#but idk. it feels disingenuous

[deathlonging]

sort of want to write an unnecessary self-recognition-through-the-other scene with billie and delilah but the fact that i haven't played dh2 yet is proving to be a massive impediment to the dialogue

[fishing-lesbian-catgirl]

I occasionally see people complain that stereotypes of trans women even in our own online communities are often about us being nerdy shut ins, and how they say that’s unfair and inaccurate. But besides the obvious selection bias that in online spaces people who are shut ins that spend most of their time online are going to be more prevalent than those who spend less time online, I feel like it takes a bit of willful ignorance to pretend that nerdy shut ins don’t make up a very large portion of transgender women for very material reasons. Most of the transgender women I know have a few things in common:

We grew up uncomfortable with our bodies

We spent most of our lives prior to transitioning feeling like something is very wrong and feeling like we don’t fit in with most of society

We frequently fantasized about a life that could be different

Again there is a very real amount of selection bias in this because basically every trans woman I know is also mentally ill and spends most of her time online. But again I feel that the material reality of being a person who feels uncomfortable with themselves, feels like they don’t belong, and often fantasizes about a life where they didn’t have those problems very much would cause said person to gravitate towards being nerdy and/or a shut in. And that is intensified if you consider the statistically higher percentage of trans women that are autistic (the autism-transgender connection is a whole different topic but there is a statistically significant overlap). To a person like that, video games, tabletop role playing, and online communities where you can present yourself how you’d like are all very attractive things. And if so many of us gravitated to those things before transitioning, existing in this world that is so deeply cruel and unaccepting of trans women only pushes us further into using those as our outlets.

I won’t pretend to have any statistical or other knowledge to make sweeping statements about that making up the majority of us or anything, and I also recognize there is selection bias inherent to this discussion and that my view is limited as an American white woman. But I will say that I don’t think it should be necessarily surprising or disappointing to anyone that online communities of transgender women tend to focus on talking about the types of transgender women that make up the majority of those communities: the ones who spend more time online

[keikuri]

once again I'm asking Ninjago fans to acknowledge bonzle as a trans character

Edit: this is more of a bonzle appreciation post, and im absolutely not shitting on any trans hcs of other characters (which i said multiple times in the tags but like nobody reads that shit. Also edited it to say transgender bcs multiple ppl pointed out that she was actually trans and i realized i was wrong about the coding lol she is trans)

[butterflysonnets]

yes i'm rooting for m*leven breakup because byler is neat but mostly? i'm rooting for m*leven breakup for the sake of el and mike.

to me, their romance was always a puppy love born out of a combination of social pressures, naïve curiosity, and a lack of true understanding regarding intimacy and romantic love and what it really is. it was real in that they do truly, deeply care about each other and they are close friends, maybe even shared an attraction, but a maturing romance is so much more than that. they've grown up and out of being boyfriend/girlfriend, and that's okay! i think television/film needs to show more often that most of us don't have definite "soulmates" or first childhood loves that we spend our whole lives with. it doesn't mean these relationships meant nothing and didn't impact us, it just means they've run their course and that something else is in the cards, and this is part of life!

i've always felt el was at her best and most confident self when broken up with mike, discovering who she was and what she liked alongside another girl her age instead of just relying on mike for mentorship on how to live in the real world. she deserves more of an opportunity to find herself, her autonomy, and her independence, and to love who she is, and she's made it clear she's felt insecure in the relationship with mike because she isn't being loved and understood the way she wants, needs, and deserves from someone who is her partner.

also, it's okay if mike doesn't love her in "the way he should". he is not obligated to love her romantically and stay in a relationship with her just because she's a girl, because she "needed someone", or because he cares about her a lot. he shouldn't be pressured into a romance if it's not truly coming from his heart. he deserves freedom to find out and honour who he is, too, instead of just staying in his non-functional first relationship — one he got into as a child, essentially — and defining himself that way because it's what's expected when a boy and a girl are close. he loves her in some way, yes, but it's okay if he doesn't feel comfortable or secure being her boyfriend anymore, for whatever reason that is. he's felt insecure too, and that's valid and it matters.

they are their own people and are steadily growing and changing every day. they need time to figure out who those people are, and it's become clear (at least in my opinion) that those people aren't meant to be a couple at this stage.

they deserve freedom. they deserve to grow up and be authentic to themselves and not feel like they need to lie for the sake of a relationship. they deserve to move on from this version of their relationship that isn't making them happy and rekindle the best part of their bond: their strong, beautiful friendship. they don't have to be a couple if it doesn't make them stronger and better and happier people.

i think it would be healthy and wonderful for a show, especially one consumed frequently by young adults, to show a relationship starting, progressing, and ending on good terms in this way. sometimes things don't work out, and that is okay.

[puzzled-artist]

Saying something stupid like I love you

Like my art and want to support?

Consider checking out the Patreon! Bi annual commissions start 1st of July!

Link

[strxnged]

guys i might change my url again

[cookinguptales]

shine on, harvest moon

So I wrote a story inspired by Odlaws' "Morticians" as a Halloween present for a friend a few weeks ago! I can finally say that without getting attacked with AO3-exchange bats.

It's more of an original story inspired by the comic than it is a fanfiction if I'm being entirely honest, but I still really enjoyed writing it. It's a story about love, loss, and learning to live again through grief, so... maybe it's a message that will resonate right now.

