#the ironic thing about the transphobic side of my family

[so-i-did-this-thing]

My cartoonishly transphobic aunt is dying and my last memory of her is of her in the back of my grandfather's hospice room - where he had just died, his body still in the bed - making up vicious rumors about myself to anyone who'd listen, while I was consoling her distraught husband and son.

This is the legacy of transphobes.

I suppose the most damning feeling I have towards this woman is this memory that has eclipsed all others. Because otherwise, I do not think of her at all, other than when my mother brings me news like this.

Nor do I think of my aunt's husband and son, anymore, as they were always too cowardly to examine their own harmful actions (much less stop them) when I popped up as the queer black sheep of the family. And yet they still needed me for emotional support.

Going no-contact with transphobic family - of which I am a firm proponent - can be hard at first, but I could only hold my head high for so long.

And now, here once again looking at my extremely small extended family dwindle even further, I feel nothing. A pity it ended up that way.

[wromwood]

Aw thank you for being interested! :3

I've put more details about this thought experiment under the Read More:

Note: I've decided that for now, transmasc!Lydia's name is "Dylan," and that's how I'll refer to him in this post.

First, here are the backstory changes I've developed that don't directly impact the show, but would hopefully inspire how the actors work off each other:

In this version of the show, Dylan has already come out to his family, is socially transitioning, and - depending on how old he's being played in the show - he can even be physically transitioning. [Obviously, everyone's transition is different and starts at different times, and Dylan doesn't need to be on HRT or fresh off surgeries to show he's transmasc. This also gives a bit of freedom for the actors who would want to play transmasc Dylan; they won't be pressured to look/sound either pre- or mid-transition. Personally, as a transguy who has been on T for about five years and happily has facial hair, I'd play Dylan as a 16-year-old who got on T about two years prior to the events of the musical.]

Dylan's mother was the most supportive person in his life regarding his transition. She accepted him right away and was always by his side as he started making his first choices about his identity. This is yet another reason why losing his mother hurt Dylan so much. He is, without question, a man, but Dylan's mother was one of the few people who made him want to be a good man, a man she could be proud of. After losing her, Dylan loses sight of this and feels free to argue with and play tricks on people, like we see happen in the show itself.

Dylan's father Charles isn't transphobic, but he certainly didn't know how to feel about the whole "transgender" thing when Dylan first came out. And as anyone who has seen the musical knows, Charles doesn't want to talk about complicated emotions. Any connection Charles made with Dylan regarding his transition was facilitated by his wife. Ironically, losing her is what fully pushes Charles to "embrace" Dylan and (superficially) support his transition. Dylan's identity becomes less of a way to learn more about Dylan and yet another reason why Dylan has to look towards the future and forget about the past. How can he be so hung up on his mother's death when there's a stereotypical vision of manhood that he has to work towards? Obviously, Dylan resents this, which is why he still is hostile towards his father, even with Charles learning the name, pronouns, etc.

Delia is... interesting about Dylan's identity. She's definitely supportive, and will loudly proclaim so. She probably has loads of connections in corners of the LGBT community that are bizarre even to the most unconventional gay Tumblr users. However, just because she's supportive doesn't mean that she doesn't step on any toes. Delia still presses bright colors and happy thoughts on Dylan, which Dylan hates, and Delia takes Dylan's sexuality (he's gay) as a sign that he still likes feminine things, due to that assumption a lot of people have that gay=femme. (This would also explain her "No Reason" number being a kind of girl talk, and her saying the universe should be seen as a female best friend.) Because of this, Dylan constantly feels uncomfortable around her, which gives him free reign to mess with her like he does in the script.

Now for some in-show notes:

The yellow dress in Act 1 for the dinner party becomes, of course, a yellow suit. This is Delia's idea of a good gender-affirming gift.

Maxie Dean has a line during that party that's something like "Didn't you use to have a daughter?" In this version of the show, that would actually be Maxie remembering Dylan before his transition. Charles would correct him, saying "He's my son now: Dylan."

Additionally, Maxie's joke after Lydia introduces herself ("Are you afraid I'll marry her?") would likely get turned into a remark like "Are you afraid there's still a chance I'd marry him?" It's not as direct as before, but I think it'd get the point across.

Beetlejuice's dynamic with Dylan isn't all that different than his one with Lydia. The wedding subplot is also still in place, as musical!Beetlejuice doesn't seem like he'd mind the idea of a gay marriage at all (and, as he keeps saying to differentiate himself from the movie version, the wedding motivation is purely for the "green card thing" anyway). The only embellishment I'll add here is a visual sign that Dylan (at the start of Act 2) starts trying to emulate Beetlejuice. I think it'd be cool if, alongside his gothy attire, Dylan begins wearing a tie like Beetlejuice's, or a coat like his, or some other piece of clothing that he can just as quickly take off and abandon once Dylan embraces his family again. This would be a way to show that Dylan was in danger of letting his masculinity model Beetlejuice, and that he needed to be guided on a better path before it was too late.

This is all I can think of for now! Thank you again @rainybeetles for being interested. Feel free to reach out if you wanna talk about this more!

You know, it's one thing to have thoughts that you know probably no one but you will be interested in. But it takes some real nerve for your brain to get incredibly excited and invested in those thoughts, just to make it that much more disappointing to not have someone to talk to about them.

My most recent example of this occurring came from thinking about the Beetlejuice musical, and who I'd want to play if I had the opportunity to be in an amateur production of it. Obviously, my first answer was the main man himself, Beetlejuice. But then I just HAD to think:

"Honestly, I'd also want to take a crack at Lydia Deetz. But as a transguy, I'm still not totally comfortable with playing a female role. If only I could be in a production where Lydia is a transmasc teen instead, maybe named Dylan or something. Yeah, transman 'Lydia' would be a cool role to play."

Now I'm on day three of thinking about transman Lydia/Dylan. I've been going over all the scenes, thinking about little changes to make, thinking about backstory and character dynamics and arghhhhhh it's so frustrating because my idea only has an enthusiastic audience of ONE.

[writingpuddle]

The other night best friend and I (yes, that best friend) were riffing on trans Neil headcanons over the phone, but a realistic trans treatment of aftg gets dark real fast, so without further ado:

~The Mafia May Be Sexist (But It’s Not Transphobic!) AU ~

(tmmbsbintau, if you will)

Does this premise make sense? No, but if Nora can write about made up mafia sports, I can write a nonsense AU where transphobia doesn’t exist okay this is my party and ill be self-indulgent if i want to

We open with baby Neil, who was named after his maternal grandmother or smthg idk

Now lets say Neil is one of those “I always knew I was trans” kids

So even at a fairly young age he was like, nope this is wrong

For the most part his dad basically ignores him (what use is a girl to me???) but if he makes the mistake of getting in the way it’s the usual shit with knives and hot irons and basically Neil’s bog-standard Traumatic Childhood

His mom signs him up to play Exy to get him out of the house, and he loves it, because of course he does

Now tiny Neil may be terrified of his father

But remember transphobia isn’t real

So he when he’s about ten years old he tells his parents over dinner

His mom just puts her fork down and says that’s alright

But Nathan

Nathan

Nathan’s eyes start to glow

He has a son? Not a useless daughter?

He’s practically levitating with glee

And Neil, poor Neil, who has never had any positive reinforcement—from either parent, Mary, you’re not innocent in this—he soaks it up

Nathan puts both hands on his son’s—his son’s!—shoulders and dubs him Nathaniel

His son, his heir, his legacy

Mary takes one look at the possessive look in her husband’s eyes and thinks oh hell no

For the next few days Nathan absolutely showers Nathaniel with affection

He takes him to the hairdresser and buys him a whole new wardrobe, neglecting his mafia duties in order to dote upon his new son

It is possibly the happiest week of Nathaniel’s life

And then he wakes up in the night with his mother’s hand on his mouth and is given less than a minute to pack his things

Now he’s grown up in a criminal household; the notion of making a run for it isn’t exactly foreign to him

But it’s not until they’re in the car that Nathaniel realizes that his father is nowhere to be seen

Where’s dad? He asks

Shut up, his mother hisses, and slams the car into gear

From then on, he is never Nathaniel

His mother is 100% on board with his transition, but…not really anything beyond that

After all, people will be looking for a woman and a trans boy, which means Mary’s investment in Neil’s gender pretty much starts and ends with him passing as cis

She gets him all the medical treatments he needs (on the black market, since they’re on the run)—puberty blockers when he’s younger, testosterone when he’s older

But he’s never allowed to acknowledge being trans whatsoever

Not to his classmates, not to his teachers

He never gets the chance to have a queer community, or explore the nuances of his gender, because the only presentation they can afford for him to have is Masculine Cis Boy. The restriction is stifling. It’s suffocating.

Neil hates her for it

His life was, so briefly, perfect

He had his father’s love and approval for a day, a week, and he is both old enough to remember his father’s cruelty and young enough to believe that it could end

Nathan is incandescent

When he realizes what Mary has done he goes to the Moriyamas in a storm of fury

She stole my SON! He bellows

Now the Moriyama’s didn’t particularly care about Neil back when they thought he was a girl

Girls in the mafia are basically just for child-rearing, so he wasn’t a threat

So once they figure out what Nathan is talking about (this takes a sec, owing to Nathan having not previously gotten around to telling them about Nathaniel’s revelation), their first thought is that look, we might do the nepotism thing here in our family, but underlings don’t get to do the nepotism thing. Sorry, them’s the breaks

Obviously, Mary has to die—nobody’s disputing that, a woman who robbed her husband and stole his son? Only death will right that wrong—but Kengo tells Nathan that he’ll help find Nathaniel on the condition that he’s given to the Ravens upon capture

Nathan is utterly confident that his son—his son!—will perform admirably. He accepts the deal without a second thought

So they’re on the run for years and years, and Neil’s resentment towards his mother festers, but he never acts out too much, and he doesn’t contact his father

He almost does a couple times, but then he presses his hand to the iron scar on his shoulder and he can’t quite make himself go through with it

He’s sixteen when Nathan catches up with them in Seattle

There’s a shootout and Mary and Neil almost get away

But

Nathan arrives

Nathaniel! He shouts. My boy!

And Neil lurches to a stop

There is his father, walking towards him, his eyes still shining with the same fierce love and pride from when he was ten

Nathaniel, his father says. Hasn’t this gone on long enough?

Come home.

Mary is trying to drag Neil away, but he’s too fixated on his father

Can I? Neil asks. Can I really?

Of course, Nathan says. Everything is forgiven. I’ve even secured you a place on the Ravens. Didn’t you always love Exy? Come home with me, Nathaniel

Neil can barely believe it. His father is offering him everything he ever wanted. His mother has been keeping him from this, his whole life?

Why would they run?

And through this whole exchange Nathan has been getting closer, and Mary is pulling Neil back, and now he’s close enough to touch and the sound she makes is like something physical tears when she finally releases Neil and tries to flee

She isn’t fast enough

Nathan’s grin is as wide as the sun when his cleaver bites into Mary’s waist

Blood pours out

Neil screams

Mary clutches her side, staggering away, but it’s obvious she won’t make it far

Dad, no, Neil says. Don’t—

Shh, his father says. Don’t be afraid. She kept us apart all these years. She deserves to die.

And Neil—

Neil has hated his mother for most of his life

But he looks at the woman who has struggled so long to protect him—who has failed as often as she succeeded, but who fought anyway, everyday—and the man whose eyes are bright with glee at her pain

And he makes a choice

He only has a split second to see the betrayal in his father’s eyes before the pipe in his hand slams into his head and he pitches forward, unconscious

Neil does not wait to see if he survives

He grabs his mother and they run, her arm locked on his shoulder and her palm pressed to the wound on her side

Neil puts her in the passenger seat and jumps in, throwing the car in gear

You need a hospital, he says, frantic

No, she hisses, pinning a towel to her side. No hospitals

Guilt floods through him as he looks at her pale face

Sticky red handprints smear on everything she touches

I’m sorry, mom, he says, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry—

Enough, she says. Drive

He drives

He drives, and drives, and he follows her instructions, and later he wouldn’t have been able to say if he actually thought she would survive; he believed it, because he had to, because he had never been without her; he knew better, because gut wounds are slow, but they are inexorable

He parks on the beach and there are tears pushing at his eyelids but he chokes them down

I’m sorry, he said, I never should have believed him. I’m sorry—

You never would have been enough for him, she says, and Neil flinches

Her hand finds his chin and she yanks him down to meet her eyes, her gaze fierce.

He never loved you, she says. He would have made you in his image, and when you failed he would have torn you apart. I would not—I would not watch him try to make my son a monster. Don’t—don’t waste it

Mom, what are you saying—

Promise me, she says

Promise you won’t go back to him

She is dying

Neil can’t refuse

He promises

She releases his face and her red fingerprints on his face burn like brands. He can feel them hours after the tears wash the blood away.

Her last few breaths are jagged as broken stones before she rattles to a stop, and Neil is alone

He burns her body and staggers out onto the road and he keeps moving, he keeps moving, because he knows if he stops he’ll shatter

His hesitation has cost him his mother’s life

But his action costs him his fathers love

In one blow, Neil broke the golden image Nathan had of his perfect son, and now all Nathan wants is to destroy him

He finds his way to Millport almost on instinct alone

He finds one of Mary’s contacts who can supply him with the hormones he needs to continue passing and squats in an empty house and speaks to none of his classmates

When the Exy team tryouts are announced, he goes, intending to only watch from a distance

Perhaps it is inevitable he’s sucked in

There is so little light in his life

Can he be forgiven for wanting one little spark?

The Foxes come for him in May, and Kevin doesn’t recognize him, because how would he? Even if they met as kids, Kevin never saw Neil post-transition

Wymack ends up telling him something about Kevin’s past and the truth about the Ravens, and Neil pales a little bit, remembering how his father had said he’d gotten Neil a place on their line-up and finally understanding why

And sometimes he looks at Kevin with blinding jealousy for the life Neil didn’t get to have, and sometimes he sees him nearly comatose with fear and drinking vodka like it’s water, and his stomach hurts thinking how cheerfully his father would have consigned him to the same fate

So canon proceeds and Neil still bitches Riko out on live TV, and Riko still manages to acquire Neil’s fingerprints

And would you believe that? The Foxes mouthy new rookie is [deadname], Nathan Wesninski’s brat?

Well, well, well

At the banquet Riko pokes and prods until Neil finally snaps, and as Dan drags the team away from the wreckage Jean grabs Neil’s arm and says, low and fast in French, You’ll meet with us later

Why the fuck would I do that? Neil demands

Because otherwise everyone will find out that the Butcher is your father

Neil can’t hide his flinch and Kevin’s eyes go wide

They flee the scene, but before they even reach Coach, Kevin is already rounding on Neil

Is it true? He croaks

Not now, Neil says

But Kevin reads confirmation in Neil’s deflection

I didn’t know [deadname] had a brother, he says

Now here is the thing

Names are obviously a touchy subject with a lot of trans people, and certainly with Neil in particular

But with everything that just happened, Neil is a bit preoccupied, and it’s been a long time since he’s associated himself with that name

Since before he stopped using it, truthfully

And so his response is out of his mouth before he can even think twice

“Who?”

