#but for real first person to gender my child based on their clothes

[ellilyre]

Ive lose the ask asking for my transmasc!Leo headcanon TT but i have them written down so imma post em like that

Leo transmasc headcanon

(many things are based on my own experience. Especially the dysphoria related things (so when i talk about Leo not being a real boy it is what he thinks bc of dysphoria. It’s not true.))

(warning angst angst (but thats Leo so that was expected)

it was so obvious even when he was small. He always wanted to play with boys, wear boys clothes, ect… His mom was fine with it. She bought him boys toys and clothes and even sometimes called him hijo. She was a bit confused, but she knew it made her child happy and it's all that mattered. 

However, it didn’t go that well with his foster homes. However much he tried, they always stuck to his deadname and she/her. That was a big part of the reason he kept running away. 

There really is no story behind the name Leo. He picked that one bc it sounded cool. 

Once he got a good enough passing, he did everything he could so ppl will assume he’s cis.

Don’t ask me how he gots his hands on hrt. It’s a long and weird story.

The wilderness school was very strict about not mixing girls and boys in dorms. 

Piper was his roommate, that’s how they met. 

In their memories created by Hera, Jason has kinda always known he’s trans. So Leo never bothered to hide it from Jason (as he does with others).

But Jason doesn’t have much (any) education on transidentity… At first he assumed Leo was a cis guy, and then some things were a bit confusing (why was he in fem dorms ? Why does he wear a tank top under his shirt ? Did he just ask Piper for a tampon???) but he just kinda gave up on trying to understand, bc Leo is a nice guy anyways. And with time (and exterior knowledge on the matter) he started to put the pieces together and to understand that “ooh ok that makes sense". 

Otherwise. Leo has no desire to get out of his comfortable closet. 

He has such a fragile masculinity 

Sometimes he acts a little bit macho. He’s aware he’s acting like an asshole but he’s terrified of being perceived as feminine. 

Why does he try to flirt with every girl he sees ? Another attempt to pass better (and comfort himself in his fragile masculinity) by copying stereotypical boys' things.

He overbind so much, GODS. Man will wear his binder for 11h straight (while fighting and running around) and then have the audacity to complain that his body hurts.

Piper tries very hard to remind him to take proper breaks. 

Jason is the biggest gender envy ever. He is handsome, tall, muscular… Leo really loves him but he also is so jealous and envious. 

He is very envious of other boys in general. 

When Percy got woken up in the middle of the night and left his cabin shirtless. When Frank went to take a break in the men’s restroom…

Gods, he would do anything to just be a normal boy. To be like them. To have their bodies. To not have to destroy his body to look slightly more masculine. To not have this constant fear that they’re gonna find out. 

And to add to the reasons why he felt so much like the 7th wheel : Among the 7 there are 3 girls, 3 boys… And Leo. Forever inbetween. Not a girl, but not a boy like the others either. 

Fortunately, with time he learnt to accept himself better and to feel more comfortable with others. 

Piper helped him to go easier on himself. And he had an actual proper talk with Jason.

The first person he actually came out to was probably Annabeth, bc she’s cool and wise and nice. 

And then he saw it actually was ok. She didn’t treat him any differently, she didn’t tell anyone else. She was cool with it.

He then told Frank and Hazel, with Piper’s help (mostly to explain to Hazel all those new terms). And it also went very great ! He then also told Percy and Nico. 

He’s not entirely out, just to his closest friends and his siblings at camp. And it’s enough. 

He still overbinds, but he has ppl to (discreetly) remind him to take care of himself. He’s still very dysphoric but his loved ones know how to remind him that he is their brother, an amazing boy.

[cutebat]

Batgirl Reader (Updated Info)

Happy New Years everyone!!

I thought that maybe since it was the new years, I decided to give Batgirl Reader a new look and a bit of new lore... 👀

Please do NOT steal my art!!

Real Name: Y/N L/N

Main Alias: Batgirl

Other Aliases:

Witch's Child

검은 눈의 괴물 (Black Eyed Monster)

Umibōzu's daughter

Batsie Baby

Relatives:

Deceased Father

Deceased Mother

Deceased Unborn Brother

Lady Shiva (Caretaker)

Miss Wells (Second Caretaker)

Bruce Wayne (Adoptive Father)

Selina Kyle (Self Proclaimed Mommy)

Kate Kane (Adopted Aunt)

Dick Grayson (Adoptive Older Brother)

Jason Todd (Adoptive Older Brother)

Tim Drake (Adoptive Older Brother)

Damian Wayne (Adoptive Older Brother)

Duke Thomas (Adoptive Older Brother)

Cassandra Cain (Adoptive Older Sister)

“Close Allies”:

Batsie (Best Friend)

Matcha (Childhood Friend)

Deathstroke (Trainer)

Talia Al Gaul

Ace the Bat Hound (Pet)

Azrael (Trainer)

Alfred Pennyworth

Barbara Gordon

Jim Gordon

Stephanie Brown

Helena Bertinelli

Luke Fox

Lucius Fox

Harper Row

Harley Quinn (Sometimes)

Affiliation:

Batman Family

Batgirls

Outsiders

Gotham Knights

League of Assassins (Formerly)

Suicide Squad (Frequently)

Base Of Operations: Gotham City

Alignment: Good

Identity: Secret Identity

Citizenship: Any Asian nationality (Yes, batgirl is going to be Asian cause I'm Asian)

Marital Status: Single

Occupation(s):

Vigilante

Elementary Student

Gender: Female

Height: Around 124 cm (4 ft)

Weight: Same weight as an average child

Eyes: Black

Hair: Black

Abilities:

Dancing: Y/N learned how to dance from her childhood friend, Matcha. She would watch her movements of classical ballet and follow them.

Hacking: Just like Oracle, Batgirl has great skills with computers. She learned how to hack things when she was gifted her first computer for her third birthday. She could go through any high officials' data files.

Marital Arts: Y/N does have great marital arts despite her being so young, but she's still learning.

Mithridatism: Batgirl can take any sort of poison whether it's deadly or not. She trained to take one spoonful of poison as her training during her training years.

Stealth: She can pull off any disappearing acts on any other people. Enemies and civilians.

Gadgets:

Ribbon Wand: Because she does dancing, it won't complete it without a ribbon wand. Y/N received it from Batman when she told him about her experience with dancing and how she wanted her own ribbon wand one day. The ribbon is strong enough to break a person's neck.

Batarang: These devices are Bat-shaped, throwing weapons usually used to disorientate enemies, and are a ranged substitute for often carrying multiple Batarangs on her person while on patrol.

Grapple Gun: Batgirl frequently uses a grappling gun not unlike that used by Batman. This device fires a strong cable that latches onto a surface and winches Y/N up. She commonly uses this device while patrolling urban rooftops.

Bo Staff: Y/N uses these as a substitute weapon whenever she "forgot" to bring the equipment that Batman provided for her. The bo staff she has was a gift from Deathstroke.

Pocket Knife: Only used it for training, but she is scared to use it on anyone because it could "really hurt them".

Likes:

Batsie (Her bat plush)

The gifts she receives from Matcha

Dress Ups

Shopping

Money

Family Trips

Slumber Parties

Tea Parties

Alfred’s Sweets

Romance Stories

Reading and writing in her secret diary

Dislikes:

Uncomfortable clothing

Chores

Studying

Nightmares

Stress

Thunderstorms

Bruce’s lectures

Lady Shiva and Deathstroke's training methods

Backstory:

There were two different people from different leagues who were rivals since the first ever year. The couple were in love and conceived a child, which was a baby girl who they named Y/N. However, the two leagues found about their secret affair that made the mother's father kill her husband. After she found out about the murder, the mother decided to go after her father and kill him the exact same way, but more painful and slower. This caused the mother to be sentenced to death while she was pregnant with Y/N's little brother, which made her give away her infant daughter to her trusted friend, Lady Shiva. Before her mother was executed, she gave Y/N a handmade stuffed animal that is a purple bat. She named her new best friend, Batsie.

As Y/N was sent to live under Lady Shiva's roof, she was forced to train, study, and do many chores while she was still three years old along with Deathstroke. However, she had an actual human friend named Matcha who helped her show off what the woman who was taking care of her about her true colors by making the young girl into a perfect weapon and helped her escape right after that.

When Y/N was four, she arrived at Gotham City and was wandering around before she arrived at an orphanage building where she was greeted by a woman who was called Miss Wells. Ever since then, she learned how the world was like and lived there before a man named Bruce Wayne came in and brought her to his home, which will be her new life.

[hereforthefunnyguys]

yugioh characters sexuality (long edition):

yugi: bisexual and possibly aromantic. In the case of the last one it took him forever to admit it to himself because he associated it with the usual "I shall be unlovable and monstrous forever" schtick. Also he's nonbinary

atem: asexual and biromantic (is tag-teaming with yugi. Covering each others bases) doesn't know what a gender is and is slightly perplexed by his partners complex relationship with it

joey: I like how we have all agreed he’s bi. Has a slight preference for men (55-45 ratio about) and simultaneously a preference for more feminine looking people. outside of gender terms he's a leg man don't @ me

Anzu: also bisexual with a preference for men (60-40). Tgirl Anzu that is hustling to pay for estrogen and bottom surgery and does dance partially because it gives her gender euphoria my beloved

Honda: gay sorry miho. Took longer to admit it than Joey but is dealing with it better than he is tbh. Give him a good boyfriend for his patience please

Ryou: we’re not sure actually. He’s not even sure. Likes guys… probably. May not like women… maybe? Likes ghosts. Whether or not he's a tboy is a 50/50 toss in the air

Evil(tm) Bakura: he came from a time before pride pins existed but mostly likes guys yeah. Not actually as horny as people make him out to be. Tkb has no rizz I will stand by this he was a feral child that was mostly focused on vengeance and food all the time.

