#the concept of 'i am not allowed to do this' or 'i should not do this' has never occured to him

[ploshansky]

i've always found it particularly insulting when people insist that i'll have kids one day because i've always been pretty quick to divulge that childbirth is literally my greatest fear. i'm scared of the process, the mental and physical toll, the pain, the very real possibility of complications, the kid itself. like i've had nightmares where i wake up sobbing because either i had kids and i didn't want them, or i was pregnant and i didn't want to be. when people egg on the idea of me having kids it feels like they're telling me "mark my words you're going to be the first one buried alive" or "oh she's sooo going to have both her hands sawed off one day." normally i got the whole "well it's different when it's your kid," or of course, "you'll change your mind." okay, sure. stranger things have happened. allow me to present another angle: i know in my heart of hearts that i am not willing to be a parent.

i have very little patience. i hold grudges. i am very self-involved. i am somehow both flighty and steadfast in my ways. i can barely handle my own body and mind, let alone worry about a child's mental and physical state. i'll be the first person to say that moms are superheroes and i will forever kiss the ground that they walk on, but i'm not interested in making the sacrifices my mother made just for me to be a snotty teenager in return. "but you're so good with kids!" yeah, because i'm just playing with them. i'm not making sure they eat, cleaning their poop and boogers and vomit, paying for doctor's visits, etc. none of that matters though. i could be patient, forgiving, selfless, go-with-the-flow, organized, mentally stable, etc. the important thing here is that i don't want to. that should negate every single motherly quality that i do or don't possess.

for some reason this explanation (that i thought was actually pretty solid, but silly me) is always taken as a sort of bashful "o how nice it would be to partake in motherhood..... alas, i am simply unfit......." spiel where i paint motherhood as this far-off concept that i could only wish to participate in. usually i'm met with "nooo don't say that you would make an amazing mother!" but i'm literally telling you outright: not only would i be an awful parent, i have no interest in being one, and i certainly wouldn't want to put a child in the position of having a parent that's not 101% committed to the job. i get that moms make a lot of sacrifices, and if push came to shove, yeah i'd probably bite the bullet and make those sacrifices. but i would harbor resentment, and that doesn't do any good for either of us. i don't want a kid mainly because it scares me, but it would be so fucking unfair to a kid to have me as a mother.

and re: the whole "what if your husband wants kids?" thing–i do not want to be in a relationship where a baby is the only thing holding us together, much less the concept of a baby.

stop telling your teenage daughters who say they don't want kids that they'll change their mind

[simcardiac-arrested]

day 30 - videogame (undertale, fnaf, etc)

somebody get this man some chapstick

[answermywearyquery]

the theerapanyakul kids: how close are you with each other?

loan’s kinnporsche 2nd anniversary: favourite familial relationship: the theerapanyakul kids (insp: ½+½)

[blueskittlesart]

the master works discourse on twitter is killing me. none of these bitches understood the game or its characters AT ALL

[chainfen]

I want to preface this with the fact that response came from myself and OP directly discussing this post, and me offering to further elaborate on my own opinions on a universe I too enjoy very much.

As I've delved into the HDG universe over the last few months, I've found myself struggling to understand why I find a lot of the writing I'm really enjoying to in some way still be unfulfilling. Reading this piece helped me realise that for a lot of them, it's because they simply do not cement themselves in fantasy. As a group of widely diverse both creators and readers, whether that be race, gender, sexuality- we are choosing to engage in a collective universe, with established boundaries and context, that is high fantastical. That's the entire point of it, is it not? the concept of being allowed to build a version of yourself that is your 'idealised' form; free from the economic constraints of capitalism, the socio-political constraints of wider society and social perception, for some even the limits unbreakable by species.

I don't, like you said, want to put down the idea that there is a catharsis and a rawness in being able to do that. The things I would do to be able to do that. The sheer escapism that the HDG universe offers me- a chronically ill, disabled, transsexual butch plural system, is something I would struggle to find anywhere else. But it feels like there is trend within the content in the universe to build it's women out of a generic base model, one that I see every day on every billboard all around me. There's an almost sterile nature to it, that makes me feel uncomfortable. A woman is small, submissive, feminine, hairless... perfect.

Tangential talk about noncon here, but it's relevant. I'm willing to roll with the idea that noncon as a concept exists within the HDG universe because the Affini believe that they do things for the best interest of the sophont in question- this is not something I'm trying to bring into question. However, as we know it is very thematic for this override of control to include egg cracking, HRT, removal of body hair and body modification that ranges from minor health related changes, to limb changes and additions, as well as full SRS. And whilst I as a reader can not only enjoy these elements, but understand the necessity of them within the storytelling, it once again removes me from the fact that this is meant to be fantasy.

