#I am cis but freaky with it

[unma]

Christians the type of people to say "There is no gender in the spirit," then become mad when I decide I'm agender for some reason. Bitch, ain't I a spirit too?

[i-steal-posts-for-pinterest]

i love small spaces

[anti-terf-posts]

I'm currently watching a YouTube video (link) by Matt Bernstein, a gay man. In the video, they have a guest speaker named Devon Price. The video goes over how "annoying" queers (TikTok enbies, James Charles dupes, autistic queers, neopronouns users, kinksters, etc) are not the reason why queer people don't have the same rights as non-queer people.

at around 4:40, Devon mentions a type of queer protest I've *never* heard of until now. It was called "The Annual Reminder", and it was run by cis white gay men. Essentially it was a reminder to non-queers that gay (gay not queer) men looked like everyone else. they would dress in formal suits and hold signs that reminded the non-queers that they look just like everyone else. and the outcome of these protests? nothing. these protests did NOTHING to help queer rights. It wasn't until stonewall and pride that people started waking up, and I am in shock. Literally how have I never heard about this until now. I feel like it's such an important part of queer history that just gets swept under the rug, and I have a feeling I know why.

The gays that try to erase the loud, flamboyant queers, are the same ones who want to hide the fact that conforming to what the non-queers want us to act like doesn't actually do anything. They want you to believe that hiding your queerness is the way to get our rights, and that THEY'RE the ones we have to thank for what rights we have, when that's just not true. Black trans women, "annoying" twinks, sex workers, people who use controversial labels, QUEERS are the reason why we aren't treated as badly as we were 50 years ago. Instead of bowing down to Blaire White or Arielle Scarcella, thank Sock who listens to My Chemical Romance and uses star/starself pronouns for being openly freaky and queer, because stars the one who is *really* doing good for the community.

[officialspec]

can you pleeeeease post your dm sexuality/gender hcs on here.... 🥺 i don't have a twitter but i wanna know. it's like a pandora's box to me now i'm like scratching at the door. let me in

heres the link 2 the thread (mild spoilers btw) ill post a transcript under the cut for ppl who dont have twitter

first off i think laios relationship to sex is super removed for like 50 reasons without even getting into his actual sexuality

he grew up in a place with very repressed ideas about sex and has a lot of fear about asserting his presence in situations

his special interest takes precedent over any social interactions he has and the level of closeness he feels towards people

he has a hard time figuring out his feelings towards other people both bc hes autistic and bc he has freaky deviantart fetishes that make sex in his mind a very abstract concept <- this one is me projecting mostly

that aside, i feel like gender-wise hes attracted to ppl so infrequently it may as well be entirely case-by-case

the idea of him being gay appeals to me from the 'raised with traditional values he Does Not fit into/hasnt begun to question it yet' perspective, i lauve characters who put a lot of stock into performing a role thats expected of them and fail miserably for unknown (gay) reasons

from his perspective tho i dont think he would ever really label himself anything. hes going to pride parades in the shirt+shorts Ally Fit to clap for his friends

hes also 'cis by indifference' imo... i love tmasc laios hcs it just doesnt mesh w his personal history to me. i do think hes got some kind of therian gender thing going on (not trans or nb but a secret third thing) but i cant see him changing anything abt his appearance/pronouns to accommodate that post-canon. hes just doin his thang

falin is in a similar boat for gender. i LOOVE tfem falin but the village repression thing has been bugging at me so i dont think i subscribe to it anymore (canon purist sorry) BUT if u hold that hc i am clapping and cheering regardless

instead i was propagandised to a while back and i LOVEEE the idea that being fused w a male dragon and the residual traits she has after being revived have given her a type of gender euphoria she didnt realise she was missing. a little boygirl swagger if u will

sexuality-wise i also dont think she would care to label herself, shes a lesbian by virtue of only being interested in One woman and zero other people. without marcille i do think shes still exclusively attracted to women, and i like to imagine she might experiment around a bit during her travels post-canon (pre-relationship). hearing abt it might put marcille on the news though

marcille is very simple That is a transfem lesbian. she cant get pregnant, shes obsessed w being femme and all that combined w her half-tallman struggles to be seen as 'properly feminine' by elf standards reads very transfeminine to Me. also her bookboy crush REEKS of comphet its not subtle

i think a more comfortable marcy might have the space to experiment w being elf butch like her manga boys but thats mainly self indulgence for me. utena could have saved her

senshi is gay his whole thing is abt not being able to perform dwarven masculinity to a proper standard (soft hearted, not as strong or rugged as his peers) which is like gaycoding 101. also hes a bear. homosexuality be damned by boy can work a grill

adding onto this i rly think senshi got some type of euphoria from being an elf in the changeling chapters. he was feeling himself so much i think he was using it as an outlet to have fun being a little fem and fruity without needing to justify it. do u understand

i dont have any particular opinions abt him gender-wise beyond that. his bulge is an essential part of his character design but i also saw a transmasc senshi a couple days ago that made me nod my head thoughtfully so i could go either way

chilchuck is cis and bisexual this is just canon. not even just his old man crush on senshi altho i do think thats very funny but they put his ass on a cover themed like hes in a dating sim with all the men and women in the cast and then slapped it in front of a chapter called "bicorn". i simply cant pass up that kind of overt signaling. its so fucking funny what else is there to say truly

izu to ME is a transmasc aroace lesbian (this one has the least basis in canon i just know it to be true) shes a little genderfluid with it nd uses he/she i think. i like to imagine she consistently uses masculine personal pronouns to refer to herself either way tho (boku, ore)

i think izutsumis gender/sexuality is entirely secondary in priorities to her body dysphoria. she has a lot of learning and acceptance 2 do before that kind of self discovery is on the docket and in my mind eschewing gender on some level is part of that. get sillay

shuro is cishet but at least he feels bad about it. next listen listen to me i dont think he would ever actually examine this but i need u to put on ur tin foil hat with me for one second. i think estrogen could have saved her. i have more thoughts on this but im not gonna propagandise too much on this post just know that im right

kabru is a transmasc bisexual this is also practically text. his whole thing of being treated like a doll by milsiril to put in pretty dresses, plus i think it would be pretty easy for him to stealth in the west since tallmen are seen as inherently more masculine than elves

(i also think changing genders is just more common for elves. theyre androgynous enough that it wouldnt be hard and like who in their right miiiiind would be the same gender for 500 years. dwarves too)

i think he started presenting as male socially in the west but didnt need to consider medical transition until he moved to a more mixed culture where other races might see him as a woman

i dont have to explain the bisexual part. have u seen him

namari is a butch bisexual this is just canon straight up. shes not transmasc but i think the default settings for dwarven women is like 4 years of T regardless. shes a hit at all the local cruising spots despite her renfaire nerdisms i know this

and just bc im thinking abt em kiki and kaka are identical and kiki is tfem :} theyre both attracted to women but kaka is a sub so i forgive him

THATS ALL 4 NOW theres a lot of characters so i cant have thoughts abt all of them at once but i hope this was good. im right about everything forever as per usual

[gorbo-longstocking]

Do Not Blame the Sea | Chapter One

Pairing: Emperor Geta/Reader, Emperor Caracalla/Reader

Summary: Everyday, you woke up and performed the steps necessary to complete your routine. It was monotonous, like clockwork, as you traveled down the tracks laid out for you since birth. With a mind uncontested, you found yourself graduating college before you were legally an adult, and at the behest of your controlling parents, you continued on to medical school, then further on into a surgical residency at a nearby hospital. You had always wanted to help people and this was the best way to do it.

So, why, with everything you had ever wanted at your fingertips, were you so unhappy?

Maybe that was why when you awoke in the past, surrounded by farmland instead of your blankets that you decided to ‘just roll with it’ rather than scream. That was your motto now as you were unceremoniously dropped from your assigned path onto untrodden ground with no hope of going back. So, even when you saved the life of a soldier and were carted off into the heart of the corrupt Roman Empire to be the twin emperor’s new physician, you barely batted an eye.

After all, you would do anything to save your patients.

Tags: Time travel, transmasc reader, no use of y/n, eventual polyamory, no incest, period-typical attitudes, Caracalla doesn’t have syphilis but he has PTSD, mentions of slavery, both historical accuracy and historical inaccuracy, obsessive behavior, eventual smut in later parts, medical inaccuracies,

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Part Two

Authors Note: Hiiiiiii, I’m back at it again, starting another fic. Those freaky gingers have bewitched me, let me tell you. Anyway, some important things to note about this little fanfiction that I feel the need to clarify before we get into the real meat and potatoes.

First and foremost, Geta and Caracalla won’t show up until chapter two. Maybe even chapter three, it depends on how much more set up I write, so if you want to wait ‘till then to read this, you’re welcome to :3

Two, and very important, unlike my other fics where the reader is trans, but referred to with they/them pronouns or neutral language, this main character will be referred to with he/him pronouns and masculine language in the text because, as a plot point, they are assumed to be a cis man. Along with this, they have three descriptions in the text. They have dyed green hair — original hair color shan’t be mentioned — they have top surgery scars, and they have a vagina. I miiiiight make an accidental reference to heights (ex. ‘ooked up at him/looked down at him) but I will try my hardest to not.

While their real name will never be mentioned in text for self-insertion purposes, Geta and Caracalla come up with the nickname ‘Alga’ for them due to their green hair. It means ‘seaweed’ in Latin. It also means ‘something of little worth.’ :) So, that is how they’ll be referred to. Generally. It’s either that or ‘medicus’ or ‘physician’ or ‘you there.’

Third and finally, I am a huge nerd and fan when it comes to the Roman Empire. As a society, they have a bunch of hangups, taboos, and beliefs, mostly around sex, that I find incredibly funny and will pepper in here and there. I will try to make this fic as historically accurate as I possibly can using all the resources I have at my disposal (google, a few academic texts, and my best friend whose studying classical history) but there’s no guarantee I get all of it right. Half the reason I’m using a modern character as the main POV is so they have an excuse not to know things 😭 Also when it comes to conjugation of Latin words, please, PLEASE give me leeway, I haven’t taken a Latin class since high school.

All that said, I hope whoever reads this fic enjoys it, because that is my main goal. Writing is seriously a passion of mine and my favorite part about it is sharing it with people. That means YOU person reading this, I think you’re awesome.

Okay I’m done talking, on with the show!!

Chapter One ///

This dream sucked — because that was what this was, a very bad dream — and, if you had to guess, it was the worst dream you had ever had in your life. Which was saying something. As a surgical resident who did most of their studying in a hospital, you were chronically sleep deprived and had a lot of stressful material to work with. Whatever aid you used to help you get some semblance of rest had a tendency to give you weird dreams. Very, very weird dreams. You had a few recurring ones, like being chased by a sentient pool noodle — whatever that meant — and several where the ghosts of your patients blamed you for their deaths — far more self explanatory than the pool noodle — but none quite like this one.

Out of everything you had ever experienced in your bleak and desolate mindscape, this dream was long and boring. That was its only crime. Along with being terrifyingly vivid, of course, which you didn’t particularly enjoy thinking about. If you were any less logical, you’d almost be convinced this was reality. That you had woken up in a small farming village, close enough to the capital of one of the most infamous ancient empires that you could see it on the horizon. Sometimes, when the sun set, you would stare at the shadow of Rome dancing upon the skyline. It was beautiful, albeit impossible. Sure, the people who surrounded you only spoke Latin, and they didn’t trust you as far as they could throw you, but it wasn’t as if that mattered. Soon, you would awake in your bed, one day closer to your exam and the beginning of the rest of your life.

Why did the thought only fill you with a sinking sense of dread? Being a doctor was everything you had ever worked for. Helping people, saving people, it was your purpose, the very reason you were born with your exceptional mind. It was your destiny, so why did it feel like you were marching to the gallows?

You shook your head to rid yourself of these thoughts. Focus on the present, focus on the dream, it was far easier than the constant ever present march of time. It was why you were so certain that the predicament was a figment of your imagination. Time hated you, constantly pulling on your leash, dragging your forward even as you dug your heels into the muck. It would never, never move backwards. Not for you.

Never for you.

A low groan of despair rumbled in your throat as you tried your best to wash your filthy scrubs in a nearby river. The water wasn’t murky, but it wasn’t clear either. Unsurprising, considering the nearby village used this water for practically everything. They were close enough to the city to have access to aqueducts, carrying waste hopefully further downstream. You were determined not to think about it. Any other denizen of this small settlement would wash their clothes themselves. The village was too small for a fullonica, and you were pretty sure they were mostly meant for the wealthy. That said, you also knew that Romans used urine to wash clothes — thank you to the ancient civilization classes you took for fun — and you’d be damned before you let a random person’s piss touch your scrubs.

Outside of work, at least.

With your pants rolled up to your knees as you waded deeper into the water, you continued to do what you could to clean the few clothes you had on you. Considering you only had a little bottle of soap you stole from a hotel a few months ago, it was easier said than done. You wanted to ration what you had in case this dream went on for much longer. Just because this was a fictional scenario conjured by your stress addled mind didn’t mean you weren't going to go about things logically. You had already been asleep for three days now, who knew how much longer this neverending dream would last? Perhaps forever. The thought of avoiding reality as you waste away in your bed was far more comforting than it should have been.

A loud shout echoed to your right and you fought the urge to shoot a nasty glare at the <i>obviously</i> young soldiers goofing off several yards away. Well, young was a strong word, they were the same age as you. Probably. You couldn’t really tell considering how staunch you were in your decision to not make eye contact. Out of the handful of men playing in the water, they were all naked. It wasn’t that nudity bothered you, you were studying healthcare for Christ’s sake, it was the unfortunate fact that soaking wet, muscular hunks were a particular weakness of yours. You weren’t sure the soldiers would appreciate your ogling, the villagers already avoided you like the plague. Judging by the dirty looks you received from some of the, unfortunately armed and notoriously xenophobic men, they’d heard enough about you to be wary.

