#ooc: yeah he's trans. Deal.

[sea-and-shores]

🌲  Pine: Do you prefer the cold, or the heat?

🍯 Honey: What is one thing you like about yourself?

Pine --

-> There be nothin' like the warm sun after days on th' sea, but it can become nuisance-like after a day or three. Though, th' cold be bringing an invitation to huddle together under the deck. I suppose it depends on th' conditions needed, but I would say the cold fer me.

Honey --

-> Me scars. Me scars from different battles, all tellin' a story. A'course, the physical fighting, plundering, but I think me favourites are from th' battle that I faced meself, now proud on me chest.

[froggywritesstuff]

dysphoria | angel dust

ship/pairing: Angel dust x trans!male!reader (reader has a uterus and still gets his period)

fandom: Hazbin Hotel

request: Can I request Angel Dust comforting his trans boyfriend when he gets his period and is extremely dysphoric and depressed about the whole thing. This whole week has been a shit fest of dysphoria and crying.

warnings: maybe ooc idk , I didn't clarify in my writing but first confession of love i guess, periods, gender dysphoria, swearing, crying, emotional breakdowns, petnames (reader gets called baby), rushed ending, bad sex joke

word count: 758

A/N: sorry this is really short i have zero motivation to do anything 👍 fem and cis readers dni

You didn’t even need to tell Angel what was happening, nor did he need to ask. The second he saw your face contorted into one of discomfort, he was all over you. He hung up a dozen ‘do not disturb’ signs on your hotel room door (though it was basically a shared room at that point), prepared to verbally or physically attack anyone trying to disturb you. Before you could even mention cramps he had a heat pack fresh out the microwave for you, checking every five minutes if it was still warm or if you wanted it reheated. He would cuddle you tightly, him and Fat Nuggets doing their very best to cheer you up. Angel showed how much he truly cared for you. You couldn’t ask for a better boyfriend than him. However you felt nothing he could do would make the dysphoria you felt go away. He’s an amazing boyfriend but unfortunately he can’t stop your period or give you a dick. (he could do the second one if you asked him nicely)

”Ok I think this is all the chocolate in the entire hotel, I refilled your water, and I got you some of those snacks you like.” Angel listed as he sat on the bed beside you, dumping the food in your lap before readjusting the pillows wedged between your head and the wall, wanting to make sure you were as comfortable as you could be.

”Ange, you didn’t have to do all that.” you mumbled despite knowing it was pointless and he would continue to insist on helping you. 

He pulled you closer to him, letting you rest your head against his shoulder, “I told you it’s fine. I want nothin’ more than for you to be happy.”

You lazily snuggled up to him. Dealing with your period and the gender dysphoria that tagged along with it tended to drain your energy, "Thanks. I really appreciate you helping me with this."

Angel's arm snaked around your waist, holding you close to him, "Of course baby. But of the list of things I'd do for you, this is pretty mild. If your period was a person I swear I'd fuck 'em up real bad. Make 'em regret ever makin' you feel this way."

You couldn’t tell if it was just your hormones going batshit or not, but Angel’s words had you burst into tears. You quickly buried your face in the crook of his neck as he pulled you into a tight but comfortable hug.

”You’re ok babe, I’ve got you, just let it out,” his whispers comforted you as his hand gently rubbed up and down your back soothingly, not even caring that your tears were staining his shirt. 

Shaky breaths left your lips as you cried, “I'm grateful you're helping me. But I hate this. I hate my body. I hate it so fucking much.” your voice cracked as more tears rushed down your face. Angel was quick to pull out of the hug and cup your face, his eyes on you as his thumb caressed your cheeks. “It’s not fair.”

Tears brimmed Angel’s eyes, his heart breaking at your words, “I know baby. And you're right, it’s not fair. And you don’t deserve to feel this way one bit.” he pressed his lips to your forehead, “You hear me?" you gave a small nod as his thumb wiped away your tears, "And you're not your body. You're the hottest, the funniest, the kindest, the strongest, and the most handsome - yeah you're the most handsome and hottest man I’ve ever met, who also happens to be the best boyfriend in the world. And I wanna do anythin' to help you with this pain."

A small smile grew on your lips as you listened to him. He was so genuine and sincere, a big contrast to his usual sarcastic and snarky demeanour. On a day you felt like dying only he could make you feel like living, "I love you. So much."

He smiled ear to ear, feeling his heart swell at your words, "I love you too baby." he handed you one of the snacks he had brought, "Do you wanna eat something? And then you can talk more about what's botherin' you, or we can watch movies, or we can just nap. Whatever you wanna do."

You nodded, taking a bite of the snack, "That sounds good." Angel shifted on the bed so he was beside you again, one arm around your shoulders, while the other wiped your remaining tears.

[checkered-tailed-maverick]

(For some reason my intro post just evaporated or something so round two I guess)

Hi, Hello. My name is Maverick J. Walker, my friends call me Mav or Jaywalker. Im 18, I'm a dude (self made), and I live in a little town in Michigan called Hatchetfield (idc if you are an online creep and want to kill me, try your fucking best. This town is weird as hell. Go Nighthawks.)

Some of my interests (because there is basically fuck all to do here) are bird watching, photography, theatre, art, shitty movies, taxidermy and science fiction I guess.

You can usually find me in school, working part time at the Starlight theatre, stocking up on bread sticks from that Italian restaurant or snapping pictures of the nighthawks on the edge of the Witchwood (i dont trust those trees man)

(Ooc/ additional info under the cut:)

He's just a little guy :3

Okay but seriously, hello I'm @ender-of-the-sender and this is my son, Mav. He means alot to me.

He is trans (ftm) but only a couple people at school know. They just asume he's gay, which he is.

He made a deal with Pokotho and now they basically share a body. Mav can for the most part hold him back, but every so often Pokey will push his way through.

Maverick is technically a nerd but he gets mid grades in all subjects except English, History and Art.

He has a massive crush on Richie, and although he will NEVER admit it, he likes Max aswell.

Yeah i will update this later just not right now im freaking tired

(When Mav in control, his eyes are greyish-blue. When Pokey takes control, his eyes roll back and his sclera goes completely blue and blue shit comes out of his mouth, almost like blood.)

Any and all times Pokey is talking instead of Mav, I will use blue.

If both Maverick and Pokey are talking over each other it will look like this

[yulsbabymama]

Disventure Camp Headcanons Part 1

AIDEN

Half Argentinian Half French Canadian

Had a huge TOP phase in middle school

Only child

Super good singer but hates hearing his voice

ALEC

Afro-Turkish and Japanese

Diagnosed w Autism when he was a child

Smokes

Started drinking shortly after he got married; relapsed after his separation w his ex

Has an older sister by 7 years

ALLY

Transgirl; came out to her grandfather and he was the only supporter she had

Definitely had obsessive love disorder when meeting Hunter the first time

Super fucking bad at dancing

Likes K-pop (Fromis_9, Stray Kids, Billlie, P1harmony, Enhypen, Stayc, aespa, ITZY)

ASHLEY

Country music defender

will actually die on the Country Music hill

like she's from Texas but she's FROM TEXAS ykwim

Transgirl; realized she was a girl at a young age and transitioned w a supporting family

Would probably roll her eyes at u if u assume she loved AppleJack when she was younger

I mean, she did

but not as much as ppl assume

CONNOR

Jewish

Despite having a booming business, he still doesn't understand technology

but he WAS a boss at programming his MySpace page

"programming is my passion" college dude

Nickelback liker

I'm so sorry

DAN

He and his sister shared a bedroom until she moved out

Actually convinced her to come back home bc he missed her

like

crying on his knees

"PLEASE COME HOME IT'S SO MISERABLE WITHOUT U THERE I MISS U"

blasting a radio to her favorite songs

did i mention he loves his sister

Pokemon kid

Oh, he's also autistic

DEREK

Half Filipino and half Columbian

Transguy; was an unhappy "girl" growing up and would refuse to listen to anyone who didn't call "her" by Derek

Facebook user

only to troll, tho

He tried trolling on Twitter too but Trevor had to pry the phone out of his hands

Secretly likes Trevor

and by secretly I mean he angry-cried while writing drafted emails of his confession

Barely cries or anything like that, emotionally, but angry-crying is his #1 basically

Is not a registered gun owner

DREW

Other than the notebook, he has a communication device

Adopted

Video games hurt his eyes

so do mobile games

Honestly i think he just needs glasses

likes dogs :)

ELLIE

Half Irish and Half Singaporean

Transgirl; came out in her last year of junior high

Middle child w two sisters

While struggling w her identity, she was a Pick Me girl to fit in #sad!

she ended up giving up on fitting in #gogirl

Malay's her first language

Mom passed when she was little

tolerates cats

FIORE

3/4th Italian 1/4th Chinese

hates horror movies

not bc she's scared of them or anything

she just thinks they suck

forced into a ton of shit to become normal

girlscouts, ballet, soccer, etc

she hated everything

but she can make a good cookie deal

GABBY

Has an unhealthy obsession w watching drag shows

she doesn't understand any of the lingo

she just thinks the outfits r pretty

LPS kid

also watches too much animal documentaries

will actually sit down and say "im bored, time to watch a 6 hour doc on cheetahs"

she just cray cray like that #loveher

unhealthy addiction to stickers

GRETT

Transgirl #slay

was a Toddlers & Tiaras kid

passenger princess

forces Yul to drive her places

they have almost broken up 5 times bc of this

she also genuinely forgot to tell him she was #trans

u should've seen the look on his face

when

..

yeah

#hedidnotcare

that's ooc but idc

she's bi :3

HUNTER

Half Chinese Half White

Dad left after his youngest sister was born

Lived in China until he was 8

He has autism

Christian btw

like pslam bunch-of-numbers in his bio

can quickly change languages like that

will talk to u in english then will answer his phone in cantonese

texts like a millennial

:/ sorry

smokes

the killers, staind, blink-182, and r.e.m fan

plays the guitar

JAKE

Half Korean Half Japanese

cannot speak those languages fluently, tho

sorry

he and his brother wrestled a lot

his brother would always win

anyways he was a theater kid

but quit bc of some drama

haha. get it ?

one of those gays who cries to mitski & ricky montgomery

but only listens to them when he needs to cry

which is often

JAMES

has been in cringe compilations before

imagine if i just ended this w just that hc

would that be funny

anyways

one of those middle schoolers who was violently supportive of the lgbtq+

like everyone knew he liked boys

except him

loves his younger sister

like a lot

they r bffies

will call her in the middle of the night randomly

"i just posted a new tiktok, go like it."

