Some Guys Reading Naruto

Early night vale cecilos was so funny. Imagine being Carlos. You move to a new town and turn on the local radio station and you just hear the host talking about how he wants you carnally.

📹 IG : ohataku0716

Todoroki « fake boyfriend » Shoto, protector of the lesbians

Moriarty the Patriot meta:

The Man: James Bonde, Agency and Gender Euphoria

[yuukoku no moriarty spoilers for anime/manga scandal in Bohemia arc] [also this got so long wow who would have thought i had so many thoughts about my best boy]

[he/him pronouns for yuumori Bonde/Adler, she/her pronouns for Holmes-canon Adler]

Everything about the James Bonde reveal is so perfect to me. It’s Holmes-canon that Irene feels comfortable cross-dressing so that would be a fun slightly unhinged direction to take even though it could go so wrong and I was so braced for it to be a Bad Take.

I was so ready to have my heart broken but you beat the odds you stunning son of a gun

But then. Irene/Bonde becomes a perfect transmasculine fantasy, Irene is The Woman and Bond(e), who he becomes instantly and nearly seamlessly, is most definitely The Man, always the embodiment of super cis hetero masculinity, reincarnated forever to fit whatever that means for the times. (We like hairy womanizers because it’s the 70s so that’s who Bond is. We like Conflicted Dark Thoughtful Protagonists because it’s the 00s so that’s who Bond is. Etc.) And now. And NOW. Bond is again THE MAN, perfect masculine sex symbol, evolved from The Woman, a character who was actually a gender symbol to Holmes, and then became a more conventionally-understood sex(ualized) symbol only by repeated reinterpretation, meaning, yknow, lazily written misogynistic takes on Adler.

(I am forever yelling about how No One Understands A Scandal in Bohemia so, quick explanation of what I mean by that:) Adler’s whole (Holmes-canon) deal was taking back agency over her love life and sexual decisions from men who by default didn’t believe she deserved that autonomy. And then basically every adaptation of A Scandal in Bohemia has gone and done that to her metatextually by making her a manipulative criminal mastermind and/or some kind of super famous courtesan and/or serial blackmailer, explaining her behavior the maximally sexy way rather than honoring the (imho) more interesting original motivation to just move on from an old relationship but not believing she’d be allowed to do so without drastic measures. And also her non-criminal background is so much more interesting as a foil for Sherlock Holmes in that she’s not trained over a lifetime to be that foil, she is a regular fairly clever person who just happens to be overlooked by his prejudice, a lesson he explicitly tries to take to heart, making her “The Woman,” his personal model of all womanhood, remembering her as a worthy adversary.

And this version gets the same sexist setup, except that Adler made it up. Sherlock gets to learn the same lesson but Adler is involved in something totally different, and the whole Scandal in Bohemia story was a fabrication — Adler doesn’t just finally get agency back, Adler basically gets authorship of the canon story. (The government secrets situation, the actual tension in this version, is obviously out of Adler’s control but also kind of out of everyone’s hands.) And I think it’s important that Adler plays this role of a woman, The Woman, perfectly, to set up what comes later. I am reminded of a Daniel Lavery essay about the transmasculine impulse to defend one’s prior femininity — “a desire to maintain that one didn’t transition out of necessity but desire: being a woman is hard but I was good at it, I think is the underlying anxiety, nobody fired me, I quit.” The perfection of Irene Adler’s presentation as a woman neatly prevents the idea that transition might be an action taken with a kind of resignation (“I failed to be a woman”) rather than agency and positive desire (“I am and wanted to be a man”), relating nicely to agency and personal choice as a major theme from Holmes-canon Adler.

So then Moriarty the Patriot takes James Bond, The Man, a sex symbol but always in control of his sexuality because his masculinity grants him that privilege, and bestows that identity on a character whose sexuality has always been textually and metatextually out of that character’s hands. And he’s perfect at it, immediately, his transition is instantaneous (and with later argument only from Moran the stock Straight Guy Who Doesn’t Quite Get It, and his status as a man is not even defended so much as stated: it’s a basic, obvious fact confirmed by William as the voice of leadership and Louis as the voice of pragmatism). The transition scene obviously brought to mind another moment that looms large in my personal transmasc mythos, the Disney Mulan fantasy of cutting off your hair and that magically Makes a Man Out of You, except Mulan spends the movie kind of being visibly bad at Man Things and earns her power when she returns to her gender like masculinity was the unknown land on the hero’s journey, and Bonde’s hair cut scene equally set my brain on fire but with the payoff of actually being instant magical transition.

