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See, that’s what the app is perfect for.

Sounds perfect Wahhhh, I don’t wanna
bhasathought
bhasathought

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Yuri on Ice!!

It’s 2016. The hype is real for Yuri on Ice!! and initially people didn’t know what to expect. The show comes out. There are a lot of opinions about the show, which I will not discuss here, but one that stood out to me was this: “I usually don’t like yaoi, but I don’t mind YOI!!” Pause. Ok, I am a fan of smutty anime and manga, so I am very familiar with the concept of yaoi and yuri. They are gay porn for otaku. They specifically focus on erotic material that revolves around a same sex partnership. YOI!! has fan service, but it is hardly erotic.

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Yagate Kimi ni Naru


A few things. There is another genre that covers less erotic same-sex romances - shonen and shoujo ai. This is where you find Loveless, Gravitation, Maria-sama, Junjo Romantica, Yagate Kimi ni Naru, and Strawberry Panic.The plot heavily revolves around the same sex couple, often highlighting the fact that they are gay and that’s divergent from the societal norm perceived in Japan. Sometimes, it occasionally brushes past intimacy and erotisiscm, since it is natural for people in a relationship to want to be intimate. Sometimes there is fanservice - that’s just something that comes with the medium. A variety of anime focus on the sex appeal of certain characters to entice viewers, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that Nami, Tsunade, and Lucy make their respective stories fall under the smut or hentai genre.

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No. 6

That leads me to my next point - why are same sex couples automatically denoted as erotic? Some of the shows I think of when I discuss depictions of same sex couples (like No. 6, Revolutionary Girl Utena, or YOI!!) don’t actually fall under the shonen or shoujo ai banner. That’s because it is understood that the relationship is secondary to the rest of what is going on. YOI!! is primarily about ice skating, and Yuri and Victor’s relationship blossoms out of a mutual love for the art of the sport. No. 6 is considered to be sci-fi fantasy. My Anime List doesn’t mention the fact that the main duo are attracted to one another. But, the immediate reaction is to label these two shows as yaoi, simply because two boys fall in love. In reality, why does there need to be a separate category for shows that would otherwise be considered “normal,” except for the fact that is contains a same sex relationship? There isn’t a label for hetero specific romance (we just call it romance), while we specifically need to warn people, “Hey, two girls kiss in this manga, but it’s not in a smutty way, so beware.”

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Revolutionary Girl Utena

I understand the delineation of porn - not everyone is gonna like certain things. The main goal of porn is to satisfy a very specific goal, but other media can vary greatly. In my view, it’s similar to disliking any other relationship in a story. It’s your prerogative if you dislike it because it’s two guys, but I really don’t like Asuna and Kirito together for my own reasons, so I don’t go out of my way to watch every iteration of Sword Art Online. As a woman who loves a woman, it is frustrating that characters that are like me are placed into a box as to not disturb viewers that are not normalized to the existence of same sex relationships. I don’t see my relationship as being different from my other friends in opposite sex relationships. That isn’t to say that Japan’s normalization of same sex couples is the same as the US, but I definitely think we can make changes in the Western fandom.  There have been other series that have had same sex couples as supporting characters, like Cardcaptor Sakura or Sailor Moon and I don’t see these shows being labelled as yaoi or yuri, so why should we label other shows that have these couples as leads any differently?

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Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card-hen

Recently, Darling in the Franxx had post ending buzz about the fact that Ikuno, one of the main supporting characters, was shown to have strong feelings for her teammate Ichigo and the series ended with her finding a girlfriend - she maintained her orientation through to the end of the show, finding love like the rest of the main cast. Other Western shows have slowly begun to normalize the inclusion of same sex couples, like Steven Universe. We wouldn’t call any of these yaoi or yuri, nor are these shows aimed specifically at a LGBT+ audience. These are developed for a general audience, and so are a great deal of the shows that I have heard labelled as yuri or yaoi in discussions and reviews. If anything, we need to look at the language we use to describe these shows. At least if you say that YOI!! has elements of shonen-ai, I can get behind that; however, you really look silly if you call a show about boys ice skating a gay porn because of Victor and Yuri’s relationship. I think we need to check on our understanding of how people act and function: remember “ai” means love and there isn’t anything inherently erotic in that.

