#if he's related to daniel this genetics are GOOD

[loyauno]

LOOKISM 481 SPOILERS

HELLO THERE ‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️

[corawithfanfiction]

X-Men Next Step Is Evolution I Winter Soldier & Polaris (and Wolverine)

to my X-Men (episode 10)

episode 9 - episode 11

warning and some informations:

Hello, as I mentioned before, we are in a story that runs parallel to the MCU (we start after FATWS), but since there is no X-Men movie in the main cinematic universe (616) and I find the previous ones successful, I am trying to go in parallel with the comics.

It may contain spoilers from some of the comics in the Marvel main universe 616, but for those who haven't read them, I try not to include major events that would spoil the fun.

Now that we've officially arrived at the episodes that will take place inside the Academy, I'm here with a small character introduction section, such as who are the characters that are currently in the Academy, what are their powers, what are their appearance and their identities.

✗

the images are representative, I used actors who have played the role before or the most suitable celebrities in my head. for the casting it's free to shoot, we can take ideas and discuss them.

Charles Xavier - Charles Francis Xavier

As a mutant rights activist, he fought for peace and equality between mutants and humans against both anti-mutant people and groups such as the Brotherhood of Mutants, which advocated the domination of normal humans by mutants. Charles Xavier, who also holds PhDs in genetics, biophysics, psychology and anthropology, founded Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters to educate and provide a home for young mutants who are outcasts from society and have difficulty controlling their powers.

Xavier visits his friend Daniel Shomron, who runs a clinic for traumatized Holocaust victims in Haifa, Israel, where he meets Erik Lehnsherr, a Holocaust survivor who volunteers at the clinic, and Gabrielle Haller, whose trauma has left her in a catatonic coma. Xavier uses his mental powers to save her from her catatonia and the two fall in love. Xavier and Magneto become good friends, but neither immediately reveals to the other that he is a mutant. The two have long discussions to hypothesize what would happen if humanity faced a new race of super-powered humans. While Xavier is optimistic, Magneto's experiences in the Holocaust lead him to believe that humanity will eventually crush the new human race as it has done to other minorities. The two friends show their strength to each other as they battle Nazi Baron Wolfgang von Strucker and the HYDRA agents who kidnapped Gabrielle because she knows the location of their secret stash of gold. Magneto tries to kill Strucker, but Xavier stops him. Realizing that his and Xavier's views on mutant-human relations are incompatible, Magneto leaves with the gold. Charles stays in Israel for a while, but he and Gabrielle leave without knowing that she is pregnant with his son, who grows up to become the mutant Legion.

On Muir Island, Charles meets his ex-girlfriend Gabrielle Haller and learns that they have a child. The child, David (Legion), is autistic and suffers from multiple personality disorder and, like his father, has immense psionic powers. After Xavier helps him and his team to escape David's mind, he promises to always be there for him.

✗ Mystique - Raven Darkhölme

She was discovered by Charles Xavier, who was also a mutant like her. As a child, she was feared and ostracized by society because of her blue color, unusual patterns, red hair and yellow eyes. He accidentally enters Xavier's house and meets him there. She spends her time with Xavier until she grows up. Since society has not yet discovered Mutants, she wanders around disguised as another human. Later on, she becomes obsessed with her appearance; with Xavier's permission, she joins Eric Lencer (Magneto), whom Xavier meets by chance and with whom he helps her to take revenge, and with whom she later disagrees (Eric thinks that humans will exclude and destroy mutants, Xavier thinks the opposite). She continues her adventure with Magneto from then on.

During her years with Erik, the two fell in love, but Erik took advantage of Raven's abilities to get her to do his dirty work. During those years, Raven adopts and raises a young mutant girl that Erik and Raven have in common. Maintaining a mother-daughter relationship with Anna Maria for many years, Raven is forced to leave the X-Men again after her daughter accuses her of betrayal during a secret mission and Logan comes after her.

In a long chase that stretches all the way to Afghanistan, Logan leaves Raven for dead. But Raven somehow manages to get out of this situation and, accepting that she will not make things right with her daughter, she returns to her brother Charles and devotes herself to helping him and his son.

✗

Wolverine - James "Logan" Wowlett

James Howlett is a mutant born in Canada in the late 1880s, supposedly to John and Elizabeth Howlett. I say “supposedly” because James is actually the son of Thomas Logan, the housekeeper. Thomas, an alcoholic and abusive character, is kicked out of the mansion after his other son Dog attempts to rape a girl named Rose. Thomas, who has been drinking heavily and decides to return for revenge, arrives at the mansion in the evening, causes a riot and kills John Howlett with a rifle. This is where James' mutant powers, the claws, kick in and kill Thomas (yes, his real father). After this, James runs away with Rose and works among the miners for years under the name “Logan”. However, one day, when he accidentally kills Rose with his claws in an incident involving his old nemesis Dog, he surrenders himself to the wilderness out of grief and becomes a hermit.

Logan lives for years in the wilderness with wolves until he is captured and imprisoned in a circus. He escapes from the circus with the help of Victor Creed's (Sabretooth) brothers Clara and Saul. However, Saul wants to deliver Logan to Nathaniel Essex, the future Mister Sinister. Logan ends up killing both Nathaniel Essex and Saul (Essex does not die). After the events, Logan makes a partial return to civilization and lives with the Blackfoot Indians in Canada for a while. However, Silver Fox, the woman he was with at the time, is killed by Victor Creed. Burying his grief in his heart, he decides to join the army and serves in the Canadian army during the First World War. Later, he moves to Japan and marries a woman named Itsu and they give birth to a child named Daken. However, Logan will not know about the existence of his son for a long time for a number of reasons.

After a career as a mercenary in World War II and a stint with Captain America, Logan joins the CIA's Team X, a secret CIA team with uncanny members like Sabretooth and Omega Red. Just when he's done there, he is kidnapped by the Weapon X program while serving in the Canadian Department of Defense. His bones are encased in adamantium and his memory is completely erased.

With his bloody escape from Weapon X's grasp, history repeats itself and Logan is once again living like an animal in the wild.

He is invited to join the X-Men by Professor Charles Xavier. During his years at the academy, a love triangle between Jean Grey, Wolverine and Cyclops has been going on for a long time.

However, his life changed when Scott left the Academy, Jean disappeared for other reasons and Lorna came to the Academy.

✗

Polaris - Lorna Dane

Lorna lost her mother and stepfather in a plane crash at a young age. Lorna lost her mother and stepfather in a plane crash at a young age. She had to grow up without ever knowing her real father. The Dane family raised her and after some time, due to the events that took place, the Sentinal League started hunting mutants. Lorna was one of the first targets. The Sentinal Alliance killed the Dane family and Lorna joined the Outsiders, a Mutant organization made up of members who could not join the X-Men.

While with the Outsiders, she became Sinister's protégé and began working at the Casino. Although she did not possess mutant powers, she rose through the ranks at the Casino and became untouchable thanks to the reputation of Magneto, who she later learned was her father. During her time there, she met Remy, a thief, and they had a relationship that lasted for several years.

When Charles Xaiver took Lorna into his care, she left the Casino and her old life behind. Here she devoted herself to the health and control of her brother David's (Legion) powers. During her first years at the Academy, she had a short-lived relationship with Havok, but as their training and dreams did not align, they mutually decided to end the relationship and remain friends.

As Lorna became worn down by the constant battles between her family and her so-called father, she found a haven in Logan. Although there was no emotional connection between the two at first, they managed to heal each other's wounds and began to enjoy each other's company.

Exactly six days after the second blip took place and half the universe was restored, Lorna suffered a stroke. And the mutant genes she inherited from her father were activated. Although it is not known what triggered the genes, Lorna knows that she will have to finally come face to face with her father.

✗

Legion - David Charles Heller

While working at an Israeli psychiatric facility, Charles Xavier met a patient named Gabrielle Haller. The two had a relationship which, after an amicable ending, resulted in the birth of their son David, unbeknownst to Xavier (Gabrielle did not tell Xavier that she was pregnant).

At a young age, David was living in Paris with his mother and stepfather when his home was attacked by terrorists and his stepfather was killed. The trauma of the situation caused the first manifestation of David's mutant powers, as David burned the minds of the terrorists. In the process, he inadvertently absorbed the mind of terrorist leader Jemail Karami into his own mind. Linked to many others during their deaths, David was rendered catatonic for years. As he slowly recovered, he moved into the care of Moira MacTaggert at the Muir Island mutant research facility. The trauma (possibly linked to the nature of his reality-altering powers) had caused David's psyche to split into multiple personalities, each exhibiting different mutant abilities.

The Karami personality, which exhibited telepathic abilities, struggled for years to separate its consciousness from David's. In the process, Karami integrated most of the fragmented personalities back into David's core personality (thus ending David's catatonia). Some personalities resisted Karami, most notably Jack Wayne, a cool adventurer who was telekinetic, and Cyndi, a temperamental, rebellious girl who was pyrokinetic. Ultimately, Karami, Wayne and Cyndi continued to exist as David's most prominent alternate personalities.

During his time on Muir Island, David accessed the telekinetic abilities of the Jack Wayne persona and saved Moira and Wolfsbane from a fatal accident. However, this allowed Jack Wayne to take control of David's body and he left the island. The New Mutants tracked him down and after a struggle convinced Wayne to allow David to regain control. Shortly after, David was possessed by the Shadow King. While under the Shadow King's influence, David killed the mutant Destiny and destroyed 2/3 of the island. When the X-Men and X-Factor defeated the Shadow King, David was again left in a coma.

After much effort by Charles and the X-Men, David recovered somewhat. Under the control of his sister Lorna and other members of the family, he began to take control of his powers. And he was admitted to a clinic in New York. As unhappy as he was in the clinic, he was considered relatively good because he didn't burn people's brains out. During Blip, he was taken out of the clinic by Lorna and brought home, and in five years he was more himself than he had ever been. Until half the universe came back and continued to plague David's mind.

✗ Storm - Ororo Monroe

Ororo Munroe was born in Kenya, the daughter of N'Dare, a tribal princess, and David Munroe, an American photographer. After her mother N'Dare married, she and her father moved to Manhattan and Ororo was born there. When she was only 7 months old, she moved with her family to Egypt. When she was 5 years old, a plane crashed into their house during the Arab-Israeli conflict. Ororo was trapped in the wreckage of their house with the bodies of her mother and father, and from that day on she suffered from claustrophobia, an event that affected her greatly. Orphaned and homeless, Ororo is now alone on the streets. A member of a gang of thieves finds him and takes her to their leader, Achmed el-Gibar. Ororo learns the finer points of being a thief and soon becomes a master street thief. During this time, Ororo steals the wallet of an American tourist, not realizing that the person he is stealing from is Charles Xavier, master telepath and founder of the X-Men. Xavier stops him with a telepathic attack and Ororo barely escapes. Years later, Ororo leaves Egypt because of her great curiosity for the south. During her journey she is nearly raped by a stranger who offers her a ride to her destination, but she is forced to kill him in self-defense and from that day on Ororo vows never to take another life.

As her journey south continues, Ororo has to cover many kilometers on foot and is exhausted. As she is dying of thirst in the Sahara Desert, her mutan powers manifest themselves for the first time, making it rain in the middle of the desert. Soon after, she also develops the power to control the weather, which she uses to rescue T'Challa, the prince of Wakanda.

Storm continues her journey and eventually arrives in Kenya, her mother's homeland, where, thanks to her mutant powers, she is dubbed a goddess by many of Kenya's tribes, who begin to worship her.

After some time has passed, Charles Xavier uses his telepathic powers to locate her and travel to Kenya to convince her to join the X-Men, a group of mutants fighting for the peaceful coexistence of humanity and mutants. Ororo does not want to accept at first. But Charles Xavier manages to convince her and gives her the name “Storm”. From that day on, Ororo is called Storm and becomes part of the X-Men.

Upon Cyclops' departure from the group, she took over the leadership and proved to the whole group how successful she was in leadership with the smart decisions she made in difficult conditions and situations.

* Storm married Black Panther, the King of Wakanda, in a sumptuous wedding and left the X-Men as the queen of Wakanda. During this time, she helped her husband in many ways and ruled as a queen in Wakanda.

✗

Rogue - Anna Maria

It copies the power and memory of the person it touches with 20 times the duration of the touch. But each person leaves a part of them in their mind.

