#thank you to all the wonderful authors

[marbledwings]

Fanfic Friday! ✨

Have I been compulsively reading fic instead of dealing with real life? Maybe. While I don't recommend that as a coping mechanism, I DO recommend all of these wonderful stories.

I even remembered to include word count and ratings this time.

Dear Ed (sorry, wrong chat) - @chaotic-neutral-knitter

Words: 3,140, T

The widows find Stede's love letters. All I can say is, poor poor Mary 😭

Yours in Every Way - ClaireGregory

Words: 5,122, M

Another epistolary fic! I love AUs where Stede is a tailor, what a perfect profession for him and him falling in love with a customer through their choice of fine fabrics is very on brand.

Pete & Prejudice - shieldmaidenofmithrilhall

Words: 13,943, T

This fic is so funny and romantic that the examination of how courageous it is to dismantle your own toxic masculinity sneaks in while you're giggling over Lucius's POV (and Ed and Stede being so over-the-top into each other).

A New Season - @amuseoffyre

Words: 128,624, T

Fyre's take on S3 - an incredible, ambitious, triumphant pirate's tale which gives every character (and some new ones!) time to shine. This has been such a fun WIP to follow and it's now finished!

quite a career shift - shipmates/ @stedesparasol

Words: 156,570, E

Booktuber Stede and criminal turned author Ed meet via youtube comments. Deliciously angsty with both Stede and Ed's internal conflict written so well. I devoured this one in record time.

[ailesdiaphanes]

reminder if you like isat and read isat fics and also have less than optimal mental health please please pace yourself and take care of yourself!! I’m saying this because reading ten isat fics with extensive content warnings in a row may lead to you having to speak with your therapist about things you didn’t want to have to talk about!!

[sevendutchies]

People in this fandom will really look at The Fool, Patience, Lacey, Carson, Sedric, Hest, Davvie, Lecter, Kennit, Ash/Spark, and yes, even Fitz himself, and still have the gall to call it queer bait.

These characters are explicitly queer, their actions impact the narrative, they are well written, and their identities are treated with respect. That is the best possible queer representation you could ask for in any story.

I've seen people on tumblr basing the likelihood of if they read this series on whether or not it's "actually gay" and I'm here to tell you that it is. There are queer characters. There are queer protagonists. And no matter what you see people in the fandom say, Robin Hobb wrote some amazing queer representation in a genre that rarely sees it at all.

TLDR;

Queer bait = disrespectful marketing ploy that exploits queer audiences

Queer bait ≠ "my two favorite characters never have sex"

[peacockrulz]

I'm sorry to anybody who expected me to post smth normal but. /j

these doodles are entirely based off the text of the fic Cyn's Night Out. which is a part from a series of fics that I haven't actually read but!! this particular part of it I have so jdskfjsdkf

I dub these two,,, StillKicking (get it? because,,football?? and Cyn never fucking dies????) anway here slightly more sketchy doodles under the cut:

Your Honor. I need More Of This.

[the-apocrypha]

Dude, I gotta tell you how much I appreciated your cottagecore update. Honestly, it was just what I needed today. Any time I see an update from you, instantly i'm just ~~~my crops are watered, my skin is clear, my headache is evaporated~~~ Instant balm, Aquaphor for the soul.

I also love how you're blending the lovey aesthetic ~cottage~ material with the -they live in a shack in the woods and nature has a hit out on their lives- material. That's why hurt and comfort go so well together; you really need one for the other to make its fullest impact, and you've got that down pat. Mmmpf, it's the endurance, and the grit, and the perseverance- so inspiring!

(Also, as an additional aside, your style of writing to me is proof that you can be both poetic and characterized and elegant- and succinct. Important stuff for an overly wordy bug like myself.)

I pray for good news about the life of Cat as well, I hold out hope that she survived Eskham, if just to terrorize Dream and Hob more.

Oh my goodness, this message totally made my day. Wow. Thank you so much! I absolutely have my own authors whose writing is also an InstaCure for That Which Ails You, and it's an honor to be that for another person.

