#LiYa discourse

[statementlou]

He cannot be the same man unfollowing mason greenwood and firing jordan green within days of the accusation coming out lol now that its liam he suddenly deems everything ok it seems

I'm sorry if you don't see a difference between how you treat a celebrity you don't know who repeatedly brutally raped and beat their partner while threatening their life, or an employee who serially engaged in predatory premeditated grooming and rape of multiple minors VS how you deal with a situation with a friend who, yes, committed emotional partner abuse, both by being clueless about the impact of their actions and by directly manipulating and pressuring their partner.

But I don't actually think the solution to a friend doing problematic things is necessarily to say "ah well, we had a nice run but you're dead to me now" rather than attempt to help them be better (which can in fact look like/ mean supporting them) although yes, I am aware that in that I differ from the bulk of people driving online discourse culture. We don't know for a fact that that's what Louis does! But we don't know it isn't either, and I personally do feel that there might be grounds for hope that the man who unfollowed Mason Greenwood and fired Jordan Green and tried again and again to singlehandedly put Anthony Russell in a better place, as well as various other people in his personal life struggling with addiction issues, including Liam himself for years now, might in fact care and have something to say to his friend about it all (over the last months and years one assumes, since unlike us he's had a front row seat to this whole situation all along). And yeah, about that... you do know that Louis has to have known about all this since long before yesterday right? And yet the suggestion seems to be that it becoming public knowledge should be the breaking point... like in the named situations above, them becoming public was relevant because he found out at the same time as us! If I believed Louis knew what JG was doing and that he only fired him because we found out I would NOT be here, yk? But no way is that the situation here, like hell I assume him and Liam were on the phone for hours at a time with Liam drunkenly freaking out like I can't raise a fucking kid! So I told her... blah blah blah... etc.

[bloomingdead]

What do you comprehensively about focus of the heart? It’s definitely a project that’s certainly *there* with some talented folks on it.

This ask has been sitting in my box for a while, and I’ve resisted responding to it because I really don’t want beef with anyone on the project. My personal experience with those I have engaged with has been unpleasant, but that doesn’t fault their product nor everyone working on it. Also, I may jump around quite a bit because a lot of my feelings on FOTH have nothing to do with the game itself (it’s still in development) and everything to do with the “discourse” and reasons surrounding its creation.

Let me preface by saying, I’m incredibly impressed that the artists involved were able to come together to create a project inspired by the fandom they all love so much. Artist groups are a really great way to gain visibility as an artist. You could be making art that never reaches the people who would want to see it, but if you group together with other similar artists and support each other, your audiences begin to overlap and grow. That seems to be working really well for the people behind FOTH.

I should also warn that I am not the biggest fan of “fanon” content. I haven’t read a fanfic in its entirety in at least 10 years and I don’t make much content other than the occasional doodle and think-piece ramblings. I have nothing against shipping, headcanons, and AU’s. I partake in all of these myself, I have no issue with it. What I do have an issue with is people who say a creator intended for fanon that doesn’t exist in canon. Or people twisting dev’s words to their benefit, pulling things out of context to bolster their opinions. This has created conflict in the past between me and an artist or few on this project.

Shipping is very popular in the Horizon fandom, and has been since the first game was released. Zero Dawn provided us with many potential new friends for Aloy, some of which many fans were left confused as to how Aloy truly felt about them. After all, Ashly Burch who portrays Aloy is pansexual, and she claimed that over half the characters she’s played are queer. And Aloy, although inexperienced and unsure of herself in Zero Dawn, was definitely left flustered at some point by many of the popular shipping characters.

So why did it take the release of Burning Shores, a DLC that finishes with Aloy declaring her romantic attraction to a new companion, for the fandom to put together a dating sim? The Burning Shores DLC was released on April 19th 2023. The first post on the Official FOTH Tumblr was made on June 7th 2023. Their “About Us” post from the same day, says in the second sentence that they decided to create the game, “in the wake of negative internet discourse about fandom shipping.”

Negative discourse? What does that even mean in this context? Are they referring to devout fanon members harassing the game devs and Kylie Liya Page for the creation of Seyka as Aloy’s love interest? Who the fuck, other than people mad about Seyka, were creating fandom discourse around shipping Horizon characters at that time? Kylie Liya Page has literally been cyberbullied from the day the game came out. Yes, it’s died down considerably, but the only negativity surrounding shipping in the fandom was created by the very people who love shipping the most. Kylie was still experiencing the thick of this “negative internet discourse” six months ago.

