#(growing up into the appropriate gendered role)

[fredricwertham]

"Parentification" is a developmental psych term. It alternately refers to the oldest version of the concept, an inversion of the parent-child dynamic whereby an adult puts their child in the role of their parent; a parent-child relationship where the parent treats their child like a spouse; and situations where a child is required to take on a parental role towards their siblings. What's uniform is that in each of these dynamics, the child assumes a level of responsibility for the well being of the family/family members that is beyond the scope of what's developmentally appropriate and that they do so persistently. Obviously, what qualifies as inappropriate changes as the kid grows up, eg. it's normal for a little kid to help out in the kitchen--but not to prepare a full meal. It's normal for a teenager to prepare a full meal--but not to be responsible for providing the family with food. So on and so forth.

"Eldest daughter syndrome" colloquially refers to the tendency for firstborn girls to be parentified, specifically in the sense of being deputized to care for siblings as a spare parent. It describes a trend that impacts female children disproportionately but isn't different from gender-neutral parentification on an individual level. Boys who have been parentified aren’t having a different experience, nor for that matter are girls who fall anywhere else in the birth order. The point is the frequency of the thing within the category, rather than its distinction therefrom: all squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares, because the squares are girls, and squares the most common type of quadrilateral with four right angles.

So "eldest daughter syndrome" automatically isn't applicable to Dick because it doesn’t make sense to count a guy towards a trend that has to do with women. He’d be a counter-example. Neither is being made to care for other children as a child, because the other kids didn't turn up until after he was an adult living independently in different city. His involvement with Tim and Damian was something he chose on his own terms.

The other two dynamics I mentioned have been incorporated into Dick’s Robin characterization for decades, though, as a corollary of the fact that he’s consistently portrayed as being more emotionally mature than Bruce as both a child and an adult. It doesn’t show up in every story about Dick as Robin, but it's common enough to be typical. I also don’t think that any of those arguments from when Dick was 18-19, and which depend on him being able to navigate Bruce’s interpersonal dysfunction and selfishness, are meant to imply that’s an aspect of their relationship that materialized at the stroke of midnight on Dick’s 18th birthday.

Anyways I apologize for the wall of text but this whole conversation has been bugging me lately. It seems to be polarizing into another happy Robin/angry Robin argument.

[mad-scientist-enthusiast]

Yor Forger- Character Analysis

I think Yor is such a fascinating character. For one, she has a very unique relationship with femininity. Growing up, Yor had to be "the strong one" and look after her brother in the absence of their parents, and this led her to becoming an assassin so she could provide for him. But even without the Garden, Yor has always been physically strong, blunt, and brutal. Her upbringing didn't allow for the same societal socialization as most girls her age had, which also plays a role here. Despite this, Yor makes a great effort to present as formal and as feminine as possible. And to her credit, she does hit all the hallmarks there. She dresses the right way, has a formal manner of speaking, works in a stereotypically feminine occupation as her day job, and goes out with her coworkers when invited; yet her coworkers, and presumably others still seem to know there is something inherently different about her.

In any other setting, this might be okay—an odd coworker is nothing to worry about—but SPY x FAMILY takes place during the Cold War. People are willing to turn even neighbors in to the Secret Police on just mere suspicion, and that's not even including those who make false reports just because they don't like someone. Yor's survival (or at least freedom) relies on her ability to perform femininity according to the standard, but even when she does everything right, she's still alienated from her peers. A lot of this has to do with language, as she tends to only be aware of syntactic and basic semantic context of words and phrases, instead of the pragmatic context used in Ostania. This was likely also a result of her upbringing. She's not only living a double life as an assassin, but also having to perform this femininity to such an extent is another mask she has to wear. Throwing the pretend marriage into the equation, you get an unrealistic amount of masks to juggle all at once.

Although I'd like to think she's able to take a few of them off when it's just her, Loid, and Anya. Outside of Yuri, Yor has felt that her strength and brutality are things to hide and be ashamed of, so it's a pleasant surprise when her new family immediately accepts and praises her for these things. Loid doesn't think there's anything untoward about her, and typically finds Yor's strength to be quite useful (and hot). And Anya looks up to Yor, wanting to be strong like her one day. This is one of many reasons why their family works so well. So much of her life is spent feeling inadequate for things she can't control while living in fear that someone might report her to the Secret Police, and yet now, with her new family, she is treated normally and with respect. She is able to live a fantasy she never thought she would be able to have with her social difficulties. 

I mention her communication struggles as part of her separation from accepted standards of femininity because the way that women talk and their ability to be socially savvy is inherently tied to their femininity. To me this reminds me of the gender disconnect many autistic people (like myself) feel when they are unable to perform their gender roles conventionally. Even strongly masking, it can feel like theres something so deeply wrong with you that everyone else seems to pick up, but you can't for the life of you identify what. Yor wants to perform femininity, as seen by her uniform with the Garden. She very easily could've gone for something more practical or comfortable, but instead chose an outfit that is seductive and feminine. But the issue comes into play when she's presented with different social contexts. She didn't connect that wearing a seductive dress would probably be inappropriate for getting drinks with her coworkers, because she doesn't realize what is and is not appropriate in the first place. 

Overall, I think this view of her character adds so much depth to her and is way more interesting than the "female himbo dommy mommy" box that the fandom tends to stick her in, to me. (No hate btw, to each their own).

[serpentface]

How do each of the characters relate to their own culturally-perceived level of attractiveness? Physical or otherwise

Ok here goes

Tigran is kind of outside of cultural dimensions of attractiveness as a eunuch and one who was castrated as a pre-pubescent child. He is immediately and obviously identifiable as a eunuch so is WAY outside both the 'attractive masculinity' and 'attractive beardless youth' realms. He's also identifiable as a Galenii priest via All That + having a shaved head + having the stretched/pierced ears + usually wearing their regalia, and they're generally assumed to be celibate anyway (this is actually only a requirement for monks). In broader terms, he's also neutral- nothing about his appearance would be distinctly regarded as ugly (aside from being considered 'too fat'), while nothing is particularly striking either.

He has Largely come to terms with his resulting place in the world and isn't too bothered by it (ABSOLUTELY has lingering traumas but they don't really play into anything about attractiveness). He doesn't have much of a sex drive and doesn't care all that much if people are into him or not. He's very self confident (maybe too much so) and has good self esteem, and all around wins the award for 'least tortured about appearance'.

---

Palo is more recently a eunuch and this occurred after he experienced typical masculinizing puberty, so his appearance is more within the sphere of attractiveness conventions.

He wholly falls into the 'non-woman conventionally appropriate for male attraction' category. He wouldn't Technically be considered a 'beardless youth' because being a eunuch makes him regarded as not male, but on all practical levels he fits this archetype- he's slender with a delicate build, narrow shoulders, very light body hair, no longer grows a beard, etc. This doesn't translate to him being actively pursued by men often (especially since his current status is Ascetic Monk) but he is Aware that he gets some attention.

He's got a very complicated relationship with All This. He'd always been attracted to the notion of 'effeminate' presentation, had feelings of jealousy towards akoshos. But his entrance into a de-gendered space was not a matter of complete personal choice. He's no longer considered 'male' but nothing about who he is internally magically changed with castration, and that in part makes him resistant to sort of taking advantage of the dropped expectations for masculinity. He's VERY nervous about taking the opportunity to change his behavior and presentations in ways that he wants to because the whole experience has been degrading and he's desperate to feel respected and respectable. This manifests in clinging onto elements of masculinity that he never Wanted and no longer Has To, and also being freaked out that a) he is now notably conventionally attractive to men, especially since his beard stopped growing and b) he Could fully get away with having sex with them if he wanted but c) as a eunuch, his sexual role is expected to be 'nonexistent/completely desexualized' and/or 'receiving partner for men'.

So he's caught in a conflict of wanting to retain his prior presentation and behavioral expectations in defiance of his new role while also wanting to take Advantage of his new role to be the ways he actually wants to be. All while being kinda fucking horrified about his exponentially increased 'attractive to men' status.

