Joe Lieberman by handing him the 2000 VP slot, so they were emboldened to back the Senatorial candidacies of Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, both of whom, like Joe Lieberman, had already demonstrated in the House that they would gladly hold the party’s platform for ransom and even side with Republicans on a regular basis.

Democrats gained no ground by supporting these obvious losers — not the first time, when those candidates themselves lost, nor in the secondary elections where, emboldened by the lack of consequences, the party made the same mistakes. The only way to scare the party into finally actually listening to what its own base wants is for the base to admit that a loss is inevitable and use that loss. The failure to take the bull by the horns has led to Trump’s second term and a Democratic caucus in Congress that’s full of people who don’t even agree with their own voters.

[kabr0ztrousers]

Can you do a story with Oreg and the reader :>

You're skipping the line, because I'm behind schedule today and the ones ahead of you need setup.

You're welcome

Kabr0z Writes Episode 47: One year later

This episode picks up from Episode 42!

Find the rest of the Kabr0z Writes anthology here!

CWs: Not many today! Creampie; size difference; interspecies relations; fucking on a table; squirting;

A/N: I got into BattleTech today, which is absolutely one of those "Dear God, is that daylight?" Games, so it's 23:30 now.

Hopefully this doesn't keep me up all night again 🤣

Also, send in your requests already, you know you want to

######################################

A year ago, you were sold to an orc warrior. It just so happened, that orc warrior was a duke who also runs a soup kitchen. You'd probably have wound up with him anyway if your adoptive father had let you get to know each other first. Things didn't really end up that way, and you were sold for thirty gold pieces and railed in childhood living room to seal the deal.

You weren't sure he really understood the idea behind an anniversary, he woke up at the crack of dawn as usual, trained until breakfast with you and your son together, then left to do whatever good works he took it upon himself to do. You like it, sure, he's certainly well-loved in the city but it is a little unbecoming for a marcher lord to be seen rethatching a roof.

You spent the day making preparations, arranging flowers you picked from the garden, setting up your child at a playdate so he wouldn't disturb you, you'd even bought him a gift, though he was a bit of an ascetic so it was only a new tunic and some hobnailed boots. Something he'd actually use.

He came home in the early evening, clomping into the house. You could hear him going towards the chapel where he'd normally stay for a while in quiet reflection before dinner.

Oreg had been a paladin since he was very young, abandoned by his warband and adopted by an elven conclave. He was younger than you when he ventured into the Shadowlands to kill the lich, and always carried his faith with him. You sat with your husband, gazing silently at the icons on the small altar, dedicated to the god of fertility and rebirth. Your hand brushed his, grasping a couple of his huge fingers in your own hand. He looked away from the altar, smiling at you as you rested your head on his shoulder.

"Dinner time?" He put an arm around you, placing his hand on your waist as he held you to him

"I was thinking of something else first, it's been a year since we met, you know?"

His greenish-grey skin went even greyer "Oh, I haven't got you anything!"

You laughed and gave him a peck on the cheek "I noticed, you'll make it up to me later, for now, let's go to the dining room"

You led him by the hand, a five-foot-nothing woman leading an eight-foot orc through your house to the grand dining room that only ever seemed to get use when you had company, or your child wanted to play there. On the table were the presents you'd bought, and the bouquet you'd made.

Your husband's eyes lit up. "For me?"

"Yes, dear, for you. Go ahead and open them"

You'd never seen such childlike glee from this man, normally lodged somewhere between practical and stoic, now filled with anticipation as he turned the first gift over in his hands before tearing off the paper and holding his new clothes to his chest. He was even more impressed with the boots, remarking on the sturdy soles as he tried them on. You couldn't help but beam at him as he stomped up and down the length of the room, clearly loving the clack-clack-clack of the nails on the smooth granite floor

You finally managed to convince to stop stomping, holding this giant man who suddenly has the boundless energy of a teen half his age. You pushed him onto one of the chairs arrayed on either side of the great table, climbing on top of him

You whispered in his ear "Now, you get to give me my gift" before hiking up your skirt, revealing your pussy to him.

He got the idea. Bundling you up, he lay you on the table, kicking the chair away and kneeling to dive face-first into you.

His hands gently gripped your thighs, squeezing the plump flesh as his tongue gently explored you. He started slow, barely touching as he licked the outer lips up and down. Speeding up, he started to tease the inner lips and your hole, running his tongue vertically, slightly catching your clit every now and then to send electric tingles through you. You could feel how wet this was making you. Hell, you could hear how wet it was making you! He still wasn't stopping, rubbing your hole with a thumb as he moved his attention upward, his tongue rolling around your clit as you whimpered and whined on the table.

When his finger started pushing into you, it was too much. You cried out as the tip slid in, feeling yourself clenching as your hands gripped the back of his head through your skirts. Oreg wasn't done yet, though, that finger pressed on, getting deeper inside before he curled it upwards, pushing hard against your g-spot, making you gasp as your knuckles whitened on your clothes. He moved with a practiced purpose, listening to the crechendo of gasping cries you made as you approached your next peak. At last, you came again, squirting straight into his mouth as waves of pleasure flowed over you. Ever since he figured out how to do it, it's been his favourite thing to do with you, you weren't sure if he enjoyed getting off as much as making you squirt for him.

He definitely enjoyed getting off though, and as he stood up, you felt the imposing thickness of his cock against you. You'd gotten more used to it over the months, but it was still challenging at first. He held the absurdly sized cock against you, rubbing it up and down your slit, slathering it with your juices before angling it into you. A moment passed, you could feel it pushing into you. Your body relented, and the tip stretched its way inside. Your breathing once again turned to gasping and your toes curled as he slid in, being careful not to go too quickly even as you could see he desperately needed your body.

"Do it, give it to me like you want" you breathed your enthusiasm to him. He looked at you a moment. You met his gaze.

He thrusted. You screamed. Wide-eyed, he looked down at you, even as you held him in "Deeper, Oreg, please, deeper"

He pulled out an inch or two, then forced himself deeper into you, letting his bodyweight force his cock inside. You bucked and rolled your hips, fucking him back as he pressed in. He picked up speed, your moans emboldening him

"Cum in me, cum in me, cum in me" you repeated your mantra over and over again as the orc took you. The table rocked and creaked with the force of his thrusts, again and again until at last, he did as you asked.

His hips hit yours and he let out a groaning sigh, cock twitching, filling you up as he dropped his load into you. You stroked his face and pulled him to you. You kissed. Your tongue was in his mouth now, he gently caressed it with his own as his balls pumped more and more of his essence into you, already leaking out and pooling below you.