The first time she kisses her boyfriend Cody, her power is unleashed and puts him in a coma. With this fear and ostracization, she runs away from home. Mystique finds her and takes her in as her own daughter, teaching her how to use her powers. And one day these powers are given to Ms. Marvel (Carol Danvers). For some unknown reason (possibly as a result of Ms. Marvel's Kree genetics) she permanently absorbs all her powers. She can now fly as well as touch and absorb power. Her body becomes invulnerable and she is able to lift great weights. Rogue's powers then undergo another transformation, and she can now use the powers of those she has touched at will.

Rogue first fights alongside Mystique in the League of Evil Hybrids, headed by “Magneto”. Meanwhile, The Avengers, Space Paladin Rom, and eventually the X-Men clash with her and she almost single-handedly defeats the X-Men. But he escapes at the urging of Ms. Marvel in her mind, she escapes and consults Charles Xaiver. She is accepted into the X-Men. Initially met with hostility, Rogue begins to assert herself in a fight when Wolverine steps forward as if sacrificing her own life to save the life of her lover.

After this incident, a sister-brother relationship begins between her and Logan. Of course, with Logan's power to heal her, she is the only person Anna can hug and touch without fear.

Deep painful love with Gambit, not being able to touch loved ones, people to be saved, mutants… Rogue, who fights for her life between these tides, is one of the most beloved and at the same time one of the most annoying members of the Academy with her beauty and attitude.

✗

Jubilee - Jubilation Lee

Jubilation Lee was born into a wealthy Chinese family in Bevery Hills. Professionally involved in gymnastics, Jubilee's childhood years were filled with prosperity and family bliss, but they ended when her father went bankrupt. While the family was still coping, two hit men known as Reno and Molokai mistook mother and father Lee for their upstairs neighbors and murdered them. After this incident, Jubilee turned into a rebellious girl and was placed in an orphanage in Los Angeles. During her stay at the orphanage, Jubilee dealt with too many problems and caused more problems. As a result, when she was about to be transferred to a harsher orphanage, she ran away from the orphanage and started living in a shopping center hiding and stealing leaves.

Because Jubilee had become so callous because of what had happened to her family and her orphanage experience, her thefts were not hard to detect. One day mall security caught her red-handed and a chase ensued. During the chase, Jubilee became so stressed that her hands released orbs of energy, which she would later call 'fireworks', and this energy neutralized the security guards. Thus Jubilee discovered her mutant powers.

Although Jubilee finally realized that she was a mutant, she did not realize the value of her powers. So she used her powers to perform acrobatic stunts: In the shopping center where she lived in hiding, she earned money during the day with these stunts and continued to steal at night. Finally realizing that they couldn't catch Jubilee, the security guards called in the M Squad, a mutant crime squad that detains captured mutants. It was the four female X-Men, Dazzler, Psylocke, Rogue and Storm, who were shopping at the time, who rescued Jubilee as she was about to be captured by the M Squad. Admiring her rescuers, Jubilee followed them to the portal leading to their base and infiltrated the base without anyone noticing. Since this was the only way of life she knew, she continued to live in hiding at the X-Men base. However, she was soon tracked down and found by a cybernetic dog. Once captured, Jubilee focused her powers and disassembled the robot dog, the first time she had ever deliberately used her powers for violence. Jubilee traveled to the remote corners of the base to cover her tracks again, where she spotted Wolverine being tortured by the Reavers, a cyborg team, and with the help of her powers, she smuggled Wolverine into one of his hideouts. After rescuing Wolverine, Jubilee was exposed and gained the trust of the X-Men and teamed up with Wolverine on numerous missions across Asia.

✗ Emma Frost - Emma Grace Frost

Emma Frost was born in Boston, Massachusetts to wealthy Winston and Hazel Frost. She is the third of four children: her siblings are named Christian, Adrienne and Cordelia. Winston is cold, ruthless and authoritarian, often imposing impossibly high standards on his children, while Hazel abuses prescription drugs to cope with the tensions of her home. Emma receives no emotional support from either her parents or her sisters, and gets along well with her brother Christian. At school, Frost is relentlessly bullied by his peers, but finds support in teacher Ian Kendall. When his telepathic powers manifest, Frost is able to read the minds of others and gather information. Frost becomes a tutor to other students and Ian suggests that he become a teacher, which Frost's father refuses. One day on the way home from school, Frost's car breaks down and Ian gives him a ride home. Frost kisses him after reading his thoughts and learning that he thinks she is beautiful and intelligent. Her sister Adrienne records it and her father uses the evidence to get Ian fired. Frost begins to retaliate by blackmailing her father. Impressed by his actions, Winston offers him the family fortune, but Frost rejects his offer and decides to make his own way in life.

After a period of homelessness, Frost meets and falls in love with a young man named Troy, who agrees to let her live with him. She learns that he owes a large amount of money to a local gangster named Lucien. To save Troy's life, Frost agrees to participate in a fake kidnapping scheme to extort Troy's remaining debt from his father. However, this soon turns into a real kidnapping and Troy is killed while bravely trying to save Frost from the enraged Lucien. Using her powers, Frost turns the thugs against each other in an illusion, causing an imaginary gunfight to break out and a panicked, supposedly last survivor to rescue her. After Emma escapes, she anonymously calls the police and they are all taken into custody, leaving her with no memories.

Frost receives the ransom money and enrolls at Empire State University. There she begins to learn about mutants for the first time and meets her friend and mentor, fellow telepath Astrid Bloom. Frost later learns that Astrid has been secretly manipulating events. Enraged, he telepathically attacks Astrid and comes out of his coma. Frost is then invited to the Hellfire Club, an underground elite society. Frost discovers Edward Buckman and Steven Lang's plans to exterminate all mutants. Frost fights Lang's Sentinels alongside Sebastian Shaw, Lourdes Chantel and Harry Leland. Frost kills Buckman and the Council of Chosen, after which she and Shaw take control of the Hellfire Club and establish themselves as the Cardinal of the Inner Circle Lords of the Hellfire Club.

During these years, Emma meets Charles and Erik and forms a close friendship with them. Although she occasionally sided with her friends on both sides of the mutant debate, she eventually found herself helping young mutants at the Academy alongside Charles.

✗ Gambit - Remy Lebeau

Remy LeBeau was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. LeBeau was kidnapped from the hospital where he was raised by the Guild of Clan Thieves and given as a tribute to the Antiquarians because of his burning red eyes. They referred to the boy as “Le Diable Blanc” (“the white devil”) and believed he was prophesied to unite the warring Thieves and Assassins Guilds.

Soon after, Remy was placed in the care of Fagan's Mob, a gang of street thieves who raised the boy and taught him the ways of theft. After living as an orphan on the streets, 10-year-old Remy tried to pick the pocket of Jean-Luc LeBeau, then patriarch of the Thieves' Guild.

Jean-Luc took the boy off the streets and welcomed him into his family. Remy's bio-kinetic charging abilities emerged in his early teens, despite keeping his powers secret from his family and friends and keeping his powers away from prying eyes.

At the age of 15, he accompanied his half-brother Etienne Marceaux to the Thieves' Guild's ritual initiation test, the “Tithing”. However, things went wrong when they were tasked with stealing from Candra, a powerful immortal mutant who quickly captured them.

Candra recognized Remy from an encounter that took place in his past but in his future (due to a time travel mission in the 19th Century that Remy would take as an adult) and sold them to the deformed, mutant gangster and child slave trader known as the Pig, who planned to sell them and their ages to HYDRA as male soldiers. Remy used their powers to escape from the pen they were held in, but the physically enhanced Pig quickly captured them. Remy discovered his signature attack when he picked up a playing card that Etienne had dropped, filled it up and threw it at the Pig's face, taking out its eye.

Remy, who eventually escaped from his cliff-top headquarters by diving into the sea, was eventually rescued by the Guild; Etienne drowned. In an attempt to reconcile the Thieves' and Assassins' Guilds, Remy married Bella Donna Boudreaux, the granddaughter of the Assassin leader he had met at the age of 8. Unfortunately, after the wedding he was challenged to a duel by his brother Julien. In the duel, Gambit killed Julien and was banished from the city, ending his relationship with Bella Donna.

✗

Kity Pryde - Katharine Anna Pryde

Pryde has a “phasing” ability that allows him and any objects or people he comes into contact with to become intangible. This power also disrupts any electric field he passes through, allowing him to simulate levitation.

As the latest member of the school, she is universally regarded as the “little sister”.

Havok - Alexander Summer

Havok produces powerful “plasma blasts”, an ability he has difficulty controlling. One of Corsair's sons, he is the younger brother of the X-Men's Cyclops and older brother of Vulcan. He lost his parents in a car accident at an early age and was separated from his siblings and raised in an orphanage.

At first, Alex's mutant power only seemed to manifest itself when he was on the brink of death. She couldn't control it and was afraid of its immense power.

When his path crossed with Charles, he joined the X-Men. Here he was reacquainted with his brother Scott, (they were separated at a very young age and did not remember each other.) During his years at the Academy, he had a steady relationship with Lorna. However, they later decided to remain friends and ended their relationship. Because they both had separate wars and families to find.

Before the first blip, Scott left the Academy, but Alex stayed on.

Psylocke - Elizabeth "Betsy" Braddock

Elizabeth “Betsy” Braddock was born in England and raised in the small town of Maldon, Essex. Betsy was Sir James Braddock's second child, born a few minutes before his twin brother Brian. The twins and their older brother Jamie, almost ten years older, had a very privileged life. By the time she entered university, Betsy had become a charter pilot. After she and Jamie were taken hostage by Red Skull agents and freed by Captain America and Captain Britain, Betsy learned that she had a brother, Brian. Meanwhile, Betsy began to develop her powers of pre-recognition. She dyed her hair purple and began modeling. At the age of twenty-one, her psychic powers grew to include telepathy. Agent Matthew recruited Betsy into STRIKE's Psi Division and she became the lover of psi Tom Lennox. Having inherited membership in the Hellfire Club from her father, Betsy was sent to infiltrate it, but was warned by Tessa for her own protection. She also met her future boyfriend Warren Worthington for the first time at one of the Hellfire Club parties.

Betsy heard that a group of people like her were gathering under the name of the X-Mem after she got into a lot of trouble, and she moved to the X-Men mansion to rescue them, just where Roman, the Guardian of the Omniverse, needed her. When the Marauders attacked the Morlocks during the massacre of the X-Mansion, it was used as a makeshift infirmary for injured survivors. Knowing that the X-Men were in New York, Sabretooth the Marauder invaded the mansion. Psylocke used him as bait to lure him away from the wounded until the X-Men arrived to help him. As Sabretooth and Wolverine fought, Psylocke used her telepathy to gather information from Sabretooth's mind about the Marauders and their leader, Mr. Sinister. Wolverine, though initially reluctant to involve outsiders in X-Men affairs, was impressed by her courage and nominated her to join the team.

✗

White Wolf and Captain America

As the newest members of the Academy, the duo have come to the Academy as guests of Charles Xavier to keep Lorna and Remy under control and under surveillance.

Sam, the new “Captain”, learns about the existence of mutants and sets sail for new horizons and friendships. Bucky, under the new name White Wolf, will have to confront an assassination bequeathed by the Winter Soldier.

*Storm and Black Panther are a married couple in the comic book universe. I'm trying to stick to the MCU as much as possible, and I don't think I'll be able to write a fiction about Chadwick. I'll imagine him as still standing in the wonderful place we left him.

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[blueikeproductions]

In the Nucleon era of the G1 cartoon, both Autobots and Decepticons are assisted by the Micromasters, who were created for fuel efficiency, especially for the Decepticons’ current energy woes.

While several toy based characters do appear, most of the Micros that do appear are the generics: various red colored cars and helicopters for Autobots and purple colored jets and cars for Decepticons. A rarity, but the genetics do have toys in the Heathers AU, coming in a four pack with both varieties.

The Micromasters manage the Autobot and Decepticon cities, and alongside Pretenders, the Autobot Micros assist in human relations thanks to their smaller size. Micro Decepticons tend to get the brunt of their elders’ confusion on how to address them due to their identical mass produced body types. This tends to be a running gag, with the Autobots sometimes expressing confusion over the Micros also; Optimus and Mainframe seem to be the only ones able to tell the generic Micros apart.

The Autobot Micros are more suited for technical and rescue work but are capable of fighting, usually via the Micromaster Bases and Vehicles, while the Decepticon Micros make up the main foot soldiers alongside the Sweeps. The Decepticon Micros are fairly easy to deal with but they have numbers on their side and an unprepared group of Autobots can be overwhelmed by them.

