#but I struggle bc I am very feminine and enjoy feminine things

[alwaysurvalentine]

anybody else start randomly self analyzing their gender identity or is that just me?

[misqnon]

Thoughts on Sanji enjoying feminine things?

short thoughts: i love it and think he should do it more often esp because i feel like he definitely does in canon and just won't actually let himself do so. i don't draw him in drag all the time for no reason

long thoughts: [breathes in]

i could write an entire essay on sanji's character in terms of femininity, queerness, and misogny BUT we don't have time for all that so let's just focus on the fact i feel like there's actual evidence he enjoys traditionally non-masculine things and oda actually puts him in situations to highlight this pretty frequently

-i am guilty of calling sanji a metrosexual . it's a stupid word but it fits him. he's the only guy on the ship that showers every day and the only other ppl on the ship who do this are the two girls. man also wears suits like mad and has a fairly...daring fashion sense outside of that (granted, most ppl in one piece do.) but he just cares about these things more than most guys! and that doesn't even seem like something that came from his upbringing at baratie bc...no one else dressed like that. he just does that himself. i also can't stop thinking about the sbs where someone suggested sanji would be a stylist in real life and oda went "yes agreed"

-the kamabakka moment...okay terribly offensive and transmisogynistic (won't get into it bc i have several times before) BUT if we can take one thing from that it's that sanji *did* dress up in makeup and a dress and like. frolic with the okama. it's framed as "against his will" but he definitely could have torn that shit off quickly and easily enough, yet oda decided to imply sanji enjoyed it for at least a time before he chickened back out and called the place hell for 2 years. yea, it was probably for oda's idea of 'comedic effect' but this is, once again, one piece. sometimes the humor is part of the plot. sometimes very real information is given through the guise of humor. going off of this u could mention that (also offensive but meant to be funny) joke with the blood donation scene from fishman island

-idk just something about the way oda writes him fighting lots of queer or non-conventionally masculine characters. i feel like it says something about sanji having his own internal struggle about his masculinity- which we know must be true bc of his whole list of virtues he never breaks a la women because of his upbringing with good ol' fashioned zeff and uh. "men should be war machines" germa over here. he fights bon clay and queen for christ sake.

-the scene where he's like happy as a clam to be in nami's body in punk hazard is another comedy gag that's also a little . interesting. I could say oda just keeps accidentally coding him but I feel like oda's very intentionally with his characterization and the subtlety of it

-overall he's just clearly so interested in masculinity since zeff raised him to be that way and he holds zeff in such high regards in combination with his background with germa, his mother and his sister, leading to a I Have To Be A Perfect Gentlemen And Also Respect Women by Putting Them On the Highest of Pedestals. and this in turn has made him reluctant to engage with femininity in any way that could be perceived as Not fitting this manly persona he's made for himself, yet he keeps getting put up against it in various small moments in the series whether comedic or not. I don't think oda frames sanji's relationship with masculinity entirely as a character flaw or weakness to be fixed, bc oda seems to respect sanji's views/they align with oda's own views. BUT I do think he knows it's partially susceptible to change and....he makes Sanji encounter these things so often for a reason. does that make sense?

in my ideal world sanji 20 years in the future is a bit more feminine even if he's still a casanova ladies man. like he accepted the okama influence in his life, he's just more quiet about it, lmao. I mean did u see his hair for oda's 40 yr old design

so yeah. he does, I think. quietly and deep down.

[conceptofjoy]

i enjoy how you made hal take after mom (and rose?) in clothing... i feel like its important but i am probably overthinking it bc i am not sure if the i think about it is even a little close to the original idea... i was wondering about her (hals) feelings once she started to realize that she could actually take care of her wardrobe and. It would be kind of dilemma considering she is still somewhere between i should look up to dirk (aka the concept of masculinity she had to inherit) and fuck this shit. so to see some1 who can indirectly "help" you crack the egg problem apart and become more aware of your self after is very wholesome. SWeet gods give hal her happines.s

.. also just remembered my first crisis when i couldnt decide what exactly i wanted to dress up. I was like obsessively relying on stereotypes (i honestly dont know what word to use here because it wasnt exactly stereotypes but i dont want to be tautological), so just dressing the way i wanted seemed too alien and dressing the way everything expected from me made me feel hideoufuuUCKKK. hope it wasnt too weird to just drop it so thank you a lot a lot!!! for letting people just ramble in your asks <3 Its really nice to look up here and see things that will make you feel nice even if make people feel nice wasnt the exact goal

YES that was what i had in mind :D its a hal and dirk struggle that they’re either doing 100% or barely at all. in this case 100% being alpha mom’s style of femininity, and not much at all being just wearing dirk’s hand me downs.

ultimately she has to find her own style/ identity and branching out into copying various women in her life is a good start, but she also has to figure out that there isn’t a By The Book Right Way to do this. shed totally feel like she was a faker at first ugh, not only was she supposed to be dirk, what does it mean that she’s trying to emulate other people?

is this free will or Stockholm leading her to do this?

why bother if people are going to see her as dirk no2 regardless?

in the effort to try to distance herself from from visually looking like dirk, is she doing this for herself or is she just repulsed at the idea of looking like this? something like that.

[julesdraws]

(click for better quality)

For @swfemmefrenzy 's week 4 prompts (yes these are 2) FIRST KISS + SUNRISE

So... this needs a little explaining as i am well aware that this is not a popular ship in this fandom. *clears throat, cracks knuckles* so here it goes..

They are like maybe my faves of all sw women and this is manily an appreciation post. But also i love to imagine that kanan and hera don't have a strictly monogamous relationship and THIS IS NOT DENYING HOW GOOD THEY ARE TOGETHER but more hera's exploriation of her sexuality and maybe a very needed break and change of theme. She is dressed in white (that's not wedding attire to be clear) bc i thought it looked cute and feminine and a little different from her usual aesthetic. And ahsoka "HER BEAUTIFUL FULCRUM" is there to offer a safe space for this, to hold and caress her, to encourage hera and validate her experience. Ofc ahsoka gains so much from this as well (i headcanon her lesbianism so hard you cannot even begin to imagine) bc there certanly IS SOMETHING THERE and they have that chemistry i just saw them together on screen for maybe 5 secs and that was it for me:)

They are that emotional safe space for eachother. A way to release and ground, to explore and play. They are not a couple and what they have doesn't fit a certain label. It's a war bond, a we've lost so much and found such beautiful things in those fleeting moments between one battle and the next, we care, understand and relate and in those moments there is hope, hope that the world will change, that our struggle is not meaningless.

This is a very self indulgent post lol ENJOY THE LESBIAN ENERGY (ik y'all need it) ;))

[convenientalias]

2023 Dramas I Watched in 2023

Cdramas:

A League of Nobleman--Slashy historical mystery drama. I loved all the slashiness and all the intrigue and then in the last few episodes I fell even more in love with the villain. Worth a watch but not my favorite slashy historical mystery of the year.

Mysterious Lotus Casebook--My favorite slashy historical mystery drama of the year! Tho more wuxia than historical I suppose. Bromance and archnemeses and identity porn abound. The identity porn in particular was a special treat for me; a character wandering around all these ppl who care deeply about him or idolize him but all think he's dead is my catnip. (I technically have a few episodes left to go on this one but I'm still counting it bc I am very close.)

Parallel World--YE LIUXI. I did a review of this one here! The short version: urban fantasy and parallel worlds in a desert setting, with a badass amnesiac female protagonist.

The Lady and the Lies--Miniseries, one of those short-episode things that China's doing a lot of now. Involved a cheating husband and a wife out to get revenge. I'm sorry but I shipped the wife with almost every person doing her wrong. She should destroy their lives and also dom them. They're all kind of obsessed with her anyway, in their own way.

Under the Microscope--You ever sit down and say, "Okay, but what I REALLY want from all these historical dramas is to just dig into the tax fraud going on in the background"? Me too, my friend. This show and Long River, which I also watched this year, are all about logistics, bureaucracy, and corruption, and the small man's struggle against ppl in power. That makes them both kind of difficult watches in a way, but also fascinating. I have yet to finish Long River, but this one is an easy 14 episodes and not as emotionally draining, so it was much easier for me to binge through.

Ye Cheng--I must admit I watched this for the pretty people. It's set in a matriarchal fantasy wuxia setting, but the gender role reversal feels a little shallow when the strongest good guy and the strongest bad guy are both men, even tho in theory women are supposed to be the warriors in this setting. However, the role reversal can be quite interesting in some ways--watching the male MC run a brothel as the city's top entertainer, try to use his ~masculine wiles~ to charm the FMC in a way that would be more typically feminine, and deal with the power dynamics of joining the FMC's household. Also, the two leads are just a lot of fun and have a lot of chemistry. The plot is sometimes stupid, but it's still a lot of fun to watch. Also, this was one of just two dramas I managed to finish this year that were mostly romance focused. When you reach the "dropped" section you will see that this is an impressive feat.