You held him to you, closing your eyes, not letting him go. This is the only present you wanted from him.

Though a sword would be awesome.

########################################

Hope you enjoyed that, it's super duper late now so I'm just going to remind you all that requests are open and you're welcome to leave one!

[waitmyturtles]

Turtles Catches Up With Old GMMTV, and When Queer Media Goes Mainstream: The Lakorn Corner, Part 2 -- The Incredible Miracle That Is The Miracle Of Teddy Bear, and How Its Performance Speaks to the BL We Watch Today

[What’s going on here? After joining Tumblr and discovering Thai BLs through KinnPorsche in 2022, I began watching GMMTV’s new offerings -- and realized that I had a lot of history to catch up on, to appreciate the more recent works that I was delving into. From tropes to BL frameworks, what we’re watching now hails from somewhere, and I’m learning about Thai BL's history through what I’m calling the Old GMMTV Challenge (OGMMTVC). Starting with recommendations from @absolutebl on their post regarding how GMMTV is correcting for its mistakes with its shows today, I’ve made an expansive list to get me through a condensed history of essential/classic/significant Thai BLs produced by GMMTV and many other BL studios. My watchlist, pasted below, lists what I’ve watched and what’s upcoming, along with the reviews I’ve written so far. Today, I'm continuing a three-part sub-series on queer primetime lakorns in Thailand, this time highlighting 2022's magnificent The Miracle of Teddy Bear.]

TW: child abuse and a few major spoilers. I absolutely urge you to watch this show, and I really don't want to spoil anything, but please know that this show is one of my new favorite Thai queer dramas, so if that means anything to you, maybe watch it first before getting to this piece!

Hello again! Welcome to part two of the OGMMTVC's sub-series, The Lakorn Corner, where I'm examining important moments in television when Thai queer media and themes, concentrated mostly in the niche Series Y/Thai BL genre, crossed over into mainstream spaces -- namely the lakorn, or primetime drama, space.

Last week, I wrote about 2019's The Fallen Leaf, Thailand's first-ever queer primetime lakorn, which focused on the life story of a transgender woman. I posited in that piece that The Fallen Leaf made a number of significant breakthroughs for broadcast primetime Thai television, especially in centering very specific ideas and themes of LGBTQ+ equality that reached a much bigger audience than the shows of the smaller Series Y genre had ever had previously. Important to note is that The Fallen Leaf aired on the One31 channel (which belongs to GMM, an entertainment conglomerate that also owns GMMTV).

Since the airing of The Fallen Leaf, One31 has subsequently aired two more very important (and VERY huge) queer primetime dramas, 2022's Khun Chai/To Sir With Love, and 2024's Spare Me Your Mercy. The wonderful @clairedaring posited in the tags of my post on The Fallen Leaf that the immense popularity of TFL on One31 allowed One31 to widely broaden its scope of experimentation beyond the traditional heterosexual romances that usually dominate the lakorn genre.

This is important for me to note because, a few years later, Thailand's biggest broadcast channel, Channel 3, decided to broadcast a queer lakorn of its own: The Miracle of Teddy Bear. I want to posit right away that one theory I have about Miracle being able to occupy arguably the biggest primetime airing spot on Thailand's broadcast television was due to both the massive success of The Fallen Leaf in the same time slot on a different channel, as well as the explosive and exponential growth of the smaller Series Y/Thai BL genre between 2019 and 2022, which likely led Channel 3 executives to believe that its own broad and mainstream audience was ready for queer content in primetime. I'll get more into this in a moment.

(The Miracle of Teddy Bear is actually -- HA -- the third queer lakorn to have aired in a primetime slot, as the flopped comedy Rak Diao aired earlier in the year of 2022 on One31. However, Rak Diao did not make a large cultural impression on queer media in Thailand as did The Fallen Leaf, Miracle, or Khun Chai, so I'm leaving it off of this list.)

As opposed to The Fallen Leaf (which centers a single transgender female character), I've seen The Miracle of Teddy Bear categorized as either a BL and/or a lakorn. This discussion on Reddit regarding "lakorn BLs" describes the confluence of "new" queer storylines within the long-existent soap opera/Thai lakorn structure, especially with the subsequent airing of Khun Chai (To Sir With Love) later in the 2022 autumn season.

It's important for me to note here Miracle wasn't a typical lakorn OR a typical BL. It was not a soap opera, it was not a historical drama, and it was not a typical romance. It was very much an exploratory and penetrating drama, but it happens to be labeled as either BL and/or lakorn due to its airing time and its themes.

I emphasize these mundane points because I want to highlight, as I said in my review of The Fallen Leaf, that

as opposed to The Fallen Leaf, which centered one queer main character,

The Miracle of Teddy Bear was the first queer drama to air in a primetime slot on a major Thai broadcast channel *that centered same-sex relationships*.

Considering that Miracle focuses a huge part of its dialogue on love and acceptance, rather than a lifespan-focused psuedo-bildungsroman format like The Fallen Leaf, we MUST therefore juxtapose Miracle against the airing of GMMTV Series Y dramas, which air on GMM25 in Thailand, a channel akin (to us in the States) to, say, the WB or MTV, meaning -- a channel that is not as popular and culturally widespread or significant as the broadcast-level ABC/CBS/NBC channels of the States.

AS WELL, Channel 3 was already showing BLs by the time of Miracle's airing, particularly Secret Crush On You, earlier in 2022 and produced by Idol Factory. But Idol Factory's BLs on Channel 3 air in later timeslots, often at 10 pm or 10:30 pm -- certainly not targeted to a much wider primetime audience.

In other words: in every hotel room I stayed in during my trip to Thailand last year, I had Channel 3, but I never had GMM25. International fans that watch GMMTV dramas on YouTube must understand that while *we* have easy access to most GMMTV dramas, thus making GMMTV dramas plentiful fodder for online fandom -- that GMMTV dramas WITHIN Thailand face tremendous competition from het and queer shows airing on more culturally prominent channels, if they're not web-exclusive shows.

As I noted in my review of The Fallen Leaf, I pondered the reasons why One31 executives approved that show's script. One31 is known for being a bolder channel than the more staid Channel 3. But I also wonder -- it may have helped the One31 executives to approve The Fallen Leaf precisely because its transgender main character was NOT centered in a romance (in fact, she was centered in a notorious love tangle involving her uncle-in-law, her father, and her aunt) (I know, I know).

