#agender protagonist

[mushroommanchanterelle]

There is a distinct lack of disability representation in the fantasy media that I've consumed and I intend on being the change I see in this world. I've already posted some character stuff about it, but I'm writing a book called Fault Lines that features an agender protagonist who has a non-epileptic seizure condition known as PNES cuz I've never seen it in books outside of self help books.

[ganondoodle]

okay, bc i have seen this argument alot now (and it also seems to be the view point of aonuma himself..) is that "zelda cant do everything link does bc whats the point then"

and i take personal offense on that bc its a stupid argument (in. my. very. personal. opinion.- not judging people for liking it. its a ME thing)

whats the point? its that its her. its still a different character, different in story, background, personality, but i WANT to play zelda and she can do everything link does, why does she have to be so restricted and be bend over backwards to find some new way to make her 'useful' when link gets to do basically everything no questions asked (the only thing thats hers is like .. sealing power and sacrificial maiden, which i find a little underwhelming to say the least), if theres no point to it why are there always modders that model swap link with someone else, and in that case it has even less impact bc its an artificial model swap with no changes to the story (which can and should still be different when its the vanilla game with a different protagonist... its still a different character), clearly theres joy in just the model being a different one- and that isnt even to mention the story possibilities, since, again, its stil a different character

if we ever (never ... i know who we are talking about here) get to play as ganondorf i want to him to be just as versatile and active as link is, if we got a point and click adventure game for him instead bc 'whats the point' id be disappointed too- you can find any sort of excuse/explanation for zelda to be singled out but the fact remains it tracks with how female characters are often treated, and that hits a very sore spot for me

i guess i am unfortunately one of those annoying people that want to see female characters be treated exactly the same as male characters, possibly bc i am myself afab but identify as agender and have a deeply personal dislike for anything 'traditional' feminine bc i cannot and never will be able to truly live as myself in real life, it influences all of my work, my work is as just as much as my opinion on this, very personal

and in line with my point about modding, i see theres joy in just beign able to play as her even if its like this, i get that, i also get it for the creative aspect (though that mechanic worries me even more for the future bc it really seems to be the path now that -freedom = good, linear anything = bad-) it is a different idea and its not like i cant see that value- im not trying be "right" either, just bc i have that opinion doesnt mean i need everyone to agree, its a very personal thing, if you like it good for you! not for me though, and i think both of that is equally valid

i just personally wish she was allowed to be just like link, fight just like him but be different bc its still her and not him in the end- to be physically/playstyle like jsut like him, but you know ... as her, i dont think shed stop being zelda if she could wield a sword just like him

i dont really know how to get my point/feelings across, i dont want to step too much into personal stuff nor spam people with something that ultimately doesnt interest me alot, im just saddened by it really

(EDIT: bc i forgot to add this on here again; this isnt as much of a problem as it might sound like here, just the main topic i wanted to talk about; why im so uninterested in it is MAINLY bc i dont trust them to write anything interesting/care about lore anymore after totk, im always on the more pessimistic side that thinks its most likely worse than id hope and i know even the past games arent perfect or super interestingly written, but now its much more just a general distrust, together with everything like the price ... im just much less hopeful and cant get excited until i see more of it, like im waiting for the game to get out and reveal that its just as much of a mess and money i regret spending- kind of fear)

[tfrost]

I was gonna make a ref for my character for artfight and then it became a whole thing 😳

But meet Sen! One of the protagonists from my book.

[purplecelestial-buddy]

[writerinturmoil]

section 1

As Declan sat down next to Rose, he could smell her fruity perfume. Present but not overpowering. When he first met Silas, the smell of his cologne had smacked him like a two by four across the face. He had only agreed to go out on a date with him on the condition that he dial it down on the cologne. This memory created a warm feeling in his chest. Simultaneously comforting yet painful. Think of something else. 

He thought of trains, but the thought of trains reminded him of Silas. That’s where they met. On the Southwest Chief bound for Anaheim. He thought of planes, but the thought of planes reminded him of Silas. Before they met, Silas had worked as a flight attendant for Virgin Atlantic until an incident involving turbulence and a knock on the head put him off flying indefinitely. He thought of cars, but the thought of cars reminded him of Silas. It was in a Kia Rio where Silas breathed his last breath. A shiver snaked down his spine, and pressure built behind his eyeballs once more.

“Want a malt ball?” Rose shook a box of Whoopers in front of his face. “Helps me when I feel a bit queasy.”

