Caramel Chloroform: My Fuyumi/Nemuri Yakuza Fake Dating Non-Con/Dub-Con Slow Burn/Pining Angst with a happy ending! It was loosely based on The Raid 2, a violent indonesian martial arts movie. 

The first writing of this length (almost 90k) I actually finished! A huge achievement for me in many ways, not least of which is being able to wrangle that ADHD into finishing a project. (wanted to do a little writeup but didn't have time till now)

I'm largely happy with it. The pining, fluff and tension felt great. Chuffed with the fight scenes, I tried to get them all with a different style or flow, while also hooked to a story beat. Nemuri's martial arts and her quirk tactics, and Fuyumi's water/bloodbending developments are things I'm really proud of. Fuyumi ESPECIALLY deserves it.

Nailed the sex. It's the exact dub-con/dub-con-non-con stuff that I wanted to hit, with weird violent sex between two broken women who won't talk about it, but who are deeply into each other. I liked the turnabout of Fuyumi fantasizing about getting taken advantage of and then being the one to take advantage of Nemuri later on.

OTHER STUFF
1. This title makes me cringe every time I see or think it, no joke. Too late to change it, and at least it's distinct.

( 2. Biffed the ending by changing it twice. )



( Hiroki )



( What next? )

Overall, yay me! That's a big accomplishment for me so I'm going to reward myself for it.

I finished running my first event, Fuyumi Femslash Week! My bar for success was: "Run it and don't stress out too much."

Success! The most important thing: did I have fun? Actually, I enjoyed it more than I thought I would!

PROMOTION/SOCIAL MEDIA
I knew starting out that promotion would be the hardest part for me, because I'm terminally worried about being a bother. So I was in a sort of constant tug of war between that and 'if I wasn't the one running this, I'd want to know about it at every opportunity.' Even though I meant to do more promotion, I wanted to balance that with not putting too much pressure on myself. Ultimately I did what I felt comfortable with and didn't push myself too hard, so I'm happy with that. Social media/promotion is hard and I admire people who are good at it!

In the future I'd try to have a bigger lead time or run it with someone, which I think would be more fun anyway.

OTHER THOUGHTS

I was very happy with the level of engagement that it got, considering the time of year and the fact that it happened concurrently with the Dabi Reveal episodes, so lots of Dabihawks content was also being made at this time.  Lots of people enjoyed the work! Especially me! I fuckin loved seeing it! 

I had some other thoughts about what I could've done better, but in the spirit of things I'm leaving those out. 

FUTURE EVENTS?
I would love to do more events in the future. In the discord there's definitely interest in more WLW stuff, especially Fuyumi-related. There were a few people who were interested in a bang/zine. I'd be thrilled to make something like that happen but I think it's something I would need to work up to; I definitely don't have the expertise to run a bigger event right now. 

I would also want to put a lot of effort in, because the best events I've participated in have had active, energetic mods - but I also need to make sure I don't stop actually making art, so I'd need to make sure I can keep a balance. I'll keep an eye open to see if there are any mod applications open for bangs, events and such, and apply if it fits.

For now, the organizer of Miruyumi week can't do it anymore, so I picked it up for 2023 and I'm looking forward to that.

My partner and I finished watching the Naruto Ocean Cut! Yes, all 125 hours of it. It is DEEPLY flawed in many ways and notorious for it, but this post is about the stuff I love, why it continues to be one of my faves and why I'll absolutely rewatch it as a background/comfort show.

( My girlfriend and I bonding over Naruto: )

If you want to watch Naruto, the Ocean Cut is the way to do it. You can find out about that here, and if you want the torrent, 'DON'T' ask me because I 'WON'T' send it to you. It cuts out so much filler, overlong pauses, and gives a huge boost to the pacing of the show. I was shocked that even the notoriously draggy Tenchi Bridge Arc became quite enjoyable, not the best, but there's tension now. He made some excellent editorial decisions and the process is quite fascinating too. There's no going back to the serialised show after this, or even Naruto Kai, which is the cut-to-manga version that unfortunately retains the manga's flaws and leaves out some of the GOOD filler. I would only rewatch up until season 13(the war arc x.x) but that's because imo it goes sharply downhill, and there's nothing the cut can do about that. 

( Naruto is a great protagonist and I'm sure a reason why the show is so popular. )

( VOICE ACTING. )

( MUSIC. )

( POSSIBLY THE START OF MY OBSESSION WITH FINGERLESS GLOVES )

( Some of my favourite arcs/fights )


HINATA IS CUTE. Reblog, you agree.

