#the shit i get for just being a brain damaged non binary person in the uk has taken all the fucks i could give

[noagskryf]

Thinking about how in the UK, all trans kids are in danger of being outed to their parents immediately if the government decide to pass that law.

We won't have to fill in a form and write an essay discussing whether we're TMA or TME or whether our gender identity is validated on tumblr. Schools could be forced to out us to potentially dangerous situations.

The tma/tme thing is such terminally online brainrot. Yall need to actually do shit that matters instead of infighting with tumblr gays online over who has it worse being a tranny. Where i come from being a fag in wrong place at the wrong time gets you injured or killed so i have more important things to do than go on a tirade to my enby friend about how transmisogyny doesnt affect them. How about you uplift and help your queer siblings instead of just hinting that their trans experience isnt as valid as yours cuz they have it better. Mf hoe. No one outside of this app uses these terms anyway btw.

This comes from someone who is really fucking "tma" as a binary trans woman from a very homophobic country and guess what, i think this is a pissing contest.

[alaskasmonsters]

𝐜𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐬 𝟏-𝐚 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐬𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐲 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜 𝐞𝐧𝐛𝐲!𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

requested by anon: hello there! hope you're doing fine! i came here to ask for some general hcs for class 1a with a non-binary student + they are pretty sassy, sarcastic and most of the time doesn't really care what others think? hope you can do them!!!!

a.n: i finished this a week ago and forgot to post it 💀💀💀 somebody pls donate i am saving up for a new brain. i can‘t believe this shit. sorry babes, i know you‘ve been waiting for this a while!!! i hope you (see this rip) like it! 💕 (i almost forgot to post again what is wrong with meeee)

reader is non-binary!

you had found quite the liking to your class

class 1-A was full of interesting and kindhearted people, most of them being extremely nice and open-minded you’d say

you liked being around them

especially because you’ve found people here that got you in a way others didn’t

which was because you were extremely sarcastic

painfully so, some would say

it didn’t pass a day where you didn’t make several sarcastic comments

hell, it barely passed a waking hour

at this point sarcasm made out like 99% of your personality with some sass sprinkled in between

the rest 1%? yeah you didn‘t talk about that

it had confused some people in your class at the beginning

they weren‘t used to sarcasm in the amounts you liked to make use of it

iida was very unfamiliar with sarcasm

it was actually hilarious

because when he scolded you for sitting on your table (and it was just sitting!) and you told him you enjoyed destroying school property and you did it on your days off, he looked so confused

like he was contemplating reporting you to the teacher for actual vandalism

todoroki had his issued, too, at first

he was very literate and before he got to know you better he took everything you said at face value

your second name being “your mom”? very uncommon but who was he to doubt you

you receiving a nobel price for ruining the day of all blond boys with anger issues since *insert birth year*? he was very proud of you for that

you suing the school for the emotional and physical damage (including eye bleed, brain damage and vertigo) for letting mineta exist in your immediate surroundings? he‘d support you in the court proceedings

teasing todoroki without him knowing he was being teased? your new favourite hobby

like this made you just enjoy being sassy with todoroki at any given opportunity

it was so funny to you, how any sarcastic comment was taken so serious by him

and his faces when he was concerned by something you said? the best

unfortunately todoroki got the hang of it very quickly

you blamed sero for explaining to him what sarcasm was

”you know they‘re just joking right?“ ”they are? but they aren‘t laughing.“ ”no it‘s like, saying something deadpan makes when they’re obviously not serious makes it funny” ”oh”

and whenever you use sarcasm now he knows

you did grieve the loss of your favourite past time activity (teasing todoroki) greatly

jirou was one of the first of your classmates you befriended, sero being a close second

her and you just clicked!

you saw her talking to denki, teasing him for his “overcharged” thumbs up and you knew you’d get along so well

you had inside jokes and everything

and you loved to share glances whenever mineta said something stupid again

sero, a true gentleman would then proceed to wrap the grape in his tape

a true iconic trio you’d like to say

most of your class was at least familiar with the usual sarcastic quips and sassiness now

but since you joined the class they had been forced to adapt

not just because this was just you

and they obviously accepted you for being you

but also because you wouldn’t have changed even if they didn’t

sure, it would have been a little bit problematic to be surrounded by people who couldn’t live with your personality at all

but over all you didn’t really care what they thought of you

not before getting to know them closely and you became friends with them

you didn’t really care what anyone else thought of you really

class 1-b was kind of the perfect example

most of them were nice but monoma was just annoying mostly

and he’d already made it his mission to call you out for your hero “untypical” behaviour as he had called it

you had raised your brain eyebrows at him and grinned when he did

and that just because you had made fun of him for being bakugou in more annoying and with a less flashy quirk

it was just a joke

but he took it personal and then he tried to get you back

which was funny because you didn‘t care what he thought of you or said about you

his opinion was invalid to you

you liked your sarcasm and sass

you actually thought you were hilarious

and no one would be able to convince you otherwise

plus your friends supported you so you were pretty happy with yourself

Taglist: @crystal-lilac​ @duf3h6237​ @hufflefluffslytherin​  @chucky-26o1​  @crapimahuman​

[rouiettes]

raya and the ugliest fucking dragon i've ever seen holy fuck who the hell thought to give a dragon fuckiNG EYEBROWS WHY WHY—

aka the musings of a filo non-binary bisexual who feels victimized by the dragon designs of this fucking movie supposedly centred around THE LAST DRAGON???? MAYBE THEY SHOULD HAVE STAYED STONE GDI WHAT THE FUCK SERIOUSLY WHY DO THE DRAGONS LOOK LIKE THAT

let's get one thing straight.

none of the characters in this movie. rest assured. not a single straight person was in this movie. trust me.

raya and the last dragon had all the foundations of a good movie

IT COULD HAVE BEEN SO GREAT

BUT IT WASNT

AND HERE'S WHY

(in my humble opinion okay pls dont come for me)

a disney movie with sea culture at its heart and soul, i was so hyped to finally watch this movie

(not as hyped as i could have been tho bc let's be honest DISNEY DID SHIT WITH RAYA'S MARKETING)

(AND PERHAPS FOR GOOD REASON LOL I SWEAR I DONT HATE THIS MOVIE OKAY)

you had the amazing score, the amazing concepts for plot and characters, the solid solid worldbuilding???

if you just told me about how raya's setting and premise, i'd probably be "wow this movie sound like the whole package"

and then i'll actually watch the movie and have just as much trust issue as raya did :/

but i digress

A DISNEY MOVIE WITH SEA CULTURE AT ITS HEART AND SOUL

do you know how diverse sea culture is??? VERY

and one thing i was very happy to see was how raya handled it

it was by no means perfect but

the subtle shows of culture in the way the characters acted, and the environment of the movie was just CHEF'S KISS

not only that but the ideas the movie had in terms of its world and the people in it felt genuine, it felt alive

a dragon that isn't the typical fire-breathing lizard

characters who look like they could easily be my neighbours or children i've played with

instead of pandering to this movie felt like an actual homage to sea cultures

and for good reason bc seeing all those familiar names rolling in the credits had me feeling some type of way :")

also that fucking soundtrack gave me chills throughout my watch of the movie

okay now that we've got the things i actually like about the movie, let's talk about what i don't like

if there's one word i could use to describe disney's raya it would be: rushed

like i said in the beginning, all the groundwork for an astounding disney movie were already there

but all of it just goes to waste bc the plot and it's characters feel so Unfinished

the movie felt like a bullet-point presentation of the story

WHICH IS SO FUCKING DISAPPOINTING BC THE CHARACTERS SEEMED SO INTERESTING but all we got were shadows of what they could have been

cardboard cutouts of the archetypes they filled

i'm not asking for a bottomless well of depth, but i at least wanted more for the cast than just: angry misunderstood princess, angry misunderstood princess with an undercut, that one dancing kid from moana but with more spice, boss baby, and the mountain

and i get that they had to sacrifice some of their depth to keep the run time of the movie short but you have got to be better than this disney

i hate to compare but it felt like this movie tried to go beyond what moana gave us, and shot so far that it ended up back to where it started, and then stumbled back a few steps

AND IM NOT EVEN SAYING A DRAGON MOVIE WITH A BIG CAST IS IMPOSSIBLE

BC IT'S ALREADY BEEN DONE

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON DID IT THREE TIMES

and you'd think the plot for one of the few disney movies with a non-western setting would have more than just a macguffin considering how batshit sea folk tales can be

but you'd think wrong folks.

GENUINELY IT FELT LIKE THEY WERE ATTEMPTING SOMETHING BUT WERE SHORT OF BRINGING IT TO FRUITION

sure moana had a macguffin too with the heart of te fiti, but the heart itself wasn't the heart of the movie

it was the journey of moana and maui

it was that BEAUTIFUL TWIST WITH TE KA AND TE FITI

ALL DELIVERED WITH A NATURAL FINESSE THAT HAD YOU ON THE EDGE OF YOUR SEAT

YOU WERE ALONG FOR THE RIDE OF THE STORY INSTEAD OF QUESTIONING EVERYTHING THAT WAS GOING ON LIKE I WAS

maybe this was just me but like, i felt so bad for the friend who watched this movie with me bc all i could go on and on was how the plot felt like it was getting in the way of itself

why didn't the different kingdoms (??) kept the gem in rotation or smth, when did they decide that heart would keep it and then get mad at heart for keeping it????

why didn't awkwafina dragon just show herself to the kingdoms bc everyone seems to be in agreement that dragons good right? that they would be the key to getting rid of the druun right??? SO THEY'D ALL AT LEAST HEAR HER OUT OR SMTH RIGHT????????

and yes raya has trust issues but it seems to only spring up at the most convenient times plot-wise, we didn't really see her learn to trust other people again OTHER THAN THE TIMES WHERE SISU WOULD HAMFISTEDLY SHOVE IT DOWN OUR THROATS THAT SOME PEOPLE ARE GOOD SOMETIMES RAYA

we see it with boun, but then she just trusts noi, her monkeys, and tong THE GUY WHO STRUNG THEM UP AND WAS THREATENING TO TORTURE THEM????????

i'm gonna be honest and say that if it weren't for namaari i'd have absconded the moment sisu came on screen

as far as i'm considered the actual plot of the movie is just the entire sword fight scene between her and raya

and finally

we get to the part i will be erasing from my brain for my own mental well-being

WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT DRAGON DESIGN

WHY OH WHY TH  E FUCK DOES SISU SOUND AND LOOK LIKE THAT

my friend said they looked like the ponies from mlp in 3d AND NOW I CAN NEVER UNSEE IT

THEY HAVE EYEBROWS THEY HAVE HUMAN FACES

HUMAN FACES ON MAJESTIC DRAGON BODIES

THE INTERNET HAS COLLECTIVELY DECIDED THAT SISU IS BASICALLY FURRY ELSA

every time we got a sisu close up i lost 5 years to my life

disney i am suing for damages

if you want me to drop the charges i demand raya 2: electric boogaloo but it’s just raya and namaari enemies to friends to lovers ark

and also for them to never say dragon nerds ever again

AGAIN. HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON GAVE US BEAUTIFUL DRAGON DESIGNS. HELL IF YOU WANTED MORE EASTERN LOOKING DRAGONS FUCKING SPIRITED AWAY??? HAKU??????????

AND YKNOW WHAT. SISU WOULDN'T EVEN LOOK THAT HORRIFIC IF THE MOVIE WAS IN 2D

im not the first person to be side-eying disney's decision to keep pumping out these 3d movies but like.

no amount of added dimensions could ever make that dragon design okay

and there so many more points i could go off on to show how this movie was rushed

how the other dragons, and even sisu's siblings whom she had been missing for the entire movie DIDNT MAKE A SINGLE SOUND???? NOT EVEN A FUCKING GROWL DISNEY???? DID YOU EVEN TRY WITH THE DRAGONS AT ALL??? THE SUPPOSED CENTRE OF THIS MOVIE'S PLOT?????????

HOW THE CHIEFS OF THE OTHER KINGDOMS WERE BASICALLY PLOT DEVICES????

