#except gender means even less to these aliens than that

[lilacsandlillies]

I was going through the anti Jason Todd tag because I hate myself and want to understand where people who dislike him are coming from and one thing I kept seeing was annoyance at Jason fans who claim that Jason is female coded and realized that the term “female coded” might not be the best term to describe what we mean.

A female coded character in literature and media typically means a character that has no specified gender or otherwise does not have a gender but is obviously meant to be a stand in for a woman or female. Kind of like how Starfire has no specified race (due to being an alien) but is still obviously black coded based on the way she’s drawn and treated by the narrative.

This is slightly different than what we mean when saying that Jason is female coded. It’s not that Jason is literally supposed to be a stand in for a female character, it’s that the way a lot of characters treat him and a lot of the tropes used on him are things that usually saved for female characters, not big buff men like Jason.

To start with, being Robin is narratively (or at least was) very similar to being a woman in a story. Robin is a role made to complement Batman (who we all know is basically the ultimate male power fantasy). Robin’s role is to be an accessory to Batman. Robin can be smart, but not smarter than Batman. Robin can be strong, but not stronger than Batman. Hell, Robin is often kidnapped and used as a literal damsel in distress, a role often regulated for women as a whole.

What sets Jason apart from the other robins (except for Steph) in this regard is that they were allowed to be characters outside of Batman. Dick might not have been the “man” of the story when he’s with Bruce, but when he’s with the teen titans suddenly he’s the smart one who has all the answers. Jason’s Robin was never really allowed this.

Then we get to the most, controversial, part of Jason’s female coding. The fact the he was effectively fridged. Fridging is usually only referred to as frigding if it’s a female character, but Jason’s death checks pretty much all the other boxes needed. An incredibly brutal death that was more about Bruce’s feelings on it than Jason himself.

This is especially apparent when compared to the other Bat characters. For all the female coding, the only other Robin to actually be fridged was Steph (and we all know about the misogyny surrounding her death). Barbara was also kind of fridged during the killing Joke. The only female character to escape this is Cass (to my knowledge). When you look at it through this lens, the fact that the only other characters to be permanently damaged like this for Bruce’s story are female, it’s not hard to see where the idea that Jason is female coded comes from.

You can even find this in Jason’s origin story. Poor little orphan is saved by benevolent billionaire is a role usually saved for little girls, like in Annie.

Despite what you might think, this even continues after Jason’s revival. Jason is still used less as a character and more as a motivation for Bruce. He’s regularly called emotional and hysterical (terms usually used to refer to women).

Jason is first and foremost a victim. A role performed by women in most media. Men are expected to be stoic and “rise above” the things done to them as to not be victims, as continuously shown by the way characters like Nightwing are not allowed to be effected by the horrific things they go through. The fact that Jason is shown the be angry, and sad, and emotional, constantly, and the fact that he’s punished and vilified for it puts him in a place much more similar to a female character.

There’s a reason that so many Jason fans (that like him for a reason past “antihero with guns”) are female. For most characters, when you swap their genders there would be a pretty clear and big difference in the way their story takes place. If you swap Jason’s gender, the story takes place identically.

A lot of this is best shown in men’s reactions to Arkham Knight’s version of Jason. In that game, Jason is similarly angry and emotional, albeit for slightly different reasons. He is also still unmistakably a victim. You’d think the men playing would like him. After all he’s a big cool angsty guy with a lot of guns and muscles. Instead, a lot of men’s thought that he was whiny. That his feelings were annoying.

There’s also something to be said about how his autonomy is regularly undermined by Bruce (specifically in Gotham war) and how his decisions and feeling are constantly treated as if they’re worth less than Bruce’s, but that’s a discussion for another day.

[pokegyns]

Sex dysphoria as an incongruous body map is the most sensical, persuasive and not-misogynistic argument for the innateness of gender identity I've ever seen, much more than I've ever got from a TRA, but then you start talking about young future-transwomen showing culture-bound signifiers of femininity in very young childhood. Why would there be any correlation between sex incongruity and gender nonconformity? You specifically say that this is even before they are aware of their own incongruity. Why? Are you saying it's a form of extremely subconscious mimicry of the gender roles of the sex the brain believes its body is? Even before the child even understands the sex-gender connection?

I can tell you're not saying that gnc=trans, I'm not misreading you quite that badly. But what could a correlation between sex incongruity and childhood gender nonconformity imply except either terfism or bioessentualism?

I'm asking in pure good faith. I want to believe.

i do not believe there is an innate, inherent biological connection between sex incongruency & gender nonconformity. however, due to societal indoctrination & environmental circumstances, sex incongruous children most of the time do not feel connected with their peers of the same sex. gender is not just a bystander, it is a large system and a huge superstructure that is built in every aspect of our society. it is something that can have war-torn impacts on people, and i think we all can see the way that this system uniquely disadvantages & impairs sex incongruous & dysphoric people– which does have a very lasting effect on dysphoric children. as children are most of the time raised under a strict gender binary, under the [current] colonial gender system, which is hierarchical & totalitarian based on assimilation that outcasts any ambiguity & deviation– it is no surprise that sex incongruous children will be impaired in numerous social aspects, and that their socialization will be very much affected by this rigid gender categorization which leaves them feeling alienated.

under a system without gender, there would likely be less connections between sex incongruency & gender nonconformity; as there would be no such thing as gender to conform or not to conform to in the first place– and i do believe that the currently existing connections between the two are real, however not biologically ingrained, fixated, or determined in any way– but are rather socially shaped, similarly to how social dysphoria is. just because a phenomenon exists, does not necessarily mean that it is inherently biologically predisposed in any individual. there is evidence that dysphoric children are in fact alienated from their peers & that they have face bigger struggle conforming to their specific assigned gender role, however that is not because their brain somehow misaligns with their sex [which would be neurosexism], nor are they at fault for being socially impaired to a degree; it is the extremely strict, fixated & totalitarian system of gender that unfairly & unjustly punishes those who deviate in any way. we cannot say that the phenomenon itself isn’t real, much like how we cannot say that gender is not– both are real, but they have no scientific basis, nor are they biologically determined. gender is forced on us, and the connection between gender nonconformity & dysphoria is formed due to the existence of gender itself– which must be abolished.

– mod zoroark

[langernameohnebedeutung]

Not sure if you're the right person to ask this but since you've been the only one on my dash talking about the things happening in chess rn - why the fuck are chess tournaments even separated by gender?! Like, genuinely. I can guess that it started that way thanks to misogyny and "conservative values" or some shit but nowadays? The separation in physical sports still makes sense because men do tend to have an advantage over women statistically speaking, that's all fine and dandy. But in CHESS? w h y?

Okay, this is the right ask now:

I mean, it's a difficult subject. Historically, chess was treated a "male" game, so boys were trained more thoroughly, more professionally, in far greater numbers which means that chess was largely a male sphere (which, obviously and as usual, led to the common interpretation that women are less capable at playing chess because 'hey, if they were, they WOULD be playing chess, what do you mean context matters lol' which further alienated young women and further cemented the idea of chess as a male sphere and hey, what's the point of training women to begin with).

This also had a political component: In some countries, chess was a national sport, in others it plays a minor role - which also translates into different average Elo rankings per country (so unless anyone thinks people in the Soviet Union had a magical chess gene, I think we can safely assume that training as many people as possible in chess translates into a high chance of ending up with a significant number of very good chess players. And those findings we can also apply to he gender disparity.) This also led to the usual sense of entitlement among male chess players that chess is 'for them' and that women trying to get into the game are somehow corrupting the dignity of the game or being intruders or just generally are not to be welcomed. This is something you historically often see when a space was opened to women like the first female university students who experienced a bunch of harassment at the hands of their male peers)

So all of this resulted in a scenario where a lot of male chess players were openly resentful against female chess players (translating into adverse playing conditions for female players), women on average had a disadvantage due to many of them not receiving the same training as their male counterparts (which results in lower Elo rankings) as well as the collective numerical disadvantage because men outnumbered women 16:1, which means that in pretty much any competition, the odds of a man winning were 16x higher than the chance of a woman winning.

So as a solution, the female world championship was established. And real talk, I don't have an issue with that. As I said, in chess, there are no physical denominators that would make a more sensible categorisation to even the playing field. It is also a game designed to leave little to no room for luck to determine the outcome. Women are still free to participate in the "regular" Chess World Championship, it is not restricted to men only the way most physical sports are. So this is mostly about representation and honestly, from that angle, I do understand the desire to show young girls that chess isn't a "male" thing and that they too can win and that there is a community of like-minded women (which is something I think is especially important for young girls that weren't made to feel welcome in the chess playing spaces in their direct environment). Although my long-term hope would definitely be that one day, we a) do something about misogynistic discrimination women experience in general chess and b) that enough young girls receive the training and the encouragement to play chess that one day, this whole thing is no longer an issue. Right now, the surge of chess in popularity among kids, I see that as a huge chance! This is great and I hope this causes a shift in sentiment!

(Another exception: Men and women also compete together in the equestrian categories in the Olympics. Except here with women significantly outnumbering men)

The thing is, I have yet to see any explanation for stripping trans men of their titles when they transition or stripping trans women of titles AND banning them from women's competitions that isn't…just about being a dick and harassing and humiliating trans people. Especially when the FIDE wants to document this (which btw would be highly dangerous for trans people from certain members states). Not to mention a bunch of misogynistic implications to boot by pretending that AFAB people don't have a chance against AMAB people one-on-one.

This is just bullying, plain and simple.

[deafmangoes]

The Ferengi: Misogyny, Sexuality and Internalised Homophobia

A two-parter! In this essay I'd like to explore and discuss two specific headcanons, and how they are reflected in the display of Ferengi culture throughout DS9:

That Quark is gay

That Rom is genderfluid/non-binary

... and that neither of them have the tools or language to express it.

Part I: Quark is Gay

One element of Star Trek I love is the alien cultures, and the way that through many writers and several decades of work they get built up into complex snapshots of life different to our own, even if they can still be a little Planet of Hats.

Before DS9 the Ferengi were a barely seen race brought up a couple of times in TNG, and always characterised as hyper-capitalist, greedy goblinesque figures. I imagine they were thought up as a direct foil to the Federation: they valued everything the Federation had left behind.

