#call it hope call it a trap

[theclockistickingwrite]

The fact that I can’t write elaborate essays and reblog fan art about my own dnd game is a crime

[stefisdoingthings]

ark aftermath

[spacedace]

Got inspired by the below tiktok and the idea of the Rogues killing the Joker in revenge for Jason instead of Bruce and had to write about it.

Here, have probably way too many words (with more to come most likely, this really won't leave me alone) of the Rogue's feelings about Jason's death at the Joker's hands and everything that followed.

(also I know the timeline is a bit screwy, shhh just go with it, we're going on vibes with this one lol)

-

Childhood was not held universally sacred in the dark streets of Gotham.

The city was hard and cruel and she didn’t care about the ages of those that were ground up and spit out in her oily black heart.

A kid could slit your throat as easy as a man grown in a place like their fine city, maybe easier even for those who still fell for the ideal of children being incapable of anything but innocence and sweetness. Children learned from the world around them though, they learned from the savagery that filled their world, the hard scrabble desperate attempts to survive. They learned what dark corners to avoid, which ones were safer to skitter down.

It didn’t mean there weren’t still some rules of decency to be honored though.

Most folks, even those in the circle of the Rogues, largely left kids out of the equation. Crossfire happened of course, hitting busy city centers always meant some kind of collateral. But there wasn’t much that they got out of purposefully hurting kids outside a black mark on their name in most levels of the grungy underbelly of the city and one hell of a big target on their back. Both from the Bat and those criminals in the dark with them that took offense to those kinds of things. They were crooks, but with few exceptions they weren’t complete monsters.

Robin had always held an interesting place in their grungy little ecosystem. Anything to do with the Bat was generally ruled as gloves-off, do what you do without hesitation. And Robin - both of ‘em - had no problem hitting hard and being ruthless. The first one in particular had a feral sort of rage to him that was a terrifying thing to be on the business end of.

But they were still kids.

Defending yourself from any kid swinging on you was fair game, a person had the right to defend themselves. Grabbing up Robin to hold hostage or bait Gotham’s local cryptid, that was all fine and dandy. You could even get away with roughing the kid up a little here and there, so long as you made sure not to go too far and always kept hits to where the kid’s armor was the thickest. No hard and fast written rules, mind, but general rules of thumbs. Lines indistinct due to the shaky ground a child dancing through the night as a vigilante left all of them on, but ones clear enough that you knew when you were at risk of going too far.

Besides, the Robins were good kids. Fucking feral little shits, of course, able to leave you bleeding just as easy from a kick as they were a sharp word. But good kids. Even most the Rogues in the Gallery liked em. It was hard not to be at least a little fond of a gutsy little punk like that.

Though they were all maybe a tad less nervous around Robin II than they were the original.

Robin I had a lot of anger burning in him, a lot of anger in him, but he was still a cheerful boy with a bright attitude that was refreshing in a world so bleak and dark as the one they all lived in. It was up in the air which was scarier about the kid: The smiled he gave when he was about to give a hands on demonstration about how much force a tiny ten year old could put into a kick when they had half a dozen spins shoved into a flip to wind up to 80 miles an hour, or the flash of his teeth when he was demonstrating the knife sharp brilliance of his belief that Batman was only as frightening as Robin was hopeful.

They weren’t sure if he realized that sometimes they felt a helluva lot more hope at the sight of the Bat when the little bird was putting the hurt on them, or if he’d simply folded that fact neatly into his core philosophy without issue.

Robin II on the other hand had this kind of quiet shyness to him - even as he was shouting the most inventive swears ever heard by human ear at someone while he kicked them in the balls hard enough to make ‘em see not just the face of their own god but a few dozen besides. He was just as unhinged as the Robin before him - seemed to be a requirement for the job really - but there was a distinct different in how the two birds flitted about the darkened skyline of the city. Where the first Robin’s smile was as much danger as it was dazzle, a fanged declaration of victory against the dark, Robin II’s was a sunny, stubborn declaration of perseverance. Kid was sassy and smart, and never - ever - flinched away from extending a hand to those he thought in need of it.

