#and this person is nonbinary as well like

[celesomnis]

❝ The Lionguard Gambit ❞

Nyoka Wadjet x Prefect Reader

The prefect requires some help. The snakeman will not provide it without a catch. There is chess, and a more harrowing "game" is maybe played too.

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babes, bros, and nonbinary beaus, I present to you the highly anticipated ''x reader'' ficlet for @cozymochi and @oddberryshortcake 's slitheringly handsome oc!

because let's be so real, we all down bad for that snake boi.

(and happy christmas you two dears! <3 I hope you do enjoy this and that it lifts your spirits fghsjk and i am so sorry if he is wildly ooc,, I tried my best 😭)

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“I know a guy for that.”

"Yeah. I'm kinda... I'm kind of here because you do, actually."

Nyoka Wadjet did not look amused.

You folded your fingers together and regarded the venomous beastman as passively and politely as you were able.

"Look. I know since we've been sticking around in Savanaclaw lately, Grim has been pushing your boundaries here and there. So if you help me, I'll make sure he doesn't bother you again like that... for two whole weeks."

Air pushed slowly through his nostrils. He was regarding you more seriously now.

Approaching the very allusive, and admittedly rather frightful, student in order to find somebody who could counterfeit thaumarks was perhaps not the most self-preserving decision you'd made. But it was imperative to a growing idea you had on how to deal with you and your friends' latest Azul troubles.

"Three weeks." You sweetened the deal.

Nyoka's eyes narrowed.

"He landed on my head." was stated factually, like the action's offense spoke for itself.

That had indeed happened. Grim was not a often creature of preserving personal space.

"A month?" You tried.

"A year."

Well that wasn't happening. "Um. I could offer two months, maybe." People really had a tendency to overestimate your level of control over that little (lovable) demon.

It seemed like that was not a favorable compromise. Nyoka's attention dipped from you and moved to the room's center where he had previously been seated.

Your stare followed his towards the shining, porcelain chess set readied and untouched at the low-standing table. Sparking a different tactic.

"Or, maybe you could play me for it?"

His gaze swung lazily back at you. Something about the action, and the hooded way his eyes looked, put little tingles along your arms.

"I promise I actually know how to play." You said, in case he was doubting your authenticity.

Movement caught your attention behind his legs, and a second later, his long tail came swishing side to side. A myriad of scales glittering under the sunroof's light.

A somersault happened inside your stomach, but was ignored in favor of catching Nyoka's next words.

“I like to be on the winning side.”

"Is that you doubting yourself against me?" You pushed.

He tipped his chin up slightly, a sun-flare running over his glasses.

“One battle doesn’t lose a war, prefect.”

The message was clear. Challenge Accepted.

He waved a gloved hand, inviting you to sit, which you obliged.

"Alright." Nyoka told you, easing himself gracefully onto the opposing seat. "If you beat me, I will connect you with my friend. But if I beat you, you will forbid your familiar from invading my presence for the remainder of the year."

Oh dear. He was dead-set on that, wasn't he.

Your eyes met. The colors in his clashed your own.

These were desperate times.

"Deal."

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The first few minutes of the game were done mostly in silence.

While it was true you knew how to play (at least, back in your home world you had) it'd been awhile since you'd done so for real, and there was a necessary amount of concentration needed in the first half while you eased back into things.

Nyoka, naturally, was a hard player from the start.

Though some of the plays and tactics he tried helped along in jogging your memory of the nuances, there was still some clear rust in your play, whereas he was all refined sharpness.

Poising in ponder, then striking fast.

Quick as a cobra.

The game did not take long to be leant in his favor.

And the silence was becoming brutal.

It was very quiet in the room, which made sense as to why Nyoka liked to frequent here. And it wasn't unsettling.

That was not the issue.

The distress came because in its peace, it caused the only sound you could latch onto in the whole room was the slow, deep, even breaths leaving the man's chest.

Slow in, slower out, over and over.

Each breath led your concentration to phase in and out of the game with it.

When you snapped back to, you found you just lost one of your knights. Rather viciously.

"You're really subtle with your attacks." You noted sardonically, mostly just to say anything.

There was a shake to your hands as they moved your king.

Nyoka watched you fidget.

In reply, there was a smooth counter of; "Hmph. Like a drop to the head."

You wetted your lips. Moved a pawn. "Grim's harmless, just very personable."

"He is lucky I didn't bite him." Nyoka murmured.

You were still a little lost to thought when this was said, so your ears failed to detect if its inflection held jest or sarcasm.

"Really? I figured you too elegant to go around handling annoyances with your teeth," Slipped out of your mouth before sense caught up to it.

His eyes slid at you. Pinned you there.

Something in your gut flipped.

"I should bite you, Prefect."

The game, and entire room, might have disappeared, but right then you couldn't have been sure.

He spoke it low, and it rolled out of his throat in a way that sent heat down your back. "But I think I wouldn't get the taste out of my mouth for days."

The heat became infernal.

Your head turned away, cheek meeting the forgiving cold of the sofa, desperate to pretend those words weren't the most charged thing you'd experienced in your time here.

"Calm yourself," He intoned, and maybe it was your racing mind, but you almost thought he had the gall to sound amused. "Any venom I have is reserved for other targets."

Oh, you were anything but calm. But there was a bell ringing in the distance, another later hour revealing itself.

