#and she's not real so she doesn't have a Preferred Gender Presentation to respect. it literally does not matter

[marzipanandminutiae]

also, sorry, I don’t mean to make this deeper than it is, and it’s probably just because she does crossdress once in canon, but

GNC L*cille Sh*rpe headcanons do give me some unfortunate “strong-featured woman must be masc-presenting” vibes

you do you! Characterization Tomato, like I said yesterday! I’m not even putting this in the tags (see above censorship) because I am sure nobody means it like that!

it’s just.

she is the PINNACLE of Victwardian femininity in so many ways. not just her lavish, elaborate gowns and floor-length hair, either. her hobbies, her domestic-mindedness, her lack of personal ambition, her eternal self-sacrifice for the man of the house and role as his emotional mainstay...it’s all straight out of a sentimental novel sold in some London railway station in like 1880. that’s one thing I love about the character: she plays into gendered expectations of her world so well, and then with a few horrific twists subverts them

though they’re both quite feminine-presenting in canon and I prefer interpreting them that way, you could almost make a better argument for Edith to have some fluidity in gender presentation. she’s the quintessential 1890s New Woman, after all, and New Women were known to sometimes don suits and top hats for photos as a lark

there’s just so little reason to interpret Lucille as GNC based on canon that it’s hard for me not to see it as an unconscious Woman Have Wide Jaw and Cheekbones, Must Secretly Want To Wear Men’s Clothes take

[bakersgrief]

Ikepri with a Masc Lesbian Mc part 3

Sariel:

Ok

Actually this is good. No chance of a romance plot with any of the princes.

Hey STOP flirting with the maids

It doesn't matter if they approached you, you need to be studying!

Please for the love of god at least TRY to pass as a noblewoman.

Should you try to pass yourself off as a nobleman instead?

Listen people are going to get SUSPICIOUS of a noblewoman in trousers please it's just for a month-

Rio:

Aw man :(

That's okay! He'll still be your loyal best friend! Forever!

Wingman extraordinaire

Hey look at my best friend she's so cool and charming and guess what? She likes cute girls like YOU! :D

Your golden retriever buddy. Your emotional support hound.

Will. Fight. Anyone. Who questions your attraction or gender presentation :)

Scopes out all the clothing stores for your preferred types of clothing and updates you on where to shop when you need something new.

Silvio:

"You think I give a shit?"

He's seen a lot in his time, he just wants his money.

Kick his ass pls pls pls

Respect women, bitch

Actually you probably make him question a lot of his perceptions of women.

Silvio could really use a friend who's a girl tbh so if you become buddies good job the dog is slightly less intolerable.

If you're the kind of lesbian that wears a lot of rings you guys can be matchy :)

Keith:

Oh, that's nice!

He knows what it's like to stand out from the crowd based on the way you look. This mountain of a man couldn't hide even if he tried.

So if there are ever unwanted stares he's the perfect companion to act as a shield for you.

Feels kind of protective over you. If Mireille came out as lesbian he would want to support her the best he could, so he'll start with you.

Alter doesn't think much of it.

Girls are real cute, of course you prefer them to some of the absolute bastards he's met.

You 🤝 Keith

Making cute girls blush

Real talk, both of them know the weight of putting on a facade and hiding your true self. They're proud of you and happy for you for living your truth. (And just a tiny bit jealous.)

Gilbert:

Oh.

I mean, he already knew. He knew you had dated several women before.

But man 😔

Gets really greedy for your platonic affection.

HE will be your new best friend :) *threatening*

Always cockblocks (coochieblocks?) You when you try to flirt with someone 😔

Very jealous that he doesn't have the ability to steal you away from any potential suitors. Unless he takes up too much of your time for you to maintain a romantic relationship >:)

[ambrosiagourmet]

Okay, I'm trying to firm up some thoughts about heteronormativity for the world of dunmeshi. We don't see any explicit homophobia (afaik???), and it's a little hard to separate real life heteronormativity from the potential in-universe kind, BUT there are a lot of the markers of gender roles and prejudices that often come with this stuff, and I want to dissect some of them.

DISCLAIMER I am painting with a broad brush here just to summarize what I've observed/what we know. Obviously all these races/cultures are going to have a variety of different subcultures within them and opinions/norms/laws/etc can vary a lot. No group is a monolith etc etc but this is a high level look at stuff.

Also I'd prefer people only reblog this if they are participating in the convo/adding something. This is for my reference and I'd rather it not spread much, at the moment. Thanks for understanding!

So... Laios and Falin had arranged marriages to a girl and boy, respectively, along with there being a slew of other prejudices they grew up around, so that's a glimpse into the tall-men culture in the northern continent.

There are a lot of different cultures in the archipelago but at very least the Nakamoto clan currently works in what looks like a patriarchal structure, though all of Shuro's siblings are male so I guess we don't technically know if women can inherit? Hien kind of assumes that she and Shuro might end up romantically involved in a sort of "well that's how it works" way which is fairly heteronormative so I think its fair to say that on a baseline level that assumption is present there.

Since Otta is judged more for dating short-life races than for dating women, it seems like maybe elven culture is more flexible. HOWEVER they are such a Power Structure TM and the noble houses care so fucking much about lineage and status that I have trouble believing that it's completely free of problems. Probably at least the nobility is expected to fit in heterosexual molds? Idk. They do look more androgenous and overall feminine than the other races, so that could also contribute to more fluidity. Of note here also is that in addition to a canon lesbian in Otta, Lycion also is Extremely Transgender. Though also of note: these people are the criminals in the group. So.

I don't know that there's as much info to work off of for the gnomes, dwarves, and half-foot cultures.

Dwarves have very strong family ties, which COULD lean towards heteronormativity but doesn't necessarily have to. Some dwarven women in dwarven cultures let their facial hair grow out - it's not necessarily super common, but it's much more likely to happen there than in a place like the Island. I lean towards thinking that they are more flexible, and maybe it varies from family to family how much there is an expectation of heterosexuality. Like the elves, they are more androgynous than most of the other races, AND one of our other major mostly canon queer characters (beloved bi Namari) is dwarven.

No idea about gnomes. The most prominent gnomes we see are the married Flokes and Holm. Holm's sister seems to have a bit of a thing for Kabru, so that's a couple of points towards Heterosexual Gnomes, but hardly anything definitive. They also live alongside dwarves so I imagine that if the dwarves are flexible they probably aren't significantly more strict about stuff. Also!! Kiki is the last of what I'd label the Mostly Canon queer characters, and she and Kaka were raised by gnomes! So that does seem to fit the "more overtly queer characters have ties to less heteronormative seeming cultures".

Again, no real idea about half-foot stuff. Chilchuck got married young and was a teen dad. Two of his kids seem very Interested In Men, the third gives big lesbian vibes. All of these things seem like they could be as much just orientation as anything socially enforced. I do think it's notable though that, while Flertem and Puckpatti are explicitly and loudly Into Men, Meijack is just quiet and gives off Vibes.

