#I am so fucked up about this

[that-ineffable-devil]

I don't know what it is about Neil Gaiman's stories and characters that bring up so many visceral emotions and realizations but Dead Boy Detectives has gripped me in it's skeletal claws.

I'll admit I haven't read the comics--one more thing on my neverending tbr pile--so I came into this show without any preconceptions or foreknowledge of the characters or their histories. And I didn't do any research on the show beforehand a) to avoid spoilers and b) it's Neil Fucking Gaiman what am I gonna do NOT watch!?

Basically, I had no idea what to expect from it. Except that it'd be queer (praise be).

And I gotta tell you, Charles is getting to me. In ways and at depths I never could have expected. And, fuck, it's making me confront some things I didn't realize were affecting me...and some that maybe I did...

Like the anger. Gods, the deep-rooted anger at the injustice and cruelty of the world and the hands you're dealt. The fury of feeling helpless and alone and terrified during the worst experiences of your life. And the self-loathing you feel as you bury that rage for fear of becoming the very monsters that tormented you--unable to express it in even a healthy manner because you can only associate anger with violence. So you bottle it and bury it and hope against hope you can keep it down, but you fear the day you run out of burial ground.

Like the compulsion to act like everything's fine. To mask any negative emotions with a smile and a kind word or a laugh. To never be the reason someone else is in pain. To try so hard to undo the pain done by others. To be the person you needed most who was never there. Maybe you're trying to convince yourself that you're not a monster. Living in constant fear that you really are that monster, and all your goodness and light is a smokescreen to trick truly good people into allowing you to walk amongst them--and that one very bad day they'll all see the truth and your worst fears will be confirmed in their eyes.

Like the almost desperate need to cling to anything or anyone good that comes into your life, because it has happened so rarely and so fleetingly. The fear of taking certain risks with those things and people because any change can be the one that results in losing them. Yet constantly taking risks with yourself and your life (death?), likely boiling down to "If I go first, I don't have to lose them." Because, deep down, you think they could never miss you as much as you'd miss them.

And even specific moments...

Like using the word "rough" to describe abuse, because how else do you reference decades...or in his case, likely at least a decade...of trauma and abuse without upsetting someone? Without letting them know it's still affecting you?

Like equal parts fear and fury welling inside you as you watch something truly horrific happen. Memories wrapping your senses so tightly as that man brutalized his family for no reason. Being both unable to stop it and unable to look away. Desperate to do something about it but completely helpless. Again.

And reliving his trauma, forced to by someone else? Feeling that pain and misery all over again. The heartbreak as friends choose to hurt you for reasons you don't understand. The anguish as your brain tries to protect itself while a parent who's supposed to love you makes you wonder why you exist at all. The terror of being hunted. Not knowing why. Not knowing what you've done to deserve it. Wondering if somehow you do.

And confessing his fear that he's a "bad guy." Wondering if you're really the villain in your story. Fearing that the reason people treated you so cruelly is because they saw the monster within, and thought they could keep it contained and afraid. Fearing that you won't be able to.

And not every day is like this. Not every day has you feeling like you're at the edge of a precipice. Some days are quite good actually, especially if you have even one good person around. But any day could turn out like this.

But you keep on with the smiles and the positive attitude because the monsters can't win. Your monster can't win. And frankly, you don't know how else to deal with it, because no one ever taught you how to. Or maybe you never had the chance to learn. All you know is that it's all you know.

[purgemarchlockdown]

I think about ’Tis ordained, thou shall follow thine destiny' a normal amount actually. Amane must follow a path, a role set in store for her. If a chick cannot break it's shell it will die without being born and they are going to let her die in it. That is her destiny, her destiny is to serve him, her destiny is to die for him, for that is the will of god. And wanting any more than that is a bit greedy, don't you think?

’Tis ordained, thou shall follow thine destiny'

[maeamian]

If you saw me agreeing with being annoyed about wasted helium in a fictional context and were like "I bet she has some more helium based anger in her life" good news LAPD fucked up a raid on a medical facility they thought was a pot farm and flat out ruined thousands of gallons of the stuff.

