#are all still VERY valid ways to practice!

[tinymossyacorn]

i need good winter witchcraft ideas that aren’t just vaguely kitchen witchery (aka me making 8 billion soups and stirring then counterclockwise or making baked goods for family)

[phantaloon]

.

[iceyrukia]

I honesty don't think it matters much in current times that men have influence over the beauty industry when feminists will spew repetitive commentary about 'patriarchal beauty standards' like broken records yet will perpetrate and valorize the exact same beauty standards that they critique.

Overthrowing beauty standards and getting rid of them entirely IMO is the easiest thing to "overthrow" systematically because all it takes is simply not buying beauty products and not practicing in unnecessary beauty rituals, and POOF! it can all crumble but that's not what's happening. Instead you see the most self-aware choice feminists give lip-service in support of women who don't want to be forced to wear makeup or shave or feel insecure about their looks. It's all "all women are beautiful" and "no women should be bullied for having body hair or being GNC" and they might have good intentions but at the end of the day as long as beauty is social currency for women (femininity in all forms) then that becomes a baseline for ALL women and ALL women will naturally have the incentive to try to pursue whatever is the current beauty standard. And in return those women who opt out femininity are seen as 'lesser' women who get demoted and ignored by society, and so all women, both GNC and GC who get mistreated for being women no matter what, will be inclined to at least gain something (social currency) by being 'pretty' and try to capitalize on that if they are going to be mistreated anyways.

I think it's a common misconception around choice feminists (judging by the way they tackle beauty standards) that women's insecurity are a personal self-inflicted, self-esteem problem and not one where women subconsciously know they are missing out on something (social currency) is they don't participate in it. Choice feminism somehow strangely recognized that beauty standards as systematic issue but doesn't handle it a one, in fact they go the hyper-individualistic route where every women simply needs to "be confident" (where some women's confidence comes from getting plastic surgeries to be their ideal self :/ ), and everything is solved. They focus more on individual feelings and not with the fact that beauty is more an accomplishment and experience that women are supposed to valorize in order to be successful in life, as if it's something to put on a resume.

So, as long as women participate and "gain" something from being beautiful, even if they are victims themselves of beauty standards, words and support for gender non-conforming women fall flat. When women are not valued for existing in their natural form and there is always an "improved", altered version of a women that they can be according to society (that doesn't exist for men at all), it no longer becomes a simple debate about choices and how men control women's appearances or not but one of ALWAYS feeling like your natural self as a women isn't good enough and you have to keep up with women who "choose" to do so and "gain" the most from it. Men's opinions and actions become insignificant here.

[aeide-thea]

[ID: Text reads:

But this demand for "accurate representation" in the mass media is naïve. If the petition is successful one image is merely traded for another, the new one perhaps a little kinder, a little gentler. But because control over that image resides outside the hands of those being portrayed, the image remains fundamentally alien. As the mass media are commercial, this separation is multiplied, for the range of possible imagery is reduced to that which will appeal and sell. At the end of the line the process is complete: transformed into a mass media commodity, you buy your own image back. Since these representations are often how we know one another in a mass society like our own, the consequence of separation from one's own image is estrangement from one another. Social relations become relations between (mis)representations. ("Consumption," p. 131)

/end ID]

really into this passage about media representation in Notes From Underground by Stephen Duncombe

[alexanderwales]

Spells are a non-renewable resource. One a spell has been cast, it can never be cast again.

But thankfully, what counts as a unique spell is permissive, and very early on in the history of wizardry, wizards found many ways to use the arcane language to specify a similar effect even if the wording was different.

And still, spells were a non-renewable resource.

There are only so many ways to call forth a beam of lancing light, only a limited number of methods of purifying food to make it safe to eat. Soon it became necessary for the wizards to start casting spells that weren't quite what they wanted: a beam of light that arced to the left, a purifying spell that added a bitter taste, some changes cosmetic and others very functional.

And still, spells were a non-renewable resource.

Wizardry was divided into ages by the historiographers. The First Age was the age of plenty, when wizards could make minor tweaks to the spells and cast as much as they liked. The Second Age was the age of modification, when wizards were jumping through hoops and using methods with side effects. But the Third Age was the age of decay, when so many spells had been used that only the oddballs were left. It was impossible to cast anything even remotely resembling a fireball, not even one that hooked to the left and exploded with sharp green shards.