The cottagecore setting is actually pretty convenient, as writing goes, because it's historical + magic, which means I can make things exactly as easy or as difficult as I need to depending on what the narrative calls for. We get a little bit of sitting cozily before the fire with your embroidery and your whittling, and we also get bedpans and moldy hay.

I especially appreciate your comment about my writing style, because I honestly feel like I don't have much of one! I am not very poetic, by nature, and most of what I write feels very functional. Brevity it always something that I am striving for, though. A lot of my writing process is typing things out, reading it, and then finding a shorter way to say it.

(Cat is the dark horse of this series, I swear to god, you are one of many demanding for her rescue. A GENTLE REMINDER THAT TRANSFORMATIVE WORKS ARE WELCOME, FOLKS.)

[keyofjetwolf]

So far 2024 has seen me knocked flat by a cold, but hey, enabled my first book of the year to start and finish!

[slocumjoe]

autistic danse being so comfortable and himself in the bos because the nature and standards don't require him to mask too much

[carnivalls]

18 & 28 from the ‘weirdly specific’ asks for juve (bc i want to study and observe her) and oreste (bc you haven’t posted about him much but i still desire to Know Facts)

implying juve wouldn't be studying and observing you right back... interesting.

18. Who do they love truly, 100% unconditionally (if anyone)?

this question is... complicated, for juve. not least because she's so certain she understands feelings like love, while also being completely serrated from her own, while also thinking that her complete understanding of feelings like love is why she's actually so serrated from her own. there are layers happening here and juve is my favorite low empathy onion.

but also, for what it's worth. since she was about fifteen, juve has been wearing her girlfriend (term used questionably here, since they were girlfriends in all but name, but specifics do tend to matter to juve) safini's form and presenting as her to the wider world, attempting to overwrite and 'fix' the existing story in which she killed herself. she's stepped into safi's life and, in her own mind, kept it going past its ending point, trying to help her now in a way safini 'wouldn't let her' while alive. like sure, safi messed up by ruining her story like that so soon, but juve will make it all right now!

and juve can offhandedly tell herself that she's doing this as a favor to safini, or as a fuck you to safini's 'narrow minded' view of her situation, or whatever other dismissive excuse she likes, but the fact also remains that she has spent about three years now preferring to cosplay as her dead girlfriend rather than grieve her. and i don't know if that's love, but i do think that juve's feelings for safi went a little deeper than even (or especially) she cared to admit, and scorn and substitution are... much easier ways of dealing with All That, for her.

oreste is also complicated, but for different reasons– he spent so much of his adolescence trying to gaslight himself into feeling unconditional love for another (survival tactic) (adopted into being his physically volatile quarantined cousin's emotionally incestuous throw pillow) that right now he's actually trying to be weaned off of offering it. instead, he's being made to work on cultivating his sense of individuality, or just Anything Other Than A Fawn Response regarding his interpersonal relations (with juve's very kind, if unasked for, help).

so, if asked this question, oreste would automatically say well, he loves kai– but he'd already be checking to see that kai was in earshot to hear him saying it, and the smile would not entirely reach his eyes. because it's either that or 'get thrown across the room with the force of a star exploding because kai doesn't know how to regulate his emotions (which are reflected into his magic) and his mother has decided keeping him happy and giving him anything he wants (which includes oreste) is more important than teaching him how to handle disappointment in a non destructive manner.' and after a certain point in repeating your lines, and having your head cracked against a wall when you're not convincing enough, well. it's easier to condition yourself into believing that you mean it as well. or the situation becomes just a little too unbearable to live with.

28. What do they tell people they want? What do they really want?

juve tells people what she largely considers the truth– she wants to help them. she wants to make them the best versions of themselves, and she wants to be the one supervising each step of the process. she wants to give them suitable character arcs, and be able to step into their shoes by the time they cross the finish line.

and honestly, it's not too far off from what she really wants, if a little more altruistic and less neurodivergent than reality. fundamentally, juve wants to be in control, and she wants people to make sense. it's hard for her to connect with people as equals because they're not her, and they dont behave as she would, and juve knows this but on some subconscious level she also can't understand it. because people are messy and unpredictable and strange and juve isn't. juve makes sense.