It was getting late, and you still had a chess game at stake.

Nyoka exhaled, a low and long huff that makes you at once certain you won't be able to stand for a long while after this.

It felt like a lot of things were at stake right now.

From infernal to charred, you were a wreck at this point.

Forcing your focus to cooperate, the board came back to life before you and a realization was brought with it.

"Finding it difficult to think?" His words were edged with a sultry hiss.

You steeled. Made your move fast. Trying to keep your face unchanging.

Nyoka fluttered his long fingers atop his pieces, calculating, before finally resting atop his queen. And took your pawn.

A sudden sense of victory quelled all other emotions within you, and with haste you moved your knight into a position that seemed vulnerable.

Taking the bait, Nyoka moved his queen back where it was before.

You struck, using your bishop to fly across the board for the winning move. Exclaiming "Check!" and knocking porcelain against porcelain. Hands springing up, elated. "Hah! I did it! The Lionguard Gambit!"

Nyoka looked up at you fast, then moved aback. Expression one you couldn't define. "The... What."

You remained as you were. Enjoying the simmer of your victory.

Thanking the gods and the Seven for having provided the luck that led you to stumble across that move in a late-night library study one evening.

The snakeman stared at you a long time.

The longer that the seconds ticked by, the less sure of yourself you became. Fearful there had been a miscalculation or premature celebration.

You hadn't done it wrong, had you?

And then, Nyoka said; "...Lionheart Gambit?"

A rush of burning sensation to your ears coaxed your arms into a deflate.

"Oh." That was embarrassing. "Well- you know what I meant! My point is, I won!"

"So you did." He relented, sparing you by moving on from your blunder.

It had felt like your mispronunciation had sort of rattled him, for whatever reason, but that was a mystery for another time.

“I guess some battles can turn a war’s tides, snake eyes.” You said, tone lilting once more coy.

Nyoka lowered himself into the spine of his chair with crossing arms.

You waited. "...Um. So. Nyoka?"

"Don't get fretful, prefect, I withhold my ends of bargains. I'll introduce you to the person you seek tomorrow."

You felt a press of disappoint, but relented that it had gotten late. You hadn't realized when the sun's shine had been replaced with the softer lights of the overhead lanterns.

Rising from the seat, knees mercifully only wobbling a little, you offered him thanks and began to make the - perhaps a little purposefully slowed - trek towards the exit.

"Well. Goodnight, Nyoka."

"Hmm."

"You not going to sleep?"

"In a while."

“Ah. Putting in some extra practice for when you get a good chess partner?” You tossed playfully over a shoulder.

“That is not an issue.”

Nyoka rolled his fingers into a fist and set his chin on it. He did not look back at you, but somehow, the heat in your chest returned all the same.

And beyond noise of the door shutting after you, you caught six words that kept that heat burning low in your chest for the whole night following;

“I know a prefect for that.”

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fin.

[genderqueerdykes]

Bigender person here : I also hate being called nonbinary. My genders are man and fox, thank you very much. I am not "out of the binary" I am literally just a fox who happens to be in the body of a man.

and its your right to define your identity and gender like that! you do not have to use terms that do not fit you. you should not be forced into using anything. your identity is yours to define. also, that's awesome, btw! i am a canine as well! i'm a wolf & coyote, and that aspect of my nonhumanity is very heavily linked to my manhood. :) very cool, glad to hear from you!

[dinonid123]

I think the best way to learn to like your body as a fat person really is just to learn how fat people are hot. I think people find that to be too shallow (or forced, maybe?) or have too much trouble with actually getting there but genuinely I think it's a good pathway to it. If you want to like your body, really immersing yourself in the fact that there are indeed lots of people who like your body (or bodies like yours more broadly) to sort of overpower what is probably the reason you don't like your body (society at large is fatphobic and constantly tells you that fat bodies are unattractive and undesirable) seems like the obvious way to do it.

I've noticed a shift towards body neutrality that honestly seems at least partially rooted in people trying to like their bigger bodies but being unable to do so and I wonder if that's just because slogans like "fat is beautiful" don't push hard enough into attractiveness and desirability ("beauty" to me seems more abstract and about being aesthetically pleasing rather than "hot"), they don't focus on relationships where fatness is not a sort of obstacle to be overcome or even a neutral element to ignore but an actively liked and desired quality for a partner. People will call thinking fat people's fatness is hot a "fetish," like it's somehow lesser than liking skinny people's skinniness, and not see how that's actively working against the idea of fat acceptance, that fatness is not a bad thing.

My own personal experience with this isn't the best example perhaps, I'm always hesitant to call myself fat despite counting as obese on a BMI scale (I'm like 230ish lbs. but I certainly don't feel particularly big, I still feel like I take up the same space, just a little deeper forwards/backwards lol) but I do certainly like that I've been slowly gaining weight ever since I started college, unintentional at first (thanks Covid) but at this point I might not be actively trying to gain weight but I certainly am not trying to lose any or stay where I'm at: I'm happy with me now, if I keep gaining weight that's fine by me, especially if it makes me hotter in the eyes of the people whose opinions I care about. When I see pictures of myself in high school I'm always sort of shocked by how thin I was and how gaunt my face looked, but now I really do like my body, I like that I have a belly, I like that I've got stretch marks, and that's almost certainly because I've surrounded myself with people who think those things are hot and I think those things are hot too. I've still got some self-image issues about my face but I really am happy with my body because I know other people like bodies like mine, I know my partner likes my body, and that's the "standard" I deal with far more than the typical western beauty standard. It really can be as simple as just surrounding yourself with love for bodies like yours for you to start liking your own.