You let out another sigh, your scrubbing becoming a tad more vigorous. Soapy bubbles rose to the surface of the water and your face was screwed up in concentration.

This particular Roman century had arrived at the village only a half-day after you did. From what you could pick up from eavesdropping, instead of being sent to North Africa to get a little conquering done, their legion was shipped to Gaul to put an end to some dissent. Once that was over, the officer in charge received orders to head back to Rome so they could be sent to North Africa with the rest of the troops. They had only stopped at the village for a last bit of rest before their next assignment. Or something. You had been noticed, and you had scurried off the second you realized you were caught.

Letting out a small huff, you examined your scrubs and decided that they were as clean as they would get. Once you were back at shore, you wrung out the fabric the best you could before laying them flat on a rock beside the only other outfit you had, aside from the one you were wearing, to dry in the sun. Another bark of laughter drew your eye to the soldiers playing like schoolboys in the river. Weren’t these men hardened warriors of one of the most regimented militaries to exist? Surely, they should be more disciplined. Still, you couldn’t help the small smile that caused your lips to twitch upwards. Even thousands of years in the past, and in your dreams, humans were the same as they had always been.

The sun was warm, hanging overhead like an unripe cherry tomato. You closed your eyes to bask in it a bit more than necessary. Your skin prickled, indicating that there were eyes on you, though you didn’t particularly care. No footsteps approached you and the sound of laughter didn’t stop, so you figured you were safe enough to show your belly. You didn’t realize you had laid down until you felt grass tickle the back of your neck. Perhaps a little nap wouldn’t hurt. A dream within a dream would be rather funny, you thought as you fell into a light doze, lulled by the sound of soldiers playing.

You didn’t know how long you slept for. It was the sound of panic that woke you, sending you upright so fast, your head spun. The first thing you noticed was the merriment had stopped and had given way to an oppressive sense of desperation. You looked in the direction you had been avoiding all day to see a gaggle of soldiers, some clothed, some naked, dragging an unconscious body onto shore. One man was running with his tunic halfway over his head in the direction of the village, yelling for the centurion in charge. You were moving before you could stop yourself.

“Make way! Make way!” Your Latin was shaky, but not the worst in the world. While you were sure your accent was strange, you knew you were at least understandable as some of the men turned to block you from getting any closer. They didn’t look particularly pleased at your arrival, eyeing both your hair and your odd attire with an air of skepticism. You didn’t have time for this. “I am a doctor. A physician. I can help him, we must act fast.”

One of the soldiers raised a singular thick eyebrow. “A physician, you say? You look like no medicus I have ever seen.”

“Does that really matter?!” You shouted, your voice a harsh bark. The longer this went on, the less of a chance you had to save this man. While you were nervous to plow through the wall of stout muscle that blocked you from your prospective patient, you realized you might have to.

The soldier looked like he wanted to say something more, when an authoritative voice broke through the ranks. “Let the man through! We have lost too many as is without losing another to a few hours of games.”

Every head snapped in the direction of whoever spoke. All except yours. The second you saw a gap in the crowd, you slid through and fell to your knees beside the drowned man, the one you determined to save.

First thing you did was check for responsiveness. It was out of habit mostly. A tap on the shoulder, a shout, another tap. He didn’t respond, that was unsurprising.

When you checked for a pulse, you found none, so you began chest compressions. Placing your hands together on his chest, arms straight, you began to push. The rhythm came to you naturally — you had made sure to pay attention in class, and this wasn’t the first time you had done this. Despite the fact that you knew no support was coming, that if you couldn’t get this man back by yourself, he would die, your head remained clear.

Do not lose sight of your goal, do not lose hope, go until you can’t anymore.

After thirty compressions, you took a deep breath, pinched his nose shut, and tilted his head back, placing your mouth over his. You heard a few gasps, and even a cry of disgust as you pulled back to push another breath into his lungs. Determined to pay the growing crowd no mind, you placed your hands on his chest and began to pump his heart again.

This went on for… like with your nap, you didn’t know. All you knew was that you were drenched in sweat, your arms were sore, and your breath coming out in harsh pants. Thirty more compressions, you inhaled a ragged breath and pushed oxygen into his lungs once more. If this didn’t work, you’d have to call it.

There was a hand on your chest, shoving you away, a watery cough filling your mouth with spittle before the drowned man flailed back to life. You didn’t take offense to the harsh treatment. He had woken up to a kiss. That would startle anyone. You rolled him over on his side and rubbed his back as he hacked up a lungful of murky water and whatever he had eaten for breakfast.

“You’re back,” You muttered softly, as comforting as you could. “Breathe. Slow and steady. It feels good to be back, doesn’t it?”

The man met your eyes, his own a startling shade of honey, a confused, but grateful, smile on his lips. “I thought I was gone.”

“Yeah, we all thought that!” A soldier with a shaved head nudged him roughly with his toe. “Medicus here worked a miracle with his lips.”

A hand reached down to clasp your shoulder, shaking you firmly, if not playfully. You looked up to see a man with floppy blond curls grinning down at the man you just saved, his lips pursed. “The kiss of life!”

You let a small, uncomfortable laugh titter from your mouth. Being surrounded by so many people was awkward, and their banter was even more so. You felt entirely out of place. Rather than focus on that, you fixed your attention back on the man you saved.

“What’s your name?”

“Sextus Aelius,” He answered, voice hoarse.

With a small smile, you gestured to another soldier to hand you a nearby tunic. Sextus — you wouldn’t laugh about his name, you wouldn’t — had begun to shiver, even in the hot sun, and you wanted to keep him warm. Not to mention he was still naked. You tried not to study him too much, focusing on the sharpness of his jaw and the gentle slope of his nose rather than his nudity.

“It is a pleasure to meet you, Sextus, I am—” You were cut off by a cacophony of noise, a few whistles interspersed within. A bit of heat rose to your face when you saw Sextus’ bewildered expression. “I fear I have made a blunder.”

To your relief, he merely laughed. “Aelius. Call me Aelius.”

“Right. I apologize, Aelius. How do you feel?”

Once you had given him the tunic, he slipped it on over his head, covering his modesty — not that anyone but you seemed to care all that much about it. When he stood, two men came to his side to steady him. Despite this, he still offered you his hand. It would be rude to deny him, though you didn’t feel comfortable accepting help from a man who had been, by many’s standards, dead a few minutes before. You gave him a small smile and pushed yourself to stand on your own.

“I could be better.” His grin was lopsided, the boyish kind that showed off his teeth. It was endearing enough for you to be proud of saving a good man, rather than a mere man. When he spoke next, there was no small amount of awe in his voice. “You saved my life, I am not sure if that is something I can repay.”

A snort pulled from your throat as you waved him off. “No repayment necessary, I only did what needed to be done.”

Aelius looked about to argue when he paled, his gaze flickering behind you. There was a creeping sensation of unease crawling up your spine, similar to when you had earned your parents displeasure. Standing behind you was a presence, one with enough authority to cause the men around you to stand at attention.

Thankfully, it didn’t seem directed at you. For now.

“What is the meaning of this, boy? I allow a bit of slacking off and you go and die on me?” It was the voice from before, the one who commanded his men to let you through. Taking a guess, you’d say this man was the centurion leading this particular century back to Rome. You didn’t dare look behind you, you didn’t dare move. Anything to keep his frustration off of you. It didn’t last long. A large hand clasped you on the shoulder, grip firm, but not harsh. “And to be saved by a foreigner! You should be on your knees thanking him for whatever trick on the gods he played at your behest.”

“That is unnecessary,” You tried to argue, only for the centurion to give you another shake.

“A humble medicus at that! Lucky boy! Very, very lucky!” He let go of you and gestured for Aelius to be taken elsewhere. “To the tents with you while I think of a suitable punishment. No man has died and lived to tell the tale on my watch, so I must be creative.”

Aelius, at least, looked ashamed, though the man with the floppy blond hair leaned down to whisper in his ear, a smirk dancing on his lips. Whatever was said earned him an elbow to the ribs. Men never change.

Before they could get too far, you found your voice. “Monitor him through the night! Fetch me if he stops breathing again!”

It was only once you heard the affirmative did you relax. Which lasted a moment before the centurion turned you around so you were facing him. His gaze was hard and his arms were crossed over his chest. Unlike the men before, the centurion was wearing his full armor, save for his helmet, another thing you were thankful for. You were not easily intimidated, but this man? He could crack you like a peanut.

After a moment of sizing you up, his eyes trailing from your clothes, so different from his own, with trousers instead of a tunic and a graphic t-shirt in an alphabet he knew, but words he couldn’t understand, to your green dyed hair. He didn’t seem impressed. In fact, he seemed suspicious.

“Lucius Marianus.” Unfurling one of his hands, he held it for you to shake.

With an awkward smile, you took his hand and introduced yourself. His grip grew a bit tighter at the sound of your obviously foreign name. You fought the urge to run away.

“A pleasure, Marianus.” This time, you called him by his second name, determined not to make the same mistake as earlier with a less forgiving man.

“Where are you from?” Quick and to the point, you could respect that. Logically, you knew that this wasn’t real, that ultimately, this was your dream and you held all the power, but there was a little voice in the back of your head telling you to be careful. “Are you a citizen, a slave, or a free-man?”

Licking your dry lips, you let your hand fall to your side, shoving it in your pocket before Marianus could see that you had begun to shake. “I am from a country far away. Across the western sea, farther than any have ever gone. I am a citizen of my country, but not of Rome, and I am no slave, so I suppose that makes me a free-man.”

“You suppose?” He pursed his lips and raised an eyebrow. “Well, I ‘suppose’ I won’t assume you’re a liar and a runaway. If I hadn’t just witnessed that…” Marianus paused, searching for the right word, and you hoped it would be one you recognized. “Technique of yours, I would figure just that. Tell me, medicus, what exactly did you do to one of my men?”

“I, uh…” Your tongue felt too big for your mouth. Whatever answer you gave this man, it better be satisfactory. All you could hope for was that the truth would be enough. “His heart was no longer beating, so I pressed upon his chest as hard as I could in the same rhythm that his heart would take.”

Marianus nodded, his expression contemplative. “And the kiss?”

“It was not a kiss!” The words burst forth before you could stop them, your face flaring even hotter. This entire conversation was reminiscent of one you would have with your father, and Marianus’ disapproval was getting to you more than it should. “I was breathing air into his lungs. I inhale, pinch his nose shut so the air doesn’t escape through his sinuses, and then blow into his mouth. If his chest rises, I am doing the procedure correctly.”

“Still, an intimate gesture to bestow upon a stranger.” His lips twitched upwards ever so slightly. You got the feeling he was teasing you now. “From what I can gather, this technique of yours mimics the functions of life in order to coaxe the spirit back into its vessel.”

You blinked, opening your mouth to argue with scientific facts. A beat passed before you snapped your jaw shut with an audible click. Better to not look a gift horse in the mouth. “I, uh, yes. It does. That is exactly it. You are a very intelligent man, Marianus, perhaps a career in medicine is calling your name.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere, medicus.”

An awkward grimace pulled at your lips. “Right.”

Marianus was both unmoved and undeterred by your lame response. You expected him to leave you be. After all, despite the fact that you saved one of his men from drowning, you were still an outsider to both the village, the army, and Rome. In your head, he owed you nothing, all you did was your duty and you expected nothing in return. Marianus seemed to think otherwise.

“Where have you been sleeping, medicus?” With a sharp nod of his head, he gestured to your duffel bag and drying clothes. “I assume outside in the heat considering how poorly you are spoken of in town. Looking and speaking as you do, it’s no wonder anyone is hesitant to even allow you to sleep in their barn.” Again, the edges of his mouth curled upwards. “You are far more useful than previously anticipated. For once, I am happy to have my assumptions proven false.”

“Um, thanks?”

“Fetch your belongings, there are more men waiting to be your patients back at camp.”

You blinked, dumbfounded, before a sharp raise of Marianus’ black eyebrows broke you from your spell. If there were more people to be treated, you didn’t have to be told twice. With a bit of pep in your step, excited to have something to do rather than waste away in tedium, you stuffed your, now dry, clothes into your bag and slung it over your shoulder. Marianus eyed it with no small amount of reservation.

“Do you carry any weapons?”

You thought about your taser and pepper spray tactically placed in an easy to reach pocket on the side. “No. As a doctor, I consider myself a pacifist.”

Marianus snorted. “A good way to die.”

“Better to die giving life than taking it,” You replied easily. This wasn’t a lie. While you didn’t fault other’s for violence — how could you fault human nature? — you would rather heal before harm. A part of you hoped to balance the scales, do enough good to make the bad seem worth it. It was a lofty goal, one you tried not to dwell on. So long as you managed to help even a single person in your life, you would be happy, though you’d never confine yourself to such a meager goal. “If you don’t mind me asking, do your men not already have a doctor to treat them? Why take on a stranger’s help?”

“We did. He is no longer with us.”

You frowned. “A shame. Lose one soldier, and you only lose one man. Lose a doctor and your losses double. I never met him, but I’ll remember him fondly.”

“You’re soft. It’s a shame.” His words made you raise your eyebrows, and, when you looked at him, there was pity in his dark eyes, though it was only there for a second.

Marianus clamped his hand on the back of your neck and began to steer you in the direction of the camp. With few trees in sight, only lush farms and tall grass, the countryside was a sight to behold. You glanced over your shoulder to see the river and the village disappearing in the distance. While the road the two of you walked on was dirt, it was well trodden, no stones or holes to trip over. This truly was the Roman Empire. How your mind managed to conjure an image so beautiful and so unmistakably alien was beyond you.

“Has there been anyone caring for the injured?” You asked.

“Our veterinarius has been doing what he can, though I don’t like it. These are men, not animals.” To punctuate his displeasure, Marianus spit on the ground.

You nodded placatingly as you approached the first cluster of tents. Some of the soldiers recognized you, though you didn’t recognize them in return. Word traveled fast when you save someone’s life, you supposed. “I’m sure he’s doing his best.”

