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interroughbang · 7 months ago

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Girl 1 music versus Girl 2 Music

“See You Again (feat. Kali Uchis)” by Tyler the Creator is a great song. Watching people sort gender presentation by the lyrics is less than great.

If those first two sentences seemed absurd, it’s because they are, all things considered, to the average person. The context will not make it much better, but instead dismantle this concept and piece together what happened to make such a thing reality. It’ll be a long walk; stay with me.

We’ll start at the beginning. For hundreds and hundreds and even thousands of years, there has been a concept of “those” people, a disparaged “other”. The evolution of a stratified society and predefined societal roles exacerbated the issue of classifying people as well as it did the issue of classifying those who fail to fulfill a role, or who fulfill a role we particularly dislike.

Unfortunately, a lot of the burden for classified ‘others’(so to speak) has fallen onto women. Certain definitions of proper, traditional femininity are utterly stifling in their restrictions and equally punishing for deviation from said restrictions. There are ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ ways to be feminine. Though this is less restrictive (perhaps just restrictive in a different way)—nowadays, the roots of policing and judging women for how they exist while being women persists. As far back as 1851, editorials warned of women with “an obvious tendency to encroach upon masculine manners, manifested even in trifles, which cannot be too severely rebuked or too speedily repressed”. They were certainly rebuked. Victorian women couldn’t even ride bicycles for a while without being mocked for ‘bicycle face’, or being told that their organs would get jumbled to death if their fragile uterus dare brave the ride of a velocipede. The emerging trend of wearing bloomers (billowy big pants) met harsh criticism as well—how dare women engage in such mannish behavior…like…. pants. This policing of women’s’ existence has always had its ugly trivial side. On the more extreme side of things, suffragettes fighting for women’s’ right to vote were cast as angry, cruel women that would die alone and unloved for their inability to surrender their lives to men. For a modern equivalent, turn to the more recent ‘snowflake’ trope. It gets its name from the phrase ‘special snowflake’, a phrase borrowed from children’s books that used snow as an analogy for all people being unique, and therefore special, in their own way. The ‘special snowflake’ as a stereotype gained popularity in 2016 and 2017. Women and LGBTQ+ folks who people decided were a little too unique were slapped with this label. Easy bullying. Anything from using they/them pronouns to being visibly queer or even just protesting a misogynist joke would get you thrown in this bin. I myself was, confusingly, labeled a snowflake when I did a class presentation by myself since my groupmates had done nothing. Honestly it made no sense. The snowflake thing by itself didn’t either, though—it was just slapping a target onto the back of people that society could easily deem nonconforming. Such people using the ‘snowflake’ term thought the nonconformist existence of minoritized folks was only acceptable as a punchline. Why else would it be okay to be so strangely un-average? Women had possessed the right to vote for almost 100 years by 2016, but heaven forbid a woman wanted to exist in a way that was noticeable.

Luckily that trend is long gone. What took it’s place is markedly less of a bully tactic, but still a strange, ambiguous way of categorizing people, and yet another stereotype. Forget the preppy girl, the jock, or the nerd, and make way for the trainwreck that is ‘girls who say hi v.s. girls who say bruh’. I could not make this up. It’s essentially a trend from a couple years ago that made jokes about stereotyping feminine girls (often with the connotation of them being innocent and/or weak) and ‘cool’ girls who are apparently less feminine or something…. essentially a more convoluted ‘type a’ and ‘type b’ for women. As if there wasn’t already enough of that. This is where the music mention from the beginning comes back—the ‘hii’ versus ‘bruh’ girl meme would compare any characteristics from appearance, speech, favorite food, and taste in artistic media between these stereotypes, essentially filing any sort of thing someone could be or enjoy into a category. Hopefully you, reader, can see where this can get messy. Take some real examples:

Already weird and abstract. Back to where we started: “See You Again”. Again, a great song. What happened after the bruh/hi girl thing was that people started to repeat that by categorizing people based on which line of the song’s ending people would sing. “See You Again” ends with Tyler singing “okay okay okay okay” and Kali Uchis harmonizing with some ‘la’s. Literal sounds reappropriated into a ‘type’ of girl. Every action of a woman categorized. In googling examples the first suggestions for ‘okokok lalala girl’ were ‘quiz’ or ‘test’ or ‘difference’—as if one should want to know, to categorize themselves, to fit into being one type of girl or the other and match the media they enjoy and consume to that.

Different iterations of stereotypes persist, of course, it never really ends. Now I often see labels or memes of people’s taste in art as being some sort of nameable, Pinterest-searchable aesthetic—Lana Del Rey is ‘coquette’, Radiohead is ‘femcel’, and with these words go not only music but fashion, speech, body language…sound familiar?

Though definitely strange to process, it isn’t entirely unheard of that this happens. We humans are communal creatures, and undoubtedly finding identifiable communities of shared interest are helpful, but there are caveats to what sort of categorization is helpful and what is a symptom of needing that categorization. I bear no ill will to coquette or femcel or hii or any sort of girl. What I do bear a bit of distaste for is that we live in a world that will try to shove women into a box to make their differences acceptable—one must conform to something.

Let it be known, reader, that no woman—or anyone else for that matter—needs to conform to anything. The very idea of conformity has been fabricated from the start, since ‘woman’ and ‘man’ were conceptualized as separate genders rather than subsets of genetic phenotype. There is nothing to conform to, rules are made up, categories are for fun and magazine quizzes, not the great aggregate mass of human expression.

And “See You Again”, by Tyler the Creator and featuring Kali Uchis, is just a good song. Nothing more. Sing whatever part you want at the end. All it means for who you are is that you decided to sing it.

I send you off with a r/3amthoughts post that highlights the silliness of all this.

Additional citation:

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gendercensus · 4 years ago

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On fae/faer pronouns and cultural appropriation

HOW IT STARTED

I had a handful, a very small handful but more than two, responses in the Gender Census feedback box telling me that fae/faer pronouns are appropriative. The reasons didn’t always agree, and the culture that was being appropriated wasn’t always the same, but here’s a selection of quotes:

“Fae pronouns are cultural appropriation and are harmful to use“ - UK, age 11-15

“I’m not a person who practices pagan holidays but, my understanding is that pronouns like fae/faeself are harmful because the fae are real to pagans and is like using Jesus/jesuself as pronouns“ - UK, age 11-15

“I know you've probably heard this a million times, so has everyone on the internet, but the ''mere existence''of the fae pronoun feels really uncomfortable for some of us. I'm personally not against neopronouns like xe/xim, er/em and the like, I am a pagan but apart from the, imo most important, reasoning of that pronoun being immensely disrespectful, I worry as an nb about people who banalize the usage of pronouns ''for fun'', and I'm quoting what some people have told me.“ - Spain, 16-20

“I don't agree with fae/deity pronouns just from a pagan perspective it's very disrespectful to the cultures they come from. Like Fae are a legit thing in many cultures and they hate with a fiery passion mortal humans calling themselves Fae to the point of harming/cursing the people who do it“ - USA, age 16-20

“only celtic people can use far/ faers otherwise it’s cultural appropriation, many celts have said this and told me this“ - USA, age 16-20

So that’s:

❓ Someone who doesn’t say whether they’re pagan or Celtic.

❌ Someone who definitely isn’t pagan.

✅ Someone who is pagan.

❓ Someone who doesn’t say whether they’re pagan or Celtic.

So, just to disclose some bias up-front, I am English so I’m not Celtic, but I do live in Wales so I am surrounded by Celts. The bit of Wales that I live in is so beautiful in such a way that when my French friend came to visit me she described it as féerique - like an enchanting, magical land, literally “fairylike” or thereabouts. Coincidentally I have also considered myself mostly pagan for over half of my life, and I can’t definitively claim whether or not the Fae are “part of paganism” because paganism is so diverse and pick’n’mix that it just doesn’t work that way.

To me the idea that fae/faer pronouns would be offensive or culturally appropriative sounds absurd. But also, I am powered by curiosity, and have been wrong enough times in my life that I wanted to approach this in a neutral way with an open mind. Perhaps what I find out can be helpful to some people.

So since we only have information from one person who is definitely directly affected by any cultural appropriation that may be happening, the first thing I wanted to do was get some information from ideally a large number of people who are in the cultures being appropriated, and see what they think.

WHAT I DID

First of all I put some polls up on Twitter and Mastodon. [Edit: Note that this post has been updated with results from closed polls.]

I specified that I wanted to hear from nonbinary Celts and pagans, just so that the voters would be familiar with fae/faer pronouns. I asked the questions in a neutral way, i.e. “How do you feel about...” with “good/neutral/bad” answer options, instead of something more leading like “Is this a load of rubbish?” or “are you super offended?” with “yes/no” options. I provided a “see results” option, so that the poll results wouldn’t be skewed as much by random people clicking any old answer to see the results. And I invited voters to express their opinions in replies.

Question #1: Nonbinary people of Celtic descent (Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, the Isle of Man, and Brittany), how do you feel about non-Celtic people using the neopronoun set fae/faer? [ It's good / No strong feelings/other / It's bad ]

Question #2: Nonbinary pagans, how do you feel about non-pagans using the neopronoun set fae/faer? [ It's good / No strong feelings/other / It's bad ]

The Twitter polls got over 1,100 responses each, and the Mastodon polls got over 140 responses each. With a little bit of spreadsheetery I removed the “N/A” responses to reverse engineer the number of people voting for each option, combined those numbers, and recalculated percentages.

Obviously this approach is not in the least scientific, but thankfully the results were unambiguous enough and the samples were big enough that I feel comfortable drawing conclusions.

Celts on fae/faer pronouns being used by non-Celts (561 voters):

It's good - 42.5%

No strong feelings/other - 44.0%

It's bad - 13.5%

Pagans on fae/faer pronouns being used by non-pagans (468 voters):

It's good - 47.2%

No strong feelings/other - 39.5%

It's bad - 13.3%

Here’s how that looks as a graph:

The limitations of polls on these platforms means that we have no way to distinguish between people who have more complicated views (”other”) and people who have “no strong feelings”, so we can’t really draw conclusions there. If we stick to just the pure positive and pure negative:

Celts were over three times as likely to feel positive about non-Celts using fae/faer pronouns than they were to feel negative.

Pagans were over three and a half times as likely to feel positive about non-pagans using fae/faer pronouns than they were to feel negative.

So Celts and pagans are way more likely to feel actively good about someone’s fae/faer pronouns, even when that person is not a Celt/pagan. That’s some strong evidence against the idea that fae/faer pronouns are appropriative, right there.

CORRECTIONS

To be clear, I haven’t done any research about the roots of fae/faer or the origins of the Fae and related beings, but my goal here was to get a sense of what Celts and pagans think and feel, rather than what an historian or anthropologist would say.

On the anti side, here were the replies that suggested fae/faer either is or might be inappropriate:

“I only worry that not everyone understands the origin of the word outside of modernized ideas of fairies.“ - pagan

“As a vaguely spiritual Whatever (Ireland), I think a mortal using "fae" as a pronoun/to refer to themselves is asking for a malicious and inventive fairy curse (on them, their families and possibly anyone in their vicinity, going by the traditions). I have not heard of this term before, so this is an immediate reaction from no background bar my cultural knowledge of sidhe/fae/term as culturally appropriate. My general approach is people can identify themselves as they want.“ - Celtic

So we’ve got a pagan who’s wary that people who use fae/faer (and people in general) might not have a fully fleshed out idea of the Fae. And we’ve got a Celt who doesn’t mind people using fae/faer personally, but based on what they know of the Fae they wouldn’t be surprised if the Fae got mad about it. No outright opposition, but a little concern.

There were not a lot of replies on the pro side, but not because people weren’t into it, judging by the votes. There were a lot of “it’s more complicated than that” replies, many of which repeated others, so quotes won’t really work. Here’s a summary of the Celtic bits:

“Fae” is not a Celtic word, and Celts don’t use it. It is French, or Anglo-French.

“Fae” can refer to any number of stories/legends from a wide variety of cultures in Europe, not one cohesive concept.

There are many legends about fairy-like beings in Celtic mythologies, and there are many, many different names for them.

The Celts are not a monolith, they’re a broad selection of cultures with various languages and various mythologies.

And the pagan bits:

Paganism is not closed or exclusive in any way. It might actually be more open than anything else, as “pagan” is a sort of umbrella term for non-mainstream religions in some contexts. A closed culture would be a prerequisite for something to be considered “appropriated” from paganism.

From my own experience, pagans may or may not believe in the Fae, and within that group believers may or may not consider the Fae to be sacred and/or worthy of great respect. (I’ve certainly never met a pagan who worshipped the Fae, though I don’t doubt that some do.)

And then we get into the accusations. 🍿

“this issue wasn’t started by Celtic groups or by people who know much about Celtic fae. It was started primarily by anti-neopronoun exclusionist pagans on TikTok.“

“[I’m] literally Scottish [...] and it’s not appropriative in the least and honestly to suggest as such is massively invalidating towards actual acts of cultural appropriation and is therefore racist. Feel like if this was actually brought up it was either by some people who seriously got their wires crossed or people who are just concern trolling and trying to make fun of both neo-pronouns and of the concept of cultural appropriation and stir the pot in the process.“

“It wouldn't be the first time bigots falsly claim “it's appropriative from X marginalized group" to harass people they don't like, like they did with aspec people when they claimed "aspec" was stolen from autistic language (which was false, as many autistics said)“

“It's been a discussion in pagan circles recently ... People were very quick to use the discussion as an excuse to shit on nonbinary people.“

“I think it would be apropos to note that the word "faerie/fairy" has been a synonym for various queer identities for decades, too. The Radical Faeries are a good example.“ (So if anyone has the right to [re]claim it...)

