#but to say they don't face discrimination at all is... just not correct at all

[ttaibhse]

do you support trans people?

let's just assume youre asking this in good faith despite this being an extremely vague question that doesn't really ask anything specific lol. so i'll give you answers to a few different interpretations of it and you can let me know if i've missed any that you're especially concerned about 👍

oh and bear in mind the context that i have transitioned medically and lived as both stealth ftm and openly trans/nonbinary and have experienced being trans first person 🙏

do i support trans people's right to live safe and happy lives free from harrassment and discrimination? yes, of course

do i support trans people's right to present themselves however they want to? yes, of course

do i use the correct names and pronouns of trans people that i interact with in real life? of course!

do i believe people when they tell me their gender identity? sure. i have experienced gender dysphoria lol. i get it

do i support trans people's right to good healthcare? yes of course

do i support adult's decisions to transition medically? if they have ACTUAL full informed consent, sure. many many MANY people are not being provided with FULL, INFORMED consent before opting for medical transition. this is not their fault.

do i think it's irresponsible and stupid to tout medical transition as a risk free, reversible, totally harmless way to experiment with gender? yes

do i think any of this should mean that women should scrupulously monitor their language and behaviour at all times to make sure that no one might possibly feel excluded or offended by anything at all? no

am i personally going to walk on eggshells with the language i use to avoid being called names online when anyone with a working brain knows exactly what i'm talking about? no

am i going to police my own presence online to make sure i'm not interacting even remotely with any bloggers who might have different or even distasteful beliefs or opinions to my own? no

do i think the existence of people with gender dysphoria and people who choose to reject binary gender labels and/or whatever other interpretations you might have of any variety of trans identities means that biological sex is suddenly somehow irrelevant and should be ignored? no

do i think that ANYONE AT ALL AT ANY TIME, regardless of identity, has the right to sexual access to women's bodies? no

do i think that any woman should be obliged to date or have sex with anyone she doesn't want to date or have sex with, for any reason at all, including to make that person feel validated? no

do i think that trans women face the same struggles and experiences with misogyny as cis women? no

do i think that you're being wilfully stupid if you claim these two groups of people are indistinguishable? yes

do i think women should have to prioritise the feelings and sensibilities of any other group, even marginalised groups, over their own safety in the face of being raped/forcefully impregnated/abused/killed by men? no <3

anon as ive said before, you're welcome to make your own decisions about me based on these answers & the content of my blog. you can ask me more questions if you want. but i'm not going to give any black and white sweeping statement answers to appease random anonymous tumblr users and i'm not going to pretend i don't see, experience, and understand material reality. i'm not going to pretend that women aren't my priority lol. i'm not going to pretend that i care that much about being careful to use inclusive language instead of just saying "women" and "men". if that's your priority then that's great for you but it's not mine and it doesn't have to be lol

[demonic-shadowlucifer]

by the way i kinda want to talk about the whole "christians arent oppressed" and "oooh christians wanna be oppressed so bad" stuff because i do feel strongly about it because of how much history it ignores lmfao ...because, yes. but actually no. Long ago, the Romans... actually did not like Christianity! Oh no. They despised them, especially Nero, who hated them so much he called for their execution. Eventually though Rome decided "actually yeah Christianity is cool". And that's not all!

Christians, especially Jehovah's Witnesses, weren't safe during WW2 neither! Oh no. Jehovah's Witnesses, while not persecuted as badly as Jewish folks, were still targeted and faced discrimination by the Nazis. And many were also unlucky enough to end up in concentration camps as well. Not to mention the fact that Christians are currently being targeted in other countries, such as North Korea. Oh yeah! Don't think America's getting out of this one neither! Black Christians especially aren't safe. In 2015, a black church in Charleston, South Carolina (particularly Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal) was shot up, killing 9 African Americans, including state senator Clementa C. Pinckney. And going further back in 1963, 15th Street Baptist Church, the first black church in Birmingham, Alabama, was bombed by members of the KKK, with four children, the youngest being 11, killed as a result.

So yes, Christians *have* been oppressed before. ...Just not in the way evangelicals want you to believe.

[pillarsalt]

hi um

I was? transmasc but recently I’ve been seeing a lot of really misogynistic sexist transphobic stuff from trans community and it’s just been totally accepted, even by other transmascs. It’s been going on for a while but recently there was a murder of a nonbinary afab person and yet the whole trans community here has been silent, instead screaming about a transfem user being banned or something? This isn’t the first time an afab trans persons suffering has been dismissed, but now right after this awful death, i see transfems making posts about how transmascs talking about their oppression are terfs.

I didn’t want to think about it but all i could think about was that it was weird how despite everyone claiming trans men have all this privilege, trans women always come first…they get the most representation, they get the fame the admiration and the opportunities, their voices are always the loudest and their problems always always come first no matter what.

But despite popular belief trans men’s issues aren’t actually less significant, in some cases we suffer far more than trans women especially in regard to sexual violence. Yet we are silenced. We are frequently left poor, we are discriminated against for our sex we are discriminated against for being trans we are discriminated against for being perceived as lesbians. Yet we are made to be silent?

Why are our voices less important than trans women’s?

And all I could think about was that this is how females are treated in every other area.

I don’t know what else to say… I tried so hard not to reach that conclusion because I don’t want to be transmysogynist but I kept coming back to it and I couldn’t find an argument against it. This is how females are treated. This is what male privilege look like. And if trans women have male privilege, then why the fuck am I sitting here letting them talk over me?

I just feel really really angry. Your a blog who I liked your art but I blocked you when I discovered you were a radfem, but I sort of had you in the back of my mind for some reason and now I feel lost and confused, and I don’t think I want to be part of the trans community anymore.

Hey anon, firstly I really appreciate your willingness to have an open discussion with me. This must be weighing on you pretty heavily.

Secondly, holy shit, you're right. While the entire website is treating this user's ban as a national travesty, I haven't seen a single person talking about Nex's murder despite how much they claim to care about trans people. That's really fucking low, and this situation does very much encapsulate the state of misogyny within the trans community.

And you're right, this IS how females are treated in every other area. Throughout history, the suffering and injustice women face is minimized, laughed at, ignored, and when we want to talk about it, we're shut down and told we're making people uncomfortable and our pain isn't that bad. And here we are again, with a female person's death outweighed by a male person's inconvenience.

The denial of sex-based oppression that permeates trans spaces is a blatant lie that can only be held together if nobody is allowed to acknowledge it, and those who do are punished. If the trans community truly stood behind what they say, discussion would be encouraged! The foundation of their movement would be backed up with facts and replicable science! But instead, they'll call you a bigot for pointing out systems of oppression you can see with your own eyes. Because if you do, transwomen's position as Most Oppressed, and therefore the final authority on what's right and wrong, collapses. You are correct when you say that it seems like transwomen always come first; I don't remember who said it first, but just look at magazine covers featuring trans people -- the transwomen are fully clothed CEOs, athletes, movie stars, but transmen mostly get on magazine covers for... being pregnant and half naked. Misogyny is built into every society on earth, and individuals simply calling themselves something else doesn't change that. And when you give male people free reign to be as misogynistic as they want without consequence, they'll grab that opportunity and hold on like their lives depend on it. The way they weaponize transmen's sex against them is indistinguishable from what 'cis' men do to 'cis' women, but if you ever speak out about it, somehow YOU'RE the one hurting THEM. They do not want transmascs to find solidarity with other female people, because then they would have to face the reality of their own place in a patriarchal world, and face the fact that there are experiences exclusive to female people and that we have the right to speak about it. I mean you see shit like this and the motives become completely transparent:

I do find it funny how hard the trans community and their allies work to prevent anyone from hearing what radfems have to say in case they "corrupt" you with mere words. A lot of the time, it's simply listening to transwomen themselves that sparks the feeling of "something's not right here" in your brain. That's what happened with me too. I'll tell you that most of us also used to be proponents of trans activism, many formerly identifying as trans too. You are seeing through manipulation, and I know it's quite shocking to realize. Even when I first started having doubts about trans rhetoric, I thought "well everyone else agrees about this, so I need to shut up and be nice about it even if I don't agree." It's an unpleasant place to be in. The cognitive dissonance is exhausting though, and it becomes impossible to ignore.

The mistreatment of transmasc people in the trans community by transfems is brutal, and It's hard to watch from the outside because I just want to say "Hey, you know you don't have to take this shit, right?" And you really don't. You are not at all a bad person for recognizing the frankly absurd amount of misogyny in the trans community. Feeling lost and confused is shitty, but it's normal for this situation. The best thing you can do is keep observing, keep reading, form your own opinions, and never let anyone tell you to shut up. Above all, prioritize yourself and your mental wellbeing. If you need to remove yourself from gender-related spaces and discussion for a while, that's totally alright. Just know you're not evil or a bigot for not blindly agreeing with everything the trans community has told you. Your opinions and experiences are worthwhile too.

[disaster-theysbian]

Gotta say, I've been out as a lesbian for 3 years and nonbinary for a year and a half. And I've noticed something.

Just because someone *always* gets your name and pronous correct, and angrily calls out anyone who forgets, doesn't necessarily mean they support you.

Conversely, just because someone struggles to remember your name and pronouns, or can't wrap their head around gender neutral/neo pronouns at all, doesn't necessarily mean they DON'T support you.

This is applicable to any situation really not just queer shit. Watch what people do, not just what they say, and you will find your friends. Someone might shower you with compliments and have common interests with you, but what happens when you tell them no? Do they get angry when they are corrected? Do they have kind things to say about other people?

My colleagues wouldn't know a gender-neutral pronoun if one hit them in the face with a dictionary, but they make sure I've had a lunch break and get home safely. They have my back if I have a difficult patient. They defend me against other staff members who like to create drama and bitch about people as if they're still in the school playground. If someone has something to say about me being a big ol' queer, they make it known that discrimination has no place in our unit.

My best friend in the whole entire world forgets my name and pronouns every day. When the organisers of her therapy group changed "men and women" to "people" and "he/she" to "they" in order to be more inclusive, there was outcry. Everything from the "it just doesn't sound right" grammar-policing nonsense to the "f*cking special snowflakes are offended by everything". She came down on them like a ton of bricks. She said if the organisers hadn't told them that it was changing, that they wouldn't have noticed. She told them they obviously haven't loved someone outside of the gender binary and they were missing out. She then told them how she had seen me grow and develop since I came out, and how in awe she was of the person I had become. No, she doesn't understand it at all, but why should that mean that she can't be there for me and appreciate how happy I am to be able to be me? Why should that mean, because you lot don't understand it, that someone with the same issues as the rest of the therapy group feels unsafe and unwelcome and doesn't get their issues resolved? As a result, a few of them changed their minds, INCLUDING HER OWN FATHER, and the rest at least shut the hell up about it.

ON THE FLIP SIDE...

A queer person who used my correct name and pronouns delighted in making me walk on eggshells, inventing reasons to be angry with me, convinced me I was a terrible person and even went as far as to try and turn me against my own therapist. They tried to tell me that my therapist only said I was a good person because she was paid to, and that because they themselves had a psychology degree that they could tell I had all these complexes and needed to work hard to be a good person, and it was unlikely I'd never get there. (I chose to listen to my therapist and stop being friends with this person).

A queer person who used my correct name and pronouns continued to do things that made me uncomfortable when I asked them to stop. Never said in as many words "you're not allowed to hang out with your friends" but conveniently had an emergency every time I had plans, and accused me of being uncaring if I needed my own space. They knew I had difficulty asking for help, but still got angry with me when I asked because I didn't ask "soon enough".

A queer person who used my correct name and pronouns told me they would look after me and they didnt. .

A queer person threatened to misgender me MORE when I corrected them.

I'm just saying, that if you choose to yeet everyone who doesn't get your name and pronouns right... that doesn't necessarily make you safe. We live in a very binary world. As much as we want that to change, it won't if we ignore or shout at the bits we don't like. (Believe me, I've tried).

