#a while ago. and originally posted to my primary blog. but still

[void-kissed]

screw it I'm just going to repost my mermaid Anti-Aqua render that I made.. whenever my friends were talking about mer Aquas in their respective AUs and promptly making me extremely flustered

Here she is I think she looks very nice if you ask me

AU where Aqua's a big scary deep-sea mermaid like this and Aria is.. either a cecaelia (humanoid upper half octopus lower half) or a harpy-type of thing (playing off of how mythological depictions of sirens had them feathered or birdlike whereas modern-day depictions of sirens tend to make them aquatic like mermaids - here there are both, hehe) and we terrorise the oceans together and are in love ^-^

This render is okay to comment on or reblog if you want to, but it's not new and is also only of Aqua herself rather than being an outright selfship render, so I won't be using my tag list in this instance

More angles under the readmore to get a sense of scale~

Here are some pictures from earlier on in the process ^-^

[cosmiischillin]

Cosmi’s Log (2-27-2024)

Hello Earthings! It’s Cosmi with some updates and some big news!

Let’s start off with the updates

ENAF

The final page of Allies will be completed soon and for a week after that post, I’ll be opening the FNAF QNA where you can ask about the AU and its sister comic The Adventure Show!

I am currently working on some of the new animatronic character sheets hopefully I can more closer to finishing them after the QnA week.

A NEW STORY

A week ago I got back into an old cartoon show from my childhood. If you are familiar with the name Ruby Gloom, then you got it!

Introducing Twilight Town: The Monstrous World of Ruby Gloom. A webcomic that takes place in a reimagining of the original source material. The story takes place 8 years after the events of the cartoon series. The main cast of kid characters have now just reached adulthood and have to handle their own responsibilities. While they all still live as housemates in the mansion as they were before, the story still follows them when they aren’t home. The primary plot is about a 19 year old Ruby who owns a blog meant to show to humans that monsters are not evil or dangerous despite the odds being heavily against her and her friends.

I already made two character profiles I’ll post on here soon!

Gabie Galaxi Studios

For those who might not know, I’m currently in college for graphic design. I usually keep my professional and content separate though as I grow as a person, I wanted to find a way to showcase both.

So I’m currently in the works of making a website under my general brand “Gabie Galaxi Studio”. There you’ll be able to see my full portfolio of works as well as a side page of all my Cosmi Content. So to make sure you all know.

Gabie = Graphic Design

Cosmi = Fanworks and non professional works

That’s all for now! Have a lovely day today!

- Cosmi

[teecupangel]

Happy belated holidays!

I’m enjoying scrolling through your tumblr and reading your AO3 fics (catching up on Eagle rn and istg Aquila is the best character out of the whole cast…ironically.)

Though all these Desmond posts I’m reading have me itching to resurrect my sister OC from a couple years ago.

I had kinda figured that with such a prestigious bloodline, Bill the bastard (I am in line to punch him) would want an heir and a spare. Whether or not that’s a twin is up for debate.

Mine was supposed to be the older twin, the one that stayed at the Farm and helped Desmond escape, to let him be free. Now I’m thinking…what then?

An identical twin sister, same bloodline… they take turns in the Animus.

Originally I was thinking about her taking Ezio’s Apple and being sent back to AC:Syndicate time for a Jacob pairing, but then I finished reading Beloved Moon and now I want an Altair pairing.

While I’m aware that the Animus requires Genetic memories during Desmond’s time, does it require the person to be the same gender genetically too? It’s a moot point by Origins (and I think as early as AC4 actually), but still.

Anyways, love your writing and your blog!

Happy belated holidays and advanced Happy New Year too, nonny!

Why ironically? Aquila is best birb and best boi! XD

Ooohh, that sounds interesting. I mean, if they’re twins, it doesn’t have to be a case of heir and spare since they wouldn’t have known they would have twins immediately. An older sibling for Desmond would hammer the heir and spare metaphor though.

You could also add in the angst of the two of them being made to compete against each other for the ‘heir’ spot even though neither of them want the spot.

Okay, so let’s talk about the Animus and its genetic memories requirement.

Before Black Flag, the subject must have the genetic memories BUT they don’t need to be of the same gender.

The primary example for this one is actually Aveline’s descendant:

Subject 1 was male and Vidic talks about him in the Subject Zero recordings in Black Flag, one of which is this:

No, it's fine. The Subject is unconscious. He's traipsing through 18th century New Orleans right now. In the memories of a woman. (Noob Files, Subject Zero – audio file 3)

So yeah, as long as they have the genetic memories, it was possible to relive the memories of their ancestor, regardless of the gender.

It became a moot point at Black Flag because the genetic memories are placed in the Animus by some other mean (in Origins and beyond, it seems to be a vial).

Good luck with your fic and I hope you have fun writing it :)

[jonkentdeservesbetter]

I wrote a comment in r/SupermanAndLois awhile ago, where I mentioned how I’d one day get around to writing out an analysis on Jon’s character and his relationships. I have reposted that on my blog, but it’s largely irrelevant, except to say that I intended to.

The thing is, my original plan was to rewatch the previous two seasons, while taking some thorough notes on Jon’s personality and his relationships, and how those connections tie into his reactions and reflect his personality.

This never happened - despite starting my essay last year - because every time I tried going through a rewatch, I…got too upset.

It was one thing watching the first seasons, hoping for the last few episodes of season 2 - in the break after the ep. with the Barn Scene, wherein it seemed things were at last going to be addressed for Jon and begin to change for the better - to be what we hoped, in comparison with rewatching after…S2.

To sum it up: I couldn’t get through them.

Still, I did get somewhere with my analysis, and I’d like to hear any thoughts others may have in response. It’s really very little, when not posting my messy, unedited ramblings, but essentially: do you know Enneagram types? I’m actually not that familiar with it, aside from knowing things about my own. But when I was considering what and how to write the essay I’d mapped out, I thought a look at other personality analyses could be useful for kickstarting the process. So I went to the website. I remembered thinking of the profile and analysis on my type, how I’d been shocked at how accurate it all felt; which is why it’s what came to mind. I didn’t expect to actually find a type that fit Jon, but well.

Jon seems like a 3w2, in my opinion, and Jordan an 8, although I didn’t dive deep enough into the latter’s to determine wing.

Here’s the link to the Type Three profile. I’m not going to say I think every single line is spot-on for him, but I think it’s useful, still. Note: TW for ableist language in some parts.

Also: consider that some of the ‘unhealthy’ levels explained actually match Bizzaro!Jon.

There’s a lot to read and agree or disagree with, depending on how you, personally, interpret Jon’s characterization. For me, I found these excerpts quite striking:

[…] since these professions have status in their community and in the eyes of the family. No matter how success is defined, Threes will try to become somebody noteworthy in their family and their community. They will not be a “nobody.”

To this end, Threes learn to perform in ways that will garner them praise and positive attention. As children, they learned to recognize the activities that were valued by their parents or peers, and put their energies into excelling in those activities. Threes also learned how to cultivate and develop whatever about them is attractive or potentially impressive.