so juve would rather take the people in her life and boil them down to a few choice traits, motivations, flaws– she'd rather force them into summarizable boxes, and flatten them into palatability. and, as a skinshifter who primarily uses her magic to interact with the world around her, juve thus figures she can understand people best by becoming them, and again making them make sense by putting them back on track with satisfying and logical arcs (fun fact: it is this exact mentality that blows up in her face regarding hess, when she miscalculates the best way of getting her to open up) (she also miscalculates how okay people are with being treated as psychological dolls) (play stupid games win stupid prizes).

essentially juve is a neurodivergent author stuck as a character in a story. and unfortunately for her there's no fourth wall break that gets her out of this one, but rather just respect for the narrative confines. smth smth the narrative here is not a narrative but life itself (while also on a meta level being a narrative) (just play with me in this 2:50 am space)

oreste meanwhile hits on a similar but opposite vein to this notion: if asked what he wants, he'll pause, stare like he expects a trap door to open under his feet at any moment, and awkwardly say he wants whatever the other person wants. oreste is someone who has been so beaten into submission that he now struggles to exist outside of caring for others' desires, leaving his own shoved down somewhere far away from where he can reach.

so, what are his own? again, tricky, since oreste is so detached from them– but honestly? i think he just wants a nice life. a very basic, nice life, away from his current gothic nightmare. a wife, maybe. kids, someday. to stop feeling kai's eyes on the back of his neck even after seven years have passed away from him. maybe the attention of kai's aloof but very pretty and funny (dyke) twin sister. just stuff like that.

[lale-txt]

LALE, oh my god the build up??? OH MY GOD the happenings??? LIKE????? I adore i adore i adore everyone accept y/n is gonna be y/n and live that life. and they are her ROCK. its just 🥺♡

osamu my responsible king NOT being petty in this one tho?? he in deeeepppppp 😮‍💨

also just realized tumblr cut off my tags so im sending them to you here, you do not have to post this nonsencial but AHEM, please, this is how i lost my mind:

,GIRLLLLL, GIRLLLLL, GIRLLLLLL< OH MY GAWD, BOKUTO GET HER OUT OF THERE, GET HER TO SPACE WHERE SHE CANT OPEN HER MOUTH OMG, THEOUAOU:HEW, THE GIRL IS COMING TO OSAKA Ohhh, fuckkkk, omgggg, KEIJI !?!??!?, so cute they do scheduled check ins ♡, always a seat reserved for you -- GIRL DO U NOT REaD THAT, LMAO how is osmau just gonna????, OSAMU DID JUST ????, how down bad is he omg, HE'S ON THE TO DO LIST, on the to do list, TO DO list, TO DO, t o d o list, TO DO LISTTTT, LMAOOOOOOOOOO , the boys can be so sweet bu UMM food wishes, umm i want a private jet, why won't u notice me sakusa, its fine ushi knows i exist, suna dont u play with me boy 🔪, that convo after the cake is pretty sweet? pretty tame?, pretty * loving * even, fake fiances UNITE, added that spwan from hell comment to hide FEELS, FUTURE WIFE, HE ALMOST SENT A BLACK HEART, 79 times, cool cool cool, totally normal,

April i will write 100000 Soft Launch chapters just for you

“GET HER TO SPACE WHERE SHE CANT OPEN HER MOUTH” might be the overall theme of the story

[haze-of-hyperfixations]

🎱🥤🧩

hi foxy!! :)

🎱 ⇢ post your AO3 total stats

and bonus fun facts because i like talking: i joined ao3 in 2021. my ao3 is hyperfixation_or_death. i currently have 22 fics on ao3! with most of them (14 of them) being for the fandom Parallels (TV 2022). my current longest fic is 4,620 words. (it's a Parallels fic called impulsive haircuts and what they mean for your future)

🥤 ⇢ recommend an author or fanfic you love

an author i love: (i am resisting the urge to recommend you to yourself because that defeats the purpose of recommendations. but to everyone else, consider this a recommendation. go read foxy's fics if you like qsmp or ducktales!)

midas_touch_of_angst is an incredible author! multi-fandom, but it was the snicketverse fics that altered the course of my life and changed my brain chemistry forever with how much i loved them.

