#<- so true and topical!

[meirimerens]

You Wouldn't Last An Hour In The Asylum Where They Raised Me

[aphyray]

Saffron and Honey - How Should I Know You?

Hey it's pride month in my city! We're weird!

It's so students can enjoy it I guess I don't know.

Anyways, I'm celebrating with a coupon for my book. It just launched with a super fun reading and I'm still glowing about it.

Saffron and Honey - HSIKY? is a novel starring...

Ravi Beausoleil - a clinically doomed, bi-sapphic, masc, nonbinary chemical science postgrad with a grim, nihilistic vision for their future

Nicole Doyle - a couch-crashing, towering femme beauty and exiled faerie-in-disguise with a dark, dark history and a guilt complex the size of a mountain, who refuses to let Ravi wither away before their time

Felicity Vicente - a meddling, book-excavating archaeology postgrad and old unrequited highschool crush of Ravi's, who can't stand to let her toxically-beloved bestie be exploited by a mysteriously seemingly magical couch-crashing parasite

---

Click the code below to enjoy a special Pride Month discount, or head to https://aphyray.com and type it in at checkout.

STUPIDBEE4YOU

20% off your whole order

Good until September 30th

kk thanks love you bye

[mayahawkeswife]

i think people really do lack the understanding of just how much representation matters.

like, chappell roan. not only is she an out and proud LESBIAN, but i just saw a interview where she opens up about how she is also demisexual. that truly struck a chord with me personally, because i’ve been struggling with figuring myself out in those terms and just hearing someone talk about it, knowing i’m not alone in my feelings and that it’s okay, really does help.

representation MATTERS. DIVERSE representation matters.

[zzoupz]

I love it when people draw him like a hot topic manager I really do

[nekropsii]

Gentle reminder that Homestuck is in fact intended for people who are 18 or older — particularly the grungy little forum-dwelling 20-somethings Hussie was largely associated with on the MSPAForums — and was made in 2009. The adult and offensive content is a natural extension of this. The offensive parts of the writing — such as the racism — are not excused by the time period and where it was made and who it was made for, but it is explained by it.

Another gentle reminder that every time Hussie depicted predatory/abusive dynamics or pedophilic age gaps in Homestuck, he was depicting them as bad and disgusting things, including when his avatar (who is not fully representative of himself and is, in fact, a character) was creeping on Vriska. You are supposed to be uncomfortable about it. That is the intention. Same goes for when incest was touched upon — it is consistently portrayed as bad and disgusting. You are supposed to be uncomfortable about it. That is the intention.

Younger people are technically “allowed” to like it in the sense that while it is intended for mature audiences, it is not inherently pornographic, and was not and still isn’t age gated. Just understand the content wasn’t exactly made with it being read by 15 year olds in mind. Also understand that there is a lot of nuance to things all of the time, and Hussie didn’t shy away from taboo topics on the basis of having expected all of his audience to be in their 20s in 2009 and know him personally.

There’s some legitimately bad stuff in Homestuck that is worth criticism — such as the racism — but Hussie touching on abuse, or making jokes about how incest/pedophilia are fucking gross is not really one of them. He did not condone that. He just wrote about it being deplorable, and mentioned it a lot because… Well, it was 2009, and a big part of Homestuck is “bad things happening to kids.”

[wickmitz]

every time i reread lackadaisy i become stronger about my conviction that fans are WAY too harsh on mitzi and misunderstand her completely. you go online and see people treating her like satan incarnate when she’s genuinely just a person who’s grieving and lost. her and mordecai are two sides of the same coin and it’s crazy that people are kinder to him ( when he kills people, brutally, all the time and without remorse ) but never to her … like the things i’ve seen people accuse her of is baffling enough to make me wonder if i’m genuinely misreading the text tbh. even her character sheet on the lackadaisy website says this :

cannot stress enough everything we’ve seen from mitzi and know about her, both in the past and present, proves she was a tender hearted sort of person. she is not ruthless or cruel naturally, and has to continuously decide to commit to the harsh edges she’s desperately trying to wear. she’s selfish, yes, and does have her own myriad of flaws -- but she’s hardly some manipulative mastermind with no warmth in her heart. and knowing this makes her arc and her scenes ache all the more for it tbh

[todayisafridaynight]

[iheartbookbran]

i cackled before the season came out and everyone was freaking out about the brothel scenes because they wanted demi!Colin and now the possibility was lost forever, when it was precisely the brothel scenes (+ the diary bit) which cemented demi!Colin to canon prosperity!

[spitblaze]

gnc and butch women (cis AND trans) and transmascs are punished for performing masculinity past certain thresholds of arbitrary attractiveness because people that cishet society categorizes or clocks as 'women' are not supposed to perform masculinity. hope this helps 👍

[butch-with-a-deep-voice]

Me: Trans masc/trans man butches are sacred and deserve a space in the sapphic community as much as any other butch Also me: Can I please have a single post on this site about butches that refer to me, a butch, as a girl? As a treat? I really don't like being called a boy

[pnfc]

i haint watched the dang chibisode and idk if ill actually watch it with sound on sdfjk but i have a hurt feeling about them casually imbuing perry with speech for a one off gag because the idea that he needs to talk to communicate is fake. we had 4 seasons of wacky magic hijinks cartoon where perry never needed verbal speech to communicate. they couldve done this gag at any point in the show but they didn't, and the fact that they didn't felt significant. perry's muteness is such a core part of his character, to me, to the way i conceive of him/write him. i don't wanna overreact to a goofy little side cartoon (even tho i'm doing it anyway) but it's still the characters, and it still upsets me! ok that's it i've said my piece

[tododeku-or-bust]

This is a poll in a set of two! Meaning it'll be best if you answer both questions!

