#apologies for really bad rambles

[fishyvamp]

I was browsing Pinterest when I stumbled across this screenshot:

Warning mind the tags and before you click see more there is a really really bad joke in this drabble.

All I could think of was Ghostface and reader teasing Trapper. All three of them done with their trials for the day lounging in the workshop on the Macmillan estate. Trapper is repairing the traps that were damaged during his trials. He can here the two of you in the back cuddling, on the beat up old couch you two had scavenged from the fog, exchanging jokes back and forth. Some cheesy others just dark. Doesn't help that you both are competing for worst dirty joke. "What did the prince say to Cinderella?" Danny mused face resting on your chest as he listened to your gentle breathing. "Want to see if it fits?" His voice light as he fights back a giggle.

You roll your eyes, "okay I'll give you that's bad." You hum thinking for a moment, "a vampire walks into a bar asks the bartender for a boiling cup of water. The bartender looks at him confused. 'thought vampires only drank blood?' the vampire smiles pulling out a tampon, 'they do I just wanted tea.'" you hear a trap snap shut trapper cursing loudly in Scottish Gaelic. A blush painting the skin along his shoulders as he turned around too look you dead in the eye. "No more," he said curtly.

You Ghostface turned to each other for as if silently plotting against the now flustered Evan. "What it's a natural thing?" Danny mused rising to his feet fingers grazing the larger man's arm. In sync you move to the other side match Danny's movement stroke for stroke. "I thought you could handle the thought of blood." You tease, his body tensing with each movement.

You can hear a strain in his voice, "I can, but that blood is indecent. You don't talk about it." The two of you now sitting on the work bench arms crossed as you stay in sync with movements. "Why?" You hear Danny chuckle. Trapper can't even look at the two of you as you talk. "It just is." His tone sharp, arms folded against his chest as he leans back trying to distance himself. He shouldn't have to be defending himself you two should just know.

A smirk on your face leaning forward resting your face in the palm of your hands. "With everything we've done, with everything we've said to each other, a tampon soaked in blood as a joke is too far?"

The Trapper sighs looking at you both with softer eyes, "it's not something that one should discuss. Diamond." Danny and you both pause realizing that Evan is politely drawing the line. The safe word spoken loud and clear. The two of you sighing almost in sync, choosing to sit in his lap kissing him on both his cheeks. You can feel the large man relaxing hands resting on a thigh each. "Reckon it's time for me to stop and give you both some needed attention instead?" His grip possessive moving to your inner thighs. The tense fading as you both nod in agreement. "Good," He purrs.

[welcometogrouchland]

Noticing that TV and film will often have a character either have had an abortion in the past that isn't showcased on screen (and just used as part of the character's ~fucked up and twisted backstory~) OR contemplate getting an abortion in the present day but not to through with it. Just once I want to see someone delete that fetus within the events of the plot and not be like. Extremely majorly punished for it and/or be in the wrong

[wriokitty]

The nice thing about Ayato is that you can be a brat and tease him all you want but he physically does not have the self control to tease you back in retaliation because he’s pathetically desperate 24/7

[primus-why]

I Feel TFOne Could've Handled This Better...

Hot take but I feel like folks have been really generous with the take that OP was unable to find ~the perfect words~ in the heat of the moment (and thus should be given some grace) when he told D to stand down and "not be like Sentinel"... namely cuz I don't feel that the narrative supports this?

Like-- after all is said and done, OP doesn't reflect on that part of their split. He doesn't have a moment where he seeks validation or voices his regrets over the choice of his words, it's actually cut-and-dry. The narrative (as it stands) supports that OP saw D-16 acting up, so he called him out and stood on business, down to the last scenes where he's basically like "yeah it's a shame but y'all knew I had to do it to 'em."

It didn't have to be much! I'm not saying to absolve Megs, just show OP looking at things from a different perspective/contemplating a bit on that tough choice and the morality of the moment. Some examples of what I wish we had:

B-127 straight up blurting the obvious by later chatting with Orion like, "Wait so you told your best friend that he was acting just as bad as the guy who enslaved us for our entire lives and was torturing him like an hour ago? Oof. Seems kinda harsh." Then have some of OP's regret show on his face.