[inkskinned]

this is just my opinion but i think any good media needs obsession behind it. it needs passion, the kind of passion that's no longer "gentle scented candle" and is now "oh shit the house caught on fire". it needs a creator that's biting the floorboards and gnawing the story off their skin. creators are supposed to be wild animals. they are supposed to want to tell a story with the ferocity of eating a good stone fruit while standing over the sink. the same protective, strange instinct as being 7 and making mud potions in pink teacups: you gotta get weird with it.

good media needs unhinged, googling-at-midnight kind of energy. it needs "what kind of seams are invented on this planet" energy and "im just gonna trust the audience to roll with me about this" energy. it needs one person (at least) screaming into the void with so much drive and energy that it forces the story to be real.

sometimes people are baffled when fanfic has some stunning jaw-dropping tattoo-it-on-you lines. and i'm like - well, i don't go here, but that makes sense to me. of fucking course people who have this amount of passion are going to create something good. they moved from a place of genuine love and enjoyment.

so yeah, duh! saturday cartoons have banger lines. random street art is sometimes the most precious heart-wrenching shit you've ever seen. someone singing on tiktok ends up creating your next favorite song. youtubers are giving us 5 hours of carefully researched content. all of this is the impossible equation to latestage capitalism. like, you can't force something to be good. AI cannot make it good. no amount of focus-group testing or market research. what makes a story worth listening to is that someone cares so much about telling it - through dance, art, music, whatever it takes - that they are just a little unhinged about it.

one time my friend told me he stayed up all night researching how many ways there are to peel an orange. he wrote me a poem that made me cry on public transportation. the love came through it like pith, you know? the words all came apart in my hands. it tasted like breakfast.

[endusviolence]

Rowling isn't denying holocaust. She just pointed out that burning of transgender health books is a lie as that form of cosmetic surgery didn't exist. But of course you knew that already, didn't you?

I was thinking I'd probably see one of you! You're wrong :) Let's review the history a bit, shall we?

In this case, what we're talking about is the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, or in English, The Institute of Sexology. This Institute was founded and headed by a gay Jewish sexologist named Magnus Hirschfeld. It was founded in July of 1919 as the first sexology research clinic in the world, and was run as a private, non-profit clinic. Hirschfeld and the researchers who worked there would give out consultations, medical advice, and even treatments for free to their poorer clientele, as well as give thousands of lectures and build a unique library full of books on gender, sexuality, and eroticism. Of course, being a gay man, Hirschfeld focused a lot on the gay community and proving that homosexuality was natural and could not be "cured".

Hirschfeld was unique in his time because he believed that nobody's gender was either one or the other. Rather, he contended that everyone is a mixture of both male and female, with every individual having their own unique mix of traits.

This leads into the Institute's work with transgender patients. Hirschfeld was actually the one to coin the term "transsexual" in 1923, though this word didn't become popular phrasing until 30 years later when Harry Benjamin began expanding his research (I'll just be shortening it to trans for this brief overview.) For the Institute, their revolutionary work with gay men eventually began to attract other members of the LGBTA+, including of course trans people.

Contrary to what Anon says, sex reassignment surgery was first tested in 1912. It'd already being used on humans throughout Europe during the 1920's by the time a doctor at the Institute named Ludwig Levy-Lenz began performing it on patients in 1931. Hirschfeld was at first opposed, but he came around quickly because it lowered the rate of suicide among their trans patients. Not only was reassignment performed at the Institute, but both facial feminization and facial masculization surgery were also done.

The Institute employed some of these patients, gave them therapy to help with other issues, even gave some of the mentioned surgeries for free to this who could not afford it! They spoke out on their behalf to the public, even getting Berlin police to help them create "transvestite passes" to allow people to dress however they wanted without the threat of being arrested. They worked together to fight the law, including trying to strike down Paragraph 175, which made it illegal to be homosexual. The picture below is from their holiday party, Magnus Hirschfeld being the gentleman on the right with the fabulous mustache. Many of the other people in this photo are transgender.

[Image ID: A black and white photo of a group of people. Some are smiling at the camera, others have serious expressions. Either way, they all seem to be happy. On the right side, an older gentleman in glasses- Magnus Hirschfeld- is sitting. He has short hair and a bushy mustache. He is resting one hand on the shoulder of the person in front of him. His other hand is being held by a person to his left. Another person to his right is holding his shoulder.]

There was always push back against the Institute, especially from conservatives who saw all of this as a bad thing. But conservatism can't stop progress without destroying it. They weren't willing to go that far for a good while. It all ended in March of 1933, when a new Chancellor was elected. The Nazis did not like homosexuals for several reasons. Chief among them, we break the boundaries of "normal" society. Shortly after the election, on May 6th, the book burnings began. The Jewish, gay, and obviously liberal Magnus Hirschfeld and his library of boundary-breaking literature was one of the very first targets. Thankfully, Hirschfeld was spared by virtue of being in Paris at the time (he would die in 1935, before the Nazis were able to invade France). His library wasn't so lucky.

