#I know I've been mostly saying ''this one isn't really doing it for me''

[alpacaradio]

There really is no excuse. Taken with much generosity, its constant discussion of transmisandry is coming from a place of hurt - but as soon as it's talking about trans women, you can immediately tell that OP has never really understood one.

I've never met a trans woman who hasn't grappled deeply with the expectations of masculinity on her and indeed often that very thing led her to identify her own womanhood. I found my own way to recognizing who I am through grappling with the expectations on me and how uncomfortable I was with them!

It was a role that I always implicitly rejected and was uncomfortable with. This story is so common I think it more likely than not you've heard it if you know even a single trans woman. To know many and not be deeply familiar with it seems ... almost impossible. I can only conclude that the OP hasn't really listened.

And in all of this, "if transmascs need to sit for hours and unlearn transmisogyny, fine. but" but nothing at all, because you clearly haven't done the work to put anything after that sentence making demands of a community. You're talking about us like you've done the work to really know and understand trans women, and you've even appealed to multiple evil tranny behaviors, behaviors I've literally never seen from any trans woman, to the point where I think the problem is mostly you.

It is so easy to see that so much of what is in genderqueerdyke's response is specific issues with specific trans women being projected onto an entire community, including so many things which are obviously a consequence of simply not listening to or refusing to believe us.

Yes! I know sex workers, too! Yes, our bodies are constantly fetishized for our maleness even though we are not male. And yes, there are clients who seek out trans women specifically seeing us as men. We're surrounded by chasers. What I find surprising is not that a sex worker you knew had clients who told her they were attracted to her for her maleness, but that you refused to believe her, because I'd say it's more likely than not that any trans woman who's ever done sex work has been told that very thing. But you refuse to believe the things women have told you, and so you put doubt on that part of our experience too. You had to make our lived experience sound impossible, so that describing our experiences sounds like bigotry rather than fact.

I'm so annoyed I popped into second person, but I do not really want to talk to it at all. I don't want it to talk to me or anyone else; I want it to stop talking about trans women entirely until it can fucking believe even one of us and not talk over us and decide our experiences for us.

Any time someone says, "I need to unlearn X? Fine, but" your hackles should be raised. This is someone that really should not be trying to speak about the community of trans women.

I guess this is something the community has generally known about Equinox, but damn, this isn't a mistake or something you can just apologize for; this is evidence of an entire way of thinking that underlies every rant I've ever seen about transmisandry. How am I supposed to believe any differently when I've only ever seen it post through all of this and never really actually grapple with it? How are we supposed to get "solidarity" when solidarity means putting up with the abuse of being bombarded with this belief system the moment we let our guard down? the moment we're comfortable with ourselves? @genderqueerdykes is not someone who can truly be in community with me, and I think not someone to feel comfortable around as a trans woman. If I were its friend I would hold my cards damn close to my chest.

Pretend you didn't see that.

This is a level of transmisogyny that is somewhat hard to comment on because the things that one would normally point out as transmisogynistic implications are said so brazenly that there can be no pretense about any of the involved parties being unaware of it. The authors know, the readers know, everybody understands that this is pure transmisogyny. There is no plausible deniability.

It's an attempt to establish proximity between transfems and cis manhood in every way possible. Their bodies, their histories, their "socialization", the way they are treated by others, the way they treat and view others, their ways of thinking, even their self-conception. Every aspect of their being is cast as essentially male. Transfems are being called "men" in all but name - and not just any "men", they are made into embodiments of the worst aspects of hegemonic manhood. Not just male socialized but continuing to benefit from male socialization. Not just engaging in abusive behaviors stemming from male socialization but being afforded the freedom to do so because they continue to be treated as men. (Suffice it to say that this does not align with reality)

This is unadulterated sex-essentialism and it's intentionally being used to delegitimize and devalue the standpoint of transfems in feminist discourses. It's clear that the author is projecting transmisogynist ideas onto transfems and simply assumes that these ideas must be correct without considering any alternative. (The fact that transfems do not internalize "male socialization" has been reiterated many times over and should not have to be continually reasserted. This is a baseline level of understanding that we should be able to expect and demand from members of our community.)

Misogyny is framed as being contained within the realms of sexed bodies and gendered socialization in such a way that it allows for the casting of transfems as people enacting misogyny without being primary targets themselves - like cis men.

The claim that the animosity some transfems exhibit towards men comes from wanting to "prove" their womanhood serves the double purpose of casting their womanhood as inauthentic and denying the misogyny they suffer at the hands of men. One would be hard pressed to find a more cruel mischaracterization of transfems' experiences than this.

The cynical misappropriation of the standpoint of the people this screed is directed at by the use of "we" despite making it abundantly clear that the behavior that is being criticized and its supposed causes exempt people such as the author from the possibility of engaging in it should also be noted as an attempt at weaponizing a compromised version of standpoint epistemology against transfems.

The only plausible target audience for this kind of rhetoric are those who carry extreme ressentiment towards transfems and are susceptible to softened formulations of TERF ideology. These are the same kinds of ideas that TERFs have tried to push into trans spaces numerous times, e.g. under names like "sex-conscious feminsim".

A formulaic "retreat" from this post consisting entirely of platitudes has been published after the author received backlash for it but nobody is under any obligation to accept it and they absolutely should not. A person who was very obviously attempting to promote TERF ideology in trans spaces and in the same stroke accused transfems of being uniquely prone to making false accusations is not trustworthy, even if that person backs down upon realizing that the reception is more uniformly negative than anticipated.

@genderqueerdykes @gateway-2000 is a transmisogynist, beyond a shadow of a doubt. Its entire worldview is permeated by transmisogynistic assumptions, ideas and biases at a fundamental level. It has straightforwardly expressed an understanding of transfems' interiorities, their experiences and their social positions that is so incorrect that one has to wonder how someone holding these views could have navigated trans communities for a considerable amount of time without encountering the many transfeminist rebuttals to all of its demagoguery. How could someone with even a passing level of familiarity with TERF ideology or "gender critical feminism" read and espouse these ideas without recognizing them? It's completely unthinkable. It's not unreasonable to assume that it simply misjudged the consensus within its audience as being sufficiently anti-transfeminist for ideas such as these to fall upon fertile ground and it is now going back to waiting until the time is ripe to reintroduce them and to expressing them in more subtle ways until then.

But you can't un-ring a bell.

We can and should assert boundaries against reactionaries engaging in obvious subversion such as this. Refusing to do so is a deleterious error in judgement. This is very far beyond the limits of what any trans community that wants to consider transfems a part of itself can be allowed to tolerate.

[arabela25]

Cha Cha Cha, Käärijä - Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu | Finland, Eurovision Song Contest 2023

[doctorweebmd]

accidentally* brainstormed a very complete outline for chapters 4-8 for eih, which should theoretically take us through Part 1. which is. you know. a godsend or whatever.

*accidentally meaning i was just eating delicious pancakes and the thoughts happened. usually its me crying screaming and shitting myself in front of an empty word document where ideas manifest. this is notably much more pleasant.