Even if the folks he offered that hand to were in the middle of an attack on some fancy Gala or Wayne Enterprises or whatever target of the week it was. Even knowing the offered hand was likely to be slapped away and followed by a right hook. Kid still always tried.

They all knew why.

The Bat was big on offering chances, on rehabilitation rather than damnation. Some of Robin II being the way he was came from the broody cryptid he followed around. But Batman couldn’t claim to be the sole reason for Robin II being the way he was, couldn’t even pretend to be the cause of most of it. Nah, they knew why the little bird was the way he was.

That unmistakable thick accent. That frame that was always a little too thin even as he got older and stronger. That unshakable, headstrong spirit.

Robin II was an Alley Kid.

A true child of Gotham.

Her polluted waters in his veins. Her smoggy air in his lungs. Her shadows clinging to his edges less like a beast looking to swallow a small bird up and more like a protective mother hiding her hatchling. He understood the world most of them came from. The one they all lived in. Knew it in a way anyone who hadn’t been swallowed up by the dark never really could.

Everyone had their favorite, but even those that claimed the first Robin as theirs couldn’t deny that Robin II was someone to be respected. Nor could they deny a fondness for the chain smoking, classic lit referencing, perpetually baby-faced little shit. They’d all had knock out drag out fights with the kid and knew how fucking unhinged the puny motherfucker could be in a fight, but he always tempered it with offers of resources, of a listening ear, of understanding.

He visited them after they’d been arrested sometimes. In Arkham, or Blackgate or wherever else they’d been locked up in after being stopped by the Dynamic Duo. The little bird would make the rounds whenever he had a broken wing or was stuck waiting as the Bat interrogated someone else or for any other reason he wasn’t out flitting about the city skyline at night. He’d bring cookies or snacks and even cigarettes from his own secret stash on the rare occasion, mask unable to hide the furtive glances around to check for the living shadow that was the disapproving Bat.

The Rogues and their Goons always had a soft spot for the Robins. And Robin II made it especially easy to let fondness bleed out of them from time to time. He was a good kid.

But childhood was not held universally sacred in the dark streets of Gotham.

Bad things happened to good kids all the time.

And some of the monsters that lurked in the city’s darkest shadows took the black mark of a kid killer as a point of pride.

Robin II disappeared one day. Just after that piece of shit Garzonas took the fast way down from the top of a tall building. There were a lot of Rogues with doctoral degrees to their names but even those Goons that dropped out of school before they learned to spell their own names could do that math.

The big bad Bat had benched the boy after the fierce little bird had done what any decent member of the criminal underbelly would have. There were those that thought maybe it’d been an accident, that the kid was pulled off duty because of being too upset at unintentionally crossing the heavy line the Bat drew in the sand. Those voices were drowned out pretty quick though.

Sure, Robin II was all about second chances, of doing better, of redemption. But Garzonas had chances to spare and only ever spat in the face of those offering them. Doubled down on being a monster in a way very, very few of the Rogues Gallery would. The kid was a sweetheart, but he wasn’t no push over and there were some things so heinous that there was only one way of handling them. Crime Alley had its own kind of justice system, and when faced with a monster that was beyond even Batman’s jurisdiction, Robin II did what he always did: fell back on his roots.

Or so the rumors said, at least.

That was the thing about Gotham’s seedy underbelly. It was a grimy, wretched nest of vipers and cut-throats, but it was also worse than any beauty parlor when it came to gossip. No one actually knew anything other than that piece of shit motherfucker took a dive while Robin was chasing him and that he’d not been seen on the streets since. But most had a fondness for the kid, and a distaste for the kind of cruelty Garzonas reveled in and there was no proof that Robin hadn’t gone and done the world a favor by drop kicking that barbaric sack of shit off a roof. So as far as most in the Gallery were concerned, the little bird had stepped up and been a hero.

