#*did gender wrong*

[frogeyedape]

So, wow on the AFAB identifying as transfem discourse.

It's ironic how one of the objectors is like "yes I'm transfem but not a woman" is freaking out over a not-woman AFAB person using transfem too. Like...how is saying "I'm not a woman and I'm transfem" in any way saying "transfem means not fully a woman"? Transfem is inclusive of any trans people who self-identify as transfem, whether they're a transwoman who is a binary woman or a transwoman who is fluidly a nonbinary woman and nonbinary man or a transman who transes masculinity by making it more feminine or whatever

Being trans isn't about *what* your AGAB was. It's about whether your AGAB *changed*

The "trans" part's etymology: "word-forming element meaning "across, beyond, through, on the other side of; go beyond," from Latin trans (prep.) "across, over, beyond," perhaps originally present participle of a verb *trare-, meaning "to cross," from PIE *tra-, variant of root *tere- (2) "cross over, pass through, overcome" " from:

So say I'm AFAB. Assigned "girl." And what does girl mean? "A girl/woman can do/be anything" was a popular encouraging slogan in my youth, but it battled against all the misogyny of the time that put "girl" and "woman" in very tidy, small boxes. If I was assigned small-box-girl at birth and later stepped out of that box, across its boundary, might I not be transing my gender just a little? Still, I wasn't identifying as trans when I was a girl. I didn't know the word. [Tldr: i wasn't trans then cuz I didn't identify as trans then. Merely stepping outside of the small defining boxes of gender does not necessarily a trans person make.]

I was later Assigned Tomboy (hello secret 3rd cis gender where they still consider you a girl but like bad at being a girl)--Assigned Tomboy After Birth, shall we say ATAB? Does tomboy have one singular definition that encompasses all tomboys' experiences while excluding every non-tomboys' experiences? Is there a neat and tidy tomboy box that so many tomboys fall out of? I didn't fit in that concept either. [Tldr: my assigned gender changed before I even really started to grapple with what my actual gender identity was. Ain't that fucked? And no, I wasn't trans yet then, either]

I grew up, tried to step into the shoes of Woman, the adult version of my young Girl and Tomboy selves, and found Woman to be null and void. That's not me. And yet to be called Girl still when I am an adult is infuriating. I am not a child. Do not infantilize me. I am not now a girl. I am also not a woman. [Tldr: I was an AFAB person self identifying as not a woman. Still hadn't quite cottoned on to being trans, but it was definitely a part of the journey]

I rejected womanhood, studied gender and sex and bimodal distributions and decided fuck the binary and yeah fuck bimodal too, there's more than 2 ends the genders are spread between. [Tldr: I was officially calling myself trans. Just trans.]

My gender is largely null (agender), but also fluid (it irks me when I try on transfem clothing that my friends who think of me as not-a-woman see as kowtowing to cis feminity when I'm wearing a dress not as a cis woman but as a trans person who is acting unusually transfem--or, it's not unusual, I like pretty dresses, they just don't see it as much so they freak out. Just. I'm wearing the damn dress in a trans way, ok). I'm generally more masc leaning--butchy vibes without actually being butch. But I'm transfem sometimes, or just a little bit all the time, too. How is it transmisogyny to recognize the transness of my expressed femininity?

But I honestly think that's not the point of the objection. The objection is (using quotes here to represent speech, not actual direct quotes) "AFAB person calling themself transfem is transmisogyny because this not-woman is saying transfem [meaning transwoman] means 'not fully a woman.'" But. Transfem=/=transwoman. But the transfem [meaning transwoman] interpretation is like, beneath the conscious level of awareness, because it only applies to transfem *sometimes,* and the objector just...isn't seeing that. And is understandably upset at a perceived injustice. But like. It's pretty clear that there's a logical disconnect. And I think it's the implicit distinct definitions of transfem[feminine in a trans way but not necessarily a woman vs transfem[meaning transwoman] at work.

And I'd talk to the person directly but they've been receiving both well meaning and distinctly unfriendly feedback already and I don't want to add to the dogpile. I think we basically agree, even if the terminology is getting in the way: transfem belongs to trans people identifying as transfem, regardless of their current gender or AGAB. Trans that femininity! Yes!

[inkskinned]

so one of the things that's so horrifying about birth control is that you have to, like, navigate this incredibly personal choice about your body and yet also face the epitome of misogyny. like, someone in the comments will say it wasn't that bad for me, and you'll be utterly silenced. like, everyone treats birth control like something that's super dirty. like, you have no fucking information or control over this thing because certain powerful people find it icky.

first it was the oral contraceptives. you went on those young, mostly for reasons unrelated to birth control - even your dermatologist suggested them to control your acne. the list of side effects was longer than your arm, and you just stared at it, horrified.

it made you so mentally ill, but you just heard that this was adulthood. that, yes, there are of course side effects, what did you expect. one day you looked up yasmin makes me depressed because surely this was far too intense, and you discovered that over 12,000 lawsuits had been successfully filed against the brand. it remains commonly prescribed on the open market. you switched brands a few times before oral contraceptives stopped being in any way effective. your doctor just, like, shrugged and said you could try a different brand again.

and the thing is that you're a feminist. you know from your own experience that birth control can be lifesaving, and that even when used for birth control - it is necessary healthcare. you have seen it save so many people from such bad situations, yourself included. it is critical that any person has access to birth control, and you would never suggest that we just get rid of all of it.