“Huh?” He looked down at the box she held extended out to him. The thought of putting a hard chocolate ball filled with malted sawdust in his mouth activated his gag reflex. He retched. “Oh, sorry!” He sat up straighter. “No thank you.”

“You must really hate them.” She hid the offending box in her bag. “Charlotte doesn’t like them either.”

“Charlotte?” Even though she had gotten rid of the offending malt balls, a part of his brain worried that she would take them out again.

“My wife.” She settled down into her seat. “You wouldn’t happen to be autistic, would you?”

The word “autistic” sat heavy in the air. He could feel every muscle in his body tense. ‘How did she know?’ He thought back through their short interaction. ‘Did I sit down oddly?’ He sat up even straighter still. ‘Did I inflect my words oddly?’ He went through their conversation in his head and didn’t think he had. ‘Did I not modulate my voice correctly?’ 

As he began to go through their conversation for a second time, she interrupted his train of thoughts. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.” She readjusted her blouse. “My wife’s autistic, so anyone who reminds me of her, I have a habit of thinking they’re autistic as well.”

“Oh!” He felt his muscles relax. “I just never had someone ask me point blank before. But to answer your question. Yes, I’m autistic.”

“Yeah, sorry about that.” She looked down at her hands. “I have a habit of blurting out what’s on my mind. My wife thinks that I have ADHD.” She laughed. “Hell, she thinks my entire friend group has ADHD.” 

He didn’t know how to respond, so he nodded. “Perhaps she’s right.”

A voice came on the overhead speaker. He couldn’t make out a word the man said. The words sounded foreign and strange. Like those last spoken when the pyramids gleamed golden under the desert sun. Good thing no other stops had an underground station, or he’d spend the entire journey worrying that he had missed his stop.

“You got someone special?” She asked this question over the overhead babble, which further diluted the conductor’s message. 

The words “someone special” clanged thunderously like a clapper bashing frantically against the insides of a cast iron bell. “Silas” He closed his eyes. “He died last month.” Gale-strength winds brewed within his belly. Barometric pressure increased in his heart. Storm clouds gathered behind his eyes. “He gave me the concert tickets for…for Christmas.” He could hear Silas laugh. He could hear Silas sigh. He could hear Silas cry. “He should…should…” Words broke down, communication ceased. He could feel the flood gates behind his eyes open as pain ignited all over his body. “He should…” He brought his knees up to his chest and pressed them painfully against his body. “He should…” Hot liquid flowed down his cheeks and into the crook of his neck. “He should…” His body rocked forward and back, slamming violently into the backrest of the chair.

“Shit!” Her voice sounded distant like wind chimes carried by a sultry breeze. “Hey, it’s okay. Let it out.”

He could feel warm arms embrace him. Even though he usually hated the feel of someone hugging him, this time it felt warm and comforting. A weighted blanket that grounded him and balanced out his emotions. He sunk his forehead unto her shoulder as the sob became a keen, and the drizzle became a deluge of tears.

“Tickets please.”  A man materialized before them. He wore a Metra uniform and spoke in a nasally voice.

“This is not the time!” With each word spoken, Rose’s voice became shriller until it sounded like a harpy’s scream. “Can’t you see he’s distraught? Come back later!” She held him tighter.

“Um…” The man shuffled hesitantly away from them.

“It’s okay. I’m here. Let it all out.” Rose spoke in a tone of voice reserved for a toddler who scraped their knees or a puppy scared of a thunderstorm. It was gentle and caressing, soothing and caring.

As the minutes crept by, the tears slowed to a trickle, and the storm inside his body abated. In it’s wake, he felt hollow as if all his insides had been scooped out. In the wake of this numbness, he felt a calm that he hadn’t experienced since the accident occurred. “Thanks.” He pushed her gently away. “I feel better.”

“You sure?” She released him and settled back in her seat.

“Yeah.” He opened a side pocket of his backpack and took out a travel packet of Kleenex. “Thanks, I needed that.” He took out a Kleenex and dabbed his eyes with it before blowing his nose. “Sorry I cried all over your blouse.”

“Oh, I’m used to people crying all over my blouse.” She took out a stick of gum and unwrapped it. “I worked for thirty years as a mental health nurse on the children’s ward.” She put the stick in her mouth and began to masticate it.

He didn’t like the sucking sound that resulted but felt obliged to put up with it since she did allow him to cry all over her. “Past tense?”