Time passed. Not a lot. But enough. The Bat disappeared too, popping up on an entire other continent in a way that was awfully tempting. Even with other Masks playing baby sitter while the local cryptid was away. Rogues were scrambling to set plans in motion, Goons getting hired en masse, weapons and weird chemicals getting delivered to shady places across Gotham by the truck-full. The criminal underbelly was abuzz with the same excited energy of children the day before a big birthday party.

And then the news came in.

There were people in the dark who made their living finding things out. Knowing things that no one else did or could. Some even specialized, keeping tabs on Batman and Robin better than anyone else in the business were able. And when the information they found wasn’t anything handy to have tucked into a back pocket or a secret they were paid extremely well to keep? They held on to with the same tenacity a sieve clung to water.

Robin II had run off across the globe and ended up in Ethiopia. Something to do with a doctor doing aid work, the same something that had the Bat end up there was the assumption. Kid ran off to handle things himself or was sent on a separate path on purpose for some plan or other the Bat had cooked up on his hunt.

Whatever the reason, the kid crossed paths with the Clown.

Alone.

Childhood was not held universally sacred in the dark streets of Gotham. The city was hard and cruel and she didn’t care about the ages of those that were ground up and spit out in her oily black heart. But Robin II was hers, the child of her heart, an exception to the rule. And besides, most folks - even those in the Rogues Gallery - largely left the purposeful harm of kids out of the equation.

The Joker wasn’t most folks.

And the little bird was a long way away from the protective shadows of his mother city.

The Rogues and their Goons always had a soft spot for the Robins. And Robin II made it especially easy to let fondness bleed out of them from time to time. He was a good kid.

When the news broke, it broke most of them right along with it.

Plans stalled. Schemes ended. Gotham, for an unnervingly quiet stretch of time that neither its civilians or the world at large understood, went still. Crime continued, of course, but the big names weren’t seen. It was only right, by the standards of those that lived their lives in the dark, that they hold off and give the man that fought them all so relentlessly over the past years the time he needed to focus on hunting down the monster that killed his son. He didn’t need the distraction, and they all owed it to Robin II not to interfere while the Bat at last put a final end to the Clown.

And the hellish cryptid would need his full focus on this one. The Joker wasn’t one to take lightly at the best of times, but he’d set himself up neatly in the middle of a nasty bear trap. Ugly and complicated in the way everything with the Clown was. Interference from the CIA, from the UN, from Superman.

Shit went down. People heard about the Bat and the Clown throwing down in a helicopter plummeting from the sky in one hell of a water landing. Big Blue fished Batman out of the drink before he could drown but there’d been no sign of the Joker.

But the Bat would find him.

They all knew the relentless bastard would find him. It was just a matter of time. With the hellish drive of a demon straight from Gotham’s darkest shadows, the Bat would track the grinning, child killing ghoul down and make right the terrible wrong the evil motherfucker had done. Batman would hunt him to the ends of the earth and enact the justice he held up so fiercely. Robin II would have the vengeance the kid so rightly deserved.

It was just a matter of time. So they waited. And waited.

Days.

Weeks.

Months.

The Clown still lived.

The world, impossibly, began to move on. The Bat returned to his lurking in the night, picking off gangs and petty crooks and no-name gangsters as if nothing had happened at all. More vicious, more savage, but failing to turn that rise in brutality into the killing blow against the one figure that so rightly deserved it.

No one knew what was happening. There were rumors and theories, as there always were in the underground. Some thought that it wasn’t the Bat at all back in Gotham but someone else pretending for awhile, looking after his neglected city while he continued his pursuit of the Joker. Other held that it was the Bat but the whole thing was a ploy to draw the Clown out into the open. A pretense at not caring meant to get under the Clown’s skin, make the asshole mad enough to get stupid and sloppy and reveal himself.

