#author is trans/non binary

[2-late-2-the-party]

‘Danmei is mlm fantasy written by and for straight women’ is a lie. It’s written for transmascs and lesbians obviously.

[goodluckclove]

I love how Edgar looks at Scott and is like man he's so pretty. He's so pretty and nice and cool and I love him so much. He's got such a nice face and I like his freckles and wowie what a great guy.

Meanwhile this is Scott:

buddy

buddy you're being weird

i mean i've been there but trust me when you say shit like this people think you're weird

[intothedysphoria]

When they were in drag, Billy went by Holly.

Apparently it was a reference according to Eddie Munson. A queer icon from the 80s. Steve looked Holly Johnson up one night and admitted he could see why Billy would be drawn to him.

They didn’t really care about gender. Most times Steve saw Billy, they were blending masculine and feminine clothing together seamlessly, not caring about the abuse people hurled at them on the street.

Steve wished he cared that little about how he was perceived.

It might have been two solid years of watching Kalvin Garrah before realising how disgusting those ideas were but Steve still paused at even wearing the colour pink, worried it would somehow negate his transness. All ideas of Steve’s masculinity dependent on a fucking colour.

The very definition of toxic masculinity.

Billy could probably see how insecure Steve was in his identity and that was the reason they never even glanced his way. They spent most of their time at death metal concerts or drag shows, talking to interesting people.

Steve was probably the least interesting man alive.

And of course he was hopelessly in love with Billy.

Well, maybe infatuated was a better term for it but the general gist was there.

So he hung around places that were noisy and crowded and everything Steve hated just to get a look at them. They were absolutely spectacular every time. It almost made all the stress worth it.

Robin asked him why he didn’t just talk to them. Steve responded that he’d talk to Billy when she talked to Heather.

Both of them took a moment to think about how disasterously single they were that night.

Eddie’s birthday took them to a punk bar. Steve wasn’t quite sure how he’d been invited but apparently him and Eddie actually were friends. It was nice, actually being someone’s friend, not just being in a clique.

What Eddie hadn’t mentioned was how loud it would be.

Steve made it through about three songs before he broke. It was clearly a very friendly environment but he just couldn’t cope. Instead he sat on the sidewalk outside, hands shaking slightly as he tried to calm his breathing.

The sensory overload bordering on panic attack was interrupted by the most beautiful voice Steve had ever heard.

“Hey man, you ok?”

Standing above him was Billy Hargrove, dressed in denim head to toe, small bits of glitter adorning their moustache.

Steve could feel his brain leaking out of his ears as he nodded, not sure what to say.

Most people would have walked off after that.

Billy stayed with him the entire night.

They talked to him about their cat, their baby sister, their annoying boss. Steve returned some nervous responses until he gained more confidence and found that talking to Billy was shockingly easy.

It was kind of a bummer when Steve realised he’d have to make his way back to Robin to give her a ride home but she was already arm in arm with Heather, flashing him a thumbs up and waving wildly.

Out of the many things Billy was, they were also incredibly forthright.

Because they just looked Steve dead in the eyes and asked to kiss him. Steve said yes and despite the having to jump wildly because he was so much shorter, it was incredible.

The next morning Steve found himself sitting on the floor of Billy’s apartment while they did his makeup and it was the most at peace he’d felt in a long time.

[munsons-mutiny]

I’ve had this headcanon forever and it’s just never come up anywhere, so I figured it’s time to write about it.

Caleb’s spell that he makes for Veth, Widogast’s Transmorigification, has major implications for Exandria’s trans population! This could be the magical equivalent of top or bottom surgery only it’s down to a biological level! I’m sure they’ve had their own procedures, but a body that you can personally design does seem like an upgrade from whatever technology/magic they have available!

I like to believe that Caleb doesn’t think about the spell in that context at first, why would he? It was designed for someone with a different type of body dysphoria, and he doesn’t interact with too many trans people (at least that he knows, I have no clue if he knows about Yussa, and they haven’t seen Bryce in ages).