THAT ONE CHIEF'S SKELETON WAS MORE INTERESTING THAN ANY OF THEM COMBINED ALIVE

kudos to that one granny chief though

u can never have enough bad ass old ladies

AND GOD THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ANY OF THE CHARACTERS JUST FELT SO FORCED

ALONG WITH WHATEVER LESSON SISU WANTED TO IMPART ABOUT TRUST

LOVE THESE CHARACTERS THEY ARE FUNNY THEY ARE FRIENDS FOUND FAMILY

TRUST PEOPLE IF U WANT THEM TO TRUST U

TRUST PEOPLE OR ILL LITERALLY FUCKING KILL U

children aren't stupid disney. if you tell your story well enough, they'll pick up on the messages you want to give them. YOU DONT HAVE TO THRUST EVERYTHING IN OUR FACES

i was exhausted by the time i finished this movie

bc i really wanted to love it. i wanted to feel more for it than just: well, it's a movie :)

i dont hate this movie though like it's not even worth the energy for that

i think that ultimately, despite all my issues with it, this movie was a step in the right direction when it comes to having non-western stories being told by non-western people in big name productions

i'm glad raya and the last dragon exists

i just can't help but be dissapointed though bc this movie put so much effort into putting my people and culture at its forefront but at what cost???

good characters and story for a good setting and design????

does it have to be one or the other?????

DOES THE DRAGON HAVE TO HAVE EYEBROWS??????

[everythingqueerblog]

Edit: Found this and have to put it here so people can block this one thinking they have great hot takes but are just being shitty themself.

Someone who uses the term purity culture is usually talking about the bullshit anti-shippers pull trying to say what others engage in in fiction means they must want to do/experience it in real life, which is not how most human brains work actually. Instead of curating their experience, they try to shut down anything they don't like in fiction, and use increasingly warped personal definitions of things like incest and paedophilia to slap on the creators/consumers of things they don't like in an attempt to make others dogpile on them without thinking.

Transmisandry is just as real as transmisogyny, and frankly anyone trying to pull bullshit relating to shutting down trans men talking about their equally bad experiences with how they experience transphobia is being shitty and needs to re-examine their bias.

Edit: Got a reblog reply from OP. Sorry to say apparently they're shitty too.

The 'hot takes' are pouring in tonight. XD

Misandry and misogyny (and their trans counterparts) are just as real as each other, and both are important to address in intersectional activism.

Joke all you like, but if I see someone being shitty in your thread, I'll call it out. If I then see you behaving shitty in response to that, I'll call you out too.

Don't be an exclusionist deciding only some people experience marginalization and men live in some kind of vacuum where no marginalised demographics are part of who they are and intersect with their life experiences (besides the fact 'man' is a demographic that does get shit too, just in different ways, but heaven forbid we recognise that in our fight to change ridiculous and damaging societal expectations of people). That's shitty.

Take your own advice, shut up, go outside, and meet some people for whom 'man' is part of their life experiences and try actually talking to them and developing some empathy. Maybe start with someone who is a queer man in some way (like trans or non-binary or demi-gender, or ace or aromantic, or poly, or gay or bi, or better yet a combination of those things since you clearly need to be exposed more to the concept of intersecting marginalised identities, etc etc), and/or disabled, etc, and start engaging with real people outside of the online community where you never have to exit your tiny little bubble of social justice ideas and beliefs on what things are existent and important problems for others which should be part of our fight to change society.

I hope you learn this one day and expand your horizons a bit; the world would instantly get a whole lot better if we could all stop deciding only the specific groups/identity cominations we care about personally experience shitty societal ideas and expectations which need to change.

I’m so used to hearing estrogen and testosterone in trans contexts that I forget cis people also have those hormones in their bodies

[emile-hides]

Moira 🥰 (I am gay for this woman)

The absolute godhood you hold in your hand. Being gay for Moira. I admire your courage. Also very valid.

Ask from Here

First Impression

She scared me and also I hated her.

Gameplay wise, I despised her. I despised fighting her, I despised playing her, I could not STAND the orbs! Playing her felt cheap, I’d get gold everything with little no effort, and fighting her was a pain in the ass.

Lore wise she scared the shit out of me. She did WHAT to Gabe?? She practically singlehandedly took down Overwatch?? She did WHAT to Amelie??? Her entire demenier, voice lines, interactions, even the way she moves in game all radiates such confidence that I am physically FRIGHTENED at the concept of meeting her face to face.

Impression Now

Same shit with less salt. I’ve gotten use to playing Moira without using the damage orb, because I just hate it. Heal orb only for me. And fighting her has gotten easier too. Though the biggest pain is Brig VS Moira solo duels.

Personality wise, she’s still the single most intimidating character in Overwatch. I tremble at the idea of meeting her at a family barque. But also she’s so incredibly fascinating. I love scientist types, and the work she does, while fictional, intrigues me. I would genuinely love to read a research paper she’s written on... well, really ANYTHING she’s done. I do adore her brain.

Favorite Moment

Moira doesn’t have a lot of canon does she? She barely shows up in comics or books, and even her own Origin Story is a bit on the bland side...

We’ll go with some voice interactions because she’s so genuinely funny in some of them.

Reaper: Why am I being subjected to this agony?

Moira: No need to thank me, I only saved your life.

And

Moira: Started any wars lately?

Sombra: I'd have to check my schedule.

Are always a blessing to hear. Her interaction with Zenyatta is also very good, but simply for Zenyatta’s response. “Existence is mysterious” I adore him.

Idea for a Story

I don’t have anything drafted, as of right now, that have her as the main character in the center of a fic. She’s too much for me to wrap my brain around, so I typically have her assist, only for like a line or too. 

I do, EVENTUALLY, want to get around to writing down a basic, nothing of just her and Sigma’s way around the lab. The way they’d effortlessly work around another another, exist and aid in eachother’s works. It’d be a good way to practice her, but I’m a coward and I’m worried about getting certain things wrong or the flow being off, sense I have no confidence in writing Moira speaking.

Unpopular Opinion

I don’t think Moira’s like, pure evil? This is something I’ve heard before and it’s weird.

Her thought process is fascinating and the mental stability she holds is perplexing. I genuinely love her brain and just wanna pick it apart. I want to talk to her, and hear her speak on and on about her work and immoral experiments.

She’s very passionate. I like that in a mad scientist.

Favorite Relationship

This anon is free to date Moira all they wish cause I got hardly ANYTHING for Moira ships.

I like Moicy, as two nerdy doctor wine aunts. But it’s not a solid ship, and it’s nothing I hold too hard onto.

I like Moira’s friendship with Sigma, if you could call it that. I think she sees him more like a pet, or a child? Not her own child, just... A child? A kid that’s just... around. For some reason. And she talks to him occasionally. I genuinely enjoy their little... thing. Whatever it is.

Favorite Headcanon

This is just LGBT+ stuff because I’m obsessed

Non-Binary Lesbian is my only way of looking at Moira at this point. I don’t care what canon says, if canon ever says anything. Moira is Non-Binary, Transfem, Lesbian and I adore that for her.

[residentlesbrarian]

The Third Book I Read In the Dark: You mean there's more and this time it gets GAY! Sign me the F*** UP!

Sovereign by April Daniels

As Day 1 of my time in the dark ages was coming to a close so did my second library book and even though it was late and I should probably go to bed (and by bed I mean the couch in the living room closest to the fireplace because sweet sweet crackling warmth) I couldn’t help but at least crack open the sequel to the phenomenal book I’d just finished. I was set to have wisdom tooth surgery the next day bright and early but with the state of the world I had doubts it would happen so, you know...YOLO.

Now, I know what people say about sequels, never get your hopes up too high because usually they will let you down, but I was so pleasantly surprised to know that the curse of bad sequels passed over Sovereign without leaving its mark. I loved this just as much if not more than the first book. If my review of the first book is anything to go off of this is gonna be a mess so let’s get this love fest on the road!

Unicorn Rating:

Blurb: Danny is finding her feet as Dreadnought but things are far from easy especially with curve balls coming from every angle. Things are getting harder, darker, and maybe a bit...gayer!

Disclaimer: I will try my best to not spoil anything from the book, but my book loving rambles may give more away than a traditional review. Here we go! Ramble time!

Review: 

Diving right into this I genuinely liked this book just as much if not a bit more than the first book. Now there are a few reasons for that, one is that we don’t have to deal with Danny’s parents much, my feelings on them were made very clear in my last review. The second was that, although we were introduced to a few new characters, we were mainly focused on characters we already knew and just got to know them more so it did what I think all sequels should do; build on what you already know while adding just enough new stuff to keep you coming back for more. 

The plot of this second book is a multi-layered beast that I had a blast peeling back piece by piece, while also not being too difficult to follow. It is for sure a much darker plot than the first book, but as someone who’s second book looks to be pretty dark and emotionally...well, ouch, I can really get down with this kind of character heavy story that really depends on the reader being invested in the struggles of the characters more than an overly complicated plot. The twist also still got me there at the end. Comeuppances sure are fun to see. Okay, I behaved for a whole two paragraphs and talked about the plot now to really let ‘er rip!

Oh boy! Oh jeeze! How do I want to do this!?! Ummm spin the wheel-o-characters and see where it stops? Sure! That's a solid way to write coherent and professional reviews (I know logically I should start with Danny but I’m saving her and a particular western themed vigilante till last for GAY reasons)!

The Wheel has chosen and I am going to talk about Karen first! So, Karen, this was a character that when she first showed up I was utterly confused and then got so freaking excited so freaking fast when I figured out who she might be! I literally closed the book and went, “That ain’t a backpack!” Now I am gonna try and be extra careful about how I word this next part to try and not spoil anything, but please someone ask me questions about it so I can gush about it more in a spoiler filled response! So, if you read my Dreadnought review I genuinely liked Valkyrja and I was so sad we weren’t going to get to see more of her after the ending of the last book, but then Karen quite literally broke on in to make my day. She honestly fascinated me. The struggle she is going through reminds me so much of something from one of my favorite animated shows, RWBY, that has been an ongoing struggle since Volume 4 for the character of Oscar. (I won’t say anymore cause I don’t want to spoil the book or the show, you should read the book and watch the show, they are both awesome and then come into my ask box and we can talk about how interesting it is). She was a character that I felt deeply for because of her struggle, but also was conflicted on because of reasons that I can’t get into but man...just Karen, why, Karen why?

So next up we have more from the local literal wizard, Charlie, who is as sleep deprived and as eclectic as ever. He is a good example of what I meant when I said I was glad we were able to spend more time with characters we already knew. He was instrumental in the plot even if he was mostly a background player, but I cared about him when the crew got into big fights because I already knew him and knew that he wasn’t a fighter. He was a friend in a world where there weren’t a ton of those to be had.

 Oooo let’s do another newcomer, Kinetiq, who admittedly has a bit of beef with our girl. Danny has been getting a lot of press for being “the first transgender superhero” which is not at all accurate she is just the first pretty white superhero with Legion-sized support and funding behind her and Kinetiq never lets her forget it. They are a non-binary Iranian-American superhero that has been capin’ way longer than Danny has but hasn’t gotten nearly the recognition. They are such a cool character and really rounds out the team of superpowered teens.

Let’s dig into our villains next. I still hate Graywytch with every fiber of my being and the burning passion of a thousand suns, but that isn’t ever gonna change, so we can move on before I have another melt down like last time. We wouldn’t want that now would we? Maybe you do. I don’t tell you how to feel. So now we can talk about Sovereign (I know we got his civilian name in the book but I have forgotten it because I read these books in 2 ½ days and I have the memory of a brain damaged goldfish so we’ll just go with that), he was a character that we met him and I immediately went “Sooo, he’s the bad guy right?” Everything he said just oozed “entitled asshole” and “I’m more important than you.” And I don’t necessarily think that is a bad thing. Now I do like to have some more complications in my villains, some grayness and not all black and white, but in a story so hinged on Danny struggling internally with so much I think having a really deep complicated villain would have been too much to handle at the same time. 

I’ve contained this as long as I can and I can’t contains it no more…*runs to the top of the nearest mountain* I LOVE DOC IMPOSSIBLE!!! I know in my last review I said she gave me kookie grandma character vibes even though she didn’t really fit into either one of those categories, but she still just fits like a puzzles piece into a hole in my heart of characters I love. The reveal at the end of Dreadnought that she was an android only made me love her more and then to see how much she is struggling with what Utopia used her body to do against her will just makes me want to give her all my love and support even more (Maybe I just have a thing for characters breaking away from controlling abusers and fully accepting and owning themselves for who they truly are *cough* Yasha from Critical Role *cough*). And no spoilers but the ending scene with Danny and her made me squeal/tear up with happy tears.

