#i will always feel a connection to every trans person on this planet there is an invisible thread that weaves us all together

[mars-ipan]

i’m tired and kinda sad can we get some t4t love and positivity in here. transfems i love you. transmascs i love you. trans folks who are not transfem or transmasc i love you (i am you). agender folks i love you. multigender folks i love you (i am you). genderfluid folks i love you (i am you). people with genders attached to animals or objects i love you (i am you). trans people i love you i love you i love you

[painfullymeta]

Warning: I'm Gonna Be Earnest Now

I am deep in my feels right at the moment so I am actually making a post of my own on this, the deep in my feels hellsite.

I am late GenX.  (Not quite what gets called Xennial IMO but definitely in what gets called the Oregon Trail (Micro)Generation.)  And for all you young whippersnappers, you have to understand "The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” ( - L. P. Hartley)

I am old enough to remember when AIDS was named GRID.  ("Gay-related immune deficiency.”)  I am old enough to remember ACT-UP, the Reagans’ abandonment, “If I die of AIDS just leave me on the steps of the FDA”, all those things that tired older people on tumblr try to remind people of when the TERFs come around to tell us to stop saying “queer” as if Queer Nation was a goddamn hallucination I had when I was a kid.

On the last day of high school, after the last exam, when none of us would have to ever see each other again if we so chose – that was the day that one of my friends, someone I had eaten lunch near every day since partway through freshman year, said to me “I have something to tell you.  I’m gay.”  And then he followed it up with “Is that okay?”

I hugged him.  He broke my goddamn heart and I hugged him.  "Is that okay," he asked me. Is it okay to be who I am, near you.

I was in college before I met someone who identified herself as a lesbian — and I went to a women’s college until I lost my shit and dropped out, and I expect that if I hadn’t done that I might have gone longer.

(Of course at the same time as I was clueless and not meaningfully connected with any sort of queer culture I somehow wound up with a friendgroup who, if we got bored and couldn’t come up with anything else to do, would watch the Rocky Horror Picture Show together.  This is what we did instead of going to Homecoming.)

By 2000, I was vaguely aware of trans things existing, and in fact met my first trans person while at Brighton Pride that year, though we didn’t really speak (I was there as the guest of some people in his extended social group) and I was vaguely confused and too awkward to try to do more than ‘observe and try not to fuck this up’.  I met a nonbinary person for the first time around then as well, and zie was the only one I knew of for nearly a decade.

By the mid-oughts I was with it enough to ask someone what pronouns she wanted me to use for her before sharing something about her on a message board.

(I am also old enough to have spent time on multiple message boards.  I’m old enough to resent the internet going through the world wide web instead of email and usenet actually.)

Sometime in the early oughts I guess I was at the subcommittee hearing in the Boston State House that was discussing, among other things, whether we might consider possibly condescending to allow same-sex couples to marry.  I was even going to testify!  (Please be impressed with my early twenties autistic ass I was terrified.)  There was a guy there - a senator on the committee - who was asking every person who came up if they were going to force his church to marry the gays.  Catholic, y’know, this being Massachusetts.  I revised my speech in my head to note that if we weren’t forcing the Catholic churches to marry divorcees yet he didn’t need to worry about it.

(Then my nose decided to haemhorrage all over my entire life and I couldn’t get it to stop bleeding so rather than testify while looking like an entire murder victim I went home.)

I was in my thirties when pregnancy-induced dysphoria made me start seriously thinking about my own sense of gender.

I was in my forties before I bought a binder.

I am from another fucking planet.  (The past is a foreign country.)

I know kids - multiple kids - who knew enough to identify as lesbians at an age younger than I think I knew that word.  (And I am one of those humans of freakish and unreasonable vocabulary and always have been.)

I crack jokes with one of my kids about the Queer Kids Stairs at their school, because that’s where the GSA kids hang out together after activities get out.  (While GSAs were around while I was a kid, they started in Massachusetts according to Wikipedia and that is not where I was when I was a kid, and to my best recollection I didn’t hear about them existing at all until I was an adult.)

I live in a world where my social circles include queer people of my generation, of older generations, of younger generations, and oh my gods, I look at the kids and my heart tries to explode.

My oldest knows more than one trans kid.  More than one *affirmed* trans kid.  (And we’ve talked a bit about the social dynamics that might make it more likely for the trans boys to be out than the trans girls, even now.)

And I’m writing this because of one of those trans boys, who is in the Coming of Age group at our church, and who is, apparently, in his credo, citing that thing I’ve seen on the tumblrs more than once, about how being trans means being a participant in the holy, divine process of creation, coming into being as himself.

And guys?

I’m not from the same planet as that kid.

Because I’m in my forties and I don’t even know what I’m creating.  And I’m terrified.

And here’s this kid coming out there with that as a core statement of belief that he’s prepared to stand up in front of, as the phrase goes ‘God and everyone’, to claim.

(I need to remember to talk to him about how in my Craft tradition there’s a canonically transmasc god.)

I know I’ve got at least two teenagers reading me and I just.  Y’all got this.  I know it’s hard and the world is scary and it’s fucking coming for us all but you are amazing and I am so full of inarticulate alexithymic feelings about all of you. The ones I know and the ones I don't.

We've come a long way from "Is that okay?" and you heal my broken heart.

[thegraphitepencils]

i dont know much about Judaism, and i'd love to hear anything you have to say ^^

Hii sorry this is late, we have been packing to move tomorrow !! so we got busy lol

It’s hard to distill everything I love about Judaism into one post, but I’m gonna do my best to give the broad strokes.

Judaism isn’t just a religion, or just a culture. It’s both and it’s beyond. It’s a rich history, a touchstone for a people that have been dispersed and oppressed all over the world and still manage to stay resilient and connected. Jewish community varies so heavily all around the world, European Jews and African Jews and Middle Eastern Jews and Asian Jews etc, so many gorgeous unique traditions. Yet they have the same core, a thread of the same history. You feel like you’re cousins with someone on the other side of the planet who doesn’t share your native language. You connect through sharing food and joy and sorrow and holy days and ancient prayers and the ancestors who first said them. If your nuclear family is shit, then you still have a family in every other Jew around the world.

And converts are part of that family too! It’s said that all Jewish souls, including future ones, were present at Mount Sinai to receive the Torah, and that includes converts. Converts are to be treated as if they were always Jewish as soon as they convert, and you can feel a familiarity in them as soon as they begin their study. It’s very hard to convert, there is so much to learn and it can take years, and converts are revered for that dedication.

Judaism is a culture focused on education, critical thinking, charity, respect, peace, community, kinship. Even in the most stringent orthodox communities, communities with strict gender roles, I know I’ll be safe as a queer trans person even if they don’t fully understand my identity. They may possibly disagree with me (but they may not! there are many queer & ally Orthodox Jews!) but they’ll definitely keep me safe, which is something I can’t honestly say about wider leftist spaces.

It’s a genuine miracle that Judaism has lasted thousands of years after countless genocides and forced fleeing. So many cultures with similar stories to ours have been completely wiped out. But through a mix of tradition and adaptability in equal parts, a dedication to observe our tradition no matter the circumstances, this culture has prevailed and always will. Everyone who tried to kill us for good has failed and always will. There’s something so invigorating and empowering about that, as horrible as all the tragedy has been and continues to be.

Speed round of some Judaism fun facts!

- The Hebrew calendar is based on the lunar cycle, instead of solar like secular time. Currently it’s the year 5784, and the 6th day of Nisan. (Or maybe 7th by now?? Our days also begin at sundown!)

- Our most significant holidays, the High Holy Days, happen in the September-October range

- Virtually any commandment is permitted to be broken if following it could endanger someone’s health. Preservation of human life is beyond all other law. This is known as pikuach nefesh, “to save a soul.”

- The phrase “chosen people” gets misunderstood by gentiles a lot. We like to say we were “chosen to do the dishes.” We get the hard work of following a bunch of commandments gentiles don’t have to, in order to be so dedicated to doing good that we inspire the whole world to do good in their own way. It’s important to note that there is no concept of eternal damnation in Judaism, and there is no consequence for not being Jewish! We don’t proselytize, we don’t see our religion as “the correct one.”

And some recommendations for you!

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik (co-founder of ao3!) is a Jewish fantasy novel, mixing multiple classic fairytales with dangerous fae creatures in a Slavic inspired setting. It’s gritty and dark yet so full of warmth and love, with some of the best female characters I’ve encountered in any media. It has so many little bits of Jewish culture sprinkled throughout that makes me giddy to see. And it also has THE best representation of the shape of antisemitism, how it operates and feels to experience. I cannot sing its praises enough.

Karov by Batya Levine is an album we’ve been listening to a lot this past week. Batya is a queer Ashkenazi musician inspired by historic Jewish music, and their stuff is absolutely beautiful. I’m a big fan of these lyrics from them: “we are good, we are flawed, we are the breath of an imperfect G-d.”

Thank you sm for sending an ask, I hope you enjoyed my ramblings!! -Riley

[angel-milano]

November 30 – SwynRP Character Wishlist (Scad Edition)

There are characters that I've had ideas about picking up in the future. If there are any that you'd like to see more than others, feel free to react with their emoji! (You can vote for more than one lmao)

☠️Bones (Chef Remy Bones from Vampirina)

So I've been wanting to use Con as a grumpy character for aaaages now, and reading through the Hauntley Inn characters, this one clicked! I have a story brewing for him and I think he'd make a good "straight man" to all the crazy supernatural shenanigans that goes on around him. He just wants to die and God won't let him.