you were a little skeeved out by the implant (heard too many bad stories about it) and figured - okay, iud. it was some of the worst pain you've ever fucking experienced, and you did it with a small number of tylenol in your system (3), like you were getting your bikini line waxed instead of something practically sewn into your body.

and what's wild is that because sometimes it isn't a painful insertion process, it is vanishingly rare to find a doctor that will actually numb the area. while your doctor was talking to you about which brand to choose, you were thinking about the other ways you've been injured in your life. you thought about how you had a suspicious mole frozen off - something so small and easy - and how they'd numbed a huge area. you thought about when you broke your wrist and didn't actually notice, because you'd thought it was a sprain.

your understanding of pain is that how the human body responds to injury doesn't always relate to the actual pain tolerance of the person - it's more about how lucky that person is physically. maybe they broke it in a perfect way. maybe they happened to get hurt in a place without a lot of nerve endings. some people can handle a broken femur but crumble under a sore tooth. there's no true way to predict how "much" something actually hurts.

in no other situation would it be appropriate for doctors to ignore pain. just because someone can break their wrist and not feel it doesn't mean no one should receive pain meds for a broken wrist. it just means that particular person was lucky about it. it should not define treatment.

in the comments of videos about IUDs, literally thousands of people report agony. blinding, nauseating, soul-crushing agony. they say things like i had 2 kids and this was the worst thing i ever experienced or i literally have a tattoo on my ribs and it felt like a tickle. this thing almost killed me or would rather run into traffic than ever feel that again.

so it's either true that every single person who reports severe pain is exaggerating. or it's true that it's far more likely you will experience pain, rather than "just a pinch." and yet - there's nothing fucking been done about it. it kind of feels like a shrug is layered on top of everything - since technically it's elective, isn't it kind of your fault for agreeing to select it? stop being fearmongering. stop being defensive.

you fucking needed yours. you are almost weirdly protective of it. yours was so important for your physical and mental health. it helped you off hormonal birth control and even started helping some of your symptoms. it still fucking hurt for no fucking reason.

once while recovering from surgery, they offered you like 15 days of vicodin. you only took 2 of them. you've been offered oxy for tonsillitis. you turned down opioids while recovering from your wisdom tooth extraction. everything else has the option. you fucking drove yourself home after it, shocked and quietly weeping, feeling like something very bad had just happened. the nurse that held your hand during the experience looked down at you, tears in her eyes, and said - i know. this is cruelty in action.

and it's fucked up because the conversation is never just "hey, so the way we are doing this is fucking barbaric and doctors should be required to offer serious pain meds" - it's usually something around the lines of "well, it didn't kill you, did it?"

you just found out that removing that little bitch will hurt just as bad. a little pinch like how oral contraceptives have "some" serious symptoms. like your life and pain are expendable or not really important. like maybe we are all hysterical about it?

hysteria comes from the latin word for uterus, which is great!

you stand here at a crossroads. like - this thing is so important. did they really have to make it so fucking dangerous. and why is it that if you make a complaint, you're told - i didn't even want you to have this in the first place. we're told be careful what you wish for. we're told that it's our fault for wanting something so illict; we could simply choose not to need medication. that maybe if we don't like the scraps, we should get ready to starve.

we have been saying for so long - "i'm not asking you to remove the option, i'm asking you to reconsider the risk." this entire time we hear: well, this is what you wanted, isn't it?

[luna-the-cretar]

What if…Marius makes a comment about how pretty Lethica’s ear jewelry is (bc idk what that thing on the tip of her ears are called), and wonders out loud if he could ever pull off jewelry like that, and Lethica offers to help him pierce his ears and give him some of her extra earrings and such. Perhaps nothing too feminine, but something elegant that fits his vibe.

Am I just saying this bc i decided to draw Marius in casual wear (bc there’s no way in the Nine Hells he’s sleeping in all that armor, even in his less bulky rose armor), and decided last minute to give him earrings that are vaguely similar to Lethica’s?

…mayhaps

[mothmanperson]

All-Knowing And All-Agony

days passed and you haven’t been out of your shared room almost at all, which luka, your roommate, pointed out annoyed, more than concerned.

you couldn’t help but notice the familiar glint of worry swimming somewhere beneath his cold, degrading eyes.

you grew up together after all.

the curtains where drawn and you reveled in the warm comforting bedding and blanket that draped over your body, finally keeping you warm instead of just being a cover like back then. there were many plush pillows and stuffed animals thrown about the bed and carpeted floor, the room in a manageable mess. a comfortable one, it felt lived in, warm.

not sterile, white or soft blue, that felt so harsh on your eyes.

you stared into nothing, the slight gap beneath your door let in light from the hallway. it has been hours.

your phone, apparently, was probably flooded with messages, mail, and notifications you couldn’t possibly keep up with, so you put it on silent and set it away.

your throat was dry, your last glass of water you drank last night, your lips probably chapped aswell. and you continued staring.

minutes passed, hours maybe, before the distinct noise of keys in a lock and a door opening and closing, muffled through your walls and doors, sounded around the flat.

there was some more silence, you were barely hearing some shuffling, and then footsteps, light and almost shaky feeling, you‘d compare it to a fawn, sneaking closer and closer to your door.

you then saw the shadows in the gap, and the door opened slightly. you couldn’t muster up the strength to look up, so you kept your eyes on the floor.

„you still haven’t left your bed?.“

luka hissed, his eyes narrowed as he stepped into the trashed room, the air was stale and the heater turned up way to high.

