#and then they make wildly incorrect assumptions about me

[tidal-chaos]

on an unrelated note do yall actually want to be remembered after death? isnt death supposed to be a break from the horrors of being perceived. what am i missing

[grimtoucher]

Idk why y'all are so scared of being perceived. If I don't shout from the rooftops that I want attention from every stranger in my immediate radius then I immediately contract blacklung

[shinesurge]

Another much much bigger creator got an ask a while ago that I can't find now that was the fairly common "How do I become Friends with you" and their answer was very good imo, it basically boiled down to "if I make friends online it's usually with other creators, because we like each others' work" but also gently pointed out how uncomfortable that is to ask someone in general. I've sort of had this problem my whole life for complicated reasons even outside the context of my work but IN that context it's pretty straightforward at least. Probably a good time to remind everybody that the version of someone you're getting through their work (or social media) is always an incomplete picture, even if the part you're seeing is genuine, and also that even then the playing field is wildly unbalanced.

I basically go to work every day and display all my organs on the outside; it is carefully curated but still very vulnerable and Exposed. I'm okay with that, I signed up for this, and I'm very happy when people show up and appreciate the thing. But showing up to this event for a few minutes, guts still safely zipped up, and thinking we are on level footing to form a healthy relationship is incorrect. I also can't stress enough that the answer is not to spill YOUR organs all over the display, this would just make a mess and will not, in fact, bring us closer.

I know people mean well, and I've probably brought this on myself by interacting with my audience so much (which I'm still going to do, things aren't that dire yet lmao) but the vibe is starting to shift for whatever reason and I just wanted to talk about it a little I guess. It's certainly not impossible to make friends with random folks on social media, I do it all the time when things line up, but please try to practice some awareness of the imbalance going on when you're interacting with a creator based on assumptions you got from their work. I think it's cool you like what you see, I made it hoping that would be the case! And, in the channels I've laid out with boundaries for my own well-being, I am usually happy to interact in kind with the folks who make an effort to show up. But please don't forget there are a lot more of you than me, you know a LOT more about me than I do you, and even that picture is incomplete; almost definitely some of the gaps have been filled in incorrectly. I'm here to bring y'all my work, and outside of very specific situations that is the context I like to keep things in. Please don't follow me to my car after the exhibit is done.

[an-ruraiocht]

anyone else have people continuously make wildly incorrect assumptions about you because of your interests? for me as a queer medievalist, irish speaker, and folk musician, it's a) that people expect me to be interested in ttrpgs and i really really am not, and b) that they often think i'll be interested in more mystical/magical/superstitious things and i'm also really not that, i'm a deeply unmystical cynic who is at best vaguely agnostic towards a "cosmic force" kind of godconcept and doesn't vibe with personified god(s) of any variety

i do my best to be polite about both misinterpretations but boy sometimes people project their expectations onto you hard and by the time you've realised that they've fundamentally misunderstood your personality it can be pretty awkward to be like "i'm sorry but you have mistaken me for an entirely different genre of person"

[catherine-clover]

Hey. I’m sorry to be a bother, I just don’t want to let this go without saying something. I’m a trans, gay Christian. I’m very uncomfortable by Sophie’s posts about God being plural, personally, but I don’t really care about “heresy” or anything like that. It just makes me feel wildly uncomfortable for a self described atheist to “headcanon” things about my religion in order to make anti-endos more upset.

I get how fun it is to poke fun at the assholes who are being stupid, but please keep in mind that some of us out here are just legitimately uncomfortable. I’m really tired of the assumption that I’m a homophobic bigot who hates plurals, just because I’m a Christian who’s uncomfortable with this comparison.

It’s not to make fun of antiendos. I mean, it’s useful in that way, sure, but Sophie is far from the first person to have this take. I first saw it about a year ago (in a space unrelated to plurality, even) and I’m sure most Christian plurals have at least considered it at some point.