🧪Cornelius Lucy Robinson (Cornelius Robinson from Meet the Robinsons)

I would not be Scad if I wasn't on my trans bs 24/7. A bit of a different perspective, Lucy transitioned rather late in life and very much in the public eye. She's still working out the changes in her relationships, her career, and her reputation, while also trying to be a better spouse/parent than she has been. There's a lot of growth to be had, and I think it would be fun to play someone established in the Swynlake community.

💃Morgan (Morph from Treasure Planet)

So this is actually a character I have from other rps, but definitely one of my favorite to play. They are a drag queen, and in Swynverse they'd be a shapeshifting MAFIA member working at the local salon to help others transform into their true selves. I've always wanted to play them working off another villain (John Silver ideally) but I think there's a ton of fun connections they'd be able to make. Definitely the most social of any of my characters.

🔔Quasimodo (Quasimodo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame)

MY BOY!!! Quasi was actually my first character in Swynlake when I was here years ago, and is the character I've taken with me across every Disney rp I've been in. The reason I haven't brought him back immediately is because his story was tied around some characters who aren't here anymore and I've been brainstorming how to re-adapt everything. I have some ideas, but you'll have to wait for the wanted connections edition...

I've been messing around with the idea of having a glamour fc (canonically he looks like his movie self) and am looking at Alfredo Minea.

💎Devyn Morey (Dopey from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves)

I love rping family dynamics and I think it would be a lot of fun to complete a set. I have a gift idea in mind, I'd want to play him as deaf, and I have a general personality, but if I did go this direction, I ofc would be checking in with a lot of people first!

🩺Barry Makaguchi (Baymax from Big Hero 6)

Robot characters not getting enough love!! Transhumanism themes are so much fun and I'd love to be able to explore them with this character. I think it would be really interesting watching them play off others, Magick and Mundus alike, and develop their view of the world as their AI continues to learn.

🐭Bernard Newhart (Bernard from The Rescuers)

In terms of groups I'd like to wriggle my way into, RAS is up there. Rescuers has a special place in my heart and Bernard has always been a favorite for me. Ofc I'd want to play him with his partner (whoever that might be, see wanted connections) but I think he also could be interesting on his own. What is his mission? How can he connect with other RAS members in Swynlake? Can he not blow his own cover??

🌺Tala Wailiki (Gramma Tala from Moana)

I have wanted to use Rena Owen to play Tala for soooooooo long, but haven't had the right opportunity yet. But when I saw Moana's bio meeting with her estranged grandma, I was like, huh! What's going on with that! So I have a story cooking--the idea that Tala is a revenant in Swynlake, looking for Answers to Something, while generally just being the village crazy lady. That's her job.

👻Terry House (Terry from Soul)

Listen, as a certified Annoying Virgo(tm), I love playing other Annoying Virgo types. Terry was my favorite part of Soul and I think it would be a hoot-and-a-half to play them. We got some undead types around that they could bother, but they're also an accountant at InterPride so there are those connections too. They'd be fun BECAUSE they're so boring!

🌊Ponyo (Ponyo from Ponyo)

And ofc, you can't forget about the mers! I was actually planning on picking up Ponyo in my original Swynlake run, (before my life fell apart lol) and the muse is still there. She'd be excitable and silly, which isn't a character type I get to play all too often.

💘Bebe Proud (Bebe Proud from the Proud Family + Erato)

So looking at the muses, Erato definitely stood out to me. I was wondering if I should just make an original OC or try to connect them to another Disney character, and then thought about the idea of Bebe and Cece as twin muses. Cece could be anyone, and it would open up for wider Proud Family shenanigans! The joke with Erato is instead of writing love poetry, they're a prolific multi-fandom Ao3 fic author.

[colorisbyshe]

You said you're busy, so feel free not to reply now (or ever lol), but what's the difference between supporting that wizard transmisogynistic antisemite and supporting something like, say, Disney? Genuine question. Aren't both bad because it's been proven their profits go straight to anti-LGBT laws? Or is it different? I hate both either way lol. Thanks!

I think the main difference is JKR is singularly making her entire platform about hating trans women, vocally encouraging others to do the same, and has boiled down her career to that one thing. Passively, she is doing OTHER egregious hateful things (mostly antisemitism but also homophobia and racism and more).

Disney is different because... Disney is buying every single thing. Lots of works that exist and were created outside of the Disney "mindset" (whatever that is) have been purchased by Disney. There are things streaming on Disney+ by people who would probably roll around in their graves if they knew who owned their work now.

Disney is harder to avoid in that way but it's also not one singular issue. It is a multiple of projects, some of which are affirming, some of which... are hateful and awful.

I personally do not consume much Disney branded content.

And I think people who worship at the altar of Disney often CAN end up identical (in behaviour and in harm) to HP-defenders.

But... idk... when it becomes less about actual creators and more about the people who end up owning their shit, it's harder. Like... most chain stores are donating to Republicans. I'm sure most streaming services are too. This does get closer to the "no ethical consumption under capitalism" thing where like... you can do the best you can to shop "well" but... corporations are all donating to whoever will protect their profit margins the most and will fund any law possible to get that going.

Corporations have such overwhelming nets they've thrown over hteir industries that it's hard to find anything that has escaped their grasp untainted. It's like... if someone selling their book lets it be distributed through amazon, do we immediately accuse them of supporting amazon exploiting and even killing employees?

It's more nebulous and I'm more willing to handwave (especially the more and more outside of the "Disney" brand Disney owned things get) but JKR isn't so nebulous. She is the creator of HP--the DIRECT creative mind of the entire IP. She is a bigot. The bigotry exists inside the work. The bigotry exists OUTSIDE the work. She specifically uses her platform to spread hate. Uses HP as part of her platform to do that, directly trying to indoctrinate fans into her mindset.

There is no sort of absolving quality to HP left. It isn't detached enough from her hatred to attempt any mental hoops to justify it.

It's not quite comparable to Disney which is a conglomeration of a lot of people who just have the same financier essentially.

If we're talking about specific Disney works that have hateful/prejudiced content in it, yeah it's a more similar comparison.

But also, even with that, I do recommend people do try to consume less Disney branded and even just Disney owned shit. There's more room for lenience in there--I don't think a parent letting their kid watch Moana is doing the same harm as the parent who reads their kid HP every night--but at the end of the dya aI will always say... look for more media on the margins.

Media produced by more independent workers strugglign to make ends meet. Media produced by people who have shit to say. Media with less direct connections to megacorporations who are all donating to the worst peopel on the fucking planet just so they can get more blood from the stones of society's creative soul

[arcane-apidae]

🌀 Navigating LGBTQ+ Culture in 2024: Some Personal Thoughts 🌈

Let me start by saying this loud and clear: I have the utmost respect for all sexualities, identities, and the journey every individual takes to find themselves. 🌿✨ This post isn’t about invalidating anyone—it’s a reflection on where we are as a society, how LGBTQ+ culture has evolved, and some concerns I’ve been pondering.

From Outcasts to Untouchable Caste?

We’ve come a long way—thankfully—from a time when LGBTQ+ folks were outcast and silenced. But lately, it feels like the pendulum has swung so far that parts of the community are becoming almost untouchable. Critiques, even constructive ones, are often labeled as hate or phobia.

The original goal was about inclusion and understanding. Now, it sometimes feels like we’re stepping into murkier waters where the culture dominates discourse in a way that can overshadow other pressing issues—like, oh, I don’t know, the planet literally burning down? 🌍🔥

Youth and the Pressure to Define Everything

It’s beautiful to see young people exploring who they are in ways my generation couldn’t have dreamed of. But the pressure to label everything—to decide your identity at 12, 14, 16—is intense. The culture often glorifies constant discourse around identity, sometimes at the expense of allowing young people to just exist.

When teens are warned against making irreversible decisions (like medical transitions) before they're ready, it's often dismissed as transphobia. But isn’t it possible to advocate for thoughtful, informed choices without invalidating someone’s identity?

Internal Drama and Division

The LGBTQ+ community was once united by the struggle for rights and recognition. Now, it sometimes feels like there’s endless infighting, gatekeeping, and discourse. Lesbians vs. bisexuals. Trans people vs. “transmed” advocates. Ace and aro folks fighting for recognition in a space that’s still figuring out its boundaries. It’s exhausting.

And when the drama spills into the mainstream, it creates a perception of chaos that can harm the very acceptance many of us fought so hard for.

Perspective: The World Is Bigger Than Identity

This isn’t to say that personal identity isn’t important—it absolutely is! 🌟 But at the same time, we’re facing existential crises:

Climate change ���

Wealth inequality 💸

Global conflicts 🕊️

Systemic corruption and oppression ⚙️

While it’s crucial to support LGBTQ+ rights, is there too much emphasis on sexuality and gender in a world where so much else needs urgent attention?

A Call for Balance

Let’s bring back the balance. Let’s respect all identities but recognize that they’re one part of a much bigger picture. Let’s make space for people to grow and change without locking them into labels or ideologies before they’re ready.

Most of all, let’s remember that our humanity connects us more deeply than our differences. 🕊️✨

💭 What do you think? Is this evolution of LGBTQ+ culture a natural growing pain, or are we losing sight of something bigger?

