#//I've also been playing with trans stuff in the stories that live in my head

[a-queenoffairys]

You! What are your thoughts on trans people, especially trans women?

I'm 100% pro trans rights. Humans are wonderfully complex and diverse beings and I think that's something worth celebrating. Everyone should have the right and the support to experiment with their own presentation, appearance, pronouns, etc. so they can find what works for them, what makes them happy.

I don't often post about current events on here, but I have been keeping up with the news when I can. I really detest the people who claim to be "protecting women and children" while they systematically strip away our existing rights in an attack on trans people. There is nothing feminist about oppression. Those morons do not speak for me and no matter how many times they insist they have the best interests of "real women" like me at heart, I know that's not true. Trans women are not a threat to cis women, nor to womanhood in general. In fact, the idea that there is this one singular universal experience of womanhood is false and downright stupid when you actually stop to think about it. Everyone's experience is different. I do volunteer work in a girls/women-only space and I would gladly welcome trans girls/women into it. The more the merrier.

In recent years I've been finding more trans voices to listen to and I've learnt a lot about gender and the state of the world we live in. But I know there's always still more to learn. I will never intend for my words or actions to be transphobic, but my knowledge is not complete and there's always a chance I might do/say something offensive without realising it. If that happens, I welcome people pointing it out so I can correct it and do better in future. The same goes for anything that comes off as -phobic or offensive towards any minority group.

Trans men are men. Trans boys are boys. Trans women are women. Trans girls are girls. Nonbinary people are rad. Trans people deserve all the support, love and respect and I hope someday we can create a world that accepts them for who they are.

[haberdashing]

It's been a while since I've posted any of my dreams on here, but I feel like tumblr would like this one.

I had a dream about a group of teenagers, or perhaps college kids in their early 20s, getting trapped in an upper-middle-class, three-story suburban house. The house was haunted and slowly drove several of the teenagers insane, to the point where only the ground floor could be used because the second and third floors were now occupied by fellow young adults turned into violent murderers who would now kill anyone who intruded on "their space".

You couldn't see the outside world out the windows, just pure darkness, and the first group to leave through the front door never returned from their scouting mission, left to an unknown but presumably horrible fate.

Fairly typical horror stuff, really.

But somewhere around where dreams meet half-awake thoughts, I realized that there wasn't one Final Girl to this story, there were three. (Although for one, Final Girl's a bit of a misnomer.)

The first was Luna, long-haired and pretty, who started out as the token group mystic pointing out that it was the night of the full moon. Turns out she knows a lot about nature and spiritualism in general. Also she was a trans woman; there was a throwaway line about how she was such a jerk back when she was (deadname). But she's a sweetheart now, if in need of some grounding now and then.

The second... I don't think ever got a name, but I have her mental image clear in my head. Scruffy short brown hair, glasses, fairly nondescript clothes. Started off as the quiet one. Then as things played out, she revealed that she had a history of depression and suicidal thoughts, which as it turns out is quite helpful for dealing with the whole haunted house thing. This wasn't her first time dealing with part of her mind turning against her and trying to cause her harm, after all. She dealt with that on an everyday basis.

The third was Piper, nonbinary, the one who actually lives in the house in question and invited everybody else over. Started off kind of keeping in the background, playing the good host while also trying not to answer too many questions. We learned that Piper grew up in a rich family, in keeping with the big fancy house... but was largely neglected by their parents, pawned off on various nannies and babysitters before having to make their peace with spending time alone more often than not.

Piper realized that the source of the haunting was their parents' jobs--the exact jobs weren't clear, but they were things like "engineer at Lockheed Martin" and "CEO of a health insurance company pushing claim rejections". Unethical jobs, albeit commonplace and lucrative ones. The house was bought with blood money, that's what the problem was.

And Piper figured that the house needed their blood, blood from the family that purchased the home with those dirty funds, their blood used to atone for the blood spilled in the name of owning the home... but after some discussion the three determined that it didn't need to be all of Piper's blood sacrificed to fix the curse. And hey, depressed girl has some experience here too, she can provide guidance on how to make a cut that will bleed plenty but won't cause any permanent damage...

It ended with the three hand in hand, leaving out the front door and walking down the seemingly-endless sidewalk with nothing but pristine lawn on both sides, unsure of what lay ahead of them but ready to find out together.

(And yes, they're all dating.)

[goosemixtapes]

max's top books of 2023 :3c

as usual, these rankings are based on some arcane mix of objective quality + my personal enjoyment (previous year's lists)

it was another weird reading year! i did a lot of reading for school, more so than in the past; some of it was really good and some of it was, uh. well, some of it was william wordsworth. nothing i absolutely loathed, though (most of the reads i disliked were books i could at least appreciate on an art/history level), which is cool. so i'm bringing back the runner-up category. did not make it onto my top ten list but were really good anyway: beartown by fredrik backman (books that no joke made me understand why people are insane about sports) and the GORGEOUS re-release of my dear @yvesdot 's debut, something's not right, which i have read before but will always gladly revisit again.

my top anticipated release for 2024 is alecto the ninth again.

(but shoutout also to just happy to be here, king cheer, and henry henry. trans people! shakespeare, even!)

and the list! in increasing order of enjoyment, with pictures this year!

10. The Common Liar by Janet Adelman

no, i can't believe i'm doing this either. i can't believe i did all that preamble and the first book on my list is an academic thesis analyzing shakespeare's antony and cleopatra. but also? it's the only book anyone ever needs to write about shakespeare's antony and cleopatra. janet adelman said it all. which is cool, because i have a fixation on that play, but also sucks, because i was also trying to write an essay on it and mine wasn't nearly as good. btw if anyone wants to buy this for me, somehow, for the $120 it costs on amazon because academia is awful, i will send you my address,

9. Robert Icke's Oresteia

i don't need to say anything about this play, because it's the source of "this was always going to happen. she's been dead since the beginning." that should be enough. but after becoming deranged about the oresteia last year, i finally read this, and holy shit, this adaptation of the story is so fucking genius and icke's writing is so fucking good. it's antiwar! it's about mental illness! there's gender! the fucking ENDING! (i have a pdf if anyone would like it. anything to plug this play bark bark bark rufrufruf grrrrrr)

8. Down Girl: the Logic of Misogyny by Kate Manne

this is a little bit cheating, because i haven't finished this book yet, so maybe in the final chapters manne will say something like "what if we blew up every orphan" and i'll have to retract this. but right now it's fucking excellent! i've been making an effort to read more nonfiction lately, and this one shines; manne sets out to analyze misogyny not as a personal hatred of women that some men harbor, but as an intricate and structural system forcing women into the role of Giving (attention, affection, power, etc; sometimes their lives). and it's sooooo smart. some of it is stuff i already know (and some of it is Academic Philosophy TM that goes right over my head), but manne articulates her point excellently and i can feel it rearranging my brain, so it's going on the list for longevity and skill!

7. Dictator by Robert Harris

does this book objectively deserve to be on this list? you know what, yeah. i'll say it with my whole chest. i don't like how harris writes women and there are plenty of things to pick at in his cicero trilogy, but i had so much goddamn fun reading it that i can't not put it on the list. this was my year of being really really into cicero, and this was fun to read alongside e-pistulae. harris is sooooo good at making ancient roman politics gripping. the last scenes of this book. augh. ack. ough!

6. Detransition Baby by Torrey Peters

there are a lot of valid critiques of this one (a lot of bad critiqus, too, but such is writing literally anything about transness), but i fucking adored it. i LOVE dual timelines, i LOVE unlikable characters, and i FUCKING LOVE TRANSSEXUALITY! moreover, i love that peters isn't afraid to Go There, to poke at the messy ugly sides of transness (and queerness in general) that i think a lot of us don't like acknowledging, especially to cishet people whose view of the community is already skewed. i don’t think this is the One Great Trans Novel; i think there are a lot of great trans novels, and we need more. but this one did hit me RIGHT in the chest, and i couldn't put it down.