A little healthy skepticism is often wise in online LGBTQ+ “discourse”, and some of these people are making some very strong claims, for which I’d love to see some evidence/sources/context. Some of it certainly sounds plausible.

HOW DID IT START?

I had a look on Twitter and the earliest claim I can find that fae/faer pronouns are cultural appropriation is from 18th February 2020, almost exactly one year ago today. Again, tweets are not the best medium for this, there was very little in the way of nuance or context. If anyone can find an older claim from Twitter or Tumblr or anywhere else online, please do send it my way.

I have no idea how to navigate TikTok because I’m a nonbinosaur. (I’m 34.) I did find some videos of teens and young adults apparently earnestly asserting that they were Celtic or pagan and the use of fae/faer pronouns was offensive, but the videos were very brief and provided nothing in the way of nuance or context. For example:

This one from October 2020 with 29k ❤️s, by someone who I assume is USian based on the word “mom”?

This one from December 2020, that says “I am pagan and i find it rather disrespectful. It’s like using god/godr or jesus/jesusr.” That’s probably what inspired the feedback box comment above that refers to hypothetical jesus/jesusr pronouns.

If anyone is able to find a particularly old or influential TikTok video about fae/faer pronouns being appropriative I’d really appreciate it, especially if it’s from a different age group or from not-the-USA, to give us a feel for how universal this is.

For context, fae pronouns were mentioned in the very first Gender Census back in May 2013, though you’ll have to take my word for it as the individual responses are not currently public. The word “fae” was mentioned in the pronoun question’s “other” textbox, and no other forms in the set were entered so we have no way of knowing for sure what that person’s full pronoun set actually is. This means the set may have been around for longer. The Nonbinary Wiki says that the pronoun set was created in October 2013, as “fae/vaer”, later than the first entry in the Gender Census, so I’ll be editing that wiki page later! If anyone has any examples of fae/faer pronouns in use before 2013 I would also be very interested to see that.

IN SUMMARY

Obviously I can’t speak for everyone, as the Twitter polls are not super scientific and they only surveyed a selection of Celts and pagans within a few degrees of separation of the Gender Census Twitter and Mastodon accounts, but I can certainly report on what I found.

For a more conclusive result, we’d need to take into account various demographics such as age, culture, location, religion, race/heritage, etc.

As far as I can tell based on fairly small samples of over 400 people per group, a minority of about 13% of Celtic and/or pagan people felt that use of fae/faer pronouns is appropriative.

A much higher number of people per group felt positive about people who are not Celts or pagans using fae/faer pronouns. The predominant view was:

It can’t be cultural appropriation from Celtic cultures because fairy-like beings are not unique to Celtic cultures and Celtic cultures don’t call them Fae.

It can’t be cultural appropriation from pagan cultures because paganism is not “closed” or exclusive in any way, it’s too broad and open.

If your experience of your gender(s) or lack thereof isn’t described or encompassed by the gender binary of “male OR female”, please do click here to take the Gender Census 2021 - it’s international and it closes no earlier than 10th March 2021!

#fae/faer #pronouns #neopronouns #cultural appropriation

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stoneworldsimp · 3 years ago

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what’s mine is not yours —a request

platonic senku x reader

warnings: swearing, anxiety, talk of insecurities and worries, gender dysphoria

your name!

YOUR NAME!

your hands slapped to your ears, eyes shut tight. i can’t take this so early in the morning.

the voices from your dream had lingered longer than you would have liked. it reminded you it was time to face another day, to endure another long long day and night of hearing the wrong things.

maybe if i went and lived on my own again…i wouldn’t have to deal with it—no. senku needs me. he needs me…what does he need me for again? you rolled onto your stomach; your pillow rustled as you flopped it on top of your head. he doesn’t need me. i’d rather be lonely than hear everyone say some bullshit about me.

everyone in the village knew you as a miss. yuzuriha made you more neutral clothes upon request, but everyone assumed you were tomboyish. luckily, no one read more into it; it was nice to dress comfortably, but it was like no one else understood. why were they still calling you a girl? and the older folks, you knew they meant well! but you couldn’t help but feel like their constant “sweet girl”s were making fun of you at this point.

i can’t do it, i can’t do it, they’re making fun of me right now, as i think. as i exist!

you felt a tear trickle down the side of your nose.

oh, you’re kidding. crying? again? is this—

a knock on your door halted your thoughts; you quickly flipped back and sat up in your bed on the ground of your hut, and wiped your face quickly. you lightly slapped your cheeks to stop yourself from continuing crying.

“yeah.”

“it’s me. can i come in?”

senku’s voice brought some sort of relief; personally you felt it was better for him to come in at such a time than anyone else.

you took a deep breath. “sure, but i just woke up. i’m staying under my blanket.”

senku laughed behind the door. a small shove was made and it opened, revealing a quite chipper senku. he liked to come early in the morning when the rest of the village was quiet.

his smirk faltered once he saw your face. you believed you hid your crying well; you didn’t think to check your red eyes or stinging cheeks.

“what’s wrong?” he asked, his words much gentler than when he asked to come in.

damn. how could i not realize i was so obvious?

with a deep breath, you whispered, “senku.. we’re pretty good friends, right?”

he snickered. “of course we are, way more than that asshole gen.”

his voice was closer. you laughed as well, and wiped your eyes clear. he slowly walked over and sat down on the floor next to you. senku was looking at you, really looking at you; it was intense, almost if he was making sure his closeness or anything about his presence wasn’t bothering you.

“okay…i’m about to say a lot of stuff. let me know if you need me to explain more, or if i’m talking too much. or—“

your words halted as senku put a hand on your shoulder, a smile light on his face. “all ears.”

you smiled back softly. “okay. so—back in..our time,”you gestured between the two of you with your hands, “i told my family and friends i was, uhm… nonbinary. like i don’t feel male or female, i use they/them pronouns; all that good stuff. still feel that way now. and, for quite some time, they didn’t believe me. not in a direct ‘you’re lying’ way, but more of ‘i don’t understand it therefore you shouldn’t understand it’ type of thing. i got a lot of shit from people who weren’t my friends, too. but with my friends’ support and getting more confidence after coming out, my parents were able to kinda see it. but yeah, it took quite some time. probably like.. eight months? even then, i had to remind them constantly, ‘not a daughter. please don’t call me she or he. please don’t call me a woman.’ but we were getting there. and right when we got petrified, right when it happened, i saw the look on my mom’s face.

“we were talking about me and my identity and it was like something had clicked in her brain. like, she knew exactly what i meant and how i felt when i said what it meant to be nonbinary. i don’t even remember what i said specifically, but i remember her expression as if she were standing in front of me right now. i was so hopeful i’d see her again, her expression got me through my petrification and even helped me break out of it. but of COURSE, i didn’t ever see her again after i woke up. and then i almost lost my own sense of self after being by myself for probably a year.. i was under the assumption i’d never meet another person again, so when i did run into your village—i had this gross feeling of dread. and i realized it was the same feeling that basically lived inside of me before i came out.”

you sat up straighter and looked away from senku. “it’s like, i have to rebuild my identity all over again. people always say you shouldn’t care about what other people say, but i can’t help it. i’m a sensitive person. i get hurt easily, no matter how hard i try to thicken my skin. they all, they all just use ‘she’ and ‘her’ and ‘that girl’ so often, it feels like they’re making fun of me, like they’re constantly telling me i’m not who i say i am. and i can’t tell them senku, being nonbinary was confusing for so many people in our time, i hardly believe they’ll understand it now. sure, my parents were fine, but it took a while before they got it. i can only imagine how long it’ll take for everyone here.”

senku was quiet. have you over explained yourself? was it too overbearing? in all honesty you’d only been good friends with senku a short while; you should have waited at least a little bit longer before letting him in on something so personal—

“it all, it all kind of makes sense now.”

huh?! “what?”

“what you told me, i think i get it now.”

you gave him a look up and down. it was possible, but you didn’t think there was much of a chance that senku would be so..cool with it. not right away. you expected some form of silent treatment for at least a day or two, so he could collect his own thoughts.

“i’m gonna say something, and i need you to listen. yeah?”

you stared at him like your brain short-circuited. what the fuck is he gonna say to me.. oh god, he doesn’t wanna be friends anymore. but he’ll be too nice to kick me out of the village. but it is his village—

“hey, hey…are you with me?” you both sat facing each other now, and his hands rested on your shoulders.

just hear him out. “yeah. all ears.”

he smoothed your shoulders with his thumb. “you’re just as valid as everyone out there. i know you’re scared, but believe me when i say they will not be mocking you in any way. sure, it might take a while for them to understand, but theyre not going to give up just because they dont get something right away. it took me a few months to fully convince this village i could help them, and even then, there were still a few who didn’t fully understand the experiments and contraptions i made until a while later. i know that isn’t the same as your situation… but what i’m trying to say is that they will try their best to know you, the real you. they aren’t going to mock you; if anything, they’ll have lots of questions to ask you.

“also, you have me, you have gen to help out in case you don’t have the capacity to answer everything yourself. i’ve a few things about gender before the stone world, and gen definitely knows a lot of things that are relevant to it as well.

“everyone here�� they’re all so eager to learn, i highly doubt they’ll be unaccepting. they’ll be curious. and they’ll be happy you’re letting them in on something that is so important.”

tears had made their way down your face and on your clothes halfway through his mini-monologue; you didn’t notice him continuously wiping them away until he was finished. “it’s going to be okay. trust me.”

with a quiet sob, you pushed yourself into his arms for a hug.

“thank you.”

you knew he wasn’t particularly one for any type of physical contact, but he gladly accepted. for the occasion, he thought. his arms slowly wrapped around your slightly shaking body as you tried to calm down. neither of you spoke for a few minutes; only your soft sniffles were heard in the hut.

“senku, i think that was the most i’ve heard you talk about something that wasn’t directly related to science,” you laughed into his neck.

he laughed back. “i had a lot saved, since there were moments i could tell you were kind of uncomfortable. i didn’t want to force you into talking about it either, so i just waited. tried to figure out what i was going to say. it had to be good.. you are one of my closest friends, after all.”

both of you embraced each other a little tighter. “i hope all of this helped, i want you to live here with none of those worries. especially after so many months of having it bottled inside.”

you nodded in response.

today.. today will be the day i tell everyone not to use what they used to call me; that won’t do at all anymore.

today, i’ll tell everyone my name.

#dr stone #dr stone x reader #senku ishigami x reader #senku x reader #ishigami senku x reader #ishigami senku #senku ishigami #dr stone imagines #dr stone scenarios #senku ishigami fluff

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silvanable · 4 years ago

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Hi! I saw your requests were open! This might be really specific, but it would mean the world to me if I could request Dazai, Mozart, Shakespeare, Leo and Theo from Ikevamp with an s/o that comes out to them as panromantic and nonbinary? I'm so sorry it's so specific, I've just been coming out to a lot of people recently ('cause I've found out I'm nonbinary ^^) I'm curious about what their reaction would be. Thank you, take care!

congratulations darling! i am so happy for you that you have found who you are and are able to express that with others. from one non-gender defining person to another, i send all my love.

i took this as the boys’ s/o comes out to them after meeting them. hope i did this justice and sorry for such a long wait hun!

↪ GUIDELINES

ー DAZAI OSAMU

his s/o had been meaning to tell him something, which they mentioned off handedly a few nights ago.

dazai was all ears but between his writing and his s/o’s work helping sebastian around the manor, they had not had the time.

dazai is himself, per usual.

meaning he is airy and teasing as he practically breezes through the day.

he actually forgot that his s/o had something important to tell him, especially because if it was direly important they would have told him already.

so it slipped from his mind.

constantly being interrupted and unable to tell him, did not settle well with his s/o though.

over the days they grew increasingly more anxious, as their resolve from before starts to chip away.

that is until they mention is again to dazai, who promptly forgot.

his s/o blurts it all out in one go, a mixture of emotions causing the outburst.

at first dazai does not understand and he makes that clear when he asks for his s/o to elaborate.

it takes some time, with several odd comparisons to understand from dazai, but eventually he does get it.

he finds his s/o’s confession intriguing, as the future seems far more curious and open.

he messes up from time to time but even as forgetful as he appears, dazai does his best to correct himself.

he never wants to devalue his s/o and how they want to be perceived or referred to as.

he still uses nicknames when talking to them, toshiko-san being the prominent one.

will correct others if they say something wrong or to upset his s/o about their gender.

he’s very mild about it, stating the facts rather airily but there’s an edge of a warning hidden in it.

he adores his s/o regardless and love them no matter what.

they were able to accept and love him for who and what he was, therefore he sees no issues in reciprocating the same affection.

ー LEONARDO DA VINCI

there were all sorts of things leonardo had come across in his years and more he had heard from comte from his travels through the door.

leo’s s/o was one of those rarities that, unlike before, had stumbled through the magic door from a distant future.

when he had first met them, they were curious and amusing, and he found them to be pleasant company.

of course he had asked questions, on occasions, about the future which was normally the result of his s/o offhandedly mentioning how people revered his work.

the day his s/o approached him and asked if they could talk, fidgeting and nervous, made him worry.

he had grown quite comfortable with his s/o and he had hoped they felt the same.

when the two finally sit down, his s/o has a hard time really finding their words.

leo waits patiently for them though, which eventually encourages them to speak.

they manage to explain that they had been in thought over themselves for some time, even before they traveled back through the door.

the discovery of themself was that not only did they find they had romantic inclinations towards people of all genders, but they themself did not fall into the normal binary.

out of all the suitors leo has the most relaxed response.

he is silent for a short while, while his s/o is busy twisting their sleeves, before he finally begins to ask questions.

most of the questions he asks his s/o are regards to what it means, how this effects them personally, and what more he needs to understand.

he is fairly good about their pronouns and any mistakes he makes he will apologize and correct.

sees his s/o no different, as they are who they are, and he adores them regardless.

they are unique and special to him no matter what.

