#I’m not kidding about being the only trans person btw I knew two others but one moved like I did

[blueheartedwolf]

Thinking about how I’m gonna have to fly home for a family thing and once again be the only trans person in a 50 mile radius

[guessimwritingficsagain]

To be seen, part Three (Frankie Morales x Reader)

Summary : The birthday party comes and goes. You're pining but get a grim reminder that Frankie has a daughter (and a spouse ?). You want to take a step back from that blooming relationship but things don't go according to plan. You want to surprise Jessie with a nice present.

Author’s note : I rewrote this thing like 4 times but here we are. Just so we are clear, we are NOT about to have a lot triangle between OFC, Frankie, and random new character James. I just want OFC to have some wholesome relationships and to be her own person besides her new relationship with Frankie and the boys (which, btw, a writer, a friend of mine actually, told me "sometimes you write about what you can't have" and boy didn't that hurt because I'm currently in the process of grieving a friendship that could have been so good if not for the fact that we have very different ways of seeing friendship ... so I guess that James comes from that, a little). The former version had Frankie being more forward but I do like a slooooow burn and also it felt OOC.

Anyway,

the song Sweet is by Porridge Radio.

The song Canción sin Miedo is by Vivir Quintana.

The French radio that only plays women, trans and NB people is a real thing : it's called Radio Tempête and I like it very much. Give it a try !

There had been questions. Linda had grilled you hard and actually told you to go for it. It felt nice, all of it, up until you’d asked Linda why she was here. She'd grown sheepish.

« I need a new start. A change of pace. And I- I miss you, not, you know, like that, but I miss my friend, and I figured a new start with an old friend, that could be nice. »

You’d nodded, wondering if there was something she was not telling you, but figuring she’d get to it in her own time. In the meantime, she was here. And it was nice. She got along immediately with both Jessie and Anna and could make Phil laugh like no one else. Still, there were things that you couldn’t bring yourself to tell her. You two had a history, just like you had with Jessie and Anna, but not the same kind and five years was a long time not to see each other.

That’s why you waited until Linda was playing with Clara to tell Jessie, quietly :

« That fifth guy who used to hang out with the boys ? »

Jessie looked surprised. She was usually the one fishing for information. You knew why you were telling her that : to share the epiphany you had, to remind her, and yourself, that these men were real people. And maybe, just maybe, to remind her in a way that there was a real world out there.

« He’s dead. »

The air grew quiet at that. You looked at her face. She nodded, juste the once. And then, never brought the boys up the way she used to. She asked for news, once in a while, but never again in the giddy way she used to do it.

———

Right. So maybe, maybe, you’d gone a little overboard with that birthday party, but the kid had lost her father a year ago and she deserved nice things.

Right ?

They didn’t have to know the bar didn’t actually own fancy, festive plates and an army of balloons. Besides, everybody had pitched in. And Phil had made an extra nice menu. It’d been a team effort, really. Except that when Linda came in to grab a coffee after work - she was working at the local bookstore and that made your heart clench a little - she raised her eyebrows and said :

« You said seventeen, right ? Because I think you’re going for seven, here. »

So. You were a bit nervous, which, what the hell ?? They weren’t your friends. They were paying consumers. Except you were fooling yourself there because you were pretty sure that paying consumers didn’t quite cover it.

But when Santi came in with her, the girl swallowed by a huge scarf to protect her from November’s chilly air, you saw the smile on her face, you knew it’d been worth it. Santi actually came and hugged you and whispered « thank you, Starbuck » before giving Anna a high-five.

Yeah, the Starbuck thing had stuck. And you might have started calling Santiago Santi.

You were introduced to the birthday girl -Sarah- who was lovely and perhaps, you realized quickly, a tiny bit smitten with Anna, in a when-I-grow-up-I-wanna-be-her kind of way. Anna, of course, was completely oblivious. They sat down at the counter first, waiting for their friends to get here, her with a coke, him with a beer, and you were content to just let them be. It was a moment you felt was too private for your tentative relationship.

Sarah hugged Frankie as he came in and you did not let your mind wonder what it would feel like. Beers to serve. Mind out of the gutter. But he came to find you, and he looked at you with those soft eyes and he leaned in a bit and you couldn’t help but smile. And he smiled back, elbows on the counter, so close.

« You didn’t have to do all that. »

His voice was barely a whisper, and you answered the same way :

« I know. »

He was looking at you like he was seeing you and you got that warm feeling again, at the center of your belly. There was nothing, for a few seconds, except his brown eyes, until Anna cleared her throat and you were reminded you were at work. You turned back to get a beer for Frankie, but were interrupted again by a hand on your arm. Anna was looking at you and asked, as quietly as possible :

« What was that ? »

Her eyes were kind, there was no teasing in her voice but you shrugged the question off anyway. You didn’t know what that was. And it wasn’t the time nor the place.

———

The birthday party had been a success, and the night would have been perfect if not for Phil’s pragmatism. He knew you, he could tell, and your little admission a while back, when under the fire of Linda’s questioning that maybe you had a tiny little crush hadn’t fooled him.

Oh, the mortifying ordeal of being known.

He’d came up to you when you’d been cleaning the coffee machine and he’d said :

« He has a kid, you know that. »

He’d left it at that, knowing it was enough.

And that was just the thing, right : you knew. And with kids usually came a spouse. He probably had a lovely one, someone pretty and smart and funny and soft just like he was. So you’d decided to take some emotional distance, just to keep it professional. Paying costumers, after all.

Of course you were fooling yourself, you were protecting yourself from something that had the possibility to break you heart. And that, that was the worst part, the scary part, because you remembered vividly not thinking about Linda that way and then she’d said I like you, I really like you, you know, in a way that makes me want to make out with you. And you’d realized you liked her in a way that made you want to make out with her too. Back then the closet had been a thing, a hard one to get out of, even though your parents loved you unconditionally, no matter how many tattoos they disapproved of covered your body, no matter who you dated. You just hadn’t realized what you’d felt for her until she’d spelled it out for you. It’d been beautiful and simple and safe.

Here, though, you were thirsting on a man a tiny bit older than you, who had a daughter, who was probably married. And you’d been avoiding thinking about that, and he never mentioned anyone. But you knew you needed to get a grip on those spiraling feelings.

You needed to refocus, and in doing so, you realized something that filled you with shame and guilt : you’d overlooked Jessie entirely. The Christmas Holidays were coming up and you hadn’t made any plans with her. You’d been so caught up in your world that, for the first time in years, you forgot about her. The fact she worked day shifts and you night shifts now meant that you saw less of each other. And since Linda got here, and the boys were around more, and you didn’t need to babysit Clara as much, you’d seen even less of her.

But you had a plan.

———

The plan showed up on your doorstep a few days later, greeting you when you opened the door with :

« I hope you finally threw away that ugly couch and that the new one is comfortable. »

Here he stood, in all of his stupid glory : James. Their parents probably had a weird sense of humor to call their first born Jessie and their second one James. Or maybe you had a weird sense of humor for noticing it.

Here’s a bit of a backstory : James was your age, and you’d actually been friends since you were ten. Attached-to-the-hip kind of friends. I-don’t-care-about-anyone-else kind of friends. He used to be your only friend, back then, because he was just enough. Jessie, being five years older, had no real interest in you whatsoever so you only befriended her later, when her ass of an ex-husband skipped town and you got a panicked call from James one morning asking if you could help his sister to find a job because she used to be a stay-at-home mom and now she really needed the cash. James couldn’t come home to help her, so you’d had to help Jessie. Not that it’d been a problem.

And James, James was spectacular in the way he never settled for anything. He’d left home to go to Harvard and then became a bloody CIA agent because why not. Except he hadn’t liked that so he’d quit the bloody CIA and opened a restaurant in Washington. The President of the United States of America ate there, on a regular basis.

(Sometimes, when life got too hard and you got too caught up in your own mind, and you felt you weren’t enough, you wondered why a man like that bothered to skype you twice a month, and one time, drunk and alone on your birthday, you’d left him a voicemail asking him that very thing and he’d given you so much shit for that you never asked again. You were his girl, forever and always.)

So you’d called him, explained the whole Jessie thing, and the guilt that came with it.

Now there he was, ready to hide in your apartment while you got everything set to give your girl Jessie the surprise she deserved. You let Phil and Anna in on the secret that was James, just so he could come to the bar when he wanted and no one would tell Jessie about it.

That’s how you found yourself jumping slightly at the abrupt change of a song, one night at the bar, and you declared, knowing who it was :

« Costumers don’t get to change the music. »

The only answer you got was a laugh. You turned around to see James, bending over the counter to get to the computer, all crinkled eyes and white teeth.

« Don’t tell me you don’t like hearing Sweet. » He quipped.

« I like that song », you explained as you secretly rejoiced in hearing the familiar notes. « But that doesn’t mean you get to play anything you want. I know you, you get too comfortable. »

He sat down at the bar, a bit away from the boys who were joking and laughing at the counter. Benny had won his fight and got a girl’s number so it was a good night for him, the kind of night you didn’t want to intrude on. Except you wished you could, and that, that was a red flag in itself because usually, when James was around, there was nobody else in the world but you still thought about Frankie, about how you wished you were sitting on the other side of the counter, pressed against him, laughing at whatever it was that had been said. Paying consumers, right ?

You’d been serving beers left and right, only stopping a moment to get another round to the boys when you heard :

« Where the fuck is that French radio playlist ? You know, radio that only plays songs by women, trans and non-binary people ? I know you have one, can’t seem to find it. »

« James. »

You turned around. He was standing behind the counter.

« How on earth did you get there ? »

« I jumped. You were busy, didn’t see it. Anyway. That playlist ? There’s some good shit on that. Though we might want to avoid the songs too obviously sexual, right ? »

You let out the biggest sigh. Of course he'd jumped. Of course he’d find that absolutely normal. You waived him away and got to find the playlist.

« I wanna hear Canción sin Miedo. » He added, all but propped up on the counter.

« Get down. Also your accent is shit. » You hissed. You complied, though.

As the Mexican song started playing, Will gave you a look.

« That’s Jessie’s brother. » You explained, your voice still a touch exasperated.

« But that’s a secret. » James added, still very much sitting on the counter. He smiled and said : « Hi, I’m James. Like Bond. James Bond. Nobody ever saw the two of us in the same room, by the way. »

He winked and you ugly snorted.

———

The noise was overwhelming and the place reeked of beer and sweat but Anna was steering you gently through the crowd and Linda’s hand was grounding, on your shoulder. MMA fights were not your scene but Benny had asked and Anna had said yes before you could get a word in. You’d called Linda in a panic, muttering you know how I get in crowded spaces and she’d offered to come.

You still didn’t know how Anna managed to get your boss to give you both the day off for that but you were glad.

You heard Benny come in more than you saw him, and Anna guided you to the place where Santi, Frankie and Will were. Santi made a jab at Linda, who laughed it off and introduced herself at the others. She was blending in with ease, as always. You, though, felt lost, until you sensed someone right next to you. Lifting your head, you saw Frankie hand you a drink, before his hand came and gently grabbed your arm, guiding you to a sit right next to him.

« You okay ? » he asked in your ear, close enough that you could feel his breath, his hand still on your arm.

You explained right in his own ear :

« Crowed spaces. »

You felt his hand give a squeeze and, without thinking, tapped his thigh in a way you hoped would convey your thanks. Then, you held onto your drink for dear life, as Benny started beating the shit out of the other guy.

———

Benny was breaking down his fight, as the other men pitched in with a comment, once in a while. You hadn't exactly enjoyed the fight, but Frankie's presence and explanations had made the whole thing better. You drew the line, though, at debriefing, so you turned to Linda :

« So, how was your date ? »

« Nice. »

« Nice ? Just nice ? But she was bloody gorgeous. You showed me pictures ! »

You weren’t as quiet as you thought you were because next think you knew, Anna was leaning in, wiggling eyebrows, and the rest of the table grew awfully quiet. You turned to see all the eyes on you.

« Who was bloody gorgeous ? » Santi inquired.

« My date. »

Everybody was listening, now. You motioned her to go ahead.

« Well, her yoga lessons came in handy, if you know what I mean but … yeah … yoga. Pilates. Rabbit food. »

« Well, you still got her to do some yoga » you replied with a wink.

That got Anna to spit her drink.

« She was plenty good at that, but, yeah. »

She shrugged and too a sip of her beer.

« Wait, she ?»

So yeah, Santi hadn’t caught on the Linda’s a lesbian train yet. Though to be fair, he’d seen her once, twice counting tonight.

« Got a problem with that ? » Linda asked.

You felt the tension roll off of her and you couldn’t blame her. You never really knew how people were going to take your coming out, no matter how well you knew the person. And she didn’t know Santi at all.

He hurriedly shook his head.

« No, I just didn’t expect it, is all. »

He lit up, then, and you could almost see the bad idea that came to his mind.

(Maybe you were starting to know him after all.)

« I could be your wingman, and you my wingwoman. »

« No fucking way, Santiago. »

You laughed as you listened to Linda give a few more details, sweet Anna beaming in awe as the discussion went to Linda’s great adventures in dating.

« So, you’re a serial dater. » the younger woman exclaimed.

« She was never good at settling » you confirmed.

Linda turned to you and, with mock outrage, asked :

« Never good at settling ? Do those two years with you mean nothing ? »

You laughed and she laughed and Anna laughed and Benny all but shrieked :

« You two dated ??? »

That only made your belly clench even more, the laughter an unstoppable force, Linda warm by your side, Anna crying from laughter, Santi and his existential crisis because he’d hit on a lesbian and suddenly everything made sense because nobody said no to Santiago - at least that was what your were feeling he was thinking. And Benny, just confused, said :

« I didn’t know you swung that way. »

The sentence was meant for you, you knew that, but before you could calm down, another voice, one you’d recognize anywhere, anytime, answered for you :

« Oh, she swings every fucking way, right, baby ? »

You turned around sharply and there he was, again, James. Right on time. He settled right next to you, his warmth a comforting presence. You swallowed the anxiety down. Everything would be alright.

And everything was.

Because fifteen minutes later, Jessie was coming in, Clara in her arms, wondering what the emergency Phil called about was. You would forever remember the look on her face when she saw her brother sitting right there. The blinding smile, the way James took Clara in his arms and cooed.

It was going to be a good night (again).

———

« That was real nice of you », Frankie mumbled. « What you did back there, with Jessie and her bother. »

You’d stepped out to have a smoke and he’d joined you, hands in pockets, just standing there, not close enough to touch you but close enough that you could feel him.

« You two seem close », he stated after a bit.

That wasn’t jealousy. That you could tell.

« He’s my best friend, I guess. »

« He seems nice », Frankie stated. « A bit over the top but then again, I’m friends with Pope so … »

You had a flashback, then, of your first encounter with Benny, and asked :

« What’s with the nicknames anyway ? »

« We served … » Frankie started. You cut him off.

« Yeah, I know, but. What does it mean ? »

Frankie just smiled, then, took a step closer to you, shoulders brushing. You felt hot, all of a sudden.

« A callsign is trust » he explained and then quietly added :

« Starbuck »

You managed to keep it together. You kept it together because paying consumers. You kept it together because that man had a daughter and was probably married and what he’d just said was said out of friendliness.

[transmascjfk]

i'm,, trans and hc chihiro to be a male..

i'm sorry, but i don't quite understand how that's transphobic. could you please explain how chihiro is transmisogynistic? (sorry if i come off as rude - that's not my intention and i genuinely just don't understand, though i would like to!!)

What is transmisoginy?

"Transmisogyny is a distinct category of transphobia in that transmisogyny mainly focuses on trans women and other transgender individuals who demonstrate femininity, whereas transphobia is a more general term, covering a broader spectrum of prejudice and discrimination towards transsexual and transgender individuals. Julia Serano states in Whipping Girl that "when the majority of jokes made at the expense of trans people center on 'men wearing dresses' or 'men who want their penises cut off' that is not transphobia – it is transmisogyny. When the majority of violence and sexual assaults committed against trans people is directed at trans women, that is not transphobia – it is transmisogyny." "

Chihiro is written to mock trans women, to say that in reality trans women are secretly men, she is a man who is weak and uses being trans as a way to escape her problems, this is a thing that is also said to trans men a lot, that theyre just trying to avoid the hard parts of being a woman by becoming a man. Even if the writters intended it to be like that or not (which they probably did because transphobia is a big thing that happens a lot, obviously) it's still transmisogynistic. Thats that on that

This is a pretty common transphobic trope actually, the "Turns out this one character was actually from the opposite sex??!!", theres more examples of this in other games outside Danganronpa.

But also her experience is pretty different from other examples, her experiences are way too similar with trans womens experiences.

This is mostly for the cis people who call her a crossdresser and refuse to change their mind, on it, sit down.

Written by a trans man.

Don't tell me whats transphobic and what it's not transphobic if you're cis. Just sit down and read.

Tw: transphobia, transmisoginy, death mentions and blood in the pictures.

The game implies a lot of stuff with her dialogue, it doesn't straight up says "I don't want to be a woman anymore, I'm a man" like everyone claims it does.