It came to be that few wizards could produce a spell on their first attempt. They would try, only to discover that someone else had already taken their idea and the spell does not work. They would try again, only to discover that their second idea had also been taken. Wizard battles, which had once been glorious light shows, were reduced to two wizards standing in a field trying to be the first one to stumble upon a spell that had never been cast before.

~~~~

Here are some plot hooks:

Wizards jealously guard their knowledge, fearful that someone will learn of a "seam" of untapped spells, but they also write down every spell they know to have been cast, to reduce their search space. Obviously this trove of knowledge is highly valuable.

The existence of spell "seams", which are really just collections of spells that work off the same cluster of discrete variations, mean that wizards tend to be very specialized. The Sheep Wizard knows eight hundred ways of turning someone into a sheep, because he's studied that area of the arcane language extensively, as well as historical precedents that have been ruled out. The natural enemy of a Sheep Wizard is, of course, another Sheep Wizard.

During the Second Age, a group of wizards get together to deliberately reduce the spell-space, largely in the hopes of reducing the capacity of wizard-kind for making war. Their work largely consists of sitting around casting as many fireballs as they can, depleting all options for everyone else.

During the Third Age, a group of wizards gets together and in the spirit of mutual cooperation begins to define "spell blocks", a collection of spells that a single wizard is entitled to and all other wizards agree not to use. When you become a wizard, you're given a thousand spells which are thought to still be valid, and will lose your license to practice wizardry if you cast any spells that are outside your block. This is difficult to enforce, rife with accusations and suspicion, but is thought to be better than nothing.

During the Fourth Age, a group of "wizards" (none of whom have ever actually cast a spell) are working on the arcane language in the hopes of a revival. As the age of hoarded knowledge has mostly passed, they're able to get their hands on many books that weren't previously available. One day, they invent a new form of specification that allows hundreds of thousands of new spells, re-igniting wizardry.

[sincerelyneo]

golden hour | l.mk

“i’ve got a really big problem…”

💿now playing: golden hour by mark

❯ summary: Mark’s got a really big problem; you. The pretty neighbour that shares a bedroom wall with him. You’re a night owl and you’re so loud and are you…listening to his music whilst masturbating…? Fuck now he’s hard. Guess he’s got two really big problems.

❯ pairings: mark x fem!reader

❯ genre: neighbours, smut

❯ words: 2.3k

❯ tags: 18+ minors dni!, masturbation, mark’s a loser for the plot, very explicit details of sexual fantasies, reader uses she/her pronouns and female gendered terms, literally just mark being horny whilst reader gets off to his song.

Mark needs to move out. He doesn’t know how much longer he can take the old run-down building his apartment is located in having no working elevator. If you’d have told him two years ago when he signed his dream music contract with a real record label that he’d be climbing six flights of stairs after a long week of work he’d have called you a liar. But that’s what happens when people aren’t listening to your music. 

Maybe he's overreacting; the building isn’t that terrible. It has its perks—like the pretty view. And it’s usually quiet—well, it was until his lively new neighbor moved in. Mark might have thought of you as a perk when he first saw you, considering you’re exactly his type, so fucking beautiful. But you’re also so fucking loud.

You always seem to have something going on—plans, hobbies, parties, meetings, friends. Mark knows because the walls between you and him are thin, and you’re never quiet, never still. At first, he thought it was kind of cute, but the more he thinks about it, the more he realises he’s been so distracted by how attracted he is to you, he’s been letting your noisy lifestyle slide.

It’s not like he wants to knock on your door and ask you to keep it down; he’s too worried you’d think he’s some kind of loser. Even at twenty-five, he still craves female validation like he’s a high schooler—so he’s been putting up with the sleepless nights. Another reason why he needs to move asap. 

The lack of sleep, combined with the endless stairs, has left Mark drained this past month. He can practically hear his sofa calling his name, can taste the cold bottles of beer that sit in his fridge as he reaches the top step. He may be a tad out of breath and a little sweaty but he’s got the weekend off and that’s all he can think about. But unlike you, Mark’s life is boring. The most exciting thing about his weekend is the idea of not having to climb his complex’s stairs until Monday. 

Meh. He could dwell on the mundane schedule of his life for hours but he gets distracted. Distracted by his pretty little nightmare neighbour. 

You're all dressed up in a tight gold dress that clings to every inch of your body. Your hair falls down your back as you lock your door, tucking the keys into the tiny clutch hanging from your shoulder.

That’s when you notice him too.

“Oh, hey,” you greet him softly, offering a bright and friendly smile. 

Mark returns it, his chest swelling. There's no denying you’re a beautiful girl. And although he’s overheard your phone calls about parties through the thin walls, and the hum of your hair dryer as you get ready for nights out, he’s never actually seen you in anything other than jeans and a t-shirt. He’s never been given the opportunity to see you so dolled up, to notice the little love handles he can all of a sudden imagine himself gripping. He clears his throat and smiles wider.

“Hi Y/N…you look nice!” He compliments kindly, fingers fiddling with his own keys. 

Nice? 

The word replays in his mind. He’s spent endless nights thinking about how beautiful you are and now he’s finally got to feed his craving of seeing you in tight clothes but the only word he can muster up is nice? Oh he hates himself. 

But then he sees you blush at the comment, and he loves the way you purse your lips, trying to hide a shy smile. A part of him is annoyed that you’re blushing over something so simple—he thinks every man should be showering you with compliments, and you should expect more than nice. Still, there’s something about the way you squirm from his words that has his cock throbbing.

He wonders if it’s because you’re attracted to him too. It’s not completely out of the question. You know who he is, of course you do. You see each other in passing a lot but you’ve also spoken on the day you moved in. Mark remembers it like it was yesterday. 

He could hear you panting and cursing in the hall, hauling boxes up and down the stairs before he came out to help. You didn’t recognise him at first, not until he was in your apartment setting boxes down.

That’s when you turned to him with wide eyes and a breathy, “oh wow, aren’t you the dude that sang ‘Golden Hour’?”

Mark started blinking at you like a deer in the headlights. He’d never encountered a fan in person before, he had a small community online, but his music hadn’t exactly been taking off like he planned. So you can imagine his surprise when his new (extremely attractive) neighbour knew one of his songs. 

“Thank you,” your soft voice breaks him from his memory, and moves his focus. “Just a night out with the girls, been a long week,” you sigh. 

He wants to hear all about your long week, wants to be the one to make it better—maybe convince you to skip the girls’ night and spend it with him instead. But he doesn’t. He doesn't even let the thought linger for more than a moment before he’s nervously tapping his key against his thumb.

“Well have fun, and be safe,” he settles on tenderly. 

You nod with a small smile, giving a gentle wave before turning to leave. He watches you until you’ve rounded the corner, only then unlocking his door and kicking off his shoes with a sigh.

Mark grabs a bottle of beer from the kitchen, kicking the fridge door closed behind him. His entire apartment is dark and it reminds him of the loneliness he’s been feeling for the last six months. Mark never really thought about love and relationships before he met you. Sure, he likes to fool around as much as the next person, but he’s always been fine with being on his own. But you remind him of the lonely. 

He’s never longed for love and friendships but a secret part of him craves a woman by his side… craves the woman next door.

He wonders what it’d be like for you to be cuddled into his side as you watch a movie. Wonders if you’d laugh at certain parts and crane your neck up to pepper tender kisses to his soft lips. Mark squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head, tries to rid the thoughts of you from his mind.

But it’s proven a little more difficult when he moves from the couch to take a shower and the water is running down his tense and naked body. He struggles to not think about you on your knees, touching his thick cock and kissing up his thighs.

He has to swallow back the lump in his throat and blinks away the urge to touch himself to the thought of you. He refuses to be that kind of guy. He’s not that kind of guy. So he gets out the shower and does the only thing he likes doing — music. 

Mark tries out new melodies on his guitar, humming broken lyrics and soft tunes he’ll be sure to show his producer on Monday. After a while he catches sight of the clock on the wall and it’s already a little past midnight. After locking his doors he’s crawling into bed and ready to sleep; but then he hears something. 

A soft giggle muffled from the wall behind his head. 

Mark’s fully aware the two of you share the same wall for your beds, rooms mirroring each other, but he’s never heard this kind of sweet giggle fall from your lips so late at night. He tries not to let the sound affect him, but there’s only one reason why a girl like you could be giggling at this hour after a night out. 

You’ve brought someone home? But Mark can’t hear a man’s voice, not even the slightest grunt or groan of male muttering. He can only hear soft giggling slipping from his favourite pair of lips.

And then he hears a robotic voice announcing that the Bluetooth is successfully connected and he knows he’s about to hear your fuck playlist. The thought sends a thrill through his body and he knows he’s unlikely going to get any sleep tonight.

He’s about to get up, to move to the sofa in the living room, to not be disrespectful and a perv by listening to you getting off, but he hears a familiar hammering of drums and a guitar muffled through the paper-thin walls and his eyes are bulging.

“Give me my A course, ice is so big like a glacier” 

You’re giggling again and he can hear your body fall against the sheets of the bed – the bed that’s very clearly pushed up against the same wall his is. It creaks under your weight, and Mark feels the wall tremble slightly as your bed frame knocks against his wall.

He’s tried so hard not to be that guy, but his hand finds its way in his boxers before he can fully comprehend what he’s doing. He’s rock fucking hard, red and veiny and he takes off his boxers, leaving him sprawled on his back, completely bare.

He hears your soft whimpers, can hear you hum in appreciation even over the buzzing of your vibrator and the thumping of his song. He doesn’t know what’s turning him on more; the fact that he can hear you getting off and moaning out, or that you’re listening to him while trying to cum. 

Either way, his hand is wrapped tight around his thick length, thumbing over his oozing tip. He thinks of how you must be, how you’d look completely whilst naked and sprawled out on the bed for him. Mark imagines himself on top of you, kissing your perky tits he loves to think about and wrapping his lips around your swollen nipples. His mind feels like it can taste you on his tongue, can feel your dainty fingers tugging at his hair as he laps you.

“Oh, shit,” you gasp loud enough for him to hear.  

It makes him imagine your eyes rolling back when he finally fucks himself inside your tight little cunt, he visions the look of ecstasy on your face when your jaw would become completely slack and your body quivers for him. He knows you’d feel him deep in your stomach. He knows he’d be so big for you. 

“Fuck,” he slips out in a desperate pant.

He’s completely breathless, tugging at his dick, spitting down on it to get it all wet for you. He knows you’re so much wetter on the other side of the damn wall, and that he’d rather be sinking into your wet pussy but his spit would have to do. 

He throws his head back in his pillow, eyes shut tight, allowing his mind to work over time. 

“Fuck, Mark… I need it.”

Everything feels surreal, like he’s in his own personal heaven with a touch of hell. You’re crying out for more, for him, begging for it deeper, harder, and he finds himself fucking into his fist just as desperately. Like his soft palm is your silky pussy.

Mark can’t focus on anything other than your sweet fucking cries that sound otherwordly against his song. It makes him think about how much he’d love to record your moans, use them in his next song. But then he’d never be able to release it — because they’re his to hear. 

It’s when the bridge starts that you really let yourself go, filthy fucking moans, the speed of the vibrator increasing, and God he wishes he could watch you right now. See you trembling and begging as the instrumental plays out loud and hard. 

He can’t handle it.

Gruff moans are slipping past his lips and he does nothing to try and conceal them. The muscles in his arm are burning but he fucks his cock harder, imaging what it’d be like to feel his balls slap against your ass as he pounds into you.

He can feel the coil tightening in his stomach, the way his cock starts to twitch. His imagination grows wild and filthy, every single fantasy he’s tried locking away to not be that guy now flooding his mind because you’re that girl. 

That girl that’s using his music to cum. That girl that wants to hear his voice as she gets off. That girl who’s doing it with no shame, no guilt. That girl that’s using him. 

The thought takes Mark’s mind to sinful places. “Take it,” he can hear himself seeth through gritted teeth. He imagines you begging for his cum, taking it like the good fucking girl you are.

“Ugh, fuuckk I’m cumming!” Mark cries out gruffly through strangled moans and he hears your screams follow.

Your bed is creaking louder than before and he knows your thighs have got to be trembling as you cum around your vibrator. Mark’s hand and thighs are covered in thick ribbons of white arousal and when his eyes flutter open, through his blotched vision, he imagines seeing you kneeling between his thighs and licking it up.

He’s completely fucked as he hears his song mellow out and you aren’t moaning anymore. Instead, he can hear  breathless little pants. He stays where he is for a second, eager to see what else he can hear. But there’s nothing — only complete and utter silence.

Mark doesn’t sleep the entire night. He can’t. He’s kept awake with the guilt of listening to his pretty neighbour. Or is it with the thrill of knowing it was his voice that got you off that's making him so restless? 

[5ummit]

AO3 Ship Stats: Year In Bad Data

You may have seen this AO3 Year In Review.

It hasn’t crossed my tumblr dash but it sure is circulating on twitter with 3.5M views, 10K likes, 17K retweets and counting. Normally this would be great! I love data and charts and comparisons!

Except this data is GARBAGE and belongs in the TRASH.

I first noticed something fishy when I realized that Steve/Bucky – the 5th largest ship on AO3 by total fic count – wasn’t on this Top 100 list anywhere. I know Marvel’s popularity has fallen in recent years, but not that much. Especially considering some of the other ships that made it on the list. You mean to tell me a femslash HP ship (Mary MacDonald/Lily Potter) in which one half of the pairing was so minor I had to look up her name because she was only mentioned once in a single flashback scene beat fandom juggernaut Stucky? I call bullshit.

