#it is literally misgendered her she is the only character who is very clear she wants to be 'she' on purpose!

[isan0rt]

Hot take but insisting on using they/them pronouns for Xion, the LITERAL ONLY character in Kingdom Hearts who aggressively and intentionally tells people she is a girl and expresses dysphoria about being misgendered as not-a-girl, is fundamentally no different than Saix refusing to stop calling her 'it' send post.

[triviareads]

ARC Review of Triple Sec by TJ Alexander

Rating: 4.5/5 Heat Level: 4/5 Publication Date: June 4th

Premise:

A queer, polyamorous romance; Mel is a bartender at one of New York's top cocktail bars. She has an instant connection with Bebe, one of her customers who is also married to Kade. She's surprised when Bebe asks her out on a date, but slowly falls for not only Bebe, but Kade.

My review:

This book was tender, sexy, and more than anything, it felt so real to me. All three main characters are Grown Adults in their thirties who have their respective pasts, failed relationships, and hang-ups— and reading them connect and fall in love was such a joy. I think with the rise of terms like "harem romance" or "reverse harems" (both of which I take issue with; "harem" has a specific cultural connotation that I feel the romance community has misappropriated) and "why choose" romances, some romance readers have somewhat misguided expectations for what *all* poly romances should be like (and some literally aren't calling it what it is, polyamorous) , and this book did a lovely job of portraying one polycule and all the dynamics within it.

Mel and Bebe have an instant connection from the moment they meet at Mel's bar. The attraction is SIZZLING and Bebe is so classy (!!) in the way she hits on Mel, I was like, genuinely shook. I'm glad Mel isn't automatically outraged that a married woman is flirting with her, and she doesn't jump to any conclusions (though she does hypothesize into the void with another queer friend in an open relationship). Ultimately, Bebe and Kade tell Mel pretty early on that they're poly, and that Bebe would like to see Mel.

Enter their relationship contract that outlines how Mel, Bebe, and Kade interact. I thought it was really cute the way the contract was formatted in the book, so every time the rules of their relationship change, the old parts are crossed out and the new parts are added in.

And the rules do change, to be clear. There are three parts in this book and each part focuses on a different facet of the relationship with them ultimately deciding they would all like to be together (as opposed to Bebe, and then both Kade and Bebe seeing Mel individually). Kade and Mel's relationship is initially tinged with a lot of foot-in-the-mouth moments. The good thing about the contract is, it provides boundaries but they're just super awkward with one another until they have the opportunity to bond without Bebe, and all bets are off. And honestly, Kade has my heart— they're deadpan and somewhat blunt but as you get to know them better along with Mel (this is a single-person POV book— do I think it would have benefitted from all 3 POVs? Maybe, but I don't feel like I missed any important context), you see they're an absolute sweetheart— an artist who feels deeply but keeps that side hidden. There are a couple instances where Kade is misgendered and we see the misconceptions people harbor about non-binary people, and I thought it was interesting to read not only how they, but also their love interest (Mel) deals with it.

I realize I haven't talked a lot about the actual plot— the cocktail making competition and Mel's job at the bar— but I thought both were written with so much love for the craft and respect for service workers.

The sex:

Super hot, super well-written. It's always fun to read the individual and group dynamics because they're so unique. Bebe is an out-and-proud pillow princess, and I kinda love that she was able to coax out a "mean", more selfish side of Mel, who is usually more of a giver in real life. Kade is a service top and this book answers the question what happened when a top and a service top get together— the answer does involve cum-eating. Also, the last sex scene in the book? Fabulous. Excellent. There are strap-ons. There's face-sitting. I have no notes.

Overall:

I really enjoyed this book! @tjalexandernyc wrote a banger, and the payoff of seeing three very different individuals connect, fall in love and make space for each other is absolutely worth it, and I'd recommend this to any romance reader.

This ARC was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[yuripoll]

HONORABLE MENTIONS: Shimanami Tasogare (2015 - 18)

NOTE: This was a submission rejected on the grounds that you can't really call it yuri in any real way; there is an important lesbian couple in the central cast, however.

Shimanami Tasogare is a three volume drama series by Yuhki Kamatani about a closeted gay boy learning to accept himself through the power of queer solidarity.

After recently moving to Onomichi, Hiroshima, high school student Tasuku Kaname is thrown into despair at the possibility that he may have been outed for being gay. Convinced his life is over, his despair turns into shock when he sees a woman jump out of a window of a nearby house. Tasuku races to the house in a panic only to discover that it's a public meeting lounge owned by the woman he saw before. Tasuku comes face to face with the woman as she walks past him unharmed, but not before she implies that she had been watching him from afar. Confused, Tasuku follows her up to the top of a steep hill where she offers to briefly listen to what's on his mind. Although Tasuku doesn't go into too much detail, he later accepts her invitation to come to the lounge to meet others with similar troubles. - AniList

Original JP available on Book Walker; ENG published by Seven Seas.

CWs under the cut. General severity rating: significant.

some references to sex but no sexual content

suicide <- protagonist considers suicide in response to almost being outed, and the option of dying is referenced quite a lot in the first few chapters. non-literal imagery of someone jumping from a height is used somewhat frequently.

harassment <- adult women offhandly mention being harassed in the workplace every so often.

groping <- in ch9 a sixth grader is groped in public while presenting femininely*. their friend says the Wrong thing trying to comfort them about it (that it happened because they look cute).

dysphoria <- a young amab character* is shown to be very uncomfortable going through puberty.

homophobia <- major theme, though no violence takes place (aside from another queer kid* freaking out in ch9). includes use of the f slur, queer as a slur and the word homo.

transphobia <- not as frequent as the homophobia. casual transphobia & deadnaming directed towards a trans man (not outright hateful; from a minor character who means well but isnt good at being an ally). happens in ch11 - 14.

terminal illness & death <- a minor character has cancer, and dies in the last arc of the manga

*one of the characters (misora) crossdresses regularly, but them not being ready to put a label on their gender is a whole plot point. i do want to be clear that thats why im using they/them, not to misgender them.

[the-aviary-system]

I’ve literally never reblogged and have no idea how tumblr works but this is just. Beautifully put. Very well written.

It pisses me off so much when people act like them being characters means it’s ok to misgender them because people NEVER do that for binary characters (unless they’re trans of course, I’m not very familiar with the game she’s from but ik characters like Bridget have to deal with that). It’s like they see neutral pronouns as a “fill in the blank” rather than “real” pronouns. They (often) act like it’s different for real people to make them seem like not horrible people, but that’s not really the case because if it was, they’d be freely overwriting the pronouns of characters who use he/him or she/her, which they don’t. They respect those pronouns. They don’t respect neutral ones. If someone reading this is one of those people, I need you to consider WHY you only do this with characters that use neutral pronouns.

And also there’s another reason I hate the “they’re just a character, not a real person” argument, but it’s super specific and not really something I can bring up in arguments without ableist people thinking we’re insane, but being plural, we have a lot of headmates who are fictives of fictional characters. They’re real people who happen to be based off of and resemble something else. One of ours is the Pure Vessel! So people misgendering the vessels is pretty personal for us but it’s not something we can bring up in an argument much. It acts like that doesn’t bother it bc it’s been conditioned to not care about anything but that’s not true. It does care.

And we also have to deal with this same shit from the Deltarune fandom with Kris (who we also have a fictive of) even though the game makes it EXPLICITLY clear that Kris is not a self-insert. Like come on that’s practically THE point (or one of the big ones) of the game.

uhh anyway yeah ramble over I have no idea how tumblr works, literally barely use this account lol

Ig if anyone read this far uhh hi am I tumblring good

-Emyr (he/it)

Hollow has a psa ✨ 

[Binary people, do NOT add stupid shit to this post. You can reblog but don’t add commentary on how you disagree.]

[therabine]

In case you were wondering why wordbuilding for Ravka feels so random

After going down the rabbit hole in my search for answers I've stumbled across this conversation on goodreads dated back to the November of 2013, where Leigh Bardugo replied to some reasonable criticism about her 'cultural inspiration"- https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1533856-has-bardugo-talked-about-the-russian-inconsistencies This conversation is quite long and miss Leigh gave about three replies to various questions from people that were deeply bothered by the very surface level research she did on the Russian cilture. Here are the major highlights, plus the other things I've found while goodling: 1) As far as I've understood - neither she nor her publishers expected the first book to blow up like this. So even though there was obvoiusy a lack of proper research and some mistakes variying from minor to insulting, now that she's an esteemed author Leigh claims all of it to be deliberate choices adding that "deliberate choices aren't necessarily good ones". She also tries to lift the responsibility off her shoulders, mentioning that her work "was reviewed not just by my editor, but by copy editors, proofreaders, multiple foreign editors, and foreign copy editors". Not a single word about actual Russian-speaking person/expert reviweing the text or helping her out with creating the Ravkan language though. The only person she's ever credited as the one who helped her out with creating Ravkan is Erdene Ukhaasai from Mongolia that she's been friends on Facebook at the time (source on this one - https://ageofsteam.wordpress.com/2012/04/25/genre-friction-what-is-tsarpunk-by-leigh-bardugo/ ). The Facebook page under this name currently doesn't exist and the only results that Google shows on this person are the mentions that Leigh Bardugo gave in her interview, so unfortunately I couldn't reach out for clarification on this topic. Still, it's highly unlikey that someone with zero publications under their name would be a proffesional linguist and therefore qualified for such a task. 2) Within your secondary world, unless you are writing satire, things should make internal sense. That world could not arize independently of its context. The problem with the Bardugo's Ravka is that it's based on Russian Empire alone, yet she claims that "it's only Russian inspired" without acknowledging that most people that are not familiar with the culture will take it in as authentic. She takes the words and objects out of the context, misgenders names and last names and creates new 'russian-sounding" words without understanding how the grammar works. Which is a shame, given how flexible Russian language is - the possibility for the word-building is endless and with the right guidance she truly could make some unique and meaningful terms specifically for the Ravka. Also on the alcoholic kvas issue - Leigh proudly claims this as a solution to be a vodka "substitute", because vodka would be too on the nose and too common (more on the matter here -https://www.leighbardugo.com/grishaverse/the-archives/tongue-twister/). What didn't cross her mind is that instead of turning a non-alcoholic drink into strong booze for "wordbuilding" it would be much better to use less known drinks whic do contain alcohol - braga, samogon, nalivka - just to name a few.