ー THEODORUS VAN GOGH

despite theo’s persona of being very outwardly gruff and standoffish, he is quite sweet.

still, even knowing that his s/o was having a hard time talking to him about something very important.

something they had finally figured out about themself.

theo is as perceptive as they come though, so the tense nature of his s/o did not go unnoticed by him.

it was one evening when he was returning from work that he found his s/o out in the garden that he decided now was the time to ask them.

they were a bit tense at first, unsure of how to explain exactly what was going on.

theo reassured them, no matter what, that they could talk to him if something was bothering them.

with that encouragement his s/o decided to bite the bullet and tell him.

the words, if they could even be called that, let their lips in a panicked rush that ended with a “please don’t be mad!”

theo genuinely has to ask them to repeat what they said, slower.

they manage, one more time, to say it again, this time at an understandable speed.

after a few questions, theo seems to grasp the subject.

his first response, in fact, is to tell his s/o not to let arthur not lest the writer drag them out to the bar to join him in picking up girls.

he is very respectful towards his s/o pronouns.

would absolutely practice by himself so he could show them how dedicated he is to showing that he loves them regardless.

if his s/o decided to change their appearance, to appear less gendered, he would support.

while he might not have the best advice, he’s willing to try his best for his s/o to make them comfortable.

regardless he loves them and they’re perfect to him either way, so long as they are themself.

ー WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

shakespeare is probably the most curious out of them about his s/o.

so when his s/o says they have something to tell him in the middle of their afternoon tea, he is all ears.

his s/o starts off, reiterating that they are from the future, and some things are different, more people have a better understand of themselves and who they are.

he is probably the easiest to explain to about being panromantic and nonbinary.

shakespeare, while often very vocal, seems to actually stay silent to absorb all that he’s being told.

when his s/o is finished he asks questions, as the topic has piqued his interest.

absolutely would make a comment about how women are beautiful and delicacies of this world, meant to be admired.

he uses this as the base line for understand that his s/o sees many people, of all forms, very beautiful.

would have no problem with using their pronouns correctly.

shakespeare would be curious to learn more about their gender as well, how one discovers themself like his s/o did.

this boy would most certainly go out of his way to adjust his s/o wardrobe for them.

this man is a theater vamp, you can’t tell me he does not have a ginormous walk-in closet in his villa with a huge array of outfits.

catch our dear will actually using gender neutral terms in his plays from time to time.

one particular play he has yet to finish follows a young, beautiful lead who none can define without great respect and admiration.

he happens to be very equip for genderless poetry to his s/o too.

shakespeare knows how to spin words that inspire emotions and his s/o does that to him, so much he has to shower them with verses.

ー WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

talking to wolf is not always the easiest task, as he is quite reserved and silent himself but that was never an issue between him and his s/o.

until his s/o gets too nervous about something very important that they want to say.

it was not that his s/o was worried about what he would think or say, but still they could not shake the general nerves.

it was always a process and part of it was his s/o rationalizing and gathering up their courage.

wolf is probably the easiest to tell.

his s/o explaining their romantic attractions and gender perception of themself does not earn much more then confusion.

he has his s/o explain, asking questions here and there to get a better grasp of the topic.

one thing that does start him is when it clicks that his s/o is attracted to all persons romantically.

he feels a little threatened by that, as if suddenly that means anyone could win the affections of his s/o.

really it just makes him feel a little insecure.

other than that he has no issues.

he does bring it up to his s/o some time later though.

it takes some time to convince him that just because they are panromantic does not mean they will fall for anyone.

especially when they were already in love with him.

wolf does his best to stick to his s/o pronouns. he is probably one of the most diligent ones in the manor.

he practices with himself in his room too.

absolutely will correct the other residents when they use the wrong pronouns.

the usual quiet and reserved wolf will interrupt conversation to make sure they know his s/o prefers to be referred differently.

that surprises everyone, since it’s so out of character.

but it also shows how much he is dedicated to his s/o and their happiness.

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sometimesanartdragon · 4 years ago

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A little argument by me

I am finally jumping into discourse (read the whole thing before you get mad please and thank you)

Okay so I want to walk through something about Undertale and to start let me make myself clear: I AM A NON BINARIY INDIVIDUAL and I am a very big supporter of the trans community at large. There is no trans phobia in my logic and I am constantly working to keep up with a community that seems to keep one to five steps ahead of me.

Now that the disclaimer has been made lets move on

Frisk and Chara can be whatever gender the person playing them wants them to be. End of story. The only point it is wrong is when someone else is imposing their views on you or an AU where they have established sexes

This is my argument:

First many people believe Frisk and Chara are trans/non binary individuals. Well I am here to remind you, that trans and non binary people can use gendered pronouns, not to mention gender fluid people are both non binary and trans and use gendered pronouns. Also just because someone calls Frisk and Chara a specific pronoun does not make them any less trans just not the trans you want them to be.

Second the evidence is very weak to Frisk and Chara being non binary to begin with. I can only remember in one scene where they refer to Frisk as “they” and it was said by monsters who could not even tell that Frisk was human to begin with let alone know what human sexual dimorphism manifests as or what modern human gender identity is.

Not to mention that using they them does not automatically prove someone to be non binary. It just means the other person does not know.

Third Frisk displays all the signs of a “player insert character” little to no personality, simple design, no real speaking roles (aka no voice/voice actor), customizable name (while it turns out to be Chara later you do not know this at the time and therefor play as if this were true making this a valid statement), little to nothing revealed about characters background/history/culture and so on. This means you as the player fill in the blanks. Some fill it in with themselves. Some fill it in with other things. No version is any less valid.

Fourth Tobi Fox has not once supported any theory over the others pertaining to Frisk and Chara’s sex/gender. Therefore there is no official “cannon” In Deltarune your customization of Kris gets thrown out. Again this does not mean “non binary wins” It means you cannot impose your views on the character. meaning no one is technically right. This one scene has been used like crazy for confirmation bias as to the player character’s non binary status but again non binary people were also told that they do not get to choose in this scene. There is no real evidence to imply otherwise.

Finally Tobi Fox has made an amazingly inclusive game. there is representation all over for many people who often do not get representation. Tobi Fox clearly made it a goal to welcome everyone possible to enjoy the game and make something that did not alienate players as other games often do. Why would someone who clearly worked so hard to make sure so many people were included stop before they get to the player character?

People already know that having one type of player character alienates large groups of people. That is why the gaming industry is currently adding more POC and women into their games.(we still have a long way to go) By making Frisk be anything other than everything you are making sure that, those who do feel uncomfortable playing such defined characters, have less chance to get the immersion that others do. imposing one type of non binary still alienates another type. same with trans by imposing that they can only use this set of pronouns you can be triggering dysphoria for other trans individuals.

One thing that has been consistent for this Non binary talk is that those who argue the hardest for Frisk being Non binary is that they seem to be so emotionally invested in Frisk being their type of non binary (and not all non binary people as a whole) \ that seeing them as anything else but their idea of NB is distressing. I have seen anon hate, general announcements of “my way or the highway”, blocking of any blog that even thinks of liking/ rebloging any gendered Frisk that they do not approve of (even if they support NB Frisk), anon threats, even going as far as identifying them as Non binary afab or amab being wrong and bad.

If this is the case I am sorry it is distressing for you. I support your need to have representation but it should not do harm to others/exclude others in the process.

Frisk is literally the most flexible and representative character in gaming today. I have never seen a character with more identities race/sex/gender/age etc, (even when Frisk is gendered it is usually hardly even the focus of the plot it just is a simple fact that no one pays a whole fuck ton of to attention to.)

Often it feels like Undertale is too inclusive as people jump on the main character and fight over what is true and what is not. It seems we were not ready for something so openly welcoming in media.

TLDR: Undertale is an inclusive game and inclusion is not the same thing as representation. Inclusion means everyone gets a share even if you don’t think they should. Frisk needs to be able to be any sex/gender/age/race/ability to properly include all players, and with little solid evidence that Frisk is any ONE thing then Frisk is likely everything.

This has been my TED talk thank you

#Undertale #Undertale discourse #Frisk #Chara #gender identity #Really every time I see this fight I feel so hurt as a non binary person #their versions of NB does not include me and many others I have met #to let you have your way you also are involved in trans erasure #all gender identities are valid #even if you dont like them #sorry if it causes dysphoria we cant be perfect #yes it is erasure you are saying NB has to be this way or its wrong #if an nb person uses a pronoun that is not they/them or other non traditional you exclude it from your list #just tired and frustrated with this mess

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mimixeu · 4 years ago

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⟨ AMANDA ZHOU. CIS FEMALE. SHE / HER. ⟩ though the mist might prevent some from seeing it, MEMPHIS “ MIMI ” YIU is actually a descendant of A R E S. it’s still a question of whether or not the TWENTY - FIVE year old EAST ASIAN STUDIES MAJOR from SEATTLE, WASHINGTON has taken after their godly parent completely, but the demigod is still known to be quite OBSERVANT & SELF - SABOTAGING.

+ DOSSIER. + PINTEREST. + PLAYLIST.

PERSONALITY.

most people find mimi to be quite unassuming at first glance. from a distance, she is twinkling eyes and a pearly - white smile, fun to be around and ever so easy to talk to ; but the closer one tries to get to her, the farther away she runs. you see, she is used to getting hurt, and her powers being at the heart of it all. with time, she has learned the art of self - preservation, and has sworn to never let anybody get too close to her ⸺ lest they end up turning on her, too. it’s this self - preservation that has made her exceptionally good at observing people, figuring them out, learning their secrets. she knows more about other people than they ever do her.

it’s no surprise, therefore, that envy is an emotion that comes exceptionally easy to her, often greeting her like an old friend. seeing large groups of friends around campus often makes mimi yearn for more, for uncomplicated companionship and untainted relationships, but she knows it’s far safer to keep the world at arm’s length. it doesn’t mean that she doesn’t long to be loved and wanted by her peers. the same goes for her romantic life. she has never fallen in love, never had a relationship last long enough for her to become attached. she prefers serial dating to long - term relationships because it means she has control, but mimi romanticises the idea of something more stable, one unaffected by her fears of rejection.

despite her self - sabotaging ways, mimi is known to be very loyal towards the people she does keep, of those who have outlasted the fragile fury and rocky turbulence. ( after all, if they are to be in her life, then she might as well protect them with her entire being. ) she is also relatively good - humoured and likes having a laugh, takes pleasure in making people smile. it is a smile that hides her resentment for ares, as she firmly believes that she could have had something resembling a normal life, even vaguely, if it were not for her relation to him. unlike some of her peers, she does not hold her godly parent to high regard.

FACTS.

the maternal side of mimi’s family hails from the island of hong kong, just off of china. back in the seventies, when mimi’s mother, jingfei, was still just a child, they immigrated to the united states where they first lived in augusta, ga, before settling in seattle, wa, where mimi’s uncle was born.

mimi is fluent in english and greek, as well as cantonese as mandarin, as she was taught to speak both languages from a young age. of the two, she prefers to speak cantonese.

in her early years, mimi’s mother was an air hostess who frequently travelled for her job. this was how she met ares. she had no plans to quit her job, not even when she learned that she was pregnant with what would become their daughter, and continued to work through her pregnancy for as long as it was allowed. for the formative years of mimi’s life, she was essentially raised by her grandparents, only seeing her mother when she was able to take leave.

as a teenager, mimi found herself as camp elektra in silverlake, ca, and it was the only place she felt like she could fit in for the longest time.

she’s been a student at eonia university for five years, and has bounced between several majors. currently, she is majoring in east asian studies, but she has also studied architecture and marine biology in the past.

stable relationship ? never heard of her. due to her abilities, mimi doesn’t have very many close friends. she won’t allow it. instead, she prefers to keep many acquaintances, and probably knows at least one person in every course / house. she is very good at remembering faces and learning names. even if she doesn’t have a lot of people she considers to be friends, she still very much likes to make an effort.

mimi met her father once. he appeared at the gates of camp elektra and was immediately charged into by his fourteen - year - old daughter. in front of a crowd of young demigods, she created a scene, demanding answers from ares, questioning him of her existence and his motivations. it was a rage like she had never felt before. she told him she hated him, and though she was told off for disrespecting one of the gods, she thinks he knows she means it.

POWERS.

limited necromancy : she remembers seeing ghosts as a kid. sometimes they had faces, but more often than not, they were blurred figures ⸺ like silhouettes behind a glass pane. they never stayed for long, but sometimes they would come to her, whispering enticing words and asking for her help. every adult she ever told dismissed them as creations from an overactive child’s mind rather than spirits that genuinely existed. it’s not an ability she’s particularly hone, and over the years it appears to have waned significantly, but mimi still sees them sometimes, in the dead of night when no one is watching. she’ll glance out of the corner of her eye and perhaps a blurred figure smiles at her through the dark.

odikinesis : from a young age, people have always acted peculiarly around her. teachers would be impatient for no reason, often picking on her when she was late or forgot her homework, and even friends and family members had a habit of becoming noticeably more irritable in her presence. mimi never understood why. whatever she did to make it up to them, it only seemed to make matters worse. as a child, it wasn’t something she necessarily intended to happen, and she slowly learned that if she concentrated hard enough, then it didn’t have to happen at all. but more recently, she’s also realised that as much as she can put out the coals, she is capable of fanning the flames, too. it’s become a habit of hers ⸺ in moments of pent - up rage or insecurity ⸺ to find people in varying states of anger and agitation and turn the volume up to one hundred. she knows what she’s doing is wrong, and it always leaves her with an overbearing amount of remorse when all is over. she’s lost plenty of friends as a result, and always vows to learn from it but never does.

other abilities :

sonic scream : it happened only once, when she was a toddler. for hours, young mimi wouldn’t stop crying. she was passed from relative to relative, each attempting to soothe and comfort her, but by hour three, it was clear her tears were not going to relent. then it happened ⸺ the tot let out a terrific wail. it shattered the windows, cracked the mirror down the hall. then all at once, it was over, the crying, the screaming ⸺ all of it was gone. her entire family was left stunned.

telumkinesis : while the ability can be useful, it’s not one mimi chooses to use on a regular basis. although she may incite the occasional brawl and spars along with her brothers and sisters, she rarely involves herself in the chaos, thus she’s never found much need for weapons outside of training.