[izzy-b-hands]

I will be forever grateful i can be on this new med. it's one a lot of folks also need and can struggle to have access to! It's important i be on it, especially if i start doing any vid collabs

(some of which, really, all of which, i unfortunately actually need to cancel that were in the preplanning stages, bc the election results have me wanting to wait and see how the general atmosphere of the country is before i agree to meet up with anyone. I feel bad for cancelling, but also i just can't know for sure how safe things are/might be going forward and I'd rather avoid the potential of. ya know. various not great things that could happen at a meet up, tho i would certainly hope they wouldn't. i don't feel like actually addressing them rn, u guys know what i mean)

That said, if the truvada initial side effects could fuck off asap would be so lovely. three weeks at worst, then they should be gone/much better or so i am told. really hope that's true bc losing my mornings to being dizzy and nauseous is Not Working for me lmao. im on week two, and now understand why my new doc said to call if i needed any 'cheerleading' and support to get thru the side effects, bc apparently she's done that for several ppl to make sure they actually make it thru the three weeks and keep on it (lovely of her!!)

[partydemoman]

I'm not an ask blog, but I wanted to answer these anyway. Answering for my Wol, Naraya Tuivione

1. It would depend on who is doing the perceiving. Someone who hasn't seen many Au Ra might think she is a child/teen given her short stature, while anyone with combat training will notice that she has the air of a highly experienced warrior. In general, though, most people's first impression might be her air of competence. People can easily see that this is a woman who knows what she is doing.

2. Naraya was born in the Azim Steppe, but has spent most of her life in Eorzea, particularly spending most of her childhood in Gridania.

3. At first she followed Oschon the Wanderer, but after dealing with primals for so long she has become kinda desensitized to all things divine and doesn't really care anymore (If the Endwalker Alliance Raids would change this, don't spoil me. I haven't played them yet)

4. She is an only child, both to her birth parents and her adopted family.

5. Her birth father specifically didn't influence her in that way since he wanted her to choose her own path. Her adopted mom kind of did, but only in that she picked up archery to follow in her mom's footsteps.

6. Naraya treats pretty much everyone the same, in that she won't hesitate to help anyone who is in need. There was the exception of the beast tribes for most of the story, since they were all tempered, but now that that isn't a factor she'll gladly help out the allied societies just as much as anyone else.

7. Naraya has, admittedly, felt somewhat forced to play the part of World Saving Adventurer/Hero for a while, since she felt she is pretty much the only one strong enough to succeed at what she does. Since the end of Endwalker, though, she has been able to put more focus on being an adventurer, and it has been a massive breath of fresh air. As for side gigs, she is a rather talented singer, musician, and dancer, having acquired both the Bard and Dancer jobs. She doesn't really perform, per se, but mostly uses them for small personal things. For example, she created the songs Dragonsong, Tomorrow And Tomorrow, and Footfalls, and sings little bits of Flow to calm herself down at times.

8. At first, she learned each job from the in-game mentors but has since iterated on each of them to suit her style. She also taught herself a style that uses her ability to hot-swap between jobs mid battle to make a fighting style that is really hard to counter, swapping between weapons and styles rapidly while maintaining coherence and proper technique.

9. Naraya likes the neutrality of the Scions and uses it to help as many people as possible across nation borders, rather than tying herself to one specific nation.

10. It would vary. Sometimes, she'll take walks, make little doodads out of metal or wood, spend time with the Doman Adventurer's Guild, things like that.

11. I don't really use minions much, myself, but probably either Midgardsormer or the Starbird.

12. I haven't done enough with the Allied Societies to really say.

13. Naraya lost her adopted mom, Asene, who was on patrol near Fallgourd Float when the Calamity happened. Naraya herself was in Gridania and managed to make it through relatively unscathed.

14. I've made the occasional small change, like a specific line of dialog or Naraya's exact relationship with a character, but I've generally stuck pretty close to Canon.

15. I don't ship my wol with anyone so I don't have any screenshots like that.. Something something aroace.

16. Am I allowed to say Venat? I'm gonna say Venat.

17. I would absolutely save Haurchefant. I'm not having it happen in my Canon since his sacrifice was extremely meaningful and I want to keep it, but damn do I want to save him.

18. There really isn't anyone for me, so I'm gonna flip this around and say a villain I kinda wish we hadn't persuaded to join our side: Bakool Ja Ja. I can definitely see what they were going for and him joining our side is… fine. But he had been a relentless monster for the whole expansion up to that point. I'm not a huge fan of how quickly he flipped around to our side.

19. So long as there are new and exciting things and places to see, Naraya is right where she wants to be.

20. As I said, I don't ship my wol with anyone, so no, she doesn't have any plans to settle down like that.

21. Probably a really low stakes adventure. Just enough to see some new things and new places, but nothing especially important in the grand scheme of things.

22. Our journey will never end.

23. Naraya might be tempted to forget a few things, but ending up like Elidibus is an unimaginably horrible fate to her. She wouldn't take the risk.

24. Let's go Gambling! No, not really.

25. No, I don't really interact with FCs, and neither would she.

26. Light/Astral aether. Constant activity.

27. I've never actually thought to make any other shards before, but I have some lore for my Azem, who I've named Mnemosyne after the Greek Titaness of memory.

28. Naraya is fascinated by all things Amarotine, partly because she wants to learn all she can about Azem.

29. They're cute! Though they can be kinda hard to deal with sometimes.

30. It feels anticlimactic to say, but I don't have any.

I decided to make a very in depth and fun ffxiv oc question meme! (Feel free to steal and use)

[pennielane]

in my brief absence from here i’ve managed to fall in love with a man 11 years older than me

[saja-star]

I've had a hard time articulating to people just how fundamental spinning used to be in people's lives, and how eerie it is that it's vanished so entirely. It occurred to me today that it's a bit like if in the future all food was made by machine, and people forgot what farming and cooking were. Not just that they forgot how to do it; they had never heard of it.

When they use phrases like "spinning yarns" for telling stories or "heckling a performer" without understanding where they come from, I imagine a scene in the future where someone uses the phrase "stir the pot" to mean "cause a disagreement" and I say, did you know a pot used to be a container for heating food, and stirring was a way of combining different components of food together? "Wow, you're full of weird facts! How do you even know that?"

When I say I spin and people say "What, like you do exercise bikes? Is that a kind of dancing? What's drafting? What's a hackle?" it's like if I started talking about my cooking hobby and my friend asked "What's salt? Also, what's cooking?" Well, you see, there are a lot of stages to food preparation, starting with planting crops, and cooking is one of the later stages. Salt is a chemical used in cooking which mostly alters the flavor of the food but can also be used for other things, like drawing out moisture...

"Wow, that sounds so complicated. You must have done a lot of research. You're so good at cooking!" I'm really not. In the past, children started learning about cooking as early as age five ("Isn't that child labor?"), and many people cooked every day their whole lives ("Man, people worked so hard back then."). And that's just an average person, not to mention people called "chefs" who did it professionally. I go to the historic preservation center to use their stove once or twice a week, and I started learning a couple years ago. So what I know is less sophisticated than what some children could do back in the day.

"Can you make me a snickers bar?" No, that would be pretty hard. I just make sandwiches mostly. Sometimes I do scrambled eggs. "Oh, I would've thought a snickers bar would be way more basic than eggs. They seem so simple!"

Haven't you ever wondered where food comes from? I ask them. When you were a kid, did you ever pick apart the different colored bits in your food and wonder what it was made of? "No, I never really thought about it." Did you know rice balls are called that because they're made from part of a plant called rice? "Oh haha, that's so weird. I thought 'rice' was just an adjective for anything that was soft and white."

People always ask me why I took up spinning. Isn't it weird that there are things we take so much for granted that we don't even notice when they're gone? Isn't it strange that something which has been part of humanity all across the planet since the Neanderthals is being forgotten in our generation? Isn't it funny that when knowledge dies, it leaves behind a ghost, just like a person? Don't you want to commune with it?

