#and then finding out that there are in fact many other people that also Get It

[skullamity]

All of this. I will also add that there are so many factors that go into determining what the right amount of testosterone for someone to take even is.

What's your age? Weight? Height? What were your levels like before starting T and is it possible that you have undiagnosed PCOS that could cause you to over-estimate how much you should be taking? Do you have other health issues (possibly also undiagnosed) that could be exacerbated by T if you aren't microdosing? How is your liver doing?

All of these are things that an endocrinologist keeps an eye on through regular blood tests. My first year on T I had blood tests every month or so and we adjusted my dose several times. Now I need blood tests once a year, and we are keeping an eye on my liver because of past issues with FLD.

I know at least one person who is permanently disabled because of an inattentive doctor who over-prescribed doses, which eventually lead to a stroke that absolutely could have been prevented. If a medical professional can get that wrong, what makes you think that some dude at the gym, even if you find this mythical gymbro willing to hook you up, is going to know exactly how much you should be taking. Is he going to send you for blood tests? And even if he's just a hook-up, what makes you think your average trans dude is going to know how to read those numbers, provided they can even access the right tests?

Where I live, if I want a blood test? I need a doctor or endocrinologist to send a requisition for it. There's still a layer of needing to involve a doctor, and if you are accessing T illegally, you are going to have to fess up because they WILL find out, because you are going to have to tell them why you want blood tests if you want them to give you that requisition form.

It pisses me off every time I see people online sneering and telling trans men to go find a gymbro to hook them up like it's easy. Even if you set aside the fact that outing yourself to one or more jacked strangers is a MASSIVE safety issue, you still have to contend with the safety issue of essentially flying blind as you inject yourself with what you HOPE is the correct dose, fingers crossed you don't have a stroke or take so much that it converts back to estrogen.

It does, in fact, need to be easier to access T. It would be wonderful if there were easier to access DIY options. But currently? There are not, and for most people, the risk of just doing this unmonitored, the risk of arrest, the risk of getting your ass beat or murdered? The risks outweigh the reward. Shady gym T isn't going to alleviate your dysphoria if you're dead, so please fucking stop telling trans men that they're pussies for not wanting to take this route.

While I have thoughts about the election that I haven't quite been able to put into words yet, I've seen a lot of misconceptions that "if DIY HRT is so easy for gymbros to get, it must be easy for trans men too!" and "Just go up to a gymbro and ask for his T!"

As the "trans gym bro" blog, I feel like I have to be the one to say

NO. IT IS NOT THAT SIMPLE.

First of all, because T is a regulated substance, it is hard for gymbros to get as well. That means even if they DID use T, they would NOT be sharing.

Secondly, there's "natty" culture. For those who aren't in the know "natty" is short for "natural". Being "natty" means you got your gains without the use of testosterone or steroids. There are those of the mindset "if you're not natty whatever, just disclose", but there are also those who look down on the idea of not being natty. Not to mention a lot of these gymbros strongly discourage the use of T in their circles because of the negative effects (namely the aromatization of T into E) of too much T. Basically, not every gymbro uses T, many actively discourage it, and those that do use T are likely hiding it.

Third, very few people are going to just bring their T into a locker room. Partially because of the previous point, but also because the locker room is just unsanitary, often don't have a proper disposal bin for sharps, and/or because the gym bans the use of steroids (sometimes needles I think?) entirely (this may not stop everyone but it's at least a deterrent).

Fourth, and very importantly, a large number of gymbros are transphobic. This varies from ignorant to actively malicious, and you never know which one you're going to get. To be fair, not every single gymbro is transphobic, but there is a large enough portion of them that are, such that you would be at substantial risk if you outed yourself to one. No transmasc in their right mind is going to risk outing themselves to someone who hates you AND is jacked as fuck.

There are other things preventing those who want testosterone HRT from accessing it also, such as doctors refusing to prescribe it to an AFAB person because "you'll ruin your body" reasons, those gymbros being a big part of the reason why T is a controlled substance, as well as it just being unsafe to use someone else's vial of T.

The point is though, we DO need resources for DIY T, ESPECIALLY in the current political climate in the US. Do NOT fucking ignore us because you refuse to acknowledge that not every gymbro is going to fit whatever idea of them you have in your head.

Anyway. I have to hit legs now.

[guppybibi]

Tattoo artist!Johnny who had already met you a year ago when you made an impulsive decision of getting a tattoo with your current boyfriend's name.

This was nothing new for Johnny having seen this numerous times before, in both men and women, and he knows they'll come crawling back to get them covered up after a nasty breakup. It's been a running game in the shop, all of the workers betting their money on how long it'll take before the customer comes back to cover up the tattoo.

Nothing new, right? Then why was Johnny so surprised when he saw you walk into the shop, the door chimes ringing when you swing the door open to reveal you. Eyes still red and puffy while you sniffled, not doing a very good job on hiding the fact you had been crying. His coworkers shot him a knowing look, recalling the bet from last year.

"Pretty thing, ain't she?" One of Johnny's coworkers commented, looking at the back of your figure as you stepped out of the shop with a huge grin on your face. Probably excited to show the tattoo of your boyfriend's name to him.

"Yeah, too bad she's taken. Lucky man better be treatin' her right." Johnny remarks, noticing the look he was given. "Not for long, I bet. I'm giving them a year max." Johnny blinks once, then again. "Fine, I'm giving them five years." Of course, his coworker was pretty shocked from that. Out of all the people they've bet on, this was probably the longest bet Johnny had ever put.

"Seriously? Don't ya think that's too long?" His coworker asks skeptically, raising a brow at Johnny. "Aye, the gal is lovely. If her boyfriend drops her then that's like committing a war crime." Well, his coworker couldn't really disagree with him on that.

Johnny shoots his coworker a glare that simply said he had more important matters to attend to. Luckily, Johnny was a charmer so cooing a birdie like you into comfort shouldn't be that hard, right?

I mean, it's a break up, not exactly the end of the world here. Plus, you're a gorgeous gal, plenty of fish out there you could probably catch in less than an hour.

"Morning, lass! Welcome back, I see that you've got a little problem, huh?" He points out, seeing you nod subtly. "Alright, I'm assuming it's a cover up for the tattoo you got done a year ago?"

He clearly wasn't surprised when you nodded, having seen this too many times before. He wrote down some stuff, not caring about the paperwork much..before leading you further into the parlor.

The two of you discussed how you wanted the previous tattoo to get covered up, Johnny nudging in to suggest some stylistic choices a few times, which you gladly didn't mind.

Then began the process once you agreed with the design choice, you wanted to get this over with. To remove a past mistake from your life.

Johnny cleansed your skin, disinfecting it with a cold gel. He could see you squirming and struggling not to make a sound. He also does notice another tattoo covered up above your previous tattoo, curiosity swirling around in his mind now.

He tried hushing it, it wasn't any of his business. He's here to do his job, nothing else.

He was quiet for most of the process, aside from some rather awkward small talk about the weather and a few details of what happened between you and your boyfriend. Not that it helped, it really just made Johnny even more curious.

And finally, after who knows how long, the tattoo was covered up now! You seemed to have gotten rid of the nerves from earlier, looking a lot more calmer now.

"Alright, lass. I'm sure y'know how the caring process goes so I'll leave it up to ye." He said, cleaning up all his materials in a snap. He gives in to his curiosity, finding the courage in him to ask you about the other covered up tattoo.

"Uh..before you go lass, mind if I ask ye somethin'? It's about the other tattoo you got 'ere.." You immediately knew which one he was referring to, face reddening in embarrassment as you recalled the immature decision..

"Aah..sure, go ahead." You replied awkwardly, a sheepish smile gracing your face. "Thanks, lass. Mind if ye tell me what was written on there? I- I just noticed that the way it was covered up. The artist did a great job, I'm jealous."

Yeah okay he was just making excuses to get things flowing..never mind that.

"Oo..oh! I don't mind at all, don't worry. That's all in the past..can't really reverse it, you know? It was my ex-boyfriend's name." You answer, shrugging it off. Seems like you were the type of gal to move on from a relationship quick.

"I see, glad you were willing to share that. I wonder if I know who he is." He chuckles, evidently not expecting you to actually tell him who it was. Sure, Johnny was the type to encourage people to loosen up and get comfortable. But..maybe not to this extent.

"His name was Simon, Simon Riley—" And practically everything you said after that was unheard of.

Looks like Johnny needs to pay Simon a visit at the pub tonight.

[ssa-neeks-prentiss]

hello hello hello !!

a teeny tiny request for you (hopefully it's not much to deal with): reader seeing Spencer interact with the kids who come knocking for treats, he does a small little trick for them too

Or

reader with the team goes to catch an unsub hiding in an abandoned lab or hospital (maybe x aaron?)

honestly idk what I'm yapping about but here are some mediocre thoughts from my side

‹3

AN: Sorry for not being able to do the top ask, I started getting motivation a little too late- I also need a name for this series so tell me if you have any ideas :3

Aaron Hotchner x fem!reader

Word Count : 1k

You stepped forward with your gun out. The team spread around you. You looked up at the large abandoned building in front of you. You let out an exasperated sigh as you finally noticed why the building was so large.

"An abandoned hospital. This sounds like it's straight out of a horror movie."

You muttered to no one in particular but they all heard and responded non verbally with grimaces. Frowning, you opened the door but winced as it opened with a loud creak.

"There goes our sneak attack."

Emily said to the team. You nodded in response. You agreed and you jogged forward, not caring about not making a sound anymore. The unsub had been alerted of your presence the moment you had opened that door.

Once all of the team was in the building, the door creaked shut, it was unsettling once it shut completely. As it was now dark and completely silent.

You crept through the hospital. You saw many things, but the thing that irked you the most was the fact the walls were void of graffiti. It was an obvious sign of something ahead. Especially since the place was obvious and not far from the main city.

The team split up and you were set with Aaron. The adrenaline rushing through your veins became more and more intense with each room you walked into. You came across many things, security cameras in tact and functioning, fully set up operating rooms, expensive equipment was still there.

"Something isn't right."

You muttered until you heard a bang and a loud scream. Both you and Aaron snapped up and ran to the sound of the scream. Panic made you run faster than you had before. Quicker than you thought was your limit.

You skidded to a halt as you rounded a corner but not before Aaron smashed into you due to your abrupt halt. You grabbed Aaron's hand and twisted sideways to avoid the knife that was being held out using some sort of contraption. You let out a quiet sigh of relief as you saw the rest of the team come from the other way. None of them would get hit by the knife. You sat up from where you were on the ground. Helping Aaron up, you dusted yourself off.

"This place is full of traps."

You muttered bitterly and Aaron gave you an apologetic look and you gave him a small smile in return. You trudged to the others.

"What did you find?"

Aaron asked them. Emily and JJ gave each other a look.

"We found a morgue."

You looked at them with a perplexed look, that was normal for a hospital like this. That was until JJ added onto Emily's statement.

"It was full of the missing people."

You paused. Oh. So this was where the unsub dumped the bodies. You turned to Rossi and Derek.

"Did you find anything?"

You asked the other two.