[transmascpetewentz]

i meant wrapped not trapped, I do not blame you for misunderstanding me, thats entirely my fault

I think you seem to believe that my issue with transandrophobia as a label is the idea that trans men face oppression (which they do), when instead its the idea that the oppression transmasculine people face is something completely unique to them, instead of being the underlying current of tranphobia

I literally spent the first paragraph explaining my issues with the *concept* of it before segawaying into my issue with it as a conterpart to transmisogyny due to them not sharing an underlying ideological framework

And to touch on some of doberbutts points, trans women are also correctively raped and have suicide rates, and the issue of access to abortion is for every person with a vagina, not just trans men

A frustrating thing that he does there is that instead of giving a counterargument to one of my points (what i personally believe to be a misnomer about the purpose of the label of transmisogyny, were you (nonspecific) view it as a threat to the validity of the trauma we face, and not as a way to describe their own, and what others believe to be just attention seeking) is to bring up severe (often sexual) trauma as a way to put a landmine on that specific point, because any attempt to explain why they are wrong becomes a personal attack on the traumatized parties

this got quite long, so response under the cut. @doberbutts this is the same anon you responded to (by reblogging my post) earlier.

ok

no form of violence experienced under an oppressive system is truly "unique" in that i don't think there are any experiences of violence or oppression that apply to only one specific group, but the motivations behind the violence can differ depending on the demographic it's being done to. i do not think that any specific example of transandrophobia is something that no one who isn't transmasc has experienced, but transandrophobia is the oppression specifically targeting transmascs. i and doberbutts have already pointed out how this works, so i don't feel the need to reiterate that.

you do not understand the concept of transandrophobia, and you regularly demonstrate that your understanding is surface-level and comes from people who have an interest in making it seem less credible. instead of asking people who theorize about anti-transmasculinity (including me and doberbutts!!!) you immediately become hostile and make many incorrect assumptions about our beliefs. i find this highly disrespectful and encourage you to stop getting all of your information about transandrophobia from people who misrepresent it to argue against the concept of anti-transmasculinity.

yes, abortion access is something that everyone who can get pregnant has to deal with, but trans men face unique discrimination wrt abortion access and access to reproductive healthcare that trans women do not. this is because there is a fundamental misogyny component to anti-transmasculinity that you and others who deny it because "it's transmisogynistic!!!" seem to have a failure to grasp. transandrophobia is transphobia, misogyny, homophobia, and the specific modifier of maleness on this oppression all at once. i wish there was a better word for how maleness adds to and modifies oppression in an intersectional way that wasn't associated with mras, but alas there is none that i am aware of. also: anti-transmasculinity never says or implies that trans women don't face some of the issues that trans men do! you are treating this like a pissing contest for who has it worse and that is an attitude i'll need you to drop.

denying transandrophobia is a sentiment that is directly hostile to transmasc survivors of sexual assault, abuse, hate crimes and other things that arise from living under a patriarchy that systemically excludes you from both the male and female classes. the reason why we use this rhetoric is because these types of things arise from the specific intersection that trans men face, and how that can further intersect with sexuality. you are simply making up what we believe on the spot and not actually listening. if you want to come off anon and have a conversation in dms, i'd be willing.

talking to people like you is frustrating because you make these claims about what transandrophobia theory is as if we're a monolith or a homogenous group instead of hundreds of trans men on tumblr dot com all contributing to a larger conversation. no matter how much you claim to be in good faith, you continue to disregard actual transandrophobia theory in favor of some bastardized version you got from someone with "white tme/tma" in their bio. i hope you take this criticism and reflect on how you may be wrong.

[delawaredetroit]

Are you still a dfo truther? If so, why?

I'm not counting it out just because the body that All for One was eventually planning on discarding anyway is dead. The naysayers are taking too early a victory lap on that one. That said, if it does happen, this Deku vs Shigaraki fight is the last place where it feasibly could happen. There's no way All for One's vestige isn't making another appearance regardless considering his plotlines with Yoichi and Shigaraki have not been resolved.

Why do I think it's still possible? Because Horikoshi usually carefully plans the names of his characters. And it's odd that an ordinary businessman would have a name meaning leader and "a long time"/"eternal" when that sure matches the goals of the manga's villain who basically wants to be reborn in a new body so he can rule the world (and have Yoichi under his thumb). It's weirder when the alleged son in this theory has a name that includes a character that can be read "to be born" and the exact same a long time/eternal character. (Especially when unlike any of his classmates, he is the only one with both parents' names introduced where his name only has influence from one parent)

Also, it's because the themes between Izuku and Shigaraki currently feel incomplete. And they would feel more complete if this fight was also about the villain born from heroic origins versus the hero born from villainous origins. Touya, the villain character Shigaraki has the most parallels with, already has one of these in Hawks. And like Izuku and Shigaraki, those two are some of the only ones that really play with the visuals of angelic looking villains versus demonic looking heroes. All for One said that heroes/villains used to receive their "names" based on what their enemy called them - so it would make sense if what remained of All for One was defeated once and for all by those he has named. Izuku is the odd one out in this fight if dfo theory isn't true if he didn't receive a name from All for One like Shigaraki and Yoichi.

The general impression I get from people who hate this theory is that they don't want Izuku to not be an ordinary person or intended for some special destiny. And I'm ????? about that because I think these people have bought Izuku's unreliable narrative about himself hook, line, and sinker. Again, that "ordinary" interpretation goes against the actual reading of Izuku's name. Second of all, I have no idea what people are smoking to have interpreted the guy who knowingly and repeatedly breaks his bones like they're glow sticks as the most normal guy. Even before One for All - Izuku wasn't "normal" - he was part of a minority group and faced discrimination for being quirkless.

The second impression I get from naysayers is that DFO theorists are wrong because their characterizations of All for One and Inko are way off. To that I say - the original Dabi=Touya theorists were almost all way off about Touya's personality/motivations - but their conclusion was still correct. There's also more potential evidence to back up DFO theory now than there was to support the Dabi is a Todoroki theory at the time of that reveal.

At a minimum, if this theory turns out not to be true, there's enough bread crumbs left by Horikoshi that he was clearly trying to steer people into thinking there was a connection here. So am I sure it will be canon: no. Is there still a good chance it could still happen: yes.

[emblemxeno]

Honestly it's really funny that the recent discourse I was unwillingly embroiled in revolved around stuff like power hierarchies and racial biases in written works, cuz my English Studies class in uni tackled this exact same stuff.

And I don't wanna be like "well my college said this so obviously I'm correct", but what I will say is that R*xis and his weirdo clique would be looked at weird were they in that class lol.

For example, some of the things we talked about after just a few weeks was hegemon powers enforcing their views and perspective onto the people as a new status quo and how that's Not Good™️, and also how the ideas of merit-based power structures and "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps" is a hinderance to progress as it puts the onus of responsibility on to the oppressed to escape their own oppression. We discussed all of this because most of the literature we looked at was by black and non-black critics of white supremacy, class structure, and generational wealth. We even looked over the Civil Rights Act and the Housing Discrimination Act to prove points about this.

Claude being written to support Edelgard's ideals not only makes him look worse in a writing sense, but also in a moral, racial, and political sense. He supports what's equivalent to a Booker T. Washington way of thinking when he supports Edelgard in Hopes. He lacks his curiosity, perspective, and unwavering belief in treasuring life in Hopes, character traits that he not only was explicitly shown to have brought with him from Almyra (i.e. BEFORE THE ACADEMY), but were also developed as a result of him being of mixed race. I rake 3H over the coals for its attempts and failures at tackling racial dynamics and oppression in its storytelling, but Claude-for the most part-was relatively unscathed. Then Hopes came and made everything worse.

So, historically in both the FE series and the real world, what Edelgard does is for the worst, and making Claude support that without question is not only a slap in the face for fans of his 3H characterization, but a slap in the face for the first brown main character in the FE series.

[dlartistanon]

I want to share some interesting discussion about Arturia (and Executor by extension), including some discussion about neurodivergency--a lot of this informs their characters and actions and shines better light on how it can reflect real life.

Also, here's her prequel comic which gives more context

The outcomes of her actions are not often good, but she's definitely not supposed to be evil/malicious/sadistic. She is ideologically driven and, because of her morality axis being different from most, genuinely believes what she's doing is good/correct. She has reason for what she does, such as being opposed to Laterano's limited empathy and discrimination, and what happened in her childhood.

It can be read as a commentary on how the vast majority would rather remain sheep to survive, then be true and (possibly) die.

Her motivation can be summed up as: she wants people to stop repressing themselves. Which theoretically sounds good on paper, but obviously impractical in practice. Sometimes honesty isn't the best policy.

Kriede's fate, his death, was out of his own real volition. What resulted in him wanting to save Ebenholz.

It's unconfirmed, but she may be a victim to her own Arts. She has no inhibitions about removing other people's inhibitions. Or she gaslights herself/disassociates when it comes to her mother's death. She was probably traumatized, but underreacted. To her, Mom dying and using her Arts on her mom are two separate things that have no causation.

She does not regret using her Arts on her mother. She does regret being unable to have helped her mother go further to achieve her dream before she died. Arturia considers it her own failure that Mom died before she reached self-actualization. At the core of it all, Arturia wants to see more people be like her mother, willing to act on what they truly want.

People's despair are all worthy of being addressed and felt and released. That's extremely relevant to her worldview. It's what separates humans from animals acting on instinct. Arturia doesn't care for the Seaborn and thinks they are beneath notice. They are Nothing to her. You can be Good or Evil, but you must be human. Have human desires, because animalistic desire is boring. Human irrationality is what makes them beautiful to her.

People who say that Arturia caused everything to happen in Hortus de Escapismo ignore the fact that the overall situation had been deteriorating long before she set foot there. If anything, she may have just sped up the process of things that were going to happen anyway. Which is not the same as causing it. Looking at it from the perspective of the people living at the monastery, it's reasonable that there would be depressing thoughts floating around everywhere. But the Abbot tells Arturia that her music soothes the pain.

Laterano's response to the situation did nothing to alleviate the actual problem, the material conditions (ie no food). If Arturia's abilities worked the way some people think they do, everyone at the monastery would've been dead in a week or less.

If you're debating jumping off a cliff, then she isn't going to make you jump, nor will she influence you to jump. If someone is worried about Arturia's Arts affecting them, causing them to do bad things they otherwise wouldn't have, because of intrusive thoughts, then they shouldn't even be concerned. Because Arturia is not interested in that. Acting on intrusive thoughts is not what she looks for. It's more akin to helping someone dive deep into their subconscious to face the thing(s) they refuse to face. Some people choose to take this back up with them to the surface. People who contemplate doing bad things for brief moments normally don't have those kinds of thoughts sitting deep within their psyche to drag up.

Arturia obviously needs therapy, but the most important thing to her is whether you have the conviction to act on your desires. Let go and embrace how you truly feel. The extremities of pain and despair (and perhaps even happiness) are among what she values. A very complicated individual.

[saintsenara]

Weird question but do you think the centaurs SAd umbridge in ootp? It kinda feels like it’s written that way and it’s pretty disturbing tbh

thank you very much for the ask, anon!

the spoiler alert is that i don't - i think the series' approach to sexual violence leaves a great deal to be desired, but i don't think this is one of those cases - but obviously this discussion does come with a trigger warning for rape and is under the cut.

i know where this interpretation comes from - since a huge amount of the classical greek mythology surrounding centaurs is based in the idea that they rape human women - and i also know that the series' general view that any violence which happens to someone who "deserves" it is fine means that readers consider it plausible that jkr would have thought it acceptable for umbridge to be subjected to such a "punishment"...

and the text certainly can be read as showing the aftermath of a sexual assault:

All six of them looked around. Professor Umbridge was lying in a bed opposite them, gazing up at the ceiling. Dumbledore had strode alone into the forest to rescue her from the centaurs. How he had done it - how he had emerged from the trees supporting Professor Umbridge without so much as a scratch on him - nobody knew, and Umbridge was certainly not telling. Since she had returned to the castle she had not, as far as any of them knew, uttered a single word. Nobody really knew what was wrong with her either. Her usually neat mousy hair was very untidy and there were bits of twig and leaf in it, but otherwise she seemed to be quite unscathed. “Madam Pomfrey says she’s just in shock,” whispered Hermione. “Sulking, more like,” said Ginny. “Yeah, she shows signs of life if you do this,” said Ron, and with his tongue he made soft clip-clopping noises. Umbridge sat bolt upright, looking wildly around. “Anything wrong, Professor?” called Madam Pomfrey, poking her head around her office door. “No... no...” said Umbridge, sinking back into her pillows, “no, I must have been dreaming...” Hermione and Ginny muffled their laughter in the bedclothes.

but i think its actual intention is for us to take ginny's reading of the situation as the correct one.

the series likes to punish its bad characters for their bad deeds with a punishment connected to their defining flaw. lockhart - the epitome of grasping narcissism - is felled when he believes that he'll be able to perfectly cast a memory charm, too convinced of his own brilliance to notice that ron's wand is broken and the spell will backfire. fudge - a coward who's obsessed with his own public image - is forced from office when his year-long burying his head in the sand is revealed and the public turn on him. marietta edgecombe - a traitor, and a character jkr is on the record as loathing - is punished for wanting to remove the risk of negative attention falling on her and her family by having her crimes, quite literally, written on her face.