[viennacherries]

okay hi sorry i need to talk about the lucanis romance for a moment and why i think it's absolutely perfect. spoilers below the cut ofc

so obviously there are a limited number of romance scenes. i really do believe in the case of lucanis' romance this lends itself to telling his story.

we learn through party banter with him and emmerich that his relationship with rook is his first. and that's not suprising really, he's an assassin. he faces death constantly and aside from the fact that he could die at any moment, being in a relationship gives his enemies a weak spot to exploit. love and the weakness required to accept and give it is a risk he cannot afford in his line of work.

then you add on the fact that he's been in the ossuary for a year. he was definitely sure he was never getting out of there. and then he does but he's possessed.

so here's rook. and they're flirting with him and being all enticing and he thinks they're great. but he doesn't deserve love and he certainly can't risk it. he's an abomination, he'll put them in danger. and what happens afterwards? when he goes back to taking contracts? it only takes pissing off the wrong person once for rook to be in danger. so he mostly just talks around it. tried not to think about it or aknowledge it.

and then spite breaks through for the second time. and there's rook. again. and they're soft and understanding and kind and they remind him that under everything else, all of the trauma and the fear, he's human. they make him feel so safe and he starts to let his walls down.

we can't know for sure why he pulls away in that moment, but i think it's because he reminds himself how dangerous it is for him and for rook. he wants them terribly but it's such an awful no good idea so he drags himself away.

but he still cares for them. he makes them dessert and he keeps them safe and eventually he has to admit to himself that they're not just friends anymore.

and then rook is taken into the fade by solas.

he never tells rook, you only find this out in a bellara romance, but rook is in the fade for weeks.

all that time, lucanis is there and he's just full of regret. because holy shit he's fallen in love with them and now they're gone and he should've just told them. he should've held them like he wanted. because now he can't and he never will again.

and then they're back.

and he comes into their room and his words are so simple.

"i never thought id see you again. i thought id lost you"

and obviously the rest of his dialogue can vary in this scene but all of it is SO weighted if you consider the fact that he really did think they were dead.

"i do. i know how to feel."

"it's one of the things i love about you"

"i'm not going anywhere."

he is in LOVE with them and he's tired of fighting it. he's tired of pretending he isn't. he's tired of denying himself of what he wants because he's scared. because ultimately he did lose them, despite how careful he'd been, and it hurt just the same.

"i know how to feel." because he DOES now.

so in the last battle, before you fight elgernan, he tells you again just how much he loves you. how he'll do anything he needs to to be back in your arms when it's over. because those weeks without you were torture and he never wants to do that again. he wasted all that time terrified to hurt you but you got hurt anyway. why keep pretending? why keep denying himself the person he wants more than anything in the world? he goes from 0-100 because this is so much more real now. there's so much to lose.

"i've assumed you knew my heart because it beats for you. it's been beating... when i wanted you. when i was afraid to want you... tell me this ends with me asleep in your arms and i will kill any god you ask."

this one sentence conveys EVERYTHING. all of his longing throughout the game. how long he has loved rook. he didn't say it because he was afraid. but he's not afraid anymore.

so much of lucanis' romance is about subtext. it's about the things he doesn't say rather than the things he does.

i think it's absolutely beautiful.

[oswaldthatendswald]

I did not expect to still be thinking about this, but actually now I'm thinking about it more than I was originally. A kind soul replied to inform me that "joker" is actually still used to refer to that card in Spanish, which should perhaps have cut the whole theory off at the ankles, but instead got me thinking about whether there's any other evidence that the codenames predate Doflamingo.

I'll skip the three hours I spent trying to track down every single panel focusing on Trebol: there's not really any evidence. But at this point, my loose collection of headcanons put on a trenchcoat and started impersonating an actual story.

Trebol's an interesting guy, albeit one I don't think about that much because I Don't Like Him. Preemptively, I'm going to tell you that I don't ascribe to the theory that he's the master manipulator behind all of Doflamingo's actions. I think he definitely enables Doflamingo's fall from "shitty little kid" to "homicidal Machiavellian murder demon," but I don't think that he somehow convinced Doflamingo to go down that route. Partly because that theory seems mostly designed to reduce Doflamingo's responsibility for his own actions (and as much as I like Doflamingo, I like him best as a villain), and mostly because I think it cheapens Doflamingo's own power as a character.

What Trebol does do is target Doflamingo when he is quite young, (functionally) alone, likely terrified, and definitely furious. He validates Doflamingo's rage and nascent grudge, gives him multiple weapons (a gun AND a Devil Fruit, Trebol? Really? He's TEN), and encourages him to go kill people.

(Crucially, we never see him suggest that Doflamingo kill his father. If we had, I would absolutely be arguing that Trebol is the real power on the crew, because that would be intentionally inciting the removal of the only authoritative adult in Doffy's life, and that would reek of manipulation. However, I've mentioned elsewhere that what isn't shown in a story can be as important as what is, and so I think it's key to understanding Trebol to highlight that he only suggests that Doflamingo kill anyone he wants and get his revenge.)

Having given a TEN YEAR OLD a gun and a Devil Fruit, Trebol looses the little shit on the world to do what he will. Doflamingo then kills his father, takes his head back to Mariejois, and upon being kicked out, returns to Trebol. He is then immediately crowned god-king of their little group and goes on to lead them to spectacular heights of infamy.

Trebol is deeply weird, to the point that I think he sets off everyone's "shit is up with this man" sensors. How does he know so much about Devil Fruits? And Haki? Why does he seem to worship the Celestial Dragons? .....I don't have answers for those questions. I do have an idea as to what's going on with his manipulation (?) of Doflamingo, and that idea is this: I think Trebol's done this before.

So, okay. Bear with me as we careen wildly off the path of canon and into the weeds of fanfiction. Trebol has information about Haki and Devil Fruits both, and in the world of One Piece-- especially outside the Grandline-- that's valuable. Powerful, even. Like everyone else with a taste of power, Trebol wants more. He has his own Devil Fruit, but one man can only be so strong out here. He needs a crew.

Personally, I think Pica was first. Physically formidable, but with a voice that was nothing but a source of mockery. Easy to flatter and bribe with promises of strength beyond physical-- power to crush anyone who tried to make him the butt of the joke ever again. Literally.

With Diamante, I can't help but think that the Devil Fruit must have come before the man. Trebol was looking for someone who could use the Fruit to its greatest effect, and a swordsman seemed tailor-made. With Pica to offer an illustration of how utterly devastating a Fruit can be, Diamante would have been a fool to say no.

Then Vergo, not for a Devil Fruit, but for his Haki. Rare enough to find a Haki user in the North Blue; what a stroke of luck to find one who was young, alone, and unallied with any crew. Self-taught Armament; a prodigy. There was no need to find Vergo a Devil Fruit. Besides, you need someone who can swim on a crew of anchors.

But on a nowhere island, a midpoint stop, Trebol heard of an impossibility. Celestial Dragons? Here?

It was better than he could have hoped. A god just barely fledging, furious with the world. King's Haki, but he needed more for his revenge. And oh, Trebol could give it to him. Whatever power he bestowed on Doflamingo, it would be returned tenfold, he was certain.

The boy-god left with his father's head for Mariejois and had to break back out when they refused to return him to his rightful place. That's alright. Trebol's crew welcomed him with open arms. Their wildcard and leader. Defend him long enough for him to grow up, and he'd show them the top of the world.

