#I would also like to mention for context

[nyxyxx]

The Garden - I (part a)

technically this is sagau stuff, but it's also more focused around my daydreams so here's a bit of that. The actual sagau content comes into play a lot later.

"Cecilia? Where are we going?"

"Shh! Ask questions later! I wanna show you something cool!"

The two young children scurried off through the forest, a forest that they'd come to know so well, and eventually stumbled out of the other side. "You see that hill over there?" The young girl said, pointing to the distant mound. "Yeah...what's so special about it?" The boy asked, still full of confusion. "-And don't you think we're out a little too far? Mother will start to worry if we aren't back soon." He wrapped his arms around himself, hoping it would ease some of his uncertainty. The girl scoffed, and simply dismissed his comment.

"Just follow me." She grabbed his hand, and dragged him off towards the hill. When they finally got there, the young boy was out of breath. "Ahh seriously. How are you *pant* so fast..."

Standing on top of the hill, the two of them could just barely see past the horizon, and could just barely catch a glimpse of the world that they once were a part of. "See... over there... I think? It looks like it could be a town."

"Yeah. It does kinda look like that. Well, can we go home now?"

"Fine, fine. Geez, I thought you'd be more excited." She crossed her arms and ran down the hill, nearly falling over in the process. When the boy ran down, she caught his hand before he could tumble over, and instead managed to keep him upright.

"I don't get what's so interesting about the rest of the world. As far as I know, it's way better here anyways." He said, brushing off his clothes.

"No, maybe you wouldn't get it. That's fine though. We should head back now though, otherwise Mother might get worried." She said, facing away from the intense glare she was receiving.

"That is literally what I said."

The two made their way back through the forest, navigating through the well-hidden traps that had been placed there. The forest was oddly quiet today. There was hardly any noticeable creatures roaming around, and the birds felt like they were more distant than usual. It was an eerie atmosphere.

However, despite the strange feeling that permeated through the air, they made it back home safely. Waiting on the porch of the cottage for them was their mother, who waved to them as they walked up. "Ah! I'm glad you two are back home safe, I was really worried!" She fretted. The two were embraced gently, and then hurried inside. However all was not right, the house was dead quiet, a stark contrast to how the house usually was. Had everyone still been out? Where was everyone else?

The two noticed something was wrong almost instantly. Had the two come back together ordinarily, there'd be a very upset sister waiting at the door, ready to start another brawl. She rarely left the house at all, and especially not on her own.

"Mother, I'm feeling kinda tired, so I'm gonna go to bed early if that's okay?" The young girl blurted, trying to sound as natural as possible. Clearly she had a bad feeling about this as well.

"Me too...we went pretty far today... so I'm extra sleepy."

Mother simply smiled, and said "Alright, please sleep well, love you both."

They both met in the girl's room. Something wasn't right here. "Did you see the way she said that? It didn't feel right at all." She launched herself onto her bed, and lay there for a while.

"Usually she'd have more of a reaction? Not to mention the fact that Xin is nowhere in sight." He sat down next to her bed, and rested his head against the mattress.

"Right? Like...she'd totally be waiting for us to be all like "How dare you two go without me?" and "You made me stay here all by myself!" but she just... wasn't there."

"Something's wrong here...but I don't know what to do. Or even how we can prove that."

"Simple, we can just wait until actual bedtime, and if even still nobody shows up, then we'll know somethings wrong." The young girl sat up from her bed, and started to undo her hair. "Until then we just have to buy time."

"Yeah...but even then, what'll we do after that?" He began, climbing on top of the bed to assist his sister. "Like, if nobody shows up, then what? What will we do from there?" He undid the braids of her hair, careful not to tug too harshly, and then proceeded to work on undoing his own.

"Hm... we should probably talk to Mother then. See if she knows what's wrong."

"I think Mother is what's wrong here," he sighed. "Something's not right about her, but I don't want to be rude and ask. Let's do that then, we'll wait till the time everyone would normally be home, and then we can confront her."

"Alright. I'm gonna take a nap in the meantime. I wasn't lying about being tired. You can...keep watch or something." The girl said, promptly collapsing back down onto her bed, and quickly falling asleep.

"Seriously, why are you making me do this..." He crossed his arms and sat next to her, keeping his eyes focused on the door.