Ummmm yeah orcs (at least the ones we see) also have hierarchies based around polygyny so that's them.

YEAH that's most of what I can pull together currently? I'd love to hear other people's thoughts on interpreting all this, and if there are any lore details I missed!

Generally speaking I'm inclined to believe that heteronormativity exists as a baseline undercurrent in a lot of regions and cultures, and is more enforced in places that are either A) dominated by hierarchies (eg elven noble families) or B) insular and xenophobic in a variety of ways (eg Laios and Falin's hometown).

[princesssarisa]

What is your best advice for any writer who wishes to write a story inspired by Beauty and the Beast but wants to make sure it feels creative and fresh and new?

Hmm... there are a lot of possible answers to this question.

For starters, I'd suggest going back to the original literary versions of the tale. If the length of Madame de Villeneuve's original novel is too daunting, just stick with the shorter versions: Madame de Beaumont's, Andrew Lang's, and/or Arthur Quiller-Couch's. You might also rewatch a few of the film adaptations (Disney's, Cocteau's, and at least two or three others – the Czech Panna a Netvor is a particularly acclaimed lesser-known version).

Then decide which themes stand out the most for you and emphasize those themes in your version.

Do you want to go back to the story's original meaning, an allegory for arranged marriage, but put a new spin on that theme that reflects your views on the subject? Or do you want to downplay that theme, as most modern adaptations do? Do you view the story as chiefly about gender relations, with the Beast's frightening looks and Beauty's initial fear of him representing female fear of patriarchal power and male sexuality, which she loses as he treats her with constant respect and chivalry? Or about different types of love, with Beauty learning to choose "companionate love" (based in friendship, mutual respect, and shared interests and values) over shallow, appearance-based infatuation? Or do you prefer the Beast to represent a social outcast: someone wrongly feared, hated, and forced to hide from the world, whose true value and worthiness of love Beauty discovers?

And what matters most to you about the ending? The Beast's transformation into a human, or Beauty's willingness to love him in his Beast form?

I still remember that post I once read about Beauty and the Beast-type stories, which discussed whether the central appeal of those stories is identifying with Beauty and the fantasy of "taming the Beast" (winning the love of something frightening and making it safe and gentle to you), or identifying with the Beast and the fantasy being loved despite being "ugly," "frightening," and "different"? Of course neither of those perspectives is the single reason for the story's appeal: why cant it be both?

There are more questions you'll want to ask yourself too. Who is the real protagonist in your version, Beauty or the Beast? Whose growth takes center stage: Beauty's as she learns to love the Beast, the Beast's as he earns her love, or both equally? Will your version include a villain, or do you see no need for one? Do you want to keep the air of mystery from the original tale? (e.g. "Who is the Beast, how did he come to be, and what does he want from Beauty?") If so, that will probably require changes to the Beast's backstory, because the familiar tale is so well-known. Or are you content to cut the mystery aspect and let the audience know exactly who and what the Beast is from the start? For that matter, how did the Beast come to be cursed? Would you want to go back to Villaneuve's original version and have him cursed by a wicked fairy whom he refused to marry? (That has interesting potential in today's post-#MeToo era.) Or follow the post-Disney tradition of making it a punishment for some wrongdoing? Or some other, completely original means of enchantment?

You might also want to draw on unique traditions from other cultures' variations on the tale. For example, in Eastern European versions like Panna a Netvor or Russia's The Scarlet Flower, the Beast hides from Beauty, so through most of her arc of learning to love him, she never sees him, but only hears his voice, and doesn't know he's a Beast. Only just before she goes back to visit her family does she finally see him, so the struggle of whether or not she can love a Beast becomes a late plot twist rather than a problem presented from the start. That could be an interesting choice to adapt.

And then there are the story's two most controversial aspects: the issue of "Stockholm Syndrome" and the ending. How are you going to deal with the fact that Beauty is the Beast's prisoner through most of their romance arc? A few modern retellings have avoided making the Beast the one who threatens Beauty's father or who accepts her as a prisoner in his place, but instead portrayed both Beauty and the Beast as prisoners of whatever higher power cursed the Beast in the first place. You could find an original way to do that too. Or, if you think that would rob the Beast of the moral grayness that makes him interesting in traditional versions, find some other solution to fend off accusations of "Stockholm Syndrome." Then there's the claim some people make that the ending goes against the story's message when the Beast changes into a handsome prince. Would you want him to stay a Beast in your version, possibly with Beauty becoming (or discovering that she already is) a non-human creature too? Or would you make it clear that the Beast's hideous form symbolizes some emotional unhealthiness within him (e.g. his "animalistic" selfishness and rage in the Disney version, or his trauma and depression in Megan Kearney's webcomic) and that his becoming human again represents his healing?

I hope I haven't gone on and on too much. There are many more things I could say, but this is enough for now.

Just find which aspects of the traditional story speak to you the most, and which aspects you don't care for as much and might want to change, and then do whatever you like with them.

[enarei]

I'm sorry, but I don't believe you have even a rudimentary grasp on feminist theory, and could benefit from an education.

maybe you're right, and you're welcome to educate me (like, genuinely, I would probably enjoy that). I would appreciate if you were a bit more specific with what of what I've said makes you think that, because I believe the gist of my argument is very important if not to feminism broadly, to a model of feminism that is capable of incorporating trans women without stabbing them in the back within its critique of patriarchy —namely that there isn't one intrinsic, "natural" female/woman identity or trait that invites misogyny, it's a self-reifying set of relations which creates the necessity for the concept of "womanhood" to exist, performing a woman's roles and being perceived as a woman is what makes women, women, and that includes trans women, there's little more to it than that

if you wanna set yourself apart from everyone and say you're actually a real woman, because you say you are, and dissect the difference from the transfem that doesn't necessarily think of their relation to gender through the same exclusive binary lens, however that manifests in practice, whichever labels and pronouns they choose to use, then do so, but I think you'll find that gets us no closer to examining why we are actually oppressed and the ideas we have to disseminate to counter that, because that line, while important for self-actualization, isn't actually very relevant to how we're perceived, which is often the most important aspect of how we're treated by society. while we can affirm our personal identity in relationships that are both recurring and premised on mutual respect, we don't get that privilege most of the time, and people's understanding of us are based on assumptions.

it does not matter then that you ID as a woman and the other person doesn't if you never get the opportunity to say that, it's completely irrelevant. if you are both read as <genderweird person dressed like a woman & male voice>, you're both legitimate targets for modes of violence for people associated with the words "tranny faggot".

