#in case that wasn't clear with me having not actually done that lmao

[camplease]

harrow grew in her emotional awareness of other people as people at an incredible rate during the events of gideon the ninth, a rate that honestly stretches the bounds of plausibility. and i think a lot of it, maybe even most of it, was specifically a reaction to an awareness of gideon, specifically, in genuine mortal danger that harrow had never previously considered

even before harrow was able to accept that she feels any affection for gideon, her covetousness of gideon's presence is evident. but, on drearburh, even though there might’ve conceivably been natural disasters outside of harrow's control that could’ve changed this, i think gideon’s survival of the child massacre made gideon seem like an almost supernaturally ever-present fixture of harrow’s universe. no matter how much gideon bled and broke in those 17 years, i don’t think harrow had truly considered the reality of gideon’s mortality before

when harrow thought of losing gideon, she thought of gideon escaping. prior to canaan house, though death involving those close to her was already something harrow knew intimately well, each example is inextricably connected to its specific context. with "the body," the cause of death didn't pose any immediate, direct threat to harrow or those she cared about. as horrific all of drearburh’s children’s deaths were, as heavily as they weighed on harrow, this was a part of her history rather than an imminent threat. and, as much grief and sorrow that the personal responsibility harrow felt for her parents’ suicides colored her existence, as much as she even once blamed gideon, ultimately, harrow's parents killed themselves. these were all so different by their very nature from the deaths at canaan house and the possibilities they illuminated. something or someone was maliciously seeking out those among her in the present. gideon's very existence could no longer be taken for granted, never mind simply losing possession of her

i believe that both accepting her own care for gideon and accepting the risk of losing gideon beyond losing control over her is what led harrow to assess the inherent harm and dehumanization of their power imbalance and to begin to understand the flaws in her worldview overall, the flaws in the system that granted her and others in power the power to abuse it at will and use those under them as tools

but the reason why i say this was a lot of/most of and not all of the reason for harrow's growth is because i think she always had some latent capacity for it that she'd just previously suppressed. and i don't think this is unique to harrow. i think the worst people within any system wear away at their humanity, and, thus, their ability to perceive the humanity of others and act accordingly, a bit at a time. but this process isn't irreversible. harrow's relation to gideon was just the catalyst for that reversal in her

i can’t say exactly who harrow would’ve become without gideon at canaan house with her for the lyctoral trials, but she would’ve certainly been very different from the person she is now

decided to make my own post because i was thinking about this poll way too much and it led me to a big enough tangent that it's its own creature at this point, though i also wanna credit that initial spark

[floatmeintothesun]

How Genshin guys react to you calling them by their full names:

ok I know this isn’t original at all but I seriously loved this sort of concept and found it hilarious! I’m sorry to the person who originally came up with this but thank you for thinking of this wonderful idea!

tw: none

tags: a little suggestive (only implied), some nicknames, fluff, no gender mentioned

—

Diluc:

“Diluc Ragnvidr!”

Poor guy. His head instantly snaps to wherever you're standing, whether it be behind him, to the side, a full floor above, or underneath, Diluc will immediately twist in your direction.

(Ouch. I can hear his neck pain from here.)

He’ll be all worried, seeking you out and asking you if he’s done anything wrong, or if you need him for something important. You usually call him sweet little pet names and he’ll reciprocate, calling you his darling, my sweet, my dear, etc, more romantic gooey names, so something must be wrong if you're resorting to his full name, right?

He’ll be so stressed out in those moments when you haven’t cleared anything up. Give him cuddles after you tell him it’s just a prank, he’ll be relieved, but sulky and somewhat pouty. 

As he should be. You nearly gave him a heart attack, and not in your usual lovely way with your wonderful affection…

“Darling? Is everything alright--no, did I do something, not to your liking? Ah…a prank. I see…actually, come visit my office after work…you can say my name all you want there…”

Zhongli:

“Rex Lapis!”

Oh no. He’ll blink slowly, turning to look at you with curiosity and slight apprehension while he tries to figure out why you're using his Archon title. Sure, his name sounds wonderful falling from your lips but he can’t think of a reason why you’d use it now.

Do you require his assistance? Oh, you look displeased, did he do something that warrants your anger? Zhongli will stare at you placidly while you try your best to look angry at him.

He already has an idea that you're playing a prank on him, but just in case you aren’t he’ll just wait for you to break character. After a second your expression melts and he finds faint amusement as you sigh exaggeratedly as if he’s ruined the joke. 

Oops.

“Ah, my apologies, my dear. I had an idea that this wasn't quite as serious as your voice had made it out to be. You can be quite intimidating when you want to be, but let’s keep names like those in the bedroom, hm?”

Kaeya:

“Kaeya Alberich!”

He’s sitting up ramrod straight, glancing at you from the corner of his eye. What happened to the sweet little nicknames you usually call him? Wait—you sound a little angry, did he do something wrong?

“Yes, my dear,” He stresses those last two words, looking at you with unmasked curiosity. All the while he’s probably analyzing every conversation he’s had with you and trying to pick out the bits that could have offended you somehow. Although he may not show it, he’s subtly freaking out while you stare at him.

When you finally tell him that it’s a prank, a slow smirk will crawl up his face, his eye narrowing darkly because how dare you. He was genuinely worried that you were mad at him for whatever reason.

“Hmm…I’d much rather hear you calling me dadd--Hey! Don’t hit me…”

—

I’m down bad for these bitches lmao

[galactic-rhea]

how do you think anakin (or your anakin) would take clovis? i found those episodes to be really ooc😭

Oh boy, I knew this day would come,,,the day in which someone asked me about these awful episodes, thanks user @songspirits now this conversation won't have to wait any longer NKLJnjfdf

To quote a friend of mine that only watched the movies when I told her the summary of the Clovis arc: "I think Anakin would've asked padme to held her wig instead while she personally goes to fight that guy, the anakin i know at least"

Jokes aside, I'll have to break this down on a few points because there's just,,,a lot going on in these episodes (to be clear I don't intend to change anyone's mind in the matter, since i already know many ppl believe these episodes to be good for anakin's ehh,,,going-evil characterization). This will get long.

So first of all: The very first episode where Clovis shows up is just alright, could've been done much better but seriously I don't have many issues with it.

The problem arises with the new ones in season 6. The why I feel Anakin is out character in these episodes is because his very, very well known and yet somehow missinterpreted flaw is that he reacts with extreme violence, especially when scared, scared not for himself but for someone he cares about.

So him reacting badly and going directly for a bloody fistfight against Clovis wasn't the problem of the episodes. It was how he treated Padmé. Like, literally telling her he would leave her in jail if she kept mentioning Clovis, lmao. Also the "You have no say on this" yadayada. I think the writer for these episodes was probably taking their confrontation at Mustafar as a reference point, which...No, that shouldn't have been the case bc in Mustafar that guy literally turned evil (literally!) and he had lost touch with reality. And also the stakes were higher. And also his anger was completely different there.

But, at the same time, if I play the devil's advocate, I can see some...eh, explanations there. For example he had recently lost Ahsoka and one of his men, the War was on the third year, and Padmé was decidely working with someone that already almost got her killed once, and she wasn't listening to him. They didn't even actually discussed the situation very well. And when Anakin says that "as your husband, I ask-" he turns around and is completelly unable to look at her in the eyes, so it could very well be that not even himself believed that, he was mostly throwing onto the table every single card he had. And one could argue that there's no way he didn't hear/notice/sense/ whatever that Padmé wasn't okay with that kiss.

But even then, the writers were clearly going for your very average possesive-sexist-angry-jealous- boyfriend, which isn't Anakin's problem, like I said, his problem is how deeply scared he is of Padmé being hurt. So Anakin's main concern shouldn't be that he's being cheated on, but that Padmé could be hurt, and they kinda touched on that but they failed at portraying that well, and I think it's because:

a) This episode shows us an extremelly common trope in shows with many episodes and many one-time-plots: The classic add-another-person-so-main-character-gets-jealous-. And almost always this type of episode gets us very ooc characterizations, no matter the show, because this society usually can't see any other reaction that isn't angry-possesive-violent jealousy. He also treats Padmé quite badly even before she decides to keep working with him, which is a no-no for me.

b) The shows forgets that Anakin does, actually, has a lot of faith and trust in Padmé's abilities. Yes, he worries, a lot, but he still is very confident on her being a more than capable person. He doesn't want to keep her in a cage or something, part of the reason he's so in love with her is because of how capable and intelligent she is. In ROTS is different because he quite literally had a prophetic vision that proved to be true before, and there's very little to do in this case, it had nothing to do with abilities or someone else. Also, if AOTC tells me anything, is that they're fairly talktative aka they communicate fairly well. Even in previous episodes we see that Padmé is great at communicating and discussing (look at how she reassured Ahsoka when Ahsoka was worried about her. Or that little bit where she's concerned about a party.); in this episode there was none of that until after Anakin almost kills a guy.

c) I think they simply, and flatly, just wanted to show Anakin being dangerous and darker and have Padmé concerned and all of that. And what better way to show a man becoming evil than being a jealous boyfriend. Isn't like Anakin has already murdered a lot of people, amirite. This is a bit of a problem with the simplification of a character. If they're bad or becoming evil, they also surely must be hyper jealous and possesive, there's no other way.