3) To elaborate on some of the specific issues with names and last names: Leigh doesn't seem to understand how gendered surnames work in Russian. That's why we get stuff like Alina Starkov (when it's supposed to be Starkova, because she's a woman) and Alexander Morozova (Morozov would be a correct form) etc. This system is never consistent - Mal Oretsev gets to have a male surname, but so does Genya Safin and Zoya Nazyalensky has a weird non-gendered kind of in between last name (very much in fashion of Natasha Romanoff, who would be called Natalia Romanova in Russian). Also must mention Ana Kuya - poor woman's name literally sounds like "why the f*ck" in Russian, that's about just as bad as naming your Asian character Whata Phuck. Again - none of this nonsense would happen if someone bothered to find a Russian-speaking person to read the text. Other Russian words she tries to throw in seem to be the result of a bad Google Translate, rather than a conscious choice: for example the word otkazats'ya that she uses to describe non-grishas is actually a verb that translates as "to refuse". The noun with the meaning of "the refused one" would be otkaznik or otkazniki for a plural form. Same with sobachka ("small dog") - the context from the book suggests this nickname to be an insulting one, so the word we're really looking for would be shchenok ("puppy") or shavka ("mongrel", "cur"). The list of those examples, honestly, goes on and on.

4) Leigh does mention that she "can acknowledge that the choices I made in building the language and culture of Ravka came from a place of insularity and a type of privilege". However she's more keen to talk about how she has "certainly encountered critics, but I've also had Russian fans"...Which to me sounds about just as bad as stating "I do have *insert a minority racial group* friends and they say that me doing *insert a dubious act* is fine". The problem is that Russian culture has been demonized and overlooked for so long that most people (myself included) tend to praise content creators for including even the most sterytypical "insprations". Just because some people are willing to excuse her voluntary ignorance, doesn't mean that it's okay.

5) No books on Russian culture that she's mentioned as part of the resarch were written by Russian authors. And while reading the SaB it becomes crystal clear that that the major 'cultural inspiration' Leigh got was not from those books, but from the monstrosity that is her tsapunk pinterest board - https://www.pinterest.ru/lbardugo/tsarpunk-inspiration/ . About 80% of the stuff there doesn't even relate to Russian culture and the rest is a mash of modern knockoffs.

To summorize it: Leigh very much knew about the concerns surrounding her "Russian-inspired" Ravka which were respectfully brought to her consideration by her Russian speaking fans back in 2012-2013. She said "I've taken it to heart and it's something that I've tried to be conscious of as I move forward in the series and my other work", apologized and then she did nothing to do better. She marketed Shadow and Bone as "Tsarpunk", fetishisizing Russian culture and using it as a unique setting to uplift a generic "light vs. dark" fantasy plot supported by the bland narrative of the Chosen One. There was an effort and will to make a change for the better, not a single letter has been changed for us. When I think about, I can't really remember anything that would ring as a thoughtful and clever element adapted into the story from Russian culture. If everything is always altered or twisted, if there is nothing true or authentic then should you really call it Russian-inspired? Should you really make profit off it and call this aesthetic tsarpunk?

Leigh Bardugo could have fixed the most jarring problems with the material while doing the adaptation from book to screen, but she chose not to. There was no effort made to include more people of slavic descent as a major part of production team or as background actors. Almost nothing of the production design or clothing was inspired by Russian culture. To elaborate: I'm not even mad. I'm just deeply sad and hurt by the indifference.

Some might argue that this book series was not written for Russians, that it was written for the western audience. But don't they deserve respectfully researched and authentic stories too?

[missholoska]

last but not least, the tragic children who deserved better ✨

(For anyone unfamiliar with my Swap content, see the character sheets for Papyrus & Sans, Undyne & Alphys, Asgore & Toriel, Chara & Asriel, Napstabot & Happstablook and more about Underswap MH here!)

I've said this before but to be clear on MK/Temmie's pronouns: she/her is exclusively for Tem-K, not Wish! the out-of-character reason for this is it's a way of keeping UT Temmie's pronouns intact in some form, and in-universe they're literally roleplaying as their sibling's OC. I'm not here to misgender these kids o/

on that note I originally wanted to reveal Temmie being Fate's old toy/imaginary character in a comic (those extra doodles are actually a scene from that script), but drawing that first would've delayed this art by months so I hope finding out this way is still sorta neat, ahah.

anyway, the usual rambles:

MK’s nickname being 'Wish' was directly inspired by the name of this Underswap Hopes & Dreams remix (it’s very good please listen to it)

I had to cut this from the info box to save space, but Tem-K was initially more distressed by her reset powers compared to UT Flowey’s fascination, but she still ended up becoming guilty of many murdery timelines. (also one of the first things she did during her resets was definitely beat up some teachers)

Wish's birth family is a mystery, but out of the picture nonetheless (admittedly I didn't really know how to make sense of that situation). They were found by Orchid and Dandelion when they were a toddler wandering near the castle and a call for their family was put out, but after receiving no response the goat parents chose to adopt and raise Wish themselves.

Most of Fate's backstory is left ambiguous like UT Chara and Frisk's unknown reasons for climbing Mt Ebott (besides vague unhappy implications), but one thing set in stone is that their parents/guardians were quite uncaring, not allowing them the freedom to be themself and usually only giving them scruffy secondhand clothes and cheap bootleg toys. The plushie they named Temmie was a knock-off of a popular brand toy.

Wish's dust is faintly visible on Tem-K's body - in the art it's the slight darker grey patches on her right dog ear, left cat ear, front left paw and back right paw (opposite sides to the viewer).

To give an overview of Fate's personality like I did for Charity: Like my UT Chara, Fate has a strong sense of responsibility and tends to be fairly polite, and they're well-spoken for their age due to imitating Orchid's formal speech, but lacking in knowledge. But they're not too different from my UT Frisk either - playful, quiet, kind and very determined, and often give people their classic -_- expression when annoyed. They love telling and listening to stories, cooking and fashion, and find comfort in simply being around the people they care about.

In post-pacifist Charity comes up with the 'Tem-K' nickname in-universe. The latter is less than pleased by it.

and with this, all the main cast’s character sheets are done!! I'll still be designing various background characters here and there, but they won't get these big references that took up way too much of my time \o/;;

[rjalker]

I'm just making it its own post so it's easier for me to find.

oh and for the record the word I was looking for is "biological essentialism". That sums up every problem with Martha Well's writing, especially in regards to The Books of the Raksura, which are extremely relevant even though we're talking about The Murderbot Diaries.

original post.

--

As someone who is nonbinary, aroace, and not human, and who uses it/its pronouns, this is correct, except for the part about calling Murderbot they/them. That’s still misgendering, even if it’s a fictional character, and that part isn’t okay.

You should call Murderbot by it/its because those are its pronouns, whether or not you agree with why the writer gave it those pronouns. To say otherwise is just transphobic, because there’s nothing wrong with use it/its pronouns. Most of the people I see arguing that we shouldn’t use it/its pronouns for Murderbot are just being really transphobic and insisting that it/its pronouns are always bad.

If you actually respect people who use it/its pronouns, you will use it/its pronouns for Murderbot. To do otherwise is transphobic towards people who use it/its pronouns, because it betrays the fact that you think they’re actually bad to use.

You wouldn’t insist on calling Murderbot by other pronouns if it used she or he, so don’t use other pronouns for it just because it uses it/its. My pronouns aren’t optional based on whether or not you think I’m being respected or not by using them, and to treat them as such is transphobic.

You can call out the transphobia in the writing (because it is transphobia even if it’s not “intentionally malicious”) without misgendering Murderbot. If you really think there’s nothing wrong with someone use it/its pronouns, then you won’t treat it/its pronouns like they’re optional any more than you would if Murderbot used any other pronouns.

But the rest of this? Yeah.

There’s a major difference between someone like me for example writing a nonhuman nonbinary character who uses it/its pronouns and someone like Martha Wells writing such a character. I’ve been making other posts about it, but especially if you’ve read any other books of hers, namely, The Books of the Raksura, this is a very clear pattern.

Murderbot is agender and aroace and uses it/its pronouns because that’s as far as Martha Wells’ grasp on gender goes. We see this in The Books of the Raksura, where the protagonist is just. oh my god. The series is set on a fantasy world where everyone is a fantasy creature and there are hundreds of thousands of sentient people of different species all living together. And Martha Well’s grasp of gender literally just goes “well whatever the protagonist makes of their genitals and secondary sex characteristics determines their gender”.

Moon, the protagonist, at one time literally just assumes another character is a man because I think she (for sake of ease I’m just calling this character she because that’s what most of the story does despite that being the whole problem) had a deep voice. But then her hair moved out of the way and he saw that she had breasts, so he immediately goes “oh whoops she’s a woman” and starts referring to her with she/her pronouns in his head.

This is not the only example of this kind of bullshit in The Books of the Raksura, but it’s the most blatant example I can think of, and I’m not even going to get into discussing all of the transphobia regarding Chime and River or the kethel right now.

Martha Wells still equates gender and sex, and thus, because Murderbot and the other bots and constructs have no sex, then of course, in her mind, that means they are genderless and feel no attraction.

It would not cross her mind to have a bot or construct that is a trans man or a trans woman, because that wouldn’t match up with her idea that sex = gender. Probably if she ever did have a bot with a binary gender, it would be because they’re a ComfortUnit who was assigned male or female at construction/possibly forced reprogramming.