The funny thing is, I think Trebol really believes it when he tells Law that the Executives are all equal to Doffy. He put the crown on the king, so surely he gets a piece of it, right? But by the time Doflamingo was old enough to use Trebol's old tricks on Law, he was already their uncontested leader. By the time he's a Warlord? King of Dressrosa? Law's right: Trebol is nothing more than another puppet.

All this story is given to us in the span of one chapter. The idea that Trebol is somehow responsible for the rise of the Heavenly Demon comes from his own mouth, and Law is quick to point out the reality only a few pages later. For all that Trebol seems to have intended for Doflamingo's power to benefit him, the reality seems to be quite the opposite.

I know it makes more sense to assume that the card suit codenames (Trebol, Corazon, Diamante, Pica) come from Doflamingo due to the whole Spanish thing, but against all logic I've always headcanoned that they actually predate Doflamingo. I chose to believe that they're actually Trebol's invention to make his little gang/cult more cohesive, and Doflamingo just really latched on to that theme. My only evidence for this is that his own codename, "Joker," is in English, which to me makes it feel like a tacked-on addition by a kid who didn't quite understand the theme they were going for, and my only excuse is that I think this is funny.

[oh-katsuki]

it's been a really long time since i wrote porn for porn's sake. here u go. it's alpha nanami :)) i don't have a title for it oops

cw: alpha!nanami, omega!reader, a/b/o, breeding, knotting, heat and rut cycles, dubcon on both sides, fingering, cohabitation, taboo, protective nanami, i feel like there is a slight primal kink in here, light dacryphilia,

wc: 3.1k

nanami didn't mean to take in a stray, but that's sort of how it happened. you're staying with him until a particularly careless friend helps to find a suitable living arrangement for you. nanami really isn't sure how it became his problem, but he'd feel awful if he'd told satoru no and left you without somewhere to go, no matter how against living with an omega he is.

frankly, nanami doesn't support the idea of alphas and omegas living together. he thinks it's a bit perverse. there's far too much at risk and the situation can become dangerous if it's the wrong pairing. sure, sometimes it works out. the better of his kind (of which he considers himself to be) give the necessary space and resist the temptation, but the others... take it too far. it'd be easier for you to live with a beta, and nanami wonders why satoru didn't first go to one of them. maybe your pheromones are weak and satoru isn't worried. that's probably why he hadn't noticed them when satoru first brought you by to ask if it'd be okay.

he knows that second gender is a spectrum. some alphas and omegas hardly emit any pheromones at all, even during heat and rut cycles. nanami thinks he likely falls into this category, seeing as he's never been particularly tempted by an omega and very few have ever been all too tempted by him, but it's a gamble. it's—frankly—unethical to ask this of him and though nanami knows that he should have said no, something in his good nature compelled him to say yes.

you've weak pheromones too, he thinks. he, of course, can feel them to a degree, but seeing as you mostly keep to yourself, it's hardly a problem in the first few weeks. frankly, the most tempting thing about you is that you're beautiful. you seem to have an almost standoffish air about you, proud and dignified, with a preference towards a more solitary and observant lifestyle. most of the day, the two of you hardly even see each other, going about your lives entirely separately only to settle into the same house for bed at night.

you don't say much when you're home. in fact, nanami would wonder if you could speak at all if it weren't for the conversations he hears you having on your phone and the little laughs or eyerolls you give in response to his comments. there's understanding there, but it's silent and you hardly ever dignify nanami's words or invitations with a response. maybe you're airing on the side of caution. he wouldn't blame you if you are. so, for the next two weeks the two of you coexist without so much as a hello between you both, silently sharing a space. you stay out of the way and nanami pretends that he isn't slightly unsettled by your constant proximity and the creeping feeling that you don't really like him all too much.

"they're a little difficult," says gojo over the phone. "kinda standoffish and really smart."

"so i've noticed," nanami responds. "i can't say i blame them though. you've put us in a weird spot."

"oh, nanamin, i know you well enough to know that you wouldn't lay a hand on them even if they begged," satoru laughs. "and they really might."

nanami grimaces at satoru's statement.

"i still don't understand why it had to be me," nanami says flatly. "you could have called ijichi. it'd probably be safer."

"how noble," satoru snickers, "but i trust you. hang in there a few more weeks. we've been working on securing an apartment for them and once we do, they'll be out of your hair. you're an angel for letting them stay." he sing-songs into the receiver. nanami holds it away from his ear.

"sure," he says. "it's not really much trouble... it's just.."

"that they're an omega. i get it. stay strong or whatever lol," satoru laughs. "unless of course, you really like them."

nanami huffs and hangs up the phone. satoru's got a good head on his shoulders, but he knew where that conversation was going. satoru was likely to say something about your heat cycle and nanami, being an optimist in cases like these, hopes silently that it won't come for another two weeks. he knows he could ask, but he worries about coming across as something of a creep. nanami is a little orthodox in the sense that he believes alphas and omegas should be separate for this reason exactly. suppressants exist but they don't always work and though nanami has sense about him, he's always had an insecurity about the kind of monster his second gender could make him. it sets him at ease a little that your pheromones appear as weak as they are.

you round the corner into the living room, standing just on the far end of the room. you're wearing pajamas, but you seem to feel no need to cover yourself or hide any perceived indecency. nanami glances at you, making a point to avoid looking at the shape of your body. it's inviting and you look at him for a moment with a small smile before raising one single eyebrow and letting out a low huff of air. nanami decides that you'd heard his conversation and he watches you shake your head as you move to the kitchen to peruse what he has. your hips, swaying slightly with each step, draw his attention to the curve of your ass and he feels ashamed for even having looked.

you're beautiful, that's certain. even the way you move is beautiful. nanami has eyes enough to see that. something stirs inside of you when he speaks, wordless recognition, maybe amusement or irritation, and vice versa. regardless, it's beautiful and nanami finds that the longer you're here the more he has to swallow it down.

you seem to get a little uncomfortable if nanami has people over, even for a moment. not that you've ever said anything about it, but you appear set on edge when he does so in the following weeks, it leads him to not bring anyone over at all. he can't bear the idea of making you uncomfortable. for as little as you've spoken to him since you've been here, nanami finds that he's grown rather fond of you. if things continue this way, he should hate it when you leave. admittedly though, he's looking forward to it a little. nanami feels that you're... a temptation. one he can't really seem to overcome.

one evening, you sit down in the living room with him. it draws his attention to look at you.

"i'm not mean, you know," you say flatly.

nanami is astounded to hear the cadence of your voice so clearly and without prompt. he can only offer a nod in return.

"i'm just picky," you continue, shifting in your seat as if you're made uncomfortable by the way you're sitting. "i have to be, being the way i am and all."

"i understand. i'm not offended," nanami says. "but some people would probably call that rude."

you smile at him, coy and delicate. "would you?"

"maybe," he offers. "if the circumstances were different."

nanami clears his throat, furrowing his eyebrows at your body language. something's off and he wonders if maybe your cycle has begun. he shifts on the couch and turns his full attention to you.

you move over to him and sit just adjacent to his leg. something in him stirs, primal and unrecognizable. you've never been this close and he only now notices that you smell nice, like something light and fresh.

nanami feels his chest stir. "this is the most you've ever said to me, i think."

"sorry," you say.

"don't be," he responds.

this conversation is awkward. it's loaded. it's like a conversation between two people who can't exchange more than a few words without experiencing intense sexual tension. he clears his throat.

"i need your help," you mumble, shifting closer. he knows what you're implying.

"i can't help you," nanami responds through gritted teeth.