TO SUMMARIZE: I don't think Anakin was handled well, at all. Because the episodes were rellying on a very basic trope, which needed them to break the characters to fit the cookie cutter. However I can see some attempt at deepness there. It's like if it was the characters pretending to be more cartoonized version of themselves, if you know what I mean.

HOWEVER,,,,that said, the biggest sin for me isn't Anakin being OOC...IS HOW PADMÉ WAS TREATED.

They seriously had to put her into a sexual harassament plot, only for it all to be about how Anakin is evil (tm), and not have her respond at all? They really had her to put up with a creepy rapey dude just because.....What is even the narrative trying to tell us at all, that Anakin was actually was actually right, but overreacted? The plot is so contrived, Lmao.

She was the one that got harassed and yet she had no say on it, she's extremelly passive in the whole arc (which we all already know isn't Padmé's personality, even Anakin tends to follow the narrative in more passive way than she does). Then they also had to have her on the trope of "If a woman is going to be a spy, then she must use all her goods and being a femme fatale", and then they didn't even made her fatale. They could AT LEAST give us a moment of her reflecting about having been lowkey assaulted? No? Huh,okay.

Also, Padmé is actually very good at, let's say, handling Anakin. Or more like, reassuring him/discussing stuff with him, and I say this because of bits of the novels I have seen. She's more self-assured and confident, and experienced with social stuff, she's definitely not naive, and can stand her ground fairly easily, and she knew what type of guy was Clovis, so yeah, it's just...she was badly written here, she lost almost all of her agency. I'm not saying it was her fault or anything, or that it was her responsability to calm down her clown of a husband, but it goes against what we know Padmé is like.

Also apparently throwing himself onto the void was Clovis' apology for...almost getting her killed several times, kissing her without consent, being a creep and also using her as hostage. You know, so he's more of a deep character, I guess.

The good points for this arc though, are:

° Ol' Sheev doing what Sheev does best, and actually having some interesting stuff going on, they should've focused on that.

° They (miraculously) remembered a bit of Anakin's and Padmé's actual personalities, and when she told him to back off and that she needed a time, he accepted her desires to leave her alone and looked like a sad wet cat, like Anakin tends to look like. Also thank god they had Padmé's behaviour being nothing like the one of what you would expect from a victim of abusive relationships (Anakin was making his ooc scene and she just looked like 'bitch,what the hell has gotten into you', she had the audience's response, which is 'anakin? what?', which at least tells us this isn't Anakin's normal behaviour at all, i guess?)

° Obi-Wan and Anakin talking a little bit. Also Anakin's room had a poster of the Boonta's Eve race, he also had a little ship-toy, showing us that Luke really takes after his father, lol.

°...Idk what else to highlight from these episodes 😭😂 Did I already say Sheev's scheming? Uhhhh,well, uhh, idk, Padmé taking Clovis to the opera in an attempt to get info from him is kinda ...Ironic.

[soap-is-an-artist]

gonna ramble about charlie and auron because i just got out the premiere and. holy shit.

if I'm way off base on my analysis i am so sorry, im still processing, these are just my initial thoughts on stuff. and if you disagree id love to discuss it!

okay so first things first i screamed a LOT. I was so relieved when Charlie said he wasn't mad at Cas [i would've cried probably]. Auron made some truly wild comments. case in point: "I would probably slap the taste out of your mouth if it wouldn't mean getting you all hot and bothered just in time for Casper to drop me off at the office, pull into the parking garage, and fuck some goddamn sense into you." I YELLED OMFG auron. you can't just SAY shit like that. Then the Disney princess line. Charlie sounded so weak when he said "can we go back to that part about 'Casper fucking some sense into me'??" And Auron answering with "Not until I'm outside of the vehicle. You'll have to find someone else to watch." AURON. STOP PLEASE IM GONNA HAVE A HEART ATTACK FROM LAUGHING

alright moving on from that let's get to the serious shit. Charlie is justified to be angry about Auron interfering in his personal life; it ISN'T a healthy way to interact with people, whether you want to befriend them or not. Auron orchestrated this whole scheme because he doesn't know how to communicate his feelings, and you know what? I get it. He doesn't know what normal is, and it's not really his fault that he doesn't know. But he can at least try? Wikihow is free, brother /lh

Charlie wanted a fresh start. He wanted to disconnect from the dangerous world that Auron is a participant in, he wanted to earn his own way in the world, earn a bit of self damn respect like he deserves. Auron undermined all that, despite his good intentions. He lied, big time. And that's kinda shitty and not okay!

Was it about control? Keeping a hand on loose ends, like Charlie thinks? Auron just wanted to "protect him", right? Well, as someone who has had much of their life controlled by people who ALSO just wanted to "protect" me, that's a very weak excuse for taking away someone's agency. Now, our situations aren't exactly the same. Auron is not Charlie's parents [THANK GOD] and there actually some things Charlie isn't aware of that he needs to be protected from! But this was not the move. Like.. at all.

What's my solution? I dunno. But maybe don't force all these things to happen. Perhaps send an email rather than getting your guy to hunt down your former employee's childhood friend/crush and sneakily reunite them behind his back? Or at least try the email first, Auron. Charlie calling Auron out on playing pretend, "just writing one of your little stories"... ouch. But does he kinda deserve that? Yeah. I think so.

[Side note: Charlie talking about how if he'd sought out Cas on his own terms, it would've worked out because they fall in love every time? "Because that's where I'm supposed to be." I. fucking. fell over. I had to fucking BITE something omg. Yeah im biased in this argument sorry lol, i definitely have a favorite here]

HOWEVER: Auron admits that he was wrong! He is not an unrepentant man and he DIDN'T double down! That is a big point in his favor imo. He doesn't actually say "sorry" but he uses a lot more words to mean something... similar? I guess that's a fanfic writer's way. I get it, I also elaborate way too much. So, an actual clear cut "Charlie, I'm sorry I fucked with your life behind your back just because I wanted to be friends with you" would've been nice. But this will do for now.

Also Charlie you REALLY need to watch out for Finn that guy is a freakkkkk he will fuck you up big time. Not normal Finn. The magic one.

Okay I'm done typing whatever pops into my head with the barest pretense at organization lmao, I'll revisit this in time once my thoughts marinate a little more

[velvetvexations]

It seems appealing, but until I was gifted a Steamdeck recently I couldn't play it and it's still quite expensive. Generally though I do prefer FPSs.

lmao right

1) A few people get called out for genuinely, undeniably heinous behavior, with receipts showing exactly what they're purported to show, loud and clear. Maybe they molested kids, maybe they started a cult, maybe it turned out that all their social justice talk was a smokescreen for hate recruiting, maybe they'd been catfishing for clout and profit, maybe they'd been trawling the site the callout is on for people to scam and abuse, maybe it's even more than one of the above. Whatever it is, it's unequivocally bad and SOMETHING has to be done and the systems at hand have sweet fuckall TO do about it, so a warning to the community it is! 1.5) People are primed to believe, when they see a callout post, that yes, what this person did was AWFUL. 2) People seeing that this works - and often genuinely but incorrectly believing that they have another equally bad case on their hands - start posting callouts about shit like friend drama (that wasn't a fight, it was ABUSE) or media taste (I heard he watched Dragon Maid, PEDO ALERT!!!) or consensual kinks (can you BELIEVE she misgendered another girl who asked her to??? Disgusting!). Most but not all of these target marginalized people, because of course it's easier to make a mountain of a molehill when people have a preexisting bias to believe it's a mountain (though contrary to popular current belief, it's usually not one specific group in particular). 3) People start fighting over the utility of callouts - some people believe these bits of nonevidence are TOTALLY proof of wrongdoing, others start to get alarm fatigued because surprise surprise, it's WAY harder to find people who are actually stealing and selling human bones, or lying about being HIV+ sex trafficking survivors for discourse cred, or starting entire cult houses, than it is to find...people who aren't perfect friends 100% of the time, or who like media that squicks you out; a few people still manage to fall somewhere in between. 4) Callouts fall off in frequency until someone does something SO heinous as to return us to step 1. I feel like we're kinda between steps 3 and 4 here, as a site at large - which, ironically, makes me all that much more suspicious when someone highlights a specific group as being the ONLY one targeted and harmed by fake callouts.

