#honestly... gender identity crisis is so real

[habitual-creatures]

Mod you have wrought upon yourself nothing but your own fate lol

Im am slowly teetering towards a gender identity crisis but who knows anymore

AHSHGAGHAHAHAGAGHAHHGHG???

[tjodity]

dsmp lesbian analysis post

this was based on a misreading of a different post so now im rating how lesbian dsmp characters are. no real criteria just going off of vibes from a lesbian. based vaguely on how lesbian they are and how much they might identify as lesbian

C!Phil- (4/10)-he has a wife so thats something. he's kinda forgone most identities by this point he just does what he wants

C!Tubbo-(1/10)-im sorry thats just some binary gay transmasc guy. he may have briefly been a lesbian in his early teens so he had an extremely on the spot explanation for schlatt abt dressing masc but he likes men (a lot) so he never really had any attachment to the label

C!Ranboo-(3/10)-they arent really interested in women but he's got a lesbian gender thing goin on. guy with a weird relationship to femininity

C!Dream-(2/10)-she actually is a lesbian but no ones told her that yet and she's probably not gonna figure it out on her own. mamacita was an egg cracking experience

C!George-(0/10)-im sorry i dont see it

C!Niki-(10/10)- trans curious bisexual woman who wears a trench coat and has ratty dyed pink hair and knows how to tie a lot of different kinds of knots and not for boat reasons. she's having a full boar gender and sexuality crisis starting during the election. dyke as a gender identifier probably wouldn't occur to her but she'd like it a lot. she'd also like the old flag with the axe

C!Sam-(2/10)-not really a lesbian at all but if puffy squints hard enough while theyre making out sad style she can act like he's a cute butch

C!Fundy-(3/10)-he doesnt really call himself a lesbian but whenever he has a crush on a woman he in his head says he's being gay for her. accidentally postponed niki's sexuality crisis by transitioning to a guy

C!Punz-(10/10)-look at him. look at him. butch lesbian who kinda acts like a dog for the girl she's obsessed with. religious horror toxic devotion yuri buff lady general tragedy we got it all. also tommyinnit certified look

C!Hbomb-(3/10)-she's mostly straight but a lot of her admiration of other women and learning to do femininity in a way she likes kinda aligns her with lesbians. she believes in their beliefs

C!Sapnap-(??/10)-kinda in a quantum state of lesbianism for me. could go either way honestly. if her fiances want her to be a girl she can be

C!Karl-(9/10)-karl set off everyone's lesbian radar they didn't know they had which was really confusing cause it presented like a gay cis guy for a long while. tubbo just happens to ask her abt gender once on a whim n she's like oh no im a girl thing :3 and everyone else freaks out cause it was just not correcting them. it likes flamboyant masc fashion and being confusing

C!Quackity-(10/10)-watch the quackhalo date stream if you haven't yet i'm begging you. bigender transfem girlguy guygirl who wants to be someone's girlfriend and have a girlfriend or multiple or many. she's running the full gambit of presentation in a bunch of combos

C!Badboyhalo-(5/10)-Quackity brings out the lesbian in her (she's a closeted transfem lady and it makes her very flustered when she realizes q's calling her his girlfriend.) the bigboobies in bigboobyhalo are the result of lots and lots of estrogen

C!Wilbur-(0/10) he doesnt know lesbians are real

C!Puffy-(7/10)-the best way i can describe puffy's gender is that she is earnestly trying to be as confusing contradictory and horny as possible and it's working. she's a lesbian but only when she's a guy or just extremely down bad for some lady and if you called her a dyke she'd moan

C!Slimecicle-(7/10)-lesbian as a gender thing. he doesn't like using typical words to describe his gender but lesbian is the closest to standard it'll go

C!Hannah-(10/10)-she likes women. A LOT. and also worked hard to become one. just a lot about women going on in her life

C!Schlatt-(???/10)-he's got some shit to sort through n maybe that'll be a realization he makes down the road

C!Foolish-(2/10)-if you tried hard enough you could make him one

C!Tina-(10/10)-many of her actions are motivated by the need to kiss a girl with teeth

C!Eret-(8/10)-strong yuriful vibes

C!Tommyinnit-(9/10)-they are fucking ATTACHED to that label you can pry it from their cold dead hands. she also likes boys n is more platoniromantic than anything but. lesbian critter right there it's important to her

C!Aimsey-(-1000/10)-killed your wife idiot

[itsgrimeytime]

Home is Where the Heart is (Part Two) || Farmer!Rick Grimes (TWD) x Teacher!GN!reader AU

Part 1...

rick grimes taglist: @golden-hoax

AVAILABLE ON AO3

Inspiration: Like Real People Do by Hozier.

Summary: Your life was spinning out of control, you knew that. After a string of particularly shattering events, you decided it was time to start anew. With a little help from one of your Grandma's rentals, you found yourself in the small town of Alexandria. The last thing you expected was your neighbor, Rick Grimes.

TWS: starting over, swearing, and identity crisis.

[[A/N: pretty is used gender neutrally here, so if you don't like that I'm sorry!!!Thanks for reading !!! For that anon, ly <3, enjoy :))) ]]

You were staring at your computer screen, the empty word document not quite intimidating you but it was definitely... something. The flickering little line that showed where you were typing was starting to get annoying though.

It was a lesson plan, one of the first ones actually, but one you had put off until further notice. Just something about the circulum hadn't sat right with you that day so you pushed it off. And then you pushed it off again, and again, and again-

Needless to say, you were now about two weeks away from your first-ever semester. Solo semester. You'd been a teacher's aide before, but never... never on your own. Just 'a lack of positions where you lived, and you weren't willing to relocate' problem, really. It was exciting and nervewracking and a lot-

Your life couldn't have been upturned at a worse time, honestly. Especially with so little experience on your own, but you told yourself you'd own it. You'd-

Just as you were getting into the groove of your writing process, your laptop flickered off. And then, you noticed the lights were off too. Your power was out.

"Fuck," you groaned out, half tempted to through your head down onto the table.

It wasn't a surprise, really. You knew that the internet wasn't exactly the best out here, and you'd bet that the electricity would be a little spotty too. But just because it made sense, didn't make it any less shitty.

You roamed outside, hoping to possibly get some cell service -to call the electricity company, or maybe your Grandma? Actually, now that you thought of it, you weren't sure that you knew who did the electricity of the house-

"Funny seein' you 'ere," the deep drawl lured you out of your thoughts -southern beyond belief.

You shifted, shading your eyes from the sun but just enough in his direction to see him. He stood tall, the morning looked good on him, his curls freshly washed and shirt unstained. The breeze of the morning tussled him slightly, and despite the warmth, he didn't look bothered by it. Out on the front porch in a set of pajama pants and coffee held gently in his hands -it looked warm, was Rick Grimes.

"Hey," you responded, dumbfounded -your brain had all but flatlined at the man... again.

He looked at you questioning, the slightest raise of an eyebrow -a sort of small smile brushing across the brim of his mug (almost teasing), "You're up early."

"Too early," you groaned, taking a seat on your porch in a delicately colored rocking chair -your Grandma's doing if you had to guess, "-working on some lesson plans I should've done months ago."

"Lesson plans? You the new teacher?"

You laughed, slightly, nervous, "Word spreads fast around here, then?"

"Always," he grinned, "-you'd be lucky to do anythin' out here without commentary."

You smiled, looking out into your yard -the billowing grass and trees were unfamiliar but peaceful. It was nice to just exist for a moment with someone else, even if you hardly knew them, it was nice. Freeing, even.

"What's the lead theory as to why I'm here?"

"Not sure," Rick paused, tilting his head towards you, attentive, "-why you got a good reason?"

"A super mysterious one," you answered back -playfully, "-what do you think I should go with? Spy overseas, or undercover royalty under witness protection?"

He chuckled, lightly, and something in your chest fluttered -the deep timber swimming into your head. He has a nice laugh, you noted somewhere far away in your head. It was just a thought, you'd let your brain get away with it this once.

"You lookin' for better stories or more intrigue?"