But once he starts teaching, and establishes himself as a safe space for queer kids (you can’t tell me the empire is super open minded, especially their most prestigious traditional institution) the application becomes obvious. The first time his favorite student, a small purple tiefling named Aza who reminds him so much of Molly it hurts, comes to him mid-breakdown because of how bad the dysphoria is the solution just immediately pops into his head. He could fix this for her, give her the body she should’ve been born in.

He comforts her the best he can and then calls a meeting of the lgbt club he has set up (it’s run under the radar to make it safe even for students who aren’t out to their peers yet). Where he gives a presentation on the spell, and it’s capabilities, even has Veth come in to show the results and have her talk about her experience and if there had been any side effects.

A couple students in the room cry at the possibility, some remain uninterested, but many are enraptured with the idea.

In what seems like the blink of an eye Caleb has suddenly become an underground queer hero, he starts performing the spell free of cost to anyone who wants it and is above the legal age (you just have to help dig up the clay if you can). Ends up having a whole medical procedure to the spell, where he takes them to the blooming grove (which I imagine has plenty of clays heheh) where it’s peaceful and they can talk everything over with caduceus before and after. Who can guide them through their feelings much better than Caleb though he always tries his best. He always offer the option to go back as well (though they have to wait a year, which is of course stated beforehand) if it isn’t the solution they were hoping for.

(Totally off track but I fully believe Caduceus ends up super involved in Caleb’s queer club, there’s so little aro ace rep and seeing someone whose so confident in it would be so helpful for them, and I think it would be so comforting for Caddy to see others like him and to know he’s not alone in that)

They keep the whole operation quiet, but it spreads silently throughout the queer community, Astrid even stepping in a time or two to keep it off the Assembly’s radar (She may be straight, but she’s poly with a bi partner, and I believe she’ll use her powers for causes she believes in for better or worse. Thankfully this is one of them).

There’s still discrimination against the queer community, but this quiet movement starts to spread to the point that almost every member of the nein is involved. Beau uses her connections at the Soul to get new documentation for people with proper names and pronouns. Yasha starts running Rexxentrum’s first self-sustainable lgbt safehouse for kids with nowhere to go (the garden is incredible). Jester and Fjord turn Fjord’s old orphanage into a second lgbt safehouse after he gets it shut down. Veth adds lgbt education to her camps curriculum, and is an advocate for same sex healthcare in the Nicodranas school system. She has a tunic that says proud mother of a bisexual wizard that she wears a little too often much to Caleb’s chagrin. Even Kingsley (illegal pirate king that he may be, my beloved) ends up becoming as involved as possible in Caleb’s group. Loves learning more about gender identity, and becomes the first Plank King to be openly gender fluid (probably who knows, I don’t know much about Darktows history but I def didn’t get super queer vibes). Makes sure Dark-Tow is accepting of all who turn to piracy, and imposes harsh laws against discrimination.

Essek looks on all of this with pride, so proud of Caleb and even the small role that he got to play in the spells creation. It’s the first time he gets to see something he helped with create good in the world. With Caleb’s permission he ends up sneaking back into the dynasty and leaving a copy of the finished spell on the Bright Queens desk, with a big created by Caleb Widogast across it (with whatever the wizard equivalent of copyright is). In a culture that centers around rebirth in different bodies, the idea that you could choose to have your original body back is a big deal. Dysphoria after consecuted individuals get their magic back is a huge problem within the dynasty, and it does Essek a lot of good to know that he’s done something actually helpful for his country.

Basically this got super long winded and out of hand, and I know Matt has largely cut homophobia, transphobia, and non-fantasy racism from Exandria but this idea would just not leave me alone!! And either way the spells implications for a gender affirming procedure are still super relevant.

[mxnillinlore]

"How Do I Sexy? A Guide for Trans and Nonbinary Queers" is ALREADY at 500 copies sold and that's just in pre-orders of the physical copy alone! If you haven't done so yet, be sure to secure yours for when it releases next Friday, August 23rd, 2024, by ordering now on Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Indigo, or by supporting your locally owned queer bookstore!

Be sure to also check out some of my upcoming discussion events with bookstores across North America!

