#i really don't know what the overlap in terms of who is into them. so i included a summary on the au's source material

[creatingblackcharacters]

Hi there! Many apologies if I put my foot in my mouth here.

Do you have any rules for when to use BIPOC vs POC? I personally don’t like the term BIPOC for a number of reasons, most of which match the Newsweek article I link at the end, but since I’m nothing close to an expert, I wanted to check if you had an answer for what to do on that front. Possibly separately or possibly as part of the same question, do you have a preference as to which is used in your inbox? Happy to do either, even if the surge towards only ever using BIPOC makes me a little squeamish since I really struggle to find anyone championing it who doesn’t eventually turn out to be white when I look them up.

PS - I feel like I see both PoC and POC, but never BIPoC. Is there a reason for that, or are people just making inconsistent guesses at capitalization?

Newsweek article in question: https://www.newsweek.com/bipoc-isnt-doing-what-you-think-its-doing-opinion-1582494

I think it's really just a personal choice, fr. I have never cared for it, really 😅 I have better battles to fight (the proper use of 'NOUN of color'), and I get what they were trying to do, but... I tried and I just... I don't care for it.

It feels self serving to me. It's redundant and yet it sort of lumps Black and Indigenous folks together in a way that... It doesn't address that while we do have similarities and overlaps, we're not the same and shouldn't be dismissed so easily.

And also, "indigenous" doesn't necessarily mean 'Indigenous to the Americas', so without that added context to the conversation, you could be talking bout anywhere and those indigenous people could very well be white 😭 and if your point by then is "well I mean the ones of color" then by then you could have just said "people of color" already! 🤣 But that might be me overthinking it.

You could just refer to people by their names 😭 I'm not just an amorphous POC, I'm Black! So when you enter my inbox, say Black. No, don't refer to me as a POC/PoC or a BIPOC, you know what I am and what I've asked you to refer to me as. It's honestly incredibly insulting when I make posts specifically discussing Blackness and they get hit with the #poc #poc things. I do love my folk of color and will show solidarity ofc, but when I'm talking about Black people, I do mean Black people. And I'm pretty sure I can tell who's leaving those tags 😬

We're not all one lump solely defined by "not white"- when you know our identities, use them!

Sidebar, I also always misread it as "Bi and Indigenous people of color" 😭 Lmao you managed to accidentally hit on something I'm very passionate about but rarely speak on 😅

[drainbangle]

Rating: Teen and Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archival Warnings Relationships: Castti Florenz & Temenos Mistral, Castti Florenz/Malaya, Temenos Mistral & Roi Tags: Grief/Mourning, Hopeful Ending, To the Moon/SigCorp AU, feat. spoilers for lore across all games in each series, and a brief summary of the au's source material, i've been doing absolutely normal if the publish date indicates anything

"I've thought about destroying it, you know."

Castti's hand stops short of the car's door handle before turning back to look at Temenos. He leans back in the driver's seat, raising a brow before nodding his head in the direction of her apartment. "The Memory Editor. Yours, to be more precise—the old one you keep at home for after hours."

Or: Being confronted by your coworker for using a machine meant to fulfill patients' dying wishes on those still alive. In his Honda Civic, by the way.

[wonder-worker]

"My analysis is predicated on a distinction between the medieval concepts of authority, defined as the legitimate right to act, and of power, the ability to impose one’s will on others. By the High Middle Ages, inherited authority was associated with a fief, granting individuals the right to rule in a certain region according to certain prescribed regulations. While authority typically implies a chain of command, power, a more elusive quality, is defined abstractly as the ‘‘ability to act effectively on persons or things, to make or secure favorable decisions which are not of right allocated to the individuals or their roles.’’ According to this definition, power is much more elusive, based on personal effectiveness and influence rather than on sanctioned right to command. This distinction clearly operated in the Middle Ages, where the two concepts were related but not synonymous. Authority was associated with hereditary [or granted] titles and offices. However, while the possession of authority legitimated one’s actions, it did not guarantee their effectiveness. Conversely, while individuals who lacked authority could impose their will on others by force or influence, their actions would not have been considered legitimate. Although they are often used interchangeably by modern authors, authority and power referred to distinct attributes in the Middle Ages."

— Erin L. Jordan, "The "Abduction" of Ida of Boulogne: Assessing Women's Agency in Thirteenth-Century France", French Historical Studies, Volume 30, Issue 1 (Winter 2007)

[redsugarx]

Hanfu in Components: General Garment Terms (pt1)

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Attempting to sort of reboot the hanfu in components thing I wrote for Newhanfu a while back in a better organized way, so I guess this is a series? Purpose is to provide a more systematic way for people to learn about hanfu terminology, which is extremely complicated and constantly changing, but has mostly settled into some agreed upon definitions among the hanfu community.

Note: This is probably going to make the most sense for people who have already been interested in hanfu for a little while but don't know the technical terms for what they're seeing in the pretty pictures. If you're just starting out this might be a little overwhelming, especially since hanfu vernacular has variations based on what time period you're talking about and stuff like that! But of course feel free to look at it anyway :>

Here are terms that you'll see a lot when referring to a general type of garment. These are the equivalents to 'shirt,' 'skirt,' 'pants' etc. in English, where it's telling you broadly what kind of a garment it is, but not really any details about its style or what it might look like. I will structure my definition headers as (traditional character)/(simplified character)/(pinyin)(tone) going forward. Also using images from Cloud9 as much as I can bc I don't wanna deal with citing image sources lol, shoutout to our models

WORDS ACTUALLY JUST MEANING "CLOTHING"

衣/衣/yi1 - General term for clothing. More often than not refers to a top/shirt or a robe, but can refer to clothing in general as well, especially in modern usage. The yi radical looks like this: "衤" Basically if a character has that symbol on the left, it’s probably related to clothing in some way.

服/服/fu2 - Also a general term for clothing. Slightly more formal/technical in tone imo. Usually combined with 衣 for ���服 (more casual everyday way of saying clothing) or with 裝 for 服裝 (more formal way of saying clothing). Think the difference in tone between ‘clothes’ vs. ‘attire.’

TOPS (the clothing kind) & ROBES

衫/衫/shan1 - Shirt, unlined. Refers to a shirt/blouse in modern usage. Within hanfu, refers to a top (usually short, but sometimes long) that is unlined.

襖/袄/ao3 - Jacket/lined top. Refers to a parka-style jacket in modern usage (棉襖）. Within hanfu, refers to a top that is lined, typically on the thicker side. Can be long or short. More often than not it is worn as an outer layer.

袍/袍/pao2 - Robe. Refers to a top whose length extends past the knee. Usually robes are lined, but that’s not a requirement to be considered a robe. There is overlap with 衫/襖; aka a garment can be both a 袍 and a 衫 (long unlined robe) or a 袍 and an 襖 (lined robe), but not an 襖 and a 衫 (somehow lined and unlined at the same time, disobeys the laws of physics and logic, possibly quantum entity). 

深衣/深衣/shen1 yi1 - Literally ’deep clothing,’ also can be translated as robe, but more specific in that shenyi will typically be made up of a ‘top part’ and a ‘skirt part’ that are sewn together at the waist, rather than just being a really long top.

褙子/褙子/bei4 zi0 - Outer layer. Harder to define because it can refer to very different things depending on what dynasty you’re looking at. General rule though, it’s almost always an outer layer on a woman’s outfit.

BOTTOMS (the clothing kind)

裙/裙/qun2 - Skirt. Generally any garment that wraps around a person’s torso and covers the legs. 

褲/裤/ku4 - Pants/trousers. Similar to skirt except there are dedicated channels for each leg, aka there’s some separation happening at the crotch. Can be open or closed crotch, almost always worn under a skirt or robe.

Obviously there's a lot of other terms too but I'll get to them with time! Still a full time student, still learning about hanfu, blah blah blah. But yeah especially the more specific terms I will probably cover in a later post. Hope this is interesting enough for now :>

navigation: hanfu in components 1 2 3.1 3.2 4 ...

