#BUT for me personally they are 100% a couple

[simpjaes]

do you ever think jay would be able to handle a bratty person not even normal bratty literally bratty bratty also i love your fics and your writing your fr a bad bitch (sorryyy if that whole thing was weird shahushdbdhfjfi)

⸜(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )⸝♡

oh, yes. absolutely he would.

jay is so daddy to me but like, not in a mean dominate way. more like in a "i love her so much, i'll let her get away with anything even if I am expressing disappointment in her." kind of way. he would haaaaaaaate to see you cry, but sexually....a different story.

he's a very domestic daddy, and a service dom for sure. if you're being bratty, he's gonna give you some push back on what you want but just a couple of blinks from big glossy eyes is gonna have him buckling.

aside from that though, deep down he loves when you're bratty. he'd get a little possessive, maybe fuck a little rougher than usual because he does get annoyed and pissed off, but you can still feel all the love he has for you through all of it, and he'd also 100% do hella aftercare if he does happen to be a little more of a mean dom from time to time.

punishment for you is usually pushback while actively fucking [not giving you what you want], not giving you sex at all [he gets more mad bc you just get more bratty and start fucking yourself in front of him], restraining you and leaving you on the bed while he ignores you, etc.

MAN I JUST LOVE JAY. could talk about him all day with hearts in my eyes omg

[10yrratiolover]

My health is on the decline so have some more Ratio headcanons to make me feel better

He makes a detailed list when grocery shopping and he sticks to it pretty strictly, only deviating from it on very rare occasions

I kind of hate the headcanon that he has a boatload of ducks, mostly because it reminds me of the phenomenon that fandoms will dumb characters down to liking one thing bc it was mentioned/shown once

^ that being said, I do think he would have a couple, most were given to him as gag gifts but

Freakishly fast walker, he's got places to be

A mild case of RBF, he furrows his brows a lot and it makes him look like he's scowling

I don't think he needs glasses to see normally, but I think he'd wear reading glasses like the ones in his BP icon since he reads so often and doesn't want it straining his eyes

I think he'd go out of his way to avoid scheduling classes, lectures, tutoring, etc really early in the day. He needs a few hours minimum to enjoy some peace and quiet at the beginning and end of the day.

Based on his character introduction, I think he does suffer from some kind of chronic insomnia, he mostly struggles with getting to sleep since he finds it hard to turn his mind off

Night time is also when his stress levels increase, mostly since when he's lying down with so much less stimulus/things to think of he starts to wonder if he accomplished enough/anything that day or if it was wasted

I've seen people talk about him not caring about his own gender, and I 100% agree with that

He presents masc but he really doesn't care, he also doesn't think about it much because he's got other more important stuff to do

I think he'd be a gamer god at Minesweeper, definitely not projecting

He actually genuinely enjoys socializing, even with idiots at times, in cases where he has to stay home because he's sick or whatever he's genuinely miserable about it

Sort of based on my post about his eyes but I think he'd have pretty good vision in the dark, like not 100% clear vision but better than an average person

^ Doesn't turn on the lights of his house if it's nighttime and he's not doing anything important, if he needs a midnight glass of water he's just walking around in the pitch black

[badlywritingmagazine]

Wanna help a by-and-for transfem journal?

Wanna get involved?

Thank you everyone for your interest so far! If you have a sec, I’ve written a quick post about a few ways you can help. 

Lili Elbe, painted by Szív királynő, serving “journal reader” realness Do you have trans female mates?

Let your girl friends know. Share it amongst your networks. 

Can you read? 

Wonderful. Subscribe to this substack to be notified when an issue is released. 

Can you think?

If you’re a trans woman and you have feelings about something, send it to us. If you’re developing an idea, come chat with us over email (or arrange a phone call) and let’s figure it out together. 

Do you sell books and zines? 

Wonderful. Email me. Stock it. Perfect. I can also send you a poster version of our invitation to submit to print out. 

Have you written?

If you’re a trans woman who writes about things relevant to our lives, send it to me. If it is online and you worry that it won’t stay up forever, it’s affecting your job and life prospects, or that it is a reflection of its time and not 100% wise anymore, send it to me and get it archived. Archiving is part of the goal here. We’re not uncurated, but that doesn’t mean you should shrug and let the internet, time, transmisogyny and linkrot eat your hard work. 

