#especially because I know as a marginalized person that sometimes terms have fucked up origins that are better avoided

[guiltyidealist]

Hey so what descriptor should I be using for someone who is not intersex? Because I've heard all of the following:

Perisex

Dyadic

Endosex

And I have no idea if any are more appropriate than any other, or better-known, or if one is like. rooted in screwed up shit. or anything relevant to my own usage

[sunflowersandcherryblossoms]

for the character ask thing if you want to do it: Rukia

So, I'm going to do this with the help of screenshots because I'm too lazy to go on my laptop...

1. I like that she's a dork at times, has a good heart, is shown as powerful since the beginning and is quite down to earth for a Shinigami.

2. Her temper mixed with her almost naiveté when it comes to the World of the Living. Also her powers.

3. The way Tite Kubo sometimes hinted at a bit more problematic attachments to her own brother... (Ah, yes... Men writing women.)

4. I don't know... Avatar The Last Airbender, maybe?

5. None?! Not really. I do not have a "soundtrack" attached to her for some reason.

6. The bad temper and the tomboyish ways.

7. Keeping her in character when it comes to her Shinigami ways and powers. Giving her a healthy, open relationship with her brother.

8. Sidelining her or just making her mainly someone's wife instead of the badass Shinigami and Kuchiki Clan member she should be.

9. Yes. Absolutely.

10. I think so.

11. No.

12. She's actually Hisana's daughter, not sister. But she doesn't know. (yet)

13. 🐰 She would just use bunnies constantly. She doesn't really understand how to use emojis though...

14. What's it called to just wear whatever we feel like at the moment? Being a dress or hoodies and jeans? That's it. It's the "I have phases where I dress up real nice and then I just go fandom tee shirt and jeans."

15. I'm a basic bitch. Renruki.

16. Let me tell you how fast I block people who ship her with HER OWN FUCKING BROTHER!!!

17. Rukia and Inoue. I see the appeal, but it's a No for me personally.

18. The relationship with Ichigo. Of course, for me I see it as an almost sibling like interaction, because my romantic ass loves Byaichi. But I totally understand the Ichiruki people!

19. None. It's not like she's always going out with other characters. I don't even think she has much patience for the rest of the Shinigami Women's Association or whatever.

20. Toshiro. Yes, because they have their power's type in common.

Or Karin. Because, you know... Messing with Ichigo (especially in my AU. Needling Ichigo over Byakuya...)

21. I enjoy writing Rukia as becoming a true younger sister towards Byakuya. Especially when it comes to teasing each other over their respective dumbasses. I don't like when people forget she's an individual on her own right and she becomes more like a background character.

22. Read above please.

23.

Because... Is this picture supposed to NOT make me believe Rukia and Byakuya are actually blood relatives?

24. My Original Character from Legend Of the Galactic Heroes - Die Neue These, Gabrielle Brüner. But just marginally...

25. I thought she was going to be the main character alongside Ichigo, going on adventures with him.

Still believe the story should have focused more on the Shinigami, giving us (what can we use to substitute the term buddy cop?) a duo fighting everything and everyone.

26. THE END!

[salt-volk]

(to the mod who sees this, i understand if you simply delete this instead of posting it, as it got very long and i imagine you may want to cut this discussion short, particularly if you think aizlesyracuse may be troll or something?)

buuut your condescension could use some work.

i'm really sorry. i honestly wasn't trying to be condescending, but i apologise if it came across as talking down to you, please know that was never my intent! i struggle with judging tone (and sometimes wording too) because i'm autistic (which is why i mentioned specifically at the start that i was being sincere), so i apologise in advance if anything is poorly worded or comes across as hostile. nothing is intended that way!

for you to assume me ignorant, which is itself out of ignorance, is pretty hypocritical of you, especially while you are condemning the same ignorance in your post.

i genuinely didn't assume that, i simply wrote what i did in case that was what was going on, and for anyone else who might be confused as to the situation. and i'm certainly not condemning anyone! everything i said was only in an attempt to help people understand. after all, everyone is ignorant about some things, because no one can know everything. i openly admit that i'm ignorant about many subjects. i'm afraid i don't understand how it makes me a hypocrite to try and educate others about something i do know about because i may not know about other things, though. (perhaps someone in the comments can help with that?)

that being said, if you weren't ignorant of it being a dogwhistle, then i truly don't understand why you'd use it, much less why you'd get upset when others are made uncomfortable and afraid. surely you expected at some point for at least one person who came across it to be put off? perhaps i'm misunderstanding, sorry if that's the case.

“marginalized people” as if i don’t know? you don’t know my life, homie, you have no clue what kind of ‘oppression’ and 'marginalization’ i’ve experienced.

i apologise, i'll admit i did make an assumption here. i just rarely if ever see people who are oppressed using such terms belonging to the people oppressing them, particularly such dangerous groups as the alt-right. however this leaves me even more confused.

you’re not gonna agree with me on this i’m sure, but throwing around the term 'dogwhistle’ on the internet is the dumbest shit. to ASSUME someone is a crackhead extremist without any REAL evidence is MESSED UP.

i only used the term dogwhistle because that's very literally what it is - it's not meant as an accusation, it's a statement of fact. and i assure you i wasn't throwing it around lightly. i also didn't assume you were an extremist - that's actually the entire reason i wrote my previous post, because i thought perhaps you were confused as to why people had the reaction they did. unfortunately, people will consider dogwhistles counting as evidence against you until proven otherwise simply because 99.9% of the time their usage is by extremists, so it unfortunately immediately comes across as incriminating. and while yes, people didn't know for sure, no one could just ask because it's against DV rules to discuss such topics. most people also likely didn't feel safe to do so. if there's even a tiny chance you were using it because you're an extremist, that makes you far too dangerous for people to approach about the subject.

you wanna ostracize and condemn someone for making a pop-culture reference when you yourself didn’t originally know what people were upset about either? bruh. that type of shit can fuck someone up. why not… i don’t know, ASK if you’re curious???

i can't speak for the original poster, of course, but i certainly wasn't trying to ostracise you. i believe (but may be wrong ofc) the reason people brought it up to begin with is simply because, as i said, it very much is a literal dogwhistle, and it was done for safety purposes. whether or not you were using it that way, things like that immediately make people extremely cautious and most often scared, and it's very, very common to share that information with others affected by groups who use such terms so if they would wish to block/avoid a certain user for their comfort/safety, they can. (and i already mentioned why people didn't ask above.)

it is important to deal with bad people i.e. murderers, ACTUAL REAL pedos, abusers, etc. that’s the point of a justice system, but the jumping to conclusions like this is insane.

again, i can't speak for everyone, but the reason people reacted the way they did is because this is just the normal way people react to seeing things like this, it's upsetting and even scary, because the overwhelming majority of the time the person using them is an actual extremist, which is why so many jumped to that conclusion.

i didn’t accuse anyone of anything, i’m making an observation. it was poorly worded, but man. i am. tired. are you SERIOUSLY telling me that someone going behind my back and starting shit about me is a victim? dude. what. the fact that you can even entertain that thought is insane to me.

i'm glad to know it was just poor wording on your part and you didn't intend to accuse anyone of anything. thank you for clarifying that! the reason i considered it victim-blaming was only because i misunderstood what you'd said and thought you were accusing others, now i know that was a misinterpretation on my part, i better understand.

been here before, this is online bullying. i don’t care how you justify it, it is what it is AND i know i’m not the only one. that’s why i messaged you, not to “defend myself”. right now, i’m messaging you kinda hoping you might take your own advice and LISTEN. society as a whole uses cancel culture as a crutch and it’s fucked up. you gotta stop. you ARE NOT PROTECTING ANYONE. you are hurting people.

i'm sorry, but here i have to disagree. as someone who's experienced plenty of bullying, both online and off, it is just not online bullying to warn others that someone has a sign that is used 99.9% of the time to mean they are part of a genuinely dangerous group. it's a very, very common safety precaution taken by people online by people who need to look out for these things as just that, a matter of safety. (and absolutely no one was trying to "cancel" you; you can't even "cancel" someone without a platform. and you're really, really not making yourself look better by using terms like "cancel culture," as that's another term used by bigots, abusers and most commonly alt-righters as a way to criticise the idea of simply holding people accountable for their actions when they engage in harmful behaviour.) i also don't believe it is bullying to be upset by the way you reacted to it; people are allowed to express how something has made them feel. that being negative doesn't automatically mean it's bullying. i understand that you worded things poorly, i myself have worded things poorly many times in the past and will probably continue to due to being autistic, but you just have to accept that people are entitled to their reactions based on their (mis)interpretation of your words, and through the misinterpretation of yours, it appeared as though you were accusing people who were already upset of some rather nasty things. i'm not saying you shouldn't correct the situation and explain that's not what you meant, that's absolutely essential for any kind of communication, and it's normal to be upset at this, but people being upset because they thought you said something awful about them isn't bullying.

-which leads into your next point. yeah, you guys are attacking me. i say “you guys” because YOU did participate. i can feel the judgement from AAAALL THE WAY over here. and… then you go and ASSUME i must have 'responded’ to something in some way that warranted this? i grew up in abuse, this is too fucking familiar. don’t do this shit. what you are promoting is not self awareness, it is mob mentality and bullying.

i'm really, genuinely sorry if my previous post contributed negatively to the discussion. i wasn't at all trying to judge you or anyone else, nor do i. i've been in a similar situation of being called out in the past, when i was quite young, and it was so overwhelming and i had no idea what to do. so i just hoped to provide some insight into why things played out the way they did and why people were responding the way they did to help you, or just anyone who was confused, to better understand. i'm also sorry for my misinterpretation of what you'd said. i also grew up with a great deal of abuse, and that along with being autistic can make it very hard to judge others' intent. i most often take things very literally, so when someone else miswords something it can lead to a lot of confusion, which i believe is what happened here. (though i sincerely am not judging you for that, either! i also struggle a lot with wording, as i said.)

i like the matrix. what the fuck. i never imagined anyone would notice the little note i left for myself on my page, nevermind the drama. it’s disgusting and pathetic, do you guys not have hobbies? we could’ve had a moment of appreciating a cool movie, but instead it turned into a mini online struggle session.

the reason it didn't lead to appreciating a cool movie is because it's not just a matrix reference. it was was created specifically by incels/alt-righters as a dogwhistle. and perhaps i'm misunderstanding (apologies again if that's the case), but you said you're not ignorant of the fact it's a term overwhelming used by incels/the alt-right rather than a movie reference? so why not use the most common matrix reference that exists ("there is no spoon") instead of something that is inseparably connected to dangerous radical extremists? and please...please don't call people disgusting and pathetic at having a negative reaction to a phrase that is used primarily to signal someone believes we don't deserve human rights. even if you didn't know that at the time, you do now, and it's cruel to say such things.

tl;dr you gang up on someone, accuse them of some crazy shit, and then avoid responsibility by framing yourselves as victims in your own minds. you assume that anyone who doesn’t conform to your standards of behavior is not worth kindness. this is not what 'community’ is supposed to be like. i’m not “open to learning” about the sick ways that people justify this behavior and i do not care who i ideologically offended. please, grow a spine or better yet some real empathy.

hopefully i've already explained well enough why it's not "crazy" to think the use of something used the absolute, overwhelming majority of the time as a signal between members of the alt-right was used as just that.

and i cannot emphasise enough that this isn't "cancelling," this isn't trying to force you to conform to behaviour of some kind: this is people telling you that you're using a phrase that is used by alt-righters to signal to one another, and that seeing that is uncomfortable and frightening.

there's also a...striking amount of right-wing rhetoric in what you said here. a scary amount. if you're really, truly being genuine, i urge you to seek out information explaining in more detail what common arguments and dogwhistles are for the alt-right, because you're unknowingly in the pipeline. i hope you manage to get out, however i no longer feel comfortable discussing this with you further as a result.

i sincerely wish you the best.

[fozmeadows]

race & culture in fandom

For the past decade, English language fanwriting culture post the days of LiveJournal and Strikethrough has been hugely shaped by a handful of megafandoms that exploded across AO3 and tumblr – I’m talking Supernatural, Teen Wolf, Dr Who, the MCU, Harry Potter, Star Wars, BBC Sherlock – which have all been overwhelmingly white. I don’t mean in terms of the fans themselves, although whiteness also figures prominently in said fandoms: I mean that the source materials themselves feature very few POC, and the ones who are there tended to be done dirty by the creators.

Periodically, this has led POC in fandom to point out, extremely reasonably, that even where non-white characters do get central roles in various media properties, they’re often overlooked by fandom at large, such that the popular focus stays primarily on the white characters. Sometimes this happened (it was argued) because the POC characters were secondary to begin with and as such attracted less fan devotion (although this has never stopped fandoms from picking a random white gremlin from the background cast and elevating them to the status of Fave); at other times, however, there has been a clear trend of sidelining POC leads in favour of white alternatives (as per Finn, Poe and Rose Tico being edged out in Star Wars shipping by Hux, Kylo and Rey). I mention this, not to demonize individuals whose preferred ships happen to involve white characters, but to point out the collective impact these trends can have on POC in fandom spaces: it’s not bad to ship what you ship, but that doesn’t mean there’s no utility in analysing what’s popular and why through a racial lens.

All this being so, it feels increasingly salient that fanwriting culture as exists right now developed under the influence and in the shadow of these white-dominated fandoms – specifically, the taboo against criticizing or critiquing fics for any reason. Certainly, there’s a hell of a lot of value to Don’t Like, Don’t Read as a general policy, especially when it comes to the darker, kinkier side of ficwriting, and whether the context is professional or recreational, offering someone direct, unsolicited feedback on their writing style is a dick move. But on the flipside, the anti-criticism culture in fanwriting has consistently worked against fans of colour who speak out about racist tropes, fan ignorance and hurtful portrayals of living cultures. Voicing anything negative about works created for free is seen as violating a core rule of ficwriting culture – but as that culture has been foundationally shaped by white fandoms, white characters and, overwhelmingly, white ideas about what’s allowed and what isn’t, we ought to consider that all critical contexts are not created equal.

Right now, the rise of C-drama (and K-drama, and J-drama) fandoms is seeing a surge of white creators – myself included – writing fics for fandoms in which no white people exist, and where the cultural context which informs the canon is different to western norms. Which isn’t to say that no popular fandoms focused on POC have existed before now – K-pop RPF and anime fandoms, for example, have been big for a while. But with the success of The Untamed, more western fans are investing in stories whose plots, references, characterization and settings are so fundamentally rooted in real Chinese history and living Chinese culture that it’s not really possible to write around it. And yet, inevitably, too many in fandom are trying to do just that, treating respect for Chinese culture or an attempt to understand it as optional extras – because surely, fandom shouldn’t feel like work. If you’re writing something for free, on your own time, for your own pleasure, why should anyone else get to demand that you research the subject matter first?