But! Then the DS9 writing team made the decision to bring in Quark, and through him we see so much more of the Ferengi and their culture over DS9's run.

Now obviously the "Quark is gay" theories are hardly new (I mean the show pretty much spells it out with the way he looks at Odo) but I wanted to try and tackle, arguing in-universe, why Quark is closeted even to himself. Firstly, Ferengi culture forbids women from having any place in society except as objects, even more strictly than any real-life culture has ever been. Despite being a spacefaring people, Ferengi women (stated to make up near 53% of their species) are forbidden to own property, run a business, wear clothes in public or exist as individuals divided from their male owners (and they are owned - Quark and Rom discuss Rom's former marriage in one episode, and it's clear that Ferengi marriages are a contract between the father/male 'guardian' and the new husband where the bride is purchased specifically for the role of bearing children).

The only Ferengi women we see in DS9 are - as a necessary consequence - challenging these societal norms. Quark's mother, Ishka, is present in a number of episodes and flouts expectations by wearing her own clothes in public, openly advising on business matters, and later leading the first Ferengi feminist movement! The gif above is taken from S2E07 "Rules of Acquisition" where Quark has to do business with Pel: a female Ferengi masquerading as a male (specifically here using false ears - Ferengi are sexually dimorphic and males have larger ears. One episode indicates they 'shed' them as they grow, meaning it might be a specific male puberty thing).

Quark is a traditionalist. He is, in fact, deeply religious: the Ferengi faith results around the acqusition of wealth so that you can reincarnate into a better life. In essence, it's dharma but with material goods. He resents his mother for her 'failings' (in his eyes) and is horrified by Pel's existence and activities... once he knows she's a woman! He views women as sexual objects for his gratification, and more than once attempts to extort his employees for sexual favours.

But you may argue that Quark isn't gay, because he's only ever shown affection (and overt sexual interest) towards women. He flirts with Jadzia, he flirts with Kira, with Ezri, with all of his female staff and more. But it becomes a little less clear when you get into it.

In S2E07 Pel, still presenting male, kisses Quark in a moment of passion and his reaction is... complicated. He protests, but struggles with it. His discomfort seems less to do with Pel being 'male' and rather his internalised reaction to that. Later still he denies it ever happened! Once confronted with Pel's actual gender he flounders: he realises he has (had?) feelings for her, wants her gone from his life, but also worries about the repercussions if anyone from Ferenginar found out about their business together. Pel leaves at the end of the episode, reconciled to him, and Jadzia comforts the obviously heartbroken Quark. So, was Quark attracted to Pel the male or Pel the female? I would argue he fell for Pel's presentation, and I think there are several more examples of this.

His flirting/borderline/actual sexual harassment of Jadzia and Kira are played off as him being lecherous but... notice something here. These are two women who are very confident, outgoing, public, good at management and business, strong-minded and strong-willed... all traits Feregi culture assigns solely to men. Due to character development his relationship with Ezri unfolds differently (Ezri's definitely enby but that's a different essay...), but his attraction to her lies primarily in his memories of Dax through Jadzia.

To restate the point: he is not attracted to women. He is attracted to women who, in his eyes, act like men.

Then there's the whole... thing with Odo.

This gif, taken from S3E25 "Facets", kinda highlights the whole thing. Odo - merged with the... 'spirit'(?) of Curzon, and containing the personalities and desires of both, grabs Quark by the external erogenous zones and kisses him. Quark and Odo's feelings for one another are very, very gay, although both dress it up in this constant cat-and-mouse game they play. When Odo falls in love with Kira, Quark's the one complaining to Jake Sisko about all the "lonely nights" he "comforted" him. At the end of the series, as Quark puts it:

"Can't you see? That man loves me. It's written all over his back."

Odo, then, is the exception to the above examples: Quark shows a clear affection for Odo, complicated as it may be by their 'professional relationship', but Odo very much presents male.

Well. Sort of. Odo uses he/him pronouns but his actual relationship to gender is left unspoken. I think this is what gives Quark the excuse to open the closet door a little where Odo's concerned.

So why can't Quark just admit he's gay? As I stated above, Quark is a deeply religious, conservative and traditionalist Ferengi (or at least he tries to be... and I think there's something in that, too). There is no discussion of queer identities in Ferengi society, but based on what little of that society we see, I believe that queerness (at least in males) would be strongly discouraged and penalised. Much like real-life homophobia, it would be seen as 'womanly', 'feminine', and therefore undermine what it meant to be a Ferengi (because remember... women aren't Ferengi. A Ferengi with no wealth is no Ferengi at all).

Quark, therefore, cannot be gay, because it would be contradictory to his very sense of self. He's like the gay son of a homophobic evangelical pastor: so deeply conditioned to bury it that he has to act the 'proper' Ferengi despite the fact that he clearly struggles with it. Quark's not as greedy as his peers. He's not as callous or cruel. He has moments of great compassion and kindness, even generosity (which is almost a sin), and, perhaps the strongest piece of evidence to me...

He runs a dinky bar, in a run-down Cardassian space station that until recently was a one-horse town. And he LOVES it. He refuses to give up that bar. He fights for it. When he franchises it at the end of the series, does he move on up to better locations? Nope. He's right there with the dodgy replicators and aging holosuites.

Quark's Bar is his expression of queerness. It's an eccentricity that any 'good' Ferengi would have dumped long ago. Several characters comment on it, and Quark waves them off.

He loves that bar, he loves Odo, and frankly he loves romanticism. Quark is a hopeless gay romantic that, if he ever tried his hand at poetry, would make galaxies weep.

And we love him for it.

[illegiblewords]

I want to take a second to talk about Mary Sues as I understand them. And by Mary Sues, I mean all variants unbound by gender or style.

People used to discuss Mary Sues a lot back in the early 2000's. There were litmus tests all over defined by superficial qualities like hair/eye color, number of love interests, whether a tragic backstory existed, etc. Readers would run up to strangers with hate reviews if an OC didn't meet their standards. It was common to accuse disliked canon characters of being Mary Sues too. There were lists of works that were considered guilty of Mary Sue creation assembled for mockery. The whole thing became a form of public bullying and I think it scared a lot of creators into not trying anymore. I suspect it's a huge part of why we keep getting y/n and other open self-insert fics these days.

At some point, the public shifted. People attempted to defend Mary Sues by equating them with all power or romance fantasies then claiming the only reason such characters would be vilified is sexism toward a female default archetype. By doing this, most people stopped examining the phenomenon altogether--not only in understanding what the actual common factor in Mary Sues is, but why Mary Sues are alienating to readers.

That answer was a cop out. I promise that Mary Sues are just as off-putting with characters of any gender, demographic, orientation, whatever. And frankly it doesn't matter if your character is the most generically designed, unassuming, non-tragic shlub of all time--they are still capable of being a Mary Sue if the structural issues remain.

Mary Sues are normal among developing writers. I've certainly made Mary Sues before. They were cringe af and occasionally I discuss them behind closed doors if I want to make someone laugh. Created them in dead earnest as a teen and holy fuck it was parody level. Everything I talk about is as someone who is 0% free from sin lmao.

Before I give my definition of what a Mary Sue is, I need to explain something about characterization that is often overlooked.

There is micro, individual characterization and there is macro, population characterization. Worldbuilding requires characterization too. You need to look at a group's motives, influences, psychology, resources, etc. the same way you would for individual characters while allowing room for varied experiences. You need to know the cause/effect of societal development. It isn't something you can just wave away as 'because I said so' because that dehumanizes the entire population, which makes the world less believable/immersive. A less believable world in-turn strips individual characters of experiences and perspectives that shape who they are. This has a flattening effect and makes characters less believable and relatable too. Tradition, style, and genre def shape how much detail is needed but some degree of macro-characterization is necessary.

With that said, I'd argue that Mary Sues are characters who (rather than having behavior believably shaped by experiences or operating within the parameters of the world they inhabit) define themselves for how they are exempt. It doesn't matter if the exception to cause/effect is positive or negative. Mary Sues are also prone to being the most at what they do. Most ordinary/boring counts. Mary Sues will warp the experiences, perspectives, and desires of other cast members around themselves like black holes without it being acknowledged as abnormal by the other cast members or the narrative. Cause and effect in relationship building through behavior/choices does not apply, a Mary Sue does not start from zero like a regular person. Lore and stories revolve around Mary Sues exclusively even when it doesn't make any sense for that to be the case. Every significant thought or experience of other cast members ties back to Mary Sues too. Positive or negative, Mary Sues are likely the only and most meaningful relationship characters will have. Design elements (when present) tie to exceptionalism and lack of cause/effect.

Being a chosen one or someone with unrivaled power/influence in a particular arena isn't enough to make a character a Mary Sue if it is cohesive within the world. These things also tie heavily to characterization in response to situations as well as the dynamics with others/characterization of others. The existence of Mary Sue tends to preclude any alternate meaningful relationships or experiences for other cast members, and again--Mary Sue is specifically not shaped by experiences in credible ways. They don't experience meaningful internal change. They're pretty much always right or always wrong. And having an exceptional or rare experience (ex. someone did an experiment with odd results on a character) isn't enough to cause a Mary Sue either if that experience or exception remains consistent within the overall worldbuilding/macro-characterization. So ex. if there were similar experiments being conducted on or by others, that would go a long way to addressing exceptionalism. Isekai characters who come from one world to another are not inherent Mary Sues, because the isekai character still carries and is shaped by both their previous life experiences and the life experiences of their new environment. The source world is still part of the overall setting that shapes them. In-universe reality warpers also don't count as Mary Sues because reactions to reality warping tend to be organic and not normalized by the narrative.

There are degrees in how much a character is or isn't a Mary Sue, but lack of cause/effect, absolutism, and exceptionalism are big. The reason Mary Sues are bad storytelling is because they are not credibly human (figurative), diminish the humanity of other cast members, and diminish the humanity/construction of the entire world simultaneously. They lack believable consequences for any choices made--be they positive or negative. Stakes/tension are skewed as a result. Mary Sues tend to be static and they not only break immersion, they alienate readers because it's a form of destroying a world and cast the audience is invested in. There is no reason for random strangers to love Mary Sues. Mary Sues don't come across as authentically alive in any capacity, but more as poorly done caricatures of life.