If you’re a trans woman with jobs and obligations and you don’t like having your essay ‘Why dickgirls should commit more assassinations’ or ‘transgender materialism: towards a de/coterminous understanding of post tipping point transmisogyny’ or whatever attached to your name then send it to me and get it re/published under a pseudonym.

If we get a large number of submissions like this we will publish it as a separate supplement, but else it will come as a section within WBM.

Do you know grants?

Rates for unfunded zines and pamphlets suck. We want to pay the women well. Let us know if you know of funds or grants you think we fall under. We’ll be sending off applications. 

Can you help us host a launch party in a major city?

We envision low-cost evening events with discussion, trans women, and piles and piles of essays to talk about. (Can we crash on your couch?) We’re based in the UK, but are happy to come anywhere Ryanair goes where there’s a willing audience. 

Got an idea I don’t have? 

Ultimately, I want to keep this dirt simple. Essays come in, paper goes out. No columns, shite graphics. Couple core editors. Schedules loose enough to spend half the year depressed and still get it out. Stolen printer paper. Something that won’t collapse after two years. Posterity. 

That said, if you have an idea (and maybe if you want to do it), email us. Think you know enough people to get this translated and shipped somewhere else? Can you translate and know of a non-English language transfeminist text that’s not got much attention in the anglosphere? Maybe we can submit an application for a grant and distribute your translation? Understand distribution better than me? Do you have the wherewithal to manage a personals board? Something else? Anything except an agony aunt section. I’ve called dibs on that one. 

Do you have agonies? Issues? Want bad advice?

Write to the agony aunt. writingbadlymag snail symbol gmail dot com.

Do you have something to say which won't make a whole essay but is still worth saying?

Write a letter to the editor. Same email.

Addendum: Can you help us set up a website?

Websites we think are beautiful are dirt simple. Low-tech Magazine has a beautiful low-energy website. Filmmaker Margot McEwan has a lovely fitting website. Any thoughts or suggestions should be sent to the same email.

(update: we're all set now! Check out badly.press!)

See a good stack cutter?

If you see a cheap paper stack cutter for cheap, let me know. :)

Thanks all!

Forthcoming posts: information for writers, extracts from the issue.

[mesetacadre]

How do you avoid becoming a doomer with politics? I want to be more politically active but the current political climate makes me feel depressed.

talked more about this here but essentially, nothing is static. Conditions change all the time, the quantity of organized people can fall and rise (with parallel but not necessarily 1:1 development of quality). What today seems like an impassable wall, tomorrow (not literally tomorrow) will more and more began to be seen as a necessary step for an improvement to happen. The fact that there exists a scientific method of analysis of history and capitalism also acts as an accelerant; how much time passed between the first bourgeois state and the first formulation of scientific communism, 50 years? That is unprecedented in the history of modes of production, and it only took another 50-60 years after that before the first relatively permanent instance of the next mode of production.

The way I see this, inaction and pessimism feed into each other, pessimism favors inaction, and inaction reinforces pessimism, by limiting your perception because it limits personal experience. And that cycle can only be broken by first stopping that inaction, since it is possible (not always) to force yourself to act against your general feelings. And then, only by working against that inaction and finding an organization/party or general line of action that works for you, can you begin to sustain an action-optimism cycle (of course, it isn't this simple and I would not call my outlook to be optimistic, but this is the best way I can think of explaining this). This cycle is, in my experience, very fragile, and somewhat often I continue to act through periods of relative pessimism by inertia and by the continuance of the responsibilities that bind me to my party most strongly. I can keep talking about the way society and the economy evolve, but at a personal and more inmediate scale, this is the only way to avoid "doomerism", at some point you're going to have to start acting if you want to avoid it, and rethoric can help, of course, but you'll only start to internalize it once you experience becoming an active part of these mechanisms. For me, it sometimes feels like a hobby, other times like a chore, and most times like the best thing I could ever do with my life. But it's crucial that you're not only driven by blind hope. The amount of effort and time you can contribute as an individual will vary wildly, depending on your own personal circumstances, and in my experience the most common type of organized person you'll encounter is the one that can only really dedicate a few days a week or a couple of hours every few days.