also i know some of you people are rottmnt fans. i personally haven't seen it yet. but if you like absolutely gorgeous angst and sibling dynamics, remrose has phenomenal fics that i have almost started crying over while at a family gathering. (this is a good thing, the emotional catharsis of reading about a fictional character's anxiety distracted me from experiencing my own anxiety. also the fic was stunningly written.)

a fanfic i love: in honor of my current epic the musical hyperfixation, i will recommend this absolutely incredible oneshot. i love it so much. even after reading, bookmarking, leaving kudos, re-reading, commenting, reblogging on here, re-reading again, talking to the (amazing) author on here, following the (fantastic and wonderful) author on here, and re-reading again, i still feel like i haven't given this fic as much love as it deserves. because the amount of love it deserves is unlimited and infinite. it's so good.

anyways. epic the musical fans, especially those of you who are rotating eurylochus in your mind at all times like me: i think you should read brother you were so right, sure as the setting sun by DrawingsAndDreams on ao3.

🧩 ⇢ what will make you click away from a fanfiction immediately?

okay, with every answer i try to think of for this one, i immediately think of exceptions.

because i have a long track record of being in microscopically small fandoms, and if one of those fandoms got a new fic, there is very, very little that would stop me from reading it to the end.

i guess if the entire fic was untagged, very explicit smut, then i would click away immediately. (although most authors i've seen do tag well. so i would probably know without clicking that it's something i won't be really comfortable reading. everyone say thank you for the tag system <3)

thanks for the ask!! :)

[inkandpaperqwerty]

heeeeeeeeeck yeeeeeeeees i made it to 3k!!!!!!!!!!!! you guys are freaking awesome i love you

[cosmoknightchaos]

(coughs conspicuously). um. 🌹. for Sky. This is for science purposes. ahem.

🌹(Rose): What does your oc find attractive in other people? Are these traits found in their friends and/or romantic partners? Are they found in themselves?

Purely for science, ey?

Okay first of all before I actually answer this question. Sky's stance on romance as a concept is something I've been trying to figure out since her creation. I don't know how this part of her brain works. It is truly a mystery (<-Aroace who doesn't understand romance in the slightest)

From a platonic standpoint, Sky's looking for people who are similar to her. She likes having friends who see the world the same way she does. For as kind and understanding as she is, Sky's a low-empathy person. She struggles to see things from anything but her perspective- a perspective based more in facts and logic than emotions- and so she automatically likes people who agree with her more. I also believe, because of that, Sky likes folks who are less emotionally conflicted. Which isn't to say she can't handle emotional situations I say as I nervously glance at Act 5 but they're not her favourite thing. She's a reasonable person and she likes reasonable people.

From a romantic standpoint, I cannot stress enough how the stars fucking aligned with Skaide.

Sky is, first of all, really weird when it comes to her romantic orientation. She's probably asexual/demiromantic/panromantic, but I don't know for sure. I know that she experiences both infatuation and romantic interest, very easily confuses the two, and doesn't know the difference between a romantic and a platonic relationship. Sky's in love with the idea of romance more than she is in love, and it makes for incredibly doomed yuri potential.

On the rare occasion she does catch genuine romantic feelings, her type is similar to her platonic type, with a few key differences. Since Sky has a fairly big "stage presence", she leans more towards less-noticeable people. Folks who don't make as grand of an entrance or don't speak quite as loud. Sky has a strong personality and having a more mellow partner evens it out a bit.

All of the words I know of to describe this next bit have negative connotations and that sucks because it's not what I want but I don't know what else to use. Sky likes folks who are opinionated and stubborn. Not in a loud way, but people who have their minds set. Who know what they want. Who aren't very conflicted. Or, who don't seem to be very conflicted. Folks who appear to have their issues under control. Even if said opinions don't fully align with Sky's, as long as they're not in direct opposition, she's willing to adapt her view to match which is a side effect of infatuation, where you want to change yourself to seem more appealing to your person of interest.

