#I AM taking recs at this time

[chronologicalimplosion]

I get so frustrated by the fact that transmasc fic focuses so heavily on the same transition milestones (or on sex that doesn't feel meaningfully different from cis genderswap fic) and I just like. Do not know how to talk about it without sounding like a grumpy old man.

There are just SO MANY weird and specific parts of everyone's trans experience. I get so tired of the endless arguments about "happens to be trans" vs "about being trans" representation. It's not binary like that!! Pausing the narrative to mention that a character wears a binder, adding blorbo names to a textbook coming out, and fucking sloppy style are not the only options!!

I'm not mad that those fics exist, I want every scared trans teen who hasn't come out yet to have that safe haven on ao3, but also. Like.

Where are my trans fics about awkward packer slip-ups? About re-meeting someone who only knew you pre-transition? About travel difficulties and paperwork hell? About healthcare fuckups and deciding to come out to soften the "no" when you get invited to a pool party and picking your hobbies to avoid gendered spaces and the first time your voice cracks at the knitting circle? About gifts of clothes and learning to shave?

I want stories where the characters have specific trans struggles and joys that are unique to the circumstances of the rest of their lives. I want stories that are in medias trans, focusing on the middle bits and not just the big milestones of starting t/getting surgery/coming out. I want stories where trans people get help, even from people who aren't doing it perfectly, even from people they're not fucking or related to. Hell, I want more stories that actually engage with bottom dysphoria. I want comings-out that work the way real ones do, over multiple conversations to hash out the specifics of what "I'm trans" actually means for how you, specifically, want to be treated.

I want trans headcanons that feel the same way it does to BE trans: trans, and many other things that have nothing to do with being trans, simultaneously and inextricably. Trans stories that couldn't be told about any other character because they're grounded in the minutia of that specific character's life.

[thecoolerliauditore]

Could you talk about Scar and his relationships?

I don't. Think I can I'll be honest. Scar is one of the guys I fully admit I do not comprehend. I am not a Scar guy I cannot tell you anything about Scar that I know isn't completely wrong. I can try but this is like. yeah read at your own risk.

Him being incomprehensible to me actually, in a way, adds to my overall read of 3L. I think Grian, like me, doesn't understand Scar or his intentions and that adds so much to 3L's overall themes of trust. Scar's deadliness is both constantly overestimated and underestimated by those around him -- e.g. Martyn and Ren being on high alert about everything he does vs Scott slotting him into being Grian's soon-to-be-dead-husband like he does with himself and Jimmy or Cleo and Bdubs. He's treated as either like. a complete monster or a bumbling fool, neither of which he actually is.

Grian, over time, does get more of a sense of who Scar is (definitely at least more than the other players) but even then it's underlined with a distinct acknowledgement he doesn't Get Scar.

And I think, in a way, Scar also doesn't get Scar. He does things very impulsively and adapts into whatever character others have assigned him, but unlike Etho who adapts entirely, he distorts it to suit himself -- such as, before the siege of Dogwarts, he IS a threat but he's a threat because he's serving as a distraction for Grian, not because of any danger emitting from himself alone. Grian expects him to betray him, and he does, but for Grian's sake instead of his own.

I'm a big fan of Grian/Scar being parallels to Scott/Pearl so a lot of the same things apply -- Scar is a glitch in the matrix for Grian's survivalist attitude towards the game. Grian can't comprehend Scar, so he abandons him, leading to Scar donning a cloak and being villainized by the whole server while Grian sits back. It's no wonder then why he's one of the only ppl in DL who isn't ever afraid of Pearl and even helps her get back at Scott (the self harm metaphors that apply to Scott/Pearl also apply to DL Scar/Grian for me).

I'll be honest I routinely forget that the cheating b plot in DL existed idk why it's just the one part that keeps slipping my mind, but I don't really know how to interpret Scar being upset there because he's never read to me as particularly in love with Grian or performatively "married" like Impdubs or the Box Boys. I think it's like. Just being abandoned once again but. shrugs. I do think it's fun comparing how Scar reacts to Grian actually cheating on him vs what Scott and Cleo do at the start of the season.