There is some nuance to "you have to end your inaction" too, of course. I'm not saying to join the very first group you encounter and dedicate every minute of free time to it, but you also can't be waiting for the perfect opportunity or org to come along. I contacted my ML party on a Tuesday during a winter academic break, while I was only just beginning to stabilize out of a suicidal episode but still depressed, and while considering myself mostly an ancom (I was very lost in that regard, my beliefs were not truly emergent from any proper anarchist core, but I digress). You don't need to have read x books or need to have encyclopedic knowledge of your local movement to begin to organize yourself, and you also don't need to believe 100% in the emancipation of workers. The best time to begin is the next time you have some free time to research and begin to contact some orgs/parties, that's as best as I think I can put it. I can't assure you that it'll be straightforward, but I can assure you that you can't get out of doomerism just by thinking about it.

If it's too daunting, think about those executive dysfunction "tricks". Joining A Party can sound very big an unapproachable, but you can break it down into looking, for example, for "Communist Party of [your country]". Look at their socials, see what they do and say, maybe you find an offshoot org that looks better, or run into a completely unrelated group. Then you contact them, ask when they're doing something in your area or if they can invite you to some kind of meeting, etc. Be willing to contact them if you find a couple of drawbacks too, sometimes rumors turn into the thing everybody says about x or y org, without really reflecting reality. Have criteria, of course, if some org is talking about immigrants like they're invaders, for example, it is probably not worth your time. Everything depends on what your local scene looks like. Getting experience at a mediocre org is still better than staying at home and looking on at the state of the world like it's hopeless. this isn't a very well-structured post, I've been writing this across a few days when I can, I hope it's helpful

[callmearcturus]

redoing this ask because fuck that poll lmaoooo i have a persona question, IMO persona's romance system can sometimes fail when its clear the devs wanted one character to be the "canon" love interest for the overall story, but added in side romances to please fans (p2 with [spoiler redacted], p3 with aigis, and p4 with rise based on how much time is focused on their dynamic and bond) but i feel like P5 *intended* for Makoto to be the go-to romance option (especially with how she was handled in the anime) but Royal switched it to Akechi. Do you think that Persona should just stick with one romance option, have a small number of options that they develop, or have it be "every npc is an option" type deal. personally i think it depends on the game? but i feel as if P5 would have benefited from only having 5 romance options (Haru, Makoto, Akechi, Hifumi, and maybe Yusuke?)

Hmmmmm.

It's hard to consider this without also thinking about the other dating sim RPGs, i.e. Bioware. What's interesting there is that some of the romances felt intended (Liara in Mass Effect especially) but there were multiple really good options.

What I find interesting is how Persona and Bioware games handle the shared authorship of the characters. There's an entire Game Maker's Toolkit video about how the narrative designers had to design on a tightrope, keeping the cinematic nature of the story rolling but also making the player feel like they had a handle on the direction (even when the latter was mostly imagined).

Okay, here's two weird thoughts:

The wide array of Persona romances are pretty shallow and would benefit from a shift to much fewer romances that are far more fleshed out.

Akechi is so shocking and compelling because the comparative shallowness of the other romances, because he is a subversion of them.

To me, what makes Akechi the far-and-away best 'romance' of Persona 5 Royal is that he's not a romance 'option.' The player has very little agency over how Joker feels about Akechi. If you hit a couple of flags, then Joker is fucked up and in love with Akechi. That's just it. Maruki gives everyone what they want, and what Joker wants is Akechi.

The fact that Joker is a partially player-directed character that autonomously decides to be in love with Akechi is the secret sauce, imo. Ergo, if you improve the romances overall, you lose some of the specialness inherent in Akechi.

I had a LOT of problems with P5R's writing and especially its structure. I would remove Makoto entirely but for pacing issues, not for the strength of her writing. I'd cut a lot of cruft from the game.