This famous picture of the book burnings was taken after the Institute of Sexology had been raided. That's their books. Literature on so much about sexuality, eroticism, and gender, yes including their new work on trans people. This is the trans community's Alexandria. We're incredibly lucky that enough of it survived for Harry Benjamin and everyone who came after him was able to build on the Institute's work.

[Image ID: A black and white photo of the May Nazi book burning of the Institute of Sexology's library. A soldier, back facing the camera, is throwing a stack of books into the fire. In the background of the right side, a crowd is watching.]

As the Holocaust went on, the homosexuals of Germany became a targeted group. This did include transgender people, no matter what you say. To deny this reality is Holocaust denial. JK Rowling and everyone else who tries to pretend like this isn't reality is participating in that evil. You're agreeing with the Nazis.

But of course, you knew that already, didn't you?

Edit: Added image IDs. I apologize to those using screen readers for forgetting them. Please reblog this version instead.

[cubbyhole-for-flea-bee]

Macaque spent the whole season Big-Damn-Hero-ing and was NOT happy about it xD

[spyres]

[lotus-pear]

learning to love

[trickstersaint]

i want to introduce you all to a project that is very close to my heart... or lack of one. anyway. for anyone who has ever wanted to play a poem. i'd like you to meet aromanticism

(link opens itch.io - she'll run on html in your browser! please be nice to her!)

[zoestorm]

The manga: a college guy meets his childhood friend, who was formerly a boy but is now a woman, and has run away from home after an unspecified disagreement with her family which has left her with a significant amount of trauma; it's implied she was bullied heavily in the time since they've last seen each other.

But don't worry, she's not trans! She just got an illness which turned her into a woman!

The manga: a high school boy with an interest in make-up uses his gloomy, depressed (male) childhood friend as a model to improve his skills. This causes said friend to have an "awakening" and start dressing as a woman, and to overall be a much happier, brighter, outgoing person.

But don't worry, the friend is not trans! He's just a boy who crossdresses because his childhood friend likes him better that way!

The manga: a high school boy joins a club where the members can turn into magical girls, which in his case involves physically transforming into a girl. When in girlmode, he's much happier and enjoys his life much more, and overall prefers staying in girl mode; when the ability to transform is temporarily taken away from him, he sinks into a deep depressive episode.

But don't worry, he's not trans! He's just a boy who enjoys being a girl!

The manga: a college student loses a bet and has to crossdress for a night out on the town, and meets and hooks up with a butch girl; they fall in love and start dating. The boy always crossdressed when they meet, and starts enjoying being "treated like a girl" in the relationship and starts crossdressing even when he doesn't have to meet his girlfriend and enjoys activities such as clothes shopping and make-up and putting on nail polish.

But don't worry, he's not trans! He's just a boy who crossdresses to please his butch girlfriend!

The manga: a guy is magically turned into a girl as a result of saving his best friend, the crown prince, from an assassination attempt. The prince decides that he has to take responsibility, and asks the new girl to marry him; despite being smitten she refuses, wanting to date first. She is later offered a way to go back to being a man, but when she does turn back she's disgusted by her own appearance and depressed all the time, ultimately deciding to stay a girl.

But don't worry, she's not trans! She's just a boy who's been magically turned into a woman! And decides not to turn back when she can! Because she's not trans! Somehow!

"But we can't write trans women in manga! It's just not something that you do!"

[Image description: A one-comic panel. Gengar is glaring at a crowd of faceless characters; from the crowd, a speech balloon emerges, saying "You could if you weren't a fucking coward". End ID.]

[mashmouths]

does anyone know how to stop the body from keeping score? i have shit to do

[ratbastarddotfuck]

if you're a white person taking pleasure in the idea that Trump voters of colour are experiencing racist violence from white trumpers because "they got what's coming to them" I don't think you're anti-racist at all, I think you were just waiting for an acceptable target, and you're also fucking weird.

Bad Person Deserves Punishment For Their Sins give me a fucking break and get yourself out of the fucking catholic church. you're all prison abolitionists until you see someone you don't like.

[lazylittledragon]

taking all my american followers by the shoulders. listen to me. just because you have a more promising candidate now doesn't mean you just assume it's going to be fine and don't bother voting. assuming trump wasn't going to win is how you got here in the first place so you go out and fucking vote for harris and give everyone a fighting chance.

also if you're still in the 'they're both as bad as eachother' delirium, please take your head out from between your cheeks and consider that your options are an imperfect president and the literal worst person alive who is going to get masses of people killed. i've said it like this before, but it's like deciding between maybe getting food poisoning or definitely having a brain aneurysm. take your pick i guess but don't be surprised when you drop dead.