[ Alt text 1:

Chihiro Fujisaki: I'm going to get stronger...and accept who I am... ]

[ Alt text 2:

Chihiro Fujisaki: Strong enough so that when someone says "even thought you're a boy" I'll be okay. I'll get better! ]

[ Alt text 3:

Chihiro Fujisaki: I wrapped myself in lies. I'm weak. I want to destroy that version of me forever! ]

[ Alt text 4:

Chihiro Fujisaki: ... I want to change. ]

[ Alt text 5:

Chihiro Fujisaki: I have to change. I don't want to be weak anymore ]

She goes to Mondo not because hes masculine, but because she admires him and his strength. She never once says it's because shes a man or because Mondo is a man.

[ Alt text 1:

Chihiro Fujisaki: Maybe talking to Mondo about it will help give me some courage... ]

[ Alt text 2:

Chihiro Fujisaki: I admire... your strength... ]

These dialogues can be read in two ways, the first one being the one the game tries the hardest to put in your head thats shes a man, all of this guessed by other people btw not what she herself says. Which is really transphobic, because she was written as a trans woman and then theyre like "uh no actually hes a man, because he was born as one but hes a coward so he started to dress as a woman to hide from his problems. Because thats what people do right? People who dress as their oppossite gender are so pathetic, specially men amiright? Ahaha"

Reading it in this way really weird, you're doing a lot of mental gymnastics because you would literally call her a trans woman with all of this if the rest of the trial, that consists of cis people assuming shes a man, didn't happen. And sadly you're following transphobic ideas by this. Because the canon is transphobic and transmysoginistic.

And the other way is just read what she says, that she just wants to be stronger and stop lying to everyone, basically about being cis, because shes not, shes amab (assigned male at birth) and thats probably what she said to Mondo, but most people when a trans person who already passes or is in their transition comes out many people tend to think "oh so youre your gender assigned at birth and not the one you claim to be?", because they don't get what being trans is and they think only "biological gender" is a thing. Basically, misgendering and invalidating the trans person.

I can guess all of this just because of how vague they decided to make her dialogue, not even showing how she tells Mondo about being amab.

What did she said to Mondo? "I'm trans"? "I'm a man"? "I was born a man"? We dont know, because they didn't show it and she died right afterwards and then everyone was like "Chihiro was secretly a man" to solve the case and thats it. A lot of people in the discourse get their information from Monokuma who isn't either Chihiro or even Mondo. Monokuma knows many things but he can't read minds to know if she was really trans or not, only she could say it but she died so she couldn't explain if shes trans or not.

[ Alt text:

A youtube comment by Gail Frisbee, posted 4 days ago, this comment was edited by the autor. The comment says:

"It's honestly increible to me when people try to argue that a scene in which a female-presenting character gets their genitals groped and then is posthumously referred to as a male from that point on can't be transphobic just because that character calls themselves a boy in some other side content later. It's on about the same level of intellectual honesty as claiming that Quiet from MGS5 isn't really fanservice because she totally breaths throught her skin you guys.

As it turns out, if you really dig down deep into the lore, Chihiro is a fictional character and the same people who wrote the genital investigation scene also wrote the lines that character says in the game as well. It's a shocking twist, I know." ]

Her fears of being outed and people founding out her secret (being trans) or being transphobic is used as a gross big twist. A trans woman being used as a mockery of trans people? Great totally normal (/sarcasm)

Read this post made by a trans woman. I'll be using this only part but it's still a great read.

[ Alt text:

So. There is a lot to unpack here, but I want to start with something that specifically hurts me as a trans woman, and that's how the game flippantly uses real world horrors trans people face as shocking reveals and twists. You can go down the list for "worst nightmares" of trans people incluiding:

Threatening to be outed against your wishes

Outing yourself to a trusted friend and being met with rejection, or worse, violence

Having your body and privacy examined and invaded

Having your deadname used and being misgendered after death, when you can't correct them ]

Now, let's go to her backstory for a bit. I will be using the wiki for this. (Which sadly uses he/him for her 💔)

" When Chihiro was a child, he became the subject of harassment and bullying. He was always told to "be a man" and that he was "so weak despite being a boy", and because of that, Chihiro slowly but surely began to develop a "weakness complex". In order to escape the bullying, Chihiro began to dress as a girl so that people wouldn't bully him as a weak boy. "

This doesn't sound like a normal crossdresser, this sounds like a trans woman who was bullied for being different when she was younger, like many trans people, and then she decided to transition because she's a woman, she wanted to be more feminine and stop being seen as a person shes not. Specially after so many people tell her to basically man up when she doesn't want that, because shes not a man.

Have you ever heard of the classic stories of "since I was little i knew i was different, i was a boy who liked playing with dolls and was more feminine than the rest" or "i used to be a tomboy when i was little, i had mostly male friends, i liked playing with car toys and was more masculine than other kids" coming from trans people? This just sounds as these types of stories to me.

People also like to say that alter ego uses he/him pronouns and says shes a boy. Many trans people can misgender themselves for personal reasons too guys, she could've been trying to misgender herself because she didn't felt like she wasn't enough to be a real woman, this happens a lot to trans people. If people constantly tell you that you're not actually transgender or you just feel like you're faking it then you might actually believe it, thats were most "detransitioners" come from. And thats basically what they made her, a detransitioner.

Some of you might also don't get how shes trans because you think she doesn't perfect or exact trans stereotypes. Trans experiences can be similar on the feeling of not fitting in, dysphoria, etc. But trans experiences, stories, transitions and complete lifes can be very different, because we all (including cis people) live different lifes, experience, process and cope with things differently. So i can understand why you might not get her being trans coded at first, don't worry. But try instead of just not caring because you don't get it at the first try, to see what trans people say.

This whole discourse its mostly cis people talking over trans people about their own experiences (incluiding the dead trans coded characters experience) saying if theyre valid or not and denying stuff not wanting to learn anything, completely refusing to it because "In canon hes a boy" ok then in canon shes written in a transphobic way too but most of you don't care about that. You would rather call her a crossdresser than try to acknowledge how obviously trans coded she is and how thats used as transphobia.

The way most cis people act in this discourse is very transphobic to me to be honest, if you think you're a good ally but act like this then you should get more educated on the topic as a whole and about trans people too.

-the trans Chihiro flag to finish this up, she has a bit boobie! good for her! good for her.

[clearsky]

My Top Comfort Characters/Kins and My Main HCs For Them

(Note, not all my kins/comfort characters are on here, just the ones I have more than 5 hcs for)

CW: Korekiyo Shinguji (DRV3), Himiko Yumeno (DRV3), Shinsou Hitoshi (BNHA), Kyoko Kirigiri (THH), Tsuyu Asui (BNHA), Entrapta (Spop), Ibuki Mioda (SDR2), Celestia Ludenberg (THH), Funtime Foxy (FNAF), Peril (WOF)

Korekiyo Shinguji (DRV3)

Nonbinary

He/They pronouns

Autistic

Chains and loose accessories are for stimming

Likes the feeling of silk and cotton

Can't stand the feeling of anything rough or bumpy

He likes collecting small trinkets and the bones of small mammals

Can't stand anything salty. He'll eat it but he certainly won't enjoy it

Dating Rantaro

Can flirt, but only if he doesn't try

Petnames are a hell yea

Gets sunburnt really easily

Group dates with Celesnaegiri and Ikuzono

Can't cook for s h i t

Had a scene kid phase in middle school

Went to the same middle school as Celeste and Maki

Knew them when Celeste went through her "I'm not like other girls" phase and Maki was a Band Kid™

Himiko Yumeno (DRV3)

Female

She/Her pronouns

Lesbian

Can force herself to fall asleep within seconds regardless of where she is

100% forces herself to fall asleep when she doesn't wanna listen/talk to someone

Himiko/Angie/Tenko relationship. I'm calling them the Traffic Light Trio

She likes taking naps in the forest

She prefers enclosed/tight spaces more than open ones

Has several hundred stress balls and squishies laying around

She overheats easy

Shinsou Hitoshi (BNHA)

Questioning his gender, but goes by any pronouns

Knows he's Asexual, at least

Has no clue what his romantic orientation is though

The kind of person to carry treats in his pocket just in case he runs into a cat

Will stop to pet literally every cat he comes across

Great at reading people

Doesn't talk unless it's 100% needed

Hangs with Tokoyami, Jirou, and Denki most often

Aizawa has 100% unofficially adopted him

Fosters kittens

Not a big fan of physical touch

He is 100% in the bakusquad. Anyone who says he's in the Dekusquad is a c o w a r d

He and Tsuyu vibe

Knows a bunch of random facts

Dark humour? Dark humour

*skates backwards into his therapist's room slowly sipping from an absurdly huge cup of coffee* Candice you're not gonna BELIEVE the shit I just went through

In case I forgot to mention it, he skates

Kyoko Kirigiri (THH)

Mtf

She/Her

Bi with female preference

Burns go up to her shoulders/collarbone/chest

Prefers to just listen as opposed to saying anything

Knows a ton of random trivia about everyone else in her class

She keeps a notebook she fills with all the trivia

Doesn't celebrate her birthday. She just doesn't see the point of it

Doesn't hate sugar/sweets, but if given the choice she would choose literally everything else

Cuts her own hair

A cat person

Permanent dark circles

T-Tall 😳

Like,,, 6'1 at LEAST

Only person taller than her is Yasuhiro (6'3)

Canon no longer exist

Ahahaha healthy life habits? What are those?

Can't handle horror games

She's the kind of person you'd go to if you needed to rant but didn't want any advice

Polyamourous yo

Celeste/Kyoko/Makoto

She's a dom yall are just scared to admit it

Tsuyu Asui (BNHA)

They go by They/Them

Lesbian

They and Ochaco are dating

They like to hang with Shinsou

Which mainly just means the two sitting in one of their dorms in near total silence doing whatever

Can speak English and French as well as Japanese

Learned English from cartoons

Picked up French bc they thought it'd be fun

Prefers to stay neutral in the whole Bakusquad / Dekusquad thing

They're invited to all outings/events by/for both squads

They like puns

They're a dumbass but willingly, and for fun

Like "someone says they like dark humour and they'll turn off the lights before telling a joke" kind dumbass for fun

Great at poker

Likes Disney Movies

Very touchy once you get close enough

Not in a sexual way, just likes physical contact

Especially fond of piggyback rides and cuddles

Extreme fear of needles

Entrapta (She-Ra)

She/Her or It/Its

Doesn't bother trying to figure out whether she's cis, trans, nonbinary, or what

Was AMAB though

Short as fuck (4'7)

Strong as fuck though

Cuddle game strong

Physical touch is a fuck yes

Cuddles

Piggyback rides

Hugs

Anything where she's touching someone is wonderful in her book

As long as she's the one that initiates it

Anyone else touching her without her permission makes her freak

Prefers being high up

Makes it harder for anyone to sneak up on her

An ace at video games

When it comes to sexuality she just says she's Questioning

Ibuki Mioda (SDR2)

Any pronouns + Pup/Pupself + It/Its

No idea what their gender is otherwise

Biromantic Asexual

Just likes sexual jokes

Gets distracted easily

Has severe hearing problems

She's plays her instruments as loud as possible, with the amp right next to her, without ANY ear protection

It's caused some damage

She talks so loud bc she has no idea how loud is considered acceptable

Wears hearings aids most of the time

Several piercings and tattoos

Likes hearing things jingle

She has a bracelet with a few bells hanging from it

She'll shake it whenever she's bored

LOVES hair accessories

Ribbons are a particular favourite

Occasionally she'll hang little charms from her hair "horns"

The kind of person who never takes any pills/medicine bc she keeps forgetting she has to

Frequently uses emojis

Skates everywhere but she isn't very good at it

She keeps crashing into everything

Has broken every bone in her body at least 3 times

Most of which was bc she keeps trying to kick in doors and skating down the stairs

Celestia Ludenberg (THH)

Nonbinary

Any pronouns, mainly goes by She/They

Bi, 70:30

Collects mini hand sanitizers and can tabs

Has single handedly gotten Mario Kart, Mario Party, Monopoly, Uno, and Clue banned a grand total of 17 times (and counting)

The kind of person to purposefully target someone regardless of what game was being played

Favourite victim is Byakuya (bc he gets so upset about it and she finds that hilarious)

Mains Waluigi

Celeste/Kyoko/Makoto

Has several banned Twitter accounts bc whenever she's bored she'll start discourse on purpose

Hangs with Korekiyo, Ibuki, Byakuya, Yasuhiro, and Leon most often

It's a weird friend group but everyone's sorta gotten used to it

She and Byakuya gamble together occasionally

She tries to avoid it bc he'll willingly blow his entire fortune in an attempt to beat her

Autustic

Can't stand the feeling of water

Mainly bc she can't swim for shit

Horror movies? Hates them

Gets flustered super easily

Taka is her twin brother

Kotoko, Kokichi, and Gundham are their half siblings (Same father)

Peko and Toko are their cousins

She sucks ass at go fish

Fuck canon she's 4'11 now

C h u b b y

Freckles

Once she gets comfortable enough with herself she dyes her hair in the peekaboo style

Either black and red or black and blonde

Haven't decided yet

I'll be doing Celesnaegiri hcs as a seperate post but I just feel it's important for you to know that she expresses her affection verbally and is a very touchy person

Went to middle school with Maki and Korekiyo

Has horrible eyesight

She wears contacts most of the time but she always puts off buying more

After the 5th or so time she ended up blindly stumbling around a week after her contacts ran out Kyoko convinced her to buy glasses as well

Religious accessories yo

Like chokers and dangly earrings with crosses and pentagrams and shit

Likes wearing wacky earrings

Can run and do all sorts of tricks in heels

She and Mukuro are exes yo

Keeps her hair short so it's easier to manage

Hair never gets longer than her shoulders if she can help it

She seems like the kind of person who'd keep her bangs grown past her eyes regardless of how frustrating or inconvenient it is

She's a sub yall just don't wanna admit it

Funtime Foxy (FNAF)

I'm going on the record to say this

Funtime Foxy is genderfluid and that is that

Goes by Funtime

Any pronouns, They/Them most commonly

Plays music (keyboard and guitar mainly)

They and Funtime Freddy (Freds) mainly play with the kids

Freds mainly tells stories with Bonbon while Funtime more so plays one-on-one

Has nicknames for everyone

Circus Baby - Ringleader

Ballora - Bells

Funtime Freddy - Partner

Bon Bon - Bun

Peril (WOF)

I like both Nonbinary She/They Peril and Mtf She/Her Peril

They're both such good concepts

She's a lesbian, Harold

She only had a crush on Clay bc he was pretty much everything she was supposed to like in a guy

Gimme a moment while I force all my mental disorders onto this poor child

Autistic, Anxiety (Social anxiety, mainly, but she has most types), Adhd, PTSD

I'd like to reiterate yet again that She's a lesbian

Sunny and Glory were her gay awakening

Peril in Book 1: Damn, Sunny and Glory sure are pretty. Anyone would be lucky to date them. Clay would probably go for them over me. He would be stupid if he didn't. I myself would willingly date them over someone like me. They're just so pretty :(

Peril waking up in a cold sweat in the middle of arc 2: WAIT-

Rarepair alert but Peril/Sora

Peril meeting Sora: "Hmmm She's attractive. I would love to date her. Too bad I'm straight and in love with her brother lmao :P"

Peril, a mere month later, waiting for Ruby to leave Jade Mountain, pacing in her cave, running face first into a wall: WAIT-

I remember reading this one amazing story where Sora taught Peril to read/write and Peril found out she set off the bomb and comforted her/convinced her her run so that's canon now

Btw if anyone can remember what that story was called/what platform it was on and could tell me I'd appreciate it very much

I'd even be willing to draw a character of your's or make you an icon or something

I usually don't accept requests bc I get burnt out easy but this is a special case

She runs into Sora again sometime between the beginning of TOP and the end

I like to imagine she just goes wandering around

Anyway she confesses like a mere few minutes after running into her again bc Peril is just subtle like that

The actual confession takes 15 minutes and the entire time Sora is just sitting here like "👁👄👁 sure"

Bam Peril/Sora

Peril plans to keep it a secret for a little while longer but she spends 3 seconds around Clay and pretty much blurts it out

Clay, who wasn't even aware that Peril was a lesbian, is just "👁👄👁"

I wanna say Clay doesn't know what a lesbian is but in my canon Sunny is a lesbian so Starflight has already told him

Anyway he's super supportive

From that point Peril is sorta open about her sexuality?

Like, she gives Clay permission to tell the rest of the D.O.D bc she isn't about to risk being in front of them when they hear the news

(When Sunny starts actively seeking her out as a hang out buddy and Tsunami, Glory, and Starflight appear to tolerate her presence just a bit more afterwards she pretends she isn't confused by the change)

She's pink, white, and blue bc I said so

If you look at a certain angle in the right lighting her eyes, mouth, fire, and under her scales all look purple

But her fire is normally white and blue bc I said so

Also she pale as fuck bc in my canon their fire just sorta burns their colour away

You know how you leave something outside for too long and it gets sunbleached? Where it gets all washed out?