🌈 Respect always. Critique is not hate. 🌀

[killmebythebeach]

A bunch of head cannons (Maybe too much). Also in talking about the characters.

I think Dream is that one design where his skin is just the static tv screen. He just constantly emits that fuzzy noise, Sam crafted him the smile mask that he can see through so he doesn't scare people.

George is just kind of the server itself. He's the same species as Hannah, but a mushroom and more powerful. If he stays awake too long, the server just kind of freezes. This is also a reason XD keeps him sleeping, it's his way of talking to George and he thinks the server is like his soap opera of mortals.

Callahan is sort of like the person who makes sure George doesn't get killed or dies while asleep, making sure he's surrounded by mushrooms and such. Deer hybrid <3

Alyssa joined the server because she knew all her friends were idiots and didn't want them to die immediately. But once the elections rolled around, she felt the pressure of choosing sides and ran away to the desert, only keeping contact with Ponk. She actually lives just a couple miles from Foolish's summer home. Her communicator actually died after a couple months and she had no way of charging it, so she lost contact with everyone.

Sapnap is a magma cube hybrid and can jump higher than most, his natural temperature runs hotter, and is fire proof. Bad found him in the nether when he was maybe 10-15 years old.

Sam was actually a normal creeper, but gained player like sentience from being struck by lightning. Instead of becoming charged, he gained intelligence and met the others on the server. Callahan taught him some Redstone, but from there he figured out a lot on his own. He's also a creeper centaur.

Ponk is actually a descendant of a fairy, a lemon tree. Their mask was also a gift from Sam because after the second or third time their tree was burnt, their immune system was weakened a considerable amount. Alyssa also wore her mask for them.

Bad is a size shifting demon from the nether, more specifically soul sand desert. He uses soul fire to gain strength, so because the egg died when near it, he was just a little weaker than normal. Because he's a demon he needs a tie to the overworld to stay there, he tied his soul and lives to Skeppy.

Tommy was grown in a lab to be a hero, project: THESEUS. The lab gave him small enhancements, like slightly stronger and just a bit more resilient, to make the Above Average Boy (TM). He then ran away to meet Wilbur. When Dream asked Wilbur if he wanted to come to the server, he asked if Tommy could go first to see what it was like. He also actually really likes gardening and making up funny songs to Wilbur playing guitar. He also made funny lyrics for his discs, but he's still a bit scared to take them out of his ender chest. Other than bringing attachment, Dream also exiled Tommy to see what his lab enhancements could do.

Tubbo is an adaptive hybrid! His hair was blond, shifting to brown when Wilbur found him, getting blue eyes from Tommy, growing small horns under Schlatt, parts of his skin being static when Dream was "helping" him with his presidency, and parts of his scars tinging black and green from Ranboo and Micheal. Tubbo also helped Wilbur write part of the anthem. He likes living in the snow because the Manberg flag had magma blocks on it, casting a heatwave over the country, and after L'Manburg blew up it got really hot from the exposed stone in direct sun.

Fundy can actually hold his breath for a very long time and swim very well because of Sally teaching him and his salmon genes. The yellow things on his hat are actually shells, and the stripes on his jacket are trans colors. Also with his dreams, he saw Eret was going to betray them but didn't think it was real, or didn't want to. He also saw Wilbur blow up L'Manburg but chose not to believe it, thinking his father could still be saved. He actually saw pretty much everything, but didn't quite understand what they were until after doomsday.

The necklace Punz wears is one of those picture lockets, but he lost the picture and can't remember what it was. The first time Dream paid him was when Dream asked for help and Punz made an off hand joke about getting money, and then Dream thought he was being serious. Him, Dream, and Sapnap were like brothers, and Punz got sadder every time he saw Dream pushing people away and diving deeper into darkness.

Purpled is an aliensent to see if the planet was colonizable, but then crashed and was stranded, all his communications down and his ship barely able to hover fifty feet off the ground. When Quackity blew it up, he essentially got rid of his chance of ever going home. Purpled's species can shapeshift, so he turned himself into the first person he saw, Punz. Eventually before trying to communicate with the native life forms, he edited his form a little so they weren't identical, keeping purple eyes and antennae, changing the colors slightly, and changing the voice up. When he moves away from the main SMP, Ponk makes sure to check up on him and that he has a way to check his communicator.

Wilbur came a month after sending Tommy. His father being a patron of life and his mother the goddess of death, he met in the middle being born as a human. The only reason Ghostbur was as active and present as he was was because he was so connected to both life and death. Since his corpse was decaying for as long as it was, Wilbur is now super weak, his flesh is thin and his eyes are rotted and gone. Much like Ghostbur, Wilbur in limbo saw what people said about him, and Ghostbur could hear that from the back of his head. Now Wilbur can hear what people say about Ghostbur and he hates it, not wanting to be connected to what he thinks like a shell of himself.

Schlatt is a ram (duh) and actually does the fainting goat thing. So when he died of a heart attack, no one knew at first if he was actually dead or not. His alcoholism stems from the revive book, as the possibility of tampering with death made him existential and scared, so to cope he drank. There are also a ton of other stuff other than revival in the book, but it's in galactic.

Skeppy was just a normal human, but after making the pact with Bad, Bad put a spell on him. Parts of him turned into diamond, protecting both his and Bad's lives. He however, is unaware of this. With the egg, he would just sit on it, the diamonds chipping away to make room for the vines.

Eret was cursed by the Wither Cult, giving them white eyes and a slowly deteriorating memory. Not sure what to do, Foolish dropped them off at the SMP. Sometimes they would dream about old memories from before the curse, but it was just glimpses so he could never tell what they meant. Once they were king, they made the Herobrine shrine subconsciously, not really sure what it was after. They also had a strange affinity of beacons and resurrection, some of their memories resurfacing when they tried to help Phil and Ghostbur revive Wilbur after doomsday. The reason people are more scared of their eyes than any other wierd eyes was because he generally looks like a normal human, but the wither along with their Herobrine origins creates an uncanny valley that people are shocked by.

Jack had red and blue irises before crawling out of hell, but after coming back the whites of his eyes also turned red and blue. He always wears 3d glasses so no one noticed, but he just thought no one cared enough to mention it. He also has a bunch of scars and burn marks that no one but him can see, therefore no one asks about them or thinks something is wrong, cementing the idea that no one cares about him.

Niki is a blaze hybrid (stole this from @/420technoblazeit) whose fire hair color changes based on strong emotion, something she bond with Tubbo for as a fellow shifter. A soft yellow in L'Manburg, brighter orange in Manburg, hot pink on Doomsday, a soul fire blue with the syndicate (which Techno hates), and a dead grey when she found out Wilbur was alive. She was also old child hood friends with Ranboo and Eret, leaving Ranboo for the SMP. Ranboo, unfortunatly, doesn't remember much more than her name. She also knows galactic from Ranboo, so she talks about her troubles to Shy the Enderman. She doesn't really know how to talk to Puffy anymore after Doomsday or finding out how she wants to protect Tommy.

Quackity can perfectly replicate someone's voice and, with a lot of effort, can completely change his form to another player. He also has very small yellow wings, too small to fly, so he almost always hides them. He used to constantly change his voice for jokes with Karl, Sapnap, and George, but he doesn't like doing it now in Las Nevadas, as he sees it as unprofessional. However, sometimes he uses when he visits Dream, changing his voice to people like George and Sapnap to make torture more effective.

In the In Between and Other Side, Karl actually looks like his old skin, or his natural state (the big purple one that inspired his sweater). But most of the time in the normal world, he looks human. With effort he can bring out the interdemential being thing, something only Quackity and Sapnap know about. The more he time travels, the easier it becomes to change, and he's even started defaulting to the other form.

HBomb is actually just a normal news reporter, sent to interview and record what's going on in the server, his first big story being the election. Upon Doomsday, the stress of seeing everyone alone, fighting, and disconnected, he ran away from the world, essentially becoming a cat lady. His undercover reporter persona is actually the cat maid. He eventually came back to the server to see how he could help after Doomsday, befriending Niki again and living with her in the underground city.

Techno is a piglin, so he's scared of soul fire. He forgot to tell Phil before he decorated the syndicate room, so he just suffers in silence. He also does better when around a lot of gold, like in the nether, and he feels drained and slightly weaker without it. Instead of just putting gold around the area (it would ruin his property value), he just hibernates. He has an emerald earing, like all of the syndicate, but his is a locket that unfolds into pictures of the syndicate.

Ant always wears a red hoodie, now ruined by the egg, that used to be Red's. On Red's death anniversary, him, Bad, Skeppy, and Sam would make cake and put flowers on his grave. He missed the last one because it was during the egg, but for a brief moment after Puffy killed him he saw Red. Red then promptly and bluntly told him to stop being a pussy (haha, cat) and that he shouldn't do all this just to get him back, one of Ant's motivators to make amends with the people he hurt while with the egg. Ant is also a shapeshifter, but can only turn into a cat.

Phil actually used to work under Foolish as a patron of life but then he had a son with the goddess of death, so his title was removed so he could be with her and he became an Angel of Death. Kristin noticed how sad he was after being released, so she gifted him wings. They were however, destroyed on November 16th. His chat also serves as messenger pigeons, which were used to send letters to Wilbur.