„you didn’t even clean up, can’t you do anything on your own now…“

he mocked and you could almost hear his eyebrows raise. he probably found you pathetic, he used to tell you that all the time at least, and right now? you honestly were.

to think you used to kill, to survive, and now you couldn’t even get out to piss.

there was just so much going on that didn’t make sense. people you thought were dead, now living and breathing, thriving, right infront of your eyes. anakt garden didn’t exist, now being a college of the arts, nor did the whole sing well or die thing that ruined your life and every one else’s.

luka kneeled down infront of you, and just as his eyebrows narrowed, his cold fingers grabbed your hair lifting up your head, it hurt, yes, but you found even the slightest touch of his ice cold fingers on your skin soothing, the yelling and screaming in your mind clearing out with alight breeze.

„you look so awful, really..“

the air of superiority that always surrounded him made him look down on you, and you gave him a lazy ghost of a smile.

„you don’t…have to look at me if you don’t want to, no ones forcing you…“

you said with a bit to much enthusiasm.

you were so happy he was finally free. his fingers weren’t as cold as they were before and he was slightly taller and had just a bit more healthy weight on his bones, not underfed anymore.

from what you gathered even his sickness was being treated, you were ecstatic, elated, worry falling off of your shoulders.

you didn’t know wether you were dreaming or nor, you hoped to someone you weren’t.

luka continued staring, and his eyes softened just for you, he huffed, scoffing quietly.

„aren’t you funny..“

he teased softly, his fingers running through your hair before ghosting along the side of your face and you closed your eyes, indulging in the sudden vulnerability of the other that you didn’t get to see often, especially with others around.

but right now it was just you and him, and suddenly, everything didn’t seem so complicated anymore, for now only you could exist on this stage, with him in the spotlight and you admiring.

„why must you worry me so…?“

he whispered and you swore you could hear angels sing through his voice, a choir of the divine grazing your ears even with the quietest words.

„i‘m sorry-“ you started absentmindedly but he interrupted you, snapping a sharp „don’t.“

he took a breath and his words weakened.

„just… don’t… we-… you will get through this..“

he bit back, and his tone left no room for disagreement.

and you couldn’t help but smile.

<<previous next>>

also on ao3

(the linking isn’t working rn, pls bear with me here)

[carlyraejepsans]

sorry, xtale did What with mew mew's gender

[alongtidesoflight]

so here's my honest thoughts on dragon age: the veilguard, after ~40 hours of playing. i finished the main quest after having finished all companion quests and major faction quests. just to clear up what content i saw, i played as an elven transmasc rook who is a member of the lords of fortune. he romanced lucanis (although after finishing the game i'm now leaning towards taash). i don't know what's happening in playthroughs that have a different race, gender identity, romance or faction going on.

full spoilers ahead, i mean it. don't read further if you want to avoid them. i don't want complaining about it in my asks.

oh and also, if you're worried because of a few negative reviews online i can comfort you by saying don't give a fuck about a certain big name youtuber who is very much tied to bethesda franchises giving this a negative review. i'll explain why.

i'm starting off with the things i liked

the game looks really pretty. i was worried it wouldn't feel like thedas anymore (with them trying to "focus on northern thedas only" i thought they'd make a clear cut in environmental design. they do and they don't. it's complicated. i'll elaborate on it when talking about the negative stuff). anyway it does. minrathous feels like kirkwall. treviso enchanted me like the winter palace did. the hossberg wetlands reminded me of the hinterlands and a couple other inquisition maps. arlathan looked like... arlathan. the crossroads were different, but familiar. overall i like the way it looks and feels. it's thedas, with a twist. it's a good one, and gives everything a solid but unique feel.

combat is top tier. if you're a hardcore dragon age player you WILL miss the tactical aspect of it for a bit, but i promise you, once you're used to the way the combat works, you will be lapping that shit up. and once you get to ability combos you'll mourn the control you used to have over your companions in battle a bit less

the MAIN quest and its story. i expected worse, way worse. and for a while the game even had me tricked (harr harr you'll get it in a second) it is Really That Much Worse. but holy shit was it good. i walked away satisfied ngl.

your choices have SOLID weight. there's consequences, good AND bad. i got minrathous blighted, ruled over by venatori, and the leader of the shadow dragons ultimately died because of my decisions. i made those at the beginning and throughout the game. he died at the end. DAVRIN died because i didn't expect what i was saying to have that much weight. i thought i was in the clear. he had hero status. well turns out, your choices can still get your companions killed even if you do everything right. i fucking love him. he shouldn't have made that sacrifice just because i told him to do everything it takes once.

the inquisitor, morrigan and dorian being there, surprisingly. there's also negatives to this though, see below.

speaking of companions dying and the inquisitor playing a bigger role: the final quest feels like me2's suicide mission. i was blown away by it and the fact that i got to see the results of all my efforts playing out in front of me.

bioware are NOT trying to redeem solas. they love him as a character yes, but i wasn't forced to see any good in him. he betrays you. he fucked my rook over twice. he fucked him over right back, for good this time (the veil wasn't torn down, i anchored it by binding him to it, he's doomed to uphold it). but solas really lives up to his name as the trickster elven god. rip to all the people who grew really attached to him over the years.

varric died. if you like him that's probably as hard reading it as it was watching it. varric died and the game lies about it until the very end. when the realisation hits, it hurts. but in the very best way.

the amount of care they put into gender expression and trans identities this time around. (i'll add onto this with negative points as well too).

rook feels very much ingrained in the world of thedas. he doesn't ask questions that expose the player to lore through dialogue as if he's stepped foot into thedas for the first time. those conversations feel very solid and good. i hope other faction players got as much joy out of this as i did.