So now on to the main event or well...the main character and her grapple handed revolver wielding bandana wearing paramore. Now I’ve alluded to it in the other character opinions but Danny, well, Danny goes through it in this book. I remember while I was reading it thinking how tired I was, part of that was probably because I had been reading literally non-stop for two days but also I think I was really picking up on Danny’s fatigue in that it just never ended. As soon as one trial or tribulation ended she had little or no time to rest before she had to force herself back to her feet and say, “Alright, whatcha got?” Danny also goes to some pretty dark places, and as someone with some experience with PTSD it was really compelling to read a character who was working through those kinds of thoughts and...not handling it well. She was rash and angry and lashing out, she was far from the perfect picture of composure her publicist/lawyer wanted her to be, that’s for sure. Danny is yet again a fascinating character to follow along in her journey because she has so much depth and is so compelling because she is so flawed. 

Now Danny’s dynamic with Calamity/Sarah this book was just...so good. Now do I think they are perfect and amazing and gonna go off and have a perfect little capin’ life together...honestly, no. But that is why I love them so much. I was convinced Sarah had the budding start of feelings for Danny all the way back in the first book but Danny had SO MUCH going on she didn’t notice and Sarah wasn’t gonna push the issue and probably didn’t even really know what she was feeling herself. I am a connoisseur of gay media after all, but the hints were there. When nothing came of it I didn’t feel let down because it wouldn’t have made since in the story of the first book especially with Sarah losing her arm and everything else. Then this book came around and turned everything up a notch. Danny is realizing she is soooo much gayer for Calamity than she thought, and Calamity/Sarah is really being the only person who isn’t letting Danny slide when it comes to the self destructive behavior she has been kind of reveling in which I am so here for. In relationships, good relationships, you have to be able to call each other out, call bull shit on one another, without it getting personal. We see that in real time develop between Sarah and Danny. We also see that Danny really depends on Calamity and her wit and know how in battle situations because, lets face it, Danny is the muscle, but Calamity is the brains. The fact they are able to work together so well is just a testament to the fact I think they will have a good relationship going forward. Maybe not all sunshine and roses all the time, because that isn’t realistic, but they will support each other and protect each other in the way that matters and counts. And I am a soft bitch when it comes to stuff like that. 

My final thoughts on this is that I really liked the way, after such a hard and trudging journey (I say that with as much love and admiration as I can), we were able to have an ending that radiated such softness, such hope for a future that wouldn’t be full of so much pain and struggle. I needed that ending. I needed that exhale to be able to just settle with Danny, and Sarah, and Doc, and the rest of the crew after the holy hell storm they had to go through in this book. I know there is supposed to be a third book in the Nemesis series but I would be okay with it ending here. Sure, there are some unanswered questions plot-wise, but I am happy with where our characters landed and by now y’all know me, I’m in it for those sweet sweet character driven stories so I’m good. That doesn’t mean I won’t read the third one when it comes out, but I’m in no rush. My reading list is currently lording over me with a baseball bat and looking mighty threatening so I should probably start on that. *nervous sweating increases* 

Queer Wrap-up: Let’s jump right into this tally. Of course, we have our protagonist Danny who is living her best life, well not really but it’s a figure of speech, as a transwoman and trying to shine a light on trans superheroes and doing an ‘eh’ job at it but at least she is trying. Now we did get to see another side of Danny’s identity in the fact she is not only trans but also a lesbian. Now this wasn’t hidden in the first book, but it wasn’t the focus by a long shot, and I gushed a tad in my review about Danny’s irrefutably adorable gay panic at meeting her celebrity crush, Valkryja, but other than that and a few lines here or there the focus is definitely on Danny’s identity as a transwoman in the first book but this one brings her lesbian identity out more and I loved to see how the two mixed and how there was never any questioning there. Danny is a woman who is attracted to woman, so she is a lesbian...easy peasy. Love that for her. Now onto what moved this from a four unicorn rating for the last book to five for this one. We get the lovely romance between Sarah and Danny confirming that Sarah falls somewhere on the spectrum, though she never defines herself in any way other than loving Danny, and we know her and Charlie have dated in the past so we can assume she is also attracted to men. She could be bisexual, pansexual, we don’t know and she never says and honestly it doesn’t matter. I’m just gonna sit in my happy little queer bubble and watch her and Danny be cute. We also have the additional rep of Kinetiq, the kick ass nonbinary superhero that joins the team. They give us additional gender identity rep outside of just Danny and they are snarky and awesome to boot.

So yeah this more than earns that last unicorn by building and expanding on what the first book started and I also believe for the amazing rep and deep dive into the mind of someone being trans and just living their life as super powered and fantastical as it maybe, which is something I cannot personally speak to, I think this earns a place in the Sparkly Unicorn Hall of Gay! I swear this won’t only be YA super hero series, remember Raven: Pirate Princess is in there too!

Links: 

Goodreads

Dreadnought Review

So this book took slightly longer than the others to read mainly because I had to go to the next town over to maybe have wisdom tooth surgery. Well, that didn’t happen cause the whole state was one day out of an ice storm and was still walking bow legged but hey I got to eat something that wasn’t reheated soup for the first time in 2 days. French fries have never tasted so good! Once I dug into this book though it flew by like the rest. Remember that I found all three of these books in the library I work at so check the shelves of the ones near you, you could be surprised what they have on their shelves just waiting to be discovered. Trust me, I’m a lesbrarian.

But now I was sat most of the way through Day 2 and I was officially out of library books! Whatever would I do? Find out next time on...The Books I Read In the Dark!

[iheardarumorxxx]

Alright, time for biology class, let’s go.

Except not quite yet because I have a continuity question: This might be a book to movie error, but this says that Emmett, Rose, and Jasper were pretending to be seniors, but in New Moon (definitely in the movie, but I thought also in the book), Jasper is there at school with Alice and Edward and Bella. So did Forks High flunk Jasper???

Anyway, Biology class.

would manage to pull out anything in his lecture that would surprise someone holding two graduate degrees in medicine.

Edward has two graduate degrees in Medicine. This makes all of the Twilight books look hilarious in retrospect, but makes the fourth one especially funny in a rage inducing kind of way.

The humans weren't smart enough to know that they feared me, but their survival instincts were enough to keep them away.

1) You said this shit already back in the cafeteria, and I didn’t buy it then, so stop repeating yourself, and 2) I will say again since we’re repeating ourselves: They stay away from you because you’re a stuck up, smarmy little asshole.

Still, from the place where Bella Swan stood, nothing.

If only, sweet Weirdo, you had taken this as a sign of what it truly is: Your sweet precious flower Bella is empty space. A placeholder where hundreds of thousands of guys, gals, and non-binary pals can slip in and make it their fantasy. Can’t do that if she has unique and interesting thoughts. (And no, dear readers, I do not consider Twilight Bella’s ‘unique and interesting thoughts’ because SM never mastered that first person POV and it never felt like we were actually in Bella’s head.)

There was no room full of witnesses - they were already collateral damage in my head.

Okay everyone (myself included) clowns on the fact that as soon as Weirdo gets a sniff of the blood, he’s plotting out the murder of his entire class, but if we could all just take a second here. 

Edward Cullen, the Vampire with Morals and A Heart Of Gold (according to the fanbase) gets a sniff of Bella’s blood and is immediately plotting out the murder of his entire class. No hesitation, no thought. This does not strike me as a man with a high regard for human life, as the books tried to tell me over and over that he was. If the line is still in there, this will get even worse later, but for now, I’m letting it rest on that.

I would also like to make a point about Vampires and their Instincts, but I don’t think this is the time for it. Not yet. So hold on to that thought for later.

the face I'd beaten back with decades of effort and uncompromising discipline

Remember that time Weirdo got pissed at Carlisle and fucked off to go people for a few years in a fit of warped vigilante justice?

Okay, the section is far too long to quote, but let’s talk about Weirdo’s little murder plot, shall we? At this point in the story, especially in this one as I am in Weirdo’s head, I’m supposed to think that he’s driven mad by bloodlust and in some kind of incontrollable madness.

But he’s sitting in his seat literally planning out exactly what the best route is to kill every single student in this classroom so that he doesn’t leave any wittnesses to his crime. He’s being detailed to the point that he can tell exactly how much time he has to do this. 

That isn’t driven mad by bloodlust, guys. That’s fucking cold and calculated. This man is planning to the second how to kill 20 people all at once without getting caught. It’s planned down to the detail. As hilarious as it may be to clown on Weirdo about this passage, please think about it. Think about the cold, calculating way he’s describing murdering innocent teenagers and his biology teacher just so he can drink Bella in peace. Please think about the implications of what kind of person Edward Cullen is, that he can so coldly plan something like that. 

In my head, Carlisle's kind eyes did not judge me.

I have a lot of feelings about Carlisle, and none of them are very nice, but I’ll save that rant and see just how he is in this book, since we’re gonna see more of him.

There is more of Weirdo’s woe is me bullshit here. I feel like it’s supposed to be dramatic and really get us into his Feelies about the Tasty Good Hooman Blood he’s wiffing, but it reads so much like a dramatic pre-teen diary entry that all I hear when I read it is ‘Waaaaaah! Why me? I hate everything, this isn’t FAIR!’

But I didn't have to breathe.

This is a very relevant and important point about the mythology of vampires in this canon. They don’t have to breathe. They literally never have to breathe and choose to do so anyway, and while I could understand that new vampires might continue to breathe because it’s a comfort of their previous life and a force of habit carried over, Weirdo has had plenty of time to lose the habit. And it is absolutely possible to not notice someone not breathing if you aren’t constantly staring at them waiting for the signs, so saying that it’s a tactic to blend in (especially when the Cullens do nothing in their power to blend in to begin with) doesn’t fly either. Weirdo goes on to make a point about how he relies on scent more than his other senses, for the hunt and for warning signs and all that, but he is in school, and if we go by the text, he doesn’t want to hurt the humans around him, so even if he does use his sense of smell, he has no reason to use it in a school full of vulnerable teenagers.

Weirdo calls Bella a Woman-Child and Thanks I fucking Hate It.

And once again, Edward is going into a lengthy fantasy about how to get Bella alone to murder her. I said it already but I’ll say it again. This isn’t fucking bloodlust, this is a cold blooded killer plotting his next kill. This fucker is Calculating. He’s plotting. If he was truly as bad off as he’s claiming, he wouldn’t have the brain power to be this cold and rational about it.

I played a CD of music that usually calmed me, but it did little for me now.

This is funny to me for a number of reasons. The first is my assumption that the CD he’s playing is that one with the DeBussy song on it. Symbolism and all that. But the second is that this is v much something that happened all throughout the Twilight saga with SM. She refuses outright to call things by name. She won’t say the names of bands, or search engines, and the only ‘product placement’ we get is the cars. I can’t tell if she did this to try and make her stories feel more timeless or because she was genuinely afraid of being sued or something for using specifics.

He's almost young enough to be my son. Too young to think of that way..

We get is SM, you want us to think your Pires are the most beautiful, amazing, alabaster angel creatures on the planet. But no sane, rational middle-aged school secretary is going to think of a student this way. It’s gross and creepy and makes me think extremely badly of Mrs. Cope if she’s having lustilicious thoughts about what she thinks is a teenage boy. 

like they've found some way to cheat in every subject.

I would like to point out that, at the very least Weirdo has found a way to cheat in every subject. Even taking into consieration the amount of times he’s been through high school and college, the guy can literally just pluck the answers right out of the teacher’s head. 

And we end Chapter One with a wimper. There are a lot of plot holes in relation to Alice’s visions, but they aren’t bad here, so I’ll leave them alone. The narrative of ‘Vampires do everything so much better than icky humans because they’re just the best and wonderful and great and amazing’ has already started happening, and now that we’re in the head on one of the Pires, I can only assume it’s gonna get so much worse. Here, it only really came up in the form of ‘pitiful, insignificant humans could never do that that I could.’ and the super fast driving bullshit that makes no sense because a car is not a Pire so it can’t just magically adhere to the warped Pire physics.

Anyway, that’s chapter one done. On to the next.

