#does roman even know what binary means

[flock-of-cassowaries]

Roman has many roles in the Roy family. Punching bag and peacemaker. His dad’s least-favourite child and most loyal servant.

Perpetually resentful of being in his older brother’s, and yet still said brother’s most consistent advocate.

The one role he’ll never be asked to play: guy who figures out what’s wrong with the printer / computer / cable box.

[a-god-in-ruins-rises]

okay

so people often push this notion that america is an "idea" or a "propositional" or "creedal" nation. a nation that is based on some shared values or principles and that's it. that anyone from around the world can move here and be just as "american" as any other america as long as they believe in these values.

i don't accept this. while i definitely think we do have shared values/principles and these are an important part of our national character they are not all america is based on. they aren't even the most important part.

america isn't just an idea. while it has a propositional element, its foundation is rooted in tangible realities that go beyond abstract principles. america is a real nation. a nation constituted by a distinct people in a particular territory with a shared history, way of life, and destiny. and yes, even blood.

but "american-ness" is not a binary true/false. it is a spectrum. one can still technically be an american (have american citizenship) but but "more" or "less" american than others based on a variety of qualities.

just like some briton born under roman rule who doesn't speak any latin and barely knows any romans gods would technically be a roman by virtue of his roman citizenship, but he isn't exactly what comes to mind when one thinks of a roman.

and there's a lot more i could say on this (identity) but it's not what i want to focus on. my point is just that americans are a real people.

but also what "counts" are a part of that real people has evolved over time. just like it had evolved during the roman empire. once upon a time the only real "romans" were latin people from the city of rome. but then it eventually expanded to include latins in general (like sabines). but then it included other non-latin italic peoples (samnites, umbri). then non-italic people of the italian peninsula (like the etruscans). and eventually i'd say it even included the greeks (first the greeks of the italian peninsula but also especially during the byzantine era -- though i'm sure people would debate this).

likewise, at its deepest and truest sense, an american is one of anglo-saxon descent. the first americans were overwhelmingly anglo-saxon. and no, this doesn't mean there weren't non-anglo americans. but overwhelmingly americans were originally of anglo-saxon stock. and this heritage shaped the nation’s language, culture, and institutions.

and then several other adjacent northwest european peoples were rapidly assimilated and integrated into the "american" identity, just like the latins of rome did with its neighboring people. this would be other british races (irish, scottish, welsh, etc) but also germans, dutch, french, etc.

you get the picture. different people groups can be integrated and assimilated. some more easily than others. but there is a real blood component to the american nation. proximity—cultural, linguistic, or historical—matters. integrating culturally similar groups requires less effort, while integrating more distant groups requires significant time and shared commitment. this is not controversial; it’s just a fact of human societies.. this shouldn't be controversial to say.

and it's also important to note that even when rome was at its greatest extant, rome was still essentially defined by its original roman identity. even when it covered myriad ethnicities from britons to gauls to greeks to egyptians assimilation required adopting roman customs, gods, language, and loyalties.

but while america is a real nation (a nation of many nations arguably), this does not mean that america exists to be some static, eternally pure ethnostate content to "just exist" indefinitely.

america is not just an idea. america is a real nation. but it's also not just a real nation. america is unique. it occupies a position beyond both being "just an idea" and "just a nation" -- it is both and more. america is a real nation with propositional elements. it is also imperium. it is also a dream. it is a de-/re-territorialization engine. it is a machine of power and possibility. it is a great alchemical project. it is all of this and still more.

america’s strength lies in its ability to integrate and adapt while retaining the core identity forged by its founders. this balance of rootedness and openness is what makes america such a special kind of nation, but it's also not merely an abstract idea. america is both dynamic and grounded. its identity evolves, but it is always shaped by the tangible realities of its history, people, and culture. america, with all of its lofty ideals, was a byproduct of its people. if you replaced this people with another population from another part of the world you would not have ended up with the same country. again, this should be obvious and uncontroversial. we should be able to acknowledge this.

if america was "just an idea" then you wouldn't need to come here. you could create americas all over the world. you could turn your home country into an america.

but again, this isn't to say that non-anglos or non-europeans can't became american, at least legally (and given enough time and assimilation, possibly actually). like rome, america has the capacity to incorporate new peoples while retaining its core identity. however, becoming truly "american" requires more than legal citizenship—it requires integration and assimilation.

and this leads me to the topic of immigration, naturalization, and citizenship.

we have a process for welcoming outsiders into our nation. the body of citizens that composes our nation is a kind of "fellowship" and naturalization is akin to baptism. we owe it to ourselves (and our posterity) to be very particular about the quality and quantity of people we welcome into our fold. and we owe no outsiders access to our fellowship. to be given access is a great and sacred privilege. and while america is not strictly a propositional/creedal nation, i do think that at least adhering to our "creed" and respecting the already-existing members of this fellowship is the bare minimum requirement.

naturalization is a sacred act. it is not some soulless economic transaction. people are not interchangeable widgets. and more isn't always better. it is the process of weaving yourself (and your family) into the fabric of america forever, to become a shareholder in america's glory and greateness, to become a part of our shared story.

and to become naturalized/baptized is just the first step in a long process of integration. and this isn't and shouldn't be seen as a bad thing. i still think naturalized citizens should be owed the same rights and respect that any americans are owed. but even if you are now technically and officially a member of this national community/fellowship, you have to understand that in practice it will take time and effort to build trust and rapport and real fellow-feeling.

and one way to ensure this /doesn't/ happen is to be graciously welcomed into our nation and then turn around and spit on our face and call us lazy and stupid, you ungrateful fucks.

[politics-with-drakonix]

It appears that you're approaching the question of gender in good faith, so I'd like to help.

To understand gender issues you first has to understand that gender is a social construct attempting to map identity in the same way sexuality does.

A "Man" has meant different things to different societies for as long as there have been men. Socially speaking, I mean. Think of the manliest man you can think of in modern society. And then ask yourself, earnestly, if he would be perceived as manly in an earlier society or not.

And the answer is... Kinda? But not really, depending on the society.

In the same way a gentle and caring man in modern society can "Lose his man card" for being sensitive, respectful, or emotional, the modern 'Manly Man' would lose his in ancient times and different for myriad reasons.

For example in Rome it was considered the height of manliness and masculinity to weep, openly. To be emotional and strong enough to show the pain in your heart. Modern "Manly Men" aren't supposed to cry or show great emotion. In ancient Rome it was women who were unemotional and detached. That's why they would hire mourners to weep for them. Because it would've been unladylike to cry in public.

Does that mean that Roman women were heartless? Not remotely. Does that mean that Roman women didn't cry or show emotion in public? Not even a little. They were just disdained for it when they did.

But it does mean that there -were- Roman women who didn't cry in public. And they were valued and their personality and expression was considered socially important in defining what a "Woman" was. And all other women had to deal with the burden of that kind of woman's emotional expression being considered the default that all women had to conform to.

Because society didn't care that other women, dare I say most women, were more emotionally expressive than their ideal. And rather than develop language that covered various different kinds of women based on various aspects of their personality, they went with a binary of man and woman.

Humans -do- love a binary, after all.

But the point is: Those underlying differences of personality and perspective exist, regardless of what society would otherwise impose in it's broad binary. People whose identity and perspectives are more aligned with what is currently considered "Woman" do not always reflect the social ideals of what a "Woman" is.

And while that can be a biological difference, it can also be a purely social difference. That's why we have terms like Tomboy, Butch, Femme. It's why we have Goths and Punks and Nerds and Conservative and Liberal. I recognize all these things may seem separate from Gender because of our societal expectation of biology and gender lining up... but ultimately they're all identifiers of personality and perspective which inform how one expresses themself, or wishes to express themself, to society.

I'll send another ask to delve deeper into the biological aspect in a moment.

so gender as we know it in sociology is entirely disconnected from biological sex (apart from originating from it) and the criteria to fit into these classifications vary from different points in time and civilizations many of which are often contradicting

because humans preferred simple explanations over complex ones for a long long time and because a more constricting system makes it easier to control people , the gender binary emerged. but like all dichotomies this one is also false

gender projects itself onto the world and keeps expectations or gender roles upon people and their bodies like what to wear or how to behave and what to do

[jonathankatwhatever]

It’s 3 Jan 2025. Astounding level MB this AM. I can recall one about the same topic, but I couldn’t translate much of what I saw then. This time I saw ellipticals as casting Boundaries into the projective representation mapping of the Boundary process, meaning a Bip pole being the center of a Hexagonal, and that resolves into rational points here and there but not there, whether that’s imaginative or physical because it’s true for Things. So the generation of a Thing out of the uncountably infinite potential of Boundary within D3-4Space, which is literally stated in the concept because these are cubics and the potential of their existence is the 4th.

This becomes a theory of relationships. Wow, that went by fast. Like a supersonic train. I’m trying a full caffeine latte and that was a jolt of MB. Yes, it’s a theory of relationship but what happened was the caffeine made me see this as the causative level when it’s at the correlative level. Any relationship can be seen as an elliptical: like choreography in which the higher dimensions, since they attach to that Hexagonal, are dancing far beyond the local frame of reference.

This is true at the universal scale, that they find it’s most blandly distributed at a scale of something up to maybe 10 million light years. A large but still local frame. Something weird is occurring in me. I’m thinking about what shapes this kind of gsSpace. It’s a big Thing field into which Things are being dumped, like out of a child’s bucket, and it spreads out along a floor so it’s trying to pull itself and all its little chains out while retaining not control but the ability to contract, which is the same thing as the mat on the floor being folded up when you’re done.

That is Triangular on the grandest scale, that there’s a floor which attracts and a floor which folds you to a point, which can also be seen as an attractive force to a point. And this necessitates a Triangular 3rd End because the only way that can exist is if it can be seen and that requires an Actor-Observer who pairs across that Boundary to End relationship. Funny, but of course that’s the 1-0-1(//)0-1-0, in which Boundary and End are 1 and 0 to the ideal. This unifies the Thing to the ideal. A Thing is CM64. That puts 2^64 everywhere. Think about it: binary potential contained in the moment generates layers of meaning which attach along the chain and as the chain thus iterates through its potential combinations, as reflected in concepts like ergodicity in D3-4Space.

You know what I just realized? We’re really good at this. I mean really good. The amount of understanding flowing through me is both wide and deep, amps and volts, the orthogonals of associative and organizational. All that from a latte and thinking about you being in me and me being in you.