Now obviously jumping to conclusions based on gut instinct alone is horrible practice... but it is a good place to start. So let’s look at the actual numbers and discover why this entire dataset sits on a throne of lies.

Here are the results of filtering the Steve/Bucky tag for all works created between Jan 1, 2023 and Dec 31, 2023:

Not only would that place Steve/Bucky at #23 on this list, if the other counts are correct (hint: they're not), it’s also well above the 1520-new-work cutoff of the #100 spot. So how the fuck is it not on the list? Let’s check out the author’s FAQ to see if there’s some important factor we’re missing.

The first thing you’ll probably notice in the FAQ is that the data is being scraped from publicly available works. That means anything privated and only accessible to logged-in users isn’t counted. This is Sin #1. Already the data is inaccurate because we’re not actually counting all of the published fics, but the bots needed to do data collection on this scale can't easily scrape privated fics so I kinda get it. We’ll roll with this for now and see if it at least makes the numbers make more sense:

Nope. Logging out only reduced the total by a couple hundred. Even if one were to choose the most restrictive possible definition of "new works" and filter out all crossovers and incomplete fics, Steve/Bucky would still have a yearly total of 2,305. Yet the list claims their total is somewhere below 1,500? What the fuck is going on here?

Let’s look at another ship for comparison. This time one that’s very recent and popular enough to make it on the list so we have an actual reference value for comparison: Nick/Charlie (Heartstopper). According to the list, this ship sits at #34 this year with a total of 2630 new works. But what’s AO3 say?

Off by a hundred or so but the values are much closer at least!

If we dig further into the FAQ though we discover Sin #2 (and the most egregious): the counting method. The yearly fic counts are NOT determined by filtering for a certain time period, they’re determined by simply taking a snapshot of the total number of fics in a ship tag at the end of the year and subtracting the previous end-of-year total. For example, if you check a ship tag on Jan 1, 2023 and it has 10,000 fics and check it again on Jan 1, 2024 and it now has 12,000 fics, the difference (2,000) would be the number of "new works" on this chart.

At first glance this subtraction method might seem like a perfectly valid way to count fics, and it’s certainly the easiest way, but it can and did have major consequences to the point of making the entire dataset functionally meaningless. Why? If any older works are deleted or privated, every single one of those will be subtracted from the current year fic count. And to make the problem even worse, beginning at the end of last year there was a big scare about AI scraping fics from AO3, which caused hundreds, if not thousands, of users to lock down their fics or delete them.

The magnitude of this fuck up may not be immediately obvious so let’s look at an example to see how this works in practice.

Say we have two ships. Ship A is more than a decade old with a large fanbase. Ship B is only a couple years old but gaining traction. On Jan 1, 2023, Ship A had a catalog of 50,000 fics and ship B had 5,000. Both ships have 3,000 new works published in 2023. However, 4% of the older works in each fandom were either privated or deleted during that same time (this percentage is was just chosen to make the math easy but it’s close to reality).

Ship A: 50,000 x 4% = 2,000 removed works Ship B: 5,000 x 4% = 200 removed works

Ship A: 3,000 - 2,000 = 1,000 "new" works Ship B: 3,000 - 200 = 2,800 "new" works

This gives Ship A a net gain of 1,000 and Ship B a net gain of 2,800 despite both fandoms producing the exact same number of new works that year. And neither one of these reported counts are the actual new works count (3,000). THIS explains the drastic difference in ranking between a ship like Steve/Bucky and Nick/Charlie.

How is this a useful measure of anything? You can't draw any conclusions about the current size and popularity of a fandom based on this data.

With this system, not only is the reported "new works" count incorrect, the older, larger fandom will always be punished and it’s count disproportionately reduced simply for the sin of being an older, larger fandom. This example doesn’t even take into account that people are going to be way more likely to delete an old fic they're no longer proud of in a fandom they no longer care about than a fic that was just written, so the deletion percentage for the older fandom should theoretically be even larger in comparison.

And if that wasn't bad enough, the author of this "study" KNEW the data was tainted and chose to present it as meaningful anyway. You will only find this if you click through to the FAQ and read about the author’s methodology, something 99.99% of people will NOT do (and even those who do may not understand the true significance of this problem):

The author may try to argue their post states that the tags "which had the greatest gain in total public fanworks” are shown on the chart, which makes it not a lie, but a error on the viewer’s part in not interpreting their data correctly. This is bullshit. Their chart CLEARLY titles the fic count column “New Works” which it explicitly is NOT, by their own admission! It should be titled “Net Gain in Works” or something similar.

Even if it were correctly titled though, the general public would not understand the difference, would interpret the numbers as new works anyway (because net gain is functionally meaningless as we've just discovered), and would base conclusions on their incorrect assumptions. There’s no getting around that… other than doing the counts correctly in the first place. This would be a much larger task but I strongly believe you shouldn’t take on a project like this if you can’t do it right.

To sum up, just because someone put a lot of work into gathering data and making a nice color-coded chart, doesn’t mean the data is GOOD or VALUABLE.

[pedriscroquettes]

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐌𝐔𝐘𝐄𝐑𝐎 ✮ FRANCO COLAPINTO

summary. you hated franco for stealing your friend’s seat not knowing that it’d lead to a night of regret.

warnings. enemies to fwb’s, p in v, semi public s3x, major plot twist at the end, & cheating. franco & reader match each other’s FREAK! 18+

a/n. gif by argentinagp! i love latinos!

YOU HAD PROMISED everyone on the paddock that you wouldn’t judge the new driver too quickly. The week leading up to his arrival had been spent reminding yourself that he didn’t steal Logan’s seat on purpose yet you were still mad. You had grown quite fond of the american over the past months and losing a friend had made you bitter. You couldn’t bring yourself to blame Logan for losing his seat so you resorted to the newly arrived brunette.

“He doesn’t bite.” Alex whispers as he notices the glare you’re sending the brunette.

“But he scavenges.” You murmur as the press surrounds the rookie.

“It’s not like he killed Logan.” Alex scoffs.

He didn’t but it felt like he had. You couldn’t help but roll your eyes at the way the media had already forgotten about your friend and put Franco on a pedestal. He had just arrived a day ago and already he was flaunting himself as the next Hamilton reincarnate. You turn around too frustrated with yourself for hating him when you didn’t even know him.

“Hola.” A thick accent interrupts your thoughts. You hesitantly turn around only to be met with the guy who took your best friend away. “Those colors don’t suit you.”

“Excuse me?” You replied shockingly wondering where his sense of entitlement came from.

“Ah, lo siento. I meant blue would look better on you.” His cheeks change hues realizing his words came out wrong.

“It would If I cared about Williams.” You smile sarcastically watching as his smile falters. “I’ve gotta go but score at least one point, yeah?”

Franco stays still in disbelief wondering if his comment on your clothes had completely pissed him off. Was his english really that bad? Did he come off too strong? He wondered if the rest of the paddock would hate him or if he was just overreacting.

“Don’t worry about her mate. She’s very reluctant to new people. Give her time.” Alex shrugs.

As the weekend progresses you spend your time between the Alpine garage and the trailers. You were lucky Alex and Lily had agreed to spend the whole weekend with you. You stared at the street as Leo climbed into your lap making you pet him. Practice had just started and you couldn’t help but keep a close eye on Williams. You had began to mindlessly rant to your friends over your encounter with the rookie and how it would most likely take him months to replace Logan.

“When this weekend is over I’m taking you with me to workout because you need to relieve that anger.” Lily laughs.

“No, seriously. You’re acting like he’s committed first degree murder when he had nothing to do with Logan leaving.” Alex sounds concerned.

“Look, I know I sound crazy but I swear there’s something off about him. Plus, y’all do remember the comment he made about me right?” You tried to validate yourself.

“English isn’t his first language it was an honest mistake. Either way he just took that Williams to Q1.” Lily motions towards the screen.

“Whatever. Are we all still on for Sunday?” You asked referring to the plans the drivers had made after the race.

“Obviously. Although we may need to monitor you all night to make sure you don’t damage the new rookie.” The two of them laugh as you sit there annoyed.

The sun was beginning to set as you made your way back to the Alpine garage. Your short white dress was the perfect outfit to keep you cool during the blazing heat of the summer. You were excited to spend the afternoon debriefing with Pierre until you run head first into someone. You try to balance yourself by holding yourself against their chest and as you slowly bring your head up you brace yourself for the apology you’re about to make. But then you see his face and that apology never makes it out your mouth.

“Do you not watch where you’re going?” You scoff at the Williams driver.

“I do. I do it very good actually. Or I wouldn’t be here.” He jokes. “It was you who couldn’t see well or else you would’ve seen me.”

“You’re quite full of yourself aren’t you.” You murmur as you fix your dress.

“People pay me to drive of course I am.” He pulls his sunglasses out his face to look at you directly. He has a glint of confidence in his eye and you can’t help but roll your eyes at his ego.

The two of you stood there alone as practice was long over and the drivers had gone back to their trailers to wind down. Your friends were probably going to ask you why you were late and you couldn’t bear the thought to tell them that you’d gotten into another argument with the rookie. You would get teased for it until the season ended.

“You know this whole hating me thing because you think I stole your friend’s seat, when he lost it because he wasn’t good enough, is so hot.” He smirks.

Any quick remarks you once had were now completely forgotten. His words completely took you by surprise and now you were just confused. Had he taken your witty words as flirting? Had you mistakenly led him on? Or was he just being a prick?

“Though, you could put that mouth to better use.” He says loud enough so only you can hear.

Your cheeks heat up at his comment and you can’t help but feel flustered at his words. Suddenly even the short dress you were wearing wasn’t enough to keep you cool. You instinctively bite your lip as you try to think of anything to say to him but you’re utterly speechless. He’s finally gotten under your skin and he hasn’t even raced yet.

“There’s something genuinely wrong with you.” You say.

“Adiós nena.” He smiles at you before wandering off leaving you all alone to process what had just happened.

The rest of the walk to the Alpine garage is awkward and quick. You try your best to store the encounter with Franco in the back of your mind. You do a bad job at it because his words echo in your mind for the rest of the day. You don’t tell anyone what happened that day because it was weird and also you weren’t even sure what had happened that day.

It’s finally race day and you brush off your white skirt as you walk towards the paddock. You’d meet the girls in the Ferrari garage as Charles had wanted to surprise Alex with a girl’s day. You kept your hands above your eyes to protect them from the sun while subtly trying to ignore the camera flashes headed towards you. As you approach the garages you pause for a little. It had become a tradition for you to greet Alex before any race, a superstition that began when Pierre won the Italian Grand Prix, but now you were hesitant to visit the Williams garage.

You sighed coming up with the decision that an awkward conversation with the Argentine rookie shouldn’t stop you from visiting one of your closest friends. You do a 180° heading straight for the garage. It’s a short walk due to you walking as fast as possible to Alex’s booth. The engineer’s greet you already recognizing your face from the past couple of races. There’s a huge group of familiar faces in the room except the Thai. Your eyes drift around hoping to find him so you’re not late to meet up with your friends but you can’t find Alex anywhere.

“He’s with Lily.” A voice spooks you.

“Franco.” you sigh. “What are you doing here?”

“I work here. The real question should be why are you here?” His condescending tone irks you as he plasters that dumb smirk on his face.

“That’s none of your business.” You reply. “Tell Alex I was looking for him. I’ll be on my way now.”

He grabs your wrist before you can turn on your heels stopping you. You’re now completely face to face with him that you can practically feel his body warmth.

“Something tells me you came looking for me using your friend as an excuse.” He says below a whisper.

“Did your parents teach you that the world revolves around you? Has it ever occurred to you that you are not as important as you think you are?” You scoff. “I’m here for Alex and I would be here for Logan too but you ruined that.”

“Ay, boluda.” He laughs in disbelief. “It seems the only condescending person here is you because guess what? I earned this seat. My parents sold our house so I could be here meanwhile your little friend just spent his trust fund and wasted it.”

You run out of remarks at that. You’d spent all this summer terrorizing him unaware of who Franco really was. Although you weren’t going to apologize, you were too proud for that.

“It’s okay though I wouldn’t expect for a pretty dumb little thing like you to get it.” His voice goes hoarse. Your mind goes blank at his words unable to register his hand ending up on your waist pushing you into him.

Those are the last words he says to you before he abruptly pulls away leaving you alone to process the encounter. Your hand instinctively goes to the necklace on your neck caressing it as you try to regain your breath. You can feel how warm your cheeks are and instantly feel embarrassed at the weird tingly feeling in your stomach. Most importantly you couldn’t believe that out of all the people here Franco is the one who put you in this state.

“Oh, good you’re here! Hopefully I’ll get points today because of you.” Alex smiles at you.

“Go crush them. I have to go though have to meet Gasly before the race. You know go over his strategy for the race.” You stammer trying to find an out of the Williams garage.

“Yeah mhm.” He waves you off. “The two of you better show up to the party! Last one before the break!”

The Ferrari garage erupts into cheers as Charles makes it on the podium again. Alexandria and Lily both scream into your ear as both their boyfriends score points for their teams. Meanwhile you stare blankly as the screen as it shows both Alpine cars outside of the points. Then as if the Universe was making fun of you, Franco shows up on the screen celebrating his P8. You hated him, you hated his confidence, you hated the way he took Logan away from you, but most importantly you hated him because the sweaty messy hair he was showing off made you weak. Your mind instantly replayed this morning’s conversation and you found yourself dizzy.