Kevin nods seriously, because he is wise to the ways of mafia bosses, and it’s not exactly shocking that Nathan Wesninski had a mistress and a secret second child, especially considering his first child had been a girl

It’s several moments before Neil puts two and two together and realizes that he has inadvertently slipped through a perfect loophole

He’s failed his mother so many times, but at least this secret is still safe, and he clings to that

Neil’s gender doesn’t really affect his interpersonal relationships with the Foxes—he’s already changing out separately, so this isn’t even a whole other thing

It’s harder to hide his testosterone when he’s living in shared dorms, but he has everything in the safe and figures out the safest schedule to open it up when he’s sure Matt will be in class

Andrew finds out when they start hooking up

But remember transphobia isn’t real so it’s sort of more like Andrew goes to undo his pants and is like wait your dick is removeable? Okay.

And then he just gets on with it

So Binghamton and Baltimore happen as canon, and if Neil had ever harboured hopes that his father would forgive him and love him again, they’re broken for good when his father stalks in and sees him shivering and just grins

It is the smile of someone who has torn someone off a pedestal and is going to enjoy reducing them to dust

Nevermind that Nathan had been the one to put him on that pedestal in the first place

Stuart deus-ex-machinas us out of the maws of death and we end up back in that classic Baltimore scene with the Foxes, and they still claim him, and they still take him home

He tells them all about his mafia father and life on the run, and it doesn’t really click until later that he forgot to mention the trans thing

Not like he, you know, has to tell them, and being trans is hardly an issue in Exy since it’s co-ed, but it would probably be nice to see a real doctor instead of keep buying his hormones illegally

And moreover, he wants the Foxes to know him

So they hit the cabin in the mountains and everyone knows Neil doesn’t drink, but when Andrew pours him a shot, he takes it

Ooh, Nicky says, Is Neil about to start spilling his secrets?

Allison snorts. What secrets does he have left?

Uh, Neil says

Wait, Allison says. There’s more secrets????

Yeah, he says. Um, I’m trans

There’s a pause

Well, that’s no good, Allison said. We didn’t have a bet going on that

Everyone laughs, and Neil smiles, and he looks at the sunset and remembers his mother, and he remembers a life filled with hiding, and secrets, and loneliness

Bats swoop in the twilight beyond the cabin, and he turns towards the warmth and light inside, and he does not look back

[milkiijustwrites]

hello !! i dont know if the matchups event are still open, but ignore this if it is ^^ and if its open, please do an omori matchup ! thank u <3

anyways, im a bi demigirl that goes by she/they pronouns and a minor. im generally pretty shy around new people/new environments but i can warm up pretty fast, and when im used to somebody i can get really loud annoying, and also unintentionally violent- by that i mean i tend to hit or yell at my friends as joke, but since im sarcastic and generally very bad at reading the room, i come off as insensitive.

i also can get really affectionate w people i trust a lot, though i overthink a lot, it would take a long time to get to that stage as i think theyre not even my friends and theyre only sticking around me due to pity. but once i do trust someone to get to that stage, i basically become the loud therapist friend. i always look out for my friends and ask if theyre okay or need to vent to me, if theyre hungry i lend them food, play w my hair if theyre bored, comfort them whenever they need it, etc.

the things i like are: sweets, animals (cabyparas specifically <33), music, games, some topics like trauma, human emotions, history, respectful ppl ofc, anything horror

my dislikes are: homophobes/transphobes, sexist people, really loud, enthusiastic, or energetic people (which is ironic since i can be quite loud myself), rude people, anyone that teases or bothers me too much, and kpop stans /j

i may look out for my friends a lot, but i do have my problems. because of family problems, im mostly at a miserable state until i have something thatll distract me from my problems, then back into a depressive shithole. i also bottle up my emotions and dont like showing any kind of sadness, since it makes me feel vulnerable and weak, and i dont like people thinking i need comfort, since i usually percieve it as pity. not to mention i tend to turn down any kind of help, since i do like being on my own and see it as infantilizing. not to mention that i get extremely violent when im angry, since i tend to yell or hit anyone if they provoke me when im pissed off (im not proud of the things i do when im emotional but im working on it !)

i heavily dislike being taken lightly or underestimated (everybody does really) and any kind of physical affection in early stages of friendship, since it makes me uncomfortable, and any kind of mom friend makes me feel like im getting coddled, and i really hate that <\3

but overall, i may not have the best temper but i think that once someone gets past the stage of me being an asshole to them (im really closed off in the beginning since i dont easily trust people due to having bad friends in the past), ill love them to bits and want the best for them. :)

Hi! Thank you for participating in my event!

A/N: ahhh thank you so much for your detailed description!

I match you up with....

Kel

I feel like both you and Kel are like the chaotic couple , and I feel like Kel will have another side for you

Like if you show your affection towards him and all, he'll be dying inside if him and treat you very VERY nice

But if others, even if his best friends show him affection, he'll probably just take that as a joke and laugh about it

But he wont go over the line though, too much affection for you may let you feel uncomfortable,

And I'm sure when you feel angry and lost your temper, Kel won't be the one to provoke you or ignore you, in my opinion, Kel would listen, he'll calm you down and listen, and maybe tell some jokes after when you calm down,

So poof !match

"Y/N you're like a cat ngl ahaha"

[kirksfattitties]

asks you can smell the privilege and internalized ableism radiate from

(tw for ableism and other bigoted implications)

i’m bad at reading tone but even i understand that this is 100% you being condescending and trying to cover it up with smiley faces and false sincerity. and i don’t appreciate that.

before i get into deconstructing your shitty ableist argument, i want to explain the reasons i believe in self diagnosis (self-dx):

even professional diagnosis doesn’t start with a doctor diagnosing you. there has to be a reason for seeing the doctor. some people see a doctor in their adult life because they’re struggling, some people are taken by their parents, some people are referred or suggested that they see a specialist. whatever it is, you don’t just see a doctor and they magically give you a neurodivergency. people have neurodivergencies before they see doctors and even if they NEVER see a doctor.

the psychiatry system is flawed in MANY ways and to say that it isn’t means you’re denying the experiences of people with less privledge than yourself. also like psychiatry isn’t gonna suck your dick. you don’t have to be a bootlicker lol

in many places (hi hello i’m from america where our government tries to indirectly kill us by not providing us with adequate healthcare! i and many other people have many issues we can’t get fixed because simply our government cares more about the economy than us), seeing a psychiatrist or a therapist or going to a mental hospital or WHATEVER is INCREDIBLY expensive. and to assume that everyone has access and enough time/money/energy/transportation/whatever to do all of that is classist and elitist.

ANYTHING medical (including mental health) is biased towards white cis men. most studies are done on white cis men/boys. because of this, people who aren’t white cis men (or people who aren’t perceived as white cis men) are often not diagnosed. the system is racist. the system is sexist. the system is transphobic. people don’t know how to diagnose autism or adhd or personality disorders or other neurodivergencies or even mental illnesses in black people and other people of color, in women, in trans people, etc. and GOD FORBID someone be in multiple (or all) of those categories. saying “just go get diagnosed :)” is a privileged statement to make.

shocker! the psychiatry system is also ableist. if you’re already diasabled (whether it be mental or physical) and you see a doctor about ANOTHER disability? the doctor is most likely going to shoot you down. or at least be weary about someone having mutliple disabilities.

also most people who diagnose are neurotypical. they have never and will probably never experience neurodivergency so they can never fully understand it. they operate off of stereotypes of neurodivergent people and usually only stereotypical behavior of neurodivergent white cis men (which, as i mentioned before, is problematic for anyone who isn’t a white cis man). neurotypical diagnosers don’t know the neurodivergent culture and aren’t trained to recognize very common things (like masking for example).

a professional diagnosis can also be weaponized. not everyone can get a professional diagnosis because there are some neurodivergencies (such as autism and personality disorders) and mental illnesses (like depression) that can have legal and medical respercussions to have in your record. trans people can be denied medical and legal transition for being professionally diagnosed. people can lose custody battles for being professionally diagnosed. a professional diagnosis can be used as justification for taking away someone’s body autonomy (especially if that person is also physically disabled).

a LOT of neurodivergencies also have some type of symptom (or symptoms) that make it difficult to interact with people. troubles recognizing facial expressions, troubles understanding certain phrases and types of speech, paranoid about people, audio processing issues, being nonverbal in an environment that doesn’t accommodate for it, overstimulation, extreme social anxiety, discomfort in new situations, problems with eye contact, and a lot more. because like. for many nd people, interacting with people is very difficult and stressful. and hey. if you want to get a professional diagnosis? take a WILD guess what you have to do? FUCKING INTERACT with people! LIKE?? JEHDJJDKEKKDKDKDS. do you know how many professionally diagnosed nd people i know who made their appointment COMPLETELY on their own without help from a parent or family member or friend? LITERALLY ZERO! and i know A FEW nd people who have professional diagnoses! so if someone has social issues that prevent them from doing tasks like calling and making an appointment, showing up for an appointment, talking during the appointment, etc and ALSO doesn’t have familial or friend support (because newsflash! people who are friends/family of disabled people can still be ableist)? almost impossible to get a diagnosis! plus, the diagnosis process is TIME CONSUMING. not everyone can focus on a task for that long and not everyone can miss work/school for that long.

so those are the reasons i support self-dx. (although there’s probably more that i’m forgetting but i have adhd and it’s hard for me to remember things!)

so hopefully you now understand my reasons for believing in self-dx, and perhaps even you’re pro-self-dx now because before you were just uneducated on these issues and how they impact people who aren’t you.

but in case you’re still anti-self-dx and probably hate already-marginalized neurodivergent people, let’s talk about this horrendous ask (series of asks, actually) that i got sent. i feel like i can feel the self hatred and internalized ableism OOZING from this ask and into my inbox, so thanks for that i guess /s

“Sometimes people who self diagnose can take away from those who are actually nd, even sometimes from themselves.”

starting out strong with the ableism on this one by separating people into “self diagnosed” and “actually nd” people. self diagnosed people ARE actually nd

there’s not a limited number of nd resources. this isn’t a math equation of only x amount of people can be nd because there’s only y amount of resources. more people realizing they’re nd will actually MAKE more resources for nd people and will bring more awareness to being nd

even IF someone self diagnosed, and they go back on it later, what harm was done? they learned some coping mechanisms? they made some nd friends? neither of those are problematic and i think they’re both actually very helpful. i think nt people SHOULD learn more about nd people and stuff because i think that will lead to WAYYY less misunderstandings and WAYYYY less ableism

“There are many people who fake nds for attention,”

hey anon, what fucking world do you live in that nd’s are cool enough to fake having? because i would LOVE to live there. like, i literally had a post about my personality disorder (which i will not be specifying) i had to delete because people were sending my anons about how i was “scary” and “threatening” now that they knew i had the personality disorder i have. last year i left a discord server because the ableism i was recieving from not only the members of the server, but the mods as well. there are very few people i know irl who i tell about my personality disorder, but when i tell people about my adhd, they start treating me different. they infantalize me and make fun of me and use “jokes” about stereotypical adhd behaviors to alienate me and they even TELL OTHER PEOPLE without my permission. i was SEVERELY bullied throughout elementary and middle school for being nd. i have been refused job and educational opportunities as well as literal medical attention for being nd. people aren’t “faking” being nd, and if they were they probably wouldn’t be doing it for long because it’s not something that’s EASY to deal with.

kinda ironic that you’re saying people can’t diagnose themselves but that YOU can tell when someone is faking their diagnosis. that’s both hypocritical and a double standard.

masking exists. if you think someone isn’t “acting nd enough” they’re probably masking because they’ve been fucking bullied and harrassed. also you’re probably basing whatever you think nd is on stereotypes. not every nd person is sheldon cooper lol.

this is a side note but can we talk about how you’re literally just taking transmed rhetoric and molding it to fit nd people? like. you really come onto MY NONBINARY NEURODIVERGENT blog and expect me to validate your recycled “but what about the REAL [insert group] people?” ??? like grow up, elitist. you’re not better than anyone else just because you lick some boots 🥾 👅

“and claiming that self diagnosis (and this is just what I interpreted) is just as valid as professional diagnosis”

it is 😌

the only difference between self diagnosis and professional diagnosis is that a professional diagnosis can also get you medicine. not every neurodivergency needs meds and not every neurodivergency can be treated (at this time or even ever). for example, my pd (self diagnosed) doesn’t have a specific treatment but multiple symptoms of the pd (all professionally diagnosed) have specific treatments and medicines that work, so patients are given/diagnosed with/prescribed those instead. also, medicine doesn’t work for everyone! and sometimes people are allergic to or take medicines that will conflict with any new medicine.

“can really devalue the account of someone who actually has a disorder”

here we go again with that “self diagnosed” vs “actually nd” bullshit. literally just say you hate poor people n minorities and leave lol

someone having a different experience than you isn’t devaluing you, but if you’re the one who always has the spotlight maybe you should use your privledge uplift other marginalized people instead of feeling angry when everything isn’t all about you 100% of the time

“I have a second ask”

i don’t want it

“Plus it can be damaging for a person if they self diagnose wrong.”

how? what if they learn information that they wouldn’t’ve otherwise known like coping mechanisms that help them with their own neurodivergencies? that’s definitely not a bad thing

i think it’s funny that you bring up that people can self diagnose wrong and don’t even MENTION that doctors can diagnose wrong. like. you know. the people who GIVE OUT MEDICINE to people. i think it’s MUCH more dangerous when a PROFESSIONAL diagnosis is wrong. what are self-dx people with wrong diagnoses gonna do? read up on nd tips? maybe smoke some weed? drink some coffee? that’s about all they can do with a self-dx. but if a MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL gives you an INCORRECT diagnosis, they can ACTUALLY fuck you up.

“I was recently diagnosed with PTSD, a disorder which I would have never considered I’d have.”

that’s great about your professional diagnosis! i don’t know you but i’m glad you’re finding out about yourself and getting the help you want and/or need /srs

sorry if this sounds blunt, but honestly i’m not surprised you never considered you could have PTSD. based on your asks, you sound like you have a lot of internalized ableism you need to work through and a lot more research about neurodiversity you need to do. being anti-self diagnosis is a common belief among a lot of people with internalized ableism and a lot of these same people are the ones who have no issue with and even SUPPORT auti$m $peaks. many nd organizations that are run BY nd people (like asan) actually support self-dx.

“If I had of diagnosed my own symptoms and then started treating myself or taking precautions based on my self diagnosed "condition", it could of really hurt me.”

how? taking precautions to preserve your mental health is NEVER a bad idea. i’m not ptsd, but someone i care deeply about DOES have ptsd and has shared a lot of the precautions and coping mechanisms for ptsd with me and honestly they’ve been incredibly helpful. it’s almost as if different neurodivergencies and/or mental illnesses have overlap and that’s why there’s a whole community for us to be able to share these resources and information with each other!

the same person was rejected a formal autism diagnosis because of their ptsd, plus the fact that they’re transgender and the fact they have symptoms of adhd. it’s not really my place to talk about their experience with professional diagnosis, but i’ll send this post to them and allow them to add on their experience in a rb if they’re comfortable with that. but it’s almost as if their experience with the professional diagnosis process was unhelpful, harmful, ableist, and transphobic 🧐 and unfortunately this is a pretty common experience

“Also, by self diagnosing, I devalue the account of a person with the disorder l assumed I had.”

how? if someone thinks they’re nd, they have a legitimate reason for thinking so. either they have another neurodivergency than the one they thought they had, or they’re neurotypical and need to figure themself out and have a need for support. either way, they learned more about the specific neurodivergency, more about the nd community, and more about themself. i don’t see how that’s a bad thing.

if you think self-diagnosed people’s experiences inherently have less value, that is straight up ableism. especially considering that other marginalized identities and minorities have trouble getting professional diagnoses, you might also be bigoted in some other way. or at the very least, refusing to acknowledge your privilege.