"please," you say, standing slowly. you linger in front of him for a moment before reaching out and slowly straddling his legs. nanami flinches as you settle on him, pausing for a moment to breathe. "touch me."

you place your head against his shoulder, fingers grabbing his shirt as if you're agitated. the skin of your cheek is warm against his collarbone and he can feel your hair against his jaw. you twitch lightly when you touch him. carefully, he places a large hand on your head. your whole body flinches, unbelievable warmth soaking into his skin.

you feel like you have a fever and the next time you raise your head, your eyes have gone glassy, face darker. your lips are wet and lightly parted and a layer of sweat covers your forehead.

"not like that," you say, something needy creeping into your voice.

nanami, against his better judgement, rests his hands on your waist. you shudder under his touch and he slowly strokes the exposed skin of your sides with his fingers. trailing the pads of them against raised goosebumps on your skin. between your legs, he can feel heat. he knows you're wet and he knows what you want. nanami isn't sure he can give it to you, he's unsure that he should. it's not illegal, but he feels that it's wrong. something about it is fundamentally wrong and the situation goes against all of his morals. his mind still wanders.

you rest your forehead against his chest, and he feels your pheromones as they hit his nose and soak in through his skin. his body responds, tensing. your breath picks up, little heaves and pants, and you squirm down against him almost involuntarily. nanami feels himself grow hard. it surprises him and shames him. he feels heat rise to his cheeks at the realization that he's pressing up against the inside of your leg, something that makes you stir and settle directly over him. every exhale from you is a borderline whine and the syrupy smell of you grows more intense by the moment. nanami still runs his fingers along your sides, venturing over your tummy and back occasionally.

"just a little bit," you command, rubbing your cheek against him and then placing your mouth on the side of his neck and biting. "i'm sorry. just a little bit."

nanami winces and you drag your hips over him. his hands fly to yours, gripping hard enough as you make you whine.

"i can't," he grits out, speaking directly against the way his cock throbs against your core. he can feel it's dampness, a humidity that soaks through his pants.

"it hurts," you mutter and nanami feels an unpleasant stirring in his stomach. he hates the thought of you being uncomfortable.

"maybe we can find help-" you twitch over him, making him wince, "for you."

you shake your head, "you."

nanami exhales and tips his head back, his fingers still on your waist. he weighs the outcomes of this in his mind. he could push you off and fix you a blanket and a safe space, give you some tools to help yourself and then plug his ears and pretend he doesn't want to do it himself. he imagines the buzzing sound, the way you'd whimper from the other room over, still unfulfilled despite the aid. he thinks about your fingers between your legs, unsatisfying and only serving to worsen the itch. it makes him strangely jealous, nauseous almost, that you should be so uncomfortable in his presence.

you exhales against him and it's a near defeated sound. nanami's fingers buzz with adrenaline, his cock swelling and throbbing every time you so much as shift over him. there's a lack of control in this situation and his fingers move to comfort you almost against his will.

something natural and easy takes over as he slides a big hand down to the front of you and cups your cunt. it feels almost like an out of body experience, but both yours and nanami's humanity drips away slowly to make room for these primal actions. you shudder and nanami's chest swells with relief as he sees your expression. there's a need within him to care for you. it's protective, the same way he'd feel if you were in physical danger.

nanami moves his four fingers over you slowly, his breathing hitching as you push your body against him. he can feel your dampness soaking through your thin shorts and it isn't long before your relief gives way to more need.

"just this once, nanami," you breath against his neck. "please."

nanami's head is filled with something syrupy. probably you. it's probably a chemical reaction caused by you and he knows that any pheromones you're releasing are probably being released in equal amounts by him. they take up space in the room, crowding him so that all he can focus on is you, is the need between your legs that calls to him like song.

"okay," he gives in, pulling your panties to the side and dipping his fingers into you.

you shudder and let out a short cry, thighs trembling. he knows he won't be able to satisfy you like this, but he wants to try. nanami knows though that there is no such thing as nipping it in the bud with these sorts of things and as he begins to move his fingers inside of you with a beckoning motion, he feels himself slip farther away.

you're so wet, dripping down his fingers. your pussy clenches around them, begging for a knot, sucking the two digits up into you and then threatening to push them out. nanami has been with omegas before, but he's never felt himself slip away like this. his humanity leaves him in favor of something animal.

nanami shushes you quietly as he pulls his fingers from your body. you whine and squirm against him, pressing down and grinding against the bulge in his pants. he sucks in a sharp breath and quickly discard your bottoms, leaving you bare and exposed in his lap.

your cunt is sticky and shining, glistening with your wetness. he can smell it, the way you're probably fertile, and the perverse thought crosses his mind that maybe you deliberately avoided your suppressants so that he could do this to you. how out of character for him to think that.

for someone so proper, he makes quick work of pressing the head of his cock against your entrance. you push your body forward to try to take him in and nanami very quickly slides into you. you're tight and with the way your cunt makes him feel, he knows that the stretch must hurt you, but he can't seem to stop. he's so focused on quelling the ache within you, buried deep in that spot where his knot will inevitably catch.

you are barely capable of forming words now, dumb and deaf with your heat. any words of comfort nanami offers to you seem to go in one ear and out the other, but he offers them anyway. they're automatic and they come without his even needing to think about them. things about taking care of you, about knotting you the way you're begging him to, about making sure you're never alone when you have to do this. if he were in a better state of mind, he'd be mortified.

instead, he fucks his hips up into you, holding you by the waist against his throbbing cock. then, when that isn't enough, he lays you on your back on the couch and presses your knees to your chest so that he can go deeper. he needs to get deep enough to where his knot will catch, to be able to stay there to ensure it catches properly. he feels the way air leaves you with every fuck of his hips.

you raise your hand to touch his face, eyes glassed over and watering as gentle tears slip down your cheeks. a silent encouragement that pulls him from his thoughts back to you. nanami turns his head instinctively and kisses the palm of your hand. then, he takes your thumb into his mouth and bites down on the fleshly part at the base of it. he could draw blood if he wanted, but he doesn't. instead he takes your hand as it falls from his lips and kisses you plainly again on the palm before pinning it above your head.

"i'll take care of you," he grunts out and you nod deliriously.

nanami makes quick work of knotting you. he bullies his cock as far in as it will go, swelling and swelling until he sticks. you squirm as he does, gasps growing higher in pitch until you're silenced by the pressure deep in your abdomen. you cum around him, he thinks, pussy fluttering as it throbs around his knot. then, you exhale as the heat recedes into the background with this momentary relief.

nanami winces as he holds himself up over you, slowly returning to his head as the swell of pheromones recedes and leaves only the feeling of the space he takes up in your cunt.

you search his face for something, benevolence maybe, and nanami places a wide palm to your cheek.

"i'm sorry," he breathes as words find him again. "i didn't intend to-"

you shake your head, returning to yourself as well. "don't be, i wanted to."

nanami isn't really sure what to say and you wince under him as he settles his weight a little further, throbbing lightly at the mention.

"hold me," you ask and nanami obliges. he settles fully over you before lifting you so that you're straddling his lap again. you wince and nanami soothes you by gently stroking your face. it's automatic again, the urge to comfort you is well beyond his control.

something in you triggers something in him and it is two full days before either of you are lucid and well enough to separate. satoru calls him multiple times, but nanami ignores him, too preoccupied with his unexpected rut and keeping you comfortable. at present, he's well past the initial guilt and frankly, entirely hellbent on deciding that you should stay. so much for his practicality, nature won out in the end.

nanami doesn't really think he'll ever hear the end of this, especially not from satoru who, when he inevitably gets a hold of them, will tease so relentlessly that it might shock nanami and you back into your senses. he decides to hide out here with you for a little longer, filling the room with the scent of you both until it crowds out everything else. he likes the way you feel nestled up beside him, messy and breathing deeply as you sleep.

a tag for my friends @antizenin and @kentocidal bc they asked!!!