“Yes, it got too mentally taxing.” She laughed. “So, I retired and now volunteer at an organization that also taxes the emotions. My wife thinks me insane.” 

“What organization?” A man wearing a turquoise puffer jacket shuffled past. Tufts of hair pointed in all directions. ‘What a peculiar hairstyle.’ The man opened the sliding door, left the seating area, and stopped in the vestibule. He faced the east doors and stuck his hands into his pockets. Based on the man’s actions, Declan assumed that the train would soon come to a stop. And sure enough, the train began to slow.

“Beacon of Hope.” She smiled. “We help trans teens and their family access the resources and support they need. We even help trans teens who have no place to go because their family disowned them.” Her smiled transformed into a frown. The train stopped and the eastern doors opened. A voice mumbled something from the overhead speakers, and the man in the puffer jacket departed the train. “We have six chapters.” As the train began to move once more, she named off each chapter: “Milwaukee, Kenosha, Waukegan, Highwood, Chicago, and Rockford.”

He balled up the Kleenex in his hand. “Sounds like an organization I’d support.” Once he got to Chicago, he needed to wash his hands pronto. He could just feel the bacteria crawling all over them. He could wash them in the bathroom on the train, but it always stank of rotten fruit and disinfectant. “They got a website?”

“Of course.” She dug into her bag. “And we’re always looking for volunteers.” She pulled out a trans flag with the words “Never Lose Hope” written across the white stripe.  Attached via a safety clip was a business card. 

“How cute.” He took the flag from her. “Can I have one for Twister?”

“Twister?” Her face scrunched up like a crumpled up paper bag. “Who the hell is that?”

“My friend Becky couldn’t come with me because she has to work, and I didn’t want the extra ticket to go to waste, so I went on Discord and reached out to the fellow Rat Brigands to see if anyone wanted to go with me.” He gasped out the last word as he ran out of oxygen. He took in a large gasp of air and continued on with his narrative. “I had many respondents as you can imagine, but I chose Twister because they had a rough year.” He lowered his voice. “Their parents disowned them when they came out as trans.”

“Oh, poor dear!” She clasped her hands. “They alright?”

He nodded. “Aunt took them in.”

“Oh, good!” She pressed a hand to her chest. “For the life of me, I can’t understand some parents.”

“Tickets please.” The voice seemed to materialize from thin air. 

Neither one expected the interruption, and both yelped in surprise. His heart clambered into his throat and beat there for a good ten seconds. A coat of sweat formed on the palms of his hands as his stomach performed a summersault.

“Jesus!” Rose jumped in her seat. “Don’t sneak up on people like that. If you keep that up, you’re bound to give someone a heart attack.”

The man looked at her unimpressed. “Tickets please.”

They took out their phones, and he scanned the barcodes. “Have a lovely day in Highwood.” He winked at her and waddled on his way.

“Rude.” She took out another flag from her bag. “Here you go.”

“Thanks.” He took the flag from her and stored both in a front pocket of his backpack. “If you don’t mind my asking, why are you going to Highwood?” 

“Chapter meeting.” She smiled. “Talks of expanding into Indiana, but I highly doubt that’ll happen. Bit of an unfriendly climate coming from that direction if you catch my drift.”

“Yes, I went to Indiana for a high school trip once. At a pizzeria, a local boy clocked me and decided he had the right to push me off my stool. Boy was he in for a shock when my classmates rallied around me. It took all three chaperones to calm the rowdy teens down.” This story always gave him a warm feeling in his tummy, and he smiled. “They looked ready to tear him from limb to limb with their bare hands.”

She laughed. “Would serve him right if they did.” She straightened the kerchief on her head. The man on the overhead speaker mumbled something. Her eyes widened. “My stop!” She struggled out of her seat.

“Well, it was nice meeting you.” He would normally extended out a hand for a farewell handshake, but his hands felt slimy and gross. Instead, he gave her a parting nod of the head.

“Likewise.” She took a few steps away from him. “Keep in touch.”

“I will.” He called after her as the train came to a stop. 

Out the window, he watched as she departed the train and continued to watch as she waddled down the platform towards a light pole shaped like a candy cane. Then, the train started to move once more. Within seconds, his new friend faded from view. 

