#a weird societal position

[thatonesongyouretryingtoremember]

Kotlc and the inherent tragedy of siblings, and the way siblings define one's identity. Dex being the baby of the friend group while also being the tragic older sibling. Fitz being the older "responsible" one while also having a tragic older sibling. Sophie having a sister she's never met and another she lived with for nine years and yet being a sibling isn't a part of her identity and she and Amy are still tragic. Biana being defined by her brothers and yet being more of her own person than either of them while being the youngest. Juline and Edaline staying friends as adults and being defined as mothers and wives more than siblings or aunts, and who don't even share a last name anymore. Kesler being let down by society, and who was probably let down just as much by five older siblings. Tam and Linh who couldn't escape bad luck but at least they never lost eachother, until they did.

[hawnks]

having thoughts about true bdsm couple. like……. one wants to be punished/craves release and the other craves control.

nicest people you’ll ever meet, but behind closed doors…..

[buttered-milky]

Just to add onto this post one of my favorite categories of people “not dressing their age” is rockstars from the 80s who just also still dress like that and did not “become normal.” This plus elderly ppl doing what op described is why I do not fear age. I will simply be weird. My whimsy will not be contained

btw i think it's so awesome and fun when older people dye their white hair purple or pink or blue or whatever colour they fancy and 'overdress' in bright eye catching ostentatious outfits and have quirky interests and styles. you don't have to be young to have fun and be confident! you can still enjoy life when you're old! who cares what anyone else thinks, you've lived longer than they have and know better than to waste it being miserable just to fit in.

[cursed-spirit-manipulation]

thinking Abt Suguru autism and struggling bc I have forgotten 1. Everything Suguru has ever done 2. Every symptom of autism ever and then I remembered Suguru fucking. Knows every curse he's swallowed. And it's like y'know what maybe I don't have to make an airtight case for this

[sixth-light]

I have had these thoughts bubbling away in my head for like...eighteen months or so now (it will become very obvious why shortly) but the discussion in this post has pushed me to write them down: I think societally we HUGELY underestimate how motherhood for primary caregivers, particularly first-time motherhood, can be a source of vulnerability to radicalisation.

There is obviously huge cultural variance here, but for a lot of cis women becoming primary caregiver to an infant in a capitalist Western society represents a time of immense vulnerability because in general you are:

Incredibly sleep-deprived (which has well-documented knock-on effects for your judgement, mental health, etc)

If you gave birth, recovering from a significant challenge to your physical health (even in the best-case scenario)

Isolated from your previous networks and communities of people in full-time work

Completely separated from the context of your prior career goals and achievements

Under huge amounts of stress to learn how to care for an infant (don't get me started on breastfeeding)

And on top of this, you are also be experiencing a huge amount of messaging about how all this is natural, wonderful, something you're meant to do, something you should love doing, and something that you must do for the welfare of their child. It's a huge amount of pressure and life change even when everything goes right and there's very little cultural space to express negative feelings about it.

Any group of people who offer community, support, and affirmation to cis women in this situation are going to have a really good shot at radicalising them into some very weird and dangerous headspaces and in fact we see this happen all the time - think antivaxxers and TERFs. It flies under the radar because of the hazy positive glow that associates with motherhood and babies and also because we don't take the radicalisation of women seriously I guess because they rarely shoot anybody, but...yeah. It is such a vulnerable time!

[syrinq]

people coming up with silly ass suggestions to go do their thing to battle THE FUNCTION like we're participating in some contest

IN THE CORNER, IT'S THE PERSON WHO'S A STERN PARENT: "i'm gonna LOUDLY count to 5!"

IN THE OTHER, THE BRAVE ONE WHO GOES: "i'm gonna be a BIG GIRL now!!!!"

AND IN THE LAST, THE HYPERACTIVE OF ONE YELLING: "hitting it SENSUAL STYLE!!!!!"

[galtori]

The same people who are scared of trans people hitting on them are the same people scared of gay people hitting on them. Those same people would be scared of a nonbinary person flirting. Or an intersex person. This is not a coincident. It is societal queerphobia. 

Those same people are also offended when asexual or aromantic people aren’t interested in them. They’re also deeply offended when queer people say they aren’t attractive. It is a wild ass standard, and no it doesn’t make any sense.