Personality wise, the Autobot Micros tend to be like excitable, good natured children, while Decepticon Micros are similar but more like unruly brats, especially when certain Decepticons mistreat them.

—-

Flint Manus, Dirk Manus’ son from another mother, and Daniel’s best friend, is a new addition to the human cast. At this stage, Dirk and Marissa are married with a young daughter, Sue, with Flint as Marissa’s step son.

While Flint does get along cordially with Marissa, he isn’t comfortable with the sudden change in his life, and tends to live with the Witwickys at Autobot City. Flint met Daniel shortly after Dirk and Marissa began dating pre The Rebirth, and the boys became fast friends, with Flint’s more daredevil personality complementing Daniel’s more reserved demeanor.

Flint thinks he’s hot stuff, and fancies himself Daniel’s wingman on certain things, but often Flint is humbled to his embarrassment. He’s inherited his dad’s space pirate skills and is a good shot, but the instability of the space pirate life made him side with the Autobots more directly in the hopes he can do some good. Dirk Manus, while more aligned with the Autobots, still works as a sketchy Mercenary and has ties with the unscrupulous Skuxxoid, Quackshot, Axer, Slizardo along with the heroic Arcee, Devcon and Rattletrap.

Nancy is Daniel’s baby sister, born inbetween The Rebirth and the discovery of Nucleon. A happy, well meaning girl who looks up to her big brother but isn’t allowed to attend missions due to being so young. Usually Nancy is with Carly handling matters in Autobot City, but more than once has Nancy both tagged along secretly and also saved the day when the Bee Team was compromised.

Lugnuts and Bolts are a pair of brothers that work closely with the Bee Team and are the main Micromaster rep besides the Generics. They combine to form a car, making them a bit more mundane than other Micro Combiners, but they’re no slouch in a fight. Like many siblings they tend to squabble, and refuse to cooperate, leading to humorous moments where they refuse to combine and drive off in their respective car halves. Bolts sees himself as the leader of the brothers, something Lugnuts pushes back on as he’s actually the oldest, being built first. Bolts is the more organized and mature of the two, while Lugnuts is easily distracted and lackadaisical.

[lookismstuff]

Reaction to Ep 465

SPOILERS ALERT

While one encounter ended on a positive note, another presented a dreadful possibility.

Once in a very morose mood, Zack asked his mentor Gongseob whether or not he should change his name (note: his Korean name "Jinsung" implies that he was expected to be calm and dignified to conquer his own demons and any challenges presented to him--WHAT AN IMMENSE BURDEN TO CARRY, WAY TO GO PTJ ZACK'S PARENTS).

Gongseob, quirky that he was, was ready to rebuff all that nonsense out of Zack. Zack had to believe in himself, had to live in the present, because the past already happened anyway.

But Zack had so long been dwelling on his insecurities, and the most persistent manifestation of these was Johan.

In sympathy, Gongseob admitted that genius was often a matter of genetics (in the case of Gapryong and James Lee), and was the fate for a legend. Since Johan was not the son of Seong Hansoo (goodbye fan theories)'s and therefore not related to Seong Taehoon of Viral Hit/ How to Fight, then the answer was simple: Johan was a genius that would spark the birth of his own legend.

Basically, all that Zack had to do was to accept this fact. That even though Johan was a genius, Zack must still persist. Even when Johan's attacks were fast and unpredictable.

But it's true that our efforts won't betray us. Zack could now see Johan's attacks, enough to parry them. It provoked Johan to see Gun in Zack again (surely we remember that Gun once wanted to recruit Zack too had Daniel resisted, right? Zack was another brilliant talent).

Zack finally landed the final blow on Johan, the way Gongseob landed the final blow on James Lee all those years ago. Surprise, surprise, James actually wanted to learn from Gongseob but the latter spurned the red haired genius, saying that he'd never take a disciple (whoah congrats Zack, you won him over).

Johan woke up and was all confused, but Zack simply cut him off by saying that yes, he came to save Johan. And Johan thanked Zack for that. (YASSSS! Good job, the two of you!).

Somewhere else, Jay found the person whom he'd been searching for: Big Daniel. Robbed of Little Daniel's conciousness, however, he was an unknown, monstrous entity. And Jay began to realize this bitter truth...

Overall, I'm really satisfied with how Zack vs Johan's fight was handled. Johan had to lose and Zack had to win for their narrative to move onward. Like I said before in that rant post : they could either salvage this friendship or abandon it, and it seems that they chose the former. I'm sad that Jay had to find Big Daniel first before anyone else did, and in that state. But I love the excitement that it would bring me as a reader.

[pxseas]

Been playing Belladonna Cove rotationally recently! I'm pretty new to playing rotationally, and until now I'd only been doing so with the bloodline of my original sim, but i've been playing some of the Belladonna Cove premades recently:) here's some screenshots and a bit of story !

Geoff Rutherford and Connor Weir were the first household I played, as I'd already played the Clevelands and I thought it was weird that Justin and his uncle were now the same age lol - that's what kinda spurred me to start playing rotationally! And, as the sims started getting into relationships and drama, I wanted to start aging them up as well for continuity purposes.

Geoff got to the top of the culinary career (as his LTW desired), and Connor got to the top of the business career. Connor started dating Samantha Cordial, and Geoff started dating an attractive townie called Allyn. They all moved into 340 Audrey Avenue - and, of course, Geoff and Samantha started making out behind both their backs. Geoff feels like he's distantly related to Daniel Pleasant ... ginger sleazeballs, lol

Samantha caught Geoff on a date with Allyn and started slapping him in the middle of the cafe - Allyn, god bless her soul, didn't really understand what was happening. Allyn and Geoff got married and moved into their own house, and Geoff promptly took a call from one of his side romances right after the ceremony. Even at the wedding, Samantha and Geoff still had eyes for each other - Allyn and Connor unbeknownst to it all.

Geoff and Allyn had two kids - Liam and Caitlyn! Allyn took a job as an elementary school teacher. During work hours, whilst the kids are at school and Allyn is at work, Geoff continues to sleaze around behind Allyn's back. Here's some screenshots of the two weeks I played their household!

The Rutherford genetics are really, really strong.

I'd been playing the Cordial household, but I didn't take many screenshots - I played Samantha until she got to (around) Connor's age and moved her into Geoff's previous house. She's been working on the medical career! Kimberly has been working on the military career, and she'd fallen in love with a coworker townie! ... who then proceeded to immediately die via electrocution, which was very very annoying. finding somewhat decent looking townies is a difficult task!!

Anyway, as a result, she decided to make moves on her longtime friend Gabriel Green. Pictured above is Chastity autonomously doing the gardening. thanks Chastity. I was unaware that Chastity & Gabriel were in a relationship, so they immediatley became furious with each other - just in time for me to start playing their household! I figured they couldn't stand each other anymore, so I only had them live together for a week to get further up their careers (Gabriel is a gamer and Chastity is in business) before seperating them.

Chastity fell in love with a handsome(ish) townie named Mayhew, and they moved in together and promptly decided to get married. It was good for Chastity, albeit if the decision was mostly just to spite Gabriel and Kimberly. Indie turned up to the wedding in the same dress as the bride - that's entirely my fault to be fair, as I had decided both their wardrobes lol

Purely for drama, I did end up inviting Gabriel and Kimberly to the wedding - LOL

I played Mayhew and Chastity for the next two weeks, with the pair of them ending up aging to elder. I did cheat Mayhew to match Chastity's age, because he moved in already at level 8 in the athletic career with a bunch of skills, so I figured it made sense. They had two boys - Earnest and Clement! I was kind of hoping for a girl, cause there are so many lovely names that go well with 'Chastity', like Hope or Faith etc, but Earnest and Clement kind of match the vibe I was going for.

Earnest brought home Caitlyn from school, and the pair immediately became best friends! So, the following weekend, Chastity invited the Rutherfords over. Immeaditley upon meeting, Geoff and Chastity had a three-bolt chemistry and started swooning over each other.

Who am I to deny the wishes of two romance sims?

So, after the day was successfully spent with Earnest becoming best friends with Caitlyn and Liam, everyone left ... apart from Geoff. The pair of elders promptly got to making out in the kitchen like they were teenagers, with Chastity's husband asleep in the next room. Poor Allyn! Poor Mayhew - both family sims, married to romance sims.

Affair(s) aside, I love how 5/7 of the age states were present in a single screenshot! Playing rotationally has been fun, and I've really enjoyed getting to know the premades - truth be told, even though I've been playing TS2 since I was a kid, I honestly don't think I've ever really played premades in this way, so it's really refreshing !

I am missing my legacy sims though:( I keep seeing them walking around town, and I feel like a negligent parent LOL

The butterfly effect of having my fifth gen legacy sim Indie and Justin Cleveland become best friends, leading to playing Geoff and Connor for continuity, which in turn lead to playing Kimberly and Samantha Cordial, which in turn lead to playing Gabriel and Chastity ... it's been fun! I think I'll play out Connor & Samantha's story for a bit, and then Gabriel & Kimberly's story, and then I'll return to my fifth gen legacy sims:) thanks for reading!!

[absolutebl]

Random ask game asks

Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts?

What's one thing that's stereotypical about you?

I have the remnants of a british accent + I drink tea. 

Play any instruments? 

Piano, badly 

A music artist everyone criticizes that you like: 

Last show you watched: 

Last movie you watched

Senior Love Me? 

Last song you listened to

The Arc - The Light 

Last book you read

Old Fashion Cupcake manga 

Your top five most listened to artists this month on Spotify

Stray Kids

BTOB

Young K & Day 6

Kang Daniel

TRENDZ

Ever drank alcohol?

Every Friday and it’s Be My Favorite’s Fault 

Every smoked anything?

Fish, mostly 

Do you prefer to eat-in or take-out?

Both 

If you could time travel what decade would you go to first

Am I invisible or do I look the way I do now? If #1 then the past, if #2 then the future. 

An actor everyone loves that you don't like for whatever reason

Speak any other languages?

4 none of them well, including my ostensible original 

Have any tattoos? Want any tattoos?

no

Have any piercings? Want any piercings?

yes

Do you prefer the hot or cold weather?

cold 

Cats or dogs? Or some other pet?

none but those owned by others tend to adopt me (the house has a cat and he think’s i’m his)  

Trendy over comfortable or comfortable over trendy?

trendy and comfortable, why choose? 

Say one thing bad about something you love

the singing is terrible and the acting is usually pretty crap too

Do you prefer to read digitally or from a physical book?

digital 

Do you put milk in your hot tea?

yes 

Do you know how to play any popular gambling games?

no

A character you relate to for whatever reason?

A quote (from anything) you really love

How many pairs of shoes do you have

maybe 10? 

Do you have trouble saying any words because of your accent/speech problems?

no, i’m good at words and public speaking 

Earbuds or headphones?

buds 

Showers or baths?

Early bird or night owl?

insomniac 

Candles or scented spray?

fresh flowers 

How often do you change your clothes?

as often as is necessary 

Chess or checkers?

all board games bore me 

Something you can do that you think is cool?

Perfume or body spray?

body oil 

What's something that genuinely scares you

other people’s unhinged obsession 

LED lights, the room light, or sunlight?

diffuse natural light 

What's something you do differently than everyone else?

peel and chop fruit 

If you have hair how often do you style it in some way?

spiky if i bother at all 

Nail polish, press on nails, or acrylic nails?

short and tidy but nothing else 

Do you have any fidget toys? If so what's your favorite?

 I learned to sit still or get whacked, and i’m fine with the outcome 

Do you drive?

yes 

Your go-to genre of music?

Are you a good multitasker?

no one is a good multitasker 

Silence or background noise?

kpop 

A famous movie/show that you've never seen

i don’t know i haven’t seen it 

Any sport you would like to play?

i don’t like sweating with other people around... 

actually, i don’t like sweating at all 

Can you write in cursive?

yes & calligraphy 

Is your handwriting neat or at least easy to read?

yes very 

Colored pencils, markers, or crayons?

black 

How many pillows do you sleep with?

2 

How many blankets do you sleep with?

3 (if the top sheet counts, ALWAYS top sheet) 

Do you ever plan to get married one day?

fuck no 

Do you ever plan to have kid(s) one day?

fuck no 

Do you subscribe to any religion?

fuck no 

Something in your room that you think is funny for whatever reason

the hotel room i am in right now has a teacup the size of my head painted with parrots and I have no idea why. 