Because it matters, is the short answer. Because race and culture are not made-up things like lightsabers and werewolves that you can alter, mock or misunderstand without the risk of hurting or marginalizing actual real people – and because, quite frankly, we already know that fandom is capable of drawing lines in the sand where it chooses. When Brony culture first reared its head (hah), the online fandom for My Little Pony – which, like the other fandoms we’re discussing here, is overwhelmingly female – was initially welcoming. It felt like progress, that so many straight men could identify with such a feminine show; a potential sign that maybe, we were finally leaving the era of mainstream hypermasculine fandom bullshit behind, at least in this one arena. And then, in pretty much the blink of an eye, things got overwhelmingly bad. Artists drawing hardcorn porn didn’t tag their works as adult, leading to those images flooding the public search results for a children’s show. Women were edged out of their own spaces. Bronies got aggressive, posting harsh, ugly criticism of artists whose gijinka interpretations of the Mane Six as humans were deemed insufficiently fuckable.

The resulting fandom conflict was deeply unpleasant, but in the end, the verdict was laid down loud and clear: if you cannot comport yourself like a decent fucking person – if your base mode of engagement within a fandom is to coopt it from the original audience and declare it newly cool only because you’re into it now; if you do not, at the very least, attempt to understand and respect the original context so as to engage appropriately (in this case, by acknowledging that the media you’re consuming was foundational to many women who were there before you and is still consumed by minors, and tagging your goddamn porn) – then the rest of fandom will treat you like a social biohazard, and rightly so.

Here’s the thing, fellow white people: when it comes to C-drama fandoms and other non-white, non-western properties? We are the Bronies.

Not, I hasten to add, in terms of toxic fuckery – though if we don’t get our collective shit together, I’m not taking that darkest timeline off the table. What I mean is that, by virtue of the whiteminding which, both consciously and unconsciously, has shaped current fan culture, particularly in terms of ficwriting conventions, we’re collectively acting as though we’re the primary audience for narratives that weren’t actually made with us in mind, being hostile dicks to Chinese and Chinese diaspora fans when they take the time to point out what we’re getting wrong. We’re bristling because we’ve conceived of ficwriting as a place wherein No Criticism Occurs without questioning how this culture, while valuable in some respects, also serves to uphold, excuse and perpetuate microaggresions and other forms of racism, lashing out or falling back on passive aggression when POC, quite understandably, talk about how they’re sick and tired of our bullshit.

An analogy: one of the most helpful and important tags on AO3 is the one for homophobia, not just because it allows readers to brace for or opt out of reading content they might find distressing, but because it lets the reader know that the writer knows what homophobia is, and is employing it deliberately. When this concept is tagged, I – like many others – often feel more able to read about it than I do when it crops up in untagged works of commercial fiction, film or TV, because I don’t have to worry that the author thinks what they’re depicting is okay. I can say definitively, “yes, the author knows this is messed up, but has elected to tell a messed up story, a fact that will be obvious to anyone who reads this,” instead of worrying that someone will see a fucked up story blind and think “oh, I guess that’s fine.” The contextual framing matters, is the point – which is why it’s so jarring and unpleasant on those rare occasions when I do stumble on a fic whose author has legitimately mistaken homophobic microaggressions for cute banter. This is why, in a ficwriting culture that otherwise aggressively dislikes criticism, the request to tag for a certain thing – while still sometimes fraught – is generally permitted: it helps everyone to have a good time and to curate their fan experience appropriately.

But when white and/or western fans fail to educate ourselves about race, culture and the history of other countries and proceed to deploy that ignorance in our writing, we’re not tagging for racism as a thing we’ve explored deliberately; we’re just being ignorant at best and hateful at worst, which means fans of colour don’t know to avoid or brace for the content of those works until they get hit in the face with microaggresions and/or outright racism. Instead, the burden is placed on them to navigate a minefield not of their creation: which fans can be trusted to write respectfully? Who, if they make an error, will listen and apologise if the error is explained? Who, if lived experience, personal translations or cultural insights are shared, can be counted on to acknowledge those contributions rather than taking sole credit? Too often, fans of colour are being made to feel like guests in their own house, while white fans act like a tone-policing HOA.

Point being: fandom and ficwriting cultures as they currently exist badly need to confront the implicit acceptance of racism and cultural bias that underlies a lot of community rules about engagement and criticism, and that needs to start with white and western fans. We don’t want to be the new Bronies, guys. We need to do better.  

[dreamsmp-au-ideas]

I was going to actually post this before asks closed (didn’t get the chance), but Teddy Bear Anon, you are one of my favorite people and a magnificent creature. You get my vibe. 

About Bad canonically being Sapnap’s dad I feel like that has so much extra angst potential when we consider the rest of the found family. Like. Sapnap, Tommy, and Fundy all have dads who started with the best of intentions but for one reason or another ended up slowly becoming a danger to them. I imagine Tommy and Fundy one day showing up with a cake and telling Sapnap “We regretfully welcome you to the shit dad club” and Sapnap is torn between being upset still and laughing over the absurdity of the situation.

Bonus points if Tommy made the cake using a recipe book that Niki gave him, the last gift Niki ever gave to Tommy. Tommy was originally a really bad cook/baker but after the egg really started to take over he went full survivalist. Leaning to cook was necessary but learning to bake was something he did as a way to raise everyone’s spirits. He’s never gotten the flavor quite to match with Niki’s perfectly but everyone agrees he’s gotten pretty decent in terms of skills. He and Fundy in particular will sometimes just spend an entire day in silence baking and then quietly eat their creations while reflecting on the friends they’ve made and lost over the course of L'manberg’s lifetime. When the group got back to the past and Niki made cookies for Tommy and Fundy the pair very nearly started crying.

Tommy is in an interesting position as a character since he did commit a lot of minor crimes and acted as a general nuisance but he was also still a child. (A very traumatized one considering I canonize SMP Earth with its unlimited lives but even more wars. Including against God. Tommy fought God just let me have this.) He acknowledges the moments when he went over the line and has tried to apologize. In particular at some point before the egg fully takes over he pulls aside Jack and tells him that he’s sorry for the way he acted when he was still in exile, taking one of Jack’s lives and all. Jack and Niki in particular are an interesting subject to address and a painful one for immune!Tommy to think about when he sees younger Niki because the three never fully tossed out the hatchet but it was obvious in the eyes of someone like Sam that both of them were growing more and more hesitant to hurt Tommy. It was made worse by the fact neither were even marginally immune, and it didn’t take long for the egg to get to them.

He never stopped being chaotic. Tommy at his core is just that kind of person. He did, however, grow up enough to act in a more mature manner. Started to recognize what’s too much. In particular he became a lot less violent and willing to lash out after Sam Nook in essence reparented him. He’s still an absolute wild card of a person, which in the eyes of Sam and Sapnap is a good thing. For this au I think we should actually address Tommy having severe ptsd and during the building of his hotel/the early days of the egg before it becomes a noticeable threat it shows. He’s a lot more subdued. Shows of aggression all carry a kind of desperation and his typical jokes feel flat. Lashing out at people slowly becomes more of a defense mechanism to see if someone’s going to leave or betray him, to test the limits of how nice they’re willing to be. After all, nice people have only ever been nice to Tommy when they wanted something from him. His eyes, especially after L'manberg is blow sky high, are well and truly gray. The first time Tommy genuinely laughs after filling Sapnap’s room with chickens is considered celebration worthy to them. His pranks take on a more hermitcraft-esque feel to them which honestly makes them more funny.

By the time they get to the past Tommy has recovered, but he still carries the kind of maturity that like Teddy Bear mentioned is reminiscent of age swap Tommy. When he gets especially stressed though, Immune!Tommy will slip into moments where he acts as tired and done with the world as age swap Tommy. With that said, most of the time he just acts like a more mature Tommy. Nothing could ever completely erase his unique vibe which Ranboo has gone on record as describing “Willing to fight God deaf, blind, and backwards just to prove a point." 

Immune Fundy and Tommy get on really well once Fundy manages to catch up with the rest of the group. It gets to the point where everyone from the past is kinda shocked since smp Fundy and Tommy do not get along. At all. Literally the first night Fundy’s back someone goes to wake them up and they find Fundy asleep on top of Tommy which is a wild experience since this Tommy is a goliath who often refuses to take off his full Netherite max enchant armor. He really becomes a "looks like he could kill you but is actually a cinnamon roll” kinda mans.

Also, yeah, this is Dream’s retirement arc. He is literally just sitting in the corner watching Tommy dote on his younger self and Tubbo before completely pile driving two of the most powerful people on the server straight into the dirt. At some point Tommy sits down with past Punz. He tells this Punz that their Punz died protecting him and Tubbo and that Tommy never got to properly thank their Punz so he’s going to thank this Punz. Tommy then gives Punz an entire stack of Netherite. If we’re gonna go ahead and agree on Phoenix Tommy then Tommy is fire proof, meaning he probably spent a large amount of time in the nether to avoid the egg crew and get rare supplies. Meaning he also probably did a lot of mining just to distract himself and it resulted in him being loaded. Tommy used to have a fear of tnt and explosives but he seems like the type of mad lad to say “exposure therapy” and make a massive cavern in the underbelly of the nether.

I think it would also be really interesting to dedicate like, a couple of chapters to other people’s perspectives. I kind of want to set the time they arrive in the past partway through the Pogtopia arc since I like mildly unhinged but not completely gone Wilbur. Plus then it also makes more sense for Techno to be there. Just prefer the aesthetic really. I want to have Wilbur see this version of Tommy and come to a sudden “oh” moment. I want to have a moment where Tubbo looks between his Tommy and this new Tommy, seeing himself nowhere to be found, and has enough what the fuck moments to become aggressively protective of his own Tommy. Especially if immune!Tommy ever admits to the past Tubbo why he is the way he is, what he faced under the thumb of the people he trusted. Which, out of everyone on the server, Tubbo would be the first one from the past to actively learn. 

I am fully on board with Tommy knowing how to sew. That should just automatically be canon in literally ever AU. Tommy for all intents and purposes is still Phil’s child for me. Survival runs in the family the same way that chaos does, so he’s got a ton of basic survival skills that he just doesn’t show off because it’s still Tommy. He would have been completely fine in exile if it wasn’t for Dream. Whenever someone ruins their clothes in the Immune group they automatically go to Tommy and at first the past versions are very confused (except for past Tommy and Tubbo obviously) and then Tommy’s just “Sapnap this is beyond ruined it can’t be saved, let me make you something new” and within a couple days he makes Sapnap a completely new outfit. Like maybe Sapnap fell into a lava pool because Blaze Sapnap Supremacy and his clothes are beyond saving and everyone is beyond baffled when Tommy just acts like this is a weekly occurrence. He’s memorized Sapnap’s measurements and style tastes and already had a new outfit in the works for him that Sapnap immediately adores upon it being presented to him. It takes about a week for past Eret to learn that Tommy stress sews new clothing and he cannot think of a better model. Eret has never had such a full closet. Eret has everything from three piece suits to ball gowns now. Eret lives in terror of the days where Tommy disappears god knows where with Fundy and the two reappear with a new wardrobe for the entire god damn server. 

Speaking of disappearing I really like the idea of part phoenix and part tanuki Tommy for a couple reasons. Being a Tanuki he’d have access to enough magic to hide his hybrid traits, which if they’ve been present for long enough would be a necessity to him. Additionally think about Fundy and Tommy building a den under Church Prime that slowly turns into a maze. Think about it. It starts off simple and then they both start digging more and it gets deeper and deeper and more complicate and the two just refer to it as their den and the only ones who are fully aware of the connotations of that word are Sam, Sapnap, and Ranboo who remember the absolute hell that was trying to navigate the original. Just Fundy and Tommy bonding over the fact they are literally the only creatures on this server that have this catacomb memorized and at the end of the catacomb is their saferoom which connects to rail way that the two spent a month straight on. It goes at least 25k blocks from spawn and it’s a final emergency resort in case they can’t stop the egg and the Immunes needs to regroup and essentially try again (if they keep bringing their younger selves with them then hopefully they’ll finally get an army large enough to stop this, but everyone really hopes it doesn’t come to that.)

I’m working on the first chapter of my fic right now actually if I’m gonna be honest and phoenix Tommy is absolutely without question canon to it but I’ve still been going back and forth on if I want him to be part tanuki as well or just blessed/favored by one like Teddy Bear mentioned. I’m also tucking away the whole thing about the magma blood for later use. Phoenix Tommy just makes sense. They used to call him Zombie Kid for a reason back on SMP Earth, he just literally does not die ever unless he decides he does.

~Snapdragon & Firefly

[juuls]

Pharmacist/Me = 1 🏆 Doctor/Nursing Staff = 0

Thank you in advance for reading this rant. I’ve been really frustrated and just needed to get this off my chest, and today at least I had a wonderful knight in a white lab coat. 🩺❤️‍🩹🥽🥼💪🏻

Content warnings and squicky squicks: (further down there is) an image of a medical vial with a clipped image of a more benign part of a syringe, health conditions (endometriosis, fibromyalgia), menstrual cycles and associated terms such as bleeding and other things, lack of empathy in my specific healthcare system, hysterectomies, pain, swearing and losing patience. Most important warning: self-administered syringes and injection discussions of legal medications (Depo-Provera) approved of by professionals and properly researched. P.S. this may sound rather Karen-like but I would never do this to someone’s face. Online ranting and acknowledging where I could do better is not the same as screaming in public for bossy requests or comps, etc. Ew.

Another ‘warning’… pharmacists being kick-ass allies and giving a damn about their patients.

I’m really annoyed because (and I know healthcare and scheduling is a clusterfuck right now, but…) for over a month now I’ve been trying to get an appointment in person to get this injectable medication that is, yes, birth control, but is also used for endometriosis in my case. And I have severe endometriosis (exacerbated severely by fibromyalgia, siiiiigh) to the point I bleed enough and lose so much I have to go to the hospital when my care is not properly preventative… like in this case, and the pain is unbelievably severe also to the point I’ve spent time in the hospital, including my 11th Christmas Eve and Day. I started this injectable medication at 13 because it was the only thing that came close to helping reduce my endometrial tissue. Even a hysterectomy wouldn’t help as much, unless they decided to go the super invasive route and remove all the organs (or parts of them) that had become ‘infected’ by the tissue. Again, tissue where it’s not supposed to be, and it causes extreme pain as the tissue tries to flush out of my body each period, even if it’s attached to, like, my pancreas. Just no. That does not work at all. No. That is not fun.

SO. I’m 31, nearing 32, and the doctor’s office knows this. I’ve had the same doctor since I was 10. Been on this medication nearly non-stop for just shy of two decades (with appropriate precautions such as bone density tests) because of the absolute severity of the pain and my inability to function when it hits… which can be months at a time of non-stop bleeding and morning sickness-level nausea and vomiting, migraines and the occasional complete inability to move—in other words, it’s debilitating.