Like that but more extreme

By the age of 10-12 firescale dragons are just white with pale eyes

That's right not even the eyes are safe

Ram horns :P

I'm also fond of Peril/Sunny

Or maybe Peril/Sora/Sunny

But Peril/Sora is the main thing

On the topic of that bringing in my hc that if one sib in a sib group is fire resistant all of them are

She,,, She can change her scale colour

But only slightly and only if her emotions are strong enough

Bc I don't give a fuck about Darkstalker's scroll we were robbed of hybrid Peril

Unfortunately all of Peril's emotions are strong

Rainwing ruff along her head and neck

It's like a hood

It's mainly smoothed to her sides but when she's startled it flares out

RAINWING PUPILS

Y'all will know what those look like as soon as I get off my ass :P

She,,, She can mimic bird cries

Hates the summer

She has more than enough body heat already and the outside is just hot enough to add on and make her feel sick

She can somewhat control her heat but most of the time it's based on her emotions

It can go from standing-in-the-middle-of-a-burning-building-cant-see-your-nose-smoke-is-so-thick heat (Strong emotion) to Hey-thats-a-nice-cozy-campfire heat (Calm/"weak" emotion/Sleeping)

I'm just gonna make a different post with all my Peril hcs cuz there isnt enough room for all of them here

[sidecarghost]

Suptober Day 16: Switch It Up!

Destiel Chatfic  - College!AU where Dean and Cas are both dating the same girl. Cas finds out and sends Dean an instagram direct message, and Dean gets an insta-crush on Cas.

~~

Gabriel texts Cas - 11:19 am ~~ Gabriel: Yo little bro! Cas: Hello Gabriel. Gabriel: Are you and Tessa still dating? Because I just saw her kissing this guy in the campus parking lot next to what I assume was his car. Cas: Uh yeah, are you sure it's Tessa? Gabriel: Hold on a sec. Gabriel: Yes, I just walked over and said "Hi Tessa, do you remember me Cas's brother?", and she responded "Oh yeah, hi Gabriel, how is Cas doing?" Cas: That does sound like something she would say. Gabriel: I asked her to introduce me to her friend, and she said his name was Dean Winchester. Cas: what do you want me to do with that name? Gabriel: Hell if I know, I guess fight for fair Tessa's honor? Cas: I'm sure I won't do that, but thanks for letting me know Gabriel.

~~ Later that day, Cas looks up Dean Winchester on IG and finds a likely looking profile and sends DM - 5:48 pm ~~

Cas: Hello Dean, I know you don't know me, but I think we are both dating Tessa. Dean: Welp, that explains somethings. Have you been dating Tessa long? I wasn’t sure if she was playing the field still or not. Cas: Not very long, just a few weeks. Dean: I assumed we were exclusive when Tessa asked me to be her boyfriend, so I guess it's on me for assuming. Cas: Um ok, I just thought letting you know was the right thing. But if you’re upset I understand. Dean: S'okay Cas, you seem cool, and I'm happy I'm getting to know you. Cas: Um, thanks you seem cool too. Dean: Can I call you my boyfriend-in-law? Cas: Well, I was going to break up with Tessa after confirming this with you. Dean: If that is the case, can I call you my boyfriend? Cas: Huh? Dean: Confession time. Since you sent me a dm, I started stalking your IG account, and you look all kinds of hot. I kind of understand why I was being cheated on now. Cas: Uh, that is flattering... I think. Dean: Hold on, I'll break up with Tessa first. Cas: Wait, what? I just wanted to give you a heads up about Tessa, and I'm not sure what is going on in this convo anymore.

~~ Dean texts Tessa - 5:52 pm ~~ Dean: Sorry to break up with you over text, but this is a life & death emergency.  Dean: Btw, the painting of Baby you made for your art course is awesome! I saw it in campus center. Tessa: Oh wow, I hope everything is okay or that it will be.  Tessa: No worries about the break up, I think we are better as friends.  Tessa: And I'm glad you like the Baby painting! ~~

Dean: Okay done, do you like pie? Cas: Um... pie is okay. Dean: Seriously? You like pie? I knew I was in love with you! Cas: I am not sure if you are kidding or serious. Dean: Sorry! I tend to ramble when I'm excited. Want me to pick you up for a date later? We can get pie at this diner I know. Cas: Sure, I'd like that Dean. Dean: Okay, text me where you want me to pick you up at 7pm. I'll be driving a black 67 Chevy Impala. Cas: Okay, I think I saw pics of that car on your feed when I was trying to find you on IG. Dean: What did you think of her? Cas: Her? Dean: Yeah, I tend to think of my Impala as female. Have you ever watched this really old tv show Knight Rider? Cas: Sorry, I don’t think I’ve heard of it. Dean: No worries, I have the box set on Blu Ray. We can watch together some time if you’d like. But I brought up because it’s about this guy that solves mysteries with his talking Pontiac Trans Am “KITT.” Cas: Oh, that’s an interesting premise for a tv show. Dean: Ikr! Anyway, so that’s me and my car, Baby, too. If she had a voice box, she would totally help me solve mysteries. Cas: Like the mystery machine? Dean: asdfasfasgwe You like Scooby doo?!? Cas: Well, I watched some when I was little. And I think I remember the gist of it. Dean: Scooby Doo was my show growing up!! And yeah, Baby is like that. A lot of things just get thrown away when they wear out. But some things transcend the mundane, and throwing them away would be like losing something divine. Cas: Uh, she sounds really special Dean. I’m looking forward to meeting you and her later then. Dean: Ok, Baby and I will show you a good time! Cas: Sounds good, bye Dean. Dean: ttyl Cas!

~~

Cas texts Tessa - 6:13 pm ~~ Cas: Hello Tessa, I don't think we are right for each other, but I hope we can still be friends. Tessa: Oof, the other guy I was seeing just broke up with me over text too. I'm having a rough day. Cas: Was it Dean? Tessa: Yeah, he seemed nice. I wasn't sure how interested in me he was though, he mostly wanted to talk about his car, little brother, and classic movies. Cas: Actually, I met Dean because I found out we were both dating you. So I let him know, because it felt like the right thing to do. Tessa: Oh, it hadn't occurred to me that I was serious enough with either of you to talk about being exclusive. Sorry if I hurt you or Dean's feelings. Cas: I was a little hurt, but Dean seemed okay about it. Tessa: I'm sorry Cas! You are a very sweet guy, and I hope you find someone that doesn't hurt your heart. And I'd be happy to still be friends if the offer stands. Cas: Thanks I do want to be friends, and as for finding someone, well I actually have a date with Dean tonight.  Tessa: Omg! I'm so excited for the two of you! My advice, wear your blue henley and skip the trench coat. Cas: I've never gone on a date with a guy before, so I'm feeling kind of nervous. And also, I’ve never gone a date with someone I hadn’t met in person already. This is definitely a little overwhelming. Tessa: I think you'll be fine Cas. Dean is a nice guy, and if things get too silent and awkward just ask him about his car, brother, or favorite movies. Cas: Dean did tell me about his car a bit already, and it was pretty touching how much she meant to him.  Tessa: Yeah, Dean has a huge heart. I feel like once he loves someone, Dean would wage war against Heaven or Hell to protect them. Baby is definitely part of his family, and while a lot of people tend to take things for granted, Dean is more likely to show reverence for the things that have held him together. Cas: That sounds almost spiritual. Tessa: Spiritual is a good way to describe it. Also, Dean does tend to be all highs and lows, like he either loves something or he hates it. There is really not much middle ground. You seem a lot more level-headed Cas, tbh I think you and Dean are perfect complements for each other.  Cas: Well, we haven’t even been on a date yet. Tessa: Haha, I know. I’m just being sap ig. But I have good feeling about you guys.  Cas: Thanks Tessa, I appreciate it. Tessa: Anytime hun! And I have been seeing this girl, Charlie, maybe we can all go out on a double date sometime. Cas: You were seeing three people? Tessa: yeah, and I should tell Charlie I was seeing some other people, and I'd like to just commit to her. I really like her Cas, and I don't want to ruin it. I think she knows, but I also thought you and Dean knew so I should be more upfront. Cas: Yeah, that's a good idea. And maybe we can all go out some time in the future. Tessa: Yay! I'd like that. Let me know how DeanCas goes tonight. Cas: Ok, I've got to go get ready. Tessa: Later hun!

~~ Tessa texts Charlie - 6:26 pm ~~

Tessa: I really like you, do you want to be exclusive? Charlie: Did the guys you were dating break up with you? Tessa: Lol yes, but it saved me trouble of breaking up with them. And actually they kind of found each other through me, so I'm feeling like their fairy godmother or something. Charlie: omfg! I'm imagining you as a fairy godmother now, and that image is burned in my brain. Tessa: Lol it is pretty funny, and I think Dean and Cas would hate me forever for even saying that. Charlie: Don’t worry I will keep your role as their fairy godmother secret. Tessa: So, you didn't answer my question... Charlie: Sorry, Tessa. I really like you too. But I'm not ready to commit to a serious relationship yet. Can we keep dating each other and other people for a little longer and keep it casual? Tessa: Sure, but when you are ready let me know! Charlie: Ofc, darling! Tessa: Also, Cas and I chatted about four of us going on double date in future. They are both nice guys, what do you think? Charlie: Sure, maybe we can recruit them for LARP. Tessa: Don't worry my queen. I will get them recruited to follow your flag. Charlie: I knew my fairy godmother wouldn't let me down. Tessa: Ofc, not even remotely possible for me to ever let you down, my queen.

~~ Dean texts Sam 6:35pm ~~

Dean: Sammy, remember the girl Tessa I was dating? Sam: yeah, you were forcing her to watch an Indiana Jones marathon with you last weekend. Dean: "forcing" seems like a strong word, everyone loves Indiana Jones. Sam: sure they do Dean. Dean: Anyway, we broke up. Sam: oh, sorry man Dean: No worries Samantha, I've got a date with her other boyfriend, Cas. I’m actually getting ready to pick him up in just a minute. Sam: oh, good for you then Dean: I'm kind of nervous tho, I was stalking his ig, and even though he's really hot I don't think we have much in common. Sam: well, they say opposites attract. Dean: He posts math and physics joke memes. Sam: so what? Dean: I don't know any good math or physics jokes. Sam: Don't bother picking up a bunch of lame jokes. I think this guy would rather get to know the real you. Dean: Well, I did ramble a bit about Baby earlier when we started messaging. Sam: And he still wants a date with you? He sounds like a keeper Dean. Dean: What do you mean? Everyone loves Baby. I gotta text you a pic of this painting Tessa made. Baby looks so badass. Sam: Okay,  well try not to only talk about Baby with Cas. Try to learn about him and open up about yourself too. You keep saying your tired of casual flings, but if you don’t let people in that will be all you ever get. Dean: Ugh, I'm a mess. Getting to know the real me is a really great way to scare anyone off. Sam: hey, I'm still here. Dean: yeah, you're my brother. You are stuck with me no matter how much of a dumpster fire I become. Sam: you're not a dumpster fire. just don't overthink it. do you want me to ask Jess out tonight so we can double date? Dean: no, I can do this, showing up to a first date with my little brother as chaperone would be weird. Sam: it's only weird if you let it be Dean: well, I'm not letting it be Sam: ok, whatever Dean: later moose Sam: drop dead squirrel

[jadedragoness]

Review: Peace Talks

First Read Through Reaction

Now staring off, knowing that the book was essentially part one of two did mean that I went in expecting that there would be plot lines that wouldn’t be resolved. I did NOT expect that nearly zero of the plot lines would be resolved, at all. Yikes. Now, I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy it. I did. But it felt like there were 50 to 60 pages missing that should have been in the story to at least wrap up minor plot lines before heading into ‘Battle Ground’.

Warning: Full of Spoilers

Such the arrival of the Outsiders those Cornerhounds. Um… Outsiders and at no point that Harry wonder why in the hell they were called to Chicago? Or why they were targeting him and Ebenezer. Seriously, unless the author totally forgot we know that Outsiders can only be called by mortals. So human wizards brought them. So was it someone in the ‘Black Council’ or was it the Formor, since we know from previous stories that they grab humans and mind-whammy them and also modify them. And we know that they’ve been pretty focused on grabbing minor practioners for a couple of years now.

Hell, even just knowing why Thomas attacked the svartalf King would have been good to know in the book even if we don’t find out who it was yet.

That being said lets start of with things I didn’t like.

Thing Which I Wasn’t All that Pleased About:

1. Butters in that threesome relationship.

Now, let me explain, it’s not because its a poly relationship. I don’t even twitch over how Justine and Thomas include others in the sexual part of their relationship. It’s because I kept wondering if Marci was even into dudes. As far as I knew she was only into girls. And now she’s suddenly bi?

What the hell?

I think my reaction has a lot to do with how skewed the sexual orientation gradient in shown among Named characters. You have straight men. Straight women. Bi women who are shown to be blatantly into men and women…and that’s it, now.

No lesbian women with zero interest in men. No bi men. No gay men. No asexual characters. No trans characters. No gender fluid people.

I know that this due to the author’s eye and while it hasn’t irritated me much in the past as we keep getting more and more books with more newly introduced characters the lack is becoming more and more glaring to me. Especially, as I have drifted into reading other series that manage to be way more inclusive about this sort of thing in great and amazing ways *sighs happily over Rivers of London series*. And I don’t just mean in passing with random nameless scenery people that never talk which have popped up in the Dresden Files but with actual characters that have names, dialogue and contribute to the series.

So it really, really annoys me that Marci went from being the only lesbian who is a named character to joining the horde of bi women in the DF verse.

Okay, so its not really a Butters issue to much as a grumble about the spectrum of gender and sexually needing better representation.

*grumbles* Step up your game, Butcher.

I will add that I’m head-canoning that actually the relationship here is Butters with Andi, Andi with Butter and Marci, and Marci with Andi. That pretty much with Butters running around being the new Knight Andi didn’t like how her boyfriend wasn’t paying attention and gave Butters the ultimatum of letting Marci in as Andi’s girlfriend or they broke up.

… yeah, I’m totally liking that spin way, way better.

2. That Marcone took forever to show up! ARGH! I love him ok.

Considering how early he was name dropped in the story the amount of time it took him to show up… Jim Butcher is a damn Marcone-tease. *glares hotly in author’s direction*

3. I don’t like it that Murphy is so hurt. I don’t hate it. I think I’m just uneasy about the future implications.

Having reread the entire series before reading ‘Peace Talks’ I fully expected some lingering injury but not to that level. I’m actually worried about her chances of surviving any upcoming battle, and not just in Battle Ground. There’s even more danger coming down the pipeline in future books and she won’t let herself stay ‘safe’ when she could be watching Harry’s back… so its a worrying problem.

Now if she died I have no doubt that her being recruited to be a Valkerie is an option. But then I remembered how those warrior women go out into the world with ‘clients’ and of the two we’ve seen they’ve been attached to ‘monsters’ aka Lara and Marcone.

Unless, the payment isn’t cash and she can be attached to Harry. *hums in thought*

But then I have to wonder how much Murphy would accept that role. She’s also a pretty devout Catholic as this book reminded us so that is also something that would make her say no to the offer.

4. That the younger Wardens who had so looked up to Harry being so damned suspicious… ow. That hurt. I may have teared up and sniffled into a tissue thinking about it. And then sobbed because so much of it came from Carlos… Carlos! The man went into the Deeps with Harry! Ouch.

5. Rudolph… that roach.

Ugh, I’ve had the disturbing thought that now that magic and the supernatural on the path to being exposed to all of humanity, scared humanity too, that will end up with a resurgence of a new Inquisition and the killing of anything eldritch. And you know that Rudolph would definitely be in it. *shudders in disgust* Creep.

BTW I totally don’t believe that Rudolph answers to Marcone. It doesn’t make sense as to why he was so pushy go get Harry during ‘Changes’. I had thought he was answering to the Red Court but with them being taken out of the picture… now I wonder if he isn’t answerable to the Black Council.

Things I Did Not Expect:

1. Damn… when Ebenezer sent that spell through Harry and ‘killing’ I was so shocked even though I was pretty sure there was a twist coming. Mostly because of what it says about Ebenezer.

Ebenezer actions killed Harry.

Sure it was a fake body that brought no harm to the real Harry. But if Harry hadn’t thought ahead? If he hadn’t used his brain to ask Molly to create a fake? Eb would have killed his own grandson.

Sure it was an accident but it could so easy have resulted in a dead Harry. I was crying so hard I wondered if my eyeballs were loosening in their sockets. Argh.

2. Bonea…. Harry your naming skills are simply weird. I’m so glad that Susan named Maggie.

Although Bonnie is a pretty great nickname.

Thinks I Found Utterly Hilarious

1. The line about the best offense being a T-Rex? Gold. Pure gold.

2. When Harry figured out there are angels in the hilt of the Swords of the Cross and Butter’s immediate reaction of horror because he’d accidentally laundered the hilt, giving it a ride in a washing machine.

OMG! I had the instant image of a miniature angel screaming and growing dizzy when going through the spin cycle.

I know that makes no sense but that’s where my mind went, okay.

3. The conjuritis. Omg, it’s so gross with all the ectoplasm leaking from Harry’s nose but it’s sooooo funny. Also the way he kept getting the ‘aren’t you too old for this’ from Ebenezer and then Lara made me giggle even harder.