JENSEN

genuinely have nothing for him

like

can i just say he's dreamed of men shirtless before and end it at that

um so yeah

[cornfields-td-nonsense]

cody n noah :3

alright, another two in one deal!

Sexuality headcanon:

I lowkey love the idea of Cody being aro and having a bad case of comphet. I see it.

Noah's gay. I genuinely forget this isn't canon sometimes. Lol

Gender headcanon:

I could see either of them being trans in any direction tbh

A ship I have with said character:

Cody, idk I don't ship him with anyone.

NOWEN NOWEN NOWEN NOWEN NOWEN IS LOVE NOWEN IS LIFE

A BROTP I have with said character:

The Drama bros should have been more established as a group dynamic I honestly think it would be so fun just to see them hanging out. also Sierra and Cody should have been obnoxious besties instead of Sierra being a stalker methinks

Noah and Eva are the duo ever (thanks @canonically47 for getting me hooked on them)

A NOTP I have with said character:

Coderra's too obvious. But yeah. Coderra. Platonically and after Sierra's got therapy I could get behind it, but in-show.... nope.

And I feel kind of bad saying this, I love Emma RR, but I really cannot stand Nemma. I have tried to get behind it, I've watched the clips, I've listened to people who ship it, it just... really does nothing for me. Noah felt weirdly out of character, esp. when they start acting all lovey dovey and shit. (though that ooc-ness goes for pretty much every moment I've seen of him in RR, like why is he such a dick to Owen the whole time? I know he's not exactly a nice dude but here it legit feels like Noah doesn't even LIKE him.) Also Emma can do better. I haven't seen much of her but I can already tell she can do way better.

wow did not expect to go on that long lmao

Random headcanon:

Cody always pranks people on his birthday due to it being April 1st. all his birthday parties were just him and his friends getting together to pull the wildest pranks.

Noah opens packets of crisps upside down because it annoys people. this is totally not something I do that I'm projecting on him

General opinion:

Cody sure does exist. yep. he's there alright.

Noah's really funny. especially in TDWT. and yeah, if you somehow couldn't tell, I love the dynamic he has with Owen and they're one of my favourite TD ships.

[occulticvioletdepths]

ooc: so hey what's the camille lore. i can't put it together.

//okay yeah i should make a dedicated lore post/page huh...

anyway. let's start off with what's known IC first

camille is a hex maniac / occultist who lived in kalos and moves to unova. she's on the no fly registry for kalos, too, and she used to live in Santalune (a very conservative town). at some point, a couple of murders happened with the result of one of her friends dying, one Evangeline (the Santalune Swap case), and a mansion close to the woods burnt down (Sinclair Estate arson), one Uberto Demian being implicated for what happened. so she ran away from home with a fake passport. this is the story as she tells.

there's also, someone, who tried to arrest her at some point. camille, in her own words, cursed them to die before they could. she also had a few spats with the occulture unova editing team for their reports(?) on the aforementioned murders and the arson, and a fake interview starring "camille". all of this has been rectified, but not before a pokémon battle gauntlet with the occulture editorial. here, the then-editor-in-chief Elmir Demasque (yeah that's a pso2 reference) alluded to camille "having done things". and according to the new editor-in-chief, Callme Ishmael (yeah that's a moby dick reference) elmir had dealings with some white-haired girl with red eyes in police attire. and she (and mx. ishmael) don't think she's a sanctioned cop.

now, here's all what's known through OOC info. under the cut if you do not enjoy spoilers

camille was born to the sinclair family, rich fuckers with their hands in the pockets of some businesses. her family... wasn't great. for some reason, they abhorred pokémon, and they were very strict... and were very punishing in their discipline. furthermore... camille is trans. and it's implied that anyone that steps even one inch out of line of the traditions of the family gets punished and/or disinherited. camille's more scared about the former. she also discovered she has psychic powers (like psychic trainers. y'know.) so she fled into the basement for a bit because she thought her having those powers would mean her parents may find out. that's where she met melisma and the two of them became close friends (also at that point melisma was still wild fun fact). aaanyhoo she did go to public school where she made a few friends (though it's mostly just the few misfits hanging together) - Franciska Chroma (the daughter of detective frankel chroma, both ZERO connection with any other chroma in pkmn_irl (unless they want to... fufufu...)) and Evangeline Marie, who likes bugs and has suspiciously camille-like hair... anyway the three were friends because "misfits" and they were close.

around some time in the summer, camille made a deal with a fellow hex maniac and street musician, Uberto Demian, in the santalune forest, for yet unknown reasons.

....eventually, one day, during the winter solstice (i'm not big on christmas being pokémon canon but i do like the celebration of solstices), everything came ahead all at once. the Santalune Swap murders. the Sinclair Estate arson. evangeline was found "shaped" like camille was, like the two swapped bodies.

"And somehow, her body took on the characteristics of the Sinclair kid, like they swapped bodies, but didn’t swap DNA, which, well… it should be impossible considering what DNA is."

...so you can guess the implications there. the day after, camille left for unova... but she definitely wasn't alone. detective Frankel Chroma followed her. and one day, approaching another winter solstice, camille tried to curse him through the ox-hour shrine visit curse... and on the last day of that curse (the actual day of the solstice, she got herself into a situation where, well... her curse did work. though she had to finish "the job" manually. funny how those curses work don't they?

anyway. then the rest of what's known ic happened. but now there's Implications™... but yeah she met calli, became her weird rival, then years later (now) they started kissing on the nimbasa ferris wheel and that's that

so excited for the things i have planned in my head but refuse to write down because i'm dumb.

[unovan-artist]

Introductory Post

Hello and greetings, my name is Indigo, I'm a traveling artist. I grew up on the outskirts of Driftveil City in Unova. I am not a competitive battler, and haven't done any gym challenges due to my own health issues. I do however, have five Pokemon of my own. My service Pokemon, Sweet Potato, Espeon ♂ My partner, Thin Mint, Umbreon ♀ Red Velvet, Shiny Chandelure ♀ Snickerdoodle, Mimikyu ♂ Angelsfood, Kirlia ♀

Some information on myself as well, I suppose. I use he/they pronouns and identify as demisexual. I am trans. I'm 22, my birthday is the 13th of November. I find myself most drawn to Dark, Ghost, Psychic, and Fairy types, so I suppose those are my type specialties.

I draw mainly in colored pencil or regular pencil, and I tend to draw Pokemon and their interactions with each other or with their trainers outside of battle.

Currently Wandering: Galar Pelipper Mail+Unmail+Malice: On Musharna Mail+Malice: On Magic Anons: Off Sentient/Sapient Pokemon: Allowed Legendary/Mythical Pokemon: Allowed (OOC Info Under the Cut)

Hello, I'm the man behind the blog! You can call me Azure, my main blog (the one I follow and like from) is @/anxiousazure and I am very new to the pokemon irl community! I've been lurking for a few months and wanted to try my hand at it. I am a university student and likely won't be able to respond immediately a lot of the time, please be patient with me! That said, I am an adult, (I share a birthday with the OC of this blog) so if you're uncomfortable with that please leave now. Both myself and my OC Indigo are trans, so if you're upset about that, feel free to leave immediately! I also use neopronouns myself, so... Once again, if you don't like it, please leave now! Don't send anything NSFW, I the man behind the blog am very asexual and Do Not want to deal with it. Jokes, teasing, flirting - that's all fine, just... Again, my asexual self does not want to deal with anything too sexual. Also! Any art you see from Indigo, I've actually drawn myself, so... Yeah, I guess. Just a little fun fact. Also I am willing to draw for others, just... Again, gentle reminder that I am in college and can be quite busy. A little information about the OC! As mentioned, Indigo grew up on the outskirts of Driftveil City with rather overprotective parents. General TW for discussions of Indigo's past - manipulation, parental issues, ableism, mentions of transphobia, and mentions of dissociation. Anything about Indigo's past will be labeled with the tag "The Artist's Origin" and labeled with appropriate trigger/content warnings. Indigo's parents essentially felt he was too frail to protect himself given health issues he has (more info on that either in rp or via dms - i'd like to keep a few surprises here) and kept him super isolated because of it. It only got worse when he showed an aptitude with ghost type Pokemon. Eventually Indigo ran away and became the traveling artist we now know. However, due to that sheltering and his own travels, he's pretty out of the loop on any major events that occurred - add in the multiversal nature of Rotomblr/Rotumblr, well... Poor bestie is going to be real confused. Please feel free to take advantage of this.

[bellamyroselia]

In which I talk of the possibility and headcanon of Pit being a demigod because damn it, I have a mouth and I will scream into the void because I can

Yeah, this a personal crack headcanon of mine and I thought why not speak more of it, as I think there's lot of potential in the idea… That and I currently don’t really feel like or even want to write about Hera or Artemis for that huge essay of mine in the making. And because this idea was one of the reasons I even started said essay, I thought why not scream about it for a short while since I want to actually gush about it. Long post ahead, it’s headcanon time.

So who's the god I think would make most sense as Pit’s parent? Ares, of course. I haven’t been exactly subtle about this, otherwise I wouldn’t be making jokes about how Pit could be Orpheus’ uncle. Is there really any other options that could work? Pit’s primarily based on Ares’ son, Eros so it’s already like this headcanon was asking to be made. And when compared to some other Eros-expies in media, Pit seems to share lot of similarities with Ares - they’re both one-man-armies, always ready to fight when the need arrives and have faced some rather terrifying foes. Ares is also the god of both rebellion and civil order, so it would fit rather nicely with Pit’s duty as a humanity's protector and therefore as a retainer of civil order, and to highlight the duality of Pit and Pittoo. He’s probably the best dad Olympus has to offer with Apollo being his only serious competition, so what we could get out of this deal would be both a really unique take on Ares at least when it comes to modern media that is and a parental figure for Pit who loves him unconditionally, no strings attached. Call me a massive a sap, but I think it would be neat for there to be a character who acknowledges that Pit’s still young and everyone around him has failed him by making him fix their messes, himself included by not being there. However, Pit would likely immediately just accept their apologies because that’s just the kind of person he is. In comparison, Aphrodite wouldn’t work nearly as well in this regard; in fact that she’s the main villain of that one specific myth that features Eros as a main character!