Kdramas:

Bloodhounds--I love Woo Do-hwan and I love Park Sung-woong but you know I was here for the ACTION SCENES. PEOPLE PUNCHING EACH OTHER AND SLICING EACH OTHER WITH KNIVES. THATS WHAT ITS ABOUT. I've also written a lot of fanfic about the protagonist and villain at this point but honestly they should have interacted more, we were robbed.

Queen of Masks--The only rich woman thriller kdrama I completed this year. But honestly, when it comes to rich woman thriller kdramas, I've seen better and femslashier. Mine did a better job with the whole "your husband told you the mother of his child was dead, but guess what it's actually me and I'm still alive and here to cause problems" plotline, tho I still enjoyed it here. And the sexual assault aspect... eh. I don't love seeing that kind of plotline in a revenge story; it's such a serious issue (and so much more realistic than, say, "this businessman murdered my whole family to acquire our company" a la Eve) that it kind of makes it hard for me to enjoy the fun of the mystery. But I suppose the way they handled it at least had gravity. My favorite plotline was Hae-mi and her husband and the drama they got into, which is serious in its own way (addiction and lies) but extremely well acted and with so much romantic chemistry.

Revenant--Spooky spooky ghosts and Kim Tae-ri, what's not to like? The possession aspects were creepy without being gory or too terrifying for a wimp like me to handle. The acting was great. And I actually shipped the sort-of-romantic subplot, though apparently a lot of ppl shipped the two MCs instead, which is understandable.

Song of the Bandits--A whole ton of gunfighting and other action scenes. One very badass assassin woman, a dude who is equally capable of taking out a whole squad of soldiers or bandits on his own, a villain with a complicated relationship with the dude above, and a woman spying on the Japanese government who's in a sort of spy love triangle with the MC and the villain. the plot was okay but again I was mostly here for the action!!

Thai dramas:

My Dear Gangster Oppa--This year I tried to watch a bunch of different BL dramas bc I was in that kind of mood but the truth is, it's not the het that gets me in m/f romcoms, it's unfortunately the romcom. Despite that! I persisted and did manage to finish this one. The lead couple was cute, and there was gangster intrigue and action etc to keep the fluff and comedy from driving me insane. still mostly a romance.

To Sir With Love--Also has a BL romance in it but not really a romance drama but a Family Drama with lots of familial plotting, the classic first wife vs. second wife scheming-for-their-children plotline along with what could have been a love triangle between brothers... except Tian is gay, which means the love triangle is null (except he's still engaged to his brother's love interest. which is awkward for all involved.). Also Tian being gay is a Deep Dark Secret. There's a lot of homophobia which might turn some viewers off but I loved seeing Tian's struggle between wanting to come out and having been forced to stay in the closet for so long that he freezes even at the thought of telling people he trusts. Also his mother commits a bunch of murders with terrible poison mushrooms so if THAT'S what you want out of a Thai drama, there is also that. Also he and his brother are. so sweet. and I love them. but also the central m/m romance is very good and involves assassination attempts and identity porn and pining and everything good. Also also this is actually a 2022 drama BUT IM STILL COUNTING IT bc it came out in October 2022 and am I really supposed to get around to watching dramas that fast??

Started and dropped:

Kiseki: Dear to Me--Even gangsters and intrigue could not save me from dropping this romcom.

Our Blooming Youth--This is also a romcom. You may see a pattern here. But to give it credit it is quite a plotty historical drama too. I just didn't really care about the two leads and dropped it halfway through.

Pandora: Beneath the Paradise--A thriller that was going places a bit too wild and frustrating for me.

Killing Vote--Can you believe I dropped this with only four episodes to go? I'm sorry Park Sung-woong, I love you but the plot is just so boring. And it plays at moral complexity while being just. not very complex. Like I swear the morality in this thing is "catching bad guys and punishing them is good, not catching them and not punishing them is bad." We could be talking about police corruption, our MC's terrible ethics, innocence until proven guilty, and so on and so forth, but we were just not going there. Also the twists were doing very little for me and the cops are just not very interesting characters. Again, Park Sung-woong, I'm sorry, you were a decent character but you could not save this show. Let's be real I needed either more Devil Judge here or more Death Note.

Legend of Anle--The romcom element was not helping this show's case but I still tried for 1) wuxia with identity porn and 2) Dilraba Dilmurat costarring with Gong Jun. Unfortunately those two had no chemistry and the plot was just very unsatisfying for me in the political intrigue area. One example: Gong Jun can't find the supplies needed to pacify a near-rioting mob. But that's okay bc Anle's subordinates found it. How did they find the super secret hidden storehouse?? we don't know and will never find out bc it was offscreen and never explained. They just did. this would be fine if it weren't, like, the climax of the episode and presented as a victory of the two MC's brilliance. I can't deal with this.

Naughty Babe--It's. A romcom. I'm so sorry I probably should just stop trying.

Other romcoms I quit too fast to give a fair opinion: You Are Mine, Extremely Perilous Love, My Lethal Man, Taikan Yoho.

Well, there you have it, 2023 dramas I watched in 2023.

Fun as it was, I think in 2024 I'm going to try to catch up more with older dramas lols.

Did y'all watch any of these dramas this year?

[mageofseven]

Hi! Could I get a match up please? My name is Pixie and I’m 23. I’m an INFP Pisces, studying for a degree in psychology. I am such a mother hen it’s actually funny, total mom friend. My favourite things to do are read and garden. I’m really warm and oddly bubbly for such an introvert. I am ridiculously chaotic, possibly bc of my adhd lol. I am a bit of a nightmare for flirting, I tend to just flirt with everyone without realising it (that’s if I can be bothered to socialise). I take care of pretty much everyone in my life, friends and family. I’m a bit of a human cat, I love lounging in the sun, naps, time alone and my hair played with. I love your work sm thank u <3

Of course! Let's start with breaking down some of your information~

You're an INFP (like me!), meaning your functions are FiNeSiTe or FiNe for short.

Your primary function is Introverted Feeling, a function that revolves around your own personal morals. If a decision makes you uncomfortable or goes against your own values then it is not one you can make easily.

Your auxiliary function is Extraverted iNtuition. Your Ne supports your Fi by showing you many different possibilities of how things can go or what things to do. This function can also be helpful for creative endeavors.

INFPs are known for being empathetic, generous, open-minded, and idealistic. We are big daydreamers that want the best for others and to create a better world, but often struggle to make any necessary actions. We stick to our conscience and aim to always do what we feel is best. However, we can also be pretty unfocused, unrealistic, and self-critical.

As a pisces, you are very creative, imaginative, and compassionate, but also sensitive to criticism.

So who would fit best with a sensitive, compassionate daydreamer who enjoys psychology, reading, and garden work and has a warm heart ready to take care of others?

Honestly, most of them 😅🤭

There are two Boys that come to mind the most so I will go with both of them~

I pair you with...

Asmo

This man would find you so adorable omg. Your bubbly personality and flirty nature paired with your sensitive side is too irresistible to this man.

I don't see you two sharing many interests (at least based on the info given to me), but your personalities would mesh well together and this man would cling to you with hearts in his eyes hehe 🥰

But also with...

Barbatos

I can see Barb falling for your soft, loving nature. You two feel very yin and yang to me, not in the way that you're both strongly opposites or anything like that, but you both express different energies; a masculine energy (Barb) and a feminine energy (you).

To be even more precise, a fatherly energy and a motherly energy. You both take care of those close you and seem to enjoy the task, even if it's not always the easiest thing to do.

Unlike Asmo, I can see Barb sharing your interests.

Psychology? It's the study of people and this man can read others eerily well so I'd be shocked if he had no interest in it.

Reading? When he can indulge in a small break, certainly.

Gardening? I imagine it's part of his job, but he still enjoys the peacefulness of the activity.

So yeah! Choose your man and live happily hehe 🥰🤭

[notquitecanon]

Do you do scenarios or headcanons? If so, how many characters can we request for scenarios or headcanons? Would you do the same prompt with different characters? Can we request for male reader, female reader, gender neutral reader, etc? Other than Astarion, are there any characters from Baldur's Gate 3 you would write? Are there any topics you won't do like rape, suicide, etc? Do you do poly ships x reader? Would you mind if we request for Alternate Universes or Aus like AU where the character lives happily? Would you mind if the request is suggestive, implied sex, or mentioned sex but no explicit sex? Would you do NSFW requests? For Baldur's Gate 3 requests, would you mind if we don't specify the race/class to leave it ambiguous or if we ask specify the race/class like human/healer? What kinks would you accept for requests? Thank you in advance!

