#me and my lover are both nonbinary in our own ways and we don't even know if theres a word for that

[jupiterstupiter]

Old mask yaoi 🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨⭕️⭕️⭕️⭕️😱😱😱😱

[p0is0n-is-th3-cur3]

My silly little (1030 word) analysis on The World is Ugly and how it's about homophobia/transphobia for those who care.

Tw: homophobia/transphobia, hate crimes, suicide.

“These are the eyes and the lies of the taken”

When you’re openly queer it feels like all eyes are on you, you get called slurs and lies and misinterpretations are spout towards you. Especially if you were raised in a religious space, you grow up learning that queer people are going to burn in hell, that you are a failure and a sinner.

“These are their hearts, but their hearts don't beat like ours”

Straight people don’t love the same way we do, they don’t understand us. Their hearts don’t beat like ours, they don’t live the same way we do. They don’t understand us, which often leads to them fearing and hating us.

“They burn 'cause they are all afraid”

Living in a bigoted/religious family, while being queer is hard. It’s scary, you’re constantly afraid, afraid of what would happen if they find out, afraid of what they’ll do if you slip up and out yourself. You have to misgender friends around them for you and your friends safety, you have to pretend lovers are just close friends.

This could also be referring to the fact that bigots are afraid of us, they might deny it but they are. 

“For every one of us there's an army of them”

It feels like there’s an army of bigots at your door at all moments, threatening you, telling you you’re a sinner and a groomer. That you'll burn in hell if you don't turn to their god and repent for nonexistent sins.

“But you'll never fight alone”

I feel like this depicts a lover, telling their parter that they don’t have to fight the oppression alone. That they’ll always have their back, that they’ll never fight alone. I see this in my own relationship, both me and my partner are living in religious households, being told that being queer is a sin. In my case as a person who is out to my family (though they think I’m nonbinary and lesbian) being told that I am a sinner, cursed to rot in hell for all eternity. 

“'Cause I wanted you to know that the world is ugly but you're beautiful to me”

Here the lover/found family member telling a person that while the world may be ugly, while they may be oppressed. While the world may be on fire, and dying, while wars may kill thousands an injure many more. That they are beautiful, that they are beautiful to them. 

“These are the nights and the lights that we fade in”

This could be depicting the lovers/found family running away from bigoted families to be together fading into the night to live their lives together happily. Free from the people who harmed them and kept them apart. It’s a story you hear a lot, leaving your bigoted family to be openly yourself, it’s a story that I hope to have some day.

“These are the words, but the words aren't coming out, they burn 'cause they are hard to say”

I’m going to take ‘coming out’ in the literal sense here. Telling bigoted family who you are is borderline impossible, those words are so incredibly hard to say. They’re like burning fire on your tongue, in your throat. Burning a hole through your very being because you know they could ruin your life. Being kicked out is a real possibility, a terrifying one at that. They could get you beat, shamed, sent to conversion therapy.

“For every failing sun there's a morning after”

Life feels so isolating as a queer person in a bigoted/religious space, like the sun is failing, like the night will never end. Here we see a lover/found family member insuring that even when the present is so dark and bleak, that there’s a morning after. There’s light ahead if you’re able to fight long enough to see it, that you will survive.

“Though I'm empty”

You feel so empty hiding, so empty pretending you’re okay. Like you’re a hollow shell, trying to stay alive long enough to get to that light. Looking in the mirror makes you feel sick, hollow. Your mind whispers “That isn’t you, that isn’t your body.” And you know you can’t do anything about it till you’re in a place where you can move away and live freely. You look at your partner while pretending to be just friends and all you can think of is being openly together, holding hands in public and declaring you’re taken. Every time someone asks you “Why aren’t you dating anyone yet?” and you have to say you just haven’t met the right person yet, when in reality you’ll never meet the right person because you don’t feel that way about people. It’s such a sad and empty feeling.

“Are you thinking of me like I'm thinking of you?”

A good amount of queer relationships are hidden, quiet and unnoticed. This often leads to feelings of doubt in your relationship, you struggle to tell if they do still truly love you. If they’re thinking of you like you’re thinking of them.

“These are the lies and the lives of the taken”

 Bigotry kills, the lies spread by bigots leads to hate crimes and suicides. Their lie take lives, their lies lead to dead children.

“These are their hearts, but their hearts don't beat like ours, they burn 'cause they are all afraid. But mine beats twice as hard.”

Queer people in religious spaces are forced to be resilient, we all know the rules. Keep your head up, avoid questions about dating, when unable to avoid the questions say you haven’t found the right person, blend in. Your heart figuratively beats twice as hard.

“Stop your crying, helpless feeling, dry your eyes and start believing. There's one thing they'll never take from you”

Here a lover/found family member is telling a person that they’ll be okay, to stop crying and believe that they’ll survive long enough to make it to a safe space. When you’re trapped in an unaccepting space it can feel so helpless, so painful. There’s one thing that bigots will never take from us, our queerness, our existence.

[mxanigel]

For the fic writing ask: 10, 11, and 15 for An emotion I won't name

(You know I want to hear more about our shared Warden/Anders interest!!)

The noise I made seeing this ask 😆💜 thank you!! Prepare for rambling~

10: Why did you choose this pairing for this particular story?

