#is based on a misunderstanding of the differences

[maddy-acolyte]

Core Points of the Argument:

1. Gender is inherent and physiologically present from birth:

• The author claims that scientific studies show brain structure differences in trans individuals that correlate with their gender identity. They use this to argue that gender is innate and immutable.

2. Xenogenders lack biological grounding:

• Xenogenders like “sherlockgender” or “suicidegender” are criticized as constructed labels rather than inherently existing identities tied to biology.

3. Respecting gender involves respecting biological realities:

• The argument implies that assigning oneself a gender label without a biological or innate basis undermines the validity of more “legitimate” genders (e.g., trans womanhood).

4. Concern about trivializing gender identity:

• The author expresses discomfort with the idea that gender labels can be used in a playful or accessory-like manner, suggesting this devalues the experiences of those with inherent, socially recognized gender identities.

Analysis:

1. Biological Essentialism:

• The argument relies on a biologically deterministic view of gender, which is flawed for several reasons:

• Brain scan studies on trans individuals are not conclusive and are often criticized for being oversimplified or overinterpreted. Differences in brain structure do not directly map onto gender identity.

• Gender identity is complex, involving biological, psychological, and social dimensions. Reducing it to brain scans ignores this nuance.

2. Invalidation of Self-Identified Genders:

• By setting up a hierarchy of legitimacy (based on “innate” vs. “constructed” gender), the argument dismisses the validity of xenogenders, which often emerge as a way to describe gender experiences outside traditional norms. This invalidation is exclusionary and dismissive of the diversity of gender experiences.

3. Misrepresentation of Xenogenders:

• Xenogenders are not necessarily about biological innateness; they often function as metaphors or ways to describe personal experiences with gender that don’t fit into binary or even traditional nonbinary categories. The criticism of “sherlockgender” as frivolous may stem from misunderstanding their purpose.

4. Gatekeeping Language:

• The author seems to gatekeep what counts as “real” gender based on their interpretation of science. This risks aligning with conservative arguments that invalidate trans identities using the same essentialist reasoning.

5. Hypocrisy in Respecting Identity:

• While the author argues for respecting trans identities due to their supposed biological basis, they fail to extend the same respect to those who conceptualize their gender differently. This creates a double standard.

Broader Implications:

The underlying biological essentialism is harmful because it reduces all gender identities to their biological correlates, which can be weaponized against anyone who does not “fit” into measurable categories. It risks excluding trans people who don’t align with the findings of brain studies, reinforcing cisnormative frameworks. Moreover, it dismisses the validity of identities like xenogenders, which challenge traditional gender frameworks and expand our understanding of gender beyond strict binaries or biologically determined roles.

This argument appears to attempt respectability politics—positioning “science-backed” genders as more valid than others—to appeal to mainstream norms, which is counterproductive to broader queer liberation.

i love xenogenders because they reveal how arbitrary gender symbolism already is.

we can say ‘my gender is space, cool rocks, and curiosity.’ 👽

is that any more strange than saying, ‘femininity is empathy, flowers, and the color pink’? 🌸

gender is what we make of it, whether practical, picturesque, poetry or prose <3 💖

[ID: the above text in a facebook post by MC Perrin, along with a symbol-less version of the xenogender flag: stripes in dark pink, salmon, pale orange, pale yellow, blue, lavender, and magenta. /end ID]

[lovecatsys]

ngl i really hate. Everything about the current systems used to diagnose and describe dissociative disorders at least in the US. i guess i hope it'll get better in the future when there's a better understanding.

[smokestarrules]

Suletta saying love me. love me please. I’ll do anything. I’ll kill for you, I’ll listen to you, I love you. love me and let me stay. vs Miorine going hate me. hate me. I need you to hate me because I love you. I need you to run away, to stop loving me, to be safe. hate me and it will be worth it in the end. hate me and leave. (Suletta saying love me, please love me, please don’t leave me)

[tippenfunkaport]

Someday I will write an essay about how 90% of the bad takes on Season 4 stem from people not understanding that we are predominantly in Adora's POV and she is an unreliable narrator.

