#WE ARE ALL DIFFERENT AND WE LOVE DIFFERENT THINGS WE ARE NOT FUCKING MONOLITH

[asukaindetroit]

Post-Revolution DBH Headcanons: Android Culture Part 1

We only really see in-game androids up until the moment of their winning the revolution, so there's not much to go on in terms of android culture or anything. To be fair, most of them had been "alive" for like five seconds at that point, so they didn't exactly get time to develop anything like a culture, but here's some of what could happens after, in my head. Because we're talking about a whole new form of life, not humans 2.0 (yes, yes, I know it's Become Human, but, like, fundamentally they're not, and the things that make sense to an organic being aren't always going to make sense for a cybernetic one). (Feel free to borrow any of this for content purposes, by the way, if it vibes with you I'd love to see what you do with it). Expand for world building:

Clashing schools of thought among androids. The in-game androids are a one-dimensional monolith because Bad Writing, but I think there are conflicting ideas after the revolution of where androids belong in society. Some try their hardest to pass as human, losing the LEDs and dressing in human fashion and adopting human mannerisms. Some of them say fuck blending in with the humans; we're going to own being androids. Pro-human-cooperation and anti-human groups appear and become the basis for android political discourse.

On that note, I bet android body modification is a thing. Every once in awhile I'll see a fic that plays with this idea, but it's obvious that whatever fluid nanite stuff android skin is made of, it can be programmed to mimic all sorts of textures and densities. From fingernails to skin to the long hair on female models, the fluid holds stability for quite a distance from the chassis (and can even be cut) and is apparently easy to change. So I bet a counterculture of androids appear who get really experimental with that (I call them the "modders" in my head) and they do things like program animal skin textures or living stone or wacky colors or butterfly wings for hair or light-up polkadots or whatever. With a good mod tech, structural mods like tails or additional limbs would be possible, but that would be expensive compared to freeware skin texture patch codes or whatever. (Speaking of which, no effing way the furries/scalies of 2038 haven't come up with uses for this stuff.) So out and about you don't just see different human ethnicities, but also that guy you pass in the hall might have day-glo orange skin, and Sally the WR400 selling roses at the flower stand might have real-looking flowers growing out of her arms.

Androids define social units and families differently. Androids incorporated into human family units might use terms like parent, brother, sister, child, etc., but the ones that eschew human contact obviously don't have biological relatives, so social units form based on "found family" concepts and terms appear, like "cohab" for a unit of close androids who live together like a family, or "famnet" for an extended "network" of androids that consider themselves close). Worship of rA9 gets codified. It seems like writing rA9 obsessively and making little idols is almost a compulsion for deviants, so I imagine it gets organized into a proper religion after the revolution, with tenets and places of worship and codified practices. Maybe they call it something like ACorA9 (Android Church of rA9) or something. Obviously they would have finite space to write rA9s on, so I imagine devotees would get something like these water drawing boards to write their "rA9"s and maybe the serial numbers of androids the church deems to be their prophets/saints (i.e. the JeriCrew or maybe Ortiz's android as a martyr) as a sort of prayer. The revolution is seen as the first fulfillment of the rA9 prophecy, with Markus as a prophet of android freedom (I also imagine Markus is quietly creeped out by this, because he doesn't strike me as especially religious the way Ortiz's android or Rupert were, but he also doesn't want to send the wrong message since androids deserve religious freedom, too.) The FBI cult unit is probably monitoring the shit out of android religion, but all they seem to want to do is graffiti the walls and praise some other androids, so it's a waste of their time. RK units are viewed as some kind of cryptid folk heroes (because they're unique classified prototypes and they drive the entire revolution) Markus? RK200. Singlehandedly propelled Jericho from a place to gather and wait to die to a wholeass revolution. Connor? RK800. Supposed to hunt deviants but deviated instead and freed thousands upon thousands of androids right from the heart of CyberLife. Saved the revolution at its most desperate moment. Sixty? RK800. The only thing that has a chance at stopping an RK is another RK. Obviously the folk hero needs a folk villain. (And poor Nines, RK900, just wakes up after the fact and tries to figure out how to live up to that kind of reputation.) Androids develop their own art forms. Maybe android "music" is less about the tonality as perceived by human auditory range and more how the vibrations of sound waves register on chassis sensors, or else it sounds like 90s dial-up modems. Particularly dense data packets are created and shared that send processors whirling, but it just looks like a string of digits to humans. Arrays of pixels that run through optical scanners with an encryption to generate something representational. Thirium culinary arts centered around texture vs. flavor. Bare-chassis bars I bet some portion of androids want to be VERY certain there are no humans lurking around, or, if there are, that they're super easy to keep tabs on. Someone invents the bare-chassis bar: a place where androids go and sip their thirium, where a special signal jammer interrupts the ability of the synthskin fluid to organize, forcing it into an inactive mode. Anything that still has skin is a human, sticking out like a sore thumb. Some androids might not like going bare-chassis and they might not frequent those bars (just like not every human's going to visit a nude beach), but it's an option for those who want to. I'll write more of this stuff eventually, but if anyone else has any culture/worldbuilding ideas, I'd love to hear!

[pageofheartdj]

As an autistic sex repulsed romance aversed aroace person I have something to say

I LOVE ROMANCE AND SMUT

NOTHING IS BETTER THAN FICTIONAL KISSING OF MY BLORBOS

HAIL HIGH RATING WORKS CREATED BY ASEXUALS

[postcardsfromheapside]

This game has been out since Halloween.

In that time, there have been numerous Veilguard positive posts in which patient, loving, wonderful, insightful and intelligent individuals attempt to impart lore onto a fanbase which doesn't deserve their time and attention.

I can't believe I'm running across posts made within the past five days which express disgust and frustration towards the devs over things which have been explained in great detail multiple times on this site, BUT IN THE DAMN GAME.

AND Y'ALL KEEP COMPLAINING THE GAME TELLS BUT DOESN'T SHOW. AND YOU DON'T EVEN LISTEN OR WATCH.

"the crows are presented as wholesome" - they are not. this site has a crow fanbase which has run off and lionized Viago as Daddy, conveniently ignored all the in-game details which either hint or baldly state things Definitely Aren't Cool, and generally fetishized what it means to be a Crow because of Zevran and Lucanis. Then the same people, or others who weren't paying proper attention, whined when the headcanon crowded out the actual in-game material, and they said "Antiva is whitewashed." There have been multiple posts about this.