and the things i didn't like and boy there's a lot unfortunately

the music. let's just get that out of the way holy shit. it doesn't feel like it belongs in this universe. it gets so incredibly sci-fi-y at times you'd think it's taken straight from mass effect andromeda. there's not a single song unique to veilguard that i really enjoyed. it broke my immersion, real bad. hearing a busker play the tavern songs from inquisition on a lute right after i killed some venatori with wobbly bass songs playing in the background is just odd. weird tonal shift. don't like it. it's made for people who like flashy light-weight cinema.

tevinter nights is required reading. the podcasts are required listening exercises. the game is so fast paced, especially at the start, that there's no time to introduce you to characters and how much weight their names carry in-game. i would not have known who half these people are if i hadn't skimmed over tevinter nights. i'd care even less about them than i already did. there is no time to get properly attached to them. people will act as if you're talking to a legend personified and you'll be thinking man goddamn which chapter of tevinter night were they in again and what did they do???

there's a weird mismatch with the animations. you'll have beautifully fluid ones, like emmrich casting spells. and then you'll have rook's face animating in the most unnatural manner that's sorta reminiscent of mass effect andromeda's "my face is tired" addison, when their emotions SHOULD be landing with the player rn instead.

i'm not vibing with the art style. sometimes it works. most of the time it doesn't. at points i felt like i was watching tangled.

that also brings me to some of the dialogue. same issue. i am watching frozen. i am watching tangled. someone on the writer's team really likes the adorkable trope. bellara is its victim.

for all the talk about identity, bioware sure doesn't like theirs. the grey warden armor got a redesign again and it just makes them look like a generic army. i hate it lol

in general, i don't like the armor design. the wardrobe/appearances system is fine, but it's just not helping if all the armors are just... kinda bland or downight bad looking? and don't get me started on the lords of fortune armor. that is orientalism personified.

the world states should have been carried over, full stop. i know they said they didn't because they want to separate what happens in the north from what happens in the south, which... i could have lived with that. but the inquisitor sends you letters that keep you up to date on... the south of thedas. you learn that there's a blight again, that people are standing strong but it's difficult, denerim's fallen, the rulers are taking care of it, orlais is fighting and they're successful for a while, etc etc. what's good bioware. i thought we don't care about the south this time around. why are you feeding me so much boring generic information. if you're not gonna show any of it and just write letters, then carrying the world state over should not have been an issue. i have a game dev background. those few lines of code would not have broken your budget or pushed your engine's limits. fuck right off.

this gripe of mine carries over to all the cameos. as a lord of fortune you have to deal with isabela a lot. it's fun. i missed her. you get to go drinking with her and taash and bellara! also my hawke romanced her. she's not mentioned once. they had the opportunity to put a sentence or two about her in there with not a lot of effort, trust me.

when varric dies, all she has is a single line about it. for gold, for fortune, for varric. she only says it if you interact with her on your way to the final push. that's not mandatory.

morrigan is there. kieran isn't. the old god soul that mythal and then solas absorbed? who cares at this point, the gods are dead now and solas is locked away for eternity. i suppose? why is morrigan there. she feels unneeded. i wish they'd just left her down south, at least that way i wouldn't have had to witness her god awful redesign.

dorian at least feels as if he belongs in this story. the shadow dragons are a crucial part to protecting minrathous. he's also weirdly underutilised. isabela and morrigan had more lines than him in my playthrough.

on the topic of romance: bro that was underwhelming. no, genuinely. you know when romance picked up a bit? after the point of no return. i heard maybe two lines of companion banter about it before that. maybe i missed something which i honestly doubt, but romance did not play much of a role in lucanis's storyline. i saved his grandmother as he wished me to (and if you read tevinter nights you know she was rather abusive and their relationship not the healthiest) and told him to focus on his family. a reunified family my rook wasn't even introduced to as a partner at the end of all that.

really, do not buy this game if you're only in it for the romances. others might be better, lucanis's basically gave me nothing. except for an outing (the second coffee date i had with him, it was getting repetitive) all of it played out once i committed to the final quest. the sex scene was a fade to black. annoyingly right after davrin died. if you're looking for well paced and good spice, pick up something else. the sweet talk and the final goodbye were nice though.

for all the good the ever-presence of gender identity does, it is brought up in such a disruptive manner too. it doesn't even play out naturally if you CHOOSE the lines that are meant to be said. hearing the words trans and non-binary in this setting doesn't feel right, and i'm saying this as a trans guy. i think it could have been handled more gracefully. the amount of times my rook went "i'm a MAN" as if he's about to start drumming on his chest and roaring any second now got super nerve-grating. "i'm so glad you're into me... the me who is trans. remember?" just. tell me one trans person who'd talk like that to a person they've grown close with and are trying to romance. this game doesn't handle sexuality well, so all this hey my body might not look like the way you're expecting it to look talk amounts to nothing anyway. i feel about this the way i feel about krem: this is partial exposition to trans experiences... packaged up for cis consumption. the ONLY exception to that is interacting with taash. holy shit was all of that heartwarming and bro did it feel good and natural to talk to them about theirs and rook's gender.

rivain and nevarra are new locations added by veilguard. they're also incredibly underwhelming, small and constricted maps. rivain is a coastline with a few ruins. the hall of valor is a partial ruin nestled into a cave on a beach, with a fighting pit. isabela is there in her skimpy outfit commentating your pit fights. that's it. i'm sorry if you were looking for a bustling pirate cove or whatever. you're not gonna get it. the nevarran crypts btw are a long ass dungeon crawl. that's it.