5. Wrath Goddess Sing by Maya Deane

the iliad but achilles is a trans woman and she's fighting the war on both mortal and divine levels and she and helen have an insane homoerotic half-god rivalry and everybody is fucking crazy. pitched as "for fans of TSOA" but as i said in my review if TSOA is a pleasant but watery iced tea then this book is gasoline laced with crack. there is a bisexual transgender threesome. i fucking love women. book of the fucking summer

4. White Teeth by Zadie Smith

i probably enjoyed wrath goddess sing more, but i can't not rank this book highly on this list. this book is such a fucking masterpiece. it's tolstoy for the modern age. it's a sprawling multi-familial multi-cultural multi-generational epic about race and gender and religion and science and humanity and britishness. smith's prose is fucking amazing; her character work is even better; this book has no plot but it uses its length sooooooo well. the first zadie smith i've read, but by god there will be more. she wrote this at TWENTY-FIVE. that's fucking CRAZY. do you know how much control over your craft you have to have to write this at twenty-five. bonkers. it is also the only enjoyable book i read in my modern literature class, so shoutout to white teeth for keeping me sane,

3. The Secret to Superhuman Strength by Alison Bechdel

this book is ostensibly about bechdel's relationship with exercise. it is actually about bechdel's relationship with her own body, her own soul, her desire for individualism in the style of the transcendentalists, transcendentalism in general, mortality, and aging. i can't really tell you more than that because i didn't actually "read" this so much as i absorbed it through my skin like a frog while trying not to tremble like a little purse dog. i am not gonna lie man i did not have a very good. um. august. or september. or october november december. so this book really could not have come at a better time. alison bechdel i am obsessed with you

2. The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For by Alison Bechdel

ALISON BECHDEL I AM OBSESSED WITH YOU!!!! this one narrowly edges out secret to superhuman strength because... well, i'm sort of rating the entire comic strip's run, and dude. holy shit. i love lesbians so much. this strip is such an important piece of lesbian history; it reminded me that a lot of the things lesbians (and LGBT people in general) argue about and deal with today are... the same things we've always argued about and dealt with, from intracommunity label discourse to global politics to hitting on women badly. but history aside--it's also just really fucking good! it's really funny! if you are a neurotic leftist, as so many of us are, it's hysterical! it's smart! it's hot! it's heartwarming! i read it over the first half of the year, in little bits and pieces, and by the end i felt like i really had gone decades with these characters. really just. so good. the power she has the range she has

1. the suzanne collins reread

okay. this one is definitely cheating. because i usually like to keep this list to books i'm reading for the first time, and i HAVE read the hunger games and the underland chronicles. but i read them, like, almost ten years ago, and i was not prepared to be so thoroughly fucking bodied by them this time around, now that i have critical thinking and analysis skills. we all know the hunger games is a fucking banger, so let me pitch the gregor the overlander series: something of a modern alice in wonderland setup, where the eleven-year-old main character falls into an underground world full of strangeness, except this world isn't whimsical, it's dangerous and stuffed with giant talking animals like bats and rats and cockroaches. there's a war on. there are plagues. there are war crimes. there is a plotline that is extremely explicitly about ethnic cleansing. there is some of the most heartbreaking fucking shit you've ever read in your goddamn life. there is also a rat who quotes macbeth and the underlanders revere a guy named bartholomew of sandwich. this series is for middle schoolers. i cried. not when i was a middle schooler reading it the first time; i mean now. so i'm breaking my no-rereads rule, because it really would be a lie to say that my best reading experience wasn't revisiting all of collins' work with my friends (yes, i read TBSOS; i think it's fine but not great). sorry to give publicity to an author who definitely doesn't need my help, but a few years ago my #1 spot went to shakespeare, so.

if you've read this far: thank you! please tell me your thoughts! tell me your favorite books of 2023! tell me which books you're excited for in 2024! and have a very lovely new year :)

[scythesalad]

@mobilesheepgundam tagged me so I'm sharing 5 songs that I've been listening to lately

1: Jillian - Dream Nails, this is the song that got me into the band, highly recommend if queer punk might be your thing. It's got crunchy guitars and lyrics about lesbianism, and at that point I'm already sold. I remember listening to this for the first time and thinking "yeah that was ok" and then before I knew it I had replayed it 20 times. When I eventually start working out this is going on the playlist for sure.

2: Blue - Mai Yamane (from the Cowboy Bebop Soundrack), I finished Cowboy Bebop recently and this song plays at the very end of the last episode, and god is it a perfect ending song. The climax of the show is some of the best TV I have ever watched, and this very much helps with tying a neat little bow on the story. Now I listen to it when I'm folding laundry, because nothing breaks up the monotony of housework like getting emotional over space bounty hunters.

3: Wet - Dazey and the Scouts, this is a song about crywanking after a breakup. Aside from this being a pretty good breakup song it also just slaps; the vocals are completely unhinged and the guitars and drums go equally hard (hehe). It scratches my brain in a very nice way, and I have a sneaking suspicion that some of the band members might be on tumblr since they describe the drummer as a "big naturals haver" in the band description. 10/10 would tearfully cum again.

4: Warm Coke - Valiant Vermin, I stumbled across this song on a playlist a webcomic author made for her comic (Girls With Horns if you're interested, trans romcom stuff, it's pretty good). This is very funky and the lyric "or motherfucker don't fuck with me" lives rent-free in my head. Highly recommend.

5: glass beach - glass beach, GLASS MOTHERFUCKING BEACH. This band was my top artist on spotify in 2022 and I will foist them upon anyone and everyone. The best way I can describe this band is "emo transgender music", and this is more just a recommendation for their entire first album because god is it good. cold weather, bedroom community, neon glow, and yoshi's island are all wonderful and they got me hooked on them but this song is my favourite of the album. J put it best in this quote: "this song is kind of a thematic centre of the record. It’s about this idea of dealing with trauma through solidarity." Every time I play this song I feel something different depending on my emotional state at the time. It's rare that a song can make me cry but this does the job very well. If you had an emo phase this band will reignite it with a passion.

anyway the chain must be continued, hey gays give me your music @witchofsageph

@oldenoughtorun

@vrystol

[jariktig]

fun q; 1, 3, 6, 9, 13 ,23 ,33

what are 3 things you’d say shaped you into who you are?

(a) Being encouraged to be myself, and to know what I wanted to be (my mum still has a copy of The Female Eunuch that she annotated when I was very small with "What I have always wanted for [my nickname] is that she should know who she wants to be", and my parents lived up to that. As did the various educational establishments I went to, and my first boss. And that freedom and the security and confidence it brings has made a massive difference to me.

(b) Being held accountable for my failings, and learning to put them right - again, in all sorts of contexts. One does not learn and grow without that, and there are some memories from my primary school days that still sting and still direct me because the head teacher there was so good at doing it... as are the people I live with now.

(c) Caring for Offspring, and trying to be there in the right way for them, in some very uncharted waters.

3. 3 films you could watch for the rest of your life and not get bored of?

I've got nowt, sorry. I'm not very cinematically inclined...

6. what’s the best and worst part of being online/a creator?

Best: that whole "these are my people" feeling, and the joy of being able to make the world happier, a bit. And I love the way fandom people leverage their skills for charity.

Worst: there's never enough time, is there?

9. tell a story about your childhood

When I was ten or so, we spent a year in China (my dad was teaching at a uni there), and at the end we travelled back via the Trans-Siberian railway to Moscow and then on to Finland. And on the train there was a boy of about the same age and my brother and I played D&D with him. (There is only so much of Siberia you can look at out of a train window, certainly when you are 11). And I got into a certain amount of trouble because Gervase (not his real name, but it might as well have been) ruled as DM that I could only play a female character if I gave her a charisma of 18. In response to which I hit him, and told him and my brother both that it was my game, and I would be DM-ing from here on out, or we weren't playing at all. After which his mum spoke to mine, and mine spoke to me about not resorting to unnecessary violence even in defence of important principles, and I spent the next two weeks reading Gormenghast and Midnight's Children on repeat while my brother and Gervase played some board game, because I had gone through my own books and was reduced to stealing my parents'.

13. what are you doing right now?

Aside from answering these questions? Defrosting the freezer, and doing some betaing.

23. say 3 things about someone you hate

I really don't have anything, again - there have been plenty of people who annoyed me, and a few whom I have very strongly disliked, but I don't think there has ever been anyone I hated in the sense that I couldn't see something worth having about them, or that I wanted to hurt. Among the strong dislikes - I once had a team member who was outright unpleasant to the newer/younger/more junior members of the team, and when called on it would pretend that he'd meant it all in jest. He was also quite hard to get to prioritise the things I wanted done rather than the ones he wanted to do. But on the other hand he did all sorts of good things for charity, and was perfectly personable outside that work context. It was just that he was so terribly difficult for the whole of the team, and ate up such a lot of my work time with managing him.