OUT OF CHARACTER.

hellooooo !!!!!!!! I’m nixie, 24+, she / her pronouns, from the gmt timezone. I heard about this group from my lovely friend, who’d been hyping it up. I’ve been considering rejoining groups for a while since my indie blogs have been stressing me tf out lately, so I decided to join on a whim and now I am here to bring you my misfortunate chaos baby, mimi yiu, who never asked for any of this but lost her ticket out ✌🏼 I’m SUPER excited to start writing with you guys ! feel free to look through any of the links listed in this post or on my page !

#euintro #𝕗𝕦𝕣𝕪 𝕞𝕒𝕜𝕖𝕥𝕙 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕨𝕠𝕞𝕒𝕟 ♡ intro.#I wanted to repost this with the new graphic 🥰#also #she has a full doc now and !!!

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onyxiana-is-obsessed · 5 years ago

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You’re Alive | Shoto Todoroki x Reader

AN: Hiya! This is a soulmate au cuz I love them! Length: 1.4k Pronouns used: She/her

Summary: Soulmate AU where whatever you write on your skin appears on your soulmate’s. Todoroki’s been trying for years to reach you and eventually comes to the sad conclusion you died. Until, he saw words on his wrist, he didn’t write.

Full Name: (y/f/n) Quirk: (y/q) Age: 15

Around the age of 10, everyone gets the ability to talk to their soulmate through their skin. Whatever someone writes on their skin, will appear on their soulmate. However, that wasn’t the case for Shoto Todoroki. He had heard stories from his mother about soulmates, in fact, she often told him these as bedtime stories, to help ease his mind about training and help him sleep. He loved hearing them and deep down, he couldn’t wait to meet his soulmate. When he turned 10, he was beyond ecstatic. Todoroki counted the days till his birthday just for that. His sister helped him pick out the color and everything. She even helped think of something cute to write.

Hi <3 nice to meet you

Then came the waiting game. He waited all day excitedly but nothing. No response. He was so upset, he spent all night crying. His sister did her best to console him, telling him that maybe his soulmate wasn’t 10 yet. Maybe they were seven or eight or maybe they were nine and going to turn 10, he just needed to keep at it.

So he did. Every. Single. Day. Every morning Todoroki would wake up and write ‘Hey’ with a heart and that was it. He did every single day for five years and never once got a response.

This morning he was running a bit late. He had stayed up extra late last night to account for some homework he neglected to do earlier that day. Therefore, he woke up late in the morning. Once Todoroki was in class though, he rolled up his sleeve and on his wrist and started to write, but the second the pen touched his skin, he stopped.

Why bother? He wasn’t gonna get a response anyway. No way his soulmate was under the age of ten, still! Maybe… maybe they died? Todoroki sighed and placed the pen down, trying to focus on something else for the time being but he couldn’t. It hurt… his heart hurt. It hurt all over.

As Todoroki sat in silence, he felt tingling on his wrist. Confused, he lifted his hand up and pulled his sleeve down. His eyes widened and he felt tears prick his eyes.

Hiya <3

The handwriting was so cute and the heart was so perfect. Still startled, he grabbed his pen and wrote down his normal greeting. ‘Hey’ with a heart. Right after he watched as the “omg x10” appeared on his wrists.

YOU RESPONDED! YOU’RE ALIVE

He let out a little laugh at that and placed his forehead against his palm and closed his eyes.

“You’re alive…” He whispered, doing his best to keep his tears to himself.

“Todoroki, are you ok?” He heard, looking to the side he saw Midoriya. He gave him a nod and a rare smile.

“They’re alive. My soulmate… they’re alive.” Midoriya gave him the biggest smile. Todoroki had told him and a couple of other classmates when they had caught his message on his wrist. He didn’t bother hiding it and they were all very apologetic but also optimistic.

“I’m so happy for you! Uraraka!” He smiled as he saw the girl approach with her own soulmate at her side, Bakugou. Who knew? (Yeah I ship them, fight me)

“Hiya, Deku!” She smiled in her cheery tone. “What’s up?”

“Todoroki’s soulmate responded! What did they say?” The three, Bakugou included, walked towards the duo-haired male and leaned over to read what was written.

Hey, don’t go silent now!

“You guys should totally meet!” Uraraka smiled, grabbing the pen out of Todoroki’s hand and writing out a message, trying to match her friend’s writing.

What school do you go to?

“H-hey! Uraraka, that’s not very nice.” Midoriya stuttered out, trying to stop his friend.

“Yeah, they’re his soulmate, let him talk,” Bakugou added.

“It’s quite ok,” Todoroki said, as he watched the message appear on his hand.

I attend (y/h/s), you?

I attend UA hs. Uraraka responded, she loved doing this. Almost instantly there was a response.

NO WAY! What class?!

Class 1-A; Hero course.

That’s amazing! Congrats on getting in! I wish I had that sort of talent!

“Ooh, they’re so cute!” Uraraka gushed, attracting more attention.

“What’s going on here?” Kaminari asked, Sero and Kirishima behind him. This caught the attention of Jirou, Momo, Tsuyu, Mina, and Hagakure.

“Half ‘n half’s soulmate responded.” Bakugou said, leaning against a desk.

“Congrats!” Kaminari smiled. “Told ya they would!” Momo read the words on his wrist as did the others.

“Introduce yourself,” Mina said.

“I would if Uraraka returned my pen.” The brunette giggled and did so. Todoroki took it and introduced himself.

I’m Shoto Todoroki, what’s your name?

Hey, that’s a real familiar name! I’m (y/f/n)

“What a cute name!” The girls cheered.

“You guys should meet at the dorms! We get to see them too!” Mina pushed.

“Shouldn’t their meeting be private though? It’s the first time they’re going to see each other.” Kirishima argued, causing Mina to pout.

“I suppose! I still wanna see them!”

“You can see them AFTER the two meet,” Jirou reassured. Aizawa walked in, so Todoroki kept the writing to a minimum but still suggest the two meet at the UA dorms, since that’s where he was currently staying. They agreed and said they’d be there on Saturday at 9 am, which was fine with Todoroki.

~**~

Everyone was excited at this point. Todoroki was ready with his casual wear, which Kirishima and Kaminari insisted on helping with. Everyone had gathered around, waiting with Todoroki since he was ready by 8:20. It was only 8:30 so they still had time, so he didn’t mind. Even Bakugou was here, granted Uraraka dragged him here, but he didn’t mind waiting.

(f/n), however, had arrived early as well. She didn’t want to be late, so by the time she was here, it was only 8:30 am. What if he wasn’t ready? Her nerves were getting to her. Shaking her head, she opened the door to the dorms, which were unlocked (Why? For the purposes of the story! Lock ya damn doors people!). She heard a lot of chatter, so she quietly shut the door and walked towards the voices. She peeked around the wall and her eyes widened.

So many people!

“I wonder what they look like! I bet they’re attractive!” Mina giggled. She turned to look at Todoroki. “What do you think, Todoroki?” He was pulled from his thoughts as he looked up at her.

“What?” The group laughed and (f/n) looked over at him. So that was Todoroki. Now she remembered him, he placed 2nd in the UA Sports Festival and he’s Endeavor’s son! The number 1 hero’s son was her soulmate! She almost screamed but pushed it down… deep down.

She inhaled, fixed her hair, checked her outfit, and stepped away from the wall. Bakugou was the first to spot her and his eyes widened.

“Hey.” He said, getting everyone's attention. The girl’s cheeks turned red as she looked at everyone. She gave them a wave.

“Hello, I-I’m (y/f/n). Nice to meet you.” It was deadly silent as Todoroki took in her form. She was beautiful. (long/short) hair, sparkling (e/c), (your figure) body, and (s/c) complexion.

“SHE’S SO PRETTY!” Mina exclaimed as she jumped on the girl to hug her. (f/n) was taken aback but the response calmed her nerves. She was pulled away by Sero and Kaminari.

“Leave her alone, come on, it's time for us to leave anyway,” Kirishima added. Everyone gave her a smile and a wave, except Bakugou who just gave her a nod and the group left.

“H-hello.” She stuttered as she took in his form.

“Hey.” He said, his normal stoic form gone, now replaced by one of wonder and shock. He watched as her smile contorted into a frown and tears welled up in her eyes. “W-what’s wrong?” She shook her head and sniffled, trying to keep the tears from falling.

“C-can I hug you?” She inquired, her voice cracking.

“Of course.” With that, the two hugged and she could no longer hold her tears back. She sniffled and he held her tightly, rubbing her back and hair.

“I-I thought you were dead. I’m so happy you… you’re alive.” He nodded, feeling his own emotions ready to burst out.

“Me too. Thank you for not leaving me.” The two pulled away and pressed their lips together. They were complete now. They were both alive and well and together, they’d conquer any obstacles that dared to stop them.

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serialbydesign · 4 years ago

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Defining Psychopathy

Psychopathy, often confused with sociopathy, is an anti-social personality disorder. Both mental health conditions are characterized by:

Need for violence.

Disregard for social norms, conventions, and laws.

Lack of remorse & guilt.

Deceitful nature.

However, sociopaths usually are emotionally unstable and tend to act on compulsion, lacking patience and planning. Psychopaths are attentive to details, calculated, and plan every action they intend to pursue – be it legal or illegal. Therefore, they leave few clues and take fewer risks. Over time, multiple conceptions of psychopathy developed – most of which overlap, but some contradict others.

Just like sociopathy, psychopathy can be caused by genetic and environmental factors. This means children can inherit it from the parents but also develop it during the lifetime after abuse, emotional shock, or living in an unsuitable environment. But one can also acquire psychopathy after a traumatic brain injury. It has been discovered that the prefrontal cortex is responsible for our social behavior and acquired psychopathy is often linked to trauma in this area.

Another prevalent theory states that psychopathy is genetically inherited and can be triggered by environmental factors, while sociopathy is only developed throughout life. No matter which theory we follow, Dexter Morgan is much closer to being a psychopath than a sociopath. However, he does struggle with keeping his Dark Passenger under control at times.

Dexter Morgan, The Psychopath

Dexter Morgan is a forensic expert, but he most frequently calls himself a blood spatter analyst. Even though he commits horrendous crimes throughout the show, we root for him and find bits of ourselves in his narratives. We see how he evolves from a cold-blooded serial killer to a cold-blooded serial killer who cares about some of those around him. The personal way in which he narrates his experiences further increase the connection we feel with this character. He often contemplates on aspects of the day-to-day life using first person pronouns in plural forms, which works on our subconscious. This is one of the many techniques used by real-life psychopaths, and Dexter Morgan proves again and again that they work.

“They make it look so easy, connecting with another human being, it’s like no one told them it’s the hardest thing in the world.” – Dexter Season 5 episode 12, “The Big One”

Dexter’s sense of righteousness instilled by his adoptive father fires up conflicted feelings on his morality. On the one side, he murders people in cold blood and enjoys it. But on the other, he gets rid of “bad seeds” the justice system could not charge. Ultimately, he is saving lives while satisfying his dark passenger, being a modern vigilante.

“We all make rules for ourselves. It’s these rules that help define who we are. So when we break those rules we risk losing ourselves and becoming something unknown.” – Dexter Season 7 Finale, “Let’s Give the Boy a Hand”

These, together with his continuous struggle to control his urges and do as little damage as possible to society, make us all feel sympathy for Dexter. Because we know the terrible things that happened to him, we understand what caused this behavior. But would he feel the same about us?

The Profile of Dexter Morgan

Dexter Morgan is persuasive, intelligent, deceitful, and a psychopath.

He killed well over 100 people (at least 134 documented cases) and shows no remorse about this – in fact, he believes he benefits society. Moreover, he likes to take trophies – a single drop of blood from each of his victims, carefully placed on a glass slide. Dexter has a ritual that is full of meaning for each of his victim’s crimes and likes to confront them and let them know he knows what they did. He feels empowered by this, he feels he finally has control.

Dexter is neat, sometimes compulsive, and likes to keep order in his life. He always plans his actions and waits for the best and safest time to make a move. This is what differentiates himself from a sociopath. He likes being and working by himself because using his “mask” is tiring. But even though he has an anti-social behavior, his social skills are way above average.

“People fake a lot of human interactions, but I feel like I’ve faked them all and I fake them very well. And that’s my burden, I guess.”

Dexter Morgan can be best psychoanalyzed using Freud’s structural model of the psychic apparatus which defines three dimensions of the mind:

The id represents our uncoordinated instincts, with a focus on pleasure and desire. The id is often associated with evil, lust, sin, and the like. The super-ego is the moralizing element, responsible for assimilating social norms and behaviors. It’s the virtuous, pure, and wholesome dimension. The ego, a realistic and rational influence on our thought process, usually mediates these two antagonizing elements.

Even though most individuals naturally balance these three dimensions, Dexter Morgan struggles do so. He spent all his life observing those around him and trying to mimic their behavior, knowing he will never act like them naturally.

Dexter’s Id

After the age of 6 years old, most individuals suppress their id and manage to focus their mental and emotional energy towards following social norms. But Dexter was not able to do so and, as a consequence, his id rules his life. Even as a child, Dexter enjoyed killing animals. In fact, taking a life is the only thing that makes Dexter feel alive. Sex does not interest Dexter, which we can also blame on the trauma he suffered as a child at a critical age for his (among others) psychosexual development.