Thinking about you is a mine field. I stumble over bits that explode in my head, which become deep understandings within me. The work about Suetonius is an example. Some bit of words, which I annoyingly can’t remember, and then I suddenly saw into the messaging layer, that he was saying Augustus, by which I mean the two, do things in private, which is not the value of Rome, which has always placed great value on the public spectacle inherent in SPQR. That involved the wives, and that was the hook to say this is wrong, because Roman women had no voices in public matters. It wasn’t even that women couldn’t have private voices, but that Roman ways and maintaining Roman ways meant they could not have a public voice. And thus when Augustus does his business at home, with his wife, with other wives thus being involved or even potentially involved in the business that should be done in public, then this is like what the Greeks describe in their plays about Thebans not obeying the funeral rights, thus bringing forms of doom upon themselves.

Seeing that, Caligula makes sense: it’s a moral warning, in the same Roman fashion as The Golden Ass, that you might get a lunatic as Emperor, even though this one wasn’t actually that guy. He’s dead. I think most of what we think about what happened then is wrong. I think the Claudians, maybe the man himself, made up the story about him hiding to make it seem like he was weak, because the reaction to Caligula trying to be strong was his murder. To me, Caligula’s real crime was to try to be the Emperor. No one had truly done it before. Augustus was first citizen and in a separate category. Tiberius literally did not live in Rome and much of his rule was as co-leader with his mom. With Caligula arose the old fear of kings, with the disruption of the Roman way that implies. I guess the difference is Roman males are wolf cubs versus Roman males are somehow related to a wolf cub, meaning the connection to Mother Rome becomes indirect. This is the same basic idea as democracy and having opportunity and it is in that sense that all men are equal occurs in the ancient world.

To us, the chaos of Roman Emperors is bad, but Romans saw it as a necessary part of their approach to life, of what it means to be Roman. Just as Americans believe in the long-term power of democracy, that it’s cooperative power benefits far more than it’s uncooperative power, so the Romans believed their system was better over time. Look around you: I see a theatre and a port and roads and markets and food in those markets and people learning how to do things so maybe I can learn how to do something and have a better life. That is the essence of what drove Roman expansion: the belief they were bringing the benefits of Rome to others, that they were doing good. It is necessary in such a harsh environment to be very good at being very bad to do good. We are trying to explain how that can end. How you interpret the past says things about you.

So I guess now we believe Claudius was involved and thus it’s a short step to the story about the conspiracy going too far. The reason for that story is fairly obvious: they killed the wife and 1 year old kid, and that had to be excused so it would not taint Claudius. I think this shows in the lineage: he was descended from both Octavian and Livia, with his sister and her being grandmothers. I’d bet he believed Caligula wasn’t descended at all from Augustus, that Octavian couldn’t have children.

We could rewrite the Robert Graves stuff. Cool.

This puts Claudius’ sitting as a judge at trials in Roman context. By doing that, he was making public behavior that Augustus had moved into his home, that Tiberius had moved to an island, that Caligula seem to have exercised personally and thus privately, thus making a statement that he was adhering to the nature of Rome, respecting its traditions, keeping the favor of the Gods. And that further suggests a person entirely capable of doing all this, as a good Roman man should for the benefit of Rome. He could say to himself this is not for me but for the state.

That would also rewrite Hamlet. What fun that would be! Instead of Claudius confessing, he says his brother was a horrible king who had to be removed for the benefit of the state. This means Hamlet is now the destructive force seen at the end, when the kingdom falls. This means potential for a new plot in which Hamlet wrestles with his choices, to be the heir, knowing that it means acceptance of what has occurred, and thus subordinating that voice from within which screams for blood. That would be great e-f-e story.

A 3-4-3. Major and minors allowed. Oh right, we go from 4 to 1, 1 to 4 in the half keys, so to shift tonality up a half step, we shift 4 half steps into 1, using major, and of course 1 in e minor and 2 in f min. I’m not calculating. I’m listening to music. I do find it funny that you go from e to f to get to d. To get to e from d otherwise involves b, meaning another tone, meaning the group works in this specific way. Is that abelian and non? It’s reversible but not fully contained because the same issue comes up with each note added. So it’s a group that rides up and down the counts. It’s literally a gsProcess form because it meets with tunings, with different instruments so it works better or worse or not at all, so it can be done correctly or poorly or not at all, etc. Remember, gsProcess involves the construction of D3-4Space, and thus stands for existence and process and concepts like method or operation which include both.

Just imagined two fundamental stories. That was extreme fun.

This is nuts. I just found myself reading about Galois groups and they made sense. The clarity is interesting: I find that a certain lack of acuity, like in the way the universe scales, allows more interpretation, gives a bit of distance, and that better allows, enables movement along the O-line, which is the Triangular enlarging in that sense, by which I mean it can be the entire triangle enlarging, or the pair being held, or something in between.

Layers of differentiation appear now. Why? Vanishing: the order of vanishing is the level of differentiation at which a value appears instead of 0. So 0 is infinite and we’re talking about approaching that pole. So yeah, I think we can talk about the B-S-D conjecture now. (Please save that for later. I need to shower and go shopping for cat and human food. Don’t need to go through the process of accepting that rank and similar ideas are basic organizational descriptions.)

I’m more interested in how the elliptical is the D3-4, and thus the rational points are indeed finite because this is a selection out of Boundary in D3-4Space, and that selection makes a Boundary which Attaches to the line which enters and leaves. And I can see the groups over the Boundary and how those can define rational points. All of this in the context of Hexagonal which thus enables D3-4 existence.

So when you meet someone on the street and you don’t know if they’re going to hug or slug, that’s an elliptical: there are certain rational points. Like when cats meet. Or dogs, but that almost too obvious, isn’t it? Cats can freeze or settle into low energy maintenance wary positions. How you dress, walk, whether you’re carrying a weapon or a handbag, hey how are you or sullen head to pavement, all define ellipticals because that places an origin End in a Hexagonal and we’re looking at the rational points around which potential behavior flows, to which and from which as well.

Ah, that’s what leads to misapprehension: the additive method whereby you extrapolate the next rational point is like thinking you can make that jump.

I really need to shower. Pretty amazing stuff, huh?

[sebens-writing]

Writing Afab Autistic characters!

Prerequisite: autism in females and males present differently. For the longest time, autism was considered a boy disorder and Asperger's was its own diagnosis. Now the term Aspergers is out of date. I personally am a diagnosed Autistic Afab person. This is here for other neurodivergent authors and neurotypical authors looking for a way to make their characters dynamic!

And remember Autism is a disability and like sexuality, it’s a spectrum some are more “autistic” than others. Some are better at “looking normal” and others need constant care. That does not mean you baby us, accommodation does not mean coddling!

Terminology:

Special interest

Autistic meltdown

Going nonverbal

Executive (Dys)function

Masking

Stim

This is a short list of what I think is the most important terms. Please be advised certain words have by co-opt by neurotypical people like “special interest” and “hyper fixation”. They water down the meaning of those words. Such terms like "Are you acoustic?" Or “they got the tism.” Are used by neurotypical people as a joke but sometimes it’s used maliciously. The term “Acoustic” was used by autistic with autistic as a joke before it was co-opted.

Mentality:

Most autistic people are wired differently from neurotypical people, we have more synapsids in our brain. This means we are receiving more information than the average person. Some autistic (myself included) are strong-headed and very single-minded. We like to learn our favorite things.

People with autism have a correlation with other disorders like epilepsy, OCD, and ADHD. PTSD is also common with autistic Afab people as they were probably scolded and berated for traits they have. Remember there is no such thing as an untruamatize autistic (society is not at a place where that is possible. If left-handed people have to struggle in a right-handed world ppl with disabilities won’t have great help).

Autistic people are usually blunt and straightforward at their core, but Afab people tend to mask more. Afab people tend to feel the pressure to mask. They usually develop with their peers until preteen and teen years when they begin to slip through the cracks (they are the “mature for your age” that turn into “childish adults”).

A lot of masking in autism is done by gender, race, and social standing. A lot of Afab autistic tend to land on the non-binary. As we learn to unmask we discover that most autistic people don’t align with their body or even feel human (I am personally agender and I don’t see myself as human),

One last thing a lot of autistic take things at face value. The rules and layout are our bread and butter. A lot of us take a while to form friendships as it takes us personally a while to recognize friendship.

Special interests:

Special interests are very important to autism. The common special interest of Afab people are:

History (specific time periods ie. Victorian, tutor, French Revolution)

Mythology (Greek and Roman)

Crocheting

Reading

Fandom (ie being into animal or TV shows)

These are the most common. My special interest is YouTube, I’ve been obsessed since I was 8-9 years old.

Special interests aren’t the same as hobbies. Special interest is like breathing, it’s something you have to do. A special interest can build an autistic entire being. For me watching YouTube isn’t an “Oh I’m bored let’s scroll TikTok” it’s an “if I’m not watching YouTube I am nothing”. It’s kind of dramatic but YouTube and the things I’ve watched and absorbed into me make me me.

Special interest can be anything!

But remember if you give them a unique special interest like decay, death, or magic you must actually know what you are talking about. Having a surface knowledge isn’t going to work.

A lot of autistic people lose interest in conversation if it’s not about their special interest. Some can't even hold a conversation outside their special interests.

Autistic meltdown

An autistic meltdown is not a tantrum. A tantrum is done deliberately, it is done to manipulate. An autistic meltdown is about being overstimulated to the point you feel like the world will never recover. An autistic meltdown can mean the person shuts down and becomes nonverbal or dissociates, or it means crying screaming, and harm. Usually the aftermath they are drained of their energy.

Going nonverbal

Is a phenomenon both chosen and sometimes it's not. Some people are just nonverbal and can't really speak or when they do speak the words don't come out right.

Executive (Dys)function

Usually, neurodivergent people will hit a wall when it comes to one of the Executive functions. One of the best ways to make your character dynamic is by giving them a dysfunction and seeing how that impacts their character and dynamic with others.

Masking

Masking is a technique done by Autistic and other neurodivergent people to fit into society. It's a way to keep oneself safe and accepted. A lot of neurotypical people don't like things odd and strange things that are too out of normal.

Masking can get so intense that the person who's masking loses their real self and struggles to be unmasked.

Stim

Stimming is an act that can soothe you, positively or negatively.