33. any hobbies? On and off - cooking, sewing, jewellery-making, playing the flute, and all the fandom stuff ofc. And bridge, and crosswords.

[runimanio]

2024 Game Clear #11 Mega Man ZX Advent

This is largely the last mega man platformer that I hadn't played and beaten yet- there are some technically like maybe ill suffer through the DOS games sometimes and also if you count Mighty No. 9 as a mega man game then yeah I haven't played those yet but its pretty much just RPGs and oddities at this point. It also obviously the last game in the Zero/ZX collection that i had yet to clear which is significance because that collection is what started this misguided attempt to slowly playthrough every mega man game back in 2021 so to have that collection completely behind me now is kinda crazy.

I played through this twice doing a Ashe run and a Grey run respectively and while the changes are pretty minimum I am glad i did because I think I would've left with a little bit of a bad impression if i didn't replay it due to external stuff making me frustrated during the end game, cause me to play bad, making me even more frustrated! My Grey playthrough was much smoother, a good reminder that sometimes these games are better the second time after you know what your doing and man yeah this game rules.

What an improvement from first game, in the first game it very much felt like the search action game design and the Mega Man game design were getting in each other ways and not really melding together well. It feels a lot better balanced here. I will say that I think the overall aesthetic™ is a little stronger in the first game but y'know that comes at the cost of getting across the map being a pain so it's a fair trade.

It's also kinda nice to have a subseries that deals in the X series terminology of Reploids, Mavericks, A-Trans etc without being super bleak at all times lol.

This story does feels like it was written more for Grey than Ashe, I didn't really understand why Ashe- the non amnesic was so desperate to learn her past when her intro seemed to set her up as someone chasing the future rather than the past, so it's a bit odd

The voice acting pretty funny though I've been quoting Thetis's "I won't give up💅" to my friends a lot. looking through the folks involved it seems to be alot of Shenmue alumni or are only credited on this, one of the actors I looked at had credits on the original dub of Symphony of the Night, Shenmue, Baten Kaitos & X7 the forest gump of cheesy game dubs. But this honestly it isnt anywhere near the worst mega man voice acting out there, nobody audibly flubs their lines and like the best cheesy dubs there alot of line delivery that are pretty memorable im sure if i grew up with this game would live in my head like dubs such as Sonic adventure and Beyblade do. I mean even only playing this twice Atlas's "History of the world, History of the war" got stuck in my head just because it's odd rhymical delivery.

Also Zero and X's X7 actors are in this cast but not as model Z and X I just think that kinda funny.

Shame that we'll probably never return to this world in a meaningful way because I still have alot of questions about this world: What's Ciel up to? I'd love to learn more about the biometal holders, is Thomas teased plan related to Legends? since the other Biometal holders survived the crash does that mean Model Z is alive and other enemy control?, will we ever address Model A just being Axl? so many possibilities for the future of this story

[santajp]

Making fursonas be wild, in a good way but still.

I know, I know, don't trust your brain after midnight, but seriously, they mean so much that it is strangely hard to put into words.

My fursonas, the first of them at least, were so disconnected from me at a point and I wanted it that way. I wanted them to be better than me, be what I thought I couldn't be at the time, being happy and trans and able to live lives that were theirs. At that point though, they were more like characters, just ones running around my head often with the wanting of gender affirmations.

I can't exactly remember when it happened, when a shift was made, but at a certain point the goal with them changed. Perhaps it was beacuse I changed, maybe such changes in myself and around me made it feel necessary. Though I began to give my fursonas my flaws, basically every doubt I had about what I was going to do, finding out I was Trans, trying to process much of my childhood optimism on the world suddenly feeling unfounded and obsolete, and sure, I added fantasy elements here and there. I mean- I may deal with anxieties over being trans and coming out to people, but I sadly am not a pink vixen with telekinesis. (If you can make me one, hit me up.)

Though I liked and still like that their themes and stories are mine.

They worry if they are a good person, about what they'll do in life, about if they are deserving of being loved at all, and the reason I love them, on a core level, is that they can be happy regardless of those worries and flaws and things they don't really fix by the end of the arc.

None of them completely get away from what they've been through, but they have one another and the world to make them feel as if there is more to life, that they all, no matter their flaws, have somesort of value to these few people who they decide to be with. My fursonas are most likely what people would call cringe beacuse I am that. My fursonas are going to make dumb mistakes, often by accident beacuse I do that. They all are going to have moments where they should be better beacuse I have those.

Though they all are happy. They all have one another to perhaps not even understand each other's struggles but at least listen- to at least be able to tell one another that things be alright and to belive that.

Then, in a way, it's as if I'm trying to remind myself of that, trying to hope or remember things will be alright in the primary way I have been for my whole entire life. Using characters to get through stuff is not new in the slightest, especially for me. When I didn't have many friends, I watched MLP to hell and back, looking at an animated pony being simply nice and thinking, "Yeah, I wanna be that for people." I would watch Powerpuff Girls, Adventure Time, Regular Show, read books, watch movies, watch YouTube, play video games, listen to so, so many musical artists- all of those art mediums being things that, at one point or another, were the genuine thing that made me want to keep living, made me feel like there was more out there. To just spite it all for being cringe would he the spite the same things that arguably made me want to be alive.

And my characters are even that. Yeah, they have flaws, they worry, but they'll also love sleepovers and cuddle and love one another and have quirky moments and KEEP ALL THE DVDS IN THE WORLD, HAHA! Wait, where was I- anyway, they have so much of what I like and are based off different times and places I've been in that celebrating my fursonas isn't just celebrating them but sorta like celebrating so much of me, once again reminding me that there is more out there, to like things unapologetically. It find myself wanting to be like them in less of the way of an unattainable goal but more as simply feeling like- 'Yeah, I'm gonna wear the fluttershy hoodie. Who the fuck can stop me? I like it, and that's a good enough reason.' And yeah, I'll say ohhh, what a [fursona name here] moment, but that is better than denying they exist. They are apart of me, by design, and as I change, they will too.

And that feels great, you know? I used to look up to some many other things, and now I love my own things, my own characters who show parts of me in their own small and fun ways. Even away from my fursonas, I'd be lying if I said other characters were just devoid of being me to some level. Sure, I got a DnD character who is just a corn cob given life. Though her wanting to know why she is alive is a very real struggle, even in such a goofy situation. Yeah, I got a werewolf who is the last (known) one around, but her misunderstanding humans before (and cops in particular) getting terrified by guns and aggression for lacking such understanding is a very real struggle thank you very much.

Though, once again, these characters live to be happy regardless of their fears and flaws, and maybe that means I can be happy too. Maybe with a group of four walking, talking animals trying to be happy, I can find out with them how to do that, how to tell myself that things will be alright, and maybe that is all I'll ever be able to do. Maybe I'll never be over the worries that make me want to think about them rather than reailty at many points, but at least then, they'll let me know that things will be alright.

[azeler]

idk if you have any ocs but. free space if you do tell us about them go

Okay so I have a lot of OCs mainly because one of my prime hobbies is making D&D character sheets for characters I'm never gonna play + I used to (sometimes still do but not as often) imagine stories in my head to get myself to sleep. But I'm gonna stay on the most recent characters and universes so I can stay coherent. Anyway :

First D&D characters :

Hawthorn - Half-elf, Light Cleric 11/Revenge Paladin 3, he's a vampire hunter who's been cursed by a vampire who bit his tongue when he was young, which made it black and sickly. For this reason, a nickname he got is 'Black Tongue'. He's absolutely, brutally angry towards any vampire he crosses, and will try to kill them at any cost. Terrifyingly powerful, he can do like, 130 damage per turn in optimal conditions (without using spell slots every turn).

His personal arc would be to go against a Dark Lord vampire, Strahd-style, only to be revealed that the lord is a Scourge, a lich type from Pointy Hat that resurrects into the body of their most hated enemy whenever they die. After killing it once, it'd come back to life by using their mentor/friend/etc., and would have to try to kill the vampire once and for all, knowing he's the next on the list if he fails.