[redacted-blr]

I really appreciate this showing up on my timeline. I can relate to a lot of this and thought I would write a response from the male-identifying side.

I only accepted that I am aroace about a month ago, after years of denial, questioning, and denial that I was questioning. Nothing has ever occupied my mind so thoroughly as pulling on the threads of the human experience has in the last month. When sexuality and human relationships unravel and come apart in your hands, it only makes sense to turn to gender because, as you said, gender isn't real.

I have long disliked "masculinity". I remember starting middle school and having an immediate distaste for the behaviour of several of my male peers. Internally I labelled them as "idiots" because, well, they were. Then as I observed how other boys interacted with them and saw similarities in their behaviour, the definition of this "idiocy" grew and grew until I couldn't continue to pretend that the word I had chosen to describe them had any real relation to what I was reacting to.

This inexplicable averse reaction to the masculinity on display around me stuck around as I aged. On some level between the conscious and unconscious, I was aware that I found groups of more than two or three straight men intolerable. And then I realised I was aroace, and it all made sense because I just did not get straight men. Of course I cannot begrudge the behaviour of men that I do not understand.

And that would be that, but for the pulling of threads. What really is the relationship between heterosexuality and masculinity? Where does "masculinity" end and male identity begin? Where do gay men with traditional gender expression fit into this? For that matter, where do I fit into this, given that I just do not identify with most men or, seemingly, "masculinity" at all? I can't answer any of these.

My experience overlaps a lot with yours, but I would struggle to call myself gender-detached and especially non-binary. It's difficult to describe but the broad strokes are that I do not experience dysphoria and don't mind being perceived as male, it can even be a comforting reference point in a way, but I also do not see the point of the male gender identity and make deliberate efforts to separate my own expression from most of the men around me. I find some form of discomfort in the fact that I seem to fit neatly into this social structure despite my animosity for the structure itself. This feeling is strengthened by the fact that I'm aroace so gender just doesn't matter to me. At the same time as a man I have, and continue to, benefit from patriarchal social structures and I cannot deny that or look away from that truth.

A personal belief I hold is that the movement for "healthy" or "positive" masculinity is essentially a rebranding effort designed to recover from the damage that feminism has justifiably done to perceptions of the value of masculinity. I think this effort is seen as so important because here in the 21st century the destruction of gender is on the horizon for the first time in history.

With the gender binary beginning to falter, there is a part of me that says that I should be the gender non-giving-a-shit he/they that is contributing to the ultimate destruction of gender on the ground floor by breaking the brains of those around me. And then there is the other part of me that just thinks Fox Mulder is cool and would like to stay where I know that I am comfortable thank you very much. This reduces then to a question of where my ideology stops and I begin.

Also I agree on not being a big fan of the aroace flag. The colours come off as childish to me, which is exactly what we don't want.

Alright, I've been looking at all the queer crap, so Imma rant about that today. (I also accidentally reblogged a Nimona post on here instead trashlikesmedia so oops, but you can see where I started.)

Labels suck but I need them so there. I consider myself asexual, I came to this conclusion last summer. I've never been in a relationship, never really had any crushes. I always joked about how I had a crush on this guy in like 3rd grade and he liked my best friend (who I didn't actually like but that's a different story), and I've never loved since, but like it's true. I haven't. I always had this idea that I just hadn't met someone worth crushing on. I would ask people how they got into relationships and they'd always be like "just be yourself, one day the right guy will come along and it'll all work out" which was not helpful at all. My younger sibling is queer and they kind of introduced me to a lot of different identities and ideas, and it just kind of grew from there. It all started with me acknowledging the fact that I didn't want to sleep with women, and I felt the same way about women as I do about men, so I'm bi? pan? ace? It took a while to get comfortable with it, but now I'm here confidently ace.

Then the romantic side of things got tough. I've been on exactly one date (it was terrible, I did not like the guy and he did not put in a lot of effort and it was so uncomfortable), and I've only ever really had one crush on a guy and it was such a weird experience, that I couldn't figure out what was going on. (that was actually last summer and part of me realizing I was ace was being excited to hang out and talk with him but physically recoiling when I even thought about kissing him), so romance was not my thing. I do identify as aromantic, because it's the label that most closely matches my feelings and experiences, but I still feel like it's not right. I don't know if it's because I genuinely am alloromantic, or because I so desperately crave romance.

The big deal of it all is that I grew up in a not great family environment. My parents hate each other, especially my mom to my dad. They have been outwardly antagonistic towards each other for as long as I can remember. (I think the only reason they haven't gotten divorced is because it would be too expensive and my mom doesn't want to lose my dad's paycheck.) That contrasted really sharply with all the romance I would read about and see in movies and stuff. I'm a big reader and I have always loved romance. So I grew up with this reality of a terrible relationship and a fantasy of a perfect romance. I constantly worried that I would either settle for a terrible relationship because I thought that was realistic or end up alone because nothing matched my standards. Now, I don't know if my aromantic feelings are just because I'm scared of relationships and all of that nonsense or if I'm just genuinely not attracted to people. It keeps me up at night. At the end of the day, I just vibe and hope that everything works out.

In regards to gender, boy howdy do I have feelings. Cause like, gender isn't real, it's a social and cultural concept that people cling to because they like order. This is not invalidating trans people, gender and body dysmorphia is a very real thing and associating your identity, experiences, and sense of self with a gender and/or sex is normal, whether it aligns with your gender assigned at birth or not. My sentiment is more about the way society views gender as 1) a binary that aligns perfectly with sex and 2) an inflexible and constant pillar of identity that comes before any other identifiers. This is where I got beef. At the end of the day, your personal experience of gender is just that, personal. It's a part of who you are, but it's also influenced heavily by the way society views gender and gender norms, that's inevitable. My personal feelings are just complicated. I identify as a woman and use she/her pronouns because it's easy, not because I feel particularly aligned with the female gender. I'm not uncomfortable being perceived as a woman, but I also just don't care. Gender just isn't something that I consider important to my identity. I am me, I love these things, I do these things, these are my opinions. Y'know? (It probably doesn't help that my sense of self is also just wack, but whatever.) Something that I am uncomfortable with is being viewed as a woman before being viewed as a person. I have always called myself an actor, not an actress. Cause what's an actor? Someone who acts. What's an actress? A woman who acts. Why should part of my identifier clarify that I am a woman? That just doesn't make any sense to me. This view is rooted in my feminist ideals as well, as I've always been an advocate of getting rid of gendered job titles, seeing as the masculine form is almost always the default. However, I can't help but correlate the feelings. I just want to be a person, not a woman. Most of my hesitation in reaching out to and looking into the genderqueer community is just imposter syndrome probably. I don't care about being a woman, I don't feel gender dysphoria, people on the street probably aren't going to hate crime me for not aligning myself with a binary gender, so why should I try to claim any of this. Maybe it's just me making up excuses and pretending to be queer so I can feel cool or special. Maybe all the queerphobes are right and I am pretending to aroace and nonbinary so I can fit in with all the cool kids without actually having to date a woman and transition. I know that's a messed up view. Everyone's experience with gender and sexuality is extremely unique and no one will fit into a single box. I'm allowed to have these feelings without hating myself. It's just hard and scary. But c'est la vie.

On a lighter note, I love the asexual pride flag, it's so pretty, and I love the aromantic pride flag, it is also very pretty. But the aroace flag isn't that great. The colors just don't itch my brain the way the asexual and aromantic flags do individually y'know?

Long post, but I got's lots of feelings. I'm sure I'll make a bunch of posts about queerness, it do be a thing, but this was a good way to get my base feelings just out there.

[littlebabycrybtch]

oh my god regs stop claiming old identities to excuse being a bigot now. idc if u thought you were ace or trans or nonbinary, if you Admit that you arent now and openly Hate and Reject these identities, you no longer get to have a relevant attachment to it and parade it around like a trump card. even though you thought you were, you are not actually that identity. you are saying this yourself. so this shit doesnt count for anything. you may have used the labels and been in the community, you may have had vague experience with it, and thats fine to talk about and see it as something personal, but you dont get to be vocal about it as if you are Still There or relate with it. thats an offense to the people that are actually that identity i mean, you wholeheartedly admit you literally Arent Us but you’re still trying to talk over us? FOR us? lol no, you dont get to pretend you saw the corruption of an identity you literally didnt have, and odds are the reason you felt uncomfortable was bc you fucking admit you were not actually that identity. like. of course you’re going to be uncomfortable when you get your identity wrong and are unknowingly in the wrong environment. how much more simple could this be. you made a mistake and are unfairly blaming others for it. 

cis ppl dont get to be vocal about the trans community bc they questioned their gender previously, non aces dont get to talk for the aspec community, binary trans people dont even get to have opinions on nonbinary trans people, what you may see inside these communities is automatically skewed once you can look back and realize you were not actually one of them. you need to acknowledge this. to be specific ig, internalized homophobia has to be fought on all social levels but is still in the end a completely personal based problem and therefore cis gay people you are on the most basic level like everybody else responsible for your own misunderstandings of yourself and these other identities, and most importantly, you have to recognize that you have the ability to DAMAGE them when you are trying to talk about them but confess you dont actually see yourself in them. if you change your identity you change your community, end of story. you dont get to keep talking about the old one like its evil of them that you chose to be in it out of ignorance. idk like. i saw a terf blog just this Morning that called themself a ‘de-transitioning trans woman / gay man’ and. i am just so Tired of this shit like not to be blunt but no you are not you are a hateful cis guy who had some trouble figuring out ur identity and to hate trans women now makes you a transphobe no matter what your past was like bc you are cis NOW. yall you dont get to just. collect up a bunch of identities so you can hold onto them and feel you can talk abt any issue without listening to others and be free from criticism like even broadly you have to pick Something here and i think when you decide to Hate an old identity you’ve made it clear which side you’re on. you are not the same as the people in these groups, there was always a distinction between you and them, you admit this, you agree with this, so stop acting like you get it. stop using YOUR mistakes and misunderstandings against harmless minorities. again, im not saying if you de-transition or change label you cant talk about your old experiences but... once you realize the truth about yourself, all your experiences with that prior identity are inherently personal and not community ones now bc You were the person that was in the the wrong One and you are switching for a Reason so its not ‘your community’ anymore and frankly, never was. you were always looking at it as someone who wasnt really a part of it, for the love of god, use some brains and recognize that

[incorrectthroam]

Life advice from your Auntie Throamie

Because I don’t know who needs it:

1) try not to care about what people think too much. I know it’s hard (like, really hard), but if you take baby steps and come up with your own ways to reassure yourself that if you’re happy then that’s all that matters, then you’re doing something amazing for yourself that you won’t regret.

2) learn the difference between hate and constructive criticism. This doesn’t just apply to writing fiction; it applies to schoolwork, a project for your job, etc. It’ll always hurt to hear that something you did wasn’t perfect (and nothing is perfect, not even your idols), but to save yourself a lot of heartache it’s a good idea to realize that someone telling you “I think you need to try again and focus more on this” isn’t the same as someone telling you “THIS IS TRASH YOUR MOM IS TRASH GO D*E.”

3) allow yourself time to heal after a breakup. It’ll hurt like hell for a while, and that’s totally normal. During the grieving process, try to get your mind off of it even for a moment by trying something new, hanging out with friends, watching TV, etc. Isolating yourself when you’re in pain is never a good idea. Try to find someone who understands what you’re going through so you can vent to them and they can validate your feelings, whether it’s a sibling or a counsellor.

4) drop your toxic friends. If you have friends that constantly invalidate your feelings, disclude you on purpose, insult you even when you make it clear you don’t find it funny, share your secrets when you ask them not to, or do anything else to make you feel horrible for no fault of your own, DROP THEM. Yes being alone is horrible, but taking some time to yourself and realizing your own self worth (which is more than you think, trust me) will help you be more picky when choosing new friends when the time is right.

5) don’t get into a relationship because you’re tired of being alone. That’s unfair to you and to the person you’re with. Being single can really suck, but if someone asks you out and you’re not attracted to them at all, going out with them will eventually blow up in your face. Kissing and cuddling feels way better when it’s with someone you love/are crushing on.