Note:

section 3: 7 February

[offbeat-manga-ships]

—

read this one last night and i'm still angry. it basically ends up shitting on nonbinary people, intersex people AND even a little on polyamorous people just as a bonus. and to put salt on the wound you can see how much it wasn't really intended, but apparently mangaka are addicted to working out their cisheterosexuality, binarism and monogamy through a queer/poly lens without the slightest intention to give space to the people whose struggles and concepts they are using to sell their"musings on these complicated topics".

it's very similar to kanojo ni naritai kimi to boku in that way, but it manages to step even further into straight up offensive territory by trying to be "deep" about gender as in "what is gender anyway?" and giving an answer that if it's all a spectrum anyway you gotta live with the changes of your body that take you to a cisgendered path and do your special little woman/manhood that might be a little different inside, but you better accept the woman/man labels since it's all complicated anyway teehee. of course binary paths of gender are not a prison, you just have to figure out how to be free in your own binary gender (that is defined by your body btw).

[a-mel-tomelts]

AkiRen being gender

Thank you @scatteredsparks-blog-blog from the discord. Follow their twitter!! She is a banger cosplayer!!

[qbdatabase]

The Genesis of Misery by Neon Yang This is the story of Misery Nomaki (she/they) – a nobody from a nowhere mining planet who possesses the rare stone-working powers of a saint. Unfortunately, these saint-like abilities also manifest in those succumbing to voidmadness, like that which killed Misery’s mother. Knowing they aren’t a saint but praying they aren’t voidmad, Misery keeps quiet about their power for years, while dreaming and scheming up ways off their Forge-forsaken planet. But when the voice of an angel, or a very convincing delusion, leads Misery to the center of the Empire, they find themself trapped between two powerful and dangerous factions, each hoping to use Misery to win a terrible war.

[technikki]

ray is genderfluid because imagine the euphoria of confining yourself to a box your whole life because you’re so afraid to discover things about yourself only to have it all taken away and then escaping and being allowed to explore those things and realizing you can just be anything you want at anytime, you’re finally free. emma is agender because ray’s hogging all the genders and he won’t share

[mushroommanchanterelle]

CW: seizure, anxiety Lost Cause

The Bay Harbor initiation into graduate school was a long, arduous process, far too long for Magnus to be comfortable with. It starts off with the Dean droning on about the history of the arcane, a history which each potential graduate student had studied ad nauseam throughout their initial years of schooling at the Institute. Magnus stands straight, the constrictive undershirt beneath their many layers of clothing forcing their posture to be immaculate. Their hair was pulled into a neat ponytail that rested over the shoulder of their gilded red coat. Fashionable as it might be, Magnus was roasting beneath the layers of shirt, waistcoat, coat, belt, and everything else they had on. Theodorre, heart bigger than his brawny muscles, looks over at Magnus as they twitch.

“Hey, you doin’ ok boss?”

Magnus responds with a quick nod, and an even quicker gesture to remind their dear friend that they were to remain absolutely silent during the ceremony. The Dean drones on and on about the promise the new students have, about the future of the arcane arts in polite society, all hollow words and empty praise to the ears they fell upon. Instead of hope and excitement, they caused irritation and frustration. Magnus’s thoughts begin to race as they will the ceremony to go faster in their head, silently contemplating how painfully tedious this whole process was. They simply wanted to receive their battery, the very device with which they could begin practicing the arcane arts, and leave to return to their studies. Being the top student in their class required hours of determination and dedication, and Magnus was more than frustrated to set that aside for some frivolous speech. Again, Theodorre nudges his good friend and roommate.

“Magnus, you’re twitching. Did you eat breakfast this morning? You need some water? I packed ext-”

Theodorre was cut off by a hiss from Magnus.

“Theodorre, I’m fine. Stop talking, lest we not receive the things we’re suffering through this for.”

The augmented man frowns, visibly concerned, but says nothing. He was more than used to how uptight Magnus could be. They’d lived with each other for two years now, and known each other for many beyond that. Magnus was his best friend, and it was his responsibility to care for them. He sighs, opting simply to pass Magnus a large flask filled with clean water. The uptight scholar refuses politely with a small shake of the head, continuing to stand for the remaining duration of the speech.

Though it lasted only two hours, it felt like eons to Magnus. Eventually, however, the Dean fell silent, giving the stage to a familiar scholar in order to begin the process of distributing batteries. One by one, the graduate student’s names get called, with various petraedicts taking to the stage, graciously accepting their batteries, then returning to the room margins to watch the rest of the ceremony. 