Phull - Half-orc/Hexblood, Archfey Warlock 3. He's an orc who was kidnapped by a hag in his early childhood, and raised to become a hag, but he escaped eventually and found his way to the Court of Summer, where a kind fey found him and kept him under their wing, and where he lived for most of his teenage years. He then entered a contract with Titania, archfey of the Court of Summer, in exchange for service (and also top surgery). He then went on to travel the world. He's not really accepted by either orcs or hags, because he's visibly too much hag or not enough, and people don't like either of those too much in general, so even if he tries to be nice and agreeable, he often gets the blame if something goes badly. He tries to stay optimistic, though. (Huge trans vibes, yeah)

Raphael d'Argazzo - Human, Swashbuckler Rogue 3. Your stereotypical prettyboy mercenary/duelist, he comes from a relatively minor noble family, so he's a baronet, but that's one of those titles you can just buy if you're well-off, like his grandparents were. He's one of many siblings and cousins, and while things are going well with his family, it's clear he's not the one they brag about or stuff, just... a good kid, who spreads their name sometimes when does cool stuff, but nothing more.

His arc would involve him in the underworld to find a too-soon dead lover of his (and he had many, so that's saying something). To gain access and stay in the underworld, however, he'd need to pay a price, a price made of his memories. He'd be given a deck of cards, and each card would be a part of his memories (friends, lovers, family, glories, losses, etc.). A twist would be that he already had given up the memory of his love's death, but that also removed all his memories of her. The whole theme would be "you have to remember your mistakes. It will hurt, it won't be worth it, it will feel horrible, for the rest of your life, but that's the only way you'll be able to go forward".

Next is Kasneon the Great (Kas for short), statistically Brass Dragonborn, Draconic sorcerer 5, but in reality, he's a very young (120) Brass dragon (he kinda looks like tiny Rak from Tower of God, if you got the ref). He's very full of himself, as most dragons are, but it's very funny cause his physique does not match that heightened view at all. He also curses a lot (except when his mom's listening), so when someone finds him cute, he answers "I'm 120, motherfucker!"

Achleïs, human, Shadow Sorcerer 3. One of, if not the most wet cat sad backstory characters I've made. He comes from a bloodline cursed by an evil goddess who has to give up their firstborn to her, and it happened to be him :D Since he was like 7, he was forced out of his home and left to fend for himself, under the ever watchful eye of the goddess. He's extremely frail and weak, with dark eyebags, because of constant malnourishment and sleeping in the cold (literally 8 in both Strength and Constitution). He's a very good spellcaster, however, and can scare the shit out of most normal people (a good example would be using shadow sorcerer Darkness (which he can see through), Deafness then Inflict Wounds from a distance with Distant spell).

I also have something that is more a persistent idea than finished OCs, but I have a cast of characters that are all black activist figures :

It would consist of a Bard of Eloquence (for the obvious MLK parallel), an Oath of Justice (custom subclass) paladin (for the people in frontlines in protest and direct action), an Celestial Warlock grandma, who uses her faith to conjure miracles (because I fucking love gospel music and a singing grandma conjuring an angel is fucking dope), and finally, the only one that has a name and an arc is Aaron, a Rogue-or-Fighter/Sorcerer, with fire magic, who beats up cops and brings his friends out of jail, and over the course of the story learns to be more 'heroic' (he helps out, protect people he doesn't know, and learn that beating up cops is cool but also community building and communal action is necessary).

That's all my recent D&D characters, the next characters are from a comic I wanna make called Harpy Story, a fantasy coming-of-age story at the edge between a magical forest and a village. I want the supernatural elements in there to be a bit about queerness but mainly about disability-

Evne, the protagonist, is a half-harpy, cast off from his people at a young age and left to die in the forest. He's rescued and adopted by a hag (the hag mother), and he lives under her wing all of his childhood. He has big wings (like, they go down to his feet) that he uses to fly- He's very nimble, energetic and gets attached quickly, but also prone to be judgemental or hold grudges.

Isaac, a human in the village nearby, is his love interest, and is the son of a priest that deals with the forest's supernatural inhabitants. Most people think that means chasing or banishing, but he simply talks with them and makes deals to keep his village safe. When Isaac gets older however, something happens (that I don't wanna get into detail because maybe some time I'll pull myself together and draw this).

I also have a custom D&D setting and a realistic world that I'm worldbuilding currently, but they're still pretty new and disparate, so I won't post them in there (maybe in another post, who knows).

[johannestevans]

Update 09/05/2022

Hello, hello!

I have been writing a lot, but not on top of sending out regular emails, apologies! I've been doing a bunch of fanfic recently and that trend is likely to continue for a little while, so I'm splitting my new works published sections into fanfic and original!

April's Most Popular Story: Sleeping Beauty

Erotic short. A sailor takes something that doesn’t belong to him, and the captain punishes him.

9.2k, cis M/trans M and cis M/M. A carpenter’s apprentice can’t resist the captain’s cabin boy while he’s meant to be performing maintenance, and afterwards, the captain and the cabin boy punish him between them — if the apprentice wants another chance at sex with the cabin boy, he has to let the captain bugger him first.

On Medium / / On Patreon

Media Recs:

Scarborough Ahoy! (1994, dir. Tania Diez) - This is a half-hour short film that you can watch on YouTube! It's very 90s, but it's an interesting snippet of complex character work. Stars Con O'Neill!

1408 (2007, dir. Mikael Håfström) - I watched this because I'd die for Samuel L. Jackson and he's fucking great in this, but it's also just a cool little horror flick that does some interesting wheels-within-wheels existential horror, based off of a Stephen King story! Good performance from John Cusack too, does a lot of cool details-oriented stuff.

Class Action Park (2020, dir. Seth Porges & Chris Charles Scott III) - This is a documentary about Action Park, an amusement/water park in Vernon, New Jersey in the 1980s - it's unbelievably fucked up, all about how the park showed a continuous disregard for health and safety and were able to pay their way out of showing any regard, and the whole time it does make you groan in horror out loud. It's tonally pretty off, swapping between grieving mothers and insufferable yanks who are like "Omg but it was so COOL, I know people died but like, we didn't! we were badass!" but it's still worth a watch.

Disney's Fast Pass: A Complicated History (from Defunctland) - This is fucking sick, it's a documentary-length deep dive into the history of Disneyland's queueing systems and how they've impacted queueing throughout the world and varying industries, and it's really cool, I was riveted the entire time. I have autism btw.

What is Gentle Parenting? A Therapist's Thoughts On This TikTok Phenomenon (from Mickey Atkins) - I love Mickey's channel and her work in general, but this was an interesting examination of different parenting styles and a quick little examination of the impact those different styles have on people as they develop as children and grow into adults.

Harlots (cr. Alison Newman & Moira Buffini) - You guys know I live for complex portrayals of trauma and sex work respectively, plus anything set in the 18th century, and boom, here we go! Gorgeously written and depicted, really wonderful characterisation and a lot of great interplays that play a lot with intersections of class, gender, race, and all the while every single character has their own deep motivations, many with specific traumas or particularities etc. It's just really great work.

New Original Works Published

Erotic Short: House Call

A guy calls in for sex at the office of the local country doctor.

Rated E, cis M/M, 1.7k. Anal, safe sex, laughing and teasing, kissing, oral, age difference, size difference.

On Medium / / On Patreon

Erotic Short: God's Word

An English teacher in a boarding school destresses with the head of maintenance.

Rated E, cis M/M, 3.1k. Barebacking, creampie, anal, rough sex, size kink, age difference, spanking, voyeurism. Warnings for sex in front of an audience without knowing the audience is there.

On Medium / / On Patreon

Erotic Short: Ownership

Aimé already knew who he belonged to.

460 words. Jean-Pierre Delacroix and Aimé Deverell — possessive behaviour, biting, public sex, and teasing.

On Tumblr / / On Medium / / On Patreon

Erotic Short: Knotted

It’s the full moon, and they’re trying something new.

Rated E, cis M/M, transformed werewolf sex! Knotting, big size difference, slight belly bulge, anal, come inflation.

On Tumblr / / On Medium / / On Patreon

Erotic Short: Patience

Jude has been waiting for Rich to come home and unwrap his present.

Just a tiny piece, 373 words, featuring lingerie.

On Tumblr / / On Medium / / On Patreon

Erotic Short: Breed

Breeding kink and banter.

337w, rated E, cis M/M. Dirty talk and jokes about breeding during anal.

On Medium / / On Patreon

Romance Short: Tailored

A man tailors a suit for his boyfriend.

Rated M. 585 words, some size kink, some banter, teasing.

On Tumblr / / On Medium / / On Patreon

Erotic Short: Ride

A trans man rides his partner’s thigh.