It ultimately doesn't matter whether she or Glimmer is right or wrong because Adora thinks she's right and Glimmer's wrong and that's all that matters to the show from a narrative standpoint.

Just because a character believes something to be true, doesn't mean it's objectively fact. Their perception colors how they view events, that's Writing 101. And in this case, it's the key ingredient for effective conflict because both people are not viewing the same event from the same perspective so they can't see eye to eye.

[schizosupport]

While I understand where you might be coming from, I think you fundamentally misunderstand OP's point, while lacking awareness of what it can be like to be a patient in the psychiatric system.

You acknowledge yourself that if you have a bad doctor, you need to change to a better one. But you also say to always trust your doctor, or you won't get better. These two statements can't coexist, because if you trust your doctor no matter what, you won't be able to protect yourself from bad doctors "and change to a new one" or whatever else protecting yourself might entail.

Now, OP isn't actually saying not to trust a doctor that you have found to be good and helpful and trustworthy. What OP is saying, is that placing blind trust in a bad psychiatrist can lead to real life harm for psychiatric patients.

Psychiatrists have systemic power over their patients, and they can both force you into treatments, and deny you treatments, based on the information you share with them. I'll give a couple examples.

1) A friend of mine who had been struggling severely and unable to work for the past year due to stress and increasing panic attacks/flashbacks finally went to see a psychiatrist at a hospital. The first person she talked to was really nice. She asked about drugs and my friend admitted that she occasionally smokes weed to calm down from the very symptoms that she's seeking help for. The psych was understanding. A couple interviews later she gets a new doctor who has a different opinion. And skip to two years later where the system is still denying her care bc "she has a drug addiction" while the drug addiction clinic is denying her care bc "that doesn't count as a drug addiction" and "she would stop smoking weed if someone cared for her glaring mental problems". She is not alone, this is a very common scenario across the world. If you admit to ever touching drugs you may very well be denied care indefinitely. The community recommendation in my country is to never admit to any substance use, even to people in the system who seem understanding, because others in the system may be less so, and you may never get the care you need. As you can imagine, this gets very complicated for people where the drug use is also a large issue on its own.

2) Another friend of mine went to get assessed for adhd. They said they couldn't finish the assessment bc she was too disorganized, and she was sent to be assessed for a schizo spec disorder instead. She was desparate to get any diagnosis at all bc she really really needed help. Here she was given a schizotypal diagnosis. After this she was being treated for this with antipsychotics. They didn't do anything good for her, in fact they made her worse. She tried to ask to be reassessed for ADHD but was denied bc it was seen as a delusion. Her gender identity (which she had been out and in treatment for, for years) was seen as a delusion, and the psychiatric system blocked her from getting the necessary paperwork to get surgery. Eventually she went private sector and found a good psychiatrist who diagnosed her with ADHD. With adhd meds things started improving, she also got her letter from the private psych and got her surgery. (And she's doing so much better!!) But if she hadn't had the means to go private, then her psychiatrists would've been able to block her from the right treatment and life saving surgery indefinitely. This is an example of what can happen from being honest about even quasi-psychotic symptoms, and the ways psychiatrists often have power to block and gatekeep certain treatments from you based on how THEY perceive you and your reality.

3) A third friend of mine is schizophrenic and on a treatment order. She hasn't done anything criminal, but where she lives you can be put on a treatment order simply if a panel of psychiatrists decide that if you don't get forced treatment, you might deterioate. So for a long time she had injections of a medication that was not helping, but that was causing severe side effects, forced on her. This is one of many examples of psychiatrists wielding systemic power over their patients.

Many psychiatric patients fear being honest with their care providers, because it can lead to forced hospitalization, forced medication, or it can lead to denial of care and treatment. This is not an ungrounded fear. These are things that happen to people. Sure, some may fear this beyond what's realistic in their situation, so anxiety can mix with this, but it is a real thing to be aware of.