“His best is not enough,” Marianus grumbled.

Before you could respond, the stench of infection and sick filled your senses. If you hadn’t done clinicals or worked in healthcare while you completed your studies, it would have caught you off guard. Instead of blanching, you took your last deep breath of clean air, and braced yourself as much as you could. Marianus almost seemed impressed by the determination on your face as you pulled back the flap of the tent, joining a frazzled looking man — the veterinarius, you assumed — in his rounds.

All you could do was your best, and you intended for that to be enough.

Even as a student, you had steeled your heart to the worst suffering had to offer. Growing up as you did, with parents more interested in results than feelings, it became all too easy to turn off your bleeding heart and do what was necessary. By now, it was as simple as breathing.

Your bedside manner was gentle as you helped a few men, too injured to move, drink water from a ladle. If you were any less busy, you would have insisted it be boiled. Marianus would likely scold you, it was unrealistic for an entire century to boil water for every sick man, let alone every soldier, no matter how sound your advice was. Posca would do for now, as it always had.

For hours, you worked tirelessly, cleaning wounds and calming fevers. You were lucky modern medicine wasn’t all that you studied. In order to help as many people as you could, you focused on ancient and holistic practices as well, though you had an easy preference for the tried and true methods. There was no denying that you were a medical prodigy, a genius for all intents and purposes. It wasn’t that you had an ego — well, maybe you did — it was the fact that it was the truth. You had graduated college before you had turned eighteen and gone through medical school soon after. Right now, you were the youngest student going through their surgical residency in your state, perhaps even the country if you dared to let your pride swell. All of this, your parents would call their doing, that you would be nothing without their guidance.

You grimaced in the middle of setting a skinny man’s broken arm. Better not think about them now, it would only serve to stress you out even further. For all your skill, you caught yourself floundering inside the medical tent, Marianus watching from the entrance as you flitted from patient to patient, and the veterinarius sitting back to take a much needed break. While you had some supplies on you — a stethoscope, a sphygmomanometer, a Taylor hammer, none of which you’d utilized yet, a bottle of antiseptic, some ibuprofen, and three clean syringes — it wasn’t enough for you to feel comfortable. Which was ridiculous, this was your dream, you could do whatever you wanted.

Then again, if that was true, then why were you fumbling through even simple procedures? You didn’t feel comfortable using more invasive methods, not unless you had no other choice. The likelihood of survival was low, even with your steady hands. Perhaps this was a nightmare, a look into what life will be like once you were done with your schooling. Your slumbering mind was preparing you to be the failure you were always meant to be.

Shaking your head, you focused your attention back on your patient. No one seemed to notice your lapse, not even you. You were quite good at multitasking, mixing self-deprecation with stringent work ethic like a talented seamster. The skinny man was lucky it was a clean break, and even luckier, it wasn’t his humerus, which would have been more complicated given your lack of equipment. A bit of sweat trickled down your forehead as you stood, surveying the men around you. You had done well given the circumstances, but you still couldn’t help but feel as though it wasn’t enough.

Nothing was ever enough.

Even dreaming, you felt tired.

Three men had infected wounds. One was oozing pus, which apparently was a good thing according to the veterinarius and Marianus, though you still took care to clean the wound thoroughly. Another man had a fever due to the infection, and, after washing your hands, you took care to clean it as the other. After much reassurance that it wasn’t poison to Marianus — consisting of taking one yourself — you also gave him an ibuprofen for his fever, though you decided you were going to ration them unless it was an emergency. The third man was a bit harder, enough necrotic tissue forming around the infection that you considered surgery. For now, you introduced maggots to the area, a treatment Marianus seemed to approve of, if not with some disgust. In the morning, you would check the wound, and then surgically remove the decayed flesh if the maggots didn’t do enough.

Four men had broken bones, one, his arm, another, his finger, and two, their leg. That was simple enough, if not time consuming getting all the bone fragments to set properly. While you would have much preferred a cast to a splint, beggars couldn’t be choosers.

That wasn’t even to mention the handful of other men with various ailments that filled the tent. Apparently there was someone quarantined elsewhere, suffering from dysentery. According to the veterinarius, the treatment for that particular disease was rest, fasting, and dehydration, which you were in the middle of giving him strict instructions to keep the man as hydrated as possible, it didn’t matter how quickly he discharged it, he needed to be drinking as much water as he could. You didn’t hold out much hope he’d make it, though you’d be damned before you gave up on someone who needed you.

It wasn’t until Marianus clamped his hand on the back of your neck and began to steer you towards the tent’s exit did you realize how exhausted you were. Your eyes burned and your head throbbed. If you were any less of a man, you would have taken one of your ibuprofen to ease the dull ache in your temples. Ultimately, you decided against it. If there came a time when they were necessary and you had run out because of your own weakness, you would never forgive yourself.

“You did well, medicus. Better than I expected, you are very skilled at what you do,” Marianus said as he led you deeper into camp. By now, it was dark, well into the night too judging from the full moon directly overhead.

How long had you been working?

“Thank you. I am usually better than that. I fear my nerves of being in such an unfamiliar country are getting to me.” With the heel of your palm, you scrubbed at your face.

Marianus frowned down at you. “Keep your foreignness to yourself, medicus and you will go far. Though, that will be hard to do with hair like yours.” He looked you up and down, hesitant curiosity creeping into his features. “That strange color… it is not natural, is it?”

A laugh bubbled from your throat. “No, I dyed it. Green is a color I am rather fond of.”

“I am fond of red, but you do not see me painting my hair that color,” He grumbled under his breath, and it reminded you so much of the comments some of your superiors made, that you giggled.

Before you could respond, he gestured to a tent with an outstretched arm. A lantern was on inside, casting the shadow of the single occupant, who was busy sitting cross-legged and writing what seemed to be a letter. While you had reservations of interrupting, Marianus did not.

“Out here, now, boy!” The shadow visibly jumped before pulling back the flap to reveal Aelius. He looked as tired as you did, and truthfully, he stank to high heaven. You struggled not to wrinkle your nose so as not to offend him. Aelius seemed like a nice man.

“Sir?” Was all he managed before Marianus continued to bark his next set of orders.

“Since the two of you were acquainted earlier, and the fact that you were supposed to be monitored, you’ll be bunking together. In the morning, we set a course for Rome.”

You blinked. Did that include you? While you wouldn’t mind getting out of the village and seeing more of what this dream had to offer, you couldn’t help but feel a bit of uncertainty. There was no telling how long this dream would go on, nor how vast it was. You couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if you strolled ‘out of bounds,’ so to speak. Would you be trapped in an infinite void until you awoke? The thought was enough to send a chill down your spine.

“And I will remain here,” You finally said.

Marianus barked out a laugh. “No. You will join us. I still have a use for you.”

As much as you didn’t want to abandon your current patients, you would rather not push your luck any further than you already had. Crossing your arms, you met Marianus’ furrowed brows with your own. “And that use would be?”

To your right, Aelius made a little noise. Your gaze flickered over to him, catching his motion for you to cease, before you ignored it and fixated back on Marianus. He was looking at you like you’d lost your mind. At least enough to question him. A bit of discomfort made your skin itch, you always hated earning the negative attention of a superior.

For a moment, you feared that Marianus would yell at you until the sun rose. He puffed up, shoulders squaring and his lower jaw jutting out before he deflated with a sigh, pinching the bridge of his angular nose. “You are too soft for the army, medicus, and you are too foreign to hope to set up your own clinic, especially without citizenship. There is very little hope for you in the Empire.”

You looked away, feeling cold even as a summer’s breeze blew against your skin. An argument began to boil in the back of your throat, an insistence that this was a dream, so none of that mattered, but you managed to swallow that poison before it could spew out of you.

Marianus paused, waiting for you to respond. When all he received was a defeated look, he continued, “There is, however, hope for both me and you. The emperors require a new physician and I believe they would be taken by your skill and your…” He looked at your hair again. “Novelty. In return for discovering you, if they choose to take you on, me and my men will be rewarded.”

“I see,” You muttered. Perhaps this was the route your dream wanted you to take. At the end of it all, there was sure to be a lesson or even a vision of sorts that could help you in reality. All you had to do to get it was allow the plot to pull you forward. “And Rome is not far?”

Marianus’ features softened, bordering on fondness, guilt, and pity. “Barely a day’s march, medicus.”

“I will go, then. To Rome with me, I suppose.” Though you smiled, when you turned to Aelius, he stared at you as if you’d been sentenced to death.

—————————————-

Tag list: @snazzynacho

[genderqueerdykes]

Sorry if this is hard to read in advance, I am not doing well. Something I’ve realized is that I hate being in bigger queer communities because I’m a “weird queer,” or one of those “queers that’s getting us killed,” or that I’m not “queer enough.” I feel like I’m not allowed to use my neopronouns, my titles, my names, that I’m not allowed to identify with my xenogenders, that I’m not allowed to be m-spec, that I’m not allowed to have a fluctuating or fluid queer identity unless I’m the “normal one,” that I cannot express being nonhuman as part of my queer identity. I am not allowed to express myself the way I see myself in bigger queer communities, I am not allowed to express how me being intersex affects my queer identities without being told “that’s not how it works”, I am not allowed to mention how plurality and other neurodivergence’s affect my identity, I am not allowed to be aromantic or asexual either. I don’t feel like I’m allowed to be me. I have felt pushed into boxes so much it hurts.

I thought that our community was meant to push the binaries and to be your authentic self.

i'm so sorry you're going through this, but you're not alone, i hear this exact experience so often. i hate how many people are treating each other this way

I thought that our community was meant to push the binaries and to be your authentic self.

that's what it's supposed to be, you're right. the push to be "normal queers" is so strong right now because it's been slowly building up over decades. assimilationism became a big deal in the late 80s, 90s, and 2000s. a lot of queers desperately wanted to just blend into cishet society and felt other queers needed to do so. people desperately want to be seen as queer but then not. people want to identify as trans and what not but then never allow other people to push the boundaries and feel like they have to present act and look cis in order to be seen as legitimate

it sucks. people prioritize passing and sucking up to cishet society over than being ourselves. you're allowed to do all of these things. you're allowed to get freaky with it. you're allowed to define your identity how you see fit. this push to look and act "normal" is so old. it's getting worse with social media. it's taking over people's minds and it sucks. we've been here for the weird queers from the start.

[imasimpcentral]

The Office lgbtq+ hcs (also posted on twitter but formatting will be different here lol)

Michael Scott

- cis, I don't think I could see him as anything else I fear

- he/him, but if he was asked he'd be very confused and would just be like "pronouns [pronounce] what?"

- bi, he never officially labels himself as that but we know damn well it's practically canon

- he is peak autism and I love him for it

- Ryan was bi awakening for obvious reasons

- I think he's kissed dwight before but refuses to talk about it

- Definitely had a crush on david at some point

- I don't know if he necessarily had a crush on Todd but he influences a huge part of who michael is he definitely likes him as more than a friend (not that michael will ever admit that)

- I was talking with a friend about if Dwight/Ryan were dating and just the dynamic of that and how michael would react

"You two shouldn't be together!!" He goes on this whole rant and tries to rally the office to his cause (which they don't) and he gets like so close to figuring out that he likes Ryan before he just let's it go

Not really relevant to headcanons just wanted to air that out lol

Jim Halpert

LOOK HOW PRETTY HE IS THERE

Anyway

- cis, honestly my gender hc for him switches a lot sometimes he's transmasc sometimes he's just cis whatever I feel fits in the moment tbh

- he/they, if someone asked him for his pronouns he'd probably only say he/him but I don't think he'd mind they/them too but again this changes for me too

- bi, in my brain it works

Also someone on twitter made a really strong case and they were talking about how ooc the thing Jim was keeping from Pam could've been him coming out as bi which I think would be a really cute concept

- I think Kelly helped him figure out he was bi as they are besties (I will make them besties trust)

- he has some freaky frenemies with benefits thing going on with dwight (with the consent of Pam ofc)

With that I'd say he's also ambiamorous he doesn't label himself as that but that's how I'd describe it

- he kissed ryan at a christmas party once

Kevin Malone

- cis, honestly can be pretty flexible with this I think it's fun to play around with transfem Kevin but not that realistic in canon

- I don't think he'd care much for pronouns but I personally really like he/she Kevin I think someone would accidentally use she/her and on him and she'd just go to Oscar like "wait you can use she/her without being a girl??" And that is his gender awakening basically

Oh also I think Kelly introduces to him to neos and he ends up liking cloud/clouds

- straight I don't know I can't see him liking men

- maybe has adhd??

- Angela and Oscar are the first people he goes to for everything (they ARE found family)

Ryan Howard

- you could hc him as any gender and I'd say yes but I'll just say transmasc, though I usually like genderfluid and nonbinary to describe him as well

- he/they/xe, kelly introduced him to neopronouns obviously my chronically online queer queen

- gay??? ace too?? Idrk he's super in the closet though

- he has kissed michael before and freaked out bc he didn't hate it

- Definitely had something romantic with Gabe

Pam Beesly-Halpert

- cis, though I'm not super solid on this though

- she/they, I think she'd make an extra effort as office administrator to make people wear pronoun pins and/or pronouns on their nametags so that they could be normalized in the workplace. Also in general I think she realizes there are a good amount of people who don't just use she/her and he/him so she wanted to be more inclusive. She is the hugest ally in the office.

- sapphic, kelly helped pam discover the term sapphic but she definitely had her awakening with Katy/Karen

Like she knows she definitely likes Jim but then she spends time with his partners and she's just like "wait am I jealous of her or jim?"

- while jim/dwight are fucking Pam and Angela also have a similar frenemies with benefits situation

With the consent of Jim obviously

(She is ambiamorous and labels herself as such)

- she's also autistic bc yes

Dwight Schrute

- transmasc and agender. I don't think he fully identifies as agender he simply just could care less about it's gender.