Positive/ neutral stimming could look like:

Listening to a specific song over and over again

listening to a specific section of a song over and over again

playing with hair

doodling

rocking back and forth

T-rex arms

repeating what others say

jumping

suck on thumb

Negative Stimming could look like this:

scratching

biting

head banging

hair pulling

nail biting

Also, consider adding!

Echolalia

select mutism

Overly expressive emotion

monotone expression of emotion

alexithymia

Aphantasia

Service Dog

Other resources!

How to write an autistic character

Writing Autistic Characters: The Do’s, Don’ts, and Maybes

Understanding undiagnosed autism in adult females

[fwoosheye]

Sometimes you have to include problematic things to lift problematic issues. And in the context of historical fiction (and here I mean fictions based on real life historical events even if the characters might be fictional, NOT fics that take place in a setting that is inspired by history, etc) if you do it like this you might accidentally "remove" or hide what progress that was actually done at the time if you remove all the stuff that would be problematic today.

This is especially true of you include Actual. Historical. People.

Like the example above, we all know Reagan would never have respected a non-binary person's pronouns, and letting him do that in a game is giving him way too much cred. Let the man be remembered as the trash he was.

And in The Imitation Game (2014), the movie about Alan Turing (the man who cracked the nazi's code and was later prosecuted for his homosexuality which was illegal in the UK 1952) not only misrepresented his accomplishments but also painted his person as narcissistic instead of kind as he's been described as by others, the movie also pretty much accused him for being a traitor and a spy which he never was and never was even accused of.

Even if your intentions are good, removing problematic stuff would imply that the problematic thing never happened. If we look at the game with Reagan in it again, it's great that the game creators apparently decided to make it possible for people to choose how their character should be addressed as in the game and have npc:s respect that, more games need that, but to have a real life historical figure do that when he wouldn't have done that irl? I suspect it's probably because of technical limitations, so I'm not mad about it per say, but it does imply Reagan was a better person than he was. And for those who don't learn anything about him because they aren't from the US (like me), it might paint a faulty picture and that paves the way for more misinformation. Of course a game shouldn't be used as an accurate source of history, but you get my point: Good intentions can go wrong if not done with careful thought and research.

Of course if your character is completely fictional you can make them however you like! Your 1852 man can be what we would call a feminist today, that's not the issue, but he most likely wouldn't go about it like we do today or use the terms and expressions we do. Perhaps he does think it's a woman's choice of she should give birth or not, but he probably wouldn't call himself pro-choice, you know what I mean? Like...

History must be allowed to exist as it truly was back then.

There have always been people around who have had feministic views and worked for them, which is a big part of the reason society have grown to be what it is today (eg people being allowed to vote at all).

History is a lot more queer than most people think (there's a reason the song History Hates Lovers exists).

Speaking of that song though, that kinda might be another reason why people might feel iffy about the removing of "problematic" stuff in fiction (whether that removal is of eg. trans people themselves or the removal of the bigotry against them): Removing, hiding or denying parts of history have been used a lot by various groups throughout history as a means of control. One of the more famous examples was when nazis burned the library of the Institute of Sexual Science in Berlin because it 1) was founded by a Jewish person, and 2) included queer stuff. A lot of leaders all across the world had memorials and symbols etc from previous kings/religions/etc vandalised and/or suppressed to strengthen their own position — colonialism being one example. Plenty of schools around the world have banned some books because they cover subjects they don't want kids to know about or question (things that are lgbt, books about why book banning is a bad idea, books that are anti-athorian, etc etc). And as mentioned in the song, historians have often denied that romances were romances because they didn't like same sex relationships. And so on. So, like... Even if it's done in all well meaning, doing it like this might not be the best way to go about it (especially as fascists will happily be hypocritic if it means they can use it as an excuse to paint feminism and lgbtq+ etc in a bad light). So by all means do include the stuff you want to highlight in your story, but research the history well so you can back up why it makes sense in your story, and don't remove the problematic stuff if it is something that really ought to be there...

And as I mentioned in the beginning, this rant is about stories that are supposed to take place in our real world history. If it's like, a history inspired fantasy you can go shamelessly hog wild bat shit crazy. Use only neo pronouns because He and She are exclusive for the Gods or whatever reason you want to use. Piss off meninist babys by having more than five women in a story (which is like the equivalent of it being 90% women apparently) and let them have a narrative that isn't sexy eye candy fridged hottie. Have the bigots in your story be genuine asshats that don't respect pronouns and then let them fall/die in a suitable way. Or use a made up antagonists who wouldn't even consider using the wrong pronouns because they have better stuff to do than wasting energy and time on remembering a random Hero's old pronouns and name when they only needed the Hero's current ones to keep track of them. They got a world to conquer and it ain't gonna do that in its own, geez.

But yeah don't be afraid to include problematic things in your story and let it be a problematic issue. Problematic content does not automatically equal a problematic story.

If you remove everything “problematic” toward women and minorities from sincere historical fiction I am biting you biting you biting you.

Sometimes “he would not fucking say that” is when the guy living in 1852 is a third wave feminist.

[a-student-out-of-time]

Even without the Tragedy, this shit still happens?!

_____________________________________________________

Unfortunately so.

You don’t think the Steering Committee are the only ones who have this ideology of talent vs. commonality, do you?

The Preservation Project doesn’t just share their ideals, but many of them, we’re certain, are in touch in the Committee even in your time.

They have to be. It’s the only way the Apothegem experiment makes sense.

_____________________________________________________

What do you mean?

_____________________________________________________ 

They had someone we only know as the Ultimate Psionic working alongside them. We’re not sure of the method, but they were able to subconsciously place the idea of joining the Preservation Project into the minds of people through visual and auditory cues.

They sent out invitations to promising Ultimates, brought them aboard their ship, and subjected them to numerous killing games. But games not like the ones you know.

The Apothegem’s killing games were instead arranged by groups of 10, all of whom were taken from countries the ship passed nearby, and their games each only lasted a week.

____________________________________________________

A week...

Wait, so, if it went down after 343 days, and each game only lasted a week, then that’s...

____________________________________________________ 

That’s fifty games, each arranged by Roman Numerals. They made it all the way to Game L by the time the ship sank. That’s about 445 casualties just from the games alone.

____________________________________________________ 

...

My god...

That’s...

____________________________________________________ 

To make matters worse, there was the nature of the games themselves. Each participant was fitted with a bracelet that would inject them with a poison if they violated the rules.

And then there was the matter of what became of them should they win one of these games. Simply put, they would become the next game’s mastermind...by force.

____________________________________________________

What the hell is wrong with these people?!

What...what did they even get out of this...?

____________________________________________________

We did manage to figure that out.

You see, the Preservation Project had a dossier on people they referred to as “Lusus Naturae.” Those who have abilities that make them stand out for one reason or another; the Ultimate Psionic was just one example.

That includes spirit mediums and those with abilities like precognition...like myself.

And that’s what they were trying to do: cultivate someone who would exhibit an ability like that, by subjecting a massive group of Ultimates to these killing games.

____________________________________________________

...Did they?

____________________________________________________ 

Amazingly, yes. But it wasn’t an Ultimate that awakened their ability; it was a normal person who got swept up in the killing game by mistake.

Thanks to that, we were able to rescue the six survivors of the final game, since they’d managed to evade the Preservation Project’s goons who’d come looking for them.

____________________________________________________

Alright, but...who are they?

____________________________________________________

The ones who tipped us off that something was going on were two Japanese students: Ota Kanon, the Ultimate Photographer, and Konno Sei, the Ultimate Watchmaker.

There was also Lyle D. Termina, the Ultimate Puzzlemaster; Missy Vesper, the Ultimate Tactician; Gaea Espère, the Ultimate Cartographer...

And the person in question here: Echo Pine, a non-binary Chinese-American.

And the one who awakened the power of precognition, just like Mikako here.

_______________________________________________

So...if you guys saved them, does that mean...?

_______________________________________________ 

Yes. Thanks to far more constructive research on our end, you have Pine-san to thank for the existence of our future’s time machine.

[iamfitzwilliamdarcy]

Lex Luthor: A Demonic Role

(Here it is, as promised!! It got VERY long but I think Tumblr cuts off posts now... if not I’lll edit in a read more (it’s nearly midnight and I didn’t proofread this so hopefully it is ok and at least a little insightful/interesting:) 

So as promised– my Lex Luthor and demons post!! This might go along with @catie-does-things Clark as a saint post from years ago that is still excellent (I am now also considering Clark as a St Michael specifically and in contrast to Lex but that needs more exploration) 

Anyway I was listening to this specific episode of the podcast The Lord of Spirits, where two Orthodox priests discuss…. spirits. As a general disclaimer I am not Orthodox. I am not even an Eastern Catholic, I am just a humble Roman and a Modern American laywoman at that. So that perspective colors my approach here a bit. As another disclaimer is that I did not re-listen to the podcast and it’s been about a week since I first listened– I did, however find the transcript and am referencing, likely quoting it– it can be found here, along with the show. I am also not an expert on ancient near-East cultures and so if my language is not precise, please forgive me. 

To summarize the episode (and I guess the podcast as a whole), they are discussing how we encounter the spiritual in the physical world, and that our term of “angel” is not entirely specific as “angel” is a rank (messenger). As English speakers, we kind of dance around the idea that there are other “gods” because we think that means we are talking about polytheism. But the Hebrew does not and is pretty clear there is only one God worthy of worship even if there are these other spiritual beings, lower case gods. For ease of this post, I will use gods to refer to named pagan gods, and angels/demons to reference spiritual beings– however, note that pagan gods and demons (that is, a fallen angel in the English sense) are the same. 

What does that have to do with Lex Luthor? I am getting there. This specific episode talks about pagans and pagan beliefs. Pagans were not dumb– they were experiencing the same spiritual reality that we are— but they were misguided and misled. Many of the demons who fell had been assigned to different natural phenomena or nations – the sun, the stars, storms, various nations or cities. They are supposed to direct worship to the only God worthy of worship– the Hebrew God, the actual Most High, but many began to accept the worship of humans and so this is part of their fall. 