August 27th - Saskatoon, SK, Canada; In-Person w/ Turning the Tide Bookstore @ 7:00 PM CST

August 28th - Calgary, AB, Canada; Instagram Live w/ Shelf Like Books @ 2:00 PM MDT

Sept 4th - Vancouver, BC, Canada; Zoom Discussion w/ Cross & Crows Books @ 7:30 PM CST

September 6th - Salt Lake City, Utah, USA; Zoom Discussion w/ Under the Rainbow Bookstore @ 6:00 PM CST

[just-a-little-unionoid]

eh you know what, fuck it, I doodled my version of sinner!Adam and they made me happy so here you go

the hands and arms are shit just don't... don't pay too much attention

in this AU Adam woke up in Hell in a female body and ended up just... rocking with it

I guess he decided to commit to the rock star persona, I fully believe Adam would fucking love Hell if only he got off of his high horse, and with Lilith out of the picture the "singer empowering the people of Hell" role is free soooo... you know 🤷

lyrics from Stick It To The Man

[sarielsnowings]

✨ Meet the Artist ✨

About time I made one of these, and also a great way to introduce myself here on tumblr I guess! Feel free to reblog with your own, I love these things.

[feminisedlad]

liked the people’s joker but to no one’s surprise i wish the depictions of trans masculinity were, um, more nuanced. but it’s still really fucking good and worth seeing. just don’t expect to see any fully developed trans masc characters who aren’t like, explicitly abusive shitheads or joke characters

8.5/10 movie, would be a 9.5 if they’d given the penguin mastectomy scars. if your only character with visible top surgery scars or visible transmasc traits is a fucking shithead, idk, i think that is sort of mean to the other type of trans person who is Not You

[noahhawthorneauthor]

In preparation for the Trans Rights Read A Thon going on over at Insta, Twitter and TikTok, I want to share some of the books I've read already that really impacted me.

Hell Followed With Us by AJ White taught me there's more than one way to be trans, and provided a wonderful outlet for this new feeling I was having called trans rage.

Prince of Sorrows by @skellygraves opened my eyes, and writing horizons with such a beautiful queer normative world that it made me question everything.

The Witch King by H.E Edgmon taught me to never accept less than what I deserve.

Cemetery Boys by @aidenschmaiden taught me how family and friends should treat you, and that they should learn if they don't know how.

The Sunbearer Trials taught me that standing as you are can make others stand up too. It also taught me that being trans isn't your whole identity, just part of who you are.

The Sex Wizard Series by Alethea Faust has such a diverse cast of queer characters, and it opened my eyes to how creative queer kinky seggs can be.

Odder Still by DN Bryn made me realize that we don't have to fight against the parts of ourselves we deem parasitic or bad.

A Taste Of Gold And Iron by Alexander Rowland was the first time I felt truly seen as a person with anxiety. (Rereading now via audio)

A Strange And Stubborn Endurance by @fozmeadows impacted me in several ways and for several personal reasons, but I will say this. I have borrowed this from my library. Bought the ebook. Bought the audio. And someday I'll own a print copy.

Kinship and Kindness by @authorkarajorgensen was another book that being trans was just part of the characters life, and it warmed my heart in all the right places.

The Wolf In The Whale. This. I have no words that can accurately describe the wonder that is this book. It is dark, real, visceral and full of emotion. It is one of those books that forever changes you.

(Check TW, most have them!)

[franklyn-newt]

Realised last night that Synthetic Sea has now sold it's 50th copy ! And on non binary day no less !!

So that's pretty awesome for my little self pubbed novel about sad trans cyborgs 💜✨

[goodluckclove]

Hey so like this is mainly for the younger members of my audience and/or anyone who want to buy physical copies of Blind Trust and future books of Songbird Elegies.

I am not pleased with the price of the Amazon version. Also some people have said they are in a situation where they can't buy an explicitly queer book at all. If I were to release the big boi version on Amazon, as well as an e-book, as well as cheaper serialized volumes of the whole series, two chapters at a time (so like 30-40k each) packaged in discreet chapbooks - would that be cool? It'd certainly have that DIY aesthetic I crave so hard.

Accessibility is important and I want to do everything I can to make sure anyone who wants a paperback experience of softcore ace romance gets it.

[ingloriousgigi]

I'm doing the #transreadathon next week and I really want to get to these three trans books. I am giving $5 (on the 31st because I get paid) for every book I read to the Trans Education Network of Texas.