OP asking Elita-1 after Megs is banished if he did the right thing. Have Elita back his choice up, saying, "You should have seen what he did after you were... gone. It was terrifying. I know it was tough, but you made the right call." OP is grateful for the support, but a conflicted look still flashes across his face before he steels himself to look out towards the horizon... and the future.

Have OP walk past other mechs/former miners who didn't go with the High Guard saying stuff like, "Wish I could've given Sentinel a piece of my mind!" "Yeah, but I'm glad he's gone for good." "Ugh I miss everything." "Oh, it was crazy! Megatron picked him up and then he rrrrriiipped-- oops, hey there, Mr. Optimus... Prime... sir?" And have OP wave hello, looking a bit sick when they leave.

Post-credits scene with Starscream going on and on, asking Megs when they'll be back to teach the upstart Prime a lesson. Megs grabs his face to shut him up. "Patience, Starscream. The Prime thinks I'm no better than Sentinel... but I'll show him. He wants Iacon? He can have it. In the meantime we'll take the rest of the planet! Then I'll come back, crush Prime under my heel, and we'll take Iacon too. Sentinel's reign will barely be a footnote, because I'm about to become Optimus Prime's worst nightmare." The vocal performance would really need to sell this-- like picture Megs saying something like that from a place of anger and hurt, not so much a place of genuine evil or malice.

Basically instead of Orion's assertion being backed up as black and white/good vs bad, I wish we had some different opinions/reactions from the characters sprinkled in there. Like you can't tell me out of allllll the miners who weren't strong enough/willing to go with the High Guard and ended up sticking around that NONE of them were like "eyyo honestly?? Kiiiiinda glad Sentinel is dead. Wish I could have helped, tbh." like come onnnnn...

And you can't even argue that he's not an active threat-- I don't think everyone would see things that way! It's not just about the threat he physically has, but the threat he represents and is very likely to act upon if given the opportunity! He has a proven track record of not only being sneaky and conniving, but also capable of dealing some serious damage/killing people bigger and stronger than him, plus he has the backing of the Quints. All he'd need to do is wriggle his way out of jail and run off to his sponsors, then he'd probably be back to hurt more people! (If the Quints didn't just kill him out of incompetence lmao). There's a lot of "ifs" here, but I think it's a valid argument that not everyone would agree on what is the right or wrong way to handle Sentinel once he was down long enough to, like, do something about him.

I feel the situation needed a bit of nuance. In some way I wish they had kicked the can and had D and Orion bicker while Sentinel escaped, then have D get frustrated enough by the loss of Sentinel to point fingers (and his fusion canon) at Orion, who then falls and becomes OP. (Megs could still show some of thar emotion/remorse right after he does it too.) Not only would this open the door for a sequel, but tbh the Quint might have just killed Sentinel anyways and sought to deal with the miners uprising themselves lol. (Maybe that could have been an after credits scenes too instead of the B-127 bit??)

Would love to see a moment in a sequel where they have a calmer moment after arguing for a bit. Have OP mention how Megs was out of line, that it hurt and even scared him to see him act that way, and Megs can quietly point out "you said I was as bad as Sentinel... is that really how you see me? After everything we went through?"

Then OP can fumble the bag again lmao like "D, I... I'm sorry, that didn't come out right... but you still took things way too far..."

"Why am I not surprised-- your opinion is what matters the most! Maybe that's why you became a Prime, since you're so good at acting like the world revolves around you--!"

*gets interrupted by someone else before another yelling match ensues*

[scarapanna]

News flash!!

Silly little snipit of info undercut regarding SM in the au for the funsies!!

So Shadow Milk is a bit of a bully at times, sometimes messing with Pure Vanilla or just generally doing what he wants outside of the void (aka the mind space). However, he's not prone to fighting at all due to his weakened state (Thanks to Lily's seal), and thus avoids conflict to not damage his "vessel" whilst not wanting to lose the barebones power he has regained trough drainage after leaving the faerie kingdom.