"We found.. Uh.. Organs."

Derek said with a tone of disgust. Your head snapped up in surprise.

"Where? Take me."

You asked and he nodded. The team followed behind you two.

Once you got there, you scanned the organs that were in the room.

"These are all the things that were 'wrong' with each person. The heart for heart problems. Lungs for asthma. The spine for back problems."

You listed off a few things. Until Aaron clicked it together.

"He was trying to fix them. Make them better. Take away what was bad and let them leave in perfect condition."

You nodded in agreement.

"Exactly."

You spun around at the unrecognizable voice. Your gun raised along with everyone elses. He held his hands up.

"I can go. I've saved all the people I need to."

At that Aaron nodded and Derek surged forward to snap handcuffs on the guy. They decided to go the way the guy came but before Derek could step forward with the guy you held a hand out and stopped them. You told everyone to go the other way and they did with only Aaron as an exception.

"Why did you tell them to go the other way."

Instead of answering properly you spoke instead.

"When I shout run. You run."

You waited for his nod and you grabbed something and threw it forward and the motion set something off as the place started to tick loudly.

"Run!"

You shouted as the two of you dashed out and got out of the hospital just in time to see the section of the building they were just in blow up. The two of you were slightly breathless from the running as the rest jogged to you both and bombarded you with questions.

"How did you know?"

You shrugged nonchalantly.

"He smirked and I noticed the motion sensors."

AARON'S POV

Aaron smiled slightly as the nonchalance reminded him of your daughter, Eleanor, he could tell that she got it from you. The smile was quickly wiped from his face as Rossi walked up to him with a knowing smirk.

Though you didnt notice that as you walked back to one of the vehicles, speaking with Emily.

He noticed a light red blushing on your cheeks as Emily teased you about something. You groaned as Emily laughed. Aaron didn't take notice of what Rossi was saying as he followed you.

He climbed into the drivers seat as you called shotgun and scrambled into the passenger seat. He smiled softly as you grinned and stuck your tongue out at Emily. You were a mix. You could be serious in times of need but also childish and light hearted. He admired that in you.

Emily grumbled and took the seat behind you and he held back a laugh as you gasped dramatically when Emily jokingly kicked your seat. You whipped around to glare at her but the smile that graced your face told him that you didn't mean it.

He turned the key as you begrudgingly turned around but not before giving Emily the middle finger.

Aaron enjoyed watching you interact with the team, he didn't know why but he did. It was nice. He enjoyed being with you overall but he didn't know why he felt a fluttering feeling with you. It confused him to no end but he didn't mind being confused if he got to spend time with you.

That was one of his favourite things to do and he could do it for hours.

[cilil]

Hi, do you have any advices for budding writers on AO3 or here?

Hey! :)

I've given this some thought and compiled what I hope might be some helpful pointers, but if there's anything else or anything specific you want to hear more about, feel free to ask again. Also I'm assuming this is about the amazing craft of fanfic and not, uh, building a platform or whatever (I wouldn't be very helpful with that, I'm a nobody x)).

Share what you feel comfortable sharing.

So since you're asking about budding writers on AO3 and Tumblr, I take it you're at a point where you feel comfortable sharing your writing online, which is amazing. Nevertheless, I feel the need to once again mention (just for anyone who may be in the same or a similar situation) that it's completely alright not to be comfortable with it (yet) or not to share everything you write. I share almost everything simply because I'm annoying and it makes me feel accomplished and since I've grown pretty comfortable with it, I might as well; but not everyone feels that way and feelings also change. It's completely alright to write just for yourself or a small circle of friends.

Don't worry too much about "being good".

I will be the first to admit that I deeply relate to struggling with perfectionism when it comes to writing (and other creative pursuits). However, as someone who's been reading fic for many years, tends to be into quite niche and obscure things sometimes and is rarely spoiled by big fandoms' abundance of food, I want all writers, especially new ones, to know that you don't have to write the most amazing, perfect, publishing-ready pieces. What matters is your passion and creativity, which will show in your writing regardless of skill level. Not to mention that fic is free and in fact a tool for many to experiment.

That's not to say you can't strive to improve or be good - by all means, I find it admirable if you want to hone your craft and make progress as you continue to write. Just don't let perfectionism ruin your fun and stifle your creativity.

How to get better without trying overly hard.

Aside from just writing, writing and writing (that is the most important part though), how do you improve without making it a point to do so? Well, if it works for you to read/watch guides or you enjoy specific writing exercises, that's great, but one thing that I find gets overlooked a lot in writing spaces is simply: Reading. Just reading for fun.

I find that I often discover little things in other people's writing that I really like and then I think to myself "wow, that's really neat how they did that, maybe I could take a page out of their book" (pun intended) and make it a point to pay attention to these things when I write. Essentially, it's like creating a nice patchwork blanket which is your style, made up of your own voice and preferences as a writer and cool stuff you picked up on the road.

Let me just name some examples, which, yes, are also an excuse to shamelessly blow some writer friends of mine a well-deserved kiss of appreciation. @sauron-kraut writes incredibly polished short stories with beautiful wording and atmosphere that have a lot of little hidden things to discover and dissect, and I want to steal her ability to set the stage and hide those easter eggs. @a-world-of-whimsy-5 is an absolute legend when it comes to writing medieval and medieval-adjacent stuff, and I learned so much from her fics. @i-did-not-mean-to has a way of writing with such esprit and wit that I always end up in a good mood after, a style of narrative voice I've adored for over a decade, and I've greatly improved my humorous writing in particular thanks to her. @crackinthecup has the marvelous ability to craft extremely emotionally evocative scenes, which have encouraged me to be more courageous and experimental in my sentence melody and structure. @tragedybunny has a way of writing that reminds me of coming home to a warm and comfy place, and I will find out how she did it and how I can do it as well.

So as you can see, it can be super helpful to compare notes with your fellow writers. Never be discouraged by someone else's ability; instead learn and expand your own.

Feedback, criticism and community.

Let me just get one thing out of the way: You don't have to take criticism from everyone. Or at all. As far as I understand, the fanfic community has come to to agree that we're doing this for fun and don't give criticism unprompted/when we aren't sure it's wanted or welcome. As a general rule: Take criticism from those you would also seek advice from. Ask for feedback if you feel comfortable, and if not, that's a valid boundary to have and I will gently smack anyone who presumes to pick apart writing that was made for fun and generously shared with the community for free.

The community aspect, however, should be taken into account on other fronts. While I won't tell anyone they have to interact and believe that, in an ideal world, everyone's writing would just speak for itself, it is helpful to engage with the community. Things you can do (both on Tumblr and AO3 if also applicable/possible) include: Respond to people interacting with your works, interacting with other people's works (for example while you're doing your reading sessions and looking at other writers' styles) and just overall being present, being talkative, going with the flow.

Again, this is not a must. But I will say that pretty much all of us want positive responses and interactions on their work and that just won't work if you expect everyone to show up for you all the time and never show up for anyone else. Engagement, passion and community are our "currency" in the absence of money and reciprocity is an important element of that. A lot of friction and complaints in the fanfic community regarding lack of interaction or entitlement are rooted in misunderstandings of this fundamental principle.

But don't take this in a cynical manner. Seek out what you enjoy, share the joy and passion and you'll make friends just accidentally - which is the part that I find makes fandom on AO3 and Tumblr so much fun! (I don't even want to be a "traditional" author anymore, I want this instead😁)

Find your groove and groove along.

Lastly, make sure your writing is fun for you or else it'll become a chore and eventually get ruined for you as a hobby. This is unfortunately a continuous task as your needs and interests shift - for example you might be in the mood to do an entire drabble challenge one month and during another month you feel so drained that you couldn't do another one. Or you might want to write something different for a change. Or whatever it may be.

Either way, one recent lesson I've learned is that I got too tied up in obligations and it left no space for spontaneous inspiration, so I never got to write what I wanted to write in the moment and it pushed me quite close to burnout. Do yourself a favor and always hold that space for yourself. In practice, this could for example mean that you do one event and on the side write this cool new idea you had, instead of doing three events - which is fun and games until it starts getting too much and you don't have time for your passion projects.

Finding your groove also includes the whole technical aspect, such as which writing programs you use, which device (or none at all), where you write, how to make yourself comfortable, how to get in the right headspace for things. I would also like to encourage all of you to be a bit crazy and whimsical about this: For example I've gone to the perfume store, picked out a scent for a specific character in a specific scene and sniffed it while writing the description several times now. Do what it takes. And say goodbye to your squeaky clean search history - you will research some weird stuff just to get that one line right.

So yeah, these are just my random thoughts on fic writing and what has been helpful in order for me to have lots of fun with this hobby. Happy writing!

[suzukiblu]

A/B/O Omega Kon Alpha Darcy Lewis

Darcy thinks maybe her new intern is a slut. Like–a big one. Big ol’ slut. 

Both metaphorically and literally, since he's 6’3” of Kansas beefcake and maybe the literal only human being alive who has a build remotely comparable to Thor's. 

So like, a billion steroids or secretly an alien, Darcy’s assuming. Or maybe somebody’s very sexy sexbot because if this omega was built to spec to look like this there is no way he is not a sexbot. Only the thirstiest motherfucker alive would design that face and those thighs and those pecs. 

Darcy has very nice tits. Like, upper-echelon level ones, frankly, which she is not too modest to pretend otherwise about. This omega, however, has pecs that cannot be contained by any T-shirt or farmboy flannel, much less any respectable button-up or lab coat, plus abs that can’t be contained by any of those either and an ass that somebody could bounce a quarter off. No matter how technically professionally he’s dressed, this omega looks like he’s starring in the first five minutes of a porno about a naughty lab assistant. Even his stupid glasses look like the cheapo fake ones that the naughty lab assistant only ever wears to get come spattered all over them. 

So like, that's been constantly haunting her and also making her feel like one of the creeps who only hires interns they wanna fuck. 

Darcy swears that she did not actually see Conner Kent in person before she hired him. She didn’t even see his face; they did a phone interview because the internet at his parents’ farm is apparently too spotty for Zoom. When he actually showed up she'd assumed he was a prank from the engineering department and actually a stripper or something. 

In her defense, literally any pair of pants that Conner Kent wears just looks like tearaway pants, alright? Just he wears every pair of pants like he could rip them straight off at a moment’s notice. It is frankly a problem. There are so, so many people finding thinly-veiled excuses to swing by her lab and ogle the dude while he’s just doing normal labwork while being too damn hot for any human being to actually be expected to be, especially in a lab environment, and he has definitely fucked his way through a good eighty percent of said oglers already, more than once during work hours. 

Whatever, it was always over his lunch break and he’s always polite enough to use the decon shower to get the sex pheromones off after, so Darcy’s not gonna judge. Be incredibly jealous of whoever’s pheromones he’s washing off, maybe, but not judge. 

And in fine “inherited from Jane Foster” tradition, the guy’s not even a science major and is only here for the college credits. He’s actually an art major, in fact, which is presumably why he keeps doodling weird designs in the margins of all her paperwork and leaving bafflingly perfect mini-sculptures around the lab. Darcy does not even know how he makes sculptures that good so quick. She has literally never even seen him with any sculpting tools or anything, but definitely she has seen all the tiny farm animals and superheroes and tropical flowers he keeps leaving all over the place. 