God being plural is a lot more than a headcanon. It’s an (in my opinion completely valid) interpretation of already established canon; really just a slight reframing, some added context. I’d argue it has more legs than the Rapture, but it’s definitely a few steps up from “Peter’s favorite food was fish sandwich”.

Do you have any actual arguments for why it’s incorrect? Saying “God is [newishly public identity]” is well tired at this point, sure, but saying “God is singlet” is unambiguously heresy under any version of the Trinity.

[fandomite]

SPOILERS FOR A BALLAD OF SONGBIRDS AND SNAKES

Just want to preface this by saying I have yet to read the book (I had been given many [inaccurate] reviews of the book that put me off, so I refused to read it, I will be reading it now immediately now that I know those reviews were wildly incorrect), so I went into the movie with only the barest of bones of an idea of what it was about, having only read/watched the original Hunger Games trilogy years ago.

ANYWAY

One of the things that hit me like a train by the ending of the movie was the context switch up from the title itself.

“Songbirds and Snakes” and I’m sure we all made the same assumption of well obviously Lucy Gray is the Songbird and Snow is the Snake. Lucy Gray is literally referred to as “songbird” by others (usually in a derogatory way), obviously because she’s a singer and sang on the stage of her reaping. Snow is part of the Capitol where backstabbing is second nature, and most everyone is just poison and venom dressed in fine clothes. Lucy Gray is the colorfully dressed creature who lives life vibrantly while Snow is the sharp eyed student clad in blood red in a greedy world where friends just don’t happen. We see Snow literally cheat twice in the Games for Lucy Gray while she herself works to avoid the conflict and hide and wait it all out. Snow backstabs his only friend while we see Lucy Gray continue her life of performing onstage.

But then the third act of the movie happens. The ending happens. And the whole context of this dichotomy shifts.

Lucy Gray is the Snake. And Snow is the Songbird.

We see Snow get shipped off to District 12 as punishment for cheating. His clothing becomes grayed out, he himself looking washed out, his hair trimmed short, his wings clipped. Lucy however is seen thriving, singing, out in the open while performing, and back to living quietly but vibrantly with her troupe/family, a bracelet resembling a snake is on her wrist but not easily visibly. Snow becomes the songbird as he chooses to use the jabberjays, as he chooses to sing to Dr. Gaul of his friend’s plans that he sees as treason because he’ll never leave his nest. He acts on a hair trigger, only thinking it through after the fact, flies immediately into actions. We see him flit from place to place throughout the whole film, with urgency, and seemingly making things up as he goes, and they work out for the most part. He is eventually caught, like the jabberjays. Like a jabberjay, he’s constantly repeating the rhetoric of the Capitol that he’s grown up learning, and believes it, throwing it back at his companions with repetition and intensity, like the birds screaming the finals words of the Hanging Trees victims.

Lucy Gray meanwhile goes back to keeping to herself, only striking back or reacting if provoked. Her clothing is unusually colorful and keeps drawing people in, either being called a clown or having several people ask after it. It her mother’s and she admits to wearing it like armor, like a second skin, as protection for herself while in the Games, and finally sheds it when she returns home to the safety of her troupe and people. But her other outfits are just as colorful, just as eye-catching. Like venomous animals utilize as a warning. She uses poison in the Games rather than outright combat, she hides and waits out the majority if the danger until she can’t any longer, and is unaffected by the snakes as if she were one of them, due to them knowing her scent. She swerves and almost dances through the start of the Games and escapes death by inches. After she clues into Snow’s true nature, she lures him out to the cabin, where she slips through his fingers and escapes death once again, after loosing a snake on him and messing with his mind, and eventually disappears. Dr. Gaul calls her tank of snakes “a rainbow of destruction”, and Lucy Gray is quite literally a walking rainbow for the whole film.

Whether it was meant to be like this or not, neither character is blatantly cut-and-dry either a songbird or a snake, they’re both. But there’s a clear shift in their assigned role from the start of the film to the end of the film, and it’s so subtle and well done.