bellatrix is taken out by her arrogance, wormtail is taken out by his moral insubstantiality, and - of course - voldemort is taken out by his attempts to outrun both love and death.

what the series hates about umbridge is that she is the encapsulation of bureaucratic bigotry - she's someone who is obsessed with maintaining control and order by subjecting everything in her life to elaborate rules, she values the rigidity of social convention, and she is completely intolerant of anything which contradicts this rule-system. her ruthless discrimination against "half-breeds" is because she wants to confine things she fears or doesn't understand into rigid boxes - she doesn't want to risk discovering that a colleague she likes is a werewolf, because that would undermine the belief system she upholds, and so she removes that threat to herself by passing legislation which prevents werewolves from working alongside her.

her punishment for these crimes - in the series' world-view - must therefore directly relate to her prejudices, and - specifically - to her prejudices being wrong. it wouldn't do for her to be raped by creatures she considers subhuman, because this would justify her belief that centaurs [and werewolves, mermaids, goblins etc.] are savage beasts who will violate wizarding norms at every opportunity, and who, therefore, need to be subjected to violent wizarding control.

it makes more sense to suppose that she is subjected to something she would find it impossible to deny was "civilised" - i imagine, for example, that centaurs have their own legal system, and that she is dragged off to stand before the assembled community and have something which she can meaningfully recognise as a trial - and that her shock and disorientation is because her conviction that she'd be brutally attacked by a group she considers incapable of restraining or governing themselves did not turn out to be true.

and she is also, i think, supposed to be read as affected by the fact that dumbledore - whose authority she has been trying to eradicate from the school - is the person who rescues her, and who achieves through his commitment to [ostensibly] respecting centaur autonomy far more authority over them than the ministry does.

her humiliation, then, comes - in the text's eyes - from the fact that her hypocrisy has been utterly exposed. and so ginny is right to say that she's "sulking" as a way of trying to save face.

[pyjamaart]

Firewall!

(A warning before we start with this essay: This got really really long. So sorry about that. I also wrote this before watching a lot of the later episodes again, so if I get any facts wrong, assume I realize and correct my mistakes over the course of this monstrous dissertation on Mega Man Fully Charged. I also included some more pictures down there! Have fun reading! Also TW for implied self harm, but it's really mild this time.)

Hey everyone, welcome back to the next episode of "Mega Man essays with Jenny"! Oh hey, would you look at that, the essay even comes with a little picture attached to it. ;)

This time, the title of this piece was also inspired by a song. I recently discovered the band TWRP. Their newest album, "Digital Nightmare" is a must-listen for all robot enjoyers such as myself. It's really really good. "Firewall" is a song that immediately made me think of Fireman and Waveman. Fireman building up a wall and not letting anyone get close, only for Waveman to come by and break it apart with a wrecking ball of love? Truly beautiful.

With that out of the way... I'm glad I finally get to talk about these two, since I didn't get the opportunity to write something about them on my last few posts. I gotta say that some of my headcanons for them kinda build onto the stuff from my first few posts, so if you haven't read them yet... Now's your chance to do that.

Time to analyze some episodes!

Let's start at the very beginning with episode 1 and 2, most people's first exposure to the series and also Firemans debut:

Fireman used to work as a welder, but lost that job after he caused some property damage at the construction site. He also almost pushed his HR guy off the roof, but only after he insulted him, telling him he should be a fry cook if he can't do his job properly. So after facing workplace discrimination and getting fired (pun not intended) because he retaliated in a pretty bad way, Fireman joined Lord Obsidian, who for sure offered him some way to get revenge on all the ignorant humans who only see him and all the other robots as tools to use.

Headcanon time! I honestly don't think Fireman caused the damage on purpose, I actually imagine him to be quite diligent, hardworking and reliable. The perfect worker one could say, if it weren't for his terrible anger issues. He probably had a particularly bad day back then. The HR guy insulting the abilities he had honed over years of honest work was probably the last straw for him.

Another headcanon is that he's so massively pissed off every time we see him because Lord Obsidian just keeps stoking the flames, by which I mean, he's just continuously insulting him while keeping him in check with his giant mech suit. Fireman just can't catch a break. And because he's so stressed out and irritated all the time, he let's that anger out on innocent (puny) humans. But as you probably know, he gets better later on in the show.

After watching that first episode again, Fireman also seems to care a lot about his personal space, as he angrily yells at Aki to get off after he climbs on his back to get a hold of his schematics easier. While on top of his tank, he also tells Fireman that he's got a lot of issues and to see someone about that. I mean, we knew that already. He also tells him to take up yoga or something.

On to episode 2. And oh man, Sgt. Night really told Fireman to wreak havoc in the city so that he can spread his anti-robot propaganda among the panicking townsfolk, with a speech that sounds as if he practiced it in front of a mirror the night before. At that point in time, the viewer doesn't even know who Lord Obsidian is, neither do they know that he and Sgt. Night are the same person. Night is probably riling Fireman up on purpose, since he already knows about his fiery temper, hoping that one or two injured humans may be enough to throw the town into disharmony again, or even better, start another war between humans and robots.

After shenanigans ensue and Aki, his family and Sgt. Edgelord vanish down a manhole cover, Fireman visibly struggles to get it open with his torch arms. A problem he has in common with Drillman, who's also missing his hands. But I've already talked enough about Drillman and his personal problems on my other post. Maybe he and Fireman bonded a little over their shared plight, even though the red bot doesn't let it affect him as much as Drillman. For Waveman, my personal headcanon is that he actually has at least one retractable hand, as in, he can replace his blaster or his harpoon with a hand at any time, just like Mega Man can with his arm cannon. There is a reason for that, which I'll explain when we get to episode 12.

Skipping forward a bit, at the very end of the episode, when the Lights and all the school kids (human and robot alike) surround Sgt. Night to protect him from Firemans wrath and show him the power of love and friendship, we find out that Firemans main goal was to burn that big robot racist to a crisp. All the other humans would have just been collateral damage, lol.

Now here start the questions. It's been a while since I've watched these two episodes. So color me surprised when in the last few seconds, as Fireman is carefully tiptoeing into Lord Obsidians office, his personality completely flipped from when he was fighting Mega Man in the city, Sgt. Night just sits there in the chair with his whole human mug out. I thought the bots didn't know he was a human???? Wasn't that the whole point of the season finale??????? Well, he was sitting in complete darkness, so I don't know. I'll need to investigate this further...

Pausing that line of thought for a second, let's continue with episode 5, otherwise known as Wavemans debut episode.

Compared to Fireman, Waveman has his very own bundle of problems to deal with. As we come to know over the course of the episode, the guy has some extreme attachment issues. And also an extreme fixation on cleanliness. In a desperate search for his only friend, he's giving the city a nice makeover along the way. Even if that makeover includes flooding a dozen basements and costing the city millions in infrastructure damage. Compared to the other robot masters we've seen this far, Wavemans powers are by far the most powerful and destructive. If his powers weren't so dependent on his current emotional state, Lord Obsidian would have a terrifying bot on his side. (I'll come back to that thought later) Sadly for him, this is Waveman we're talking about. The same guy who got beaten up and thrown into jail by a literal dog.

Speaking of animals, Waveman seems to have a huge soft spot for them, immediately stopping his hostile behavior towards Mega Man when he spots Rush next to him. This is also the point where we get to know that "his only friend" that he's been trying to find for the entire episode is a literal alligator he found in the sewers.

At the very end of the episode, when Waveman is already behind bars in the police cruiser, he and the viewer actually catch one last glimpse at Alligator (that's the name he decided to give it.), who's randomly wearing a top hat, monocle and holding a walking cane. It shakes its head at Waveman disappointingly and then jumps back down into the sewers it came from. I'm gonna be ignoring its sudden fancy getup.

Knowing Waveman, the true story of his alligator friend was probably a little different from the one he told Aki. I firmly believe that he found the little guy injured and/or starving and nursed it back to health. So far, so good. Any normal person would have released an animal like this back into the wild, or at least given it into the care of a wildlife rescue organization. But not Waveman. He must have been really, and I mean REALLY lonely if he came to the conclusion that he should keep an alligator as a pet to combat that loneliness. The alligator probably "got lost" on purpose, as I can imagine that Waveman must have been pretty overbearing regarding his only friend. That poor little bot. If he just had someone to give all his affection to...

And with that we're back to Fireman, who graces us with his presence once again just one episode later, in the sixth one. In the first few seconds, he already drops a bombshell on Aki (and us), as he reveals that he's actually seeing a robot therapist to work on his anger problems. Good for him. He also really took Akis advice to heart and started doing yoga as well. Fireman might be the only robot in this series who's actively trying to work on his problems.

The things he says in this episode are a little worrying though: Opposite to Sgt. Nights anti robot propaganda, Fireman is constantly trash-talking humans in this episode, trying and failing to convince Aki to join the "right side". The phrases he uses sound to me as if they were made up by Lord Obsidian and Fireman is just repeating them mindlessly.

And with that, we've finally reached episode 12, the long awaited Fireman/Waveman special. As you may know, Waveman and Fireman are the only robot masters who had the privilege of sharing an episode (If we forget about the finale and the few one hit wonder scenes later on for a minute), which may be one of the reasons a lot of people ship them in the first place. I am one of them, lol. I mean, the episode is literally titled "Opposites Attract", like come on.

From the moment they first interact, it's not looking good for us Fire/Wave truthers, since they can't exchange a single word without insulting each other or shooting each other in the face with their blasters. I have a suspicion that their animosity is mostly fueled by their current terrible living and working conditions. They both know that in the case their assigned mission fails, their asses are toast. Episode 2 already established that Fireman is scared of Lord Obsidian. And if the biggest, baddest bot out of the bunch gets all skittish whenever he's in the presence of his employer/benefactor (Was it ever established if they get paid for this? Or if they get anything else in return except maybe a shitty warehouse to stay in?), it's not looking good for the rest of these robots. Most of all Waveman, who's already emotionally unstable to begin with.

This episode is set up in a way that Fireman and Waveman act as a sort of foil to Aki and Suna, who are also having a fight about their differing opinions at the same time. After the two siblings split up and try to deal with the problem at hand on their own, the scene shifts back to the two bots, with Waveman actually trying to bury the hatchet, calling Fireman "friend" and helping him calm down a little by getting him to do breathing exercises with him. Fireman appreciates this gesture, but immediately gets stressed again because Waveman isn't tuning his machine fast enough for his liking.

Speaking of this machine... It has a very similar color scheme and pattern to the water bot, so it's probably safe to assume that Waveman is the one responsible for building it. That's why I think he actually has retractable hands. How else could he have built this giant, highly complex machine? How does he even know how to construct things like this?? One more fact to add to the "Waveman is secretly really capable" list. Or he just stole the thing from his old job. I dunno.

One skipped Rush scene later, Suna is beginning to clog the pipe the two robots used to drain the lake with junk she found lying around, agitating Waveman, who then says (And I quote): "Hey! She's- she's touching my machine! Oh, I hate it when people touch my machine... E- except for you, new friend." He says that last part while looking back at Fireman with a goofy expression on his face. It's so damn cute. He's just so happy to finally have a friend that isn't a wild animal! (Well...) The feeling doesn't seem to be mutual quite yet, as Fireman is still sporting the same sour expression he had before.

Now this next thing was just thanks to my impeccable hearing. The first time I watched Fully Charged, I did so in my living room, lying around on the couch while my TV was on the other side of the room. The actual line Waveman says after they get interrupted by Mega Man is "We got this, Fireface!", which, yeah, makes a lot more sense than the thing I heard. I kid you not, I really thought I heard him say "We got this, Firebabe!". I was actually flabbergasted, scrambled for the remote and had to rewind the video. Kinda disappointed that he didn't really call Fireman his "babe", but whatever. Moving on.

Fireman isn't exactly happy about being called "Fireface", but Waveman just tells him that friends normally give nicknames to each other. He really could have picked a better one, though. Like... you know... Firebabe? No, I guess that would have just made him even angrier.

This scene also makes me think that Waveman is just a tiny bit overenthusiastic about making a new friend, trying to force Fireman out of his grumpy shell a little too fast for the red bots liking. (This will also come back later when I get into heavy headcanon territory.)

The next scene, where Waveman slides down the pump cable like freaking Shadow the Hedgehog and then flips around in the air like a star athlete, only to stick a perfect landing directly in front of the clogged pump is another piece of evidence to me that Waveman is just all in all a really badass, capable bot. If his emotions allow him to be, that is.