“only one more I promise”

i don’t want it

“I understand that doctors are expensive and professionals can get it wrong,”

okay. if you understand this, then dm me your information so i can bill you for the cost of my professional diagnoses, the cost for my therapy sessions, the cost for my medicine, and the cost for transportation to and from all these places. PLUS the cost of the work and school i’ll be missing for these sessions. 🤲

“but self diagnosis can be really harmful to yourself or others.”

nah, you’re just ableist and a gatekeeper lol

“If you feel like you have a disorder, go see a psychiatrist, you may have it.”

[remembers when i went to a psychiatrist who diagnosed me with two major symptoms of a personality disorder and said i had other symptoms of the pd as well but refused to diagnose me with the actual personality disorder because i was a minor at the time and he told me “kids don’t have personalities so they can’t have personality disorders”. i understand being weary about diagnosing children with personality disorders because they aren’t fully developed but this dude straight up told me that i didn’t have a personality. this man literally only worked with children so that means he literally never diagnosed personality disorders. this man was literally just lazy and didn’t care about his patients. this man also refused to believe me when i told him the medicine he prescribed me made my symptoms worse and even made me hallucinate. he ignored me and refused to change my medicine so eventually i just changed psychiatrists and they put me on a new medicine that DIDNT make my symptoms worse and DIDNT make me hallucinate. also i looked it up after our session and apparently ONLY people with my pd and related ones experience hallucinations on that certain medication. it’s almost like his refusal to diagnose me and ignoring my symptoms/concerns harmed me. this man also constantly misgendered me and told me that homosexuality and transgenderism should’ve still been in the dsm. like golly, it’s almost as if being queer and neurodivergent in an extremely conservative state is harmful and dangerous. and that psychiatrists aren’t immune from being homophobic and transphobic and ableist.] but yes :) perhaps i should see another psychiatrist in this conservative state :)

“I don't want to undermine anyone's actual experiences, but it can be dangerous.”

then stop undermining people’s actual experiences :)

no ❤️

“If you feel like something's wrong, go see a professional.”

the whole point of the neurodiversity movement is that there IS no such thing as a “normal” brain, so saying that neurodivergent people have something “wrong” with them is ableist.

💰 🤲 hand it over

“I don't want to offend, I just don't want anyone to get mislead or hurt. :)”

you absolutely meant to offend. you literally said that self-diagnosed people’s experiences aren’t valid and have less value than people who have professional diagnoses

i know more people who have been (and personally have been) mislead and hurt by professionals than by simply existing as a self-diagnosed person

also i want to say that being pro-self dx is NOT being anti-professional/formal diagnosis. i think that people should absolutely get a professional diagnosis (if they are able to without negative repercussions)! being pro-self dx is more inclusive of marginalized people (like people of color, women, lgbtq+ people, people with multiple disabilities, etc). pro-self dx is simply just saying that professional diagnosis isn’t the only option

(neurotypical people and anti-self dx people don’t add anything; pro-self dx neurodivergent people are allowed to add with their experiences if they want)

[recurring-polynya]

I have to say I knew that at one point renji, ikkaku, yumichika and iba were in the same squad with kenpachi but good god you managed to paint a beautiful picture for me. I simply assumed that for them it was simply party time all the time along with a few bald jokes but this is much better. Emotionally healthy squad 11 which still love fighting more than anything. I always cringed when someone would just describe them as hooligans that do nothing but fighting. I mean they do that too but I love the idea that they are all emotionally healthy and mature, a loving and supportive family to their own - in their own wakka doodoo kind of way thats endearing - and of course they are in my opinion they single capable force against sexisim. Because they don't care about anything else - gendere, sexuality, gender performances, race, mentality or anything - other than if you fight good you respectable and if you fight good in squad 11 you family. ( like when kenpachi just became captain he made yachiru his lieutenant and no one was against it no one thought it was beneath them, sure thru nag at her sometimes but that's mostly in a banter like way because she call them stupid nicknames but no one hates her for being unrightfully their superior. One day they got a new captain and a new lieutenant that's a child and they just went with it.) I admit their disdain and disrespect to squad 4 is still frowned upon but I do believe some squad 4s can handle their own, it's just that we saw the really peaceful ones. Anyways sorry for ranting. Just wanted to say that yeah, I really like how the past squad 11 with iba and renji in it was a great place in general. I think if they found out some one was being sexist - for whatever reason - they would be there right next to nanao - or iba's mom protesting. Kenpachi and yachiru as well. And that makes me want to be squad 11 ,despite not being much for fighting, so bad.

So, for starters, thanks! I try to have fun whenever I write Squad 11, and I’m glad you enjoy my take on them.

My Squad 11 is just... really not very canon, though. Canon Squad 11 is actually pretty gross and sexist. Yumichika is transphobic, Kenpachi makes homophobic remarks about Yumichika, they bully Squad 4, there’s a filler episode devoted to a guy that Ikkaku bullied for, like 100 years because the guy lost his reiatsu saving Ikkaku’s dumb ass.

When you write fanfic, you occasionally run into these more problematic aspects of the source media, and you can choose to dig in and analyze them, or just... remake them in your own way. Take for example, Gin. If you read fanfic about Gin, there are some people who will peel away the layers of him and his fears and insecurities and still make him be a horrible gremlin, and it’s really stellar writing. Other people prefer to write him in an AU where maybe less bad stuff happened to him, and he’s more mischievous than sociopathic, and this is a less meaty interpretation, but it’s also more fun. Sometimes fanfic is a meal and sometimes it’s candy. It fulfills different needs and different fantasies and all of it is welcome.

Yumichika, who for me is the fulcrum of Squad 11, presents this problem. I really don’t like the way his “appreciation for beauty” plays out in canon. He doesn’t actually appreciate beauty, he just likes telling other people they’re ugly. I don’t think he’s ever pointed out beauty in anyone else aside from himself or his zanpakutou. I remember the first time I watched his fight with Charlotte and it struck me as so off -- why wouldn’t he find her beautiful? I mean, I know it’s a transmysogynistic joke, that’s why, men dressed as women is funny, hurr hurr, but Yumichika is gender nonconforming himself. This was an opportunity to make a cool character point, and Kubo took the cheap laughs road instead. Going back to what I said last paragraph, a skilled writer could, in theory, write about his insecurities and his brittleness and meanness and write a pretty compelling story, but a) Kubo certainly doesn’t, and I have never actually found a Yumichika-centric fanfic of this nature, and b) this doesn’t fit the role I need him to play in my stories. I am rarely really interested in writing about Squad 11 for its own sake. I like to write them as a backdrop for the period of Renji’s afterlife where he hit absolute rock bottom and bounced back up again. We already know the role Ikkaku played in this, except that Ikkaku is a complete moron in terms of mental health, and I really, really felt like this is where Yumichika needed to come in.

I like to massage Yumichika’s character a bit, but I do want to keep the flavor of some of his character flaws-- he’s still shallow and mean and judgy, and I love that for him, but I like to add in a positive side to his appreciation for beauty. Having Yumichika make fun of Izuru’s pores is funny but it’s even funnier if he’s just given Renji a compliment on his hair first. The idea that a Yumichika compliment is attainable makes all his drags the more vicious. Yumichika also judged people by their beauty instead of their moral character, which is humorous to me. He dislikes Byakuya as a person, but is obsessed with his haircare regime. I like to have him treat Rangiku as an equal, beauty-wise, and a person whose opinion he respects based on her aesthetic. Rangiku is actually a pretty savvy and very emotionally intelligent person whom many people write off because she likes to present herself as a lazy airhead, so in an extremely convoluted way, this all works out. I like to think that Yumichika’s ideas of beauty are also caught up in boldness and risk-taking and having one’s outward presentation ring true to their inner self. To me, this is the core of why he loves Ikkaku. To him, Ikkaku’s devotion to doing the most Ikkaku thing at all times, no matter how stupid, is irresistibly sexy. 

Aside: At some point, I decided that the fact that a lot of people in Bleach have colorful marks on their faces and elaborate hairstyle and accessory games implied that make-up in Soul Society is gender neutral. I like to think there is actually more of a divide between the nobility, who like their make-up to follow rules and be classy, and, well, Squad 11, who like to get make-up ideas from Jem and the Holograms. I don’t even wear makeup (I don’t know how and it’s expensive and I am ashamed of myself, we can talk about my own gender presentation later) but I like to write about both my male and female characters wearing make-up. I don’t actually know how my readers feel about it, but it just falls under the “Is that what people want?”/“It’s what we do” philosophy of all my writing.

I think one of the theses of my writing is that middle management is more important to the character of a squad than the person at the top. Captains sort of act as ideals to strive for, but they are generally unapproachable for one reason or another. Yachiru is more like her captain in this respect (which makes sense, since she is, in fact part of her captain). Ikkaku and Yumichika present this dual idea that 1) strength is awesome, fighting and being the best is awesome, and 2) part of strength is presenting yourself to the world in a bold and confrontational way. (The fact that both of them are hiding huge parts of themselves is laughably ironic). Kenpachi and Yachiru are shining examples of Do Whatever You Want and Be So Strong That No One Can Stop You. 

What really makes this work is that you need someone one layer down-- does anyone actually subscribe to this nonsense, and that’s why Iba - Abarai Squad 11 is Best Squad 11. I really, really enjoy the genre of Reddit posts where a total bro will find out that his girlfriend is trans and react by becoming a vehement advocate for trans rights. I love the bodybuilders typing encouragement to each other meme. Our world is flooded with disingenuous messages from concern trolls trying to tell us why being kind and inclusive to one another is bad or that you should reject help because struggle makes you stronger and the idea of a Himbo looking at something like that and saying “that seems dumb" is delightful to me.

I actually feel like there are a lot of awful people with bad ideas in Squad 11, it’s just that Renji and Iba don’t put up with their shit, and over time, that becomes the culture of Squad 11. I think that Squad 11 has incredibly turnover, but the ones who stay are the ones who subscribe to the ideas you mentioned-- fighting is what matters, if you wanna go argue about shit, go join Squad 5. In the IkkaYumi story I wrote, which happens shortly after Zaraki takes over, a ton of people leave. The Bount Arc (which I know a lot of people skipped) features a dude who was extremely pissed off because he had liked the old Kenpachi and thought Zaraki sucked and was so mad about it that he betrayed Soul Society. You might think that this arc would feature Zaraki caring about this in some way shape or form, but he really didn’t. So, I think there are a lot of Soul Reapers that took issue with serving under a little girl as a vice captain, they just aren’t in Squad 11 anymore.

Oh, one last note on Iba’s mom. I am of an age where a number of my friends have mothers who were Second Wave Feminists. The moms in question are a real mixed bag, because they Came From a Different Time, and on one hand, you have to respect what they went through, and on the other hand, they are very difficult to get along with. I liked the idea that Iba has always chafed against his mom and her big personality, and then Renji comes in, and is like, “hey, your mom is strong as hell and she has a lot of ideas that I never thought of but they make sense” and Iba realizes that, even though she’s still a huge pain in his ass, his mom is the person who made him who he is. Moms are complex.

Uhhhh, I have definitely lost the thread of wherever I was going with this post. Thank you for enjoying my Squad 11, which is nothing like canon Squad 11. Hopefully maybe this year, I will actually finish my Squad 11 Self Care story, where Renji stops being a drunk disaster person after Yumichika teaches him how to fill his brows; I got stuck on a part where Rangiku gives Renji a talk on ethical sluttery.

[popculturebuffet]

Amphibia Reviews: The First Temple or Bessie and Joe: The New OTP

Hello all you happy people! Amphibia season 2 moves right a long and it’s time for some video game shenanigans as we enter The First Temple! Family drama, snail on bird action, and outhouses await you under the cut with a recap/review with full spoilers. 

So we open with the Plantars having chocopillbug pancakes. Ironically my mom offered me chocolate chip pancakes after this and thank god for that. This is a rare treat to the point Anne didn’t even know they had choclate, and is suprisingly not strangling Hop Pop over this. Unsuprisingly he broke out the good stuff to try and make up for hiding the box and things are still VERY awkward between the two, with Hop Pop walking on Egghshells around Anne and Anne doing the same when he brings it up with both desperatley trying to avoid the subject and Sprig not helping by bringing it up a bunch. 

I like this a lot and didn’t really think about the series continuting any tension over his decision.. but should have. Partly because this is a modern animated show and most of this wonderful new wave of shows have a LOT of emotional nuance. ANd partly because this show dosen’t forget things even most nuanced shows forget: the fact the characters cause chaos and learn life lesons is outright RECOGNZIED by the show as a pattern and brought up quite often, as are the patterns that lead to it, like mostly being sprig and anne, anne’s impulsivness that sort of thing. It’s the kind of thing you just gloss over in most shows but this one lampshades to hell and back for funsies so when something THIS important happens, you’d better belivie it’s not just going to disappear. 

The tensions thankfully broken by a new arrival, as a massive sparrow shows up in the yard. “It’s a giant bird with.. books on it’s back.. what. “ Great delivery from bill there. Naturally it’s Marcy! 

I missed this little goober. Such a joy to be around, and she of course marvels over the Plantar’s house before getting back on track: She’s found the first temple.. even though she sent a letter saying that and it’s not commented on that she did. It set off the whole previous episode Marcy... you okay Mar-Mar?

That aside though it’s time for the first temple and Marcy asks for the Box, with Sprig trying to make a joke about how good thing she didn’t ask for it a week ago. 

Polly rightly punches him in the ribs... do frogs have ribs? Hold on.. okay here we go

Huh.. so they do not You learn something new every day. Well lack of ribs or no our heroes are ready.. while Marcy’s sparrow Joe is also ready TO GET IT ON. Yes really, he does a mating dance for Bessie, complete with an intersumental version of “Sylvia” from last season. God damn that bird’s got game. The only time i’ve seen more game is THIS. 

 Marcy tells him to knock it off. Look marcy your a pet owner now and as a pet owner, it’s your responsiblity.. to let your giant bird do horrifying things with a slightly smaller but still giant snail. it’s what nature intended. Nature was doing a lot of cocaine that day but we still honor her wishes. 

But anyways Marcy’s figure out something intresting about the box.. by winding it just right the gems pop out, which allows her to take one, we later find out it’s the green one, to use in the temple. So off we go with Marcy and the rest of the kids up top and Hop Pop.. screaming in Joe Sparrows claws. He’s fine. 

So while they get ready, Anne worries about the amount of puzzles and hazzards Marcy’s hyping for this but Marcy shurgs it off and gives her own big boast about how may RTS she’s beaten.. suspciously like Yuaan as one post on here pointed out. Not a huge suprise though, to Marcy she’d just be the grand hero out of one of her rpg’s and not think of how many people she probably killed or who she’s working for.. though you’d THNK given all the RPG’s both tapetop and on her switch she’s played, that Marcy would see that “the benevolent king turns out to be the big bad” trope coming. 

But Anne’s worry is not on the big bad of the show but on Marcy who has a tendency to get so in the zone she ignores the world around her, which goes from focusing on her game while helping anne get softserve leading to a mess, not letting Anne down in a play and.. Anne catching Marcy on tv as all the snakes escape from the zoo. 