Dexter’s Super-Ego

Dexter refers to the people surrounding him as humans, feeling detached from his own humanity. There is plenty of evidence throughout the show that demonstrate Dexter has a seriously underdeveloped super-ego if any. His adoptive father, Harry, created an artificial super-ego dimension in his mind through a few strict guidelines. However, Dexter’s subconscious never adopted them as its own and, as a result, he sometimes struggles to follow them.

Dexter does not understand religion. The only higher power he knew was his adoptive father, who also created the code. He has difficulties in developing real relationships of any nature with those around him but has gotten very good at faking them.

Dexter’s Ego

Instead of balancing out the 2 other dimensions, Dexter uses his ego to hide them from society. He goes above and beyond to hide his true self. He fights the recurrent feeling of emptiness that can only be relieved by killing.

How Dexter Morgan Came to Be a Psychopath

There are a few theories about how Dexter became what he is, but they all rely on the emotional and psychological trauma he suffered as a child.

Dexter saw his mother brutally murdered when he was only 6 years old and sat in a shipping container in a pool of her (and others’) blood for 2 days. This affected his emotional development and understanding of social norms, which he has difficulties adapting to.

Dexter understands he is a disturbed individual. But even though admitting the problem is often times the first step to resolving it, psychopathy has no cure (yet). There are no pills, vaccines, or therapies that erase traumatizing memories from our subconscious, induce empathy, or warm up a murderer’s blood.

But Dexter lacked a mother figure during his most important years, even before she was murdered. He was deprived of the warmth, closeness, and affection only a mother-son relationship would provide. Even though loving, his mother was not as present in his life as she should have been – and neither was his father. They were both addicted to drugs and involved themselves with dangerous figures, which ultimately lead to their demise. Even though a loving, caring family took him in at the age of 6, the damage was already done.

“I was there. I saw my mother’s death. A buried memory, forgotten all these years. They climbed inside me that day. And it’s been with me ever since. My dark passenger.” – Dexter Season 1 Episode 11 “Truth Be Told”

Moreover, his need for power and control were overindulged in a try to create a warm environment for the troubled child. But this only increased the distance between Dexter and humanity, between an impressionable child and his remorse and guilt.

Dexter Morgan & His Dark Passenger

Most of the time, Dexter Morgan is able to suppress his passenger. But it still needs to be let out from time to time, and when it does, Dexter refers to the process as the Dark Passenger “taking over”. He already knows that it will get out one way or the other, so he doesn’t try to fight it. In fact, Dexter finds comfort and acceptance in his Dark Passenger, the only entity that accepts him for who he is.

“I love Halloween. The one time of year when everyone wears a mask… not just me. People think it’s fun to pretend you’re a monster. Me, I spend my life pretending I’m not. Brother, friend, boyfriend – all part of my costume collection. Some people might call me a fraud. Let’s see if it will fit. I prefer to think of myself as a master of disguise.” – Dexter Season 1, Episode 4

Dexter manages to separate and balance out his natural self and the façade brilliantly. He is seen as a loving son, brother and as a reliable and helpful coworker.

The Code of Harry

Harry was more than just Dexter’s adoptive father. Together with Aaron and Deb, he was his family in the most real sense of the word.

“If I were capable of love, how I would have loved Harry.”

Since they could not stop Dexter’s urge to take life away, Harry decided to channel it. Therefore, Harry developed a code together with his therapist in which he confided about Dexter’s condition. As his father put it, the code focuses on survival and doing as little wrong to the world as possible. Dexter needs to be sure he kills the right person and to have proof for his deeds. But above all, he needs to never, ever risk having collateral victims.

Even though frustrating and rage-inducing at times, Dexter abides by the Code of Harry. However, he does take advantage of technicalities to satisfy his dark passenger at times, racing with the police and even hiding evidence in order to punish criminals himself even with his friends’ and coworker’s career on the line.

“Without the Code of Harry, I’m sure I would have committed a senseless murder in my youth. Just to watch the blood flow.” – Dexter Season 1 Episode 3, “Popping Cherry”

The Morality of Dexter

Yes, Dexter Morgan is brutal, ruthless, and cruel. Ever since Harry Morgan took him in, Dexter made efforts to comply with social norms. Even though he pretended for decades, he makes efforts to preserve appearances every day. None of the behaviors he adopted for so many years got under his skin, none of them come naturally even after all this time.

But this doesn’t mean Dexter Morgan is stone-hearted or completely devoid of feelings. After all, he does feel anger, hate, and affection and admits that he needs the people in his life. He realizes how scared he is of losing his family.

Even though supposedly rudimentary, some of these feelings scare and intimidate Dexter Morgan because he doesn’t know how to handle them.

#private posts: all #private posts: muse inspo

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suzyundertale · 5 years ago

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Non-binary characters in Undertale and Deltarune

A lot of people don’t notice this, but there are several major characters in Undertale that are referred to exclusively with they/them pronouns. In this post, I’ll go over them, and I’ll explain why so many non-binary people identify with them.

Napstablook and Monster Kid

Both Napstablook and Monster Kid are referred to only with they/them pronouns. This suggests that they are non-binary.

Of course, even with characters being exclusively referred to with they/them, there will be people who say it’s intentionally “ambiguous”, or an oversight, or what have you.

Fortunately, we have definitive evidence this isn’t the case.

In the first printing of the official Undertale art book, featuring commentary from Toby Fox himself, these two characters were mistakenly referred to with he/him pronouns.

However, when this was pointed out to Toby, he told me that it was a typo and it would be fixed in the next run - which it promptly was.

This serves as confirmation that referring to these two with he/him pronouns is incorrect, and they/them are the correct pronouns.

Frisk

Frisk is the protagonist and player character of Undertale. It’s worth noting that, for the majority of Undertale, you’re definitely supposed to think that Frisk is a player self-insert character, a blank slate for you to project yourself onto. You’re tricked into thinking you name them, and they have an ambiguous skin color and gender.

However, in the True Pacifist ending, it’s revealed that they have their own name: Frisk.

This reveal also serves as a reveal that Frisk isn’t you, or an in-game representation of you. They’re their own person. They’re a character that exists within this universe. It’s always been just them. Not you or anyone else.

I mean, why would a character who’s meant to be “you” have their own name? Toby never calls Frisk “Frisk” in merchandise or interviews, simply calling them “The Human”, because their name is a major spoiler for the True Pacifist ending. It’s quite easy to only call them “The Human”, he has no trouble doing it now, so if they’re meant to be “you”, there’s no reason to give them a name at all.

In the True Pacifist ending, after Asriel returns everyone’s SOULs, everyone magically learns Frisk’s name (except Napstablook, who closed their blinds upon seeing the flash of light.) Suddenly, everyone knows who Frisk is.

And… all of their friends still use they/them pronouns for them.

If they’re clearly meant to be not you, then surely it would be easier for Toby to hammer in that point by suddenly having everyone refer to Frisk with different pronouns. But he doesn’t, because Frisk isn’t a girl or a boy. Because the monsters were never wrong to use they/them for Frisk. Those were always their pronouns, and they still are.

Chara

Chara is the character we name at the beginning of Undertale. However, this doesn’t mean that they literally are you.

Chara has their own backstory - they had a family, they had likes and dislikes. They’re not meant to be an in-game representation of the player. If they were, there’s about a million better ways Toby could have done that. Like, you know, not giving them a clearly defined backstory and personality. Why would someone who’s supposed to be “the player” be so… different from so many people? A lot of people don’t like chocolate or flowers or knives. Actually, I’d guess that most people don’t like all of those things at once. But Chara does.

In any case, Chara is referred to exclusively with they/them or, occasionally, it/its pronouns. Their own brother, Asriel - their best friend and undoubtedly the person they were closest to - uses only they/them pronouns when speaking of them.

Kris

From the very beginning of Deltarune, it’s made very clear that Kris is NOT a self-insert of any kind, even more clear than Frisk and Chara. Whether you believe the red SOUL is literally the player or not, Kris is clearly their own person fighting against someone for control of their body. They have their own clearly defined personality, likes and dislikes, etc. I really don’t think there’s any way to reasonably argue that Kris is meant to be a representation of the player. You don’t get to choose anything about them. Their personality, their likes and dislikes, their hobbies, their past, all of that is set in stone.

So why, then, would their gender be up to player interpretation? Why would that be the one single thing we get to decide about Kris? It, quite simply, does not make any sense.

Seam

Seam is a lot less obvious than the other ones - but if you play through Deltarune, you might notice something about all the dialogue where people refer to Seam.

Seam is never referred to with any pronouns. The way it’s written seems very deliberate, in my opinion, so I don’t think that this is a coincidence.

In the real world, some non-binary people elect to use no pronouns, as well, and ask to be only referred to by name. Seam may be representation for this. Honestly, I think it’s really great of Toby to include a character that doesn’t use pronouns. All the other non-binary characters in Undertale and Deltarune use they/them, but that’s not always the case for real non-binary people. In real life, non-binary people can use all sorts of pronouns, or no pronouns at all.

At first it may seem confusing or difficult to not use any pronouns to refer to someone. But if you reread this section, you’ll notice I’ve never used any third-person pronouns. It took a bit of thinking, but it’s actually quite easy once you get used to it!

Kris, Frisk, and Chara are never explicitly stated to be non-binary. That’s true. Some people make the argument that because it’s never explicitly stated, it can’t be canon. That is not true at all. To demonstrate this, I will use an example from Undertale.

Take Alphys. From the Mettaton Quiz Show segment of Undertale, we can learn that Alphys has a crush on both Undyne, a woman, and Asgore, a man. Therefore, Alphys is canonically bisexual. Alphys herself never states that she is bisexual. No one else ever says that Alphys is bisexual. In fact, the word “bisexual” is never used once in Undertale at all. But Alphys being bisexual is still canon.

Therefore, it’s possible for Kris, Frisk, and Chara to be canonically non-binary without it ever being outright stated.

But why? Wouldn’t it be easier for Toby to explicitly state it? Sure, maybe it would be easier to write - but that doesn’t mean it’s better writing. Finding a way to somehow mention a character’s gender would most likely come across as forced and unnatural. After all, most people don’t openly discuss their gender or sexuality in everyday situations.

So, Kris doesn’t need to explicitly say “I’m non-binary and use they/them pronouns” to be a character who is non-binary and uses they/them pronouns. They just… are. The same goes, of course, for Frisk and Chara.

They’re only ever referred to with they/them pronouns by close friends and family, and we’re given no reason to believe they’re anything other than non-binary. There’s absolutely no reason to use any pronouns other than they/them for these characters.

If you meet someone in real life, and notice that everyone around you is only using they/them pronouns for that person… well, it’s pretty safe to assume that person is non-binary. Even if you never hear anyone say “This Person Is Non-binary”, you don’t have an excuse to start calling them a he or a she. It’s the same with the kids.

The fact is that Frisk and Kris are no different than other video game protagonists. No one tries to argue that Ninten or Ness or Lucas are girls. No one tries to argue that Samus is a boy. It’s only when the protagonist is non-binary that people try to argue otherwise.

Why?

Some people may ask, well, why is this important? Why can’t I just headcanon them as whatever I want? They’re not even real!

Well, you see, non-binary characters are really rare in fiction. Especially as a protagonist, and especially a human protagonist. When you see a non-binary or genderless character in fiction, it’s usually going to be something non-human, like an alien, or otherwise non-sentient, like a robot. This happens a lot, and it dehumanizes actual non-binary people. Even worse, transgender characters in fiction in general are often treated like jokes, or something to make fun of. Like they’re not even a person.

So, to a non-binary person, to see a non-binary protagonist who’s a human being, like them, is.. very important. It’s something you might not understand if you’ve grown up seeing people like yourself on TV or in games or books all the time. It brings comfort to non-binary people to see someone like themself in such a popular video game. It gives them reassurance that “yes, we do exist”, as many people in the real world deny the existence of non-binary people. In both Undertale and Deltarune, no one makes a big deal of Frisk or Chara or Kris being non-binary. No one ever challenges it. No one ever misgenders them. And that’s incredibly comforting for so many non-binary people. For once, for once, they can be immersed in a world where people like them are unanimously accepted, and treated with respect.

That’s why so many non-binary people feel hurt when they see people in fandom misgendering the kids, as well. It’s a denial of their identities, it’s a denial that non-binary people exist in the Undertale and Deltarune universes. Even though it’s just a fictional character, it can still impact your view of actual non-binary people - if you can’t even respect a fictional character’s pronouns, what does that say about how you treat real people?

In addition, a lot of trans and non-binary people in the Undertale fandom are harassed over this. When they try to defend Kris, Frisk, and Chara’s pronouns, people will inevitably throw hate at them. People who identify with these characters are met with mockery and hostility. Unfortunately, there are transphobic people in the Undertale fandom. Misgendering the kids validates those people. It tells those people, “even if someone uses only they/them pronouns, it’s okay to call them a he or a she.” It tells them, “you’re right to think these people are unreasonable. you’re right to think these people don’t exist.” And that’s wrong. That’s not true at all.

#ut #deltarune #undertale #analysis #save

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i-guess-im-a-fanfic-writer-now · 5 years ago

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hiya, so for today, i’ve got a short fic, about 2000 words. i haven’t mentioned i’m a fan of Doctor Who, but like,,, i fucking love that show, and therefore i have decided to write a little fic where the Doctor comforts reader after a rough day with their relatives on New Year’s Eve,, also in this fic i used he/him pronouns for the Doctor because i’m super queer and i have a massive crush on 13, and i’m thinking of maybe doing something else for a fic with her, idk what i’m doing yet

i hope you enjoy this! also i want all of you to know that my precious cat is sleeping with her face on my head and she is purring so loudly i can barely hear myself think and i love her

i hope you have an okay day today, make sure to take care of you

tw: mentions of physical abuse, some swearing, verbal/emotional abuse?