Connor is actually just a hedgehog who somehow befriended Schlatt. Even before the haunted mansion, Karl vented to him about his time travel troubles, not knowing he was a sentient player. As a hedgehog, no one really cares where he goes, so he goes outside the server limits to meet his friends from the haunted mansion.

Puffy is a distant relative of Schlatt, but instead of politics she went into piracy. With her mom, she went travelling the seas. One say, a storm came and wiped out her ship, her crew, her mom, everything but her. The reason she survived was because Foolish saw her and saved her. Unfortunately, Puffy hit hee head in the crash and doesn't remember anything.

Vikkstar is the equivalent of a big time celebrity, so of course his endorsement of POG2020 was a big deal.

Lazarbeam is literally just a ginger bread cookie.

Ranboo has actually met a lot of the smp before actually joining. He's met Niki, Fundy, Eret, Punz, and Dream at least. He also sees the inverted colors Enderman see. His suit was actually a gift from Eret before they forgot how to tailor. He got the crown from Techno after joining the syndicate, claiming he didn't want any syndicate members to look like trash.

Foolish came to the server most recently to check up on Eret, but he couldn't bring himself to leave again. When Puffy adopts him, he can't say no because he remembers saving her. His initial goal was to kill an ender dragon to claim the XD title and become a full god like DreamXD, but after realising someone already killed it he went into his totem if death phase. Upon meeting Eret, he got over it and they went on some silly adventures, Foolish now taking a more peaceful route.

Hannah is essentially a weaker George, as her power is tied to the plants themselves and not the entire server. She however has a lot more physical power because rose dryads like to fight because they have thorns. Since roses can be taken out a lot easier, she is essentially a glass canon. Also when around any plant, she can make it grow faster than normal.

Any guest on the server? Corpse, Pokimane, Lil Nas? They were all Slimecicle. That's how he knows where everyone is from, even outside of Las Nevadas. No one else knows this. He's also ancient, if he met Phil they would probably recognise eachother. There was an actual Charlie Slimecicle who was not a slime, but after being launched into orbit this Slimecicle decided to impersonate him.

Michael Mcchill is a sort of bounty hunter. He came to the server after hearing of all the crime, assuming there'd be a lot of bounties to collect. However, he soon learned that no one really cares if you commit a crime. He then took to reading news articles made by HBomb to see if there were any past open bounties. But after reading for a while about the server's wronguns, mostly Dream, he began to sympathise with them. And he's also a speedrunner, so maybe he could help with some bounties across other servers!

This was a very long post and i apologize, but it was so fun to finally write all these thoughts down! I hope you liked them! I can't even fit all the tags I want.

[arabnico]

You’re one of my favourite pjo blogs out there! I was wondering if you had any Nico and Hazel sibling headcanons?

thank you so much 🥺💕 and of course!!!

- they are both trans and gay thank you <3

- they are very short because they’re underworld kids and also nico with malnutrition and disordered eating. i also think they’re both chubby <3 gaining weight as a sign of healing my beloved

- hazel is the first person nico willingly comes out to and nico is a little nervous despite everything and it goes like “i used to have a crush on percy” and she’s like “oh haha that’s cool i used to have a crush on reyna funny heh XD” and nico is like ???????? system shut down

- nico is super curious by nature and hazel is an average having fun enjoyer so on their mission to discover all things modern they decide they want to microwave everything they can get their hands on and see what happens. most of the list constitutes of “it explodes!!”s but they keep trying because you never know <3

- hazel is kinda really into astrology (rachel is a bad influence) and nico has no clue about any of it so it’s just like “you are so hopelessly dreamy i know you’re a libra moon and a pisces venus but this is pushing it nico” / “you feel like criticism is a direct insult because chiron’s in your sixth house” “uh i don’t really know about that haze i’m pretty sure he’s in archery practice right now ://”

- they both have rheumatoid arthritis

- hazel studies animal science with an equine science minor to become a vet or something #lesbiansinstem and nico is obviously very supportive but you know <3 from a distance <3 because him and most animals do Not get along

- like the only animals who don’t act weird around nico are cats and turtles you know they don’t fear death. they both have cats and nico has a tortoise too 🥰

- they make “back in my day” jokes too much and no one finds them funny except each other they think they are hilarious they don’t care about everyone else like your memes are incomprehensible and you think you can dictate humor??

- every time they see each other no matter how long or little it’s been they literally Bury themselves in a hug like they will just linger in that embrace like that smiling really big they miss each other a lot ok!!!

- they both love art and use it as a form of self expression hazel likes painting and drawing and she gets nico on it too (he likes using pastels especially) but what he enjoys more is photography partly because he always distrusts his memory and is scared of forgetting so just capturing the moment in any way is important to him

- also what i’m sayings is there are a lot of developed film photos of hazel and him hung in their cabin at chb

- they like doing each others’ hair like an excuse to spend time with each other also there’s this soft intimacy in that that just kills me

- also in arabic there’s this chant that originates from مصلاوية (north mesopotamian arabic) and it’s a song you sing while you’re doing someone else’s hair (يا ماشطة مشطيها, meaning “oh you who combs, comb her”) and nico hums it every time <3

- both of them has rocky relationships with their pasts so like when hazel goes to new orleans again for the first time after everything nico goes with her just as a support and same thing with nico when he goes back to venice and the sham. they hang out sometimes together there randomly too after it becomes easier <3

- they can like. Get each other immediately. i’m talking telepathic communication like they glance at each other one second and it’s like *brain connection meme*

- co-presidents of the “fuck hades” club they absolutely despise him and they don’t see any use in hiding it <3 i think nico was struggling with feeling like he was obligated to forgive him for everything he’s done but like realizing how terribly he treated hazel he’s like you know what. screw that actually. worst being on the planet

i could go on forever about them but <333

[aikoiya]

You know a head canon doesnt necessarily need to be based off canon? Its just something someone believes in Their Head. canon can either confirm or contradict it but the two are unconnected.

Also ur argument about trans Danny seems to be missing the point a bit. People dont think danny is trans cuz being halfghost is a perfect parrallel to being trans. Its because of the narrative of hiding ur identity and fearing being outed to your loved ones more than to your enemies. THATS what trans people relate to and identify as a queer narrative in Danny Phantom. Its not "being a halfa=trans" its "i see a connection in these ideas and like the parrallel" Also Id be a bit more careful with my wording if I were you "trans people choose to transition" sounds a lot like "you choose to be trans" which isnt true. And even if it was... Danny chose to go into that machine. Even using ur canon only logic he Chose to get his powers both after Desiree erased them and during Phantom Planet.

I'll give you the thing about headcanons being in your head & unrelated to canon. That's really just how I go about my personal hcs. I try to have evidence that backs them up. I've always been big about filling in plotholes & whatnot & this is part of how I do it. I tend to take canon & see how I can work it into my narrative cohesively. I think that's just how I work best as a content creator. As such, I might have a bit of a bias. I may also sometimes forget that not everyone works that way.

While I understand that people don't choose to be trans, they do choose to go through with the actual transition itself. That is a choice. It doesn't just happen. Your hormone levels don't just change unless you actively choose to change them yourself.

And to be fair, if you wanna be accurate, Sam coerced him into it every time. The last time, she was actually being a super bad friend about it. It'll admit that he chose to help people in the end & the best way to do so was by being a Halfa again, but he was still lead there.

And, you know, you may be right about most people identifying with the hiding a huge part of yourself thing, but that isn't just limited to being queer. There are plenty of reasons to hide something from your parents. Teens make a business out of it. Hell, there's doing drugs, being in a gang, going to church when you have atheistic parents or being atheistic in a church-going family, or being republican in a democratic family & vice versa.

That isn’t to say that I’d prefer it if he were doing drugs or in a gang, just that there are other things you can parallel it with.

It doesn't just have to be a queer thing. Like, sure! Headcanon what you want, but I also have a right to complain about it.

Like, seriously! I've got aspergers, which I literally could not help, & you don't see me crying about it all the dadgum time!

Also, I'm just so tired of tiptoeing around words around people just so I can spare their feelings. I will try to be civil, but I'll also say what I mean & clarify when asked, but if someone gets all up in my face about my beliefs I will fight.

"If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything" - Alexander Hamilton

[homeofhousechickens]

Noticed an influx of terfs harassing fellow agriculture blogs. And i want to talk about something pretty heavy, if you are one of those “terf” people or maybe you have found yourself following those types of blogs while also following mine please give my words a read. I know some people look up to me but to be honest I am not the most eloquent person but maybe i can convince you to look more critically at your world view.

Tw: Transphobia, abuse, trauma, Aphobia, Terf rhetoric

I will be honest and say that I also once attacked people who were different from me to, i used to be what i think is called an asexual exclusionist due to some of my own trauma and because of that i took it out on the asexual community as an angry autistic teenager. I was frustrated at my hypersexuality which was a symptom of my sexual abuse being treated like a normal sexuality so i projected those feelings of hurt back out into the world when their was better coping methods. I was frustrated at the well off asexual kids in GSA that couldnt understand why their fellow member was having a panic attack due to being kicked out of the house for being a lesbian, when i could have been just as frustrated at the other LGBT kids that had decent parents, i was just targeting them because they were different from me and it felt safe to.