Btw, if you do feel a reflexive thought like it, it’s okay to genuinely sit with that feeling for a minute and ask yourself why you’re scared or worried. Most of our society gets queerphobia baked in. Sitting in discomfort for a minute to uncover ‘hang on, this doesn’t make any sense; let me try something new’ is so worthwhile.

cis people who worry too much about trans people hitting on them are so funny i just cant understand them. are you scared of winning the lottery too?

[drdemonprince]

Maybe it’s a little creepy eh like bits of it are parasocial as fuck but also how many people in the public eye do we get that are gay, trans, Autistic, mad, fighting capitalism and shit, not pretending wannabe raging lefties so yeah let the gay boys write stories and stuff.the pedestal stuff is weird as fuck but hopefully the minority. the rest of us mad fucks need you

thats the problem dog. I cant BE what you need. i NEED all that shit just as much! I am just as affected by all those loci of oppression, just as under-represented, just as tired of not being legible to other people and having to explain and advocate for and represent myself. i CANNOT be a positive symbol of a bunch of identity groups for you. i am a PERSON trying to live their one individual life without the burden of all of that. its not fair to expect me to resolve these massive societal problems for you. it's not any different experientially from cishets or allistics tokenizing me. both completely make me into my group memberships and assign me with the burden of representation and prevent me from being a HUMAN with a ton of my own shit going on.

like whatever enjoy the porn obviously i think that's funny but you cant NEED me for shit. i am not yours. you dont know me. no person should be reduced like that.

[remus-poopin]

There's this underlying theme of motherhood being under-looked in Harry Potter - Voldemort underestimates Lily, Molly is seen as this frumpy housewife, etc... and JKR thinks she's blowing everyone out of the water by then making motherhood the single most important thing i the story!

Yet! Not a single working mother! In the entire series! "The struggles of motherhood" is JKR's favourite card to invalidate trans women's experiences, and yet she seems to have an (unsurprisingly) narrow mind when it comes to what motherhood can look like.

Here's an example that comes to mind: in the context of the second war, with Remus being a man persecuted by both the Ministry and Death Eaters for his condition and position in the Order, there was no reason for him to marry Tonks. I'm not talking about "building a family" or "being together", I'm talking about signing wedding papers.

Personally, I think JKR places a weird amount of value on traditional marriage, and upholds the ideal of a nuclear family above all things. She could not have Tonks giving birth a baby without being married to a man first.

YEP!

For the Tonks/Lupin issue you can’t even blame this fully on the fact it’s being written in a children’s book because JKR’s description of their relationship later on pottermore falls into the same traditional (and honestly puritanical) traps. And like you mentioned, this doesn’t even make sense for their story/relationship. (there’s an implication that they were only just friends until that confrontation in HBP and were never actually together or even hooking up. Most remadora shippers, like myself, tend to not like this version of events because it makes their whole marriage/relationship look a bit ridiculous. Tonks’ behavior in HBP comes off a lot different if they never had any romantic interactions at that point. It also seems odd that they would get married in less than a month of being together if they were strictly platonic up until that point)

And yes her view of motherhood is incredibly limiting and a bit revealing. In general it’s used as a tool which to measure her female characters by: The non maternal/improperly maternal women are clearly marked as villains (Rita Skeeter, Umbridge, Petunia, Bellatrix, Marge), the maternal ones are seen as demonstrating proper femininity and are therefore good (Lily, Molly, Tonks), women who were looked down upon previously get a redemption arc focusing around this (Narcissa) (Fleur can also fit into this category as she takes on a Molly like role in DH) and the women who don’t have kids but are still supposed to be seen positively look after kids to some capacity (McGonagall)

Her use of motherhood in the terf rhetoric she spreads is stemming from a similar idea. Gender essentialists tend to highlight female suffering as their primary justification for their exclusionary behavior, whether this suffering be biological or societal. Suffering and pain is used to define femininity itself. Suffering, female suffering, is noble, divine, inherent, and honorable. Motherhood, like you mentioned, is one of the biological sufferings they reference for their argument. The pain of giving birth and the sacrifice of your body and the rest of your life is noble, divine, inherent, and honorable.

In the books motherhood is suffering and motherhood is sacrifice. A woman who accepts this role of pain achieves righteousness. A woman who rejects it is selfish and wicked.