When I think about this, to jump three years later into 2022 and to see that Channel 3 approved of The Miracle of Teddy Bear's script -- I do think, circuitously, that the airing and popularity of BLs previous to The Miracle of Teddy Bear certainly helped Channel 3 to consider airing holistically queer content, partially centered within a same-sex relationship, in a primetime slot. The amazing @bengiyo and @shortpplfedup of @the-conversation-pod, along with the utterly inimitable and dearest @happypotato48, posited recently that the creators of Miracle may have gotten AWAY with getting this show to air, because the premise of the show -- an inanimate teddy bear is alived to become a human -- itself was so absurd as to perhaps be interpreted as comedy.

According to this EXCELLENT reporting and analysis post by @flowerbeasblog, Miracle's ratings were unimpressive, maybe even dismal, as compared against mainstream het dramas airing in the same timeslot. (Here's another Reddit post about Miracle's low ratings as well.) In conversation with @happypotato48, he shared with me one social media post by a Thai fan that read, "i saw the rating and feel so hopeless about this country."

In the podcast linked above, @happypotato48 further clarifies,

For people who didn’t know this show aired on the time slot called ละครหลังข่าว, or after news lakorn, on the most popular channel in Thailand, channel 3, and the rating was not good. It was bad, like really really bad, a lot of the BL girlies didn’t show up for it and the lakorn aunties just think it was too weird and was not ready for any gay leads lakorn. And it’s pissing me the fuck off because this show depicted the queer truth unapologetically and because of that reason that’s why there haven’t been a BL show [on Channel 3] in that time slot since.  

For us international QL fans, however, we should note, again through @flowerbeasblog's excellent work, that Miracle happened to outperform the much-more-niche, Series Y GMMTV dramas by multiple points.

In other words: as compared to GMMTV QLs, Miracle bested them easily. But Miracle vastly *underperformed* when put up against other primetime dramas on bigger channels.

(I will have more to say on QL vs. lakorn ratings in part three of this sub-series, when I review Khun Chai.)

Moving on to the actual show itself, @happypotato48 also shared with me that Miracle had a vocal base of passionate fans who were excited about real exploratory LGBTQ+ content airing in such an accessible time slot and channel for a wider Thai audience.

My amazing writing friends @bengiyo (here) and @lurkingshan and @twig-tea (here) have written fabulous essays about this INCREDIBLE show, both of which dive well into important plot points and the surrounding history of the show's airing.

I was so blown away by this incredible 2022 queer drama, so impressed by the show's ability, as @bengiyo wrote, to leave not a single thread of a storyline behind for the sake of rushing towards a conclusion. Each episode did not contain a minute of wasted time. Each minute of this show was rich in its themes and plots, describing the incredibly difficult lives of queer children growing into adults, and managing the trauma cards they were dealt with by the imperfect, often biased, and sometimes evil adults that raised these children.

I can take a couple guesses myself, as an Asian child of Asian parents, as to why Miracle didn't perform well during its airing. For a much wider Thai audience than the typical girlies that watch BLs -- an audience that certainly included parents and grandparents -- Miracle was a HELL of an exercise of accountability towards underperforming adults who are involved in the raising of queer children.

The Miracle of Teddy Bear took a goddamn SCALPEL to the biases, the trauma, and even the violence that adults commit unto children and other adults, in the name of demanding that children conform to their demands and to societal expectations. If parents were watching this live -- parents who could have either been raising, or had raised, queer children -- and raised them in the context of bias and conformity, than I can only imagine that this show made them squirm in shame. But besides this point about shame, Miracle, as I mentioned before, was also not a typical primetime romance drama. It was heavy, emotional, penetrating material, and a primetime audience may not have been primed to deal with such heavy content at that airing time.

I urge you to read @bengiyo's and @lurkingshan and @twig-tea's in-depth essays on Miracle's plot, but I'll run quickly through it now to get to some important points that I want to highlight.

Our main protagonist, Nut, lives with his mentally impacted mother, Na. She hallucinates regularly, speaking to a man that she calls her husband. One day, Tofu, a teddy bear that Nut owns, comes to life. While Na accepts Tofu immediately, Nut is extremely concerned by the sudden appearance of a strange man in his house (who wouldn't be). The connection between human Tofu and Nut's suddenly-missing teddy bear is not made, and Tofu is eventually accepted by Nut to live in his house and take care of Na.

Over the course of the series, it is revealed that the man that Na hallucinates (Saen) is not actually her husband -- but is the twin brother of her deceased actual husband (Sibmeun), a husband that was devastatingly homophobic and abusive to both Na and Nut while he was alive. Na and Saen had previously been in love, but due to a confluence of events, Na ended up marrying Saen's twin brother, Sib.

This single decision, in all of its intergenerational traumatic glory, is the kingpin to a cascade of horrifying trauma for Nut as he grows up.

Nut knows he is gay throughout his life and is punished brutally by his father, time and time again, for it. Na is blamed and punished separately by Sib for her fault of not "correcting" Nut of his sexuality. Nut is brutally separated by his high school boyfriend, Tatarn, by Sib, who originally learns of Nut's relationship through a homophobic teacher who narcs on Nut and Tatarn after seeing them together.

Tatarn himself is an injured protagonist in a separate storyline, as this generation of children become adults, of how his effort to fight the government against taking over his family's land leads him to a series-length coma. With Tatarn in a suspended state, Tofu is able to come to life through Tatarn's life force, and Nut and Tofu eventually fall in love. I want to emphasize that there's SO MUCH MORE to this series that you must catch up with in Ben's and Shan's/Twig's essays, or, ideally, in stopping everything and watching this show.

The utter BRILLIANCE of this series emanates first with Tofu -- a grown man borne out of a teddy bear, who knows nothing about how the human world functions, thus establishing Tofu as a brilliant and objective narrator commenting on the fallacies of human behavior that he observes around him, Nut, and Na.

Tofu is able to ask the most simple questions about why people act the way they do. He poses these questions like a child.

Where does homophobia come from? Why does it exist?

Nut himself asks, in the BRILLIANT episode nine of this series -- why do people have to disturb our love?

And with Tofu's existence, Nut is able to begin exploring his repressed and traumatic memories, to finally be able to tell the story of his brutal childhood to an objective listener.

He says to Tofu, in episode 10 (I paraphrase here),

"[my parents] ruined it for me. They ruined my self-esteem. They never explained [their homophobia] to me."

Nut goes on to tell Tofu that his high school boyfriend, Tatarn, was the first person in his life that didn't make him feel like an intruder.