Honestly, I’ve just never had those kind of requests on here. I also am very bad about answering requests bc my brain is a goblin with a pencil who is very picky about what sparks my interest enough to push past the usual fog of writers block. But funny enough I used to run a Star Wars fanfic blog so I do have answers to these questions:

1.) I’m not opposed to doing scenarios/ head canons! Sometimes doing them is what sparks a full fic or it’s just fun to slow down and enjoy imagining things!

As for how many, to prevent burn out I’ll probs stick to 2 or 3 characters at a time. If someone requests more than 3, I’d probs pick the 3 that I had the better ideas for / knew the characters better

2.) Requesting different gendered readers. Full transparency, I’m a cisgender woman.

I feel most knowledgeable writing feminine presenting characters, as I can use my own experiences! That being said, I do write things to be gender neutral and can do that on request. As for writing for a male reader, I’m open to trying! It’s not in my realm of experience nor have I done it before, but if I got the right request, I’d be happy to try! (I just don’t want to not write to my usual standards and I especially don’t want to offend anyone because of my lack of knowledge!)

3.) I’ll write for any of the romanceable characters, except Minthara (haven’t been able to recruit her yet so I don’t know her)

I’m more likely to write for characters that I’m most attracted to such as Astarion, Halsin, Karlach, Gale, and Lae’zel.

4.) I won’t write graphic depictions of rape or suicidal. I will use mentions of trauma / mental health struggles in my writing, and I always mention them in my TW section. Not so much a problem in this phantom, but I also don’t write incest. Or inappropriate age gaps.

5.) I have never written a polyamorous relationship, but I’d be open to trying with the right prompt/request. I have a lot of love to go around, so I think I can do this.

6.)  when it comes to AU’s I mostly try to keep it in universe, and I will do what I call fix it fics. That way if the work I am trying to do takes place after the end of game, I can still have all my little guys because I refuse to believe that there’s not a happy ending for everybody. And if there isn’t one, I will create one. But I don’t really do coffee shop they use or flower shop use or anything that takes them out of the world that they are in.

7.) at the moment, I don’t write outright smut. It’s not because I don’t want to or can’t, I just don’t think I’m very good at it. I will use mentions of sex, heavy-handed, make out sessions, and honestly pretty much everything right up until the point of actual sex. So you request smut, but I might not be as quick to answer those others. Personally, I find the tension leading up to this smut the fun part to write and read.

8.) as for race/class of BG3 readers, I will try to keep it, usually fairly and ambiguous. Though, how I have written everything that I have written, even though I’ve only posted one thing, I, based all of my writing off how I played the game personally. So, if you have something specific in mind, you’ll have to specify in the request, or I will default to what I usually do. (Reference I love playing Rangers. They are my favorite, so I have knowledge of nature, survival and some medicinal skills) 

9.) as for kinks, I accept, I will accept anything in the ask box, even if I don’t write it. no kink shaming here as long as the kinks don’t fall under any of the things that I don’t write, which are listed in the above points

Thank you for asking, and being so respectful about my writing! I really appreciate it and hope that you request something :) 

Disclaimer, I hope everything that is written in this makes sense, I’m using voice to text as I do something else.

[labgrownmeat]

15 questions for 15 mutuals

I was tagged by @lightpossession to do this thing (thank u :)!!)

1. Are you named after anyone?

I am named after my middle name which was my dad's best friends name but written in a way I decided was more "feminine" ~10(?) years ago

2. When was the last time you cried?

Earlier today thinking about people I care about struggling w/ things. I cry a lot tho generally

3. Do you have kids?

Yes their names are Sigmund and Pan and they are 8 and 10 respectively and they are cats

4. Do you use sarcasm a lot?

I've used it quite a lot in my life sometimes (more oftentimes than I'd like) to my own detriment, and I very consciously have been trying to moderate it for a while.

5. What sports do you play/have you played?

I was put in tennis and soccer as a child, each time failing because I'm effete and asthmatic. Then I tried getting into fencing in college and collapsed the first time I tried fencing with the gear on bc lunging in the heat triggered a syncope response and I briefly lost consciousness. Success.

6. What’s the first thing you notice about other people?

Their voice, tone of voice, and expressions. Physically idk, I kind of have some kind of partial face blindness and forget what people look like frequently so clearly not that. Hair?

7. What’s your eye color?

Blue/green with the little gold ring in the middle

8. Scary endings or happy endings?

I guess it depends on the film/book/etc.? Not a great question.

9. Any special talents?

Guitar style instruments and soul calibur

10. Where were you born?

Oshkosh, Wisconsin

11. What are your hobbies?

Making music I would say is my main "hobby". I guess video games are a hobby? Books? Where does "hobby" end and "obsessive media consumption" begin?

12. Do you have any pets?

Yes their names are Sigmund and Pan and they are 8 and 10 respectively and they are cats.

13. How tall are you?

5���7

14. Favorite subject in school?

K-12, I guess biology, english/literature, any classes I ever took that even vaguely dealt with astronomy. Theatre too, in high school I did sound/light tech and stagework stuff in the theatre program and I really enjoyed doing that.

15. Dream job?

I don't even know anymore. There are some aspects to working in social services I've enjoyed, I like to work with people and help them, maybe a therapist or something. When I was in college I wanted to be a professor for a long time, in history, philosophy, or sociology, but I haven't gone to grad school. I'd still enjoy that but idk if I can see it happening...

I will tag @ghostcurse, @silkwyrm, @jampharos, ..... and i suppose any other mutual that wants to use this as an excuse. i have 25 followers i can't tag almost every single one of my mutuals that would be preposterous

[pankomako]

For the OC ask game:

2, 4, 5, 12, 16, 20, 24, 25, 28, 29, 30, 32, 43, 49, 50

You can just answer some if all of them are too much.

2: of my boardwalk ocs, parker for sure is my favorite. he's the one i project onto lol. i also really love vertigo, rowdy and cassidy, and i think of gang's bay, screwball, juicebox and hot-rod might be my favorites. i also really like scott but i dont do much w him as of now

4: a character i rarely talk about? well i sure havent talked about boardwalk as much recently, so like of those calla is a deep cut for sure. she's DJ's best friend and too nice for her own good. i also imagine her hanging out a lot with korva and nero who are two cat-devil monster siblings. i GOTTA talk more about boardwalk here jeez

5 i already answered so i'll just skip it lol

12: oh crap another person's oc? it's been like a million years since i've talked to my artist friends so like uhhhhhh not sure?? but i did really like caspi from campyvillain's Plainview. funny shark :)

16: best oc at bio? hmmm probably gemini from boardwalk bc he's like. smart guy. but of gang's bay... i actually wanna say screwball. i really had to think about that one but i see him as knowing a lot about local wildlife so he probably does know a thing or two about biology. obviously of ALL the gangs bay characters it'd be sharky but i dont consider him an oc bc he's just me.

20: oc that sings! well i do kinda want the boardwalk characters to form a band, and DJ would likely be the lead singer. her voice in general is pretty feminine sounding but with a tomboyish bite to match her appearance and personality, but idk what she'd sound like singing lol. as for favorite music, not sure of any specific songs but she definitely likes more rock/alternative and like a few old-ish pop songs. probably plenty of 80s/90s stuff too. she's also a literal DJ and her music taste is pretty prominent in the stuff she plays. she also for sure knows how to play electric guitar and gets crazy with it.