That the man simply had given up was beyond comprehension. Beyond what any upstanding Rogue could accept. So it simply couldn’t be true. There was a trick being played. Some brilliant game of 4D chess that none of them had been able to parse out. It’d be revealed in time, and they see the brilliant trap that had been set. The Clown would be lured out, the Bat would put him down for good, and then they’d all at last raise a glass to the little bird that had been shot down far too soon and smoke shitty cigarettes and quote literary masters and mourn the loss one of Gotham’s own true children.

They just had to play along. Stumbling forward back into their usual habits, pretending that it was a choice and not the world just forcibly dragging them along. It’d make sense, eventually. The Bat had a plan. Robin II wasn’t forgotten, his killer not left free to roam and ravage unpunished for what he’d done.

And then one day there was a new bird flitting across the rooftops.

Chasing the Bat’s looming frame like a reverse shadow. Bright flashes of color in contrast to the bleak darkness of Gotham’s grimy nights. Small and thin and young.

Not the first Robin. With his showman bright grin and bloody rage and unwavering belief in the terrifying power of hope. Not the brilliant, vicious little boy that they’d seen grow over the years into the fierce and fearless Nightwing.

Not Robin II either.

Not Gotham’s soft hearted little bruiser with his unshakable belief that people could be better if given the chance, shinning so bright in the dark as he held out a hand that even the Rogues had no choice but to believe right along with him sometimes. Not the tough little songbird they’d never get to see grow up. Unavenged and unhonored. Put in a box and buried in the ground with a name none of them would ever know carved into a stone they’d never be able to visit.

No.

It was a new Robin.

A new child with the R emblazoned upon his chest.

Sharp and quick and young in the way the birds always were when they started flying at the Bat’s side. Every inch of the boy’s tiny frame a tragedy and an insult. One very, very few of Gotham’s vicious underbelly were willing to tolerate.

Childhood was not held universally sacred in the dark streets of Gotham, but there was a damn big difference between holding something sacred and not giving a damn about it at all. There were rules unspoken but understood, a way things were done. Nothing so solid or concrete as a code of conduct, more a collection of time honored traditions. Blood for blood was among the oldest and truest, and the more precious the person taken the more vital and vicious payment was to be made in kind.

The Clown had killed Robin II.

Beaten the kid half to death and then finished the job with a bomb.

Everyone knew he’d done it laughing all the way.

The Bat should have done the same in kind. Done worse. It was justice, it was what was right. You kill a kid you’re marked forever. You kill one so well liked and kill ‘em like that and you’re destined for a cruel and cold death. The Bat had first dibs. It was his kid. It was his right to put an end to that awful laughter and let his son have peace at last.

But he never did.

Nightwing had. For a bit. For a moment.

Robin I, who half the time had scared them all more than the Bat ever could. Dazzling and dizzying and dangerous. Gave back the pain and hurt the Clown had forced upon him with clenched fists and bone shattering hits. They were glad for him, that he was able to beat the monster who had taken his little brother from him to death, that he was able to have such justice.

And then the Bat stepped in.

Revived the fucking Clown.

A slap in the face. The snapping crack of a spine beneath one straw too many. The final, unforgivable insult the man had dared visit upon not just the child taken from him but the entirety of Gotham.

The Rogues and their Goons always had a soft spot for the Robins. Respected their ferocity, admired their moxie, marveled at their ability to keep shining in the dark like they did. Robin II made it especially easy to let fondness bleed out of the city’s dirty criminal underbelly from time to time.

He was a good kid.

He deserved better.

Better than the silence and peace he should be granted in death to be marred by the mad cackles of his killer still running around alive and unpunished. Better than his father giving up, returning to the same old routine as if nothing had happened at all. Better than the Bat snatching up a new bird less than a year later.

Gotham and her Rogues had given the Bat time enough to do what needed to be done.

It was their turn.