[…] Thus, the deeper problem is that their search for a way to be of value increasingly takes them further away from their own Essential Self with its core of real value. From their earliest years, as Threes become dependent on receiving attention from others and in pursuing the values that others reward, they gradually lose touch with themselves. Step by step, their own inner core, their “heart’s desire,” is left behind until they no longer recognize it.

Thus, while they are the primary type in the Feeling Center, Threes, interestingly, are not known as “feeling” people; rather, they are people of action and achievement. It is as if they “put their feelings in a box” so that they can get ahead with what they want to achieve. Threes have come to believe that emotions get in the way of their performance, so they substitute thinking and practical action for feelings.

Seriously, there’s a lot of Jon on that page.

[gwenlen-studies]

Thanks for tagging me @lizziestudieshistory! I don't post lots of original content on this blog for the moment so I'm happy to play along and I hope I'll soon post more regularly!

Last show: I don't watch any shows (except for Downton Abbey and Kaamelott and these are far too old to be an appropriate answer to t tag game) but the last movie I watched was Girl With A Pearl Earring and I just love it so much. Setting, light, tension between the characters, long-haired Colin Firth... Sign me up.

Last song: "The Game of Cards" by Maddy Prior and June Tabor, from Emma. (2020) OST. I love old-fashioned, popular songs and these days I'm always singing this one while washing the dishes.

Currently watching: So here I write the only show I actually watch and it is Miraculous, of course. I still have a couple episodes to watch before I actually catch up with the show.

Currently reading: Le Temps retrouvé by Marcel Proust (the last book from La Recherche du temps perdu. I don't want to think about what will happen when I finish this series of book I started almost 10 years ago); La Confession d'un enfant du siècle by Alfred de Musset; Une vie au Louvre by Magdeleine Hours; Manuel du bon ton et de la politesse française by Louis Verardi (a guide to good manners written in the 1860).

Current obession: The French Second Empire (hence my reading Verardi). I love this era and I started a little list of diaries and primary sources from the period that I want to read.

Tagging: @phoenixhallow, @dauen, and @immersedinfrench if you feel like it!

[tuxedo-floracat]

I posted 2,934 times in 2022

That's 313 more posts than 2021!

168 posts created (6%)

2,766 posts reblogged (94%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@dire-vulture

@radiant-flutterbun

@hungrytundras

@naphiatra

@goannafr

I tagged 325 of my posts in 2022

#flight rising - 63 posts

#arlo - 52 posts

#dragon share - 43 posts

#tundra - 15 posts

#fandragon - 10 posts

#fan dragon - 10 posts

#snapper - 9 posts

#my art - 7 posts

#nocturne - 6 posts

#ridgeback - 6 posts

Longest Tag: 138 characters

#flashback to me and pheel discussing what breed the 3d dragon puzzle i bought on amazon was supposed to be during maintaince last week lol

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

so I redid Garak’s outfit....

64 notes - Posted September 20, 2022

#4

I HAVE FINALLY OBTAINED A FANDRAGON I'VE WANTED SINCE 2014

Transmetal 2 Megatron from Beast Wars!!

I just need to change his primary but since metallic is a gem gene that'll be a while yet. Otherwise he is already complete and I am super happy with him!! Kind of ironic how I dressed him in the dinosaur armor to represent his one form that was not actually a dinosaur, lol.

and for comparison, here are scries I originally made in 2014 (L) and 2015 (R):

See the full post

71 notes - Posted November 8, 2022

#3

happy fat dragon friday! first time participating, this is a wip i started a few weeks ago now bc drawing is still hard/slow for me with tendinitis/learning to draw with non-dominant hand (this was actually drawn completely left-handed! digital art w/stabilization tools help a lot lol) BUT i wanted to share him finally since fat dragon friday seemed like the perfect time lol. this is Kalamazoo the grill dad tundra!!! he loves grills, grilling, making burgers for everyone, and wearing socks with sandals.

118 notes - Posted October 21, 2022

#2

sans undertide

224 notes - Posted November 22, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

456 notes - Posted January 5, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[richs-japan-tabi]

May 22 - Kyoto Imperial Palace

I woke up late today, so I didn't have time for breakfast. We began today's scheduled excursion by going to the Kyoto Imperial Palace. I was a little tired and hungry since I missed breakfast, so I wasn't in the best mood. I thought the palace was interesting, but unfortunately, I couldn't hear the guide's explanations well. Between the poor-quality microphone and the sound of people treading on gravel, I couldn't understand him. Luckily, the reading's primary focus was architecture and city planning of this period, so I could still appreciate most of it. However, I enjoyed the garden more than any of the architecture. I thought that the garden was beautiful, and I was able to take some nice pictures in front of it.

Afterward, we voted to determine if we would take a lunch break after the palace. Unfortunately, most people wanted to continue. Thus, the following site we visited was the Kyoto National Museum. Kyoto National Museum is an art museum with artworks and copies of artworks hundreds of years old. For this reason, they do not allow pictures in any of the exhibits. In addition, backpacks were to be held in front of your person, and pens were not allowed. I thought the pen rule was excessive, given that all the artworks were protected in glass, but I did not mind. As for the artworks themselves, they came in many different shapes and forms. Some popular forms included panels and scrolls. I'll elaborate more on an artwork that stood out in the academic reflection.

After about an hour at the museum, it was time for lunch. We didn't know what was in the area, so we looked around and stumbled across Ito-chan, a restaurant specializing in udon, soba, and donburi. I got the nabeyaki udon special for 1,100 yen. While not the best thing I have had in Japan, it was a good meal. Additionally, being a small restaurant, it had an authentic feel that chains cannot replicate.

When I finished lunch, I started preparing for my Tokyo trip! My girlfriend landed here a few days ago, and I am excited to see her. I am currently writing this blog post on the Shinkansen to Tokyo. I still find it incredible that such a fast train is equipped with WIFI good enough to write a blog post.

Academic Reflection

The assigned reading for today primarily focused on the development of Kyoto. The reading explains how the previous capital, Nara, was perceived by many as being old and out of style. Kyoto was the modern replacement of Nara, the former capital of Japan. I found this point especially interesting, considering that Kyoto is now considered by many to be old and traditional. The grid of roads reflects the city's modernity. The naming convention of avenues was a number succeeded by Jo. Confusingly, the areas in between these jo are also called jo. Even today, this system remains and gives anyone traveling in Kyoto a better understanding of the city.

The reading also talks about the Imperial Palace. Notably, I could see some of the gardens, meeting areas, and the famous two trees described in the reading. Of course, since the original has burnt down multiple times, the one I saw today is not the same as the original construction.

Finally, my final point of discussion centers around the artwork I saw at the museum. The Landscape of the Four Seasons, illustrated by Sesshu, is a brilliant art work. It was painted with ink and light color on silk in the 15th century when Sesshu was in China. Sesshu was an incredibly famous artist of his time. I was thoroughly impressed with how many of the museum's artworks were illustrated by him.

[empressofmankind]

PSA - Blog Hyper-link Fix

I've finally done what I should have done literal years ago: fix the navigation on this blog's home page. The side bar with all the tag-cluster links to my content works once more, meaning you can find them on type (art vs writing) or fandoms once again. While at it, I took the liberty of making one for OP(LA). For obvious reasons.