I also find this very disingenuous because it ignores that passing, presenting as our preferred gender, isn't always a possibility, likewise, the implication that "men" by necessity can't be discriminated for gender non-conformity under exactly the same rules as non-passing trans women is completely arbitrary. you don't know how other people are being read, you don't know if they're being read as a gay man or a tranny trying to hide the fact they're tranny, or something in between, how okay the interviewer is with either and where do they draw the line. you simply don't know that! we could run the same thought experiment where a trans woman is boymoding for a job interview, wearing a binder to hide her tits (something I've done countless times), using her deadname and not displaying any signs of femininity, and she gets the job and the "man" who has a panty wearing kink and maybe also presents a lot more overtly effeminate in public doesn't, because the interviewer thought she was less of a faggot.

even if the "man" may have an easier time concealing what you would call a "fetish" at work, something you can't really distinguish from a normal aspect of a person's gender expression without a degree of moralism, are trans women that are not always out, or hide their transness at their job, not subjected to transmisogyny, are they not deserving of calling themselves trans women? should we shun them and lump them with "chasers" because they are not baring their femininity full time and being pummeled for that constantly? like, where do you draw the line? and I'm not saying the guy who likes to wear his wife's skirt while she pegs him and is otherwise a massive homophobe the rest of the time gets it like you or me, but I think it's pretty obtuse to pretend the line between "binary trans woman" and "non-trans CAMAB person who cross-dresses; whose oppression should be understood under the framing of transmisogyny", can only be measured by those two points.

[watching-pictures-move]

Movie Review | Night of the Demons (Tenney, 1988)

Nice '80s movie you got there. Would be a shame if we made most of the characters really fucking annoying for no reason.

There's some choice having your cake and eating it too with respect to satirizing the male gaze. The cake being Linnea Quigley's ass, which it lingers on appreciatively for a questionably long time until you realize she's jutting it out on purpose to distract the cashiers so her friend can shoplift assorted goodies. Yeah, the joke was on me the whole time. I love satire.

Anyway, Quigley is fun to watch in this scene and elsewhere because she exudes a certain confidence and imbues her line readings with wit where one might not expect it. (Exhibit A: "Do you guys have sour balls?") So she owns the material and doesn't let its more questionable aspects demean her.

Too bad about the rest of the cast. I've increasingly resisted the party line that '80s horror films are full of cardboard cutouts because I've definitely enjoyed some on the basis of their characters. Probably the closest comparison to this is Return of the Living Dead, which similarly presents itself as goofy fun, but lets its characters surprise you with their moments of vulnerability and courage. I'm at the point where I get teary eyed when I rewatch these things, and that's one that's definitely made me cry just a little.

The characters here, Quigley aside, range from totally bland to actively unpleasant, mostly the latter. Seriously, some of these characters are so fucking shrill. I was rooting for the demons. I will say that there's one unexpected moment when the female lead is comforting her tearful male friend, a flip on the usual gender dynamics if not as aggressive as what Kevin Tenney did in Witchboard, but that's about it.

So I had a hard time engaging with this from the get go, and I can't say I was won over by the end. Tenney's style has an endearing handcrafted jankiness to it, like a cruder, lower energy Sam Raimi, and he does get in some good moments, like the 360 demon cam and the goth girl's dance number. But these are nowhere near frequent enough, and it takes way too long (fifty minutes into a ninety minute runtime) for the first real scare. Before that it's just a bunch of grating characters wandering around a dark house rendered with little atmosphere. Actual dead air, you know, the silent kind, would be preferable.

Anyway, if you told me a boutique blu-ray company made this movie up, I'd believe you. I guess it's a sign of maturity that '80s aesthetics are no longer enough for me to give a movie an automatic pass.

[wine-dark-soup]

ASKS BE UPON YE

1 / 3 / 5 / 7 / 20 / 21 🦎

Hey THANK YOU SORRY that i took a nap right after i told you i'd get to the asks. work.... exhaustion................... but you're giving me... enrichment. in these computerless times.

1. What's your oc's gender identity? What's their relationship to their gender?

Ough, tough one. Eos wouldn't be anything else than what she is - a soul in a woman's body - so i suppose i can safely say she's cis - or like, that she doesn't care enough to worry about her very gender. But she has a long story of slowly getting more and more alienated from the steppe's culture, which strongly impacted her gender presentation mostly. she was forced to dress à la sharlayan by a bad guy, which was awful and then the bad guy caused her exile, so we're not off to a great start. leaving the steppe's quite genderless robes behind was quite difficult, especially when she then reached other countries and continents and saw what some tailors had in store for women KJDSKJDSKJ. that made her feel even more different and weird than she already was. xaela are quite a rare sight outside of the steppe so she had no one to tell her if what she saw and felt was normal, and how to cope.

that's why all her outfits are 1. not specifically feminine (though the game makes them look more feminine than they are in my mind) and 2. not eorzean. yes, the crystarium aiming set is definitely not something she'd have worn back in the steppe. but it covers her body. same with gunbreaker outfits in general. recently, getting into white magic let her choose a more steppe-like outfit - large concealing coat, practical, with embroidered motifs, boots and skirt with pants (protection from whatever could crawl on her legs) that let her be finally closer to nature and herself again.

that gender and cultural question is also why she TECHNICALLY creates her own clothes but i haven't leveled the corresponding crafting classes yet cough. she's learned leatherwork in the steppe and she's most certainly a good weaver. tailoring your own outfits according to your own preferences and all that to avoid the shameful white mage mini skirt

3. How did your oc discover themself? Did something cause them to question, or did they always know?

She knew, I think. She had some kind of homoerotic friendship with Cotota (the khan's niece from Reunion) when they were teenagers. Then she got exiled and the fear and trauma resulting from this, then the wol business, buried her romantic and sexual feelings so deep she wouldn't find them back in years KJDSKJKJSD

she started feeling better after the elpis trip, though it still wasn't all perfect - still, she had enough hope to be the one defeating meteion and not the reverse. at the same time the twelveswood's blasphemy was roaming the forest and by dealing with it she became kan-e-senna's friend.

generally speaking, the last part of endwalker and the patchs are the moment she starts feeling good enough for people around her to feel real again. like suddenly she feels she's in the world again, and so can make friends. and she did. then among those friends was the elder seedseer and eos spent some time recovering from the ultima thule fight in gridania so their friendship grew into something else :) and it was all natural she didn't feel surprised by the fact she was into women at all. but she WAS surprised that she could FEEL SOMETHING.

5. How did you figure out your oc's identity?

For most of the MSQ eos was asexual in my head. just couldn't picture anything else, any other identity. but honestly that was caused by my personal issues, i was afraid to engage with the plot outside what was canonically defined (for reasons). yes i had depression. yes once i got better eos immediately became a lesbian. but her asexuality is still part of her story - though at this point i wouldn't call it asexuality to respect my asexy friends. that was just trauma. but that lack of interest in anything sexual/romantic was definitely an important part of her life and she is trying to make sense of it

7. Is there something that could cause your oc to question their identity? What?

Honestly. No.