Eyyup.

Also, even callout posts that have legitimate grievances tend to do the Wendigoon thing where it's frontloaded with ridiculous bullshit before it gets to "also, this person murdered twelve women from 1999 to 2004." Like, why did I hear about how Vivziepop using voodoo aesthetic risked her staff being haunted to death by spirits before I heard she thinks non-binary people are faking being trans for attention?

I went into a restaurant to order some takeout while Original Mall Anon waited in the car, and when I went to get our sodas, there were these three preppy girls just...congregating there, taking up the space long after they'd finished getting their own, blocking anyone else from getting their drinks without asking them to move and, I shit you not, talking about buying shit from Hollister. Half of me, in the present, was like "okay. They're younger than me. I shouldn't be MEAN. This is a minor rudeness, I don't need to make a whole Thing of it." Half of me was violently removed from my body and de-aged to 15 because what the fuck, I was standing there, dark clothes, dyed hair, Hot Topic bag in hand, being treated like an annoying nonentity by a bunch of preppy girls who were acting like they fuckin owned the place, that was something I thought wasn't supposed to HAPPEN outside of high school and yet here I was, uh, catching up on missed experiences to a level I REALLY didn't expect to happen at a Wingstop.

God how I want some Wingstop. I love every part of this, anon. Perhaps your mall is truly unteathered from time and space.

It's completely mindless harassment without any real point and if they show up on one of your posts you should report them.

Hell yes.

Well, that's fucking stupid.

[horizon-verizon]

The fact Alys killed FOR Daemon. Probably the most romantic thing someone has done for him, lmao. I hope they have sex and she does get pregnant with Daemon’s child, FINALLY someone who match his freak (you’d never hear the end of it from some quarters if Daemon did, the same people who are championing Rhaenyra cheating).

But seriously, Daemon asking Alys for help, her actually helping him and the last hallucination she gives him is that of reconciliation with his brother… I’m still processing this and what it’ll mean down the line. I need to know her motives because it can’t just be helping out Daemon ?? She calls them both chess pieces at the hands of larger forces… How far into the future has she seen ?

Besides that point she knows how Daemon dies, she told him “he’ll die in this place”, so why does she even help him ? And what about Aemond ? Like I wonder what the end goal is for her. Since she will know Aemond dies, imagine she doesn’t warn him about it when she met him which will be 100% funny.

First, this is nothing against you anon. But I don't take HotD's writing and characters at face value or value them bc I believe much of HotD's writng is superficial and too contradictory for that. Even without considering how they have made it so much easier to hate and misunderstand several F&B characters, general ASoIaF lore, etc., enough for people to think this war wasn't as anti-woman-leader focused as it was bc the showrunners have blatantly said they wish to make this more about "both teams bad, Targs are uniquely selfish".

Answer: (in case you weren't being facetious) Sorry, nothing is ever going to beat for me Alys getting impregnated by the craziest bitch of the greens, aka, anti bastard team. Other than that, show!Alys is not doing for Daemon but for the Riverland smallfolk, so yeah she doesn't care for Grover Tully that much. I believe she's meant to parallel Mysaria in HotD's endless love for "parallels".

I don't think the writers know what her end goal is, bc even this is not all that clear in the book as she disappears from history with her son. And I don't think that she has much to anticipate since unless HotD is trying to say that Jojen Reed was Alys' descendant, how did a Targ father contribute to any of Jojen or Meera's abilities in GoT or ASoIaF? Nah, this storyline is weird & jumbled.

As for Daemon asking for help, I think this is the "toxic-man-learns-he's-not-that-special-and-asks-for-a-woman's-help-to-raise-women's-importance" arc HotD has out for him in this season. An unnecessary one that contradicts the first one--and no 1x10 was bullshit esp the choking scene, so 🤷🏿‍��️.

Finally, I don't blame some people having issue if Daemon did cheat with Alys bc if they are, like you, trying to enjoy HotD for its own thing and in this iteration of Daemon, he did choke Rhaenyra out. So yeah, he has less of a high horse if he did cheat. Other people's dislike for Daemon cheating may rather just come from their misunderstanding of his character, book or show, so they don't count.

[kohakhearts]

shigegou for the ship game! convert me!

CRACKS KNUCKLES. MY TIME HAS COME

shigegou: ship it!

(side note: i still think i've gotta get serious about using splitdecisionshipping for them until it sticks, lmao)

what made you ship it?

actually this is one of those cases of i shipped them by proxy for ot3 purposes. i liked their dynamic but when i watched jn initially i hadn't yet done my os rewatch and i was actually pretty normal about gary oak (as a kid he wasn't really a big fave or anything and i hadn't actively watched anything but the pokemon movies since middle school so). they definitely gave that same vibe as os pallet though like the "i have a crush on you i can't deal with" so i think i liked that dynamic :p

what are your favourite things about the ship?

ok so now fast forward to the great anipoke rewatch/watch (since i'd never seen the later gens before) of 2023. i got really unwell about gary. DJFGHJFKDDFHJDK but i'd been unwell about goh from when i watched jn the year before so it was...not difficult to begin drawing parallels. i think a lot of people point out how similar the shigegou dynamic is to the early shigesato dynamic and like. that's true and valid! but as individual characters, gary and goh have so much in common. gary's whole schtick is that he travels alone. he doesn't wait around for ash to catch up to him, necessarily. he has his own ideas of what he should be doing and how he should be doing it and mr "i've already got ten badges" here sure as hell isn't a slacker when it comes to proving how Awesome and Capable he is. we never, not once, see gary working as a team with anyone until pokemon chronicles (power play is something else to me. to be clear). by his own admission in jn, he wasn't much of a team player and that's a big part of why he pushed goh so hard about teamwork and collaboration (ok. he doesn't say this so much as goh kinda figures it out and gary doesn't actively deny it. but we the viewers who have known gary oak since 1997 know enough to say yeah he kinda sucked and put people down for his own sake, this tracks). they're both very goal-oriented but in a different way than ash is. i think where ash sees other people are like, a source of insight and inspiration, gary and goh both tend to see them as obstacles (ironically, ash is the first person they each didn't see this way)

also, they both have an interest in like. catching and researching pokemon. gary obviously likes battling too, but in i think showdown at the poke-corral, oak says that gary has caught over 200 pokemon. but he also cares deeply about them all (in jp he often calls his mons some variation of "partner," "honey," "sweetie" and we see him rotate his pokemon a lot - he doesn't have just one team, he switches them out a lot!). goh has a bit of a different approach, yes, but fundamentally i think the interest comes from the same place. and there is no doubt that they both care about their pokemon.

so like. i think those qualities are probably things gary sees, but even more than that, i think he sees a lot of his own worst qualities in goh: arrogant, self-absorbed, putting himself in a position where he is so afraid of people letting him down (though in gary's case, i think this is actually more being of afraid of letting other people down than the reverse) that he doesn't even try to do things that would make him happy or necessarily improve his capabilities as a trainer/research/person in general. but more to the afraid of letting people down point...i think it seems likely that initially gary sees goh as overcompensating for a fear of failure, like he does. but that's not exacty the case with goh, and through more work together it would become a lot more apparent that his issue is actually that he doesn't trust anyone but himself (and ash, by the time they meet - but even then, there are a lot of moments that suggest that trust is tenuous at the best of times). and i think gary would see that as a challenge, too. so idk i'm rambling here but there are just a lot of directions i think you could take with them that are super interesting. gary's position as being, like, an aleady fully-developed character who had to have his big moments of upset, etc. by the time he meets goh make it interesting. lots of opportunity to delve into their parallels and approach them as two people who actually fundamentally make each other better - goh by encouraging gary's own self-awareness and empathy, and gary by pointing out all the flaws in goh's logic because he used to think the same way.

is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

it's like me and 4 other people brain rotting (actually went into the tag the other day out of curiosity and discovered that even though they have over 50 fics on ao3, only 4 aren't a polyamorous or side ship kind of deal so. Yeah) so i don't think there are even any unpopular opinions to be had except maybe that it's a good dynamic and they deserve more love </3

send me a ship!