So many of the very same people who desperately wanted Aloy to get her first romance, are the ones who were most off-put by Seyka’s story. It wasn’t good enough, it was forced, rushed, chosen “for me.” No, Seyka was chosen for Aloy, not you. A lot of people seem to forget that the role-playing element in Horizon is more of a tone-check. Heart, Brain, Fist. You’re not choosing Aloy's response, but how she responds. Is she going to address this compassionately, pragmatically, or stoically? Your attitude will be remembered in future conversations, but your choices have no effect on the quests or ending of the game. Your options in quests are to complete them as intended, or don’t do the quest. 

We were never going to get multiple options for Aloy’s romantic partner in this game. She could still have another! Seyka doesn’t have to be the endgame, most people don’t end up with their first love. But how shitty would it be for us to lose Seyka completely as a character in the third game, because Kylie doesn’t want to come back and face that abuse again, or because the devs don’t want to subject her to that or lose more fans over it? What if they get rid of Seyka with a shitty write-off, and then Aloy ends up alone? We’ve now seen that she’s capable of opening her heart and experiencing that kind of character development. It would suck to have that taken away.

When you’re allowed to do whatever you want in fanon space, why go out of your way to harass the creators of the canon? Why bully fellow fans for having different opinions than you? You were already imagining these made up relationships that don’t exist, why does Aloy having a canon love interest ruin that? Why is Aloy having a canon love interest a disruption to fanon? It isn’t a disruption to fanon, clearly, as the creation of and support for FOTH has proved. Not only just by simply existing, but by their inclusion of Seyka in the game.

I was accused of being a bigot because I posted on my own blog that Aloy reads as a lesbian to me. I was harassed after Burning Shores came out for joking that we now have more proof of Aloy being a lesbian than bisexual. I’m a silly little lesbian, I see gay bitch, I want a lesbian. But that’s an opinion that exists in my mind, and on tumblr. It’s definitely not something I’m going to bring to the devs and accuse them of dancing around. Because still, as it stands, Aloy is most likely coded as pan/bi. It doesn’t warrant me or the thousands of other lesbian fans being harassed over a headcanon, though.

To me, and probably most people who genuinely feel normally about this game, there are way bigger issues in this fandom than anti-ship. There have been way bigger concerns surrounding how the developers and actors have been treated by the fans. There are way worse attacks conducted by fans who love shipping content than those who hate it. There have been worse attacks on people in this fandom by people "defending" their favorite ships than by outsiders in the gaming community that invade our spaces to tell us how mannish and ugly Aloy is. The people who think shipping is the biggest point of discourse in this fandom are most likely the same ones perpetrating it.

FOTH portrays their product as bravely pushing the boundaries on something that is going to receive backlash because it is shipping content. It represents itself as an amalgamation of all the shipping content in the fandom, dedicated to it. The language applied is intended to attract anyone who is cool with shipping, which I’m pretty sure is over 95% of this website. Definitely over 95% of the Horizon fandom. A genius move, from a marketing standpoint.

“What? That’s ridiculous, why are they facing negative discourse for a silly little dating sim? I’m cool with shipping, they get my support.” 

It is ridiculous, isn’t it? Tumblr is full of shipping, how is a tumblr account for a dating sim finding itself in a position where it has to preemptively address negative discourse on the first day of the official blog existing? It’s because the negative discourse they’re warning against isn’t aimed at shipping, it’s aimed at the aggression seen from the creators on their personal blogs in regards to their favorite ship. But they opened with the discourse statement so that if they ended up receiving criticism from the people they bullied, there’d be a potential for fans of their project to blindly defend them because FOTH prefaced that all their haters just hate shipping. 

That one statement from their account tells me that FOTH seems to be picksy-choosing what issues in this fandom warrant concern. Apparently, calling Aloy a lesbian is a bigger offense than sending death threats to actors and developers. Apparently, the worst discourse to happen in the Horizon fandom is because of those who defended Seyka from unwarranted hate and not the people who were enraged with her addition to the series. Apparently, FOTH wants to ignore all the harassment the devs of Horizon went through, but keep their fans aware that any so-called hate (criticism) that the FOTH creators face is simply unjustified and toxic. They opened their blog with an attempt to alienate anyone who might ever have a reason to criticize the game.

I won’t be playing FOTH, I have little interest in it besides innate curiosity. The closest I get to touching dating sims is fantasy RPG’s though, so I likely wouldn’t be playing it regardless.