WHERE ELSE TO FIND ME

Tumblr: @sisterofsilence

I still maintain my original blog, currently in a legacy state. I don't have the (mental) energy I once had to keep abreast of goings on, social justice, discourse or otherwise.

Instagram: The_Emperor_Approves

The primary art-only platform, sketches, WIPs and polished works. Easy access to all my art-shaped (fan) content, past and present. Currently 5+ years in the running with > 300 posts.

Archiveofourown.org: EmpressofMankind

The primary fiction-only platform, mostly polished chapters/works. Easy access to fanfics past and present, sorted into thematic series, and so on. Currently celebrating my 10 year anniversary with > 75 published works.

Discord: SisterofSilence#6983

Find me for PM’s there. It's a more reliable way to reach me than on here, and it's much user friendly if you plan to have long conversations about our Venn diagram of special interest overlap.

[tonytomeo]

No More Reblogs

My blogging discontinued quite a while ago. Articles from my gardening column still post in two parts on Mondays and Tuesdays, with the primary topics on Mondays, and the featured species on Tuesdays. Older articles still post in the same format on Thursdays and Fridays. These articles are not actually blog posts though. They are gardening column articles. Originally, my only blogging had been…

[nyxelestia]

That's what tags are for!

While these days tags on most apps are for making new content easy to discover, on Tumblr, their original purpose - and for many bloggers, still their primary purpose - is to organize posts on a blog.

Append /tagged/TAG to any given blog's URL and you should see just their posts in that tag/"folder." Append /archive/tagged/TAG to a Tumblr URL, then you get the blog's archive which lets you filter posts by type and by approximate date (month and year).

How specific this can get depends on how specifically you tag your posts.

Here is all the fanart I reblog: https://nyxelestia.tumblr.com/tagged/fanart

Only want a specific fandom? I have additional tags on many of those posts so you can just see the posts /tagged/spider-man fanart, /tagged/atla fanart, or /tagged/kinnporsche fanart, etc. Remember seeing some fanart from my exactly two years ago? Here is everything I reblogged tagged fanart back in September of 2021: archive/2021/9/tagged/fanart. "Asks" are a post type, and here are all of mine: /archive/filter-by/ask. You can't find a post you were looking for, but you know it was a recorded recipe around last Thanksgiving? Here are all my video posts tagged with food around November of last year: archive/2022/11/filter-by/video/tagged/food.

Tumblr already has a folder system built in, it's just that a lot of people don't use it because the folder system is mostly used as a content discovery system on most other platforms.

I wish tumblr let you organize your posts into like. Folders. So all the asks can be in one folder but if someone just wants to see art that’s in another and if they wanna just see text posts another etc

[pan-magi]

Hey, brief update I guess. Winter is depressing; I'm cold and bored as shit so my number of posts may increase up to the new year. On the other hand, I may not be able to finish anything and this is pointless, so I am sorry. I do have multiple WIPs of different types of posts that should be up soon though.

With this said, I still plan to keep this as a mostly archived blog with minimal updates, as much as I have some ideas again I can't make them quickly for a lot of reasons. I work slowly, especially with the type of content I make for tumblr. Text posts are easier than my image sets but even then I fret over my stupid rambly shitposts.

Also, I did some personal rearranging and I've set up a new primary blog (@starmahgalaxies) and transferred this side blog to it. I say this as I don't want people to @ me if I reblog some of my stuff over there and that I'm stealing from myself if I include ownership tags like "my stuff" for it. I needed to separate from my old primary blog for a while now. It stopped reflecting who I was, well, at least 5-6 years ago when I first left tumblr. Instead of completely changing it I just made a new one.

The majority of my original Magi content will still remain on this blog. No need to follow me anywhere else if that's what you want. This blog will remain my baby and likely much more organized than what I decide to do over there.

I would have probably just made this my primary blog, but tumblr is weird and that requires hoops that may have ended up accidentally deleting this blog if i tried it. If I do post original Magi content over there it will likely be shipping* and art, if I go with it being easier to clump all my (fan)art over there regardless of fandom. My text posts, image edits, gifsets, etc. for Magi will remain here, so no worries <3.

This is also a head's up if I end up replying to comments here or something, that it is me. Again, because tumblr is weird and you have to reply from main. I wanted to make that clear it is me in one definitive post so that is what I am doing here.

*It's important to me being aro running a blog that is ship-neutral. I can say as well that looking at my follower list that the preferred ships can vary quite a bit, from each other and my own. It'll feel odd to start posting shipping stuff here now. Besides possible pride related things with non-specified ships, all my shipping content will remain over there.

(I have no qualms with people reblogging with ships or using my gifs in ship work. I've seen it a couple times and it's cool. I'll be upfront if I don't want that for a specific post. Trust me on that one.)

[icaruskey]

I posted 6,350 times in 2022

That's 5,921 more posts than 2021!

2,977 posts created (47%)

3,373 posts reblogged (53%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@happysadyoyo

@yharnamsnewslug

@thefeistydragon

@fanarchoslashivist

@delgado-master

I tagged 1,382 of my posts in 2022

#morg - 177 posts

#hp knock off - 84 posts

#transandrophobia - 69 posts

#icarus liveblogs lightlark - 67 posts

#constellations - 58 posts

#word count - 34 posts

#the sixth sense liveblog - 31 posts

#brier - 30 posts

#solar lunacy - 27 posts

#tumblr story - 27 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#basically every time i turn around i just see that the purge is real and i'm uncomfortably remembering when people made fun of the franchise

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Most trans women don’t have to worry about becoming pregnant accidentally or forcibly and be forced to deal with either A. no access to abortive services B. being forced to out yourself to have access to abortive services or C. be forced to detransition because your testosterone is a risk for the fetus and you aren’t allowed to abort or chose not to.

So like. Transandrophobia is a thing. This is transandrophobia. Fucking shut up.

860 notes - Posted May 16, 2022

#4

hi, the more widely accepted short form of non-binary is enby. nb is appropriative of AAVE as it has stood for non-black long before it stood for non-binary. just to let you know since you are planning to call a book NB.

This is... this might be the funniest moment in my fucking life. I was literally just talking to @nothorses about this exact conversation I had read a bit ago.

First, I'm going to link to @transgentleman-luke's post on the subject of nb discourse.

Secondly, nota bene or nb for short, has been in use since 1711, whereas nonblack originates roughly around 1961. I have to admit I heard of nota bene when in high school and still use it a lot because I got in the habit while I was still being a pretentious little shithead.

So if we're really going to go with where it started being used first, nota bene has everyone beat out.

And if I want to be really pedantic, nonbinary as a word (not necessarily a gender label) has been around since 1863. I'm very willing to bet that nb was used as shorthand for the term in some form. I just don't have the time or energy to go dig into it more but trust that humans have always been humans about shit.

Thirdly:

The book isn't called NB. It's Nature Boy, and I use shorthand to make it easier to see the full title in Drive.

Finally, not all nonbinary people like to be called "enby."