Look at him!!!!! That’s the man!!!!!!!!

I don’t know how other people feel about the name situation (certainly at least a little unusual to not choose one’s own) but I personally love the idea that Bonde is granted a shared first name, a brotherhood, and gets to choose his last name and discard the patronymic, breaking with patriarchal tradition but fitting into a new kind of family that has some of its own customs which he gets to be a part of. (This also fits the queer life pattern of learning about queer identity and culture by horizontal/peer association (brotherhood) rather than vertical/family association (fatherhood). Or more simply, hey look Found Family Trope.)

And this interpretation feels so joyous to me. Amidst all the crime drama we get a relatively positive and bright and uncomplicated character who is taking visible joy in his new identity, strutting around town being The Man, late to important mission meetings because he wants to try out a new car, flirting and winking all the time because now he gets to be in charge of that kind of interaction, inventing new drinks that sound pretty terrible, being playfully over-familiar with everyone he meets. I love that some of this borrows from who he was as Adler, and some of it manages to re-cast the sort of icky James Bond tradition of reveling in masculine power into simple fresh gender euphoria — arguably the performance of Bond’s hypermasculine persona was always a certain kind of gender euphoria, but too often at women’s expense, and now it’s not, because this Bonde is explicitly a little protective of women’s boundaries, taking the bar fight opportunity to get someone out of an uncomfortable situation, and being only reservedly flirtatious with Moneypenny (again we use Moran for Slightly Confused Straight Guy contrast here).

And this choice of Bonde’s origin also feels so generous to me, a gift for my little gay heart. “James Bond is yours now, transmascs,” says Moriarty the Patriot, “it’s your time to be The Man.” I just. Love this series so much. It’s always the opposite of queer baiting. It’s a subtle invitation to a queer feast, with a family who would happily and immediately call you brother if that’s what you ask.

oh mein gott my bruder got incarcerated *starts air guitaring*

gonna be real here: we need MORE quarter life crisis!Chuuya in that outfit!!! Helicopter scene, but he is dressed like that. Scene where he breaks in to Ango in Dead Apple, but he's dressed like that. Vampire!Chuuya bursting into prison, but he's still wearing these clothes; expect here plot gets derailed, because both Dostoevsky and Gogol cannot take the sight of it and start judging his fashion choices. They either get dressed the same right after or get him a new attaire first.

Alskdjfj thank you for requesting this anon, I love quarter life crisis Chuuya—(For anyone who’s new to this AU, it’s this thing I drew a bit ago)

Helicopter scene:

Prison breakout (I can’t imagine Fyodor would be pleased lol):

Dead Apple (plus a bonus because oh my gosh the mental image of Chuuya going through the entire movie like this, HELP):

Which Hypmic character do you think is most likely to commit tax fraud? (for some reason i genuinely wanna see your answer to this question NDBWKJDHWKFLWFNBW)

When I mentioned this as an offhand comment elsewhere, I was definitely thinking Rei, but you know what? That's too easy. We can do better. Let's take a deep dive into Hypmic characters and their potential to commit tax fraud.

Ichirou - Ichirou would never knowingly commit tax fraud because he is a good boy at heart, but would he know to pay enterprise tax? Is Ichirou receiving cash under the table from the ol' grannies of Ikebukuro and not reporting it to the government? Does Yamada Odd Jobs even have a business license? This is doubtful, considering that Ichirou is breaking child labor laws by employing Saburou. (Children under the age of 15 cannot be employed for the kind of work the BBs do.) Unless Saburou is not listed as an employee, which means that Ichirou is either paying him off the record (tax fraud!) or not paying him at all (also illegal!). There's also some questionableness about him employing Jirou, as children under the age of 18 cannot be employed for anything that is dangerous or harmful, and any jobs involving rapping with the country's weapon of choice would certainly qualify as dangerous. This whole operation is a lawyer's nightmare. Like father, like son.