"Intrigue," you answered -doing a dramatic gesture with your hands, almost theatrical, "-no one should truly know me."

"Royalty," he responded -unflinchingly, "-ya look the part too."

You gasped, faux-offended, "What's that supposed to mean?"

"You're pretty," he answered, fluidly -as if the words out of his mouth were nothing but the truth, "-too pretty to be 'ere. Makes more sense."

"Oh," your mouth clicked shut -blush rising on your cheeks (chanting in your head, probably married, probably married, proba-), "-thank you. Good to know what I could get away with."

"Just the truth," he responded, one hand brushing over his beard as his coffee was set down on the top of the fence -a bit precariously.

You laughed, tilting your head back and rocking further from the motion -the buzz in your stomach was a teeny-tiny little thing. It wasn't anything to worry about, you knew better. You knew better than to walk right back into it again, believe and ignore and love-

It wasn't the time.

"Still," you added -smiley and with an accent you couldn't quite name, "-you'll back me up on my backstory? Death threats from my home kingdom ran away for safety."

He grinned -something big and bright, and it made you falter for a moment, "Sure, I'll tell 'em myself if I 'ave to."

You stilled, ever so slightly -eyes heavily focused on the world in front of you, intent like once you looked away it would disappear. Or maybe you would, back in that apartment, back with...

"Everythin' okay?" Rick interrupted, blue eyes intently on you -he must've noticed.

"What? Yeah-" you cleared your throat, blinking away some of the fog in your eyes -hoping he didn't see, "-Sorry, just got lost in my thoughts. I... I really need to get back to my lesson plans actually."

"Well-"

You interrupted, standing to your feet, "How long does a power outage usual last out here?"

He merely furrowed his eyebrows at you, somewhat understanding that something was bothering you but he didn't push, "Just a few minutes at most, maybe an hour if the weather's bad."

"Okay, good," you sighed in relief, before straightening and turning back to him -schooling your face into something more normal, neutral, "-It was nice talking to you, Rick. I'll... I'll see you around, yeah?"

"Yeah," he nodded, a sort of low grumble that seemed almost slurred in the morning, timber that shook your bones, "-and Y/N?"

"Yes?"

"If you ever... need anythin'," he started -carefully, blue eyes flickering over you with a concern you hadn't felt in a bit, "-I'm just a door down. Anythin'."

"Okay," you responded, quietly, genuinely, "-I'll be sure to take you up on that, Grimes."

[clownholemcfannywhistle]

Stardew Valley bachelor headcanons for when they realize they've fallen for you (gender inclusive)

Alex

His first impression of you?

Something along the lines of, "Oh wow, that new farmer is eye candy."

Or if you're male or more masculine-presenting, probably something like, "Whoa, I don't know why, but I wanna be close to them."

And if you're very androgynous or your presentation is very fluid, the poor boy has an identity crisis.

Cue him having an awkward talk with his grandpa about how to make more friends (Alex ain't talking about being "just friends," but George doesn't know that.)

Evelyn, however, can tell pretty easily that he definitely has feelings for someone, but she doesn't know who, at least not right away.

Before you rolled into town, Alex was always very dedicated to his dream of becoming a gridball champion.

But after? He'd make sure to stay outside longer than before.

He's not super self-aware about why he has this urge to show off, especially if you might catch a glimpse of him.

"I don't know who I am. I don't know why I'm here. All I know is that I must keep the farmer's eyes on me." -Alex, probably.

He flexes and trains extra hard when you're nearby.

Sure, he may be a little standoffish sometimes at first, but that's because he doesn't want to be too distracted from his career goal.

But of course, sooner or later, you're always taking up a portion of his mind.

It was honestly refreshing to have someone genuinely believe in him and take an interest in his goals.

For the longest time, he also thought that he was "playing it cool" around you when he was actually just a bit rude.

It took his grandma gently scolding him for acting like a high schooler for him to realize how cocky he had been acting.

I mean, bless his heart, but he's a dumbass.

He apologizes to you and is grateful when you stick by his side.

Also, in my own personal imagination, if you're female, let's say that he actually grows a pair and apologizes for the sexism specifically.

But the "official" moment he falls for you is just after you find him crying about his late mother on the beach.

He honestly expected you to make fun of him for being so vulnerable, but you comfort him and offer him some appreciated words of advice.

After this event, he can finally gain the self-awareness that, holy shit, he has a crush on you.

Evelyn has also figured out that it's you he's crushing on, at this point.

She doesn't have a talk with him about it, so as not to embarrass him, but she does tell him that he can invite you over for dinner and cookies a lot more.

And if you mention that you like being there, she says that you're basically a part of the family at this point and looks at Alex and does *eyebrows eyebrows* and he's madly blushing, because he knows she knows.

I feel like, for a little while, if Alex was somewhat flirting with you before, he eases up on it a bit because he realizes that he's actually caught feelings.

Flirting just hits different when you're actually more vulnerable to rejection because you're in love.

That's right, the bravado was kind of an act. Partially as a coping mechanism to keep himself motivated despite having a dad who tried to bring him down.

But he can let his guard down around you, and when he does... c'mon, he's a fucking sweetie.

He trusts you not to make fun of him when he lets his softer side out, so you'll start seeing it more.

He would absolutely be winning you stuffed animals from the claw machine game at the movie theater, taking you out to eat, playfully roughhousing with you (and if he pins you down, he'd just bite your nose softly and let you go), and asking you to go to the beach with him a lot (not just to see you in a bathing suit anymore :))

He's totally not dropping heavy hints that he likes you because that's easier than just outright confessing...

Elliott

Okay, I'm not a big Elliott fan, but for the sake of this being wholesome, I won't make him a disgusting caricature of himself lol.

Let's be real, this is a man who believes in love at first sight.

(I personally don't, but I do think that there can be attraction and curiosity at first sight, which is what I think he's experiencing!)

He's so honest with himself about his feelings, like this man is confident that he finds you attractive.

Also I think he's probably confidently bi.

The minute he meets you, he's shaking your hand and acting a little more friendly and welcoming that he would for someone who... isn't as attractive, haha.

Don't you see how kind and approachable he is? He hopes you do.

The night he meets you, he goes home and writes about it in his diary lmao.

"Dear diary, today I met the most captivating individual..."

He spends some more time outside than usual, hoping to catch a glimpse of you or even have a conversation.

He can't help it; you're interesting and he's dying to know what's going on inside your mind!

As soon as he's reasonably confident that you won't be cruel and that he's not asking too much of you, he'll show you his works in progress and ask you what you think.

Say he has an ego, but he wants to show off his best skill!

The more you interact with him, the harder he falls for you.

He spends his evenings sighing dramatically and writing love poems in his journal that he's not ready to share.

Either that, or he's at the saloon, laying his head on a table and talking Leah's ear off about his crush. He won't outright say it's you, but if she happens to see the way he acts when you're around, it's painfully obvious.

He might be a little... over the top, with how he tries to be chivalrous.

(I mean, have you seen the way he demands Gus fetch him and the farmer a drink after smoothly bragging about his "eight hour writing session"??)

But if that's endearing to you, and you actually flirt back with him, he's such a mess. I'm talking blushing, sweating, and then apologizing for the way his body is reacting, haha.

Even if you're married to him, he keeps up the charade that he's the one human in the world who doesn't fart, smh.

Harvey

I feel like, because he's a little more reserved at first, it takes him a little while to realize he's fallen for you.

He can't even think of people as being attractive if he doesn't know what their personality is like.

Demisexual? Maybe a little.

Another confidently bi dude.

But probably at your first checkup, if you express being nervous...

His heart flutters, and he gets an overwhelming urge to reassure you that he's there to help.

I mean, that's what he'd do for any of his patients, so he's not quite sure why he has this urge to be particularly comforting to you...

And that time you catch him doing dance aerobics??

He's soooo embarrassed. Like, if anyone were to find out, he'd rather it be Haley than you, honestly.