24: if i could meet one of my ocs? like of course i'd go with parker. i put a lot of me and a lot of the traits i enjoy in him. i'd talk to him about our struggles and then probably play video games with him. putting aside all the angst i think we'd be besties

25: oc that most closely resembles me? well vertigo is probably the closest because he also functions as one of my personas, so most of his appearance aside he's just me but perpetually tired and with cool powers. like i could say sharky too but again like. he is JUST me as an adult in an ideal world so i dont consider him an oc. although of my non-personas, i'd yet again have to say parker. brown hair, brown eyes, parents that suck, lover of sharks, ADHD energy, generally kinda weird, especially about guys. big difference though is that he's bi while i'm not. nor am i a 5'10" cis guy like him lol

28: most DANGEROUS? probably vertigo. i mean just look at all the scars rowdy has. his fault for picking a fight with vertigo though. like vertigo's generally pretty docile but he's very likely to win in a fight with the powers he has. other than him you don't wanna mess with hot-rod or ding. they both hit the gym and know how to fight. although you're FAR more likely to rile up hot-rod, but why would you even want to when he could probably crush your spine just by squeezing you too tightly. oh yeah also bubbles can kick ass

29: which of my ocs would investigate an abandoned house at night without telling anyone? probably DJ. maybe screwball too but idk how likely he'd be to just not tell anyone

30: secret plushie collection? parker. like cmon. bubbles too. maybe cassidy. amelia has a huge collection but she hasnt even considered hiding it (just like me lol)

32: ooooh horror game protag. ive never played a horror game so idk for sure. parker and cassidy would both be the type of guy to check every single little thing and also be terrified out of their minds (screwball and juicebox too (ok maybe juicebox wouldnt interact with *every*thing)). august and ding would both have a "no big deal lol" attitude and then proceed to be proven wrong. DJ, rowdy, hot-rod and bubbles would all try to keep composure but it's also pretty clear that they're scared. vertigo doesn't find it all that scary. so who's the most suitable? no idea like what should i even be looking for here

43: my type? loser men. aka like a large majority of my characters. also dudes with long hair. i've also been partial to chubby guys as of late. cassidy is all 3 of those

49: most likely to enjoy memes? each of my oc worlds takes place in the modern era so they all at least know OF memes. but the characters that probably get a kick out of them the most would be DJ and parker, juicebox and amelia, and probably cassidy. maybe fenton and charlotte idk

50: it's getting late at the time of writing this so i'll keep it to smth brief: boardwalk of beasts and vertigo's oc world both have canon ships, but gang's bay is pretty much free game for shipping. really the only rules are no problematic ships and to respect canon sexualities (sharky is mlm, bubbles is a lesbian, milkshake is aroace), and be extra careful if you wanted to ship shipwreck with anyone, for obvious reasons. but im down for pretty much anything. you have my full permission to ship sharky with any of the guys, bc frankly i'd be dtf with any of em. also i think ship names will be super fun with the gang nicknames. like screwbox for example. fun! also bubbles and hot-rod did date during college so im ok with depictions of that too but not like actively shipping gang-era them if that makes sense.

tysm for the ask!

[0xo]

ughhhhh long rant incoming

gender feelings as a two spirit Indigenous person who's reconnecting are just.,, it's something. i am doing my best. i don't really have anyone nearby irl to talk to about this really bc like. my family situation is complicated. i know who i come from and i have ppl to talk to about it and yes it is very community based but i also feel very alone sometimes. bc most everyone immediately around me irl is white or not Indigenous and like, they're cool, love my friends, but... like... there's things you don't and shouldn't share with outsiders. and im so young that it's not my place to share at all really, im not an educator, im still learning every day. but it's kind of hard to not even really be able to explain this stuff to my wife/girlfriend/close friends. and i don't really like to be that open on the internet abt specifically being two spirit bc it opens up Assumptions and Questions from strangers about shit that really is not their business at all.

it's weird! i can say that i enjoy keeping my hair in the way i do, a style mostly associated with men in my tribe, it feels good. to rest in that masculinity. i really hate ppl trying to assign me as femme or butch when like... mmm... any masculinity or femininity i have is squarely outside of what most people around me can even conceptualize. my gender is so entangled with my spirituality that it's almost pointless to try explaining it to ppl who aren't already knowledgeable. and i find a lot of comfort in seeing two spirit people talk online openly, and then i feel like a coward for not being able to do that. but im not... like... a spokesperson or representative for my people, i am not qualified for it and i honestly just don't want to be. i just want to exist. but maybe exist in a space with other people Like Me. because as awesome as my trans friends are i still feel outside.

i don't even really know how to go abt finding two spirit ppl in my area to connect with and it's nerve-wracking to even approach bc so many ppl don't mask anymore and that's a whole other issue. i guess i just feel isolated on the whole and like. online connection has been great but. i want more people in my physical life who understand queerness through an Indigenous lens and are also considerate of physical disability and that just feels like asking toooooo much.

idk just in a weird spot. i don't talk about it a ton. everyone assumes i'm white bc like, i am, i am racialized that way and i know that and that's fine. highly aware of the privilege that comes with that and how i gotta be careful. but it also leaves me very little room to talk about my actual experiences and life and My Actual Gender Identity, without people getting way too invasive or just straight up racist / on some high horse about blood quantum / bullshit bullshit bullshit. so much bullshit.

i know it's not even a fraction as bad as what other ppl deal with, i know. and i will always stick up for other Indigenous people, especially Black Indigenous people who have their "validity" as Indigenous people questioned. bc it's all just a white supremacist way to disconnect us from our family and our heritage and our traditions. Indigenous is Indigenous is Indigenous and i know that.

just struggling a bit to find where i fit in with a local community. i hate feeling like i have to give up such an innate part of myself to participate in my local queer scene without being questioned/hounded 24/7 by (mostly white, 99.99% non-Indigenous) people. like please god quit treating me weirdly or like im some unerring fount of mystical knowledge, it's not For You, im really very tired of it. im so tired.

[intergalactic-chameleon]

gender stuff once again

SOOO ive finally come full circle and am now considering hypothetically one day getting top surgery (if not just breast reduction) and maybe also going on T at some point.

literally about a year ago when i was discussing gender with my roommate at the time, she asked me if i would consider getting top surgery after i told her that i was going to get a binder just to “try it out” and see “how it feels.”

i thought abt it, but told her “no, not really” because my boobs had never rly bothered me before and they made me feel “more like an adult” (im really short and tiny and would occasionally get mistaken for being a teenager rather than someone in their twenties, so my boobs were often the one age indicator for people). besides, they also made me feel attractive - i had long, wavy hair and taking topless photos of myself was a hobby of mine because i just looked fucking good. ultimately, my tits, which have always been somewhat disproportionally big (i think im a 34D), helped feel me more feminine and sensual as i grew up. though i definitely had a hard time trying to find cute tops that fit me and give me enough support sans bra, i still built a good wardrobe of interesting feminine clothing that i really enjoyed.

but despite all of this, i still wanted to try out something different. at the time last year, i had only just begun to think about being more transgressive with my gender presentation. i had realized that i wanted a shorter, boyish haircut (specifically to look like steve harrington) and kind of started to wear less feminine clothing overall. i also was discovering how attracted i was to men in an undeniably queer (ie. faggy) way, which further propelled me to explore masculine identity even more.

anyway, i was prolonging ‘the big chop’ until after my sister’s october wedding, so i began to grow my facial hair out in order to grow more comfortable with gender non conformity. and to my surprise, my mustache became very noticeable and at some point i realized that i could genuinely grow a little baby chin beard. ofc, by the time of the wedding, i shaved all that off, but went right back to growing it out.

then, the big day: i got my first ever short cut in january. it was shorter than i was expecting, but i immediately felt something shift. i started to feel a lot more confident and got tons of affirming compliments from loved ones about how well it fit me. i also finally felt comfortable enough to dress more “masculinely” and my facial hair didnt make me feel ratty and unkempt anymore; it just fit.

in the coming months i continued to feel more confident and expressed myself more openly around my peers. additionally, a lot of my trans peers started identifying me as trans (which was honestly very validating because i kinda felt like i couldnt loudly identify as trans unless other ppl saw me that way). thus, ever since i’ve been thinking about myself as a trans person and continuing to develop my identity around that.

however, now that ive been actively presenting more masculine/andro for about 6 months now, ive now run into several things about my appearance that i kinda struggle with, such as my height, my shoulder width, my small little arms, fussing with my hair, and of course, my chest. and so i now have this conundrum where im not necessarily experiencing intense gender dysphoria that leaves me feeling depressed, but i have this voice in my head that’s just like “hm, yknow, it’d be nice to maybe not have my tits” bc i’d really like to show off my chest / torso but my tits are so big that it’s distracting !!! and if im binding then i cant rly show off anyway…

so tl;dr: my tits dont make me hate myself but they’re getting on my nerves bc i feel like i’d be hotter without them but that doesnt feel like a good enough reason to gather all the resources needed to obtain a reduction/removal !!!! i also get sad thinking abt how pretty n feminine i used to look and how getting my tits altered (and/or if i went on a low dose of T) would make it hard for me to “return” to how i used to look … idk. how do i find out what i truly want for myself….