So like, her shiny new intern is a super-hot omega the size of an Asgardian warrior who cannot say a single sentence without it coming out flirty, but also likes to make cute little clay flowers and brings in something unfairly delicious that his blue-ribbon baker mom made to share at least twice a week, and also is just way too genuine and sincere and open as a person and even more ‘also’ will roll with literally any weird or insane thing that she says and then “yes, and?” her. 

Darcy really, really swears that she did not deliberately hire an intern she wants to fuck. She swears. 

Conner Kent, on the other hand, did not button his button-up all the way today on account of how his pecs are just shy of busting out of it as it is, and she is despairing over all the opinions that her knot has about the sight of both his cleavage and his bare and noticeably unbitten throat. 

Why couldn’t this stupid gorgeous farmboy wear a turtleneck just one day? It’s fall! Fall is perfect turtleneck weather! Or like he could wear one of those heavy cable-knit sweater dresses or something, maybe, and then look like the sexiest thing she’s ever wanted to cuddlefuck, which is not even a word, and oh god why is she like this. Why. Whyyyyy. 

Why. 

She is going to Hell, Darcy is very much certain. Like, whatever circle of it that creeps who wanna fuck their interns go to, that’s gonna be her eternal return address. 

“Shit, lost another stupid button,” Conner grumbles, making a face down at his shirt as he hooks a finger into the collar of it and tugs. “Oh, hey, boss, meant to ask, you want the huckleberry cheesecake or the orange creamsicle cake, or do you just wanna split ‘em?” 

. . . never mind, she’s already in Hell, Darcy notes. 

“Your mom is absolutely terrifying,” she says frankly. “How does any one beta bake this much?” 

“I mean, we kinda do it together, usually,” Conner replies with a shrug, leaning forward across his desk to pop open the same dessert tupperware he always brings and offer her one of the plastic forks inside. Darcy heroically does not check out his cleavage or actively salivate over his naked neck or go absolutely rabid over the knowledge that he apparently also bakes. “Actually I made the creamsicle cake solo, Ma had book club this week.” 

Darcy stares blankly at him, then takes the fork, stabs up a forkful of the orange creamsicle cake, and sticks it in her mouth. 

“Nrgaeggh,” she says. Conner blinks at her, looking puzzled. 

“Did I use too much sugar again?” he asks. 

“Nrgaeggh,” Darcy says, and anyway that’s how she follows another fine “inherited from Jane Foster” tradition and fucks the beefcake alien omega. In her defense, she didn’t really think Conner was an alien until he accidentally made all the lab equipment float when he sat down on her knot, and like what is she, a xenophobe or something? Priorities, dammit. Obviously. 

Though they do admittedly lose some of the glassware because of the weird alien telekinesis, but whatever. Again: priorities. 

Darcy also learns that yes, in fact, Conner Kent is in fact the biggest and most enthusiastic slut that she has ever met in her life, and she is so going to give that fact all the appreciation it so rightly deserves. And him. Also him. Definitely, definitely also him. 

“Damn, I shoulda made that cake weeks ago, boss,” Conner pants as he grins cockily down at her, his face all flushed and smug and his thighs very Thighs(tm) and his stupid button-up shirt even less buttoned-up than before. Darcy is starting to suspect that Conner might actually be buying his shirts a size small on purpose. Like, that is definitely a thing that she is starting to suspect about him. 

Well, then it’s probably really tight on him, isn’t it, and she should help him out of it. 

Like she said: priorities. 

[genderqueerdykes]

your post makes no sense? all of the identities that you named are NOT cis men??? and quite frankly it feels transphobic for you to consider them that

i'm a trans woman so i'm part of the group i'm commenting on. you do realize that a bigender trans woman who identifies as a trans woman and a cis man is still partially a cis man and that's not transphobic and it doesn't invalidate their trans womanhood, right? you do realize that a transfemme cis man is still a cis man and that doesn't invalidate their femmehood, right? you do realize a transfemme genderfluid person who identifies as a cis man is still partially a cis man and it doesn't invalidate their other genders, right? being bigender doesn't completely erase 1/2 of the identity. being a woman doesn't cancel out being a man. are you seriously saying that because that person has a queer identity means that it totally erases the fact that they are literally also identifying in plain english that they are also a cis man?

immersing yourself in the transfeminine community will help with this drastically. i don't know you or your history, but most of my IRL friends are transfeminine, myself included. there are many of my transfem friends who never want to be considered a man, and that's perfectly fine. however, i would say a good 1/3rd of the trans women i've met have also still identified as a cis gay man on some level. without shame, without it taking away their womanhood. existing alongside each other; parallel. if you meet and befriend a good number of transfeminine people you will find out that a lot of transfems identify as cis men and trans women at the same time. that's not new. many trans women identify as cis gay men and trans women at the same time. like, it's an extremely common thing. bigender means having two genders- one is trans woman, the other is cis man for people who identify this way. this person is a trans woman, a cis man, and a bigender person.

this doesn't make that person a bigender person, and a trans woman only. why do you think it's okay to completely erase that person's male identity? why do you think it's okay to completely ignore someone's manhood for the sake of their other identity? cis manhood isn't "icky". it doesn't get cancelled out by queerness. them partially being a cis man does not invalidate their trans womanhood. wake the fuck up, you're being transmisogynstic as hell right now and it's embarrassing.

a question you must ask yourself: why are you insinuating that it is transphobic to refer to someone correctly? my post specifically referred to trans women who also identify as cis men in their own words. why, in your mind, is this a bad thing? you MUST ask yourself why it's "transphobic" to acknowledge these identities and refer to these individuals correctly. you must ask yourself why you're putting your comfort before someone else's representation. there are transfemme cis men. there are transfeminine genderfluid people who identify as cis men when they are men. there are non binary cis men. why do you think that cis men cannot be queer, or trans? why are you assuming that a trans woman being a cis man at the same time is transphobic? why

this reeks of "woman cannot be man at the same time or else woman get cancelled out"

what is confusing about trans women having multiple genders? what's wrong with a bigender, multigender, genderfluid, genderqueer, genderfuck, gender non conforming, and/or intersex trans woman having a male identity that's also cis? what's wrong with that? how does that erase or "conflict" with the rest of their identity in any capacity?

there are bigender trans men who are cis women and trans men at the same time. there are bigender trans women who are cis men and trans women at the time. literally how does that not make sense. please explain to me how it doesn't make sense. every single person who has told me i'm not making sense hasn't told me why. please explain to me why you proudly and loudly saying that bi/multigender trans women don't exist is okay, but me fighting for people to understand that they do is transphobic.

stop virtue signalling and shoot the cop in your mind dead. in your attempt to look like a hero and earn brownie points all you did was show that you literally don't understand multigender, genderqueer, non binary, and other gender vast experiences. trans women won't magically like you more now because you decided to show everyone that you think it's transphobic to call someone who overtly in their own words identifies as a cis man, a cis man.

cis men aren't the devil. calm down and stop freaking the hell out over the fact that you can in fact be a cis man and a trans woman at the same time. the sun will still rise. the world will keep turning. it's not transphobic to refer to someone by the terms they ask you to use. get over yourself on this one, anon. that's your cross to bear: you are the transphobe. do yourself a favor and look into multigenderism before you decide to comment on trans theory again

you thought yourself into a corner and you can't find your way out.

[graillore2point0]

Sadly, I'm too afraid of getting abandoned by everyone I've ever known over this, but I suppose that's what the hornyblog's been for from the beginning.

I wholeheartedly agree, to start things off. Gushing is a series that truly, well, gushes with love for Magical Girls as a genre and a concept and wants to explore it. To deepen what a Magical Girl is without actually subverting it beyond the obvious of Utena as a protagonist.

I am someone who can and will wax poetically about the themes and characters of Madoka Magica and while I'm generally too afraid of consequences to give Gushing the honour it deserves I very much want to do the same.

Now, a lot of the backlash against Gushing is over the ages of the characters, with everyone so far appearing in the anime being 14 other than Lord Enorme at 20 and Korisu-chan at 9. (The Shio-chans don't really change this, though they're 17.) People are getting up in arms over this.

Now, beyond presenting them with the obvious issue of writing a story about 'coming of age' and self exploration as a teenager (When most people start getting interested in such things) without having the main characters, you know, early teenagers, as it would not at all work as well with them above 18 due to various factors...

There's also the fact that Gushing is far from the only series presenting young girls in such a way? It's just actually open about it, and does it in a far kinder way than typical as well.

Gratuitous butt and boob shots, random slips and upskirts, hells even Magical Girl transformation sequences typically depict characters cloaked only in an unnatural light. It's a staple of comedy, slice of life, school and more action oriented genres (Look at BnHA, the average Isekai, the entirety of the Gacha Game scene, even many well recieved Magical Girl series).

(Also where are they finding these 18+ not secretly ancient anime girls? Grab ten of them and six will be 14-17, three 100-10000, and if you're lucky the last is 22 at the very oldest.)

Anyways, back towards topic, it comes down to this perception that to make or watch something that at all depicts younger characters in a more overtly sexual light is some unforgivable sin. That anyone who does is a pedophile biding their time (Which is a whole other matter they probably need to introspect on) who'll act at any moment to bring their depraved tastes into the real world. I could talk more about that in particular but not now.

The thing is it's not. It's not something morally wrong to watch or write something like Gushing or Prisma Illya. These are, in our world, fictional characters. They do not have an age, they do not have an observable will, they are not real on our dimensional plane, to watch or draw or write about them does not harm them in any way.

It's this... Christian puritanical obsession with everything needing to be Clean, to be Acceptable and Uncontroversial. It demands that nothing is explored, that nothing is considered, that nothing is made without first being judged Pure by the twelve most Racist, Homophobic and Misoginistic people on the planet.

I feel like I have more to say but I'm running out of steam so I suppose I'll call this here for now.

So, Gushing Over Magical Girls Is The Best Thing To Happen to Magical Girls

Gushing Over Magical Girls get this bad rep. For all the wrong reasons. I’ve seen it be called an insult to Magical Girls, I’ve seen it be called “gooner bait” a term I absolutely despise but that’s a thing for another day. I’ve seen it insulted for everything and anything under the sun.

I first got acquainted with it when I was scrolling through Twitter and I saw someone complain about the PV. However, as an avid Magical Girl Fan, I wasn’t disgusted. I was intrigued.

I decided to read the manga, and oh god.

This is one of the best things I’ve read.

The story follows Utena, a shy girl that loves Magical Girls, tricked to become the evil general that will defeat the Magical Girl team “Tres Magia”.

And it’s a delight.

I binged all the episodes available to me in the manga, and had fun in each and every chapter.

The same, however, couldn’t be said by half the people who watched the anime. And I was extremely baffled. As a queer woman, this was the first time in my life, in which I had seen something so deliberately catered towards me. I saw tell-tale signs of someone who genuinely admires the genre, and is simply using it as an outlet for exploring deeper and more interesting topics that a SFW version of it would not be able to.