20. Have your ocs helped you in self discovery? How?

Not in terms of labels or anything - my lesbian identity has been pretty solid for as long as i can remember - but i DO HAVE several forms of OCD, and have for five years, including homosexual OCD (aka comphet but make it a mental disorder) i have intrusive thoughts about having heterosexual sex and i compulsively check every thought to see if it means i'm straight. and finally setting in stone that my oc was also a lesbian and in a happy relationship helped me quiet the intrusive thoughts. that and sertraline. but i swear it makes me feel happy to see my oc happy - and it seems right, like it can't be otherwise. she couldn't be with anyone else than a woman. just like me irl. it's validating.

21. Free ramble card wee

i still hate square enix for what they've done to the female version of the neo-ishgardian outfits like let eos wear a leather jacket free her from that gender role prison yes i've said that a thousand times yes i will keep saying it

also gaia and ryne's story is the best lesbian representation i've ever seen and every young wlw should play it. literally felt a weight leave my shoulders as ryne caught gaia from the void and the camera cut to the rainbow crystal and a field of newly grown flowers where a desert stood but a second ago. sudden breath of fresh air and life brought by gay love

[lacantuauthor]

Character creation - sample 2

Alicia Rovira Gómez

For this exercise, I filled my character template based on a real person for a potential historical novel (the story is quite intriguing).

I had to do some research before filling it out, too.

The template was provided by instructor Valentín Fernández-Tubau.

PERSONAL AND PHYSICAL

Gender:  Female

Age: 20

Hair: Dark brown, long, worn in the Gibson girl style.

Build: Slim, mildly athletic

Physical peculiarities: Good posture, always keeps her back straight and her movements are very graceful

Speech: She was educated to speak soft, not to laugh loudly. Uses words that give away a high level of education

Health: Eats very little because she has frequent stomachaches--she keeps that to herself

Addictions: None

Dress: Follows latest trends. Has dresses brought from Europe and some others designed in Mexico, but based on designs from European magazines

SOCIOLOGICAL

Civil status: Married her first love

Family background: The youngest of five siblings. Her family has Catalan roots. She was born and grew up in Orizaba, Veracruz

Social status: Wealthy

Education: Concluded her basic education in a school for young ladies of medium-high class in Orizaba. She was taught about manners and household chores expected from a woman of her time

Economics: Depends on her husband

Current occupation: Housewife and teacher. Teaches the island's children to write, read, play the piano and pray

Past occupation: Hadn't had any

Interests: Wants to build the closest thing there is to a paradise on the island. Contribute by bringing education to Clipperton's children

Social connections: She has a close relationship with her family in Orizaba and other friends that she made back in school. On the island, she builds a good relationship with the soldiers' wives and the children of the island

Ethics/Sense of morality: Her sense of ethics and morality is based on Catholicism, which she grew up with, but which she doesn't follow strictly. She's flexible, capable of making decisions based on her own criteria of what's right and wrong

Political inclinations: She isn't interested in politics. She finds her sense of purpose by acting to bring change at a local level

Sports: Doesn't practice sports actively, but she likes going out on walks

Hobbies: She likes to play the piano, reading and art in general. She likes to teach what she knows to everyone else

Idealism level: High

Pragmatism level: High, although she doesn't always acts the way she thinks

Materialism level: Medium-high

Intellectual capabilities: Besides being cultured, she's smarter than she lets on in other respects. She has learned to play the character she was taught a lady like her should be. She avoids speaking her mind when she knows this might make her husband or others uncomfortable

Ambition level: Medium-high, motivated by altruism

PSYCHOLOGY

Favorite fantasy: To see the island prosper with her husband as governor and with her work as a teacher

Paradox: The island can't support so many people on its own, dependency of external provisions complicates her dream from coming true when they stop coming

Problems: Identity problems. She's in a constant battle with who she is and the effort to continue presenting herself as a perfect woman before her husband and others

Fears: She fears to be known for who she really is and being rejected

Sexual preference: Bi-curious but not open about it, heterosexual because she was taught that's how it should be

She would've loved to have been the partner of: Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer

Values: She's moved by having a positive impact on the lives of other people

Qualities: Hard worker, responsible, witty, creative and generous

Skills: Speaks French, plays the piano very well, is good at writing although she doesn't do it frequently. Great teacher.

Defects: A coward when it comes to show her true self, easy to subdue

Antisocial behavior: In moments of tension or stress she searches for a place to be alone where she can lose composure without worrying--a place where she can scream, cry freely and express herself with her body

Likes: Reading poetry, art from the Romanticism, music by Beethoven, Chopin and Liszt

Dislikes: Politics, art from the Realism in all its shapes and forms

Actor that reminds you of the character: Ximena Sariñana

[dcviated]

@psychcdelica sent: Does Dogi and Armstrong have a preference when it comes to their children? Would they prefer a son or a daughter? How many would they like if they had the opportunity to pick?

Lets start with Dogi. First I want to put it out there that when it comes to having a family he's not against adopting. Growing up an orphan himself- picking up stragglers and calling them his own is just about as fantastic as having his own. But his own blood would be special....

As for the gender, yeah, yeah, Dogi would find it hard to deny that he'd be elated to have a boy. Another lad to raise up and teach all the things he knows. Camping trips. Guy stuff. That said, he's not going to be upset if it's a girl, or if the son turns out to be interested in other things. But he's got an image of things he missed out because of his own upbringing, you know?

It'd just take him longer to learn how to raise a little girl of his own. I think a certain super cute lady would have to provide some assistance on that front. Would she mind? I find myself doubting that.

For the number? Two. Doesn't want to have just one if he's having any kids. So they can grow up with a friend to count on. Also more fun trips. Lets be real. Even if he had daughters. They'll get pulled to go camping to. And yes, they can bring their little plushies.

-------------------------------

Armstrong's quite a bit different. He comes from a big family, and has full expectations and plans to continue forward in the same manner. Which means he would like to have many children, at least three if he can help it. They'll be subject to much the same upbringing as he endured. Tutoring. Etiquette. And classes to help further their interests as they present themselves. He's a softer touch than you'd expect. Just as his siblings went the ways they wished, so too would he not press his own with grand expectations. Whether they become artists, fighters, business, or what have you.

There's no preference for gender either. He grew up surrounded by women himself. And if he had daughters you best believe he'll be fantastic at tending to their needs and helping them with makeup, hair care, and picking out their styles. A great supportive dad who drinks and gets pelted with respect women juice.

I think it'd be interesting for him to have a more masculine son, and it actually presents a possible point of friction if they don't have the same flair as himself. Which would be difficult given it seems to run in the genes... but... who's to say there's not something like Olivier running in the pool waiting to pop out? A scary thought, but not improbable...