What does it mean to 'be feminine' or be made 'girly'. How does one define those words? How does one separate them from gender, if you can? I can understand that the responses to those questions might be different for each person- but putting that aside, the only actual prerequisite to being 'girly' is to be a girl. I am not ignoring the social implications of being called 'girly' and it's wider use to often mean effeminate, or weak, but I am calling to attention the idea that there is no one look to what is perceived as 'girly'. In regards to femininity, as a GNC butch who has femininity often imposed on me societally because of my stature, there is a pain in the norm of associating these things with the ideal woman without a much wider commentary on why we feel the need to do this.

The Affini are bound by a collective and paternal duty to, well to put it short, care. To ensure the safety, happiness, and realised potential of all xenosophont races they domesticate, every individual, even those who resist it the most. I don't want to have to suspend my disbelief in my escapist fantasy world to believe that they, as an entire race, believe that the best way to treat the damage done to transgender Terrans is to reinforce and comply with the standard that caused them the very damage and trauma they're trying to undo in the first place? This idea of what a woman should be. This perfect model of ideal sterilised femininity who is gorgeous, ageless, hairless and always youthful. That the path to healing the insurmountable harm humanity has committed against transgender, non-binary, and GNC people is to reinforce their home world stereotype that was constructed around an imposed colonialist view of gender that centred the subjugation of women as a gender and ensuring they would be subordinate

and a note, for those in the comments saying OP is 'holier than thou' for the way they express their trans-femininity, or their thoughts on hair removal. I need you to reflect on the fact that your perception of an ideal woman is racist. I am not, in any way saying that it is wrong for you to feel the way you do or to want the things you want. But there needs to be a reflection on the values you apply to womanhood. Idealised white femininity intentionally devalues non Eurocentric features and labels them as masculine to dehumanise and devalue women of colour. You are not being radical or subversive by continuing to uphold these values in a fantasy universe that is meant to be for all.

Trans Feminism and the Human Domestication Guide

Or

Wishing on a misogynistic star won't make your dreams come true

Thesis: A running theme in some parts of the HDG sphere is the unintentional chase and valorisation of misogynistic standards for women in the pursuit of validation.

“The most radical thing that any of us can do is to stop projecting our beliefs about gender onto other people's behaviours and bodies”

― Julia Serano, Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity

I would like to open by declaring my own identities, both as a shield against a particular kind of bad faith criticism, but also to demonstrate that I’m operating in good faith here. I’m a fat, hairy, physically disabled, transgender, butch dyke who writes within the HDG setting with great joy and greater love for the community. I’m also hot as fuck. That established, I’ll continue:

There is a particularly pernicious lie that revolves around the state of women's bodies; that there is a correct way to have one and that those who do not meet these standards are unfeminine or otherwise worthless. It must have a vagina, of course, but it must also be white, thin, able, hairless, youthful, fit but not strong and, of course, soft. 

Trans feminism, and by that I direct my attention to feminist speech within trans and gender non-conformist spaces, has managed to, if not defeat, then at least combat one of the great evils of cis sexism, the necessity of the vagina. The ongoing and necessary validation of the girl cock as beautiful, as wonderful, as feminine is a wonderful, joyful thing. We (trans feminine people) exist as part of the spectrum of womanhood, and that means that our bodies also exist within and without that spectrum of womanhood as well. 

However, trans feminism of a particular kind has - rather than continue the work done to uplift the gock - has embraced a particular kind of ugly lie we’re taught. In many cases - due to a perceived desire to be as close to flawlessly woman as we can be - the focus will instead fall on a particular kind of trans feminine person who manages to engage with and evoke those standards aside from the obvious. To paraphrase Julia Serano in illustrating this point:

“Whether unconscious or deliberate, the gatekeepers clearly sought to … ensure that most people who did transition would not be “gender-ambiguous” in any way”

― Julia Serano, Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity 

One of the beauties of the class-G is that it allows the character to experience their body in an idealised form. I recognise and applaud this position, it is beautiful to see a writer able to imagine themselves completely idealised, completely transformed into something that doesn’t hurt. However, therein lies the rub; the ideal depicted displays some of that ugliness, some of the roots of misogyny that thread their ways through our brains like poison and make us into useful fools for its goals.