[mcflymemes]

AS SAID BY DAVRIN - PARTY BANTER *  assorted banter from dragon age: the veilguard

how safe is it? any reason to be worried?

that's reassuring.

that can't be a coincidence.

i'm the one who left. that's on me.

i don't regret the life i've lived. the things i've seen and done.

sometimes i wish i could have done both.

i made my choice.

i didn't appreciate my life at the time.

i miss the sense of a common purpose.

be careful. the things that pop out of nowhere usually bite you in the ass.

you're on clean-up tonight.

that's the idea.

it's an interesting line of work you're in.

enjoy your nightmare.

it's a good thing you're on our side.

i heard another rumor.

can she be trusted?

we know what we sign up for.

is it true you can control rocks now?

best not to question a gift.

you saved someone's life.

join the club.

i don't see you have a choice.

best way to come to terms with it is to face it.

still got a bad feeling, [name]?

no one was really sure.

i mean this in the kindest, most respectful way possible... no.

want some wine?

more for me. it's a good day for it.

i really should read more.

i thought you hated it out here.

whatever works for you.

don't say i didn't warn you.

no hard feelings.

you can't handle both of us.

what does that mean?

what else goes on there?

how did you survive it?

you like to keep things sparse.

a man who kills people for a living has to be able to move quickly. nowhere is home. everything's temporary.

they hired you?

i don't want to know anymore.

how do you decide when one of your targets deserves to die?

i'm serious. do you just kill anyone?

must be tough to sleep at night.

the things i hunt are pure evil. monsters. there are no shades of grey.

what if your target doesn't deserve to die?

could've fooled me.

maybe i pissed off the wrong guy at a bar.

what if i stole the guy's money?

you're avoiding the question.

i'll pass it on.

it's not about secrecy.

i mean, i get how you feel. but let's make this better, not worse.

you're not so bad yourself.

is there a question in there?

you must've seen stranger.

way i hear it, the city sleeps better with you in it.

seems we both spend our days hunting things most people don't want to know about.

i'm still trying to wrap my head around this whole thing.

it won't help our reputation, that's for sure.

i remember you.

is that what you call it? i call it a mess.

we're talking about a demon.

oh no, that really happened.

the thrill of the chase gets me out of bed.

i've had your coffee before.

seems like our work's going to overlap.

dragons are monsters.

i can see a day coming where you and i smack the crap out of each other.

i never said they did.

they acted like i rejected them.

i wanted to go my own way, not their way.

i didn't say i was the brightest kid.

never mind. forget i asked.

[bakuhatsufallinlove]

"Queer-coding" is only useful for a narrow range of media and it'd be great if we could stop using it for literally everything

Here's my problem with it:

The term originated to discuss negative media depictions of cultural stereotypes for LGBTQ people in the United States. It is inherently tied to the conditions of media censorship at play in the USA during the 1900s, with the Hays Code restricting depictions of anything it deemed "immoral."

Now, for whatever reason, people are using it to refer to literally anything they see as "kind of gay."

The term begins with the premise that making the audience see the character as queer is the creator's explicit intention. The creator knows the stereotype, you know the stereotype, so they are using the stereotype to convey to you something they can't say outright.

However, you can see how this goes awry, right?

The second we cross language, cultural, or even generational lines, this gets messy.

What traits are deemed queer? What behaviors or characteristics are seen as gay? The reality is this is a huge spectrum, and every culture has a different relationship with queerness in its history. For that matter, every nation has its own unique issues with censorship. A viewer from the USA may interpret a Japanese character as exhibiting stereotypically gay characteristics, but does that mean the Japanese creator intended it to be taken that way?

But then, if we try to account for what stereotypes Japanese media might use for queer characters to ascertain what the Japanese creator might have intended, we arrive at the same dead-end: the implication that queerness is only really portrayed via (usually negative) stereotypes.

This suggests that if media does not contain enough "clues" to imply a character is queer to the broadest possible audience, a queer reading of their story is out of the question. "Queer-coding" is treated as a metric of validity, a way to "prove" queer interpretations are allowable, yet it is based in stereotypes, censorship, and presumption of authorial intent.

The way queer-coding is continually brought into discussions about art essentially creates an ultimatum: media needs to be "explicit" by using direct (usually English language) terminology, or characters need to engage in things like kissing, declaring one's love, sexual activity, etc., yet even those are dismissed at times.

This creates a dynamic where art which is intentionally subtle or multifaceted may be seen as exhibiting cowardice rather than artistic complexity. It implies that if something is not "confirmed queer," queer themes cannot be read into it, queer subtext cannot be interpreted from it, and queer people are not allowed to identify with it.

This limits art. This builds walls that diminish human connection; it creates a situation where queer people are discouraged from seeing themselves in media not explicitly designated for them. Because, obviously, queer people are a completely different species from "normal people," right? Their feelings and experiences are so alien and distinct, there's no overlap anyone else could sympathize with.

You don't need permission to see queerness in art. You don't have anything to prove. Queer interpretations are just as valid as any other, and anyone who tells you different is selling something.

As I spoke about in this post, authorial intent is not more important than audience perception, and trying to infer the creator's intentions is a fool's errand. Especially in a situation where censorship is supposedly at play, any public statement from a creator could be reasonably disregarded as dishonest, which leaves us alone with ourselves and the work.

Which, by the way, is the only real way anyone experiences art. It's not you and the creator, it's you and the work. When people try to infer authorial intent, they are not discerning real, objective truth. They are sorting available information through a filter of what they consider believable before arriving at a subjective conclusion, which they then project onto a mental image of the creator.

In literary analysis, we select a "lens" through which to view art. This means that we decide to accept certain ideas as given fact and explore what the works says once we look at it that way. For example, we could accept as fact the idea that a number of the core cast are queer in some way. It posits the question: once we dismiss heterosexuality and cisgender identity as the only options, what do we see?

This is an intellectual concept, but the reality is that everybody naturally applies their own lens to art when they view it. This lens is not nearly so rigid or clearly defined, but it is a lens nonetheless, defined by their experiences, values, and individual personality.

I would love for people to stop using the phrase "queer-coding" quite so freely. It centers a need for validation and hinges that on "what the creator intended."

If you want some ideas for different language about this, consider these:

A theme might be queer by exploring broad topics queer people often struggle with, such as secrecy, shame, or self-acceptance.

The subtext of something might be queer in that one could read a double-meaning or deeper implication to the narrative device or scenario.

A work might contain allegory, symbolism, imagery or parallels that could be interpreted with queerness.

I don't think it's interesting to try to "win" by convincing you I personally know what the creator intended. That leaves the art static, unchanging, and lifeless. I would much rather tell you how I personally see the art and why, because that dynamic allows all of us examine the work more deeply.

In the end, it is not an author's edict in some external statement that gives art meaning. It is the audience. Our feelings are what give art meaning, and connecting with other people about what it all means to us is what keeps art alive.

[fairuzfan]

Hey, I've read your post reply on the ask about the Standing together movement, and there you mentioned that it's incorrect to separate Palestinians and Jews and create a false dichotomy when speaking about liberating Palestine and anti-occupation movement. Could you please elaborate on that? It's a very interesting take that I haven't heard before yet.

So I generally don't understand why we are separating "Palestinian" and "Jews" with no potential for overlap between the two. By separating them, this implies, fundamentally, that there can be no Jewish Palestinians which... is not true. Just even historically, Jewish Palestinians exist and continue to exist.

Why are they mutually exclusive terms within their mission statement when they wish to "stand together"? And I'm not saying this in a condescending manner, I'm saying this because I know there are Palestinians who live in Israel who insist on being referred to as Palestinian. They won't let their Palestinian identity be erased under any circumstances. But they're the only group at risk of having that happen to them. Jewish people are not at risk of having their Jewishness erased for being Palestinian. So how can it be "standing together" when you acknowledge that there is a divide, societally, between perceptions of identity where one is at risk of total destruction by another and you, yourself, do not risk anything?

Where do Jewish Palestinians fall in this dichotomy, exactly? Does that mean no Palestinian will be able to convert to Judiasm without giving up their Palestinian identity? Are Jewish people just innately separated from Palestinians as a whole? If so, what is the thing that categorizes "Palestinian" in their eyes? Is it their religion? Well it can't be, because Palestinians have a diverse array of religions and like I said, people who identity as Palestinian and Jewish exist and are at risk of having their "Palestinian" erased in favor of their "Jewish" one.