Genuinely curious, how do you manage to not hate your weight? I'm 500 lbs and haven't been able to lose the self-loathing. Do you have any kind of advice?

i'll be honest i wasn't fat until a couple years ago. i became fat because i wanted it. i wanted to be fat, and it's specifically because i'm attracted to men around your weight and i wanted to be like them. I'm not sure i know how to deal with self loathing from being fat, because for me, becoming fat killed a lot of self-loathing i otherwise had for my body.

It took a little while to push through some of the initial internalized fatphobia when i started gaining. I still felt that i should cling to being thin for a little while longer, i knew that becoming fat would come with a lot of giving up of privileges and comforts that come from being thin, and that was uncomfortable for me. but when i looked in the mirror i felt better. I liked my body, fully and honestly for the first time. I didn't have little nitpicks or things i wanted to better, things to pull into a more attractive or thinner shape. I stopped feeling like i had to be thin or muscular, or that specific parts of my body could use "improving". Things i felt uncomfortable with became parts of my body i was proud of.

I don't know how much this helps for you in particular. But to me, fat is something worth being, worth becoming.

[this-is-exorsexism]

not me specifically obvi but whenevr a content creator comes out as nonbinary and everyone starts "truthing" them as another gender

oh that person isn't a cis man theyre actually NB? well OBVIOUSLY they will be a trans woman next. its the next logical step, this is just a transition period to that /s

like what the fuck. why can't people just exist? any nonbinary people we have to look up to IRL have some bs reason for people to say why theyre 'not actually nonbinary' and i hate it

this is exorsexism.

yeah, this is why i'm not a fan of "egg culture", because the assumption is always binary transness.

[optimisticnightmarechild]

I remember the days of ace/aro exclusionist discourse very well.

The main fuel seemed to be screenshots of kids on Tumblr saying ignorant things about Lgbtq people and history.

Like, they're kids. Of course they don't know any LGBTQ history. They were born 5 minutes ago. We get it, you hate kids.

These two images angered exclus the most. They would say "these don't mean you're lgbt, because it says straight too!".

I'm sorry, did you forget straight trans people are part of the community? Hell, transhets did a ton of ground work for the community to even be a thing and got little to no credit in return.

Also, I imagine (grain of salt) that it was to encourage possible cishetallo allies to consider that we're all people and we should come together.

Lmao I forgot to add this: aro, aces, nonbinary people, etc. have always been present in the community one way or another. So much Lgbtq history is lost, do you seriously think there wasn't a single aro/ace person that was marching with the other queer elders?

Anyway, I just wanted to waffle about exclus.

[hyperlexichypatia]

Follow up to this post where I was asked about the "Autism presents differently in girls" myth, which is one of my many berserk buttons.

Here is a non-exhaustive list of reasons this concept makes no sense and you should stop saying it:

A. Autistic people are more likely than non-autistic people to be trans, nonbinary, or otherwise gender-non-conforming, so any attempt to group autistic people by binary, birth-assigned gender is even less likely to be accurate than the gender binary already is in the general population.

2. There is absolutely no evidence supporting the "presents differently" theory that could not be better explained by clinician bias.

iii. The alleged "presentation differences" between autistic "girls" and "boys" are just bog-standard gender stereotypes with "autism" plugged in somewhere. "Boys are better at math and science and logic and not having feelings and their dominant emotion is Anger, but girls are better at socializing and caretaking and brushing hair and their dominant emotion is Approval-Seeking." "Huh, that sounds like reactionary sexist hogwash." "No, I mean, autistic boys are better at math and science and logic and not having feelings and their dominant emotion is Anger, but but autistic girls are better at socializing and caretaking and brushing hair and their dominant emotion is Approval-Seeking." "Oh, okay, now it's Objective Science."

four. Sexist bias, including among clinicians, tends to frame "male" neurodivergence as essentially cognitive and "female" neurodivergence as essentially emotional, because, as we all know, Men Think, Women Feel. Psychology is obsessed with the idea that "girls" are universally and inherently self-loathing and self-destructive -- anything a "girl" has trouble with cannot possible be a skill she hasn't learned or an ability she doesn't have, let alone merely a different way of being; she must simply be self-abnegatingly denying herself the thing she cannot do. So a "girl" with the same traits as an "autistic boy" will have those traits attributed to something emotional, like depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, or eating disorders. "Autistic girls" aren't being "missed" (read as neurotypical); they're having their exact same autistic traits as "autistic boys" being framed as mood disorders instead of neurodevelopmental disabilities.

cinco. Fundamentally, this premise gets completely backward what diagnosis means and why pathologization happens. People are pathologized and diagnosed, with any kind of disability, when they have traits that fall outside the range of traits considered "acceptable" for their position. "It's more acceptable for boys to have meltdowns, so autistic boys have more meltdowns than autistic girls, so the boys get diagnosed with autism" -- No, this doesn't make sense. That's not how diagnosis works. If it were more acceptable for boys to have meltdowns, then boys who have meltdowns would not be getting diagnosed with anything. Their behavior would not be seen as pathological. If "It's more acceptable for boys to have meltdowns" were to explain any kind of diagnosis differential, it would be "Therefore girls who have meltdowns are diagnosed, while boys who have meltdowns are just considered normal boys." And, to be clear, that kind of thing is absolutely a factor in gender differences in diagnosis, but in the opposite direction from how people mean it. Like, as a "girl," I wasn't really expected or pressured to be athletic, so my absolutely abysmal gross motor skills were just shrugged at and not seen as a sign of disability. Can't run or throw? Well, I was a girl, and a nerd to boot. What do you expect? A "boy" with my level of gross motor skills would draw a lot more Concern.