Sidenote: Dr. Gaul’s “blood” outfit is just a VISCERALLY excellently crafted piece that is perfect to getting her character across immediately, holy fucking hell. The red fade in from the top, to the white on the bottom half, as if she’s had her neck sliced and is bleeding out, to the wet leather red gloves and if her hands are coated in fresh blood. FUCK, DUDE—

[windsfavored]

anonymous &&. said... I absolutely love the thought and deepness you put into your headcanons, both the major and minor ones. Regardless if they're recently posted or from months ago, I feel giddy to see and read your posts, your Ren is very much fleshed out and full of depth! Thank you for being on my dash!

SJKDFK  THANK  YOU  FOR  THE  KIND  MESSAGE,  ANON!

wanderer  is  quite  literally  my  favorite  fictional  character  of  all  time  —  the  entire  reason  why  i  even  got  into  genshin  to  begin  with  was  through  unreconciled  stars.  i've  always  had  a  huge  soft  spot  for  characters  people  tend  to  perceive  as  mean  and  bratty  because  i  just  find  their  antics  more  entertaining  than  anything  else  and  scaramouche  scratched  that  itch  in  my  brain  perfectly.  couple  that  with  the  inherent  mystery  of  his  character  and  just  how  little  screentime  we  actually  had  to  work  with  at  first  and  i  was  sold  completely.  i  had  a  google  doc  filled  with  every  scrap  of  dialogue  and  artifact  set  description  so  i  could  analyze  them  for  clues  about  his  personality,  lore  and  speech  patterns.  i  woke  up  at  6am  to  check  twitter  the  day  his  drip  marketing  was  rumored  to  come  out.  my  original  url  was  based  on  a  leak  of  what  his  constellation  might  be.  (  it  was  wrong!  but  i  kept  it  because  i  thought  it  was  funny.  )  i  saved  enough  through  welkins  and  playing  daily  to  get  his  c6  the  moment  his  banner  actually  dropped.  writing  him  reignited  my  motivation  for  roleplaying  and  allowed  me  to  meet  my  closest  friends.  he  is  just  such  a  cool  and  important  character  to  me  and  i  think  he's  very  neat.  ✨

i  also  just  love  writing  muses  that  aren't  human?  i  used  to  also  write  albedo,  though  that  was  predominantly  on  discord  —  and  a  lot  of  my  non-genshin  muses  tend  not  to  be  entirely  human  either.  i  find  it  lends  itself  to  really  fun  headcanons  and  worldbuilding  —  i  like  looking  at  some  funky  little  guy  and  going  "huh.  how  do  you  work?"  and  kind  of  building  on  the  lore  from  there.  but  honestly,  i  think  ren  strikes  a  really  good  balance  where  delving  into  his  psychology  is  equally  as  fascinating.  his  brain  is  such  a  wild  place  —  he's  very  logical  and  methodical  but  also  deeply,  DEEPLY  emotional  and  so  many  of  his  actions  are  warped  by  past  experience.  he  makes  wildly  incorrect  assumptions.  he  lies  by  omission.  he's  unapologetically  blunt  —  but  he  really  does  mean  it  when  he  says  he  holds  everyone  to  the  same  standards,  himself  included.  he's  just  a  deeply  flawed  character  and  all  around  not  the  most  pleasant  person  to  be  around,  but  i  enjoy  portraying  his  negative  qualities  as  much  as  i  do  his  positive  ones.

unfortunately  for  everyone,  i  can  yap  about  this  menace  for  ages  when  i  feel  so  inclined.  SVSVJKD  tl;dr  thank  you  again  for  the  ask,  anon!  i  have  a  ton  of  fun  writing  ren,  and  it's  really  wonderful  knowing  other  people  are  enjoying  my  babbling  too!