“Proggia Experha…” calls the scholar. It took Theodorre nudging Magnus for them to recognize the name. It had been so long since they had heard it, they nearly didn’t recognize it. They shudder and shake their head. Magnus’s arm twitches again, jerking to the side. They exchange a glance with Theodorre, his eyes filled with concern and worry, but neither says a word as Magnus silently slips past him, giving Theodorre a soft pat on his copper shoulder. They stand talls as they make their way through the crowd, stepping onto the stage set at the front of the room to receive their own battery. It was simply a training battery, but it marked an important step in their academic life. They saw the battery being handed to the figure on the stage, shining and copper. It had all forms of quartz worked into the metal surface, with a large chunk of clear quartz polished in the center. These batteries were meant to be weak, but all purpose, allowing the students to try out each school of magic before getting a more powerful battery for field work. 

The lights hit Magnus, the heat, the sweat, the sounds of a million murmurs. They look to Theodorre in the crowd, to Advent, to Ruth, sweating. Magnus blames the lurch in their stomach on their glasses. They must be focusing too much light. The scholar invites them to outstretch their arm to fit the battery snuggly. Magnus shakes, twitching, as they bring their arm up. Leather straps wrap around Magnus’s upper arm, entirely too small and thin for their size. All at once, the noise stops. The overbearing harshness of the lights, the sounds, the smells, it all fades as Magnus lurches back, feet crumpling beneath them as they fall to the ground. Their arms flail at their side, and their head slams into the wooden stage over and over again, the thuds reverberating around the room, deafening and silent at the same time. Awake, Magnus struggles to regain control over their body, fighting their thrashing limbs. The struggle only makes things worse. Magic pours through their body, leaking out of their hands, their mouth, their toes, invisible radiation that warps the wood beneath them. The walnut brown twists to rust red, the wood distorts and bends. Magnus watches in horror as other scholars wrench their arms down, ripping the battery that they worked so hard from off their person. Tears stream from their eyes from pain, from grief, from fear as their head slams into the wood again and again, until they finally fall limp, their chest heaving from the weight of their breaths. The entire room stares at the almighty Magnus, and just this once they regret having made such a name for themselves. The figure presenting the batteries gently helps raise Magnus to a sitting position and puts a hand on their shoulder as Theodorre forces his way through the crowd, arriving to help but much too late. The figure gestures towards Theodorre to assist, speaking softly, but Magnus was too overwhelmed to understand the words falling from those pale, wrinkled lips. Theodorre takes Magnus’s hands and lifts them up.

“Come on. It’s time to go.”

“But…my battery…”

“We’ll talk about it later. You need rest.”

Magnus twitches again, arm jerking to their side. They feel Theodorre’s warm, calloused hands lift them up, supporting them as they lean against his unusually large frame. He leads them out of the grand entryway, and towards their dormitory, and away from their vision of the future.

[bitchfitch]

Whiskey And Protagonist time Yehaw.

[ruindunburnit]

*Adds this song to my writing playlists*

[genderqueerdykes]

you can tell who's actually a part of the lesbian and dyke community and who sits on the sidelines and tries to define these entire identities based off of their own speculation as an outsider. i'm not saying these people aren't lesbians- but when you refuse to actually interact with the broader dyke community outside of your tiny insulated echo-chamber, you are actively refusing to acknowledge how the lesbian community actually functions and behaves

people who think that lesbianism is all about femmes and women are people who refuse to immerse themselves in real lesbian and dyke spaces. masculinity has ALWAYS been a part of lesbianism. there is NO point in queer history where masculinity HASN'T been a big part of the dyke experience. boydykes, studs, bois, bulldykes, male lesbians, ftm lesbians, daddy dykes, testo butches, genderfluid dykes, multigender dykes, masculine agender lesbians, transmasc dykes... these people have ALWAYS been in the lesbian community.

if you believe that lesbianism is strictly about femmes and butches who water down their butchness to mean "androgynous/SLIGHTLY masc woman" for the "safety" of femmes, you have no clue what the lesbian community is actually like and i encourage you to explore the community as a whole, because if you can't handle butches, testo dykes, transmasc lesbians, male lesbians, lesboys, guydykes, studs, bois, bulldykes or any other type of masculine lesbian, you don't belong.