Despite really liking the Clockers POV of Limlife I really don't have much to say about Scar's role in that. It felt to me as if the "loose canon" label he came with pretty much dictated how Cleo and Bdubs treated him. I also read the whole family thing as just them being silly and roleplaying so that might play some part in it.

Secret Life's finale is peak cinema to me I just feel like it bookends Scar's character so well. Letting go of the attachment to Grian, winning on his lonesome and both teaming up and fighting against Pearl, his parallel. It almost feels more like Scar overcoming himself than anything else. Also him not dying at the end is hilarious and so very on brand (I have a short animatic in my head but idk if the moments passed to make it at this point).

[a-dash-in-the-middle]

watching pantheon and feeling sick as i try to do my math practice instead of you know pacing around frantically

[tangledinink]

Okay okay look I was watching youtube and Shatter Me by Lindsey Stirling (ft. Lzzy Hale) came on and I just....... It's so Swannatello AU

OOOOHHHHHH IT'S GOOD... IT WORKS...

[dragonji]

mutuals im getting desperate have any of you read 2ha. what is the general consensus if so... is it worth the trigger warnings all over the nu reviews or am I better off sticking to my 'so obscure theres Maybe 4 pieces of fanart on here. if ur lucky' type series

[o-uncle-newt]

I read Possession by AS Byatt after people told me "if you liked Gaudy Night you'll like this" and WELL.

Warning- spoilers for both books abound below!

So it sounded great- as a lapsed academic (though not in the field of literature by any means) there's a part of me that loves reading about academia because it's full of such obsessive people, and this book seemed to be exactly that and so I was excited.

Then I read it, and on the one hand, my first thought was "all these people are dull as heck, the only sane modern-day one is Val, and at the end of the day the historical stuff is just two people having an affair, who cares." My second thought was "there's just enough stuff here that makes me think that maybe the author knows that all of this is stupid, like the fact that Val is obviously one of the few sane ones here." But the ending made me doubt even that. Essentially, and I say this even as that lapsed academic, the author could not convince me to care about the important things at stake here, and as a result couldn't get me to care about the people who only seemed to care about those things.

I didn't care about Ash and LaMotte- they came across as two people high on their own supply who had a tawdry affair. (And each of them is the less interesting person, as a person, than their official partner!) As a result of not caring about them, I couldn't POSSIBLY care about Roland, Maud, and the rest of their crew, because their only functions were to be possessed by, and weirdly possessive of, these two entirely unworthy individuals, whose in-universe historical and literary significance Byatt couldn't convince me of, and to use that possession as a mirror for their own very lame romance. Beyond that they're utterly uninteresting, and there isn't even meant to BE much beyond that so it's not that surprising.

Anyway, I didn't like this book much, but it still made me think a lot. And there's a way in which a certain kind of person might say "well if it made you think then that's surely a sign of some positive quality" and... maybe? I don't know. I didn't hate all of it, and some parts were interesting, and I do have a whole separate list of things about the book that bug me including a breakdown of some of the book's (perceived by me) themes that I particularly disliked lol. Perhaps I'll post it another time. So I guess you can say it spurred me to thought, but loads of things that I don't like do that, and the only positive thing that that draws from me is that they're not downright dull.