Would it make sense if I said it was chosen for me? When I first played DAO Awakening last year, which happened after I first completed DA2, I was bowled over by how different Anders felt as a character. My Warden for said Awakening run happened to be my arcane warrior who had little headcanoned content by that point but didn't feel right as a female character. Comparatively, and unexpectedly, their interactions with Anders DID feel right. More natural than how they fit with their companions during Origins. One day, I had a random image land in my brain of Anders cornering Neri in a dark Keep hallway, and from that point forward the two of them became a potential romantic pairing. Though I couldn't figure out how that would work, especially given DA2, and obviously Awakening lacks a romance system to help me get ideas. So I wrote a one-shot to see how it might work, fell in love with the pairing in part because Awakening Anders helps Neri accept themself, realized I couldn't stop at a one-shot, and now I have an entire worldstate centered around Neri. With possible fic content planned out through DAI. Because it takes a long time for Neri to finally name the emotion they feel for Anders and even longer for them to confess that to him.

Also, I eventually commissioned art of that hallway scene~ (by Jack, @/YogSothott on Twitter)

11: What do you like best about this fic?

Other than the answer to #15 below, I'd say it's the emphasis on communicating with others, whether as friends or found family or lovers. And the damage that can be done when communication is poor or absent (see fic title lolsob). This idea extends to explicit consent regarding intimacy, to Anders accepting and encouraging Neri to act in ways that align with their identity, and to Neri navigating the line between friendship and being in command (like calling out Oghren over something he did post-battle in chapter 7). There's also the element of choosing what to (or not to) communicate, because we have parts of ourselves we don't always want to share with others.

15: What did you learn from writing this fic?

"An emotion I won't name" is super special to me for helping me explore my own identity, alongside challenging me because of how different Neri and I are in other ways. Neri is demiromantic and pansexual and seeks physical intimacy but fears emotional vulnerability. I'm on the other end of the spectrum for most of those traits, lol. But we're both nonbinary, and I'm more accepting of that about myself by writing Neri. Especially by writing their story in first-person POV, which enables me to inhabit their mind more directly, to see what they see and feel what they feel. They're also a slightly unreliable narrator, not that they necessarily realize that.

It's impacted my other fics in evolving ways, too. I think I'm a better writer for attempting first-person POV. I'm now more willing to play loose with canon because altered events in Neri's Awakening journey have cascading impacts for what transpires in DA2 and DAI. I also got to create characters I may never have imagined otherwise: Champion Dana Hawke, Inquisitor Raven Cadash, non-Warden Heather Cousland. All characters who now mean a lot to me.

Link to the fic for anyone curious:

(rated M, agender Warden/Anders, multiple chapters with NSFW content, ongoing)

[g0reoz]

GIVE ME UR XHAKA HEADCANONS RN ALSO RUWEI IF U WOULD BE SO KIND

of COURSE i would be so kind ^^

xhaka:

-tbh when u mentioned smth about him being like. some kind of mlm but also just using "queer" as a general descriptor i was like Yeah That Checks out. so. OUR headcanon ☭

-iknow he is probably cis. i know this in my heart. but also have you considered that Baby Trans-And-In-Denial Gavin realized that wearing baggy, straight cut pants and fucking w your posture makes it nearly impossible for ppl to read ur hip structure as feminine? have you considered that this guy saved me so much dysphoria. what if maybe he was transmasc and just fuckin killing it out there.

-listen xhaka and ruwei are best friends they are lovers they're a qpr they're dating they're in an unlabeled relationship. i don't even care. they are everything 2 me.

-mannn i wanted to see more interactions w him and shu in s1 :') dude was sooo desperate to battle shu and then the one time it happened was in s2 when shu was red eye and we rly only saw the aftermath :( more battles more interactions etc i think they had an interesting dynamic

-i don't really know or care enough abt shipping to have anything to say about a notp. aside from weird age gaps n stuff, it's kinda just whatever imo :)

-random headcanons: did you know he's a human space heater. now you do. not to project Too much, but if you're under the same blanket it's gonna be like a kotatsu lmao i also feel like he would be really into growing his own food; the dojo probably has a decent-sized garden :]👍 oh! and he has a nokia brick in 2022.

-ova. look at me. i think at this point you Know my opinion. for those of you who don't: i want to put him in the microwave. i think he would start sparking like when you put metal in there. this dude cracked the trans egg back in 2016 and has just sorta been rent free in my brain ever since. he's responsible for at least half of my outfit decisions at this point. he's not even that dynamic of a character he doesn't have any major arc or anything and yet..still one of (if not my absolute favorite) burst characters!! he's just like me fr (concerning)

-

ruwei:

-i think ruwei is bisexual. not gonna ngl.

-he/him but in a gender apathetic nonbinary way. the same way you refer to a random animal u see as he/him. i don't just say nb ruwei because of the long hair, either--he just sorta has that vibe.

-already mentioned that above lol

-ok this isn't exactly a brotp, but i want to see him interact with free at some point. they both come across as like rly calm and laid back but then they're both kinda Actually Insane. itwould be interesting. we should just let them go in the woods and befriend the local wildlife or something.

-idk. once again what else r people even shipping. i do feel like it would be annoying to see ruwei paired with ana though, just because it feels compulsively straight in the same way valt being paired with shasa is.

-RUWEI LISTENS TO WEEZER HE IS A WEEZER IM SORRY. IT'S TRUE. IT HAD TO BE SAID. HE TRAINS WHILE LISTENING TO IT SOMETIMES. he also can't keep a houseplant alive for the life of him. he isn't aware of this fact bc xhaka's been paying really close attention to the one he has ever since it was brought home. his bones and joints are also constantly cracking, which occurs so suddenly and loudly that it scares anyone in a 15-foot radius.

-my general opinion is that ruwei is cool 👍 like, in the way where he tries to be cool and badass but ends up looking kinda goofy while doing it, which circles back to being kind of impressive in a weird way. maybe not one of my favorite characters from all of burst, but definitely one of my faves from season 2!!