[maybemockingbird]

My name is A.L. Davidson and I am a genre-blending horror and sci-fi romance author with a penchant for cozy, slice of life style reads! I've got a great community over on Patreon and I'm currently looking for new recruits to come get lost in space with me and enjoy my wide variety of cozy, monster-filled, queer slow burn romance reads with diverse casts of characters! There are tons of perks to dive into across all tiers, and the link is easy to find in my LinkTree, so come nab a free trial and stay for a while with over 1,000 pages of stories!

I'm hoping to get a bunch of new Cosmonauts so I can write a TON of fun short stories, bonus chapters, and spooky stuff for Halloween, so if you're looking for a new author to read, love supporting indie authors with diverse casts and genre-blending vibes, please consider checking out my Patreon! 

Alycia Davidson on Patreon

[fragileswift1313]

Mrs Maisel Musings!

Kia ora, friends!

Alright, here it is folks, the moment maybe some, maybe none of you have been waiting for: my thoughts on the The Marvellous Mrs Maisel final season. I did it, I finally got it done. I think the reason it took me so long, aside from previously mentioned mental health issues, is that writing stuff like this for five hundred and sixteen minutes of television is hard! It’s really hard. I would love to hear what you all think of this, and if you want to discuss what I’ve written here, or even just about the show or season in general, please hit me up! I would love to talk about it with you.

Now enough with the delays and the stalling - please enjoy my review (??) of The Marvellous Mrs Maisel season 5, the final season.

So, I really liked the first few seasons of The Marvellous Mrs Maisel. Even though it’s a bit cheesy and dopey at times. Rachel Brosnahan is a joy to watch on-screen, and a lot of the other actors here do a really great job with the script they were given... such as it is. On a recent rewatch, though, I started to see the strings a little bit - things that I liked the first time around just didn’t quite hit the same. I got through most of it, all the important parts, and then I started the new season. It’s been a couple weeks or so since I finished it, and I’m not as down on it now as I was when I started, but y’all, I am about to have some opinions.

This the final Mrs Maisel season really feels like creator Amy Sherman-Palladino probably wanted to do at least one more season after this, but someone at Jeff’s Website Studios said no, so she simply decided to burn the show to the ground.

Now as I wrote in the subtitle, I am about to spoil things here, so this is your final warning: if you don’t want to be spoiled for season five of The Marvellous Mrs Maisel, get out now.

Also: foul language ahead! 🤬

The entire point of this season seems to be leaning into how much of a piece of shit Miriam Weissman is. We get glimpses of her in “current day” 1962 juxtaposed with scenes set in 1972 and 1982, and a couple of other random years, where we skip around and see all sorts of wild stuff - Midge is rich and famous, her kids Ethan and Esther are all grown up, Joel is in prison, and there are some bonkers and hilariously bad facial prosthetics.

Now, aside from the hilariously stupid idea that Midge as a stand-up comic somehow got insanely rich, there are some cool ideas here. The first episode opens with Esther in a psychiatrists office in 1981, searching through a backpack for something and seeming very annoyed. On first watch, I didn’t like that this is something that’s shown at all, but the more I thought about it the more I warmed to the idea. In previous seasons, The Marvellous Mrs Maisel has at times made a point of showing Midge being a terrible and/or absent mother, usually for comedic effect, but I think it’s interesting that they took this idea and bore it out, to show that mid-20’s Midge’s actions had consequences. In a later episode we also see Ethan as an adult, with Midge annoyingly landing in a helicopter nearby and upsetting everyone - this wasn’t as interesting to me, but it was still a good glimpse into how little regard Midge appears to have for anyone but herself, Joel, Susie, or Lenny Bruce.