[he-is-lightning-in-a-bottle]

My God I Love This Show

I think I've rewatched that final breakroom scene from Jun & Jun episode 2 at least a dozen times since it first aired yesterday, and I need to rave about it in its own post rather than just tags.

That scene is... perfection.

First, for non-Korean speakers, it's important to note they've already dropped into banmal with each other in private (the most intimate and casual linguistic form of address). This establishes them as societal equals, despite their wildly different social positions as boss and employee. It was an intentional choice by Choi Jun at the end of episode 1, when he took off his glasses, leaned over the seated Lee Jun in his office and greeted him properly with "오랜만이야" (Long time no see.) The fact that he dropped into banmal here was likely a bigger clue to Lee Jun that they know each other intimately than the actual words Choi Jun chose.

So in the breakroom scene. (!!!) Choi Jun is radiating confident dom energy and Lee Jun is INTO IT. He begins by making sure Lee Jun wasn't hurt by scalding hot coffee and telling Lee Jun to take off his shirt. But then he does the most batshit dom thing ever and starts removing HIS OWN CLOTHES. He explains its because he has a spare shirt for himself and plans to dress Lee Jun in the shirt he's been wearing all day. Why? Because he has a scent kink! And he just says it out loud. He wants Lee Jun to smell like he's HIS.

He checks Lee Jun out like a starving man and asks, "would my size fit you?" WHICH IS THE WILDEST BLATANT SEXUAL INNUENDO and Lee Jun KNOWS its innuendo because he clutches his pearls with his hand over his heart and replies "don't people say you worry too much?" causing Choi Jun to call him cute. Lee Jun can't help but smile shyly at the compliment, and Choi Jun pounces, immediately switching gears and ordering him to hurry up and take off his shirt. Lee Jun asks "right here?" as if that's the only weird or concerning thing about being told to disrobe, so Choi Jun takes off his own vest. This man is doing everything in his power to both rattle and comfort his cute former idol childhood bestie, and I AM HOLDING MY BREATH FROM THE SEXUAL TENSION.

And then we get the first truly jaw-dropping scene. Choi Jun calls Lee Jun high maintenance (the Korean phrase is better translated as "You're a handful."). Lee Jun bristles and apologizes. Choi Jun steps closer and tells him he doesn't need to apologize; it's a compliment. He LIKES it when he needs to put his hands on someone to care for them and it makes them smell like him; it makes them feel like THEY ARE HIS. The collar caress!! The neck tie grab and pull!!! The audacity of starting to unbutton Lee Jun's shirt for him since he's taking too long!!!! MY HEAD EXPLODING.

Lee Jun freaks out a little and puts distance between them again, so they have another fun little conversation filled with innuendo about repaying favors American style, which Choi Jun says involves less clothing!

And then we get the second jaw-dropping scene right on the heels of the first. Choi Jun says Lee Jun has grown fiestier (he likes them feisty? just a guess), but that he's still "squishy" on the inside. Lee Jun is already looking 10 times more secure in this conversation, unhesitatingly flirting back through the entire next few dialog exchanges. The eye contact! THE MOST PERFECTLY EXECUTED WAIST GRAB!!

The "you can teach me!!!" The way Lee Jun takes that as permission to manhandle Choi Jun right back, grabbing his hands and moving him around like a marionette!!!!

THE NECK GRAB!!!!!

And that final last line from Choi Jun that sent me SCREAMING INTO MY PILLOWS:

Looking at the rolled up napkin in his hand, "Malleable is something soft..." and then looking at Lee Jun's lips like the very thirsty man he is, he finally makes eye-contact again and finishes with, "squishy is... something sexy?" Lee Jun gulps. Cut scene.

MY HEART CANNOT HANDLE HOW PERFECT THIS WAS. From the dialog to the body language to the eye-work to the kink exposure to the RIDICULOUSLY HOT EXPOSED FOREARMS ON CHOI JUN. I am in awe and Korea is FEEDING ME.