And as I've attempted to illustrate with these examples, it's not as simple as "if you get a bad doctor, get a new one". This is often not an option, there's often a paper trail that follows you from doctor to doctor, and even the first doctor you meet have power over you, and can potentially make your situation worse if they are bad at their job.

I know several people who have been severely overmedicated and wrongfully medicated. One person I knew was taking 10 different medications at once, including heavy duty antipsychotics despite not having experienced or being diagnosed with psychosis, and benzodiazepines on a completely irresponsible regiment that got her severely physically addicted. She didn't start to get better, before she slowly weaned off all these substances against her doctor's recommendation.

In an ideal world we could always trust our doctors, and be honest from the get-go, with the assumption that they know what they're doing and won't force or deny care.

But in the reality we live in, doctors have systemic power over patients, and not all doctors are good. So therefore it is in fact important to advocate for yourself, seek out information independent from your own doctor, talk to others in the community about their experiences, and yes. To be tactical about what you do and do not share with your psychiatrist. And when it does fuck up, you may very well need a lawyer. For example if you want to sue for wrongful treatment, overuse of coercion, or to get you off a treatment order that's destroying your life.

I really recommend doing some research into the kind of abuse and neglect that unfortunately takes place in the psychiatric system, before speaking so confidently on the matter.

Psychiatry differs fundamentally from oncology in its views on patients' rights to autonomy, and in the level of power granted to your doctor to control your life. But that said, most of us are not experts on oncology either. Which means that in reality it can be pretty hard to know whether your oncologist is good, and whether you need a new one. And somatic medicine is not free of bias, abuse and neglect either.

So TLDR, OP isn't saying never to seek help or not to trust your doctor with anything, she's saying to be aware of the potential pitfalls and to be tactical in your approach and to advocate for yourself, and not to trust psychiatric authority blindly.

That's not ableism, that's realism.

I want and need more discussions of how, when you're labeled mentally ill, a psychiatrist is in fact an authoritative figure with systemic power over your life and autonomy who might in some cases turn out to be bigoted or abusive. Most of us know that statements like "you should always tell the cops everything! They just want to help you" are harmful, and yet I constantly see posts telling people to trust their psychs with everything if they want to get better without any mentions of what can happen and how to protect yourself if it turns out your psych isn't a good guy

[moeblob]

son boy raccoon trash can man suffering in a dnd au as a cleric bc his warlock will not stop committing murders and he has to keep coming up with reasons murder is valid to convince the gm its fine and under control

[problemswithbooks]

Shark Genitals & World Building

So, I've seen this Q&A a few times now and it really got me thinking about Fish-man biology.

Now, to be clear, I think it's pretty clear Oda isn't being entirely serious. When you look at how he designs his characters he goes for whatever is fun. He's not doing extensive research on whatever aquatic species he slaps on his fish-men or Merfolk characters. This is why for a lot of them, if you look up what they are mixed with they rarely share much if anything with the animal he's picked.

Saying a character has two dicks is funny, so Hody has two dicks--that's all.

But taking the answer more seriously the idea that at least some (because they do vary so widely from fish-person to fish-person) have changed genitals because of their added fish anatomy is interesting from a world-building perspective.

As someone who has a special interest in animal biology and has watched a lot of documentaries I can say that fish have really diverse breeding strategies. So, I guess, if Hody can have two dicks because he's a shark, I wonder if this could be true for any other fish-people and merfolk.

We see that at least some fish-people do have children the same way regular humans do, but to my knowledge we don't see any pregnant mermaids. Given how much larger Neptune is then his wife, and how massive Shirahoshi is, I think it makes sense that perhaps like many fish, Otohime laid eggs that were fertilized separately (this is actually how goldfish mate).

It could be possible that the way mermaids or even fish-women have children depends on the father. If they are not compatible in size they can reproduce Ovuliparity (the way I imagine Otohime did), or if they are of similar size they either go the more human route or, after copulation they lay fertilized eggs (like the skate cases often called mermaid purses you find washed up on the beach).