Pegasus: straight in a gay way I won't be elaborating. Might be a lesbian.

Kaiba: Blue Eyes White Dragon with left homophobia regardless of any actual attraction he experiences.

Duke: Bisexual but he does not know how to be normal about it. There is a difference in his mind between exploiting sexuality/flirting and actually engaging in it on a personal level. The first he is good at the latter less good at. He will have a gender crisis once and return with his new gender, Cis+ and/or genderfluid.

Marik: Sometimes a man is misogynistic enough that he becomes gay (real talk he is gay and the idea of needing to Procreate for the sake of the tombkeepers lineage has haunted him from day 1). Also he might be transfem but probably will never know that due to internalized self loathing and various other issues (is tempted to just stay a cis guy because everyone assumes hes a girl because of how he dresses and that was just like. Normal Guy Clothes for him growing up)

Yami Marik: technically the same thing as normal marik but also he couldn't gaf about something as stupid as 'gender' (his or others) in the long run because he has better things to do, like murder people and lick random surfaces

Ishizu: Lesbian and was not looking forward to continuing the bloodline of the Tombkeepers Heritage (tm). Is going to have a gender crisis at age 23 and her siblings are going to be very supportive of her while she cuts off all her hair and starts wearing exclusively wearing business suits (may or may not stick)

Rishid: The only relationship i care about is rishid x therapy. Someone a while ago said nb lesbian rishid and i support the vision

Mana: Girl :) (no further explanation in her head). She is putting off marriage for as long as possible, a difficult feat for your average well-off teenage girl in Ancient Egypt.

Zorc: Zorc 𓆙𓆙𓆙𓆙𓆙!

[perilouspage]

FUCK what the forgotten realms wiki says, here are my headcanons on dragonborn

Biologically speaking: dragonborn are more reptile than mammal, though their origin as human-dragon hybrids leaves them somewhere in the middle. They prefer to regulate their body temperatures by ambient environmental temperature or sunning, and therefore choose to live in more tropical climates when possible. However, cold will not kill them. They can maintain homeostasis at a suboptimal temperature: they digest more slowly and become sluggish, and so use supplemental heat from fire or magic to stay at peak form.

Their diets are largely carnivorous. They can eat fruits, vegetables, and grains, but their teeth are meant for tearing and chewing meat. Food is usually cooked very little and left intentionally bland. If they're warm, their metabolism burns quickly, and they require more calories. Most prefer not to drink alcohol unless they're warm; metabolizing alcohol more slowly means getting drunk faster, and most prefer not to be impaired unless they're in groups they trust.

They don't have strong sexual dimorphism. Males and females don't have marked size differences, females don't grow larger breasts. Males may tend to have lower voices than females, but I'd say that's more enculturated in women by speech in Common. Draconic would be pretty harsh and guttural. Both sexes gain fat: under the chin, breasts, belly and thighs tend to pad out quickly even in leaner individuals. I'm thinking fat bearded dragon here. Also, hair is rare in dragonborn of either sex, but you're more likely to see it on women. Certain clans have the ability to grow hair; it's always very coiled in texture, and typically kept in protective styles. (Ahryll's clan does have some tendency towards hair, Kieran's does not.)

Once they reach 12 years old, fledglings get to pick their real name and gender. Chosen gender usually follows what they were assigned, but not always. Changing gender isn't uncommon; attitudes on this vary by clan. (Ahryll was assigned male and stayed male.)(Kieran was assigned female and chose not to take a gender when the time came.)

Eggs are laid in a brood (laying period lasts a month, incubation by the laying parent lasts around 6m). Incubation happens in summer/fall; weaker hatchlings die in winter and infant mortality rates are high. They don't nurse young. Instead, hatchlings are fed masticated versions of what adults eat until their teeth come in. (Old traditionalist dragonborn insist you have to chew it for the best nutrition, but more modern dragonborn and those removed from clan just use a mortar and pestle). Dragonborn young age from hatchling (<1y) to pup (1y-11y) to fledgling (12y).  They're referred to comunally as hatchlings and not individuals until 1y of age, at which point they get a child name based on some personality attribute. (Ahryll was Snapper; he was a runt who fought fiercely to live and ate whatever he could get hands on.)(Kieran was Dent, a rough-and-tumble kid who was hard on clothing, furniture, and their own body.) Gender is also assigned at this age.

Names are a big deal to dragonborn. First names can be aspirational; some name themselves after family, mentors, or other figures they admire. Clan name is read before first name. If the dragonborn has a non-dragonborn parent or spouse, or lives outside of clan, they may take a surname according to the traditions of those peoples. (Kieran's full name is Marrakus Kieran.) (Ahryll's full name is Shirrhus Ahryll, though he's estranged and takes no ownership of his clan name.)

Kinship! Anthropology is fascinating forever!

-Brother/Sister/Sibling refers to those who hatched in the same brood as you.

-An individual will typically only have one or two children in their lifefime; if two, they're usually from the same brood. (This, plus the high infant mortality rate and the tendency for dragonborn to group together, are the reasons that dragonborn are more rare in the setting at large.)

-Grandmother/grandfather refers to any elder, especially those in caretaking roles.

-Parent's siblings serve the same role as parents; young are raised communally and live in whatever unit has formed around the parent who hatched them. (Therefore no "uncle" or "aunt" terms exist in Draconic.)(I think dragonborn can be polyamorous or monogamous like other humanoid races, but polyam is more normalized due to the decentralized family structure.)

-"Kin" as used by dragonborn can mean clan, party, or dragonborn as a race at large. It depends on context.

-Clan as a unit is important above all else. Some clans are more militaristic about this than others, pursuing "pure" bloodlines (read: no non-dragonborn in lineage) and favoring those who develop the traditional breath weapon of the clan. Others are more patchwork and accept anyone who would benefit "the unit" as one of their own. (Clan Shirrhus is the former. Clan Marrakus is shifting towards the latter but has some holders-on of the old ways).

-It's rare for dragonborn to strike out on their own. Some do this to learn about the world outside the clan, some follow a passion or trade that they cannot pursue within the clan, some are exiled for overt religious worship (worship of any god is seen as a minimization of the importance of the clan and is therefore taboo, though dragonborn do acknowledge the gods' existence and pay respect when it's required of them). Some dislike their families or are otherwise estranged.

More random shit I couldn't weave in:

-Militia groups (adventuring parties, functionally) are seen as their own type of kin. Dragonborn parties are usually three-to-six strong, consisting of at least one of each of the following:  melee fighter, a magic user, and a ranged attacker. They can stay nearby to defend their clan, patrol surrounding lands, or head off on assigned missions (adventures, functionally) to secure alliances, tail political rivals, perform assassinations or raids, etc.

-Dragonborn shed scutes like turtles.

I have more thoughts but this is everything I can coherently put together atm. I'll add to this if I can string more words together!

-Breath weapons are an in-built biological function in the cases of fire and acid. Ice and lightning can be magically supplemented.

-Draconic magic users are almost always sorcerers, born with inate magical ability due to draconic heritage. Wizards are rarer, as having to study into the ability to cast makes one seem "weaker" and "less draconic". Clerics are incredibly rare due to how uncommon religious faith is in dragonborn culture; healing usually comes from a more druidic source and is treated more like a science than a conjuration.

[firefoxsims3]

The Sims 3 default clothing replacement tutorial

Hi everybody!

A couple of weeks ago an anon asked me if I could make a tutorial about default replacing clothes.

Well here it is.

This is my first time making a tutorial, so if something is not clear leave a comment.

You can find the whole tutorial under the cut.

Programs you need:

Sims 3 Object cloner (S3OC)

Sims 3 Package editor (S3PE)

Milkshape + plugins

In this tutorial I'm going to replace this base game top (amTopShirtLongTee) With this conversion from Sim-songs

Step one: Clone the clothing that you want

open s3oc

There's actually 2 ways you can clone a clothing with s3oc, and I'm going to show both of them.

1.5.1 The First way of cloning a clothing is to click on Cloning -> CAS Part.

It will give you a big list of every Create a sim stuff, which is fine, but I personally don't like it.

1.5.2 The second way of cloning is to go to Tools -> Search

This one allows you to search for a specific thing.

For example if you want to clone a top then write top in the search bar, if you want bottom, then write bottom, but if you want to clone an outfit, then write body and not outfit.

You can even specify the age and the gender.

f=Female

m=Male

u=Unisex

p=Toddler

c=Child

t=Teen

y=Young Adult

a=Adult

e=Elder

You always have to write the age first, then the gender and then the type of clothing, so for example "amtop".

You can also specify that you want to clone CAS Part.

2. Now, if you've found the clothing you're looking for you can clone it by selecting it and then clicking on Clone or fix.

In the next window, on the right side you can recategorize the clothing if you'd like, on the left there are options that we have to tick and untick.

3. Tick Deep Clone, Include thumbnails and untick Renumber/rename internally and then hit Start and save it somewhere.

Step two: Replace everything that needed

Now that we've cloned the clothing it's time to replace the stuff.

open the cloned package with S3PE

1.5 A completely optional step but you can delete everything that we're not gonna replace in the cloned package.

Things that you have to keep:

Basically this is how it has to look:

2. Now moving on to actually replacing the stuff.

Open the custom content package in S3PE and export the texture files. Just right click on the file -> Export -> To file...

Give it a unique name or don't, it doesn't really matter just make sure that you know what is what.