If you reassure him that you won't tell anyone and that doing dance aerobics isn't nearly as embarrassing as he thinks it is, he gets that fluttery feeling in his chest again.

I think that that's when the thought first occurs to him that he might have a thing for the farmer.

He tries to dismiss the thought immediately, but just thinking about that being a possibility has his face so hot, his glasses are fogging up.

I know it's been said before, but he would be pining.

A lot more absent-minded at work, to the point where Maru would catch him staring off into space, blushing, and gently kicking his feet frequently enough to wonder if he's got a crush on someone.

Once he finally realizes without a shadow of a doubt that he like likes you, he's just so flustered every time he sees you lol.

Like, you come into his office, and he drops his muffin, hits his head on the counter when he tries to pick it up, and then stumbles backwards, stepping on the muffin.

I mean, his anxiety flares up bad. Too bad he's miserable, because it's so adorable.

He also starts keeping his apartment even cleaner than usual. Not sure if he believes you'd spontaneously come over or if he has an imaginary audience complex...

Not going to lie, I think he also keeps a diary. And he starts writing about you in it probably every day once he realizes he's in love.

So babygirl.

I think he'd be overthinking about the possible ethical consequences/moral implications of confessing to you, so if you get together at all, you're making the first move, hun.

Once you officially become a couple, he's constantly worrying about coming across as too eager or forward, so he deals with that in private in his own... special way.

(Maru: Harvey, you've already doodled your and the farmer's wedding invitation!

Harvey: No, that's our joint tombstone!)

We love our bespectacled Luigi.

(Bonus points if you got the two Brooklyn Nine-Nine references I sprinkled in here lol.)

Sam

Like Alex, I feel like he's not the most self-aware guy on this list.

He sees you, and he's like, "Whoa! I don't know why, but I really wanna be good friends with this person!"

So he follows that impulse without questioning it, the little ADHDiva.

He just wants to show you everything! He wants you to know about his hobbies, his job, his family, and he's real curious to know if you've got anything in common with him.

Not to say he'd be oversharing, at least not on purpose and not often, lol. He may be impulsive, but he understands boundaries.

I honestly think it would take Sebastian pointing out how chummy he is with you for him to realize that he's got a crush.

Also, if you're a dude/male-presenting, he'd probably have a brief moment of awakening.

"Wow, I might be pan. Huh. ...I'm gonna go eat at least four pieces of bubblegum and an MnM I found on the floor."

The realization doesn't make him spiral like Alex lol.

But then he kinda realizes that, looking back, he's definitely caught feelings for people of every gender under the sun.

I feel like he probably channels his feelings and passion into his music.

He writes songs about you, without directly saying they're about you, but Sebastian and Abigail know they're about you.

I feel like you'd be walking by when he's practicing his skateboard tricks, and he'd say, "This one's for you, farmer!" and then fail the kickflip and land on his butt.

You'd both laugh about it once you make sure he's okay.

His butt would lowkey become an inside joke haha.

You could teasingly ask him if the scrape on his butt is in the shape of an L, and he'd giggle childishly about it for days.

I think he'd be asking his mom if he could invite you over for dinner a lot more frequently.

Jodi would catch on and probably give him a talk about safe sex, to which he'd blush and whine that he's not a teenager.

Since Sam is such an open book, there's no doubt in my mind that Vincent knows about his crush.

I bet Vincent accidentally tells on him during a family dinner with you, too, lmao.

Out of the blue, he'd pipe up and say, "When you and the farmer get married, will they be my big sibling, too?"

When.

Poor Sammy would choke on his appy juice/Joja cola (he probably hasn't drank plain water in six years) and try to play it off as Vincent just saying nonsense.

Later, when you're hanging out with Sam, he'd try to be smooth about it.

"Haha... Vincent is such a stinker... But, y'know, it would be funny if we actually got together to humor him...?"

Please don't reject him, he's totally pouring his heart out to you right now ;-;

Sebastian

He likes to appear stoic and act like a lone wolf.

But I think the moment he sees you, his heart is going BA-DUM, BA-DUM

Like, he thinks you're hot from the get-go, but he's still pretty reserved.

So if he's at the saloon with Sam and Abigail and you walk by, he literally just says, "Hi, farmer."

And the minute you're out of earshot, Abi and Sam are teasing him and laughing. "Wow, keep it in your pants, Seb!" "Yeah, you basically just threw yourself at them!"

His ears get all hot from the teasing and he has to go excuse himself to take a smoke break lmao.

I think he's known he's bi/pan for a while now.

I mean, look at him and tell me he's not at least half a twink, hehe.

Outwardly, he's not very emotionally expressive.

But inwardly, he has a mini heart attack when you talk to him.

He tries to be as cool as a cucumber, but he gets pretty anxious around you and can accidentally come across as standoffish.

I bet he's, like, really socially awkward, especially with strangers.

He gets so fidgety around you and he's always bouncing his leg.

He tries not to smoke around you, until he's sure that you wouldn't judge him for it, but that makes him stressed and so he wants to smoke even more.

Poor baby is so awkward, hehe.

Like Sam pushes him into you, and he's quietly apologizing and then saying, "Uh, sorry, I'm, uhh... late to... leave..." and speed-walking away.

Sam facepalms and later, he's like, "Dude, what was that??"

Abigail just goes ahead and makes a group chat with the four of you, which is such a smart move.

When he's talking to you in person, he's so baby and he doesn't know what to do with his hands.

But in the group chat, you actually get to see how funny he is, and his personality shines through.

You guys even start texting privately, and he's always sending you music, memes, animal pictures, and funny videos.

This is how he flirts.

He's like your best friend through the screen, but has no clue how to act in person.

Don't get me wrong, he'd love to hang out with you in person. He's just so damn anxious.

I feel like once you get to be good friends with him, he'd be super clingy and get nervous if you take more than a few hours to text him back.

Which, of course it does, you're super busy with the farm and running errands for villagers.

Eventually, it would either come down to you confessing to him or him being high at 3:00 a.m. and leaving you a series of long, rambling voicemails about how he misses you and is really into you.

Shane

Look, if you read my recent very unwholesome Shane nsfw fic, I'll still stand by the idea I wrote in there that he'd glance up from his beer, think you're hot, but assume he has no chance with you.

He knows he's not relationship material, at least not when you first meet him.

And even if he was, he gets defensive when he thinks people are trying to pity him or treat him like he needs a babysitter.

Like bro is positive that Emily just feels sorry for him, and that causes tension between them sometimes.

But even if you keep pestering him, he'll start to think fondly of you as long as you aren't a total goody-two-shoes.

Enemies to drinking buddies to friends to lovers???

But yeah, drink with him once and he'll be like, "Okay, they're actually not half bad."

Actually validate him and show up for him non-judgmentally?

I'm sorry to my fellow Shane lovers, but I'm pretty sure he'd fall for the first person who doesn't treat him like he's a burden.

Especially if that person is more female-presenting.

It'll take him a little longer to figure out that he's in love with you if you're a dude.

Poor baby, having his sexual awakening in his thirties.

I feel like he also tries vehemently to deny the notion that he might be falling for you, regardless of your gender, because he doesn't want it to be true.

Like, his only real friend in the valley? Of course he's not going to screw that up by confessing to you.

What if you think he's a creep and never want to talk to him again if he does?

He may not show it, but babygirl is overthinking.

He's kind of under the assumption that if he just shoves these feelings down deep, they'll go away. After all, it's just a fleeting crush, right?

(It isn't.)

Once he starts seeing a therapist, I think they'd inform him not to shove his feelings down deep and just talk about them either in session or with a friend.

They'd also probably tell him something like "risk is a part of life, don't let fear hold you back from living, I know this farmer is really special to you but even if they reject you, you've still proven that you can work on yourself and if you want a partner in the future, you can be confident that you wouldn't be a burden on them, and having a relapse doesn't erase your progress..."

Yadda yadda yadda.

(Can you tell how much therapy I've been through)

I feel like if he confesses first, it would either be after a really bad lapse when he's crying and really drunk...

But more likely, he'd be tipsy and do something impulsive.