There's also something to be said for the variations fish have with gender. Some fish are capable of changing gender. It's more common that female fish become male (protandry), usually the largest of a group replacing the dominate male in the group. This happens mostly with coral reef fish like wrasses, groupers and parrot-fish.

Meanwhile, anemone fish, like clown fish change from male to female. When the one female dies the remaining male will become female, while an outside male will become that new female's mate.

Then there are Black Helmet fish which are both simultaneously and take turns releasing eggs and sperm when they spawn.

So, if fish-people and merfolk had similarly diverse genders and ways of reproducing I think that'd just be really neat. It could also lead to some fun misunderstandings between fish-people, merfolk and humans.

Of course, I don't think Oda ever put that much thought into it. He just does whatever he finds fun character design wise. I mean, it's not like Arlong has barrels like Sawsharks do, and Jinbe looks nothing like a whale shark. On top of that the story isn't really focused on that type of world building. Nor do I think he could really showcase something that deals so much with sex--even if it is fish sex.

Still, makes for some really great head-canons.

[seventh-district]

not even gonna tag this properly bc i don't wanna get Involved but i do have some Thoughts i need to get out into the void so here we go

(aaa quick edit: CW for mention/discussion of Boothill leaks)

[thaylepo]

Okay.

So first off, this is a misunderstanding of the differencw between a HISTORICAL RECONSTRUCTION and an ARTISTIC INTERPRETATION.

I've held my piece on this topic for a long looong time because I haven't had the steam for a rant on the scale of the Cave Woman Dildos, but I'm back on my adhd meds and therefor back on my bullshit, so buckle up buttercups, let's do this.

A "historical reconstruction" is the recreation of an object, a method, or action using only data collected via evidence-based research. This includes archaeology, scientific study, ethnologic study of living cultures and their ancestors, comparative studies of a collection of multiple subjects, and more recently, microscopic analysis and cool shit like mass spectrometry.

The statues above are RECONSTRUCTIONS. What y'all are complaining about is that they are not ARTISTIC INTERPATATIONS.

Lemme explain further.

Analysis was made on microscopic pigment remains on the statuary to identify the colours that the statue may have been painted with (afaik). Since ancient pigments can often exhibit a range of colours, additional research on that can be done to determine the most likely visual hue, multiple items analysed to fill in areas where no pigment was preserved or couldn't be identified. Then a reconstruction of the statue is made to show it painted in the most accurate colours determined by all the evidence of this research. It's the best that could be done, sticking only to that evidence. Guarantee, the minute more evidence is available, the researchers are gonna be fervently reassessing their work, but the physical reconstruction in the museum? In that 10, 20, 30yo article? It'll still be there. Shit's slow to update in rhe public side.

So why isn't it an ARTISTIC INTERPETATION? Why isn't that part of this process? Isn't the study of ancient art evidence too??

It is! But it's a different kind of study!

While some logical connections can be made and justified in evidence based research in the interest of creating a physical recobatruction like this, you will notice that what all this research CAN'T determine is stuff the artistic shading and variance of colour to give depth, dimension, and glow to the subject. The physical analysis of pigment is just going to identify the pigment molecule. The research into ancient pigment making is just going to give you its physical properties like colour. The location of the sample is just going to tell you where on the statue the pigment was applied. It ISN'T going to tell you how the artist applied it. It can't. The nature of this subject limits it like that.

Because the RECONSTRUCTION is only the evidence-based part of this process. The next part is the ARTISTIC INTERPRETATION. This is where you look at the frescoes, the mosaics, and every example we have of how colour and depth are artistically applied, break it down into historical periods (the Roman Empire was really, really long, guys), make a detailed in depth artistic study of all of these techniques and examples, combine them with the research on pigments and your statuary, and THEN.... THEN you create an INTERPRETATION of how you THINK the statue MIGHT have been painted.