Now go to the cloned package. Right click on the texture -> Replace.

And then select the corresponding texture.

Do the same thing with all the textures, but make sure that you replace mask with mask, multiplier with multiplier, specular map with specular map and normal map with normal map.

3. Go to the custom content package and export the BGEO files. Right click on them -> Export -> To file...

Again give them a unique name, but for real this time, because this can be confusing. It's hard to know which is which, but usually the first one is the fat morph, the second one is the fit, the third is thin and the last one is special.

Go to the cloned package. Right click on one of the Bgeo files -> Replace.

Do this with all of the Bgeo files. Replace the fat with fat, fit with fit, thin with thin and special with special.

4. Now export all the Lods (Geom files) from both the cloned and the cc packages. (right click -> Export -> To file...)

Make sure that you save them as " .simgeom " file.

Open Milkshape and import Lod1 of the EA mesh.

If you get a pop-up like this just hit ok.

Go to Groups tab and then click on Comment

This window will pop-up. Select everything and then copy it.

I would recommend opening notepad and pasting it in there to make sure that it copied.

Now in milkshape click on File -> New (you don't need to save anything) and then Import the Lod1 mesh of the custom content.

Then go to Groups -> Comment and the same window as before will pop-up, but instead of copying everything delete everything.

So it should look like this.

Then paste in the one that you copied from the other mesh (the EA mesh).

Then hit ok and export it.

Do this for all the Lods.

Now go to the cloned package, right click on one of the Geom files -> Replace, and then select the corresponding Geom file.

Now do this for all the Geom files and then it's pretty much done.

Save the package file and then it's time to test it in game.

Two things you should check:

if all the morphs work

if you can recolor it properly and it has the right amount of channels

For me the morphs work fine, but the channels are not right. It's recolorable, but it's not the right amount of channels.

So let's fix it!

Optional step: Copy the cc presets to the default replacement

Open the cc package, click on Casp file and then click on grid.

A small window will pop-up. Click on Presets then click on that small rectangle.

A similar window will pop-up. Click on [0] Preset, then click on Xmlfile, a drop down arrow will appear, click on it, then click on Export, and save the presets.

Now open the default replacement package, do basically the same thing as before (Casp -> Grid -> Presets -> XmlFile) but instead of clicking on Export click on Import and import all the presets.

Then hit ok and commit and you're done. You've copied the presets from the cc to the default replacement.

I hope that everything was understandable. If something was not clear leave a comment.

[carriagelamp]

This June I decided to explore some of the different queer picture books that my local library has available to lend! I read so many of them I decided they deserve to take up two slots; I'll provide the actual list of them below the cut for anyone who's interested. Oh and my Very Big Please For Real Go Read This Rec is The Empress of Salt and Fortune which is the first book of a novella series that is seriously consuming me body and soul.

assorted queer picture books

I wanted to see what sort of queer/Pride related pictures books my local library had so I checked a bunch out. I was really pleased by both the number and variety! I didn't come across any I actively disliked, though I would say they broadly fit into one of three categories:

Books that happened to show queer families that dealt with other topics: < Mama and Mommy and Me in the Middle, We’re Happy You’re Here, My Mommies Built a Tree House > These were my favourites. They explored diverse families but came at it from a very normalising angle that made enjoyable read alouds. The message was clear but not attempting to pontificate to a child who likely doesn't have political context for it to make sense.

Books that touched a little more directly on queer identities: < Phoenix Gets Greater, Uncle Bobby’s Wedding, Who You Will Be > All enjoyable! The former is based on the true story of a two-spirit child, which I really enjoyed, it had lovely art and a good look at how indigenous identities and queer identities can overlap. The second is about a girl coming to terms with her favourite uncle getting married and really could fit into the first category as well since it's more about her coming to terms with sharing her uncle rather than the same-sex marriage itself -- very cute either way. The last one explores gender expression with a baby through the types of clothes and toys the child engages with.

Books specifically about Pride: < Twas the Night Before Pride, It’s Pride Baby, Grandad’s Pride, This Day in June, Pride Puppy > These were… fine (with the exception of Pride Puppy which is adorable and made me laugh and is one of my favourites that I read from all these). They do give some more details about what a Pride Event might actually look like, and some attempt to give some historical context but they tend to be a little... clunky. These are the sort of book that strike me as very “feel good-y” for an adult, or which work well specifically as a teaching aid for slightly older students that have some pre-existing context, but are less appealing as just a plain read aloud for the target demographic. I’m happy they exist, if you want to specifically teach about Pride then they're nice options! And they are all bright, pretty, and diverse! But I was not very interested in these as I was in some of the above books.

(*Canadian books)

Apothecary Diaries v1

I’m so glad I read this! I’d read the manga and thought it seemed okay but was intrigued enough to give the novel a try when it was released and wow! There’s just so much more depth and personality to the actual novel!

The story follows Maomao, who was kidnapped and sold as a servant to the imperial “Rear Palace” where the consorts live. Despite being raised as a profoundly capable and very scientifically-minded apothecary, Maomao is determined to keep her head down and do what she has to do until her period of indentured servitude is over. However when certain consorts and their children begin to sicken and die, Maomao, who has a mad scientist level fascination for poisons, finds herself compelled to give warning. This ends up thrusting her into the public eye and getting her involved in a variety of bizarre mysteries that plague the Rear Palace. 

All in all it was a fun, quirky historical mystery series. Maomao is blunt, single-minded, and bordering on caustic which makes her a complete delight to read, especially when she’s forced to work with the incredibly charming and manipulative eunuch official who’s taken an interest in her.

Bambi

I’ve never actually read Bambi before and spring felt like the right time to finally give it a try. Man, I thought the way they murdered Bambi’s mom in the Disney movie was pretty brutal but it doesn’t hold a candle to the book. The descriptions of the deaths and violence and terror in the novel are staggering and seriously just fucked. Very well written, and portrays nature in all its beauty and horror. You should read it and just appreciate how different it is from the Disney film...

The Empress of Salt and Fortune

My number one rec from this month! The Singing Hills Cycle is an absolutely AMAZING series. I was iffy about it at first, since the first book really thrusts you into the world without much guidance and it sets up a bit of an usual framing device, but once I got my feet under me I ended up falling in love with it. The series follows the cleric Chih who is from the Singing Hills monastery, which believes in taking meticulous record of historical events and stories. When the palace of the exiled Empress becomes magically unsealed for the first time since she ascended the throne, Chih hurries there to take any record she can before the place is looted. There she finds an old woman known as Bunny who remembers when the Empress had lived there and begins to tell the story of the years that passed in that place of exile. The story goes back and forth between the current day with Chih, her companion Almost Brilliant, and Rabbit, and the stories that explain the political intrigue of the past.

When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain

The second book in the Singing Hills Cycle and the one that really nailed home the fact that I was going to be addicted to this series. Once again the story tells of the cleric Chih who is travelling to collect stories and memories for the monastery. While visiting the mammoth corps of the north, she and a young mammoth rider find themselves trapped in the mountains by a pack of tigresses. Trying to find a way to buy them time until they might be rescued, Chih begins to discuss a famous tale about a scholar and a tigress who fell in love -- which the tigresses think is being told completely wrong. This book goes between the current predicament, Chih’s version of the story, and the tigresses�� version of the story, the two of which often conflict wildly in their perspectives. These books are seriously so clever and enticing, some of the best framing devices I’ve seen used in years.

Mr and Mrs Bunny — Detectives Extraordinaire!

Grabbed this one on a whim thinking it looks rather charming but ended up being disappointed in it. It has a fun concept, but the author is trying so hard to be quirky that it just breaks any possible flow and immersion the story might have. The story isn’t engaging enough for an adult, and a lot of the attempted humour feels like it wouldn’t land well with children, so it ends up being a bit of a clunky muddle. I didn’t bother finishing it.

Pale Colors in a Tall Field: Poems

I have tragically little to say about this… oops. I don’t usually read poetry, and I made the mistake of doing this as an audiobook just because it jumped out at me while I was browsing Libby. It ended up being quite pretty and I enjoyed listened to it quite a lot, but I wasn’t able to sit and digest it enough to get much more than that out of it;;; I would recommend it if you want some nice queer poetry that will make you think.

Queer Little Nightmares

A fun little “horror” anthology. Like most anthologies there were highs and lows, but there was really only one story that I skipped entirely because I disliked it. They range from serious and rather tragic tales, to warm romantic ones, to viscerally disgusting, to just plain hilarious. Not the best anthology I’ve ever read, but definitely worth a read if you want some fun monster stories and romances.

Sarah, Plain and Tall

Another childhood classic I had never read before so I decided to change that. And it was fine. I’m glad I’ve finally read it. I’m sure I would have enjoyed it if I had read it around grade one or two, and it was well written, but by god not a lot is happening here. A very domestic little story about a woman who moves to the prairies to become a wife and mother, and how she connects with the children.

My Man Jeeves // Carry On, Jeeves

Fortunately I received the recommendation to read The Inimitable Jeeves first, which saved me! My Man Jeeves was… fine, but it is very clearly a collection of “proto” stories, some of them not even featuring Jeeves and Wooster. While I didn’t dislike any of them, this collection of Jeeves stories didn’t grab me in the same way some of the others have. Carry On, Jeeves also baffled me a bit because there was quite a bit of crossover between the two! It feels like a very strange way to collect these story into anthologies... Still, I ultimately enjoyed both, and I skipped over the stories I had already heard in the previous collection and carried on from there.