[anxiousotters]

WIP Ask Game

I have a ton of WIPs and I desperately want to talk about them, so send me some asks! (I’m hoping this will force me to finish some of them)

——————

where the spirit meets the bones (series, four parts)

Canon-divergent “Concord Dawn happens differently” AU. Mainly Codywan with a side of JasTor

Part I (JasTor, Jaster Mereel & Arla Fett & Jango Fett): passed down like folk songs (the love lasts so long)

Part II (Jango Fett & Clones): tried to pick my battles 'til the battle picked me

Part III (Pre-relationship Codywan): in the cracks of light, i dreamed of you

Part IV (Codywan): one single thread of gold tied me to you

——————

Last Name: Kenobi (stand alone, oneshot)

No Order-66 AU. Codywan crack & fluff focused around Cody making a wildly incorrect assumption

(1) (2)

——————

It’s, it’s— By God, it’s Cody with the Vigilante Shit Chair! (stand alone, oneshot)

Now finished!

Semi-Modern AU. Codywan crack & fluff, athlete x pop star

——————

everywhere, everything (stand alone, multi chapter)

Dark, (mostly) canon-compliant Order-66 AU. Set right before Tup’s chip malfunctions. Eventual Codywan, angst, hurt/ comfort

——————

the old therebefore (undetermined length)

Codywan x The Hunger Games crossover AU

(1) (2)

——————

Marriage of Inconvenience (stand alone, undetermined length)

Canon-divergent arranged marriage AU. Set after Korda VI. JasTor, enemies to lovers

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Making War, Making Peace, Making Love (series, two parts)

Canon-divergent AU. Set before Korda VI. JasTor, focuses around a ritual challenge for the Darksaber/ mantle of Mand’alor— with a twist

——————

Parental Pandemonium (stand alone, oneshot)

Canon-divergent AU. Set after Korda VI. JasTor crack & fluff with a side of kid/ teen fic (Jango Fett & Pre Vizsla)

(1)

[toskarin]

Dear toskarini would like to ask you is it okay for me to call myself a visual novel fan when everything I've ever played comes from itchio or the play store (or youtube??) I very frankly have no money and am an avid enjoyed of easy acess things I can play on my phone before going to bed but I've already called myself a visual novel fan in front of my friends and I don't want to be a liar in case what I've played doesn't count.

With kindest regards

ᵕ̈

that's fine! they're still visual novels

when I rant about people not playing [insert game here], it's mostly just because I've seen them make some wildly incorrect assumptions about what it must be like

but also I'm not an authority and you don't need your passport stamped by me to call yourself something

[vaspider]

Okay, but none of those things change the fact that every human being alive has testosterone and some form of estrogen in their body and that calling them "male" and "female" hormones is incorrect labeling. You're going wayyyyyyy off into the weeds on data analysis when this post is talking about the social effects of language, and that's an entirely different thing.

You literally only need to look in the notes on this post to see people who genuinely believe that cis men have no forms of estrogen in their bodies and that testosterone and estrogen are the primary if not only hormones in our bodies. This is perpetuated by speaking inaccurately about these substances. They aren't "male" and "female" hormones. Testosterone - for example - is an androgen. It is one of five androgens (testosterone, dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEAS), dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), androstenedione, and androstenediol) naturally manufactured by all human bodies[1]. Testosterone causes virilization, also known as masculinization, also known as having androgenic effects.

These are all medically correct and - more importantly - much more accurate ways of talking about hormones. That they have the benefits of not perpetuating transphobic and perisexist[2] rhetoric is also pretty great.

Lemme shift this a little bit and see if this makes it more clear: a lot of people refer to genitalia by using terms like "female genitals" or "AMAB genitals." This phrasing rises from attempts to avoid using clinically correct terms - usually either to avoid "impolite" terms or because people are lapsing back into first-grade biology and putting stickers on top of that to make it look "more grown up" or "more inclusive." However, that attempt to avoid using clinically correct terminology, they become unnecessarily vague to absolutely wrong.