So yeah, I like the idea of Ares being Pit’s dad and a good one of that since he’s one in mythology proper. This would push off the option of him being a villain off the table, as him being antagonistic towards his own child would be massively OOC - if it’s on his own free will, that is. Only way I could see him being antagonist towards Pit is if mind control is involved and it could very well be possible, since the topic of breaking Ares' psyche to turn him into a slave has been brought up in works such as Dionysiaca. But before we get into that, how could’ve he even got into the point of having Pit and why would he be MIA during original Kid Icarus and Uprising? When it came to my headcanons, I just decided to take the lazy way out and used this as a base: 

"On the right of the so-called Dyke lies the Manthuric plain. The plain is on the borders of Tegea, stretching just about fifty stades to that city. On the right of the road is a small mountain called Mount Kresios, on which stands the sanctuary of Aphneios. For Ares, the Tegeans say, mated with Aerope, daughter of Kepheus, the son of Aleus. She died in giving birth to a child, who clung to his mother even when she was dead, and sucked great abundance of milk from her breasts. Now this took place by the will of Ares, and because of it they name the god Aphneios; but the name given to the hill was, it is said, Aeropos."

Pausanias, Description of Greece, trans. Jones

Like, look at me into the eyes and say this doesn’t sound like some anime character’s backstory! Now as for what Aphneois (or Aphneus as it’s more commonly called) stands for, it means abundant and under that title Ares was worshiped as a giver of food and abundance. It’s a really cute if a bit sad story, making it really easy to use as a base for headcanons. Now if this was the case, I could see the timeline going something like this - Ares meets KI’s equivalent of Aerope and the two fall for each other, some time later they’re expecting a kid but then something goes horribly wrong and Aerope dies. Instead of letting Aerope’s family to take care of the kid, he chooses to take the baby with him and is a single parent for a while before realizing that single parenting is hard, so he asks help from Palutena since a winged kid wouldn’t look too out of place among her angels. This deal ends up going swimmingly for a while until the events of a certain other myth take place, which makes Palutena the sole caretaker of Pit; some unspecified time later que the events of the original Kid Icarus and onward. 

To that certain other myth, it would be about Ares and some giants. For minimal backstory, know that Poseidon cuckolded his own son and had giant twins named Ephialtes and Otus - they wished to have divine wives, so they planned to storm into Olympus to get they wanted, Otus wanting Artemis and Ephialtes wanting Hera. Some time later Olympians were surprised to find these two piling up mountains on top one another and as expected, a fight broke out between them because no one comes to the Olympian home turf without facing the consequences. Once the giants finally left, the Olympians noticed that someone is missing, that being Ares. Ephialtes and Otus probably realized way too late that kidnapping the god of war wasn’t the brightest idea and because letting him go wasn’t an option, they chained him and then locked him inside a bronze jar. It took around a lunar year for the giants stepmother to finally rat this out to Hermes, who then went to save Ares with Artemis. While she distracted the giants and made them throw their spears at each other, Hermes lockpicked Ares out of the jar and so the three returned back to Olympus. And if you think this reminds you of something, know that Hermes is the god of guard dogs and dogs are sacred animals of both Ares and Artemis. Funny how that works.

I think something similar to this could’ve easily happened to him in Kid Icarus, so that could explain why he has been MIA. And if we wanted an antagonistic Ares for a while, I’d say this would be the easiest way to excuse it because unlike Pit in the Ring of Chaos, Ares was fully conscious the whole time, growing faint and breaking down before Hermes freed him. That all happened during a span of a lunar year, one can think how badly someone’s psyche would break if they had to endure it for longer. Mix this with the idea of mind control and you’d get a divine kidnapping in the purpose of mind controlling him into a indestructible living weapon, reasons can vary - maybe the giants wanted to get something out of their accidental prisoner or someone commissioned them into getting him and breaking his mind, because who wouldn’t want an indestructible, powerful living weapon who’s loyal to you and only you. And one other element could be tied to this, which is helmet symbolism as Ares is often portrayed to have something I like to call Meta Knight syndrome. He’s most of the time shown as wearing a helmet in art even when rest of his armor isn’t present, removing it is treated as a big deal. One could easily craft some ideas out of this, first one that comes to my mind is to tie mind control into the helmet and then break it during a dramatic moment, which sets him free from it. Now wouldn't that make a pretty awesome scenario, with Pit first freeing his father from imprisonment and later from mind control.

As for what would happen next? That's a bit hard to say. I’m certain he and Aphrodite would’ve definitely still had their thing in this universe, but broke up some point before Pit was born. It would likely cause some drama because I think Phobos, Deimos and Harmonia would exist and they’re his kids too, so it could turn this into a family soap opera with stakes higher than it has any rights to have - but then again, one could easily describe Greco-Roman mythology as a whole as a family soap opera with stakes higher than it has any rights to have... So would this really be out of the ordinary?

Now there’s one scenario I think would be interesting to see… In the mythos, Ares killed Poseidon’s son Halirrhothius for assaulting his daughter Alcippe and Poseidon predictably lost his marbles over it. The deities gathered on Areopagus to have the trial and the most common telling goes that gods sided with Poseidon, but goddesses sided with Ares. Since there was more goddesses present than gods, Poseidon ended up losing the trial and Ares got away without consequences. Something like this could be rather easy to make up, like maybe Pit's fighting Poseidon’s sea monster and almost loses, but Ares comes just in time to save him and Poseidon gets all pissy over it. Alternatively it could be one of Poseidon’s kids instead of a sea monster - I mean, he had twins with Medusa and Chrysaor is a humanoid unlike Pegasus, so why not use him? I could also see something like this working without Ares with Pit taking his place, and maybe Pittoo coming to his defense. 

I swear this wasn’t meant to be so bashy towards Poseidon, but it’s not my fault his hellspawns and Ares don’t get along with each other.

[onetimeatsummercamp]

Gay Best Friends

Dylan Lenivy + Kaitlyn Ka (platonic) Mentions of Dylan Lenivy x Ryan Ezrahler

(as a very gay trans guy myself, i think a lot about my favorite characters in the context of LGBTQ+ experiences and connect them with my own. so have some self-indulgent and probably ooc conversation between dylan and kaitlyn)

Dylan and Kaitlyn kept in touch long after the events of their final day at Hackett's Quarry. As Dylan had put it, fighting off a werewolf with a car will really bring people together. They both made time between their respective college classes to call each other regularly, sometimes seeking much-needed support from their shared trauma, but mostly just to shoot the shit and talk about daily life. During one of these calls, Dylan got set off on an excited rant about the soundtrack from the current box-office hit.

"--And it's easily the best score I've heard this year. I mean, yeah, the plot was good, but..."

"My girlfriend loves that damn movie. She made me watch it in theaters with her twice."

"Hold on. Back up. Your what?"

"My girlfriend? I've talked about Vic before."

"Yeah, well, you left out some details! Damn, I could've been calling you my gay best friend this whole time."

"And this is why I didn't tell you." Dylan could practically hear her rolling her eyes.

"Fine, fine, I get it. But to make it up to me, I'm sending Jacob to you whenever he asks me about gay stuff."

"He asks you about gay stuff?"

"One time I got a text from him that just said 'Am I a vers?'"

Dylan heard the clatter of the phone being dropped and muffled hysterical laughter from Kaitlyn. She picked it back up, slightly out of breath. "Where did that even come from?"

"I don't fucking know! Context didn't help either."

"What did you tell him?"

"'If you want to be.'"

Kaitlyn choked back another laugh. "Yeah, no, you can deal with all that. I'm kinda surprised he's apparently asking you all this stuff and not asking me anything, honestly. But I guess I did shut him down when I came out to him and he asked what 'the lesbian colors' were so he could get me a present. I told him he is absolutely not buying me a coming out gift."

"Just get him a gift for being straight. Level the playing field."

"Ew, no."

"So how long have you and Vic been, like, a thing?"

"I don't know, a month, month and a half?"

"That's six whole weeks of keeping secrets."

"Well, when are you going to tell me about your boyfriend?"

Dylan gasped exaggeratedly. "Jesus, Kaitlyn, right in the heart! Not cool."

"On a tooootally unrelated note, have you talked to Ryan lately?"

"Ouch, double tap!"

"Had to make sure it hit. Seriously though, you can't keep dancing around it forever."

"You underestimate my ability to avoid potential rejection."

"Dylan. I'm serious. Call him."

"I will, just--"

"Good. I'm hanging up now. Call him."

"But--"

The line went dead. Dylan sighed and shook his head, but couldn't help smiling at his phone. Then, he opened up his contacts and tapped "Ryan-Ryan".

[spacegoatart]

i haven’t officially posted my own treasure planet headcanons, so that's what this is! some of this might be ooc but i don't really care because they are fun to think about, so yeah, enjoy!

this is gonna be long so i’m gonna put it under a keep reading

it makes me so sad that they supposedly don’t keep in touch at the end of the movie, so that's where headcanons come in. Jim and Silver went thru WAY too much to not keep in touch, Silver couldn’t leave Morph without being able to see him again either (Silver literally refers to himself as Morphs ‘dad’ in one scene!!) they at least send letters or have some sort of burner phone, with Silver being a wanted criminal and all. for a while they probably just sent letters, Jim talking about the academy and Silver sending little gifts from his escapades such as a lava rock or an especially interesting coin. Jim keeps all the gifts in a box, along with the letters but if he feels especially attached to a gift, he’ll set it on his window sill of on the rim of his mirror. as much as I like the idea of Jim getting Silver a jitterbug/ladybug, realistically Silver would be the one to set the idea into motion. Jim gets a larger gift and its a little phone, made of parts that Silver could scrap together (or on he found in a shop on a traders planet), he immediately sets it up and texts Silver. it was really nice for them to talk in real time and were probably already discussing the idea, even though Silver could get caught, so Jim was really excited about it. Jim now keeps Silver updated on life events and Silver calls every now and then to tell Jim about his travels. Silver hasn’t quite figured out how to send photos but once he does, he starts sending some everyday (including some hilarious selfies, akin to what a dad would post on Facebook).