When he and Fireman reunite at the bottom of the drained lake, still trying to find Suna, Fireman returns the favor and also gives Waveman a nickname, though his one seems to be a little mean spirited, as he's slowly losing his patience with the water bot. Waveman is completely oblivious to Firemans cold attitude, calling him "chief" and complimenting his leadership skills. Even Suna is grossed out by Wavemans continuous (bad) attempts at flirting, which results in her saying the truly amazing line "Eugh, it's an evil robot love fest over there." Seeing Waveman try so hard to be Firemans friend is actually a little sad to watch, even more if you factor in the knowledge we uncovered in his debut episode. But lucky for him, Fireman is actually warming up to all the compliments, saying that he never imagined himself as a leader.

And now for the most homophobic moment in Mega Man history: As Suna and Aki finally make up, they hatch the ultimate plan to stop the two bots from completing their evil scheme: breaking up their newly blossomed friendship by riling them up against each other! Truly, truly evil of them. Tactically speaking it's a good plan, but ruining all that character growth that happened in the past two minutes just to stop this weeks evil scheme? Genuinely diabolical. As the two robots fight over who of them is in charge, Aki actually finds out for the first time that there is a "boss" controlling all these wayward robots.

Aaaaaalso huge lore drop: I didn't remember this fact from my first watch-through, but Fireman actually seems to be the guy who got Waveman on Lord Obsidians team of robot outcasts in the first place, i.e. breaking him out of prison for causing millions in property damages. He's reeeeaaaally holding that fact over Wavemans head in this scene. Their little fight gets broken up by Suna starting the pump once again, sucking both of them in and spitting them out over the skyscrapers and into the cloudy sky, where you can still hear Fireman cursing even after they've flown out of sight.

Post episode / headcanon time: While the two of them may spend most of the episode arguing due to their different personalities (and after the siblings tricked them into fighting again after they had actually began to tolerate each other), I firmly believe that since the episode ends on the note that people can still get along great even if they have very differing opinions and worldviews, they eventually get over their disagreement and make up. Maybe even start talking outside of their very important Obsidian-assigned missions. Maybe even become real, true friends.

But before we can even think of that happening, the two of them are still free falling over the city. Now the writers probably thought this Team-Rocket-esque takeoff was a fun little bit to end the episode on and most people wouldn't even think about what happens to them afterwards, since this is a god damn children's cartoon we're talking about and falls from great heights aren't taken very serious in this show in general, but I'm weird and I love overthinking stuff, so I thought of an aftermath to that scenario:

Metal is pretty heavy. So if a 1000 kilo robot like Fireman hits the concrete from 30 meters in the air, that's not gonna end well. He'd probably be reduced to a million tiny pieces. That's why I'm gonna throw them a bone and say that they crash-land in the forest, where their fall at least gets absorbed a little by the branches of the trees.

While they're getting launched through the air, Fireman is still cursing up a storm, thinking that this is gonna be the end of him. Waveman on the other hand spontaneously decides that he would rather die than let his new friend get hurt, so he grabs onto Fireman and just hopes for the best. They do thankfully land in a tree, so they at least don't get blasted to bits. Waveman breaks most of their fall, getting skewered by twigs on the way down and then crushed by the red bots bulky frame, but other than that, they're both okay.

As soon as he recovers from this near-death experience and once he realizes what just happened, the first thing Fireman does is angrily yell at the other robot next to him on the ground, but not out of anger, but out of genuine concern. What does he think he's doing? Why would he use his lanky little body to shield him from the fall? Is he insane???

Waveman meanwhile is just glad that they both got out of that situation kinda unharmed. He also immediately starts crying, but only because he's so touched at Firemans concern over him.

In the end, Fireman has to carry both himself and the other bot back to Lord Obsidian's shack for wayward robots, where they're probably gonna get an additional asskicking for failing their mission so spectacularly.

Headcanon scenario over. Let's carry on then...

Okay, now the next Waveman episode is number 21, but before that, we need to make a very important pit stop at episode 16, since it basically unravels half of my headcanons. So. It turns out the robot masters DO know that Lord Obsidian is a human. Then why are they following him??? Why are they surprised when it turns out that he wasn't just pretending to be a turbo robo-racist? They're all so freaking scared of him, Jesus Christ! In episode 19, Fireman is visibly shaking after Sgt. Night premieres his giant mech suit. Why are they following him? I know for a fact that Sgt. Night threatened Blastowoman into joining his side, but what about the others?

I mean, most of the robots Lord Obsidian recruited have no other place to go. Chemistryman lost his teaching job and was probably facing homelessness, same as Drillman, who was probably disowned by his father after trying to take revenge on Skyraisers Inc. Fireman was deemed unhirable after almost killing his HR guy, Waveman is literally a wanted criminal after flooding half the city and so on and so on. The only exception is probably Cutman, who just likes being evil for the lulz. (I'm joking)

So is this like one of these cults that you can't get out of once they have you in their hands? And even when you try to leave or show signs of disloyalty, you get endlessly harassed or even killed? (We'll come back to that last thought after we reach episode 43.) Okay, maybe I'm just interpreting way too much into this children's show once again. Now let's get into episode 21.

This is for the most part a Rush episode. The pooch gets some awesome new upgrades after almost getting turned into kibble by Lord Obsidian, so Aki and Suna spend the whole episode building a robot from scratch to help Rush overcome his fears. While they are hard at work, Waveman is just casually trying to flood the financial district. Kinda based of him. (His puns while he's being shown on TV are also fantastic. Aquaman could learn a thing or two from him.)

Aki and Suna ignore Rushs pleads for attention, so the brave little dog decides to go battle the aquatic robot master on his own.

While Rush is busy saving a kitty and some civilians falling off of roofs, Waveman is once again spinning and flipping around in the air and swinging around the houses with his harpoon like freaking Spiderman. God, he can be so awesome when he wants to be. After getting his ass bitten by Rush, he almost immediately gets distracted again because he just can't resist the doggo's adorableness, due to his already established weakness to cute animals. Or all animals, I guess. Alligators aren't exactly what I'd call cute...

He regains his senses and starts fighting back after Rush gets out his laser eyes, however. Unfortunately for Waveman, afterwards, he just gets thrown around like a rag doll for the rest of the episode. By a dog. And to add salt to the injury, after Rush flies him over into the waiting hands of the good guild, the police bots hang him upside down by the feet and pose with him like he's a particularly big fish they caught on a fishing trip. There's even a reporter taking pictures for the newspaper. Ouch.

This probably means Fireman had to break him out of prison again after this episode ends, but that shouldn't be a problem, since the good guild bots are hilariously bad at their jobs.

I imagine Lord Obsidian wasn't very pleased that one of his robots got himself beaten up so badly by Mega Mans pet dog on live television, so Fireman actually had to plead with his boss to keep his friend on the team at all. For all Sgt. Night cared, Waveman could have spent the rest of his life in prison. Thank god he's got Fireman on his side now. Anyway, carrying on...

In between this and the next Fireman episode (34), nothing really happens related to them, so I'm just gonna skip forward to one of my personal favorites of the show, "Fire Man in the Hole":

This episode takes place on and in a freaking active volcano, that's apparently right next to the city. Aki, Suna and Ashley are filming a documentary for a school project, but accidentally drop their camera down the title-giving hole. It lands right next to Fireman, who's powering up his fire powers with a machine created by Lord Obsidian, with the goal of heating up his flames to a high enough temperature to melt right through Dr. Lights doors. This is accomplished by somehow converting the lava into energy that turns Firemans flames blue and therefore much more dangerous.

The big bad boss warns Fireman not to go too far with the machine, as using it too much could cause the volcano to erupt. Somehow. You can tell he doesn't have any faith in Fireman, as he yells at him not to mess up again. You can visibly see the robots face dropping at the particularly emphasized "again".

After Aki jumps down into the volcano to search for their camera, Fireman can be seen using his newfound power completely recklessly, even disregarding his bosses orders. This is the first time in the series where he just openly disobeys Sgt. Night, possibly foreshadowing that he's had enough of being pushed around by the human. He repeats "And nobody can stop me!" three times in a row (the first two times Sgt. Night even hears him say it), before Mega Man comes around and does try to stop him. But not because he cares about his evil plan or anything like that, he simply wants the camera back to impress Ashley and Fireman happens to stand right next to it. The robot sees this as the perfect opportunity to try out his powered up blasters, so he gleefully moves the camera out of the way and tells Aki to fight him for it.

During their fight, you can clearly see that Fireman has gone mad with power, not even sparing one thought to the warning Sgt. Night gave him about the volcano erupting. He fires at Mega Man in reckless abandon, who desperately tries to plead with him and get him to calm down, but without avail. This destabilizes the walls around them even more, causing the lava to rise and stones to fall from the ceiling. A particularly big one eventually traps Aki, causing him to be unable to move, making Fireman celebrate his apparent victory.

He was completely on board with the idea of just leaving this poor robot child to boil alive in the erupting volcano, only stopping in his tracks after he realizes that there's no way for him to get out as well. After lamenting that no one told him this could happen (seriously?), Aki chimes in as well, saying that they were too busy fighting each other to notice the rising lava.

Fireman doesn't take this comment from Aki very well, yelling at him that he was doing totally fine until he showed up, basically blaming the kid for all the failures he suffered under Lord Obsidians command. The stress from the situation makes him break into an entire monologue, venting to Aki that all he wants is to make his boss proud for once in his life, yet all he does is fail him again and again. There's a scene at the end of his little montage of failures where he tries to cook something for Sgt. Night and all the robots on his team, but ends up burning the whole thing to a crisp right in front of their eyes. Thank god he didn't really end up becoming a fry cook. Because he would suck at that job too. (Too far, Jenny. Too far.)

The voice acting during this moment is impeccable, by the way. You can just hear Firemans frustration and anger at his own continuous failures come to a (literal) boiling point in this scene. After he finishes his tirade, he just let's himself down on the ground next to Aki, seemingly left with no hope and willing to spend his last moments with his greatest adversary, getting swallowed by the rising lava.

Our protagonist hasn't given up however. He tries to appeal to Fireman one last time, telling him that if they work together, they could still try to stop the volcano from erupting and save the city. After some convincing, the red bot eventually agrees to this, blasting away the rocks that were pinning Aki to the ground and helping him up.

As they're blasting the cave wall in a desperate attempt to redirect the flow of the lava, Fireman starts doubting himself again, saying that they're never gonna be able to do this before they get their feet melted off. The little blue bot is determined, though. He encourages Fireman and tells him to believe in himself, which eventually leads to them successfully breaking through the wall, saving not only themselves, but also the whole city.

Fireman visibly relaxes after this, even laughing and giving Aki a fist (blaster?) bump, glad that he finally did something right. Mega Man even praises him, saying that his boss might not be proud of him, but he sure is. You can tell that Fireman is completely taken aback by this, clearly not used to being complimented (Let's just disregard Waveman for a minute, who absolutely showers him with compliments every opportunity he gets), but he greatly appreciates this regardless, even if he doesn't show it. He kicks the camera they've been fighting over back to Aki and then leaves as quickly as he can, before any of them have to acknowledge what just happened between them.

This encounter probably planted a seed inside of Firemans processor. Why should he settle for someone like Obsidian, who doesn't appreciate a single thing he does? Who terrorizes him every single day of his life? Maybe, just maybe... The good side isn't so bad after all?

And with that lovely thought in our heads we finally get to Fireman's last canonical appearance, episode 43.

We start out in Dr. Lights lab, where he and Mega Man discuss the identity of the mysterious bot who's been bothering them for basically the entire season. Dr. Light brings up second chances and asks Mega Man to consider giving the little edgy guy another try to become a good bot. Even though he has only ever shown hostility to everyone he's ever interacted with. Oh well. But as Dr. Light goes on about second chances, the scene switches to the dark warehouse Sgt. Night and his bots call their home and Fireman storms inside the command center angrily.

If we compare this scene to some others from the first few episodes, you can immediately tell that Firemans entire attitude towards his boss has shifted completely. Instead of cowering away and keeping his voice low, in this scene he's just openly berating him, complaining that he and the other bots still don't know what his plan entails and that they're still just standing around talking to each other instead of actually doing something to take over the city.

Sgt. Night doesn't let these harsh words phase him, instead linking their stagnant efforts to Firemans incompetence. To say he doesn't take that well would be an understatement. But now, instead of just accepting this mistreatment and swallowing his pride, Fireman actually gets so mad that he charges at Sgt. Night, intending to attack him. He only gets stopped by his bosses (child) body guard, who loudly proclaims that Fireman will have to go through him first.