As I stated in the opening, my feelings about FOTH have nothing to do with the game itself and rather the people behind it and the circumstances that brought it to fruition. I don’t think every artist behind it has the altruistic goal of simply creating something fun for everyone in the fandom to enjoy, I think some of them are just scratching an itch. If they were looking for something productive to place their frustration into, they found it. I’d be interested to know which pairings end up being the most fleshed out, and which ones are lacking. Especially since every artist got assigned to a character they genuinely enjoy. DM me privately to place your bets. 

So, I guess, TLDR; I’m not going to try and stop anyone from playing Focus On The Heart, but I don't trust all the people working on it nor their intentions. For Reasons™.

[itsnothingbutluck]

Liya Yu - Vulnerable Minds: The Neuropolitics of Divided Societies Neuroscience research has raised a troubling possibility: Could the tendency to stigmatize others be innate? Some evidence suggests that the brain is prone to in-group and out-group classifications, with consequences from ordinary blind spots to full-scale dehumanization. Many are inclined to reject the argument that racism and discrimination could have a cognitive basis. Yet if we are all vulnerable to thinking in exclusionary ways—if everyone, from the most ardent social-justice advocates to bigots and xenophobes, has mental patterns and structures in common—could this shared flaw open new prospects for political rapprochement?

Liya Yu develops a novel political framework that builds on neuroscientific discoveries to rethink the social contract. She argues that our political selves should be understood in terms of our shared social capacities, especially our everyday exclusionary tendencies. Yu contends that cognitive dehumanization is the most crucial disruptor of cooperation and solidarity, and liberal values-based discourse is inadequate against it. She advances a new neuropolitical language of persuasion that refrains from moralizing or shaming and instead appeals to shared neurobiological vulnerabilities. Offering practical strategies to address those we disagree with most strongly, Vulnerable Minds provides timely guidance on meeting the challenge of including and humanizing others.

++++++++++++++++++++++

Liya Yu shows how neuroscience can provide a lingua franca to bridge the mental gap dividing racial, partisan, and ideological groups that are primed to dehumanize the other. Where banalities about tolerance no longer ring true, our 'disillusioned curiosity' can still lead us to understand the workings of our 'exclusionary brains.' --Jack Snyder, Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Relations, Columbia University

Liya Yu's important book comes at a critical time when our increasingly divided world needs to better understand what brain and behavioral science powerfully tells us about being human. By revealing how our brains navigate our social world and process the experiences of fear, exclusion, and dehumanization, Liya offers us a path informed by science and evidence to create a better world where empathy, understanding, and belonging can be manifested and made real. --Tim Phillips, founder and CEO of Beyond Conflict

Established systems are rarely challenged by big ideas in the way Yu does in this book. She takes on central concepts that ground our legal and political systems, holds them up to the light of neuroscience and psychology data, and discusses the implications for moving society forward. It is a wonderful example of interdisciplinary scholarship on the brain and society, and prudent reading given humanity's current crises.--Lasana Harris, University College London

This brilliant book will transform the way we think about identity, "race," and the innumerable and persistent conflicts that have been fed by false perceptions of difference between human beings. It is essential reading for everyone interested in resolving one of the central issues of our time.--David C. Johnston, Columbia University

[beronikaxalxo8]

Description of Infant Kabir Drinking Virgin Cow's Milk

When God appears on earth in infantile form, He is raised by the milk of the virgin cow.

Garib Shiva descended from Shivpuri, Agat Badan Vinod.

Mahke kamal khushi bhey, liya ish koon god.

Discussed seven times, said the child banned.

Shiva koon kar mastak dharya, la moman ek dhan.

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[shivnarayankumar]

Description of Infant Kabir Drinking Virgin Cow's Milk

When God appears on earth in infantile form, He is raised by the milk of the virgin cow.

Garib Shiva descended from Shivpuri, Agat Badan Vinod.

Mahke kamal khushi bhey, liya ish koon god.

Discussed seven times, said the child banned.

Shiva koon kar mastak dharya, la moman ek dhan.

Garib un beawar koon duhat hai, milk diya tatkal.

Phavai balak brahmagati, tahan shiva bhaye dayal ||

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🌲For complete information, Please install 'Sant Rampal Ji Maharaj' 📱App from Playstore.

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[govindd41890429]

Description of Infant Kabir Drinking Virgin Cow's Milk

When God appears on earth in infantile form, He is raised by the milk of the virgin cow.

Garib Shiva descended from Shivpuri, Agat Badan Vinod.