Like giving you a quick smooch when the Tunnelers score.

He panics about that retroactively, but he'll be over the moon if you reciprocate his feelings at all.

[lindentea]

a Dyke-nonychus for Pride month! Baltimore Pride is tomorrow and i'm excited! it's my first Pride since coming out as a lesbian and i'm PUMPED.

(a longer-than-i-thought-it-would-be ramble about identity follows!)

i'd been out as bi for something like 25+ years (i just turned 40 three weeks ago). i thought that since i'm not a †3®ƒ and i'm attracted to women and nonbinary ppl no matter their hardware, and since i'm transmasc/genderqueer myself, that it fully excluded me from being able to call myself a lesbian. i've heard and internalized some really cruel takes (mostly on leftbook, ugh) from tankies screaming that no one can be a lesbian unless they strictly identify as a woman in a very binaristic sense, are only attracted to women also in a binaristic sense, and only use she/her pronouns.

what a crock of shit, amirite??

comphet got me real bad, too. i'd been partnered with an uninterrupted stream of men since i was 15 (also dated women/nb ppl during that time, polycules, yadda yadda). i was married to a man for almost a decade, then only a handful of months after we split up, i jumped straight into another almost-decade-long relationship with a man (lovebombing is one helluva drug). i'm still friends with my ex-husband but that latter partner was horrendously abµs¡ve and thank fuckin' Satan i'm no longer with him.

up until i escaped The Arsehole, the longest amount of time that i wasn't in any kind of relationship with a man (whether romantic or just a hookup) was only a couple months at most. the societal pressure to never say "no" to a man is crushing. to always seek validation from men, because if men don't find me attractive then i have failed at life. the pressure when identifying as bi and internalizing the message of "but if you're bi, why don't you want to date men? if you're really bi, you shouldn't exclude any gender(s) from your dating pool."

...and then i spent an entire year without having any sort of relationship with a man. and hooooooo-lee shit, y'all...!! i had an existential crisis that was.. honestly...? set off by Tracy Chapman's performance at the Grammys. i made a whole 3-hour long Spotify playlist of as many songs as i could think of that had made me feel the gayest. (the playlist is fuckin' siiiiiiiiick, if i may say so myself. but i'm sorry to non-paying Spotify folks, since i prefer to craft playlists meant to be listened to in a specific order. still slaps on random, tho.)

i spilled my guts to a few trusted friends (as well as my lovely nb partner), and i in a conversation with one of my closest friends (whomst, in the past, i'd had multiple deep-dive conversations about our identities as bi) i said, "so like... if i'm nonbinary... and i'm only attracted to women and nonbinary ppl who identify more with that 'end' of the timey-timey gendery-wendery gender spectrum...." and she told me, "Linden... Linden. that is literally in the definition of lesbian." and... that was that, then.

ANYHOW, i could go on and on, but..... uhhhhh HERE, HAVE A CUTE DINOSAUR! happy Pride!!

[dragonnarrative-writes]

hi dragon!! hope you’re having a good tuesday ☺️ wanted to stop by to talk shop for a little

I absolutely adore Autumn Embers, genuinely one of the au’s that feels the most “real” to me. I’m really curious to learn more about how you fleshed out the world politics for this AU?

It’s one of my absolute favorite parts of the AU truly from the relevance of the 4B movement, to tampered beta suppressants, and even the courting cakes?? Adore it so much!!

-Kiko

Hi Kiko!

I'm going to offer a content warning for general discussion of reproductive health, complications, and freedoms below the cut.

The omegaverse is really interesting as a concept, but I really wanted to answer the question: What about Omegas that can't have children? And then that spawned the question, what kind of genetic conditions would make an omega not be able to have kids? There are so many real world reasons why pregnancy and childbirth are complicated and dangerous, what would estrus/heat and rut contribute to that? And, unfortunately, how would capitalism impact those complications?

It's kind of tricky to come up with the exact reasons why I asked those questions. I'm a Black US American, so the US Supreme Court striking down Roe v. Wade and subsequent war on reproductive freedom is part of it. The climate crisis and capitalist contributions to environmental destruction, and the health impacts thereof, are also a part of it. Honestly, my own queer identity and the experiences of intersex loved ones also contributed.

Whatever the case, the answer I came up with was: Omicron conditions. A classification of congenital developmental issues impacting but not limited to issues of presentation and reproduction.

All of Autumn Embers is based on this concept! We haven't explored it in depth yet in the fic, but Wildfire has an omicron condition. It's why her scent is so fucked up unique.

From there, I just wanted to make a world that feels complete. Of course someone surrounded by a world of "Heat and Rut!" and "Scents! Mean! Everything!" would be sensitive to their own reproductive experiences. And omegaverse fiction is (almost) never far enough from our reality, in my opinion, so of course there's going to be some conflict about reproductive health and rights, impacted by the Ever Present Evil (capitalism). And of course it's going to be global, this whole fandom surrounds an international task force.

This is way longer than I intended, so I'll just admit that I came up with the sex cake because omegaverse is inherently horny and I also want to do weird horny stuff in the middle of my examination of gender, sexuality and reproduction.

I want to give a shout out to Scents and Sensibility: The Working Assassin's Guide to Supersoldier Seduction, a Captain America fanfic that rewired my brain when it comes to omegaverse fiction. And another shoutout to I Shall Not Live In Vain, a series from The Witcher fandom that actually got me thinking about scent compatibility.

Thanks for the ask @mikichko!

[ily-rly]

hi. i love you. i'm so sorry. they slash them. also i'd love to hear something you like about dungeon meshi that's like an Unpopular Opinion or not the commonly discussed thing people like

y'know id actually FORGOTTEN the specific reason why i was so scared to reblog that ask meme originally until you sent me this and now i remember that it was that movie.

hhnnnnggghhiiiiii think. that the conversation between jordan and the camp psych ("do you perform this way because you want to or because you're responding to what you feel is somehow expected of you") is both a chillingly real distillation of a particular trans identity crisis that cis people do very much instigate and prey on, and a very interesting thing to do in a SLASHER movie (a genre so deeply predicated on recognizable character Types—the jock, the bimbo, the stoner, the virgin, the ineffectual cop—that are in themselves very gendered roles that come with their own sets of rigidly defined audience expectations that comprise the playground these films romp around in)

as far as dunmeshi goes i may have talked about this before with u present but one of the reasons why marcille as a lesbian works so well for me in a way that other popular fandom lesbians don't as much is that she doesn't just ambiguously Like Girls, she clearly has a particular taste in women and in aesthetic. the succubus stuff underscores her taste in a comedic way which is often discussed, but i also think her flashbacks with falin and her dynamic with izutsumi are all very much about showing the way she wants to relate to women she's interested in. she likes a girl whose hair she can brush, who she can dress up in cute outfits, who she can help bathe and make smell nice. she doesn't just want someone to already Be these things, she is decidedly into doing them To someone. that's specific in a compelling way; as a gay woman with her own taste it's part of what makes her scan as real to me!!!!! she doesn't just get flustered around All Girls in a vague way or make coy remarks that feel broad and unsatisfying. she's clearly got something in particular that she is about. and i also think it gives you an interesting hook into her character because the Wizard part of her arc is sort of about taking that to its logical extreme, with the power of the dungeon letting this impulse of hers to essentially play with people like dolls kind of run away with her. i find it incredibly effective—actually no the word i wanna use is that it's CONVINCING, which i think is worth something in a comics landscape with a lot of bullshit queer tokenism and posturing—and it's honestly one of the things i like MOST about the series this long after reading it. it's why ive described dunmeshi as "like if something was about kink but had no sex" even though obviously that statement just fundamentally doesn't add up sdhdgsdf

[talisidekick]

@curiositycryptid

Two Spirit is an identity in some indigenous cultures in North America that describes a person who has both feminine and masculine spirits living in the same body. It's a non-binary gender identity that exists in First Nations cultures. In Canada, my country, a good example of this is Blake Desjarlais, a New Democrat Party Member who in 2021 became the first openly Two-Spirit member of Parliament.