[titan-god-helios]

part two y’all <33

spending like a bajillion hours in the bathroom getting ready and showering and brushing my teeth and goofing off in the mirror. honestly thought i’d feel way more feminine and dysphoric if i did this but taking care of myself and having my own space to just exist for a while without having to mask or pretend to be cishet

staying up late at night and talking to my friend or being on pinterest or tumblr

silent screaming !! for no reason or for every reason, it just feels good and cathartic and is a boy activity for me personally

being my gay little self and getting sososo hyped about a cute boy or girl or person (when i see a cute boy i feel most masc tho bc i’m like “omg mlm im a real boy hes so cute”)

just decorating my room however the fuck i want and making my space littered with traces of me and what i like and what i am

plastering references to things i love literally wherever the fuck i can. its just really fun and finding places to sneak stuff you like everywhere just makes me feel like a silly happy dude

working on myself. i ask for help whenever i need it, and i’ve come a long way from before, but when it comes to stuff that doesn’t make me feel as if i would be better off sharing with someone, i find it much easier, much more effective and much less stressful to work things through on my own and sort my thoughts out and research. being autistic and possibly having alexithymia as well, i’ve always struggled with communication and whilst venting helps once in a blue moon, most times it just makes me feel stupid because I can’t communicate what i feel properly because even i don’t know when it comes down to it. so being able to solve it or figure it out in my own time on my own makes me feel much more capable and secure in myself, and i feel more manly ! asking for help when i need it also makes me feel manly coincidentally sooo ye <333

being hyperfeminine just because i can and on my own terms. like a lot of masc trans boys//people, my whole childhood and even life now is spent being told “you’re too masculine, are you a boy ?” “that’s not ladylike at all” and stuff like that. personally, i love feminine stuff !! i love the colour pink and frills and sparkles and dresses. but i simply find myself unable to enjoy it because im closeted and because of my dysphoria. on very low dysphoria days though, sometimes i love to dress up all pretty and feminine simply because i’m a boy and i’m only going to be feminine if i want to and being feminine does not invalidate my gender in any way

journalling and otherwise just being my introspective self

reading a lot !! i feel like the boy chronically living in the university library with a thousand books surrounding him that he already read and i love it

playing rpgs like genshin and also old timey feeling pixel games like celeste and old mario bros games and undertale and pac man, as well as games like hollow knight and cult of the lamb

arcades !!

taking pictures of anything and everything i find cool when out on a walk or at a shop or out with friends or even just doing mundane shit outside like food shopping

making picrew characters of myself now and what i hope to look like when i transition

reading comics and webtoons

playing my guitar and writing my songs and just messing around with no pressure on my instrument

cooking and baking !! it’s already my favourite thing ever to do i love it sososososoo fucking much and i always have and after i came out to myself it had the added joy of making me feel like those boys in uni who cook for the homies and cooks for himself and tries out new recipies when he’s not studying - it’s just me and it makes me feel myself and therefore it is masculine to me and that makes me feel good <3

calling people darling, sweetie, honey

treating myself like the prince i am !! like fuck yeah gimme the fluffy blanket i’m a prince i deserve it. just romanticising myself as all boys should be able to do <33

fun socks !! i feel so masculine if i have on a pair of fun socks and i have no idea why i just do

dogsdogsdogsdogsdogsdogs all sizes shapes breeds just dogs in general

cats too

and snakes

ykw all animals apart from insects but they aren’t animals anyway so

YEAHHH I’M THE ANIMAL KINGGG THE KING OF THE JUNGLEEEEEE

trying to look at my period under the light of “i’m bleeding and in pain and i’m still truckin, a lot of cis guys can’t even do that so i’m manly as fuck !! and one day this will stop and i’ll feel right and not dysphoric about the arrival of aunt flo, but for now i’m still manly even with my period !! even more so !! you’re a dude !!!”

using backpacks and only backpacks

flexing my hands and just looking at the way they work and the muscles contract (my hands aren’t stereotypically masc in the slightest but it just makes me feel like a man when i study things very closely and it makes me happy in a quiet way so <3)

working on raising my spice tolerance as much as i can

making promises to myself and trying to keep them, for example since i was little i vowed never in my life to ever drink coffee consistently, only once here and there when out with my coffee drinking friends or when i simply felt like it, but never as a routinely thing and so far i’ve kept that promise !

egg fried rice

lobster

fish

the sea !! i’ve always loved the sea it’s my fuckin element dude i grew up with the sea and it makes me feel sososo manly i feel like percy jackson after i’m in the sea. i dive into the sea and swim sososo far away from shore and i feel so calm and just manly

learning new things !

dark chocolate. just yes

watching voice transformation videos !! i love watching those update compilations where it’s like “hi, i’m (insert name) and this is my voice pre-t <3” to “hi, i’m (insert name) and this is my voice six months on t <3” AND ITS SO COOL because pre-t they sound like me and it gives me hope it gives me so much hope that one day i’ll wake up and i won’t have to suddenly stop myself because i’ve realised that i got too happy and my voice raised ten thousand octaves

nimona. its the best. go fucking watch nimona right now you twink.

walking around barefoot on warm stone or hot sand and not being fazed and enjoying the sensation

acting like a celebrity in an interview in my bathroom and having my own talk show

kirishima eijiro from my hero academia. he is trans and so manly so fucking manly and so happy but human and he is so just MM i love him prove me fucking wrong (you can’t there’s no way in hell that mf ain’t trans)

playing rounders. there’s just something about holding a bat and having perfect poise and swinging and hitting the ball perfectly so perfectly it soars over a literal field and seeing all the fielders have to fucking sprint to even have a chance of getting you out and being able to score a rounder so flawlessly. and also the times when everything goes wrong and the bat barely touches the ball and someone catches it and you’re out but you still goddamn tried. and being the head fielder, yelling out directions and having them be trusted without question and having the team come together perfectly because you listen to them and they listen to you and fucking smashing the other team to bits because you worked together that well. it’s just beautiful alr

oranges and the colour orange

claiming both sides of my ethnicity !! being proud of where i come from and being both greek and bengali !!

flowers <333

tea too !!

feeling my adam’s apple (even tho it’s small ofc bc afab)

pt1 of oddly specific things that give me gender affirmation/euphoria (that may not be that odd but i didn’t expect them so shut up <3 /lh):

wallets !!!! a good stereotypically masculine wallet that’s small and leather and still has lots and lots of usability and looks like something a dad would use makes me feel so masculine !! love it

any type of trouser or bottoms with more than two pockets

windbreaker jackets - they make me go “FUCK YEEAAHH im such a boy a man a male tm yessir” and idk why they just do tho, even the fem ones to an extent

plantssss i love plants and they make me feel like a little gardner boy just yessss

energy drinks for some reason ???? they make the internal man dialogue of “IM A MANNN” go haywire so much

hairbands on my wrist and an excess of those wooden beaded bracelets or even stone beaded jewellery

cross earrings but just bc they look cool (i’m an atheist so yuh, i still love people who have religion too, y’all are awesome <3)

doing the thing with your hair where you take hair from one side and flip it on the other with one hand and its kind of like running your hand through your hair but with long hair…. esp of my other hand is on my hip and i scrunch my face ?!?!?!??!? so boyish i feel so good

dancing like an absolute idiot. i dont know why but every time i just do a little jig for myself by myself my gender is just like “yessssss you’re a boy frfr slay king”

watches !! big chunky analogue watches

following on from the last point, clocks too

mushroomsssss they make the more nonbinary side of me jump for joy cause like “yes ofc im a fucking forest goblin dude i love mushrooms im just a goblin guy leave me alone and let me love the shrooms”

sketching in public. it just doessss

camoflague clothing !! i mean this was probably obvious but when i came out to myself and i wore camo cargo pants (with loads of pockets mind you) i just freaked out in joy i felt so manly that day it was glorious

singing !! singing my favourite songs as low as i can go with it still sounding good

just being as stubborn as possible but in a non problematic (for the most part) way. like if you give me the option to make things easier and more convenient or not i’ll choose the harder option. idk it just makes me feel manly (is this toxic masculinity ?? i dont know but i try to remind myself that this only applies to non mental stuff so i don’t end up self-harming againnnn)

being unnecessarily overdressed

not brushing my hair till its perfectly untangled and just letting it be a bit wild - this came with me figuring out that my hair type is waywayway wavier/curlier than i thought my whole life and learning to take care of it the best i can whilst i have like zero products for waves/curls on hand and as a bonus i felt more masc !!