One point the podcast returns to is these succession myths– that is, across various cultures, there is usually a myth of a son of god (or at least a new god) overthrowing the previous high god– Zeus overthrowing Cronus, Cronus overthrowing his father are common ones we know but there are two Mesopotamian/babylonian ones involving Baal as well, who we know is a frequent player in the Bible. This is essentially demon propaganda– the demons remember are spiritual beings who rebelled against God by rejecting Him and refusing to serve Him– but they could not actually overthrow the actual Most High God, so they tell stories to the humans of how they wish it had gone. For some more in depth, here is a quote from the podcast:

Fr. Stephen: The first of these probably is what’s referred to, generally by scholars, in all of these stories together, is you find in pretty much every ancient culture some version of what’s called the succession myth, which is, bare bones, the idea that there was a—we talked before about how there was the idea of a council of gods and sort of a divine father-type god, and then a divine son who was the head of the council. We talked about how in Israel that was Yahweh in both cases, so you already have [this binary] built into ancient Israel religion. But the idea in most of the other cultures of the ancient world, pretty much universally, is that there was an original most high god, who was overthrown at least once by a later god who rose up from among the council, by one of his sons in the council, who overthrew him and took his place, that of the most high god.

So the most common—you mentioned Baal already—this happens with Baal. The Baal cycle is primarily the tale of Baal’s insurrection. This happens twice in Babylonian mythology. It happens twice in Greek mythology, as people may be aware, when Chronos castrates his father, Uranos or Uranus, and becomes most high god, and then Zeus later kills his father Chronos and takes his place. So there are actually two successions there, as well as in Babylonian mythology.

So you have this story of a rebellion, but in every case in these other nations, that rebellion was successful, and of course the version that we are going to see in the Old Testament in the Hebrew Scriptures is going to be inverted in that this insurrection is going to have failed.

Lex Luthor, of course, buys into this. He projects his hatred for his father– who used his power to abuse Lex– onto God– and then onto Superman. He is attempting the succession myth – “and now god bends to my will”-- it appears to work too– he might be in jail but by the end he’s “killed” a god, he’s won. 

Another fall of the demons, however, is also giving humans knowledge and technology  they are not ready for– the podcast doesn’t get super in depth about that (or if it did, it was the part where I was driving in a congested area and I missed some of it lol), but they did specifically address Prometheus from the Greeks and alluded to other Sumerien myths. It’s a bit of a long quote from the transcript, but I think it’s worthwhile: 

There’s a narrative before the flood and then after the flood. Before the flood, that’s the time of the seven sages, the Apkallu, the first of which comes out of the sea, and as an Apkallu has one of these lesser gods who is advising him. Because of this advisor, the king is able to create astrology, magic, technology, all of these things, based on this knowledge that he’s given from these spirits.

The major figures in Cain’s line who are named, it talks about the technological innovations that they produced, which are weapons of war, all of these things. So this idea is, yes, these spirits gave technology to man, but it was not to benefit man; they were giving man technology that humanity wasn’t ready for, but for destroying themselves.

…

Fr. Andrew: Right, and this same story is played out in multiple other ancient mythologies. The one that probably most of our listeners are familiar with is Greek mythology, and you’ve got the story of Prometheus, who gives fire from the gods to mankind. But of course in that story, it’s depicted as Prometheus… It’s correct in the sense that Prometheus is sort of rebelling, he’s doing something he’s not supposed to be doing, but it’s presented as positive, like: look at this wonderful gift that he gave mankind.

But the problem, of course, is that, again, it’s propaganda. This is these demons saying, “Look at all these good things that we gave you. Why don’t you just go ahead and bow down and worship us?” … ​​There’s this promise of being great, being smart, being beautiful, being popular, being wealthy, being prestigious—if only you would serve whatever it is that you are asked to serve. It’s a trick. As you said, it’s for their destruction. Notice whom this technology is given to; it’s given to Cain, the first murderer, and to his descendants.

But the problem, of course, is like, you look at this stuff, and you’re like: What’s so wrong with iron-working and with music? What’s wrong with that stuff?

Fr. Stephen: Right, and it gets expanded firstly in the book of Jubilees, to include all kinds of things in terms of pharmaceuticals and sorcery and means of seduction of the opposite sex. But even if we’re just talking about raw technology, again, it’s not that it’s evil any more than the tree of knowledge of good and evil is evil in and of itself, but it was wisdom for which humanity wasn’t ready to use it appropriately. So it comes to these men as: “I’m giving you this knowledge so that you can use it to gain power and to conquer your neighbors, to set yourself up as a king, to seduce members of the opposite sex, so you will have this power and wealth and authority,” and that’s what humanity uses it for.

From the pagan perspective, kingship and these kings are these glorious beings; from the perspective of Scripture, they are these wicked beings who are destroying themselves and each other and the world around them. 

I bolded the parts that remind me of Lex in particular. We have talked before about how BvS, is, to an extent, entirely about  power (“men with power obey neither policy nor principle” “that’s how it starts the the fever, the rage, the feeling of powerlessness that turns good men cruel” “knowledge without power is paradoxical” “do you know the oldest lie in the book, Senator? That power can be innocent – good luck,” “if God is all-good, he cannot be all powerful, if God is all powerful, He cannot be all good… and neither can you be”)  

We see Lex is seeking power throughout the movie– he is projecting  his rage at his father, who abused his power and authority over Lex, onto both God and Superman. Bruce, also, feels powerless against the violence enacted upon him, but that’s a separate post, we are focusing on Lex, who is attempting to re-gain power he feels he does not have. Interestingly, when he confronts Superman on the rooftop, he has the Advantage– he is the wealthy, authoritative one, wielding all the power and yet…. Still casting himself as a victim. 

Anyway, back to the technology distribution –  Lex specifically mentions Prometheus– I just watched this scene– he says “Prometheus went with us and he ruined Zeus’ plan to destroy mankind… and for that he was given a thunderbolt! Zoom! Seems unfair.” Diana rolls her eyes at this, but it’s an excellent throw-away line about Lex’s perception of both himself and the world– he is viewing himself as a Prometheus figure.  

We know Lex is obsessed with power and knowledge– he has a weird breakdown over it at the Friends of the Metropolis Library speech immediately following his mention of Prometheus – “the bittersweet pain among men is having knowledge with no power because that is paradoxical”. – We also see Lex exploring technology he was not ready for – he tells Bruce ““My R and D is up to all sorts of no good” – which on the surface is bit of light hearted business Talk…but we, as the audience, know better. We know he is messing around with Kryptonite and with Zod’s body. We see him in the Genesis chamber, assuming command. The Genesis Chamber tells him it has knowledge from a hundred thousand different worlds and Lex says-- “good, teach me”. This concludes with him over-riding the chamber itself and participating in the creation of an abomination, an abomination he is warned against. He is using technology for his own gain, for his own power-- for evil-- he was not prepared for it and does not use it appropriately 

(We have talked before about how doomsday also casts Lex in a Creator and Father role, once more casting of himself as a mythological high god.) 

ANOTHER piece here– Lex messing around with alien technology, with things that were Beyond him and not made for him– at least not yet– leads him to contact with Darkseid. He knows Darkseid is coming – the bell can’t be unrung– and seems to be working in his service. Beyond that– he intends to distribute this technology –he wants to get an import license for the Kryptonite so we don’t have to rely on the kindness of strangers. Obviously he will still have control but…  he allows Bruce to take the Kryptonite because he wants Bruce to have it. He intends for Bruce to have it… as part of his plan to take down a god. 

So we have Lex actively casting himself both in a succession myth and as a benevolent, powerful being, providing technology to the simple folk (the way he says “kindness of strangers”-- the mocking of the Southern accent….). He is the type of man to enjoy a Good Narrative– his constant referencing of mythology and art and even his Lolita references– and so how he places himself as a god, not realizing he is only buying into propaganda, that he is orchestrating his own fall. 

His complete rejection of good has invited the demonic into his life. He’s unleashed something he is incapable of controlling and in fact threatens him— not just Doomsday but an old god beyond his control (in an act of seeking power and control for himself). In casting himself as a god, he has only given himself the role of a fallen god– a demon, who has no more power and authority over God than he did as a man. 

(There are similar ideas here also with Suicide Squad’s Enchantress – but that’s a different post.) 

[edenfenixblogs]

I think about this a lot. And I think the White indifference to indigeneity is interesting. (Tone indicator: genuine) I’m genuinely unsure of what to make of Euro-American Christian Whiteness as it relates to indigeneity. (And yes, even former Christians raised in Christianity or atheists with a Christian familial/cultural background are included in this as a dominant culture). And I actually think that informs a lot of how I think and feel about Palestinian indigeneity.

Look, a lot of very educated Jews who I deeply respect and don’t entirely disagree with are responding to my post right now with the assertion that Palestinians aren’t indigenous to the Levant. I maintain that Palestinians ARE indigenous to the Levant, but not because I disagree with them on the facts.

It’s hard to talk about because Muslims and Arabs in European and American society are inarguably minorities who are treated poorly. And the last thing I would ever want is to have a statement of mine taken to mean that I hate ANY Muslim or Arab person, especially on racial or religious grounds. I do not.

But Arabs and Muslims have repeatedly colonized, abused, tortured, and ethnically Jews both in Israel and in many other nations around the world. This is a fact. Palestinians during the British mandate made it very clear that they despised Jews and would not tolerate the existence of a Jewish state when British colonial rule ended. The rest of the Muslim world exiled Jews to Israel as punishment for its creation.

And yet, the Naqba was indeed an ethnic cleansing. The violence against Jews by Muslims and Arabs does not erase violence done by Israelis against Palestinians. Neither justifies the other.

Like White Christians, Palestinian history is full of instances of systemic privilege and verifiable instances of violence against Jews. But the situation Palestine is currently facing is no privilege at all.

But here’s my hot take: we are all indigenous to somewhere. And I think that the idea that who is and isn’t colonized is the sole determinant of indigeneity is outdated and incomplete. Academic Discourse about what is and is not encompassed by the term indigeneity is still a relatively knew field of study. And I think it’s not so set in stone that we can’t interrogate the idea of indigeneity itself outside of a colonial context.

To be very clear: colonization is extremely important in terms of its impact on creating indigenous cultural groups. I don’t recommend or advocate for removing a colonial framework from the concept of indigeneity at all.

But outside of that, what are other frameworks that we can use? What else creates indigeneity? When does indigeneity begin?

I know that there is no timeline on when indigeneity ends. Jews are indigenous to the Levant. And we always will be, because our relationship to that land is inextricable from our identity.

But when does that relationship BECOME inextricable from other identities in other circumstances?