“Are you okay? Is it cuz you guys didn’t get any points today?” Lily tries to console you.

“No, it’s not that.” You give her a fake smile. “This whole weekend has been kind of too much for me and I think I’m starting to feel the effects. I’m gonna go to the trailers but I’ll see y’all at the party later?”

“Feel better love! Wear something slutty!” Alexandria yells as you walk off.

The pink dress you had picked out for tonight was beginning to annoy you. It was incredibly short so you didn’t know if you should pull it up or down. And knowing Franco would be there made you overthink your idea not wanting to give him the impression that you had dressed up for him. You internally roll your eyes at yourself for even thinking about changing clothes because of a man. That wasn’t you. The effects of the rookie began to scare you.

You don’t waste anymore time heading out the suite and straight to your Uber. It was a short drive and the bouncer didn’t last long finding your name on the list. Lily and Alexandria immediately started screaming at the sight of you and welcomed you into the round table. Most of the drivers were still at the track recovering from their race so thankfully you sat next to Lily with no one to your right. You hoped Alex would hurry up so you’d get to gossip with your friend.

“That rookie ended up with points. I think your hate fueled him.” Lily teases you.

“Are we really going to talk about him, right now?” You sigh.

“He proved you wrong of course we’re gonna talk about it.” She says

“It was pure luck.” You spit out unaware of the brunette walking towards your table.

“What was?” The familiar voice makes you shiver. Lily can’t help but laugh as how wide your eyes go. You slowly turn around to meet the guy that had been torturing you this whole weekend.

“Oh, nothing-” Lily tries to save you.

“Your race today. It was pure luck.” You say defiantly being too stubborn to retract your words.

“Pure luck?” He repeats in disbelief.

“She didn’t mean it-” Lily tries to come to your rescue again.

“Oh, no. I meant it. He’ll be ending up P12 in the next races. I guarantee you won’t see anymore points after this. You’re just here on a test drive and then? Every one will forget you were ever here.” You take a swig of your drink. You don’t even register the malice behind your words being too heated to even comprehend what you’re saying.

His face heats up and his cheeks change hues as he registers your words. You blink and he’s gone. He wanders off to who knows where and it’s then that you register what you’ve told him. You warm up and suddenly you’re dizzy.

“What the fuck?” Lily whispers. “You better go find him and apologize.”

“He started it!” You whine.

“No, you did. You’ve hated him since he arrived when he’s done nothing to you.” Her words make you feel bad. “Now, go find him.”

You stand up adjusting your dress as you scan around the club looking for him. You wander off in hopes of finding him before he leaves. Why was it so hard to find a tall brunette in a crowd of average height people? You give up after five minutes resorting to asking the bartender if he’d seen your ‘friend’ and suddenly you found yourself outside. Franco is leaning against the wall looking at his phone but he’s wearing glasses now.

“I didn’t know you wore glasses.” You squeak afraid that you’d scare him off.

He looks up at you not saying a single word. Your presence pisses him off and he starts to walk away. You follow him to the back of the bar stopping him before the two of you got lost.

“Look, I didn’t mean anything I said. I’m sorry.” You play with the hem of your dress being too afraid to look at him.

“Did he fuck you good?” His face is stern.

“W-what?” His words catch you off guard. The temperature around you somehow getting warmer.

“Logan. Did he fuck you good?” He asks again with a meaner tone. “That’s why you’re mad at me, right?”

What you and Logan did behind closed doors was private, something no one else knew. Something you thought the two of you had managed to keep in secrets. Your cheeks flare up at Franco’s discovery. Were you really so bad at hiding your secrets? If he knew then who else did? You were fucked.

“Franco you don’t know what you’re talking about.” You try so hard to lie. His smirk makes it known that he doesn’t believe you.

One minute you’re lying to his face and the other he’s right in front of you eyeing you down. You can practically feel his body warmth as he invaded your personal space. He had one upped you, again. The innocent facade he had in front of your friends was completely gone.

“Ay, que linda que sos.” His thumb traces your cheek. The touch lingers, your cheeks heating up at the contact. “You’re such a terrible liar.”

“There’s something seriously wrong with you, you know that?” You barely say above a whisper.

“No, there’s something wrong with us.” His hand travels down your cheek to your neck.

That last word throws you off because it’s true, the indescribable pull you felt to him was insane, the two of you were insane. You were tired. You were tired of hiding secrets, Franco’s personality, but most importantly you were tired of pretending. Pretending that you didn’t want Franco. So, you do what you do best when you’re tired. You relieve yourself. You pull Franco by the shirt and kiss him ignoring the feel of his glasses hitting your face. He quickly turns the two of you around your back hitting the wall allowing for balance.

The two of you barely pull apart for air losing yourselves in the kisses. His brunette curls find their way into your fingers while his hands sit perfectly on your waist. The kiss grows heated as you pull him closer to you, feeling him. His hand begins to wander down your thighs, pulling them apart and wrapping your leg around his waist. You can feel yourself grow wetter at the new position and then you remember that your friends were still waiting for you.

“Franco, wait.” You groan.

“What? What happened?” He pulls away quickly.

“Everyone else is still waiting for us. You need to be…” You pause debating if this was really a good idea but had anything you’d done lately been a good idea? “Quick.”

He takes that as a challenge immediately pulling you in for a kiss again. The kiss is messy and needy with your hands in his hair and his hands massaging the inside of your thighs. The cool breeze hitting your exposed skin as he lifted your dress up. The roughness of the wall is soon forgotten as he brings his fingers down to your thighs, gliding them teasingly before placing them on your clothed core.

You can’t resist the groans that escape your throat as his cold fingers come in contact with your core. It’d been many weekends since anyone had touched you like this. He swallows your noises with his mouth as he kisses you. Your hands grip his arms as he begins to move his fingers around your folds, spreading your wetness. You remember that it’s been a while since the two of you walked outside and pull his fingers away.

“Franco. We don’t have time.” You gasp in between kisses.

He picks you up adjusting you against the wall while you dig your hands into the hem of his boxers. It doesn’t take long for your hands to venture down and feel him. Your stomach flutters at his size and how he feels. He quickly pulls you away before placing his tip near your entrance. Your morals long gone you grind on him wanting to feel anything. It’s pathetic the way you’ve gone from wanting him out of the sport to wanting him inside you and he notices it too by the way he smirks at you.

You’re about to lash out when he starts entering you slowly. If it wasn’t for him holding you then you’d have lost your balance already at the intrusion. He stills himself waiting for you to adjust to the new feeling. When he notices that you’re ready he pulls out before thrusting back into you, this time filling you to the hilt. It was almost as if he fit perfectly inside you.

“Fuck.” He groans as he fills you completely.

You’re not quite sure anyone’s ever felt so disgusting. You don’t even try to contain your moans as he continuously thrusts into you at a fervent pace. He feels so good inside you hitting spots no one else had before. His fingers leave mark on your hips as you take him fully. He looks down to where the two of you are connected and audibly groans at how well you’re taking him.

“Oh my god.” You whine as he increases his speed.

His hands come back done to your folds rubbing them in circles as he tries to pleasure you even more. Your hand joins his showing him where you need him the most. You can feel your slick coating his dick as he rubbed you. You begin to feel a familiar knot in your stomach as he fucks you into the wall. His hand cups your jaw as he pulls you into a long sloppy kiss.

It doesn’t take long after for you to come undone around him, your walls squeezing him as you reach your peak. He won’t last long with the feeling of you milking him. Soon enough he’s coming inside you, his warm cum filling you up. The sight of the two of you is disgusting and nasty.

The two of you break away from each other and catch your breaths. You lower your dress back down while Franco takes his glasses off to clean them. You check yourself for any runny mascara, or smudge lipstick, and even run your hands through your hair making sure you don’t look insane.

“We should head inside.” You murmur.

“We’re not gonna talk about this?” He scoffs.

“There’s nothing to talk about Franco. At least not know when everyone’s waiting for us.” You scold him. “We’ll talk next weekend.”

You head towards the bathroom first, Franco surprisingly waiting for you outside. The two of you walk in within a minute difference a smile adorning both your faces. At least until you spot Pierre next to Lily and you’re brought back to reality. You don’t waste time running towards the frenchman hugging him as you sit right next to him. Franco can’t help but stare at you in confusion as he notices Pierre’s hand trail too far down when hugging you. But then he spots it. Pierre wearing an identical necklace to yours but instead of a P it adorned your initial. His eyes go wide.

“I see you and my girlfriend have finally made up.” Pierre greets him.

“Your girlfriend?” His demeanor changes with the news. “I didn’t know.”

Pierre begins to explain how the two of you don’t like to be very public about your relationship. You can visibly see the moment in which Franco’s face goes pale. The next few weeks for you are hard racing between the Alpine garage and your girlfriends. Not to mention the quick pit stops to the Williams garage to wish Alex good luck. It’s a shame you get very little time with the rookie but he makes it work. In the end you really hope he doesn’t get a seat for next year, you can’t keep doing this.

[cinnamonest]

I'm not looking to start shit so I'm not linking it or anything, but you may have seen a recent anti-dark-content post circulating with a lot of notes making rounds in the x reader sphere and while I have nothing against people posting their feelings in their own private spaces, every time I see these kinds of posts there's a lot of misinformation that gets regurgitated in the reblogs/replies and I saw what looked like a battlezone in the replies, so.

I know posts like that can be very jarring and affects people like my readers, so to combat misinformation/shaming for anyone who saw it, I'm going to share some of my information on combatting fandom puritanism/misogyny/kinkshaming in its most common forms.

The most important fact, if you read nothing else, is this:

Most women have rape fantasies.

62% to be exact. I think the most pervasive myth on this content is that consumers are "weird" for it, when the numbers don't indicate that. You're in the majority!

The vast majority of people who have rape fantasies do not put them into practice in real life. A variety of factors can determine whether or not they do, particularly specific psychiatric disorders. (X)

To specifically address common harmful and pervasive myths:

the "go to therapy!" line

Generally any academic or professional resource will immediately tell you that consuming and engaging in "dark" fantasies is accepted and encouraged by mainstream psychiatry and part of the professional education for psychiatrists. (This also used to be pretty well-known until like the last 5 years or so, not sure why that changed.)

Here are some particularly insightful resources:

1) This article by Dr. David Wahl, in my opinion, hands-down does the best job of simply and thoroughly explaining why these fantasies occur and why couples practice CNC, as well as the fact that they are both harmless, psychologically beneficial to those with them, and not at all correlated to real-life rape.

2) Dr. Claudia Six has some of the best and most thorough material out there on the subject, specifically explaining why this is taught in mainstream academia psychology and how it is incredibly helpful to rape victims (X).

3) Lisa Diamond is a professional who focuses on this subject a lot, and was featured in the documentary "The Dilemma of Desire," in which she specifically focuses on how these fantasies are not correlated to real-life desires. (X)

4) Dr. Casey Lyle has specifically talked a lot on his socials about how fantasies, even in men/the perspective of the offender, do not correlate to actual risk of offending.

5) This article is not by a professional, but from the perspective of a survivor discussing how it is beneficial to survivors.

the "why would you want that?" line

The idea that fictional tastes = what you want to happen to you in real life is actually of misogynistic origin. I don't want to seek out or add links on this one, but if you're really curious, you can research about how the idea that "women read rape fiction, that means they secretly want rape!" was originally a classic "red pill"/MGTOW/4chan talking point that made its way into mainstream dialogue and thus the public mind in the last 15 years or so due to the incel epidemic popularizing those communities.

the "it's only valid for survivors then!" line

On one hand, yes it's very important to acknowledge that trauma victims use it to cope, however I feel that over-emphasizing that gives the impression that non-victims should be excluded from consumption of dark content, so to clarify, it's a very valid means for all women. Many women who have not personally experienced rape still fantasize about it, and that's fine.

The full explanation as to why this is true for many of them would be lengthy (and addressed in the aforementioned Dilemma of Desire documentary), but in the simplest terms, nonconsensual sex is the only context in which patriarchal society permits women to have sex at all without feeling guilt. For many women, particularly those in more heavily misogynistic or religious cultures, these fantasies are appealing because the idea of consensual sex may give them feelings of shame, guilt, "sin," etc. These fantasies allow them to experience the feeling of being desired without guilt of participation.

No society on earth is free of the psychological grip that cultural misogyny has on women, and shaming women for adapting to the conditions they are forced to exist under is as harmful as the misogyny that causes it itself.

ALL women experience a form of psychological trauma inherent to female childhood and female adolescence in a patriarchal world, and that is just as valid as coping with individual traumatic events.

Good resources on the subject of why women have these fantasies and how they are helpful in general:

(X) (X)

The "what you consume will make you do it in real life!" myth

Although the resources above already address this, it's important to establish why this myth is so prevalent and what its origins are.

The idea that consuming media with dark themes leads to or indicates desires to replicate those acts is a residual element of two major events:

1) Puritan revival culture, popularized in the US and UK in the 90s and 2000s (also known as "Satanic Panic"). A major facet of this movement was TV megachurch preachers making money off of exploiting well-meaning but paranoid parents into believing that your child playing Dungeons and Dragons or Pokemon would make them future serial killers and lure them into satanic cults. (X)