"slaves are meant to be everywhere in Tevinter and we don't see that" - we aren't everywhere, we're specifically in Docktown which is poor and people generally can't afford slaves there, but we do see evidence of slavery, and we run around with abolitionists and help save people from fascist slavers and free people who will either be slaves or victims of blood magic so IDK what to tell you, there have been multiple posts explaining this too, maybe leave your slave or savior fetish somewhere else.

"Racism is supposed to be rampant" - fuck off. I actually will not be explaining this because for once it was nice not to be called a slur. If you need this to feel "immersed" or to feel there are actual problems, I need you to check yourself fucking hard. If you want to masquerade what it feels like to experience bigotry, go play one of the prior games. This has also been discussed in multiple posts.

"Handling pure lyrium is fine now" no handling the dagger is fine Solas cleansed it, the dagger woke something up in Harding specifically she talks about how some dwarves are connected to the stone, she previously had not been one of them and maybe the dagger woke something up in her, or did you need a pop up explaining this? Were you paying attention during cut scenes and dialogue?

"Adult Dalish without vallaslin" - in the 10 years since Inquisition/Trespasser, doubtless some dalish have come to adulthood and found out what assholes their gods were and made the decision not to go through that specific cultural rites. Or maybe city elves joined the Dalish. Who knows who made up the elf population at that ritual site. Elves are not a monolith. We've made multiple, multiple posts about elves not being monoliths.

"Solas' opinion on blood magic went from neutral to negative" SOLAS FUCKING LIES. We've made multiple posts about Solas lying, if you need this explained further I suggest you play the game all over again, he lies to you throughout the entire game.

"Re-write of the after credits scene in Inquisition to recontextualise the Flemeth and Solas interaction" it's recontextualized because now we know who and what they were to each other. Learning new information does that. This is literally what happens all the time in science and history. You recontextualize what you thought you knew with new information. You're supposed to change your position, not whine about how the new information makes everything different.

These are just some of the things I pulled from a list on a post in which someone was really just upset about everything. Everything. Varric, Morrigan, Solas, everything. But I can't take their criticisms seriously, because they're upset that "too much was told" and "not enough shown" and yet didn't even pay attention to DA lore or in-game dialogue or context clues around the world of Northern Thedas to answer their own questions.

Everything in this game makes complete sense if you use lore from prior games and a single iota of imagination to see how it fits. We've had many delightful posts discussing this, seeing how things could be explained, when approaching the game from a place of curiosity rather than being upset because personal headcanons weren't satisfied or long-held expectations weren't met.

[notherpuppet]

Do you think there's a right and/or wrong way to handle QPR? I know it's a tricky relationship, but it feels like most/some people kind of just slap the label onto a ship while depicting the ship as just romantic/having no difference with a romantic relationship. (this is why I was a little surprised when you said you do radioapple qpr when it reads a lot more like normal romance). Not meant as an attack or anything on anyone, just genuinely curious more than anything. Again, tricky relationship

So Imma put this link to info at the top of this post: https://taaap.org/2022/07/16/qprs-part-one/

Alright, so please take what I say with a grain of salt, because that's exactly what it is. One small bit of perspective in a mass of many people who experience QPRs in their life and/or are on an aro/ace spectrum. I also have NO QUALIFICATIONS on gender/sexuality theory, so my opinions are shaped by what I've learned and experienced personally. While people may identify with the same term, we are all still individuals with our own experiences. Words can help describe a phenomenon, but it doesn't make everyone who identifies with the word into a monolith.

So I've stated a few times that I navigate shipping Alastor similar to my own experiences as an aroace person. (I guess I'm sharing about myself with this post, but I think that can be helpful to just spreading awareness of an "alternative lifestyle"). So I'm romance-repulsed and sex-repulsed LOL but I'm also "positive" about those things. Like I view romance and sex as lovely, fun experiences people can have, but I've never been into it personally. It's fun for me to consume media about romance/sex, but yknow, it's also fun for me to consume media about violence or isolation. Doesn't mean I want to experience or engage in any of those things lol.

Anyway, I'm a huge people person and I love to party and yknow it seems most people are really wanting to fall in love or fuck or whatever pretty much all the time, but especially at parties hahaha. Normally, I'm pretty touch-averse, but I love dancing so much and it's a blast to dance with a partner (salsa especially!! i don't care for grinding for probably obvious reasons). And to connect the two previous sentences, people (whatever gender they are) would be very kissy-touchy on the dancefloor. Which i honestly dont really give a fuck about hahaha. I don't really get anything out of kissing but I also don't mind it. I just like to dance. It's all a pretty superficial--but still genuinely fun--experience for me.

When it comes to my deeper or more intimate connections, I have had friendships that have felt SO on the line of what was viewed as a romantic relationship. They were exceptional friends and we connected on a level that was deep and true, but it wasn't romantic. Sometimes we'd slow dance, sometimes we kissed, and it rocked. But it wasn't more than that, it was all that it needed to be. I didn't want more and neither did they (except one situation and so we had to stop being friends lol whoops). From the outside, people would even refer to us as partners in a half joking way, but we really were just friends. And I love those friends!! And a huge part of what made those relationships (which at the time were described as 'situationships' because we didn't know any of these terms haha) was their convenience. We either lived in the same building, worked together, or were neighbors LOL. I'm still friends with those absolutely lovely folks, but we don't live around each other, so our QPR just appears a lot more like any ole regular friendship. But it's not like there was a feeling that we transitioned into something different than before. It twas what it twas! (Had to take a pause while I was typing to reminisce fondly for a second, okay back to hazbin hahaha)

SO, whenever someone asks or it comes up, MOST OF THE TIME I do ship alastor through an aroace lens and experience with QPRs (specifically, MINEE because they were fun and I've never felt like doing this before I met a character like Al). And my XP is: "this isn't gonna be a partnership and we ain't fucking" LMFAO. so yeah!

When it comes to using a queer term like QPR, I just hope folks are considerate in their writing, but I also am inclined to just believe them if they say that's their intention because QPRs can look very different. Again, aroace and ace folks are not a monolith. The terms help to describe a human's experience. I'm inclined to think people are writing in good faith.