[pillow-boi]

uncharted AU log

[macbethz]

STOP. One who waits. Jonathan Groff is waiting for the doctor. The TARDIS didn’t like him. Which could mean nothing

[starbuck]

a spider knows that an insect has been caught in its web because it feels the vibrations of its struggle to escape, right? i think The Narrative is the same way.

you can glide through a story relatively unnoticed and unscathed UNTIL you try to leave. and then The Narrative turns its terrible, bulging eye towards you. and you’re its favorite person forever.

[many-but-one]

Trauma Informed Biases and TERFs

In light of my ex-best friend being outed as a TERF, I think I want to have a series of discussions. Mainly about the biases that we (community "we") can have and that trauma and biases work hand in hand, and how we cannot allow trauma-informed biases impact our decision making or critical thinking skills, but also a bit about my experiences as a trans man and how being trans yourself doesn't mean you automatically escape transmisogyny. (Spoiler alert: while I'd never say I was transmisogynistic in action, I was in some part biased due to my past traumas, and having a transfemme partner and seeing the way she's treated by others just for existing had to make me rethink everything I understood about what it meant to be a trans woman, which has made me a better person--and I believe a better partner, too.)

First, I'm going to talk a bit about trauma-informed biases. As trauma survivors, we all have them. For example, we were primarily abused by white, Christian men. By all accounts, when we encounter a white, Christian man, we are immediately wary of his intentions. Often without even knowing him or trying to know him, we will already assume he's just like our abusers deep down. While that may sometimes be true, more often than not, a white Christian male who hasn't done much self reflection and growth will mainly just be misogynistic to various degrees and probably not understand the weight of his privilege. That doesn't automatically make him a pedophile who tortures kids like our abusers were.

Branching off from that, and narrowing it down, we get to the meat of the problem, which is men. We have met and known cis men who are by all accounts nothing like our abusers, in fact, the exact opposite. They are sensitive, they are caring, they know their privilege and use it to uplift the voices of their female friends. They are avid supporters of the queer community even if they aren't a part of it. While they are sometimes misguided, they are also always open to learn more and be corrected and change. There are good men out there. However, this doesn't make our bias towards men change. We were hurt by men, we know others who have been hurt by men. People both AFAB and AMAB have been harmed and subjugated by men for centuries, so it's not like it's coming from only our experiences with men.

However, this is where the problem lies. While it's okay to be wary of men for our safety, outright hating ALL men is where it gets dicey. That's where radfem ideology will suck people in, specifically AFAB people. They feel wronged by men, they have been hurt by men, so of course in their mind, men have to pay in some way. Feminism on its own sets to destroy the patriarchy and keep everyone on even ground, whereas radfem ideology often trickles into spaces related to that vengeance aspect of men needing to pay for what they have done in some way. And truly, I can understand. From the bottom of my heart, I can understand. I want the men who hurt me and hurt my friends to pay too. Vengeance (or justice, as many would prefer to call it) is a tantalizing concept, even if only in theory due to how shoddy the justice system is at actually bringing any justice to survivors' lives.

And when an AFAB person enters a radfem space, they will immediately be in danger of developing TERF ideology. This is what happened to the aforementioned friend. Most people will already know who I'm talking about. I think they started in a good place, but the biases that they already held within them were taken advantage of, and they let their trauma-informed biases take root and allow them to follow that TERF path. For the record, they still deny being a TERF, but as everyone has already seen, they most certainly are. TERFs will *rarely* actually self-identify as a TERF, even if they are spouting the most clearly TERF-ridden ideology known to man. The reason for this is because TERF is a "bad word" (rightfully so) and the baby radfems out there who are trying to avoid becoming a TERF are going to start by avoiding anyone who self-identifies as a TERF. Which of course, is not what TERFs want. They want baby radfems to feel welcome and not immediately shun what they teach them, because TERFs do eventually want those anti-TERF baby radfems to eventually become TERFs just like them.