And even if this bot was binary trans of their own free will (instead of being reprogrammed or programmed to be that way) Murderbot would probably fucking loathe them for ‘trying to appeal to humans’ and just. At this point in time I really highly doubt Martha Wells would ever even think about creating such a character, let alone think she’d be able to handle it and Murderbot’s reaction well.

I think it’s pretty dang obvious that Murderbot would loathe a character like this, and I really fucking doubt Martha Wells would care enough (or at this point in time has enough understand of gender to be able) to write it so that Murderbot is shown to be in the wrong, and learns and grows over the course of the story to accept and respect this character and their identity instead of just assuming that everything they’re doing/are is meant to appeal to human sensibilities.

Martha Wells equates gender with sex, which is why all of her bot and construct characters are aroace and agender and use it/its pronouns.

It would literally be fine and great and awesome for Murderbot and ART and other bot and construct characters to be aroace and agender and use it/its, but only as long as there are bots and constructs who have different genders and different pronouns and different orientations. It would be fine if there were actual real human characters who were nonbinary and explicitly used pronouns other than he/him or she/her. Rami is the sole exception, but te is not a shining beacon of representation and should not be counted as one, because te literally only exists in one book, in only a few scenes, and te isn’t even the main one-off character from that story. Te gets sidelined with Maro before the main part of the plot even kicks off.

One single side one-off character who is third-gender (literally tercera translates to third, which is…………………oh my god that’s. Combined with literally all the evidence of Martha Well’s views on gender. god that needs its own post but to sum it up That’s Not Good And Is Actually Part of The Pattern of Transphobia In Her Writing but that’s something that needs its own big fucking post to explain.) and uses neopronouns does not erase any of the other transphobia in the series.

There aren’t any reoccurring or main human characters who are anything but cis binary people.

And I hate to burst anyone’s bubble, but no, none of the main human characters have secretly been trans this whole time, because Martha Wells has not considered that, and if they were trans, it would have been one of the first things we learned about them. She is not being sneaky. She’s just written them all to be cis because she thinks being cis is the default.

Martha Wells is good at writing. I love The Murderbot Diaries. I love The Books of the Raksura. But she is transphobic, even though she’s not intentionally being malicious. It’s still transphobia even if she doesn’t “mean it”.

Martha Wells has not rid herself of the idea that “gender = sex” and that is reflected in everything she has written thus far.

And now she is just extending that same idea towards things that have no sex, so she is drawing the by her transphobic logic logical conclusion that since they have no sex, that means they’re all automatically inherently genderless.

This would not be a problem if there were bot and construct characters who were binary trans. This would not be a problem if there were reoccurring main or even just more one-off characters who are explicitly trans (because no, I’m sorry people, none of the main humans are trans. They are not. You can headcanon them as trans if you want but they are not in the story, because if they were, we would have learned this the first time we were introduced to them. If Martha Wells writes another book and says 'oh btw this character has been trans the whole time, Murderbot just decided not to mention it because it wasn’t important’ it will literally just be a cheap retcon on the same level as JK Rowling saying Dumbledore is gay.)

Martha Wells equates sex with gender, and that is reflected in everything she has written thus far. Her writing will not be representative of trans people until she starts talking to and listening to trans people and actually educating herself about gender.

A (as far as I know) cis human woman writing about robots and androids that are genderless because they don’t have any genitals is not groundbreaking or revolutionary or representative of trans people.

A cis (AFAIK) woman writing one single one-off character who uses neopronouns who only exists in a few scenes in one book where this character isn’t even the main new one-off character is not groundbreaking or revolutionary or representative of trans people.

The best thing Martha Wells can do to actually make this series representative of trans people is to introduce more bot and construct characters, and have them be binary trans, and have Murderbot learn to not be a bigot towards them by assuming their gender is an appeal to human sensibilities. (because this is the only logical reaction for Murderbot to have based on everything it’s experiences and the way it thinks. It would be enraged by a bot or construct with a binary gender. Enraged. It would not fucking make any sense for it to automatically be accepting and fine with this revelation.)

The best thing Martha Wells can do to make this series actually representative of trans people is to have more human characters who are both binary trans and nonbinary.

The absolute best thing she could do is to have one of the main human characters come out as nonbinary after realizing they were because they’ve hung around with Murderbot and realized that being nonbinary is okay. Especially if they started use it/its pronouns to show that it’s not just something robots and androids are allowed to do. One of the main human characters can literally just realize after being friends with Murderbot that they can, in fact, just be completely genderless and it’s fine. They can even change their pronouns and it’d be fine. They can go by it/its pronouns and it’d be fine.

It’d be one thing if I, a nonhuman nonbinary person who is aroace and uses it/its pronouns, wrote a story about someone like me. It’s another thing entirely for a cis human woman to write all of her nonhuman characters as being inherently genderless and aroace by virtue of literally not having genitals.

Martha Wells needs to listen to trans people, she needs to educate herself about trans issues, and she needs to get over the idea that gender = sex because that is literally defining everything she has written to date, to the point that I can’t even just bring myself to assume that Rami chose ter gender terself, at this point I have to just assume that tercera is just a third gender you get assigned at birth in ter planetary system, which te was assigned at birth -.- Because Martha Wells has made it impossible to trust her to actually think about gender in any way that does not just say “gender = sex”.

Anyways. Yeah. These books are great. But Martha Wells is transphobic whether she is intending to be or not, and these books cannot and should not be called “great trans representation” when we only have one nonbinary human character and zero binary nonhuman characters and the characters literally can’t even be assed to list their pronouns in their internet profile, instead they just list their sex and we’re just supposed to assume their pronouns based on that -.-

TLDR:

The problem is not that Murderbot is nonhuman and aroace and agender and uses it/its pronouns. The problem is that this is the only way Martha Wells is capable of imagining nonbinary characters. She cannot imagine writing a main human character who is nonbinary, because she cannot stop equating sex with gender. The problem is that there are no nonhuman characters who have binary genders, and no reoccurring human characters who are nonbinary. The problem is that Martha Wells think sex = gender and this is the foundation upon which all of her writing rests.

This does not make it okay for anyone to misgender Murderbot or the other characters who use it/its pronouns. It/its pronouns are no more optional than he/him or she/her. If you actually respect people who use it/its pronouns, you will not treat it/its pronouns as optional unless acceptable enough for you.

[blogsanscontext]

A Closer Look at: Momoe Sawaki’s character arc; by a nonbinary (trans) viewer.

CW: Major spoilers for Wonder Egg Priority + mentions and discussion of sexual assault, transphobia, lesbophobia, self-harm; please proceed with caution.

Wonder Egg Priority came as a relatively pleasant surprise for me; I heard about it some time after the first few episodes aired, but I never actively went out of my way to ever try to watch it myself until, that is, a few days ago. I must say, I’m glad to have taken the initiative to experience such anime on my own.

With a stunning animation to accompany the heavy subjects this work touches on, I quickly fell in love with it; all the characters feel very grounded in reality, with their struggles (even someone like Neiru’s, who is a literal genius and CEO of her own company) feeling relatable in one way or another. Episode 7 became my favorite due to this very thing, Rika’s problems were things that not only have I seen in other works before, but that I know exist because of the stories told in the news every so often. It only helped, in my opinion, that they gave a character with her background such a hopeful ending.

That being said, Wonder Egg is not a perfect anime, and though I didn’t expect it to be in the first place, I do think talking about why some of the ways it handles a specific character of the main cast are problematic are worth the time. When I mentioned that “all the characters feel very grounded in reality”, I actually only meant three of them, a.k.a.: Ai, Rika and Neiru. The reason Momoe is not included in this group is what I will be discussing in the next paragraphs.

This anime lets you know, right off the bat, that it will not stray away from heavy subjects throughout the duration of its runtime; the show deals with suicidal idealization (and actual suicide as well as its aftermath; in fact, “female suicide” is at the very core of the show and is what essentially moves it forward), self-harm, sexual assault, same-sex relationships, transphobia, and being a gender noncomforming person in a society that punishes you for not adhering to the roles it has imposed on you since childhood. The last points are the ones I took issue with, however, and though they are mostly the show’s fault, they also took it upon themselves to make Momoe be at the center of all three.

See, when we are first introduced to Momoe, we can guess by context that she is a girl, however, the other characters aren’t aware of this fact yet, and so they seemingly go out of their way to call her a boy, which makes her deeply uncomfortable, and this (ie. her reaction to be treated or perceived as a boy) is a running theme throughout her arc. This, in itself, isn’t really the worst creative direction to take with a character, it’s a story that has been told time and time again, but there is a problem with the way Wonder Egg Priority specifically deals with it: Momoe is cisgender, and so far, there hasn’t been a sign of this changing whatsoever, so she will most likely remain cis until the show ends. Normally, a story about a gender noncomforming cis person wouldn’t be seen as anything out of the extraordinary, as I’ve mentioned before, but it seems that they wanted to… “innovate”, so to say, with her character. And it’s this innovation, in my opinion, that which makes Momoe’s struggles miss the mark for me.

Momoe is perceived, almost ridiculously so, as a boy by whoever even so much as stumbles upon her; her followers on Instagram most likely worship her because they’re under the impression that she’s a bishounen, and yet the show goes out of its way to deal with just how uncomfortable this makes her. This is the issue I take with her and her arc: the show has a keen awareness of AFAB people’s issues, and treats them with the respect they deserve (which is not to say some jokes at their expense aren’t made, but in general this tone is kept throughout the duration of the story), and yet the tone-deaf manner in which they deal with her issues feels… disappointing, to say the least.

Momoe’s struggles, though they are valid on their own, are not a societal issue, no matter how one may look at them; if she were a trans person (either a trans girl, boy, or nonbinary), the strong emphasis on her discomfort at being misgendered would have made so much more sense. The reason why ‘switching around’ the stereotype of a tomboy falls flat on its face is that there is no real pressure from society to present feminine, it’s what they want you to, or more accurately, force you to do if you’re perceived as being assigned female at birth; however, this is not where my issues with Momoe’s arc and character end.