Shine On, Harvest Moon OMC / OMC | PG-13 | 7.5k words Powell Funeral Home has been in Arden's family for generations, and he takes his duties very seriously. But perhaps there is more to life than death, more to love than grief, and more to this funeral than meets the eye. (cw: frank discussions of death, dying, and the post-mortem preparation of corpses. these are morticians, after all.)

This story can also be read on the free tier of my writing Patreon here.

[fandom-geek]

just occurred to me but now i'm having feelings abt how ala mhigo got told “no charity, you’ve got to trade if you want shit” by ul’dah post-sb, while garlemald gets given a trade agreement as a concession to their egos after receiving a ton of charity.

especially with the in-game context that most ala mhigans have been refugees in eorzea for the 20 years of the occupation, that gaius was canonically enslaving ala mhigans to send off to the mines (mentioned in both 1.0 and 2.0), and that the people we’re seeing on-screen were wealthy enough to live in the imperial capital and would’ve benefitted from the proximity to the imperial family (see: forum solius).

like. idk, the msq is just trying to make you forget how every single garlean we see on-screen benefited from the empire and its crimes, even if they weren’t actively complicit.

stormblood was pretty good when it came to how it portrayed colonialism, but it feels like the msq writers have retreated from that because they want us to be sympathetic to garlemald. it feels like an extension of how gaius was morally whitewashed in shadowbringers despite never actually opposing what garlemald did, only that an ascian was using him for his own purposes.

i think it’s a shame we’ve never been able to ask gaius point blank if he would do what he did again if it wasn’t an ascian asking him to do it. both in terms of story potential and just sheer... why wouldn’t we?

[perenlop]

making some kirby right back at ya pokemon teams.... hmmmm

[noxcorvid]

mod idea i want to see realized but don't have the technical skill for: making the falmer in the forgotten vale non-aggressive towards you once you kill vyrthur.. or a master-of-disguise extension where the falmer will recognize you as friendly when you're wearing falmer armor...

[plague-vulture]

wanting to do the "miku from your culture" thing but I live in suburban america. who wants pacific northwest miku. nobody probably.

[theclearblue]

My dashboard is maybe even more split on this chapter than even JJK 236 good god

[bitch-with-a-spoon]

i find doja cat's new demonic persona overhyped and honestly kind of unoriginal. it feels like especially now the idea of being demonic, witchy, overtly not/anti christian imagery is used as a write-off for some form of empowerment (my first thought on this matter is almost always white women claiming witchcraft as a way to almost separate themselves from whiteness/oppressors, though that is more of a line of thought than correlation). I think Lil Nas X's use of satanic imagery worked because there was a connection. a reason. it was more than aesthetic and i could get behind/understand reclaiming the figurehead of what was used to ostracize you. If there is doja lore that i am missing and some big reason why she did all this then sure that's on me for not looking into it further, but it is just so exhausting seeing artists overuse stuff like this to not even have like a cool idea past like... idk it just feels kinda disingenuous.

i lost my train of thought writing this. it spawned from seeing spotify suggest her new album to me. i just cant really get behind her music after she said she said her old music was trash and wasn't really her then turning around and using some of the sickest beats for mid lyrics.

[changingmymajortojoan]

grant for disabled artists was passed on to me by a professor bc she knows i'm schizophrenic (it's a large part of my process so unfortunately i have to talk about it in school lmao). i don't feel disabled enough to apply? which feels gross to say especially when their eligibility section mentions "mental health disabilities" and yes schizophrenia disables my life in a lot of ways but i'm able to meet my own access needs through rigorous planning which i'm able to do thanks to my medication

[sleepymrshmllow]

we should stop calling noah's "apology" an apology since he didn't say an "im sorry" ONCE also took no responsibility for his harmful actions and essentially shifted the blame onto us saying we just "misconstrued" his words... fuck that. you can't be "neutral" in a genocide. one 'side' is the oppressor and the other is the oppressed. it's been over a hundred days of this genocide, there is no "I want peace on both sides" this far in when it's clear who really needs the support, who's really suffering.

[frumfrumfroo]

It's clear that audiences will go to great lengths to find something admirable or attractive in characters that are designed to be monstrous. Is this because humans are desperate to see goodness in even the darkest of hearts? Or is it because humans are just inherently drawn to and fascinated by evil? The contempt many people have for idealistic characters like Superman leads me to believe it's the latter.

People also go to impossible, wilfully blind, Plastic Man-like lengths to avoid seeing complexity and vulnerability in characters who were designed to be sympathetic despite being antagonists or having done bad things.

And it's for the exact same reason that they dismiss or feel the need to make the 'dark, gritty' version of characters like Superman: cynicism. Often childish cynicism which refuses to comprehend that the entire point of Superman is that he's a paragon and what makes him interesting is using him to hold a mirror up to the society whose supposed ideals he was created to represent. That an actual challenging narrative isn't cutting Superman down into yet another pragmatic, 'realistic' hero, but pitting a genuinely aspirational figure against morally difficult circumstances which we recognise.

The same childish cynicism which thinks any human person is simply born evil and unable to change or heal, that's there's some point of no return after which growth is impossible, or that there's anything anyone can do to render themselves no longer human and thus undeserving of ethical treatment by others.

The same childish cynicism which sees compassion or even simply a desire to understand and dismisses it as 'fascination with evil', or, as is usually the actual attack even if not explicitly stated, of 'having the hots for the bad boy'. Looking for a character's motivation and expecting that they have one beyond 'muahahaha evilly evilly evil!' is just the most basic level of engaging with the text.