Obviously as an adult I educated myself and no longer hold those ideas. I read stuff from outside of my own point of view and stuff that directly challenged me over the years, I know not everyone has the privilege to be able to do that but i did and the reason is is that i was tired of hurting and i was tired of hurting other people, I never harassed anyone but it did influence how i treated people when i was younger and i am sorry for it.

I know alot of terf rhetoric centers around the concept of women (specifically white women usually) being victims of the “other sex” or being them being the “better sex”. (i know because aphobic rhetoric is very similar) Due to this they genuinely believe that other women want to come into their spaces and “steal” this ideal away from them. Thats why they get so furious about the idea of functional uterine transplants. To them, their uterus or vulva is what defines them as “better” or the reason they suffer trauma but when the science is moving so where typical reproduction may not be the only pathway to child bearing they become enraged because they are no longer “special” to themselves. Their is no longer a reason for their trauma and pain.

This fundamentally is the basis of the hate they put out into the world. This is also why they attack cis women who do not conform to typical femininity. This boiling down of their worth to chromosomes or anatomy is literally just a rehashed version of the own misogyny they were likely fed as a child and it makes me sad. They say the same stuff my shitty relatives did about women but now terfs are the ones saying it about whoever they decide is the “other” sometimes that other is transgender women sometimes its intersex women and sometimes its women who just dont conform to their ideals. When you picture yourself happy, is it when your standing with your heels dug in on top of the people you deem “other”? Or is when your helping out your fellow human? When you tear down another person does it really build you up? When you see others tear someone down because of their appearance do you not care how it may affect the people you care about and the people who care about you? How many terfs have i seen brag about “hate saving” transwomens photos so they can make fun of them later? How does that sound when you say that out loud? Imagine going to the person you care about the most someone you deeply respect and saying “in my free time i save/take pictures of people i dont know and then i make fun of them and show them to a bunch of strangers so we can make fun of them together” like really say that out loud.

I would be ashamed. I want to make people happy not hurt them. I want connection and i think thats a base need for most humans. I want to connect with people who are kind to me and kind to others, if someone told me they were doing that i would feel ashamed for even talking to that person. Sexual abuse and trauma are no joke and there isnt an argument to say that women suffer gendered violence that cis white men simply never really will ever understand. But true of the matter is our trans brothers and sisters are treated just like woman are and worse. I feel like so many of us end up holding hate for a group of people due to bad experiences with individuals so our dumb brains start shoving people into boxes of “bad” and “good”. But a trans person can fear rape, abuse, trauma just as much as you do and they suffer from very high levels of it and thats a fact. They are not your enemy, hateful individualistic thinking is! and its that very same way of thinking that is killing the planet. I want to iterate that every single person you have interacted with on this website is a living breathing person. They have their own emotions, their own thoughts, their own dreams, and their own world view. When you say something mean or harass them you are actively hurting another person. Me typing this out right now, i am a person with my own flaws and aspirations. I think sometimes people forget that people are people not just faceless emotional less words on a screen. Trans women are women and this blog will always support that. If that makes you upset think about why, on your own at first, no social media to help you.

Maybe see a therapist who is well versed in gender and the lgbt. Therapists arent just their for when your depressed or anxious they are here to talk to. There is people you can read about or talk to, the worst thing that can happen is that you could change like i did. There is nothing shameful about changing and admitting mistakes. Sorry if i said some things wrong i just wanted to get it off my chest

[hag-rambling-on]

Boys hc’s feats Diaspro

Riven

Riven Cassios was born to two Omega prisoners. What surprised everyone, because staying healthy enough to carry out a pregnancy on a planet that sucks your magic is... Obviously the Rocalucce Council keeps an eye on the planet, they took him out of there because no child would pay because his parents, and he has been in foster homes, although it doesn't last long since the requirements for his adoption were more strict than most -which in the long run the Council would realize was COUNTERPRODUCTIVE for his character-. That is what Darcy detects and why the high spheres are somewhat "permissive" with him.

His mother died giving birth, it was already miraculous that she lived so long and ‘bout his father I think I'm going to kill him too, maybe. The father I assure you would be love him (he called Riven to himself Daru, his gift) thought was not his initial idea, the mother always saw him as an experiment (she was a witch who followed the Ancenstresses). Ohm, also in his blood there are dark elves and giants.

Riven surname is actually the name of the galaxy where he was born or a derivation of it, as is common for orphans. So the boy knows NOTHING about the above.

Timmy and Riven are the only specialists who have passed the full course at Fonterossa, without skips. In the end they bond about it. Timmy gives him a recommendation to work as a part-time mechanic at Magix (good boy face, he knows how to use it)

Timmy

Timeus “tshhhh, it’s Timmy.... i’m not my grandfather” fulfills the physique requisits as much as any other specialist, but it is true that his physique and abilities, adapted to the distance, give him a more "feline" air.

He is also the one who wakes up at night and moves silently, scaringthe rest of the squad if they wake up unexpectedly.

His glasses are for both sight and Aura Vision. His parents are rich enough to pay for an operation, but since he would have to wear glasses for his ability anyway, why? Practical guy.

And the glasses make people look down on him, something that when his self-esteem is high and he’s being rational and cunning he knows it’s wonderful, although many others times may hurt. He is mostly leprechaum with something human.

Nex

Nex is still a Paladin born in Lymphea and with blood of literally ALL races. He adapts well to any planet, although not its people at first. His race mix makes his face “charismatic”, like always draw attention even if people don’t know very well why they are draw.

His ability is Delay Sleep. It allows him to hold over his need to sleep for days without going crazy or losing physical capacity or needing many days to recover (he can stay awake for 5 or more days, sleep 8-10 hours and go back to being his usual self). Sometimes he does not control this well and has plenty of energy in need of drop but he is the one who has the most control of his ability.

One of his parents spent time in Rocalucce Fortress as a "guest" so at times he feels like he has something to prove.

Roy

Coming from Andros, most of the population are merpeople with a few elves and humans. which avoids the 100% aquatic population. Roy, unlike Aisha is mostly human-elf with a bit of merpeople in a grandgrandgrand level. One of his parents comes from one of the colonies on the moons of Andros and he was born there although they moved almost immediately.

Roy’s paladin ability being the canon “Triton Aura” used to breathe underwater. That and learning to swim and drive all kinds of water vehicles was what made him feel "adapted" to Andros. But he always try to be useful.

He only became a Paladin at the beginning of season 6, and it was visiting him that the season began. He’s bi but he thinks of himself as straight.

Nabu

I plead guilty to liking Nabu even though I shipped Aisha with Flora and Nex. So I have a hard time thinking about him. Except, EVERY time I try to think of something. EVERY TIME. Rapunzel. So, he will never cut his hair.

But with an island instead of a tower and a babysitter (male and wizard) more dumbledoor (not, actually more like Newt Scamander mentor like).

Sometimes he misses out on some "social customs/things/normalcies" whatever is called due to his little dealing with people. He may seem naive or that don't understand sarcasm. He understands and learns quickly, but people were very respectful to him and there are things he is not used to. 1/2 merpeople 1/4 half elf 1/4 human as both of his parents are half merpeople.

He likes to swim as much as any merpeople, but they didn't let him do it much because they were afraid he would go away or lost, so he usually went off "to the heights", going up to the rooftops and things like that.

Helia

Helia is trans but keeps his first name as chosen name which I don’t understand. Also he has formally tried study practically everything he wanted. Specialist, Paladin, Wizard (of Threads). Painter.

He can't make up his mind, his family hurries him just to STOP making them dizzy and spend a few years with everything -and actually end a single “major” choice- he wants to experience, that he has a very long life and can dedicate a few decades to Everything and they can support them. Well, more or less, but he was vip pass to all these options because family connections.

Long story about Sky, Brandon and Dia.

Sky, Brandon and Diaspro's first meeting was a show. Has it all. Costumes, lies. Confusion. Kidnapping. And that is why Diaspro insists on the wedding (I would like to mention that although I don’t know her romantic orientation yet surely bi or lesbian, here, Dia is asexual. And Sky is non-binary but his parents do not approve so go for he/him to avoid problem with them. And here our story begins)

A bit of background. Brandon actually hails from Isis, the son of the military and was chosen by the whimsical chibi!Diaspro as a playmate and future personal guard (because then she believed that touching children gave "lice" and her character and age did not have the 18like wall of royal education, then in a random encounter he called her among many things what Dia's mind translated in a strange way "uncracked geode", which is a double-edged compliment in Isis that many would not accept from strangers but she liked it). Rarely they would end up becoming friends in the end. When the series begins, Brandon and Diaspro keep up with calls, which will prevent Dia's reaction with Bloom on the one hand.

On a visit (officially only from the kings of Erakyon to to the kings of Isis) for the children to get to know each other, somehow, they all ended up happily dressing up, with Sky and Dia looking like two pretty princesses and Brandon assessing whether his dress would be green or yellow because Diaspro insisted that she and Sky had already taken the blue and red and so it would be more "thematic".

Here began the first of many attacks on Sky's head, because before it had begun to be rumored (true) that Erendor had fertility problems (btw his race dwarf-high elf and Samara is leprechaum-high elf, Sky gots mostly high elf part). When they came in and saw two girls and a boy, Brandon, not the highest IQ, but one of the wisest of his team and definitely the best fighter, played along so he ended up pretending to be Sky (also helps that his hair colors looks like Erendor) Everything worked out well in the end, although Brandon ended up as Sky's squire (better for him, worse for Diaspro), and Diaspro made Sky promise that he owed her a big favor. Anyway they grew up over the years in friendship and they both knew they were not of each other's true love interest, but, they could put up with each other (because that's what royalty does).