And the thing is, they often don't work for wish-fulfillment fiction either. Wish-fulfillment (when the reader imagines experiencing the story in the role of protagonist) gets passes on certain technical elements necessary in empathy-based storytelling (when the reader forms opinions of cast members as distinct people) or intellect-based storytelling (the reader is exploring a philosophical or medium-based concept).

In wish-fulfillment, it is very important that the writer creates a main character who many audience members can project themselves onto. Usually such characters are left somewhat underdeveloped to facilitate this. Whether it's a power fantasy (reader imagines having luxury/influence), a romance fantasy (reader obtains an ideal partner), or even revenge fantasy (reader has an outlet for anger without consequences)--in wish-fulfillment it's important that not only the author but a wide range of readers can share in the fantasy. While it's possible to get limited success with some Mary Sues here, I think the extreme, specific, hyper exceptional nature of Mary Sues often distracts. Again, wish-fulfillment finds strength in how well it shares fantasies with audiences. If the audience is so caught up that they can't effectively project themselves onto the Mary Sue (being hyper aware of the Mary Sue's artificiality), that isn't going to work. If the fantasy doesn't resonate with audiences, it won't go as far either.

Imagine taking James Bond and giving him natural purple eyes and hair in a world where no one else has that. He'd never lose a single fight or struggle to escape peril, never wreck one of the fancy cars he's given, never have a single advance rejected. Bond is a power and romance fantasy character no doubt, but his limits are significant in keeping him from being a Mary Sue. There are plots and relationships that have nothing to do with him beyond details in the mission he was assigned and those keep things immersive.

All this said. If you're telling a story for yourself, and only yourself--doesn't matter if your character is a Mary Sue. Once you bring other people in, you have to think about what you're trying to achieve as a storyteller in terms of interpersonal communication. That includes whether the experiences you're crafting for readers are effectively realized.

Mary Sues are a normal part of learning. They aren't immoral or unforgivable. Mostly they invoke a self-centered mindset supposing the entire world/everyone in it revolves around you in some way. Again, I've made 'em lol--think immaturity is a big part of the practice. But in a story where everything revolves around you, that doesn't necessarily share well with readers who aren't you who are still the heroes of their own stories.

Making Mary Sues is a craftsmanship issue. It's like trying to build a chair only for one leg to come out wobbly. It can be your favorite chair sure, but that doesn't make it well-crafted. Certainly no one owes you money or praise for it. Hell, they wouldn't owe those things if it was a perfectly crafted chair but not the chair they were after.

Part of what motivated me to write this is because I've seen certain creators with wobbly chairs. They've slapped on carvings, stains, and all kinds of features--but the chair still wobbles like a motherfucker. These creators don't understand why more people aren't buying their chair. They think people must hate them personally or the material their chair is made from then fly into rages accusing audiences of moral deficiency. It's hit a level of bullying in its own right.

To people like that I say:

Your chair wobbles. It'll do way better if it doesn't wobble. The wobble is fixable. Strangers are not obligated to fawn over your wobbly chair. There isn't something wrong with them for not wanting a wobbly chair. Wobbly chairs haven't done well historically either. You're not an exception, just one in a very long line of wobbly chair makers. Some of those chairs were made of the same material you're using. Some were different. It isn't about the material or your staining, your carvings, any of that. It isn't about you either. Your chair can't support itself--let alone someone trying to sit in it. Even if your prospective customers couldn't make a better chair themselves, they can tell when shit's unsteady and they don't want that. Of course you're making wobbly chairs before you make sturdy ones because you're still figuring chair construction out. This is just a part of the process you haven't mastered yet. It takes attention and practice. If you spent half the energy you use yelling at other people honing your craft instead, you'd probably have better sales.

[rhetoricandlogic]

The Unraveling - Benjamin Rosenbaum

I'm pretty sure this book was intended to make A Statement - probably about gender roles and nonconformity, maybe about the wisdom of rebellious youth, I don't know. Unfortunately, the author got so deeply into building this ?future? world and its theoretically sort of human inhabitants that he (ve? ze?) never really got around to telling a story. After I'd finished it - mostly through dogged determination, surely not enjoyment - I discovered a glossary at the back. That might have helped make some sense out of it while I was reading; but by the time I got to it, I didn't even care enough to do more than glance.

Here are the things that can be said with some certainty about this tale: it's set in a future. Maybe ours, maybe not; it's hard to tell. The characters, with one exception whose exceptionality is never made clear, are humanoid - that is, they have arms and legs and faces. But in this future or whatever it is, they have developed the ability to not only alter their appearance on a whim - purple skin with flaming orange eyebrows aren't just for Thundercats anymore! - but also to have multiple (?cloned?) bodies, which all share the same consciousness. More or less.

And oh yes - gender has been completely redefined. And I do mean completely. Aside from one parent whose birthing apparatus is rather amazingly still a womb, cervix, and vagina, there are neither men nor women in this world. Instead, the two genders consist of Staids and Vails. Neither adheres to what we might recognize as 'masculine' or 'feminine', but gender roles seem more rigidly defined than our own era. Staids are apparently the custodians of the lore/knowledge/traditions of this culture; they pass it along via something called the Long Conversation, much as rabbis devote themselves to the Torah. Vails, on the other hand, are strictly forbidden from knowing anything about this Conversation, to the point where references to its obscure and complex commentaries cannot be spoken in their presence.

And then along come our heroes(heroines?) to shake everything up. Do they fall in love? It seems so, but then again, this seems somehow taboo. Do they get involved in some sort of artistic endeavour that changes everything? Well, the cover says so; but aside from an overly descriptive and rather impossible-sounding parade, we never learn much about that artistic statement. Instead, we get descriptions of designer genitals. We get names that are as silly as they are long, and never any hint of what the names mean. We get far too many whining, petulant arguments amongst Fift's parenting cohort - couples are no longer A Thing in the future, I guess; everyone lives in some variety of polycule. In short, we have absolutely nothing to serve as a touchstone, nothing familiar, nothing we might relate to other than the woes of young lovers.

How did this society get to be the way it is? Dunno. Why are Fift and Shria's actions so shocking? Because the author said so. Who is the alien, what makes them alien, how can anyone even tell when people are scarlet and silver and have beards and breasts? Ya got me, champ. Reading this book was like wading through a muddy bog with shoulder-high weeds on every side. It takes forever to get anywhere, and when you do, it looks no different from where you started. If there was an intent behind setting this in such a society, it got lost the first time someone took out a spoon for no reason we're ever allowed to know. If you subscribe to spoon theory, be advised it will take more of them than you may have to spare to make any sort of sense out of this one. I recommend giving it a miss.

[irisembury]

Why get bottom surgery?

In the past, if you wanted legal recognition as a trans woman, you had to get a vaginoplasty. No dicks in the lady’s room. That was the rule. In some places another option was if you had an orchiectomy or some other form of castration instead. No balls in the lady’s room. How nice of them. These days, getting surgery is less required and treated more like a personal choice. And it’s a really difficult personal choice. There are some reasons to want to avoid it, which are more obvious than the reasons for it. It’s scary. Surgery is scary. What if something goes wrong? They’re cutting you open. It hurts. You take weeks or months recovering. It’s anxiety-inducing because it’s a big step, and there’s no going back. And there are horror stories out there, if you look for them, of what a bad spot you could end up stuck in if things don’t turn out well.

Less obvious are the reasons why trans women desire these procedures despite the fear and anxiety. For many people, the assumption is that trans women simply hate their penises, because gender dysphoria. We look down at them, think “oh no”, and then want them gone. And like, okay, that’s often part of it. Women aren’t supposed to have penises, our subconscious minds tell us. That’s not normal. So when we look at ourselves, and we see something very different from what other women have, it can make us feel wrong, broken, like there’s something about us that isn’t right. I’ve many times heard about trans women who don’t have “genital dysphoria” early in their transition—focusing instead on things that are more apparent socially, like your face, hair, and clothes—but then, after years, they reach a point where they pass as females for the most part except for their penis, at which point it starts to bother them. It’s the one thing that remains out of place.

However, even if a trans woman doesn’t have an inner, psychological feeling of wrongness from associating her penis with being a man or whatever—or if she does feel that way but it’s not that compelling a reason on its own, or it’s something she could live with—there are other factors that play into the motivation. And in my case, and in the case of other trans women I’ve known, these other factors are significantly larger.

1. Clothes

It’s not easy clothes shopping for yourself if you feel like your dick is a secret that nobody is supposed to see bulging anywhere. It’s not impossible to wear tights or tight-fitting pants, but it’s uncomfortable and ‘dangerous’ (if you mess up). It also means good luck going out in a bikini or to a pool. It just makes everything awkward.

This might sound kind of frivolous, but the feeling that women’s clothes don’t work on you is bothersome, alienating, restricting. “This is supposed to the women’s section—but I’m trans, so I can’t realistically buy a lot of these things.” It really makes you feel like you don’t fit in. And finally having a lot of freedom in what you buy (and wear) was a significant benefit enjoyed by friends of mine after their surgeries. It was something they talked about glowingly for weeks.

2. Other women’s comfort

There are some women who are over it and don’t particularly care if a trans woman has a penis. She’s still a woman, she’s still one of us, she’s still our sister, feminism, woo, all that. But look, a lot of women just really don’t like penises. The thought of somebody who has a penis being around them makes them uneasy. They really do think of the lady’s room as the “no dicks allowed” room.

There are many women—who are not especially bigoted or ideological or political, but just normal normies—who feel okay letting post-op trans women into their space, but feel very uneasy letting trans women who still have penises into their space. This might not bother every trans woman—but it should. Because cis women’s comfort should matter to us. I don’t just want to force myself in where people don’t accept me. It’s their space that I’m asking to be let into. I think on some level, having a penis makes women register you as a sexual threat. Losing your penis is like declawing a cat, or taking the ammo out of a gun. It makes you safe.