Someone can be AMAB and have a vagina - gender-confirming surgery or not. "Female genitals" have a wide range of appearances, functionality, and component parts. And when we're talking about "female genitals," or "girl parts," or whatever incorrect shorthand people want to use, what do those people actually mean? Do they mean the clitoris, labia majora, labia minora, vagina, cervix, uterus, fallopian tubes, or ovaries? That's eight separate body parts right there, all with wildly different functions, and on top of that, there are plenty of people who were CAMAB who have those body parts. If we assume just for funsies that half the notes on this post are unique interactions, that would mean somewhere around 200 intersex people looked at this post.

I kinda think those people - leaving trans people out entirely - deserve to have accurate discussions about their bodies which have no incorrect gendered assumptions made, right?

For that matter, if someone asks me if I have "female genitals," I'm gonna have to stop and ask what they mean by that and for what purpose they're asking, because a) most of the time my answer is "uh, fuck off, that's none of your fucking business," and b) if a doctor asks me smth like that, I need to know if what they're really asking is, "Can you become pregnant, is there any chance you're pregnant right now," or "do you have ovaries bc this medication might affect them," or, "this medication might have an effect on the erectile tissue in a microphallus or clitoromegaly/a macroclitoris, so if that's you we need to talk about that," or "do I need to worry about the effects of menopause on you and have you been through menopause if so," or even, "do you have a cervix bc then I need to get you on a pap smear schedule." And just for me alone, there are a bunch of different answers to all of those questions. I had to stop and correct a doctor this week about some of her assumptions about answers to those questions, bc it was medically important that she have the right information. She couldn't get that info by asking me if I have "female genitals." She had to be precise and correct.

There are a lot of different answers to those questions among cisgender women, for that matter. There are cis women born with one or no ovaries, without a uterus, without fallopian tubes, with undescended testes, etc. A fair number of cis women get hysterectomies, salpingectomies, oophorectomies...

So, instead of saying "female genitals," it makes an awful lot more sense for a gynecologist (for example) to ask their patient, "do you have any or all of these body parts, and if not, were they surgically removed and when was that done?"

That is the argument being made in the OP. Clarity and correctness.

If generic-you are attempting to communicate, it is best for you and the person you're talking to if you use clear, concise, and above all correct language. If someone means "testosterone," they should say "testosterone." If they mean all 5 androgenic hormones, they would be better served by saying, "masculinizing hormones" or "androgens." Why?

Those words are always correct.

That is what those things actually are. Always.

We're not talking about ... all the things you were talking about in that post, bc you went off into shit that this post had nothing to do with. You seem to have a tendency to project a lot of things into very simple conversations that really don't belong there, so I'm going to bring this back to the very simple statement that calling testosterone a "male hormone" and estrogen [3] a "female hormone" is simply incorrect. It's very easy to change how you talk about these hormones so that you are not perpetuating direct harm to trans and intersex people and are, in addition, correct.

1. Androstenediol has both androgenic and estrogenic activity.

2. Perisexist: discriminating against intersex people by means of erasure or presumption of perisex "normality."

3. Really, estradiol is what most people are talking about when they say "estrogen," but we are just not there yet.

[prokopetz]

More favourite villainous tropes:

1. When the villain’s rationale for their bizarre scheme is perfectly reasonable right up until one very specific leap of logic that leaves both the hero and the audience going “wait, what?”.

2. When the villain hits the hero with a “join me” ultimatum that reveals they’re operating under wildly incorrect assumptions about why the hero is opposing them in the first place.

3. When the villain doesn’t recognise the hero because the thing the hero is trying to get revenge for totally fails to narrow it down.

3b. When the villain doesn’t recognise the hero because the thing the hero is trying to get revenge for is some unanticipated second-order consequence of the villain’s actions and they honestly have no idea what the hero is talking about.

4. When the hero thwarts the villain’s plan and the villain tries to play it off like they’re not angry at the hero, they’re just disappointed.

5. When the villain rescues the hero from some peril not because they particularly care whether the hero lives or dies, but because the villain is trying to make some obscure ideological point, and ultimately being successful is less important to them than being right.

