I feel like a lot of people in the fandom tend to forget this, so I'm just here to give a kind, thoughtful reminder :]

Ambrosius Goldenloin in the movie is an East Asian man (Korean-coded), his skin is tan, his eyes are monolid and his nose is big

He's voiced by Eugene Lee Yang - a Korean-American actor who also has Chinese and Japanese heritage. Eugene Lee Yang looks like this:

During the production, when Ambrosius was decided to be East Asian, artists looked up queer East Asian-American men, and based Ambrosius off of them. Ambrosius is literally drawn to look like Eugene Lee Yang

Please draw him as such, thank you

First of all I wanna say congrats on your milestone!

For fandoms I will request for an Obey Me Matchup!

infj-t, scorpio, she/her and straight. I am a south east asian person who has olive-peach skin but not so pale looking either. I have short black hair, light brown eyes, pretty big eyelashes and am pretty much average in height

For my personality, I would have to say I am not the most straight forward person and I share my opinions whenever necessary. I am not much of a leader and more of a follower. I am technically an ambivert but I lean towards the introverted side more. I have a tendency to overthink and am pretty passionate talking about my interests towards other. I am described to be loyal towards my friends and am pretty nice as majority has told me so far. I like helping others when needed and I like listening to people and their interest. I am kinda stubborn and glare at people if they say something offensive. I am practically quiet when it comes to school but I do talk with people who I am comfortable with

My hobbies would have to be reading, playing games or watching gameplays, watching anime, playing piano, drawing sometimes and pretty much writing at this rate

What I find attractive is when people are passionate about something and talk about it passionately, kindness, humor and possibly a few more but these are the main ones!

Hope this isn't too much! ^^;;

Thank you!! and it’s not too much at all, the more i receive, the more i can expand on ideas:D

【Ａ　Ｔｉｍｅ　ｏｆ　Ｃｅｌｅｂｒａｔｉｏｎｓ】 - Matchup for Obey Me!

I’d match you with… Asmodeus!

Depending on how far you lean into the introverted side of yourself (on a scale of Levi to Asmo, basically) it might take awhile for him to actually try to know you

But! If you ever go out with him and Mammon then Asmo will take more care to get to know you

Dating wise, he’s pretty much always open, he doesn’t hide much and likes to take care of himself and you on self care days!

Face masks, nails, hair, he’ll do it all while ranting to you about whatever crosses his mind, usually gossiping about drama and who’s dating who, you get the idea

although, he can get kind of annoying and try to push you but if you insist on not wanting to go out, he’ll faux pout and get out some cute pajamas to stay in with you

He doesn’t understand gameplays, “why not just play it yourself?” type of person, if you happen to show him something that catches both of your attention then he’ll get it, because it’s more nice if you can hang out and experience the game without someone else’s voice screaming randomly

and he games for the aesthetic but usually ends up cuddling on you

Asmo will most definitely try to get you to use him as your “muse”, or commission someone and get some anime figure of himself for you if you happen to collect them

or a plush

or literally anythimg ✨him✨ so you remember him, like you could forget your boyfriend

he doesn’t really understand the “only talking to ppl i’m comfortable with” thing since, well, he’s asmo and might as well be the embodiment of extraversion, but he won’t push it because Mammon can be the same

RANT

my bestie reminded me of my classmate who gets his asshair brushed by the teachers simply because he had a 'bad homelife' when he's just a piece of shit.

he doesn't live with his parents, his mom is dead and his dad is a piece of shit, I'm not here to deny that. But ALL teachers pity him so much!! They excuse all his behaviours with either 'his life at home used to be bad' or 'boys will be boys'.

He forgets homework and doesn't participate in class. That's fine, do what you want, i get that that can be hard.

My problem is that the teachers ALL give him better grades than he deserves simply because of pity. He always gets 5's(German system =grades 1 to 6, 1 is the best, 6 is the worst) and yet all the teachers up his grade to a 4 so he doesn't have to repeat a year.

Another classmate of mine had a 3 in one exam and a 5 in another, and my math teacher told him to put more effort in or else he'd get a 5 on his report card.like what??? That doesn't even make sense, he should get a 4, not a 5. WHY does he get worse treatment than the piece of shit guy who ALWAYS gets 5's???

Now, when I say 'piece of shit' i mean it. He's the dogshit on the sole of my shoe.

1. He's transphobic

2. He's homophobic, openly. And the teacher do NOTHING!! He literally said he'd would've shot (insert gay gay rights activist whose name i can't remember rn) and that queer ppl deserve to die. He also says the f-slur a lot. I literally wrote about this in my English exam( i said that i am not comfortable having irl friends because most of them turn out to be homophobic in some way, and homophobes literally face no consequences from any teacher) and guess what?? The teacher, who's the SCHOOL DIRECTOR MAY I ADD, literally just IGNORED that part of my exam. She just SKIPPED IT. Nothing. No comment. Even though i was calling her out specifically.

3. He's racist. OPENLY. He says the n-slur. he says the german slur for immigrants (k-wort for the germans). he said racist shit about east asians (regarding covid).

4. He literally destroys school property. He burned school tables. What does he get? He has to replace the table. Nothing more. Guess what? The teacher who teaches us the class he burnt the table in? Yeah, he doesn't give a shit. He jokes about it actually.

5. Right wing tendencies in general. Drawing swastikas everywhere. What does our HISTORY teacher say? "boys are like that during puberty". Shut the fuck up.

6. Sexual harassment. This was worse in 8th grade. But still. None of the girls every got an apology. He still denies it. He asked me how big my clit was. I wasn't the only one he asked. We told the teacher. He denied it. No consequences. He asks me if i could get pregnant if i fucked a dog. Teacher right next to us. No comment, just walks away. Oh? Was it too uncomfortable for him? How do you think I and LITERALLY MOST of the girls in our class felt when he asked us shit like that?? What the fuvk??

I'm literally so mad about this. Why do guys get special treatment. Why are the teachers like this. I hate it so much. He's such a piece of shit. I do not want to come into class and listen to him calling people f-,r- and n-slurs. I'm so fucking tired of the teachers helping him through class, even tho he shows them so much disrespect. He put his feet on the table today. Called us r-words and got mad at my art teacher. No consequences.

I was so glad he was leaving after this year. But surprise surprise. He's staying for the next 3 years until graduation. I'm so fucking done. I'm so glad the class organizer for next year asked us who we don't want to be in class with. God bless her.

But if everyone says they don't wanna be in class with him then someone's gonna get fucked. Someone has to be in class with him. Fml. Pray for me.

Spoilers I guess if you’ve never seen Batman Begins…

TLDR: I don’t like this movie 😶

So I just watched the movie… what… the actual… fuck??? First of all, fuck Rachel right in the ass. I would rather eat glass, on a gravitron then ever see her boring ass on screen again. I was so mad that Crane didn’t kill her. She’s is by far the most boring, understated, and I’d love to say forgettable but I unfortunately cannot forget, character I’ve ever seen. Also that forced fucking kiss at the end 🤮 kill me.

Second off, who ever the fuck didn’t give Jon more screen time, I hope your pillow catches fire at night. Like that man is the best part of your movie, les Rachel, more Scarecrow!

If somone says Falcon-E one more time, I’m going to hire Victors Zsaz (yes that’s how they misspelled it the whole movie) to kill me. Why was he Bostonian, he’s supposed to be Italian! Like what was that accent? I wanted to ring his neck every time he opened his mouth. #notmyfalcone.

Also like, the entire movie I forgot Flass was even supposed to be a cop. Like he just looked like a random homeless man the whole time. He also had way to much screen time, like I could not care any less about this man.

Now to my biggest fucking issue, other than the annoying way everyone pronounced Ra’s Al Ghul the whole fucking movie. WHY THE EVER LIVING FUCK DID THEY CAST LIAM “I HAVE A PARTICULAR SET OF SKILLS” NEESON?!?!? LIAM NEESON!!!!!!! Ra’s is many things, but white is not one of them. Can we stop casting white people in Asian fucking roles? This being made in 2005 doesn’t make that any fucking better. Like I didn’t think anything could piss me off more than Finn Jones being cast as Iron Fist in the MCU. But this takes the cake.

Like I understand, maybe this is like the 500th Al Ghul cause it’s a title that can be bestowed upon people. But can we please just get actual representation? It’s not that hard to cast East Asian people. Like I’m sick of white washing.

When we talk about Bruce… oh boy. One I’m sick and tired of seeing Martha Wayne’s god damn pearls. Burn them. She makes pearls seem tacky. Like I shouldn’t be routing for the Wayne’s to be shot, but that was literally the best thing they did in the entire movie. First off, that casting choice…. I’m meant to believe Bruce came from that? Where? Also why do we need to show them die over and over, especially if you only show them bonding with Bruce for .5 seconds. There’s no suspense, no tension. Nothing is happening. Like I get Batman can’t exist without them dying. But just pick up the movie after they’re dead, skip the whole rushed sob story and just start with the actual fucking story.

Also his obsession with Rachel. What are you seeing Bruce? She’s a walking lamppost that keeps flickering in the middle of fucking nowhere. Hate to say it, but I don’t think Gotham would change if Rachel Dawes disappeared. She felt like a plot device to just be like “hey Bruce isn’t a playboy and has feelings” like the titular love interest. Like when it comes to Defence Attorneys, I want Laurel Lance on my case, not this wanna be girl boss.

Also why was Bruce being a “playboy” such a throw away gag in this. Alfred mentioned it so suddenly I actually had to pause, because we had previously seen no playboy bullshit. And then the next scene, dear god I’d rather be fear gased. It felt so forced and show boaty. Delete the whole scene, give me Loner Bruce Wayne who’s traumatised from his parents death. Give me Bruce Wayne who lashes out in fear and anger. Bruce Wayne who’s broken. Not Bruce I fuck bitches from Europe and don’t even remember their names Wayne.

Now go the things I liked about the movie:

CILLIAN FUCKING MURPHY!

More more more more more! I have never been happier than during this scene. His mannerism are mesmerising and Enticing. I wanna know more about the fear serum. I wanna see more of his experiments. I wanna see more of him in Arkham as a patient. Why have him as a side villain, when he had so much potential for a better storyline. Again, I think he should have just fucking killed Rachel. Like I want to see The Bat unleash his fury on Jon. I want to see him come back as scarecrow because he was doing an amazing job and it looked like he was having fun. Like I can’t express enough how much I am in love with this man. He did Scarecrow proud.