ζ. "Girls are pressured to mimic/mask more than boys are," even if true (debatable), elides over the fact that many autistic "girls" can't "mimic/mask," because they are disabled. They have a disability. Because some of the things their society expects them to be able to do are things that they cannot, in fact, do. "Girls don't have meltdowns because they're not allowed to. Girls don't forget to do essential tasks because they're not allowed to. Girls don't --" Okay but they do. Girls do in fact very much do those things. Because they are disabled. Because they have disabilities. Because there are things they are expected to be able to do, which they cannot, in fact, do. And it's weirdly disability-erasing (ableist) to claim that people simply develop the ability to do things they can't do just because they're expected to.

heptad. Circling back to point A., while I can't prove it, I really think a lot of this "gendered autism" stuff is a way to pathologize and also explain away queerness/transness/gender-non-conformity in diagnosed-autistic kids. "Oh, no, don't worry, the reason your son consistently Fails At Masculinity isn't because he's some kind of sissy; it's actually because he has this Masculine Male Boy Disorder where he just doesn't understand how boys are supposed to behave. Lots of boys have it. No, no, the reason your 12 year old son is kissing his male friend on the mouth isn't because he's gay; he just has a social skills disorder and doesn't know that boys don't kiss their platonic guy mate dude friends. It's a very masculine disability. Elon Musk has it." I know somebody who was told by an Autism Mom that all autistic people are bisexual because "They don't know the difference." Sure, keep telling yourself that.

8️⃣. In the past, when I was less Galaxy Brain Mad Radicalized, I conceptualized the phenomenon of "'Boys' are diagnosed with autism while 'girls' with the exact same traits are diagnosed with depression/anxiety/OCD/BPD/ED" as a phenomenon of "Autistic girls, who objectively are autistic, whose objectively, scientifically correct diagnosis is autism, are misdiagnosed with psych disorders instead." But what neither autistic nor Mad people really want to admit is that "autism" is as arbitrary a diagnostic category as any other. No two human brains are exactly alike. All systems of classification are made up. I happen to think that the proposed explanatory mechanism of "autism" (brain processes sensory input/information differently than average, results in wildly uneven skill development) is generally more accurate than the proposed explanatory mechanism of most psych diagnoses (people are weird somehow and that's bad somehow), but it's still fairly arbitrary. People with autism diagnoses get ABA and people with psych diagnoses get CBT/DBT, and you can argue about which is worse, but ultimately anything with a B in it is fundamentally abusive. Abolish psychiatry.

[fangbangerghoul]

Rook As Companion Template

(Template stolen from @bearlytolerant here)

The Basics

Name: Ghoul Gender: Nonbinary (she/they) Faction: Shadow Dragons Lineage: Elf Class: Rogue Personality: Laissez Faire Firecracker Preferred Weapon: Jagged Daggers Preferred Trinket: 2 small smooth rocks to roll between their fingers Preferred Style of Clothing: Loose, skin breathing causal Rivian style Hero Special Ability: The Dastardly Bastard (Headbutt that stuns an enemy completely and vertebrates through the surrounding 4, weakening them) or Death’s Songbird (Draws all enemies, once surrounded cuts through them) Favorite Gift: Handmade plushies Pet: Calico Cat- Dahlia Acquaintance Bond Level Status: Tolerable Fiend Friend Bond Level Status: The Cleaners Good Friend Bond Level Status: Righthand Dagger Hero Bond Level Status: Shadowed Accomplice/The Grim Reaper Romance Bond Level Status: Ghastly Lover

Lighthouse Living

Room Type: Attic Room Decor: cluttered collected knives/randomly acquired items (rocks, pockets of dirt/leaves) Favorite Food: Rabbit stew Favorite Drink: Mead Favorite Hobby: drawing/reading Favorite Hangout Spot: Highest point of the lighthouse leaning over the balcony Interactions with Pet: Lounging on couch, reading Interactions with Assan: races in a circle Interactions with Manfred: pretends to find gold coins behind his ear

Relationships

Greetings: - Acquaintance: “what are you looking at?” - Good Friend: “trying to escape everyone?” - HOV: “With the both of us, victory is always certain.” - Romance: “Welcome, lovely” Thoughts on Companions: Neve: Secretly wants to be a princess, prefers to have her as a companion in a fight Bellara: Too cheerful but appreciates her lack of filter Harding: Stubborn and her cooking scares Ghoul Emmrich: Enjoys admiring bone structure and hearing his interesting lectures Davrin: Too noble but a good time Lucanis: Silent but intriguing, a bit of a comedian Taash: Her favorite arm-wrestling opponent and favorite spar partner, Ghoul also has gained an interest in Dragons Comments About Biggest Rival/s: If related to companion quest: - “I don’t care if we share blood, I won’t concede to his whims.” - “Sometimes I wonder what things would look like if our lives played out differently, but then I realize I don’t actually give a fuck and cannot wait to stab the bastard.” If in battle: - “C’mon motherfucker!” - “A shame you met me today.” - “I can afford another concussion just to knock you out.”