As a Jew, I am part of one of the very few cultures that predates most other cultures that currently exist. My culture has witnessed the birth of many indigenous groups and the fall of many cultures—both dominant and oppressed. Where were citizens of the Roman Empire indigenous to at the time Rome fell? Perhaps the answer there is easy: Rome. But it gets more complicated than that. Rome conquered Greece. Did the Greeks become indigenous at that time, despite being a violent colonizing force before that? I’d argue yes. And unlike Rome, Greek identity extended over many individual city states that previously had more unique identities and their own conquered territories.

For me, indigeneity has more to do with cultural relationship to place. The influence of place on food and language and customs. Oppressor vs oppressed is just a binary. And in the words of John Green, “Almost everything we think of binary is actually spectral.”

Sure, White Christian Americans may have been indigenous to England or Spain or France, depending on your location and family history. But now? Do those places still determine your identity? Your language? Your culture? Your food?

Quite possibly yes! But also sometimes no!

Also, as a Jew, I’m very familiar with the concept of a dominant culture coming to my people after a century or so of residence in a location and being told not so gently to “get the fuck out and go home.” Even now, even though I identify as American as well as Jewish, I know that this directive has always assumed that “home” is Israel. We never belonged here. We were never part of here. We were always perceived as unwelcome interlopers wherever we existed—no matter how long our people existed here. And so we never fully assimilated. We never lost our connection with the land of Israel. In our bones, we are from there, BECAUSE we have never been allowed to be from here.

But what about you? Where are you from? What is the place that informs your identity? Because you do have a cultural identity. You do have a language and a religious background (whether or not you practice that religion) and family recipes and history that has been passed down. And those elements of culture came very literally from somewhere. That is the place to which you are indigenous.

I think the other reason it is harder in the modern era to disentangle all this is because, in some ways, religion has replaced nationality in terms of a point of origin for cultural elements. Culture in Europe and America so many ways seems to originate from a Church. And I don’t think we’ve really begun to academically and socially engage in the idea of how that change in the organization of human society from land-based to religion-based has impacted concepts of cultural identity and indigeneity.

And Jews are caught in the crossfire about this. Because we are a religion and an ethnicity. We don’t have a central religious figure or group in the way Catholics have a pope or Shia Muslims have a Grand Ayatollah or Sunni Muslims have the Grand Imam or Mormons have The Church of JCLDS. We have the historical texts of our forefathers, which all take place in Israel and are about Israel.

But what about Palestine? Many Palestinians identify as Arab, but I don’t think Palestinian Arabs want to call the whole of the Arabian peninsula home. If they did, they wouldn’t be so upset about the tiny scrap of land that is Israel when they have a whole peninsula.

So, I want to examine why. I want to examine why Palestinians, unlike White Christian Euro-Americans, have decided to assert indigeneity now.

I know cynics will say it is because they hate Jews and wish violence upon all of us. And, OK, many of them really do. They proved as much on 10/7 and all the threats and bombs that they’ve launched our way since.

But I still hear the others. I hear the Palestinians who are saying they just want peace in their homeland. They don’t want violence. Their culture is tied to the land. And I want to meet them where they are instead of telling them their cultural identity is somehow a lie or false. It’s not my culture. It’s theirs. And an integral feature of indigeneity is the right to self identify.

So I’m here. I validate that self identification. I hear that you don’t want violence or to hurt/exile/kill Jews and that you regard yourself as indigenous to the Levant specifically. Ok! Let’s talk about that, then. Because I think that’s interesting and valuable that you have such a clear idea of who you are and where you come from when your Euro-American counterparts don’t seem to have that same clarity.

I think acknowledging Palestinian indigeneity is a very valuable thing for evolving how we discuss the concept of indigeneity in general. It doesn’t mean that we stop using the frameworks we have already. But it does mean that new frameworks might apply. Let’s figure out how all that works —together and peacefully.

I get that this topic is controversial and pushes buttons. But discussing it doesn’t actually harm anyone. And our discomfort in addressing it is key to why we must address it.

Reminder: Jewish indigeneity is not a threat to any other ethnic group. It’s just a fact. Acknowledging Jews as indigenous to the levant doesn’t actually harm any Palestinians. Palestinian indigeneity does not actually rely on Jews NOT being indigenous. Multiple peoples can be indigenous to the same place.

[transfemlogan]

im new-ish here so sorry if this is an obvious question, but do you have trans headcanons for any of the other sides? 👀

HIII I have a million trans hcs always do not worry. I love talking abt trans sides

NOTE: i do bring up how i think some sides might not use prns or use neo prns or whatever, but i do still refer 2 them w/ he/him prns bcuz i might not have a set of prns i think theyd use. (Ex. I think roman uses neoprns, but I don't know which ones / my hc changes so I use he/him in this post. If that makes sense)

THIS GOT SUPER LONG SO IM PUTTING IT UNDER A READMORE !!!

I really like the concept of virgil being trans but not using a narrow label to describe himself. So rather than him identifying as a trans man or a trans woman or non binary, he just identifies as Transgender (or queer!). He doesnt use a specific label

I just feel like he either has so much anxiety abt his gender identity, he just doesnt focus on it at all & doesnt try 2 figure it out OR he has SO much anxiety abt his gender identity, he tries too hard 2 figure it out & has like a million labels he uses. No inbetween.

Roman TOTALLY hoards gender i bet that guy has like 300 genders & he doesnt stop getting more. I think Roman is just a very big hoarder of xenogenders & neo prns & even names. Like he gets a new name every month & with 3 new sets of prns. I feel like he has to scrutinise his gender & what it means 2 him & stuff bcuz he is the most insecure person on earth.

Patton & Janus 2 me r super chill abt their gender identity but in different ways

I tend 2 hc trans Patton as a gnc trans man. I think Pattons chill in the way that he knows what he is & he isnt worried too much abt if he "fits" that label. Like he 100% wears skirts & dresses & does his make up & does common "feminine" things, maybe still uses she/her prns, but isn't bothered abt whether or not that makes him a "real trans man." I bet this guy has ZERO gender dysphoria.

Patton sees someone talking abt what being a trans man "actually is" & hes like "i dont feel that way at all... oh well!" & moves on w/ his life. He is not worried at ALL. He is confident & happy w/ his identity. He ALSO def uses they/them prns (he/she/they patton REAL trust me)

Janus is also chill, but in the way that if he sees a label that fits him better he just changes to it without question. I dont have a stagnant trans label I give 2 Janus, i jump around a lot. I view Janus as like, "oh. I use the label (for example) demiboy, but I actually think trans masc agender fits me better. So i'm using that now" & then later is like "you know what? I think genderfluid fits me better, ill use that one instead" like he isnt freaking out if he relates to a different label or thinks hes something else. He's shrugging his shoulders & moving the fuck on. He also totally might use neoprns, i think he is a neoprn enjoyer. Janus changes his name 24/7, not due 2 gender rzns, but bcuz he is running from the police /j

REMUS IS DEF A NONBINARY PERSON. I cannot see remus as having a binary gender. This guy is genderqueer genderfreak agender gendervoid ANY OF IT. ALL OF IT !! Remus doesn't have a gender, but he definitely has a dead guy stored in the trunk of his car. He's too busy throwing bricks at people & going dumpster driving to have a binary gender. Roman took all the gender in the womb /j

Remus def doesn't use he/him or she/her prns but he either uses a set of neoprns OR doesn't use any prns at all.

And lastly, Logan, because u said "hcs for any of the other sides" which I am assuming means u already know what I tend to hc him as BUT!!! while I might change labels 4 Logan, I do tend 2 hc her as a she/her femme transfem genderfluid man. BUT i also really like genderqueer or xenogender user Logan!! I think Logan uses older terms 2 describe himself. Like rather than calling himself transgender, he prefers the term transsexual. He also 100% does so much research into trans history (OFC all the sides do but I think logan likes it in an autistic way) which is why he uses older terms.

ALSO LOGANS TOTALLY AUTIGENDER? I think he def has ASD & it affects the way he views his gender. Not in a "i dont get societal views about gender, so I don't understand my gender" but in a "i dont get societal views abt gender, so I understand my gender very well" (aka im projecting on2 logan) if that makes any amount of sense. Its more abt the fact that he wants to understand why people view gender a certain way & learning the "rules" around gender & making his own, rather than not understanding & rejecting the concept (which both r ok). He is a rule follower & a schedule needer what else can i say.

AND !!! JUST BECAUSE I CAN !!! I think the orange side is also very autistic but on the opposite spectrum from Logan (I JUST FEEL IN MY HEART THAT HES AUTISTIC. I KNOW IVE NEVER MET HIM BUT HES AUTISTIC TO ME. I can SENSE it.)

He 100% doesn't get the concept of gender so he rejects it completely. He doesn't get the "rules" & doesnt want to know them. Whether this means he is on the binary or nonbinary IDK i just know this man wants 2 fist fight the concept of gender.