[simpjaes]

ah, where do i begin? i just slept way too late yesterday reading player rank platinum, and i couldn't finish 😵‍💫 but i'll say what i was thinking yesterday already: I'VE CHANGED AS A PERSON!!!! specially bc i don't usually read fics that go against my morals (cheating in this case), but since i LOVE the way your writing makes me feel, i decided it wouldn't hurt to read it, and honestly i can describe just as surreal that you made me yearn for the moment that the reader would finally give in, and oh boy i enjoyed the ride 🤪 the way you involved the other 3 boys, the way we kinda could feel sympathy for the reader's sister bc she was so sweet at the beginning but then we realized she just wasn't the perfect fit (sexually at least) for heeseung, and the fact that he was just a competitive loser, but still a really hot one... seriously, im prolly just saying nonsense at this point but for a long time i couldn't get as involved w fics as i got with this one, so in conclusion: both heeseung and the reader are just as worth as the ground we step on but they did what had to be done for us to get SO MUCH SATISFACTION, seriously, i felt like i won some kind of game too AND IM NOT EVEN INTO GAMES 😦😦 and i kinda disappointed with no screams at all since all my energy (even for typing this) was drained today, but i'll make myself more present in your notifications 🫡 THANK YOU SO MUCH for the story and every single thing you write, i just love your mind, truly. 💖💖💖💖💖

i read this like 4 times and idek how to appreciate you enough for taking the time to type all of this to me! cheating in fics i know can be a really touchy subject for people, but also this blog is here to explore those kinds of plots and stories. cheating, manipulation, etc etc. im proud that I can write it in a way that lets you stomach it and im really thankful it didn't make you like, steer clear from me lmaooo

you didn't disappoint btw, you don't actually have to scream at me. I very much love these types of feedbacks too (perhaps even more lmao i can't lie)

[tonydaddingham]

#pre-fall scene#all im saying

Myabe I'm being dense but what exactly are you saying?

oh god okay anon i'll be honest but even i don't really know what im saying!!!✨ well no, wait, i do but essentially im gonna need to use this ask to parse it out (and save @teddybearbutchh from being spammed with my stream of consciousness)

so, let me be clear - im open to any take on this line. we're clear, right (and was laid out brilliantly in that post!) that aziraphale seems to know something about miracling love that the archangels and crowley do not - this is an experience unique only to him (as far as we're aware). it's something he has presumably tried to do, and seen the lack of desired result, to be able to reach this conclusion. and in order for him to get away with the lie to the archangels, its something he knows they won't have done. pretty obvious summary, but bear with me - it helps me lay out my thoughts!!!

now look, it could be that he's tried to miracle crowley in love with him. it could be that he's tried to miracle himself out of love with crowley (heartbreaking). it could be that he's tried to miracle two humans in love with each other. but here are my thoughts on these three things:

i don't personally hold the belief that they've been in love with each other since eden. ive talked about it in other posts, i won't go on about it, but their interactions through time, for me, have been them falling in love with each other in a rather organic way. some of those interactions towards the beginning of their story have been stilted, cold, even arguably antagonistic at times - that's my personal read, anyway. so, if we hold that aziraphale didn't realise he was in love until 1941, it makes no sense, for me, for him to have attempted miracling crowley in love with him between these points...? i also think 1941 is where aziraphale realises that crowley at least feels something for aziraphale in kind - he saved the books! - and this gives aziraphale some sort of... hope? (right up until 'oh shit, we're too close now and it actually might have Consequences - "you go too fast for me, crowley"). so yeah, i don't see, personally, any point in this history where this version of the attempted-miracle might have happened. (edit: sorry, to clarify - 'this history' being between the beginning and essentially modern day)

second one? okay look, this kills me. i hate it (i love it), and i could see this being the case - a bit of a bait-and-switch, that it wasn't making people fall in love, it was that aziraphale couldn't handle being in love. horrendous thought... but if we go with this - again, where is the point where aziraphale would have attempted this? well, the only point for me would be between 1941-1967... and that would make sense!!! but... is it in aziraphale's character to do this? personally, i think not. imo, i think aziraphale would see being in love with crowley as a gift - one that hurts, definitely, but one that he is honoured to have. he's a being of love, can sense it as easy as... well, breathing - and i don't think it's something he'd wish away. lmao @ tennyson, mad lad: "it is better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all." (he's definitely read, and probably liked(?), tennyson, if his line re: the kraken is anything to go by... god absolutely has, too)

this is absolutely possible - 100%... but for what feels like a pretty important line, especially in the romantic-plot-context of s2, wouldn't it have been important to see this happen? to have seen an instance where aziraphale may have tried to miracle a couple in love, and it have failed?

which brings me to the pre-fall scene, because it is the outlier in all of this, imo. aziraphale starts off very polite with AWCW (angel who crowley was), but as soon as AWCW starts becoming... yk, bubbly and excited, aziraphale's entire demeanour changed - he's suddenly eager to interact with him, tell him his name, and establish a connection. if nothing else, it's an instant crush for aziraphale, an immediate moment of '...oh shit, he's cute-cute', and this carries throughout the entire scene... and isn't reciprocated.

now, i don't necessarily think this is the moment where aziraphale would have attempted to miracle AWCW in love with him - in fact, i have to wonder if it was a conscious miracle at all? - but aziraphale seems both pleasantly surprised and... a little expectant? that AWCW is talking to/about him?

and has a rather rude awakening... so idk, perhaps out of angelic innocence/not-thinking-things-through/subconsciously willing it, tantamount to a miracle... aziraphale was hoping for AWCW to 'fall in love' with him back? or at least, pay back the same kind of attention that he was paying AWCW? and obviously it didn't work, so aziraphale knows - by s2 - that miracles don't work like that?

this is all a musing, im not at all firmly set on this and am happy to be argued (nicely!) back on it, but i think... potentially... it has some merit?✨

[the-flaming-nightmare]

WIP Wednesday

Thank you very much for the tag, @anewkindofme! 💙

It was a bit of a tough decision to make on which of my thousands of WIPs to choose from lmao, but here's a sneak peek of the next installment of A Bright Life:

A worried frown marred Gil's face as he watched Malcolm from his office window.

The consultant sat at his desk, working on the last of his paperwork from the Tatiana case, and looking far more exhausted than what was normal for Malcolm. If Gil were being honest with himself, the kid looked terrible. His usually lively, shimmering blue eyes were dull and glazed over, and if the pink flush on his cheeks and the light sheen of sweat that clung to his forehead was anything to go by, he was likely suffering from a fever. It also didn't escape Gil's notice how Malcolm would grimace in obvious pain whenever he put too much pressure on the palm of his bandaged hand. When Gil had asked him about it, Malcolm just said he accidentally cut himself on some broken glass and (like always) had refused to elaborate any further than that. It was unfortunately becoming abundantly clear to Gil that Malcolm may have not been caring for the wound in the way he should have been.

Gil peered down at his watch to check the time. They still had two hours of their shift left to go, but Gil had already gotten done with his paperwork, and he highly doubted Malcolm was even going to have enough energy or strength to finish his own. There wouldn't be any harm in leaving a couple of hours early.

With his mind made up, Gil gathered his paperwork into a neat stack before pushing himself away from his desk and standing. He grabbed his long, grey coat from where it hung on the back of his chair and slid it on. The lieutenant then picked up the stack of papers before snagging his son's own coat off the couch on his way towards the door. However, when he opened it, he was met by one of his detectives–who wore a worried expression similar to his own.

"Hey, Dani," he greeted. "I was just going to go drag Malcolm away from his desk and head out a bit early for the night. Did you need something, though?"

"Well, he's actually what I came to talk to you about. JT was going to go on a coffee run, so I went to go ask Bright if he wanted anything, but before I could even get close enough to ask, he bolted towards the bathrooms."

Gil turned his head to look through the blinds of the window once more. Sure enough, Malcolm was nowhere in sight.

"He really didn't look well, Gil. He hasn't all evening." Dani sighed. "I'm worried. He looked fine this morning, but it's like a switch flipped once the sun went down, and he suddenly looked like death rolled over."

Gil looked back at her and said, "Yeah, I noticed that, too. I'm pretty sure he's had a fever since the nightclub."

The kid may have been able to act like everything was fine during Joey and Axel's arrest–like he wasn't overheating in his coat and swaying on his feet after the fact–but Gil knew better. There was almost nothing his son could hide from him, especially when it came to his health.

"He did look pretty sweaty after we got back. And the temp outside isn't exactly scorching."

"I have a feeling he hasn't been taking proper care of that cut on his hand and now might have an infection. It would definitely explain the fever and what I'm not assuming the nausea." Gil exhaled a deep, heavy sigh. "I thought about just taking him back home with me and cleaning his cut myself and giving him some ibuprofen, but I'm starting to think a trip to Urgent Care would be a safer bet."

"Here, let me take those for you–" Dani gestured for him to hand over the stack of papers in the crook of his arm, which he gladly did–"Go take care of Bright."

"Thank you." Gil gave her a small but grateful smile. "I promise I'll keep you posted on his condition," he added, already knowing the answer to the question she didn't voice out loud.

"I would appreciate that. Thanks," she replied, returning his smile before turning and walking away to turn his reports in.

Gil quickly made his way in the opposite direction of the men's room, trying not let his mind conjure up worse case scenarios of what he might find when he got there. No matter what condition or state of mind he found his kid in, Gil had to keep a level head and not allow his worries to pull him from the here and now.