250w, trans M/cis M. Return of Arne Seven and Danny from Financial Security.

On Tumblr / / On Medium / / On Patreon

Erotic Short: Meetings

Seven uses Danny as a cockwarmer.

500w. Cis M/trans M, rated E, cockwarming, D/s. More of Arne Seven and Danny.

On Tumblr / / On Medium / / On Patreon

Erotic Short: On Call

A student doctor with one of the surgeons in the on call dorm.

Another little snippet, this one featuring Jean-Pierre Delacroix.

On Tumblr / / On Medium / / On Patreon

Erotic Short: Remnants of a Bygone Era

After his roommate brings him to his bondage tutorial, Ignatius pursues a very grumpy little nurse.

Rated E, cis M/M, 7.5k. Rope bondage tutorials and sexy lectures about safe sex, age difference, power dynamics, size difference, leather, role reversals and dynamic play, anal sex, hairy bodies, dirty talk, mild humiliation, teasing, nipple piercings, tattoos.

On Medium / / On Patreon

Erotic Short: Sublime Heat

Samuel Coates experiences the kisses of a candle.

Rated E, cis M/trans M, 650w. Wax play and rope bondage, relationship between a captain and a sailor. More of Tom Warren and Samuel Coates!

On Tumblr / / On Medium / / On Patreon

Serial Update: Rescue Dogs

Chapter Eight. Valorous has a bad day at work.

On WorldAnvil / / On Medium

New Fan Works Published

Our Flag Means Death WIP: Jacob Wrestles With Comedy Tropes

5k. WIP. Rated M. Israel: From the Hebrew name יִשְׂרָאֵל (Yisra'el) meaning "God contends", from the roots שָׂרָה (sarah) meaning "to contend, to fight" and אֵל ('el) meaning "God". In the Old Testament, Israel (who was formerly named Jacob; see Genesis 32:28) wrestles with an angel.   I see your "Izzy Hands is the only human in an all-Muppet TV show" and your "Izzy Hands is trapped in the wrong genre" and I raise you: Izzy Hands is the unwitting victim of a cosmic shift of the very rules of reality, now applying sitcom rules to his life instead of the real life ones that had governed him beforehand. This is, for him, horrifying in the manner of anything Eldritch and incomprehensible.

For the rest of the crew, it just seems like First Mate Hands is having a bit of a breakdown, and they really wish he'd stop.

For Izzy, this is existential horror at its worst - for the reader, dark comedy. I just love to make him suffer.

On Ao3

Our Flag Means Death Fanfic: Boots

Rated M, Complete, 810 words, Stede/Izzy/Ed. Izzy blacks Ed's boots.

Stede watches.

On Ao3

Our Flag Means Death Fanfic: One Good Kiss

Rated T, Complete, 900 words. Roach/Izzy. Izzy doesn't join in on smoking until Roach introduces some outside pressure.

On Ao3

Our Flag Means Death Fanfic: Pleas

Rated E, Complete, 1600w. Cis!Stede/trans!Izzy. Power struggle, D/s, face slapping, doggy-style, choking. Of all the shameful, disgusting things Izzy wants, Stede fucking Bonnet is one of the most embarrassing imaginable.

On Tumblr / / On Ao3

Our Flag Means Death WIP: Communicating Want

Rated E, 42k+, WIP. Izzy/Lucius, Izzy/Frenchie, lots of Izzy and the crew bonding. What's a DictionaryWrites dive into a fandom if I don't jump into an exploration of trauma?

Izzy's just so buttoned-up, how is Lucius supposed to resist the urge to seduce him?

It doesn't go well.

On Ao3

[mellometal]

ATTENTION: This is some recent information about the current events with Chris Chan that I've been able to find, plus additional information that I couldn't find anything on that is now public knowledge.

ALL videos about any updates will be linked so you can watch them for yourself, if you wish.

Again, OBLIGATORY trigger warning: This post will be going into very sensitive subject matter, including r@p3, s3xual assault, elder abuse, and inc3st. I will also be mentioning the site Kîwî F@rm$ and the person who runs it (Null). DON'T go onto Kîwî F@rm$. Just stay away from there. It's like 4chan (another site full of REALLY fucked up shit, depending on which forum you go to), but worse.

If anything I mentioned is triggering for you or makes you otherwise uncomfortable in any way, you don't have to read this post. It's not worth putting yourself in a bad state mentally. Take care of yourself, please. Consume media that sparks joy for you.

ALRIGHTY, LET'S GET TO IT. Because there's quite a lot of bullshit that happened since the first post I made about the current events. And some more information that will most likely be the nail in the coffin for Chris. I'm patiently waiting for more updates as they come and I'll share them here as soon as possible.

The person Chris was in a call with was revealed to be a troll under the name "Bella". The screenshots of messages and the audio from the call have all been confirmed to be real.

It's also been revealed that Chris confided in Null about her having a girlfriend, having s3x with her, all that. Here's a list of things to describe this "girlfriend" below, which I will compare to Barbara in bold:

This woman is "in her over fifties". (Barbara is eighty years old. Most people would assume that someone's in their late fifties when this terminology is used. Eighty is well over fifty.)

Her favorite person was the late Adam West in the 60s, as it was "for her son back then". (I don't know if Chris is referring to her half-brother Cole Smithey [he does movie reviews, and he's most famous for being one of the only people to give Toy Story 3 a negative review] here, or if she's referring to herself before she came out as trans. I'm adding this here anyway.)

Chris has known this woman "for a long time", offline and in-person. (OBVIOUSLY she's known Barbara her whole life, since she's, AGAIN, HER MOTHER! DUH.)

They've been having s3x "every three nights". (Like how Chris admitted to doing to her defenseless mother. PRETTY FUCKING FISHY, IF YOU ASK ME.)

They began having s3x on June 27th. (The same day that Chris admitted to doing to Barbara.)

This woman was an accountant when she was younger. (Barbara's job was EXACTLY this.)

Chris said she feels grateful to "enlighten" her girlfriend with s3x play that she (the woman) "missed from even her exes". (I didn't mention this in my initial post, but if you chose to watch the videos that were linked, Chris mentioned that Barbara's boyfriends and ex-husbands "have never been able to make her 0rg@$m" like Chris did. SHE EVEN MENTIONED HER LATE FATHER. THAT'S FUCKING DISGUSTING AND DISRESPECTFUL.)

Chris has been "keeping her girlfriend safe" too. (She had been "taking care of Barbara" since Bob, her late father, passed away. This right here is proof alone that she was talking about HER MOM!)

Her girlfriend "didn't want to do it at first", it was "very painful" for Chris's girlfriend in the beginning, and it took a few tries for them "to get going". This included Chris doing it FOR her because she thought her girlfriend would "feel better" due to her lack of mobility and lucidity. (Chris said all of this exact stuff TO "BELLA" during their call.)

Null initially thought that Chris was lying about sleeping with her mother to cover up the fact that she had a girlfriend and having s3x with her. Why? Because apparently people would believe Chris would have s3x with her mother than some other unknown woman. Chris told Null to keep her girlfriend's identity secret because she was afraid her girlfriend would get trolled and she'd end up losing her.

What Null realized was that what Chris told him completely matched the description of Barbara. Note that before he looked into this, he was unaware of the context Chris was giving him about her "girlfriend".

It's extremely possible now that Chris admitted to s3xually assaulting Barbara to Null and "Bella", but she wanted Null to keep it confidential. Chris wanted NULL to keep the fact that she admitted to committing a VERY serious crime A SECRET.

If Chris WAS actually lying, she'd use a lot more CWCisms (her own phrases) or say that she was "using her psychic powers" to have s3x with Barbara's fictional counterpart in another dimension. But no, Chris was VERY straightforward and talked about it casually like if you were to talk about the weather.

Chris, according to Null, slept in a parking lot in her car the other night. At least for a few hours, though I don't remember where the FUCK else she slept (maybe a hotel room eventually), considering she had -$200 in her bank account. I believe some people who are in contact with Chris sent her some money to get food too.

Null revealed that he set up a GoFundMe previously for Chris to attend a Brony convention, which was a test to see how Chris would be able to handle commissions. The GFM was successful, to say the least. Chris fulfilled commissions successfully, DESPITE NOT WORKING ON THE FUCKING COMIC. Y'KNOW, THE THING SHE'S PAID FOR ON PATREON TO DO!