Because of this, every being stronger than him is intimidating, causing him to be less mean to it and avoid it's presence. Yet he never admits fear as it would damage his ego. (It's an unlikely scenario in the timeline, but still a fun topic to tackle)

Tldr: He's a bit hypocritical/silly

[mangora]

I’m a big proponent of the whole “Mike is an asshole sometimes” thing, I really am, I think it humanizes him a lot and just makes him a lot more interesting. He’s shitty towards his alters at times, he has his bitchy moments especially towards Scott, and he clearly has some anger that he doesn’t know how to express (hence Chester and Mal existing). But I really don’t like when people are like “Mike is a villain” or “Mike is actually a bad person” or “Mike is a manipulative liar” tbh. And I’m aware that it’s probably kinda my fault that that’s become a sorta popular sentiment because I’ve written fics where characters like Scott or Mal call Mike a bad person, and I do think that’s something they believe (or at least, I think it’s something Scott would say to get under Mike’s skin and something that Mal would say to push him away, and something that they’d both sort of convince themselves of to comfort themselves)— not saying this as a like “you guys don’t understand my writing thing” like genuinely I wrote a lot of that when I was just a worse author because I was like 16-17 and I wasn’t getting my point across well. But I just think people miss some of the complexity of Mike’s character when they reduce his worse traits to “Aha! See! Mike sucks!” because his reasons are pretty understandable I feel. Mike’s a teenager with trauma, it’s likely he doesn’t trust people easily and has had issues making or keeping friends in the past. Of course he’s worried about people finding out he has DID. Of course he hides it and of course that will negatively affect his alters. Of course he might have issues understanding that his alters are fully formed people. Of course he has issues opening up to close friends, because what if he loses them. Of course he gets upset when Scott is obviously fucking with the people he grows close to, and of course he doesn’t trust him. Of course he gets annoyed with and mad at Scott after he literally blackmails him— hell, Mike’s kind of a saint for not just throwing Scott off a cliff for that one, he’s the one person I can’t really blame for laughing at Scott in the trauma chair even if it’s still kinda out of character imo. Of course when Mal comes back he’s afraid to tell anyone about him and puts himself in danger to protect others, and of course when Mal traps him he’s angry at him. Like idk obviously this doesn’t make Mike a perfect flawless angel, these are still character flaws, it’s not good that he’s resilient to communicate these things— but also I don’t think it makes him a bad person really because it’s ultimately self-preservation done in the only way he really knows how, without the intent to harm anyone and without doing excessive damage in the process. He just wants to feel safe and loved man, I think that’s a lot better of an angle than “Mike’s actually a bad person and hates his alters and he’s a control freak and he’s just as bad as the villains”, like maybe Scott would think that or like, Chris might, but I feel like it’s kinda reductive to look at him that way. Does this make sense wtv my brain fog is like disastrous atm

[xxplastic-cubexx]

what is your favorite thing about charles and your favorite thing about erik? separately, as in what you like most about their characters :]

a devious question this one is, my friend!!! it's hard enough for me to explain my thoughts cohesively, but having to pick ONE thing i particularly love is difficult. with characters like charles and erik, theres been so much done with their characters over the decades and so they have so many components to them that make them so interesting and fun to observe. BUT I TRY FOR YOU TODAY. under the cut i kinda ramble and the size of this text box makin me anxious

i think if i were to be simple and broad, what i enjoy most about charles is his determination to help others, even if he isn't really thanked and/or if people don't even like him. ofc, this isn't to say he hasn't done wrong- to be honest, the fact he does wrong/questionable things at times is another aspect of him i really enjoy, maybe because- broadly speaking- he's meant to be altruistic (intent vs outcome and all that). i don't know if that's super exciting to most people, but it is for me

as for erik, my reason for liking him is easier to explain tbh. To Be Simple And Broad, his progression from villain to antihero over the decades has been fun to observe (as much as i have so far anyhow) and analyze. i think to be a bit more specific, him using his rage and pain as justifications for his villainous actions is definitely what compels me the most: hurt people hurt and the sort, an idea i've always found interesting (something something vicious cycles and the like). yet now, he recognizes this wasn't really. A Just Thing To Do and is beginning to change that, which i enjoy

[sangfielle]

would love your take on the saarebas as a part of DA canon (until recently i guess lmao) because they're a piece of qunari worldbuilding that i am oddly besotted with, but they also feel to me like another one of those details added to make qunari seem more "barbaric", which was then given some cursory nuance to try and make it not look as uniquely bad (for example, you can draw a comparison between the abuses circle mages suffer in kirkwall and the plight of saarebas, but the visual language of one group being confined to barracks and the other being chained and collared like animals is still going to have someone engaging with the work associating some very fraught traits to an arvaarad that they then wouldn't to a templar). i don't really know how to work with them in a fanon context for my own enjoyment that doesn't feel like uncritically leaning into the most racist parts of how the qun is presented, but deleting them the way DATV did feels worse. what do you think?