_________________________

It was New Year’s Eve, and you yet again had no choice but to hang out with your relatives. It usually sucked for the most part. You had no choice but to sit at the table with all of them while they chatted and watched television together, screaming and laughing extremely loudly. You’d have to deal with their views, that were pretty much the opposite of yours.

It was definitely going to go badly, that you knew. You just weren’t sure for how long after it you’d be physically unable to leave your room out of exhaustion from being around your relatives.

The entire morning, everyone was running around, trying to get everything ready. You thought about leaving your room and helping, but immediately rejected the idea, knowing that it would cause you more harm in the long run: being insulted and picked apart for not doing things “the right way” would be a bad way to start the morning.

*I’ll just stay in my room probably. At least for the next couple hours*, you thought, already tired.

You checked a few news headlines and went over to social media, talking to your friends through texts. It lifted your mood a bit.

A few hours later, there was a knock at your bedroom door, and you quickly hid your phone as whoever knocked barged into the room without warning. Pulling your covers over you a bit more, you pretended like this sudden intrusion awoke you, and you sleepily gazed at the person in your doorway.

“Get up, I need your help. It’s noon. Why are you so lazy? Nevermind, just get up already.”

You complied, slowly sitting up. The person left your room in a hurry, shutting the door on their way out.

After getting dressed and going through your morning routine as quickly as possible, you went off to help our relatives with setting up for the night. It was quite hellish: they were yelling and screaming, and insults were being thrown around the room even more aggressively than on normal days. It was really wearing you out and you were already beginning to feel like shit, so every so often, you would go hide in the bathroom to get away from all the madness.

Some hours later, everything was set up, and you went back to your room to calm yourself down. You pulled your phone out of it’s hiding spot and looked through your social media, hoping for some messages from friends. You messaged with a few people, and then decided to send a message to the Doctor, hoping he’d receive it, wherever he was. He’d dropped you off with your relatives for the holidays, and you hadn’t seen him in little over a week now. You really wished you had told him about how your relatives treated you, but you were too afraid to scare him. You were too afraid that he would get angry. What if he got mad at you for not telling him earlier? What if he got mad at them, for how they were acting? And if he did, what would he do about it?

Since you found each other, you’d seen so many worlds, beautiful or horrifying, you’d gone on countless adventures, finding monsters and creatures and people in need of help. He brought you to places with fantastic views, and you sometimes got to relax from all the action that was going on during most of your trips. You loved the action, but sometimes, a nice view, whether it was a sunset on another planet or a supernova seen from the TARDIS, was quite refreshing. The Doctor would stay next to you, speaking of his home planet, Gallifrey, or of the places he’s visited, or of things he’d done in worlds with his previous companions. You enjoyed every second of it. You got to see places that barely any other human had.

After a while, he responded. He was off doing something on his own, and you really didn’t like that. He always got in trouble, and you liked being there to help him out. You liked being there for him, in hopes it would make him feel less lonely. He certainly felt like family to you, real family.

He said he’d be there for you at the end of the day if you needed him, but as soon as you wanted to reply to him, there was a loud bang. Out of sudden panic, you hid your phone again, turning it off before doing so, and sure enough, the same relative barged into the room.

“What the fuck are you doing? Are you hiding something from me?”

“No, I’m just relaxing.”

“Shut up and don’t fucking talk back to me. We’re having dinner in a bit, start getting ready.”

They left your room once again. In half an hour, you chose some clothes that you liked and matched well. You put them on and looked in the mirror for a second, making sure your shoulders were relaxed and your jaw wasn’t too clenched.

You left your room, leaving your phone again. You really didn’t need your relatives to know of the Doctor, because if they found out, they’d probably take your phone and prevent you from ever going outside without at least one of them present.

During the dinner, it felt like all your energy was being sucked out by your relatives. Insults were being thrown at everyone, and you just sat there, barely touching your plate after ten minutes of being there. The name calling wasn’t stopping, and your relatives were already acting pretty drunk: yelling, laughing uncontrollably at things that weren’t actually funny, slurring their words in an unusual manner. You were starting to get tired, and excused yourself to the bathroom to relax for a minute or two.

When you got back, they were all watching television, criticizing everyone on the show. You cautiously asked your parent if you could leave and go to your room, and thankfully, they accepted. You excused yourself.

When you got to your phone again, you sent a message to the Doctor, asking if he could park the TARDIS in your room, just for a bit. He accepted, and you hastily asked him to turn off the brakes of his time machine. Moments later, the blue box stood in front of you, and slowly, the doors opened. A familiar face looked out, and you felt so relieved, finally seeing him after all this time.

You jumped off your bed and hugged him tight, him hugging you back even tighter, and in that moment, you felt at home.

“Hi! I missed you, Doctor!”, you said softly, smiling at him. He returned the smile.

“I’d like to show you something. Shall we?”

You nodded, and the two of you walked in, closing the doors behind you. You greeted the TARDIS.

“So, Y/N, how was your day?” He had a cheerful grin on his face, and as much as you hated to bring the mood down, you really couldn’t pretend right now: you just didn’t have this kind of energy. He pushed a ton of buttons and pulled a lever.

“It, um, honestly.. it kind of sucked. Thank you for coming.”

“What’s wrong?” A concerned expression now rested on his face.

You bit your lip and crossed your arms in a protective stance. “I don’t.. I don’t have the best relationship with my relatives. They can be... intense, sometimes.”

A small moment of hesitation from him.

“What exactly do you mean by “intense”?” He slowly came closer to you.

You looked at the ground and shook your head.

“Y/N, you can tell me. It’s alright.” His voice softened, though his face was still showing worry, and you started feeling guilty about it. Maybe you’re doing the wrong thing, telling him about it. Maybe you should just stay quiet. He’s already got enough to worry about, he doesn’t need to worry about you and your relatives on top of all he was dealing with.

“I just... it’s okay. I’m okay.”

“Clearly not. You said your day sucked. I’m here for you. You know, I always talk about me. Tell me. It’s okay. I’ve got you.” His voice was almost down to a whisper, and he gently put his hand on your arm.

“I don’t know.. I, uh, I don’t know if should... if I should tell you. I don’t want to worry you. I don’t want to worry you more.”

“Y/N, what is it? Please. Let me help.”

When you looked at his eyes, he was making those big round eyes of his, as he usually did when he was sad but wouldn’t say anything.

“I’m sorry.. I didn’t mean to make you sad. It’s okay, really.” You smiled weakly.

“What do you mean by “intense”? Do they..” A sudden expression of sad realization came across his face. “Do they hurt you?”

Your stomach dropped and you for a while, you didn’t respond. Eventually, you mumbled “It’s okay” again, and he pulled you into a hug.

“I’ve got you. You can talk to me, you know? You’re my friend. I’ll always be here. If you don’t want to, you’ll never have to go back. Maybe I could.. adopt you? What about that?” He smiled.

“I’d... I think I’d like that.”

A few minutes of comfortable silence passed by as you were still hugging.

“Sometimes.. sometimes they call me names. Like.. like stupid, and stuff like that..”

“They’re arseholes. You’re really smart. And I think you’re pretty fantastic. Why else would I take you with me?”

You smiled. “Thank you, Doctor.” You didn’t really believe him, because it was hard believing nice things about yourself, no matter who they came from, but you knew he wouldn’t lie about this.

“Can I ask you a question?”

You nodded.

“Do they.. do they hit you?” His features softened again, and you could feel your heart skip a beat from the anxiety of telling him about things.

You nodded again, but much weaker.

“I’m sorry. All of that is horrible. None of this is okay. I’ve got you. I’ll always be here. I want you to know that you didn’t deserve any of what they’ve done to you, alright? I want you to know that. Please don’t ever doubt that, Y/N.”

“Thank you.” Your voice sounded more like a squeak at this point, from how quiet it was.

“We’ll figure this out”, he whispered. When the hug ended, he took your hand and led you to the doors of the TARDIS.

“Hey, I wanted to show you something, remember? I thought it might cheer you up a bit.”

When he opened the doors, you could see countless stars, maybe even galaxies. It was beautiful. All types of galaxies were there: spiral, peculiar, irregular, and more. There were so many colours and lights. You’ve always been fascinated by space and stars, which was one of the reasons you’d gone with the Doctor after you met him. His knowledge and appreciation for space always impressed you.

The two of you sat down at the edge of the doors, though you hesitated.

“There’s a shield around the TARDIS, so we can’t fall out.”

You smiled. “This is beautiful. Thank you.”

“Earth”, he pointed somewhere far away, yet very precise, “is there. See, that galaxy over there? Yeah, that one. Earth is right down there.”

“It’s so small.”

“But it is quite important.” He smiled at you and squeezed your hand gently.

“Yeah.” You put your head on his shoulder. He often let you do that. He even told you it’s comforting for him. “You’re wonderful, you know that?”

“Oh, thank you..” You could tell you caught him a bit off guard. He began pointing out other galaxies, telling you their names, and sometimes told you about some of the planets in the galaxies, of their stars, of those who live there.

You had no idea how long you stayed there, listening to him speak of planets you hadn’t visited yet, of things he’d seen while travelling. After a while, you’d forgotten everything about your relatives. You knew you’d be okay with him. You’d figure it all out and he’d be there, and you would feel at home.

#doctor who fanfic #doctor who fanfiction #doctor who fic #ninth doctor x reader #tenth doctor x reader #eleventh doctor x reader #doctor x reader #the doctor x reader #doctor who x reader #the doctor x abused reader #doctor x abused reader

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elegant-etienne · 5 years ago

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Catharsis

WARNINGS: Abusive/toxic relationship talk generalized abuse talk, drugging and substance abuse, suicide, self-loathing, externalized and internalized transphobia, complicated feelings and bitterness, sex talk. This ship was Yikes On Bikes.

And a special shout out to @avenai / @stormandozone for the tarot reading mentioned a few times in this (and @likeadistantstar / @celestialalignment who recently posted an amazing piece about responding to tarot readings!), that led me to think about how Etienne wanted to finally make peace with things. I decided they’d write their ex-husband a final letter.

Don't hold your breath, forget you ever saw me at my best You don't deserve what you don't respect Don't deserve what you say you love and then neglect

- Lucy Dacus, Night Shift

"This is Sizha'to. He doesn't talk."

You used to wear that mortarboard hat. Even in the Quicksand, really, it was adorably clueless. And as I quickly found out, you were alright writing notes back and forth. I perched on a stool, leaning over in the crush of bodies and sweat and folks looking to drink, forget, and get laid, not necessarily in that order. You were alright if we spoke slowly. You were just surprised, you said, that someone like me would talk to someone like you. People didn't take the time. We were outsiders in Ul'dah together. I made you little bouts of ice in front of the Ossuary.

It was nice to just talk. I had the reputation back then for being frigid. For telling men loudly I didn't want to fuck them. I didn't want to back then. I didn't want anything to do with anyone. I thought I'd always feel that way because I felt it intensely then. A kind of intense argumentative rebelliousness.

You said you fell in love with me in a few days, the day I chewed out a man who teased you about your stutter. I had forgotten that I even did that until you told me.

I tried not to speak for you, usually. Once or twice you wrote me a note, and I read it to someone else, but more often, I tried to get them to slow down - to let the asking and answer take their own forms. It was better, I thought, to simply not force things to happen before their time. While we were together, I watched you blossom. I watched you run Medica, patch up adventurers. You were the good one, the innocent one, and I was the dirt for you to grow in. That is how I viewed it.

It is not really your fault that is how I viewed it.

But.

Something is wrong. I can't say anything.

When is the first time I had that thought, about you and me?

Far later along in things than it should've been. A full turn after we met? Later? A turn and a half? To be honest, I ignored the worries in the pit of my stomach the sun before we got married. I did anyway. I promised. I couldn't think of a good enough reason not to. I wanted to be the kind of person who would get married, I wanted you to want to be my husband. Even after your dark shadow said he'd kill me. Even after the nights of shouting at each other about necromancy. Even after you did the ritual that left you so addled you no longer remembered me. No, those were all problems I blamed on myself. So I think it was after Henri abducted me. After your heroic rescue.

Back then, I spent a lot of time on that bench in Medica, staring at the medicine cabinet across from it. You were always working late with patients late into the night, and I was always waiting. I'd bring up a tray of tea and fresh-grilled crumpets from the kitchen downstairs and wait. I never looked behind the curtain.

I sat there that day, after we both staggered back hurt, and begged with my mind, Tell them I'm hurt. Tell them I need help.

No one noticed I wasn't speaking.

I thought, Please tell them I'm hurt, and you kept not mentioning me, even though the whole thing was because of me. And everyone was telling you that you were brave and stupid for going to help me. I'd been missing for almost a day. What a good husband. What a frightening experience.

Finally, one of your medic friends approached me and realized I could not speak, my breathing was coming in wheezes. I'd been beaten to the seventh hell. Everything tasted sour and bloody and bitter and nauseating. Everything hurt. And I wondered if I had pushed you forward, in front of me, if I had shaken my head and indicated that I'd be alright. It could've easily been my mistake. But that's the first time I recall thinking things weren't going well.

As my throat was recovering, I spent a lot of time thinking about how much I wanted to speak now that I couldn't. Hardly anyone we worked with knew what my voice sounded like, and therefore most did not notice its absence. I wrote to you, Ask me what happened when I can speak again. You never asked. Mayhap I was never ready to speak.

It's a joke to think there's narrative symmetry here, that there's structure, that there will be a moment of revelatory truth toward the end. That this story has an ending. You tried to force one, but I made a mistake and kept living.