Well, due to recent events, he has since taken down the GFM and is refunding all the money to all the donors. He was debating on sending Chris money (the GFM money, since Chris isn't able to go to the Brony convention), but he decided not to do so. He told Chris to sleep in her car, spend the night under the stars, and reflect on her current situation until the morning, when Null would help her find a temporary roof over her head until August 5th.

Barbara tightly manages Chris's finances. Those are Null's words, not mine. You want to know why Barbara's been having trouble with the house and shit? CHRIS HAS BEEN STEALING MONEY FROM HER FOR YEARS. HER CREDIT IS ALL SORTS OF FUCKED, SHE'S BURIED IN DEBT, AND IT'S CHRIS'S FAULT. THE PERSON WHO'S SUPPOSED TO BE TAKING CARE OF HER.

How did we find out about Chris recently getting more money, specifically $750? Well, Null has had access to Chris's emails for the past few years (Chris knows this), and he found an email that Barbara had sent Chris money.

That's a violation of the EPO (Emergency Protective Order) that was put into affect for Barbara. Chris was NOT supposed to contact Barbara in ANY way, shape or form.

Null asked Chris about this and told her that this was a violation of the EPO. He asked her if her mom sent her money. Chris denied it at first, and then went into the whole goddess bullshit she goes into. She then admitted to accessing Barbara's banking account online and wiring the $750 to HER account. Chris also said that she'd pay her back the $750 after receiving the $1000 that Null was supposed to send to Chris. Null was obviously upset with what Chris had done. Who wouldn't be?

Guess what Null did in reaction to what Chris told him? HE BLOCKED CHRIS AND REPORTED HER TO THE POLICE. I'm honestly surprised he stuck with her this long. He genuinely wanted to see Chris become a better person.

It's only a matter of time for Chris's arrest. With all this information that's out there now, more information probably coming very soon, plus people close to Chris confirming all of this....I feel it's safe for me to say that Chris did s3xually assault her mother.

I don't feel bad for Chris anymore. I have no sympathy for Chris. Any ounce of respect for this person has been long since gone. I don't feel comfortable even referring to Chris as a person. She's a monster.

I talked about Chris a few times a few years ago on Instagram, and I got yelled at for tearing this motherfucker apart. Because apparently I was an "ableist bully" for having my grievances with Chris, despite the fact that I'm autistic too and I've never "bullied" Chris for being autistic. Not even once. My grievances had more to do with Chris using her mother and their animals to exploit them for her own monetary gain INSTEAD OF TRYING TO FIND A JOB. I've even tried to suggest that she go work through a temporary work industry and get paid daily. (At that time, I didn't know that trying to interact with Chris wasn't a very good idea. I've since learned, obviously.)

Here's a link to Gibi's video:

Dillon Thomas's video:

The stream with Null:

Geno Samuel's stream:

Here's Rogue's video and live stream he did about the situation. Rogue is one of my FAVORITE YouTubers, as edgy as his content is.:

Thank you for your time.

[iphyslitterator]

Movie Thoughts: West Side Story

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Side_Story_(2021_film)

I listened to the 1961 film soundtrack a bunch after Sondheim's death, but I only saw the film once in middle school, and I've never seen a production. I was shocked to learn how faithful this movie was to the stage script. I...might not like the musical. I fought a whole culture war in my head over the content, which was exhausting, so I'm just going to leave it aside.

As for the film itself: It was fine. I expected to love it but was a little bored for much of it. This seems to be the play's fault rather than any adaptational failure, but unfortunately you're still responsible for whether your movie is interesting. My reaction was the inverse of my reaction to Cyrano: I kept thinking, "Ugh, why aren't they singing, get back to the music." By God the music holds up. I don't understand or enjoy long dance sequences, however, which is unfortunate for me.

Ansel Elgort and Rachel Zegler have nice voices, though I didn't always agree with their musical choices. Apparently a few of the songs were sung live and still sounded good, so I clearly need to learn more about that technique. Shoutout to Mike Faist's performance, Riff had a lot going on behind his eyes -- you can always count on a Mercutio to be interesting.

Queer content: Anybodys is a trans guy, and this is where I was really startled to learn it's barely an extrapolation from the original text. Sorry for thinking you were trying too hard to be woke, 2021 movie, you handled this well.

A note: I appreciate the decision not to subtitle the Spanish; I do not appreciate HBO's failure to caption it. As an English-speaker with the volume on low, I wanted a fighting chance to understand it -- more importantly, a bilingual speaker with impaired hearing is largely locked out of the Spanish parts, and that's infuriating.

The Nominations

Best Picture: Sure, whatever. I don't want it to win.

Director (Steven Spielberg): Having recently been vividly reminded that one can direct a movie musical badly, I appreciate that Spielberg is, you know, a phenomenal director. Everything looked great and exactly captured the vibe he wanted. I also recognize that I can't understand the technical mastery required for certain scenes, like the dance in the gym.

Cinematography: Some really gorgeous stuff with lights and shadows, and that puddle shot!

Sound: I imagine the sound guys are especially important in a musical.

Costumes: They were good and chosen with care, and I love that yellow dress! Paul Tazewell is the first black man nominated for costume design, so that's cool.

Production Design: Yeah, it was good. The salt shed was pretty cool.

Supporting Actress (Ariana DeBose): HOLY HELL. I thought I understood the hype early on, but after Bernardo's death, I realized I had NOT understood the hype. Her portrayal of heartbroken and barely holding it together was gut-wrenching, and she sold the moment where she decided to help Maria and Tony. That's really hard to do! She was the only singer where I actively enjoyed the ways she sounded different from the soundtrack I know well -- the phrasing she brought to the beginning of "America" and her verse in "Tonight Quintet" were a pleasure. She deserves to be the frontrunner, and on top of that, she set records as the first black queer actor and the first Afro-Latina nominated for an acting Oscar.

[ghostsofmemories]

Ocean In the Woods: Character Portraits/Profiles

I hope everyone enjoys this because this has taken Forever™ and it's the reason I haven't gotten anything done all week. I drew some portraits in my comic sans presentation but I'm not very happy with them anymore so here's some better ones!!

Arthur Benz, he/him (MC)

I've already posted his portrait once, but it wouldn't be right to ignore him here! Arthur is 17, a trans guy, and a little impulsive. His family is very supportive of his gender identity (because I literally never see that in stories ever) and he has been on testosterone for just over a year. He has a tendency to feel guilty over things out of his control, is extroverted but distant, and is observant in terms of detail but oblivious in terms of emotions. He's not really a school kind of guy and can't wait to get out of there.

Anne Benz, she/her (older sister)

Anne is a 24 year old woman who still lives at home (by choice because she loves them). She's a programmer, family genius, considering giving her a secret girlfriend. She's extremely caring and closest to Arthur out of the rest of his family. Takes her responsibility as the oldest Very Seriously but still knows how to be a cool badass.

Aiden Benz, he/him (little brother)

Aiden is 14, in 8th grade. He is my baby, small and soft and even though he's a bit of an asshole at times, I still love him. He gets very good grades and listens to Bach and sort of thinks he's above Arthur because of that, but he's going to grow a lot over the course of the story. He's just an adorable child and deserves better.

Maya Bright, she/her

Maya is Arthur's best friend, who is also 17 but 12 days older and will let you know. She is absolutely fucking wild, and still manages to keep straight A's. Chaotic bisexual. She and Arthur feed each other's impulses. Would get into an ivy league school but get arrested for rioting and throwing bricks. I love her.

Lance Fisher, he/him

The other best friend! 18 and the only straight white person in the group, but he's still rad. Has gotten suspended from school and (temporarily) kicked off the soccer team because someone was messing with his friends and he was not having it. He's kind of an all brawn no brain at times, but he's not actually stupid and it hurts is feeling when people make fun of him (but he'd never tell them that).

Ollie Cook, they/them

Local freshman at 15, and basically got thrown into the friend group after coming out in the fall. They are feminine and Do Not Care what people think about it. Loud, fun, go-with-the-flow kinda friend. Unsure about their sexuality. They're always there for everybody but kind of insecure about their place in the group due to being younger and new to this whole thing. Very sweet, 100/10.

Vanessa Pierce, she/her

16, a sophomore amongst many juniors and a freshman. Dating Ollie, and the two of them are a very cute couple. Local lesbian (listen I don't wanna get into the gatekeeping stuff about nb people and sexualities, yeah? Let them exist) and lover of all things in shades of red. Probably secretly a goddess.