The thing is, after finishing the book I was immediately struck by that "if you like Gaudy Night..." element, because it has a situation that felt weirdly similar (if for totally different reasons)- a young scholar stealing a letter from a library/archive. The circumstances are different- in Gaudy Night, the scholar does it to hide its existence so as not to contradict his thesis, and in Possession, the scholar does it so as to explore the document further, though still secretly- but there are still some interesting parallels vis a vis class. Possession goes into the class thing more than Gaudy Night does, but neither book goes much into it- the scholar is lower-class and someone who has scraped their way to their position, and is encumbered by a female partner of lower social and academic standing, and in the end they are juxtaposed against scholars who come from an elevated class and who have more money and opportunity. In Gaudy Night, Arthur Robinson is judged by the likes of Lord Peter Wimsey and a college full of women who don't have to do anything but think, teach, write, and grade papers; in Possession, Roland has to convince a bunch of academics of standing and resources to take a chance on him (and while this is more about money than class, he's the main one who's like "maybe it's good if Lady Bailey gets her wheelchair"). Byatt elides over this at the end by having him magically become in demand and on his way to achieving his academic goals, but I think in both books, the class element really could have taken on more significance in the text.

(I'd add as well that Byatt pits the upper-class and moneyed Maud, who of course is doing things for "the right reasons," vs the evil American businessman who clearly... doesn't care about Ash enough? Despite how much he clearly and obviously cares about Ash? The book was way more interesting when he seemed like a valid rival to the British team, who only thought that they deserved the letters more because of their obsession, rather than how it turned out at the end where the American dude is an actual cartoon villain. What made him genuinely less worthy besides having money without class, and of course having the bad taste to be American? What makes one scholar's possession more justified? Sayers was never this unsubtle.)

So that made me think more about Possession vs Gaudy Night, and the thing is, there are actual living people in Gaudy Night! Say what you will about the unworldliness of the academics at Shrewsbury, but you get a very keen view of their personalities by the end, even as they are (by necessity given the rules of their world) subsumed by academia, or subsume themselves in it. And the people who do fall in love are REALLY in love, and you understand why...

And somehow a book from 1935 feels far more interrogative of the possession (or lack thereof) found in love and romance, and just about the place of women in academia and relationships overall, than one from the late 80s. In Gaudy Night, Harriet accepts Peter once she has determined that despite their power differential (brought on by class, money, history, and to a degree gender) he will not threaten her personhood, because he has proven himself to her. In Possession, Maud accepts Roland because she has the power (money, class, position, even height) and so Roland actually cannot threaten her- and yet still that final scene is about her being taken by him, basically to prove some kind of a point. In contrast, in Busman's Honeymoon, the euphemistic sex scenes are about Peter trying to please Harriet.

When I say it's to prove a point, I'm paraphrasing Byatt, incidentally- who said: "And in the case of Maud I had made it very inhibiting. She was a woman inhibited both by beauty (which actually isn't very good for very beautiful women because they feel it isn't really them people love) and she was also inhibited by Feminism, because she had all sorts of theories that perhaps she would be a more noble kind of woman if she was a lesbian. And so she was a bit stuck. And Roland was timid because I am naturally good at timid men. It's the kind of men I happen to like. He's a timid thinking man, so of course it took him the whole book." I mean... yikes, but also that explains a lot. Maud can only bring herself to be with a man who is weak/effeminate (?) enough to justify whatever weird psyche Byatt has imagined up for her, but still she needs to get over her inhibitions and under him because... reasons. I don't know.

(Height is also interesting here as a point of contrast- Byatt makes Maud taller than Roland to make a point about how on the one hand she retains the power but on the other hand there is now even more of her that has to surrender. Peter and Harriet are the same medium height and wear the same size gown.)

I think the thing that most stuns me is how regressive Possession feels when it comes to gender politics on relationships than Gaudy Night does. I'd need a whole other post to talk about this, but the theme of Possession seems to me to be "relationships that produce things (whether art or children) are worth more than ones that don't." Roland is better with Maud than with Val because Val is a second rate scholar who drags him down (while supporting him financially) and Ash is better with LaMotte than with Ellen because LaMotte didn't only inspire his writing (Ellen's contributions are described only in the negative "didn't impede"), she gave him the child that Ellen refused to. Incidentally, in both cases it's the man pursuing a relationship that will give HIM something... But, to paraphrase Peter in Busman's Honeymoon, one wouldn't want to regard relationships in that agricultural light. Gaudy Night is about how two people can produce great things without each other but choose to be with each other for their own, and each other's, happiness. They aren't each less apart, and as I noted in a prior post, they don't need to solve cases together or conjoin their work in order for their relationship to be worth something. It is worth it for them to be together because it encourages some kind of inner balance within them and between them, as people. They enjoy collaborating but that is by no means the basis of their love (and, incidentally, I think that a lot of, if not most, detective series romances fail this basic test of "would they have fallen in love if they were accountants who met on a dating app." Peter and Harriet definitely would have- would, say, Albert Campion and Amanda Fitton have? I do NOT think so).