[veliseraptor]

Okay, but consider: Groundhog Day Yi City, a tragic-comedy of repeated errors with drama sprinkles on top (results vary depending on who’s Bill Murray)

a secret that I have never seen the actual groundhog day movie. I feel like I should admit that, as a big fan of time loop stuff, I have not seen the trope namer. I just feel like that should be out there.

also if you saw me post this before it was finished: no you didn't

but to the substance of your ask: yes, I have considered this, I have considered this a lot and I actually technically have a fic in progress for it from xiao xingchen's pov but I might need to start it over, we'll see. and it is so much fun! because the success states vary wildly for each character, like:

xue yang: xiao xingchen alive, himself alive, nice domestic life preserved

song lan: xiao xingchen alive, himself alive, xue yang not alive, xiao xingchen never knowing about who he was living with

xiao xingchen: song lan alive, a-qing alive, doesn't even know what he wants with xue yang??? ahhhhh

a-qing: xiao xingchen alive, all else optional and only relevant inasmuch as it serves that end

so there are three of them aligned on the "xiao xingchen alive" goal, at least (xiao xingchen's a little more wobbly on that one), and only one person actively invested in xue yang being dead, and nobody actually putting as a definitive condition song lan being dead (though xue yang operates on a low key assumption, most of the time, that the win condition of "himself alive" depends on the condition "song lan dead"; he is not necessarily right about this but he tends to assume it's the case. however, it's not something that's necessary; I think if xue yang knew how badly things could go, he would be fine with letting song lan live if it didn't ruin the other stuff).

however, these points of agreement come into conflict with each other in several key places. I feel like I'm also thinking about these in order of priority (i.e. what's most important to least important) in which case it looks like:

xue yang: xiao xingchen/himself alive (either/or is not acceptable, has to be both), nice domestic life preserved (terms and conditions may apply, he'll make it work), song lan dead (possible condition but not required, particularly the longer he has to go on trying)

song lan: xiao xingchen alive, xue yang dead (at least initially, though I think it might eventually swap places with), xiao xingchen never knowing about who he was living with, himself alive

xiao xingchen: a-qing alive/song lan alive (I don't think he could deal with either not being true), still doesn't know what he wants to do with xue yang (affectionate/derogatory/deeply confused)

a-qing: she's got a very clear single priority and she's sticking to it.

so how this fic looks, and what the resolution is, could go any number of ways depending on who is trying to "fix" it and what the individual author decided a fix-it looked like (someone who is not me might think that just killing xue yang fixes the problem, but they would sadly be incorrect. common misconception! but inaccurate.). which is why my favorite version of this, I realized as I've been writing this post, is a version where all of them are time looping but none of them knows anybody else is, and every time one of anybody's primary win conditions are violated it starts over (i.e. if xue yang dies, even though it's only his win condition that stipulates his survival first and foremost, it still cycles back to the beginning).

just please consider with me the mutual frustration both song lan and xue yang in particular experience on discovering that they cannot, in fact, fix the problem by just murdering the other person in the right way. I feel like that alone makes this entire concept worth it.

also a-qing just getting xiao xingchen the heck out of dodge and being like "GREAT DODGED THAT BULLET" only to end up cycled back because one of the other two died. she didn't sign up for this

[chaosisorderao3]

You make a lot of wildly incorrect assumptions about me. I think the Israeli government in power are vile cretins, especially Bibi. Not just him, but especially him.

You also don't know what Zionism means. Yes, I'm a Zionist in that I believe that my people deserve self determination. That's literally what Zionism is. I'm quite vigorously opposed to forms of Zionism that don't ensure land rights to Jews and Palestinians alike, or cause oppression for Palestinian people.

It's not at all antisemitic to call out the Israeli government. I will call them out for so much all the time. The way most leftist goyim call out the Israeli government is, however, antisemitic because none of you have done the work to deal with the antisemitism you already carry.

And you'll just slander my character for reblogging a post because you think that if I reblog something I agree with every little bit of it. You don't even understand what Judaism is at its core clearly, because central to Jewish culture is the fact that we discuss and debate and exchange ideas whether we agree with each other or not.