---

Janeys is among the most tortured in this aspect. By cultural convention, he's considered mildly ugly and slightly effeminate looking (which is played up by people who dislike him, including himself), the latter mainly for the lack of a beard.

He has a very distorted self image and thinks of himself as both STRIKINGLY ugly and obscenely effeminate in appearance. Thinks his eyes are weirdly spaced, when he puts on weight it accumulates into a potbelly which he thinks is hideous, thinks his dick is weirdly big (a bad thing) (it's above average but nothing crazy). Used to keep his hair longer and started cutting it shorter (but not TOO short) due to becoming convinced it made him indistinguishable from his sister. Etc He is in the MOST agony about not being able to grow a full beard. it comes in very patchy so he shaves his face down to the areas that grow in fairly consistently and shaves it down further than that to make it look even. Which in turn makes him think he looks like a male prostitute.

A lot of the effeminacy concerns are rooted in his physical history- was very small and sickly as a young child, went through puberty WAY late to the point of being suspected a 'natural eunuch' (having an intersex variation that prevents expected masculinizing puberty) for a while. His mother was very involved in trying to 'fix' this and was herself paranoid of him having 'effeminate' traits, which he internalized pretty severely. He's also full gay and his attraction to men exists wayyyyy outside of the bounds of the normative 'occasionally wanting to top Beardless Youths' which in of itself is understood as effeminacy and is horrifying to him.

He doesn't try to control his generalized 'ugliness' much and is much more focused on compensating for his supposed effeminacy by presenting as HARD masc, moreso than is culturally expected or than he would actually Like to (to be clear, he is possibly the world's most cisgender man, he would just be a lot more relaxed with it if he was comfortable with himself). Unfortunately for him this is specifically a kind of posh hard masc that looks silly to a lot of people.

---

Faiza is considered mildly ugly + a bit too physically masculine (stocky build, narrow hips, a strong and squarish jawline). Her status as an Odonii compels a degree of masculinized dress and frees her from a lot of expectations for conventional attractiveness and hard enforcement of beauty standards, but it's not like she doesn't Exist within the same society that has these standards.

She really doesn't want to be the object of anyone's sexual attraction to begin with and isn't all that torn up about being seen as a little ugly, but it's very important to her that she commands GENUINE, personal respect- not just automatic deference to her status. And part of that is presenting nicely by convention (she does not think about this as 'I have to conform to presentation conventions for people to like me' but rather 'A respectable person looks certain ways, it's natural that I should'). She does pretty extensive skincare, keeps her hair nicely braided at all times (usually rebraids it multiple times a day), and wears generally expected female dress when not required to be in full regalia. She sees herself as an obligate role model, leader, mediator, etc, and holds herself to very high standards to look and act the part.

Which does work pretty well, average outlook on her appearance is like 'yeah she's not exactly a looker but she's clearly very well-kept and respectable'.

---

Couya is generally considered Notably unattractive, in part due to uncontrollable physical traits considered masculine (narrow hips, hard jawline, broad shoulders, notably taller than average) and in part due to making absolutely zero efforts to 'compensate' in any capacity.

She doesn't mind this at all. For her it was like, oh there's no one who can actually make or compel me to keep my hair braided, do an hour of skincare every night, etc? And immediately dropped it. She actually kind of Loves that people think she's ugly because there's nothing anyone can do about it. She FLAUNTS it. It's kind of an extension of being proud of her status as an Odonii, it's like people can say whatever they want but the vast majority of the population still has to defer to her and behave with tremendous respect. She LOVES watching people who she knows damn well dislike her and think she's an unkempt hideous freak have to greet her with a deferential bow and full honorifics through gritted teeth.

There is a bit of self-imposed isolation to all this, she's SO used to feeling ostracized and having her status as Odonii be the One Thing that makes her matter, that she doesn't really recognize that there's some feelings of loneliness underneath it all. Her complete hostility to a lot of cultural standards in general and embrace of 'I'm freakish and ugly and half-empty but also better than you in a way that you HAVE to respect' is sort of a defense mechanism against hostility that she's learned to expect. She straight up has no fucking idea what to do when treated with like, tenderness by someone who isn't her sister, much less if someone actually finds her attractive.

---

Hibrides is considered VERY attractive, about as close to the cultural ideal of feminine beauty as possible. She's got the 'right' amount of body fat, genetics that give her fairly clear skin, wide hips and thighs, long eyelashes, dark hair, an arched nose, etc. The only majorly desired trait she doesn't have is wavy hair, but that's just a preferred feature rather than defining of beauty or ugliness.

She also thinks of herself as good looking, but really, really, really doesn't like people paying close attention to her. She's distinctly uncomfortable with people expressing attraction to her (which isn't just a facet of her sexuality, she's definitely MORE uncomfortable with men but it bothers her with women too). The sensation of being ogled makes her feel sick and she would rather just not be perceived at all.

She experiences a painful fine line as a Conventionally Attractive Woman In A Very Misogynist Culture where she's seen as a potential sex object and expected to be beautiful, but not TOO beautiful or sexy which would suggest being perverted and overly lustful. She feels the pressure to put a ton of effort into her appearance and also to make it look like No Effort Has Been Made At All. It's time consuming and stressful and makes her wish she could just be invisible instead sometimes.

A lot of this is reflected in her dress- she tends to wear more form and skin covering clothing than is conventionally deemed necessary (the low cut tops aren't an exception- breasts aren't commonly sexualized in this context, hiding her hips and legs is more important to her). This is partly tempered by class-based interests in wearing elaborate jewelry and decorated clothing as a status indicator, she likes fine clothing and certainly doesn't want to look like a dirty commoner, she just doesn't want attention paid to her beyond that.

---

Brakul is considered decently good looking by Wardi standards and notably handsome by his own. His appearance is effortlessly masc, he has a full beard and broad shoulders and solid muscling, he's notably tall (6'2'' where the average male height is around 5'6'') and that tends to be regarded positively. Him being on the fatter side is VERY attractive by his own cultural standards, where it's associated with hardiness and suggests the ability to sire or bear healthy children.

He's considered a little too fat by Wardi convention, the shaved head is considered very strange and is not conventionally attractive (and the facial tattoos also make him very visible as an ethnoreligious minority, and general Wardi consensus on tattooing is negative, but this isn't really about concerns of attractiveness). This isn't enough to radically change outlooks on his Appearance, the average take on him is going to be 'pretty good looking heathen'.

He's never been Skinny (genetics + had a more calorie rich diet growing up than most Wardi commoners of comparable means) but he used to be thinner, and notably put on weight after joining Janeys' household and gaining regular access to good food (and also alcohol). He's very pleased with this and kind of loves feeling like a fat spoiled housewife.

He has a few physical insecurities ('my dicks kinda small' 'I have a weird pointer toe' 'why is my beard a slightly different color than the rest of my hair' 'god my dog tattoo kind of looks like shit') but thinks of himself as good looking overall. Puts a fair amount of effort into his appearance and is proud of it. He really likes getting passive interested attention (including from women) but will rapidly shift gears into being mean and standoffish when actually hit on (which isn't Particularly frequent but he's a known bachelor so occasionally gets people shooting their shot). Overall he's in the 'untortured' category and pretty comfortable with himself and how he's perceived (at least when it comes to attractiveness).

[weirdmarioenemies]

Hey, MEN!

Aren't you sick of people telling you what to do?

Aren't you tired of blue-haired liberal's pushing their cultural agenda?

Telling you that all your hobbies are "toxic", and all your role models are 'problematic'?

Yuo know exactly what I'm talking about...

For too long, women have been trying to erase the CARTOON CAVEMAN tradition from American culture, and we've had Enough! When was the last time you saw a caveman video game, or a cartoon episode about a caveman being unfrozen in the modern day? If you did, I bet they tried to silence you for it!

What, because it's "politically appropriation?" Grow up! Even FLINT STONE doesn't have the cultural cache it used to! Is this the world you want your children's to grow up in? A world where they don't even know how to chase a T-Rex with a wooden club because their school's were more busy teaching them about GENDERS and TYPE MATCH UPS?

The data doesn't lie, but you'll never see this being covered on LAMEstream media!