The fiery bot takes that as a challenge and announces his willingness to duel the other robot. Sgt. Night suddenly turns around, having just thought that a battle right in the middle of his office would make for good entertainment. And since he's grown tired of Firemans disobedience anyway, he probably thinks this is a good way to test out his child's fighting capabilities on someone other than Mega Man.

Before Namagem can even begin to shit-talk him, Fireman already hits him over the head with one of his blasters, officially starting their fight. The animation during this fight and in this episode in general are really freaking good. Man of Action living up to their name, finally.

After Sgt. Night lets out a cartoonishly evil laugh, Fireman and Namagem continue exchanging blows and insults, until one particularly heavy punch by the smaller bot sends Fireman flying up into the busy streets of the city, seemingly coming out of a manhole? This implies that Sgt. Night and his bots just live down in the sewers?? This is even worse than a shitty warehouse!

This also puts the conversation between Fireman and Waveman at the end of episode 12 into a completely different light: Fireman was mocking him for the fact that he used to clean sewers before they recruited him... While currently living in the sewers himself? Not that much of a moral high ground, my man...

Anyway, now that their little kerfuffle has reached the city and the townspeople are panicking, Mega Man decides to investigate. Unsurprisingly, the fighting bots don't want to be interrupted and shoot at him, even momentarily pausing their fight for this. The shot where they both fire their blasters at Mega Man also made me realize something: I called Namagem the "smaller bot" before, since I assumed he was just as tall as Aki (Y'know, cause they're twins and all that. Oops, Spoiler.), but it turns out he's actually the same size as Fireman, if not half a foot taller! (I have no idea how much that is in centimeters. Okay I looked it up and it's like 15. That's a pretty big difference.) But since he's cheating with his "battle armor" I'm still gonna call him the smaller bot.

After continuing their battle through various parts of the city, including an art museum and Dr. Lights garden, where yet another gardener gets traumatized by the destruction of a prized bonsai tree, they eventually end up in the forest, where their fight finally reaches its climax.

Aki and Mini discuss the possibility of winning Fireman over for the good guys, since he helped them back in the volcano, but are interrupted in their planning by Namagem just absolutely wiping the floor with the fire bot, causing Aki to jump to his rescue and punch his dark counterpart in the chest.

Apparently, Namagem inherited some of his "fathers" more cruel traits, like standing above Fireman and holding his blaster straight to his face, very slowly powering it up, watching with delight as his victim awaits his final moments. Well, until Aki comes in.

The blue bomber quickly explains that he's only helping Fireman to save the city. After the other bot takes a second to recover from yet another near-death experience, he also tells Aki that he's only "letting him" save him because he hates the other guy more than him. These are good enough reasons for them to work together for a while.

And wouldn't you know, it's like they're naturals working with each other, because only a few moments later, they're absolutely tag-teaming Namagem, hitting him with fire blasts from every possible angle. Sadly, this strategy only works for a short while before Namagem brings out his own fire powers, throwing them into the air in the process. After they land back on the ground, there's even more shots coming straight for Mega Man, but Fireman actually gets in front of him to shield him from the attack, completely unprompted.

After that adorable display of camaraderie, they get right back to the battle and actually manage to overheat Namagems blaster, which gives them the opportunity to trap their enemy in a fiery vortex. A little goofy and over the top, but who cares. I'm not gonna spend any time talking about this episodes reveal related to Akis brother, since this is an essay about Fireman and Waveman and not him. And these episode summaries already take up a lot of time and space. Man. I really hope there isn't a word limit for tumblr posts.

Before Fireman can return the earlier favor and blast a hole into the defeated bots head, Mega Man obviously stops him, saying something along the lines of "Don't let anger make you a monster like him! Give him the second chance you want yourself to have!" This combined with the downed robots gasping breaths, suddenly sounding much more like a young boy than the scary guard dog of his boss, makes Fireman slowly lowers his blaster, eventually powering it off completely.

Mega Man is visibly relieved, flashing Fireman a genuine smile. But then... Before the episode can end on this happy note and officially kick-start the fire bots redemption, Namagem musters the last bit of his strength, shooting Fireman straight into his exposed back, instantly punishing his decision to show a little bit of vulnerability. He collapses into Akis arms, who can't help but scream in terror. After laying him on the ground and realizing that Namagem escaped while he wasn't paying attention, he softly reassures Fireman, telling him that Dr. Light will fix him up "in no time". Mega Man also tells him that he's finally free of his "master". All the red bot has left in him before he passes out is to groan in pain and mutter a defeated sounding "Uh huh."

Standing over his companions still body, Mega Man suddenly develops a taste for revenge, saying that he'll take Namagem down by any means necessary.

And this, ladies and gentleman, is the last thing we ever see of Fireman. For all the rest of the season cares, he might as well be dead. If you were one of the people who thought that he would heroically save the Light family out of a tough situation in the finale (like me), you might have been a little disappointed. "He'll fix you up in no time" my ass. But the one good thing about this is that it leaves me with much more room for headcanons.

So what happens after this episode? Fireman gets taken in by Dr. Light for repairs and Namagem returns to Sgt. Night with the news that the traitorous bot has been taken care of. (He leaves out the part where he got his ass kicked.) There's just one little problem with this: What do they tell the other robots? If they tell them that they had to get rid of Fireman for becoming a little too disobedient, I don't think that'll go over well. Especially when it comes to one bot in particular...

So to avoid Waveman going absolute sicko mode on them, they come up with a different story. They call the robot masters together for a meeting, where they tell them with a (not so) heavy heart that Fireman sadly perished in a fight against Mega Man, who showed no mercy in executing him.

Waveman is utterly devastated. Just as he finally found a true friend in this world, he gets taken away again. Why does the universe want him to be alone so bad?

The other bots take the news equally as bad. Fireman may have been a short-fused, grumpy hothead, but he was the robot that's been at Sgt. Nights side the longest of them all, someone dependable they could ask for advice when they needed it. And that Mega Man supposedly offlined him? Was his usual friendliness all just an act to hide his true nature as Dr. Lights killing machine?

But before Sgt. Night can actually celebrate the fact that the robots really believe his made up story, he has to ban Waveman from the base, as he slowly begins to flood everything with his tears.

As Sgt. Night has come to realize over the short time of working with Waveman, his emotions are usually very fickle, so he hopes that he'll come back to his senses in the next few hours. But the hours eventually turn into days. He's not gonna stop crying, isn't he?

Waveman gets so comically depressed after Firemans apparent "death" that he floods entire stretches of land with his tears, with no signs of stopping. It's only after Sgt. Night has to get out his row boat that he sends the other bots to try and cheer him up. Pictured here: The grouchy evil mastermind a second before kicking Drillman into the water.

Please disregard the random gray warehouse to the side, as I drew this exactly one day before finding out Sgt. Night and his gang live in the sewers. (It also felt so freaking wrong drawing Elecman without his ever-present shit eating grin. Feels kinda out of character.)

Anyway, in between episode 43 and the finale there are just a few more episodes, but we can basically skip them all because Fireman bit the dust and Waveman is too busy being taken over by an all-consuming sadness over losing his only friend yet again. He does appear shortly for one episode, but he doesn't say a single word and just gets absolutely blasted by Mega Man. Sgt. Night was probably hoping for him and the other robots to try and take revenge on his blue adversary, but since Fireman isn't there to shield them from all of his abuse anymore, maybe they're starting to doubt his plans and the story he told them about the fire bots passing?

(Side note before we talk about the finale: I know I said this was an essay about Fireman and Waveman, but I just rewatched "This Is Not A Drill", which comes two episodes after Firemans demise and it's sooo much worse than I remembered. At the end, Drillman Senior literally says "I never should have had kids!", which is just. Yeah. A great thing to say to your depressed child, who's probably at the lowest point in his life and stuck in a criminal organization whose boss is taking advantage of him and his insecurities. The "moral" this episode ends on just makes me so unreasonably angry. But you already knew that. Anyway, tangent over.)

I'm not gonna talk about the finale that thoroughly because this essay is already way longer than I ever imagined it would be. Sorry, this got really out of hand for some reason.

So Lord Obsidian brought the entire gang to Dr. Lights doorstep, where they do everything in their power to blast down his doors to get to the Mega key. But before they can even make it past the first glass door, they get a taste of the Light families awesome teamwork. I can't imagine Lord Obsidian wasted much time on maintenance for his robot army, so at this point, half of them are already battered and falling apart thanks to their repeated defeats at the hands of Mega Man. This would also explain how three people and their dog can successfully fend off an entire brigade of armed battle robots.

Waveman barely gets any moment to show off his hidden battle prowess, instead getting used more as the comic relief in this tense battle sequence. The one time he aims his hook straight for Akis head, it gets snatched away by Rush and he's thrown around in the air yet again.

As the battle continues and Aki ends up facing off against Lord Obsidian and Namagem alone, the remaining Lights wipe the floor with the robot masters in the meantime, tying them all up into a nice package for the good guild. After that comes the massive lore dump at the end:

One very important fact that gets revealed here (except for the brother thing) is that Daini was stolen away "shortly before the hard age ended". So that means, I was completely off with my 30 years. I know that they were originally built to be used as weapons in the war, but were given a second chance by Dr. Light wiping their minds clean. Which is.... uh... kinda fucked. Dr. Light out here just casually building child soldiers. But nevermind that, I guess the hard age wasn't that long ago after all. So instead of 30 years, it was more like 15 years? That's my new estimate, at least. I'm going off the fact that Aki and Suna are still in middle school.

This doesn't affect my existing headcanons as badly as I thought at first. One final side note before I get back to Fireman and Waveman: As I headcanonend on one of my last posts, Woodman and Drillman Senior actually used to be friends before the wooden bot went MIA. This 15 year shift means that Woodman actually got the chance to meet Drillman Junior as a child. That's actually kinda sweet. (Which reminds me of something, do all the robot masters have actual names like Cutman and Chemistryman? If Drillman were to have one, his parents probably called him something stupid like Drilliam. Lol.)

Anyway, now back to the post finale headcanons: After spending a moment to cope with all the stuff that happened with Sgt. Night and Daini, the Lights make their way to the good guild to tell the robot masters the truth about their boss and set them on the path to rehabilitation.

Surprising them, Waveman just straight up refuses to listen, still thinking that Aki killed his beloved Fireman. The two kids are kinda shocked at this revelation, since they thought the two robots despised each other after the stunt they pulled at the lake. Clearly not. Aki also finally makes sense of the fact that Waveman definitely tried to kill him with his harpoon in that last battle on purpose. A little concerning.

But the misunderstanding soon gets resolved, as Dr. Light had the foresight to bring Fireman along with them, who was understandably pissed off that they didn't get him out of stasis before the showdown with Sgt. Night occurred. But it all happened so fast, what can you do?

The second Waveman catches sight of the fire bot, he immediately breaks down the force field of the cell that's holding him, shocking not only the Lights, but also the good guild bots who were standing close by. (Seems like it's not the first time he's broken himself out of jail...) Before the police bots can do anything to stop him, Waveman is already jumping into Firemans arms, who barely has any time to react, but catches him regardless. It doesn't take two seconds before Waveman is already bawling his eyes out yet again, though this time out of relief that his friend is okay.

Fireman is a little bit overwhelmed with the situation, feeling guilty that his reckless battle against Daini and his subsequent disappearance apparently left his friend so horribly depressed.

Speaking of horribly depressed: Aki and his family finally get to tell the other robots the truth about Lord Obsidians plans while Fireman and Waveman are busy with their reunion. The robots are clearly disgusted with the things Sgt. Night had planned for them once he got his hands on the Mega key, questioning why they were even helping such a monster in the first place. To help speed their rehabilitation along, Dr. Light puts in a few good words for them, since he and the good guild work together quite closely. While he, Aki and Suna are busy getting the rest of the robot masters out of their cells (and patching up Drillmans arms...), Waveman has finally shed enough tears and calms down again. Kinda. He's so glad to finally have Fireman back that he accidentally blurts out a love confession.

Huh.

Fireman is at a loss for words. Needless to say, he's also glad to finally be reunited with his friend again, but isn't he moving a little too fast? Before he can think about it too long, he tells Waveman that he feels the same way.

I imagine this is going to become a common theme over the course of their newfound relationship. Waveman being way too overenthusiastic about the stuff they do, taking everything way too fast for Fireman to comfortably keep up with. If they don't talk about this, this could potentially lead to problems.