[ms-demeanor]

Okay THANK YOU for saying “your body craves what it needs” is bs because that felt like bs this whole time.

Like you don’t need more sugar if you crave sweets that is NOT what that means. Sugar is a food that people crave because it tastes good/sugar I think is an addictive food??

Idk it just felt like people making excuses when they’re supposed to be trying to eat a little healthier (healthier, not low cal, not low fat or keto or whatever. Diets are bs but craving sweets does not mean sugar is healthy thing for your body rn)

People crave sugar because it tastes good, which is not a bad thing, and there is an evolutionary reason that sugar and fat taste good to us. Carbs are your body's favorite thing because it is SUPER easy for your body to break them down into useful molecules.

I'm not a fan of the idea that any foods are addictive and I'm skeptical of models that suggest "refined food addiction" is a thing with a measurable, real-world impact; there's a lot of debate in that area of nutrition science and to me it kind of seems like the tools people use to track food addiction aren't really examining the addictiveness of specific foods, but are decent screening tools for people who have compulsive behaviors around food (for instance, one group of people who the Yale Food Addiction Scale has repeatedly been demonstrated to be REALLY good at identifying is people with anorexia).

But your body needs sugar all the time, whether that's in the form of complex carbohydrates that get broken down into simple sugars by your body, or simple sugars that you stir into your tea that then gets sent to your cells as energy. If your diet doesn't have enough sugar in it, your body has a processes to turn non-sugars into sugar so that it can use the sugar (gluconeogenesis!). Sugar is unambiguously good for you in the way that fat is unambiguously good for you. You need sugar to survive and it's not a bad thing if you want to have a cookie or a soda or some candy, and again - your craving probably isn't telling you that you're deficient in a specific micro or macronutrient, but I still think that you should listen to your craving.

Like, I don't know how much you know about psychotherapy but the attitude that a lot of diet-focused discussion takes toward cravings reminds me of cognitive behavioral therapy. "When you crave chocolate, no you don't! Don't think about the chocolate, you actually probably need starch or sugar or something, let's redirect that into having a banana, or some frozen berries, or some spinach. Point away from the unhealthy craving and into the healthy replacement, or, better yet, ignore the craving. Mind over matter. You choose how you act."

(I actually think "X craving means that I want Y food so I shall replace it with Z, which is similar" "craving salt means that I am dehydrated and need electrolytes so instead of potato chips I'll have some soup" is how this goes most of the time. I think this is a diet culture thing, not a food positivity thing.)

And you know what I think that's a garbage way to look at both food and emotions.

When I'm craving ice cream it's not because I've been mostly vegetarian for a week and am low on dietary cholesterol (AN IMPORTANT NUTRIENT. Don't be scared of consuming some cholesterol), I'm craving ice cream because sugar and fat taste good. So instead of trying to pretend that I'm getting "what I need" from a piece of salmon the size of a deck of cards with no salt and some lemon squeezed on top, I'm going to scoop out a moderate portion of ice cream and eat it while focusing on how much I enjoy it. And I'm going to do that instead of sitting down with a pint and a spoon while I'm stressed at work and eating something that tastes good to distract from the fact that work is stressful. (And sometimes it's fine to sit down with a pint and a spoon but I will say that's generally best not to do while you're in the middle of something stressful)

And if you want to relate that back to therapy I see this as more of the DBT approach. I've accepted that I want ice cream so I'm going to eat it in an intentional way and enjoy it instead of eating so much that I don't want dinner, or that it makes me feel sick, or that I eat it without noticing it because I'm using it as a distraction instead of a snack.

I'm not trying to shut down the negative emotion or shun the "bad" food, I'm accepting that I have that emotion and I'm working this neutral food into my day so that I'll feel good tomorrow and won't get heartburn overnight.

So I see that you're trying to be kind of anti diet culture here, but I don't think people need excuses to eat sugar, and I actually think that making excuses to eat it is significantly less healthy than just eating the sugar (which, again, is unambiguously healthy to eat as part of a varied, filling, nutritious diet). It seems like you may have internalized some ideas about sugar that are not great even if you are trying to separate from diet culture.

Nobody is ever going to eat a diet so healthy and nutritionally complete that they don't want candy or cake or cookies sometimes. Food is not only fuel, it is entertainment and culture and comfort and distraction and celebration and a million other things, but it is not bad. I don't think there's a single universally bad food out there, or any food that never belongs as part of someone's diet (unless it's something you're allergic to - I don't care if you're craving peanuts, do not eat peanuts if you have a peanut allergy).

So it's okay to make sugar, you don't need to make excuses. It's okay to eat sugar if you're craving sugar, even if that's not what your body "needs". But also sometimes a craving is your body saying "I'm hungry and this sounds good, please feed me" even if you're not a finely-tuned spectrometer that's craving blueberries pie because you actually need antioxidants from the blueberries (you're not a finely tuned spectrometer, you don't need the antioxidants from the blueberries, it's perfectly fine to just eat a slice of pie).

[patricia-taxxon]

Sorry people are being hostile in the notes of your recent AI post! Your points are really interesting and I hadn't thought about it like that (referencing the "..."it's theft" isn't a good argument when much of the greatest art to ever be made is also largely theft" part)

I agree with what you're saying about theft/ creative use of someone else's stuff (or even un-creative use of someone else's stuff, looking at John Williams fully ripping off Holst in the imperial march)

But something about generative AI still rubs me the wrong way though (re: taking people's work), and your comparison has made me question more specifically what it is that I'm uncomfortable with. I think it's the lack of intentionality behind the theft? Coming at this as a composer, if someone stole like, a melody I wrote, I would be happy that they had thoughts & ideas about the thing I made & interested to see what they did with it. I think the thing about generative AI that I don't like (on a personal level) is the lack of intentionality, like, both not knowing if my work had been fed into the training data + if someone rips me off it wouldn't be a choice they made specifically, but just a thing that mysteriously happened.

Idk if I'm making much sense, I'm not really engaged with the online discourse about generative AI because (from the bits and pieces that I've seen) it's a lot of people getting really angry and shouting the same x5 things at each other, rather than like, a discussion.

Anyway sorry for rambling, I appreciate your perspective! hope you have a good day! ♪ヽ(´▽｀)/

Yeah, this is mostly where I'm at as well. Even purely secular people tend to invoke the concept of a "soul" when talking about "AI" art, and I'm pretty sure this is what they mean. Soul as in aggregate experience, perception, taste. People want copying in art to communicate something, they want to consider another human's notions of beauty and ugliness. That's why I describe it as modernist, it extricates taste. It copies accidentally with no bridge to the source, not even an implied one. I compare it to generative art a lot, but even that doesn't really reach the level of randomness and diversity of output as these image synthesis engines do. Morton Feldman's pieces still exist within the formal framework of orchestra, after all.