When explaining that to kelly (bc yes she is who everyone goes to when they're questioning their identity bc they've tried to talk to toby but he was so useless he basically defers everyone to kelly (also oscar will not answer those questions bc he can't be bothered)) she basically is like "so you're agender?" and it's just like "no I'm trying to tell you I have no gender!" "Dwight no-"

- it/he in professional settings it only uses he/him but like pam, angela, and Jim know he uses it/it's

Eventually everyone else figures out and they're just like "I've been using it/it's on him for years!"

- demiro; I think he very clearly falls for someone sexually very fast and will be like lowkey obsessed but it takes him awhile to actually fall for people romantically. I also sometimes hc him as nebularomantic since he is technically supposed to be autistic?? At least I hc it as autistic-

- pan, just makes sense to me 🤷

- polyamorous, as he's dating Angela he is also sleeping with Jim (with Angela's consent obvs)

Andy Bernard

- cis, I can't really imagine him as anything else sorry

- he/him and he's also a pretty big trans ally and he takes pronouns very seriously. He went to Cornell so he knows his english or whatever. He Will call people out when they hate on pronouns and use "I/We/Me" in the post.

- realistically? Bicurious

In my headcanon? Gay but so so deep in closet (it is glass though) due to his upbringing he has unfortunately repressed it just so much.

- had crushes on Oscar, Darryl, and Jim at some point, he would never admit these were crushes though.

- oh he's also autistic

Kelly Kapoor

- cis, though sometimes I transfem her

- she/her

- realistically bi but in my heart of hearts she's a lesbian with comphet

- she's dating Erin

- she's autistics with a special interest in fashion and celebrities

Oscar Martinez

- cis, not a hater of trans Oscar but I fear I can't see him as anything other than cis 🥲

- he/him, he also would get into arguments over pronouns and he would own the average transphobe by saying "actually-"

- gay (canon)

- autistic in my heart of hearts

- he refuses to catch feelings out of fear of rejection

- bc of this Andy has to be the one to confess first which is hard for both of them

Sigh gay men 😔

(TO BE CONTINUED I HIT IMAGE LIMIT)

[agoraphobicwhore]

Hhhnnngh I wanna put slutty pictures of my slutty little waist online but every time I do the only people who want me are cis men and like yeah they're also part of my captive audience on here but also like.... I could get the same thing from just posting "gimme dick"

Where are the trans freaks closer to my age who want something to bloody up and fuck? What about the immensely horny not cis men who would love personal porn from me??? Where do they all go when I'm showing off? It's like they drop off the face of the whole internet just to leave me with nasty guys (not fun nasty either)

Please t4t please, I like fauxcest, I'll call you puppy, I am capable of bleeding for you and of making you cum oh pleaseohpleaseohplease what more can you want from a guy?? No I'm not big or hairy nor do I have a huge.. anything no cock or tits to speak of but I have an enthusiastic attitude and a horny spirit!

and God, if you can hear me, let us be mutually freaky and obsessive and possessive about our feelings for each other, amen

[itwasntimethatdidit40]

Hello bb (gn)! ❤︎

I’m V, an Italian gal passionate about Pedro Pascal and his cinematic universe.

I write fanfics, I try to read as much as I can, I love to yap, I love series, I love movies and concerts. I’d love for this to be a safe space for 2SLBTQIA+, BIPOC and other marginalized categories.

I am a Bi/Pan cis white woman and I probably have no idea what it feels like to be you but I will be happy to listen if you want to talk to me about it and I will always try my best to educate myself and to not underestimate anything that is highlighted as important for your community. Everyone should feel welcome and safe around here and I promise I will always try my best.

I’m always open to discussion and conversation that can wide my perspective and absolutely love to learn more about other cultures, hit me with a chat whenever you want, I’m glad to make new friends!

My work is +18 and NSFW so please don’t interact if you’re a minor and read the warnings before engaging in any of my writing, there’s a lot of kinks there.

I also reblog NSFW +18 stuff a lot.

I mostly write for Joel Miller at the moment but I take requests for any Pedro character (no RPF).

Full Masterlist under the cut, hope you'll enjoy!

click here

click here

click here

click here

click here

click here

click here

Others:

• Teaching is hard work - Tess Servopoulos x f!reader

You ask your neighbor Tess for help because you’re about to meet your online crush, will it remain only a friendly help?

• Big Boy - Clint (Freaky Tales) x f!reader

You enter a video rental shop looking for something spicy and end up finding the best fuck you've ever had

• Irreversible - Reed Richards X f!reader / Drabble

You get fucked against the blackboard by your hottest professor.

• Merry Christmas, baby - Marcus Pike x f!reader

You and Marcus have been best friends for years, but you've always been secretly in love with him. Will it be possible to turn your friendship into something more?

Happy reading!

I do not allow any of my work to be reposted, translated, redistributed, or fed to AI. Please let me know if you see anyone doing this.

[v4mpyrfag]

headcanoning thomas hutter as a trans man just to project on him and then for the “possession” scene to have ellen say things to thomas like “you fell into his arms like a swooning lily of a woman” and “you could never please me as he could” OHHHH. DELICIOUS.

While I believe that rather than possessing ellen to say things only he wants her to say, orlok is taking away ellen’s ability to hold back her deepest most seemingly ‘irrational’ emotions and in that moment every angry helpless thought she’s had towards thomas for leaving her spill right out of her. orlok uses this existing anger towards thomas and tells her things that will make her angrier; specifically attacking thomas’ deepest insecurity, which is his manhood. orlok is preying on ellen’s anger at being abandoned and twisting it to hurt thomas as much as possible.

don’t get me started on how the whole reason he ignored ellen’s pleas not to go to the castle was out of his belief that he can only prove himself as a worthy husband, as a worthy man, by providing monetarily for ellen, and the way he puts off the topic of children to “when I am no longer a pauper”, when he is clearly associating providing money for the household with masculinity, in many ways he is actually saying “when I am truly a man”. thomas in general is meek, constantly apologetic and soft in many ways that he would be all too aware of and feel a need to overcompensate for.

the traits of thomas that pull him away from ellen and put a wall of understanding between them are in the same vein as his efforts to prove himself masculine. He is cutting himself off from “womanly” emotions and leaning into the patriarchal status quo of ignoring the full spectrum of women’s emotions, issues and desires, similarly to how many trans men take on misogynistic and toxic masculine behaviour in an attempt to blend fully with cis men.

However, after experiencing how it feels to be pursued by orlok and being attacked the same way ellen has been, he realises that she was right all along and this horror is after her, he stops at nothing to return to her and save her from it. Despite his horrible fear he resolves himself to be the hero for his bride and prove himself in a way that really matters.

where are my fellow tguys who fit the stereotype of being meek and effeminate in nature regardless of their efforts to prove themselves as a man. Ok now which ones of you are really freaky about it

[gabnaturalist]

Today's hot take:

If you LOVE bugs you babe are queer

.

.

Probably

.

Let me explain

As a queer entomologist my love for bugs and my queerness are intertwined. Growing up both my love for bugs and my queerness were disgusting and still are disgusting to some people.

Example:

Me: *picks up spider*

Some rando: EWWWWW *visibility disgusted*

.

Also me: I'm lesbian and gender non-conforming

Some rando: EWWWWW you're going to H3$$

.

Both of these experiences have given me a very similar feeling of otherness. Who I am and what interests me are not my choice, but someone's disgust and hatred is a choice.

.

I know for a fact I am not the only entomologist who feels this way. In my first field job I was helping collect data for a master's student who also happened to be lesbian. Out of my many entomologist friends like 2 are not queer. AND according to the Entomological Society of America, 483 of their 6702 members openly identify as queer. Which means entomology may be the queerest career field out there.

.

On top of that like most of not all insect species exhibit gay behavior. They don't care who they're getting freaky with XD

Some bee species and many ant species exhibit what you could call a 3rd "gender" i.e. males, breeding females, and workers which are basically sterile females that assist in the continuation of the breeding females' genes.

Bugs are inherently queer from a human cis heteronormative lense. In fact ALL of nature is queer and humans are a part of nature. Queerness can't be erased because it is inherently a part of all life. In fact the definition of life itself isn't a clearly defined box. So embrace yourself entirely because queer or not, bug lover or not, you are not meant to fit into a box ❤️🐝

.

BTW If you're not queer and love bugs that's ok. The beginning was kinda meant to be rage bait XD

Anyway here's a cuckoo bee I caught for the Washington Bee Atlas:

[ocean-sunfish-hater]

The Real Life Biology of the Three Body Problem Series

In the first book of Liu Ci Xin's Three Body Problem series, we are introduced to our main antagonists, the Trisolarans. Whilst we never get to see them directly, we are shown some of their biology via the game that our protagonist plays.

ID: A grand domed palace in a chinese style sits in the background of the image. The foreground has hundreds of ancient Chinese soldiers holding white placards on sticks. Two people dressed in Chinese armour can be seen riding horses towards the palace.

In the game it is revealed that Trisolaris, the planet in the Alpha Centauri system on which the aliens reside, revolves around not one, but three suns. As such, the system is subject to the classic physics conundrum of the three body problem (after which the first book in the series is named), which states that for most initial conditions the trajectories of three celestial bodies is chaotic and difficult to predict.

This means that Trisolaris experiences very extreme, unpredictable conditions, divided into "stable eras" and "chaotic eras". Stable eras come about when Trisolaris settles into orbit around one of its three suns, bringing relative prosperity to the planet. However, chaotic eras result in disasters, such as extreme droughts, seemingly endless nights, and even changes in gravity. The first novel partially revolves around the Trisolarans attempting to see if humans could collectively solve the three body problem and bring some level of predictability to their planet.

During the course of the game, it is revealed to the protagonist (and us, the readers), that in order to cope with the devastation and unpredictability of chaotic eras, the Trisolarans can dehydrate themselves and enter a spore-like state, hibernating until the next stable era comes. This allows them to bypass some of the extreme conditions and ensures the survival of the species as a whole.

Believe it or not, we have our very own Trisolarans here on Earth. In fact, there's loads of examples, from bacteria to triops, to my favourite of the bunch, Bdelloid Rotifers.

ID: An electron micrograph of some Bdelloid Rotifers and their mouthparts. They are long and slender, with a distinct mouth and tail section. Their mouthparts look like two semicircles lined with a comb-like structure.

These microscopic animals look freaky, because they are. If you've got any media literacy you've probably picked up by now that I am segueing here because they are somewhat similar to the aliens in the Three Body Problem, except this time they are very much real. Like the Trisolarans, Bdelloids live in very ephemeral environments: their usual haunts are the very thin film of water on moss and lichen. As you can imagine, these do not last all that long, and thus when they dry up, so do the Bdelloid Rotifers; in biology, we call this process anhydrobiosis.

"Ok, that's all well and good Ocean Sunfish Hater, but why do you like these guys more than the other anhydrobiotic creatures that roam our good, green Earth?" I hear you ask.

So you know how things that reproduce asexually don't have all that much genetic variation, and how sexual reproduction gives you an edge over asexual populations since you can keep that genetic variation fun and funky fresh, and how that has been the cornerstone for eukaryotic reproduction? Well. Well. Just like me, Bdelloid Rotifers have been completely celibate for 35-40 million years, with some people even bringing that number up to 100 million years, when they diverged from their sister clade. So how do these turbo-virgins not go extinct, racking up tonnes of deleterious mutations, not having any advantageous innovations, and eventually exploding into a genetic soup?

The secret lies in their ability to dehydrate. Not only is it a really handy dandy way to stay alive when your only source of water is gone, it literally rips apart their cells and genes! And why! Why the fuck does that help? It sounds like the opposite of helping!

ID: An electron micrograph of the foot of a Bdelloid Rotifer. It has been shaded a light green. The structure looks almost like a face, with a smile and two stalk-like structures that could be mistaken for eyes. But this is not a face.

Having this mild-to-moderate level of cell membrane and chromosomal damage enables the Bdelloids to take up genetic material from their environment, mostly via their digestive systems, where their last meals are slowly being broken down to reveal that juicy DNA inside. When the water returns and the Bdelloids rehydrate, this genetic material gets incorporated into their chromosomes as their cells get back to work repairing themselves. And they sure ain't picky. In fact, it has been shown that in some species of Bdelloids, up to 8% of their genetic material has non-animal origins. How cool is that?

This is probably what has allowed them to continue adapting and evolving, even when they have been reproducing asexually for so long. This strategy has been so successful that the Bdelloids have managed to diversify into over 450 species. Pretty impressive for a class of animals that haven't had sex in over 40 million years.

Perhaps the Trisolarans might have a similar mechanism as part of their biology (even if they do reproduce sexually as stated in the book). Maybe they've managed to survive for this long because they have been able to absorb useful genes from their home planet, just like Bdelloids have been doing here on Earth. I don't know if these are what Liu Ci Xin had in mind when he wrote the Three Body Problem, but they sure were what I was thinking of when I read the book.

If you're still here, thanks for reading! I know this was a bit of a longer post, but I just wanted to use the new Netflix show to talk about one of my favourite books and one of the weirdest, most underappreciated animals.