[jewfrogs]

What was the place of trans people in Ancient Greece? I don’t mean myths, but accounts of irl trans people. I once read something about priests of Aphrodite whose initiation ceremony was castration and wearing women’s clothing, which could be reinterpreted through a modern lens as Ancient Greece’s version of trans women, so to speak. Perhaps even non-binarism, though I don’t believe there was basis for escaping the gender binary and the very much enforced roles in the Greek patriarchy.

this is another great question! i’m going to broaden our scope a little bit to include some discussion of rome as well, because there’s a lot of useful stuff there and the two are interlinked.

discussing trans people in any historical context is difficult, because the framework through which we understand it doesn’t exist. that isn’t to say that people who didn’t conform to their assigned gender didn’t exist (gender variance has been documented for about as long as history), but that applying modern labels and understandings to them doesn’t always work, and there’s a lot of overlap between some categories (e.g. could we understand this individual as a trans woman or as an effeminate [gay] man? what does that mean when neither of those identities are contextual during the individual’s time?). all that to say: there isn’t a lot that directly corresponds to trans people from antiquity, but there’s certainly not nothing.

one reference to trans people in ancient greece comes from lucian’s dialogue of the courtesans (c. 120-190 CE), where the character megilla/us seems to be remarkably like a trans man: “I was born a woman like the rest of you, but I have the mind and the desires and everything else of a man.” this is an excellent post that discusses this passage in depth.

according to pliny the elder, there was a noted phenomenon of women turning into men: “The change of females into males is undoubtedly no fable. We find it stated in the Annals, that, in the consulship of P. Licinius Crassus and C. Cassius Longinus, a girl, who was living at Casinum with her parents, was changed into a boy; and that, by the command of the Aruspices, he was con- veyed away to a desert island. Licinius Mucianus informs us, that he once saw at Argos a person whose name was then Arescon, though he had been formerly called Arescusa: that this person had been married to a man, but that, shortly after, a beard and marks of virility made their appearance, upon which he took to himself a wife. He had also seen a boy at Smyrna, to whom the very same thing had happened. I myself saw in Africa one L. Cossicius, a citizen of Thysdris, who had been changed into a man the very day on which he was married to a husband.” (Plin. Nat. 7.4) it seems likely that this is discussing intersex people, since pliny references them immediately before, but it is interesting to see evidence for at least some form of transition and for the acceptance of said transition—arescon has a wife! that’s pretty neat! these people seem to be fairly well-accepted, which does make one think about how transition in general might have worked or been seen.

with regards to the priests, i haven’t read about anything like that with aphrodite (although i would be remiss not to mention aphroditos here, particularly her mention in macrobius’ saturnalia), but i’m guessing you’re thinking of the galli, priests of cybele (a phrygian goddess, often correlated with rhea and with the intersex deity agdistis) as well as her lover attis (who was castrated as well—catullus 63, which i am going to write something about one day, is a retelling of their myth). they were castrated and generally wore women’s clothing, and many sources refer to them with feminine language. firmicus maternus (c. 4th century AD) said of them negant se viros esse, et non sunt <mulieres>: mulieres se volunt credi (“they deny that they are men, and are not <women>: they want to be believed as women”). there are certainly parallels that can be drawn here!

in addition, there can be a lot of blurred overlap between gay readings and trans readings. in ancient greek & roman thought, the categories of men-who-are-penetrated and women-who-penetrate (or, well... hump, since one of the latin words for these women is tribades, or “rubbers”) are almost genders in their own right, or perhaps the intersection of two genders: men-who-are-penetrated are like women but not, and women-who-penetrate are like men but not. (it can definitely be interpreted, to some extent, that these people want to be read as the opposite binary gender to the one they were assigned—which raises the question of whether we simply don’t know some of these stories because people did pass and therefore it wasn’t outwardly transgressive.)

this is probably best encapsulated by an excerpt from the fables of phaedrus (a first-century CE roman author who is supposedly adapting aesop’s work), where the question tribadas et molles mares quae ratio procreasset (what reason brought [lesbians] and [effeminate men] into existence?) is asked, and this is the answer:

The same Prometheus, creator of the clay crowd (which is broken the moment it offends fortune), had made those parts of nature which decency hides with clothing apart from the rest for the whole day. Just before he could fix the parts to the right bodies, he was suddenly invited to dinner by Liber; when he had watered his veins well with nectar, he returned home late at night on faltering feet. Then, with a half-awake mind and a drunken mistake, he applied maidenhood to a type of man and affixed masculine members to the women; thus desire now enjoys perverse joy.

there are different ways this can be read, because “applicuit virginale generi masculo” and “masculina membra applicuit feminis” can both be taken as an aetiology for either tribades or molles mares. take one: the first line refers to molles mares, making them men in body with women’s spirits, and the second line refers to tribades, making them women in body with men’s spirits. take two: the first line refers to tribades, making them men in spirit with women’s bodies, and the second line refers to molles mares, making them women in spirit with men’s bodies. these are both really interesting readings that both resonate to some extent with transness and specifically with the space in between gayness and transness.

as an example, take the figure agathon (a fictionalized portrayal of a real playwright) from aristophanes’ thesmophorizusae. agathon is notably effeminate—he’s first introduced by a character saying εγώ γαρ ουχ όρω άνδρ’ ουδέν ενθάδ’ όντα, Κυρήνην δ’ όρω (“I see no man, but I see Cyrene”, in reference to, as one commentary puts it, “a dissolute woman of the day”). that is to say: agathon is read as a woman. when another character in the thesmo needs to dress up as a woman, he doesn’t borrow a woman’s clothes—he borrows agathon’s. could we read agathon as a trans figure? perhaps! but his effeminacy is tied to him being, as the greek puts it, ευρύπρωκτος—literally “wide-assed”, but often translated simply as a certain six-letter word that starts with f. agathon isn’t a woman, exactly, but he’s not quite a man either. i wouldn’t necessarily call this in-between space trans, but i don’t know if i could call it cis either.

tl;dr: there are few depictions of people we might call trans as we understand it today from ancient greece, but there are a lot of interesting questions we can ask and consider with regards to gender that touch on transness and antique experiences analogous to modern-day trans ones. also gayness and transness are very much intertwined.

[nerdygaymormon]

Hi, Uncle David. I've been out to my best friends as a lesbian for about a year now. A few days ago, one of my very best friends told me that she thinks she might be bi. We're both LDS and in high school. She was scared and unsure so I tried my best to comfort her and give her advice in the moment. I'm just wondering if you have any advice or quotes or scriptures that I could give her that might help her or comfort her and let her know that it's okay to be queer and that God loves her?

Congratulations to your friend! Accepting this is part of who you are is a big deal, a milestone.

I'm glad your friend knew you're queer and someone she could confide in. I'm sure your friend is dealing with a lot of things in her head as she is working through what this could mean for her life.

—————————

I think bisexual could be described as having twice the capacity to love, and I think that's a beautiful thing.

—————————

I have 2 scriptures I hope will comfort your friend

Psalms 139:13-14 - This beautiful psalm sings of God’s knowledge of each person and how we’re intentionally crafted together. Every crucial part of our identity was known to God as our bodies were woven together. God wove together our gender, our sexuality, and all aspects that make up who we are.

Romans 1:20 - This verse says that we can know the attributes of our invisible God by the things that God makes. Considering all we can see around us, it testifies that God loves diversity. God loves exceptions. God loves peculiarities. God doesn’t stick to binaries. God revels in variety.

—————————

If she hasn't done it yet, encourage your friend to be open with her Heavenly Parents. They already know her orientation and love her as she is.

Trust that God is bigger, more liberal, more loving & accepting than we’ve been taught and than you might possibly now believe. Give God a chance. Let God affirm you.

—————————

Studies show that LGBTQ+ people tend to be more creative, have higher IQ’s, are better at reading the emotions of others, have more compassion, are more cooperative and have less hostility. Those are some pretty fantastic gifts that come with being queer.

—————————

When I hear things at church that trouble me, I ask these questions, I hope you and your friend find them helpful:

1) Is this consistent with the God I know?

2) Does this fit with the great commandment to love one another?

Most of the things that bother me and which speak negatively of my orientation & my future fail these simple questions.

—————————

In fact, here's 4 main points the Church teaches regarding queer people:

Feelings of same-sex attraction aren’t a choice; they’re nobody’s fault

These attractions aren’t sinful

You don’t need to change your orientation

You are welcome in the Church exactly as you are

—————————

Life isn’t easy and especially not for LGBT individuals. I'm glad she has you, someone who is safe to talk to.

One aspect of the bi experience that's different from the gay/lesbian experience is they often don't come out of the closet. When they're with a partner, people usually assume they're gay or straight (depending on the gender of the partner). Bisexuals are the largest group out of LGBTQIA+, but they're often invisible. They're more likely to know people who are out as gay or trans than they are to know people who are bi. Even though they're the largest, it can feel isolating because they don't see others like themselves.

—————————

As your friend is just at the beginning of her journey, I don't want to overwhelm her with lots of advice and links. However, one link you may want to introduce her to is the Bisexual Resource Center.

Also, here's a little play on words you can use: Bisexuals are great. They aren't gay. They aren't straight. They're graight

[samwisethewitch]

What does it mean to be pagan? (Paganism 101 Ch. 1)

That’s right, y’all! With Baby Witch Bootcamp officially wrapped, it’s time to jump into our next long term series! I put out a poll on Patreon, and my patrons voted for Paganism 101 as our next series. While not all witches are pagan and not all pagans are witches, there is a lot of overlap between the two groups. Both witchcraft and paganism offer practitioners a sense of freedom, a deeper connection to the world around them, and a greater awareness of their personal power.

I identify both as a witch and as a pagan, and I get a lot of questions about paganism. In this series, we’ll go through the basics: what it means to be pagan, the difference between a neopagan and a reconstructionist, and the role of magic in different pagan traditions. We’ll also talk about some of the most popular modern pagan traditions and how to find the right tradition for you.

Let’s start off by answering the question, “What does pagan actually mean?”

Defining “Pagan”

It’s important to remember that “pagan” is an umbrella term that encompasses a wide range of different faiths. Someone who practices Wicca, for example, will have very different beliefs from someone who practices Hellenismos. These different faiths are linked by a shared history, rather than by shared beliefs or practices.

The word “pagan” comes from the Latin “paganus,” which literally means “area outside of a city” or, to phrase it slightly differently, “countryside.” This adjective was used to describe people and things that were rustic or rural and, over time, came to also have the connotation of being uneducated. Originally, the word had no religious association, and was even used to refer to non-combatants by the Roman military.

From this definition, we can gain some insight into what makes a religion or practice pagan. Pagans feel a kinship with the wild or rural places of the world, and are comfortable waking “off the beaten path.”

But how did “paganus” come to refer to a type of religion, anyway?

To understand the religious meaning of “paganus,” it’s necessary to understand a little bit about the religion of Ancient Rome. Rome (the city) was built inside a pomerium, a sacred boundary that formed a spiritual border around the city and its people. Paganus folks were those who lived outside the pomerium and, as such, may not have been strict adherents of the state religion — they certainly wouldn’t have been able to travel into the city for every major festival. They may have gotten a bit more creative with their worship of the gods. However, as previously stated, the word paganus did not have an explicitly religious meaning in ancient times.

The use of paganus as a religious label began after the legalization of Christianity by the Roman Emperor Constantine in 313 C.E. Christianity would not be adopted as the official state religion until 380 C.E., but Constantine’s conversion and decriminalization of Christian worship paved the way for Rome’s transformation into a Christian state. It was around this time, as Christianity was quickly growing in urban areas, that early Roman Christians began using the word “paganus” to refer to those who still practiced polytheism. Rather than referring to those outside the city’s boundary or to untrained civilians, the label now referred to those outside the Church, those who were not “soldiers of Christ.”