At first, I imagined a variety of (albeit vague, still reasonable) reasons as to why this show couldn’t have just made Momoe be trans, and semi-understanding of this decision; that was, of course, until I watched the actual episode mostly focused on her struggles, and that’s when I got slightly mad. Being honest, I still think it was a good episode, and it definitely made Momoe seem way more sympathetic than any of her past appearances, but it also perfectly highlighted my problem with her, and subsequently, the show itself: using queer people’s actual, realistic, problems in order to push her, a cisgender character, forward.

The thing with Wonder Egg Priority is that I love how, despite all these girls literally risking their lives to save a specific person, they still seem to have conflicting feelings about them (ie. Rika’s mocking of Chiemi, Ai’s frustration towards Koito, etc.) but I also take issue with this when it comes to Momoe specifically; Haruka is very much intended to be seen as gay, yet when push comes to shove, we are supposed to be taking Momoe’s side in this conflict. We, the audience, see these events from her point of view, and are therefore made to feel, in one way or another, uncomfortable with Haruka’s attraction for her. Yes, Momoe has worked hard to bring her back to life, but the fact that she’s cis and heterosexual stands; this isn’t just exclusive to Haruka, however, but every egg she’s had to save in order to get her friend back. All of them express a clear attraction for Momoe, “despite her being a girl”, and it’s just very easy to read these attitudes as wlw-phobic, extremely so.

My biggest issue though lies within the very existence of Kaoru’s character, the trans boy she has to protect in the episode mainly focused on her; while he is an endearing and sympathetic character, and I like that despite him presenting ‘majorly female’, Momoe never misgenders him. The thing is: he’s made out to be almost a “parallel” of her own gender-related issues, and this is just a very tone-deaf statement to make; trans people fighting not to be misgendered, fighting to be called their chosen name (something Momoe, while being cis, can just freely enjoy) - trans people’s pain is very much real, which the show is aware of, but Momoe’s is very much an individual’s problem rather than the way society actually works, which Wonder Egg is seemingly unaware of, for whatever reason.

Before I arrive at my last point on why this comparison doesn’t work, I would like to quickly point out the fact that most, if not all, the eggs the girls have had to save until this point were specifically meant to be girls, in one way or another. Therefore, taking this into account, Kaoru makes me feel… a lot of things, the more time I spend thinking about it; the show acknowledges he’s a boy, though not cis of course, but still very much a boy, yet also places him in this very much ‘female’ space; no matter how I looked at it, I could find explanations both for an opinion in favor of this decision (the way a lot of trans men’s problems are defined by our patriarchal society seeing them as women) as well as some for an opinion against this decision (the fact that it could be read as the show ultimately deciding he’s ‘female-aligned’, etc.) and though I won’t be discussing this decision in-depth, I still possess that it’s an event worth examining from different lenses.

Now, onto the actual element that got me heated about Kaoru serving as a parallel to Momoe’s struggles: Kaoru was not only sexually assaulted by a man who’s always thought of him as a ‘pretty, delicate girl’, his death directly relates to the fact that he was abused and then impregnated by this man for not living up to his gross ideal of what a man and a woman are; contrast this to Momoe, who pretty much gets the treatment Kaoru would love to have: she’s pretty much right off the bat seen as a guy, she’s fawned over by women because of this fact as well, they literally call her ‘Momotaro’, etc. Taking all of this into account, it’s simply impossible for me to be okay with a comparison that ultimately decides a cisgender person’s discomfort is, in any sort of way, on equal grounds as a (might I remind you, dead) trans person’s basic human rights.

All in all, though her episode made me take a bigger liking to her character, it also served to almost perfectly highlight the very problem of her existence, as well as the “struggles” she’s intended to represent; I don’t hate Momoe in any sort of way, and though I know there must be someone somewhere who relates to her, I also think that they could’ve done something way more meaningful with her had they just made some changes that made her more realistic (as in, make her at least be LGBT rather than just cis and heterosexual); I will be patiently waiting for the finale, and who knows? Maybe something does change about her in the end, that would be even more of a pleasant surprise.

[isan0rt]

See, here's the thing that kills me about the popularity of the nonbinary Xion headcanon, is that Xion was not assigned male at birth before she transed her gender.

She was assigned agender at birth.

Xion is constantly getting misgendered throughout all of Days, and it visibly upsets her every time, but crucially she is not being misgendered by being called 'he'! She is being misgendered in a dysphoria-causing way by being referred to as not having any gender, let alone the gender she knows she has (which is girl). She has a full-blown crisis when she finds out she was not born a girl. The narrative also positions everyone who refers to her with non-gendered pronouns as doing active harm to her or as being villainous in that moment; Saix constantly calling her 'it,' DiZ scoffing at Namine using "she" to refer to Xion. The narrative is clear that what is upsetting and dysphoric to Xion is being referred to as having no binary gender, even moreso than being forced to become masculine, which only becomes an added layer of dysphoria at the very end of the game.

That being the case... WHAT is the deal with why it is so popular to misgender her in the exact same way? She's a girl. She transed her gender so hard she forced other people to literally see her as a girl even though her physical body was a doll's.

- Is it that this fandom doesn't think she 'passes' well enough, so she can't really be a girl like she says she is?

- Is it that this fandom thinks that even if she says she's a girl, her body doesn't have female sex characteristics so she can't really be a girl, she must be what her body dictates she is?

- Is it that she's not demure and soft like the other two girls with her face, so she can't really be a girl like them? That girls don't have open and assertive body language?

- is it that she was born from Sora, so she can't really be a girl because her origin was a boy and she must be somewhere in the middle?

- is it just an empathy gap, where people can't identify with a trans girl and need to make her less trans somehow? An inability to square the idea of choosing a binary gender on purpose? An inability to see why she would choose to be a girl specifically? Is it the thing where so many people in fandom right now can't get invested in characters unless they're "just like me frfr" and so she can't be a trans girl?

What is it?? Why is the ONE canon trans girl not allowed to be a trans girl? When there is an entire cast of characters to otherwise choose from whose narratives are not SPECIFICALLY ABOUT being trans and a girl? I simply do not get it.

[thyandrawrites]

Spinner didn't deserve to be discriminated against. He's not even the weirdest designed heteromorph in the story. And I'm pretty sure there's a good chunk of people, in and out of universe, who have a thing for lizard men. I may or may not be one of those people.

Lmao, outing yourself as a furry to support Spinner, I approve 🤣

Anyway yeah, Spinner didn't deserve that. Anti-heteromorphic discrimination is definitely a theme in bnha, though it's not always presented in big bold letters. There's children with heteromorphic mutations in class a (and b too, to an extent), but it's strange how the first time this issue was brought up as a societal problem instead of a passing remark (like Shouto calling Tauragamae "you damn mutt") is in the context of a villain backstory. Esp since there were other openings to do so before in the story. I'm pretty sure Shouji was on the verge of admitting to similar prejudices twice already, I can distinctly recall both times. Plus there's Hawks. A clear main character despite his late appearance, who is another heteromorph, who (on the surface) isn't suffering any kinds of discrimination that we know of.

To be honest, I'm not sure how I should interpret all this. I'm kinda torn. Part or me thinks it's another faucet of the inherent injustice of hero society and quirk elitism we're meant to pick up on and that Hori will eventually address, but another part of me fears that this is just another sensitive topic that hori is gonna handle poorly. Like being transgender. When it's Tiger, a hero, who is trans, the thing is only ever mentioned in his info file, with 0 relevance for the plot. When it's Magne, it's literally brought up as the only reason behind her villainy. She wasn't accepted for who she was. She sought a different world where she didn't have to hide. She died at the hands of someone who misgendered her.

I'm sorry, this is probably not the answer you were looking for, but I'm very :/ about the association of marginalized communities and villainy in bnha (there's also the issue of the casual ableism of Twice's death). Cause it seems to be systemic and instrumental to the existence of the current status quo, and I'm not sure Hori ever intends on addressing it as problematic (past the obvious sympathy it invokes in the readers)

[araisbored]

Obelisk

That’s the only quirky title I could come up to make this a little bit more interesting.

I’m reviewing my favorite book again. More like making another post about it. Because I seem like the type of person to not shut up about something she truly, truly, deeply love. Though, I won’t really making a review. Because I am in no state to make one of those. I don’t know I just I’m not that qualified to that yet. Though I read millions of books, I still won’t. I re-read my last “review” and it just make me cringe because I can’t understand what I’m saying and there’s a bunch of errors on my sentence. Not that this whole post won’t containing grammar errors, but still. Also, the cringing intensifies when I saw that Jennifer Niven (the author of this book) liked my bizarrely wrong blog entry. Ms. Niven, if by any chance, reading this again, I love your work and I’m sorry for a lot of grammatical errors. Ms. Niven, your work changed my life and help me get through a rough time. Sounds cliché but its the truth. 

To repeat what I typed, I won’t make a review. Yet, I’ll post a very private diary log which where I somehow discuss my opinions about this book. So here it is. 

Trigger warning: Suicide topics, cutting and mental issues might come up on the next following paragraph. And it’s really graphic. Because it is a personal log on my digital diary. Beware. 

May 17, 2019: Theodore’s death, Avengers: End game and GoT discussion.

I never had a proper review of this book. Because lets be real here. Its me and probably won’t matter. Last time or more like last last year, I made a book recommendation/favourites about this book. And I emphasize on that blog post that it’s not a book review. NOT A BOOK REVIEW. At all.

Because:

I am scared of the internet scrutinizing my opinions and views about this book.

It’s about mental health or part of it. So it is really a sensitive topic and I even haven’t figured myself out. So I’m not really sure if  I’m the right person you want to have an opinion regarding with this topic. One thing about me is that you don’t go asking me questions on how you figured your life or how you deal with depression because, oh boy oh boy you’re in a wrong place honey.