Silver absolutely visits, for a while it was very, very scarce because he was still wanted but was sneaky enough to come and see Jim every few months. he comes and hangs out at the inn for a few days while his crew is out at bars or stocking up on items for their next adventure, as well as they know better than to fight their captain on his decisions. during these visits, Silver tells Jim (and anyone brave enough to sit near them) stories about what he had seen, creatures he had encountered and wonders they had discovered. Jim tells Silver about his time at the academy, new friends he’s made and what he’s learning, including some complicated stuff. sometimes Jim even get so into it, he brings out a textbook to express his point. while Silver is pretty smart, he has no idea what Jim is talking about (because its usually math and obscure facts) and usually just smiles and nods as Jim rambles. (lol this may be me projecting my ADHD onto Jim but i have the feeling he info dumps to people hes comfortable with)

speaking of the academy, i think despite all the combat training and captaining that Jim is learning, i think Jim would be really interested in math. like a surprising amount. it would probably be difficult to start off but once he did, hoo boy he could not stop. there were some hurdles he had to face but eventually he landed in a pretty advanced math course (not the highest but still pretty up there, maybe like calculus or applied mathematics). knowing some math was important as a captain, having to deal with probability on a ship in the Etherium, but Jim was fascinated by numbers and the way they made up the world. i think he would be really interested in physics or theoretical stuff, which is difficult but i think he could do it. he probably uses his previous experiences in space to help him visualize the math, which helps a lot.

the first time Silver came to the inn, Jim practically tackled him. which was no big deal since he’s almost double Jim’s size, Silver was more worried about Sarah and what she thought of him being a pirate and all. Jim assured him that everything was ok and he asked her but Silver still felt a bit nervous. he felt like he was intruding on her territory. but while Jim had run upstairs for something and Silver stood sheepishly in the doorway, Sarah came over with a smile on her face and shook his hand. he wasn’t expecting that at all, he was more ready for a glare from the kitchen or even a talk about ground rules. Sarah talked to him about how excited Jim was (she was also kind of excited, she had met plenty of pirates and was almost as fascinated as Jim was) and how she was grateful for Silver staying in her sons life. Silver felt much more comfortable after that and they started talking too, (not sure if it would be romantic or not, it would be cute but i love them just being friends as well) they became pretty good friends. Jim loved it, even if they weren’t married or Silver wasn’t biologically related to him, he felt like he had a full family again. when Jim was busy or sleeping, Sarah and Silver would chat over coffee or in the kitchen while Sarah cooked, Silver helping. Sarah would probably rope Silver into helping her at the inn once she learns he can cook and he kind of falls into a routine. come see Jim, hang out, when Jim is busy/out, go put on an apron.

(this one is 100% projecting lol) this is a pretty loose hc, especially since it started as a joke but now i really like it. i think Jim, as well as Silver, is transgender. Jim wasn’t really expecting Silver to be trans, as are most (he passes super well lmao). i mean, many pirates were gay, why can’t space faring ones be trans? hell, Silvers crew probably has a slew of queer folk among them, if not all of them being some sort of LGBT. body modification looks like a regular thing in their world, so i think Silver has already had top surgery, whether he was planning to or not. by that i mean that i think Silver could have been injured, woke up and found that something was missing. worried he may have become more cyborg, he checked, winced and found that bandages had been bound around his chest. ‘well that's out of the way’. despite not wanting to be vulnerable around his crew, most of them if not all of them know he’s trans since most of them didn’t see it as some sort of weakness, it was just who you were. (if ya’ll are interested, i have some crew hcs like gender and sexuality but this post is mainly about Jim, Silver and Sarah)

(continuation of the trans hc) when Jim came out to Silver, there’s a moment of silence between them. in Jim’s head it was awkward, but in Silver’s, things started clicking. Jim was worried Silver didn’t understand and quickly explain but Silver comforted him, and explained that he understood. Jim was the confused one now and Silver quickly cleared that up, explaining that he too was trans. Jim was relieved, confused and surprised. he hadn’t expected that outcome but that wasn’t bad, if anything he thought it was cool. he had more in common with his adoptee-dad than he had thought. Silver now makes sure to emphasis his compliments when Jim is working, hoping to boost Jim’s ego and make him feel better. it works and Jim feels even more comfortable in his own skin. (i have another part about Silver taking Jim to get top surgery but they would need Sarah’s permission first, not that she’d say no but Silver doesn’t want to encounter her wrath xD)

i’d like to think that Silver takes Jim up on his ship, not for plundering but just to sail around. the new crew had already seen Silver in action and decided nobody wanted to question him about Jim, especially since he was causing any trouble. eventually Jim couldn’t really visit Silvers ship anymore, being a Navy officer and all but that was ok, Silver still came to the inn and Jim had his own ship/s.

Silver knows all the drama around town, mostly because Sarah hears it fro customers and then gossips to Silver about it. Silver will come in, say hello and she’ll start, he’ll probably respond with something like ‘no way, they did that?’ and then he’d listen as she worked.

when talking to Jim, Silver refers to Sarah as ‘ma’ and Sarah starts referring to Silver as ‘dad’ since they have become Jim’s collective parents, and it doesn’t bother either of them.

after Jim lets Silver get away at the end of the movie, Silver stays on his own for a while, though no one knew that. he got a larger boat, just big enough for him and he wandered planets, drifted through space, just thinking. he wasn’t sure what to do next, he was a wanted man but he also had no crew. the thought of settling down passed in his mind but he couldn’t bring himself to do it, he was comfortable in the Etherium, he would get cabin fever after a week. so he continued being a pirate, it was rough work but he loved being among the stars, exploring the galaxy. Jim knew this and didn’t want to push Silver to stay at the inn for a long amount of time but they still made it work.

Silver has little experience with children, having none of his own until Jim (i’ve seen people give Silver children as his backstory but he doesn’t strike me as that kind of guy, not that he wouldn’t want kids but he’d have to choose between family life or pirates life. that's too much for him.) the most experience Silver had was with helping people at port and with his crew, anyone young enough to need guidance and smart enough to listen.

Silver loves music but really only know sea shanties, drinking songs and some old folk music, but he can still be found singing with his crew and humming while he’s working. Jim on the other hand listens to a lot of music, especially after treasure planet. (this is assuming they have all the music we have xD) he listened to brooding teenage music before, like Teenage Dirtbag or bands likes Greenday, but now he has a few shanties on his list as well, plus some classical music for when he’s studying or relaxing. he also listens to ABBA, either because he just likes them or because his mom plays them in the inn.

Jim, Sarah and Silver have way more pictures of each other now. the inn now has multiple family photos with Silver included, Jim has a framed image of the three of them and Silver has a little scrapbook. it’s the only thing he’s ok with having on his ship, still worried about being seen as ‘soft’ (even if he is a big softie and everyone knows it).

Silver usually wears a pretty simple working outfit with his nice coat and hat but when he does want to look nice, holy shit does he do it well. sometimes when he’s dressed up he wonders why he doesn’t do it more often just for fun but then he thinks of the countless times he’s had to throw out shirts stained with blood. he would never let that happen to his nice clothes.

i really like the idea that if things had been different, Sarah Hawkins would have been a pirate, and a damn good one at that. maybe she wasn’t in this life but that doesn’t stop the occasional daydream and questions to Silver about his lifestyle. he offers to take her on his boat when he takes Jim and she hesitates but says yes in the end. Jim definitely didn’t get his wanderlust spirit from Leland. (this is a little ooc for Silver but not for Sarah, i 100% believe she would be a pirate) maybe after Jim joins the Navy, he buys a small boat, big enough for him and his mom and they go on trips where they just enjoy the Etherium.

you cannot tell me that the second Silver was out of earshot on the long boat that he didn’t cry his eyes out. motherfucker may know how to hide his feelings but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have them, he’s a sucker and he knows it. when he gets more comfortable around Jim and Sarah, he finds himself getting way more tearful from touchy feely stuff. Morph being cute? sobbing. Jim called him dad? waterworks. literally anything that tugs on his heartstrings? has to go to his cabin to cry his eyes out. the first time Jim and Silver met up again, they both just started sobbing.

Silver, Jim too probably, has PTSD (sorry if i get anything wrong, i’m not sure what else to call it) to an extent. it isn’t intense to the point that he gets overwhelmed with emotions and has flashbacks (unless it has to do with his missing limbs) but he does have some nightmares and prepares for the worst in most scenarios. Jim has to remind him that the bang at the door wasn’t pirates, it was just a unruly customer and that the silhouette he saw outside was just a passing ship, not canon fire. Silver apologizes every time, despite not doing anything but switch to his sword and brace but he can’t help but feel bad for worrying them. i can’t imagine the kind of terrors he has about loosing his limbs.

Silver, when he detaches his arm, will forget he only has one hand. sort of like that video with the astronaut back on Earth, but instead of gravity, he keeps handing stuff to his cyborg hand, dropping the item and they being confused when he can’t find whatever he had. he’s just so used to it by now, he’ll even gesture with his missing hand and not realize he can’t convey what he’s doing. Jim has been asked to hand his stuff, Silver will try to grab it without look and ask Jim why he didn’t hand it to him. Jim has to remind him that he doesn’t have his cyborg arm, leaving Silver apologizing. its always lighthearted between them and they joke about it but Jim knows Silver is still bothered by it a little.

[merrilark]

Thoughts about TUA S3 so far... 3 and a 1/3rd episodes in. Spoilers below!

So far, I have pretty mixed feelings about this season. I definitely like it more than S2, and mmmmaybe even more than S1, but it’s a bit early to tell. I just think it’s been super fun so far. 

The parts I’ve really enjoyed so far are things like: -The dance battle, which was goofy as heck but it felt like serotonin shot straight to my brain lol. I loved it. - I’m LIVING for the sibling energy we’re getting with Klaus and Diego, and Klaus and Five, that’s fantastic. - The soundtrack is always superb. - Five is always superb. - Klaus is delightful in every scene and I adore that the writers are leaning more into his softness and not entirely making him comic relief. - Alphonso is just such a mood. I love how he’s just vibing in every scene. Man just wants to eat snacks, make jokes, and watch everyone fight. - KLAUS IS AMISH!!!! - Viktor and Allison have some really really good moments, and I enjoy how they’ve handled Viktor’s transition. I’m not trans, but I think those parts were really, really sweet and moving.  - Dad!Diego actually isn’t... so bad? He has some moments and while I still don’t like Diego/Lila, Stan is actually pretty charming. I’m not sure if I trust him, though. Something seems fishy about him. But I like him anyway. - I also love that we’re finally getting to see Allison crack and deal with some of her anger and trauma; it’s been a very very long time coming.

And this is great! But there are a few big points that I’m iffy on, and it’s primarily Reginald and the Sparrows.

The Sparrows seem to have an almost dystopian hold over the city, and have completely whipped Reginald through abuse and keeping him drugged. He’s become softer, almost timid under their treatment, and a fraction of a fraction of the cruel, spry egotist that we saw in S1 and S2.

It’s... interesting, to say the least. And Klaus’ desperation to have a loving father even now is painful. He wants a normal, happy family SO badly. This almost seems like his chance to have that, but I’m skeptical.