As Christianity spread in popularity throughout the Mediterranean, Europe, and Northern Africa, the pagan label was applied to all non-Christians in those areas. The word “pagan” became a derogatory label, implying an inferior and backwards religion.

So, really, the thing that makes a religion pagan is a historical conflict with Christianity. Pagan religions are those that were suppressed or completely destroyed after Christianity became the dominant faith in the region.

This is why Norse Paganism and Kemetic (Egyptian) polytheism, which are very different, are both considered “pagan” while Shinto, a Japanese religion that shares a lot of common features with many pagan faiths, is not. Because Christianity never achieved total dominance in Japan, Shinto was never pushed aside to make room for Jesus.

In the 20th century, people who felt drawn to these old religions started to reclaim the pagan label. Like many other reclaimed slurs, “pagan” became a positive label for a community united by their shared history.

What do all pagans have in common?

This is a tough question to answer because, as stated above, paganism is a historical definition, not one shaped by belief or practice. However, there are some things most pagans have in common. Here are a few of them, although these concepts may take different forms in different traditions.

Paganism…

… is (usually) polytheistic. Most pagans do not subscribe to monotheism, the belief in a single, all-powerful divine being. Some pagans are polytheists, meaning they believe in multiple divine beings with varying levels of power. Hellenic pagans, Norse pagans, and Celtic pagans are typically polytheists. Still others are monists, meaning they believe in a single divine source that manifests itself as multiple gods. Wiccans and other neopagans are typically monists. Many pagans fall somewhere in-between strict polytheism and strict monism. We’ll talk more about polytheism in a future post, but for now just know that the idea of a single, supreme creator is not compatible with most forms of paganism.

… is based in reciprocity. This is a concept that may seem odd to those who grew up around Abrahamic religions: the idea of engaging the gods in a mutually beneficial partnership, rather than one-sided worship. When we connect with the gods, we receive spiritual, emotional, and physical blessings. The gods also benefit, as they are strengthened by our prayers and offerings. (I like to think they also enjoy the company. It has to be lonely, having your body of worshipers supplanted by an anarchist carpenter from Palestine.) The concept of reciprocity is why most pagans make physical offerings to their gods.

Reciprocity also extends to our relationships with other people. Most pagan religions have a code of ethics that includes values like hospitality, kindness, and/or fairness with others. Depending on the pagan, reciprocity may even extend to the dead! Many (but not all) pagans practice ancestor worship, the act of honoring and venerating the beloved dead.

Reciprocity may even extend to the world at large. Some (but not all) pagans are animists, which means they believe that every animal, plant, and stone contains its own spirit. Animist pagans strive to live in harmony with the spirits of the world around them, and may make offerings to these spirits as a sign of friendship.

… embraces the Divine Feminine. Paganism acknowledges and venerates both masculine and feminine expressions of divinity. Polytheist pagans worship both gods and goddesses, while monist pagans see the divine Source as encompassing all genders. In either case, the end result is the same: pagans acknowledge that, sometimes, God is a woman. (Cue the Ariana Grande song.)

Paganism also acknowledges gender expressions outside the masculine/feminine binary. Many pagan deities, like Loki (in Norse paganism), Atum (in Kemetic paganism), and Aphroditus (a masculine aspect of the Greek Aphordite) exist somewhere in the grey area between man and woman.

… is compatible with a mystic mindset. Remember how I said there’s a lot of overlap between witchcraft and paganism? Part of the reason for that is because paganism is highly compatible with magic and other mystical practices. Most pagans believe that humans have, or can attain, some level of divine power. It makes sense that this power would manifest as magic, or as other spiritual abilities. Many of the ancient cultures modern paganism draws inspiration from practiced magic in some form, so it follows that modern pagans would as well.

… draws inspiration from the ancient stories. As we discussed, “pagan” originally referred to the religious groups that were pushed out by Christian hegemony. As a result, every modern pagan is a little bit of a historian. Because paganism was pushed underground, it takes a little digging to find myths, rituals, and prayers that can be used or adapted for modern practice.

Many pagans worship historic deities that you’ve probably read about at some point. Visit any pagan pride event, and you’ll probably find worshipers of Zeus, Venus, Thor, and Isis, just to name a few. Studying and interpreting ancient mythology and archaeological evidence is a big part of modern paganism.

… is a religion with homework. If you’ve read this far, you may be beginning to realize that being pagan is a lot of work. It’s fun, spiritually fulfilling, and very rewarding work, but work all the same. Because very few modern pagans have access to temples, priests and priestesses, or an in-person community that shares their beliefs, they end up having to teach themselves, do their own research, and guide their own practice.

This is incredibly empowering, as it means you are your own religious authority. It does, however, mean that you will occasionally have to open a book or slog through a dense academic article about the most recent archaeological find related to your favorite deity. Thankfully, there’s a growing number of accessible, beginner-friendly books, blogs, podcasts, and YouTube channels to help you in your research.

… embodies a deep respect for the natural world. While not all pagans are animists, most pagans do feel some sort of reverence for the forces of nature. Many pagan deities are associated with natural forces or use the natural world to communicate with their followers. Because of this, not only do pagans respect and love nature, but they’re constantly watching it for signs and messages. (Are you really friends with a pagan if they haven’t called you crying because they found a crow feather on the ground or saw a woodpecker in their backyard?)

Some pagan groups, especially neopagan religions like Wicca, have been classified as Earth-centered religions. Personally, I dislike this term. While it is true that many pagans feel a deep spiritual connection to the Earth and may even venerate local nature spirits, to say that these religions are “Earth-centered” feels like an oversimplification. Wiccans, for example, don’t actually worship nature — they worship the God and Goddess, who they see reflected in the natural world.

… is driven by individual spiritual practice. As mentioned above, very few pagans have access to an in-person community. Because of this, modern paganism largely consists of individual practices. Even pagans who do belong to a community still typically worship on their own sometimes. These personal practices may involve prayer, offerings to the gods, meditation, divination, astral travel, performing religious rituals, or countless other practices. Many pagans have personal altars in their homes, where they worship alone or with their family.

… is a celebration of daily life. One thing I love about paganism is how it makes every aspect of my life feel sacred. Many religions emphasize the spiritual aspects of life while deemphasizing, or even demonizing, the physical or mundane aspects. This can lead to practitioners feeling like they are spiritual beings trapped in a physical body, or like their physical needs and desires are something to escape.

Paganism allows practitioners to fully enjoy being physical and spiritual beings. Pagans reach for the heights of spiritual awareness, while also enjoying earthly delights — recognizing that neither is inherently more worthy than the other and that both are needed for a balanced life.