My doctor (even the nurses, as it’s in large print at the top of my file in the system) knows all about this. They’re supposed to call me if I’m overdue by a certain margin (I get they’re busy but months and months???). But my doc’s also a bit of an airhead (albeit a smart one when he focuses) and takes forever to reply to anything on time, even when it’s a severe issue, but not severe enough to go to the hospital. But it’s gotten to the point where the nurses say to go to the ER and then the ER nurses and doctors there get SUPER pissed off (AT ME AND SOMEHOW NOT AT MY DOCTOR/NURSES AND THEIR ORDERS) at the ‘waste of time’, and it’s just a clusterfuck.

Oh yeah, and that ER visit while I was overdue for my injection? Internal intestinal bleeding along with a lovely, even if small, perforation in my fucking uterus from the growth of endometrial tissue. I MEAN COME ON — WHAT IN THE HELL. Totally preventable if they fit me in when I called literally over a month ago.

But I will not change my doctor (the other docs at the practice know what is going on and have offered to take me on, but they don’t have the experience with myself and my conditions or the history, but they can do little else because of professional conduct—it’s between myself and my doc) because he is the only one who treats me with humanity and understands fibromyalgia, endometriosis, pre-MS and pre-RhA/PsA, endo-related IBS, (ulcerative) colitis, and other neurological conditions with any degree of empathy. (See, I told you I’m a mess!) There is no way I’m switching offices in the perpetual shortage of doctors in Canada moving elsewhere for m o n e y (plus Covid-19 being a teen hooligan and constantly coming back to wreck more goddamn shit, including everyone’s sanity, then setting things on fire like the real hooligans in my village have been doing this summer — I mean… what in the hell!?!?), so with all that in mind I actually thank my lucky stars. So I put up with a lot of this shit because he treats me, besides him being an airhead, like an actual human being deserving of compassion and care and quality of life despite my severe disabilities and pain. So.

I’m usually treated really well (even if they often think I’m a nuisance for daring to be severely chronically ill/in pain all the time) so I try to be patient and good and understanding when I can.

But his STAFF (I know they’re busy and I’ve been patient but they’ve been so awful honestly to the point I cried hard enough my dad noticed my red eyes and frustration-tear fracks on my face)! And the doc himself’s inability to reply to notes on time even when urgent and when he knows the circumstances (I admit I am a bit of a hard patient so I can understand if he just kinda ignores me sometimes, honestly). But in this case I was THREE DAMN MONTHS LATE for my injection and they’ve always called in the past when I was coming due if it looked like I hadn’t scheduled an injection, so that I was all on time and squared away and didn’t risk severe pain and damage to my already-fucked hormonal system (learning I couldn’t have kids was absolutely heartbreaking, let me tell you, but even a hysterectomy in that case would solve nothing — this is by far the easiest option, especially considering how my fibromyalgia would fuck with my post-surgery recovery and leave me with lasting pain for years if not decades; sigh).

Anyway. So. After some ridiculous levels of back and forth and some truly remarkable levels of lack of compassion (she kept giving me the exact same, word for word response in a bored tone UGH) considering the severe pain I was in (I was told, in front of OTHER PATIENTS AND STAFF, that I could just wait until I talk to the doctor myself at my next phone appointment and then schedule my injection for my next MONTHLY followup — 4.5 months overdue at that point, it would’ve been — because, and I quote, ‘am used to dealing with pain because of my fibromyalgia and years of dealing with it and other conditions’ which they named in front of others!!!!!!!! what. the. fuck. But I kept my cool because I know all these people, my mom taught their kids music, they’re a fixture of the community, etc. and I refuse to be a Karen…. At least externally.

But here comes the nice part that makes me love our new (okay, he’s been here like 5 years but still, in a small town that’s pretty new lmao) pharmacist that much more. Rasik was aware of my frustration with the doctor and nurses and was even the one who brought to my attention that, at the time, I was 2 months late for my injection and he was a bit concerned since he’s privy to how much pain I exist in without throwing in one or more knives directly into my womb, ovaries, tummy, hips, and other areas my endometrial tissue has taken root. He’s such a sweetheart and he really does care for his patients— the work he does with my father’s diabetes (the tricky one where you’re not obese) management is above and beyond the call of a pharmacist and I will forever be grateful for that alone, never mind how he cares for me.

So I went in today to pick up another medication, after yet another frustrating stop-over at the nurses’ desks, and he suggested I ask for my injectable medication (it’s Depo-Provera, by the way) and the syringe plus the two tips necessary — I’m actually familiar with this since I had to learn epinephrine injections from an early age (not Epipen) and how to give testosterone daily to my ex-husband (sorry not sorry, dude, but congrats on your first kid *grouchy thumbs up*). But yeah! Legally he’s not allowed to suggest I give it to myself, but he was getting super fed up with the nurses and doctors dragging their feet and ‘being assholes with little empathy’ in his own words, so I took the hint and requested my vial plus syringe, as well as the drawing and injection gauge needles…. which he gleefully filled for me, and I reiterated that it was ‘fully my idea, not yours, Rasik, because everyone knows I’m dumb and would never think it’s you if something happened’ (I’m not dumb and I’ve given injections to others many times looool).

Long story short: HERE’S TO PHARMACISTS AROUND THE WORLD, BEING AMAZING AND CARING FOR THEIR PATIENTS AND ‘BENDING BUT NOT REALLY BENDING’ THE RULES TO MAKE SURE THEIR CLIENTS ARE CARED FOR PROPERLY. They are amazing and deserve every last bit of your courtesy, especially when they pull double duty every. single. day. because of Covid and their subsequent boosters. (i.e. boosters in the form of humans who are fucking stupid if they have no medical reason not to get the vaccine… I mean JFC.)

Rasik? You are amazing and I am 100% going to find you some Indian-Canadian (or North Indian; I believe that’s where he’s from originally) treats or desserts or make some myself after slyly asking his assistant what he leans toward liking.

Be kind to one another, yeah, but… my goodness: be kind to those who can truly make a difference in your health, sanity, and even life or death.

Pharmacists, volunteers, and frontline health workers: the true heroes of these times.

Thank you so much. So very much.

💜💙🇨🇦👨🏽‍⚕️❤️‍🩹🙏🏻

P.S. … now I just gotta stab myself intramuscularly after making sure there’s no air bubbles and etc., and swap out to the proper gauge needle (different, smaller, to draw from the vial, larger to inject so that it goes in more quickly and, oddly enough, hurts less haha). I don’t think air bubbles are as much of an issue as when injecting intravenously (ummm I have a doctor uncle and grandma nurse and nurse friends, so shush 😆). But I’ve done this for others and animals so I should be good! :)

I’m a smart enough cookie even if I’ve lost a few nibble-size pieces around the edges. 😉😘 buahaha

Cheers to my pharmacist!!!! You are amazing and I can’t wait for the pain and months and months of bleeding to settle down.

Remind me again why humans are the only mammals (animals?) with monthly fluxes? UGH wtf ever. 🙃

[dajokahhh]

Alright, time for some pretentious sociological-esque rambling. This is gonna be long as hell (its 1822 words to be specific) and I don’t begrudge anyone for not having the patience to read my over-thought perspectives on a murder clown. CWs for: child abuse, 

I think a lot of things have to go wrong in someone’s life for them to decide to become a clown themed supervillain. A lot of people in Gotham have issues but they don’t become the Joker. I think that as a writer it’s an interesting topic to explore, and this is especially true for roleplaying where a character might be in different scenarios or universes. This isn’t some peer reviewed or researched essay, it’s more my own personal beliefs and perspectives as they affect my writing. I think villains, generally, reflect societal understandings or fears about the world around us. This is obviously going to mean villains shift a lot over time and the perspective of the writer. In my case, I’m a queer, fat, mentally ill (cluster B personality disorder specifically) woman-thing who holds some pretty socialist ideas and political perspectives. My educational background is in history and legal studies. This definitely impacts how I write this character, how I see crime and violence, and how my particular villains reflect my understandings of the society I live in. I want to get this stuff out of the way now so that my particular take on what a potential origin story of a version of the Joker could be makes more sense.

Additionally, these backstory factors I want to discuss aren’t meant to excuse someone’s behaviour, especially not the fucking Joker’s of all people. It’s merely meant to explain how a person (because as far as we know that’s all he is) could get to that point in a way that doesn’t blame only one factor or chalk it up to “this is just an evil person.” I don’t find that particularly compelling as a writer or an audience member, so I write villains differently. I also don’t find it to be particularly true in real life either. If you like that style of writing or see the Joker or other fictional villains in this way, that’s fine. I’m not here to convince anyone they’re wrong, especially not when it comes to people’s perspectives on the nature of evil or anything that lofty. Nobody has to agree with me, or even like my headcanons; they’re just here to express the very specific position I’m writing from. 

The first thing I wanna do is set up some terms. These aren’t academic or anything, but I want to use specific and consistent phrasing for this post. When it comes to the factors that screw up someone’s life significantly (and in some instances push people towards crime), I’ll split them into micro and macro factors. Micro factors are interpersonal and personal issues, so things like personality traits, personal beliefs, mental health, family history, where and how someone is raised, and individual relationships with the people around them. Macro factors are sociological and deal with systems of oppression, cultural or social trends/norms, political and legal restrictions and/or discrimination, etc. These two groups of factors interact, sometimes in a fashion that is causative and sometimes not, but they aren’t entirely separate and the line between what is a micro vs macro issue isn’t always fixed or clear.

We’ll start in and work out. For this character, the micro factors are what determine the specifics of his actions, demeanor, and aesthetic. I think the main reason he’s the Joker and not just some guy with a whole lot of issues is his world view combined with his personality. He has a very pessimistic worldview, one that is steeped in a very toxic form of individualism, cynicism, and misanthropy. His life experience tells him the world is a cold place where everyone is on their own. To him the world is not a moral place. He doesn’t think people in general have much value. He learned at a young age that his life had no value to others, and he has internalized that view and extrapolated it to the world at large; if his life didn’t matter and doesn’t matter, why would anyone else’s? This worldview, in the case of my specific Joker, comes from a childhood rife with abandonment, abuse, and marginalization. While I will say he is definitively queer (in terms fo gender expression and non conformity, and sexuality), I’m not terribly interested in giving specific diagnoses of any mental health issues. Those will be discussed more broadly and in terms of specific symptoms with relation to how they affect the Joker’s internal experience, and externalized behaviours.

His childhood was, to say the least, pretty fucked up. The details I do have for him are that he was surrendered at birth because his parents, for some reason, did not want to care for him or could not care for him; which it was, he isn’t sure. He grew up effectively orphaned, and ended up in the foster care system. He wasn’t very “adoptable”; he had behavioural issues, mostly violent behaviours towards authority figures and other children. He never exactly grew out of these either, and the older he got the harder it was to actually be adopted. His legal name was Baby Boy Doe for a number of years, but the name he would identify the most with is Jack. Eventually he took on the surname of one of his more stable foster families, becoming Jack Napier as far as the government was concerned. By the time he had that stability in his mid to late teens, however, most of the damage had already been done. In his younger years he was passed between foster families and government agencies, always a ward of the government, something that would follow him to his time in Arkham and Gotham’s city jails. Some of his foster families were decent, others were just okay, but some were physically and psychologically abusive. This abuse is part of what defines his worldview and causes him to see the world as inherently hostile and unjust. It also became one of the things that taught him that violence is how you solve problems, particularly when emotions run high. 

This was definitely a problem at school too; moving around a lot meant going to a lot of different schools. Always being the new student made him a target, and being poor, exhibiting increasingly apparent signs of some sort of mental illness or disorder, and being typically suspected as queer (even moreso as he got into high school) typically did more harm than good for him. He never got to stay anywhere long enough to form deep relationships, and even in the places where he did have more time to do that he often ended up isolated from his peers. He was often bullied, sometimes just verbally but often physically which got worse as he got older and was more easily read as queer. This is part of why he’s so good at combat and used to taking hits; he’s been doing it since he was a kid, and got a hell of a lot of practice at school. He would tend to group up with other kids like him, other outcasts or social rejects, which in some ways meant being around some pretty negative influences in terms of peers. A lot of his acquaintances were fine, but some were more... rebellious and ended up introducing Jack to things like drinking, smoking cigarettes, using recreational drugs, and most important to his backstory, to petty crimes like theft and vandalism, sometimes even physical fights. This is another micro factor in that maybe if he had different friends, or a different school experience individually, he might have avoided getting involved in criminal activities annd may have been able to avoid taking up the mantle of The Joker.

Then there’s how his adult life has reinforced these experiences and beliefs. Being institutionalized, dealing with police and jails, and losing what little support he had as a minor and foster child just reinforced his worldview and told him that being The Joker was the right thing to do, that he was correct in his actions and perspectives. Becoming The Joker was his birthday present to himself at age 18, how he ushered himself into adulthood, and I plan to make a post about that on its own. But the fact that he decided to determine this part of his identity so young means that this has defined how he sees himself as an adult. It’s one of the last micro factors (when in life he adopted this identity) that have gotten him so entrenched in his typical behaviours and self image.

As for macro factors, a lot of them have to do specifically with the failing of Gotham’s institutions. Someone like Bruce Wayne, for example, was also orphaned and also deals with trauma; the difference for the Joker is that he had no safety net to catch him when he fell (or rather, was dropped). Someone like Wayne could fall into the cushioning of wealth and the care of someone like Alfred, whereas the Joker (metaphorically) hit the pavement hard and alone. Someone like the Joker should never have become the Joker in the first place because the systems in place in Gotham should have seen every red flag and done something to intervene; this just didn’t happen for him, and not out of coincidence but because Gotham seems like a pretty corrupt place with a lot of systemic issues. Critically underfunded social services (healthcare, welfare, children & family services) that result in a lack of resources for the people who need them and critically underfunded schools that can’t offer extra curricular activities or solid educations that allow kids to stay occupied and develop life skills are probably the most directly influential macro factors that shaped Jack into someone who could resent people and the society around him so much that he’d lose all regard for it to the point of exacting violence against others. There’s also the reality of living in a violent culture, and in violent neighbourhoods exacerbated by poverty, poor policing or overpolicing, and being raised as a boy and then a young man with certain gendered expectations about violence but especially ideas/narratives that minimalize or excuse male violence (especially when it comes to bullying or violent peer-to-peer behaviour under the guise of ‘boys will be boys’). 

Beyond that, there’s the same basic prejudices and societal forces that affect so many people: classism, homphobia/queerphobia, (toxic) masculinity/masculine expectations, and ableism (specifically in regards to people who are mentally ill or otherwise neurodivergent) stand out as the primary factors. I’m touching on these broadly because if I were to talk about them all, they would probably need their own posts just to illustrate how they affect this character. But they definitely exist in Gotham if it’s anything like the real world, and I think it’s fair to extrapolate that these kinds of these exist in Gotham and would impact someone like The Joker with the background I’ve given him.

I have no idea how to end this so if you got this far, thank you for reading!