Yet, I turn around and I see people calling it the most horrendous stuff, and accusing everyone who likes it of being monsters or men.

Genuinely, I’ve had enough.

Gushing Over Magical Girl is not the Devil. In fact, I think it’s the best thing to come don’t even like Magical Girls AND IT SHOWS.

PART 1: “Magical girls are for little girls!”.

The first criticism you’ll see aimed at “Gushing over Magical girl” is the amount of sexually charged content it has. And it is true. It borders on straight up porn in many instances and it just gets wilder as you go on. By chapter 30, we’re way past PantyShots. Like, I’ve seen some of these girls’ vaginas, and I’m not joking.

Personally, I don’t see anything wrong with it, but there’s people who might disagree.

“Magical Girls are for little girls” some people say “and you’re corrupting it!”

Which genuinely makes me laugh.

This is because this type of argument could only be done by someone with no real concept of Magical Girls aside from maybe Sailor Moon and Sakura Card Captor.

out of the Magical Girl genre in a WHILE (Ignoring Precure, because they just gave us a magical boy and that’s my win of the decade).

People are just, you know, stupid. And reactionary. Enough that they see a boob and lose their minds like a Karen at a Christmas Eve Mall.

My point is, I love this manga. And I’m willing to risk my reputation to defend it. Cause genuinely, half the people who are clutching their pearls over this show - Magical Girl Anime haven’t always been PG, or aimed at girls.

Cutie Honey is a great example. It’s one of the most famous Magical Girl Anime you will find - and it’s a shonen. With the protagonist, Honey, being constantly naked, groped, put in suggestive situations and have outfits that show her cleavage.

And it’s one of the most famous, most popular takes on Magical Girl there is. Yet, I never see any amount of outrage towards it. (Part of me wonders if it’s because the fan service is aimed at men, rather than involving yuri).

There’s also Lyrical Nanoha, one of the most popular serial franchises there is. It spans several seasons and spinoffs, and it’s beloved by many.

And it’s aimed at older men. Yes, it’s a Seinen.

In fact, its origins are far from PG. It’s actually a Spin-off of an erotic game named “Triangle Heart”. It was most definitely not created with little girls in mind, and themes it tackles reflect as much.

There’s Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya too, a spinoff of the Fate/Stay Night VN, very obviously aimed at older men, it’s a Seinen. It has a lot of fanservice and scenes where the characters are half naked.

Day Break Illusion is also a Shonen.

And as much as I adora Madoka - I’ve been stating for years now that it isn’t a show meant for little girls. You could argue it’s for everyone, regardless of gender, who’s a little older. But it most definitely wasn’t for little girls.

So, no. This was never an “only girls” club. Trying to paint it as such, is not only wrong but ignorant.

Magical Girl shows can be for anyone. Men, boys, girls, women and I find it infantilizing to consider it “only for little girls”.

No one says “super heroes are ONLY for little boys”

Well, some do. But they’re, you know, bigots. Who don’t want girls playing or adults o have fun.

So no, Gushing Over Magical Girls being a sexually charged anime in the Seinen category isn’t “corrupting the genre”. In fact, I would argue it’s doing exactly what the genre has done in the OVA shadows for a while.

Not to mention, many people have screamed from the rooftop how they want “more mature Magical Girl shows” referring to the success of Madoka. But as soon as an actually mature take on Magical Girls shows up, tackling issues of sexuality and love, you all don’t want it anymore.

(We all know why, though. Americans, and western culture in general, considers mature themes, only that which involves violence. Anything close to discussing issues of sex is no longer “mature” but “Pornographic” and deserving of being shoved into a corner. With all queer themes, gender studies, and any nuance that could be had regarding these issues).

And speaking of sexually charged, have you watched so called “wholesome” magical girls? They’re still very much sexy. Not in the “on the nose” ecchi way Seinen and Shonen are - but they still are.

You’ll find transformations were the girls are naked, zoom in to their breasts, you’ll have panty shots every now and then. Even themes of growing up, having crushes, and innuendos about sex. Inappropriate relationships, taboo romance, and the likes.

Sakura had Rita and a professor’s relationship (mutual in the manga), Sailor Moon had Chibiusa and Elliot’s romance, Sugar Sugar Rune even having an element for ‘lust’ and other different types of love, and let’s not forget Mermaid Melody which has several instances of the girls naked, in compromising positions with other men. And I’m pretty sure Tokyo Mew Mew likely opened a whole bunch of doors for girls to be into CNC.

This is, by the way, normal.

Completely so.

These stories often talk about the girlhood experience. And girls and teenage girls are interested in all of these things. They’re interested in sex, romance, their bodies growing up, their own sexuality and the likes. It’s no wonder same-sex relationships and romance get included, they’re part of what experiencing the world through the eyes of a young girl is like.

And subsequently, it stands to reason that as people who engaged with MG grow up - they find comfort in exploring their sexuality through Magical Girl themselves. There’s a reason why there’s a growing section of “Magical Girl” in your local hentai site.

“Men get off on corrupting this wholesome girl targeted genre” is actually TERF rhetoric sneaking through the mainstream. It ignores AFAB ppl and gender nonconforming people, who grew up with Magical Girls, simply using a medium that originally started their journey of sexual identity, to explore more “grown up” aspects of that same identity.

In particular, I’m a Cis AroAce Woman. I wrote a lot of Magical Girl NSFW when I first started writing NSFW Twitter threads. They’re bad and they’re cringey. But it was something I needed.

Magical Girls were a huge part of my childhood and early teens. When I was mentally in the space to want to engage with NSFW content: it was obvious I would turn to what first sparked excitement.

So this idea that “men are corrupting Magical Girls with their sick fantasies” is nothing more than TERF-lite propaganda. People, including women and men, have been doing this for ages; for a variety of reasons. And doing so, doesn’t rob children of their spaces - but the gentrification of the internet is a story of another day.

The other argument I have heard is that GOMG is a mockery of the genre. Which is even more laughable in my opinion.

PART 2: Parodies and why I hate Earth Defender’s Club.

Gushing Over Magical Girls loves Magical Girls. It’s a parody, in a way, but it knows very well what it parodies. It’s not surface level in the slightest. And it absolutely is not mean spirited about it.

A lot of the time, shows that reference and parody the Magical Girl genre, do so in ways that feel like they view it as a lesser genre. They take generic images of cute girls in frilly outfits, swap the colors around, and have them chant over-the-top spells. You’re meant to laugh, not only at how silly they look, but people who would love it. Especially if they’re grown ups.

I do not like “Cute High Earth Defense Club LOVE!” For this exact reason - even tho many people praise it to all heavens.

Because

1) It feels surface level in its commentary and depiction of Magical Girls and

2) More mocking towards the genre than paying homage or doing anything with it.

The continuous use of the word “Love” is a very obvious jab at Magical Girls using these words, which feels mean spirited just for the sake of it. Their outfits are almost exactly the same, save for the colors. And they all use the same sticks as weapon, with no thematic link for the shapes of the scepters. The mascot too (a wombat for god knows what reason), I think it’s meant to be a joke of some sort for how ridiculous some of the mascots for the girls get, which rubs me the wrong way.

In general, it feels shallow and mean spirited. But no one calls this an insult to Magical Girls. Because people who like it don't actually care about Magical Girls. They see cute boys doing silly things and love it. Which is kinda sad.

Now, Gushing Over Magical girls has sort of that same problem on the Tres Magias…But they’re not the protagonists. And even then, in later chapters, they get power ups that are different in design, and thematically linked.

The protagonist, and the ones we follow, are Utena and the girls. And they all have very distinct outfits, all with motifs that are tangentially thematically linked, and speak of each character’s personalities in interesting ways.

Utena in particular has THIS outfit. Which a lot of people don’t like, but I actually do.

It’s very obvious it’s taking inspo from other iconic Bad Girls in the genre. Namely, Utau, Kraehe and Devil Homura. All “Enemy characters” that have unhealthy obsessions with other characters. In particular, I think the wings and the feathers resemble Homura - THE character known to have a massive obsession with a Magical Girl (Madoka), to the point of insanity.

There’s also Magia Azure. Who’s a clear reference to the Mean Tsundere girl that is iconic to the genre. She’s also a Miko. Which is a callback to Sailor Mars, arguably THE girl who popularized this archetype.

I also love what they do with the mascots. Unlike Earth Defenders, where the mascot is you know, a mockery of the archetype of a mascot - useless, only there to give power ups, and obsessed with food - the mascots of GOMG is taking a book from Madoka.

It considers the mascots both all-too-powerful and yet limited in their reach. Which is exactly what the mascots have always been in Magical Girls. Beings so powerful they can give mythical powers to girls, yet helpless to do anything on their own. So, they use magical girls as a vehicle to achieve their goals. Most Magical girls try to paint this as a good thing, but newer genres shine light on how dangerous that can be too.

Madoka tackles it with Kyubey as the main initial mascot, only later to turn out to be the villain of the series.

And in a Post-Madoka world, trusting the mascots is just the slightest bit more difficult. That’s why, from the get go, GOMG portrays their mascots as morally corrupt. He’s not a good character, he’s malicious and doing more harm than good. But for the majority of the series, he’s painted more as a useless harmless evil than anything genuinely terrifying or worthy of concern. The attention is focused on other things.

But I love the way that it’s heavily implied that they’re not good. It’s a very interesting take on the mascot and it helps with the themes of the series. Which yes, by the way. Gushing Over Magical Girls has themes.

Which lead me to-

Part 3: Yeah, uhm, Gushing Over Magical Girl has themes.

There’s this idea that Sex is an inherently violent act. In which a man humiliates and sodomizes a woman, and therefore the woman is exploited in some way. And 10x worse is any act that involves BDSM. It’s violence; born out of hatred.

This is TERF rhetoric. I’m not joking. This line of thought leads directly to TERF ideas.

Many on the internet have pointed out as much, and BDSM members have gone to be very vocal about it. In particular, people on the role of the submissive (or the bottoms) are loudly trying to explain the contrary. How they like the act of sex, like the idea of being vulnerable, or being humiliated. There’s also plenty of LGBT+ stories that talk about it, both in western and eastern spaces. Just jump into the section of dom/sub verse at your local manga browsing website, and you’ll find something.

That said, the same is not as common for people who like to “dominate”.

I can only think of two pieces of media that argue that, whoever is the dominant or the sadist, is also a human being. That whatever they’re doing is done, not out of hatred for the submissive or an act of violence, but love.

One, is the husky and the white cat. In which Mo Ran, among other things, has to come to terms that his love isn’t “pure”. That he cannot love someone without the want to have sex, and to completely dominate that someone.

The second one is Gushing Over Magical Girls.

It’s very clear to me that Utena’s sadism isn’t a violent act. It’s an act born out of love. She genuinely loves the Magical Girls, and most girls for that matter, and whenever she is inflicting pain and fighting with them - what she wants is to ultimately help them in some way.

She wants them to “be the cutest version they can be” and wants them to shine brighter than ever.