@absolutebl this seems like your jam

[sirhamburrger]

let them talk (akaashi x f!reader oneshot) "all i've ever known is how to hold my own and now i want to hold you." ~ hadestown (2006)

divider creds to @saradika-graphics

1.2k || tags/content warnings: royal au, princess!reader, royal advisor!akaashi, reader is bokuto's sister, forbidden romance (royal and a "commoner" fall in love blah blah blah), childhood friends to lovers, bokuroo (romantic) included and accompanying parental/societal homophobia, not beta read, please please tell me if there are any spelling or grammar errors

keiji is as calm and composed as ever as he shuts the door behind him. it feels as if a weight has been lifted off your shoulders as you lock eyes with him, your body instantly relaxing. it doesn’t seem to take away the unease sitting in the pit of your stomach, though.

“you requested my presence, my lady?” he asks.

you beckon him over, patting the space next to you on your bed. the mattress dips under his weight, and you feel his eyes skating over your bare shoulders briefly before flicking back up to meet yours.

“would you help me lace up the back of my dress?” you ask.

he nods silently, his fingers deftly pulling, tying, tightening. it’s done in a matter of seconds, and he examines his work one last time before shaking his head and undoing it all. you chuckle at the perfectionist in him—it’s always been a big part of who he is.

“not to complain, my lady, not at all,” he says dryly, “but i’m sure your maids would be much more competent at this than i could ever be.”

“yes, well…” you hesitate for a moment. “i don’t particularly want to see anyone except you right now.”

“oh? and why’s that?” he asks.

you wring your hands. “i’m nervous, keiji,” you admit. “i know, it’s weird. the crown princess of a prosperous kingdom, worried about appearing at her own birthday celebration? but, really…”

despite the grandeur of the festivities, there’s no hiding that they serve only one purpose: to find you a suitable partner before your coronation. your older sisters were married off to the lords and princes of neighboring kingdoms. your brother kotaro has plans to abdicate because the people would rather die than accept his male suitor. it can’t be helped—you’re the youngest of four royal children, yet first in line to the throne. the fact of the matter sits heavy in the atmosphere between the two of you.

you feel keiji still behind you, his hands entangled in the lace of your dress.

“there are many good noblemen and royals waiting for you downstairs,” he murmurs lowly. “prince tooru oikawa, lord ushijima—”

“i don’t want to talk about them right now,” you say tightly.

“what do you want to talk about, then?” he’s tense, uncharacteristically so, as the warmth of his breath washes over your skin.

“will you walk downstairs with me, love? hold my hand?” you ask softly.

the room is silent. you predict he’ll say no, remind you he is in no position to be seen with you. to everyone else, he is merely an advisor—your advisor. he is not worthy.

“please,” you persist. “or is it too much to show you are enamored by me?”

he turns away. you faintly register that your dress is laced up perfectly, and your heart aches.

“what good would it do the kingdom? if they see the crown princess with her advisor… what would happen, then?” he’s standing now, pacing quickly around the room. “the people want a royal suitor of noble blood. an heir of noble blood. you must give them what they want.”

and so your prediction has come true. disdain for bone-old convention bubbles in your gut.

“i am not just the next ruler, keiji. i am the last resort. i am the failsafe, the backup, the contingency plan.” you turn to him, sure you must look positively wild-eyed now. “i will do however i please, and the people will have to accept it. this is my decree as crown princess.”

the words are freeing as they come out of your mouth.

keiji hasn’t changed since you two were nine. deep gunmetal blue eyes. the crease between his eyebrows that makes him look older than he is. and his inability to refuse you. without a twinge of regret, you take full advantage of it.

“you would not have me married off to a man i despise, would you?” you ask.

“they will not have it,” he tries desperately, one final time. “they will talk.”

“so let them talk.”

keiji freezes, his hand clenching the edge of your bedpost as his composure falters. for a moment, you glimpse the man beneath the stoic mask—the one who has always been by your side, loyal to a fault.

“they’ll do more than talk,” he says hoarsely. “there will be whispers of scandal, unrest. a kingdom is not so easily swayed by declarations of the heart.”

your gaze softens. “and yet, a kingdom is not so easily broken by them either. the people will adjust, keiji. they always do.”

he shakes his head, his lips pressed into a grim line. “it’s not that simple, darling. you deserve stability. you deserve someone who can give you everything—a title, alliances, heirs of unquestionable lineage. what can i give you?”

“yourself,” you say simply, slowly. “that is enough for me. that has always been enough.”

for the first time in years, keiji looks truly vulnerable. his eyes search yours, as if seeking proof of your sincerity. you reach out, placing a hand on his arm, grounding him.