This theme (there were so, so many themes in this show, from traumatic patriarchy, to embedded and generational misogyny, omg so much) of internalized homophobia and intergenerational trauma reminded me of an Instagram post I once saw from an older gay man, who wrote about missing his young adulthood due to the trauma of his upbringing. He wrote that it wasn't until his 40s that he could actually LIVE as a gay man, because he spent his 20s and 30s in fear of prejudice, and processing the trauma that he had grown up with. He wrote that his is the case for most queer people -- that one's 40s are the equivalent of a heterosexual's 20s.

We catch Nut fully processing this, after a lifetime of internal and external struggles, with Tofu, to the point of Nut seeking therapy at the end of the series.

There are many more storylines dealing with homophobia (including that evil fucker Jan, FUCK YOU JAN), as well as unfettered support for queer children, as we see through Gen and his lovely family. We see parents changing their views on same-sex relationships, through Song and his father, Anik.

I want to note something for the sake of the OGMMTC syllabus and the history of Thai BL, as this show aired starting in March of 2022. What remarkable show had ended just two months prior?

That's right, GMMTV's inimitable Bad Buddy. (BBS GIRLIES CAN'T LEAVE 'EM ALONE.) As I made comparisons between GMMTV and Channel 3 earlier, I also want to compare what Bad Buddy represents vis à vis homophobia versus how Miracle dealt with it.

We all know that Bad Buddy exists in GMMTV's common No Homophobia Bubble. We all know that Bad Buddy leverages other themes, including intergenerational trauma, school infighting and bullying, and personal and family rivalries, to represent conflicts that commonly arise in situations of homophobia. We all know that the resolutions that Pat and Pran come to at the end of the show are oftentimes compromises that queer couples must make to survive in love and the world.

I believe that one of the reasons why The Miracle of Teddy Bear underperformed in ratings at the time of its airing is because, unlike Bad Buddy, Miracle surgically dissected just about every emanation of homophobia that one could possibly imagine. (TW: child abuse, spoiler) At one point during a flashback to Nut's childhood, we see Na saving Nut's life by slapping him in front of his homophobic father, as a means of distracting the father from potentially killing his gay son.

As I keep repeating, The Miracle of Teddy Bear is not a BL. In the context of the show's conversation about homophobia, the series ACTUALLY COMMENTS ON SERIES Y, brilliantly so, as Nut himself is a Series Y screenwriter, and Miracle demonstrates that Thai BLs are actually GOOD for reaching audiences that may otherwise question same-sex relations.

And Miracle is also not a romance. Except for the re-animated teddy bear, Miracle strikes about as realistic a vision of the difficulties of love and acceptance as I've seen in a fictional drama.

And I drank every minute of it up. It was incredibly refreshing to me to watch a truly queer piece of art just absolutely dissect almost every experience of the trauma of a queer child growing up in a difficult environment, and processing those difficulties in his adult life.

There are a few other pieces on the OGMMTVC syllabus that touch upon this brutal angst. From The Love of Siam, to Gay OK Bangkok, to Dew, to The Eclipse, there is a world of Thai queer cinema and shows, some of which include BLs, that don't shy away from wrangling with the oft-present brutality of growing up and living queer.

As I think about how Miracle performed in primetime broadcast ratings in 2022, I'm thinking about what some of us in critical circles have been discussing regarding the last year and a half of GMMTV shows -- GMMTV being the biggest producer of Thai BLs at the moment. GMMTV shows, since Bad Buddy, have not been as critically incisive into worlds of bias, and shows like We Are or My Love Mix-Up Thailand have actually generated criticism for being too out of touch from the oft-difficult realities of being queer.

I think it's extremely important for us, as a small fandom in the huge world of Asian dramas, to think about what we want to see out of the shows we prefer. I had no prior expectation before I tuned into The Miracle of Teddy Bear, not at all expecting such a thorough and rich commentary into the realities of being a queer Thai man.

I feel that The Miracle of Teddy Bear has given me such a broader insight into the kind of parenting that many young queer Thais likely experienced in their childhood. It's given me a larger holistic view of the issues I need to be aware of when I interact with any of my queer friends. And I think this holistic education into a queer experience should, frankly, be on the list of anyone who considers themselves a fan of queer media, so as to be better educated about the realities of bias that our friends and family may face.

In other words, what I'm trying to say is, The Miracle of Teddy Bear is so brilliant, that we as a fandom need to work on giving it the broader reputation it deserves. It deserves an important spot on the OGMMTVC syllabus as a must-watch, critical exploration of society vis à vis sexuality. For me, it's in my top three with He's Coming To Me and Bad Buddy as my favorite Thai queer dramas, if I'm broadening my criteria out of BLs, and also lands up in non-BL-land for me with the movies The Love of Siam and Dew.

If any of us out there think that we understand the culture of Thai queerness, or even of the trauma that being queer could cause to a child -- check yourself (as I did), watch The Miracle of Teddy Bear, and prepare for a rich and artful education into issues and themes that you may not have even thought of.

[Aaaahhh, I have been waiting for MONTHS to pen this tribute to Miracle, and I'm glad it's out of my system! It's long, but it's absolutely a must-watch.

Speaking of must-watches! My next post in this series is not a part of The Lakorn Corner sub-series, we'll take a quick break from that. I have been waiting, also, for MONTHS to revere over Triage (TRIIIIAAAAGGGEEEE!), the best medical BL ever, ever, ever. I'm just gonna gush in my piece, I hope that's okay with y'all.

I'm watching 2022's Khun Chai at the moment, and I'll review that after Triage, and then I'll take a look at the start of the GL era in Series Y territory with GAP and some preceding shows. My School President is on the horizon!

Here's the latest OGMMTVC playlist for yer pleasure!