For a long time the gender identity of Two Spirit individuals was largely unrecognized by Canada's Federal and Provincial Governments, and in many cases remains unrecognized today, but Canada is making strides to recognize the diverse gender identities it's citizens possess. In an ongoing battle to give recognition and make reparations to the First Nations communities past instances of our government have willfully attempted to harm and destroy, the recognition of Two Spirit identities in Canada has been a good step (note, a step) in the right direction after years of negligence and harm our government has both participated in, and allowed to happen under it's governance. They're a minority identity group that has faced, and does face, very real discrimination from Canada's government and Canadian Citizens.

For me personally, I've been writing the acronym 2SLGBTQIA+ deliberately for a few years now to highlight the systemic racism and casual abuse those who are Two Spirit face, and honour their struggle and commitment to the wider 2SLGBTQIA+ community that has largely gone underappreciated, much how the 'L' in LGBT was moved to the front from the original GLBT acronym, to highlight and honour the Lesbians who donated blood during the AIDs crisis to try and save the lives of suffering Gay and Bisexual men. Canada has begun doing the same but I'm unsure of the reasoning, though I hope it's the same as mine.

You can look up more, but please be aware that any news or journalistic coverage regarding anything that has to do with First Nations peoples and their culture is always compressed down to an easy to read article, which in effect, can and does white-wash and erase context. Additionally, no two First Nations communities are the same so what might be true for one, very well might not be the same for another. The First Nations and Indigenous peoples of Canada and North America are not a monolith, so if you're honestly looking to learn more, don't take the words of a white trans girl like me on this, reach out and let someone from the culture educate you on it if they're willing.

[havocmadden]

"if i'm having fun it's good and if i'm not having fun it's bad" you're so so so real for this!! anyway sorry i disappeared for like a week so i'm going to ask more questions to make up for it: 1) i know i'm late to the spotify wrapped party but who were your favorite artists this year? are there any songs in particular that stood out to you? this can be either for disney artists or not it's up to you 2) how are you feeling about rise of red coming out next year? i know the plot looks too crazy even for descendants standards, and it helps that it's a brand new creative team, but is there anything specific you're hoping to see from the expanded world? 3) i need to hear your thoughts on zombies 4 because i know there's no way addison will have yet another identity crisis - gcwca secret santa

hi !!!! i hope u had a good week when you disappeared and not like, a terrible one!

to answer your questions, my fave artists were mostly non disney channel :( i think the only disney channel who made it into my top 100 was some sabrina songs :( but! my top five were:

noah kahan (so real)

fall out boy (they counted november this year which i know bc they would NOT have been in my top 5 otherwise. they were my nano soundtrack. tho tbh i think this nano project made me an actual for real fall out boy fan)

taylor swift

dessa

xana

if we could add some i feel like chappell roan should've been in my top five but alas :( also i saw two out of my top five in concert this year :) if we count tickets i bought for next year's concerts i am seeing 4/5 of my top five!! (i also saw chappell roan and she was SOOOOOO good in person). this year turned me into a genuine Concert Girlie (gender neutral) so that's been fun. or it would be, if i didn't have to drive 2 1/2 hours at best to get to one bc i live in the middle of fucking nowhere and no one comes here :(

as for the rise of red: honestly, i'm pretty excited! i'm not allowing myself to feel Bad about it until we get more information. plus, it's giving me the thing i always wanted out of the descendants franchise (qoh kid) so honestly this like, really works for me. like maybe when i watch it later it will be bad? and i'll be upset and disappointed? but. in the meantime, i'm having a great time! still living on the qoh kid high! like, the plot seems wild but personally i'm like. "descendants as a franchise never made sense and i'm getting what i personally wanted out of this franchise from it so i'm having a good time until proven otherwise"

i think a lot of people have strong feelings about it bc of cam, which is totally valid and is their right, but my personal feelings are since the core four aren't coming back, i'm okay with it. disney was never going to let their biggest franchise since hsm lie, yknow? i think this is the best it could've been in that sense of it? idk.

as for zombies 4. truly i have NO idea. honestly the most fun i have ever had with the zombies franchise was watching all three of them with two of my friends whilst we were all stoned, and personally i hope rupaul comes back because i thought it was funny. i'm so sorry if you're a zombies stan but they are not high art to me. they are fun little movies to watch while i get high and then i do not think about them until i want to show someone a silly little dcom franchise and jumpscare them with the presence of rupaul. personally i hope zombies 4 introduces addison's cousin from the human side of the family named allison who is now the one who gets to have identity criseses who is also played by meg donnelly. i hope coach has a new job. i hope his legal name is coach. i hope ej caswell finally gets to leave this discord. i hope they make a reference to the winchesters.

[wildernezz]

you only just followed me but i saw your bio, so:

analyse me lol

finally got around to doing this. man, i really gotta get back on my analyzation grind. anyways this is the most i was able to think of. not sure how accurate it'll end up being, but hopefully i'm able to get some things right lolll. and if not, hopefully you at least enjoyed reading through it:

autism. that is the very first thing that strikes me when scrolling through your blog to analyze stuff and i just needed to get that out of the way as soon as possible. the autism is undeniable. and if you're not autistic it's some sort of flavor of neurodivergent. i'm putting my bets on autism though.

you're a very honest and straightforward person. you're very clear about your boundaries and what you're trying to express when talking about things. it's incredibly respectable and a really good trait to have, but i feel like sometimes you question yourself for it. it's hard to describe but i'll try touching more on it later.

i feel like you're not a very talkative person in real life. considering you have a lot of deltarune posts, a large part of me feels like you relate to kris. you also just give off those vibes of someone who's a little monotone, not extremely talkative, but can definitely ramble about the things you're interested in. i also feel like the story arc of kris is something you probably relate to. i haven't analyzed kris enough to feel solid in describing their trauma but i know something in that is something you relate to. especially with the conflict of identity and knowing who you are. i have no idea how to describe that in kris terms but i know it's there. 

rolling along with the deltarune ball, there's a whole lotta noelle in there too (which based btw, noelle is awesome). it makes me wonder if you relate to her too. maybe it's the overall anxiety she has, but i feel like it also ties into the idea of identity, losing yourself, or not completely knowing who you are. it's weird to describe because i feel like you do have a solid sense of who you are, it's just that every now and then you probably have some sort of moral crisis or existential crisis and it can send you spiraling if you think about it for too long. you seem like somebody who lives life the way that you want to, but there is still a slight underlying fear of both yourself and the world.

oh i just know you've questioned your gender a few times. maybe you haven't particularly dwelled on it for a long time, but i feel like you've def had that "maybe i'm not entirely cis" thought pop in your head every now and then.

this is honestly a tougher analyzation for me to pinpoint, but it's not because i can't tell anything about you, it's more like i could point at a character and go "that one's you" but i have no idea how to back it up lmaoooo. so here's some characters that i feel fit you but i have no idea why: Kris from Deltarune (duh), steve minecraft (idk why either), L from Death Note, Nick Carraway from The Great Gatsby, both Danny Saunders and Reuven Malter from The Chosen (1987 movie specifically), and also a weird mix Twilight Sparkle, Starlight Glimmer, and Maud Pie from MLP:FiM.

hopefully this provides something insightful and is at least semi-accurate. i usually do better analyzations on my @analyzing-people-like-hell account where i'm given a list of characters to work with, so if you want i'd gladly redo an analyzation over there. however i have been way off my analyzation grind so i make no promises on how long that'll take lolll. either way, my bad if this isn't all that accurate, but it was super fun to look through so thank you for the content B))

[mitspeiler]

Director's Commentary Ch. 6

These are for my book The Dream Quest of Henry Sinclair, which you can read here on Ao3 or here on Royal Road.

In the previous chapter I introduced Leila's new name and look. I suppose I may as well talk about her now.