[butchyeons]

Ur gp jeongyeon has me thinking many thoughts … u mentioned the other members tho and that has me curious. Any gp headcannons about any of the members (whoever or how ever many u want im not picky I’ll truly take anything lol) will be much enjoyed hope ur having a nice day/night depending on when ur reading this lol :D

hi, omg once again i’m so sorry this sat in my inbox for so long. work’s been a nightmare 😭 but i am so happy to answer this. i’m just gonna go with the rest of my bias line for this (namohyo), but, i can definitely give ones for the other members in the future too. they’ll be under the cut!!

cis men and minors dni.

nayeon:

i love nayeon so much… but it isn’t the biggest

probably around 5" when she’s hard

but god will she act like she’s got the biggest dick on the planet 😭

and the others let her bc 1. it’s cute and 2. if it means it’ll get nayeon down their throat or fucking them, then yes, absolutely she’s got such a huge dick they can barely take it!!!1! y’know. full show she loves an ego boost lmao

could be cut or uncut i cant make a decision. i just personally think uncut is hotter so we’ll go with that

underwear thief… she likes to. yknow. cum in them and then leave it for the other members to find later. FREAK

she also just likes to smell them while she jacks off

not much of a toy user, she’s perfectly fine with her hands (bc they’re big anyways). but she does like a nice butt plug on occasion

definitely vers, but likes being in charge, so she’s usually more dominant

… but sometimes (if she’s having a rough day), she loves to be pampered and will sit there and just take whatever’s given to her, be it a hj/bj/or getting fucked by another member

greedy tho she likes to go until she’s shooting blanks. like she’s one of the only members who can cum more than once during a session lmao, she will go until there’s literally nothing left

it twitches a lot. it’s also fun to watch it pulse when she cums, and it’s even more fun when there’s literally nothing left coming out of her

but bc she’s good at finishing more than once it comes out in smaller loads. if that makes sense. she doesn’t cum nearly as much as some other members (see: momo)

her dick might be on the smaller side but god does she know how to use it! she’s very good at fucking idek how to describe it

can last a decent amount of time, likes to take it slow. she’s overly a tease, but it’s so worth it with her

sleeps naked bc she doesn’t care who sees lmao. usually wears briefs though. if she’s feeling fancy though she does wear cute panties bc she likes seeing her bulge in them, esp when she gets hard LMAO

and also if she’s naked it’s… easier access. she’s definitely into somno. that’s probably one of the only times she doesn’t mind not being in control- she likes being used like a little toy to get the other members off, takes a lot of pride in it

momo:

now… she’s big. she’s up there with jeongyeon in how big it is

again probably 7-8" hard

but unlike jeongyeon she is so fucking sensitive

like oh god. one of her favorite things to do is get hard in her boxers and just… either she touches herself over them or she kinda humps the air until she cums (and absolutely ruins them). it doesn’t take very long

it’s a pretty sight do you blame her

she can absolutely cum untouched

or, her preferred method, is finishing after just getting fucked in the ass. with a toy, another member fucking her, or even her own fingers- but her cock didn’t get touched once. she just loves the feeling of like… an unsatisfying orgasm LMAO

and when she cums there’s… a lot of it

frotting ❤️

also a big fan of getting her balls sucked LMAO. if they have more time the other members definitely try their hardest to make momo last, and that’s one way to do it

again i can’t pick if she’s cut or uncut, however, uncut is still so hot and i think momo would rlly like foreskin play (that’s her really freaky thing LMAO)

she’s just so sensitive, poor baby. the other members love teasing her about it, and they especially love to just… lightly circle the head of her cock with their fingers until she cums. as much as she will whine about it

the head flushes bright pink it’s adorable

again she’s a vers but wayyy more submissive. she’s puppy idk what you expect she will do whatever she’s told and she will take whatever she’s given!

dumbification >>>

but since she doesn’t last very long, she usually ends up bottoming more than anything else (not like she’s complaining)

she gets overstimulated pretty fast after she cums and although that’s fun and all, she can only last for so much longer after she finishes. very much a one and done girl

but bc of that the members tend to go to her for quick sessions, simple and fast handjobs or blowjobs. momo loves to give and receive both so she’s very fun to play with!

overall good girl for everyone, occasionally a brat for nayeon and jeongyeon (bc they’re older than her and she likes their punishments the most)

sleeps in boxers and a shirt mostly, sometimes sleeps naked. boxer briefs are the way to go for her, though.

jihyo:

on the average side, despite what most people would probably think 😭

so 6-6 1/2"

talk about people who know how to use it though oh my god

she definitely lasts the longest out of everyone in the group. great stamina, doesn’t just go ramming it in lmfao. depending on who she’s with and what’s going on for the group, she prefers to take her time working them up or getting worked up

idk she just loves foreplay

also has a sensitive chest, so she loves getting touched there before her dick is ever even thought about. loves getting covered in hickeys, too- but she doesn’t get those much bc yknow… her job

it is very much worth the scolding by her managers and makeup artists though

definitely uncut i am so sure about this

her and jeongyeon have absolutely done questionable things together when it comes to having foreskin. no i am not going into detail but i’m sure you can figure it out 😭

she really does love getting her dick sucked though

and since she’s not huge, she really loves when she gets deep throated. once again sana and nayeon are exceptionally good at this! but chaeyoung also surprises her

not necessarily a big toy user. she doesn’t love fleshlights or anything like it. her hand is really enough for her

but please god somebody suck this girl off!!!

vers and a switch, just depends on who she’s with. she leans more into being a top, though. i fear she just wants to stick her dick in anyone who’s willing to let her fuck them

doesn’t mind bottoming though, she likes feeling full. loves being full of cum, too. LMAO. it’s just always a bit of a cleanup

big fan of cockwarming, esp since it takes her longer to finish. it’s just nice for her

she especially loves falling asleep cockwarming- just something about waking up and she’s still hard and buried in someone (esp if it’s nayeon or mina)

lowkey it’s a running competition to see who can get jihyo to finish the fastest (and sana is winning)

once again… frotting ❤️

esp when whoever she’s doing it with is bigger than her

loves when the other members call her pretty or talk about how cute or big she is. that’s a good way to get her worked up fast

likes briefs the most. she hates how boxers will ride up under her pants. usually just sleeps in underwear and a t-shirt

once again thank you for this it was… very fun, and also very hot lmao. i love you g!p twice!

[thecurioustale]

More Thoughts on Jennyffer

@fipindustries / Amanda Avila recently published Episode 10 of her animated webseries Jennyffer, which is about an edgy trans high schooler. Last year I watched through the rest of the series and wrote down my thoughts, the short version of which is that I enjoyed it and was excited to hear that Episode 10 was coming out.

I didn't know that Episode 10 was going to be the series finale until Fip mentioned it after the fact, but it's a great note to go out on. Anyway, I figure that I should write down my thoughts for this episode too, since it's the big finale after all.

This post contains full spoilers for Jennyffer. You can watch the series yourself on YouTube. I do recommend it! This is one of those small indie works that I would probably never have sought out on my own, but one thing that friends are good for is getting introduced to new stuff through them, including sometimes their own work!

Some Stuff Before the Episode 10 Review

Before I start talking about Episode 10, I want to talk about the series as a whole.

I'm kind of an outlier queer person. I'm not gay; I'm not trans; and in fact the way my own sexual identity works is that I don't actually like looking at the topic of human sexuality all that closely most of the time and in most ways. A lot of sexual stuff grosses me out; I am a sexual person but am very particular about it. And I have no gender at all: I am agender. I don't like gender. Cis, or trans, or other for that matter. In my ideal world "masculine" and "feminine" would not be a thing; the traits from each binary would be assorted into all human beings on the basis of their character alone. This is one of several reasons I say that I would probably never have sought out this series on my own initiative. Other people's explorations of sexuality usually don't mesh well with my own, and explorations of gender irritate me with their very premise. Jennyffer is a series specifically about a trans girl coming into her own in the world, with a lot of overt sexual and genital stuff thrown in the mix, too. Transgender identity itself is both the main theme of the series and the main axis of virtually every plotline. I don't usually seek these things out. And so I just don't see this kind of work very often.

Watching Jennyffer, therefore, is a healthy thing for me, I think. It's good for me to look at more gender-exploration stories. And, on the sexual side, there's a certain level of reptilian-brain discomfort in me when it comes to looking at many spaces in human sexuality (queer or straight), and I would like to have less such discomfort with it, and Jennyffer is exactly the kind of acclimatizing art that helps me progress in that. Fip is an incredibly raunchy person; she really exults in getting nasty and freaky. Jennyffer itself is probably a whole lot tamer in regard than it could have been, yet even in its actual form it runs right up against the limits YouTube's Terms of Service—often satirically, e.g. daring YouTube to classify Jennyffer's bare breasts as female nudity. (A fight which has become significantly more salient given the corporate roll-overs to appease fascist ideals in the new Trump era, as we have seen a marked contraction of overt support for queer rights in the tech, media, and retail sectors, and a collapse in trans rights specifically.)

In any case, my friendship with Fip gave me the occasion to watch Jennyffer, and I am better off for it.

Speaking of: I also look at Jennyffer, the character, and can't help but wonder how quintessential she is to Fip. I know through my own experience with character creation in my storytelling that, for those of us who use art to explore and express ourselves, our central characters can be extremely intimate for us in the sense that they come to serve as vessels, "One Rings" if you will, for pouring so much of our essence and desires into. Fip wrote some things in her blog after publishing Episode 10, which I'll get to later, but, without considering any of those writings now: After observing my own deep-rooted discomfort with Jennyffer's heavy, proud focus on sex and gender, I couldn't help but step outside myself and wonder what Fip herself was seeing when she was creating this. What did it mean to her? Where did it come from? These kinds of questions probably have some pretty obvious answers—fun and goofs, general horniness, power fantasies and wish fulfillment, etc.—but there are probably some deeper rabbit holes here too. In any case, Jennyffer is a very personal work and I evaluate it as such—even more so on my second watchthrough than on my first. This series is not just grist for the mill; this series is someone's naked honesty, and that's special. It is a privilege to get to see artists bare their souls to the world in this way. The thing about passion is that it always says more about us than we mean it to. Something like Jennyffer can never be limited to being the face-value version of itself; there is always more to it underneath, intended or not.

Jennyffer isn't really a coming-of-age story to me. If I had to shoehorn it into a big formulaic category like that, I'd pick "slice of life." Jennyffer is mostly about Jennyffer being Jennyffer (in our messed-up, transphobic world). There isn't really a narrative "point" to the series—no central arc or final showdown—that is, until Episode 10. But Jennyffer's shit is about as together in Episode 1 as it is in Episode 9. Even Episode 10 is climactic mostly because it is declarative; it fills in more about the core of Jennyffer's character, and it does so with a much more serious tonality. Some of the subplots in the series have arcs across episodes, most notably the love arc, but these are never central; they are more like amusements. Jennyffer is a work that rewards paying close attention to detail and assuming that the creator's artistic decisions are always deliberate and intelligent. But most of this power is dedicated in the background simply to being clever and funny—Jennyffer is conceived as a comedy series, after all—and not to making any self-indulgent, grandiose philosophical statements about Jennyffer's "evolution" from child to adult or boy to girl. Arguably, this doesn't apply to Episode 10, which definitely does tread into this more ambitious space, but I think it's also arguable that Episode 10 is simply one more slice of life.

Ahead of writing down my thoughts about Episode 10, I rewatched the entire series (including Episode 10 again at the end), and on my second go-through I found I was immediately familiar with and comfortable with the format. When I sat down to watch this show for the very first time, I had no idea what I was going to get. An indie production can be anything: pure gold, pure crap, or anything else. Fip is a friend and my biggest worry was that I wouldn't be into her work. But that wasn't a problem on my second watchthrough, because I'd already seen the whole series and I knew that I liked it. On that first watchthrough, though, I was very much a stranger in a strange land at first.

Engaging with somebody's art really is like stepping into another world. All the rules are subject to change. So are all the conventions. And I've found over my life that what we bring with us as audience members on our travels into these new worlds is critical. Fip is a friend and so I had a lot of premade goodwill going into the series. I am always telling myself that I should try and be more like this when I engage with strangers' works, too, because the extra patience and good faith often pay off. I got a lot of extra benefit from this series because Fip is a friend and I went into it with so much more good faith and alertness; these postures would benefit me from watching works from strangers too. This is hard to do, of course, because, in general, extra patience and good faith and alertness more often don't pay off, as many works don't deliver on the higher degree of audience investment, and I do find myself becoming less and less patient and attentive as I get older. But Fip got maximum good faith from me, and it paid off handsomely, because Jennyffer starts out pretty rough but it drastically improves.

The title sequence is actually great and was great right from the beginning, an Episode 1 has plenty of good humor and interesting ideas and emotional effects in it, but on the whole it was very unpolished to me when I was watching it for the first time, and my mind was constantly on a tightrope between perceiving it as good and perceiving it as bad. Because I had stepped into a new-to-me world of the artist's own creation, I had to learn what I was actually seeing before I could judge it. But in so doing I also had to resist the temptation to pre-judge it on the basis of tropes, like Jennyffer's smartass behavior style, or cringeworthy elements, like the poor sound design or Fip's uneven voice acting. I also had to keep in mind that this was a one-person animation team. I'm spoiled on animations that cost millions of dollars to make, so I have to recalibrate my expectations to watch one-person, low-budget productions and not get caught up on the animation. (That said, Fip's animation is actually pretty decent, and, once you get used to the style of it, it's completely adequate to the task. Indeed, if anything, Fip's animation is actually probably one of the strong points of the series, because I for one can't imagine animating roughly 90 minutes of runtime with just my ole self to do the animation.)

One thing that stood out to me on my second watchthrough is that Jennyffer got over its uneven starter phase real fast—and I adapted to its idiomatic style even faster. Almost every post-as-you-go indie production starts out pretty rough, and Jennyffer is no exception, especially in production value issues. On second watch, I think Episode 3 (the one where Jennyffer's hormone gel turns the big burly sports team into ladies) is the first one that I unambiguously dig. This is where the show first finds it footing, and this is where I first get really into it. That means it only took Fip two episodes to basically get a feel for her show, which is pretty impressive and speaks to her artistic talent and smarts, her ability to learn from other productions and digest their lessons, and most of all to her passion for the subject matter and characters. This is not a given: All creators improve with practice, but not many improve so quickly or to such heights. And, in that sense, maybe the most exciting thing about Jennyffer is that it invites us to imagine what Fip might create in the future.