[As a side tangent: I know I sound like I'm calling TERFs predatory in the way I describe their tactics, but I'm going to be completely honest in the way I believe a lot of TERFs utilize cult tactics to find new radfems or radfems who are on the fence between feminism and radical feminism and get them to join their cause. If you examine the BITE model (Behavior, Information, Thought, Emotion)--what is often used to define a cult--it's very clear that TERFs WILL use emotion-based tactics and manipulative tactics to get baby radfems to join their cause, and once their thought processes get changed and they lose their friends who don't jive with those beliefs, they get stuck in the echo chamber. And then they'll get pressured to believe more and more extreme things with the threat of ostracization from the "in-group" for not agreeing. And if someone has already lost all of their friends for joining this in-group in the first place, where else to go but to stay? See what I'm getting at, here? While they may not be as damaging to their own members as some cults, they DO cause a threat to others, namely transfemmes. People in power who share those beliefs make laws that distinctly work to harm transfemmes, e.g. JK Rowling providing massive amounts of funding towards anti-trans legislature.]

So how does this relate to trauma-informed biases? How do we get from disliking or hating men to becoming a TERF? Well, because TERFs utilize bioessentialism as a weapon. They reduce everyone down to the parts that they have (or were observed to have) at birth. While a TERF may not outright say "everyone born with a penis deserves to die" they WILL outright say things like "well, I just think AFAB people ("real women") should be allowed to have spaces that are only for them, you know? They shouldn't be forced to be around women who aren't AFAB" (if they will even acknowledge that trans women are women at all, more often they consider trans women to be men masquerading as women or accuse transfemmes of outright trying to invade women's spaces to hurt them). This is especially apparent in the lesbian side of TERFdom, where they try to use the justification of "not being attracted to penises" to explain that trans women shouldn't be allowed in their spaces. Which, to be completely honest, I do think it's fine to be attracted to certain genitalia and turned off by other people's genitalia, but you also shouldn't let that guide you toward completely excluding trans women from lesbian spaces. You can just choose to not date trans women and call it a day. Is it pretty lame to reduce someone to a set of parts and only date someone based on a set of parts? Yeah, it is, but you're within your rights to date who you want to. You just shouldn't exclude them from the entire space altogether based on your preferences.

For the record, I used to be part of this group of people right here. There was nothing I had against trans women, I was just extremely terrified of the parts they have due to my past traumas, and I didn't want to make a trans woman feel like I was afraid of them for the parts that they have. I didn't want my fear of sexual situations with her to ruin whatever romantic attraction we could have, and I was certain for a long time that this would be true forever.

Until I met my current partner, who is a trans woman.

I'm going to segue into how being a trans man (technically we are genderfluid but we usually present as a trans man to most people) doesn't automatically mean you cannot hold biases against trans women or even be outright transmisogynistic, and that while I do believe trans men have their own slew of issues related to being trans men (such as being perceived as a traitor to your AGAB, or the first time you get clocked as your correct gender but not in the gender affirming way, in the way that the women that you have always held so much community with think you're a cis man and are afraid of you. That's a tough one to come to terms with, personally, and is also why our system tends to lay within the "butch lesbian/faggy trans guy" section of transmasc, so that while we definitely do get clocked more often, it also helps the women we care about so much in our communities know we're not cis. Because no, our goal is not to be to be as cis as cis can be and so our gender ambiguity that we express does us a lot of favors while also opening other doors for trouble, like harassment for appearing as a faggy trans guy or as someone who's clocked as a lesbian) they are a completely different ballgame than what trans women have to deal with on a daily basis just for existing as they do.

Things I've learned about trans women's experiences that I never knew before:

-They may never be able to fully pass and that puts them in danger of harassment or even death for the rest of their lives

-if they come off as too loud or too intense for someone, they will immediately see them as a danger even if the transfemme in question is one of the kindest human beings you've ever had the pleasure of meeting

-if they don't talk in the somewhat-stereotypical "quiet, demure, trans girl" voice or for any reason dress in a more butch or non-hyperfeminine style, they are going to be seen as a threat despite any actions they will have done to prove they are not a threat

-if a trans woman likes to be around kids, some people are going to immediately assume they're a pedophile. This one deeply saddens and disgusts me more than I can even describe