Ocean, she/her

Possible love interest from a parallel dimension (it's basically our world but set back 20 years and with monsters? I don't really get it either tbh. I'm just going with it) who accidentally brings a very scary monster/demon/whateverthefuck to our world. She's very desperate for approval in most things she does, as she's very unfamiliar with the technology and social dynamics here. She's very homesick and misses her family, but the portal back home won't open until the physical world is as it was before she got there (AKA no monster). Idk how old she is yet, but between 16 and 18. Mysterious. Unpredictable. Nervous wreck.

The Benz parents also play pretty big roles in the story, but I didn't include them here as I don't really have a clear picture of what they look like yet, so here they are (I basically just made some Really Awesome Parents because I don't think we see enough of that in fiction, especially YA):

Denise (mother) is very nurturing and careful. She wants to do everything as perfectly as possible with the fewest amount of repercussions. Her father is of Nigerian descent and her mother was born and raised in Mexico, but died when Denise was a young girl. She's trying to learn spanish as a tribute to her mother and heritage, but she's also juggling a career and her children, so it's a process.

Richard (father, who will always be Richie to his wife and in my heart) is also a programmer, and sparked Anne's interest in the job when she was young. He tries to spend time with all his kids and struggles to accept the fact that they're growing up. He does whatever he can to make them happy. He owns up to the mistakes of his past (spent some time in rehab when Anne and was a kid and Arthur was a baby), but does his best to move forward.

Overall, this is my favorite cast of characters ever!! I might have to slightly pair down some of the stuff I've got going in my head for them because frankly, there is Too Much Subplot (but. I love them so much) and there is not room for all their development and characteristics.

Taglist: @brooklyn-etc @coffeeandcalligraphy @my-lifes-one-big-critical-fail @kozyisa-tries-to-write

[teenagebeautyqueen]

[Image description: a young person holds a mobile phone with a blue case and a paper on the other. the paper has a drawing of an umbrella colored with the trans pride flag. we can only see their upper body. they are looking down and to the left of the image. they're smiling without showing their teeth, and look relaxed. they're wearing a black, loose hoodie and some shorts can be seen at the bottom of the picture. they're also using black nail polish. on the background there is a door and a star wars poster. the other image is a close up of the paper. end ID]

🌈ʜᴇ/ᴛʜᴇʏ🌈

happy trans day of visability to all my fellow trans*!! here is me and my project for peace's day... i personally love it. it's on spanish, but i'll translate it for y'all.

the text on the left says "cada persona que conoces está luchando una batalla de la que no sabes nada. sé amable. siempre", which is the translation of that quote that goes like "every person you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. be kind. always".

the one on the right says "¿qué sentido hay en pelear? ¿por qué insistimos en sabotearnos mutuamente? Todos caminamos por el mismo sendero embarrado, todos nos dirigimos al mismo final." its translation is something like "what's the point on fighting? why do we insist on sabotage each other? we all walk the same muddy path, we are all headed for the same end."

and above the umbrella there's words like "odio", "acoso", "ignorancia" & "discriminación", which mean "hatred", "harassment", "ignorance", and "discrimination".

yeah i'm very subtle.

i've decided to share my story with the world. but i got kinda carried away. it's not s fairy tale, so don't read it if you're sensitive to themes like bullying, mental health issues, and toxic people.

——————————————————————

it's been... one ride of a journey, to say the least. i've said a few times that i started to question my gender around summer. but that's not quite true.

growing up, i never was fond of... anything that i associated with femenine, really. this included, but wasn't limited to, any color that wasn't blue (pink and purple get a special mention, i despised them), flowers, clothes too loose or too tight, shorts if they weren't from some sport, etc. i think you get the idea.

this collided with me being afab (aka a girl for everyone including myself) & neurodivergent. i wanted nothing to do with those things. but society wanted me to love them.

5 yo me said she didn't like Monster High. 5 yo female classmate said i was a weirdo. 7 yo me loved football. 7 yo male classmate said i couldn't play because i was a girl. 9 yo me hyperfixated on minecraft. 9 yo pretty much every classmate called me a geek.

so i stoped trying. for a while, i loved pink, wanted to have rapunzel's hair, watched disney channel, etc. but i already was the weirdo. i remember being three and friends with all of them. i remember playful fights for the toy rocket and reading books with the only other boy who could read, to ourselves, each other, and the whole class. but people grow up, and they change. so yeah, i was bullied. always the last one to be chosen, left alone on the bus rides, on my own at the playground.

and you'll be thinking "that sucks, but pao, how is it related to you being trans?"

you'll see, i didn't have many friends. i was kinda alone until i turned 7. then two new kids came to my class. let's call them eva and john. i made friends with them asap. i loved them so much!! they were my first friends since kindergarden. so i allowed myself to let go. i was already hated by most of my peers. why wouldn't i be myself with those who didn't despise me? (i was 7 when i thought this. 7 years old, and i thought that out of 20 people, 18 hated me. and then people wonder why i've got self-steem issues lmao. i'm tryna make the point that bullying in primary school isn't just some mean kids calling you names. i'm currently in high school and it still has its mark on me. but that's for another moment.)

so yeah. i went "wild". eva has adhd too (noice, right? i mean she has her diagnosis becaise she's primarly hyperactive, while i'm primarly inattentive, but we understood each other way quickier than with neurotypicals– even if i didn't know why yet), and john was kinda shy & corpulent (he wasn't fat, but he didn't look slim either), just like me. so we became friends. and i slowly opened up a little, while still playing my role of "the freak kid". i knew i was seen as that AND as the smart kid. double pressure, double bullying. but i had my small circle. it evolved until my current friend group, in which, god bless, there's a trans girl!! (eva's still on it– she's my best friend and i would die for her, no doubts. john can go fuck himself, the goddamned fascist).

but it ain't that easy. it never is. i'm 14 and afab. shit happens. y'all get it.

my first period happened while i was on a school trip (bad), on a hotel with no pads avaliable (very bad), on another country so i couldn't call my mum unless i had wifi because politics & stuff– and i did not have wifi (really bad). cue a lot of dysphoria (even if i didn't know it was that) + not being able to contact anyone. add the fact that i was the second one to have it, and it was some kind of taboo– it meant the other girls wouldn't leave me alone, and the result is clear: one of my worst panic attacks ever, on a tiny bathroom of some shitty hotel room.

from there it went downhill. my body started to become femenine, and the football short didn't make my hips smaller. my face, my oh so alarged face, suddenly became rounder. puberty hit me not only physically, but emotionally. and if that wasn't enough, we, as a class, were entering what's called here "the turkey age", a.k.a. teenagerhood, where looks become even more important. it didn't take long until i hated my body.

[WARNING: from here, this gets hard. mentions of eating disorders, depressive episodes/thoughts, toxic enviroments, homophobia/transphobia (both internalized and external), anxiety attacks, and thoughts of self-harm]

i thought "it's big, it shouldn't be big, it's fat. besides i don't want it to grow so fast. i want to make it stop growing. how? well, i grow up by eating. no eating=no growing".

yeah. eating disorder. when i think about it, i want to laugh. because it only took a few comments and "jokes" for me to be so angry at myself when i should be mad with them. i'm big. always have been, very likely always will. i've been told that i could make a very good rugby player. i probably would. i shared my cantine table with people (😔). and they wouldn't shut up. "[deadname], the rest wants to eat too!", "look at [deadname], she's gonna eat it all!". things like that. i stoped eating. i would pick up the smallest amount of food i could, even if my stomach was begging me to please eat something. eventually, my mum found out. and she helped me to grow out of it. i sometimes releapse, but never for that long. because i went on a whole year like that. and it sucked.

so, last year. socially anxious neurodivergent girl with several doubts on her sexuality gets to eight grade.

i play basketball. since i was little. i used to enjoy it a lot. we weren't a team– we were a family. loved 'em so much, 1000/10 one of the best things of my life. BOOM. now you're old enough & good enough to be on the "good" team. in the good time there's the cool kids. i am not a cool kid. oops. i was left behind, they all laughed at my back, no one cared about me (except one girl, but she was in the group and was scared to act until almost the end of the year. love her for that tho). i felt like shit. i was too scared to go to train. the sight of a ball scared me, because i couldn't help but think everyone was talking shit about me. we went to a national championship and when they went out to the city, they didn't tell me, then sent a pic of them having fun to the groupchat & delated it saying "oops it was for the other group". i had several breakdowns on my room that night. it was such a bad experience i can't even hear the name of the city without tearing up.

not to count that a new girl decided to make my life a living hell. now i know how to deal with her, but then i didn't, and i ended up curled up on the bathroom floor crying.

all while i discovered my own identity. i was so scared of being non-straight i hated myself for it.

it was a tough year and there were times where i would wish i'd never existed. it was too much for me to deal with, and i was just miserable. but i got out of it. remember the trans girl i mentioned? she's closeted, and she told me just this october. but even before that, she was my friend. she bought a new life to it all, a fresh one. i owe her a lot, including accepting myself as i am.

she is here, despite everything.

i am here, despite everything.

you are all here, despite everything.

some of us aren't here. they are the ones we remember. each one of us has our history. i shared mine with you all. it is not an easy road. you know that. it's hard, and it's tough, and it's difficult, and it's unfair.

but we are here, despite everything. the ones who made it, the ones who didn't, the ones who are halfway through it, and the ones who are to come.

we are here. we are trans. and we won't be erased.