[avelera]

So for readers of "Come home with me and be my Love" I thought I'd share a bit of a complex question I'm wrestling with that I hope will be seen in the good faith that it is intended: how to handle Dream's pronouns when he's in public in "female" form as Morfea.

The story is from Hob's POV, first and foremost, which means the narrative is subjective rather than objective. Everything is being filtered through Hob's POV.

Now, as established in the story, Hob has had queer and specifically nonbinary/non gender conforming lovers in the past. While this is the 1810s so he's not going to think in strictly modern terminology, he is accustomed to the idea of changing pronouns for someone and he is sensitive to this fact so long as he knows which pronouns an individual prefers that he use.

However, this situation is complicated when it comes to Dream by a few things.

1) Dream has not told him what pronouns to use, so Hob has to guess.

2) Dream is a magical shape-changer, he switches between gender presentations so quick that it's not always clear in the situation what pronoun Hob should go with. Heck, sometimes Dream looks so different from Hob's conception of him in one of these forms that Hob sometimes even struggles to view this person as Dream. In theory it should be easy to just switch based on apparent gender presentation, but I am trying to convey a supernatural level of shape-changing here, something that does not happen in real life. This isn't Dream throwing on some makeup, this is a different person standing where Dream was a second ago. I think to faithfully represent how bizarre this would be for a normal human (like Hob) is important. This is a different *person* suddenly standing where your lover was standing, wtf pronouns are you supposed to use? And again, Dream is offering no guidance, he does not for example tell Hob to call him she/her when he presents as female, he doesn't say anything on that front at all. Hob just has to guess while trying to be respectful and not really understanding how or if Dream's self-perception changes when his appearance does.

3) Dream is disguised as a woman largely under the duress of his bargain with Desire. He clearly prefers to present as male. Based on what he tells Hob about his preferred appearance being a "favorite coat", his preferred appearance is male and he uses explicitly male pronouns. Everything else is an aberration inflicted on him by unusual circumstances.

So, as a default, Hob has opted to use male pronouns when thinking of Dream as the most respectful option, even when Dream is presenting himself as the woman "Morfea" to the world. Verbally, Hob uses female pronouns, but in his inner monologue which makes up the narrative, Dream is still Dream and Dream uses male pronouns. He would of course change if Dream asked him to do so, but again, Dream who withheld his name for 400 years is not being super forthcoming about whether he wants Hob to change pronouns for him when his appearance changes. Hob makes the decision that the most respectful thing to do with Dream's preferred identity is to continue using male pronouns.

Now, from a Doylist/writer's perspective, I also chose male pronouns in the narrative because on the written page, all we have to visualize the characters is words. Switching to female pronouns for Dream risked making it feel like there was a new character entirely and when writing, I like to stay as close to the canonical character "feel" as possible. And of course, I also went through much the same internal wrestling with this as Hob did.

Anyway, this is a long, rambling, and probably overly defensive take on why "Morfea" is referred to by Dream's male pronouns in all cases except verbally in the upcoming chapters, and I thought I'd share an essay about what that is in advance for anyone curious.

[lesbianslovebts]

Hey Tyler, I mean this in good faith with the intent to understand your thoughts, but I don't know if I so strongly agree with your opinions on what constitutes lesbianism and lesbophobia.

Where I'm struggling is that you're hard-defining lesbianism as being anything but a man and being attracted to only women. Which to me makes me wonder two things: 1) isn't this kind of rendering non-binary folks as women-lite? and 2) doesn't this negate lesbianism as an identity for anyone attracted to non-binary folks?

This too kind of leaves out a long history of trans men who identify as lesbians and lesbians whose partners transition to become men, both types of people for whom being a lesbian may be a crucial part of their identity formation. It's not so much about not seeing themselves in the former example or their partners in the latter as not being "real" men or women, but that gender and sexual identity are perhaps more expansive.

To me also, lesbophobia necessitates oppression, and my question then is does identifying as a pan lesbian inherently oppress lesbian lesbians? Or, does dating a non-binary person harm other lesbians? I can't quite fathom that it does.

Interested to hear your thoughts.

I assume this is in reference to this post, in which I said:

I went into the lesbian tag on this day of lesbian visibility and kept seeing all these positivity posts for “bi/pan lesbians.” My fellow sapphics, if you are romantically and/or sexually attracted to men, you are not a lesbian. Lesbians are people with diverse genders, presentations, and preferences, but our commonality is that we are not men and we are not romantically or sexually attracted to men. You can try putting it into progressive terms all you want, but leaving room for men in the label “lesbian” will always be lesbophobic.

To prevent TERFs from reblogging this: Trans women are women, trans lesbians are lesbians, nonbinary lesbians are lesbians, and when I say men, I mean cis and trans men.

I believe you have seriously misread my post. You stated that I am, "hard-defining lesbianism as being anything but a man and being attracted to only women." That is inaccurate. What I said is that lesbians are people with diverse genders, which includes, for example, women (both trans and cis), nonbinary people who align themselves with womanhood, unaligned nonbinary people, agender people, people whose gender is lesbian, et cetera. Though these listed genders are indeed diverse, their commonality is that they are neither men nor aligned with manhood. I also stated that lesbians are people with diverse presentations, meaning that we can and do use whatever pronouns we want, dress however we want, and choose to use traditionally feminine, masculine, or gender-neutral terms of reference, regardless of how we define our individual genders as lesbians.

To use myself as an example, I am a nonbinary lesbian. My gender is butch, and I am masculine. I primarily use she/her because that's what I'm used to, I'm okay with they/them, and I'm on the fence about he/him. I prefer sir over ma'am and uncle over auntie, but I don't know how I feel about "boyfriend." It's complicated, and that's okay. Though I really dislike definitions in the negative, it is impossible to list every single lesbian's complex relationship to their respective genders, so I emphasized what we all have in common: we are not men. Additionally, nowhere did I say that lesbians are only attracted to women. I, personally, am not only attracted to women. I am attracted to people of my same/similar gender, which does not include men or people aligned with manhood, but does of course include some (but not all) nonbinary people. Just as I would not date gay men as a nonbinary person, there are some nonbinary people who would not date lesbians. Thus, I am definitely not "rendering nonbinary folks as women-lite."

To your next point, binary trans men are men, so I would not understand why a binary trans man would want to use the label lesbian, which would, by definition, misgender them. If I were to realize that I was a man, I personally would call myself straight. At the same time, I understand that some lesbians date people who transition to become men, and I am not about to say whether they can keep dating or have to change their labels or what have you. That is a tricky situation that is, frankly, none of my business, and I do not even know how I would react myself in said situation.

"To me also, lesbophobia necessitates oppression, and my question then is does identifying as a pan lesbian inherently oppress lesbian lesbians?" Let me answer this in a roundabout way. Do I, as a lesbian, have the capability to systematically oppress bi women? No. Am I still capable of saying biphobic things and perpetuating biphobic stereotypes? Yes. Likewise, it is possible for bi/pan sapphics to say lesbophobic things.