Then I thought: dude, it’s like chicken pox, something you got as a kid but if you never had it you get it when exposed later in life. So one of his kids has it. Probably Maggie too.

4. When Sanya pretended to have his hand lopped off. I straightened up and was so worried Sanya had lost a hand. Then when I realized he was pretending to freak out Butters and Harry I admit to laughing way too hard. Got me too.’

Also there’s no way that Sanya was actually defeated there. He’s younger and better trained then Butters, I don’t care how light (Heh) the new sword is. He definitely threw that fight to test his hunch.

5. Murphy’s inability to handle being flirted on with a red-headed warrior woman. Sooooo funny. I mean, Murphy could have said a number of things such as ‘I’m exclusive.’ or ‘I’m not interested in women.’ But she just floundered. Heh heh.

6. I continue to find it completely hilarious that Lara, a couple of centuries old vampire, seems to keep learning a lot of power moves from Marcone.

Such as: having trained fighters that are NOT food, well… mostly. Having those mines installed in the walls. And now hiring a Valkerie of her very own.

I keep thinking, yeah, there’s no way she’d win in a fight against Marcone because there’ s no way that Marcone has let slip all of his tricks.

Things I Really, Really Liked:

1. Marcone. Everything Marcone. *heart-eyes*

And then he proves why he’s so damned scary by standing up to the Titan. Then to the ghouls. Then after proving his bad-ass quotient if off the charts he gets everyone organized to fight.

Yeeessss… It proves to me that when it comes to protecting Chicago he is actually the best person after Harry. Hell, in some ways he’s better than Harry. Now, I’m not saying he’s a white knight or anything like that. Just that he has the intelligence, the ruthlessness, the will, the power and the men to provide the most protection to the city’s mortal denizens. At least when there’s a war raging with multiple enemies who will be attacking at various points.

And oh, I can’t wait to see how he’s going to get revenge for the death of his people. Omg, he’s going to kill the Formor so hard. *goes starry eyed thinking about more Marcone*

But why did he have to appear so late in the book?! *wails in a heart-rending fashion*

There better be a ton more Marcone in the next book! *makes desperate gimme gimme hands*

No, I don’t have a Marcone addiction… I can stop anytime I want to. *sneaks off to mainline some “Even Hand” straight into the brain*

2. The return of Goodman Grey! Oh, I hope he’s around a lot! I’ve really grown to like him.

<b>Things Which Blew My Mind or Were Just Freaking Awesome: </b>

1. Dad!Harry is actually the most amazing Harry. Forget the magic flinging and the fire storms… this is the best Harry.

Just the way he takes care of his kids…. *turns to mush like ectoplasm*

2. Murphy and Harry are finally together! Yay! Yay! Hip hip hooray!

Now, I’m a rather shameless Marcone/Dresden fic writer, but as I never ever expect this to be canon I’m content to write it as fanfic for my own sense of delight. However when it comes to canon I’m full on board with the Karrin and Harry relationship. Be it friendship or romantic, I think its great.

3. Marcone… that is all.

Random Speculation

1. I find myself wondering about Ebenezer’s rage against vampires. And my brain muttered this theory: Maybe Harry’s grandmother was killed by White Court vampires.

Whoa.

It would explain the vitrolic rage.

And if Lara was involved it would also explain her flash of shame.

We don’t know anything about Harry’s grandmother, not even her name. So… that’s a thought.

2. River Shoulders teaching Harry.

Oh man, oh man, I hope Harry learns shape-shifting.

And thinking about it I had to wonder if the animal-shifting had anything to do with knowing the animal in question which of course made me think…

Harry should learn to shape-shift into a T-Rex.

He already knows how one is put together and the mind of one. And he knows that it’s possible to add extra mass to a shift from the Nevernever in the form of ectoplasm… so

Harrysarous Rex, baby…. I may have to write a fic with this premise.

3. Oh, if it’s possible to make a ectoplasmic body can Harry learn to make one for Bonea? After all Maggie would probably really enjoy getting to play with her little sister that way. Even if Harry can’t do it all the time and it wouldn’t last longer than a day. That would be delightful.

4. Okay, not this is more head-canon than speculation but… considering how hard Harry has been made to be analogous to Merlin I can’t help but wonder if Marcone is suppose to be Arthur’s analogue. So wielding Amorrachius *coughs*Excalibur*coughs* would make sense.

…it’s not just my Marcone-love talking dammit.

Speaking of Merlin, I’m convinced that he’s behind this whole ‘starborn’ thing. Seriously, otherwise its way too convenient that a wizard with that power is born every 666 years. It smacks of a spell.

And if that’s the case it also feeds into my pet theory that the whole reason we have Outsides at the Gates is because Merlin was the schmuck who drew them to our reality in the first place. And everything surrounding the war with the Outsiders are his attempts to try to fix what he broke.

*lost in pondering thoughts*

Things I Have Questions About

1. Did Harry forget he has The Ways Map from his mother? I would have thought he would have figured out a way (heh) to get to the island somehow. He was on it for so long I thought for sure he’d spend time exploring it. Also we knew from ‘Skin Game’ that even tiny factors can change where the Way goes in the Nevernever. I doubt the ENTIRE island has Ways that lead to a bad place. Especially for Harry now that he’s the Warden.

2. Also why didn’t Harry get Lea to help him? After all unless she’s moved it since ‘Changes’ her garden is still on the other side of the sub-basement.

3. What did Lara use that first favor from Mab on? *eyes her suspiciously*

4. Where are the Za Lord’s Guard? *wondering about what been happening with Lacuna and Toot-toot*

5. If Harry gets kicked out of the White Council (good riddance, since they haven’t exactly been all that helpful lately) can he get enough signatures to be added as a member of the Accords in his own right? After all being Warden of Demonreach has got to mean a lot to the older members.

Then he wouldn’t be reliant on Mab’s protection.

I can’t help but hope this proves to be the case, especially if in ‘Battle Ground’ Harry ends up taking down that Titan. Because he needs as much protection and influence he can gather if he’s no longer White Council to protect himself, his people and his kids. Especially if he eventually gets rid of that Winter Knight mantle like I hope he does.

6. How in the hell (pardon the pun) did evil demon Sasquatch survive being turned to mush by Hade’s Ice Gate? Or the shades that were part of the security system that almost got Harry?

*frowns* The only reason I can think of would be the coin of Ursiel being the factor. I doubt a Fallen Angel is allowed to stick around in the Greek realm of the afterlife.

7. WHERE IS BOB?! Seriously, if Butters doesn’t give him back...

[squidthechaotickid]

Sorry if this seems a bit forward, but can you tell me about being aromantic? I can’t find that many resources about it. Also, I saw that you made a post saying you’re aromantic but you still want to fall in love? Sorry.

Oh, of course, no need to apologize anon! Disclaimer, I'm just one aro, I don't speak for the whole community! ((I'll put two aro blogs at the end of this btw, in case your asking this for questioning purposes)) That being said, I'm a cupioromantic, which basically means that while I don't feel any romantic attraction, I still like the idea of dating someone and maybe even getting married! I still consume romantic content and make it, even though I don't feel attraction. I've only recently started using this label, but before I knew I was aro, I used to get "crushes," though thinking back I never wanted to actually date the person (I call them a squish now, which is like a crush but platonically.) I always thought that people already dating around my age was weird, because we were still kids? I just assumed I'd get into dating eventually, because everyone had to date eventually (I was wrong, you don't have to!!) Later I stumbled upon the word aro, and found out that cupio described me best. (Now, a bit more general things I've heard that aren't specific to me, refer to the disclaimer at the beginning! This is not perfect!) Some aros don't mind consuming and creating romantic content, but don't like the idea of dating. Others may not like romantic media, or may only like it if they're feeling up to it. Some aromantics might like the idea of a qpr (queer platonic relationship) while others might just want to stay w/o a partner, which is fine!! A lot of us tend to value platonic relationships with just as much value if not more than romantic (others do too, of course!)

Here's two blogs wt some aro content that I follow, they're both helpful to me!

@/raavenb2619 is a good one, they have plenty of aro content, along with ace and trans

@/aro-culture-is is also good, there's some relatable aro things there, plus 

[typhoontroubadour]

How do you guys like your tea

Some notes about the placements can be found under the cut.

Those Dead Peeps: Don’t know anything about so I can’t make a real judgement on any of them.

Fuck You Guys: Self explanatory.

Mishima: Mishima gets a lower tier than everyone else cuz he was the first to die so we spent the least amount of time with him, and despite the fact he keeps coming back in some way or another I still can’t make myself care about him THAT much. That being said, I haven’t yet played island mode where he’s the only player character so that might sway my judgement later.

Ranger: While a bastard he’s a very entertaining bastard. That alone I think warrants him above the Fuck You tier. And also, while I still hold him accountable, his dad was the dick who left him without positive emotions and led to him taking the actions he does.

Safalin: I was thinking about putting her a tier above where she is but I don’t think she deserves to be on the same tier as the charcaters above her. She’d likely need her own middle ground tier as my fave doll.

Sara: Probably the first real eyebrow raiser. Sara while being a good and expressive character I feel is one of the most generic and average out of the group so far. Note that I said so far. She’s steadily become more complex as the story unfolds. I hope by the end and we find out what her deal is that the orginization wants her so badly I can bump her up at least one more ranking. To compare the series to Danganronpa (something no one has ever done before) in terms of protagonist level, she’s kinda like Makoto to me. There’s nothing wrong with her, but I just feel the future protags are more complex, in due no small part from being able to learn from writing for the first game onwards.

Reko; Alright, listen. I like Reko. I think she’s a good character. But compared to Sara and even her brother? (congrats to the trans fans for being fed that good shit btw) I just feel rather lukewarm about her. Reko and Alice are kinda comparable as rather abrasive characters with a softer side to them. I always can appreciate a character who can he tough but care for or look after the weaker ones. But at the same time that character alone can only get so far in my eyes. I think she’s missing some crucial piece of charcater to her to really make her stand out as her own. Something truly unique about her to let her stand on her own two feet. Until that day comes, I just see Reko as that cool big sister who got me through the dancing sub game.

Q-taro: This one’s pretty simple, I feel like I want to like him more than I do but can’t. I honestly thought he’d be dead by the end of chapter 2 when playing through it. It kind of feels like we’ve seen the extent of his character already through where we are in the sotry. I also find his character to sometimes flipflop back and forth sometimes? Like how he goes from the first main game saying we can’t nominate the kids to not willing to take the stinger for Gin. He seems like he really cares about trust and believing in people (other than Shin) but then chapter 2 happens and he kinda loses it? I dunno, it’s reasonable for someone to crack, but for him, to me, it feels like there needed to be more of a build up of seeing him start to collapse a bit. And then his shady behavior kinda gets pushed aside cwhen he works with Keiji and the focus shifts away from him. Don’t some of you think he can come off as if changing his alliances when they’re convienant for him? Long story short, he just seems kind of like a mess to me that needs sorted out to make sense of at the moment.

Joe/Jou: However you prefer to spell it, I think we can all agree he is a very good boi. Not much to say that hasn’t already been said on him.

Alice: I rank him higher than his sister cuz I just think he’s a slighter better version of her character and more enjoyable to read. Kinda sad to see him go.

Kai: Kai was someone who if I ranked these guys simply on the stuff we knew about them from chapter 1 I’d likely put in the average tier, but thanks to chpater 2 he’s risen a rank. He’s a very fascinating character I hope continues to have some sort of presence in the final chapter. I kinda feel like he’s done now that we’ve cleaned out his laptop, but I can hope. He also gets props for smacking Miley upside the head.

Keiji: Do I even need to say anything? No? Didn’t think so.

Sou/Shin: Remember all I said about Q-taro? Yeah, I feel Shin is that but it actually makes sense and he’s just a real interesting charcater to see act and react to things. He is a great love to hate character for me. I’m very interested to see how he’s handled in chapter 3 as someone who chose to have him live the end of chapter 2.

As a quick break before moving on, to speak on the character we recently learned of, Shadow Sou, just Sou Hiyori, whatever, while we still don’t know anything of him, I think we can all put aside our differences to  want to jump this smelly bad man. I would take pleasure in seeing him hooked up to a punishment machine and having a bot set up to mash a button meant to prolong his suffering. That is all.

Gin: Let me be 100% clear right now. Everyone in this tier is here purely for being my fave. Do they deserve to be this high regardless? Your results may vary, but I believe so. I love Gin so much. He’s so good. He is the final alive member of the group who must be protected at all costs. I’m glad he’s found his own use to the group as the story went on. I didn’t know how to feel about him at the start of the game, Kind of like Kai I didn’t feel really attached to him. But the more I was able to be with him, the more the little guy grew on me. He is my adoptive little bro and I will visit him everyday and make sure to play with him. I really hope nothing bad happens to him in chapter 3, but I’m also so worried we’ll have more damage done to Sara’s mental fortitude before the end to try to breka her further. And I feel like that can only really come from losing Gin or Keiji at this point to sting as much as when Joe did.

Nao: Oh, Nao. My sweet baby. I think I should start this off by saying what I think all fans of Nao would like to sy to the game. How about you go fuck yourself? I’m serious, Nao gets shit on through the whole game leading to her end in chapter 2. What do you guys have against Nao? She’s great and I would’ve happily traded away her sacrifice card for my own. She’s so pure and trying to do her best and be a better person without realying so heavily on tohers like Mishima. But, I’d be an idiot to just ignore the fact she did kinda fulfill that before her end. You could easily argue she kinda already reached the end of her arc as a character. She finally reached that point the others that supported her thought she could be. Am I still sad to see her go? Of course I am. Do I find it a satisfactory end for her character? I say I’m glad she was at least able grow into herself before dropping her. And that’s you can really ask of a game like this.

Kanna: Last but not least we have dear, sweet, precious Kanna. It was rough choosing to vote against her at the end of chapter 2. That’s something I’ll have to see the consequences of on a repeat playthrough once the game is complete. I took her words to heart and let her protect Sara the only way she knew how. I hope she’s able to rest easy with her sister. I think Kanna, much like Gin, fit that good child charcater trait of being able to see the good in people depsite some things about them in that naively and pure way only a kid can. I like how depsite everything, she put her faith into Sara and Shin to the very end. If there’s one thig to respect about her character it’s that she stuck to her guns like Joe despite knowing her end was likely coming.

To anyone who read this whole thing top to bottom, or skipped around to the characters they cared about and made it down here to read about Kanna and noticed this last little spiel, you are the mvps, and I hope your faves make it out alive.

[nebuletteart]

The Problem with HS^2

(And the HS Epilogues)

Ok, so I think I’m gonna do another post on this, because I’m feeling bothered. I’ve been really frustrated because I just couldn't seem to get hype for 4/13, like, at all, and I couldn’t even do any homestuck art today. I decided that I wanted to reflect on why that is.

BTW I AM NOT DUNKING ON ANYONE WHO LIKES HS^2 AND SUCH!! If it makes you happy, go read it! And if you don’t want to see me dunk on something you love, feel free to skip this post! I in no way want to pressure someone into hating something they enjoy, I just want to pull this fucker apart and see why is doesn’t tick.

Ok so first off, the build up. Imagine it’s the tenth anniversary of a property you really love, and word is that something big is dropping today! You sit at your computer and wait and wait, all that hype and excitement building up and then? They drop three chapters of fanfiction. And tell you to wait for the rest. When this happened, I, as someone who’d spent the last four or five years deeply invested in this comic, I legit cried out of fucking disappointment. I know Homestuck is known for trolling, but that was straight up not the way to handle that sort of build up. But I told myself, “Well, the other chapters will be good! I’m sure they’ll bring back the art, or bring the story to an enjoyable conclusion!” And then a week later they dropped the rest. And it was, not great?? Like, it had good concepts, and some scenes that were funny. But overall it was a pretty bad and draining read.

Why?

I think the main flaws in The Epilogues (and HS^2 by extension) are the themes. The theme is Meat and Candy. Basically, too much of one or the other makes for bad story telling. And that’s interesting in theory, but little thing to take into consideration, YOUR THEME SHOULD NOT MAKE YOUR STORY WORSE. Writing something bad on purpose doesn’t make it any less bad. And another big detrimental theme is “Suffering makes a story” and like, NO?? NO NOT REALLY??? That’s not how that works. You don’t need to make your characters senselessly suffer for a good story, like any good writing tool, you use it in moderation. Good writers can make their story interesting without just throwing pain at their characters. The original Homestuck knew not to take itself too seriously and even in the face of suffering and tragedy, it kept a good blend of comedy to keep it from getting dreary.

And I think this focus on Suffering (+ the Meat/Candy binary) really does negatively impact the writing of The Epilogues and HS^2. It feels like by narrowing in on every single bad thing that could possibly happen, and making sure bad things do happen, they’re stretching the character’s to meet these themes. Many characters are basically unrecognizable due to how they’re pulled and stretched to meet the demands of the story, and as a result, characters act different than how they do in Homestuck proper.