Tl;dr..... my beef here is that we are seeing the results of one part of a two part process.... and then complaining that the second part isn't there. That.... that's like seeing someone mix a cake batter, and then complaining that it doesn't look like a cake yet. There's a whole second process that needs to be done before that happens!

Simply put, in terms of say, colouring in photoshop for example, this evidence-based data gives us our base layers. To get our shading and effects, we need to begin a new, different process.

Not every archaeologist is an artist, or even does artistic study and interpretation in addition to physical microscopic pigment analysis, tho many do! In any case, you can do the physical analysis and reconstruction, and it will stand on its own as a publication-worthy study without the artistic interpretation. The reverse cannot be said.

So you get a lot of these studies presented as absolute and factual and scientific, and that makes it look like the second part, the artistic interpretation part, is being done separately by an entirely different field of study. It also doesn't help that these sides of the study of archaeology, hard physical evidence based science and artistic/humanities/social sciences often appear to be constantly bickering in the extremes, when most often both need to be applied whenever possible, as rigorously as possible.

I get that the ins and outs of academics can be pretty obscured to anyone looking in with casual interest, and often these bite size public science articles put things in clipped absolute terms to make them short and easily digested ("This is EXACTLY how these statues looked, the smart people said so! Wild! Now click this link about Roman dick lamps before we've lost your interest!"), and this in particular is often misrepresented. Sometimes this kind of thing is misrepresented intentionally, not to fuck with the public, but to make it easier to get further funding from people who have lots of money but do not understand archaeology as much as they do investment. (And sometimes the archaeologist is just a dick. I guarantee we all just thought of one name, and we're probably all right.)

But. But. The field as a whole? Collectively?

My guys. My dudes. My people. My wonderful, intelligent, creative, and lovely people who share my burning passionate interest in all things of the past and present?

I PROMISE YOU. I promise, from my very bones, the people who have spent years, decades, dedicated their very careers to the study of Roman art and archaeology? Who spend months hunched over in the dirt, months more hunched over in the lab, who voraciously consume every book, lecture, who visit every tiny local museum within a fifty mile radius of wherever they spend more than a week's time, who cross the world to see sites and artifacts with their own eyes because pictures are not good enough, who can look at a fragment of a fresco painting and tell you exactly what wall on what Pompeiian bathhouse it was painted on?

They know. Okay? They know. They are fully, completely aware and in agreement that this is not how these statues were actually painted. They know! They're okay with it, because:

What they also know that has been unfortunately obscured from you, is that that's not what is being presented here. These paint-by-numbers examples are just a very basic visual, physical reconstruction based on data from physical evidence. They know that artistic interpretations are much, much harder, take longer, require different skills, methods, and area of study, have to be generously extrapolated because we only have other forsms of painted art and no existing fully painted statuary to go by (again, afaik), and are much, much more subject to controversy, interpretation, and error.

So like, cut 'em some slack okay? Very few of us are stodgy tweed jacketed bearded old men from the 30s and 50s anymore. We're largely gen x/millenials being taught and working for an "old guard" while knowing we will likely never inherit their stable tenured positions. The majority of the field is younger women now, and many of us are queer, of diverse cultural backgrounds, and struggle to afford to do the work we studied to do, that we crave to do, while trying to create needed change in a field whose existing structure remains as resistent to change as it ever was.

If something seems off to you in a bite size public science article? Look it into it! Do your own further research! I guarantee you'll find out more than you expected. That iceberg is fucking massive under here, and there is plenty of it to dunk on that actually deserves it lol

... mosaic ...