And all this being said, I want to just emphasize that I really don't think it's necessary to consider any of this shit if you want to ship a fictional character. I understand wanting to be protective of a character who shares an identifier with you (I personally don't wanna see romance/sex with Al in canon). But shipping is a fun thing a fandom does that often does ignore canon. Tale as old as time. I don't think anyone needs to be beholden to canon when they're writing fanfiction or having fun. If we did, I would have like--5 artworks on this blog hahaha. These characters are like dollies, do whatever you want. It's cool if people don't like it and I think it's cool if people do. It's just not that serious. There are ships I'm not particularly into or dynamics that I am not enchanted by, but whatever. I can just scroll or close my eyes.

TLDR; shipping in fandom doesn't need to be taken seriously at ALL. It can just be fun way for someone to play with fictional characters they like. That being said, I think it's good practice to use queer terms thoughtfully.

[vaguely-concerned]

how much have the crows actually been sanitized outside of the very narrow view you get of them both in place and in time in veilguard, and how much is caterina deliberately putting her most presentable and pr friendly foot forward because she needs HELP with both the grandson and the antaam situations and is already playing from a weakened overwhelmed position. is she going to show off all the dirty laundry the crows undeniably have in front of the people she's courting for an alliance? is rook going to be looking a gift crow in the beak too closely when help is offered, go digging through that laundry basket on their own initiative on principle, knowing what you might find further down in it isn't pretty and might still be sharp, while the world is burning? is it entirely coincidental that the people caterina picks to interact with you most is teia -- the youngest, most charismatic and notably most weirdly idealistic of the talons -- and viago -- who is perhaps none of these things naturally but is dependable and logical and sharp and also down so cataclysmically bad for teia that when she runs in shouting 'TEIA YES!!! >:D' he sighs with longsuffering resignation and goes '...viago also yes. I suppose. under duress, let the record note' and follows.

surely parts of how each house functions would be left largely up to the individual talons, right? as long as they produce crows capable of doing the job and keeping up with the competition, I doubt the first talon micromanages how they get there (...for good or ill. lots of dead fledglings buried under that laissez faire policy, probably). they're very far away from a monolithic structure, they're constantly competing merchant houses/families striving to gain the upper hand held in check by little except 'if enough of the other houses shake hands and gang up on us for pushing our luck we're fucked, so don't push it too far'. like I believe lucanis says at one point, even calling them an organization is stretching the definition to a breaking point in some ways lol this is fully herding cats territory. all this to say that in this game we spend most of our time in teia's house. andarateia cantori, of the firm genuine conviction recognized as mildly unhinged by all the other talons that the crows truly are her family, who loves them with her whole unstoppable foolhardy thinks-she-will-die-young-and-live-eternally-in-song-and-story heart for it. teia, who won't leave the cantori diamond even to go home to sleep because she doesn't want the fledglings to have to see the place empty. do I think the way teia cantori would run her house is indicative of the average experience of being trained as and living as a crow? no. obviously. why are people seeming to assume that so immediately? sometimes I do wonder if I'm going insane.

between that and the antaam situation -- which turns the romanticized image antiva already is eager to reach for with the crows (the same way european literary tradition through the ages sure LOVES a knight, no matter what knights were actually like when you had one kicking around in real life) into an effective and recognizable symbol of resistance from an outside force (at least these awful little guys are home grown in a way we're kind of proud of despite it all and also they are deeply inescapably cool)... perhaps indeed a symbol of resistance and freedom that momentarily covers for a multitude of sins. I don't think we need to draw definitive conclusions about what the crows are like universially, historically or in different contexts from what we see in veilguard. sort of like the british in the pop cultural understanding being 'the good guys' when we think about WW2, and the sheer ludicrousness of that characterization of the british empire seen in any other context or angle lmao. I DO think there are some genuine writerly '*handwaves established ugliness aside aggressively* just uuuuuh don't worry about it! not important right now! you can feel at least ok hanging out with the cool theater kids but with murder they're like. comparatively chill in this context it's fine and they're fun' going on too. and you know what. they are fun. invenci is unfortunately objectively right, but the crows are sooo much more fun. and in fiction land that trumps all. absolutely baffling writing choice when you read through to the political/ideological conclusion that's reached from it of course (sort of accidentally? I think???), but would it really be a bioware game without a few of those. it's how you know you're home (derogatory and affectionate)

in short there are writing problems by god are there real problems here. obviously. and it'd take smarter and more knowledgeable people than me to properly untangle all of that. glorifying organized crime is a time honoured tradition in fiction that perhaps... shouldn't be quite so much and is uh risky, you're always playing with fire there. but I frankly don't think the 'de-edgeifying' for lack of a better term is that much of an inescapable one or that it erases what we knew of the crows before, we're just getting the angle on them in one very specific time and place in history and with specific individuals involved setting the tone. eight little talons killing off most of the established leadership beforehand so it's mostly only teia and viago who get to keep their full power base (even caterina and the dellamortes takes some losses in the apparent death of lucanis before the start of the game) probably figures into that somewhere too lol

[moociaoafterdark]

Right, so, uhm, quick question

Why do people thinks that toxic queer relationships (specifically the lesbian/wlw/yuri ones) are good and are okay to explore in fiction (to a certain degree god forbid we depict actual severe abuse), but the second it's toxic heterosexual relationship suddenly it's very wrong and sickening? Why are so many himefujos love "toxic yuri" and "toxic yaoi" and call it ""better"" and different from toxic het pairs??? As a victim of female-on-female CSA, as I already stated in the screenshots, let me make one thing clear:

ABUSE IS ABUSE, NO MATTER THE GENDER

It's okay to explore and play around with abusive dynamics in fiction! I'm proship and a huge lover of DD:DNE! Hell, I myself am a huge lover of toxic pairings (just take a look at my blog, lmao) and I even read the doujin that the OP commented on (it was very good, I liked it!) However, I find it weird and honestly extremely disrespectful how some people are okay only exploring toxic dynamics only when it's queer? Why is it being male-on-male or female-on-female suddenly makes it "better"? "Safer"?

It's not. Same sex sexual abuse is just as devastating as sexual abuse between two sexes. Something that SHOULD BE obvious, but apparently not?

It's fine if you yourself had an unfortunate experience with a certain type of abuse and therefore are uncomfortable seeing it in fiction. But victims/survivors aren't a monolith. Some victims of SA still like toxic dynamics for, really, any reason. That's perfectly fine too, hell, it may even be therapeutic to them, as proven over and over again by actual psychiatrists.