Last night I searched Theodore Finch on twitter. Yes, twitter. Because that is where you get the real opinions. Real tea. As well as the stupid ones. And I read one thread or whatever you call it, some sort of a conversation or replies from one girl to another. (I just assumed you’re girl and I’m sorry if you’re not. I am really sorry for misgendering you.) The other girl said that she’s kind of annoyed how everyone around Theodore doesn’t get the signs when it’s literally on their faces. When you come to think of it. Its true. All the signs of Theodore’s disease was there. Bluntly on their faces. It’s kind of fascinating how it’s not noticed by his family and friends or even Violet. But again right now thinking about it, maybe because it happened when this world just slowly noticing or paying attention about mental health. Hold a second, let me search when it was published. Yeah, I'm right its 2015. A year of coming of age for the late Baby Boomers are introduced to depression and when people, mostly teenagers are committing suicide. I would be very harsh on my words because it was just me talking to myself anyways. So yeah, that's also the year where I'm cutting myself and wanted to kill myself. So no wonder Finch’s family have no idea about his mishaps and adventures. So about that discussion, it was already solved. That year was just the year where naïve people are introduced to mental health and issues. Anyways, back to that conversation. The other girl defended the book/author. That the author, Jenifer Niven, was just portraying real life happenings. That these things happens in real life. People really die because of mental health issues. By the way, Finch mental diagnosis wasn’t really mentioned on the book directly. As far as I can remember. That’s why I'm re-reading it again now. But so far zero mentioned of diagnosis or bipolarity(Is that even a word? idc.). Just the mention of him wanting to kill himself, the erotic changes in his moods, lack of appetite and being insomniac. He doesn’t sleep one night or he sleeps then have very bad nightmares after that. It’s pretty obvious but again, let’s refer to the points given above. Oh, oh! Then there’s one time he repainted his bedroom from blood red to blue. If that’s not alarming enough then idk anymore. But yes, 2015. The coming of age and the year where we birthed more stupid late boomers. But, yes. Wild book. A very wild and very BRILLIANT book. It’s the stupid characters or the people in Finch’s life that suck. Which is why I kind of sided to the girl who said that that the author doesn’t really write the characters well. Let’s call her Girl A. And the other girl who defend Niven, Girl B. I’m pretty sure you’re both girls but just in case, I’m gonna apologize again if I'm  misgendering you. Or if you don’t wanna be called a girl. I can’t say or disclose that Girl B was wrong because he clearly have a point too. It happens in real life. People die from depression and I might be one soon.

Just wanna say that It’s a good discourse. Arguments like that are my favorites where both sides are not wrong nor right either, makes you really think. A read. Both the book and that twitter discourse. If you happened to read it, good. But if not sorry I can’t link it for you. 

So for my opinion (oh no, here we go) I agree on both of them , as if its not yet obvious. I guess if it was written in the present days the author could’ve change the characters and made Finch alive. Or checked-in in a mental institution or he’ll be given a medical assistance he really needs. Because the only medical attention he was given was thru his Guidance councilor, Embryo. Which is a good thing, but also I think Finch’s situation needs more professional attention. No offence to all guidance councilors out there. I know you guys try your best. But you know, Niven can make Finch visit a psychiatrist in a clinic/mental institution right? Like violet. I know Finch’s financial state is bad but.. idk there’s something can be done here. But again it was during that time where people are shouting “Depression isn’t real”, stupid people posting tweets and Facebook status on how “Suicide is for the week”; they watch 13 reasons why and decided to skip the whole point of the show and just assumed that “yeah depression is for the weaklings”. It only shows how ignorant people are. They’re the kind of people who standby when you get punch on the face or laugh when people spreads rumors and lies about you. Basically, bystanders. I’m sorry I’m a little snappy. If you haven’t noticed. I don’t know I’m just mad today.

I think the book still holds it. And justify the ending. Though part of me really hate it too. But it kind of made me realized about a lot of things, not just about me but also about how I should interact with other human beings. I hate the ending because it breaks my heart but I guess it was necessary?? Or not. Any how,  It was a good ending. Maybe its just me because I’m a masochist. But I can not think of any other impactful and realistic way on ending it. (Rereading this again and I just need to clear things up. That IM NOT A MURDERER OR A KILLER. I DONT NORMALIZE SUICIDE,  but from a standing point the ending is justified. Its sad but its, again, realistic.) But still, breaks my heart, Theodore is a precious boy. Who deserves nothing but love. And I hope his story was more known by the people so jackasses would know how to treat their family and friends better. 

[This part was cut because I talked about Avengers and GoT ending; Which is very relevant to this topic]

Love,

Ara xx

So yeah, that’s some of my diary entry. Re-reading it makes me realized how funny I am. Jesus I should read more of these. Who knows, I might post it here. If it’s not that personal. I’ll end this here now. I hope wherever you are you’re having a good day.

Ttyl, Ara!

[alchemist-shizun]

5 times Logan saved the day + 1 in which ... well that could’ve gone worse!

General taglist: @whizzie72 @sapphire-knight @burningpersonflapsuitcase @softanxiouspatton @royallyanxious

Word Count: 2,716

Characters: Logan, Roman, Deceit, Virgil, Remus and Patton

Pairing(s): Logicality

Warning(s): Misgendering, crying, implied aphobia

Summary: People could say Logan was excellent at saving people in extremis. When it came to him in particular, though … what could he say. He gay panicked.

A/N: Am I not just great at summaries? I had yet to do one of this type of fics so here goes nothing. I also took the opportunity to expand the lgbtq+ rep I have in my writings, hope you don't mind! Idea originated from this post, then @pistachio-lan inspired me so yeah thank you bud you're cool. Pardon me if some scenes are too short and other much longer I can't control my creative flow anymore-- I hope you all enjoy!

1- In which Logan saves Roman's day

Entering class with the widest smile any human muscle could ever bear, Roman practically bounced towards his seat.

A group of students immediately surrounded him, few were the times where one expressed such profound happiness first thing in the morning.

Logan eyed him from his desk right next to Roman's.

People started gathering and asking what was up with him, pushing the boy, who couldn't stop smiling, to confess the reason of such joy.

« I just had the most wonderful time last night. »

Multiple voices overlapped at that, with classmates asking for details, clarifications … who it was.

Only that, Roman had forgotten for a moment that literally none of them knew the only person he could have had a date with was a boy.

That was Logan's cue to act.

« You guys are aware we had to do a quick research for today, right? »

A chaos of “what?” and similar shocked expressions ensued, driving the attention away from Roman.

« The teacher said he was going to ask what we found out about the most recent discovery on Mars. »

« Oh, you've got to be kidding me. » that one kid that, for some reason, was always ahead of the program, hit their head against the backpack they had laid on the surface of the desk. « I literally spent the whole afternoon yesterday looking stuff up and I left it all at home! »

The situation could only worsen, people frantically ran around the room with some friends, competing at who found information first.

The hint of an amused smile crossed Logan's lips.

« You just made that up. » he heard Roman go, who had noticed his behavior.

« Isn't it lovely to watch the whole class go wild with dismay? »

Roman snorted and absorbed their classmates' despair. « You're a mean one, Lo. » he kept looking ahead of himself. « But thank you. »

Neither of their smiles faltered.

2. In which Logan rescues Deceit from a probably very uncomfortable explanation.

Nights out with friends often meant the weirdest stuff was about to happen. The one time they had started to jokingly call one of their group “Deceit” was definitely one of their top moments.

But, especially, the most delirious ones happened when they threw ridiculous YouTube videos or vines in the lot.

« Look at this. » Logan and Deceit leaned on the table towards their two friends. It was an extract from a song Bo Burnham had released years prior.

And, well, when certain comments come to you naturally … there's no way to stop yourself before the deed is done.

« Oh, that's me. » Deceit had said. Or, actually, Deceit had said right upon hearing the lyric “half-boy”.

Promptly forgetting for a single instant his other two friends had no clue of him being a demi-boy.

Not even the hint of a single trait of confusion could paint their friends' faces when Logan intervened.

« I've actually seen one of his shows in person in the past. »

« Oh my goodness, you have? » wide eyes stared at him with deep interest.

As the three engaged a conversation on the comedy skills of the man, Deceit was able to steady his heartbeat and take some deep breaths to release the anxiety that had taken over his chest.

He caught Logan's eyes when the waiter had arrived with their orders; he raised a hand and pressed his fingers to his chin, then moved them slightly outward in Logan's direction.

Thank you.

Logan gave a small nod and, just like that, everything went back to the regular outing.

3- In which Logan is Virgil's coolest cousin.

To say Virgil despised having guests over for the night was an understatement. He was obliged to tidy up his generally messy but comfortable room when all he ever wanted was to sleep for eternity as soon as he touched his pillow.

And, of course, there was always something out of place that his little cousin pointed out. Not that he had allowed her to follow him when he had excused himself upstairs.

He heard Logan's voice echo « Miranda! » around the steps.

The door to Virgil's room opened and Miranda was already jumping on his bed.

« Viv! Your bed sheets are so fluffy! »

Virgil forced himself to smile. “She doesn't know.” he repeated in his mind. “It's just a nickname.”

« Miranda, didn't you hear your parents telling you to stay down? » Logan's reprimanding tone made the kid giggle.

« Maybe. » the two older cousins shared a playful eye roll.

« Come on. » Logan held his hand out towards her.

« But I want to stay in her room to see what she does! »

She doesn't know.

« Have you ever heard of privacy? »

« Nope. » Miranda laughed.

Then she noticed something and her eyes grew with curiosity.

« What's that? »

Virgil's eys followed her gaze and fell upon his binder. Of course, out of all things, she had to notice that.

He went to open his mouth to say something, but nothing came out. What could he make up this time? Whatever he told her, she would have wanted to try it on at all costs.