On one hand, I do want Klaus to have his ideal life with a family, and maybe even Sarah Beth. But I really, really, really do not want Reginald to be included in this family. 

So far, Reginald’s depiction is sympathetic, which could be a problem, but the poetic justice of his situation can’t be ignored. He’s being treated as he treated Viktor, if to a yet seen lesser degree, and... gosh, while he does deserve worse, it’s impossible to miss that this is a clear representation of abusive parents suffering the consequences of their actions. Their children don’t love them, they don’t treat them like parents, ignore them, and, in some cases, abuse them in return, and the abusive parent just doesn’t understand why their kids don’t want to see them anymore. 

Regardless of how soft or even almost likable this Reginald is (or seems to be, I’m still not sure it isn’t an act)... this still feels very realistic and tbh I can deal with that. My only qualm is that I have no idea how OUR Reginald could just take it and be so genial about being bossed around (assuming it isn’t an act). And I really hope some of that is explained, that we have some confirmation that Reginald was abusive to the Sparrows, giving them motive, or some sort of reversion back to our Old Reginald, because at the moment, it feels very OOC.

Like... alright. I am a firm believer that any character can have a redemption arc. Yes, even Reginald Hargreeves, horrible, awful father that he was.

To say that redemption is only exclusive to those who are “deserving” is a dangerous narrative, and I’ve... never really been fond of anyone saying that unironically. People should be allowed to grow and better themselves. ALL people. And, yeah, I know Reg isn’t real, so that doesn’t have to apply to a fictional character, but... if TUA is trying to redeem him, then I think that’s fine. That’s my point.

However, redemption does not and should not necessarily include acceptance or even forgiveness from those who have been hurt. Rather, redemption, especially for Reginald, should look like genuine regret and effort to change, preferably while acknowledging to the Umbrellas that he was not a good father. Then, I would hope, the Umbrellas would only work with him if necessary, and drop him for their own health. They have grown away from the Academy, and now it’s time that they cut off the source of their trauma: Reginald Hargreeves. I want to see him be a better person, but I also want the Umbrellas to know that they don’t have to keep him in their lives. They don’t NEED to associate with their abuser, even if he develops into a kinder man.

I could also critique my problems with Diego/Lila and Stan, or even Luther/Sloan (which btw I don’t have a problem with people who ship them, it’s fine, but I don’t particularly think either are healthy or well-written; they’re just not my cup of tea)... but for now, Reginald is my greatest narrative concern.

I guess we shall see.

[rallamajoop]

...and the unironic joys of better living through chemistry

How do I love Venom: The Hunger, let me count the ways…

It’s by far the shippiest Venom/Eddie story to come out of the character’s heyday. It’s the only story of the era to treat Venom’s violent wild-animal instincts not as an immutable fact, but as something that can be managed. It pulls off an aesthetic like nothing else that was being done at the time.

And then there’s the way it says, Does the world around you seem sinister and foreboding? Do you lie awake at night contemplating metaphorical oceans of despair? Well shit, son – have you considered you may be suffering from a mundane neurochemical imbalance, and a round of the right meds could clear that right up for you?

It does all this without breaking the atmosphere, without a whiff that our story has been interrupted for a Very Special Message about mental health.

In the near-decade since I was first prescribed anti-depressants, I don’t think I’ve read another story that lands the message “Sometimes, it’s not you, it’s just your brain chemistry,” so well.

Fair warning: if you have not read The Hunger, I am about to spoil every major plot point. If you have, well, maybe I can still give you a new appreciation for a few details you might have missed.

It’s a strange book, whatever else you take from it. It’s almost the only thing either author or artist contributed to the Venom canon, and it’s so different stylistically and tonally from the 90′s Venom norm that it feels like a tale from some noir-elseworlds setting instead of 616 canon. When you take risks that big with a property, you leave yourself precious little landing space between 'unmitigated triumph’ and ‘abject failure’: if this book hadn’t absolutely nailed it, I’d be dismissing it as edgy, OOC dreck. Fortunately, if The Hunger is nothing else, it is a story that $&#@ing commits – to basically everything it does.

Now, I'm not going to tell you Venom: The Hunger is a story about overcoming depression, because I don't know whether author Len Kaminski even thought about it that way while working on it. There's always space for other readings, and this one take is not gospel. That said: holy shit is this thing unsubtle with its metaphors. And with that in mind, let’s start by talking a little about Kaminski’s take on Eddie himself.

As I may have mentioned before, I like to divide 90′s Eddie into two broad personas: the Meathead, and the Hobo.

Kaminski’s Eddie nominally belongs in the angsty, long-haired Hobo incarnation, but that’s a bit of a simplification: this version certainly has plenty of angst and plenty of hair to his name – but nowhere, not even at his lowest ebb, does he doubt that he and his Other are meant for each other, which is usually Hobo!Eddie’s primary existential quandary.

He’s also taken up narrating his own life like a hardboiled PI.

So that’s... novel.

The only other time Eddie’s sounded like this is, er, in that one other Venom one-shot Kaminski penned (Seed of Darkness, a prequel that sadly isn’t in The Hunger’s league), so I think we can safely file it under authorial ticks.

Then again, Hobo!Eddie’s always been one melodramatic SOB, so maybe this is just how he’d sound after learning to channel his angst into his poetry. You can’t argue it fits the aesthetic, anyway.

We’d also be remiss not to mention Ed Halsted’s art, which I can only describe as gothic-meets-noir-meets-H.R.-Giger. Never before or since has the alien symbiote looked this alien: twisted with Xenompoph-like ridges and veins.

But Halsted doesn’t treat Venom to all that extra detail in every panel. Instead, the distortion tends to appear when the symbiote is separated from Eddie or out of control – and I doubt you need me to walk you through the symbolic importance of that creative decision. More importantly, Halsted’s art provides exactly the class of visuals that Kaminski’s story needs.

Did I mention this is a horror story? You might be surprised how few Venom stories really fit that genre, but if all those adjectives about Halsted’s style above didn’t clue you in, this is one of them.

Anyway, with that much context covered, let’s get into the main narrative of this thing.

As our first issue opens, Eddie’s world has become a dark and foreboding place. He’s not sleeping, though he mostly brushes this off. (Fun fact: trouble sleeping is one of those under-appreciated symptoms of depression. Additional fun fact: the first doctor ever to suggest I might be suffering from depression was actually a sleep specialist. You can guess how that appointment was going.)

Just to set our scene, here’s all of page 1.

Eddie’s narration has plenty of (ha) venom for his surroundings, but the visuals are here to back him up: panels from Eddie’s POV are edged in twisted, fleshy borders and drained of colour, the people rendered as creepy, goblin-like creatures. A couple of later scenes go even further to contrast Eddie-vision with what everyone else is seeing:

As depictions of depression go this is a little on the nose, but then, you don’t read a comic about a brain-eating alien parasite looking for subtlety, do you?

Eddie  doesn’t see himself as depressed, of course. As far as he’s concerned, he’s seeing the world’s true face: it’s everyone else who’s deluding themselves. He’s still got his symbiote, so he’s happy. He’s yet to hit that all-important breaking point where something he can’t brush off goes irrevocably wrong.

But he’s also starting to experience these weird... cravings.

He just can’t put a name to exactly what he’s craving until a routine bar fight with a couple of thugs takes a turn for the horrific.

(I include this panel partly to point out even in The Hunger, the goriest of all 90′s Venom titles, you’re still not going to see brains getting eaten in any graphic detail. We don’t need to to get the horror of the moment across. The 90′s were a more innocent time.)

Eddie himself is horrified when he comes back to himself and realises what he’s done.

Or rather, what his symbiote’s just made him do.

Kaminski doesn’t keep us in suspense about why, though. Eddie may have just done something horrific, but there’s a reason, and it’s as mundane as a vitamin deficiency. He’s bonded to an alien creature, after all, and his symbiote is craving a nutrient which just happens to be found in human brains. And if Eddie can’t or won’t help it meet that need, it’ll do so alone. 

Now, giving us that explanation so quickly is an interesting creative decision: this is a horror story, and horror lives in what we don’t know. Wouldn’t it be all the more horrifying had the symbiote been unable to explain what’s going on, leaving Eddie without the first real clue as to where this monstrous new hunger had come from?

The Hunger doesn’t take that route though, and I love it. Eddie isn’t a monster, this isn’t his fault: he has a fucking condition, and wallowing in his own moral failings is going to get him nowhere. You might as well try to cure scurvy or rickets with positive thinking. Just like depression can make you feel like an utter failure at the most basic parts of being human, and all the affirmations in the world won’t fix it when it’s fundamentally your brain chemistry that’s the problem. Or like addicts aren’t weak-willed for struggling not to relapse, they’re dealing with genuine chemical dependency – or even like how someone who’s trans isn’t at fault for being unable to reconcile themselves to the bodies and the hormones they were born with by pure force of trying. Free will is more than an illusion, but we’re all messy, biological organisms underneath, and your own brain and biochemistry can and will fuck you over in a hundred wildly different ways for as many wildly different reasons and it’s not your fault.

We aren’t monsters. But if we do, sometimes, find ourselves identifying with the monster, there might be a reason for that.

(Ahem)

I’m just saying, that’s fucking powerful, and we need more stories that say it.

Anyway, in case you missed it during that tangent, issue #1 closes with the symbiote having torn Eddie’s heart in two itself free to go hunting brains without him.

I’m trying not to get too sidetracked at this point talking about Kaminski’s take on the symbiote itself. Suffice to say there are broadly two schools of thought on how it ought to function while separated from its host: the traditional ambulatory-slime-puddle version, and the more recently popular alternative where anything-you-can-do-with-a-host-you-can-also-do-without-one. I’m not much of a fan of the latter, personally: if your symbiote doesn’t actually need a host, I feel you’ve sort of missed the point. (The movie takes the route of saying symbiotes can’t even process Earth’s atmosphere without a host, which is a great new idea that appears nowhere in the comics, and I love it. Hosts or GTFO, baby!)

Kaminski has his own take, and I can only wish it had caught on. Without Eddie, the symbiote becomes an ever-shifting insectoid-tentacle-snake-monstrosity, driven by an animalistic hunger. It’s many things, but it’s never humanoid.

If you absolutely must have your symbiote operating minus a host, I feel this is the way to do it: semi-feral, shapeless and completely alien (uncontrollable violence and cravings for brains to be added to taste).

Issue #2 comes to us primarily through the perspective of the mild-mannered Dr. Thaddeus Paine of the Innsmouth Hills Sanitarium (yes, really).