It’s just ironic when I write it all down. This started out without you not talking. I suppose it’s fitting, then, that you didn’t say a thing when you left.

Did you leave because you were disappointed I didn't have the balls to leave you? I threatened you only twice, toward the end. After all, if I even asked to be alone for a little while, you started to cry and beg me not to leave you. You fucking prick. You cheated on me while I was in the long-term care after the suicide attempt. The third one I had because I did not know how else to get a moment away from you, and I kept having thoughts like I cannot get away and this will not change and he will not let me leave him.

How many suns was I in care before you got bored and started fooling around? I was only gone two sennights.

And I don't care if you fucked him or not (You absolutely fucked him. I know you did. But even if you didn't--). You lied about his feelings for you and pretended I was insane for noticing how he stared. You lied about what you were doing. You, in fact, did every single thing I asked you not to do. To me, that is cheating. And I don't care if you fucked him or not. But you absolutely did, I could tell. I scared the shit out of him when I came looking for you.

You once told me that you would be disgusted if I ever had breasts. That you hated them, feared them really. What a thing for a medic to say. Perhaps, you said, you would have come to think of me as an older sister and cared for me that way, but you would not have ever loved me. I thanked you for your honesty and thanked my body for its shape. When I fucked you on the couch I thought I should be grateful. I should be grateful anyone at all would want this body. I should be grateful the makeup never bothered you. I should be grateful you did your best to switch pronouns. Some would find filing for divorce easier than changing pronouns.

While we're being honest, darling, I was broken before I met you. It's possible I was born broken. I told you everything, and you held it, and I thought there would never be anyone else who would try. I trusted you because you listened, long before I knew what you were really like. That was my fault.

I had a glamour prism I wore sometimes to the market. It made me look feminine. I showed you once, and started crying, and put it away. You asked if it was because I felt like I couldn't have that. You asked if it was because I was sad when the illusion was done. I wondered if you remembered what you said before. I said it felt wrong. I said I wanted a child one day, too, and I hate I could not give you one, though you had not asked for one. We were always going to adopt. We call this future faking. Sometimes I forget that you were the first person I told all that because it hurt too much to consider in the days you left. Because I knew what you truly felt. You'd told me. And staying would've been a compromise.

You promised you would try and understand, try and find a way for us to have that child. You dealt with my tears with promises, usually, or drugs. You could've just told me no. I suppose you did, eventually.

I'm not saying you forced me back into the closet. I was too afraid that others would reject me, it's true. But. Well.

I've changed so much since you left me. I will probably adopt children one day. I don't need anyone's help with that.

If you wanted to leave, you should've just said. I could've taken it. I would have understood if you couldn't love me anymore. If you made the distinction that it was because you no longer desired me, I would not have grown to believe it was because I was an inconvenience. Perhaps this is quibbling. Most folks do not receive itemized lists on why their relationships fell apart.

I don't really remember the morning you left. Even growing up during the war, I'd never felt someone disappear so completely. Not without saying goodbye. Not without a prayer or a personal effect to hold onto. I couldn't stay in the apartment. It was the skeletal belly of our marriage: white, bleached, echoing. Though I was no longer being digested, my skin still burned.

Did we kiss each other goodnight the last time I saw you? I don't recall. Probably. I digress.

Back when you brought me to that boy of yours, the one I already knew about, I started seeing double. Your dark shadow, the poor vulnerable thing you pretend to be when you want men to love you, and my husband, spineless, but mine, damn it. Mine and worth fighting for. Your dark shadow huddled against him. You sat next to me too. The light was dancing through leaves, everything green and sweet-smelling and indistinct. We sat on the stone benches in the view of the waterfall and the blooming flowers. That was the idyllic scene in which you told me the truth of it all. I think all three of you expected me to be shocked and to cry. I was shocked by how calm and unsurprised I was. I told you how little I thought of you. I told you just what a violation it was, from the beginning, how much it had taken for me to trust you. How you lied to my face about the nature of the relationship when I suspected, both you and your shadow and your boy. I told you both in no uncertain terms who I was, the person you all betrayed. I suppose I ended it when I said if you ever put me in such a position again I would leave. I suppose, from a certain perspective, you were the one who had to gather up the strength to go.

I suppose I was unreasonable. We had not discussed the terms of our marriage. I had assumed you would not lie to my face. I had assumed you would not run off with some little boy while I was in care. I had assumed after I nursed you through your agonies that you could care for me similarly. I say you abandoned me in the night without warning. That is wrong. You abandoned long before that. Some part of me had accepted it by the time you brought me to those stone benches. Most do folks do not leave your life all at once. They leave little by little like the color leaves bones bleaching in the sun.

I write this as if it is entirely your fault you felt you had to split yourself between him and me. It is not. I can say now with confidence I would have been fine if you left me for him. I might have even let you keep seeing him while we were married if you hadn't lied. I can that now with confidence because I was fine. But. I know you were worried. If only had been a bit more calm and stable when you twisted me up in a web I couldn't seem to escape. If only I hadn't thought I needed you so much. If I only I were as beautiful and immutable as a sword. Then I would've been able to let you feel the freedom to leave. Then I would have been sharp and strong, and I could have cut our cords with a light, clean snap.

You hurt me, alright.

You hurt me and it's so godsdamn humiliating. Does anyone meet someone with my height and my broad shoulders and my cleverness and level-headedness and experience and think that some spineless, stammering healer could reduce me thus? How dare you. How dare you embarrass me like that. I made excuses about you to my friends. You made me look like a fool.

Who could I tell about it? Who would have believed me? The wedding that dozens of our coworkers attended? You never hit me. And the way you cowered when I shouted at you. I was a monster every time I was angry. I had a beast inside me that I fed drinks. When we were together, I lost the capability to win arguments or be right about anything, but I foolishly kept trying.

You hurt me and recently the stars or the cards or a girl said I need to admit that it hurt. I have wanted to be above it for so long. When I look behind me to the road I paved with the mistakes I made getting away from you, I don't like to acknowledge that you had anything to do with it. I am too proud to be hurt. I was hurt for a little while and I got over it when I realized I was better off. That is how I tell the story. I was relieved you left. That was the truth. I put myself back together. I went to parties. I cried a little. I recovered. That is how I tell it.

Grief is not static, grief is not a river that you jump over. I am still here with this grief. But you were not the 'before,' and now is not the 'after.' I should have admitted a long time ago that I never really got over being abandoned like that. Not because it was going well when you did it. Not because I had no idea what was wrong.

Your leaving added insult to injury.

I should have left, but you left. I deserved one victory, but you left.

It's so embarrassing. I would have let you kill me.

Maybe the stars or the cards or a girl meant that you were hurt, you needed to admit that hurt. I'm sorry. I think I wanted you to be someone you weren't. If I hurt you, I'm sorry. I have examined every angle and I am not sure what I could have done differently aside from throwing you out. Imagining I knew your feelings and told you to be honest with yourself about them. What else can I apologize for?

I'm sorry I tried so hard to make it work.

I'm sorry I was your first.

I'm sorry I'm a drunkard.

I'm sorry I struggled to remain well.

I'm sorry I wasn't the man you thought you married.

I'm sorry for pressuring you with my expectations of marriage.

I'm sorry for trying to keep you on the path I saw as good.

I'm sorry you felt like you couldn't leave, so you had to sneak around. And then away.

I'm just really sorry it ended like this. I wish I could have said goodbye, but I might've just told you to fuck off and die, so, perhaps your instinct was correct.

I know folks who can do exorcisms, but you can't exorcise the memory of a person. That is the problem. You can't drink them away, either. Little pieces of you will always be embedded in me, shards of glass. Your nickname for me. The way you'd yawn and stretch in our bed. The jobs I joined and left for you. The jolt of the seal on the door when I touched it the time you locked me in. The steady quality of your voice as you adjusted the dose and promised it wasn't habit-forming. The way your voice sounded the first time you threatened me. The color of your eyes. The way you'd smile and call my name. Your vows.

(What color tuxedo did you wear to our wedding? I wore pink. I don't remember. Red? That sounds right.)

(Actually, what color are your eyes?)

Did you even love me? Do you even know how to love? Or do you just like folks to push, folks to test things out on, folks to bleed into inkwells and then write spells with? Did you even like the food I cooked you? Did a fresh fried fish taste as good as forbidden aether?

I could be falling again. I am afraid to say I am falling again. I'll tell you that because you were my first love (You weren't. You were my first love since I was free.). I'll tell you that because I hate the thought of you believing I never moved on. I hate the idea of you getting off to the fact that you broke me, broke my heart, was never anything more than what I was when you pinned my arms over my head or talked me off a ledge (Which of those things did I ask you to do for me? Which was for my own good?). I think I am terrified of you coming back and saying, very sincerely, with a very sad face, that you are sorry. I am equally terrified that you never, ever will. I am terrified you are dead, and I am still angry, and I want us to remain connected by the intimacy of how thoroughly we ruined each other's lives. Except you aren't here, so it's just me. I'm ruined. If you told me to live my life and be happy because I deserved more than you, I think I'd slap you across the face. Nothing in life is about what you deserve, there is only what is and what isn't. And you weren't. I wasn't.

If we were to look at it that way, my darling, my sweetest one, my one and only, my beloved, my dearest, my dear heart, I think we deserved one another just fine. I wanted to be punished, and you gave me just that.

I know I'm supposed to say it's all your fault. Victims can't change their abusers. But victims are allowed to feel a lot of things. And what's hurt the most over all these years is my impotent frustration at not getting the ending I wanted. I didn't get to stand with my hands on my hips, triumphant to have defeated you. I didn't get to hear you sincerely regretted any of it, or that you didn't mean it, or that you were wrong. My friends have told me the best revenge is living well, and damn have I ever lived well. But I don't feel better about it. I don't know if it's something I'll ever feel good about.

We were both so stupid. Oh. Darling.

I asked the stars or the cards or a girl about you, and she said you had the potential to be happy, or maybe she meant I do, because you were not present. You are living some other life now, and you probably haven't thought of me in a very long time. She said I was an amazing person and I deserved for someone to treat me as the priority I am. I said I am trying, and I hope it happens.

You hurt me. You hurt me. You hurt me. You hurt me.

You didn't respect me. You didn't deserve me. But I was still willing. I was still so willing.

That will always hurt, but it's a hangnail, not an open wound. I'll let someone else rip me open again. I know I will. I want to. I'll keep trying until someone pours my inside into a jar that I like the shape of. I look at him now and I think, oh, he could ruin my life, but I won't let him. Oh, I hope I don't ruin his life.

I hope I ruined your life.

I need to get out from under the shadow cast by your loss. The job I took out of guilt, the life I live to try and somehow alter all the ways I've been broken, as if somehow if I bled nothing but light and sunshine and fucking grace and sweetness everywhere it would cancel it all out. Not just you. Not just Henri. All of it. The being-born-in-a-body-I-hate thing. The-raised-away-from-my-own-people thing. The alcoholism. The grooming. The institutionalized abuse. The coercive abuse. The Church. The suicide attempts. I thought I could cancel it all out if I was just a good enough person. I'd be satisfied if I somehow approached some enlightened state of self where I never felt guilty about anything. How arrogant of me.

How arrogant to assume the abuse only happened because I was secretly good because if I was secretly bad, I deserved it. No. I know I fucked up.

I was arrogant to think I could ever change you. All we can ever really do is love one another, and sometimes we do it entirely wrong. We could have been amazing, but we weren't. And that's all I really have to say. It’s true that you hurt me. It’s true that it still hurts. But... I hope you are well. Not sarcastically. I hope you are doing as well as I am. I hope you are not hurting anyone else, but there’s nothing I can do if you found someone new to abuse. I could do no more than I did.

I’m ready to be done. It isn’t a river I jumped over, but the water only barely covers my feet now. A little more time, and perhaps I will do the unthinkable and simply step out.

Your loss, love.

Goodbye.

#writing #retired ship name here #ic #i mean idk some of this is a repetition of other things i've written but i needed to write something new and get things out of my system #i've been feeling so depressed and stagnant

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spectraspecs-writes · 4 years ago

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Brief Trans thingy from a (technically) trans person. Edit after the fact: I’m sorry, but this is not brief.

I talk with my mom about trans stuff a lot. She’s in her sixties and wants to understand simply because a.) it’s me and it’s important to me b.) it comes up in the news a bit and she gets confused. Recently she read an article about a non-binary person who now has a difficult relationship with Harry Potter. Harry Potter kept them from suicide. Which mom thought was very sweet and she liked reading the article. Where she struggled was with this person’s identity. The writer of the article was AMAB, but felt more aligned with femininity, took estrogen, and all around presented as a woman. But used they/them pronouns. Mom couldn’t understand why you would go to that much trouble to present as female but still go by they/them. “It just brings the problem up again that you’re not really a girl.”

Let me say this before going further. My mom is not transphobic. It might sound that way if you don’t know her and just hear her words but she’s not. She first looks at it biologically, because she’s autistic and a former nurse, that trans women can never be women. Meaning, trans women can never be female. But she’s not about to say they shouldn’t be in women’s spaces or call them men. On the level we all care about, she is accepting of trans people as the gender they say they are. Example: I talked about my friend Chris a lot before I actually brought him home. Chris is a demiboy - hi Chris, I know you’re here. And it took me a bit but I was able to fully refer to Chris by his preferred pronouns consistently. My parents therefore also referred to him with those pronouns, not knowing he ever had any others. When he came over, my mom noted that his voice is more... feminine. She didn’t even think trans, she thought “hmm. He must be smart to be in college when he hasn’t even gone through puberty yet.” Dad even asked mom in a whisper “is Chris short for a Christopher or Christina?” They were just confused. But that didn’t stop them from going “okay, Chris is a boy and that’s what matters. We are confused, but Chris is a boy.” Now that mom knows the score, she will often mention Chris in her questions as an example we both know. (Often in sexuality questions - for example, if Chris goes out with a girl is that straight or gay? It’s straight, but also queer. You can see why an Aspie would get confused. I had the same question a while ago.) To reiterate, Mom doesn’t care if a person is trans. They should go where they feel most comfortable. She might say things to me that are accidentally transphobic, but I tell her about it and she would never actually say them to another trans person. If she did, I would explain to the trans person in question and to my mom that it came out wrong and tell her why. We’re autistic. We much prefer to be told about our mistakes and how to correct them.