Another aspect of it might be that they consider getting bottom surgery to be the final proof that you’re on their team. There’s a paranoia that somebody could just be faking it, right? What if I say I’m a trans woman, but then I pull my dick out and go back into man-mode and harass you with it? That’s how some people think. But if I’m at the point where I got rid of my dick, there’s no question about my intentions and what team I’m on here. It’s like the final test of your loyalty to womanhood.

3. Feeling like you’re hiding something

Have you ever snuck through a border checkpoint with contraband you’re hoping the police don’t find? No, and I suppose most people haven’t, but imagine it. Have you ever shoplifted? Look, the point is, feeling like you have something to hide sucks. It wears on you mentally. I hate feeling scared when I use women’s washrooms because it’s like I’m going to get in trouble or freak somebody out if they see me.

This feels related to the previous point, but it’s not the same. The previous point was about the impact you have on others, while this one is about the impact that feeling like you have something to hide has on you.

Relatedly, I’d love to go to one of those women’s-only nude spas at some point, but it feels like that’s impossible to do as a pre-op trans woman without accidentally creating a national news story. The social expectation for most normal people is that it’s vaginas-only. If I had a vaginoplasty, I could actually feel confident going to something like that.

These two points are really the strongest for me. I don’t like not fitting in with women, I don’t like feeling like I’m a threat to them or going to make them uncomfortable, I don’t like feeling like I have something to hide or something I’m getting away with. It feels awful, and this really weighs on you over time.

4. Sexuality

This gets awkward to talk about, so bear with me. A lot of trans women are interested primarily in men, and having sex with men is difficult if you have a penis, because where does their penis go? There are options other than anal—not even all gay men have anal sex with each other. But the reality is that most dudes want to put their dick inside you, somewhere, somehow. It’s like psychological for them. There are men who are into just frotting and jerking off or whatever, but if you go out and try to sleep with guys, the expectation a lot of the time is that if you’re pre-op, they’ll want to have anal sex.

So do you enjoy anal sex? Some trans women do. And for them, perhaps this last point isn’t much of a factor, but frankly I do not, and having a sex life that is defined by anal sex does not sound like an enjoyable future at all. That’s all I’ll say on the matter. If I weren’t attracted to men at all and knew I’d end up with a woman, this one aspect would matter way less, or possibly not at all. That does give me some pause, because it sounds like I’m being motivated to pursue surgery for other people—but is that bad? I’m saying I want a functional sex life, and I feel like a vaginoplasty makes that possible. And it’s not the only factor, just a slice of the pie.

Are more men going to be into you if you’re post-op? If you just go around asking men, “would you ever be a trans woman?”, a lot of their answers revolve about cock. They say no, ew, I’m not into penises—but eh, maybe if she had surgery? They’re just very repelled by penis. It really turns them off. But how many guys fall into that overlap where they’re repelled by penis but still okay with a trans woman? I feel like a lot of men aren’t into trans women for reasons well beyond our genitals. It’s more, like, spiritual or something. The knowledge that you used to live as a male messes with their head and makes them feel gay and icky or something, no matter what you look like now.

I’ve talked with some trans people who are more experienced trying to date straight men than I am, and they’ve claimed the same men who are comfortable enough to sleep with a trans woman are generally the same guys who don’t care that much if you have a penis. They’re both mental barriers to overcome, and typically if somebody has a high enough level of personal security and open-mindedness to cross one, then they also cross the other.

It’s not as bad as people think

There’s been lots of fearmongering about bottom surgery, which makes people view it more negatively than they should. The goal of many transphobic people online is trying to make you feel disgust at transsexuals. They want you to think we’re gross, icky, disgusting people. They weaponize bottom surgery for this end. They refer to it as ‘mutilation’ and to the constructed vagina (which is, in medical literature, called a neovagina) as a ‘wound’, among other, even worse names. They ultimately would like it if these procedures were outlawed forever so that we were no longer allowed to get them.

I always remember that old South Park episode where a character gets a sex change and they flash medical gore on screen to gross out the audience. The point of that entire episode was to convince you that transsexual women are disgusting and you should hate us. Thanks, guys. This was back when most people barely even knew trans people existed, too.

Over the years, I’ve seen many people online share post-surgery images of vaginoplasty patients. It looks kind of horrifying, admittedly, because it’s shortly after a surgery. Have you seen the immediate aftermath of other types of surgery? They’re often not pretty. A surgery fucks you up. They cut you open, move stuff around, and then you get sown up, you get stiches, bruising, everything hurts, and your body starts adjusting and healing, but that takes time, often weeks or months. If you look at vaginoplasty patients a year after surgery, they look fine—but people deliberately share pictures of people at, like, one week, because they’re not trying to give you an accurate portrayal of the results of the procedure. They just want to gross you out and make you feel disgust at trans women.

The overall regret rate of a vaginoplasty is very low. I obviously can’t say there’s no risk, because there are possible complications of any surgery—but they’re not common, you go in for a follow-up, and the surgeons know how to correct most problems if they arise. These procedures have been being done for a long time. It’s not a new, scary field of unknown science. If bottom surgery is something that you like, then you shouldn’t feel like you’re playing Russian roulette, because you’re not. It’s a reasonably safe procedure, and chances are very high that you’re going to get out of it exactly what you went in expecting.

[pluralsword]

friendly counterpoint (we're agreeing), given that clitorises do also protrude this could also be humorous 'confirmation' that transformers have clitorises yknow. they could have both (sidenote in fact with humans nearly everybody starts with something that looks kind of like a vulvavaginal anatomy in utero and then hormones + genetics + epigenetics while the fetus grows and during life after determine the rest such as eg if one ends up with more phallic or clitoral phenotypes, with hormones being by far the largest determinant for things that are still changeable. as much as we wish it the only way we'd get our scrotum to be a labia is by surgery, but there are bunch of things that have changed in... 5 years now, all over the body. our legs literally curve differently now it's great that wasn't on our list of changes we were told to expect, and long before that our nervous system felt like it rewired and we experience the world more euphorically it's lovely)

but yeah dick = clit have a common root and aren't really that different except in size and that one is used for peeing too and the other one have all those nerves bundled together is usually more sensitive.

we could of course both be wrong and this is actually supposed to be reference to the original meaning of flipping someone off, showing that you still had a finger needed to draw and fire an arrow from a bow, English archers would flip off the French during the Hundred Years War (116 years long) to show their fingers hadn't been cut off and they could still use their bows to shoot them XD XD

we're semi-joking here we know that unfortunately most people only think of a phallus when flipping someone off and not a clitoris due to people's knowledge of sexual education and vulvavaginal anatomy on average being- definitely not great (it's improving though), but like...

why would transformers, who in One have not, as far we know from the movie, ever had a patriarchy, not see similarities between the two, however their analogues for them might be configured on their frames? (presumably, due to not having the same kind of hormonal situation and certainly not the same reproductive process and most of all since they're aliens we don't know that they'd be arranged on a spectrum similar to humans in terms of who has what, and well, it is TRANSformers so... even if they don't already have all the options of however things work for them by default they can probably reconfigure all that a lot more easily, that seems waay less challenging than the canonical full body reformats and surgeries including for gender reasons that are so common in transformers across the last 40 years

TLDR this is a "yes and" if we take this to mean as dicks transformers probably see flipping off as meaning dick or clit equally because why would they not recognize the similarities of the two organs (again. to y'all who need to, please look up a clitoris, it's actually longer and a lot larger than it looks from the outside) <3

for the sake of how we try to maintain this tumblr's blog posts for the sake of who we share it with, we will not be getting into all the details people have navigated in writing and illustrating for years regarding transformers sexual anatomy. just take our word for it when we say animals and plants on Earth already have plenty of not very human ways of reproducing that can still involve protrusions so yknow the alien robots might be as varied in those regards as they are in the amount of different alt modes they have as a species

Say I’m wrong

[poisonflowercorvidae]

Hey, while searching through ao3 I came around "My Other Half " and I just loved it (and I kind of finished really fast). Do you have some kadewave hc?

I'm really glad you enjoyed it! I never really expected anyone to pay much attention to that fic with such an out-there premise, but it means a lot to me that people did/do.

Sorry for the late response, but this got looooong.

My thoughts and headcanons for Kadewave are kind of all over the place because I've shipped these two practically since I first started watching Rescue Bots, and their dynamic changes so much over the course of the series that I think a lot of the specifics of how they get together and what their relationship is like depends on when it all happens in relation to the series and how canon compliant things are

Some headcanons I tend to hold regardless of all that:

Kade and Heatwave are monogamous. I think the idea of polyamory being normalized in Cybertronian society is pretty neat, but it's still not for everyone, and these two just strike me as the kind that would stand by one partner at a time

Heatwave is the jealous type. This is just canon, I think. (Blades: "Kinda scary, but I'm rethinking the whole Kade partner option." Heatwave: "Rethink again.") He's pretty good at reigning it in except for a snappish comment here or there, so Kade mostly finds it funny

Kade has more experience with relationships. It's not necessarily good experience--he messes up a lot in his relationships and/or falls for the wrong people--but he has dated more. While Heatwave has lived longer, even after accounting for stasis, he's kind of the "married to the job" type and spent too much time playing leader and eldest-brother-figure to the rest of Sigma 17 to really do all that much dating

Heatwave can still be a tease, though, especially after they get together, because it’s fun to rile Kade up

We know, from when Cody and Frankie time traveled, that Griffin Rock is more progressive with regards to racial issues than much of America has been, so I tend to think GR also has less of a homophobia/transphobia problem, so Kade doesn’t have to struggle so much with the gender/sexuality aspect of being attracted to Heatwave. The “He’s a giant alien robot” part still took some work, even after they start respecting each other more as firefighting partners

Most of the resistance on both sides to their feelings was still more about how stubborn/hotheaded the other one is

Heatwave does worry over Kade a lot. Like, it’s one thing if Kade stubs his toe or gets a paper cut because of his own stubborn carelessness; Heatwave will just roll his optics or huff some kind of, “Why do you always do that?” But if it’s even the littlest bit more than that--if Kade catches a cold or gets a burn on the job or something--Heatwave will obsess over it and what he could have done to prevent that

Usually, I think there isn’t so much a first to confess or realize their feelings; they just sort of gravitate towards each other over time. The exact timeline or AU could change that, and I can see either one of them spitting it out in a fit of passion after a tense scene, but especially in more canon compliant timeline, it’s just something they kind of...fall into, whether or not they actually talk about it

Neither of them are good at talking about their feelings in either universe. They eventually get better, but they rarely if ever say they love each other around other people/bots, even in timelines where they don’t go through massive misunderstandings before getting together. They’re excellent at showing each other they care, though

Their relationship isn’t 100% an Everyone Can See It situation--some people definitely assume they’re just Buds--but a few people can pick it out. Usually the rest of the extended family, but some faster than others: Cody, because he’s perceptive; Chief Burns, because he’s a Wise Dad; Dani, because she’s a romantic but also because she knows the difference between her own sisterly mocking of Kade versus Heatwave’s metaphorical pigtail pulling; Blades, because he and Dani love to gossip; and Blurr, because whether they mean to or not, Kade and Heatwave trying to train his recklessness out of him definitely results in them dad-ing him

Like I said, a lot of this plays out differently on timeline/universe points. For most of these, I’m going to either assume Kade and Hayley break up or ignore that they got together in the first place, though the polyamory or Kade cheating on Hayley angles are still valid for other people who want to explore them. It’s just for me personally, I really only see Kadewave happening if Kade isn’t with Hayley.