Yeah, he’s not fooling anyone. Meet our official villain! He joins our story after Eddie is picked up by the police and handed off to the nearest available institution, on account of how completely sane and rational he’s been acting.

Naturally, Dr. Paine soon has copious notes on Eddie’s ‘crazy’ story about his psychic link to a brain-eating alien monster. Fortunately for Eddie, Paine also runs some tests and makes an interesting discovery. 

Congratulations, Venom: the ‘vitamin’ you were missing officially has a name!

Finding the right meds isn’t always this easy. I got lucky – the first ones my psych put me on worked pretty well – but I have plenty of friends who weren't so lucky. In fact, the treatment for Eddie's problems is so straightforward it arguably has more in common with, say, endocrine disorders like thyroid conditions or Addison’s disease, which differ from clinical depression but present many similar symptoms (but can sadly be just as much of a bitch to get correctly diagnosed – please do read author Maggie Stiefvater’s account of the latter when you get the chance, because forget Venom, that is a horror story).

‘True’ depression remains much less well understood by medicine, either in its causes or how to effectively treat it. But simply having a name for what was wrong with me made so much difference, and that’s an experience I imagine anyone who’s dealt with any long undiagnosed medical condition could relate to. It put my life in context in a way nothing else had in years.

(I can’t speak to the accuracy of the way phenethylamine is portrayed in this comic – a quick google suggests there may be some real debate that phenethylamine deficiencies have been overlooked as a contributor to clinical depression, but having no medical background, that one’s well beyond me. Either way, scientific accuracy really doesn’t matter in this context – it’s how it works in-universe for story purposes that we should pay attention to.)

Since this issue is mostly from Paine’s POV, we don’t get Eddie’s reaction to having a healthy amount of phenethylamine sloshing around in his brain again, just the assurance that treatment appears to be ‘completely successful’.

He’s still a paranoid, hostile bastard though. Meds can turn your life around, but they won’t make you not you.

But even if Eddie’s feeling better, he’s still psychically linked to someone who isn’t. Symbiote-vision still comes through drained of colour and edged in viscera.

That’s the thing about meds: they won’t solve all your problems overnight. If you’ve been depressed for a while, there are good odds you have problems stacking up. But working meds can be a godsend when it comes to getting you into a space where you can deal with your problems again, whether said problems are doing-your-laundry or all the way into not-giving-up-completely-and-just-accepting-you’ll-die-alone-on-the-street.

For Eddie, ‘dealing with his problems’ begins with stealing a keycard and busting out of the asylum.

Of course, that’s the easy part. How do you solve a problem like a feral symbiote? Like any good 90′s comic book protagonist, Eddie tackles it by putting on his big-boy camouflage pants and kitting himself out with weapons and pouches while quoting “If you live something, set it free. If it doesn’t come back, hunt it down.”

We can add this to the list of things I love about this comic. Even if The Hunger is a weirdly-stylistic tract about depression at heart, it’s also still a goddamn 90′s Venom comic, and not ashamed to be.

We’re into issue #3 now, and back to hearing the story from Eddie’s POV.

Eddie is very much aware that his symbiote has murdered innocent people while they’ve been separated. Even if this is the result of extreme circumstances, there’s a good case to be made that the symbiote is too dangerous to be allowed to live. Plenty of heroes would treat it like a rabid dog at this point.

But Eddie isn’t a hero, he’s a mess of a character and an anti-hero at best, so we don’t have to hold him to the same standard. He’s well aware his symbiote may be too far gone to save, that he may have to put it down – but that’s only his backup plan. He wants to help it. He wants it back. He’s down in that sewer with screamers and a flamethrower because he knows all his symbiote’s weaknesses, but he’s also carrying a large jar of black-market synthesised phenethylamine, because if he can just get close enough...

Depression can’t make you a literal monster, but it can make you an asshole. Miserable to be around, lacking even the energy to care who else you’re hurting. The depression doesn’t excuse that, but it makes everything harder, and it’s that much easier to sink back into your spiral when everyone around you has given up. It can make you think everyone around has given up even if that isn’t true.

So to have Eddie here say, in effect, I don’t care how many people you’ve eaten, I know it wasn’t your fault. I still love you. You’re still worth fighting for – god, does that get me right in the id.

There’s still a whole issue left at this point – we’ve still got to deal with our real villain, Dr. Paine, who we’ve just learned is into eating brains himself and torturing his patients recreationally, and who wants to capture the symbiote for his own purposes. There’s the scene where Eddie and his symbiote finally bond again, and Venom beats up all Paine’s goons while singing David Bowie because like I said, this is still a 90′s superhero comic and this is what Venom does.

But for our purposes, I'm going to skip to the penultimate page of the story, because the way it mirrors our opening page is really lovely.

Remember that shot of Eddie dealing with a beggar back at the beginning of the story, thinking about how these people would 'get their despair all over you'? Here he is again, cheerfully forking over the last dollar in his pocket to the next man to ask him for change. For all the gothic atmosphere and gore, it’s moments like this that make The Hunger easily one of the most positive, uplifting Venom stories ever written. Funny, that. (I could probably write a whole other essay on sympathy for the homeless as a recurring motif in Venom stories, but that... well, whole other essay and all that.)

What’s Eddie learned from this experience? Don’t take your symbiote for granted. Is ‘symbiote’ a metaphor for mental health here, is paying attention to its needs an allegory for paying attention to your own? I still don’t know how literally Kaminski meant us to take this, but it’s a lovely note to end on no matter how you parse it.

At the end of the day, The Hunger isn’t flawless. The conflict with Paine ends on a thematic but slightly unsatisfying note. Eddie makes much of his symbiote's loneliness and desire for union, but when the two of them are finally reunited, the only reaction comes from Eddie's side. In fact, the symbiote seems to have no response to being able to return to Eddie at all, and that’s an omission that bugs me.

But Kaminski is more interested than any other writer of the era in the truly alien nature of the symbiote, in its relationship with Eddie from Eddie’s side, and though plenty of others talk about the symbiote's love/hate relationship with Spider-man, no-one else had the guts to portray their relationship this much like a romance.

And Venom: The Hunger is no less interesting in the context of Len Kaminski’s other work. You don't have to look far into his Marvel and DC credits to pick up that the guy has a real thing for monsters. (“All of my favourite characters are outlaws, misfits, anti-heroes,” he says, in one of the very few interviews I could find with him, “I wouldn't know what to do with Superman.”) He's written for vampires, werewolves, victims of mad science, and all of three at once, littering his work with biochemistry-themed technobabble, melodramatic monologues, gratuitous pop-culture references, and protagonists who must learn to embrace their inner demons. So The Hunger represents more than a few of his favourite running themes.

For our context, his more notable other work includes Children of the Beast, in which a werewolf must make peace between his human and animalistic sides, and The Creeper, in which a journalist must make peace with the crazy super-powered alter-ego sharing his body. In fact, The Creeper and The Hunger share so much DNA (including an evil doctor posing as a respected psychiatrist who uses hypnosis on our hero while he's trapped in a mental institution) that it’s quite the achievement that they still feel like such very distinct entities beyond that point.

The human alter-egos of both werewolf and Creeper even use prescription meds while wrestling with their respective dark sides. The difference, in both cases, is that these are stories where meds play their traditional fictional role – and that's a role that could be as easily filled by illegal drugs or alcohol without making any substantive difference. You see, if a protagonist is using them, it's a sign of unwillingness to tackle their 'real' problems. Even among work by the same author in the same genre, The Hunger represents an outlier. And that's just a little disappointing – at least to me.

In real life, of course, prescription meds are no magical cure-all elixir. Depression meds that work for one person may not work for another, or may not keep working in the longer term. Everyone has heard stories about quack doctors who prescribe them to the wrong patients for the wrong reasons, about lives ruined by addictions to prescription painkillers, or the supposedly-damning statistics about how poorly SSRI's perform in rigorous clinical trials. The proper way to treat depression is obviously with lifestyle and therapy. People will still airily dismiss medications that we all know previous generations got along just fine without, or suggest that figures like Van Gogh would never have created great art if they hadn't been mad enough to slice off an ear. I mean, the fact you think you need those bogus mediations is probably the best possible sign of just how broken you are, right? Who do you think you’re kidding?

Our popular fiction loves stories about manly men who bury their trauma under a gruff, anti-social exterior and come back swinging at the world that broke them, bravely refusing even painkillers that might dull their manly reflexes. Other genres make space for broken people confronting their demons in grand moments of catharsis, finally breaking down into tears when someone gets through to make them face their problems. "I could barely make it out of bed in the mornings until I found a doctor who started me on this new prescription" is not only wildly counter to the accepted social narrative, it's a hard thing to know how to dramatise.

 Even other Venom comics have been guilty of this.

Believe me, I recognise all of this, and just how much progress we've made in the last few decades. But I haven't the slightest doubt that for so many vulnerable people, the stigma against prescription medications does infinitely more harm than those same meds could ever do. And just having the right to externalise my problems into it's not you, it's your brain chemistry, may have helped me more than the meds themselves.

(And again, no, being prescribed SSRI's didn't fix me overnight, but I honestly don't know if all the talk therapy and tearful conversations with family members in the world could've got me as far as I've come without them.)

I love Venom: The Hunger. It's no-one's idea of high art, but it doesn’t need to be. There is a whole other post’s worth of things I love about it that I’ve already cut out this one as pointless tangents, and that may actually be it’s biggest drawback as a go-to example: I fully recognise that I would not be making this post if The Hunger hadn't also also grabbed me as a great bit of Venom canon, being the massive fan and shipper that I am. Other people who are just as desperate as me for more stories with the same core theme, but not into weird 90's comics about needy goo aliens, probably won't get nearly as much out of it as I have.

But if it sounds anything like your jam, maybe you'll enjoy it as much as I did.

If nothing else, it proves that you can make a viscerally satisfying story out of a message that shockingly unconventional. And you may even have people still discovering it and falling in love with it 25 years after the fact.

[behindthestrings]

THINGS I’D LIKE MY RP PARTNERS TO KNOW

tagged by : several  @deivorous​ I think was the most recent.

tagging:  All of YOU

» I like to be called: Vix    I honestly feel like its more my name than my given one sometimes.  Maybe one day I’ll change it, when all people in my bloodline who’d care are gone.  I enjoy living authentically.  Inside-outside.  I have seen a great deal and have little to hide about my own identity.  If you always tell the truth...you have far fewer stories to keep track of.