Is it their ethnicity? Also can't be, because there is a vast array of ethnicities within Palestinian society. Unless they mean Palestinian=Arab, which is erasure. It erases Armenian Palestinians who play an integral part in Palestinian culture, for example.

So like what is the separation exactly? How are these mutually exclusive categories and how are we defining them? Unless, which is the reason that underlies all this, you mean to say that there is a difference between people who are Palestinians and people are Jewish innately in some unidentifiable manner?

Now, many Palestinians who have Israeli citizenship are not really subject to equal rights lol. And those rights are taken away *because* they are Palestinian. You have to acknowledge that. So when we say "Jewish and Palestinian" in a mission statement where you intend to """solve""" inequality, you're already setting that distinction in your mind that there is an actual difference between these people. So it's problematic in that vein.

But also, the group doesn't address the systematic abuses Palestinians face for YEARS, even before the Likud government. You can't erase that and attribute it to Netanyahu only. You have to address that the very system of Israel was founded on the mass expulsion and erasure of Palestinians, that includes Palestinian Jews.

But again, we have this dichotomy of "Jewish" and "Palestinian," setting into motion that "Palestinian" is somehow an identity that is separate from "Jewish." And through what definitions are we imposing that difference? Through... race science? Through cultural differences? Well, again, what about people who have cultural overlaps. Like if a nonJewish Palestinian marries a Jewish person who is not Palestinian and their child is growing up with both cultures? What does that mean for them? What does that mean for the two people who got married? And even Jewish Palestinians, are they having to give up their Palestinian side for marrying someone Jewish? Won't that cause further inequality within our groups? Isn't this separation just a nicer worded version of segregation in that way?

We have to acknowledge that it is within the state of Israel's interests, at their core, to separate these two identities. So by playing into this narrative, we're continuing the very colonization of history as they try to rewrite the past, implying that Jewish Palestinians especially were not considered a part of Palestinian culture and werent allowed to partake in it.

And it's just, to me, very racist to assume that there can't be overlap between these two types of people. It's happened in Palestine for centuries. But when Balfour comes in and is like "here you go, Jewish people of European cultural heritage, here is your homeland, nevermind the other people who have customs and traditions here, just do whatever you want and get out of Europe," everyone just nods their head like yeah that's reasonable. They didn't even try to learn Palestinian culture and life they just kicked us out. I'd argue that Palestinians would have welcomed Jewish immigrants who sought a safe homeland, so long as they didn't kick us out and enact nearly a century of violence. Palestine is the holy land for a reason! This land is the convergence of faiths and ideas and culture in such a unique way. Labeling it "Palestine" emphasizes that Palestinians are diverse and allow for an overlap of identities!

Essentially, when you try to separate groups of people like this, particularly when the separation of "Palestinians" (or more commonly referred to as "arabs" in Israeli society. Even our identities are erased to homogenize us) and "Jews," it makes it seem like Palestinians are fundamentally anti-jewish and antisemitic. And historically, just doesn't even make any sense.

[wheeloffortune-design]

re: latinoamerican/hispanic/south american discourse

out of nowhere but i see this often enough online and it bugs me

people fight because the terms latino, south-american, and hispanic, all mostly overlap but the definitions are slightly different and exclude slightly different people.

South-America: Countries from the South American continent. Does not include Mexico and Central America.

Hispanic: Countries and people that speak Spanish. Includes Spain, does not include Brazil.

Latino: This one is the trickiest because the definition is a bit vague, and that creates conflict. Mostly, latinoamerican countries mean the ones conquered by Spain and Portugal, so Mexico and everything south of it. No, I know French is a latin language but it does not include the French colonies (source: I'm from Québec. We do not consider ourselve latinos. Only pedantic people in Youtube comments use this as a gotcha.)

Mostly, it means a culture, but that's also tricky because even though there are similarities, of course Mexico and Chile won't have the same culture. And as I understand, the Carribean coutries are even more unique, but there's a history of racism in the latino community that tends to exclude them and that's not cool. And of course, Indigenous people can decide to call themselve latinos if they want to, or not, and that's alright.

So, you have this mass of countries, cultures, and people, that do have similar traits, but are also different enough to argue about everything. Just ask them what is the word for a drinking straw.

I think the problem is that the world tends to put us all in the same basket. Africa has to live with that too, but I'm starting to hear more and more "Ok but which African country, you can't just say someone is 'from Africa'". And I feel like people understand now that "the Orient" is not a thing and I do see people say that all Asian countries are not the same. Of course there's still a long way to go, but I don't even hear that when talked about Latinoamerica.

And! Mostly, what enrages me, is that we are not kind between ourselves, or with our diaspora! Every day I see comments saying you're not a real latino of you don't speak perfect Spanish, if you don't dance, if you can't recognize a bachata from a salsa, if this, if that.

Colonization, slavery, and then US imperialism fucked up most of our countries, installing dictators and fucking up the economy. Of course you will have a massive exile, and our people will be spread across the world. Of course you will have second generations immigrants that only have what their parents taught them for crumbs of the culture. Of course you will have children that will struggle to speak Spanish because they don't use it everyday, and calling abuelita once a month is not enough to keep a language.

These immigrants, these children, will be told all their lives that they don't belong to the country they now live in. Please don't tell them they don't belong in the culture they had to leave too.

What I mean with all this: The world brushes off too easily, and we deserve to be treated with more respect. But before we come to that, we need to respect each other, and celebrate our differences instead of using them to determine who is and who isn't part of the club.

There may be a lot of differences between me, a pale skinned, black haired, Chilean immigrant in Québec who speaks mostly French; and a Black Puerto Rican who lived in their country their whole life; and a white and blonde Mexican who now lives in the US but still grew up in Quintana Roo; and kids all over that don't really care for their parent's music or food because they got their own things going on; and people who struggle to learn and keep Spanish and Portugese.

But if we decide to all call ourselves latinos, then that's what we are, and that means we're family.

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

I don't think the ones who are disappointed about having a male Yuu for the next chapter are disappointed because they don't want a male Yuu or hate it, but they just want to see more femme Yuu since we only get one until now.

I personally don't mind whether it's a male or a female, but I may be slightly disappointed if it's a male—not because I hate male Yuus, but just because I would like to see more than just one femme Yuu with different personalities, like we get a strong femme Yuu, so it would be nice to get a more timid femme Yuu so all the fandom get a bit of what they prefer. 

It would be nice getting different personalities for Male Yuus too!

[Referencing this post!]

These asks are on a similar subject, so I decided to put them together!

Be warned that I do discuss negative fandom behaviors + comments regarding femme and masc Yuus in this post; please proceed with caution and feel free to skip if you don't feel you’re ready for it. Take care of yourselves ^^

To the first ask: As I said in my original reply, it’s totally fine to want to see more femme Yuus. There is nothing inherently wrong with this. And, of course, wanting a femme Yuu does not automatically equate to hating/not wanting a masc Yuu. The two exist as separate things—they can overlap, but that isn’t representative of the majority.

You can and should be allowed to voice disagreement, disappointment, etc. with whatever decisions Twst makes. What I worry about is that, depending on how these thoughts and opinions are expressed, it may still come off as intolerant, even if unintentionally. For example, if I said, “Aww, masc Yuu this time? I thought Yuu would be femme because of the boy-girl-boy pattern”, it’s pretty neutral. But if I had instead said, “ARE YOU FR????? 😭 😭 😭 ANOTHER MASC YUU?? As if we don’t already have enough of these mfers”… It comes off much differently, see? Both statement are demonstrating disappointment, but the latter reads as more disparaging due to things like word choice, capitalization, etc. (And again, even if it is not the OP’s intention, their words could still be interpreted as unwelcoming to masc/nb fans.)