I - Part A - END

this isnt edited sighh im too sleepy atm. Maybe another time. Making up for those notification I see in my inbox and then I feel guilty that I haven't written anything in a while. So here's my slop. Or something.

[jasperthejester]

me: finally accepting theres a good chance im autistic and starting to work up the courage to ask my parents to see if i could get a diagnoses but being scared to

my mom: do you ever think you have adhd? if you want to do a screening for add next time your at the doctors you can

me:

[pbnmj]

i deserve a spider-woman nepal..... miles doesn't have to be the only teen spider with a terrible bisexual mentor (enter my own sketches of the world's most annoying spiderperson, who i fling towards pavitr, complete with a design that's subject to change)

[plead-au]

a compilation of recent PLE:AD AU-related drawings. sorted by oldest to latest

[sasukeless]

mmmmyeah

[wonder-worker]

Wild how we know that Elizabeth Woodville was officially appointed to royal councils in her own right during her husband’s reign and fortified the Tower of London in preparation of a siege while 8-months pregnant and had forces gathering at Westminster “in the queen’s name” in 1483 – only for NONE of these things to be even included, let alone explored, in the vast majority of scholarship and historical novels involving her.

[retributory]

gx is so crazy how do you explain to someone with a surface-level understanding of what yugioh is that the series after dm features a hermaphroditic dragon-demon card spirit fusing their soul with the main character, who also has apparently been continually reincarnating for 100s of years with the card spirit's primary goal being to protect him, and when they embrace to fuse he says they shall never part again because they will forever and always from that point on be one jointed soul and body, and also he commits a borderline genocide against the card spirit race (???) and straight up kills some of his friends (they get better), and also there's a character who got his leg broken during an archeological dig and they replaced the broken bone with a dinosaur bone (???) and now he's like part dino and has fucking dino dna (?????????) and they send him to space as his dinosona to destroy a satellite that is about to destroy the earth (????????????), and also one of the teachers in the school (seto kaiba's duel school for dueling) is a homunculus and when he dies his soul (???) gets eaten by his cat and for the rest of the series he is living (?) inside of the cat's body, and also on top of all that theres a cool rival character as expected of a show targeted towards young boys who looks cool but in actuality he's lame as hell like he canonically stinks like shit cause he doesn't wash his clothes and he joins a cult and they get him out of the cult by reminding him that his real personality is being a rancid little stinky smelly bastard loser and no one likes him and he spends the entire series getting completely dunked on and also his main archetype is these things:

and then you have to concede that at the end of the day it is still an anime for a children's card game designed to sell the cards so if you ever try to explain the impact this had on your developing mind at 7 years old you'll sound sick

[wreckedhoney]

MASSIVE SPOILER for one of the endings.

it's been a while since i tried looking, but i did hear that something like this happens last year and over time started to think, "was it a fluke?" bc no one posted footage or caps of it then, and i aimed for a completionist run in my first playthrough. turns out it's real! and definitely shines a new light on a character that, for most other types of playthroughs, will not give this much emotion! EDIT: transcript now included, and some stillshots under the cut

[0:28] Marie: Henry, this is the man who kept you from doing the right thing tonight. Kill him. [0:15] Forrest: Henry, you don’t have to do this. If you’ve not killed anyone yet, there’s still time to make the right decision. [0:05] Out of shot: (Gunshots) Henderson Police! Freeze! Marie: No! Henry, get out of there!

[tigerbears]

Homestuck Spoilers Out of Context.

[ffc1cb]

i’ve always found it peculiar how during meeting the chargers cutscene the game just assumes your character automatically understands what krem is talking about when he mentions binding (though, granted, it’s all very unsubtle). like, this is a roleplaying game. what if i want to play a character who just doesn’t get it

[pinkinsect]

they should let me cite my tumblr mutuals on academic papers

[akiiame-blog]

Just got out of my first therapy session in a few years... I think it went okay overall, but I find myself having an instinct to kinda downplay how I'm feeling, seeming like things are better than they are

I just worry that'll prevent me from getting the real help I'll need... Really hope that won't be the case and that things will start to improve these next couple of months