For anyone not familiar with the Jeeves stories, they tell about the misadventures of Bertie Wooster, and young man of independent wealth who spends most of his time loafing around London and mucking about with his various friends and acquaintances. He is a complete idiot, but cheerfully acknowledges this about himself and is honestly impossible not to like, he’s just too friendly and too determined to help his friends! Fortunately he has his man Jeeves to do the thinking and to solve the various problems he comes across, in the most elaborate and impeccably mannered ways possible.

[unohanabbygirl]

Greetings! So glad more attention is being paid to FMBH lately. It’s truly been underrated. My question is how you’ve conceptualized how the Targaryens/society assign gender to their children since being intersex is a staple of Valyrian bodies. Is it that if their body IS intersex they are assigned as a man but if not they are women? If all Targaryens born are intersex wouldn’t they take advantage and gender then as men since it’s a patriarchal society? There would be no political advantage of having a daughter over a son and Otto definitely would have taken advantage and married Alicent to Rhaenyra if it meant an easier path to the throne.

Ohhh, I love this question! Allow me to ramble ☺️

Since Targaryens are intersex the concept of sex, sexuality, gender and gender identity are fluid in their culture. They don’t go based off of what’s between someone’s legs or how their bodies look from the outside considering everyone’s is different. Some have breasts while others don’t, some have internal testies, some get periods while others don’t and a few odd ones in between do have a cycle but very sporadically.

Because of this whether or not a child is a boy or girl is meant to traditionally be left up in the air for that person to decide for themselves once they’re older. Until such a time comes kids are meant to be raised nonconforming; parents use they/them pronouns, clothes are unisex, and names aren’t given because they’re masculine or feminine but because the parents think it fits. Names don’t often have a gendered form at all quite frankly. Though we hear the names Aegon, Daemon, or Baelon and think “oh those are male names” Targs don’t. Yes they have more of a masculine tone to them but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a boy name. A name is just a name and in the days of old Valyria there were many girls named “Vaemon” and boys named “Rhaenys”

During the conquest Targs accepted things in Westerossi society such as the faith for one. Since they accepted this new way of life, how they were use to doing things had to be changed if proper integration was ever going to come about. So gone were the days of Targaryens not assigning a gender identity to their child from the beginning and allowing them to find themselves so openly first. At birth parents made a decision together and raised their child as one or the other in the public eye whilst keeping true to tradition and reminding them that it’s okay to feel and or “act” different if that’s what your heart tells you. It’s the reason why Baela is so comfortable being masculine despite Westerossi society being against women in that role. And though we haven’t really introduced her yet Baela sometimes uses male pronouns as well as female. It just depends on her mood.

However, because her features are so much more feminine those outside of their family see her as a woman despite knowing what’s likely between her legs. Same goes for Aemond; he’s intersex but because he presents more masculine in his physical characteristics it’s accepted that he’s a man. If he had more feminine features the same couldn’t be said. So though simply telling outsiders that they’re all men to make inheritance and matters of dealing with blatant misogyny easier, the people of Westeros would outright refuse to accept that “real” man looks like a woman. 

Fun fact, If Rhaenys looked more male or at least androgynous despite identifying as a woman Jaehaerys would’ve likely named her his heir.

Same goes for Rhaenyra. If she wasn’t so feminine presenting Otto would’ve 100% gone for the kill and had her marry Alicent rather than Viserys. Regardless of whether or not she identified as a woman and proudly wore dresses and makeup. If Rhaenyra looked like a man, then that would’ve been enough for Otto.

[franswaa3-but-a-bog-mummy]

"Playing Gods" character concepts!

Some more concept work for my game, I'm trying to escape the long shadow of Tolkien and DND fantasy. These groups are the Orcmen, baremen, and elfmen. Faces, a few outfit mockups. Starting with orcs for my direct attentions because their designs are the easiest to mess up on, considering how often weird nerds use it as an excuse to be racist (or in real life use it as a slur)

An aside: these are not traditional fantasy "races" in the world of Playing Gods. Interbreeding between them means the child will put simply look like either the mother or whoever of the two parties uses more magic- magic, an expression of concepts and the divine, will alter the appearance of the user over repeated usage and exposure, essentially an expression of culture. Orcmen use music, baremen use sigils and shapes, elfmen eat magical things, wyrmkin use breath... There's a lot of wiggle room with it.

Top left shows some orcmen, designs derived from sabretooth cats and clothing/outfits intended to evoke steppes cultures somewhat. Because they're a furred people, they're going to have beards (and beard styling) regardless of gender, and I'm working on how they engage with it. Since the bulk of them are going to be herders and traders respectively, I'm electing to have their gender be something chosen as a coming of age event by adolescent orcmen. I'm also going to blatantly plagiarize Finnish (and some old Germanic languages) for their names and language, because who actually cares if I butcher a European language?

Above, Hevoshera the horse lord! Below, a schpiel on orcmen naming conventions.

The first name is chosen when they're old enough to display personality, but children can also choose their own (if they're stubborn enough). In her case, Hevoshera, Finnish for "horse lord," was a declaration of intent: at a young age, she declared she would have the largest herd to her name and the most swords pledged to her clan.

The second name is going to be kept partially secret, chosen as an adolescent progresses into adulthood. Orchie, Orchit, Ocher (the ch- sound here pronounced from the front of the mouth with a ttch- almost? Meant to be used quickly) are the base that's shared generally, essentially denoting pronoun usage. If the first name is how others are to refer to them, this name is how they refer to themselves, and only shared in full when they want to. I've yet to explore her relationship with gender (busy trying to do a lot of other designs still) so for now she'll just be Hevoshera Orcher.

The third name is the family or clan name, and I only have placeholders right now for them. So, Hevoshera Orcher Yarvinitt would be the full name of her in this case.

I'm trying to also explore their jewelry, hence the tusk caps. As much as possible, though, I want to avoid orientalizing them, which... I can't tell if I'm bad at this right now. But she looks crisp!

[cathygeha]

REVIEW

Don’t Let Her Go by Willow Rose

Detective Billie Ann Wilde #1

This is not an easy review to write. The premise for the book, inspired by real life, had great promise. It felt fragmented and was difficult to sink my teeth into. There were many characters that popped up in scenes that felt out of the blue and though eventually tied to the main case Billie was following, didn’t necessarily have a purpose to further the story.

As for Billie, the main character, she wasn’t easy to warm up to. Her past definitely impacts her but a lot of it was revealed but not necessarily dealt with in this book. And what a mixed bag the issues they are: medical, personal, gender, religious, health, social, professional, family, marital…and the list goes on. How she handles some of the issues will no doubt be looked at and dealt with in future books of the series. Perhaps she will grow as the series continues – I hope so – and that she will figure out how to move forward successfully while navigating all those issues

As for the crime(s) in this book – there is a serial killer that is killing to cover up another heinous crime that is ongoing and harmful to more than one person. I guessed who the killer was early in the story so skimmed to get fill in the details. The bad guy is caught, his friend is in the wind, at least one of those harmed is better off, and hopefully in the future stories more information will be given about Kitty and her children.

Did I like this book? It was okay

Would I read more in the series? Maybe

Thank you to NetGalley and Bookouture for the ARC – This is my honest review.

3 Stars based on averaging the 2 for my overall feelings + 4 for the NetGalley ask if it is publish-worthy

BLURB

A missing five-year-old girl is the key to unlocking a detective’s terrifying past… When Detective Billie Ann Wilde receives a desperate call that five-year-old Emma Wilson is missing, she rushes to the family home. But inside the picture-perfect house surrounded by Florida marshlands, she finds no children’s clothes or toys, no photos of the innocent child Emma’s mother Marissa describes. Billie suspects Marissa Wilson is hiding from someone. It’s a race against the clock to find Emma. But Marissa refuses to tell Billie anything about her past, and before long, she also disappears… And then Billie realizes who Marissa is. She’s the ten-year old girl Billie failed to find in her first ever case fourteen years ago. The leads went cold because Billie made a fatal mistake. As more bodies turn up in the same marshlands, Billie must revisit her past and face up to her demons to find Marissa and her child. But she is unknowingly putting herself in the path of a terrifying serial killer… An explosive new crime series from multi-million-copy bestseller Willow Rose. Fans of Lisa Regan, Robert Dugoni and Kendra Elliot will be on the edge of their seats, unable to put this book down!

[thegendercocktail]

Posting old notes to myself - 18th Sept 22

So today, I was going through my google drive, looking for stuff to delete and make space when I come across old documents I wrote for myself as sorta journal like entries over the time I’ve been questioning my gender. But now that I’ve got this tumblr page as a way to document it, I figured it would be appropriate to share those documents to here. I’ll be posting them as I find them in the google drive. This first one is from 18th September 2022

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Gender is seen from multiple perspectives. From a scientific standpoint, it’s the physical attributes a person displays at birth, but for many in the world, gender is seen as a spectrum upon which where we are placed is dependent on how we feel as individuals. 

From birth, I was labelled as a Male, making me an AMAB person. Based upon this label from doctors, the influences I experienced growing up were majorly masculine: being placed in the boys changing rooms, wearing jeans and t shirts and being directed towards masculine oriented activities such as sports and FPS video games for examples.

For all my life, I’ve been seen and identified as a male by everyone around me and I don’t have an issue with that…At least, I didn’t have an issue until recently. When I was in late secondary school, I discovered that there are people who identify with genders that don’t correlate with their birth genders and that they were referred to as transgender.

Before I learned of the term, I thought the idea of transitioning genders was a fantasy, something that could only be imagined or something from a dream. There were times where I saw people present in clothes associated with the opposite sex but tv and film had labelled them as ‘crossdressers’ and ‘perverts’, displaying it as some sort of fetish.