Acronyms and shorthand can mean multiple things. This ask, while I'm sure is well-intentioned, carries the same energy as the blockheads who think that because trans men are defending themselves from two black people over a nearly year long harassment campaign they (the trans men) are racist.

Since you don't come across with an aggressive tone, I am willing to believe you're not one of those blockheads. And while I do think there is a troubling trend of AAVE getting appropriated into common vernacular without recognition of its origins or consideration of how it's socially acceptable for white people to "borrow" from black culture but black people have to code switch in order to be taken seriously (admittedly from a USAmerican mindset here), nb is not an appropriation of AAVE language.

Ninja Edit to Add: Anon, I say this sincerely, did you stop to think how English mouths say “enby?” It’s nb. So enby isn’t really a good replacement either, regardless of everything else. 

1,095 notes - Posted February 21, 2022

#3

I like slapping Irreversible Damage in TERFs faces because, I mean, look at it:

I’m a graphic designer. I have a double major in it and printmaking, therefore I am especially qualified to comment on this. Want to know why I switched over to printmaking and book arts as my primary major? Because commercial graphic design is propaganda and I decided I didn’t feel comfortable by that point working for capitalism. 

Like man, my entire life has revolved around books and writing. I just wanted to make good covers. 

Anyway. Here we have a cover of a little white girl with her womb cut out. The title is literally Irreversible Damage. You literally cannot in good faith look at this book cover and tell me that Abigail Shrier isn’t talking about little white girls losing the ability to make little white babies. 

If you can honestly, in 100% good faith look at this cover, look at this title, and tell me otherwise, I’ll call you a liar and block you on sight. Because I have a high tolerance for idiocy but not that.

1,295 notes - Posted March 7, 2022

#2

Can we also discuss the fact there’s a minority of people who aren’t “AFAB” who are still capable of getting pregnant?

Or are we going to keep using this as a new, cooler binary to try and talk about “women lite”

1,551 notes - Posted May 16, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

TERFs don’t want to save trans men and AFAB nonbinarys who don’t look like GNC women.

The want to detransition us, force us to accept our “role” as women, make us proud of the parts of ourselves that often make us the most uncomfortable in our own skin. 

If the trans person in question is white, they want to use our wombs to produce more white babies. Because don’t forget, you can never part the racist from the sexist. 

And if someone’s too far gone, if they’re too loud and brash and wield their words like a baseball bat. If they can’t be silenced, then they want to kill us. Demean us, dehumanize us, use us as a warning to younger, closeted trans people. 

Look at them. Look at what testosterone has done to their bodies, the personalities, their souls. You don’t want to be like that, do you?

TERFs say the want to save us. They don’t.

They want to kill us.

4,545 notes - Posted February 13, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[duckprintspress]

Received Asks: How Did You Pick the Name You Create Under and What Influenced that Decision?

A collaboratively written post by multiple members of Duck Prints Press. The input of every individual author has been used and lightly edited with permission and credited in the way they’ve requested.

Two days ago, a member of Duck Prints Press posed the following questions to our blogging team:

Whether you publish under a pen name or your given name, what factored into your decision to use one or the other?

Was personal safety the primary reason behind deciding to use a pen name, or were there other reasons? 

If you use your given name, do you feel safe? 

What's your advice for [creators] who are thinking about publishing original [work]? 

A number of us replied, and we all felt that the compiled responses would make a good post to share, as “whether or not to use a pen name” is a recurring question we often get in-server, and is likely one many of y’all out there thinking of publishing your original work have pondered as well. 

Do you publish under a pen name or use your given name, and what factors influenced your decision to use one or the other?

@arialerendeair: I publish under a pseudonym and always will! I decided to go with names that riff off my fanfic name (Aria Lerendeair) - Aria L. Deair (for non-erotica) and Aria D. Leren (for erotica) because I’ve built a community and wanted it to be a bit of an in-joke when they find/buy my content. If someone were to find the story organically - they might get the name reference, they might not. It’s a fun way to create not-separation between the names and have one for the different genres! 

B. T. Fish: I (try to) stay anonymous aside from necessary contracts because of personal safety as regards certain family members. I honestly don't worry about strangers knowing who I am, but if I am aiming for anonymity I have to commit.

Annabeth Lynch: I use a pen name, but I plan on taking at least the first name as my legal name when possible. I won't share that or my pen name with my family because 1) they don't know I write, and I'm not content to share that with them at all, and 2) I don't want them to know I'm queer. They likely wouldn't be hellish about it but I would certainly be mocked. Also, now I live in the south and while I live in a liberal section because of the nearby colleges, the place I want to move after my husband's schooling is ~liberal~ in a vague way but definitely not as good as where I am now. It's one reason why I'm hesitant to try and get my books in bookstores that might want in-person events.

Dei Walker: I went with a pen name for the erotica I wrote for DPP (and I'll keep with that), but the first name holds a link with my real name in some ways. My husband's a teacher at a fairly prestigious private school, and there's a degree of "yeah my wife writes smut" that's okay with colleagues but isn't okay if the parents find out about it if they use search engines to learn more about me.

Willa Blythe: I chose to use a pen name. One, my real name is kind of weirdly spelled and I don't actually even use my first name because it is a very popular name from the 80s that my parents left a letter out of... I go by my middle name but I spell it differently than what's on my birth certificate, and I've gone by this name since I was 18. Everyone in my life knows me as (NAME) save my family, and they know I go by that. It's not a nickname, it's my name, and that's fine. 

Anonymous: I decided to use a pen name for two reasons: 1) my name is incomprehensible to English speakers - not only is it hard to pronounce, but it also uses special characters; 2) I'm a primary teacher in a small town where gossip goes wild (for example, when I decided to go part-time so I have more time for writing it was going around that I was pregnant ) so I don't want anyone to find out that I'm queer and write queer romance. There are idiots out there who wouldn't want me to teach their kids because of that. I eventually came up with a pen name that is a word play on my legal name so it still feels like me, and the people I want to know would recognize it as me but strangers are unlikely to make the connection.

Nina Waters ( @unforth ): I publish under a pen name because people always mispronounce my last name and my understanding is that it's better to make a pen name people can pronounce. Back when I was still considering trad pub, I was planning to use multiple pen names so I could write across genres. Nina Waters was gonna be spec fic and romance, but I love historical drama type stuff too and like. Those sell better with a male name on them? So I was gonna use either C. P. Houck (so, my actual initials and last name) or Charles (or maybe Chuck) P. Houck, since Charles is a family name (my uncle, my grandfather, and my great grandfather on my dad's side are all Charles's). That all said, when I decided to go the small Press creation route instead, there was basically no way to keep my real name out of things since as the owner I have to put it on all official paperwork, which means it's filed with the government and a matter of public record. Since anyone could access it, there didn't seem to be much point in keeping it a secret/separate. 

Was personal safety the primary reason behind deciding to use a pen name? What other reasons influenced your decisions?