Would you rather be an actor, singer, comedian, or would you do something on YouTube/twitch/some other site

i would rather gouge out my own eyeball than be a celebrity of any kind 

Are you scared of the dentist?

not at all, my dental hygiene is fucking amazing, they often get mad at me for wasting their time 

(before you ask: good genetics + fucking flossing = the answer, just floss while watching your favorite bl, it’s not goodamn rocket science, take care of your teeth you slackwits) 

Do you wear makeup?

sometimes 

If you could be any character of the opposite sex, who would you be?

i already am 

In the literal sense, are you an introvert or extrovert?

both 

What's something in your room that makes no sense without context

aside from that dumb teacup, i don’t know, i’m not in my room, i’m rarely in my room 

Favorite subject in school?

If you could visit any place in the world where would you go?

right now, i wanna get to taiwan before it isn’t anymore 

A show/movie thats been on your watchlist forever but you for some reason keep putting off

Is the name you use online your real name? (Real name does not mean deadname)

never 

Do you have a favorite sibling?

If you were to have a kid what names would you have in mind?

no fucking children, not mine, not anyone else’s, i am not interested, yours is NOT the cutest nor the smartest (trust me) and i don’t want to hear about them 

Do you think things like anniversaries are a big deal?

no

Mobile games or PC/console games?

no games 

Do you believe in things like ghosts?

no

Long sleeve + shorts or short sleeve + pants

depends on the weather and culture 

Can you do any voice impressions?

no 

What was the first fandom you were genuinely into

star trek 

Do you prefer womens or mens products?

depends on the smell, price, and effectiveness  

would you be fine having your partner completely provide for you?

never 

Plain clothes or vibrant and eye catching clothes?

neither, i’m usually just stylish and quirky 

Movie date or restaurant date?

food 

Do you split the check or expect only one of you to be paying it?

split or I’ll pay if my friend isn’t holding 

Favorite fast food place?

i’d rather not 

How do you make your coffee?

in italy 

Do you pay attention to the music or the lyrics more?

music 

Are you more energetic or tame?

energetic 

Are you witty?

only by accident  

A show everyone criticizes that you like

[enniewritesathing]

ask game: ✈️💯🐷💜🍸😊 (I picked one from each category, choose whichever OCs you'd like)

hello! 👋

✈️ AIRPLANE — does your oc like traveling, or do they consider themselves a more homey person?

I'll do this for Brian since I've got John answered.

He loves to travel and especially when he's told "hey, we're gonna go to [x]". Doesn't like to do the packing (that's John's job) but he's down to go anywhere. Anything but the train though... the views are amazing but the space is not friendly to someone over 6 feet tall, lol.

💯 HUNDRED POINTS SYMBOL — share three random facts about your oc that others may not know.

John: He's left-handed, afraid of spiders, and he's shy! (He comes off as polite so ofc no one's caught that. Been like that since he was a kid and it's just one of his quirks.)

Brian: Likes to garden (he would keep bees in the backyard, but between John and the cat... lol), may have accidentally ate one too many brownie in college ("i'm not feeling anything" then an hour later, "Johnny, have you seen the moon?"), and the fact that his middle name is Antonio. He's embarrassed by this so when he has to use his initials, he never says what the A stands for.

🐷 PIG FACE — what is your oc's favorite animal?

John: Cats, but specfically the black-footed cat. How can this creature be so cute but so deadly? Cats are fascinating in the sense that yeah, they're predators and all of that, but they're incredibly baby. Something something duality.

Brian: Secretary bird, but only because of the fact that he's like "oh, that's me :)" honey, that's a birdsona

💜 PURPLE HEART — what is your oc's ancestry/genetic background?

John: He is half white (from dad) and half Filipino (from mom). Dad's side of the family, he's not too sure about where specifically, but mom's side, he is an descendant of a very obscure royalty (in Bare Knuckle, he had 'met' his ancestor, the first one to have it...it's uh, a whole ass thing.) and where he has his eye color from. As far as he knows, he is either the 4th or 5th person to have it. It's not werewolf related; that happens later. The weirdest 'tradition' that comes from that side of the family is that at least one of them knows a martial art; doesn't matter who.

Brian: He's some flavor of European, but he doesn't know the specifics other than they were almost always royal adjacent with upkeeping the king's or what-have-you hunting lodges and at some point, became favorable to the point of being granted high statues, power, and the privileges that comes along with it as well as the wealth. To this day, as far as he knows, that's still the case with them catering to the wealthy. Brian comes from old money but since getting disowned, he doesn't give a shit about it. (As a side note, when someone raises their eyebrows at his current last name, they ask if he's related. "I was, then I wasn't :)")

🍸 COCKTAIL GLASS — what is your oc's favorite alcoholic drink, if they can drink?

John: He hardly drinks (mix of personal reasons and taste issue), but he likes anything that's heavy on fruits. Really likes mimosas.

Brian: He used to drink the hard stuff (whiskey and the like), but he only breaks that out (Jack Daniels, aka JD) when he really has a bad day (too much of it though, he's a little mean). Otherwise, he sticks to wines and 'light' cocktails.

😊 SMILING FACE WITH SMILING EYES — what are your oc's career/general life desires? what do they want to get the most out of life?

John: He's in a good spot career wise. I decided I was gonna rework this story, but in the future, he's gonna be gunning to be a Muay Thai world champion (again). Will he succeed? Maybe, maybe not. He has a lot more years ahead of him and he wants to see what more he can accomplish.

Brian: Right now, he's thinking about getting some certifications in other fields as a nurse... something a little less stressful than ER. (there are only two types of shifts -- too quiet (not normal, shit will go down in 2 minutes, and whatever 'normal' is.) As long as he gets to help people in some form or fashion, he's good. Like John, he wants to see what he'll accomplish, but he will not stress himself out like he did when was younger.

[committingtothetbr]

Who Knew I’d Fall for Vikings? A Review of A Fate Inked in Blood by Danielle Jensen

. I never thought I’d fall for these themes- and also DESPISE SOME- but here I am, obsessed and begging for more.

I picked this book because of something super random: a genetic DNA test. Turns out, I have ties to Viking history. A LOT of ties. So I figured, “Why not read something that is also inked in my blood?” And let me tell you– this book felt like fate. (Pun entirely intended.)

A Protagonist Worth Rooting For

Freya is not your average heroine by any means. Her methods are entirely barbaric but every single choice is calculated and her own. (As long as its her own and she is not battling Hlin inside of her.) Is it even Hlin? There’s still so many questions I still have. Sure, she’s favored by the Gods, but what I loved most about her is her strength in the face of constantly being underestimated and controlled by others. Snorri(certified dick) still would constantly get a tongue lashing from Freya and it was some of my most favorite moments. She’s caught in a power struggle that challenges her magic and her choices, and her journey feels all too real at some moments even though we, the reader, don’t have any magic at all.

Love Him, Hate Him, Can’t Look Away

Now, let’s talk about Bjorn. I wanted to love him- I really did. At first, he gave me major Casteel Da’Neer vibes (protective, swoon-worthy, maybe a little too cocky. And I was fully on board. But then.. am I shocked at the betrayal? I don’t want to entirely spoil the shock because even I was a little spooked at that bomb at the end so I’ll save it for you guys to read but WTF? I mean, Danielle (respectfully) how am I supposed to forgive him for all of that? I’m clinging to some hope because he did lay that pipe but if there is a redemption arc coming– it better be good.

A Slow Burn Finally Worth the Wait

I don’t usually do slow burns. I need them to kiss by 180 or I’m out. I need instant sparks and instant drama straight out the gate. The love interests always need to be TESTED. But this one? I’m all in, Ms. Jensen. That cave scene? Hello? It went from literally the slowest of burns to THAT? And then THAT?

A Refreshing Twist on Some of the Same

The few times I had picked up anything Vikings or Norse Mythology related. It was almost an exact carbon copy of the same story just regurgitated in different words. I refuse to say those books. However, the way Jensen approached it is entirely different than from what I have read at least. Maybe I need to read some more. If anyone has any good recommendations, please put in the comment section below!!

A lot of Viking stories rely on the same Freya-Odin-Loki narrative, but this felt different. It’s familiar enough to draw you in but has a fresh, creative twist that kept me turning the pages. I am really taken aback by Freya’s journey and I really want to see her shine in the sequel.

Final Thoughts

If you’re into Norse mythology, Viking lore, or fantasy romance that makes you want to throw a book (in a good way), A Fate Inked in Blood is a must-read. Danielle Jensen, I’m officially a fan, and I can’t wait to dive into more of your books. And Bjorn– well, you’re still on thin ice.

Rating: 4/5 Stars

⭐⭐⭐⭐

[capypanda]

Big Five personality traits

I recently read Personality by Daniel Nettle, at the behest of the lovely human being sitting next to me in the library. Much of the book, distressingly, screams “biological determinism”, but wow does it tell a compelling story. (Useful/rigorous/scientific? Eh. More on this later. But interesting? Definitely.) It’s fascinating how personality traits are clustered into these 5 dimensions. The dimensions themselves can be better named, because all these labels are misleading.

1. Extraversion Defined by Nettle as reward responsiveness, i.e. how high do one’s high emotions go. High responsiveness means ambition, zest for life, attention seeking. It often correlates with determination, derring-do, and optimism.

"In the high scorer, the responsiveness is great, and so the person is prepared to work hard to get the buzz of company, excitement, achievement, adulation, and romance. The low scorer’s positive emotion systems are less responsive, so the psychological benefits of getting these things are fewer. Given that the costs of getting them are the same for introvert and extravert alike, the introvert is not so motivated to do so." "In humans, the physiological response to a drug that has dopamine-like effects in the mid-brain is linearly related to Extraversion scores."

Defined this way, Extraversion isn’t even a great predictor of the conventionally understood social “extroversion,” though there is some correlation. (Then why do all Big5 quizzes, even the one in the appendix of this book, mostly conflate the two??) Nettle’s extraverts love company, not because they love people, but because they get more high out of the attention and sensations. One scoring high in Extraversion might in fact be unsociable, because of shyness (high Neuroticism) or low Agreeableness. At the other end of the spectrum. we have the introverts:

“[The introvert] clearly understands that the kind of stuff that people sweat to get—material possessions, marriages, careers, and so on— are fine, but don’t have that much of an effect on him. So he will take them if they come, and if they don’t, I don’t think he will be too bothered. He could make a perfectly satisfactory life either way [...] The introvert is, in a way, aloof from the rewards of the world, which gives him tremendous strength and independence from them.”

Hi. I feel so called out, lol.

2. Neuroticism Neuroticism is threat/penalty responsiveness, i.e. how low do the lows go. Turns out positive and negative incentives involve different parts of the brain circuitry. With high neuroticism comes a slew of mental health disorders: depression, anxiety disorder, PTSD, panic attacks etc… I’ve always bragged that I feel things so strongly. Apparently, I only feel the lows strongly, but gloss over the highs. At this point in the book, I started to laugh because, if biological determinism is as strong as was claimed (big five traits are supposed to remain fairly constant for a lifetime; there are strong correlations with genetic and physiological factors), my brain seems wired for a lifetime of pain.

But onward we read. So far so good, mostly. Two supposedly independent dimensions, cleanly defined. 3. Conscientiousness Initially defined as traits relating to response inhibition: impulse control, deliberation, willpower. One scoring high in Extraversion is more likely to start things that will get them into trouble, but Conscientiousness score determines whether they can stop. Extraversion powers the initial motivation high and some time after; Conscientiousness powers the struggle-bus phase. I’m extremely organized and (conventionally) neurotic about doing certain things the right way, but wouldn’t score high with this definition of Conscientiousness, given my inclination for addictive behaviors and obsessing. At least I have my off-the-chart low scores for Extraversion to thank for not getting into anything too self-destructive yet -- I’m only addicted to stupid phone games, not marijuana. Hallelujah. But also lumped under this trait is a preference for planned vs spontaneous behavior. So is the conventional definition for conscientiousness (punctuality, organization etc). At this point, Conscientiousness as a category is starting to feel like Fish as a clade. Yes, we see the similarities; but that is a helluva large constellation.

Maybe the Big 5 categories aren’t just poorly named. They are so broad that they can’t be accurately named -- people draw fuzzy lines to form clusters, pick a trait in the cluster and go with it. The sorter in me isn’t happy. But the story told by the clustering is still interesting.