The most canon-compliant version is also probably the most laid back and chill version of them getting together. It wouldn’t happen until late in season 4 or after, because Kade is still dating Hayley through most/all of that season in canon, but by that point in the series, Kade and Heatwave have really mellowed out. Listen to them talking about Blurr at the beginning of “Need for Speed” (Heatwave: “He’s as stubborn as you are.” Kade: “And as hot-headed as you.”); just the way they say it, Heatwave’s done with Blurr’s shit but Kade shoots back all amused and kind of fond. They bicker and trade barbs, but it’s in that “Close enough to argue” (or, if you prefer, Old Married Couple) kind of way where how much they like each other still bleeds through, and by this point in the series, they aren’t arguing about important things like how to do their job any more. It’s smooth going. So, Hayley and Kade split, and after a little while, Heatwave and Kade move from, “Hey, actually, I like this guy,” to, “Oh, hey, I like this guy,” and that’s that.

My Other Half/The Parts of Me I Hide mostly follows that track but with the complications of 1) being set in an AU where sparklings can happen (and interspecies sparklings, specifically, can happen) and 2) Kade getting horribly, terribly broken-bones-and-blood hurt. It turns what could be a simple slide into a relationship into a dramatic mess via bumping against all their issues of not talking about their feelings and Heatwave reacting to Kade getting hurt etc etc.

If we go way back to the first season up through season 2′s “Changes,” this is where Kade and Heatwave are in full tsun4tsun mode. Neither of them wants to admit even to themselves that they like each other, even after they get over the initial friction of their introduction. This is deffo in the zone of, “If they get together, it’s probably after some kind of blow-up fight,” and even then it’s not likely because they’re both too busy going No, absolutely not, I do not find this aggravating creature attractive no matter how many dangerous situations we face down together. “Changes” definitely marks a shift in their relationship because Kade has to acknowledge that Heatwave does actually like him as much as the reverse (”Heatwave cherishes your partnership,” anyone?). It might still take him a while to process what exactly he feels and whether or not Heatwave cares about him in the same way, but it’s definitely the crack in the dam that makes him stop lying to himself that he doesn’t like Heatwave somehow.

Season 3 is the awkward middle ground where they know their own feelings, they have to know that the other likes them to some degree, and while they aren’t really pretending about it anymore, they aren’t ready to say anything about it, either. It’s this dance around it, and all it would take is one little slip to tumble head first into a relationship and--oh hey, new recruits! Let’s deal with getting them integrated into life here rather than deal with whatever we’ve got going on

Some My Other Half/The Parts of Me I Hide specific headcanons:

Heatwave is mad at himself for the first class of recruits hurting Kade because he thinks he should have been there to step in sooner. It might or might not have actually affected the outcome, but he blames himself a bit all the same

This was an exchange I had in mind for the fic that got cut, but Heatwave and Kade definitely had an argument about The Incident that included an exchange along the lines of “What if you’d lost a leg or an arm?” “I’d say I’d be the first amputee fire fighter, but someone already beat me to it. Guess I’d have to settle for the first in Milford.”

Their second sparkling is a daughter named Spitfire

“So, if we’re dealing with a universe without sparklings, where DID Kade go?” Yeah, I’m still working my headcanon for that one out myself.

[spacelazarwolf]

at the risk of sounding gatekeepy/transmed-y (which i assure i’m not, and it’s not my intention to be), as a queer older-teen who has been out in some capacity since i was about 10 years old, it can be… really really frustrating that almost all of the queer people that i’ve met at my school (and lots that i’ve met online, too) are people who 1 realized they were queer during the pandemic full stop, but also 2 realized they were queer during the pandemic and have only ever been out in a relatively sheltered, accepting environment (and i find the latter is extremely common).

and while i’m very glad and all that being queer is safer for lots of young people nowadays, it can feel very alienating when it’s so obvious that these other baby queers, though we are the same age, have so much less experience engaging with queerness itself in a thoughtful way & engaging with other queer people in a thoughtful way. they’re very flippant with their use of slurs despite having never been called them, they ask others about their sexuality/gender without thinking how that might be extremely anxiety inducing and invasive and uncomfortable for closeted people—even in a “safe space.” like, i still feel sick and anxious when i hear queer topics being talked about casually irl! sure, i’m recovering, slowly, but the violence i faced for being queer is still traumatizing- it doesn’t matter how safe the space is! and they just can’t comprehend that.

idk. while i’m happy that some people live in more accepting places than i did, it’s just so fucking frustrating that i can’t connect with anyone i know irl (with the exception of like… one person lol) over the collective trauma of growing up openly or closet-ly queer in a shitty middle school, because it isn’t something that’s commonly shared anymore, i guess. it’s getting harder and harder for me to find queer people in my age group who have actually been the target of queerphobic violence, whether that’s physical or emotional. and i can’t help but resent them for it.

anyway. this turned into a rant oops but i initially was sending this ask in response to the conversation about gen Z queers who are really into slurcourse and identity discourse and such, and like. i fully believe a big reason behind that is because since they don’t have real life experiences of oppression to look back on, it’s harder for them to see the bigger picture of queerphobia and how fucking dumb identity discourse is, because they’ve never directly experienced oppression that Actually Matters. like i think once you’ve been assaulted for being queer, you realize that discourse does not fucking matter. it’s a maturity and experience gap i think, regardless of age. so that’s my 2 cents as a gen Zer queer who grew up in the shitty midwest lol

yeah a lot of the people who are really into specifically online discourse like slur discourse and identity discourse usually haven't had much to deal with in their real lives. which like. i'm glad bc maybe that means shit's getting better even though it's scary now. but it's also frustrating as someone who has experienced a lot of irl discrimination.

[whitehotharlots]

How important is dishonesty?

While I usually think it’s asinine to cover up usernames for comments that were made in public, I’m doing so here because I’m not at all angry with this person and I don’t want to seem like I’m hounding them. I am just truly, deeply confused by the state of contemporary expectations in regards to describing things that happened in real life.

These comments, and several others along the same lines, come in response to an old post of mine which has recently gone semi-viral. In that piece, I attempt to highlight a connection between alienation toward contemporary liberal excesses and the forms of petty institutional cruelty that were commonplace when I was still in school. My point was that granting institutionally empowered people with the ability to enact severe punishments on un-protected castes is guaranteed to drive some people away from liberalism writ large and toward seemingly more welcoming groups, such as some forms of the alt-right. 

(The piece is very much a product of 2019)

Anyhoo, here’s what I consider the thesis of the post:

The point is, zero tolerance never really means zero tolerance. Rules are always–always, literally always, without exception in the whole of human history–enforced arbitrarily. Harsh policies rarely make anyone safer. They are employed instead to further humiliate and brutalize those who have already been rejected by the system. 

And I sought to illustrate this by bringing up a few real-life situations from my childhood in which less advantaged kids (racial minorities, gender non-conformers, kids who were visibly poor) got fucked over by the caprice of a system that would not have enacted the same punishments upon kids who were well-liked or otherwise connected:

Some teachers were nicer than others, of course. Some were downright supportive. Others were simply evil. There was one, when I was in 7th grade, who was particularly repulsive and cruel--no kidding, his admiration of Rush Limbaugh was formative in my early-adopted hatred of American conservatives. He had matted red hair and teeth like a cracked picket fence and would wear a leather jacket out to lunch. Anyhow, he would prattle on about his hatred of kids who “Just. Refuse. To. Learn.” These kids were almost always black. Pure coincidence, I’m sure. He’d make a show of tossing them out of class--sometimes physically--for infractions as minor as getting an answer wrong when called upon. One time, a twitchy white kid who wore the same t-shirt every day called him out: It’s unfair, he said, that I’m getting thrown out of class for getting an answer wrong, when right before me another kid got several chances to respond.

The teacher turned beet red. He got on his knees and put his face two inches in front of the twitchy kid’s eyes.

“I’m not throwing you out because you got the answer wrong,” he explained. “I’m throwing you out because you are you.”

I must stress: this happened. It’s one of my clearest memories of all of middle school, and this description is not exaggerated in the slightest.

I could, had I chosen to, gone much deeper in my description of this man. He smelled bad in a way that I’ve never encountered before or since, like rotten hamburger that had been coated in Dollar Tree deodorant. He wore thick glasses that were lined by a white crust made up of some obscure bodily fluid that was unknown even to God. 

Blog posts are not poetry. When I compose mine, I do not expend a great deal of effort planning out every detail and word choice. I instead envision a general vibe, a point I wish to discuss, and some basic steps toward synthesizing those two, and then I just sit down and type. When I wrote this particular post, I did not engage in a metadialect weighing the pros and cons of including a physical description of the abusive teacher. I wanted to make sure my readers could grasp the extent of his awfulness, and I did this by expressing it how I experienced it: as a physical menace, a repulsion that was both material and abstract, a sense of helplessness that enveloped my senses as much as it wrapped a band of thorns around my soul.