-if they are talkative or ask a lot of questions about something and they come off as a little too pushy or are socially awkward/autistic, people are going to immediately assume they need to be afraid of her despite there being no evidence of that being a conclusion that needs to be jumped to, or they may label her as "creepy"

-if she decides not to opt for sex change surgeries then she's clearly just a man pretending to be a woman, if she opts for sex change surgeries, she's a trap. Same for if she passes well or not. If she passes well, she's a trap, if she doesn't pass well, she's a freak

-people will assume she's always trying to manipulate them in some way, as mentioned above. If she passes well, she's manipulating them and tricked them (usually for sex, but could also happen in a romantic situation). If she tries to disclose that she's trans early on, she might risk out on them leaving her just for being trans and not actually getting to know her as a person

-if she's into sex or hypersexual and comes off strong, at best she might be labeled as pushy or creepy, at worse she may be labeled as a rapist

-additionally, trans women are extremely fetishized, but once she has autonomy and is seen as an actual person and not a fetish object, all of that attraction goes away and she's seen as a trap or gross or whatever other vile concoctions people have come up with to describe trans women in a sexual light.

-many, many more things that I couldn't even begin to list in this post.

All of these affect a trans woman every single day. She's at nearly just as much if not just as much at risk of attack as cis women are. She's much more likely to hear the word tranny in a negative context than a trans guy is. While a trans guy could get called a tranny, sure, they're significantly less likely to be attacked or even killed for being trans. Trans men are often labeled as "confused little girls" which is infantalizing, yes, but trans women are often labeled as creeps, rapists, or manipulative/evil people. Imagine what that does to a person's sense of self? Their self image? Even if she's never done anything remotely that bad, she's going to be labeled that anyway.

And gods forbid she ever does anything that could be seen as kinda "weird" or "bad"--not in the morally reprehensible sense. I mean like she cheated on someone or she does drugs or she says something a little tone deaf ten years ago. Trans women are forced to live life on their tiptoes for fear of being told they are evil monsters. I've seen with my own fucking eyes someone who I thought was an ally to transfemmes (they were dating a transfemme!!!) who immediately demonized another trans girl because she was socially awkward and autistic. Tried to make assumptions that she must be abusive to her partner, tried to claim that because of one interaction with this girl, they already knew that she had antisocial behavior (which I find funny that she says this to us, someone who has significant ASPD traits), which to me alludes that they believe she could be manipulative and hurtful. All because she was a bit awkward in a social gathering! I was appalled and disgusted by this, and it really opened the door beyond what I'd heard from my partner already the types of things that trans girls have to deal with from people that are within their own community that they should be able to trust.

So what does this have to do with not letting our trauma-informed biases rule the way we think about others? I'll keep it as simple as possible with this little flow chart:

Someone (usually AFAB) has trauma with men -> they hate men -> they join the feminism movement -> they veer into radfem spaces because of how vocal radfems are about hating men and they feel they are justified to believe this because of the harm men have caused them personally -> they become a TERF because radfems see people as a set of parts rather than what they actually are -> TERFs spread hatred and vitriol towards trans women in particular -> that hate and vitriol leaks into the LGBTQ+ community because a large number of TERFs are lesbian cis women -> trans women are unable to feel safe even in their own communities

Trans women deserve to feel safe in their own communities. You can be the biggest trans woman supporter ever and still not be a good ally. I thought I was a great ally to trans women before I realized that I was equating trans women's struggles with my struggle as a trans man. And until you really understand what they go through and see it with your own eyes, you may never truly realize just how difficult it is to exist as a trans woman AND you may realize you had biases you didn't even know you had. Existing as a trans man =/= existing as a trans woman. I didn't even realize I had any bias towards trans girls until I realized that I had decided (rather young I might add) that I wouldn't date a trans girl because of the fact that she was AMAB. I didn't realize how much this completely screwed up my view of trans women until I examined it under a microscope, AFTER I fell in love with a trans girl. I don't want y'all to feel like you have to fall in love with a trans girl to understand their struggle and to question your own biases. (though I will say, dating a trans woman has been the best relationship of my life, I love her so much).