4. Agreeableness This word brings to mind the image of a non-confrontational yes-man, afraid to offend. That sounds related to high Neuroticism, and it is. In fact, the opposite, aggression is also related to high Neuroticism (automatic strong response to negative events ⟶ loss of emotional control). How, then, does Nettle define Agreeableness? Ans: regard for others, in particular how much and how automatic this factors into one’s thoughts and behaviors. Some consider everyone, even strangers, in their decision making by default (hi). Some do to a lesser extent (only when actively reminded, only the few people in their immediate circle, only for certain types of decisions etc). Some never at all, not out of active malice, just obliviousness. That’s their brain’s MI. 

Let’s backtrack a little and talk Theory of Mind: the mental mechanisms quintessential to humans, absent even in chimpanzees, who share 98.8% of our DNA. Human TOM is divided into two capacities, mentalizing (reading the mental state of others) and empathizing (“getting” and responding to others’ emotions).

"Autistic individuals struggle to predict the mental states of others, but when they see another in distress, they can respond physiologically in a relatively normal way. Thus, they fail to mentalize, but do empathize when they get very direct evidence of another’s pain. Conversely, psychopaths can be reasonably good at predicting others’ mental states. This is how they manipulate and deceive people so effectively. What is missing is the connection of the output of this mentalizing to the emotional problem." "[...] It seems that Agreeableness is closer to empathizing than mentalizing. That is, being low in Agreeableness is not about not being able to work out the mental states of others, as autism is. It is about not being particularly caring about the output of that computation."

Low Agreeableness study participants did fine in “reading the mind in the eyes” tests, but not so fine for “retaining info about the mental states of the characters” stories tasks.

5. Openness Again, not what we’d expect it to mean (my goodness who named these and why is everyone ok with it?). Openness refers to the breadth of mental associations. Artsy, Luna Lovegood-type people come to mind. At the extreme end there are people with full-blown schizophrenia and psychosis.

“It is as if the filters or membranes surrounding different areas of cognition are a little more permeable than normal, and the associations made consequently broader.”

Nettle claims that creativity in the arts relates more to Openness, while creativity in engineering relates more to intelligence. To truly excel, an artist or engineer needs both types, but the relative weights are different. These statements are clearly simplistic, but I think they tug at something about creativity. There’s the wild, wacky, seemingly out-of-nowhere spark of genius aspect to it; and then there’s the deliberate, try-and-replace, mechanical, logical analogies part. Look at Li Bai and Du Fu. The former excelled in the shorter 五绝 (which often rested on a single, genius metaphor) or stream-of-consciousness drunken poetry. The latter’s forte was 七律, where every word seemed meticulously selected, and the work had a polished, deliberate feel. IMO, Du Fu’s poetry also tended to pay more attention to sounds, rhythms and form -- the more mechanical aspects of poetry.

Openness is not open-mindedness. I like to think myself fairly open-minded and accepting of differences (probably the empathy speaking), but my brain doesn’t make wild connections naturally. I can never write like Li Bai (nor Du Fu, not even close; let’s be real), but my creative process and aspired results lean much closer to Du Fu’s. I also have gripes about how "openness" is scored in quizzes. Appreciation of the arts is very different from producing it. Even if we're talking production, some great art is great the deliberate, mechanical way.

Epilogue Not sure if the scientific studies in the book survived Psychology’s replication crisis; even if they do, some of the correlation coefficients are minuscule. The broadness of categories is another issue. That the categories are often misunderstood and quizzes often score the wrong thing (even the quiz in the appendix of this book!!) is yet another. Still, I found the book pretty useful as yet another model to make sense of myself and the world: 1. Good to know where I naturally fall on each personality dimension. If that doesn’t align with who I aspire to be, I can deliberately work on that. Though Big 5 scores are supposed to remain fairly stable, they’re not unchangeable -- Agreeableness tends to slightly increase with age, even without active effort.

2. That said, massively changing personality is a dead end. Changing the environment (e.g. job) for better compatibility is one option.  Changing behavior, which is entirely within our control, is another (not easy, though, for it goes against “powerful, deep, often subconscious mechanisms and urges").

You can choose to avoid certain people who bring out the worst in you. You can keep yourself away from contexts where aspects of your personality that you are unhappy with will surface. You can not allow yourself to go out until you have completed your piano practice. You can deliberately take a job where you have to see people because you know that otherwise you wouldn’t.

But complete suppression of a strong inclination is futile:

People’s basic dispositions will surface in some way or other, but they have considerable capacity to decide just which way they will allow it to surface. Thus, if your personality is causing you trouble and worry, you need to find alternative, and less destructive, outlets for the same characteristics. You don’t have to change yourself. You just have to change your self’s outlet.

e.g. Extraverts can try to meet their need for excitement by something tamer than death-defying athletic pursuits, say, idk, “just” car racing, risky business ventures or r/wallstreetbets (disclaimer: not financial advice). Not every aspect of life must, or should, be filled with excitement.

[mizkit]

new blog post: Recent Reads: The Continuing Time, Daniel Keys Moran

new blog post on https://mizkit.com/recent-reads-the-continuing-time-daniel-keys-moran/

Recent Reads: The Continuing Time, Daniel Keys Moran

Recent Reads: The Continuing Time, by Daniel Keys Moran

Once upon a time a bit of a punk of a young writer informed the world that he had 33 books planned in a time-and-space-spanning saga called The Continuing Time, and the world sat up and took notice.

Life happened, and so far there are only five books in it, but I love every one of them into the depths of my soul, and I will wait patiently for the other 28 until the end of time. (Well, there’s six if you count the collection of short stories, but those are more filler for things we already know than new story arcs, per se, so I don’t precisely count it.) I re-read them all periodically, often when I intend to read something else but instead come across them in my e-reader and go “oh yeah no I’ll read that instead.” So far this has never been an error.

EMERALD EYES is the first, and I think the most difficult, of the Continuing Time. It has something of a structural problem, to me, which is that it’s kind of two closely-related novellas more than one story; the first half is about a character who is not at all likeable, and the second half is about a different character who is. Carl Castanaveras, the protagonist of the first half of the book, is a genetically engineered telepath, the first in history, and he’s both crazy and furious with it. He’s very understandable, but not at all likeable, AND YET I CANNOT RECOMMEND skipping this book and starting with one of the others. So many characters are introduced in their inception in this book, and the way they develop over the next books is so worth dealing with Carl’s story. And so informed BY Carl’s story. So I don’t necessarily like this one all that much, but I also never, ever skip it when I’m doing a re-read.

THE LONG RUN is…if you could only write one book in your career, you might very well want it to be this one. Our hero, Trent, is part of the same genetic engineering program that produced Carl and the other Castanaveras telepaths, but Trent himself is not a telepath: he’s a thief and the best webdancer (internet user, but jack it up to a million) the world has ever seen. And he’s in trouble, and on the run, and…this is a great, great book. I wouldn’t be lying if I said there were parts of it that I adapted into my own core functions. Also, this is the book where I started noticing that all of Dan’s books have one Doctor Who reference, and one Jim Steinman reference. I didn’t notice that until my third or fourth re-read, but yeah. It’s a great, great book.

THE LAST DANCER is the first Continuing Time book I read. The Long Run follows Trent; The Last Dancer follows Denice, a Castanaveras telepath, and I loved it so much I went and found and read everything DKM had written before it. The scope of this one is tremendous: it’s really the first time we get entangled in the actual Continuing Time; several of the characters are effectively immortals, and Denise becomes entangled in what is in some ways a proxy war for a fight that’s been going on between a couple of them for tens of thousands of years. It’s also where the deep dive into the worldbuilding really starts (although that may just be my bias, having read it first, but there’s an argument for it because we do start to see more of the big picture with it). It’s not always easy to be sympathetic to Denice, but I find her journey in this book to be a really good one, and the moral conflicts she and the people around her deal with are always well-done.

THE BIG BOOST was the first DKM book in like 20 years and I spent like $240 to read this book and it was worth every penny. :) (It was digital-only, I bought an e-reader back in the days of them being Quite New And Exclusive, and then also bought the book, ofc. :)) It returns to Trent’s story and brings back–well, not that these characters aren’t also in The Last Dancer, but it brings back Mohammad Vance and Melissa du Bois, who are law enforcement officers and two of my favorite characters in the entire series, and puts them into the impossible positions that interacting with Trent puts EVERYBODY into, and I love the tension in it so much I could scream. It’s also only the first part of the story (which ends on an incredibly Trent-like cliffhanger), and IDK if he’s working on the second part with his various ongoing projects but I’m very much looking forward to reading it when it eventually comes out. And it accomplishes enough in and of itself that you don’t feel like you’ve been robbed when you get to the end; it’s just that THE END is SUCH a Trent thing that it’s like AAAAGH! :D

THE GREAT GODS is the most recent Continuing Time book and the only one I’ve only read twice (because it only came out 15 months ago). It starts an arc of its own for Camber Tremodian, a character who we glimpse in the earlier books, and provides what is probably a very solid entry point to the Continuing Time as a whole, although in my SOUL I think you should read ALL OF THEM IN PUBLICATION ORDER because I think the payoff of FINALLY learning more about Camber in this is more delicious than starting here could POSSIBLY be. But go forth, do as thou wilt. :)

These are absolutely desert island books for me (I’m not so mean as to make people take only ten books, you can take ten SERIESESES by my rules, but even if it was “only ten books” I’d take at least three of them as part of my ten), and I really never get tired of re-reading them. The links are all Amazon-affiliate; Dan doesn’t have them up on any other sites, and I have no idea how to wrap this up except with a happy sigh. :)

[teodorastaicu]

Folkloric origins and the 'Sanziene' myth

The origin of songs used to be the sheepfold, village gatherings (sezatori) and gatherings where women would weave wool. Although the creative spirit of sezatori was dominated by men, old women were the ones transmitting to the younger generations the ballads and old songs. These gatherings were the most important environments for folkloric creation where a new creation would be heard, learned, and later spread through the whole village. The mode of transmission was through spoken words and the origins of songs was unknown. Because of the oral medium and being widespread the traditional songs gained numerous variations reflecting the social factor and geographical region. The gatherings were also the source of proverbs, riddles, callings, fairy tales, customs, superstitions, beliefs, and weekly village dance – hora – taking place on Sundays and danced by young girls and boys in a circular motion accompanied by live music (nowadays the custom limits to only being danced at special events like weddings and baptisms). According to Haja, the peasant games (This is a direct translation I chose to use, games it’s referring to dances and performative customs and peasant doesn’t have an exclusive negative connotation in Romanian as it does in English, here peasant it referring to a rural inhibitor) are older than the date they were written down by several observers and they’re not an exception for the European environment. These rituals are part of a universal history typology of popular theatrical art. The Romanian games are linked directly with popular theatre manifestations from the European zone based on a genetic relation. Old and traditional elements are prevailed in folkloric creation happening on a wider scale of the sacred in the profane. The sacred obscured by the profane in the ritualised manifestations is linked with individual existential moments (baptisms, weddings, funerals), agricultural cycles and annual holiday celebrations. The enchanted thinking is expressed through masks dances and theatrical forms. Besides the contamination of layering of pre-Christian elements with Christian ones, the folkloric manifestation had a functional evolution. The popular/folkloric mentality shifted from the religious function towards a more aesthetic one without losing magic ritualistic elements or at least traces of them.

A good example is the celebration of John’s the Baptist birth, a Romanian holiday happening on the 24th of June with an underlaid pagan root. Daniel Mihai explains how the pre-historic Dacians (the inhabitants of Dacia that was located roughly within Romania’s borders), a subgroup of Tracs, were celebrating the sun.

He links a popular dance “ciuleandra” with the veneration of the sun, similar with the dance “hora”, danced in a circle and believed to link into marriage men and women. Hora is like other eastern European and Balkan dances: Bulgarian koro, Serbian kolesca, Russian morovod, Polish colomeica, Greek choreia and Albanian valla. Mihai argues that the dance ciuleandra is the root of the Sanziene/ Dragaice myth. In Folkloric Aspects of the Romanian Imaginary and Myth, the celebration of Sanziene is a representation of the ritualistic restoration of time and it connects three elements: mythical representations of the vegetation, the holyday itself and the flowers with the same name (Gallium verum) in bloom close to the 24th of June.

The Sanziene are believed to be mythical beings. They are portrayed as fairies, beautiful girls that live in the forest good natured, but dangerous when disrespected. The book by Claudia Costin retraces these beings to the roman deity Sancta Diana, while also inheriting astronomical significance from Dacian ancient astrologers.