[voxlette11]

Eric and Leo, Finale

Two high-powered businessmen learn what it means to play with experimental drugs.

A/N: This is a re-post of something I originally authored in 2013/14 on Mpreg Central under the username BellLee (BellLee11) - I can’t remember because I lost my login info and access to the forums once permission regulations changed!

Content: unknowing mpreg, lactation, birth, accelerated pregnancy

Eighteen Weeks After Conception

…

Leo was huge, and Eric was completely in love with him for it. He followed him secretly every now and then throughout the day, not only out of paternal investment, but also out of personal curiosity and gratification. How did Leo get his daily duties done with a belly that looked like an oversized beach ball? How did he maintain his balance? How did other people look at his monstrosity of a gut? 

The other day Leo had dropped a pen in the hallway and struggled to get low enough to actually reach it; he’d had to spread his legs and slowly squat to even consider the possibility. He carried things now by partially balancing them on the top of the notable mound. He had to, there was no room in his arms otherwise.

His gait had changed markedly over the past weeks, Eric had noted. In the beginning, Leo’s pregnancy hadn’t affected his bodily movements very much and everything had been very much the same. But as the pregnancy progressed, Leo’s hips seemed to take on a cross between a sway and a waddle while in motion – in fact, Eric would say it almost appeared as if they were marginally widening with each passing week, for each passing week the waddle/sway was getting more and more pronounced.

Carrying his belly put a lot of strain on him, curving his back sharply at the bottom. This forced the small man to throw his front load forward and his head and shoulders backward in an attempt to even out his taxing weight distribution.

This was not the only change. 

In addition to his growing belly, Leo had also started growing small breasts. Eric had noted them in full for the first time four weeks ago, when the brunet had complained that they were aching. Eric had assumed the accumulating breast tissue was just a side effect of Leo’s additional weight gain, but it turned out they were something much more utilitarian.

Eric had straddled the small man’s thighs in bed, leaning over Leo and rubbing at his swollen, pink nipples with large, dexterous fingers. He tugged and smoothed, turned and twisted. And that’s when they both discovered that Leo was producing milk in his mammaries.

“What the hell is that?” Leo asked quizzically, looking seriously concerned about his body for the first time since his morning sickness went away.

Thinking quickly, Eric supplied, “You’ve had a lot of body changes these past few months, yeah? It’s got to do with your hormones. Too much of them, and then this stuff starts happening.”

Leo seemed to mull this information over in his head, and Eric waited apprehensively for his response.

I don’t want this to be over so soon…

“Hormones, you said?”

“Yeah.”

“Huh…well, whatever you’re doing, it feels like a fucking miracle so keep it up.”

“You got it.”

And so, added to their routine, was a daily “milking”. If Leo went too long without stimulation, his small breasts got so uncomfortable he couldn’t focus on his work. Eventually, to save time, Eric bought a milk pump. They used it together often, Leo sometimes alone. It was the perfect opportunity, really, because Eric secretly took what was produced and froze it in storage. He figured by the time the baby was born, Leo might not want to feed it himself 24/7. Any new mother appreciated a respite, and that’s where a generous store of milk came in handy.

Eric also used these opportunities to feel out the baby, limbs, arms, the head. He liked to know where the baby was positioned, though judging by how hard it was for Leo to catch his breath and how often he went to the restroom, Eric figured the baby was compressing his lungs and sitting right on his bladder. Sometimes, he felt kicks, a fluttering against his large hand, to which Leo would grunt and say, “Gas.”

But that was four weeks ago. Now that Leo was, biologically, thirty six weeks pregnant, it seemed it was easier for him to breathe. That meant, according to what Eric had read, that the baby was descending into the pelvis, preparing for its imminent birth. This was in sync with Leo complaining of discomfort in his pelvis, and he was endlessly shifting around while stationary, trying in vain to make himself comfortable. Also, Leo’s nipples were widening, darkening, the same shade as the line on his belly. Easier for the baby to see. He had taken to small unconscious nesting behaviors, like organizing his closet and asking Eric to help him clean his modest apartment in the Bronx. 

Eric had only two more weeks to wait.

…

Twenty Four Weeks After Conception

…

The baby had not yet arrived. It was three weeks late, which meant that, biologically, Leo was carrying a baby ten months and two weeks at term. This worried Eric. There was an important merger going on at the company, the joining of two firms coming to a crux, and he hadn’t had much time to spend with Leo one-on-one as they liked. He had especially wanted to keep a close eye on the smaller man as his due date approached, particularly because Eric was the only one who knew what was actually happening to him. But both their busy schedules meant they rarely crossed paths, and neither of them had spent more than ten minutes with the other in weeks.

Eric could tell that Leo was reaching the limits of his physical capacity. His clothes bordered on the unprofessional, they were drawn so tightly across and around him. His belly, apparently having reached its limit for outward growth a few weeks ago, began bulging and expanding at the sides. He really was beginning to physically resemble a ball, a ball that could barely walk and function as a normal human being.

Eric got out of his meeting early, and decided to go check on the other man. He walked down to Leo’s floor, but when he got to Leo’s desk, the pregnant man wasn’t there.

“Excuse me,” he stopped a passing clerical worker. “But why isn’t Leo in today?”

“Oh, him?” the woman nodded. “He called in sick today. Why? Did he miss something big?”

No, but I might be missing something big right now…literally.

Eric was filled at once with a healthy sense of fear and giddy excitement. Could this be the day? 

“No, no everything’s fine. Thank you. Excuse me,” Eric dismissed the woman and rushed to the elevator.

Please, please wait for me.

He caught a cab and paid the driver extra to get to Leo’s place in half the time. Quickly, he buzzed into the building via the doorman and climbed the stairs to the third floor himself because the elevator seemed like too slow an option. Hands shaking with excitement, Eric pulled out his key ring and found the spare to Leo’s apartment. 

He opened the door.

…

Leo hadn’t felt like getting out of bed that day. He had the energy, but something had felt off for some reason. A sense of some impending force. He supposed a lot of it had to do with the stress he was putting up with at work, mental, emotional, and physical. He considered himself a hard worker, but everyone needed an off day. He figured he might as well take this one as a freebie for himself.

He had been getting strange, shooting sensations down his legs ever since the pressure in his pelvis had appeared around four weeks ago. He was having difficulty sleeping, leaking nipples, swollen ankles, itchy stretching skin, and still insatiable hunger. The flutterings were the strongest they’d ever been, sometimes actually managing to take his breath away. He was generally uncomfortable. And last week, he’d had a serious internal freak out when he’d pulled off his boxer briefs and found the insides coated with some sort of slightly bloody, mucous discharge. He’d brushed it off because he hadn’t felt any different, and it didn’t happen again.

Now, however, he felt different.

As of that morning, he’d been getting low, strange, dully painful tightenings that started in his back and worked their way around to the front of him, reverberating up to his belly button. His prostrate was being stimulated somehow in all of this, and he was harder than he’d been in weeks. The strange sensation had happened more than once, each time getting slightly longer in duration and the frequency increasing but a few minutes.

He lounged on the bed, naked. Nightclothes were more of a hassle than they were worth. He stared at the ceiling, wishing something would happen to break the tedium of his boredom. 

Then, the bedroom door opened, and there stood Eric. Leo smiled to himself.

Perfect.

…

Leo was a sight to behold, laying naked on top of his sleep-rumpled bed sheets. Eric hadn’t seen him naked in weeks, and just looking at him made the blond go half-hard. His belly was obscenely fecund, arcing away from his spine in a practically violent fashion. His abdomen demanded attention, the straining skin obviously struggling to contain the child within. The baby was low, Eric could see that even with Leo laying down. His abdomen bulged more and more dramatically as it got closer to his groin, taking on a torpedo-like shape. Leo’s breasts were still small, but they were pert and perched atop the great swell like little decorative afterthoughts. His bellybutton looked abused, red and swollen, five times its normal size by some strange feat of the body. His cock, too, was erect and pressing against the curvaceous underside of his mound.

Eric breathed a sigh of relief. Leo looked ready to burst, but he wasn’t in labor. Yet.

“Hey,” he said, stepping into the room. “I heard you were sick. Came over to make sure you were okay.”

Leo waved away his worries.

“Nah,” the brunet said, “I just…felt…strange today was all. I couldn’t bring myself to get to the office.”

“Oh, that’s good.”

“Yeah…,” Leo trailed off, then looked slyly to the side. 

“So,” he began, “I’m pretty bored here…you want to make this day a little more interesting?”

Eric's cock stiffened eagerly to its full length.

"Of course," he said.

He climbed onto the bed, parting Leo's legs himself. He wrapped one hand completely around each swollen ankle and lifted them up onto his shoulders, Leo making little grunting noises of discomfort as he did so. The tops of Leo's thighs were pressed against the torpedoing slope of his abdomen and there was little room for proper maneuvering. The sides of his belly spilled over their natural limits, and up close Eric was mesmerized by the rhythmic rise and fall of that enormous bellybutton as Leo breathed.

"Well?" The brunet motioned. "You gonna fuck me or sit there?"

Eric smiled and released his cock from his pants.

"I'm going to fuck you," and he pushed inside without any lubrication. He didn't need any. Leo was incredibly loose, looser than he'd been in his entire life. Eric wouldn't have been surprised if he could fit the entirety of his massive hand into the small man's asshole.

He thrust into him deeply, sheathing and unsheathing the whole of his gargantuan width and length, relishing the sight of that small puckered anus expanding and contracting with his cock.

Eric put his hands on Leo's belly, and Leo moaned, lifting his own smaller hands to hang onto the headboard in his ecstasy. Eric felt all over and he thrust, his hands feeling out where the baby's head was situated, sitting right in Leo's groin.

"I'm so full," Leo moaned, and Eric was set into a frenzy.

He began pounding away like crazy, rocking the frame of the bed with each thrust, watching Leo's cock as it quivered and strained for its release. A glance up and he saw that the small man's breasts were leaking, apparently he had not milked himself today. The swollen, dark, erect nipples were dribbling milk down the sides of Leo's chest, and he didn't even seem to be noticing because he was in such a state of ecstasy.

"Ahh...ahhh...right there, Eric, fuck..." Leo's hips rolled, or rolled as well as they could manage under his massive load.

Eric helped him, catching him under the ass and driving his cock even deeper. Leo's thighs were compressed against his belly with each thrust, and he was grunting over and over again with the force of the impact.

"I'm...hngh...going to-" Leo's cock exploded, spraying cum all over his belly. His hands scrabbled for purchase at the headboard, his voice keening, his toes curling. At the same instant, Eric unwittingly breached some sort of stopper, a plug located deep in the reaches of Leo's interior. Leo gasped, and Eric saw the great surface of his belly visibly tighten and shift, it was moving, and moreover it was moving the general direction of downwards and out. Leo's insides contracted like a vice, pulling Eric's orgasm from him, pump after pump after pump of cum.

Eric felt something else on his cock in the depths of Leo, his cum churning around his penile organ. A peculiar wetness, one not caused by his own fluids.

"Oh...," Leo's voice.

When Leo's interior loosened, Eric withdrew himself, as he did so he could feel Leo's body preparing to tense up again. When the head of Eric's cock exited Leo's anus, a strange milky stream of cum and some other fluid came out after it.

Leo had been fucked into labor.

…

Leo was in a thrill, enjoying the sensation of being filled, of being pounded into so roughly again and again. He could feel his cock struggling to release, and as he felt Eric brush past a point he rarely managed to push past, his orgasm was fucked out of him.

That's when it happened.

Something gave inside of him, something he heard quietly give a singular popping noise, and the aching pain from before seized him. But this time it was more intense. Intense enough to be actually uncomfortable. His belly tightened, but this time there was the distinct impression of something inside of him being moved. A flurry of the flutterings started up, battering his insides.

Meanwhile Eric was releasing inside of him, a massive load of cum, and Leo could feel it expanding within his interior as his semen-stuffed bowels contracted.

"Oh..." he said, unsure and surprised. He had never felt anything like this before.

He felt Eric leave him, but something else was coming out of his ass. Something unusual. It was wet, it was a steady stream, and it was soaking through the sheets on his bed. It had been mere seconds and already the fluid was seeping up into the linen under his back.

“Eric,” Leo made an attempt to right himself, but the gravity of his belly was too much. “Eric,” he continued to struggle. “What is that? Can you see that? What the fu-ohhhhhh...”

A great, sharp pain had worked its way through him, speared him through the bellybutton. A huge flutter, no, a pounding, followed shortly thereafter directly on top of his bladder. It took all of Leo’s self-control to keep his piss in. His hands went to hold his belly in confusion, his short arms unable to encompass its girth, reaching uselessly for the origin point of the tremor.

Eric got there first, since Leo couldn’t even reach that far. Eric’s hands were cold on his orgasm-heated abdomen, an almost welcoming feeling amidst the pain. Leo winced through another, this one starting low in his thighs, curling around his hips, twisting around his navel, and shooting up his spine. Leo swore he saw his girth actually move, the fecund mass making a slight push outwards, then sliding down deeper into his pelvis. There was a mounting pressure everywhere and anywhere beneath his ribs, and the matter of releasing that pressure seemed to be getting more urgent with each passing second.

“Eric,” Leo grimaced. “What’s happening��?”

…

This was it. This was the moment. Eric had debated with himself how this would play out over and over again, but now that they had actually gotten to this point he only had three words to say:

“You’re pregnant, Leo.”

There was a moment of stunned disbelief, something that did not happen to Leo often. In fact, Eric could count on one hand the number of times he’d actually managed to surprise him. Now he got to use the other hand, too, by the looks of it.

“…What.”

“You’re pregnant.”

“I know what you fu-raARGH,” Leo’s belly tensed under Eric’s fingers, the baby shifting downwards inside. After thirty seconds of breathless panting, all the while staring at Eric with burning intensity, the brunet continued.

“I know what you said,” he winced periodically. “But I can’t be pregnant. That’s…urgh…that’s-ARGHHH…impossible…”

Eric traced a finger up that dark, bisecting, now shivering line on Leo’s abdomen before speaking.

“Not for the right amount of cash.”

“I-I don’t…,” Leo’s belly heaved, “How?”

Eric began rubbing in circular motions on the small man’s pitifully swollen side.

“I put it in your drink. You told me you wanted to know what it was like to carry a baby. I told you I wanted kids. You remember.”

“Well, yes,” Leo grunted, unable to even prop himself up to look Eric in the eyes. “But I didn’t know you could actually do it. You should have told me, you fucking basta-ohhhhhhhh...”

His blue eyes screwed shut, riding through the pain Eric could physically see and feel in his contracting abdominal muscles.

Eric leaned forward and planted a kiss on the slope of Leo’s gut.

“I would have,” he explained, planting another kiss, further up the massive, now-glistening dome. “But I didn’t tell you that I, too, have a secret fantasy…to watch a man who didn’t know he was pregnant…,” another kiss, this time directly on top of that swollen knob of a belly button. “…give birth.”