» One thing you should know about me: I’m a licensed medical professional.  I work night shift, always 7 10-hour shifts followed by a week off, and am expected to take call, so my scheduling and availability is often hella weird.  Sometimes I’m here and say I’ll be here...only to find out that I’m a lying bastard...and need to be dressed and in surgery in the next 20 minutes or sooner and I just drop everything and run.  If I’m “ignoring you”, it’s not because I hate you.  I’m likely not there, tied up in something, or just too fucking tired and am merely surviving.

» Things you should know about rping with my characters:  Well...my two oldest muses are Szayelaporro and Shutara and I’ve written them for 7 continuous years and I’m sure I’ll do so for much much longer..  To work with them means that while I’m interested in creating with you--I’m long past the ‘getting to know my own muses’ phase and I tend to be interested in deeper and introspective work because of it.  Coming to me and saying “I don’t agree with blablabla” or “I don’t find x concepts canon” or whatever is an easy way to get a swift boot in the ass from me...because I really don’t care.  But don’t take that the wrong way--If you don’t like an aspect of my portrayal or don’t wish to touch a certain part of my interpretation of my muses, we can simply use a different timeline, work in an AU, or just never work in situations where you’d need to acknowledge it.  I’m flexible and expect the same.  I’m more or less baffled when people get upset when I won’t drop important headcanons of mine...when like, I’ll never demand that they do the equivalent. Kisuke is ‘newer’ but it’s more true that I’ve not had the time to put towards him in a public setting like this blog--I’ve written him in fiction for 16 years and RP’ed him for 4...so learning his “voice” in working with other people as opposed to the voice he as for fic writing in my head...is where I’m at with him.  

» Age range: under 13  | 14–17 | 18–22 | 23–25 | 26–29 | 30+ | 40+ | 70+ I am roughly 35.  I’m too old for a lot of shit.  Please don’t follow me if you’re a minor, and don’t try to interact with me either.

» Okay with NSFW?: Yes.  I enjoy dark topics.  I’ve seen a lot of terrible things and it feels good to release pent up and unprocessed emotions related to things like gore, trauma, triggering psychological situations.  I’m ALSO super down with the kind of NSFW where you use exploration of sexuality to crack open a character.  I have written erotica publicly for 17ish years and enjoy it very much.  I claim a trans-nb identity as well as a queer one...and am sex positive and unbothered by writing situations including characters who are similarly not cisgender or heterosexual.   If I feel like you are using your own characters or mine for fetish material or to perpetuate stereotypes...I will call you out on it.  

» my favorite/most common thing to rp is: angst | fluff | smut | crack | action | plots | AUs | violence | darker themes | canon character | original characters | humor.   Honestly, if I’m not enjoying an rp, its due to lack of inspiration rather than topic.  And my ooc dynamic with you greatly influences how comfortable with you I feel in writing any topic at all, even things that may seem as ‘throw away’.  

*Bold for YEAH BABY, Italic for sometimes and strikethrough for I’m bad at it.

» rp friendly?:  Ahaha.  God I hope so.  I know that I can be intimidating...and sometimes appear a bit gruff in mannerisms.  But it’s a lie.  I LOVE working with people and building worlds together, one thread at a time.  :)

[centuriantalevevo]

Draco x Nonbinary Reader

Reader is AMAB, also this contains my headcanons lmao- hella OOC because of that (one of my headcanons, Draco has like.. multiple cousins who are basically on crack /j)

TW: transphobia and enbyphobia, with talk of biphobia. LGBTphobia in general. Misgendering

    5th year is.. Hectic.. Especially for a certain kid, Y/N L/N, who had to deal with a literal pink toad this year. Like.. ew? What made it worse, was they seemed to be the only kid in the school, well Slytherin specifically, that was… Different. Not in the normal, cliche sense, where ‘oh Y/N was drop dead gorgeous but abused by everyone around her, she can sing amazing-’, no. This isn’t your typical x Reader story, Y/N was different in the sense of Identity, Gender, specifically Gender Norms. They seemed to be all alone on this feeling, a feeling of discomfort, a feeling of loneliness despite multiple friends being in the room with them at this moment. They were away from earth, where no words can hurt. Where the erasure cannot get to them.

Oh god did the words hurt.

Oh? What words? You’re about to find out.

    “No, but did you hear some of the bullshit Umbridge was saying?” He asked, he as in the blonde. Draco. Draco Malfoy. “Especially to my cousin-” “You have a cousin?” Pansy asked, “Welcome to the conversation, first time speaking to me?- Yes, you are hella late to the conversation.” Draco groaned, “Now let me get back to the story” “Continue, which cousin? Darla?- Dominic?-” Blaise asked, “No, Jamie..” He responded quickly, “Oh hold on, what did the toad do to Jamie? I swear, if she hURT THAT PRECIOUS CHILD- Gryffindor or not, I love that girl to death” Blaise said quickly, interrupting Draco.

The blonde sighed deeply, “Blaise.. I love you to death but holy shit let me finnish, alright..” He took a breather, Y/N came back from their little world, queuing into the conversation. “Okay, so Umbridge had the AUDACITY to misgender MY COUSIN OVER AND OVER again! Misgendered her, invalidated her, you know that rule about like.. Something distance from the opposite gender? Yeah she’s forcing Jamie, a literal girl, to distance from girls and not guys-” He halted for a second, “No, my bad.. She’s forcing Jamie to stay away from both because she believe that Jamie is gay.. No, Jamie is a whole straight girl..” Draco ranted, “um.. Sorry to interrupt but… Jamie’s a girl? So how was she invalidated?” Y/N asked, tilting their head, Draco’s eyes moved to them, softening some.

    “Oh, you didn’t know? I thought everyone knew. Jamie is trans, she’s a trans girl specifically”

THERE! THERE IT WAS! They weren’t alone now.. There was someone who understood, yet they’d been clueless this whole time.

“I swear I will jack that woman UP” Blaise said lowly and Draco nodded in agreement. “Jamie was CRYING when she came to me, she could barely speak. That poor girl passed out from crying so much. She felt so hurt and the amount of dysphoria she felt was astronomically high.” He sighed, even he wanted to cry. “Like, damn bitch you didn’t have to out yourself as a whole LGBTphobe, you could’ve just stayed quiet and it would cost you nothing yet you chose to mess with a child who is related to the MALFOY family, very smart yes mhmm..” He growled in aggravation “Only merlin knows what she’d do if there was a nonbinary in the school, she’s probably dehumanize them.” He shook his head.

    “I’d commit a hate crime if I’m honest” Dominic said, coming from the stairs of the boys dormitory, “The LGBT had their way for a moment because she hadn’t thought about the gays, bisexuals and lesbians. Well.. the gays and lesbians, I don’t think she thinks Bisexuals exist..” He hummed, “She’s enforced the rule so now Darla can’t be near Daphne, luckily I don’t have a boyfriend.. The one time being single is a good thing.” Dominic dramatically cried.

“I will prove bisexuals exist, damn seems like I gotta stay away from ALL of you, sorry” Draco jokes, but was dead serious at the same time. “Until then, if there are nonbinaries in the school, technically they can by-pass the rules, if they present as masculine one day feminine the next. Or just androgynous to confuse the toad.” Draco then added, “I think I have to stay away from you guys too, shit Bisexuals can’t do ANYTHING” Blaise said, pretending to get up and leave.

So.. the students know of the nonbinary gender…

“Although, no surprise, Snape is always the decent one, along with all the other professors, and respect the trans kids pronouns, I’ve gone into his class to give him something during one of his lessons and heard him deliberately calling out kids that misgendered Jamie, it was amazing. And everyone says Snape is a bad teacher.” Draco says, smiling some at the memory. “Ooo! Speaking of which! While in Umbrdige’s class I think.. A few days ago, Snape actually found out about the incident and told her the fuck off for it-” “Damn, snape really said ‘trans rights are human rights’, go off honestly” Dominic interrupted, Draco nodded “The best look honestly, it was pure bliss watching that.” He responded.

Y/N finally managed to form words. “I.. didn’t know there was a trans person in the school.. A fellow trans person..” They said, mumbling the last part quietly, but Draco, Dominic, and Blaise caught it. “Fellow trans person?” Blaise tilted his head, and Draco glanced knowingly, the last part of their sentence was all he needed. They shook their head quickly, “Nothing” They shrugged, “Just nice to know”

It hurt, to be misgendered everyday, to be fair no one knew they were misgendering the kid. But they were so scared of being erased, discriminated against, that they said nothing. Since 1st year, pretty much.

They stretched some, “I'm gonna head to the library, I need to get studying done for Defense Against the Dark Arts, I’ll talk to you guys later.” They smiled, getting up, and grabbing paper, a quill, ink and their books from their dorm. Speed walking out, though it didn’t take long to hear a second pair of footsteps racing after them. Who the-

    “Hey, Y/N..” Draco trailed of, catching up to them quickly, “What’s up?” They looked at him from the corner of their eye, “There’s something you never told anyone, isn’t there?” He asked. Y/N averted their eyes and shook their head, “Nn… No..?” They sounded unsure, “Is that a statement, or a question because you don’t know?” He asked. He didn’t wanna be rude, but this was the only way he could truly confirm. If there was someone he had been accidentally misgendering, he wanted to stop that quickly.

    “I don’t wanna sound rude, nor put you on the spot.. You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to but.. What are your pronouns?” he asked, he knew of the nonbinaries, he knew of them.. So it’s fine to tell him, yes? He was basically defending them. They shook their head, not ready yet. “Not ready? That’s fine, I can respect that. You can always tell me, you know that right? I’ll understand. And if not me, then Jamie will.” heHe had sincerity in his voice, Y/N simply nodded. “Noted, thanks Draco..” They smiled and headed to the Library.

    The next day, Defense Against the Dark Arts was boring as ever, all because of Umbridge. But she had a new lesson today, not the normal one though. She had been doing her usual bullying of Jamie, Draco had been on edge and heard about it earlier, fairly quickly too. It was like it was her MISSION to be an LGBTphobic idiot with no life. Jamie had mentioned nonbinaries before she dipped from class, arguing about trans in general with the woman, or.. Monster.. Both terms work. So she was now here, in front of kids, spewing out enbyphobic shit, and not planning on stopping.. Y/N was starting to cry, but tried their best to hold it in.