Without a second of hesitation, the lieutenant pushed the bathroom door in once he finally arrived. He looked over at the stalls, gaze immediately zoning in on the only stall door that was partially closed. Setting his son's coat down on a dry section of the sink's counter, Gil walked over to the stall.

"Malcolm?" Gil softly called out as he drew closer, not wanting to startle the younger man or make him think he was someone else.

The only response he received was a groan from inside the stall.

Tagging (if ya wanna): @angelique-of-the-volturi-guard, @thegoeticcleric and @snarkythewoecrow

[apoptoses]

Followed @desertfangs' advice and dropped everything I was doing so I could read chapter 2. As usual I thought I was ready and it turned out that I wasn't, not even a little bit. THIS!!! "Daniel didn’t meet his eyes. He was trying to bite back his smile, his teeth trapping his lower lip and holding it still. Armand’s last remaining resolve shattered", queen of characterization I swear. Your words evoke such clear images and capture the essence of the characters so effortlessly. This is one of those moments for both of them I think, specially re: how they play off each other. Daniel making every single victory count and Armand being unable to say no to him. Not when it truly counts at least. And then there was Daniel not knowing how to drive a modern car, Armand WANTING to be petty about it (he would lmao) but not succumbing to his impulses and actually guiding Daniel along. The role reversal to end all role reversals. Daniel's hand on his neck in the car, just perfection. “I certainly hope you’re watching the road" I mean SAME but I also want Daniel to keep petting him like a cat pls 🥹 Every single touch feels so immense, almost hurts to read. These are two people who know each other inside out, quite literally, they're experts on each other's bodies, to quote Anne herself, of course every intimate gesture would feel monumental after years of not touching each other.

And you were NOT kidding when you said they would be taking no prisoners and would get to have every single conversation they needed to have. "And how many of those times did I sit at home wondering if it would be the last, if you were done with me for good? The running, the begging for me to bring you home- do you not understand what it did to me?" LIKE THIS FOR INSTANCE. Yes, Daniel is rightfully angry about many things, but the fact that he pulled that move on heavily traumatized 500 y/o teenager with major abandonement issues time and time again for YEARS and didn't stop to think about the repercutions is worth talking about. Worth bringing up at a Waffle House in the middle of nowhere, USA, in fact lmao. Actually one of my biggest vc fandom pet peeves is how some people claim Armand left/"abandoned" Daniel shortly after turning him like... are we remembering things differently here? Did they read the same books? Are they just parroting stuff they've read on twitter? tf? Armand was nowhere near a perfect partner don't get me wrong but like, that part of the story is pretty clear cut in regards of who left who yk... like pls y'all be serious and stick to the facts. Goddamn. ANYHOW, I digress. They're in pain, I'm in pain, but god they need to talk about this before they can properly heal and get back together and try again. It's very much of a case of "if I loved you any less, I would be able to talk about it more" between them, isn't it? xoxo DA I love this sfm and can't wait for more 🥹 

DA 🥹 It took a hot minute to respond because your message struck a chord in me, and I ended up seriously redoing a conversation between Armand and Daniel in chapter four. But we'll get to that!!

I am so so so happy to hear that all of their little touches and expressions and gestures add up to create who they are!! I worry a lot about like...am I describing what Daniel is doing with his hands too much or is this building up the scene? Because I am aware I have a hand fetish and might be gratuitous but I feel like the micro-expressions and gestures are what make the scene come alive!

But YES to your point about role reversals and them knowing each other inside and out! I get so emotional about that, in the next chapter Armand will go on about all the secret things he knows about Daniel and how he changed his body and just. It's so much. It's a lot!!

And even BIGGER YES to the point about nobody getting off easy here, Daniel included.

We're gonna go in pretty hard on some of Armand's mistakes because he's so closed off and Daniel needs to open those wounds and find out what was going on underneath. But Daniel's running isn't getting ignored. I've really tried hard to have them both keep mentioning that they BOTH fucked up, that it's BOTH their faults the relationship failed, and they BOTH have to change. Nobody is a victim. Nobody is perfect.

And I wish Daniel's running got talked about more, though I understand why it doesn't. We never get a single word about their time together from Armand's POV until TVA and he goes into so little detail. You have to piece together the hurt yourself and these books have so much going on I think his wider abandonment issues (aside from Marius not rescuing him) end up falling through the cracks for all but the biggest Armand fans.

You held Daniel accountable here and now you've got me combing my draft to make sure all these loose ends are properly tied up ♥

Thursday we'll get a sweet moment between them so get ready for a break in the clouds. I hope you'll like it just as much!

[sapphire-weapon]

Idk if this is of any interest to you, but I remember way back you mentioned RE 7& 8 were hard to play because of the first person thing. I despise that style too. 7 and Skyrim took me forever to fully adjust to and I just generally dislike not seeing my character lmao. Anyway, RE8 does actually have an official third person playing mode now, and plays the same way as the other games. I just thought I'd mention it in case you were unaware and wanted another try or whatever, but I assume you likely know already.

Also, I'm adding on a headcanon that I've had since playing. Nobody else has said it, so I'm sure I'd hear a lot of disagreement. Many point out that Leon and Ethan would've been great friends or had shipping potential, despite them never meeting. I've always seen it slightly differently though, I think Ethan actually shows what Leon could've been if he wasn't traumatised (well, before Ethan got his own hefty dose obviously lmao). I really like E and do think the characters would mix really well, but it felt to me like they might've taken some early, bare bones Leon concepts and built a different character off of it. I don't know, that's just what went through my head before.

Also, is it really true that the Winters story is completely done!? I'm seeing that passed around a lot, but it's completely nonsensical. Rose is not a finished character and the DLC made it very clear that she has a huge role to play in the future of RE. I'd be so disappointed if that whole story was dropped, especially because she's so likeable...

So, real quick -

Yes, I do know that RE8 has a third person mode. I still haven't really had the desire to play it, though, because from what I've seen, it's a bit clunky. The game was not designed with third person in mind, which makes certain sections of gameplay artificially harder and/or lose their thematic impact.

The Winters' family story is done, but that doesn't mean that Rose will never be used again. Like, when the Raccoon City arc was done, that didn't mean that all of the legacy cast went away. They just moved onto the next story arc. Rose can still move onto the next story arc; it's just that the story arc won't be about her family.

As for the middle part of your ask...

I disagree that Ethan is a look at Leon's character if the Raccoon City outbreak didn't happen.

And I say that because -- and this is a theory that I've held close to my chest for years and have never really spoken about -- I think that Sebastian Castellanos (the protagonist of The Evil Within) was, in part, Shinji Mikami's creative exploration of where Leon's character could have gone if he'd stayed a cop -- which is why TEW plays so similarly and is structured so similarly to RE4 in the first place.

Sebastian started his career as an idealistic overachiever who was so good at and so dedicated to his job that he became the youngest officer ever in the KCPD to be promoted to Detective. But, in the end, he broke, too, and went off the deep end into a horrible spiraling meltdown that culminated in him turning into a paranoid conspiracy theorist with a drinking problem who nearly lost his job -- several times -- for insubordination, violent outbursts, and illegal investigations into the corruption within the KCPD. The only thing that saved him was his incredible reputation and spotless record from when he was younger.

If you're interested at all, I have a compilation of Sebastian's in-game journal detailing the rise and fall of his career here. There's also a visual representation of the good times -> the breakdown -> the result that the DLCs put into the game that you can watch here.

Basically, I think that Leon's character was always bound for tragedy, one way or the other, because I don't think that Leon ever had it in him to have a healthy response to grief and hardship in his life to begin with. All roads lead to the same place.

Ethan survived (well, "survived" LMAO) several different traumatic events and arguably came out stronger. I don't think Leon ever would have or could have done the same.

[roipecheur]

Do you like omegaverse?

A secret, third option!

(Cut for length and nsfw text)

As a fandom phenomenon:

I did read the original J2 fics that kicked off this whole trend some years back

It's been interesting to see how it's evolved over the years. I was in SPN fandom back when it first became popular, and then I wasn't really in fandom and didn't read omegaverse for years

Take into account that is one person's perspective from the fandoms I was personally in, I have not done a widespread review of all things omegaverse

(I actually just checked the Journal of Transformative Works for an article on omegaverse as a trend, and didn't find one for the term omegaverse or by searching alpha AND beta AND omega, which is a little surprising to me)

In any case

Early days: cis male alpha/cis male omega pairings. The omega would have a self-lubricating asshole and smell irresistible to the alpha when they went into heat. Mentions of cis female omegas, but the focus was usually on the m/m pairing. Mentions of female alphas, but usually cis female alphas that milked the omega cis male's dick with a super pussy that like, locked down or something in a reverse of knotting. Sometimes cis male omegas could get impregnated and sometimes they were infertile and just had heats

Current trends: I've noticed way more intersex omegas. Alphas going into rut in addition to omega heats #itsequality. Mating bites. Family units as packs. Sometimes, psychic bonds come with mating bites and/or packs. Inability to physically leave someone you've just mated with. A lot more variety in how irresistible the heat/rut smell is and exactly what someone may want during their cycle, e.g., omegas going into "I want to nurse and cuddle my baby" mode instead of sex mode, alphas fighting each other to blow off steam. Alongside that, variety in how intense a heat/rut is, on a scale of mildly annoying/distracting but manageable to removing someone's higher brain functions and leaving only instinct. More omega/omega or alpha/alpha pairings. The concept of transitioning, where someone can go from alpha to omega, etc.