1) The Love of Siam (2007) (movie) (review here) 2) My Bromance (2014) (movie) (review here) 3) Love Sick and Love Sick 2 (2014 and 2015) (review here) 4) Love Songs Love Stories: Pae Jai (2015) (Thailand’s first serialized GL) (to be reviewed with GAP the Series) 5) Gay OK Bangkok Season 1 (2016) (a non-BL queer series directed by Jojo Tichakorn and written by Aof Noppharnach) (review here) 6) Make It Right (2016) (review here) 7) SOTUS (2016-2017) (review here) 8) Gay OK Bangkok Season 2 (2017) (a non-BL queer series directed by Jojo Tichakorn and written by Aof Noppharnach) (review here) 9) Make It Right 2 (2017) (review here) 10) Together With Me (2017) (review here)

11) SOTUS S/Our Skyy x SOTUS (2017-2018) (review here) 12) Love By Chance (2018) (review here) 13) Kiss Me Again: PeteKao cuts (2018) (no review) 14) He’s Coming To Me (2019) (review here) 15) The Fallen Leaf (2019) (not a BL; adjacent to the project as Thailand’s first lakorn featuring a queer/transgender main character) (review here) 16) Dark Blue Kiss (2019) and Our Skyy x Kiss Me Again (2018) (review here) 17) TharnType (2019-2020) (review here) 18) Senior Secret Love: Puppy Honey (OffGun BL cuts) (2016 and 2017) (no review) 19) Theory of Love (2019) (review here) 20) 3 Will Be Free (2019) (a non-BL and an important harbinger of things to come in 2019 and beyond re: Jojo Tichakorn pushing queer content at GMMTV) (review here)

21) Dew the Movie (2019) (review here) 22) Until We Meet Again (2019-2020) (review here) (and notes on my UWMA rewatch here) 23) 2gether (2020) and Still 2gether (2020) (review here) 24) I Told Sunset About You (2020) (review here) 25) YYY (2020, out of chronological order) (review here) 26) Manner of Death (2020-2021) (review here) 27) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) (review here) 28) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For The Sake Of Rewatching Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (re-review here) 29) Lovely Writer (2021) (review here) 30) Last Twilight in Phuket (2021) (the mini-special before IPYTM) (review here)

31) I Promised You the Moon (2021) (review here) 32) Not Me (2021-2022) (review here) 33) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) (thesis here) 34) 55:15 Never Too Late (2021-2022) (not a BL, but a GMMTV drama that features a macro BL storyline about shipper culture and the BL industry) (review here) 35) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) and Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (2023) OGMMTVC Rewatch (Links to the BBS OGMMTVC Meta Series are here: preamble here, part 1, part 2, part 3a, part 3b, and part 4) 36) Secret Crush On You (2022) (review here) 37) The Miracle of Teddy Bear (2022) 38) KinnPorsche (2022) (tag here)  39) KinnPorsche (2022) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For the Sake of Re-Analyzing the KP Cultural Zeitgeist (part 1 and part 2) 40) Triage (2022) (review coming)

41) Honorable Mention: War of Y (2022) (for the sake of an attempt to provide meta BL commentary within a BL in the modern BL era), with a complementary watch of Aam Anusorn’s documentary, BL: Broken Fantasy (2020) (thoughts here) 42) The Eclipse (2022) (tag here) 43) The Eclipse OGMMTVC Rewatch to Reexamine "Genre BLs," Along With a Critical Take on Branded Ships (review here) 44) Khun Chai/To Sir, With Love (2022) (watching) 45) Love of Secret (2022) (a GL that preceded GAP) (I will not be watching this, but it's on the list to precede GAP) 46) GAP (2022-2023) (Thailand’s first GL with a branded pair and ship) (review coming) 47) My School President (2022-2023) and Our Skyy 2 x My School President (2023), Coupled with a Speed-Watch of My Love Mix-Up Thailand (2024) to Comment on GMMTV Trying to Make Magic Happen Twice  48) Moonlight Chicken (2023) (tag here) 49) Bed Friend (2023) (tag here) 50) La Pluie (2023) (review coming)

51) Be My Favorite (2023) (tag here) (I’m including this for BMF’s sophisticated commentary on Krist’s career past as a BL icon) 52) Wedding Plan (2023) (Recommended as an important trajectory in the course of MAME’s work and influence from TharnType) 53) Only Friends (2023) (tag here) (not technically a BL, but it certainly became one in the end) 54) Last Twilight (2023-24) (tag here) (on the list as Thailand’s first major BL to center disability, successfully or otherwise) 55) Cherry Magic Thailand (2023-24) (tag here) (on the list as the first major Japanese-to-Thai drama adaptation, featuring the comeback of TayNew) 56) Ossan’s Love Returns (Japan, 2024) (adding for the EarthMix cameo and the eventual Thai remake) 57) 23.5 (2024) (GMMTV’s first GL) (thoughts here) (I am not finished with this show; I will finish it when I get to it on this list) 58) Spare Me Your Mercy (2024) (thoughts here) (added as the finale of Sammon's medical trilogy in Manner of Death and Triage, and as a major lakorn starring two of Thailand's biggest actors in Tor Thanapob and Jaylerr)]

[itsmelloww]

MacTavish

This is so unnec istg i reach at every opportunity, but i loooove names/surnames etc so just been googling stuff ok

Got really into Soap randomly over the past week, which led to a manic obsession with OG Soap, Cap MacTavish (MAN.) so i've been deep diving into him.

Of course i had to google his surname (feel free to correct me btw im just having fun here)

So MacTavish means 'Son of Thomas' , which in Gaelic is 'MacTamhais' which comes from the Gaelic personal name 'Tamhus', which is pronounced as Tavis, hence, MacTAVISH. (Mac means 'son of' in case that wasnt clear)

So the MacTavish were actually a pretty prominent Clan in Scotland, and due to their history, the surname can signify or allude to the below:

People of courage and resilience

rich heritage of bravery and familial loyalty

association with wisdom and maturity

---

I can imagine most Soap fans have gone through the journal, but i strongly recommend really digging into it cause Captain is just... such a perfect description of the above traits. Reading that made me think if it was intentional, using that surname. Captain MacTavish was genuinely nothing but a hardcore, handworking guy, super brave, super resilient and you could tell he genuinely cared for others - his strong feelings about loyalty (whole page in his journal), and how he writes and feels about Roach and Price. It's very evident where he stands and he comes off as such a clean person, his mind not fogged, he knows where he stands and whats important to him.

He also comes off as very mature overall, trying to always stay in shape, pushing out distractions, staying focused , while he naturally has to be intelligent to be where he is, and his intelligence really comes off in his planning, how meticulous his notes are, etc etc.

UGH I love Captain MacTavish so much , i genuinely think he's fascinating.

Like i said, lowkey reaching cause ofc im going to relate him now to these few points i pulled from online (its like the zodiac lol), but i really think its fitting!! COD has many fascinating characters but Soap actually blew me away, that journal was such an amazing addition i swear it added so much colour to him

And i keep talking about Captain Mactavish, and he feels quite different to me when compared to Soap (the Sergeant) , but Soap himself also feels like he fits that description perfectly. Guts of steel, and he's loyal too as hell too.

Ugh, getting emotional really. 10/10 characters. love.

[ruins-of-tragedy]

Finished season one's episode eight to twelve of RWBY. This was the most fun batch so far.

Season 01 Episode 08: Players and Pieces

- "Welcome to the world of bloody evolution..."