Banter Subject with Neve: If a Shadow Dragon should sleep with a Threads/Is a case ever really solved Banter Subject with Lace: How do plants stay alive/Archery tips Banter Subject with Bellara: Exchange of smutty romance recs/Dalish History Banter Subject with Davrin: Creatures and pet-ability/drinking stories Banter Subject with Taash: How to look like a Dragon/Exercise routines Banter Subject with Emmrich: Philosophy of serving Death/Can I have a skull for my room Banter Subject with Lucanis: Who has been awake the longest/Best kill moves Bonus Spite: ‘Yes and’ games/sharing vengeance stories

Unlock Personal Quest:

under construction and tied to Elgara Vallas

Romance

Flirt/s: "You wear things well.", "I admire how you hold your stance in battle.", "Think you can cut out someone's heart? .... Would you like to try mine sometime?" Date Location: Top of an abandoned tower in Mirathous Date Activity: Watching the sun set and the stars come out or being chased by Venatori Term of Endearment: Lovely, Beloved, My Heart Show of Affection: Hidden notes in their items, random sketches left in their room when not around, more physical proximity

[koko-canie]

❥⠀Orin Ayo Headcannons　｡｡｡

Warnings　𓎟𓎟　 Mentions of Death regarding Drug use , Gun Violence , Body horror , Mentions of abuse , Cult mention ( obv ) , Kidnapping , Trauma etc

NOTES : Nothing is explained in super graphic detail of course but there's alot of dark themes here , its a horror mod so yeah. also some of these headcannons are personal !! don't take these seriously its just my interpretation

DREAM / LIE :

Lie isn't an exact "personification" of someone's trauma , but really an unnamed corpse who like the others is a victim of Tab's cult.

He's called "Lie" by the others as they do no know his actual name nor origins.

he has no memories of his past life

Lie also doesn't talk either , not that he isnt able to but he simply remains quiet for the most part.

Nonbinary , but only bc they cant tell what his gender is ( however he still uses he / him )

HART :

Her and James ( along with Kurt ) have a sibling like bond , James lets her sit around him

is able to remember her past but often doesn't like to.

Before Death she used to be a dancer ( ballet dancer )

while she cant speak very well she does whisper , you can hear her when its very quiet

BAYLEE :

He's very sarcastic but given he's a statue head bust its not surprising

While he isn't chatty , Baylee may make one-off comments or remarks to anyone he happens to see

he cannot move at all , others have to help him move

he has no memory of how he died , nor why he's even in a the cult in the first place

his face being covered in clay prevents him from making expressions but he can change his tone of voice

HUE :

in my mind , his design is different ( /glowingparasite's design of hue is what he looks like in my mind bc his actual design sucks poo poo )

Like a Tiger , he makes a "chuff" sound when pleased or content

he also knocks a lot of stuff over just because ( dudes a huge house cat tbh )

When he talks it sounds more like growling

James sometimes tries to pet hue when he isn't looking ( James is a softy for animals )

PROTOTYPE 3 :

legit cannot speak , only uses sound effects to communicate

i don't have much for her sadly

ETHAN :

He could play just about any instrument

He has a tenancy to move his fingers around when standing ( he's got the tism )

Despite being blind , he still remembers how to play most instruments by memory

Type of dude to say "Wowzers" and "Aw shucks" unironically

has a lisp

HETY :

was originally a pretty devoted followers of the cult , when she died Tab decided to bring her back to life.

very mentally unstable

She does have a body under the mass of ferrofluid and wires , but its very hard to notice and see

she is able to use these wires to grab things and attack ( she attacked lilac so yeah )

Reasoning for attacking iliac was due to her being a big fan but lilac ultimately rejected seeing her because of her sneaking back stage without permission. this lead to Hety attacking lilac.

DOUGG :

His inclusion to the cult was simply because Tab didn't like him. Dougg didnt actually do anything.

before death he was a gambler

he's a pretty sneaky dude though , sometimes playing pranks on the others for the hell of it

Likes to mess with James because of his reactions

AZ-TF :

When they talk it sounds like two people speaking at once

AZ has the deeper voice and TF has the higher one

they have no memories of their past

They often bicker about small things

STANLEE :

Before his death , he was actually friends with Andrew ( and even lived with him for a while )

When Stanlee is sober he is surprisingly well spoken and actually pretty smart

His addiction developed at 21

Due to his now ferrofluid blood , he cannot become sober and is forever high

he struggles with his memory

ACHETURE ( FLICKERR ) :

Can communicate though words on its screen

despite being a TV , its still sentient

Acheture still retains its memories before death

KURT :

He's often around James or Hart as he doesn't trust the others. ( its like a sibling dynamic )

Originally he was very scared of James , this changed over time

He also likes to keep the duck around for comfort

Kurt likes to draw to show how he's feeling

His vision is very blurry

CRATZ PURR :