Words that are rendered in color aren't that way because they have some inherent power, but because Henry feels a fixation on them. As much as Leila is obsessed with killing Henry, Henry is fixated on killing her. Obviously not for the same reasons, and besides that he has distractions keeping him stable. But she is literally always there, a monkey on his back. In a way she is like the death drive or a manifestation of his anxiety. He thinks if he could just get rid of her, it would be smooth sailing. His burning hatred of Leila comes and goes, and he finally puts it away at the end.

I believe I mention that Leila means "daughter of the night" or something like that in the author's note on the chapter proper. It's a good name for a nemesis. It is also a name stolen from the figment from Simhabad. Leila consuming and stealing the identity of Leila is an inversion of Henry's relationship with Ayane. The blue boy and the blue girl help each other out while affirming her identity as an independent being, while the red boy eats the red girl and steals her identity.

This is not to say that the figment Leila is dead. It's really hard to kill a dream. Leila and Leila may wind up having a long talk in the future, probably whenever Henry reads The Thieves of Simhabad.

On a practical level, I made the doppelganger turn into a girl so that I could give her a real name and not have to write "the doppelganger" every time (the decision to render her name in red every time wound up costing me more time but I was invested at that point.) As for why she is a girl in-universe, well, I have cheekily told my friends that it's because she is the opposite of Henry, who is cis. But honestly her gender identity has nothing to do with his. Leila was undergoing an identity crisis due to being a fake creature, and decided to reinvent herself. She stole the Leila figment's name and face, but she isn't just cosplaying her either. Leila and all the other monsters Leila consumed off-screen were sort of stripped of parts to construct a new identity for Leila. She is a woman and a trans woman at that, though with the caveat that she is not a human being but rather an inhuman spirit that steals identities. If the first figment she'd met after that fight with Henry had been a man she would have reinvented herself as a man, or whatever gender and species combination they had going on.

Heh, this chapter is actually extremely eventful and pivotal to the story. and hardly about Leila at all. I could go on about many different aspects of it, but I'll just say that I included a small scene in which Henry tries and fails to invoke the goddess Cybele. It builds off n earlier scene that I also added during the editing process, in which Henry notes that dream magic has a very different texture than earth magic. these were intended to provide a bit of foreshadowing that his magic isn't working as it should due to him being in this world too long.

[nymusings]

thank you so much for such a comprehensive ask! i feel like ik a lot more little details about the city now that i wouldn’t have known otherwise — tysm<33

but if it’s not a bother, i just wanted to ask — what do you mean by this bit? “There's a lot going on politically within the uni at the moment, with gender liberation (especially trans rights, which sucks for me as a trans person)” i… am also trans, but i’ve not transitioned or come out (my family is quite transphobic, and my city doesn’t have the resources for trans stuff as far as im aware), so i was hoping to come out and transition after i move out and go to uni. but from what you say here, it sounds like if i do end up being accepted here, it might be safer to stay in the closet? i’m so sorry to ask this — i know it’s not a fun thing to talk abt. i’m just a bit stressed— since i do know people who live in the city and are doing well, but none of them r trans unfortunately.

also— i’m sorry, i promise i’m not trying to just dredge up the negatives😭😭 but ahhvwnegdjd there’s a housing crisis / cost of living crisis / overcrowded classes and courses / timetabling issues / assessment feedback issues?? i know, sadly, that none of this is unique just to Edinburgh, but i didn’t actually realise the city and uni were having all of these problems specifically. i’m sorry if this is a stupid question, but instead of asking you a whole lot, i guess i’d just love to know— is it… bad? as in, in your experience, worse than other unis have it?/if you could go somewhere else would you, that kinda thing. The timetabling issues sound crazy (6hrs of classes?!!) but i feel like i could deal w/ that, but oof, assessment feedback stuff? what’s your experiences w/ that been like, if any? i’m just not from a place where they really prepare us for uni (well, they do, just — my country’s school system and unis work very differently to those in the uk), so i feel like w/out feedback i might end up falling behind lol.

also!! yep, i did mean eng lit, not english languag — thank you SO much for so much of detail on all of that! it cleared up so many questions i didn’t realise i had. like seriously, your ask was so sweet and comprehensive, of course definitely no pressure to answer whatever is going on in this one😭😭

hi again!!! so sorry for answering so late, im only on tumblr every now and then at the minute.

about the trans stuff, I was in the exact same situation as you. I had the same idea with transitioning once I moved to uni and honestly, there will be pros and cons with doing that no matter where you go. At UoE specifically, there has been a lot of controversy surrounding multiple attempted screenings of Adult Human Female with it recently being found that the uni actually paid for an external security company to make sure the event went forward. Recently a trans-exclusionary LGB activist managed to secure a major role within the university. The Trans and Nonbinary Officer did step down in protest of both of these events, and the position is still unfortunately vacant.

HOWEVER there are a lot of positives to being out as trans (even if its just to your friends) at the university, such as:

The Gender Liberation Society which meet every Monday in Appleton Tower

The Gender Empowerment Fund which allows you access to packers/binders/wigs/any trans apparel you might need (with a limit of £150)

You can change your name on the University of Edinburgh system on your own (via EUCLID) so that your real/preferred name is the one on class registers, instead of your birth/dead name

Lots of tutors will as everyone to specify their pronouns at the first meeting, so you'll never feel targeted

There's trans flags spray painted on walls all across old town LMAO

GET A GP AS SOON AS YOU MOVE HERE! The waiting list for the gender identity clinic REQUIRES a GP referral and the wait list is only <2 years long!

(in comparison, Glasgow's is >5 years!)

All in all, the issues with trans stuff has to do more with the admin of the university rather than the people who actually matter to you. You'll find the admin of the uni suck the most more than anyone else at everything. Most of the normal people at the university are very understanding and polite about you being trans (one of my friends actually forgot I was trans once, straight up just thought I was a guy which was very flattering lmao).

In my opinion, it is very worth it coming out. There are people who have your back.

About all of the other stuff, though the University are at fault for not doing enough to help, often everyone affected works together to make it as easy a life as possible. If you are struggling with timetabling, or how full your classes are, or if the amount of assessments you have are driving you up the wall, there is always someone you can contact. In order of who you should contact first:

Your Student Advisor: they can help point you in the right direction and provide notes that can be used at the end of the year to apply for Special Circumstances (if, say, mental health or financial issues, etc, got in the way of your studies)

The Listening Service at the Chaplaincy

The Advice Place

Student Counselling service

Wellbeing officer

and im sure there are more but I've not had to go past this step

About housing-- it is a country-wide issue, but very apparent in the bigger cities like Glasgow and Edinburgh. Even some of my family in London have shared the same sentiment ("If an agency offers you a flat, just take it. It doesn't matter if it doesn't suit our needs, we can't afford to be picky.") Students at UoE have protested the University's lack of involvement in ensuring that students will not go homeless ESPECIALLY since they are taking on a significantly higher amount of students (especially international). There is really nothing that can be done about this, BUT I have heard of undergrads making friends with 4th years and taking over their flat at the end of the year when the 4th years graduate. That's always an option. Again, there is also the Co-op, but it is very competitive.

If we are to compare UoE to other universities, by far and large it is still better academically than most. The reputation is phenomenal and people will wow you whenever you tell them where you study. Being from Glasgow, it was a competition between the two of those Uni's for me, and I do feel like I made the right choice coming to Edinburgh despite all of its flaws. Remember, the university isn't your entire life -- the city can be part of it, too. It really just depends what you're looking for from both the university and life outside of it. I don't think I would have gone anywhere else (unless I could afford Oxbridge lmao). I don't want it to sound like I hate the uni, sure, it is frustrating, but I just want to be as open and honest with you about it as possible so that you truly know what you are getting into.

If you want any actually decent feedback, schedule office hours with your tutor/lecturer and talk with them about it there. The written stuff tends not to help me at all, I need to be verbally told what went wrong and how to improve. The written feedback tends to be more harsh than helpful, and doesn't help me understand where I lost marks.

Scotland's university system is also different to the rest of the UK (yay devolved government), meaning you will do 4 years of a degree instead of 3, and a bunch of other stuff that isn't coming to mind rn lol. School's don't prep us for uni that much either, except for if you do Advanced Highers (which I did for Eng Lit). They are technically the equivalent to first year of university (which I agree with).