You've got some work to do, my friend.

And hey, the partition could have gone better if the fucking Brits weren't in there messing everything up. Nobody should have been expelled from their homes, and there should have been no war. Palestinians shouldn't have had to refuse the partition offer because any offer presented should have been substantially more fair and respectful and cooperative. But don't make the assumption that Palestinians were free of responsibility for violence at that time or before.

It's not good enough to just say antisemitism won't be tolerated in your pro Palestinian activism. You have to actually do the work to unpack shit and stop being antisemitic and so many people in leftist spaces need to listen and hear that right now.

[innerstar-u]

why does everyone continue to buy AG when they have shown nothing that supports LGBT? in fact if anything they do the opposite, they represent all homophobic time periods, they have dolls that are against LGBT marriages in their faiths, and if they introduce a muslim doll they too don't accept LGBT. just wondering why everyone cries in this community so much for change they refuse to bring? like I seriously doubt we'll have LGBT character..ever...

You make a lot of assumptions in this ask, which makes me think this is rage bait. If this isn't, my apologies for my own assumption and I hope this post helps you use language around certain social topics better. I'm going to answer this regardless because I think that, even if it's not asked with the best of intentions, the answer may still be helpful to others.

Note: I am using the acronym LGBTQ+ in place of a more blanket umbrella word like "queer" because I know it makes some people in the community uncomfortable, even when used in a way that reclaims it. LGBT are not the only letters represented here, identifying as queer for oneself is totally valid, and that + does matter and is included in this discussion.

First up, there is no such thing as a "homophobic time period". There have always been LGBTQ+ people in history, and there have always been people who were not part of the community who have accepted us. It may not have been so publicly talked about in a given era, and it may have been more socially acceptable to more people to shame or even harm members of the LGBTQ+ community, but the community has always persisted. I recommend Jessica Kellgren-Fozard’s videos on LGBTQ+ history for more info on the topic.  

Your wording is a little funky when you say "all homophobic time periods." I'm not sure if you mean they represent all of the homophobic time periods that exist or if you mean that all the time periods they represent should be labelled as homophobic. Both readings of this are incorrect. See the above paragraph, plus remember that Stonewall and what many today might think of as the beginning of the LGBTQ+ rights movement was in 1969. Julie and Courtney’s stories come later in time. Julie lives in San Francisco of all places, and while the representation is lacking in Courtney’s stories from what I understand (haven’t read them in full yet), the AIDS crisis is still mentioned, even if they divorce it from the gay acceptance issue that it represents. And the LGBTQ+ rights movement didn’t exist in a bubble that suddenly popped in 1969. It existed well before then. 

AG does dance around some important discussions sometimes, but the company is not all bad. I think eventually we will get more gay representation. I don’t think it’ll come soon, especially not in the form of an LGBTQ+ main character, but I think we will get more. We’ve already gotten Kira’s gay aunts and the World By Us LGBTQ+ rights stickers in the community center and with the fridge. That’s absolutely not enough. Bolded for emphasis, and I am absolutely not saying or implying that it’s enough. However, it’s a start. I’m going to keep speaking out saying we need more representation (because that’s the only way we’re going to get anywhere), but I’m also going to reward the behavior we want to see, even if more should be done. 

Another point: it’s wildly inappropriate to speculate on a character’s beliefs based on their faith alone. I recommend this post about Rebecca's faith. Maybe the above anon I'm responding to was the asker on this linked post, or maybe there are two people wondering similar things. Either way, read the post. Read the post and reflect on how nobody following a large religion believes the same as every other person in the same religion. There are plenty of LGBTQ+ Christians, Jews, and Muslims. There are plenty of allies in these religions. And there are thousands of other religions in the world that also include LGBTQ+ people. 

I’m Christian, bi, and trans. I know several other Christians who are part of the LGBTQ+ community. I know Jews and Muslims who are also part of the community. If you’re going to say that all people of faith are against LGBTQ+ rights, you’re barking up the wrong tree. 