I think betas have remained mostly the same throughout, although I do remember something where betas had a kind of "glue the pack together" function in a newer fic rather than just being "regular humans" as in older fics

In wider culture:

The omegaverse lawsuit

Omegaverse fucking with AI datasets

This shit is hilarious and I genuinely hope we never stop

Common critiques:

1, Omegaverse is just reinventing sexism minus the women / it's so sexist that it's managed to remove women from a story about sexism

2, It's codifying top/bottom into gender

Honestly? Maybe sometimes? But it really depends on the story, and there are a lot of different versions out there, so I find this reductive

The one (1) omegaverse fic I wrote aligned both alphas and omegas more closely with the queer community than the sexism allegory while making it clear that they were also their own thing

Also, omegaverse started out as an excuse to write weird, kinky porn. A lot of it still centers around weird, kinky porn

Sometimes your hindbrain wants what it wants, "your kink is not my kink & that's ok", and you aren't trying to unpack the full implications of a world where this is real

Or, you want to put these bitches into a situation, and an omegaverse where character A benefits as an alpha and character B suffers as an omega is just an interesting situation

Like. I generally think it's whatever

Slash fandom has also been accused of sexism and gay fetishism in a variety of ways that are not exclusive to omegaverse, and I am keeping that can of worms firmly closed right now lmao

Weird sex and sex mechanics:

I love when people get weird with it. Omegaverse did not invent this, like I'm sure there were some 1950s sci-fi writers creating man-made alien pussy beyond our comprehension

Ovigonopods of Love: a Strange Horizons short story from 2001, featuring underwater bug sex involving three different sexes and metamorphosis, on the subject of weird sex that definitely predates omegaverse

My issue with og omegaverse, and part of the reason I didn't read it for such a long time, is that it doesn't get weird enough

Listen. Uh. Gonna talk about scat here, but listen.

If your asshole self-lubricates, you are unavoidably gonna shit yourself. Especially if you're getting your ass stretched by a knot and stuffed with an industrial amount of jizz for days on end. Some people can suspend their disbelief when reading omegaverse involving self-lubricating assholes, and godspeed, but I personally cannot

I think if you're going to imply ass babies, you may as well go all the way and give the guy a cloaca ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

That being said, I do like intersex omegas for much the same reason. I can wrap my brain around it. I know where the babies are coming from, and I'm not reading through a fic and trying to blank out the horror of some poor guy pushing a baby out of his ass

I'm not even opposed to anal knotting! I've read an alpha/alpha fic like that and an alpha/omega fic. If an asshole can take a fist with proper lube and stretching, it can take a knot, and I accept that. It's the self-lubricating and days of fucking during a heat that get me

Story development:

One thing I don't like about omegaverse is when it's used as an excuse to throw the ship into intense feelings and fucking without doing any of the work to show me why this ship works

(And I don't mean PWPs, there are some good omegaverse PWPs in the same way there are some good sex pollen ones, or aliens/gods/demons/fairies/magic made them do it)

BUT. You cannot have two characters who maybe didn't even like or know each other suddenly be in love because they shared a heat and rut and now they're mated. I just won't buy it, but I won't buy this in soulmate AUs or any other kind of fic, either

What happens after the heat/rut induced fucking? Are they stuck together because of a mating bite? Is this for societal reasons or because it physically hurts to leave, or both? Or do they separate immediately after? Is it weird when they meet again? How? Did they have a relationship before this? How does it change that? How does it change their relationship with other people, especially if this is in the pack bonds version of omegaverse?

Worldbuilding:

If it goes beyond a PWP, I do have questions

From an evolutionary standpoint, why are there alphas, betas, and omegas? Can betas have babies with each other, or are omegas the only ones who can get pregnant?

If betas are infertile, their evolutionary role could be to protect and provide for alphas and omegas when they would otherwise be vulnerable in heat/rut and when they're carrying and raising children

But if betas are infertile, why are there male and female betas?

If betas can have babies, it's possible that alphas and omegas have more babies and that there is an evolutionary tradeoff between that and between your heat/rut making you more vulnerable and the time and energy costs in having more children, which could lead to the two different modes of human reproduction

Either way......why does your society have a binary man/woman gender system rather than a ternary alpha/beta/omega gender system?

Possibly because you can't tell someone's designation by looking at them and because people hide their scent, and maybe also because most people are betas with alphas and omegas being in the minority

On a similar note, how common/rare are male omegas and female alphas? Have you basically reached a point where there is no sexual dimorphism? What is the reason for this?

Where did the terms alpha, beta, and omega even come from? They honestly sound really formal to me, and the one (1) omegaverse fic I wrote differentiated between these as more modern terms and the terms people used to use, which in modern times were more widely considered slurs

In conclusion, do I like omegaverse?

[tattered-cynic]

The original poster blocked me whilst I was writing this reply (lmao) presumably because they actually didn't want to hear what I have to say, despite actively stating they were happy to continue the discussion in their post.. so @becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys here's the reply below that I can only assume you were too afraid to read I guess. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'm happy to continue to discuss this with you. To address the points you raise in your reply:

I wasn't saying you called me an idiot. I thought it would have been pretty clear I was referring to the un-named guy in the meeting that you were inferring was an idiot. I will concede you used (1) source that supports your opinion in the replies. I also used a source. Neither of our sources are what I would call disreputable so we're at an impasse there I guess. My apologies I didn't spell everything out for you in tiny steps so that you could be "emotionally ready for me disagreeing with you" (see how rude that sounds, and you say I'm the one "flipping the table" - I think we can both agree that's unnecessary).

I'm not an expert on intersex conditions, any more than you are. It may have been wrong for me to use the word "disorder", in which case I apologise to any intersex person reading. That being said, I was using the term because of knowing about DSD's, therefore assuming since it's part of the initialism that the word "disorder" was acceptable. (Ironically this is an example of me supposedly using up-to-date terminology and you having a problem with it, which is the root of the original post, in reverse.) That being said, I do know that intersex conditions exist as differentiations between the 2 sexes, male and female. They don't show the existence of any 3rd sex, they exist only as conditions in the 2 sexes. They can only exist as such, and therefore their existence is further evidence that humans only have 2 sexes, because different intersex conditions affect the sexes depending on which sex is affected. Basically, we have 2 sexes, and intersex conditions exist as modifiers on either of those 2 sexes but they don't create a 3rd sex by their existence.

I asked you not to involve intersex people here as part of your argument because you are trying to use them to argue more than 2 sexes exist in humans, which is false. I strongly believe you brought them up thinking they would be a "gotcha" and I'd have to back down, something that happens a lot in discussions around both trans issues and gender issues. I may be reading into this more than you think appropriate, but I've seen it done too many times now that I'm very sensitive to any attempt to throw mention of intersex people into an argument not originally involving them.

I'm going to be completely honest here and say that I'm not likely to take seriously or agree with someone who so freely throws around the "q" slur when talking about bisexuality. I and thousands of other lesbian, gay and bisexual people have had that word used against us alongside violence for decades, I will not accept it used here. You using it so freely instantly gives me very strong feelings of dislike and distrust that you will have to work hard to dispel.

At no point have I "slammed the victim button" (?). I am referring once again to the un-named man in your original post. You "correcting" him in public is an attempt to place your beliefs above his, or as I phrased it, to force them on him. I'm sorry that you felt uncomfortable at my use of that phrasing to describe your actions.

Sexuality is based on sex. I'm attracted to both sexes, men and women. I'm bisexual. Lesbians and gays are attracted to the same sex - they're homosexual. Straight people are attracted to the opposite sex - they're heterosexual. That's what the words mean and why they exist. Gender is completely different from sex. Gender expression is individual to each person, usually informed by culture and society. Gender has nothing whatsoever to do with your sexual orientation. You are entitled to your personal beliefs about gender, as I said, but they aren't applicable when talking about sexual attraction, between the sexes.