[deafknell]

Subaru for the aske meme

Sexuality Headcanon: He is every part of the LGBT community all at once.

Gender Headcanon: He is so gender. I like headcanoning him as genderfluid, though honestly I adore any exploration of gender with him and Natsumi.

A ship I have with said character: I'll ship pretty much anybody with him (who are of legal age/not super weird) but I'm most fond of Julisuba for sure.

A BROTP I have with said character: There's a laundry list of people I can put here soooo to keep it fresh, I'll say Felix and Subaru's dynamic is very underrated! People often skip over Felix or just reduce his character, when there's so many strong parallels between them. I'd love to read a good oneshot about main route Felix and Subaru getting closer to each other and working out some of their differences a bit.

A NOTP I have with said character: Mh, I'm pretty open to reading anything, so the only NOTPs outside of the morally questionable ones are fics where the characters are very OOC/blandly written. I love the characters, not necessarily the ships, so when characters are just there as an accessory to Subaru and not as a real part of the story I get bored.

If I had to pick one...Anastasia x Subaru, maybe? Even then, I'd still probably read it if the characters are good.

A random headcanon: I always picture Subaru as being a massive fan of romcoms. I don't really remember all the shows/references he makes to see if this is canon or not, but I love the idea of him being such a helpless dork he takes random shoujo anime tropes to try and flirt, only for it to be immediately shot down by his partner.

General Opinion over said character: Loveable dork. Initially dropped rezero because I found him annoying, but after pushing through the first few episodes I love how sincere he is and how he doesn't hesitate to wear his heart on his sleeve. He doesn't have to be strictly masculine, or even feminine, Subaru's just Subaru. A walking identity crisis, and a character I really enjoy writing.

Just need him to turn back to an adult so we can see how the rest of arc 8 plays out. Please. I don't mind kidbaru but not for a whole entire arc.

[tincansamurai]

a long post about my exp figuring out gender

i'm seriously so glad that it's so easy to find information about gender these days. just knowing certain things are possible is so important to figuring out who you are.

when i was like 11 and becoming a Junior Poster, even with all the lurking i did i only saw people talk about trans women. of course, this was because people are fucking horrible and love to make fun of trans women. i liked to read webcomics and therefore also read people talking about webcomics and webcomic drama. there was this one woman who got shit on all the time. her webcomic was bad, that's true, but there was also a lot of precursor-kiwi-farms type shit about her personal life and her other website about being trans. people were accusing her of being a groomer (wow! things sure have changed!) because she had a quiz up for boys to take to see if they were trans. for some reason who knows why i was really fascinated by this and read a lot of drama about other gender-y webcomics, and of course i took that quiz. the result was essentially "you're not trans, you're a regular boy." i didn't really know that you could be trans in a way other than being transfem, so i just kinda shrugged and went "ok, i'm not trans". like, i wasn't stupid, and even the tg fetish webcomics everyone liked to laugh at included women turning into men sometimes. but no one talked about those fictional moments with the same terms, and i didn't have any examples of real life people, so i guess i assumed that transmasculinity was a separate, theoretical thing. and if it was only theoretical it couldn't apply to me, of course.

then when i was around 13 or 14 i was reading tab's khaos komix and when a gay trans dude was introduced i kind of broke. like, wait, you can be trans in that direction, for real? wait, you can be trans AND gay?? two big parts of why it was obvious i wasn't trans crashed around me and i absolutely had a crisis about it. entirely internal, of course, because i knew how much everyone hated trans women. and if they thought being a trans woman was stupid and fake, there was no way this new (to me) thing would be well received either. i can perfectly picture standing in the shower, staring at the faucet handle, completely still - or more like stuck, and thinking "i'm a gay man". without qualifiers and everything, no "i think" or "i might be", like i 100% came to that conclusion. it made sense.

i talked myself out of it because it was terrifying. some of the stuff i used to talk myself out of it turned out to not be signs i wasn't trans, but signs i wasn't binary, but i wouldn't know that existed for even longer. plus i had mentally shock therapied myself hard enough that when i did find out you could be nonbinary, i avoided learning more. honestly thank god for tumblr and patient art school mutuals, who have probably (more like hopefully) completely forgotten me arguing with them about how nonbinary identities don't make sense, lol. sorry for being a dickhead. but thanks to this space i couldn't avoid exposure anymore, and that was really good for me. i can't even imagine how miserable i would be. actually that's a lie, i can picture it pretty easily lol.

anyway the fact that kids can get online and learn about just about any kind of gender anybody has ever thought of, and find real people talking about their experiences, and form or join any kind of community about those shared experiences is so so good. meeting nonbinary kids makes me so fucking happy. i'm so glad that it's at least a little easier to figure out who you are these days.

[breaniebree]

Hi.

I am so fucking sorry if this is weird.

But I stumbled across ASC in one of my old SD cards and couldn’t resist seeing if you’d actually managed to finish that giant story - and apparently you did. Kudos to you.

When I first read ASC I was in a seriously (Siriusly, because that joke is obligatory at this point) bad place. COVID was still in its early stages, I was newly thirteen and had no idea who I was, my anxiety had reached a new high and my OCD ruled my life. I was literally scared to get out of bed and half the time I wouldn’t. I sanitized everything on sight and then some, and it still wasn’t enough to get rid of the crawling feeling inside me. I can now admit that I was depressed. And on top of that I was going through an identity/gender crisis and questioning my sexuality for the first time in my life, hating myself while at it - being an ally is one thing, but being an actual member of the LGBTQ+ community is quite another, especially when you live in an country where being gay isn’t even an option and your mother is homophobic af. Basically I was majorly fucked up.

ASC wasn’t some huge life-changing thing. It was just a random fanfic I found while scrolling through HP tags. I was intrigued, mostly, at this monster of a fic that was over two hundred chapters long, and since I was looking for free books at the time, I gave it a try. Finished the first thirty or so chapters in one sitting. And, once I got over my shock at the sex scenes (I’d never even been on a date and honestly my sexual awakening was partially triggered by this - I was like, ‘If the fact that these people shagged for hours straight, and my only concern is how possible it is to manage that position for any length of time, then I’m probably going to have to sit myself down for a soul-search’) and violent scenes (your mind is a terrifying place and I am sincerely thankful you aren’t planning world domination just yet) I was hooked.

I did comment every now and then, under varying pseudonyms - SavvySpirit was one, obviously. WarrioroftheWolves was another (thirteen-year-old me was obsessed with large predators, mainly since they were everything I wasn’t) and Raindrops & Flowers is quite possibly my least original name ever. There were a few other one-time names I can’t recall. But it was a brief respite in the craziness of ’20 and most of all it was something that was mine - to hold close to my heart, to hate when plot lines threw me for a loop, to cry over and giggle over and laugh over. I printed out the entire thing using my pocket money, in minuscule script and fitting eight pages per sheet, both sides. I think I reread that story at least twice a month - entire thing, back to back as I waited for the next time my parents would let me use the computer for longer than three minutes. I got attached to characters I barely gave second glances to. Viktor. Pansy. Dean. Padma. Mandy. Theo. Him especially, since I relate so much to him it almost hurts to see him hurt.

I stuck with ASC until around the time when Finn died and Ginny was put under bloodlust. I don’t remember exactly why I stopped checking for updates - maybe it was just a lack of time, maybe it was my refilling schedule coupled with my fear of humans. Maybe it was something deeper, who knows. But I stopped at one point and just reread (imo) the best bits every now and then.