But they will make this work. I believe in them.

And that's where I'm gonna stop with the headcanons. I have plenty more, possibly enough to fill another one of these essays, but man, I have a full time job. I really wish I could just write about funny robots all day... But alas, the students want their books.

Before I sign off, I wanted to share this sketch from 2 years ago with you:

Please don't think about the horrible alligator-eel monstrosity that's gorging itself on Firemans arm. Drawing animals is hard, okay? This stupid little sketch was long abandoned, but the idea served as a sort of inspiration for the final image.

And that is all I wanted to say. Man, discovering layer modes in Gimp has really upped my art game. See you on the next one when we continue our quest to draw every single robot master in the classic series. (Next up are Tornadoman and Windman!) And maybe at a later point, when I draw the last of my favorite robot masters from Fully Charged that I haven't talked about yet: Airman. I have a fun idea for an image involving him and Blastowoman.

Jenny out.

[neomale-tboy]

in my opinion, Fumble/Morven Loh fumbled their/her talk of trans men. to preface: i don't know anything about Fumble aside from it's in the uk.

the reason for the article, the title of the article, and a majority of the first paragraph begins by saying that as queer gender and sexuality takes more of a forefront in the social zeitgeist, trans men are scarcely talked about and she wants to talk about it.

my first problem comes from the last sentence of the first paragraph and the second paragraph. i've seen people talking about transandrophobia say that they're tired of having to disclaim that they don't hate or mean to detract from trans women's struggles. i especially don't like that this disclaimer comes from a cis woman trying to discuss trans men's erasure.

in that same paragraph, she links to another article she wrote. a fine article for what it is (a cis person talking about transphobia). but she cites it as a source in a paragraph about how trans women face worse transphobia as a result of hypervisibility...in an article about trans men's erasure. and the linked article highlights trans women's role within the terf movement and the bathroom debate, making it relevant to the paragraph about trans women in the trans men's article. the bathroom debate, i can get. all i've seen of that is people getting mad at trans women for wanting to use the correct bathroom. i just wish loh talked more about how terfs treat trans people as a whole in thr terf section instead of dedicating it to trans women. this is an article linked in a post about trans men's erasure.

loh then states that she's seen or heard of trans men's erasure in both the queer and mainstream society before saying trans men are men, giving a short paragraph about how the patriarchy makes being trans in general complicated.

she, a cis woman, the gives a paragraph about how fucking easy it is for trans men to pass. how it "just" takes a few years on testosterone and strangers percieve you as a cis man now. she says men are neutral/the default, so people won't question a trans man (who's been on t for a few year)'s gender. then the cis woman adds that trans women are in a constant battle to be seen as women regardless of transition stage...in an article about trans men's erasure.

loh then backtracks, "of course it isn't that easy"...for trans men pre- and 'during' transition, we get confused for butch lesbians and teenage boys. "this is both tedious and painful because many people don't even consider that trans men exist." once more, the cis woman diminishes trans men's issues. our passing is only barely a problem to her because it's just "tedious and painful". she doesn't consider that, similar to the violence she mentions that trans women experience in the article about trans men's erasure, trans men will also recieve repercussions for being trans. to her, it seems, trans men simply have to tell people we're men, and everything is rainbows and trans flags.

she starts off the next section, titled male privilege, by saying that trans men transitioning for the gain of male privilege is a "massive misconception". she asserts that trans men are men who simply happened to be born with female associated genitalia. best thing i think she says: "male privilege works against trans men, not for them...".

in the next paragraph she says "trans men are men" again while advocating that trans men can be of any orientation, not necessarily straight. this is fine, really. she says that we can have attraction to cis gay men, whereas i'd've preferred to hear it the other way around: that cis gay men can be attracted to us. cis validation gives more validity to trans gay men's position as gay men unfortunately. this is an article on trans men's erasure, one in which she acknowledged that that erasure extends to queer communities. but this complaint's a little nit-picky of me.

the article wraps up in a paragraph about general transgender discrimination, where she states that trans people face the highest suicide and homicide rates. considering this is an article about trans men's erasure where she say that trans women face the most discrimination and abuse, i think she really should've highlighted where trans men are the most targeted. because as i've seen in discussions of transandrophobia, there are plently of spots to highlight. she didn't need to give numbers, seen as she didn't for anyone else, but she should've conceptualized our discrimination as more than getting mistaken for a butch lesbian or a teenage boy.

finally, loh gives a list of tips on how to be a trans ally, the first of which being to educate one's self on trans issues, something i view as tone deaf due to my opinion stated in the paragraph above.

in an article precidated on the question "why people arent talking more about trans men?", loh fails to answer her own question. she says that trans men are men, and that cis people/society is accepting of this and our presentations. she never talks about how transphobia affects trans men. hell, she barely, if at all, talks about trans men's erasure! she just reports on what she, a cis woman, thinks trans men are.

i think it's irresponsible how cis people get to speak about trans people like this. how they read up a little on trans issues, and then decide they're qualified to write such an objectively shitty article where once more we are erased and put on the back burner. at the beginning of the article, loh says that times are "(hopefully)" changing. i just don't think she and a lot of other cis people are yet qualified to speak on this change as it affects trans people, especially when it comes to the erasure that they, as cis people, perpetuate.

idk how to tie this off neatly. hope you enjoyed my little analysis i spent over an hour on.

[stuffeddeer]

haii deer i hope you are able to get all your assignments done on time! was reading your tags and aro dazai?? big brain.

so how about aro ace darling? never been in a relationship and never really want to, their friends are more than enough for them !! honestly i just wanna be aro buddies with dazai 🥹

but damn just being weirdo coworkers together, im,,, willing to look past many red flags for him 💔

YOURE JUST LIKE ME FR dazai and i are best friends and we are aro you can ask him yourself also weirdo coworkers.. you get it

"Oh, wait, so you were the latest person hired?" Atsushi's head cocked to the side, looking at you with curiosity. "How long have you been here?"

"My dear here has been with the agency for three months! You know, I was the one that brought them on board," Dazai gloated, a smug smirk on his face and a dramatic hand over his heart.

You were quick to play along, throwing a dramatic hand over your forehead as you leaned back. "Oh, my hero! What would I do without my lovely Dazai?" The sarcastic lilt in your tone didn't go unnoticed by the newest agency member, but he decided not to comment on it.

"Was it like what happened with me? Did you find Dazai drowning?" Apparently a common occurrence, Atsushi had pieced together.

Dazai denied, a smile on his face as he replied with a simple, "Nope!" A few moments of silence passed before the junior realized he wasn't going to elaborate.

Just as he opened his mouth to ask for more information, you decided to take pity on the poor soul and fill him in. "I bailed him out of a holding cell."

No one bat an eye. Atsushi looked around the office, trying to see if maybe someone was holding back laughter, but not a single one of his new coworkers were phased. Did they not hear what you said?

"He got detained for public disturbance in the middle of a case. I told Dazai he'd have to find a way to get out on his own, and he shows back up not even thirty minutes later with them in tow," Kunikida explains, frustration evident in his voice. "I was trying to teach him a lesson."

"I was in the area," you shrug.

"Yeah, being detained as well..."

"I was being released from detainment, actually!" You correct Kunikida, a proud grin on your face. "And Dazai said I should follow him, so I did."

Atsushi laughed awkwardly. He knew you seemed similar to Dazai in your hedonistic pursuits, but this was baffling. "And the president hired you?"

"I had an entrance exam, but pretty much! I had just been fired from my old job the day before so Dazai helped me get set up here. And before you ask: I was fired because I told the boss' kid I wouldn't date him. He got all upset and told daddy to can me," you huff in frustration, still annoyed at your wrongful termination.

Kunikida rolled his eyes. "Don't act like some martyr; You also deserved to be fired. You just messed around on the job like you do here. You barely got any work done."

"You want me so badly it makes you look stupid—"

"I told them to sue and say it's discrimination because they're aro," Dazai cut you off, a pout on his lips like he's annoyed you didn't take his advice.

"What's... arrow?" Atsushi cocked his head to the side. He was unaware of the terminology, having never come across it in this context during his studies at the orphanage.

"Oh, it's shorthand for aromantic. It just means, like, experiencing little to no romantic attraction to anyone. It varies, of course..." You try to explain simply.

Atsushi nods, understanding the basic idea. "But it'd be wrong to lie about your sexuality, right?"

"I'm aro, actually," you shrug. Everyone at the agency is well aware, so Atsushi will likely find out eventually.

"Oh!" The younger employee's cheeks turn pink, feeling a little sheepish for assuming. A moment passes as Atsushi thinks before furrowing his eyebrows in confusion. "I thought you and Dazai..?"

"We're both aromantic," Dazai rests his chin on his hand, elbow on his desk and an amused smirk pulling at his lips. "I've dated a lot in the past, but I realized it's just not for me."

"I've never been in a relationship and never want to," you add in yourself. "Aromanticism is... much more complex than how I explained it. Dazai feels romantic attraction, but doesn't— Is it fine if I tell him this?" You suddenly ask, realizing it really isn't your place to speak on his experience, even as his best friend.

"Oh, I don't care. Saves me the trouble," Dazai waves his hand dismissively. "But yeah, I feel romantic attraction, but lose it when it's reciprocated."

Atsushi nods slowly, beginning to understand. "Oh, okay. So you two are just close friends, then."

"Are we just not going to ask what you were doing in a holding cell when Dazai got thrown in?" Tanizaki asks from his desk.

"I just got too silly, you know how it is."

[soraviie]

you don't trust androids.txt

━ type: BTS (hyung line) x f! reader

━ about: android! au, heavy angst, slight fluff, nothing majorly fun 

━ pictures taken from Pinterest  ━ navigation

━ c/w: implied smut, mentions of suicide attempt, mention of near-death experience, mention of losing a limb, a portrayal of poor mental health, undercurrent of dystopian themes, mention of losing bodily autonomy, mention of hating one’s body, mention of depression and anxiety, discrimination against androids

━ wanted to keep this one in the drafts but here it is T-T

NAMJOON: “There’s a ç in Jean Lurçat,” he points out helpfully. His programming suggests it is friendly but the way your teeth grind suggests otherwise. Perhaps…cavities? Humans were prone to them and Namjoon was no medical unit to know any better, he was after all an informational unit. But you don’t seem to be appreciative of that either. 

“Have I done something wrong?” he asks. 

“Contrary what your chip states, being an obnoxious know-it-all is not helpful!” you snap, red rimmed eyes meeting his. “I mean, who do you think you are?”

He blinks. You’ve met dozens of times already, surely you knew who he was. 

“My name is Namjoon,” he points at the tag on his chest. “I am an informational android unit. Here to help.”

“Well, you’re not! Not by nitpicking every single sentence I write!” you hissed and despite it not being expected, he experienced an operational error. If a sudden simulated pang of sadness could be called that. 

He rarely gets to talk to anyone in the museum and over the course of these weeks with you coming in and out of the building, he’d assumed, naively, that he’d made a friend for the first time in his life. Or existence rather, he corrects. Androids were not alive hence they could have no, well, life. 

“I apologize,” he bows curtly and leaves, shoulders slumped. You watch after him feeling like the grandest asshole in the world. 

“That’s because you are,” you chide yourself before slamming the multi-kilogram art book closed shut. 

A week passes and despite it not being a part of his programming, Namjoon is sulking. You’re nowhere to be seen. Maybe you avoided him due to it being awkward. Or maybe you just flat out hated him. The operational error occurs again - it makes his stomach feel like a gaping hole in spite of him knowing it was full of wires and memory cards. Perhaps he should be checked for bugs. 

“Excuse me,” a thin voice appears behind him and he finds you shifting from one foot to another, a gift in hand. 

“Hello!” he greets you pleasantly, face contorting in a dimpled smile before recalling last week and lets it deflate quite fast. 

“Are you in need of assistance?”

“No, I came here to say “thank you” and apologize. It was rude of me to insult you. I’m just…” you exhaled, shivering faintly to yourself with nerves. “I moved here only recently and I’m not used to androids. Not that it is any excuse for my behaviour. It was cruel, I apologize.”

“Accepted,” Namjoon graciously nods along, the weird bug in his stomach evaporating into thin air. He glances down at the anxiously clutched gift bag. 

“Is that from your family? Was your thesis accepted?”

You glimpse at it almost self-consciously. 

“It did. You caught onto all the mistakes so there were no objections from the superiors hence…thank you. You were not being an irritating know it all but…helpful,” you offer him a small smile and he encounters a different sort of bug, this one gnaws on his chest. “It’s for you.”