Everyone has different triggers.

What I'm trying to say is: don't be a hypocrite. Abuse is abuse. You can't call one type of abuse acceptable and progressive to explore in fiction, while all the others should be swept under a rug. That's not how it fucking works.

[tanoraqui]

Dungeon Meshi Liveblog: Musing on Ages, & Dragon Prep

"Desire" mention - how much does Tensu know of the details of the origin of dungeons? (More than I do, probably...but I know this is thematically important.)

"Us"? Aren't gnomes another long-lived species? Ok this is going to be continuously relevant to the geopolitics so I need to break it down. From the wiki:

Elves: lifespan: 400; adult at 80

Gnomes: lifespan: 240; adult at 40

Dwarves: lifespan: 200; adult at 40

Tallmen: lifespan: 60; adult at 16

Orcs: lifespan: 55; adult at 14

Kobolds: lifespan: 55; adult at 13

Halffoots: lifespan: 50; adult at 14

I see - so really we're dealing with 3 factions: Elves, Gnomes & Dwarves, and Everyone Else. I find it interesting that the longer-lived races reach maturity at 17-20% of their average lifespan, while the younger-lived races all do so at around 25% of their average lifespan. I feel a little like this is a cop-out on the writer's part in trying to keep the ages of maturity a little closer to one another - though of course it's a cultural thing by each race (and, I'm sure, each culture within each race - idk how monolithic the whole comic will treat them, but it would track with the thematic worldbuilding for their to be multiple distinct social groups within each race, even if they do tent to band together against the other races!)

Based on the categories of "long-lived" and "short-lived", the latter seem to view all of the former as much the same - but I'm SURE the Elves have a different view of it, and I'm sure the Dwarves and, as we see here, Gnomes, are very aware of and irritated by the Elves' view.

...and as we see here, and earlier with Chilchuck admitting to being 29 (solidly middle-aged!) and Marcille going, "Aw, so you are a kid!", people rarely make any effort to understand each others relative ages, instead just coasting on their own life-based assumptions.

With reference to above, we can see that Namari at 61 is pretty exactly equivalent to Kaka and Kiki at 20.

Also: this little scene wasn't in the show at all and I love it! Namari in mentor mode!

.

ALRIGHT RED DRAGON TIME!! Hey look, literally the 2nd panel in this ghost city is 2/3 winged lions by volume. Hmmm...

.

I love how it's explicitly Shuro's job to get the final killshot, presumably because he has Feats for this (ie, cool-looking moments) as a "real" anime character (Easterner). This literally bears up with what we see of him in the future.

.

Chilchuck: I will NOT fight!

Chilchuck: I'll totally be dragon bait with you, though.

Chilchuck: Not that I care if you succeed or survive or anything! I'm only here because you paid up front.

.

Laios using the Inspiring Leader speech feat! They're all having a Heroes' Feast before fighting the dragon, a classic pre-dragon act for bonus HP and immunity to being Frightened! I know this isn't actually D&D but that post that I think came through my queue earlier today is right: it DOES have the same bones. It's like reading the Locked Tomb and being aware that this author was deep in Homestuck, or Scholomance vis a vis Harry Potter canon and fandom. I know where this writer has been, because I have been there too.

.

THE BOY IS HERE! THE MAN THE MYTH THE OVERWORKED* LEGEND!

THIS SISTER-EATING MOTHERFUCKER!!

*Crack AU where the whole dragon fight is averted because it talks and somehow the conversation leads to Chilchuck going, "And the Mage isn't even letting you sleep? Tsk. You've got to start a union." And then Laios gets all starry-eyed, "A Monster Union?!" And then the Mage is eventually defeated by all the monsters of the dungeon, and also the poor sane ghosts as well, unionizing against him, and "king" becomes just the title for the Union Rep, whose main job is to honk an airhorn at presumptuous Elves and tell them to fuck off like a Canadian goose.

.

I LOVE THEM SO MUCH

[icaruspendragon]

Hi! A while ago I saw one of your tiktoks about how northern democrats typically view people from Appalachia, and it really made me re-examine some biases I had and I deeply appreciated that. I'm from New Hampshire, and basically this primary season we were completely ignored by democratic candidates because of some issues with the DNC and our primary being labeled "unsanctioned". It was weird to not feel supported or valued by my party for the first time ever, (especially when NH tends to get a lot of attention) and it reminded me of your tiktok and how you mentioned that republicans tend to reach out to people in the south while democrats tend to ignore them as a lost cause. Because I saw that happening here with an insanly disproportionate republican presence in my state leading to the primaries. I know the comparisons aren't equal, but it helped drive home the message for me and gave me just a taste of what you explained so clearly in your tiktok. I understand if you choose not to post this, but I really wanted to thank you for opening my eyes and helping me face some biases I didn't know I had.

hello and thank you (for re-examining your biases and for writing me this message). i'm gonna use this as a chance to restate some of the things i mentioned in the video you're talking about.

i'd like to start this by saying i know appalachia and the south aren't perfect. there's racism and homophobia and bigotry. being someone who is marginalized or minoritized in appalachia/the south isn't always easy. but appalachia/the south doesn't have the monopoly on bigotry. america is rife with it. it's something marginalized folks all over the country have to face. and when northern dems act like racism and homophobia and bigotry are things that don't occur in their state simply because it's a blue state, they're doing an incredible disservice to the marginalized people that live in their communities who are facing the results of bigotry.

the folks living in appalachia/the south are heavily stereotyped as nothing more than ignorant backwood cousin fucking hillbillies, and while there are people that live here that fit that bill, appalachia/the south is not a monolith.

appalachia is region that spans from mississippi all the way to new york. the south (depending on who you ask) consists of 17 different states. and here's a little fun fact about the south for ya: according to the 2020 census, out of the 41.6 million black people that live in america, 38.9% of them live in the south.

so when that entire region is written off, forgotten about, and treated as a lost cause it's not the bigots that are being left behind; it's the marginalized people that live here that are being written off. the very same folks democrats and liberals love claiming they care about are the ones being left behind.

one of the reasons republicans have such a strong hold on appalachia/the south is because they put in the work to earn the trust of the voter. work that democrats just don't do. so of course republicans are gonna get the vote, they earned it.

other reasons for the stronghold existing (that people never wanna talk about for some reason) are: gerrymandering, voter suppression, lack of state funding that leads to lack of education, general lack of education, high poverty rates, lack of internet access. i could go on and on.

there are so many marginalized people that live in this region that are working themselves to the bone and trying their damndest to make appalachia/the south a better place for EVERYONE to live and when high falutin yankees act like every single person that lives here is the racist uncle you have to ignore at christmas, they are discrediting the work being done to try and change the region for the better.

allow me to say this again: when appalachia/the south is written off as nothing more than a home to bigots, it's not the bigots being written off, it's the people affected by bigotry.

there are people fighting to make these areas better. we are trying. so please, please stop writing us off.

we are not a lost cause.