looking at the stretch marks underneath my boobs in the mirror. i have a large-ish chest i think (DD cup), plus i’m a lil chubby, so i have loads of stretch marks around my chest, and the ones underneath look like top surgery scars, so if i’m having a particularly rough day with my chest dysphoria i’ll look at em and feel a bit better

using my stim toys and accommodations with friends and by myself for my autism and adhd - being capable of taking care of myself finally makes me feel really confident and as a result quite masc as well

stimming by flipping my beaded bracelets between my fingers - this is specific to greek and possibly other cultures similar to greece but it’s typical for a lot of greek men to flip long-ish beaded loops (?? they’re not jewellery and specifically made for this but idk what they’re called so) between their fingers in a similar fashion, and it’s a thing that my dad does a lot when bored. whether neurodivergent or neurotypical it’s a very common thing for men and so doing it makes me not only feel good stimming but also feel manly as fuck ! it feels even better now that my mum saw me doing it once and said “what are you a man ??” and being closeted i had to say “idc im just flipping a bracelet why does it have to be gendered” BUT INSIDE I WAS SO HAPPY

playing card games - when i was younger and even now my dad and grandpa would let me sit in on their card games late at night when we visited them in greece and now when i play card games i always feel so calm and comforted and quietly masculine

drinkingggg now hear me out yes im a minor but i’m also half greek so as a result whenever my parents drink im allowed a bit too (under supervision ofc). anyway that out the way, i have a pretty fucking high alcohol tolerance and considering the fact that it comes from my dad (being asian, my mum’s tolerance is dogshit) plus the stereotypical “men can drink more” stuff i feel SO MANLYYYY when i can quite literally drink more than my dad and feel okay whilst he’s starting to be tipsy (just to clarify though, the stereotype is bullshit and should NOT be perpetuated as much as it is, at least with intent. you guys with low alcohol tolerances are just as manly !! maybe you’re even more manly than those with high tolerance !! and women with high tolerances, you’re still very fem and very cool and valid as a woman and those who aren’t binary or aligning you are valid as your gender or as no gender no matter what tolerance you have <33)

caring about myself more. and i don’t mean in a “i’m gonna have a nice fucking bath and be happy about it” way i mean in a “i’m going to feed myself well, drink lots of water, get good exercise and be respectful to myself at the very least” way. and also in the bath way. baths are nice

collecting shit !! idk dude but having a collection of dumb shit just makes me feel so masc and good cause i swear to the stars nearly every dude i’ve met and stepped into the house of has a collection of SOMETHING whether it’s games, books, rocks, crystals, cookbooks and recipies or art supplies or whatever makes them happy. like legit fucking anything and i like collecting stuff too so its a bonus !!

just being nice. just being a nice dude makes me feel so manly

being silly and myself and doing dumb shit and being unapologetic about it (im still working on being able to do this since i struggle a lot but when i can it feels so good !!)

being stupidly loyal to something equally stupid /pos. like yes i have had this stuffed animal since the dawn of time no i will never get rid of her. she’s a genderfuck lesbian rainbow tiger from buildabear workshop who goes by the name of Roxy i will never get rid of her >:(. and so what my ring is so rusty it makes my skin green every three days ?? i clean it and take it off when it gets out of control back off bitch its mine. why are you so concerned about my shoes ????? fuck you i like them how they are (falling apart and dishevelled, the sole is halfway off already and it hasn’t been even remotely okay since three years ago) and they still fit and work so i’ll wear them until i literally cannot anymore. its so fun and it’s such a “just some guy” activity AND it makes my autism goblin feel safe and good too so its great would reccommend

just talking about stuff i like and that makes me feel good but not to anybody in particular. maybe in my notes, maybe on tumblr (like right now !! i’m doing this one right now !!) maybe on my personal dm to myself. it just makes me feel like a boy i love it PLUS i dont actually have to stress about humans on the other end of it so i feel way more confident and comfortable and as a result even MORE manly !!

ice cream on cones. i will not elaborate

travelling and exploring !! like legit anywhere. as long as i’m moving from one place to another and exploring the world i feel so happy and right and also masculine it’s great i love travelling so much. on holidays i enjoy the act of travelling even more than the holiday itself tbh

(to clarify i identify as male but a bit fucked in the gender - if you want a label i still identify as nonbinary but male aligningg <3)

[ironmanstan]

Hmmm Reva star war. Is interesting. I keep seeing ppl dislike her either bc ppl are racist, or bc they see her as embodying stereotypes and just being the typical "ah we have a dark skinned black woman who's bad so she's the angry black woman stereotype" and like. I think the second one is founded and does have a valid point and should be acknowledged that no matter how well it's done it's very Choice that she's one of the few prominent black characters and she was made a villain, but I think both of these opinions on her so far are kinda reductive and overlook her as a character which to me is also an issue.

Like, I am black I'm afab I'm not a woman but I am a woc per society etc etc I'm not talking out of my ass rn. But like. I think very baseline as she stands she very well could go in the direction of being an angry black woman stereotype, but I think with how the show has set up her character, to me it reads like she's actually being set to be explored as a character and as a person she's shown to be more driven/emotionally invested in a lot of whats going on because she's looked down on and struggles to be recognized because of that and she has wants outside of this that she needs recognition for, no matter what it takes to get it. It right now looks like she wants power/status but I feel like the implication is she wants more? Reva was a child when Order 66 happened and with that knowledge alone her character could go on such an interesting path and we've not even seen her past yet. Compared to the other inquisitors she's aggressive and willing and ready to fight but at the same time with the way she's written I don't really believe she's written this way in order to reduce her to just aggressive and crazy and angry for the sake of it and it being doubled down on by playing into her blackness. With how she's contrasted against the other inquisitors as actually caring about her job and getting results but having her credit stolen and her having to be this hardened person to be even slightly recognized, to me personally I kind of enjoyed it in how it felt similar to the way black women always have to over-compensate and go further than everyone else just to hope to get the same privileges and recognition they do (even though majority of the time they still don't get them) and Reva doing this and being fed up with it and even killing the head Inquisitor, it felt kind of satisfying to me, her having to overcompensate and do all this and then seeing it results in nothing, and instead of laying down and being okay with being taken advantage of, she kills the guy who's taking her credit.

I don't know... The way I see it I think if Reva's character was any other race or just A White Girl she'd be applauded for being this girlboss character not letting men take advantage and step all over her and being driven and knowing what she wants, and I know her blackness informs the perception and intention behind her character but I don't think her character should be discarded for being surface level similar to a stereotype. I think the stereotype is a lot of the times based on/informed by the way black women have to harden themselves and deal with all of the shit society throws at them and do the absolute fucking most to get what they want rather than babying white ppls feelings and allowing themselves to be stepped on, and Reva at this point in time reads like that to me rather than a caricature of black femininity. She very well Could Go Off The Rails and I will be Very Upset if she does, but I think she's shown some interesting character details and has a lot of potential to go in a good direction.

I think another interesting thing that kind of steps away from this and may be me very much overthinking is just the way her design is. Typically I think this like caricature of black women is accompanied by fetishization, or dehumanization, or both. The framing of "Oh this scary, wild black woman with crazy ugly hair and animal-like (or even man-like if they wanna be extra transphobic/misogynistic) features." Or "Oh this aggressive, obsessive, overly sexual crazed concept of a mindless lustful black woman". But Reva isn't either of these, even in a subtle way. I kind of love her design I love she has natural hair done in cornrows I love she has a very blatantly black hairstyle and it's given to her where it meshes with the inquisitor uniform to give her a very graceful and powerful look. I love that she's feminine and her style kind of leans into that even with her fighting style and her being acrobatic and somewhat relying on more graceful maneuvers instead of strong-arming through everything I enjoy she's a black woman allowed to be even in slight ways feminine and graceful when that's not something usually seen at all.

Do I think her being a main villain is probably racially motivated no matter how well she's written? Yeah Lmfao. Either that or it's due to more ignorance I'm willing to assume of anyone working on this show. Do I think she drifts very close perhaps even uncomfortably close to a stereotype? Yeah, esp w how star wars fans can be *cough* stupid as fuck and racist and will blatantly misinterpret her as said stereotype no matter what *cough cough*. Do I think she is irrideemable bad rep, and a racist portrayal of black women? See above, not at this point but time will tell.

U can rb n comment or reply in tags n wtvr do not think u should add on to my post unless ur black tho lmao

[cinnamonest]

THAT FIC WITH RAZOR MISTAKING DARLING FOR A BOY WAS SO GOOD 😭😭 PLEASE MAKE me MORE TOMBOY FICS. It’s super hard to find tomboy fics that are actually good I really like it when reader/darling is strong and can fight back

Ok heads up: from now on I'm gonna put anything involving crossdressing or cross-gender stuff under the forced fem tag (#tw: ff) in addition to the misogyny tag bc I know that can be a sensitive topic for some people and I don't wanna accidentally trigger anyone (・m・ )

I love tomboy darling so much tbh and I know it's very controversial (which is why I tag it) but... I am also a fan of intentionally deceptive crossdressing. Like darling intentionally trying to make people think she's a boy (or the other way around, that's nice too). But just normal tomboyishness is good too tbh. I like hyper-feminine fem darling too, both are very interesting dynamics.