- The interactions between Ruby and Weiss are so bad for them but so funny for me.

- It's not everyday your sister falls from the sky. And then gets hit by a Jaune projectile. Yang must be so confused. So is Blake. Which, fair.

- Oh my Gods. Nora comes riding in on a monster?! Awesome entry alert!

- "It's broken." Wonder why. ⚡

- Ren cannot anymore... This girl is fast for a sloth. And now she has a chesspiece and a song.

- Blake and Yang are confounded. The bear monster is called an Ursa. Pyrrha has entered the scene with a scorpion on her tail... What a badass move!

- Jaune is still hanging around... 😆. Ruby and Yang scream each other's name in greeting. Nora shouts her own in return, 'cause of course. And here I thought Jaune had more energy.

- The scorpion is termed Deathstalker. Yang blows her lid so bad, a timer for a bomb is activated...

- Done with everything, Yang is. Something tells me so is Weiss, mayhaps.

- Weiss is falling. Is this Jaune's moment to shine? Yes, apparently. And also to break his own back in the process. The line he used when catching her was good though, I will give him that.

- "Great. The gang's all here. Now we can die together!" -Yang Xiao Long

- Ruby has two monsters on her. I hope Yang doesn't have to watch her sister die... Ahhh. Weiss saves the day! And accepts her fate and her shortcomings! Who would have known Ruby almost dying was all it would take.

- While Ruby celebrates her "normal knees," Yang 'shuffles' close and almost crushes her with her love... That run was weird and so funny. Good Gods. The animation really is bad sometimes.

- "Look, there's no sense in dilly-dallying." But I was born for it! Forced to lock in now. UGHHHHHHHHH.

- "Run and live."✨👏🏻😂

- Another win for the horsin' around folks. The other chess figure both Nora and Jaune pick? We call it the elephant here.

- Ruby is leading. Yang is a proud parental figure. Blake noticed. CUTE!

- The monsters also want to "run and live."

- They are fighting together. And well. So COOOL!!!

- Maybe I spoke too soon. But they still trying! And holy hell. I think Thor would be proud of Nora being his representation.

- Blake is badass. I already knew that but it's nice to watch it unfold.

- Team RWBY is getting ready with their weapons. AGHHHHHHHHH! Ruby about to team lead the shite out of this birdie.

- Defining moments coming up!!!

- Team JNPR is moving against the scorpion. WOOOHOO! Jaune is actually a good leader. Nora "nail"ed it. Pyrrha is forever a great warrior. And Ren is getting too old for this. Scorpion down!!!

- This song. Dance battle in my roooom!!!!

- Yang is feeding birdie knuckle sandwiches. Weiss froze its tailend. Blake's lasso is turning into a makeshift catapult. Ruby's plan is about to work, but banter first... Weiss gets offended but what else is new? 😂

- Look at them all working together. ❤️‍🔥😭💖

- Red like roses part two!!!

- Birdie said bye-bye. Or couldn't, I guess... Team Cardinal. CRDL. Huh. So the first letter leads?

- The chesspiece team JNPR or Juniper picked is known as the rook out there? I shall stick to calling them elephants... Jaune is so surprised about being the leader. Pyrrha isn't at all and gives him a celebratory punch that has him falling. LoLLL!

- White knight pieces?! Horsies... Team RWBY. Led by what you are supposed to call them all together. Is Weiss shocked or...?

- Truly an interesting year ahead! Under the same broken moon we find... Torchwick?! Dude. Why do they all have such cool names?!

- OOOOOOooooooooh! Map of Vale. Beacon has been circled. Bad guy needs more men. Can only mean one thing.... Party, party, hallelujah! 🎉😆

- The Torchwick ending. His symbol looks like a boogey man mask... I must look into the soundtrack.

Season 01 Episode 09: The Badge and the Burden - Pt I

- I have been noticing this for a while now. The opening song begins playing first from the right side of my headphones. And then the left end also joins in. I don't remember what they call this, but the people behind this entry piece have done a good job here.

- Ruby is taking her team leader post very seriously. Like a coach. Yang and Blake are also excited about interior decoration. What the fuck does Banzai mean? And did they rehearse striking that pose?!

- Weiss' long suffering sigh could be heard all over Beacon... Yang's boyband poster, Blake's trailer trees in a painting belonging to Weiss, Blake arranging her books and hiding 'Ninjas of Love.' Do the ninjas like lemons? 😏✨😉. If you know, you know. And Ruby deciding on giving their curtains a makeover.

- From beds on top of each other, to bunk beds. And the second option is actually more dangerous... They really are something special.

- Team RWBY and JNPR be neighbours!!! And need to get to class within five minutes... Ozpin and Glynda are judging them so hard.

- Beowolf?! *war flashbacks*

- Already met DeathStalker and Ursa. Bearbatusk... Nevermore... COOOOOOOOL!

- This teacher must be entertaining to make fun of, am sure. Ruby is sleeping on the first bench. Been there, done that, somehow made it out alive despite my embarrassment.

- So there are four safe spaces or kingdoms. Vale is one of them. Did this full grown man just try to... rizz Yang?

- To that random student doing this: 🤟🏻... Rock on!

- Professor Full-of-Shite... Ruby's drawing is accurate. 😂. Good Gods. This Peter guy really just stole the Beowulf story.

- Ruby is honourable 'cause she understands the importance of sleep. Ruby is dependable because just a moment ago she was balancing an apple AND a book on a pencil that stood vertically. VERTICALLY!

- A true huntsman is supposedly strategic, well-educated and wise... What are the odds Weiss heard the last word as her own name? Very high, it seems. She's bout to fight a Grimm in class now.

- I like their uniforms, but I want the version with pants.

- The Ozpin and Glynda ending where the former's symbol is a gear within a gear, while the latter rocks a crown. The music here sounds so suave and chill!

Season 01 Episode 10: The Badge and the Burden - Pt II

- "A story will be told..."

- Ooooooh! Costume change for Weiss... Cheerleaders Yang, Blake and Ruby are ready as well. So ready in fact that Blake already has a flag of their team. 💖

- Bearbatusk vs Weiss. But it looks more like Ruby vs the Schnee.

- Weiss wasn't made team leader and she is mad at Ruby about it huh... Holy hell, Weiss. Please. That was downright rude. And unnecessary.

- Ruby. You precious little bean. Ozpin is giving off major Dumbledore vibes.

- Weiss and Professor Port's conversation running parallel to the one before. Hmmm... Weiss thinks she should have been the team leader. "That's prepostrous!" 😂. Okie, I like him.