The Sanziene holiday is mostly prevailed in rural areas through premarital practices, where girls of marriage age made wreaths out of the flowers or in other regions slept with the flowers under their pillow to dream of their future husband.

[dykesynthezoid]

List of potential autistics in this show (depends on personal headcanons/interpretation):

- Hawk. For obvious reasons (“could be on the spectrum,” the special interests)

- Demetri. Bc how else would he and Hawk get along so well. Also he has a set way of doing things and doesn’t like changes to his status quo (experiences a lot of anxiety). Plus it took him longer to develop at karate because he wasn’t naturally coordinated.

- Johnny. People have written all the reasons before and frankly it’s a long list

- Robby. He’s Johnny’s son, there’s a genetic component, and honestly he and Johnny are like. Autism to autism communication. Except in that way where it doesn’t make any sense and you’re both confused and annoyed. Every scene in Mexico was like this

- Aisha. Has nerdy special interests, also a very straightforward communication style

- Miguel. Guy developed a karate special interest and devoted his entire life to it. Also can have trouble reading hidden meanings in conversations. I think he gets characterized as “naive” sometimes in a way that’s familiar to a lot of autistics, although really he just sees the good in people and doesn’t always see the “wrinkles” that can come up in social interactions to alert him that something’s wrong. Also he’s besties with Hawk and Demetri, sooo

- Tory. There’s just so much about her having clearly been unable to fit in before she joined cobra kai, and obviously part of that has to do with class issues but I think there’s also a component that’s like. She can’t tame herself, nor does she have the time or energy to. She’s too loud, too harsh; but it seems like it can also be difficult for her to identify her own emotions outside of anger.

- Sam. She’s a great potential example of the type of autistic girl who’s become really really good at masking. She keeps a much tighter lid on her autistic behaviors, but she also suffers for it. She has similar interests to Aisha, but she puts effort into hiding them around their peers. Plus she has a very robust sense of right and wrong and can be pretty stubborn about deviations from that.

- Daniel— Sam gets that sense of justice and stubbornness from him after all. If Daniel were autistic I think he’d be the type to have comorbid adhd, and most people would actually notice the adhd traits first upon interacting with him. I think those traits are more immediately obvious because he’s so friendly and charming most of the time. But he also has a sort of “dual” side to him; one that’s seen as finicky, picky, uppity, difficult, that I think a lot of AuDHDers can relate to.

People in this show will be like “I’m opening a dojo” girl that’s an autism support group

[faerywhimsy]

TL;DR

Nobody: ....

Me: So Benji Mahmoud could have been an incredibly important and dynamic character, with relevant ties to multiple themes Prince Lestat did a good job pulling on. I would have been real happy to have seen more of his character and, since I didn't, I guess I'll settle for writing about it here.

Hyperlinks go to the posts I thought of as I wrote this.

I've been feeling pulled to post a lot of head canons that involve Benji lately and I think I'm starting to kinda stumble across why it all of a sudden feels important to me.

Like a lot of things in this fandom, it actually starts with Daniel.

Daniel is the only character we see in the original TVC trilogy, in real time, being human and then being brought into the blood. He's just Some Guy who happens to start all this shit that blows out 13 books. And that's relatable. Most series have that character through which the reader comes into the world of the story. It's an established narrative technique.

And then we get the final TVC trilogy, the three books we never thought we'd get because Anne kinda finished the series a decade before and went on to bigger and better things.

*cough* not *cough*

So we get the final trilogy. In which we are introduced to a blond, male character, human when we meet him but, oh no, he gets involved with vampires and ultimately ends up begging to be turned, then spends the rest of the series as a vampire.

Stop me if you've heard this story before.

Now I've got nothing against Viktor. His romance with Rose seems sweet, and he's always going to have a bit of the centre stage just because he's the literal genetic clone of our main protagonist, Lestat. It's a bit hokey but, you know, so is a lot of what we ended up with in the later books. We're just grateful it didn't all end with Blood Canticle and now weed out the things we like.

It's just... I can't help thinking an existing youthful vampire from TVC would have given deeper resonance to the story than introducing a new character with a similar trajectory did.

What might the last trilogy might have been like if Benji—the third human-turned-vampire we meet between these two characters—had been just a little bit more utilised. Not as a love interest, or a plot point, but for himself. Cause just his placement in time and circumstance offers a lot of narrative potential.

We first meet Benji Mahmoud as an important character in Armand's recovery after he attempts suicide. He asks to be made into a vampire, but isn't obsessed by it, pretty much accepts it and moves on when Armand tells him it can't be done. ("Oh, never. I don't have such a power. It's never done." "Then who made you?" "I was born out of a black egg." - TVA)

There's a lot of a sense that he and his companion Sybelle are replacements to a writer who no longer wished to write about Daniel in Armand's emotional trajectory, and I know that put me off both these characters for years. But the side effect is, we get a continuity to show Armand doesn't just stop after Daniel walks out on him, and can choose to read that Armand was hurting and traumatised when recounting these events to David.

Back to Benji. When Benji is turned, he is 12 years old and it's the end of 1998. There's a reason I like both of these things: 12 years old is just about the youngest I've heard any us fans picking up the TVC series of books (omg that's way too young for this content, my friends, I mourn all our brain chemistry), and the birth year of 1986 makes Benji not just a millennial, but lot closer in age and experience to a lot of us than the far off birth year of 1952 for Daniel-the-Baby-Boomer. I also think it would have been a lot easier to remember to read Daniel as not a millennial had there been another character front and centre who was.

The way I see it, Benji could have added so much nuance as a character of TVC if he'd been fleshed out. Most of the time if I remember to think of Benji in canon, he seems like the faded middle child, a plot point with a name in Prince Lestat, nothing resembling a fully fleshed out character.

And that makes me sad. Sad for his character, and sad for us. I'm not saying get rid of Viktor, don't get me wrong, I'm just saying that in a cast of 183282 vampires, there was surely enough room to do more with Benji than give him a radio show recorded within the walls of Trinity Gate.

Like, just off the top of my head: Did he ever leave those walls? Was he still as much of a smart ass with a commentary on everything after 20 years in the blood? What did he figure out that he liked to do with his time when he wasn't recording? Did he remain close to Sybelle? How did he feel about forever holding the visage of a 12 year old? What kind of evil doers did he hunt? What was his relationship with Armand? What did he think of Daniel? Was it a bit awkward coming face to face with his maker, Marius, after so long? Was he included with the guys whenever Armand, Lestat and Louis caught up? Is he more like Daniel at court, really fitting in more amongst the more ancient characters, or does he prefer coming across as one of the wiser young ones when he visits Auvergne?

Hell, if Viktor is basically Lestat's son and Benji is kinda Armand's son, what do the interactions of that Next Generation look like??

Conversely, what were Armand's thoughts beyond the immediate aftermath of Benji and Sybelle having been brought into the blood? Did he lose interest in Benji after Marius turned him? Was he protective of him? Were there times when he looked at Benji and felt woefully guilty about Claudia who died for the offence of being a child vampire? Was Benji a way for Armand to heal the mistakes he had made with both Claudia and Daniel in different ways before him? Louis and Benji live in the same house for at least 10 years together; what were their interactions like and did Armand have any thoughts on those?

[bebepac]

Friends Forever 🏳️‍🌈

This is a very special prequel to Pop’s Place.  I had planned to orignally post this during Pride Month, and honestly got side tracked.   I did have good intentions.  I’m not writing about something I’ve personally been through here by any means,  but I truly believe, this is how anyone  who has went through this, deserves to be treated, by their family and loved ones.  And just so we’re clear, Family is not always the people you are related to by blood, but also those that come to your aide when you truly need them, and that is okay, because you are not bound to them by genetics.  They. Chose. You. That’s a powerful thing.

This also  has a prompt for @choicesficwriterscreations nice event:  Here, let’s share a blanket.

The Series:  Pre Pop’s Place The Pairings:  None, but we have some adorable soulmates known as Mia and Daniel Word Count: 1775 Warnings and Ratings:  Anxiety over coming out to friends or family, Profanity; Teen Summary:  Daniel decides its time come out to his “family.” 

Original Post: 10/10/22 at 11:40PM EST.

A/N:  Special thanks to @angelasscribbles that preread this for me, and offered some advice on some parts, and then I turned around and wrote 500+ more words.   LOL. Thank you for pre-reading  this one. I really wanted to hope you all enjoy this.  

A/N2:  I know that the acutal coming out conversation that the story tells is Daniel coming out to Mia’s family,  but this is an situation I know well.  Friends can feel like family and you can worry what they think and how they will perceive you, and in this situation Daniel really cares about how the Jones family will now see him.  Pops in particular.  My character Pops has a gruff exterior, but underneath that, he is genuinely a big teddy bear.

Mia as a child before she met him was a shy and quiet girl.  Her Pops was her best friend.  She followed  Pops around everywhere he went.  A few weeks before school was starting, new neighbors were moving next door.  Tell me you’re nosy without telling you we’re nosy?  Pops decided that was the perfect time to be out in the yard watering the plants, while trying to be incognito watching the new family move in and  Mia was out on the swing set curious big brown eyes watching the new family.  Mia’s interest was piqued when a little boy with dark brown hair jumped out of the car cradling a white teddy bear in his arms and that little boy looked incredibly sad.

Mia in that moment decided to smile and wave at the little boy.

  His expression completely changed as he smiled and waved back.   Pops decided to take Mia over to the neighbor’s house and introduce themselves.  

“I’m Kelvin Jones, but everyone calls me Pops, this is Mia,  Gloria my wife is in the house making some sweet tea.  We’ll be grilling a little bit later, y’all are welcome to come by, sit a spell and eat with us.”

Pops reached out to shake hands with them.  

“Well Pops, I’m Richard everyone calls me Rich, and this is my wife Kathy,  and this one here looking mad with the world is Daniel. Yes, we’d love to have dinner with y’all. We haven’t made it to the grocery yet, and probably won’t until tomorrow sometime. We really appreciate your kindness.”  

And that’s how the Stephenson’s and the Jones’s  became friends.  Mia and Daniel were inseparable from day one.  

After dinner both families wound up inside the Jones’s home.    Pops liked to keep the house cool because South Carolina in the summer could be a scorcher.  So Gloria had many little throw blankets around to cuddle up under.  

Mia could tell that Daniel was cold.  

“Here, let’s share a blanket.”  

“Yes please!” Daniel exclaimed. Both children curled up under the blanket watching the movie on television.

“Our Daniel is so quiet, we were worried he wouldn’t make any friends.”  Kathy Stephenson told Gloria.  “So he spends a lot of time with me.”

“That’s Mia too. She’s Pop’s little shadow. Look at them, they look like the best of friends already.  It looks like somehow in a day, both our prayers were answered.”  

Kathy nodded, looking towards the couch where both were whispering secrets to each other and laughing.  

“It’s like they’ve known each other their entire lives.”

“That’s how any good friendship begins.  Thank you for your hospitality to us.”

“I second that, and Pops, you are quite the chef! You saved us from having to go out to eat somewhere.  You should have your own restaurant.” Rich Stephenson remarked.

“That’s my dream, it just hasn’t happened for me yet.”  

“It will.”    

Rich Stephenson was right.  

“Uh oh, do you see their faces?  

This one wants something.  What is it Mia?”

“Oh yes, and look who’s trailing behind her, they are already thick as thieves.”  

“Can Daniel sleep over tonight? They don’t have cable yet, and there’s a Harry Potter Movie marathon on tonight, and he hasn’t seen all the movies yet.”

“We just moved in, Daniel.   You haven’t even slept in your own bed yet?”  

“It will still be there tomorrow.”  Daniel confirmed.

Pops laughed out loud.  

“He’s welcome to stay, if you all don’t mind, I'll fall asleep during those movies anyway.  Gives Mia someone to watch them with.  And y’all come over for breakfast in the morning since you’ve not had a chance to go to the grocery store yet.”  

“We can’t thank you enough for your hospitality,  and I promise we plan to have you all over for dinner when we’re settled in.”  

“We’ll definitely take you up on that.”

Daniel slept over at the Jones’s house the first night they moved into their new house.  Over the coming years, there were endless sleepovers, between the houses, and endless dinners between the families.  Both  families were even on the pickup lists for each other’s kids, and Mia and Daniel  were best friends, and stayed that way up through their teen years.

Eleven Years Later

Mia paced nervously in the living room while she constantly checked her cell phone.  

“Mia, would you get somewhere and sit down! Why are you fidgety?”  