Speaking of Lenny Bruce, I want to talk about his appearances in the final season. If you know anything about him from real life, you might know how his life ended, and where. The very first episode of season five has Midge bumping into him randomly at the airport when he is about to board a plane to Los Angeles. This made me so. Fucking. Mad. IRL Lenny Bruce was found dead in his home in Hollywood Hills in 1966, which lead me to believe that the very last time Midge will ever see him was this scene at the airport. Midge walks away from the interaction with Lenny with a strange look on her face, as if she somehow knows that this will be the last time she ever sees him alive, and it is my humble opinion that that fucking sucks. Lenny Bruce is one of the best characters on this show, with a ton of great appearances and lines and jokes, and Luke Kirby does a phenomenal job of capturing the real Lenny’s energy - it’s not 1:1, but it’s a great depiction, and I simply cannot believe Amy S-P would do my boy like this. The only other time we see Lenny in this season is years later, performing in front of a fairly disinterested crowd as he mumbles and rambles about this thing and that, and it’s so fucking depressing. This season, the show never outright mentions his drug use, but it’s heavily implied, and there’s a moment in a back room where he is talking to Susie and appears to be unable to stand up. On the one hand, I’m kind of pleased that they didn’t depict his death at all, but it really bothered me that these two scenes were all we got of him before the show stops referencing him at all.

The part of this season that really shines the most to me is a scene from episode eight, with Abe in a dimly-lit restaurant with Gabe, his boss, and a couple of colleagues. The scene begins with Abe checking his coat and coming over to sit where Gabe etcetera are already seated around a table and chatting. They order some wine. There’s a cut here to a few minutes later where the wine has arrived and been poured, and Abe sits silently, swirling his drink and clearly deep in thought while the others talk amongst themselves. Eventually, Gabe interrupts Abe’s thoughts, telling him that he had been raving to the others about his conversational skills. Abe apologises. “It’s just… the whole goddamn world, you know,” he says, clearly depressed about something. “Only that?” chimes in one of the other men at the table. Then ensues a conversation about the state of the world, about progress, about gender inequality and mental health, even, which was surprising to me. This scene is heartbreaking, and might be some of the best writing in the entire series. I cried watching this scene the first time around, and again just now rewatching it. It’s really sad that Abe never got the kind of character development shown here earlier, I would have liked to see that.

Episode six is an interesting sort of experiment; beginning with Midge on stage, in 1985, talking about her relationship with Susie, it then transitions into a roast for an indifferent and grumpy Susie in 1990, which is basically a device for a bunch of famous people you’ve seen in other things to come together as characters never seen before or again and tell stories about Susie’s rise to fame as one of the biggest talent managers in the United States. Here we get an explanation for why Joel is in prison, and a bunch of seemingly randomly selected stories about what Susie has been up to since 1962. As with the portrayal of Esther in episode one, this was another thing about this season that really bothered me at first, because it felt like it lacks focus, but as I thought about it more, it started to grow on me. This collection of tales about Susie’s exploits make sense for her character, and help to define who she is.

Overall, this season really fell down for me when I realised that a lot of really interesting moments never truly pay off. We jump around a lot between different years and perspectives, and we see a lot of things that could have been great story arcs, but they simply end and are never mentioned again. I really do feel like this season was supposed to be two or more, and Jeff’s Studio said no, so Amy Sherman-Palladino lit it all on fire. I think that if hyou like this show, it might still be worth it to catch the final season, but personally I feel like it should never have been made - at least not in this form. I would much rather have seen this stretched out more, over at least one more season. It tries to give the viewer some closure in the very last scene of the very last episode, but for me it falls flat. I don’t think I’ll ever watch this again.

Thanks so much for reading! What did you think? Once again, please feel free to hit me up in the comments, on the socials, or send me an email. And as always, if you want to read more stuff by me, you can check out my Letterboxd reviews - I recently reviewed The Craft (1996), Eradication (2022), and The Sand (2015)!

I hope y’all are staying safe out there! Have a great week and I’ll talk to you again soon. Ka kite anō au i a koe. 💚

Rebecca

Links | Twitter | Mastodon | Cohost | Substack | itch.io | Letterboxd | Instagram | Carrd | Email

[kael-writ]

Patreon finally added a "join for free" option so if you want to keep up with my posts FOR FREE, you can now be a member!

I write mostly horror in the form of short stories, a serialized novel, and poetry, from a trans perspective with themes that include surviving and overcoming domestic violence and the pressures of poverty under American capitalism.

I also post urban photography. And other stuff.

[izroulia]

14, alone and on the run. The only safe place is the depths of the sea.