When I learned of the term though, my curiosity led me to search it up online and from there, I was blown away to learn that the world of gender, something which many regard as one of the smaller, basic details of an individual’s life, is vast and more expanded than I realise. Instead of two polar opposites between male and female, there was a whole line connecting the two with multiple identities such as non-binary, bigender, agender and so on.

It was fascinating for me to learn that we didn’t have to restrict ourselves because of the body parts we had or what society expects of us, but that we could decide how we wanted to present and how we want to identify.

That was my introduction to the term and the knowledge, but I hadn’t actually met a trans person in real life, not until Year 11.

In Year 11, I was struggling with my sexuality, at the time identifying as homosexual. My mum suggested to me an LGBTQ+ group in the city centre that met every Monday so that I could talk with others in the community and learn more.

My first session, I was awkward and shy but everyone was incredibly friendly and supportive. It was also there, though, that I first met members of the trans community in real life. Trans women, trans men and non-binary people were all in the same room and for me, the best word I could use to describe them was interesting. They talked about how they were doing as well as talking about their progress with their transitions. I didn’t know why at the time but I was intrigued to hear more.

Over time, as I learned and communicated more about the idea of gender, I began to find myself questioning certain aspects of myself. Memories resurfaced from childhood with the potential for deeper meaning. I’d remember times where I dressed up in princess costumes and twirled and danced in them, I remember taking photos for Instagram and thinking about how happy I felt cause of the softness of my face but also I remembered going through puberty and the difficulties I had facing it.

When I was a child in primary school, one of my favourite parts was when we sung hymns (yes, I went to a Church of England school, hymns were the only thing we sung). I didn’t like it because of the lyrics or the melodies, but because of how I’d always sing the high notes. I love to sing, especially in primary school cause of how high my voice would go. I felt like I was singing like one of heaven’s angels (I know, dramatic). I thought it would never end but then puberty came.

As I grew older, I found my voice cracking more and more the higher I tried to sing and I hated it so much. My voice kept getting lower and I begged it to stop, even though I knew it was futile. In the end, there was no choice for me but to accept the existence of an adam’s apple in my throat dragging my notes down an octave down or two. Ever since then, I had to spend years to adjust to my new singing voice but I still wish I could sing those higher notes again every once in a while. After all this time, a part of me is starting to think that my voice getting lower possibly triggered a sense of gender dysphoria within me.

It wasn’t just my voice either. From time to time, I kept having certain thoughts and I thought I was crazy or weird for even thinking them. I kept imagining myself pregnant, as in carrying an actual child in my tummy and caring for them as they grew inside. At one point, I listened to an RP of a pregnant listener and I shed a tear as I immersed myself in it only to realise that that will never be possible. If I knew then what I knew now about dysphoria, perhaps I could’ve been open about it and maybe discussed it with a professional like a therapist.

The signs of dysphoria don’t just stop there, they had also impacted me during my sexual encounters with partners. When I began a relationship with a trans man named Axel, it was during a period time before he was able to have surgery or start HRT (hormone replacement therapy) with testestorene. His body still had the physical attributes of his birth sex as female. I loved him and I was happy for them to express who they were but whenever we had sex, I kept thinking about how jealous I was of him for having boobs and a vagina. I know that it sounds awful but unfortunately it’s true. I kept thinking about why I couldn’t have those physical attributes and be on the other end, experiencing those feelings. 

During my sexual encounters, it’s usually proved a challenge to finish, I thought maybe it was because my head was out of it, or I wasn’t communicating properly what I needed, but now I wonder if maybe it’s because of my gender and how it’s affect on my sense of self. 

As I contemplate all of this, a part of me thinks that perhaps after all of this time, maybe I’m actually a girl and I need to transition to finally help my body connect with me. I bet that’s what you’re thinking reading this, that that should be what I should do. I wish it was that easy but unfortunately, it’s not.

To transition is a big change, and is rather permanent. If I want to transition, I have to be sure and right now, I’m not. There are times where I feel like my chest is missing something or that my genitalia feels uncomfortable when it shifts beneath clothing but at other times, I feel like that’s all gone away, like it was never there in the first place. It creates a sense of uncertainty that tears me in two and I think has been having an emotional toll on me.

I have all these doubts inside of me that make me worry that if I go down the road of transitioning, I’ll at some point change my mind and it’ll be too late. Everyone would think of me as a liar, as a fraud and call me an attention seeking asshole and that terrifies me so much. I don’t want to be a liar, I just want to be me.

Ever since I’ve started this journey of exploring my own gender though, my pronouns of he/him have started to feel uncomfortable. Being referred to as a gentleman, a man or a son have started to feel weird or maybe they were always weird and I’ve just started noticing. I can’t tell and I don’t know how to tell from my own perspective.

For now, I identify as genderfluid, meaning I currently don’t have a fixed gender, I fluctuate across the spectrum. This label has worked and helped me fit a little better but when the dysphoria returns and I feel wrong, it hits so hard like the Incredible Hulk giving you a gut punch. 

Even now as I type, I feel like my body is wrong and I want to change it so bad, but when I wake up in the morning, will I feel the same way, or will it feel like it was never there to begin with. That’s the struggle I’m facing with finding a correct gender identity. If you were to ask me what gender was, I’d say…

Gender is frightening but beautiful.

Gender will hurt but it will also bring joy.

Gender is who you are but it will not define you.

[acertainmoshke]

Ok this is a great one because Cracks in the Stone takes place during a time of great technological development for Halara. Ko'a was born in year 396, so the story takes place in the early-mid 400's. Halara started out (both in and out of universe, as in when I thought of it but also now when they won their independence in Year 1) as a regular medieval-ish fantasy. I go out of my way to avoid some of the less ideal parts of that genre; the kingdom is racially diverse (and mostly non white), have a gender system that's nothing like our binary, have plenty of clothes and customs that aren't European-based, and I try to avoid making them culturally Christian. But I like castles, and swords, and armor, so there's still plenty of the genre there. The thing is, when I started I came up with 500 years worth of history via the lineage of the royal family. And then, later, I decided to expand it to 1,000.

No, a thousand years is a long fucking time. 1,000 years ago was halfway through the real Middle Ages. So I decided to have some fun and not just include cultural development (I already had shifts in education, family, immigration, and fashion) but also technological development. So now they go through a steampunk-based era from around 400-600 and later reach a sort of fantasy space age.

In universe, this means that when Ko'a was born people traveled mostly by horse drawn cart, newspapers and books used semi-manual printing presses, clothes are still hand dyed and individually tailored, etc. They don't even see steam technology until they go to court at 13, and then it's still mostly in large restaurants or owned by nobility. By the time the book ends (when they're 55), people mostly travel between towns by a train-ish vehicle, clothes are commonly made in factories unless they're your best outfit (or in a tiny nowhere town), printing presses are automated and programmable, etc. By the time they die at 96, everyone rides automated trolleys in cities, most artisan jobs don't exist anymore, and nobles are starting to pay handsomely for books that are handwritten or clothes that are handmade that they just made unnecessary.

This isn't just with manufacturing or transportation, either. Ko'a is severely nearsighted and as a child they have to hold their work up close to their eyes and get headaches by the end of the day just from reading at school. They get their first pair of glasses at 17, and then only because they're friends with a royal who can afford such specialized and personalized equipment. By the time of the coup when they're 39, even a servant can order a pair with a few weeks' of savings.

The 2000s were not only a time of VHS rental, they were also a time of massive cultural developments. I want to know about one of the biggest developments in your story. Is there a cool part of your world or setting that only recently came about? Does your character develop in an interesting way? Let's hear about it!

[vintagegeekculture]

The Chinese Cultural Inspirations for Dragon Ball Z and Super

Journey to the West was only the beginning. 

A lot of people are vaguely aware that Dragon Ball was inspired by Chinese culture and Hong Kong Kung Fu movies and novels, but are unaware of how deep and long lasting it goes. The Japanese spent the 1980s fascinated by China, which opened up from being a closed society for decades in 1978; the most famous human being in Japan in the 80s was either Michael Jackson or Jackie Chan. 

In fact, a lot of people commonly believe that the Chinese action movie and Kung Fu novel cultural and media influence on Dragon Ball ended very early on. This is untrue. Sure, we started to see qipaos and cheongsams less frequently when they headed to West City, but it absolutely did not finish, because there’s tons of influence to see even as impossibly late as Dragon Ball Super. Interestingly, I don’t think any of these point of inspirations have been pointed out before, mainly because a lot of Chinese adventure novels are simply not available in English. 

 The Piccolo/Gohan plot was inspired by the Chinese action novel “Heavenly Sword and Dragon Sabre.”

Okay, tell me if you’ve heard this story before: a truly demonic, weird looking monster villain is defeated by a martial arts hero, but by circumstance, is forced into training his greatest enemy’s young son. The villain trains the young boy, the son of his enemy, in martial arts and over time, becomes like a second father or uncle to him and his family, putting the boy in his “evil” sect, and thanks to his love of his rival’s son, this baddie turns over a new leaf and goes from evil to just…grumpy, and becomes a loyal, though gruff, ally of the boy.

Of course, the events of Heavenly Sword and Dragon Sabre are a bit different from Dragon Ball in details. The Lion King becomes Wuji’s teacher because they are both stranded together on an island after a shipwreck, for instance, and he is blinded and made vulnerable. Also, the Lion King wasn’t so much evil so much as he was misunderstood by the orthodox martial world. However, in broad outlines, this trajectory for a face turn (becomes friends with his greatest enemy’s son, and becomes like a second father to him as he trains him, causing the villain to become a gruff good guy and ally) is essentially from one of the most famous Chinese novels ever written in the 1960s. 