I'll probably get more in detail about individual boys eventually (esp bc I really like this concept with a Zhongli/Childe/Diluc type so I'll make posts for them eventually) BUT a general summary:

I feel like the worst for tomboy/crossdress darling is probably Diluc or Zhongli or Xingqiu bc they're gonna have to Change That(tm). Help you fill the waifu fantasy in their head. Especially Xingqiu/Diluc like... You know you have to fit the rich people trophy wife norms so they can show you off! How can they show you off to their rich visitors and not feel emasculated if you're not hyper submissive?? You might not like it now, maybe fight it even, but eventually you'll see they were right all along and you're a lot happier molded into a waif :) also bc if darling is strong and can protect herself it threatens their poor fragile masculinity which is hilarious tbh. Nooooo you can't protect yourself and kill those monsters that's his job :( You can't have a job that pays a lot how is he supposed to fill his savior complex and impress you with buying you nice things?? How are you gonna respect him as an authority when you have a position of power?? Hence it significantly speeds up how quickly you get... Removed from you original environment.

Also Childe and Kaeya and Scara would be pretty terrible too. Very mocking about it, always pinning you down to remind you how much stronger they are bc you seem to always forget and try to fight. Call you princess and the like just to see you squirm. Force you to say degrading things about yourself. The strength is... Irritating to them. You actually land a few blows and can struggle out of their grasp and that pisses them off and just makes them rougher. But tbh they like it because they like the fire/fight darling has, they enjoy the brat taming process. They also have the "no you can't protect/provide for yourself only I can" complex though.

The best... Probably Bennett or Chongyun or Razor, but Razor's got pros and cons tbh.

The former two, it doesn't really matter, if anything you can go on more adventures with them :) and other guys won't know and will stay away from you, which is great. It relieves a lot of his fears. And if you're a more dominant personality, well, that's fine too, they're pleasers and will do anything you want! I could actually see both of them really being into tomboys actually. They're both nervous boys and feeling like they can relate a bit more helps ease their nerves, whereas they're a lot more stuttery/blushy around a highly femme darling.

Razor... Granted the major con is he still gets irritated if you're not very obedient and has the breeding thing going on, but if you want to dress or carry yourself a certain way, he couldn't care less. He doesn't really get any of that anyway. Him with a highly feminine darling is its own pretty funny dynamic (which I will discuss eventually lol) but with a tomboy it's also kinda funny bc he just *shrug* doesn't care, it's kinda the same idea as a male darling like... Literally no matter what your sex, gender presentation, identity, whatever, literally nothing about that is gonna stop him from breeding you on the forest floor every few hours. Boy does not care.

Notably he is very intrigued by female darling in general bc he does not understand what any of these parts are or how they work and needs to... Explore. Bennett and Chongyun are a bit similar, even, they're the kind of virgins that don't even really know what pussy looks like and get hard at the slightest hint of tiddy or thigh, you know the type.

Venti is similar to Razor, actually. He could not care less about presentation and nothing about your identity or way of dress or demeanor changes anything for him, he has no preference. Some yans are "idealizers," where they have a very specific image of what darling *should* be and forcibly mold them to it, whereas some are "flexible" taste-changers - basically, their own tastes will lean towards or can even be completely transformed based on what their darling is like. He falls into the latter category. He's also very good at laughing off defiance, but he can be pushed to a snapping point more easily than Chongyun/Bennett. And he will fall a bit into the "nooooo you can't protect yourself that's my job" similar to the other boys.

[roadkillramble]

Time for one of my fave first

Jade winglet LGBTQ+ headcanons

Moonwatcher

So : I believe that growing up in the rainforest, she mostly inherited their vision of relationships. Because of that, she grew up seeing polyamory and bisexuality as the norm!

She has a preference for men, but it switches up every so often and she is also remarkably quick to have slight crushes on people, although she doesn't usually act on it. I'd think she has a tiny bit of experience with relationships, but probably childhood puppy love type of things, no real serious deal.

When it comes to gender, she is fine with being seen as female, and goes by her agab, but I'd say she doesn't have a particularly strong identification to it, and if she woke up as a male, she'd be fine with it as well.

Qibli

Qibli is very much bisexual. It's probably common enough in Sandwings, and although he mostly tends to go toward monogamous relationship I'd say he absolutely does not mind polyamory although he has a lower need for several partner than some other dragons in the Jade Winglet.

When it comes to gender, I see him as cis, but he works just as well as a trans man tbh? But he's a Boy that's for sure. I like to make him cis bc like that i can make him very cuddly and like... Vulnerable in the way he explores feelings in a way that is usually seen as effeminate, which i enjoy writing for cis males more.

If feminine fashion existed in my headcanons, he'd probably enjoy crossdressing and playing with gender expectations. In general, i see him as having an interest in fashion and being GNC when he wants to. He's quite bad at making himself look good at first but he gets better. A lot of very embarrassing looks to look back on for future Qibli to cringe about.

Winter

He'd start off as bicurious and completely unaware of polyamory, and quite guilty about feeling attraction to anything else than an icewing in general, but I definitely see him as not amanormative.

I see him as neurodivergent, more on that in another post, but basically it makes it that his understanding of attraction is a bit fucky. He struggles to differentiate platonic attraction from romantic, and is quick to feel enamored with someone, which used to frustrate him and make him feel weak, especially when it wasn't reciprocated. In the Jade Winglet, he was able to explore his feelings more and settles on a comfortable mix of platonic partnership/close platonic bonds and romantic relationship, and in fact does welcome polyamory, which is more natural for him.

He's also bad with gender. Mostly, he feels a rift between him and the concept of gender, and would probably call himself agender if he cared. He mostly goes by he (and i tend to use he bc i am forgetful) but he also accepts they/them.

Turtle

Trans man!! I just see him like that and cannot for the life of me see him as anything else. I have a tendency to make him straight? I think he just thinks girls are very pretty and cool.

He rly wants to be big and strong and impressive, quite a bit influenced by both males and female in his family who tended to be bulky and Big, but he's settling with how he looks and learning to love himself. I don't think he has much dysphoria bc i don't make dragons externally different when it comes to gender, but he may have squicks with the concept of bearing eggs, which repulses him from the concept of sexual partnership in general so far (as a note i see the jw as like,, 15-16 hence why i talk about sexual attraction).

He falls in love hard tho, and has a huge thing for romantic stories.

Kinkajou

Bisexual and polyamorous!

Raised by Rainwings where it's the norm, she is very comfortable with platonic and romantic blurring together. I like to give her my "physical attraction as main attraction" thing bc i don't get to talk about it much, and kinka is one of the dragons where i can play around with it without making myself uncomfortable by worrying if it'll appear predatory.

But yeah, that means that like in the books, she has a tendency to fancy people first because of how they appear, but doesn't usually follow this through without first getting to learn what the person is like. She needs to trust the person for any kind of relationship, be it romantic or not, especially since her experience with the nightwings. She has crushes easily and is good at reading people.

I think she's secretly very good at flirting but just does not because it makes her self conscious. She just knows how to compliment people, which is also a huge advantage in friendships. Her love language is words of appreciations lol.

When it comes to gender, she's not a dragoness nor a dragon in her mind, just a rainwing. Rainwings usually choose what they want to be referred as at adulthood, so although she tends to use feminine because it's what she currently prefer, there has been times where she has used neutral or masculine. May play with neopronouns purely for fun, she doesn't take gender norms extremely seriously and likes to play with possibilities.

My ships

So i have this huge complex polycule for them bc why would I not, so here we go :

- Qinterwatcher : in a polyamorous open triad. Started with moonbli, but winter ended up joining them. Qibli tends to prefer having all his partners love each other, so he doesn't seek any partners outside the triad.

- Moonjou : They just quickly fell in love because moonwatcher adores kinkajou's sense of humor and general presence. They are both quite good at managing relationship, and have a lot of things in common, so it's a very stable relationship that is almost sure to outlast the academy.

- Winterjou : They are more platonic partners than romantic, but it's definitely a queerplatonic relationship. They started to hang out because talking about their respective pasts helped them vent and process it and just... Move on. But they ended up getting quite attached, and often spend time together if they have the opportunity.

- Turtlejou : Complicated. Kinkajou isn't quite sure what to think after anemone's spell, but she still loves Turtle, and Turtle is anxious about relationship in general. Right now they are just very close friends with a mutual understanding that if they end up both comfortable with it, it can be romantic.