There’s this one scene I love, around chapter 20, in which Baiser (Utena) is fighting Magia Azura. And due to Baiser going a bit too far, Azura ends up being Mind-broken. She crawls towards her, calls her “mistress” and begs to become her servant.

In any normal Hentai you’ll find, this is a good thing. This would be the ideal outcome. A character being turned into nothing but a sex slave for the enjoyment of the dominant.

Which is why I found it breathtaking when that didn’t happen.

Baiser is horrified by this. She does not want to break the girls, she wants them to be powerful. She wants them to win. With her, the evil one, being nothing more than a vehicle for them to be even stronger than before.

This is the first time I’ve ever seen dominant or sadist characters being presented both sexually, and in such a positive light. Much less a queer woman in the same position.

It doesn’t treat BDSM sex as a disgusting taboo act, but something born out of genuine love - and a want to see the other person be or feel better.

This is reinforced around chapter 25 where Leberblume and Loco Mùsica are fighting Baiser. For context, Loco Musica wanted to be an Idol, but had terrible singing. She uses her evil power to basically force everyone to listen to her sing (which is so reminiscent of Mermaid Melody btw). When they fight, Baiser wins, and is then set to use her new found power to “punish” Loco Musica.

Originally, Loco Musica points out how Baiser’s sadistic tendencies are “the same” as Lord Enorme, who we’ve seen uses sadism as a genuine form of punishment. Something to avoid. You behave well, because you don’t want to get hurt or humiliated by her.

However, when Baiser uses her own unique type of sadism on Loco Musica, something happens. Instead of causing her physical pain by beating her or using violence, she forces her to get naked and perform her idol song like that. This causes her to get extremely embarrassed. And in the process, she actually starts to sing really well.

This is important for two reasons

1) Baiser is actually taking into account who Musica is. It’s later revealed that Musica wanted a more frilly idol-like outfit but Lord Enorme shut it down, for the sake of a more ‘unified’ aesthetic. Baiser is not just throwing around the same treatment and punishment for all girls - what one might like, the other might hate.

2) At the end of the day, while she did the punishment, it was both embarrassing, but ultimately something that helped Musica and made her feel better.

And that’s really the key here, and why I love the series.

Sadism, sex and kinks in general are not tools of degeneracy. They’re treated as part of our experience.

Also, it’s just fun?

Part 4: Gushing Over Magical Girls is just extremely fun when you don’t have a dumb bitch yapping abt how unholy it is to see tiddies on a screen

Yeah, GOMG just has one of the most creative depictions of the most insane of kinks you’ll see - I could spent hour gushing over Nero Alice.

Seeing all these different kinks being depicted as powers and abilities that these characters have - and seeing how they interact with other people is just interesting.

The sex scenes are both hilarious and kinda sexy. Specially if you do like to see women all hot and bothered. Personally I’m not into girls (or anyone for that matter) but I have to admit the scenes were pretty hot. And there is no shame in admitting as much. No matter what the puritanical Christian on Twitter crying abt “god honoring lesbian sex” Will tell you.

I cannot begin to explain just how hype and relatable it was to see Magia Baiser defeat Lord Enorme with the power of straight up delusion, we STAN.

So, yeah.

It’s been a while since I last saw a Magical Girl Show so unashamed of being a Magical Girl Show. Unashamed of being weird, of praising the genre and just enjoying it.

My essay is titled, in part, as a joking reference to my much more popular series “MLB is the worst thing to happen to the magical girl series”. Which I still think is true.

And while, yeah, maybe GOMG isn’t the best thing to come out of the genre…I still think it’s good that it came out.

A lot of people say they want a more “mature” take on Magical Girls but - this proved to me that just isn’t the case.

Gushing over magical girls proves that the Magical Girl Genre Can Be so much more than what people think. More than glitter and sparkles, more than vapid action scenes, or what little girls want.

Much like any other genre, it can be raunchy, it can be messy, it can explore things outside of the status quo. But it can still deeply respect the source material, and the origins of it.

GOMG proves Magical Girls can be fun. Just. Straight up fun. Regardless of your age. They can serve and connect you to parts of yourself you didn’t realize you could connect to.

I hope it proves to more people that the genre can be so much more than “just for little girls” that parodies can be more than pointing and laughing, and that it can have themes beyond just, “friendship”.

Magical Girls can be so much more. You just, have to have an open mind about it.

[wanderingblindly]

OMG i see YOUR vision now. my bad, i didnt see your reference post abt pining!lando.

other than the fact that oscar is 200% sleep deprived, hes also those people who dont drink coffee and just rawdog his studies with power naps and quick snacks. plus the rare energy drinks break when hes desperately trying to finish a deadline. he tries to be healthy when he can.

after the exams, if lando is finally! trying to seek oscar around campus grounds to ask him on a date, oscar is at his dorm passed out for 2-3 business days. lando huffing and puffing and pouting bcs he cant find HIS cute guy that hes been pining for, while oscar is just snuggled up in a soft weighted blanket and a fluffy koala plushie (his sisters bought it as a joke but he came to love it).

and max? the guy already left lando to suffer alone 5 minutes ago while he buys his 7th redbull can. its barely 10Am

(was this oscar based on me a little bit? who knows)

(referenced post)

there are many uni visions to be seen!! i will never fault you for seeing ones that i'm not!!!!

but now that we're aligned, allow me to elaborate further. Please know I've decided this is a US uni au because they work better:

yeaH YEAH YEAH oh my god i'm also picturing Oscar like. Has found his perfect Nap Spot on campus (there's a quiet corner in the engineering building where he can usually find two armchairs to scoot together and curl up on). So half the time when Lando can't find him, it's because he's buried under a jacket and passed the fuck out in the corner.

I ALSO have this vision of like. once they've maybe talked once or twice in class:

Lando works part time at a coffee shop in one of the buildings -- preferably the engineering building, which isn't where Lando's major is housed, but Oscar's is. He gets two hot drinks for free during his shift, and starts giving one to Oscar (hot chocolate, he doesn't care for coffee) before his tuesday morning class every week.

But that's all he knows about his schedule. He never really gets to talk to him, he never knows where he is besides their shared lecture -- which Oscar's always asleep during -- and their weird 'is this because i let you borrow notes one time?' hot chocolate exchange.

[bomberqueen17]

the gay dolphins are too powerful

yesterday i was facing the facts that i do need to actually work out the technical mcguffins in this novel. like, i have some vague notion that there's a problem with the radio network because of solar flares and our heroes are going to... somehow... fix it. idk.

plot and worldbuilding wittering behind the cut

this was the main plot in the solarpunk mammoths novel too, and i had a vague notion that a problem on such a global scale as that would need to like. it would need to be solved by more than one person. and so my nebulous notion is that possibly several sets of characters could work on it in these loosely-connected novels where really i'm just exploring different ecosystems.

idk i just-- y'all know about the Turkey City Lexicon right? I got it as a hand-out in college creative writing class and of course it reshaped my brain, but. one of the Tropes To Beware they've got is the Cozy Catastrophe, which is startlingly prevalent and once you see it you can't unsee-- "the world is ending! all of humanity will die! unless... Jeff and Suzy, you're our only hope!" and our two everyman protagonists somehow are the only resources the entire world can muster and honestly the entire world seems to consist of one American city block with about three hundred people in it at most. Hm.

so i was like yah this catastrophe is way too cozy.

meanwhile i forget how it came up but @sonnetsandsinging, helpfully spitballing, said something about space whales and i was like

OMG in a world with genetically-engineered mammoths with radio collars that translate their brain waves to allow them to speak in human language it is ABSURD that they are the only species of animal that has been given this treatment

so like. what other animals do we try to talk to all the time besides elephants?

DOLPHINS

so now this world has genetically-engineered dolphins with brainwaves-to-speech dorsal fin attachments. like duh of course it does. i can't believe I hadn't thought of that.

there should be other animals too but i can't decide which ones, currently taking submissions. What Else Should Slightly-Disconcertingly Speak.

(My criteria: should be an animal intelligent enough to have successful communication with humans already, something relatively long-lived, something that couldn't use sign language or other methods already. My concept, which is not scientific really, is that it's been well-studied that while many animals have complex communication systems, humans are the only ones whose brains are structured specifically for language, so the Magic Fictional Science here is that they've had that ability genetically-engineered in, but of course the physical production of human-intelligible language is beyond the physical structure of most animals, hence the brainwave-interface collars. which btw could also be used on profoundly disabled humans, and that might be a plot point at some point; i do have some disabled characters in this story. I know I researched those like, communication board things that nonverbal humans can use and I settled on Magical Radio-Networked Interfaces that speak out loud instead for the simple expedient of streamlining things because like how is a mammoth going to carry a communication board around that it can like get out and point at. how is a dolphin going to carry anything. so, this is just where I ended up.)

(I was thinking parrots but then parrots wouldn't need the collar because they can actually make human-speech noises on their own. so that's a fun variation. maybe in this world african grey parrots actually just talk.)

Anyway back when I first started the solarpunk mammoths novel I researched Asian elephants a lot and studied their social structures and read up on their physical abilities etc., so in between trying to find out how radio waves and semiconductors work (i get the radio waves thing & think i have my mcguffin sorted out but semiconductors made my eyes glaze over and then begin weeping so i gave up) (also supercapacitors i don't understand u sorry bye) (do i know any electronics engineers who want to explain this in normal languages? shit i do know a chemical engineer maybe she knows. heck) ... ok i wandered away from this post to text her and then forgot i was making it. i did not get a lot of sleep last night the amphetamines are not being kind this go-round but i must continue the experiment. uhhhhh where was i

GAY DOLPHINS

too powerful

Yeah so I started researching dolphins, because if I'm going to have named-and-speaking dolphin characters, I need to know a little bit about how they work.

Now I have a slight head-start on this, just as I did on mammoths. Mammoths, I've been obsessed with since I was a toddler. But dolphins. For a while I used to go to SCA camping events and there was this guy who used to be a Navy diver and then worked for Sea World and he. well he was really good at telling stories, was his deal. And he had Seen Some Shit, and some of that shit was about interacting with dolphins. And the thing about dolphins is that. Well, they're violent little chaos gremlins, and just in the course of going about their normal lives, one of the things they do to interact with the world is, well. they have sex with things.

when they do this to people it is generally not a positive experience for the person. but. so i knew that going in. and most of the information on the internet about dolphins is really like. earnest and loving and whatever, which is great. but the thing is that dolphins are chaos gremlins who will fuck anything they can't eat, eat anything they can't fuck, or sometimes do both to the same unfortunate object if it proves to be possible.

what i'm saying is, these are going to be really entertaining characters to work with. because elephants, conversely, do not have recreational sex. they do a lot of things, but they just don't really do that. so dolphins are like. inverse-elephants, culturally.

Elephants also tend to have a strong matriarch, strong bonds between females, and then the males tend to be largely solitary, but will congregate more loosely, often around an older male who will teach them manners. (A well-mannered bull is MUCH more likely to be allowed to mate with desirable females, who have little patience with male foibles.)