And here's the thing- another reason why Byatt's quote above is so off-putting is that it makes it clear that not only in the text but on a meta level, the purpose of the relationships is to prove a Point. I found Roland and Maud to have zero chemistry, and honestly I was expecting them to get together 3/4 of the way through and split up at the end when it turned out they had nothing in common- it seemed like that kind of book. I was kind of stunned when they only got together at the end in an "it's meant to be" way because nothing about it seemed meant to be. They were stuck together by that one thing and they each apparently needed the relationship for some kind of self-actualization or historical rhyming or other. (Whatever I say about Ash and LaMotte... at least they seemed to like each other!)

Peter and Harriet... they get together because they love each other. Do they change over the course of Gaudy Night, and over the course of the other books they share together? Of course they do. But if it makes sense, I'll put it this way- Harriet doesn't accept Peter's proposal as proof that she got over her hangups, Harriet gets over her hangups so that she can accept Peter's proposal. Her hangups only matter because they were keeping her from this particular kind of happiness- she was a fully actualized person even with them. She is a person who does things for human reasons so that she can build a mutually happy life with the person she loves, not a little plot mannequin being moved around in order to tell the author's desired Message. People can say what they want about Gaudy Night and its flaws, but despite the intricacies of its construction, nobody can call the characters' actions and motivations anything but brutally human.

Whether within their universes or on a meta level, the books have SUCH different things to say about the value and nature of love, the place of and purpose of sex, the place of art and intellectual accomplishment in relationships, all of the above in the context of femininity… and I can't help but feel that each time, Gaudy Night wins the contest. It's possible I'm missing something major about Possession, and maybe sometime I'll post the rest of my notes about the things I disliked and people can tell me what I'm wrong about- but if nothing else it made me appreciate Gaudy Night even more, so for that I'm grateful.

[a9saga]

exo-cbx - horololo // the magic conch--horololololo!!!!

[twentyfivemiceinatrenchcoat]

friend i listened to “spring thief” by yorushika and it’s been on repeat for the past hour… please give other song recs by yorushika that you like 🫡 ALSO YOUR FIC WAS SO PRECIOUS AND THE SONG WORKED SO BEAUTIFULLY WITH YOUR WRITING/REALLY ENHANCED THE VIBE OMFG oh 2 live in an apartment w sashisu and get breakfast made daily by suguru <3 - @dollsuguru

KAIROOO MY ANGEL i still haven’t read ur rb of the fic (saving it as a treat for later today :3 hehe) BUT TYSM FOR READING AND FOR UR KIND WORDS ILYSM 🥺🥺🥺 with that being said ……..

WAHHHHH I’M SOOO OVERJOYED THAT U LISTENED TO THE SONG???? ISN’T IT AMAZING????? yorushika makes me fully insane they’re my favorite band Ever hhhhh i’m so glad u thought it added to the fic 😭😭 their songs are all super nostalgic and bittersweet and summery so they’re just . perfect for sashisu & stsg.. u asked for more recs so ofc i will deliver >:3

i genuinely don’t think there’s a single yorushika song that doesn’t hit so i have like 25873 favorites BUT here are some standouts….. some have mvs and others don’t but yorushika’s lyrics are genuinely so so beautiful and incredible so i’ll make sure the links take u somewhere u can read them <3