Astounded, he gently accepts the bag and peers inside. No one has ever given him anything. Inside there sits a folded shirt. The quality of the cloth is to his liking and on the tag he spots the name of the company specializing in android wear. It must have cost a small fortune. 

“I thought at first to give you a book but you probably already know everything and then I remembered you wear the same clothes every day but I didn’t know which colour-”

“It is perfect,” Namjoon interrupts, his wires suggesting that the limit of his smile has reached the maximum capacity. “Thank you, ________.”

You squirm but then frown. 

“Why is your face so red?”

“Uh…an operational error,” he lies. trying to appear sincere. “Will I be seeing you here?” 

“Would you like to?” demurely,  you question and he eagerly nods. 

“Very much.”

YOONGI: “So at which point you thought to inform me?!” you shrieked though it came out more like a hysteric squeak. But who wouldn’t be upset when their boyfriend, previously assumed as human, factory reset himself whilst being balls deep into your guts. 

“Baby, I can explain,” he begins, cautiously inching himself across the bed but you throw yourself against the headboard, clutching the sheets to your chest. Not that there was anything left to hide anymore.

“You better!” you yelled. “You knew from the very first meeting! I don’t trust androids!”

He licks his lips guiltily. He looks human. Acts like one too yet even so you can’t help but feel like an utter dimwit for being fooled like this.

“I know, I know,” he mutters guiltily, running long fingers through the orange hair. He said he dyed it. Bud did he? Did it matter? What else did he lie about?

“And I’m sorry for that! I meant to tell you. I did! But you wouldn’t have me if you knew early on and I liked you so much. I…love you so much.”

His gaze lands to sit dead onto your eyes, a feat for Yoongi indeed and despite expecting to see some blue lights, cogs and wires stretched beneath the artificial material there’s nothing but the familiar brown staring back.

“No fair,” you grumble. “Busting out the L-word.”

He chuckles fondly - a sound you adore even after this mindfuck.

“Can’t risk you running away from me.”

Gingerly, he touches your knee and you flinch.

“It may be a synthetic skin but it’s real,” he whispers moving to softly cup your cheek. “I’m the same Yoongi you’ve always known.”

Unwillingly, your body relaxes as he does his magic, fingers grazing through your hair in a monotone, calming motion. His ultra-effective weapon to having you be soft.

“But how can you…feel?” incredulous yet truthful, you ponder out loud. “You run on…programming…?”

“I’ve been a free android for twenty years,” he insists. “All my "programming” has rusted so much it’s running independent like a human brain would. No exterior orders.“

"So what was that?” you abruptly plank attempting to demonstrate his sudden seizure. “What was that all about?”

“Oh,” he laughs timidly, the gummy smile on show and ears flushing pink. You wonder if there’s wiring there as well but then simply let the matter rest. “I realized I love you, want to spend my life together with you and I…I freaked.”

“Good or a bad freakout?”

He leans in to peck your lips.

“Good,” he mutters in between kisses. “Very, very good.”

JIN: “Want to hear a joke about pizza?”

“No.”

“Good, it’s too cheesy.”

You could physically feel your eyes roll 360 degrees around your skull. The recovery and betterment android unit, J-I-N-100, levels you down with a thoroughly displeased scowl.

“Why aren’t you laughing?” he frowns. “I specifically requested it.”

“Fault in the program,” you slighted, moving to adjust the IV drip.

“Ah! A derogatory reference to my existence. How very original.”

His face and tone is neutral, for all intents and purposes he could have just recounted the level of precipitation outside. That’s what’s wrong with them, you think to yourself, how quickly they can go back to being robotic. And frankly, it’s not all androids you can’t stand to be around, it’s this specific unit that’s been making your life a miserable hell, even further than it was.

Losing a limb, a leg, in this case, was hard. It still continues to be hard. The bitterness that seeps from the court decision - the overruling of a criminal penalty for the drunk driver who’d mowed you over was a bottomless well. On top of that, churning away at a hospital, trying to regain the simple ability to walk using a prosthetic leg made you claw at the walls frequently enough and then this thing came.

The jokes you could tolerate, barely but still, but you couldn’t, couldn’t handle to watch him get his palm crushed one day and then without a care in the world church it away, grab a new one like a brochure at a religious congregation, given away like candy, and stuck it onto himself. No recovery period, no shock, no trauma. Brush it off, move on. How could you not hate him when he joked to you all day long as you fell out of bed or fell walking due to the simple fact that you were human.

Pain was the basis of all life and he felt none. To be in the presence of something that was not alive yet acted as though it was…unnerving. Deeply unnerving yet humanity had already moved past being the only humanoids, moved past the notion of disgust for artificial intelligence, leaving you to choke alone on the bouts of spontaneous rage.

All you heard whenever he opened his mouth was “tiny, pathetic human, wriggling around like a worm”.

“You bent your leg the wrong way,” he points out and your head twitches upwards, removing the crayon-coloured painting of yours from your vision. It’s now brimming with his face, one he said is of course mechanically engineered as it was perfect. He was perfect. A thing he often remarked on.

“What?”

“Your leg,” he repeats slowly as though talking to a child. “It’s made of a similar structure as my legs, if you bend the knee in that position, it’ll wear out the joint wiring.”

You hadn’t even thought about that. This leg…this leg doesn’t belong to you. It’s like him. An alien object lodged onto you. A parasite.

“Here, lemme fix that,” he reaches and on the brink of hurling, you kick yourself away, falling onto the floor. Android unit J-I-N appears almost startled.

“Don’t touch me! Do not touch me! Get out!”

“I can’t!” he objects weakly. “I’m your personal betterment unit if you reject me, I’ll be -”

“I DON’T CARE! GET OUT!”

For an android, purposefully wired being not meant to experience fear, he looks terrified. And that expression haunts you.

Waking up in the midst of a deep night is nothing new. Doctors said the traumatic event of nearly dying and then losing a limb will give you hours upon hours of unslept nights. Walking was still difficult, especially in the dark of the hospital where everything was quiet and creepy. Usually, J-I-N-100 would help you, asked or not, guide you to the bathroom, or fetch you a glass of water but after kicking him out he hadn’t shown for the entirety of the day.

You wander the halls blindly and then the knee jerks on its own and you find yourself on the floor.

“Fucking shit.”

Trying to push yourself off the linoleum, you faintly hear a peculiar noise. A strangled noise of crying. At first, you dismiss it. It was a hospital people cried day and night, every hour of the week but the sound is so terrified, so broken you couldn’t bear to continue the asshole routine.

Following it, you stumble upon the escape stairs, grey and empty and in the middle of them sits unit J-I-N-100. Crying. An android crying. A sight you never assumed was possible.

“Uh…are you okay?” you dumbly ask.

He hides his face away, shoulders shaking before a venomous hiss flies your way.

“Why do you care? I’m a machine.”

You stand awkwardly.

“If this is about what I said, just ask for them to transfer you to a different patient-”

He abruptly laughs loudly and dryly, a laugh of no amusement.

“You don’t understand do you, human? There are no transfers for androids. If we don’t satisfy our patient, there are no do-overs! I’ll be sent to the HQ and be,” his voice drops into a hush. “Be disassembled.”

For an android that was death. You didn’t like him but for him to die due to your displeasure was tyrannical.

“I’m sorry,” you gasp. “I-I didn’t know.”

“You don’t know anything,” he accuses heatedly and you couldn’t blame him.

“No, I don’t.”

There’s a beat of stilted silence.

“You hate that leg of yours because it’s like me. It’s strange. An alien organism. You hate for having these parts but they are not mine. Every part of me belongs to someone else. My eyes, my ears, my legs have been replaced thousand times over. This body is not my own and yet I’m forced to reside in it. Do you have any idea what that feels like?”

Abruptly, all his magnanimous tirades about having the most perfect body make sense in another kind of way. He must have been trying to convince himself of liking it when the truth couldn’t be any further away. Your words now feel sickening and a surge of want, to protect, to shield this android, makes you almost dizzy.

But he doesn’t care for it. Not anymore.

“Please, leave,” he asks. The sound of his voice is broken, worn to its absolute limit. “If I’m around you it is my programming to smile and I don’t want to smile anymore.”

You oblige and close the door to the staircase quietly behind yourself.

To be home again was to experience bliss. Your small, overcluttered apartment had never appeared like the gate of heaven itself. The smell, even the crowded look into the smog-ridden city below is pure ecstasy. Putting the crotches down you sink into the sofa, nearly crying at the comfort of unity. But then that grading, awful sound interrupts your ecstasy. A fucking neighbour. Grabbing the crutch, you’re already prepared to beat these annoying motherfucking neighbours into the next planet only to find J-I-N standing on the other side.

His expression is murderous.

“Why did you do that?”

Timidly, you shift in the doorway.

“I was trying to help.”

“You lied!” he cries out. “You chased down the board members of the android unit assignment, harassed them for hours and then lied to their faces that I’m the most adequate, most perfect unit in the facility!”

“Did it work?”

He calms down, hands coming to stand still by his thighs.

“It did. No unit has ever reached such a score.”

You nod.

“But you hated me…” he breathes, even without any visible cogs, you can see how the logic of your action is not computing in his brain. “You literally hated me all this time.”

“I don’t wish you death. I would never want that!” frustrated you trying to run a hand through your hair only to remember it is supposed to hold a crotch now. “It’s just my fragile human psyche. I’m sorry for it and I’m sorry you have to go through everything. It’s horrible.”

He seems to be beaten into a state of stupor only to shrug.

“It…It is what it is.”

“It shouldn’t have to be.”

For a while, there is only the muted sound of either of you trying to make some sort of conversation.

“Because of what you did, they’re reassigning me. Private health field, I’m a home care unit now.”

“That’s…great,” you weakly surmise. You don’t actually know if it’s great or not. There’s a lot you don’t know. Maybe it was high time to fix that.

“Wait does this mean you’ll be reassembled?!”

“No,” J-I-N shakes his head. “No, reassembling or disassembling. Home care units change very little. Just a little update and I’ll be sparkly new.”

“Perfected the perfection,” you try to joke and he chuckles weakly almost sounding surprised that someone might amuse him and not the other way around.

“Do you…” he shakes with nerves and you grow ever more astounded. He was so alive. A very peculiar android, one who couldn’t give it credit for his programming. Whatever happened that made J-I-N, he was different. Perhaps he made himself different.

“Do you need a home care android? Your recovery period is almost a year.”

“They sent me a catalogue but I haven’t gone through it yet,” you throw your head at the inside of your apartment.

“May…I apply for the job?”

You blink at his demureness.

“But I’m awful.”

“You were,” he agrees. “But you’ve got an update and besides I’m in need of employment.”

“I…” you think it over. In spite of not getting along, you still had grown at least accustomed to him. And J-I-N was far more gracious than you would have been in his situation.

“I’m okay with that. Are you?”

“Yeah,” he squeezes a small smile. “You’re not the worst human on the planet anymore.”

“Thanks,” you snort.

“Also fair warning, this update will contain nearly 68GB of various puns and jokes for the sake of breaking the ice with the patient.”

You feel a part of yourself shrivel and die with that information, still, you force out a polite -

“Looking forward to it.”

HOSEOK: “But…but what am I supposed to do with him?!” as quietly as possible, you hiss into the phone where a woman sighs at your incessant questions.

“He is a mental health android unit, treat him like an app or something.”

“He’s not an app!” you argue with some heat. “He is an android! A being! One you sent to my home without my consent.”

“Well, you shouldn’t have tried to slit your wrists open at a workplace,” she snides and drops the phone, leaving you open-mouthed at the sheer audacity before slamming the phone down into the kitchen counter.

“Your levels of adrenaline and anger are out of the norm. Should I help you to relax?” the android’s voice pops up unexpected right beside you and you scream.

The last thing you wanted after being discharged from a mental institute is to be observed. Like a zoo animal. What will it do if one does this? What will it do if one pokes it in this spot?

“No, please, it is not necessary,” you trail off, fear gripping you whole. This thing will live you. For three months, there will be a stranger, designed to hover over you like a Damocles sword. You couldn’t even feel safe in your own home when it was anxiety in the first place that wore you down so much you wanted to escape it in any way you could.

The mental health unit leans its head to the side. He looks very human, it must be the absolute prime model and somehow it’s even more disturbing. It’s a humanoid that was not human and that knowledge activates some primal terror gifted by your ancestors. You’re choking on your tongue.

“I’ll just use the bathroom,” you force out and make a run for it.

