#i know we have a few antitheists in the community so i just want to say if you're reading this

[i-turn-characters-2-warrior-cats]

Bill Cipher evil medicine cat au?

I just thought of this and thought it would be really interesting

Sure!

Dumroll please......

WC Bill Cipher is the third (The first is technically Lightwalk and the second is technically Rainsoul, but I hadn't developed the idea enough) cat I will release in relation to the Pantheon! (A group of deities that exist in all the works here, used as influences/monsters if I need them).

The Pantheon is all represented by a different animal! Lightwalk, the crow. Rainsoul, the vulture. WC Bill Cipher, Goldengleam, the coyote. (And his brother is represented by a rabbit, but we won't be getting into that yet.)

Goldengleam takes on a multitude of names, but relies on this one as the name we all know and love (to hate). He, like most of the Pantheon, can shapeshift! He keeps the form of a cat, but does show off his coyote form from time to time.

I imagine Goldengleam is known as a very eccentric member of the Pantheon, being a tad sillier and more kit friendly than his brother (If you can figure it out I'll skip the queue and do his brother before any other requests I'm writing. I'll give you a hint, his brother is the WC version of who is basically him but without Disney to reel in the age rating.)

Since I don't really want to develop much of WC Gravity Falls plot beyond what I've revealed since we only have our main antagonist as of writing this, I'll do a bit about if he preferred medicine to talking to other cats, and then I'll leave you off with a story!

Goldengleam, if he acted as a medicine cat, or a healer for the society of Gravity, he would rely much more on poisons than talking other cats into doing his dirty work (Which I bet he relied on for much of Shooting Stars are just Meteors). Slipping a bit over here, oh no you're sick! How terrible!

And for the story.... (Inspired by parables in the bible)

Once upon a time, when the great beasts roamed the forest, an elk insulted a bear. The bear became angry, and challenged the elk to a fight, killing and eating the elk.

A coyote had something rude to say about this. "Well, that wasn't very polite. You've already eaten for leaf-bare, why take more?"

And the bear went, "Why, the elk was even ruder! He needed to be taught a lesson."

The coyote replied, "I'm quite sure the elk learned his lesson from your stomach." The bear found this offensive, and challenged the coyote to a duel. The coyote agreed to meet at sunhigh the next day, and both of them went to their dens.

The bear went to sleep immediately, but the coyote looked to the stars. "Hello? Stars? Please give me assistance. I am a coyote, I can not beat a bear, but I was right. Give me help, please."

And then the stars answered, with a cat, who said. "Hello, coyote. Go to the den of the bear, and begin piling sticks. If I do not deliver by dawn, you can call me whatever name you wish."

The coyote, not one to disobey an obvious answer from the stars, followed the commands of the cat, wondering why the stars did not send a spirit in the form of another coyote. Time passed, and it was nearly dawn, when the bear would wake up.

Once again, another spirit appeared behind him. It was another coyote, but a bright gold color instead of the light blue of the stars. It smiled, winked, and began to emit a terrifying force.

It was fire. The coyote watched in joy as the bear ran out from the den that was now on fire, only to be met with the coyote he had challenged to a duel.

The bear was furious. "You said we would meet at dawn!"

But the spirit replied first. "In your duel with the elk, you said that it would not be deadly. And then you ate his body. Now, I'm not one for rules, but it does seem that you threw away honor already. And besides, nobody said that the coyote couldn't set fire to your den!"

The bear was left speechless, and never bothered the coyote again.

That's all! If you desire more elaboration or another request, do not hesitate to contact me!

Byeee!

[usamyzonians]

Seven Years Ago

We’re coming up on what would have been  the seventh anniversary of me and Tal’s relationship, so I’ve been thinking about it a lot.

One thing I’ve figured out from talking about the smoldering wreckage of my former relationship with my therapist is....

I should have seen this coming.

It’s one of those things you don’t really think about in the heat of the moment, or even necessarily when you’re living with a pattern.  But I started talking about how I couldn’t understand how Tal suddenly became so chill about sexism, homophobia, and transphobia, and it kind of smacked me in the facer.

When I met Tal, they were firmly identified as a woman.  They were strongly identified as an atheist.  The kind who complained about religion even when I didn’t think it was particularly relevant.  “I could never be in a relationship with a theist,” Tal would proclaim to me, who had been in several relationships with theists and didn’t care until they started saying things like “God hates....”

Then, they went strong into feminism and turned on atheism.  How dare they claim atheism is just a single position on a single issue? they would proclaim.  And it was and it is, and I was (and still am) an atheist, but I didn’t bother fighting this because it wasn’t really central to my identity.

Then they were a lesbian, but still definitely cis.  Or maybe bisexual, but definitely cis.  And they were outraged at the way feminists treated lesbians (and in a broader aspect, LGBT individuals).  Kind of ironic, because at this point, they were upset that their girlfriend (me) was being excluded.  Also, asexual at some point.  This was fine by me, because we weren’t really having sex anyway. I didn’t care.  And then there was the intersex thing.  At some point, it feels like you’re just co-opting literally every identity around you.