- Ozpin's Dumbledore now. Peter Port, Hagrid. YASSSSSSSS! Someone really needed to dish out the truth to Weiss.

- It's the fact that both Ruby and Weiss received similar advice for me. Try to be the best person first. Everything else will follow after. ✨

- Of course Blake sleeps like she is in a movie. I am Yang but worse. Down to the snoring. Awwwwww! Ruby fell asleep studying. My sister can literally relate right now.

- Coffee with cream and five sugars isn't coffee anymore, methinks. Me likes this version.

- Best leader and best teammate. 💖... Weiss really out here thawing my frozen attitude towards her. I too want bunk beds now.

- Professor Peter Port is his own symbol. 😂👏🏻. Serious music. So good.

Season 01 Episode 11: Jaunedice - Pt I

- Time to open up the door!

- Jaune is getting his arse handed to him. Cardin is blood thirsty. They have headshots?! This school really does it all.

- They WANT them to be on the phone while fighting?! This is the Jaune inferiority complex arc. Kiddo.

- Vytal Festival. The importance is in the name... 😆. RWY is excited. Where be the B?

- "In the middle of the night..." In my dreams. 🎶

- Of course Yang and Nora get along. Yang is hanging onto Nora's every word. Blake has a book, Ren is helping Nora tell the story accurately and Weiss couldn't care less. More accurately, she is interested in cuticle care I guess. Jaune is playing with his food, Ruby and Pyrrha are worried... This table has it all.

- The situation is serious if Blake put down her book... Don't lie Jaune.

- Jaune's in denial. Team CRDL is bothering a lady named Velvet. Fucking hell.

- Cardin is a bully AND a diva.

- They can rocket launch their lockers to custom locations?! Locker launchers... I NEED to be in this school.

- Holy shite. Cardin and team are crossing a line now. Faunus rights really need to be better and implemented well. Wait. Blake is hiding her Faunus self? Awww. 😢

- The Velvet ending. So some folks haven't been given symbols. Gotcha. This music is making me want to cook Team CRDL over a bonfire while I dance in a circle around it. Good stuff!

Season 01 Episode 12: Jaunedice - Pt II

- "In time, your heart will open minds..."

- Jaune is sleeping. I thought he was a good student. Must be having a bad day. The teacher drinks a lot of coffee. Perhaps Jaune needs it too.

- This Professor is faaaaasst.

- Velvet and the other shadow figure raising her hand when asked about being subjected to Faunus subjugation and discrimination. That takes guts. 💖

- Weiss is a sincere student. Expected. The professor is so excited over Jaune's sudden urge to participate... Much kudos to friends like Pyrrha who try to help during situations such as these.

- Good Gods. Cardin is the son of a gun. A tool. He is less than a soldier. Fucking forker.

- This General Lagune tried to ambush folks while they were sleeping?! 🤬

- Blake's jab was so good. Chef's kiss!

- Professor Oobleck has green hair. I just noticed. Anime reference?

- Jaune and Cardin's after class scolding... "If you can't learn from it... You are destined to repeat it." Some people nowadays really need this lesson on history.

- Jaune gets shoved, Cardin is bad. Pyrrha is the best.

- The view is of Hogwarts. 😂

- Listen. The fact that Pyrrha bringing Jaune to a terrace makes him think about dying 'cause he feels he is messing up so much... Good Gods. This is suicidal ideation. Things be bad.

- Huh. I did not see this revelation coming. Really thought Jaune being at Beacon was entirely familial pressure. He didn't really want to be there or something like that, but had nothing else he was passionate about. Plus, expectations are a whole different can of worms. WoW... Still a familial pressure I guess. Just a lot more from his own end.

- Jaune needs to learn a valuable lesson. Holy hell. Heroes aren't made in a day and heroes aren't forged in solitude. He has already tried doing it on his own. Accept Pyrrha's help! Fucking fuckity fuck!!! This toxic masculinity is such a pain.

- Ah hell. Of course Cardin overheard it all... Shikes. Things got a lot more real here than I was expecting.

- Sneaked into Beacon. Now being blackmailed into helping a student cheat. Jaune. You are making me nervous.

- Sometimes the puns are so perfect and flow in such a natural way, it makes you wonder which came first. The original concept or the double entendre. Jaunedice is one such example. Works on so many levels.

- Professor Oobleck ending. Very mischievous music. Needed that pick-me-up.

(No spoiling stuff. Or I spoil your coffee with hot sauce. Tatas!)

[arceespinkgun]

Since I'm one of the few Tumblr users who have read the UK Marvel comics, I hope it's okay for me to add that I wouldn't really say he was a shady prick there either. Well, blunt and rude sometimes, yes, but that's about it.

The character had a tendency to snap at people when he felt like they were being unreasonable or putting others in danger. One example might be when he dissed Jetfire for disobeying orders and letting Trailbreaker get hurt, a failed mission that could have severe consequences:

I suspect that since lines like, "You almost break the world record... FOR STANDING STILL!" are so hilarious, this led to a fandom in-joke about Prowl being a prick that became Flanderization. TFWiki actually kinda confirms this on its page for the All Hail Megatron issue in which Prowl was first established as an immoral character in IDW:

Prowl has been labelled a prick before because he's a bit of a jerk to the cool characters. Now he's an all-out ambiguous figure, willing to do highly amoral and immoral actions in order to win the war quickly and efficiently, and all without an interest in getting credit for doing it. Which makes him... well, frakking scary, to be honest.

I was wondering about why JRo and Nick Roche decided to lean so heavily into characters like Prowl being extremely evil, when they were fans of the UK comics where someone like Prowl was surrounded by other characters that truly were assholes. Grimlock was the original table-flipping jerkass who tortures people, wouldn't mind humans dying, and was bigoted against all Decepticons, someone Prowl constantly tried to reign in.

Me Grimlock wish he dead!!! lol

I think Nick Roche and JRo were really interested in cold, manipulative thinkers as villains, and don't like Autobots who are pretty unambiguously good, so they took once plainly-heroic characters like Prowl or Getaway and used them as shady villains—but these ideas really didn't exist any earlier.

Hi, i hope you’re having a good day. If it’s alright to ask, could I get your opinion on G1 Prowl’s personality? I want to learn more about the character but sometimes the information gets confusing like how in Tv tropes they described Prowl becoming a jerk near the end of G1 and stuff.

If they mean the cartoon? Absolute fiction. Prowl is friendly and helpful throughout the entire cartoon. He doesn't even have a big role in the cartoon, but he never does anything remotely mean. Watch the episode "Roll For It" and you've got his character.