Is this bad? Are we not allowed to acknowledge physicality, even when physicality and embodiment are essential aspects of the experiences we are describing? If a woman describes an assault, should she not mention the heft or appearance or strength of the man who harmed her? Should these details be omitted for the sake of sparing the feelings of outsiders? Or are they integral elements of her experience, something so essential to conveying her sense of terror within that moment that omitting them would amount to dishonesty? The events I described in that post happened more than a quarter century beforehand. This is an anonymous blog that, on the best of days, reaches a few tens of thousands of people. The teacher mentioned within the original post is most likely dead. He certainly does not remember me. And even he was alive and had my name written on a list taped behind his couch like Steve Buscemi in Billy Madison, there’s only an infinitesimal chance he’d ever encounter the post, and a significantly smaller chance he’d realize I was talking about him.

But the concern of the commenters wasn’t about him, the actual living teacher who caused actual harm to actual people. No. They seek instead to appease a much more important being: The Hypothetical Victim. This doesn’t really exist, and certainly isn’t ourselves--oh no, we’d never be so lame. This person isn’t real, but we must nonetheless center their concerns when we determine the morality of others. That’s how we achieve equity, y’all: always willing and ready to police the speech of real others in order to make sure the imagined Other, this vector of perpetual offense, this void of acontextual nothingness comprised entirely of the very whiniest exaggerations made by the very most fragile of sociopaths--this ghost, this spirit, this god must never feel invalidated. 

I get it: we have to pretend that physicality doesn’t matter. Everything is an essence these days. Everything is either good or evil, full stop, and those designations aren’t determined by what those things do or how they effect other things around them, but by a magic spirit discernable only to the wisest sages within DEI consultation services and Gender Studies departments. Those are the rules of game right now in liberal spaces. I am powerless to fight against them.

But... just within the realm of expression, do you see how malignant these demands are? Can you sense, however inchoate, the negative effects of insisting that everyone sterilize their language to avoid hypothetically offending hypothetical people? 

Do you want to be honest? Do you want others to be honest? Or do you prefer an antiseptic discourse, in which we all subordinate our actual perceptions to the desires of a crybaby who exists only in your head? And if you chose the latter option--as many of you have, resolutely--how does this help you achieve your goals? How does occluding honesty from discourse led to a more equitable society?

These aren’t abstract questions, and I cannot answer them for you. But, dear god, you need to answer them.

[plunderbunny]

I'm a cishet man, so that of course colors my perceptions of these kinds of things, as well as my anxiety and depression in general, but I think it might be useful to offer my perspective here about this kind of thing.

My primary friend group is predominantly queer, and outside of that friend group many of my friends are queer, so the vast majority of my social interactions these days is in mostly LGBTQ groups or with queer people. I love them all dearly, but there are many, many occasions when I feel like there is a kind of... Enforced distance between them and me, based largely on my orientation and gender identity. When my queer friends say things like "are the straights okay", or spend time with straight family members in bad relationships and complain about "spending time with straight couples, where is the love?", or praise media by saying nothing other than "it's so gay" as though that gayness itself was an indicator of artistic and moral quality, or get frustrated by random people out in the world being jerks and complain about "cishet assholes", or groan and boo and complain when movies or games have straight couples in them, or say they would "rather die than play a man in a video game" (even as an exaggeration), or furry friends joking about how I "still think I'm cishet, how cute", or any number of other similar tiny things, it makes me feel as though I'm less important, less loved by them, less valuable or worthy of consideration, simply because of my orientation and gender identity, things entirely out of my own control.

Now, I'm not stupid, I know that they're not often saying these things to me specifically, or trying directly to put me down. When they say these things, they're generally talking to a queer audience, and from what I can tell these things are generally meant as an expression of LGBTQ support and/or an expression of frustration with being part of a minority group that faces all kinds of discrimination, bigotry, and oppression. But knowing that doesn't mean that it doesn't make me feel less loved by these people that I care about, just because I'm a cishet man. I think that there are ways that they could make similar shows of support and love for their LGBTQ friends without potentially alienating or othering their cishet friends, in the same way that I do my best not to alienate and other my queer friends. Which, full disclosure, I know that I'm not always the best at, ESPECIALLY in the past! People are always learning, I don't expect perfection from anyone (except myself but that's the depression talking again lol).

I don't think it's quite to the level of "irrational hatred" of men that OP was talking about, but more on the level of a bunch of little microaggressions that sit in my head and add up over time and make me feel like there's an impassable gulf between myself and many of the people I love. Yes, I understand that my queer friends don't have the enormous privilege I do of not being judged and hated by much of society based on just their identity, but I don't think that that makes me deserving of less respect just because I happen to share an identity with many of their oppressors.

"straw(wo)men, youre gonna make other trans girls scared youll turn against them" is really fucking wild for a trans woman with a huge platform to say.

[phoenixyfriend]

SW Suddenly-Omegaverse AU: Surrogacy, Worldbuilding, Obi-Mom

Truly the main irony of all this is that everyone considers Obi-Wan the Better Omega but Anakin is the one who's actually 👀👀👀 about pregnancy

Obi-Wan: I have the deepest respect for those who do it, but the idea of growing another person inside of me is weird and gross, no, thank you.

Meanwhile Anakin is like. Immediate baby fever. Someone actually approaches him like "hey... there are forms you can fill out to request an exception for pregnancy, and like... regulations" because he's that obvious about it.

I assume that if they've got safety nets for accidental pregnancies, then they're probably aware that there are people who want to do it on purpose? I feel like in an omegaverse where 'biological imperative to procreate' can be so much more intense, then maybe there's old precedent that stuck around even after suppressants got most of those hormones under better control.

Bit torn. Just know I want Anakin to Make Baby.

"Anakin, what are you--" "Do you think offering to be someone's surrogate would be acceptable to the council as a way to be pregnant without getting attached." "...what." "They'd probably accept that as a way to practice not getting attached, right?" "N...no, that's not... what?"

Anakin approaching Bail and Breha and being like “Do you... still want a kid? I would provide a kid. Do you want one here*?”

* in this dimension

Great way to give up the baby as a parent because he'd still be able to see them once in a while but also like... it's not HIS kid, technically. He can be a cool uncle who happened to give birth, which is distant enough to not be 'attached,' but close enough that his Tatooine-raised 'must ensure family is safe whenever possible' background doesn't flip out. It helps that 'Core World Royalty' is like... a top-tier family to be raised in.

(It would have to be post-war because he probably shouldn’t be risking his life while very pregnant. He needs to be reminded of that sometimes.)

Bail/Breha is an alpha/alpha relationship and while a pregnancy is still possible,* it’s a whole lot more difficult, and that's on top of Breha's canon medical issues that resulted in her heart and lungs getting replaced.

* AFAB alphas can get pregnant, and AMAB omegas can inseminate, but the success rate on that angle is much lower than the 'traditional' alpha/omega roles, as is any attempt at reproduction outside rut/heat. They're low-fertility overall for the non-dominant aspect of their reproductive system, which... ha, Anakin and Obi-Wan try to get explanations for why the senary system works the way it does, but it's a very longform history lesson that comes down to 'idk this got cemented so long ago that nobody really knows why anymore.'

AKA "why do you title these roles male omega and female alpha instead of intersex omega and intersex alpha since both parties have both genitals."

ANYWAY

Anakin: I want to make babies. But I don't want to get kicked out of the order. But I don't want to give up my own babies for adoption. But I can't keep my own babies if I want to stay a Jedi. So basically I want to have someone else's babies? Anakin: ...wait shit that's just surrogacy.

Anakin, calling up Obi-Wan: Hey are the Organas still struggling to have a kid? Obi-Wan: ...not really your business. Anakin: You're friends with Bail again though, right? Obi-Wan: I am, but-- Anakin: Do you think they'd want me to be a surrogate? Obi-Wan: What.

I can't decide if it's funnier for the Order to be like "I mean... technically there's no rules against this?" or if this is a precedent set by at least three omegas every generation because that's just how a/b/o manifested for omegas in a biological and cultural sense.

Bail: Wait, your former apprentice is... volunteering... to be our surrogate. Obi-Wan, exhausted: Yes. Bail: He barely knows us. Obi-Wan: He respects you and you're the closest people he knows that want a child and would be good parents. Bail: And he's just... volunteering? Obi-Wan: Yes. Also, you did say your primary worry was that a surrogate might be targeted for assassination and you couldn't ask someone to risk that, right? Anakin is very much able to avoid assassins, and would be staying primarily in the Temple anyway. Very safe, and not particularly scared of assassins in the first place. Bail: Your words say you approve, but your tone says otherwise. Obi-Wan: Anakin considers me his father. I'm not old enough to be a grandparent. Bail: Ah.

Anakin is a surrogate and enjoys it and everything is fine and then like a year later he's accidentally pregnant with his own and Rex's kid, and nobody knows how to ask if it's actually an accident.

A suggestion from @gelpenss:

OH MAN i.... have to drive home. But I just had a thought about like. I always want to poke at Betas in A/B/O like are they “normal” or different from our standard or.... but ANYWAY assuming they have a pheromonal thing I just think it would be neat if betas had the ability to be the Bucket of Cold Water. Like if caught early enough, and with the caveat it’s not permanent, a beta could arrest a rut or heat in its tracks until a more ideal time. Like. They aren’t birth control. But they are the remind me later button.

Okay done driving I am Returned to bring up why I brought up betas and it’s this: well okay 1. It plays nice with a popular but inaccurate dog breeding urban legend that female dogs will like, delay heat cycles? so that the bitches above them in pack hierarchy have first choice of mate selection. And I think in omegaverse it would be cool if that was a Bio Fact, and also historically enforced by the third designation. 2. It gives me an excuse to have betas have the Most Sensitive sense of smell because it’s their “job” to pick up on things before they go too far to be put on pause. 3. I’m just thinkin ‘bout a beta clone [...] just hovering around Obi-Wan because they found out how much stress his heat cycle causes and they’re like “okay cool I will help make sure it does Not”

I want to like a/b/o verses but betas niggle at me. I want to give them a hat and a Function that woulda helped before modern medicine.