So us MEN are supposed to just sit idly by, as all the brontosaurus leg/oversized meat-on-bone joints in OUR neighbourhoods are replaced by "vegan leaf restaurants"? And when the government comes to take the bone ornaments out of our hair, WHO are we supposed to turn to?

Here's a story I heard from Facebook: in 2024, a boy from Arizona dressed up in traditional American caveman garb for class, but his teacher, a purple haired woman, screamed "WHAT ARE YOU WEARING? I'VE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING SO OFFENSIVE!", and she beat him to death with her gender books, and buried him in kitty litter, and peed on it, and the courts ruled in her favour because the Judge was also a woman (purple haired).

This kind of thing is happening in our schools EVERY DAY, and you'll never hear anyone talk about it! Literally! If someone tries to talk about it, the goverment will use the remote control from Adam Sandler's Click to put them on mute. It's devastating.

THIS is the kind of thing our culture needs to return to! Just men being men, swinging on vines, fighting for girl's kiss reward. These days, girls wouldn't give kiss reward, and the vines would be replaced by. 5G....

THANKFULLY, WE AT WEIRD MARIO ENEMIES ARE FIGHTING BACK...... After our successful coup of the U.S. government, we're instituting a mandatory Underrepresented Grug Hiring (UGH) policy for all branches of our government, and for all private companies, too!

Once approved, this policy will ensure we can only hire authentic caveman, freshly unfrozen from solid blocks of ice, to work in every conceivable occupation and also have our babies, while the rest of us starve to death and rot away along with every other sin of modern industrialist society!

We're also bringing Homo neanderthalensis back from extinction! "Their back, baby!!"

Of course, you can expect us to go through a complete rebrand to match. From this day forwards, weirdmarioenemies will instead become 'weirdrocks.' And though we don't want to spoil anything, our new head writer Mod Zag has allowed for a special preview of our upcoming first post, right below the cut...!

Take it away, Mod Zag!

Name: rock

Debut:

ug.

it o.k

[plaidos]

Im a trans man who was on the outside circle of a friend group led by another trans man, there was one trans woman in the friend group, and she was dating the guy who kinda led the friend group. I didnt talk to her much, because i didnt talk to anyone there much due to bad experiences with the people in that group (tried to bring up stuff like experiencing dysphoria before I was out and got screamed at by the lead guy for “appropriating trans culture” and how i couldn’t use terms like gender envy to describe how i wanted to look exactly like a cis man youtuber i watched. He also shamed me for my interests which he deemed morally iredeemable (homestuck) before getting back into it himself, and then it was fine) but yeah i didnt talk to her much, and then suddenly i was dragged back into the friend group to do an intervention for the lead guy for a lot of insane things, and the tgirl was the one who asked me to help. When i was known as the only girl in the group, i was the group therapist and mom basically, i didnt want to be, and when i pulled away/came out as a trans man it seemed they replaced me with the tgirl as the group mom. And we started talking. And oh my god. Anything they did to me wa %1000 worse with her. She had to convince a grown as man that being homeless was not in fact a good fall back plan to not being able to find a roommate and no it wasnt easy. But nothing compares to the way she was treated by the main guy she was dating. The things she told me were so awful, she was basically his bangmaid abuse prisoner, he convinced her to move in with him, and then she had to do everything for him because he was “too depressed” he would sit at his computer all day cheating on her with other trans men while she cleaned his whole fucking house, and cooked, and got physically ill from all of the mold that he had let grow on things like dishes. He only really interacted with her when he needed comfort or sex. And he literally forbade her from doing anything sexual herself including masturbating without his permission because “it made him feel like she was like the pedo that groomed him when he was young” any kinks she had she was told were perverted and degenerate, she age regresses which he compared to pedophilia, it was so awful on literally every level, and he had convinced her she was so worthless and unloveable that when i told her she should leave him she said it was fine and they were working on it. It never got better and when they did break up he spread rumors that she had been raping him. She then dated another trans man who did the exact same thing down to the rape acussations when they broke up. And i was one of the only people who tried to convince her to break up with either of them initially, i was the only person who was the first to speak up. Apparently the other men in the group agreed with me they just didnt say anything till after i did then suddenly they were all agreeing. Shes doing better now and her self esteem is slowly recovering, she still talks to that friend group excluding her exes, i dont talk to any of them except her anymore. Anytime i see a trans man say they cant be misogynistic or transmisogynistic i kind of hate them for it. I was literally screamed at for trying to come out because then the group wouldnt have their “token cis girl” yes that was my title in the group, to dump their issues on. And as soon as i pulled away they replaced me with a woman they treated even worse just because she was trans and easy to beat down. Literally the only two women in the group and we were forced into the mom friend role. Its awful and i hate that people cannot acknowledge it happens. Trans men are not magically exempt from misogyny, and the ones who claim they are are lying to themselves and others so they can benefit from it. That first guy? The one who was so awful to both of us? Hes on tumblr and hes a pretty popular fanartist, he reblogs save trans women shit all the time, i hate him so much and i hate people who are compicit to the abuse trans women face, sorry for writing so much

don’t apologise, thanks for having the courage to share your experiences. it makes my heart sink how familiar this story is, the amount of people who have shared fundamentally identical experiences to this — the belief that trans men do not and cannot utilise male privilege above trans women (even in trans spaces) is without a doubt the reason so many are able to get away with this. i’ve heard this same story dozens of times; trans girl who is being physically & sexually abused by her (trans) boyfriend, regularly being raped, yelled at, often hit & abused in countless other ways who then turns around and says “actually she raped me” when she finally has the courage to break it off. And people believe them, because they believe that trans women are all rapists one bad day away from hurting everybody, but trans men are biological victims who can never do any wrong.

im sorry this happened to you. i hope your friend is in a much better situation now. ❤️

[blackbat05]

The Gall of HeR!

Evan Buckley x Reader (Gender not Specified)

Plot: You come back home feeling blue from work. Luckily, Buck is there to lend you some support.

Genre: PG-13

A/N: New character! Only started watching 9-1-1 last year but wasn’t in the best back then. It’s been such a huge support to get where I am today so it’s only appropriate to do this! Also I can’t deny this is based on actual experience recently so this is my way of therapy😂 In all seriousness, note to self to always fight for myself because no one will do it for me.

“Hey! I’m home!”

Buck pads out of the kitchen in his “kiss the cook apron” that Eddie gave him as a Christmas Present last year as a joke.

“How’s work?”

I sigh, putting my bag to one side before unceremoniously dumping myself on the couch. “It was good, and then it was bad. Do I make sense?” My nose crinkles in confusion and I at that point I wished that my brain would stop running at a hundred miles per hour. Though, a part of me really needed to vent my feelings in a safe space. Buck was my safe space.

“They approached me for a possible promotion at the Library.” I start and Buck’s eyes lit up. “Yeah, that was my reaction. Inside. I didn’t expect this at all.”

Buck comes to sit beside me on the couch, body angled to face me fully. I take a deep breath and proceeded to explain how I had to ground myself first, to hear more details from HR before committing to that decision.

“So, I had that first meeting with Esther and obviously I needed time to process right? I didn’t understand some points that were raised and I wanted to clarify with her what some things meant to I called a second meeting the next day.” I explained. “The second meeting goes fine. It mostly involved her clarifying my doubts. Then after the meeting, she sends me an email noting all the things we discussed, and guess what?” I find the rage in the pit of my stomach bubbling.

“She adds in the extra clause that initially, they thought of reverting me back into my original position if things didn’t work out. But after considering the company’s position, if I did not perform or if I decided not to continue, I would have to leave the company!” My voice gets higher with each passing second. Buck reaches out to grab my hand, a soothing reminder that I was not in the library reading that darned email but I was here, with him.

“And then, Esther had the gall to storm into the library and yell at me what I meant when I sent that email and now she’s in trouble with the higher ups! My fault? How is expressing my opinions in a professional manner my fault?”

I finish off telling Buck that I wasn’t afraid of taking on the challenge. But my biggest issue was only being informed of this only after my second meeting and when I bought up the possibility of not taking on the role to her.