“keiji, you are so much more to me than an advisor,” you choke out, your voice trembling slightly. “if the crown demands that i marry, then i will—on my terms. not for alliances or politics, but for love.”

the word hangs in the air between you, heavy and undeniable. you see the crack in his resolve widen, his shoulders sagging under the weight of emotions he’s tried so hard to bury. he steps closer, his hands trembling as they hover near yours.

“and if the people don’t accept it?” he whispers.

“then i will remind them who their queen is,” you reply fiercely. “i will rule with or without their approval, but i will not rule without my heart.”

keiji exhales sharply, a sound halfway between a laugh and a sob. he closes his eyes, as if steeling himself for the plunge, before taking your hands in his.

“then i will stand by you,” he says at last, his voice low but steady. “as i always have. as i always will.”

relief floods through you, and before you can stop yourself, you lean in and press your forehead to his. for a moment, the world outside fades away—the expectations, the judgment, the weight of your shared duty.

“walk with me,” you murmur again, your lips brushing against his temple. “please.”

keiji nods, his grip on your hands tightening as if drawing strength from you. together, you step toward the door, your heart thundering in your chest.

when you descend the grand staircase, hand in hand, the room falls into a stunned silence. every noble, lord, and prince turns to watch as you make your entrance—not with a royal suitor, but with the man you chose. your father’s jaw drops. kotaro and his betrothed, tetsuro, smile warmly at the sight. they’ve always known, somehow, that this is how it was meant to end.

keiji glances at you, his eyes reflecting a mixture of apprehension and awe. you squeeze his hand reassuringly, lifting your chin as you meet the curious, scandalized stares of the court.

and you find that you don’t care what they might think, not a single bit.

a/n: just could not wait to post this aughhhhhh!!! he's going to have two birthday oneshots ig 🤷‍♀️ blame my impatient self

haikyuu masterlist || general masterlist

© sirhamburrger 2024

[pillarsalt]

hi um

I was? transmasc but recently I’ve been seeing a lot of really misogynistic sexist transphobic stuff from trans community and it’s just been totally accepted, even by other transmascs. It’s been going on for a while but recently there was a murder of a nonbinary afab person and yet the whole trans community here has been silent, instead screaming about a transfem user being banned or something? This isn’t the first time an afab trans persons suffering has been dismissed, but now right after this awful death, i see transfems making posts about how transmascs talking about their oppression are terfs.

I didn’t want to think about it but all i could think about was that it was weird how despite everyone claiming trans men have all this privilege, trans women always come first…they get the most representation, they get the fame the admiration and the opportunities, their voices are always the loudest and their problems always always come first no matter what.

But despite popular belief trans men’s issues aren’t actually less significant, in some cases we suffer far more than trans women especially in regard to sexual violence. Yet we are silenced. We are frequently left poor, we are discriminated against for our sex we are discriminated against for being trans we are discriminated against for being perceived as lesbians. Yet we are made to be silent?

Why are our voices less important than trans women’s?

And all I could think about was that this is how females are treated in every other area.

I don’t know what else to say… I tried so hard not to reach that conclusion because I don’t want to be transmysogynist but I kept coming back to it and I couldn’t find an argument against it. This is how females are treated. This is what male privilege look like. And if trans women have male privilege, then why the fuck am I sitting here letting them talk over me?

I just feel really really angry. Your a blog who I liked your art but I blocked you when I discovered you were a radfem, but I sort of had you in the back of my mind for some reason and now I feel lost and confused, and I don’t think I want to be part of the trans community anymore.

Hey anon, firstly I really appreciate your willingness to have an open discussion with me. This must be weighing on you pretty heavily.

Secondly, holy shit, you're right. While the entire website is treating this user's ban as a national travesty, I haven't seen a single person talking about Nex's murder despite how much they claim to care about trans people. That's really fucking low, and this situation does very much encapsulate the state of misogyny within the trans community.

And you're right, this IS how females are treated in every other area. Throughout history, the suffering and injustice women face is minimized, laughed at, ignored, and when we want to talk about it, we're shut down and told we're making people uncomfortable and our pain isn't that bad. And here we are again, with a female person's death outweighed by a male person's inconvenience.