[genderfluidfuckernamedfox]

He's not on here so fuck it.

There are about 4 people in this world that I would do anything for. So imagine my shock when one of them stabs me in the back. He basically attacked who I am as a person and accused me of several things that I would just NEVER do to anyone. I've been grieving the death of our friendship and at this point I keep bouncing from anger to depression. I know that he's projecting his insecurities onto me and I shouldn't take it seriously but my heart is still broken because of this situation.

A little back story: My friend(who I've known since 8th grade) had just dropped out of college to take a semester off and figure out what he wants to do with his life.(good for him tbh, I hope he finds something he's happy with) I've been sick since school started but he still wanted to hang out with me and I said I would help him move his stuff from his dorm into his new place.(which is his grandma's house, he lives with her) So we drives 2 hours to his college, meet his friends and have a nice time, load up all of his stuff and then head on back home. It was a fun trip and I loved seeing his friends. Now every year or so we would talk about how we would be a good couple. He tells me that he wants to be in a poly relationship with me and another friend.(this friend currently has a gf he's living with) So my friend had the full intention to "homewreck", as he put it, this dude and date him along side me. I was like alright, I was cool with it bc we'd all been friends for a really long time. I however do not wanna date 2 dudes(I like chicks way more). I think one of the main reasons he wanted to date both me and our friend was because he also wanted to eventually rent a place with both of us. Which again I wouldn't mind doing in the future but I currently have a three year old brother and a seven year old sister that I help take care of and I don't plan on leaving them until my little bro is in school.

So dating... I really like relationships, but they don't like me. I'm very excited that he's giving me any type of romantic attention. However I'm also in beauty school and have 8am classes everyday so hanging out with him every night for a little over a week is getting exhausting; but I care about him so I'm going to make time for him if he really wants to see me. One day we hang out with another friend of ours that I haven't seen since highschool. Jasper is his name, we go over to jasper's house to play some board games and just chill out, he's also got like 5 dogs so we eventually go on a night walk with one of the pups. I'm so damn tired at this point, it's the end of the week and I've currently been sick for 2 weeks. I notice that my friend seems a little off but hell, I'M a little off so I don't pay much attention to him (which is very unlike me, I'm usually the one that makes sure everyone feels included) if he really feels excluded he would just assert himself into the situation right? We've all been friends since highschool so it shouldn't be a problem right? Wrong. I finally get a day with just myself and my family and he sends me this text

So after being up my ass for an entire week he's going to say all of this shit about me and act like I've been an ass this whole time we were hanging out.

He said he wanted to date me and then broke up with me before we even dated.

He thinks I'm copying him being trans (what the actual fuck, how self centered do you have to be to think that my identity has anything to do with you)

He's accusing me of making fun of him for cosplaying, singing, and acting which 1. I HAVE NEVER AND WILL NEVER DO TO ANYONE and 2. Are all things that I do as a hobby. I've literally only ever tried to encourage him with all of these things and he's going to blatantly lie to me through text about things that I did??? What the actual fuck.

I've never acted like I hate anyone, and if I have I can garentee you that it was meant as a joke.

He says that I'm not motivated to grow up but I'm literally furthering my career in a field that I'm passionate in and loving myself through all of the hardships that I face, that's mature as fuck.

He complains that he hates the county that we live in and I've agreed with him that it's kinda a bad place but I've got family and shit to do here so I don't hate it.

Kaliym is the person he was planning on "homewrecking" and me and kaliyms friendships is very different from mine and his. I joke that I hate kaliym to his face and he's like "I love you too" bc he knows I dont mean it. But this dude can come back in my life for a week after beening gone for over a year and think that he knows me.

Honestly I'm glad this happened because this is what a toxic friendship looks like and it needed to end.

My parting words for this post and specifically for him are as follows.

Fuck you.

[iamyelling]

i am struggling.. there's this polycule that i have been getting to know, and i have been excited about it, like making friends! a friend group to join! insta-group right! but i'm finding they are very insular and clique-y and it's weird. i made a fricken fancy lookin chart just to keep track of it all bc it's so much lol

anyways, ugh it's kind of a story but ok. so i don't want to use names bc uh yeah. anyways good luck keeping track. ok so i went to seattle trans beach day which was a couple weeks ago now, posted about it on my ig story, a friend i haven't hung out with very much but am wanting to get to know better liked my story and we decided to go and meet up there. went, did that, was great. they invited us (me + annah) to go camping the following weekend. i was hella down, annah iffy. anyways we made it there. won't get into retelling all the moment by moment stuff. but our other friend was heading out bc they had work the next day so we hung out with them at camp, the group went on a hike, they left, group returned. that friend is peripheral to the polycule in complicated ways i won't get into just know that. friend that invited us is also peripheral. but so we were drunky playing games n stuff etc. other friend who we have known the longest, the one through whom we've met all the other people. oh gosh ok this requires even more backstory and context... uhh well they were having this College Party and we were planning on going and bringing our other friends (one i met in jr high, very good very close friend, and her bf) in efforts of joining the groups. but we cancelled last minute bc it appeared to actually be more of a makeout party, like yes college partying but also making out with everyone and games like that like not quite orgy levels. anyways. so we didn't go to that event and we the 4 of us just had our own drunk party just us lmao it was greeat

ok so they were like 'we're gonna do college party again!' and were like oh when to do it? and i was like oh well you could combo it with halloween (since they are always v busy and booked out, you know how poly folks are with the google calendars) and even combo it with my birthday! and mind you were just drunky n stuff. so we plan it all like hell yeah lets do it. then the next morning the friend checks in like yo do you actually want to do this like i know you backed out last time? and iwas like yeah totally

so we hadn't really talked about it then like the other day i text her like hey lets plan this party right and we were talking and ugh now it's all !!! ugh!!! i am confused and i just. why is it so weird!! we had a small game night with one friend the one that left camping early, we carpooled to the host friends house. and i was like please validate me is this crazy am i being a like ~poly phobic~ prude or something omg bc like they know this much better than me they have to LIVE it with the polycule all the time and being excluded and stuff. they and my friend who i was texting like sorta mostly broke up a while back and are living together but its weeeird. so yeah. and they were like yeah they totally agreed w me.

it feels like the polycule is so cliquey and incapable of like interacting in like friend-mode?? like as friends in a normal way.. thats the hot take i guess. like yes it's FUN but i was excited to have friends! a friend group! i am not trying to invalidate or ignore yalls relationships or anything absolutely not! i just .. am your friend? can we interact in that manner? would be dope lol. i want to add my 2 friends in and then i will be a happy happy clam

so we are like you kno wwhat! this sucks! we don't have to rely on them we will make our own stuff! so we're making our own chillcule. the partycule as they call themselves can go do their own thing.

i've explained it as like you know how it is being a third wheel? this is like.. you and your wife and possibly a friend or two as well are all third-wheeling an 8-person polycule. it's something!

i guess what's frustrating is i, like know me and annah are like a fuckin 'package deal' so much and we are stuck together at the hip a lot (i think for some valid reasons but that's a separate discussion l o l that i think the chillcule will help with) so i really try to be like accommodating of the other people we're hanging out with, not act super "couple-y", idk be inclusive, not excluding people, make people comfortable and be friendly if that makes sense! like be a good host mentality, regardless of like physical location lol right. and it doesn't feel like they do that. it's just about like partying and making out a lot? idk.. maybe i don't get it