Mahke kamal khushi bhey, liya ish koon god.

Discussed seven times, said the child banned.

Shiva koon kar mastak dharya, la moman ek dhan.

Garib un beawar koon duhat hai, milk diya tatkal.

Phavai balak brahmagati, tahan shiva bhaye dayal ||

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[gobind-631]

2.

….continues from previous….

*********[Section 4,Part 10]******

Bhailog.. pehli baat yahan par yeh note/notice karne ki hai ki ..yeh walla..iss piece ka ..[Section 4,Part 10]..kehlata hai..

Toh baat yahan par yeh hai ki..iss piece ke(yani ki Section 4 ke)..kareeb 16(constituent) parts hote hai..jinhe already likh liya /diya gaya hai…mere dwara..

Maine soch rakha hai ki..iss piece ..yani ki section 4 ke..inn constituent parts ko..main sequence main nahi post karunga(yani ki jiss sequence main likhe gaye hai yeh(natural/ascending order main likhe gaye hai)..uss sequence main post nahi karunga)

“[**Shall not post them in the same order (i.e…in d natural/ascending order) in which the constituent parts of dis piece/section 4 have been written/created by me].”

Shall now post dis entire piece..ie..each of its constituent parts…in a haphazard kinda fashion..

Ji haan.. kisi jigsaw puzzle ke pieces ki bhanti hi samjho.. inn parts ko..ab..haha..[Jinhe main..ek ke baad ek..over time..post karne ja raha hoon ab]

[No particular reason for me to b indulging in dis kind of a thing..bas aise hi kar raha hoon.. haha]

[**Baad main inn sabhi parts ko main phir se ek aur baar post karunga.... leki iss baar yeh sab sequence/right/natural/ascending order main hi post kiye jayenge(i.e…these shall all then be (re)posted later..(one more time).. but dis time..in exactly the order..in which each of these parts had(have)been created by me)]

[Halke se rough tarike se likhe gaye hai..kuch/ek-aad parts.Jarrorat ke hisab se..inhe bhi.. (sahi karte hue)..phir se..(re)post kar diya jayaga]

**************

L’il background:

Bhailog.. woh conspiracy theorist yaad hai na aap logon ko..inse meri pehli mulaquaat isi eatery main hui thi(ab to yeh ek ghanisht types wale mitr ho chuke hai hamare)..

Mujhe aaj bhi achchi tarah se yaad hai woh din..jiss din ko/jab inse meri pehli mulaquaat hui thi ..“Engineer’s day”..wala din tha..yeh /woh walla..ise bhi aap log ek Ittefaq hi Samjhe..kyon ki peshe se yeh ek Information Technology professional hote hai..[ML/DL/AI being his area of expertise]..

Sab se pehle toh ve inn cutting edge technologies ko samjhane main jut/lag gaye the(fairly longish kisam ka discourse raha tha..inka…yeh walla)..

[All of a sudden/suddenly…almost as if going completely off tangent…he then began to talk about something completely/totally different]

I started to listen very carefully to all dat stuff..dat he was saying now…

I now..very quickly was able to see/understand it all..(it all became quite clear to me now)…ie..as to why…I had earlier been treated to dis fairly lengthy kinda discussion by him..on these cutting-edge technologies.

Ve darahsal inn technologies par diye jaane wale ..apne iss discourse/discussion ko..aage jake..ek background/backdrop/context ki tarah use/istamal karte hue..kuch aur hi samjane jaa rahe the/wale the..isiliye unhone aisa kiya tha..

(Yani ki..ve..iss technologies wali discourse ka istamal karte hue..(iss discourse ki aad main)..kuch aur hi samjhane ki koshish/firaq main the..isiliye shayad ..unhone aisa kiya tha)

Inki darahsal ek pet theory hoti hai.. jisse ve har waqt(24/7)..jeb main liye ghoomte rehte hai..

[**Basically..dis pet theory of his.. is wat he wanted to present to me.. on dat day.

But before doing dis…he wanted to kind of give me a brief discourse on Machine Learning (ML)/Deep Learning(DL)/n Artificial Intelligence (AI).

He probably(as it appeared to me then)intended to use dis discourse..as a context and a backdrop(while also providing the necessary background)..for explaining dis l’il pet theory of his]

So..all in all/in effect..can say..he happened to b putting forth/proposing to me..his favourite/dis lil pet theory of his ..on dat day..

*****************

Pehli hi mulaquaat main ve bohot kuch keh gaye the…

Kehne lage the…(after dat fairy longish kind of a discourse on these technologies)..