The thought that brought about this essay is a repeated phrasing that appears across several works within the HDG milieu; that to be hairless and soft is to be feminine. A character will have their body hair, all their body hair bar that on their head, removed and thus will be made ‘girly’. They, and other characters, may remark on how much more they feel like a woman, unconsciously or consciously linking womanhood to that hairlessness. 

You may note that this directly plays into another cis-sexist standard of beauty; that to be feminine requires a certain girlishness, a pubescent budding that belies the possibility of cellulite or wrinkles or the consequences of living a life where one is not simply a doll.

What is my objection to that? Surely, every writer has the right to depict their own wish fulfilment fantasies. Certainly yes, but also… one must ask at which point we celebrate their dreams and at what point we ask people to engage with their biases and question what they consider to be true. Women, all kinda of women, are hairy. Women have pubic hair, arm hair, leg hair, chest hair, even facial hair. The seeming desire to be completely hairless is as ‘unnatural’ a goal as any other, as ‘unnatural’ as any expectation set for us by the white supremacist culture most of us are steeped in. To return to whipping girl:

“Rather than question our own value judgments or notice the ways that we treat people differently based on their size, beauty, or gender, most of us reflexively react to these situations in a way that reinforces class boundaries: We focus on the presumed “artificiality” of the transformation the subject has undergone.”

― Julia Serano, Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity 

It must be noted that at least part of this problem is with what the reader brings to the table. When something goes unstated, we resort to the baseline of our biases and, due to the way society is structured, that baseline is generally white, thin and physically able. Beauty and femininity are racialised concepts, and I think we fall into traps headlong that white supremacy establishes for us. I am not the person to write an essay critiquing race in HDG, but I recognise the consequences of race and the expectations of white femininity on the work. Thus, then, we must consider the text, and the text is very often pretty clear about its characters.

How many protagonists of a human domestication guide story are textually fat? How many are stated in the text to be people of colour? How many of them are, if not stated to be, then implied through lack of mention, white, and thin? These questions ignore the many that are actively identified as those things. (I will pause here to note that Dog of War - notable as the most popular piece of work in the setting - features a protagonist who is both brown and fat, and I’m extremely happy to see it).

Collectively, as writers, we have seen a future where everyone is accepted and have created a world where the depictions of acceptance come with conformity to modern misogyny. We create a world without boundaries, where a person can be digitalised or made into a dog, and our characters are still aping their ancestors of five centuries prior in seeking validation of self. We are, I would argue (and borrowing heavily from Butler), ‘uncritically mimicking the strategy of the oppressor instead of offering a different set of terms.’

This is not, I would like to be clear, an attack on any particular story. You may recognise elements of several stories in this essay, and perhaps there are particular things I am drawing on, however, this essay does not charge the product of the writer's work with anything. That body of text can exist and be critiqued, but does not exist as a thoughtful, philosophical actor. Rather, I would charge us writers, all of us, with being more thoughtful as we engage with what femininity means to us and what is and is not feminine in a world where anything is possible.

Finally, a quote from Gender Outlaw that I direct at myself as much as anyone else:

“Let's stop pretending that we have all the answers, because when it comes to gender, none of us is fucking omniscient.”

― Kate Bornstein, Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation

[kangals]

i think the main difference in personality so far between puppy-stellina and puppy-kepler is that kep has a lot more patience.

that brings a lot of positive qualities: he has better emotional control and is less prone to tantrums and outbursts than stellina was (i.e. if i have to stop for 10 seconds on a walk to pick up poo, stellina would yelp and pull and cry at being asked to stop). it also means he has better focus and is more forgiving of repetition in training - he doesn't give up nearly as easily when frustrated. and things that may startle or scare him he's more willing to try again or overcome (e.g. he slipped on my stairs and hurt his foot and didn't want to go back up the stairs for a few days, but eventually started trying again. and when butters slaps him he yelps and backs off, but still thinks she's Super Fun and tries to make friends). so he's a bit more methodical in his thinking.

but it does also bring some negatives too: because he has patience, he does not give up once he's decided something. if stellina was overtired and i put her in a crate, she'd fuss for a minute then pretty quickly go "hm alright then" and go to sleep. if i do the same to kep, he fights it and fights it because he doesn't want to be asleep and that's that. he's much more difficult to redirect or distract, and i have to be a lot more mindful of managing him because once he's decided something is fun or tasty or whatever it takes a lot to dissuade him, and he'll go back to it at the first chance. he's very slow to learn boundaries as a result - i have to do a lot more convincing than i'm used to.

they are still overall very similar personalities, especially as they're the same breed and from very similar lines, but i think so far this has been the biggest quality that i've needed to adjust to. puppy-stellina i had to do a lot of mental adjustments learning how to manage her short emotional threshold and sensitivity, so it's interesting to see what does and doesn't translate over to kep.