Next, Alfred. I will admit I am partial to Gotham’s Alfred. But this guy has a special place in my heart. I fell the same way about him that I do about Anthony Hopkins, Hannibal. And his South London accent is so endearing. I think it’s a bit odd that he just is ok with what Bruce is doing and joins him right away. But I love their relationship. I feel like he’d Ground Bruce if he went to far. He genuinely just wants to see this kid thrive. This man deserves all the kisses and hugs and complements on the planet. 10/10, I love all Alfred’s 🥺

Luscious mother fucking Fox!!!! Morgan Freeman did a fantastic job. Holy shit he made me love this man more than I thought possible. He’s such a good character and I feel like he doesn’t get enough love. Like I’d marry this man, no hesitation. Like pull up in vegas homie, let’s do this shit. I want to sit and talk to him about science for hours. I want to calm this man after a long stressful day. Love a black man from infinity to infinity! Give me more! 😍

Last but certainly not least, Bruce, I have autism, Wayne. Am I projecting? Most likely. But I think a lot of versions of Bruce have autism. His mannerism as so socially awkward, and he hates crows. Like that scene where he sent everyone away felt like he just stopped masking. The one thing Rachel got right, is he is Batman. Bruce Wayne doesn’t fucking exist. He’s the alter ego. Bruce is the most fake, forced man I’ve ever witnessed. He’s so much more comfortable as The Bat. His obsessive tendencies are obvious. His need for justice and struggling with revenge is just 10/10. Like he seems to have hyperempathy, even Ra’s points out how persistant his compassion is. His tone is incredibly flat most of the time, and the way he just leaves conversations unannounced. Bruce says it himself he doesn’t give a shit about his image or what people think about him. He just cares about justice for Gotham.

Bruce doesn’t have any real friends other than Rachel, and Luscious is getting there but he’s new. Like his fucking smile when talking to Rachel melted my heart. That boy was just so happy to be in the same room as her (i don’t understand why her but I’m happy if he’s happy) the way he just stands and pauses in conversations is so relatable. Like home boy really became the 🧍‍♂️emoji for so much of the movie. Again, probably projecting cause autistic Bruce would be way more interesting to me 😂. But he at least has C-PTSD and OCD. Also what kind of person is like “I’m terrified of this thing, let’s become this and use it as a symbol for hope.” Like Bruce, you could have legit become anyone else, why Batman? Are you a masochist? But over all, i enjoy this Bruce, he’s nice.

So overall rating. 3/10 would not watch the movie again. I’m hoping the next two are much better, I’m looking forward to finally seeing Heath Ledger’s Joker in action. I will also now be watching Scarecrow edits from now until forever. So if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be trying to forget this movie, and mentally preparing to watch more Batman films. There is a reason I avoided watching these for so long, but I just know I’m gonna love Rob’s Batman when I finally get to see it.

netflix shadow and bone s1 e5 pt3: peak darklina

the first kiss scene Alina is so beautiful Her little smile as she picks up his kefta after he hears him call out for Ivan to get it like ooh I'm gonna play a little trick on Alek Her making him smile with a joke that's not even funny The tentativeness of it all, them tiptoeing around each other, testing the boundaries Him being taken aback by her offering to help him put on his kefta but still wanting her to and immediately resorting to business voice asking questions about official sun summoner stuff And putting on his serious business face him trying to explain away the gloves by calling them a safeguard, not a sign of him not trusting her abilities the face he makes after saying spectacle either depicting his distaste for the showiness of the event or depicting his embarrassment at how he phrased the sentence, like what the fuck did I just say (more likely the first one) Her quickly turning around and walking away after the eye contact makes her realise how close they are and him pulling a puzzled look as she does so Just. Just how adorable the energy is. Both of them making jokes to diffuse the tension, her gripping the table to maybe steady or calm herself, the looks they give to each other as if engaged in a delicate dance; god-like Him straight up just blinking and looking down and gulping as she says 'we can offer Grisha and Ravkans hope' (could be multiple things he's thinking at this point, and all of them interest me) 'That means a lot to me, Alina.' *her turning to look at his face* 'You mean a lot...' *her immediately lowering her gaze and tracing where her mal scar used to be lmao* 'to everyone' *her raising her gaze to him again* The music swelling as she walks up to him, her barely grazing her fingers against his collar, his eyes looking across hers as if in disbelief, her looking at his lips, and then her closing the gap between them. Him being a little stiff, indubitably from being shocked, and yet giving into it almost instinctively as if he can't help it. The violin coming in powerfully yet softly to emphasize the tenderness of it all. This thing has been made with so much love and I can't contain myself about it. Him opening his eyes half a second after Alina, almost as if waking up from a dream and then, following a relaxing of his facial muscles as he clearly regains his composure, immediately looking inscrutable. Her doubting herself, not losing eye contact as he stands up from the desk, but her sudden fear, regret, and embarrassment clear on her face. Her sides of her lips slowly rising giving way his own self mirroring her and breaking into smile and composing himself and breaking into smile again before saying 'Not many people surprise me, Miss Starkov'. Her now fully breaking out into a smile, her face a picture of unguarded joy, she looks down only to have his gaze follow her face. Both of them giddy in the other's presence and the audience can feel it. It feels like he is leaning in for another one when the sound of the door opening makes them spring apart, regaining their composures and standing at a respectable distance from each other. Her poorly suppressing a smile, him looking at her visibly, her mimicking him with a glance out of her periphery, causing her to give in to her smile completely. Him looking visibly distracted as he attempts to pay attention to whoever came into the room. the Jesper of it all Jesper the mega idiot not being able to control his face from doing a thing as he realises the person who caught him where he wasn't supposed to be is the same person he was making sexy eyes at before and yet regaining his composure in record time The poor stable hand actually being interested in Jesper and being adorable with Jesper just being like charm itself Can you believe looking at Jesper Llewellyn Fahey in the flesh and having him make sexy eyes at you and then forgetting about it? Because I simply cannot. The line about light role play? Felt a little not right. GO OFF STABLE HAND WHO PUSHED JESPER AGAINST A WALL AND KISSED HIM, HE LITERALLY SAID IM POPPING OFF AND

THEN HE DID Zoya Zoya saying fuck off to the random racist comment made by one of the guests, but she was racist to Alina herself? (I mean South Asian-East Asian hate is not uncommon so idk) David omg the cutie pie adjusting his hair at the fete HEARTRENDER FUCKING HUSBANDS Fedyor insisting on Ivan eating the sweet and Ivan's solemn head shake like no babe im on a diet and Fedyor being like heart eyes please eat the sweet my love and then Fedyor holding Ivan's face to make him nibble off a corner and Ivan's face splitting into a reluctant grin Kaz the actor Seeing Kaz the actor instead of Kaz the master of trickery and plans is an interesting thing Kanej being Kanej cute banter interaction, would recommend, 10/10 hints at Arken being sus The look Kaz gives Arken when Arken leaves, I really should have known, I was simply being a clown Darkling and the dumb royalty We love the Darkling suppressing his anger at these otkazat'sya rulers dissing the grisha and the little palace Alina's entrance The soft hum that we hear when Alina enters but we don't see her face Alina's adorable peeking The Darkling's expression changing despite being done af with these mfers and instantaneously on catching a glimpse of Alina, she really has that power huh He really made it look like his pupils dilated and who knows maybe they did Him trying to call her out for not following protocol but him melting and saying 'you look lovely, by the way' Her saying 'you look like you needed saving' I can't breathe you're so cool ballroom at the little palace I must confess I expected the ballroom of the winter fete to be bigger

GENYADAVID looking at each other and pretending not to look at each other, my fucking heart Kanej being Kanej Kaz implying they're gonna try to trick the people into thinking that the fake sun summoner is real and Inej being done with his shit Alina's demonstration HER NAME IS ALINA STARKOV yes mfer The way people back away as he steps, god the power of this man Inej looking at Kaz omfg Okay him clapping the darkness into the room was cool af I love the shadow summoning effects so fucking much The first bit of light that Alina summons lighting up the gold parts of her black kefta, absolute perfection Alina just enjoying her power and then looking to Alek, his lips parting when she does Aw Fedyor looking at Ivan in a I told you she could do it way Genya and Fedyor exchanging glances as Alina besties THE CROWD SAYING SANKTA ALINA INEJ SAYING SANKTA ALINA WITH HALF A TEAR IN HER EYE DAMN THIS IS POWERFUL Jesper and Dima IMMEDIATELY TRANSITIONING TO JESPER SAYING 'SAINTS' AS A NAKED STABLE BOY GETS OFF OF HIM AGAHSJSJSJKS I CAN'T IM CACKLING AT THE AUDACITY OF THIS SHOW HOW ARE THEY SO PERFECT (his name's dima btw) Poor fucking Dima getting frightening orders from his superior as his hookup sneaks out with horses that are definitely not his Arken the little shit Ah Arken why'd you have to go and do this I was actually amused by you before the malyen factor omg Mal's here and someone saw him getting here apparat and faith? The apparat literally jumping out of the palace walls at Alina lol man I do love the religion angle of this universe and it would have been so fucking cool if it were explored a bit better ew apparat that grab was very violent mal/darkling interaction the darkling's reaction at his recognition of mal was so funny ah yes my arch nemesis, the other angle of this teen immortal love triangle how utterly delightful someone explain the darkling's 'are you alright' to mal, is it because Alina was worried sick, is it mind games, is it curiosity, what is it Im still don't know how to feel with them attaching a literal symbol to the sun summoner, to Alina's dreams and to the stag itself 'not until I see Alina' THE LOYAL HIMBO ENERGY IN THIS ONE ISTFG I have never known nose acting until I saw Ben Barnes, he uses his nose in his acting and it is absolutely wonderful; case in point, the 'i beg your pardon' to mal with the rage making his voice shake okay but why is every mal darkling interaction like, everything the prompt answer our baby mal gives and the satisfaction it brings to his face, fucking amazing the darkling being literally struck by this, his mouth literally agape, king this is a 20 year old lmao Baghra! OMG WE GOT A GLIMPSE OF BAGHRA'S FIRE YES Genya supremacy Genya beating Arken up let's fucking go Marie's plot influence and Racism? Yellowface? again? hmm bardugo (then again, I have no authority over this, I'm south asian) Ive already talked about how I'm interested in knowing if and how changing Marie's time and place of death going to influence the plot much because in the books it caused a chain reaction doing a lot of stuff Alina, my love Alina just, laughing with other Grisha, feeling at home, ah be still my treacherous heart Mal's confrontation scene with Alina that was in the books being retconned to Mal calling out to her body double, hmm, probably to make Mal more likeable, I don't have any feelings about this particularly Nadia and Fedyor Okay the both of them, smiling and walking, hand in hand, cute mlm wlw solidarity moment that I missed during the first watch Kanej interacting with Alina Why is Alina literally so adorable The music picking up as the Inferni catches sight of the 'limping man' (what? it was funny when he said it) Blue Irises Alina's face showing a certain sense of calm when Alek shows up Alina's face after the Darkling says 'for you' and presents her with blue irises is something like gasp okay you've got game sexy shadow man mal fite time omg I thought she was taking mal to talk to Baghra or smth not to kill him 🤡 aren't oprichnikis like