Then they were definitely trans, but maybe a guy, maybe not.  I don’t mind the identity shifts so much.  I get that not everyone has had so easy a time figuring out what they are as I am and so I’m sympathetic.  But with this came belligerence towards lesbians, because so many lesbians were trans-exclusive and OH MY GOD DON’T CALL ME A GIRL.

Then, of course,. Tal did an about-face here.  Not a girl, but girl-aligned.  Nan0girl.  Demi-girl.  So many different identities (most of which I had to read off their blog, because fuck telling your partner shit) that I eventually stopped tracking.

When the thing where Jewish slavery is okay and you’re an antisemite if you disagree, and Jewish sexism is okay and you’re an antisemite if you disagree and Jewish homophobia is okay and you’re an atnisemite if you disagree and Jewish transphobia is okay and you’re an antisemite if you disagree, it really should have been clear to me that Tal was just doing what they usually do: turning on their past beliefs to embrace their current beliefs.  I don’t know why they didn’t just dump me, either.  Not only did they (I say they, I kind of wonder if they’ve gone back to identifying as a woman yet) still not value enough to discuss things like kids with me (oh, they saved those discussions for Charlotte), but they didn’t value me enough as a person to even stop and understand why I might be uncomfortable when they and Charlotte started saying sexist things.

And. of course, the only reason their bisexual, transgender girlfriend would be horrified by any of this?  Antisemitism.  I’d be totally cool with this treatment if it came from Christians,. Muslims or atheists!

Especially since I’ve spent so much of my time railing against the bigoted little shits of the online atheist community.  And I still do.

Tal would start on one side of me on issues and end up on the other.  From the extreme that religion is poison!!!!!! to joining them.  From “fucking cishets” to “maybe transphobia is okay if we people do it.” From “no children ever!” to “when I have kids....” and in terms of gender identity I don’t think there’s a single position they didn’t hold, from totally cis to a transman.

It doesn’t stop with self-identity, either.  Dozens of life plans.  Doesn’t os fiscal plans.  Dozens of ways to make money.  Dozens of names, to the point I’m now paranoid about who’s following me because Tal’s got so many usernames from multiple genders I could never keep track.  I thought it was quirky.  I was okay with the fact that Tal would one day want togo back to school and the next day want to open up a business.  The more I look at it, though, the more it’s another piece of the puzzle.

I’m honestly used to being the more moderate partner.  There are very few lines that are absolutes for me, and Tal managed to cross pretty much all of them in one fell swoop.  My problem wasn’t that Tal had brought religion into our relationship--which they had talked about months before--but started as they and Charlotte became more emboldened and started saying things that made me more and more uncomfortable.  You know, things that hurt me as a transwoman who had thought they were safely in a relationship where those things at least would be respected.

But given my partner was a cis/trans/nonbinary gay/bi/ace/straight man/woman/neither antitheist/theist, maybe I shouldn’t have been.  To be honest, in the nearly seven years we’d been together, the only constant had been...well, me.  I took that for granted, that they would keep loving me. Maybe I shouldn’t have.  If everything else can change, maybe it was always a matter of time.

I didn’t even really speak up at first in part because I expected this, too, to pass.  Surely, Tal respected and loved me enough to follow my discomfort at reading and hearing sexist and homophobic things.  It was only when it looked like this one was going to stick that I freaked out.

And hey, maybe you’re better at this, reader.  Maybe when someone tells you you don’t matter, when an intimate partner is cool with your gender identity and sexuality being treated as inferior or worthy of scorn, you can just brush that off.

I can’t.

And part of the irony there is that Tal helped me get there.  I’d literally never had another partner who would respect me the way they used to.  Other partners would reuse to acknowledge I was trans or to call me by my name, and I dealt with that because that was just the way things were, right?  So when someone comes along and listens to my problems, acknowledges my gender, calls me by my name, and even ostensibly understands some of what I’m going through, that’s a pretty big deal.  It’s also something I can’t undo.  I’m done letting people treat me like a cishet dude, and I’m done putting up with sexism and transphobia because that’s just “the way things are.”  I’ve seen things can be better than that, and I’m not going to give it up.

The problem is, when those close to you knife you in the back, it becomes harder.  And it’s probably my fault for attaching so much value to the person instead of the idea, but when someone you care about deeply no longer views you as an equal human being worthy of respect and basic dignity, it’s easy to want to retreat.  This is how I ended up back in the closet around fifteen years ago: not because of a single person, but because things had become so horrible, so dangerous, that I had no hope.  And that’s how it feels now.

I don’t fall in love often.  Like, it’s been over 20 years since I’ve been in a relationship that hit me this hard.  Maybe another relationship, I would have walked away, but I was still head-over-heels in love with someone who apparently no longer loved or respected me.  And that really hurts, but mostly confuses me.  If I’m not worthy of respect as a human being, why keep me around?  If not wanting my gender identity or sexuality mocked makes me such a dirty antisemite, why bother with me at all?  Did they really think  it was okay to devalue me?  Were they hoping to convince me that being denigrated was okay when they did it?  I don’t understand, and that’s actually what cuts the most.

Because it is all in the timing and the placement of words//I can chase it, I can beat it, I know it’s absurd//but I just can’t face it, can’t face it, because all that we see...

Is a mass-

ive

Blur.