Dolphins have looser gender roles; on the whole, the females tend to loosely congregate, and pregnant females usually go back to their mother's pod to birth and raise young, not dissimilar to elephants, but the males--

male dolphins very, very frequently will pair-bond. Two males of similar age-- adult males have very little to do with juveniles of either sex, generally-- will pair-bond and will be inseparable for the rest of their lives. If one of them dies, the other will mourn-- mourning behavior is well-documented in dolphins-- and then will seek to pair off with another adult male, because male dolphins prefer to work in pairs, for survival and companionship. (Dolphin "pods" are also more loosely-organized than elephant herds; dolphins will have a couple of core companions, but then will freely associate and disassociate with other individuals and groups over short periods of time without much fuss, depending on the situation.)

The pair-bonded males are the ones who in the wild do the behavior you see in shows, where they do like synchronized jumps and very-close fast-precise swimming and such, which in the wild are apparently courtship or threat displays-- i.e. "look how tight we are, you can't fight us" or, alternately, "isn't that hot" because

yes that's often how they court females. The pair will corral a desirable female and herd her away from other dolphins so they can both mate with her, and keep her from mating with anybody else.

(other females have been observed collaborating to free a corralled female who did not want this to happen, so it's not quite as rapey as it sounds. though, i mean. dolphins. what can you do.)

anyway dolphin threesomes are canon. but that derailed the rest of my night and i was unable to concentrate on anything else because the gay-- I should say really bisexual dolphins are too powerful.

so anyway i wrote a test scene with a dolphin character, and i had my main character take his wife and baby down to the jetty to introduce them to his dolphin pals, and a bonded male pair he'd known for years showed up and immediately tried to steal the wife, and then expressed shock that he didn't have his male best friend with him, because in their experience breeding was THEE most important time to have your buddy with you. He explains that his buddy is off on a long-term work assignment, and they're like hmph next time you breed you MUST include him, it is so much easier trust us. and the wife is like hmmmmm!

henceforth i will refer to m/m/f threesomes as "dolphin style" you're welcome

[pizzabox-box]

Ah this is cringe as heck for me, but screw it, the last ask you got about a person not feeling much sympathy all for Peppi-No really was great, kudos to the OP of that comment since it really got me thinking, why even if I agree what the dude is doing is awful... I actually feel pretty fucking bad for him XD.

Like, I think we can all agree we've done shit in our lives that wasn't great, and that doesn't diminish the harm done or the fact other people have gotten hurt from our own stupid decisions. I also just think sympathetic villains are so interesting. (when done right, and hell you could argue even if he is the protagonist of the DMW AU, Peppi-No is a bit of an anti-villian) it really makes you think about the fact its so normal for people do try to avoid the consequences of their actions. I'm sure everyone has done something bad and instead of admitting fault have doubled down and tried to save face because they were SURE they could "fix" it without getting hurt from it.

Sure most of the time, (...I hope) its not as bad as murdering a person and taking on their identity... I think there is something really human about wanting to not get hurt, and feeling like shit about regrets we've had.

I think that Peppi-No even if what he doing is wrong, still... I dunno I can empathize. I mean.. he's sooo sowwy 🥺, its kinda pathetic, like a more extreme version of a puppy that just destroyed something important to you. Like "awww... you asshole, you're so cute though but goddamn it..."

I both am loving the angst of this AU and know its going to be so cathartic to see Peppi-no finally deal with his lie blowing up in his face and suffering MORE >:). I feel sympathy yes but I also love angst hehe.

(sorry if that wasn't super well worded? I don't normally send things like these >//>)

I assure you, it’s not cringe! It’s nice to see both sides voice their opinions!

Personally, I’m pretty divided on how I feel about Peppi-no. Part of me wants to strangle him for what he did (and what he might still do*cough* ), but at the same time, he’s,like you said, a sad, pathetic "sowwy" puppy, and I can’t help but feel bad for him.

When he took a piece of Peppino, he may have gained a conscience but not emotional maturity. He’s like a kid who just realized he fucked up in the worst way possible and is terrified of the consequenses. And fear can drive people to do terrible things, after all. Before that, his entire existence was just scrambling around, making pizzas out of whatever he could find: pigs, other clones, pizza monsters. He ended many lives, that but never faced any sort of repercussions. Never got a chance to learn "murder bad" ,

Then he takes a bite out of one of the kind Peppino—bam! Conscience, coherent thoughts, and memories of the guy he killed flood into his head. Can you imagine the whiplash, the shock, the stress? I certainly can’t.

Obviously, I’m not some dough doppelgänger pretending to be someone I killed. That would just be silly… no, really, I’m not.. But I can relate a little to what Peppi-no’s going through.

And let’s be honest, how many of us would have the absolute balls of steel to admit we killed someone’s friend in cold blood? Sure, it’s the morally right thing to do, but… you know. I’m not sure I could. (Once again purely hypothetical scenario)

Peppi-no's actions are unexcusable, he should know better than this by now, but at the same time you can kinda understand why he acts the way he does.

[unnaturalequilibrium]

Capítulo 8

- Mafin rewatch (Sueños de Libertad)

Watching Fina with tears in her eyes trying to say sorry to Petra who accuses her of taking advantage of their friendship is pretty much as much fun as a Friday night of drinking pickle juice and giving yourself recreational papercuts. It has to count as a form of unusually cruel punishment. That look on Fina’s face however as realisation dawns, that Petra have been using her to get to the position at the store. The way you can see her go from sincere sorrow to sadness lined with righteous anger.

Fina stage whispering “I’ll kill you” at Carmen as she’s called her dad because of her weird and inexplicable sickness. This friendship is a gem. Isidro as always cutting through the bullshit and calling Fina out on her faked illness. “I’m not six years old-” and the response of “well stop acting like you are”, but it’s not said in a condescending way, he just checks her on her behaviour. His words though, they work her over and before long he has her up and out of that bed, on her way to face her new job and the mistakes she’s made. Like I said, I get why Fina is the way she is and it's a lot to do with who Isidro is as a parent I think.

Claudia in the store babbling on about how most men are a bit of a scoundrel and Fina just straight up zoning out with as much subtly as a brick to the face. Gods, she really just fucking kills Tasio at every opportunity she gets. “You lost me at Tasio and noble” - she excuses herself when Claudia calls her back to reality. Fina never change.

Also Claudia, just listen to Fina. Sure she’s just had her heart broken by the manipulative snake in a dressing gown standing next to you, but she’s not wrong. There are a lot of people who will take advantage of others in the name of love, Tasio most surely would be one of them. Being heterosexual is not a valid excuse to be stupid, shape up Claudia.

Am I a vindictive bitch, yes, but that does not stop me from taking great pleasure in the fact that Marta does not really see Petra, she just steamrolls right past her, but hiccups as her eyes land on Fina in that uniform. Yeah, I think this was actually the start. She continues her quest of being a harsh but fair mistress, telling Fina she’s not doing her any favours, but she expects hard and good work from her. Still though, that “you look different in the uniform” gets caught in her chest and seems to stumble from her lips in a most uncharacteristic way from the otherwise eloquent queen of keeping her shit together.

Petra blackmailing Fina who despite all of it sort of stands her ground. Fina says she’s sorry, she didn’t mean to offend or overstep a boundary, but she doesn’t deny what she did, there are no excuses she tries to offer up. She owns the kiss even though she apologises for having read Petra’s intentions wrong. That takes some fucking courage, especially how she then calls Petra out on her unfair behaviour as she tries to blackmail Fina out of a job because of it. She is clearly scared of being found out, about the possibility of her father finding out, but at the same time she doesn’t grovel. She doesn’t even deny being a lesbian. This is the start of why I find her so refreshing as a character, especially in a period drama. Being gay, society and our upbringing often encourage us to be apologetic about our existence, many of us filled with internalised homophobia from a very young age through the intentional and subconscious acts of the straights around us who matter to us (and those we wish didn’t). Fina however, no. Fina apologises for her actions, which were misguided, but she does not apologise for the drive behind them. And as Petra blackmails her she is clearly worried, but mostly - well mostly she comes across as really fucking angry at the injustice of it all. She will not say sorry for being gay, but she will rage at the world for treating her unjustly because of it. That’s fresh. That’s why she very quickly has become one of my favourite fictional lesbians and a bit of a role model.

We are not at fault, if the world can’t stomach us - then that is its problem, not ours.

[franki-lew-yo]

Worst year of your life so far

It's hard not to feel like every time a moderately good and nice or even great thing happens to me I ought to expect and inconvenience or a TERRIBLE thing to happen right after. This is genuinely why I'm afraid to be happy. I don't have an exact religion, I'm just certain that I am in fact an evil person or at least some evil person's revitalized soul. Since November of last year my life has been, in this order:

>Receive notice that I might owe SSI 15k because a miscalculation says they're overpaying me. I don't have 15k or stashed away 15k. I've been using every cent of money given to survive and pay back overdue fees. Life coach is sure I won't have to pay anything. I don't believe her.

>Find out that the location of my jobsite is being terminated within a week before the site is closed down. Can not be moved to a new location. The chain is dying. No location has room for me.

>Spend the days up to Christmas helping my coworkers who were a lot of times my only non-family communication, tear apart our store and then become strangers. The worst part is when they have me throw out hundreds of dollars of boutique clothes because the company wants to write it off as a reduction, DIRECTLY into a garbage bin. We'll be terminated from any further locations if we're caught trying to save or sneak away with anything. It's Christmas time and here's some clothes for needy people and my company is literally throwing them in a landfill. I just watch.

>Is repeatedly told by my job coach, REPEATEDLY, that I will get a job at a place which shares my old workplace's union. Nope. I don't. They string the both of us along for four months. By the time we move on to a new place in mind THAT job opportunity fizzles out after too many tries. My job coach and I have a fight and he doesn't talk to me or wants to see me. I feel nothing but shame. He and his wife are going through their own crisis.

>While ALL of this is happening I'm watching an active genocide a take place in real time. I try to do my daily clicks and boycott as much as possible. Come August I use up the rest of my unemployment money donating to any vetted fundraiser I can. I hope, I HOPE every time that THIS MONTH must be the last month of this slaughter. The powers that be have to do something...the answer is a resounding no. More and more innocent families are butchered. I can't offer anything really substantial.

>TWICE. TWICE IN ONE YEAR- my EBT gets cut off until I repeal it.

>My sister and I are both unemployed and in mental (in her case physical anguish). We blow up at each other more than once, especially over politics. She gets a job that she hates and is dangerous before the thankfully quits. She gets another job and is layed off for no reason in the same week she gets it.

>Can't afford a real dentist. Have to do a dentist-intern who tells me to watch my cavities that I have but no they can't do anything about it.

>My laptop's mouse stops working. It's fine for tablet but it means I need to use an external mouse for everything casual and writing. I'm already avoiding doing too much digital artwork on account of not wanting to wear down my system. Oh also my screen has a shadow on in.

>My mom is evicted from the house she and her boyfriend have lived in for years now and is forced to live in my grandpa's house which HE'S been forced to move out of. It was also a house I had lived in for awhile as well and so all of my sister and my own childhood things have to come back with us to our apartment. We don't have room. I'm going to have to downsize so many of my things.