Leo panted and huffed, rolling his eyes.

“Well, you fucking did it,” he groaned. “…I guess…it’s nice to know…uuuunnnghhhhhHHH…I’m not fat.”

“The baby should be coming out soon,” Eric assured him. “It’ll all be over. The supplier said the births were usually pretty fast. An hour, about.”

“God, I hope so.”

…

Five Hours Later

…

The baby wasn’t coming out. In fact, after the initial induction of labor, it appeared that it hadn’t made any progress at all. Leo was in agony. His breasts were still leaking milk, and sweat ran from every pore in his body. Eric was there to rehydrate him, but that was a small comfort to the aching, consuming pain which had become his body.

The hours passed slowly, and Leo had long since given himself over to his natural urges, trying to push the baby out but to no avail.

“We might not be in this situation if I had known I was pregnant,” Leo had said pointedly, when he still had energy, about three hours past. 

“But Leo,” Eric had replied, “Where would you have gone? Men don’t get pregnant.”

And Leo had known he was right. Still, he needed to take his agony out on something, and the person who got him impregnated him just so happened to be the closest conduit for his pain-induced rage.

Leo was past the point of rage, and he was starting to get desperate.

“Check me,” he whined. “Please, please, check me.”

Eric nodded, his stamina running low as well, and he parted Leo’s legs further than they already were so he could shove his fingers into the ever-loosening asshole. 

Leo winced, biting back a cry of pain and discomfort, keening as inside of him Eric’s fingers brushed against what they had concluded was fulfilling the role of a cervix.

“It hasn’t dilated any further,” Eric reported, withdrawing his hand. Leo choked on a wistful sob.

This is never going to end.

Eric had not left the space between Leo’s legs, however.

“What are you doing?”

“I have an idea. If fucking was what brought this on, maybe…?”

Leo understood perfectly.

“Do it,” he said, “Just fucking do it.”

I’m willing to try anything.

He felt Eric push inside of him for the second time that day, this time even less noticeably than the last. His anus had been stretched beyond comprehension. In fact, he didn’t even feel anything inside of him until Eric’s cock began to brush against his cervix. It took a considerable amount of work and leverage to get there. Eric’s hands were once again under Leo’s ass, lifting him on a sloping plane above the bed. The gravity of his belly was slipping towards his head, the baby inside not taking kindly to the disturbance of it’s hard work. Kicks pummeled Leo’s lungs and intestines, bowing out the thin membrane of his abdomen. It was not a pleasant sensation.

“Ready?”

Leo nodded, and Eric began.

With each thrust, Eric’s cock connected with the cervix. Shooting, agonizing pain radiated from the area, and Leo began to cry in earnest. 

“It hurts,” he cried, “It hurts!”

Still, Eric pounded away, determined to fuck his plan into action. Each thrust was accompanied by a kick, and Leo could scarcely breathe. Eric’s thrusts were getting longer, choppier, with each subsequent kick or contraction. It wasn’t long before he exploded inside of Leo once more, coating his cervix with yet another bucket of cum. Again, Eric withdrew, setting Leo’s ass back on the bed.

Leo waited. Nothing.

“It didn’t-ohooOOOOOOOHHHHHHH!” Slowly and then all at once, he could feel changes inside of him. The pressure mounted, it came to such a head that Leo was sure his hips would split and his belly would split open like a bean cooked too long in a microwave. Instead, warm piss dribbled from between his thighs. His cock, once his bladder had been evacuated, slowly sprung to attention as his prostate began to register the stimulation. A burning, stretching, un-ignorable sensation began to take a hold in his ass.

This was it.

…

Eric watched as Leo gripped and grappled with himself, grasped onto his shiny, sweating, heavy heaving belly as if it were a lifeline. All at once, the mass within Leo moved downwards, bowing out the expanse of skin that covered the area between his bellybutton and his groin. Leo screamed.

“It’s coming, it’s coming,” he cried hysterically.

Eric could see Leo’s anus begin to widen preliminarily, for there was no head in view. He positioned himself between Leo’s legs once more, this time prepared to help their child into the world. But the minutes passed slowly, and still there was no sign of the baby.

“Are you pushing?”

“Of course I’m-NNNNNNNRRGGGHHHHHHAHHH!-pushing!” Leo wiggled his hips marginally, trying desperately to eject the mass of their child. “I’m trying, it’s impossible!”

“Nothing’s impossible!”

“I can’t do it,” Leo sobbed. “It’s too big. My hips…uuuuuuuuughhhHHH…my hips are too small to pass it.” 

“I…”

“You’re a giant! I’m the size of a fucking ten-year-old, what did you THINK was going to happen!?” Leo screamed again, yet another useless contraction hardening the surface of his fecund gut. “You’ve killed me. I’m going to die…”

Eric was frightened, and then he grew angry. Angry at himself, angry at the situation, and angry at Leo for giving up so easily. He grabbed Leo’s hips, and while supporting his back, gave a savage twist so that Leo was laboring on his side. He held Leo’s legs wide open, one small leg propped on his shoulder at the knee, the other held still under his giant hand. Leo’s anus and now fully erect cock were exposed.

Leo cried out at the unexpected movement, looking at Eric in shock.

“What are you doing?! Have you gone fucking insane?!” he shrilled.

“Push.”

“I can’t do anything like this!”

“PUSH.”

Leo, tired and ready to try anything despite his earlier premonitions of failure, did as Eric bid. The blond watched the small man’s face turn pink, then red, then a dark shade of purple as he tensed each and every one of his muscles. Leo’s fingers dug into the soiled sheets and gripped at the headboard so tightly his nails turned white.

“Breathe. BREATHE.”

Leo beathed.

“Push.”

“I…I can’t…”

“PUSH.”

Leo pushed again, and slowly, slowly, the mass moved further downwards. The tiniest bulge began to form in his anus as the baby came down his canal.

“It hurts,” he sobbed, “It hurts so fucking ba-AAAAAHHHHHHH!” Leo’s hands went to grasp his belly, arms wrapped around it as if folding in on himself would make the pain go away.

“Eric,” he began again, “Eric, help me, help me, please. Make it stop…”

“Push.”

“Eric-“

“PUSH.”

The bulge was now sizable, a part of the baby’s head showing through an orange-sized opening. But that was it. The skin of Leo’s anus was stretched to practical transparency around it, in danger of tearing. If he tore, it could mean a lot of trouble for all three of them. Eric made a snap decision, and cupped his hand over the opening as Leo struggled.

“Hold it.”

“But you said you wanted-“

“HOLD IT.”

“NNNNNNNGGHHHHHHHAHHH!” was Leo’s only response, crying out as a contraction gripped him once more. His pushing now was involuntary, a natural instinct. Eric felt the top of the baby’s head push out slightly against his palm.

“HOLD IT.”

“AaaAHHHHAHH!”

Eric checked the skin around Leo’s anus – it seemed to be stretching fine.

“Push!”

Leo didn’t need to be told. He pushed, over and over again, and sliver by sliver the baby’s head became visible. But it was too big. Eric used his fingers to pull the skin over the head, pulling and pushing at it with the heel of his hand.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRGHHNN!”

With a ‘slup’ and a great gush of pre-natal fluids, the head was free.

“The head’s out! Leo, the head’s out! You’re doing so good!” 

Eric lay a hand on Leo’s laboring belly, still sizable but less so now that the head was no longer inside. 

“Come on! One last big one!”

Leo’s hands dug into the sheets, and with one final cry the body slipped out, and Leo’s noises of pain comingled with the disgruntled wails of a newborn. His belly now looked deflated, empty, but loose like a leather bag that had once been over-stuffed.

Eric took the child gently in his arms, clearing the nose and mouth of natal debris, cutting the cord with a shoelace.

Leo was still lying on his side, panting, eyes closed. He was okay. He wasn’t bleeding.

Eric walked to the head of the bed, laying the infant between the two of them.

“Look,” he said softly, “Leo, look at our daughter.”

…

Leo opened his eyes, and met those of the biggest and most beautiful baby he’d ever seen.

“Our…,” he reached out a trembling hand, taking gentle hold of the still crying baby. He drew her close to his chest, where after gentle prodding she began to suckle.

He gaze met Eric’s, and he couldn’t recall a time or place where the blond had looked at him quite so lovingly.

“You’re lucky she looks like you,” he said, angry having melted away at the arrival of their own personal miracle.

Eric smiled, “What do you mean? She’s got your hair.” He reached a hand forward, smoothing Leo’s sweaty dark locks away from his forehead.

“You know what I mean,” Leo replied, going back to watching their daughter as she fed. “She’s a little big, isn’t she?”

Eric laughed. “Well, she should be. Technically she’s a month old.”

“Fuck, me. Seriously?”

“Yep.”

“Forget about the ‘fuck, me’, I’m changing it to fuck you.”

Eric just laughed harder, and despite his aches, the lingering contractions as he delivered the afterbirth, and his complete exhaustion, Leo laughed too.

“How many of these did you want?” he asked, once they’d both calmed down.

“Three.”

“Three?! You’re doing them. I’m never doing this again. I’ll knock you up.” 

“Leo…”

“What?”

“…it only works on guys under 150 pounds.”

“…fuck.”

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHAT NO ONE UNDERSTANDS ABOUT FUNCTION

The inconvenience of this model becomes more and more often. It is no accident. Back when I was talking recently to Robert Morris, and he pointed out that operator overloading is a bigger win in languages with infix syntax, there's a big difference in appearance between the use of an overloaded operator and a function call. For Larry Page the most important problems in their field. Related fields are also good sources, especially when they're related in unexpected ways. I become much more aware of it. A large part of it.

Lisp macros are unique. The importance of personal introductions varies, but is less than with angels or VCs. This was too subtle for me. To become more popular, you need to sell it is a fine model for certain kinds of applications that need that specific kind of data structure, like window systems, simulations, and cad programs. It may turn out to be real stinkers. If you know it's going to feel terrible sometimes, then when it feels terrible you won't think ouch, this feels terrible, I give up. There were a few things we would have the new feature too. The programmers I admire most are not, on the whole smarter than other kids, though never studying or at least language implementors, like to write compilers that generate fast code. This fact originated in Spamhaus's ROKSO list, which I think even Spamhaus would admit is a rough guess at the top. Com the ultimate men's entertainment magazine. The distribution of popularity is not a factor in popularity, why are smart kids so consistently unpopular?

The companies in the current batch have the. This is true of all venture funding, but especially so in the seed stage, the board of directors will become more powerful. One of the two founders was still in the future, so far that we didn't even know at the time, just like they do to startups everywhere. It let them build great looking online stores literally in minutes. There was no Internet then. What makes the answer appear is letting your thoughts drift a bit—and thus drift off the wrong path you'd been pursuing last night and onto the right one adjacent to it. A tables were full of football players and cheerleaders and so on. Starting a startup to starting one, and instead of physical knobs it had buttons and an LED display. Sun's future. There was something else I wanted more: to be smart. Imagine you'd called your company something else.

This was Henry Ford's plan. Whether you end up with wouldn't even be a spreadsheet. It takes time to find investors, and time always more than you spend, the easier it is to kill. And if we don't, the US could be seriously fucked. In fact the second step can propagate back into the first: if something is hard to buy, especially if you deserve them. Our plan was to write software that would let end users build online stores. That's also a fairly accurate description of the past. Apple did this earlier this year.

I let errands eat up the day, to avoid facing some hard problem. Another friend of mine once got in trouble with the government for breaking into computers. It was more prestigious to be one-directional: support people who hear about bugs fill out some form that eventually gets passed on possibly via QA to programmers, who put it on their list of things to do. It was no coincidence that the first yuppies worked in fields where it was easy to measure that. In the Bay Area it's the Band of Angels. No thanks, intellectual homeowners may say, we don't need any outside help. And yet also in a way of life that was literally uniform.

So for any given idea, the payoff for acting fast in a bad economy. At places like MIT they were writing programs in high-level languages on the other. In these situations, the deal terms tend to be unhappy in middle school and high school. If they're so smart, why don't they figure out how popularity works and beat the system, that's also called a hack. Reproduced by permission of Steve Wozniak. But when our hypothetical Blub programmer looks in the other direction: sometimes, particularly in university math and science departments, nerds deliberately exaggerate their awkwardness in order to put technical barriers between us and our competitors would get none, and eventually go out of business. While the nerds were being trained to get the right answers, and that's what the startup is in the early days of microcomputers. Whereas I claim hacking and painting are also related, in the sense of not having been to college. This metaphor doesn't stretch that far. Software is particularly suitable for price discrimination, because the marginal cost is close to zero. Data is by definition easy to copy. But they could be.

The second component of the antidote is chance meetings with people who help you—are driven by the same underlying cause: the number of people completing the test drive and found that at a certain step they would get all kinds of publicity. Distraction is not a single piece of code you don't need Microsoft on the client, they can't get that mad, because they treat this as evidence of laziness. Why not as past-due notices are always saying do it now? But hackers seem to be facing off in a kind of argument that might be yanked out from under you? The way to kill it is to design a good programming language? What happens in that shower? If anyone remembers Viaweb this might sound odd, because we were so inexperienced that we were savages and our world was stupid.

[ghostmaggie]

hey so in your MKAT post (which you’re 100% correct about) you also mention you’ve had some issues with RT in the past. i’m fairly new in the fandom and also watch his other show iZombie, but i wanted to ask what issues they were?? i like to be informed about the media i consume lmao

Oof okay so I'm on mobile and therefore this will probably be more rant-y and opinion-based than you might be looking for, so I invite anyone with opinions or sources or thoughts or contradictions to reply or shoot me asks and I'll share them (plus I'm curious of other thoughts) but,,

Idk if this was clear in my original post, but my issues are mainly contained within the actual show as opposed to things about him irl, because idk that much outside of secondhand info, so take it with a grain of salt I guess, lol

Also, I feel like I need to say that this is really negative about vmars--which, to be clear, is a show I love dearly--and I know sometimes I like to avoid negative commentary on things I enjoy because it gets stuck in my head and ruins my enjoyment. So if that's you, feel free to skip this! I wont be offended and you shouldn't feel bad about it! It's also just one person's opinion, and I'm most definitely not always right :)

So mostly setting aside the brand new season because I have no clue how to talk around spoilers effectively, in short (with spoilers up through the movie and maybe some spoilers for the books and new season, I cant really tell at this point):

(Editor's note post finishing writing: it's not even all my thoughts, but it's not short. Sorry.)

RT shares in the grand tradition of showrunners I do not care for along with Steven Moffat and Jason Rothenberg, for many parallel reasons. Moffat thinks hes cleverer than he really is, jroth is a douche about romance and character motivation, and both are smug jerks who drove me away from shows I used to love, so.

So number one I guess would just be the sense that he really fucking does not care about the fans. It's especially egregious, as I've seen others point out, when he literally would never have gotten his show back (after driving it to the ground) without the LITERAL MONEY donated by devoted fans. I'm not saying you have to do things just because fans want them, but to go out of your way to do things you know fans will hate just to be contrary is,, yeah.