I'm going to be honest. I had a whole paragraph written here about how Sky's low-empathy view effects relationships that tied into the Skaide Breakup Arc and why Sky and Jaide are a doomed relationship and I reread it several times and you know what? It was very much out of character. Sky is, despite the low-empathy, very much capable of handling emotional situations and we see that on full display in Act 5. Sure, it's not her best skill, but she is willing to face that issue head-on and try her best to help. So I can confidently say that a lot of Sky's previous romantic experiences, especially the Skaide RP, were just a side effect of me not knowing how to characterize her yet.

But on that note, I still stand by my original comment from months ago that Skaide is a doomed yuri relationship. And I think that all boils down to the fact that, with Sky's low-empathy and experience in emotional conflict, she is a thousand times better at handling platonic experiences than romantic. She is good with having friends and dealing with those issues, but when it comes to romance, she has no fucking clue what to do. It is an unexplored part of her life, and in an attempt to make sense of it, she will always default to treating it like another friendship, regardless of how much she loves the other person. Skaide was doomed from the start because Sky has such a different view on what a romantic relationship is than Jaide does and those views probably aren't going to align. Ever. Skaide is always going to end in them remaining friends because that's the type of relationship Sky is comfortable having.

Now, is there a chance that, somewhere down the line, Sky realizes she loves Jaide enough to try and change that view? Hell yeah. But that's going to come after a lot of conflict and struggle and uncomfortableness. Because, in order for them to become a romantic relationship, Sky has to do the one thing she cannot stand and ignore her logic, ignore the reasoning she always fell back on, and use her emotions to change as a person. And then maybe there's a chance things will work out.

I'd like to finish this off by saying Sky is still in the development stage as a character. I have no idea if any of this will still be true in a couple months' time- Act 5 is Sky's act and I fully believe she's not going to escape development hell until it is finished. But I do know that this is where her character stands right now, and I have a good feeling that it won't change too much over the next few months.

[heleneplays]

shaking sobbing crying over SOOOO many good demos ive just had the pleasure of reading and like. AUTHORS PLS KNOW IM GOING STUPID FERAL OVER YOUR WORKS AAAAAAAA

the wars we wage by mah_sanogo (cog forum) - when I was browsing the dashingdon page I got intrigued by the summary (lmao i am currently looking for more isekai IFs >< if yall have a rec aside kingdoms & empires my inbox is OPEN <3) and while technical wise there's still a lot to correct (esp typos), the idea is VERY solid + as a fellow fan of Youjo Senki, i am SO thrilled to play, getting into a very oblivious MC and hopefully reach my goals. ALSO GOD????? CAN I FIGHT & ROMANCE GOD???? i wish 2 know bc i KNOW we can fight (technically) and im 👉🏻👈🏻

Before we are Ghosts by @anjiefiction - HELP HELP HELPPPPPPPPPPP FROM CRACK I IMMEDIATE GO TO SHAKING SOBBING THROWING UP— author i am. *clenches my fist* SO in love with this heartbreaking concept and i'm literally honest to God sobbing into my teddy bear wishing I could hug MC rn. and everyone else honestly, they need all the hugs SO bad 😭😭😭 Anyways to anyone who wants to plays this game, fucking get your tissues ready bc you'll sob with the pain and angst and. the tenderness that's still abt to come 🥺🥺🥺

Vendetta by @vendetta-if - IT'S BEEN SOOOOO LONG since i actually played through the demo, and replaying it now......... GETTING BACK INTO MY VILLAIN ERA HEE HEE HEE <3

Sinners by @sinners-if - if villain bad why hot??? <- literally the only thought in my mind EVER!!! anyway, reading the update to ch 2 on itch.io was SO unexpected, i remember only reading it on dashingdon and then. yeah. twine has never looked so good. ANYWAYS WE'RE COMING ALONG SOOOO NICELY <3 and i cannot WAIT to see what happens next!!!!!!! (also sidenote i am reading allnthe drabbles available and im. 🤡🚩over here.)