Roman mosaic, Detail of floor, 1 century BC, National Archaeological Museum of Aquileia, Italy

[overcaffeinated-aro]

hey this is gonna sound weird but whats yr thoughts on correcting behaviors without yelling

ok so like. full disclosure I got like 4 hours of sleep and then spent my afternoon in an emergency dentist appt so I really hope I can make this make sense. I also have a lot of thoughts so I apologize if this one gets away from me

(also for context, this is about a post on children misbehaving or causing distractions in public, and parents causing an even bigger scene trying to correct their behavior. it should be the post immediately after this on my blog)

it got away from me, adding a cut

also just to start, there’s obv a difference between raising your voice to be heard/get attention, and screaming at a child who’s already in front of you while in public. there’s also a lot of space between the two. and I really don’t think there’s a lot of justification for most of it beyond strictly getting a child’s attention.

yelling or screaming at your child, especially in public, isn’t that much better than hitting them. it depends a bit on the age, but what’s getting communicated to the child in that moment is a lot less of what you’re actually saying when you yell and mostly just the intense feelings of fear and disempowerment that come with being cornered and punished, and in some cases publicly ridiculed. hell, you don’t even need to yell to do this. and depending on the parent, this may or may not be intentional, using humiliation as a method of trying to reinforce some kind of ‘lesson’ or discourage a behavior.

it was, in fact, a pillar of my mom’s parenting for many years. I know first-hand how much it can wreak a child’s self esteem, and can make them fearful of further violence from you, even without any other precedent. I started to have nightmares about being hit or kicked out, even knowing that my mom would never go that far, and even years after she stopped. She pretty effectively proved to me that at least in those moments I was beneath her, I didn’t deserve to be treated with dignity in front of others (especially in front of others, as she never yelled at me in private) including in front of family and my friends. it broke a lot of trust that I should have been able to have with her, and even now at 25 and having been moved out for 4 years there’s a lot of trust we have to rebuild in order to have a functional adult parent/child relationship.

this will not be the case for every child, but as an example: I was most frequently yelled at in public for austistic behaviors that I couldn’t or didn’t know how to control. what I needed was help, to be taught coping mechanisms, quieter or alternative ways to stim, and emotional regulation. being yelled at made me quiet, fearful, and full of shame. it appeared to fix the issue, but really only locked it away with my ability to feel and process emotions. but ofc your mileage may vary, everyone responds to trauma differently.

a lot of parents yell because they’re overwhelmed. my mom yelled because she has adhd, my behaviors were overstimulating, being in public/socializing was overstimulating, and she didn’t know how to cope. in fact once I grew up I taught her what adhd actually looks like, and helped her find resources that have greatly improved her life. This Is Still Not a Good Excuse. shit happens, parents have problems, but losing your cool at your child is not excusable. forcing your child to grow up fast enough to teach *you* emotional regulation is Not Good. as a parent, it is your job to be in a place where you can consistently and effectively be The Parent. if you aren’t there, it’s your job to recognize that and work on it!

finally, for the point that you were probably asking for: what can you do instead of yelling? what if your child won’t stop?

honestly, a parenting book will probably be a better help than I. I’ve taken 1 college course on developmental psychology and some scattered research over the years so I’m by no means an expert, or really even a hobbiest. but for what it’s worth, here’s my 2 cents:

work on yourself, especially especially emotional regulation. never take your frustration out on your child. 9/10 times your child is not trying to upset you. literally why would they do that, they depend on you for everything. even in cases when you child is trying to upset you or push back, it’s not really about You. they might need help with something, or not know how to communicate or deal with a problem. as a parent, it is in fact your job to be the bigger person.

once you have a child’s attention, anything you can communicate by yelling you can also communicate in a normal tone. for older children, it will probably be more effective to intervene just enough to stop the behavior, and then discuss the issue in private later. it’s important to be focused on solutions and what could be done better next time, not on punishments. there’s so much research showing that punishment and negative reinforcement doesn’t work.