"Or, does dating a non-binary person harm other lesbians?" I think I have sufficiently answered this already. Conversely, I would, as a lesbian, personally benefit if someone were to date me, a nonbinary person. /lh

Finally, to get into the nitty-gritty of why I take offense to the terms bi lesbian and pan lesbian: bisexuality and lesbianism are inherently different. That is why there are two separate terms. Namely, that difference is that lesbians are not attracted to men (cis, trans, and aligned otherwise). This is not a new or revolutionary statement, so let me say it again: Lesbians are neither romantically nor sexually attracted to men. We are oppressed by cisheteronormative society at large for this exact reason. I spent an entire decade unlearning compulsory heterosexuality (or comphet) and misidentifying as bisexual. My autism also played a role in making it difficult to determine whether what I felt towards men was friendship or attraction. So when I came out (again) at 22 as a lesbian, I felt the most cathartic relief in my life.

On the other hand, bisexuality/pansexuality is attraction regardless of gender, which does, then, include men. Combining the terms bi/pan with lesbian is contradictory. One cannot be sexually and/or romantically attracted to men and simultaneously not be sexually and/or romantically attracted to men. People who use the terms bi lesbian or pan lesbian often do so because they identify as either "bisexual homoromantic" or "biromantic homosexual." However, both of these experiences include attraction to men. Lesbianism does not include attraction to men. Therefore, lesbian is not an accurate term for these experiences.

This was a lot, and I cannot make it more simple than this:

Lesbians are not men.

Lesbians are not sexually or romantically attracted to men.

That was literally what I said in the original post. I do not know if you are a lesbian or not because you did not specify. I think you were confused and genuinely seeking clarity, which I was glad to provide. But if you are not a lesbian and want to argue that lesbians can, in fact, be attracted to men, then I consider you just as complicit in lesbophobia as the cishets who want me to end up with a man.

Discourse blogs DNI. Please do not reblog.

[barnesbabee]

Hi I hope it’s ok to ask I just read a fanfic with mommy kink and I’m a bit confused by a guy being called mommy and a girl calling him that like I kinda get a girl calling a guy daddy or a guy calling a girl mommy but genuinely curious about the kink of a girl calling a guy mommy… do you get what I mean? Does it mean she has a thing for moms? If this is offensive I’m sorry I don’t mean to be I’m just trying to understand it better

Scuse me, come again??

first of all feel free to do so, I'll reply to basically any ask

I was rummaging my brain trying to find a response and I honestly can't find it

I saw the fic you were talking about on my tl cause a mutual reblogged it, I thought it was like sub!ateez and paid it no mind, but now that you mentioned it I went and read it and yeah... all I can say is, it is there, it really is there

no hate to the creator, I don't know them and don't care, but all I can think about is why

isn't daddy the same? doesn't 'daddy' have the same conotation and power stance over the other person? Im really having a brain fart here

I might be stepping onto some risky territory here but hey, that's what people love and hate me for

you know when someone changes their pronouns to their preferred gender and someone doesn't respect said pronouns it's real shitty 'cause they're being misgendered? Isn't this like.... the same fucking thing

and I can already hear the 'bUt He NeVeR sPeCiFiEd AnYtHiNg' comments, and may I need to remind you that not everyone needs to specify everything? He presents himself as a man, he refers to himself as a man, and his friends refer to him as a man, if he never corrected them or said anything against it is because he is comfortable being called a man

I just think it's weird how people constantly push this feminine agenda on so many idols for no reason💀💀

you know it's kinks, I get it, but it's odd and I can't tell you how many times I started reading a fic and then suddenly the idol, the man, the guy who has a penis and 0 ovaries, gets pregnant

I hate it, I hate many things but then again people write whatever the fuck they want I guess again, maybe in the fic they wanted to have a sort of feminine seonghwa, with no gender, just kinda switching in between, but I just love to see how seriously people take gender among themselves and the way other identify, except when it's for idols and their own pleasure/entertainment

not offensive, it takes quite a bit to offend me to be honest, it's kinda cute that you came to me lmfao

but I guess it's the thing for moms? the sort of liking/wanting a woman to dom them but having a man instead yet still wanting to keep that feminine part? anyways mommy and daddy is weird to me because why bring family into sex 💀💀 sounds pretty sweet home alabama-y for me

[toonytoodles]

Random fun fact time! Ft. OCs! (Repost because I added more/ edited a lot of stuff)

Avery -

- Sneezes like a kitten, and most of the time she accidentally uses her fire breathe when she sneezes, so watch out

- Sleeps on a rock

- Is made uncomfortable by actual dragons, it's just... too weird for her...

- Has a strange and inexplicable extreme fear of eels

- Reacts to fear by singing/humming/speaking very loudly, and also by running and screaming (basically, how markilpler acts when playing horror games? yeah that)

- At least once a week her dad has to help her brush through her hair, he says they should get it cut but she absolutely refuses

- Owns a few pairs of gloves- most of which look nearly identical. Some are for different days, some pairs are for bedtime, and some are for special occasions, but she also has some different types and styles of gloves for different events

- Loves the holidays, dislikes the weather that comes with it

- Absolutely hates people touching/messing with her tail, even if it's by accident she gets kinda mad. That's hers- don't touch it. (Emma's the only exception to this simply because it can't be avoided- although Emma does try to touch it as little as possible)

- Slightly allergic to pollen

- She has a clicking-like purr

- If you scratch under her chin she'll purr and relax, but if scratch a certain spot on her neck she'll sleepily fall over

- Adopted as an egg and raised by her human father and fairy mother

- Has a Scottish accent 

- Works as a Glazier (glass blower) and makes potion bottles, also helps with making the potions, and occasionally costumer service and boring stuff like stocking/inventory

Emma -

- Plays with hoodie strings and/or hair when upset or nervous (it happens often, her hoodie strings are sorta worn out)

- She's a big fan of animals! Especially bears, puppies, and unicorns, she thinks they're adorable! When she was younger she used to like dragons quite a bit too

- She's a protective friend and big sister, and she's a little over protective over people she cares about

- Tends to read into things; if your tone or demeanor is slightly different she begins worrying that something's wrong or that she did something. She also tends to believe that no one actually wants to be her friend or wants to be nice to her, but that they're only being nice because they're afraid of her or pity her.