Link to Partner Question!

Idk how far this will go fr, given the topic, but I will say this just in case: be honest (no one can see your choice in the poll!!) and use and approach your tags of thought with caution! That's me looking out for y'all, because people CAN and DO read tags, so... Think before you type!

[cdmodule]

Reminisce

[kacievvbbbb]

Honestly despite my feelings about how the last arc of MHA went down I really love Deku and his story.

I just feel like a lot of the time we get these protagonists whose whole philosophy is it doesn’t matter what you were born as everyone can achieve greatness. But then the series goes on and it turns out that actually it DOES matter because the protagonist has this really great lineage and these really great powers you can only have through birth they were actually born born, predestined if you will, to do this.

But MHA actually sticks to its guns. Midoriya wasn’t revealed to have some great connection to all might that the universe had put in place. He wasn’t defended from some great lineage that makes him uniquely suited to this. Hell All for one didn’t even turn out to be his father, there was no hidden powerful quirk he was always meant to have. He was just Midoriya Izuku a boy who was in the right place at the right time and simply decided to act while the world did nothing. And that’s what really made him a hero.

I don’t know, maybe it’s just me, but I believe him a bit more when he goes anybody can be a hero if you just decide to act

[mando-abs]

Guys, I’ve read the Wild Robot

And let me tell you, if I hadn’t recently taken a Children’s Literature class in college, I would’ve said this was the best middle-grade book I’ve read since elementary/middle school. I almost read this book in one night (I was sleepy 😴) like I couldn’t put it down.

The heart behind this book is astounding and it never shies away from showing complex and difficult concepts. You will fall in love with Roz and her gosling son along with all of the other animal on the island.

If you’ve got younger ones, I highly recommend reading this to them or having a little book club moment with them. However, be prepared for whatever hard questions may come your way (i.e. circle of life and climate issues). You know your child and how much they can handle/understand. If you’re like me and much older, it’s a quick read and a great way to finish off a long day. It’s a part of a trilogy and you bet I’m patiently waiting for my hold on a copy at the library.

If the movie is anything like the book (which, given a rewatch of the trailer, it’s looking like so), we are in for a special treat.

[ossifer]

perfect lyctorhood was coined by mercymorn.

“You lied to us, John,” she said. And, with a sob in her voice: “There is a perfect Lyctorhood … a perfect Lyctor process that preserves the cavalier, and you let us think there wasn’t. You let us think we’d cracked it … You let us think it had to be a one-way energy transfer … but nobody had to die. Alfred, Pyrrha, Titania, Valancy, Nigella, Samael, Loveday, Cristabel … You watched us kill our cavaliers in cold blood, and none of them had to die. You had already done it yourself. But you had done it perfectly!!”

you cannot separate the concept of lyctorhood from john and alecto, or even the concept of necromancer and cavalier—both concepts originated with john and alecto. in fact, lyctorhood was conceived as an emulation of their bond: “You let us think we’d cracked it [...] You had already done it yourself. But you had done it perfectly!!” “Then, when the disciples come to you and say the word Lyctor, she does not understand that they want the thing you did to her—she watches as you watch … watch them misunderstand the process.”

in practice it was an imperfect and misunderstood imitation. one that was imperfect because john lied, because he needed his loved ones to be something he could touch—“needed them to be my hands … my fingers”—and from that lie came his saints, the emperor's fists and gestures. it is flawed, an imperfect copy—mercymorn says that john and alecto's bond is an example of perfect lyctorhood, that he'd done it 'perfectly'.

He said, I took you into myself and we became one. He said, meditatively, I mean, I tried. There was so much of you—you weren’t the small, stained soul of a normal human being. You were so much bigger than that. I opened my mouth and tried to cram you inside … you didn’t fit. [...] He said, So I dropped to my knees here, right … I scooped dirt into my mouth … ate until I vomited. I gathered up the bloody earth … I realised you were too much for me. This is the problem, the incorporation, this is the hardest part … It’s the human instinct, to take. [...] He said, From my blood and bone and vomit I conjured up a beautiful labyrinth to house you in. I was terrified you’d find some way to escape before I was done.

perfection is trying to fit something inside yourself you can't, choking the earth and cramming it in your mouth, then realising you can't so you devise a labyrinth to trap 'her' within. john says the human instinct is to take—and necromancy takes. it runs on death.

paul—the product of “something very nearly perfect … the perfect friendship, the perfect love”, conceived of as true lyctorhood, “a gravitational singularity creating something new”—is born of a mutual death. their birth is not an ideal thing, per palamedes: “I am saying we have found the best and truest and kindest thing we can do in this moment.”

what is lyctorhood? the joining of a necromancer and cavalier. one flesh, one end. “one flesh, one end” was conceived of by two people who died because of john's lie—died in pursuit of emulating his and alecto's example.

the necromancer and cavalier relationship—descended from john and alecto's example—hinges on an inequality between the two, one that is hegemonically enforced. the cavalier as the protector, the attendant, the lyctoral power source and defense mechanism.

i don't understand—how can something be perfect when it is tied to this? when it is descended from the man who believes the human instinct is to take, who conjured a labyrinth to trap the earth within? how can any lyctorhood be perfect or true, when even paul's example relies on death?

perfect lyctorhood was coined by mercymorn: the second saint to serve the king undying, lied to by john, and implicitly coerced into ascension via a suicide pact formed by cristabel and alfred. lyctorhood was conceived of as an emulation of john and alecto's bond. perfect lyctorhood is a perfect recreation of that—a lyctoral process that preserves the cavalier.

the perfect in perfect lyctorhood stands for putting your hands around the neck of the earth, choking on it, and then trapping it in a labyrinth hewn from your own blood, bone, and vomit.