interact with real dykes and lesbians and you'll see masculinity is a permanent, inseparable part of the dyke community. you can't only accept the lesbians you personally like. you also have to accept the ones with identities you don't understand or agree with. you don't have to date butches and male lesbians if you don't want to. you have the right to be attracted to who you're attracted to. but the second you try to exclude these people based off of your own personal tastes, you are committing a grave misdeed to this community by actively participating in the silencing and alienation of masc and male dykes.

you drank the radfem kool aid if you genuinely believe this. this belief stems from the "lesbian separatism movement" in the American 1980s which specifically started to remove butches and transmasc lesbians from the community. if you seriously believe lesbianism is about "EWW NO MEN MEN DNI", hiding from men, hating men, forming "women and non binary spaces only", excluding men and mascs, shaming butches who want top surgery and testosterone, you are not a lesbian: you are a terf, and a radfem. your beliefs don't line up with the real lesbian and dyke communities. you have been brainwashed. this is your sign to wake up.

we aren't standing for this bullshit anymore. we've always been here and your "lesbian means non-men loving non-men" definition of lesbianism is the least historically accurate definition of these terms that you could ever possibly ascribe to them. that definition is factually incorrect and will never be the proper definition. stop defining lesbianism by who we exclude and start defining it by the vast and varied members of our community that we include. our lives depend on it. i don't care if you're not personally attracted to lesboys and testo butches- we belong. it's not about who you're personally attracted to, it's about who feels sapphic, who feels like a lesbian, who feels like a dyke, no matter how they identify. you are not the protagonist of the lesbian community. let go and learn to accept.

[writerinturmoil]

The clouds loomed dark and menacingly overhead. Declan looked up at the clouds and glared at them as if that would accomplish something. Sighing, he took out his ancient Nokia flip phone and checked the weather app. Just as it did this morning, it declared that no rain would mar the day. Clouds, yes. Rain, no.

“Bullshit.” He tightened the straps on the green camo Eastsport backpack. As the straps began to dig into his shoulders, he released his grip on them. They then hung at his sides, limp and forlorn. “You don’t need a radar to know it’s going to rain.” He pointed up at the sky. “You just need eyes.”

“Did you bring an umbrella?” Asked a gruff voice to his right.

With heart hammering in his chest, he gripped onto the phone. He looked in the direction of the voice and saw a squat woman with a kerchief on her head. The beige of the headdress complimented her smoky eyes and almond skin. Fine wrinkles highlighted her squarish mouth and pudgy nose. She wore a paisley sundress with a rose pink cardigan on top. “Huh?” He gripped tighter unto the phone. He really didn’t want to engage in small talk until he met Twister at the venue. The adventure had not even begun and already he felt overwhelmed. 

If only he had Silas by his side. Silas always had a hug at the ready and a calming word on the tip of his tongue. Why couldn’t he be here now? Why did he always feel the need to drive fast even on icy roads? He could feel pressure build behind his eyeballs. No, he wouldn’t cry. He tried to imagine a kitten playing with a ball of yarn, but in his mind, the image took on the appearance of an overexposed photo.

“You bring an umbrella?” She pointed at the backpack.

He shoved his hands into the pocket of his Jurassic Park hoodie. “Yes?” He looked over her head at the blue sign affixed to the red brick station building. In white letters, the words Metra and Waukegan glared in the brilliant sunlight. Metra leaned severely to the right and looked like they’d had one too many drinks the night before. Waukegan looked straight and evenly spaced. An uptight conservative if he had to guess. He decided that if he had to befriend one of the words, it would be Metra. It probably had some interesting stories to tell.

“Then why does it matter if it rains or not?” She dug in her tote bag. Various items clanged and tanged. “As you said, you have an umbrella.” She looked up at him.

He could feel the woman’s eyes boring a hole into his neck. “Rain brings wet, and I hate wet.” He more mumbled than spoke this. It came out sounding incoherent and foreign.

“You going somewhere overnight?” She unwrapped something and plopped it in her mouth.

“No.” He closed his eyes and sighed. Just his luck that he would stand next to a woman insistent upon conversing with him. “I’m just going to a concert.” 

And with these words, he could see a blurry blue box kept closed with a purple ribbon that Silas had given him. In the corner of his eye, he could see an even blurrier white frosted Christmas tree adorned in silver pinecones and cardinal ornaments. Silas. He could feel the tears building up behind his eyes once more. He gripped onto the shoulder straps. I will not cry. He opened his eyes wider as if that would relieve the ever increasing pressure. I will not cry. And with this second assertion, the pressure did seem to abate somewhat, but he knew that it had not departed completely. He knew that it lurked in the shadows of his mind, ready to attack his eyeballs when he least expected it.