To answer your question of where I got the impression of you interrupting him from - in your original post you use the phrase "I had to break in and correct the guy". Tell me how that doesn't immediately give the strong impression that you interrupted him? I did not say you put him "on blast", I said you "blasted" - a verb usage I admit has gained different meanings online in recent years, but I used here simply to refer to your attitude towards him in your post as being negative.

I would argue I'm not the one "flipping the table" here. I disagreed with you on something, pointed out where I think you've gone wrong, and so far you're the only one to actually throw any insults around or express any particularly strong negative emotions. Not that expressing emotion in an online debate is wrong, quite the opposite - I strongly believe that anyone is entitled to get emotional about whatever makes them emotional and if it informs their position all the more important to express it. I have some strong feelings about this topic as you clearly also do, the difference between us is I haven't insulted you or your ability to discourse as a result of those feelings. We both know that online debate can be incredibly toxic and I'm glad it's not here, but so far you have been far more antagonistic than I have, yet have the gall to say I'm somehow in the wrong for "feeling attacked" - geez I wonder why I might be feeling attacked.

As I said at the start of my reply, I'm happy to continue to discuss this with you. Politely and respectfully.

[rainy-weather-supremacy]

I STRIKE BACK!

Which character would survive being exiled in Antarctica?

Funniest thing a character has said or done?

Tell me some more about your magic system! I love magic systems!

Where do your characters live?

If her brother is a evil landlord then what’s Marys job?

Who would you NEVER want to hang out with?

Who is most like you?

If you could put them in a specific time period and place in history, where would it be?

Does your story have multiverses?

Who are Granny’s and Mary’s wives?

Why did your characters end up the way they did?

One: Probably Mikaela, since they can make magical fire that would keep them warm.

Two: This one is hard bc as I think I mentioned I don't have any real story yet.... One thing that's kinda funny is that Jamie has had two seperate occasions where both she and the other person wanted to kill each other and ended up dating both. Also once Avery was trying to dig a grave for someone and accidentally dug up Daniel who was just vibing in the earth.

Three: The magic system doesn't really have any hard rules, there's just magic everywhere manifesting in different ways- Trees that make their surroundings cold or drain the light like a cloud around them, green flames carried on the wind etc. People can use this magic to do whatever they were born to do and with some studying, you can also learn a few other kinds of magic.

Four: I don't know what country they're living in, but Daniel, Jamie, Ozan and Avery live in a house in the city. Jane and Mary live on a top floor apartment somewhere in a different city. Mikaela and Tara live on a pirate ship, Camilla in Nature and Jackson also has a house. For the rest I don't know.

Five: Mary doesn't really have a job. If she does, the description is something along the lines of 'storm witch' or something like that. She can't really keep the storms away, nor does she want to, so sometimes there's just a storm and she runs around looking cool. That is her job. (Thank jod she has a wife with a job lmao)

Six: Hmm, tough one. Most of them can be pretty scary, but I actually think I couldn't stand to be around Granny without feeling bad for her and also for myself and she has a kind of weird effect that makes you feel weird too which I wouldn't wanna be anywhere near- Yikes!

Seven: Most like me... I think Arthur is kinda similar to me, because he likes watching the stars and has social anxiety and stuff but still is cool (Like me obviously) (And you in case that wasn't already clear :D 👍)

Eight: The french revolution, just to watch all of the chaos they'd cause. Mary would 100% try to get Daniel beheaded. Tara has never had more fun getting people that deserve it killed. It think they deserve to go there. As a treat.

Nine: They don't explore the multiverse or anything, but it does simply so that I can make the story where they are all in medieval times canon.

Ten: Granny's wife is Esther and Mary's wife is Jane.

Eleven: Ohh okay. Well, Mary is the way she is because her parents were really ducked up and she responded to violence with violence. The storms make her feel free. I made her because I wanted a cool character. Jane hates the way her flesh is, partially because she's trans, so she is now working on replacing it with carefully carved wood. I made here so Mary can have a cool wife. Daniel started off as a kind of antagonist to Mary but I really like him now, he had the same bad parents as her and he's like that because his first path of action is now manipulation bc if it worked then why not now. Avery was a bit more fucked up first but it's the way it is because it came from a very rich family where people where cold and backstabbers to even their loved ones. They also hunted a lot, so she does that now too but different (TM). Ozan lost his legs for some unknow reason and just started telling lies about it and now the reason he lost his legs are different every day (It's the worst when he wakes up and finds that he currently still has legs because then he actually has to go through it again). I'm not sure why I created him but he's here now and not leaving. (CW: CHILD DEATH) Leon I thought of when listening to 'welcome to the internet' and heard the phrase "here's a nine year old who died". He is the way he is because he was always very indifferent about death, so much so that when he got run over by a car he didn't really die. He's a ghost now that can only touch things that will die soon. That's also the reason his sister Camilla is like that, tough I'm not exactly sure what lead to her cooking with rotten food and having moss grow in her hair. She's just silly like that. Created because I thought of the phrase "my cousine Carmilla from the Corruption" and thought it was funny. For Tara I just took the aroace siren and added agender. I think that probably something fucked up ahppened to them but who knows, they just want revenge on everyone now. Mikaela was also just there someday and their story has something to do with running away, but once again has not been worked out. Toby didn't mean to start taking happiness from the people by watching them but it happened because he liked to observe them and I guess he was just so happy about them being happy that they were no longer happy, if that makes sense. I made him because wouldn't that be fucked and Arthur was based on another character I made once that started existing when humans observed the stars for the first time and ceased to exist after the last. Arthur was kinda bullied and stuff, so he just turned to the sky for comfort. His loneliness attracted some kind of magic power, so here he is. Jamie was kind of smiliar, with being made fun of in school until he was afraid of being known. The darkness, where no one can know what you look like, called to him so much that he can now shapeshift freely as long as he's in the dark. Esther I made because I thought a mysterious but kind grandma with kinda evil intentions would be cool. I have no idea why she's like that she just is. Granny was the last one I made but I kinda just got the idea fully-formed in my head one day. She's like that because she magically went insane, but I don't know why yet. Jackson I made because it would be funny to have a normal dude and tbh he's just vibing and George the monster baby bc it would be funny to have a baby in the family. He's a monster because his parents where and he might actually come from another world.

Thanks! I will return it tomorrow 😈

[patzweigz]

ALRIGHT POLL OVER!! thank you everyone for indulging in my curiosity and sharing your thoughts, it was all very illuminating :3

some quick notes for people who don't want to read my following ramble:

even with these qualifiers, people often polled based on quality or execution of this trope rather than the trope itself-- which is not a bad thing! it's a reflection both of how i phrased the question AND of the fact that this trope more often that not is a vehicle that reveals an artist's latent cissexism, transphobia, and/or homophobia.

in the end though, it seems that public opinion on this trope has shifted over the past years-- not only did most people polling identify as not cis, but they polled as ultimately neutral. this is actually more negative than the final results the other poll, which had much loser language and options.

most people who polled negatively not only cited the examples i intended to exclude from the question, but also cited the binary nature of it as well as a reason they don't like it. again-- this is not a bad thing, and it's a complaint i completely sympathize with as a non-binary person myself.

even with the above accounted for, it seems the common shared gripe is when the trope reveals an artist's negative beliefs (cissexism, homophobia, whatever the case may be). amongst those who polled positive or neutral this was also a complaint that was mentioned.

from what i can glean, overall, the results both quantitative and qualitative across both polls are very similar. with or without specific language, the public view of the trope seems to trend more positive, specifically amongst trans people. i wish i had the means to conduct a more thorough and detailed study on this to see how these results would change with more vigor!

alright quick notes over, time for my own feelings. thanks again to everyone who participated! it's nice to see that, at the very least, there is more open discussion about this trope.

more of my thoughts are under the cut.

as i mentioned in the replies, i am a fan of what i personally like to refer to as cisswaps. i like that term more because it's more specific about exactly what's going on and makes it clear it's different from a trans headcanon, which i also happily indulge in. "genderbend" carries negative connotations, "genderswap" raises the question of why identities that aren't binary aren't represented, and "rule 63" is both antiquated and internet specific. "cisswap" is still limited, however, as i believe that this trope can also apply to trans people as well (that is, making transmasc characters transfemme instead or vice versa), but it so rarely done that the term "cisswap" generally covers most instances of this trope. that said, i would be more than happy to accept a more accepting term that does allow for these instances, since frankly i would love to see more of that!

with that said-- i am also very peeved by instances of this trope where it's clear the artist just wanted to make a girl version of a guy to wank it to (for lack of a better description, lmao), or when it's done to make a gay pairing straight. not only is it cissexist and homophobic, it's just... bad. it's bad art, man. i like most people have no patience for it. but just because a trope is executed poorly doesn't mean the trope itself is inherently bad. problematic in this case, certainly, but not always malignant.