Were he to say the truth, though ... she'd have probably gone to their relatives talking about how he had a weird piece of clothing and that could only end badly.

« Oh, that must be part of your future cosplay? »

Virgil snapped his head back up only to be met with Logan's quick wink.

Keep it up.

« Oh, yeah. I have to sew some things on. »

Miranda gasped in amazement and clapped her hands together. « Can I try it? »

Damn.

« I'm afraid you should have your cousin's exact size. If not, that particular material would be damaged in the ending result. » did he keep lying only to protect him?

The kid whined but dropped the disappointment right away. « What's the name of the character? »

« Virgil. »

« Who is he? »

« Well, just ... » Virgil narrowed his eyes, looking for the best explanation. « Just a boy. »

« Why him? » Miranda was in that brilliant age where everything needed to be questioned.

Logan checked with a side glance to see if his cousin needed assistance. Instead, he found him smiling to himself.

« It makes me happy. »

The little girl seemed pleased enough with that answer. « Then can I cosplay with you one day? Carnival is near! »

« Of course, I can make whichever costume you prefer. »

She squealed in joy and threw her arms around him, squeezing him tightly.

Then, she started running off towards the stairs. And she said it.

« Thank you, Virgil! » giggling was heard, but, apart from that, complete nothingness.

Until Virgil dropped on the edge of the bed with his hands covering his face, a slight tremble could be seen shaking his body.

Logan was immediately by his side, offering one of his rare hugs that Virgil gladly accepted.

It felt so nice. Achieving a goal prematurely but ultimately feeling the satisfaction melt away with the knowledge that he was never going to experience that ever again.

What an utopic illusion.

« It's fine. You're okay. » Logan tried, as his cousin's body shook with every sob he failed to repress.

« I'm sorry. »

« Don't be. »

Virgil let go of him as he started wiping his cheeks clear of fresh tears of fear and frustration.

When he looked at the other again, there was a hint of a smile dancing on his lips. « You're the best cousin. »

Logan returned it. « Always glad to be of help. »

4- In which Logan prevents Remus from carving his eyes out out of annoyance.

The blissful rest lunch-break gave after hours of mostly a quiet balance between interest and boredom was the most important reward as noon approached.

That wasn't exactly the case all the time.

Logan and Remus were sitting with two of their classmates who just so happened to have lab afterwards with both of them.

It wasn't like the they were particularly irritating people, on the contrary they radiated a calm energy most of the times.

That one day, though. It seemed something had happened in one of their lives and they needed all the time in the world to get every single detail out. They involved every one of them in the conversation and everything would have been fine if they had stopped at simply asking opinions on the matter.

« C'mon Remus, how about you? »

« What? »

« You never talk about this stuff. » one of the two leaned forward. « Spill the beans. There has to be someone you like. »

Remus smiled falsely. Oh, he was so done. They had gone the last fifteen minutes trying to get out of him information that he didn't have.

« Of course! You if you stuffed your mouth with trash bags and finally stopped talking. »

« Aw, stop being weird and evading the question. »

Logan eyed the one who had just spoken.

« I am not, I just don't care. »  Also, since I'm aromantic, I'd really appreciate if you stopped before I prohibit your breathing.

« Everybody gets crushes! »

And I'm about to crush your face.

Remus's hands started fidgeting out of stress under the table, which Logan noticed.

He was about to snap.

« I do. »

The two lab partners' eyes widened and focused on Logan all at once.

« You what now? »

Remus's face was painted with a confused expression: he knew his friend would never open up about himself to acquaintances, let alone about his feelings.

It was what happened after that made him understand.

The other two completely concentrated their attention on Logan, started asking questions about the boy he had been referring to, trying to guess who his crush was almost as if it was a game or anything of their business.

It … did feel kind of sad.

As Remus was able to catch his glance for a sole moment, he wore the “you didn't have to do that” expression.

All he saw was Logan shrugging in a “it doesn't matter” way and carrying on with subjecting himself to the pain of their classmates.

He made a mental note to remind him how grateful he was for that funky little nerd's existence.

5- In which Logan is the Patton protector.

Having friends living nearby school sometimes meant hang out invitations. Also, it often times meant free food which was everything that was good in the whole planet.

Logan had internally beamed as Patton had come back to the living room asking him to stay for dinner, while he had pretended not to hear a faint “Would you like to stay forever?” coming from his little sister.

He had tried not to agree right on the spot, but it was difficult to hesitate when being asked to spend even more time than intended with one of his favorite people.

That was how the two of them were now sitting with Patton's lovable family, discussing unimportant things and just all around enjoying their time.

Logan loved being around them, it was a delightful break from the coldness in his own home, he could get along with all the components just fine.

There was a television behind Patton's parents; they hadn't been exactly listening to the news, but it seemed a broadcast about the recent Pride parade in town was being held.

« Oh look! » Patton pointed to the screen with a toothy smile as a pan flag flashed across the TV.

He froze while his parents' expression grew perplexed the more they paid attention to the news.

« You really need to get rid of this habit you have of getting excited when you see dogs. » Logan started, adjusting his glasses as Patton and his parents turned to him.

« Why? » Patton's confused tone was half-real.

« You almost startled me simply because there was a dog on television. »

That was when he understood. « It was an adorable husky, Logan! »

Laughter started to fill the room and the previous disorientation was soon forgotten.

As his guest stood up to get more food, Patton heard a whisper being stealthily delivered to his ear.

« Be careful. »

He couldn't help but smile to himself. Logan was always on the lookout for others and it was a quality that almost came natural to him.

And he needed to thank him for that properly.

6- In which Logan forgets to stop himself.

An echo of “thank you”s rained down on Logan yet again as he and Patton stepped out on the garden of Patton's home.

This time, though, there was none to prevent him from potentially ruining his relationship with his interlocutor. And, ultimately, even everyone else around him.

As his cousin was used to believe the worst outcomes to happen, it did actually affect him at times. But, in that moment, he had gone completely blank and forgot to steady his impulse control.

« I'd do anything for you. » was what aimed fire.

He had meant to only think that.

Yet, he didn't find heartbreak and misery.

Instead, he watched as Patton's expression softened even more. Patton got a few steps closer, so that only Logan could hear his murmur.

« I feel the same. »

Logan's eyebrows arched slightly. Happiness quickly gave way to a clenching feeling in his chest.

« No, wait. » he responded, looking down and then back up. « I don't think that's a good idea. »

Patton's eyes narrowed for a moment. « For me to like you? » that was absurd and maybe his tone was a bit hurt.

Why would he say something like that?

« Lo, you're a wonderful person, and- »

« No- I mean, it's not that. » Logan gesticulated, trying to find the best explanation without actually telling anything.

« Logan, you know whatever you'll tell me, all the good things I think of you won't change. »

The boy took a deep breath, some of the weight relieved already.

« I am asexual. » he looked away immediately. « And I know plenty of people despise that and say it's not real, so if you don't- »

« I think that's wonderful. » when Logan met Patton's gaze, he found one of those smiles Patton only dedicated to him. « And I don't see why I shouldn't like that about you, too. »

A smile slipped on Logan's face, the dreadful feeling leaving space for relief. « Now you're just making it too difficult with your unconditional love. »

Patton let out a quiet snicker. « Well then, » his tone grew bolder. « We could talk this over dinner sometimes soon if you'd like? » he had clapped his hands together, looking up at Logan with a twinkle of hope in his eyes.

« That was too sly for me to refuse. »

« As if you weren't happy I just asked you out! »

All Logan could do was, of course, groan at how flustered that line made him. « I'll concede that to you. »

As the time to part drew nearer, Patton took two steps back, thoughtful.

« Are you okay with hugs right now? »

Despite having told his friends years prior of how he had never fancied physical touch that much, he was always grateful whenever they posed that question.

« I am. »

« Alright. » Patton stepped closer again and wrapped his arms around Logan's neck, who returned the hug rather quickly as he heard a quiet “thank you” being whispered to his ear.

Then, the shorter boy stepped away, but kept his hands on Logan's shoulders.

« You're my hero. »

With that, Patton was gone.

And Logan was left astonished in the middle of a summer's night.

[trisanachandlers]

other thoughts on lioness rampant:

it is far and away THE BEST book in this quartet in terms of writing

it also strikes me as the most cinematic, in that it has the most moments that like... filled me with childlike glee at the idea of getting to see it adapted for tv? I guess we still don’t really know what exactly is getting adapted or how it will be done but god I want to see the whole coronation day battle sequence so badly! it may be because I specifically turned that part of my brain on at some point in this book like I hadn’t for the others but throughout almost all of it I had really clear mental images of everything and everyone. of course I’m tempering my expectations because even if it does get adapted everything could be so different from how I imagine it, but you know, all any of us really wants in life is the experience my mom had with the movie of the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe where in the theater we got to the sweeping shot of the tents in aslan’s camp and she gasped and went “oh my god this is EXACTLY how I always pictured it” anyway that’s what I want from literally every scene starting with the ordeal of kings and ending with alanna v roger

it’s also the best alanna and jonathan book, even more so now that I’m like an adult who can relate to/fully delight in the relationship between people who used to be in love and therefore know each other really really well and are amicable enough to use that fact to just roast each other constantly, with affection

seriously there is not a single moment in this book where they’re in the same room and it doesn’t quickly become the funniest fucking thing i’ve ever read. “jon, do i really have to say ‘awesome artifact’? oh well, guess I’m too old to put a frog in his bed”