Like you, I don’t really mind what gender Yuu is and it would be nice to have more diversity in their identities and personalities!! (My favorite so far has got to be Yuuta; I like how earnest and heartfelt he is; he has very different vibes than Yuuken and Yuuka, who were both more stoic by comparison.) I only wish that the wording used for the topic would be more mindful, as it’s already alienating enough for masc/nb fans when so much of the fandom content seems to revolve around the feminine perspective (such as assuming she/her pronouns for reader inserts). When fellow fans use non-inclusive language (yes, even if unintentionally), it can result in a space that isn’t very friendly.

Another concern that I have is that people are looking to official materials to (for lack of a better term) “validate” the existence of their own creations. This was a prominent issue back in the days of only Heartslabyul and Savanaclaw. When the Episode of Heartslabyul had just begun with Yuuken, there was outcry from the English-speaking side of the fandom because people believed that this "canonized" Yuu as being male and thereby "invalidated" the several femme Yuusonas that existed in the fandom. Then, when the Episode of Savanaclaw came out, revealing Yuuka (our first "official" female Yuu), there was rejoicing because people now felt that femme Yuus were "canonized". I don't know, I just feel like people should be able to create what they want and be able to have fun in the process without having to rely on official sources to make them feel justified to make art, writing, etc. Your creations should be valid and fulfilling to you regardless of whatever interpretations official sources introduce.

To the second ask: I am NOT claiming that there is no such thing as the disparaging of femme Yuus. People disparaging masc Yuus and people disparaging femme Yuus are two different things. Saying that one happens is not ignoring or denying that the other one also happens. I have unfortunately witnessed plenty of both, and there have been very vitriolic comments made against femme and masc Yuus 😔 For every "femme Yuus shouldn't exist, this is an all-boys school and if you have a femme Yuu then you’re dumb" or "you're only making a femme Yuu to ship them with the guys/yumes are so pathetic and cringe" I've seen, I've also seen a "masc Yuus are so ugly" or "male Yuus and OCs are just ripoffs of their superior female counterparts". None of these comments are okay to make, they all just fuel resentment in the fandom space. This is not an issue of which side is “worse”. Both sides in the debate are bad because they put people down and perpetuate gender-based intolerance. The ask from my original post is not the only person I have seen being disappointed at the possibility of another male Yuu. There's been a lot of the same sentiment floating around on various socials and Twst servers, both now and back then (around the time(s) of Yuuken and/or Yuuka's releases). As I've said before, expressing disappointment is not an issue in of itself; the issue is that the manner in which a select few express their disappointment can be aggressive--and if those are the ones who speak the loudest, then it doesn't make this fandom space feel very open. This is true whether you are talking about femme Yuu hate, masc Yuu hate, just... hate in general for any kind of Yuu.

Twst is a joseimuke. By definition, it is a game with a target demographic of women--and that means all of the playable characters (not including the player/self-insert character) will most likely be guys. That's why Night Raven College is an all-boys school by design. It's just a very convenient location for a joseimuke. It doesn't mean the devs wanted to make another "exclusively male masculine space" like those that exist in real life. The main cast being primarily men appeals to and attracts an audience of largely (straight) women and has nothing to do with the existence of irl spaces for men (where women may actually be discouraged from being present or at least feel uncomfortable there). There are opposite intentions in these scenarios. It’s like demanding that a mainstream otome game include more female love interests when the target audience of an otome is typically women; naturally, most of the love interests would be men—not because of sexism or a dislike of women/not wanting to welcome women, not because the in-universe locations are “men only”, but because of the gaming genre. If we're talking about the Twst fandom itself, it's already mostly women; in what way is it a male masculine space? Trying to be inclusive of masc/nb fans doesn't mean the fandom is suddenly going to be inundated with men or that men will start bullying women out of this space. A lot of the femme Yuu hate, for examples, comes from OTHER women in the fandom, not men. Particular forms of hatred are not exclusive to gender, and I don't think we should be perpetuating it by pointing fingers.

Yuu is poised to be whatever the player wants them to be! It's why they aren't really referred to by specific pronouns and a lot of their talents and other traits are left ambiguous--so the player can project as much or as little as they want onto them. I feel that it isn't too wild of a wish to hope that the fandom can carry the same open-minded energy.

[hannahbarberra162]

I was wondering if you could do an SFW Alpha!Marco x Omega!Reader ABO Drabble? I don’t know if you would do a soft power dynamic between the two, where Reader is under Marcos Division. They have a big fat crush on them but low-key refuse to acknowledge it until they’re stranded on an island together. Reader goes into heat and usually they would just power through it in their own or ask Tate for suppressants. However no one is available and Marcos the only one around that catches it before Reader gets hunkered down. He goes into Mother Hen mode cause, Y’know he’s their division commander and wants to make sure they’re okay, however reader gets flustered and it’s just angtsy sweetness

Soda licious, Nonnie. I absolutely love this idea….. I think I kept the gist of what you were looking for. Hope there’s enough angst for you <3

I’ve been thinking about a night nurse reader for a long time but didn’t know where to put her - I was originally going to pair her with Haruta… BUT

Imagine you’re an Omega in the First Division...