As for the Marvel comics, I can't say if he "becomes a jerk" towards the end because I haven't gotten there yet. However, I do know that Prowl and Grimlock do not like each other in the comics because Grimlock is mean and not a good leader. The most jerk thing I've read Prowl do so far is remind Huffer that they can't be distracted from what they're supposed to be doing by their homesickness. Even then, it's softened by Prowl calling it "an admirable endeavor". (This particular story is something of a Huffer highlight.)

[highfantasy-soul]

I usually don't post about The Bad Batch, but here's at least one post about it: I will be SO IMPRESSED if they actually keep Tech dead!

One of the main sticking points I had with the entire concept of the show and the 'reject clones' (ugh I hate that they're called that and I WILL NOT call them anything to do with 99, they don't deserve it) was that they undercut everything I found interesting about the clones. The idea that everyone has been created to be the same, yet they still clawed for their own identities within the sterile and controlled ranks, they were just normal guys - no special powers up against those with the force and machines of war, they followed orders - even when they knew it would lead to tragedy or wasn't what they thought was right they still had to do what they were told, the fact that they failed - a lot, and one of the biggest things: they DIED.

They were literally created to be cannon fodder to DIE and be replaced by the exact same model time and time and time again. We would get to know a new group of clones for ONE episode, but when they died, we still felt it - though they were created to be red shirts to die and non one to think about them again, the writers of the Clone Wars showed that they mattered - each and every one of them. That they still clung to individuality and companionship with one another even though they knew they were destined to die in this war and be replaced without a second thought.

The Bad Batch flew in the face of this: they were a group of superheroes we were supposed to feel bad for? They didn't follow anyone's orders, no one had ever died from their group, and they looked down on 'regs' as less than them. And of course, they were resistant to the chips in their brains because they're just so special.

So, if they actually keep Tech dead, it would be such a ballsy move that would turn the tone of the show on it's head. Suddenly, the Bad Batch would no longer have plot armor, they'd be just like any other clones (I mean, not really, but closer than they ever had been before).

I'm pretty sure they'll reveal he was saved by the empire and experimented on a la the special assassin units they just introduced (or like Echo), but if they actually stick with it, I'll have so much respect for the show.

[bacchuschucklefuck]

this has been a roller coaster of a design journey but finally I can present you: class swap artificer!adaine and rogue!fabian

[evelynpr]

Why the fuck are there roller skates, dubstep, stage lighting, an LED screen, and all kinds of modern technology in Xilonen's trailer??? I thought Fontaine had the most advanced technology next to Schneznaya and arguably Sumeru, and every instance of high-end technology we have seen leaned more towards machinations with gears, magic, alchemy, essentially fantasy styled sci-fi???

The disrespect towards Native American and African cultures is enough to piss me off already, but it even goes against Genshin's own consistency with its fantastical world design..and for what? Just so you can have this...pop and gamer aesthetic???

Just look at these two bubbly and optimistic characters for me okay

Yoimiya's design isn't the most respectful and accurate representation of a Japanese firework craftsman, but at least you can damn tell she is Japanese. The large ribbons, hair accessories, tassels, leg covering, tattoo design, shoe style, and fabric patterns all allude to this (I apologize for not knowing the exact terminologies for these, this needs further research).

Then there's Mualani who has...what? Please do correct me if I am wrong here, but her character must be inspired by the real Mualani, a Hawaiian Chiefess. Additionally, her tribe's specialty is in tourism and vacationing, which further leads into the idea that she and her tribe are based off of Hawaii despite the known issues regarding Hawaii and tourism (if there are any good sources that summarize the issue, please do lmk).

I am not too familiar with Hawaiian culture, but there really is nothing about her design that reads as Hawaiian, or even just traditional, to me. What about a 2 piece swimsuit with bows and tails, a bow + braids + ponytail hair style, combat gloves (?), and an entire neon shark, is Hawaiian???

The characters, their designs, and their trailers, are just so culturally disconnected from their real life counterpart that it's even disconnected to Genshin's own world building and design. How the fuck is the fashion trend in Natlan denim pants. I feel like the only parts of Natlan that feel like Genshin Impact and culturally inspired are the in-game music and landscapes (God bless Hoyo-mix and the world designers).

[faaun]

kind of abt to cry bc i think maybe i'm starting to believe that my friends care for me on the inside of my heart

[volfoss]

it is beyond infuriating how anne rice seems to insist on marius being a positive force in anyone's life ever. like she can't fully commit to exploring the fact he groomed armand and has repeatedly taken away his consent for what marius thinks is best (take the end of TVA as an example) and just kind of flatly puts it in the narrative. there's not really much interest in how these horrific events make marius come across as the worst because EVERYONE loves him. for gods sake, lestat learns from armand exactly what marius did to him in TVL and then proceeds to go find marius and be super friendly to him in the same fucking book. even armand and pandora, two of the people who have MORE than enough right to hate him, do not. it doesnt feel like shes trying to explore the toxicity of the abusive dynamic he traps them in, it just is there. and like yeah ofc the toxic vampire romance series but i think that this should be handled with more care. and it is not ever really framed in a way that she is interested in exploring how marius should easily be one of the most horrific characters in this series because it kind of feels like sa/rape/grooming/other things of that sort are just put there to further plot and not to really get the respect that they deserve in a medium.

[moe-broey]

Some. Sort of spectrum. From most likely to least likely.

And by kitten-pile I mean This

I'll put a transcript under cut for easier reading! 🫡

How Likely Are They to Kitten Pile?

__

Mirabilis: "are you tired..? do you need a break...? ohh we could take one together..."

If she likes/trusts you even a little, she wants to cuddle about it!!!

-

Sharena and Peony: "Okay! 💖 Yay! 💖"

Shari: The only thing stopping her is social conventions -- making her MORE likely to jump at the opportunity!

Peony: Learning social awareness as she goes, and is surprisingly good at it?

-

Triandra: "Aren't we a bit old for that...? But... even so..."

Embarrassed, conflicted, but feels strangely nostalgic at the notion...

-

Plumeria: "I'm not so petal-soft that I'd resort to such INDECENCY, I mean even if your intentions are Pure USE YOUR HEADS YOU FOOLS!! Girl, the IMPLICATIONS!!!"

Desperately wants to join the kitten-pile, but her Issues and Pride gets in the way.

-

Moe: "aw, so cutes!"

Generally touch adverse, extremely picky even with the people it likes/loves -- everything is entirely on its terms.