KILLER BEE IS AWESOME. Yes, probably racist of Kishimoto to make a black character who always speaks in rap, but I love the guy and he kicks Sasuke's ass so what's not to like

So the title being Gundam: The Witch From Mercury is enough to lure me in, I haven't watched a lot of mecha anime so I'm been meaning to try it. Little did I know!!

( Minor spoilers for episode 1: )


( Oh, and episode 2?? )


I'm definitely getting LWA but mecha vibes from this show, right down to Miorine = Diana, complicated family drama and all; Suletta = Akko (although she's some kind of mecha prodigy? Not explained yet but the vibes are very strong) and side characters with fun designs who may get their own episodes.

The show looks gorgeous, it's beautifully animated, I'm hyped for more. And the opening slaps, another one for the playlists. High hopes!

Ever since the start of this arc I've been dreading what might happen to Miruko, and I need to get it off my chest, so I'm going to talk about it now despite the fact that events haven't concluded yet.

Needless to say, spoilers abound.

( 1. Representation and Buff Brown Women, or, Why I Take It Personally. )


( 2. The Misogynoir Discussion. )


( 3. Why Miruko Dying Would Suck, Part 1: Character Development or Lack Thereof )


( 3. Why Miruko Dying Would Suck, Part 2: Undermining One of the Show's Main Themes. )


I'm hesitant about posting this more publicly, because BNHA isn't resolved yet and everything I say might end up being wrong. I'm also worried about being accused of overreacting or reaching for the misogynoir section, or taking it too seriously. Is it even my place to talk about misogynoir? On the other hand, I can't be the only person thinking this, surely. I'm considering posting these thoughts somewhere more people will see them because, apart from anything else I spent a long ass time writing this when I should've been doing other things.

This review is about the anti-war message of the short animated film, Chirin no Suzu, and the impressions I have of it as a trauma survivor. It contains spoilers. 

First some context about the writer, Takashi Yanase, because while I was watching this movie, I kept thinking, "Whoever wrote this has PTSD and was probably a WWII veteran." 

This isn't a particularly insightful read on my part, more that the film's presentation is effective, and it's a Japanese film made in the 70s. Not too hard to infer. (And, although I have thankfully not been in war, I also have PTSD and I assume that helped me recognize it). 

( Some brief context about Takashi Yanase. )

Back to Chirin no Suzu.

( Chirin's Journey. )

( My response and thoughts about trauma and isolation. )

It's a movie that's definitely worth a watch if this is your jam.  The most dated parts are the musical interludes, which now come off as a bit cheesy. The animation has aged well, and the whimsical style and transformation of Chirin, along with the themes of loss, revenge and war, hold up perfectly. 

On EVERY 'MtF Voice Feminisation' youtube video I've ever watched, there are comments like this:

"I'm a cis woman with a really deep voice and it makes me super self-conscious, so thank you so much to the transfemme community for making these guides!"

We're all being conditioned to speak in a certain way to fit in with gender norms - praised for having a voice that's very manly or womanly, punished for sounding like something you shouldn't. In writing, women squeal or shriek, men shout or bellow, unless you're queercoding them or specifically othering them in some way. 

In media, too, you must have noticed that there are plenty of female characters or voices that sound artificially high pitched and breathy (and vice versa). Cartoon characters, announcer voices, voice actors... etc. There are few deep female voices represented in media, which gives a false idea of what a female voice SHOULD sound like. (and I'm sure many people are still unaware that their faves are voiced by women... like Naruto, Ash, Goku to name a few...) Rough, deep female voices tend to be reserved for villains and obviously high, effeminate voices are reserved for coding men either as villains or to be mocked. 

This is an active process that's so pervasive it's become invisible, like so many other aspects of cisnormativity. 

So cis women do vocal feminization training AND GET voice feminization SURGERY (and if you look at VFS sites, it is explicitly aimed at both trans and cis women). For context, this is a surgery in which - I as going to add a spoiler with the details but for some reason I can't get it to work, so let's just say it's INVASIVE and you can look up the details if you want to.

If cis-normative standards are so strict that there are lots of women, trans and cis, getting invasive surgery because our voices don't SOUND feminine enough, what the fuck is the point? It's a pretty extreme thing to do in order to simply live without the fear of violence/just to fit in, but then, the world is full of things like that. 

Not only is this another example of how cisnormativity just hurts and makes life shitty and awkward for EVERYone, it means we are losing the beautiful diversity of voices we could have if people were just allowed to sound however they naturally sound, or would like to sound! 

There's so much creativity that has gone unexplored. Like, one of my favorite parts of DMing is doing ALL the voices. Because I've been training my voice for almost ten years I've got ridiculous range and I can switch from All Might to Erza Scarlett mid-sentence. That's fun and rewarding, and because I only play with queer and trans people I have the freedom to do that without being ridiculed or punished.