“Wow.” Buck purses his lips. I look at him reproachfully.

“You think I’m acting up too.”

“No. I think you’re standing up for yourself. No matter what others may say or think. It’s good that you question everything that’s being presented to you least you be taken advantaged.”

“Even if it means they might pass me up on this because they think I’m such a prima donna?”

Buck laughs. “In all seriousness. There are more ways to grow than besides promotions at work. You’re growing as a person and that’s more important. Do what you want to do and always do it for yourself.”

You don’t know what you did to deserve this man in this lifetime. Someone who supported you no matter what. That’s what you really needed right now.

“Thanks Buck,” you threw yourself into him for a hug. “I think I really needed to hear that. After all those times of doubting myself, I really needed to hear it.”

“Hey, you know I’m always your biggest supporter. Now let’s go and have dinner. Bobby taught me how to make this lasagna and we are not about to let it get cold.”

“Gosh, what would I do without you?”

“You’ll never have to know.”

[suspiciouscatastrophe]

I was a girl

And I am one no longer.

"No, you were always a boy!"

Most likely, you're right - ontologically, dictated by the Choice I made once I finally had all the information about myself, once I knew myself, yes, I was a boy. I know myself as a man, therefore I had to be a boy when I was growing up.

But I still maintain that I was a girl, too.

Not in the existential sense. I didn't feel any intrinsic connection between myself and being a girl, after all.

When I say that I was one, I mean it in the exact same way as when I say I used to be a high school student. There was nothing in my being that would ontologically make me one. But I woke up every day and I played the role of a high school student, I put on clothes appropriate for the role, I went to the place I was supposed to go, I did the things I was supposed to do, and my surroundings classified me as one.

My identity as a girl functioned the same.

It did not shape me. It couldn't, it didn't have the power, it was skin deep.

But it did shape the way my surroundings interacted with me, which in turn, was one of the things that shaped me.

I am a man and I was a girl, yet I would hesitate to say I've experienced girlhood.

Girlhood is social. It's not about being a girl, it's about the way the world interacts with you, and it's about your place among other girls.

Growing up autistic, my childhood was too degendered to experience many of the milestones, the tell-tale signs of girlhood. I didn't qualify, because despite being socially recognized as a girl-child, however falsely, I was too alienated to cross the treshold.

I didn't have a boyhood either. I didn't qualify. Qualifying for a boyhood would've been possible, I believe, but it would've been harder in my case. I did not make it.

And I believe firmly that my transness plays a very little role in that. I believe that no matter your gender journey, you were technically eligible for girlhood or boyhood, and only your true lived experiences in your childhood, and your feelings about them, can determine whether you had it or not. Trans women could've had a girlhood. Trans men could've had a boyhood. Trans women could've had a boyhood. Trans men could've had a girlhood. Nonbinary people could've had either, both, or neither. Any binary trans person could've had neither, too.

I don't mourn not experiencing girlhood. I mourn not experiencing boyhood only a little, since it feels harder to be a man without ever getting to be a boy. But it's not a big deal to me. I don't think it should be that big deal to anyone, honestly. Boyhood is not a prerequisite for manhood, and girlhood is not a prerequisite for womanhood, just like the absence of either is not a prerequisite for being nonbinary. We are adults. We can build ourselves now.

[fatherfigurefusion]

Hot Take: I feel like people would like the protagonist switch in V3, if Kaede and Shuichi swapped genders.

I feel like the complaints towards this whole switch, primarily came from introducing and then fridging the otherwise novel and creative concept of a female Danganronpa protagonist with an outgoing and proactive personality (which ended up being her admittedly-creative downfall).

However, Shuichi, as a detective, is really the most appropriate character to explore the themes of truth and lies and see this whole killing game to the end.

So, why not get the best of both worlds, and make Shuichi the female protagonist we all deserve?

Throughout V3, Shuichi’s journey was supposed to play out a lot like a support character growing into the protagonist role, to the point of even having the talent of the OG support character. Why not turn this into the story of the “designated support waifu” character growing beyond her programming and becoming a strong protagonist of her own, after the third male protagonist ends up allegedly kicking the bucket?

[alicelufenia]

Having just reblogged this post, which was my contribution to a "FF14 Hyurs are not like typical fantasy humans" thread, I thought I'd follow up by reflecting on my oc Alice's incarnations both the Main Character Incarnate as a Warrior of Light, and the Main Character But That's a Bad Thing Dark Urge from Baldur's Gate 3, and how they're both reflections of where I'm at in life when they came to be. I'll be getting a little personal and speaking entirely as Kaylin, the person behind this blog, so without further delay, I wanna talk about how these seemingly so dissimilar characters remain one in the same to me.

I created Alice in March of 2021, having been playing ffxiv for a year and a half, and was sitting at end game for a full year. While I had the name since October 2019, my Warrior of Light remained a mostly featureless avatar. She was a Miqo'te, then an au ra, and when I finally decided to make her into a fully realized character, one who could embody the role of Warrior of Light but be unabashedly mine, was when I opted to use the last Fantasia I'd actually pop from that time to the present, to make my max sliders chest and muscles, highlander hyur with fiery red hair, freckles, and the pink and blue heterochromia that would be her signature going forward. I made Dark Knight her canon job, and have not seen the need to change a single thing about her.

She's strong, brave, cocksure and sassy, but found it difficult to connect with people, instead constantly striving to be the larger than life hero the world needed, but feeling empty without more personal and vulnerable connections. Small wonder come Endwalker that Zenos is the one to crack that shell, and she now thinks of herself as an adventurer first, hero a distant second, and finally letting herself get close to people, especially the scions who she has accepted as an extended family.

At this point in my life I was just beginning to pull myself out of a depressive spiral that had been festering for years behind my single-minded devotion to work. I had also been 2 years into my gender transition at this point, which made me feel empowered, but unsure of where to go next. I lost a lot of muscle mass due to hrt, and was afraid to try and build it back. I made Alice tall (taller than irl me), muscular, and trans like me, as if to show myself a woman can be feminine while boasting traditionally masculine features.

While a noble effort, it never really motivated me to buff up. Hell, before the pandemic I was considering joining a local HEMA chapter and learn fencing. After lockdown and starting transitioning, seeing the way trans athletes are crushed into dust and humiliated convinced me never to try. I still mourn the loss of a chapter of my life that could have been, but for which I saw, and still see, no hope.

Out comes a little game called Baldur's Gate 3, and I recast Alice anew, this time as a half wood-elf instead of full human, and a Paladin with Shadow Sorcerer levels; my interpretation at the time of a setting-appropriate Dark Knight in Faerûn. Her story wound up very different from the consistently heroic figure that was her ffxiv predecessor, falling in love with Minthara (directly mirroring my growing attraction to older women), becoming an Oathbreaker, struggling with heroism before retaking her oath in pursuit of her partner's ambitions, performing truly heroic feats, and in the end, following through with seizing that Absolute power. Except not really, cause the evil endings weren't added at the time, so concluding with saving the day with everyone getting their best outcomes for the most part. But next playthrough, I made her Dark Urge, and it was only then I felt her character was truly established, and now worse than before for everyone around her.

It's easy to look at both her 14 and bg3 versions and get the impression that they're nothing alike (their alignments are practically in opposition), and in their narratives you're correct; at the end of the day the Warrior of Light doesn't carry as much baggage as the Dark Urge. So was I just trying to be edgy as possible now?

By the time bg3 released, I was mostly finished with my transition, save one last step that would be the biggest decision of my life. By the time I made Alice into the Dark Urge and make her past the most ugly and self-destructive yet, I was already making plans for gender confirming surgery. It was a decision a long time coming, and that sense of dysphoria over not just your body, but what others allow you to do with it, features prominently in Alice's background now, her struggle against Bhaal being equally about resisting the Urge but also asserting her body autonomy. Unlike me, she doesn't have bottom dysphoria, but Bhaal interfering with her transition by making sure she'll be able to "breed many bhaalspawn" shows that all she's valued for is her birth assigned sex; literally, as she was formed wholecloth by Bhaal in his image, and has faught against that since childhood.