Beyond this it also feels like the current team are pretty obsessed with inserting their headcanons and ideas into HS^2, The Epilogues, and Pesterquest, with no care for the source material. I am all for representation! I’m Nonbinary and I’m lesbian! I think rep is important! But going back in and retconning your rep when there’s literally no build up ain’t how that works chief. That’s not proper representation. I think the only character that they really managed to pull that off with was Vriska, and maybe Eridan, but even then it was still a bit shaky for me. But for many other characters (For instance June!! June is cute, but word of god is in no way good rep, especially since June literally has like, no build up or subtext or ANYTHING!) That’s basically the exact same as JK going back and saying Dumbledore (or whoever bc I never read Harry Potter) was gay! That is not rep. Rep requires time and writing, and that’s why I think (hold on a second I’m about to praise this not very good sequel) Nonbinary trans Roxy is done well. They took time to build them up, and their issues, in an authentic way. If you want to put rep in your comic, that’s how you should do it, retconning only alienates your fanbase, and makes characters seem even more out of character.

But beyond this, I think the most damning thing about the Epilogues and especially HS^2 is it’s very foundation. It’s just not built out of the same stuff, and as a sequel that makes it impossible for it to ever properly mimic Homestuck in any meaningful way. What I mean by this is, lets swivel over to look at the Patreon. Yall probably know what I’m about to gripe with. Bonus Updates. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, BY THEIR VERY NATURE THEY GO AGAINST WHAT HOMESTUCK IS. And you may cry, “support the artist!! They’re just trying to make an honest living!!!” BITCH, I am an artist! Lets just look at the content of the Bonus Updates themselves:

The Bonus Updates take place in The Meat Timeline and have potential to become important later on. That is sneakily putting important content behind a fucking paywall, which directly stands against the accessibility Homestuck had for young teens. (And I personally consider it shady practice to accrue more Patreon support) Especially considering that, guess what?? That doesn’t have to be the case! The Bonus Updates could yknow, have focused on the time before the timeline split in order to avoid being plot relevant. Or if the Bonus Updates are plot relevant, they could at least release them later for those who cannot afford the Patreon bill? They could stagger the release, after two months, release the latest Bonus Update? Oh, or they could do something entirely different, such as showing behind the scenes sprites and artwork-- OH WAIT-- They set that to the twenty fucking dollar tier. And another thing that feels a bit anti Homestuck, basing the amount of updates on Patreon support.

Considering their rate is 2000 supporters a month, at the very least that would be 4000 dollars a month, if everyone payed the lowest tier. But most are likely paying the five a month for access the the Bonus Updates, so you could very likely bump that up to about 10,000. This is a ridiculous amount of money, especially considering the lackluster updates, three a month if you take into account Bonus Updates. I’m sure everyone get’s a smaller piece of the cut, and some of that goes into other HS^2 related projects, but that is a lot of fucking money, and definitely more than enough to pay the team if managed well. I don’t think that they should, and I don’t think that they even need, to use bonus updates to force invested fans to pay. If they were confident in the content they produce, they would certainly still have the backers.

Lastly,

Kanaya would not wear this ugly anime ass outfit are you kidding me. And this is also a not well preformed callback panel (like literally all callbacks oh my god none of the old Homestuck gags hit right in HS^2 at all!!) I could understand Dirk (Even though I think him looking more like Bro would have been a cooler symbolic thing but whatever), Terezi’s outfit was a stretch but I’d accept it, but Kanaya??? KANAYA??? You know she has more fashion sense than the entire Homestuck cast combined she would not be caught dead in this outfit. 

[larstenobar]

Okay so I mentioned it in the tags but I kinda wanna talk about my experiences with So/uth Pa/rk. I say this as a cis, gay, non-Jewish man. I also say this as someone who used to actually engage with the forums on the main site. I also say this as someone who played. both the two major video game RPGs. So I am speaking not from reaction to other people’s reactions but from my own personal knowledge. This post is incredibly long so it’s under a read more. In it I provide what I believe are the actual effects of South Park on its viewership but I need to stress that I think it’s the wrong energy to blame parents for letting their children watch the show.

Don’t blame the parents, blame the show.

That show is genuinely horrible. I’ve seen a lot of people questioning how anyone could let children watch it - and to that I say you’re not adding anything to the conversation by shaming parents for letting their children watch that show. 

My own parents weren’t even out of their twenties when I watched the show, and many other parents grew up with the show as a non-issue. Young parents make mistakes.

At the time it came out and its early years only extremely vigilant parents realized how problematic the show was and the news was hard to spread without social media. At best you could inform your parent friends and hope they listened.

The show’s main characters are children, many parents found/find it hard to believe that a show with children as the main characters could be bad for those children. If the show were exactly the same but the children were college-aged then it would be another raunchy show they could easily see is not meant for their kids.

There’s a good portion of children who watched the show that weren’t actually allowed to watch it because their parents weren’t as tech savvy as them and therefore didn’t know about pirating/streaming until it was mainstream. We who grew up with YouTube knew you could put in [show] episode 1 part 1 and start watching. (this is gonna be another point later btw)

I know that it’s hard for you guys to even know all the reasons it’s problematic because you all barely scratch the surface of it’s problems. But before we even get into the meat of its problems (Science Denial, Homophobia, Transphobia, Ableism, Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, etc.) we have to look at the very premise of the show.

The main characters begin in fourth grade. Fourth Grade. There’s a phenomena in our culture where we believe that children saying stupid stuff is harmless, and we forget that when children hear children speak - even animated children - they are hearing their peers. And peers learn from each other. This is why the show is so insidious, because it makes it easier for children to digest the messages.

Another thing that’s very important to note is that - while it’s labelled satire, every single joke is played straight, and the straight man character (usually either S or Ky) are ridiculed by the culture they’re surrounded in. Don’t believe me? Think I’m over-exaggerating? Think about the election episode, where they had to pick between a literal piece of shit or a douche. Our Straightmen were constantly saying how ridiculous the situation was, but everyone around them was telling them they were the ones who were stupid for not particpating in the election until they eventually break and submit to the absurdity. This is a light example, but it’s the typical formula. If they aren’t actively participating in the absurdity around them, they’re ridiculed until they break. What this tells the audience isn’t that the people who were particpating were stupid, but that they were right.

Now that we’ve looked at the show premise, let’s get into the details. A note: This is just what I remember from approximately age 5-18, the latter years I’d been turned off from it slowly so I wasn’t as engaged but it was not any better then. Since this is just what I can remember without looking through episodes or looking up articles, this is going to be a small sampling of things that stuck with me. Be assured, there was much, much, much more.

Science Denial and its effects on the viewers.

This is the lightest thing I can recall, and probably going to be the smallest section as it’s mostly centered around their stand-in for global warming, a cryptid figure called M/an/Be/ar/P/ig. Al G/ore was painted as a desperate, raving lunatic for believing in the phenomena, and was even implied to be making it up by having him dress up as the cryptid. I don’t have to explain why this is wrong, but we need to look at the effect this had.

On the one hand it made fans think that Global Warming (as it’s something A.G. believed in) was a hoax. Furthermore, it made them believe that anyone who believed in it was telling lies, which was overwhelmingly the most progressive people. A direct effect of these jokes (which they apologized for but never stopped propagating btw, MBP was still a joke when I stopped watching) was that progressives were seen as over-dramatic and stupid.

Now, I am not saying people watched these shows and immediately thought “oh wow, how fucking stupid of A.G. I don’t believe in climate change anymore.” It’s more like this: “Oh haha, S thinks A.G. is annoying, I like S so I agree, A.G. is annoying. You know, A.G. is kinda annoying with all that global warming, maybe there’s something to him being over-dramatic? Gosh why can’t these progressives see that it’s not that big of a deal. If they trust A.G. then they MUST be blowing other things out of proportion.” That’s the thought processes it trains its viewers to have.

LGBT+ Characters

Okay so there’s actually a lot of things that go into the Homophobia of S/P. And it goes back to the very beginning of the show, and is both explicit and implicit. There is a huge problem with these, but the main problem isn’t so much that they exist, but the show’s attitude towards their own ‘jokes’ and the ways in which fans suck up that thought process.

Before I get into this, there were some things that I need to say in favor of the show - not because I think the show deserve praise, but because there were some things that I latched onto and showed a surprising nuance. There’s like one thing, really but it is, of course, attached to something that’s a much larger issue within the show, so while it is a small glimmer, it’s in no way outshining any of the problems in the show.

For a while, the teacher underwent gender reassignment when he (the teacher currently identifies as male from my last interaction with the show) got breast implants and presumably bottom surgery (I vaguely remember a surgery but honestly that could be an invention) he was in a gay relationship. His then boyfriend had a very heartfelt and difficult conversation about how he still cared about him and how he’ll never hate him for being the woman that he wanted to be, but there was no way that he could pursue a relationship with him. I thought that this was a very mature depiction of a very difficult situation that is never really talked about. However, as I implied earlier, this is attached to a larger issue. Before any of you start having second thoughts about your ideas about S/P’s portrayal of gay and trans people, immediately after getting broken up with the teacher became violently homophobic as a backlash, I vaguely recall a group being formed.

Our main examples of LGBT individuals in the show are these big four (five?):

The afforementioned teacher

The teacher’s boyfriend, who wears leather gear at school and can’t stop talking kink even in front of the child characters

A character called B/ig G/ay A/l who is just as stereotypical as his name implies.

T/weak and C/raig, who are classmates of the focal characters. There’s a lot of reasons this is problematic, none of them being the age of those involved in the relationship - but the portrayal of them is hugely problematic.

Since I’ve already touched on the teacher, we’ll get into them first. When he was introduced, he was a sort of ambiguously gay character who was very bitchy and spoke with a slight lisp that eventually became a canon gay character with his relationship with the Kink Character. He was violently hateful towards his class, verbally abusing them all the time and often particpating in bullying children. Furthermore he’s seen as incompetent. This is problematic not because he’s a gay man doing this (though it’s not great either) but because this taught children that teachers don’t care about them and that they shouldn’t listen to them because they don’t know what they’re talking about anyways. This goes into their anti-intellectual stance mentioned earlier. It enforces the idea that education systems are useless, not because of the institutional problems they have with racism, but because of the incompetence of the system.

Going back to the point of this, still with the same character, let’s further explore the problems they had when the teacher had an arc as a trans woman. Honestly, I didn’t pay much attention to it, but the show made a point to let you know that the other characters were uncomfortable when Mr. G became Ms. G. The most damning thing about this, however, is the fact that Mr. G detransitioned bc he realized he wasn’t a straight woman, just a gay man. I think this is problematic because it frames transitioning as a sexual strategy. I don’t think I have to go into detail on why that’s problematic. And while this isn’t actually a tie into how horrible their handling of this character is, it should be noted that he’s the character that went on to be their T/rump stand-in.

The next character is the Kink Man.

God, the character’s personality isn’t actually all that bad. He’s loving and caring and empathetic and actually usually on the right side of topics, but. He doesn’t separate his kink from his personal life. He’s always strutting around in leather-daddy gear and has a lisp. His name is literally Mr. S/lave. There was an episode where he shoved a hamster in his ass. To viewers, he represents the dirty gays that keep shoving their sex-life down their throats - and this view is never, ever, ever subverted, so since the show never makes fun of people for having that view it reinforces that idea in their minds.

Honestly the least problematic character of the LGBT characters that I mentioned was BGA. He’s still a stereotype, yeah, he has a gay dog and is super flamboyant and constantly talks about how proud he is but honestly that’s not really all that bad. I can’t directly recall anything bad about him except that he’s incredibly flamboyant, speaks with a lisp, and loves to call things he owns “BGA’s Big Gay [noun].” Relatable. That doesn’t mean there was nothing problematic, it just doesn’t immediately come to me.

Now, for the next most problematic “representation” in the show. First, T&C showed no signs of actually being gay before. I do recall them both being my favorite characters before they became a couple, however. T is a coffee addict which has some suspect aspects we’ll get into later, and C used to flip everyone off. This was why they were my favorites. They became gay literally when fangirls started shipping them in the show. I’m sure there was an actual fandom movement, but their getting together was incredibly forced - that was part of the joke btw, that gay shipping is always forced. What’s horrible about this is that this was in an episode about ya/oi.

Now, let’s try to dissect this issue. First off, what this tells viewers is that being gay was not a natural part of who they were, but was an active choice (if you’re being kind) or something society forced on them (if you’re not.) The two were actively fighting with the narrative that they were gay and in a relationship. I think their actual agreement for being boyfriends was more of a mutual public display than an actual relationship, but it’s a fuzzy memory because that whole episode felt like a fever dream.

What’s worse about this, is that the show actually displayed ya/oi depictions of these children within the show. Nothing NSFW, but clearly sexually charged situations were definitely shown. At the time, they were 5th graders. 9/10 year olds for those not in the states. This emboldened actual CT shippers “If the show could do it, then so can I” was the general mentality on the forums I was on. So we can talk on pedophilia to reasons why this show is awful.

And those are just the named recurring characters. Another commonly recurring character is a prostitute with a deep voice who is very sloppy looking that, from my recollection, is implied to be a transwoman. This might have just been a conclusion I drew when I was young however - but even that is reason to be critical of the character, that such a conclusion could even be drawn means it might have played a factor in the character’s inception.

They also “Solved Overpopulation” with a gay orgy. I don’t have the language to define why this sat so wrong with me, but I remember being very deeply hurt by it. I think it has something to do with the idea that homosexuality is a choice and that it should only be accepted because of the potential benefits it has for population control.

Islamophobia and Racism

Okay so I’m just gonna come out the gate by saying that they fought hard to depict the prophet Mohammad. Like, hard. And they did it twice - one time went almost unnoticed but the second had a huge backlash from the Islamic people. For those who aren’t aware, it’s sacrilege to depict Mohammad. It’s like desecrating a church, maybe worse - I really have no frame of reference for how bad it’s viewed, but however bad it is, it still boils down to being a strict taboo that S/P broke not once, but twice.

Now, as I keep reminding, my memory gets hazy for many things, especially things I wasn’t aware of being insensitive early on. I have vague memories of terrorists being depicted in traditional Sikh garb, and similar instances of directly relating Islam with terrorism. I don’t recall the show ever making fun of anyone for relating Muslims with terrorism, for all those fans out there saying they make fun of everyone.

There was an episode where the characters wore blackface. There’s a black character literally named t/oken b/lack. Sure, that could be satire and maybe even be defended if they subverted the trope, however it should be noted he’s not the only black character in the show! There was an episode where there was a child adopted from Africa whose name escapes me - he was emaciated and devoured food at an alarming rate and generally was a nuisance if I remember correctly.

There was an instance where one of the main character’s father was on Wheel of Fortune. The category was people who annoy you. the letters on the board were ‘N_ggers.’ You know where this is going, the father said the N-word. The word was really naggers, but the rest of the episode was a sympathetic journey with him dealing with being ostracized. He became known as an ‘n-word guy’ which was treated as a worse term within the universe. I say this because a law was passed where the phrase was outlawed and they said you had to have a space of at least 5 words between ‘n-word’ and ‘guy’. Also, the n-word was said multiple times by a number of white characters. Now, I know the argument people make about this episode. They say that we were supposed to find the scanario ridiculous, but the issue I take with it is more that we’re led to feel sympathetic to racists who’ve had their lives ruined for being racist. That’s the issue with South Park’s brand of ‘satire’. It satirizes one issue, but doesn’t touch on the problematic things used to support that satire.

Almost every single Mexican character is a stereotype of some sort. Either a laborer who can barely speak English, a gangbanger, or some other stereotype. There was an episode where they had C’s hand become a famous Latina popstar by singing about Mexican Food themed songs, like the actual songs ‘T/aco F/lavored K/isses’ and ‘T/aco B/urrito’. The hand’s name was Jennifer Lopez, I don’t know of these songs are direct parodies bc I’ve only heard Jenny From the Block.

And while S/P tends to stay away from very direct anti-black jokes, they don’t shy away from other races. There’s an asian character whose business is called ‘c/ity wok’, but he always pronounces it ‘shitty’ because the joke here is ‘oh haha asians have funny accents’ and literally nothing else. I honestly believe that asians receive the WORST treatment on S/P when it comes to facing racism, but I’m not qualified to make that claim. Other examples of anti-asian racism: There was an pokemon episode where they said that Japan was using anime to indoctrinate youth, they literally had the kids operate fighter jets to make an attack on the U.S. What’s worse about this, is that whenever the Japanese execs were questioned about this, every time, they dropped their pants to show how small their penises were and how they should be pitied for it. Another instance, I very strongly remember a depiction of asian characters as being lemon yellow with eyes like this: \ /. There was an episode where they had Asians violently murder whales with glee. They lean into anti-asian racism so much harder than any other form of racism - the only thing they’re worse about is their antisemitism, which will get its own section later.

Antisemitism

God there’s so much. Jew Gold, nazi imagery, the entirety of c/a/r/t/m/a/n as a character and there are so many posts on this website by people much more qualified than me to delve into what exactly is wrong with this and the depictions of it, so I’m mostly just going to catalog what comes to mind and then speak about the actual factual instances of S/P inspired antisemitism I’ve witnessed and been party to.

There was an episode devoted to Jewish people having a secret bit of gold around their necks. This was proven true in the universe when Ky gave up his ‘J*w Gold’ to C.