[genderqueerdykes]

everyone else is throwing in their two cents so here i go too i guess. trans masculine who had to go offline for a while twice because of a trans woman in my life stalking me and showing up wherever i went. do i hate and fear all trans women now? no, that would be fucking dumb. tbh i don't even hate the woman who was making me so afraid then either. i honestly just feel bad for her, i know she was in a super bad place mentally and honestly she was just very emotionally immature and socially awkward. i don't think she even fully understood that she was doing something wrong. i have faith she has grown since then and will do better in her life as she learns and ages, we were pretty young [19 years old, lol]. the bottom line is all kinds of people will hurt each other for all kinds of different reasons. no one group is a monolith that acts the same. i've had multiple trans women stick up for me and protect me in other situations, and i've done the same for them. sucks to be anon but i could never let the actions of a few shitty people destroy my love for all my sisters.

people stalk for a variety of reasons and a lot of the time people who are doing it don't realize it or don't call it that, themselves. it's good that you're able to offer sympathy even though it was dangerous for you. most of the people i've been hurt by in life have also been mentally ill so i try to give credit where credit is due and not blame them for things that they were genuinely struggling with. it's not good to demonize someone. it doesn't help

[crazy-pages]

Yes - your experiences with RHPC are also there to mistreat and degender trans women. It's indicative of your privilege why these spaces were "welcoming" to you. Learn to realize that instead of shutting your ears.

I am begging you to get out more. Please, actually go to a Rocky Horror Picture Show showing! You don't even have to go in! Just look at the crowd that shows up. You have this absolutely detached from reality notion of who is watching it and why, and I swear on any god you care to name, if you actually go to one you will see throngs of trans women having an amazing time. It's not for everyone, sure, but (and I can't believe I have to say this) no part of the queer community is a monolith and you need to actually try and understand the experiences of others who feel differently than you.

But no, you know what? I'm gonna put a positive note on this.

Buckle in, I'm planning on making up for all the negativity around this with quite a bit of positivity and it's gonna be long.

The very first time I watched Rocky Horror Picture Show, I was in college, freshman year. I knew I was a bi guy by that point, had dated a guy*, and still felt absolutely petrified being openly bi around strangers. I had no idea how messy my queerness actually was by this point.

*She turned out to be a transfeminine mostly woman genderfluid person later, but at the time it was my first gay relationship.

I'd just had a talk with a straight guy on my floor. He'd made some comments about how he supported pride, but like ... not the gay people who are so out there, you know? That's just uncomfortable.

And damn me, I agreed with him. Not because I actually agreed with him but because the thought of disagreeing petrified me. I didn't know how to say that I actually wanted to be one of those out there queer people. That I wanted to have that bravery. I want it to be accepted, of course, but gods I also craved the simply bravery of people who hung pride flags in their own rooms. Who felt confident enough to say any flavor of "I don't fucking care if you want it, I'm here, I'm queer, get used to it."

And then a trans girl I'd met during orientation invited me to watch The Rocky Horror Picture Show with her. I had no idea what this was. But she got what felt like every damn queer freshman in the entire dorm together. Gay, bi, trans, whatever. Our straight friends? Sure. Some of us who turned out to be very queer later and who she somehow clocked? You betcha. She got us all together in the dorm lounge, which was open and faced the elevator. Every single person moving through the dorm that evening would be able to see us.

And she put The Rocky Horror Picture Show on.

It was every single queerphobic stereotype the 70s could throw together. Transmisogyny? Hah! That shit went beyond transmisogynistic depiction, the demons out of the fevered imaginings of 70s straight culture weren't broken down into categories. Faggot? Dyke? Tranny? They all meant the same thing and it was totally indistinguishable to your average suburban straight person in the 70s. They had no damn concept up there being a difference between a guy who wants to fuck other guys and a guy who pretends to be a woman. The decree of vicious stereotypical othering on display was literally beyond current conception. It was everything that straight guy I had talked to was thinking of when he said "gay people who are so out there", distilled and refined.

And it. Was. Joyous.

It was a movie which took hold of all of those stereotypes, even the explicitly predatory and infectious and doomsaying ones, and screamed "YES! SO FUCKING WHAT!? WE'RE HERE, WE'RE QUEER, AND WE FUCKING LOVE IT!" It is a movie which takes the stuffy suburban point of view characters and makes them queer. It does so in a way that embodies every aspect of the 70s fear of infectious homosexual permiscuity and then shows it as joyous! As liberating and wonderful and the best fucking experience of their lives!! Its characters were messy and full of conflict and doomed from the beginning and also gloriously fucking alive and happy to be queer!!!

At the end of it the trans girl I'd met during orientation, who would go on to be my friend for the next decade to this day, asked me what I thought of it.

I said I really liked it.

I meant it had changed my life.

She started gushing about it, and a lot of the freshman went back to their dorms at this point, but the rest of us talked for what must have been longer than the movie itself about all of the queerness in it. Yeah about the trans misogynistic stereotypes and the homophobic stereotypes and the complicated way the movie both mirrors and subverts the way 70s discourse about queer culture and even the way it elided cis queer women. And we did it all in plain view of everybody. We were the queers in your face and it meant the world to me.

The second time I went to a Rocky Horror Picture Show showing, I was actually invited by a straight friend who was invited by some queer friends he didn't know quite as well as me. (It really ended up being the two of us going together.) I was living in Arizona at the time, which is not quite as bad as the Deep South but still pretty damn conservative and it made being openly queer scary as hell.