speaking of maps. i thought people were being dramatic when they said you're gonna be fighting the same enemies on them again and again. i thought they were figure of speeching it. they're not. you WILL fight the same amount of enemies. in the same spot. every time you reload the map. best to stay on a map and clear out the enemies and do as much questing on that map as you can before leaving, because you WILL have to do it all over again once you return.

the three choices i made for my inquisitor didn't matter lol she didn't have to face solas and therefore couldn't stop him at any cost as she had sworn (maybe because my rook tricked solas into binding himself to the veil, there was also an option to fight him. would she have stepped in? who knows). blackwall wasn't mentioned. and either her using a small amount of her forces in the final fight was the reason the civilians of minrathous fared so well..... or it just didn't matter. ultimately i think she had very little impact on anything

[workingforitallthetime]

I am BEGGING you to say more about Will and Mack in silence on the other side!! on my KNEES!

conveniently, i have 3.5K of will/mack that i could not resist expelling from my brain at the end of the google doc. grab a marshmallow stick and let me tell you a campfire story.

(this is very much an epilogue and is not going to make sense unless you've read silence on the other side. if you want the reward of mack/will you have to suffer through the mortifying ordeal of will/gabe/leno.)

Will could wait for Gabe to ask, but she’s done letting things happen to her. She packs a suitcase. She sits on the couch and waits. When she hears the sound of Gabe’s key in the door, she slips off her ring and clenches her fingers around it. The diamond digs into her palm as she rehearses the words in her head. I can’t get married. I’m sorry.

She texts her sister on the way to the airport, after the angry red dent fades. The pale strip around her ring finger is going to take longer, just like the mark on her neck. Can I stay with you for a couple of days?

Of course. Grace answers quick. Are you in Boston? Is everything ok?

Will’s not going to cry in the back of an Uber. Flight gets in at 10:30. And no. 

As the plane pulls away from the gate, she texts Ryan. I’m moving back to Boston. She should switch into airplane mode. Instead, she waits as they taxi.

The reply comes as the plane rounds the turn onto the runway, bright rows of lights blazing the path ahead. Didn’t know you were from Boston.

Will’s swiping her thumb over the text thread to delete it when one last message pops up. Thought it was West Philadelphia. She snorts in spite of herself, and lowers her thumb onto the red trash can before she can second-guess it. She’s not going to cry on a plane, either.

The night air when she emerges from the sliding doors at arrivals is still late-summer muggy. Grace picks her up at the airport, and Will gives her the briefest version. I told Gabe we’re not getting married. No, it wasn’t a mutual decision. No, I don’t know what it’s going to cost. No, I haven’t told mom and dad yet, I’ll do it tomorrow. No, don’t say anything in the bridesmaid group chat, I’ll do it tomorrow. 

The wheels of her suitcase are gritty on the floor of Grace’s apartment. She changes into pajama pants and an old St. Catherine’s t-shirt. She drinks a glass of water and racks the glass in Grace’s dishwasher. She sinks onto the couch, tipping her head back on top of the cushions.

“Oh my god.” Grace stops short at the edge of the room, peering at Will over the armload of bedding she’s bearing. “Did you break up with Gabe because he’s a vampire?”

Will touches the mark on her neck. It doesn’t feel like anything. If she hadn’t seen it in the mirror, she wouldn’t know it was there. “Wasn’t Gabe.”

Grace’s eyes bug out. I don’t want to talk about it, Will says, it’s not a thing. It’s not, like, the reason. It’s just something that happened. She takes the sheets from Grace and shakes them out and tucks herself into the couch. The streetlights outside cast thin stripes through the blinds and across the floor. She’s not going to cry into Grace’s fleece Patriots blanket.

The feeling in her stomach, hollow and sick, that settled in while she waited for Gabe to come home hasn’t gone away. It won’t go away for many days yet. Terrible days. Days of overhearing her mother on the phone apologizing to relatives about their nonrefundable flights. Days of trying to cancel wedding registries before she gets any more notifications about purchased gifts. Days of ignoring the voice messages from her parish priest, the one who was supposed to officiate. The absolute last person Will wants to talk to is a priest.

She goes back to the Midwest, feeling like a burglar in her own apartment as she packs up her things while Gabe is pointedly not home, driving her car along ugly interstates back to Massachusetts with her dad. Somewhere in Pennsylvania, while the road is empty in the beam of their headlights and they’re between episodes of a podcast about white collar crime, he tells her he’s proud of her. He knows it must have been a difficult decision. He trusts her to make the right choices. All Will can say past the lump in her throat is thank you. The tears trickle down the sides of her face in the dark.

She stays at her parents’ house. She writes thank-you notes that are mostly apologies. She goes to brunch with the friends who were supposed to be her bridesmaids, tells them it just didn’t feel right, I knew I’d regret it. None of them mention the cost of the bachelorette weekend last spring, but Will knows they’re all thinking it. When her mom asks, Will tells her she can pick up the dress if she wants. Will doesn’t want to see it. Every time she drives past the country club, the sick feeling in her stomach twists into a hard knot of shame.

On the September Saturday when Will was supposed to get married, Grace makes her go for a hike in New Hampshire. Golden leaves drift over the top of the low stone wall along the trail. At the top of the mountain, granite hills and colorful trees spread out below them. The lake in the valley sparkles in the autumn sunshine. They eat burgers at a roadside diner afterwards and drive back into Massachusetts after dusk, and then the day is over. It’s over, it’s done, it’s finally behind her, and now everything else is ahead.