Ky’s mom is such an overbearing harpy who bulldozes over everyone, this was later explained as her having Jersey-Blood (yes this was a Jersey Shore joke) but before that it was completely because she was a proud Jewish woman.

Ky’s father is depicted as weak-willed and piddling. He always wears a yarmulke no matter the situation.

Ky is often depicted as being whiny and non-commital

OF ALL THE CHARACTERS, KY IS THE ONE WHO IS DEPICTED AS A HYPOCRITE THE MOST

Ky’s cousin with the same name is depicted as in poor health, complains about everything, whines about things not being fair bc they don’t go his way, and has caricatured Jewish features

As mentioned above, there are hosts of Nazi imagery associated with C

C has said every Jewish slur I have ever heard. In fact he introduced me to the concept of antisemitism

Ky, in a Christmas episode, is depicted as wishing he could celebrate Christmas and Hanukkah is depicted as a sort of consolation prize that’s Not As Good.

Ky’s father was an internet troll, and the trolls were. literal trolls. with certain features that are not great.

The following image is the Prophet Moses:

And there’s more and more and more. I will not accept anyone saying that this is just jokes because I know firsthand how insidious their treatment of Jewish people is because this show literally made me think it was okay to engage in Antisemitism. I made greedy jokes, like saying a got J**ed when i was screwed over, or that someone who was being greedy was being a J*w. I am not proud of this, and I think I grew out of it relatively quickly as I dropped that language in middle school.

But not everyone did. Even some of my closest friends were still saying they got J**ed when we were graduating high school. There were no Jewish people at my school, so there was no humanizing face for the Jewish people for us. Thank god for the Nanny or who knows what kind of person I’d be now. There were people even worse than me, I should mention. There was one person in my school who literally used J*w as a stand-in for loser because of this show. This show was the only interaction with the Jewish faith that most of my classmates ever had, and the same is true of many rural towns in America who have only Protestant populations.

Fatphobia

All the most unlikeable characters are fat. C. Ky’s mom. The gun-toting republican. And there are other specific episodes where they equate fatness to not being healthy. In their episode partnered with WoW (don’t forget that happened, y’all) the main antagonist was depicted as a no-life having loser and he was, surprise, fat. This show draws a very direct line between being fat and being unlikeable.

Sexism

God, the portrayal of women is so horrible, literally my only entry here is going to be one single link:

Note all the other isms depicted in this btw.

Substance Abuse

The prostitute mentioned in the LGBT section would wander into scenes screaming about how she wanted crack. There was an episode where they created a league of basketball players who were comprised entirely of ‘crack babies.’ I’m being generous by not putting that in the racism section because most of the babies were BIPOC which says something about the kind of people that M/att and T/rey think are addicts.

The character T/owelie is supposed to show an addict, but his addiction is literally just weed which means they’re claiming weed is addictive.

I can’t even begin to describe the show’s relationship to alcohol. As a child of an alcoholic, I can say that it’s not fucking cute that they made S’s dad a violent drunk. It’s genuinely scary to see your parent fly into a rage because of their alcoholism and them reducing it to a joke was, I think, one of the points where the ‘it’s just a joke’ mentality started to break for me personally. 

While we’re on the subject of parents, C’s mom was literally a crack addict who was also a full service sex worker. The correlation is not sympathetic in the slightest. And even worse was Ke’s parents. They were depicted as abusive, neglectful, drug-addicted rednecks. This was sometimes played to make you sympathize with Ke, and it worked because even now I can hardly think of how Ke himself was problematic rather than the situations he was in. (He’s the one who gets gruesomely murdered every episode) I don’t know if this is because of selective memory, if he was genuinely just the least problematic in the show, or if I’m waxing nostalgic for the show. Regardless, as I said, his situation was mostly played for sympathy. However, it was also played for jokes almost as often.

Pedophilia

The children are put in sexual situations a nonzero amount of times, they make priest molestation jokes, and they made jokes about MJ.

Slurs

Yeah they said them a lot. There was the aforementioned N-Word Guy episode, but there was also an episode that thinly mirrored immigrants coming to America for work and the people (time-travelers) were called ‘Goobacks’. I think the word ch*nk was used a nonzero amount of times, C used every slur for Jewish people in the book. None of these were censored by the show, any censoring was done by networks.

Why make this post?

Because I know people know this show is garbage, but I think it’s important that people know why it’s garbage with specific and nonspecific instances of why the show was problematic.

[unluckycl0v3r]

Queenie x Reader: A Winter Wonderland

A/N: OH my god, this is probably as late as it could possibly be. I will not spare you any excuses because it honestly does not matter, just know that your request has been deeply appreciated. I loved this request so much and I struggled a lot with this concept, mostly because I haven’t written anything like this before. Plus Queenie is such a complex character to write that it amazes me that I was even able to do this. Despite the fact you may have forgotten this request, or you’re just some stranger looking for some late night reads, I truly hope you enjoy this. BTW, if you don’t know, I started writing this in like July and finished about 90% of it. I have just finished this 10%. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Happy New Year’s everybody!!

Requested by: @badeeaswife​ you are a lovely human being I hope you know

Warnings: Mentions of homophobia, mentions of abuse nothing too graphic I don’t even think there’s cursing in this. This is supposed to be a stupid fluffy Christmas story xD. Also the last 10% isn’t edited lol I’m sorry I’m lazy and ig that counts as a warning

Walking into the dining area of the orphanage in which you live and work in, the kids you take care of are a little rowdier and louder than they usually are. A smile was brought to your face when you realize exactly why, the news finally broke out to the kids. Of course, the other staff and head of the orphanage could no longer hold the news. 

“Settle down, kids, settle down.” You said softly as you stand in front of the room where everyone could see you. The kids quieted down, a few whispers still lingered but that never bothered you, and their eyes found yours. “Yes, the news is true. This year we will be holding our very own winter formal!” The orphanage was erupted in cheers and your smile brightened, along with the other staff in the room. When the room quieted again, you continued, “We have found the funds to have our own theme for the dance, and found volunteers at a close by no-maj school to come in and help out!” More cheers came from the room and all the hard work you put in the past few months have fully been worth it for this reaction. 

A few years ago after growing up your whole life in an orphanage, you decided to invest in your own orphanage to help avoid the abuse you experienced and witnessed. It would be the first orphanage to home kids of magical background. It was a hard investment considering you were a woman, but you weren’t always alone to take care of everything. With your friend William Tran who helped with funds and investments, you found the staff to give your children an education of magic and no-maj lessons you found important, and cooks to give your children meals. At first it started off very small with one or two children you had to take care of with your friend, but it soon turned into a huge facility. The number of children were still relatively small, just around thirty, and throughout all the years you have had no luck in finding much funds to plan fun events for the kids. Though, as your facility grows, you began receiving more funds and even some donations! After some raising some donations and keeping the secret from the kids for months as to not get their hopes up, you were finally able to officially plan a winter formal dance for your kids. 

“It is all ages, so even our little ones can come, but only our year 8’s are able to have dates.” You clear up politely and find a table with the staff to finish your breakfast. You made it all ages because you weren’t sure if you were able to do this every year. You wanted to have something special for everybody there. You felt the kids deserved this, especially the older ones. 

Being an orphan yourself, you knew the hardships it came from being tossed around from one severely religious orphanage to another. It came with shame and abuse, and you knew once you became smart enough and old enough that you couldn’t let another kid face those same hardships. Especially those with magical abilities such as yourself. So with William Tran, you created your very own safe place for children.

Your orphanage was growing again because the magical school near your home was letting out for winter break and the kids there with no home will be coming back to spend winter break with you. You understand how disappointing it is to come to a place with no family of your own, and feeling left out. You can’t personally get every child a gift of their own, so you thought at the very least you could give them a celebration to remember. 

That afternoon, with some volunteers at your orphanage, you and the staff make your way to the no-maj school that has offered up their gymnasium for winter break. Some of the staff greeted you with smiles and hugs that made everyone feel so welcome and they wasted no time taking out their supplies to help with decorations. Somehow decorating was one of the most difficult things of this whole event because it’s the part you wanted to be perfect for the kids. 

For hours everyone put up streamers, fairy lights, and props to make the gymnasium feel like the perfect winter formal. By the evening when the sun started to set, it was decided they would continue tomorrow. With the actual dance looming only a week away, you start becoming nervous about it. When you get back to the orphanage, you sit at the desk in your room and start brainstorming what food and drinks to serve there within the budget. You wanted your children to be absolutely spoiled this winter. 

The next few days feel like blurs between supervising and putting together the dance. You are pretty much a mess when it’s almost 8 in the evening and it’s completely dark out, starting to snow outside, and you’re still in the gymnasium of the no-maj school when your friend and colleague comes up behind you. 

“It’s getting late, (y/n)” He says and you jump in surprise, almost falling from the ladder you were standing on and dropping the decorations you were holding. You blushed in embarrassment from being so startled and get off the latter to collect the items you dropped. Will drops down next to you to help. 

“I know, but I’ll stay back just a little longer.” You promise and Will gives you a wry smile. 

“You’ve been working non stop for these kids, (Y/N/N). Have you done anything for yourself recently?” You look at him quizzically, not understanding the problem he was concerned with. Sure, you worked hard and long, but you aren’t burnt out yet. Nervous, sure, but not very overwhelmed. Soon over half of your kids will be leaving again for school and you want to give them a break to remember. 

“Something for myself? Like what?” It was a rhetorical question, you weren’t actually concerned in what you could be doing for yourself. It was one of the things that were never your concerned with in the first place. But of course what comes with a question will always be followed up with an answer. 

“Like… do you know what you’re wearing for this formal you’re spending so much time on preparing?” Will asks, and his handsome face is scrunched up waiting for an answer. He hasn’t shaved his face since yesterday and blonde stubble is coming in on his chin. His hair is combed back and he’s dressed relatively nice. You realize that you actually haven’t thought about what you would wear or your actual involvement in the formal, which was now tomorrow. William saw the panic set into your face as your eyes widened. 

“Oh, shoot! I don’t know what to wear!” You shout and begin pacing back and forth from where you stood. Will laughed at your melodramatic attitude and grabbed you by the shoulders to steady you. Your breathing has quickened, and Will desperately hopes you won’t fall into your episodes of hyperventilating. 

“Hey, hey, it’s okay.” Will soothes, rubbing his hand along the forearm comfortingly. “I know someone who can help.” 

“What? Who?” Your voice is strained and you’re trying not to cry. You focused so much on the event being perfect you forgot to make yourself perfect too. You are the face of this dance. You don’t want people thinking you don’t care about this event just because you weren’t able to get dressed up. But here Will is, stress free and smiling comfortingly. 

“Her name is Queenie Goldstein and she’s an old friend of mine. She’s very talented. It’s almost like she can read your mind.” You start to calm down significantly as Will gives you this information. 

“What about cost? How much am I having to pay?” Will shakes his head and his smile widens. 

“Don’t worry about that.” You begin to argue but he cuts you off. “I’ll call her tonight and she can work on you tomorrow. 

“But that’s not enough time!” You say, starting to worry again. 

“(Y/N), she’s magic. It’ll be done just in time for the dance.” He assures you and you finally nod in agreement to his plan. Even more reluctantly, he had you clean up and out of the school sooner than you would have liked to. “Everyone will get the dance set up in plenty of time tomorrow.” Then ushers you into his car to drive you home and put you to bed as if you were a toddler. You would be angry, but secretly you liked feeling taken care of like this. You wouldn’t admit it, but he made you feel safe and comfortable. So, that night you slept better than you have all week barely worried for when you had to meet this mysterious woman in the morning.

The next morning you wake up just before dawn as you usually do and continue with your morning routine as usual, the anxiety of meeting this Queenie still in the back of your mind. You’re starting to get antsy, but try not to push Will, you don’t want to seem panicked like yesterday. Finally, after waking up at the kids in the morning and serving them breakfast, Will comes up to you with the same easygoing smile he always carries. 

“Queenie is ready to see you.” He informs, slipping you a piece of paper with her address on it. 

“Now?” You ask as if you haven’t been waiting for this all morning and were inconvenienced. 

“Hurry along, she’s a busy woman.” He winks at you and sits back at his table to finish breakfast. You try not rush your eating since you try to be an example for the kids, but you can’t help it when you end breakfast just a few minutes early and usher the kids to their usual chore schedule. Of course, you let them off early to prepare the dance and assigned certain staff to watch over certain kids, so it wasn’t a problem that you up and left everyone. Plus, you were sure Will would keep things from going up in flames. He has always been able to think on his feet during disasters. 

Finally arriving at the apartment that Will had written on the paper, you were about to knock on the door when it swings wide open. You were taken aback by it, but then completely starstruck when the woman behind the door smile a dazzling smile that had you practically drooling. This woman… how could you even describe her? She was slim and graceful, radiating such a calm… almost hypnotizing aura. Her hair was light blonde and curly hair that came just to her chin, and she had one dimple on one of her cheeks. It made her seem even more charming. Then there were her eyes… they were like an emerald jewel glistening in the sun. She was definitely the most magnificent woman you had ever laid your eyes upon. You saw Queenie’s cheeks tint pink as her beautiful and luscious, pink lips stretched as she began to speak. 

“Hello, dear. You must be, (Y/N)?” She kept her smile big and tight and blinked at her a few times. 

“Yes, I’m (Y/N), and you’re Queenie? The mind reading dressmaker?” A giggle escaped Queenie at your joke seemingly before you even spoke it, but it didn’t weird you out since the only thing you could focus on was how beautiful the sound was. You wanted to record it and play it like music. Oh, god, you wanted to run away. You wanted to close the door and run away because it was specifically these thoughts that made you suffer growing up. The shame and the guilt crashes down on you as you take in Queenie’s beauty, and you see Queenie’s smile falter for a second before turning up sympathetically and placing her hand on your arm.

“Come in, honey. We have a lot of work to do before that cute little dance of yours.” Her smile was welcoming and it made you even more guilty for things you were thinking. You felt like she was now a victim to your criminalizing thoughts. She didn’t seem as distraught as you as she gently laid her hand on your arm and pulled you into the apartment. 

The apartment is bright and elegantly spacial as Queenie lead you past the livingroom and kitchen and brings you into a smaller room filled with cloth with mirrors and measuring tapes. Queenie leads you onto a light colored wooden stand that faces three mirrors. Looking at yourself, you feel suddenly embarrassed and look away before noticing the small blush that creeps onto your face. 

“Hm, what color, what color?” Queenie hums to herself as multicolored cloth is seen flying by your heads. “Oh yes, of course!” You don’t understand how she already knows what color to make your dress, but she continues focusing anyhow. You hear sewing machine turn on itself as cloth floats over to it and sews itself up. 

“So, how do you know Will?” You decide to ask once you feel comfortable staring at your shoes, so you don’t have to stare at yourself or the beautiful woman standing behind you. If you could see her, you’d see that a reminiscent smile finds its way onto her lips that shows her cute little dimple. 

“We dated many moons ago. He was a sweet boy.” She says softly and you feel your stomach drop. You feel disappointed, but you can’t really place as to why. Suddenly you feel a slim arm wrap around your waist and the young woman’s hands gently caressing your stomach. You look down to see a light colored measuring tape, but the touch still made you blush. “Don’t worry, darling. That’s long over now. No more competition for you.” Queenie pulls her hand back and gently touches your waist as she does so. It makes you shiver and the words make your stomach do flips. A floating clipboard and pen floats next to the both of you, jotting down your measurements. It feels like she can read your thoughts

“He talked about you a lot, you know. He felt like a protective older brother.” You smile at Queenie’s words, remembering you and Will as young kids trying to make it through together. Queenie then measured down your body and the width of your arm. 

“He always felt like a protective older brother. I always felt safer when he was around.” The beautiful young woman behind you smiles from your smile you two seem to share a moment. You looking at her and her looking at you, and it feels like you both are falling into each other. The stare makes you feel lightheaded and you can’t decide whether it’s from her drowning stare or if you’re dehydrated. Oh, you’re dehydrated, alright. All the water is in her eyes and you want to drink it all up. 

Queenie coughs into her arm to break eye contact and you see a hint of pink on her cheeks. “So, Ms. (L/N), do you have a date for your dance tonight?” By now the sewing machine in the room is going rampant and the lady behind you is doing nothing but twirling your hair very lightly and holding your shoulder, the yellow tape still in her hand. You clear your throat and smile. 

“It’s not my dance to bring a date.” You answer cripictly 

“Oh, but you want to bring a date, don’t you?” You can see Queenie through the large mirrors in front of the two of you and you see her smile brighten and her hands on your shoulders tightened. Yes, of course you do. “Yes, of course you do!” She giggles, speaking the words right out of your head. You’re so taken aback that you blush darkly. 

“I never said that.” You turn to look back at her again defensively, and she only giggles again. 

“Who is he?” She’s about to answer her own question with a guess, but stops herself short and gasps. “It’s… not a he, is it?” You’re blushing again and you suddenly feel very hot. How does she know? She couldn’t know… 

“I have to go.” You say suddenly, barely above a whisper, as you tear away from her grasp and start for the door. You don’t see the troubled, almost offended, look that falls upon Queenie’s face. 