Oldest within the cult in terms of age

he's just everyone's grandpa

he's a nervous wreck however and tends to get overly worried about the others

his voice sounds sorta autotuned with an organ

LILAC :

She's a lesbian ( sorry but i cannot see her dating a man , i don't ship her with neester at all :/ )

she still has her guitar but she cant play it

She considers Ethan to be a little brother

she frequently argues with James due to him being rude to everyone

Before her death she was very influential in the goth rock scene

JAMES :

I already wrote some headcannons for him in this post but ill add more

he struggles with empathy and often disregards others alot

despite this however he is very nice to Kurt and Hart

he also likes the duck

DERICK :

He isn't able to speak , like at all

i don't have anything for him srry

DUCK :

She's basically the cults pet

James is responsible for feeding her

KASKI :

Bi disaster

Often makes internet references that nobody understand ( aside from Baylee and Ethan )

Meows at people ( vocal stim )

has attempted to plat games on prototype 3 before

The hands on her body are tattoos but they can move

ANDREW :

He's a very slow talker , his voice is also very low

He often sings sea shanties to himself

when alive , he lived along the coast. from there he sailed off for fun.

at some point he met Stanlee when he was alive and even let him live with him. the two were very very close. however one say Andrew would get high and fall off his boat , resulting in his death. this had lead Stanlee's addiction to worsen and lead to his death too.

Andrew often stays around Stanlee within the cult , even if Stanlee cant quite remember him. ( doomed yaoi oops )

[sunshine-of-my-shoulder]

no way did someone try to correct me when I used she/her pronouns for a character like god forbid someone have gender hcs

[uncanny-tranny]

Quick tip: If a trans passing guide is focused on thinness, whiteness, or getting rid of anything about yourself that is "too clockable" (regardless of if that thing about yourself makes you happy), maybe it isn't worth fretting about, since it is clearly coming from a homogenized idea of what passing looks like

[spitblaze]

This is going to sound mean but I mean this in the most sincere and compassionate way I possibly can:

If you see a comment on the internet that is transphobic towards your group and your first assumption is that the person who wrote it is a different kind of transgender and not cis, especially if that comment is completely removed from all context or anonymous, no avatar or username or anything, take that as a sign to log off for a few days or pick up a new hobby.

[carlyraejepsans]

for real WHERE does the idea that [utdr humans] are nongendered so that "you can project on them" come from. their literal character arcs are about NOT being a blank slate to be filled in by the audience

i think i understand the assumption on some level for undertale, because there is a very intentional effort to make you identify with the "player character" in order to make your choices feel like your own (the beating heart of undertale's metanarrative lies in giving you an alternative path to violence against its enemies after all, and whether you're still willing to persue it for your own selfish reasons. YOUR agency is crucial).

of course, the cardinal plot twist of the main ending sweeps the rug from under your feet on that in every way, and frisk's individuality becomes, in turn, a tool to further UT's OTHER main theme: completionism as a form of diegetic violence within the story. replaying the game would steal frisk's life and happy ending from them for our own perverse sentimentality, emotionally forcing our hand away from the reset button.

i think their neutrality absolutely aids in that immersion. but also, there's this weird attitude by (mostly) cis fans where it being functional within the story makes it... somehow "editable" and "up to the player" as well? which is gross and shows their ass on how they approach gender neutrality in general lol.

but also like. there's plenty of neutral, non PCharacters in undertale and deltarune. even when undertale was just an earthbound fangame and the player immersion metanarrative was completely absent, toby still described frisk as a "young, androgynous person". sometimes characters are just neutral by design. it's not that hard to understand lol.

anyone who makes this argument for kris deltarune is braindead. nothing else to say about it.

[the-meme-monarch]

i'm just tired of it is all

[hypogryffin]

i cant believe i wasn't following u b4,,,,,ive just been silently scrolling through your blog for like a solid YEAR and just haven't even noticed????? n e ways what are tha thoughts on literally anyone in p4 being trans bc i live for that 🎤

the way my brain decided that this was asking for pronoun headcanons and did not reread to make sure that was what you were asking before drawing all of this…... well anyways

[prince-liest]

I’m reading Witch King by Martha Wells, and now that I have read more than one (1) series by this author, I have been suddenly brained with a two-by-four sharpied over with “realizing that I really enjoy novels by Martha Wells because they live in the specific niche created by the intersection of casually and thoroughly queer casts and non-romance storylines”

I am as ever a sucker for non-human main characters struggling with their very human feelings, which is why I jumped on Witch King the moment I saw “the author of Murderbot wrote another book with a main character that’s non-human,” but I live in this dichotomy where I can really enjoy reading queer romances but I don’t really identify with non-ace characters (which is not actually something I figured out how to differentiate until I was Last Week Years Old). so there are lots of books out there that I enjoy reading but it’s comparatively rare for me to read something that feels like it was written For Me and Martha Wells does that very well

anyway, give me more ace it-pronouns human-spliced robot main characters and people-eating demons who consider rank over gender when finding new bodies to inhabit