She starts commuting into the office again. When coworkers ask, she tells them the Midwest didn’t work out. The engagement didn’t work out. After that, there aren’t any conversations about how unreliable she was last summer. She stays on top of her inbox, meets her deadlines early. Never misses a meeting. 

Boston’s not the same. Her old places are all Gabe’s old places too. Her friends are all Gabe’s friends. Most of them aren’t reaching out. Even the ones who are on her side seem confused by her. They don’t understand, because Will can’t imagine telling anyone the real story.

She thinks about going out. Thinks about getting on the apps. Trying to figure out… whatever it is she has to figure out. She can’t manage to pull the trigger. Someone could see her, recognize her.

Losing Boston, or at least the version of Boston she used to love, feels like another breakup. A separate grief just as painful as her grief for Gabe and everything their life was supposed to be. But Will ends it just as unflinchingly as she did her engagement. She finds a new job, something in finance or business or law in New York City, because that’s the place you’re supposed to go to start over.

The details of the job aren’t important. All that’s important is that it’s a job where beauty and breeding and ruthlessness are assets, and Will’s able to leverage all three to the hilt. Oh, and also it’s in an established industry where Rick Celebrini is a known and feared figure.

Will makes the connection pretty quickly when she’s introduced to her coworker Macklin. Mack is a half-step ahead of her at all times and it would be infuriating for Will, if she didn’t like him so much. Or if he didn’t like her so much. Everyone tells them they’re such a great team, hitting all their metrics, seizing opportunities, climbing the ladder together. Will sees in Mack a kind of internal steeliness that matches her own, which isn’t that surprising from someone who was raised by Rick.

Will’s kept cautious by the pervasive sense that she would fuck up anything she started with Mack. That’s what she does. She ruins things. She ruined everything with Gabe, and she’ll ruin anything she starts with another guy. And she really can’t afford to ruin anything with Rick Celebrini’s son. She’s found her niche in this industry, and getting on the wrong side of Rick would mean starting over, again.

So Will remains just as impervious as she can be. Even as she and Mack get closer and closer, and everyone in the firm starts to talk about them as a dynamic duo, and their rising stars are more and more closely linked together, she keeps everything strictly professional. Sometimes her eyes follow the lines of Mack’s three-piece suits not just to appreciate the tailoring, and as soon as she catches herself she looks the other way.

(She’s scared. Scared that nothing’s ever going to feel like it did with Ryan. Scared that nobody else is ever going to love her as much as Gabe did. She’s scared she doesn’t understand what she wants and that she’ll never figure it out. She’s scared there’s something fundamentally wrong with her and that’s why she hurts people. She’s scared that how much she likes Mack means she’s going to hurt him too. She’s scared and nobody knows it, least of all Will.)

Mack’s fascinated by her, and all the more fascinated because of the total blank of her personal life. When he tries to draw her out, he learns about growing up in Lexington, prep school and field hockey, going to BC. They talk about Boston, joke about their BC/BU rivalry, threaten to bet on the Beanpot. Will goes to office happy hours, is clever and engaging at client dinners. But she dodges all questions about what her life is like outside of work. Mack doesn’t know anything about her friends, doesn’t know whether she’s dating anybody, doesn’t even know whether she’s straight.

But Mack knows the connection’s there, and he’s going to keep trying. Picture those gifs from the 49ers game: Mack’s trying to get Will’s attention, and Will’s ignoring him, and Mack doesn’t even care. He’s willing to work for it. He wants to work for it. That’s how Rick raised him: how hard you work is the measure of how much you care.

One day Will rounds the corner by the elevators and walks into a knot of coworkers talking about some smart maneuver Mack pulled, something he talked over with Will in advance so she immediately recognizes a reference to a client or a contract term. “No dick, but he’s got plenty of balls,” says someone with their back to Will, and everyone who saw her come around the corner gets an awkward expression on their faces.

Will gives them the same look of icy disdain she uses to shut down people who call her Mack’s work wife. Someone says loudly that they’ve got a conference call starting in a few and the group hurriedly dissolves, except one office gossip who caught Will’s momentary confusion and has been simply dying for an excuse to have a conversation with her on this topic. She follows Will into the elevator. “Didn’t you know he’s trans?” she says as soon as he doors close. “It’s all very hush-hush, nobody ever says anything because Rick’s bitten a few heads off about it. I was there at an off-site when he literally yelled at someone about pronouns.”

(Just imagine Rick Celebrini when his kid announces he’s a boy. Okay, says Rick, not in so many words, if you’re a boy you’d better be the most boy you can be. What are you doing today to be a better boy? Mack’s grown up with Rick micromanaging his medical care and tailoring his punishing workouts to achieve some not entirely defined standard of masculinity and generally making Mack feel like he’s not working hard enough if he’s not at all times trying to be The Most Boy. Rick does not react kindly to anyone who suggests that Mack is anything other than his son… including and especially Mack, who is immediately reminded that he is All Boy, Only Boy if there’s ever any suggestion he might stray from Rick’s expectations of masculinity. Mack knows better than to say yes when the menswear stores he frequents suggest a pink shirt or a floral tie to go with one of those three-piece suits.)

Not that Will knows any of that. She dials the iciness a few degrees colder and hums the most neutral hmmm in her vocabulary until her coworker blessedly exits the elevator, disappointed by Will’s unsatisfying reaction.