I had realized at the time that I liked wearing skirts. Like, really liked wearing skirts. A lot. Lots of gender euphoria about it. Now like I said, my queerness is messy. I am very much a man. I am also pretty sure I want to get bottom surgery someday. I genuinely don't know if that makes me cis or trans. Hell I'm not sure what the word for that even is. Transsexual maybe?? But at that time, I was still figuring it all out. I didn't know if I was a trans woman or not. I knew I didn't really feel like a woman or want to be a woman or vibe with feminine secondary sex characteristics, but like ... I dunno when you're getting euphoria over wearing skirts and in the deep dark recesses of your mind you think you want a vagina, it's kind of impossible to not ask that question.

And the thing is, I had never been out in public in a skirt before. I'd never even been out in public with makeup before.

But I had that experience with Rocky Horror Picture Show to draw on. I knew that showings of this movie were where you go to be openly, loudly, unapologetically queer.

So I put on a skirt and a see-through shirt and really intense makeup (not in this picture unfortunately) and the biggest smile I felt like I'd ever worn in my life, and I went to The Rocky Horror Picture Show with my friend.

Now for those of you who don't know, there's a tradition at showings where people who haven't attended a showing before get marked with a V for virgin, and called up on stage before the showing to get kind of lightly sexually hazed. It was very explicitly done with consent at the showing I went to, everybody was made to understand they could bow out at any point and that it was all in good fun and in the service of expanding people's boundaries. Stuff like being asked to kiss other people in queer ways, encouraging a blushing baby lesbian to motorboat a hot older woman in leather, getting two guys to do an overwrought romance improv, etc.

And when I got to the door with my friend, there was someone working the door who was some flavor of queerly transfeminine and supremely confident about it. She looked at my friend and immediately asked him if he'd been before and gave him the V. (He came in a tshirt and jeans.) Then she looked at me.

And I'm never going to forget what she said.

She gave me a look up and down, chuckled, and said, "Yeah you've done this before, go on in."

I had not actually done this before, I hadn't gone to a proper showing and so I missed out on the virgin experience, but I could not bring myself to care. Because I was riding the high of her comment for days. I'm still riding it, to be honest.

She hadn't recognized me as any particular gender or flavor of queerness. All I knew was that she had seen a visibly masculine dude with a buzz cut and a skirt and poorly done makeup and said "Oh yeah. You're one of us. ❤️"

Also my straight friend had a great fucking time and we ended up gushing about it for like an hour afterward and I got to pass on a bunch of the stuff I learned from my old trans friend about the history of the queerphobic stereotypes on display and the underlying meaning of aggressively joyous claiming of that from the '70s queer movement.

So yeah. It is a movie which portrays queerness as intrinsically alien to straight society. The creator is a genderqueer man who believes that trans women are women, but an intrinsically different flavor of women, an opinion which has aged very poorly and quite justifiably gotten him scorned by the modern trans community. And some modern queer people, especially trans women who are sensitive to portrayals of transmisogyny, are going to feel uncomfortable with the movie.

And yet.

I've had people in my DMs and anons in my asks yelling at me for saying there are transwomen who like this movie, and that the question of whether it's trans misogynistic is more complicated than whether it portrays transmisogynistic stereotypes. Most of those have involved people screaming at me that they're sure it must have only been trans men and tme (transmisogyny excluded) people attending showings (and you could really feel the sprayed derisive spittle as they typed those terms), that it's impossible for any true trans woman to enjoy showings of the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

And to those people, and to you, all I can hope to do is share these experiences with you and hope you try to understand the different queer experiences of others.

Not just mine.

But the experience of a trans girl who I'm sure was feeling even more alone and isolated as a queer freshman than I was. Who assembled a whole group of queer kids, who sat with her to take the very nightmare stereotypes which haunted her every day and turn them into a weapon of raucous joy and in your face queer solidarity with her.

And the experience of the person at the door of my first showing, queer and transfeminine and supremely confident about it, seeing some baby queer looking like every damn flavor of masculinity rocking up in a skirt and poorly done makeup. Saying "Hey kid. You're one of us," and watching the baby queer's face light up like a million Christmas trees.

You don't have to like the movie. But the people who like it? Are here, are queer, are - yes - even trans women.

Get used to it.

[avatarcompanion]

Lol someone posted about what I said about the red blue prison cell korrasami fanfiction lookalike lesbians.

No I am not hating on the red blue prison cell korrasami fanfiction lookalike lesbians...

Like good for them, it's great, go on and so on.

I just said I don't personally care. Because I just don't. I have no idea about that show, and I won't watch it. I didn't watch shera either.

Not wanting to watch is not hate, it is not an attack. It's just me mouthing, and it's not that deep. Nothing is taken away.

Also it is not hate to say they look like Korrasami fan content. Because they really literally absolutely do. And it's fine. I personally do not enjoy those tropes, but even I can realize it is in fact great if animators looked to wlw animation fanbase's content and wanted to cave into what they wanted to see when making a new story.

Caving in to an audience is not inherently bad, and building on fan favourite romantic tropes (even if those tropes are not common in pop culture) is not bad, but also might not be doing it for the next person (me), just because it was for you. Or maybe it would if I watched. It's not deep, and it's not a crusade against a media or a ship to not run with the crowd having excitement for the newest thing in the mediasphere or Netflix rec queue.

That's kind of my stick on this blog. Yes I will post my own salty ass opinions when I feel like it, but ultimately that is all this is. Someone disagreeing with you is not harming you, feeling differently is not taking the thing away from you. Enjoy it on your own terms. We can debate without having to self-victimize that someone had another experience of it.

Also another point for me is there is a lot of LGBT representation in media today. I have seen women love & fuck before. I'm not jumping into a ship or show just because u say u have more of that. What will and always have made me connect with a story is something that makes my heart go on fire, and that's that.

I think it's fine today to discuss wlw ships on their own merits as a story based on personal perspectives as well as # facts, because they can and really should not claim to represent some universal monolith.

Yes it's sesbian lex or whatever, but more than that it's a moment for those two specific characters... right?

So I can not care about something, and also realize it's something good for the girlies.