Examining your biases and understanding what is trauma-informed and what is an actual issue is paramount. Being wary of cis men is kind of a given, considering the amounts of violence cis men do upon people and have been doing upon people for hundreds upon hundreds of years, but you can't let yourself get into the rut of outright hating cis men just because you've been hurt by cis men in the past.

Interestingly, I've also been abused by cis women, though rarely in as violent of contexts as cis men. I've made myself look at that under a lens too and it made me realize that I greatly distaste old women, and for me, especially if they are 50 and older--though some parts of my system also struggle with any woman older than her mid thirties. I will almost immediately assume an old woman doesn't have my best interests at heart, though it's different than with cis men. While I may assume a cis man might violently assault me in one form or another, I typically have different assumptions with older women and it's definitely something I'm going to have to also examine under a microscope and try to pick apart to really understand if my assumptions are based on verifiable truth ("all old women are bad," like the "all men are bad" assumption) or based on my traumas. My traumas are my own personal truth, but I can't let that affect my relationships I have with men and older women for the rest of my life. Or I could end up a TERF, or like one of those people who were happy that old people were dying of COVID. What a miserable way to live, you know?

-Delphine (she/her)

[sukibenders]

Me, after seeing people say that the Bridgerton love stories were better in the books than the show following seeing all those chapter screenshots on Twitter:

[toxooz]

quickest warm up scribbles of sum less common König skins that i love while i gotta wait 4 mf antibiotics bc ig my body has the immune strength of a dying victorian child 🙃🔫 the man yearns for the slop of the earth ☢💚

[mariocki]

got my first job interview in like 10+ years tomorrow, frantically cramming and writing down questions to ask etc wish me luckkkkk

[hauntingblue]

making a collection

making another collection with a threatening aura

[beaulesbian]

They may call it a Summer palace, but it’s actually three different structures joined together. The cathedral is at the top. No way in there except from the palace itself. Below that, the whole place is a maze of secret passages, easy to get lost in. And it’s all built atop a sealed temple to the Old Gods.

[themthistles]

[giantkillerjack]

ur post about queerbaiting and the dismissal of people in fandom to critical analysis is so incredibly true thank you. i feel like marcille's writing in the anime has been super misogynistic a lot of the time and every time i bring this up all anyone wants to say is "well maybe this isn't for you! and you shouldn't watch the show!" like. i don't think this is about taste lmao, i am analyzing the text in front of me and coming to conclusions about the craft of it.

[This is in reference to this post]

YES!!! THANK YOU!!!!!

It is so so frustrating!!!!

It's like being at a restaurant and being served a bunch of delicious appetizers, but then one of the bread appetizers is literally just a plate of crumbs; and then when you're like, "Hey, uhh, why are we being served literal crumbs?", a bunch of the other folks eating at the restaurant are like,

"WELL HOW ABOUT YOU JUST DON'T EAT HERE THEN??!? YOU MUST NOT BE THAT HUNGRY, SO JUST FIND ANOTHER RESTAURANT AND DON'T EAT WITH US!!"

And maybe they say it politely, but "Aw, sorry, maybe this restaurant just isn't for you 💖" is just trading out an aggressive dismissive tone for a patronizing dismissive tone. It's the same message.

And it's like! I was honestly happy to move on from the crumbs once my complaint was acknowledged because the meal overall is still delicious, but then all these folks got SUPER WEIRD AND DEFENSIVE ABOUT IT, so now I find myself double-checking all the other dishes -- and, actually, you know what those eggs DO look a Iittle misogynistic undercooked!!!!

[variousqueerthings]

actually you know whose reaction I'd be really curious about, potentially coming across fourteen in the shops? Francine!

[winnie-the-monster]

How anyone can call these two selfish I’ll never know