I haven done an excessive amount of research, but from what I’ve seen so far I really like the ideas behind the Montessori method. it really strives to treat children as full individual people, and meet them where they’re at developmentally while doing it’s best to ask age-appropriate consent for everything applicable. Jessica out of the closet on youtube has some great videos on how she and her wife have been putting the method into practice with their own child, and even going into her own struggles and solutions with parenting while multiply disabled—and still refusing to compromise on the way she treats her child

and while I have this soapbox: parenting is not for everyone!! some people should not be parents, or teachers, or otherwise in a position of power over children. it’s a hard job. and, it really shouldn’t be done alone. even the most patient person will have trouble keeping their cool 24/7. it’s important to take breaks, and find ways to lean on the people or community in your lives. And, if you’re a community member who interacts with children, it’s still important to learn these skills! with any luck you’ll simply be another kind and trustworthy adult in a child’s life. but for some you may be a lifeline

[lovelylotusf1]

you know what im here for. hulk/sainz 🤲🤲🤲

Love that you're asking about it because it got me to reread what I have written and man. I love it so much :D

Debated between two snippets, but just for you, here's the longer one <3

Nico barks out a laugh at that. ��All right, all right. Still as spicy as ever, I get it.” He raises his hands in a defensive gesture, like Carlos is an easily spooked horse. “You are still scharf und heiß, eh?”

Carlos calmly raises an eyebrow, even though his blood is boiling beneath his skin. He tells himself that it’s because he’s annoyed. That the feeling stirring deep in his gut is anger. That his heart is speeding up because he wants to grab Nico by the front of his shirt and yell at him to stop, to simply tell Carlos what he wants to say in a way where Carlos can actually understand him.

It's definitely not because he wants to grab Nico and kiss him to get him to finally shut up, he refuses to acknowledge that.

Ask me stuff about my wips <3

[scoriarose]

i love how much you love your snakes

I can't help but love them! They are just so precious. And honestly they are incredibly loving to me too! Sometimes the world seems so big and impossible, and I'm just one insignificant human among billions. But to my girls, I am their whole world. And every day they show me how much they love me. So I can never let them down. We are just a little multi-species family who loves each other very much!

Earlier today Scoria was playing in my blankets with me laying next to her, and she came over and wanted up on me. I put her on my chest and laid with her head over my heart. We just relaxed like that for an hour- I'm pretty sure she fell asleep for a bit because when I picked her up she did the biggest yawn ever.

Sakura is becoming a little sweetie pie too. She's very timid but usually snuggles me at least once a week now, and has gotten very good at staying calm while she's out. She's also gotten really good at target training! I'm proud of her progress. C:

I love my mommy and my sister thiiiiiis much. You can't see how much? Well that's cuz it's so big! We're inside it, it goes for miles and miles and miles!

You two are embarrassing. I'm not here. Don't look at me.

[bunnyboy-juice]

mkay its been a few days and i dont have the most perfect words to express this but uh. please remember just bc i reblog certain kinks on this blog and am publicly horny in general doesn't mean that you can try to engage in that kink with me without asking first, especially if we are not mutuals.

[pinkdean]

just received a very scary email 😰😰😰😰😰

[bookwyrminspiration]

Relating to your last ask on how Sophie handled your parents, I'm always interested as to what alternatives could have been. Could they have done a fake boarding school esque situation, possibly having to use Beguiling or the like to convince her parents to let her go? Could they have erased only Sophie but kept the rest of their memories intact (but they might still have to remove them from their location)? If that's beyond an average telepath's capabilities, is that something Sophie might be able to do (likely with the training she didn't have at the time)? Could she have brought them to the elven world with her and in doing so become the beginning of rebuilding the bridge between humans and elves? What do you think would be best for all parties, if the situation had been approached differently and with more care than the elves showed in canon? Would it inevitably be a tradeoff between keeping Sophie in her parents' lives and keeping her parents safe?