And I wrote a second half :)

~~~

“Tate, I don’t think I can stay on the ship anymore,” you lamented to your friend, tossing back another shot. It was Girl’s Night on the Moby, meaning you had a rare opportunity to spend some quality time with Tate. All the nurses were hanging out in the galley, which was closed off to the men of the crew. You enjoyed the monthly girls nights for the atmosphere and time spent with your friends and coworkers, especially your old friend Tate. As the night nurse, you didn’t see her much except for an hour a day when your shifts overlapped in the morning and evenings. Tate had hired you to run the infirmary at night so everyone else would feel secure enough to get a good night’s sleep.

You’d met Tate long ago, the two of you bonding in nursing school over a shared interest in helping those less fortunate. You’d become study buddies and had been friends ever since. Over the years as your lives had taken different turns you’d kept in touch, keeping each other up to date on the adventures you’d taken.

Not that you had been helping the unfortunate, it turns out you needed to take a regular job to earn a living. Before working for Whitebeard, you had been the ship nurse for Doflamingo. The gig had been alright but really boring as Doflamingo didn’t sail very often. Save for the few times a year he left for Warlord meetings, you spent most of your time on the ship doing nothing and waiting around. You didn’t renew your contract with the Warlord and were taking short term jobs at different hospitals when you’d gotten a letter from Tate inviting you to be the night nurse for the Whitebeard Pirates.

After interviewing with Tate and Marco, you accepted the unconventional job and you’d been with them ever since. It was interesting, fun, and there was always something going on with 1,000 wild pirates on board. In terms of clinical care, you enjoyed your work and found tending to the Emperor’s crew to be rewarding in its own way. You enjoyed interacting with Whitebeard, the old man reminding you of your own grandfather who you missed dearly. No, the problem wasn’t with the job or the crew, you thought to yourself.

“Why do you wanna leave me? I thought you liked it here,” Tate whined, grimacing as the bite from the vodka hit her throat. Tate wasn’t using a chaser, the two of you already a few drinks into the night. Not that it was a problem, you’d both given your livers quite the workout during nursing school.

“I do like it here, it’s a great job but -” you started, trying to break the news gently.

“It’s Marco, isn’t it? I knew it, I knew you liked him. You’ve got good taste, he’s a catch. You don't need to leave because of some crush," Tate said with a smirk, making you choke on the beer you were drinking between shots.  The Commander in charge of the First Division was...something else. He was smart, kind, charming, and an incredible doctor. His handsome smile disarmed you daily as you passed off the patient reports to him at shift change. He treated you like an equal, not like a lowly Beta nurse as you’d come to expect from Alpha doctors. His scent was amazing, better than anyone you’d ever been around before. And yes, you could admit to yourself that he was stunningly handsome. You weren’t sure what lucky star he’d been born under to make him such a perfect person. 

“No, it’s not that. I don't have a crush on him, I just don’t know if I can keep this up,” you said, motioning to your whole body.  Marco was one thing, but you’d worked with intelligent and sweet doctors before. No, the bigger issue was that you were an Omega. It was well known on the seas that Whitebeard didn’t allow Omegas onto his crew, not even among the nurses. He said that they caused nothing but trouble as their scents and heats would throw the crew into chaos. And so it had been…until you’d come around. Tate begged you, literally on her knees, to join the crew. She said there wasn’t anyone else she trusted to take care of the crew at night, that she couldn’t sleep at night over worry for the patients, that you were the only person who could fill the job. She said she’d keep suppressants secretly stocked on the ship and that no one would ever know. You thought it was a bad idea to disobey an Emperor’s command but the offer of working with Tate on the ship was too alluring to turn down.

Month over month you took the suppressants to dull your heat down to an unpleasant sensation similar to period cramps. It messed with your head sometimes but overall the medications were working. None of the many Alphas on board smelled your heats or tried to scent you and they treated you like any other Beta. It was kind of freeing in a way, not to be taken less seriously because of your designation. Omegas were thought to be flighty, vapid, and childish, even if it wasn’t true. You were finally getting a taste of what it would have been like to be born as something other than Omega and you'd been enjoying it.

The suppressants worked but the stress you felt every month was overwhelming. You didn’t want to have to answer to Marco in case they ever failed. You started having stress dreams about going into heat and someone finding out, the Captain making you walk the plank to your demise because you were an Omega. Knowing Whitebeard's personality you didn’t think it would happen but ultimately he was a powerful pirate who answered to no one. So even though you enjoyed the work, you didn’t think you’d renew your contract with Tate. You just couldn't take the stress of hiding your dynamic from Marco anymore.

“Oh, come on. No one knows and no one will ever know. The meds work just fine and besides I don’t think anyone would care at this point. You’ve saved me n’ Marco so much anxiety by being here that Whitebeard would make an exception for you,” Tate explained, already eyeing the bottle of vodka for another shot.

“I don’t know, I think it also does something to me. Y’know, avoiding…that for so long,” you said quietly, indicating your heat. Suppressants weren’t meant to be taken long term and you’d already been on them for six months, you needed to take a break or they’d stop working. You’d have to pay the piper and suffer through another heat. You didn’t know where you’d do it - you’d have to find some island far away from anyone on the ship that might know you. 

“Just do it on the next set of islands - there’s a huge city filled with all kinds of people on the main one but you can rent private cabins on the smaller surrounding islands. If you’re missing from the crew no one will notice with so many people and smells around. Rent a cabin room and find some rando to help you. I’ll cover for you, say you need a break from the crew if anyone asks,” Tate argued, filling your shot glasses again. You hummed, mulling over the idea in your head. It wasn’t a bad plan and you hadn’t had a break from work in months.

“Alright, that might work. Let’s think through the details tomorrow - after these SHOTS!” you finished with a whoop, causing the other nurses to woo their enthusiastic reply. You’d deal with all your Omega problems in the morning, it was time to have fun with your friends. 

A few days later you came around to Tate’s idea. The Moby docked at a densely populated island known for its nightlife and partying. Surrounding the main island were quieter islands known for their tranquility and privacy. No one was likely to find you during your leave, you’d booked a solo cabin on a small island. You were spending a ton of money on the cabin and you didn’t think the other crew would bother spending their hard earned wages on something that they couldn’t drink.

You were preparing to leave the ship, making sure your notes and reports were all finished when you felt someone looking over your shoulder. Glancing up, you saw the beautiful blue eyes of the First Division Commander and became flustered.

“Oh, h-hi. I’m just wrapping up, I have um - well, you know, you approved it -”

“Shore leave,” Marco finished your sentence with a lazy smile. He glanced down over your notes from his high vantage point and leaned over your shoulder. Your face burned with a flush as he took the pen from your hand and crossed out a word in your report and rewrote it from behind.

“You accidentally wrote carotid with two ‘r’s. I’m a stickler for spelling,” Marco said, putting the pen back in your hand. You hadn’t moved an inch, the heat and proximity of his body throwing your senses into overdrive. If Marco stayed for a moment longer you were going to combust from all the blood rushing to your face.

“Whatever perfume you’re wearing for your trip is becoming yoi,” Marco said with a tilt of his head and a smile, straightening up and walking away. You felt sweat dripping down your back from sudden stress- you weren’t wearing any perfume. You’d stopped your suppressants that day in anticipation of going into heat for the next few days but you hadn’t expected your scent to begin to come on so strongly so quickly.

“Uh, t-thank you Mar- Commander. Commander Marco,” you stammered, trying to end the conversation so you could get away from the ship full of Alphas.

“Just Marco is fine. I’ll be on shore leave too, maybe we can meet up for a drink?�� His tone was calm but his eyes held a fire in them that you couldn’t identify.

“Ah, oh. Um, I’m gonna be busy, I have to - um…I’m busy,” you trailed off, not wanting to tell him the reason you’d declined. If he asked you a second time you felt like you’d fold immediately, telling him anything he could ever want to know about you. 

“Of course, maybe another time then yoi,” he said easily, unwinding his stethoscope from around his neck to continue working. 

“Y-yeah, another time,” you said, still blushing.

You practically threw your notes at Tate to get away from Marco as you left the infirmary that morning. Any other time you might have considered his offer to get a drink but today was not happening. You were already tired from working the night before and you still had a ways to go before you could rest. The urge to nest was building in you, you could hardly stand being on the dinghy to the island with the Alphas and Betas on the crew. It felt like it took an eternity to get from the ship to the little island with the cabin you’d rented. You were bursting with the need to arrange the clothes you’d brought with you as you disembarked on the tiny island. You were walking on the path to your cabin when a familiar bird landed on the dock of the island and transformed. You felt the blood drain out of your face as you ducked and tried to hide behind a tree from your Commander. It didn’t work as Marco spotted you right away and waved. Cursing in your head you couldn't think of a way to get rid of him without at least speaking to your boss.

He began walking over to you with a smile but it faltered into something more serious as he sniffed the air. Tilting his face and looking about, he quickly located what he was looking for - you. He walked briskly over to you in long strides, his brow furrowed as he continued to take deep breaths through his nose.

“Come along,” Marco said calmly like he was talking to an errant child, taking your forearm in his large hand. You bristled at the contact, hoping he was just smelling your stronger scent like in the morning, not reacting to you going into heat. Maybe he was just upset that you’d turned him down for a drink saying you were busy and found out you were alone on a vacation island instead. There was no way he should know you were going into heat this early, the suppressants should hold you over for a few hours until you had time to make your nest.