[crownedwille]

.

[widowshill]

the child does nothing but lie

[icewindandboringhorror]

I have a big google doc thing where I keep track of media and stuff (putting everything in loosely ranked categories), which is mostly just for my own reference so I know what tv shows I've already seen before, etc. and I never really look back through it, typically just a quick "okay, watched two movie in the past 8 months, need to quickly slap them somewhere in the lists. okay. done. save document. exit". But today I was actually reading through some of the old notes and there are like... MULTIPLE places where my comment is basically "It would have been good if it were about elves" or "I wish there was a fantasy show made in this same style" or "It's well made, but I just keep thinking about how I would like it more if everyone was an elf or was in old 1700s costumes" or etc like...... lol.... Most biased media ranking system on earth blatantly made by someone with an extremely hyperspecific range of narrow interests. It'd be like if a food reviewer only had 5 foods they actually liked, so they'd just go to a pizza place and be like "eh, the pizza was okay, but I just think it would be better if it was cereal instead. :/ ...2 out of 10"

[essektheylyss]

Is there any Essek scene in particular you’re hoping is included in the show?

Oh man oh god oh fuck. This list could go on SO long.

To be fair, the thing with Essek is that there are a lot of very small and fun but not narratively load-bearing scenes, and then a few major scenes that have a decent amount of narrative weight to them. For instance, the first study scene (the second is important but could be combined into it if that the pace required it), the Scourger incident, the dinner, and most of episode 97 have a lot of narrative impact, either for Caleb's arc or for the plot as a whole. I've already suggested I need to see the ninth floor tower conversation animated like a fish needs water to breathe, and I'd love both the times Essek physically pulls Caleb out of danger, of course.

There's also a lot of wiggle room in how you pace the Nein and break up their arcs (which I think was more rigid translating campaign 1 to LoVM—even when arcs are shifted around, the sequences of events are kept somewhat orderly) which means that speculation is pretty hard, particularly when it comes to Essek, who meets the Nein so far into the campaign. Basically, any of these things might not be as narratively necessary by then, depending on what they choose to cut or focus in on. I could speculate on that, and I'm sure I will extensively, but at a certain point I might as well just write a series worth of scripts as a fun side project.

That being said, I do really hope the Scourger scene remains, because it is so cinematically interesting, and I do consider it a major turning point between the wizards, regardless of either of them realizing it at the time or not.

And I also really want to watch him have a panic attack over whiskey cocoa. It is in no way load-bearing, but nonetheless, I would like to see it, and I think I deserve it.

[astralazuli]

So there's that D&D class quiz going around, & I took it & was so deeply offended I got Paladin.

& so I have had conversations with both Bestie & Birdfriend about this grave insult & they both were like, "Well... They have a point?" & informed me that my desire to absorb hits meant for others & deep drive to help whenever I actually can & strong convictions make me a bit Paladin-coded.

& I am just so... Idk. It's just interesting to get glimpses of yourself from other people's POVs. To be told that my defining characteristics are protecting & healing others & being incredibly fighty about the things I care about... Especially as someone whose brain specifically fixates on whether I care enough, do enough, give enough... Yeah. It's just kinda wild.

Anyway, I'm now adjusting my self-perception to include the fact that if I were a D&D character, I would be an Oath of the Ancients Paladin & not a wizard & that actually that's okay.

[jaypgartifacts]

homestuck 🤝pokemon scarlet & violet

time shenanigans

[nerdnag]

Today at lunch, someone said "oh it seems like we're all women here today", and my brain momentarily hitched and it felt off

[libertys-lovers]

I feel like every time I make progress on the Venture Bros sona redesign, my laptop decides to crash. Luckily I usually save before it does, but STILL-

One of those butterfly bastards from Monarch’s crew must’ve learned how to hack my shit, and I’m kindly gonna have to ask them to NOT do that 🙏🙏🙏

[blujayonthewing]

[holds onto this feeling with both fucking hands]

[radicalposture]

bad batch is like. fun enough to watch and i think omega is VERY cute but it’s mostly kinda boring except when it gets into Clone Issues. but it made up for everything with that palpatine scene in the senate like YES there is nothing i live for like this