I've recently come home from the hospital, the great work I endeavored this whole year finally coming to a head. I got my operation, and I have never been happier. Even if it's the most pain I've been through in my 41 years, even though I had a real scare that I was going to bleed out, naked in a hospital bed, the remnants of my dysphoria finally managing to kill me after all, I endured because of a large team of nurses and surgeons working like hell, while my wife stayed by my side, and I kept up my smile.

Now ten days out from my surgery (a tenday, you might say :p) I'm home recovering, every day the swelling and bruising grows less, and I'm even experiencing real feeling again as the nerves wake up, and everything feels perfect down there. My world has been transformed via a blood sacrifice (literally, I needed 3 transfusions the first 4 days in the hospital) and one hell of a surgeon.

So, other than sharing this extremely personal story, how does it tie into Alice? For me it's a reminder that every version of her has reflected my current fears and self-doubts; that I'm not feminine enough, or too much of a shut in to make friends, or pining for an athletic achievement I lack the spirit to pursue, and right now the fear of being robbed of my chance to destroy my source of dysphoria in the near future unless I do something about it RIGHT NOW.

Given all I've achieved this year, despite how shit it was on a large scale, it's been one of if not the most important in my life. I'm finally getting closure with my transition, and still with months of recovery ahead.

What I also have now, is loads and loads of time at home doing nothing but resting and maintenance on my new body, and now with far less pain than before.

In short, reflecting on all of this, I'm finally ready to write my bg3 fanfic starring Alice the Dark Urge, her someday wife Minthara, and all the companions who stuck with them along the way. I know plenty of people who've been anticipating this. I'm dearly sorry my friends, but after working on myself, I am ready to fill your dms with wips, and someday sooner than later, a proper release of Glory and Shame, my current working title.

Please look forward to it.

@w-low @elissastillstands @trappedinafantasy37 @majorasnightmare this one's for you cuties, and anyone else who's shown interest but I've forgotten to include cause it's late and I should sleep lol

[shmowder]

Related to that recent post of yours you got any headcanons for how Daniil would be as a dad? Because I truly believe that man would be a good father…. Although he’s probably every teachers nightmare come to life, he also strikes as the type who wouldn’t have originally planned to have any children but the second he holds his kid for the first time he’s absolutely smitten and will tell anyone about his who listens about his kid.

In my heart I know that he's a girl dad.

Daniil, who doesn't care about the baby's gender during pregnancy, who always reminds people that he'll treat his child the same no matter what.

But oh, the second his daughter is born and he holds her in his arms. A whole new life just born into existence, started in front of his eyes, hearing her soft cry as he stood there in a trance.

Realising he's a father now.

It's like a switch immediately flipped. Paternal instincts kicking in.

This child might as well rival the sun in greatness in Dankovsky's eyes, She's genuinely all that's on his mind.

What he thought would be just a new responsibility on his shoulders, another milestone to cross off of the list of life goals before going back to his research and studies, completely turned his world upside down.

You know Daniil's tendency to litter his sentences with "I, me and my" to always talk about himself no matter the subject? Yeah, well, now he talks about his daughter instead.

"Oh your child started crawling, how...nice. Well MY daughter just took her first steps when my partner and I took her out to that new restaurant. Oh yes, I'm aware they don't allow kids, but she isn't just any kid. She is so well behaved and much smarter than her age, of course even the restaurant owner could see that and exempt her from the...common rules."

Daniil doesn't adhere to stereotypical parental roles either. He's taking his daughter to the nearest changing station even if it meant walking into the women's bathroom because the men's didn't have it.

He's the one to prepare her bottles with care, always test the warm water beforehand to ensure the temperature is appropriate, count the tablespoons of powdered milk he scoops, secure the cap and shake the bottle.

Keeping track of her feeding time, preparing her baths, and drying her throughly. Keeping her warm and safe as she drifts off to sleep before laying her back into her crib.

He doesn't "forget" or get lazy. He takes each of those responsibilities seriously no matter how much of his personal time is cut off because of it.

He's always boosting about how his daughter has no difficulty solving those kids' educational puzzles and how he started giving her adult puzzle to solve instead.

He's doting in his own way, spending time with her during playtime, letting her mess his hair and paint on the walls with no repercussions. Allowing her absolute freedom in self-expression.

Part of him especially enjoys the clothes shopping.

Dad Daniil who would rather set the store on fire than allow his child to wear something tacky or cheap, who takes his daughter to high-end brand stores to get her measurements taken so a tailor may design a one of a kind set for her. Putting extra care in styling her hair each morning, the hair accessories with actual gems and pearls, the neat tidy shoes and socks with ruffles. Daniil dresses her like his very own doll and basks in all the compliments other parents give her way each time they go out.

Each birthday is given it's due in importance and made into an event, sending invitations to his colleague doctors and researchers alike, taking pride in each cursive letter he inks as his daughter sits on his lap, eyeing his work with interest and sometimes adding an ink stain or two with her small fingers.

Daniil's study becomes her favourite place to play as she grows up. While Daniil would've chased any other rascal away who attempted to even touch his medical equipment, his daughter is treated like royality instead.

Part of him enjoys teaching. He lacks the patient, but his love for her overflows through his veins and makes him want to try harder and better himself, be more gentle.

This is why he's patient as he teaches her how to work a microscope, how to be careful with the cog as you turn it, and how to carry the glass slides with diligence.

And the look on her face as she marvels at the discovery that a whole new world of microscopic organisms exists just under her little thumb, it made Daniil feel as if all the suffering and hardships he went through just to get up to this point were completely worth it.

He infects her with his love for science. He reads to her fables and stories each night to raise her on good morals and grant her a noble soul.

His daughter quickly takes a hatred to lying as much as he does, she is never afraid to state her opinion neither is she reluctant to share her ideals and dreams, no matter how big she dreams, her father taught her that anything is possible if you work hard for it.

While they may have a falling out during teenagehood like any healthy parent and child relationship goes through, I think Daniil would still be her favourite parent even then.

He's the first to stomp to the private school if he even suspects anyone is giving her a hard time or a teacher is being unreasonable.

He's the one who has the period talk with her as a doctor. He reassures her this is all completely normal, and he'll offer her painkillers whenever it gets too much.

Dankovsky even has the sex talk with her later as she grows up. He would rather she stayed aware and informed than accidentally got herself into an unkown situation. He explains everything with the nonchalance of a medical professional rather than a father to not make things awkward for her.

That's why their relationship survives the rocky teenage years, because The Bachelor made sure to remain a stable figure in her life. To always be nearby to help but never be suffocating or judgmental.

His daughter is genuinely his life's work. He has put all of his efforts into giving her the best possible relationship with her parents, into letting her flourish into her own person and help her achieve her goals.

He's stiff with the kids' ingame, easily annoyed, and only humours their conversations if it's someone extremely polite like Capella.

Ingame, Daniil rarely mentions his family. You don't know what kind of parents he had, and judging by his university years of carrying a pistol around and even stealing samples to aid in his research when he hasn't earned the doctor title yet, it's not hard to figure out he may not have been close to his parents, let alone his father.

With their expectations set on him since a young age to become a "conqueror" and join the military, there is a big chance he came from a military family set in traditions. How his pursuit to become a healer rather than a fighter might have been deemed a sign of weakness by them, especially for a "man" at that time period.

Maybe they didn't view knowledge as an equal to power, a Bachelor's degree at that time period was the second highest degree you could ever get from a university. Daniil not only succeeded in his field but founded a while research lab, became nationwide famous, and made everyone who ever doubted him eat their words.

Powered by spite and the need to prove his parents wrong. That's why he's so insistent on doing the opposite as a parent, to show his child unconditional love and support no matter what their dream is.

Otherwise, he doesn't take them or their dreams seriously, much like his parents probably met his dreams to "defeat death" with scepticism and doubt.

If Daniil Dankovsky had a child, any child. He will always take them seriously, be their confidante, and never dissmiss their goals or passions as mere "kid's imagination" or a phase.

Even if his child didn't turn out smart or exceptional, even if they struggled with the most basics and were quite behind others their age.