Will lets the doors close. She punches the button for a different floor without looking at the display, aiming generally for something a long way away.

It’s just a surprise, that’s all. That’s why her heart’s racing, the unexpectedness of it. A confounding variable in the already tangled mess of Will trying to sort out her own identity. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t change anything on the long list of reasons why she needs to keep Mack firmly in valued colleague/work best friend territory.

It’s a chink in the wall, though. And a wall that’s already being subjected to Mack’s considerable efforts, as well as geologic forces beyond Will’s control, is going to crumble eventually.

It happens at the holiday party. Some swanky venue rented out for the night, marble pillars, parquet floors. Raw seafood on ice, top-shelf drinks. Towering centerpieces with pine boughs and crystals. Will, in her classy little black dress, doesn’t have a date, of course. Neither does Mack, in his black suit with some requisite element of lowkey corporate festive. A red plaid vest, a tie with tiny holly berries on it, something like that.

They circulate through cocktail hour like the pros they are, catching glimpses of each other through the crowd, always aware of where the other one is. Somebody’s seated them at the same table for dinner (Mack might have had something to do with this) and after a couple of glasses of champagne Will forgets that she ought to be making holiday-appropriate small talk with everyone else at the table and she starts doing what she actually wants to do, which is talk to Mack. Mack, with his blue eyes and soft hair and strong fingers tapping the base of his rocks glass, making Will feel like she’s at her witty, charming best. Basically, everyone else is Tyler Toffoli on the plane and Will and Mack are in their own little world.

They sneak sideways glances at each other during the speeches and toasts, silent acknowledgement of corporate inside jokes. Will doesn’t look at Mack when Rick’s got the spotlight, but she can feel him sitting up straighter next to her, a little bit of extra rigidity in his spine.

After dessert the table groups start to dissolve and word starts to spread among Mack and Will’s coworkers, the younger crowd, about where the afterparty’s headed. Mack catches Will at the edge of a conversation and says something low into her ear, just for her. Want to go someplace else?

Will does.

Mack takes her someplace loud and anonymous, with more drinks and a crowded dance floor. Will doesn’t shrug off Mack’s hand at the small of her back. They dance, closer and closer together, and Will’s eyes are shining, and when Mack finally kisses her Will kisses back like she’s drowning. 

I’m calling a car, Mack says, and Will doesn’t let go, too much adrenaline and champagne and desperation to think about whether this is theoretically a bad idea. It’s been so long since somebody she cares about has touched her. Mack’s apartment is quiet and tasteful and Will barely sees it. She doesn’t want Mack to be something that happens to her. If this is happening, she’s going to make it happen just as much as Mack is.

If I was going to write a sex scene here it would be about how the expectations of masculinity that Rick has imposed on Mack have taken root in Mack’s assumptions about how he ought to have sex, and how that does or doesn’t align with what Mack actually wants, and how all of that collides with what Will wants, which is to eat that boy’s pussy.

Will falls asleep with her head on Mack’s chest and wakes up with the enormity of it all setting in. This is big, this is huge, and nothing that happened last night alleviated the underlying fear that she’s going to fuck it all up.

Mack can practically feel the tension radiating across the sheets at him. He reaches for Will. “I don’t want this to be a one-off.”

This does not have the desired effect of Will relaxing into him. Heart sinking, Mack tries again. “It can be if you want, though.” The pinch in Will’s brows doesn’t go away. Mack scoots back so he’s not touching her. “Just so you know, that’s really not what I want.” In the absence of a response, Mack starts desperation-yapping. “I know there’s something here, and I think you do to, and last night felt…”

Will’s eyes are huge across the gap between their pillows. She has to say something. “I’m a bad bet,” is what comes out. “I break everything.”

“Are you saying that because you want me to walk away?” Mack’s hoping that’s a quick answer, but Will looks like she’s actually thinking about it, so he keeps talking. “Do you want me to walk away?”

Very quietly, against the pillow, Will admits it. No.

Mack exhales. “Like, I’m not gonna. It’ll have to be you.”

He grins, like this is a joke, and it infuriates Will because he doesn’t understand. It’s not funny. Will’s warning him that he’s going to get hurt and he’s laughing. “That’s what I’m worried about,” Will hisses through her gritted teeth.

“That you’ll break up with me?” Mack, incredulous. “I can take it. That’s not a reason not to, like, try.” He reaches for Will again and Will lets him. “I could change my mind and dump your ass too.”

Will gives him a scornful look at the suggestion that anyone could ever break up with her, and Mack cracks up because it’s such an extremely Will reaction. “Let’s just be good, okay?” Will lets herself be pulled into his arms. “Until you break up with me, and I’ll deal with it. We can be good for now, right?”

Will whispers it against his lips before she kisses him. So good.

Eventually they get up. Will picks through Mack’s collection of sweats and ends up in a Canucks hoodie and Lulu joggers because she refuses to wear anything that has BU on it. They get coffee, and while they’re drinking it at opposite ends of Mack’s couch with their feet tangled together in the middle, Mack says I think you should tell me more about what you said earlier. About breaking everything.

Will’s silent, turning the sleeve of her coffee around and around the cup. There’s no way to avoid it. Mack’s going to have to find out sometime, if they’re going to do this. And Will really, increasingly every second, wants them to do this. “I was engaged,” she says, watching Mack. She can practically see his mouth forming questions, but he waits. “Like two years… three years ago now. My college boyfriend. Gabe. We were together for seven years. We moved to [Midwest city].”