But would I have made it to Episode 3 if Fip wasn't a friend? I don't know! I've become a notoriously disloyal YouTube viewer; I used to finish a lot more videos through to the end, but these days I will bail readily. I don't know if Episode 1 would have persuaded me to click on the next one. And Episode 2 is the one and only episode in the series that I dislike more than I like—though I disliked it less on my second watchthrough, as, this time, I got to thinking less about my own lack of amusement at the episode's central joke and more about what parts of Fip went into creating it. But would I have clicked through it on my first watchthrough to see Episode 3 if Fip wasn't a friend? I honestly doubt it. I do know that creators usually have a rough beginning, and in the past I've trudged through many a bad show or webcomic to see where it goes once it improves, so it's possible. But it's definitely not guaranteed. Only Fip's preexisting friendship guaranteed I was going to watch the whole thing. And I don't know if this can really be generalized to an actionable principle for anyone reading this, but the power of friendship certainly profited me this time, because the series really is clever and funny and does all sorts of cool things, if you give it a chance to get there. And I guess I mention all of this to reiterate what I was saying earlier, about how our friendships and other associations can take us to new places we wouldn't otherwise go. It's good to cultivate these opportunities for ourselves in life.

Moving on, I wanted to mention how much I like Jennyffer's character design—that is, the visual design of Jennyffer herself. She's kind of amazing, with a mixture of traits coded as both ugly and pretty. There are moments where she looks cute and charming and sometimes even downright beautiful, like a kid from a faerie-tale; and there are other moments where she looks like a troglodyte or an utter slob or Helga from Hey Arnold. This is one area where animation has more power than live-action, because live-action can only do this through costuming, makeup, and great finesse by the actor of their facial expressions and body language, but animation can redefine the reality of the character's entire physicality from moment to moment. Jennyffer has a believable range of appearance and aesthetic attractiveness, and it's clear that Fip approached the character with a sense of dignity for Jennyffer but also an aversion to making a sacred cow out of her. Many storytellers go one way or the other, either cynical and self-deprecating to the end, or unable to let their precious creations be truly ugly or horrible. Fip can harbor both thoughts simultaneously, and the result is pretty compelling for me. I love that sometimes Jenny is so cute and other times she looks just hideous. It's also interesting to contrast this with Jennyffer's pre-out self in Episode 10. Her male-presenting form is exclusively hideous. (Or, I should say, coded as hideous; an important distinction but not one that I'll necessarily be spelling out each time.) Her female-presenting form is still hideous sometimes, but only rarely, and only as one bookend of a much wider range of good and bad. There's a lot of truth in that. No metamorphosis brings us to Illum, that paradise of the inner mind, the state of perfection spoken of by the Relancii in The Curious Tale. Being true to ourselves only gives us the chance to glimpse paradise once in a while. It does not entitle us to permanent happiness.

Anyway, here's a few scattered notes from my second watchthrough. Apologies if I already said any of this stuff in my first review, and double apologies if anything I say at any point contradicts anything I said in my previous Jennyffer review:

In Episode 4, the fact that the school councilor is by definition unhelpful is some really sublime humor. Fip's acting here is also noticeably improving. The art was good right from Episode 1, but some of Jennyffer's poses and expressions in this episode show a growing familiarity with and grasp of the character that open the door to my favorite thing: nuance!

In Episode 5, Jennyffer's outrageous attitude and ridiculous evil scheme (crack her tutor's egg in order to be able to spend more time with Peter), is channeling pure Calvin (from Calvin and Hobbes). It's delicious! I also love how her cat ears move like real cat ears.

In Episode 6, "Hello dear. You know you don't have to break your computer ever time I come into your room, right?" is still one of my favorite jokes in the series, just because of how dry Peter's mother delivers it. Also, can I just say, growing up in the '90s with a family computer in the den and two parents who scarcely knew how to use it and rarely came into the den was a wonderful thing! I was rarely intruded upon. Granted, I was mostly playing games or writing stuff of surfing the web, not doing anything "dirty," but I think we all know what it feels like to be walked in on when you're doing something private and comfortable. So I can relate to Peter here.

Episode 10, Part 1

I don't really buy the news story opening, because it omits the role of the House of Representatives and because Republicans nowadays would never vote for a teen sex reassignment bill; even many Democrats would not have the courage to pass such a law. However, I do appreciate the jab at single-issue anti-Israel haters on the left being against the Democrats doing anything whatsoever so long as their pet issue isn't being addressed. Single-issue blinders are a huge problem on the left in America, and it's all the more glaring when these issues happen to be greatly overstated or outright illegitimate, which sadly isn't uncommon.

I appreciate pre-out Jennyffer's / JJ's grim, annoyed, completely hopeless self pep talk to "just get through the fucking day" even as the day is only just beginning and nothing has had the chance to go wrong yet. I've become all too familiar with that mindset in my old age, and I have a lot of sympathy for it in others.

JJ struggles, for obvious reasons, to choose the sex of their video game character. That only stands out to me because I have never hesitated to play female characters (and in fact I rarely don't play them when I have the choice). Goes to show how different strains of queerness (and different subjective experiences of the same strains) take different forms for folks.

2'30": The reference on the wall poster is lost on me—I often miss allusions due to my lack of exposure to whatever other people are talking about, but I appreciate the fat tummy on the light-haired, scantily-clad chick in front. Looks a lot like Cherry from Galaxy Federal in her past when she wasn't gaunt. I only point it out because I bet no one else will. Just goes to show that every detail, no matter how small, will find its appreciators, if the audience is large enough.

3'10": I mentioned this in my YouTube comment when Part 1 premiered, but the fucks being given here when JJ catches the bird midair and snaps its neck have dropped below zero and are now in the negative! This is an instance of the artistic exaggeration of emotions and situations that was common in the rest of Jennyffer but is less pronounced in Episode 10 due to the much more serious overall tone. You need to maintain a certain minimum level of over-the-top stuff if you want to keep it in at all, or it gets taken at face-value and stands out too much, creating a likely-unintended reaction in the audience. This bird-neck-snapping gag—and the others, like the headlight-punching gag that occurs shortly after—keep the episode grounded in its series' idiomatic style.

The simultaneous action of the present-day conversation and the two-years ago one is digestible enough, but probably would have benefitted from some supporting sound design and added visual cues to better demarcate the two, although the existing use of darker grays for the inside of the house in the flashback definitely helps.

It's fascinating how supportive and kindly Jenny's parents are to her, considering how hard her life has been and how jaded she is. I suppose they weren't necessarily always this way, but, supposing they were, I think this illustrates how even people in relatively good situations can have miserable lives—which is also an important theme in the Galaxy Federal Inaugural Novel and therefore one that I've thought about a lot in the past several years. I find Jennyffer and her troubled past completely believable.

Overall, this sub-episode sets up the premise of Episode 10 as a whole pretty well: Jenny's transition, and her finding of herself in her new identity. It establishes more definitively (though there were clues earlier in the series) that Jenny's social transition is fairly recent, and also establishes that she was actually even more violent and assertive before she transitioned, which means that her hard edge isn't (solely) a coping mechanism for the discrimination and mistreatment that come with being out as trans. And it also sets up her anatomical transition as the central plot of Episode 10—which, given that this is the series finale (though I didn't know this on my first watchthrough), gives it an incredible amount of weight and retroactively focuses the entire series around this issue of identity and self-acceptance.

This sub-episode, and Episode 10 as a whole, are much more plot-heavy and narrative-driven than the series up till this point, and, together with the much more serious tonality, Episode 10 definitely feels like a step up in Jennyffer's gravitas.

As a critical viewer it is relevant to question why Jennyffer begins having flashbacks to two years ago before she actually commits to the sex reassignment surgery or is even seriously considering it. In fact, in the brief moment where she addresses the matter herself before her parents invite her to pursue it, she actually signals that she is willing to wait. I'm prepared to believe that this is just a continuity error (in the service of telling two simultaneous stories set at different points in time), but I much more so suspect that there's something going on in Jenny's psyche here. I think it implies that, even though she is out as trans and is accepted as such by her family and friend, her journey isn't actually complete yet. I didn't think about this at all on my first watchthrough, because I took the plot device of sex reassignment at face value, but, knowing as I do now that she ends up rejecting reassignment surgery later in Episode 10, I think her moderate stance and flashbacks here are clear indicators of the cognitive dissonance that is brewing inside her. She's smart, and she had seen the news report earlier in this sub-episode, so the premise of reassignment surgery is already in her mind at this point, forcing her to confront a future that she has always deliberately avoided looking at in the past ("Just get through the fucking day.")—and, with it, the question of who she really is.

Episode 10, Part 2

I immediately appreciate how JJ's teeth are almost all a different shape from each other, each one irregular in its own way. This not only contrasts with Jennyffer's dental braces but transforms those braces into a compact yet powerful metaphor: JJ's life was a rudderless, uncaring mess, while Jenny's is "willing to make the effort," whatever that might entail. It also retroactively provides narrative significance to the braces, above and beyond being a teenage character design trait. And Jenny's braces are so essential to her facial expressions!; this is definitely not a trivial or peripheral thing. I absolutely love stuff like this in storytelling, where the significance of something in plain sight isn't evident until later on. We did see JJ at least once earlier in the series (not to mention in the title), so this isn't new to Episode 10, but JJ gets a ton of screentime here so it's much more apparent.

I talked about this a moment ago, but I really love the visual design of this character of Jennyffer. Not only is Jennyffer everything I said earlier, but her pre-transition incarnation as JJ is also really compelling. JJ looks like a muppet monster. This is someone who doesn't care, and whose physical form reflects this lack of care. Trans-haters often accuse trans people, especially transwomen, of looking ludicrous, like they are making a joke of womanhood. Lipstick on a pig as it were. Jennyffer however is drawn in a way that shows she clearly cares and makes an effort to appear feminine and (usually) dignified. It's actually JJ who looks ludicrous, with the snaggle teeth and mop of hair swallowing their head. Again, this is merely coded as ugly; this is not an inherently ugly look (so no shade to anyone who looks like JJ!); but I'm taking it as "ugly" because I think that is the narrative intent.

Now, I've said a couple times that JJ "doesn't care," and actually I know that that's not true; it's actually the exact opposite: JJ cares a lot! If they didn't, JJ's misery wouldn't exist, and we wouldn't have Jennyffer the character later on or Jennyffer the series by Fip. But an outward lack of expression of care is what I'm talking about. I love how JJ's visual design projects their total rejection of the world and life. It's obviously no surprise that Jenny / JJ are drawn with such attention to detail and such artistic oomph, since that would have to be an important component of the point of Jennyffer as a series, but it's still impressive, because a lot of main characters out there do come across as pretty generic or otherwise underwhelming with respect to their narrative and thematic substance (if such things are even present). I love Fip's thoughtfulness and performance of talent here.

Moving on, it's interesting how, in both of the sub-episodes so far—and I noticed this on my first watchthrough too—Jennyffer is more put-together in Episode 10 than we've ever seen her. Her conversations with her parents and the staff at the health clinic show a maturity and well-adjusted attitude that is definitely not present in most of the series. Jenny is also much more frequently drawn in her "cute" poses than in her "gross" ones. I assume this is to deepen the contrast with JJ, but the narrative effect of it is to imply that Jennyffer is already coming more fully to a point of self-acceptance and adult maturity, and is therefore ready to confront the question of an anatomical transition—and I wouldn't put it past Fip to have been clever enough to do this on purpose for this reason, and kill two birds with one stone with respect to also deepening the aforementioned contrast with JJ. But, either way, this maturity and good behavior are a major step forward for Jennyffer as a character, and further legitimize the role of Episode 10 as retroactively giving focus to the entire series. In fact you could almost imagine the boundaries of a metaphor to exactly this effect wrapped around the entire series. I wouldn't expect it to have been deliberately planned from the start of the series, where Jennyffer would become mature just in time for Episode 10, but, if it was planned out this way all along, that's very impressive.

I like how Rebecca, the receptionist at the health clinic, is really obviously the grown-up version of a Mean Girl. The Mean Girls were dropped as a series subplot pretty early on, which I missed, so this callback is nice. (It's actually not that; I subsequently saw in the credits (and the YouTube comments) that it's actually an allusion to another piece of media I'm not familiar with: one of many such instances!)

Since my first watchthrough, I had forgotten that it is a de-transitioner at the clinic who sows the primary seed of doubt in Jennyffer's mind about the reassignment surgery. I don't claim to speak for trans people or detransitioned people, but I know it's a contentious and complicated topic within the community, especially since a not-small number people who detransition go on to become enemies of trans folk and trans legitimacy, sort of like how many fat people who lose weight go on to become some of the worst anti-fat bigots. But the detransitioner in this episode isn't one of those; they're actually very reasonable, and have a valid perspective. I compliment Fip for tackling it head-on, though, in retrospect, I think it is a weakness in the drama for this person to be the main source of Jenny's own doubts, because, even though it is entirely reasonable to imagine that a detransitioning person would be a valid and likely source of such doubt, in storytelling we look for dramatic patterns, and this signal implies that Jenny herself may not be clear in her gender identity, which would be a very significant development for the character and would also establish an incredibly strong symmetry with the events happening concurrently in the two-years-ago storyline.

4'10": I know these are window blinds, but, for the life of me, they look like those metal drop-down barriers that you see in high-crime areas, implying the prison that JJ psychologically dwells in.

In my YouTube comment when Part 2 premiered, at the scene of JJ's mom walking in and dropping the pizzas, I wrote:

This is pretty raw! Wasn't expecting an episode like this, but I like the earnestness of it. The doubt, the uncertainty. I love how pre-out Jennyffer is drawn like a slovenly monster (or a monstrous slob, maybe?) while present-day Jennyffer seems to be drawn more beautifully with each passing episode, and I love all the unspoken things that this says. And most of all I'm digging the parallel storyline and curious to see where it all goes and how it all fits together. I got a laugh when Jennyffer's mom came home with the pizza because I knew as soon as I saw those boxes that their sole purpose in life was to be dropped. 😂

Fip mentioned in reply that it was annoyingly difficult for her to find a sound effect for the sound of them dropping, which made me smile. She also mentioned how hard it was to find a voice actor for the detransitioner, which I suppose is understandable.