6) know that there are many different ways to come out. You should never feel like you have to come out to anyone (except your romantic partner, obviously, and your loved ones if you identify as trans or non-binary), but if you really want to and don’t feel pressured by yourself or society, there are more ways than sitting people in your life down and saying that you’re gay/bi/trans/etc. One way I’ve come out to people is casually mentioning being attracted to a girl as if I were heterosexual talking about a guy, but if you do some simple googling you could find a way that makes you comfortable.

7) if you think you may have a serious mental illness/disorder, please don’t bottle it up. You don’t have to tell anyone if you’re not comfortable (yet!) but please don’t keep it inside. Try to get it out in healthy ways, like writing it out or whispering it into your pillow.

8) ask someone if you can vent to them before you do so. You have no idea what that person may be feeling like, and even if they tell you that you can vent to them anytime, asking is still polite and will be appreciated in case they’re not in the right headspace to listen to or help you.

9) be careful of what you post about yourself on the internet. Anything could be used against you at any time, and if you don’t have thick skin it could do a lot of damage.

10) if you want to do something but are too scared to do it, try baby steps. For example, when I began dyeing my hair I was worried the colours wouldn’t look good on me, so instead of dyeing my whole head right away I just dyed the tips. It’s perfectly fine to be scared of doing something, but fear should never get in the way of your happiness.

11) know that it’s okay and perfectly normal to not be happy all the time. Even the happiest people we know have bad days and cry, and that’s fine. It’s okay to not be okay sometimes. It’s only a problem when you’re never happy and it’s getting in the way of your day-to-day life, in which case you should definitely try to seek help for that.

12) if you’re in school, give enough of a shit. Don’t care too much to the point where a bad grade on a test sends you into a full blown panic attack, but don’t care too little that your grades slip and you have to go to summer school (or worse; have to do the whole year over again). It can be hard to find a middle ground, and with parental pressure that can definitely be hard, but school is nothing but a montage in the movie of life.

I know 99% of y’all skipped over this (and I get it!! Not all of us want advice and that’s okay) but things have gotten rocky in my brain again and I wanna see if the things I’ve learned in the fuckery of a time I’ve been alive could help someone out there who is now the way I used to be.

[binaural-histolog]

Interview with Wiseguy at Mindquake 2018

binaural-histolog: So how did all this get started?

WiseGuy: That's a big question.

BH: Okay, let me back up. So it used to be a very small scene. Brian David Phillips was doing things on Yahoo, and there was hypnovideo, the Maestro, etc. And then at some point it got too big to track. What happened?

WG: Well, the first thing I went to was probably 2007-2008, which was Hypnoticon. There was another conference, Hypnocon, that has been going on for like 15 years or so, but it's always been exclusive to the gay men's community so the rest of us didn't know about it.

At that time, I was a fiction writer. I posted on mcstories.com. And when I got there, it was a big surprise how many people read my stories, because if something is really popular, you'll get two, maybe three emails if you're lucky. There's no reddit or like button. There's no feedback. Simon keeps everything minimal and pure. He'll publish anything with very few exceptions, and he'll do no editing on it. It's his... what's the word? It's his aesthetic. And then suddenly you get all these people coming up and they know you and they like your stuff.

So Hypnoticon was a big success, and Mephki and Buddy [DrSlashBlight] got the idea of putting a convention together. Buddy was the face, and Mephki was the brains, the organizer. Buddy had this tremendous skill of being able to stand in the middle of the room and say "Guys, this is what we're going to do and it's going to be great and you're going to love it." And Mephki pulled everyone together and made it all happen. That was NEEHU, 2009. Mephki and Buddy had the New England Hypnosis Group, and there was a recreational hypnosis group next door, and they knew Lady Ru'etha, and she said come to this thing, and that was NEEHU 1. It was a single day. I sat in a couple of panels, talking about erotic hypnosis.

It was literally an unconference and a play party at night, in a not so great part of town. I was surprised that we didn't get in trouble with the police, and we realized later that the illegal police biker bar was next door, so the police weren't going to interfere with any disturbances around that area.

So NEEHU got bigger and bigger, and these groups all started to meet up, and so the people that were already into this found out about it. There were some things independent of NEEHU. Lee Allure and MrDream had their own thing that they run, DeepMindDarkwood. It's a camp, they keep it limited down to 45 people and that's it. But there were more people that wanted to join. Kansas City and Texas had a bunch of stuff happen. Black Rock City. And now there's five things happening yearly, and meetup groups throughout the country.

BH: Do you think there's a reason why everything started to come together in 2008?

Yes and no. All the elements were there, it could have happened earlier or later. But all the right things had to happen in the right order. NEEHU really needed Mephki and Buddy to kick it off, and there needed to be enough meetups and enough groups to keep it going. And there was a lot of learning in the community.

BH: What has the community learned?

WG: Oh, so much. In the beginning, informed consent was not a thing. If you were at a conference, it was assumed that you were consenting. You'd walk up to someone in the hallway, say "wanna see something cool?" and if they said yeah, you'd drop them. That's just... you can't do that now. It's not acceptable.

Safety and ethics was not a thing. There was a talk in NEEHU that was literally "Why do we need ethics?" And that's changed so much now. Safety and ethics are the first thing you learn, and every conference has a code of conduct.

BH: What do you think the community still has to learn?

WG: We still have to learn how to handle our shit properly.

We know how to handle the people who are clueless. We know how to handle the people who are obviously bad. We still have to figure out how to handle the people who are predators, the truly manipulative people. They'll pick their targets carefully, and it'll be someone who is new, and it happens alone in a room. There's no way to know what happened. It's one person's word against another. And it may not even be deception, they may believe their version of events completely. Belief is different from reality. These people will have friends, they have defenders, they'll say all the right things. So it's hard. There may not be a good answer.

BH: I remember reading a book on abuse called Why Does He Do That, and realizing I'd met abusers and seen them operate, and still hadn't put it all together. It is hard. On the other hand, I was encouraged by Divney's discussion about always believing the accuser by default.

WG: It's more complex than a single answer, though. I don't have a problem with BEHIVE's policy in their application, but my concern is that it doesn't scale well to larger events where the stakes are a lot higher than being banned from a local munch.

Mephki: This isn't a legal argument though. There's no standard beyond a reasonable doubt. It's a private party you can't go to, not going to jail or having your children taken away from you.

WG: Agreed, but it's still damage. It's something we haven't figured out yet.

[Much discussion ensues, in which everyone in the room weighs in. Everyone has cogent and nuanced arguments that I could not write notes on fast enough.]

BH: What's really impressed you lately? What's improved in the community that you didn't predict?

WG: Oh! Standards have evolved so much. There are so many bright young voices. Our representation has improved so much. There used to be a joke when you got out of a conference, you'd say "Remember me? I was the bearded white guy." Because that was everyone. Now you have non-binary people, femme representing people, bottom types. There are so many more points of view and inclusion in the community.

BH: One thing I've noticed is that there is an assumption that erotic hypnosis corresponds to kink and BDSM generally.

AmHypnotic, chiming in: Yes, and they're not the same thing. There's this tendency that the bigger and more intense something looks, the more impressive it is. But that's not what makes it work.

BH: I mention it because I really like the gentle femdom movement I've seen lately, where gently pulling on someone's hair is recognized and seen as dominant, and there's no pain or fear. It's not about turning everything up to 11.

WG: There's a lot of good things, but stuff like that is coming from the kink community in general. The EH community is barely 10 years old, and what we have been doing is copying what other conferences are doing, like scholarships for female presenters. And the internet and local groups getting together has been huge. There's so much better vetting of presenters and sharing of information now.

There's still a problem with sharing information. The TNG group had a presenter that had been vetted and it was a horror show. And then once it came out, there were presentations she'd given before that made it clear she had done this before, and so it's a question of getting all those people together. So there's a missing stair problem there.

Mephki: There is a discord server called the Watchtower which is all the conference and group leaders together, and there is a vetting service. There's work being done. There's hypnation. It is getting better. You have to be careful about ban lists, but they are private party events.

BH: What do you think the recreational and EH community can teach the clinical hypnosis community?

WG: [Laughter] There's no comparison. The EH community is leaps and bounds ahead of the professionals. There's no need for them to do it for money, so they have more freedom to experiment, and so it's all about the creativity. But there are professionals still reading off of scripts written in the 1950s.

[Much discussion ensues]

BH: I know there are talented individuals. Melissa Tiers, for example.

WG: No, there are absolutely some great people out there. Melissa Tiers is a rockstar. She's very good, no bullshit, always happy to show new things she's learned. Kaz Riley is another good example. But the field as a whole is still behind and playing it safe. There can be ten different tracks at a conference and not one presentation you want to go to.

Hypnomedia: Hypnothoughts Live is really good. They have a good mix of clinical and stage hypnotists.

WG: I've heard that, but I'm afraid that if I go, I'll get outed.

BH: So final question. Erotic hypnosis would seem to have a natural overlap with using hypnosis for sexual disorders. And yet, there's almost nothing about using hypnosis to treat sexual disorders. And there's sex research on BDSM and kink, but there's very little research into erotic hypnosis. Why do you think that is?

WG: I couldn't tell you. I know there's a Dr Will Horton who puts together a five day course on Erotic Hypnosis. The first three days are clinical, focusing on erectile dysfunction, anorgasmia, and things like that. The final two days, he hands out copies of Mind Play and talks about erotic hypnosis. The mixture of clinical treatment and erotic material in the same course is not something that anyone can do, but Dr Horton has a Psy D, so he can get away with doing it.

BH: But it does seem like so many techniques are essentially erotic hypnosis with the serial numbers filed off. Tantric Massage, Sensate Focus, and so on.

WG: There are many hypnosis things that do not show up in the field. But I don't know.

[july-angel]

Gamzee redemption arc and Dirk; The dickfuck that was given to female character plot lines (Part two to Candy > Meat)

This actually doesn’t have as much to do with the first post, but it is about something important that I brought up in it that needs it’s own post. 

Gamzee’s redemption arc is well handled, or badly handled depending on how you want to look at it. Gamzee, made very clear by the end of Candy, doesn’t fucking deserve to be redeemed. However, it’s not because you simply cannot be forgiven for the bad things you do, but it is because, Gamzee hasn’t actually done anything to deserve forgiveness. You see, Gamzee brings up his past and talks about how he never had a chance to become a better person. However, while it is a reason, it is not an excuse. Hussie I think is making fun of fans who excuse terrible people’s actions based on some sad past or hard ship. It’s not that those things cannot be causes, but forgiveness must be earned. Gamzee simply resumes being a terrible shitty person. He’s irresponsible and only uses people for his own gain. Hell, he builds this whole religious platform off of handing out forgiveness to people without real proof that they do anything to change. 

That’s where Dirk comes in. I cannot say what Andrew Hussie is going to do. However, I hope that Dirk gets the chance to be forgiven, but not because of some tragic past or mental illness, but because he works to earn his forgiveness. I hope he makes the necessary change to become a better person. I hope he work to try to undo the damage that he’s done and that he seeks to be different. 

I think people who look at the Gamzee stuff are looking at it wrong. Okay, yeah, maybe he is saying fuck Gamzee stans, but he’s saying fuck Gamzee stans who forgive his terrible actions without expecting him to be any better. 

So I’m going to move on to talk about things I fucking hated about this epilogue: - low-key, it has a much more shallow view of it’s female characters. I think that as a whole, their female characters were either given a back seat, or not given as much opportunity to delve into the psyche as the male characters. The only exception was maybe Terezi.

- Characters who got less attention: Rose, Kanaya. Rose and kanaya didn’t really get as much depth, and it’s hard to say much more, because we just didn’t get that much of it, beyond two scenes. One where Rose is thanking John for the route he took that allowed Rose to be happy with Kanaya. And the other where Dirk is literally mind fucking Kanaya into convincing her that Rose doesn’t love her. Dick. 