[fandom-geek]

vaguely fascinated by osana sov's naming choices. she chose for her daughter a name that can mean "bitter (strength)" or "lady" in two ancient languages (hebrew and aramaic) and for her son a name that means "old friend" in another ancient language (old english)

like every other golden age character has a name that's pretty normal by our standards, which tbh includes mara, then osana just names her other kid uldwyn. then again, even osana's name is either a variant of the hebrew hosanna or after an obscure and possibly fictitious old english princess-saint whose name means something along the lines of "godly solitude", so i suppose mara might be considered the odd one out

[hauntingofhouses]

i know I've mentioned my interpretation of mizu's gender a million times on here but i don't think i ever fully elaborated on it.

so on that note i just wanna ramble about that for a bit. basically, it's my reading of the show that mizu is nonbinary, so let me dig into that.

putting the rest under the cut because it ended up being pretty long lol. also here have a cute mizu pic of her being happy and most at ease with herself, symbolised by her letting her hair down. <3 ok let's proceed.

thus, when i refer to mizu as nonbinary, i am interpreting mizu as a woman, but not ONLY a woman. not strictly a woman. she is also a man. she is also neither of these things, she is something in between, while at the same time she is none of these at all. i've said as much many times, but i just don't want people to think that when i say nonbinary, it inherently means a "third androgynous gender" that essentially turns the gender binary into a gender trinary. not only is that going against what the term nonbinary was crafted for (to go against rigid boxes and categorisation of gender identities), but also, not all nonbinary people fall under that category or definition, and that's definitely not the way i interpret mizu.

okay before i go deeper i'd just like to address some important things. first of all, this post is an analysis of canon, and thus everything i am arguing for is about my own interpretation of the show, and not some baseless projected headcanon i am projecting onto the character. please remember there is a difference between an interpretation (subjective; interpretations will differ from viewer to viewer, but ultimately it is firmly rooted in evidence taken from the source material) VS a headcanon (unrelated and often even contrary to what is presented in canon; opinions wildly differ and they cannot be argued for because there is no canonical evidence to back it up).

ALSO please note that nonbinary is an umbrella term. this means that it applies to a vast range of gender identities. other identities that fall under the nonbinary umbrella include agender, bigender, genderfluid, and so on. however, it's my personal preference to use the term nonbinary as it is, simply because i'm not a fan of microlabels (more power to you if you do like them and find they suit you more though!).

also, before anyone fights me on this, let me clarify further that gender means something different to everyone. it's not your biological sex or physical characteristics. but at the same time, gender is not mere presentation. you can be a trans woman and still present masculine—either because you're closeted and forced to, or because you just want to—and either way, that doesn't take away from your identity as a woman. same goes for trans men. if you're a trans man but you wear skirts and don't bind or don't get top surgery, that doesn't make you any less of a man. because gender non-conformity exists, and does not only apply to cis people! some lesbians are nonbinary and prefer using he/him pronouns while dressing masculinely, but that doesn't mean they're a man, or that they're any less of a lesbian. neither does this mean that they're a cis woman.

the thing about queer identities in general is that, like i said, they mean something different to everyone, because how you identify—regardless of your biological attributes and fashion or pronouns—is an extremely personal experience. so a nonbinary person and a gnc cis woman's experiences might have plenty of overlap, but what distinguishes between the two is up to the individual. there's no set requirements to distinguish you as one or the other, but it's up to you to decide what you identify as, based on what you feel. either way, by simply identifying yourself as anything under the LGBTQ+ umbrella, you are already communicating to the world that you are not what a conservative, cisheteronormative society wants you to be.

which is why i find all this queer infighting on labels to be so ridiculous. because we're all fighting the same fight; the common enemy is a societal structure that divides us into set roles and expectations purely based on our biological parts. that's why biological essentialism in the queer community is a fucking disease. because by arguing that women are inherently weak and fragile and soft and gentle and must be protected from evil ugly men, while men are inherently strong and angry and violent and exploitative of women, these people are advocating for the same fucked up system that marginalises and abuses women as well as effeminate and/or gay men.

anyway. i'm going on a tangent. this was meant to be a blue eye samurai post. so yeah back to that— the point i'm trying to make is that there's no singular way to identify as anything, as everyone's views on gender, especially their own, is specific and personal to the individual.

so with that being said, yes you can definitely interpret mizu as a gnc cis woman and that's a totally valid reading of the text. however, interpreting her as nonbinary or transmasc also doesn't take away from her experiences with misogyny and female oppression, because nonbinary and transmasc folks also experience these things.