also you made a post abt them all being Government-Assigned Nonbinary that gelled with my interpretation of them lol

i sat with this for a little while, because i wanted to have something better to say than "i basically agree with you about all of this", but the problem is that i basically just agree with you and there's not that much you can say about saarebas that you can derive from the actual text of the games. they're categorically denied depth and we're refused any insight into qunari society and, like, the non-antaam qunari mind (sten and the da2 arishok, specifically, i guess -- inquisition doesn't want you to consider iron bull qunari so i won't, tallis is semi-useful as an insight into the position viddathari are forced into when speaking to those outside the qun but that's it [just in da2, i thought about revisiting redemption in case it would provide any insight but i feel pretty confident every character in that show is one-note without re-watching it], i guess you can have that one conversation with ketojan before it* kills itself?) (tevinter nights would have been a great place to put a story from the perspective of a saarebas but that didn't happen, so whatever).

i don't know how much help i can be of in terms of "how do i engage with this in a non-racist (etc) fashion", because i think the answer might be that you can't? i think that for basically everything surrounding the qunari, it's very difficult to not play into the bigoted stuff baked into them without doing a ground-up rewrite of the entire society. you're right that totally ignoring the bigoted writing and just hoping that works like vg does isn't really a solution either though. my suggestion would be to just go into whatever you're doing aware of the politics of the depiction of the saarebas and be mindful to not act like their treatment is uniquely barbaric relative to circles. if the thing you're doing isn't solely focused on qunari, spend some time looking at andrastian treatment of mages and make a point of comparison? if you're writing, make an effort to treat any saarebas and arvaarad as, like, people with interiority in the same fashion as you would templars and mages? if you're an artist, uh. it is much harder to get away from the imagery. i don't actually know what to tell you about that.

that's very basic advice but i don't have much specific rewrite advice besides "probably be mindful of and utilize the fact that in-universe it's implied that ketojan's treatment was extreme and not the typical way saarebas are handled (the specific visual language of the stitched lips are supposed to be a second-to-last resort handling method, not typical practice. i will say that i really deeply dislike the stitching scars that people love to put on their tal-vashoth mage ocs. that's probably more personal preference and me being anal about minor lore notes, but it feels to me like it leans into the idea that qunari treatment of mages is worse and more damaging than andrastian methods, especially when people don't really treat tranquility with the same weight despite that being... worse, probably). iirc saarebas (redemption) was treated notably harshly throughout its* life in the qun but didn't bear any specific visual markers besides the collars that would imply that it was held on a particularly tight leash. again, didn't rewatch redemption for this and it's a pretty vauge memory in my head, so i'm less sure about saarebas (da:r) than i am about ketojan and hissera (and i admittedly don't know jack shit about saarath, but there's very little to know, it seems like?). hissera and saarath have the stitches, but i'm pretty sure that's because they wanted to maintain a visual continuity with the saarebas more than anything else, because hissera isn't noted as being a mage that needs to have a close eye kept on it*, on account of... it's allowed to travel around thedas by itself under its own supervision. so i guess that's another thing worth keeping in mind, that a few saarebas are trusted to just be by themselves and do whatever, like wynne is with the circles? actually probably the most straightforward comparison in terms of level of treatment of the typical saarebas would be to fereldan circle mages specifically. if you want something to use as a yardstick for their treatment (similarly to andrastian circle mages, though the chantry will less readily admit it than the qun, is that the primary role of a mage is being a tool of war). also worth being aware of the fact that unlike thedosian cultures, saarebas are specifically noted as being revered in the qun to some extent. people don't... hate them, probably. the qun is too much about anti-individualism and living as a part of a whole for that to be the mindset about people who are occupying a very restrictive role

*i mean, you saw my post about it. i feel like the -bas suffix denotes a set of pronouns and a gendered role.

[shsl-heck]

Worm fans are really bad at making the connection between "Cauldron is really ruthless" and "Cauldron regards all parahumans as numbers on a spreadsheet at best, livestock at worst". The mentality is that Cauldron is only ruthless when they choose the Renegade option in a specific situation. The idea that their ruthlessness is systemic doesn't register

I guess that explanation makes some sense, but also, its so central to the story's themes that Cauldron isn't just mean or something, but in fact systematic and unrelentingly ruthless in their pursuit of any chance to save humanity. The way Cauldron mirrors how the entities operate, the fact that they control the PRT/Protectorate, Doc Mom genuinely not remembering who Sveta is, etc. There's a lot there, and it all impacts the narrative!