Imagine how much more fun we could all be having, and how many more beautiful voices we could hear, if we didn't have to worry about conforming. 

I really *want* to like fighting games, and I love the idea in general. However, every time a new fighting game gets released, I have to roll my eyes at the female side of the roster. Firstly they're always outnumbered by the dudes. Second... fighting games have a serious problem with female character design.

Every new game, the asses and tits seem to get bigger and the waists and - heads? Seem to get smaller. Especially with such high fidelity 3d graphics, the rubber spine-ing and wasp waists and general escher girl-ing seems to get more egregious to me. 

The lads also suffer from this - their shoulders and biceps get bigger with each iteration, to the point that it's just freakin' ridiculous. But obviously they're not sexualized in the way the female characters are, and they're allowed to have fat characters like a Goldlewis or an E.Honda. 

I mean, just look at Cammy's outfit in that one SFVI trailer. Her teeny tiny little thong leotard is SO TINY in that cinematic I swear to god it must be inside her. And when the devs released an outfit variation that actually covered up some skin, there was of course negative feedback, because god forbid you don't get a hard on while playing a fighting game. 

Even a game like DNF Duel, while not as overtly sexualized as SF or KOF, has a serious lack of variety. I mean look at the inqusiitor! Are you telling me she's THAT skinny when she's carrying an axe as big as she is?! Give us some god damn bulk and muscles! The characters look the same person, just with a different wig and outfit on! And Vanessa (KOF) is a boxer - you seriously want me to buy those skinny noodle arms and waifish shoulders? Go to any boxing or MMA gym and just LOOK at the women there and tell me that's not a little bit infuriating we didn't get a character who looks like THAT. 

I also have an issue with the sexualized violence, especially with SFVI announcing it's going to have battle damage. Look, I like some good dub- and non-con as much as anyone and I love some sexy battle damage. I have a problem when a male-dominated industry known for its sexual harassment problems and generally awful treatment of women consistently produces scantily clad blow up dolls that are MEANT to titillate you while you're beating them up with your big buff male action figures. 

Again, this is fine to an extent. There's a reason these characters are so popular and that there are reams of women cosplaying as cammy, morrigan, whoever. I'm not here to trash anybody's kink or tell them they shouldn't like a thing. But the problem is that this is ALL there is and we seriously deserve more diverse female character design. This is nothing new and I'm sure there are frustrated character artists on all of these teams who are constantly told, 'make her boobs bigger, make her waist smaller,' etc. etc. etc. 

As time goes by I just get more and more fed up with it. Even in, say, Fire Emblem: Three Houses, which is full of amazing female characters (rip f!byleth x petra, guess I'll just have to find some fanfic for that one/write it myself), has basically the same body type for every female character except for, say, Sothis and Flayn. Again, I understand that this is probably partly due to development constraints and having to reuse models and such - YET, we can still get a beefy boy like Jeralt or Aloise, so why can't we get a big, strong, buff Catherine model, too? 

Realistically I'm just going to keep on drawing and writing women the way I do, improve the diversity of my own work, and get started on my lesbian shonen comic... sometime this year, time, energy and wrist health willing. 

So in Asia, especially Southeast Asia, you have a situation where invading military forces have occupied your country for dozens if not hundreds of years, exploiting your land and your people. You're just a bargaining chip, passed around in the resource grabs of powerful nations.

They can beat up and kill whoever they want and basically get away with it; they use rape as a weapon of war; they're violently trans- and homophobic. They're actively committed to destroying your culture and art.

[It's important to acknowledge that there's a long history of violent and non-violent resistance to colonialism, which has largely been erased.]

So what are you supposed to do under the yoke of an occupying force who seems to be able to do whatever they want? All that frustration, anger and helplessness gets turned on a safe target: the kids. Of course, it's just to protect them. If they stay in line they're less likely to be targets; if they're perfect and have prestigious jobs it will help the family claw back some status and resources; being gender nonconforming makes them targets so we can't have that.

Even after you gained so-called independence, your country is still basically a neocolonial outpost - that is, if you're lucky. If you're not lucky, the global north fucked you over as they left and/or installed a puppet dictator along the way, so you're faced with civil war and societal collapse.

To me that seems like one plausible explanation for the phenomenon of "asian parenting." A lot of our parents grew up under these adverse circumstances and it make sense that they'd act that way. It doesn't justify it, of course. It takes a lot to undo the effect of generations of trauma on the societal and individual level.

My generation are the ones doing that work so we don't fuck up our kids the way we got fucked up (not that there are any kids for me in the foreseeable future). Acknowledging where all of that toxic crap might have come from and rejecting the old ways are so important for understanding ourselves, so we don't make the same mistakes.