Him: It’s just a l’il pet theory of mine..this bit. It’s purely speculative in nature though.

U can say dat am indulging in a bit of speculation here..since have nothing to present or produce before you t’day as proof..that can support this l’il pet theory of mine.

*************************

“As an aside”…

"At the heart of dis theory of his/at the core of this theory (dat he had been proposing to me)..seems to be this unshakable faith(or belief)of his..in the integrity of those all-powerful Western democracies(and their ilk, tribe, allies) ..and the role they play/ie..in their good intentions..as torchbearers of democracy across the globe(ie..an immense belief in their(supposed/so called)good intentions..behind dis(self-appointed)role of there’s..as torchbearers of democracy..all across the globe..is wat am talking about here)..

Bhailog was in d mood of trying to shoot holes .. in this l’il pet theory of his .. on dat day...so as to b able to debunk/write it off completely..

Ab yeh har baar inn western democracies ki charcha/baat kar rahe the/baat karte hue dikh rahe the..inke bohot hi bade fan maloom hote hai.. toh socha Kyon na yahi se shuru kiya jaye..

“Shall try n challenge dis l’il faith of his(on these western democracies) straight away..“.. I was now thinking..

[This approach.. I was thinking..shall make dis pet theory of his fall..right at d outset/there n then..ie..right b4 his very eyes(in his eyes)..

So wat better way then dis..ie to start/approach dis debunking exercise in dis manner..

Toh chalo..yehi se shuru kiya jaye.. yeh(walla)shub kaam..(Inn powerful western democracies ko.. inki nazaron main/se girane wali(gira diye jaane wali)baat..main kar raha hoon ab..

“Bohot mazza ayega ab”.. main soch raha tha..haha..]

**Ab yeh ML/DL/AI expert hote hai .. toh humne bhi socha.. apne is maqsad/ purpose ke liye.. kyon na ek AI tool ka hi istamal kar liya jaaye/ek AI tool ka istamal kar lete hai aaj..

Shall show him d output of dis l’il exercise of mine.. ie.. d one dat i had just now performed..using dis AI tool..(ie..an exercise dat had been carried out by me..wid d sole intention/objective of wanting to debunk dis l’il pet theory of his)..as n when I happen to bump into him next..(at dis eatery..)…

[**Lekin ek baat hai.. iss output ko dekh kar main thoda sa discouraged sa toh zaroor hua hoon.. dis outputs not turned out along d lines i had expected it to..to b honest..

Lagta hai/aise lag raha hai..kafi checks n balances/constraints fit kar diye gaye hai is tool main ..

Ek career diplomat bhi iss tarike se baatien nahi karta hoga.. jaise yeh tool karta hua dikh raha hai..

Henry ji ne bhi kabhi iss tareke ki baatien ..nahi seekhi/ki hogi.. jaise ki yeh tool karta hua dikh raha hai(yahan par)..aur(mat bhoolna)..ve toh ek lifelong diplomat/politician hote/reh chuke the..hahaha..

[**Aur haan.. ek aur baat..inn conspiracy bhaisahab ji ki pet theory.. woh kya thi..yeh sab baad ke liye bhailog]

**Toh ab yaha par background khatam hota hai..

**************

[Part No 9 se continue kiya jaa raha hai.. yeh walla..]

[Iss piece ke inn parts ko ab,ek haphazard tarike se hi post kiya jayega..yaad hai na bataya tha]

***************[Part 10 to continue ]**********

[paneerlajwanti]

when i was small, i would always be so amused when something cool would happen in the stories and the demigods would immediately be ready with their kettledrums and their conchshells and their trumpets and flower showers and be like 'bravo' 'congrats' 'hoorah', like how are you always ready to celebrate and how do you know

now, its the awareness that these celebrations were attempts to break the fourth wall, reminders to give us awareness that everything that is said and done is only a script in a play, they are all fated to do what has to be done, and these powerful tools only abide to a "greater good"

[samstiels-deactivated20201212]

bau-liya replied to your post “So let me get this straight if you consciously decide to throw...”

and even if it's a website not like ao3 that doesn't make you tic the little consent box, you clicking on a link with clearly defined tags counts as you consenting yourself to potential harm.

bau-liya replied to your post “So let me get this straight if you consciously decide to throw...”

you know what. you don't even fucking need metaphors. there's a very goddamn clear legal principle for this exact thing. volenti non fit injuria. if you put yourself in a place where you can be foreseeably harmed, and then if you are harmed, it ain't nobody fault's but your own. and u know fucking what? u sign up for it every single time u click on a fic. that little okay under the yellow box ACTUALLY GODDAMN MEANS SOMETHING.