He thinks he's so very smart, and yet his plots are riddled with holes and inconsistencies (hello, Moffat). It speaks, to me, of a lack of respect for everyone involved--fans, writers, actors, crew, critics, just everyone. Write down a timeline. Something. Try.

One of my bigger issues, though, is that the misogyny in vmars is just...beyond appalling. Not just narratively--i understand representing the flaws in society, I guess, but veronica is honestly one of the most misogynistic parts of the show, and she is never ever ever held accountable for it. Ever. The show never sends the message that she's wrong for the atrocious way she treats, to name a few, Madison, Kendall, Gia, and even Carrie during the s1 plot with Adam Scott. The carrie thing is especially fucked up bc iirc the narrative only condemns her for guessing the victim wrong. (As another note, her treatment of other marginalized groups or basically anyone she ever treats badly--logan, Keith, Wallace, weevil, the list goes on--is rarely or never narratively critiqued. Veronica mars can do no wrong, apparently, even when she's obviously wrong.)

She's far from the only example of misyogny, of course--duncan's s2 dream about madonna/whore meg/veronica comes to mind in screaming color, yet donut is somehow treated like a prince forever and ever and v's lost true love even though he's basically the scum of the earth (pardon, my true feelings are coming out a little here).

Somewhat connected is, of course, the show's treatment of rape in general (hi, season 3), but especially Duncan's rape of veronica. I'm still not over the way they walked it back to "not a rape" and took back holding him accountable. I live for all the fanfiction that addresses it, because at least there people remember that, whether he "thought she could consent" or not, he literally thought she was his sister and didnt know. That's uninformed consent at best, babe!

And if that wasn't bad enough, to "resolve" that plotline and then come back at the end of season 2 to be all, "jk! You WERE raped, by SOMEONE ELSE [too]! Enjoy that reenabled trauma, and some chlamidya to boot!"

Speaking of retconned instances of sex, how about that piz/veronica tape that suddenly became full on sex in the movie? Fun times.

My favorite bout of misogynistic writing, you ask? That would have to be "narratively-enforced nicest girl in school who stands by her friends and is sweet and loyal becomes a raging hell bitch yet also the representation of misogynistic virginal innocence because she was knocked up and abandoned by Mr. Narratively-Claimed-to-be-Perfect-but-Actually-the-Worst and completely undergoes a 180 personality change then dies for plot reasons" because holy fucking shit.

Okay sorry I got way more into that than I meant to. I'll try to wrap up.

RT does a very jroth job of treating fans like shit for giving a shit about a romantic relationship he created. He acts like fans are a bunch of stupid girls for caring about romance, but then pushed it at every level of promo to reel us back in. Make up your mind, asshole. It's desperately unfair to bait fans with romantic promo (even in the form of an inane and ooc love triangle) and then snap back with "oooh it's noir, shut up about the romance!"

If that's how you feel, stop making every other plot point and promo about the fucking romance.

RT seems to want to be making a show that he isnt. He wants to be grimdark and angsty and awful, I guess, and while there have been elements of effective darkness throughout vmars, they have been tempered by the show as a whole. That made it (mostly palatable) for people like me. To flip the script now does a disservice to long term fans and does nothing to attract new viewers. If you want to make a different show, make a different show. Don't drive beloved characters into the ground because you're bitter about how your work is perceived post-death of the author.

To wrap up--he hates character growth. He must really hate it. This is dipping a little into the new season, but he just. Won't let anyone develop. Well. Maybe some people. A very few. But not veronica. Never veronica. Because heaven forbid your main character, the person we've followed for 15 years, be anything other than she was at 16. Her personality, her approach to the world, none of it has changed. Which begs the question: what has been the fucking point?

Sorry this is so long. I'm not sure I even answered your question, so feel free to ask me to try again 😂

[writcraft]

Hey! So I’m really interested in your take on bi people in th lgbt community and the bi erasure that exists especially at pride events. How does that impact the community and it’s feeling of being part of the wider community. Also if you have any advice for the LG for how to be better allies

Anon, this topic makes me feel so much and thank you for asking. Particularly the part about how LG people can be better allies, I actually nearly cried when I read your ask because this is, as you likely know because you’re sending me this ask, a topic that is very, very close to my heart. 

I’m going to put this beneath a cut. It got long.

ask me stuff, tell me stuff - whatever goes!

Even before I knew the term ‘bierasure’ I was scared of going into queer spaces. I remember the first night I went to a gay bar, heart pounding. My first thought was that the bouncers might not let me in because I wasn’t ‘gay enough.’ It wasn’t like I was with a big group, I was actually by myself. Yep, the first time I went to a gay bar, I was alone. I had long come to understand I was bisexual but there would be many different moments of going back into the closet, coming out with a battle cry, and going right back into the closet again, and it took me a lot longer to start finding spaces to go than it did to work the rest of it out. I didn’t know what I was doing that night, only that I was craving something. A community. A sense of solidarity. The hope that I might have a drink and an awkward chat with someone who actually understood. Maybe I wanted to hook up too, I have no idea. I just wanted to go into the damn bar, have a drink and maybe chat with someone who wouldn’t make it all seem so frightening.

That night I went into the bar with very little confidence, but since then my confidence in who I am, my sexuality (I’m still working on gender stuff) has grown enormously, and I’ve found sanctuary in queer space and at LGBTQ+ events. Even those places though, sometimes make me feel at odds with others in LGBTQ+ communities. I’ve had some bad experiences at Pride events for example, the more openly ‘bisexual’ I’ve become. Pride events have been in many ways brilliant, transformative, glorious days, but I can tell you that as much as being within those spaces has made my heart sing, I have also encountered biphobia. There was the dude who told me I wasn’t bi, just bored. The lesbian who refused to believe I was queer and decided I was straight. The friend - my friend - I went to Pride with who introduced me as a lesbian because oh darling it’s so much easier and the person who thought I must just be confused. These are multiple instances at multiple different events and to be very clear - because I often see posts saying ‘don’t assume a man and a woman at Pride are straight or not trans etc. - all of these instances happened when I was pretty much, by myself. I attend most Prides without a partner. I go with friends, who I am very clearly not hooking up with. These comments came about simply as a result of me saying I am bisexual. 

How does that impact my sense of community? It impacts it a huge amount. It makes me feel like if I’m having a random conversation with someone in a gay bar I have no desire to hook up with, I should just use the label that nobody quibbles. It makes me feel talking to straight friends I should just use the label that nobody quibbles. In both instances it shoves me back into a closet that hurts, and it’s not somewhere I want to be.

I’m using Pride and nights out as part of my personal experience, but one defining moment that made me understand how much biphobia really permeates was when I went to a training session run by actual Stonewall (the biggest and most prominent UK LGBT charity) on bisexuality and the bisexual person running the event had just got married to someone of the opposite sex. He said, I know I’m speaking to a group of bisexual people, but part of me worried you wouldn’t think of me as queer enough to host this session. THE ACTUAL HOST OF A BISEXUAL TRAINING SESSION TO BISEXUAL PEOPLE. That is what biphobia does. It leaves us in the cracks, in the margins. It makes us feel like we’re not enough even when we couldn’t be surrounded by a more welcoming audience. It makes us feel isolated, lost, alone and like the rainbow flag that gets raised with such vigour isn’t really for us. It’s why bisexual people are statistically more likely to experience mental health issues than their LG counterparts. Bisexual people are not straight and they experience an enormous amount of marginalisation, higher chances of domestic violence, higher chance of being below the poverty line and so on. 

THIS GOT LONG I’M SORRY. In terms of how LG people can be better allies I’m so fucking tired I would literally say believe bisexuals exist and call out biphobia in your communities when you see it. That’s the best thing you can do. Also to people who find it ‘easier’ to lay your chips down as gay or straight in casual conversation if you’re safe to do so don’t. Be bisexual. Let us exist. Only of course if it’s something you can do, but I have honestly so many friends who have told me they are bisexual but it’s ‘easier’ to say they are gay and they’re in a happy same-sex partnership, it makes my heart hurt. Please be brave, if it’s not going to put you in danger. If you’re pan or queer or attracted to people of different genders please don’t perpetuate the biphobic ‘bisexuals are transphobic’ myth. Bi, literally, means two, but its origins are from the same place as homo and hetero sexuality. Bisexuality has nothing to do with gender it’s the inbetween of a homo/hetero sexuality binary. There are many, many bisexuals, myself included who experience attraction to all genders, all sexes, all people. Do not make bisexuality a binary male/female issue, it is not, it never has been.

FINALLY as to how LG people can be better allies apart from the whole ‘bi people exist’ thing, there’s an important conversation happening that does impact bisexual people at big events like Pride which relates to the appropriation of queer space. The two, unfortunately, intersect. Queerness has become more mainstream and as a result there are a lot of people occupying queer space these days (the dreaded hen do in a gay bar) and that contributes to the issues people have when they see people who seem ‘straight’ in queer space. There is a history of non-queer people infiltrating places that are supposed to offer refuge and I get all of the concerns around wanting to feel comfortable in the places you’ve fought so hard to build and protect. Just remember we’ve fought for those places too. Us bisexuals. Please don’t make assumptions about peoples rights to access a particular place, they could be bisexual, they could be trans, you don’t know why they are there, or what those places might mean to them.

I just. I don’t know. If a person in a plaid shirt who cares so passionately about queer stuff comes up to you (me, it is me) be an ally by saying, hi. Nice to meet you. You’re bisexual? Cool, I believe you. Let’s get a beer.

[thesydneyfeminists]

Five Things This Bisexual Feminist Wants You to Know About Pride

As I’m sure a lot of you are aware, June is celebrated as Pride Month in many parts of the world. These celebrations often include parades, rainbow colored EVERYTHING and heaps of social media posts reveling in everything LGBTQIA+. For a lot of people, Pride is a party – and rightly so. In a world that blatantly aims to keep us down, rejoicing in our lives and livelihoods is a form of resistance in and of itself. It’s important for us to let loose and have fun sometimes, to recharge and remind ourselves why we fight the good fight. However, during Pride Month (and really, all year round) it is equally critical to remember the painful parts of our history. Pride exists because people fought and died for a future we have yet to fully realize. As a part of this remembrance, it is imperative to highlight the ways in which various oppressed identities overlap and interact with LGBTQIA+ identities. By this statement, I simply mean we must remember and celebrate the black, trans, bisexual women who started Pride and continue fighting every day to ensure a safer future for all LGBTQIA+ people.

My last point is also significant to our understandings of feminism. Feminism must include a space for people from different oppressed minorities. My personal feminism is so tightly entwined with my identity as a bisexual person, it is nearly impossible to extract them. And those are only two of my many identities (which range from highly privileged to marginalized). So, while this piece isn’t directed specifically towards gender equality, I believe in my heart it is still “feminist”. Feminist movements must inextricably bind themselves to LGBTQIA+ rights movements. In the same vein, they must also join with anti-racist activism, disability activism, etc. As the famous slogan goes, our feminism must be intersectional, or it is bullshit. Whether you consider yourself a member of the LGBTQIA+ community or are just trying to better ally yourself with us, this article will hopefully resonate with you. It is only a short list and would benefit from additions from our lovely readers. So, feel free to comment things you want the world to about the LGBTQIA+ community. But, without further ado, here are my top five things I want everyone to know about Pride!

Image Description: The bisexual flag, which has a fat red stripe at the top, fat blue stripe on the bottom and a thinner purple stripe in the middle.

1.     All M-Spec identities are valid and deserve a place in Pride celebrations. For those of you who don’t know, M-Spec is a term used to describe the multi-gender spectrum of attraction. It’s another, more inclusive way of talking about identities which fall under the “bi umbrella.” It includes bisexual people, pansexual people, polysexual people and anyone else who is attracted to two or more genders and wants to be included! There’s a lot of discourse about this subject, even within the LGBTQIA+ community. But Pride was started by a bisexual woman and I firmly believe she would have been inclusive of her M-Spec family (https://www.advocate.com/bisexuality/2014/06/17/remembering-brenda-ode-%E2%80%98mother-pride%E2%80%99).

2.     No cops at pride. This point is another tenuous topic of discussion and has ended more than one friendship. But I think it’s important to state and even more important to analyze. The original pride was a riot, a protest specifically AGAINST the police state. It was meant to bring light to the very real, very visceral harm cops have done (and continue to do) to LGBTQIA+ people, especially BIPOC (black, indigenous people of color). I have heard all the counter-arguments and, for the most part, understand where people are coming from. But LGBTQIA+ people have the right to be fearful and distrustful of cops. Large masses of cops at pride don’t actually help keep any of us safe. There are better ways of creating and maintaining safe spaces for the LGBTQIA+ community (http://www.aaronxrose.com/blog/alternatives-to-police).

Image Description: Photo of a crowd of people holding up protest signs and the LGBTQIA+ flag. They are standing behind red police tape. Two police officers are standing in the road on the left side of the photo. 

3.     Our Pride celebrations absolutely MUST be accessible. This means, at the very least, wheelchair accessible venues and toilets, sign language translators, accessible parking spots, among many other examples. I would also personally love to see accommodations made for autistic people at Pride events. The crossover between autistic people and LGTQIA+ people is huge, and we deserve to feel comfortable and safe at big events like Pride.

4.     Please don’t assume “straight-looking” people are just allies and/or don’t belong at pride. I personally don’t mind cishetallo (cis, hetereosexual, allosexual, aka the opposite of asexual) people attending Pride events if they are aware of their place there. I enjoy bringing my straight boyfriend to Pride festivities and sharing that part of my life with him. However, just because you see a couple comprised of what you assume to be a “boy” and “girl”, it does not mean they aren’t part of the LGBTQIA+ community. Firstly, people you perceive to be one gender could be another/ non-gendered. I’m thinking especially of my nonbinary pals here. Second, one or both parts of a couple could fall under the M-Spec umbrella. Lastly, people could be questioning their sexual and gender identities. It’s not your (or our) place to judge people or interrogate their reasonings for being at Pride. As long as they are being respectful of the space, just live and let live!

Image Description: Photo of someone holding up a large, white sheet attached to two wooden poles. The middle of the sheet is painted messily in the colors of the rainbow. White, black letters are stenciled in the paint. They read “Love is love.” 

 5.     If you are a member of the LGBTQIA+ community, whatever that means to you, you deserve love, happiness and to feel safe. I wanted this last one to just be a shout out to my fellow LGBTQIA+ folks. I see you, I hear you, I want to validate the fuck out of you. Pride isn’t always a feel good, amazing time for all LGBTQIA+ people. If it’s not for you, please don’t feel bad. Whatever you need to do to protect yourself and your emotional state, do that. If celebrating who you are means watching your favorite show on Netflix all weekend in bed, that’s perfectly alright. No two of us are the same, and we are every single one of us amazing and wonderful. Yes, you too. Sending my love your way and hoping you find it in your heart to love yourself a bit more this month.