[sumeriandeathsquad]

hey 🐎 i'm here to take fandom too seriously 🐎🐎🐎 i'm not like on my knees dead serious about this i'm just having a conversation. like i'm serious but i'm not mad about it if that makes sense 🐎🐎🐎

first: i wrote and deleted like 3 paragraphs of supernatural meta here and then remembered the post is actually about wrestling.

so...the reasons nick is less popular are not imo because he is quieter or any nebulous personality trait, in or out of kayfabe. i don't really want to get into that so i'm not going to unless anyone wants me to make a very long and carefully worded post about that kind of thing.

but i will say the issue is not overall that he's less popular, it's that wrestling fans can be freakin' vile. the reason nick is not on social media is not because he's not as liked as matt is, it's because fans were vile to him. not "fans (everyone)", just "fans", people who are fans of wrestling one way or another. the reason we lost the halcyon days of the bucks having separate twitters is because people were awful to them, all the time, and are still awful regularly, by doing things such as posting conspiracy theories about them being pedophiles, posting antisemitic conspiracy theories, spending every second of their day trying to tear down two guys who for the most part mind their business. that is why haters ruin everything.

and then the people who do like the bucks don't always give nick the flowers he deserves on top of that. and it sucks, jay's right that fans don't always do a good enough job actually expressing love for the people who give us so much, and i think that's partly to do with a huge growing disconnect where people don't actually seem to like being fans much anymore. and people just straight up aren't kind about nick, like the amount of times i've been in the nick tag and there has been a post about matt where nick is not even mentioned but people tagged him anyway. for what reason? he gets ignored and left out a lot, i don't really care if someone makes a matt-centric post (guilty), but i do care if they actually go out of their way to make it clear they don't care about nick.

i'm not here to police how anyone uses tumblr or who they're fans of, but i think just trying to boil it down to a dean/sam type divide isn't quite... right? especially because dean and sam spend a good amount of the show in conflict, that's pretty much how you end up with these camps of fans. you're not wrong that sold as set pairs always end up with one guy more popular anyway. but it's different to how fans tend to neglect one half of the young bucks a bit.

but anyway, i don't want to shit on fans too much. it's mostly that haters ruin everything.

& the bucks do know the people who love them.

I wish Nick could see how many people love him. But the haters ruin everything.

[cy-cyborg]

The Jaws Effect and what it means for media representation

The Jaws Effect is the name of a phenomenon that described the panic and fear that sprang up around sharks, fuelled by Steven Spielberg's movie, Jaws. While the fear of sharks and other marine predators had always been a thing, Jaws launched the fear of sharks, and Great White Sharks in particular, to new (and mostly unfounded) heights. Most people will never encounter a real-life shark and so their only knowledge about the creatures come from movies and other forms of entertainment. Entertainment that largely portrayed them as mindless, unfeeling killing machines. After Jaws, sharks became a staple in the creature-feature genre of movies, which only perpetuated the idea of sharks as dangerous monsters even further, reigniting and reconfirming the beliefs the public held about them in the process. These ideas about sharks are, of course, not true, but the misconception and fear has had a real, observable impacts on shark populations, shark conservation efforts and even laws and legislations surrounding sharks and shark conservation around the world.

Ok but Cy, this is a blog about disability and disabled representation, what do sharks have to do with anything you talk about? Well, Because The Jaws Effect is just one of many examples that shows how massive of an impact representation in the media can have, for better or for worse, especially when talking about subjects the public generally knows very little about.

This conversation is not unique to disability representation, nearly every person I've seen who's talked about how to write and design characters from any minority brings it up eventually, but the media we consume, the movies we watch, the books we read can all have big impacts on people's perceptions on those topics. When talking about disability specifically, it's an unfortunate reality that not many people know all that much about us, and so, much like sharks, for many, their only real exposure to disabled people is through the media they consume.

If you don't know anyone in a wheelchair, and your only knowledge of life as a wheelchair user comes from books and movies like Me Before You, of course you're going to (spoiler) come away thinking that life in a wheelchair is horrible and death is better than living like that. If you don't know any DID Systems and your only exposure to a condition like that is through movies like Split (and honestly, a number of other horror movies and crime shows) of course you'll think people with DID are unstable monsters who could become violent any moment. If your only exposure to autistic people is Music, then it's not shocking that you might think Autistic people are "trapped in their own minds," completely unaware of the world around them and lacking any kind of agency. As much as I'd like to be able to say these are "just movies" or "just books," and that if we don't like them, we can just not watch them, they all had an impact on the real world and real people's perceptions of the disabilities they depicted, as do the many, many smaller examples of bad representation.

This is why I personally spend so much time focused on the portrayal of disability in the media, why so much of my content is focused on creating resources for creators to represent us better, and why I think writers, artists and other types of creators should care about the representation they include.

Unfortunately, people believing misinformation and stereotypes, while annoying, isn't the worst of the impacts bad rep can have. If a stereotype is prevalent enough, and enough people believe it, it can both put us in harms way and cause us to loose access to things we desperately need and things designed to help us. One really common example of this is when movies and TV shows show a character getting up out of their wheelchair, and use this as proof that the person is faking being disabled. However, in reality, there are many disabilities that might mean someone has to use a wheelchair, even if they can still walk a little bit or stand up. The stereotype of someone standing up from their chair being a fake, especially when it's reinforced over and over again in the media, leads non-disabled people to believe that anyone who stands up from their wheelchair is faking, and results in a lot of real disabled people being harassed and denied things like access to disabled parking, toilets and other accessible spaces. There were even a few cases of people reporting those they see get out of their wheelchairs to Centrelink (The Australian "welfare" department, for those not familiar) as frauds, and while these investigations don't usually go far before someone realises what's happened, it has, on occasion, resulted in people loosing the income they depend on to survive, even temporarily.

But the impact of representation, of course, can go both ways.

I was in high school when the first How To Train Your Dragon movie came out, and at the time, I didn't really like people being able to see that I was a leg amputee because I was sick of kids in particular staring, pointing at me, asking their parents "what's wrong with them?" or asking me directly, "what's wrong with your legs?". I wore long skirts and big, bulky tracksuit pants to keep my legs covered, something that became dangerous in the hot Australian summer, but I didn't care.

But the impact of How to Train Your Dragon came in two ways. The first, was that it was one of the first times I'd seen an amputee (or rather, multiple amputees) who didn't keep their prosthetics covered or hidden, and it gave me the little boost in confidence I needed to do that myself and wear clothing that was more comfortable and functional. And second, the comments from children changed, albeit slightly, but enough that it was noticeable. The questions and comments went from "what's wrong with you?" to "oh cool, your legs are like Hiccup's!" I even had one little girl ask me once if I had a pet night fury. They went from being scared of me and my legs, or at the very least concerned for me, to genuinely curious and impressed. While reactions like that did become less and less common over time, they didn't fully go away either. Even today, I occasionally get young kids asking me why I have legs like hiccup. A friend of mine who was born with one arm shorter than the other and without fingers on that side had a similar experience with the movie Finding Nemo. Her disability was a bit more complex than what I described here, and she always found it hard to explain "what happened" to small children, however, after Finding Nemo came out, she was able to simply tell kids "this is my lucky fin, like what nemo has!" and that was enough to take her from someone "scary" to these kids to someone like their favourite characters.

Of course, it's much easier to see the impact positive representation can have on people's perceptions when we're talking about kids media, but it's not exclusive to it either.

When it comes to a minority like the disabled community who are so thoroughly misunderstood by the wider public, misinformation can and does spread easily. What people see and read in the media they consume plays a big roll in how people perceive the real people attached to the stereotypes. We often hear people say "Fiction imitates life" but the reverse can and often is also true, life can imitate and be influenced by fiction, and those of us creating should be mindful of this, especially when we're talking about a group of vulnerable people.