Oh, and while we’re at it, Gohan is likewise inspired by another character from a Louis Cha novel: the Prince of Dali Duan Yu in the Kung Fu novel Demigods and Semi-Devils. The Prince in that novel is a naïve, pacifistic scholar who prefers books to fighting, and who was raised to be timid and avoid combat, absolutely out of step with his family, all of whom are martial artists and warriors. In fact, the beginning of the story is the prince gets incredibly lost in the wilderness, where the hopelessly naïve prince is utterly out of his depth, with all the robbers and scary beasts, and needs to be saved by real martial artists that protect him like fairy godparents. He spends the first part of the story running away from everything, scared as hell. However, by circumstance, he has naturally high power he cannot fully initially control, and eventually realizes that even scholars and others who hate fighting have to sometimes become fighters to protect those they love.

The Duan Yu part of Demigods and Semi-Devils was made into a film, the Battle Wizard, which was reviewed by PewDiePie. The Dragonball similarities went over his head because, honestly, PewDiePie does not strike me as a perceptive person. 

 Hit was based on the screen persona of Chow Yun Fat.

Chow Yun Fat was a Hong Kong cinema superstar who was to director John Woo what Robert de Niro was to Martin Scorsese. There are three giveaways that Hit was based on Chow Yun Fat. One, he’s an assassin, same as Chow Yun Fat’s character in the Killer, and is even given a sequence that’s a John Woo homage with an assassination in an office building with guns pulled on an empty elevator in an act of misdirection. Second, he’s wearing the single piece of clothing Chow Yun Fat is associated with, a black trenchcoat (fun fact: in Hong Kong today, trenchcoats are called Brother Mark Coats, after Chow Yun Fat’s character in John Woo’s A Better Tomorrow). Third, his power is essentially bullet time, a visual technique refined by John Woo in Hong Kong in the 80s and 90s in his gunplay triad movies starring Chow Yun Fat (what, you think the Wachowskis invented it?).

 The Goku/Vegeta relationship is from “Legend of the Condor Heroes.”

Here’s a story you might have heard before. It’s about two rivals, but by circumstance, one is raised in the wilderness beyond civilization, where he becomes an honest and goodhearted, though overly naive bumpkin, martial arts prodigy. The other is raised a wealthy prince by a conquering enemy, who grows up to also become an armor wearing martial arts expert, but also a cunning, arrogant, emotionally distant sociopath.

The similarities go into their love lives, too. The unsophisticated bumpkin hero is betrothed to a daughter of a powerful bearded barbarian king against his will, while the one hint of vulnerability and loss of emotional detachment in the otherwise sociopathic prince, the crack in his smirky arrogance, is that he loves a girl he otherwise pretends to hate, and even fathers a child with her who becomes a main character later.

This is Guo Jing and Yang Kang from Legend of the Condor Heroes. The most fascinating similarity, and proof that female psychology is the same all over the world, is that the fangirls love the emotionally distant, arrogant, and sexy/evil prince (remember when Rhonda Rousey said her first crush was Vegeta?). Girls everywhere love bad boys and sexy villains, and oh boy, do they love Prince Yang Kang. I think you can probably guess who all the fan art is about for Legend of the Condor Heroes, and what ship is the most popular.

I have to emphasize that Legend of the Condor Heroes, which came out in the 1950s-60s, is possibly the most widely read novel by the most widely read novelist on earth - the sales on that dwarf Twilight and Harry Potter. It’s probably not an exaggeration to say nearly every Chinese person, even if they never read it, knows who these characters are. In fact, Yang Kang and Guo Jing from Condor Heroes are basically repeated over and over in Asian, Chinese, and Japanese culture. Does the unsophisticated but gifted martial arts prodigy bumpkin hero, and the glib, arrogant wealthy prince rival remind you of….another duo of rivals?

Gohan/Videl comes from Little Dragon Maiden

One of the most important and influential Martial Arts novels of all time is “Return of the Condor Heroes.” A sequel to Condor Heroes, this time, the main character is the teenage son of one of the main characters from the first novel. It gets even more familiar from there.

“Return of the Condor Heroes” was about a martial arts couple who are also master and student, the same age but vastly different in experience and skill so one somehow seems “older,” and they fall in love because the circumstances of training together requires they spend lots of time together and become intimate. The training story and the love story are exactly the same in “Return of the Condor Heroes.” The dead giveaway one story inspired the other is that in both, the most significant training sequence is one where the master teaches the student how to fly (though Return used a chamber of sparrows for lightness Kung Fu).

There are some differences of course – obviously in Return of the Condor Heroes, the genders of teacher and student are flipped from Gohan and Videl (it’s the Little Dragon Maiden who is a powerful teacher, and the boy who is the student). It was the girl (Videl) who was a rebellious delinquent in Dragon Ball Z, when it was the opposite in the novel, true. But it was obvious this story was in the back of the creator’s mind as a way to combine Kung Fu with the love story, by making teacher and student lovers.

Addendum: hey, remember that awesome movie Kung Fu Hustle, the one Hong Kong movies normies have seen? Well, remember the landlord and landlady? The landlady was named Xiao Lung Nu, or Little Dragon Maiden, and her husband was named Yang Guo – the same as the main characters in Return of the Condor Heroes. It was a joke that went over the heads of Westerners, by giving these names of attractive and naïve young people in love with each other to a surly, bitter, arguing and chain smoking middle aged couple who don’t give a damn.

 Going Super Saiyan comes from “Reincarnated” aka “Bastard Swordsman.”

Stop me if this sounds familiar: a terrifying warlord tyrant prone to killing underlings who displease him has achieved a level of skill and cultivation so tremendous nobody can stop him. But there is one, and only one, thing he fears and that can defeat him: a long-lost legendary skill that nobody has achieved in recent memory, that includes a supernatural combat power transformation that turns the hair light to indicate it worked.

This is “Silkworm Skill” from Reincarnated aka Bastard Swordsman, a novel and TV series from Hong Kong in the early 1980s. Of course, there are differences. To get the power boost and new hair color, the hero has to jump in a cocoon he weaves himself. In fact, the scene is so well known that they actually have it on the poster.

(To those saying “Super Saiyan turns your hair blonde, not white” my response is that it turns hair white, or uncolored, in the comic book.)

The idea of your hair turning white to indicate a new supernatural combat transformation or martial state wasn’t created by Bastard Swordsman, though – though it is the best example and probably the one most familiar to a 1980s audience due to the hugely popular books and TV series. For an older example, a famous Chinese movie based on a folktale is “Bride With the White Hair,” about a bride who’s hair turns white when she is betrayed, in her anger, she becomes less a woman and more a supernatural creature of vengeance (interesting that anger should be the means to unlock it).

[giriduck]

Headcanons about gender within Gerudo, Sheikah, and Hylian cultures and societies

I have a lot of Gerudo headcanons (primarily around the OoT-era). One of which is that, the Gerudo have one assigned male at birth (AMAB) person born roughly every century, but it’s less about a calendrical miracle nor prophecy, so much as there is one AMAB Gerudo alive at a time.

Being the only AMAB, that person is essential to the future of the society and given the title of "king" (essentially assigned king at birth); a label tied to rank, but also someone who needs protecting. The Gerudo Kings lead in a figurehead capacity, and they're often the deciders when an important direction or choice has to be made, but they're surrounded by very capable generals who were given their rank based on hard work, training, skills, achievements, etc., and they are the ones who oversee the operations within the Valley.

The majority of the Gerudo population are cis female, so the non-kings are all assigned female at birth and generally treated as girls in early life. But there is--of course--a whole spectrum of genders. The Gerudo know this and completely understand and support each individual as they come to understand their gender. The Gerudo have a variety of nuanced pronouns within their language, which include a set reserved only for the kings (which tend to set them apart all the more, because in their case, it tends to be weighted with more societal, traditional, and ritual decorum rather than signifier of masculinity). That said, there are gender-confirming non-king he/him pronouns for Gerudo transmascs, which are the same as he/him pronouns used for non-Gerudo cis men.

It should be noted that self expression through clothing (the Gerudo in my head have some but far less bikini battle wear), hair, accessories, makeup, etc. are not linked to gender. Cis Gerudo women can have shaved heads, a king can have long hair down to his waist, etc. Everyone is free to wear makeup and ample jewelry if they so desire. Young trans Gerudo men and non-binary people have a community where they learn how to safely bind, etc.

The Gerudo in my head are a communal society without a gender binary (other than arguably the one notable outlier they call their king). Everyone gets the same level of education: basic childhood developmental and socializing play, reading and speaking the Gerudo and Hylian languages, mathematics, community service rotations, galley duty, stable duty, internships with mastercraftfolk, various survival skills, first aid, craft proficiency, self-defense, weapons proficiency, compulsory military service for a handful of years, watch rotations, child rearing / daycare, testing for rank, training to teach children in your crafts/arts, etc. Some people decide to go the military and administrative route, others choose to pursue a craft specialization (or several). Some people choose to bear children, others do not. Everyone of adult age is considered part of the military reserve.

Next are the (OoT-era) Sheikah, who I headcanon view the entire concept of gender in general as fluid, dynamic, and non-fixed in location on the masculine-to-neutral/agender-to-feminine spectrum, so they embrace gender neutrality and leave the nuance to be determined and declared by the individual. So there is no real gender assignment at birth, folks are given gender neutral names by their parents / guardians, gender stereotypes (activities, roles, interests, idiosyncrasies, personalities, association with colors, etc.) are not imposed upon children, and everyone defaults to they/them pronouns. If folks identify as either masculine or feminine, it is a common practice to change one's name to make their gender identity known. In such cases, it's also still quite common for people to go by she/they or he/they.