- LOVES HUGS!!! Absolutely loves them, hugging other giants, hugging people smaller than her, getting hugs, giving hugs, she loves hugs

- Once accidentally ate a fake candy cane decoration, off someone's front lawn, because she thought it was real gigantic candy, left out for giants (she was like four, so it made sense to her then, but she still gets made fun for it a bit by her family)

- Loves snow and winter

- Her favorite color is probably blue

- Is surprisingly good at sneaking up on people, for someone 30ft tall she's quiter than most borrowers

- Is the second oldest of five kids, her older brother Rory is 23, her younger brother Richard is 15, and her youngest sisters Aroura and Tiana are 6 and 8, and they're all pretty close

- Her dad is a size shifter, and so are Richard and Tiana, the rest of the family are giants

- She's ambidextrous

- Very cautious of her surroundings

- Hates surprises/being scared

- Bi-romantic and ace

Sofia -

- Can write without looking at what she's doing

- Only wears slip on shoes or shoes with Velcro/zippers, she never learned how to tie them, she couldn't figure out what to do with her head or look at what she was doing

- She's an artist! She likes to paint!

- Has a hard time saying "no," so when she says it, she means it

- Hates surprises and people sneaking up on her

- Has a pet python named Albert

- Probably the only person on the planet who has worse anxiety than Emma

- Don't call her "Soph" or "Sophie," and she gets mildly annoyed when her name is misspelled

- Typically uses right arm to carry head and left hand for everything else

- Has a weird sense of humor

- Has a million stuffed animals, has like 20 on her bed, but Rupert the blue bunny is her favorite

- She has an enchanted scarf that allows her to wear her head when needed, she doesn't usually use it because she's not used to it & it gives her anxiety (she's scared of the scarf falling off/being taken off unexpectedly) but she has it and uses it on occasion, mostly at home

- She doesn't let anyone else hold her head, it seriously freaks her out, her dad is the only exception, but Avery held her once for a group photo (her body took the picture)

-She loves singing and has a soft beautiful voice but is too shy to sing around anyone 🎶

- She was bullied when she was younger and doesn't like to talk about it, she already gets emotional easily and those memories hurt

- She loves Avery's jokes and has a bit of a weird sense of humor

- She's adopted, she lives with her human father (another fun fact, her dad is one of Avery's parents best friends!)

- Unlike Avery, she wasn't adopted as a baby, she was about 6-7ish when she was adopted

- Loves vegetables

- Gets embarrassed easily

- Doesn't go out of her comfort zone, she only does stuff when Avery basically forces her to

- She really likes Emma, but is also sorta scared of her sometimes, she's just scared of people and being looked at, so she can be a little overwhelming without meaning to be, it's nothing personal and she knows Emma wouldn't hurt a fly, she's just scared of people and sometimes Emma is a lot of person

- Doesn't want Emma to hold her (Emma respects it, although sometimes they work it out to where Emma can give her a gentle hug)

-Her favorite season is fall

-She loves rabbits and frogs, but won't admit she loves horses (there's a stereotype that all dullahans love horses, she won't give in)

-Hates confrontation

-Loves vanilla cake

-Hates strangers and people she's not comfortable around being anywhere near her

- Pansexual

- Sorta has a voice claim, but it's weird and sorta difficult to explain?

Andie -

- Has a French accent (picked it up from dad)

- One of my only OCs to have a voice claim

- Plays the flute

- Mean, selfish, and self centered, but somehow also a good person

- Sings sentences sometimes

- Scared of turtles

- Works as a bard/waitress at the family tavern

- Unfortunately she is heterosexual

Andy -

- Somehow didn't pick up their fathers accent

- One of my only OCs to have a voice claim

- Plates the lute

- Genuine and kind hearted, but also a bumbling moron

- Dreams of being a song writer, wants to be a professional musician

- Works as a bard/waiter at the family tavern

- Bi, but prefers women

Clementine -

- A book worm

- Likes to sing

- Practices magic, knows a few interesting spells

- Sometimes her and Avery fight over magic usage vs. potion usage (they know it's a dumb fight, but they don't care, at this point it's a joke)

- She's a white tailed deer

- She has great hearing, and is usually very aware of her surroundings

- She wants to be a magic professor as an adult

- Demisexual, pan, but prefers men

Pond-

- Elementals don't really have gender, she chooses to present as female and use female pronouns

- Can't "see," but rather senses vibrations, since she's made out of water she doesn't have eyes, but based on other senses she can get around just fine

- She can't smell either

- Doesn't care for romance

- Has 4 pet fish she keeps with her, named Karl, Frank, Phillip, and Fish

- She has a baby sister, Brook

- She's odd and can be off putting unless you know her pretty well, then her weirdness is sort of endearing

- She can tell her friends apart by the way they walk and their gestures, and of course their voices, but really has no idea what any of them look like, she knows their species and the normal traits of those species, but not much outside that

- She doesn't eat or drink

- Smart, but sorta reckless

- Sorta hard to hug :( but the others still try

Sapphire -

- Has minimal size shifting abilities, but prefers to be her true size, she loves sitting on her husband's shoulders or in his pockets (She's about 5ft in her bigger form)

- Used to be an adventurer, at one point she was a pirate

- Met her husband on one of her adventures

- Has a Scottish accent

- She has a sword her size (no it's not a toothpick or a toy or anything, she has an actual tiny sword) 🗡

- Makes potions for the shop and deals with customers

- Grew up outside of Tradeskeep, her and Kal retired from their adventuring career and settled down there

Kalvin -

- Used to be an adventurer/ mercenary

- Huge, ripped, has all kinds of scars, but his 4" tall wife is scarier than he his, he's basically a teddy bear

- Makes potions, does restocking, inventory, and doesn't as much anymore, but makes potion bottles

- Has scars/tattoos from various adventures

- Used to have dragon scale armor, he once saved a village from a dragon, but has sold it and no longer tells the story, he now claims it was a bear

- He's a great dad ❤

- Loves ale & meat, but not as much as his girls

- I cannot overstate how much he loves his family, he LOVES his wife and daughter, like a LOT, it pretty much defines who he is, he's a family man

- Met his wife while on a quest

- He used to be a nomad while adventuring and getting paid for jobs, he'd wander from town to town, until he settled at Tradeskeep and put up a shop

Ok so i know that's a lot, but it's there for anyone who's interested in all that ❤ I have other facts too, so if you wanna know any more just look around on my blog or send an ask, Q&A for OCs are open, and I'm open to art/writing requests/ideas! ❤

[honestgrins]

NikMik: also julie likes to hear herself talk but it was interesting to hear how she struggled early on. some of my other takeaways...1) the story of how she didn't want to write after writing a poor script in college - just because you do something bad once doesn't necessarily mean you're bad at it completely. sometimes, you just have to keep working at it or approach it differently.

I do like the idea of revisiting things that didn’t work the first time around, especially when it comes to certain skills. As a perfectionist (to a fault), I really struggle with failure and moving past it to get better. The whole ‘practice makes perfect’ thing takes too long for me to get any real joy out of the final product if it’s objectively bad, and I won’t allow myself the time to grow and improve. It’s easier to just…give up.

NikMik (2) knowing your place & respecting the hierarchy. the one thing that annoyed me about this though was that candice kept trying to push that this happened because julie was a woman who spoke up. i’m not dismissing the fact that this does happen…but it kinda seems like candice & kayla put julie on a pedestal, sometimes to a point where flaws don’t exist.