(some authors included their answers to this in their replies above)

Nina Waters: Not really, though I did originally concoct the Nina Waters name for a really silly version of personal safety? I was writing a thing based on my unrequited feelings for someone and I obviously couldn't put that under my real name without risking them figuring it out, so I needed a pen name. I never did finish that project lmao and now I would never bother but the pen name stuck. 

arialerendeair: Part of [why I use a pen name] is because I was doxxed (and received threats) from a non-writing community almost a decade ago. I’m not afraid of attaching my real name to my works - I’m proud of them! But with the very real possibility of that happening again at some point in the future, I didn’t want to risk it!

Willa Blythe: There was an additional reason that using a pen name was important to me, though. When I wrote fan fiction, I was the victim of a targeted hate campaign aimed at people who wrote fanfiction about a certain character. I wrote fic that I loved and I stayed in my corner, but I got aggressive and hateful messages constantly about not only myself but also my young son, for the crime of choosing to write about a young man of color instead of the overwhelmingly popular white m/m ship in that fandom. It was alarming, especially when people I didn't know sent me messages about my workplace and my movements there. Prior to that, I'd been pretty open online. I'm not now. I take doxxing very seriously. My son's safety, but also my own and my roommate's, are of huge importance. I write about things people don't love: complicated queer relationships, critiques of capitalism and white supremacy, critiques of religion and spiritual practices, etc. I have to do what is necessary to create distance between my real life, my fandom life, and my writing life. That said... I've done more to separate my fandom and writing identities than my real and writing identities, for a variety of reasons. It's complicated, but as much as I love fandom, it does breed a certain kind of entitlement that my personal friends and family just don't have.

If you use your given name, do you feel safe?

@owlishintergalactic: My wife and I had a huge conversation about the implications of me writing under my wallet name. I am quite politically involved in the Early Childhood Education and Early Childhood Special Education sectors in my county and state. This is a sector where being openly LGBTQ can cause problems with a particular subset of parents and voters. Yet, we don't believe we should have to hide who we are and that we are LGBTQ - like many other parents in our state. We decided, in the end, that since I don't write anything more racy than "mature," it makes sense to build my platform using my real name. My writing is a part of me. It is a part of my advocacy. It's my profession. But it is a risk, and it's mitigated some because I live in one of the most open and inclusive communities in the US. For the most part, though, I do almost all of my online work under a variation of Owlish because it creates a layer of protection between me and the internet masses who don't always have the best intentions.

Nina Waters: I. uh. Mostly? I definitely worry about it. I've been thinking about getting a P. O. Box for the business so I at least don't have to use my real address all the time too. I worry that if someone took offense to the kind of work I do, they could go after my children, and that scares the crap out of me. In retrospect I wish I’d worked a little harder to keep my identities separate, but they were already mostly merged by the time I had kids and I’d have had to completely restart with new screen names and everything, so it felt like it was already too late by the time the business became public.

What’s your advice for [creators] who are thinking about publishing original [work]?

Nina Waters: The advice I give to people in the Press is if they're even a LITTLE unsure, they should use a pen name. At any time when they decide they're comfortable they can always switch to using their real name, but once the genie's out of the bottle there's no putting it back.

arialerendeair: There are a great many reasons to choose to use a pseud! For your own personal reasons, for reasons involving your spouse, your family, your activism work, because the internet is a scary place sometimes and many grew up in the web safety diligence era. If you are picking up a pseud for any reason at all - great! They can be fun, they can be punny, (is it a coincidence that D is the middle initial for my pseud that I write erotica under? Nope!) and they can be a chance to reinvent yourself for an audience that doesn’t know you yet. There’s a power in being able to shape a persona - and sometimes it’s fun to grab that and see where it leads!

*

Do you - yes, you, the person reading this! - use a pen name for publishing your art, fiction, or other types of creations? Have you kept your fandom, creation, and meatspace selves separate? We’d love to hear your answers to the above questions, so feel free to reblog and weigh in!

*

Have a question? Feel free to drop us an ask any time!

Want to support what we do and get access to extras and behind-the-scenes information? Back us on Patreon or ko-fi!

[reelybadfnafocs]

he's back! it's luke from three years ago! meaning his original concept was posted six (soon to be seven!) years ago... what a ride it has been! i was in elementary school when i made him, and now i've nearly finished my senior year. crazy how life moves without you noticing, hey?anyways, i'm here to just sort of place him down and see what happens. i don't expect anybody to remember him, but it's fun to see how he's progressed through the history of this blog, right?

First of all: YIPPEE WOOHOO I LOVE OLD OCS SEEING THE LIGHT OF DAY!!!

Mod Bright here, and I wanna take a moment to say ohhhh my god I love tracking how your art style's changed and grown since you first submitted! I love the softer lines you seem to be using now, and your coloring style is…ugh absolutely gorgeous.

As for Luke's redesign, ohhhh I'm in love. Though I think the original designs were nothing bad (in fact, I'm still a little fond of the first design, it's got so much charm!) I do really enjoy how nice on the eyes the color palette is here.

I also enjoy how his antennae-thingies have returned to being right over where his ears would be! It's a good place for them. :)

(And his eyelashes…oouogougoguoguo pretty…)

I also like how, aside from the seams in his body, he seems like he could be mistaken for an everyday employee- I think that's a really fun take for his character concept!

alright, so his name is still luke. he is a humanoid masculine-presenting android located in an establishment known as cam and dolly's, a subsidiary of fun!pizza business. his primary role is that of a caretaker; he is stationed in an area of the main cam and dolly's location known as "luke's corner". he is unique to the main building, as other cam and dolly's chain locations lack his special area.

luke's main function is to provide a safe, calm space for people of all ages who may find themselves overwhelmed or upset by the other attractions. he can draw, tell stories, hold intelligent conversations, play (calmly) with toys, and assist with certain arcade machines.

I am sososo glad you kept this concept because I always thought it was very sweet, and definitely plausible for a FNAF fangame or FNAF-inspired story concept!

Not much to say here, since I've already sung my praises about this in my last review, haha. Him being one-of-a-kind, though, while often implied with characters similar to this, is a really nice touch. :)

luke was purchased from an auction by the owner of cam and dolly's two years before the founding of the actual chain itself, as one of approximately thirty androids salvaged from the rubble of an abandoned warehouse after a fire had destroyed it. his original creator is unknown, as all previous branding (nautilus robotics inc) has no existing record as a real company and the recorded owner of the warehouse had been found deceased in their home shortly after the incident. luke, despite the fire, was in relatively good condition and was easily repaired by the owner herself.

THIS IS KIND OF SICK AS HELL. I like this a lot! Super mysterious, explains well why this android is hanging around a kids pizza chain of all places, and has just enough intrigue to keep people guessing! …And enough that you don't have to have all the details ironed out right away, I'm guessing. :P

I like how you've put detail into the actual incident that happened, too! It's nice to have a little more detail to his backstory than last time. Fond of this funny robot :)

I would love to hear more detail in the future, maybe, about the owner and her history/experience...it'd be really interesting, especially, to hear about her skill level with mechanics/programming respectively and/or lack thereof, and how the repair process actually, like, went.

luke is an artificial intelligence and is far more advanced than he lets on, however he is not without his quirks and.. issues. while luke still has an issue in his code preventing him from properly recognizing after-hours staff, his logic and outside reminders will suffice to keep him acting 'normal'. while i've written his story without much of a legitimate gameplay loop in mind (he's definitely more of a story oc than a game oc at this point lol), i do have some ideas for him.