By: Brittany L. 

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect the views of the Sydney Feminists. Our Blogger and Tumblr serve as platforms for a diverse array of women to put forth their ideas and explore topics. To learn more about the philosophy behind TSF’s Blogger/ Tumblr, please read our statement here: https://www.sydneyfeminists.org/a

[brothermouzongaming]

Divisiveness in Rage 2

What little promotional material there was for Rage 2 interested me. The idea of a nitro-fueled FPS surrounding an open world and a heavy power fantasy. I wasn’t expecting an enthralling story with deep and rich characters that would stitch me into the fabric of the world created. I was expecting a rip-roaring hail of bullets in the shape of a gun the likes of which I would ride across the map destroying everything that did so much as exhale in my presence. In short, that is what I got but it’s quite mixed. The “boots on the ground” combat, and I use that term lightly, is smooth as hell and lets you the player take on the various mobs and gangs of the wasteland in the way you want. The vehicular combat is more sparse and anecdotal in the sense that they are typically randomly occurring events as opposed to the convoy routes. The world itself is big but not Horizon Zero Dawn or Assassin’s Creed Odyssey “oh my god how did they even fit all this on one disc” big, it’s more than manageable. The biomes are varied and impressive in detail despite some being more vacant than I’d like.  All in all, it’s at the very least better than the bland world of Rage 1, and at best it’s a gorgeous backdrop for the best FPS action since Doom 2016.

Anger Surrounds

There isn’t a lot in the way of introduction and it’s cause the game and it’s creators understand what you’re here for: shooty bang. You literally pick a gender and are handed a gun. After the first big firefight, the world is literally open to you. This exploration is encouraged because you don’t gain abilities or weapons unless you find Arks which are silos scattered around the map. Normally I’d be mad about another icon cluttering the map but it’s at least a way of getting stronger while discovering the hovels and holes your enemies hide in, grabbing some cash and feltrite (upgrade currency) along the way. It’s essentially the best version of the Far Cry towers ever.

The world is very pretty both graphically and from an art direction aspect. Boggy swamps, desert, rocky canyons, and even suburbia is sprinkled into the colorful and sometimes striking scenery of the world around you. Some structures are established like roadblocks, resource stations, or mutant nests, some are just dressing to fill out the world, but the best is the elaborate gang camps that go from close quarters combat to open courtyards that have you working with cover and elevation. Most main and side mission areas appear to be carefully designed to be engaging set pieces that vary from open lots littered with obstacles to break up the battlefield and enhance the functionality of some abilities. If the map itself doesn’t grab you, the way the world is designed to make combat as fun as possible definitely will. 

Walker Wasteland Ranger tonight at 9 

Rage 1 very much gave you the feeling of having your back against the wall. In Rage 2 if you ever find yourself in that situation you push off that wall and crush whatever is in your way into misy and gristle. You are the baddest thing breathing and everything in this game is about making you feel that. I can’t tell if the progression is deep or cleverly padded and that might be fine by me, I haven’t decided yet. When you first see how many currencies there are in the game it makes anyone that knows what AAA games have been doing lately sweat profusely. Fortunately, Rage 2 gives you plenty of opportunities to load up on the kind of cash you spend in stores, the kind on upgrades, weapon skins and mods, it's all here for you to take when you want it you just have to kill a bunch of baddies to get it. Thankfully there isn’t a single gun that doesn’t feel incredible and unique. From the way the rifle spits a volley or the kick from the shotgun; all of them are a dream and when used in tandem with the abilities it makes for very enticing gameplay. The abilities span all aspects of combat and their refresh time doesn’t allow them to be spammed but lets a player that bounces from skill to skill always have one refresh by the time the effect of the current one wears off. They really found a way for the guns to play into abilities and vice-versa which only makes spicing up combat easier. In Destiny when you throw a grenade, that’s it. Did you use your melee? Oh that’s cool but, that’s also it. In Rage 2 I can mix up abilities to create different means of destruction and death in a much more satisfying way. Even the more nuanced abilities like the Rush and Focus are used to bolster the minimal downtime firefights give you. 

From McQueen to Mater

The sixteen vehicles are divisive stars of Rage 2 and it really shows, alongside the facelifted combat, that Id and Avalanche tried to not lose sight of what the original game was focussed around. This rendition’s vehicular combat is much better with weighty pit maneuvers and pretty smart auto tracking from turrets. Alongside this, the vehicles simply must be redone Mad Max vehicles Avalanche never got to use or something cause they just work in a way Bethesda hasn’t been able to claim in a long time. The Phoenix, your signature ride, is the best of both worlds with it being quick and tanky with a litany of additions you can make to it. You’ll see vehicles that have no weapons (why would you even), some speedsters that drop nuke mines behind them, a tank that is slower than frozen shit but also practically indestructible and armed to the teeth. There is fast travel but there is also the Icarus which is a hoverbike and though it can handle like a shopping cart with one wing (more on that later). When it does work its nice to get to where you’re going quicker meanwhile not missing out on any points of interest along the way to where you’re going. Vehicular combat is serviceable and engaging once you get the controls under your fingers.

rAGED

I don’t have too many issues with this game, some are typical nitpicks but others are definitely more egregious. The world though colorful and varied is very “basic open world game” format, I was kind of hoping for some kind of expansion on a version of game we are wildly overly saturated with. The mini games like MobTV and races (which make a comeback from the original) are great but the typical icon littered map is a little draining at times. Which brings me to the endgame because with consideration of just how last gen this game seems to be design wise, I fear they didn’t think about something as “modern” as having an endgame model outside of the season pass and totally unnecessary “live service” content drops. I feel like they missed their own mark and could’ve really populated the world with quite a few more enemies but instead, there are a lot of times where it’s actually quite isolated even in some intriguing areas.

Oh, and every situation that yields dialogue in the open world is wildly repetitive like the writers could not be fucked to give the character anything more than the one decent line you get to hear when approaching a mutant nest, gas station, or bandit hideout or the mobile trader oh my god it’s absolutely torturous especially when you don’t feel like returning to a town and they typically come around fairly consistently.  

Back to the Icarus flying bike thing. Mother Fuck that thing can be absolutely unbearable. You see the right trigger merely starts the engines with minor altitude control, the left trigger lowers yourself. The vehicle is supposed to identify altitude and the height of oncoming structures and mountain faces on its own and adjust automatically. But it doesn’t and you’re often sitting there like a fucking idiot ramming into every mountain and building you come across. Why didn’t they map an ascend and descend control to the face buttons? How did no one catch how lopsided that thing controls?

Let’s continue to discuss vehicles, shall we? I talked about the good of the actual combat and the weapons it comes with. What I didn’t talk about was how the controls for said vehicles go from tight and responsive to sludgey and “too fast for the game”. It’s like the vehicle is going too fast for your controller. So many times I’ve gone sailing over the cliffside curve or undercutting and completely killing my momentum. The margin for error is really thin. 

The progression system for weapons is...suspect. On the surface, it’s deep, you unlock tiers of upgrades with feltrite and then use upgrade/mod tokens to select the actual mod itself. It seems really unnecessary to have to purchase the ability to spend your tokens to upgrade your weapon. Just typing that made my brain fuzzy, it’s too many steps. At least with the skills each tier in itself comes with a boost to that specific skill but with weapons, you’re literally just adding steps for now real reason. Thankfully there’s no connection to monetization or anything like that. What it does have though is a premium currency for weapon skins which....whoopie...but thankfully that really is the extent of it. Not that it’s okay at all. 

Conclusion

People are gonna compare this game to Far Cry New Dawn and I don’t believe many should give too much thought to that comparison. Outside of the bright post-apocalyptic setting (an aesthetic Rage 2 established first for the record), I feel like Rage 2 is more consistent in what it sets out to deliver. Not to mention the combat is just head and shoulders better in Rage 2 and if you go in knowing you won’t leave with a story that changed your life or even really impact you at all but instead expect a white knuckle shooter designed to keep you on your toes and keep the kill count increasing. This game is fun and once this goes on sale there will literally be no excuse. 

tl;dr I give Rage 2 an 7 but I can’t stress this enough this is one of the best First Person Shooters I’ve ever played from a mechanics standpoint. The game appears to be this good despite the rest of the game design and execution. 

[ryouverua]

so like i havent heard of umineko outside of you and your drv3 liveblog, whats it about (and who the fuck names their kid 'battler', what the hell were his parents thinking. i thought 'sigma' and 'phi' and 'quark' from zero escape were weird names but that takes the cake.)

give me a moment as I attempt to calm myself before I vibrate into the sun becaus Umineko is one of my all-time favourites series -

well, while I prepare yourself, you’ll be happy to know that Battler has your back on that one:

So, for some context, Umineko no naku koro ni is a murder mystery visual novel (sometimes called a ‘sound novel’ for its extensive and impressive music). If you’re familiar with it, it’s also the spiritual-ish successor to Higurashi no naku koro ni. You can play and enjoy Umineko without having played Higurashi but it’s similar to SDR2 in the sense that there are some callbacks in both structure, audience expectations (which are taken advantage of in glorious fashion) and even character design to its predecessor. Interestingly enough, it finished around the time the original Danganronpa came out and I was really deep in the fandom at that point, which is why I actually knew of it via the SomethingAwful forum livebloggings originally. 8′D

Anyway, to the meat of it - it’s got all the classic set-up of a traditional murder mystery. Eccentric rich old head of household invites his family to his grand mansion which just so happens to be on an island. He’s close to death. All the family members involved stand to inherit a lot of money when he dies, none of the adults in the family seem to get along, there are just a few trusted servants there as well, then they’re unexpectedly cut off from the outside of the world when a storm hits.

In true ‘And Then There Were None’ fashion, people start turning up - well, murdered and stuff. How could this be happening? Surely one of us can’t be the culprit. There was a bizarre letter addressed to us the night before, warning of the ominous events to come. The Master has a large portrait hanging of a beautiful woman, ‘Beatrice’, hanging in the entrance hall - a woman from Kinzo’s past called the ‘Golden Witch’, who supposedly granted Kinzo ten tons of gold, and one whom the servants have begun to whisper haunt the island. Are these murders the work of humans, or are they the work of Beatrice, the true ruler of Rokkenjima?

…… So that’s the summary for the series, on the surface. Here are where minor spoilers come, but nothing experience-breaking - that really only applies to episode 1 (of 8) - episode being how they refer to one whole story, from a full cast to the last few survivors. In DR terms, episode 1 would be the first DR/Trigger-Happy Havoc, episode 2 would be the second/SDR2, 3 would be drv3, etc. Also, you’ll probably recognize the name I brought up from the drv3 blogging, especially in the last post - Beatrice. The meat of the entire series comes from the moment at the end of the first episode when my glorious Beatrice appears and challenges the audience surrogate, Battler, to prove that it wasn’t her masterminding the entire affair with her magic and that it was a human culprit, as he claims it was oh hey chapter 5 of drv3 whatup except it’s the WHOLE SERIES. Sounds crazy, right? Fantasy, in my murder mystery? Isn’t the fact that she has appeared proof enough? But it works. I… I can’t go into it any more, because then I would really be getting into dangerous territory, but it works so incredibly well, it challenges your thinking on so many levels, you’re digging into the narrative and motivations for clues in ways you’d never imagined - it was really formative for me, tbh!

Other perks - a billion best girls, nuanced girls, nay, ladies, because calling any of these women ‘girls’ is selling them so short. The female cast is huge and outnumbers the guys by a wide margin, in sheer numbers and screentime. And they’re not cookie-cutter ladies either - oh no, you are getting all sorts, all ages, old-to-young, dealing with problems and personalities you just rarely see get explored - though I have to say, the last few years we’ve finally gotten more in media, but at the time it was such a breath of fresh air!

Also, truth and lies theme again, except it’s mystery vs fantasy. Battler is the best weepy protagonist. And I’ll tell you what, I remember that one anon asking why I was trying to parse Kokichi’s character so much - Umineko is why, in a nutshell. It’s Just That Good.

[moonlitgleek]

ramzesfics reblogged your post and added:

[....] where did the idea of having the option to safely say “no” go? Someone thinks that Elia actually could safely say “no” to the man who decided that this was the only night he had to fuck her in? (Remember, this night was very important to him, else he would have tried again before and after.) But this possibility isn’t even mentioned. The entire awfulness of the situation is waved away with a tentative, “MAY be utterly callous… it does interfere with her consent”… Makes me wonder where the callousness is. If Elia was this willing, Rhaegar is not callous at all. It was her choice, after all. Her risk to take.

Earth to fandom: a consent interfered with is not a consent freely given. Amazing, I know, but this is a concept that doesn’t only apply to cutely wilful wolf-blooded girls of fifteen, it also applies to until recently bedridden Dornish princesses who almost certainly knew that waiting for a mere month or two vastly improved their chances of going through pregnancy successfully but had prophecy obsessed husbands. For the record, I also wouldn’t call Rhaegar a rapist. Elia most certainly thought it was her wifely duty. But it sure as hell falls under the definition of “a little rapey”, like many things in GRRM’s world.

I’ll choose to ignore the blatant hostile and condescending tone you use throughout your reply in favor of addressing your points. But perhaps next time you might think of toning that down. Your points can be easily made without talking down to me like that, and less hostility makes for a more productive discussion instead of a shouting match.

Anyway.

I clearly said that Elia’s consent is interfered with. I clearly said that it isn’t a healthy situation. My point is that calling it rape, or a bit rapey which is essentially the same thing, puts Rhaegar as the perpetrator and the one responsible for that which I don’t agree with. The problem with Elia’s consent, in my interpretation, is that the sociopolitical culture of Westeros inherently undermines free consent. That stands true for most Westerosi marriages. It’s a society whose politics and power structure is maintained through arranged marriage which doesn’t really bother with clear and free consent. It commodifies highborn individuals, especially women, as pawns to be used to gain alliances, political power, status, economic privileges, etc. It engenders a significant power disparity between genders which translates to men having inordinate power over their wives, which is then exacerbated by the societal pressure it places women under by holding them to a rigid structure of conduct. Society says that providing sex to their husbands is a duty, that bearing and rearing children is a duty, that giving access to their very bodies is. a. duty. On top of that, it makes it that their political legacy and power is intrinsically tied to their children. Outside of ruling ladies, noble women maintain power through their children so having children seizes to be only a thing they are taught is their duty, and quite literally becomes a way of securing the mother’s place. In a society where women are subject to men’s power and whims, that is an important objective.