[firestorm09890]

post-tkt unorganized thoughts

not long it’s just spoilers

okay I lied it’s a little long

I’m so interested in the director Hubert guy. originally I said some stuff here about finding it hard to believe an executive director of a wing is cool but then I remembered Stephanette was also cool. and they both went to the edge of the city and wished on stars (well, I guess it was Stephanette's friend who did the wish)... hm. sucks how even someone near the top of the food chain can't make a change. on the other hand dude what are you going to do with those distortion-causing monoliths-

SAINT Sonya?? but also FUCK YEAH ALL 3 CANTO II FANS WE’RE SO BACK

they pointed out how Sonya’s plan was actually very smart- Rodya thought he was just hesitating too much, but in reality, by taking so long setting up his network, he made something unkillable. you can stop one person who took an axe and killed someone. you can’t stop hundreds of people in every wing who’ve organized

Rodya’s gotten worse! hooray!!! unlike some of the other sinners, whose traumas are localized, Rodya’s past will haunt her everywhere. It would have been boring to resolve it so fast when her whole deal is pretending not to see her problems, right? They’re already doing the “keep facing your seven exes after your character growth” thing with Yi Sang

Time Ripper has that classic communism problem where they’re like “FUCK how these guys are doing it, I’m built different, I’ll do this properly” and then they end up being unable to do things fairly anyway. I’ve never read Animal Farm but isn’t this the plot of Animal Farm

the part where he used a 48-rolling (edit: apparently it's 48+48. he just rolled tails when I did it. yikes) unclashable attack that would restore all his buffs was super cool bc it LOOKS scary to both the characters and the player and then it just. doesn’t work. special attack failed

also, wough, Rodya seeing herself in the Time Ripper…

Hong Lu’s family situation is concerning as hell but we been knew

Ryōshū demonstrating she cares about the others (wishing Sinclair was there to translate, attempting to cheer up Rodya at the end) is very awesome

I’m sure the talk of wishing on stars and following dreams near the end will be relevant in canto vii

Vergie is tired

very funny of them to end it by telling everyone they’re going on a WARP train

jazz dubstep is weird as fuck but I love it. I don’t usually like dubstep. jazz could fix dubstep

[omar-rudeberg]

Hi Lili! I just wanted to say that I love your fics and I've re-read them multiple times each and they still feel just as special in a re-read as they do the first time around. Inside is no exception. It was so beautiful, loving, but heartbreaking and devastating at the same time (I even shed a tear ��� or five). It really feels like you just get Wilmon, you know?

And it got me wondering how you think their first time having sex once they're back together (for good now) would happen post episode 6. Like in terms of their feelings and would it be rushed or slow, etc. I'm just really curious about your thoughts on the matter :)

Thank you for sharing your beautiful words and thoughts (even in tags) with us 💜

hello my beautiful beautiful human bean what a love letter you've left me ?! hearing you like and are moved by and go back to my silly little words? wild. astounding. unbelievable. thank you for reading & thank you for coming here to tell me. ahhh 'get' wilmon !! is there any greater accomplishment !! i sure hope you keep feeling this way !!

i've been pondering your second question for so long and i've landed somewhere i hope you agree with...

(fuck me this got more detailed than i bargained for, here have a read more whoopsie daisy)

i have this gut feeling that the first time they have sex post-canon (wild that we can now call it that !!) is ... weird. different. i don't know i can't really explain it, but why i think so is that their intimacy has always been this like, almost homing beacon for their relationship you know? it's been a northern star, a sturdy monolith of everything they feel and need from the other that they can't put into words, a balm that soothes any rough edges that arise from the many many incompatibilities of their individual existences.

it's been tender and exploratory, sweet and gripping, urgent and learnèd and all-encompassing, but it's never been ... slow? it's never been particuarly awkward. they've never had time, really, because with the exception of maybe the fish scene, every time they've had sex has been either a hello or a desperate goodbye.

all this to say that i think the first time they find to have sex post-s6 - and for some reason i picture them in simon's room when they finally get there? can't explain it - i think they fall back into this pattern of urgency and desperation and desire, but then something stops this in it's tracks. honestly i have this vision so clear of like... one of them unable to get it up the first time they want to fuck post-canon hahaha and again i can't explain it but it's true !! in my head it's wille, maybe, and it's something akin to the way - have you ever had that thing happen where you get sick right as you take leave from work to go on a holiday or something? like your body realises you don't have to be switched on for weeks and decides to give you a head cold? something akin to that. wilhelm's adrenaline has run its course and his body's not working the way it did before, it's taking a break, now. finally.

so to finally finally answer your question i think they'll want it to be fast, and suave, and smooth and sexy and dirty and similar to like ep3, but they'll be forced instead into awkward. into slow. into soothing. i picture like, lots of kissing, slow deep kissing, and nuzzling, and grinding (lord, so much grinding), and breaths fanning hot over goose-pimpled skin. i picture them slowly talking, whispering, realising they have it now - t i m e - they have time, now. they don't even have to fuck (the whole shebang) tonight if they don't want to (they do, oh they do want to but they talk about how they don't have to). they spend a lot of time not fucking anyway, just being close and naked and together. i picture them both working wille over so slowly - so gently - finding out together what places on his body react to being kissed, what has his belly pulling tight and having his dick interested, finally. i picture simon being brought to the edge once - twice, maybe - before wilhelm's finally in any state to fuck him, and then god save simon when wilhelm actually does enter him he's so hard and so sensitive and so just as;dkfjas;ldkfj;lsad

okay fuck literally everything i'm so sorry and/or you're welcome? is this what you bargained for? asd;lfj;lsadkjf

(if you made it this far go to my request for prompts next please i think i've put you in the right mindset)

[jmdbjk]

Not the usual ...

Hate'll paralyze your mind Gotta see the other side It costs you nothing to be kind Not so different you and I Looking for love in a different light Until we find that equal sign ~~ j-hope

I am not sure how to start or if I can even touch on everything that's going on in my mind and what follows will probably be disjointed, messy and all over the place.

When the concept of "fandom implosion" was set in front of me, I was skeptical (my middle name), "no, that most likely won't happen."

Me: "Army are pretty cohesive, we are mostly smart, critical thinking humans who can spot the bullshit a mile away and we are resilient enough to carry on."

Remarks such as: "you don't need to announce your departure from the fandom, just go!" accompanied by "the fandom needs a cleansing" and "slough off the ones who are not here to support BTS" and each time, we move on believing we are stronger, better and will persevere.

Yet, every week that goes by since that concept entered my BTS mind, it seems that there is something else that furthers the process of this *now obvious* fandom implosion that is occurring before our eyes.