Regardless our heroes arrive and while the awkwardness between anne and hop pop continues, they find a majestic temple.. and what appears to be an outhouse. Hey we all gotta poop sometimes, even people making a majestic temple.  If you don’t it comes out like this. 

So they head in and we get our first puzzle, a mysterious cube that lifts you into the air and allows you to tilt the thing around. 

Those of you wondering why I have such a strong reaction have ever never played breath of the wild or played it with a pro controller, i.e. NOT having to tilt the very thing your screen is on because Nintendo has failed to grasp that MAYBE people don’t like that, that it takes you out of the experince and that it’s really hard to focus on your screen while having to move the fucking system about. And the plantar’s getting horribly jostled around as she moves it is EXACTLY how it feels to play a puzzle requring that shit. 

Next is a color based tile dungeon leftover from Link’s Awakening DX. As marcy figures out the reds do fire and the blues do crushing... but she reads the language (And as she put earlier “Guess who learned an entire dead language?” God she’s precious. ) and finds a green with envy pun (Which Hop Pop takes offense to.. several of his friends are green.). Which is curious as given several citzens of amphibia are green.. why would they make a green pun? So she gets on one tile and Hop Pop plans to take the risk of getting on the other green tile, but Anne does it instead.. and things get heated between the two as Anne reveals she no longe feels like family since he did what he did for polly and sprig and hop pop takes offense as she IS. Even if he screwed up with her. But Anne’s near death experince activates the tile. 

The final challnge switches us from Zelda.. to Harry Freaking Potter. 

Now I used to love Harry Potter, with all of my heart. Then JK Rowling turned out to be a transphobic piece of shit who thinks she’s an ally, but is really a bigot who wants to “accept” trans people without giving them any rights. So yeah while I still love the starkid musicals, ore more accuratley the music from them, and own a copy of lego harry potter I got as a gift recently as both parties had no idea she was a monster when this stuff was made. Still a sore subject though, but if I didn’t bring up the similiarties I wouldn’t be doing my job as a critic and this was likely thought up long before JK outed herself as well...

No no the great mighty poo respects all peoples.. and wants to take their heads and ram it up his butt. He’s an equal opportunity butt rammer. 

Anyways this is the frog equivlent of chess flipfrog, and just like with Wizard chess, our heroes end up as the pieces minus marcy.. and in a nice twist on that scene, Anne ends up on the other side. Marcy is a grandmaster at it though so after an hour or so of play she almost wins.. only for the king equilvent to refuse to be taken and the automatic board she’s up against to send Anne against hop pop, and with our heroes magically restrained and given stone weapons, this can’t end well. Eventually though Anne’s forced to hit HOp Pop multiple times and while he says “well isn’t this what you wanted”, she says no.. she didn’t want to phsyically hurt him it’s just complicated. So we get one heck of an emotioinal scene as Hop Pop just wants to help and wants this to stop and dosen’t knoow how to fix this which as someone who desperatlyt ries to fix most emotional situations right away this hit very hard.. and her response of needing time hit harder. The two while not reconciled, ar ecloser to it and Marcy realizes what she’s done getting so obessed with winning and forfits for thier benifit. Our heroes leave, seemingly having lost.. only to find glowing arrows to the crap hole, which turns out to be the pedistal. The temple wasn’t just an intellegence test but empathy.. and the temples are clearly built to specifically test each of the chosen three, our heroines, specifically. Marcy’s tested her intellegence.. but also her willingness to let go of cold clyincal thought to do the right thing. That earns her her gem recharged and a flash in her eyes and her gem starts pointing to the next. She needs time to triangulate and hop pop and anne are back on workable footing... though our heroes offer to take a break instead of going to the next temple. 

Back in Newtopia, Yuaan reports on the toads gathering.. but dosen’t get to mentioning sasha before Marcy’s letter interrupts and Andridas oddly and aburbly dimisses her.. and goes to talk to a watcher with a thousand eyes, his “master” who has plans to undo the prophcey and get their revenge. 

Final Thoughts: This was a damn fine episode that gave Marcy some much needed character development, and gave the reveals of last episode some more emotiional fallout.  It also had some really great jokes as always. Top notch stuf. 

Next Time: Marcy tries to win everyone over through science and we FINALLY get an episode with the Frog Robot apparently. Horay

Next on this Blog: We go into final space yo! It’s unexpected births, ho yay, and horrifying zombie gary’s galore! 

Until then if you liked this review, follow me for more, join my patreon, comission a review if you please and i’ll see you at the next rainbow. Play us out jeff... and I haven’t done THAT bit in a while but eh. This song was too perfect. 

[beyondthetemples-ooc]

1, 27, 40

Ooh, thank you for the ask! It's gonna get heavy though, because that first one is a Very loaded question, whew. ;; I'm actually gonna put this under a cut.

01: Do you have a good relationship with your parents?

Hahaha ha haaaa.... about that. It depends entirely on which parent.

I was raised in a split-custody situation, and grew up mainly living with my father and stepmother (often called "stepmonster"). I only got to see my mother every other weekend, on certain holidays, and for a few weeks in the summer. I wish I could've seen her more, but now we go to lunch/dinner at least once a month and we'll just talk for hours.

My stepmother.... well, I'm in a decent mood and don't want to ruin it by going into Deep Details, but she was viciously and relentlessly emotionally abusive from the day we started living together, and the older I got and the more I started realizing that she was hurting me, the more I started asking her to stop and tell her she was hurting me, the worse she treated me. It wasn't always, but it became physical often enough that I'd flinch when she raised her hands. So needless to say, I don't have any warm, fuzzy feelings towards her.

I acknowledge that she "tried to be a good parent" (or at least, I acknowledge that she SAYS that's what she wanted), but she has never once apologized for hurting or screaming at me. She has never once taken steps to stop it. No matter how many times I asked her to stop, or take a moment and breathe, or think about how what she's saying is making me feel. Hell, she VERY recently told me "I don't have any regrets" (about how she raised us). And even when I pressed, hesitantly, tentatively, "Nothing? Not one thing?" and she said "Nope." I just. What. How do you claim to love someone and then say you don't regret screaming at them, calling them names, pinning them in corners, smacking them, making them cry on a weekly basis?

So, honestly, fuck her with a saguaro cactus.

My father is... really complicated. We were very close when I was little, but he was always away working and we were lucky if we got to give him a hug before bedtime, so we rarely got to Actually Do Bonding Things. I tried going to him about the way stepmonster was hurting me three times, and each time he yelled at me for being ungrateful and selfish and whatever else he could come up with to make it my fault I was being abused. Yeah.

And just... The older I've gotten, the more I've realized that his actions are a result of his choices. He has a temper that is frankly terrifying, he has roared at me to "shut the hell up" more than once, when I was very little he grabbed me by the arm and dragged me out of bed, trying to force me to stand when I was crying because I had a vasogaval syncope episode (read: I was about to pass out and told them I couldn't stand up to get ready for school), and he makes little-to-no attempt to control it. The older I get, the less I can tolerate the things he does, or did.

It would be different if he apologized, or acknowledged that he hurt me, or frankly even ever listened to me when I went to the parent that prided himself on being my ~protector~ and did a single damn thing to ACT on it, but he refused to even acknowledge that I was hurting. But he never has tried even talking to me about these things, and frankly I can't forgive someone who never apologizes. I miss when we were close, but now I don't have any desire to try rekindling that relationship, because whenever I try to address my pain or fears, he turns that anger on me and it's just not worth getting verbally abused.

My mother is the only parental figure I'm close to. She also had a temper when I was super little, but at least she would address it with us and try to talk it through, and she has gone to greater and greater lengths to control it and understand why we argue and communicate with me and mend the parts of us that were broken by those things. She has pointed me to resources and family history and therapy and she was the very first person who ever told me, at age fucking 19 (after having been diagnosed since I was SEVEN YEARS OLD) what ADHD actually MEANS and how it impacts my life and that it might be why I struggle so much with simple chores and memory.

Even though she's homophobic and transphobic, at least she's not cruel about it. I would hesitate to even call her judgemental, because she thinks it's "maladaptive", but doesn't think it makes someone a bad person. (Hell, stepmonster and father and at least two of my siblings know I'm nonbinary too, but they won't use the right pronouns or non-gendered language for me either.) She's also of the "monotheistic triumphalism" mindset in her Christianity and used to try very hard to convert me away from paganism until, ironically, I moved in with her for that year. So I can't really talk about those things with her.

But other than that, I can talk to her about ANYTHING. I can ask her questions on anything from a vulnerable personal place in my heart to a vulnerable place in my body to relationship advice, she has a great wealth of knowledge on health and financial things and resources provided by the state and county, she has also had to heal from parental abuse and has had a ton of therapy for depression and PTSD so she helps me with mine too, and she's a genuinely kind and witty person who cares about ME enough to address when something she said or did hurts me, and she genuinely tries to help and be a comforting presence.

Like, my bar for "good parenting" isn't very high honestly, but she really is a wonderful parent and I wish I'd had more of her influence in my life.

27: Have you ever broken someone’s heart?

Not that I'm aware of. Not really, anyways. I've had at least 3 people over the age of 40 tell me "I think I'm falling in love with you" just because I talked to them, but like. I'm still in my 20's? Why even?? A lot of people have asked me for my number, and I've turned them down. (I'm taken, first of all. I don't want to be anybody's side-squeeze. And I'm frankly not interested in somebody who only wants my number because my butt is cute. Whatever.)

But the relationship I'm in now is the first serious one I've ever been in, and maybe it's because I'm demi, but I can't imagine anyone's heart being broken if they're not in a truly serious relationship.

40:Have you ever walked outside completely naked?

Oh man, this is a fun one! In chronological order:

- When I was about... 14? I performed my first Wiccan ritual "skyclad" in the backyard. (It's a full moon thing, so I figured I should be under the light of the full moon. And also nude because, you know. Wiccan.) There was a privacy fence, but it WAS outside, and I WAS naked.

- I didn't properly "walk" outside for this one, but I did once open the door to a pizza delivery guy, take the food, and pay completely naked. It was basically a dare. Easiest $100 I've ever made.

- I did once walk several blocks through downtown Canton with absolutely nothing on but a cloak. That one was because I heard the shopkeep saying "Anyone who comes in on a Sunday in their pajamas gets a surprise." And I'm deathly curious, okay. I wanted to know what this surprise was. But I utterly lack pajamas. So I asked her, "What if you sleep naked?" And she said "Then I dare you to come in naked!" So I came in one Sunday wrapped in a cloak, asked her if she remembered the conversation, and when she asked "Are you naked under there?" I essentially flashed her.

- I went to an outdoor nudist resort in Bath, Ohio. We didn't stay long though, maybe two hours tops, because it was almost autumn and the other two I was with were too chilly to enjoy it. I was fine though? It has to be like 50 degrees or cooler for me to be chilled. But because they were too cold to be nude, we left.

Nudity has never fazed me, and if it was socially acceptable, I'm walk around EVERYWHERE naked.

[m2fjourney]

The First 48 Hours

It's done. I'm out. No, I'm not, maybe I never will be. No, I am out in my head. I have accepted who I really am. Years. Years of denial. Years of thinking it's just a paraphilia. Believing an antiquated theory of transexualism. I can't go back. That moment, feeling myself. The feeling of touching my body and every so briefly feeling it could be who I really am. I've wanted to be a woman as long as I can remember. I hate everything about my body, but I finally just accepted the good feelings with being girly. It sounds facile and condescending, there’s the guilt about it. I know that I have not lived the life to understand what it means to be a woman, but it's who I want to be. I almost cried stepping on the scale because I had lost a pound. Not because I was losing weight, I have tried and failed before, but because it meant something to me. It meant a step towards having the body I want. Shaving and feeling the soft fresh skin without the guilt of it being wrong felt so good. It's not a kink. It's not something I need to hide. And yet, I am out only in my head. I have no idea what will happen next.

I have to tell her. I think she suspects, maybe she knows and knows I have to do it myself. That would be the best outcome. She knows I have never been really happy inside. It comes out in little ways, but I don't know if she can know what I myself only just accepted. It's possible for me to like myself. It's possible for me to do something. It's possible to stop wishing for a miracle that will never happen and just do what I can. The small victories feel so good.

We had sex twice this weekend and that's not happened in an age. I felt so liberated by not feeling like I was pretending. It didn't matter. I am still attracted to her. I don't know what the future will bring. Hormones will probably kill my sex drive at some point. Although in my fantasies I can feel myself penetrated, I have never seen a man that I wanted him to do that. I am not attracted to men though I crave that experience of being a woman. I think there's some compromise if she is open to it, but she may not be. I remember ages ago she said she wasn't attracted to women. I don't know. In some of the fantasies, she says she's trans too and I imagine being with *him* and I can imagine it. We've been married 25 years, we have a life and we know each other. I know how to make her cum. Ironically, my "technique" got better when I started imagining I was sucking her penis when I went down. I've behaved like that for a long time, but it was like psyching myself up for something that I was apprehensive of, not confident. This weekend I felt so much more confidence. It makes no sense. I just, in my head, I am who I am and I feel better. Nobody else knows. I could just stop now and never tell a living soul, but it's different in my head now. I feel happy, finally. The stupid every day annoyances are there, but somehow I am not as angry as I was. I was so so angry for so long. Angry at the world. Maybe this is just euphoria and it will wear off, but I feel like I am in some kind of control of my life.  That control of my future, real control of who I am is exhilarating. I don't know what all led up to this. Some of it is the THC. I did some edibles a month or so ago and the overwhelming physical effect was I felt like I was in a woman's body. I could feel my breasts. As much as I wanted it to be sexual, it was just comfortable. If I could do it without side effects (nausea, dizzyness, hangover) I would probably do it every day, my body felt so normal. But then a couple days ago something happened. It was like flipping a switch from trapped to possibilities. I could see *myself* as a woman, not just as some other woman, but me, my new body. It's like the dreams. I wish I woke up remembering having them more often, but the few times I would have a dream, looking in the mirror and my face subtly changes and I know I am a woman and I wake up happier than I have ever felt in life.

I know none of this is easy. There's people that will hate me for being who I want to be, but that's probably true no matter what I do with my life. My parents will never understand. A few years ago, not many at all, I painted my nails. I don't even remember if it was all of them or just a couple while we were visiting up there. I said I did it because "LOL" but I know it was because it made me feel good, it made me feel pretty. They flipped out like I had told them I was a murderer. Constant "Why, why, why" "It looks ridiculous" made me feel awful. I was a very gown ass adult, but I took it off in disgust. They caught me experimenting as a teen. Wearing women's underwear. Naked except for the underwear and a panty liner (it sounds ridiculous, but it was something that made me feel feminine). Confronted, I talked my way out of it in a way that was all plausible deniability. It was easier on us all if I concocted a story. They bought it or pretended to. Not sure what would have happened if they had not. Probably counseling of their choosing and attempts to further repress my desires. The discovery set me back, but the lack of consequences probably saved me.

I will probably feel like an imposter. I will sometimes probably think I am not a real woman. I lack the lived experience of being a woman. Of having been a girl. But I also lack the same lived experience as any other and certainly any other non-trans person. I never fit in with men or in men's places. I feel like such a fake there. I just nod and have a handful of bland aphorisms about sports. Nothing about sport has ever appealed to me. Nothing about locker room talk appeals. I still like women, but I think I felt violated by men who treat them as conquests. I always wanted to be close to women, to feel things with them, and ultimately I wanted to be them.