Sky and Diaspro have a sonorous (affectionate) war over Sky's hair to annoy/exasperate Brandon. Diaspro always complains that he doesn't grow it and it would look great then. Sky says that he is fine as with his hair at it is (it's actually Erendor's thing). The soft part of Diaspro that she doesn't usually show off has taught Sky many ways to style his hair and subtly put on makeup to look more feminine if he wants to.

How I am amused by that image from wikipedia and that Diaspro entered Sky's guard so quickly. Another headcanon is that Diaspro would sometimes change her appearance a bit and go into Sky's guard to be with Brandon to annoy him and Sky, when Brandon has to talk about her without giving details, she is simply "his sister Charbonne" (she hates that alias). They were discovered when she was 15 years old but she had already trained and the royal families considered it a sign to formalize the engagement since “they search each other” (people only sees what they wants).

The Diaspro family is not good, first Brandon was a shield (emotional) because as a child they were not “that” bad and then Sky joined him (physically and politically), handling things with Bloom so like that was not a good idea when the floor was full of cracked bottles.

... omg i’m sorry you three i’m sorry what I did to you

Also, Brandon's ability as a green user is very interesting and helps with this a lot. I temporally call it “Keypoint Warning” and I like it a lot, it's like a "tic" that tells him "be careful, what you say, what you do now, even the smallest thing could change everything for youself (for better or for worse)”. He actually has a scar on his forehead (not a lightning bolt) that his hairstyle hides after “that” day but a little less fine on the words and the kidnappers might have broken his mouth so... His parents have been cured (spoiler: no) of heart attack since then.

[hibiscera]

mr. mind, da worm

INHALES. EXHALES. Anon I am so sorry for what you have unleashed. This is gonna be long.

I’m putting it under a cut actually because this is getting ridiculous. The special interest is TANGIBLE. Also this is sooooo embarrassing so I’m sorry in advanced.

First impression

THIS IS THE CHARACTER OF ALL TIME!!! THIS IS _THE_ CHARACTER OF ALL TIME, PLANKTON’S INFLUENCE!!? HOW COME I DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT HIM UNTIL NOW!?!?!?

This discovery was made on October 18th, 2020, when one of my dearest friends showed me a picture of him to lure me into getting into DC and I took the bait! Hook, line AND sinker. ^_^

I don’t know what anyone expected from the person obsessed with Scalpel TFA.

Impression now

He Is My Favorite DC Character I Love Him So Much.

My favorite version is Justice League Action because he has the best design out of all of his canon ones, and he is funny.

Uhh the Rebirth version, I like the direction they took with him!! I love the name Maxivermis!! I love the fleshed out backstory they gave him because I think if any villain should have a tragic backstory, it should be the villain that is literally an insect and I am NOT joking!! Yes I get it’s about the absolute absurdity of him being an insect and a villain, but I’m an entomology freak!!

Enough of fleshing out the clown!! It’s worm time!! I like the parallels they kind of tried to give between him and Billy in it too? I just don’t love that he’s not an alien anymore. That’s part of the appeal!

The version of him I love the most besides JLA is... Uhh, well, my personal version of him that I made. (: The ideal Mr. Mind!! The tragedy of his backstory from New 52, while still keeping him an alien! Not the exact same backstory but it’s STILL tragic, giving it connecting threads to J’onn’s backstory (you thought I could resist the venus and mars parallels!?). Keeping his insect characteristics while still letting him have his little glasses!! The best of both worlds!!

Honestly I feel like a lot of loving DC characters is... plucking your favorite parts from various continuities and creating your ultimate version of the character.

I think Mr. Mind has a lot of potential to be an interesting character, again I know it’s like... he is an evil worm hehe but UGHHH OK I LOVE BUGS SO MUCH AND I THINK WE CAN DO MORE WITH THEM!! I want to write a new version of him that explores the potential the concept of the character has...

It’s very similar to why I love Killer Moth so much, he is a character with a lot of potential and even the root of their characters I think is that they’re tired of being stepped on and underestimated, all packaged in a bug theme.

Anyways, Plankton was always my favorite Spongebob character so I hope that explains everything.

Favorite moment

Every moment he has in JLA. The whole episode with him and Superman and Lobo was so good. He’s so... casual. He’s just like HEHE I am a stinker. (: And Superman is like rolls his eyes. That was good I loved that.

Comics I still... have much to work through. But I did like in the Magiclands comic when he tried giving Billy the whole WE’RE NOT SO DIFFERENT YOU AND I speech. And I have like... no context for this, but I had read that bit where he... is with Superman and trying to talk down Lex from doing something super evil?? I liked that. (I also know that’s apparently not the original Mr. Mind but one of his children who is basically just him again and retains all of his memories)

Also the DC Super Friends comic where instead it’s Super VILLAINS and he is at the mad scientist convention!! LOOK AT HIM!!

By the way I cried when I saw him for the first time at the end of Shazam.

Idea for a story

Me, holding a folder full of papers and it’s all of my Mr. Mind development notes. Let’s not make this post longer than it already is.

Unpopular opinion

I think they should stick to him being an alien. That’s probably not an unpopular opinion. He’s not a popular character to begin with.

Also I prefer his basis being more off of caterpillars rather than worms, but I think from the beginning that’s what they were going with. I’m just a caterpillar lover and very specific.

Favorite relationship

Okay. Okay... A lot of this is uhhh stuff I made up for my own version of him and that universe.

So I hope it comes as a shock to absolutely nobody that him and Scarecrow naturally occur to me as a duo. I hope no one is surprised I saw the dubious lanky nightmare chemist and the evil science bug and said “Hold On. (:”

I’m not gonna delve into that too much mostly because I’m EMBARRASSED... but I think a guy obsessed with fear would see a ghastly evil little caterpillar, a BUG, which many people are afraid of!! And I think he would be like... hmm yeah I like this guy’s style actually.

And then there is The Possibility Of Parallels Between Him And J’onn And Superman. Admittedly, in my own writing I’ve found him more compelling as an enemy to them than of Captain Marvel!! My version of him retains him being the last of his kind (I haven’t read the comics where it actually happens but I know how it happens in canon verse I thiiiiink), but the cause is different. Very different. They are in similar situations... But Mr. Mind! Well, he is a very troubled caterpillar.

But also I want him to have a villain decay arc and become Billy’s accidental uncle.

And recently I’ve started fleshing out my version of Mr. Atom more and he’s ended up being the Toxitron to Mr. Mind’s Scalpel... which is to say his robot son. Like Doofenshmirtz and his robot son.

Favorite headcanon

Okay, I’m sorry, I’m the most embarrassing man on the planet. Yes I headcanon him as trans and gay.

Otherwise again this is a point where the post would get WAAAAYY too long because I have thought so much about him and my version of him.

[itsclydebitches]

Is buying the new Harry Potter game supporting transphobes because I've been seeing a lot of that on twitter? Not playing it. Pirating is fine, but actually paying for it.

Hi, anon!

I’ve seen a lot of the same and had initially thought to post my thoughts on the issue… before I got a very angry ask condemning me for a post where I admitted that I thought the game looked great and was excited to play it. I can no longer link to that post because I deleted it: a late night, impulsive decision made in an effort to try and protect myself from further flaming. Thus, I considered ignoring this ask under the same justification… before realizing that it might not matter in the long run. The Harry Potter: Legacy trailer has been out for just a few days and already I have gotten that furious ask, been told off by a friend for mentioning the trailer, and was questioned (antagonistically) about why I had added a Harry Potter related book to my Goodreads list. They’re small and potentially coincidental anecdotes, but it feels as if any engagement with Harry Potter is slowly coming under scrutiny, not just the (supposed—more on that below) crime of purchasing the new game. Given that I will always engage with Harry Potter related media, if there’s any chance such subtle criticism will continue regardless of whether I make the “right” choice to boycott the game or not, I might as well explain my position. Especially for someone who asked politely! Thanks for that 💜. 

Which leads to the disclaimer: Any anon hate will be unceremoniously deleted. This is a complicated issue and I intend to write about it as such. I ask that any readers go into this post with good faith and a willingness to acknowledge that this situation isn’t as black and white as they may prefer it to be. If that’s not something you can emotionally handle—which is 100% fine. Some subjects we’re simply not inclined to debate—or if you’re just looking to get in a cheap shot, please hit the back button.

Right. Introduction done. Now here’s the tl;dr: saying things like “Buying this game is inherently selfish/transphobic” isn’t the hot take people want it to be. Is boycotting Legacy one (very small—we’ll get to that too) way of showing support for the trans community? Yes. Is buying the game proof that you’re a selfish transphobe?  No. This isn’t a bad SAT question. Legacy boycotters are to trans supporters as Legacy buyers are to  ___? The argument that someone is selfish for buying the game is basically that you are choosing a non-essential video game over the respect and lives of trans individuals, but the logic breaks down when we acknowledge that purchasing a game has no real life impact on a trans individual’s safety, support, etc.   