The Price of Emeralds by @thournewrites - currently scream laughing @ my MC in this one bc WOW bestie your shit out of luck!!!!!! and KDHDJDKDK HELP HELPPPPP not me getting clowned on by the og ro :((( welp! wishing them a very yess get u in that funky crew and get that money bby girl <3

Replica: between universes by @replicabetweenblogs - i see multiverse and i immediately think abt helene-verse and DEAR GOD this wip!!!!! im biting myself soooo bad rn im being absolutely INSANE abt the whole thing!!!!!!!!!! im 7 ways enamored with everyone but most especially to the bestest little sister i am going to love and cherish now and forever 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

The Eye of Eikshal by atlas7 (CoG forum) - :3c :3c :3c intrigue??? WITH A BUNCH OF FOUND FAMILY BESTIES??????? oh boy, not to mention a benefactor turned adoptive father who's wish is for the kids to actually be happy???? man. investing rn on it <3

Through Broken Lenses by Interestedparty (CoG forum) - ok on a more serious note, this story was actually one of the first ever wips i've read in dashingdon and rereading it today had me. well. feeling a lot of 😔😔😔 anyways Vi, you're so fucking mecore and much as MC is traumatized in this one, all I can say is that I she can't help but watch you :)

I actually have several more tabs left to go through but it's literally 2 am and I have been writing this on my phone since 5 pm yesterday so. yeet!!!

[thepixiediaries]

pinterest thinks I want pictures of Lestat just because I've saved Loustat pics ❌️ I am sorry I do not want to see that white man on his own.

[kaikama]

Today is a confusing day for my gender. I want to (genuinely) thank some people on Tumblr for that, but I don't know how. I know many people consider their blogs as being a sort of public diary, but I've never used mine like that before. I reblog art and memes, and sometimes ramble in the tags, but almost never make posts of my own, and certainly don't talk about anything important when I do.

However sometimes the best way to get ahold of something slippery that's swimming around in your head is to first get it out of your head. I may not even post this, though contrary to how I present myself on this blog, I do very much love talking about myself (especially when I can indulge my inner 12yo-fanfic-author and be a bit dramatic and poetic about it) so we'll see.

However, to the anxiety of making a long, eventually emotional post I will cede the small victory of a readmore:

I guess the place to begin is with the lovely @dduane. In particular with the recent post she reblogged talking about @redgoldsparks's book Gender Queer. I was reading through the comic therein when I remembered that I actually had the book e was talking about sitting on my "to-read" shelf... okay, one of my "to-read" shelves. No avid reader with disposable income should be surprised I have so many such books, nor that any book could get lost in such a pile, no matter how... personally relevant it is.

I picked it up one day, not at my usual book store, but actually at a local comic book/board game store. It caught my eye of course by presenting the words "GENDER QUEER" in big, bold letters, and and further enticed me when I flipped through it briefly and saw it didn't censor itself unnecessarily. In a graphic novel that's largely about gender, it was relieving, for example, to see bodies being addressed without fear that showing them was too obscene.

So I bought it but, as I mentioned, it sat on my shelf for at least months, probably a year or more, if the time dilation typical of the pandemic period can be assumed.

Then today, after seeing that post, I decided to finally take it out. It only took a short while to read, maybe an hour or so. Unless you include the time it will spend lingering in my mind, in which case I may never finish reading it.

I related to it in many ways. In ways that were the same, but upsidedown – since I was amab, but could still feel a connection to the ideas within. Technically a different wavelength, but... a harmonic of the original. But one point in particular is the whole reason for this post. Page 189.

If you don't have the book, well firstly I highly recommend you go get it now and simply read through it to see the page in question. But in case you can't, I'll describe it here:

In panel 1, the author laments about wanting to switch pronouns, but that "they/them" doesn't feel quite right. In panel 2, e asks eir conversational partner what e uses. In panel 3, as you have probably guessed, e tells the author that e uses "e/em/eir" and, important to my story, uses them in a sentence: "Ask em what e wants in eir tea." In panel 4, e reacts with a huge smile and starry eyes.

Here is where I'll pause and mention that reading that passage gave me a shiver down my spine. I love seeing people explore their identities – or in this case, eir identity – and that especially goes for things I could never wrap my head around, such as neopronouns. As much as I respect them, I never could understand. To me, gender has usually been a nuisance. Something that I have to perform. If I don't, people will assume some performance anyways, one which is usually wrong. I wish I could just work backstage. Or maybe it's more like I wish everyone had a program guide, so instead of having to constantly tell people I'm not a man, they can just see the description in the guide for themselves. I'm just so tired of it. So tired.