I know a lot of people who will support me. I may lose my family and casual acquaintances. I don't really care. I have always had a small social circle. I worry that may affect her more than me. I think there's work friends lurking that are trans-phobes. A former co-worker was openly transphobic and she unfriended her. I wanted her to report her to the hospital. Yeah. This was someone who worked in patient contact at a major hospital and was openly anti-trans on Facebook. Typical right wing bullshit. I knew I didn't like her or her husband from the first (both gun toting reactionaries. He's a cop too, so yeah there's that nice little feeling that the people in power will do all they can to make trans life harder). This whole process though feels so selfish. Like people will ask, "How can he do that to her?" Maybe. I dunno. She may love me enough and be flexible enough to adapt. I really don't know. It's been a long time since anything of that sort came up. She mentions trans issues and people who have transitioned. Is she just making conversation or giving me an opening?

I said I wanted to permanently remove the hair from my back and neck, sort of a safe "I don't need those" stepping stone. She mentioned electrolysis was what they recommend for trans women because it's permanent. I settled on a IPL to try it out on my face and arms. Electro in the future will have to happen. Maybe she knows or suspects. I don't even know how to start that conversation. "Hey, yeah, so great dinner. By the way, I'm trans and I want to transition"

Our anniversary is coming up. We have a bunch of little weekend trips planned and part of me thinks I should tell her then and part of me doesn't want to ruin the trip if she takes it badly. We have relatives that are trans-women and non-binary, so it's something she's familiar with. They're all younger though and not married to her. Her parents will probably say stupid shit, but they will try to understand. It will be cringy, but not awful. I am prepared to just lose my family, maybe I underestimate them but I don't think they have the flexibility to accept it as anything other than weird. However, the advantage of being an adult is that I can just walk away. We are more successful than them, I don’t need anything from them. 

On the other hand, I wake up every morning since I made up my mind feeling good about myself. I have SO far to go to even marginally pass to someone half blind, but I want to try. I want to make the effort. It's like a weight has been lifted.

[janiedean]

It's pretty ironic that you guys complaining about people making drama about emmy while having fictional shipping war drama at the same time at least those actors are real people who got snubbed

y’know, I wanted to springsteen this anon, but I’mma acknowledge it because I really want to point out that it’s pretty damned ironic that:

we aren’t complaining about emmy drama, we’re complaining that y’all are saying pretty disgusting shit about real people ie the actors and literally no one is bitching that gwen hasn’t won differently from y’all;

you started the ship war in the year of the lord 2013 and perpetually dragged people into it when they were minding their business and then tried to spin it on us when we never went into your tags nor your inboxes unless you spent days mistagging shit in *our* tags but now it’s our fault it’s a thing? lmao

I would be very glad to not even touch it but you and your pals are so desperate for my attention that I haven’t had the blog opened to public for a week after I had to close it because of your crowd and this is like the tenth anon from your crowd I get and I already had to block like five people not counting the baiting and trolling I’m sure you sent and that I replied to knowing it was pseudo-bait while I never went looking for y’all, so I find it very ironic that you’re in my inbox bitching about a thing you started that I never gave a single fuck for and that I didn’t wanna get involved into in the first place;

as stated, y’all insulted real people (gwen and peter) in those tweets and have been assholes towards real people (us jb shippers) for years just because we don’t ship jc or like cersei, who are, btw, fictional, so you can take your worries about real people and shove them up your ass;

sure as hell no one on this side was burning pictures of any actress in the supporting category bar gwen while chanting in latin to make sure she’d win the emmy (lmfao) because we have better things to do with your time, so idk what the fuck you’re fishing for here.

like, I’d be delighted if y’all stopped trying to pin crap on us when you started the entire thing and you are the crowd so insecure that has to result to racist/ableist/misogynist/transphobic/classist insults to feel better about yourselves never mind the edits with ncw and lena + his wife hashtagged #divorce where y’all tagged him, his wife and his damned daughters which sure as hell might hurt real people (idk, NCW’S FAMILY) and that y’all certainly haven’t distanced yourselves from nor reacted to by isolating whoever did it.

but the problem is that ‘real people got snubbed’. you serious? if lena knew about the crap above I think her problem would be less getting snubbed and that her so-called fans call horrid shit people she’s friends with, but I guess that if y’all are like this you don’t have any friends so you don’t get the point.

I mean, are you even for fucking real? also since you sent this twice I’ll assume you were the same anon who sent twice the peter anon from this morning wanting to troll so I’m taking the liberty of blocking you on both accounts.

[lesbeanxp]

Arguing Abortion from a University Philosophy student and budding rhetorician:

Top rule from Philosophy: follow the argument whereever it goes if you want to find the truth.

Top rule from Rhetoric: consession will get you very far.

Top rule from both: understand the question you’re asking, but more importantly!! Understand the answers they’re giving you.

Alright. I was pro life growing up. I was also very conservative, homophobic, and transphobic but we won’t go into that because most of that was repressed shit. My family is pro life. I hear the arguments all the time. And guess what— they make sense! What they’re saying makes sense to them, and the way that we argue against it doesn’t target their concerns at all!! So we get no where!!

Some other rules to note as we get started: rhetoricians will tell you to control the argument and control the topic- and that’s great if you’re trying to convince people who don’t know yet. But if you’re trying to convince people who are pretty sure in what they say, you have to remember that ALMOST EVERYONE IS REASONABLE— or at least, almost everyone thinks that they’re reasonable, and their definition of the argument is reasonable. So, you can’t change the direction of the argument on them, or else they will catch you in a fallacy.

Great thing about the pro life argument, as given to me from a Christian perspective, is that it IS full of fallacies for many different reasons. You have to acknowledge what they will not budge on, and follow it to the conclusion they make, and question the inconsistency. They will come to the conclusion themselves if you just point it out vaguely. DONT BE COCKY!! One of the sins of Christianity is pride, ironically enough, but they will use yours to belittle your argument!! Being humble is crucial. And as much as it hurts me, PLAY ON THE CONSERVATIVE DEFINITION OF GENDER ROLES. It sucks, I know, but they have to be acknowledged if you want to do anything.

You remember in geometry when you had to line up your givens? We have to do that here, and ADHERE to what they say. These are the very most basic ones, and not everyone does adhere to them, but they will agree.

1. Killing is wrong.

2. Killing the innocent is especially wrong.

3. Premarital sex is wrong.

4. The future is uncertain.

5. Souls exist.

6. The soul of a baby is implanted in the embryo at conception— you can probably argue this one! But if you choose to depends on the opponent’s stance. If they don’t believe you after one explanation, then use CONCESSION!! And move on!!

If more questions arise, and you can’t answer them, TAKE YOUR TIME. Don’t jump in on something you can’t backpedal from. Even better— ask them what they think your answer is, and EXPAND or DISAGREE.

Also!! Do not make this personal— it will turn you into “one good pro-choicer” not that all pro-choicers aren’t so bad. Do not make it personal. And DO NOT BRING UP THAT YOU JUST WANT AN ABORTION!! IT MAY BE TRUE BUT IT WILL NOT MAKE THEM BELIEVE YOUR SIDE OR LIKE YOU!!

1. Killing is wrong. And 2. Killing the innocent is wrong.

I agree that killing is wrong and killing the innocent is wrong. It’s something we should avoid at all costs. We don’t want people to die. Sometimes, though, there are situations where if we allow a pregnancy to continue it could harm the life of the mother. If that’s the case, a lot of times the pregnancy kills two people instead of just one. By allowing a pregnancy like that to continue, it’s like killing the mother and the baby, when you could get away with the mother still alive. I feel like that is especially important when the mother has other children to take care of? And it’s even more important if the mother became pregnant in an abusive household— then the baby will too be abused and maybe killed before it reaches its first year by its own father— or if not, then it’s mental instability will probably drive it to unthinkable things before it’s 18. Do you think it’s okay for people to have abortions in those sorts of situations, where it’ll hurt the mother and the baby if the pregnancy carries on?

[if yes, great, one point won. If no, ask “what point does it accomplish to let them both die?” The answer WILL MOST LIKELY BE: “we don’t know FOR SURE that they would both die/that the baby would be abused.” (Point 4) So you say:]

That’s a really great point. There’s a lot of things that we don’t know for certain. But these doctors don’t want to kill anyone— it’s not good for them personally, and it’s not good for them from a business standpoint. They don’t want any of their patients, born or unborn, to die. So they have to be very certain that the pregnancy would end really badly before they decide to endorse that a woman in this situation gets an abortion. They have to be as certain as you and I are that god exists before they do this, and whereas we should never test God, these doctors HAVE to do a lot of tests before these things. We have to trust these people to heal, and sometimes that means that hurt must be involved. And in terms of the mother and baby being abused— abuse is about the exploitation of power isn’t it? Who has more power over an infant than a father? Do you think it’s God’s will that the baby is abused so much that it may have suicidal thoughts by the time it’s 13. Or the mother is killed by the father before the baby is born— and they both die? What if the mother can’t get herself and a baby out of that situation, but may be able to win just herself freedom in time? It’s God’s will that the humbled be exalted, and the baby will be in heaven no matter what— it’s the mother who has been humbled beyond repair, and any chance she may have to be healed should be taken, right? Abuse is wrong. It’s God’s will that we end abuse.

[if they don’t agree, it is probably because “if that happens, it must have been God’s will— I want God’s will controlling the situation, not a doctor.” If that’s the case, move on to point 5 and 6. Also move here if during argument 1, they bring up that the baby is innocent but the mother is not.]

That’s a good point. God’s will definitely has to be respected in all of this. But God’s will is for us, as Christians, to bring more people to heaven than we leave out of it. The baby is innocent, it hasn’t done anything wrong yet. But what if the baby kills the mother? Not intentionally, of course, but the pregnancy is still to blame for a mother dying. Is the baby innocent if it kills the mother before it’s born? What they both die because of the pregnancy, and neither of them go to heaven? The baby is innocent, and it’s soul can go straight back to heaven if it has to die for the mother to be safe — it’s really a selfless act on the part of the baby. Especially if the mother isn’t yet Christian— then she still has time to give her life to Christ, rather than have it taken from her... and speaking of the baby’s soul making a quick return trip to heaven— wouldn’t that cause less pain for everyone? If the baby has to make a return voyage to heaven, isn’t it important that it’s early on so fewer people are hurt by its absence. But then, what if it’s discovered too late that they both will die? Isn’t it again, better to preserve the maximum number of lives. The baby’s soul will live on in heaven forever, but the mother may not get to meet it if she hasn’t given her life to Christ. It is God’s will to bring as many people to heaven as possible. The baby’s already there, whether it’s aborted or there’s a miscarriage: and it’s most likely God’s will that the baby was taken back so quickly, as he controls all. It’s just the mother that is a wild card in terms of her salvation and we have to respect that journey she must make ON HER OWN.

[NOW!! Go back to 2 and tack on 3.]

The sad part about this and why it needs to be a choice that the mother makes is because the baby is already going to heaven. But what if the mother wasn’t married and needs to ask for forgiveness? What if she was raped and needs to forgive God for what happened to her?

What about that little girl in Ohio who was raped? She didn’t know any better— she’s 11. She’s innocent, but was forcibly made pregnant by a criminal. The type of emotional turmoil that poor girl must go through is incredible— and many people in her situation would probably commit suicide, living with that reminder of how she was hurt. I can’t imagine dealing with that kind of hurt- can you? And she’s so young, she is almost CERTAIN to die if this pregnancy carries on. The unborn baby is safe, soul wise, but doesn’t the born baby deserve a chance to get back on her feet and find justice for herself? It feels like a difficult question, I know, but she’s just a baby herself— can you remember when you were 11? What would you have done if you were given this choice— to send a soul straight back to heaven or to die trying to bring it to this cruel earth.

-THESE ARE TIPS AND ARGUMENTS TO BE GIVEN TO THE STRICTEST CONSERVATIVE CHRISTIANS. ALSO BRING UP THE POINT THAT JUDAISIM BELIEVES THAT THE SOUL ENTERS THE BODY AT THE FIRST BREATH. SO EVEN IF THAT IS NOT THEIR PERSONAL BELIEF, IT SHOULD BE THE MAIN ONE OF CHRISTIANS.

but yeah, Christians aren’t unreasonable if you understand their reasoning. Like anyone else, they don’t want to feel unreasonable for their beliefs, so don’t make them feel like they’re crazy or unjust. They care about the baby more than the mom because the baby is innocent and has a lot of potential, but sometimes that innocence belongs in heaven, and that potential can be fulfilled there as an angel.

Just respect folks’ beliefs if you’re gonna argue with them. Especially if you want them to be on your side when the ballot comes around.

Disclaimer: I believe some of these things I said, but definitely not all of it. These are just arguments that I would pose to MY family.

[jellydishes]

i recently rediscovered the Inquisitor as a Companion meme i had filled out for my Belluel Trevelyan (pictured here, on the left) several years ago, and wanted to post it here for own purposes (i.e. crying)

Belluel (Jacinta Immaculada Maita) Trevelyan

Alternate name: Her name is identical, though she is from a lesser branch of the Trevelyan family

Race, Class, & Specialization: Human, Duel-wielding rogue, Tempest

Varric’s Nickname for them: Jaws

How they are recruited: Belluel is first encountered on the Storm Coast a short distance away from where the dragon and the giant are battling, hunched in the ruins of a lifeboat with what surviving crew made it off her ship. She grips the hilts of her blades in her hands, and seems adamant in her refusal to leave her crew, some of whom are gravely injured.

Once the dragon leaves, the giant turns on Bell and her crew. The inquisitor can choose to fight the giant at this time, and if so, Bell leaves the scant cover of her lifeboat to provide assistance. If, however, the inquisitor avoids fighting the giant, Belluel will be understandably short with the inquisitor when they do speak, and several dialogue choices will be unavailable.

Either way, once the giant is finally dispatched, Belluel will approach the inquisitor. She promises the full support of herself and her ships, a pirate fleet she’s gathered under her command in the last ten years, if the inquisitor helps her repair her ships, damaged by storms and monster attacks.

The inquisitor can refuse to help Bell, or turn her offer down once the ships are repaired, at which point Belluel will scrub a hand down her face and say with brittle cheerfulness that she’s sure they’ll muddle along with them. Bell and her crew will be gone the next time the inquisitor comes by that spot, and will vanish from the game at that point.

If the inquisitor accepts, Bell will beam and tell the inquisitor that, really, they’re taking advantage of her good nature, seeing as how they’re getting a pirate captain and a fleet of ships out of the deal.

Like Iron Bull, her crew will accompany her to Haven/Skyhold. At Skyhold, her first mate Claudette can be found in one of the two buildings overlooking the bridge leading away from Skyhold, warming her hands over a fire (or, in the case of a glitch, IN the fire.) Talking to Claudette, as like Krem, provides additional information about Belluel and her crew, and will occasionally trigger quests. Usually, her crew will be put to use scouting out materials or harassing enemy forces on the seas, though they will also serve as protection for dignitaries and additional forces traveling from Rivain or Antiva.

Where they are in Skyhold: In Haven, Belluel can be found outside the walls by the trebuchets with her hands crammed up in her armpits and a wide smile turned towards the mountains, and the Free Marches. These first conversations with her are bright and cheerful and mostly lies. A Trevelyan inquisitor can call her out on a number of her lies, which will net both a laugh and disapproval.