I'm not sure how I feel about betas being able to delay heats, but I do like the idea of them having a more sensitive sense of pheromone smell than most. Most aliens assume it's omegas with the best sense of smell, and betas with the worst, but it's more complicated than that because they all specialize: Alphas are actually less attuned to pheromone smells, but more attuned to things that were useful back when humans were still a hunter-gatherer species. Omegas tend to be heightened towards danger smells like fire or aggression, and pheromones relating to children/care. Betas, as suggested above, are very sensitive to pheromone changes relating to mood and behavior of the community around them.

I like the idea that betas were historically the ones that ended up taking care children, unmated omegas, and so on during people's heats and ruts, because they kept their heads about themselves long enough to do things like cook and clean while someone was reeking of hormones. The checks and balances work out that betas may have lower fertility, but it makes them better able to support the network around them.

It works in with humanity's general collective history of thriving the most when working as a community.

Given that I decided that this is Jangobi, the clones might all subconsciously view Obi-Wan as Mom. Not intentionally, but, you know... Obi-Wan the not-evil stepmother. He doesn't know how he got into this situation, but he sure is here, and he sure as hell doesn't know how to get out.

Obi-Wan "I don't need to get pregnant, I have three million stepchildren" Kenobi

I definitely love "clones all want to make Obi-Wan's heats less stressful" but like in a different way from Whatever The Fuck Anakin's Got Going On.

Obi-Wan using the force to dull the pain in a Shiny's broken leg while the medic works on it and the Shiny just mumbles "Thanks mom" and everyone gets very embarrassed and pretends it didn't happen.

But then it happens again. And again.

Obi-Wan asks for an explanation from Cody and gets a halting response that, since Jango is technically their father, and his scent has been all over Obi-Wan recently... and Obi-Wan puts in a lot of effort to take care of them all.......

Anakin overhears the clones calling Obi-Wan "mom" and just. The most judgmental eyebrow raise.... Mostly in the sense of "You never let me call you dad" "Thought you said you weren't anyone's parent." "Hey, hey, Obi-Wan. What the fuck."

BOBA. BOBA ABSOLUTELY CALLS OBI-WAN MOM WHENEVER POSSIBLE. IT'S DEEPLY FRUSTRATING.

Obi-Wan eventually manages to admit that he's uncomfortable with it at minimum because of the gendering the word has for him, can they at least use the neutral 'buir' instead?

Word spreads like fire, takes like two days max for everyone to switch.

(Anakin demands cuddles as compensation for not getting to call Obi-Wan any true parental term for years.)

[vhenanshiral]

On the Topic of Seiya Kou.

This is a Sailor Moon post rather than a Dragon Age post. Shocker, I know, but Sailor Moon is another one of my loves. This will focus on the 90s anime adaptation of the manga. So do not come at me with “but in the manga,” because the 90s adaptation and the manga were incredibly different in multiple ways. Seiya will be referred to as she/her because the male form was a disguise. That being said, any interpretation of Seiya’s gender is valid and I love them all! Anyway. I see a lot of shit talking about Seiya and it’s honestly ... super tiring. So many of the “negative” points against Seiya are misinterpreted, misunderstood, and misrepresented for the sake of making her look like a dumpster fire. 1. “Seiya is creepy towards Usagi and stalks her.” Except ... she doesn’t. They meet by accident numerous times, and in fact Usagi even seeks Seiya out. They develop a friendship, and it’s normal and natural for friends to seek each other out. Usagi and the girls actually, literally stalk the Three Lights more than once during the season. 2. “Seiya thinks Usagi is weak because she told Mamoru to take care of her when they left.” This honestly makes no sense to me. It is repeatedly shown that Seiya admires Usagi’s strength, both as Usagi and as Sailor Moon. It is natural to want the people you love to be protected, and that does not mean that you think they’re weak and incapable of protecting themselves. Seiya knew Usagi was capable and strong because she had seen her demonstrate these traits multiple times. Throughout the season, Seiya repeatedly lifts Usagi up with her confidence in her capabilities. This is even before she knows she is Sailor Moon. Let’s not forget that when Galaxia kills all of the Inners, they ask the Starlights to protect Sailor Moon, so saying that Seiya telling Mamoru to take care of her means she thinks she is weak ... that must mean everyone else thinks she is too, right? It’s absurd. 3. “Seiya can’t take ‘no’ for an answer, always hits on her, and is constantly pressuring her into a relationship.” It is true that Seiya repeatedly quips about “having a chance” with Usagi. It’s also true that Usagi repeatedly reminds Seiya that she has a boyfriend. But it isn’t true that Seiya repeatedly attempts to coerce her into a relationship. It also isn’t true that she does it all the time. While she shouldn’t have done it even more than once (when she was unaware of Usagi’s relationship status,) it’s obvious from the context that she isn’t being serious. Seiya repeatedly making quips is an issue, and while those kinds of situations can and often do mean someone is being a “Nice Guy,” a predator, an abuser, etc., we know from everything that we see that it is not the case with Seiya. Let’s take the “date,” for an example: Seiya throws it out there (literally, just time and place and walks off) and Usagi willingly shows up the next day and is even irritated that Seiya is late. Usagi is not forced or coerced into the date; she retains all of the power regarding whether or not she shows up. She would not have gone if she didn’t want to. Actually, let’s look at these instances of Seiya hitting/making a move on Usagi. - In the “date” episode, Usagi thinks that Seiya is going to make a move on her. Some suggest that Usagi thinks she is going to kiss her, but the language, Usagi’s expressions, and her reaction to the truth seem to imply that she thinks Seiya is suggesting something more intimate. - In the episode with the beach monster when Chibi Chibi opens up the door and pushes Seiya over on to Usagi, Usagi is the one who, again, assumes Seiya is up to No Good, despite it being a complete accident and innocent on Seiya’s part. - In the episode where Seiya spends the night at Usagi’s because she’s alone and Seiya very nearly confesses who she is to Usagi while they’re in her bedroom, it is Usagi who believes that Seiya is going to confess to having a crush on her. - Later in that same episode, when they are hiding in the cabinet and Seiya again thinks about confessing her true identity to her, it is Usagi who thinks Seiya is about to suggest something intimate. In fact, throughout the season, it is everyone from Usagi, to the other girls, to single-episode characters, to even Luna who think that Seiya is going to suggest or attempt illicit activities with Usagi, and not Seiya. It is all but explicitly stated that Usagi is attracted to Seiya. Not just because of the implications of her assumptions, but also because she is scolded over it. In fact, Rei tells her that she needs to sort her feelings out. Haruka and Michiru forbid her from seeing Seiya because she has Mamoru. She may not love Seiya the same way, but she is attracted to her and she does love her (and Usagi being attracted to other people is not a new thing.) Let’s look at the softball episode, because it’s ... pretty problematic and people often point to it as being one of the episodes that paint Seiya as some creepy stalker who can’t just take a hint and tells everyone that Usagi is her girlfriend. It is Rei who thinks that Seiya training Usagi in softball is inappropriate (let’s remember that it is Ami who thinks that something illicit is going on with Seiya and Usagi in the bodyguard episode...) because Mamoru is Usagi’s boyfriend, not Seiya. It is Sonoko who insists that Seiya’s “relationship” with Usagi isn’t acceptable, and it is her that places the bet that if Seiya’s team loses, she’s not to associate with Usagi anymore. Seiya agrees because she’s competitive, hates to lose, has confidence in herself and Usagi, and knows that Sonoko is wrong. When Usagi tries to interject about the actual nature of their relationship (that they’re not dating,) it’s the girls who shush her because they’re expecting Seiya’s team to lose and that will give them the opportunity to make Seiya feel better. I want to touch on the “Seiya knows Sonoko is wrong” part. I think what a lot of people don’t think about is that when Sonoko placed this bet and openly stated her disapproval of Seiya spending time with Usagi, Sonoko was attacking Usagi’s worth as a person. She was openly saying that Usagi wasn’t good enough to be hanging out with Seiya in any capacity. Seiya took issue with this because she obviously believes and knows differently. She values Usagi as a person. Who is Sonoko to decide who is and isn’t good enough to spend time with her? Seiya is not approaching the situation with entirely selfish motives, unlike the girls who fed into the Seiya/Usagi romance for the hopeful eventuality of them being able to comfort Seiya after a loss when she’ll be forced to stop hanging out with Usagi. She uses this situation to help bolster Usagi’s confidence in herself. That doesn’t change the fact that the bet is stupid to begin with, but it is what it is. Oh, additionally ... Seiya doesn’t tell the school that she and Usagi are dating. Them dating is an assumption that Seiya simply doesn’t correct. It’s worth noting that if she did correct that assumption, it would feed into Sonoko’s declaration that Usagi isn’t good enough to be with Seiya. 4. “Seiya tried to make the rooftop scene about herself and used it as a way to try to take Mamoru’s place in Usagi’s life.” This whole entire scene is consistently misinterpreted and has all of the context ripped from it, because that is not what that scene is. No, it 100% was not the best time for Seiya to ask that question (and no, it is not “can I take his place?” that she says,) but people tend to forget that Usagi is not the only vulnerable person in this scene and it isn’t just about her. It is Seiya who triggers Usagi’s emotional breakdown on accident, and in these moments she is watching the person she loves crumble into pieces. The rooftop scene is about both of them and the context makes that clear. Up until this point, the only person who knew that Mamoru wasn’t keeping in contact with Usagi was Seiya. None of the girls knew, none of them. Imagine the amount of trust Usagi had to have in Seiya in order to share that incredibly sensitive information with her and with no one else, not even her closest friends. Usagi had told Seiya a whole 13 episodes before this one, and since finding out Seiya tried her best to make Usagi happy and to keep her mind busy. It isn’t until a few episodes after this that everyone including Seiya finds out that Mamoru is dead. So Seiya spends all of this time believing that Mamoru ditched Usagi when he moved overseas and that he’s a horrible boyfriend who obviously doesn’t care about Usagi. This is naturally hurtful to Seiya, who grows to genuinely like and love Usagi through the season. She cares for her and doesn’t want to see her in pain, which is why she does her best to help Usagi feel less alone. There is no point in the season where Seiya’s intentions are to maliciously shove herself into Mamoru’s place in Usagi’s life. She has no idea who Tuxedo Mask is. She had no idea that throwing the red rose - her own personal trademark - was going to trigger such an emotional response from Usagi. So here they both are on this rooftop in the middle of the pouring rain. Usagi’s breaking down over how alone she feels, and Seiya’s suddenly faced with the realization that not only did she cause this breakdown, everything she had been trying to do to help her wasn’t working and she failed again. She couldn’t save her system/planets, 99.9% of her people are literally dead because she wasn’t strong enough to save them, and she and the other two members of her team had no idea where their princess was or even if she was okay until the episode before this one. Immediately after the destruction of everything they knew, the Starlights had to flee to an alien planet with alien people, disguise themselves, and pander to a bunch of complete strangers that salivated over, stalked, and harassed them, all while searching for their princess  and fighting the minions of the person who ctrl+a ctrl+x’ed their home system. She had no time to process any of the unimaginable loss and failure she had suffered through. When people talk about the rooftop scene and about how Seiya “makes it about herself,” this is everything they’re forgetting. When Seiya is asking Usagi if she isn’t good enough, it isn’t Seiya trying to weasel her way in, it’s Seiya both coping with her own numerous losses and trying to remind Usagi that she’s there for her. In the end, Seiya is the one that Usagi credits with being able to get herself through everything she was dealing with.