I don't know if I would take away the gutpunch of Akechi though. Not for P5R. For other Persona games, 100% yes, I would. Narrow the scope of romances, maybe even stick just to party members so its easier to build a coherent, meaningful narrative with the love interest.

i hope some of that makes sense, i'm a bit sick and meandering today

[maddymoreau]

With every fiber of my being, I did NOT want to self ship with Grant. Which is funny considering in the game, against your will, he kidnaps you with the intention of the two of you being the best couple ever.

Grant Turner Discussion:

While I call him lame (lovingly) Grant is actually competent. He was in the army and does NOT miss his time there.

He's even dated before. In the Q&A he was asked, “Grant is POV the first person you have become this “interested” in?”

Grant: “No I've had two or three . . . vanilla relationships before POV but they didn't work out. Likely because they were not POV.”

Grant is 100% aware he's a creep, but in his own words, “Mmmm . . . That I am dear. But only for you.”

Despite that he doesn't consider himself a horrible person or threat.

He may have a sadistic side, but he doesn't want to hurt the player. After taking the knife from the player: "I really don't want to have to stab you. So come quietly and neither one of us have to do something we don't want to."

However, while he doesn't want to, he will do it to obtain his goal: "Just cause I don't want to, doesn't mean I won't. You're likely to be easier to handle if you're wounded."

Which is complete control over the player to do whatever he wants. To live the domestic fantasy he's imagined with them.

Grant: "I'm going to take real good care of you. You don't have to work anymore. Or do anything. All you have to do, is love me. There's nothing to be afraid of. I'm going to be real good to you."

He enjoys having power over the player.

He laughs at your terrified reaction when he cuts the power to your apartment. Even taunting you over the phone by asking, “What's the matter sweetheart? Don't like the dark?”

Grant is convinced he's in love with the player, but completely disregards their feelings or wishes.

He justifies any harm he does towards the player as consequences and punishment for fighting. He hates when you lie to him, do the rational thing like hang up the phone on him and expects the player to apologize for their “rude behavior”.

You just have to live up to his fantasies. That you're an easy person to talk to, sweet and don't have what it takes to stab someone. Depending on your choices in the game you can either confirm or deny this.

It's clear he desperately wants you to reciprocate his feelings. However, Grant is a dangerous man who mistakes obsession for love. He's an awful person whose actions I don't condone, but I do find interesting. Which is why I like expanding upon the story and the different ways things can play out.

[dangermousie]

He finds out Min didn't murder that couple after all.

This is insane! How do they have a serial killer and yet get me to somehow go "cheer him up someone, I feel terrible he's too down to murder."

Aaaaaa, Hyun!!!! I can't! The fact that he 100% means it! I get cheering your baby bro, but my god!

Ooooof!

That little smile...Hyun is the only person who ever loved Min unconditionally and will always love him that way.

Sniffling over serial killer family drama - leave me alone!

Oooooooof! But tellingly, Min did not kill him.

[diamondzart]

I get why people may insist that Fear and Anxiety have sibling vibes and not romantic ones but in that case THERE WOULDN’T BE A LITERAL “I CAN FIX HER” JOKE right in the movie, come on guys 😆

Look at the faces this mf makes while mentioning her?

I mean would they expect people to NOT ship it? I am dead sure they saw this coming. Too many hints, too many. They had test screenings with teenage girls of all people. They are real experts in stuff like this!

[cute-brainz]

freelancer + gavin

[b0nkedmehead]

*slams fists on table* I have so many head canons about Sam's style omggg

I personally see Sam as a diy thrift your clothes type of goth. Safety pins, studs/spikes,patches ect. Only buying from small ethical businesses every now and then, and her wardrobe is 100% curated over the years.

With a mix of her grandma's clothes in there as well because we love giving life to hand me downs👏

I just personally can't see her buying from big companies or fast fashion especially with how she is in the show.