[Thumbnail ID: An illustration of a Great White Shark swimming near the rocky bottom of the ocean, surrounded by silver fish. In the bottom left corner of the image is "The Jaws Effect and what it means for media representation" in big, white bubble text. /End ID]

[lightnersdream]

i've been thinking about exactly why people portraying one of the other crew members successfully killing Jimmy as a "for what you did to Anya" kind of thing rubs me the wrong way a bit and it's because like..... this is just another form of taking agency away from Anya, in a way. it's kind of framing her as some meek, shivery woman-thing who's entirely at the mercy of the men around her, either to hurt her or save her.

(i understand these are mostly for wish fulfillment on the audience's behalf because everyone would like to see Jimmy pay for his crimes. whether or not this is the intention of the person writing it isn't really relevant, characterization happens with or without intent. i feel like it misses the point by portraying it as an 'ideal ending'.)

because... Anya is a capable person. she takes things into her own hands when she can. it was partially(?) her idea to get into the cargo,

(before he interrupts her.. remember when she interrupted Curly in the dead pixel segment?)

it was her idea to get the code scanner from the cockpit,

it was her idea to get the medication from behind the foam.

(the chance to do these things herself is not given to her.)

she'd been keeping Curly alive for months in a critical state somehow, her psych evaluations at the start are only so useless because Jimmy refuses to take it/her seriously and Curly is obviously biased when he puts it into his own hands. he's known him a long time, like he said. "I'll just put good for that one."

there's not a lot of material to work with because of how the game is framed, but it's there. we are working with two very biased perspectives and neither one lends Anya what she deserves

there's significant changes in how she speaks post- and pre- crash, and depending on who she happens to be talking to. i recommend re-reading her dialogue, because the difference is drastic

she acts the way she does around Jimmy because he has tangibly done horrible things to her, is actively hostile, and physically could not escape him by any means. she can't take away Curly's agency herself, in my eyes. you have to remember that Especially in the post-crash segments of the game, it's entirely from Jimmy's POV, and he obviously does not (and has never) thought very highly of her or treated her with a shred of respect

i've seen a general idea that she can't bear to hurt other people for any reason, but that doesn't really track to me. this is the real point of the post by the way

it seems based on the parts where she says she struggles to give Curly medication. "It just hurts him so much, I can't stand the noise." "It makes me nauseous."

it's not really the same thing as, say, hurting someone in self defense

this sounds like she did want the gun itself. this never felt worded like someone who would refuse to, at very least, threaten Jimmy with a gun, with violence. if she had been given the agency to make that decision on her own. she wasn't though

she still tries to reclaim some of it even as she's denied it

by the end she's still trying to keep that gun out of his hands

i think some people overly soften her, for similar reasons the game itself is trying to comment on. she's not a tender victim who couldn't cause pain to another out of the softness of her soul, she's a person who's had every last bit of agency ripped from her repeatedly until she couldn't take it anymore. that's the point. that's why framing her that way, "needing" someone to save her, is odd to me

she didn't need Curly to save her, she needed him to take responsibility

she didn't want to escalate things, but she's not an idiot. self defense was absolutely on her mind

but who knows im just saying shit *smiles serenely*

[save-the-villainous-cat]

"It's quite adorable, really." The villain's index finger followed the brim of the glass in lazy circles. They let their gaze wander to the wine and then back at the hero.

And the hero couldn't help but stare. Stare and pray.

Their hands were icy.

"Your invitation, I mean. I didn't know you were interested in going on a date with me," the villain said. Their grin reached from ear to ear and the hero couldn't help but stare at the villain's delicate fingers around the wine glass.

"I wouldn't consider this a date."

"I would. Food's fantastic."

"...it is." The hero stared at their own plate. They had mostly shoved food from one place to another, barely being able to get anything down. It seemed like guilt needed them to starve to make up for their actions.

"You look a little down," the villain said. "Shouldn't we be celebrating? This will probably be the first and last time we are agreeing on something."

There wasn't going to be a first time.

The villain raised a glass and the hero only nodded, mirroring their enemy's action.

"To us," the villain said.

"Uhm...to us, yeah."

"To Gods amongst humans."

"Oh..." The hero didn't repeat that but they put on a fake smile they deemed to be very convincing. "Of course."

Without much further ado, the villain let their glass clink against the hero's. It was quite a pleasant sound.

As so many times this evening, the hero watched their enemy take a sip. They clenched their hands into fists but all their nervousness, their nausea and their anxiety was for nothing - the villain simply smiled and set their glass onto the table.

And the hero continued to sweat. They didn't know why fate was torturing them like this but they hoped, truly hoped it would pay off.

"You look very lovely, if I am allowed to say that."

"You're allowed to say whatever comes to mind," the hero said. The villain raised a lazy brow.

"Is that so?" They took another sip.

And the hero didn't quite understand. They had put enough poison into the villain's drink to kill an elephant.

"Of course. I've always respected you for your honesty."

The villain smiled lovingly.

"I'm afraid I can't say the same thing about you," the villain said. The hero swallowed. They could feel cold sweat run down their back. "You've always been a little liar. No matter how heroic."

"I never...I wouldn't..."

"This wine, for example." The villain raised the glass and the hero was ready to drop dead on the spot. They knew. They knew about it. They were going to kill the hero right here. With everyone else in the restaurant. "You told me this is the best they have but...darling, it's really not that good."

The hero let out a nervous laugh.

"Oh, did I say that? I...I'm not really an expert when it comes to quality. I just...eh, I just drink whatever, honestly. And I liked this one the last time I was here, so I thought you might like it? Maybe?"

"That's very considerate of you." The villain tilted their head as if the hero was an adorable animal they didn't know if they should pet. "But you chose something else to drink?"

"I wanted to try something else. I like, you know, experimenting."

"Oh? Cheers, then."

Once again, they let their glasses bang against each other and before the hero could say anything, their enemy downed the drink.

Had the hero messed up somewhere?

"That reminds me..." the villain said. "Cheers is skål in Swedish. Isn't that funny? That's exactly the same word for bowl."

"Oh, I didn't know that," the hero said. They tried to smile but it was increasingly more difficult not to worry about being cut into pieces right here at the table.

Suddenly, the hero could feel the villain's foot on their bare shin, teasing them as if they were two lovers under the table.

"Do you know why?"

"...no."

"I heard somewhere that vikings used to serve their drinks in bowls," the villain said. They smiled sweetly. "And when their bowl banged against the other's, their drinks would mix. They did that to make sure the other wasn't poisoning them. It would be quite bad to have some of that poison in your own drink, wouldn't it?"

Holy shit.

"I..."

"But that's just a silly story I've been told. Dunno if it's actually true." The villain shrugged and leaned back in their seat. However, that didn't mean their teasing under the table was less significant. In fact, it felt a little too scandalous.

"I think I have to use the restroom," the hero mumbled. Their heartbeat was completely out of this world. They knew their heart was going to jump out of their throat any second now. "I'm sorry, I'll be back in just a second..."

The hero stood up, nearly knocking over the table.

"Wait, darling. Come here first." The hero did but they didn't expect the villain to grab their jaw and pull them down to their eye level gently. They turned the hero's head in their hand as if the hero's head was some kind of toy until they could whisper into the hero's ear. "Remember not to use any poisons I am immune to next time. But like I said. It's quite adorable. I enjoy your company."

They pressed a soft kiss to the hero's cheek.

The hero could barely walk to the restroom.