I guess, story-wise, things got a little too real too fast for me. I’d known Cedric and Sirius was going to die, and Viktor’s death wasn’t as much of a shock as Finn’s was - because it was so unexpected and so out of the blue (I cried and screamed and cursed your name for thirty minutes straight after that last mo grá. Seriously, Breanie? You just had to go and ruin things just when they were getting good? I was looking forward to seeing Finn’s POV, and seeing them mature and fight over everything from Finn’s overprotectiveness coupled with Theo’s independence to shopping problems and flavours of ice cream, to see them go through troubles and overcome them both individually and as a couple. I was so freaking excited to see more of Tara and your take on a fairy realm, to see how Finn’s pseudo-immortality and Theo’s past demons would come into play. I wanted so much more development on Finn’s character, his flaws and quirks, his skeletons in the closet since we’d never really had his POV. I even had hopes of a storyline where Voldemort tries to get into Tara(because of the so-called immortality, duh) and gets horribly burned in the process. I wanted a Feo love child, dammit(Ciara would be such a cool aunt! And with the Weasleys and Blaise/Draco on one side of the family and Tiernan and the royal court on the other than kid would be the best protected, most spoilt kid in existence). I had hopes, Breanie. Dreams. And you destroyed them all with that single scene.) and so. Fucking. Tragic. And like ten chapters later you put Ginny under bloodlust where she hates Harry and wants to kill him (this was a seriously fucked up idea and I applaud your imagination. And sincerely hope you never become a investigator, because that would be scary.) and I read this bit with my heart in my throat because even if I don’t really like book or movie Hinny(Ginny seems too much of a side character and has so little personality, as I’m sure you know) but I adore fandom Hinny and YOU ARE NOT GOING TO RUIN YET ANOTHER OF MY FAVOURITE SHIPS IN THIS FIC DAMMIT but I chickened out and never read past that to see if she got cured. She did, right? She’s not dying slowly from poison in her bloodstream or anything? Right? Don’t correct me if I’m wrong though, I prefer to remain oblivious and happy in a world where nobody dies and everybody gets therapy.

But anyway, the point of me spilling my life story to you here was to thank you. You may not have intentionally made this fic for me, but it was a lot more effective than most of my therapy sessions since I could get my thoughts and feelings out in a roundabout way. ASC may not be a major part of my life currently, but it’s still a large part of who I am, and I am indebted to you for making this safe space. I turned fifteen and came out as panromantic/asexual. I turned sixteen and came out as a demigirl. I have career aspirations and I’m actually working on them. I’m working on long-term plans, which I never could’ve imagined having three years ago. And though I lost hearing in one ear last month, I didn’t consider ending things, not even once. Still haven’t. I have midterms but I’m not stressing myself to the max over them, and I actually have a social life now. And it’s not all completely thanks to you, but there is still a large part of my sanity that owes itself entirely to the fanfiction writers of 2020. And a slice of that pie is yours. So - thank you. For everything. You’re a truly gifted writer.

And before I forget - does Theo like, ever get closure? Hypothetically the fae have realm glasses. Which might come into use. Can fae get reborn? Just asking.

And does Zee ever date again? Like - I know Sirius was her person, but when the kids get older and she grows older…

One more question: how does someone like Delta turn out to be evil?! She was so freaking supportive when Hermione was researching human rights. Another question: Blaise survives, right? Because that guy is a riot. And another: I reread chapters 200-272 for this and realized that Finn just randomly carries around a pair of golden handcuffs? Like what was the story behind that. Did he get cornered one day and decide that ‘henceforth, I shall carry handcuffs’? And Crouch’s ‘wives’…do Millie and Hestia ever escape? My last random question: whatever happened to Arnold the Pygmy Puff?

Also is there any way I can send you a virtual fruit basket?

Hi, @savvyspirit

Wow! Thank you very much for sharing so much for me. I'm honoured my story had such a profound impact on you personally. Good for you for being honest and open with yourself about who you are. Nothing is more important. Thank you so much for sharing that my story helped you in a roundabout way. That's very cool to hear.

I understand that the story took a darker turn and did get too real too fast, but I do hope you go back to it now that it's complete and now that I'm finishing up the trilogy. Harry and Ginny are definitely getting their happy ending, that I can promise.

Finn was an important part of Theo's life and an important part of the story, but unfortunately he wasn't who Theo was meant to spend his life with. That's someone else and if you keep reading, I promise you'll see him much happier than he ever was with Finn. Yes, he does get closure. As to Zee, well... yes, she does find love (you have to keep reading to find out). Delta aka Belladonna was a lot of fun to have be evil the whole time and you learn more about her how and why as the story goes on. Blaise does survive and we get to know more about him too. Finn carried around handcuffs because he was part of the Royal Guard of Tara. Millie and Hestia do survive. Arnold is still around, promise.

Ha, as to a virtual fruit basket -- I'll take those in story reviews on Ao3 or ff.net please and thanks.

Thank you very much for sharing this with me and I sincerely hope you delve back into the world of ASC because I really do think it's worth it. Thank you!

[br4inr0tx]

Heyaaa can I get a match up for Attack on Titan? <3

Ece here,21 female cancer entp.I'd prefer a guy but any gender will do :3

I'm usually a cheerful person with lots of energy, I'm quite outdoorsy but an ambivert. I'm that one person who isn't afraid of going to a cinema,concert etc alone xD I don't easily get angry,jealous etc. I'm the calmest person I know,on that matter I'm quite tolerant. Also I tend value my own independency a lot but I strongly respect other's too. On this matter I often called out to be 'cold' or 'uncaring' even though I care for my loved ones unconditionally :// I think I'm not very good at showing emotions,best I can do is to clown around to keep my loved ones happy and honestly I get uncomfortable when people get too emotional too soon in romantic relationships.

Also my love language can be anything but acts of service,they are a little rare D: I tend to go for quality time or physical touch,when I feel comfy enough -which takes some time- I straight up glue myself xD

As for hobbies I like to write,read and to cook exotic foods. I obviously watch anime quite often too D: I generally like trying different hobbies -anything- just to drop it a couple of months in. I very sadly do this when it comes to my romantic relationships too and I feel like I might be an aromantic but the idea of dating with an aot guy is quite charming xD Thank you so much already and I hope this is enough because I feel like I've revealed too much D:

I’ll keep it real; it’s been a long ass time since I’ve touched aot. I think last time I watched it genuinely was 2019. I’m trying my best with these aot requests but I might take them down temporarily, rewatch the show, then put them back up idk.

That being said, you sound like an epic person girl, keep doing you. 👍

PS, I get what you mean with relationships. It’s really hard to date people in the real word- especially when there’s perfect anime dudes who’d be willing (in ones imagination at least) to date you. I struggle with that myself, but know there will be that special person eventually. Nobodies perfect, and don’t keep your standards too high; and eventually you’ll find the one. 🖤🦇

warnings: discussion/depictions of PTSD, Anxiety, and DID.

your Attack on Titan matchup is.. Reiner Braun !!

• I think Reiner would be a good match for you.

• He enjoys your energy. Often times it gets him out of a funk he’s in. Not to mention he’d always give you a cute little pat on the head as thanks for cheering him up.

• He also appreciates the times where you can be really chill. He needs those moments of relaxation sometimes. Hell, you’ve seen what he’s been through.

• Though out of everything, he appreciates your patience. He suffers through some PTSD and DID as far as I’m concerned, so as long as you’re patient with him he’ll be patient with you.

• I believe he’d enjoy someone who’s independent, as he often does things his own way, and would rather not get an ear full from someone who’s a heckler for the rules. Much so, he lets you do your own thing as well as long as it’s not detrimental and hurts you.

• He gets remarks of being cold and uncaring as well, but really the two of you are just either really chill or focused on something that you don’t even notice you have a resting bitch face.

• He thinks it’s adorable when you try to make him feel better. He often goes through identity crisis, so to have someone bring him back down to Earth is nice.

• Quality time is a bit dicey for him, obviously because of his job. If you’re Military Police with him it might not be as much of an issue. Though physical touch happens as much as it can, as Reiner can be very possessive and handsy.

• You’re hobbies always interest him. He’s the type to go through hobbies one month to another like you, but when he sees a hobby you actually stick to he tries to encourage it more and more.

• Also, he’ll fulfill any romantic needs your heart desires, promise~.

• Your runner ups are Erin and Connie!

• Reiner will always have your back, and hopefully you’ll have his?