“W-wait, I need to get to my cabin, I rented -” you tried to object weakly.

“No, you’ll stay in mine, I rented the only other cabin on the island. It’s bigger and has better accommodations. I need a break from my siblings every now and again yoi. I didn’t expect you to be here - and going into heat,” Marco said with a pointed look as he pulled you towards the larger cabin. Your hopes were dashed along with your future - you hung your head as you continued to trail behind your Commander, tears falling unbidden down your cheeks. Finally reaching the little house, Marco opened the door and pushed you gently inside. When the door shut, your fingers itched to begin making your nest in the bedroom, wherever it was.

Marco was right, his cabin was way better than the one you had rented. It had two bedrooms, a full kitchen and a huge claw footed bathtub. You hadn’t had a bath since you’d joined the Whitebeard Pirates and the thought of soaking in hot water was enough to make you swoon. But you had to deal with Marco first, your Commander looking at you sternly as you set your bag on the floor.

“How long do you have until your heat comes on?” Marco asked with concern. He was standing in front of you as you studied the floor at his feet. You couldn’t make eye contact with him right now, it was too overwhelming. He was your boss, your Commander, and the only Alpha in the room and you didn’t want to make things worse.

“It’s supposed to come in about two to three hours,” you whispered. Marco tutted at you, wiping your tears off your cheek with his thumb.

“And what was your goal yoi? To have it here, alone on the island? What if another Alpha smelled your scent and tried to get to you? What if the pain became too unbearable and you suffered? Not a very good plan.” he said, chastising you gently while cupping your cheek. The heat building in you had you wanting to nuzzle into his hand but you were able to stop yourself - for now. You took a deep breath and held it to calm yourself down.

“I didn’t - wasn’t - I’ve been on suppressants,” you stated plainly, glad to be done lying to Marco. 

“I figured that out yoi. I won’t help you through it if you don’t want me to. But I’d like you to stay here where I can keep you safe. I would feel…neglectful if you were hurt during an unattended heat,” he said, stroking his fingers along your cheek.

“Because you’re my Commander?” you asked in a whisper.

“Something like that. Go on now, make your nest,” Marco replied, picking up your bag and handing it to you. You grabbed it with both arms, clutching it to your chest. What you really wanted was the shirt he was wearing and his sash - you needed it for your nest. Maybe you’d ask later but for now you were already ashamed enough at being caught lying to the Emperor and being caught going into heat by your boss. You didn't know what the punishment was going to be but your mind was already clouding with the heat. Scurrying along, you quickly found the bedroom and threw your clothes on the bed. You didn’t have much time before you were hit by the pain of heat onset, you had to hurry. 

You felt Marco watching you from the door frame as you stripped the bed of its blankets and pillows to move them around. Sniffing through the room, you tossed out the rank decorative pillows into the hallway.

“Do you need anything else? Any more linens?” Marco asked, still watching you.

“Ah, no. I think I brought enough,” you said, staring at his sash. Following your gaze, he removed his sash wordlessly and handed it to you with a soft smile. You flushed furiously but took the garment, barely able to stop yourself from putting it over your face to bask in the scent.

“And did you bring ibuprofen for when the pain starts?” Marco asked as you worked his sash into your half built nest.

“It doesn’t help much,” you said while arranging the sheets into a new formation. Marco hummed and continued to watch you. Having him observe your process was even more nerve wracking than it usually was to go into heat. Part of you wanted to tell him to leave but another part was preening for the Alpha in the room. Pushing off the wall, Marco walked towards you slowly. You watched him warily, putting down the shirt in your hands.

“What?” you asked suspiciously as he approached you.

“It’s alright, I’m not going to yell at you. I’m disappointed you hid the truth from me but now’s not the time for that discussion. We can talk it all through later. Tell me what you need, little Omega.”

You cleared your throat and looked up at the handsome doctor. He was watching you with concern, like you were something precious about to shatter. No one had helped you in so long, you'd been taking care of yourself for years. Maybe just this once you could depend on someone else, on someone you knew you could trust.

“I need you, Marco.”

[creature-wizard]

How the mythology of starseeds, indigo children, crystal children, rainbow children, etc. harms kids

Something I didn't talk about in my last post is how New Age is often harmful to young children, so I'm going to talk about it here.

Here's a quick rundown on terminology for anyone who doesn't already know:

Starseed: An alien soul incarnated in a human body, typically for the purpose of "raising the Earth's vibrational frequency" (read: convert people to New Age beliefs).

Indigo/Crystal/Rainbow Child: A child born with a spiritually advanced soul, whose life purpose is to bring the New Age into being.

If you do a quick websearch on any of these terms, you'll find that the alleged signs of being one of these overlaps with traits associated with autism and ADHD. Many websites will just straight-out say that these children are commonly mistaken for having autism or ADHD. Sometimes you'll find people who claim autism and ADHD don't actually exist at all, but were created by the conspiracy to control and suppress these kids.

What often happens is that New Age parents see their autistic and ADHD children displaying these "signs," and decide that their kids are one of these special souls. So rather than giving their children the help and support they actually need, they project and burden them with incredibly high expectations. We're talking about parents expecting their kids to be able to work miracles or have access to all of this incredibly advanced wisdom that they simply just don't.

Various people I've seen on this website who were raised by New Age parents have spoken about how this kind of thing messed them up. They basically have religious trauma from it. Deciding that your kid has special powers and a special purpose because they meet a very spurious criteria is not okay.

When I was a kid, I absolutely would have fit most definitions of a starseed. I believed in magic, fairies, aliens, and psychic powers. Sci-fi and fantasy was my jam. I loved to draw and play elaborate games of pretend. The idea of helping and healing people appealed to me majorly. And, well, I had undiagnosed autism and ADHD.

But you know what I didn't have?

The kind of special spiritual gifts and innate wisdom people associate with starseeds and the rest.

In fact, as far as I could tell, everyone around me seemed to be more psychically and spiritually gifted than me, for no reason I could ever work out. It was actually kind of traumatizing, because I felt like something was wrong with me.

So yeah, deciding a kid must be some special, extra-magical kind of soul because they have certain characteristics and interests is really not good. Parents who do this are essentially forcing their own egos onto their children, who will very likely end up traumatized from the whole ordeal.

[drdemonprince]

Your post about "transitioning to escape gender but then there's more gender" has been rotating furiously in my mind since I saw it. When I first realized I was trans at age 15, I identified as agender, but I knew I wanted to go on T and get top surgery so I decided it would be simpler to tell everyone I was a trans man and that just kind of became the truth. Now 10 years later I'm sorta starting to feel like I wanna actually be agender again, but the idea of an identity shift like that at my current age is terrifying and idek who I'd tell, or how I'd do it, and I don't think I wanna stop using he/him exclusively, and I have no idea why I'm telling *you* this other than that I'm scared to talk to anyone I know about it because it feels like somehow admitting that I was wrong about the gender I fought like hell to become, even though i don't really think that's the case I think my sense of self might just be continuously evolving... but I just wanna say you talking about having a gender shift like once every several years is helping me process this rn and feel like I'm not faking anything now AND wasn't faking anything before.

Dog i am right there with you. As a kid I always thought gender was bullshit, the coercive nature of it disgusted and scared me and I rebelled against it the best that I could. I loathed being assigned to any gender category, I never identified as a "girl", but I didn't really identify with any other category either. Puberty terrified me (and of course, it does most young people, but it felt like it would only more deeply entrench the category that I was assigned to in other people's minds, it made it more difficult to escape). I had trans friends as a teen but it did not occur to me to transition because there was really no end goal that I wanted to head toward, I just knew what I wanted to avoid and not experience. I coped mostly by degendering my body with a fairly androgynous style and way of presenting myself to the word and mannerisms, but also by starving myself which was not so great, and not sustainable. I considered transness for myself, even trying on a friend's binder and presenting masculinely at certain queer events, but it seemed to me at the time like just another way in which to obsess over gender, a foolish coercive socially constructed thing that i was trying to avoid.

In my 20s, I learned more about nonbinary people and figured that explained things pretty well. I was enamored with the transition journeys of some other trans people, largely trans women more than trans masculine ones (with some trans-effeminate faggot boy exceptions), but I still didn't want to take on all the expense and uncertainty and hassle of navigating the medical system for myself. I didn't think that the pursuit of being happy merited taking on so many risks or fiddling with myself so much. I saw it as an extravagance I didn't deserve, I guess, and I also couldn't locate a target outcome that seemed desirable enough for me. I was still dealing with an eating disorder and recovering from some trauma and didn't really think about my life in the long term. I guess I still don't, haha, whoops.

Eventually I came out as nonbinary, and nobody really gave a shit. There is a lot of useless, solidarity-breaking discourse that happens online about essentially who is "more" oppressed, binary trans people or nonbinary people, and a lot of that fight amounts to the two groups shouting about the ways in which they annoy one another without there being any cogent analysis of power and where oppression comes from (let alone how much those two categories overlap).