The denial of sex-based oppression that permeates trans spaces is a blatant lie that can only be held together if nobody is allowed to acknowledge it, and those who do are punished. If the trans community truly stood behind what they say, discussion would be encouraged! The foundation of their movement would be backed up with facts and replicable science! But instead, they'll call you a bigot for pointing out systems of oppression you can see with your own eyes. Because if you do, transwomen's position as Most Oppressed, and therefore the final authority on what's right and wrong, collapses. You are correct when you say that it seems like transwomen always come first; I don't remember who said it first, but just look at magazine covers featuring trans people -- the transwomen are fully clothed CEOs, athletes, movie stars, but transmen mostly get on magazine covers for... being pregnant and half naked. Misogyny is built into every society on earth, and individuals simply calling themselves something else doesn't change that. And when you give male people free reign to be as misogynistic as they want without consequence, they'll grab that opportunity and hold on like their lives depend on it. The way they weaponize transmen's sex against them is indistinguishable from what 'cis' men do to 'cis' women, but if you ever speak out about it, somehow YOU'RE the one hurting THEM. They do not want transmascs to find solidarity with other female people, because then they would have to face the reality of their own place in a patriarchal world, and face the fact that there are experiences exclusive to female people and that we have the right to speak about it. I mean you see shit like this and the motives become completely transparent:

I do find it funny how hard the trans community and their allies work to prevent anyone from hearing what radfems have to say in case they "corrupt" you with mere words. A lot of the time, it's simply listening to transwomen themselves that sparks the feeling of "something's not right here" in your brain. That's what happened with me too. I'll tell you that most of us also used to be proponents of trans activism, many formerly identifying as trans too. You are seeing through manipulation, and I know it's quite shocking to realize. Even when I first started having doubts about trans rhetoric, I thought "well everyone else agrees about this, so I need to shut up and be nice about it even if I don't agree." It's an unpleasant place to be in. The cognitive dissonance is exhausting though, and it becomes impossible to ignore.

The mistreatment of transmasc people in the trans community by transfems is brutal, and It's hard to watch from the outside because I just want to say "Hey, you know you don't have to take this shit, right?" And you really don't. You are not at all a bad person for recognizing the frankly absurd amount of misogyny in the trans community. Feeling lost and confused is shitty, but it's normal for this situation. The best thing you can do is keep observing, keep reading, form your own opinions, and never let anyone tell you to shut up. Above all, prioritize yourself and your mental wellbeing. If you need to remove yourself from gender-related spaces and discussion for a while, that's totally alright. Just know you're not evil or a bigot for not blindly agreeing with everything the trans community has told you. Your opinions and experiences are worthwhile too.

[valtsv]

what is like. The vague plot of the silt verses

Cause I wanna listen now but idk if I'd actually be into it?

the most concise summary i can give you is that the silt verses is a folk horror/weird fiction show set in a world which sort of mirrors our own in terms of its sociopolitical landscape, but with the key difference that gods are real and worship - including human sacrifice - is not just a part of everyday life, but a fundamental foundation that the entire social system is built on. it starts out as a sort of detective thriller-style story following two worshippers of an illegal river god, carpenter and faulkner, as they travel through the territory of the peninsula (the main fictional country that much of the story takes place in) searching for signs of their god's activity, and a miracle to bring back to revitalise their dying faith, whilst also grappling with their own personal relationships to faith and the world they live in, and the people they have to share it with. the scope of the story widens with each season, however, as carpenter and faulkner's search leads to altercations with law enforcement, the forging of surprising connections, and the unfolding exposure of horrors enabled by struggles for power far beyond the reckoning of any one individual. as rising tensions between the peninsula and its neighbour, the consolidated linger straits, threaten to plunge everyone into another conflict of god vs god - corrupt and overfed belief system vs equally corrupt and bloated belief system - we get to see the impact of both societal upheaval and stagnation on several characters in a variety of social positions, from a number of walks of life, and how they respond to both large-scale developments and personal conflicts of equal importance to them as individuals. it's not a story of good vs. evil, or even justice vs. injustice, but of people in all their infinite, messy complexity, and how they navigate the world and their relationships to each other. also there's some morbidly hilarious political satire which is always good fun.