I reblogged someone’s john mulaney quotes as sotl characters post a while back and the only one I was like “huh?” about was gary as “it’s a grid system, motherfucker!” because I had largely forgotten the details of what happened in these books until this reread since it’d been like 11-12 years, so when I got to the part where gary is like “actually the practical work of running a kingdom is really interesting! grain prices and farmers and” my brain went “IT’S A GRID SYSTEM, MOTHERFUCKER” and I fully burst out laughing on an airplane and startled my seatmates

more (gay) thoughts below

“love you. always have. always will. never know how he did it”

don’t have much else to say about that i’ve just been lying on the floor weeping softly for days

the thing is I’ve reread protector of the small at least once, some books several times, and I’ve reread trickster at least twice, and I haven’t reread all of immortals but I’ve read wild magic and emperor mage at least twice each, but I really hadn’t reread song of the lioness because I was always like “I love these books in spirit but they really weren’t as good in terms of the writing and also the problematic white savior stuff so I’d rather reread the better work she’s done later in her career & the development of this world,” and as a result I think I’d forgotten how major a character thom actually is? (had also highkey forgotten this about coram, gary, and alex because in the intervening decade my brain had simplified it down to “these books are about alanna, her cat, her three big love interests, thayet and buri in the last book, and of course roger, and also raoul is there I guess”) but the thing is I think that also happened because like alanna and george and raoul and jonathan and thayet and buri all get to keep being, like, obviously not major characters but important secondary characters, because some of them are important to kel, and sometimes to daine, and obviously to aly. but even though liam is right about it being meaningful to die for something important, alanna also has a point in that argument because a character can’t continue being important to the story if they’re dead! anyway I’m sad

I know this has been commented on before but they’re all so freakin’ young! which I did not understand when I was 12 but now jonathan is ascending the throne and he is literally my age! what the fuck!

another thing about being older is I’ve gotten over the thing I had as a kid where I never wanted to love the main characters best because I felt like I was supposed to and I didn’t want to do what I was supposed to do or something, and wow, I love alanna so deeply, she is so perfect, she is so flawed, I adore her so much. She is such a badass! She is such a good friend! She is such a good sister! She is such a good daughter (to myles, to be clear)! She is such a complicated and evolving partner who learns so much about how to be a better one over time! She and george are SO GOOD TOGETHER in the end

I know tammy kind of sidestepped saying whether she’s bisexual (or misinterpreted the question, was my impression?) and talked about her being genderqueer instead but also I get such a bi vibe from like every part with thayet. there is a compelling argument that it really is alanna, as a person attracted to men, negotiating femininity and male attraction and her feelings around it through her friendship with thayet, who is very conventionally feminine and beautiful! but also “she is so beautiful, I think I want to... be her” is such a classic confused baby sapphic thing at least among gays now that like.... also for a scene involving three people who are all ostensibly heterosexual, the part where alanna refuses to wear a dress to present the princess she rescued to the king, who is her ex-lover, who she was in a secret relationship with while presenting to everyone else as a guy, feels very, very queer to me

anyway alanna and jonathan are both bi

(my read of first adventure was also that jonathan totally had a crush on page alan well before he knew about alanna but anyway)

also I had fully forgotten about the part where she gets misgendered (basically?) in the tavern in maren and people think she’s a twink and liam’s boyfriend/a guy who is in love with him in a gay way, which then doesn’t really go further than confusion and the vague sense that being mistaken for gay = danger in this universe. but if alanna + gender gets to be more nuanced in the 21st century, as I would hope from that tammy tweet, then I would be interested to see if there’s more things like that adapted into a tv version.

I would think also SURELY alanna and jon were not THAT subtle like once ~her secret is revealed~ everyone back home seems to figure out they were lovers like by the time jonathan goes to visit the bloody hawk but like that part in maren suggests to me there is NO WAY the heterosexuals of the eastern lands are SO clueless that the court wouldn’t have noticed prince jonathan and squire alan were definitely fucking behind their backs

can katherine have little a trebond twins talking about queerness, as a treat? but anyway

since alanna is myles’ heir now and she is alanna of pirate’s swoop and olau then why isn’t thom of pirate’s swoop named thom of pirate’s swoop and olau

also george and alanna’s conversation at the end about settling down and getting married and having children after roaming together is much funnier now that I know, from having read all of the tortall wiki, that thom of pirate’s swoop is born while they are on a mission

that’s it I guess it’s a good book and I love it and I’m excited to start rereading immortals and see just what the fuck adult me thinks of THAT

[rogueofsoup]

Why is it that whenever there's a strong female character and a male lead or even a strong female lead and an important male character (I'm looking at you Wonder Woman) the woman always has to fall in love with the man?

Why is it that when there's a society of women the only time romance is even MENTIONED it's when a man suddenly shows up?

Why is it in some movies where the leading female character says she's a lesbian and hangs out with the leading male character, by the end of the movie she tells the main male lead that she was just lying about being gay so that he wouldn't flirt with her and now she's in love with him?

Where's my strong lesbian lead who will not give two shits (romantically speaking) about a handsome guy suddenly appearing in her life? WHERE'S MY STRONG LESBIAN LEAD AND HER ADORABLE LESBIAN GIRLFRIEND?

Also, where's my bi character who's not portrayed as "they'll fuck anything that moves"?

Where's my gay male character who's not "very obviously gay" (flamboyant, kinda girly, "less manly" than the other male characters, dresses scantily, swings hips while walking, literally anything people see as "stereotypically gay")?

Where's my straight male character who likes to feel fabulous and extra™ at times and isn't a bad guy? (like Megamind, but labeled as good from the start)

Where's my neurodivergent (has Asperger's or autism or something like that) character that isn't played for laughs?

Where's my disabled character that isn't seen as or even acts like they're weaker than the other characters?

Where's my female character with ADHD that isn't played up as basically constantly vibrating?

Where's my character AT ALL with ADHD that doesn't "act active enough" but still has actually diagnosed ADHD?

Where's my PoC character that's not just inserted for diversity, and is actually really important?

WHERE'S MY GODDAMN CHARACTER WITH VITILIGO?!!

Where's my character with malformed body parts that makes due enough to not be treated as anything less than the other characters?

Where's my Jewish character that isn't depicted as being a bad person?

Where's my "the weird kid" character who actually has features and actions that kids in school would actually find weird (such as neurodivergent characters), but they're not played entirely for laughs and they actually have """normal""" (neurotypical) friends that are actually super supportive of them and know how to help them in the specific ways that help them when they need it and don't get annoyed by their coping mechanisms? (As someone with ADHD, this one especially is very important to me)

Where's my great big intimidating character (male, female, neither, both, or whatever) who has a smol S.O. who calls them cute nicknames that just make them melt?

Where's my nonbinary character that definitely looks masculine or feminine because they actually really like how they look in that way (nb character with facial hair and a very masculine build, nb character with a fairly curvy feminine figure and wears makeup)?

Where's my nonbinary character that isn't skinny?

Where's my ENTIRELY HUMAN nonbinary character?

Where's my genderfluid character? Where's my OVERWEIGHT genderfluid character?

Where's my overweight female character that doesn't even ONCE have anything said to her about her weight?

Where's my strong female character that you never see putting on makeup that doesn't automatically have clear skin and perfect eyeliner and sleek eyebrows (seriously what the hell is up with that it's just freaky)?

Where's my female lead that isn't what Hollywood describes as "beautiful"?

Where's my male lead that isn't what Hollywood describes as "beautiful"?

Where's more Jack Black just having fun with his character? Hell- where's ANY MORE ACTORS just having fun with their characters?

Where's my PoC characters voiced by actual people of color?

Where the FUCK did all of my fun Pure Evil Villains go?

Where's my female villain who isn't a seductress?

Where's my character with schizophrenia who isn't treated like a monster just waiting to strike?

Where's my character with multiple personality disorder that isn't several completely different people all squeezed into one person? (From the little research I've done, I'm pretty sure that's not what it's actually like being someone with that disorder)

Where's my character with a mental disorder PERIOD that doesn't end up being a bad guy? Like, ever?

Where are my characters who don't constantly have clear skin and clean hair, and don't wake up looking amazing?

Where's my antisocial character who isn't dark and brooding and just tries their best to look like they're having fun at social events despite being in a near constant state of "I wanna cry"?

Where's my antisocial character who does on occasion feel the need for socialization (in moderation, of course), even though it drains them?

Where are my characters who ugly cry?

Where are my shorter-than-average characters (adults around 3-4 feet) who are just normal HUMAN people just living their daily lives?

Where are my trans characters who pass as their desired gender (or lack thereof)? Where are my trans characters who don't pass as their desired gender (or lack thereof)? Where are my trans characters that aren't misgendered (or if they are at least someone other than the character (like their friend) actually corrects the person who misgendered them)? Where's my trans character that may on occasion get misgendered (like by a waitress or something), but doesn't correct them every single time it happens? Where's my trans couple?

Where's my multilingual character who forgets words in the language they're speaking so they switch to another language that they DO remember the word in? Where's my characters that only speak ONE language that forget words in their own goddamn language for a bit?

Where the absolute fuck is my (non-background) character who is 1 Jewish, 2 a PoC, 3 gay, 4 on the chubbier side, 5 not overly sexualized, 6 neurodivergent, 7 has chronic pain (completely unrelated to weight), 8 has adopted kids with their spouse, 9 unnecessary attention is NOT drawn to them being gay, 10 very much loves their spouse, 11 doesn't wear makeup and doesn't look like they wear makeup and they just let their real face and real skin (no matter how blemished it may be) be what they present, and 12 IS NOT PLAYED FOR LAUGHS OR SEEN AS ANY DIFFERENT FROM THE REST OF THE CHARACTERS ?

Step up your fucking game, Hollywood.

[velveetacrackncheese]

Hey, Rad... Alex... Alexlememe? I know that's the name you used to go by and I know you've kinda disconnected yourself from Viv's fanbase after ZP ended, and I remember your memes and such but I kinda just wanted to get your take on the Hazbin drama since you reblogged the headcanon blog's post on the subject. More or less regarding the issue of her being uncharitable to fans and non-fans alike, plus that one callout post on twitter?