Jirou - Do you seriously think Jirou knows how to calculate and file taxes? Hoo baby. This is, of course, assuming that Ichirou (as his employer) doesn't do it for him and also assuming, of course, that Ichirou pays Jirou and pays taxes, both of which I'm not sure we can comfortably decide on our own.

Saburou - Saburou is one of the very few people in this list capable of filing taxes and simultaneously one of the even fewer people in this list capable of creating an offshore account in the Cayman Islands in which to hide his ill-gotten wealth.

Samatoki - Samatoki works for the Katen-gumi yakuza, an organized crime syndicate, but yet he doesn't smuggle weapons, doesn't deal drugs, doesn't extort the locals for money, doesn't act as a pimp for sex workers, doesn't own any casinos, and doesn't loanshark. In fact, he's made clear his disdain for almost all of the things on this list and beats up those who do happen to do the activities on this list. So what exactly does this gang do that's actually criminal? By process of elimination, it's probably tax fraud. They probably own a bunch of restaurants and other small businesses as fronts and just, like, pay half taxes on everything. Scandalous.

Juuto - I cannot look at Juuto and say with a straight face that he doesn't commit some kind of tax fraud.

Riou - He doesn't pay property tax on the land he camps on. I doubt he owns it, so this is less tax fraud and more being a squatter. Either way, illegal.

Ramuda - I don't think Ramuda has a legal government identity - or rather, he probably does, but it's shared with all the clones. This means that while another clone is owning his shop and business (and thus paying property tax, personal income tax, and enterprise tax), he and the other clones are still, presumably, eating food and thus all paying consumption tax. Ramuda's legal identity is therefore paying MORE taxes than anyone else. Does this count as negative fraud?

Gentarou - Assuming that Gentarou is not his legal name, Gentarou is apparently filing taxes under someone else's name which definitely counts.

Dice - Dice is a freeter, and so the matter of his income tax is left up to his various employers. I am positive that the Tobaris did not pay income tax for that smuggling operation he ran in FP/M+ chapters 1 - 4, meaning that Dice has once again unknowingly committed a crime.

Jakurai - Jakurai seems like the one person who would sincerely do all his taxes and, moreover, do them correctly.

Hifumi - Prior to the H Age, Hifumi was a good boy who filed all his taxes properly. Now that the local government office is overrun by women, Hifumi is too terrified to go file for a tax return, which can be necessary if an employee makes over 20,000,000 yen a year. I don't know how much Hifumi makes, but this isn't outside of the realm of possibility. Tax fraud! (Or he just makes Doppo do it. Or there's electronic filing. But shh.)

Doppo - I think his employers would just handle all his income tax by withholding it from his salary, as is standard. There might be some screwy-dewyness from the amount of overtime he works, but this is really on his employer, not him.

Sasara - He would do it only once, and never again, just to say "Tax fraud? More like I'm tax flawed, am I right?"

Roshou - Roshou might run into trouble as an employee of Rei, who is most certainly not filing taxes. This is kind of fraud by proxy.

Rei - Yeah.

Kuukou - As a priest, Kuukou may be exempt from paying income tax for activities that are "related to the purpose of the organization [of the Buddhist temple]" (page 167), but this necessitates that Kuukou has an income. Certainly, we've seen him buy things before, but... where does the money come from? Presumably, he has an allowance from his father or is actually paid by his father for whatever priestly duties he does (cleaning the temple...?), and so the question then becomes whether or not those activities count as religious (I'm going to hazard a guess that cleaning does not count) and whether or not his father handles the bookkeeping correctly, as I don't trust Kuukou to handle his own taxes.

Juushi - I bet he has Hitoya help him with his income taxes. He's a good kid who wouldn't mess it up on purpose.

Hitoya - Hitoya writes off both Kuukou and Juushi as dependents, which probably isn't legal as Juushi almost certainly makes more than 480,000 a year. It also isn't legal in the sense that they're not financially dependent on Hitoya, but his argument is that they're emotionally dependent on him, which should qualify him for an even larger deduction.

Final takeaway:

[Image description: Griffin McElroy holding up a sign that has been edited to read, "I don't understand taxes and at this point I'm too afraid to ask." End description.]

DON’T TOUCH ME I’M STERILE

finally finished this painting i sketched out months ago… please click for better quality i know tumblr is gonna kill it (reference used)

*curb your enthusiasm music plays*