Sometimes i add turtle x moon, but i see this as more of a quick thing that happened. Turtle isn't polyamorous, and only wants one partner, although he doesn't mind his partner having several.

[elfyourmother]

ngl that’s part of what has made it so hard for me to cope w gender and why it’s been such a struggle for me my whole life, even if I’ve repressed 95% of it to just be able to survive

is the reason I have felt like an off-brand woman my whole life bc I really am one? Or is it because society has been telling me that since puberty, or even before? that these things I want, that resonate for me—love and tenderness and softness—do not belong to me? is it a little of column A, a little of column B? (I think so)

school was where it really started. I felt like a hulking, gangly creature as a child, I towered over my (almost entirely white) classmates whether boys or girls. And I was treated like one. they made rules that we couldn’t spike on each other in middle school gym class volleyball specifically because of me and my height. they were afraid I would hurt someone even tho side serving was always my strength. (and getting myself to not spike was...impossible tbh. it’s instinctual.) I was cast as Anybodys in the upper school prod of West Side Story even though I desperately wanted to be a Jet Girl—I wanted to wear the cool 50s dresses and strut like Velma and Graziella in the movie...that was a kind of femininity that spoke to me. But no I had to be the tomboy. I enjoyed it, but I was always a little sad and bitter about it even though it was a bigger part.

I have this strong memory of a photo taken the 1 year I went to summer camp, one that many of my classmates went to, and I have my arm wrapped around one of my friends, a much smaller white girl, and I hate that picture because of how long and splindly my arms are and how awkward. I still have visceral memories of taking that picture and how awkward I felt.

I never had a little girlhood. meanwhile my mom was cramming me into molds that didn’t fit me. is it that I have never, ever performed femininity correctly? that I hated being forced into dresses as a very small tomboy who preferred Osh Kosh overalls and Rerun hats. I hated it being imposed on me, I was a defiant little thing with scraped knees who was punished for roughhousing with my male cousins bc I tore my tights (they itched).

in short I always felt like a Thing, not a little girl. Not a boy, but not a girl. Just an inadequate facsimile, like I was thrown into this world expected to just do thing and be a certain way without any kind of guidebook, like I’d been dropped into the ocean and expected to make it to shore without knowing how to swim in a world full of Olympic swimmers who just knew from birth. and I was drowning.

I always felt vaguely like I was in drag when I had to Girl. I tried to fit in with what I saw in the magazines. so much of it was so foreign to an urban dwelling Black girl. But simultaneously was made fun of by the dudes I ran with for caring about it and learned to hide copies of YM and Seventeen and Sassy so they wouldn’t fall out of my backpack when I went to pull out my DM guide during tabletop sessions. Teenage girlhood was very much a white, suburban kind of teenage girlhood. When I look back to what appealed to me it was the Black girl groups and artists—TLC, En Vogue, SWV, Aaliyah...when everyone was going crazy over that Jennifer Aniston haircut I was idolizing Aaliyah. It helped that I had an uncanny resemblance to her, but I wore my hair like her, with The Bang—and she was around my age. (Ppl would call me Baby Girl bc of it) But I had to compartmentalize these things bc they were incompatible w my chosen subculture, so I was led to believe.

when I met my dad and started studying craft I was bombarded w all the gender polarity clownery in Wicca and naturally this led me to believe that I was out of balance somehow and I couldn’t progress as a witch like that (not at all helped by the BTW I was steeped in, even though the witch shop was founded by gays and the owners’ trad they created specifically for lgbt witches that was BTW without the homo/transphobia). I asked dad once if there was any kind of rituals or work I could do to help me be in touch with my goddess energy or webs. he had no idea obviously and was totally unequipped to answer it and it’s not his fault.

the thing is...when I discovered gothdom I discovered that it wasn’t femininity that I hated, but the popular concept of it and having that imposed on me. The first dresses I ever voluntarily wore without peer pressure or parental fiat were Victorian goth things and I felt so...alive. I felt powerful and at home in my skin for the first time in my life. As a choice, on my own terms? It Was Me. And the goth scene back then was way more progressive than mainstream society re: gender and gender expression, literally everyone I knew was bi and we would all regularly make jokes about not knowing the gender of whoever we were making out with and not caring. the first ppl I met who ever used neopronouns were all goths. nothing at all was gendered. to borrow from ass creed nothing was true and everything was permitted. there was beauty in everything odd, none of us were really misfits. I felt Home. Even now Dandy says I always visibly look and seem more confident when I goth out and thinking about it now it’s not just an aesthetic thing, I really think it’s because gothdom has room for Woman But Not Quite, and Not Like I’m Supposed To in a way nothing else does to me.

But that choice wasn’t respected either. obviously my deeply conservative xian family were aghast. But for all I felt home in the subculture you think Black goths are unicorns now? Try the 90s—at least I had my bubble in the witch shop that was extremely diverse, overlapping w the local scene as it did.

Visual kei was enormous to me and it’s worth saying that this is one thing from back then that stayed w me long after I left my obligatory weeb phase. It appealed to the part of me that snuck downstairs to watch Prince videos after my mom went to sleep. The flamboyance and drama of it all deeply spoke to me. There was no such thing as Too Much in that world, and I can’t describe how much that meant to me. Dressing to the fucking hilt to go to lives when bands would actually come to NYC, at the height of the J-culture craze in the early-mid aughts were some of the best times of my life.

Mana specifically was the image of femininity I related to, dark and decadent and weird. A very deliberate very beautiful construction that confused the shit out of everyone!! I used to openly tell folk my fashion idols were gothic Japanese drag queens. but i got so much pushback as a goth femme—for all the camaraderie I was never seen as a romantic option in the circles I ran in bc I was Black (even to other Black ppl!!!!), then seen as an exotic freak by the ppl I dated outside the scene who always wanted me to Tone It Down and got angry and punished me when I couldn’t, etc. I had an older white bf once tell me to change my clothes before we went out bc he was afraid ppl would see me in my fishnets and glittery tights and think he had hired me for a good time (but he was 100% cool w forcing me into dominant roles behind closed doors). Another bf straight up laughed when we sat down one day and I showed him my fave MVs and I felt like he had punched thru my chest and crushed my heart like Fenris. I was never going to be anybody’s big tiddy goth gf (and can I state again for the record how I absolutely viscerally loathe the “goth gf” meme because I do, because nobody realizes how awful it is).

so in my late teens/early 20s I went thru this very deliberately androgynous phase where I was like “if I can’t be beautiful then at least I’ll be interesting” and dressing like Tetsuya Nomura designed me including 9000 belts. But I felt like I was in drag again, in a bad way, the way I hadn’t since I was a kid being forced into dresses, like I wasn’t being authentic, and it hurt.

I align myself w Black womanhood bc it has shaped me, good and bad. It is the lens thru which I view the world, even if sometimes I feel like it doesn’t quite belong to me.

but where I don’t think it’s all just misogynoir getting to me...I go on a lot of Black femininity aesthetic blogs looking Gisele inspo and sometimes some of what I see is so alien to how I have always conceived my sense of femininity. It’s not the aesthetics it’s that some of it is so intensely performative for the male gaze that it’s viscerally upsetting—here I’m thinking about that weird rabbit hole I fell into once of these blogs basically aspiring to mold themselves into the perfect trophy wife for rich men and aside from the offputting materialism of it all, it just looks so fucking exhausting. Even the normal blogs will often feature platitudes about “know your worth” but it’s really rather Orwellian bc it’s never about yourself but your value vis a vis specifically cishet men. It’s deeply cis and heteronormative. I’m interested in a conception of Black womanhood that isn’t constantly concerning itself w men, whether for good or ill—I love men and am attracted to them but my identity does not and cannot revolve around the gendered equivalent of Wanda Sykes’ “white people are lookin at you!” bit in part bc I am Unwoman to them by definition. Does that make sense? And like i know it exists but is so hard to find.

Black Femmehood is very different and is harder to find (I am immensely grateful for iridessence and others for that reason). But that is why Femme is Home in a way Femininity(tm) has never been. Femme is an active choice, Femininity (tw) is an imposition, a construct of Whiteness in all its tyranny (that is absolutely reflected in fandom). my femininity is a kind that has always been deeply queer and I have never felt Seen. it’s a little off kilter and eccentric and always has been. it takes the very carefully constructed But Thou Must rules in all their rigidness and breaks them into tiny pieces, with prejudice.

this is not some “I’m not like the other girls” screed but...I’m really not, and as I’m reading things from Black nonbinary femmes especially who were also AFAB and socialized that way (but not just!!), I feel like I finally found my People, and that’s the real reason I think this is Me.