“You lived in [Midwest city]?” Macklin’s laughing. “I can’t even picture it.”

“I know, right?” Will briefly experiences the warm glow of being known before she gets back to business. “It didn’t work. I cheated on him.” Will takes a deep breath. “Like, a lot. Her name was Ryan.”

She watches for Mack’s reaction to the pronoun, but he just nods. When Will doesn’t say anything else, Mack asks, “What happened to her?”

“I don’t know.” Will used to think about googling, but there’s no place to start. Ryan. The dive bar. The city. That’s all she knows. “It wasn’t… like that.”

“What happened to Gabe?”

“I ended it.” Will doesn’t have to google Gabe. He pops up in suggested posts, in her friends’ tags. He has a new girlfriend. They got a puppy. “It was, like, not very long before the wedding,” she adds, just so Mack knows how awful she is. “It really, really sucked.” Will puts all of the anguish of that brutal September into each really.

Mack forms his next question carefully. “Did you break up with him because he was a guy, or because he wasn’t the right guy?” 

“I don’t know.” Will lifts her chin defiantly. It’s the most vulnerable thing she’s ever said. Here’s my fucked up situation. Here’s what you’re getting into. 

“What’s that mean for me?” Mack does not relate to identity crises, having had his own identity rigorously reinforced since adolescence (or so he thinks). “Being… the guy that I am.”

“Oh, are you trans? I hadn’t noticed,” Will says, like she didn’t have her tongue in his pussy ten hours earlier.

Mack laughs, and that’s enough vulnerability for two people who don’t like it and are going to have to figure that part out later. “We should have dinner next weekend, if you don’t break up with me before then.”

If I was not inherently resistant to established relationship fic, there would be a lot to explore here. Chiefly, I’m intrigued by what happens when Rick’s singleminded focus on Mack’s masculinity (and the not-necessarily-positive ways that Mack has internalized that), collide with Will’s attraction to Mack, which is not premised on masculinity. Will’s got to figure her own shit out somewhere along the way, but she’s at least pretty sure that 100 percent masculinity is not on her list of priorities in a partner. I think that Rick is immediately welcoming to Will, to a degree that’s almost curious, and Will and Mack slowly realize that in Rick’s eyes Mack’s earned some kind of manhood badge by bringing home a hot girlfriend. Also, as ever, there’s a plot to be made out of Rick treating Will like another Celebrini child who warrants Rick’s micromanaging, and Will figuring out how to resist that without alienating Rick, and along the way prompting some realizations for Mack about the ways in which his Sheriff Rick upbringing was maybe a little bit fucked up.

Anyway. Here’s how the story would end. Mack makes it a running joke about Will breaking up with him. What do you want to do for Valentines’ Day, if you don’t break up with me before then? At first it’s jarring, and then it’s a comfort, a little reassurance that Mack still likes her enough that he’s willing to risk it all going wrong. Yeah, I could do Thanksgiving in Lexington if you’re not going to break up with me… Do you want to come to Whistler with us this year, if you haven’t dumped me by then?... I’m going to book our flight for R.J.’s graduation weekend unless you want to break up first. And then, over time, it starts to become jarring again. We should move in together when your lease is up if you’re not going to break up with me.

“Stop saying that,” Will finally says. “I’m not going to.”

“You’re not going to break up with me?” Mack’s about to fist-pump over his long game paying off. “Like ever?”

“Like ever,” Will confirms, and Mack can’t get down on one knee fast enough.

[foenixed]

The "robot/alien learns how to love" trope is just aphobia btw.

[bogkeep]

[at the gender clinic trying to get diagnosed as a trans man] me: ... and i unironically think that fictional characters who wear leather longcoats and wide brimmed hats that are like, edgy loners and stuff are cool. i think this is pretty conclusive evidence that i'm a man

the doctor i'm talking to: mmm actually several of our patients that are currently detransitioning like leather longcoats, so this is worrisome

[maynardotheratman]

I support Will Graham’s right’s AND I support Will Graham’s wrongs

[whoslilafanart]

thinking about Lila's dysphoria again

[dorkycreature-89]

i feel like i fucked up

[icantmoveitmoveitanymore]

Trans femme(??) terukane..?????

Teru gives non binary vibes though like i can see it can you see it

[chamerionwrites]

Somewhat more controversially - beyond just well-written characters, I think a lot of people find themselves repeatedly drawn to particular Types of characters. And I think the frequency with which those types appear, and the particular flavor of those types, is often (unnecessarily!) gendered. (Sticking with the espionage theme: it’s pretty difficult to find clever, calculating, socially astute female spy characters whose tradecraft doesn’t hinge primarily or at least very heavily on their sex appeal). TL;DR even very well-written female characters are often (unnecessarily!!!) confined to a much more limited set of narrative roles and archetypes.

And while I’m definitely not saying this is something we should all just accept completely uncritically, I do think it’s a pretty undeniable factor in why a lot of people’s lists of favorite blorbos might be kinda dude-heavy.

[deeism]

was it ever established if dee & dennis slept in separate rooms or the same 1 growing up. bc in my head i like to think that despite their stupidly big house frank & barbara just shoved them both in the same room so theyd have more space to do wtv in the rest of the house. but im actually not sure if that contradicts canon in some way? i dont remember if it was ever mentioned

[starheirxero]

just so we're all aware i think the most delightful way to interpret sun's crush on roxanne was that roxy gave sun massive gender envy but she didn't know she was trans yet and so she mixed up the feeling of "i want to be her" as "i want to kiss her" instead 👍