^^^^^^^^

[lesbianklance]

how did my blog come from talking about klance to ghosts aliens and cryptids

i blame @cluelesslesbian liya how do you feel about the discourse on my account today? are you happy?

[tape-hiss]

Late Tape Hiss - Yoshi

Hello! This is a late, special edition of Tape Hiss. I originally wrote up a whole post about Aetherian immigration law, but with recent events in-comic finally coming to light, I thought I would do a meta post instead. Spoilers ahead for chapter 6 of White Noise--if you haven't reached page 40, maybe catch up first before reading this! I get asked every so often (as do a number of other trans/queer creators I know of) how to write transgender characters if you aren't trans yourself. There are plenty of answers to this question that have already been covered, and I'm not going to cover more than the bare basics of that here. Look elsewhere for that. Here I'm going to talk about writing transgender/gender non-conforming characters in complex worldbuilding environments, specifically Yoshi. This is less a 'here's how to do this' and more a 'here's how to be thoughtful and deliberate about your writing in general, and how I applied that to a pretty complex topic.' Pull from it what you will! I'm of the opinion that being thoughtful and deliberate in your character-writing and worldbuilding only makes you a stronger writer and your stories more convincing, but what do I know? I'm just some schmuck really.

So after all that: Yoshi is a trans woman.

Some background: Yoshi's been a character of mine literally since I was maybe 11 or 12. She was the second one I made up, after Liya. She hasn't changed a hell of a lot design-wise since I started with her, as far as I can recall, but being trans wasn't part of her character until relatively recently. I went through a weird period around the start of White Noise wherein I felt like I had finally fleshed out a lot of my characters in a really full, rounded way that made it seem like I was writing more about people and less about characters in a play, except Yoshi. There were a lot of gaps in her history, a lot of quirks of her story leftover from my RP days (don't laugh, that's a super legit way to get into writing imho) that didn't really work with the way White Noise was coming together. I spent a while sort of going around in circles filling in bits of her character here and there--largely about her mother, and their time together on Earth, and how that's persisted in Yoshi's psyche to this day, and what it was like growing up with Shinobu, and what their relationship is like. I kept feeling like something was missing with her, though, something that would explain the shyness and discomfort that she was already working with. Something that spoke more to where her character is going, rather than where it came from. I was noodling around with her shapeshifting problems already, but: why was it such a problem for her? How will she tackle this problem in her own character arc unless I know why exactly changing shape is upsetting? What would be upsetting for her about it when there are so many other shapeshifters out there with no problems?

I can't remember what prompted it now, but I literally asked myself one night, what if Yoshi's trans? And it all immediately clicked.

What if the scary thing about shapeshifting for Yoshi was not the actual thing itself--not becoming a big skeleton spectre that fills a room--but the bodily aspect of it? It'll become clearer later in the comic, but Yoshi's night-shapeshifting started with the onset of puberty, when her body started to change in more mundane ways, ways that actively repelled her more than the night-changing did. And I imagine with most shapeshifters in this universe, there's a bodily sensation to changing shape. For people like Teige, maybe, shape-changing just feels like spilling from one form to the next, liquid-like, in such ways that he doesn't maybe have to think about the way his bones are changing, his organs moving. For others it's a more visceral experience: you have to have a certain amount of mindfulness about your own body and the way it's changing in order to make it change. I planned to explore this some with Hawk's shapeshifting, but where he's frightened by what he's turning into without his consent or control, Yoshi's more discomforted by the act of turning back.

And here's where I could, I think, let my own experiences inform Yoshi's. I found it easy, most of the time, to simply dissociate from my own body before I transitioned. It's how I coped with it not being Right for me. Anything that forced me to pay attention to parts of my anatomy or my assigned ''''girlhood'''' which I did not want got a hugely dysphoric reaction out of me. I imagine that Yoshi would have a similar experience, one that maybe would have been made a little easier by living in a society that was mostly not assigning her any particular role or gender to begin with. Maybe she could have kept up the dissociation as I did until the cost of doing so outweighed the benefit, but her experience coming out of her Big Spectral Skeleton Form forced to her to be Too Aware of her own body, and too often.