[hellofastudysession]

am i rlly going to write a death note literary analysis when i could be doing other things

about the discourse going on in the tag abt "death note is acab and thats why the characters couldnt better the world with the note (/written in somewhat jokey matter)" vs "death note is trying to say we all have potential for evil, especially if you get a chance to insta-hurt ppl without repercussions, and it doesnt matter if youre a cop or not", i personally feel like it ignores the things that i like abt death note, which is "both of these things are true", and simultaneously "both of these things do not matter". the first part of this is dedicated to the first point, the latter to the last.

first point. i think its an important part of the message and themes (unintentional or not, and i lean on the former because... come on, can you really say the author intended you to not think of the cops as good people, at least compared to light and l) that light is a cops son, and that almost everyone who gets the death note is cop adjacent/thinks like a cop and is already corrupt/powerful when they get it (mello raised to think hed be just like l, yotsuba group is self explanatory; you cannot look me in the eyes and tell me teru "churchill" mikami, who was hand selected by light out of a bunch of rabid kira supporters, is a normal citizen). i appreciated the cop post bc its rlly important to not gloss over that aspect.

all of this would be an argument for "only someone like them would do something like this, and i am not like them, so im above them and immune to thinking about what id do with it", but... misa is the MOST important outlier in all of this bc her murders are solely selfish in nature and shes not doing any of this for "the greater good"!!! her nature of being an exception and still a very very bad person is really really important...

or it would be if death note gave a shit about her character at all!!! im not talking about her tragic side, im talking about exploring the ramifications of her killing people the way lights murders are (somewhat) explored. that would strengthen the message greatly! but shes dismissed and that weakens it overall. firstly, she's dismissed by the characters when l only sees her as a way to get to kira and basically shelves her the rest of the time. secondly, shes dismissed by the narrative when her character is gradually ground down to a stump and (not to sound perilously close to the bad takes ppl meme about) she never faces repercussions for her actions. every other character using the death note is treated relatively seriously, but misa just dies bc her love is dead. im not saying this isnt a... fitting punishment or that it isnt in character, but it doesnt fit snugly into the theme other people are talking about of "you reap what you sow" at all.

we do have something of an equivalent to misa's grayscale motives. surprise surprise, its light yagami. first is light's characterization in the musical (i will also note that misa never kills anyone in the musical). light's thinking is coplike, yes — he literally starts his first song by talking about "throw[ing] away the key" — but also, oddly enough, could be read as progressive and therefore sympathetic to tumblr ("let the corporations make the regulations / and hold no one accountable when everything gets wrong / let the rich and famous get away with murder / every time a high-priced mouthpiece starts to talk, his client gets to walk"). compare to the anime and manga, where his bigotry and pride and disgust come from a place of lukewarm dissatisfaction and boredom. the musical has much less time to play around with lights character, so it gives the audience something to immediately hook on. more on how that actually plays out later.

in the animanga, none of this is justified from the start. animanga light could say he was just killing people to make humanity way, way worse, and that wouldnt matter, because at the root of it, it was always his boredom that made him pick up the note. of course he actually believes in justice and believes hes doing the right thing (no, he believes he's doing the wrong thing, for the sake of the world... the right thing, because he is god...), but it was boredom at the start. all animanga light says about justice and righteousness and the law is a front in the end, bc he is exactly like l and misa — amoral. selfish. searching for entertainment. hedonistic. we know this. he kills naomi misora*. he kills lind l. turner. everything hes saying deserves to be dismissed from the beginning.

"but doesnt that mean you agree with the discourse post you wrote this post to argue against?" like i said, i agree with both of them! but i... still think its not right to reduce death note to the message of "the power to kill people is bad". because that is not exactly what the story is saying, even though that's literally its whole plot and therefore reaching that conclusion is self explanatory (lmao). let's look at the concept of mu. nothingness. "there's no heaven or hell". The Real Slay The Princess (Death Note Essay) Starts Here.

in light's final moments in the death note manga, while screaming about not wanting to die, he remembers that the first day they met, ryuk told light that "there's no heaven or hell. no matter what they do in life, all people go to the same place. all humans are equal in death". it is retroactively revealed that light knew this the whole time, operated under this knowledge for all the years we watched him — the knowledge that nothing he does is actually bad, that nothing any human does is actually bad, that shinigami are not "evil", that the universe does not care. that no one cares except humans. this oblivion absolutely terrifies him more than anything anyone could ever do to him. its what he thinks of before anything else as he flails there, screaming, dying. one could say everything he does after that day is him trying to escape that fact, or wrest control over it. but it doesnt work.

here are the lyrics of requiem, the musical's final song, sung over the bodies of l and musical light, a light who was at least somewhat good-intentioned at first: "sleep now, here among your choices / then fade away / hear how the world rejoices / shades of gray / gone who was right or wrong / who was weak or strong / nothing left to learn". this is the final message the death note musical and the manga chose to leave us with. there is no judgement. even after all that acknowledged hurt, after all the damage done, there is no judgement.

in the manga and anime alike, the world is just as fucked when light picks up the death note as when he dies. sure, we as readers can guess otherwise logically (and be optimistic, believing the world was never fucked regardless), but that's not what death note wants you to think. it ends with matsuda and another member of the task force noting how the world is worse again even though they killed kira (matsuda is clearly much worse for wear, but still determined), we see the shitty motorcycle band again, it ends with misa and a whole kira cult on a mountain even though kira died a long time ago...