2) at the tail end of this, it was cemented in the public mind as a cultural ripple aftershock of the Columbine shooting, where this sentiment became popularized as the general public blamed violent video games like Doom and "dark" music like Marilyn Manson (whose life was temporarily completely upended by the events and took him years to recover/be safe from) for the 1999 shooting. This event had MASSIVE permanent and global effects in all sorts of ways that the public often underestimates the sheer scope of, notably that it solidified, prolonged, and, in the minds of many, "proved" the paranoias of the preexisting Satanic Panic. (X) This established a precedent, leading to virtually any major horrible event being blamed on the perpetrator's media consumption, including murder and sex crimes.

What this myth ignores in the cases it references (the slenderman stabbings, columbine, sasebo slashing, batman shooting, etc) is two crucial facts: that hundreds of millions of people consume the same media with no negative effects (helpful effects even), and that in every single case cited as "evidence" to the claim, the perpetrator had a preexisting psychiatric condition correlated to acts of violence (which usually went ignored, downplayed and even accelerated/worsened by those around them rather than the help they needed).

Sorry for the wall of text, but I feel an ethical obligation to combat this kind of misinformation, and I hope these resources are helpful for those who may be negatively affected by common misunderstandings.

You are not abnormal or wrong for the fictional content you consume or the fantasies you have!

[owldalek]

Spoilers for Creature Commandos

I saw a post on her critiquing James Gunn’s portrayal of women in his show Creature Commandos. This post states that he usually does a very good job of writing women, but this just isn’t it and cites Princess Ilana’s sexual advances towards Flag, Nina’s nude portrayals in the bath, The Bride’s backstory, and Amanda Waller’s comments on Circe’s outfit. And while all these criticisms are completely valid I would like to raise a point that these scenes exist to critique the way women are viewed not just in society, but especially in comics

Creature Commandos hinges on women. Women are the center of everything.

Firstly, we have The Bride, who many point out does not even have her own name. She is made for a person who does not care for her or anyone yet feels entitled to her to the point of pursuing her for centuries, determined to capture her even if he has to knock her unconscious to do it. She is groomed by her father and taken advantage of. Eric’s continued pursuant of her leads to him teaming up with Flag.

Next, we have Rick Flag who initially comes off as a stand up guy. He doesn’t like the sexual advances of Princess Ilana… until he does. It’s repeated that he’s a much older man, which while he’s hot, leads to him infantilizing her. He views her as this innocent princess which is why Circe’s vision causes him to flip out and show his true colors. He immediately tries to accuse Circe of lying, and when no one believes him states that Themyscira isn’t event real, to which he has to be reminded that it is. His next action is then to team with Eric and try to discredit the expert on Themyscira. He refuses to see women outside of how he wants to see them, and while he’s not entitled and violent like Eric they are teamed up together thematically for a reason because they will burn the world down to get the girl they believe is theirs whether that girl exists or not.

On that topic, Themyscira is brought up as a recurring theme throughout the show. Almost every episode it is brought up in some capacity and it’s very existence is constantly called into question by the men of the series. The news anchor says it may not exist despite the fact that Circe is there in the present. Rick Flag denies it exists, and must be reminded it is. Despite this he stalks a woman and breaks into her house to prove that 1. She’s full of shit and 2. She’s not a real expert. When Themyscira is acknowledged to exist it is met with blatant misogyny.

The picture used on the news is of girls in bikinis. The Sons of Themyscira feel entitled to it because it is a land of all women. Even when Flag is corrected by someone about Themyscira’s existence that man then says that a land of women sounds like heaven, implying sex. Even Waller comments on the inherent sexuality of Circe’s costume.

To that comment, I think it is meant to point out how sexualized female characters are. Something we saw with Suicide Squad (2016) vs Birds of Prey, is a break down of the male versus female gaze. What does a woman’s outfit look like when it’s designed for sex appeal vs practicality. I think Waller’s call to attention to Circe’s outfit is to call into question would SHE dress herself this way? Obviously male artists are going to draw her that way, but why does SHE choose it. It meta-reflects how women are being portrayed in comics especially when most female costumes start out hyper-sexualized.

Finally, Nina nude. I think, once again, this is done intentionally and on purpose. Nina is the only character who does not want to kill. She hasn’t. She has no abilities outside of the water and really shouldn’t be on the team. She’s vulnerable, but you don’t see how vulnerable she really is until it’s shown her naked, cramped into a tiny bathtub. She’s alone and out of place despite literally being in her element, and she still has no protection. She is physically vulnerable the way the The Bride, Ilana, Circe and all women are vulnerable to the male gaze and men’s attitudes towards them.

Female solidarity is what keeps the plot moving, and male Interference is what creates the drama and conflict. Circe views Ilana as a literal threat, not just a helpless princess. Amanda Waller believes Circe immediately, and when there are still doubts she calls in an expert. She trusts The Bride to lead the team because the Bride won’t fuck Ilana. The Bride looks after and protects Nina because she knows Nina isn’t supposed to be in jail or in a combat situation at all. However, Flag’s infantilization of Ilana + Eric’s violent entitlement towards The Bride has led to a horrible team which have jeopardized the mission and may have caused Circe’s future to come true.

In conclusion, let James Gunn cook.

[penisbagelbite]

"Affirmation" & Malgendering

"Fine, I'll 'respect' your gender, but I'll make it absolutely miserable for you. What? You don't like the way I'm 'affirming' your gender? Guess you'll have to stop being a (trans) man then."

I want to put something out there about what I call "malgendering". I see trans men talk about the phenomenon and acknowledge it as a part of antitransmasculinity but not the concept of "malgendering" itself and what it's purpose is, and as trans men and transmasculine people are especially caught in the lose-lose situation between misgendering and malgendering I think it is an important concept to establish. The erasure of transmasculinity, particularly as a unique gender and gendered experience, also serves to keep the transmasculine trapped within this double-bind, positioned between the gender binary of cis patriarchal ideas of womanhood and manhood, where for us there is only misgendering (being abused with the Woman gender) or malgendering (being abused with the Man gender).

I define malgendering as the practice of "validating" someone's gender identity only when it can be used against them and to hurt them, and malgendering almost always involves the enforcement of only the most negative sexist stereotypes available onto the victim with none of the "positives". If misgendering is forcefully pushing you back into your 'proper place' such as by calling you a "girl" or a "her" and showing you that you're really a woman through sexual assault -malgendering is scaring and traumatizing you into it by using your own gender against you. Malgendering is the realization that you don't need to misgender someone to hurt them or to punish them for the way they identity and push them towards the gender they're 'supposed' to be - you can do all that through 'validation'. It's psychological warfare on the sense of self.

This violence and abuse under the guise of "respect" and "identity affirmation" creates plausible deniability of intent and places the blame on the victim for "identifying that way", so much so that even other trans people will defend it and believe it's not maligned (especially because "but being seen as and treated as your gender is what trans rights is all about!" and "errm but its transphobic to not treat u this way?/ur misgendering urself by wanting to not be treated this way :/" with the hidden message being "don't like it? stop being trans"), even when faced with evidence of the (very much intended) effects it has on stalling and outright eliminating transmasculinity (ie. repression, detransition, suicide).

Some examples I can pull off the top of my head:

A transphobe is talking about a pregnant trans man. The whole energy of the Facebook video is 'comedic', and while calling birth the most “feminine” thing someone can do and alluding to how the trans man is really a woman, they still use he/him and call him a “guy” (in air-quotes). Not out of any respect but because the idea of a man being pregnant, calling a pregnant person a "he", and the very existence of the trans man in question, is the whole joke. In doing so, the transphobe has turned the act of using the proper pronouns and gendering him into a source of humiliation and made the experience of being properly gendered a demeaning one. -

The Ukraine military situation where all males aged between 18 and 60 were banned from leaving the country and obliged to serve in the military. Trans women were denied passage out of the country "because they were men", and trans men were similarly denied passage out of the country "because they were men". With the discrepancy between invalidating the gender of trans women and "validating" the gender of trans men, you'd think the motivation behind this would be obvious - that trans people are expendable meat and it's better they die than cis people. It shouldn't of needed to be said that "I'm only affirming your gender because it allows me to put you in a position where you will likely suffer and die and put the blame for it on you" is not 'respect' or 'affirming' at all but somehow this was taken as evidence for the idea of that trans men are more 'respected' and seen as their genders than others (and are thus 'privileged'). -

A common one almost every trans guy deals with at some point is cis people threatening to beat trans men up (and often following through), because "If you're a man and not a woman (anymore) that means I can punch you," using the proximity to masculinity that transmasculine people claim as a justification for violence. Every other week there's a new story in online transmasculine spaces about someone having their ribs broken with "Since/if you want to be a man so bad-" preceding the attack. -

The above is in a similar vein to when accounts of violence done to transmasculine people by cisgender men are brushed off and they're told something along the lines of "welcome to being a man", "that's just what men do to each other", "that's just the way things are with men", etc. along with the insistence that their attack had nothing to do with antitransmasculinity, making it an immutable problem with (cis)men as a whole - creating a sense hopelessness and that this is all they have to look forward to. -

Transmasculine individuals being refused treatment, tests, or insurance for gynecological issues, especially cancer, despite the knowledge that they are transmasculine, because "men don't deal with these problems" and they don't want "men in women's spaces", and if you don't want to be 'treated like a man' and get the care you need (and not die), you're going to have to go ahead and detransition, change that M marker back to an F.

All of this functions to create contention, and eventually a rift, between the individual and their sense of gender identity. Creating an association between being gendered 'correctly' and 'respected' as your gender (and ultimately existing as a transmasculine person) with abuse, violence, helplessness, trauma, fear, isolation... and by making transmasculinity and transmanhood uninhabitable and driving a wedge between the individual and their sense of gender identity you can more easily drag them back to their 'proper' place. Plant seeds of doubt by making being transmasculine an exceedingly unhappy experience. Make them think that everything that's happened is their own fault for choosing to be transmasculine or trying to be a man. That maybe since they're so unhappy this isn't for them. That living as a transmasculine person is just too difficult and they're not cut out for it, that if they "gave up" and were to be women again things would be easier and they would be safer and happier.

This also all serves to maintain cis patriarchal ideas of gender and the gender binary and police the boundaries of manhood, in a way I can't articulate right now.

Through all this, despite being called "men" during malgendering, we are not actually perceived as such. We are always an "other". Acknowledging us as "men" is just another weapon, and why some transmascs flinch at the phrase "trans men are men". Our own genders are used to beat us.

Using a scrap from my .txt journals:

"[...] on the subject of having a core aspect of yourself taken from you and turned into a weapon to beat you with, with the result being that aspect of yourself now becoming a source of trauma and pain so you abandon it and lock it away like an awful secret, that’s exactly what happened with my gender. Being genderless and a(nti)binary is what I’m most comfortable as, a(nti)gender is my ~real gender~, but I have to admit a lot of this is because I have been traumatized out of any gender with binary associations and have consequently come to know gender itself, and the act of gendering, as violence. Gender is but a designation for what exploitation, abuse, and violence can be enacted upon you and the justification there of. When someone asks whether you are "masc" or "femme", behind their back as they face you is a hammer in one hand, and a knife in the other, and what they are actually asking is if they can pummel you or lacerate you. When it comes to the “direction” I’m transitioning in though, it is obviously “masculine” (as much as a negation of "femininity" is always taken as stepping towards "masculinity") and you wouldn’t be entirely wrong to call me “transmasculine”, though I have been scared to death of being acknowledged as such."

My first encounter with malgendering was when I was 13 and had just started to realize I was "ftm" and looking for community online. My first exposure to any affirmation of transmasculinity was someone I came to respect reblogging a post about how Kill All Men includes trans men. This would set the precedent of the next decade of my life of existing while transmasculine. A decade of only hearing the words "trans men" and "transmasc" used negatively and as the butt of jokes that served to reinforce patriarchal ideas of gender. The consistent and relentless denial of transmasculinity as a unique gender and gendered experience, the denial of transmasculine reality especially in regards to misogyny, and continuous abuse and threats of violence, all under the guise of affirming trans men's genders as men (and affirming the gender binary in the process). A decade of having antitransmasculine sentiment fed to me in every way possible.

For me, the experiences of antitransmasculinity and malgendering from non-transmascs has effectively "chased" me out of my transmasculinity and any acknowledgement of it. For years I have hidden my transmasculinity and presumed "AGAB" out of fear, even in queer and supposedly trans-friendly spaces. I have not been able to associate with any “masculine” language in reference to myself without feeling that I am in imminent danger, have made a grave mistake, and suffocating in anticipation of punishment. I have always been scared of posting any of my art that eludes to my transmasculinity. I have always been terrified of being referred to or perceived as “transmasc”, a “trans man”, of being called a "guy" or “dude” or “bro”, of using "he/him" anywhere. All of it. Deep down on some level I do desire it, but it’s been forbidden and only aggravates existing wounds.