otkazat'sya or am I missing smth? Because Baghra's spy is obvs a fabrikator THE DESK SCENE omg the scene hath arriveth the fact that Alina can't stop smiling gods, the flirting 'I don't recall this, being part of the schedule' him turning back and saying 'it isn't' her hiding her face through the cover of smelling the flowers and just how coy she acts, like the literal eyelid batting Ma'am how embarrassing for you to have feelings rn these two are my absolute favs of all time the camera moving as they move from their spots on which they had to stand on to get the shot of their shadows almost kissing her nodding and smiling at him saying 'she'll probably be alright' like okay I'm ready for smooches kiss me already and him going 'don't you think' trying to savour this moment IM SORRY BUT THE FUCKING SCORE AT THE MOMENT THEIR LIPS MEET YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND I CANNOT COPE the way his hand is so big that he can almost hold her entire face in it the way she grips the back of his head I'm sorry I feel so disrespectful saying this but the sounds they make+I think that's a um titty grab or maybe it's just a holding someone and the placement was um unintended but I doubt it because everything in this fucking show is so intentional+ the lift up onto the desk+ the faces they make+ um god I'm going to hell for this but when they sort of grind into each other (I understand this is acting and they're just good at their job) but god does all of this make my heart race and also makes me happy I guess LITERAL GIGGLES I can't I'm soft 🥺🥺🥺 his little head shake at the knock on the door when he goes in for one last kiss before she gets off the desk and her eyes going all oy you, go get the door, I'm not going anywhere don't make whoever it is wait is so adorable and domestic her just standing there mouth agape to herself when he walks away HIM STILL FLUSHED AND BLUSHING AND HIS HAPPINESS CLEAR AS DAY ON HIS FACE WHEN HE OPENS THE DOOR his gaze flits to her when Ivan says Alina was the target 'I'll be waiting' love, I physically can't anymore Little cheek hold and walk away Her little smile to herself nearly fading before he jumps back in again to her surprise and to ours to hold her face with both his hands and kiss her one last time, and yes, he does kiss like he's being drafted for the war in the morning Her little mouth open and close and then her little smile to herself after he leaves I refuse to watch the rest of the episode right now because no let me steep in the darklina bliss

What are the problems with Firefly? I've only ever heard people gushing about it.

A long (but not complete) list:

The Confederacy analogue just wanted to be free and the Union analogue just wanted to oppress them for literally zero reason. Nobody even points out that an Independent victory would likely have just resulted in their territories devolving into the petty fiefdoms of the crime-lords who run most of the places the show takes place in.

The Companions are both Orientalist as all fuck (they’re a creepy fetishized version of a middle-schooler’s understanding of geishas), and a creepy libertarian and first-world white feminist fantasy about “sex work” that does not actually resemble anything in the real world that has ever existed, nor can. (The highest ranked o-iran in pre-Meiji Japan were somewhat similar…but they had to spend years as sex-slaves with no right to refuse clients, before they got to that point.)

The Reavers are one-dimensional monsters, which, aside from the troubling implications given they’re the “Space Western” equivalent of “Indians”, is a wasted opportunity to do something interesting.

Why didn’t they just re-terraform Earth That Was? Gotta be easier than schlepping light years to another group of stars and terraforming dozens of planets, never mind how unlikely it is that more than a tiny number of planets would be remotely livable for any length of time, even if terraforming didn’t actually take tens of thousands of years if it’s possible at all.

The Alliance, that’s supposed to be so oppressive, lets Mal have a spaceship, and even name it after a battle he fought against them in. No government would let Mal have a spaceship, the things are WMDs—the spaceship equivalent of 9/11 is an extinction event. Just in general, they forget to be oppressive whenever the plot needs them to allow something.

The Operative in the movie just wants a world without sin, but he sure acts like a Metal Gear villain whose dream is Outer Heaven, the utopia of mercenaries. The Hands of Blue are the most clownishly conspicuous assassins in the history of fiction.

The episode “Out of Gas” only happens because they impose the realistic outcome of a spaceship design (the engine in the pressurized compartment) that nobody would use, precisely because of what happens in that episode. We excuse you putting the engine inside because this is space opera and you don’t have the budget to depict EVAs (or remote-controlled waldos) when they have to work on the engine, but you can’t then have them suffer the realistic consequences of a design they’d never realistically use.

There are no Asians with speaking parts despite the widespread use of East Asian material culture. Whedon’s excuses for this (that Summer Glau “kinda looks Asian” and that no Asian actors who auditioned were “cute enough”) are contemptible and disingenuous.

The “Chinese” in the show is not only so mangled that Chinese bootleg DVDs subtitle it “speaks galactic language”—as in they don’t even recognize it as an attempt at their own language—but Whedon felt that he was permitted to make up his own profanity, like “Mother of God and all her wacky nephews”. Because it’s not like Chinese profanity is actually easily found, particularly in Hollywood, given LA has a gigantic Chinese-American community.

Who gives their slave-telepaths super-soldier training? Who lets someone with a head full of secrets tour a facility full of slave-telepaths?

Whose testing for new drugs consists of the two steps “drawing board” and “full-scale field trial”? If they did one human trial in between, they would have at least found the “99% of subjects go catatonic” result, if not the “1% turn into Reavers”.

The exchange “Psychic? That sounds like something out of science fiction.” “You live on a spaceship, dear.” Which means that spaceships, which are so common even Mal can have one, are still a matter of science fiction in the 26th century—just like tanks and submarines are for us, right? Since they first appeared in Wells and Verne stories over a century ago, I mean. (This is a thing with Whedon: his characters have the audience’s assumptions, not their own. In one of the Buffyverse shows, a guy goes into a clock tower with a rifle…to shoot himself, because that’s totally how you’d do it, if you didn’t want to fake out an audience you aren’t supposed to know you have into thinking you’re going to perpetrate a mass shooting.)

You can, in fact, stop a signal, it’s called jamming. You probably throw up massive ECM whenever engaged in space battle, to disrupt the enemy’s missiles if nothing else. Know who jam their enemy’s comms before attacking? The Trade Federation in Phantom Menace and the Grand Army of the Republic in Attack of the Clones. That’s how Naboo and the Separatists, respectively, know attacks are imminent. The people who made Firefly know less about military science fiction than George “Armies with Blasters Would Totally Use Formations Designed for Musket Volleys” Lucas!

There’s actually more, but I think I’ve made my point.

If you know about ATLA the airbending monks were everything people pretend the Jedi were and when the masters heard about the impending war, which would turn out to be the genocide of the airbenders, some of them wanted to send 12 year old Aang the chosen one away to another temple train for the war, going against their air-bending principles, but the point was that it was framed as completely wrong AND Aang's teacher, the monk who raised him, protected him from that fate. I'd love to tell more.

I’ve seen ATLA. I loved watching that show! My favorites were Katara, Sokka, and Zuko! The writers treatment of Azula could have been better. Yes, she was a bitch, and when I was a kid, I hated her, too. However, much like Zuko, she was a victim of her father, and a broken and dictatorial Fire nation’s brainwashing. Unlike Zuko, she never had her mother’s love, or if she did, she was clearly the “unfavorite” of Ursa. In spite of his father’s abuse and brainwashing, Zuko had Iroh and Ursa who were both decent influences on him, which was why he was able to redeem himself in the end. Azula only had her father, who was a downright awful person with no redeeming qualities.

Nonetheless, now that I look back on ATLA, it also very much was an idyllic westernized East Asian fantasy. None of the young characters really behaved much like believable children, except for Aang, Toph, and Sokka. It was easy to forget that these kids were 12-16 and being allowed into war zones. Yes, Katara and Sokka weren’t exactly groomed for warfare, and, thankfully, Giazo stopped Aang’s grooming for warfare. However, they’re still allowed to go off into warzones alone, and even the characters who are supposed to be good parents, such as Iroh and Hakoda, are actually okay with it. Aang’s a different story because he literally has no parents left. No adult is putting a stop to this, even at the end.

In my opinion, a realistic narrative would consistently point out that it is wrong to conscript anyone for warfare under the age of 18. As much as I love ATLA, it doesn’t consistently do that, except for with the kids in the Fire Nation, and even with them, it’s dodgy, because Zuko becomes the Fire Lord at 16, and he is completely okay with that responsibility. For someone who was shown to be an arrogant and emotionally unstable teenager less than a year ago, in spite of having a good, kind, and well-meaning heart underneath it all all along, I don’t totally buy that he suddenly would be able to handle all that responsibility and be okay. Why were Katara and Aang ever a couple? Why were the issues with Toph’s parents never addressed?

For all of Star Wars flaws since Filoni, Hidalgo, and Disney took over and ruined everything, though, I do actually think the OT and PT movies and novelizations do a good job of writing believable and relatable character reacting realistically in traumatic war zones, relationships with abusive, manipulative, and oppressive authority figures, and situations that they weren’t ready for from childhood having lifelong negative emotional/psychological effects on Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader because there were very limited to nonexistent options for healthy support, therapy, and escape from such toxic environments his whole life. While Anakin/Vader does hold a level of responsibility for his crimes as an adult that is on him, and no one deserved to be murdered, I think the writers did make it consistently clear that, while well-meaning, the Jedi Council and Republic were also very broken and dysfunctional. They never should have been taking in children to train for warfare.