-Characters who got a lot less development than I saw potential for: Jade, Jane. I have so much to say, but I want to keep this one brief to hammer in the point. Jade is a very lonely person, one of the lonelier people arguably and she has honestly and actually been strung along by Dave a lot. That’s not fair. But they only briefly touch upon it, I mean, it really only comes up in reference to Davekat and how it affects that ship. And then there’s really nothing else to her, except to be a shell to Calliope. That’s not fair. My girl deserves more. On to Jane. I mean shit. I know that she loves capitalism and shit, but they literally hint to us that she’s not an evil person. We just never get to see it. See, being a xenophobe, doesn’t necessarily make her the shittiest worst monster of this universe. And What I mean by that, is, it’s referenced multiple times in Candy that she is capable of being better. She leaves the wedding alone, she doesn’t interfere when John visits Roxy and his son, and she let’s Tavros and Jake out when they want out. Now those are just things that you should do in my mind, but every time one of those things happen, John is literally scared that Jane will try to fuck up these things. And she just doesn’t and she’s said to not be evil, just a person making just horrific decisions. However, it’s never actually really dug into and I think that’s really sad. We never get to actually see her as a real fleshed out character. And I think the biggest assassination of her character was during he dad’s death. Her emotions during the death of her father are ham handled and I think a lot of potential was trampled upon, simply because we never really get to be with her in her head. They use it as a plot point to get from point a to b. She’s not a good character, but neither is Dirk and we still get to see into his head so much, he’s literally the narrator in one of the epilogues. 

-  Roxy and Calliope are both non-binary characters, but I feel like we also don’t get as much insight into their heads as well. But I don’t even know where to start there. I mean Calliope is just gone for most of this. Like why? And i get that roxy isn’t even supposed to be real in Candy, and also is supposed to be completely elusive to dirk so... But still there’s something fucked up about it and I hope we get more of them. 

- Sollux and Aradia??????? WHAT WAS THAT?????? I MEAN WHAT? I? What???? I wanted more of them, I’m greedy I know, but like still. That was a sad amount of both of them. And they seem like they are just watching some light TV watching their friends get fucked over. 

-Jake getting molested by Jane into a whole relationship had me blech. 

- John not talking to his dad one last time. 

Anyways those are all the brain cells I have right now. So, Maybe i’ll go back and edit this, maybe I won’t I’m kind of trash 

[itsyaboisayori]

Why I’m questioning Sayori

I said I’d make this post so here it is! Even got on my laptop to properly do the post :p I’m just kinda winging this but I’ll try to list out everything I can. If I forget stuff I’ll go back and edit it later so if you’re curious, keep watch! I’ll reblog any time I make edits, at least somewhat big ones. 

Also, replies are welcome! I’m open to constructive criticism and anyone wanting to offer new viewpoints. I accept that I’m still learning and nothing is for sure yet. Also tbh anyone telling me I sound like I’m kin is validating as heck so if you’re thinking it then I’d appreciate you saying it ahaha, but please don’t lie to me because you think you know what I want to hear. I want the truth. I don’t want to be a confused mess ;n; And I know all/most of these could be COMPLETELY unrelated to being Sayori fictionkin, but I feel like they’re worth mentioning anyways. It’s more like, a bunch of little coincidences rather than big solid evidence, I’m aware of that and that’s a big reason why I’m questioning and not for-sure Sayorikin.

One thing I realized just a couple of days ago is how, since I was a kid I’ve had this like, ideal thing I guess? how do I put this into words lmao my brain is dumb,, I guess a fantasy, that I’d fall in love with a childhood friend, like someone I’m close with from a young age but strictly friends for a long time. I’ve always been in love with the idea of falling in love with your best friend. And of course that’s what happens to Sayori, due to her programming in DDLC. And if I’m kin with Sayori from other game(s) rather than just DDLC then it definitely could be something unrelated, just a coincidence.

I’m like, really drawn to DDLC?? Maybe just because DDLC is a great game and I love all the creepypasta type stuff behind it all, all the theories and dark shit, and also I think just as a cute dating sim it’d be great anyways (but nowhere near as great). But idk, when I saw it I immediately felt kinda drawn to it but maybe that’s just in my head or for some other reason like the characters look nice or smth.

Also it REALLY gives me feels. It makes me feel things in general. I rarely get genuinely scared from fictional stuff anymore but this game fucked me up. I’m still scared to play it on my own because, even after watching multiple youtubers play it multiple times, it still fucking scares me.

The Sayori suicide scene and her poem- especially the poem- really get to me. I saw people making hanging puns in the previous video before her death so it was kind of spoiled for me but even still, it got to me. And the scene where Sayori is freaking out because you deleted Monika before playing the game REALLY gets to me,, like I just understand that overwhelming, helpless feeling. Especially finding out why she acted that way, it’s so fucking hard to watch that scene and normally I’m not affected by this kind of stuff. So either DDLC is extremely good at psychological horror or I have some sort of connection to the scenarios, whether that be just that I’ve been through similar things and am projecting (not really that I remember though? idfk brains are weird) or ya know,,, I once lived as someone in DDLC or whatever.

(TW self harm/suicide/choking) Probably has no real correlation but when I have panic attacks/flashbacks (unrelated to DDLC I mean) I feel like I’m choking or like I can’t breathe. And when really frustrated I tend to choke myself? Sayori died from asphyxiation instead of her neck being broken, by accident because she used a stepping stool instead of something higher like a chair and jumping off. Btw I’m okay, I never actually choke myself to the point to causing permanent damage or anything, and of course I’m not saying this is like, okay or anything. I know it’s bad but I’ve done it completely on impulse, and this was all before learning DDLC even existed. I’m working on getting better and I’m not going to kill myself or anything, just thought I’d mention this.

I relate to her personality,,, so fucking much. Not just the whole pretending to be happy to make your friends happy thing, but how she is as a person besides her depression. Tbh I feel like a lot of people relate to her because of her depression and how she deals with it, but like she’s so much more than that. She pretends to be dumb but it actually pretty smart. Maybe she’s not the best with words but I think she’s a lot more intelligent than some people think. She’s so cheerful, maybe even annoying, and is kind of the class clown, and is a total weirdo sometimes but it’s GREAT and just,, same lmao. Like “looks like my boobs are getting bigger again >:D” is something I’d say lolol I just love Sayori so much, like idc if I’m kin with her or not she’s still fucking amazing.

Another reason I relate to her but probably is like not at all proof I’m Sayori or anything, just thought I’d mention anyways, but I was kinda like, really in love with my guy friend in high school for years, he’s actually kinda like MC in some ways, like he was kinda popular with girls but not like Popular(tm), super nice and couldn’t directly say no, but he knew I was in love with him (or at least knew I had a crush on him but he probably had no idea I liked him THAT much but hey neither did I for a long time lmao) and didn’t like me back and even started intentionally avoiding me. Like, he would make up an excuse to not give me a hug, like he was late for class, but hugs only take like a fucking second what the hell?? It sucked but like when the player turns down Sayori I Relate.

I just,,,,, want to hug Natsuki like she’s fucking adorable and I want to protect her the most bc she’s like a precious child and she’s obviously abused by her dad. Tbh Yuri is a little creepy and for some reason I don’t like her that much but I mean I’d still hug her. I don’t hate Monika, like it was just her programming to do all that stuff she did so I don’t blame her and she’s p cool and I’d hug her too tbh. When Sayori interacts with Natsuki it makes me feel all warm n fuzzy. Like I don’t think in my canon Sayori and Natsuki were dating or anything, I think I/Sayori am/was just really protective? Idk, thought I’d throw that out there.

I also heavily relate to wanting to be a mediator and wanting to help everyone get along and be happy. I often (try to) play that role in this life. I’m extremely empathetic, so that’s prob why, but I can’t stand when people are fighting or can’t see each other’s point of view. Though it also frustrates the FUCK out of me when people refuse to or just absolutely cannot see any point of view but their own. Maybe that’s not really a Sayori thing but ye

When I look at Sayori I get the same “that’s me!” feeling as when I see my kintypes. Who knows though, maybe in a month or two it’ll fade, we’ll see I guess. But right now it is Very Strong. Like I’ve somewhat questioned being fictionkin with other characters before but I’ve never had the “that’s me” feeling this strong with anyone else. Ruby from RWBY is a close second but I still think she’s just a kithtype.

I feel like having a past life or whatever as someone who was experimented on kinda makes sense?? Maybe I just enjoy horror a little too much but I really think if I am Sayori I’m kin with her like actual her not just the DDLC version of her. The new game hasn’t even been announced yet but I’m so excited, mostly because I feel like I want to learn more about my possible past life I guess. I wanna see if things in the second game connect with me or if it’s just DDLC. But I feel like, if I’ve had any past lives as any humans, they were probably really dark or smth. I kinda have a dark mind I guess and that would just make sense to me lmao, like I’m 21 why haven’t I grown out of my edgy phase, why the fuck am I still really into creepypasta? Damn.

I’ve been kinda obsessed with DDLC lately. I have BPD so it could totally just be a BPD obsession thing and maybe this obsession will fade and someday I won’t care too much about DDLC, only time will tell. Also I’ve had the song Your Reality stuck in my head for a week straight but it may just be a catchy song and I tend to have a song that kinda automatically starts playing in my head occasionally, usually lately it’s been Sad Machine by Porter Robinson (good song btw highly recommend)

Most likely unrelated but Sayori’s hair has been described as “strawberry blonde” on one wiki and my hair is like, light brown but reddish, though it looks more like Monika’s hair, especially because I keep my hair long. I’ve been kinda wanting to cut it but I like having long hair tbh and I feel like a lot of ppl don’t want me to cut my hair haha, though I really wanna get a short wig and maybe wear that occasionally (esp bc I’m non binary and wanna pass as more boyish sometimes, I know society will never accept me as nb bleh but anyways). Though, it’s been said that the reason her hair is short is because it’s easier for her to deal with, but I’m not 100% sure if that’s canon. Though I guess it doesn’t matter much? cuz multiverse stuff n all but, still.

Speaking of her appearance, she seems to not care too much about how she looks, which I relate to haha, especially because of depression n stuff. I mean I have Crippling Social Anxiety(tm) so I do care to an extent but usually I’m like, if someone likes me they’ll like me for who I am not how I look anyways. I don’t feel the need to dress super proper to impress anyone in casual social situations, like making friends or even going on dates (though I’ve only been on a real date like a few times and they were with my gf who I’d already been dating online for a while). And yeah a big reason she’s so careless about her appearance is depression but I think if I wasn’t depressed and she wasn’t depressed we’d still both have that mentality like, we don’t need to impress anyone with our appearance so it’s better to just dress how you want, whatever way makes you feel comfortable and happy with yourself and your body, than focus on being proper and stuff.

Maybe I’m just projecting but man I feel like a lot of stuff I do and my ways of thinking and stuff are very Sayori(tm). I feel like I am so much like her, like she’s so me. Though of course, maybe my reason for being kin with her is purely psychological. Maybe I “became” her after seeing DDLC. Maybe I am her because I relate to her so much. But again, only time will tell. If I still feel like I identify as her (which, currently, I most definitely do) in a couple of months or so, then I guess I’ll start calling myself fictionkin. Idk.

[condensed-theorem-shop]

worldbuilding (lightly edited) from chat:

<Moriwen> hmmm is anyone interested in hearing me ramble about an idea for dark-au-star-wars-with-the-serial-numbers-filed-off

<Alicorn> yes I vaguely dig the SW aesthetic but it has too many serial numbers tell me how you would rid it of them

<Moriwen> okay so I want to really run with the concept of "the force is cthulhu and wants to eat your brain" probably I will call it something other than "the force" because serial numbers, for now I am just running with "magic" there is an ~underlying magical field~ to the universe. some people are born innately susceptible to it. this is not generally a good thing. it does however mean they can do magic. it's not strictly a magical/non-magical binary, most people just have close-enough-to-zero susceptibility, a few people have just enough to notice, even fewer have more than that, etc

there are three main kinds of magic you can do! #1: straightforward physical effects -- strength, jumping, levitating things, etc #2: obtaining knowledge -- foresight, scrying, premonitions, correctly anticipating what side a coin will land on or what the password to a vault is, etc #3: magic on other people -- this includes both healing stuff and mind control stuff

of course, this being glowfic, each kind of magic comes at a Price #1: using physical effects slowly transforms your body into Eldritch Horror! this does not happen suddenly, you do not levitate something and sprout a tentacle, but when you heal from an injury or when your body's cells replace themselves there is some chance of the result being Eldritch Horror instead of you. and this is proportional to how much physical magic you have ever done, so stopping using magic is not sufficient to stop the transformation, if you have ever used any you will be slowly transforming, just if you're lucky you will not live long enough to transform too much.

<Alicorn> do you have any chance of controlling your eldritchness to get cool or useful horrorbits?