I could even kind of see how someone would miss that if they were caught up in the personal tragedy of Doc Mom and Contessa... except Worm fans are also really bad at realizing that Cauldron is run by two or three people who gave up their entire lives at very young ages and are now desperately throwing things at the wall hoping just one of them will stick so that this won't all have been for nothing.

They're somehow simultaneously overestimating and underestimating the inhumanity of cauldron, and I think it has a lot to do with the whole "one death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic", and "banality of evil" thing. Seeing Contessa curbstomp the found family that is Faultline's crew feels horrific because of how visceral and small scale it is. Meanwhile, even if we intellectually know that Cauldron is treating human lives as abstract numbers like currency, it doesn't stick in some people's brains the same way. Or at least that's my best guess.

The real take away of this though is that Worm fans are bad at book.

[raspberryjellybrains]

I've been thinking a lot lately about identity, culture, parody, pastiche, and empathy (which I'm aware is a very broad umbrella, but bear with me.) I think a part of the reason why post-modernism doesn't resonate with younger generations as "art" is that its core conceit has become mainstream. There's still the critique of capitalist work as fetish which hasn't been taken up in the mainstream, but the overwhelm of images and ideas both industrial and organic pared down and/or magnified past the point of comprehension then replicated infinitely has become the general stew the internet is mired in. It is, by nature, the very thing depicted as perverse by earlier artists; thus, there's no edge to it anymore, simply another smooth rock wearing away at the boundaries between our selfhood and the world (if ever there was a meaningful delineation to be made.)

Further, I think the lack of self-awareness is deadly. When one takes every element of culture, regarding depth and meaning carefully, and creates something new from it (however scathing it may be towards the source material,) that is one thing; it is something entirely different to do so without care. This... loss of care in the handling of culture is a symptom of the panoptic nature of the internet. To regurgitate everything, it must first be swallowed, and before that? Ripped and shattered on the rocks of the gaze. The only way to avoid the gaze is to hide all noticeable traits until you blend in with the scenery, and to do that, you must erase every emotion, trait, or interest; you turn into a cold mask of a human, mocking your kind and taking the teeth you hardened to avoid into your mouth, becoming a new eye on the mutated tower of our own insatiable curiosity. This is a very roundabout way to refer to irony poisoning.

That poison does exactly what I outlined. It breaks the self whole, and blended with the most pernicious mechanisms of capitalism, sells the most delicate parts to the highest bidder. Pale copies of it are then disseminated as the real thing and turned into a hollow, post-modern collage of one's most sacred parts to cover the vicious nothing underneath. Pale copies of pieces of people destroyed become a collage element alongside hundreds of others for a trendy mask, long discarded in a years time.

Even the reason for this practice has become subsumed in its mimicry, rendering the perversion of post-modernism so two months ago.

[ssiggss]

Hello! I've always loved your Trollhunters content, and I really love your characters and storyline for the Arcane Order.

I just wanted to share my own design for Skrael, who I reworked a lot for my own rewrite of the Trollhunters series, as you'll see in the paragraphs to come, and the sketch itself.

(Sorry it's so messy!)

He's actually one of the first human-like figures I've been able to draw in a way I'm happy with. I based him more off of Inuit culture, and Inuit / Scandinavian viking clothing. (He has Scandinavian-style braids under that hood and skull)

This is just a sketch, but he's wearing a Walrus skull instead of that weird deer-thing.

I turned his shawl into a traditional Inuit garb that goes over his shoulders (since he can't freeze to death, it's not needed, and shows off his tats).

Speaking of his tattoos, since he's a god and doesn't really need a gender, I gave him both face and chest/arm markings. Traditional Inuit tattoos are usually given to women for events like childbirth or reaching maturity, and are located on the face. Male tattoos are not usually on the face, instead primarily on the arms and chest, to stand for a big whale they killed.

His pants are the same as traditional male Scandinavian pants, along with the boots, that cut off at the ankles so he can be barefoot. (Ignore the feet, I don't like drawing feet so it's just blocks).