She wanted to answer.  She really did, but she couldn’t.  It was because it wasn’t her news to tell.  Her best friend Daniel had come out to her, to which she honestly was not surprised,  it was a huge step for him on his journey of self acceptance, and tonight, he was telling his parents.  

The Stephenson’s seemed like very open minded people. But you just never know, and that little bit of doubt had her nervous for her friend, but in that moment when speaking to him as he made up his mind, she reassured him. What if she had done the wrong thing? She had essentially known them since she was five.  She knew them like she knew her own parents, at least she thought she did.  

Pops glanced up from the television.  

“Mia. SIT DOWN.”  

Mia sat down on the couch.  She nervously picked at the pink glitter polish on her nails.  When her phone rang she jumped.   It was Daniel; she ran quickly to her bedroom.  

“Daniel, is everything okay?”  

All she heard from Daniel was sobbing on the other end.  

“Daniel… say something please.  You can stay with us if you need to. It’s alright. Fuck them!!! It’s going to be okay! I promise.”  

Daniel finally composed himself a little more to finally be able to speak.

“Mia, it’s alright. I’m alright.  What I know now is that I have the best parents in the world Mia. My mom said she has known for years, and my Dad said he was proud of me for having the courage to tell them who I am.  They told me they love me, and they would be there for me always.  They even want us to go participate in the Pride to be Alive 5k in a few weeks.”

“How do you feel about that?”  

“It’s embarrassing, but it’s great that they want to be here for me, that they want to be a part of this journey with me.  They just want me to be happy with me. Finally I can be."

“That’s so great Daniel.”  

“I know you were worried, sorry I scared you there for a few moments.  But thanks for offering me a place to stay without even batting an eye.”

“We’re family Daniel. We look out for each other.”  

“That being said, I want to talk to Pops next.  Do you think he’ll be okay right?”  

“Pops loves you.  You’re my best friend.  Pops will be fine.”  

“Pops is like a man’s man.  My dad is nothing like Pops.  Honestly, what do you think?  Please be totally  honest with me Mia.”  

Mia thought for a few moments.  Pops, her Pops, loved everyone and he was social with everybody.  Black, white, green, or purple, it didn’t matter, Pops could get along with anyone and loved everyone, and Everyone loved Pops.  

“He’ll be okay, Daniel.  Pops loves you.  You’re my best friend.  Our families are close.”

“Can I come over for dinner tomorrow?”  

“Um yes, is it because you want to talk to him, or is this because it’s fried chicken night?”  

“A little bit of both. Everyone’s in a good mood when Pops makes his special fried chicken.”  

The next night Daniel was over to dinner with the family.  

Pops smiled.  “Good thing I made extra, since you are having Daniel over.”  

“Pops now you know, you always make extra because that’s how you do.  Nobody is walking away from this house starving. Ever!”  

Pops let out a deep belly laugh.  “Exactly.   Help  yourselves. There’s plenty for seconds and thirds if you want it.”  

Dinner was going well, but Daniel had fallen silent.  Mia tried to keep the conversation lighthearted and going, but she was worried about Daniel.  He looked nervous and incredibly uncomfortable.

“You don’t have to do this tonight if you’re not ready, Daniel.” She whispered to him.  

Pops seemed to have picked up on Daniel’s mood and offered a kind ear to listen.

“Now Daniel, I’m used to you being more talkative than this. Is something bothering you Son?”

Daniel still was silent.

“You can talk to us.”

Daniel looked up from his plate to Pop’s concerned face.  

“We’re family. We might not look like it.  The oven just happened to break when it was cooking you.”

Daniel laughed.  “Hey now I get a pretty impressive tan in the summer.”  Daniel held out his arm showing his barely tanned skin.

Gloria laughed.  “Mmmmhum, you keep telling yourself that, baby.”  

Everyone laughed at the table, before the laughter stopped  Daniel said the words as if he couldn’t contain them anymore.

“I’m gay.”  

“Can you pass the mashed potatoes?”  Pops asked simply.  

Surprised, Daniel complied, there was silence for a few more moments.

“Did ....you hear what I said?”  Daniel inquired, his voice sounding afraid, almost insecure and stammering.

Pops swallowed the mouthful of green beans he was chewing on.  

“Yes, and I think I speak for the table when I say that doesn’t matter to me one bit.  I call you Son, because that is who you are to me, and I love you just as you are.  You never have to be afraid of who you are, or that I’m going to love you less because of who you love.”

Mia took Daniel’s hand.  

“Exactly Pops.”  

“And the feeling I get is that you were most worried about how I would respond.  And for that I’m sorry. I have never wanted to make you feel that you couldn’t tell me something important about your life, about yourself.   I want you to know,  you’re my son.  And nothing you could say could make me love you less.”

Pops got up from the head of the table to stand beside Daniel; Daniel also stood. The two hugged.  

“It’s alright.”  Pops gently consoled Daniel.   “I’m so very proud of you Daniel.”  

“Thank you Pops.”  

“No, don’t thank me for this.  This is how a parent should react when their child tells them something very important about themselves.  They should respond with unconditional love. And you, Daniel Eugene Stephenson, are loved.”

“Than…..”  

“Nuh uh uh uh!!!! What did I just say Son?!?! Let’s finish eating! The food’s gonna get cold.”  

“Okay Pops.”

From that moment on for the rest of dinner,  Daniel was his happy, joking, talkative self.  His real self and he was glowing with sheer joy.  

[duckprintspress]

Advice for Writing Trans Male Characters

Hi everyone, and welcome to our second guest post! We approached a trans man, and fellow writer, to put together a list of suggestions for cis people who want to write trans male characters! He has chosen to remain anonymous. Always remember, there is no one trans experience, and no one trans person’s knowledge will reflect the range of ways that trans people live. Our post author writes from his perspective, based on his knowledge and research, and much of this is relatively specific to the modern United States. Always use multiple sources when writing a character with an identity or identities that you don’t share!

*

So, you want to write a trans male character but you're not a trans man yourself. Good! We need more trans male characters out there in the world. There are a few things to consider, however. This is not a perfect list (I would never claim to be perfect), but here are some thoughts from a trans man about writing people like me.

Trans men are men. They talk like men, think like men, and walk like men, except where socialization as women has forced otherwise. By this I mean that descriptions should not include things like “he walked delicately, like a woman”. However he walks, it's like a man, because he’s a man. Other characters should not note that he “thinks like a woman” or that he “acts like a woman.” If you talk about a trans man transitioning and you mention that he is working on ways to masculinize his speech patterns or walking, that's fine, but make sure it's done from his perspective, e.g. “Michael tried to lower his voice, attempting to sound more like his father.” Do not use “Michael tried to lower his voice, not wanting to sound like a woman.” It's his voice and he sounds like a man. Also, many woman have deeper registers and many men have higher registers, and there's honestly not that much difference between a woman who speaks in a low alto and a man who speaks in a high tenor. Avoid gendering voices, mannerisms, and other things. A good rule of thumb is that if it's a concept, idea, or an inanimate or non-sentient thing, it is physically and/or emotionally incapable of having a gender and you should not assign one to it.

1. A trans man who has decided that all he needs to do is come out to be a man is still a man, with a man's body and male genitals, because he says he's a man. Even if he is not out, he is a man. He can be uncomfortable with his body, or with how others perceive his body, but it should not be described in terms of “womanly” aspects.

EX: David's breasts made him uncomfortable, reminding him that others looked at him differently than how he would have liked.

2. 72% of trans men do not ever want full gender reassignment surgery, and this doesn’t make them “less of a man.” The surgeries are expensive, invasive, and don’t always result in a fully functional genital apparatus. Also, there are a lot of them. A trans man, to have a full semi-working penis (one that will not be useful for sex but will at least be useful for urination), is looking at at least three surgeries: to remove the labia, to 'bulk up' the clitoris, and to move the urethra. There are also surgeries to remove the cervix and/or the uterus, to create a scrotum, and to add a pump inside the scrotum attached to a surgical implant in the penis to assist with arousal. Even if a man has all these surgeries, the penis he gets loses most of its sensitivity and won’t become physically aroused (as in, achieve erection) without medical intervention. He may also need electrolysis to remove pubic hair. Ultimately, many trans men opt not to deal with it. Many still want top surgery, or a hysterectomy, or both, and often testosterone is used to help deepen their voice and change their body shape (but, again, gendering a trans man's voice by suggesting it's “feminine” because he's not on testosterone or because his voice hasn't dropped yet is not a great idea). It depends on the type and amount of dysphoria a person experiences, versus their financial and mental ability to deal with the different choices. Some trans men are happy with no hormones and only top surgery. Others want or need everything. There is no “correct” way to be trans.

3. Unless your story revolves around their transition (which, as a cis person, maybe it's best you don't do, honestly), there’s no reason to go into detail about your trans male character's surgeries. If it’s not plot relevant, it's probably not necessary.

4. If you’re writing porn, make sure to always use male pronouns for him, even if he has chosen not to go through surgery. If he has gone through surgery, what he has will be indistinguishable from a cis male penis except that he may need viagra or a surgical pump.

5. Reactions to testosterone are different for every trans man. Some men never have their voices drop, never grow a beard, and/or never bulk up and get all muscle-y. Some men are on testosterone for two weeks and have a Gandalf beard with a voice low enough to sing bass. It just depends, mostly on genetics. If your character's father is a super hairy mountain man who sings bass in his lumberjack quartet, then your character is more likely to end up similar. If your character's father is basically an elf, then he's likely to be similar to that. Also, for a number of reasons, a trans man may choose not to or may be incapable of taking testosterone. Most doctors won’t prescribe it if the man wants to carry his own children in the future, for example.

6. Keep in mind that the order in which testosterone produces effects on a man’s body isn’t predictable, so don't worry too hard about 'getting it right.' Even trans men can't predict what they'll look like after being on testosterone for a while.

7. Also, a note: If your character is transmasculine and nonbinary, and taking testosterone, it's likely they will be on a lower dose than a trans man. That's not always true, but testosterone can be given at a few different doses, depending on how drastic a change a person wants and how quickly they want that change to occur. There’s still no guarantee: a trans man may never be able to grow a beard on a full dose, while a transmasculine nonbinary person might be on a very low dose and have a beard within the first month. But, generally, lower doses are meant to bring out smaller changes over a longer period of time, while higher doses are meant to bring out larger changes over a shorter period of time.

8. A non-fluid trans man is going to consider himself a man at all times, and always use he/him pronouns for himself, whether or not everyone else does. If you're writing a trans man point-of-view piece where he's not out or where he's not fully accepted, make sure he or the narrator always uses the right pronouns when others don't. That helps remind your audience that he's not the person other people think he is.

EX: Daniel was frustrated. His grandmother insisted on calling him “Sarah” no matter how many times he corrected her.

9. Menstruation is a difficult topic for a lot of trans men. Some men lose their ability to menstruate when they take testosterone, while others continue to menstruate. If they retain their uterus, however, the possibility of a menstrual cycle is always there. If/when menstruation happens for a trans man, it's often a time of major dysphoria. A trans man may have a lot of issues surrounding menstruation. Having a cervix also means yearly Pap smears, which can also be uncomfortable or dysphoria-inducing. Dysphoria can also happen during ovulation, when a person is most fertile. The body during this time is “getting ready for a baby” and the changes can be very triggering.

10. Testosterone may stop menstruation, but it doesn't necessarily stop pregnancy. Also, some trans men will go off their testosterone in order to carry their own child. During their pregnancy, it is important that they are still referred to as men. A trans man will generally prefer to be called “father” even if he carried the child, but some may prefer the term “mother.” If a cis person wishes to write a pregnant trans character, it would be better to err on the side of caution and use “father.” A trans man who has gone through top surgery will not likely be able to nurse his own children, but a man who has chosen to use a binder instead will be able to (probably - some people don’t/can’t lactate for other reasons). Whether or not he chooses to will be up to him.

11. Gender Dysphoria is the medical diagnosis given to trans people who want to do any form of medical transitioning. Being transgender is not in and of itself a diagnosis. A person can be transgender and choose never to transition medically. Dysphoria is generally most clearly understood as a form of discomfort in the body you possess. Sometimes a person experiencing dysphoria is uncomfortable with their body no matter what. He doesn't like his breasts, for example, unless they are bound, no matter what his setting is, who is looking at him, etc. His dysphoria takes the form of nausea at the mere sight of them. Alternatively, some people only experience dysphoria relating to how others see them. For example, a man may not mind his breasts when he's alone, and he doesn't usually bind, but on a specific day while he wasn't binding someone glance at his breasts before calling him 'ma'am' and now he can't uncross his arms in case someone else looks his way. For some people dysphoria comes and goes, and they have good days and bad days. Also, images can be dysphoria-inducing. For example, seeing a pregnant person might remind a man that he has a uterus, and make him extremely uncomfortable all day. Other people may go several days, or weeks or months, without experiencing dysphoria, but when it hits it affects them for a long time or very severely. Or a person might experience dysphoria every day, as kind of a low-level mental fog they can't shake.