But! That's why I get shivers like this, since it warms my heart to see people like me, also pushing through. E shouldn't have to struggle to be known. E does. But that strength inspires my own, which I hope inspires others, in a cycle of propping eachother up!

Then in panel 5 e says "I love those pronouns! I just got the biggest tingle down my spine."

And I recall my spine tingle.

And I'm really confused.

Do I want those pronouns? I've been using "they/them" for a while now, and I've known about (and had friends who use) "e/em/eir" for some time now. Surely I would've realized they fit me sooner than this, right?

Then again, I think, I have been kinda growing dissatisfied with "they/them" for a bit now. But I always just felt tired of gender as a whole. I don't want pronouns that even fewer people will understand, I said. At least with "they/them" I can point at the neutral usage everyone uses them for. Anything more obscure would just be all the more effort. All the more tiring.

...but does that make it untrue? Or simply unfair? Everything to do with being queer is unfair, sorta' by definition. If I wanted it to be easy, I could stick to "he/him", but that would only really be "easy" for other people, I realized. Neither "he/him" nor "they/them" are easy for me. Neither "male" nor "female" nor "non-binary" are easy for me. Neither the old gender binary nor the new gender trinary are easy for me. I'm just so tired.

I wish I had an answer to finish with. Not for your sake, but for mine. I have a sort of modus operandi I like to use: "prepare for the worst, but hope for the best, and expect something in-between." It's a bit of a compromise between the phrase"high hopes, low expectations" and my optimism. Well, I forgot to do that here. I had hoped that I would've found my answer by the end of this post, but I forgot to "prepare for the worst," and as such had no middle ground to set my expectations.

Maybe the answer is to stop caring so much? But that seems like it would be a disservice to myself and my wants and needs. Also it seems impossible. Or at least like clinical depression, which shouldn't be anyone's goal.

Maybe I should try using different pronouns? None of my friend would care. But they would make mistakes. It's extremely rare for one of my friends to slip up now, but it does still happen. And using something new would give me those small rock-in-the-shoe, scratchy-shirt-tag irritations that @redgoldsparks mentioned in eir book all over again.

...or maybe "they/them" is dorta' doing that now, and I've just gotten used to it? I remember when I switched I hadn't realized that "he/him" wasn't great until then. Not because I felt bad hearing it, but because I suddenly felt good hearing "they/them." I still think I don't feel especially disphoric over "he/him," but now that I know the euphoria I could have, it feels worse in comparison. Maybe the same would happen if I switched again?

My how many thoughts I have about this. I want an answer. There is no simple answer. Life is work. I love life. I hate work. I'm so tired. But it's worth it.

I think that's most of my metaphorical brain-fish on the topic disgorged for now. If you listened, thanks for listening. If you're confused, imagine how I feel. And if you think you felt like you resonate at some harmonic of this, please go read @redgoldsparks's book Gender Queer. It probably won't have clear answers, and the feelings it evokes probably won't be exclusively positive ones, but if you've read this far into my ramblings, then I can promise you it will be a valuable read.

Thanks for your time! -Kai

[crescentfool]

New Ryomina fic, Lizz!!

THREE WEEKS LATE TO THIS ASK BUT THANK U ANON!! honestly when i got this inbox i was like. tearing up. im like. "oh my god. people still think of me when they see ryomina. thank you so much. that means a lot to me. im so glad people want to share the joy of ryomina with me."

i assume that this is probably about "i alone await you," since the ask came around that time (two people possibly notifying me about this! crazy! this is positive. do not take that the wrong way), and i want to say that i've read it and am going to be insufferable about it for the forseeable future.

and if it is not about that fic than oops. give me clown makeup. i will happily put that on (my true form is that of a clown). i hope to read some more ryominas, it's been awhile since i've sat down to read the tag and. god. did you know? im so normal about them. anyways, thank you anon! 💛💙