blooming in that summer

my absolute favorite <333 like, absolute favorite. it changed my life. i want to live in it. the lyrics are insane the instrumental is out of this world and the final chorus always always gets to me. i’ve cried listening to it bc it’s just so so good AND it’s also the most stsg song ever so i cry when i listen to it and think of them (someone made an animatic of stsg with this song that quite literally lives in my brain rent free u can find it here) <33

hachigatsu, bou, tsukiakari

another of my absolute absolute faves!! lyrics are so good i cried, instrumental is so good i cried, and the final chorus . makes me cry. notice how i’m already repeating myself bc literally all of these songs are incredible in every possible way aaa ALSO the singing 😵‍💫😵‍💫 esp at the end. there’s so much emotion in it and it makes me sick actually whewww

replicant

another absolute favorite :33 (i’m gonna be saying this for all of them i think but i mean it sincerely ok…) kairo this one makes me ill. it’s so gojo coded. it’s Him. the lyrics just remind me of him sm (they’re incredible btw the final line makes me batshit insane) AND THE INSTRUMENTAL??? might be my fave yorushika instrumental ngl don’t quote me on that tho 🙏🙏 just such a lovely summery song it smells like seasalt and tastes like clouds :3

kamisama no dance

AAAA ANOTHER ABSOLUTE FAVORITE kairo this one is getocoded. i knowwww you’ll understand. some of my favorite yorushika lyrics Ever and that’s saying a lot. it also has crazy lore bc it’s connected to this whole story being told in some of yorushika’s albums and :((( yeahhh. this one feels kairocoded to me but that might just be bc it’s so getocoded LMAO i have a feeling you’ll like it though!!

robber and bouquet

THIS ONE IS SOOO LOVELY the instrumental…. 😵‍💫😵‍💫 i love it sm. i’d say this one is kinda different from classic yorushika stuff but in a very good way!! also i’m legally obliged to inform u that this one is tojicoded as HELL i associate him w the lyrics so much…. also i adoreee the way suis sings in this one her voice is so gorgeous wowowow… the sense of fatigue…… so good

just a sunny day for you

A CLASSIC but for very good reasons . the mv is just gorgeous, the lyrics are stunning and the instrumental is sooo nostalgic and summery n bittersweet :((( just the best. sashisu coded also!!!

aaaand finally here’s their yt channel!! there are so many other songs i adore that i wanted to mention but i think these r enough for now 😭 oh but here’s also a yt channel that makes lyric videos for their songs in case u wanna find some more!! :3

[britcision]

Anyway in case anyone was wondering why I do firmly aver I did not get to DPxDC from DC and am not a DC fan despite having consumed all of the Harley Quinn and Suicide Squad runs up to 2018

(And have an exciting grab bag of shows, movies, and assorted trivia under my belt besides

Batman vs Dracula was fucking great fight me)

It’s because DC as a whole is hostile as fuck to the concept of being a casual fan

(And about 90% of the main heroes annoy the hell out of me for the very tropes that DC is known and praised for in their heroes I am here for villains, antiheroes, and sidekicks exclusively)

There is no such thing as consistent characterization, especially as you consume more content or fall down a rabbit hole, and the rabbit holes are ENDLESS

Everyone cameos everywhere else, referential jokes are often dropped in as Easter eggs for people who have read every single other DC comic put out in the same decade and yet within the same comics you get glaringly inconsistent characterization and different retcons for the same events

Big stories are retold and retconned every couple years, we got 3 separate Spiderman origin movies and the exact same Batman origin in more than half the live action movies; DC PAYS PEOPLE to make up their own different versions of canon events

There is a REASON that the Marvel and DC cinematic universes are both officially divorced from comic canon; the sheer volume of canon content is inaccessible to most of the population, and DC and Marvel know it

That’s why the New 52 was a big divorce from all previous canon too - it’s an on ramp for new fans, because sorting through the web of old content is off putting as fuck

It’s the one thing not a single DC fan I’ve spoken to who complained about “canon characterization” has bothered defending or even acknowledging, and yet it has been the core of all of their arguments:

“Canon is what I want it to be, not what any of the sources say”

And listen, I was a Torchwood fan, we were the archetypal example of “canon only happened if I acknowledge it” (so sad that show ended after only two seasons and nothing else ever happened again Children of Earth who), you just gotta acknowledge that that’s what you’re doing

But you frankly cannot have a serious conversation about canon characterization with someone who does not acknowledge entire swaths of canon and cannot understand why that makes their argument completely invalid

Any kind of conversation about the “right” characterization for a DC character necessarily has to involve the acknowledgement that it’s your personal preferred characterization, not a One True Canon, because I guarantee there are canon incidents for every single big name and most of the small ones that directly counter the ones you like

You may note I share a bunch of posts with things like “My Batman would never do this”, as opposed to “canon Batman would never do this”

Hell, on Batman specifically there are hundreds of beautifully put together posts talking about how the different canon runs get him wrong; I too prefer a Bruce Wayne who does genuinely care about his family and tries to protect them, but isn’t perfect or always right over the massive asshole elitist who just grunts and treats them like soldiers

Canon Batman slaps his kids around, it’s the meme that broke containment and you don’t have to like it or accept it as something your Batman would do!

But it’s still canon

Both versions have a massive well of canon support, and exist simultaneously in the multiverse

Every single characterization of a character is true and exists in the multiverse

And that is why the idea of a “canon version” of any DC character is utterly meaningless

TL;DR: write DC characters however the fuck you want and do not worry about it for more than 10 minutes together, that is what the paid DC writing staff do

There will be at least two pieces of canon media to back up whatever interpretation of the character you pick

Not everyone will like that characterization or agree with how you see the character, and that is all fine and good! But “canon” is meaningless in this context, neatly encapsulated by the “multiverse” explanation

Everything is canon, which means that nothing is canon

[wereh0gz]

Is my discomfort with my boobs gender dysphoria, body dysmorphia, or just a general discomfort with the sensations of having a human body that comes with possible neurodivergency

[danggirlronpa]

Do you have any wlw fanfic recommendations? Like, favorite fanfics that really explores the relationships/character, could be angsty, could be fluffy, could be toxic doomed yuri, could be any catagory of fics! Not just limited to couples, could be polycules too. You don't have to answer if you don't want to too btw! I just thought it would be interesting to see what your favorites were & I'm always looking for more wlw fics! <3

Anon, I truly do wish I had some recs to give you. But a funny story about looking for F/F fics,

[meili-sheep]

So I don't really like posting stuff like this because I don't like feeling as if I'm coming off as performative. But given the next fours years are gonna be, to understate, rough, for a lot of people I want to be absolutely 100% clear.

Humans rights are more important then economics. Full stop. Nothing more to say.

Gambling on human fucking rights for even a chance at lower egg prices, is appalling. And unfortunately I'm not really a forgiving person.

So with that said, this will always be a welcoming place for any marginalized group. Gather together. Drop those who don't see you. Keep learning. Buy physical books. Save your fanfics. Keeping going.

[quietwingsinthesky]

unfortunately i unironically enjoy stupid my little pony horror stories why am i like this

[e77y]

If anyone has book recommendations, pls lmk! I would love a series, maybe sci-fi or fantasy, with well-written characters and character dynamics/relationships :3 That is all I ask

I have an old list of recs from some of y’all mutuals (thank youuu <3) that I do still plan on reading, but I can’t find anything in my local libraries or bookstores 😭 I guess I could read online or go to a chain bookstore, buuuuut I really want to own a physical book that’s not too expensive. Maybe too much to ask… 😅

[hwanwooyoung]

hello hello I hope everyone is doing well ❤️‍🩹 I've missed you all!! 🥺💕

[batsplat]

qatar 2007 catalunya 2007 laguna 2008 prop on the latest paddock pass ep.... everyone picking casey/vale races as their 800cc picks iktr