“But your dress isn’t ready!” She exclaims feeling anxious and horrible for making you feel uncomfortable. She follows you out of the room and through the main hall. 

“I’ll pick it up when it is.” You say louder, more definitive and confident than before. 

“Hey, please wait.” Queenie pleads and reaches for your hand. Even though she hardly grabs you, you stop and turn to look at her. Your confidence immediately crumbles to shame as you look down to avoid her eyes. Those wretched eyes trying to pull you in. Like a tide, you try to avoid its’ current. 

“Hey, it’s okay.” She soothes, you close your eyes when you feel her fingertips lightly pull the hair away from your face. It’s so soft and comforting you almost leaned into the touch. “No, there’s nothing wrong with you.” She reassures you, moving her hand so her thumb now gently caresses your cheek. “Of course I’ll go with you. I was hoping you’d ask.” 

You furrow your eyebrows quizzically and open your eyes to find her smiling sheepishly. “How did you-?” 

“Legilimency.” She answers directly. Your cheeks darken again and you smile, a dark chuckle coming from you. 

“So, you knew.” It wasn’t a question. Despite her attempt at reassurance, you still felt ashamed for the strong feelings for this woman. 

“No, not at first.” She said honestly, dropping her hand from your cheek when she feels she’s offended you. You feel her hand trail down your arm and when she gets to your hand, her fingers play with yours. Cautious, like she’s waiting for your reaction. You don’t give one. “I could hear some thoughts, but for awhile I thought they were about Will.” She drops her hand completely this time and she looks almost nervous. “But maybe I was just blind from my sudden attraction to you as well.” 

A silence falls upon the two of you, but it’s not awkward. It’s another moment when your eyes meet hers and you can’t help but smile. “This isn’t weird?” 

Queenie seems so genuine when she holds your hand and looks into your eyes then says, “No, this isn’t wrong.” Because she knows the question you’re really thinking and she also feels the same way about how everyone will react when they find out. 

“Then, no mind reading help anymore,” You start, and she smiles when she resists herself from correcting you. “Will you be my date to the Winter Formal?” 

“Well, my, my, I have never been more honored to accompany you.” A ding from the sewing room was heard along with the silence from the machine. “Ooh! Your dress is ready!” 

~~

You had arrived to the winter formal a few hours before the dance was supposed to begin to make sure everything was in order. The minute you walk in, you were amazed. The room looked so much better than you could have ever imagined. Starting with fairy lights hung all across the ceiling, and paper snowflakes hanging all over. The food trays were being brought in with all the goodies one could want. The kids were being fed dinner before the formal so you wouldn’t have to worry about them being hungry either. A live band was being hired for the event and where he was going to perform was currently being set up. You were so proud of the event you were holding and so excited for the kids to be able to experience this. 

As the kids began to arrive, the winter formal seem all the more magical, despite the fact that most of it was done without magic. The only problem was the dance has been going on for an hour and you’re still alone. You tried not to be too disappointed by that, but watching the other kids dance around with their dates made you feel all the more lonely. Not only that, but if Queenie did show up, what would the kids say about her? It’s not she ever discussed her sexuality to her kids or any kind of romance for that matter. 

You tried to rationalize in your head that even if your date stood you up, at least your kids wouldn’t hate you for your sexuality. That made you relax some, and you enjoyed seeing everybody dance around so happily. 

“What are you doing standing here all alone?” You turn your head to find Will standing next to you. You return your gaze to the dance floor. 

“I could ask you the same thing.” Will chuckled and smiled a bit. 

“Well, may I have this dance then?” Will stands in front of you and offers his hand. Part of you is reluctant, mostly because you were saving yourself. Then you realized that if she wasn’t coming you’d be wasting all your time moping about it. 

“Oh, why not?” You decided and took his hand. He leads you to the middle of the dance floor where he proceeds to hold your hand with one hand, and put his other hand at your waste. You placed your hand on his shoulder and begin to dance. 

“I hope you aren’t too upset with Queenie. Sometimes she isn’t too good with plans.” He reassures and you’re reminded that he has had personal experience with her. He knows more about her than you ever will. 

“It’s quite alright. Nothing to fret about too much.” You shrug, and you meant it. It wasn’t like a super serious date. You asked her way last minute so technically she has the right to not show up. 

“Look at you, always being the strong type.” Will gives you a warm smile and suddenly you’re filled with warmth and magic that only Christmas can provide. Suddenly, will turn around and for a split second you’re confused, until you see who’s behind him. 

“Pardon my interruption, but I believe you’re dancing with my date.” There she was. Standing just behind Will was the most beautiful woman you had ever laid your eyes upon. She looked absolutely miraculous with her golden, curly hair pinned up against her head, wearing a tight red dress with a floral pattern etched in the lacing and the skirt of her dress hanging just below her waist, and read high heels to finish the look. You were stunned, starstruck, when you saw her. 

“Yes, of course, my apologies.” Will steps aside and Queenie steps forward in her place. 

“I hope you didn’t think I’d bail on you, honey.” Her voice sounded sweet, drenched in sugar, and you were hypnotized by her eyes once again. 

“I’m not going to lie, I was a bit afraid of that.” You admitted then she gave you a sympathetic smile and cupped your cheek with her hand, softly caressing it with her thumb. 

“I’d never leave you stranded like that.” Warmth and goosebumps traveled all through your body, and you felt like you were flying. Queenie then leaned down and placed a chaste kiss to your lips as you closed your eyes. Her lips were so soft and tasted so sweet that you instantly wanted more, but she pulled away. It was as if there were no kids, there was no dance, and it was just you and Queenie dancing idly under the sparkling snowflakes. You couldn’t have asked for a better Christmas gift.

A/N: Yes, I’m sorry this was soooo long, but I hope what lacked in time was made up for in content. Again, I really hope you enjoyed, and if anyone would like a request then please leave one. Even if it takes me 6 months to write. I love you all thank you for taking the time to read this <3

[sibillascribbles08]

Oh shit I knew I forgot to do something, namely this. Can you talk a bit about the development behind Clone Verse and Toby?

Uuuh laslkdf well hell it’s story time I guess

SO ONCE UPON A TIME my friend sus was like I’m gonna draw a scruff kid because of idk some discussion that was going on and I was like okay that’s cool and so this came into existence.

And I can literally never see concepts and not have my brain go running off with it and was like “oh man what’s his name going to be” and my friend Nora was like “Toby” and I was like perfect

But then it raised the question of like… how does he exist. Despite my trans hcs for Ronin he can’t actually have kids and would literally never be comfortable with doing so so not doing that.

Cloning, the obvious fucking solution. Immediately afterwards my brain is like “Clones from an alternate universe wherein The Overlord won in season 3 and was trying to make a clone army in this hell universe and SOMEHOW Toby managed to escape with some friends and end up in this other fic universe of mine where he happens to run into the very people he was cloned from and they adopt him.”

Like, it’s such a simple solution right??

I considered this universe, where Toby came from, how bad it was (hint: It’s REALLY fucking bad) and what his character would be like. He found Dareth and Ronin when he was ten and he was a VERY angry smol. He constantly tried to run away, would steal food or hide it, wouldn’t talk to either of them, the first person to get to him was E and the rats. Eventually Dareth manage to gain his trust through the rodents.

It took him two whole years to get to the point where he completely trusted them, considered them parents, despite the fact he was afraid if they knew who he was they’d kick him out, but even when he confessed all of it they just held onto him tighter.

I debated if he would ever go back to this hell universe but came to the realization he would, or at least he’d be determined to do so thanks to the stuff he’s learned from his dads as well as his memories of his friends. He first got the power through the shards of the realm crystal (a stone that allowed people to jump between realms). It shattered during a fic I haven’t written. He actually had to steal the shards and then went to the cloud kingdom to see another OC of mine named Ruta.

She then puts the shards in his arm with a spell that allows him to absorb and use the power of the crystal which allows him to tear open a portal to his home universe.

He does all this at sixteen btw

And then I was like well damn he GETS there but how the fuck is he supposed to be The Overlord because for the record the guy has the power of creation and is also huge as fuck.

Me: ONE PUUUUUUUUUNCH

No, literally, I realized he can basically make wormholes now so why not have him trigger that out of desperation and he just spaghettifies the overlord (yes that’s a real term)

My brain: If the overlord is space dust what if that gets all up in his arm

Woops he has space arm now, well technically it’s dark matter and golden weapons but whateverrrrr

And well, after that the obviously conclusion is to start working on making shit better

Not sure if I can map out how all that went down. I had to consider what I had, where it would go from there, what I wanted out of it. Cryptor and Mindroid were obviously around, but what about Echo? If he’s been on the island for 20 years what condition is he in? Pixal would now have the ice element since Zane is gone. Who’s even alive after this mess? Some of the ninja who were being controlled, sure, but a lot of the people who were cloned are likely dead by now. How many kids manage to last considering the whole “falling apart” nonsense? What about the amalgamations that are still alive? (Yeah, those are still around for the record, they live in the old factory. Toby visits them a lot)

And like, Toby’s sixteen. He can’t do all this himself. He can’t run a city. So he convinces the others to help.

There’s trauma, everywhere, so much emotional baggage. It was a bit staggering when I realized just HOW MUCH. Pixal never got to grieve properly and keeps clinging to ghosts. Borg is torn between wanting to invent and help, and considering his inventions started this whole mess. Echo’s not only haunted by what happened to him but never properly gets help for it out of distrust. Cryptor’s just drowning in guilt, as is Mindroid. The ninja as well.

But, you know, by now I’ve covered YEARS in this universe in my head. Stuff gets better, even if slowly. I considered the events in the canon story line and how they might differ in this universe (i.e. Acronix still falls out of the time portal but never fights Wu obviously. Morro never escapes the cursed realm. Would Nadakhan still get found and released? What about the oni?)

Toby and Cryptor weren’t initially a thing either. I did a design for Cryptor for fun, consider that if he’s running security that would probably be who Toby goes to first (plus thanks to having E as an older brother he feels comfortable around nindroids). Their friendship starts out rough, but it gets better, and the more I listened to them chatter I realized that oh man… Cryptor’s in LOVE.

And Max, well, he came far later on. Me thinking about how tasty the friends to bitter enemies trope is. That it’s something I could pull off if there was, say, some other universe where Max absorbed the overlord instead.

Welcome to the boss level.

[nerdy-nonbinary]

Reunion Ch. 2: The Evening Prior

Mako arrived at the party much earlier than she had planned. Sure, she’d wanted to get there early to help set up and bring all the food. But then she thought the train’s might run late, and the weather had said there was a chance for rain, and she knew she would have to walk slow with all the food she was carrying. So she decided to leave a bit earlier just in case.

Now she was standing outside their grand apartment over an hour before she was supposed to be there. She considered texting Masami and asking her, but she decided it would be easier if she waited outside, in case Masami and Suehiro were busy with something. She found a bus stop nearby and, arms loaded with goodies, sat down to pass the time.

Mako had known Masami and Suehiro would be moving before she sent out the email, but she still didn’t believe it was true. But now that she was attending what was essentially their going away party, she was hit with the full weight of what it meant. Since middle school, Masami had been her closest friend. Even in their childhood, cut off from resources and outside support, they had had each other. And now, that was going to disappear. Sure, the two of them had found support groups as they were older, made themselves a community outside of their small, splintered friend circle. But nothing would replace that genuine connection they’d had, two young trans girls with no direction, no idea who they were, who had nothing but each other. It still hadn’t really sunk in yet.

She stared into the distance, the setting sun glowing just below the cloudline. The life she lived had always been uncertain. Transitioning, even at a relatively young age, had been terrifying. Even after nearly five years on hormones, she still got nervous glances in public, and she’d had slurs hurled at her more times than than she could bear to remember. She still had a small amount of money saved specifically for repairs to graffitti and attacks at the bakery. She hadn’t needed to use it yet, but she felt safer knowing she’d be able to fix whatever damage people like that could bring and keep on doing what she loves.

But now was no time to worry. This was meant to be a joyous occasion. Shamefully, Mako hadn’t talked to anyone besides Nitori, so she really was excited to see how everyone was doing. Even Chiba, whose relationship with all of them had been strained at the best of times. She needed to head back to help set up. If Nitori was going to leave, why was she sitting around and fretting, rather than enjoying what time they had left?

Mako hopped up and sprinted back to Nitori’s house.

“Ms. Sasa, where do you go when school is done?”

Kanako turned to face Rina, her last straggler before she shut down her classroom for the day. She bent down to the girl’s level. “Well, where do you think I go?”

The girl put a serious look on her face as she thought, before replying “I don’t know. Maybe you have a bed in the school?”

Kanako couldn’t help but laugh. “No, Rina, Ms. Sasa doesn’t live in school. Usually, I go home and make myself dinner, and then get ready for tomorrow’s activity. But tonight, I’m actually doing something special.”

The girl bounced on the balls of her feet, impatient at her teacher’s vague answer. “What? What are you doing?”

“I’m going to see some friends that I haven’t seen in a long time.”

“How long?”

“Well, let’s see. How old are you, Rina?”

She stuck out one hand, her chubby thumb tucked in. “Four!”

“Wow!” She feigned surprise, and Rina let out a little giggle. “You’re so old! But the last time I saw my friends was so long ago, you weren’t even born yet!”

“What! Ms. Sasa, you gotta be like a million years old!”

Kanako pouted at the comment. “Hey, I’m not that old! Maybe just a thousand years old.”

Her ears caught the sound of heels on linoleum, and she stood up to see a disheveled businesswoman sprint into the doorway, holding the frame as she caught her breath. “Ms. Sasa, thank you so much,” She said, panting. “My meeting was late and my phone died, and-”

“Mrs. Okano, it’s no problem. Just doing my job.” She bent back down to Rina. “Bye, Rina! See you next week!”

The girl looked over her shoulder as she left, her mom’s hand holding hers. “Bye Ms. Sasa! Have fun with your friends!” Her voice drifted down the hallway, and soon the classroom was silent.

It was odd. Until then, recounting her plans to a toddler, the weight of the night hadn’t truly hit her. Now it collapsed upon her shoulders, weights dragging her deep into the earth. Most of her students weren’t even alive the last time she saw them. Sure, there was social media. She’d been a little startled when Ariga had come out immediately after graduation. It made sense, looking back, but she hadn’t been as vocal about it as Nitori had. Takatsuki identified as x-gender now, but there was a period from after graduation until just over a year ago where she’d heard nothing from them. Then they’d popped back up on social media, with a guy’s haircut and FtX on every bio page. They were a student teacher now, working towards a degree, but she couldn’t help but wonder what had made them fall off the map for so many years.

Sarashina was the opposite end of the spectrum, showering in the spotlight (or, as much spotlight as there was) of women’s basketball. The star player, Sarashina was becoming more famous than even some of the male players, despite almost nonexistent media coverage of women’s sports. Of course, there was a little twist.

Sarashina wasn’t a girl.

They’d come out as genderfluid about three years ago, a post on every piece of social media they had. A quick selfie with that signature smile of his, with the caption “btw I’m genderfluid. he/she/they.” Not even an explanation. Kanako knew enough to find accurate sites and definitions, but others would be lost. It seemed hasty and poorly planned, from her point of view.

But maybe that’s what Sarashina had been going for. Spontaneity, confusion, casual mention of their identity. That was the Chi-chan way.

Then, of course, there was Chiba. Chiba, who had been a part of their friend group all the way back in fifth grade. Chiba, who always had had a crush on Nitori, even in denial of her gender. Chiba, who became… Kanako hated to say it, but it was the truth: Chiba became an asshole.

Kanako hadn’t seen her much since high school, and Chiba wasn’t one for social media. After the text she’d sent her, she was willing to her the benefit of the doubt, but Kanako was still wary. Out of the whole group, she’d definitely been the most transphobic (excluding Shirai, who had only been a part of the group by being glued to Sarashina’s shoulder at all times). Everything she had said to Takatsuki, denying their identity when they thought they were a guy. Even Nitori, the object of her constant affections, was a target, as she was almost painfully straight, and wanted her to hold on her male identity, even when dressing her up in skirts and blouses. Sure, Kanako had been airheaded as a kid, and none of them knew much about any of this at the time, but even she could tell something had been up.

Still, Nitori was inviting her, and that had to count for something. Who knows? She may have changed, and Kanako was willing to give her a chance.

But past all the memories and afterthought, a childish sense of glee bloomed in her chest. Everyone, together again, a way they hadn’t been since the end of middle school. It was thrilling, in an odd way. A private high school reunion, without the distant acquaintances to weave through and drunk dancing. Well, drunk strangers dancing, anyway.

Kanako finished tidying up the classroom, and silently skipped her way out the door. She couldn’t wait to see her friends again.

Saori was a bad person.

This wasn’t some huge revelation, any action or scenario that triggered the thought. Hell, she was sitting in the middle of a café, typing away at an essay when she realized it.

Saori was a bad person.

It was ironic, really, considering her area of study. How could she be a therapist if she couldn’t even help herself? But the position suited her. She’d always dealt with her problems by focusing on something else, some new project or plan separate from her mind. Writing a play, dressing up friends, going to church. Now she was going to do it for a living.

Saori was a bad person.

“Ok.”