[inkskinned]

at some point it's just like. do they even fucking like the thing they're asking AI to make? "oh we'll just use AI for all the scripts" "we'll just use AI for art" "no worries AI can write this book" "oh, AI could easily design this"

like... it's so clear they've never stood in the middle of an art museum and felt like crying, looking at a piece that somehow cuts into your marrow even though the artist and you are separated by space and time. they've never looked at a poem - once, twice, three times - just because the words feel like a fired gun, something too-close, clanging behind your eyes. they've never gotten to the end of the movie and had to arrive, blinking, back into their body, laughing a little because they were holding their breath without realizing.

"oh AI can mimic style" "AI can mimic emotion" "AI can mimic you and your job is almost gone, kid."

... how do i explain to you - you can make AI that does a perfect job of imitating me. you could disseminate it through the entire world and make so much money, using my works and my ideas and my everything.

and i'd still keep writing.

i don't know there's a word for it. in high school, we become aware that the way we feel about our artform is a cliche - it's like breathing. over and over, artists all feel the same thing. "i write because i need to" and "my music is how i speak" and "i make art because it's either that or i stop existing." it is such a common experience, the violence and immediacy we mean behind it is like breathing to me - comes out like a useless understatement. it's a cliche because we all feel it, not because the experience isn't actually persistent. so many of us have this ... fluttering urgency behind our ribs.

i'm not doing it for the money. for a star on the ground in some city i've never visited. i am doing it because when i was seven i started taking notebooks with me on walks. i am doing it because in second grade i wrote a poem and stood up in front of my whole class to read it out while i shook with nerves. i am doing it because i spent high school scribbling all my feelings down. i am doing it for the 16 year old me and the 18 year old me and the today-me, how we can never put the pen down. you can take me down to a subatomic layer, eviscerate me - and never find the source of it; it is of me. when i was 19 i named this blog inkskinned because i was dramatic and lonely and it felt like the only thing that was actually permanently-true about me was that this is what is inside of me, that the words come up over everything, coat everything, bloom their little twilight arias into every nook and corner and alley

"we're gonna replace you". that is okay. you think that i am writing to fill a space. that someone said JOB OPENING: Writer Needed, and i wrote to answer. you think one raindrop replaces another, and i think they're both just falling. you think art has a place, that is simply arrives on walls when it is needed, that is only ever on demand, perfect, easily requested. you see "audience spending" and "marketability" and "multi-line merch opportunity"

and i see a kid drowning. i am writing to make her a boat. i am writing because what used to be a river raft has long become a fully-rigged ship. i am writing because you can fucking rip this out of my cold dead clammy hands and i will still come back as a ghost and i will still be penning poems about it.

it isn't even love. the word we use the most i think is "passion". devotion, obsession, necessity. my favorite little fact about the magic of artists - "abracadabra" means i create as i speak. we make because it sluices out of us. because we look down and our hands are somehow already busy. because it was the first thing we knew and it is our backbone and heartbreak and everything. because we have given up well-paying jobs and a "real life" and the approval of our parents. we create because - the cliche again. it's like breathing. we create because we must.

you create because you're greedy.

[sauronism]

celebrimbor pointing out the imperfection in sauron's fabricated reality, as both of them match in skills as a creator. sauron can craft the most appealing illusion in the entire world, but celebrimbor will always sees right through the deception, due to sauron's need for order. the reality he crafted is perfect. too perfect. nothing in this world is perfect. the patterns of the mouse, and the candle is the flaw within his works. celebrimbor merely critiques it.

[words-writ-in-starlight]

listen I expected literally Nothing from the D&D movie okay, like I can't make it clear enough that I expected the most soulless money grab with a good cgi budget imaginable, I went in having already gone through every stage of grief and landed on acceptance and LISTEN

I fucking CRIED during this dumb RPG movie. it wasn't just "not terrible" it was objectively good with a clever plot and compelling characters and sincere emotional beats. this movie loves D&D so fucking much and it NAILS the "a bunch of goobers try to be cool and accidentally discover The Power Of Friendship And Also Great Violence" classic D&D party vibe. their barbarian's last name is fucking Kilgore and my entire family cried in the theater.

I hope they make twelve of these motherfuckers.