Oo okay alright alright! Very interesting. I'm going to go through these and assess them based on what problems may be encountered and whether they'd be a plausible alternative--but! this is just for fun and my opinion, please don't take it against you, I'm doing this enthusiastically not critically :)

Fake boarding school: I feel like this is close to an idea Sophie wondered about, and the main obstacle here would be getting them to agree--hence the beguiler thing. But then we also encounter the problem of how long would the beguiling last? Would they need to be continuously beguiled, and would the council approve using a beguiler for that when they could use an alternative? Probably not. This also requires Sophie to continue constantly lying to her parents--even more so than before--which was something she didn't think she could keep up much longer. It's not impossible, but the technicals of this seem difficult and strenuous

Erasing only Sophie: Possibly! But like you said, that level of skill is probably beyond the average telepath, making it significantly more difficult. And given what we learned from Damel, until he worked alongside Sophie, he'd never washed memories without risk of triggering them back. There would be so many things that could trigger those memories. Another question would be: how many memories are left after that? Sophie has been integral to their lives for over a decade, how are they going to fill that gap? What's Sophie-free? I think it's a plausible solution, but would be very very difficult and time consuming, and have a good risk of triggered memories (since Sophie wasn't able to help yet).

Bringing them to the elven world: At the time, the council was involved and overseeing things. I can't imagine any situation where they'd knowingly allow three humans to live in the elven world just because Sophie didn't want to leave them. There's also the fact that they are human. Sophie moves to the Lost Cities for many reason, but one of them being that she's an elf who doesn't belong in the Forbidden Cities. Her family would be just as out of place if not more so in the Lost Cities, and I don't think Sophie could do that to them. They don't speak the language (although it can be given, as we saw with Amy), they can't light leap without help, they're not going to be treated kindly by anyone else if anyone else even knows of their presence. Amy said in Nightfall that as amazing as the Lost Cities were, she could tell that she didn't belong and wanted to go back home.

I've said this before, but honestly? I don't think there is a better option than what we saw in canon, or at least I haven't encountered it yet. There's no good option, it's inherently an immoral and unethical situation, and I just can't envision one where everything works out best for everyone and could actually be implemented. Your second suggestion about erasing only Sophie could be an improvement, but I worry that retaining the rest of their memories would inevitably lead to triggered memories of Sophie, and that can only happen so many times before they'd just erase their memories fully because it wasn't working.

If everyone was super super agreeable and realism disregarded, the closest I get is if Sophie's human parents are made fully aware of the situation and then knowingly allow her to attend Foxfire and engage in the elven world while still living with her. But the elves won't let that happen and that puts a huge target on her family, who are human and can't defend themselves against the Neverseen once they enter the story more fully. It can't last

So for now (and my opinion may change) it does seem like an inevitable trade off. I don't think they're good, but the two options presented in canon (fake death or erased) are the best of a bunch of shitty options. I'm not sure what I would've picked between the two if I were in that situation, but I think Sophie picking what she did was in character, and therefore the better option for the story.

But again, these are all just my thoughts and opinions and how I've engaged with the story. There's no right answer here, and I say this all as part of an enthusiastic analytical conversation, not as critical judgement of anything :)

[tidesreach]

okay actually i do need to say this. before i sleep. because if you genuinely believe that buck. BUCK BUCKLEY. truly saw a future with tommy and that this relationship was any different to his previous relationships. you do not understand buck buckley and frankly you never have. like, this is made abundantly clear during the conversation with josh. if you actually care to pay attention. because time and time again buck bases his identity, self-worth and happiness on the person he is dating. josh asks him if he considers tommy's happiness in the same way he considers his own. and buck's answer is yes, of course. because he is fundamentally unable to tell the difference between the two. because he thinks that making tommy happy is the same as being happy himself. when, actually, it's at the expense of his own happiness. he misunderstands entirely what josh is trying to say. he impulsively asks tommy to move in with him because he thinks it will make tommy happy which will then also make him happy. because buck is nothing if not a people pleaser. due to, well. the Trauma. he never got off the hamster wheel. dating a man didn't fix any of this. because it was never about that (and suggesting it was is, well. biphobic actually). buck's issue has always been that he does not know how to be in a relationship without shrinking himself down to the shape and size of a person he thinks his partner wants and losing himself in the process. which he was about to do again. and well. lmao. for once tommy's self-preservation was actually a good thing. because wow, that could have been taylor all over again.