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Darling in the Franxx

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shinybuns

My new post on B has a Thought is live!

novaerose
peteseeger

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adrianianam

“everyone else already confirmed that they will be there tomorrow”

I guarantee they say this to everyone who asks in order to make those under evacuation think they’re the only one considering not coming in. It’s something that unless you can contact your coworkers you have no way to verify.

peanutworm

I cant fucki g believe that dude literally said “I Understand your house is on fire but come to work anyways” how is this real life

samiholloway

Yeah no. I’ve worked through blizzards, but my house was fine then. Your neighborhood burning down makes that a nope.

hasufin

You know what blows my mind?

The lower you are on the ladder - the less you are paid, which is to say ostensibly the less important you are - the more likely you will have this shit pulled on you.

I make, um, a very healthy salary nowadays. And I can call out of work for anything. I know perfectly well that I can tell my boss tomorrow “I’m not going to be working on Friday, I need to shampoo the carpet.” And I am 100% sure my boss would be fine with that. Blizzard? Forest fire? Totally not an issue.


But back when, when I was working helpdesk and making scarcely above minimum wage, I couldn’t take off for being sick. Nor for blizzards or flooding. Or, well, anything at all. I mean, I could, but my manager always managed to hint that if I did that, they might see about replacing me.


This has nothing to do with needing the employees to come in.


It’s absolutely a power thing. It’s about making sure the employees never, ever feel like they have a say, like they can possibly exercise control. Because then, they’ll want time off, and holidays, and sick days, and getting coverage will take work and the company will have to offer real incentives to get people in on Christmas and New Year’s. And we can’t have that.

retail-hell

There was a day where I got off work at 8pm, went out to my car and my car wouldn’t start. I literally had to go back in, tell the MOD what was happening and ask her if she could let the store manager know I wouldn’t be abke to make it in to work tomorrow morning at 3am. I borrow one of the store phones to call my mom and have a tow truck come out and tow my car home. As it turns out, my car had an oil leak, and when we got it home, I had almost no oil in my engine at all, and my car wasn’t starting, because the built-in safety computer was shutting my car off before I could causr damage to my vehicle!

Now, most bosses would understand that, given that I live 20-30 minutes away depending on how fast you drive, and that my car wouldn’t start at 8pm, a whole 7 hours before my next shift, that I wouldn’t be able to feasibly make it to work. And I didn’t. I also made triple sure to call-in that morning, and told the store manager over the phone what was going on, and that I planned on taking the day off to get my car fixed, since it wasn’t drivable. Instead of getting a ride to work, I called my dad, and had him come over that morning and fix my oil leak, give me an oil change/fill my car with oil, and make absolutely sure my car was driveable for work the next day.

When I came into work the next day, I had multiple people confront me and tell me that the store manager, and freight manager were both P-I-S-S-E-D that I had missed the previous day of work to get my car fixed. According to a manager I am close friends with, the store manager in the Manager’s Group Chat, said I should have gotten an Über to take me to and from work at 3am in the middle of St.Louis Missouri, a city which is literally known for its high crime rate. (And for the record, I do live in a pretty sketchy neighborhood.)

But here’s the kicker about all of this:

I am just a “Team Member”. I don’t have any special perks like health care coverage, dental insurance, nothing. I am part-time (less than 40 hours a week), and at the time of this incident I was only being paid $8 an hour, which is only about 25cents higher than the minimum wage in Missouri. So it’s not like I make a ton of money, am important, or irreplaceable. Me not being there merely meant about 3 aisles didn’t get stocked on whatever day I happened to miss. No big deal.

But apparently it was a big deal, because the store manager proceeded to punish me by giving me crappy shifts, finding every excuse to scold my work ethic, and cutting my hours before anyone else.

It is absolutely a power thing, and it’s The Worst.

Speaking of, St.Louis is currently getting pelted with snow, and I have work at 3am (it’s 11:30pm right now), when the roads will still be blanketed in snow, and every school district around is closed. And who wants to bet that when I call in, my manager will be pissed. Nevermind that there have already been several accidents on the highway I take to work, which is reportedly COVERED in snow.

Source: peteseeger