Daniil would never belittle them or even suggest they should give up, he'd double his efforts to connect with them, to try different methods and teach them that no matter how unfair and cruel life is, you must keep trying.

[septembermonologues]

im realizing that while she absolutely didn't mean to my mom baked misandrist tendencies into me because she didn't put up with misogyny in the slightest from anyone and i only had sisters and my dad who is happy to be a "girl dad" growing up so we weren't forced into any gender roles and i just never had to deal with men really and now i don't have the patience for them if they even put a single toe out of my designated line of appropriate behavior

[notwiselybuttoowell]

For many on the right, beef is a hot-button issue.

The Canadian pop psychologist Jordan Peterson – who’s been called “custodian of the patriarchy” by the New Yorker – is an adherent of carnivore diets. Joe Rogan, more recently in the news for agreeing with the notorious misogynist Andrew Tate, has himself promoted “the Lion Diet”, a carnivore approach that eschews even dairy in favor of water, salt and meat from ruminant animals. This way of eating has been gaining traction on social media, where shirtless men proudly display their meals of steak, grassfed-cow butter and duck eggs.

That these men believe in prescribed gender roles and all-American tradition is no coincidence. “Recent scientific studies confirm that those of us who hold authoritarian beliefs … who seek wealth and power and support human dominance over nature, eat more meat than those who stand against inequality,” writes Marta Zaraska in her book Meathooked: The History and Science of Our 2.5-Million-Year Obsession with Meat.

For these men, performative meat eating is a demonstration of virility and restraint; of power and savagery.

These ideas are tied up in the history of beef, something most people in the US grow up believing is an inevitable and undeniable part of our diets, a birthright. This did not happen by accident, and cultural imperialism has played a part in the beef industry since its beginnings.

The cowboy, the enduring symbol of virility, affluence and rugged Americana, is himself a cattle farmer. Cowboys were responsible for herding cattle in the west from the early 1800s, when English-speaking ranchers adopted the customs of Mexico’s vaqueros, until mechanization took over by the early 20th century. Yet their place in mythology has only grown over time. The figure in US culture represents not just masculinity, control of livestock and the dominance of the west, but the very genocide upon which the nation was built – which can’t be looked at as separate from the role of meat and military strength in American ideology.

Settler colonialism, the term that describes the displacement of Indigenous peoples in favor of European settlers, was essential to the creation of the beef industry – as it was for many other beloved American institutions. Nineteenth-century government policy saw the Great Plains ecosystem turned from a grass-bison-nomad system to a grass-cattle-rancher one, with the Indian wars a necessary step in the establishment of the rancher mythos.

Bison herds were decimated by settlers who saw them as “monstrous”, while cattle represented civilization, according to Joshua Specht’s book Red Meat Republic: A Hoof-to-Table History of How Beef Changed America. “Cattle ranchers and bison hunters, supported by the US military, fundamentally reshaped the Great Plains,” writes Specht, “expelling American Indians from western lands and appropriating that land for use by white settlers and ranchers.”

Destroying bison herds was part of an attempt to starve Indigenous peoples into submission, as these were a significant part of their livelihoods, and the US army took on an active role in aiding and abetting this process. Without this process of extermination and colonization, beef’s emergence as a staple of the American diet might not have occurred so readily.

The idea that meat is as essential as air has been part of the American project since its inception. But the popularity of beef has been manufactured and created by cultural and market forces.

Beef’s modern market dominance was also manufactured. The meat industry’s marketing campaigns – including 80s and 90s advertising slogans such as “Beef. It’s What’s for Dinner”, spoken by strong male voices – have long been funded by commodity checkoff programs that are paid into by farmers, often to the benefit of massive manufacturers and the detriment of small ones. The federal government’s annual subsidies of meat and animal products amount to $38bn. Eating animal products for breakfast, lunch and dinner is overconsumption that would have been unthinkable to previous generations, and it has been driven by marketing and industrial farming.

The lure of beef is so strong that even as vegetarianism becomes slightly more popular, plant-based replacements do everything they can to look as much like bloody flesh as possible. Often, this seems to give them a free pass to flourish in meat-dominated spaces: the Impossible Burger, for example, launched with chef partnerships, working with people such as David Chang, a previously vocal anti-vegetarian. It is now on menus at Burger Kings, White Castles and Little Caesars.

“Our relationship to meat is powerful,” Zaraska writes in her book, which explores how meat has long been a status symbol – in gender, class and even nationalism. If you remove this symbol, you have to make up the difference somehow. When you’re no longer exerting power over animals, it helps to at least look like you could, and to eat food that resembles flesh.

In order to meet environmental targets, the US needs to eat drastically less beef than we are currently consuming. We also need to reverse global trends: many other countries are developing a taste for cheap cow and pork. Global meat consumption is expected to increase by 1.4% this year, which is more than the planet can handle. But as a society we are unable to tackle our meat consumption without acknowledging that beef is more than a foodstuff – when it means cowboys, masculinity and strength, when it is a literal cash cow for so many, when so many in the US are committed to its significance – and when even the newfangled substitutes are hooked on the old models of how meat should be sold and what it looks like.

[gravecleric0900]

Seraphima's Bio

It's finally here on the main blog!

Seraphima was my player character for an unfinished Curse of Strahd campaign. I decided to add her to the world of BG3 and make her experience in Barovia part of her lore (since the campaign was unfinished, I made up the rest of the story, making her the sole survivor of a failed expedition into Barovia). Like my other OC Mayhem, Seraphima is inspired by metal music; specifically, the Polish band Batushka. They sing in Church Slavonic and dress like Orthodox monks. The perfect vibe for a grave cleric.

Seraphima wears robes like Batushka, shown here:

Seraphima’s embroidered vestment/overlay would feature the symbol of Kelemvor (a skeletal hand holding a scale), holy verses/scripts and would also have winged Seraphim (her namesake).

I forgot what mod I’m using for her face here but it was the closest to how I envisioned her: kind of Sophie Turner-esque (ala Sansa Stark), with dark brown hair, gray eyes, and thick brows. I forgot to age her up a bit because by BG3 she’s about 28 or 29 but has gone through a LOT of stress so just imagine her with a few forehead lines and maybe a few gray hairs lol.

Also, a lot of what follows regarding the Kelemvorite religion is my own creation, as I believe it’s more realistic for religions to be localized so this differs a bit from the “official” Kelemvor clergy info we get from the Forgotten Realms. I.E. I love lore building and creating the background for a cleric character. There also isn’t Kelemvor worship in the region she’s from but it is known to be a very religious region so adding in another God makes sense. And finally, I use priest as a gender-neutral term here, as that’s just something we did in the Curse of Strahd campaign and I really liked it.

Anyways, onto the bio.

An abandoned infant was found at a Temple of Kelemvor in the Earthwood of Damara in Northeast Faerun. The priests at the Temple didn’t really know what to do, as they were not accustomed to having children around. The clergy of Kelemvor are respected but feared; they serve a necessary purpose, but in this region, there are folk beliefs that their presence precedes death (similar to banshees). Because of this, they tend to live in relative isolation, the exception being when their services are needed. Thus, there was nowhere else to bring the infant. They decided it must be the will of their God to raise the child. She was named Seraphima, for she was found on the Feast Day of the Seraphim. In the local belief, the Seraphim are fiery winged celestial beings that guard Kelemvor’s throne room in the City of Judgement.

The priests did their best, but they weren’t exactly equipped to raise a child. They ended up raising her as if she were a priest in training, albeit with a little extra patience. This meant she didn’t exactly get a “childhood” in the traditional sense. There were never any other kids around, so she never got to socialize with anyone her age. Any kids that visited the Temple were either there for a funeral service or were there to be buried. This had an effect on her ability to socialize as an adult; she tends to be morose and reserved, not easily opening up to others.

It also meant she underwent an education that was rather questionable in terms of age appropriateness. For example, clergy in training would spend a length of time sleeping in the crypts to become accustomed to death. Seraphima did this when she was around eight to ten years old…so, not great. She grew to like it though, the quiet and the solitude. As she got older, she would often go to the crypts to pray, as she felt closer to Kelemvor when surrounded by the dead. As she continued to grow, her religious education continued. She was taught the art of embalming and the basics of anatomy. In our campaign, I role-played her medical knowledge as stemming from her experience embalming, as in if she knows how to take out organs, she could probably piece someone back together lmao. So, she’s a little creepier/more unsettling than your average healer.