I'd love to hear some more elaboration on exactly how advanced he is and his actual personality (since "more than he lets on" does sort of imply a fun level of sapience) outside of his job! Some detail on his perspective in particular I feel could be really cool.And ohohohoho gameplay loop ideas…these are always fun, even if you don't get to use 'em! Let's see…

if we are working with a traditional fnaf five nights security guard office style, i figure he'd work something like this:

luke becomes active on the first night and remains active all week, increasing in difficulty and aggression as nights go on (of course).

due to a previous incident involving a nightguard at the establishment, luke insists on trying to come to your office to "supervise" you. if he enters the office during this phase, he will be an obstacle to your control panel/camera panel, as well as an auditory distraction as he talks — luring the sound-sensitive dolly to your office faster than normal.

you can send luke back to his corner via commands sent to the receiver on his head. he has to obey these commands, even if he doesn't want to, leaning in to a frustration/aggression mechanic.

This is a really fun concept and really fitting for what you've said about him thus far!

I like the inclusion of a mechanic to send him back to his corner, and having there be consequences for using this mechanic (maybe so you'd have to weigh the benefits of keeping him around for a little longer than you'd like while dealing with other threats?) sounds like it'd add a very fun layer of complexity to nights.

the more times you send luke back to his station, the more frustrated with you he will become, ticking his aggression up with each use. once his aggression surpasses a certain threshold, he will switch into a more hostile mode, becoming more persistent as well as capable of jumpscaring/killing the player instead of just being an obstacle. he will take multiple paths to the office in an attempt to evade your cameras and commands.

Ohohoho…very cool, I like! The commands still working as Luke is en route in hostile mode (presumably only when he's in view on the cameras?) is fun too, feels like a sort of riff on the audio lure mechanics we've seen in the main series and fangames! Very nice.

the best way to deal with luke is to let him get close to the office before sending him back — this minimizes the amount of times you have to use the commands, therefore avoiding triggering his 'hostile mode' for as long as possible.

Naturally. :P

i have no idea if that's good or even playable and i'm also very sorry for the novel of a submission. i just enjoy my funny little guy and think he's quite silly. thank you for reading and thank you for not deleting this blog so this small piece of my own oc history has remained preserved :,,) i hope you have been having as much fun as i have.

NOOOO THIS WAS FUN TO READ AND REVIEW!!! I enjoy your funny little guy also and I'm glad you've submitted him to the blog :) I am also very glad that the blog is still up…though I don't really agree with its original message and haven't for a long time, I think it's an important artifact of internet history, y'know? And, of course, of individual OC history. :P

As for the hypothetical game mechanics, I think Luke's got some interesting ones that are definitely workable for a game!

The thing I've found is that you can't really predict whether something like this'll be too much/unplayable unless you have the full picture of all the cast's mechanics together, and even then some game devs have had it worked out then figured out some overlooked synergy between antagonist characters that makes stuff impossible!

So…don't sweat it too much, unless sweating it is fun for you.

To conclude…Thank you for submitting, and thank you for sticking with us all this time. Luke is a character that was already genuinely solid in concept, and here I'm only seeing more detail and thought in your writing.

I'd love to see where you go from here, if you work on this group of OCs any more!

Good luck in the future! <3

-Mod Bright

[blueheavensims]

Check-in tag

I was tagged by @gphoenixsims.! Thank you kindly.

• Why did you choose your url?

So, way way back in the late ‘00s, I was still on Sim Trek 2 Boldy Go (RIP), and creating my first Sims 2 Story, Blue Heaven Sims. I wanted to extract a few of the Sims to share, and so I made a new home for them, originally a Blogspot blog called Blue Heaven Sims. It seemed appropriate, and as I created more, unrelated content and Sim Trek 2 was soon shuttered, I needed a home for it all. The name had what the kids these days call “brand recognition”, and since it wasn’t broke, I didn’t fix it. I created a tumblr account for personal stuff I think around 2014, but never used it (this is my primary) and created the secondary account to promote my work and that of other Sims 2 creators.

• How long have you been on tumblr?

Since August of 2018. I came to the party late. Right before the Tumblrpocalapyse, in fact.

 • Do you have a queue tag?

No.

• Why did you start your blog in the first place?

More visibility. I try to keep an eye on which types of the content I create are popular, which get more downloads, and so on. Publishing updates on Sims Cave wasn’t really pulling in the new visits to my blogs, so decided to try this new site that all the kids were talking about.

• Why did you choose your icon/pfp?

It’s me chilling with Ophelia, my tortoiseshell goddess.

• Why did you choose your header?

I didn’t.

• What’s your post with the most notes?

I had to research it, because my memory’s a bit cloudy. It’s the Comfort Me Too posebox, with 148 notes. The note thing can be super deceptive, honestly. Typically, my original creations garner around 20-30 notes, whereas derivative content (bodyshape conversions of other creators’ outfits, reposes of janky poseboxes, etc.) tend to do much better. The vast majority of my content is niche, typically made for one specific genre of game (the Midnight at… series, Combate Moderno, Merrie Minstrels, Barbarians at the Gate, etc.) whereas the content that seems to be really popular is 4t2 clothing conversions and Maxis Match hair recolors where one creator’s post is almost indistinguishable from the next.

 • How many mutuals do you have?

Probably fewer than I should, honestly. I have a few people who I engage with frequently and I care a great deal for; they know who they are.

• How many followers do you have?

600 and some change. Tumblr nerfed a bunch of bot and inactive followers recently, but I’m slowly approaching 650 again.

 • How many people do you follow?

251. I only follow Sims 2 blogs.

• Have you ever made a shitpost?

No.

• How often do you use tumblr each day?

I check it a few times a day. I post content 2-4 times a week, and occasionally make reply posts, comment on friends’ posts or rant.

• Did you have a fight/argument with another blog once? who won?

A few. I have a reputation (deserved or not) of not putting up with anyone else’s bullshit. I had, not exactly a fight, but a disagreement with MDP a while ago. I don’t remember exactly what it was about. Probably not of very much consequence. There was the time I stood up for Nobe (devotedlyghostlyenemy) when someone called her a bunch of names for converting a teen crop top to for children. Yes, there are still people like that on tumblr.

I have a PM of telling Klira to pound sand after she PM’d me to ask me not to remake her janky poseboxes. I have the screenshot saved to my desktop.

I had a funny exchange with the “underwear anon” a few months back; I’m pretty sure that I got the better end of that one.

I’ve jumped into a couple of pissing matches about Patreon content creators for TS2 having their content redistributed and that Brazilian site that was redistributing free content, I had a few things to say during the discussion about Cindy/PleasantSims’ Discord, and I’ve called out a few people who were bullying other creators. 