I think media like Jennyffer do important work in the space of trans legitimization. Trans representation in storytelling is one thing. I have trans characters in all of my stories. It's good to give as many people as possible the chance to see themselves. But that's sort of a minimum bar. Actually confronting contemporary trans issues and even the stigma on trans legitimacy emanating from the hateful quarters of society, through representation, is a much higher accomplishment, and it's one that is much easier to tackle—and more readily acceptable to others—if you're actually trans yourself. Whenever I talk about trans issues I know I am wading into a minefield, and as a result I am much less assertive and combative than I would have been in the past (in the past I was quite fierce on many issues even if I wasn't super-knowledgeable on them). But that lack of ferocity also makes me less effective as a messenger, not to mention my preexisting level of being less-informed and less experienced. Fip obviously knows a thing or two about being transgender and going through a transition, and Jennyffer is an important work that has the potential to reach a lot of people and sway a lot of minds—and this is certainly a timely time for it, given that the fascists in the US have made trans people and immigrants their two chief scapegoats. Jennyffer is not preachy at all, but it handles the subject matter with a familiarity and an approachable irreverence that get through to some people in a way that well-ordered essays do not. I guess, to put it in other words, it assumes from the onset that the viewer is onboard with trans identity being legitimate, and tells stories on that basis, and this can have a way of drawing people into its underlying premise through the accessibility and relatability of the storytelling. It also helps, I think, to soften many people's shock at the fact of transgenderism, since our thinking about sex and gender is often very tightly codified by society, and even to some extent by our instincts.

Stepping back a couple sentences, and speaking of the US, it's interesting that Jennyffer is set in the United States, considering that Fip is from, and still lives in, Argentina. It takes a lot of knowledge and bravery to do that. I don't think I would dare to set a work in another present-day real country, myself. I'd be uncomfortable even setting a work in a place like Chicago or New York City. But I guess this speaks to Fip's worldliness and also to the freshly-expired US global hegemony. Because we situated ourselves at the center of the world economy and world culture for nearly a century, people all around the world know an unusually high amount about American life, culture, and politics. That will begin to dissipate now that America under Trump has cut itself off from the world, but for now at least we still get things like Jennyffer, where a creator from another continent will set one of her works in the US and voice it in English, because she absorbed a ton of English-language media and hangs out in a bunch of English-speaking communities online, and is actually more comfortable writing dialogue in English! (Fip told me so herself when I brought it up in a conversation a while back.)

Moving on, kudos to Fip for JJ's cross-dressing visual design being clearly distinct from the look she settled into when becoming Jennyffer. That's the kind of attention to detail and realism that I really appreciate, and I always miss it when creators omit it. This essentially required drawing a completely new character, and not only that, but one who has to look relatable to two other characters. Neither of these things is trivial! It's common in storytelling for storytellers to connect two known points with a direct bridge and no intermediate nodes or steps, i.e. to turn a JJ immediately into a Jennyffer with nothing in between. Sometimes this is done to save work but more often it is just done out of lack of imagination; people often don't think of it! Yet it is entirely plausible and extremely likely that JJ's first attempt at presenting as feminine would not be the end of that particular journey for her. What we see in the series title (the animation of JJ becoming Jennyffer) is highly stylized and works very well for what it is trying to do, but it isn't by any means a literal representation of How That Works.

I appreciate the end credits hanging on "Georgie Girl" long enough to not let the song feel cut off.

Episode 10, Part 3

This is my first time realizing that JJ's therapist looks a lot like Fip's own avatar—a not so subtle subtext, if intentional.

I'm always careful never to assume a one-to-one direct relationship between an artist and the surrogate characters they create. None of my own author surrogates are a one-to-one representation of me. They aren't intended to be (with the very asterisk-laden exception of Silence Terlais), and in fact I deliberately give these characters (including Silence) traits that I wouldn't have. I do this for a variety of reasons, but one of them is that otherwise readers who know anything about me can begin to make mistakes about their readings of these characters by mapping what they know about me onto the characters. I also want to be able to put my characters in situations where they can behave in ways that I never could, not in the "power fantasy" sense (although I do that too) but in the "let's explore this from another angle" sense.

And, so, I have never taken Jennyffer as Fip, or Fip as Jennyffer, despite my knowing that there are doubtless manifold similarities between the character and the person, and some profound explorations of self that Fip is doing through Jennyffer, and even despite Fip's own statement (which we'll get to later) that Jennyffer is very much a part of Amanda herself. So to see Fip's own avatar [seem to] appear as Jennyffer's therapist underscores my confidence in the rightness of my decision to keep them separate. And for good reason, lol: I recall a conversation I had with Fip a while ago, where I mentioned that Jennyffer, at least at this point in her life, probably wouldn't like Silence, whereas Fip does like me. 😂

Anyway, moving on: This sub-episode has some issues with the balancing of the sound levels, which had also come up again in Episode 6 (though I don't know if I mentioned it at the time). So I was riding the volume knob here, because being hard of hearing means the soft parts were too quiet otherwise.

In my YouTube comment at the time, I wrote this:

This is my favorite part of Episode 10 so far, and one of the top installments of the whole series!! I'll save most of my thoughts for my eventual Tumblr write-up, but I wanted to say your voice acting during the therapy scene really hit hard, the humor on this one hit me just right, and the photo montage during the song was so heartwarming and one of my favorite moments in the whole series! 🥰😭🥰

I stand by this comment! The therapy scene was very well-done. That said, I think it had more of an impact on me the first time than on my second watchthrough, because it was such a breakthrough moment for the character and I as an audience member could only experience that breakthrough once, but it still stands out as very well voice-acted and drawn by Fip. And the montage afterward is 100% my favorite moment in the series, and Jennyffer has never looked more adorable or more herself than in these extra-effort still images. And she's still Jenny, after all, as shown by how she starts decompiling the face of a classmate who makes fun of her after she's out as trans. <3

And now I guess the time has come due to pay the bill on my "eventual Tumblr write-up." I had intended to write down a great deal of thoughts about Episode 10. The essay you're reading now is only an echo of that intention, because in between then and now Real Life happened to me and I don't have a lot of mental bandwidth for intellectual exercises like composing and articulating my thoughts. I hope this post is readable at all, and that it has anything of value to offer. I don't know when I would have gotten to writing this if Fip hadn't nudged me with a reminder recently. And with her birthday coming up shortly, I knew I had to make the best effort I could, even though it won't be as good as I really wanted.

But such things must be as they are, and, echo or not, I will say this:

Whenever an artist attempts to undertake the actual, on-screen depiction of a major transformative moment in a character's life, that's sort of a sacred calling to me. Not in the religious sense, since I'm not religious, but it really cuts to the heart of our art. It's always appropriate, I think—and it's bred into our nature as human beings, too—that we tend to notice these moments when they happen to others around us, and we naturally give these people the space to have their moment. In moments like these, most rules of social etiquette are suspended. Most norms of conduct are suspended. There is an inherent understanding, that most of us possess, that, in these defining moments of our individuality, we will be given space to act and react naturally and true to ourselves. I like that the therapist knew when to push JJ, and how to push, and that she also knew when to be quiet and listen. This scene illustrates an example of one of the uncommon cases where I think it's okay to adversarially yell at your therapist (or at another person in general). And I like how Jennyffer's mom also pushed, because it's not the choice I would have made in her place, but it was the right choice. It sent Jennyffer over the edge, and "cracked her egg," and that's what she needed and that's what she was heading for. If it had been me in her mom's place, I would probably have never have been tone deaf enough to go pounding on my kid's door like that. I say "probably" because the way Jennyffer was acting in that moment, marching to her room, could plausibly have looked a lot to her mom like something really bad had just happened to her, like a beating or mugging or sexual assault even. And in that case, if I'd inferred that, maybe I would have pounded on the door after all. But, regardless of what I would've done, that's what her mom did, and then, afterward, her mom gave Jenny the space to have her carpet-ruining moment of awakening. It is a privilege and dare I say even an honorable burden to bear witness to these most intimate and stressful moments of metamorphosis and personal development in a person's life, and to depict it in art is a difficult and ambitious undertaking that is incredibly easy to fail at. Especially if the artist is not relying on tropes and formulae, these situations can be really hard to pull off with the right dramatic weight and tonal color. They can be hard to depict in a way that is convincing and compelling. They can be hard to pace properly. In visual media, they can be hard to storyboard and block out. What is the camera doing? What is the lighting doing? What angles and elevations are we using? What props and scenery are going to be in the shot? Etc. Humans have a good nose for sniffing out insincere or uncompelling moments of great personal transformation, and any artist who attempts such a thing seriously is putting themselves at a lot of risk. But it is noble to try; it is that sacred calling; and all the more so when the subject matter is of deep and vulnerable personal significance to us. Felicia's egg-cracking from a few episodes back was played mainly as a joke. While it's not impossible that an adult might realize they are trans by the obvious machinations of a precocious teenager whose main goal is to get out of her lesson and hang out with her friend, it's more likely that this was not intended to be taken as a literal representation of the moment of awakening. But Jennyffer's moment is (notwithstanding the giant beams of energy). And I think Fip pulls it off; I really do. In so doing, she achieves something that most people have not: capturing one of these transformative moments in media authentically. That's a great feat, and it makes me proud of her, and it also makes me dream about all the potential this series has to break through to people and help them in their own journeys of personal understanding within themselves or perhaps with others in their immediate lives.

And, in a nod to Fip's artistic prowess, the therapy and home scenes would not pay off the way they do without the immediate and powerful catharsis of the incredibly upbeat musical montage afterwards where we see the first days of the new life of Jennyffer. That montage is the reward that Fip earns in succeeding with the previous scenes so well.

7'51": Lol at Peter's written note including all the "umms" and so forth. 😂😂😂

I haven't said much about Peter, or the love arc he has with Jennyffer. This arc is the biggest narrative structure in the series, as it becomes clear relatively early on that Peter has a crush on Jenny, and in several episodes we see him trying to confess his feelings for her. (I feel for him, by the way: I confessed to my high school love in senior year, after two-and-a-half years of suffering, and it was the scariest thing I ever did.) Peter is one of those characters who doesn't have a ton of meaning or purpose in and of himself—or, since Fip says that he's a part of her, I should say that Peter doesn't have a highly independent purpose in Jennyffer, but, rather, exists more so to help define Jennyffer as a character and give her a conversation partner whom she can be real with. But despite these humble origins Peter becomes a charming character in his own right relatively early on in the series. The consistency of his characterization as a schlemiel (including in the past) makes him kind of lovable and adorable. He's a cinnamon roll who needs to be protected, and this plays wonderfully well against Jennyffer's headstrong independence and fierceness. As for the love arc, I'll say more about it in the next sub-episode.

Finally for Part 3, I have to say that it caught me by surprise on my first watchthrough that Jennyffer backed out of her surgery. I had been assuming uncritically that this surgery was going to happen and serve as the culmination of her journey. This was set up in Part 2, so that's actually when it caught me by surprise, but Part 3 here is where the actual surprise drops in-plot.

I have to admit to some personal ignorance here. I'm aware that plenty of trans people don't get bottom surgery. But my assumption had always been that this was usually a matter of money or health concerns. For a long time it didn't even occur to me that people with gender dysphoria would pass on sex reassignment surgery if they could get it without much issue. It's one of those things where, once I think about it directly, of course it's obvious that changing your genitalia isn't a direct equal sign with transitioning, and not everyone is going to want to do it. But because I don't watch a ton of media that specifically deal with the issues surrounding transitioning, Jennyffer was one of the only times I've actually seen this reasoning process play out. Like I said before, it caught me by surprise when Jenny backed out. My natural inclination would be to ask "Why wouldn't you go through with it? Isn't it what you want?" And the answer of course is that "It's complicated." Indeed, Jennyffer herself never truly, fully explains it. Once again, this series isn't afraid to go in a difficult direction, and I appreciate that. I appreciate that it isn't all Disneyland and neatly-bowtied ribbons where everything works out the way you expect it'll work out, but instead frequently veers off in other directions for valid and well-articulated reasons.

Episode 10, Part 4

It's a subtle touch that Jennyffer's hair in the bathroom has partially reverted to JJ's hairstyle.

The front-on confrontation of the fact of Peter being gay but also being attracted to a transgender woman falls into a category of queer relationship pairs and sexual preferences that doesn't get explored nearly enough, I think. Jenny herself asks Peter what he's pulling, since at face value that's pretty invalidating toward her. Peter admits that she is essentially his only exception, and she takes that well enough, but in real life this can go all sorts of directions.

This is something I think about myself sometimes. I have a policy: Never apologize for your sexual attractions. You don't get to choose who you're attracted to. It just is what it is. But there's room within such a policy for bias to hide out, and I think we all have to ask ourselves from time to time whether and how guilty we are of harboring such bias, if we should find ourselves habitually unattracted or infrequently attracted to sexual minorities, people of various colors and ethnicities, people of various shapes and sizes, and so on and so forth.

I'm pretty fuckin' straight, personally, or at least "straight" is the word I'd use if I weren't agender. Instead the precise word is the super technical "gynosexual," i.e. "attracted to female bodies"; hence why I usually still use "straight." And so I do occasionally find transwomen attractive, but usually not, because they usually don't scan to my nether-regions as "female-bodied"; and on the other hand I've found more than a few transmen attractive over the years, mainly the ones who go for a look of androgyny and/or possess fat and highly pear-shaped bodies. And that's a difficult position to be in, because, on the surface level at minimum, it is insulting to both transwomen and transmen, but it is also a part of my identity that I don't control and therefore—per my policy—don't apologize for. I would like nothing more than to say that I am pansexual myself; attracted to everyone. But the simple truth is that I'm not. In fact my sexual preferences are very specific (and not just in this one area). This reality, in its commonness among people, is one of the many things that helps populate the cloud of dread that often darkens the sky of trans people's daily lives. "This person's cute, but what if they think I'm just an ugly freak?" Trans people know that a much higher than usual proportion of people are not going to be into them when compared with cis folk. It's a hard pill to swallow, and it's unfair, and it makes me upset because I contribute to the problem and can't authentically be any other way. I've tried to flush out any bias that may be motivating my preferences, and, to the extent that I can trust my findings, I haven't found much. The part of my brain that conceives of things like the peaceful existence with and acceptance of human diversity doesn't live at the same address as the part of my brain that wants to fuck. If anything, finding correctible bias within myself would actually increase my odds of moving closer to being pansexual, because it would imply that I can decondition or unlearn some of those biases, whereas unbiased sexual preferences are basically there to stay.