I love Skrael. 🥰

I haven't answered an ask for this blog in a VERY long time, I'm pretty inactive, but I really like this!!

It is clear you put a lot of thought and work into this redesign, I really like it!! It's drawn very well, you did a good job!!

I love the Inuit inspiration, I've always held the conception that the Arcane Order is coded in many Native cultures, and I always recommend doing the most extensive and in depth research into the culture you're drawing inspiration from so you maintain a good respect and understanding in your creations!!

There's so much to learn and it's all absolutely fascinating and fun to study, I wish you luck and enjoyment in your research!!!

Deers are known to hold great significance in many Native cultures, and that's more than likely the reason his headdress is designed after one!!

I do love the walrus skull, it makes sense for the alterations you made to his character!!

I am so attached to Skrael being bald LMFAO but I like the idea of braids for him! Overall, I love this reworking you did!

I've always wanted better for the Arcane Order, I feel like all of them deserved to be redeemed and they have so much potential as gaurdians of the earth and stewards of the balance, and as powerful allies to Jim and everyone else, so seeing people adore them as much as I do is wonderful!!

After watching the last movie (we do Not talk abt that movie It Did Not Happen) I kinda immediately ignored pretty much all of it and did my own thing, because they could NEVER make me hate the Arcane Order.

I loved this take on Skrael, thank you so much for sharing!!

[gamblegun]

i also believe most "anti-transandrophobia people" aren't shitty people. i remember when the "bi lesbian" thing came up, people were really quick to jump to conclusions based on a viral post mocking the concept. when people advocate against an idea, there's the unsaid "if you support this, then you're a bad person!" so most people don't think critically about it, especially if it doesn't directly concern them. they'll assume they're doing the right thing and they might even add it to their DNI list.

also due to the nature of the internet, stirring up outrage is effective. people think they're immune, but they're not. especially on tumblr, if you say something in mockery similar to the way the "funnymen" do, you're likely to get people behind you. not to mention the cult of personalities that are able to proliferate exclusionist ideas easily. most people on here might just touch an exclusionist idea and absorb it partially, even if they're not actively partaking in any shenanigans.

unfortunately, this is niche internet discourse. most people won't think about it much. they don't have time to check out all the discourse points and will take others at their word because they want to be a decent person. (i am of course, only describing some of the people i've seen, not all)

Yeah, while I feel there are definitely shit stirrers around who just are using this opportunity to be awful towards us, for me it's a matter of genuinely understanding how some people that are against transandrophobia have come to this conclusion, and still feeling pretty hurt anyways. Like, I need people to take a moment and think before attacking and fear mongering about a group of trans people for Christ's sake. When I first heard about all this, it was seeing some posts about how privileged trans man are, and feeling that was pretty silly and unbelievable. I saw some people critiquing that sentiment and learned about the word "transandrophobia" from there, which seemed like a no brainer and good step forward for the community. I have indeed been on the other side of a lot of transandrophobia from the community since figuring myself out, and it was nice to see this discussion happening. However, when a lot of people seemed to become extremely against this seemingly overnight, it frightened me, it honestly made me feel unsafe in my social circle. I questioned myself extensively, reading up on feminist theory, trying to determine if I really was being as misogynistic as they claimed. It tanked my mental health for months, but I wholly believe our concepts are sound, and that trans men should be able to have a word of our own and the freedom to talk about our pain full stop.

It's like, even the people who think they are in the right are being transphobic about us all the time. A lot of tenants of their arguments are transandrophobic in nature, and then will refuse to accept criticism because they've already determined we're irrational hysterical thought seductors, and that saying transphobic things towards us would be okay anyway since we deserve to be hurt. When a lot of us say that a lot of people in the online community have drunk the 'ra/d/fem KoolAid', I tend agree with them. There are a lot of imbedded lines of thought I honestly don't know how to combat. And it makes me feel pretty unsafe in the community, and I don't think I deserve that, or anyone deserves that really. A lot of trans allies are much much more transandrophobic than they believe and it's disturbing to see so out in the open. I'm just... So disappointed in people constantly. You're right, if someone says something with the usual 'tumblr funnyman' contempt, people just tend to believe it. But it makes me angry! How dare people be manipulated so easily, have such shaky morals that they're willing to act so uselessly and cruelly without much a thought, or even taking time to have enough information. And it's like, I don't hate you, but it's embarrassing. Exclusionary behavior is always so insidious and embarrassing. I know that's not being completely fair, we are all just... So traumatized. A lot of people within the community tend to be extremely lonely, have had hard lives, and that's just asking for crab bucket behavior. And I can even see why trans women would feel concerned about it too, but I don't think we deserve automatic suspicion either.