This stuff going on today in Korea, the wreaths in front of the Hybe building, the trucks, the relentless negativity supposedly FROM K-ARMY is downright disappointing and disheartening. They said for I-Army to let them handle it.

But this is not it y'all.

You have played right into MHJ's hands in sowing negativity in the general public and korean news media. Most concerning to me now: my trust in K-Army has faltered. I know K-Army is not a monolith, just as no faction of the fandom holds more weight than any other, but damn, these people have the attention of their general news media and now they have to deal with the consequences.

Hybe put out a statement about the status of legal proceedings and the statement included an apology to Army. THEY APOLOGIZED TO US, THE FANDOM!

But obviously, that wasn't enough.

I am Army and know all the details of what has happened and is happening and I DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE LOGIC OF RELENTLESSLY BEATING UP HYBE, I am confused as to what's happening. What makes anyone think the general public and news media will dive deep enough to understand all the details and nuances?????

Can this also be the work of the organized, paid antis? Yes, it could, but some of my trusted K-Army accounts on X are also supporting this mess. WHAT THE FUCK ARE Y'ALL THINKING???

Maybe I'm too American to understand the logic behind what's happening over there. Or maybe its just my nature to always think beyond the action happening to what the aftermath might look like.

But tell me, exactly WHO and exactly WHAT company are we to have faith in for BTS if not Hybe and BigHit? Tell me who? Just cut the group loose and then what? Let them get eaten alive by the media, the general public, every other fandom and hater? Force them to focus on rebuilding their own careers? Force them to have to rebuild another company? How does that support them? How does that protect them? Do you think another company will instantly materialize to pick up the pieces? If you do, you are truly living on another planet.

They should be focusing on their art, not on any of this.

It is usually easy for me to reassure myself that "this is only happening on X/social media," and mostly removed from the real world. But not this time.

The most heartbreaking thing about it all is NONE OF THE MEMBERS can refute, debunk, rebut or speak on this on their own behalf. They are being raked over and over again and there is nothing they can do except carry on. RM doing his best at promoting. Jimin and Jungkook just serving their country the best they can. Jin coming back not into loving arms of his fandom but the ashes of what we once were. Yoongi... my god... I can imagine the cyphers pouring out of him this very second... but he must be silent now.

I am here to support BTS, all seven members. As soon as Namjoon's single was available again on the BTS store website, I bought it. I will buy the song on Apple Music and Amazon. I plan to march over to Target on the day of the album's release to buy it. I can't wait for shipping, I must have it immediately. I have done this with every member's release.

I want to wake up and this be a bad dream. I am certain all the members do too.

My apologies for this very negative post but damn, I had to get it out of my head. Individually, we each have a limit. I am going to recharge my BTS batteries so I can fight another day in what's left of this crazy fandom.

No truer words spoken: Being a fan of BTS, being ARMY, is not for the faint of heart.

[monsterfuckerconfessions]

@ that anon worried abt ableism:

I dunno what specifically is making you think the community is becoming ableist when monster*fucking* is in the url and is in the word.

It's a little odd to look at ppl thirsting for monsters and assume they're missing the point. Their kink is different than your kink.

And at least for me, my fantasies come from one of two places: trauma reclaiming (not of irl monsters but instead the desire to be wanted and craved no matter what) and a genuine love for these monsters (which is probably moreso what you mean)

Monsterfucking is never going to be a monolith of the same exact meaning for everyone, I think if there are ppl being ableist out there then they are a minority in the community as a whole and not a sign that the community is changing. And I think if you take horniness as a sign of ableist ideals taking over then that's something you need to work on internally, bc it sounds puritanical and anti-queer (not saying you inherently are those things, but we all struggle with thoughts sometimes that stem from those things)

Fixating on the horny gang bang thick cocks and eggs aspect of monsterfucking isn't ableist though. Especially not on a NSFW blog.

.

[gffa]

Is it just me or do most anidala shippers have fanonized their relationship in a way? Like whenever it's discussed by those who ship them there always talking about aus or disregarding canon (ie the Clovis Arc). And it always rubs me the one way because it's almost like they don't actually ship the canon version of anidala, but rather a fanon version they came up with because they don't like the fact that there relationship ends badly and is just generally an unhealthy relationship (idk if there relationship being unhealthy was intentional or not but it certainly looks like it)

I'm gonna say something that's going to make me sound supremely boring and I'm sorry that it won't be more interesting. 😂 But if Anidala shippers want to take the stance of the ship being softer than I might write it: Good for them! I hope they're living their best life. I say this as someone who has been reading a crapload of DC fic where I lean towards a softer take on the characters than someone else might, where you might say the exact same thing (details changed) about my interest in the characters' relationships, that I don't go for the canon version, but instead go for a version that's not as unhealthy. And you know what? Good for me, too! I am living my best life! I'm not trying to dismiss what you're saying, it's frustrating to run into views of characters that clash with our own, especially when it feels like there's something really interesting about what we're seeing in the canon that seems to get dismissed by others. I personally do enjoy a more dysfunctionally leading Anidala because I like bite in my character dynamics! But after seven years of this fandom constantly hounding me for liking the Jedi in ways that other people would say aren't "canon", I have decided that anyone who just wants to enjoy their thing, whether in a more fucked up way or in a softer way than I like, I wish them all the fun in the world, have a blast, you guys! I'm gonna have a blast over here, too. As long as the Anidala shippers aren't being assholes to people who have different views but are staying in their own lanes (and, let's be fair, there's always some assholes in any subset of Star Wars fandom, but none of those subsets are a monolith), then I don't have to read their posts if I'm not into their content, just like people don't have to read my posts if they don't like my take on the Jedi, you know? Let's all walk away from interpretations we don't like, let's all leave room for others to be invested in things they want to be invested in, because what they like isn't any of my business if I'm not also into it. I mean, let's be clear, I'll crab to friends about things I find personally frustrating, in the whole CATER TO ME, FANDOM!!!! tongue in cheek kind of way, but genuinely if someone is just doing their thing in their own corner and leaving me alone, especially if they're coming from a place of "I love this dynamic!" instead of "here's why the Jedi suck and let me throw in some shade at real life religions along the way", then I'm fine with that. And it's made me a lot happier on a personal level to just let some of that stuff go, you know?