its extremely important that light is never killed by any human or any aspect of the law. he is always killed by ryuk: a chaotic force completely detached from human sensibilities, one that does not care about good and evil. same with l; in the anime, manga, and musical, he is always killed by rems senseless, morally gray love (and you could argue in the kdrama that hes killed by love there too lol). justice is just a set dressing.

this is not just because death note is a tragedy, because good and evil can still matter in a tragedy. the theme of "nothingness" and "good and evil doesnt matter here" is also shown in a situation relatively unrelated to light winning or losing, or being good or bad. and its in fucking lawlight of all things. we all know ls not a good person. we know lights not a good person. this is tip of the iceberg death note knowledge. but the moment they start to interact, none of that starts to matter. textually, their relationship becomes more important than the people theyve killed and hurt. and the thing is? the thing is? THAT WORKS STORY-WISE. THAT'S ENTERTAINING. AND IT'S NEVER TEXTUALLY CALLED OUT IN A LASTING WAY. l and lights relationship, no matter how much i meme it, is genuinely important to the themes and "mu" because it makes it clear that despite all the pretensions, despite everything, this was never about good and evil. and it still works in the story. this is why death note is simultaneously a comedy — isn't the battle of good and evil supposed to matter more? well, fine, i'll keep watching this anyway. that suspension of disbelief comes crashing down the moment l dies, though, and a relationship built on nothingness (the "mu" sort, meaninglessness, not "character development" nothingness, theres plenty of character development) gives way to just nothingness (again, "mu", not light's post-l depression nothingness), forever.

(an aside: there is no one to root for in death note, and the only things to root for are either interesting character relationships, convoluted plots, or complete and total destruction: for everything to end so no more damage is done.)

not to say that death note does not encourage its readers to consider what damage they might do with the death note (obviously.), or that its characters never do. look at matsuda, a much easier heroic figure to latch on to than soichiro because of his unique place in the cast dynamic and because he's willing to consider both sides of the situation and kill light instantly for all he's done. its just that the story's own stance on the subject is... complicated by the existence of shinigami worldviews and by its own insistence that the world cannot change for the better.

also, this is not to say that this is executed well by the death note manga at all. it is a very strong tool, artistically, to establish and then violently remove any emotional connections between characters and make your story only about the exceedingly convoluted lengths characters go to to survive and catch each other so the reader can realize how ultimately pointless all of this is, but like... is that a good story choice if that's all you do? i would say not really. add in a good dollop of misogyny that destroys the second-to-last character who might actually be an interesting contrast to the rest of the cast's dull one-track focus on winning and justice, and youve got yourself a shitty story that... honestly still achieves what it went out to do, just not in a way id ever want to replicate.

anyway, back to the parts death note's actually trying to say. no matter what any human does in their life, no matter how they try to hurt or help the world, they all die in the end. hey, light, they all die in the end. once dead, they can never come back to life. and the seasons turn. and the world rejoices. and you say "goodbye"...

that's all.

no analysis of death notes overarching theme would be complete without nears final monologue, the definitive roast of light, the "you're just a murderer" speech: "what is right from wrong? what is good from evil? nobody can truly distinguish between them. even if there is a god." if we take this as talking about the actual god in the room (ryuk) as well as light, then near admits that humans will never be able to withstand these overwhelming forces and that, using justice and happiness and selfishness, they are just scrabbling to find meaning in things they ultimately have no control over.

but of course, near does not stop there. "[...] even then i'd stop and think for myself. i'd decide for myself whether his teachings are right and wrong." nears alright with not having control over everything, because near can still control nears own actions. these forces can and do exist, but they have no sway over nears own humanity — unlike light, who caved.

one of the creators of death note said they believe its message is "life is short, so everyone should do their best". the first time i learned this, i was like, thats... nice and optimistic, but an awful reading of the story! "life is short, so everyone should be desperate and striving like light yagami", who literally cut off other ppls lives for his own life? what character in death note are we supposed to strive towards when we "do our best"? they all do awful things with their lives! honestly, maybe they shouldnt have tried their best, if this is what their best is!

but with the view of "mu"... it makes a bit more sense. just a little. maybe.

there is no good and evil. there is only what humans think, and no matter what we do, we all die in the end. it is easy to be crushed and terrified by this in the same way light is, but what is more important than justice and righteousness and finding meaning is... doing your best. not being a person that hurts others too much. not letting yourself get swallowed up by an ideal. not going too far. and simultaneously, trusting yourself.

it leaves a few questions, though... was the currently dead l even a little bit right about his blatantly amoral approach, then? was there a point to this pain, and me slogging through this dumbass manga, and all the people that have lost their lives to a selfish teenage cop's son and the whims of everyone chasing after him? was there a point to any of this...?

the manga** never answers this. it stays clinically impartial until the very end. the musical is anything but clinically impartial (and i love it so much for that), and its ryuk that has the last word.

"there's no point at all."

of course theres no point. none of this was ever supposed to happen. that is what matters more than all the hurt and the crimes and the pain.

and that's... actually okay, because it's over now.

yes, death note has many really important themes present in its story, but its viewpoint is nihilism first and foremost. thats why its so fun and easy to play around with all the other messages, because no matter what fun or torment or awful things or righteous justice or absolute nothingness or sentimentality happens in between, there is always an end.

there is always the end.