Then, in the OT, we have Luke breaking the cycle of abuse, crime, and oppression that his predecessors contributed to, perpetuated, and suffered under as an outsider from that systematic corruption with enough clarity of mind, realism, stability, normalcy, and compassion to do so. While there’s no excuse for perpetuating abuse, child conscription, murder, oppression, and war crimes, it’s a very hard cycle to break and see through as wrong when it’s almost all you’ve known your whole life, there’s limited to nonexistent options for viable safe escape from it, and/or healthy and non-biased support within it.

The problem is that the majority of the OG Star Wars fandom kept bitching about how they didn’t like the dystopian tragedy take that George Lucas went with in the PT, even though it showed signs of having been a problem in the OT too since Obi Wan and Yoda knew Darth Vader before when he was Anakin, claimed to have failed him as his teachers, and did nothing to stop him themselves within those 19 years before Luke came of age. Sure, it is completely reasonable to believe that Vader would be better off dead in self-defense and/or for execution of his crimes, but the fact that Obi Wan and Yoda are both Jedi who knew about him for all this time before Luke showed up, and did nothing about it in those 19 years he was terrorizing the galaxy as Sidious’s attack dog, only so they could attempt to recruit his son to finish off the monster of a man they both contributed to luring his father to become as his guardians who failed him? Fucked up and cowardly as hell.

But again, the majority of the SW fandom didn’t like George Lucas’s take that the Jedi weren’t “completely blameless” and Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader wasn’t “pure evil.” It was a systematic issue of abuse, crime, and corruption that they all contributed too and were too afraid to stick up against.

Thus, we got Dave Filoni, Pablo Hidalgo, and Disney canon Star Wars who keep muddling, retconning, and undermining George Lucas’s original story about good and evil not being this black-and-white issue to cater to the, surprisingly many fans who never liked the fact that Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader wasn’t the badass and cold-blooded cartoon villain murder machine man they thought they were going to get in “New Hope.”

Comparing ATLA’s Jet to Cowboy Bebop’s Spike

(this is so late, but. Happy birthday @the-hot-zone​, hope you had an amazing day) 

In my opinion, Cowboy Bebop is one of the greatest shows ever created. It hits a lot of my personal favorite attributes in a TV show: cowboys, fantastic music, absolutely spectacular animation, really deep themes and characters with rich inner lives, worldbuilding that’s thought out. Simply put, it’s a masterpiece. 

I started watching Bebop this summer, at the height of the ATLA Renaissance, and the first thing I noticed about protagonist Spike Spiegel is that he looked a hell of a lot like Jet from ATLA. And it wasn’t just the looks either: like Jet, Spike is the leader of a ragtag group of misfits living on the fringes of society. Like Jet, Spike is a smooth talker. Like Jet, Spike is compassionate and cares for other people, and like Jet, the world has hardened Spike to the point where his virtues can still lead him down the wrong path. And while Jet isn’t named for Spike, there’s a character in Bebop named Jet (he sort of plays the right hand person role that Smellerbee plays for Jet in ATLA.) They’re not completely similar--Spike isn’t fighting for anybody’s liberation, whereas for Jet that’s a core aspect of his character--but it was enough to make me wonder about how Jet was designed and how much influence Bebop had on his character design and on ATLA as a whole, and whether looking at Spike can illuminate some of the conversations we’ve been having about Jet. 

A little about the inspiration and process of ATLA: Bryan and Michael were working on shows like Family Guy when they decided they wanted to make something more sincere and more cinematic. They were both really inspired by anime. Bryan said “Back in the late '90s I was getting pretty disillusioned with working on sitcoms -- then I saw Princess Mononoke and I was emboldened. My heart was so much closer to that kind of story, those kinds of characters and that type of tone. After that, Cowboy Bebop really inspired us in terms of being a great example of an epic series that had a wide breadth of tones. Then FLCL came along and rewrote the rules for everything, as far as I'm concerned!” I haven’t seen FLCL, I’ll admit, but having seen both Bebop and Princess Mononoke--yeah, I get that. Both are incredible pieces of art that, for me personally, make me want to push myself as an artist, and I cannot recommend both enough if you haven’t seen them already. 

So, Bryan and Michael decide they want to make something inspired by shows like Bebop and movies like Princess Mononoke, they get a pilot order from Nickelodeon and, as is custom at the time, they start reaching out to East Asian animation studios to help them with the animation. This video is a great source for how ATLA in particular interacted in this environment, but suffice to say that Bryan built a relationship with the studio that did a lot of work for ATLA, JM Animation, and gave them a lot of creative freedom in making the visuals of the show. This included designing Jet and the rest of the Freedom Fighters. 

[ID: An image of Jet from ATLA from the shoulders up against a sky background fading from blue at the top to white at the bottom. He had dark skin, shaggy black hair, black eyes, eyebrows turned way up, a smirk on his face, and some wheat in his mouth. He is wearing a red jacket with a gray popped collar. End ID] 

[ID: An image of Spike from Cowboy Bebop from the shoulders up against a sky blue background with trees behind him. He has shaggy dark brown hair that has a slight bit more curl in it than Jet’s, dark brown eyes, light skin, and a closed mouth smile on his face. He is wearing a blue suit with a yellow shirt that has a popped collar, and a skinny black tie/ End ID] 

So, let’s look at the character design. Both Spike and Jet have these long, angular faces, shaggy dark hair, long necks, broad shoulders, dark eyes, some popped collar element to their attire, etc. While both characters are pretty tall and lanky, Spike’s height is more immediately obvious than Jet’s--in fact, I wouldn’t think of Jet as a tall character had I not seen some fandom height comparisons. The most obvious and immediate differences between how the characters physically look are their clothes, which are very different (likely due to the setting--ATLA is set in a proto-industrial war-torn society and Jet in particular has had to scavenge his clothes from Fire Nation troops, while Bebop is a space epic set in the far future), the lack of mouth wheat for Spike, Spike’s incredibly normal looking eyebrows versus Jet’s adorable long division eyebrows, and, of course, their skin tones. Colorism is something that people bring up a lot when talking about Jet’s character, and I have to wonder why Jet, a character that was so clearly inspired by this light-skinned character who was morally ambiguous in Bebop, was made darker-skinned when explicitly coded as a “villain” in ATLA. 

In fact, colorism is a super important aspect of how Jet and Spike’s stories are told. To its credit, ATLA has two MCs (Sokka and Katara) with dark skin (not that the fanartists who whitewash them notice) while Bebop has just one (Ed). However, it’s important to note that Sokka and Katara are each portrayed in ways that Aang or other lighter-skinned characters in the show simply aren’t. For example, despite both characters being literal teenagers, they are sexualized within the text of the show. Another example of the colorism in ATLA is, of course, Jet, a Brown boy leading a resistance against oppressive colonialist imperialist forces, being so unambiguously vilified. Yes, within the text, Jet has some sense of complexity, especially in Book 2, but even that is undermined by his death at the hands of the Dai Li. Jet is never given the subjectivity of a character like Zuko. In fact, it’s pretty clear that Jet’s redemption and subsequent death happens when it does to demonstrate what Zuko is capable of if he makes the right choice. Whether or not this is a good decision writing-wise is another discussion, but the fact of the matter is that in using Jet to further Zuko’s arc, bryke used a Brown teenage boy/victim of imperialist violence to prop up the narrative of a light-skinned prince/perpetrator of imperial violence. This is not to say that Zuko shouldn’t have been redeemed or that Jet shouldn’t have died or that the narrative shouldn’t have dedicated time and attention to Zuko’s story, but it is to say that ultimately, the writers of the show decided that Jet’s subjectivity was a tool to further Zuko’s actualization. 

Contrast this to Spike. Bebop is about a lot of things, but a core part of it is exploring Spike’s backstory and way of looking at the world. It’s part of what makes the show the show. It’s the thing that keeps you liking the guy even when he says or does something absolutely unconscionable. Nothing in the show is more important than Spike’s subjectivity. The show may have individual episodes that focus on the other main characters, but it’s pretty clear that it’s really *about* Spike. Where does Spike come from? What is his obsession with the past? Why do all these people want to kill him? Who is Julia? These are all prescient questions that I had as a viewer of Bebop, and these were questions that were not only important to understanding Spike Spiegel, but to understanding the narrative that the writers, director, and animators are telling. Bebop is nothing without Spike’s subjectivity, and the people behind the show invest in his narrative even though he does some pretty horrible things! (kills many people, is part of a crime syndicate at one point, says some pretty misogynistic crap, hell, the whole concept of the show is that he and his buddies hunt people down for money.) As I said before, Spike is morally ambiguous, an antihero, and the people behind Bebop run with that, because that is an integral part of the story that they’re telling. 

You could certainly argue that ATLA, being a show for children, needs clear heroes and villains, to be unambiguous in its depiction of right and wrong. And to an extent that would be correct. But let’s not forget that ATLA is not shy in its depiction of morally ambiguous characters. That’s an integral part of what the show is. Characters like Zuko, Iroh, Mai, Azula, and Ty Lee are beloved despite (or perhaps because of) their complex moral frameworks. Zuko, Mai, and Ty Lee in particular move between designations of villain, victim, and hero pretty fluidly (Iroh and Azula are two other conversations in themselves.) I personally am okay, and in fact delighted, to have Zuko, Mai, Azula, and Ty Lee in the show because I think their stories and the ways that they move between evil, good, and morally gray are incredibly compelling. We know why they act the way they do, and we can condemn or validate their actions while always knowing exactly where they’re coming from. 

But then I see Jet. Jet, whose village was burned down by the Fire Nation. Jet, who survived by himself and helped 5 other people survive along the way, while leading an organized resistance against the Fire Nation on wits alone. Jet, who somehow ended up in Ba Sing Se, his new family cut in half, wanting to start over. So much of him is a blank slate. Where Spike in Bebop, or Zuko, Iroh, Mai, Azula, and Ty Lee in ATLA, get fleshed out, have the writers convey specific information that helps the audience understand their actions and motivations, even if they’re wrong, Jet never gets that sort of care in his narrative. Jet never gets to be the center of ATLA, even for a moment, even in his own death. There’s always something more pressing, something more meaningful, than Jet. You could argue (I certainly would) that the show would be better if we spent more time with him, if the writers cared to understand him, but unlike Bebop and Spike, the show doesn’t revolve around the audience understanding Jet. The story is coherent without him. In book 3, despite the fact that Jet sacrificed his life for them, the Gaang only brings up Jet once, and that’s to condemn him. Jet’s story is a tragedy, an important one, but only insofar as it props up other pieces of the narrative. And that’s the most tragic part of it. 