And this, in turn, pushed me out of associating with other transmasculine folks out of fear and internalized antitransmasculinity towards other transmasculine people, isolating me from any community or connection with anyone similar to me, exacerbating my loneliness and alienation as a youth to the point where now as an adult my ‘normal’ human social needs – connection, community, relationships, empathy – are completely broken. I don’t feel loneliness anymore, or the desire to connect to anyone, despite in ways being even more alone now than I was then. In a way I believe antitransmasculinity shaped the path of my schizoidism. Isolating and divorcing me from my transmasculinity and the world at large is what I understand to be yet another point of this type of antitransmasculine rhetoric - because when you've destabilized and isolated someone from their whole sense of self and community, they are much easier to control.

[mieczyslawsravenclaw]

Eidetic Memory Be Damned -Spencer Reid

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

•Pairing - Spencer Reid x FemFBIAgent!Reader

•Rating - 18+, Minors DNI - Smut - NSFW!!!

•Summary/Prompt - Spencer is tired of only having the memory of you to enjoy during his spicy times , so he just has to intrude into your hotel room after a case is finished…

•Warnings/Content - p in the v unprotected (hey kids- DONT DO IT) ; cursing ; Spence loves to beg to nut in you and does so ; creampie ; some pain play? (just a lil hand on the throat dealio and some hair pulling) ; LOTS of praise on both sides (good boy, pretty girl, etc) ; very mf horny lol ; (basically they do just about everything from first base to last bestie slay)

•Word Count - 3.3k

•Authorʼs Note(s) - Iʼm so mf rusty at writing smut so this is probs not the best, I just wanted to write some Spencer spice cause I had a spicy dream about him lmao RIP >_< Also this'll be my first official post of my writing on Tumblr slayyyyy

•Additional Tags - Switch!Spencer , Switch!Reader , Spencer is a needy brat LMAO , Team has ‘no ideaʼ you two are hooking up (Be so mf fr they do) , Good aftercare is so valid , Spencer loves being cuffed and teased muahaha

As much as this last case had taken out of me, I was more than happy to get to spend some time in my hotel room while the jet refueled and everyone got their bearings. Itʼs not home - far from it, Iʼd been missing my own bed for the majority of our time here in whatever state it was now - but at least it was something.

But of course, the reprieve wouldnʼt last long - a sharp knock on my door confirmed that, about 20 minutes after Iʼd laid down to sleep.

“What…ˮ I groan, frustratedly looking over at the clock.

The knock, again, more persistent this time. And I recognize its pattern now, three short tap-taps. Spencer.

My heartbeat, despite my minor annoyance at being woken up, is hammering now. Spencer seems to do that to me, from the moment Iʼd realized I have feelings for him, carrying into whatever it is that we are now. Secret trysts that Iʼm sure are no secret to our team members, especially Garcia, because sheʼd pried it out of me almost immediately and now waits in her dark little room with nothing else but excitement for the latest updates on us, it seems.

“Are you awake?ˮ A gentle but still much-too-loud voice asks.

I tumble out of bed, rushing to the door. I donʼt even have time to make sure I look okay - Iʼm much too worried about anyone else hearing him. The door is unlocked and pulled open in record time, a stunned lanky man quickly and semi-quietly forced inside.

“Spence, someoneʼs gonna hear you if you keep on like that.ˮ I chastise him, shutting and locking the door behind us. No sooner have I done so, than his lithe form overtakes me, nestling into the crook of my neck with a groan that seems both relieved and not relieved at all.

“Donʼt care,ˮ He pushes me back, until my legs meet the mattress and fold. Quickly following on top of me, he sighs, “Been too long. I miss you. You know I have an eidetic memory, yeah? Doesnʼt mean shit when Iʼm up late and even thoughts of you arenʼt enough to keep me satiated.ˮ

“Someoneʼs gonna-ˮ Hear, I want to say. He knows, of course he does. And Iʼm only half-complaining, with his lips at my neck and his leg sneaking up between mine the way he also knows.

“Donʼt care.ˮ He repeats, the low moan at the back of his throat breaking through into the silent room. “I told you I miss you. Should I tell you about what I use my memory for? And just how much that hasnʼt been enough lately? Or should I show you?ˮ

Itʼs clearly a rhetorical question, but still, he seeks the permission I am more than happy to grant.

“Tell me. Uh, show me. I mean-ˮ

“I can do both,ˮ Even in the dark, I know heʼs got that matter of fact smirk on his lips. He reaches down, holding me by the hip with one hand while the other slips into my pajamas, a practiced motion heʼs all too good at by now. “Usually this is what I remember first. The way your skin feels, how nice it is to make you tremble beneath my touch.ˮ

I buck up, and he chuckles.

“All too eager, arenʼt you? Clearly youʼve been thinking about it too, huh, pretty girl?ˮ A pointed question he knows Iʼll struggle to answer, with his hand and his voice torturing me so.

“No eid- identical- uh, no memory recall whatever for me.ˮ

“Still wouldnʼt satiate, I bet.ˮ He remarks, casually rubbing circles and patterns over my panties. This is how he operates, surely and with no warning. A gentle but firm kiss to my jaw, and he continues, “Itʼs like that for me, at least. I know no amount of recalling how you feel under me will be enough to match just how nice it is.ˮ

Heʼs right, and of course he is; I can barely handle the teasing, the tone his voice has taken in this short amount of time. And I currently dont care if weʼre heard, either.

“Spence-ˮ

“What is it, sweetheart? Too much for you? Not enough?ˮ

“Please?ˮ

“Words, honey. Youʼve gotta use your words. Or you can show me, Iʼm okay withthat too.ˮ He guides my hand down to his.

“More.ˮ I plead, working to undress myself before his hands take over.

“You only have to ask.ˮ

True to his word, Spencer pulls the fabric away, no longer allowing it to be a block between us. Itʼs lost somewhere in the sheets as he kisses me, his practiced hands no longer in the mood to tease. He slips a finger in, and when I let out a keening whine, another, his free hand going automatically to my mouth.

“Now as much as I say I donʼt care, youʼve gotta be a little quiet for me,ˮ He goads, knowing this will only make it harder for me to do so. His breath is hot in my ear, his fingers working a motion thatʼs both breaking pent up weeks old frustration, and yet causing more tension in my belly. “Much as I love your voice. Your sounds. The-ˮ

I rut up against him, my lips opening around his thumb. He works it into my mouth, his voice lowering even further.

“Cmon, show me how much you missed me, huh, princess?ˮ

I moan, words lost in my mind as it spins. Every tug of his fingers between my thighs is building a high Iʼm chasing, and when I get to this point, Iʼm not talking - he is. And he knows it, knows the right words to say to build and break me.

“This is what Iʼm after, this is what I canʼt just remember. Because itʼs all too much to remember how good it feels to destroy you.ˮ

Please, please. I canʼt hold off much longer.

“Now are you gonna cum for me, sweetheart?ˮ

I nod, lips opening and letting his hand free from my mouth as my breaths grow heavy. “Canʼt - Please, Spence, please-ˮ

He presses me further into the mattress, murmuring sweet and dirty nothings into my ear as the dam breaks and I ride my high. Iʼm far too sensitive following, and when I try to push him away for a moment, allow myself to collect some sort of reprieve before we continue, he chuckles lowly.

“See, I can recall that clear as day. But itʼs so much sweeter to have it happening in front of me, you know?ˮ He nestles in beside me, turning me to face him.

Nigh immediately, Iʼm reaching for his belt buckle. Of course he wouldnʼt have changed into comfortable clothes, not even this late- Iʼm sure this was his plan all along, and he tried to fight it as long as he could.

“Someoneʼs eager.ˮ He quips, the smirk growing.

“Youʼve got me thinking about it,ˮ I sigh, letting him maneuver himself out of the constricting clothing. “Coming over and getting me all hot and bothered. I really ought to…ˮ

“Ought to what?ˮ He goads, pulling me onto him with a low noise as we brush together. “Hmm? Are you gonna say…you ought to punish me?ˮ

I nod, rubbing back against him. He lets out a moan, hands gripping my hips tighter.

“I remember how that feels,ˮ He pulls me closer, voice dropping. “But for your sake, maybe you should refresh me.ˮ

When he reaches for me again, I pull back, pinning his hands down above his head. I know he could get out of it if he really wanted to - Iʼm strong, but not stronger than him - but he most certainly doesnʼt want to get out of it. And Iʼm enjoying it far too much to stop myself now.

“Whatʼre you gonna do, cuff me?ˮ He snaps, the bratty attitude far too practiced and already making me a soaking mess.

“I might.ˮ I reach for my pair, knowing all too well that heʼll absolutely lose it once I let go on him. I can hardly stand the anticipation. “Scared, Reid?ˮ

“Terrified. Please, donʼt. Iʼve been a good boy, I swear.ˮ

I push him back while he pleads, tightening the metal around his wrists. The look on his face, muffled as it is by the darkness of the room, is more than enough to spur me on.

“Not thinking about this at all, huh?ˮ I shed my top, if only for the knowledge that his inability to reach for my breasts drives him utterly insane. “And Iʼm sure you havenʼt spent many late nights with the memory of me riding you, have you? Havenʼt had your hands on that pretty cock of yours, thinking about how it feels when itʼs me, yeah?ˮ

“N-Not at all.ˮ

“Itʼs a shame, then.ˮ I tease, feeling him harden beneath me with every word. “Iʼll have to make you confess, I suppose.ˮ

His eyes follow my every move as I back up, slotting between his legs and bending down to kiss along his hips.

“Youʼll never get it out of me.ˮ He groans.

“Is that a promise or a challenge?ˮ I ask, not breaking eye contact as I place a kiss on his sensitive head.

“Challenge? Would I…challenge you?ˮ He still holds onto a moment of sanity, until I take him in my mouth, and itʼs lost with a sigh of, “Oh, would I.ˮ

I bob my head, my practiced motions coming in handy now. The usually-full-of- remarks Spencer Reid folds under my touch, soft deep moans and babble of confessions and wish I could pull your hair passing his lips while I work him out.

After a few moments of this, I let him free - at least from the torture of my lips.

“Where are you going? Please, I wanna cum for you, Iʼll tell you everything I did while I couldnʼt stand to wait for you.ˮ He keens.

“Oh, Iʼm far from done with you, Spence.ˮ I slowly, agonizingly slowly, climb back on top of him, making sure to back right up against him as he tightens against the cuffs. “Donʼt you worry, Iʼll have every measly confession pouring from you. You know I will.ˮ

“Please, let me out- Gotta touch you, I just gotta-ˮ

“Shh, be good for me, wonʼt you?ˮ I lift myself over his face, pressing my folds to his lips. “Unless you wanna stay in those forever.ˮ

He shakes his head, vibrating a ‘noʼ against me.

“Good. Now youʼre gonna pay your dues and clean up the mess youʼve made.ˮ

Eagerly, he laps at me like heʼs never had it before. His utter submissiveness overwhelms him, letting me ride his face to my hearts content. Words are muffled and entirely lost in it, and I know by now that the sounds Iʼm making alone will be heard, but I donʼt really care. Iʼm too far gone in how good it feels to finally have him making me cum again.

“Can I touch you now?ˮ

I slide back onto him, teasingly letting myself rest with just the edge of him pressing into my folds.

“Can you?ˮ I look pointedly at his wrists.

“I-oh, my god, clearly not, but-ˮ

“How about this?ˮ I amend. “You give me a confession, you get a reward. Sound fair?ˮ

“Yeah, sounds just fine. I couldnʼt get off without coming here, you realize that, donʼt you? Youʼre the only thing that gets me off anymo-Oh-ˮ His confession is cut short as I slide him a bit further in, just enough to spur him further. “I mean, I get off, donʼt get me wrong here. But nothing feels as good as when itʼs with you. Nothing.ˮ

“Keep going, youʼre doing good.ˮ I praise, sinking a bit deeper.

“Goddamn you feel so good.ˮ He moans. “Like, my hands canʼt even come close to this, are you kidding? I can try all I want, and believe me, I have - Oh, my god, please donʼt stop - Iʼve been trying all the time, I admit that, canʼt hardly stand being around you and not being able to just fuck you whenever I want.ˮ

I push down further, the stretch he gives me loosing my own moan. “How much do you wanna fuck me, Spence? Tell me, please.ˮ

“God, all the time. Itʼs all I can think about when I get down to it - baby, can I please touch you now?ˮ

“Punishment is a bitch, isnʼt it, Reid?ˮ I smirk, starting to push him in and out of me, slowly and with a devious grin that falters at just how damn good it is.

“Baby, Iʼm gonna get outta these and fuck you so good-ˮ

“Try it.ˮ I raise an eyebrow, stopping my motions.

“Oh- No, Iʼm sorry, please donʼt stop. Iʼll be good, I promise.ˮ

“Yeah, you will.ˮ I drop as far as I can take him, savoring the stuttered animalistic groan he lets out as I press down onto him, pulling his hair and moving my hips around him. As he is want to do, heʼs thrusting up into me, even if heʼs unable to reach me with his hands held up as they are. “Eager, sweet boy. Iʼm gonna ruin you.ˮ

And ruin him, I do. The tension and heat in my belly rides and breaks several times, with him unable to form real words except for the continuous begging of please donʼt stop repeated on a loop until I feel Iʼm satisfied with his demeanor.

Once Iʼve tortured him enough, I reach for the cuffs, ready to let him off the leash - knowing that once I do, the balance will shift. Truthfully, Iʼm just eager to let him be true to his word and fuck me like heʼs been dying to.

“You donʼt need any more confessions from me, then?ˮ He huffs, sweat slicked across his brow from the effort of holding back - though heʼs not really done so, has he?

“One last one, I suppose.ˮ I pull off of him, and the pout he gives nearly makes me sit right back down on him again.

“Alright, Iʼll be good and honest with you, then.ˮ He continues while I set to unlocking the cuffs, “You know the other day, just after we got the final piece of evidence put together?ˮ

I nod.

ˮI was so psyched, I couldʼve taken you right there. I donʼt care that everyone would have known, would have seen. Itʼs just something you do to me.ˮ He finishes, his tone light. Oh boy, Iʼm about to get railed. “I love you. And now Iʼm gonna fuck you like Iʼve been wanting to for weeks.ˮ

No sooner is he free, tearing off the shirt he was wearing and looming over me with the hungriest of looks at my body before pressing himself into me. No wait, no teasing - heʼs not got the control for it, clearly, and Iʼm not complaining one bit.

“Next time, you get the cuffs, pretty girl.ˮ He promises, his hands all over my body now that he can manage it. Hard, precise thrusts, his voice heavy and fucked-out.

“And Iʼll show you just what Iʼve been wanting to do that Iʼm gonna savor in my mind after.ˮ

My nails are leaving deep trails in his back, surely leading to marks that would raise questions if anyone else saw. Heʼs so far in me, almost bottomed out, and itʼs almost too much and yet not enough all at once. I pull him closer, and his hand tangles in my hair while the other clasps around my throat.

“Youʼre all mine.ˮ Spencer growls - truly, thereʼs not other word for it, the purely animal drive taking him to a world where itʼs just us, just this. And Iʼm there too, crying out with the ecstasy his body causes my own.