Being raised in a Temple also made her into a bit of a religious zealot. She’s very rigid in her faith, namely the edict that undeath is the greatest blasphemy against Kelemvor and that it is the duty of a priest of Kelemvor to destroy the undead. (This causes some serious problems with a certain pale elf once the plot of BG3 rolls around, which is being explored in a fic I’m writing.)

When she reached her early twenties, she decided to undergo a rite of passage that was sometimes undertaken by the priests of Kelemvor. She would leave the Temple and travel around for several years, providing religious and funerary services to those in need. The priests who raised her supported this idea, as she had little experience outside the temple and it would help her grow in her faith to see how other regions practiced last rites and burials and whatnot. So, with the blessing of her superiors, she left Damara and headed west. After a year or two on the road, she answered an ad for an adventuring party. A mysterious red fog had appeared in the woods, and her, a paladin, a druid, and a barbarian went to investigate.

What followed was a year of pure horror and terror, as Seraphima found herself trapped in Barovia, the land of the dreaded vampire lord Strahd von Zarovich.

The details of what occurred will also be explored in fic, some from the campaign and most made up by me since we never got to finish the campaign, but all you need to know for now is that she was left scarred physically and psychologically. She had made her first real friends, people she eventually considered family, and she lost them all in the most horrific ways possible. For reasons she will never understand, when she was the final one left, staring down the sword of Strahd, he let her go. Told her to run with a horrid, mocking laugh.

And run she did.

She ran from the vampire, into the woods, into the dreaded Barovian mist, crashing into trees and nearly tripping in her desperation to flee.

She ran and ran until she couldn’t run anymore.

And the mist was gone.

She was in a regular forest, and for the first time in almost a year she couldn’t feel the eyes of Strahd watching her; for the first time in almost a year she saw the sun as it started to rise in the distance.

And all she could do was fall to her knees and scream, unable to process what she had just endured.

It was at this point that a travelling group of Lathander’s clergy, clerics and paladins, heard her bloodcurdling screams.

They raced over to find a lone woman, covered in blood, robes torn, screaming incoherently. She was so out of it that she didn’t even notice their presence until one of them laid a hand on her shoulder. She frantically gripped them as all she could say was “He is the Ancient, He is the Land!”, over and over in a rushed, manic tone.

One of the clerics ends up casting Sleep because she is so panicked and delirious they are worried she will hurt herself. They decide to take this poor woman back to their monastery. Before they leave, they search the area, expecting to find some blood drenched murder scene but they find nothing. There is only her.

They travel for about three days to the monastery, and Seraphima sleeps the entire way, her body just giving out in exhaustion. When they reach the monastery one of the more senior priests recognizes her robes as that of a Kelemvor worshiper. However, she is a long way from Damara, so they can’t identify her exact sect/order/Temple. Eventually she wakes up, and they go to ask her for her name, and any details of what happened to her.

But she doesn’t speak. She won’t speak, not for at least another year. The priests and healers don’t push her, understanding that something absolutely horrific has happened to this woman and that this is how her mind is processing what happened. They heal her physical wounds, and let her live at the monastery with them, hoping she can find some comfort and healing in the Morninglord’s light.

There’s a small cemetery at the monastery, and she spends a lot of time there. Holding her prayer beads, or painstakingly repairing her torn and stained robes, even as her hands shake and tears form in her eyes.

Eventually, she reaches a point where she slowly starts to speak again. She still refuses to speak of what happened to her, what led her to the woods that fateful morning, but she is communicating. I’d imagine at this point she’d meet Nemo’s Dorothea. She eventually will open up to Dorothea but at first, she is extremely hesitant, not only at discussing what happened but at the prospect of getting close to someone at all; she’d made the first friends of her life only to lose them. Even when she opens up, she is still a very reserved person; she doesn’t share her feelings easily, very morose. (Though, part of that is how she’s always been, having grown up in a Temple of the God of the Dead…people skills aren’t her forte lol).

Over another year or two she gets better…somewhat. To a point where she’s not constantly haunted by her past. She still has nightmares but they’re not as often, not as vivid. She thinks she might be getting close to the point where she can just forget about everything that happened and move on (spoiler alert: repressing things generally doesn’t go well, but Seraphima hasn’t learned that yet).

Then she gets snatched up by Ilithids and infected with a mindflayer tadpole (BG3 theme starts playing dramatically).

And suddenly she’s once again in a life-or-death situation and while she tries hard to display herself as a functioning, collected individual she is stressing the fuck out on the inside. She is joined by new companions and when they meet a group of tiefling refugees she’s drawn to their leader, Zevlor. After defeating the goblin’s she spends all night speaking with him. They both feel that there’s something there but both refuse to acknowledge it; they’re two sad beans who think themselves too broken to be worth another’s time, and they’re both pining for each other lol.

Things are looking up.

AND THEN she finds out one of her new companions is a vampire and suddenly she’s back to square one; she’s that terrified, broken version of herself, the one that ran out of the woods that day. Everything she tried to repress is coming back to her. My fic will focus on this point in her journey but basically, she has an ongoing breakdown that reaches a tipping point right as her companions are about to go through the Gauntlet of Shar. By the end of the fic her and Astarion will have gained a kind of common understanding, and by the end of her journey they might even consider themselves friends (they’ll both deny it though lmao).

I’ve got some fics for what comes afterwards but spoiler her and Zevlor finally acknowledge the feelings and work through their issues together (they’ve both got so much guilt and sorrow and finally found someone who understands). I’ve got a whole happy epilogue/post-game life planned out for the two of them but for now I’ll save it for my fics.

So that's Seraphima :) the longfic about her and Astarion is almost done, so hopefully I'll be posting that soon!

[dianight]

Join me in the forcefem basement that adorns the fantasies of so many girls and indulge with me in this one, my very own.

As much as I enjoy that sort of fiction whether in doujins or silly posts, at the end of the day it's not realistic, as most fantasies are not. And this one won't be different. Because you see, in my hands I have a switch. Perhaps a button, a remote or a controller, whatever form you see most appropriate for it to have, that allows me to trans someone's gender. A click or push or press, and whoever I want will be now whatever gender I want.

Let us grab one of the worst men you'll ever meet, you know the one. Maybe there are several that come to mind, but today we are choosing only one. I recommend you pick the one you hate the most. Here, we throw him in the basement and we chain him to the radiator if that's your thing. And I'll let you press the button of course, you are the guest on this fantasy of ours. See how he now changes into a girl?

But not a magical change mind you, she gets to keep his current form but with that instinctual feeling, that knowledge (whether concious or not) that there is something wrong with the way her friends, family and society in general treats her, that the role assigned to him is not the right one. Because it isn't.

And here, in this utopic basement, let us help her realize the truth. Ignore all that shit about letting eggs figure it out for themselves and save her years of selfloathing, depression and alienation. Let us shower her with love and understanding. Let us explain to her what hrt is, how it works, how to acquire it and how administer it. Let us help her pick clothes that she likes (from this very convenient wardrobe that was here all along), grow her hair out and guide her into a better life.

Because at the end of the day being a woman is just simply better than being a man. You agree, I agree and she agrees. But not everything is perfect and we are not naive. So let us also get her some reading material on more serious matters. Let us make her understand how transphobia permeates society, that's why she felt so bad at the role assigned to her. Let us make her understand how misogyny shapes so much of what she sees on her day to day, how blind she was when she didn't know yet she was a woman. Let us prepare her as best as we can to navigate a world that would consider her lesser, show her how wrong that is and how she can love herself for who she truly is. And then.

You know what we do now? I'll let you do it, press it again. It's ok, you remember who she was, right? One of the worst men you'll ever meet. Press it. And look at him now: he now undertands what it is like to be a woman, what it's like to live as one, but he isn't one anymore. All sad and pathetic and crying and begging and pleading and worst of all, a man. We can go back upstairs, let's check what we can find to pass the time. Some board games or maybe some video games. Are you hungry? We can imagine a kitchen with a full fridge of anything you want and it will be there.