NikMik: of course, she’s done so much for them career wise…but i think it takes alot of self-awareness & maturity for julie to admit that she was wrong. way too many people want to blame everyone else rather than acknowledge that they’ve messed up.

In my experience, work interactions are vastly improved by my ability to recognize my role in the conversation. For example, just on Friday, my boss was chatting with another director, and the gossip was good. Instead of just listening and soaking up all the dirty details, I kept inserting myself at the wrong moments. Am I still mortified? Yes. Beating myself up over it? Always. But does my gender play into these circumstances? I don’t think so, though it helps that my boss is a woman herself. I really hate that the question is always a possibility in the back of my mind, though, depending on who the conversation is with.

What I would have preferred in that episode, I guess, is for Candice to have waited for Julie to float that possibility. Maybe it is the pedestal problem, but I think it corners the conversation to a real concern in the workplace that doesn’t necessarily apply to that anecdote. If Julie presented it that way, then I might have been more interested in the ensuing discussion. But that wasn’t the impression I got from her telling, just that she’d ticked off the wrong bigwig with her particular brand of work ethic. Is it possible that her behavior wouldn’t have been so annoying coming from a man of similar age and job description? Probably, but I don’t think that’s the place Julie was telling her story from, and I hope Candice and Kayla adapt their interviewing style to be more flexible and sensitive to what their guest is trying to say.

NikMik: 3) when you don’t know what to do in life, just go in a direction when the opportunity presents itself. that may not be for you but now you’ll have a better idea of what you want to do & you’ll have learned from that experience. (4) helping to build up other people’s strengths

Yes! It’s like when trying to pick a restaurant. I don’t know where I want to go, I only know I don’t want to go there. Though it sounds like a good exercise, to go through some of our bad work experiences and pick out what we’ve learned and applied since then.

And building up others is an excellent goal, even if I’m not a huge fan of the people Julie pulled up the ladder with her. I could say a lot about the content created from those she’s mentored, but I have to admit that they seem to be succeeding despite my grudges.

[mistprints]

binary (adj.): relating to, composed of, or involving two things. Consisting of 2 parts.

non-binary (adj. and noun): Not involved in the two things. In this case, not socially aligned with what's expected of either gender (not the same as sex).

While non-binary typically doesn't align with any gender to be clear (but specifically the binary 2 most common today), it also wasn't uncommon for other cultures to have more than 2 genders (not sexes), and it isn't new, most people just were never taught that in (for example) Native American tribes recognized 3-5 genders long before colonists arrived. I liked studying tribes; the Lakota and Navajo were examples of two that had more "spirit" genders.

Gender is a social construct that you should be able to move around in and out of freely, best suited to yourself. People should be allowed to experiment and not have to conform in any particular way to what's expected for other people's approval or sake. You didn't get to decide any terms about how you got here, so being able to opt-out of those societal expectations based on what's in your pants is a freeing choice. And it isn't bad to wind up comfortable in or defying those expectations. Same as a name change, it shouldn't be so hard to grasp or respect/comply with, and any accidental mistakes due to assumptions are corrected with tact (we do not however tolerate people who purposefully and repeatedly are disrespectful by denying someone their preferred pronouns. _____________________

Personal Note: It's so strange, because not so long ago, accidentally calling someone the wrong gender over the phone would be met with swift apologies and correction. The formal trap of only having Miss/Mrs. or Mr. would corner you with having to often guess by default. I got assumed to be a man all the time not because of my voice, but my unique name (3 recorded people I could find have it) that isn't clearly feminine or masculine. Not to mention that for a long time I just let people assume my pronouns were masculine online (using neutral names and avatars, a lot of people used to assume you must be a dude lol) and I didn't correct them because I wanted to game, chat, and move around without the harassment, fake standards, and condescending treatment I saw my female friends get. I found out I wasn't even alone in my friend groups! Other people were also doing the same, not particularly deeply aligning with the pronouns for their sense of self, but borrowing them as a dual part of themself, like a persona they presented as the self or avatar they like to use in online society. (I am fine with how I am irl, but without a doubt, if I ever got to create an avatar for myself to inhabit, I would be more comfortable being with they/them, she/they, or he/him ngl. It's an admittedly interesting thing I learned about myself, but it is ideal)..

You can literally project whoever you want to be online, to both fun, safe ideals to the dangerous luring, so be mindful of that. Who you are online should already be an avatar of yourself, that can still be true and "a real person" there, but that does not give too much personal information that could be used for harm by strangers.

I curate that way less the past few years and like to use whatever avatars I want and don't mind people knowing bc they generally don't gaf anymore, but they still do heavily target the people outside the "you can only have one" binary, and that's the new battle we face now.

Take this all with a grain of salt though, as I'm just one individual with only my experiences and those I have learned about. Doesn't mean I know enough to get into the far deeper social and religious structures that are why we have these issues and disagreements. I just know they are there and can draw a lot of self-founded conclusions. These are just the thoughts springing from that.

[imagine-stevenuniverse]

How would Garnet react to her S/o coming out as a Genderfluid, Bi-Lesbian and Demi-Sexual? And, how would she react to hearing that her S/o was scared to tell her this at first due to her family not accepting them 100%? (I.E Their father only accepts them being Lesbian, and NOT BI and their grandmother not understanding what Genderfluid is and therefore mocks their granddaughter for being sth she doesn't udnerstand?

First of all, expecting anything less than acceptance with any of these topics? Nope. You’re only getting love and acceptance here.

I imagine the only thing that would need explaining is “demisexual” and she’d approve of that pretty whole-heartedly. She always mentioned that love takes work and having a sexuality based around needing to know someone better before you’re into them? That’s great.

Genderfluid’s pretty cool, too. Gems are inherently nonbinary, themselves... Presenting as feminine is easier, though. So shifting gender is pretty cool.

So on that note, being Bi-Lesbian? That sums up a lot of gems, really. A lot are attracted to girls/feminine people. And guys? Well, not everyone, but that’s just preferences for ya. Just like humans!

...Though she’s lowkey livid at hearing how you were nervous to admit all of that due to your family. She’s proud of your bravery to admit it to her, but why your family would treat you any less for how you identify and your sexuality is beyond her.

Expecting nothing less than Garnet offering full support. You deserve that, especially after the nonsense you’ve been through.

Might’ve also let the other Crystal Gems know, as well. They’re understanding and look, if your family won’t support you? Then now you have the Crystal Gems on your side. It’s hard to have a bad day sitting in Garnet’s lap while Steven’s excitedly telling a story about something or another.

Knows when to shift pronouns, if you ever need that. Sometimes, you just have those days where you lean more towards certain ones and Garnet knows. Pronoun respect is real ‘round here.