In any case, I especially appreciate Fip acknowledging this issue, in her own way, by finally addressing Peter's attraction to Jennyffer despite being gay himself. This kind of complexity exists abundantly in the real world, and we don't talk about it often enough, deeply enough, or maturely enough. In Peter's case, it may simply be an instance of him being not completely homosexual, just as most straight people aren't completely heterosexual. Or it may be, less flatteringly, that, like me, his southern brain is something of an essentialist when it comes to matters of sexual orientation, and doesn't process gender as sexual. (As an agender person, my brain definitely doesn't do that, and, in fact, while I am only attracted to bodies that I perceive as female, I am also highly inclined toward female bodies that present as agender or androgynous, not "feminine.") Or it may be that Peter is fully gay, but that his existing bond with Jenny overrides Peter's orientation. The end of the episode suggests that it was actually the second possibility, by stating that they broke up once Peter realized he was too gay and Jenny was too much of a woman, but I'm gonna invoke Death of the Author and state my preference for the third possibility. :p

But seriously though, it's an interesting and fraught topic. Most stuff concerning sexuality usually is. It's good to bring up and grapple with in storytelling.

5'00": I don't imagine this camera shot of the bathroom ceiling light is a deliberate allusion to Taxi or anything else, but it's funny how public bathrooms are such a common setting for "gritty" storytelling and human love and pathos, and there is an episode of the TV show Taxi where such a scene is occurring, and at one point they talk about the ceiling light, and how it's a good light. I always liked that moment.

I don't know how I feel about the culmination of the love arc between Jenny and Peter. I believe that it wasn't meant to be. I do like that all the promise and buildup was delivered upon by Peter finally confessing his feelings—and doing so at a moment perfectly suited to a plot climax. And the two of them consummating their relationship right there on the spot is, well...very Fip! 😂 But I guess I don't know how I feel about whether or not all the buildup was worth it. This was, after all, the biggest arc of the series, and nothing correspondingly big came of it. They just settled back into being the friends they were always meant to be. I suppose it's honest enough that one of them might have developed feelings for the other at some point; that's quite common, especially among teenagers. But in a story with a pretty limited runtime, playing up a romantic tension wasn't necessarily the best use of time, energy, or focus, at least in my opinion.

Then again, as I type that, I can't help but feel that Peter would have been pretty underdeveloped if Jennyffer had not had its love arc. I guess maybe in another timeline there would have been a different arc or arcs in its place, or other material to flesh out Peter's character. But, yeah: Speculation aside, the love story didn't do much for me.

Moving on, I like how Jennyffer's parents aged like twenty years in just two years, heh! I think this is one of those things where you're damned if you do, damned if you don't: You can't really make a character drawn in this style look two years older. So if you want to make them look visibly and noticeably older, you have to overstate it.

I also appreciate Jennyffer's mom putting on (more than) a few pounds. Her dad, too, actually. Given the power of cartoons to play around with body shapes, I really wish we saw this more often, but we rarely do.

8'03": I remember seeing the title in the end credits on my first watchthrough and thinking "This needs to be scrolling credits! It would fit with the ambition and scope of Episode 10!" And, lo and behold, the credits begin scrolling down, movie-style. Very classy, Fip! Well done.

Overall Thoughts

I read a lot of the YouTube comments and was clued in to many references and other artistic flourishes that I missed, despite my being on the lookout. I like it when a work is bigger than me like that. I didn't get even close to catching everything, and, probably, not all of what I did get was actually intentional. But, regardless, there is enough substance there for me to get a lot out of it, and for others to do the same despite loading up their proverbial plates with different food selections. I am reminded once again of how the experience of engaging with the art of thoughtful people is partially a mirror that shows us things about ourselves by fact of what we notice and how we interpret things.

This is a good series. If you've read this far and haven't seen it yet, you should watch it. Doesn't take long; the whole thing is roughly one feature-length movie in runtime. The first few episodes are just a couple minutes apiece. And if you watch it and like it, and have a few coins to spare, you should donate to Fip's Patreon fund! Which I say as a total hypocrite, because I'm not a patron myself, because I'm absolutely broke. (Not figurative "broke" either.) But maybe you are in a place to support. It's important to support small artists. Your money goes so much farther with them than it does with a creator who has dozens or hundreds of patrons. It's Fip's birthday soon, so go give her lots of cash!!

I mentioned earlier that this isn't a work I would have sought out on my own, most likely. I mentioned that sexual stuff kind of grosses me out a lot of the time, and gender stuff kind of pisses me off a lot of the time. I'm also not super heavy into bawdy, raunchy storytelling and humor. But one thing I've noticed over the years is that there is no one genre or category or topic that I categorically dislike. There will always be artists who speak to me, for whatever reasons, in a way that welcomes me into places where I don't normally choose to go. Fip is such an artist, and Jennyffer is a series filled with masterful creativity and genuine human warmth in spite of all the cynicism, and the humor is clever and adorable, and so are the characters. I enjoyed this series a bunch.

There Is No Need to Be Angry Anymore

Fip wrote down her own post-finale thoughts on Tumblr a while back, and I wanted to respond to some of that, too.

long long ago, back in 2008, i made a deviant art account and i started sharing my works online. i made the very concious and very deliberate choice back then, to fake it until i made it. every time i posted something, every time i updated my journal, every time i left any kind of note for a potential audience, i would talk with the register and confidence of someone speaking to a huge audience of adoring fans. would apologize for delays, i would advertize big ambitious porjects i had in the works (which i never finished or published). i would explain what i was going for with every work as if i had my dms filled with questions and fan theories.

much of that was me mimicking the style with which pretty much everyone posted at the time in deviant art. i did this when i only had like 4 followers there.

[...]

except this time is special, is it not?

this time i do have an actual, proper audience.

I used to do this too, a very long time ago—except that my confidence in those years was sincere, not faked. You, Fip, were probably just learning about my existence at about the time that I was definitively dialing back on this. I had gotten tired of promising big things and never delivering on them. And, by the mid-2010s, I was running out of things to say in the nonfiction space, having already articulated all the broad brushstrokes of my philosophy and worldview. And, so, when the Troubles came, I just stopped saying as much. And what I did say was not in the supremely self-confident style of yesteryear; it was in fact the exact opposite: a reflection of all the suffering I was going through at the time.

I never chose the right platform: I was on LiveJournal, a few niche web forums, and my personal website, lol. And I never had a consistent pipeline of published works. And so I went from having maybe a dozen followers to ultimately having the same four or so that you began with: very much the opposite trajectory from you, except even at my biggest I was still small-time, whereas you've built up a much more substantial audience!

I've become pretty familiar with disappointment in my own life, and so it has become all the more important to me over the years to take vicarious pleasure in the adventures and successes of others who richly deserve it. Especially when those others are friends. I hope your next projects build on what you have accomplished, and grow your star ever toward the elusive goal of a livable income as an artist. And if you ever get rich, buy me a house or something!

I'm kind of glad Jennyffer is over. When you mentioned around the turn of the year that you were working on Episode 10 after a hiatus, I remember thinking that, usually when this kind of thing happens, the artist comes back to it briefly and then falls off the wagon again—this time forever. But by choosing your comeback to also be your series finale you completely preempted that timeline and gave completion and closure to your series. It's a good size. And Episode 10 does a lot to cast the rest of the series in a new light. It's almost as long by itself as the rest of the series put together, and it really does serve nicely as the centerpiece, even though it comes at the end. And finishing Jennyffer means you are that much more free to work on something else. When you were posting some animation studies recently, I couldn't help but wonder if there was any secret information to be gleaned from reading those tea leaves.

i was perfectly content to be someone on the same tier as, say, tom sidell or zach morrison or scott dewitt. someone with a well liked webcomic who could feed a relatively small but loyal group of fans that would spurn discussion, analisis and fanart. that was the thing i was looking most of all, praise i can do without, i wanted engagement, i wanted analisis, i wanted the kind of fan interaction that is measured in fan content. i wanted reviews, even bad reviews, it meant people were thinking about my work.

That's exactly what I wanted for my own work, too. There isn't a much more meaningful and valuable gift a fan can give a creator than thoughtful feedback, good or bad. We've talked about the importance of artists doing this for one another in our one-on-one conversations, Fip, but, for anyone else reading, I hope this is something you'll take to heart. Give small creators thoughtful feedback! Don't worry so much about the popular creators who get thousands of comments on everything they post and probably won't even see your comment; spare your energy for the people who often get nothing at all except a few praises. Praises are wonderful, but thoughtful analysis is priceless. Take the time to do it; it's a good deed! That's why I'm doing this, despite my brain hurting to do it. It is meaningful to me because there truly is very little that you can give an artist that they will prize more than your thoughtful and honest feedback.

the actual biggest success of this project id say is the fact that people got me. people truly understood what i was going for. i have heard many analisis of what is art in the last few months, wether there is such a thing as objective criticism of art, what is art for, what is the purpose of art, why we make art. and one position i heard over and over again was that art is not for communication. you know, death of the author and all that, what the creator meant has no bearing on the work and the experience of the work itself.

and yet i cannot help but disagree on some level, because if so what else can i call jennyffer other than an absolute triumph of conveyance. people understood it, time and time again i would see comments where people descrive pointedly, incisively, precisely what i was going for. i felt seen.

🥹

(That just shows up as a black rectangle on my computer, but it's this emoji of eyes welling up with tears of gladness.)

Yes. It feels good to feel seen! Even if the part of us that we are feeling is seen is only a little bit of our entire whole. To steal the conversation back to my own work for a moment, the absence of this feeling of being seen is very closely related to the central theme of the Galaxy Federal Inaugural Novel. I have gone through my life mostly without feeling that I have been seen, and it is deeply dismaying. Wearying, too. The best I have been able to do, in lieu of being seen, being understood, and therein being accepted, is to write down what it feels like not to be, in the voice of my character Cherry, and grapple with the meaning of a world where that is so. It's not a fun book. It's not the book I wanted to write in years past. But it's the best I can do in this lonely world of mine, because it is honest and it is central.

I am always so glad when people have a chance to feel seen. We don't do enough of that in the world. We don't try as hard as we should to understand each other, and indulge each other in the act of gazing upon them with insights and interrogatives. Despite growing up on a media feast of affirmations that we should all embrace our individuality, the harsh truth is that human civilization is viciously conformist and will punish ruthlessly, or ruthlessly ignore, anyone who deviates outside the social order. Counterexamples exist only in the exceptions. Even cultural and political movements do not bring the true, full-figured inclusiveness we wish for them to.

Moving on, I agree with you about your personal importance to the series, and I always have: Your intentions matter to Jennyffer; they deeply enrich it. And this is true in general. The creator's intentions matter, and when those intentions are lost, a part of the work is lost.

Now I want to end this with a talk about the characters themselves in this story. Jennyffer and Peter.

They are based on many many different things, things that i have descrived many times in the past. but one thing i want to put emphasis on is that they are very much two sides of myself. the sensitive, morally punctillious and enciclopediacly nerdy Peter, and the assertive, sarcastic and ebullient Jenny. those who have known me for a while would have seen my inner peter poke out whenever in talking about some interest of mine, or when i first met them and want to cause a good first impression, or when im kinda tired or melancholic. and they would have also noticed my inner jenny get out whenever im salty, or stuck in debate mode, or excited or enthusiastic.

They are two lovely kids. they are endearing, they are funny, they are a little messy and sometimes a bit too much to handle. but it was an absolute delight and a priviledge to have them live in my head for four years and im very greatful that i had the time, the energy and the will to bring them to life.

:333

Actually, I'm not gonna say anything in reply to this. I'm only gonna explicitly appreciate it.

[eightglass]

would you consider yourself to be freaky

well. certainly not by tumblr standards. here i am out-freaked in nearly every aspect by many orders of magnitude to which i can only aspire. but out in real life? where i am periodically blindsided by the realisation that yes, most people are in fact cis and het and straight about it? well. yk i'm not really sure

[micharedmc]

With the asshole that commented on Blythe/Em's (rigorwhoring's) page talkin' bout contacting the fbi cuz she supposedly 'supported rape' and was supposedly 'sexualising traumatised victims' (she wasn't) I was so pissed at their stupidity that I talked to my boyfriend about it

Now listen to this, he's not a fanfic dude. He's a cis dude that doesn't get the more 'freaky' kinks like cnc or even taboo shit like incest (which I would never mention around him) but I talked about like yk people fantasising about rape in fantasy or fiction n shit, which I too am guilty of but I DO NOT support irl obviously. Fucking obviously cuz sane people can separate fiction from reality.

And he said, surprisingly, "I don't see why they're so pressed about fictional stuff? It makes no sense" And on the 'sexualising traumatised victims' part, I mentioned my own trauma and how I understand some victims of sa or rape may feel uncomfortable with that stuff being mentioned in fics, I do not gaf and some other people with similar experiences don't and speaking for all victims and using that as an excuse to hate is NOT FUCKING COOL. And he thinks that's fucked up too. These fictional pieces always include warnings too! So with all that's been said so far, if you see a fictional writing piece that gives a warning of RAPE or SA and you don't like that shit but you read it anyway, ignoring the warnings... I dunno how to explain to those people in terms that'll be understood by their weird brains that THEY ignored the warnings, but to make it understandable to them: "You dumb, author good. Author gave warning, you said 'warning unimportant' and read." Was that too much? idk Like, they got shocked by reading a book labelled 'book' atp.