In Skyhold, she can typically be found on the long bridge leading away from the fortress, leaning against the low wall and looking out over where the land breaks away from the sky. She will freely share stories of her decades at sea and of her various misadventures through every port town with a name and some that didn’t, always with a smile and a tilt of her head. Occasionally, if approached with the right amount of approval, she can be convinced to tell stories of her pre-Andrastrism gods and how they shaped the world, though, with the crooked smile she’s aiming at the inquisitor, it’s hard to tell if she’s telling the truth…

Things they Generally Approve of:

Providing assistance to mages whensoever possible, choosing dialogue options that support mage freedom, and, similarly, working against oppressive systems.

Good natured teasing.

Lying as a means to conceal your motives or true emotions will often be rewarded with a skeptical snort or a sideways, though wordless, glance, but a slight increase in approval. Similarly, cleverness and subterfuge. An easy way to get Bell’s approval rating up is to successfully beat her at riddles or word games. (This comes up later in her romance path, when she requests that the inquisitor help her locate a book of riddles given to her by her cousin Ista as a child, which is filled with their beginning efforts at code to make it past the circle’s censors, and that Bell had to leave behind when she ran away from her family home to be a pirate decades ago.)

Taking her to visit the tailor in Val Royeaux, wherein she will coo over waistcoats and tails and the detailed tooling on leather gloves. An additional approval point can be gained by purchasing and subsequently outfitting her in a specific item, which is randomly selected each playthrough.

A larger bonus can be gained after recruiting Dagna, after which Bell will be found in the undercroft, pulling up her pant leg to expose one of her prosthetic legs, conferring animatedly with Dagna over design and function and wouldn’t  it be magnificent if the leg came to a point?? The inquisitor can comment on the proceedings, during which approval can be won or lost (though, it should be noted, the inquisitor has no actual say on the final design). On this occasion, joking will be met stiffly if made at anything but the highest approval, and any serious attempts to change her mind will result in an invitation to suck on Phoenix eggs, and a loss of approval. (Shortly afterward, a short cutscene will be triggered where she will be seen giving a small sigh with her eyes sliding shut, shifting her weight from side to side to judge the fit, before opening an eye to a slit and joking that she’s “moving away from the floral motif. Whatever will people say.”)

Expressing skepticism in Andrastrism and/or the chantry, or inquiring after her gods and Rivaini background.

Riding on the rowboat on the Storm Coast, though only if she is actually present in the party.

Things they Generally Disapprove of:

Siding against mages, or choosing dialogue options that reinforce  oppresTHE LIESsive rules or beliefs.

Taking the amulet from Mihris in the Hinterlands will result in a loss of approval, while killing her will trigger a major loss of approval, and a small cutscene wherein Bell will stand rigid over her body in shock, before whirling on the inquisitor and shouting hoarsely at them. “How could you?!” She’ll cry out, slashing the air with a palm. “You’re supposed to be better than this! Than me!” If currently romanced, this is one of several triggers that can cause Bell to end the relationship.

Choosing to full-out decorate Skyhold with all of the chantry decorative options.

Upgrading the tower for templar usage.

Out and out cruelty in conversation choices, or in ignoring sidequests that benefit mages for a set amount of time, depending on the severity of the quest. (Taking your sweet time about delivering the amulet containing her phylactory to the mage in the Hinterlands, for example, will result in dropped approval.)

Confronting her directly about things she’s obviously lied about or evaded in conversation will often result in a loss of approval, though these can subsequently be won back if the inquisitor expresses genuine concern. These won’t win you the answers you’re looking for, either, not in the beginning, but Bell will give a start and a huff of a laugh and say with only a bit of awkwardness that she appreciates your concern. “It’s. Been some time since any but a select few people have called my bluffs. Perhaps I should play cards more, yeah?” (These same questions can be asked again after achieving high approval, and will net very different answers.)

Unnecessary killing, though she will admit, with clenched teeth and shaking fists, that the inquisitor is doing what they think best serves the inquisition, as she did (and does) with her crew. Continued executions will result in further loss of approval.

Hiding things that are considered important to someone’s well being (such as the fact that Dorian’s father wrote the letter from Dorian) result in a massive and immediate loss of approval.

Asking Krem transphobic questions. One of her mothers is a trans woman, and Belluel will immediately lose approval if the inquisitor picks certain dialogue choices. Additionally, she will bring this up the next time the inquisitor talks to her.

Mages, Templars, Other?: Belluel whole-heartedly supports mage freedom, and is openly disapproving of anyone expressing otherwise.

If pressed, she’ll admit that she’s given some thought to the ways her Rivaini mother Ahu described the circles in Rivain as being run, and will start to expound upon this before interrupting herself with a snort and settling her weight back on one leg, crossing her arms. “Well. That worked out so grand for Dairsmuid, then, didn’t it?”

If asked her opinion on the matter, Belluel will hem and haw and give her usual diversionary smiles and half truths before eventually telling the inquisitor that she supports Cassandra for the new divine based on the reforms she plans to make to the chantry, though Bell is also willing to hear the inquisitor out about their decision.

Friends in the Inquisition: (which canon characters are they close with?)

Belluel can often be found bullshitting with Varric, the both of them bent over mugs by the hearth, each trying to top the other, either in most believable lies or in the most unbelievable truths. Varric will take particular delight in telling her stories of Isabela, about whom Bell is greatly intrigued, while Bell will regale him with stories of her surviving sibling and twin, Rudy, who quit the pirating life many years ago and now lives in Kirkwall. After the jokes fall away, though, is where they find the other’s smile waiting for them.

She finds that she has a lot in common with Iron Bull. Once they get past that initial feeling out period wherein they take one-step-forward-two-steps-back, they settle into a comfortable rhythm of jokes and actual personal admissions carefully hidden as bunk. Several banters are the trading of riddles or talking entirely in code, with both trying to figure out what is actually being said.

She has great respect for Cassandra, and can sometimes be found sitting nearby Cassandra’s practice, discussing all manner of things. Cassandra will sometimes try to trap Belluel in a lie, but it is good natured, and Belluel somehow always manages to get a smile out of the seeker. Belluel is utterly, and unapologetically, head over heels for Cassandra, though she doesn’t know quite what to do with that information, often leading to her usual flirtations stumbling out of her mouth in a muddle. Numerous gifts make their way to Cassandra’s quarters, and Belluel can be spotted dancing with Vivienne, relearning the steps of a dance she’d long forgotten, though the inquisitor cannot interrupt.

Their relationship begins in fits and starts, but Belluel eventually becomes quite close with Vivienne, and will in fact eventually be heard to say that Vivienne is one of her few, close friends. They have very basic and very intrinsic disagreements about mages and the future of the circles, but through banter, it becomes obvious that the two are coming to genuinely appreciate each other despite this, and settle into a very easy back and forth.

She is unsure what to make of Cole at first, though she very quickly warms up to him. Their banters are warm, with Bell making mention of training him as a sailor after all of this.

Belluel and Dorian have their differences, most notably on the topic of slavery, though in most cases they get along very well, and become very close by the end of the game. She spends a lot of time with him in the library after his personal quest, talking of inconsequential things, joking and teasing and being silly just to get him to smile, though she can be spotted gripping his hand in hers and telling him with the utmost seriousness that she doesn’t have so many loved ones that she is ready to lose him just yet. She promises him that wheresoever he chooses to go, she and Ista will be there with him, whatever comes.

Though they couldn’t truly be called friends, Bell actually gets along better with Blackwall after his revelation than she did before, though she certainly does not approve, and in banters with him will admit that she cannot fault him for wanting to be someone else.

Romanceable?: Belluel is romanceable by women and nonbinary individuals of any race, and is available for poly relationships.

At low approval, or if the flirtation options are only occasionally chosen, Bell will return any and all flirtations with a laugh and a wink, including flirtations from men.

Once medium approval has been reached, Bell will cock her head at further flirtations, something going stiff in the edges of her smile. She will hesitate only a moment before shaking her head with a laugh. At this point, she will gracefully let down men with a clap to the shoulder and an offer of drinks at the tavern, and will meet further flirtations from women and nonbinary individuals with a flustered, crooked smile and a hand to the back of her neck. She “hadn’t actually considered this far,” she’ll admit.

“That’s not true,” she’ll say after a time, the first time in the inquisitor’s memory that she’s admitted to a lie, and will look down at her cupped hands before glancing back up at the inquisitor. “You are. Filling in a lot of spaces with light and noise, my dear inquisitor, and."

Still, she will hesitate, starting and stopping several times before she goes on to say, ”I’m not used to things going well, you’ll find. With ships or with people. It will go wrong, eventually, or all at once. I’m still not convinced that they won’t,” Bell will add with a breathless laugh that tried for normalcy, “but- if you’re serious-” She will draw in a breath and take up the inquisitor’s hand in hers, saying, “I wouldn’t mind seeing where they can go right.”

If the inquisitor approaches Bell and initiates private moments, there will be a cutscene of the pair of them holding hands on the staircase overlooking the main hall, Bell breathing out a smile before tipping her head to press kisses to the corner of the inquisitor’s mouth, hands rising to caress their face.

Early on, in a conversation triggered by walking by Belluel while she is talking with either Cassandra or Josephine enough times to witness certain fumbling smiles, Belluel will take the inquisitor up to the inquisitor’s bedroom for a private discussion. She’ll pace the length of the bedroom, holding her arms behind her back, pursing her lips before telling the inquisitor with a slow and measured carefulness that she’s poly, and if asked will explain, emphasizing trust and mutual respect, before falling quiet again.

Bell will stop moving and draw herself up to her full, if diminutive, height, and inform the inquisitor that she had only recently ended a long-term relationship with her first mate, Claudette. For over ten years, she will explain haltingly, the pair of them had spent a good deal of their time hurting each other, with Bell taking solace from events in her past and current depression in drink and in increasingly risky pirating activities, while Claudette turned to dallying with men and women outside of their relationship. Which would have been fine, she’ll take care to say, except that Claudette had never approved of Bell’s being poly, and took pains to hide her liaisons. Neither spoke of it, of any of it, and it festered between them for years.

Only recently, she’ll say, did she find it in herself to break things off, round about the time she found out about Ista’s disappearance. If asked why she’d never ended the relationship earlier (which will earn a sharp look but no loss in approval), Belluel will merely say that it’s not so easy to climb out of a hole when the sky holds just as many horrors.

Belluel will fall silent again for long moments after her story before giving herself a shake. “I haven’t even told Ista that,” she says. “I haven’t told anyone. I only tell you so you will fully understand what I mean when I say that that is not what I want. I want. I-” Belluel will drag a hand down her face again to grasp at her mouth. “I love you,” she says, simply, “but I have room in my heart for other people. I always have.”

At this point the inquisitor can A) Accept Belluel and her expand the relationship, which will both continue the romance and open up additional pathways for romance with other characters, eventually triggering cutscenes with Belluel involving those characters. Belluel herself will approach Josephine and Cassandra if the inquisitor does not.

B) Accept Belluel but decline expanding the relationship, which will continue the relationship unchanged.

C) End the relationship, to which Belluel will step back with her hands clenched behind her back, her crooked smile falling to pieces. She will reach for a joke and, finding nothing, will wordlessly leave the inquisitor’s bedroom. Later, she will be found sitting beside Ista, their joined hands between them as they share quiet stories of times past.

Also: Midway through the romance, Belluel will initiate sex. Turning down her offer of sex will have no negative consequence on the romance, and will trigger a cutscene wherein Belluel takes the inquisitor up to the battlements wherein Bell will be seated beside the inquisitor atop the battlements, arms linked together, voice a low hush as they talk over everything and nothing.

If unromanced, Bell will romance a similarly unromanced Josephine and Cassandra, both if they are both available.

Small side mission: Between the Lines

Belluel requests that the inquisition use it’s resources to track down former circle mages that hailed from the Free Marches and are located throughout Orlais and Fereldan, though she’s rather cagey as to the reason, more so than usual. If present in the party when the mages are located, Belluel talks with them, and bags will change hands. Belluel will refuse to discuss the bag’s contents with the inquisitor, and if pressed, will tell the inquisitor an obvious lie.

As with Blackwall, she disapproves if she is not in the party when they are located, and will make pointed remarks about this when talked to back in Haven/Skyhold.

Several items can be shaved off the questline if you take her along to the Winter Palace, where she can be spotted in one of the side rooms, trying to leverage some of the power behind her family name in order to track down a certain artifact, though the inquisitor’s presence is spotted before much of significance is heard.

Companion quest: Words, Words, Words

After her approval is high, Belluel will barge into the war room in a triggered cutscene to demand Leliana’s help and, when confronted by the inquisitor, their help as well. For once, Belluel’s usual easy going smile is shaken, and she is quite serious when she tells the inquisitor the purpose of her side mission: she has been bargaining, wheedling, and outright bribing mages in order to suss out the location of her cousin Ista’s phylactory.

Ista, she tells the inquisitor, had half raised her when they were both children, until she had, Bell would say delicately, “shown signs of magic” and, less delicately, “been stolen away by those utter bastards in armor” when Ista had been twelve and Bell had been six. They kept in regular contact through letters, passing along hidden messages through increasingly convoluted code, and Bell became worried when those letters cut off recently. Ista, she says, has disappeared from the Ostwick circle in the confusion of the war. Much of the circle’s contents had also since disappeared, Bell had discovered, including the phylactories.

Bell requests the inquisitor’s help in locating Ista’s phylactory so that no one could use it against her, even if that means that she wouldn’t be able to use it to find Ista, either. Further questioning will reveal that Bell had not met the inquisitor by chance— she had purposefully driven her fleet in through unseasonal storms in order to meet up with the fledgling inquisition. As fleeting as the hope of their assistance may have been, it was still the best chance she had of finding Ista’s phylactory.

The quest itself takes about three hours of research, after which time Ista’s phylactory, and Ista herself, is eventually located in the Hinterlands with a small group of young mages and tranquil, penned into a box canyon by red templars. Belluel will demand that the inquisition journey there right now, this very instant, damnit.

The mission is TIMED. If the quest is not begun within a set amount of time, Belluel will leave Skyhold. She can be caught up with in the Hinterlands, though she will be bitterly angry with the inquisitor, and will barely be able to speak through her anger and worry.

When they arrive, Ista is clearly in trouble. The vegetation around her is a scorched ruin, and a number of red templars lie dead, but there are more, always more, and Ista is flagging. Seeing no other course to protect her charges, Ista gulps down her last lyrium potion at the inquisition’s approach, and tears open a hole in the Fade that begins to draw in everything in a large radius, including Ista herself.

Belluel grows desperate, and tears away from the inquisitor. Dousing herself in an alchemical solution, Belluel hurls herself down the canyon towards the Templars and her cousin, damaging her prosthetics in her haste and nearly tumbling down the canyon wall.

Option 1: The inquisitor can seal the rift, which requires opening it still further and dealing with the demons that emerge. Multiple pride demons have to be dealt with, including the red templars.

After the battle, Belluel and Ista will joyfully reunite, and Ista will be gained as an agent. Ista will subsequently be found nearby Bell’s location in Skyhold, and can be talked to, though will have limited dialogue.

Option 2:

The inquisitor can refuse to help, try to delay or stop Belluel, or collapse precariously balanced boulders down on the canyon.

Depending on the choices made during the battle, Ista may or may not survive the battle, but any combination of the above will result in Belluel leaving the inquisition.