Anyway. She kept asking me “why go by they/them if you present as female?” And I told her “because she/her could hurt.” As a nurse she know how to respond to hurt. How do we stop the hurt? And in the case of this person, stopping the hurt is going by they/them. But mom wants to address the root of the hurt, not be palliative about it. She wants to know how to make she/her stop hurting, when it can’t. It’s not that kind of hurt. I ended up coming up with a metaphor, after all of my gender visualizations fell flat.

Let’s say you have a great job lined up in Kansas City. You have an apartment there, everything is set up for you to go to Kansas City. So you leave, going from St. Louis to Kansas City. On the way you stop off in Jefferson City. Jefferson City is great! You love Jefferson City! You have so much fun on your brief stop in Jefferson City. But you have to keep going, you have to see Kansas City, things are waiting for you there.

But when you get to Kansas City... you don’t like it. The job is fine, the apartment is fine, but you just... don’t like it. “Why don’t you like it?” She asks. I don’t know, that’s different from person to person. Maybe the aquarium isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Maybe the people are impolite. Maybe it just doesn’t vibe with you. But you can either stay unhappy in Kansas City, where things are certain. Which some people do for a while. Or you can start over in Jefferson City. Things will be new and uncertain, but you already know you love it. Sometimes being trans is going all the way to Kansas City and staying there. Sometimes you get to Jefferson City and decide screw Kansas City I’m going to stay here. And sometimes being trans is going all the way and deciding it’s not for you, so you go back. And maybe you don’t go all the way. Maybe you stop somewhere between Kansas City and Jefferson City, in some little nowhere town, because it makes you happy beyond words to be there. And the metaphor continues on. Cis people are happy to stay in St. Louis. Maybe they’ve explored elsewhere but found St. Louis is the best place for them. I’m genderfluid. St. Louis is fine but I like to get on a bus now and then.

The metaphor worked. But the question come up again. “So she’s happy in Jefferson City. Why does she care if other people know she’s there? She looks like she’s from Kansas City, why not say she is?” Still misgendering solely out of confusion. “Why use they/them if you’re happy looking like a girl?” And I finally was able to tell her, in a pride event or a safe place, this is what they prefer. This is what makes them happy. They are so proud of finding the best place, they are so proud of living in Jefferson City. But some people don’t accept that. Some people think it’s stupid. Some people, upon hearing the mere hint of transness, will lash out and even be violent. They would prefer to go by they/them, but if they don’t feel safe, they will accept being misgendered. They will accept Kansas City merch if it keeps them safe. But wherever they can, if they feel safe about it, they will tell people about their journey to Jefferson City. They’ll tell them all about the landmarks, the museums, the local cuisine, that one burger joint you should never go to. They appreciate Jefferson City guidebooks.

Dysphoria comes into play, too. Some people absolutely hate that they look like they’re from St. Louis. They want to be associated with Kansas City at all costs. They’ve thrown out all their Cardinals merch - it’s the Royals or nothing! Some are cool with it sometimes and not at others. Some like myself don’t mind it at all. St. Louis is still a part of them, and it was fun while it lasted. They still like the Cardinals but they cheer for the Royals too. And when they play each other - well, I can’t take the metaphor there. And euphoria! You tolerate Cardinals merch but when someone gives you a Royals shirt you wear it all the time!! Kansas City stickers make you so excited!

I don’t remember where I was going with this. But either way I think I stumbled into a great metaphor.

#trans #transgender

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hexenmeisterer · 5 years ago

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Comparing “The Ladies’ Man” to “A Likely Story”

Some collaborative due South meta

Here’s what happens when two friends separated by lots of geography watch due South together over Skype, read ALL of truepenny’s meta, and then start jamming in a google doc about two episodes-- which differ drastically in tone but share a bunch of themes! (crossposted here on DW, which is a better place to comment if you wanna have an actual back-and-forth discussion.)

H is me and T is the inimitable @touchmycoat.

H: In “A Likely Story,” Ray is trapped in his ideas about his love interest (what’s her name again?). He cannot for the life of him tell when she’s lying, he can’t see her true motivations, he can’t know her. He’s just using her as a blank screen to project his internal conflicts onto. This is, as truepenny points out, a theme that due South returns to almost every single time it explores romance. How many episodes philosophize on the possibility of “love at first sight?” Off the top of my head, I’ve got “You Must Remember This,” “Victoria’s Secret,” “An Invitation To Romance,” and “Say Amen”…

As Huey and Dewey say in “Say Amen,”

“Well, you know the thing is, you can't really love someone until you know them.” “Sure you can. The hard thing is to love them after you know them.”

T: The love interest’s name is Luann— Frannie’s actually the first person to name her, well into the episode. Luann’s not introduced to us, to Ray, to Fraser by name, relation, or even profession. We’re just left to assume she has a caretaking role for Mrs. Tucci based on her age and actions. The dialogue even (intentionally?) suffers from this unknowing; Ray says, “Look Fraser, I am very sorry for Mrs. Tucci’s loss, and I will make every effort to find the killer of her husband, but the fact remains she is a very beautiful woman.” The pronoun confusion just further highlights how much it doesn’t matter who Luann is, just that she is “a beautiful woman.” This issue goes from highlight to glaring headlights when the cut from EXT. CAR, EVENING to IN. STATION, DAY is done by their conversation just rolling over, and guess what they’re talking about? Well, Ray’s talking about sex, and how little of it they’re both getting.

H: The Lou Skagnetti story and Sword of Desire, which both show up multiple times throughout the episode, explore the (gendered) stories people build around romance. The ending scene specifically juxtaposes these two stories about love by putting their endings right next to each other. Ray and Luann have retreated from each other after a failed attempt at connection, and they both soothe their disappointment by turning to fantastical love stories.

This one, told between two men, out in the “wilderness” by a campfire:

“Lou Skagnetti looked at the princess who sat across the stone table in the stone cabin high atop Sulfur Mountain, and the princess smiled at him. And for a brief second, Lou Skagnetti could hear his own inner bell ring as though it were rung by a thousand angels. And he took his hand and he placed it over his heart, and Lou Skagnetti vowed that never again would he kill and eat another princess as long as he lived. . . unless, of course, she were covered in choke cherries and brown lichen and a sprinkling of dust -”

vs. this one, read in a comfortable bedroom (with the most floral bedspread ever invented), a story that one woman read aloud to another to help her sleep:

“Gabriella's chest heaved at the sight of him. His boldness made her feel like a true princess. As he came near her, she could feel the trembling of the deep inside her most secret place…”

Notice how they could almost be the same story told from different perspectives.

Fraser’s story, though, does not offer the same easy comfort Luann’s does. His story is a funny distraction, but it's also a dark mirror held up to romance. Fraser's status as an outsider means he knows different stories than Ray and Luann. This story shows the blood and guts of love. In the context of the episode, it gestures at how the theater of "love" often leads people to act in deeply un-loving ways towards each other; how it can get in the way of people even knowing each other. (“That's one dark story.” “Yes. It is.”)

Fraser has seen Ray use his position as a police officer to stalk his ex and now he’s seen him try to date a suspect. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that he’s telling Ray a story where the protagonist has been “eating princesses.” The story’s not just an accusation, though; it’s a hopeful story, a humorous story; it’s told playfully and as an act of care, and it points to the possibility of true love in the future that is not based on violence.

T: I almost wish the show had the continuity to also let this moment comment explicitly on what Fraser couldn't get from Victoria. His love for her is so mired in guilt that he thinks himself deserving of all the violences she visits on his person. It's like, Ray is pre-Lou Skagnetti and Fraser is post-Lou Skagnetti; Ray needs to stop his violence and Fraser needs to pay for his violence. The same problem of failed recognition occurs on both sides of the story.

H: I love your point about Fraser being like Ray but somewhere further along in the accountability process.

In the "love-at-first-sight vs. true knowledge of a person" saga that is this show, there is one unexpected pair of people who know and love each other deeply after very little time spent together: Beth Botrelle and Ray Kowalski. They can see right through each other. They understand each other’s motivations— so not only can they tell when the other’s lying, but they can tell you exactly why. They are bound together through shared experience. And while their story is obviously not romantic, it is shockingly loving. Beth is willing to falsely confess to a murder she is unjustly accused of just to make Ray feel better, just to give him a real shot at moving on with his life after she dies. Ray is obviously willing to risk his job and his life to exonerate her, but he is also uniquely willing to admit his mistakes to her; he tells the truth exactly as it happened, and therefore sacrifices the easy self-justifications that have kept him functioning as a cop and as a person all these years.

(and, side note— how interesting is it that Beth of all people calls Ray “queer,” and his response is to laugh and nod?)

Beth does need to be saved from a death sentence, but she is emphatically not a damsel in distress (or a "princess"). She needs to save Ray as much as he needs to save her. Both of them know that their freedom is bound up in the other's.

T: So maybe in some ways this is Ray's post-Lou Skagnetti (I'm laughing as I write these words but bear with me). This is his Victoria, but antithetically; this is where he pays for the violence. Victoria was guilty and Fraser arrested her, Beth was innocent and Ray arrested her—but they both know, to some extent, that the arrests seemed immoral (Fraser in particular, where if they did actually sleep together, he’s fully abused his power as an officer of the law). Where Victoria wanted to destroy Fraser for it, Beth wanted to save Ray from it (she sought to alleviate his conscience by telling him she was guilty). But both Fraser and Ray had to be willing to destroy themselves and the roles they occupied for Victoria and Beth. The Fraser who is whole and the Victoria who seeks his destruction cannot coexist. And, to continue your reading of "Ladies' Man" as the keystone episode where Ray just really should not be a cop anymore, the Ray who is a cop and the Beth who is innocent/alive cannot coexist. There's something very interesting about these relationships between men and women that fail due to one or both of their placement in some kind of institution, because of one or both of their duties/supposed loyalties. Fraser's commitment to duty catalyzes the break between him and Victoria. Ray's abuse of his authority is no fucking good for Stella or Luann, and even when he succumbs to the ease of police authority he fucks over Beth.

Tying Ray and Fraser and Victoria back to “A Likely Story,” everybody, particularly Ray, speaks in projections; throughout the episode, Fraser is the mirror while Ray is the puppy, as in Ray doesn’t know the other puppy isn’t real, so he’s snarling and barking at the mirror, who is merely the medium through which the reflection is transposed.

H: “FRASER IS THE MIRROR AND RAY IS THE PUPPY” WHAT THE FUCK I LOVE THIS IMAGE. IT IS ABSURD AND TRUE. YOU ARE BRILLIANT. Please, expand upon this point.

T: This one particular projection:

Ray: “Let me see if I got this right, Fraser. Luann is a beautiful woman, therefore she must be bad. And since she's a really beautiful woman, that means she's got to be really bad. Is that how it goes inside your brain?”

Of all the projections, Fraser most clearly calls this one out for what it is: “Are you sure it is my brain we are talking about?” Funny, since this is the one projection that fully echoes Fraser’s hangups about Victoria. Vecchio’s line from “Letting Go” seems resonant: “Not every woman with long dark hair tries to kill their lover.” But this is clearly about Ray: his low sense of self-worth makes him look for flaws in women he believes are “beautiful” and out of his league.

H: Yes!! They're both backed into these low-self-esteem corners with regards to romantic relationships: they’re both thinking, "there's something wrong with me." Ray projects that outwards (“what’s wrong with this woman?”), but Fraser does a slightly different thing with it: “if she's into me, she must be operating on an incomplete set of data.” Fraser knows that people think he's attractive, but also thinks that they can't see/know him enough to love him in a real way. I think that's why he was so INTO Victoria-- she knew he did bad things and wanted him anyways! And she, to his mind at the time, was clear-headed about what kind of punishment he deserved for his wrongdoing. There's something more comforting about that than waiting for the other shoe to drop.

T: Both “A Likely Story” and “Ladies’ Man” are about women that Ray Kowalski has wronged, and both end with Ray apologizing—very sincerely—to the women. Fundamentally, I love that as a narrative choice.

H: Yes. Apologize, man. (Apologize and quit your job. I think these two episodes lay out a really compelling case for exactly why Ray does not go back to being a cop post-COTW.)

To summarize:

Ray is a human-shaped projector. He can’t readily name his feelings, but they do warp his perceptions of reality and he does act them out. "I don't know what I want till I see what I do." -Ray Kowalski in The Teeth of the Hydra by Resonant.

This is terrible news for everyone involved when you're a cop!

These episodes both deal with the nature of love-- its relationship to truth and to police work. “A Likely Story” shows the burdensome trappings of heterosexual, romantic love, which in this case serve to obfuscate the truth; “The Ladies’ Man” shows an intense kind of "true love" between a man and a woman that has nothing to do with romance or sex and everything to do with solidarity and truth-telling.

T: And 4, we can absolutely implicate Fraser, at least thematically, in something every step of the way, el oh el.

#due south #meta #victoria metcalf #ray kowalski #police violence cw #stalking cw #let me know if there's other stuff i should be tagging for!#benton fraser #it's a post-Lou Skagnetti world #puppies vs mirrors #emotional gymnastics #acab #beth botrelle #Luann From That Episode

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