And after we spend a lo~ng time chilling and having fun, with the occasional scream coming from downstairs, we can go back to check on him. And look how miserable, a man now. Look how pitiful, having to remember the girl he isn't anymore. Look at his tears, you can hit him a bit if you want, just a slap or maybe a kick. Look at how he begs us to let him go back, laugh at him. Look at how he no longer has anything else to say, voice too cracked from screaming and wailing, his role now clear to him.

And you. Here you go. You know what it does. I'm going to go now. What you do with him is up to you, you can press it again or send him back like that. Or do whatever you want with him here, on this wonderful basement. My imagination doesn't go much further, now it's up to you.

[titleleaf]

'director's commentary' on any sex scene you've written that you consider particularly fraught/controversial?

You did not come to play tonight, my friend, and for that I thank you.

This is tough though because I write enough overtly terrible stuff — everything I write that’s more gnarly than like, gentle marital lovemaking is pretty dire — but what can be controversial in fandom is a wide net, so I’m going to go with most fraught/most upsetting for me, personally.

So: DVD commentary for “somebody’s sins but not mine” (Stranger Things, Billy Hargrove/Max Mayfield noncon) .

Content warning on the rest of this post for discussion of sexual assault/sexual abuse/sibling incest, underage (older teen/very young teen), physical abuse, misogyny. The fic is explicit (heed the warnings, seriously) but the discussion here is more general.

Obvious things up top — the title comes from the Patti Smith version of “Gloria”, ‘Jesus died for somebody’s sins, but not mine’. There’s legitimate line by line commentary on the song that digs into Smith’s thoughts and intentions with the lyric, which you can find here.

So much of Max’s s4 plotline is about shame, guilt, and being the opposite of free — grieving someone who hurt her very badly. She has so much to unpack by then.

The big throughline that jumps out at me here is all the very gendered bullying and verbal cruelty Billy uses toward Max — he uses the ancient abuser rhetoric of “teaching” her sexually, but he also frames it as teaching her to be a woman, to be sexually accessible and under his power. He really wants to break her down from any possible angle, and that makes this especially raw. From Billy’s side of things he’s very violently putting his attraction to her into terms he can understand, turning what should be a very fleeting confused thought in a confusing situation into something infinitely worse, but he’s also exorcising his anger at her independence and his own sense of powerlessness. Billy’s also young here, though certainly beyond old enough to be responsible for himself and to have there be a serious dynamic of power — to characters the Party’s age, he might as well be a full grown adult, but relative to actual adults he’s a shitty kid. I wanted to show how his aggressive embrace of a harsh and toxic model of 1980s masculinity is an overreaction to cover up his own experiences of abuse, being derided as weak and feminized, and to reframe the confusing experience of being desirable and desired even to adults in terms of his power over women. It’s not coincidental to me imo that his Big Moment of armor-piercing, monster-defeating humanity is in the context of his relationship with his mom and who he could have been if he’d escaped that trap of violent machismo/who he might be able to claw his way back to being again if he wasn’t getting fatally possessed by a Mind Flayer.

Billy’s a hot villain but I can’t get into fanworks that elide his bigotry and scariness. He’s pitiful but he’s also really fucking scary in a way that supernatural/otherworldly baddies can’t be to me.

Max’s confusion and resistance to being forced into this role of sexualized object is complicated by her own age-appropriate attraction to girls and similarly pretty normal interest around sex — those recollections and feelings are getting muddled together here and it was important to me to have that layer present. I love bi Max and her relationship to Eleven is so sweet and liberatory, so it’s important to me that her joyful presentation of “girly” stuff like fashion is so focused on self expression and being your own boss, which Eleven desperately needs both as a former institutional prisoner and a kid chafing to grow up under a pretty controlling father figure. (I really hated the whole “Hopper freaks out about Eleven doing teen stuff” plotline, and in addition to that her whole “escaped government captive” thing means that even his absolute best parenting has to be pretty restricted by circumstances.)

I had to do a bunch of reading about the interior of Billy’s stupid car — big ups to all the car nerds who have meticulously documented every car ever depicted on film — for another much more fun explicit fic and revisiting that for this one was a real “what the hell am I doing… I could be writing this same character getting railed on the hood of his Camaro by a consenting douchebag adult instead of viciously furthering the cycle of male violence by abusing his kid sister…”

I write a lot of villain/heroine dynamics but I don’t write a lot of sibling incest pairings and the sibling factor here makes everything sooooo much worse.

This fic is a fucking bummer! That’s my final word. Out of all the grim shit I’ve written this might be the grimmest.

[pitgritted]

⟐ inclinations / habits [  :  ]

is submissive | is dominant | prefers to top | prefers to bottom | likes to switch | identifies as heterosexual | identifies as homosexual | identifies as bisexual | identifies as pansexual | identifies as demisexual | identifies as asexual (gray) | enjoys sex with men | enjoys sex with women | enjoys sex with any sex / gender | enjoys sex with multiple people at once | initiates | waits for partner to initiate | spits | swallows | prefers sex in the morning | prefers sex at night | will have sex anytime | no sex drive | low sex drive | average sex drive | high sex drive | hypersexual | fluctuating sex drive

          ➤ sett doesn't directly associate himself with a " role " per say - but by perspective , he would be labeled a switch . given he's constantly in an environment whereas he's forced to portray aggression & power , the concept of ever being vulnerable is very rare . even scary for him to commit to being physically vulnerable , paranoid he's letting down his guard to be taken advantage of . physical love in general is a hard approach for him , or love itself really .

⟐ body / appearance [  :  ]

small build | medium build | athletic build | muscular build | curvy build | voluptuous build | wears boxers/comfortable underwear | wears briefs/panties | wears lingerie | goes ‘commando’ | shaves / waxes | manscapes | doesn’t shave / wax | 1 – 5" in length | 6 – 9″ in length | 10” or over in length

          ➤ let's just say when it comes to hair hygiene , sett falls under keeping up with it & not at the same time . because of his heritage , his hair grows faster than normal human males , as a result he's very hairy [  ;  ] everywhere . prominently around his pelvis , torso , & jaw . depends how busy he is , & if he allows it to grow out , it becomes more wavy & thick like a wolf's pelt . the hair on his head isn't immune to this either [  ;  ] long hair is a trait in his family .

⟐ sounds [  :  ]

is silent / makes little to no sounds | is very quiet | is very loud | grows in volume over time | bites hand / partner / pillow to muffle themselves | calls out partner’s name | curses | growls | fakes / exaggerates | prefers a quiet partner | prefers a loud / appropriately vocal partner | prefers a responsive partner | no preference towards partner’s volume | is turned on by dirty talk | is turned off by dirty talk

          ➤ depends really when it comes to vocally eliciting his sounds of pleasure . sett is very closed about his more intimate situations & insecurities rise up when he's being treated to feel good . his canines regularly click together when he's trying to stifle his noises , or his clamping his jaws down so hard , his claws rip the sheets into shreds . making any noise makes him feel like he's exposing himself .

⟐ turn ons [  :  ]

having their hands pinned | pinning their partner’s hands | having their hair pulled | pulling their partner’s hair | being watched ( by their partner ) | being watched ( by a third party ) | watching their partner | receiving oral | giving oral | calling their partner ‘daddy’ | being called ‘daddy’ | calling their partner ‘mommy’ | giving praise | receiving praise | biting / marking | being bitten / marked | spanking | being spanked | teasing | being teased | having toys used on them | using toys on their partner | giving anal | receiving anal | choking | being choked | dirty talk | being tied up | tying their partner up | being worshiped | worshiping their partner | humiliating | being humiliated | degrading | being degraded | being pegged | pegging their partner | being edged | edging

          ➤ i do believe sett likes to think he's open to experimentation , especially following the fact he has quite a bit of excess stamina from his heritage & bodily work outs . of course , it would boil down to massive trust at the end of the day .

tagging [  :  ] @windchaser