Then there are the (OoT-era) Hylians, who in frustrating contrast are a patriarchy that adheres to a gender binary that empowers men with moderately higher privilege through systemic inequalities enforced by gender roles and expectations within society, perpetuated by gender stereotypes and narratives regarding capability, which is astonishing, given that they--alongside all the other cultures of Hyrule--subscribe to various forms of goddess worship.

So you can imagine Ganondorf’s utter disgust with how the most powerful Hylians are all cis men, and how women in Hylian high society are expected to be seen and not heard.

But meanwhile there is the empowerment of a genderfluid/non-binary Zelda, surreptitiously raised by Impa, and the potential she/they have to one day take the throne and inspire cultural change.

[2-bdamned]

in regards to the aoex pride post i made last month, here are my personal headcanons as to why i think those are their sexuality’s! ( also thank you to @johnannepeterric for asking about this as i’ve been waiting to share these for a hot minute!!)

rin:

sexuality + gender identity:gay and trans(ftm)

reason: i don’t think he exactly cares for the concept of gender and sexuality but just thinks people should be allowed to like and be whoever they want. he knew he was in the wrong body since he was a little kid but never knew how to phrase it till later on in life. as for on screen reasons, he tends to cover up quite a bit before and after becoming a demon as well as tending to wear baggy clothes to hid his form. not to mention he has very poor posture which most transmasc people (myself included) tend to do when we can’t bind or don’t feel masculine enough. and i think he’s gay mostly due to the fact that he’s never really shown to have any friendships outside of the exwires and tends to get his platonic and romantic affections mixed up quite a bit (as to explain why i still headcanon this after the manga and his confirmed feelings towards shiemi)

yukio:

sexuality: bisexual

reasoning: he seems to show and equal amount of emotions to his colleagues and to the exwires and im like 90% sure he doesn’t really talk about romantic through the manga/anime at all. i think he’s always known he’s liked both genders since he was young. shiro seems like he was very accepting and i honestly think he would’ve helped both the boys with their sexuality’s and gender since he didn’t get the freedom to express that stuff when he was younger due to you know ‼️‼️(SPOILERS) ‼️‼️ literally being a clone made in a lab. yukio seems the type to not really care about gender when it comes to romance and instead look for traits like personality and motivations. his friendships are most based on him genuinely liking the person rather than keeping up with his appearance as someone who’s quite popular. this could possibly lead to the same being transferred over to his romantic bonds.

shiemi:

sexuality: lesbian

reason: like rin, she tends to get romantic and platonic affection mixed up from not having friends till high school. there’s a bit in the manga where izumo brings over some romance novels to try and help shiemi out with figuring out her feelings. we all know most romance novels don’t exactly have the best explanation for feeling so i think that’s where shiemi got mixed up. she gets her admiration for rin mixed up with romantic feelings when in reality, she’s not into him. we can also use the garden scene from kyoto arc as some reasoning to this headcanon. izumo called shiemi a weed and she surprisingly takes this “insult” very well and even thanks izumo for the interaction. even later in kyoto saga, we see shiemi use even more of her power to save izumo from the miasma. she clearly cared a lot about izumo and basically wore herself down to the the brink of exhaustion trying to dave izumo herself when she could have easily run and got help from another exorcist. sheimi seems to care deeply about her friends but shows more concern to izumo than any other exwire (minus rin and yukio).

shima: ‼️‼️ HIS WHOLE HEADCANON REVOLVES AROUND MANGA SPOILERS SO THATS A HEADS UP‼️‼️

sexuality: gay

since he found out about izumo from the illuminati, he never really had a “crush” on her per say, but showed an unromantic interest in her due to her past and just wanted to know more about her. since he had kinzou around him as a kid, i think that played a huge part in him hiding that he was gay (just bc kinzou is a huge perv and probably pushed some of that onto him). that could also lead to the reasoning as to why he’s so pushy with izumo. he’s trying to convince himself he liked women by trying his hardest to like izumo. the kinzou thing is the only thing really leading to me believing this but an alternative reason could also be a fear of changing his personality this late on when both suguro and koneko have known him to be a certain way since he was young. he’s shown to have this perverted personality since he was quite young and it’s even mentioned in an extra concerning why suguro and koneko use his last name and not his first. these two factors lead me to believe his attraction to izumo and subsequently, his attraction to women, is just a lie he’s putting on.

koneko:

sexuality + gender identity: pansexual and genderfluid

reason: koneko is shown to have a deep love and care for the people around him and i think that not only applies to him with friendship, but with romance as well. like yukio, he tends not to focus on the gender of the person perusing him, but rather their intention, personally, and motivations. he wants to know if his partner is a good person rather than their gender. gender wise, i just don’t think he cares. it’s not explicitly shown but it can be heavily implied when he talks to rin about why he has a hard time trusting him after the “son of satan “ reveil happens. for gender identity, i think i as a kid, he was commonly referred to by most pronouns since he wasn’t exactly the most “boy looking” when he was young. later on he learned he didn’t exactly mind what gender people perceived him as but rather how they perceived him as a person. there’s no canon information for the genderfluid headcanon but again, these are my personal headcanon, they don’t exactly have to make sense.

suguro:

sexuality + gender identity: gay and trans (ftm)

reason: this one is mostly me projecting onto this man so if it doesn’t exactly make sense, y’all know why! but he’s shown to be quite affectionate to rin in both the manga and the anime. he doesn’t really tend to do that too much to other people, especially the women that are around him. he probably has some sort of crush on rin or at least some form of admiration to him. as for his gender identity, this is literally just me projecting. that’s it. but i think he does show some signs that i tend to show as a trans person ( the one example i can name off the top of my head is that he seems pretty insecure when shima and koneko brought up his body before he started working out and hates mentions of his body in general ). like rin, he tends to have very poor posture and also doesn’t wear form fitting clothes and this is especially prominent in official art.

izumo:

sexuality: lesbian

reason: she has a very deep relationship with paku and shiemi after the events of the manga take place. she never shows this same connection with any one else throughout the series. she gets severely worried once paku leave cram school and is shown to be quite empty after this happens. ‼️‼️SPOILERS‼️‼️ the same thing happens once shiemi leaves cram school as well and is taken by her family to go train. she seems to be deeply affected by these two events and even goes as far as to show the others her concerns after the thing with shiemi happens. after she ‼️SPOILERS‼️ gets kidnapped by the illuminati and winds up the the hospital, shimei is the first person she lets see her true emotions and feelings and doesn’t once make a comment on her being some kind of hindrance. we also see her show quite a bit of empathy towards shiemi when in kyoto. there’s a scene where they two are gardening and she calls shiemi a weed. she’s very much plays into a tsudere type roll in the beginning but this seems more like a backhanded compliment rather than trying to be a jerk to her. both of the girls receive this interaction in a positive way. we also can use the scene where shiemi saves izumo as a reason for this as well. izumo shows a genuine concern for shiemi both during and after her being stuck in the miasma. even when they go to the hot springs, she seems to have this perpetual blush while looking at shiemi. these all lead me to think she has some sort of feelings toward both paku and shiemi, leading me to headcanon her as a lesbian.

shura:

sexuality: lesbian

she was basically born just so she could produce a child to fuel some demons deep desires. her unhealthy attachment to shiro can be explained by this. i think this is the case for all the “attraction” she showed towards him as a young girl. all her life she’s been told she has to have kids with a man and that’s was her purpose for a long time. thus why i think she’s a lesbian. she never shows any real attraction to a man throughout the entire series besides the man who saved her as a child. she never talks about men till after her character arc in the manga and even then, it seems she just wants to live the rest of her life differently than before and doesn’t exactly seem too enthusiastic about finding a husband as it’s never mentioned again after that point. she really only seems to show an “attraction” to men when it’s useful to her. she uses her looks and charm to get what she wants when it comes to men. she has this facade she puts on where she acts innocent and cute and uses her looks to her advantage. she never truly shows an actual attraction to a man.

mephisto:

sexuality + gender identity: gay and genderfluid

reason: i don’t think any of the demon kings are cis. like not even remotely. they all have to take on different forms and have taken on many in the past. as long as it’s a body, they’re basically fine with whatever. mephs past forms are never shown but we can assume he’s taken on many different body’s in the past as well. after all this body hopping and the fact that gender is literally a thing made up by humans, i don’t think meph really cares about the forms he takes and how his gender is perceived. he knows he’s a powerful demon and could easily destroy the knights of the true cross if he wanted too so gender is the last thing he really cares about. as for sexuality, nothing on screen really points to anything but he tends to show more affection to the men on screen than the women. in fact, the only women we see him really interact with (that i can remember) is shura and we all know how they feel about each other. even though those two both “flirt” with one another, these seem to be more so parts of their personality’s rather than them both having an interest in each other. his “flirting” with shura seems to be more taunting her and displaying his absolute discard for human problems.

amaimon:

gender identity: agender

reason: just like meph, amimon had possessed(?) many different forms over the course of their existence. we even see him take on a rather feminine presenting form when they were destroying the earth. but unlike meph, he is less fluid in terms of gender and instead, prefers to not identify with one. she does use all pronouns and doesn’t exactly care on that front but i think there’s certain terms and compliments they don’t exactly like. meph does use gendered terms with amimon, but these two seem to be very close and have probably communicated this before as well. like koneko being genderfluid, there’s no definitive evidence to support this claim other than these are my own headcanons and i can do what i want.

[iisasarcasticlittleshite]

Prompt Compilation

I have waaaay too many different pages of prompts, so I'm putting them all here so for future reference, if you request a prompt, this is the number system I'll be referencing.