>Catch covid because I was too stupid to bother with a booster. It delays getting me my new job and tasting anything for a month. Also delays me getting to work on the art I need done by September/October.

>Dog gets a bad flea infestation almost immediately after this because of summer heat. Also she wasn't on flea medication when it happened.

>My new job is two days a week rather than three. Lesser pay than what I used to have. All throughout October my schedule is cut to one day a week. I can never truly finish my job for my supervisors like they need to of me.

>Life coach assigns new job specialist; the one who got me my job. New specialist tells me all about Tiktok and how I need it and how I ought to download and post more on there. When I ask her for help navigating the platform and for her to help me on my social media art campaign; she shuts me out. Tells me repeatedly she's not versed in social media and tells me to instead take an online class. That's not what I want from her I want her to support me as an artist and that means occasionally just following my pages. She gives me a hard "no". Literally all my plans for a semi-active youtube, tiktok and instagram campaign fall apart. If I can not be supported even emotionally what's the POINT??

>I learn just this night how I unintentionally deeply hurt one of my oldest friends on the platform when I get the courage to ask if she's really upset with me or not. She blocks me mid me trying to ask for more information on the incident that hurt her. I do think I wronged her, but it's that I didn't even know I did that HURTS. Another one of my friends is right in the way of a frikin hurricane.

>Sister/Roommate is diagnosed with a condition that makes drawing difficult. I try not to draw near or around her as much as possible. It hurts. We are both still artists.

>Next door neighbor who's made creepy sexual comments about me to my sister throws dog poop on my sister's car at night. He thinks it's our dog even though I'M THE ONE picking up our dog's poop every single time.

and finally

>Country elects the same admitted fascist we kicked out for starting a riot.

Art, fandom and my dog is literally all I have. It is my one and only escape and happiness. I would be proud of myself and how much I've matured since just last year, but I can't. I can't be because I'm too miserable and so is everyone else around me. People tell me it's my fault or not my fault, people tell me I can help but won't or that I can't help at all. It's never enough. I wish I could be a better friend towards every one of you. I wish I could be a better creator. I wish I could find the time in my schedule to find a time in my therapists' schedule to see me again. All I ever feel like is an entitled garbage heap for even complaining when so many people are suffering to such an insane degree. Even the campaign people coming to me about how they want me to reblog their posts trigger me on account of how so many seem to forget they've already talked to me before. The fact that I am forgotten by circumstances where people can't remember anyone's username hurts me when it shouldn't.

I just want it all to stop.

----

And, for the first time, I actually want to thank you if you somehow read any of this. This is going to get deleted soon (or maybe not) because it is a trauma dump and TMI.

And yet I genuinely needed to get all of that off my chest. I am INCREDIBLY stressed out and hate to feel bad for myself because that just makes me hate myself and then feel more bad for myself AGAIN rather than do what I keep saying I want to do and help people. I wish this clarity and odd inner-peace wasn't brought about by such turmoil and inner pain. I wish that so much. I guess to quote Art Spiegelman quoting someone else: "Samuel Beckett once said: 'Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness.'...but then again, he did say it."

[celeborn-of-doriath]

RETRACTED because i missed a big yikes

// To the part under the cut, yes absolutely. I've always taken this passage from Unfinished Tales, combined with Tolkien's further elucidation of it in his letters, to mean that Celeborn and Galadriel were absolutely having sex and engaged in some sort of common law marriage prior to any official marriage. In my opinion, this is much more consistent with Celeborn's personality and ethnicity as well.

Tolkien specifies that: "In happy days and times of peace it was held ungracious and contemptuous of kin to forgo the ceremonies, but it was at all times lawful for any of the Eldar, both being unwed, to marry thus of free consent one to another without ceremony or witness (save blessings exchanged and the naming of the Name); and the union so joined was alike indissoluble. In days of old, in times of trouble, in flight and exile and wandering, such marriages were often made."

Given the constant danger that the Sindar were accustomed to, particularly prior to the establishment of Melian's girdle, and the fact it seems that Thingol and Melian themselves may have wed in this fashion as well, I've personally always interpreted it as something probably somewhat common amongst the Sindar and other elves indigenous to Middle Earth. As far as the "fanon" regarding Celeborn is concerned, most of the prominent fanfic authors who write his character seem to have also settled on this same understanding.

If I have one regret regarding my fanfics from 10+ years ago, it's that I didn't follow this interpretation in the fics, despite personally holding this opinion. 10~20 years ago, despite many fic authors holding this opinion about Celeborn and Galadriel, fandom overall was heavily biased against any sort of pre-marital sex between elves. Most of those fics lived on now-defunct websites like adultfanfiction . net, which was also where most LGBTQ content was forced to live. Writing this kind of stuff on more mainstream fanfic sites of the late 90s and early 2000s was sure to get you flamed out of the fandom. However, in retrospect, I wish I'd never given in to that pressure. Unfortunately, what's done is done and I'm not going to go back and completely rewrite my over 500,000 words of fanfic. 😅

But yeah, if anyone wonders why you can't find much of that stuff, it's not because we never wrote it, it's because we were forced to write it in secret and publish it places most fans didn't frequent and that now no longer exist. Those were the dark days. Honestly, it has been an honor and a privilege to watch this fandom grow to where these things are common and accepted now. It's a much more welcoming place with much more freedom to explore these concepts.

I know people think fandom can be toxic now but, believe me, for those of us Celeborn/Galadriel fic writers who survived the late 90s and early 2000s in this fandom, what we have now is an overwhelming improvement. It used to be sooooo bad, guys. I dont' know how to tell you what a relief it is now that I can finally write the way I wanted to write all along, full of queer stuff and pre-marital Celeborn/Galadriel stuff 😅. I only wish I had more years of my life left to write in this new and freer fandom, but a lot of us from those old days are in our 40s and 50s now. We crawled through the trenches so you all can run today. Please cherish it always and forever. Write those fics, write them all. Be queer, be sexy, be proud.

Galadriel in Season 1-2 of “Rings of Power”: Valiant, Prideful and the Darkness Within

Galadriel was born during the Years of the Trees, on Valinor, the only daughter of High King of the Noldor, Finarfin, sister to three brothers. She was named “Artanis” by her father, and “Galadriel” (Sindarin for “Maiden crowned with gleaming hair”) is the name she took after marrying prince Celebron, in Doriath (Middle-earth).

In her youth, Galadriel was known for her proud, strong and self-willed temperament, and for the unmatched beauty of her hair. She had the golden hair of her kin, but hers was particularly striking, shot with silver, and beautiful. And so much so that Fëanor was inspired by how the light of the Two Trees of Valinor caught her hair to craft the Silmarils. Three times he asked her for a few strands of it, and three times Galadriel refuse him. Galadriel couldn’t stand Fëanor and saw the growing darkness in him; most likely because it was the same as within herself.

Tolkien describes Galadriel as “of Amazon disposition”, “strong of body, mind and will, a match for both the loremasters and the athletes of the Eldar in the days of their youth”, and she would “bound up her hair as a crown when taking part in athletic feats”. Her mother called her Nerwen, “man-maiden”.

Departure from Valinor

Galadriel is adventurous, ambitious “and like her brother Finrod, of all her kindred the nearest to her in heart, she had dreams of far lands and dominions that might be her own to order as she would without tutelage [from the Valar]”.

Galadriel, the only woman of the Noldor to stand that day tall and valiant among the contending princes, was eager to be gone [from Valinor]. No oaths she swore, but the words of Fëanor concerning Middle-earth had kindled her heart, and she yearned to see the wide untrodden lands and to rule there a realm at her own will. For the youngest of the House of Finwë she came into the world west of the Sea, and knew yet nought of the unguarded lands. Morgoth’s Ring

In Unfinished Tales, Tolkien tells us Galadriel wanted to leave Valinor and travel to Middle-earth to exercise her talents; being brilliant in mind and swift in action she had early absorbed all of what she was capable of the teaching which the Valar thought fit to give the Eldar’, and she felt confined in the tutelage of Aman. In Valinor, Galadriel had been a pupil of both Aulë and Yavanna, and felt the Valar had already taught her everything they were allowed to.

This can look like a level of arrogance of the likes of Fëanor, however, this is not how Tolkien sees it. Galadriel is presented like a character full of potential, spirit and talent. And even Manwë, the King of the Valar himself, has heard of her desire to leave for Middle-earth and didn’t oppose.

Refusing the Valar pardon

At the end of the First Age she [Galadriel] proudly refused forgiveness or permission to return. Tolkien Letter 320

And this is the Galadriel we meet in the first episode of “Rings of Power”. The audience can immediately perceive she’s strong-willed, proud and rebellious, acting against orders of the High-king of the Noldor, Gil-galad, in her endless hunt for Sauron, Morgoth’s sucessor and the responsible for her brother’s death.

Galadriel is also the only Elf in Middle-earth who believes that Sauron is still out there, and means to find and destroy him, at any cost. “More and more of our kind began to believe that Sauron was but a memory. And the threat, at last, was ended. I wish I could be one of them.”

It was not your company who defied you out there, but rather you who defied the High King, by refusing to heed any limit placed upon you. In an act of magnanimity, he has chosen to honor your accomplishments… Rather than dwell upon your insolence. Test him again and you may find him less receptive than you might have hoped. Elrond warns Galadriel, 1x01

Gil-galad “honors” Galadriel by granting her passage to return to Valinor, and rest in glory. But she’s set on refusing, not because she’s certain Sauron will return, and wants to find him, but due to her belief she won’t find inner peace, until she accomplishes that, as she tells Elrond in the same episode:

Elrond: Do you truly believe seeking him out will satisfy you? That one more Orc upon the point of your blade will bring you peace? […] If you are wrong, will you lead more Elves to die in far-off lands? To convince yourself you have done enough, how many more statues would you add to this path? No one in history has ever refused the call. Do so now, it may never come again. Do so now, it may never come again. You will linger here, an outcast, poisoned in dark whispers and dreams. Galadriel: And in the West, do you think my fate would be better? Where song would mock the cries of battle in my ears? You say I have won victory over all the horrors of Middle-earth. Yet you would leave them alive in me? To take with me? Undying, unchanging, unbreaking, into the land of winter less spring? Elrond: Only in the Blessed Realm can that which is broken in you be healed. Go there. Go, and I promise you… If but a whisper of a rumor of the threat you perceive proves true, I will not rest until it is put right. You have fought long enough, Galadriel. Put up your sword.

I would also like to point out Elrond foreshadowing Galadriel’s banishment in this scene. And this is very much in line with what Tolkien wrote:

[Galadriel] had no peace within. Pride still moved her when, at the end of the Elder Days after the final overthrow of Morgoth, she refused the pardon of the Valar for all who had fought against him, and remained in Middle-earth. It was not until two long ages more had passed, when at last all she had desired in her youth came to her hand, the Ring of Power and the dominion of Middle-earth of which she had dreamed, that her wisdom was full grown and she rejected it, and passing the last test departed from Middle-earth forever. The Peoples of Middle-earth

The Darkness Within

“Rings of Power” presents some explanations to Galadriel refusing the Valar’s pardon and staying in Middle-earth. At the surface, it’s because she wants to hunt down Sauron, defeat him, and for Halbrand to be “The Lost King” who could ride [her] to victory, like Elrond says, in 2x02.