me, personally, i view her as nonbinary but not necessarily or not always transmasc because i still believe femininity and womanhood is a very inherent part of who mizu is. for example, from what we've seen, she does not like binding. it does not give her gender euphoria, but is instead very uncomfortable for her both physically and mentally, and represents her suppressing her true self. which is why when she "invites the whole" of herself, she stands completely bare in front of the fire, breasts unbound and hair untied. when she is on the ship heading to a new land in the ending scene, she is no longer hiding her neck and the lack of an adam's apple. we can thus infer that mizu does not have body dysmorphia. she is, in fact, comfortable in her body, and relies on it extremely, because her body is a weapon. instead, what mizu hates about herself is her face—her blue eyes. she hates herself for her hybridised racial identity, hates herself for being a racial Other. hates that she has no home in her homeland. thus it is important to note that these are not queer or feminist themes, but postcolonial ones.*

* and as a tiny aside on this subject, i really do wish more of the fandom discussion would talk about this more. it's just such an essential part to reading her character. like someone who's read homi k bhabha's location of culture and has watched this show, PLEASE talk to me so we can ramble all about how the show is all about home and alienation from community. please. okay anyway—

nevertheless, queer and feminist themes (which are not mutually exclusive by the way!) are still prevalent in her story, though they are not the main issue that she is struggling with. but she does struggle with it to some extent, and we see this especially during her marriage with mikio, where we see her struggle in women's domestic spaces.

on the other hand, though, she finds no trouble or discomfort in being a man or being around other men—even naked ones—and does not seem stifled by living as one, does not seem all that bothered or uncomfortable navigating through men's spaces. contrast this to something like disney's mulan (1998), where we do see mulan struggle in navigating through men's spaces, as she feels uncomfortable being around so many men, always feeling like she doesn't belong and that she's inherently different from them. mizu has no such experiences like this, as her very personality and approach to life is what can be categorised as typically "masculine". she is straightforward and blunt. her first meeting with mikio, she tells him straight to his face that he's old while frowning and raising a brow at him. she approaches problems with her muscles and fists (or swords), rather than with her words or mind. compare this with mulan, who, while well-trained by the end of the movie, still uses her sharp wits rather than brute strength. this is a typically "feminine" approach. it's also the approach akemi relies on throughout the show—through her intelligence and persuasive tongue, she navigates the brothel with ease. mizu, in contrast to someone like mulan and akemi, struggles with womanhood and femininity, and feels detached from it.

thus, in my opinion, mizu is not simply a man, nor is she simply a woman. she is both. man and woman. masculine and feminine. she has to accept both, rather than suppress one or the other. her name means water. fluid.

as a side note, while i do believe mizu is nonbinary, i also primarily use she/her pronouns for her, but this is a personal preference. i find it's easier to use in fanfic (singular they is confusing to write stories with, but again, that's just my feelings on it, and this is coming from someone who uses they/they pronouns). i also lean towards she/her because it's what the creators and all the official promotional copywriting of the show uses. and even though i am a "death to the author" enjoyer, i feel that when interpreting things that are left open-ended, it does help to look at the creators' take on things. also because, in general, being nonbinary simply doesn't necessitate the use of they/them pronouns. nonbinary is not just a third gender. it's about breaking the binary, in any which way, and that's exactly what mizu does, constantly.

also, i'd also like to mention that one of show's head of story even referred to her with the term "nonbinary", rather than simply "androgynous" (see pic below). and it's possible this could be a slip up on his part, in which he believes the terms are interchangeable (they're not btw), but regardless i find it a very interesting word choice, and one that supports my argument.

so anyway yeah that's my incredibly long rambling post.

TL;DR nonbinary mizu rights 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻 congrats if you reached the end of this btw. also ily. unless you're a TERF in which case fuck off. ok i'm done.

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

Outdrawn

f/f contemporary romance

two cartoonist who’ve been rivals since uni, and now have competing webcomics online, have to work together on the relaunch of a cult classic at the comic press they both work at

they both struggle with art-related physical and mental health issues, and complicated families

[bucketsofmonsters]

Would you guys want me to post fanfics on here if they're still monster romance?? I asked this before for a one-shot and people said yes but this would be a long series I'd be posting weekly so I feel like I should gauge interest again.