Hi again! I just had some thoughts on Caleb that are hopefully helpful in some way? I really like him as a character, but I think that the way the demo has him is a big part of why he's so disliked--most of what I liked is in the asks about him. He has his moments in the demo--when Morgan is thrown around in the car, he's clearly bracing himself to keep her from getting hurt. I think more moments like that would help him in the PR department. For example, you mentioned that he is unhappy (1/2)

This is the last ask I’ll be answering about Caleb, as the situation has already come to a resolution based on our Discord discussions and discussions with Kickstarter backers. (In short, there are a number of backers who don’t want him changed. And since they have already paid for the product - and some of them backed specifically for Caleb - he won’t be changing beyond what I’ve already done).

I cannot make Caleb much nicer for plot reasons as a whole and feel that if I have to continually “nice-i-fy” him, I will ultimately diminish his character and route. I think this comes down to the fact that everything he says and does has a specific reason. He wasn’t written that way ‘just because’. Each behaviour was written as it is for the sake of specific moments that happen in later in his route.

For instance, the reason why he doesn’t explicitly say “I don’t like this any more than you do” or any variation is because this is a plot reveal in his route specifically for the sake of Morgan learning he’s not who she thought he was. If I have that in the common route then, well, it can’t be a reveal later on. This is what I meant in a previous ask when I mentioned that adding in moments of “niceness” or “understanding” erode the foundation of their romantic development because it diminishes his dramatic change in character.

There's a difference between expanding on an idea and introducing an idea. Introducing the idea of Caleb being unhappy with his orders has a different impact than just expanding on it because it was already revealed.

One of the confusing things (this isn’t aimed at you! It’s just an observation in general about this situation) about this has been how often people bring up things about Caleb as possible fixes, when other characters are guilty of the same things.

Caleb kidnaps Morgan, yes. But so does Ari (Caissa tries...Magnus knows they’re about to do it, and Jack is just being more stealthy in his approach). Caleb is dismissive of her questions, but so is Ari. I could be misremembering or forgetting my own writing (I do that a lot! LoL) but I believe Ari literally covers her mouth to shut her up at one point.

I know that Caleb may need extra care because he’s the gruff character that Morgan initially does not like...but that’s also the point. Many of the suggestions I’ve gotten feel designed to make him less gruff, and to rub Morgan the wrong way less, to show her that he does sympathise, or isn’t as mean. But all that is directly at odds with the purpose of his character in the game. Which is why my conundrum was about whether to keep him. I can’t make these kinds of edits without defying why he exists, essentially. So it came down to “completely change his character and purpose” or “remove his character entirely.”

But, of course, as I said, the backers have spoken and so that kind of decides that. Backers don’t want him gone and they don’t want him *changed* so...that won’t be happening. (There were also Misery gifs and threats about locking me in a room with angry cockatoos. So my hands are tied. Possibly literally.) ;A;

That said, I do want to also discuss that a big point of contention for many people is that Caleb, the only visibly not-white guy (Jack’s heritage is Latin American but I am not sure how many people view him as a person of colour compared to Caleb, who is visibly East/SE Asian in appearance), is being singled out for behaviours the others are guilty of as well - pretty much across the board.

Yes, Caleb is certainly gruff and angry compared to the others. But many of the specific things being brought up as possible fixes are not unique to his character (kidnapping Morgan, being dismissive of her, even not being terribly sympathetic when she cries. Jack is kind of amused by the situation, and Ari is the only one that expresses any sympathy at all - and it consists entirely of a disapproving dad look at Caleb).

People of colour in our community have expressed they feel Caleb is being unfairly targeted, really. They *want* to see characters of colour who are allowed to be flawed without having to be toned down and declawed and polished up to perfection to be more appealing. We had a frank discussion about how all the other love interests who are people of colour are *nice* or *polite* or *friendly.* (Reuben, Yuu, Jack, Lance - and Edan, Caleb’s possible replacement). There was an impassioned (and very compelling) request to not declaw Caleb when white love interests in games (including in Changeling, our last game) can get away with all sorts of terrible, bratty, and grouchy behaviour without getting called on it to this degree.

I think that’s also a valid point, which is another reason why I won’t be making further changes.

Finally, I want to conclude with this:

I’m not trying to shut down or be dismissive of feedback. I have edited Caleb. I edited before we released our last demo update, and I edited him again a few days ago. So when the game comes out, there will be some minor changes in how he treats Morgan. In some cases, I just altered language - sometimes I think it’s just a matter of a particular word giving the impression of an angrier action than I want. “Hauled me to my feet” can maybe a little more intense than “pulled me to my feet” or “grabbed my arm” can sound worse than “took me by the arm” - especially if a player is already indignant about Caleb not being polite enough.

I never particularly saw him as throwing Morgan around or being “violent” but looking at the writing critically, I can see how certain sentences might have read that way with the language being used. So I tried to address that where I could.

I won’t be making any further additions or changes to what I have, though!

Thank you for your comment! I appreciate you taking the time to send your thoughts! <3

The Emperor and the Dragon

Creating a story based mostly on one sentence worth of information. That’s what I attempted to do in this Yi Ti fanfiction. Martin only tells fans, “Chai Duq, fourth yellow emperor with a Valyrian noblewoman as a wife and dragon in his court.” Off the bat, people were able to decipher that the dragon was probably owned by his Valyrian noble wife. After that, the rest was harder to guess. For example, when did Chai Duq live?

Determining why he would have married a Valyrian noblewoman in the first place helped determine the time period of the story. Most royal marriages are political alliances and sometimes alliance for the goal of waging war. Ahhh, the Valyrians waged war on the empire of Ghis. There is mention of Valyria allying with the Kingdom of Sarnor. So, let’s figure Valyria is a young empire. It might have dragons, but it would still need a strong army and navy. The navy part is where Yi Ti would step in. Yi Ti has a few island holdings and the kingdom itself has many rivers. They possessed a powerful navy that could make sense. With this in mind, I figured Chai Duq reign during the Third Ghiscari War when the conflict crossed over the Summer Sea.

As for the Valyrian noblewoman, I played with the concept that “a dragon in court” was both literal and figurative in regards to her. Some of the Valyrian features had been modeled after ancient Rome such as the trireme ship and flower fibula. Yi Ti had some ancient Egyptian features like river goddess, adoption, and the title “Great Royal Wife.” It didn’t want Yi Ti to be a carbon copy of ancient China (this is not to say there aren’t any Chinese’s or Asian features to it). Since none of the other kingdom are exact copies, Yi Ti isn’t going to be either. The royal court politics are actually influence more about Tudor court royal like Chai Duq’s mother causing romantic intrigues for her own amusement.

There you have it a pure Yi Tish story with none of GOT main cast. Chapter two and three are going to take place even further east in Nefer and Mossovy. The last chapter will visit ancient Valyria a little. Also, before I forget, Leng is mentioned in this story as well. Anyway, please check out my crazy fanfiction on an Archive of Our Own. Thanks for reading.

NCT Hollywood

TL:DR: I’m neutral about this new potential sub-unit.

I’m pretty sure a lot of Kpop fans read the news about SM x MGM to create a survival programme to debut NCT Hollywood. I know some of you guys want to burn SM because of that. On the other hand, we’re in the age of globalisation. SM creating a US-based group was going to happen regardless. Honestly, you just have to view NCT like the Avengers, they all have their own stories but when the time is right, they will join forces. Although I’m just a casual listener, seeing NCT grow as a brand is rather interesting and it was really cool to see how NCT 2020 connected the dots between 127, Dream and WayV. Don’t you think it will be interesting to see how SM will market their Japanese unit and USA unit? 127 is literally a Seoul based group whereas, Dream is living in a dreamland and, WayV are time/space travelers.

NCT Hollywood, I think it’s probably connected to their Youtube post, when they were scouting for new trainees. This new show is still in discussion and I doubt it’s going to take place within this year. By the time NCT Hollywood debut, some of the current member’s contracts would probably have expired or some of members would have already enlisted. SM mentioned at start of 2020, SM will debut another boy group by end of 2020, don’t worry about Shotaro and Sungchan. Let’s be honest, NCT Hollywood doesn’t mean NCT or SM will spoon feed them success. They would still need to fight for their success. Similarly when WayV debuted, was WayV spoon fed their success from 127 and Dream? No. They still had to appear on shows, host concerts and fanmeetings to get to where they are at. Sure SM can improve their management with WayV but 1) COVID is still around and 2) I personally don’t think putting them on a Korean TV show would be suitable since they are not K-pop group and the general Korean public are most likely not interested in a Chinese group. Furthermore, the fact that a Korean drama got cancelled due to using Chinese props. Do you think the general public in Korea will be open minded enough to watch a TV show with a Chinese group guest on it? Also, let’s not forget that Kick Back sold 200k+ albums (and trended on various digital platforms) with almost zero promotions during COVID - Not many groups can achieve such sales before COVID.

As a fan from 2nd gen, I do want to highlight the hypocrisy I see within the K-pop fandom. Whenever SM announce a new group, there will always be disagreements and repeating the same narrative ‘SM doesn’t need a new group, they need to focus on xx’ When Red Velvet debuted, fans said SM needs to focus on f(x), when NCT debuted, fans said SM needs to focus on EXO and when Aepsa debuted, fans said SM better not forget Red Velvet. The same narrative is being repeated years after years. Now NCT Hollywood was announced, they haven’t even finalised the line up or finish any form of training, some of you act as if they’re going to drop a debut single next month. Some of you say that SM needs to focus on their current groups, however when WayV debuted, did anyone hate that idea? No, instead we just wanted to see Kun, Lucas and Ten leave SM’s trainee basement. When SM obviously hinted NCT Japan line, did anyone hate that idea? No, we just want to see Shotaro and Sungchan debut in a fix unit. So why is it with NCT Hollywood, you all want SM to only focus on NCT’s current sub-unit and stop their expansion now? WayV debuted 3 years after NCT 127 and Dream, NCT 127 just began touring and Dream went on radio and TV shows here and there, 127 and Dream’s popularity was starting to pick up around 2018-2019 however, we still wanted to see SM debut WayV. And with the current Japan line, I’m sure many of you are still anticipating this sub-unit. So I do think it’s unfair to gun down NCT Hollywood, a sub-unit that’s in works and have yet to debut.