[herpronuonsarefemslash]

Satisfaction Brought it Back - TEASER

The one where Lena ghosted Kara rather than going villain, Kara went into reporting on human rights abuses in warzones and Lena started a project to take medical information for aliens and their anatomy to help human hospitals.

And then volunteer Subject 99 walks in for a full exam and Lena wonders if she can pretend she's doing anything other than "playing doctor" while learning about Kara's unique body. But her traitor heart just wants to play house. SEE THE REST HERE: https://www.patreon.com/posts/56078508 ===== Alana helps the gray-scaled Jorviunan gentleperson down from the exam table. Five genders on a three-pole gradient, the species file says. Subject 98 uses he/him according to the survey. But it's not right. She's gotten enough peripheral glances of herself in a ballroom's mirror, gritting her teeth and using the identity of least resistance when one of Lillian's friends slid a hand around her back. Lena's been in both the human medicine and xenobiology games long enough to know when a word tastes bad in someone's mouth. Or fangs. Or pincers. Or feelers. Or bioelectrically charged water-filtering membranes. Subject 73 was a Vyllnat who rolled in the other day who looked like she belonged on a Wikipedia article about the Dykes on Bikes movement with the zinger being that her partner was checking in for the session in the next bay during the same time slot. Mating for them involves snuggling close and sharing body heat until their physiologies sync up enough to allow genetic material to simply seep through softened skin. What Lena thought was a rather plain leather riding jacket was, in fact, skin that just looked like supple black leather. Membranous flaps that adults use to seal each other's bodies in an airtight embrace during one of these sessions. A mutually embarrassing moment involving Lena stumbling and nearly wiping out with a tray of sharps and some accidentally-spit acid revealed the tight jeans were really fifteen feet of muscular tail as thick as Lena's waist trailing behind 73 in a holographic concealment field. Lena even weaseled her into letting her take 3D scans of all five sets of interlocking fangs and slicing teeth and a venom sample.

Late that night, Lena might have put a few minutes of Clash of the Titans on loop while she got herself off. Sue her. The idea of reproduction by snuggling is even gayer than a race of medusa-ish beings who come in three flavors of what could only really be called female in a human framework.

"Next subject?" Lena asks, looking up at Alana who is tapping some commands to the repurposed attack drone of Lex's they use to burn any biohazards off the equipment.

"iPad," Alana replies, her eyes sparkling a bit too much as she directs three streams of particle-dissolving energy. Lena sometimes gets a distinct whiff of Kate McKinnon's character in Ghostbusters, except that not only is Alana weird and unapologetic and intense, she's also a first-generation immigrant. She tears through American pop culture like Kara tears through potstickers, so Lena's never 100% sure if Alana's showing up in an outfit that looks like business-safe cosplay on purpose or not. Some city in Nigeria is missing their resident mad genius, to National City's benefit. ===== "Uh, hi."

Rude, is all Lena can think at first. She had heard through the 'DEO to Alex to Kelly to the group texts of doctors who deal with aliens' pipeline that Supergirl had gone from on-patrol to emergency use only around the time that blogs gushed about one of CatCo's human passing journalists coming out as alien and then leaving the company. She was trying very hard not to stalk Kara's Instagram at the time so she didn't follow up. Something something independent reporter in the field somewhere somewhere bringing attention to the plight of someone someone.

Lena only avoided full-on alcoholism over the last year by screening out all reminders of Kara's existence, which let her pretend. Which didn't make it hurt any less when Jess came into her office a few months ago and said that Kara Danvers had come by to ask if Lena had gotten a new cell phone. Kara's first thought wasn't Lena being a cruel, overdramatic mess of gay thirst and Luthor trauma. She trusted Lena's good nature, so her first thought was clerical error.

Kara seems to have taken being ghosted in stride because she spent the last six months getting somehow even hotter than she already was, which probably violates some United Nations Convention on placing dangerous pressure on the human body or something.

Her hair is the same length, but it's tied in a hasty ponytail that's tied off with a scrunchy made of honest-to-god paracord the same crimson as her cape. She's let the curl come back in--how did she straighten it, anyway?--so it doesn't look like Supergirl's sheets of gold more suited for a damsel in diaphanous silk than the halo of an avenging angel. What it evokes is a stallion's mane, glossy in the harsh light and waving as the beast moves.

The dresses that never suited her are gone, and the button ups are back but now they're a thick flannel or something worn half-unbuttoned over a burgundy tee shirt that clings tight and reveals the corners of the suit's breastplate underneath. She could trace the glyph through it, which means if Lena could only get her out of the damn suit, it would revea--FOCUS, she reminds herself--and rather than CatCo-required chinos Kara is in black denim that hangs loose at rest but molds to her muscles when she walks over to put her coat across the 'patient clothing' rack. Each flex and tense tells Lena way too much about how powerful her thighs are and also not nearly enough about what it would feel to have the--FOCUS, Lena--and Jesus take the wheel Kara's even wearing combat boots covered in a fresh coat of pale dust that could just as easily be from a hiking trail north of town or a warzone in Somalia.

"It's funny. On the plane, back from Kasnia? I almost told you."

When she couldn't stop fidgeting with her glasses. Her hair was a mess when she escaped from the Eve clones. She had her glasses off and her hair down and she was going to show me... Lena realizes.

She makes a sound she doesn't even recognize and suddenly she's in Kara's arms, her knees sting from hitting the floor before Kara knelt with her. She's slapping ineffectively against the protective firmness around her and watching her own tears fall like it's happening to someone else.

Kara shushes her and rocks her back and forth and doesn't ask before kissing her forehead. Lena doubts she thought about it consciously. Maybe when she is released, she can complain about lack of consent or maybe she'll demand another kiss to make it all better.

=====

"Lena, I really can't do this. Not like this, not with you."

Reality slams down around Lena like the doors in a haunted house closing.

"Of course. I can schedule you with Alana or per-"

Kara molds her hands to Lena's hipbones and pulls her into her arms. She takes her with force, cupping Lena's head and holding her fast. She nips at Lena's lip and uses the moan as a chance to lick into Lena's mouth. Hot and wet and impatient, her tongue seasoned with ginger and orange and grease, cut with the waiting room mints. She kisses like she eats, greedily and curiously and bottomless. Kara hums and holds and presses and licks and nips and sucks. She brings one hand up to Lena's neck and curls around her pulse, rubbing her thumb along Lena's windpipe. She doesn't seem to notice or care that Lena can't do this forever because Kara wants to do this forever and fuck human failings like a need for oxygen. Lena has to bite her tongue to get her to retreat. It would've drawn blood on a human but Kara just moans and pulls back.

"Christ, Kara."

Kara licks her lips lazily. The chilly blue that reminds Lena of ice caps and winter skies is darkened and her pupils are swollen and fucking hell Lena can even see little white crackles in the depths of them, rising towards the surface like caged lightning.

[perdvivly]

@tranxio I’m just not convinced there can exist a role that creates duty greater than that of the duty to the person. There doesn’t and cannot exist a job such that you are e.g. a waiter first and a human second.

It’s also not clear to me exactly at which point he transitions from refusing to see the individual in front of him as a sub-entity and into providing active support. Was it when he took the brain scan to determine that the cogenitor wasn’t less cognitively capable than the others? Or when he taught it to read? Or when they gave it asylum?

Certainly by the time they gave it asylum, right? But at that time that was the right thing to do. Probably when he taught it to read but it’s not like conversation was explicitly prohibited. And almost certainly not when he was taking brain scans. It’s messy!

What was the right thing to do if not what he did? Should he have resigned his post and become a full time advocate for Vissian cogenitor rights? Writing letters that would almost certainly make no difference to the well-being of anyone? It’s not clear to me that he had any other meaningful choices here.

@weiszklee oh I mean, the episode itself isn’t so bad right? I think it does a good job of presenting a moral quandary that reasonable people can disagree about.

And the Vissians are presented as being really reasonable throughout the whole thing except for this one issue. And even then they don’t really get as reactively mad as I imagine some equivalent situations might provoke in us.

If an alien species came here and was like,

“hey guys, we noticed you were burning all these fossil fuels and you might not know this but it’s actually a massive contributor to the destruction of your environment, including the natural habitats of native species. So yeah, we decided to take all the fossil fuels on the planet to stop you doing that. It was kind of messed up of you if you knew it was doing that and continued burning them anyway.”

I think I’d be like, “damn, you’re right but that was 100% not your call to make”

@tuesdayisfordancing I think this is the message that I can get behind the most. Like, Trip had to have known that no good could come of it. Or could have figured that out if he’d taken any time at all to think about it which he didn’t. Something about, being able to discern when your emotions are getting the better of you and that not being because the emotions are wrong or an inappropriate response to the situation but because there aren’t good outcomes from acting on them… yet.

Anyway. Alien species with three genders who need to have threesomes to reproduce is a pretty hot concept. Good job Star Trek.

really not sure i get the cogenitor episode. trip was just right. society horribly oppresses 3% of their population and the takeaway is supposed to be "ain't none of our bussiness"? hm... don't think so boss