“All yours.ˮ

“Thatʼs right, pretty girl. Say it for me, I wanna hear you say it.ˮ

“Iʼm all yours, Spence- oh, my god-ˮ

“Good, thatʼs good. My pretty girl. Youʼre so tight, you feel so good wrapped around me, donʼt you? God, what a sight.ˮ Here he is, in his rambles now, and I can hardly contain how close I am. “Wanna tell everyone this is mine. Iʼm the only one that gets to have you, gets to fuck you like this. See you break for me. Only me.ˮ

“Only you, Spence, only you-ˮ

“Cʼmon, I know youʼre close, I can feel it. You get so much tighter, god, if itʼs even possible-ˮ

“Spencer-ˮ

“Thatʼs my girl, cum for me.ˮ

“Donʼt stop-ˮ I can feel the cord in me ready to snap, chasing my most intense orgasm of the night with his words and the feeling of him slamming so deep inside me. “More, Spence, you can give me more-ˮ

“Sweet girl, of course, I know you can handle it.ˮ He pushes himself fully in, my breath catching at the slight pain, yet itʼs still so good, I canʼt stop it, I donʼt want to. “Want me to fuck you so good with all of me, donʼt you?ˮ

I nod against his grasp, and he loosens it a bit, kissing me fervently.

“Please, please cum for me, I wanna feel you all over me, beautiful.ˮ He reaches down, his thumb rubbing circles on my clit. Itʼs the last thing I need to send me over that edge, and I cry out, his name slipping past my lips unwarranted. “Oh, baby, love how you say my name. Like itʼs a prayer, like Iʼm a god.ˮ

“Donʼt stop, Spence-ˮ

“Iʼm close, baby- Oh, I wanna cum in you-ˮ

Another orgasm follows near immediately after this one, and Iʼm grasping at him while heʼs chasing his own, his hands fumbling and his thrusts getting sloppy. He grips the sheets, his breaths stunted.

“Cum in me, please-ˮ

“Iʼm gonna, god, Iʼm so fuckinʼ close-ˮ He tightens around me, muscles shaking as he lets loose, and now itʼs his turn to moan my name a lot louder than he should while he cums. Heʼs so pretty when he does, too - the crease that works between his brows, the round pucker to his lips. Partly through, he kisses me, hard. And when heʼs done, his grip loosens, falling slack on top of me with a contented sigh.

A few moments pass where he just holds me, peppering soft kisses across my face and telling me you did such a good job, baby. Then, he pops up with a smile and comes back with water and a towel, cleaning up after himself.

“Satisfied?ˮ I chuckle, slowly pulling my clothes back on.

“Almost.ˮ He dips his head down, capturing a nipple in his mouth for a few moments. I groan, overstimulated, but still too happy to appease him. “Now, Iʼm satisfied. Iʼm staying in here, okay? Donʼt care if someone sees at this point.ˮ

“Spence?ˮ

“Mmhm?ˮ

“I love you, too.ˮ

[perfectlyvalid49]

On being Jewish, and traumatized (It’s been 5 months and I want to talk):

Judaism is a joyous religion. So much of our daily practice is to focus us on the things that are good. I know that there’s a joke that all our holidays can be summed up as “they tried to kill us. We survived – let’s eat!”, and you might think that holidays focused on attempts at killing us might be somber, but they’re really not. Most are celebrated in the sense of, “we’re still here, let’s have a party!” When I think about practicing Judaism, the things I think about make me happy.

But I think a lot of non-Jews don’t necessarily see Judaism the same way. I think in part it’s because we do like to kvetch, but I think a lot of it is because from the outside it’s harder to see the joy, and very easy to see the long history of suffering that has been enacted on the Jewish people. From the inside, it’s very much, “we’re still here, let’s party” and from the outside it’s, “how many times have they tried to kill you? Why are you celebrating? They tried to KILL YOU!”

And I want to start with that because a lot of the rest of this is going to be negative. And I don’t want people to read it and wonder why I still want to be Jewish. I want to be Jewish because it makes me happy. My problem isn’t with being Jewish, it’s with how Jews are treated.

What I really wanted to write about is being Jewish and the trauma that’s involved with that right now.

First, I want to talk about Israeli Jews. I can’t say much here because I’m not Israeli, nor do I have any close friends or family that are Israeli. But if I’m going to be talking about the trauma Jews are experiencing right now, I can’t not mention the fact that Israeli Jews (and Israelis that aren’t Jewish as well, but that’s not my focus here) are dealing with massive amounts of it right now. It’s a tiny country – virtually everyone has a friend or family member that was killed or kidnapped, or knows someone who does. Thousands of rockets have been fired at Israel in the last few months – think about the fact that the Iron Dome exists and why it needs to. Terror attacks are ongoing; I feel like there’s been at least one every week since October. Thousands of people are displaced from their homes, either because of the rocket fire, or because their homes and communities were physically destroyed in the largest pogrom in recent history – the deadliest single day for Jews since the Holocaust ended. If that’s not trauma inducing, I don’t know what is.

And there is, of course, the generational trauma. And I think Jewish generational trauma is interesting because it’s so layered. Because it’s not just the result of one trauma passed down through the generations. Every 50-100 years, antisemitism intensifies, and so very frequently the people experiencing a traumatic event were already suffering from the generational trauma that their grandparents or great grandparents lived through. And those elders were holding the generational trauma from the time before that. And so on.

And because it happens so regularly, there’s always someone in the community that remembers the last time. We are never allowed the luxury of imagining that we are safe. We know what happened before, and we know that it happened again and again and again. And so we know that it only makes sense to assume it will happen in the future. The trauma response is valid. I live in America because my great grandparents lived in Russia and they knew when it was time to get the hell out in the 1900s. And the reason they knew that is because their grandparents remembered the results of the blood libels in the 1850s. How can we heal when the scar tissue keeps us safe?

I look around now and wonder if we’ll need to run. We have a plan. I repeat, my family has a plan for what to do if we need to flee the country due to religious persecution. How can that possibly be normal? And yet, all the Jewish families I know have similar plans. It is normal if you’re Jewish. Every once in a while I see someone who isn’t Jewish talk about making plans to leave because they’re LGBTQ or some other minority and the question always seems to be, “should I make a plan?” It astounds me every time. The Jewish answer is that you need to have a plan and the only question is, “when should I act?” Sometimes our Jewish friends discuss it at play dates. Where will you go? What are the triggers to leave? No one wants to go any earlier then they have to. Everyone knows what the price of holding off too long might be.

I want to keep my children safe. When do I induct them into the club? When do I let my sweet, innocent kids know that some people will hate them for being Jewish? When do I teach them the skills my parents and grandparents taught me? How to pass as white, how to pass as Christian, knowing when to keep your mouth shut about what you believe. When do I tell them about the Holocaust and teach them the game “would this person hide me?” How hard do I have to work to remind them that while you want to believe that a person would hide you, statistically, most people you know would not have? Who is this more traumatic for? Them, to learn that there is hatred in the world and it is directed at them, or me, to have to drive some of the innocence out of my own children’s eyes in order to make sure they are prepared to meet the reality of the world?

And the reality of the world is that it is FULL of antisemitism. There’s a lot of…I guess I’d call it mild antisemitism that’s always present that you just kinda learn to ignore. It’s the sort of stuff that non-Jews might not even recognize as antisemitic until you explain it to them, just little micro-aggressions that you do your best to ignore because you know that the people doing it don’t necessarily mean it, it’s just the culture we live in. It can still hurt though. I like to compare it to a bruise: you can mostly ignore it, but every once in a while something (more blatant antisemitism) will put a bit to much pressure on it and you remember that you were already hurting this whole time.

On top of the background antisemitism, there’s more intense stuff. And usually the most intense, mask off antisemitism comes from the right. This makes sense, in that a lot of right politics are essentially about hating the “other” and what are Jews if not Western civilizations oldest type of “other”? On the one hand, I’ve always been fortunate enough to live in relatively liberal areas so this sort of antisemitism has felt far away and impersonal – they hate everybody, and I’m just part of everybody. On the other hand, until recently I’ve always considered this the most dangerous source of antisemitism. This is the antisemitism that leads to hate crimes, that leads to synagogue shootings. This is the reason why my synagogue is built so that there is a long driveway before you can even see the building, and that driveway is filled with police on the high holidays. This is the reason why my husband and I were scared to hang a mezuzah in our first apartment (and second, and third). For a long time, this was the antisemitism that made me afraid.

But the left has a problem with antisemitism too. And it has always been there. Where the right hates the “other”, the left hates the “privileged/elite/oppressors.” It’s the exact same thing, just dressed up with different words. They all mean “other” and “other” means “Jew.” It hurts more coming from the left though. A lot of Jewish philosophy leans left. A lot of Jews lean left. So when the left decides to hate us, it isn’t a random stranger, it’s a friend, and it feels like a betrayal.

One of the people I follow works for Yad Vashem, and a few weeks ago she mentioned a video they have with testimonies from people who came to Israel after Kristallnacht, with an unofficial title of “The blow came from within.” The idea is that to non-German Jews, the Holocaust was something done by strangers. It was still terrible, but it is easier to bear the hate of a stranger – it’s not personal. But to German Jews, the Holocaust was a betrayal. It wasn’t done by strangers, it was done by coworkers, and neighbors and people they thought were friends. It was done by people who knew them, and still looked at them and said, “less than human.” And because of this sense of betrayal, German survivors, or Germans who managed to get out before they got rounded up, had a very different experience than other Holocaust victims.

And I feel like a lot of left leaning Jews are having a similar experience now. People that we’ve marched with or organized with, or even just mutuals that we’ve thought of as friends are now going on about how Jews are evil. They repeat antisemitic talking points from the Nazis and from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and when we point out that those ideas have only led to Jewish death in the past they don’t care. And if someone you thought of as a friend thinks of you this way, what do you think a stranger might think? Might do?

The Jews are fucking terrified. I’ve seen a post going around that basically wonders if this was what it was like for our ancestors – when things got bad enough to see what was coming but before it was too late to run? And we can see what’s coming. History tells us that they way people are talking and acting only leads to one place. I’m a millennial – when I was a kid the grandparents at my synagogue made sure the kids knew – this is what it looked like before, this is what you need to watch out for, this is when you need to run. I wonder where to run to. It feels like nowhere is safe.

I feel like I’ve been lucky in all this. I don’t live in Israel. I have family and acquaintances who do, but no one I’m particularly close to. Everyone I know in real life has either been sane or at least silent about all of this (the internet has been significantly worse, but when it comes to hate, the internet is always worse). I live in a relatively liberal area – there’s always been antisemitism around anyway, but it’s mostly just been swastikas on flyers, or people advocating for BDS, not anything that’s made me actually worry for my safety. But in the last 5 months there have been bomb threats at my synagogue, and just last week a kid got beat up for being Jewish at our local high school. He doesn’t want to report it. He’s worried it will make it worse.

I bought a Magen David to wear in November. At the time it seemed like the best way to fight antisemitism was to be visibly Jewish, to show that we’re just normal people like everyone else. Plus, I figured that if me being Jewish was going to be a problem for someone, then I would make it a problem right away and not waste time. I’ve worn it almost constantly since, but the one time I took it off was when I burnt my finger in December and had to go to urgent care. I didn’t think about it too much when I did it, but I thought about it for a long time after – I didn’t feel good about having made that choice.

The conclusion I came to is that the training that my elders had been so careful to instill in me kicked in. I was hurt, and scared, and the voice inside my head that sounds like my grandmother said, “don’t give them a reason to be bad to you. Fight when you’re well, but for now – survive.” It still felt cowardly, but it was also a connection to my ancestors who heeded the same voice well enough to survive. And it enrages me that that voice has been necessary in the past. And it enrages me that things are bad enough now that my instinct is that I need to hide who I am to receive appropriate medical care.

I wish I had some sort of final thought to tie this all together other than, “this sucks and I hate it,” but I really don’t. I could call for people to examine their antisemitic biases, but I’m not foolish enough to think that this will reach the people who need to do so. I could wish for a future where everything I’ve talked about here exists only in history books, and the Jewish experience is no longer tied to feeling this pain, but that’s basically wishing for the moshiach, and I’m not going to hold my breath.

I guess I’ll end it with the thought that through all of this hate and pain and fear, we’re still here. And we’re still joyful as well. As much as so many people have tried over literally THOUSANDS of years to eradicate us, I’m still here, I’m still Jewish, and being Jewish still makes me happy.

Am Yisrael Chai.

[capricores]

if you have strong mutable (gemini, sagittarius, pisces, virgo) placements then you NEED to write things down if you don't already. all those thoughts that constantly swirl in your head: the frequent tasks, goals, feelings, aspirations, opinions, etc - WRITE THEM DOWN. this is not only therapeutic & stress-relieving for you but almost necessary, or you're going to burn out and overload your own mind constantly.

when you bottle, or when you let plans, goals, dreams, to-do lists, projects, etc live solely in your head - you'll notice you can't sleep as well, it's harder to rest, your memory gets more foggy than usual, you feel burnt out and unable to connect, etc. specifically:

write down your feelings. this will be your ultimate (free) therapy. start to journal, write a diary. make a private twitter/tumblr where you spill your feelings, frustrations, thoughts. you will feel an immense sense of relief by writing or typing your feelings out - even if no one is reading it but you. mutable moons especially. our feelings tend to change rapidly, but it doesn't make them less valid. don't bottle out of the fear your feelings will change/you'll just "get over it"!! write it down and let it out!!