But I will say that being a they/them was far more difficult than being a trans guy socially and institutionally, because your identity is completely illegible to every system around you. "binary" trans people struggle under this too, but i have found there are some immense benefits to having a socially and institutionally legible target gender. nobody would fucking actually they/them me. not anyone. not even other trans people and queer people. there were no public gendered spaces for me. there were no spaces for me. there was no way to move through the medical system, professional life, and other public institutions as a nonbinary person. i was still just a cis woman in everyone's eyes. including the people who claimed to support me. and it was massively frustrating.

and so i think ultimately, i took my frustrations with not being at all able to escape coerced gendering as a nonbinary person and combined that with the affinity i do feel for queer men and the general sense of misery i was still experiencing in my life and decided what the hell, i'll round myself up to being a trans guy. i upped my T dose, i dressed more masculinely, i eventually got a super masculine hair cut that really squared off my jawline and got me gendered correctly, and i started more consciously inhabiting queer men's spaces.

and it was pretty dope. for a while. i felt the rush of having gotten away with something. when people effortlessly gendered as male i felt freed at last from the pressure to be a woman. i was no longer being coerced into being something that i was not. i had escaped the enforced category so much that people couldn't even see the history of that category being pushed onto me. there was relief.

but then. as always happens. people made little comments about my handshake being too weak for a man. the hypermasc dudes at the leather bar rolled their eyes at me and all the other effeminate dudes swanning around the bar. the people who picked me up off the apps or at the sauna would always let it slip, eventually, that they had a lot of experience with trans guys, or had most recently been dating all trans guys, and it would make me feel like a stock character to them, yet another category into which all kinds of assumptions had been projected. a type not a person. a few people said my haircut made me look like i was in the military or described me as actually masculine, which was equally jarring because it was so incorrect. people tried to affirm me by saying i was such a dude, i was such a man, i was such a fag, i was such a gay bro, pawing all over me leaving the mark of all their assumptions and oversimplifications behind. i had tried to run away from gender and there i was just BASTING all the time in everybody's goddamn assumptions about gender. trans people didn't talk about it any less than cis people did, they were just as fucking confining to be around.

it honestly feels really dirty. when people try to affirm your gender constantly and can't stop talking about it, when people look past you and see only your body, your history, or the role they have typecast you in, when people use your body as an outlet for their own gender or sexuality explorations, when they keep trying to measure every single facet of existence up into being masculine or being feminine or being toppy or bottomy or any other gendered type, it's claustrophobic.

as a trans man i tried playing this whole gender game and the second i started winning i began to feel even more disgusted with myself. it wasn't a victory or an escape, it was a capitulation. exploring with my identity and presentation has brought positive things into my life and my health has gotten better as a result, and i've made wonderful friends who, like me, are disaffected by this coercive gendering system. so i don't regret any of that. but trying to make myself legible under the existing gendered system was a fool's fucking errand. i wish i hadnt done it to myself and i wish i hadnt had it pushed onto me. to be clear, it was cissexist, binarist society that forced it onto me; even when other queer people coated me in their gendered assumptions that is obviously a byproduct of societal conditioning, and it's conditioning that ive reinforced in my own behavior and outlook toward others plenty of times too. we all do it, and we are all wronged by the existing coercive gender system.

i dont even care how i fucking identify anymore and i have no intention of changing pronouns again or anything, i'm so bored of it, i just actually want off this fucking thing. im not interested in trying to make others understand what i am anymore or in who i am even being simply categorizable, i dont want to obsess anymore over how i am perceived or to attempt engineer my appearance and mannerisms to broadcast an identity to anyone. i dont even want to fuck anybody right now at all because im so sick of how much that's a gender pantomime for people. i want off this fuckin ride man im so done.

it's kind of freeing, to hit this point of complete gender apathy, and i think it is a pretty common stage of identity development for a lot of queer people who have explored multiple identities and roles over time. there is no category that i actually am, or that anyone is, there are just the frameworks that society has given us to work with to understand ourselves, and the ways in which we flatten who we are to be able to make sense of the world using those frameworks. but who i actually am is so much more contextual and mutable than all that. i am a different person in the classroom than i am on the train platform than i am in the bedroom than i am cuddling on the couch than i am when i'm working out than i am when curled up on the floor crying than i am at a big furry convention. who i am continues to change as new people come in and out of my life and age and change and my body alters and as the weather turns. who fuckin knows man it's nothing and everything. i want to let it just be

[aromanticmina]

The 5 common questions people have about aplatonics

so, I've seen so many blogs on the aplatonic tag having to answer the same questions over and over again, so I figured I could make a list so that people can have an easier time getting to the answers they are looking for! (and apl people can just link back to this post if they're asked one of this questions, if they want to)

What does aplatonic mean?

Aplatonic is a term that refers to the lack of (or experiencing little) platonic attraction or platonic love, it can also mean having trouble forming platonic relationships due to trauma or being neurodivergent.

2. Does that mean aplatonic people don't have friends?

Not necessarily, there are aplatonic people who don't (desire to) have friends or wouldn't label any relationship they have as friendship (even though, to an outsider, some would seem as one), for numbers of reasons.

However, there are some aplatonic people who do have friends, but they're not really close to them/don't feel love for them.

love and care are different things, you can care for someone and want the best for them even when you're not close enough to them to love them.

3. But if aplatonic people don't have friends, does that mean they don't socialize with anyone?

Nope! friendships aren't the only way you can socialize with people. Family, classmates, coworkers, lovers, neighbors, those are all people you have have nice conversations with!

4. Are all aplatonics also aromantic?

Not all of them, while it's true that there are a lot of people who are both aro and apl (see: me), there are aplatonics who are alloromantic (feel romantic attraction) or just don't label their romantic orientation.

(fun fact, the original coiner of the aplatonic label is an alloromantic asexual!)

5. Are all aplatonics also loveless?

Again, not all of them, there is a great overlap between the aplatonic and loveless community (shout out to my loveless apls!), but not all aplatonics identify as loveless.

Some love in a romantic way, familiar way, alterous way (if you don't know what alterous attraction is, I recommend looking it up!) or just in a completely unique but ultimately queer way (hi, it's me, I'm lovequeer).

I still don't really get it...

That's okay, you don't have to understand something to respect it, if you're still curious and want to learn more about us, there are multiple blogs on the #aplatonic tag sharing their different experiences with aplatonicism, you just have to know where to look!

And remember! the Aspec includes the aplatonic spectrum, you can't say you support aspecs if you don't support aplatonic people as well!

[glassbirdfeather]

Complaining about the final boss in Shadow of the Erdtree, both in terms of lore and mechanics. Spoilers for the end of Shadow of the Erdtree:

Part 1: The Lore

I think the ending is really good and foreshadowed well in it's own story. I think it is fitting and well told. But it isn't living in its own bubble. It exists in context to a previous story directly connected to it. In the context of the entirety of Elden Ring, it sucks.

If we were just dropped in the Shadow Realm and the main game didn't exist, it would be really, REALLY good. The problem arises when also having the context of who Miquella was in the base game. His motivations in the DLC retcon the motivations from the lore of the base game. And the retcon is worse. The thing that made him fascinating was that he was the only compassionate character among Marika's children, the only one who didn't care about petty power plays because he was focused on helping people and helping his sister. That it is revealed he is just as shallow and self-centered as the rest, so much as to be willing to endanger his sister in exchange for a consort after all the lore surrounding how he wanted to help her, takes away the facets that made him unique.

This may also contribute to why there are two general camps of people who like or don't like how Miquella is portrayed. There have been a couple of years between the original game and now. Memories of the original game's lore--if people even read those particular bits of item descriptions in the first place--have had time to fade.

However, I acknowledge that item descriptions in Elden Ring intentionally have author biases. It could be said that every Miquella-related item description was told from the perspective of someone bewitched. That would make a lot of sense.

So in the end, this also is a personal preference. I think that Miquella turning out to be a brat who will sacrifice his sister for his consort is much less interesting than him being motivated to do bad things for his sister.

This leads into the overlap between pure lore discussion and mechanics.

Part 2: I CAN'T FUCKING SEE

The last boss fight is shit. Part of what convinced people that the leaks were fake, not considering lore implications, is that many people looked at the attacks that were happening and judged them to be bad.