“But Clyde, you’re giving Rowling money. She is then using that money to support anti-trans organizations. Thus, you have actively put more harm into the world.” Have I? I’m not going to get into whether/how much/what kind of money Rowling is receiving from this project because the fact is we don’t know and we’ll likely never know. Suffice to say, she probably will get some portion of any $60/$70 purchase. The real question is whether those sales have any meaningful impact. Reputable information on Rowling’s net worth is hard to come by, but it seems to be somewhere between 600 million and 1 billion pounds. Or, to put it another way: a fuck ton. And money keeps rolling in from a franchise that is so, so much bigger than a single video game. It literally doesn’t matter how much money you might put in her pocket via Legacy because she’s already so goddamn rich she can do whatever she wants. If Rowling wants to give a million dollars to the heinous “charity” of her choice, she can. She will. You are not directly contributing to this horror because that money may as well already exist. Every person in the world could refuse to buy this game and she’d shrug, going about her disgusting life because it literally does not affect her in any meaningful way. You’re refusing to give the murderer a knife when they’re got direct access to a knife-making factory. Horrible as it is to hear, you can’t stop them from doing something horrific with that tool. 

For me, this is the straw argument of the Harry Potter world. Not straw as in strawman, but literally straws. Remember how everyone was talking about plastic straws, swore off them, and subsequently deemed anyone who still used one to be selfish people who didn’t care about the environment? It didn’t matter if you had a certified “good” reason for using one (disability) or a “selfish” reason (carrying straws everywhere on the off chance you wanted a drink is a pain in the ass)—you’re a horrible person who wants the planet to die. Same deal here. If you can swear off straws, great! Do what tiny bit of good you can. But if you can’t or even don’t want to give them up, the reality is that your “selfishness” doesn’t make a significant difference in the world. The amount of plastic corporations are pouring into the ocean makes your actions inconsequential. It’s not like voting where every small, individual act adds up to a significant total. This is your lack up against others’ staggering abundance. It’s not adding a few drops of water until you have a full bucket, it’s trying to un-flood the boat with a teaspoon while someone else is spraying it with the hose. Have you, on the most technical level, made a difference by moving that teaspoon of water out of the boat? Yes. Is it a difference that holds any meaning in regards to the desired outcome? Not really. Now apply all that to Rowling. She is so phenomenally wealthy—with additional wealth coming in every day—that your purchase of Legacy is a teaspoon of water in her ocean of funds. It’s inconsequential.

“But Clyde, buying this game would support her and supporting her sends the message that what she believes is okay.” Exact same argument as above. JKR’s fame is so astronomical that no video-game boycott could ever make a dent in it. For every 100 people who swear off her work there are another 1,000 who continue to engage with both her writing and the writing related to her world because she is that prominent. Harry Potter is one of the largest franchises of all time, second only to things like Pokémon and Star Wars. This isn’t some indie creator who you can ignore into silence. The reality is that Rowling is here to stay and we have to take far more substantial acts to counteract that influence. 

Even more importantly, buying the game is not evidence that you support her views and the black and white belief that it does is an easy distraction from those harder “How do we improve the lives of trans people?” questions. I started compiling a list of stories with problematic authors only to realize the number of incredibly popular texts with awful histories attached to them unnecessarily increased the length of an already long post. Everything from Game of Thrones to Dr. Seuss—if you love it, chances are one of the authors involved has a history of misogyny, racism, homophobia, etc. Which I don’t say as a way of excusing these authors, nor as a way to silence the justified and necessary call outs on their work. Rather, I bring this up to acknowledge that engaging with these stories cannot be concrete evidence for how you view the minority group in question. The reasons for consuming these stories are incalculable and at the end of the day no one needs a “correct” reason for that consumption (my teacher forced me to read the racist book, I only watched the homophobic TV show so I could call out how horrible it was, etc.) If fiction were an indicator of our real life beliefs we’d all be the most horrifying creatures imaginable. I may be severely uncomfortable with the queer baiting in Supernatural, but if a friend says they bought the DVD collection my response is not, “How dare you support those creators. You’re homophobic.” In the same way, someone purchasing Legacy should not generate the response, “How dare you support her. You’re transphobic.” There’s a miles’ worth of pitfalls in connecting the statements “You purchased a game based on the world created by a transphobic author” and “You yourself are transphobic.” 

So if buying Legacy does not add additional harm to the trans community from a financial perspective, and it doesn’t make a dent in Rowling’s platform, and playing a game is not evidence of your feelings towards the group the author hates… what are we left with? “But Clyde, it’s the principal of the thing. I don’t want to support a TERF” and that is an excellent argument. Your morals. Your ethics. What you can stomach having done or not done. But the “your” is incredibly important there. People need to understand that this is their own line in the sand and that if someone else’s line is different, that doesn’t mean they’re automatically a worse person than you. For example, I have made the choice not to eat at Chick-Fil-A. Not because I believe that me not giving them $3.75 for a sandwich will make a difference in their influence on the world, but because it makes a difference to me. It helps me sleep at night. So if not purchasing Legacy helps you sleep at night? That’s a fantastic reason not to buy it. But the flipside is that if someone else does purchase it that is not a reliable reflection of their morals, no more than I think my friends are homophobic for grabbing lunch at Chick-Fil-A now and then. Sometimes you just want a sandwich. 

“But Clyde, why would you want to buy it? Rowling is such a shit-stain I don’t understand how anyone can stomach supporting her—whether that support has an impact or not. Maybe someone eats at Chick-Fil-A because it’s close to them and they’re too busy to go elsewhere, or it’s all they can afford, or they don’t know how homophobic they are. There are lots of reasons to explain something like that. But you’re not ignorant to Rowling’s problem and there’s no scenario where you have to play this game, let alone spend money on it. So why?”

The reality is that I will likely be buying Legacy, second-hand if I can, but new if it comes to that, so I’ll give some of my personal answers here, in descending order of presumed selfishness:

5. Part of my work involves studying video games/Harry Potter and as a researcher of popular culture, my career depends on keeping up with major releases: good and bad. I often engage with stories I wholeheartedly disagree with for academic purposes, like Fifty Shades of Gray.

4. I find the “Just pirate it!” solution to be flawed. I’ve spent the last four months struggling to get my laptop fixed and I currently have no income to buy another if it were to suddenly develop a larger problem. I am not going to risk my $2,000 lifeline on an illegal download, no matter how safe and easy the Internet insists it is. 

3. We’ve been told that Rowling has not been involved in Legacy in any significant manner and I do want to support Portkey. No, not just financially because I know many others have insisted that everyone good has already been paid. Game companies still need to sell games. That’s why they exist. There’s a possibility that a company with just two mobile games under its belt will be in trouble if this completely flops. Is my purchase going to make or break things? No. Same reality as whether it will put new, influential money in Rowling’s pocket to do horrific things with. But I’d like to help a company that looks as if they put a lot of heart and energy into a game only to get hit with some real shit circumstances outside of their control. Even if they’re not impacted financially or career-wise… art is meant to be consumed. I know if I wrote a Harry Potter fic and everyone boycotted it because they want nothing to do with Rowling anymore, I’d be devastated. Sometimes, you can’t separate supporting the good people from supporting the bad. Not in a media landscape where thousands of people are involved in singular projects.

2. I’m invested in reclaiming excellent works created by horrible authors. That’s fandom! We don’t know much about Legacy yet—this is pure, unsubstantiated speculation—but this new story could be a step forward from Rowling’s books, giving us some of the respect for minority groups that she failed at. That’s the sort of work I want to promote because Harry Potter as a concept is great and I think it’s worth transforming it for our own needs and desires. The reality is that as long as Rowling is alive she’ll benefit from licensed material, but if that material can start taking her world in better directions? I want to support that too.

1. I literally just want to play it. That’s it. That’s my big justification. I think it looks phenomenal and I was itching to get my hands on it the second the trailer dropped. And you know what? I’m not in a good place right now to deny myself things I enjoy. I don’t need to tell anyone that 2020 has been an absolute horror show, but for me certain things have made it a horror show with a cherry on top. Not a lot gets me excited right now because we’re living in the worst fucking timeline, so when I find something that makes me feel positive emotions for a hot second I want to hang onto it. I have no desire to set aside that spark of happiness in a traumatic world because people on the Internet think it makes me selfish. Maybe it does, but I’m willing to let myself be a bit selfish right now. 

Which circles back to this issue of equating buying a game with active harm towards the trans community. It honestly worries me because this is a very, very easy way to avoid the harder, messier activism that will actually help the queer community. When someone says things like, “You’re choosing a stupid video game over trans lives” that activism is performative. Not only—as demonstrated above—is purchasing a game not a threat to trans lives or ignoring the game a way of protecting trans lives, it also gives people an incredibly easy out while still seeming ‘woke.’ Not all people. Maybe not even a significant portion of people, but enough people to be worrisome. “I’m not purchasing that game,” some people post and then that’s it. That’s all they do, yet they feel like they’ve done their duty when in fact they’ve made no active difference in the world. Are you donating to trans charities? Are you speaking up for your trans friends when someone accosts them? Are you circulating media by trans authors? Are you educating your family about trans issues? Are you listening to trans individuals and continually trying to educate yourself? These are the things that make a difference, not shaming others for buying a game.