Sorry for the inconvenience, I'm figuring it out as I go!

1)“My hair is better than yours.”

2)“All I need is a kitten and a glass of warm milk.” “For the kitten?” “No, for me you dipstick.”

3)“Did you just kiss me?”

4)“Did you see that?” “Um…” “The correct answer is no, you didn’t.”

5)“Why are you so red? All I said was “I love you” in Portuguese.”

6)“How come we always end up calling each other when we can’t sleep?”

7)“Bite me.” “Kiss me.”

8)“I vote to make today a pyjama day!”

9)“The day you make me/him/her laugh is the day whales walk on land.”

10)“Stop stealing my clothes.” “No.”

11)“Is that the best you can do?”

12)“You have no idea who I am do you?”

13)“You’re built like the love child of mount Everest and a silverback gorilla, and I’m the weird one?!”

14)“Stop it, your face is doing that thing again.”

15)“I’m gonna do the thing.” “Don’t do the thing. Please don’t do the thing.”

16) "I know I said "Dude" was gender neutral, but that doesn't mean you get to call me dude five minutes after your dick was down my throat."

17)"You're the first one who's ever kept up with me." "Hell of a way to call me horny."

18)"Have you no shame?" "Nope, none. Now get over here and fuck me. Or let me fuck you, I'm not picky."

19)"You've gotta choose one or the other!" "Why? Both are awesome!"

20)"He'll hear us!" "Let him."

21)"Sharing is caring."

22)"I said, sit."

23)"I don't need to be jealous. He's/She's/Your mine."

24) "I'll teach him how to make you feel good."

25) "Goddamn you're good at that."

26) "Now this, this is a view I could get used to."

27) "Don't look at me like that, you'll bite off more than you can chew."

28) "Oh baby, you might just be more than I can handle... I like it."

29) "Try me, lil'lady/pretty boy."

30) "Want me to do that again?"

31)‘I reject your reality and substitute my own!’ ‘I don’t think that’s how reality works.’

32)‘why isn’t there a welcome mat on your doorstep?’ ‘Because I’m not a liar.’

33)‘I am neither caffeinated nor drunk, do you really want to have this conversation right now?’ ‘No ma’am/sir.’

34)‘You need sleep.’ ‘Why? We all die anyway!’

35)‘I’ll be damned, shit went wrong and it wasn’t even slightly my fault!’ ‘The day is young.’

36)‘You can be a real ass sometimes you know that?’ ‘You should hear the things I don’t say.’

37) ‘Fuck you.’

‘Mmm, fuck me.’

‘What?’

‘What?’

38)‘I got you, I always got you.’ ‘But who’s got you?’

39) ‘I love you!’ ‘You have terrible taste.

40) ‘Don’t treat the person I love like that! You rip yourself apart and expect me to watch?! I’ll put you back together as many times as you need me too, but you need to stop being the one ripping out the stitches.’

41) Watcha doin’? ‘Did you know all three of the e’s in “Mercedez” are pronounced differently?’

42) I love you too much to protect you from this.

43) What's your least favourite animal? 'People.' (Based on an actual conversation with a student)

44) Even if you’re faking it, even if it’s a lie, just this once, kiss me like you mean it. 

45) Sit still and let me fix you, you gorgeous mess. 

46) You’ve got to have a guardian angel. Yeah? Well, that bitch drinks. 

47) A thought has occurred to me: fuck this. 

48) Ey, why do we give the important jobs to the guy who’s only brain cell is competing for second place? 

49) For someone who claims not to like guys, you care an awful lot about where other people put their dicks.  

50) You are going to let me go. I'm not asking any more.

51) I want to go home! No amount of begging is going to get you back to a place that doesn't exist anymore!

[therianimal]

My System’s Experiences: switching hosts and a disconnected past

It took years before we realized that the complete personality shifts we experienced at various points in our life was us switching between hosts. Before I was host (or even existed at all), there was Lucas; a few years before him, Eren. The earliest host we know of is 4 years old and was the host during our preschool years. It seems inconceivable that we wouldn’t know - but as a system that has no amnesia, experiences the world as “different people sharing a single consciousness”, experiences switching less like “stepping back” and more like changing perspectives, and exists in a place between median and multiple, these changes disguised themselves as life phases.

It made sense to us that being 16 would feel different than being 12, and we were aware that changing over time was a normal experience for children and teenagers. Sure, it seemed weird that as a child we were definitely a girl, during our early teen years we were likely nonbinary and during our late teen years we were a trans man - it was never really clear to us WHY we changed so much.

That is, until I realized that we were plural, and that we have always been different people who simply passed the mantle of Host along like some kind of hereditary monarchy. It seems somewhat obvious now - the fact that I used to say things like “back when I was Lucas”, that I didn’t have childhood memories of being a therian, and that each “life phase” involved a completely different personality, set of interests, and sense of self were all signs. Even my dad is prone to saying things like “You’re a completely different person now than you were when you were 16″ (I really get a kick out of the double meaning). But it wasn’t until I started to consider that I (we!) might be plural that the truth about our past hosts came out into the open.

Our obliviousness can be accounted for by another issue: the specifics of how we switched hosts. I like to compare the scenario to mitosis - one member gradually becoming two. It would take months before the two people were distinct, at which time the new member would usurp as the new host and the previous one would go into dormancy. Because it’s so gradual we can't pinpoint an exact moment when each switch happened, and it's sometimes hard to clarify whether a past event happened to one member or another.

I’ve started to refer to the mid-mitosis host as “proto”, thqe in between of Lucas and me being “proto-Blue”. Lucas was a trans man and emo, and I’m a mascfem nonbinary person who isn’t particularly alt - our mid-self was still trans but more gender nonconforming and no longer 100% male, and they still listened to emo and rock music but had moved away from the clothing style. This "self" doesn't exist in our system as an actual person - it was simply an in-between stage. This host change (and all the others as far as we can tell) was fluid and not at all a sudden switch.

When Lucas returned from dormancy, it was chaos. He had been functionally asleep for three years - in the meantime, I had broken up on bad terms with his best friend/girlfriend, socially detransitioned (he had worked hard to come out as a trans man), and thrown away most of his old clothing and possessions. Trump had even become president, which was honestly one of the most overwhelming things. And he suddenly had to confront the fact that we were plural, that he had not always been host, and most of all that he had lost several years of (what he thought was) his life. I had to confront similar issues, but for me it was gradual while for him it was all at once.

Since then, several of our past hosts have reawakened - but not all. There are large unaccounted for periods of time, presumably involving still-dormant system members. It’s difficult to talk about our/”my” past, because when referring to things that occurred between the ages of 15 and 17 I can usually say “Lucas did X”, but how do I refer to the incidences that happened to unknown hosts? On top of that, due to years of assuming we were one person and each of us claiming past events as “my past”, it’s not that easy to say that X event belongs to one person and Y belongs to another. Things that happened to Eren while she was host often feel just as relevant to me, personally, as things that happened while I was host.

This all creates a confusing communication barrier, and risks creating conflicts between members - for example if I say “I got a perfect score on the reading portion of the SAT when I was 12!” would that be unfairly taking credit for Eren’s accomplishments, or simply describing an element of our shared narrative that feels relevant to me? There has been at least one conflict with another member where I was accused of selectively taking credit for their good deeds and accomplishments while disowning failures and negative actions - I believe that was a misunderstanding, but clearly it’s complicated.

I, as an individual, have only existed for four years. It sounds strange to say that as a 22 year old, but it’s true. This sometimes makes it alienating to spend time in identity-based communities like the therian, otherkin, transgender, and other LGBTQ communities. I once attempted to join a trans Amino, only to find that I was required to explain my “trans self discovery story” in an introduction post - it wasn’t even optional! How do I explain “In our teenage years, Eren felt disconnected from gender but couldn’t put it into words. Then we learned about trans people, and Lucas discovered over the course of a few months that he was a trans man. I knew I was nonbinary from day one (four years ago), though figuring out the details has taken a few years.” To someone who knows nothing about plurality, it’s incomprehensible.

Of course I could have made something up or oversimplified things, but at the time I was on Amino to discover my truth, not hide my truth. Due to the “born this way” narrative, saying something like “I identified as a trans man in my teen years, but later on identified as nonbinary” would imply that our experiences as a trans man were fake or the result of a confused misnomer, when they were very real. Directly undermining our experiences and our reality for the sake of community really sucks; I quickly left that Amino.

I’ve had similar issues in the therian community. I first realized I was a therian/nonhuman before realizing I was a member of a plural system, which caused all sorts of confusion for me. I joined the Therian Guide forums and learned from their posts and resources that “If you didn’t have therianthropy related experiences as a child, that means you’re just a confused human who’s been influenced by the internet and is having a wishkin phase." I wanted to believe that wasn’t the case, but the argument made sense and I had no counterargument to make against it and no way to explain why that rule wouldn’t apply to me.

Even now it sometimes feels alienating to encounter online threads and posts centered around the question “What signs did you experience as a child?”. I know that other people’s experience don’t invalidate mine, and vice versa, but it still sometimes makes me feel out of place. Rationally I understand that nonhuman experiences are highly varied and that's okay! - but insecurity isn't rational. I’m still acclimating to the idea that as a pluran my nonhuman experiences will probably never be the same as a “stereotypical” otherkin or therian (if such a thing exists).

I went into this essay expecting to write a short post about how my lack of childhood/teen years has sometimes caused me to feel alienated in the therian community. But as I was writing I realized I had a lot to say about my system, and felt compelled to change angles and truly discuss our host history. It might be a bit random, but I hope that at least some people will find it interesting.