I’m not trying to defend SM’s business decisions or tactics but wanting to suggest another perspective. Because at the end of day, we don’t work for SM, I don’t think it’s fair to always blame everything on SM’s management team. However, please do take this post with a grain of salt. I just staying neutral since 1) I don’t work for SM, 2) how SM runs their business is not something for me to be concerned about and 3) I don’t blame SM for wanting to explore to different markets. You can’t always stay within your comfort zone, from time to to time, you have to challenge yourself.

Lee Soo Man World Domination Fantasy & Politics

I know people are always laughing at Lee Soo Man’s world domination views. But I don’t get what’s there to laugh about. Yes USA is big but I doubt he wants to dominate the entire music industry in USA. He just wants to create a realm where he can generate profit from. If you want to earn more money, you have to source it from other countries. Whilst I understand SM is a small cooperation compared to other global companies but what’s wrong with a small company trying to make it big? I don’t think it’s wrong for Lee Soo Man for wanting to expand their market and push themselves into different regions and territories. As a business, you have to take risk in order to grow. If NCT Hollywood fails, then tough luck. Better luck next time.

In addition, I always wanted to point this out. Why do people always laugh at SM trying to break into the US market? If you see US’s market as an unbreakable and untouchable market, don’t you think this is somehow succumbing to the notion of ‘white supremacy?’ Western companies constantly profit from Asian countries but when Asian countries wants to enter the Western market, it’s automatically viewed as a ‘flop’ or ‘embarrassing.’ I don’t see anyone stopping Sephora from opening stores across China. I don’t see anyone laughing when Pixie Lott made her Japanese debut (Dancing on my own ft GD&TOP). And I don’t see anyone judging Little Mix for collaborating with a J-pop group (Flower). So why is it especially funny that SM wants to debut a USA group? Alternatively, if it’s not succumbing to ‘white supremacy’, don’t you think it’s reiterating idea of ‘white fragility’? To be honest, no one is Asia loses their mind when a Western brands enters the Asian market. - On the contrary, this could be due to the normalisation of Western countries self-inserting themselves into Asia, aka colonisation...- But when an Asian brand approaches the Western market, some of you guys tend to lose your mind and try to protect and reserve the Western market. Are you scared that SM will take over the USA music industry, leaving people jobless? Are you trying to reserve the USA market for white owned companies? Globalisation isn’t about opening McDonald and KFC stores around the world, learning English and making people conform to Western standards and lifestyle. It’s having the world connected despite the geographical distance.

I understand that K-pop fans who listen to K-pop is for its East-Asian aesthetics. On the other hand, there are many people out there who aren’t interested in East-Asian culture and don’t listen to K-pop. For example, when SM debuted WayV, it was to create Chinese pop music for the Chinese market since not everyone in China listens to K-pop. Same goes for NCT Hollywood, it’s SM’s strategy to create pop music for the mass USA market than target a niche audience. I personally do think pop culture in general can easily be adapted and localised. So don’t think of it as LSM destroying K-pop, it’s not like he’s disbanding all his groups for this one USA group. But hey, if everything goes well, this could be an opportunity for some of you to work for SM and fulfill that fantasy of working with Kpop idols. In all honesty, this could be a good social experiment of trying to bridge the cultural differences between the West and the East. 

The only thing that bugs me is the survival show, I personally don’t like watching shows where I see a group of aspiring youths completing for one position.

Not gonna lie, I do find the word ‘Hollywood’ extremely cringe worthy.

I feel like what makes Raya and the Last Dragon such a large letdown is that the movie clearly feels like a rushed draft.

Like, it very clearly has the vibe of Frozen 2 where the movie directors had an idea for a action adventure movie and they had several set-pieces for a compelling story, but then the higher-ups at Disney clearly gave the directors and everyone on it such a time-crunch of a dead-line to get it done that it feels so rushed.

For one thing, Raya the main character is such a boring character by default. She really does feel like Moana 2.0 with some east Asian spice thrown in. there's really nothing going for her except that her defining character flaw is that she cant trust anyone due to something horrible in the past. Which, while a clever character flaw for a kids movie, isn't really all that special when you factor in that she constantly switches between untrusting and trusting so many times throughout the movie. If her whole character flaw is that she's untrusting of people and objects, then when she brings back Sisu, why trust the dragon at all??? Like seriously, why have Raya trust Sisu at all. If her whole character is that she doesn't believe in trust, why have this main character even so much as trust the last dragon?? Ya know, if she doesnt trust the other characters that come into the story, then why does she trust the dragon?

It would have been a lot better if the Fang Princess (I forget her name) had been the one to have these trust issues and Raya be the one to try to steal the Dragon Orb thing. That makes so much more sense because you have the fang princess, who lives in a kingdom that's very controlling by her mother and her mother wants her to be strong and iron-hearted and to not get weak as she's the protector of the Dragon Orb. But then we get the scene where the girls meet and against her instincts, the fang princess lets Raya see the dragon stone and she steals it and it shatters and The fang princess develops these trust issues because of that.

There's also the side characters who were so unneeded. They were literally created to be plot-devices or (in the case of the warrior himbo) didn't need to be there at all and contributed nothing to the story. Yeah I guess the baby did get a few laughs, but the warrior himbo really didn't do anything. He was just a surrogate dad to the baby. Also, the boy with the shrimp boat was alright, but i would have appreciated if he had not been soly created to be water transportation for the gang.

Also Sisu the dragon was okay, but I felt like her lore was so inconsistent with the story and the theme of trust. Like, wouldn't it have made sense to have the dragon living amongst the humans and already having the ability to shapeshift between dragon and human form without the crystal, which ties in to the theme of trust because by being able to manipulate her appearance she's able to trick people to thinking she's a bug or a fish instead of just a dragon. and also there's the mystery as to how exactly did the mist-blob things come to be and it leads by to Sisu, who says she dident do it, but then she lies and it turns out that she acually created the mist-blobs, which leads to Raya not wanting to trust her again because she lied.

Like come on disney, You're a billion doller company and I'm not even out of college yet and already I've given you so many good ideas for a better movie than you can.

One of my biggest pet peeves within any storytelling medium is waisted potential and this movie is just the sole-reincarnation of that -- So many good ideas and story set pieces, just absolute wasted potential.

I give this movie like a 3.5 out of 5 stars. it's not bad, its just really disappointing.

(can’t remember if I’ve already sent in an ask for this but I meant to) aries cancer and leo for the zodiac writing asks!!

asfsdf forgetful adhd strikes again

aries: when have you felt the most confident in your writing? when have you felt the least confident?

hmmm i think peak confidence was like 2018 which i know sounds like a long time ago, but that was the last time i had a major wip that was getting steady attention. i felt really good about my writing then because it was a mulan au, so the basic skeleton of a story was already laid out before me, and i was pulling a lot from chinese culture, which, as a halfie living in a predominantly east asian community, is something i’m very very familiar with, so i could focus a lot more on the beauty of the writing itself. i think i wrote some truly quality stuff for that au, to the point where this has reminded me that oh my god i still have that annotated version of the fic to finish up hahaha.

as for the least confident omg so it’s a really funny story. so basically in my senior year of high school, i almost had this guy i barely knew be my fake boyfriend for a night (for revenge purposes, long story), and he was the head drum major of our school band. after finishing up the aforementioned mulan au, i wanted to work on this school band au, but the plot i had in mind meant i had to ask around for some particular details. long story short, i asked my almost-fake-boyfriend to ask the head drum major of one of our sister schools (who happened to be the girl he liked) to ask her some questions for me, and we got into an argument that ended in him saying, “who would ever want to read something you wrote” and i was destroyed for the rest of 2019. that’s basically why i had a fic/fandom hiatus for all of 2019, but that was a long time ago now.

these days i do my best to feel neutrally about my writing, because if the reception to a particular piece doesn’t go exactly the way i imagined, i’ll start getting insecure again hahaha.

cancer: how do you write emotional scenes? do you ever feel what the characters feel?

mmmm not necessarily! being grey-aro, i haven’t held romantic feelings for anyone since before i started taking my writing hobby seriously, so it can be a little difficult to project the newly-falling-in-love feelings onto characters. i do keep a very regular diary, but to look back on those times is also omg Deeply Cringe(tm) because watching people fall in love embarrasses me.

that being said, i do feel very strongly as i write about emotions like embarrassment, anger, hurt, and joy!!! i like to sit with an emotion when i’m writing it, kind of pick apart where it’s coming from and how i’m feeling it, and then i’ll give it to the characters.

leo: what things will show up in every book you write? do you ever feel like a one-trick pony? 

my favorite themes in writing have been “lying,” “consequences,” and “searching,” with the final one showing up in the majority of fics i plan or publish, and all three showed up in the mulan au i mentioned earlier!! the night sky, stuff like the moon and stars, show up pretty often too, although they’re not always symbols. a lot of the time i’m literally just sitting there like “you know what i LOVE? tHE MOON AND STARS”

as for feeling like a one-trick pony? not at all! i find that there are a lot of ways to explore the same idea, even by the same person especially since those themes are so broad.

hehe ty for the ask!!!!!

zodiac writer’s ask uwu

hihi fyfa!! congrats on 900 💖💗 you deserve it~ may i request a male bnha matchup? i'm an infp/intp and a sagittarius! people describe me as smart, witty, and funny. a lot of people seem to think i'm soft and smart? and they get surprised when i swear KDJFJDJD even people i've known for YEARS. i love drawing, painting, and having deep discussions with people!! i also make puns a lot KSNDJDJ i can be competitive & like to be the best (it's the gifted kid syndrome for me 😌💅)

as for looks, i'm 5'3.5 and i have long dark brown hair! i have dark brown eyes and glasses & my fashion varies buT is heavily inspired by east asian fashion. i've been told that i sometimes look sad when i'm serious. tysm bub!! 💕

- luna (sukiglycerin)

hi, luna! today, you’ve been matched with. . .