[dailyadventureprompts]

Setting: The Kingdom of Xophena, Realm of the Pure

Though it is famed the world over for the piety of its people and the bravery of its knights, this kingdom holds a dark secret at its heart. If you were to see the scattering of fortress cities surrounded by horror haunted wilderness it would be all too easy to believe the legends: brave warriors sallying forth to do battle against the corruption that besieges them from all sides, slaying great foes and making great sacrifices in the name of defending the innocent. If you looked closer though you would see Xophena for all its faults, the fear by which its elite drive and dominate its populace, a tradition of martial glory that justifies any action or abuse of the warrior caste, a population forced to endure toil and abject subjugation or be exiled outside the walls.

Adventure Hooks:

While travelling through the realm of the pure as part of an ongoing quest, the party run into a retinue of outrider knights on their way to destroy a rampaging aberration hiding out in a gold mine. Some of the knights scoff at the party for being common sellswords, while others recognize them as fellow doogooders-at-arms. There's glory to be had if the party join them in their mission, and more importantly, potential reward and bragging rights.... if they can keep up, the mounted cavaliers aren't going to slow down on the party's behalf.

Xophen emissaries have made an appearance in the party's homeland, courting alliances, making trade deals, and generally putting their finger on the scales of power. Distrustful of too many good offers, the party's patron is planning on a visit to Xophena in the near future and would like them to come along as extra sets of eyes and ears. Renegade heroes have a habit of seeing through the haze of political bullshit.

Xophena would make a fascinating backdrop for a campaign, as Arthurian myth crashes into lovecraftian weirdness. The best place to start would be with the party as castoffs and exiles, eking out a living in one of the few hidden hamlets built by those outcast from the social order. How do they survive? When circumstances demand that they enter one of the fortress cities do they trick their way in, or beg favour from the sanctimonious powers that be? Can they last long enough to discover the secret that has bent the world into its current cruel shape?

Background: Only a few centuries ago Xophena was just like any other kingdom, periods of prosperity and stability that dissolved into infighting as the local warrior elite squabbled for position. That of course all changed when monsters known as the Delnbrood began to wriggle out of the earth like worms after rain, causing untold devastation and forcing a societal retreat to the increasingly fortified settlements dotted about the mountainous foothills. The fear and chaos of these years restructured Xophen society into a rigid hierarchy based around tradition, faith, and survival, which has only grown more ossified as time has gone on.

Both Xophen scripture and legend will tell you that the horrors that beset them began with a treasonous sorcerer Delndrek who sought to take the throne for himself through dishonorable means and darkest sorcery. He was opposed by Tanria brightspear, a saint of the everlight who foiled his every sly attempt to seize power, until at last she cornered him and forced his surrender. Ever the coward, Delndrek sacrificed his humanity rather than relinquish his ambition, becoming an indescribable abomination, that it took the bright speared saint five days to vanquish, dying in the process. It's said that the aberrations that beset Xophena today are born from where his tainted blood struck the earth.

Like many of the tales told about the realm of the pure, this story is a lie, gilded with just enough truth to make it stick in the people's memory. Delndrek wasn't just a sorcerer, but the sorcerer of the royal family, tasked with magicing away all the problems that backwoods dynasty couldn't solve through bloodshed or political marriage. The kingdom's goldmines had always been its lifeblood, and most of the fighting in those days about who could profit from what claim. Trouble was the royal family's mines were drying up, so they threw their pet mage at the problem said that if he didn't find a solution they'd torture him till they did. Dying mines and mounting stress forced Delndrek to look deeper and deeper for an answer, and eventually led him to communion with the outergod Jysh'parun who holds dominion over the secrets of mountains. A pact was struck, the mountains ate people and spat up gold, until eventually the saint found out and decided to put a stop to things.

Cut to today, and the dependants of that very same royal family are still trying to wriggle out of the pact they instigated, spending their people's lives to fill their coffers and fight back the creatures the outer god sends to assert dominion over the realm he was promised.

Setting Details:

The church of the everlight was always strong in Xophena, dating back half a millennia to when an adherent of hers was lost on a stormy sea for months and was only able to find land when the mist parted and he saw the dawn first alighting on one of the region's seaside peaks. The mountainous temple city of First Alight still serves as the heart of the region's faith.

That faith has become just as gaudy and hollow as the rest of the kingdom: Somewhere along the line it was decided that gold was the best way to demonstrate praise to Sarenrae, both in decorating her icons and paying to erect ever grander structures in her honour. While the common people pray for the hope and strength to lead them through lean times, their tithes go to fund an increasingly bloated clergy who spend their days finding reasons that the peoples' sinful nature forestalls their goddess's promised salvation.