“It’s been a while since I’ve been to a concert. Does it require a backpack?” She began sucking on the thing in her mouth.

“For me it does.” He would not think about Silas. Instead, he would try to enjoy the day. Silas would’ve wanted him to have the best day of his life. His friend Becky had reminded him of this when he had thought of selling the tickets. For Silas, he would persevere. In Silas’ memory, he would try and enjoy himself. Even if people wanted to converse with him. Even if Mother Nature soaked him to the bone. Even if some other unforeseen catastrophe that he hadn’t thought off yet decided to spring upon him. He would enjoy this day even if it killed him.

“Who you seeing?” She cracked her knuckles.

“The Rat Brigade.” He had discovered them after watching the lead singer’s transition videos on YouTube. Finn had helped him discover his true self all those years ago. How old had he been? Fourteen, fifteen? A decade ago! Had it really been that long? Impossible!

“I don’t know them.” She sounded uncertain. “Wait!” Her voice increased slightly before becoming a whisper. “The lead singer’s trans, right ?” Pure joy radiated in her voice.

For the first time since the encounter began, he looked at her. Despite having trouble reading facial expressions, he could clearly read the bliss lighting every corner of her face. “Yes, he helped me on my journey.”

“Oh, a fellow trans!” She bounced on the balls of her feet and clenched her hands. “I’m Rose.”

“Declan.” As he spoke these words, he saw movement down the tracks. A tiny dot that soon solidified into the long awaited train.

Next:

section 2

[gumi-megpoidd]

I love Rimuru so fucking much, he's honestly one of the best isekai protagonists like, ever, to be honest.

He's not a child firstly, he's nearly 40 as of the start of the story, and it shows in how he acts.

He very smart, and while there are so many times that he's just oblivious, that's rather natural in a world he knows nothing about.

He's hopeful, and honestly a bit childishly so at times, wanting everyone to coexist together peacefully, however he's not naive. He knows, or at least comes to understand all the consequences of his actions.

Despite his want for peace, in this world of power he knows he needs to be ruthless, and when the time calls for it he is.

And on top of all that he's agender and asexual.

[animefeminist]

Shattering the Self: A Conversation with Shuzo Oshimi

Shuzo Oshimi’s name is one that evokes a sense of dread in many circles. His most famous work, Flowers of Evil, is legendary for the rawness with which he depicts the most destructive parts of adolescence, centering as it does the toxic, coerced relationship between a boy who steals his crush’s underwear and the girl who caught him.

Oshimi’s work has not lost its raw power and interest in toxic relationships–almost all of his manga have a central relationship that at least starts off based on shared secrets, shame, and the threat of exposure. However, 2012’s Inside Mari marked a turning point: many of his later works explore the experiences of queer adolescents trying to escape from heteronormative, transphobic, and often misogynist ideas of how one should live. Inside Mari begins with a young man waking up in the body of a girl he’d been watching from afar and meeting the lesbian girl who was harboring a crush on her. The one-shot Waltz, published the year after Inside Mari was completed, centers on a girl who comes to feel possessive of her transfemme classmate as the only one who knows her identity. And Welcome Back Alice, his most recent work, stars a trio of characters each struggling to find an answer to what living a life without gendered expectations would mean, triggered by the return of their childhood friend shortly after their transition into an agender, trans feminine identity. All of these works are astonishing in the specificity with which they depict queer adolescence, with Oshimi clearly bringing his experience to them. If anything, they demand a reframing and reconsideration of much of his earlier work, showing us a new way of thinking about his depictions of women.

Oshimi’s work overwhelmingly focuses on adolescent sexuality; often the protagonists are insecure young men on the throes of adolescence, who meet a young woman that inspires in them both fear and desire–Oshimi self-deprecatingly refers to this in the afterword for Welcome Back, Alice as “[trying] to hook male readers by inflaming their libido.” But he goes on, “But I was never satisfied by just fulfilling their desires that way. I think the reason is that I myself felt something unsavory in those desires, and it ate at me that this wasn’t what I truly wanted.” The fan service heavy early moments of his works inevitably become bait-and-switches, evolving into stories that explore anxiety about sex, the gendered social expectations that come with it, and the violence that the characters wind up perpetrating against each other in an attempt to navigate these standards.  

Read it at Anime Feminist!