All of this is not meant to be an argument that people shouldn’t be absolutely revolted by Rowling’s beliefs (they should) and that this revulsion can’t take the form of rejecting this game wholeheartedly. This isn’t even meant to be an argument that you shouldn’t encourage others to boycott because though the financial impact may be negligible, the emotional impact for you is very real. I 100% support anyone who wants to chuck this game into the trash and never talk about it again—for any reason. All this is meant to argue is that people shouldn’t judge others based on whether they purchase this game (with a side argument that we can’t limit our activism to that shaming). That’s their decision and this decision, significantly, does not add any real harm to the world. Your fellow Harry Potter fan is not the enemy here. We as a community should not be turning our visceral on one another. Turn it on Rowling. She’s the TERF, not the individual who, for whatever reason, decided they wanted to play the game only tangentially related to her.  

If Twitter and Tumblr are any indication, I can imagine the sort of responses this post may generate: “That’s a whole lot of talk to try and convince us you’re not a transphobe :/ ” For those of you who are determined to simply things to that extent, there’s nothing I can say that will change your mind. Please re-read the disclaimer and consider whether yelling at me over anon will benefit the trans community. For those of you who are still here, I do legitimately want us to think critically about the kinds of activism we’re engaging in, how performative it might be, whether it harms the community in any way, and (most significantly) whether it’s actually moving us towards a safe, respective world for trans people to live in. Personally, I don’t think telling Harry Potter fans that they’re transphobic for buying Legacy will generate any good in this world, for them or for the trans community. 

At the end of the day only you can decide whether you can stomach buying this game or not. Decide that for yourself, but make that decision knowing that there’s no wrong answer here.  

[perenial]

at risk of asking a dumb question.. how did you know you were nb/you wanted to go by they/them? i ask as someone trying to figure it out

this isn’t a dumb question - the opposite, really, since this is the entire point of my thesis (that everyone is sick of hearing about). there really isn’t a lot of research in social sciences about non-binary identity, and what does exist is either going through peer review right now and isn’t accessible, or takes a v strong biomedical approach that totally ignores the social dimension of identity work. but that’s not exactly what ur asking so i’ll save that for my phd proposal lmao

the main Thing for me was always feeling discomfort with my birth name. from a v v young age i’d hear it and be like......is that supposed to be me? am i supposed to connect that collection of syllables to [gestures vaguely at all of this]? it just didn’t click with me. my birth name isn’t overtly feminine or anything but it’s definitely a ‘female’ name, so i guess i kind of hitched all my gender-y baggage to that horse and went okay well that’s clearly not right

i discovered the term non-binary on tumblr in about 2012? 2013? i was definitely questioning my gender by 2013, because i’d just had my first girlfriend and i felt incredibly uncomfortable when she called us lesbians. let me be super clear about this: it wasn’t internalised lesobophobia that caused the discomfort, it was the fundamental incompatibility of a gendered label having anything to do with me. 

(sidenote: there’s actually a really interesting argument by monique wittig discussed by judith butler in gender trouble that explores the idea that man/woman are inherently heterosexualised roles and therefore being a non-hetero woman/lesbian....isn’t exactly the same as being a capital-w Woman? it’s a complex theory that some lesbians/wlw have taken as an empowering concept while others feel like wittig leans into t/e/r/f or political lesbian territory. ANYWAY baby gene didn’t know this discourse existed and thought lesbian = woman so that’s what i’m getting at)

after breaking up with my girlfriend i v briefly toyed with the idea that i might be a trans guy, and while that felt slightly more correct than being a cis woman, it still didn’t sit right with me? so i cycled through a few different things, most significantly genderfluid, until one day when i was about 14/15 where i just went u know what? fuck it. i’m non-binary. u can try and define whatever the fuck is going on here but good fucking luck. 

that was around the same time i started using they/them pronouns, first online and then slowly more irl as i went to uni/talked to new people. i tried he/him and ze/zir for a while but like id-ing as a trans guy/genderfluid, it just didn’t feel right. it was a lot of trial and error, plenty of late nights staring at the ceiling practicing introducing myself, so much reading about trans identity - and somehow i ended up here, literally being non-binary as a career.

my main advice to u is to have fun with it. gender can feel really serious at times, especially when there’s so much emphasis on physical transition, but i promise it’s okay - good, even - to just fuck around while u find something that works, and for all its faults tumblr is actually a great place to do just that. u want to use neopronouns for a week? go for it! u want to change ur name every second month? sure! u don’t want people to see or perceive ur gender? bitch me too the fuck

and it’s alright if nothing fits right away, or ever! like, show me a permanent state of self. there isn’t one. we’re all just meaty sacks on a slowly dying planet; who gives a shit if the person u were calling greg last week is emily now. humans change - it’s what we do best. resisting that urge to change is how we get tony abbott eating a whole raw onion on national tv. 

i want to leave u with this quote from gender trouble, which is a fantastic book if u can muddle through all the unnecessarily complicated academic language:

If the body is not a “being,” but a variable boundary, a surface whose permeability is politically regulated, a signifying practice within a cultural field of gender hierarchy and compulsory heterosexuality, then what language is left for understanding this corporeal enactment, gender, that constitutes its “interior” signification on its surface? Sartre would perhaps have called this act “a style of being,” Foucault, “a stylistics of existence.” And in my earlier reading of Beauvoir, I suggest that gendered bodies are so many “styles of the flesh.” These styles all never fully self-styled, for styles have a history, and those histories condition and limit the possibilities. Consider gender, for instance, as a corporeal style, an “act,” as it were, which is both intentional and performative, where “performative” suggests a dramatic and contingent construction of meaning.

(and because i’ve been referencing things all day and can’t break the habit now - emphasis mine, Butler 1999 (2nd ed.), pg. 177)

happy gendering!

[colorisbyshe]

We don't have the same gender journey, but it's incredible how well you can put how I feel about gender into words. It's exactly how I feel as a woman-aligned nb person. I feel I'm letting misogyny inform my gender too much, though. If the world wasn't so gendered and the binary so enforced, perhaps I wouldn't identify as woman lite. But it is what it is, so I wanted to thank you :)

No problem!

It's a bit ironic how intensely binarist a lot of people are about nonbinary identities. Like, they balk at the idea that you can be both nonbinary and also identify, on any level, with a binary gender. And especially balk when that gender is the one you were assigned at birth.

There's no room for complexities. There's no room for identities that are seemingly contradictory but also make complete sense.

Like... every single person on the planet is shaped by social forces and oppression dynamics and all that. Every single person is shaped by the presence of misogyny in society, on some level.

It's just that everyone processes, reacts to, and internalize society differently. I processed that misogyny and 20 million other social forces and experiences and said I'm nonbinary with an asterisk and I'm woman with an asterisk.

And everyone else processed their mixtures of Societal Bullshit and came up with their own words for the feelings.

I think a clear example of this is... there are cis women and trans women who feel the same way about womanhood that I do--alienated by it, completely removed from it at times, but in love with the unique ways it allows you to connect with other people, other women. They just... don't feel that that alienation actually translates to being nonbinary.

And that's fine! That proves that both my nonbinaryness and their womanness are both arbitrary and subjective and wholly personal.

We were given the same clay and made different art out of it.

But it's art, nonetheless.

And maybe tomorrow we see if the clay is still malleable and move it around a bit again. And again and again. Sometimes it cracks, sometimes it keeps molding, but it's always still art.

[space-city-traffic]

(i have many thoughts on how i would redo Firefly to make it decent, and i put them all together on a hugely long post. but so it’s more accessible and less massive, i also decided to break it up by character! so without further ado, here is:)

SIMON TAM: GIFTED KID, TRANS MAN, AND MY BELOVED SON

out on the outer rim where Kaylee’s from, gender ain’t much of a big deal, there’s an individualistic quality to life out there, and so if the trail you blaze is the trail of a woman or a man or neither or both, that’s respected even in the rare cases where it’s not outright encouraged. but in the inner planets, where competition and connections and public faces and family names are everything, you have to be what’s expected of you to survive. you can’t change your brand, you can’t be anything other than what your family planned for you since before you were born, it’s incredibly hard to survive in such a hyper competitive environment, and so your very identity becomes just a tool in how to market yourself for better success.

needless to say Simon (just as autistic as his little sister and also very trans) fuckin hated it there. but he was very good at it. correction: he was very good at his very specific field of STEM, good enough to where people stopped talking about how cute he looked in bows and started talking about how impressive his work was from a very young age. and his work had no gender. he could be whatever he wanted to in equations. so that was where he could express himself, and gd, he got so much praise for it, he never wanted to stop.

not until he discovered that his sister needed him, and ran away, and needed a disguise, and realized... suddenly, every stifling rule and prying eye was a million miles away. he was freefloating, freefalling, with none of the charted paths he’d been following all his life... so you know what? fuck it. he’s always enjoyed the name Simon. and since it’s not on any legal records, it’ll make him just that much more untraceable.

and on Serenity, starting over with new people who never knew him before his transition feels like an unbelievable blessing that just dropped right into his lap. he has to keep up the secrecy, he has to make sure they never find out who he used to be, because gd, it’s so nice when they look at him and say his name right, and he doesn’t know if he can handle losing that, not when it’s so new and so important to the person he’s finally becoming. but then one day, the unthinkable happens, the wanted posters for his arrest have an old name on them, they’re looking for the Tam sisters, and... nothing changes. the crew of Serenity could not give even a tenth of a percent of a fuck, and it doesn’t seem like they even know they’re supposed to. huh. that’s new. Simon could get used to that, he thinks.

(the masterpost)