The room went silent, eye contact unbroken between the pair before she pulled her eyes away, staring at the floor. Dr. Yamada continued. “Ok. You’re a bad person. What are you going to do about it?”

“Huh?”

Dr. Yamada sighed, shifting her notebook in her lap. “Do you want to be a person?”

Saori paused. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Ok. So let’s work on changing that.”

“But it’s not that simp-“

“It’s not. I know. But saying you’re a bad person doesn’t make you any less of one. It just makes you self aware. Nothing is going to change unless you put in a little effort.”

Saori let the clock echo through the silent room for the rest of the session. Her weekly therapy appointments often left her emotionally drained, but she’d asked to have a lighter session this week, as she was meeting old friends afterwards.

So much that did.

But it got her thinking. Why did she think she was a bad person?

Well, for one thing, she was attending a party hosted by a girl she bullied mercilessly for years under the guise of love. How many times had she given Nitori clothes to match her true self, only to deny her identity in the same breath? As Sasa had bluntly put it the last they had seen each other, her “distinctly oppressive heterosexuality” had not only blinded her from truly seeing Nitori for who she was, but also irreparably hurt their relationship. She still couldn’t believe she’d been invited, though the email had gone out months ago.

For another thing, she’d narrowly avoided again seeing someone who she had truly, deeply injured, even more than Nitori. She recalled the sigh of relief she’d breathed when Takatsuki had reluctantly declined the evite, and she still felt that stab of guilt. For all that she was right in saying Takatsuki wasn’t really a boy, she had actively dissuaded them from presenting the way they wanted to at the time, and she’s couldn’t help but wonder if their declining mental health during the last years of high school had been partly her fault, for denying their identity.

As she exited the office building, she questioned her decision to attend the party for the millionth time. None of them had genuinely enjoyed her presence by the end of school, really. Did she have any good reason to go, besides bringing up bad memories?

But Dr. Yamada said it took work to fix oneself. Maybe she needed to go. Maybe she needed to bring up the past in order to make herself a better future.

Saori was a bad person.

But tonight, she will take the first step to become a better one.

[phantomsheepdiedinafire]

Childhood Trauma Rant (Content Warning- desc. of abandonment and just being trans and hurting, age regression ig, idk just sharing my experiences don't really specifically identify with that.)

I've realised through my tastes in fanfics and other things that what I want and fantasize about is indeed my child self wanting to heal all the shit I went through.

As a kid, I had these two issues.

I used to cry, a lot. I didn't understand why, and I didn't want to. You want to know what happened when I cried and couldn't stop crying? I was put in my room to calm down. It took me HOURS. Imagine being 4 years old in a room pacing around trying to stop crying but you just cant. I was FOUR YEARS OLD. and apparently that's literally abuse because children that young aren't capable of self soothing. You wanna know how I interpreted that? As abandonment and so now obviously I feel like every time I cry I feel like I'm being selfish and don't deserve to cry or be around people because I should know how to be better.

second

I was in a lot of emotional pain as a kid, and now seeing that crying was off the table, I talked. and talked. and talked.

You wanna know what adults did? They let me talk and talk and talk, and they didn't listen to a word of what I was saying. They let me go on and on and on like broken record and i felt like no one was listening to me, they literally were like, and i remember this, you're a kid hahaha funny talking child. Very clearly fine. Normal kids def talk this much.

I was crying for help. No kid desperately vys for adult figures attention like that unless they're, uh huh, *drums* desperate. I wanted somebody to notice how clingy i was, set boundaries, and ask me why i was saying all of those things.

So- you wanna know what fanfics I read growing up? HURT COMFORT MOTHERFUCKERS WHERE THEY ACTUALLY TAKE CARE OF THE PERSON. and second WHEN THEY LISTEN AND SET BOUNDARIES AND CARE ABOUT THE PERSON.

that shit slaps so hard and it's literally just child me trying to have some peace.

AND HE'S STILL SAD. HE'S NOT HAPPY YET.

I feel like I have to carry around this sad little motherfucker with me every where I go and he gets in the way because he's so fuckin touch starved and im like no we're 16 and our parents suck and we have little to no friends we don't have anyone like that. I am 16 now, and I'm realizing just how young I was before and how I was still literally a child.

It probably doesnt help that everyone called him a girl and I now can't identify with the little girl in pictures. When I think of myself as a child now im a little boy not a girl... and I feel like thats an ego I've always had I just havent felt like ive been allowed to identify with until recently. That hurts.

Meanwhile in class, this stupid ass 5 year old brain is like- nice teacher please rock me to sleep-

And I'm in class dealing with the fact that I'm uncomfortably imagining my teacher in this way when I'm trying to learn about the Protestant reformation. Jesus christ please I just want to learn about Constantine do you know how hard that is when your eyes start unfocusing and your brain starts going all fuzz-

when you come back it's embarrasing af , even when its just you and yourself. Because you're 16 years old in sophomore Humanities and you just realized you've been acting like a child all class. Even if no one else knew, you know, and it feels like an infringement on the version of you now. I could've really been present in the social dynamic, but no I tossed it all out. I felt out of control.

I remember going to school exhausted and exasperated that I couldn't stop being, i dont know, fuzzy. I wished I could be more present somehow, but i just couldnt put my finger on what or how or why.

Whats good now is that I know whats happening, i used to just, float in and out, and that was, dangerous? I dont know, it didn't feel healthy, anyway. I walked all over myself and didn't respect other people's boundaries in the process and I feel bad about that.

Now that i know whats happening I tend to manage myself better but shit. shit shit shit. ive lost so much time to this. Now that im out of my dads house, whatever this has been has gone down significantly, and i think it was living with him that reduced me to a state of maybe when he loved me more. Now I'm out, I want to grow up and be me for me, instead of hanging on to an attempt for validation Ill never get. I need to do things for myself now, its the only way Im truly satisfied.

All of this combined also probably explains why i'm eating disordered. I desperately want to have child body back if i cant have an adult male one- and i want to be taken seriously and cared for because i feel like people dont really care. when I stopped eating suddenly i was important again and I miss that, so much.

anyways. I went from reading tons and tons of gay smut (because i couldn't handle fem stuff I got really dysphoric) to basically searching for any and all "little" fanfics that I could find that were completely void of sexuality and I ended up finding them more emotionally satisfying. that in itself has made me really insecure because it's widely sexualised and that, is, disgusting.

scared of being judged for this ig-

but this is tumblr.

Btw age regression and smut don't mix it's, horrifying... it's intellectual pedophilia.

tl:dr, I was lonely kid, couldnt handle growing up, essentially i feel as though i couldnt emotionally mature, still act like f-ing 5 yo because im sad

[doberbutts]

I'm not a dogblr (actually not really an anything-blr, just lurking and liking) and I don't post or reblog anything (for various reasons) but I'd just like to apologize for immediately taking sides in that whole shitstorm earlier-I read a few replies and vagueblogs about you and others without actually reading the original post/responses and jumped to a conclusion (which I find is unfortunately common here tbh). After reading everything later I realized that my view of the situation was (1/2)

(2/2) limited and unfairly biased and that you hadn’t actually done any of the things you were being accused of. I really respect and admire you and am glad I wasn’t a complete ignorant shitstain and ended up reading everything that went down, because I look up to you both as a dogblr as well as a person and I would hate for something silly (and unfounded) like that to screw with that. (I also learned that I’m a lazy piece of shit who needs to look at all the facts and not just angry vagueblogs)

I have quite a few followers with empty blogs that lurk and like- hello to you too!

Thank you for that. I’m still not really sure why everything went down the way it did. The entire situation was blown way out of proportion by a handful of people that I don’t even interact with and I don’t think ever have outside of maybe answering a few ask games, so it’s strange to me how they could claim they have some sort of intimate knowledge of my personal history or of my personality. And then people who I have spoken to, made nice with and chatted about dogs, join in saying how I am always mean and elitist and rude and they’ve been waiting to run me off tumblr for a while- that’s cool I guess it’s great knowing that I can’t trust anyone on this site.

Also I like the handful of anons who were going around saying they knew me from another site where I was always rude and mean- let’s see, the only other site you would “know me” from is chickensmoothie, and the people on there that don’t like me include:

the chick who has a bajillion animals in absolutely filthy cages that she’s incapable of caring for and so several of them have died from completely preventable things (told her to improve her husbandry before getting more animals)

the chick who bred a crippled hideous ambully to another crippled hideous ambully that died at a year old and kept two puppies with severe cleft palates for breeding (doesn’t like that I disapprove of breeding a dog with no health testing to a dog with crippling swayback, or that breeding deformed puppies is probably bad)

the chick with the dogs that keep killing her livestock that keeps getting more livestock that her dogs keep killing (maybe don’t let your dogs interact with your livestock and I’ll stop saying that it’s a bad idea?)

the chick with the “registered service dog” patterdale/APBT that keeps calling her mutt a purebred because she’s more game than any pure APBT and registration ID cards make things easier for her so she doesn’t care it makes things harder for literally everyone else (because both APBT and SD teams have things hard enough as it is)

the chick in a country where “pit bulls” and all bully breeds are banned claiming that her unpapered off color bbms are purebred APBT (your blue and blue brindle BBMs are mutts that are very illegal for you to have and you don’t sound at all knowledgeable to claim them as pure)

and maybe one of my exes and their ex gf (messy breakup, messier breakup)

oh yeah and the like 5 whiny white people who were mad that I told them that they didn’t get to sit there and tell a black person what is and isn’t racism, and the one otherkin kid that tried to convince me they have it worse because being otherkin is just like being trans except they’ll never be an animal and I can have a surgery to make me a dude, and the one white vegan that said she hoped my ancestors knew I betrayed them by making Creed into a slave- but I doubt they did anything with dogblr

All of whom I haven’t spoken to for close to a year or more now because I got tired of that site’s drama and left. Yes. Wonderful judges of character, wouldn’t you say?

But it really bothers me because I know you aren’t the only person who had this reaction, and this defamation of character + harassment + betrayal was a little too out of control over two sentences, an apology, and a “hey btw could you not register your dog”. Especially not considering only a few hours earlier I’d chased an actual neo-nazi off my blog with a lot more respect than that, and if my recent “punch all nazis” posts are anything for you to go by then you’d know that I have absolutely no respect for that shit. Somehow a gay, disabled, black dude was able to handle telling a nazi to fuck off a lot better than dogblr was able to handle a situation that didn’t need to explode but it’s cool it’s fine I’m good everything’s peachy.

Because you know it’s not like we didn’t have a ~educate, don’t hate~ and ~don’t send anon hate it’s mean~ kick going on but I guess that only matters for some blogs.

And the absolute kicker in all this is that one of the folks who started the shenanigans followed me a week after I turned my blog back on and occasionally reblogs or likes my things, but never offered an apology. So I guess I’m a rude elitist mean asshole when it suits their public narrative but when it comes down to it they think they’re entitled to interact with my blog as though nothing’s wrong with absolutely no “hey so that was pretty uncalled for”. Funny that.

I apologize- I’m sure you didn’t mean to unleash the torrent of salt but I am quite bitter and am reminded of how bitter I am about this every time I see that url pop up in my notifications or sit there in my recent followers. 

[gyrlversion]

10 Pictures That Will Redefine Your Expectations Of Gender

Soraya Zaman

“Caden is a beautiful and spiritual soul. He has an amazing calm way about him that shouldn’t be mistaken for shyness.”

Soraya Zaman is an Australian-born photographer whose work often highlights concepts surrounding gender and sexuality. As a queer nonbinary person who identifies with the pronouns they/them, Zaman’s work carries an added vitality and a deeply personal connection to their subjects and their subject’s stories.

Zaman’s new book, American Boys, is a collection of portraits capturing a state of flux — not just in terms of gender, but in lifestyle, location, and mentality. Zaman spoke with BuzzFeed News about their journey to produce this book and the importance of visibility among the gender nonbinary community today.

Soraya Zaman

“Aodhán identifies as a trans man and also as ‘Two Spirit’ within the Native American culture and comes from the Cherokee. He taught me that before colonization, there were no labels for gender-nonconforming indigenous people.”

How would you describe your book American Boys?

American Boys is a portrait series of 29 transmasculine individuals from big cities to small towns across the USA captured at distinct stages of their transition. Each series is accompanied by first-person accounts from conversations we had together.

These images show a glimpse into everyone’s life at a specific moment in time. Capturing their personality, their honesty, beauty, vulnerability, strength, and so on. They are affirmative images of everyone, and it is work that informs and expands upon understandings of gender identity outside of the binary and is real and validating.

American Boys looks to challenge people’s own perceptions of traditional binary gender roles.

Where did the portrait series begin for you, and when did you feel it was complete?

This project began back in the summer of 2016. At the time, I was looking to explore expressions of transmasculinity, as it was something personal to me and my own feelings and journey of gender identity. It didn’t take me long to realize that honoring and sharing stories, and validating and centering everyone I met and photographed in an affirmative way, was really important, especially in the now-changing political climate. There isn’t a lot of transmasculine representation in the media, and I wanted to create something that took these important narratives out of online spaces and put them into something more permanent.

Honestly, I don’t think this series is complete! The transmasculine community is rich, diverse, and deep — 29 people cannot adequately represent any community. There is definitely more to say and share, and I’m looking to do a second book.

Soraya Zaman

“Chella is an artist, writer, storyteller, and role model to many in the trans, nonbinary, and queer community. He’s also deaf, but in no way does this slow Chella down.”

How did you meet your subjects?

I discovered everyone in this project through Instagram. I mostly sorted out people who were using their online platform to express what was happening in their lives in an interesting way. To me, they were natural storytellers with a willingness to share for good or bad. That resonated with me.

I reached out over DM to see if they were interested. It was also important for me to feature transmasculine lives all over the country and to not just represent people who live in New York and LA and other places typically thought of as queer hubs. There is an extra level of bravery required to live and exist as a trans person in smaller towns where community and safety can be harder to find.

How important do you believe nonbinary representation is in the media?

For so long, we’ve all just been fed the same cisgender, heteronormative view of the world. When I was a kid, there was nothing in the media that reflected back to me how I see myself. The binary gender roles that have been constructed by the Western world confine us in a way that doesn’t leave any room for nuance or complexity. These rigid binary ideologies of what is expected are dangerous, oppressive, and toxic to trans and nonbinary people.

Soraya Zaman

“Lazarus laughed with me about having basically been every letter in ‘LGBTQ’ and now just wants to be identified as a unicorn.”

We are asked to fit into a box that ultimately can never contain our multitudes. It’s really only recently that we have begun to see queer, trans, and nonbinary people represented in a way that doesn’t feel tokenistic. So this work is personal to me because it forms part of the current conversation on expanding gender expectations and is contributing in a positive way. It allows people to be seen and feel proud of who they are, something that was missing for me in my youth.

What do you hope people will take away from these images?

The project is an intentional call to the nostalgic, internalized idea of American boyhood and the notion that masculinity belongs exclusively to cis men.

I hope that it helps people unpack the belief that gender identity must align with one’s sex assigned at birth and move away from these restrictive categories of gender. It’s also about an affirmative centering of transmasculine identity. I hope that people take the time to not only look at the images but also read the personal accounts. If people can’t “see” themselves in any of the images, then perhaps they can find a shared experience in some of the stories.

I want people to know that they are not alone in their journey. We are all in this together forging unique identities and the best possible lives for ourselves all across the country and globe, and there is power in that. Hopefully it helps move us all closer to a culture that welcomes, validates, and provides safety for all identities.

Soraya Zaman

“Russel is kind and sweet. He has a gentle way about him, although he told me that he hasn’t always been this way. Feeling dysphoria used to make him an emotional wreck, angry at the world, and he would get triggered by small things and lash out. There was a point though where he just kind of found more peace and got focused on bringing in positive things and how far he’s come, rather than thinking about how he maybe wasn’t where he wanted to be yet.”

Soraya Zaman

“Rufio! What an amazing bundle of body-building-bear–like brilliance! Rufio is so full of life and spirit. He’s also a staunch feminist, especially with his experience of white male privilege that came with passing.”

Soraya Zaman

“Elijah is a kind and compassionate quiet achiever. He grew up in South Texas in a Christian Baptist family. When he finally came out to his mother, she knew that their family might attack him with scripture claiming that being transgender is against God’s will. So they both studied the Bible and found verses to debunk what they might throw at him.”

Soraya Zaman

“When I met Justin, he was at a number of beginnings. He was beginning his life after top surgery, which he had one week earlier, and was about to start college. Justin was excited to leave his school days behind where he lived under the radar, quiet, and kept to himself, which really isn’t Justin at all. He’s actually very funny and well-spoken, self-confident, and embracing leadership roles both as a member of the Quaker community and at the LGBTQ center in Richmond, where he established a trans people of color group.”

Soraya Zaman

“Emmett is a transgender Mormon and a self-proclaimed rebel in his own way. Emmett has had to reconcile his faith in the Lord with his gender identity, and the road has not been easy.”

Soraya Zaman

“When I hung out with Jaimie, who btw is an incredible musician, he spoke to me about his experience with back-handed compliments. People saying to him, ‘Wow, you’re so hot…for a trans guy! Even I’d have sex with you!’ — like he should be especially honored these people find him attractive.”

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