These doodles are how i see her to start dressing in her college years and in the show i see her more as a baby bat tbh (that's just me tho)

I think she branches out a bit and gets more comfortable in making her style really fit her with experimenting (Romantic or Victorian goth Sam would be great)

I was kinda going for a mix of 90's goth/the craft/modern with the layers and mismatched thrifted clothes. I may have missed the mark but honestly i was just having fun putting her in outfits lol

[quirkle2]

first amv be nicies to me about it or else

[wickedwayofthings]

The spreading warmth of a freshly risen sun touching skin

[gros-chat-fait]

Spirits & Such Consultation, a.k.a a fake psychic and a bunch of actual psychics he adopts (most of whom are teenagers)

[red-elric]

dirk and jake broke up bc they jumped directly into dating when neither of them had ever had friends in real life before and therefore didnt know how to handle ANY kind of social interaction let alone a relationship, especially when their other two friends consisted of girl who also has never had friends in real life before and girl who has a vested fucking interest in the two of them not dating. and all of it was too much too fast for jake but instead of communicating that jake just withdrew completely and sat on his hands to try to make dirk deal w the problem. and dirk panicked and went deep into 'find things that jake is interested in' mode and took them on adventures like it was a job to try to keep jake interested but it didnt work bc what jake really wanted was space and time to adapt to interacting w people without so much pressure. but again jake wasnt telling dirk that just kinda vaguely sighing in his direction and hoping dirk would magically be able to figure out what jake wanted from him (which never wouldve worked bc again. dirk has never interacted w people irl before). and dirk didnt know what to do and AR was calling him a shitty person and shitty boyfriend for not knowing but really that was just a combo of ARs resentment towards dirk for creating him and dirks own self loathing doubled down on him so he convinced himself that the problem was all down to him. so he broke up w jake to protect him or some shit but that wasnt the real issue either so jake was convinced it was something he did. esp since dirk didnt really tell jake the real reasons he dumped him. and it was all a whole clusterfuck but it's not 'dirk was a shitty boyfriend' or 'jake was a shitty boyfriend' it's just 'they both needed some time to learn how to be real people first, can we get the beta kids and trolls involved to teach them some social skills please and ty' like I really do think theres hope for them in the future. just..... not right away

[fluffypotatey]

To be honest I am a huge Nalu shipper. But the thing is I want to know the difference between the way Natsu cares about his guildmates and Lucy. Like what is the obvious difference since that boy sees every as Nakama so how can we say that the wag he cares about Lucy is different?

Like even when Erza passed away? (All the way back in first season there was a segment where the guild was gathered at her grave and all) Natsu was still very reactive. Plus he was also said to be depressed even when Lisanna passed.

What's the difference between all of them and Lucy?

the fact that he stayed. the fact that before he met Lucy, Natsu wasn't one to stay in a group or even want to work with anyone besides Happy at the start of the story. hell, he was ready to just file Lucy down as "New Guildmate" once they reached Fairy Tail

but then, Lucy doesn't leave. she follows him on his mission to save Macao despite her not needing to or even really understanding everything about it. she stays and then fights with him and saves him. it's no secret that Natsu is strong and can take care of himself really well. he's been going on solo missions for years now, and no one has really stopped him, but that means he's been in a lot of sticky situations where he and Happy are on their own and have no backup. and yet, without asking, Lucy offers it

and i think this is the moment when Natsu considers that maybe it's okay to have someone there to have his back (sans Happy)

"but Natsu only needed Lucy for the next quest because of the requirements," well, Natsu also wouldn't have taken or even considered that quest if it weren't for Lucy, yeah? he was not a team player (in the picking job's sense) or really wanted other people to help him on his quests sans Happy. and then he goes and picks a job that caters to their team whilst ensuring that Lucy can't say no

or maybe i'm reading too much into it 🤷🏻‍♀️

or maybe Natsu's got horrible abandonment issues that he will latch onto people so fast (Igneel & Lisanna) but also cause him to distance himself so far when left behind (his 1st time at the guild, Lisanna's death). Erza and Gray are Natsu's closet friends after Lisanna and yet they cannot reach him when he closes himself off. and then we have Lucy, who stuck by and had his back, so who is to say Natsu didn't make some contingencies to ensure whether or not she'd join him?

but maybe it's the rose, colored ship glasses i have on

because yeah, Natsu cares for all of his guildmates. the power of friendship is his biggest motivator. when we meet Natsu, our first introductions of him is defending his guild's reputation from Bora (who was using it as a guise for human trafficking) and saving Macao. and our 1st big arc (Galuna Island), where Natsu adamantly refuses to allow Gray to use Ice Shell and sacrifice himself despite how antagonistic they've been to each other. we get Natsu 100% at Erza's defense throughout the Tower of Heaven and he is even ready to defend Wendy though they only met hours ago