(sidenote: it's interesting that we very rarely see cisswaps done to make straight pairings gay-- and when it is, such as in the case of the "that, but lesbians" zine, there was a lot of backlash. i admit i myself didn't much like the concept for reasons i can't fully articulate. i think maybe the lack of examination of attraction on the party of the character that wasn't genderbent is what peeved me? as i have no qualms when this is done for pairings that are already gay-- for example, when two men are made two women. but part of it may also be because of who ran the zine, as i myself still remember the pro-hillary zine hattersarts made (and a lot of the publicly viewable contributions are quite lovely)... or maybe it was just regular ol' lesbophobia. or maybe it was the general public air against the trope at all that existed at the time, as volume ii came out in 2019. but this is all speculation and is neither here nor there).

one thing i noticed both here and on the other poll was the thought of not just "i prefer trans headcanons" but "i prefer trans headcanons instead". as mentioned, again: this is not a bad thing. (i wouldn't normally repeat this so much but i want to be absolutely clear i am pro-trans headcanon as well, and even if i wasn't that's a totally fine preference to have.) i think it was the latter mindset in particular that made me want to make this poll, and i think the two examples of characters i love that i'll provide will make it clear as to why.

but before that, what i think these comments don't account for is this one simple fact-- the trans experience is different from the cis experience. even for not accounting for settings placed in the real world, or one that has the systems of oppression we do, this is still (typically) the case. just as, for example, if someone made a clone of me that was exactly my equal save for them being white instead of black, they would have a different experience being non-binary (not to mention the... everything else).

now i think this isn't something most visual artists account for; as someone who is both a visual artist and a writer, more or less everything i draw could also be a 1k long piece of prose, in the most literal sense. i (and most likely most other trans artists frankly) am considering not just the design of the character, but also their personal and social relationship with gender. most of the time, however, with respect to visual art the trope is employed moreso as a design experiment and little else, and in those cases i totally understand the response of "just make a trans headcanon instead". i'd argue however that, when executed well, in terms of visual art alone that carries no further exploration beyond design, the two fill the exact same niche. the difference comes only with respect to the artist's intentions, not the work itself. this call is an attempt to challenge the perspective and intentions of the artist, not that of the viewer.

further, i think it's because they fill the same niche visually that the term "presentationplay" saw usage in the 2010s (and i say 2010s because i personally have seen no usage since then). in focusing solely on the outward appearance of a character, as opposed to any internal alignment --the term leaves the subject's gender completely ambiguous, they may even be the same gender, cis or trans --and in the hands of the viewer. it's also for that reason i didn't include it as a synonym here, because the gender of the character in question is, ultimately, whatever someone wants it to be. it is, perhaps, the purest distillation of the trope as can be depicted visually. (it is worth noting that this is maybe a very charitable interpretation of the term's usage; almost never have i seen it used to describe, for instance, a butch version of a feminine character or vice versa. often such art is labeled or described as "butch version of [character]" or something similar as opposed to an example of presentationplay).

for me, the gold standard for this type of visual exploration are these wario and waluigi designs from an artist who seems to have deactivated. it was the exact piece in mind i had when thinking of qualifiers for this question (which i'm sure at least one person could find contention with (and have every right to!), and would further inform their response).

now, as for the reason i personally still enjoy cisswaps (aside from the brainworms the fairly oddparents gave me) is because, well...

i don't think i'd have to argue very hard for the idea that he'd have a very different experience with womanhood being cis than he would being trans, right? but for the sake of argument and for those unfamiliar with the iron giant i'll elaborate. here is a statement direct from the artbook:

as we can see here, kent is stated explicitly to be a model of male gender expectations of the 1950s. so for a trans woman!kent to exist, it means that he would have to go through the mental process of rejecting expectations he previously saw as fundamental to his being. he would have to go on a journey of unpacking his relationship with how people perceive him, how he perceives himself, and what ultimately would make him happy since what society tells him should isn't.

a kent that is born as a cis woman, however... would not have to get anywhere near approaching this kind of internal discussion. he would simply play the role he was given, so to speak, just as he does being a cis man. this follows with his inclination toward bureaucracy, toward not only trusting the system (he is shown to believe that "duck and cover" can legitimately protect someone during a nuclear attack) but wanting to be in control of the system. i said this in a previous off hand musing, but kent is by default a character who is happy to be a bootlicker. that mindset extends to almost all facets of his being. to have this default modus operandi for life be changed by challenging his gender would require him to change in other was as well.

it's because the two different paths toward womanhood, so to speak, would yield such different results for kent that i simply cannot deter myself away from one or the other. both of them hold such interesting potential for examining his character and, by extension due to his relationship with it, the society that he lives in. the society that we in some respect still live in, as the movie as a whole makes clear.

this isn't even getting into my most indulgent view of him, which fashions him as a sort of non-binary person-- i've said in the past that, given the space to identify freely, kent would be more inclined to place greater weight on his status as a tool of the government above anything else. and that's barring exploration of a path with other characters, in other timelines, so forth and beyond. in a way one could argue that the difference between trans headcanons and cisswaps when it comes to literary as opposed to visual art is a different point of canon divergence, when comparing them to other sorts of AU and canon exploration. with kent as an example, the divergence is a matter of whether womanhood would be something he chooses as an adult or is something he decides works for him as a child. in general, i like to follow the movie's example and use kent as a tool to expose the brokeness of 1950s (and in general) american society, and how its norms are usually more oppressive than not. so of course this would extend to his gender!

(incidentally this is also likely why i prefer both cisswaps and trans headcanons, because most trans headcanons either infer or outright state that a character transitions at some point of late canon divergence, which thus has implications for the rest of canon than if a character identified with a different AGAB even beyond the differences in being cis vs trans).

now for a character that i think for whom, outside of a few specifics, the experience of womanhood would be very similar regardless where he cis or trans is lucky luke.

but he is so unlike kent in that he quite frankly does not care about the expectations other people have for him, and barring most exceptions would present as butch regardless of his gender, if only by necessity of his profession alone. and i feel similarly about characters like lupin iii, or brock samson, or mettaton, or invader ZIM.

but i feel as i do for kent about inspector zenigata, or hank hill, or dipper pines, or kiryu kazuma, or danny fenton-- and i suppose this is why i prefer both. every character will have their own personal ways of relating to gender, some more restrictive and others less so, just as they have their own ways of relating to any other social category.

even when executed at it's most, for lack of a better term, bad faith (such as the fairly oddparents example mentioned above), though, i can't help but still find this trope fascinating. but that i know is more because of my own personal preferences and tolerance for material otherwise considered objectionable. i think there is something to be gleaned about the way we understand the gender binary even when the author themselves in no way intended to make an enlightened statement. but i know that's not to everyone's taste, and can totally understand why that would be off putting to people.

i think too it's worth acknowledging that not everyone has a politically correct relationship with their gender-- cis or trans --and i think cisswaps and other forms of fictional genderplay highlight this very fact, and that too can be uncomfortable for people. granted, most unflattering cis takes on gender leave a bad taste in my mouth too, and i will ultimately be far more sympathetic to a trans person exploring gender in less than conventional ways. but expression from both groups provide a glimpse into the worldview and background of the artist and i can't help but find that, at the very least, fascinating.

as with all fiction, i see myself as an outside observer looking in-- i don't go into an experience expecting to relate to any of the characters on screen, and this too likely impacts my view on this trope. others who not only relate but relate intensely to fictional characters would thus not only be uncomfortable to see parts of themselves erased in their interpretation of them, but be presented with an interpretation that does not align with their personal morals whatsoever. this is completely understandable-- if completely opposite to my own stance.

now the obvious question might be "gee, jonnie, you've sure thought a lot about this! how come you've never posted about any of it before?" and the simple answer is... the online public perception of this trope was incredibly hostile for a long time. and while i didn't realize i was non-binary yet at the time, being a teen in the 2010s and seeing people decry it so wholeheartedly lead me to only consider these sorts of scenarios in spaces of my own comfort. i really mean it when i say that i'm glad to see perception of the trope is shifting, and i hope that we will allow space for trans artists (such as myself!) especially to explore it more openly.

it's for all of these reasons i ran this (very little) experiment. thank you again for participating, and if you read all of this, an even BIGGER thank you!

i'm still thinking about this poll and, while the responses are all incredibly interesting i think the question is phrased in such a way that no one is really responding to the inquiry being posed... so with that being said:

in case it remains unclear, generally this refers to when someone takes a binary gendered character and portrays them as the other binary gender (ie a cis man as a cis woman or vice versa). this could be either due to an AU (like DC elseworlds or Marvel's different timelines) or because a character is physically transformed in some way. this is NOT referring to trans headcanons.

please feel free to elaborate on your feelings in the notes and tags!