You don't compose ballads calling your homeland "Realm of the Pure" unless you've got some hangups around cleanliness. Delndrek's corruption has touched more than the land, as aberrant sorceries and otherworldly mutations have begun to spring up among the populace. Those with influence do their best to hide these marks, those without are scapegoated, exiled, or made an example of.

For all their privilege and brainwashing, many of the realm's knights really do believe in the cause, having largely abandoned the ways of petty armed gentry and settling instead into martial orders. While they all compete to slay the most beasts and earn the most gallant reputation, it is a deepset longing among the knights to be able to find St. Tanria's lost spear, which in the right hands is said to be able to rid the land of its blight once and for all.

Arcane magic is viewed with suspicion in Xophena, as any rogue mage could be just another Delndrek waiting to happen. Exceptions are of course made for those spoken for by the nobility.

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[birdsareblooming]

i think the reason calling right-wing people 'weird' is so effective is because

they tend to rely on them being the "norm," which isn't because their side is right but it's rooted in older beliefs, not knowing the oldest beliefs were much more loose, their "rooted in humanity ancient societal norms" are usually just from like. medieval england. So telling them in very general flippant terms that they're the odd one's out is technically what they want since they want to be oppressed, but also that's on mainly a surface level, it hits them where it hurts, they're no longer the majority.

Building on that, they're used to seeing queer people as the "weird ones."

It's so normal. Like unironically the word "weird" is normal. Depending on how you say it, literally the tone, makes weird either incredibly insulting or a normal even positive statement in some circles. Like, it's not a "newer" word for them to steal like "woke," it's not something like "boomer" that can (on their end) be considered a "slur." It's just weird. It's not anything fancy or anything made to be directed at them. Like if they start saying to ban the word "weird" than they'll sound ridiculous, "weird" hasn't been an insult for maybe decades now as it slowly becomes something neutral. "boomer" they can argue against, "weird" not so much.

They don't get the satisfaction. Right-wingers love nothing more than a debate, not a conversation a debate, because they want to use the same arguments and since left-wingers are passionate since it's their lives and loves that are at stake, they get emotional and right-wingers use blowing up, crying, emotional stuff, etc to mean weakness or poor debate skills. then they'll go, "look how emotional these blue-haired liberals are they're such pussies" calling the kettle black ignoring how often you actually can get a right-winger to blow up and say a slur or something. This way, it disregards them and their perspective in a simple sweep without opening a debate, and even better, it opens them up to becoming emotional, immediately making them comedic in their anger about being called "weird" like they were being called a slur

The implications. the meaning behind it about "why are you thinking about other people's genitals so much?" "why are you thinking about other people's sex life so much?" "why do you think all they do is have sex and they're only a sexual being, are you into them or something?" "why do you always assume people are grooming children? are you thinking about that a whole lot?"

The best outcome is for a right-winger to be called weird and actually cosider why that happened, although especially post 2020 it'll only make people dig even deeper into their beliefs, but hey it'll make 'em shut up

[on-a-lucky-tide]

Holy fucking shit. The Sun is gunning for her.

To give you an idea about why I just dribbled black coffee down my shirt reading this, the Sun was at the forefront of the moral panic that led to Section 28, the worsening of the AIDs crisis, fight against gay marriage, etc. The Sun is a societal cancer distilled into a single tabloid rag.

I'm not saying that the "tide is turning" or The Sun is one of the good guys. Absolutely fucking not. But does this perhaps signal that their "ilk" has realised the anti-trans obsession is making them look deranged? That ordinary people, while they don't necessarily care about trans people, think that the likes of Rowling, Joyce, Bindel, Musk are just fucking weird to be so obsessed over the bodies of others, and so are the politicians that support them. To claim to be "pro-woman" but never talk about them, their actual struggles or... fucking anything else on the planet.

I'm... feeling positive about this. Alongside the BMA deciding to throw down against the anti-trans cranks in government (including Wes Streeting and Kier Starmer) on our behalf, I'm going to chance feeling some hope.

I'm also going to keep training my arse off, however. (Credit to Siobhan for the screenshot, go follow her.)