Natsu is a character with a bleeding heart and cannot help but wear it on his sleeve, but we don't really see him allow others to fight his battles or have his back until Lucy comes in. to be honest, i don't even think he had his heart on his sleeve until Lucy. he still has a bleeding heart (i don't think anything could stop that), but he was not ready to be open in receiving company because he was so used to it being ripped away from him

that being said: of all the characters he interacts with, he finds Lucy to be someone compatible enough for him to start going on team missions and inviting her on them (for example, his 1st S-class mission, which he stole, he went to her house to show it to her. the fact that part of the reward was a celestial key might be a coincidence, but i wouldn't doubt it as Natsu and Happy's trump card in case she refused)

but yeah, the difference is that he stayed and didn't push her away at the beginning, but instead continued to invite her along with him to the point that doing a mission without Lucy wasn't his regular anymore. compared to the rest of the guild, of whom he spent most of his childhood with, even if he spoke to no one, they would still be around and talk to him anyway. he might not invite them on job and only challenge them to fights, but the guild is his home and a constant in his life, a constant he needs (bc heavy abandonment issues).

"okay, but he still pushed her away after he watched Igneel die right in front of him. and he left the guild for a whole year, too. so what's the difference there?" you may ask.

so 1) Natsu never thought the guild would disband. he returns to Fiore after a year and is the last to know that they disbanded. he assumed, like all the other times before and while he and others were sealed for 7 years, that Fairy Tail would still be there when he returned. he assumed that his disappearance would not impact so hard because the guild would still be around and Lucy would have the others with her

which, did not happen :)

and like, so many guild members go off on jobs, quests, or even just leave for an indiscriminate amount of time (which i, personally, believe was his rationality for leaving), so him being gone for a year was nothing! right? no harm, eh? his plan was never to be gone forever :))))

2) he just watched his father die and lose any chance of having some semblance of a long term reunion with Igneel. he literally lost one of his main driving motivations for getting stronger and taking jobs. before Fairy Tail, before anyone, it was Igneel. and to learn that a) Igneel was always with him to begin with and b) he only got to see him for less than a day after 14 years of nothing......i would feel lost too ngl

man's needed space from everybody. and he also needed comfort, but Natsu has been shown not to really be the character who asks to receive comfort (and when he does receive it, it's usually when he's already emotionally compromised). he is in the habit of shutting people out after being abandoned or losing someone close to him, with his next rationale being to "get stronger" in order to prevent what happened in the past to ever happen in the future.

anyway

what makes this different? well for one, he sent the letter only to Lucy (or it's implied since no one else is shown getting one) because of how the two spend most of their time together. even the line that goes with the panel makes it sound like Natsu is unsure on how the note will be received (maybe even hesitant? but that could be my own hopes)

and one of the 1st people he reunites with after a year is Lucy and we get such a similar parallel to the first chapter of Fairy Tail between the two as if the narrative itself is slotting them together to say "ah yes, now everything is back to normal and new journeys can begin"

but yeah, this is just a long way of saying, that Natsu does love his friends and guildmates but even when he is close to them, he kept to himself (and Happy) and sort of stayed in their orbit but always with some emotional distance because of his fear of abandonment. and then you have Lucy where he will stay for and allow her to orbit around him and he will invite to new adventures no questions asked

that's the difference

[polarmoon]

i wish i wasnt so particular with modding games. i want to finally commit to a stardew valley 1.6 playthrough but i struggle to find a balance between mods and vanilla... i feel similar with the sims, where mods make me feel kind of heavy while i'm playing, but i feel restricted without the customization options given with cc. at least with the sims though i'm used to it and know how to find a good balance

it's probably why i've always been able to commit more to stardew when i play it on switch instead, bc i don't even have the option to mod it so it's kind of out of sight out of mind. but then when i want to decorate my farm i end up feeling immense fomo over custom buildings and map reclolors and stuff :/ so then i start a playthough w mods on pc and never make it past summer y1 because i'm overwhelmed w options and updating mods and the like. it's frustrating lmao and then i just don't play at all and do other stuff w my free time instead