It’s because of her pride, or her desire for vengeance. However, in 1x05, and in a moment of vulnerability with Halbrand aka Repentant Mairon, she reveals the true reason behind her restless pursuit of Sauron:

Galadriel sees her endless pursue for Sauron as the means to earn her inner peace after everything she saw, did and endured on Middle-earth. It’s connected to her pride, yes, but also to her greatest and deepest desire of healing. And this is why she can’t stop her pursuit, even when we, the audience, watch Galadriel endanger her companions’ lives in 1x01. She believes only when she destroys Sauron, will she destroy the darkness within herself.

Indeed he does, because Sauron wants to heal Middle-earth from Morgoth’s corruption, at this point in his own character arc. But the “darkness within” has been present in Galadriel’s character ever since the prologue of “Rings of Power”, and this is also in line with Tolkien legendarium, as Galadriel recognizes the darkness in others as a mirror to her own, and how she refuses to talk about her time in Valinor with Melian.

And in Season 1, we see Galadriel employing some questionable tactics; in Númenor she acts behind Halbrand’s back with Queen regent Míriel to get herself an army (the army she claims to Adar Sauron promised her, in 2x06), and travel to the Southlands and defeat Sauron. There, she vows to genocide the Orcs and killing some of them in a gruesome manner (bringing them into the sunlight) just for Adar to reveal Sauron’s whereabouts, even though he already told her the truth (as he knows it): he killed Sauron.

It would seem I'm not the only Elf alive who has been transformed by darkness. Perhaps your search for Morgoth's successor should have ended in your own mirror. Adar taunts Galadriel, 1x06

And Adar will not be the only character to mention the pull to the darkness in Galadriel, in “Rings of Power”:

The light of Valinor shone upon your very face, Galadriel, and you turned your back on it. Was it truly to fight the darkness or was the darkness calling to you? Elrond, 2x01

This is more noticeable with Repentant Mairon aka Halbrand, when she acts the “Morgoth” to his “Sauron”, by tempting him with power while he’s on a quest for redemption. By then, we already have some pieces of foreshadowing on this. We have Gil-galad’s prophecy in 1x01: “We foresaw that if it had, she [Galadriel] might have inadvertently kept alive the very evil she sought to defeat [Sauron]. For the same wind that seeks to blow out a fire may also cause its spread.”

And we also see Galadriel in connection with the Fall of Númenor visions, in Season 1:

And Mairon himself confirms this in 1x08. And that explains his “are they not the seeds you planted?” in Season 2. Because she’s the one who tempted him with power, and with the pouch of the King of the Southlands (Morgoth), when he wanted to remain in Númenor in servitude, and to prove his good faith to the Valar, and redeem himself from his crimes under Morgoth.

However, not only Galadriel established a connection with him, but also said “I’ve felt it too” when he expressed his wish to bind himself to her (“Fighting at your side, I... I felt... If I could just hold on to that feeling, keep it with me always, bind it to my very being, then I...”). She gave him the validation he wanted, and made him believe she would offer him forgiveness, and he would earn the redemption he so desperately wanted. But she didn’t, she cast him out. And he wouldn’t let it slide that easily, as we’ve been in Season 2.

Growing in Wisdom

In Season 2, we saw some glimpses of Galadriel letting go of her arrogance and “galloping”, and seeing the “bigger picture” in some occasions. This is foreshadowing for her future character arc, as the wise and compassionate, yet fierce and valiant, leader we know her to be on the Third Age. From Tolkien lore, we know that as she grows in wisdom and power (“elf magic” as Sam calls it), Galadriel will leave her pride behind.

Arondir. There is a dearth of Elven heroes this night. It would be a pity to lose another. Galadriel advises Arondir not to attack Adar, 2x07

But perhaps her last scene with Adar, in 2x08, was the most emblematic of this. She has been to the Orc camp, and witnessed the funeral rites, and how the Orcs live, and realized that, maybe, they aren’t the scourged slaves she believed them to be, back in Season 1. Each one of them has a personality. Like Adar told her, in 1x06: “We are creations of The One, Master of the Secret Fire, the same as you. As worthy of the breath of life, and just as worthy of a home.”

And Galadriel is becoming more attuned to every race in Middle-earth, and the Orcs were only the beginning. And she was willingly to make an alliance with Adar, at the end. They shared an agreement (until Sauron showed up and put an end to that). But more importantly, Adar forgives Galadriel for her hatred and her killing of the Orcs. And, as I’ve talked about on my post on Repentant Mairon (aka Halbrand), forgiveness is a major theme in Tolkien legendarium, and it’s not only earned, but given as well. And by forgiving Galadriel and returning Nenya to her, Adar redeems himself (just like Gollum; which is a theme I talked about here).

Banishment from Valinor

In Letter 353, Tolkien confirms that “Galadriel was 'unstained': she had committed no evil deeds”, concerning the Oath of Fëanor. She took no part in any of that; because “she was an enemy of Fëanor”. In the same letter, Tolkien tells us Galadriel reached Middle-earth independently, and not alongside the other Noldor. And her desires were legitimate, but “she became involved in the desperate measures of Manwë, and the ban on all emigrations”.

Many (Christopher Tolkien included) think this contradicts Galadriel’s banishment from returning to Valinor. But this is an idea (“the banishment of Galadriel”) Tolkien has in place in several sources of his work. And it wouldn’t be the first time Christopher Tolkien misinterpreted his father work, either, with the Dagor Dagorath being a prime example, when he thinks Tolkien abandoned the concept when he didn’t (Christopher later corrected this, though).

And it has been noticed by many Tolkien scholars how Christopher Tolkien has “tone down” his father’s female characters on his notes and editions, too. With Galadriel being a prime example of this. Tolkien tells us on several occasions that Galadriel had aspirations of power and dominion, she wanted a kingdom of her own, to rule as she saw fit, and that’s why she remained on Middle-earth, and refused the Valar’s pardon. However, Christopher decided to strip Galadriel of her agency, and even attempted to whitewash her character by claiming she wanted to stay on Middle-earth due to her love for Celeborn, when this has nothing to do with what Tolkien himself wrote. So, excuse me, for talking his interpretation with a grain of salt.

And, since Galadriel is married to Celeborn, of course, he’s included on her plans of having a kingdom of her own (to be otherwise wouldn’t make sense), with them both ruling it, but Galadriel wants to be the one “calling the shots”. And this dynamic is what will happen in Lothlórien: Celeborn is lord, but Galadriel is *the* Lady, without her husband overstep or overshining her. I’m not seeing any contradiction here. Maybe a case of “overthinking”, because Letter 353 appears to be about Galadriel not taking the Oath of Fëanor (and that’s not the reason for her banishment).

I owe much of this character to Christian and Catholic teachings and imagination of Mary, but actually Galadriel was a penitent, in her youth, a leader in the rebellion against the Valar (the angelic guardians). At the end of the First Age she proudly refused forgiveness or permission to return. She was pardoned because of her resistance to the final and overwhelming temptation to take the [One] Ring for herself. Tolkien Letter 320

I already theorized about Galadriel connection to the Virgin Mary (she’s not “the Virgin Mary”, but a “devotee of the Virgin Mary” in Tolkien lore) but I think Tolkien is being very clear with his words here. He considers Galadriel a “repentant sinner”, and he doesn’t contradict himself at all. Because a desire for power and dominion are not positive traits on his legendarium. And the confirmation that she was pardoned by the Valar when she resists the One Ring, clearly indicates there was something more at work, and is connected with her return to Valinor.

In “Fellowship of the Ring” book, this is also clear: “I pass the test,” she says, “I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.” Her “passing the test” and resisting the One Ring is connected with her returning to Valinor.

We know, from Tolkien lore, Galadriel develops “sea longing” on the Third Age, and has a deep desire to return to Valinor, to the point of depression (she sings laments about it). One can argue she stays out of duty, but then why is she “pardoned” by the Valar after rejecting the One Ring and can now go to Valinor? The only explanation is that Galadriel was, indeed, banished, and her resisting the One Ring is her final test. She passes the test, the Valar pardon her, her banishment is lifted, and she returns to Valinor at the end of “The Return of the King”. No contradictions there.

On Christopher’s defense, he probably thought Galadriel “desiring power and dominion” weren’t good enough reasons for her to be banished from Valinor, and that’s a plot hole “Rings of Power” is trying to answer, with her connection with Sauron, and the temptations he offers her. He is, after all, the one who introduces the “desire for power and dominion” to her character arc in the show; by offering her temptations and promises of endless power (his power). Which means, Galadriel’s desire for dominion and power from Tolkien lore is personified by Sauron in the show. And the reason for her banishment, will be, also, connected to him, somehow, for Sauron has already offered her the same temptation as the One ring, thousands of years into the future:

And now at last it comes. You will give me the Ring freely! In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair! She lifted up her hand and from the ring that she wore there issued a great light that illumined her alone and left all else dark. She stood before Frodo seeming now tall beyond measurement, and beautiful beyond enduring, terrible and worshipful. Fellowship of the Ring

In Tolkien legendarium, it’s not Galadriel adventurous or valiant nature that gets her into trouble with the Valar, but her rebellious spirit, and her pride, above of all, that lead her defy their authority, and wanting to claim a kingdom of her own where she can make her own rules. In “Rings of Power” the disapproval of the Valar are personified in the characters of Gil-galad and Elrond.

Indeed, her disregard for the Valar laws is visible on several occasions in lore. Not only she “proudly refused” their pardon to return to Valinor, at the dawn of the Second Age, but Tolkien tells us, in Unfinished Tales: Celeborn was the lover of Galadriel, who she later wedded. In Letter 43, Tolkien defines what he means by “a lover” (in general): “engaging and blending all his affections and powers of mind and body in a complex emotion powerfully coloured and energized by sex”.

This seems to imply, Galadriel didn’t wait to be “officially” married (ceremony, feast) to Celeborn before consummating their union. For the Eldar, “sex = marriage”, indeed, but the way Tolkien phrases this seems to indicate Galadriel doesn’t concern herself with the Eldar ways, and took Celeborn as her lover before any thought of actual marriage. Because language is extremely important in Tolkien, and we already know “sex = marriage” for the Eldar, so him writing this about Galadriel’s character means there’s something more to it.

Interestingly enough, these two themes are present in Tolkien last letter concerning Galadriel, in 1973 (the year of his passing). Without context, however, it’s insure if the two are related or not, so read this with a whole saltshaker:

I meant right away to deal with Galadriel, and with the question of Elvish child-bearing.

[ricky-mortis]

Curtwen Week Day 6: Happy Ending

[killjoy-prince]

House M.D. but it's when a character says the name of the episode

[icewindandboringhorror]

Little bright colored outfit with a fun vest ~

(shoes from ebay like 10 years ago. everything else is thrifted)