I don't think they're fundamentally bad people or anything. I just can't be treated badly, I'm just not going to allow it, and I am certainly not going to like or respect anyone who acts so poorly.

I just hope this discourse is over eventually. I want to love and be loved by this community in turn. I want to actually feel apart of it. I want us all to stand together, it's going to be hard road ahead.

[poisonouspastels]

I need to talk about Minecraft AU for a sec and how the difference between our world and their world makes for some of the most humorous but also interesting differences in how people act about certain subjects.

Like the trans thing right. Steve and Rana are both trans I've talked about that before. And neither of them are on hormone replacement or anything (there is an in universe explanation as to why Steve has a beard though I promise I can talk about that if anyone wants) but like that's fine bc it literally Doesn't Matter to them or anyone else. Like as spawned players they already don't have any pre-existing gender roles or ideas of what something "should" be so gender and presentation is what they make of it and there's no real solid idea in anyone's mind about how a "boy" or "girl" behaves or looks like. These are labels that exist but they barely mean anything. It also helps that any preexisting culture that WOULD have ideas of this was almost entirely destroyed like 5000 years ago (thanks Groda) so it matters even less than it already did.

And its funny bc the only two people alive from that era, White Eyes and Groda also just don't care. Groda maybe asks why Rana's voice sounds deeper once and nearly gets torn apart by Alex bc of it (Rana isn't offended or anything she just has a defensive girlfriend), bc she doesn't really understand because she never experienced anything like this first hand but very quickly comes to understand it and accept it. And on the other hand White Eyes is just like "I've seen weirder things than this" which yeah. Yeah honestly I think the person who was previously one with the undead would not care about gender in the grand scheme of things.

And then u have Kai which I've joked before that they may as well have been spawned in nonbinary. They rlly just said "I'm not really anything" and everyone was like yeah makes sense I vibe with it. Good for u.

Steve and Rana are both fairly open about having been the opposite genders previously (because that's how they view their experiences and that's valid!) and don't really shy away from the subject but also never really have much reason to talk about it since there's rarely a need to. In the modern day pretty much everyone who met them had met them post-transition. Even Alex had met them just before Steve started growing in his beard. The only people who ever knew them as Adam and Eve were Efe and Sunny but they never really thought it was weird or anything. Like the weirdest part to them was Steve saying he got his epiphany from seeing some guy in the distance on a foggy day who looked vaguely like him but that's its own subject manner that they aren't going to pry on.

Also Steve did DIY top "surgery" previously with a sword but we aren't going to talk about how messy that was for everyone involved.

[yume-fanfare]

and like. Every Time i complain about tori haters at least one person comes to my inbox to justify themselves or explain their backstory and that they used to hate him but now don't and the thing is. i do not care. i don't want to hear that you dislike my favorite character and i think it's a bit of bad manners to come tell me about it so if you're thinking of doing that: don't

[velaraffricate]

writing a story where everybody is gender neutral is actually kinda annoying with regards to pronouns, like so far i've been using "it" for every character, i like it for its simplicity and inhumanness, but objects also use "it" and it can get kinda confusing at times. "they" isn't ideal cus then you can't easily differentiate between singular and plural. "he" or "she" won't work, they come with too much baggage. i'm thinking about switching to neopronouns, but which? (well, i'd probably go with ey/em/eir, it's a set i use myself and find aesthetically pleasing) do I use the same neopronoun for every character? then we can distinguish between people and objects, but not between multiple people. do i choose a set of 2-4 neopronouns and assign each character one based on vibes? that just feels like sorting them into categories, something i explicitly do not want to do. probably dozens if not hundreds of different pronoun sets have been created, does each character get a unique one? ultimately, i think the most elegant solution would be to use one set of neopronouns as a proximate and another as an obviate. these are just some thoughts that have been going thru my head as i work on this project

[obsidian-vineyard84]

Curious Questions

Based on a bit of writing i did last night, kinda, i started the drawing, then wrote it better