12. Gender Euphoria is as valid as Gender Dysphoria. Gender Euphoria is the idea that a person might be content in the body given to them, but will never be truly happy unless they make a change. These people can live their whole lives as the gender assigned to them at birth without severe mental issues or physical problems, but it's like living a life without color. They can do it, but if there's a way to get color back, why wouldn't they?

13. Changing names is complicated and takes time. It also differs in every state/country, and may need to be re-done when a trans man moves. In some states, all they need to change their name legally is a court order. In other areas, a trans man needs to have lived using their new name for a period of time, or have doctor’s notes and authorizations. Once the character has changed their name legally through the courts, they need to change their driver's license, banking information, insurance, work papers, social security information, passport, birth certificate, and any other documentation bearing their name. It can take anywhere from a month to a year or more, and is expensive, sometimes prohibitively so. It's okay to have a trans male character who goes by “Mark” but whose parents or grandparents refer to as “Melissa.” The important thing is to make sure narratively you are confirming that those people are wrong.

EX: “Melissa! It's nice to see you come to visit!” Mark's mom said. Mark cringed, hating the sound of his deadname, but he hadn't yet been able to convince his mother to use the right one.

14. Do not portray a character binding for more than eight hours or with unsafe binders in a positive light. Just don’t. Binding, even with professional/high-end binders, is not safe. It's a stopgap - safer than not binding at all for some people whose dysphoria is really bad. It constricts the lungs and can break ribs if not done properly. It can permanently alter a person's chest cage if done for an extensive period of time. It's a necessary evil for people who are waiting to get their surgery done, in order to keep them alive to have that surgery. It's not a permanent cure-all. Binding also can cause dysphoria. A person who doesn't have dysphoria surrounding his chest can develop it after wearing a binder. So, have your character bind safely, or discuss the issues surrounding unsafe binding. (And yes, this applies even in a fantasy setting or world where the technology may be different. A story is a story, but the impact it could have on a real trans man is potentially dangerous, so write with consideration, and if you do introduce a magical or technological solution to this, maintain awareness of the reality.)

15. Transitioning without an in-person support group is one of the most common factors in transitioning regret. Give your character someone to go to the doctor with them, someone to hold their hand when they get scared, someone to talk them through moments when they're unsure. No one who goes under the knife is always completely 100% sure all the time. They need a community. Surgery and hormones are scary, even if a trans man knows he wants them, and trying to go it alone can spell disaster.

16. Given that a trans man will consider himself a man, it can be challenging to make it clear to a reader that he’s trans. If he's the main/POV character, you can write him dealing with some dysphoria. For example, if you decide your character binds, mention that his breasts are bothering him particularly badly one day. Have him adjust his binder. Describe putting a binder on. That kind of thing. If he's a minor character, it can be more challenging, but you can still have him do things like adjust a binder. You could also mention surgical scars, if a character takes off their shirt. Another thing you can do is just have the main character remember a time “before Mark went by Mark” (for example). Another way is to have the character mention some way in which they are fighting for trans rights, and acknowledge that the issue is personal to them. Try not to use the deadname unless he’s facing an actual microaggression by another character. The narrative or narrator character should never deadname the character.

17. FTM is not an accepted term anymore, as it implies that a person was one thing and changed. Generally speaking, if a trans man is not genderfluid, then he was never female or a woman. Likewise, the phrase “born in the wrong body” is not acceptable for use by cis people. The only real use it has is to explain dysphoria by transgender characters to cisgender characters who aren't inclined to listen or try to understand. The accepted term is AFAB, or Assigned Female At Birth. Keep in mind that terms and labels change with time, so do your research. For example, if you’re writing a historical piece, different terms may be more appropriate, and if you’re writing a modern current-day piece, understand that in ten or twenty years the terminology you use will likely have grown outdated.

18. The proper way to write the term is always “trans man” and never “transman”. Trans is an adjective describing a type of man, just like you might say an Asian man or a muscled man or a gay man. This comes back to the idea that a trans man is always a man, first and foremost.

19. An easy pitfall to avoid if your trans male character's setting is modern or modernesque is: Don't make the story all about their oppression. We are aware of the many ways in which the modern world is trying to oppress and harm the trans community, but trans men can still be happy and interesting people. They can have dysphoria without being depressed. They aren’t necessarily the “down in the dumps” character. Also, trans men have a long history of being activists, and are often erased in history, so don't be afraid to make your trans men an out-and-loud activist. Yes, terrible things have happened and continue to happen to trans men, and any trans man who has done any research into trans history will know about individuals like Brandon Teena. Trans men know the dangers they face. Knowing that bad things can and are happening doesn't mean a trans man can't find his own joy in life, despite things not being perfect.

20. Keep in mind when writing in historical settings that trans men have existed for as long as people have existed. Many trans men were able to go through life completely “undetected” until they died and those around them conducted culturally-common burial practices. It’s not unreasonable to have a trans man in Regency England, Yuan China, or Roman times. If you're writing about non-European-centric history, many cultures acknowledged those who didn’t present the way their AGAB (assigned gender at birth) would suggest, and do your research. Also, keep intersectionality in mind, and tread especially carefully when writing a trans man from a culture and period other than your own. This post is mostly applicable to trans men in the modern era, and especially in the United States. The trans male experience will be different in other places in the world, for people of different ages and of different religions and ethnicities and races, so the more traits your trans man has that are outside your own experience as a cis writer, the more you should consider if it’s wise for you write the story you have in mind, or if it might not be better to allow in-group members to tell those stories. And never forget - trans men can and are all things - all races, all religions, abled and disabled, etc. People have nuanced identities and multiple identifiers and trans is always only one of many.

21. In fantastical or science fiction settings, please always ask yourself if oppression of trans people or bigotry against them is even needed. Maybe a society doesn't assign gender at birth, but waits until a child is old enough to tell the society where they belong. Maybe a society reveres those who are under the transgender umbrella. Maybe children are considered genderless until they reach puberty. You have a million and one options; why limit yourself to what modern predominantly Western white Christian society says? If you do make a society that doesn't look anything like the modern world, for example they assign gender at age five, think about how that would affect society as a whole. What kind of pronouns would be used for children under five? Are young children genderless, or are they seen as genderfluid? What about people who age past five and are still genderless or genderfluid? What are the naming conventions for children?

22. There are mixed feelings regarding how a science fiction or fantasy setting should treat transitioning. Should it be an easy fix, with magic or advance science doing it instantly or nearly so? Or should it be difficult, reflecting the modern situation where the process often years before a person can feel “finished?” That's up to you. Trans people themselves are split on this, so there’s no pleasing everyone. Do your best, and whichever way you choose, make sure to tag it accurately or, for original fiction, be clear up front what approaches you’ve chosen, so people can choose not to read something that may make them uncomfortable at best or trigger them and profoundly harm them at worst.

Ultimately, your trans man is your character and you can do with him as you wish. Write responsibly, and do your research, and if you can, get a sensitivity reader or a beta who is a trans man.

So, go, diversify those stories, write the things, and present good representation! Happy writing!

[thisiswhatwereupagainst]

So, I finally read the issues that AVERY CONNOR aka “Laura Kinney before Laura Kinney was ever created”, a girl who had Wolverine’s genetic template basically grafted to her in the womb by the same people who were involved in making him Weapon X. As a result, she has almost all the same powers that Logan does, except she lacks claws like him and the later Snikt fam. Also unlike Laura and Gabby, Avery wasn’t raised in a lab, but in what seems to have been a mostly-ordinary life by her parents, though she says there were tests and experiments (exactly what these entailed, and if they were as brutal as what Laura and Gabby went through, is unclear) I was curious about how similar or different Avery would be from Laura. What surprised me is that they’re mirrors in many way, similar and opposites at the same time. The first thing that stuck out to me that despite a more normal life than Laura, Avery WANTS to kill. But she never has before, and she doesn’t get to do it in the story. Contrast Laura, who doesn’t want to kill, but is forced to do it. They both have these opposite desires for the same reason---to be free. Laura doesn’t want to be imprisoned and used as a weapon. Avery literally says to Elektra that she wants to be a killer like her because it means freedom from her life as “an experiment” and “a thing from a test tube”---again, while Avery grew up with parents and in society, she does say that she underwent “tests” and she doesn’t seem to have liked it. And what she is doesn’t seem to have been kept by her. Both Laura and Avery behave in very atypical ways because of their situation, but it’s in a way that’s opposite. I am not a big Laura reader, not a Laura expert, but I remember the Laura from Evolution, which was her original incarnation, being very overtly angry, absolutely raging. Whereas Avery is very cold. Her reaction to being kidnapped by Elektra, the same stranger she witnessed murdering her father in front of her, is to go willingly, be very calm, and be intrigued and interested in Elektra, and interested in becoming like her. Unlike Laura, Avery has never received any training in combat----but she WANTS to be trained. Laura is skilled because training she didn’t want was forced on her; Avery has raw talent but she’s unskilled because she didn’t get this training, but she WANTS it and asks Elektra to train her. Laura wants to be a normal child, Avery wants to be a killer, both want to be free. And while Avery might not actually understand how awful this is, Laura understands all too well. While Laura’s sole spot of comfort in the lab, if I remember right, was her mother Sarah Kinney, who did her best from the start to ensure Laura retained some kind of humanity. Avery, however, lacks a bond with her mother, and believes that this lack of love is mutual, that neither of her parents love her. She finds out later that this isn’t true, that they were actually planning to take Avery and run away, to free her from the Weapon X stuff, and that’s why Elektra was hired to asassinate her father in the first place. According to Avery’s mother, she and her husband originally weren’t good parents, but by the time Avery was six, they had started planning their escape. So, Laura was always loved by her mother, and loved her back, and always knew it, but, if I remember right, didn’t always know that Dr. Kinney was her bio-mother at all. Whereas Avery has always known her mother was. . .her mother. . . but didn’t realize she loved her, and didn’t originally love her back at all. Sarah Kinney dies, Veronica Connor lives. Laura’s one comfort was her parents, Avery lacked this specific comfort even though her surroundings were much better than what Laura got. While Laura lacks a bio-father besides Logan, Avery has one. Avery is not a clone of Logan; she’s the daughter of these two Weapon X doctors who just had Logan’s genetic template implanted on her as a fetus through genetic engineering. Her father, Daniel Connor, was murdered by Elektra on a contract at the beginning of the story, as mentioned. Laura is basically adopted by Logan in all her incarnations---cartoon, film, comics---and they form a bond despite him not having raised her. While Avery does meet Logan and he learns of their connection, he doesn’t adopt her, nor do they bond. It’s Elektra that Avery bonds with, and wants to be adopted by, and Elektra is strongly tempted by it. However, at the end of the story, she makes amends with her mother and the two run away together. Laura had no father in her life, but she forms a bond with Logan despite him not raising her. Avery had a father and was raised with him, but she felt no bond with him. Laura and Logan become a father/daughter dynamic, Avery and Logan do not. Laura lost her mother and gained a foster father. Avery loses her father, but gains a foster-mother, if briefly. Laura bonded with someone who was genetically related to her all along, Avery with someone who had no genetic relationship to her, even when someone who was--Logan---was there (she’s actually pretty uninterested in him) Logan saw himself reflected in Laura, Elektra saw herself reflected in Avery. Laura stays with her found family and becomes a member of the X-Men, Avery does not stay with Elektra and presumably goes on to have a normal life. I really have to wonder if Laura’s original creator read Avery’s story or not (Wolverine & Elektra: The Redeemer #1-3) because besides the same basic story of “teen girl Wolverine made by Weapon X to be the better version of him” they’re also just SUCH MIRROR IMAGES, not simply different but different in distinctly opposite, reflecting ways---their upbringing, their relationships to others, their desires, etc. It’s really interesting, and I want more than ever to see Avery return, as unlikely as that is. Also I feel like it’s kinda fitting that Avery is the one left out of the Snikt fam that no one knows about, given that, as the only one who lacks claws, she CAN’T snikt!