<Moriwen> hmm... I think you can, yes -- but this is a Bad Idea, because that requires aligning yourself further with the magic in order to influence how it's affecting you, which then gives it more influence over you

<Alicorn> if you just don't care about your body plan you could go all in on physical magic

<Moriwen> you do lose some control of the eldritch body parts, I think like, not 100% or anything, but there is some risk of tentacles doing things you didn't intend while you're not paying attention but yes it is definitely the mildest of the effects

<Sonata (Etelenda)★> but accidental tentacle things don't include "use magic"?

<Moriwen> yeah, no, accidental tentacle things are limited to straightforwardly physical actions

#2: using knowledge effects slowly swaps out your emotions for Whatever The Magic Wants You To Feel! any time you would feel an emotion, you have a chance of instead feeling What The Magic Wants You To Feel, and the chance is proportional to how much knowledge magic you have used. and just as the Eldritch Horror body parts, if damaged, will heal back to Eldritch Horror, not to human, the magically influenced emotions don't go away --  you will slowly accumulate a roiling undercurrent of possibly conflicting emotions that probably include lots of things like "rage" and "destructive fury" and "loathing for all that is good"

#3: using magic-on-other-people (healing/mind control) slowly erodes your personality and replaces it with, yep, the magic's personality! which of course has lots of fun traits like "loathing order and beauty" and "craving to absorb humanity and all its works into your slimy power"

<Tekeler★> --which of these is 'healing yourself' under?

<Moriwen> hmm ... I think "healing yourself" falls under "super bad idea you are aligning yourself directly to the magic and giving it influence over you"

<Alicorn> so it seems like the optimal use of this magic if you aren't, like, a nihilist who super wants tentacles, or something, is to conspicuously have it and then be conspicuously willing to self-sacrifice to get shit if you have to, very Schelling and then not use it unless you actually have to

<Moriwen> [nod] unfortunately: there is no convenient "you start being able to use the magic at adolescence" thing so small children who are magic-aligned can use it and will inevitably do so at least a little before they are old enough to understand "do not use that magic" and even if they only use a little this is already bad news because stopping cold turkey once they're old enough to understand isn't good enough -- with the first two types of magic you'll continue gradually getting corrupted, and with the third you've got potential for the magic directly influencing you to use more

<Alicorn> hm this also disincentivized prolonged magic fights.  if you are going to be in a magic fight you aim for lethality immediately, you don't want to be in several magic-or-die situations over the course of an entire interesting fight scene. there's no hard cap, so it's probably difficult to impossible to arrange "do lots of useful magic, then die", because the magic will change your mind if you agree to that and defend you if someone tries to enforce it once you are at the point of no longer trying to ration, you are basically A Dangerous Monster are they cooperative dangerous monsters? are they dangerous monsters with foresight, do they kidnap magic babies and encourage them to be tentaclebabies

<Moriwen> they are loosely cooperative with each other -- like, you can't sic'em on each other, they won't fight -- but they are underwater with conflicting emotions and under the influence of something Distinctly Not A Person, so they don't do a lot of sophisticated teamwork and you're not going to have any luck negotiating with them you occasionally get dangerous monsters with foresight, especially if someone's used a lot of type-3 and not much type-2 magic, but for the most part they do not plan that elaborately

so there are I think in this civilization four main outcomes for magic people:

(A) if you are not very magical, and did not use much magic as a child, you can get away with joining a basically-monastery and meditating a lot and trying to avoid intense emotions that you could get stuck with corrupted versions of and not going near any weapons and having a nonmagic supervisor keep a close eye on you to make sure you're not going eldritch

(B) if that sounds unlivably awful, or you are very magical, or you've used too much magic already, the (*cough*Jedi*cough*) order of monks will at your request euthanize you (and can probably do it painlessly unless you're already sufficiently corrupted that they have to prioritize "effectively" instead)

(C) if (A) sounds unlivably awful or you are very magical or you've used too much magic and you don't want to die, or if you're feeling particularly heroic, you can volunteer to be a (*cough*Jediknight*cough*) magic user! This is a horrible idea and you should not do it. You will have a short life in which you are very closely watched for corruption and taught the best known management techniques for it and directed by your non-magical mentor how to use the absolute minimal amounts of magic possible to get good effects. And then once you are sufficiently corrupted that it's too dangerous to have you use more and risk your getting too corrupted to easily defeat, they will euthanize you.

(D) if you are unwilling to comply with (A), (B), or (C), or if you get too corrupted too fast for the monks to find and recruit you first, or if you attempt to hide you are magic and so proceed to become slowly corrupted without an excellent support-and-supervisory system, you will end up as an Eldritch Horror! These are why (C) needs so badly to exist in the first place. They are more or less totally under the sway of the magic and go around being eldritch and horrible and wreaking havoc, and are basically impossible for non-magic-users to take out, because they can use magic freely within their basic capabilities!

There are kind of a lot of (D)! Most of them have been driven out of the populated regions by the coordinated efforts of the not!Jedi monks, but, like, magic has been around forever, the monks have not, the eldritch horrors had a head start. And of course new ones crop up in the populated regions every so often, even aside from the ones that are always trying to invade from the dark gibbering outer reaches.

so we have, essentially, (A) the Jedi agricorps, (B) death :P, (C) Jedi Knights, and (D) the Sith. Except all of them are horrible options.

[tedfashionski]

Finking, Finking.

Hi, welcome to my ted talk. (That is the only time I will ever make that joke. This is Fashionski Finks. Expect radically low standards of self-involved rantiness with zero research or accountability from here on out). For a while there I seriously thought that the covid-19 quarantine was going to result in people being increasingly placid and accepting of creeping extensions of the police state. But here I am, getting depressed again, not about the protests, which I love, but more about my relationship to in-group pressure dynamics. One of the problems with being a relentless contrarian is the discomfort of my impulse to rebel against groups even when they’re championing the right thing. I have to find my own way to fight against the system as an outsider. No gods, no masters, no fucking peer pressure.  I’ll never be happy joining a chorus line. I don’t sign fucking petitions (they’re just lists for the NSA). I do donate, but like fuck will I do it performatively. I can’t go to protests cus I get panic attacky in crowds. I empathise pretty strongly with outsiders of all stripes but believe ridiculously excessively in the public good of criticism, and have a nostalgic love of trolling (I like to think I’m gentle with it though). Bring back the troll! We need that fucker, he’s a sign of a healthy internet. I’m writing this blog thing as an extension of my need to vent my extreme negativity. TBH I never expected to get any followers with ted twitter and the bizarre welcomingness of the hf twitter community totally wrongfooted me. I’m not nice. Ted isn’t meant to likable. He’s my dark side. I was meant to be using this alt as a way to terrorise the nice nice (secretly cruel) fashion people. I’m gunna try and up that aspect more. Just bear in mind, my complaints are largely about the system, but if I see you perpetuating fashion’s entrenched anti-intellectualism or its insidery bullshit, I’ll come for you with a little meta-bomb with your name on it. Maintaining my misanthropic tone does take work tho, like, deep down in some twisted part of my psyche, I guess I do actually want to be liked. It’s fucked up.

I suppose it’s only fair to explain this Ted fursona. Like, new concept, who dis? Why all the furry porn? …..because I just think it’s hilarious. Every time I think about the furries I cackle (not at them, mind). I just love the mad corruption of pure Disney aesthetics into hardcore pornography. That’s anti-authoritarian as fuck. I love the sincerity of their culture. The way the crazy fetish aspect means they’ll never be fully blandified by mainstream acceptance. The way it’s so cringe but so delightful. And more seriously, I’m interested in how a culture of mostly gay male nerds developed to the point where they’ll invest 10k in custom fursuits and support eachother’s independent businesses in ways that the fashion community completely fails to do. The fashion world sucks. There’s so many correlations there that I want to investigate: the newness (furries date from around the 70s, fashion culture in its self-aware state dates from the late 19th C – both very young fields); the centralisation/decentralisation; the hierarchy (furries can be pretty catty, I have discovered in my research, and we all know what fashion people are like); the adoption of new identities; the cis-boy gayness aspect (I’m increasingly tired of the extreme nasty hierarchy of certain CSM queens. It’s all very UGH. Just, fuck those particular bitches.) There’s more to the furry love, but I’ll explore it in future posts.

More importantly, why Ted fucking Kaczynski? I’m not like, actually a terrorist. (….yet. tehehe. NO, seriously I like non-maiming violence. Fuck yeah to property damage. Fuck yeah to disabling the system in extreme way. But no to wooden IEDs. Think of my shitty jokes that fail to land as my hand-crafted bombs). I think I like the shitness of Ted. He was just an epic fail of a terrorist. I’m a little white girl living in London. I’m not actually a primitivist, as much as I crave a hut in the woods. I did go to an elite school though. I had some really shitty experiences in the fashion industry in my early 20s, and I watch my friends who are relatively successful in that system and I get so angry on their behalf at their poor treatment. They think I’m too angry. Fuck that. They should be more angry, and the fact that they can’t be angry at their extreme precarity and the fact they’re still insecure and terrified of being ejected by the system after all their investment and skills they’ve built up is BULLSHIT. I’ll be double angry for them, I’m not invested in that system. I don’t need it to pay my rent. I’m free, motherfuckers, and I’m coming for the abusers and exploiters. If you’re a complacent industry figure not fighting hard from within, uggghhhhh fuck you. Yes, YOU. Soooo, I relate pretty hard to the MK ultra stuff. (go look him up, he was basically tortured and experimented upon by the elite). But there’s a pretty big chasm between my views and his, and I’ll try to be clear about the extent of my interest in his extreme beliefs. I haven’t even finished reading the manifesto. Basically, I watched that shitty show on Netflix with sam worthington around the same time I watched Joker (that movie fucked me up) and thought it’d be a good outlet to larp online as a terrorist. There’s the angry white alt-right school shooter aspect, which I’m still figuring out, cus I’m non-binary and I was raised by nutso trumpy right-wingers, who I barely speak to anymore, and I struggle to get along with people generally. There’s sad, self-pitying rage here. I empathise with the angry white dudes too much. I feel guilty about it. That’s good ground for artmaking (yes, shamefully, this…is…art. Sorry). I modelled this fursona a little after my brother, who I spent years living with and arguing with and trying to lift out of his scary racist youtube rabbit holes. This is actually quite an emotional thing for me, cus I did the ‘talk to your fascist family’ thing. And I completely failed. I realised his right-winginess wasn’t lessening, I wasn’t gaining ground, and in fact my excessive empathy and desire to reach out to the relative most similar to me in character meant his extremism was rubbing off on me. Making me more resentful and depressed. Feeling powerless. I was being too kind-hearted and forgiving of his masculine impotence. So I’m exploring some personal shit here. But Ted is also a cute lil fuzzball teddy bear. He means well, but me being super autistic and faily at social skills means he’s kind of a dick, cus I am. I’m going to try and further develop this character, this POV, and this post is the only time I’ll explain the divide between him and his creator (moi). The ‘I’ on the twitter and here is Ted Fashionski, I need that space between me and him. Masks give us this freedom to be more ourselves. Internet culture has lost a lot of its wild brutal anonymity in the last decade or so, now everyone’s afraid of making mistakes. How the hell do you grow if you’re not allowed to fuck up? This is a vital outlet. He’s become an important part of my life and I have to say, I love being Ted Fashionski. He’s like Paddington Bear who just escaped form Guantanamo or something.

I get pretty fatigued as a matter of course. I’m a long-term depressive since childhood. I have a difficult time keeping my hard-on for living. I don’t get suicidal really but I do struggle with extreme fatigue. I sleep a lot. I often fall into spirals of self-hate. And as someone who utterly believes in revolutionary leftist politics, I beat myself up about not doing enough. I’m so middle class and english and white. I was raised in such a chauvinistic and complacent culture; I don’t even know where to start. I’m wading my way through post-colonial literature and beating myself up for finding it boring and uncomfortable. It’s hard to force yourself to acknowledge your culture is The Bad Guys. It’s easier to fall into fanstasies of supremacy and butthurt misunderstoodness. And it’s not like my depressive brain needs any encouragement to hate me. My trajectory is ever leftwards, but I remember the righteous fury of being right-wing. I get it, that was me. We need more paths back from fascism, more comprehension of why people are that kind of shitty. I talk less, and less well, the more depressed I am. If I’m talking, it means im feeling a lot better. Just, fyi.