If Ista dies, Bell will collapse at her side, passing a shaking hand over her face before balling her fist up by her mouth. Without speaking a word to anyone, Belluel will gather her cousin up and disappear in the direction of the coast. Later, Belluel will turn her pirates against the inquisition forces in a series of brutal attacks, and can be captured in a subsequent quest, at which point Belluel can be imprisoned, forced to once again turn her fleet towards the good of the inquisition, or be executed.

If Ista survives, Belluel and her crew will permanently leave the inquisition, along with Ista. The pair hug, Bell leaning up to kiss one of Ista’s largest scars and to whisper things in her ear that go unheard by the inquisitor, and then off they go, without a backward look.

Afterward, reports on the war table tell you that the pair have ended up using Bell’s boats to ferry refugees, particularly rebel mages away, from dangerous areas.

The inquisitor will later get a quest on the war table about a minor Fereldan lord getting riled up because Bell’s crew was spotted flying pirate colors off the coast, and setting up a war camp full of apostates and criminals on his lands. Varying reports coming in accuse Belluel of intercepting shipments of food and armaments for the use of her crew or, according to one particularly colorful tale, planning on deposing the lord and setting up her cousin Ista as the new ruler of the lands.

If Cullen is used to strongarm Bell, Ista, and their crew away from the lord’s lands, they resist, and a good number of pirates die defending the apostates and refugees. Bell herself is injured in the attack. Some time later, the inquisitor will be notified in a bit of ambient dialogue from Josephine that the inquisition has received a bill from Belluel for the cost of a replacement prosthetic leg from a certain artisan in Val Royeaux.

If Josephine is used to negotiate a parcel of land for the refugees, a grateful Belluel will (somewhat begrudgingly) pass along a bit of intelligence about venatori forces moving along the coast, earning a bit of influence for the inquisition. The letter notifying the inquisitor of success will be from Belluel, informing Josephine (and, therefore, the inquisitor) that, as leader of their combined forces, all further messages can be directed to Bann Ista, please and thank you. The inquisition earns a small amount of influence.

If Leliana is used, Belluel and Ista’s forces will be slowly picked away by Leliana’s agents until Belluel is forced to gather what remains of her people and retreat back to the relative safety of the sea,  leaving much of her supplies and ships behind. The inquisition earns a substantial amount of money from this course of action.

[depri-and-anxiousv2]

Me as we speak. Beers and cigs. In a park for it to more "normal" to drink than in my apartment, nut yeah.. alone in a park with no friends and beers aren't, eh.. the thing. Would be nice if it would cure my fucking brain. As for now, the beers only numb me. Unfortunately. And oh yeah, heavy metal forever I'm so stressed right now. Like my heart and mind are racing - I took a pill to slow down my heart beat, and I had 3 with me.. I'm allowed to take 4 in 24 yours if I need it, if I'm extremely nervous regarding something. I REALLY have the urge to take the rest 2 I have on me.... like if it would stop my heart from beating I wouldn't have these fucking thoughts and diagnosises (English isn't my main language, in lack of a better word), I would be not here. Like gone. But at the same time I'm sad about the thoughts of hurting my family and few friends. I attempted suicide a few years ago (I know you can't commit suicide with these 3 silly pills but you get me if you know about being suicidal). My family got very worried, even though I've had depression and anxiety for yearrrrrs. I just opened my second can of beer and I just want to cry. Even tho I don't know WTF to cry over. I'm numb, but depressed. Can't feel WTF I'm feeling, even tho I feel very, very sad. I hate it. I can't feel myself, and that wants me to cut EVEN more, which is a fucking bad combo. Last time I cut myself very bad, I was sooo drunk it didn't even hurt. It only hurt the day after, physically and hurt way more mentally. The doctor said I had cut at least 2-3 cm deep, which is like 1 inch US, I guess. And 10 cm long - 3-4 inches (?). If I had hit a vein (it was in my thigh where very big veins are) I would not have been sitting here omw to be drunk and cutting again. It is a miracle I didn't hit a vein so deep it was and I would have bleed to death, because it took hours to get someone to have time to get to my apartment. The nurse said it NO DOUBT should've been stitched, but my parents wouldn't take me to the ER..... On one side, I wish I had bleed to death because then I didn't have the fucking problems I have. I would be at peace, like Chester Bennington (I really liked Linkin Park's old heavy music, but I realised their song Heavy was exactly how I felt and feel, but because I don't like pop, I didn't listen to it then). And.... on the other side, I know how much it would hurt my family, well, kinda, some of the peeps didn't show much emotions when I attempted suicide) While writing this I haven't counted the cigs and beers I've had, and I have no intention of going home to my apartment right now. My main goal this evening is to find the way to my apartment and not do too much fucked up stuff to myself. Not so I need medical attention, because it is so damn embarrassing, and because my nurse knows me, she knows I can't lie about how I "fell", looking up my journals and shit. But at the same time it makes my parents realize the pain I'm in and have been for years. It's very divided. After I cut myself very badly, they took me to their house, but they wouldn't get me to the ER, even tho it was no doubt to be stitched. And at my parents' they store loads of loads of beers, "in case the neighbors or some friends would drop by", so yeah, they have started my problem with alcohol. Ironically while I'm sitting drinking beers on a Tuesday night (well, it's Summer holiday, who counts). They don't think they have a problem with alcohol *cough* x10000000, but my mom ALWAYS ask me if I have been drinking and how much. I have been encouraged to ask her the same, so she knows how fucking annoying it is to be asked, but I don't dare it. Especially because they help me finance me living in my own apartment, away from THEM. So I don't want any trouble there. But again I want her to know how annoying it is. Like frustrating, but I don't dare. Again - very divided... I hate my depression, and I hate my anxiety. I logically want to bond and make friends but my anxiety tells me "hell no!". And my depression makes me feel like I'm not even worth friends. I take meds and all but I'm still stuck and alienated because I'm transgender. A psychologist told me I cut like a girl. And another wanted me to explain how my genitals look like. And the "official" clinic to "treat" transgender people don't believe I can have anxiety and depression because "you can't have both"?! I have been on T for 4 years, and it's 4 years since my top surgery, but nope, because cis people can't be depressed and know their gender identity...... fuck them. Unfortunately I can't because they're the only ones allowed to treat us So, this rant has already gone thru a lot of topics, both back and forth. At the moment I don't want to be here, alive, but at the same time I won't tell my parents because it's so toxic being there. Both me getting anxious about my dad, but also about them having tons of beers available. My mom can feel and see me being depressed, so I hope she doesn't want to visit me, because she will know right away. And I just don't want to go to their place even tho I want hugs and knowing everything will be ok. But it won't. I just know. I've officially been like this since I was 15, and I'm 22 now. And I've had anxiety all my life. Because of my dad's uncontrollable, spontaneous rage. I don't want to go there, but I want help financially (because then I can't even pay my food, and no cigs or tobacco, oh shit), and I want to stay neutral so to say. It's past my time to take my evening pill, Seroquel.. It normally treats schizophrenia, but in low doses it's against anxiety and depression. It makes me sleep kinda ok. I couldn't be without that pill. On one hand, I just want to cut, cut to actually feel myself. But even tho I'm cautious, I'm scared of fucking up, like the last big cut, and at the same time I want to sleep. Sleep to not having to think (well, having nightmares, but not thinking in a normal way) I don't know. I don't know whether I'll ever get better. In any way. Even with meds, which is fucked because I don't have a psychiatrist anymore. I used all the consultations, and my doctor is transphobic and shit. I Hope my laptop will work and I can game because that has been my escape and extreme joy the past 12(?) years On another note, it's kinda a joy I haven't needed to pee because that's a hurdle as well. I have my STP with me, but it's still a challenge because I'm FTM. This to too much of a turn about being transgender, I'm sorry folks So my decision so far is to have the 2nd last beer I have and then go home. I think. People passing by periodically and I still worry if I pass or not. My thoughts. My fucking thoughts.... can I uninstall my brain somewhere? And like, install better features Trying to get my spirit up with some great heavy metal, well metal of all kinds. I hate pop but metal is so satisfying And regarding bad thoughts, when I bought the beers, I calmly thought about being hit by car. As if i "fell" while the lights were red. Why the fuck do I have these thoughts.. Again, what the.... fuck?!

[plunder-heaven-and-devour-god]

Tropes!

My brother and I are discussing how to put out tropey indulgent media out there while still making original content that is aware of its environment. 

We were looking at tropes and stupidities that we never get tired of in movies/books/games and why we still kind of want them in our content. For example, I can’t get enough of Enemies to Lovers and the bro loves the Jerk with a Heart of Gold Trope. How do you incorporate that into new original ways to stories that still feature a socially conscious voice?

You cannot slap on traits of that trope and expect it to work. You cannot frame the shortcomings of the trope as ideal and you cannot gloss over the ramifications of the trope. Discard what is harmful, take what you love, and run with it. 

EDUCATE YOURSELF, really though, figure out the shortcomings of this trope. Where does it fail? Where does it succeed? I know that my Enemies to Lovers falls through A LOT! How many times do you find  they’re battling each other and clearly the writers weren’t aware of the rules of said trope and they end up being ultimately flat and abusive? The Byronic Hero being the other one people get wrong A LOT. How do you tread that line with elements that can easily run into abusive and violent (or fucking stupid for that matter)? Same for the Jerk with a Heart of Gold  trope, which done properly is great. How many of us have fallen prey to any character who cracks wise and makes bad decisions but ultimately loves and cares? If done badly it treads into dismissive/belittling/abusive 

To give examples of two shortcomings and two successes with these tropes I’ll offer up:

Byronic Hero:

Good: Mr Rochester 

Bad: Literally any bad YA love interest

“Byronic heroes are charismatic characters with strong passions and ideals, but who are nonetheless deeply flawed individuals who may act in ways which are socially reprehensible because he's definitely contrary to his mainstream society. A Byronic hero is on his own side and has his own set of beliefs which he will not bow nor change for anyone. A Byronic hero is a character whose internal conflicts are heavily romanticized and who himself ponders and wrestles with his struggles and beliefs. Some are portrayed with a suggestion of dark crimes or tragedies in their past.” THE LITERAL BYRONIC HERO TROPE PAGE

I feel like that biblical paragraph sums up the Byronic Hero. Where lets say Rochester and Frankenstein or their modern equivalents never have their behaviour or actions framed as good, we still find ourselves engaging with them. It’s indulgent in its admission. It has to be your bag, and it’s that you have to be here for. You have to like engaging with a character that has done bad things but still has enough emotional relatability that instills fascination. 

What is not fascinating/enjoying/attractive is watching bad YA that frames these bad qualities as ideal or go as far as to fetishize them. For instance, the possessive boyfriend angle ‘cause it’s hot is one of my PET PEEVES. YOU WILL ALWAYS GET MORE TRACTION WITH FRAMING THEM AS BAD THAN HAVING THEM DO CREEPY SHIT AND BANKING ON US EMOTIONALLY ENGAGING WITH THEM POSITIVELY. (Looking at you Tiger’s Curse)

You have to be aware where the trope works and where it doesn’t. The authors of bad YA have the intent to make them conflicted/tragic/flawed but don’t really want to examine what made those byronic heroes enjoyable. Instead they take surface attributes and slap them on. Byronic Hero is hiding a wife in the attic (BAD and framed as such)! Bad YA Love Interest is demeaning and patronizing to flirt (BAD and framed as good!) Challenges God and Nature and is NOW A FATHER (Not So Great Frankenstein and not framed as such) . Bad YA Love Interest is physically possessive because that is what this demographic finds sexy (BAd and framed as Good)

Here is an alternative! YA Love interest does bad shit and its not framed as anything good! The protag can react with more autonomy than :Oh that’s hot and my reader’s will think so too! The protag can be dismissive, angry, or shitty right back! No one is absolved! But you can still engage with them on a more nuanced level. You can suddenly make connections with the Byronic Hero because you understand their fear or their conflict, rather have it be a lazy flashback to explain why your bad YA Love Interest is being shitty. 

How to be indulgent: Make your awful characters awful and frame them as such! IF you’re able to create a subtle character that warrants the trope then clearly they have what it takes to be engaging! 

The Jerk with a Heart of Gold trope:

Good: Iron Man (I know people with debate this but we like him in this house so go with it) 

Bad: Any sitcom husband ever

“A person you would expect to be a big Jerkass has some redeeming qualities behind their tough demeanor. Occasionally, they'll try to make it a Hidden Heart of Gold.” - The Jerk with a Heart of Gold TV Tropes Page. 

Awareness is a big factor in incorporating this trope into new ideas and new content because I don’t think this one is ever going away. It obviously manifests in different capacities and genres. But I chose the above examples because they’re familiar, and can be played for drama and laughs. 

Tony Stark is a good iteration Jerk with a Heart of Gold because his actions aren’t framed as harmless or irrelevant. He is a hot mess, he says it himself. He makes bad decision after bad decision and endangers himself and others in the process. Why does he still have a heart of gold? He still gets the “save the cat moment” and he is given time to show his conflict and reasoning as relatable.  He creates Ultron, sides with the UN in Civil War (I still see a lot of his motivation as valid which to each their own when it comes to that movie). He does so out of guilt and the desperate need to hold himself accountable. Being the only person on the avengers who fights by ways of inventions he has understood the consequences of bringing this technology in the world and stepping up an arms race. And yet he continues to fight. To an audience we see his shortcomings as an individual. And yet we feel for him. He is framed with a more subtle dialogue, he is flawed, he tries to be heroic, but he has no clue what he’s doing, and continues anyways.        

I bring Sitcom Husband up because so often show writers will create Sitcom Husband with harmful and toxic male coded traits in mind. They are:

Callous, lazy, clueless, domineering, stupid, always wrong, uglier than their partner, enforce toxic gendered norms, homophobic, transphobic, and/or racist? 

You are not framing your Sitcom Husband’s actions as shitty and bad and worthy of changing. They are being framed as commonplace, expected, and normal. These are not just “jerk” things to do, they are emblematic of larger social issues that many sitcom writers shouldn’t be allowed to tackle. There is the opportunity to have characters that evolve and change but they aren’t allowed because they represent you, the male viewer, and you are shitty and unable of changing. And to all the other genders out there: this is your lot and life, this is how people will treat you. 

Flawed Superhero sides with the UN (Not Ideal but Framed with Good intentions). Sitcom Husband cant remember anything relevant about children’s lives (NOT GREAT but framed as commonplace instead emblematic of a larger issue).

To give an example of Sitcom dads who don’t hit this bad note: Bob from Bob’s Burgers is great, he’s tired of his family’s Shenanigans, but loves them and would do anything for them. An example of Jerk with a Heart of Gold that doesn’t have his shitty actions framed as okay but is still likeable (sounds a bit Byronic Heroish but he’s not trust me). 

The Lens:

Gender

The Byronic Hero and the Jerkass with a Heart of Gold are very gender laden tropes as well. The moment you apply these tropes to people who are not cis men, they transform in meaning, and not to mention, there are BARELY ANY OF THEM. Just trying to find villains who are just cis women with proper writing is a task in 2018. These terms get applied to men and their definitions are validated by their interaction with heroines or other men. 

The failed Byronic Hero is aimed at “female audiences”. It’s a tangled snare of a male content creators guessing at what “women” want and women who have fetishized and internalized the failures of this trope. All come to the conclusion that “chicks dig bad boys”. Not to be that person, but it also vastly misunderstands the appeal that Byronic Heroes have for all genders. It is extremely difficult to create new content that pays homage to this trope without hitting the pitfalls of most media. 