The first person to notice the distress was Draco, Hermione did too, as she sat behind Y/N but could see them jolting some, “These.. Non-binaries, are less than human. You’re either a boy, or a girl. Everyone agrees, yes? If you are born a girl, you’re a girl. If you’re born a boy, you’re a boy. It’s a mental disorder, and you need to be fixed-” “They’re normal.. They just happen to not feel like a guy or a girl..” Y/N said quietly, “Trans folk are human, they aren’t an it.. That’s incredibly hurtful..” They said, it took all their strength to keep their voice from cracking.

“What was that Mr. L/N?” Umbridge smiled that sweet yet disgusting smile, tilting her head.. No, that smile had more dangerous intent behind that. They flinched. “Is there something you would like to say sir?” She asked, stopping in front of them. “Trans people.. Are people.. Just because you’re too ignorant to learn doesn’t.. M..mean you- b-bring someone down b-beca-use of it..” Their voice started to crack, they hiccuped some. “I’m sorry.. Do you think you have more knowledge than me?” She asked, her tone was dangerous. “Y..yes. Clearly, I’ve d-done my research on this, th-there is science tha-at defends us” They said.

“Detention Mr. L/N.. For talking back to a teacher, when I am giving a lesson you are to listen, you’re too caught up in whatever freak show you tra-” Umbridge was cut off, “Don’t you DARE finish that damn sentence, I can promise you I am not against hitting a teacher and a woman at that.” Draco intervened, “There is a lot of science that backs transgenders up, plenty of brain science has shown there is a female and male brain, that’s what backs up trans girls and trans boys, the nonbinary is still being researched, but I can assure you it is much more than a mental illness. Yes, dysphoria is a disorder, it CAN be treated, it can be treated with Hormone Replacement Therapy, or HRT. It can be treated with transitioning. Some nonbinaries transition, some don’t feel dysphoric enough to transition, but at the end of the day they are still a they, I am still a he, and you are still a she. Just imagine if someone called you ‘he’, or even ‘it’ because they didn’t believe you were actually a girl-” “DETENTION, for BOTH of you.” Umbridge screamed, glaring daggers at both of them.

    “I’d take detention over hearing another second of the erasure, you’ve hurt my cousin enough, I’ll gladly take the blow for her. I thought Snape would’ve taught you.” Draco muttered, staring at her, “Both of you, leave. Now.” She said with a huff, Draco grabbed his things, but stopped Y/N when they tried to collect theirs, getting it for them, “Come on.” He said softly, leaving the classroom with the student.

He handed their things to them gently, “I.. Noticed you got really upset..” He said softly, “More like panicked..” They said softly, “It’s easier said than done, but try not to let her get to you. Some people just choose to stay stupid. Sometimes even I hurt from some of the shit she says. Damn the amount of biphobia I have heard from her is ungodly.” He sighed, “You’re bi?” They asked curiously, “Yeah, I thought it was obvious by now. I kinda stopped caring at like.. 2nd year, hell I made out with.. A lot of guys in 2nd and 3rd year, mostly to piss my father off because he’s also LGBTphobic, but also just because it’s fun, and guys are cute.” He said with a small grin, they laughed. “Fair enough, do what you can to piss the oppressors off” They joked, drying their eyes. He turned to head to the Slytherin Common Room, when their voice ringed out again.

“They/Them..” Y/N said, he turned around and tilted his head, “You asked what my pronouns are.. I use they/them. I’m nonbinary” They said softly, and Draco smiled with a nod. “Is there a different name you want to be called?” But they shook their head, “The name I introduced myself as is the name I want to use.” Y/N said, “Alright, come on. Lets go to the common room” Draco said, “I can probably try and get Jamie in there too..” He hummed softly.

    Later that day, it was after dinner, and all the Slytherins were in the common room. Aside from Draco and Y/N, “Do you want to tell them? Most of them are accepting, aside from a few exceptions, Pansy surprisingly is accepting.” He said quietly, and thought for a moment.. “Blaise told me a few of the kids got told off because they agreed with us.” He added, “I think.. I was always scared to say anything because I didn’t wanna be made fun of.. I didn’t know there was someone who was trans like me til you talked about what happened with Jamie..” They said, “Well, you’re safe here. Hell, I’m more than 110% sure that our headmaster is gay, so.. Do with what you will on that information” He said with a small lighthearted laugh, Draco kissed their cheek with a small hum “It’ll be okay.”

They’d chosen to tell them, they didn’t want to feel misgendered any longer, Umbridge aside. “Oi, everyone shut your trap for a second, I have something to say- THEO… Thank you” He said, after staring down Theodore for a moment. “Let us reintroduce someone, but properly this time. This is Y/N, they’re nonbinary, use they/them pronouns and the moment I hear any of you say something against that, I will personally come for you, with Jamie in tow.” Draco said, Y/N smiling a little with a small wave. “Could’ve told us sooner, but glad you did, especially after Professor Umbridge, good job” Blaise said.

    Even Pansy was accepting, they were all proud that you had the courage to say come out, and also that you said something to Umbridge.

This was fine, everything is fine. Umbridge wasn’t fine, but.. This was nice, being accepted as who you are, by people who you’d think would be the last people to ever accept you. The person you thought would be the last person to accept you ended up being the most accepting, which is ironic when you consider his dad. 

This was bad 😭

[grayintogreen]

The ask got too long, I'm sorry

Hi! I hope you don't mind me asking for some writing advice. You see, I'm not a writer, but I want to write a thing. I have a very specific idea of what I want to write, and I planned the whole thing around this idea. But sometimes I feel like the character is being too OOC and instead of checking the source material and other works in the fandom, I don't do anything, writing included. I'm afraid the whole thing will crumble if I were to check, since writing this fic is basically me trying to deal with stuff through a character dealing with similar stuff. Like, it's me projecting my own feelings into a character and building a (hopefully) gut wrenching mini fic around what he would feel. Essentially, to correct their personality to be more canon-like or whatever is to... Not write what I'm trying to write. Does that make sense? So... Do you have any advice? (And please know that "no" is a totally valid answer!) Thank you anyway!

-anonymous

Hi anon! I don't mind at all, though I will say I'm not a professional so everyone take my words with a grain of salt. I am just a gal with a lot of big scary books and a lot of writing failure under my belt to get to be anywhere NEAR the level I'm at now.

And I do get you! This is a complicated question to ask, since I try at all times to be extremely IC to the point of keeping meticulous track of everything, but at the end of the day? Characters are malleable and people interpret different aspects of a character in different ways. For example, people take characters who are (probably) not trans and write them that way and they still come off wholly IC and plausible. The same can be said about neurodivergent headcanons. A lot of these (not all of them) are authors projecting their own circumstances onto characters they love. Are all these things backed up by canon? Hell no! Will your story still resonate if the character is at least recognizable? Yes!

From what it sounds like, you do understand the character you're writing on a fundamental level (since they're the one you're choosing to do this with), but you're putting them in an entirely new situation where you NEED them to react a certain way, which I can relate to, and I'm slowly working to a point where I can balance "keep the character recognizable" with "just write what resonates with me."

And yeah I keep saying that- keep the character recognizable. What does that MEAN? For me, it's usually VOICE. Since how they might react to things and their mental processes are things that are open to interpretation at all times, how they talk is how I gauge what's IC. Keeping track of specific, generalized personality traits helps too, but if a character is dealing with something deeply traumatic, it's not unheard of that they might react differently.

If you don't wanna get bogged down by facts but want to keep track of vocal tics, what I do is watch small clips of them talking or write down every line I can remember them saying if I don't have access (or would rather not). Having a character's "voice" in your head, especially when dealing with POV helps ease the reader into the character's headspace. You don't have to be perfectly IC- the only thing many readers care about is recognizing the character, in my experience.

And that's only if you're writing for readers. You should always write for yourself first. (A lesson I definitely learned a long time ago. /stares at my body of work that is full of things twelve people are into, but I am VERY into it.) Ultimately, if you're doing this to work out some stuff, that's valid and the best advice I can give you is to get the character's voice clearly in your head to help the narration flow and have them react the way you need them to without too much stress. Writing is fun and cathartic and we're not getting paid for this.

I HOPE THIS HELPS. I do not usually give advice.

[ao3feed-izuku-midoriya]

The Off Incidents.

The Off Incidents. by A gal named Jeff

"And when it got to Lovely by Billie Eillish you seemed so…it just seemed like you connected to the song like Kaminari does to The Village!”

She unwrapped them carefully, and he held his breath with his eyes closed. She let out a gasp, and he assumed she saw the small and deliberate incisions.

“Yeah, it's me. ~Kero~” she said, relieved. “You had a panic attack; do you know what triggered it?” she asked softly

Words: 780, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Fandoms: 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia

Rating: Not Rated

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Characters: Midoriya Izuku, Todoroki Shouto, Uraraka Ochako, Asui Tsuyu, everyone, Everyone and their mothers, Everyone and their mothers mothers

Relationships: Asui Tsuyu & Iida Tenya & Midoriya Izuku & Todoroki Shouto & Uraraka Ochako, Midoriya Izuku & Everyone

Additional Tags: Asui Tsuyu is a Good Friend, Uraraka Ochako is a Good Friend, Iida Tenya is a Good Friend, Todoroki Shouto is a Good Friend, OOC Todoroki Shouto, OOC Asui Tsuyu, OOC Iida Tenya, OOC Midoriya Izuku, Panic Attacks, Midoriya Izuku Needs A Hug, Midoriya Izuku Needs Therapy, Midoriya Izuku Needs Help, Midoriya Izuku Needs A Break, And he gots a hug from everyone in the dekusquad, mostly from Tsu Uraraka, He doesn't get therapy, he gets a bit of help from friendos, he gets a break curtsey of running away, basically it's chaotic, he also has a robo panther, thank you Mei!, my poor baby, Tsu talks him down from his panic attack., Protective Asui Tsuyu, Protective Uraraka Ochako, Protective Shigaraki Tomura | Shimura Tenko, Protective fucking everyone, Deal With It, Trans Kaminari Denki, Aromantic Midoriya Izuku, Aromantic Uraraka Ochako, It makes it easier for me to not have to write romance, Platonic Cuddling, platonic cuteness - Freeform, Traitor Hagakure Tooru, Suspected Traitor Midoriya Izuku, Poor child what have I done, I mean, baby does end up a Traitor, but before that Allshit gets sus, Bitch., Did I say something?, No I did not, you must be hearing things, Sanity?, What's That?, No beta we die like the dumbasses we are!, uwu, yes - Freeform, I just used UwU as a tag., bite me, Izu has tattoos, Yep., You heard me. - Freeform

Read Here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27961250