As someone with a passing understanding of editing animations and moves in a game, something that can be done with little modding skill to create a new enemy is to use existing animations and add new effects to them. People were convinced the fight was fake because of how many moves looked similar to ones from previous FromSoft bosses with lightning effects glued on. I cannot speak to the alleged copied animations in this fight, since I don't have experience with every FromSoft game, but I don't actually think reusing old bosses and animations is inherently a bad thing. The real complaint was that it looked to be both reused animations and extra effects.

Stretch new textures over existing enemies, increase the speed of their attacks, and then add events to those attacks that spawn a bunch of effects like explosions, or lightning bolts. These are all things I could do with my limited knowledge. These are the things that some mods have done, and have gotten ridiculed for. The ridicule is because doing that demonstrates a shallow understanding of what makes a fight not just hard, but fun.

I'm no master of boss design myself, but I can say with confidence that spamming incredibly long attack chains containing effects that blind the player and prevent them from seeing the next move in the chain is bad game design. Something that has been established as an unspoken but understood rule in souls-genre games is that you should be able to dodge an attack while standing point blank in front of the enemy. Whether this is by rolling, jumping, or running away, you know what's happening from seeing the start of the enemy's animation, and you should be able to escape being hit by the attack. I also argue that by this metric, Waterfowl Dance is a badly designed move, but I digress.

Waterfowl Dance is one move in an otherwise stellar boss fight.

In the DLC final fight, I. can't. see.

The screen is covered in lightning for at least 1/3rd of the battle, often making dodging a game of guess and hope. I 100% acknowledge that I was not good at that fight, and that many of the attacks that hit me were dodge-able if I'd learned them more. But some of them were chains of attacks that demanded I blindly learn a random rhythm of button presses. On account of all the lightning from the previous attack hiding the next swing.

One of the things I actually did like about the fight was the grab being a guaranteed 2HKO regardless of health values. It would have been a great gimmick on a better fight. Where I had a better probability of seeing it so I could dodge it.

I also liked the warp-in speed effects of the boss jumping in, although such warps felt very buggy.

Were the lightning effects transparent or otherwise did not obscure the battle so terribly, I wonder what kind of fight it would actually be. Maybe the attack chains only feel unreasonable to dodge to me because I cannot see what is happening in them. It is possible that the fight itself is just bad, and the lightning is, just like in a bad mod, being used as a crutch to hide a very boring, simple moveset.

But it is impossible for me, in the game's current state, to imagine how that fight might play.

Because I can't see shit.

Part 3: The Remembrance

Turning in the remembrance and a duplicate of it just to end up with a total of 3 Radahn swords I think really shows the lack of creativity under the lightning. That is what the essence of the DLC final boss distills down to: 2 variations of a sword we already have.

If the fight had been something COMPLETELY different, perhaps we would have gotten something interesting from Miquella's side of the pair. Something that bewitches a struck enemy? I don't know.

The last fight was a spectacle, but only due to all the fancy effects that it vomited everywhere. Remove them, and I suspect there exists an uninspired base.

[amtrak12]

After a conversation with a friend about this weird trend of fic readers who only want epic length fics (and also what seems to be a massive misunderstanding between parties on terms and their definitions), I went searching for the fandom sources I cut my teeth on. I don't have much bookmarked from those days anymore, but googling got me to this fiction length/terminology breakdown from a Livejournal blog. (Which also has good fandom definitions for other terms like A/N and fanon too, so if you're super new to fandom, go check that out.)

The definitions come from the publishing world (hence the page counts), but fandom and fanfic has always borrowed heavily from official publishing terminology. Flash fiction (aka, anything less than 1k words) is called a 'ficlet' within fandom. We call everything else a fic until it reaches the novella mark -- which may start at 20k words but as synecdochic breaks down on their Dreamwidth blog, there's a lot of overlap between short stories and novella word counts. Because, when you're not constrained by physical page counts, the real dividing line between short stories and novellas are the number of plots and themes you're using. (Seriously, go read their meta on this topic. It's fantastic!) Either way, once you're hitting tens of thousands of words, you're in longfic territory. And then if your fic is even longer than that -- 100k+ like shown in the screenshot above -- it's called an epic fic.

And these terms, longfic and epic, are important because they're used to differentiate these stories from the average fic. Because, at least in the 2000s up until the 2020s, the most common fic lengths you ran into were between 1k-20k words. "Fic" made the reader assume only a few thousand words at most. It's only when you changed the term to drabble or ficlet or longfic that they would realize 'oh this is going to be shorter or longer than normal'.

I don't really understand why that baseline assumption has changed amongst the newer demographics (and maybe amongst some long-running fandom members too?). I've seen a lot of theories and 'tiktokification' complaints, but I honestly don't know what's true. And I don't want to start a fight or even try to change anyone's minds if they are dead set against reading short story length fics. You can do what you want!

Just maybe shift your attitude about it a little bit? Remember that it's a personal preference the same way tropes are, and that one story length isn't better than another. Just like tropes, each story length serves its purpose. Some stories are best told in 1-2k words. Some are best told as 100 word drabbles -- or even a single sentence! And then, yes, some stories do need to be 100k+ in order to be told properly.

But that's not every story. And it shouldn't be expected of fic writers to pad a 1500 word plot into some sprawling epic just because they left it on a cliffhanger. The cliffhanger is probably the point of that fic! Short stories are an entirely separate art form to novels and as such are able to cover different topics than novels can or cover the same topics differently. And that's what makes them special!!

And look at that word count breakdown by genre! That's mainstream publishing standards! Now, go back up there to the definition of a novel and notice that the average published novel is 80k words long.

Let me repeat that:

The average length of a published novel is 80,000 words long.

Could a novel go longer? Sure! And if you're dipping into adult sci-fi or fantasy, absolutely it will be longer! But does your fic need to be longer than the average novel in order to be good? In order for you to feel satisfied when you finish reading it? Why does the length of the fic matter more to you than the content?

idk just some rambling food for thought, but I guess too long, don't read:

~✨~ Every story length is valid ~✨~

It just depends on the plot you have and the structure you want to use to tell it.

[charminglyantiquated]

So, I’m seriously looking into getting into tall ship sailing (waiting on follow-up from an interview rn) and I’m wondering for getting into it more long-term -

what do people do after sailing tall ships? Like, it’s a pretty physical job, and I’d assume there’s a point where your joints just can’t keep up with it.

Are there other jobs in the industry that people move to? I’m not really keen on the idea of moving up in the ship’s hierarchy- admin and being someone’s boss both aren’t really my thing. Do people retrain in completely different careers? Go back to whatever they were doing before they started sailing?

Anyway, I know your sample size might not be super large so I’d appreciate anything. Thanks a bunch!

This is hard to answer directly - on the one hand sailing tall ships is such a niche industry that there are limited pathways for straightforward advancement. But on the other hand, it overlaps with such a large number of other industries, and requires such a jack of all trades skillset - tourism, carpentry, history and preservation, hospitality, marine electronics, etc. etc. etc. - that there's a lot of ways forward for what I guess I'd call lateral advancement: moving to another job which uses most of the same skills. So there's no one answer, but if it helps, here's some things my tall ship deckhand friends have ended up doing, after no longer deckhanding tallships:

Get a captain's license and keep sailing. Captains often have it a bit easier physically (balanced out by the mental stress lol), and are paid better. Owning your own boat is optional; plenty of companies hire captains by the season to sail the boat, while the management of the company is dealt with by the actual owners. (This is what I did! I don't have the sail-hauling arms I did as a deckhand, but my knees and bank account are both in better shape).

Bosun, first mate, engineer, some other specialized non-captain crew member, usually involves licensing or other education that's useful down the road if you switch to an adjacent career

Racing yachts

Captain for hire on private vessels

Outward bound guide, other wilderness education programs

Harbor cruises, lobster tour guides, and other motor-powered tourist boats, both as captain and as crew - you have the patter and the safety skills but you don't want to deal with the hassle of sails

Water taxis, ferries and other passenger vessels

Lobstering, fishing, aquaculture, tugboats, other non-tourist waterfront industries

Marine surveyor, marine electrician, other specialized technician

Working in a shipyard - good fit for all the fit-out skills of sanding, painting, varnishing, covering and uncovering the boat

Cruise ship hostess

Train conductor (the passion for the early 1900s carried over well)

Working at a a museum focused on local maritime history

Tour guide for local buses, walking tours, etc

Boatbuilder (IYRS, Wooden Boat School)

Teaching the captain's license courses (nota bene: there were obviously some other steps between deckhand and teacher, notably ten years of being a captain in between. But this is what they settled into when they decided sailing was too physically taxing, so I want to include it).

Carpentry, house painting

Designing and selling custom made van-homes (apart from the technical skills, living on board a ship helps familiarize making use of every square inch of space)

Sailmaker

Of course there's other friends who went on to try something completely new and unrelated - I think because so many of the people who start sailing tall ships are here for something completely new in the first place, that's not an intimidating prospect so much as an exciting one. But many of them did make use of tall ship skills even when moving on from tall ships, so I hope the above list is helpful in giving a broad sense of what can follow!