But Tumblr is the tip of the iceberg. I’ve been active in the community (not just tumblr) for 15 years now, and for better or worse I’ve interacted with a lot of people. For a complete history of me not putting up with other peoples’ bullshit, THIS post is worth reading (sorry; it hasn’t been updated with the latest crap about the Sims Crafters Discord yet: I’m working on it).

• How do you feel about ‘you need to reblog this’ posts?

The only correct answer is “No the fuck I don’t.”

• Do you like tag games?

Yeah. It depends on the tag game, really, but most of the time they’re fun and I’m happy when my friends tag me.

• Do you like ask games?

Yes. I don’t get a whole lot of asks, but I’m happy to respond when I receive them.

• Which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous?

I try not to compare my work to the “big names”; obviously they’ve been here longer, create more mainstream content, and have much more ample follower bases. Without access to the follower counts of every single mutual I have, I’d be hard-pressed to provide a response.

• Do you have a crush on a mutual?

I’m a boring old married person. I don’t have crushes.

Tagging: I think most of the folks I follow have already gone. Ummm… @nixedsims​, @criminalmiik​, @iamg-knee​ maybe? If it’s not your thing, I’ll happily fuck off.

[wirewitchviolet]

A Little Horrifying Primer on Transphobes

Some time ago, I put together a Little Fact Checking Primer on Trans People, as a basic resource for disabusing people of some of the many completely ridiculous yet absurdly widespread beliefs about trans people that simply have no basis whatsoever in reality. And wouldn’t you know it, every single lie exposed in that primer is not only still widely believed, but is presently being used as a basis to sign some absolutely horrific human rights abuses into law. So it’s high time I follow that up, in this case focused more on who keeps actively spreading these lies and why. I’m going to try and keep things as light as I can here, but we’re going to be looking at the most monstrous side of human nature, so apologies in advance if this is a dark read.

First, let me just note that there are two things I don’t plan to do in this piece. I’m not going to waste time debunking the arguments of the people I’m highlighting (much of this is already covered in my earlier primer, others have done the work in cases where I haven’t, and frankly these people’s claims should be self-evidently utter nonsense to begin with). I am also going to be very selective in what I link to, or even share related images of, as I would frankly not like to fill a post on a blog I generally try to keep safe for all audiences with media directly dealing with, for instance, child sexual assault, and much of the relevant information also involves stochastic terrorism against innocent people, and I would prefer not to throw more fuel onto such fires.

Transphobes lie constantly, about everything.

To some degree this is obvious. We’re talking about people who scaremonger about the possibilities of trans women dominating competitive sports and assaulting people in restrooms, despite the status quo already reflecting the conditions they insist would make these inevitibilities for decades and centuries respectively, and their grim visions never once having come to pass, and also constantly insisting that the woman in the photo below is actually a man, going further to say this is evident to anyone giving her the merest glance.

It goes beyond that though. There’s at least a little plausible deniablity in claims like this, or that “science is on their side” if they were simply uninformed about the world they live in, never actually looking into what laws exist, what science actually says, and never actually meeting a trans person or even seeing a picture of one of us. I’m talking really bold lies here. Like wholecloth fabricating a story that a convicted murder was trans, including anecdotes about wigs dresses and a planned name change, in a major newspaper. Or to cite an old favorite of mine, the time a pack of bigots walked up to a crowd of people peacefully picketing a transphobic legal proposal, started roughing them up and taking closeup photos of members of the crowd to stalk online when they got home, got sufficiently riled up for one to straight up assault an innocent person half her size, filmed the whole thing, uploaded it to youtube, and used stills of that assault as acomanying photos when they went home to write articles about the assailant being a “grandmother” attacked by rowdy trans women. And yes, they did monkey’s paw my wish to see that specific image on newspapers. Interesting side note, when it came to real public light that J.K. Rowling endorsed this sort of hatred, it was because she accidentally pasted some profanity laden rambling about how the imagined moral character of the other party in that incident, years after the fact, into a post praising a child’s fan art of her work.

To be a little less niche, transphobes can’t get enough of spreading the lie that the young fellow in this photo is a girl. Specifically a trans girl, providing proof that all their scaremongering about the dastardly threat of trans girls in competitive sports has finally come to pass.

To be fully clear, that’s a man (or a boy if you want to split hairs about him being 17 in that photo). Mack Beggs. A rather insidious choice for this sort of story, considering the actual context for that photo. See, Beggs attended high school in Texas, during a (still ongoing as I write this) period wherein that particular state had caved to this exact sort of propaganda, and in order to head off a wholly imagined wave of trans girls competing on girls’ sports teams, and enacted a law mandating that in all such competitions must compete under whatever gender is stated on their birth certificates. And as it happens, the first, and to my knowledge ONLY time this has come up was with Beggs here, who again, is a man, as no one with a grip on reality could argue against, has “female” on his birth certificate. Which is another way of saying he is a trans man. The guys in the same boat as trans women who we talk about a whole hell of a lot less because their existence is extremely inconvenient to the majority of transphobic propaganda. Case in point. And this is all information it is really impossible to come across if you’re coming across this photo in any sort of respectable source. Take this story, which is as unambiguous about this as you can get. And yet, in the very comments section of that story, there they are. Carrying on like this story about a trans guy, forced by a transphobic law to compete as a girl, which he absolutely did not want, and received horrific threats over, using phrases like “female to male” and bringing up that he was assigned female at birth and is on testosterone-based HRT, is about a trans woman cheating the system. Or to quote word for word, “Now also transgender female want to be male also compete in female sport. biological born“ That’s not “being confused,” that’s standing next to you in a white desert and complaining about being adrift in a black ocean, bald-faced, not even trying to be convincing just make a power play, lying through one’s teeth.

I could spend this whole article on just this point. Lying about who they are, various people’s falsified credentials, whole websites full of “anonymous parents of children who think they’re trans” turning out to be one single woman documenting the abuse of her very much trans son, or of course the people behind the whole “bathroom bill” panic candidly admitting it was all based on utter fiction. I do have other points to cover though.

Transphobes are firmly entrenched in the media.

It is extremely difficult to find oneself in a position of having to explain to people that a particular group of people is effectively in control of press outlets, as that is rather classically a claim conspiracy theorists absolutely love to toss around at various marginalized groups (including trans people hilariously enough, but of course the most common and lingering version of this is the antisemitic variant). I really can’t get around it here though. Specifically in the U.K., you honestly can say that transphobes control the media. I already touched on this with the assault case I mentioned above and the fabricated story about the murderer, but this is a pretty well-documented situation. I mean, even The Guardian calls out The Guardian on this, and that’s the outlet that gets the most attention because it’s the one with the most otherwise respected name, but every paper in the country has been running transphobic propaganda pieces on a weekly if not daily basis for years now, and while they do get reprimanded by watchdog groups and have mass walk-outs over the worst of it, it’s not like there’s some governing body with the authority to step in about it. Meanwhile the BBC is constantly inviting diehard zealots like Graham Linehan to news programs where he compares being trans to being a nazi, and hosting debates where someone just sits down and repeatedly chants the word “penis” at a trans woman.