𝐒𝐄𝐑𝐎 𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐀!

𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐍𝐒!

♡︎ i matched you with sero because i felt like the two of you would bond with each other so easily!

♡︎ it genuinely wasn’t that difficult for the two of you to get along all that well when you first met, what with the two of you being pretty easygoing and good with people.

♡︎ i can see him really liking your humor, and also going along well with his own. you guys are probably the couple that everyone genuinely loves being around because you’re so much fun to interact with.

♡︎ sero might be a pretty simple man, but he seems to me to be the type that loves getting into deep discussions and loves it even MORE when he finds someone who he can bounce his thoughts off of!

♡︎ i honestly don’t think he’s the type to swear all that much himself, but i feel like him hearing you swear for the first time would literally catch him SO off guard because??? how did something like that come out of YOUR mouth?? hello???

♡︎ he thinks you’re the cutest thing in the entire world when you whip out a pun every now and then omg... :��) every time you wanna test one out he is THERE!!

♡︎ as for your physical appearance, he thinks you’re LITERALLY the most precious thing he’s laid his eyes on!! he won’t tease you for your height difference, but he absolutely loves how you can bury your face in his chest and how he has to lean down for a kiss!!

♡︎ oh my god you and sero would look so hot together if you decided to coordinate outfits one day SHUT UP... i can literally picture the two of you turning heads on the street AHHH

♡︎ luna, you and sero just—work, you know? the two of you are just naturals together and the both of you bring light and joy everywhere you go! EVERYONE wants what you guys have, and who wouldn’t?

𝐀 𝐃𝐀𝐘 𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐋𝐈𝐅𝐄!

Movie nights have never really gone as planned once you started dating Sero.

Not that you mind, of course. He’s your boyfriend, and you like to think that your time together is quiet precious.

Tonight, the sound of gunfire and—lasers? you think—coming from the television are simply background noise to the conversation that Sero roped you into. You’re also pretty sure the protagonists love interest is dying, but Sero’s face lit up by the television is too pretty and his voice is too hypnotizing for your attention to be drawn away.

“—and it was then I realized that love can never possibly lose its meaning, you know? I can tell you I love you, like, ninety times a day and I’ll still mean it each time.”

“I never really thought about it that way,” you hum, scooting closer to him on the bed and leaning your head on his shoulder.

“Everyone’s always told me that I can’t tell people I love them if we just got together,” you start, tilting your head up and looking up at him through your lashes. He smiles, and you continue, “but that’s why we do get with people, isn’t it? Because we love them?”

“That’s why I told you I loved you a week after we started dating.” He tilts his head and furrows his brows, trying to recall the moment you speak of. He then grins, chuckling a little at the memory of you blurting it out to him after he told a (very stupid) joke.

“You mean when you basically screamed it at me after I told that joke about the cow with two legs?” He teases, the grin on his face growing wide at the way you groan in embarrassment and lightly shove him away from you.

“I thought we agreed to forget about that!” You pout, even though you let him grab you by the waist and drag your body on top of his.

He presses kisses all across your face, expressionless save for the tiniest of pouts on your lips.

“How can I forget about it when you were the one that brought it up, baby?” He reasons with a chuckle as he pulls away to look at you. He squeezes you around your middle tighter when you whine, burying your head in the crook of his neck.

“You’re mean, Hanta,” you mumble against his warm skin. You place a small kiss against his neck, one that lets him know you don’t actually mean it.

“But you love me,” he says firmly, without conviction.

“But I love you,” you confirm quietly, honestly, without conviction.

★— 𝐌𝐈𝐋𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐍𝐓 —★

the teacher and the scientist au: worldbuilding

I am writing some original stuff right now, and as a break where I can keep writing, I’m going to explain some of my worldbuilding/choices that I make when it comes to my modern “the teacher and the scientist” AU. The hope is that it will be fun for others to see what goes into a fic, or give people ideas for their own fics!

*a quick note: I am a white Latina! I have no East Asian heritage! I studied for a while in Beijing and speak Mandarin Chinese fluently, so I kind of defer to my experiences there when making worldbuilding choices in fic (because I believe strongly in writing what you know, especially given the damage you might cause by writing what you don’t know), but will also do research online or through friends on other countries and cultures that inspired the four nations in ATLA. But all of this is just to say that while I do put a lot of thought into this stuff, I am by no means the authority on any of it, and I am open to criticism and of course always want to make sure I’m not doing anything harmful with my writing. I promise to listen and adapt if you approach me about literally anything in my fic or in this post.

Ok now let’s get into it!

1. The setting: Ba Sing Se’s Natural History Museum This is based on a combination of the Beijing Museum of Natural History, the American Natural History Museum in New York, and Beijing’s Forbidden City/Gugong. Beijing I think is probably the biggest inspiration for Ba Sing Se with the ring system and centering of the palace (and I mean the Earth King’s palace is pretty directly based off of Tiananmen Square), so it seems like a pretty solid model for a modern Ba Sing Se to me.

2. The field trip I went on so many field trips to the Natural History Museum when I was little, and they were always the absolute most fun of the year. And I feel like we went to the planetarium basically every time? It was kind of fun to recall and try to capture the experience of being a little kid on this trip in this fic

3. The Lower Ring & the Middle Ring I put Zuko and his students as coming from the Lower Ring for a few reasons. Firstly, I couldn’t imagine Katara and Aang living in either the financial district that is the Middle Ring or the ostentatiousness of the Upper Ring. I think if they were in Ba Sing Se they’d work and raise their family in the Lower Ring (I will be getting into their jobs in later installments of this story, so I won’t explain them here!), which means Bumi goes to school in the Lower Ring, which then means Zuko has to work there in order to be his teacher and for this entire concept to work out (and also the reasons explained in the actual fic where he lived there with Iroh and wants to give back). And the museum is in the Middle Ring because I wanted it connected to the university, which canonically is in Ba Sing Se’s Middle Ring.

4. Sokka as an astrophysicist Because Sokka is a smart kid and a huge science nerd, okay??? And Yue and the space sword. It makes sense. Also, because Ba Sing Se = ATLA’s Beijing, I think of Ba Sing Se University as Beida （北大）or Peking University, which is China’s first national university and one of the most, if not the most, selective university in the country (disclaimer: I did not study at Beida!!). But yeah BSSU is the Earth Kingdom’s most illustrious university and one of the best research institutions in the world, and Sokka’s a tenured professor there. My boy’s world-class brilliant.

5. “Teacher Zuko” Ughhh I really struggled with this. Basically, I was taught in learning Chinese to address teachers as “Surname 老师 (lao3shi1),” which is “Surname Teacher.” But! I didn’t want to give Zuko a surname, because that seemed rife with opportunities for missteps (there’s a lot that goes into surnames of literally any country or culture, from geography to family history and occupations, and I didn’t want to co-opt anything that wasn’t mine to use). So I knew the kids would call him by his first name. But “Zuko Teacher” sounded off. And in Chinese, titles like Mr. or Miss or Mrs. go after one’s surname, while in English it’s the opposite, so I figured for this fic it was appropriate to implement the English convention. So! “Teacher Zuko.”

6. Sokka’s appearance Sokka’s one of those hot, young professors that appear only in popular media, or once in a blue moon. He finds out from Katara that white sneakers are an easy way to look in the fashion know while remaining marginally professional for class, and they become a staple of his uniform. I picture him in Stan Smiths. (And of course they’re a little beaten up! It’s Sokka!)

7. The gaang’s ages Okay, so, I can’t find the actual post where this is broken down, but I think canonically it makes sense that Katara and Aang were 22 and 20, respectively, when Bumi was born. I put them in this fic at being maybe a year or two older in this fic, so let’s say 23 and 21, when they have Bumi, in Katara’s second year of med school. So when this fic takes place, as Bumi is six years old, they are 29 and 27, and Sokka and Zuko are then 30 and 31.

oh my god we’re only 700 words into a 4,000-word fic why did I decide to do this to myself

8. Sokka looking at his watch and having a penchant for exact minutes He’s a master scheduler. That’s it. 

9. “My Uncle Mushi lives in Chin City” This was just kind of an opportunity to integrate more from the ATLA universe! Obvi “Mushi” is Iroh’s refugee alias, but whatever another kid can have it, and yeah Chin City is that terrible village with all of those wacky people from “Avatar Day.” So we know the kid’s uncle is wacky. Fat chance of going on a field trip to visit him.

10. Zuko calling Bumi talented There’s that scene in the episode where they go to the Sun Warriors that Zuko calls Aang “a talented kid.” Bumi’s Aang’s son, so I figure by the transitive property Zuko would describe him the same way.

11. Zuko’s scar  I don’t know why but I often forget to mention Zuko’s scar in other fics! Either way, I find kids usually respond to people’s differences better than most adults do. Kids just see things and comment on them, which, yeah, can be rude by societal standards, but I’d imagine it would be very refreshing for Zuko after going much of his life with people trying to avoid either staring at the left side of his face or talking about what happened. Also, I didn’t really want to get into the cause of the scar. Obviously Ozai did it. I don’t have an idea of how. Other fics have done that better. Explaining it within the fic the way Zuko would explain it to his class seemed like a good way to tell the reader, “Hey yeah it’s the same cause as in the show,” but then not have to get into it.

12. Sokka hates intro classes Ughhh no one likes intro classes, and I’d imagine it’s even worse for professors. Prerequisites are often too easy for the kids intending on majoring or too hard and meant to weed out the kids who can’t stick with the department’s program. College is funny.

13. Aang volunteers in Zuko’s class From what I can tell, parental involvement in schools is only getting bigger. And Aang is a great dad and I think he’d take any opportunity to get involved with Bumi’s school.

14. Zuko’s backstory I should probably take the time to explain this! Basically I think of this story existing in a universe where after they moved to Ba Sing Se under circumstances comparable to their being refugees in the show, Iroh and Zuko actually stayed in the city, and Zuko got his education there. And yeah! My boy went to BSSU, too!