write! to-do! lists!!!!! these don't have to be for important things. you want to learn digital art? you want to study coding? you want to learn french? you want to re-decorate? you probably have a billion things you want to do, and then you get overwhelmed by the options, and do nothing. write down all the things you want to do. make a to-do list for these things. get them out of your head and somewhere permanent/physical. looking at the options in front of you will feel much easier.

make excel project trackers (you can even make these for to-do list items/goals/etc)! mutable placements have a tendency to start a lot of projects or tasks, and never finish any of them. make a simple tracker for all the projects you start. you won't forget what you're working on, and you'll be less overwhelmed trying to remember what you have going on (example of the one i always use pictured below)

talking out your thoughts and feelings is also very cathartic. make fake (or real, i support u!) youtube vlogs where you spill your feelings and talk about your plans, your day, what you have to do, etc. talk to someone you love and trust, vent to them about how things are; or about what you're getting up to. i find writing has an edge, because you can go back to it for reference (mutables tend to forget things easily) - but as long as you're getting the swirl of your mind somewhere outside of your head, you'll feel so, so much less stressed.

mutable dominants tend to constantly live in go-mode, we're restless and always doing something. we feel uncomfortable and sometimes guilty about staying still. our minds don't ever shut off. it's very important for mutable placements to learn how to rest, be present in the moment, and learn grounding. this can be done in many ways, but i've found personally that writing works best for me. other helpful practices can be: talk therapy, acceptance theory, yoga, meditation, hiking, camping, etc.

i also want to remind mutable signs: we change a lot. we have a lot of ideas. there's so much we want to do. we often feel like we have no path, no big goal; we can struggle with purpose as we don't often aspire for permanent things or "one big goal". this is NOT bad. there is nothing wrong with changing your feelings, your mind, your goals, your life path. you CAN do all the things you want to do! you have your entire life ahead of you! yes, you can learn all those languages. yes, you can have three different careers in your life. yes yes yes! don't listen to negativity from others. don't beat yourself up for not having one big goal like some people around you might. cherish and embrace all the things you want to achieve and complete (both big and small). learn to follow-through with and finish the things that matter to you (writing things down will really help with this, make action plans/steps - break everything down into smaller pieces). take the time to slow down and enjoy the moments as they come. you got this!

[my-acotar-thoughts]

So about Nesta vs the Inner Circle…

When they first meet Nesta and Elain, Rhys and Cassian already don’t like Nesta. That much was clear with how Cassian brought up Feyre hunting at 14, but I don’t understand why they ignore the fact that Nesta and Elain were also children, barely older than Feyre at that time too. Nesta wasn’t a grown woman expecting a child to do all the work. Nesta and Elain still did their parts in the home, but it was more traditionally feminine work that, honestly, Feyre acts like is beneath her.

It honestly feels like a manipulation. Feed into Feyre’s anger and insecurities against her sisters and seem more sympathetic so she sees you as the good guys. Cause their anger towards Nesta is extreme. The girl wasn’t out there buying luxuries, she was being practical. I also think Feyre compares Nesta to their mother too much and their mother sounded very frivolous so there may be projection. Nesta gives off a more practical aristocratic lady, not the frivolous, hedonistic kind like their mother. But yeah, Rhysand and Cassian feel like they’re just saying shit that Feyre wants to hear to feel validated in her anger towards her sisters, particularly Nesta. And Cassian, being Cassian, of course lets his emotions run away with him in the worst way.

[clownakai]

Hi! Let's talk about: Conan's terribly kept secret, and how come he doesn't seem to mind that Akai has pretty much figured it out (and teases him about it)

I'm not going to lie, I think about this a lot and I've wanted to make a post dissecting the whole thing for a while. It's one of those details within two characters' relationship that says a lot about their overall dynamic, in my opinion.

So, to start off, let's address the secret in question and what it means to Conan. Basic stuff, but it's a useful starting point.

The first and greatest motivation behind Shinichi's efforts to keep his situation a secret from Ran is that he doesn't want to endanger her (good idea in theory, not so easy in practice, but this post isn't about that).

In time, this also becomes valid for everyone who associates with Kudou Shinichi and/or Edogawa Conan, given all the stunts he pulls as the latter. Just to be on the safer side, those two identities should remain separate.

Now, here's the first real "outsider" who figures out Conan is Shinichi.

I'm kind of reading this as Conan attempting to call Hattori's bluff, but as soon as he realizes that the guy is serious about telling Ran everything, he drops all pretenses and comes clean about the APTX.

Now, since this is still pretty early on in the manga, we can argue that Conan's identity hasn't been solidified just yet and Shinichi doesn't know how dangerous the Organization actually is, and combining that with the fact that Hattori is pretty much a stranger, the pros of conceding defeat on the matter and explaining himself to a fellow detective definitely outweigh the cons.

(This also gifts us with the funniest swaggest most whimsical duo ever, but I digress /silly)

And after Heiji, we have the man, the myth, the legend. Hondou Eisuke. His case is kind of particular, in that he doesn't really try to get the secret out of Conan. The truth is presented to him due to something unrelated (asking Ran out), which is apparently reason enough for Shinichi to out himself.

I do believe that Shinichi felt secure enough in doing this for a couple reasons: first and foremost, Eisuke is at least marginally aware of the Organization and the danger it represents, and he knows the importance of keeping secrets given both his sister's situation and his career choice. Secondly, Eisuke is leaving Japan: sure, there's a chance he might stay in contact with his friends via text, but he has no reason to tell Ran about Conan's real identity in the first place.

The real "danger" here was the possibility (very, very small. Basically non-existent, to be honest) that Ran would say yes to Eisuke's proposal to go to the States together (where, in Shinichi's mind, he wouldn't be able to follow, where he wouldn't be able to watch over her, where he felt he would lose her in every way that matters), and that chance, no matter how small, warranted an intervention. Not exactly pure logic, but that's teenagers for you (affectionate).

Alright, so what about people like Masumi? She even has an advantage in that she already knows about the existence of a drug that makes people shrink: her own mom looks like a middle schooler because of that. She's in danger no matter how you look at it, and she's clearly been keeping that secret the same way Agasa, Hattori, and the Kudous have for a good while. So how come she doesn't get to join the club?

The answer is, of course, the risk factor.

Masumi, as we all know, wouldn't know the meaning of subtlety if it hit her in the face with a baseball bat. We love and cherish her regardless, but admittedly, that's not a trait that would inspire trust in a pair of teenagers hiding their continued existence from an evil syndicate.

That's right! We have her timing to keep in mind as well. Masumi is added to the scene well into the main timeline's events, which means multiple things:

Conan's identity is finally well-established and separate from Shinichi's. Ran has had her suspicions in multiple instances, but they've been assuaged every time. Still, that balance is hard to maintain.

Shinichi is now fully aware of just how dangerous the Organization is: he's now much more reluctant to just share his secret willy-nilly with random strangers, even though they might prove to be useful allies in the long run.

Conan isn't the only shrunk teenager running around anymore: Haibara has just as much reason as him, if not more, to want to keep the number of people in the know as low as possible. By revealing his own secret, there would be virtually no way for Shinichi to keep Haibara out of the metaphorical line of fire.

Therefore, a variable that behaves like this...

Or this...

Isn't very likely to garner much favor from either of these two.

Something to take note of, though, is the fact that Conan pretty much only ever panics when Masumi brings up his identity if she's making an active effort to also bring the matter up with people who are firmly on the "Absolutely Cannot Find Out" list (Ran especially).

In multiple other instances, when Masumi alludes to being aware of Conan's ruse but talks to him one-on-one and makes it clear that the comment is a one-off occasion (and that she's not going to push it this time), Shinichi doesn't really lose his cool.

He may stumble over his words a bit, but the moment isn't played as dramatic or high-risk, per se. It's more as if he were being privately teased about his situation— sort of like as inside joke. It's not exactly welcome, but it also doesn't raise any alarm bells since it stays between him and Masumi.

Now, would Conan's problems with Masumi's nosiness be solved if he gave up and admitted the truth she already knows? Of course, but that's not really the point.

The issue is that this wouldn't be happening on his terms. He would be giving in to someone's else's demands, and in addition to that, Masumi has been asking non-stop about the antidote that Shinichi intermittently uses to get back to normal.

That, above all else, is what makes the endless dance of denial necessary, I think: admitting the truth also means outright admitting that prototypes of an antidote exist, and that means exposing Haibara (both her past work and therefore criminal background, and what she's been working on these past few months: letting Masumi have even a single pill would mean the MI6 getting their hands on it in turn, and that's pretty much not something anyone wants), which in turn would probably set off a very unpleasant chain reaction for everyone involved.

When Shinichi conceded defeat with Hattori, it wasn't on his terms either, but at least he knew the guy didn't really have any ulterior motive apart from his one-sided beef with the Detective of the East.

With Masumi there is no such certainty— quite the opposite, in fact, which is why I think this is the reason he's been so insistent on denying the truth even when he now knows full well that Masumi's can be no mere suspicions.

With all that said, let's get to the point of this bad boy! (I did not think this analysis would get so long. Holy shit)

Let's start with the fact that Akai operates on a pretty simple need-to-know basis. If something isn't relevant to what he's trying to do, he tends not to mention it. Still, he's not exactly strict about this: when Conan mentions Akai and Masumi's familial relation, he takes it in stride and gives his own confirmation because he sees no reason not to.

Now, this of course doesn't mean that he can't get curious about things himself, or that he won't conduct his own investigations on said things. His M.O., however, is very different from that of, say, Hattori or Masumi. It can probably be chalked up to maturity and years of experience, along with the simple matter of his personality, but Akai doesn't exactly make a spectacle of things.

He knows when to push and when to let go in a manner that still gives him the answers he seeks. He easily manipulates Conan into giving himself away as Shinichi while still making sure to be the only one witnessing that moment.

And then he decides to be a bastard and give Conan a heart attack... for about a tenth of a second, since as he does that he also carefully words things in order to give the kid an easy out.

All Akai wanted was to figure out the mystery in front of him (he's by admission a curious guy. He likes solving puzzles): now that he has his answers, he's not really going to do anything with them because he has no reason to— Conan is already willing to cooperate with him and the FBI (and has already done so before), after all. They already share intel more or less freely. He's literally living in the kid's house. For free. Why would he jeopardize any of that by falling out of favor with him?

This, I think, is a pretty solid basis upon which I can build my beautiful sandcastle.

Of the couple times in which Akai respectively asks Conan about his identity outright and mildly teases him about his circumstances, the context always plays a huge role.

In the first scenario, the two are speaking in public, yes, but at the same time the conversation is:

Pretty much kept private

Initiated by Conan (he asked for information first!)

Framed as a proposal of a mutual exchange by Akai, who also backs off immediately as soon as Conan turns him down

Of course, Shinichi is already reasonably sure Akai has him figured out anyway, so the point is moot, but it's still nice to get plausible deniability and still be somewhat in control of when he's going to come clean to the guy of his own volition.

In the second scenario, the situation is even more "secure" so to speak, as:

They're sitting in Okiya Subaru's car

They're completely alone

They're in a hurry to do something else (God fucking dammit, Shuukichi)

In this case, Conan doesn't outright react to the jab. Maybe it's because he doesn't really know what to say, or maybe it's just that he doesn't have enough time to come up with a reply before Shuukichi picks up the call. Either way, he does perhaps look a little put on the spot, but there's no real panicked reaction, no telltale change in what Conan's pupils look like in true DetCo fashion, which I'd say confirms he doesn't feel threatened at the moment.

(If we really must give it a critical interpretation, maybe the bit feels a little like a joke falling flat because it was made during an otherwise tense moment and it has nothing to do with the bigger issue.)

It's also worth noting how Akai's dig directly ties into his own circumstances, which possibly helps with lowering the "offensive" charge of the words. It's not a direct accusation, but rather a mildly humorous, harmless observation about their shared status (presumed dead by the enemy).

The biggest thing about both scenes is still, however, the fact that Akai unfailingly frames the subject in a way that leaves the choice of whether to actually talk about it completely up to Conan. He definitely recognizes his position as privileged/advantaged, but actively chooses not to make use of that, and he hasn't treated Conan any differently ever since verifying his suspicions either.

(Sidenote: I do believe that keeping the kid's identity from his own colleagues is also a strategic choice. Like I mentioned before, outing Conan would mean outing Haibara, and I do believe Akai's promise to protect Shiho also includes keeping her far away from any government agency who may be interested in what she knows— and what she's done.)

In conclusion: I am extremely normal about random interactions between these two and also I think that Conan's unshakeable trust in Akai stems from how the guy has been treating him ever since they started collaborating— with genuine respect (and even admiration) and never actually making him feel cornered the way so many others do, whether intentionally or not. This results in occasional sillygoofy privileges because Akai can recognize the time and the place in which it's acceptable to tease the Cone.