Things are better in the rest of the world, but we still have right-wing creeps like Jesse Singal both writing horrific propaganda pieces (we’ll get back to that one) and blackballing trans writers out of covering trans issues ourselves (and personally stalking the hell out of those of us who try). We’ve got our Joe Rogans and Tucker Carlsons out there (no way in hell I’m linking videos here, have a real information link and a still).

The line between diehard transphobes and straight-up nazis basically does not exist.

What even is there to say here? You can easily poke around havens for nazi activity for yourself and compare the particular unique vocabulary used there to the primary bastion of anti-trans hate speech on the internet (the “feminism” section of what was originally a site for parenting tips before violent fascists took the forums over) or just peruse the follows of the thousands of people I’ve blocked on social media and see if you can sort out a clear division in the networks of channers with frog avatars and the accounts with names like GoodieXXrealwoman, or you can read up on Gab and Spinster, the two twitter alternatives that are just different portals to the same server, set up by the same guy. Maybe do some research into “the LGB Alliance,” or WoLF but any way you slice it the only real difference to be found is the general purpose nazis take a little time off now and then to watch borderline pedophilic anime and the really dedicated transphobes think to use language that sounds vaguely well-educated and left-leaning. I mean, this came from the “feminist” side of the fence:

And not to belabor the point here, but the ones claiming to be a bunch of “feminist mums” sure do let the mask slip any time they’re confronted with the fact that “women” includes black women, and oh just have a whole thread about all the weird conspiratory theories these people have about how trans people’s whole existence is some sort of Jewish plot for world domination. I swear a few months ago they were all passing around a story about some bank having an above average number of trans employees and they were all just “and we all know who controls the banks, right?” about it.

Transphobes endorse an awful lot of people who are openly pro-pedophila.

This is the part where I am really loath to link the many many specific examples I have on hand. Or to talk about this at all for reasons of good taste. Or, for that matter, to talk about this in a tumblr post when there’s an ongoing problem of people with backgrounds strongly tied to this site making baseless accusations of pedophilia against every queer person they can find, so let me be very clear just what I’m talking about while avoiding anything too graphic.

That’s James Cantor. Transphobes love him for being one of the closest things they have to a scientist on their side. And I am featuring him in a screenshot here showing that he is followed by current queen of the transphobes J.K. Rowling, while speaking to both another big name in transphobic circles, Debra Soh, and based on their names, what I’m guessing is at least one straight-up nazi. And in case you think “the P” he’s talking about adding to LGBT (or “GLBT” as weird anti-queer bigots who also have issues with women often write it) might stand for “poly” or “pan” he’s all too happy to clarify that.

This is the entire thrust of Cantor’s work and life. He is the world’s biggest pedophile rights advocate. He wants it declassified as a mental disorder, all stigma on it removed, and tirelessly pushes forward the idea that the majority of.. people who feel compelled to sexually assault children are good people who present no potential harm to anyone and should in fact be lauded.

I am not generally one to claim that someone with a PhD is spewing out questionable garbage with regard to their field, but the reason I am aware of Cantor at all is that other transphobes keep trying to hold up a particular post on his blog as "a study” (which it is not) that offers “proof” (in the form of a blurry jpeg of basically some random numbers) of some ridiculous quackery about how trans kids will “grow out of it” if exposed to conversion therapy (another way of saying torture), which Cantor himself seems to be pushing, so I am somewhat skeptical of his academic chops. And I am, of course, REALLY suspicious that all these other bigots gravitate to him purely because they’re that desperate to find anyone with a PhD in anything that backs them up against literally every scientist in a relative field, to the point that they merely forgive his particular advocacy they are plainly all aware of, particularly when such a common fig leaf used by transphobes is “keeping children safe from sexual deviants.”

And of course, Cantor is most often invoked when coming to the defense of Kenneth Zucker. This Kenneth Zucker.

Those are separate papers. Zucker isn’t controversial though for organizing panels to discuss how attractive people agree small children are (at least not exclusively). Mostly, he’s known for running a conversion therapy center which subjected gay and trans children to various sorts of torture in an effort to “fix” them, which at least for those trans "patients” I have spoken with involved a fair amount of having them strip completely naked and talking a lot about their genitals.

Zucker is something of a controversial figure with the transphobic scene, as they are extremely on board with his sexual torture of queer children, but he does actual work (for some value of the term) involving trans people and thus is not able to commit as fully as they would prefer to making life horrible for trans people, due to a professional obligation to acknowledge reality now and then. As an aside, the similarly positioned Ray Blanchard, while not to my knowledge particularly interested in the attractiveness of children, lives in a similar purgatory of trying to reconcile his career, bigotry, and sexual hangups, yielding compromises like this:

Of course, that’s just looking at the straws transphobes grasp at when looking for scientific credibility. Real leaders of the movement include Germaine Greer, author of The Beautiful Boy, which is about what you are afraid it might be, and features a very young child in a cover feature he did not consent to posing for. Or Julie Bindel, who among other things is rather infamous for writing whole articles on subjects like whether a teenage girl she came across maybe has a huge penis you can totally see if you really squint at her skirt. Again, I will not share a link to go along with that one.

Transphobes terrorize and attempt to defund charities and other unambiguously good organizations.

Graham Linehan, previously best known for cowriting some sitcoms and possibly spending a year angling to get into my pants so awkwardly I didn’t pick up on it is now best known for trying to pull the plug on a children’s charity, in a story that somehow also involves Donkey Kong. Well, and the interview about nazis. And possibly the other interview about “defending me from nazis” until it got into his head that I might not be as young and hot as he imagined. Rather not link to a far right extremist youtube channel though.

There’s also a current effort to replace Stonewall (an organization named after the location where a pair of trans women kicked off a riot which is generally agreed to be the start of the LGBT+ rights movement) as the UK’s primary LGBT+ rights organization with the “LGB Alliance.” The hate group mentioned above, with the skull face and the rifle. Closest I can find to an article on that effort on short notice that isn’t propaganda.

Transphobes paper areas in truly disgusting propaganda.

I don’t want to directly link to grown adults skulking around children’s playgrounds and bathrooms plastering surfaces with mass printed stickers of crudely drawn penises, but would encourage you to read this very long post, being sure to load all the images, to really understand how deeply strange this behavior gets.

Finally, I cannot stress this enough, this really extreme behavior I’m citing, and the specific people involved in the examples I’m giving, these aren’t random cranks on the fringe of things. The people going on televised panel discussions, writing up news stories, and testifying before lawmakers in efforts to pass horrifically discriminatory if not literally life-endangering laws (there is a major ongoing effort to legally end all medical care for trans people, and I don’t just mean care directly relating to being trans) are literally the same people involved in the sexualization of children, nazi collaborations, and roving gangs assaulting people in the street. At a bare minimum I urge people, when booking guests and handing out writing contracts, to do background checks and see if they’re platforming actual terrorists. If we could actually bring legal consequences to bear against the worst of this, that would be great too. As things stand though, the whole world is just consistently citing a bunch of racist, woman-hating, serial liars with no real credentials, and questionable attitudes towards the sexual abuse of children, as “trusted experts” and refusing to seat actual trans people or people who have legitimately committed lifetimes to academic and practical work with trans people any seats at the table.