(Note: this shouldn't read as 'transfeminine experiences are the same as transmasculine ones, but opposite', because no. I don't even know how common this kind of dissociation is. This is just a small bit of my own experiences that I found fit neatly into explaining Yoshi's. I do this with all my characters, and if you knew what each character got from me it would probably be very embarrassing for me.)

So with that little revelation out of the way, I had to figure out a couple things: how does being transgender function in Aetheri, where all these different cultures are meeting and the dominant culture has no concept of gender? How do I communicate this in a comic without doing Advanced Queer Gender Discourse on the reader?

Yoshi lived in the United States until she was six, with a mother who was a shapeshifter. Now she lives in Aetheri, with an adopted mother who spends most of her time looking like a literal fox. What on earth is Yoshi's idea of gender? How much could her experience in the US shape the way she thinks about it? What has Shinobu told her about it? (What does Shinobu know, for that matter?) What is her conception of femininity and masculinity? How would she process feelings of bodily dysphoria in a cultural context where most people don't have any experience with gender or at least don't connect it to a person's genitals? What's her concept of being a woman, and where does it come from?

These are the kinds of questions I start with when building a lot of characters, like chipping away at a mold to pour something into. I do a lot of armchair psychology and try to be hella empathetic when writing anyone, and I tried to be extra so with Yoshi, because she exists in a weird vortex of both real and fictional cultures, during some tumultuous times.

So I started with a couple of conceits:

Yoshi's birth mother didn't enforce any kind of gender roles on her as a child. She didn't go out of her way to raise Yoshi in a gender-neutral manner, but Yoshi also didn't get to socialize with other kids, instead spending most of her time around her big scary wolf mom, growing her hair long and wearing too-big clothes and generally being a ragamuffin.

Probably the first time anyone did do this to Yoshi was after she left her mom's care. There was a brief time wherein Yoshi was in the care of some humans, who cut her hair and gave her things like trucks and GI Joes to play with. This was probably the first inkling Yoshi ever had that she wasn't what people were expecting, somehow.

I imagine Shinobu's view of gender used to be rather conservative, but by the time Yoshi comes to live with her, she's lived in Aetheri for twenty-ish years and her views on that have changed quite a bit.

Yoshi (and Shinobu) experience profound senses of Otherness as immigrants in Aetheri. Even where it's not clearly defined, they both have their own ideas of where they are not welcome in Aetherian culture by most natives. The species gap, of course, does not help.

(Moms.)

Based on that, plus the way I know Aetheri's native genderless culture would intersect with Yoshi's mishmash of midwestern-US-and-Japanese roots, plus the mix of other cultures that Yoshi would be in contact with in both Escalus and at the Palace--many of which have wildly varying ideas of gender themselves--I figured on the following:

Yoshi probably wouldn't associate any particular behavior or presentation with any particular gender. She's surrounded by too many different kinds of  people, most of whom are Aetherians that decide on their own pronouns as they feel like.

(Though, notably, literally everyone in Yoshi's life who identifies as a woman specifically are outspoken, tough people.)

I think there was, not a pressure exactly, but a sense that Shinobu gave that she and Yoshi both should be staying in their lane, so to speak, with a lot of cultural markers of theirs. Things they saw as uniquely a hallmark of spirits and rooted deep in Aetherian culture, they both feel rather outside of--things like holidays, the traditions of relationships, the lack of gender distinction, and so on. (There is not much of a pressure on immigrant populations in Aetheri to assimilate so much as a pressure on them to not be allowed to assimilate at all.)

Shinobu probably gave Yoshi a very clinical, simple sex education right around age 10 or so, and this included talking about the ostensible differences between 'male' and 'female' anatomy. As I've mentioned, sex education in Aetheri is a wild mess if you aren't a spirit, so this is probably the first time this was ever told to Yoshi, although I'm sure--living first with her mother and then with Shinobu--she had at the very least a growing sense that there was some physical difference between her and them.

Yoshi, being generally a shy person, probably didn't protest this too much at the time, but I think she probably dwelled a lot on how repelling the idea of growing up physically 'male' the way Shinobu described it was to her. It would have made her feel very panicked, to know what was coming.

Shinobu loves Yoshi dearly, but she's never been very good at picking up on emotional cues, and when presented with someone's emotional distress she rarely knows what to do. Even if she had noticed Yoshi's upset, I think she probably would have told herself that it was part of growing up--everyone gets a bit weirded out by the idea of puberty, right? It's a lot to take in. And maybe she didn't explain it well, or compassionately enough. And Yoshi's a shy, awkward kid, and talking about sex and anatomy is probably incredibly embarrassing to her. It could be, Shinobu would figure, any number of things.