Give me a minute to be critical here. With the George Floyd protests, a lot of the cool guys on fashion twitter has gone blazingly hardcore on the political side. But there’s this troubling rhetoric about ‘no return to normal content’ or ‘this isn’t the time for fashion’. Like fuck it isn’t. This is a key problem with fashion culture right here, we have this received perception of fashion as empty escapism. Escapism matters in fashion, yes. But seriously, talking about the surfaces of things does not equal not caring about deeper meaning. What the fuck. Clothes are a connective tissue, a membrane between us. They’re emotional and powerful. We can talk about things that matter THROUGH clothes. I speak fashion, pretty fucking well. Most people who work at fashion magazines are morons with no understanding or respect for their subject. They’re incapable of doing it justice, and that’s deliberate. On this tumblr you’ll see rants and reviews of fashion and other artforms, always interpreting through a fashion lens. cus it matters, cus it’s a vital part of the culture, cus just because something has a glittery, seductive surface doesn’t mean it doesn’t communicate or contain depth. There’s no going back to ‘normal fashion content’, yes. Normal fashion content is a fucking psyop to divert legitimate interest in aesthetics amongst largely non-academic dyslexic visual types away from careful thought/feeling and towards empty consumerist commericiality. The traditional fashion media wants you to express yourself and your interest in the zeitgeist through buying more shit. Another fashion world is possible. Let’s destroy the old and build a new one, one where surface and spirit are connected and true and fashion can’t be abused in service of evil industrial monopolists.

/end rant. TLDR: angry fictional teddy bear with tin-foil hat and an eco-anarchist fetish says no to stupid fashion and yes to the renewal of conceptual fashion. Also, Fuck White People.

[curlicuecal]

Let’s Be Outcasts (ch 13/?)

Part 2 of cyber!bunny Apocalypse ‘verse (tumblr)

ch: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

read on AO3

Kankri/AR, Latula/Mituna, Lil Seb, Aimless Renegade

Summary: Divergent AU where AR and Li'l Seb get kicked into a new universe with some snazzy new cyborg bodies. They’re still working out the bugs.

In which AR discovers that kidnapping rarely solves more problems than it creates, Mituna breaks out of a lab (with some help), and Seb continues to take good care of his Bro.

----

Ch 13.

You’re intent on following Latula, but you’re also not quite dumb enough to run face first into a fight. You have discovered exactly two settings in yourself: “helpless” and “accidentally killed everybody.”  If you can get a few of your more experimental body-hack programs out of beta you hope to someday unlock more.  Tonight is probably not that night.

You turn on, just a bit, a background process that you think will help keep the metal part of your mind from overloading on data quite so much.  It’s your best plan for staying in balance without actually resorting to a biohack.  You’re not super confident in the whole theory, but at least you think it’s the program most likely to fail non-life-threateningly for everybody in the room.

For now you hope for the best and flail your way up a ladder after Latula and her mystery assailant and flop onto the floor of the first level.  The flopping’s accidental, but it puts a bunch of benches and other debris between you and the tussle ahead, so you go with it.  Kicking your way along the floor, you slide on your belly until you reach one of the floor-to-ceiling glass tubes.  The liquid inside the growth chamber twists the scene beyond into crazy colors and abstract shapes, but you can make out the red and teal blob that is Latula, wrestling with a smaller figure in tan and black.  The latter shape seems to be doing most of the wrestling—the Latula blob hardly moves except in quick, precise counters, but the other figure is a furious frenzy of limbs and rattling hisses.

You hump forward one more scooch, clanging your helmet as you peer around the growth chamber.  The thrashing figure reveals itself as a smallish carapacian, black shell flashing as he claws and snaps at everything in reach, furiously ignoring both the shaft of Latula’s staff pinning him by the neck and the handcuff locking one wrist to some nearby tubing.  

Latula conscientiously smacks his head into the floor.  “I can do this all night, buddy-o.”

The carapacian responds with an angry outburst that takes you a long few seconds to process as a “go the fuck away.”  His free arm sweeps blindly for the stray ammo shells scattered on the floor. A variety of armaments and other items poof into existence as his fingers brush them, only to go skittering out of reach as Latula twists her staff sharply.

“’Can’ does not mean ‘want to’,” she adds, words gritting with effort.  “Settle your tail down and start talking.  Who.  Sent you?”

Another rapid-fire string of syllables, right at the edge of your hearing range, so that half the sounds fall out.  Latula is a criminal lunatic and he hates his job and this isn’t even his job.  

Her eyes narrow.  Her smile tilts up.  And suddenly the hand not pressing her staff into his neck is brimming with knives. “’Job,’” she repeats, in a tone that doesn’t so much invite elaboration as strongly encourage (with sharp edges).

The carapacian starts to say something else—and then Latula curses and rolls, as another small figure comes skimming fast and low around a counter, tattered cloak barely rustling.  Her carapacian hostage tumbles the opposite direction, fetching up hard at the end of the handcuffs as the new figure barely missing connecting hard with Latula.  You’ve got a squeak caught halfway out of your throat, your claws blunting themselves on the concrete flooring in an uncoordinated attempt to move, to help, to do something—but Latula’s already found her feet again, bouncing off a nearby lab bench even as her darting assailant sails past.  

Her staff lashes out with vicious precision at the figure’s back. Hits.  

—does not hit?

It’s a freeze frame series of images, printed across your ganderbulbs: The cloak implodes inwards in a flutter of empty cloth, a small white disc zipping free from the falling garment even as Latula’s balance tips forward, her body already turning the fall into a roll—

You don’t see the small human blur into view.  You just see the frozen moment when his form hangs in the air behind her, face blank and pitiless, sword raised to the highest point of its swing, already beginning his strike back towards Latula’s neck.

That panicked yelp still hanging around in your throat turns out to be super useful.

Latula pivots on a caegar, narrowly avoiding decapitation.  Sliding across the floor on her back, she brings her staff around two-handed to catch the next lightning quick strike of that sword.  She flings the smaller human back and the fight dissolves into a rapid exchange of blows, both figures blurring in and out of view as they shift for any advantage.

For your part, you slump against the growth-tube, hands and helmet pressing against the glass to keep you up, while you breathe entirely too fast.  You can’t look away, and you can’t stop your bloodpusher hammering like a fist in your chest, and you can hardly feel the inside of your skull for all the rapidly unfolding analyses you’re running through simultaneously in your head.  You can feel your psionics pulsing from your frond tips to the base of your horns, there for the taking, maybe, if you reached for them—but you can also see a thousand, thousand, thousand ways you could make this so much worse.

You think about a lab full of dead people while your programs output predictions about the building’s structural integrity, Latula’s speed and reaction times, the decaying halo radius of your power.  There’s a rapidly diminishing window of opportunity before your adrenaline-charged body is going to make the decision for you.  

No, no, no—

—no.  

You catch your breath and hold it until your pusher slows a few percentiles. Not as thorough a solution as your untested biological shutdown protocols, but with the advantage of not being a complete fucking wildcard of an experiment in biohacking shit fucking hell.  You want those programs, yes you do.  You want to be that troll Latula keeps acting like you are.  The one that has opinions; the one that can make decisions. The one that is not a damaged product or a useful tool.  You want to be the person and not the machine.  Your red mind trills fear and concern for Latula and your blue mind snarls outrage and defiance at everything around you and you—walk the path between them.

Maybe it’s okay if you lose your balance sometimes, as long as you get back up again.

Fading the noise in your brain further to the background of your attention, you gulp one breath, hold a second time, and let your eyes actually process what they’re seeing.  It’s been bare moments, but the dynamic of the fight has already shifted.  

The human—wiggler?—is still a darting, nearly invisible blur of grey cloth and bright metal, striking in silence and then flashing away to strike again faster than you can track, but you think his attacks have gained urgency. Fast he might be, far faster than Latula as far as you can calculate, but she moves like oil over water, changeable and precise, blocking him at every turn like the principles of physics enacted upon the world.  And with every block she drives the smaller fighter back another length, working at angles and using the reach of her staff to harry him into the corner formed by two stripped lab benches.  Eyes slitted in concentration, she grins like a maniac as she fights.  

Okay.  So. Maybe don’t flail around wildly, frying everyone in the room and possibly bringing the building down.  In retrospect, you’re not sure why that seemed like a viable option.

(It’s yours; it’s your power; it’s--you; and even when it scares you silly, even when it doesn’t answer any better than the rest of your body, it still feels like a limb you should be able to reach out with.  A clean binary of choice that’s yours to make.  Yes/no (…maybe?))

A clink of metal across crumbling tile, a sword goes spinning past you, and Latula makes a low, exulting noise that goes right to your bulge.  Okay, maybe not relevant right now, but still. You sway forward like a magnet on a string, leaning out around the growth chamber to get a better view of whatever’s happening.

She’s got the human—wiggler—are those cybernetic hopbeast ears?—she’s got the very small cy-type person pinned with a knee to his chest, his back flat on the floor, the knife at his throat strongly discouraging a struggle.

His face is surprisingly blank for someone with a blade to his neck, and though his small hands are tight on her wrist, he stares up at Latula from behind small, point-tipped shades with what might be fearlessness or indifference.

Something scuffs behind you.

Alarms trigger in your helmet, way too fucking late to be anything but the backdrop to your panic attack as a hard-shelled arm clamps around your throat, yanking you backwards off your feet.  Your vision tilts wildly, your mind tilts equally wildly, and some small fraction of your attention notes a sprung pair of handcuffs across the labs, short one carapacian.

Titty-fucking shitwaffles.  

It appears you’ve made the classic mistake of turning your back on the body.

The carapacian’s arm drags you down, the barrel of a gun presses up under your chin, and even as he calls a sharp, rapid command across the room to Latula, your power flares, your brain sparks red-blue-red-blue-no-no-no-no-no—

You are not going to pull this ceiling down around you, you literally just made that decision, it was a great decision, and you decided it all on your own; fuck this noise.  Fuck it right in the fleshy proboscis, you think—and you tip yourself into that feeling.

You curse a whole fucking lot.

You can’t be sure, but you think even your carapacian captor is a little thrown by the vigor and loquaciousness of your profanity.  With some distant, automated portion of your mind you are aware of Latula freezing over her own captive, her knife to the pinned human’s throat, her face flickering through surprise and alarm and back into a little quirk of a smile that’s a blank, blank, blank mask.

The carapacian shifts to get a better hold on you, nudges the gun harder under your noggin, and clicks another rapid-fire stream of words at Latula.  

Hilariously, his words run right along the same lines as your own, which are pretty much wedged onto the theme of ‘let go let go let go let right the fuck go right now.’  Yours have more swears mixed in.  And are also way less coherently enunciated.    You curse some more, because you are a cobalt blaze of fury and spinning out in this one, chosen way is so far fulfilling its function of helping you keep control in all the higher priority ways.

“You let go first.” Latula’s so, so still, holding on to her prisoner as she watches your carapacian captor through bright, intent eyes.  That little edge of a smile stretches wider in a way puts you in mind of her dragon lusus. “…You really don’t wanna play this game with me.”

The gun twitches against your neck as the carapacian’s fingers tense—and then relax with a notable effort.  You call him a nook-gorging tunnelvermin-fucker and try to bite his thumb.  Still focused on Latula, and the little human with the knife at his throat, the carapacian speaks again, lower and more measured, a begrudging agreement followed by a carefully neutral challenge.  (Are you Latula Pyrope?)

You can see the words strike home even before your brain parses more than her name.  Latula’s face goes, if possible, even blanker.  “Who’s asking?”

“Oh.” The human wiggler, silent and unresponsive this whole time, perks suddenly, leaning up to peer at Latula’s face, heedless of the knee on his chest or the knife digging into his neck. Those mechanized hopbeast ears perched on his head swivel to tilt toward her with interest.  “I’m not supposed to kill you.”

“…Is that so.”

“Mm.  Kankri wants us to rescue you,” the cy kid says, face still blank, words bright-toned.

Latula blinks.  She stares down at the wiggler, flicks her eyes up to where the carapacian is still holding you uncertainly at gunpoint, flicks her eyes back to her attacker-turned-hostage, staring mildly up at her with her knife at his throat.  

The crack of her laughter bubbles out into the air.

“Wow, glam rescue.  Max points on execution.”

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