The failed Jerk with a Heart of Goal is aimed at a gender dichotomous audience. It’s a snub of content creators of what they think, you, man or woman, are. The faults are framed as inevitable manifestations of gender and yet still excusable because these jerk related tendencies are just part of being man or a woman, and not a vast social system that favours few and marginalizes many. This extends to race and sexuality as well. Your jerkishness is thanks to your identity, and therefore, unchangeable. 

Race

From a race perspective? They’re all white. We are at a point in Western Media, at the very least, where diversity is becoming an increasing demand. But with media content creators still being part of an out of touch racial group, it’s difficult to see any character, let alone anyone with the discussed tropes represented. We are at the point where your diversity, if a larger role, is going to be portrayed as perfect. This is a major issue I take with creating poc, and woc characters, not to mention characters of different gender and sexual identities. There aren’t enough diverse content creators to get us past this block of creators making them perfect because they don’t know how to make a human character who is also of color. 

This makes the Jerkass with a Heart of Gold impossible to tackle. We are starting to see more fleshed out characters nowadays. It is still a fairly recent sensation to HAVE A SELECTION to chose from.

I would love it if Byronic Heroes and Jerks With A Heart of Gold came in color. We are meant to watch white guys do bad shit and engage with the conflict of their character. And as a mixed race women it is definitely a weird place to sit when one does enjoy tropes like that. IT’s even more unsettling when we can’t extend that empathetic engagement  to men of color, or woc, or god forbid, trans people. (let everyone have a byronic hero honestly)

And in a world of hate crimes and deplorable race relations, what is the relevancy of this trope? What is the relevancy of this trope in a visual mass media already saturated with badly written YA Love Interest or Not So Deep Byronic Heroes?

I’m not an expert, but as a  consumer of books/tv/movies/etc I don’t think fiction is the root of all mankind’s evil and I don’t think fading this trope out of visual mass media is going to get rid of it. I, personally, think we need more content creators of color, of different gender identities, and different sexualities reinterpreting Jerk Ass with a Heart of Gold and the Byronic Hero.

Gender Binary and Sexuality

I chose these two tropes because they’re traditionally VERY gender related. And I mention this to clarify that the market is aimed at a gender binary: straight girl or straight boy. Gays, Bis, Non Binary, Gender fluid, or trans folk, for example, are left out of the equation of: what do they want to see in media?

I do know that for as long as evil has existed there has always been a very clear coding as to what the villain’s sexuality might be. It’s clearly deplorable how literally the only representation a huge marginalized community get will be in the form of a morally or sexually debauched villain. Which is why I will never forgive LeFou being made gay (you couldn’t have picked any other character from your 600000 other features Disney?). 

Also as a Cis woman, I don’t feel like I can do an accurate run down of how indulgent tropes fail or succeed with a LGBT lens. I have a base idea of WHAT NOT TO DO but I would rather see other people talk about it! 

 So PLEASE! Add to this discussion! I would love to hear about which tropes you love but where media fails you and in what capacity! Or where they’ve gone right! 

But as someone who loves their tropey enemies-to-lovers and villains I will keep returning to them in my media consumption and I be subject to paying them homage when the time is appropriate! 

That being said! I had no clue this would get so long.

[isa-ly]

“I HATE MY LIFE, LMAO”

TW: mental illness, therapy, self-hatred, self-deprecation

Let's start this one off with a text I received a few months ago from a friend, who I hadn't seen or spoken to in a while:

For anyone who isn't fluent in German, it reads as follows: "I'm hip and have a Twitter too now, as you probably noticed. Your own Twitter doesn't sound like you're too doing well. Can I help in any way?"

At first, I was like: "Huh? What does she mean?"

But, well...

Alright, I see her point.

And that's what I'm here to talk about today: Tweeting and joking your sorrows away (and why it's so hard to stop doing it). Before we get into it, however, I want to drop one last screenshot, because it just fits this current situation oh too well, and the irony made me giggle:

Okay, enough social media plugging, let's get back to business.

As you can see, I am quite active when it comes to tweeting about my struggles with mental illness. Which, in this day and age, really isn't a rarity. You just need to take one look at Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, TikTok or any dank meme, to see that joking, down-playing and iRoniCalLy tAkiNg tHe piSs out of personal problems and issues, has become quite the trend for millennials in general. Once again, I'm not the only one guilty of doing that.

Had you asked me a year ago whether or not I thought that constantly ridiculing very serious and traumatic incidents in my life was maybe a bit worrisome, I would have probably gotten very defensive and told you that "it's called coping, okay?” Because hey, making jokes and laughing about the bad things in your life gives them less power over you and helps distract from the pain. And that's good, right? That's what you're supposed to do. Right?

Well.

Dealing with your own issues, whether that's big or small ones, is a very personal process that, quite frankly, no one really gets to have a say in except for you. And yeah, sure, as we all learned by watching Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, ridiculing and laughing about something that really scares you, loosens the hold said fear has on you and makes it easier to deal with. However, there is a very big difference between the boggards of life (if you don’t get that reference, you clearly weren’t around when J.K. Rowling wasn’t problematic and transphobic yet) and medical mental health issues and disorders.

I am no doctor, I am aware of that, but even I know that having an ironic laugh about a shitty day is something very different to basically verbally abusing yourself and trying to make your own depression or anxiety relatable to ... well, to whom, actually? Random people on the internet? That are never going to really care or react to your self-deprecating jokes? That doesn’t seem like it’ll do much now, does it.

And that’s kind of the whole point, if you’re really honest with yourself. Social media has made it oh too easy to simply shout those invasive, painful and scary thoughts and feelings out into a void before they eat you alive. The thing about a void is, though: You're still alone in it. It doesn't answer you back. It's empty. And it will make you feel that exact emptiness inside you, too. It poses no comfort, it doesn't offer advice, it doesn't give you a hug, a shoulder to cry on or anything, really. It may swallow your word vomit whenever it bubbles out of you, but it will still leave you feeling drained and hollow because there's nothing you get from it in return.

Twitter, Instagram and every other easy-to-access-and-rant-on social media platform lets you dump your initial hurt all over it, but it doesn't lessen the pain. And neither do the self-deprecating jokes and dank depression memes.

I’ll say this once again, for the people in the back (me, I’m talking about myself here, I am the people in the back): Being mentally ill isn't a quirky personality trait, and making a lifestyle and constant comedy show out of is never, ever going to solve your problems and make you feel any better. You'll still be miserable if you don't actually work on solving your issues because you're too busy letting them define you.

Depression is not an aesthetic. Anxiety is not a competition. Panic attacks aren't funny memes.

I'm not saying that you can't and shouldn't joke or laugh about your own problems. Humor can be a very cathartic thing, I'm the living example of it. But staying put in your depression, anxiety or whatever issues you're dealing with, and trying to make a comedy skit out of it every time someone asks you how you are, is only going to make you more comfortable and validated in your own misery. And there are way better places to be comfortable in than that. Trust me.

You are not your mental illness. You are not your disorder. Those things will never define who you are. They're a part of you, yes, but they aren't you. You will always be the one that calls the shots and you always, always have choice and hope on your side. Even when it feels like you are alone and being swallowed whole by the darkness, it is never too early or late to get help. It might feel insincere, it might feel terrifying and impossible. But it never is. That's exactly what your disorders and problems want you to think. But they are wrong.

I had to accept that too. I had to accept that, once again, I wasn't as special of a snowflake as my mental illness painted me to be. By doing that, it simply did what any mental illness does best: it isolated me even more. With every joke, every #relatable tweet, every "lol" behind yet another truly worrisome sentence, I sunk back further and further into the cocoon of loneliness. And, plot twist, you can't finger-gun your way out of depression. Sorry, babes.

So, every time you’re about to chuck out another "I wanna die lmao" in a casual conversation with friends or yet another self-deprecating tweet, just take a second to ask yourself: Is this really a way of coping? Is it really making me feel better? Or is it actually a subconscious, desperate attempt of getting someone, anyone, to see that I'm slowly breaking on the inside?

Again, I don't want this to come across as a self-help guide on how to battle your mental illness. Not at all. If anything, the reason I phrase this blog and all my entries the way I do, is because it's what I need to keep telling myself, every time I revert back to old habits. It's a reminder. For me and, in case you want it to be, for you too. I'm not here to lecture anyone. Well, maybe myself, a little. But everyone makes their own choices and I'm no one's guide or saviour, nor do I want to be. However, I made a promise to myself to really commit to this blog thing, so here I am. I'm my own harshest critic, always have been, so if anything, this is a call out post for my own self-deprecating habits.

Receiving that message from my friend made me realize that even though I would have never admitted it to myself at the time, all those tweets and casually dropped “I’m gonna kms haha lol”s were nothing but very badly disguised cries for help. I was just too much of a coward to admit that to myself. Okay, maybe coward is a bit of a harsh word. I don’t want to diminish my fear or vulnerability just because I know the reason for it now. It’s just that looking back at my own denial, and still sometimes catching myself in moments where I slip back into this behaviour, makes me want to grab myself by the shoulders and shake me until I snap out of it.

Which is why I’m just going to do this through my blog now – for past, present and also future me: Get it together. Stop yourself in your own tracks when you’re about to word-vomit up another cryptic tweet or self-deprecating joke. Instead, talk to a friend. Type up a text. Call someone. Schedule a therapy session. It's always gonna help, way better than forcing out a laugh about something that is in no way a laughable matter. Reaching out is not going to fix everything immediately, but in the long run it will. And that's what we're in for, after all.

You can ask any of my friends and they will tell you that whenever they express feelings of insecurity about sharing their worries to me, I will be quick to stop them in the middle of their sentence to tell them that they can, and always should, talk to me. About any- and everything, be that day or night. It is something that I have been preaching for God knows how long, and I genuinely mean it, too. So, I’ve kind of just been a huge hypocrite by never listening to my own advice. And I knew that. Deep down, I always knew that I was ignoring the exact thing I kept telling the people I loved to do too. And what can I say, I hate being a hypocrite.

I’m not saying that any of this is easy. Hell, it can be the hardest God damn thing ever, especially when you’re as emotionally repressed and inept as I am most of the time. And yes, venting and shit-posting about how much you’ve been crying all day or how much you “hate your own life” might work as a quick fix to let off some of that frustration steam. But it’s never going to actually repair the underlying issues that cause you to feel this shitty in the first place. The only thing that’s gonna do that, is actually talking to people. Whether that is family, friends or a therapist, doesn’t matter. Because other than an Instagram story that disappears after 24 hours, or a tweet that has a 280-character limit, real life people who care about you will actually take the time to listen, say something in return, and provide the comfort and open ear no social media platform or meme ever could. You know that. And I know that too. 

So, I want to try and quit lmao-ing my way through life and instead do what I actually, secretly know I am trying to do anyway with all those self-deprecating attempts at morbid comedy: ask for help. No lol’s needed.

[xiexiecaptain]

As a non-binary fan of SoC, I like to think about the implications of this scene a lot:

“Is Inej Ghafa your real name?”

A strange sound escaped Inej’s throat, part sob, part laugh. A weak, embarrassing sound. But it had been months since she’d heard her own name, her family name.

“Yes,” she managed.

“Is that what you prefer to be called?”

“Of course,” she said, then added, “Is Kaz Brekker your real name?”

“Real enough.”

Because it shows that Kaz understands the weight and importance of being called a name you want and being regarded/addressed in the way you need to be. (Inej is heavily connected to her birth name and so hearing and going by it means so much after having been called a false, objectifying one. And Kaz’s original last name is one he has a complicated relationship with and so goes by another.)

And I think about this scene a lot because it really strongly supports the fact that were Kaz ever to hire or work with a trans or gender-variant person, he wouldn’t bat a fucking eye. 

I mean, if you think about how trans people have historically been pushed to the margins of society and work/live in poor areas and have a high rate of sex work, you can bet your ass it’s SUPER likely the Barrel has its fair share of trans residents. And as Kaz has declared himself on multiple occasions, he knows everything that goes on in Ketterdam. He’d be in the know about all of it.

When he was hiring Inej on he literally asked her if she preferred to be called her birth name or not! Like, talk about a trans-inclusive question.

I mean, Kaz is in a gang with someone people routinely call Teapot for god’s sake, you really think he’s gonna get hung up by a name that’s traditionally gendered one way or another? The knowledge of someone’s trans identity would be something Kaz would just file away like any other fact about someone, same as their favorite coffee house, the things they spend their income on, what languages they speak, etc. It all goes in a little folder in his devious head to pull if he needs it.

Like, obv I wouldn’t put it past Kaz to be shitty about gender occasionally because we’ve seen that, if anything, Kaz Brekker is not sensitive about personal shit. He pokes at and makes comments about Inej’s and Matthias’ closely held religious beliefs, Nina’s devotion to her problematic country, Jesper’s gambling problems. But not in the way of reducing them to it. He makes jibes at Inej’s Suli proverbs and beliefs but he’s never fucking racist about it. His insults and remarks always have a personal slant to them. They’re always about the person and their relationship to the identity, never the group of people at large. That’s the thing, it’d be just like any other factor about someone. He’s insensitive about aspects of identity but he’s never mercher-level shitty and cruel. Take how Kaz treats Wylan’s learning disability and illiteracy, for instance. He’s like “so what? that’s just how you are. You can still make explosives, why should I care?” Which is how he pretty much treats anyone and regards anything. 

Kaz would be more likely to have the attitude of: “Does being genderfluid throw off your shot? No. So I’m not gonna fucking worry about it.” and “You wanna be referred to by they/them pronouns? No problem. That’s good, actually. More ambiguous. Gives away less info when people overhear things about you.”

I mean he wouldn’t be a super great ally or anything, let’s be real here. Take for example how he addressed Inej’s situation when she first joined the Dregs and moved to the Slat, being a young girl and a person of color. He told her that he wouldn’t be around to defend her against the disrespect she’d face and she’d have to watch her own back. Yet he still in words and actions shows that disrespect toward her because of her gender or ethnicity is never validated or welcomed around him. He’d probably be that way about gender identity and pronouns too. Like, he wouldn’t go out of his way to correct people if they misgendered someone but he’d make super witty burns on the person being shitty, he’d used correct words, he’d generally gain the intellectual upper hand in that way he has. He’d make it known that shitty comments and attitudes aren’t welcome or appreciated.

And Kaz would almost NEVER misgender anyone. Think about it. Kaz prides himself on knowing everything about everyone, about seeming like he’s mastered everything, and having a mind like a steel trap. He’d see calling someone by the wrong name, gendered word, or pronoun as a sign that he was somehow not as on top of things, forgetting information and details. He’d see it as a sign of a personal failing and as broadcasting something slipping through the cracks of his iron hold on information and so he’d be the last person to slip and call people the wrong things. Kaz’s pride is a fucking force to be reckoned with and to have that on the side of him getting somebody’s pronouns right is a hell of a thing.

Like ??,? The fact that my favorite thief crew would be inclusive gives me so much life. I mean @lbardugo has already woven such a beautifully complex world that is so truly detailed when it comes to diversity and the way personal identity is held by the characters when it comes to race, ethnicity, religion, sexuality, and class. And so for me to fill in that final gap myself as a reader with so much canon evidence to support that my fictional faves would be super chill with someone like me is my everything. Honestly.

tl;dr: Canon supports the notion that Kaz Brekker–scariest, cruelest, most hardened criminal in Ketterdam–wouldn’t be a transphobic shitbag, what excuse do you have?