… is only one of many paths to Truth. Most pagan groups do not claim to be the only valid religious path, and in fact several openly acknowledge the validity of other religions. This is why you rarely see pagans trying to convert other people to paganism — it’s openly acknowledged that paganism isn’t for everyone, and that those who are truly meant to practice the old ways will find them.

~~~

Hopefully, this post has given us a good working definition of “paganism.” From here, we’ll explore some of these individual concepts in more depth and discuss specific religions within the pagan umbrella. Until then, blessed be.

Resources:

Wicca for Beginners by Thea Sabin

Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner by Scott Cunningham

A Witches’ Bible by Janet and Stewart Farrar

The Way of Fire and Ice by Ryan Smith

Where the Hawthorn Grows by Morgan Daimler

Temple of the Cosmos by Jeremy Naydler

A Practical Guide to Irish Spirituality by Lora O’Brien

[nightshade-anura]

"if piper was experiencing compulsory heterosexuality then it stands to reason so was jason in this essay i will" WHERES THE ESSAY OP??

that wasn't me, and ik you probably meant it as a joke, but-

jason was born in 1994, which would've still been the tail end of the aids crisis. this meant that a lot of mentions of quietness in general would've been very quiet or even non existent. he was also only raised in a household till the age of 3; at which point he was abandoned in a park, and then, obviously, raised by lupa, and after, camp jupiter. even at a camp of roman demigods, the concept of queer people would've been very much erased.

when we first meet reyna, it's mentioned that she feels the need to be in a relationship with a praetor, and, i may be wrong here, but i think the implication is specifically of the opposite binary gender? either way, reyna's experiencing compallo here herself, which may rubbed off onto jason as comphet.

to the main point: jason was forced into a relationship with piper, after having his memory wiped, and being told by piper herself that it was genuine. with a lack of memories, he's already quite disoriented so any doubt of attraction he may have had would've most likely have just been put down to disorientation. piper's also dealing with dylan (the guy who was hitting on her), so, in a sense, he feels protective, which could be easily mistaken as attraction.

there were exclusively m/f couples aboard the argo ii. this means that, until hoh, he is not aware of any queer people around him. even if he does begin questioning, he probably tries to stash his sexuality somewhere in the back of his mind in an attempt to fit in.

however, at the end of the day, piper has a chance to explore their sexuality and gender, whereas jason doesn't- ahem, i think everyone knows by now, but if you don't have spoilers filtered and you somehow don't know what i'm talking about, this is a spoiler warning- as he dies. jason and piper presumably break up sometime during tdp, which was most likely only a couple of weeks inbetween that and his death to question his sexuality. (i do like to imagine that he has a bf whilst in college, but that's besides the point)

[lovelivingmydreams]

Paper Flowers: By any other name

Happy New year! I’m back with the fifth chapter. Other chapters are listed in the master post under Paper Flowers.

Thomas gets tmakes a fun youtube Video. Patton thinks there might be a breakthrough with Virgil. And Roman gets a surprise.

Thomas and Joan are sitting down at Joan’s kitchen table for a youtube video.

Earlier that week Thomas had sent out a tweet to ask the Fanders to send in questions and links for them to react to.

The video was a lot of fun so far. They saw cute dog video’s, inspiring coming out video’s, and then there was the artwork inspired by his vine stuff. Some fanders made misleading complement themed cards, and there were cute drawings of his teacher and dad character. And of course there was that stainglass/yingyang drawing of the Prince and his nemesis.

“This is just amazing, you guys are all so talented.” He gushes, not for the first time as he studies the gorgeous detailing on the latter. This must’ve taken hours and he can’t get over the fact that something he did inspired that.

The questions were fun to answer too. What subject is teacher’s favorite? What is Dad’s favorite cookie? What was the funniest interaction he’d ever had after a storytime? Some serious ones too. How did Joan know they were non binary?

What made him decide to come out as gay to his Christian parents? How did he know it was the right time?

Is it hard being out and proud while being a public figure?

Tips on how to handle social anxiety.

“Okay, final question, I peeked on this one,” Joan admitted, making Thomas let out a dramatic scandalized gasp. “I wanted to make sure we’d end the video on a fun note. Go on read it.”

Joan is chuckling already, so Thomas quickly reads the comment.

“Thomas love your content! But the people need to know. Is it Marcus or Kevin?”

Thomas frowns in confusion. There is a link and when he clicks on it he is brought to a long reblog chain on tumblr. He quickly reads through the first few posts and snorts.

“Oh My Goodness, that is just amazing!” he squeals in delight. He loves that the fanders are so enthusiastic about those two. And from what he can tell both ‘armies’ are battling it out in good fun.

“Well, I can’t confirm, nor deny either name at this time. But I think he’d very much approve of the one his faithful minions have chosen for him. Personally I do think Kevin would be hilarious though.”

Joan chuckles and nods in agreement.

“We might learn the dark overlord’s true name someday,” Thomas smiles. “But for now, take it easy guys galls and non-binary palls. Peace out!”

“Are you quite done Princey?” Virgil huffed. Roman had been laughing nonstop since Thomas heard about the debate going on in the Fanders comunity.

“Sorry. I’ll stop. Honestly it’s not that funny. Please do forgive me… Kevin,” And just like that he was doubled over again. Virgil groaned in annoyance.

“Okay, okay, I’m done. I honestly didn’t mean to. You can’t always help it when you laugh though. And you must admit it is a little funny,” Roman said once he got a hold of himself, whipping the mirth out of his eyes.

“What’s all this commotion about?” Patton wondered as he entered the commons.

Virgil tensed up. Patton had been… Different lately. He’d been checking if Virgil took enough food when he ate in his room, and that he ate everything when Roman coaxed him into eating with the others. He knocked more often to check if Virgil had laundry to be done, or to tell him that it was time for him to go to bed. He was taking this whole dad thing a little too seriously.

And some part of Virgil wanted to just accept and appreciate the effort, but the other kept wondering why Patton was doing all that for him when he clearly wanted him to just move back downstairs already.

It was in the little things. The way Patton would tense when he entered the room. How he would hesitate before smiling at him or greeting him. The way his voice wavered when he asked him stuff. And sometimes Patton would say stuff like “I don’t care how Deceit does things, but up here we…” Insert whatever rule Patton was trying to get Virgil to accept.

Honestly. He didn’t mind doing chores. Even if it was redundant when you can just will stuff to be clean. He didn’t mind making an appearance in the commons once a day either. Patton had just jumped from not involving him in anything into expecting him to fight him on everything.

Sure he’d roll his eyes and huff a little, but he wasn’t that difficult. Patton clearly expected him to be though. Perhaps even expected him to get tired of the rules and leave.

The problem was, Virgil had actually tried a few times in the beginning, and he couldn’t go back downstairs. Not really. Not for more than a visit when Thomas was asleep. The rest of the time, he was stuck in the in between only able to go to the upper commons.

Virgil’s best guess at how this worked was that Thomas had acknowledged his existence, but was still trying to push him down most of the time.

It’d been Janus’ decision to reveal this truth, when Virgil had been triggered into a panic attack one morning out of seemingly nowhere. Janus and Remus had been very calm that day and that had been exactly what had made Virgil worry that something big was coming. Janus realized this was not a healthy environment for him. So he lifted the denial on Thomas’ anxiety and told Patton and the others that Virgil would be living with them from now on.

Next thing Virgil knew his room was moved up, just not all the way.

He wasn’t sure, but he felt like he’d gotten closer to the upper level since he and Roman became friends. Logan didn’t seem to care one way or another. So that left Patton as the one to push him down right?

Virgil closed his eyes to calm his reeling thoughts for a moment. He couldn’t get swept up by his own head when in public. Princey got it by now, but how would he explain this to Patton.

“Oh, hello Padre. Kevin and I were just discussing the latest video and…”

Then Virgil found himself crouching on the kitchen counter ready for an attack. Patton’s high pitched squeal had been unexpected and terrifying.

Roman, once he recovered from his own surprise, moved a little closer to Virgil, putting himself in between him and the perceived danger. It helped calming him down a lot faster and adjust his position to look more casual and less terrified.

Patton was still squealing and clapping. It seemed like he had missed Virgil’s panicked reaction.

“Your name is Kevin?” he gushed.

“No,” Virgil objected immediately. Holding up both hands in a stop sign.

“That’s just one of the names the fanders gave the villain character. Princey thinks he’s hilarious for calling me that,” he explained.

Patton deflated. “Oh… Well, it’s nice the fanders enjoy your character so much,” he smiled awkwardly. Virgil suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. He wanted to get out of here, like now.

“Padre! You just must see the gorgeous artwork this fander did about the prince!” Roman declared as he grabbed Patton by the arm and led him away.

Virgil finally fully relaxed. Roman was really pulling through on every level.

Protecting him from Patton’s parenting, deflecting Logan’s tough questions, and even making Virgil feel appreciated. Whenever Virgil had had a rough day of keeping Thomas safe, Roman would come find him in the field and just hang with him, humming his favorite music, set up one of his favorite movies with him, telling him stories of his grand adventures. Just hanging out. Once they did each other’s nails. That was a lot of fun. Virgil had actually quit nailbiting  all together because he didn’t want to ruin them.

At first Roman had tried gifts and lavish praise, but that did not sit well with Virgil. He panicked over not being able to live up to the praise or give good gifts in return. And Roman listened and adapted.

Virgil in turn had been trying to give Roman verbal praise whenever he did something nice for him, or did a good job with Thomas. It was hard for Virgil to say this stuff out loud though.

Virgil entered his room trying to think of a way to thank Roman for today without making it awkward for the both of them.

His eye fell on some purple craft paper. One of Roman’s early gifts. He’d thought that maybe Virgil might enjoy creating things to take his mind of off his worries every once in a while.

Virgil had never really found a good project to use it for… But now.

When Roman got back to his room after bidding Patton a good day he could feel a slow rhythmic knock on his door. They never agreed on a code, but he could tell that this was just Virgil trying to get his attention, but that he could take his time if needed.

He decided to note down his new idea for a Vine first so he wouldn’t lose it. When he opened the door, Virgil was nowhere to be seen. Not that Roman noticed right away, he was far too focused on the purple paper rose hanging from the doorframe by a piece of yarn.

It was clearly hand crafted. Which must have taken Virgil quite some effort. He carefully untied the flower and brought it to his room where he put it on his vanity in a little vase.

He smiled softly at the little token of appreciation. A friendship with the emo knight wasn’t always easy to navigate. But it was definitely worth it.

He picked up the idea again, confident it would be another hit.

The dark overlord scowled at the bright morning sky. "Curse you, eternal sun." He turns his attention to the star map on the table in front of him "and every single one of you stars." He raised a picture of the solar system and glared. "And to hell with all you planets! I hate you all!" Then he dramatically turned and picked up a small ball resembling a certain non-planet. "Except for you,” he says softly stroking the ball delicately as if to comfort it. “You get me. You may stay."

Next: everyone falls

[making-bad-life-choices]

So the markings on Patton are cause of being a poison dart frog, What about the Roman and Logan?

Logan is a  Corvus moneduloides, which literally translates to a New Caledonian Crow as in his animal trait, yet he doesn’t usually show his animalistic features, only the robotic ones, why? 

He obviously wanted to stand out after Patton stepped down from being the Leader of the Dark Sides, A Single Animal Trait just couldn’t do for him, so he decided to experiment with those kinds of things.

Throughtful the whole process, he found a perfect form to take, and it was an Android, It stood out, it was strong enough as it had special abilities and would be a perfect fit for a strong leader as he took his new position seriously.

As for his abilities...

The Caledonian Crow ones:

-He has the ability to construct and invent various tools and liquified substances without having the ability to create things out of thin air, which only Creativities can do. It is rather difficult and normally requires the skill for the side to do just that, but since his ‘genes’ or however those would be called in the side version, halfly resemble the said bird, it is natural for him to know such things.

-He can also create traps and decoys if he wants to strike someone or if he feels endangered, he does that mainly to Roman out of spite.

-You can’t hide from this guy, he has the sense of the Crow, and even if you hide in a closet, if there is just one tiny hole in the structure, you are simply screwed. Again, mostly used on Roman.

His other abilities are barely noticeable and hard to spot out, but that is mainly how he takes advantage of his animalistic abilities, now let’\s get to the robotic ones:

-He can form out of thin air giant hands created simply from mathematic algorithms and binary codes, he can use those to grab things, which he either can not lift with his own strength, to make things easier or to catch something or someone who gets on his nerves. (Again, very difficult to guess who I’m talking about)

-he can stop the time-being in the mind-scape, so it seems as if he can teleport through it, yet as to not be overpowered his limit is only 5 seconds, while it is limited, he still can do very much in such a short time.

-Can manifest his powers so he can move through the time glitches

-Can fill people’s brains with info-dumping, therefore making their head hurt in a migraine unless they are actually interested in the information during the process, I suppose. (Remus is one of the Immune ones)

As for Roman...

Some of you might’ve noticed the burnt-like markings on his face on the Blog Background Picture, and those markings are actually the venom buds containing the neurotoxin otherwise called  homobatrachotoxin. 

It is because of his animal trait being Pitohui dichrous otherwise in English Hooded Pitohui, one of the few in the world toxic birds.

Besides his face, the venom buds cover at least 1/2 of his body as well, which simply means that if you would want to touch this guy with bare skin (same goes to Patton unfortunately) you would get serious toxins in your body which would result in serious harm at least and possibly even death at worst, as his skin works exactly like the feathers of the said Hooded Pitohui

Besides the Hooded Pitohui, it is noticed that he has a few more animal traits than simply just that that is due to him also being partly experimented on with his animalistic traits.

And yes, Logan did chose him again for the experiments with the toxin and others, Roman hated every moment of it.

I will not explain every characteristic of Roman’s traits but I can by Percentage add some other animal traits that got included in the process.

-Rattlesnake - 8%

-Fire-breed Dragon - 5%

-Squid - 7%

-Koyote - 5%

-Bat - 8%

-Hooded Pitohui [Main Trait] - 67%

All the Experiments turned out positive but Roman hated Logan’s guts after that.

I know you didn’t need that kind of information, but I just wanted to clear some things out for the future already.