It takes hours for you to exit, shaking on the tile floor was time-consuming and finding the android unit freely moving through your space doesn’t put you at any ease.

“What are you doing?” you rasp.

He turns around, beaming wide and you shudder.

“Making dinner,” he replies cheerfully. “Your file suggested it will be one of my duties.”

In his hands, there sits a cup. It’s your favourite cup. It wasn’t passed from generations, it wasn’t a gift and it wasn’t really that expensive. It had a chip in the side and you bought it essentially from a flea market but it still is your favourite cup. One he has usurped like your peace in your own home.

“Please, don’t..don’t touch my stuff.”

The smile falls from his face and noticing your intent, scared gaze at the cup he places it down.

“But I…I have to make you dinner.”

“You don’t. I’ll do it on my own.”

He blinks, struggling to understand. It goes against his programming, while the emotional core of his does state he should instantaneously assume greater distance. He was creating unease, something he was not engineered to do and the two clashing commands were rapidly wearing down his operational core.

“I can…run you a bath. Baths are beneficiary for human beings.”

The thought of undressing in front of him, of being that vulnerable, nearly makes you gag.

“No, please, just do nothing.”

“If I do nothing, my dispatchers will think you don’t want me.”

“I don’t want you. I’m scared of you.”

His mouth despite it being an impossibility runs dry.

“You’re scared of me?” he echoes weakly.

“You’re a stranger invited into my house without my consent. Of course, I’m scared of you!”

“Right,” he buffers. “I-I…I’ll log myself off in the hallway. Will that make you feel better?”

It’s probably cruel, nevertheless, you nod. You couldn’t be around anyone and despite the opinion of general denizens, androids did count as someone.

Shoulders slumped, he dragged himself away before plopping to sit by the door and proceeding not to move. It was creepy.

At night, you hear him moving around and shivering underneath the blanket from the rampaging onslaught of paranoia, you could not relax for a single second.

Weeks pass and the mental health unit keeps an intrepid vigil to keep out of your way. You don’t even know where he is at times as he occupies no room and makes no noise but at times you almost forget he is there. He still performs some menial tasks when you’re away either being tested or taking a prescribed walk and exercise class. Your floors are too clean and when you fail to make food for yourself it magically appears, though you note that they’re not served in your dishes and neither your pots nor pans were ever used again.

Coming home late one night, you step over the threshold and find it empty and dark, abandoned almost but on the counter there sits a cupcake with a simple note attached.

“I’m very proud of you, ______________.”

Heat rushes to your eyes and your throat tightens. You can’t even recall when was the last time anyone said they’re proud of you.

“Umm…mental health android?” you call out. He didn’t even have a name you realize. He wore no badge and there was nothing in his introductory form. “Mental health android?”

No response. Perhaps, he left. You gave him no order, maybe it somehow messed with his programming so bad he left. You rifle through the apartment high and low, in the end, finding him crouched in the broom closet. It’s an awfully minuscule space, not suitable for anyone, be it an android, human or a cat but it is the only space in the entirety of your home, you did not look into. Just how long had he slept here for your convenience.

You lean down and shake him but he does not wake.

“Sir? Sir?” you shake him harder but you might as well be handling a ragdoll. “Sir? Please, wake up.”

At that, his eyes pop open and you screech from the abruptness of the motion, falling on your backside. He rushes to help you up but pulls his hand away at the last second, conflictedly squirming in the place.

“Are you okay? Are you in distress?” he questions nervously and you gather yourself off the floor.

“No, I’m just…” you sigh. “You shouldn’t sleep in the broom closet. It’s too small.”

“It was the only hiding place. I would not scare you there. You would not see me.”

Something in the innocent explanation, so purely kind-hearted, mellows your own.

“Please, use the living room.”

He nods stiffly.

“Also uhm…” unwillingly, tears pool in your eyes. “Thank you for the cupcake. Did you…make it?”

He shakes his head sadly and solemnly.

“You did not give me permission to use your things, so I bought it.”

“With what money?” as far as you knew androids couldn’t pride themselves on the biggest income.

“I work odd jobs at times,” he shyly confesses. “If I earn enough money, I can apply for citizenship and become a self-sustained android.”

“You used that money to…” you choke. “To buy me a cupcake.”

“To buy you all food and the flowers by your bedside table.”

He shrugs it off with such ease like it’s not by far one of the kindest things you’ve seen a humanoid do.

“Oh, no, don’t cry!”

Too late you’re absolute sobbing your heart out. About everything. When you were little you thought it will be such a dream. It wasn’t. It wasn’t a dream at all.

He once again reaches to hug you, probably due to his programming but holds himself back, to be respectful, however, you hug him first, not caring anymore that his skin is synthetic and his brain is made of chops. You just need someone to connect with. Any connection, any at all would be bliss and this android has shown you unbridled kindness no humans in your life would.

When you’ve cried out half the hurt, not all but a decent chunk, a steaming cup of chamomile tea, served in your favourite mug sits in front of you as the rain taps against the window. It’s easier to breathe. The android sits unsure at the edge of the sofa, uncertain what his next action should be.

“Do you have a name?” you ask, twiddling with the edge of the blanket.

“I’m a mental health care android unit 9876Q36x/3.”

“Right. Have you considered choosing a name?”

If he wanted to be a self-governed android, the idea of freedom must be constant in his mind.

“I did,” he slowly says as though it’s a secret. “Hoseok.”

“It’s a lovely name.”

He offers a gentle smile and you feel for once a bit better.

“Thank you, _______________. I like your name as well.”

 © soraviii/soraviie 2022-2023

[damiemontclair]

Yk, saying (aro)aces don't belong in queer communities because "its not a romantic/sexual attraction bc its the lack of romantic/sexual attraction" is like saying "agenders don't belong in queer spaces bc its not a gender its the lack of gender". But nobody with any sense is ever gonna say that last one bc it sound patently stupid so why can't yall understand that the first "argument" is stupid too?

Saying "(aro)aces only belong if they're not also cishet" is similarly ridiculous btw. Are you excluding het agenders too? Then again the way some of yall behave about bi's really says it all.

If an aroace person want to be part of queer spaces that should be up to them. If they don't, then they don't. But the ones who want to be shouldn't be excluded, especially not with arguments that are just absolute bs.

Also just as an fyi, aro and ace people also face discrimination. Just because you personally don't see or feel it doesn't mean its not there. Not wanting relationships or sex gets you treated as dysfunctional by society. Many of us don't even realise being aro or ace or both is an option at first because our society is all about relationships. Its everywhere. Even in places non-aspec people may not realise.

Btw, conversion therapy & corrective rape is also done on aces. Do with that info what you will.

[mj-theskywitch]

Hi! I am new to the term "transandrophobia" and I've been trying to understand it, do you have any good sources for learning more about it? From what I've gleaned so far it just sounds like "trans men experience a unique kind of bigotry" which makes me insanely confused as to why people I follow and generally agree with are arguing against it so passionately. Am I missing something or is this just another case of terf brain rot leaking into really weird places?

hi! thank you for asking, im happy to try and explain. you're correct, transandrophobia is just a term to describe the unique forms of oppression transmasculine people face. some examples are discrimination when trying to access reproductive care, forced detransitioning by pregnancy, the myriad of ways transmasc poc are treated differently (hi thats me), just to name a few.

to my understanding there's a lot of pushback because people believe anyone that identifies as a man or masculine can't experience bigotry because of being a man, because all men benefit from the patriarchy. i find this to be vastly oversimplified, in fact i would say that the majority of men don't benefit from the patriarchy 100% of the time. ask any men of color, or disabled men, or trans men. there are unique experiences we have that are inextricably linked to maleness, and people don't like to acknowledge that.

i think another part of it, and i might be swinging a bat at a hornets nest with this one, but people perceive women, including trans women, as being the Most Oppressed group, so when transmascs try to talk about our specific struggles (not even saying they're inherently worse, just speaking about them in general) people think we're saying that *we* have it the worst and no one else is as oppressed as us, which is total bullshit. it isn't a contest, no one is claiming one is worse than the other, we just want to be able to talk about our unique struggles that are more specific than general transphobia.

i also think a large part of the issue is that for some reason lots of people believe the transphobia transmascs experience is inherently easier than what transfemmes face, which again is bullshit. there's plenty of statistics about how prevalent violence against us is, it just often flies under the radar because the victims are misgendered posthumously. there's been a recent conversation about how transmascs aren't the main targets of terfs and are basically just collateral which. i don't have the time or energy to fully explain why thats a ridiculous and lowkey actually dangerous belief.

anyways, this ended up being a bit long so i hope i was able to answer your question. @genderkoolaid has a lot of resources in hir transandrophobia tag that can also help!

[many-faced]

Many-Faced's Introduction post

Hello! I'm Many-Faced, but I typically use Tea as a nickname. I'm fine with any nicknames as long as it's clear you're referring to me!

I'm a self-taught artist. I also do animations sometimes! You can occasionally find me participating in Multi Animator Projects or making animation memes and posting them on youtube! Though uh... it's mostly shitposting. Oopsies.

I am Agender!

I use any pronouns :>

This includes neos! Specifically I'm testing the use of ze and xe. Please do keep in mind that I tend towards masculine pronouns over feminine ones, and while I don't mind she/her, I'd prefer they/them, he/him or neos.

Before you interact!

I am a minor!

Please do not bring extremely suggestive or NSFW content anywhere near me or my blog. Not only am I 16, but I am also asexual and get very uncomfortable around those topics.

I sometimes struggle with tone.

Please use tone tags where possible so I don't take a joke as an accusation or whatever! I overthink... way too much. Oopsies..

I do in fact swear a lot

While you'll notice on Youtube I try to stay mostly clean, although I do swear now and then. I do generally swear a lot. Especially on Discord, the swear jar for me and my friends is always overflowing.

I am unhinged and I talk and type faster than I think

If I say something weird or irrational and need to go back and correct myself, yeah that's normal, it happens a lot.

I am Autistic and have ADHD

It's unlikely to cause any problems further that what I've already mentioned, but as mentioned before please please PLEASE tonetags where you can, I don't wanna misread something

Do NOT interact:

If you support any sort of discrimination. Any discriminatory messages will be immediately deleted and you will get no response, I'm not fuelling someone like that.

If you use AI unethically. Unlike many other artists, I am neutral on AI. If it was ethical, I could see the benefits, yes, but it isn't. We're using in a way that harms creatives, replacing them with robots that cannot ever truly make anything new. So if you pedal AI 'art' or think a movie created by all AI would be so 'great', you can leave now.

Cryptobros. Don't pedal me your scam coin, because I'm not buying it.

If you're just here to send hate and start drama. Seriously, if you have a genuine criticism I'm here to listen, but if you're just hating to hate, what are you even doing?

Proshippers. I hope I don't need to explain why some relationships are actually just illegal. Illegal things in general obviously are not welcome here.

Hey look, Cool people!

@darkhatkid - the shadow in the corner of my room that tells me to draw insane shit

@mugzymiik - absolute nutcase, don't trust em ever, e likes kissing shapes and robots/lhj (they have also beta read a few of my fanfics!)

My Fandoms

This list may be rarely up to date... Don't be surprised if I suddenly spawn in with a bunch of art for a fandom not on the list.

Rain World

Warrior Cats

JSAB

Stray

Inscryption

Worldless

My AUs and Stories

The Halfway - An original work made from the ground up by me that asks the question 'if there are multiple realities, what's between them?' Sounds all philosophical, right? Well, kind of, but also I just found it funny to turn vague concepts into insane pseudo-deities and put them through the wringer of existing. A serious story with a comedic streak, hopefully.

JSAB: Reloaded - A JSAB AU. I don't currently have much to say about it since it's under reconstruction. Remind me to rewrite this at some point when I get the story nailed down.

Rain World: False Affirmative - A Rain World AU. Asked the question 'what if Five Pebbles succeeded in making the taboo bypass?' and snowballed into an entire AU with a zombie virus rot and a whole lineup of new slugcats and iterators while also expanding on the canon ones.

Worldless: Polarized - A worldless AU that is sort of on a semi-hiatus.

Other socials!

Want to find me somewhere else? Here's where you can!

Youtube

Other/Notes

Please do not send me random art requests in my askbox!

Moots, dw, ya cool, I won't met mad at you for doing that [don't expect me to actually do it though,, I might,, maybe].

What I don't want is random followers sending me art requests, even if it's of fandom characters from fandoms I'm in. I don't reaally like being asked to do something by someone I don't know well. This has happened a few times and I promise I'm not mad at any of you! Just keep this in mind, please ^^