All that makes consent a mess. That’s what the make-up of Westerosi society does; it removes true sexual agency from people. That stands especially true for women, particularly those in certain ranks where providing children becomes a political obligation. That absolutely interferes with consent so I can see where it can be called rape. My problem comes from the fact that we’d be basically calling pretty much every marriage in Westeros rape that way, because consent is interfered with everywhere. So is Ned the same as Robert? Is Stannis the same as Aerys? Is the consent issues the same? I can’t say that. Which is why I draw a line between “yes, there is an issue with consent here but that doesn’t makes this person a rapist” and “someone is clearly and deliberately ignoring consent and/or creating a situation where consent can’t be given”. Rhaegar/Elia are in the first category, Rhaegar/Lyanna in the second. I hesitate to draw parallels between them, and it’s not because Lyanna is white and Elia isn’t.

It’s because that while I think that Elia’s consent is interfered with because she is under pressure; this pressure didn’t necessarily come from Rhaegar’s person. You have a valid point in criticizing me for not allowing a margin of error because yes, it is possible that Rhaegar himself pressured Elia because there was a comet in the sky this specific night (though I’m not sure where your confidence that this was the only night of intercourse between Rhaegar and Elia comes from). My interpretation differs, partly because I don’t see any instance where Martin hints that the situation isn’t what it appears to be, partly because I’m almost certain that this is an example of his inability to math and that he just didn’t notice that having Elia bedridden for six months after Rhaenys’ birth but having Rhaenys and Aegon born in two successive years when Rhaenys couldn’t have been possibly born any earlier than late 280 leaves a very small window for Aegon’s conception. The author’s doylist math challenges should not overwhelm in-universe explanations but it lends a useful frame in light of the lack of additional evidence. So my point is that while Elia’s consent is interfered with, it’s not necessarily Rhaegar who caused that interference and thus should be blamed for it. Which the original ask does.

In terms of the comparison between Elia and Lyanna, I don’t parallel them because their ability to consent isn’t the same. On account of age alone, there is a whole lot of difference to what Elia could hypothetically consent to as a 25-year-old and what Lyanna could consent to as a 14-year-old. Elia can consent to sex with Rhaegar, Lyanna can not. It is not possible. The situation is drastically different as well; it’s possible that Rhaegar pressured Elia but it’s just as possible that Elia agreed willingly (and I hear what you say about the dangers this could pose to her fertility and don’t disagree. But Martin has eschewed that logic way too many times for me not to see this as a solid possibility.) Rhaegar held power over both Elia and Lyanna that could be used to coerce, that’s true, but Elia’s ability to say yes to her husband with whom she has a comparable maturity level and rank, in their home, with a loyal retinue in the vicinity is starkly different from Lyanna’s ability to say yes when she has none of that. That does not mean that Elia couldn’t be coerced, but the two situations are not comparable. In Lyanna’s case, Rhaegar created the situation that prevented Lyanna’s consent to be valid or free. He deliberately perpetuated a chain of events that left her at a disadvantage, isolated and completely vulnerable to the crown prince and three loyal Kingsguard. Rhaegar himself unambiguously interfered with Lyanna’s consent. The difference here is that there is a possibility for Elia to consent, but that isn’t true for Lyanna.

Finally, I admit I’m a bit confused. You say that you also wouldn’t call Rhaegar a rapist for this. You concur that Elia probably thought it was her wifely duty. So the issue seems to be that you think I brushed away the awfulness of the situation. Except.... do I need to point out that a woman feeling it’s her duty to provide children for her husband or to secure herself is fucked up? Sometimes I do spell it out. But sometimes I rely on the fact that people reading don’t need me to tell them that’s not right. I acknowledge that it’s not a healthy situation. I acknowledge that Elia’s consent is suspect. There are consent issues but I don’t call it rape because I blame Westerosi mores that wreaks havoc with consent on the best of days. So I haven’t ignored the awfulness of the situation as much as that you think my word choice makes it too tentative. But at the same time you refer to me saying “Elia might” in my post as “a long post why this woman had almost certainly decided it was the best idea ever, her saving grace!”. Okay?

[acehotel]

Got a Girl Crush: in conversation with Kristen McCallum

“Do you believe that sex is a prerequisite for commitment? Could you be in a long-term relationship without it?” “How can we liberate some of the heteronormative and toxic relationship models that we still fall into?” These are just some of the questions included in Visibility Packs, a discussion-based card game for safe space discourse launched several weeks ago by SafeWordSociety. Originally a podcast, SafeWordSociety is a QTPOC (queer, transgender people of color) visibility company founded by CEO Kristen McCallum. Kristen started the project with a group of friends in Brooklyn last February, and now works to fill the gaps of QTPOC visibility in media in as many ways as she can; her mission to increase visibility is clearly working – the SafeWordSociety podcast has been highly reviewed by listeners across the QTPOC spectrum and has gained an international listenership.

SafeWordSociety has grown over the last year from just a podcast to a blog, consultation and production for mission-aligned organizations, and a product line. With a live tour and new products in the works, Kristen is optimistic that “everything is going all the way up” and SafeWordSociety will become a cornerstone for queer visibility and community.

The following interview with SafeWordSociety founder Kristen McCallum has been republished in partnership with Got a Girl Crush, a blog and annual print magazine about women, by women, for everyone. Words by Rachel Lee; photos by Amanda Stosz for Got a Girl Crush.

How did SafeWordSociety get started? Where did the name come from?

I’m the friend in the group chat who starts all the discussions. At brunch, I always want to have discussions; we got into such good conversations, and I really wished everyone could hear the things we talked about. One day I thought, “Why can’t people hear what we’re talking about?”

I had never listened to a podcast, I didn’t know anything about audio equipment, but I gave myself a week to find out what to do, what equipment to buy, find out how to edit audio on YouTube. I scheduled a recording session with my friends in my living room at the end of the week, and episode 1 was created!

I was so nervous about recording the first episode of the podcast. I wasn’t sure what it was supposed to sound like, or how long it was supposed to be. We used some janky mics from Amazon, and I had no idea what to do on the audio mixer. I had only known what I was doing for six days at the time. The concept for the episode, online dating as QTPOC, was amazing — we had just had that conversation over group text, so it was like a conversation we would normally have.

As for the name: me and my friends went to a house for my birthday, and again, I started a random discussion and we started talking about safe words.

Like sexual safe words?

Yes, sexual safe words. It got me thinking — for people who don’t experience sex with safe words, what are the safe words for marginalized communities? What are things that are non-negotiable for us and that allow people to understand they’re non-negotiable? To me, those are pronouns. There’s no conversation about that — this is who I am, this is how I identify, that’s it. So I thought it would be cool as a way to talk about discussions in the community, create something around what is non-negotiable. That’s why we start every episode with an introduction of our pronouns, with the guests also.

We were on a bus trip back to New York from an all-women’s day party at a strip club in DC, and I realized the name should be “SafeWordSociety.” I explained the concept to Lamika Young, [Kristen’s podcast co-host], and she loved it.

What is an all-women’s day party at a strip club? What goes on there?

A lot. I had never been to an all-women’s day party (I didn’t even know strip clubs had day parties), but this strip club in DC shuts down the first Saturday of every month. It’s for all women-identified people to come and have a space that’s free of ogling men and have a good time. It’s essentially drinking, eating really good wings enjoying beautiful bodies and empowerment, and having a good time. It was amazing.

Circling back to SafeWordSociety, the company has branched out from being just a podcast to a blog, and a card game. Where did the idea for the Visibility Packs come from?

When I started the podcast, I didn’t think about anything past episode one. I had no idea what I was doing, I thought people wouldn’t listen to it, and that the quality wasn’t amazing. People did listen to it, because it was filling a gap. People got more interested, and our listenership started to grow – one of our biggest listenerships is in Uzbekistan, Uganda, all places outside of the country. I realized we need to expand and engage people who don’t have access to the podcast, so I created an umbrella company, SafeWordSociety, and started to make projects within it. The podcast became a project.

SafeWordSociety as a company has many services outside of the podcast. For New York Fashion Week in 2017, we produced a gender-neutral evening wear show. A designer came to me and told me what they wanted to do; I had never produced a whole show before, but I’m all about visibility and I have a background in production, so I took a stab at it. This is exactly what we offer as a company: creative strategy and branding for mission-aligned brands, services, and businesses.

I’m a published writer and a lot of times, I’m wary of submitting my writing for websites. Everyone is looking for content that’s applicable; sometimes it’s difficult for a person who has a narrative like mine to send something, then be told [by a publication] they are not interested. You have to ask yourself, “What part of my marginalization are you not interested in?” It’s been difficult to get people interested in our work — it’s not less quality or less of anything, but people focus on what is trendy, and QTPOC aren’t trendy. We created the blog because I wanted to figure out a way to publish writing I care about, and a place for interviews with people I would love for this community to know more about, but might not be able to make it to the podcast. Now that we’re in season four, and we’re booked until the end of season five, so the blog is the place for writers in the community who want a platform, or aren’t ready to submit to huge publications.

I have been thinking about the visibility packs for a long time. Cards Against Humanity is triggering as fuck, and especially in this time, it’s not fun to laugh at that kind of stuff. The Visibility Packs are a form of learning and engagement. I’m sure other people want to have conversations but aren’t sure how to start them — I’m from a Jamaican family, and it’s really hard to have discussions when you don’t have the appropriate language. If we write the questions that we think should be asked, then you can never say the information isn’t there — you just have to go get it.

Visibility Packs. Image provided courtesy of SafeWordSociety

You mentioned there’s a gap in media that SafeWordSociety is filling — do you find that there are opportunities for queer creators of color, especially in the podcasting world?

There are other podcasts that focus on queer creators of color, or queer creators of color who focus on pop culture. We’re so inundated with [coverage on pop culture] from everywhere else, it’s not specifically something I wanted to focus on. I wanted to talk about things QTPOC are doing and allow people to tell their own stories. We’re the ones to do interviews and introduce people to a large arena of listeners. There aren’t a lot of places where I can see what my path could potentially be if I wanted to open a yoga studio as a marginalized person, or learn a victim of gun violence can focus on how to love their community. That’s a gap where tangible things are offered.

What kinds of topics do you try to focus on when you think of episode ideas? Do you try to focus on the intersectionality between the two communities the podcast serves?

SafeWordSociety is a visibility company for all QTPOC. When I’m thinking of topics, I’m intentional in thinking just about the topic, not the identity of the person. If I want to talk about cooking, I look into the community for chefs that identify as QTPOC. Our topics cover literally everything — music, art — then we just look for guests in that field.

What is your favorite episode to date?

Season 1, episode 8. It’s about forgiveness, and it’s with Anyanwu Uwa who identifies as a love activist. She’s a survivor of gun violence and talked to us about how that experience has helped her love her community more and be more forgiving. She went through a really heinous event and has a response that is understanding and wants to put love into a community so these things don’t happen again. That episode was by far my favorite because I recognized what we were doing, and what I had built.

You were featured by Autostraddle, which is every queer woman’s dream! What kind of impact is SafeWordSociety making in the queer media circles? What do you hope the listeners are taking away from it?

I think it’s making a really big impact. I know what I needed, and I don’t think I ever recognized the importance of creating things that I need. You don’t know what other people are looking for. Because it’s my genuine heart work, I recognize the impact it has on other people, because they can feel that I love it and I mean it, it’s important to me also.

I hope listeners are taking away a lot. What I try to do in each conversation is for people to see that even though we have struggles, we have grown through a lot of them. There’s a lot of trauma in the QTPOC community, but inside of that, people are having genuinely good times in their lives. We laugh too, we have bad dates, and we burn things when we cook. We get married, run businesses, make money. There are a lot of things to be proud of, and I hope listeners see things they don’t otherwise see. Before I started the podcast, I didn’t know a lot of successful QTPOC people existed as chefs, or successful entrepreneurs, because no one chooses to highlight that.

“I want my eight-year-old niece who’s thinking about identity to be able to access resources that are positive and make her feel uplifted. If you don’t find them, create them!”

Who are some QTPOC you’ve been inspired by? What are some of your favorite podcasts, or queer-run media?

Lately? All my guests, seriously. We recently published an episode with Ericka Hart. She’s a breast cancer survivor and coined the term “topless activism.” I was exceptionally inspired by how she’s so positive. A lot of our guests are so positive through difficulty — our community deals with things as a part of our daily existence — but when they come on the podcast, it’s the opportunity to shoot the shit. I’m hosting the podcast through my life, while I’m going through personal issues, and my guests are helping me move forward. I’m inspired by the work they’re doing and realizing I need to step my game up. My guests are grateful for the opportunity, which I’m always taken aback by. You’re grateful for this? I’m grateful you’re even on the podcast!

I love Dear Queer hosted by Robin Cloud, who was also one of my guests. She’s a comedian and she’s hilarious. Her podcast is essentially how she is. It’s an opportunity for me to listen to something if I want a break from everything. How many places as a queer black woman do I get to laugh about stuff?

I read a lot of Autostraddle and all of the queer media that’s up because I just want to be in the know. A lot of it is missing POC representation, and it’s hard to read sometimes. I started SafeWordSociety because I felt left out and because I have a media company, the feeling of being left out is amplified now. I ingest as much queer media as possible because you have to be supportive of your community, but I try to stay away from it. I’m a human — feeling left out doesn’t feel good, and that’s what happens more often than not.

I don’t want this to be a super high-pressure question, but what’s the future of the company, of the blog, and the podcast?

I’m a Virgo, remember? I’m high pressure all the time! 

Everything is going all the way up! That’s my intention. For the podcast, I’m completely shocked by the trajectory it’s taken. People are checking for it now. I should have expected this — I put my whole heart into the work — but do you ever do that? I still think nobody’s going to listen to it, four seasons in. We’re working on going on a tour and doing live shows. I want to go to new places, be with live audiences, and see what format a live-show takes.

In terms of the website and the blog, I want to build the blog out to an outlet where writers can submit and it’s a go-to place for QTPOC narratives of all kinds. The visibility packs are coming, and I’m so excited. I want to tour with those – we have specific workshops we’re building out for the packs, and I want to take those to conferences, college campuses, classrooms — wherever people can facilitate these conversations, and create open dialogue and safe spaces. This first visibility pack that’s coming out is the original pack, but we’re going to partner with past guests and influencers on custom packs and partnership packs (focused on specific topics). I’m also working on another product I want to release in the summer — I can’t say anything about it yet, but the thought process is in the work.

The company itself is just going to grow. There are so many things I want to do. I want to get into TV, and that’s something I’ve never had the capacity to do it, but I can actually do anything if I teach myself how to. I have been working on pilot ideas and ways to make SafeWordSociety a huge ass media house. It’s necessary. I want us to be the staple for visibility, to have events and workshops and feel empowered to do anything they can and know anything is possible with community. There are other people who care about what you’re doing and your experience. It may not be the same experience, but they’ll work with you and help you out. I don’t know how I became this person, but I’m so dedicated to getting our voices and our work created, uplifted, and archived. It’s so important to have an archive of this moment. I want my eight-year-old niece who’s thinking about identity to be able to access resources that are positive and make her feel uplifted. If you don’t find them, create them!

Find SafeWordSociety's podcasts and resources on their website, Instagram, and Twitter.