[adventures-in-asexuality]

Hi I read your Jojo fics and was wondering how do you characterize Kakyoin? I find it interesting that you manage to capture him better than most fics I've seen in the fandom.

sorry for taking so intensely long to answer you; it's been... some kind of year. putting this under a cut because it's a little long!

a lot of my Kakyoin characterisation was developed over conversation with @queenieofaces and other jojo writers (including but not limited to the lovely jojo writing discord), so you can see a lot of the characterisation that I bounced off in their fics, especially queenie's Jotaro and Jotakak fics. most of my Kakyoin characterisation is about how he relates to the other people in the horrible road trip, so having a good idea of other characterisations - especially characterisations of Jotaro that make sense and hold together for me, which queenie's written extensively about - was important in getting a sense of Kakyoin.

a fair amount of my other characterisation is from fairly small portions of the manga that I then obviously projected wildly on to. a big one for me was: what was Kakyoin's family situation such that he could just disappear in Egypt and then later take off with the Joestars, without ever seeming to communicate with them or have them worry about him? the simple answer is that that's what's convenient for the narrative, but why not read into that more? especially if you're coming from a shipping angle, which of course I was and that's how I discovered I'm bad at writing romance; assuming Kakyoin is queer and observing that he at the very least has a distant relationship with his family gives you a lot of room to play with his backstory and with his assumptions.

adding to this: he's clearly having a bad time in the manga! we know for certain that he's had potentially traumatic events (fleshbud, etc); his distrust of people, and the very precise way he presents himself (to seem trustworthy, to deflect attention, to talk about minutiae and have learnt every possible relevant concept in advance) leaves itself open for interpretation as a reaction to longer-term trauma - which, again, familial situation, I think there's a lot you can read into that. I tend to write Kakyoin as being more aware of his queerness (often involving some kind of genderfuckery; that precision in presentation really speaks to me there), and of being very aware of how that sets him apart, personally and societally, though you could absolutely go a different direction with that. I like drawing the parallels between that wider situation and his self-conscious marginalisation within the travelling group - but again that's largely personal preference.

in that awareness, I also tend to write him as tending towards overanalysis of his own feelings - which is fun to contrast with Jotaro's canonical and extremely incorrect belief that everyone else can see his feelings on his face. there's a lot of mileage to get out of the two of them. Kakyoin is constantly melding the way he's perceived to fit the situation, and feeling that it's incredibly urgent that he continue to do so to hold onto what safety he may have at any given point - and there's Jotaro over there grunting and sighing. perfect. when will they ever communicate properly.

this has been a very rambling answer, but I hope it's of some interest! if you want more good Kakyoin fics - or fics in general - try some of nomette's, or this particular favourite, or of course this or this, or some of these, as well as queenie's, linked farther above - and those are just a few off the top of my head; there's plenty out there!

[elliegoose]

the gulf between how i'm perceived by cishet strangers and how i'm perceived by queer strangers is being made astonishingly clear at this job and i do not enjoy it.

like queer customers usually pick up on my general queer vibe pretty quickly, even if they don't necessarily realize i'm specifically trans, but cishet customers universally seem to assume that i'm a cishet woman. this plus the overwhelming cisheterosexuality of the company culture and store environment make for an uncomfortable reminder that cishet society does not understand me and in fact makes wildly incorrect assumptions about basic aspects of my personhood almost everywhere i go.

part of me feels bad for even feeling weird about this because it kind of feels like i'm complaining about passing? but i'm passing as a gender that i have a very strained and distant relationship to at best. my main connection to womanhood is through lesbianism, and cishet, culturally hegemonic womanhood feels as alien to me as maleness. i'd of course rather be perceived as a woman than as a man and i enjoy the safety that passing affords me but... my actual internal sense of identity being so thoroughly invisible to others and misunderstood feels bad.

i shouldn't mind this so much because ultimately i don't care about what cishets think, i've got my queer family and community, but being confronted with the misunderstanding and invisibility so directly and constantly is getting to me a little.