So this is weird. I wasn’t expecting to get asks on the subject since like you said, I’ve generally been disconnected from the fanbase aside from the few reblogs here and there retaining to Hazbin and its more recent developments. But yeah I guess I could give my take on this since I mean.. old fans still follow me. Idk why, but they do!So, really. In regards to that callout post (which is now deleted) I really, really don’t care that much. For one thing, Initially I did because I really hated to see someone be slandered so viciously with inaccurate and uncharitable attacks, but I kinda just stopped because even when I linked the addresses from both Viv, and the Ken dude regarding all the drama mentioned, it was either ignored and resulting in me being called a “pedo sympathizer” or “It wasn’t even an apologyyyyy weh” and like, whatever. I stopped giving a shit.

Terms of the traced animation thing... Lol, ok. I mean homages do exist, and her animation thingy was based on a meme so whatevs.

Anyways,I knew from the very start that the whole “tracing” and “stealing designs” stuff was nonsense since there was an entire like, tumblr drama arc on the issue, and albeit Viv’s post is gone, there’s evidence of legal contracts regarding Jiji and that whole nonsense that was years ago. In regards to her drawing pictures of Blaire White and Shoe… Eh. I mean, yeah, fuck em, but she’s made it clear that she doesn’t support those views anymore, and she wasn’t even really aware of the other things they’d done at that point, and I see no real reason not to believe her because what does lying about that gain her? Yeah her comment on the “blackface” thing if you wanna call it that was dumb as shit, but considering 2016 was a rough year for her in terms of trying to find where she fell in the political sphere, I can relate because I was in the same boat. A lot of sjw cringe comps, shaming feminists, and purposely misgendering transpeople… Not a good time for me either! Course I’ve changed. I went from being a reactionary alt-centrist to an anarchist so. Whether that’s an improvement is up to you.

As for the whole pedo/zoo shit, I really don’t see it. I mean like, look, obviously porn art portraying people fucking feral animals is disgusting right. Not saying it isn’t problematic or anything, but to be fair, she did draw this shit like 8 years ago. I’ve seen worse from even more well-established artists and I don’t see people trying to cancel them? Also, the art was suggestive for one thing and not necessarily 100% porn. I mean it’s still creepy and gross, and I’d understand scolding them if they continued to do so but a lot worse, but I haven’t seen anything like that from Viv past those 2 drawings. As for the pedo shit… The relationship between a 17 year old and a 19 year old is… hardly creepy and reminiscent of pedo shit. So yeah no fuck that. Now with the drawing of Mirage and Kestrel and the tag that said something jokingly like “Mirage and her pedo tendencies” or whatever… Yeah idk, I can’t defend that lmfao. Again, Viv said she disapproves of those drawings and doesn’t care to think about them, but that one piece of artwork definitely had some baggage to it that made me feel uncomfortable after reading the tags.Only issue I took in terms of her addressing that, is that she was very adamant about it being an inside joke… Which if that’s true, you must’ve had some fucked up friends like damn.

I would also like to state that cub art is legitimately disgusting and I am of the belief that it can cause harm depending on the context since I assume the consumption of cub art can reinforce the urge for pedophiles to act on their desires instead of finding healthy coping mechanisms for it through therapy. There have been stories from younger users on the internet that older people have tried to groom them and have the notion of pedos preying on them be normalized by sending them art depicting kids in sexual acts with adults. Of course in isolation cub art isn’t as harmful as the actual act of raping a child, and I would argue that people have their priorities kind of messed up since the illustration being acknowledged should be part of combating pedophiles preying on children. However, people, typically twitter wokescolds tend to focus on the art solely and I don’t know why. There’s a lot of MAPS trying to find their way into LGBT spaces and it’s fucking gross.

Now with Hazbin itself… It’s meh. Initially I watched it with rose-tinted glasses and loved it. After watching it for like… the 3rd, 4th, 5th time? It’s alright. I don’t hate it, but it’s far from perfect. Now ofc I know it’s a pilot but a very lengthy pilot I’ll say. My biggest gripe with the pilot is that the editing is really fucking weird. Like the editing where Angel tells Alastor “I can suck yah dick!” and the scene that followed was really off. It seemed like too many cuts were made in that instance and seemed very cluttered. It also feels that way during Charlie singing “Inside Every Demon is a Rainbow” and how many little animated bits were like almost wiped off the screen by how fast it came by, and ntm there was just so much happening all at once on screen as well. I had to pause at points just to process everything that was happening. The palette is also very, very, verrrry red. There’s so much red going on and like… I get it, it’s in hell. But lemme rest my eyes on something else besides red, please. The palette they use needs to be better diversified, and the same goes for the characters too. Every character seems to have red on them. Whenever Baxter shows up later he’s gonna look really out of place. Some of the jokes were ok, and others seemed non-clever. I didn’t think Angel’s joke about sucking Al’s dick was funny. I did like the joke with Pentious and Angel though. “SON??” Some of it could’ve been written better too.

Regarding the drama with the show itself… Personally I don’t get it. Like, I don’t feel as if Angel is homophobic as a character since his queerness isn’t at the face of the jokes he makes? He just happens to be sex worker which… sex workers are fine? Support sex workers y’all, seriously. There’s also nothing intrinsically wrong with being sexually active either? As long as it’s within reason and you’re being trustworthy.The issue lies in the fact that people viewed the things I just mentioned as negative, and associate it with gay people as said negatively portrayed thing to push the sentiment of “Gay man do sex a lot therefore the gays bad” or that sort of thing. Also there’s a bit where it shows there’s more emotional depth to him and I’m hoping they’ll expand on that later. Honestly though, the criticisms in regards to that have been pretty uncharitable. Same with the criticisms for Vaggie. Apparently Vaggie is racist because… she’s loud and angry? Again, this is a case where people assume those traits are negative, and because it’s assumed to be negative, the negatively portrayed thing pushes the sentiment of “Being a loud fiery woman made, and latina women are that, therefore latina women bad” or some shit.  There are stereotypes that are bad no matter what the context is like sambo-esque caricatures of black people. Then there are tropes that are applied to certain demographics that have the capability to be written well into characters without it being offensive or disrespectful. Vaggie is literally angry because she’s protective of her gf. Like. C’mon.

So, I think that settles what I think about that? It honestly seems like superficial shit to me tbh, and I’m saying this as an sjw-y beta cuck anarchist.

The only REAL gripe I have, is with what the mod from @zpheadcanons posted. Because I know this is probably true as much as it hurts me to say it. Faust def has a history of being pretty petty and bully-like to people she deems undesirable, and Viv harbors it by not criticizing it, and if anyone else within their friend group does it then you’re scolded vehemently and treated like garbage. Her attitude also stretches to harboring an audience full of white knights that I personally don’t approve of.

There’s also this

Faust has hurt distant people I personally know and… yeah. Maybe I’m biased but I can’t vibe with that. Sorry. If you don’t make an effort to criticize abusive behavior within your own friend circles then that makes you just as bad, because then you’re just a bystander to things you could have prevented.

This isn’t to say Viv herself hasn’t dealt with bad faith actors, or people who had the intention to hurt her, or very uncharitable criticism. Particularly from the badwebcomics forums which is honestly 4chan like in how they operate. It’s vicious as hell, and a lot of their criticisms boil down to insults and personal attacks, which serve to be nonconstructive. That’s not to say Viv has been kind to even the more charitable criticism though. I know because when I happened to send an ask to the zoophobia criticism blog (where did it go???) regarding something relatively minor and superficial, she blocked me from her blog. I’m still blocked lmfao. I’m not blocked on twitter though! (not yet anyways). Faust has me blocked there though, and I have no idea why. She’s had me blocked for years even though I haven’t spoken out against her till recently. So, there’s that.

As for her apology itself, I feel like it was fine. I think it could’ve been worded better? The take I disagree with in terms of that is like… If I made a mistake in the past, and I make it clear that I don’t care for what I did, I don’t feel as if me explaining why I felt compelled to do certain things negate me from still not caring for my past actions? That’s just me providing context. That’s a really weird take, but I guess that could be viewed as an excuse idk. Personally I think people are holding the bar super high to a state of irrationality.

*sigh* So yeah there’s that. I miss the old days where honestly I could be ignorant about this, but at the same time I look at my old obsessive posts and I kinda just… cringe. I was such an irrational stan I almost hate myself for it. Fuck XD

Edit: I’d also like to point out that I’m not saying Viv or Faust are totally awful or totally good people, and I know they’re capable of being better. It’s a matter of whether or not they wanna be better.

[koishikomeijiofficial]

copypasting this but

w pride month approaching i want to make something very clear please stop pushing nonbinary people out of your field of vision. it starts with the smallest things, but it can be really upsetting. like a character who uses they/them pronouns, but instead people say "well i see her as a girl" or "i see him as a boy". that's not for you to decide, and it's little things like this that help to erase us from the narrative altogether. we're nnot here for you to project whatever identity you want onto us. we're not "ambiguous so you can decide the gender". that's not what we're here for. let characters who use they/them exist. it's so upsetting to just...... want something, anything to be able to relate to, but people take the little rep you could have had and turn it into what they think is right. it hurts. people who say he/she instead of just saying them when talking about a person whose gender identity they aren't sure of and then say they/them is a plural and bad grammar. i PROMISE you that you've used they/them when talking about an unknown person before. i know you have. you probably weren't even thinking about it. also, google it. people only have issue with ~grammar~ when it comes to disrespecting nonbinary people. also, literally just say they...... it's shorter than he/she. jesus people who blatantly misgender nonbinary people because "i dont believe in nonbinary identities, its not real" it is real. we exist. we're here. this isn't a matter of opinion, and we're not unicorns. we exist and we are here. i don't expect cis people to understand. if you're not trans or nb, you won't understand. it's just a fact. but what i need you to do is respect. nonbinary people exist. please stop turning our lives into a grammar debate. stop taking what very little we have in terms of representation and molding it to whatever gender you prefer. because you hate the idea of nb people so much that any person or character using they/them makes you so upset that you Have to assign a male/female label to them...... it's exhausting. i'm tired. stop erasing me and people like me.