Maybe the idea of 'this doesn't happen to spirits, not in the same way' was raised in this talk Yoshi and Shinobu had. Maybe Shinobu's answer was something like 'spirits are different. You're not a spirit.' which while not inaccurate (spirits do age and mature differently than Yoshi was) misses rather a lot of important nuance.

Yllur is a pretty well-known-about thing in Aetheri, and there's no real stigma about it. I don't know at what point Yoshi learned about it, but I think when she did was probably even more upset. Here was a thing that would have given her some relief, but it as far as she knew didn't apply to her because it was for spirits.

So I think Yoshi probably just went on sort of miserably into her teenage years, thinking she would eventually get used to herself and live with it (I don't know about you but this sounds familiar to me), but then her shapeshifting issues started happening and forced her to think about it more. You can't dissociate from your own body while simultaneously having a handle on it well enough to change its shape through your own will. Distilling back down into her normal humanoid form requires her to know what her body is actually shaped like, and be mindful of her physical form and the space it occupies. For her, this act is distressing in and of itself--a reminder that 'oh yeah, I'm this.'

No one told her otherwise, and she didn't tell a soul. She sort of just retreated into herself some. She moved out of Shinobu's place into the apartment in the Palace stables relatively early, and effectively isolated herself from anyone who might notice that she wasn't doing well. (Why she did this is another matter.) The human population in Escalus is small, and the monster population is varied, and neither are usually very welcoming to mixed-species types. She didn't have much of a community, even though Escalus is full of gender-variant people. She didn't even really have any friends, until Liya came along.

One of the trickiest parts for me to figure out is how to let Yoshi come into the realization on her own. The original draft of chapter 6 didn't include Vlad at all--Yoshi and Liya were going to discover the du Cuppra through different means. I figured Liya was the most likely person in Yoshi's life to know that 'transgender' was a thing, since we'd already established that Hawk knew what it was, I just had to figure out how it comes up. I can't imagine Yoshi being bold enough to actually talk about her bodily dysphoria, at least not now...she doesn't know Liya THAT well. And I couldn't imagine that the way that conversation would go would be incredibly fun to read, either. It would be Yoshi stammering a lot, and Liya getting impatient and trying to string together what she means, and it'd just be awkward and drawn out. I also didn't want Liya to be the one to suggest that Yoshi is trans. I wanted Yoshi to do that. She just needed to know about the thing is all. Bringing Vlad into the chapter fixed a lot of other narrative issues I was having, but it also gave Yoshi the chance to have this realization on her own, while Liya and Vlad were yakking about it.

And this is about where we're up to. Yoshi's whole character arc is just beginning; she's just about to get off the ground. Her trans-ness is not the only journey she's going on over the course of White Noise (everyone's going on lotsa journeys here, folks) but it's a big one.

I hope this was interesting to some of you! I cut out a lot of other stuff--turns out I have a lot to say about trans characters in comics? Who knew. Anyways, I guess if you have further questions, ask me! I have been sort of absent lately due to mental health issues and am in the process of changing medications (yey) so you may not get an answer for a bit, but I'll get to them.

Thanks for reading!

[chaaliapinz]

The Great Comet Fandom: Fall 2016 vs Fall 2017

2016: We ship Marynat and Danatole and Andrierre and sometimes Helene/Sonya but that one never really caught on. Anatasha is bad

2017: We ship Marlene and Danatole still and Andrierretasha and Sonyamary. Anatasha is still bad but-

some lil shit: ANATOLE JUST WEAWWY WUVED NATASHA UWUWUWU!!!

2016: “Whoa this post got 300 notes that’s more than any solely Great Comet post on tumblr ever ”

2017: we are now a larger fandom and have Discourses

2016: we hate the Hamilton fandom for being Too Much

2017: we hate the Tonys for not giving Dave Malloy any awards

2016: we are hype for the Great comet bway transfer

2017: we are sad and still salty Great comet closed and hope Hadestown transfers

2016: legit everyone who follows Great Comet follows each other

2017: there are like 20 different types of comet bloggers with different styles

2016: 20 of us like Ghost Quartet, small niche meme phase

2017: we are all does Ghost Quartet

2016: Ghost Quartet isn’t abt romance

2017: Soldierose fics uwu

2016: Liya celiameis (me) just figured out how to change her url

2017: Liya fedexdolokhov (me) just remade her entire account