15. Stargazing at the South Pole and seeing the moon at the North Pole Oh my god the pure amount of thought that went into this. I worked with the assumption that A:TLA takes place on Earth, and that then the rotations of Earth, and the rotation of the moon, are the same as what we experience now (I’ve thought about this extensively, especially as it pertains to the hemispheres and the seasons, but I don’t want to talk about it here, we simply do not have either the time or space). So the South Pole is essentially the same as our Antarctica/South Pole, except that it is capable of sustaining human life for an extended amount of time, and in theory has greater biodiversity (clearly I have also thought about this extensively, but again, we have neither the time nor the space for my theories). I had to read a NASA report on the phases of the moon as seen from the South Pole! And it turns out you can’t see much of the moon down there, and it is always in crescent form. but yeah, you see a lot of stars (but in the opposite rotation of what we see in the Northern Hemisphere), and I thought that was intriguing, especially given the importance of moon imagery throughout the show. Thus, Sokka’s first seeing the moon in the Northern Water Tribe, which ties in perfectly with his meeting Yue, his first love: “You could say the moon was my first love.” (Which someone pointed out in a comment on Ao3, and it absolutely delighted me that they noticed!)

16. Pipsqueak Just looking for more people from the show to serve as first graders in this fic. Someone commented that they pictured him the same size as he was in canon, and I laughed out loud.

17. Tuyanjing I was trying to think of constellations that look like badger-moles, and I honestly just thought, “Ursa Major. Badger-moles look like giant bears.” And “Tuyanjing” (土眼睛) is my own translation of “earth eye,” which was meant to be a nod to the animals’ connection to Toph and their blindness and earthbending. 

18. All the stars & mentioning the Fire Nation & Water Tribe navigation I was initially going to write something in this scene about ancient constructions, like the pyramids, that were built using the constellations, and then create some elaborate metaphor about them and Zukka. But the only coherent thought I had about it was that it was “Too Much Work.” Instead I realized okay sailors always use the stars for navigation, and the Water Tribes and Fire Nation are the only nations we’ve seen with boats, so let’s go for that, and it works out because if you squint maybe you’ll read something about the stars guiding them to each other. Maybe we’re evoking thoughts of star-crossed lovers. And then we mention the moon again, and Zuko’s really seeing it for the first time, kind of like Sokka did, so hey I don’t know maybe that’s a symbol of something. Maybe.  

And that’s really it I think! Hopefully this was at least entertaining if not entirely informative. I don’t normally write stuff out like this, but it is a good reflection of my thought process while writing most fics. Again, I am open to any kind of communication about the above as well as anything else I’ve posted! And I’d love to hear about any of your own ideas that help you with worldbuilding and writing your own fics :)

 Okay so this is going to get long and more than a little bit tmi but it’s a post summing up some strides I’ve made regarding my own transgender journey and I wanted a place to talk about it and maybe help some BabyTrans figure themselves out along the way so I’m putting it under the cut but it’ll go here >:V

Anyway long story short my insurance settlement from my car accident finally figured itself out and I found myself suddenly $30k richer and immediately spent about $10k of that digging myself out of a very deep debt hole I’ve been wallowing in for a while so now I have some actual financial stability plus have some money to throw at some things that would probably make my life a bit better.

And since I have the money to throw at some things, I bought myself a few new binders and also a packer. Binders because my old one was literally disintegrating- part of that is my fault, washing binders in an industrial machine on high heat plus throwing it in the dryer means your binder falls apart faster than it should. Remember I’m from the very end of Ye Olden Days of transmasc products, which means previously most binders lasted a year at most. My binder made it 2.5 years before giving up and becoming a sports bra instead. I’ve learned from my mistakes and treat my binder(s) much more gently now, plus I have more than one so I can rotate them out and not wear the same binder 8-12 hours daily for 2.5 years and kill it doing exactly the same shit.

For reference sake, I’m 5′10′’, 180lbs, 36C bust, and fit a XL from gc2b. Which is who I bought both my previous binder and my current set from. They are low cost, lightweight, well made, and LGBT-owned and operated which makes me super into buying from them instead of some of the other companies offering something similar.

Being that I am biracial and finding something my skintone is always somewhat... interesting... I followed the internet’s suggestion and went with PeeCock for the packer. I’d bought a zip binder from them a few years ago and actually found that to be the most comfortable binder I’ve ever used in the history of ever, but I will say the durability of zip binders is low compared to pull-over binders in my experience, as the zipper exploded one day when I bent down to pick up a small dropped item. I’d had the binder and was rotating its use with my pullover gc2b for about 6 months when this happened, and was in public when I went from flat chested to big uncontained tiddies in the span of seconds. Not great. I’ve been told that probably means it was a little too small for me, but PeeCock is a company based in Singapore, and their sizes like most East Asian clothing do run quite a bit small (I was a XXL in PeeCock sizes when I wore a size L gc2b binder) so there’s not really a lot of wiggle room for me to go up in size. Additionally their sizing taps out at XXXL so anyone who’s bigger than me in the chest/torso is a bit out of luck for their binders. A shame, because that zip binder was so comfortable I fell asleep in it forgetting I even had it on more than once.

Anyway. Since I did like that binder even though we had the wardrobe mishap, and the internet had pretty good reviews on the PeeCock packers because they are multifunctional and actually make correct skin tones for black dudes, I got one. Since money wasn’t an issue I did get the most recent model which was not cheap (~$300) and so far I like it a lot. I got so used to wearing it that when I take it off to clean it, it actually really bothers me. The weight of it is... comforting, in a way.

HOWEVER I did see a bunch of reviews about how I would be super likely to pee on myself the first time using it and then used it and went “wow I don’t have any idea what you guys are talking about this is easy” aaaaand... then peed on myself by accident. Gotta control your stream or things are going to overflow and you’re going to be really sad. And wet. And stinky. Thankfully I had the forethought to practice at home before actually doing this at work/public restrooms but be warned. Being that this is my first one I can’t say if this is common with all packers however I told several of my transmasc friends that do pack and use STP about this experience and they all assured me they did the exact same thing on and off for the first couple weeks and most of them do not have the same brand. We’ve yet to have a repeat at least?

Plus there’s a little attachment rod so I can use it for sexy times with the boyf and also feel what I’m doing to him so there’s that too. 10/10 A+ experience would recommend. The packaging warns you to be careful how you pack because of the way the silicone works, and your partner cannot be on top or ride you, so keep that in mind if you’re considering it. Cleaning is pretty straightforward however and packing feels correct and natural as long as you follow a few rules:

I’ve discovered that whatever size you consider a perfect fit? Unless you like really relaxed fit for your pants, you’ll need to go a size up. I wear tighter clothing and usually skinny jeans at that, and my exact perfect size has been 34/32 for some time now. When packing I need to go up to 36/32 because otherwise wow that crotch is way too tight. I can’t sit down in one of my pairs of jeans and I’m legit sad about it. I also can’t have anything in the pockets of a different pair of jeans or else I have the same tight crotch problem. I went up a size in underwear and that was more comfortable, so I ordered new pants from online and I’ll see if that helps as much as I’m expecting it too.

Speaking of underwear, ymmv, but I genuinely did not expect this. Jockstraps? Super comfy, super durable, and super convenient. Additionally unlike boxers or even briefs, I don’t need a special packing-specific design to be comfortable in one. I never wore one before and honestly this doesn’t even feel like wearing underwear. They’re really just a banana hammock anyway so that’s probably a large part of it, but honestly I would definitely recommend trying them if you haven’t yet. I do have a few pairs of packing briefs and boxers, as well as normal briefs and boxers, and I’ve been alternating between the various types of undies to see which ones I prefer, but I already know my decision so I bought several because I can. One word of advice, though... if your pants ride down understand that your entire butt will be out. I don’t wear low rise pants because they draw too much attention to my waistline and make me super dysphoric, but those that do, watch out.

Jockmail is highly rated and multiple transmasc websites recommend them for packing and I can absolutely see why. Usually the waistband of my underwear irritates my skin and so I was dubious because Jockmail stuff- being that it’s for athletic wear- has a minimum waistband of about 2in... but it’s actually more comfortable and less irritating, rather than the other way around. They also have briefs, boxers (more like short shorts), and boxer briefs, which I also have of the same brand, but... not as comfy. Once again Jockmail is a Hong Kong company so like all East Asian clothes, they run small. I’m a M in most men’s clothing sizes... I am XXL in Jockmail. I also had purchased a brief harness from PeeCock (goes by inches for waist) as well. (Also where I discovered you need to go a size up- I bought a 34in waist brief from PeeCock and it’s a tad tight. I bought a 36in waist brief from Jockmail and it’s perfect. I have been buying 34in waist things for the past few years now- I didn’t suddenly gain 2 inches at the waist, I did suddenly gain a need for a deeper crotch)

If you look down your body from above it will be super obvious that there is a dick there and you will go “oh god I look like I have an erection”. I have been reliably informed that it is actually not true and if you pack correctly a bulge will be there but not so obvious that it looks like you have a raging hardon the whole time. Better to look in the mirror, rather than down your tummy.

(Additionally I voiced my doubts to my boyf who immediately reminded me that most people don’t spend their time staring at someone’s crotch and as long as I wasn’t constantly messing with mine, no one was likely to notice even if I did have an obnoxiously obvious bulge. He then gave me some tips on how to let it hang if I wanted a “natural” look, and when we walked around while I had it on he made sure to check in on my mental health. He’s cute y’all.)

Some (cis) guys will have a specific leg they like to let things hang against. Some switch it up. Some are okay with it hanging straight down provided there’s not a lot of squish happening. Find what feel comfortable and needs the least amount of adjustment for you, and then stick with that. For me, I’ve found straight down or off to the left feels better- a friend of mine prefers off to the right, another straight down only, etc. Also can depend on the size- some (cis) guys I know are a bit smaller down below and are more comfortable with straight down than those with larger weiners.

If you pack you probably need to shave. I was very uncomfortable until I shaved. Now I feel much better packing. So trim that jungle or else you might feel a pinch every few minutes when a hair gets pulled.

And there you have me this morning before I got dressed. As you can see, both fit very nicely. I’m not particularly happy with my stomach or feminine hip set but eh, I cover those with layers and no one bats an eye.

At this point it’s figuring out the whole hormones thing, yelling at my insurance to cover certain surgeries, and... fixing some minor details with my wardrobe... and I’m feeling way more confident than I was a few years ago.

Anyway if anyone has questions feel free to hit me up